[ aquarius records catalogue

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Showing results 301 through 350 of 819.

Wow! We've got ourselves a big time winter crush! A youngster living in LA, Jeremy Jay has made an ep that we've been playing on repeat pretty much nonstop since we first got our ears on it. By far the best thing K has put out in ages. While it's a brand new record it has a charm and feel that made many of us think it was some amazing lost gem from the early eighties. Tapping into the poppier side of the early Factory vaults, Jeremy Jay's Airwalker reminds us of great early '80s records by The Wake and The Go-Betweens. He's like some amazing twee incarnation of Ian Curtis. Imagine Kings Of Convenience doing Joy Division covers. This is one of those rare records that just about everyone on the AQ staff has been smitten by. It's pretty impossible not to get swept away by his young fey pop chops filled with a richness and spark that demands you to pay attention. Somehow managing to cover both Blondie and Siouxsie & The Banshees while making those songs his own, this is a kid we're pretty certain the world will be taking notice of very soon. We haven't been this enamored with a new, young indie-pop voice in ages. This could very well sneak on to some of our best of 2007 lists. Highly recommended!

MPEG stream: Airwalker
MPEG stream: Angels On The Balcony

No one has mastered the art of the infectious ep or 7" in recent times quite like Jeremy Jay, laying down the kind of tracks that you want to listen to over and over and over, and his latest single continues the smoking hot streak. "Alpharhythm" catches its sultry groove right from the get go and unfolds into a dancey hot number. It's the kind of song that would be perfect if the art kids, outcasts and dreamers actually got to make the soundtrack to their perfect prom. The B side, "Moonbeam Window", though very brief is so great, with a hot/cold vibe and a sound that feels like it's some lost post-punk gem recorded in a garage filled with smoke machines and an old glimmering disco ball hanging from the ceiling. There is something about Jeremy Jay's music that is just so effortless and is undeniably the essence of cool. Highly recommended!

Awesome instrumental score that Jeremy Jay created for a short film called Dreamland. Lots of moody and sensual piano playing. So rad!

Oh Jeremy, we can never get enough of your airwalking dreamy and dancey delights! The 12" is such a perfect format for his songs, as he really is a singles artist in so many ways. Creating such memorable songs that can stand on their own and lend themselves to obsessive repeated listens. Love Everlasting is the late night, slow burning dance floor with a disco light shining bright side to Jeremy's arsenal of charming and seductive songwriting. You can almost see the steam rising off these tracks as you lay the needle into the grooves. This is exactly what you would want to hear the DJ throw on as it gets close to closing time and you're sipping your last drink and all you want to do is slow dance the final moments of the blurry, fun-filled night away. So great!

Whether sizzling with sensual dancefloor jams or slowburnin' with melodies and late-nite disco sounding keyboards, the newest Jeremy Jay record has reaffirmed that this young man from Los Angeles has a very special ability to create songs that make you swoon as they seep into your consciousness. The sort of swoonsome songs that will get your body moving like Molly Ringwald circa Sixteen Candles / The Breakfast Club! With a sound that's equal parts '50s innocence, early '80s new romantic, and late night disco clouds of heaven, Slow Dance finds Jeremy Jay proving that he truly has a unique vision and voice. His debut ep, Airwalker, was like some lost Factory gem while the debut full length A Place Where We Could Go had more of a singer songwriter vibe, Slow Dance finds Jeremy Jay riding such sweet grooves with a record that while less rocking than Airwalker and more dancey then A Place Where We Could Go, soars delightfully, jam packed with such sparkling romantic pop chops. This is exactly the sort of record that could unite fans of melty disco delights those who thrive on a steady diet of The Smiths. There is no denying the infectious charisma that simply oozes from Jeremy and his music. His songs and stage presence reminds us of another eighties movie trope: that beautiful rebel you desperately want to go to prom with, and you do, but then you guys ditch out early and he drives you to inspiration point and plays you his new song. Slow Dance sounds almost how we imagine David Bowie, if he were in his early 20's today and releasing records on Italians Do It Better. It's kind of ridiculous how many times we've played this already, just within the first week of its arrival, and we don't think we're going to grow tired of it anytime soon. Highly recommended!

MPEG stream: Gallop
MPEG stream: We Were There
MPEG stream: Canter Canter

Our favorite wide eyed and romantic indie rock singer/songwriter is back with another full length of songs about longing, love, long distance relationships, carefree bike rides, waiting for the telephone to ring, and daydreaming. All themes we can totally relate to and get behind and all delivered in Jeremy's irresistible manner. This time out it's a much more guitar driven affair then last years synth heavy Slow Dance. More a combination of sounds, somewhere between his debut ep. Airwalker which made us fall in love for him so hard in the first place, and some of the more laid back moments that made up his first full length, A Place Where We Could Go. The record boasts possibly the best three songs in a row we've heard on a record in ages. The one, two, three punch of "Just Dial My Number", "Splash", and "It Happened Before Our Time", pretty much pop perfection, each in different ways. "Splash" may just be a contender for best song of the year, the most rocking song on the album, one of those songs that has an intense immediacy that stuns you with joy on first listen and keeps you feeling that same way every time you listen to it. While those three are for sure the standouts on the record, luckily the other six tracks on Splash aren't too shabby themselves. Conjuring images of Jens Leckman doing Smiths covers with a kind of innocence and unabashed romanticism that is quite endearing. Now splitting his time living not only in Los Angeles but also in Paris and London (where he recorded Splash) there is a strong sense that this young man is for sure soaking up all of his new surroundings while feeling the inevitable longing of places that he's been to and left. No matter where he lands we will always have our ears wide open for his songs, as we're still so so smitten...

MPEG stream: Splash
MPEG stream: It Happened Before Our Time
MPEG stream: Someday Somewhere
MPEG stream: Just Dial My Number

If you've been in AQ more then a few times in the last few months you probably already know how obsessed we've become with Jeremy Jay. There's a pretty good chance we were swaying back and forth listening to his ep Airwalker over and over as we have countless times, and we still aren't even close to getting sick of it. Mixing a twee sensibility with the power of the Factory Records vaults, creating songs that invite you to jump right in and throw up your arms as you close your eyes and enter a world so dreamy and infectious. So of course we've been starving for anything else to get our hands and ears on by Jay, and luckily we have two new songs on this 7" to get lost with. The tracks here are quite different than the songs on Airwalker and show that Jay is not content with having an easily defined sound. The A side "We Were There" made us think of prime time Make-Up with it's sassy rhythms and spoken/sung delivery. The B side "Beautiful Dreamer" is what's getting us the most, with it's sparkling and dizzying cloudy sonics and late night haze. Two more reasons to love this young talent from LA!

Commercial hip hop deals another blow to the underground, by spitting out one of the best hip hop records of the year. Catchy and funky and funny and absolutely fucking perfect. Makes Puffy seem like the Young MC he really is.

RealAudio clip: Izzo (H.O.V.A.)
RealAudio clip: Takeover

MPEG stream: Kingdom Come
MPEG stream: Lost One

We've all been going a little Jay-Z crazy around here, playing 'The Blueprint' to death in the store, and if you have MTV, you're probably sick to death seeing clips from Jay-Z's unplugged set. But it ranks up there as one of the better 'Unplugged's (the

RealAudio clip: Izzo (H.O.V.A.)
RealAudio clip: I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)

Avid readers of the list know how much we LOVE the Jayhawks. From their twangy No Depression-ish Hollwood Town Hall major label debut, to their super-produced ultra-lush masterpiece Tommorow The Green Grass to the stripped down classic pop of their most recent Rainy Day Music, reviewed a couple lists back. This is the second Jayhawks release, but was actually just a collection of demos that were gussied up a bit for release. Thus, being demos, the songs do sound a little rough, and lack the production and lush vocal interplay that eventually defined the Jayhawks sound, but even so, they still manage to be pretty darn good. Cause as far as we're concerned, even the worst Jayhawks songs are better than the best songs of most bands. Disc opener 'Two Angels' resurfaces on their amazing Hollywood Town Hall album in a much more finished form. But it's cool to hear the song before it got worked over and got the Rick Rubin big production. And so it goes for most of Blue Earth, a lot of these tracks might have blossomed had they been re-recorded and reworked, but as they are, they are gorgeous, twangy, catchy diamonds in the rough. Comes with three additional unreleased demos as well as new liner notes. MPEG Download: "Two Angels" [/audio/jayhawkstwoangels.mp3] MPEG Stream: "Two Angels" [/audio/jayhawkstwoangels.m3u]

MPEG stream: Two Angels
MPEG stream: She's Not Alone Anymore

A while back we reviewed a killer collection / career retrospective from one of our favorite bands ever. The Jayhawks. A band we would rank right up there with Uncle Tupelo in that whole No Depression / alt country movement. But a band who was much more than alt country, they were classic pop songsmiths, like the Byrds, with two singers whose harmonies could rival any songwriting partnership of the last 50 years. But like all great bands, a collection only scratches the surface, bands like the Jayhawks didn't just write songs, they wrote records, so while a greatest hits package is definitely fine, it's the records proper where they really shine. So we were super psyched to discover that two of our favorite Jayhawks records got reissued, both on cd AND lp, the cd versions with tons of extra material. First, a little Jayhawks history lesson, from our review of the anthology: The whole No Depression movement spawned so many great bands, Uncle Tupelo of course, and post UT, Wilco and Son Volt, Blue Mountain, Whiskeytown, Freakwater, Old 97's, Scud Mountain Boys, Robbie Fulks, Tarnation, Split Lip Rayfield, and on and on. Very few of those bands, no matter how good or how much we dig 'em, come close to the sheer song writing genius and kick ass rocking of genre namesakes Uncle Tupelo, except for one. The Jayhawks, a consistently amazing band. Every record jam packed with incredible timeless songsmithery, the two vocalists, Gary Louris and Mark Olson had voices like angels, crafting perfect soaring harmonies, and both were incredible songwriters, one of those partnerships that comes along once in a blue moon. And the band, a crack collection of amazing players, they had EVERYTHING going for them. Yet for their whole career, success eluded them. While other, lesser bands went on to become critical darlings, or to make shit tons of money, the Jayhawks toiled in relative obscurity. So legendary was their bad luck that they were the subject of an extensive article in a national magazine (Newsweek, Business Day?) all about how to survive as a band, or not, as was the case with the Jayhawks. And their bad luck extended beyond the music business, as Mark Olson left at the height of the band's popularity to care for his wife, Victoria Williams who was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. And listening to these songs again, it is criminal, and tragic, and simply hard to believe that a band this good, and songs this amazing, managed to remain so under the radar for so long. But there's something to be said for a cult following, and the Jayhawks have that in spades, fans are generally obsessed, and fans FOR LIFE. With Wilco or Ryan Adams, ask fans of those bands, and you'll probably get a "yeah, they're cool", or "sure I totally dig them, the new record is killer", but talk to ANY Jayhawks fan (Andee for instance) and you'll get an explosion of superlatives, a rant about how much better the Jayhawks are than ANY of their contemporaries, and how fucked it is that they were never huge, and since it's Andee who is writing this, well, needless to say, the Jayhawks ARE better than all of their contemporaries, and yeah, we're including Wilco and whoever else you want to stack up against these guys. It's a little country, a little rock, a little folk, a lot of pop, but they've created a sound and a style so immediately recognizable, and those voices, you'll never mistake these guys for anyone else. Easily some of the best music of the last 20 years, country, No Depression or otherwise. Totally perfect, twang flecked, utterly timeless pop music of the highest order, or maybe it IS country music, but whatever you want to call it, to these ears it sounds heavenly, and like the Jayhawks and no one else. Hollywood Town Hall was the band's third album, but for most folks, ourselves included, it was our first exposure to these guys, and all it took was one song, album opener "Waiting For The Sun", with it's minor key riff, and those soaring crystal clear vocals, the dark introspective verses and the contrastingly vibrant sunshiney chorus, not to mention, all the little sonic subtleties, the warm whirring organ, the minimal piano, it's pretty much a perfect pop song, in the guise of alt country. And the record just doesn't let up every song here is gorgeous, melancholy and twangy one minute, rollicking and rocking the next, but always, those hooks, those harmonies, the arrangements, it's hard to know what to say. Just listen to those sound samples, and if you can somehow resist, well, we give up. The cd version tacks on 5 bonus tracks, two previously unreleased, three single B-sides, and all of them just as good as anything on the record proper. Also includes extensive new liner notes, and lots of photos.

MPEG stream: Waiting For The Sun
MPEG stream: Crowded In The Wings

The whole No Depression movement spawned so many great bands, Uncle Tupelo of course, and post UT acts Wilco and Son Volt, Blue Mountain, Whiskeytown, Freakwater, Old 97's, Scud Mountain Boys, Robbie Fulks, Tarnation, Split Lip Rayfield, and on and on. Very few of those bands, no matter how good or how much we dig 'em, come close to the sheer song writing genius and kick ass rocking of genre namesakes Uncle Tupelo, except for one. The Jayhawks, a consistently amazing band. Every record jam packed with incredible timeless songsmithery. The two vocalists, Gary Louris and Mark Olson, had voices like angels, crafting perfect soaring harmonies, and both were incredible songwriters, one of those partnerships that comes along once in a blue moon. And the band, a crack collection of amazing players, they had EVERYTHING going for them. Yet for their whole career, success eluded them. While other, lesser bands went on to become critical darlings, or to make shit tons of money, the Jayhawks toiled in relative obscurity. So legendary was their bad luck that they were the subject of an extensive article in a national magazine (Newsweek, Business Day?) all about how to survive as a band, or not, as was the case with the Jayhawks. And their bad luck extended beyond the music business, as Mark Olson left at the height of the band's popularity to care for his wife, Victoria Williams, who was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. And listening to these songs again, it is criminal, and tragic, and simply hard to believe that a band this good, and songs this amazing, managed to remain so under the radar for so long. But there's something to be said for a cult following, and the Jayhawks have that in spades, fans are generally obsessed, and fans FOR LIFE. With Wilco or Ryan Adams, ask fans of those bands, and you'll probably get a "yeah, they're cool", or "sure I totally dig them, the new record is killer", but talk to ANY Jayhawks fan (Andee for instance) and you'll get an explosion of superlatives, a rant about how much better the Jayhawks are than ANY of their contemporaries, and how fucked it is that they were never huge, and since it's Andee who is writing this, well, needless to say, the Jayhawks ARE better than all of their contemporaries, and yeah, we're including Wilco and whoever else you want to stack up against these guys. It's a little country, a little rock, a little folk, a lot of pop, but they've created a sound and a style so immediately recognizable, and those voices, you'll never mistake these guys for anyone else. Easily some of the best music of the last 20 years, country, No Depression or otherwise. Listen to the sound samples, that should really be all it takes, totally perfect, twang flecked, utterly timeless pop music of the highest order, or maybe it IS country music, but whatever you want to call it, to these ears it sounds heavenly, and like the Jayhawks and no one else. For diehards, and anyone who is totally blown away by the sound samples below, there's also a super deluxe version with a second disc of rarities and unreleased tracks, as well as a DVD featuring all the bands videos, $33, needless to say WELL worth it. If you want that one, it's on the aQ site, search for it and add it to your cart. Otherwise, this single disc version is the perfect introduction to a group that could be your new favorite band.

MPEG stream: Waiting For The Sun
MPEG stream: Blue
MPEG stream: I'd Run Away
MPEG stream: Tailspin

Boy do we still love the Jayhawks. Although we still sometimes notice the loss of original singer Mark Olson and miss the sound of the old Jayhawks, they still manage to make amazingly beautiful and totally catchy records. Gary Louris, who now basically IS the Jayhawks made the most of a tough situation, replacing Olson, and manages to get better and better. The sound, while still lush, is not nearly as 'produced' as their last record Smile. Actually reminds me a lot of Hollywood Town Hall from years back. Lots of jangle and strum, hooks galore, a LOT of Byrds/Beatles worship, and some amazing players/vocalists (including guest vocals from Matthew Sweet and Jakob Dylan) make this a truly divine listen. And unlike a lot of Jayhawks records, this record isn't immediately catchy, which is actually a good thing. On first listen, I wasn't all that impressed, but now, the more I listen to it, the more and more I like it. And I have been playing it nonstop. Nothing avant or underground or genre-defying, just timeless, perfect pop. Includes a 6 track bonus disc including a track from a Spanish magazine, 2 acoustic versions, 2 demos, and a live version of the Jayhawks classic 'Waiting For The Sun'. MPEG Download: "Stumbling Through The Dark" [/audio/jayhawksstumbling.mp3] MPEG Stream: "Stumbling Through The Dark" [/audio/jayhawksstumbling.m3u] MPEG Download: "Tailspin" [/audio/jayhawkstailspin.mp3]

MPEG stream: Stumbling Through The Dark
MPEG stream: Tailspin
MPEG stream: All The Right Reasons

The Jayhawks took what could have been a fatal blow when they lost main man Mark Olson, who was pretty much *the voice* of the band. (For what Mark's doing these days with wife Victoria Williams in the Original Harmony Ridge Creekdippers, see their three self-released, wonderful albums, all of which we carry.) But Gary Louris and the rest of the Jayhawks have managed pretty nicely without Olson, it seems. (For the full story, see the long feature on them in this month's No Depression magazine.) A super rocking big time production courtesy of producer Bob Ezrin (Kiss, Alice Cooper, Pink Floyd etc.), "Smile" is both a blessing and perhaps the worst thing that could've happened. Three or four of the tracks are truly among the best they've ever recorded, full of crackly twang and perfect hooks that'll have you singing along. The album is completely worth it for those songs alone. But at times the band veers into Beatles-y lush pop directions, an ill-advised decision for such a band. I mean, there's *synthesizers* on this record. And, oh god, on some of the songs the drummer is supplanted by f**king *breakbeats*. This is a Jayhawks record! Is nothing sacred? Now, Aquarius is the last place to be all crotchety and unwilling to accept that bands change and mature and whatEVER, but... . It might sound a little weird, but the best thing about "Smile" (besides the few really awesome songs on it) is that it has made Windy re-fall in love with the Jayhawks back catalog and Andee gets to crow (in a scene seemingly straight from Hi Fidelity) "Man, I always loved the Jayhawks. But their *early* stuff is the best'. All their previous output, especially "Hollywood Town Hall," "Tomorrow the Green Grass," and the underappreciated "Sound of Lies" are fucking amazing records so worth your time. Completely timeless and classic.

RealAudio clip: What Led Me To This Town
RealAudio clip: A Break In The Rain

A while back we reviewed a killer collection / career retrospective from one of our favorite bands ever. The Jayhawks. A band we would rank right up there with Uncle Tupelo in that whole No Depression / alt country movement. But a band who was much more than alt country, they were classic pop songsmiths, like the Byrds, with two singers whose harmonies could rival any songwriting partnership of the last 50 years. But like all great bands, a collection only scratches the surface, bands like the Jayhawks didn't just write songs, they wrote records, so while a greatest hits package is definitely fine, it's the records proper where they really shine. So we were super psyched to discover that two of our favorite Jayhawks records got reissued, both with tons of extra material. First, a little Jayhawks history lesson, from our review of the anthology: The whole No Depression movement spawned so many great bands, Uncle Tupelo of course, and post UT, Wilco and Son Volt, Blue Mountain, Whiskeytown, Freakwater, Old 97's, Scud Mountain Boys, Robbie Fulks, Tarnation, Split Lip Rayfield, and on and on. Very few of those bands, no matter how good or how much we dig 'em, come close to the sheer song writing genius and kick ass rocking of genre namesakes Uncle Tupelo, except for one. The Jayhawks, a consistently amazing band. Every record jam packed with incredible timeless songsmithery, the two vocalists, Gary Louris and Mark Olson had voices like angels, crafting perfect soaring harmonies, and both were incredible songwriters, one of those partnerships that comes along once in a blue moon. And the band, a crack collection of amazing players, they had EVERYTHING going for them. Yet for their whole career, success eluded them. While other, lesser bands went on to become critical darlings, or to make shit tons of money, the Jayhawks toiled in relative obscurity. So legendary was their bad luck that they were the subject of an extensive article in a national magazine (Newsweek, Business Day?) all about how to survive as a band, or not, as was the case with the Jayhawks. And their bad luck extended beyond the music business, as Mark Olson left at the height of the band's popularity to care for his wife, Victoria Williams who was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. And listening to these songs again, it is criminal, and tragic, and simply hard to believe that a band this good, and songs this amazing, managed to remain so under the radar for so long. But there's something to be said for a cult following, and the Jayhawks have that in spades, fans are generally obsessed, and fans FOR LIFE. With Wilco or Ryan Adams, ask fans of those bands, and you'll probably get a "yeah, they're cool", or "sure I totally dig them, the new record is killer", but talk to ANY Jayhawks fan (Andee for instance) and you'll get an explosion of superlatives, a rant about how much better the Jayhawks are than ANY of their contemporaries, and how fucked it is that they were never huge, and since it's Andee who is writing this, well, needless to say, the Jayhawks ARE better than all of their contemporaries, and yeah, we're including Wilco and whoever else you want to stack up against these guys. It's a little country, a little rock, a little folk, a lot of pop, but they've created a sound and a style so immediately recognizable, and those voices, you'll never mistake these guys for anyone else. Easily some of the best music of the last 20 years, country, No Depression or otherwise. Totally perfect, twang flecked, utterly timeless pop music of the highest order, or maybe it IS country music, but whatever you want to call it, to these ears it sounds heavenly, and like the Jayhawks and no one else. Tomorrow The Green Grass was record number four, but the group's second release on American, and was maybe their most fully realized record up to that point, with easily some of their best songs. In fact, check out the sample for "Blue", which just might be our favorite Jayhawks song EVER, that effortless blend of melancholy country and big pop, strings and fiddles and piano, guitars and drums, and those perfect harmony vocals, and a killer chorus, not to mention a bridge that somehow manages to be even catchier. And like Hollywood Town Hall before it, Tomorrow The Green Grass just keeps the hits coming, "I'd Run Away" is another practically perfect jam, with it's loping melancholy piano flecked verse, and it's soaring string laden chorus, and so it goes, not a single bit of fluff or filler, seriously one of our favorite, most listened to records EVER. The first disc tacks on 5 bonus tracks, three unreleased, two B-sides, and damn if "Tomorrow The Green Grass", which somehow got left off the album of the same name, doesn't sound just like Canadian power poppers Sloan, and listening to it now, the pop element in the rest of the record seems to blossom before our very ears. But "TTGG" is definitely a killer, as are the rest of the extras. And as if that weren't enough, there's a whole bonus disc, the elusive "Mystery Demos", an incredible collection of stripped down early versions of tracks that would end up on later records, as well as a bunch of songs that never made it past the demo stage, just acoustic guitar, fiddle and vocals, and even stripped down, these guys manage to sound amazing, the harmonies still effortless even in this rough state. Not necessarily crucial listening for dabblers, but fans will be in heaven. And just further evidence that these guys should have been superstars. Includes a big booklet with lots of liner notes, and tons of photos.

MPEG stream: Blue
MPEG stream: I'd Run Away

A while back we reviewed a killer collection / career retrospective from one of our favorite bands ever. The Jayhawks. A band we would rank right up there with Uncle Tupelo in that whole No Depression / alt country movement. But a band who was much more than alt country, they were classic pop songsmiths, like the Byrds, with two singers whose harmonies could rival any songwriting partnership of the last 50 years. But like all great bands, a collection only scratches the surface, bands like the Jayhawks didn't just write songs, they wrote records, so while a greatest hits package is definitely fine, it's the records proper where they really shine. So we were super psyched to discover that two of our favorite Jayhawks records got reissued, both on cd AND lp, the cd versions with tons of extra material. First, a little Jayhawks history lesson, from our review of the anthology: The whole No Depression movement spawned so many great bands, Uncle Tupelo of course, and post UT, Wilco and Son Volt, Blue Mountain, Whiskeytown, Freakwater, Old 97's, Scud Mountain Boys, Robbie Fulks, Tarnation, Split Lip Rayfield, and on and on. Very few of those bands, no matter how good or how much we dig 'em, come close to the sheer song writing genius and kick ass rocking of genre namesakes Uncle Tupelo, except for one. The Jayhawks, a consistently amazing band. Every record jam packed with incredible timeless songsmithery, the two vocalists, Gary Louris and Mark Olson had voices like angels, crafting perfect soaring harmonies, and both were incredible songwriters, one of those partnerships that comes along once in a blue moon. And the band, a crack collection of amazing players, they had EVERYTHING going for them. Yet for their whole career, success eluded them. While other, lesser bands went on to become critical darlings, or to make shit tons of money, the Jayhawks toiled in relative obscurity. So legendary was their bad luck that they were the subject of an extensive article in a national magazine (Newsweek, Business Day?) all about how to survive as a band, or not, as was the case with the Jayhawks. And their bad luck extended beyond the music business, as Mark Olson left at the height of the band's popularity to care for his wife, Victoria Williams who was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. And listening to these songs again, it is criminal, and tragic, and simply hard to believe that a band this good, and songs this amazing, managed to remain so under the radar for so long. But there's something to be said for a cult following, and the Jayhawks have that in spades, fans are generally obsessed, and fans FOR LIFE. With Wilco or Ryan Adams, ask fans of those bands, and you'll probably get a "yeah, they're cool", or "sure I totally dig them, the new record is killer", but talk to ANY Jayhawks fan (Andee for instance) and you'll get an explosion of superlatives, a rant about how much better the Jayhawks are than ANY of their contemporaries, and how fucked it is that they were never huge, and since it's Andee who is writing this, well, needless to say, the Jayhawks ARE better than all of their contemporaries, and yeah, we're including Wilco and whoever else you want to stack up against these guys. It's a little country, a little rock, a little folk, a lot of pop, but they've created a sound and a style so immediately recognizable, and those voices, you'll never mistake these guys for anyone else. Easily some of the best music of the last 20 years, country, No Depression or otherwise. Totally perfect, twang flecked, utterly timeless pop music of the highest order, or maybe it IS country music, but whatever you want to call it, to these ears it sounds heavenly, and like the Jayhawks and no one else. Tomorrow The Green Grass was record number four, but the group's second release on American, and was maybe their most fully realized record up to that point, with easily some of their best songs. In fact, check out the sample for "Blue", which just might be our favorite Jayhawks song EVER, that effortless blend of melancholy country and big pop, strings and fiddles and piano, guitars and drums, and those perfect harmony vocals, and a killer chorus, not to mention a bridge that somehow manages to be even catchier. And like Hollywood Town Hall before it, Tomorrow The Green Grass just keeps the hits coming, "I'd Run Away" is another practically perfect jam, with it's loping melancholy piano flecked verse, and it's soaring string laden chorus, and so it goes, not a single bit of fluff or filler, seriously one of our favorite, most listened to records EVER. The first disc tacks on 5 bonus tracks, three unreleased, two B-sides, and damn if "Tomorrow The Green Grass", which somehow got left off the album of the same name, doesn't sound just like Canadian power poppers Sloan, and listening to it now, the pop element in the rest of the record seems to blossom before our very ears. But "TTGG" is definitely a killer, as are the rest of the extras. And as if that weren't enough, there's a whole bonus disc, the elusive "Mystery Demos", an incredible collection of stripped down early versions of tracks that would end up on later records, as well as a bunch of songs that never made it past the demo stage, just acoustic guitar, fiddle and vocals, and even stripped down, these guys manage to sound amazing, the harmonies still effortless even in this rough state. Not necessarily crucial listening for dabblers, but fans will be in heaven. And just further evidence that these guys should have been superstars. Includes a big booklet with lots of liner notes, and tons of photos.

MPEG stream: Blue
MPEG stream: I'd Run Away

Easily the best hip hop record so far this year! A completely amazing collaboration between Madlib (Lootpack, Quasimoto) who was responsible for the awesome Shades Of Blue Blue Note mix from a few lists back, and the Blunted In The Bomb Shelter Trojan mix found elsewhere on this list, and Jay Dee from Slum Village. Jay Dee and Madlib switch things up, splitting the beats/rhymes evenly between the two every other track, flipping back and forth between big and boisterous booming-beat barn burners to more contemplative slow groove hip hop jams ala EPMD. Features the Bollywood infused hit Champion Sound. With special guests Quasimoto, Talib Kweli, Guilty Simpson and more.

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An awesome 2 disc reissue of what is easily one of the best hip hop records ever! A completely amazing and now legendary collaboration between Madlib (Lootpack, Quasimoto) and Jay Dee (J Dilla) Jay Dee and Madlib switch things up, splitting the beats/rhymes evenly between the two every other track, flipping back and forth between big and boisterous booming-beat barn burners to more contemplative slow groove hip hop jams a la EPMD. Features the Bollywood infused hit Champion Sound. With special guests Quasimoto, Talib Kweli, Guilty Simpson and more. Bonus disc features previously unreleased instrumentals. If you missed this the first time around, what are you waiting for? Hip Hop is unlikely to get any better, so don't sleep on this, fool!

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Jegog is a style of gamelan particular to Western Bali and consisting -- in most cases -- of instruments made entirely of Bamboo. The resulting sound, as one can imagine, is quite unique and yet not entirely alien to the sound of the typical bronze gamelan. Not only are the essential structural elements of gamelan retained and the intricate interlocking (kotekan) of the faster and higher pitched instruments included, but there is an earnest attempt at recreating the timbre of many of the deeper instruments of a bronze gamelan. This is no small feat given that bamboo, much like wood, has a rapid decay where metal instruments can ring for long periods if not dampened with the fingers after playing. In order to create the impression of an extended decay, the lower pitched instruments in a jegog are struck quite rapidly in unison with very heavy and very soft mallets producing a sustained drone. The sound is an almost eerie hum, almost like a chorus of deep voices. An interesting side note: the very deepest pitched instruments in some jegog are so large -- due to the size of the massive resonators affixed to them -- that the players must sit atop their instruments to play them. Unlike much music and arts in Bali, jegog is not connected with any ritual practices unless you count water buffalo racing, which jegog seemed to be the most common accompaniment for in rural Western Bali since its beginnings in 1912. Given the sound of the jegog, it seems proper that it should be the soundtrack for such an event. Considering the sheer mass of buffalo, I imagine them relatively slow to reach top speed, but impossible to stop once their momentum gets established. In a similar way, the music of jegog has this deceptively mild way of beginning before suddenly bursting in a teeth clenching clap of wooden instruments spanning several octaves.

RealAudio clip: Trungtungan (excerpt 1)
RealAudio clip: Trungtungan (excerpt 2)

58 tracks in under 17 minutes! This is energetic, brutalizing NOISE, short sharp shocking shards of the stuff, kinda like Masonna with a drummer. Relentless bursts of distortion, screaming, pounding, feedback. Everything louder than everything else. Many of the tracks have epigrammatic titles long than the "songs" themselves (there's several here as short as 5 or 6 seconds)! We liked Metal Music Machine, the previous album by Norwegian duo Jazkamer (nee Jazzkammer) quite a bit... but while that one was noisy, it was not quite THIS noisy. MMM was way more droning and doomy and black metallish, the sort of thing that would appeal to fans of SUNNO))) and Khanate and KTL. Whereas Art Breaker is more like the Japanoise of Masonna, Hijokaidan, or the Hanatarash. With maybe a little early Napalm Death thrown in. Jazkamer are pros, so if you want to annoy your housemates, this WILL do the trick. While at the same time satisfying your own personal (sick and twisted) harsh noise jones. Doubtless this would have gotten a positive (and of course cryptically confusional) review from Bananafish 'zine had it been released back in the day.

MPEG stream: Art Is Magic Delivered From The Lie Of Being Truth
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Savage Pencil cover art. Gothic font. Grim graphics. Black metal sonics. So this is the new Jazzkammer?! Metal Machine Music sees this Norwegian electronic noise duo changing their name (slightly) and suddenly adopting a black/death/doom metal sound. Maybe in this case we should say Metal, using the capital M for it like The Wire magazine does. Not sure what inspired this new direction, we'd hate to think it was just that in avant-experimental-indie circles Metal is now 'cool', and that they thought hey if SUNNO))) can do it, why not us? But chances are that being from Norway they're well aware of the black metal scene and dig a lot of the same stuff about it that we do, the perhaps unintentional avant-gardisms of bands like Abruptum for instance, and figured it was time to delve into it fully themselves. What matters, anyway, is how did Jazkamer's Metal Machine Music turn out? Well, we like it! First off, Jazkamer, as opposed to Jazzkammer, is not a duo, they've brought in some other folks to help out, including a real ringer -- Ivar Bjornson of AQ fave Viking black prog metallers Enslaved!! So we're taking it pretty seriously already. The first track, "Friends Of Satan" is a pretty harsh intro, and should serve to weed out listeners who AREN'T in fact friends of Satan. It's a blurred, blasting battery of drums and distortion, not unlike that sampled death metal disc by Francisco Lopez, Untitled 104. Or the Dave Lombardo track on Jonathan Bepler's Cremaster 2 soundtrack. The chorus of anguished vokills at the end of the track further nail down Jazkamer's black metal ballsiness. They'd be pleased to know that someone here asked, when this was playing, "What's that? Besides headache-inducing?" Following that, we encounter one of this album's main events, the 16:51 "The Worms Will Get In", a study in slow-motion, doom-dirge minimalism a la SUNNO))), Earth, and Khanate. Simple but effective. When it ends, it's a jarring segue into the next track, the jagged "Abomination". Probably the thing on here that most sounds like it could be from a "normal" black metal album, albeit with No Wave / Voivodian influences. Next up, the title track, that's along the same lines as "Abomination" but, like, ten times noisier. And then, the finale, the 12 and a half minute "Occult Glider" that's a menacing ambient fuzzed-drone soundscape, beautiful and powerful. We're impressed. Our doubts were quashed. Better than any Jazzkammer album we'd previously heard, as a matter of fact!

MPEG stream: Friends Of Satan
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FINALLY!! The first proper non-cd-r actual cd release from these unsung heroes of the UK freenoise underground. In the past we've reviewed as many releases by these guys as we could get our hands on. Every one an absolute gem. Dark shimmering dronescapes and epic washes of sculpted sound. Sure we love us some Skaters and some Yellow Swans and some Sunroof! and some Vibracathedral Orchestra and some Double Leopards and some Starving Weirdos, but damn it if we don't have a special place in our hearts reserved just for Jazzfinger, and their twisted take on soundmaking. It must be going on a decade now AT LEAST, since these guys started making records. I can remember stumbling on some strangely packaged cd-r, and being fascinated by the name Jazzfinger, and then later being just as fascinated by the strange sounds inside. Autumn Engines finds Jazzfinger still exploring the same sonic universe they were 10 years ago, but it's a big place, and these guys have seriously honed their chops, so every track here is like a fresh glimpse into some still undiscovered soundworld. Like sonic archaeology. Jazzfinger, take the same instruments, the same recording techniques, and mine all manner of unique sounds that no one else is able to discover. Jazzfinger's world is definitely one of drones, and ambience, delicate and dreamlike, but it's somehow much more. These are not just simple drones. Each track is like taking a different drone, or found soundscape (foundscape?) and splitting it open and observing what happens inside. What seems like a simple slow moving whir, is in fact rife with millions of microscopic happenings. Layers and striations, a whole world of melodic wonder and sonic wonder lurks beneath and within every sound Jazzfinger discover or produce. Jazzfinger have again delivered a record full of dark and lovely, truly beautiful and incredibly mysterious music. And already we want more...

MPEG stream: Fishing In Wet Railways
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We discovered a stash of these cd-r's, and we're guessing that these are WAY out of print as it came out months and months ago, but we have a bunch, and we know there are lots of Jazzfinger obsessives out there, so for a handful of you, here's your chance to grab one of these rare little gems. Grief To Grind The Fire bucks the trend of later JF releases, eschewing the short sound experiments and song fragments in favor of two epic drone workouts. The opener is nearly 40 minutes, and is a killer. Dense and buzzy, lo-fi but thick as a brick, the track covers lots of ground, but seems centered on a constant static drone, while all around tones screech and skree, hum and pulses, rumble and whir, it's a bit like a more caustic Sunroof!, mixed with plenty of Dead C ambience. The track swells and sways, slipping into stretches of more muted melodic buzz, but then right back into exercises in high end urdrone, it's rally one of the most musical pieces we've heard from Jazzfinger, it's almost like some sort of krautdrone ambience, but rendered in 4track and busted Casio, damaged guitar and short circuited amplifier. Ramshackle but very lovely, almost like some lost Xpressway band. The second track, the shorter one, clocks in at nearly 26 minutes and is almost like a variation on the first. The backdrop is a grinding corrosive rumble, all hiss and skitter, distortion, and crumbling whirs, while over the top a strange playful Casio melody surfaces now and again, the whole track growing hissier and more distorted one second, more washed out and tranquil the second, it's a bit like listening to a remix of the first song transmitted via a shortwave radio with terrible reception. The result is surprisingly warm and tactile, dense and raw, and just as mesmerizing as the opening track. Too bad we waited so long to review this, as it's fast becoming one of our favorite JF cds ever. But at least a bunch of you will get to pick this up. Dig it!

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Holy crap! MORE Jazzfinger. For a band who was averaging one record every 3 or 4 years, they've really been cranking 'em out lately. They're like the UK's answer to the Yellow Swans or the Skaters, what with their monthly, and sometimes bi-weekly releases. And sonically too, they're certainly exploring similar territory. But just like those two other groups we're sure as hell not complaining. We don't want this avalanche of Jazzfinger to ever let up. And it sure doesn't look like it will, with THREE releases on this list and more on the way! Jazzfinger, while definitely similar to the Skaters and the Yellow Swans in some ways, are a much subtler proposition. Less a noise outfit, or a free rock ensemble as they are drifting dark drone explorers. They can definitely kick up a serious sonic fuss, but they spend most of their time, lurking in the shadows, creeping around corners, and drifting well below the surface, their sounds muted and mumbled, a wonderfully twisted world of abstract soundscapes and mournful minor key minimalist laments, peppered with all sorts of random sonic irregularities and subtle shadings. Los Band Magicos is two lengthy tracks, the first might be our favorite JF track EVER. A fuzzy barely there crawl, all lo-fi tape hiss, and manipulated static, a slithering ambient whir, that is gradually disrupted by weird Conet Project like shortwave interference, and distant sonic dust devils of keening feedback and grinding glitchery, the whole thing super fuzzy, mumbly and muted. Almost like some weird Chain Reaction heroin house 12" being transmitted from the beyond, and being picked up on a crappy transistor radio tuned between stations. So weird and wonderful. The second track is an abstract clattery soundscape, of shimmering guitars, scraping reverberating metal, strange percussive thumps and creaks and clangs, everything draped in thick webs of room sound and natural reverb, sort of like a more damaged, WAY more abstract No Neck / Dead C mash up. Cool! Packaged in a cool mini 3" DVD like plastic case with printed red and black insert. And as always, SUPER LIMITED!!!

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

SORRY.

We haven't heard from these guys in a while. Which more than likely just means we somehow missed out on about a million super limited cd-r's and cassettes and wax cylinders. But we weren't about to miss out on this one. Another in alt.vinyl's series of ultra limited 8" lathe cuts (the Prurient one is featured elsewhere on this list). As always, the boys are in fine form, offering up confounding and confusional loveliness and sometimes not so loveliness. Side one sounds like Nurse With Wound doing the soundtrack for an afternoon soap opera, with a melodramatic organ wheezing and whirring in a sea of partially plucked guitars and dense clouds of shimmering feedback, metallic clang and all sorts of grind and crackle and crunch and glitch and buzz. All deftly woven into something surprisingly listenable, almost like some super lo-fi dada-ist Pop Ambient jam. The B side is a gorgeous minimal, lazy and languid, slowly unfurling Taj Mahal Travellers like organic drone, all drawn out billowy buzz, drifting over a spare stretch of low end shimmer, very meditative and serene. Occasionally over the top drift little flurries of percussion, bells and shakers, very tribal and ritualistic. Both sides are pretty dang awesome. And like all the releases in the series, this is a custom hand cut, Peter King lathe cut, 8", and it's SQUARE!!! Packaged in gorgeous square and triangular die cut sleeves, super fancy textured paper, with a paste on front cover and a printed insert, each insert hand numbered, each release LIMITED TO 150 COPIES!!

It's been a while since we've heard from UK experimental drone/noise duo Jazzfinger, but that just means we probably missed about 20 super limited cassette and cd-r releases. This here is the very first 7" from JF, and offers yet another side to their sound, this one a gorgeously minimal buzz drenched lo-fi raga. The A side is all warbly guitar scrape and scrabble, over some wheezing lo-fi buzz, the sound warped and woozy, bits of electronic grit and glitch, very hypnotic, like some alien Appalachia, but minus the twang, and way more whir and buzz. The B side opens with a keening high end drone that sounds like a feeding back bagpipe, unfurling a strange stately raga over a buzzing static drenched melody, the sound like some crumbling tape being played back on a dictaphone, everything wreathed in glorious grit, buried beneath a lo-fi hum, very reminiscent of the more rag-like recordings of Dan Higgs, but much more minimal and abstract. Really cool. Gorgeous full color artwork, hand assembled, pressed on clear vinyl, and of course SUPER LIMITED!!!

It's true. THREE new Jazzfinger releases! On this list alone. If it was any other band, we might scoff, but hell, Jazzfinger are making up for some serious lost time. In a big way. And while there are plenty of bands we can't get enough of, Jazzfinger are one of our favorites. For years we subsisted on their debut, assuming the band had broken up or disappeared, until discovering that they were indeed still a band, just not a very prolific one. But that all changed fairly recently, and the band has been spitting out new releases, like one a month. But we're not complaining. Not at all. In fact we've been waiting for the Glass Key for ages, having heard rumors of it's existence. The second in a series of insanely elaborately packaged cd-r's. The first, The Well Of Used Dreams is long gone, and when we did have it, it flew out of here in to time flat. Which makes sense once you see it. And hear it. For those new to Jazzfinger, they exist in the same sonic orbit as groups like Skullflower, Vibracathedral Orchestra, Sunroof! crafting epic worlds of drone and buzz, strange little fragments of some undefinable musical whole. Unlike their sonic brethren, they are not as concerned with massive walls of sound, or huge swirls of guitar or clouds of keening reeds, instead, Jazzfinger explore texture and shape, shrinking themselves down and crawling physically through the minutiae of music, drifting through strange alien worlds of sounds, surrounded on all sides by vast expanses of sonic wonder. The Glass key is a wonderfully mysterious song suite, a varied sampling of Jazzfinger's musical wares. With all the songs and sounds connected, a distinctive, yet hard to describe musical thread running clean through. Spread out over 70+ minute the band takes us along, on their tripped out psychedelic journey. Haunting pianos drift beneath a thick layer of fuzzy grit, distant warbly organ, and a scraped violin that either sounds like a crying baby or a meddlesome mosquito. Jack Hammers are muted and smeared into soothingly rhythmic flutters, epic expanses of cavernous echo and cymbal shimmer underpin buzzing distorted guitars that slither dirgelike through fields of chimes and coruscating feedback. Voices are chopped up and spread out over wheezing smears of huffing harmonica, warm clouds of Eastern melodies and raga like buzz hovering like a storm cloud over a loping funereal piano. So totally amazing. Packaged in a massive oversized cardboard sleeve with super tripped out collages affixed to the front and the back, while on the inside the liner notes are affixed to the rocket shaped cardboard insert that functions as a sort of pull out tray, with the black cd-r in a sleeve attached to the front. Quite stunning. And incredibly elaborate, and totally time consuming to hand assemble. Needless to say, there were very few of these made, they are already sold out from the band, we only got about 20 and will never be able to get more, so don't blow it. You'll definitely be sorry.

MPEG stream: Premeditated Obsolescence
MPEG stream: Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been?
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Jazzfinger may seem like they just burst upon the scene, what with the recent flurry of cd-r releases, but these guys have been making beautiful noises for going on a decade now. We have been LOVING everything, we just can't get enough!! So much so that we pulled out our decade old copies of The Little Girl On The Plane Who Turned Her Doll's Head Around To Look At Me, their debut from way back in 1998 (although it was recorded in 1996-97). And holy shit, did that stuff sound just as good now as it did then. We were so blown away when we first discovered this record, we were convinced Jazzfinger would be huge, then they sort of just disappeared for a while before resurfacing more recently. Anyway, we were lamenting the fact that all the folks who had been freaking out over the recent spate of Jazzfinger cd-r's would never get to hear the one that we might just consider to be the best. The lo and behold, we get a call from Ben Jazzfinger, who out of the blue lets us know that the label still has a stash of these discs! Well, needless to say, we had a little freakout, did a little dance, and ordered us up a whole mess of these amazing discs. Needless to say, if you are already a fan of any of the recent JF releases, this is ESSENTIAL. And all you cd-r nerds into Jyrk, Onomata, Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, PseudoArcana are definitely gonna want to check this out!! So what does it sound like? Well if you're hip to the Jazzfinger already, you probably have a good idea, but as this was nearly a decade ago, the sound is a lot more raw, a lot more varied, and really fucking awesome. A caustic soundscape of high end streaks, like howling dogs and balloons being rubber together morphs into a thick fuzzy dirgescape thick with industrial scrapes and warbly organ, like some long lost Dead C jam, then some damaged acoustic guitar beneath a field of buzzing electricity. A lurching sort-of doom metal free noise dirge leads into a stuttering soundscape of sliced and diced vocal and instrumental snippets, a glistening swirl of shortwave interference, found sounds and thick grinding guitar feedback gradually melts away revealing a bizarre low end landscape of gurgles and rumbles, and some stumbling percussion. A radio broadcast is transformed into a thick super distorted snarling beast, jagged and harsh, swathed in fuzz and sheets of feedback, before it drifts away replaced by a strange beeping bleeping symphony of upper register tones and haunting chimes. Finally, an epic, super dramatic, free noise freaked out psych jam, like the Dead C covering Goblin. The music for some alien horror movie. Thick and caustic and noisy but somehow so creepy and pretty. Such an amazing record. Beautifully packaged too, in an oversized vellum sleeve, printed in metallic silver, the thick brown cardboard inner sleeve visible through the vellum, the whole thing housed in a thick vinyl sleeve. NOT A WHOLE LOT OF THESE LEFT, SO WHEN WE RUN OUT, WE'RE NOT ENTIRELY SURE WE'LL BE ABLE TO GET MORE.

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MPEG stream: Wishing I Was Younger
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THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY. Every scene has that one group that toils away in utter obscurity while their contemporaries move on to bigger and better things. And often that band is left behind not because they aren't as good as their sonic brethren, but because while they are adept at music making, the whole aspect of self promotion and releasing records and playing shows takes a backseat to the sheer joy of making wonderful noise. So you probably know Skullflower, Sunroof!, Total, Vibracathedral Orchestra, Neil Campbell and a host of others. But odds are you've never heard of Jazzfinger. Which is a pity, as JF are as good as, if not better than all of those other groups. For years Jazzfinger have skirted the UK free/psych/noise scene, crafting gorgeous slabs of ambient skree and bowel loosening rumble, all imbued with subtle melodies and unlikely dynamics. But their records have been really diffcult to track down. This new cd-r may not necessarily help their cause, but that does not make this any less essential. It's pricey at 26.00 (for a cd-r!) but once you see it, and hear it, you might not feel so bad about forking over that dough. Packaged in a massive oversized cardboard sleeve with strange photos affixed to the front and the back and the inside, different views of some sort of celestial / cellular phenomenon, multi-colored circles merging and intersecting. Quite beautiful. The music inside is sort of the sonic equivalent, with sonic spheres slowly shifting and merging, black holes of sound sucking up sonic detritus and releasing clouds of rumbling whir and warm multi-hued drones. Super limited and we only have a handful so it may take us a while to get more. So act fast.

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

SORRY.

MPEG stream: Summer Was A Flame Ride
MPEG stream: Ascent Through Degradation

Finally another sonic transmission from the mysterious and elusive Jazzfinger. The last we heard from these murky noisesmiths was a VERY expensive, super limited, gorgeously deluxe cd-r way back in 2004, and we, like you were absolutely smitten. We had long been fans, but that was the first release we were able to get enough copies of to reviews. Low profile or not, here was a band who had been lurking on the fringes of the underground, crafting their own dark and wondrous ambient drones and mumbled freerock explorations and who we wanted, nay NEEDED to hear more from. And is if in response to our prayers, what should suddenly appear? A brand new full length from this UK ensemble. And for those of you put off by the almost $30 price tag of their last release, or those of you who just missed out since it was so limited, well here's your chance to dive in. Sonic brethren to folks like Sunroof! and Vibracathedral Orchestra, and often sharing a similar penchant for the ur-drone and various mighty swells of sound, Jazzfinger have managed to in fact carve their own, darker, more minimal path. Almost like a rock band covering Coleclough or Chalk. Jazzfinger are not so much ones for huge squalls of guitar or woodwinds, instead these guys creep and crawl, a low rumbling exploration of dark corners and shadowy otherworlds, of dusty forgotten trunks filled with old objects, abandoned buildings overgrown with foliage, and wide expanses of barren terrain, colored only by moonlight and the slow whirring drift of their gauzy sonic fog. Strings buzz and shimmer, long form drones stretch way out, while underneath subtle sounds shift and swell, percussion is minimal, a softly struck bell here, a brief clatter of tiny pipes there, only adding color, not rhythm. Melodies drift forth like distant foghorns barely audible through the clouds of a dark and stormy night, guitars are plucked, and strummed, but not to fashion riffs, more to unleash a series of reverberating waves, that build and build, layer upon layer, a thick, head spinning monochrome crawl, organs wheeze out delicate melodies over the omnipresent buzzing steel strings, creating a soft music box like raga, the sound here is definitely dark, and ominous, but suffused with warmth, and life, a subtle glow, an inner light that makes each stretch of slow shifting ambience feel alive and dense with emotion. A totally breathtaking journey through a mysterious universe of dark buzz and warm shimmer. Super limited and so totally essential.

MPEG stream: Rabbit Wolf Reflection
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It's been a little while since we've heard from UK duo Jazzfinger, we've got a split lp that will be reviewed on the next list, and we found a few of these hiding out on the shelves, another cd-r from last year that we're only getting around to reviewing now. It was limited to 100 copies, we have less than ten, but sure there are way more then 10 of you out there who never got your hands on this. Jazzfinger are always all over the map and it's no different here, from wheezing melodica, slathered in distortion and feedback, to strange percussive junkyard lope, swirling tendrils of high pitched shimmer, to haunting laughter draped over ominous church organ whir and metallic creaks, abstract detuned folk strum over more wheezing warble, and then there's the 24 minute "Caves", a noisy workout that slips between corrosive crunch, dreamy drone, fucked up confusional soft noise and ever possible combination of the three. Bizarre, and unpredictable and sort of pretty and definitely cracked, exactly what every Jazzfinger fan expects and desires. Once again, this was LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, we've got 8 or 9 left, it's out of print so that is definitely it, packaged in cool water colored covers...

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

SORRY. The UK's Jazzfinger hit us again with another slab of their gorgeous free rock abstract drone wonder, but here they're sharing sonic space with a band we had never heard before. A Way are from Finland, and seem to fit somewhere between their countrymen Avarus, Anaksimandros, Kemialliset Ystavat and like-minded groups like No Neck Blues Band, Sunburned Hand Of The Man, Ghosting, Bonus and of course Jazzfinger. A Way's 4 tracks are brief little snippets of low end weirdness. Drones, but dense with disembodied non-melodies, fragmented chunks of rumble and shimmer, rhythms, but the sort of rhythms you can only see when you stand way back, up close, they're just dizzying whirls of random percussive shuffle and stumbling flutter, the warm whir of machinery, a smeared industrial drift, sparkling with tiny harmonics and muted tonal color. An ambient world of soft and spooky sweet submerged. Jazzfinger counter with a 20 minute wall of crumbling guitar. Layer after layer of pealing, keening, roaring, buzzing amps and strings. Dense but also sort of lo-fi. It almost sounds like some sort of installation where a gallery was outfitted with 1000 crappy tape players, all playing poorly dubbed copies of live Sunroof! bootlegs. A gloriously epic tangle of high end guitars, a massive sun dappled Ur-drone, hovering and shimmering, while beneath lurks a swirling world of tinkling music boxes, plucked strings, sing songy melodies, random percussion, thick strum and abstract riffage. Nice! SUPER LIMITED. We only have a dozen or thereabouts, so act fast. Packaged in thick plastic pouches with two hand screened squares of textured paper and secured with a tiny piece of twine.

MPEG stream: Around Under
MPEG stream: The Sun Is Your Enemy The Wind Is Your Friend

We won't go into too much detail on this one, as it's an oldie, from way back in 2003, we never had enough to list it until now, and even now we probably don't have enough, but we do have a bunch, so if you want one of these act fast, cuz it's pretty dang great.� Longtime AQ faves, UK duo Jazzfinger (at least a duo here) battle it out free rock, abstract ambient drone style with fellow noisemakers Number None, who we've actually been fans of for a while, but this will mark their first appearance on the AQ list.� The Jazzfinger tracks, are more of what we've come to love, hissy lo-fi soundscapes of warble and shimmer, clattery chaotic percussion and rumbling drones, the eleven minute second track is the shows the band at their best, stretching way out, and meandering from soft focus drone to foresty free folk, to No Neck clatter jam and back again, washed out, grinding buzzing and so gloriously mysterious. The rest of the tracks play out similarly, like some strange mechanical music making contraption, wound up and let loose, on some old 1800's dirt road, wobbling beneath bruised purple skies and sending the villagers skittering back to their houses, to peek warily through the curtains.� Number None, are like minded maybe, but their execution is completely different. More minimal and hushed, their tracks are stretched out streaks of muted metallic buzz, buried mumbled vocals, dark industrial hiss, haunting melodic fragments, all drifting weightless in some murky alien sea. The final track, the 15 minute long "High Noon On The Negative Plane" sounds exactly like that. Dark shimmers of ringing metal, smeared into barely shifting slabs of soft sound, an orchestra of Tibetan bells, dropped into the sea, their subtle vibrations recorded as they descend into the blackness, then broadcast toward the surface, where they arrive as a warm watery warble. So nice.� And again, SO LIMITED, already out of print, so needless to say, these will be gone in a flash...

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Jazzkammer is the Norwegian duo of Lasse Marhaug and John Hegre, typically resorting to the Voice Crack / Yoshihide-like avant-turntable collages disfigured by computer generated noise attacks. "Pancakes" is a detour down the 12K_ Line aesthetic with sub-audible, pristine low-frequencies spiked with crisp, high-end sinewave. Headphones required.

RealAudio clip: Random Lung

[ aquarius records catalogue — J ]