[ aquarius records catalogue

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Hee's an absolutely stunning recording of Feldman's most often played durational chamber piece, Crippled Symmetry. Recorded in 2000 for the 25th anniversary of "June in Buffalo", an annual series of concerts at the University of Buffalo begun by Feldman after he took over the post of Edgar Varese Professor there. Crippled Symmetry was written in 1983, four years before the composer's death, for a trio consisting of flute/alto flute/bass flute; glockenspiel/vibraphone; and piano/celesta. Commissioned by the remaining members of a collective ensemble called The Feldman Soloists that the composer worked with over the years as a writer and pianist, this new recording is performed by all three of the original players, and is hailed by them to be the definitive performance of the piece. Spanning ninety minutes over two disks, this interlocking minimalist composition was not scored so much as it was instructed. Taking its influence from the handmade process of weaving oriental rugs where slight imperfections are regarded with high importance to the overall effect of the piece, hence the title, Crippled Symmetry. The musicians operate in their own tiny clusters of sound creating dappled circular patterns against the other players causing an undulating and slowly twisting tapestry of sound forms. Not quite melodic, but not at all dissonant, the sonic field of the trio becomes a singular vibrational unit and the effect of attempting to stay wholly aware as a listener is akin to attempting deep meditative contemplation. A great place to start for those unsure where to begin in the Morton Feldman catalog!

MPEG stream: Part 1
MPEG stream: Part 2

Collection of recordings of Feldman's music from his "middle period" (what self-respecting composer doesn't have their oevre divided into three periods I ask you) as performed by the Ensemble Recherche. Feldman broke with the absolute serialists of his day -- Stockhausen, Babbitt, Cage & Boulez -- to compose music in an unfashionable, "intuitive" way (there's an anecdote in here of how, when Feldman was in residence at Darmstadt, Stockhausen followed him around demanding "What is your system?") and filled his pieces with slow moving, simple melodies. More importantly, he relenquished much of the authority over note durations up to the performer(s). The results are often bleak, never sterile and always texturally rich. Includes detailed notes in English by acclaimed musicologist Kyle Gann. And if you know German or French, it appears that the liner notes written in those languages are written by two different people and are completely different from one another, not merely translations.

One of Feldman's later, and longer, works, "For Philip Guston" clocks in at just under five hours. Performed by Petr Kotik (flute, alto flute, piccolo), Joseph Kubera (piano, celeste), and Chris Nappi (vibraphone, marimbaphone, glockenspiel, chimes) of the S.E.M. Ensemble, Guston is one of the zeniths of Feldman's acheivements. A piece stretched out to such an extreme length is, as Feldman admitted himself, quite a difficult task. The ability to have a piece which retains a natural, organic quality without losing control over it and controlling the development of the piece without being forced into repetitive banality was a compositional conundrum that Feldman struggled with more and more as his pieces grew in length. How Feldman manages to get this piece off the ground, I don't know, but he does and keeps it flying the whole 4-plus hours -- with the help of some excellent musicians. The entire piece (I hope I'm not scaring anyone out there with this) was recorded in a studio, but still has the quality of a hall performance, perhaps touched up with some nice reverb. The studio method of recording the piece has the side effect of causing such everyday performance anomalies such as page turning to become amplified much greater than what one would experience in a hall setting and the flautist Kotik suggests that this be used as a measuring device to set the volume properly at home: if you can hear the page turns clearly, turn down the volume. The booklet included with this issue has a conversation between Petr Kotik and Walter Zimmerman... but maybe "conversation" is the wrong word. I think maybe "argument" might applied here to better describe their dialog, and a hilarious argument it is. A hoot for anyone who gets a kick out of listening to musicologists scrapple.

RealAudio clip: For Philip Guston

Feldman is easily one of our favorite modern composers, attacking space and decay in a similar way as do many of our favorite drone artists and electronic minimalists, focusing not on the attack of a note but the various sonic colorations and permutations the note goes through as it slowly slips away. In the same way, Feldman composes with space as much as he does with sound. Very dark and meditative, dreamy and otherworldy, but somehow also quite personal and romantic. "Patterns..." has many of those obvious Feldman elements but is much more dynamic and jagged than many of his other pieces. The drifting ambient parts definitely harken back to one of our all time favorite Feldman pieces "Rothko Chapel". But unlike the calm and meditative tranquility of "Rothko Chapel", "Patterns" is peppered with jagged atonal piano and squeaking cello. While for some it will obviously detract a bit from the overall mellow moodiness, but as a whole it adds another element of tension and almost aggression, before it slips back into slowly unfolding sweetly intimate quietude.

MPEG stream: Patterns In A Chromatic Field

As far as I know this is the only the second time this piece by Feldman has been recorded -- the first by the Kronos Quartet with Aki Takahashi on Elektra -- but I could be wrong. Composed in 1985, Piano & String Quartet comes late in Feldman's career. Like other pieces of this period, this piece is quite lengthy, clocking in at over 70 minutes (the good people at Hat Hut have even put

RealAudio clip: Piano & String Quartet

Reissued on cassette for a limited time! Morton Feldman's 1971 commissioned piece for the Rothko Chapel is one of the most sublime works in his vast catalog of recordings. In tribute to the chapel and to his friend the painter Mark Rothko who killed himself a year before the chapel opened, Feldman uses tonal rhythms, bells, viola and a chorus in stark but lyrical consort with the reverential acoustics provided by the chapel itself. Long fascinated by the sonorous qualities of tones and how they decay and diminish over time, Feldman shared with his friend Rothko the aim to unveil the mystery of perception. Performed with a slowly unfolding arc of restrained movements and silences, there has never been a more appropriate matching of acoustics and vision than the pairing of these two 20th century mavericks. Limited to 100 copies.

MPEG stream: Rothko Chapel (part 5)

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

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In 1893 composer/prankster Erik Satie wrote a short piece for piano called "Vexations". Though the score fits easily on one page and is simple enough for even the the most novice of pianists (once they get over the note "spelling" jokes peppered within) to perform, the piece was never played in its entirety -- as the composer indicated -- until 1963. This was due to the performance instructions provided by Satie that the piece be repeated a mere 840 times, a command that would extend the length of the piece to well over an entire day -- give or take a few hours depending on one's tempo. Seventy years later John Cage and several friends, working in shifts, managed to complete it in a brief 17 hours. While Satie's intentions may have been of a humorously philosophical nature, the following century would see a veritable pissing match of composers writing longer and longer symphonies for bigger and bigger orchestras. While Morton Feldman would most certainly never be confused with the likes of grandpa Mahler, he had an ever exceding tendency for maximilizing the minimalism of his later works. We saw not long ago here at Aquarius the release of his 4 hour marathon "For Philip Guston". In a country where, with every passing year, A.D.D. is less a rare condition than the norm, Feldman's large scale works such as this exist as an anomaly. Webern's brief atonal morsels of the early 20th century seem more fitting to our current temperment. Feldman's later compositions are not only unrealistic for concert performance -- world premiers aside, they won't be entering the short list of the performance canon any time soon. At times the raison d'etre of these pieces seems to be more of an ascetic exercise for aspiring young performers. This performance of String Quartet No. 2, clocking in at a little over 6 hours, is a true test of a musician's endurance. A whole new set of preparations are to be taken into consideration, not the least of which is how to deal with nature's eventual call. And you can bet that prestigious, well paid string quartets like Arditti are not likely to be found cooped up in a studio for something like this. No, this is for young bucks paying their dues. While prestigious in their own rite, having played around the globe at numerous festivals to acclaim, the photo on the inside of this package of the Flux Quartet shows four young -- most certainly recently graduated from fine conservatories -- musicians with smiles on their faces (presumably this was before their non-stop performance of the piece). And while the continuing dedication of performers willing to endure such suffering is certainly a testament to the importance of Morton Feldman as one of the great composers of the late 20th century, it has still taken technology a little more time to catch up. While a single compact disc is good enough to hold the entirety of Beethoven's 9th symphony, it falls way short of handling the behemoths penned by Mr. Feldman. "For Philip Guston" which needs to be chopped up and spread out over 4 CDs would have necessitated 10 LPs back in 1984 and "String Quartet No. 2" exceeds Guston by two hours. Enter the DVD. With its ridiculous storage capacity, a single DVD can retain even the longest of compositions. You can put on "String Quartet No. 2" as you sit down for lunch and be finished as you sit down for dinner. For those of you *still* without a DVD player in this day and age, all is not lost. This edition also comes in the traditional CD form and it takes up a mere 5 discs. Don't worry, Feldman wouldn't begrudge you to listen to this piecemeal. His expectations of the listener are much less than that of the performer (and you can read all you want into his opinions on both) and he would probably encourage you to approach it in much the same way as one would approach a painting in a museum. Or maybe, as Satie might have wished, an elegant piece of furniture.

RealAudio clip: "String Quartet No. 2
RealAudio clip: "String Quartet No. 2

The iconoclastic 20th Century composer Morton Feldman had been quite vocal in his disdain of traditional opera, making his historic collaborations throughout the '80s with author Samuel Beckett all the more idiosyncratic. Nevertheless, as the two "Turfan Fragments" was a composition dating seven years earlier, relating to a collection of 9th Century Chinese calligraphic fragments housed in Berlin's Preussicher Kulturbesitz. Compared to the lugubrious pace of "For Samuel Beckett," "Turfan Fragments" cycles much faster through the rotations of atonal leitmotifs and gradaually shifted chord progressions, sounding much more nervous than its preceeding composition on this disc. Yet, both pieces (performed here by Petr Kotik and the S.E.M. Emsemble) are exceptional and highly recommended examples of Feldman's third and final chapter of his impressive catalogue.

RealAudio clip: For Samuel Beckett
RealAudio clip: Turfan Fragments

Now available domestically with new artwork via Los Angeles based Emperor Norton: the long awaited debut long player from Chicago DJ / remixer extraordinaire Felix Stallings aka Felix Da Housecat. "Kittenz And Thee Glitz" shuffles through a hearty mix of

RealAudio clip: Happy Hour
RealAudio clip: Silver Screen Shower Scene

Felix K hails from the drum 'n' bass scene in Berlin, where he has steadily deconstructed the formalism of the genre with more and more extreme variations of abstraction while maintaining those ominous atmospheres of dub devastation. So, yes Blackest Ever Black is a perfect home for such avant dubstep excursions alongside Raime, Vatican Shadow, and Black Rain. The slow burning title track is a side-long 17 minutes, building from a pall of near silence through a hauntologically inclined sequence of goth synths all swaddled in a heavy atmosphere of rumbled low-end and gloomy shadow, hinting at something that could have been a bassbin rattle tempered to hyper-minimalist echo, all of which casts the same spell as the most recent Haxan Cloak productions. "Silent Money" is one two B-side tracks, standing out as downer electronica track of optiganally inclined rhythms, airlock hiss, desolate ambient notes, and hyperdubbed out vocals that cascade through piles and piles of reverb. The voodoo hand-drum rhythms of "Fundamentals" and smoldering dub of blackened noise amounts to something that would be very easy to mistaken for some Demdike Stare track lost on the cutting room floor.

MPEG stream: Tragedy Of The Commons
MPEG stream: Silent Money
MPEG stream: Fundamentals

The latest epic slab of atmospheric black metal from this Northern California black metal duo begins with a warm bit of swoonsome, softly pulsing synth swirl, before the band launch into the first of two sidelong tracks, and immediately, the sound here is harder, and harsher, and heavier, the vibe is definitely atmospheric, but much more grim and buzzy, the two immediately locked into a hazy galloping expanse of majestic melodic blackness, droned out and trancelike, hypnotic and mesmerizing, sounding like it could (and maybe should) go on forever and ever, until the sound suddenly and gloriously ruptures, the song exploding into a gout of gnarled mathy chaos, before slipping right back into the trancey buzz. The sound does eventually shift, the guitars soaring, fast picked melodies all tangled up with the relentless drum pound, eventually the song settling into a woozy, moody, buzz free creep, just mournful guitars wrapped around melodic bass, and a plodding almost doomy dirge. The band slowly build adding layer after layer, eventually returning to a furious tranced out buzz once again, but here the guitars seem slippery, the riffs even more tangled, the sound warped and even more chaotic, the black buzz slipping into almost white noise territory before finally collapsing into a long stretch of muted, murky grumbling grey drones. The B side starts off distinctly more doomy, thick, reverbed minor key chords drift over a simple, slo-mo drum trudge, atmospheric, ominous, haunting, it's only a minute or two before this track too explodes in a frenzy of musical violence, an avalanche of blackened chaos, careening riffs, buried howls, splattery drumming, the various elements eventually coalesce into something more solidly black and buzzy, but before too much time has passed, the band transform it into some strange black doom, the chords tarpit slow, but the drums still blasting away, the vocals a beastly gurgle, before once again letting the buzzing blackness overtake them. This track, like the first side, is constantly shifting, from more clean shimmery ambience, to some gorgeously melodic churning guitardrone, that sounds like BM riffs blurred into hypnotic muddy swirls, and like the A side, this track finishes with a long stretch of minimal drift, this time, hazy synths, minimal percussion and haunting cinematic piano stabs, creepy, and harrowingly beautiful. LIMITED TO 750 COPIES, pressed on thick vinyl, and housed in super heavy jackets.

We'd been hearing about these guys for ages, a trio from Santa Cruz who were apparently mixing raw thrashing black buzz a la Bone Awl with sprawling epic arrangements, as in songs going on 20, sometimes 30 minutes. So here we have their debut full length, a two song lp, two tracks, each filling up an entire side, one nearly 19 minutes, the other more than 21 minutes, and right out of the gate they explode into a frenzy of blasting beats and blurred insectoid riffing, growled demonic vocalizing, but over the course of these songs, the band explore all sorts of variations, slipping into loping mathy post rock, soaring epic Norwegian style majesty, doomic d-beat pounding, lurching stop / start breakdowns, long stretches of ominous ambience, lumbering Burzumic crush, slow burning distortion drenched drift, all held together with consistent elements that lead one part to another, streaks of buzz, minimal mysterious guitar figures, the sound of rain, droning bits of serpentine guitar. It's more than just long songs created by glomming shorter songs together. These tracks are expertly arranged and composed, the move with mood and purpose, melodies disappear only to resurface later, parts shift and twist and become repurposed, there are refrains, but there are also parts that appear once and are gone. The B-side starts out like some sort of black drone record, heaving sheets of crumbling distorted buzz, woozy and wavery, before the band explodes into yet another flurry of soaring guitars and pounding rhythms, this time though it's all tension and no release, like the most dramatic part of some Godspeed epic translated into epic blackness, until the band finally slip into something more classically BM, but only just, this song/side too is a convoluted path, serpentine and impossible to predict, with some incredible surprisingly un-BM at times drumming, amazing catchy riffs, and the ambience this time relegated to near the end of the track, the furious blasting giving way to some haunting spectral drift, taking forever to fade out completely, instead, blasting at a barely audible level, just below the seemingly tranquil surface, eventually disappearing completely, leaving the track to wind down gently, with a languid, darkly pretty final few minutes. So awesome. Fell Voices are definitely a band folks into Weakling and Wolves In The Throne Room and Fauna and all that sort of sprawling epic blackness should check out. A new favorite of the black hordes around here for sure...

Yet ANOTHER self titled record from the Fell Voices / Ash Borer black metal axis, which makes it even more difficult to keep track of which is what, but this one IS subtitled 2008 demo, and as that would rightfully lead you to believe this is FV's 2008 demo, previously available only on cassette, on vinyl for the first time, and the packaging is swank and deluxe, but more on that in a second. This is FV's very first recording ever, and as such, demonstrates two things, one, a much more lo-fi sound quality, and two, an already fully formed sound, that the band would hone on subsequent records, the sound quality and recording fidelity improving as they went, that said, even with a more raw sound, these two tracks are incredible, the band already masters of the sidelong black metal epic, the A side beginning with a slow build, all chaotic drums over clan guitars, weird and woozy, the sound building and building, eventually coalescing into something more buzzy and blast, but even then the guitars remain super low in the mix, and SOUND clean still, which gives the sound a cool strange vibe, add in some bellowed demonic vox, some stretches of doomed out dirgery, all deep droning vox and tribal drumming, and then a crazy chaotic mathrock/noiserock outro. Lo-fi for sure, but still so epic and heavy and intense. The flipside is much more black metal sounding, but with some serious D-best sounding stretches, a little punky, but still plenty black and blasting, with cool droned out guitars, and a super stunning interlude that's all blurred drones and muted feedback, which leads directly into some spaced out psychedelic drift, before the band lurches back into the fray. PRESSED ON 180 GRAM VINYL!! Housed in thick sleeves, with a printed insert, LIMITED TO 367 COPIES!!

A couple of lists back, we highlighted the Editions Mego disc UL8 by minimal techno artist Mark Fell. It was one of two solo albums from snd member Fell that were recently released more or less simultaneously. So here's the other one, via the Raster-Noton label quite appropriately, and it's another intense, experimental exercise in the controlled chaos of (ir)rhythmic variations. 17 tracks, 64 minutes of glitched out, Geiger-countery goodness. If you liked the complex, computery patterns of UL8, you'll like this too! Repetitive, seizure-threatening stuff here, a seemingly endless array of stunning, stuttering clicks, claps, ticks and kicks... it's like the distorted, digitally bent creakings of teetering, tweaked electronic architecture built by Fell from precise blueprints for perverse purposes. His constructions are varied enough, exploring both skittering texture and shuffling groove, to hold earphone interest for the duration. At times it sounds kinda like club music composed by Conlon Nancarrow for synth and typewriter. Any fan of Alva Noto, Ryoji Ikeda, etc. ought to investigate this and UL8 too if you haven't already.

MPEG stream: Multistability 3
MPEG stream: Multistability 10-A,11
MPEG stream: Multistability 9

Some will be curious about this simply on account of how it's an Editions Mego release, by Mark Fell who is one half of snd, the UK glitch-house duo that used to record for Mille Plateaux. For us, it was more that the bright orange digipak cover with shiny metallic silver artwork caught our eye, and then we read the text on the back that includes such sentences as "Using 32 operator frequency modulation synthesis configured in 16 pairs of operator and modulator, panned at equal positions around the circumference of a circle using high order ambisonics." And: "With 2, 4, and 8 channel rectangular waveshapes with variable pulse width subject to frequency modulation from synchronised sine functions with variable phase offsets." Intriguing, no? What it it all boils down to is minimal techno electronics: clinical, precise, and purely rhythmic. Only the relatively blissed-out final track, "Death Of A Loved One", brings in much melodic coloration at all. Otherwise, Fell's music sounds a bit like a malfunctioning Geiger counter (especially the five track opening sequence "The Occultation of 3C 273"), with some pieces (the seven part "Vortex Studies") shuffling in buzzing, fizzing, distorted textures as well, and others (the "Acids In The Style Of Rian Treanor" series) incorporating sizzling synth squiggle. It's all very mesmeric (to some, maybe maddening to others), often energetically urgent, a dense, complex, pitter patter patterning of clicks, claps, and kicks, ratcheting up and down, constructed with conceptual, architectural logic... Definitely for fans of Alva Noto, Ryoji Ikeda, Senking, Mika Vanio, and Kazunao Nagata (Zero Gravity). Fell also has another new, simultaneously released cd out on Raster-Noton, we'll have to get that one reviewed soon too!

MPEG stream: The Occultation of 3C 273 (I)
MPEG stream: The Occultation of 3C 273 (V)
MPEG stream: Vortex Studies (I)

Don't know too much about Felt or their history. In fact, I always just assumed that I didn't like Felt. Not sure why. A lot of it had to do with the time these records originally came out, the early eighties, precisely when I was just getting into punk rock or metal. Same goes for some other folks here at AQ. So it kind of makes sense that we never discovered this stuff, or if we did, we sure as heck weren't ready for it. So imagine our surprise when we finally actually heard Felt (umm..several months ago, I know I know...give us a break) and realized just how darn good this stuff was. So good that I'm not sure I can do them justice in a review. Crumbling The Antiseptic Beauty is the first in a 10 cd comprehensive reissue of all of Felt's records. Originally released in 1982, Crumbling is a minimal indie jangle pop masterpiece, simple guitar figures soaked in jangly reverby, crystalline melodies picked out on shimmering electric guitars over whispery mumbled vocals buried in the mix. So completely mesmerizing and hypnotic. Shades of Factory records, the Smiths, and definitely the Durutti Column. Imagine a more cerebral, minimal version of Icicle Works or Modern English or any of that eighties new wave stuff. Not at all what we expected or imagined but pretty amazing. Can't wait for the next nine!

MPEG stream: Evergreen Dazed
MPEG stream: Birdmen

Felt are such a weird band. Totally mysterious album art, cryptic album titles, bizarre lyrics and song titles, everything shrouded in mystery, but the actual music of Felt is anything but mysterious or cryptic. Forever Breathes The Lonely Word released originally in 1986, is a lush eighties indie pop record swathed in warm warbly organs and jangly keeing guitars. A surprisingly upbeat outing for Felt, who are more often maudlin and dreary and dark. Forever is filled with subtly propulsive rhythms, minor key arrpegiated guitars, chiming melodies, thick washes of synth blur and lots of vocals, delivered in a Lou Reed / Mark Knopfler sort of singspeak drawl that adds a world weary quality to Felt's already melancholy indie jangle.

MPEG stream: Rain Of Crystal Spires
MPEG stream: Down But Not Yet Out

I always wanted to love this record just for the title. I mean, what a great album title, mysterious and creepy and a bit nonsensical. And surprisingly not at all representative of the sounds found within. Originally released in 1986, Let the Snakes Crinkle Their Heads To Death perfectly coincided with my descent into metal, which explains how I managed to miss Felt entirely as well as sidestepping all things Creation and 4AD and jangly new wave in general. But it's probably just as well, since at the time, I probably wan't in a position to appreciate the ephemeral, ethereal beauty of Felt. Sonically very reminiscent of the Smiths, Durutti Column and the mellower side of Factory Records, Felt are a warm, shimmery musical blanket, woven from warbly synthesizers, shufflng rhythms, jangly guitars, chiming melodies, all moody and melancholy, muted and minor key. Sometimes jazzy and lounge-y, sometimes dark and lugubrious, Let the Snakes Crinkle Their Heads To Death is a perfect eighties late night instrumental bliss out record. So nice.

MPEG stream: Song For William S. Harvey
MPEG stream: The Seventeenth Century

Don't know too much about Felt or their history. In fact, I always just assumed that I didn't like Felt. Not sure why. A lot of it had to do with the time these records originally came out, the early eighties, precisely when I was just getting into punk rock or metal. Same goes for some other folks here at AQ. So it kind of makes sense that we never discovered this stuff, or if we did, we sure as heck weren't ready for it. So imagine our surprise when we finally actually heard Felt (umm..several months ago, I know I know...give us a break) and realized just how darn good this stuff was. So good that I'm not sure I can do them justice in a review. Splendour Of Fear is the second in the Felt reissue series, originally released in 1984. It takes the minimal crystalline indie pop jangle of 1982's Crumbling The Antiseptic Beauty and adds a little darkness, and a little more low end, and becomes a bit more brooding and serious compared to its predecessor's sunny sparkling sheen. But only a little. The drums and the bass are more present giving the tunes a bit more heft and the vocals are still mumbled and way down in the mix, but it's still all about the guitars, shimmering and crystal clear, mantra like meldoies stream from electric guitars like rivers of sparkling diamonds. Again sonically reminiscent of the Smiths and Factory records. In fact Felt sound like late night chill out music for the Factory set. So great!

MPEG stream: The World Is As Soft As Ice
MPEG stream: The Optimist And The Poet

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

SORRY.

Local DJ / turntablist / sonic collagist / audio alchemist DJ Female Convict Scorpion (aka Josh Pollock of aQ beloved local psychedelic space rockers 3 Leafs) returns with another twisted slab of mutant fuzz funk, outsider psychedelia, tripped out cosmic prog, and whatever else he has in his record bag, but as always employed in such a way that the original track blur into one twisted single sonic miasma, from which Pollock pulls some seriously twisted musical madness. This time, the framework is Bill Cosby's iconic Talks To Kids About Drugs record, with DJ Female Convict Scorpion, actually showing the kids what being on drugs sounds like, and even to those of us here who don't partake, it sounds pretty goddamn god. Warped and wild, a super psychedelic dance party that sounds a bit like a more lo-fi Andy Votel, with much of this sounding like it could be some obscure Finders Keepers mix/comp. The opener begins with Cosby explaining the purpose of the record, to talk to kids about drugs, and then DJFCS takes over, with a blast of grinding distorted psychedelic skree, bellowed slowed down monster vox, wild tangles of psych guitar freakout, before settling into a serious groove, wreathed in sci-fi FX squiggles, and woozy sonic swells, a swirl of Jeck-like turntable manipulations, some funky wah guitar, deep ominous drones, fluttering flutes, fragments of sixties pop songs, vocal harmonies surfacing then fading away, seriously trippy for sure. And the rest of the record follows suit, with each track incorporating the original, whether as an intro, or slowing it down, so those wise words of wisdom, become a scary demonic invocation, and what follows, is all over the map, one track slips into a sprawl of record crackle and distant shimmer, over which is laid some seventies acid folk vocals, hand claps, and strange alien sound effects, the result is a stunning stretch of alien seventies freak folk (listen close and you'll even hear the Star Trek warning klaxon!), another starts off slow and contemplative, before exploding into some seriously heavy psych rock crunch, made even more freaky when the track begins to skip and locks into a woozy loop, over which DJFCS adds all sorts of warped sound effects, bleating trumpets, the looped bassline transformed into a throbbing droned out thrum, and yet another dissolves into a cloud of swirling druggy murk, before an old spiritual surfaces through the swirl, again the juxtaposition so deftly engineered, that the resulting combination is strangely moving and haunting. And there's so so much more. Like all DJ Female Convict Scorpion mixes, there's much to discover, sonic subtleties that only surface on repeated listens, and even music nerds like us find ourselves constantly trumped by the sources, crazy obscure, we're barely able to pick out any of them, which has a lot to do of course with DJFCS's mastery of weaving all of these disparate sounds and sonic fragments into one, dizzying, seriously psychedelic whole!

MPEG stream: Downers & Uppers
MPEG stream: Questions And Answers
MPEG stream: Bill Talks About Hard Drugs
MPEG stream: Captain Junkie

We love the mix tape. Or maybe now it's the mix cd. Regardless, it's hard to beat a killer mix of obscure sonic weirdness, the best mixes being the ones where the various tracks and elements blend into a new musical experience entirely. With the occasional glimpse of a recognizable tune, melody or sonic snippet surfacing here and there, the sort of collection that rewards close listening, but sounds just as good in a background music capacity. Such is the case with the latest disc from local DJ / turntablist DJ Female Convict Scorpion (who also manages whistle, sampler and theremin!). Anyone who names themselves after Shunya Ito's classic series of Japanese woman in prison / revenge flicks is definitely on the right wavelength. Constance Towers is more mix than turntable experiment, but there are plenty of subtle sonic mysteries lurking beneath the excellent song choice and deft mixing. Beginning all soulful and jazzy, groovy and laid back, a slowed down funk work out, sun baked and washed out, peppered with subtle effects and bits of dialogue, the disc soon morphs into blessed out dub, transforming quickly into some haunting soundtrack, all swooning strings and drawn out drones, before exploding into some super kick ass blown out 70's cop show funk, with buzzing synths and fuzzy guitar. And that's just the first few tracks, the rest of the disc veers wildly all over the map, somehow managing to sound perfectly cohesive. Freaked out percussion jams, creepy exotica, propulsive krautrock, wild afrojazz, super distorted post punk jams, honkey tonk country, but all tangled and woven into each other, shifting speeds and tempos, drifting voices and effects, multiple tracks piled on one another, a gorgeous, hypnotic, sonic trip. Funky and groovy enough to jam at your next dance party, but dark and varied and mysterious enough for headphone deep listening...

MPEG stream: 12:00 am - Prologue / Mozart And The Dolomites
MPEG stream: 1:00 am - Constance Towers
MPEG stream: 2:00 am - Emergeth... Borts Minorts

Mix number two from mysterious local turntablist and DJ, the brilliantly monickered DJ Female Convict Scorpion, whose mixes are less DJ mash-ups and more haunting artistic assemblages, incorporating free jazz, fuzzy funk, found sounds, bits of dialogue, sampled instruments, stripped down beats, pretty much no genre is off limits, but those genres are basically meaningless once everything is mixed together. From the opening track, with its ominous chiming bells beneath Tom Waits' gravelly voice spinning a yarn, the mix slips smoothly, into a deep laid back minimal grooves, surrounded by swirling sheets of soft focus effects, before the mix shifts, and wailing female vox are draped over a thumping beat, a sea of record crackle, bits of hum and distant whir, Shadow wouldn't be all that far off as a reference, but imagine if Shadow was raised on prog and punk rock and art films and free jazz, then how would a mix of his sound? A bit like this perhaps. The tracks veer wildly from super rhythmic workouts, to drifting minimal soundscapes, strange electronics drift in and out, mournful horns, spidery guitars, strings are bowed and plucked, deep rumbles surface from below, tribal drumming is laid beneath tangled world music voices, creating gorgeous and unintended harmonies, dense clouds of blooping bleeping effects over skittery free jazz skronk, dark reverbed noir-ish guitars shimmering beneath subtle percussion, breathless vocalizing and steel string scrape, deep ritualistic chanting drifting over the sound of sirens, funky drumming and subtle barely there dronemusic in the distance, Really good stuff. Made even better by the fact that we weren't able to identify a single source for any of the sounds within!! Beautiful packaging. Full color printing on thick matte paper, super haunting and tripped out imagery, pressed on black cd-r's each with an actual postage from some other country affixed to the face.

MPEG stream: Dum Sechs Unt Glum eine Rum
MPEG stream: Floorshow At The Top OF The World
MPEG stream: The Peaches 'n' Herb Of Freak Folk

The return of one of our favorite DJ's, and it's not that he's a friend of ours, or the fact that he plays guitar in local space rock heroes 3 Leafs, or that he also plays guitar in badass Sabbath cover band Bobb Saggeth, no, it's because his DJ Female Convict Scorpion mixes are twisted and genius, utilizing a crazy cool record collection, rife with tons of crazy cool records, and a deft hand at mixing bits of those records into something wholly new and impossibly original, imagine the bullshit mashups that were all the rave for a while, adding the vocals from some popular song to the music of another, now imagine that sort of operation performed by a perfectionist mad sonic scientist, with no regard for genre, willing to take two ridiculously obtuse and utterly mismatched sounds, and weaving them seamlessly into one. Every release has us not only marveling, and wondering how the fuck he does what he does, but it also has us desperately trying to identify the various sounds, and samples, until, eventually, we just give up, and lose ourselves in the DJFCS's world of sound. This new one had us hoping for lots of metal, just based on the title alone, but instead, it's another dizzying sonic collage, the opener a stone cold stunner, pairing soulful vocals to tinkling chimes, and burbling liquid, the result tense and moving and experimental, but also moody and emotional, eventually the sounds all blur and smear into streaks of pitch shifted jazziness, joined by a simple groovy beat, and shards of tangled noisiness, another vocal surfacing near the end, a strange mix, some sort of old timey traditional, but when paired with the beat, and the psychedelic swirl, it's pretty fantastic. After that, it's total switch up, into some rock steady, that ends up featuring some David Lee Roth vocals, and it's a weirdly sweet mix, before devolving into a wild chaos of drum damage and DLR's wild howling, all wrapped in clouds of glitchy, spaced out electronics. Then there's some slowed down "Billie Jean", doused in residual electro-space squiggle and wild psychedelic guitar shred, some swirling psych-soul, lovely female vocals, over a bed of kosmische smolder, and some seventies acid folk, and so it goes, vocal lines lifted from old folk songs, paired with swirling psychedelic synths, fractured beats draped over hurts of metallic guitar chug, soulful croon drifting atop lush layered beds of softly undulating drones, fluttering flutes and field recordings, backwards FX and tribal drumming, mutating into super creepy cinematic doom, and finally some eighties electro beats pulsing beneath orchestral swells, theremin like trills, and more trad-folk / world music vox, laced with strange bits of industrial clank and clatter, before eventually, and finally winding down. Like all the past DJFCS jams, this too comes HIGHLY recommended.

MPEG stream: Crystal Math
MPEG stream: Opposite Day In Opposite Land
MPEG stream: Robot Tsar
MPEG stream: How Metal Is Time Travel?

Latest mix from this aQ beloved audio alchemist, who when he's not whipping up these murky mixes and strange sonic concoctions is playing guitar in local druggy space rockers 3 Leafs, or touring with Acid Mothers Gong or performing in a play, or even lending his voice to some video game. But in his guise of DJ Female Convict Scorpion (yep, named for that Japanese series of women in prison flicks), his main concern is taking cool records, and melting them down into something totally new, a blurred otherworldly soundscape melding obscure jazz to lost krautrock, twisted grooves to mysterious ambience, shimmery washed out drifts wrapped around spaced out riffs and everything wreathed in old record crackle and pop. This is the sort of dark and downer DJ we want spinning records when we go out. But then listening to this stuff we imagine going out to some dark, dank, stone-walled cave-like dive, populated with all manner of shadow figures, everything lit by candlelight and firelight, the threat of violence heavy in the air... This latest mix was presented to us as 'perfect for aQ' and then with the added descriptor 'the most evil and dark mix yet', indeed. Right down to the cover, an upside down, upside down cross (meaning rightside up) superimposed on a proper pentagram, the evil version rotated 180 degrees. And sonically, right out of the gate, some sort of black mass incantation, draped over a murky muted krautrock rhythm, laced with squalls of church organ, swirls of whipping wind, until finally, the beat kicks in, and we're off, wild psychedelic drumming, sampled fist fights, swoonsome woozy basslines, shimmery strings, strange effects and backwards loops, the various records shifting pitch, making everything warbly and trippy, and that's just the first track! And it only gets better from there, long stretches of shimmery star field effects, some super cool rhythms, lots of slinky slithery grooves, bleating horns, field recordings, soulful vox, plenty of low slung slo-mo grooves, some killer mash ups of blackened creep and sweet soul, but also some full on horror movie soundtrack music, and so it goes slipping easily from bass heavy thrum to blissed out ethereal drift, psychedelic spaced out chaos to brooding cinematic swirl, all seemingly underpinned by a haunting sinister vibe, sometimes it's thick undulating bass buzz, othertimes it's less the sound and more just the arrangement, DJ FCS deftly conjuring up some serious audial evil. Awesome.

MPEG stream: Benedictus Satanas
MPEG stream: Endful Summer
MPEG stream: Dante's Towering Inferno

Our favorite Female Convict Scorpion DJ returns. Ok, he's very likely the ONLY Female Convict Scorpion DJ, and to most he's known simply as Josh Pollock, of local space rockers 3 Leafs (among many other projects), and he's not so much a DJ, as he is a twisted musical mad scientist, with a killer record collection, and a ridiculous knack for assembling disparate bits of those records into, well, into whatever this stuff is. Imagine a more experimental, less hip hop DJ Shadow, with the most unlikely parts of other songs re-appropriated and recontextualized. It's not so much about 'name the sample', which is good cuz odds are you couldn't possibly, it's more about letting yourself get lost in DJFCS's way out WTF soundworld, which gleefully flits from creepy cult like incantations, to cosmic psych funk, woozy, cinematic ambience to FX flecked tribal exotica, freaky free jazz, to crooned, downer doom. One of the best tracks fuses a cappella folk vox to some seriously sinister Carpenter-ish synthiness, sounding like the Incredible String Band scoring Logan's Run or Pentangle covering the soundtrack to Phantasm. Needless to say, like all the other DJ Female Convict Scorpion releases, this one too, is totally essential. And we may have wondered this before, but really, how is this shit still so under the radar?? Turntablists, avant music nerds, sample slingers and sound artists / experimental composers should definitely be bowing down before the 'Scorpion. Easily one of the best "DJ's" out there, and one who should be doing this stuff on a much larger scale...

MPEG stream: Gemnius
MPEG stream: Antipater
MPEG stream: From Ogre Battle One

Record number three, and the first actual lp release, from this local turntablist / mixologist / soundsculptor, who some of you may know as a member of various local rock units Three Leafs, Citay, the Auricle and others but as DJ Female Convict Scorpion, this mystery man weaves a sprawling web of sound, that is probably more aQ worthy than most DJ's we can think of, krautrock, to funk, to soundtrack, to psych rock, to space rock to drone, manipulated lps, but also effects and various insturments, a dizzying sonic overload, skittery rhythms, soulful horns, mysterious disembodied voices, lots of turntable warble, dragged vinyl rumble, spaced out reverby shimmer, pusling new age drift, skeletal grooves wrapped around glistening barely there melodies, warped old jazz records, plenty of crackle and pop, backwards beats, field recordings, haunting cinematic ambience gives way to electronic squiggle which in turn gives way to clattery free rock stumble, subsumed by a thick swell of speaker rattling low end rumble, detuned guitar, purloined preacher ranting, big pounding drums, free jazz skronk. Fluttery flutes flit over a field of hum and shimmer, pepperd with electronic glitches and distorted intercepted boradcasts, mournful folk draped over, thick crunch and thrum, slowly melting into a sprawl of hushed blackened buzz, which dissipates leaving a funky drummer groove, which finally peters out into a barren expanse of twisted squelch and distant twang, more displaced voices, wrapped in an undulating slab of distorted bass throb, a twisted woozy rhythm, that drones on and on beneath swirling FX, Eastern percussive skitter, warbly horns, a washed out laid back coda to a long strange sonic trip. Cool packaging too, each lp housed in it's own hand made duct taped sleeve, created from recycled zombie movie soundtracks!

MPEG stream: 1
MPEG stream: 2
MPEG stream: 3

The latest tripped out DJ mix from DJ Female Convict Scorpion aka Josh Pollack from local psychedelic space rockers 3 Leafs, and like the three before it, on Wizards (named for the genius Ralph Bakshi movie, and featuring a drawing of the movie poster done by a young Josh way back when), Pollack once again displays not just a knack for digging up insanely obscure jams, but for weaving disparate sounds together into utterly unrecognizable but totally mesmerizing sonic tableaus. Just check out the opener, "5 Terrorists", which drapes some strange buzzing percussive Asian stringed instrument, some fluttering flute, and some echo drenched vocals, over some spaced out progged out jamming, pretty impossible to tell which parts Pollack mixed, and how much of the song was already the song, which again is the magic of these DJFCS mixes, and when that first track gradually switches gears, and disappears in a field of ominous buzz, and seems to transform into a drum heavy krautprog groove, it KILLS. And so it goes, low slung slithery funk, strange movie samples, spaced out psychedelia, stuttery old school hip hop, DJ Shadow like moodiness, primitive (but effective turntable manipulation, again hard to say which is part of the music and which is Pollack), strange crooning, weird psych folk, draped over thick sinister chordal swell, shimmery dreamlike ambience drifting into fierce driving fuzzfunk, all manner of backward swoops and swirls, moaning strings, disembodied voices, glistening strings, some of the combinations more moving and intense than the originals, lots of a capellas wedded to unlikely instrumental accompaniment, everything wreathed in echo and reverb and loads of warm record crackle, and just some downright bad ass jams and grooves, not to mention the easy listening Sabbath that finishes things off. Essential listening. And most definitely the DJ you want at your wedding, assuming your goal is to alienate or downright freak out 90 percent of the guests. But that other ten percent, including us (we're invited, right?), will be in whatthefuck weirdo music HEAVEN!

MPEG stream: 5 Terrorists
MPEG stream: Righteousness Prevails (White Sabbath)
MPEG stream: You Know Nothing, In Fact You Know Less Than Nothing
MPEG stream: Necron 99

While ostensibly a black metal band, the UK's Fen, are so much more than that. In fact, take away the vocals, and in a blind taste test we would have been hard pressed to describe them as black metal at all. The sound is all loping rhythms, soaring chords, the sound majestic and epic, minor key and mathy. The first track sounds more like Isis or Pelican than it does Darkthrone or Deathspell. Well, actually, it does remind us a bit of Deathspell's most postrock moment, the genius Kenose. The band are described as 'atmospheric black metal / post rock' which would be a tad more accurate if you swapped the two descriptors. Even the riffs sound more like something off a Polvo or Pitchblende record, which is not a bad thing at all. In fact, we're a little bit obsessed with Fen. Another band whose sound is one we had always sort of wished for. Nineties math rock black metal! It's really uncanny listening to these three songs how often our ears catch a little Archers Of Loaf or Rodan or Don Cab or Bitch Magnet. And the thing is, the sound may be a bit heavier and more distorted, it's really only the vocals that turn this into black metal. If Fen were an instrumental band, they wouldn't sound all that out of place on Touch And Go. But they are heavy, and they are a bit black, and as if to prove it, the closer is the heaviest, and the least overtly mathy of the bunch. A plodding churning doomy chunk of loping blackened crush. And near the end of the 12+ minute track, the band even actually explode for the very first time into a furious blast beat, and finish off the track thrashing blackly, but even that brief burst is not enough to hide their true sonic soul, the whole track is rife with mathiness, with soaring majestic post rock-ness, just wrapped in a bit of blackness. None of this is meant to sound apologetic, not in the least, this is absolutely one of our favorite new records, metal, mathy or otherwise. We just wanted to give fair warning to the troo grim hordes out there, who might have been put off a bit by the dearth of true blackness. But for the rest of you, this comes highly recommended. If you ever dreamed about a black metal Polvo (and who didn't) or wished Deathspell had continued on their more post rock path, or if you just can't get enough of that metallic post rock, and maybe wouldn't mind if it sometimes got a bit blacker, well then this is definitely for you...

MPEG stream: Desolation Embraced
MPEG stream: The Gales Scream Of Loss

First proper full length from these UK black metallers, who we once described as a black metal Polvo! There are definitely still hints of that here, but the metal this time around is also more furious. With the ep, we stressed that maybe troo grim metalheads might not find a lot to like, as much of that record sounded more like Pelican or Isis than Darkthrone or Deathspell, and even here, the first track begins with some post rocky clean guitar, but almost immediately launches into a seriously blown out squall of blasting buzz. But then a few seconds later, the band slip back into that loping post rock, only to again, explode into epic blackness. The track flits back and forth, and part way through there's even some Katatonia like clean vocals, which adds a definite pop element, and hints at what's to come. So, it's at once heavier and more black than the ep, but still manages to incorporate plenty of post rock rhythms and math rock arrangements, which basically makes this a massive favorite around here, but also means this is probably not black or brootal enough for some metalheads. And since the opening track might just be the heaviest of the bunch, barring brief bursts here and there, this is the perfect record for the aQ metalhead, who when not enjoying true grimness, likes their black metal fucked up or freaked out or all shoegazey or all post rocky, which means odds are you'll dig this like crazy. Much of the record follows the same pattern as the opener, long loping instrumental passages with simple drumming and clean crystalline guitars, peppered with bursts of frenetic riffing and wild blasting beats, but there's also plenty of strange haunting folkiness, bits of rainy day sad boy indie jangle, subtly complex math rock rhythms, all perfectly blended with chunks of intense riffery and buzzing black metal fury. And the thing is, the metal this time around IS way more furious, if you stripped out all the clean guitars and croony vocals, this would be some seriously paint peeling blackness, but those parts sound even MORE aggressive and heavy when butted up to some shimmery drift, or some jangly poppiness. The closer is the other heavyweight here, nearly 12 minutes of roiling ultra heavy black metal, intense and frenzied, but still with plenty of loping midtempo grooves, occasional doom-ed out interludes, a brief flutteryfolky break, and a minor key string-ed outro, that manages to be super dramatic, and the perfect way for this strangely varied and super kick ass record to wind down. Packaged in a super striking 8 panel digipak, and damn if Fen don't have one of the coolest logos...

MPEG stream: Exile's Journey
MPEG stream: A Witness To The Passing Of Aeons
MPEG stream: Colossal Voids

Fenn O'Berg is the on-again / off-again collaborative project between Christian Fennesz, Jim O'Rourke, and Peter Rehberg, who had made their last splash into the realm of glitched-out electronics back in 2002. All three of these artists have involved themselves in various laptop improvisational ensembles with sporadic success (certainly nothing as wondrous as their individual solo recordings), and the previous two Fenn'O'Berg albums were simply spliced collages of live presentations. In Stereo was recorded in Japan over a couple weeks, entirely in the studio. There's a bit more of a structured sentiment emerging from the perpetual motion of digital effects and obliterated samples, setting it apart from the earlier albums. There's plenty of Rehberg's wracked digitality, splattered through ring-modulated, time-stretched deconstructions and digital cluster bombs of pixilation; there's episodes of those amniotic, post-guitar washes that Fennesz has gracefully produced for years; and Jim O'Rourke ever the chameleon fits his multi-tasking production well within the poles of his collaborators. Amidst the pantheon of digital effects, the trio are not averse to working in analog tones, repetitions, and sweeps. The fourth track on the album (titled "Part I") begins with an interesting set of cylon drones before the trio unleashes a percussive frenzy of glistening piano and tumbling drums that could almost have come from an Alice Coltrane composition. Outside of this expressive outburst, In Stereo for the most part comes across as something of a kosmiche-digital-psychedelic hybrid that might fit between Klaus Schulze and Oval. NB: The vinyl is out of print on this release (oh so quick!), but we might have one or two copies kicking around. Just ask, you might get lucky!

MPEG stream: Part III
MPEG stream: Part V
MPEG stream: Part I

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.

[ aquarius records catalogue — F ]