[ 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 701 through 750 of 819.

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

SORRY.

Apart from their moniker, there's nary a hint of the '80s TV show Dallas in JR Ewing's music. They are in fact an aggressive quintet from Oslo, Norway whose second album has found a perfect home on Gold Standard Laboratories. Hard rockin' chunks of crunchy guitars, pounding bass and drums with scream-sung vocals. Amid all the thrashing, there hides a hook or two which made me think of a heavier more abrasive Hives. However, these guys are far more hardcore than garage punk, and they've got a trick or two of their own up their sleeves which occasionally take shape via the addition of electronics and noise detailing. While nudging at the boundaries of hardcore, Ride Paranoia just might take out an eye or cause blistering on tender eardrums. MPEG Download: "Repetition Is Failure" [/audio/jrewingrepetition.mp3] MPEG Stream: "Repetition Is Failure" [/audio/jrewingrepetition.m3u]

MPEG stream: Repetition Is Failure
MPEG stream: An Introduction To...

We are suckers for the sound of kids making their own rock or funk or soul or whatever. Of course we love The Langley School Music Project, and Rock Jack, and Evil Wicked Warrior, but we especially love it when little kids write, record and play their own songs. Jr. And His Soulettes were lead by the 10 year old Harold Moore Jr. and his younger brothers and sisters who ranged in age from 6-9 years old. They played around Oklahoma in the early 70's and pressed a record that never really saw the light of day, as their uncle ruined most of them trying to shrink wrap them using a meat packing machine at the plant he worked at. Luckily someone got their hands on the recording and it's now finally available on cd! And boy is this some seriously great raw & funky r&b, deep in the garage, complete with wah-wah organ, fuzzy guitar, driving instrumentals and some undeniably charming vocals. These were some talented and soulful kids!

MPEG stream: Momma, Love Tequilla
MPEG stream: Sweet Little One

This is the first in a planned series of 3" dvd-r's from the folks at Jyrk. This first installment comes from Jamie Potter of experimental drone ensemble Bonus, whose cd-r on Root Strata we reviewed a while back (don't ask, it's out of print) and dug pretty heavily. This dvd features more of that deep rich Bonus buzz, a whirring rich warm chordal drone that subtly shifts over the course of this 25 minute film and the film is as strangely mesmerizing as the music. At first it's hard to tell exactly what you're seeing, some sort of alien starscape, or some incredibly magnified view of atoms and molecules, tiny little colored lights, that soon grow into a big white blinding sun shape that swirls and spins and changes colors, like watching some sort of scientific representation of some cataclysmic cosmic event. It's totally hypnotic and it's easy to drift into some sort of trance, with the drones and the spinning shapes. The shapes are fascinating, looks like some sort of monitor, and the images on the screen shift and spin, transforming itself into weird spinning symbols, and pixelated glowing discs, like video feedback but more more 'designed'. Really striking and completely beautiful. To look at AND to listen to. Packaged in a cool mini 3" jewel case with full color insert. LIMITED TO 90 COPIES! ALREADY SOLD OUT. WE HAVE ABOUT 20 COPIES, AND THAT'S ALL WE'LL BE ABLE TO GET!

One of six new tapes from the always awesome Holodeck label out of Austin, Texas is this washed out retro '80's synth jammer from Juan Cisneros, who previously operated under the moniker, VC Childkraft (and who had one of our favorite tracks on the Brainclub Vol. 1 compilation). Vaporware is a hard to quantify mix of post-witch house haziness through a glaring Miami Vice heat. "Shattered Glass in Oil Rainbow" jarringly begins with a choked speedboat motor noise before settling into a calm seascape invoking a sonic comparison to The Holy Other channeling slow motion Jan Hammer. Romantic synth textures and even far away saxophone, taking us back to some love scene from an unrealized Michael Mann thriller, but filtered through an even dreamier veil of alien sensuality, placing an unfamiliar tense spin on a forgotten nostalgic moment. "Angel Cop/Black Market Exotica" brings some danger to the proceedings with sounds from a futuristic Asian crime thriller with crowd screams and laser bursts. Less tongue in cheek than someone like, say, Umberto, JU4N actually manages some thoughtful compositional choices that takes this to a deeper place than the references invoked would suggest. This is not your standard, Carpenter/Goblin synth worship, instead diving bravely head-on into some scarier Phil Collins "In The Air Tonight" territory and re-emerging rather unscathed with a unique sonic twist. Wear your Ray-Bans and proceed with caution! Limited!

Some time ago we raved about a disc entitled Shake Your Brains by a real-deal '70s stoner rock band from the Phillipines called the Juan Dela Cruz band. Turns out that disc, now long-gone and out of print, was actually a compilation of tracks taken from the Juan Dela Cruz albums Himig Natin and Maskara, which we discovered have just recently been reissued in their native land. Our mission was clear, and now we've managed to track down copies of both discs from a Phillipine supplier. They're supposedly "digitally remastered" but suffer from no-frills packaging, though, without much in the way of a booklet (pet peeve #493 strikes again) and chintzy "now on cd!" graphics marring the cover art repro. Still, these are the only way to acquire the most killer stuff by these obscure heavy rock legends. Here's some of what we said about that Shake Your Brains disc if you missed it: "Juan De La Cruz (a band, not a man, so it's filed under "J") was a hard-rock powerhouse powertrio from the Phillippines. If you're hip to other obscurites from the era, imagine a cross between Buffalo and Los Dug Dug's! Totally rocked out bluesy stoner jams, with brilliantly fucked sex and party obsessed lyrics ("get drunk all day, get down all night", "I'll just wait for you down in the alley / and I'll show you how it can be"). And guitarist Wally Gonzales has got his acid-psych leads down, man! It's not clear who's singing (it might be the drummer, who previously played in the equally primal Japanese psychrock band Speed, Glue, & Shinki) but whoever it is, he's got the perfect delivery for this stuff, which includes one of our all-time favorite garage-psych songs, "I Wanna Say Yeah" -- perhaps the ultimate rock n' roll song title/lyric *EVER*. I mean, yeah! None of today's punks, stoners, or garage revivalists can touch that." That Shake Your Brains disc consisted of ten songs -- taking four of Himig Natin's nine tracks and six of Masakara's dozen -- about half of each. And probably the better half of each, we have to say. But some stuff not selected that you'll find on these albums is just as good, and besides which you can't get Shake Your Brains anymore. So if you want to hear "Beep Beep" and "I Wanna Say Yeah" and "Shake Your Brains" you've gotta get these two discs! Himig Natin came out originally in 1973 and features, as both albums do, the line-up of Wally Gonzales (guitar), Mike Hanopol (bass), and Joseph Smith (drums, acoustic guitar). It's got the aforementioned "I Wanna Say Yeah" and the song with the "down in the alley" lyrics, "Take You Home" (also recorded by Speed Glue & Shinki), among other highlights. Some cuts are on the bluesier side, they do one Chuck Berry song ("Round And Round"), and another one's a Greatful Dead cover! It's a rollicking version of "Big Boss Man", not being a Deadhead I don't know if that's an obscure cover or not, and I also wouldn't have guessed it was a Dead song either. The album winds up with the rather pretty title track, wherein Smith's acoustic comes into play.

MPEG stream: Take You Home
MPEG stream: I Wanna Say Yeah

Some time ago we raved about a disc entitled Shake Your Brains by a real-deal '70s stoner rock band from the Phillipines called the Juan Dela Cruz band. Turns out that disc, now long-gone and out of print, was actually a compilation of tracks taken from the Juan Dela Cruz albums Himig Natin and Maskara, which we discovered have just recently been reissued in their native land. Our mission was clear, and now we've managed to track down copies of both discs from a Phillipine supplier. They're supposedly "digitally remastered" but suffer from no-frills packaging, though, without much in the way of a booklet (pet peeve #493 strikes again) and chintzy "now on cd!" graphics marring the cover art repro. Still, these are the only way to acquire the most killer stuff by these obscure heavy rock legends. Here's some of what we said about that Shake Your Brains disc if you missed it: "Juan De La Cruz (a band, not a man, so it's filed under "J") was a hard-rock powerhouse powertrio from the Phillippines. If you're hip to other obscurites from the era, imagine a cross between Buffalo and Los Dug Dug's! Totally rocked out bluesy stoner jams, with brilliantly fucked sex and party obsessed lyrics ("get drunk all day, get down all night", "I'll just wait for you down in the alley / and I'll show you how it can be"). And guitarist Wally Gonzales has got his acid-psych leads down, man! It's not clear who's singing (it might be the drummer, who previously played in the equally primal Japanese psychrock band Speed, Glue, & Shinki) but whoever it is, he's got the perfect delivery for this stuff, which includes one of our all-time favorite garage-psych songs, "I Wanna Say Yeah" -- perhaps the ultimate rock n' roll song title/lyric *EVER*. I mean, yeah! None of today's punks, stoners, or garage revivalists can touch that." That Shake Your Brains disc consisted of ten songs -- taking four of Himig Natin's nine tracks and six of Masakara's dozen -- about half of each. And probably the better half of each, we have to say. But some stuff not selected that you'll find on these albums is just as good, and besides which you can't get Shake Your Brains anymore. So if you want to hear "Beep Beep" and "I Wanna Say Yeah" and "Shake Your Brains" you've gotta get these two discs! The title of 1974's Masakara might possibly relate in some way to the sleeve photo of the band in facepaint... So cool. They mellow out on a few of the tracks, but mostly these are heavy duty rockers! A few highlights: "Pinoy Blues", "Nadapa Sa Arina", "Beep Beep", "We Love You", "Palengke", and "Pagod Sa Pahinga" -- a lot more Tagalog language lyrics/titles here than on the previous album. And no covers this time, as far as we know.

MPEG stream: Beep Beep
MPEG stream: Rak En Roll Sa Mundo

Juan De La Cruz (a band, not a man, so it's filed under "J") was a hard-rock powerhouse powertrio from the Phillippines who flourished in the nineteen seventies. If you're hip to other obscurites from the era, imagine a cross between Buffalo and Los Dug We'll soon have another Juan de la Cruz reissue, a 1970 recording called "Up In Arms" that Shadoks is putting out real soon. Apparently it's got a ton of unreleased live stuff on it, can't wait!

RealAudio clip: I Wanna Say Yeah
RealAudio clip: Shake Your Brains

Here's that other Juan de la Cruz reissue we promised last list in our review of their "Shake Your Brains" album. "Up In Arms" was the band's debut from 1971. Like "Shake Your Brains" this is psychedelic hard rock, but it's a bit more psych, and less hard, than

RealAudio clip: Requiem For A Head
RealAudio clip: Sarap Ng Buhay

Seems like a lifetime ago that John Maclean was dishing out noisy and spacey postpunk with his '90s band Six Finger Satellite. The past decade has found Maclean completely embracing his love of electro-dance music and thus has become one of the staples of the DFA roster. The Future Will Come finds him further exploring that classic 'Berlin' sound with a full on dance assault rich with color and fury. We tend to prefer the tracks with Nancy Whang handling the vocals more than the ones with Mr. Maclean on the mic. Not quite exciting us like his last outing Less Than Human did, but certainly filled with a handful of really good tracks.

MPEG stream: The Simple Life
MPEG stream: The Future Will Come

We're so glad Bardes Records unearthed these Peruvian gems, the work of Juaneco Y Su Combo, who were one of the main proponents of the 'Chicha' sound that blossomed throughout South America in the 1970s, a thrilling sound that merged Peruvian traditional music with Brazilian carimbo, Colombian cumbia, Western surf guitar stylings and infectious psychedelic organs. There's no doubt these sounds had an influence on the newer generation of Peruvian musicians, possibly as well as on the now sounds that we love from the Colombian collective Las Malas Amistades and international scavengers like Senor Coconut. The story behind this group is so fascinating, filled with lots of psychedelic drugs, a father handing over the band he created over to his son, and tragically, a plane crash in 1977 that took the life of five of the members of the band. Luckily these joyous sounds are finally getting their well deserved chance to reach a much wider international audience. Fans of garage rock, surf, Latin rhythms and international pop will find so much to love in these classic Chicha tracks.

Jucifer made me woozy. Not a bad thing! When it started with delicate female vocals over shoegazer psychedelia, I thought "one part My Bloody Valentine, one part Lush, one part Veruca Salt", but that didn't last too long. Add "five parts Melvins". The breathy female vox soon meet ballsy thick fuzz guitars. Pretty damn rockin'... and it all gets progressively more so. By the fourth song ("Queen B"), the heavy duty nutbusters have been unleashed, although they pretty things up again later, always keeping you guessing as to when the crushing riffs will come in. If you've been paying attention (unlike me) you'd have been expecting this from our review of Jucifer's previous effort, "The Lambs EP". To recap: Jucifer are a massively-amped two-piece from Georgia or someplace, with a frenzied, hard-hitting male drummer and a heavier-than-thou female guitarist, who also handles the singing, a blend of beastly and beautiful that is this duo's forte. "Death Pop" they call it. The 15 tracks here vary the predominant drums/guitar brutality with some hypnotic keyboard atmospheres and effects. Boris meets the Breeders?

RealAudio clip: Amplifier
RealAudio clip: Queen B
RealAudio clip: Little Fever

Sweet southern shoegazer stoner dirge metal?? Well it makes lots of sense here. It's been two years since this band's last release, the (excellent) ep War Bird. A long wait but worth it, as Jucifer have become one of our go-to bands for music that's both punishingly heavy yet also thoroughly laced with indie-pop prettiness, and this new one does not disappoint on either score. For those of you that need the intro, these fuzzed-out faves of ours are a male/female two-piece from Georgia (home to Harvey Milk as well, and we imagine some sort of kinship), the guy on drums and the gal on guitar and vox, pushing more air than most five-piece bands, amp on 11, crushingly heavy but with enough spaciousness in the mix to allow for the lady's lovely, breathy vocals to soar over her doomier than thou riffage. She can also manage some stressed out banshee screams when necessary. We've always compared Jucifer to an unholy mixture of the Melvins and the Breeders and that holds true here on If Thine Enemy Hunger, their first album for diverse metal label Relapse. And we're not sure why we never thought of it before, maybe it's more noticeable on this album, but listening to this we're thinking Nirvana Nirvana Nirvana, it's very In Utero sounding at times!! Which we can't help but like. Some of it's just that catchy, and that moody. Just in time for the current AQ grunge obsession! (Though this is more like a stripped down, alt-rock Boris than a grunge band, we should note). We're in love.

MPEG stream: She Ties The Deep
MPEG stream: Lucky Ones Burn

Just about the last thing we'd expect from this boy/girl Southern doom-dirge duo (and sometimes shoegazing indie-pop pair) is a concept album about the French Revolution. But with tracks like "Fall Of The Bastille" and "Procession A La Guillotine" that's what you get here, though!! The 21 tracks here veer wildly from thrashing hardcore (with rabid vokills) one moment, to grungy rock riffage graced with blissed out female vocals (some in French) the next... There's a hushed acoustic interlude or three, and vast tracts of crushing glacial doooooooom as well. From track to track, this is all over the place, you'll never know quite what to expect next. It's eccentric, ambitious, sorta schizo, and heck we're impressed. More importantly, entertained, 'cause even with all the variety, Jucifer fans (such as ourselves) can count on this 66 minutes of music to include plenty of the band's usual distorto-sludge amp worshiping heavy rockin' heaviness a la Boris, as well as plenty of guitarist Amber Valentine's lovely, breathy melodic vox, the other crucial element of the unusual but effective Jucifer formula. It's sorta like you've got the Melvins playing loud on the stereo in one corner of your room, while you're also listening to Mirah or Mary Timony singing sweetly on your iPod headphones. And again, on top of that, it's about the French Revolution. Way to go Jucifer, really threw us for a loop. Vive La Revolution!

MPEG stream: To Earth
MPEG stream: L'Autrichienne
MPEG stream: The Mountain

Terrible name, let's get that out of the way. The band says they wanted something that was both sweet (juice) and sinister (Lucifer), but it wasn't a good idea -- try saying it aloud. Jew-cifer? Whoops. And whether people will mistake them for

RealAudio clip: Lambs

Latest from this heavy boy-girl two-piece. Comes with download card.

Yay, a new EP from this AQ fave, a guitar/drums girl/boy two-piece who produce massive MELVINSy heaviness and then caress said heaviness with breathy, beautiful female vocals, as if trying to soothe a wild beast of their own creation. She even sings in French on one track. As we've come to expect from 'em, War Bird is indeed lumbering, distorted, droning dirge-metal blessed with some quiet/mellow interludes as the band occasionally stops to smell the flowers before trampling them underfoot. From surging to soporific, there's six songs here including one acoustic country-folk anomaly -- about 23 minutes of music in total -- plus an additional 46 minute track that's a field recording of (mainly) crickets! Presumably, recorded in their backyard in Georgia. Thus, a 69 minute ep!

MPEG stream: Ides Of Light
MPEG stream: Seth

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

SORRY. Once you realize this amazing single is totally acapella, the title finally makes sense! Jud Jud do stunningly perfect straight-edge punk/grindcore/emo -- except that every cymbal crash, every wail of guitar feedback, every single note is done acapella! Must be heard to be believed! This is their second single. Now if only they would do a covers album...

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

SORRY. Probably one of the funniest records we have ever heard, this is a parody of early 80's straight edge complete with tour posters of Jud Jud headlining over Minor Threat, Seven Seconds, and Uniform Choice and a heartfelt mention of friendships and motivation and dreams becoming reality and the importance of their lyrics. Only Jud Jud's lyrics go a bit like this: JUD JUD JAH, JUD JUD JUD, JUD JUD JAH, TSSS TSSS TSSSSS, JUD JUD EEEEEEE, JUD JUD EEEEEE, JUD JAAAAAAAAA, JUD JUD, JUD JUD JAAAAAAAA, JUD JUD JUD, WAH NAH, JUD JUD JUD, WAH NAH, JUD JUD JUD, NING NING NING, JUD JUD, DIGGA DIGGA DIGGA, JUD JUD, EEEEEEEE, DUJ DUJ, DIGGA DIGGA DIGGA, JUD JUD JUD, JUD JUD, BBBDDDTLUM PPPPP, BBBDDDTLUM PPPP, JUD JUD JUD, DUJ DUJ, EEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU, JUD JUD. And that's it--no guitars, no drums. Yep, that's right. Exactly like every straight edge single you've ever heard, only it's A CAPELLA! Even the 'feedback' whines are a capella! Excellent and hilarious.

There's absolutely no information about Judah as to the who, the what, or the when. We could be really bold and say that this bleak, murky synth-punk outfit was active in the early '80s emerging out of the Bowery alongside the likes of Suicide and Dark Day; but in all likelihood, this is a contemporary project that has all of the minimal wave trappings. The arrangements on this eponymous album are suitably stripped down with just syncopated bass-tones, monophunk drum machines, and motorik pulses through pure analogue electronics with very little touching on melody. The vocalist (whoever that may be) strikes a sneering rock pose certainly modeled on the rockabilly vocals of Alan Vega with a few funhouse Elvis grinds by way of Karl Blake of Shock Headed Peters. This is a pretty damn compelling record, and one that we wish we could tell you more about. Unfortunately, we do have very limited stock on this, with very little hope of getting more...

MPEG stream: Sainted Pusher
MPEG stream: The Killing Reborn Jesus
MPEG stream: Magdalena (Dance!)

Some of you might have just heard rob halford interviewed by terri gross on NPR's Fresh Air. Here's the new "reunion" album, way better than the ones they did with Tim "The Ripper" Owens though it's still no Painkiller pt. 2...

1980 Priest album remastered and tricked out with two bonus cuts (the patriotic and very lame "Red, White & Blue" and a live "Grinder"). But the original LP tracks are where the action is: bonafide metal classics like "Living After Midnight", the seemingly autobiographical "Metal Gods" (actually, no, it's about evil robots!), and everyone's favorite sing-along, "Breaking The

"Rising from darkness where hell hath no mercy and the screams of vengeance echo on forever, only those who keep the faith shall escape the wrath of the Metallian...master of all metal." Don't provoke the Metallian, pick up this 1984 Judas Priest album in all its remastered glory and thrill to video-age classics like "Freewheel Burning" and "Love Bites". Includes, as all these remasters

More Priest remastered reissues! Their new album, "Demolition" turned out to be a big piece of crap but that makes these old reissues even more necessary, as a reminder of their former glories in the days of Halford, particularily in the '70s. 1978's

Supreme metal triumph. The last good (in fact, great) Judas Priest album, also happened to be their last with 'Metal God' Rob Halford at the mic. Originally released in 1990, "Painkiller" at the time seemed like the big Priest comeback, after a string of

RealAudio clip: Painkiller

1981 album remastered ("for speaker-splitting sound" it says on the cover sticker), w/ unreleased 2 bonus tracks ("Thunder Road" is the studio one, it's pretty good actually, by "Point of Entry" standards). C'mon, go hot rockin'!

BEST PRIEST ALBUM. On vinyl.

THE Judas Priest cd YOU MUST OWN. It's their second album, from 1976, and is one of the prototypical heavy metal albums of all time (along with earlier masterworks like "Paranoid" and "Machine Head" and later classics like "Killers" and "Master of

RealAudio clip: Sad Wings of Destiny
RealAudio clip: Tyrant

Of the four newly reissued/remastered JP discs, this 1982 uber-classic and "British Steel" are the definite essentials. (Of course, there's eight others coming up in this welcome reissue program, just in time to light a fire under today's Priest to make their new disc "Demolition" live up to these old records). Fuck, this one's got "The Hellion/Electric Eye", the title track,

The one with their Joan Baez cover, "Diamonds And Rust". Plus the song Slayer later covered, "Dissident Aggressor". And "Sinner" and "Last Rose of Summer" and more. Early Priest rules, and this was their first album for Columbia, from '77 (and thus the

Another Priest classic! If you're any sort of metalhead, you'll have this 1978 album in your collection. "Exciter", "Invader", "Beyond The Realms of Death", "Saints In Hell"...so many great songs. This disc is of course remastered and includes two bonus

Known to fans as "Unleashed In The Studio", this is their 'live' album recorded in 1979 in Japan. Overdubbed or not, it's another essential metal artifact from the band that pioneered on-stage motorcycle riding. For once, the bonus tracks on this remaster make

A self-taught musician with a keen understanding of electronic circuits, F.C. Judd published the first of 11 books on the nascent field of electronic music in 1954. This was a few years before the BBC founded its Radiophonic Workshop, and documentation exists that Judd and the Workshop's Daphne Oram were in communication with each other. That said, Judd might have counted amongst the hundreds of amateur enthusiasts who tinkered in garages, basements, attics, and sheds throughout the UK (and beyond for that matter!); but his anonymity was not for a lack of trying, as he did publish those 11 books, founded the Amateur Tape Recording magazine (with a run from 1959-1967), and funded a couple of record labels, all in the pursuit of disseminating experimental tape music to a wider audience. Many of those singles did get bundled by Studio G for library use (and subsequently, one of those tracks made it onto the G-Spots compilation from the Studio G archives, curated by Trunk Records), and Judd did create the electronic sound design for the children's sci-fi puppet show Space Patrol in 1963. Judd's late '50s / early '60s studio featured various oscillators, tape decks, and filters alongside a primitive drum machine and an experimental synthesizer, both of his own design; and he rendered an eerie array of vibrations and electronic plonk, coupled with a rough-cut / hand-spun approach to tape edits and loops. Judd varied from the spookily abstract paralleling (and predating) the sound design from the Forbidden Planet and Dr. Who soundtracks; and some delightfully playful electronic poptunes looking forward to Joe Meek's gleeful electronics as The Blue Men. Interspersed throughout the electronics and tape experiments, Judd offers up his own thoughts on the tracks themselves with a dry sense of humor tossing about explanatory definitions of basic musique concrete techniques and various electronic circuits. A fantastic and compelling document of the earliest and nearly forgotten pioneers of British electronic music, to which Judd himself said it best: "Musique Concrete is fascinating!"

MPEG stream: Suspended Motion
MPEG stream: Tempotune
MPEG stream: Space Links
MPEG stream: Cheery Bye

Bay Area band Judith And Holofernes take traditional Portuguese fado music and give it a gentle twist. Gracefully picked guitar flourishes are accompanied by male and female vocals that actually bring to mind those of Low's Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker (particularly on their last album The Great Destroyer). In fact, at times, Judith And Holofernes seem to be not so distant rural cousins of those somber slowcore faves. Pressing the comparisons even closer, electric guitar drones thicken the album's atmosphere and give the proceedings a bit more gravity. May we recommend that Abraca A Tristeza be listened to by candlelight? Yes! Enjoy these moody beauties as they glimmer in and out of the shadows.

MPEG stream: Euphoria Fades
MPEG stream: Flattering Inaccuracy Of Memory

Not only does our pal Jason run the weirdo tape label Ormolycka label, responsible for a whole mess of awesome releases including jams from Lil Ugly Mane, Death Grips, Burqa Boyz, Pictureplane, M Ax Noi Mach and tons more, he also puts together amazing shows at the Sutro Baths, that happen in THE CAVE!!! Which is even more remarkable considering he lives in New York City! The 5th annual Oromolycka Cave show just happened this last weekend, and it was awesome, tons of folks showed up, there was free BBQ and the bands KILLED. It ended up being a wild hip hop cave show, with even M Ax Noi Mach doing some rapping, but it was Lil Ugly Mane that stole the show, the whole crowd singing along to every single line. Here we have yet another rad/weird Ormolycka release, this one from Milwaukee rapper and energy drink entrepreneur (we kid you not) Juiceboxx, whose sound is like a whinier goofier version of Lil Ugly Mane, sped up soul samples, skittery beats, the vibe a little bit crunk, very Southern in places, all sorts of twisted samples, squelchy synths, and lots of that weird sports horn sound, EVERYwhere. Total party rap that's pretty fun, pretty silly, but definitely self aware and clever, hints of Eminem, Beastie Boys (all the usual white boy rapper touchstones), but Juiceboxx definitely has that outsider Ormolycka hip hop thing going on which makes this well worth checking out, and odds are you'll be blasting this big time, for what remains of Summer. Comes in a cool old school double cassette case, with two different J card / covers for each album, one a Springsteen homage/pisstake (!!). And yeah, SUPER limited!

When's the last time you bought a goddamn CASSINGLE?? The nineties? The eighties? Well it's about time to make it right goddamn now, cuz this latest blast from Milwaukee rapper Juiceboxxx (yeah, he's added an X since last time) is a doozy. Now that's it's cold and grey, rainy and grim, this is THEE summer jam that will make the inside of your car feel like you're cruising down the coast, top down, sun shining, cracking 40's, smoking blunts, and scamming on the ladies (or the dudes). Total Beastie Boys style radness, hooky loops, big bouncy loops, and a whole mess of guests including local boy Antwon, who each contribute a verse, the sound slipping from bombastic boombox hip hop, to sample heavy summery electro-pop, with a main vocal hook that will stick in your head like crazy. And flip it over, and you get the a capella, which somehow is just as cool / even cooler. Pressed on a bright pink tape, housed in a full color cardboard cassingle style sleeve. LIMITED TO 50 COPIES!!!

With a bandname like that, you might be expecting a power pop trio or some other energetic upbeat combo, but no! This new addition to the ever-growing, wide-ranging Absolutely Kosher label family (Wrens, Xiu Xiu, Mountain Goats, Frog Eyes, Court & Spark et al) is a subdued, contemplative earthy ensemble. Their music suggests more so an antique wind-up musicbox than an electric jukebox. Quite akin to recent neo-folksters such as Joanna Newsom, Vetiver and Faun Fables. They make the kind of airy, enchanting music that draws you near, you'll want/need to lean in close to catch every hushed, chiming note and drifting seraphim vocal. So pretty!

MPEG stream: Terrestrial
MPEG stream: House Burning Down

Classical inspired daydream electronic ambience crafted with an immaculate touch. Marsen Jules should be familiar to anyone who loves the blissed out sounds found on Kompakt's yearly Pop Ambient series, as he's had tracks featured on four of those collections. Nostalgia is rife with solemn undertones, making it the perfect soundtrack for broken hearts and tearful moments, surrendering to the intensity of the moment. It's music that would perfectly suit some 16mm gauzy Kodachrome film panning through the sky, city, and glimpses of old friends, lovers and faded memories. A record that makes us think of our favorite outings by Sylvain Chauveau, Gas, Biosphere, and Klimek. Completely gorgeous.

MPEG stream: A Moment Of Grace
MPEG stream: Sleep My Brother, Sleep
MPEG stream: Sweet Sweet Longing

Another list, another batch of tapes from UK label The Tapeworm! This one comes from a guy named Phil Julian, who despite apparently being quite active in the experimental music underground since the nineties, we had not previously heard of. But all it took was a few seconds of his Live Flux to convince us that that was definitely an egregious oversight on our part. Huge billowing clouds of low end rumble and buzzing metallic shimmer, all constructed from experiments with "unstable/chaotic systems", aka modular synths, contact mics, feedback etc. It's impossible to tell what the source is for these sounds, but it hardly matters, just sit back and let these thick sonic swells wash over you. Undulating, and softly pulsing swirls seem to coalesce into heaving walls of sound only to immediately dissipate into drifting clouds of sonic particles, before beginning to gather once again. The sound eventually settles into something much more serene, a sort of Niblockian stretch of layered tones, backed with all manner of incidental sound, voices, shuffling feet, pieces of wood on concrete, hard to say if these were purposeful or not, but they do add mysterious texture, to Julian's dronemusic, which even in its more serene state, begins again to build to something dense and intense. The flipside is more of the same, but the recording is more raw, wreathed in hiss, the sounds pulsing madly as well, as if tones were chosen that were just off enough that their overtones would collide and disagree, the results though are a wild chaotic cloud of hissing, throbbing soft noise, that for all of its noisiness and abrasion, still manages to be weirdly hypnotic.

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

SORRY.

It's always exciting to get to experience an artist at the beginning of what you know will be a long and rewarding journey of musical and artistic exploration. We first encountered Julius Smack (aka Peter Hernandez) by chance. Some of us here love the avant-drag party High Fantasy thrown every Tuesday night at one of the last standing gay bars in the Tenderloin, Aunt Charlie's. One night we saw an artist whose performance consisted of cool projections, a super distinctive look and persona, meditative movements and even some full on voguing. But what struck us the most, was the alluring music playing during this performance, especially some beautiful entrancing vocals. Our first thought was "Oh my god, how cool, a drag/performance artist using unreleased Arthur Russell tracks as his music!" So we approached him after his stunning performance and asked what the music was and if it was Arthur Russell as we suspected? He humbly replied that the music and the vocals were his own, and that's when we know we had encountered something special. This debut release features his take on left-field electronic pop, with warm melting synths, and that irresistible voice. It's impossible to not hear Arthur Russell in Julius Smack, but we also hear touches of Owen Pallett and maybe a more clubby version of David Sylvian. This ep features four original tracks, some tasteful interludes laced with field recordings, a few remixes of the title track, and two covers. His take on Al Green's "I'm Still In Love With You" is a stunner... and make sure to stick around for the 'secret' Arthur Russell cover (of course) which appears after the last track. This is music that is both delicate and self assured, bold without being flashy, and sensual without relying on played out signifiers. Not sure how many of these were pressed, so best to grab one quick so you can say you knew him when...

MPEG stream: Feels So Right
MPEG stream: I'm Still In Love With You

Outside of Nigeria, most Nigerian artists from the golden era of Nigerian High Life live deep within the shadow of Fela Kuti. To be fair to Fela his output alone dwarfs all comers, and he was one of the founding fathers of the modern Nigerian sound. Orlando Julius, while not blessed with as large an oeuvre as Fela is as great an architect of the music. Julius cut his teeth playing in the early high life bands starting back in 1961. By the time Fela Kuti had returned from abroad with his head full of ideas, Orlando Julius had already started his band The Modern Aces and begun revolutionizing the stagnating music scene. It was his band that Fela looked to when he started his precursor to the Africa 70, Koola Lobitos. Now available for the first time outside of Nigeria are 9 tracks of soulful Nigerian high life recorded by Orlando Julius between 1969 and 1972. Includes historical sleeve notes by Miles Cleret.

MPEG stream: Home Sweet Home
MPEG stream: Mura Sise

[ aquarius records catalogue — J ]