THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The gnostic censors have prohibited us from including MP3s of the Hafler Trio's work on the AQ website; so you'll just have to take our word that Normally is another exquisite Hafler Trio composition of psychoacoustically challenging dronework, this time entirely drawn from a series of vocalizations from Einstuerzende Neubauten's Blixa Bargeld. Only during a disruptive jolt on one of the two discs does Bargeld's inimitable voice become apparent, elsewhere the Halfer Trio has reduced the Bargeld voice into an eerie, extended drone. Of course, Andrew McKenzie -- the sole member of the 'trio' -- has included dozens of pages of ludicrously impossible to understand, post-rational / post-narrative texts for your amusement. Limited to 500 copies.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
SUPER LIMITED!!!! WE ONLY HAVE A HANDFUL OF THESE IN STOCK AND MOST LIKELY WILL NOT BE ABLE TO GET MORE!!!!!
Yet another installment in the Hafler Trio's seemingly endless release schedule of late, all sonically amazing and brilliantly packaged and of course CRAZY EXPENSIVE. This one is no different. A double 10" meticulously packaged in a gorgeous gatefold sleeve. Drones are still what it's all about soundwise, and you certainly won't hear any complaining from us! If you've picked up any of the recent Hafler Trio releases you'll have a good idea of where we are in the Trio's journey through the world of drones. As always a completely mesmerizing and soul stirring sonic experience.
And if you somehow missed the above warning, this is quite limited and once we run out they are most likely gone for good.
BACK IN STOCK!!! Originally released in 1985 as a set of 2 EPs on LAYLAH and reissued "wrongly" by Mute / Grey Area in 1992, Seven Hours Sleep marks yet another in the ongoing reissue campaign by Korm Plastics of work by The Hafler Trio. Seven Hours Sleep also happens to mark the last contributions from former Cabaret Voltaire member Chris Watson, although Andrew MacKenzie (the other founder of the 'trio') was still claiming that The Hafler Trio involved such fictional characters as Dr. Edward Moolenbeek and Robert Spridgeon. In recent years, MacKenzie has focused his activities upon the essentialization of the power of the human voice, as he has extracted intensely brilliant tonal fragments from the voices of Jonsi Birgisson, David Tibet, and Blixa Bargeld, stretching them into some of the most deliriously beautiful and acoustically powerful minimalism the world has ever witnessed. Well over two decades ago, the human voice was still central to MacKenzie's work in The Hafler Trio although in a slightly different context. Instead of focusing upon the essence of the human voice as a gnostic spark for enlightenment through sound, MacKenzie was far more interested in how perception and communication were intertwined, and how it was possible to create paranoiac atmospheres through the obfuscation of language's syntax. Within Seven Hours Sleep, MacKenzie rewires utterances, screams and megaphone broadcasts into a decentered collage of mediated fragments, rupturing flickering drones and unsettling field recordings. MacKenzie has demonstrated his power to confuse and delight through his complex laboratory of sound, mythology, and context; Seven Hours Sleep is no different. Sorry, no mp3 samples can be made available of the Hafler Trio's work.
It's been a while since anything from The Hafler Trio has come through our doors. So long in fact, we probably need to revisit the complex history into the Trio's work. There was never a time when The Hafler Trio was an actual trio, although the group's founders Andrew McKenzie and Chris Watson (then of Cabaret Voltaire fame and now the world's preeminent field recordist) had constructed the identity of a third member Dr. Edward Moolenbeek back in the early '80s. This Moolenbeek character was supposedly interested in the physical and psychological effects of sound upon the human populace, with an emphasis on presenting sound as an obfuscated means of communication through his research to the point of gnostic cryptography. Throughout the career of the Hafler Trio, a steady stream of interlocking and heavily encrypted set of allusions and allegories were conjured and manifested, but then all but disappeared from the public realm. Now, McKenzie (the sole pilot of the project for many years now) is offering his music solely as individual commissions to collectors who can pay a premium for his work.
Fortunately, Korm Plastics had reissued a good chunk of his back catalogue including the Hafler Trio's brilliant sound collage experiments Kill The King and Mastery Of Money. The Name Of Someone stands as the last in Korm Plastics reissue series, collecting three records that had been very difficult to find --Brainsong (1986, originally an lp on Touch), Kuklos (1988, also released through Touch), and (Antarctica) Brahma (1996, which was the accompaniment to a book whose contents are suitably elusive). We'll not belabor the conceptual agendas to each of these works, but the sounds are wholly compelling and well worth investigating. Brainsong is an oblique collage that begins with an overlapping of water field recordings sloshing against undulating drones, that are consumed within a caustic synth pattern that is sterile and bleak. Through a series of jump-cut edits, additions, and subtractions (a technique which is a signature of The Hafler Trio's work in the '80s), McKenzie offers a slow descent of tonebent drones seemingly built from the sustained wails of a female choir rendered as disjointed ghosts of a Cornelius Cardew piece of minimalism. Antarctica finds Hafler Trio in his long form compositional style of the late '90s and early '00s, structured from heavily layered filters and alien frequencies shot from other dimensions and / or other parts of the universe. One could think of Thomas Koner as someone operating in a similar field of desolate sound design and impeccable production techniques. Kuklos was also a soundtrack to a film about the graphic designer Neville Brody, and is a smear of thick grey drones and ghostly residues. It's hardly an 'ambient' record, but Kuklos is far less of the shapeshifting collage work that McKenzie had been producing around that time. All of his work comes highly recommended, even as it can be a difficult to get into... perhaps because it can be difficult to get into.
Unfortunately, McKenzie does not allow anyone to post sound samples of his work, so you'll have to take our word on it: this is brilliant.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The Sea Org is a curious document, even for the Hafler Trio. This was originally released as a 10" on Touch Records back in 1987, before The Hafler Trio and Touch ended their relationship very acrimoniously. Touch (through their affiliation with Mute's Grey Area reissue series in the early '90s) had published all of this material on a compendium of Hafler Trio loose ends entitled All Things That Rise Must Converge. The Sea Org was part of the Golden Hammer series, which was a loose taxonomic heading for some of the early Hafler Trio recordings. What specific allegorical connectivity exists between The Sea Org and fellow Golden Hammer recordings such as Bang! An Open Letter or Seven Hours Sleep is anybody's guess; however, there is a general similarity throughout the series in the Hafler Trio's research into media manipulation, forged scientific evidence, and conspiracy-driven paranoia.
At this time, The Hafler Trio may have included Chris Watson working alongside Andrew McKenzie, although verification of this or any fact about the 'Trio' is impossible to the point of being moot. Regardless, The Sea Org is one of the most inscrutible documents of The Hafler Trio. And that's saying something! The Trio offers long passages of varispeed pitched audio collages of cooing pigeons, weird pipe organ sounds, and mechanized creakings, which in turn are punctuated and broken by decontextualized media samples. Make of it what you will.
There are no MP3s available for Hafler Trio material. Boo.
In the early 80s, Andrew McKenzie of The Hafler Trio had developed a friendship with David Tibet, around the same time that Tibet was beginning the ideas that formed Current 93. As a result, the two had planned on a collaboration which was supposedly to be called Dogs Blood Rising, which Tibet later used as both a one-off live project as well as the title for one of the most chilling Current 93 records. The press releases cite that this project never materialized beyond a few works in progress "due to never explained circumstances." Yeah, it's the Hafler Trio, so the mysterious termination of this project has to go unexplained. Well, over twenty years go by and McKenzie resurrects the tapes in the form of Where Are You? within a Halfer Trio series based on voice, language, and what McKenzie qualifies as essense. Like Normally, the first in the h3o voice series, McKenzie stretches Tibet's voice into a beautifully crystalline drone. Sorry no MP3 samples, and this is limited to 500 copies.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
True to his extensive catalog of techgnostic experiments with information and sound, Andrew McKenzie (the sole member of the Hafler Trio) offers another quizzically brilliant album which fuses sound, word, and context into a massive knot of post-rational thought. Musically speaking, McKenzie has reduced all of the erratic jumpcuts and jarring juxtapositions that dominated his early albums down to a refined aesthetic of tone flutter. Controlled feedback oscillations appear to be the primary material for Whistling About Chickens; however, McKenzie's use of feedback bears little resemblance to the all-encompassing mass of Merzbow or even the no-input mixing board work of Sachiko M. Instead, McKenzie resamples, filters, processes, and composed feedback in such as way as to provide the impressions that these sounds bear witness to something much greater, something which has to be closely investigated in order to discover its nature. It must be stated that there is the possibility (like most Gnostic revelations) that this 'something' is actually nothing, and McKenzie has been playing with the aesthetics of simulation to such an extent as to mimic impression of that which does not exist. Considering that the title of the album itself is an extract from the aphorism "Talking about music is like whistling about chickens," there is a Dada absurdity that must be read into the Hafler Trio's work. Nonetheless, McKenzie has done an immaculate job inscribing a sense of mystery into his sublimely beautiful minimalism.
Almost a year ago exactly, if you happened to glance at the calendar for San Francisco's Great American Music Hall, you might have spotted an upcoming performance by The Hafler Trio, marking the first time that The Hafler Trio played San Francisco since an infamous show featuring The Hafler Trio, Phauss, and Zbigniew Karkowski held at the Kennel Club way back in 1991. Plans had been drawn up for an entire US tour for The Hafler Trio, with Andrew McKenzie inviting Colin Potter (also of Nurse With Wound), Andrew Liles, and Matt Waldron (of irr. app. (ext.)) to join him as the supporting cast in the Trio; however, the logistics of the tour were doomed from the onset and the already scheduled dates had to be cancelled due to what the Hafler Trio called "extreme incompetence". Like pretty much every touring ensemble these days, The Hafler Trio planned on recording an album to be sold only at the performances. While the tour was cancelled, the recordings were fortunately not thrown out. McKenzie continued working with sound material provided by Liles and Potter (or at least that's what we assume), resulting in 3 Eggs.
The whistling drones modulating with an elegance and subtly indicative of the Hafler Trio's signature over the past six or seven years dominate the album; but McKenzie allows numerous instances for Liles and Potter to utter their own take on sonic sculpture, with deformed bits of vocalizations and samples of Victorian quirkiness appearing from the Liles camp, and deep throngs of gaping drones speaking to Potter's sensibility. The only question we have to ask is why Mr. Waldron was not invited to participate in this venture. Oh well. It's testament to the fact that the ill-fated 2005 tour would have been an amazing performance regardless of whatever that "extreme incompetence" actually consisted of.
Sorry, no MP3 samples of anything Hafler Trio related.
What a Blast from the Past! Probably the weirdest record produced by Giorgio Moroder, Nina Hagen's 1984 release Fearless has some of the craziest new-wave-disco tracks EVER made. Charting with "New York, New York", Hagen's tribute to that city's underground club culture, the rest of the record is a no-holds-barred romp of excess glamour and zany electro-funk, topped with her trademark bi-polar vocal range. There's even a cameo by the Red Hot Chili Peppers (man, they've been around for a while!). If you've been rocking lately to Maurice Fulton and/or his crazy "Paris Hilton" singing wife, Mu, or any of the Tiger Sushi G.D.M. series of past and present club jams, you might want to take an indulgent gander here. Guaranteed that the unique vocal stylings and punk-funk freakiness will have you saying WTF?! pretty darn quick. Glad to have this reissued! Also be sure to check out her Nunsexmonkrock album as well if you're new to Nina.
Neil Hagerty (Royal Trux) must think that the pinnacle of "Good Old Rock And Roll" is the explosion of major label alternative rock bands from the early to mid '90s, like Blind Melon or the Spin Doctors. Is this supposed to be ironic? Either way, this is a
Dave Katznelson, the force behind Birdman Recordings and one of AQ's favorite people, has the following superlatives to say about the (not-so) new Hagerty record:
"Record of the year so far... I was a huge fan of his debut solo record, and this new one, his third, might even surpass it. Neil's stoned playing (I know he is sober, but it's stoned all the same) which is as tight as it feels loose...is to these ears the new classic sound for the war generation. The songs are great. The live renditions of past solo material (Rockslide, Creature Catcher) is drony like CAN...Velvety grooves and dirt (alot of dirt). Firebase Ripcord is an all-out hit. I play this record for people who do not follow music and the look on their faces is, 'Wow...what a unique sound...what good shit.' The Rolling Stones don't do it like this anymore. Neil Michael Hagerty & The Howling Hex are creating such a fresh, new rock scenario, that it is bewildering that this man has ever been in a band before (Let alone the Royal Trux and Pussy Galore). The sound is a freshness you usually hear on a band's/artist's first record. It is sexy."
What does it say about the state of my brain that when I played this in the front room of the store, I hated the solo record by Neil Hagerty of Royal Trux, yet now that I am listening to it in the office on my iMac with its KICK ASS new iSub subwoofer under the desk, it doesn't sound so bad? Am I just enamored of my new subwoofer, or is the subwoofer highlighting the pulsing bass
Apparently in an effort not to be out done by Columbia / American and their Johnny Cash "Love / God / Murder" trilogy, Capitol has decided to release a quartet of themed best of compilations -- Drinkin', Hurtin', Prison & Cheatin' -- from California's own bad boy of country Merle Haggard. Unlike many of his country contemporaries Haggard actually lived much of the life he sang about:
Apparently in an effort not to be out done by Columbia / American and their Johnny Cash "Love / God / Murder" trilogy, Capitol has decided to release a quartet of themed best of compilations -- Drinkin', Hurtin', Prison & Cheatin' -- from California's own bad boy of country Merle Haggard. Unlike many of his country contemporaries Haggard actually lived much of the life he sang about:
Apparently in an effort not to be out done by Columbia / American and their Johnny Cash "Love / God / Murder" trilogy, Capitol has decided to release a quartet of themed best of compilations -- Drinkin', Hurtin', Prison & Cheatin' -- from California's own bad
Goddamn. Merle Haggard is so much cooler than you or I could ever be. I mean, he just oozes cool. Maybe even more than 'the man in black'. This record, released through Epitaph (who also recently released the Tom Waits record) is as good as any of the records he released 20 years ago, but holds up in 2000. Definitely better than hearing Johnny Cash do Tom Petty. It's rough and raw and beautiful. Sometimes playful, sometimes scary. And as always, I hope that kids who love Palace and Songs:Ohia and all that stuff, hike up their pants and give this stuff a try.
Apparently in an effort not to be out done by Columbia / American and their Johnny Cash "Love / God / Murder" trilogy, Capitol has decided to release a quartet of themed best of compilations -- Drinkin', Hurtin', Prison & Cheatin' -- from California's own bad boy of country Merle Haggard. Unlike many of his country contemporaries Haggard actually lived much of the life he sang about:
The Haggard resurgence continues unabated. Coming right behind those low priced compilations we previously listed, here's a brand new record. Well, sort of. It -is- a new record, and they -are- new recordings, but most of the tunes are oldies but goodies, that see Merle reaching back to the honky tonk style his career so heavily is based on. There are also three brand new Haggard
Portland, OR's Haggard return with their second cd for Mr. Lady. These two girls (just guitar and drums) bust out thirteen new songs about bikes, quitting your job, buying liquor on Sunday in Oregon (apparently you can't), and more bikes amongst queer issues. No dildoes in Nebraska?
Alright!! For this latest batch of awesome (sorry couldn't help ourselves) Awesome Vista releases, one we've been looking forward to maybe a teensy bit more than the others is this solo debut from Linda Hagood. Probably best known for her unique vocal contributions to the nineties bands Smackdab and The Double U, Hagood revels in a childlike spookiness that channels the creepier parts of Comus, the angular shuffle and carnival weirdness of bands like Thinking Fellers, Monitor and Caroliner, and the cuddlecore pop of Cub, Puffy Ami Yumi and The Shaggs. Sometimes it reminds us of a female Daniel Johnson, but the music is much stranger and cartoony like Carl Stalling lost in an animated forest full of pet zombies moonlit ravens, giant bunnys, baby hyenas, and dancing marsupials. Freakish Moog whooshes and skittering violins punctuate spindley Eastern European guitar riffs and off-kilter rhythms as she sings these eleven strange but charming dreamlike songs. Her cartoony voice may be a dealbreaker for some, but no other voice would quite fit songs like this, songs that we've seen performed live for years and are finally glad to see laid to wax. Featuring gorgeous hand printed cover artwork by Christine Shields. Super cute and super weird, and like all the Awesome Vista releases, Super Limited!!!!!!!!!!
We first discovered this local black metal horde via a visit to radio station KFJC, who always invite aQ to be part of their annual 'Christless Eve', where the night of December 24th, they play the darkest, heaviest, sickest, weirdest black metal / noise / experimental music, with the aim of casting a black shadow over the cloying holiday cheer. This most recent year, heading home around 3am Christmas morning, after having been listening to crazy heaviness and warped black buzz for hours, we left with just one thing on our minds (well, two, if you count getting home and going to sleep), which was a newfound obsession with some band called Hagor. Whose single track that was played that night, lodged itself in our brain, and infected us with its whathefuck genius. It took some doing, but we finally got in touch with the band, and they brought some copies by of their cd-r, and holy shit, this stuff is so twisted and fractured and fucked, obviously influenced by classic blackness, but somehow on the way from listening to the classics, to making their own, the DNA got all tangled up, and the resulting sounds are some of the coolest weirdest black metal we've heard in ages, with much of this being so twisted up it's barely black metal at all. In fact, the opening track, "Accursed", is at the outset, a galloping rhythm, and a clean guitar riff, we were prepared for it to explode into some buzzing blackness, but then those elements just seem to lock into a dizzying loop, the guitar getting occasionally more distorted, but for the most part, it's a strange sort of hypnotic rhythmic psychedelic jam that reminds us a bit of 'wooden metal' weirdos Varghkoghargasmal. The second track is most definitely black metal, but it's SOOOOO lo-fi, it doesn't just sound like a rehearsal tape, it sounds like it was recorded on a lapel mic, super tinny, mostly just drums and vocals, but in its twisted minimalism, it becomes something else entirely, especially the burst of cymbal skree that sounds more like blasts of white noise. "Blitz-Krieg" is about as close as these guys get to traditional blackness, a loping midtempo blackbuzz blowout, that's blurred and smeared into a sort of greyed out drone, again those weirdly recorded drums give it a super twisted experimental vibe, even here when it's essentially super primitive raw blackness. And it doesn't get any less twisted as the record progresses, the strange soaring rhythmic synth prog of "Life In Death", or the crazy ULTRA lo-fi black pound of "Window Of Transparency", the warm, buzz drenched, woozy dirge of "Vigorous Forests"(great title!) or the -second- "Window Of Transparency", which manages to take the first one, and make it even more bizarre, the cosmic synthiness of "The Shift Of The Galaxy", or the droned out brittle buzz of "Spectrum", with some of the sickest vokills ever, the blown out, lush crumbling dirge of "Argus", replete with a sort of Burzum-y synth melody, over a dense black churn, to the record closer, which takes grim blackness and weds it to sort of primitive cold wave, minimal, tripped out, distorted and fucking bafflingly brilliant.
Absolutely essential listening for folks into twisted lo-fi blackness and warped outsider whathefuck buzz...
LIMITED TO ONLY THIRTY COPIES!!! We have almost half of the pressing, but needless to say, if you want one, best grab one quick...
For fans of freaky psych and wild heavy noisiness, an album title like Ultra High Dimensionality should definitely conjure up images of long haired Japanese bands from the seventies, of huge amps, bell bottoms, trippy light shows and extreme volume. It's the sort of title you might expect to find on a Mainliner or White Heaven record, which we're guessing was probably the idea, since this band is not in fact Japanese, but British, and are fronted by Mike Vest, he of psychedelic doomlords Bong! But this IS meant to be an homage of sorts to that classic Japanese sound, especially Les Rallizes Denudes, coupled with the downtuned crush of the Bong mothership of course, and if that sounds good to you (and why the hell wouldn't it?!), you're likely ready for some serious Ultra High Dimensionality.
Forty minutes of epic heavy psych, still a bit doomy, and spacey, after all, as the saying (sort of) goes, you can take the man out of Bong, but odds are he'll likely drag some of that doominess with him, but it makes for a killer mix, just check out the opener, which sounds, as you might have surmised, like Les Rallizes Denudes by way of Bong, a loping, slow burner, all blown out psychedelic balladry wreathed in dense swirls of distorto guitar, and anchored by some hard hitting drumming, the sort of brooding slow build heaviness we could get lost in forever, total seventies style psychedelic smolder, in fact, most of Ultra High Dimensionality sounds like some alternate dimension version of Les Rallizes Denudes, which is most definitely not a bad thing, the tempos generally slow, lumbering, but seriously tripped out, equal parts doomy and psychedelic, if you ever wished those Les Rallizes records weren't so lo-fi (although, why would you?), this will definitely hit the spot. And while this is most definitely far enough removed from the doooooom of Bong, to maybe disappoint some doomlords, folks into The Heads, White Hills, Carlton Melton, and all that psychedelic space rock stuff, as well as all the aforementioned Japanese psych combos, this comes HIGHLY recommended.
Pressed on 180 gram vinyl, housed in a swank sleeve, screen printed on grey recycled cardstock in metallic ink. Includes a download code too.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Jussi Lehtisalo of Circle reissued this classic and obscure Finnish prog effort from the seventies. Thus, you can expect it to be quite strange and amazing. Haikara were an odd ensemble, hard to pin down to any specific style. The first half of the album leans towards an accomplished conservatory-esque approach -- long, solo ridden numbers, lead by fuzzy bass, clarinets, trumpets, flutes, the occasional operatic vocal and (of course) guitar; full of shifting meters and obtuse melody lines, but also entertaining bits of smokey garage simplicity. Then, in the middle of the album, all of a sudden it's like you're listening to the title track to some 70's romance drama, albeit with a prog edge. It's actually quite lovely. The nearest thing I can relate it to is the first side of Fred Frith's "Gravity" -- on which Fred is backed up by members of eccentrics Zamla Mammaz Manna -- and it continues in this vein before ending on a decidedly Scandinavian prog-funk note! A weird one, alright, something that takes a few listens to come to terms with. But I have to say, I really like this album...!
Finnish band Haikara's 1973 album "Geafar" was an amazing disc of wild prog-rock, and if you haven't checked out the reissue on Jussi of Circle's label Ektro, do so now! However, this 1990's reunion effort is not quite so wild, indeed, it's a kind of on the twee side...but not without appeal to hardcore progheads. In keeping with the lovely forest photos featured on the cd cover, this
As we mention in our review of the Dante Augustus Scarlatti cassette (reviewed elsewhere on this list), Auris Apothecary is quickly becoming out fav new label, with a limited catalog, of exquisitely crafted releases, that are as much art as they are music, tape loops in vials, NES Nintendo soundtrack cassettes, tapes wrapped in warped 7"s, everything hand screened and assembled, drawn, painted, glued, whatever, every single release super unique. If you follow us on Facebook and/or Twitter (which you should, cuz we announce lots of things that may not make it to the list!), you probably saw the tape loop vial and the NES tapes, which both disappeared in a flash (although we might have one or two Castlevania tapes left, just ask), and for sure check out the Scarlatti tape, and then there's this, a double album from Hail Architeuthis, with the awesomely wordy title: Herald The Harbinger Of Impending Acoustics, The Horseman Who Revived Organic Institutions. And while we were expecting some sort of dark dronemusic or experimental ambience, instead what we got was some serious intense, mathy metal, or sort of math metal / noise rock hybrid, whatever you call it, it's a wildly chaotic, super dynamic blow out of churning riffs, pounding drumming, lots of droned out interludes and soaring layered riffing, head spinning progged out arrangements, the vocals howled and way down in the mix, these guys sounding sometimes like a more metal Lightning Bolt, other times like a wilder looser Don Cab, the sound raw and in the red, the cd version containing the band performing live, recorded live to analog tape, the songs sprawling and spic, slipping from hushed tense minor key shimmer, to post rock slow build to full on metallic noise math crunch. So ruling. The accompanying cassette is a whole different program, low fidelity and cinematic, a soundtrack of sorts to accompany the printed scroll that accompanies the cd/tape. Scroll? Well we did mention the AA packaging was over the top, and this is indeed pretty elaborate. We were gonna describe it, a cardboard box with a cd and a spray painted tape and a ribbon tied scroll affixed to the PRINTED inside of the box, but hell, let's give you the label description of the package:
"Five inch white reel to reel box with 3 color black/white/silver silk-screened wrap on light-grey or ice blue cardstock. Professionally replicated & glass-mastered CD's with full color offset printing on the disc face. Brushed metallic nickel spray-painted cassette tapes with rubber-stamped artwork in white ink. Scroll inkjet-printed on silver vellum in 2 colors. 2-color inserts in base of each side of reel box printed on clear vellum. Vellum obi-wrap around box with blue or black inkjet printing; serial number stamped in silver silkscreen ink or black ink and sealed with a silver wax seal."
And yeah, it's just as cool as that description makes it sound. And it's limited to, only 150 copies, and we're all a little late to the party, so not sure if we can get more once these are gone...
Latest from this Southern doom/sludge supergroup, featuring none other than Dixie Dave of Weedeater and Buzzov*en as well as T-Roy Medlin from Sourvein, and members of Beaten Back To Pure and Alabama Thunder Pussy, and while you might be expecting the usual dose of NOLA drug induced slo-mo downtuned sludge-dirge bliss, you'd only be half right, cuz these guys spend much of their time on Disperse The Curse blasting and thrashing and pounding away, cranking up the tempo, channeling Motorhead and High On Fire, spitting out a sort of blackened sludge thrash, with furious riffing and flurries of frantic double kick drumming, the songs lurching from tarpit creep to Sabbathy swagger to full on blasting thrashed out riffrock heaviness. The vocals a glass gargling rasp, the band unfurling some surprisingly melodic stuff here and there, leads, guitar harmonies, which pepper the otherwise feedback drenched pound and pummel.
Opener "Shoot The Pigs" is a killer, some seriously hook filled heaviness, with wicked drumming, equally wicked riffing, and a downright proggy arrangement, it's all pretty fast except for a half time churning riffy creep that KILLS.
"Gifted Horse" is more of the same, the double kick drums adding some serious heft to the already thrashing blackened pummel, the band slipping to sludgey grooves here and there, but it's not until track three, the title track, that things get downright sludgey and dirgey, sounding like some Southern Rock band on Quaaludes. And so the rest of the record goes, swinging wildly from tarpit crush to blown out blast, culminating in the epic doom sludge crawl of record closer "Blacked Out In Broad Daylight", that beyond pounding and creeping and howling and buzzing, manages to get downright psychedelic to boot!
There's always room in the world for a new music magazine, especially one obviously undertaken with a passion for the music covered inside, well written and interestingly laid out. And we're always in need of a new metal magazine for sure. Considering Terrorizer is so hard to get, Decibel can be a bit too snarky and ironic sometimes, and Metal Maniacs is a good read, but ultimately really light weight. So we're pleased as punch that there's a new metal mag on the block. The appropriately titled Hails & Horns. This is issue number one, so we can assume they're still feeling their way around, but even so, this is a pretty great magazine heavy on the metalcore for sure, but plenty of death/black/thrash/doom as well, and jam packed with tons of articles. It feels really thin, but open it up and it's a bit hard to believe how many bands are covered. There's only a few pages of reviews in this first issue, instead the focus is on metal news and articles and interviews with band after band after band. On the cover, Underoath. Inside, an interview with Tom Araya of Slayer, a look at the Finnish metal / black metal scene, a history of the West Memphis Three (three kids imprisoned for supposedly murdering three local children, but more realistically imprisoned for being goth rock weirdos / individual thinkers) and an update on recent developments in the case, columns from Bill Ward of Black Sabbath and Kurt Ballou from Converge, in the studio with Norma Jean, Misery Signals and more, as well as articles about / interviews with Poison The Well, Ministry, Summoning, Rammstein, In Flames, Amorphis, Children Of Bodom, Behemoth, Cathedral, Atreyu, Sepultura, Fall Of Troy, Arch Enemy and a whole lot more.
Plus every issue will come with a cd featuring new and unreleased songs. This time around: Goatwhore, Satyricon, Misery Index, Torche, Shadows Fall, Underoath, Arch Enemy, Cattle Decapitation, Unearth, Eighteen Visions, Artimus Pyledriver and lots more.
Not bad for five bucks!
Latest issue from this up and coming metal mag, doing its best to give Terrorizer and Decibel and Revolver a run for their money.
On the cover: Shadows Fall. In the studio with Hopesfall, Zonaria, Ruiner, Throwdown and Nora. Bill Ward of Black Sabbath's monthly column on drums metal and whatever the heck he feels like rambling on about, plus articles about and interviews with Machinehead, Zao, From Autumn To Ashes, Fu Manchu, Rob Halford, Deftones, Christ Illusion song by song with Slayer's Kerry King and Tom Araya, Cannibal Corpse, Boys Night Out, Firewind, Masters Of Horror mastermind Mick Garris, Novembers Doom, Hot Cross, Gilby Clarke of Supernova (oh yeah, and Guns And Roses...), Heaven Shall Burn, Anberlin, Detonation, The Almost, Megadeth's Gigantour and charity softball game, Otep, Slipknot, Poison The Well, Unholy, Sevendust, The Human Abstract, Tyr, Chimaira, Emmure, Kiss, Fairyland, In This Moment, Opiate For The Masses, Thy Will Be Done, metalheads talk about other discs that are kicking their asses, the Bridge Nine and Deathwish labels, rock and metal and the New Orleans Recovery and of course TONS of record reviews.
And as if that weren't enough, included is a cd with new and unreleased tracks from As Blood Runs Black, Chimaira, xDEATHSTARx, Six Feet Under, With Passion and more.
Maybe a tad heavy on the nu-metal, but there's always some cool stuff...
And only five bucks!
It's hard to not simply fall back upon the immediate observation that D. Haines' Emo album is the fictional remix that Wolfgang Voigt (aka Gas) should do for drone label Troum. With the Gas records (especially Konigsforst) and the Troum / Maeror Tri records
Release number 4 from this great new New Zealand label. Just like the first two (Rosy Parlane and Parmentier, reviewed in the last AQ-List) these are all-white packages of beautiful, minimal music.
D. Haines' disc is the lo-fi equivalent of Steve Reich, Colon Nancarrow, and LaMonte Young. Haines hammers out unswerving movements between two piano chords. It's hard to say if the recording is totally dry and the consonant throb is a but a psychoacoustic phenomenon or if Haines amplified and processed the piano, but Blither is damn good either way.
Graced with an amazing black & white (mostly black) cover photo of a spectral, luminous Keiji Haino reading a book, this has got a French title 'cause it's released on a French label, Turtles' Dream, apparently a sub-division of the A Bruit Secret label that's known for releases in the Japanese "onkyo" genre...well, Haino is of course Japanese too but this is far from the zen-like silence of onkyo stuff! Improv-psych master Keiji Haino kicks out the jams here not with his usual apocalyptic guitar playing (what he's best known for) but with "rhythm machine" and his own unique vocal stylings. Dunno what "rhythm machine" means tech-wise exactly, some sort of drum machine it seems, plus what sounds like a real cymbal being hit. My Keiji Haino fan friends and myself are now convinced that the man could play *anything* (a kazoo, a rainstick, a bug-zapper?) and still sound like himself -- that is, amazing. He certainly expands the assumed area of expression of the drum machine with this album, making even Ikue Mori sound tame. The recording or production itself is an important part of that, it really is *present*, the drum hits sounding like they're smacking you in the forehead. This is presumably a live recording, but the vocals are somehow overdubbed/multitracked/looped and layered, at moments building with the drum machine's frenzy into insane mayhem as if multiple Hainos were wrestling one another, while in other sections of this piece (for it is one long, 45 minute track) being strangely beautiful, just unearthly haunting cries, with no beats beneath. Definitely an intense listen, Haino taking to mechanical extremes his percussion obsession of late (other indications of this obsession: that he took over the drum stool in his band Fushitsusha, and recently released an amazing live video of solo percussion-only performance...)
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
French import. Solo live performances all around the world.
Two new recordings from the very prolific Keiji Haino, although there's no indication as to when or where. Disc one is a single piece for hurdy-gurdy and voice titled "Whereto can I cast away this fragment echo called The End, so that I may summon an
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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"Black blues" has a couple of meanings here -- these may indeed be African-American blues songs being performed (and deformed) by Mr. Keiji Haino, and in addition the idea of 'the blues' is being subjected to the blackness that is himself, for Haino is of course the uncontested Dark Lord of the Japanese psych/improv scene. The Fushitsusha leader has done covers before (he even has a covers band, Aihiyo) but this takes the interpretive process to an extremely conceptual level. There are in fact TWO (separately available but, we think, equally desirable and complimentary) Black Blues albums, both with the exact same title. We've added the acoustic and electric designations to differentiate them in our database, but in physical fact, the packaging for them only differs with regard to the catalog numbers found on the spine (DSA-54087 for the acoustic and DSA-54088 for the electric) and the cover photo, which is actually identical on both discs but flipped in mirror image. If you put the electric disc on the left and the acoustic disc on the right, the Hainos in the photos on the covers will be looking at each other. We're not sure why this was released like this, since doing it as a double disc set would seem more practical and less confusing, but that's the way it is (and there's no real choice to be made, fans need 'em both). Now to the music -- the "acoustic" disc (a misnomer, really, as the guitar he's playing, quietly, sounds electric) consists of six tracks, including "Black Eyes", "Town In Black Fog", and the epic "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean", all intimate and hushed, the inner whisper of a soul in torment, seeking peace. The exact same tracklist is mirrored on the "electric" disc, cranked up of course, as Haino howls from throat and lungs and guitar strings and amplifier, crying out in anguish to both men and gods. Both are harrowing and psychically "heavy". Blues connoisseurs will likely be bewildered and disturbed, but those of us who feel the merest of utterances from Keiji Haino -- via his voice or guitar -- can speak more than many musicians produce in an entire career, will be rapt in awe.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
"Black blues" has a couple of meanings here -- these may indeed be African-American blues songs being performed (and deformed) by Mr. Keiji Haino, and in addition the idea of 'the blues' is being subjected to the blackness that is himself, for Haino is of course the uncontested Dark Lord of the Japanese psych/improv scene. The Fushitsusha leader has done covers before (he even has a covers band, Aihiyo) but this takes the interpretive process to an extremely conceptual level. There are in fact TWO (separately available but, we think, equally desirable and complimentary) Black Blues albums, both with the exact same title. We're added the acoustic and electric designations to differentiate them in our database, but in physical fact, the packaging for them only differs with regard to the catalog numbers found on the spine (DSA-54087 for the acoustic and DSA-54088 for the electric) and the cover photo, which is actually identical on both discs but flipped in mirror image. If you put the electric disc on the left and the acoustic disc on the right, the Hainos in the photos on the covers will be looking at each other. We're not sure why this was released like this, since doing it as a double disc set would seem more practical and less confusing, but that's the way it is (and there's no real choice to be made, fans need 'em both). Now to the music -- the "acoustic" disc (a misnomer, really, as the guitar he's playing, quietly, sounds electric) consists of six tracks, including "Black Eyes", "Town In Black Fog", and the epic "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean", all intimate and hushed, the inner whisper of a soul in torment, seeking peace. The exact same tracklist is mirrored on the "electric" disc, cranked up of course, as Haino howls from throat and lungs and guitar strings and amplifier, crying out in anguish to both men and gods. Both are harrowing and psychically "heavy". Blues connoisseurs will likely be bewildered and disturbed, but those of us who feel the merest of utterances from Keiji Haino -- via his voice or guitar -- can speak more than many musicians produce in an entire career, will be rapt in awe.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
A sequel to Haino's 21st Century Hard-y-guide-y Man disc, this is more of his dark drone music for the hurdy-gurdy. For fans of both Haino and, say, Tony Conrad...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Live solo guitar outsiderness from Fushitsusha mastermind, his first domestic cd release.
Drums. Just drums. That's what's up with this new release from Tokyo underground psych maestro Keiji Haino. He's apparently always wanted to do a solo album for drum kit alone and now PSF has gone and let him do it, even though most of his fans know him primarily as a guitarist. Though, we've already heard him do a solo drum MACHINE album (the rather extreme 'C'est Parfait' Endoctrine Tu Tombes La Tete La Premiere) and play the drum kit for a guitar-less Fushitsusha session (the dramatic and controversial Origin's Hesitation). Then there was his fascinating video release simply titled Percussion. And now here's Global Ancient Atmosphere which is nothing but drums as we said. Drums and when not drums, silence. Some folks will hear this and say it sounds like a "drum check". Ok, you've got a point. Certainly I don't think I can come up with something brilliant to say about this, like "an austere yet thrilling investigation of attack and decay on nothing less than the molecular level" as Alan Cummings (I believe) wrote for the press release. But I do know that I'm gonna buy one, 'cause I'm a huge Keiji Haino fan and love everything he does!
Seriously, though, Haino can make you believe that every drum-hit has meaning, as does every space between. While some of his other percussion-oriented releases seem to have more going on that this one (the above mentioned are, to me, really amazing triumphs of emotion/expression over mere technique -- something that could be said about his guitar playing as well), this one is probably a little harder to appreciate. But maybe it's worth the effort. He thought it was.
With a title that roughly translates as "Light Darkness Melting Into One This Vibration", this new Keiji Haino solo release sees our favorite black-clad psychedelic improv minstrel exploring the playing of a simple ol' acoustic guitar. Shockingly, it's all instrumental. The lack of vocals is a bit atypical of Keiji, but the live, no-overdubs sound is not. The disc starts off very stark and repetitive, developing into something slightly jazzy sounding, jazzy like Derek Bailey that is. Keiji's stopping, starting style here may grate -- not for casual Keiji fans, wethinks. If you've ever heard Dead Raven Choir's 'folk' recordings, this sounds totally like DRC without the vocals. Hmm...a Keiji Haino/Smolken duet would be quite something...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
New solo guitar work including rerecorded versions of super-old and long-out-of-print Fushitsusha stuff.
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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Haino-san is back with another hurdy gurdy adventure! (catalog number PSFD-8029)
The title in English, as given on the spine of this lovely package: "To Start With, Let's Remove The Colour!" This disc comes in a handsome sort of mini-lp gatefold sleeve, colored not Haino's usual black, but shades of grey -- grey being appropriate for the ghostly voices that mass in ever-layering loops over the swirling, jazzy jangle of Haino's guitar playing here. No, this is not a high-volume assault, and there's no shrieking vocals either. Rather this disc is Japanese psychedelic improvisor extraordinaire Keiji Haino's most recent foray into the realm of the mysterious, delicate, and quiet. He's heard here solo, in a mode seldom if ever before beheld: this is the home-recorded Haino, with overdubs! You can imagine him in his bedroom, earphones on, hunched over his guitar, mic, and four-track. It's a close-up, intimate scenario, the mind's eye focusing on his fingers on the guitar strings and his cryptic words whispered not far from the microphone, rather than the massive amps and flailing hair that you might envision when listening to his louder live performances with his "rock band" Fushitsusha. This is some sort of gentle, damaged, haunted, cave-dwelling blues, in the realm of (but not quite like) a Jandek or Kemialliset Ystavat. Track six (of eight), "How Did You Know? Mistaken" is the centerpiece, a half-hour opus of otherworldly genius.
This album is creepy yet comforting. Eerie and mesmerizing. And fucking amazingly beautiful. We can only hope Haino's four-track output continues -- and why just guitar? Maybe next time he'll turn to some of the many ethnic instruments that we're sure fill his chambers...
Holy moly. Yes this limited-edition, import double LP goes for $38 bucks. But we've only got a handful, quite possibly won't ever see any more and it IS one of the only vinyl releases ever (certainly the only one currently-if-not-for-long in print) from the shamanistic psychedelic maestro that the world (well, very small portions of the world) knows as Keiji Haino, either solo or in his Fushitsusha combo. So it's got that arcane relic quality to it, y'know?
'Next' Let's Try Changing The Shape already came out on cd last year (also on Swordfish) but it's already out of print in that format, and this lp -- packaged in a 'hand-crafted', hand-numbered sleeve -- is thus also the only way to get this music, which (the important part) is pretty great. Let's revisit our review of the cd:
I know this is gonna sound dorky, but I (Allan) sometimes feel blessed to be in the presence, even via recorded media, of Keiji Haino. Yeah I'm a pretty devout fan of the 51 year old Japanese psychedelic shaman-in-black. It's a shame that outside of the realm of indie/underground/Japanophile music geeks, Haino is not better known. As far as I'm concerned, he's a 20th (now 21st) century artistic genius deserving of recognition and reverence from the wider world's institutions of high culture. Why? Well as my roommate likes to put it, his shit's just so tight. He can make harrowing, dark, cosmic, soul-bearing music out of anything: his trusty guitar and feedback, a tambourine, his own voice... But even fans like me might have found his last solo release on PSF, the all-acoustic guitar workout Hikari Yami Uchitokeaishi Kono Hibiki, tough going. But THIS new disc is one I'd wholeheartedly recommend even to the uninitiated. According to the label it "sees him developing themes on from his last PSF release." I think by that they're not referring to Hikari Yami Uchitokeaishi Kono Hibiki but to his previous PSF disc, the 'grey album' Mazu Wa Iro O Nakuso Ka. That was an incredible, hypnotic document of Haino in a gentle, ghostly mood, recording at home presumably, accompanying himself via overdubs on a 4-track, quite unlike his more typical live, over-amped, no-overdubs method. Now on 'Next' Let's Try Changing The Shape, Haino again experiments with overdubbing. However his guitar sound on this tends towards the harsher electric tones of 'classic Haino' (solo and with his band Fushitsusha), much less 'jazzy' than on Mazu Wa... the grey is gone and he's back to the blackness. The six tracks found here all feature layers of electric guitar and vocal overdubs, a multitude of Keiji's playing together. To some this may sound chaotic and confused, but careful listening will reveal the ways in which Haino has carefully constructed these pieces. On the more guitar-heavy tracks his web of sound builds and builds in density, becoming a narcotic drone not unlike some Skullflower stuff, while other tracks are based more around Haino's vocal parts -- there's one I thought was gonna be all acapella until his guitar appeared a few minutes in -- raw and repetitious, almost Reynolisan. The album ends with a final descent into the abyss, a 26 minute trip that gets so seriously spooky that you suspect the overdubbing is Haino's way of not feeling so alone... Definitely Keiji Haino (and this album) is not for everybody, but it's worth finding out if he's for you because your life will be better for it, if you find his art speaks to you the way it does to me.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
In honor of Haino's 50th birthday, in addition to his long overdue recognition on the cover of highbrow experimental music rag The Wire, PSF has issued a video document of a rare performance for voice and percussion instruments. Enigmatic and mysterious when merely only listened to, this video gives an anticipated insight to the physicality and trancendence of space experienced when witnessing Keiji Haino in full force, for seeing Haino perform in the flesh is an experience like no other. Unlike the previous video offered by PSF, an excerpt of a Fushitsusha performance (only 45 minutes of a supposed three hour set!), this offers a complete peek into the mystical genius of Keiji Haino. See Haino reduce a poor tambourine to its raw elements, tearing away at its flesh, drawing away its spirit, and exposing its corpse.
First things first -- be aware that this double disc of live pagan ritual drone from Japan's dark diminutive pyschedelic overlord Keiji Haino is a strictly limited release, just 1000 copies pressed, of which only 500 are available in the States. Of which we've got 30. It's jointly released by both the Important label and Scott Slimm's Archive -- the latter who previously brought us the so rapidly sold out that we couldn't even list it triple live cd Boris release, and also the now equally out of print live disc by Growing, and if those two are any indication, this will be long gone soon too!
Of course the music's the main attraction, but it's nice that as with Archive's other previous releases this looks great too: Beautiful, simple double cd packaging. Black on black, of course. Letterpressed printing. A cover image of Haino in an action pose, intently focused on a table-top of electronic gadgetry.
And what's Haino up to on the sonic front here? The two discs are different, the 54'27" disc one featuring electronics, percussion, and vocals; and the 46'54" disc two devoted to Haino's hurdy-gurdy playing (plus voice). Both are combinations of the lovely and the difficult in proportions to which Haino's fans are accustomed. Let's listen more closely...
Disc one, entitled "A temporary freezing of the time axis that turns at the end of this profound now": Restrained electronic whine, drone, squiggle. Simmering, dubby passages of typewritery percussion. Brief outbursts of Haino's trademark vocal exhortations. Overall, ominous and soothing both. It's an aural glimpse into a mad scientist's laboratory, experiments automatically percolating away, Professor Haino occasionally lecturing his visitors intensely...
Disc two, known as, incredibly, "That, which while enfolding this now and present perfume, speaks, 'I will use to the fullest this form bestowed upon me' and blurs into the firmament - ah, where and in what form will it next be devised": Haino's hurdy gurdy playing conjures a grating, broken drone. Like a creepy-crawling Tony Conrad. Halting rhythms, staggering back and forth, on and off, scraping and soul wrenching. But beautiful too, with moments sounding "classical", melodic. Some more of that typewritery percussion. And then there's his voice, which, when reveal'd, hovers serious and fragile over the black drone clouds roiling out of his instrument...
Further notes: this recording was mastered by James Plotkin, while the graphic design was handled by Stephen O'Malley -- thus, two members of Khanate having a hand in this release. Hmm, that gets me on a line of speculative thinking...Haino did a collaboration with Boris a while back, so why not with Khanate?? Hearing him on the mic dueting with Alan Dubin would be amazing!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We'll keep this brief, as we only have but 3 copies to disperse (we actually acquired twice that number, but already sold some in the store)! So act fast, Haino fans, if your collection is lacking this long out of print 1997 release, bearing one of the most straightforward of the Tokyo psych shaman's poetic album titles, which are often much lengthier and more cryptic.
This disc contains one long track (67'31") of wavering, haunted drone, its meditative mystery eventually enhanced by rattling, rustling percussion, abstract Eastern string strum, and hoarse, mumbled chant (a far cry from Haino's usual anguished shrieks). Sparse and ceremonial sounding, this is the calm side of Keiji, not amped up and/or abrasive like some of his other releases. Like we said, it's out of print, a "warehouse find" we unearthed from an undisclosed location, and according to the internet it now sells for up to $60! While even the most devoted Haino fans here find that a bit insane, it's certainly worth the price we're charging... to at least, and unfortunately ultimately at most, three of you, we're sure.
