[ aquarius records catalogue

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

Showing results 651 through 700 of 1106.

The French ensemble Klood was responsible for one of the best releases from the Drone Records series of limited edition seven inches, coming very close to sounding like a lost track of melancholic guitar ambience by Maeror Tri. "P4.2: A Collection of Drones" is much grittier and more distorted than the rather lilting sound of that aforementioned single, but does live up to its

RealAudio clip: Part 3

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

SORRY. "Pre-sampler plunderphonics" from this German duo, first released on LP in '85 by Ata-Tak and now reissued on cd as a Japanese import. Kurt "Pyrolator" Dahlke played in the amazing Der Plan band of new-wave electro weirdness. This is fun stuff in a similar vein, and you won't believe the '80s Buck Rogers recording studio equipment depicted on the inside. With bonus tracks.

A second generation krautrock anomaly created in 1985, Home-Taping is Killing Music is the first and only collaborative lp by Pyrolator (Ata Tak label operative and member of Der Plan) and tape loop tinkerer Arnd Kai Klosowski, now reissued by the always reliable German electronic resurrectionists Bureau B. Using the then burgeoning technology of sampling, this duo created raw sound experiments and whimsical almost Dada-ish musical forms and rhythms, spliced from prerecorded tapes. Not sure if it's a response or parallel to what hip-hop producers like Double Dee and Steinski were doing, but it seems like a precursor to the sample-based dance tracks groups like Colourbox and M.A.R.R.S would mine heavily just a couple of years after this. The Pyrolator / Klosowski material, though, is far weirder, as anyone familiar with Der Plan would expect! Sometimes sounding like the tropical groove of Can's Flow Motion mixed with bits of Penguin Cafe Orchestra colonial exotica and Holger Czukay style song-craft, this may be too odd of a record for the casual listener. But for those who dig the strange and eccentric with the technically innovative, a very cool and unique release. (FYI, the vinyl version includes the cd with it.)

MPEG stream: Osterreich
MPEG stream: Hammond

Fifty three year old Guy Klucsevek is one of the world's foremost accordionists who consistently pushes outward the conventional notions of what an accordion must sound like. Described as possessing "poker-faced wit", his many recordings invite listeners to take delight in the many forms of music which can benefit from accordion intrumentation. This newest record features collaborations with or tributes to composers Klucsevek admires, including Burt Bacharach (covering a rare song Bacharach wrote for a B-horror film which he first heard on a tape John Zorn made for him), the esteemed Japanese composer Somei Satoh, and Lars Hollmer of AQ-beloved cult Swedish folk-prog band Samla Mammas Manna. Ranges from intense drones to fucked-up polka to some of the fastest most impressive fingers-flying-over-the-keyboard arpeggiated notes that I didn't even know were possible on the accordion! Klucsevek is one of a kind.

RealAudio clip: Aeolian Furies

They used to be available separately (and maybe still are, as fancy expensive Japanese imports). But if you want one, you probably want 'em all: the first three (and only, until recently, with the advent of the Vulcano and Admira cds reviewed on list #294) lps of pioneering proto-Industrial krautrock from the trio of Moebius, Roedelius, and Conrad Schnitzler. The first two of whom went on to form Cluster with a C, whose career is one of the most significant in all of krautrock -and- electronic music (and whom we were proud to recently host a performance by at our store!). Meanwhile Schnitzler also made quite a name for himself as a solo electronic experimentalist too. Together with producer Conny Plank, the trio recorded two proper studio albums, 1970's Klopfzeichen and 1971's Zwei-Osterei. Both of 'em dark and dismal soundscapes, improvised and abstract, with some sort of strange religious sermon (in German) over top of the first side of each.... apparently they cut a deal with some church or cult to pay for these records' release, and in return had to include the creepy God-talk! Which, since we don't understand much German, doesn't bother us too much. Eruption, a live recording from '71, has a similar vibe, but without the spoken word (and it's plenty spooky anyway). All of these were originally issued in incredibly small quantities (200-300 lps) and we doubt at the time that Kluster ever imagined this music would be in print, and revered, nearly 40 years later! Packaged in a fat 3-disc jewel box, with cd booklet giving much more info than we've supplied here.

MPEG stream: Klopfzeichen Part One
MPEG stream: Zwei-Osterei Part One

Attention krautrock fans! Important Records has just unearthed two rare Kluster recordings, Vulcano and Admira. Of course we're Cluster krazy here at the moment (they just played in the store!!), but the first thing that must be mentioned is that not only is this Kluster-with-a-K material, it's Kluster AFTER Moebius and Roedelius left the band (to form Cluster-with-a-C). We actually didn't know that Kluster had continued without Cluster, as it were! But apparently they did, with original third Kluster colleague Conrad Schniztler in charge, working alongside sometime Kluster accomplices Klaus Freudigmann, Wolfgang Seidel, and "friends". It's Freudigmann (who, like Schnitzler, apparently also had something to do with Tangerine Dream at some point) who found these old tapes, each one now at last released on cd in deluxe packaging (embossed gatefold sleeve similar to that of the original Kluster album Klopfzeichen), limited to 1000 copies. Although we're still surprised that these guys performed/recorded as Kluster (and it's confusing, since we know the same lineup also made music under the name Eruption), regardless of who's on it, what's important is how it sounds, so... Admira consists of twelve untitled tracks recorded in 1971, presumably in a studio, and left unreleased until now. Hmm, though we do like the fancy embossed packaging, we'd gladly trade that for some liner notes giving just a bit more information! But like we just said, what's important the music, and that's pretty cool. Definitely very Schnitzler-y, if you've heard very many of his recordings over the years, with lots of spacious synth-zap and droning abstraction. This is electronics infested krautrock on the outer fringes of freedom, ranging from meditative peacefulness to harsh noise (sometimes even over the course of one track). Admira's an experimental and eclectic set all right... ferinstance, track four is a proggy swirl of off-kilter keyboard coloration and chaotic percussion, track seven is a surreal soundscape of string sawing and outsider vocal warble. All in all, along with Vulcano, this is an excellent, if mysterious addition to the tiny Kluster (and much larger Schnitzler) discography, and a freaky footnote to the krautrock canon as a whole. Gives one hope that even now, somewhere in Germany, maybe there's more 37-year old tapes like these, under some bed or at the bottom of some closet, waiting to be dug up, worthy of release! For those interested in the Kluster-with-a-K discs proper, those with Moebius and Roedelius, note we also have a new 3cd reissue on Water, comprising the albums Klopfzeichen, Zwei-Osterei, and Eruption, we'll try to give it a write-up next time.

MPEG stream: 1
MPEG stream: 4
MPEG stream: 6

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

SORRY. Long-awaited reissue of the third and last "Kluster with a K" album from 1971, when the "Cluster with C" duo of Moebius and Roedelius was a trio with Conrad Schnitzler, making pioneering, prehistoric ambient/industrial/ electronica. And, unlike the first two Kluster records, there's no German spoken religious narrative included (and it's plenty spooky without it).

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

SORRY. Pre-Cluster pioneering proto-industrial Krautrock electronics reissued.

MPEG stream: 9
MPEG stream: 14
MPEG stream: 19

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

SORRY. Pre-Cluster pioneering proto-industrial Krautrock electronics reissued.

Recently one of us here at Aquarius happened to rent and watch the classic psycho-sexual thriller Klute for the very first time. That noirish 1971 film stars Jane Fonda as a neurotic New York call girl being stalked by an obsessed john, and Donald Sutherland as a straight laced investigator attempting to solve a missing persons case, to which Fonda's character may hold the key. It became apparent that not only was the movie indeed quite excellent, but so was its beautiful, sinister, sometimes groovy soundtrack, quite integral to the film's effectiveness. A quick search revealed that, yay, the Klute soundtrack is currently available on cd, released by the same label responsible for recent Record Of The Week, the 5000 Fingers Of Dr. T! So of course we ordered it in, immediately. What with the Klute soundtrack's ominous atmospheres, occasional lush sentimentality, and also very '70s psychedelic vibes (the discotheque dancing scenes!), we know it's going to appeal to a bunch of you. Heck, much of this music's worthy of a Dario Argento giallo, and also has a passage that sounds more like an Eastern-inspired, krautrocky jam session. It was composer Michael Small's first Hollywood commission, and he innovated a more intimate, modern approach to suspense film scoring, as the very detailed liner notes explain. Ethnic instrumentation, languid jazz trumpet (leading the melancholic "Love Theme From Klute"), and acid rock guitar are all elements of this soundtrack, though what's most common to most of the twenty nine Klute cues indexed here (48'51" total time) is a shivery combination of eerie tinkling piano, sudden skittery percussion, and breathy, whispery wordless female vocals, the latter performed by singer Sally Stevens, who was also heard that same year on Lalo Schifrin's soundtrack to Dirty Harry. Those moody cuts, like "On The Roof", "Moonwall", and "Bree Followed On Street", are both quite lovely and downright creepy... play this alone late at night and we know you'll be checking to see if your doors are locked! If you've never seen Klute, by all means do so, it's a great movie, with Fonda's performance in particular quite impressive. But whether you've seen the movie or not, the soundtrack is one of those that can be enjoyed by itself, apart from the story and visuals. It's paired here on this two-on-one disc with the soundtrack for 1976 Watergate drama All The President's Men, composed by the great David Shire (The Conversation, The Taking Of Pelham 1-2-3). Naturally, it's also pretty good! The movie ties in with Klute as another example of paranoid seventies thriller cinema, and also shares the same director. Its soundtrack, while not quite as idiosyncratically striking as that of Klute, is certainly cool to have on this disc, offering 30 more minutes (24 tracks) of suspenseful sounds... And while not as "sexy" in subject matter as Klute, we'll note that All The Presidents Men, both film and book, contains a prime example of the cultural mainstreaming of porn in America, with "Deep Throat" famously being used as the code name for the Woodward and Bernstein's mysterious White House informant. The label, Film Score Monthly, does their usual exceedingly expert job in presenting these two soundtracks, the extensive notes in the thick, full color illustrated cd booklet providing commentary well versed in both music theory and cinematic history. Recommended!

MPEG stream: Main Title
MPEG stream: Casting Office
MPEG stream: First Disco
MPEG stream: Bree Followed On Street
MPEG stream: To Deep Throat I
MPEG stream: CREEP Sequence I

Yet another bit of doomy weirdness from Reverend Bizarre's S.A. Hynninen, aka Albert Witchfinder, whose recent Puritan doomdirgedrone project received aQ Record Of The Week honors, and while we extolled the overall freakiness and what-the-fuckness of The Puritan, it ain't got nothing on KLV, a band that Albert was in prior to Reverend Bizarre, circa 1992-1998. Reverend Bizarre drummer Earl Of Void was also a member. This cd had been out for some years now but after listing The Puritan, and also even more recently Albert's Opium Warlords project, we figured it would be a good idea to review this also, and were lucky enough to find a supplier that had a few copies (that strangely enough, come with T-shirts too!). KLV stands for Kehitysvammaisen Lapsen Vanhemmat, which is Finnish for "parents of a deficient child', and the sound is meant to be classic gothic doom, but filtered through Hynninen's cracked sonic lens it comes out as anything but. This is no My Dying Bride or Paradise Lost, instead it's a confusional sort of doom pop, with long stretches of electronic flecked dreaminess, fluttering flutes, male / female vocal harmonies, whirring keyboards, jangly clean guitars, and yea, some lumbering gloomy doom. But this is not the crushing slow motion tarpit dirge of The Puritan, or even the classic Sabbathy crunch of Reverend Bizarre, instead, the sound is sort of stripped down, the vocals deep and dramatic, even at its heaviest, the sound is still surprisingly melodic, and weirdly poppy, of the 13 tracks, there are 4 or 5 extended proper doom jams, while the rest of the record, consists of shorter, stranger, poppier and more abstract mini-epics. The opener, sets the tone, sounding a bit like a doom Aavikko, clean guitar strum, burbling bass, deep crooning, lovely harmonies, flutes, and a super poppy main hook, and a sort of post rocky final portion that segues directly into the first 'doom' track, a somber, smoldering bit of slowcore, again quite melodic and way more pop than metal. After a few brief bits of haunting ambience and a flurry of hysterical howling and laughter comes the organ driven "Kannel Karhun Morsiamesta" that almost sounds like Circle at their most dramatic, slow and cabaret, before busting out into a super rocking jam, but not so rocking that it's not wrapped in full on flutes, culminating in the almost Renaissance Faire sounding last couple minutes. Wow. And so it goes. Slipping from doom pop, to lumbering doom, to low slung, baritone voiced doomjazz, to grinding super distorted crunch, bookended by jangle and croon that sounds a bit like Beat Happening, to Doorsy psychedelic groove, to Bohren-like dimly lit minimal creep, to skeletal space rock, to Sabbathy pound, to slow, epic mournful dooooooom, it's definitely all over the map, but something manages to keep things cohesive, or at least somewhat cohesive. And we joked in a past review about KLV / Puritan / Opium Warlords / Rev Bizarre mainman Hynninen being Jussi from Circle's long lost brother, but never has this seemed sonically so likely as it does here, on Niin Musta On Maa, which means, of course, doomlords, and Finnish hypnorock weirdos will both find plenty to dig here... While they last, for some unknown to us reason, each disc comes with a free KLV T-shirt! You can specify in the comments section what size you want (Large or Extra Large are the two choices), and we will try to accommodate, but eventually we'll be down to just one size and you'll just get whatever we have left. And once this batch of cds is sold, the T-shirts will be gone for good.

MPEG stream: L.R.
MPEG stream: Kevatuni
MPEG stream: Mooses Ja Kolibri
MPEG stream: Kannel Karhun Morsiamesta

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

SORRY. 2nd album from the Ruins + Keiji Haino, vinyl only.

Ruins + Keiji Haino = Knead! Yes, this new PSF group Knead (we're curious about how/why they picked that name, it's kind of odd isn't it?) is none other than a trio consisting of Keiji Haino, Tatsuya Yoshida, and Hisashi Sasaki. Haino of course is the guitar/vocal shaman of Fushistsusha and much solo fame, while Yoshida and Sasaki are the drummer and bassist of equally famous Tokyo duo Ruins! Indeed, Haino and Yoshida are both truly titans of the Tokyo underground rock scene. Haino is a pillar of dark, psychedelic phantasia, while Yoshida is more of a progressive rock stalwart. On paper, it might seem like the super hyper, stop start hardcore acrobatics of Ruins would be an ill match for Haino's freeform drone guitar freakouts. But fans familiar with the respective massive outputs of both, know there is in fact much common ground. That said, Yoshida and Sasaki pretty much let the 50 year old Haino take the lead in Knead, with bassist Sasaki accepting a supportive role more typical of his instrument (which is certainly not the case in Ruins), wisely deciding not to directly duel with Haino's apocalyptic guitar. But you still hear a lot of nimble playing from him, while partner Yoshida of course unleashes mighty drum salvos pretty much continuously. The eight tracks (75 minutes) of Nipponese noise rock nirvana found here are kind of like Fushitsusha with a supercharged rhythm section. At the energetic peak that much of this attains, Haino torches the place as if his guitar was a flamethrower, while the Ruins duo busily thrash away. Upon a few other moments, they find calm, throwing in sections of atmospheric clatter and vocal babble. At the outset of track 5, Haino's primal, gutwrenching singing is joined by Yoshida's much less anguished, falsetto cries and bizzare vocal sound fx. (Although Yoshida's vocal model has always been Magma's Christian Vander, we noted while listening to this the similarity of Yoshida's warble to Robbie Basho's singing!) Soon, though, the vocal duet gives way to Knead's combined instrumental firepower. Haino, even though he hardly needs anyone's help to generate entire universes of emotive psych-skree, has thrived in collaborative settings, having recorded with Boris, COA, High Rise, Musica Transonic, Shoji Hano, Peter Brotzmann, Masada's rhythm section, Bill Laswell & Rashied Ali, and others...much of it great stuff indeed. Whereas, the Ruins collaborative track record is not so good: generally fun but tossed-off improv sessions. Their jams with Derek Bailey, Guapo and Omoide Hatoba were pretty much ok, but we could've done without their meetings with Ron Anderson, Jason Willett, and the Sun City Girls. Knead, thankfully, is much better than these -- infinitely better than RonRuins! Haino and Yoshida of course have actually vibrated the cosmic ether, I mean played, together before. Haino guested on the first disc by Yoshida's Tairikuotoko vs. Sanmyakuonna band, and he also did an album with Musica Transonic (for whom Yoshida drums)...more recently there was an excellent Haino/Yoshida duo disc (and tour in China) called "When Water Grasps Flame". We sold out of that disc before we could even list it, but hope to get more of 'em in soon! Recommended, especially to Haino fans. After all, Fushitsusha's last record, the shockingly guitar-less "Origin's Hesitation", really was pretty great -- but even those of us that loved it can't help but yearn for more of Haino's intense wall of sound guitar playing. And for that, Knead will more than meet your needs!!

RealAudio clip: track 3
RealAudio clip: track 5
RealAudio clip: track 7

After a whole slew of recent releases, this is the first new record in a while from Mr. Kneale presented under his given name. Not sure what makes this a Campbell Kneale record and not a Birchville Cat Motel record, but who cares, fans of either will dig this heavily. Seems like Kneale's focus lately has been almost exclusively on his black sludge doom project Black Boned Angel, and we're not complaining, we definitely can't get enough of that stuff. But Kneale has quite a deft hand when it comes to free ambient drone as well, and oddly enough we can't seem to get enough of that stuff either. So here we have the new Kneale record, which could have just as easily been a Birchville record, based on the sounds within, and is shot through with plenty of Black Boned Angel-isms, delicate drones are thicker, heavier, more dense and volatile, sludge metal blissed out into expansive stretches of shimmer and swirl. Four lengthy tracks, each a barely moving slab of molten sonic grrrrwwwwrrrrrrrrvvvvvmmmmmm. Layers atop layers, delicate melodies buried beneath, rumbling churning slow shifting sound, keening high end skree all tangled up with subsonic reverberations, the whole thing a slow moving vibrational flow, a massive abstract multiphonic spaced out downtuned tranced our Ur-drone.

MPEG stream: Pink Stalingrad
MPEG stream: Black Thrash Princess

It's been a while since we heard from our noisy pal Campbell Kneale. When we last checked in, he had retired the Birchville Cat moniker, and had rechristened himself Our Love Will Destroy The World, but then after a Birchville-worthy torrent of releases with OLWDTW, sort of just disappeared for a bit. So we were super excited to get a missive from the man, informing us of a new release, the first on his Don't Fuck With Magic imprint in ages, and so ordered a bunch, and are one of the only (if not the only) places in the US carrying it. We were of course curious what this latest name change meant, going back to his given name, we made a guess, but we were wrong. We had sort of expected something pretty and tranquil, but instead, Kneale as Kneale explodes right out of the gate with a face melting, ear shredding barrage of caustic Japanoise style crunch, cascades of grinding high end, and swirling shards of jagged skree. As always, Kneale is a master noisemaker, so while a glancing listen reveals and army of blends and vacuum cleaners set to stun, dig deeper, and beneath the surface, lurk all manner of moaning low need melodies, deftly stylized textures, but that said if your tolerance for noise is low, this might be a bit much for you. The first track does go through multiple permutations, drifting through a field of shrieking feedback, before emerging on the other side as a murky, albeit still crunchy, noisy jumble, before eventually blossoming into a strange psychedelic skree, that sounds like multiple Sunroof! records spinning at once. The second track flirts with nuance in the first few seconds, but quickly splinters into another furious flurry of white/grey/black/pink noise, more buried voices and sounds, swirls of glitched out grind, and malfunctioning electronics, whipped up into a fervor, and sent spinning in some sort of soul shearing sonic whirlwind, pocked with weird moaning metallic howls, before sputtering out into something a bit more restrained, a lush textured bit of gristly, muted soft noise, a comparatively dreamy comedown to a record that is definitely one of Kneale's fiercest. Crazy limited as always, and in the usual swank Don't Fuck With Magic packaging, an oversized full color sleeve, adorned with original Kneale artwork.

MPEG stream: I

Another batch of super limited and beautifully packaged cd-r's from Campbell Kneale's (Birchville Cat Motel) Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label. The finest in underground free noise / drone, culled mostly from New Zealand but all around the world as well. For those of you new to the CpsiP label, imagine classic Siltbreeze (Dead C, etc.) mixed with Jewelled Antler (Thuja, Blithe Sons etc.), dark and deep listening that sometimes verges on all out noise, but more often than not remains subtle experiments in avant drone and abstract sound. And when we say limited we mean LIMITED. Thes babies come in pressings of 30-80, out of which we get a whopping 10 copies!! A veritable New Zealand noise super group, featuring one member from each: Birchville Cat Motel, Sandoz Lab Technicians, and Flies Inside The Sun, the whole is definitely less than the sum of its parts, with three cooks in the kitchen, making barely audible microscopic soundscapes of whir and scrape, skitter and whisper, hum and tinkle. Huge expanses of barely-there sound, vast and wide open, only the occasional tiny bell or reverbed clunk letting you know the action is still on. This is some definite headphone listening.

MPEG stream: Btwxt

It must be pretty fun being Campbell Kneale's kids. Not only is he a cool guy, funny, weird taste, he also gathers his offspring together once in a while and records an album!! Man, when we were 7 or 8 years old, I'm not sure we would have even understood what was going on if our Dad asked us to start a band or record an album. But the younger Kneales, Winter, aged 7, and Caspar, aged 9, are old hands at this recording business. In fact this is record number two, for this familial ensemble, rounded out by Campbell, aged 33. The last Kneale-Cubed record, Myriapod, was a chaotic freeforall blast of noise, a wall of sound very reminiscent of Papa Kneale's harsher Birchville albums. But part of that may have been cuz the kids were too young to know better, nothing more fun than making loud noise after all. But it seems Winter and Caspar have matured, both physically and musically, as Majestic Header is a much more refined affair, two lengthy tracks of skittery beated drone, with Winter and Caspar handling most of the instruments: beats, electronics, and percussion, leaving Dad to violin and guitar. The result is pretty cool. Both tracks are long free form drone workouts, a thick layer of fuzz beneath squealing peals of violin skree, while nestled amongst the fuzzy drone and thick whirs, a simple propulsive drum machine pulses along and the whole thing is pelted with strange alien squelches and abstract FX. The second track has an almost-house music thing going on, although it's buried under some Black Boned guitars. Like a techno Total or a heavy metal Neu! or some sort of primitive Birchville remix record. Cool stuff. Can't wait to hear what sort of sonic trouble these boys will get up to in their teens!! We're sure Campbell is bracing himself as well!! SUPER LIMITED! WE GOT ABOUT 30 COPIES, WHEN THOSE ARE GONE THEY MAY BE GONE FOR GOOD, SO ACT FAST!

MPEG stream: One
MPEG stream: Two

Yet again, Celebrate Psi Phenomenon / Birchville Cat Motel madman Campbelll Kneale risks the wrath of child services by enlisting his offspring, Casper and WInter, in a 30 minute noise drenched free for all. Record number two from the Kneale family, this one is a speaker shredding burst of jagged noise and crumbling distortion. There might be songs and singing and other music type things present, but if they are, the kids have thrown them to the floor and stomped them to bits, then tossed them into the air, a massive swirling cloud of industrial rrroooaaar, like a battle royale between Total, Birchville Cat Motel and Hijokaidan. SUPER LIMITED AS ALWAYS!! NOT SURE WE'LL BE ABLE TO GET MORE WHEN THESE ARE GONE!

MPEG stream: Myriapod

Another batch of super limited and beautifully packaged cd-r's from Campbell Kneale's (Birchville Cat Motel) Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label. The finest in underground free noise / drone, culled mostly from New Zealand but all around the world as well. For those of you new to the CpsiP label, imagine classic Siltbreeze (Dead C, etc.) mixed with Jewelled Antler (Thuja, Blithe Sons etc.), dark and deep listening that sometimes verges on all out noise, but more often than not remains subtle experiments in avant drone and abstract sound. And when we say limited we mean LIMITED. Thes babies come in pressings of 30-80, out of which we get a whopping 10 copies!! This triple K release is definitely a family affair, with the Kneales -- Campbell (age 30), Caspar (age 7) and Winter (aged 4) -- all getting together to make a sweetly innocent racket. Stumbling acoustic guitars, caterwauling violins, chimes and shakers and splattery percussion, distorted guitar fuzz, squiggly synthesizers, squeaking horns and toys, almost new wave keyboard pulses, primitive four on the floor techno beats and all sorts of other business. Sounds like it must have been a blast to make, and thankfully it's just as fun to listen to. Primitive, abstract New Zealand all ages noise rock. Nice.

MPEG stream: Feather Duster
MPEG stream: Dinosaur Wars

Knell comes from the same mold that has shaped the work of Jasper TX and Machinefabriek. While it remains to be seen if Knell will take the course of cd-r infinitude as both of the aforementioned artists have, it's clear from this debut recording that Knell (aka Johannes Buff) has the chops to pull off that expressive blur between art-drone soundsmear and elliptical patterns of darkened songwriting broken and stretched into lengthy constructs. Piano and harmonizing echoes set a shadowy stage at the onset of Last Ten Meters which Buff flushes out with unsettling squishes of sound as if aquatic creatures were unduly having their contents squeezed out of their pores. Eventually, a singular detuned guitar strum begins a melancholy dirge which steadily doubles and interweaves into a minor-key crescendo that all together falls somewhere between Larsen's post-rock hypnosis and the molten, subharmonic doom of Corrupted. After one of these smoldering peaks of downer rock riffs burns out in distant washes of distortion, the pools of metallic drone begin to coalesce once again and a fragmented song emerges once again. Yeah, Knell really does conjure the grim yet beautiful atmospheres as found in the best work of Jasper TX and Machinefabriek; hopefully, Buff will continue on with the Knell recordings in same exemplary fashion as his aesthetic contemporaries.

MPEG stream: Extract 1
MPEG stream: Extract 2

First record we've reviewed from these Portland crushers (who count a member of aQ faves L'Acephale among their ranks), whose sound has changed dramatically over the last 4 years and 3 full lengths, having started life as something much more noisy and chaotic, initially some sort of twisted power electronic / grindcore combo, their sound blackened considerably, their music growing more and more dense and darkly metallic, arriving here, at Tresspass, where they have essentially made the transition to full on black metal band, but what makes these guys so good, and this record so compelling, is that it's informed by that transformation, for all the black buzz, and gnarled riffing, there are gouts of grinding fury, or weird stretches of processed vocals sounding like a symphony of gurgles. In some ways they're like a more punk rock Deathspell Omega, they have a similarly dense sound, and a similar knack for creating lush blackened crush from multiple layers of droned out guitars, tangled riffage, and impossibly chaotic drumming. Even at their blackest, their punk roots show through, whether it's a barrage of squealing pick slides, or some serious punked out D-beat pound, the guttural vocals more death metal, but again, it just adds another cool element to their already wildly hybridized sound. Relentless and furious, the production MASSIVE, the sound epic and crushingly brutal, downtuned and HEAVY, the tracks occasionally splintering into droned out doom, or blurry stretches of rumble and thrum, or crumbling industrial blurscapes, but just as often exploding into wild gouts of metalpunk chaos, before slipping right back into another blast of grinding blackbuzz churn. Super swank gatefold sleeves, with printed cardstock insert.

This Swedish duo had all the cool kiddies' panties in a delirious knot at their recent totally sold-out show here in SF. Hot stuff! So needless to say, it's a more than perfect time for this reissue! Last time we carried this cd, we had this brief summation: If you dig Miss Kittin or Adult., well here's The Knife! Electro-punky tunes with punchy female vocals seemingly very inspired by Debbie Harry / Blondie. That having been said, we'll elaborate a bit: If you happened to start your love affair with The Knife with their Silent Shout album, it'll surely continue to burn hotter than the sun with Deep Cuts. This brother and sister team combine the detached chill of electro and techno with the engaging catchiness of pop with a childlike musicbox wonder. Ultra tweaked and strange. Includes a dvd!

MPEG stream: She's Having A Baby
MPEG stream: You Make Me Like Charity

The hip kids have been all a-buzz about this album for weeks already, and it's no wonder. Silent Shout is the bestest electro-party record around right now. Super super fun from Sweden that treads the shadowy perimeter of goth industrial (think: WaxTrax Records circa early '90s My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult). The brother and sister duo Olof and Karin Dreijer have really come into their own on this one. We've heard some comparisons to Ladytron, and we can certainly hear some similarities in the softer synth pop tracks, but The Knife are looser, edgier, more gregarious, more... strange! So if you dig Ladytron, but you maybe want something that struts with more attitude and ambition, give The Knife a go! Silent Shout is packed with a variety of juicy jaunty beats, sputtery'n'swooopy synth lines and the vocals... ah, the vocals! In particular, Sister Karin's are a bit like Bjork in their cooing expressiveness but a lot more tweaked, petulant and sauced up. Brother Olof provides a complementary smooth deep croon and downright weird guy delivery. Right around the time your feet get tired from all the dancin' (or other involuntary body movements), The Knife deftly insert a little down time in the form of the sweet lilt of "Na Na Na" and the beautiful euro-cabaret stylings of "Marble House". Then they pick it up again for the delightfully bizarre stomp of "One Hit". Recommended!

MPEG stream: We Share Our Mother's Health
MPEG stream: Marble House
MPEG stream: One Hit

First release we've managed to get from this weirdo from the Northwest, whose sound is a sort of abstract doom / outsider electronica? Or something, kinda tough to describe, but if you can imagine some fucked up hybrid of Wolf Eyes and Blue Sabbath Black Cheer you might be getting close, oh but only if you imagine they sometimes made techno music, which sounds weird, and it is, but it a good way. After a weird vocal intro, the sound is all detuned bass warble, thick rumbling dronemusic, wreathed in buzzing and flecked with little mysterious sonic events, sorta creepy and abstract and spaced out, that is until 'the beat' comes in, a simple pulse, over a bed of gurgled vocals and what sounds like bleating sheep, or maybe quacking ducks, all of which is soon overwhelmed by sheets of staticky noise, and super processed demonic vokills. And that's just the beginning, soon the sound blossoms into a super distorted down tuned creep, a noisy industrial doom death march, that quickly transforms into another weird stretch of beat driven electro-noise, strange pitch-shifted tones and unsettling vocal mewlings draft atop a bed of undulating buzz, all anchored by that beat. Soon the sound becomes sort of Butthole Surfers-ish, woozy, melty riffage, dirge caveman thump, and processed vocal drawls, lo-fi and again, laced with all kinds of FX and creepy voices. Finally, things finish off with a 10 minute epic, that might be the least weird of the bunch, at least at first, all simple spidery guitar melody, moody cello rumbling in the background, which is soon joined by more tweaked and twisted vox, the sound devolving into a churning morass of distant drones, electronic squelches, malfunctioning FX, and just a creepy grim ambience, before exploding again into some sort of pounding industrial noise-psych finale, echoey howled vocals, pounding drum machines, all wrapped in the tracks suffocating blackness and fractured prismatic psychedelia. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!!

MPEG stream: Following You Home
MPEG stream: In Your Head 1
MPEG stream: In Your Head 2

Not sure what to say about Knifehandchop that we haven't said before. Big dumb noisy fun. Splattery break core, with throbbing gabber four on the floor thumps, breakbeats chopped beyond recognition, jungle and drum 'n' bass and hardcore thrown in a blender with heaps of funny/catchy top 40 song fragments. From his own twisted take on the mash up (Destiny's Child mixed with Eminem over impossibly damaged and hyper distorted beats) to DJ Scud-ish hardcore dancehall to hyper silly chaotic noise. Good fun stuff. MPEG Download: "Sunjammer Is My Favorite Pokemon Trainer" [/audio/knifehandpokemon.mp3] MPEG Stream: "Sunjammer Is My Favorite Pokemon Trainer" [/audio/knifehandpokemon.m3u] MPEG Download: "Tutti Fruity Booty" [/audio/knifehandtutti.mp3]

MPEG stream: Sunjammer Is My Favorite Pokemon Trainer
MPEG stream: Tutti Fruity Booty
MPEG stream: Taking The Soul Out Of Music

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

SORRY. Gabber-tech madness invades pop culture for the Playstation generation from Canadian whizkid Billy Pollard, aka Knifehandchop! Pounding beats clash with a hilarious aural juxtaposition of Destiny's Child, Eminem and those Eurodance sensations, Vengaboys. Assertive female independence, aggressive misogyny and purely apathetic bubblegum dance join forces to rock yr ass! Totally ridiculous, but really smart and catchy as fuck. And the smartass is only nineteen! Brilliant!

MPEG stream: Goin Back To Scarborough
MPEG stream: Tizzy Tixbown Riddim

Yeow! The highly anticipated US debut (via Kid 606's Tigerbeat6 imprint) from twenty-year-old Canadian bootylicious whizkid Billy Pollard aka Knifehandchop! Seven new dancefloor scorchers - mashing hip hop, hardcore dancehall, gabba techno and straight up rave while incorporating and referencing mass pop culture (Outkast etc). Super catchy and poppy, though still hard and way ahead of the

RealAudio clip: Knifehandchop Is My Favorite DMX Master
RealAudio clip: IM Sorry Miss Pollard
RealAudio clip: Not For Tha Ladies
RealAudio clip: 2 Sexxxy Booty

Not sure what else to say about this crazy motherfucker. Another, fun and funny and funky splattery mashup of classic hip hop, caustic breakbeats, four-on-the-floor techno, booty bass, cut and paste chaos, goofy synths, and manic drum programming. But as we're all still crazy for dancehall around here, those are the tracks where this record really shines, with a brutal mix of toasting, classic pounding jungle beats buzzing rave-y techno and thick, wall-shaking bass synths. Another party-ruling dancefloor-filling masterpiece from Mr. Chop.

MPEG stream: Not For tha Ladies

It's definitely a good thing that adulthood doesn't follow the bully / wimp social dichotomy of high school; but if it did, everybody on Tigerbeat 6 would have received a number of serious beatings by now, starting with the Kid, then Cex and followed by Canadian laptopper Billy Pollard aka Knifehandchop. "TKO From Tokyo" mashes up vocals from Dancehall toaster Bounty Killer and RZA's Bobby Digital persona on top of big dum-dum Rotterdam techno beats, and also features remixes from Venetian Snares, Kid 606, Noize Creator & DJ Aneurysm, and Joseph Nothing. Very stupid yet very infectuous.

RealAudio clip: Taking The Soul Out Of Music Vs. Vertical
RealAudio clip: I Hate Your Fucking Face

Earnest raw and rocking sounds from two Brooklyn kids. But fear not, this isn't just posturing hipster flavor of the day lo-fi garage bandwagoning. While there is a very lo-fi feel to these garage pop burners, we hear more of that classic fuzzy indie pop sound we'll always be in love with a la early Guided By Voices, Rocketship, Unrest, Sentridoh, Grifters, etc. Songs that sound so stripped down and primitive yet are filled with such a great sense of melody and jammed with total hooks that would hit you hard over the head had they been mega produced but instead seep into your veins just right as they are buried in the overall fuzzed out mix. We're also reminded of some of our favorite early K Records bands as there is a sincerity oozing from these bedroom recordings that has us totally smitten. A very impressive debut!

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

SORRY. A vinyl-only release from this new San Francisco "avant-indie-rock" band (with handmade, each-one-different covers). The Knit Separates, featuring members of Mirza/Thuja (including L. Chasse of id battery as well), create Romantically charged indie-pop melodies with hazy Phil Spectoral reverb soaking through the four-tracked material. But before you think this may lead to the mod revivalism of Belle & Sebastian or The Aislers Set, be aware that The Knit Separates perform their songs with an ambiguous indeterminancy, as if Chasse's percussion and Glenn Donaldson's post-Galaxie-500 guitar strum were enchanted by the poetic meanderings of vocalist Jason Honea. In keeping with our tradition of puzzling L. Chasse with our obscure references in comparision to his work, Jim suggests that this reminds him a lot of long-gone Michigan indie popsters Veronica Lake.

A split LP between San Francisco's Knit Separates and Orange Cake Mix, both of whom exemplify the art of holing up in a bedroom and quickly banging out evocative, yet quirky 4-track psychedelic folk. The Knit Separates -- comprised of Jason Honea, Glenn

Latest release from the UK's Aurora Borealis label, responsible for the KTL double lp elsewhere on this list, as well as records from Moss, Ginnungagap, Wolfmangler, Guapo, the Grails, even Crebain! Knives Ov Resistance are a European ensemble who weave dense soundscapes of blissed out ambience and abstract guitar shimmer, Channeling the spirit of Popol Vuh, Spacemen 3, Godspeed, Jackie O Motherfucker, and other like minded sonic explorationists. A lush blend of field recordings, glistening guitars, rumbling drones, warbling turntables, all woven into drifting sun dappled sonic tapestries of sound. An ambient post rock drift, that flits and flutters amidst the sounds of children laughing, the lush din of the forest, chittering birds, the sound of leaves and water, a dense and thick backdrop, rife with turntabled fragments of sound, bits of opera, soaring strings, muted squiggles, slowed down ambience, warm whirs, mixed in with simple percussion, everything smeared into fuzzy blurs, all beneath an abstract summery folk, that glimmers and drifts, gradually changing shape and color, texture and timbre. Epic and expansive, yet subtle and simple. Some sort of abstract avant ambient folk perhaps... really really nice. Fans of the above mentioned bands will definitely dig this, as well as fans of new weird America, modern free folk, and all things Jewelled Antler. Packaged in a thick vinyl pouch, housed in a cool textured paper sleeve that folds out into a poster.

MPEG stream: Untitled 1
MPEG stream: Untitled 2

The Czech artist Milan Knizak began his art career without much success, getting himself thrown out of Pedagogic Uni Prague, Preliminary Art School Prague, and Art Academy Prague in quick succession. But during the mid '60s, Knizak affiliated himself with

RealAudio clip: Composition N. 1
RealAudio clip: Composition N. 3

The second album from this dorky (in a good way) electro-rock band. They play poppy, nerdy space-wave with emo undertones complete with alternating earnest boy vocals and vocoded robot voices over clunky early '80s synth lines. It's not unlike a lo-fi,

RealAudio clip: Dawn Of The Butterfly
RealAudio clip: Knodel Rocks

Claiming Knodel as the geekier little brother of Trans Am wouldn't be far from the mark. Aside from being college chums and occasional tour mates, they also share an affinity for the casio keyboard - the electronerd / post-rock weapon of choice. Both owe quite a debt to Kraftwerk, but Knodel adds a distinct brand of silly theatricality mixing in more Devo and Depeche Mode than ZZ Top and Grand Funk Railroad. This *does* include the tracks from the short 11 minute cd-r that had been floating around for the past few years. Fun stuff.

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

SORRY. Old college chums and occasional tour mates of Trans Am, Knodel too, are part of the 'new wave' of post rock. Both have a similar affinity for the casio, lo-fi-indie-post-rock's weapon of choice. But while both owe quite a debt to Kraftwerk, Knodel mix in Devo and Depeche Mode instead of ZZ top and Grand Funk. Pretty cool, even if it is only 11 minutes long. Limited to 100.

This is an amazing collection of of material that just missed being included on older Chris Knox albums, stuff from the time spanning "Croaker", "Seizure", "Duck", and "Songs of You and Me". Breathtakingly simple and urgent pop gems recorded with the minimal instrumentation for acoustic guitar, omnichord, and Chris' voice... Too bad he called these tracks "too preachy", "too jazzy", "too cigarette-lighter-sway" to fit on the aforementioned albums.

The legendary Chris Knox returns with a new solo effort. Though it's been a while since we've heard from the AQ-beloved New Zealander, he's obviously spent the time carefully writing real honest to gosh Songs, as this record, while not as great as his "Seizure" album, comes quite close, and the first song "It's Love" ranks with one of Knox's best songs ever. If you've been hungering for the manic carefree energy and chiming guitar that Knox's outfit Tall Dwarfs typified, give this record a try.

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

SORRY. With another fit-inducing, vibrating-color cover, here's Tall Dwarfs member's latest solo album, full of lurching synth beats and intenseley personal lyrics.

Second release from these ol' rock vets Jerry Teel (Chrome Cranks), Kid Congo Powers (Congo Norvell, Cramps, Nick Cave), Bob Bert (Pussy Galore, Sonic Youth) and company doing what they love best - playing the blues. Sliding from slow 'n' smoky to rambunctious

We've long been huge fans of Swiss Teutonic terrorists Knut. Their blend of super precise metallic pound and blown out epic majesty was like a perfect, seemingly impossible blend of Neurosis, the Young Gods and the Swans. Coming up with a distinctly mathy post rock /sludge metal hybrid LONG before the current crop of similarly minded rockers. However, -their- hybrid was a bit more mechanical, almost industrial at times, a furious machinelike pound, relentless and so gloriously heavy. Which lends itself surprisingly well to the dreaded remix record. It's best to approach this as just a WAY weirder Knut record instead of some super star studded remix affair, because when you get right down to it, nothing here is SO WEIRD that it couldn't have found a home on a proper Knut record. 'Cuz those guys do have a pretty deft hand at crafting a weirdly chaotic off kilter metallic crush. But what it does do, is add some strange sonic variation that there sound does sometimes lack. Dalek, JK Broadrick, Mick Harris, Spectre, Francisco Lopez, Oren Ambarchi, KK Null, Asmus Tietchens, Dither and more. A list like that should already have most of you heavy/weird rock heads leaping for the buy button, and be assured you wouldn't regret it. Most of the 'versions' here, play with the rhythms and the texture more than the actual song structure. This is still a collection of massive sludgy pummel, relentlessly propulsive, like some huge metallic steamroller. Just with each remixer tweaking his track and creating a slightly twisted, more personalized take on the original, the way a remix is supposed to. It almost sounds less like a remix record and more like a glimpse into each of the remixer's heads, as if this is how they actually HEAR this music. Translated into sound so WE can hear what these guys hear in their heads. The Dither mix has the guitars piling up into an impossibly dense wall of metallic noise, Spectre takes the guitars and layers them into some super druggy dub, Broadrick's mix gives that track a very Jesu makeover, adding more space, pushing the guitars down in the mix, and letting the vocals float on top in a thick cloud or reverb. Elsewhere Mick Harris takes -just- the rhythm and turns his track into a dark and ominous techno skitter, while Ambarchi messes with the original mix of his track, changing speeds and pitch, fucking with the tape, some parts are thick corrosive white hot sheets of guitar throb, others are cut and paste drum and vocal splatter, and others are barely there drifting drones, Null turns his track into a murky crawl, before letting it explode into a blown out Merzbowian metallic dirge, not sure what Francisco Lopez does with his track, other than make it sound a little bit off kilter and make the guitars sound a little... well, weird. The other tracks run the gamut from muted electronic shuffle, to thick metal raga buzz, to tribal psychedelic freakout, to blissed out ambient drone. So as much as we hate 'remix' records, Alter is definitely one of the best we've heard, due in no small part to how totally kick ass the original songs are, but when taken not as a remix record so much as a weird experimental metal record by some really mysterious, fucked up electronic metal band, it's pretty much untouchable.

MPEG stream: Deadverse Remix (Dalek)
MPEG stream: H/Armless (JK Broadrick)
MPEG stream: Psycopathic Engine (Spectre)

[ aquarius records catalogue — K ]