[ aquarius records catalogue

IMPORTANT (Please read to avoid confusion): Some items below may be tagged with a bold, red, all-caps OUT OF PRINT/UNAVAILABLE notice. This does NOT mean that all other items not so tagged are, in fact, in stock — or for that matter, in print and available, though there's a good chance they are. Some folks get confused on this point, and we can see why, so please read this for further clarification and other important before-you-order information. Unlike some mailorder websites, we don't have an electronic inventory system linked to our site, so you can't be sure of what we actually have or don't have in stock at any given moment without asking us — please email our mailorder department for availability status — or better yet, just go ahead and place your order using our shopping cart function and we'll get back to you with the status of each item. If you have general non-mailorder questions, email the store.

Showing results 651 through 700 of 1631.

MPEG stream: Counterweight
MPEG stream: Tresspassing The Shores Of Your World

The Last Heaven Shall Burn record was one of my favorites of last year. A metalcore band that wasn't just a bunch of punk kids trying to play metal, they kicked out the metal jams better than most 'actual' metal bands. And we wouldn't have known about them Totally essential.

RealAudio clip: Behind A Wall Of Silence
RealAudio clip: The Worlds in Me
RealAudio clip: The Martyrs Blood

The sweetest of Scottish melodic confections. Amelia Fletcher and her bunch of like-minded sugar popsters offer up this ten song collection highlighted by the tune "C Is The Heavenly Option" which features a guest appearance by Beat Happening / Dub Narcotic / K Records commander Calvin Johnson. Amelia's voice flits and flutters above Calvin's deeeep monotone. For fans of the Softies, Marine Girls, and the like.

The final release from this group of Scottish sweetie-tarts lead by the cuter-than-cute Amelia Fletcher. More twee than you might be able to handle, but if you do have a super strength sweet tooth I say "Go for it!"

Following the sad demise of Tallulah Gosh and prior to forming Marine Research, perpetual girlie girl Amelia Fletcher and company were known as Heavenly, and y'know, they certainly were just that. This is a re-issue of the long out of print debut mini-album

RealAudio clip: Cool Guitar Boy
RealAudio clip: Our Love Is Heavenly

Single number two from this Beach Fossils side project, and it definitely takes up where the first one left off, jangly, handclappy, eighties dreampop, still reminding us of the Style Council, acoustic guitars, soaring strings, hazy twee vox, low slung new wave bassline, all echoey and softly reverbed, with a cool production and some interesting production tricks this time around, mostly some subtle dubbing out of the vocals. The flipside offers up more of the same, super stripped down minimal pop, but here the strings are allowed to soar, while the verses are even more hushed and subdued, lovely and lush, summery sunshiney eighties retro pop, that we're finding surprisingly addictive!

MPEG stream: Presence

Latest from this Beach Fossils side project, and another dreamy disc of eighties style new wave poppiness. And if the last few Heavenly Beat records were twee and precious, this new one might be the most yet, twee and precious that is. The opener "Lust" pretty much sets the template, all hushed wistful sad boy vox, chiming crystalline guitars, swirling ethereal synths, skittery programmed drums, all blurred into a sort of gauzey new wave jangle pop, that sounds like it could / should / would have been on Sarah or Postcard or one of those labels back in the day. We always seemed to mention the Style Council in our reviews of other Heavenly Beat records, but this time, the sound is even more delicate and soft focus, thinking that more apt comparisons might be Orange Juice, the Fire Engine, the Field Mice and the like. Really, this stuff sound so genuinely of that era, that we would have easily believed that this was in reality a long lost rarity, reissued from some super obscure Scottish twee pop band from back in the day. Which, if that's your cup of tea, makes this a seriously sweet slab of ultra-twee, new wave-y jangle pop dreaminess.

MPEG stream: Lust
MPEG stream: Messiah
MPEG stream: Faithless

A new 7"s from this Beach Fossils offshoot, and while HB traffic in that same sort of soft focus dreamy pop sound, the arrangement is much more spare and skeletal, infused with a wee bit of rhythmic skitter, a little new wave shimmer. On the A side, "Suday", that shift is almost imperceptible, it could very well be a Beach Fossils track proper, all spidery reverby guitar lines, swirling ethereal background vocals, the result sweetly melancholy and totally dream poppy. The B side, though, starts off similarly with a sort of hushed breathless retro pop (reminding us quite a bit of the Style Council in fact), but at the end of the track introduces a propulsive electronic beat, that definitely changes the vibe, and hints at something a bit more gothy and dramatic. Fans of all that retro gloom pop and new wave will dig big time. As well as folks who like their pop on the twee side...

Finally, the full length debut from this Beach Fossils side project, and it absolutely fulfills the promise of the preceding singles. It's all achingly lovely wistful softly shoegazey eighties beholden dream pop, all breathless vox, shimmery crystalline guitars, warm woozy melodies, programmed rhythms, swirling atmospheres, like a less bombastic M83. Heavenly Beat have conjured up a strangely abstract bit of eighties style pop, that deftly balances sweetly twee popsmithery with an experimental streak that can't be denied, with most of the songs taking all sorts of twists and turns, from swoonsome swirling strings, to spare abstract breakdowns, haunting processed vox, psychedelically stereo panned sounds that drift from ear to ear and speaker to speaker, bits of jangle guitar, low slung gloom pop basslines, soaring choruses. The A side from the most recent single shows up, all jangly hand clappy eighties dream pop, still very much reminding us of the Style Council, with acoustic guitars, soaring strings, dreamlike melodies, more twee vox. And while that track might be the most immediately poppy of the bunch, the whole record is brimming with unlikely poppiness, the band deftly weaving together distinctly UN-pop components into impossibly hook filled pop, shimmery and softly shoegazey, skittery and subtly new wave, the sound super dynamic, lush and lovely, and really quite weird, especially for a pop group, which is precisely what's making us dig this record so much. We have to say, of the current crop of retro-pop new wave twee poppers, Heavenly Beat is fast becoming our favorite.

MPEG stream: Lust
MPEG stream: Messiah
MPEG stream: Faithless
MPEG stream: Tolerance

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

SORRY.

For some people, J Mascis' distinctive vocal whine was a make or break element in their appreciation of Dinosaur Jr. But Mascis had more to offer than his peculiar and to us, quite endearing vocal style. He's also a serious shredder, as fans of Dinosaur Jr. no doubt appreciate. Yes, Masics is a master axeman, which brings us to Heavy Blanket. An all instrumental heavy psychedelic blooze trio, with Mascis on guitar. And while these songs are fairly sonically dissimilar to Dinosaur Jr, they do offer Mascis the opportunity to let loose, and he does, six songs, 37 minutes of full on heavy psych jams, no vocals, the rhythm section tight and not flashy, but a little shredding in their own right, locked tight into dense hypnotic grooves, which seem to be made with the express intent of letting Mascis go nuts. Fans of the endless shredding of Earthless will find much to love here, i.e. more endless shredding. And yeah, you really have to be into the sort of heart of the sun, blown out, druggy psych blowouts to get into Heavy Blanket, but then that probably describes a whole lot of you. And, fans of all that psychedelic space rock like White Hills, The Heads, Mugstar and all the rest, who just want to dispense with all the 'songs' and 'songwriting' and 'arrangements', and just get right to the endless shredding, then this is for you too, with much of this falling squarely in that sort of Hawkwindy psych-rock, droned out druggy psychedelic jam freakout zone, loping, and hypnotic, and the sort of jams, that while not technically or literally endless, sure as shit could be. Absolute space-psych-shred bliss. Thus obviously WAY recommended. (Vinyl version expected in June.)

MPEG stream: Galloping Toward The Unknown
MPEG stream: No Telling No Trails

Here's another group you can add to the current pantheon of warped, lysergic, fractured WTF outsider pop songsmiths. John Maus, Ariel Pink, James Ferraro, Gary War, please welcome Heavy Hawaii, whose sound is hazy and softly psychedelic, a little bit tropical, a little bit dream poppy, a little surfy, but a LOT twisted up and tweaked. Even at its prettiest, it sounds like the vinyl is melting while it's spinning on your turntable, your turntable which suddenly seems to have a faulty pitch control. Just give a listen to the opener, which sounds like some lost Beach Boys B-side, covered by Ariel Pink, and played back on a Fischer-Price turntable, plugged into your Walkman, you know the one with dying batteries. Detuned guitars, loping, lumbering beats, chiming melodies, woozy textures, buried loops and samples, all deftly woven into some seriously swirly sunshiney avant pop weirdness, the vocals get pitched down on a bunch of the tracks, and those might be our favorites, the vocalist transformed into some alternate universe alien crooner, belting it out over slipper squiggly melodies, distorted drumming, and warbly atonal melodies, not to mention swirls and squalls of soft noise, the songs occasionally locking into tranced out loops, other times breaking down into woozy sprawls of falling to pieces hypno-rock mesmer. Some of the tracks sound like they were recorded in a crazy karaoke dive bar, others are surprisingly hi-fi, but sound like they were recorded by someone who had no idea how to work a studio, and just twirled knobs and slid faders up and down. Dizzyingly tripped out, fantastically prismatically hooky, fuzzy, and gauzey and very very druggy and dreamy. And yet for all of its demented damage, and seemingly haphazard ramshackleness, the sound is so luch and full and layered, sounds careening everywhere, hidden melodies surfacing and then slipping back into the shadows, lots of noises transformed into rhythms, voices doused in effects and sent spinning into fields of fuzz and shimmer. Sure it's damaged and supremely fucked up, but it's also inspired, and total classic pop given a botched sonic lobotomy, and transformed into utterly divine, and impossible to resist ear candy, obviously the work of a genius. Or a madman. Probably both! Easily our new favorite WTF lo-fi weirdo pop record!!!

MPEG stream: Washing Machine
MPEG stream: Tijuana Teal
MPEG stream: Fuck You I'm Moving To San Francisco

We flipped for Heavy Times' 2011 full length Jacker, a killer collection of scuzzy, fuzzed out, jangly, noisy garage pop that somehow combined elements of the Pixies, the Ramones, and the Misfits with the current crop of garage rockers (Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, Mikal Cronin, etc.), and this time around we're hearing much of the same but somehow, the sound now is even catchier, without losing any of the grit and lo-fi grime of Jacker, just check out "Might Not", which as one of those main riffs/melodies, that pretty much seals the deal a matter of seconds into the song. Then there's the vox, which remind us a LOT of the the Grave Babies, a little bit gloomy, multi-tracked, more shouted than sung, but when paired with THAT melody, pretty tough to beat. And another one of those cases, that for a while ALL we wanted to listen to was that one song. So it took us a while to get any deeper than track two, but once we did, we discovered that there was most definitely more where that came from, from the gloomy, chuggy garage of "Night Looks", with its murky jangle, and a chorus that sounds like it could have been plucked from an alternate universe John Hughes movie, or "I'm Single" a frantic punk pop blowout that features a cool modulated melody, and more super catchy buzzing guitar, or the super brief and super punky "Future Creeps" that pairs a pounding punky verse with a weirdly twang flecked catchy noisepop chorus, or the strummy Summery garage poppy "American Love", and it goes on and on. Hozac has been on a roll lately (see elsewhere on this week's list for our review of the Shocked Minds, also on the label) and so has Heavy Times, we've been listening to this new one nonstop, and are maybe digging it even more than Jacker... now we're just hoping someone will finally reissue the first Heavy Times record, Dead. Hozac, we're looking at you!

MPEG stream: Ouija Board
MPEG stream: Might Not
MPEG stream: Night Looks
MPEG stream: Denim Girls

We had never heard (of!) these Chicago noise poppers before, but heck, their new record is on Hozac, home to the Wax Idols (reviewed elsewhere on this week's list), as well as Black Bug, Fungi Girls, Puffy Areolas, Smith Westerns, Woven Bones, Super Wild Horses and loads more, so we had good reason to expect this might be right up our alley, and guess what? It most definitely is, fuzzed out jagged guitar noise pop, equal parts classic Pixies style pop and new fangled lo-fi scuzz pop garage rock, the guitar slipping from chiming and melodic to raw and crunchy, the vocals also melodic but still rough and raw, with some crazy killer hooks, just check out the opener "Motionless Drift", 100 seconds of buzz and jangle that you won't be able to get out of your head. But then there's tracks like "Future City", which is all synthy and fuzzy, and a little bit eighties new wave pop, but revved up a bit, and transformed into something just a bit noise poppier. The title track is a minute long blast of twang flecked fuzz pop bliss, with some super hooky guitar melodies and a sing-along chorus to die for. There's definitely a Ramones vibe too, maybe some Misfits too, and a gloomy vibe that has us thinking the Wipers, and Crystal Stilts, many of the songs barely cracking the minute mark, most not making it to two, which is plenty of time for these guys to pound and buzz and howl their hearts out, a heady hybrid of post punk, gloom pop and punk rock, that any fans of the above mentioned groups will most likely flip for. Definite contender for pop record of the year, another record we want to keep listening to instead of all the other things we're supposed to be reviewing.

MPEG stream: Motionless Drift
MPEG stream: Future City
MPEG stream: Jacker

Another one of the world's most amazing bands that somehow always seems to be overlooked and underappreciated. A complete collection of 28 songs from singles, compilation tracks, unreleased songs and studio embarassments, most clocking-in at about a minute and a half. Each contain unbelievable harmonies, ridiculous time-changes, baffling musical prowess, stupidly profound lyrics and head-splitting pop hooks.

Heavy Winged were in town a few weeks back, and let us have a bunch of this tour only cd-r, limited to just 50 copies, and thus, we assume, already well out print.� Like the rest of their discs, a seriously frenzied chunk of repetitive psych groove blowout. The drums and bass locked tight, looped and cyclical, pounding out fiercely hypnotic jams, while the guitar, just wigs out, soaring and squealing, and grinding and chugging, spitting out squalls of glittering high end, and unfurling churning downtuned riffage, tightly wound for sure, but also loose as hell, the rhythm section solid as shit, letting the guitar go apeshit, and go apeshit it does. This seems to be a whole live set. The opener is as described above, while the second track begins all moody and meandering, with the guitar slipping and sliding over a lazy strummed bass and a a smattering of cymbals, it does get heavier, but much more drone-y and almost dreamy. The final track is a serious blow out, the drums tribal and frenetic, the bass a super distorted throb, the guitar offering up mostly streaks of feedback, eventually launching into some high end buzz and spray, while the drums pound relentlessly, the whole thing eventually crumbling to pieces.� These guys kick so much ass, especially live, so for a handful of you, here's a chance to hear what all the fuzz is about.� LIMITED TO 50 COPIES. And already out of print.

MPEG stream: A Blanket Of Ash

Latest from this Brooklyn trio (at least they were Brooklyn based last time we checked, they may be spread out all over the country these days, but at least one of em is still in Brooklyn!) and while they still wield some serious psychedelic heaviness, they've also gotten seriously melodic. The first of two sidelong tracks on this new lp is wrapped around a main riff and looped rhythm, that is crazy catchy in addition to being blissfully blown out and weirdly hypnotic. The trio lock into this relentlessly staccato groove, a sort of machinelike groove, super repetitive and robotic, the group pounding away, while the guitar slowly builds momentum, the sheets of high end and the streaks of feedback and wall of buzz lifting ever higher, a slow burning ascendancy, it almost sounds like some scientist took a lost Fushitsusha jam and slowed it down, it the lab, to examine it more closely, like some Discovery documentary featuring a time lapse film of a 'psych jam' captured in the wild. Until finally the main chugging rhythm drops out, the whole track becoming more and more stripped down, the drums skittering away, while some tangled buzz continues to twist and contort, into various permutations, the drums remaining the only constant, the guitar offering up strange and gloriously gnarled melodies, and the bass just buzzes and rumbles heavily. Right at the end it gets super spacious and pretty, but still without losing any momentum or lysergic energy. The flipside is another grinding buzzy psychjam, one set of strings oscillating intensely in the low end, chugging and churning, the other locking into a woozy looped riff, all draped over another blown out motorik groove, that sounds like a more loose extension of the main A side rhythm. The track has plenty of twists and turns, eventually getting all mathy and metal in the middle, the main riff becoming super spidery, the drums going spastic and free, but still all settled on a thick bed of grinding mesmerizing buzz, finishing off with a burst of resplendent epic majesty, gradually slowing down to a weird warped outro, of lurching, skittery downtuned riffs and haunting disembodied metallic buzz, weaving back and forth and finally leaving a washed out sun baked glow to fade out quietly. The cool thing with Three Lobed releases, is that not only do you get the lp, gorgeously packaged and pressed as always, but you also get the same songs pressed on an actual cd. Including a 17 minute bonus track only on the cd. Another weirdly looped slow motion psychedelic workout, this one even more slow and bleary than the lp sides. The drums setting the skeletal framework, locked into another mesmerizing complex loop, around which thick effected buzz, scrapes and chugs and whirls fall into step, establishing another kick as motorik groove that could go on forever as far as we're concerned, and in terms of the track, actually does, while the guitar here soars weightless high above, sounding all angelic and sun dappled, almost like a wailing voice, spread out in glistening streaks over that awesomely relentless chnnk� chnnk chnnk chnnk, below, so kick ass, weirdly minimal but still so heavy and psychedelically resplendent, eventually slowing down to a lysergic, buzz drenched crawl, before finishing off in a blinding chaotic crush of blinding high end, squiggly freaked out FX and chaotic drum crush. Gorgeous black and white packaging, with a super tripped out, crazy intricate pen and ink cover image, thick sleeve, pressed on thick vinyl, with a real cd not a cd-r, and crazy limited as always, only 647 copies, each one hand numbered, we got a bunch from the band when they were here on tour last week, so not sure we'll be able to get more once these are gone...

MPEG stream: Gruesome Pillow Talk

If there was an heir to whatever throne Japanese psych rockers High Rise occupy, probably one made out of Marshall amps and broken guitars and piled sky high, it would be US power trio Heavy Winged, whose mangled blown out take on wild eyed psych and throbbing proto metal, gets filtered though the modern avantnoise aesthetic and comes out a gloriously garbled white hot blast of propulsive grinding freaked out throb.� Half the time the band are so supercharged, it's almost impossible to hear what the heck is going on, it's like sticking your head inside a particle accelerator, just a face melting ear shredding cloud of chaotic skree (and we won't even begin to guess how the fuck they get such a brutally beautiful guitar sound), but here and there, the band slow things down, and lumber Harvey Milk style, all stumbling low end and slowed down riffage, into a corrosive landscape of sonic wreckage and swirling fuzz and hiss, usually only to explode moments later into a black spray of deconstructed buzz drenched,� art rock damage. Phew.� Blacc Lust collects two insanely limited out of print cd-r's, just about an hour glorious soul crushing sound, which is just about an hour more than most mere mortals can handle. Fucking awesome! Packaged in a cool, origami like folded cardstock sleeve, printed in black inside and out, LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, each one numbered, and seemingly already out of print, so these will probably be the only copies we'll ever be able to get...

MPEG stream: Crimson
MPEG stream: In Bloum

We talk about records being heavy, and blown out, and in the red, and super distorted, and being the sort of weird music freaks we are, we're constantly on the hunt for that one record that trumps all others and out heavies and out distorts them all. THE most distorted and THE most blown out and THE HEAVIEST. And every once in a while, a new record does come along, and climbs atop the pile of bloodied and bruised bodies that made up the previous heaviest most distorted bands, and stand tall, prepared to defend the crown with axes held high and an avalanche of drums ready to drop like a ton of bricks on all comers. We'd be hard pressed to find another band that more deserves to sit atop that pile, at least for a while, than bicoastal masters of the psychmetal blowout, Heavy Winged. Now based both in Portland and Brooklyn, these guys just keep getting heavier and heavier, more and more intense and fucked up sounding. We went nuts for their recent Blacc Lust record, but if anything Feel Inside is even better. They are not metal, so comparisons to groups like SUNNO))) and the like would mean nothing. Heavy Winged are basically a psychedelic rock band, who for whatever reason, decided being loud just wasn't enough, and being distorted wasn't enough, and writing songs wasn't enough, so the band gradually transformed into some insane psychedelic noise rock behemoth, creating 10, 20, even 30 minutes soundscapes of repetitive pummel, drums pounding relentlessly, the guitars spewing white hot psych, a gorgeously hypnotic heavy heavy heavy crush. If you can imagine Les Rallizes Denudes and White Heaven crossed with Circle and Can, but mixed by Wolf Eyes and Merzbow, you wouldn't even be close. The three tracks here begin white hot and only get hotter, sometimes locking into a groove, but more often then not, burying the groove under blistering squalls of feedback and crumbling distortion, the drums played with baseball bats instead of sticks, the whole band shoved down a mile long flight of stairs, deftly turning their chaotic tumble into some sort of psychedelic rock, but the sort of psychrock that has about as much in common with psych than it does with rock. This is freaked out, spaced out, ultra damaged, utterly gorgeous, ear drum destroying, face melting free psych heaviness. The final track is the standout here, letting lots of space in, the drums doing some complicated dance in an epic expanse of sizzling feedback, and white hot streaks of guitar skree, damaged effects squiggle wildly, chunks of riffs fly off in all directions only to be swallowed by clouds of buzz and rrrooooaaar, there's even the occasional gorgeous warm chordal swells and creepy melodies, but it's the drums driving instead of the guitar, the whole thing surprisingly pretty and melancholy, although you have to brave a mile of prickly fuzz and explosive amp punishment to get there, but then the journey is always the best part... Another gorgeously and extravagantly packaged release from aRCHIVE, this one comes in a six panel gatefold, decorated with angular designs in shades of black and brown and white, but that six panel gatefold is housed in another 6 panel gatefold, that one printed on vellum, so the various designs mesh into something completely new, the cd affixed to a nub on the middle panel of the inside gatefold. LIMITED TO 600 COPIES. We probably will NOT be able to get more once these are gone...

MPEG stream: The Frozen Darkness
MPEG stream: The Tangled White

Dronepsych trio Heavy Winged are definitely HEAVY, and have been getting moreso with every release, consistently unleashing thick blackened sprawls of psychedelic dronerock, churning guitars, and pounding tribal drumming, all wound into extended heart of a black sun freakouts / blowouts that manages to be textural and hypnotic while still being weirdly free and abstract, slipping from riffy crunch to total balls out free form heaviness. These two new tracks find these guys pushing it about as far as it can go, ditching conventional song structure almost entirely (not that they were ever THAT songy to begin with), the A-side is all "Among The Maeori" and sounds like a supercharged, less pop Dead C, the drums a continuous anti-rhythm, almost more textural than rhythmic, while the guitars do very unguitar like things, weaving thick undulating layers of woozy drone, laced with soaring distant high end tones, the whole track seeming to pulse and throb, eventually those high end tones, leads perhaps, are transformed into dense atonal tangles, while the drums explode in a frenzy of freaked out tribal pound, up until that point everything was tight and muted and muffled but at this point the track explodes and the band stumbled into some lumbering avant doom, super in-the-red, like some space rock jam slowed way down and wreathed in buzz and skree and crunch, some seriously supreme heaviness. The B-side, "The Hum Of The Universe", begins with a huge downtuned crash, only to fade out, leaving a strange haunting buzz (either bowed bass or viola), until the band begins a super spare, spacious doomic trudge, the drums MASSIVE, the buzzing drones getting louder and more intense, the background hum and thrum billowing like black sonic smoke, the lurching abstract slowcore doom, not heavy so much as thick and dense, the guitars layered into black hole streaks of pulsing sound, the drums a demonic throb, the various background tendrils, druggy and psychedelic, impossibly heavy and atmospheric at the same time, it's only 17 minutes, but these are the sort of sounds that surround and suffocate, you get lost and emerge on the other side, feeling exhausted and exhilarated, trancelike tripped out psych space doom drone bliss for sure! The first batch of lps include a bonus disc, an actual cd (not a cd-r) called Infinite In Every Direction, which features another nearly 40 minutes of heavy psych jams, recorded live in the studio, the first an extended slab of psychedelic kosmische krautdrone featuring Dave W. from White Hills, the second a full bore heavy rock jam, that is way less doom and atmosphere, and way more crushing, a relentless heavy Hawkwind blackpsych drugrock freakout, that RULES... LIMITED TO 994 COPIES, includes a download coupon, and while they last, the lps are paired with the above mentioned bonus disc (Infinite In Every Direction), which itself is limited to 434 copies, so grab one of these quick!

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

SORRY. SORRY.

Two more sidelong tracks from these masters of metallic psychedelic and blown out krautnoise bliss. And as always it's a glorious earful. The first side starts out all woozy and contemplative, spaced out, but somehow already epic, doused in distortion and feedback, the band build the sound into a dense tangle of muted riffs, murky and washed out, bleary and buzzy, they stretch it out, total trancerock for sure, before eventually blissing out into deep swells of smeared and streaked feedback and warm crystalline shimmer, finally exploding into some full on chaotic supernova psychnoise. But even at it's most freaked out, the sound is still warm and enveloping, all the jagged edges smoothed off, creating a mysterious cloud of sound that manages to be both heavy and intense, laid back and serene. The second side offers up more of the same, but with the introduction of some dizzying machinelike chugging, draped over long strands of drifty cinematic whir, peppered with bits of spare percussive skitter, all very looped and hypnotic and very very krautrocky. Gradually, the sound expands into a fiery ball of chaotic drummage, wild steaks of psychedelic guitar skywriting and a thick, drone-y, sprawling looped churn that unfurls gradually to the end of the side. Impossibly both heavy and dreamlike, as if the band we're playing full bore, amps to 11, but we're listening from the room next door, our ear pressed to the wall, or the sound being projected through loudspeakers inside a massive fogbank. Similar to how Skepticism turned doom into something more murky and choral then downtuned and depressive, Heavy Winged continue to drag their psychedelic krautrock through some underwater otherworld, the result something still psychedelic and heavy, but also truly transcendent. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Pressed on heavy transparent grey vinyl, in super thick full color sleeves.

Yet another blast of blown out psychedelic guitar rock from this East Coast space-psych trio, who in the past have given us extended slabs of doomy heaviness, of kraut flecked psychedelic grooves, of motorik in the red hypnorock, and often some mix of the three, but the opening few minutes of Sunspotted had us thinking the band had abandoned all that, as it's a furious, super rocking, ultra propulsive almost mathy post rock blow out, the drums frantic and frenetic, the guitars chiming and distorted the bass thick and heavy and DENSE, the band flinging themselves headlong into what has to be the most rocking blast of freaked out crunch and soar that we've ever heard from these guys, the sound is epic, lush, so heavy, definitely a step up from past muddier murkier outings, and it suits them, that first blast goes on for ages, and we didn't really want it to ever end. But about 4 minutes in, the song seems to collapse, leaving a wreckage of drum skitter, and atonal guitar strum, not to mention sheets of feedback, the band settle down into a weirdo bit of spare drift, the guitars atonal and angular, the drums splattery and abstract, with weird bursts of electronic crunch, only to finally settle into a weird woozy lumber, the guitars rubbery and all twisted up, the drums a caveman plod, everything still wreathed in sheets of buzz and feedback, the doom eventually dissipating, leaving a sky full of tangled high end guitar skree, peppered with chiming guitar chords, and spare drum crashes, growing more and more abstract, before fading out completely. Holy shit! So free and loose and wild, but still so tight and composed sounding, easily the coolest stuff we've heard from these guys, and hell, we're only halfway through. The second track is even longer (clocking in at close to 25 minutes), and begins with less of a bang, but it doesn't take these guys long to get things going, with some crumbling distortion, some throbbing downtuned riffage, some churning low end crush, a whirling, swirling dronescape of roiling dirge-y guitar rumble, which after close to 10 minutes gives way to some squealing feedback drenched dirgery, the band pounding, and lumbering, a weird sort of spaced out Sunroof!-y almost doom, that grows gradually more blissed out and hypnotic, while remaining super abstract and drifty, the band slip into a strange meandery lope, the guitars shimmery and layered and washed out and sort of dreamy, the drums laid back and loose, the sound hazy and hypnotic, never coalescing into anything rocking, instead, playing out like more of a decompressing wind down from the first track, gorgeously minimal, and understated, textural and surprisingly lovely.

MPEG stream: Breathe Life
MPEG stream: Vapor Trails

The interesting thing about the cd-r underground, is that very few of the artists are actual bands. There is drone, and dreamy folk, electronic experimentation, collectives who together create folky drones, solo guitar, huge blasts of sludgy dirge, but rare is the actual band, a bunch of folks in a studio with guitars and drums and whatever else. Sure, the cd-r is perfect for the bedroom composer and home based experimentalist, but c'mon, cd-r's are the perfect way to discover some fucked up band who never plays out of their home town, or to take an inexpensive chance on some group that may or may not be cool. Well, one BAND who have existed pretty much exclusively in the world of limited cd-r releases, is NYC's Heavy Winged, a psych rock space noise duo, who whip up a pretty serious squall of blown out guitarnoise and spastic drum sputter. Take all the noisiest parts of the Dead C, Hawkwind, Loop, Spacemen 3, My Bloody Valentine, White Hills, Burnt Hills, and any other spaced out drug crazed combo you can think of, run those through about a million distortion pedals, record it onto a busted 4 track and you've got Heavy Winged. Originally released as a super limited (20 copies) release for Terrastock, Taking The Veil is two half hour tracks of wild and wooly, blown out, noise drenched space rock. A murky spastic sprawl, that pulses like Hawkwind on a busted car stereo with the bass all the way up and the treble all the way down, before someone flicks a switch and the band LIGHTS UP, suddenly the sound is incandescent, a barrage of psychedelic solar flares, blinding and deafening, the drums a sizzling splattery beast, spraying percussive shards in all directions, the guitar an beast unleashed, whipping from pulsing krauty riffage to exploding sky melting skree, all in the blink of an eye. And that's just the first track. The second track is like the darker dirgier side of the same coin, murky and stumbling through a dense cloud of unhinged psych guitar freakout, and drum-kit-down-the-cellar-stairs percussive punishment. WAY recommended. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!!

MPEG stream: Through The Shimmer

First proper non cd-r full length from these Brooklyn space psych noisemakers (as far as we can tell) and it kills. In past reviews we described Heavy WInged as some blown out super distorted bastardized mix of the Dead C, Loop, Spacemen 3, Hawkwind, My Bloody Valentine, White Hills, Burnt Hills and whatever other freaked out drug drenched psychnoise rockers we could think of, and we're happy to report that very little has changed, the biggest difference, especially with bands like Heavy WInged, is they thrive given enough space, so two tracks, one to a side, and these guys fucking destroy. They're a trio, guitar, bass and drums, but it seems impossible that all of this glorious noise could come from just three people. Both tracks are improvised, but constantly lock into killer grooves, the guitars coalescing into bad ass riffs, the drums switching from splattery chaos to motorik pulse in the blink of an eye, it's pretty amazing. Side one begins all spaced out with layers of drifting guitars, a throbbing low end pulse, and over the top, super processed squiggly leads, draped over a chugging riff, everything all tangled up into a thick wall of fuzzy blown out sound. When the drums finally kick in, they don't so much 'rock' as emulate the guitars, all spastic and splattery and shuffling. But about halfway through, the band settles into a super saturated psychedelic space rock groove, relentless and throbbing, but everything still bathed in a druggy haze of fuzzed out guitarnoise. The second track taking up all of side 2, follows a similar sonic path, but instead of turning into a space rock jam, it becomes more of a midtempo krautrock groove, the drums constant and simple, the bass locked in with the drums, but the guitar all over the place, laying thick sheets of fuzz and skree everywhere, an ear shredding cloud of keening feedback and amp destroying buzz. Super nice thick sleeve, with printed hand numbered insert and sticker on the front, pressed on swirled clear blue vinyl. LIMITED TO 450 COPIES!!

We won't go into too much detail with this one as it was limited to 75 copies of which we got the last 20. Heavy Winged are a NY psychedelic, dronerock combo with lots of buzzing drone guitar, tribal drums, blissed out riffing, think Dead C, recent aQ faves Burnt Hills, Hawkwind, plenty of that Loop/Spacemen 3 droning riffage, lots of My Bloody Valentine shimmer, and plenty of strange and wonderful ambient guitar action, swoops and swoons, buzzing and droning, looping and squealing. Pretty fucking awesome. Limited to 75 copies, each one hand numbered, packaged with a cool little prehistoric looking little plant frond, tied shut with a little piece of twine.

MPEG stream: Concrete Glass
MPEG stream: Death Instinct

Seems like these days, the devastating improv trio Heavy Winged is abandoning their more metal roots, and heading into a more harsh psych realm, not unlike Japanese noise-rockers Mainliner. And here they team up with West-coast, one woman band Inca Ore for two sides of free-psych meltdown. So side A is thick and crushing, mostly weighed down by Heavy Winged's relentless fury. Little glimpses of keyboard haze and distant vocals trail in and out, just in case you forgot Inca Ore was floating somewhere in the sea of chaos. Side B is an actual live recording of the two outfits playing together at the late North Six in Brooklyn. Here's were Inca Ore's vocals are very prominent in a lead singer type of way, sounding like Damo Suzuki possessed by a muppet demon. A blistering, somehow awesome document of what these two psych powerhouses can do as a team, not to be missed by fans of crushing psych bliss or the Not Not Fun label. Dig it, now!

Less a split, than a sort of adjustable collaboration, Monolith: Earth is the first in a series of single sided lps, where two bands are paired together, and each contributes a single mono track, one track stereo left, the other stereo right, so depending on how the listener dials it in, he or she can listen to just one of the bands' tracks, or some easily adjusted blend of the two. Thankfully, the lp comes with a cd featuring stereo version of both the tracks, as well as an extra track or two. For the first volume, the to bands are pretty stellar choices, dreamdrone duo Windy & Carl, and distorto psych rock trio Heavy Winged. For this experiment to really work, without turning into a sonic clusterfuck, one or both of the bands has to be the ambient half, and Windy & Carl are more than happy to take on that role, their track being a slow burning shimmer, all processed and effected guitars, smeared and blurred into long smeary streaks, layered and woven into subtle soft melodies and warm gauzy expanses, there's some buzz buried way down in the mix, but for the most part it's all glorious drone and drift. Heavy Winged take on the other role, which is not that different from their usual sound, super blown out distorted guitars, pounding drums, super lo-fi and high end, the guitars not riffing so much as offering up thick sheets of sound and dense squalls of feedback and psychdrone freakout. Which suits the concept perfectly, as it's basically like two drones wrapped around each other, leaving the drums to meander and skitter and do what they will. Perfectly happy to listen to each track on its own, but they do sound pretty badass together, and the picture disc image spinning round and round is quite mesmerizing. The extra track on the cd is an actual collaboration, or seems to be as far as we can tell, but ends up sounding more like a Heavy Winged track with some extra texture and ambience, as HW's super blown out distorted heaviness overwhelms the Windy & Carl's shimmery sounds, but with the picture disc, you can control the levels, creating quite possibly one of the few instances where Windy & Carl sonically overwhelm Heavy Winged! We only have a dozen of these, the label was sold out, we got all the copies the band had too, so once these are gone, that's probably it...

Amazing live collaboration between Kieran Hebden of Four Tet, and (formerly) frequent collaborator, the late jazz drummer Steve Reid, who were joined by talented Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, the recording/performance taking place just a year before Reid's passing, in 2009 in the foyer of Queen Elizabeth Hall at London's Southbank Centre, as part of the Ornette Coleman curated Meltdown Festival. As documented on this double disc set, the synergy between these three is something to behold, although the track that is worth the price of admission alone, features barely any Gustafsson (if any at all): that's the 17 minute opener "Morning Prayer", which sounds like a more kinetic propulsive Necks, dark and cyclical, droney and psychedelic, mesmerizingly textured, Hebden providing lush textures and dark melodies, over which Reid plays his heart out, subtle and minimal and abstract, yet forceful and intense, it's the sort of transcendental performance that happens rarely, and to actually capture it on tape, is incredible. And listening to it now, it's hard to imagine this being performed live. Totally hypnotic, the sort of sound you don't ever want to end, we've played this track about 20 times since this first came in, and we show no signs of stopping now. But in the interest of reviewing the record as a whole, we'll take a break from repeat listens. The vibe throughout is pretty similar to that opener, with Hebden providing all the low end, as well as all manner of swirling effects, constantly shifting layers, melodies and strange electronic percussion, with Gustafsson adding his own powerful melodies, and we were actually expecting more skronk, but he really plays to his two collaborators, coaxing all sorts of buzzes and drones from his horn, a few of the tracks sound more traditionally jazz, but where these three really shine is where they weave a sort of droned out jazzy minimalism, mirroring that opening track, and letting Reid do his thing, and Reid's drumming here is just so amazing, you could literally strip away everything the other guys are doing and it would still be totally mesmerizing. But as a trio, these guys are powerful and emotional and dynamic and these are definitely some of the coolest jams we've heard, jazz or otherwise. A fantastic and moving swansong for Reid too, and a monument to his emotional innovative drumming and his legacy as a jazz icon. Totally recommended.

MPEG stream: Morning Prayer
MPEG stream: Lyman Place

How cool is Steve Reid! While a lot of free jazz legends rest on their laurels or keep hashing out the same sounds that were once revolutionary but now just sort of sound stale, Reid is committed to staying current and pushing himself in new and different modes of expression, as evidenced here, where he is teamed up with Kieran Hebden (Four Tet) for a really nice collaboration of drums and electronics. A few lists ago you might remember we reviewed Reid's Spirit Walk in which Hebden lent some helping hands in a very minimal way. This release is much more of an equal pairing of their two worlds. Hebden creates tension and and color with his electronics as Reid so skillfully yet freely goes off on his drum kit. Their recent live show in SF was so totally captivating and full of all the right vibrations. Seeing the two of them on stage with a super sweet kind of father / son dynamic was a sight to see for sure. This seems to be the first in what we hope to be many exchange sessions between these two.

MPEG stream: Soul Oscillations
MPEG stream: Morning Prayer

We've been big fans of the previous collaborative efforts between Kieren Hebden (Four Tet) and legendary free jazz drummer Steve Reid, but NYC demonstrates the two truly finding their own pulsating and exciting outer groove. This isn't fusion or jazz, instead it really sounds like two musical innovators reaching out into each other's orbits and succeeding in making something wholly new. NYC was recorded right in the heart of New York City over just a couple days and both the city and the urgency shines through as these tracks play like some amazing version of Liquid Liquid performing live at the Village Vanguard. We almost want to send copies of this to some of our favorite rhythmic and percussion fueled bands like Tussle, Mi Ami, !!!, Lemonade and Trans Am, for a shot of fresh inspiration. Hot off the heels of Hebden's recent collaboration with Sunburned Hand Of The Man and a dazzling stripped down and drugged out Four Tet ep he's really sounding like he's on top of his game lately and Reid keeps proving that getting older has hardly dimmed his soul and passion as his percussive skills have never sounded more alive and full of fire. Highly recommended!

MPEG stream: Lyman Place
MPEG stream: Arrival
MPEG stream: Departure

The third album in the exciting collaboration between electronic wizard Kieren Hebden (Four Tet, Fridge) and free jazz and beyond living legend drummer Steve Reid who over the years has manned the kit for everyone from Sun Ra, James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, Martha & The Vandellas and Fela Kuti. Their first two collaborations together (The Exchange Sessions) were marked with great extended pieces that perfectly blended electronics and free jazz into one seamless whole. Tongues offers a more song based album, with shorter tracks but just as much vibrancy and color, the two of them constantly bouncing sounds and ideas off of each other. These two gifted musicians from two different generations have tapped into something so exciting together. Sure to stand the test of time, Tongues is truly the work of two people dedicated to the endless search for new sounds and free expression. So good!

MPEG stream: The Sun Never Sets
MPEG stream: Our Time

Attention Finnish music freaks, yet another weird and wonderful discovery from our favorite far away sonic Mecca. Colossal is the debut full length (released in 2008) from this Finnish stoner sludge combo, whose sound is gloriously thick and viscous, blown out and blisteringly heavy, a mix of Kyuss-y desert buzz, churning aggro AmRep-y noise rock, Eyehategod slo-mo Sabbathy dooooom and crumbling Torche style distorto pop, all tangled up into a super (subtly) hooky and heavy psychedelic brew. Plenty of stonery swing for sure, so fans of recent aQ faves like Black Pyramid, Orchid, Obrero, Freedom Hawk and all things Meteor City should definitely check this out, but ONLY if they're ready for something WAY more fucked up, sludgey and super distorted, with lots of the songs smoothly segueing from grinding, howling tarpit heaviness to groovy near poppiness, sometimes laced with wild psychedelic leads, wah wah guitars, other times, just utterly filthy and distorted and blackened, the drums bombastic, the arrangements mathy and super dynamic, with the occasional stretch of woozy stripped down slither, and sprawling expanses of detuned ultradoom crawl, but generally spending most of its time in either super sludgey stoner mode, or wildly pounding noise rock mode, usually some unholy union of the two. The magic to the record really is the recording though, which is impossibly heavy, ridiculously blown out, the sound super saturated and in the red, it sounds like the tape is frying or the speakers are melting, the guitars so distorted they become heaving swells of crumbling buzz, anchored by the drums and transformed into some seriously fierce riffage, the sort of tranced out riffiness that turns this into something just as spaced out and psychedelic as White Hills or Carlton Melton or any of those outfits (just check out the tranced out closer "Death") albeit WAY WAY heavier. Definitely recommended if for folks who dig the EXTREMELY slow and low, Sleep, Bunkur, Conan, Monarch, the Body, Otesanek, Slomatics and the like, but these guys definitely have their own twisted take on that sound, one that has us already tracking down their newer one, which will hopefully show up on a future list...

MPEG stream: Big Sun
MPEG stream: Constant Danger
MPEG stream: Summoning

It was really only a matter of time before Finnish stoner-sludge noise rock weirdos Hebosagil found their way to Jussi from Circle's super eclectic and equally weirdo Ektro label, we're sort of surprised it took this long actually. The metalheads around aQ have long been fans of Hebosagil, whose sound in the past touched on lots of our slo-mo sludge favorites (Sleep, Bunkur, the Body, Monarch, etc.), but who here on their most recent, ditch much of that glacial tarpit crawl for something a bit more high energy, a punked out metal that borrows from classic old school heavy metal as much as modern day pigfuck noise ruck crush, the songs almost proggy in their arrangement, slipping easily from blasting almost blackened blasts, to woozy stonery sludge, to wild noisy churn, to swaggery, almost Stooges-y hard rocking, the most distinctive thing the vocals, which sound really Finnish to us, if that makes any sense, it's not hard to imagine Hebosagil as some twisted Jussi side project, super dramatic and way up in the mix, a raspy gravelly bellow that sounds more like Turbonegro or Scissorfight or Fucked Up than any vokills that might be more appropriate, but it's that strange mix, that makes Lahto so appealing. And while the band may be more rocking these days, they can still lay down some seriously sludgy downtuned heaviness, the band constantly locking into churning caveman riffage and Neanderthal drum plod, but then those vocals come in, and it's transformed into something much more strange, and really, much more fun. Not to say this is a 'fun' record, it's still plenty heavy and dark, noisy and chaotic and metallic, but it's also Finnish, which means it's geniusly fucked, totally batshit rocking weirdness that you can add to your Finnish whatthefuck collection, which by now includes (or really SHOULD include) Circle, Pharaoh Overlord, Ride For Revenge, Undor, Stench Of Deacy, Will Over Matter, Arkhamin Kirjasto, Billy Boys, Death Trip, Dead Reptile Shrine, Steel Mammoth, Uton, Cardinals Folly, Keuhkot, Lurk and we'd imagine a whole lot more.

MPEG stream: Ei Ole Mitaan Mihin Palata
MPEG stream: Valot Paalle
MPEG stream: Valinta

The first full length from Rachael Kozak, head of Zhark Internatonal, after five years and a handful of 12"s and collaborative projects. Dark, destructive breakcore in the unmistakable Praxis style. Cd forthcoming.

British black metal, excellent if unoriginal: they sound almost exactly like the mighty Cradle of Filth! Fans of the Filthies and their brand of gothic, epic, fast, screeching black metal will feel right at home.

Mego's Florian Hecker presents a short documentation on how to out-do Oval. Erratic bass tones play against shards of digital noise.

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

SORRY.

Florian Hecker's "Sun Pandamonium" is a noxious album of digital abstraction, not uncommon for the Austrian label Mego that specializes in damaged electronics. Hecker centers on the internal logic of the digitized glitch, building swarming sounds of timestretched masses into puzzling digital vibrations; these work best when Hecker pays homage to the bleeps, boings, and clangs of the electronic pioneers such as Tod Dockstader.

RealAudio clip: bsf0tyk 5

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

SORRY. The second in the CDr-only, limited series from Or (a sublabel of Touch Records) is from the Mego apprentice, Hecker. While this laptop fuckery could have its origins in Metasynth (the visual-to-aural program that would have hyperminimalists like RLW and Achim Wollscheid groaning at the ease at which it takes to fabricate alien blips), Hecker manages to construct a particularly interesting array of piercing peaks, skipping CD manipulation, and various blurs,whirs, & buzzes.

This is the remix album from Mego's Florian Hecker whose queasy data-crunching consists of tiny strings of ones and zeroes flashing across ultra-faint digital drones. With the exception of the rhythmic interlude by Pan Sonic's Ilpo Vainsanen, the remixers (Gescom, Lithops, Otomo Yoshihide, Jim O'Rourke, Bruce Gilbert, Zbigniew Karkowski, Francisco Lopez, Holger Hiller, Yasunao Tone, cd_slopper, and Marcus Schmickler) have emphasized the dymanics of Hecker's work with imploded exaggerations of silences punctuated by harsh digital glitch collages.

[ aquarius records catalogue — H ]