[ aquarius records catalogue

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Showing results 351 through 400 of 819.

Jazzkammer's free improvisations revolve around turntables, samplers, sine waves, guitars, field recording, and the static crackle of nearly broken electronics which are prodded and poked to surprising results. At their most austere, this Swedish duo resembles an analogue equivalent of Oval... at their loudest, it's a neurotic aural assault not unlike Otomo Yoshihide or Voice Crack.

One of two new releases on this week's list from Ukrainian metal label Arx Productions, strangely both of them French, and even more strangely, both of them part of that new breed of 'post' black metal. But where the other, Smohalla, is a much weirder twisted psychedelic proposition, the sounds here are more in keeping with the sort of post rocky jangle of groups like Amesoeurs and Alcest, but there's plenty of weirdness going on with this too, especially in the arrangements. Take opener "Chute De L'Etre", which plays out all sweetly sorrowful minor key jangle, spidery melodies and meandering drumming, with some soft crescendos, a little bit Mogwai, a little Godspeed, but when the metal finally kicks in, it's not a subtle slow build, thick chugging guitars just explode, surrounded by a second guitar wrapping everything in psychedelic leads, the sound dizzying and heavy, more classic metal than black metal, but with such a twisted production, it's pretty awesome, and strange. And much of the record plays out similarly, with Je fusing hushed delicate jangle with bursts of chugging crunchy classic metal riffage, often the two combining for some super heavy melodic metal that should definitely hit the spot for fans of the above mentioned post black metal outfits. The vocals are more a sort of black metal screech / noise rock yowl hybrid, but they don't really play that big a part, the band instead weaving gorgeous brooding expanses of post rock, with distorted metal crunch, and in fact, the second half of the record definitely leans way more in the metal direction, with even a few blast beats popping up here and there, but even at it's most metal, the sound is still poppy and melodic, and will definitely leave grim true metalheads wanting, but for the rest of us, who like our black buzz with some fuzzy shoegazey melody, this will definitely hit the spot.

MPEG stream: Chute De L'Etre
MPEG stream: Legendes Urbaines

The monicker of Felicia Atkinson's solo project hails from Nico's Desert Shore, that mysteriously bleak 1970 album by the Velvet Underground's troubled chanteuse; and a similarly poetic mysteriousness oozes from Atkinsons' deconstructed songs. Age Of Wonder is the second piece of vinyl for Je Suit Le Petit Chevalier, strengthening her work through a handful of limited cassettes and cd-r out of an amorphous droning psychedelia and into a smoldering intense alchemy of allegorical post-ambience. On this spooky, hypnotic, and harrowing album conjured through ever-shifting, ever-blossoming, ever-defalting soundscapes, she references the psychotropic holiness of Fursaxa, the deep-sleep surrealism of Motion Sickness Of Time Travel, and the expository minimalism of Taj Mahal Travellers. Voice, synths, loops, and electronics are the tools at her disposal, which she uses to build sprawling passages of sodden drones brightened by twinkling synths playing half-melodies and accentuated by her narcoleptic vocals cycling through wordless, but emotively sad lullablies alternating with spectral bellowings swathed in deep, washed-out reverb. The layered accretion of plainsong vocalizations and dank atmopsherics opaquely reimagines that which is natural, mystical, metaphysical, and/or mundane, always positioned as something of a mirror looking back to the human psyche as unknowable and existentially sublime. Brilliantly done.

MPEG stream: The First Forest
MPEG stream: Fever Dunes

Dark Morse is a super limited cassette from the brilliant Belgian drone-songstress Felicia Atkinson aka Je Suis Le Petit Chevalier, a moniker snatched from Nico's Desertshore album. Her synth, reverb, and vocal concoctions earn her favorable comparisons to Motion Sickness Of Time Travel and Grouper; but she's continuing to delve into deeper waters away from any psychedelic inclinations and toward a darkly psychological sentiment. Dark Morse is based on the Don Delillo collection of short stories The Angel Esmeralda, whose thematic arcs and intertwining narratives bristle with rape, murder, and surreal miracles popping up on highway billboards. Atkinson's condensation of Delillo's work adheres to a suitably sinister atmosphere. Shadowy, occluded sounds of ghost-clattering rhythms, narcoleptic vocals, and ill-tempered drone-melodies sprawl across the 38 minutes as shape-shifting amalgams that come in and out of existence through an ectoplasmic ambience. The witchiness of it all makes us think that this wouldn't be too far out of place alongside the Demdike Stare associates / affiliates of Anworth Kirk, Slant Azymuth, Suum Cuique, and David Orphan. While 200 copies may seem like a beefy production run for a cassette, this is too good to be sitting around for long.

MPEG stream: Extract 1
MPEG stream: Extract 2

This stunning slab of outsider electro krautpsych coldwave gloom pop came out of nowhere (well, San Francisco actually!), but is quickly becoming a new obsession around here. Dark and mechanoid, dense and noisy, skeletal and mesmerizing, shoegazey and totally warped in equal measure. While there's been no shortage of weirdo/outsider pop in the last couple years, it's starting to become a way too crowded field for sure, and more and more it feels like lots of these weirdo pop groups aren't truly weird. That seems like a strange distinction, but think about the Shaggs, truly inspired, creating music within limited means, out of a pure desire to be creative, the results totally bafflingly brilliant. Now think about all the bands who cite the Shaggs as an influence, how many of those bands just simply suck, but for some reason consider sucking somehow analogous to the naivete and primitivism of the Shaggs. Such seems to be the case with 'weirdness' these days, it's not as if any pedestrian boring group can just slop on effects, or record their record poorly, or sing in a crazzzeee voice, and suddenly it's art. That stuff, the real thing at least, true outsider sonic art, is absolutely inspired, it comes from the heart, and the soul, you can fake weirdness, but you can't fake genius. Which brings us back to Jealousy, who are most definitely weird. In the most wonderfully and organic way, and who are totally brilliant, pushing all of our buttons, sounding alternatingly like an even more cracked lo-fi Suicide, or a more industrial cold wave Moon Duo, the vibe paranoid and druggy, the music warped and woozy, mesmerizing and motorik. After a wild squall of echo drenched reverbed garbled vox, the record kicks into gear, all low slung, frigid basslines, shimmery echoey guitars, creepy sung/spoken vocals, lots of space, very spare and skeletal, the krautrock vibe is huge, but only surfaces here and there, in between jealousy offer up bursts of chaotic softly noisy murk, heavy drifts of distorted shoegaze, abstract arrhythmic grooves, from weirdo coldwave pop, to clinical industrial creep, to tripped out krautpsych mesmer, our favorite jam might be the super spare spacekraut workout of "Night Stalking", which takes up most of the B side, sounding like a seriously stripped down Moon Duo, mixed with some This Heat, and a little Throbbing Gristle, spidery and psychedelic, one of those tracks you wish would go on forever, totally tranced out rhythmic bliss. The record closes with another favorite, the evocatively titled "Drug Sores", which wraps weirdly distorted speaking-in-tongues Buttholes-like vocals over Spacemen 3 style droney heavily effected space psych guitars, creating something both darkly mesmerizing, and ominously disturbing, which pretty much captures the vibe of the whole record. TOTALLY recommended.

MPEG stream: Night Stalking
MPEG stream: We Are Having Your Children
MPEG stream: Playing With The Rings
MPEG stream: Drug Sores
MPEG stream: I Would Do That For Him

Another list and another batch of classic reissues from the always great Omni label (check elsewhere on this list our review of Hank Snow's Songs Of Tragedy!). Norma Jean was one of country music's early female stars, having gotten her start in 1950 at the tender age of 12 and later moving into good but tumultuous company with Porter Wagoner on his legendary TV show. To quote the liners, "Norma Jean is quite possibly the most misremembered and under appreciated of all country western singers," but this 30 song compilation featuring choice cuts from 1964-1973 should be enough to remind listeners of her considerable talents. Possessing a confident, crystal clear voice and covering all the usual time tested country topics (spurned love, drinking, and more spurned love) Norma Jean's reputation may have been somewhat eclipsed by Wagoner's next big discovery - Dolly Parton - but she had quite a prolific career before leaving the industry and venturing into darker, more alcoholic waters in the 1970s and then embracing Christianity. The material here is top shelf Nashville fare and one of our new favorites from Omni's ever expanding catalog.

MPEG stream: Heaven Help The Working Girl
MPEG stream: I Wouldn't Buy A Used Car From Him
MPEG stream: Don't Put Your Hands On Me
MPEG stream: I Cried All The Way To The Bank

Local treasure and sometime AQ-customer Joan Jeanrenaud spent twenty years playing cello with the Kronos Quartet, who if you don't know already produced some of the most lovely and adventurous 20th century new music, collaborating with not only established musicians and composers like Astor Piazzolla, John Cage, David Byrne and Terry Riley, but also bringing to greater light the musics of Africa, Mexico, etc. In '99 Jeanrenaud left the quartet to concentrate on her own work. Here she presents pieces by Philip Glass, Mark Grey, Hamza El Din, Karen Tanaka and Steve Mackey. It's a lovely record. Jeanrenaud's playing is vigorous and bright, active and propulsive -- never muddy, never boring, never melodramatic. The pieces are stylistically distinct -- from the Glass track's repetitive poignancy to her own "Altar Piece," a swirling maelstrom of deep bass notes, insistent and dramatic. Sounds like Joan's gonna be just fine on her own.

RealAudio clip: Altar Piece
RealAudio clip: Metamorphosis Four

Ah, the art of fine song titling. --AsphaltvibratorÊ, --Hi FansÊ. And the music? Sweet, playful techno-pop not too shy to heft a big bass beat every once in a while. Kinda silly. Almost dorky at times. Oh yeah, and if you look closely, you just might spot some members of StereoTotal.

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

SORRY. If there is a fault to be found in this release from Philip Jeck, it is in the cdr format and the painfully limited edition. With an arsenal of Dansette turntables (numbering up to 180!!!), Jeck sets up numerous pieces of vinyl with various delays and locked grooves fashioned directly on the vinyl with glue and razor blades. Cyclical patterns of Christmas tunes, slowed down antique 78s, and the tidal flux of surface noise are the raw elements for Jeck's collage. The result is an eerily beautiful piece that is just as good as (if not better than) Jeck�s recently released turntablist double cd masterpiece --Vinyl Coda I-III.Ê

RealAudio clip: live at icc

'Tis the season for Philip Jeck, it seems! This UK sonic experimentalist is a big fave 'round these parts, so it's been a festive month indeed with the recent release of a live recording (reviewed 2 lists ago) and now this brand new 'studio' album, AND a reissue of Jeck's seminal, long out of print album Surf, reviewed nearby. Hallelujah. Jeck is simply a wizard with the turntables, not in a hip hop DJ sense but as a sound sculptor, making ghostly slow motion looping drones and beats with crackly old vinyl and the phonograph mechanism itself. Listening to his music is to submerge oneself into a mysterious, evocative realm of sound that capitalizes on the claustrophobia of the locked groove, that dwells on the dusty textures of vinyl as if examined by a field recordist, rather than the usual needle, tone-arm, pre-amp, speaker method of sound extraction. 7 is certainly a strong Jeck showing, lacking naught for crackling, glacial drone and ominous background melodies stolen from another time and place. It's really amazing that it's a turntable (or turntables) making possible Jeck's music, which ranges from the very physical sounding action of a track like "Museum" to the simple haunting whoosh of "Wipe". Track four, "Bush Hum" deserves special mention as it's constructed soley from the "amplified hum of a Bush record-player and delay-pedal". With those tools -- no records -- Jeck creates a totally electronic sounding track of buzzing rapid rhythmic noise, loud, grinding like a swarm of robot insects. The very next track, "Now You Can Let Go" takes the opposite approach, where there are indeed LPs on Jeck's turntables, and you can actually catch traces of actual music being "sampled". Squawks of big band jazz, a bluesy lick, warped exotica -- but usually nothing really recognizable. It's almost like modern electronic dance music at moments, but worshipping the skipping LP not the digital glitch. But it's really Jeck's compositions with even less overt 'musical' content that we prefer, and 7's final track "Veil" delivers on that score with ten minutes of wonderfully droned-out sombre beauty, with no skips or scratches to interrupt its windswept trance... Of course, recommended!

MPEG stream: Museum
MPEG stream: Bush Hum

Of all the sound manipulators, soundscapers and dronologists out there, few can touch Philip Jeck. A master 'turntablist', able to create whole new worlds out of sound, to transport the listener to another place, real or imaginary, with just a clutch of record players, a handful of dusty old vinyl, some cheap Casio keyboards, a couple minidisc recorders, a few mixers, a bass guitar and some effects pedals, the musical equivalent of some mad scientist, creating a time machine, or some temporal shift manipulator, out of odds and ends from the kitchen or the garage. The magic is in the process as much as the result, that result being at least partially beholden to the process, not to discount the sheer creativity and ingenuity of the artist. Because that's exactly what Jeck is, an artist, painting impressionistic landscapes with sound. Instead of colors, he deftly manipulates textures and rhythms, layers and melody, subtly mixing various elements to create something other, the various constituent parts irrelevant to the final piece, like staring at a painting up close, it's not until you step back, that the various elements coalesce into something magical, and beautiful. An Ark For The Listener is a sonic mediation on a poem about the drowning of five exile nuns in the 1800's, and was performed in various locations throughout 2010, this recorded version incorporates bits of the live performances into the final recorded piece, a gorgeously somber soundscape of deep drones and of mysterious sonic swells, the opener "Pilot/Dark Blue Night", is a hushed drift of stretched out tones and muted sonic garble, a chorus of croaking frogs beneath moaning low end melodies, a slowly unfurling minor key drama wreathed in hiss, truncated rhythms, and clouds of click and chitter, deep bell like tones, and swirling soft focus ambience, culminating in the final few minutes with a super emotional bit of looped strings and epic almost choral swells, strangely skipping, uncharacteristically revealing their vinyl source, but it's precisely what makes it so intense and mysterious. "Ark" is a tinkling driftscape of chiming tones, and distant melodies which gradually transforms into a weird bit of droney wah wah-ed bass flutter, "Twentyninth" is a perfect slab of Jeckian dreamdrift haze, shot through with moving minor key melodies, and cinematic like tension, a few of the tracks grow dense and turbulent, the sounds thickening, becoming almost caustic and corrosive, while others seems to grow more and more fragile, diaphanous stretches of crystalline shimmer, the record proper finishing off with the surprisingly rhythmic "The Pilot (Among Our Shoals)", with its soft avalanche of looped beats, its tangled flurries of pizzicato strings, a soft focus frenzy of dizzing turntable swirl, which gives way to a lovely outro of hushed barely there drift and breathless low end murmur. The cd tacks on two bonus tracks, reworked versions from the Suite: Live In Liverpool record, one previously released, the other unreleased, both working surprisingly well with the record proper, "All That's Allowed (Released)" a shimmering expanse of blurred strings and disembodied melody, of softly staticky crackle, and hazy hushed drift, and "Chime, Chime (Rerung)", a crunchy and tactile stretch of tolling bells, reverberating metal, booming gongs and tinkling chimes, all wrapped in a gauze of crackle and pop, buzz and warble, the whole thing lit with some glimmering shimmering otherworldly light. So great.

MPEG stream: Pilot / Dark Blue Night
MPEG stream: Ark
MPEG stream: Dark Rehearsal
MPEG stream: Chime, Chime (Rerung)

Sort of in contrast to the live cd by DJ Z-Trip reviewed elsewhere on this week's list, comes this live recording by *another* AQ fave turntablist, British phonograph-drone experimentalist Philip Jeck. Completely different, of course. There's no rock/rap mash ups to be found here, that's for sure. Mash ups between crackly vinyl grooves and slowed-down ballroom waltzes, perhaps. If you haven't heard him before, we'd recommend his last studio disc Stoke or either of his Vinyl Coda releases to start with (or the upcoming reissue of his classic Surf album). Host is perhaps closest in sound to Stoke, getting into some of the more aggro yet still hypnotic sounds Jeck makes. And 'cause it's live, you might recognize some of the records Jeck is spinning from his other albums. Highlight for us is the final 24 minute cut "Skew" in which Jeck builds up some truly psychedelic levels of delay. Head-throbbing. In addition to three tracks/44 minutes of live Jeck audio, this disc is enhanced with a cd-rom video portion, a quite cool 20 minute film of Jeck performing. It's quite well done, often with two views of Jeck and his turntables combined on the screen at one time, with fluid camera motion/zoom giving some visual appeal to the relatively static DJ performance. Nicely done. Now here's the weird thing about this. Supposedly, according to Touch (Jeck's usual label, who are releasing a brand new Jeck album called 7 later this month), this is, or is going to be, withdrawn. Touch claims Jeck did not authorize this release, yet it still seems to be available and we can't figure out what the problem would be. Sub Rosa seems perfectly reputable as labels go. But anyway, if the rumor is reality, then this might get scarce pretty quick...

MPEG stream: Community

It should be frighteningly obvious by now, to everyone, that we love the sound of record crackle. Pops and clicks, buzz and fuzz. Just have a look at the last 8 or 9 years of reviews, and you'll see that we are grade-A suckers when it comes to that unmistakable sound. In fact, more than once, we posited that if we had a way, some simple system or an effects pedal even, that would render EVERY record we had, more fuzzy, turn every super clear crystal clean recording into something that sounded like it had been sitting in the garage for 50 years and was being played back on a rusty Victrola, well, you know we'd do it in a second. And if there was one single artist, responsible for cementing that love of crackle and pop, of twisting our tastes all around, of taking a love, and turning it into an obsession, it would very likely be Mr. Philip Jeck. Ever since his Surf record, we have been smitten, no, obsessed is more like it. Desperately waiting for another missive of dreamlike murk, of looped chunks of vinyl, of pastoral bliss rendered in disembodied melodies and all manner of distortion and grit. We would later becomes similarly obsessed with soundmakers exploring similar territory, Tim Hecker, William Basinski, Eric Cordier, but our fuzzy crackly little hearts will always belong to Philip Jeck. Which is all the more ironic considering Sand, his brand new record, is perhaps the least fuzzy, the least murky, the most crystalline and clear recording we've heard from him yet. Recorded live over the last couple years and later edited into a series of slow developing soundscapes, Sand finds Jeck moving beyond the crackle and static of turntables, allowing his deft hand at arranging, at collaging various sounds, heck COMPOSING, take the center stage. That element was always present, but was often overshadowed by the sound, by the ambience, whereas here, in these SONGS, the fuzz and crackles is just one more compositional element. Fear not, there are still plenty of old fuzzy recordings, re-envisioned sonic snippets, haunting blurred loops, but here, it seems as if Jeck has chosen the parts and pieces more for their melodic content than their texture, and the results are quite surprising. The opener is a mysterious creep, muted crackle woven into a warm whir, in the background, deep melodic swells drift in and out, soon to fade out completely, leaving just crackle like the sound of gentle rainfall. Over the track's 9+ minutes, sound shifts and changes, timbre and tone are altered dramatically, often unexpectedly, but it manages to work, finishing off with a gentle fade out peppered with intense squelchy squalls of white noise. From then on out, the sound is surprisingly epic and majestic, the loops and snippets stretched out and tangled up into long form pulsing fanfares, some sort of sun dappled ur-drone, underpinned by strange subtle rhythms, and a constantly churning melodic undercurrent. The end of "Residue" almost sounds like Nadja at points, with short sharp bursts of heavily delayed and effected samples, but spends much more time whispering along, delicately traversing seas of soft static. "Shining" is all low end rumble and whir, shimmer and sway, pulsing and throbbing, a churning blackened sea of sound, this time peppered with strange almost-rhythms crafted from sonic snippets, giving it an almost Chain Reaction minimal techno vibe. The disc finished off with the 11 minute "Fanfares Over", the third and final part of Jeck's Fanfare song trilogy on sand, and begins with a splatter of crackly percussion, a woozy warbly loop, all slowly overtaken by a soft skipping record, slowly becoming a sort of ghostlike lullaby, that strange persistent percussion, making the track sound like, at times, like it could be from some forest folk or free drone cd-r. Jeck sets up a calliope like loop, wraps it in flanger, occasionally spreads a little distortion and record buzz over the top, and lets it weave and say and sprawl until it explodes near the end into a flurry of bleary eared distortion, the melody blown out, the sound jagged and intense, a subtly chaotic, in-the-red climax, that doesn't fade out, instead just blinks out, leaving the strange vacuum of silence. At first we were a little disappointed that Sand wasn't more fuzzy, more murky and washed out, more distorted and damaged sounding, but the more we listened, the more we realized, that all of those elements WERE still present, just in ways that might not be so obvious, Sand is still fuzzy and murky and dreamlike and distorted, and it's a testament to Jeck's skill as a composer and a turntablist, that he's able to make it seem otherwise. And judging from how often this gets played in the store, we're all just as smitten as ever.

MPEG stream: Unveiled
MPEG stream: Chimes Again
MPEG stream: Fanfares

First release from this mysterious new tape only label, and it comes from long time favorite, turntablist Philip Jeck! If you're anything like us, you'll buy ANYTHING with Jeck's name on it, his record is that solid, his records are, well, that solid, every single release is gorgeous and expansive and dark and otherworldly, multiple aQ Records Of The Week, maybe more than any other artist. But that makes perfect sense as his sound, and his technique, his aesthetic is so amazing, and so demonstrates what we love about music. The unrestrained creativity, the recontextualiation of other sounds, the physicality of his performances, but mostly the sound, at once warm and crackly and familiar, at the same time, otherworldly and alien and fantastical. Needless to say, a new record by Jeck was a no brainer, we got as many as we could of the 250 copy run, only to discover that there were in fact no turntables, that Spool instead featured Jeck on solo bass! Hmmm. Well, any trepidation we had lasted all of 5 seconds, as Spool seems to explore the exact same sonic space as Jeck's turntable records, the bass rendered unrecognizable, more a soundscaping tool than a rock instrument, run through a bank of effects, had we not been told that this was a bass record and not a turntable record we might never have known. Gorgeous hazy swirls of deep textured rumble, soft scrapes and distant keening shards of feedback, dark buried melodies, layered and textured expanses of warm fluid drift, occasionally building into an almost cacophonous squall, but always managing to settle into some sort of raga like buzz or epic glacial whir. Haunting and so beautiful. We'd love to see what this guy could do with a whole band, especially a whole band of Jecks! WAY RECOMMENDED. And be warned, we only got about 30 of these, of the only 250 made, which means most likely these will be the only copies we can get.

What to say about Philip Jeck that we haven't already. Easily one of our favorite modern music makers. Most definitely, our favorite turntablist / old vinyl manipulator. What Jeck does is so far beyond simple DJ-ing, so much more subtle and creative than most turntablism, he is a composer, a sound sculptor, as adept live as in the studio, maybe even more so, able to create gorgeous soundscapes of crackle and hiss, to conjure up emotions, and energy, from fragments of other folks' recordings, all on the fly. The evidence is right here, a live recording from 2006, just Jeck, a roomful of turntables, a handful of effects, and a box of old records. We've yet to actually see Jeck perform live, but it must be mesmerizing, an act of not just creativity, but also agility, 5 turntables, 10, 20, more, each locked into it's own loop, all the various loops overlapping, creating rhythms, melodies, textures, SONGS. The five lengthy tracks here, all woven together into one ever evolving whole, are masterful exercises in sound manipulation, so deftly managed, that it's nearly impossible to recognize these sounds as records on turntables. Take the opener "Press", with it's swirling sea of effected shimmer, and rain-like record crackle, the warm whirs and deep soft swells, minor key melodies surfacing from minimal background drones, all manner of reverbed percussion, like the echo of water droplets in a shower, shuffling rhythms, distant keening high end tones, snippets of voices, brief squalls of barely restrained chaos, building to a noisy finale, before slipping into a minimal hushed pulse. Totally breathtaking. "Intro Roll" takes up where "Press" left off, taking those same sounds but moving in a different direction, opting for something more ominous, darker, more textured, more rough, the crackle and hiss even more prominent, but this time rife with buried high end melodies giving the whole track a distinctly haunting vibe. "Live With Errors" adds a strange looped marimba like melody over the top, and an off kilter shuffling rhythm, which slips from murky and muted, to blown out and distorted, before slipping into "All That's Allowed", which begins with a low end pulse, that is soon surrounded by dramatic soaring strings, and streaks of shimmering crackle, very dramatic and emotive, before finishing off with "Chime Chime", which seems to be a version of "Chime Again" from Jeck's Sand album, and like the title suggests, is a sea of processed and looped chimes, glimmering, tinkling, bell like tones drifting all sun dappled over a looped abstract rhythm, bass soon drifts in, a bit of metallic percussion, some steel string fragments, before fading out, laving just a very soft, minimal drift, all the sounds muted and right beneath the surface, growing quieter and quieter until they disappear completely. So totally gorgeous, mesmerizing, and again, breathtaking. Vinyl only, beautiful Jon Wozencroft photos and layout as always, LIMITED TO ONLY 500 COPIES, some on clear vinyl, some on colored, it's random so please don't ask for a particular color.

Finally, after waiting for ages, Philip Jeck's totally genius Surf album gets reissued. Oddly enough, perfectly coinciding with what might be his best release since Surf, the simply titled 7, which sonically sounds remarkably like Surf (see the review elsewhere on this list). For those who aren't familiar with his work, Jeck is a UK experimental turntablist who extracts sounds from old battered turntables like an archaeologist excavating some ancient vinyl burial site, using surface noise, skips and crackles, to weave dreamy sepiatone soundscapes of underwater waltzes and pastoral murk. Surf is quite possibly the perfect realization of Jeck's sonic vision. Sinister loops and minor key melodies slither through blurred landscapes of sound, rickety and decaying, shimmery and indistinct. Like blurry postcards of someplace you've never been, or a fleeting memory of someone you've never met, translated into sound. A sound so warm and thick, familiar and inviting, that it transports you to a sonic universe where a skipping record becomes your footsteps, and a repeated crackly phrase becomes the wind through the trees. Easily one of the most transcendentally perfect records ever.

MPEG stream: Demolition
MPEG stream: Box Of Lamb

YAY, THIS BACK IN PRINT! Now in a jewel case instead of the digipack. Why Philip Jeck isn't as famous as Oval and DJ Spooky is beyond us, as we think his brand of repetitive, crazily evocative warmth is just as good if not better than Oval, and his turntable installations are more interesting than anything Spooky ever (wet)dreamed. For instance, Jeck has subtitled his turntablist experiments "low-fi classics for the electronic generation," working with his orchestra of antique Dansette turntables - an arsenal 180 machines strong!!! With the crackling hiss of records found at flea markets, Jeck's concept for his performances / compositions involve a bottle of glue and a scalpel forcing the record needle into locked grooves at the desired points on the records. Anyway, for the three WONDERFUL "Vinyl Coda" pieces spread across these two cds, Jeck's scratchy vinyl-derived loops fade in and out of percussive polyphony, fractured orchestral majesty, almost industrial / factory grinding, 50's pop vocal snippets, and laughably long applause. It's quiet yet there's SO MUCH going on. And some points it sounds like the quiet parts of a Godspeed or Slint record, gently but urgently loping and hiccupping. Highly recommended!

RealAudio clip: Vinyl Coda I

As huge Philip Jeck fans, we were super excited to see the release of this follow-up to his wonderful "Vinyl Codas I-III" double cd. And it doesn't disappoint. Jeck, with his multiple turntables and scratchy old records, is the ultimate master of blissfully

RealAudio clip: excerpt 1
RealAudio clip: excerpt 2

"Viny'l'isten" documents another live performance from British turntablist Philip Jeck, this time performing with likeminded German turntablist Claus Van Bebber. Here, Jeck and Van Bebber each have produced two solo pieces and one extended collaboration. Upon first (second and third) listens, Jeck and Van Bebber have remarkably similar techniques, treating the turntable and the vinyl medium like Dadaist readymades, from which they conjure texturally rich collages clattering with looped samples, locked grooves, and plenty of surface noise. Everything adds up into dense layers of antiquity, that peel back to reveal repeated melodies from ballroom waltzes or '70s rock anthems, swimming together in murky, slow motion atmospheres. The differences between the two artists primarily emerge in their respective preferences for effects, as Van Bebber uses guitar pedals like wah-wah and distortion, while Jeck uses only an echo box and a toy sampler. Both apart and together, Jeck and Van Bebber recall Jeck's masterpiece "Stoke" and his "Vinyl Coda" series at least in terms of technique and content, although not quite measuring up to those in composition and context.

RealAudio clip: Solo 1
RealAudio clip: Solo 2

Recorded during their live performance at the May 2002 electronic offshoot of the Moers Jazz Festival in Germany, "Soaked" brings together the talents of AQ-favorite, avant-turntablist Philip Jeck and the relatively unknown artist Jacob Kirkegaard, who is a member of the Danish multi-media ensemble Aeter. The lumbering drones, tiny textural ornamentations, and radioactive vinyl crackling that we've come to expect from Jeck are certainly present on "Soaked." Yet, Kirkegaard's contributions for electronics, samplers, and possibly some laptop synthesis act as interesting digitized counterpoint to the analogue antiquity normally associated with Jeck. Alongside Jeck's slow-motion fluctionations of old ballroom orchestrations (just a guess, all of his sounds have been blurred well beyond the point of recognition), Kirkegaard interjects non-repeating melodic phrases and digital glitchiness. As this 35 minute composition progresses, both Jeck and Kirkegaard incrementally push towards more jagged and abrasive sounds beyond Jeck's ghostly collages, into rather dissonant elements that sounds like gasping ventilators, clattering bicycle wheels, and straining diesel motors. A bit of a detour for Jeck, but nevertheless a very worthwhile experiment!

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Most readers of the aQ list won't need much more in the way of a review here than simply this: NEW PHILIP JECK. That's the way we are certainly. Easily our favorite turntablist / sound sculptor / soundscaper, every Jeck record a new fuzzy, warbly exploration of some forgotten otherworld, the magic of his music in part due to the fact that his sounds are not so obviously created with records and turntables, like Strotter, or the Caretaker, his sounds exist as ghostly songs, broadcast from another time, or place, their construction, while fascinating and wondrous, are not critical to the enjoyment of the sound, and what a sound, warm, and lush, sepia toned, softly blurred, out of focus, woozy and warbly and daydreamy. But by now, you like us, are indeed appropriately obsessed with the music of Philip Jeck, and thus are as excited as we are about THIS. Two new songs both record live at The Museum Of Garden History in London, Jeck is teamed up with keyboardist Marcus Davidson, who we first heard on those Spire releases from a little while back , live recordings of various performances in acoustically unique spaces, often churches and cathedrals, hence Spire. The two are a perfect match, their sounds blending seamlessly into a shimmery organic whole, it's impossible to tell where the keyboards begin and the turntables end, or if that's Jeck playing bass, or just some warped old piece of vinyl, or if those washed out swirls of notes are being pulled from grooves or actually played by Davidson, but again, it hardly matters, the sound is ephemeral and spectral, slow swells of softly effected chordal swirl, fuzzy indistinct textures, a barely there rhythmic pulse, serene and so so lovely. The flipside starts out with what we can only assume is Jeck's bass, spaced out and spidery and slooooow, a warm languid creep, the low end pulsations ringing out into the ether like ripples on a pond, until near the end when the bass(?) gathers a bit of fuzz, unleashing some softly warped crunch, and some effected synthy squelch, like a disembodied dubstep warble, slowed way down and stretched way out and allowed to undulate lethargically before settling back down into that warm washed out warble. As always, fantastic, and again, beautiful design and layout courtesy of Touch Records head honcho Jon Wozencroft.

A new Philip Jeck record! What could be better. Well, how about adding fellow turntable experimentalist Janek Schaeffer to the mix? Then how about taking the two of them, equipped with all manner of antique record players, setting them up in an abandoned thirties office building at the foot of the Acropolis, and having them gather source material only from used record shops, a motley collection of second hand Greek and Turkish lps and 45's. Sounds like heaven. And it is. Schaeffer often seems focused on rhythm and source material, while Jeck's aim is more emotion and ambience, thus the two work perfectly together. Slowly shifting shades of darkness, move sluggishly like sonic ice floes, snippets of mubled vocals struggle against record crackle and skipping loops of distorted orchestration. The whole record is a series of fuzzed out ambient soundscapes, smeared deftly into indistinct outlines, voices float by like clouds, rhythms emerge from the murk, having fallen together seemingly randomly by the overlap of assembled sonic striations, rumbling crunch, slowed down into a thick sonic mulch, wavering melodies cloaking the horizon in glimmering sonic dew, guitar melodies deconstructed into distant frameworks, surrounding static swirls of sweetness and occasional bursts of violent skree. Horns squeal and are quickly subsumed by thick slowly bubbling pools of strummed mumbly guitars and minor key lullabies. Dreamy and heavenly. We just can't get enough of this stuff. The music of dreams. The music of darkness and light. The music of life, slowed down and observed from within.

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The first release on the new label Audiosphere is also the first in a series, called Invisible Architecture, of experimental music collaborations. Despite the series' foofy highbrow title and the annoyingly oversized "super jewel box" (which merely ensures that The soundclips chart the progression of the piece, so listen to all three.

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A few months ago we received an email from a fellow in the UK asking if we were interested in a live unreleased Philip Jeck cd. And of course we said yes. Anyone who reads the AQ list regularly knows that in our eyes Jeck can pretty much do no wrong (with

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AQ fave P. Jeck's 2002 masterpiece (Record Of The Week on our list number 135) has at last been repressed and is back in stock! Philip Jeck's take on turntable experimentation involves using multiple turntables and scratchy old records to create blissfully beautiful surface-noise looping. His largely improvised compositions make the most gorgeous, repetitive, droning use of good old-fashioned record crackle and hiss. Jeck takes great care to allow for scraps of melody to emerge from the original music on the records with snippets of piano, sitar, and slow-motion vocals, popping out of crackled loops and often recalling the height of the Robin Storey era Zoviet France in the late '80s. What differentiates this new album from the previous excellent ones in his oeuvre is its dynamics (perhaps due to the fact that these were all live performances?) -- the music is more active in terms of the elements used and their resulting emotional power. In fact, the first track "Above" is the creepiest composition I've ever heard from Jeck. The dynamism is also evident in that he uses more individual sounds that unfold over time but *not* necessarily being looped. It's nice to hear him trusting the sounds to stand on their own rather than needing the looping effect to make them beautiful. Highly recommended!!

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19 trax that span over 82 minutes of wild beat chemistry, Technics Chainsaw Massacre chronicles the group's four year existance with cuts from their 3 UK albums of fantastic turntablism with a funky deck wrecking history of breaks'n'beats and intricate scratching.

This limited edition 7" featuring one our our favorite songs from JEFF The Brotherhood's fantastic Hypnotic Nights album came out as special 2012 "Black Friday Record Store Day" release. Album version of that song on the A side, with an exclusive alternate mix (lead vocal by special guest Tristen Gaspadarek) on the flip.

Armed with just three drums, three cymbals, and three strings, this ramshackle noise pop continue to kick ass, every record another unlikely collection of perfect power pop. We first discovered these guys via a split with Best Coast, their side of the split, the impossibly catchy "Bummer" was equal parts Weezer, Further and the Ovens, and their genius fuzz pop full length We Are The Champions only sealed the deal, mixing classic power pop, cheesy cock rock, prog and metal, into a totally irresistible confection, and like aQ faves the Ovens, we constantly imagine that were they slightly more conventional, they'd be HUGE, but then they'd be way less cool, and as it is, it's their warped, goofy sense of humor, and tendency to mar perfect pop songs with blasts of progged out noise, or their love of handclaps, or their audience baiting, which we observed recently when they opened for Best Coast and tortured the audience with a serious MBV worthy blast of shrieking feedback white noise to finish off their set. Hypnotic Nights is their major label debut, and thankfully nothing has changed, but then, why should anything changed, they were already poppy enough to con Warner Brothers into believing they might be the next Weezer, and there's plenty of jams here that make it seem less like a con. Just check out "Sixpack", which is about a million times better than the last five Weezer singles, and if there was any justice in the world, these guys would be all over the radio and wherever videos play now that MTV doesn't really exist (YouTube?). Anyway, this shit is loose and wild, ramshackle, heavy at times, a little proggy too, but mostly a noisy and fuzzy and poppy and crazy catchy, and seriously if you miss the days of Weezer's Blue album, this might be the band to fill that Weezer shaped hole in your heart. Now someone just has to make an Ovens / JTB tour happen and we can die happy!

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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 first we heard from this fuzz pop duo was on a split 7" with Best Coast, and as much as we love BC, it was the oddly monikered Jeff The Brotherhood that knocked our socks off, due in part to low expectations based on the goofy name, but mostly based on their impeccable popsmithery. We described their sound as reminding us of "classic Weezer or old school noise poppers Further, also SF pop geniuses Ovens, super distorted guitars, weary stoned boy vocals, sweet harmonies, killer hooks, crazy catchy, with some tripped out spacey squiggly FX". Thankfully, nothing has changed on JtB's debut full length, included is the aforementioned jam ("Bummer"), the track that had us smitten in the first place, but there's a whole mess of jams equally as fun and fuzzy and hooky, alternating between pure power pop janglefests, casio laced fuzz punk blowouts, stomping fuzzy dirges and hazy psychedelic sixties dream pop ballads, with the band infusing their standard instrumentation with plenty of swirling effects, old school indie rock guitar leads, strange falsetto vox, sitar like buzz, lo-fi practice space drums, and a 4 track production that manages to sound DIY but still totally rocking and fuzzed out. Fans of the above bands will LOVE these guys, as well as folks into classic nineties indie rock like Sebadoh, Dinosaur Jr and all the rest, as well as modern retro poppers like Best Coast. Easily one of our new favorite pop records!

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In 2002, the eccentric New Zealand songwriter Peter Jefferies quit making music, giving his amp and synths to friends. But the drum-kit that he pounded through the '80s and '90s ended up in the trash heap. He took a job teaching music to high-school students; and reluctantly entertained the thought of returning to his own songwriting after Amanda Palmer pleaded with him to share a bill with her when she was on tour in New Zealand. His homeland never paid much attention to Jefferies, but he long had an avid following in the States. Yes, all of us at aQuarius have long championed his work; and the original pressing of his second album Electricity was long a staple here at the shop in the mid-'90s, until the album inevitably went out of print. Jefferies enjoyed a prolific career in New Zealand despite the relative lack of attention from his fellow Kiwis. He and his brother Graeme were the ring-leaders through the '80s of Nocturnal Projections and This Kind Of Punishment, both of which sutured the punk gloom of Joy Division to the earnest noise-making that was being broadcast from the nascent Xpressway gang (Dead C, Trash, Alastair Galbraith, etc.). The tension found in both of those earlier punk propositions carries on into Jefferies solo work especially on his 1994 album Electricity. Here, his mono-maniacal songs sit amidst linear expressions of tense piano pounding, Mo Tucker drum-kit minimalism, and crushed guitar chords as the emotionally raw arrangements for his adventurous, idiosyncratic vocals. At times his songs plead with a desperate exhaustion as he croons like a lo-fi, tape-crazed Scott Walker; and others, he barks with an insistency that hangs anger, fright, and love in his suspended vocal notes. With all of the (well deserved) attention to the Flying Nun catalogue getting reissued, here's a welcome revisiting of one of the under-appreciated masters of NZ avant-pop. Might a Plagal Grind reissue be around the corner?

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Last Great Challenge In A Dull World was the debut solo cassette from NZ legend Peter Jefferies (This Kind Of Punishment, Nocturnal Projections) originally released on the Xpressway label way back in 1990. It's one of our favorite records from that era, and the extremely fertile New Zealand underground rock scene of the time, with Jefferies joined by a who's who of NZ outrock royalty, members of the Dead C, the 3D's, Look Blue Go Purple, Alastair Galbraith, and more, but it's Jefferies' show, crafting a super idiosyncratic, avant singer/songwriter record that broods and blasts in equal measure, obviously homebrewed, lo-fi for sure, but with a sound that's impossibly lush and layered. Crunchy, distorted guitars, wrapped around pounded piano, murky drumming drifting way down in the mix, Jefferies' deep, heavily accented, dramatic sung/spoken vox, all manner of sound effects, field recording, musique concrete fused to classic pop songsmithery, moody, haunting minimalism alongside pounding distorto rock, alongside strange experimental soundscapes. The magic is in Jefferies' ability to transform non-musical sound experiments into minimal masterpieces, songs that have no right to being so catchy, but that will get stuck in your head like crazy. Whether it's the strange found sound driven "Domesticia", which creates a domestic symphony of household sounds, running water, the clink of silverware in glasses, footsteps, pouring liquid, garbage disposals, over which Jefferies croons a sweetly melancholic lament, or "The House Of Weariness", which takes what sounds like some abstract 20th century classical music, fuses it to some primitive manipulated samples, all draped over stately mournful piano, Jefferies' vocals super processed, but somehow, it all falls together pretty much perfectly. And between these more experimental pop songs, are tracks like "On An Unknown Beach", which has to be one of the darkest, prettiest songs ever, all softly reverbed pianos, multi tracked vocals, warm haunting harmonies, or the opener "Chain Or Reaction", which is a killer slab of near perfect pop, all fuzzy guitar, piano pound and driving drumming, and Jefferies' super distinctive vox. And so it goes, striking a perfect balance between, moody, swoonsome, minimal 4 track popsmithery, and fuzzy, distorted, avant NZ lo-fi noise pop, with most tracks falling somewhere right in between. One of our all time faves finally, and deservedly available again!!

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**SALE **SALE* *SALE**

**SALE **SALE* *SALE** If you never really realized just how freaky and experimental San Francisco '60s ballroom psych legends the Jefferson Airpane were, this is a good one to check out. 1968's Crown Of Creation, their 4th album, features approximately none of their classic rock hits, instead it's way dark and psychedelic and weird - even the songs that are mostly acoustic and folky, like the David Crosby penned menage-a-trois ode "Triad", rejected by the Byrds for being too risque. Or opener "Lather", seemingly so lovely, yet with lyrics that are really rather disturbing - and Grace Slick's intense spooky delivery, plus musique concrete sound FX, puts it over the top. Other songs on the album get into a jamming heavy rock bag, with lashings of psych guitar, among 'em the apocalyptic album-closer "The House At Pooneil Corners", its bass-heavy, doomy vibe and trippy anti-war lyrics suitable for the record's mushroom clouded cover art. Definitely a highly recommended '60s rock fave with some deep cuts for those who might have not given the Jefferson Airplane a good listen lately, or ever.

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For this list, we don't just have one, or two, but three of the Early Blues' heaviest hitters newly reissued on vinyl from the always amazing Monk label: Skip James, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and the "Mother of the Blues", Ma Rainey!!! Perhaps the most well-known of the blind bluesmen and the quintessential purveyor of the Southern Gothic (it doesn't get much darker than "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean", though that song is not included here!), Blind Lemon Jefferson is one of the founders of the Texas Blues, and one of the first successful solo artists. Starting his career performing in brothels and barber shops, with his unique interplay of rural and urban blues techniques, as well as his lamenting theatrical vocal style, he was able to use his songs as a means to call attention to the plight of the poor and the destitute. Though he died at an early age (freezing to death in Chicago!), he managed to record nearly 100 songs in just a few years. This collection features some of his best, including "Black Snake Moan", "Bad Luck Blues", "Broke and Hungry", and "Beggin' Back".

Monk Records returns with a second collection from legendary Texas blues master Blind Lemon Jefferson. The bulk of these songs were recorded in Chicago in 1927, showcasing Jefferson at the height of his powers, before boozing and the reckless lifestyle practiced by many bluesmen caught up with him at the end of the decade.... unless he died in a snowstorm, as has commonly been reported. Either way, Jefferson was the first superstar of the blues, and while he laid the groundwork for many other artists, he is truly one of a kind, an unbelievably powerful guitarist with a voice to match. Despite his star status, most of Jefferson's story remains a mystery, but when you listen to his music, you know this could be no one other than the man on the cover (the one known picture of him). His voice is a ghostly, high register wail rendered even more distant by Paramount Records' notoriously lousy sound quality. Still, none of Jefferson's power is diminished, and you will be blown away by his playing and his unconventional song structures, which often switch rhythms mid song for totally unexpected results. Two of the songs here, "He Arose From The Dead" and "See That My Grave's Kept Clean", were released under Jefferson's gospel oriented alter ego "Deacon L.J. Bates", presumably to put off record buyers who might take issue with prime Jefferson cuts like "Black Snake Moan" and "Easy Rider Blues". Lighter numbers, such as "Teddy Bear Blues" and "Hot Dogs", with its tap dancing rhythm accompaniment, help to showcase the wide range of material Jefferson knew so well, and this is essential stuff for anyone who wants to understand the origins of the blues. It doesn't get better than this.

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SORRY. Because Jega has only produced some compilation tracks and a legendary, impossible-to-find lp on S.K.A.M., they have remained in undeserved obscurity. Thanks to Mu-Ziq's new label, they have released two new recordings. Sharp and quirky beats fusing techno, electro and 80's Euro-pop. Much appeal to fans of Autechre, Mu-Ziq, Aphex Twin and even Vince Gil. Stellar. Highly recommended.

Dylan Nathan is Jega. Who were his college roomates? Richard James (Aphex Twin) and Mike Paradinas (Mu-Ziq). Maybe he spent more time actually going to classes and got a job or got married or something, but his music career has hardly been as prolific as theirs -- this is only his second album, following up his debut "Spectrum". Released on Paradinas' label (licensed by Matador), "Geometry" is a excellent piece of electronica, with skittering distorted beats giving way to melodic, moody atmospheres and back again. It'll definitely appeal to fans of Jega's college roommates, as well as Squarepusher and Autechre fans (the Rephlex/Warp/Planet Mu axis).

Sharp and quirky beats - a fusion of techno, electro, so-called "drill 'n' bass", 80's europop and film soundtracks...for fans of Autechre, µ-ziq, Aphex Twin, and Vince Gil. Finally domestic. Stellar!

Many moons ago, the French publishing house Metamkine curated an engaging series of short programmed musique concrete compositions under the banner Cinema Pour L'Oreille - that's 'cinema for the ear' to those of us with just one language at our disposal. There were some minor masterpieces of experimental sound design and tape splicing from the likes of Luc Ferrari, Michel Chion, Eliane Radigue, Lionel Marchetti, and many others. The series came to its end in 2002; but the work of Thibault Jehanne maps a very similar strategem of highly evocative compositions for processed field recordings. He even opines that Eskifordur is "a film with images," leaving the foley sound design as the sole driver of content and meaning. Hmm. Isn't that pretty much what every piece of recorded sound does? Conceptual bullshit artist or not, Jehanne is very talented with his field recordings, all of which come from the eastern coast of Iceland. This sparsely populated region is host to a rich sound environment where sea, land, ice, air, and ocean are thrust together with only a few human interlopers to witness this geophysical drama. After a crackling of ice and a smolder of what could be thermal vents, Thibault ruptures the environmental calm with a vulcanized rhythmic thud that continues throughout the first seven minutes of the album. It's hard not to think of this as a mystical manifestation of Thor's hammer crashing down on the glaciers here on Earth. A halo of electronic drone hovers behind more watery sounds and a rare human intrusion with the soft rhythmic purr from somebody sawing a piece of damp wood by hand. Thunderous raptures of calved ice or volcanic tumult collapse into the wintery wash of airplanes passing overhead. Yes, it must be said that Thibault's sound design is amazingly evocative of this particular and obviously cinematic location, preceded by the likes of Eric La Casa, Chris Watson, Tarab, and Murmer.

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A collection of beats and instrumental gems from DJ Jel of the mighty Anticon collective. Recorded between 1997 and 2000, dark and funky and fucked up and groovy, everything you've come to expect from Anticon. Includes a bunch of amazing instrumental versions

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One of the problems with bands, and labels, who put out record after record, and we're talking a new record every week or month, even if they're all great, is it's tough to keep caring. That sort of happened to us with Anticon. When we first heard that twisted Anticon indie hip hop, we were blown away, we're still blown away actually, the bizarre loops, the totally skewed approach to hip hop and sampling, it was new and fresh, weird and wonderful. But, we needed to take a break. We'd get done reviewing a new Anticon record and there would be two or three more out. So we're back on track, just in time to review the newest from Jel. And as always it's a good 'un! Loping loopy samples, all sorts of strange sounds, and unfunky funkiness, some of the vocals are a little stilted and sound straight out of the eighties (Fresh Prince anyone?) but some are right on and perfectly compliment Jel's fuzzy blissed out beatscapes. Definitely dark and laid back, some of the more ambitious tracks sound like they could be Endtroducing outtakes which is high praise for sure. Guests include Stefanie Bohm of Ms. John Soda, Wise Intelligent of Poor Righteous Teachers, Why?, Fog, Dosh, Pedestrian. And it's produced by Anticon stablemate Odd Nosdam. The first few customers who order the new Jel will get a free Jel turntable slipmat with the album art on one side and the cool giant ant Anticon logo on the other!

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The world of 'dreamy electronica' has been polluted by those better aimed at selling you a Volvo then actually taking you to a different state of being, but thankfully there are still talented and lucid minds like Jan Jelinek who actually does create music that makes your mind wander and washes away your moment in time. The sound is much warmer and organic sounding then the super click n' cut sounding Loop-finding-jazz-records he released a few years back. This time Jelinek seems to be going beyond creating an amazing surface sound (referred to as wallpaper in an earlier AQ review) and has created an album that actually seeps through walls and time and space and slowly melts into your ears. Highly Recommended!

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It may be a strange obsession, but The Wallpaper Lifestyle is something which has been popping up in the collective consciousness of Aquarius. It would be nice to say that it's the lust for chic Danish furniture, sharp Italian clothes, and hot Scandinavian Anyway, Jan Jelinek must have the same fantasy and has constructed the perfect soundtrack. It's a blissful electronica record full of all of the click 'n' dub that one would expect from Scape Records (run by Pole's Stefan Betke). The title is a bit misleading as this has very little to do with jazz, and more having to do with the process of creating the record (by fragmenting the sounds from his jazz vinyl collection through the sampler to arrive at the very Pole electro-dub). So clean. So digital. So Wallpaper.

[ aquarius records catalogue — J ]