[ aquarius records catalogue

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Showing results 1201 through 1250 of 1521.

New installment in Tazdik's "Radical Jewish Culture" series. Cellist Erik Friedlander, along with two clarinetists and a bassist, creates some very beautiful klezmer-influenced chamber jazz. Friedlander plays on the Masada Chamber Ensemble double-cd and if you liked that, you'll want this, it's similarly gorgeous and moving.

If all of those Atom Heart pseudonyms as Latin percussion ensembles and charismatic bandleaders weren't enought, Burnt Friedman has gotten in on the action with his own Latin electronic stylings. Smokier, jazzier, and more drunk than El Atomo Corazon (who does make an appearance on the Moog on one track), Friedman's recordings are filled with laptop tricked-out vibraphones and groovy mambo beats.

Life (this album) is another fantastic(al) blast of dizzyingly prismatic, distorto-pop cotton candy psychedelia, a swirling sonic funhouse of sound, that like Friel's previous disc, Total Folklore (a Record Of The Week, btw), sounds like it should be on your shelf somewhere between Black Moth Super Rainbow, early Flaming Lips, Our Love Will Destroy The World, Sunroof!, and Zomes (that is, if you have the weirdest method of arranging your records). Playful and dayglo, distorted and noisy, glitchy and billowy, in a way, it sort of sounds like a SUPER poppy, 8-bit version of Lightning Bolt, some of the tracks sounding like music for the most drugged out, psychedelic video game ever, others getting downright noisy, but in that dreamy, deliriously blissed out noise way, the sounds totally in-the-red, but that saturation just making the various rhythms and melodies all bleed into one another and sounding like the musical version of a room full of preschoolers fighting with fingerprint and silly string. Totally over the top, and fantastically ebullient, it's pretty much impossible not to love Friel's maddening magical musical wonderland.

MPEG stream: Cirrus
MPEG stream: Rattler
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We were immediately blown way by this twisted slab of primsatic psychedelia, all lo-fi rhythms, bagpipe like synth squelch, and spidery snakecharmer melodies. It's crunchy and fuzzy, feedback drenched, droned out and totally hypnotic, like a dizzying mix of the shamanistic mesmer of Dan Higgs, the minimal zoner kraut-psych of Zomes, and the warped rainbow rhythm-ed distorto-hop of Black Moth Super Rainbow (and BMSR offshoot Tobacco too)! And really, this record totally came from out of left field, we had no expectations, in fact at first we had no idea who Dan Friel even was, being mostly unacquainted with his band Parts & Labor, and what little we did know had us thinking maybe we wouldn't really even be all that into P&L anyway. But Total Folklore definitely has us rethinking everything. The first track alone is worth the price of admission, and even if the record had consisted of nothing but that lumbering, 12+ minute chunk of deliriously distorted, noise drenched, outsider grooviness, we'd still have made it Record Of The Week. After a short squall of tangled buzz and swirling tones, the sounds coalesce into a buzzing raga like melody, draped over a super crunchy, crumbling rhythm, a sort of hip hop / industrial lumber, each beat a burst of staticky buzz, sculpted into a dense, driving, motorik caveman groove, while over the top, those melodies are constantly shifting and swirling, stretching out into layered drones, streaks of feedback doused shimmer, and when the melodies to abate, leaving just the beat, to pound and stutter, when they do swoop back in, the result is a sort of chaotic noise-raga, that manages to be loose and freeform, but simultaneously tranced out and hypnotic. Eventually, the sound slips back into that opening groove, this time, all the synths and buzzing melodies even more distorted and blown out, making for a heady chunk of multi-hued noise industrial drone-pop zoner-psych that will have you setting it on repeat for sure. The rest of the record is divided into way shorter fragments, none of the remaining tracks clocking in at more than 3:45, with a handful of ultra short 'intermissions', but all of those tracks, intermissions and songs proper, displaying the same sort of blown out psychedelia. "Windmills" sounds like Sunroof! and Our Love Will Destroy The World mashed up and transformed into something a bit more playful and groovy, while "Valedictorian" drapes ethereal shimmer over what sounds like stuttering fuzz pop riffage, a swirling super catchy melody, and it's about as close as this comes to some mutant strain of ultra hook heavy noise pop. It's not hard to imagine this as some warped remix of a classic early era Flaming Lips jam. "Velocipede" is all woozy crumbling distortion, tweaked electronics, in-the-red synth buzz, a noisy blur that somehow ends up sounding more dreamy and psychedelic than chaotic. The rest of the tracks split the difference between tripped out experimental electronic groovescapes, dense noisy psychedelic swirls, pulsing pulsating komische freakouts and crazy catchy pop in electronic mad scientist's clothing, with each and every variation displaying an impossible knack for dense, heavily layered, ultra distorted productions that are pure headphone blossouts, but also even the most obtuse fractured bit of noisiness is somehow hooky as hell, whether it's the chugging blurred out crunch of "Landslide", or the crumbling feedback drenched electro-kraut churn of "Badlands". AWESOME!

MPEG stream: Ulysses
MPEG stream: Windmills
MPEG stream: Valedictorian
MPEG stream: Landslide
MPEG stream: Badlands

Chris Knox has already conquered the pop world with his wonderful albums as a solo artist and with Tall Dwarfs. So where's his head nowadays? Deep inside his G4, apparently, and this from a man who I seem to remember once expressed luddite-like glee to me at his not having email yet. Gotta love 'im, sweet Mr Knox. Anyway, armed with ProTools, a grant and lots of time, Knox has made an experimental musique concrete album that's as enjoyable in its (relative to other highbrow concretists) lo-fi humbleness as it is interesting in its methods of construction. On one piece, for example, inspired by experimental pianist Conlon Nancarrow he arranged the 88 piano key notes into visual patterns pleasing to the eye, and only then listened to see if they sounded good. (They do.) Other tracks feature fellow sound artist John Hudak's recordings of insects sped up into whirring mechanisms, stadium field recordings mixed with plastic rakes into tinkling swirls, ancient unearthed '70s tape manipuations re-mucked about with, etc. A fine album, both sonically and in its unintimidating, "friend"-ly approachability. Read about its making yourself here; witty Chris Knox always says it best himself: http://flyingnun.co.nz/viewartist.cfm?artistID=473 MPEG Download: "First Easy Piece" [/audio/friendfirst.mp3] MPEG Stream: "First Easy Piece" [/audio/friendfirst.m3u]

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Some of you may have already experienced the live fury of Friends Forever without even realising it. Touring in their beat up old van, and with no actual shows booked, Friends Forever would pull up in front of venues, where other shows were happening, and perform IN THEIR VAN, with smoke and strobe lights and fireworks spillling out into the street, while the band members thrashed away inside, usually driving away as the cops pulled up to find out what the hell was going on. There was even a documentary made about them! So how does a band whose whole schtick is their unconventional live shows hold up on record? Not all that bad actually. Their sound definitely fits comfortably in with the current crop of retro, electro, new wavers, although their sound is way more lo-fi, and much more spazzy. Think a less manic Lightning Bolt, or Liquorball trying to sound electro. And while that is the core of their sound, Friends Forever veer all over the place, from retarded and noisy synth pop with painfully (and purposefully, I'm sure) inane lyrics, to pounding rumbling mid-tempo Lightning Bolt style spazz rock, to relentlessly propulsive fuzzed out jams, to weird almost-metal with xylophones, to Wolf Eyes-ish industrial freenoise freakouts to Tusk style marching band dirges, with warbly horns and stumbling militaristic rhythms. Freaked out and fucked up and almost as good as sitting on the curb outside a club and being barraged by smoke and lights and chaotic rock mayhem. Almost.

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So you're standing outside a show, smoking a cigarette and waiting for the Boredoms or whoever to play. A white van drives up; the doors fling open and out comes an assault of pyrotechnics, flashing lights, and obliterating noise rock! Guys wrapped in lightbulbs pound on drums and guitars INSIDE the van. Then it's over, right before the cops show up, and you're wondering, "What the fuck was that?" That, kind readers, was Friends Forever. Whether in an anticipated or surprise encounter, outside a club or in a parking garage, they play from their own moblie venue, and totally DESTROY with their aggressive spectacle. There's even a documentary about them, apparently now playing on an independent film channel near you. And their next record is coming out on Load. Of course, the question with them and many other post-hardcore freak punk type bands who put on amazing live shows is "how exactly does that incredible energy and performative aspect translate to a record?" Well, the answer for this here Friends Forever record is, umm, pretty decently, though not superlatively. The record allows them to go beyond the high-speed angular pummelling that makes the live shows work. Although it does contain some of said pummelling rock, there are also slower tempos and mellower textures, including some soothing wave sounds a la Black Dice's "Beaches & Canyons," although "Tidal Wave City" never reaches the accomplished and sublime complexity of that record. Still, this is nice, and while Friends Forever truly cannot be appreciated in full without witnessing them live, this is an interesting insight into a different side of them. After all, there's no way they're gonna fit that piano in the van.

RealAudio clip: The Great Humanizer
RealAudio clip: Lies & Propaganda

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY. Very filmic instrumentals, most resembling a slowed down Pell Mell, or surf music on thorazine. Includes a lazy, lazy, oh-damn-it's-just-too-hot-out version of Gershwin's "Summertime" featuring almost out of place over-driven arena rock guitar.

The folks at Aero Recordings have kindly reissued domestically this live disc which was originally released in Europe on Glitterhouse back in 2001. Three of these songs also appeared on the band's On The Shore doubledisc album in early 2003. In the live setting (or at least on this particular performance), Friends Of Dean Martinez are much more fiery and immediate than on their studio recordings (which are considerably more sprawling, drifting and contemplative). To be frank, there are occasions on Live At Club 2 where the trio simply rock! If you dig the dynamic twang of bands such as The Sadies or Calexico (Joey Burns and John Convertino were in an early incarnation of FODM and they wrote and co-wrote a few of the songs included here), do yourself a favor and check out Friends Of Dean Martinez (and vice versa for that matter). This is a great live document of a 2001 performance in Munich, Germany and features a terrific selection of songs that span the band's career up to that point.

MPEG stream: Cabeza De Mojado
MPEG stream: Chunder

Friends of Dean Martinez want you to just chill out... and gaze at this Lost Horizon. Instead of heading in the direction of a bar this eve, how about doin' a bit of lounging outside as the sun creeps down and as the band unwinds a steady strand of slow slinking bluesiness. FODM are well-skilled at creating sumptuous atmospheres, and this one's really gorgeous and mellow (with the exception of the seventh track "Hidden Out Of Sight" which is the album's most active and gritty). Some of it is very much along the lines of John Fahey's contemplative guitar abstractions on his Red Cross album, while other numbers bring to mind the glinting, droning warmth of Sweden's Bjorn Olsson. Actually this makes us feel like we're in a futuristic (like with Swedish neo-retro design) senior citizens' home. Not like in that it makes me feel old, just in that it makes me feel CHILL like in a "Visit Beautiful Florida" commercial for a Florida that is wayyyyy cooler than the real Florida is. We like it...though we like the live album a bit better....if we ever have an underwater or outerspace nightclub we're most definitely booking these guys.

MPEG stream: Landfall
MPEG stream: All In The Golden Afternoon

Brooding, languid and very filmic. Like a meeting of Godspeed You Black Emperor, Ennio Morricone and Calexico at the end of a deserted dirt road somewhere in Arizona. Particularly, fans of the latter might also take a considerable shine to these Friends and it's no surprise 'cause John Convertino and Joey Burns were a part of an early incarnation of F.O.D.M. When they split to form their wonderful combo, remaining member Bill Elm continued on. The music on this double cd, the follow-up to their A Place In The Sun album from 2000, is much less lounge / surf inflected than previous recordings. Steel guitar slink over and through the shadowy rhythm section while mellotron and organ do their part to envelop the expansive proceedings. The first disc compiles songs from their albums Wichita Lineman and Live At Club 2 (a 2001 performance they did in Germany). Imagine a soundtrack to an old western directed by David Lynch... sound good? This is!

RealAudio clip: Main Theme
RealAudio clip: Time's Not Your Friend

Gorgeous! The follow-up to last year's On the Shore double cd, Random Harvest just may contain Bill Elm and co.'s most electrified work to date. Prominent electric guitars add much prickle and bristle to tracks such as "Ripcord" and "Dusk". Yet, the album is also graced by some of the band's most serenely beautiful moments transporting them even further from their former much more loungey surf sounds. Perhaps an oversimplified reference point for this album would be 'Calexico meets Godspeed You Black Emperor', but it truly fits and sets FODM is potent company. Haunting, atmospheric and beautiful. Recommended.

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Eric Friesen is one of those guys who takes the "classical music was the heavy metal of the 1700s" idea seriously. He's best known (to a small cult following) as one of the two guitarists in the underground black metal band Windham Hell, who hail from the

RealAudio clip: Awareness, I Suffer
RealAudio clip: To Crest In Violent Slumber

RealAudio clip: Winter Concerto for Guitar in F minor
RealAudio clip: Guitar Concerto No. 1 in A minor

Dude! It's about time we had some Frijid Pink here at the store! Just do a keyword search on our website for "Frijid Pink" and you'll find a small handful of references we've make to this somewhat unsung late '60s Detroit R&B infused hard rock combo, in the context of talking about some other psychedelic, "proto-metal" and stoner rock discs, among them AQ faves Flower Travellin' Band ('cause both bands did covers of "House Of The Rising Sun" -- in Frijid Pink's case it was their biggest, and pretty much only, hit.) At last a nice new reish has come along, of FP's self-titled 1970 debut, where you'll find "House Of The Rising Sun" along with a bunch of other great, boogying bluesy garage psych tunes, played by a band partial to the fuzz and possessed of a lead singer with powerful rawk pipes, Kelly Green The "Sunshine Of Your Love" styled fuzz monster "Crying Shame" is one standout (heard also on the Cherrystones Rocks comp a while back). "Tell Me Why" is another extreme fuzz attack. Frijid Pink has a gentle side too, there's some (charmingly dated?) hippy mellowness on here for sure. And when they're heavy, be aware it's more of the '60s variety than the '70s (more Vanilla Fudge than Black Sabbath!) but the aforementioned fuzz levels are up there with Sir Lord Baltimore and we'd certainly say that Frijid Pink deserve to be mentioned alongside them and also likes of the James Gang, Cactus, Iron Butterfly, and other proto-proto-metal contenders! And for sure they shouldn't be forgotten when considering the legacy of '60s Michigan rockers like the SRC, Amboy Dukes, and the MC5. This Akarma reissue comes in an extremely pink digipack, and includes two bonus tracks. Frijid Pink, yeah!

MPEG stream: Crying Shame
MPEG stream: End Of The Line

Early last year Mr. Frillici dropped off a disc for us to check out. We asked him to bring in a batch. We haven't seen or heard from him since then... until now. Here is the result of what apparently has been six years spent crafting, fine-tuning and fleshing out each song. The first couple of songs twinkle and sway gently along the dreamy lines of Dean Wareham and his band Luna. It'd be darn dandy if the whole album simply continued along that path, but suddenly at the third song he shifts dramatically taking us into some Beck-ish horn-laden funkiness. Then we noticed that there are nineteen songs on this album (!), and we anticipated that Frillici might have much more in store for us... and we were right! He fit in some mellow downtempo shufflin', a rockin' guitar noodly rave up to boot, an interstellar Flaming Lips-esque jaunt, some very very Brian Wilson-y grand pop, and some quirky King Missile style storytelling about a fella who ate his own finger (and that's only at the halfway point). An impressive debut filled with a startling array of pop adventures.

MPEG stream: That Astronaut
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What more could be said about these two Fripp & Eno records than we've already written in countless Expo '70, Growing and Aidan Baker reviews? That's because these records are pretty much ground zero for all of the dark dreamy drifty processed guitar / tape / synth drone that we can't ever seem to get enough of. Perhaps there are other earlier influential touchstones such as Tony Conrad and La Monte Young, perhaps Stockhausen and Terry Riley as well, but none seemed to have come so totally out of nowhere from two relatively mainstream players as these two records. Manuel Gottsching, Taj Mahal Travellers, and Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music all came a little later. After every other Eno solo album and collaboration (from Cluster to David Byrne) has been reissued, we are lucky enough to finally see both of these classic releases newly 24-bit remastered by Fripp himself reissued on his DGM imprint. These have never sounded better! No Pussyfooting even contains an extra disc featuring both tracks in reverse and a 40 minute bonus track of "The Heavenly Music Corporation" recorded at half speed that we know all our customers into glacial doomy drone will want, nay, need to own! Even if you own this record already, you may just need to buy it again for the stellar extra material! It's easy to take for granted nowadays the influence of Brian Eno as the "godfather of ambient music", but in 1973 before he had even released his first solo record, Here Come The Warm Jets, Robert Fripp and Brian Eno were mainly known for their previous roles in King Crimson and Roxy Music respectively. Then this mysterious record parenthetically titled (No Pussyfooting) appears with its cryptic cover, a sort of ultra-modernized take on a hermetic alchemical engraving depicting the two artists (Eno at his most androgynous) looking in opposite directions, sitting in a small mirrored room with no doors reading tarot cards on a mirrored table with what sort of looks like a line of coke (?), next to a mirrored guitar in a mirrored case in the corner, a translucent mannequin and an antique silver radiator behind them under glass shelves filled with old books. The back cover showing the same scene with both artists and tarot cards missing. With its two side-long awesomely titled tracks "The Heavenly Music Corporation" and "Swastika Girls", what kind of music would this be? Rock? Prog? Glam? No one probably would realize until they purchased it and brought it home, that it would be this organically cerebral deep listening experience of the highest order. It's kind of a downer that we have such easy access to information nowadays, because when this came out, it was a true mystery object, which added to its esoteric appeal. But it still is to an extent, as numerous listens over the years still never fail to captivate, or confound how exactly the sounds are being made. Apparently,utilizing a system later dubbed, Frippertronics, two reel to reel tape decks were used to allow audio elements to be added onto a continuing tape loop building up dense layers of sound that would slowly decay as it turned around the decks' playback head. On "The Heavenly Music Corporation" layers of deep synth drones are layered in phased washes with Fripp's unique bowed guitar sound ringing ascending solo lines on top that sometimes loop and sometimes don't. Eno wrings out what sounds like synth lines in counterpoint to Fripp's part in similar tones so that at times it gets harder to tell who is making what sound as the piece intensifies. "Swastika Girls" starts with high pitched cascades of processed piano like tones with scraping synth squelches looping in counterpoint, before low rising bass notes and Riley-ish piano repetitions appear. Then Fripp's searing guitar crash-lands into the mix almost disrupting the whole process, but somehow it all works. Much more distorted and dissonant than "The Heavenly Music Corporation", it doesn't take the process for granted that everything will sound harmonious but remains still somehow cohesive, though far from easy listening. While the backward tracks are equally amazing, they highlight a different kind of listening experience altogether. The seams show a bit more, the entrance and exit of new sounds more abrupt, but still strangely alien. Their inclusion here came from out of the listening experience of their first (and probably only) complete UK radio broadcast in 1973 courtesy of the late John Peel. Because the tapes were stored "tail out" but played as though they were stored "front out", the broadcast played the music in reverse. When Eno called in to say the music was being played backwards, he was met with a "that's what they all say" response. But the real bonus of this deluxe package is the 40 minute "half-speed version" of "The Heavenly Music Corporation". When there were 16 2/3 rpm options on early record players, a lot of young guitarists would use the speed to slow down 33 1/3 rpm records to learn and practice their favorite guitar lines. Here it makes the drones so deep and heavy, Fripp's guitar lines more crushing, the layers creep and slither sounding like it could be one of the weird drone cd-r's we sell tons of. If it was in a black sleeve with skulls on it, and was called Skulled Space Outrosphere or Radiant Black Blood, and sealed with wax or wrapped in twine,�and was limited to 100 copies,�we'd sell a million of em (well, okay... 100!!). Sooooooooooooo Recommended and Essential!

MPEG stream: The Heavenly Music Corporation
MPEG stream: Swastika Girls (reversed)
MPEG stream: The Heavenly Music Corporation (half-speed)

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MPEG stream: An Index of Metals

Not bad... but, not that great either.

We knew that our friend Loren Chasse was/is a major Fripp-fanatic (total closet prog-rocker, that Loren) so we asked him if he wanted to do a review of this recently reissued R. Fripp solo classic, and he did (thanks Loren!), here 'tis: As uptight as Robert Fripp may seem these past ten years (with his cleric's collar and extensive moralizing about business practices in the music industry) let's not forget his history of eccentric and befuddling endeavors outside of King Crimson. Begin with Fripp's New Wave pose on this album cover, sporting skinny tie and pinstriped shirt (even his hair stylist gets a credit in the liner notes)! Certainly, Fripp was dressed for the scene as he set out to make this record in the New York City of '78-'79. Exposure is perhaps the definitive record of everything Fripp is capable of, showcasing his talent at adapting his trademark guitar sound to diverse musical personalities. The most unexpected of these guest personalities on Exposure may be Daryl Hall, who takes the mic on the sumptuous and laid back "North Star" (with a lilt much like Discipline-era King Crimson's "Matte Kudasai"). Hall is actually the primary songwriting force on Exposure, even when he's not singing. Then another prog-rocker's wish is granted with Peter Hammill singing on "Disengage" and Fripp letting out a bit more bombast than he had as a guest with Van Der Graaf Generator. Who else? Well there's Peter Gabriel doing his saccharine hit "Here Comes the Flood" -- made so much more dark and beautiful than Gabriel's own album version by Fripp's contributions. Speaking of Hall and Gabriel, Exposure is the official third part of a trilogy (says Fripp) comprised of Hall's solo record Sacred Songs and Gabriel's second record (is it the one with the rain-streaked car window?). Then there's Brian Eno (surprise, surprise) and Phil Collins (not so bad as long as he's sticking to drums), Nancy Roche (of The Roches) howling like Diamanda Galas on "Exposure" and taking the record into its sweetest moments with "Mary". For fans of Red-era King Crimson, "Breathless" will be a pleaser with its unrelenting riffs and off-kilter Mahavishnu-style drumming (brought compliments of Narada Michael Walden). "NY3" and "Haaden Two" give the record some dark and surreal twists with more Crimsonish instrumental workouts mixed with a theater of strange voices (the former being a fight between mother/father and daughter in an NYC apartment). Fripp's spiritual mentor J.G. Bennet (student of Gurdjieff) inserts a ghostly presence over some of Fripp's most beautiful ambient sounds. The trademarked Frippertronics appear at their most quintessential on "Water Music I and II" -- perhaps the record's most abstract, beautiful and least dated sounding music. Oh yeah, dear old Edith Fripp (the mother) can be heard on this as well! Also, FYI: this special double disc remastered edition of Exposure features a "Third Edition" of the album on the second cd, plus several bonus tracks. Wow, that's a lot... maybe they shoulda retitled this Overexposure?

MPEG stream: Breathless
MPEG stream: North Star

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY.

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY.

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY. Hip hop remix. Rhythm = "What It Is" (Busta Rhymes).

The Wexner Center For The Arts knew just what they were doing when they commissioned Bill Frisell to create a score to compliment the stark photography of Mike Disfarmer, who took riveting and honest portraits of people living in the rural South during the late '30s and early '40s. Frisell plays both electric and acoustic guitars, uses loops and music boxes to create sepia toned, twangy and haunting short instrumentals that really evoke such mystery, evoking rural landscapes and life drifting by, sometimes seeming to pass in an instant, other times interminable and endless. While Frisell isn't someone you might think of right away when it comes to aQ, his varied and large back catalog is rife with gems and aQ faves, and we're really happy to see that in recent years he's begun to lean again more towards a less shiny and more intriguing side of his musical palette. In fact, let's not forget he added some seriously warm and lush richness to the latest full length by Earth! Backed by a badass trio, the arrangements of steel guitar, mandolin, violin and bass are exquisite, not only showing off the talent of all the players but acting as a testament to Frisell's ability to compose pieces that so perfectly speak to Disfarmer's striking photos. Imagine a less drone filled Steven R. Smith, or a more tight and focused Dirty Three, or even maybe a new Earth album, stripped of its residual doomic leanings. The cd is a long one, pushing to pretty much the maximum length that can fit on one disc, which makes it perfect to put on for a long road trip through winding roads and desolate landscapes or for whenever you just want to get lost in a rustic glow.

MPEG stream: Disfarmer Theme
MPEG stream: Natural Light
MPEG stream: Lost, Night

A truly solo album from stellar guitarist Frisell (he plays electric & acoustic guitars as well as as banjo, loops and bass). The material here ranges from Frisell's own compositions to pieces by John McLaughlin, Hank Williams, and the Gershwins. Very pretty, liquid, and appropriately-lonely sounding stuff.

Accidental was originally commissioned in 1995 by Paul Selwyn Norton for his dance piece "Rogue Tool" which premiered the following year in Tel Aviv, Israel. On 'Accidental' Frith, a multi-instrumentalist if there ever was one, plays all instruments: guitar, violin, organ, an odd assortment of percussion, tapes, radio and voice. The music on 'Accidental' tends towards the dark and severe, with squeals of guitar feedback layered over ominous drones, percussive elements assembled from cut up vocals (either Fred's or taken from radio), but this shouldn't imply that the music on this album is non-melodic. On the contrary, at the music is at times even hauntingly beautiful while parts of 'Accidental' are even reminiscent of Frith's 1988 'Technology of Tears'.

RealAudio clip: Hit And Run
RealAudio clip: Accidental

Member of such classic "experimental" outfits as Henry Cow, Art Bears and Massacre, and frequent downtown (Zorn, Laswell) collaborator, Frith has enjoyed increasingly iconic status for the last quarter century (novices, check out 1980's Gravity). Clearing is the avant guitar-hero's first solo guitar record since 1974's seminal Guitar Solos. Very pretty, evocative (and

RealAudio clip: White
RealAudio clip: This Earth Is A Flower

"Famous as an improviser and a rock guitarist (Henry Cow, Art Bears, Residents, Massacre, Skeleton Crew), Fred Frith is still highly under-rated as a composer. Since relocating to Germany in the early 90s, Frith has composed soundtracks for a number of films and has chosen his finest for his first Tzadik release.

Thankfully reissued once more, unthankfully with horrible new artwork and irritating top obi. Originally released in 1980 on Ralph Records, Gravity is Fred Frith's masterpiece of progressive-rock-infused pop, and in Windy and Byram's opinion this should be a staple of everyone's record collection. Yep, it's that great. And no matter how 'avant' our description makes it sound, this is one of the most listenable, most accessible avant prog pop things I've ever heard. Gravity is a celebration of dance and dance musics from around the world. The range of influence spans the gamut, but Eastern European and Middle Eastern music seems to pervade Frith's inspiration primarily. Backed on one half of the album by Sweden's uber-prog folk heroes Zamla (formarly Samla) Mammas Manna and the other by the American improv-jazz-rock band The Muffins. Though all of the compositions are Frith's, each half of the album wears the corresponding musicians' influence like a badge. The Samla's playful, quirky and category-defying progressive, folk-influenced pop stylings are perhaps a slightly better match on the whole than The Muffins skronk (which shows up mostly as the segue material between tracks on the second half of the album.) Backed by Lars Hollmer and crew, "Spring Any Day Now" sounds like the theme song to an early eighties sit-com a la 'Three's Company' gone awry. Much of the album is seamlessly bridged together with nary a second of break betwixt songs, which suits an album inspired by dance that serves to inspire one to dance just fine.

RealAudio clip: Spring Any Day Now
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You probably know artist Andy Goldsworthy -- the British 'sculptor' (I guess you'd call him a sculptor?) who works with materials found in the natural environment, creating amazing pieces constructed from leaves or sticks or rocks or ice, on site? If not, check out his books -- for his works often exist only long enough to be photographed -- they're certainly some of the best, widely available volumes to hit the coffee tables of the world in recent years. Last year, a beautiful, beautiful documentary film called Rivers And Tides took viewers into Goldsworthy's world. Hopefully you saw it. When that film was basically taking over San Francisco (it was at the Roxie for a loooong time), we got many requests for the soundtrack, which didn't yet exist. We knew though that if it ever did come out, we'd sell a ton. Composed by the amazing Mr. Fred Frith, it was a big part of the film's appeal, no mean feat considering that the visuals were so great already. And now at last, we're happy to announce, here it is, the highly anticipated soundtrack to Rivers And Tides. And yes, it is as good as you remember it -- not some uninspired background music this! The album draws you in immediately, the main melodic theme slipping out effortlessly within the first 30 seconds of the album and repeated throughout. Running water gives way to highpitched soprano sax only to be subsumed under the surface of Frith's calm, stilling guitar, plucked Brazilian berimbao, and other, droning ethnic instrumentation. Tension and calm ebb and flow like, er, the tide. The reed instruments interweave, sprightly and evocative. Even if you haven't seen the film, this soundtrack rates as major highlight of one of our favorite experimental composer's ouevre. Highly, highly recommended! The packaging is also gorgeous as per Winter & Winter's norm, with heavy duty digipak, letterpressed cover, and full color multipanelled foldouts of Goldworthy's works.

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What it says, the great Fred Frith and three other avant-guitarists including Nick Dudovsky of Dr. Nerve and Rene Lussier.

Every town -- no matter how great or small -- has that infamous artist / musician / creator who to some is a Harry Smith-like shaman making the most amazing outsider art, but to rest he is just the village idiot. I would imagine that AQ-regular John Dwyer

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Rev. Dwight Frizzell has been a very prolific yet wholly overlooked multi-media artist based in Kansas City. His previously reissued art-damaged album with Anal Magic explored alot of the hallucinatory realms later mined by the likes of The Sun City Girls. "Natural Selection" is an anthology of seven of Frizzell's filmscores documenting expansive film events, performative actions, and dense experimental audio collages for Tesla coils, field recordings, shortwave radio, sax, guitar, and anything else that could possibly be coaxed into making noise. The standout track is the telephone & oscillator piece "First Painting" in which Frizzell calls people up on the phone and asks them to pick a number between 20 and 15,000 then shifts the oscillator frequencies accordingly. Funny and creepy.

UK horror movie vinyl reissue label Death Waltz once again dips their toes into the bloody body of work belonging to one Mr. Fabio Frizzi. They've also reissued his soundtrack to Zombi 2, and will soon tackle his classic score to the equally classic The Beyond, but hell, as long as we're talking classics, there's this, Lucio Fulci's iconic City Of The Living Dead, aka Paura Nella Citta Dei Morti Viventi, originally released in 1980, it's the first part in Fulci's Gates Of Hell trilogy (which also includes The Beyond and The House By The Cemetery), and it's a doozy. There's suicidal priest, super strong zombies who can teleport and levitate, victims buried alive, portals to hell, total Fulci madness/genius, and Frizzi's score is equally mad/genius, even removed from the visuals, it's a dizzying psychedelic ride, there are the usual elements, sinister strings, eerie synths, even some funkiness (it was 1980 after all), but there are also wild freaked out blasts of noisiness that sound like they could be some super limited floor core cd-r, there are tons of weird voices, loads of FX, guitars, proggy flute flutter, pounding piano, crazed percussion, lots of textures and drones, spaces and silence, notes and chords ring out ominously, horns moan malevolently, some super memorable melodies surface throughout, that rival the iconic themes from other movies (like Halloween), really other than that one funk jam, the whole score is maddening and maniacal, twisted and seriously psychedelic. As always, Death Waltz has gone all out, the record is pressed on 180 gram clear red vinyl, featuring 17 remastered tracks, as well as several unreleased cues, and a 10 minute live suite recorded in 2013, all housed in a heavy full color sleeve. No insert this time, instead the liner notes are on the jacket itself, including new notes from the man himself, Frizzi, discussing the score and working with Fulci, there's also a Japanese style obi, with more notes, as well as some teasers for upcoming DW releases, and there's a huge poster of the new cover art by Graham Humphreys, as well.

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY. The soundtrack to one of my favorite movies of all time, Fulci's gross out masterpiece 'The Beyond'. And Frizzi's score is up to the mighty task of musically keeping up. Dark and a bit Goblin-esque and truly creepy. And surprisingly, it never stumbles into cheesy jazz-fusion territory (ala the occasional Goblin soundtrack). Essential, but not nearly as essential as running out and seeing it (again)!

RealAudio clip: Verso L'ignoto

The soundtrack to one of my favorite movies of all time, Fulci's gross out masterpiece 'The Beyond'. And Frizzi's score is up to the mighty task of musically keeping up. Dark and a bit Goblin-esque and truly creepy. And surprisingly, it never stumbles into

RealAudio clip: Verso L'ignoto

We first discovered the oddly monikered Frkse (pronounced 'forks' we think?) via aQ pal Matt, one half of industrial doomdirgedrone duo Teeth Engraved With The Names Of The Dead, who was raving about this lp, and got some from the 'band' to pass on to aQ. It was suggested to us, that anyone who loved the weirdo power electronic abstract industrial weirdness of former Record Of The Week-ers Will Over Matter, would also dig Frkse, which was definitely enough for us, but barely prepared us for what Frkse was really all about. A one man band / mad scientist / audio alchemist, who takes loops and rhythms, weird murky samples, and all manner of noise, hiss and whir and hum, and deftly arranges them into strangely robotic grooves, android symphonies of rhythm and textures, sounding at times like some impossible hybrid of Pierre Bastien, Philip Jeck, Thomas Brinkmann, and Strotter Inst. There's the warped warble of experimental turntablism, the lush hazy washed out textures of that sort of blurred ambience, and the rhythms and grooves all sound very machinelike, as if Frkse simply built an army of machines to do his bidding, that bidding just so happening to be creating these stripped down minimal loopscapes and tripped out abstract constructs. Each track here seems cobbled together from building block like sonic elements, a loping beat, a strange detuned strum, a disembodied melody, a whirring buzz, all strung together into an ingenious series arrangement that manages to be impossible catchy and mesmerizing, even at its most minimal. Robotic loops churning through clouds of hiss and buzz, a woozy rhythmic drag, like some strange melted tape 33 rpm jams spinning at 16rpm, the sounds saturated and warm, lush in the way only 4 track tape hiss and old busted analog machinery can be, it's hard not to imagine Frkse's strange underground lair, dusty piles of corroded equipment, nothing grounded or properly shielded, arcs of electricity leaping between various hand built implements, the vast array of buzzes and strains of hiss, carefully cataloged to be used later, and to perhaps be mixed with other separate strains, creating whole new breeds of low fidelity noise. And for all its raw primitivism, each track tends to reveal gorgeous expanses of hissy, buzz drenched minimal mesmer, like a steam punk android Steve Reich, tracks peppered with sudden bursts of almost jungle like drumming, which upon closer examination reveals themselves to be simply endless rhythmic loops piled atop one another, in such a way, that they create glorious cascades of kinetic rhythms. At times it's like a home brewed, post industrial minimal techno, at others, it's a thick caustic almost shoegazey blacknoise blur, and still others a noise drenched abstract electronica. The sound constantly shifting, a burst of gristled crumbling industrial churn will transform into a stretch of mournful almost Slint like minimalism, gradually expanding into a loping post rock drift, all skitter and stutter, unwinding hypnotically like a super stripped down lo-fi This Heat, everything caked in a dusty patina of chordal hum, a glorious maddeningly mesmerizing collection of robo-rhythms and psych-kraut dirgery, of hazy soft focus loop-grooves and tranced out motorik mesmer. And yeah, fans of Will Over Matter will flip, fans of M Ax Noi Mach too, but even more so, folks into haunting low fidelity experimental loopscapery: Jeck, Strotter, Caretaker, Bastien, Tim Hecker, Belong and the like. SUPER LIMITED!!! Housed in hand silk screeened / hand stamped covers with a photocopied insert.

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Back in stock -- but get 'em before they're gone (it's a one-time-pressing apparently)... Fans of Vancouver's great Frog Eyes take note of this limited edition, 25 minute *acoustic* release. Yup, Frog Eyes unplugged. Frontman Carey Mercer here declares "I am the writer!" and gives us his acoustic take on songs from Frog Eyes' previously released albums The Bloody Hand and The Golden River� as well as songs from their forthcoming The Folded Palm. The versions Mercer plays here probably represent how these songs first burst from his imagination....they are crude and ecstatic, communicating the essence of Mercer's surrealism. Obviously, with Frog Eyes we are in the presence of a great song force that demands the ear surrender its old habits and start again, not without a few choice associations (like Bowie and Beefheart) to make the experience more comfortable. The arrangements on Ego Scriptor� are no less ambitious and bombastic than their electric manifestations although we do miss the heavenly noise and atmospheres the full band so masterfully musters around Mercer's singing and guitar playing. A virtue of Mercer's music is that, much like the songs of Tomakawa Kazuki and Mikami Kan, we hear in them something larger than music, an action like spirit crashing through clouds to earth. [Another review from the pen of AQ-pal Loren Chasse, who loves Frog Eyes perhaps even more than Allan and Cup do, which is, a lot.]

MPEG stream: Masticated Outboard Motors
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What follows is a much appreciated guest review by the discerning Loren Chasse, a long time Frog Eyes fan, who herein explains why this band is so compelling, to certain special ears anyway. (Allan, who would have written a review expressing similar sentiments, gives the thumbs up as well, Paul's Tomb is indeed a triumph!) Amidst all the bands these days which are busy resuscitating bygone genres (psych-folk, soft rock, new wave, krautrock, disco, '80s metal... and so on), there is Frog Eyes. Sure, everything derives from other things, shares a sound, borrows a riff... but there is a difference between trying to sound like vs. just sounding like. What does Frog Eyes try to sound like? Beats me. So what does Frog Eyes just happen to sound like? My first reaction to their music was confusion and maybe slight embarrassment. With things truly alternative or experimental there can be an experience of not quite feeling safe, not being sure of what to listen for. Frog Eyes delivers songs with complicated lyrical and musical structures. Their music is over the top, mostly - packed with monstrosity but also with subtlety and dynamic prowess. Blistering jags of guitar and fractured drumming often clear away on this record to blissful jams with sparse grooves (perhaps what some might identify more conventionally as 'psychedelic rock' even though the truly psychedelic parts are the ones in which my ears seemed turned on end and ripped a new hole, so to speak!) There are ingenious pop hooks on this record, but often there are long and arduous paths leading to them. This music is challenging. It requires its audience's full attention, like reading. This is a band much about the vocals and it's likely that folks will have a strong love/hate reaction (think of other artists such as Dylan, Bryan Ferry, Bjork, Jamie Stewart, Robbie Basho). Carey Mercer's vocals are overflowing with affectation... trills, croons and gasps moving ecstatically across the vocal spectrum. All the tropes of the rock n' roll singer are in his bag. His lyrics are surreal narratives... poetic, syntactically complex, confounding in their humor and darkness. His last solo effort, Skin of Evil, recorded under the name Blackout Beach, presented a suite of songs based on a character named Donna. Well, Donna's back for this latest Frog Eyes record (along with "Cassandra" and "Paul"). Does this mean anything to my listening or enjoyment of the record? Well, I must say, that it intrigues and captures my imagination the way my favorite prog rock albums from the '70s did - somewhere at the heart of this there's a 'concept'. In Mercer's case, it's literary and it's clear he does care about the words as they are always published with the notes to his records. Paul's Tomb certainly evokes something, but the 'what' is unclear and maybe best that way. The album art features photographic tableaux evocative of a specific point in history - maybe turn of the century exploration and the amassing of museum collections? (I admit a little disappointment in not finding one of Mercer's strange paintings adorning the cover of this record as they have in the past.) The sounds on this record are raw and powerful. The guitar playing and the singing are clearly emanating from the same source... spasmodic and ecstatic phrasings (often gusty and menacing, at times sounding like Neil Young circa "Like a Hurricane" or Arc), delivered with plenty of rock conviction. Back to the prog rock analogy for a moment, there does seem to be a good deal of 'math' in these compositions, but the layers of noise and clouds of tone on top of the songs obscure the structures. I don't get the feeling the band is counting as much as they are feeling. A good thing! Think of it this way... when I want to listen to Arthur Russell, I may mix things up a little and put on Caribou or Hot Chip. When craving Joy Division there are always bands like Interpol, Blank Dogs or Blessure Grave. Heard my favorite Incredible String Band too many times this month? Well then, maybe one of the many "freak folks" will deliver. Popul Vuh has stopped releasing records but somehow their catalogue seems to be growing thanks to a host of talented emulators. And when seeking a deep dark drone at bedtime, the choices are endless. However, the point is, when I want to hear Frog Eyes, there is only ONE place to go... And among Frog Eyes albums, this one is one of the best yet.

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