THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Simply filing this excellent album under "experimental electronica" is to give it short shrift. San Francisco boyfriends Drew Daniel and M.C. Schmidt (whose faces are morphed into one on the back cover) have crafted a record each of whose songs is a concept brought to fruit and to full percussive grooviness. One piece is composed entirely of manipulated samples of human voices, anothers sole instrument is a stretched wet latex shirt, and yet anothers sound source is the "silent recordings" which came about as two walkie talkies were held over a 4 channel tape recorder with nothing plugged into it, the resulting audible interference manipulated a la the theremin. Don't be put off by the weird instrumentation, this record heavily grooves like '80s electro, clanks like Balinese ketjak, and blips'n'bleeps like the best Mouse on Mars tracks. Highly, highly recommended!
Eek! Rats! You can always count on the mischevious Matmos (Drew and Martin, SF's darling duo of experimental electronica, who you probably know not only for their own weird, wonderful releases but also their work with Bjork) to make the most of the strangest sound-sources. In this case, a rat they (humanely) trapped in their Tenderloin apartment! Why? Well this is one of Locust's "Met Life" releases...that's not an insurance company but rather a "location sound series" for which sound artists were asked to both provide field recordings of their urban environment as well as "respond" musically to that environment. This 30 minute cd consists of two tracks. Track one is just the poor rat giving a solo performance, of squeaks and screams. If you have a cat this might interest them greatly. On the second track Matmos join in, turning the rat's cage into a nightclub for Intelligent Dance Music, with beats ranging from the purely abstract to the downright groovy. The rat's squeaks remain the same, coming in as if on cue in breaks in the music as orchestrated by Matmos. The rat's no house diva that's for sure, and we like the effect. Matmos' dance grooves are totally dark, and rat-appropriate while other parts of this (and the rat's original performance) echo some avant-garde 20th century classical with its use of space and silence. A successful 'collaboration' indeed. And don't worry, I don't think they actually subjected the rat to this mix. Furthermore, in the liner notes Matmos explain that "the following morning we took the rat to a wealthy suburban neighborhood and set it free."
Matmos have that very rare and special talent of being able to turn endless creativity and playful spirit into something transcendental. While much of the press they get ends up being about their unique methods and approaches to gathering sounds (plastic surgery, semen, polish trains, rats, etc.) or the famous folks they have worked with (Bjork, Kronos Quartet, Terry Riley, etc.) the truth is that ultimately it's the strength of their varied albums and engaging live performances that have made them one of the best and most compelling music makers of the last decade.
Supreme Balloon finds Matmos stripped down in a sense as they put their contact mic's away and decided to make a record made solely with synthesizers and samplers, and the results are pretty damn stunning! Showing that they could give the DFA camp a tutorial if asked ("Polychords"), keeping their playful spirit on high with their Switched on Matmos take on "Les Folies Francaises" as well as reaching outer orbits of pure psychedelic bliss on the 24 minute title track. They use their wide range of synthesizers to create a kraut-like sensation with bursts of fluorescence and a sense of adventure and eye on the multicolor sky that is so damn hard to resist. Matmos manage to find the hidden smile in Klaus Schulze's stern visage, the relics of a Tangerine Dream with a half dose of ecstasy we always wished was out there somewhere. Once again they've proven that you can be smart without being stiff, playful without being dumb. Supreme Balloon will be a definite contender for record of the year!
(P.S., vinyl fans should note that the double-LP version of this record comes with three extra tracks including a great collaboration with Terry Riley titled "The Hashish Master"!)
If Drew Daniel got to indulge his big-booty-beach-party perversions on the Soft Pink Truth album, then Martin Schmidt, who is the other half of Matmos duo, should have the opportunity to elaborate his own musical virtues and vices. That said, it would be too easy to qualify "The Civil War" as the Martin record; but there are many more than a few similarities between this album and the previous outing "The West," Matmos' historically coded album which Matmos has publicly announced as being masterminded by Martin. Again, Matmos and their comrades in arms (J Lesser, Blevin Blechtum, Keith Fullerton Whitman, David Grubbs, Mark Lightcap, and others) wield some atypical instruments -- an emergency alarm system, blood, a rabbit pelt, conductive jelly, and an ultrasonic doppler flow detector (huh?); but what is most surprising about "The Civil War" is its dramatic break from the directions of contemporary electronica. Structurally, this album is a pastiche of jaunty Renaissance jigs, fife and drum marches, medieval madrigals for hurdy gurdy, and rustic folk. Yet, smeared across the surfaces of these archaic musics are digital pixels, microtonal glissandos, misplaced electronic beats, and intrusive glitches. This is an overtly clever take on appropriation, never allowing an exact mimesis of the older forms, rather Matmos position the old and the new in a context of dislocation. At their best, perhaps on "The Struggle Against Unreality Begins," Matmos reconstitutes the alchemy of Coil during their "Horse Rotovator" period, where the anarchronistic references collapse into a monstrous dirge with sly glances toward the carnivalesque.
Those Bjork fans who love her swansongs and wish to indulge in the genius of her technicians must be warned that "The Civil War" is a willfully difficult listen. But those adventurous listeners will certainly be delighted by the collision of state of the art electronics and the music of yesteryear.
San Francisco's darling electronic conceptualists Matmos have crafted an ambitious collection of audio portraits for their 6th full album, allowing their baroque sampling tricknology to articulate the metaphors in mapping out the complexities of each of the portraits. The collection of audio portraits represents the inspiration pantheon for Matmos, ranging from the ivory tower of academia to far reaches of underground culture. Hence, there's analytical philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, the scabrous feminist Valarie Solanas, New York house legend Larry Levan, Germs' frontman Darby Crash, homoerotic photographer James Bidgood, eccentric producer Joe Meek, gay chronicler Boyd McDonald, countercultural godfather William S. Burroughs, and noir-thriller novelist Patricia Highsmith. Matmos' work has always been a cavalcade of electro-acoustic stunts directed within a studied and adventurous reading of contemporary electronica tinged with comedic overtones, ranging from black humour to slapstick antics. The Rose Has Teeth In The Mouth Of A Beast is no different, romping through wah-wah splattered porno funk, mutant disco beats clipped with diva-house vocals, noirish concrete-collages, and tracks literally wrapped in semen stained sheets. As Matmos deconstructs and compresses the dense histories of each of their portrait subjects into the context of a six to ten minute electronica tracks, it's the details that Matmos amass that give each of their portraits such charm and pleasure. Very well done, indeed!
At long last, possibly our favorite Matmos record ever is back in print! The West is by far the most sprawling and highway ready record in their illustrious back catalog. With all the well deserved attention they've received over the years for their innovative methods and countless collaborations one thing that's often overlooked is how well their records tend to predict and predate what's about to come floating up from the musical underground. Recorded and released a few years before the big new weird America/freak folk movement took off and before everyone was using laptops to create folktronica, Matmos made this amazing album that perfectly melds their leftfield electronic roots with spacious and trance inducing guitar to create the kind of record you would imagine might have been made if Henry Flynt and Jim O'Rourke were to collaborate or if Christian Fennesz got to twist knobs while John Fahey was playing in one of his most exploratory moments. With a long list of guests including J. Lesser and David Pajo (Slint, Papa M) on board for the record, Drew & Martin once again demonstrate how great they are at letting others into their world and being open to where the sounds will take them while still maintaining a distinct vision.
The West is for sure one of our favorite roadtrip records of all time. "Sun on 5 at 152" really does sound exactly how it feels when the sun is blasting through your dirty windshield and you can't really see what's ahead but you keep your foot on the pedal and just follow the road to wherever it may lead you. While no two Matmos records are alike The West probably finds its most kindred spirit in The Civil War, another Matmos record that proves there is much more to these great music makers then simply synths and samples. No matter what they create, soul seeps richly through their fractured sounds and in our opinion The West may be their most soulful, satisfying and resonating release EVER. Highly recommended!
This is one of our unanimous store favorites, a very accesible, murky electronic record inspired by electro and the sounds of hair, breathing and Polish trains. Recommended without reservation, this is some of the best of the bunch.
This limited edition collection of live material from Matmos with J Lesser (and a couple of guests) exposes the improvisational ability of this San Francisco electronica duo (or trio if you count Lesser) who are mostly reknowned for their transmutation of
Matmos wanted to keep this a limited release, only selling these to a handful of shops across the globe. While not quite exclusive to Aquarius, this album isn't terribly likely to be showing up at many other shops! Act fast!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Deep pulsing bass drones with creepy slow metallic percussion, and lots of interesting noise-making, featuring voice and cello and appearences by noise-greats Masonna and Merzbow, being not so balls-out noisey, but contributing effectively to the album as a whole.
While the majority of the sound source of Kaffe Matthews' "Ann" album is the violin, her improvisational sampling prowess has subverted and treated the original source into constantly shifting digitally looped drones and abstract patterns. This is her first album in a series of releases alphabetically progressing through women's names.
The second album from Kaffe Matthews is a continuation of her realtime explorations of sampler manipulation within a particular live setting. With a (sometimes hidden) microphone capturing her Tony Conrad-esque violin drones incedental sounds, Matthews selects snippets of droning sound to be fed into her sampler for hypnotic, ever shifting abstractions of sound.
"Cecile" - Kaffe Matthews' third album - is quite similar in execution to her riveting live performance which recently took place here at Aquarius. Her method is to manipulate and layer samples of incidental sounds gathered from a singular context (meaning that no samples were brought into the context, and none were added later). While her previous two records had primarily improvised around violin, "Cecile" uses a lot of scratchy surface noise of vinyl as the source material, ending up sounding similar to Philip Jeck's collages.
Kaffe Matthews is a UK electronic artist specializing in live sampling techniques in which she pulls a variety of sounds from her performance space and transforms them into a variety of loops to be collaged in real time. Her previous recordings had often featured her playing violin and specifically manipulating that sounds; but as can be heard here on her fifth album, Matthews' is
This Hayley Newman person performs all sorts of weird actions, then electronic sound manipulator Kaffe Matthews processes the resultant audio. 67 minutes, all recorded live. Weird actions? Well, try wearing a velcro bodysuit with microphones sewn in, or dancing on a miked-up wooden box wearing stilleto shoes outfitted with motors in the heels...hmm. Anyway, knowing that Kaffe can make even the everyday sounds here at Aquarius Records quite interesting with her processing (as she demonstrated not long ago at an instore performance) you might expect that the material on "Pointy Stunt" couldn't fail. Unexpected sounds abound, with everything from some pleasing drone/hum on the "Shoes" track to cut up music and animal noises that result from Newman weighing different objects on digital scales that Matthews set up to trigger odd samples.
If your pajama party guest list included Ween, Beck and Lou Reed, it might sound something like this. We have a sneakin' suspicion that lots of pot was involved in the creation of this music. It's a very very off-kilter blend of folk and rock. Things go off on weird tangents that seems very much the product of a mind, uhh, well-baked. If The Mattoid does not smoke the weed, we sincerely apologize, but you listen to these six songs (c'mon, one of the songs is called "Tinkli Vinkli"... wha'?!), and tell us you don't think the same thing!
Ed Mattson's debut cd features eleven laidback, down-homey country folk numbers. Joining him in the playing and producing duties is fellow Bay Area based indie rootsy singer/songwriter Clay Hawkins. Many of the songs bring to mind a more barebones brethren of warm, weathered Americana bands such as Red House Painters or American Music Club. Released on the new SF label and music collective Visionguild.
Dan Matz of Windsor For Derby offers two tracks of solitary, singer / songwriter tracks with him, his guitar, and a couple of guys adding harmonium and melodica drones on one song. Pretty as some of the recent Windsor recordings, but no where nearly as intense as his Michael Gira collaboration.
Andee and Allan saw this band play last year at the Milwaukee Metalfest, and they made a definite impression: imagine a death metal band (three or four long-haired dudes with the requisite t-shirts and musical equipment) sharing the stage with several
Andee and Allan saw this band play last year at the Milwaukee Metalfest, and they made a definite impression: imagine a death metal band (three or four long-haired dudes with the requisite t-shirts and musical equipment) sharing the stage with several
From the "Now Thing" comp.
We've been getting tons of requests for this, and after many attempts at contacting the band, we've finally got copies of their full length vinyl debut!! Maus Haus is a local San Francisco experimental pop six piece group, whose analogue synth-driven sounds lend themselves to comparisons to bands like Hot Chip, Stereolab, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Aavikko and Grizzly Bear. They're sure garnering a popular following with floor-filling live club gigs and word-of-mouth buzz!! But Maus Haus also mine a more off-kilter chamber pop sound that often forays into adventurous noirish British jazz territory that set the group apart from their perhaps better known contemporaries and influences. Whipsmart lyrics, soulful harmonies and tightly shifting musical arrangements (pensive harpsichords, far-off flutes and hypnotic saxophone hooks weave throughout) aptly display the group's fine-tuned musicianship and makes this local band definitely one to watch! Each LP comes with a mp3 download card for those who are vinyl-impaired! Very Recommended!
Two new songs from this local Oakland sextet who are not afraid of tight and compositionally complex pop epics. Like a mix of Aavikko's energetic synthetic pop, Grizzly Bear's vocal harmonies and Liars urgent avant leanings, Maus Haus are probably amongst the hardest working local musicians and it shows! This white vinyl 7" comes with a download card for both songs plus three other brand new tracks from their Sea Sides EP. That's a lot of bang for your bucks!
Here we have a collection of unreleased tracks, lost songs and rarities from weirdo outsider lo-fi pop-smith John Maus, who was originally more of an Ariel Pink sideman, and who thus shared much or AP's sonic worldview, but it quickly became evident that Maus was his own sort of twisted genius, and quickly established himself as quite the iconic "singer/songwriter", one that seemed to eclipse AP for many folks around here, and it's easy to see why, even here. While many of these tracks were left off of records, and some are from super early in Maus' career, they still display his warped mastery of low fidelity cable access VHS late night synth pop balladry, "North Star" sounds like Scott Walker fronting later period Blue Oyster Cult and performing on Stairway To Stardom, while "The Law" sounds like yacht rock via eighties new wave via bedroom 4 track downer pop. And "Castles In The Grave" is like a Bollywood version of John Maus, and might be the best track here. The great thing about Maus is not just his ability to create these weird out of time, worn and faded pop sounds, but to imbue them with impossibly catchy hooks, and the sort of ear worms that continue to burrow brain-ward long after listening. There is some serious goofiness here (like the sub-Sparks "This Is The Beat"), but for every moment like that, there's another that's darkly sinister, or lush and sultry and dramatically brooding, or impossibly catchy and dementedly poppy, and while John Maus is definitely an acquired taste, it's one we acquired long ago!
The year is only just beginning but there have already been some amazing new records released that we're pretty sure will end up on our favorites of '08 list. This new outing by the enigmatic John Maus is one of them and it might just be the most engrossing and addicting albums we've been hooked on in a long time!
Best and barley known in the past as being loosely associated with the Paw Tracks family (Animal Collective, Panda Bear, Ariel Pink) Maus has made a record that will make his name definitely stand on its own. As he's created one of the most fantastical, bizarre and engaging pop records in recent memory. Warped bedroom pop with a flair for fantasy, wrapped in old fucked up synths, deep slowed down vocals, cosmic beats and a singular unique vision. Like OMD on codeine or early home demo recordings of The Cure captured on an answering machine tape that's been dubbed over way too many times. Or imagine a soundtrack to a lost early '80s movie made by both John Hughes and John Carpenter, as romantic teenage life intersects with magical apocalyptic doom! Love Is Real is as creepy and mystifying as it is heartfelt and endearing. As catchy as it is unpredictable. Out of nowhere the synths will rise to crazy loud levels or Maus will let out a haunting scream, and even after listening to this album hundreds of time as we have obsessively already, those parts still jump out, scare, startle and thrill us every time we listen.
Start to finish the album is impeccable. Songs lead into each other perfectly, the pacing is dead on, and every single track on the record belongs where it is and has a weight of its own. Whether it's sounding like the muddiest version of a Psychedelic Furs track or tapping into a bizarre drugged out cosmic disco excursion or having a freaked out panic attack, the record pulls from so many directions while always sounding like a completely other universe. This is what fantasy sounds like when the world around you is falling apart. Totally amazing!
Yeeeay! Finally out on vinyl now. Packaged so nicely too with the cd's shiny silver cover transformed into classy white on white (Even the vinyl is white!), but still with that original awesome full color sexy robot painting smack dab on the front cover! Now we get to play this in our bedrooms and jump up and down and lose ourselves in this amazing record all over again! Here's what we said when we heard Love Is Real for the first time....
The year is only just beginning but there have already been some amazing new records released that we're pretty sure will end up on our favorites of '08 list. This new outing by the enigmatic John Maus is one of them and it might just be the most engrossing and addicting albums we've been hooked on in a long time!
Best and barley known in the past as being loosely associated with the Paw Tracks family (Animal Collective, Panda Bear, Ariel Pink) Maus has made a record that will make his name definitely stand on its own. As he's created one of the most fantastical, bizarre and engaging pop records in recent memory. Warped bedroom pop with a flair for fantasy, wrapped in old fucked up synths, deep slowed down vocals, cosmic beats and a singular unique vision. Like OMD on codeine or early home demo recordings of The Cure captured on an answering machine tape that's been dubbed over way too many times. Or imagine a soundtrack to a lost early '80s movie made by both John Hughes and John Carpenter, as romantic teenage life intersects with magical apocalyptic doom! Love Is Real is as creepy and mystifying as it is heartfelt and endearing. As catchy as it is unpredictable. Out of nowhere the synths will rise to crazy loud levels or Maus will let out a haunting scream, and even after listening to this album hundreds of time as we have obsessively already, those parts still jump out, scare, startle and thrill us every time we listen.
Start to finish the album is impeccable. Songs lead into each other perfectly, the pacing is dead on, and every single track on the record belongs where it is and has a weight of its own. Whether it's sounding like the muddiest version of a Psychedelic Furs track or tapping into a bizarre drugged out cosmic disco excursion or having a freaked out panic attack, the record pulls from so many directions while always sounding like a completely other universe. This is what fantasy sounds like when the world around you is falling apart. Totally amazing!
Not to be confused with the John Maus who was in the Walker Brothers in the '60s this John Maus has been making warped baroque pop in the cozy confines of his bedroom in Minnesota for the last several years and is best known for his contributions to Ariel Pink and Animal Collective offshoot Panda Bear. Maus is one seriously prolific songwriter who until now has kept pretty much all of his own songs to himself. "Songs" is a collection of some of those dark pop offerings recorded at home over the last few years. Channeling the spirit of Ian Curtis and using vintage electronic equipment, Maus's songs evoke a hazy kind of daydreaming but with a much more morose slant. His deep voice got us thinking of folks like Calvin Johnson, Scott Walker and on the first track he's a dead ringer for Robert Smith. Dark weird pop done right!
Love Is Real, the last record from warped lo-fi popsmith John Maus, is an all time aQ favorite, a dizzying trip into some alternate reality FM radio, where the Cure recorded on answering machines, OMD crafted pop hits on broken tape decks and malfunctioning 4 tracks, a cosmic beat laden dream pop drug trip that managed to be as catchy and irresistible as it was baffling and totally and insanely demented.
Needless to say, we were super excited to discover there was a new John Maus record, the strangely titled We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves, a record that got even stranger when we discovered there was a song called "Cop Killer" on it. Naturally we assumed it was a cover of Body Count's infamous banned jam, so we played that track first, and besides being surprised that it was in fact an original, we also ended up being totally blown away by what might be the sweetest, most dreamily twisted John Maus track EVER.
A broody, almost torch songy ballad, all woozy synths, and big eighties drums, Maus delivering the bizarrely provocative lyrics in his best warm velvety croon: "Cop killer, cop killer, Let's kill the cops tonight, kiiiiiiill them, cop killer, kill every cop in sight", and then the delirious refrain "Against the law" repeated over and over in a tangled storm of intense pulsing synths. The sound lush and explosive, thick and softly blown out, a serious shot across Ariel Pink's bow, a definite challenge for the warped lysergic lo-fi pop crown, a challenge that's gonna be tough to answer. Especially considering that the rest of the record, is just as good, if not as immediately catchy. But catchy it is. "Matter Of Fact" sounds like Maus channeling Devo through his cracked eighties FM pop filter, with some equally baffling lyrics ("Pussy is not the matter of fact"), and some gorgeous hazy synth ambience. "Streetlight" is total eighties new wave pop with the delay and echo effects cranked, the vocals careening wildly through dubbed out clouds of delay, while underneath synths pulse and rhythms groove. "Quantum Leap" is haunting and gorgeously gloomy, Maus the consummate crooner, his deep dramatic vocals bobbing atop thick bouncy basslines, handclap percussion, and lots of swirling sonic murk. "...And The Rain" is another darkly dramatic dream pop doom synth dirge, all rainy late night ambience, and again cloaked in thick swirls of soft focus distortion and blurred echoey shimmer, every track seeming to constantly grow more and more washed out and effects drenched, constantly on the verge of total collapse, but somehow, the more tripped out and damaged they sound, the more pretty and poppy and dreamy they become, a fantastically fractured collection of twisted outsider gloom pop that really has no equal. About as close to a perfect pop record as Maus is liable to get, assuming you like your pop buried in buzz and all blurry and druggy and woozy and warped. Which we most definitely DO.
After The Dagger last list, our latest vintage-sounding (but utterly brand new) true, trad metal obsession comes in the form of the debut disc from Finland's Mausoleum Gate. You'd be forgiven for thinking this album came out years and years ago, like in 1985, 'cause it's rocking, twin guitar NWOBHM influenced stuff, with heavy nods to '70s Deep Purplish prog too, featuring lots of keyboard (Hammond organ, Mellotron), songs about Gypsy Queens, and better yet, Demon Droids - in fact our fave cut here, maybe favorite metal song in a while, is indeed "Demon Droid", how can you not love it for the title/concept alone? It's a kickass tune, too, and we also dig how the vocalist throws in some wordless "Aaah aaah aaah aaahs", nice touch. Speaking of the wailing, commanding vocalist, we're pretty sure he must have one or both hands permanently locked into making the "invisible oranges" gesture, or Dio-esque devil horns!
Cliches abound, perhaps, but they're delivered with panache. Like fellow Finns Lord Fist, Mausoleum Gate sure have got the spark, and conjure an entertaining, none too serious "evil" atmosphere, perfectly captured by the cover art. You can practically smell the brimstone. Also they ROCK. Moreover, you really don't often hear this sort of doomy/proggy/rocking combination (at its most doomyproggyrockingest on the nearly 12 minute closing epic, "Mausoleum Gate"), so it's a ton of fun for fans of the likes of Iron Maiden, Rainbow, Priest, early Savatage, old Heep, Dio (and Martin) era Sabbath, and other demon-pact class acts of yore.
The long overdue return of aQ faves The Mausoleums, whose last record was a confusional swirl of grim black buzz and weird jangle pop, blown out bliss and thick dense noise. A record we fell in love with, on the recommendation of an aQ customer, long before we discovered that The Mausoleums was in fact a he, and not a they, and just so happened to be a beloved aQ mailorder customer!
For this second record, the Mausoleums seem to have turned down the buzz (just a bit) and turned up the pop. That's right. POP. Not that there wasn't pop all over the last Mausoleums disc I Am The Mausoleum, but the opening track on Blackened Fawns Cleanse The Earth With Fire, "Livelihood", is a gorgeous organ drenched slab of crunchy distorted shoegaze jangle. And we're not talking about the new wave of "metalgaze" that so many metal bands seem to be glomming onto, this is just glorious and resplendent and soaring, shimmering blisspop nirvana, the guitars jangly but washed out and fierce, the melodies sprawling and sun drenched, the sound crumbling and gloriously distorted. In fact, one song in and we're thinking it well worth the price of admission.
But it doesn't take long for the band to dip back into their other true love, the next track, "The One Who Sees", finds the band returning to a furious blackened buzz, howled vocals, pounding drums, insect like riffage, but even then, the sound is still rife with disembodied pop jangle and soaring guitar buzz, an impossible hybrid that sounds way better than it should. The next track is neither, instead a dense processed soundscape of soaring guitar feedback, little curlicues of buzzing melody, looped stuttering drums, dizzying minor key strum, all tangled up in a gloriously seasick hypnotic whirl.
"Thief" begins as straight up pop, like some super distorted Pavement outtake, or lost Sebadoh jam, all fuzzy jangle and simple propulsive drumming, until the vocals come in, a super distorted black metal shriek, bringing with it another layer of buzzing blown out distortion.
And so it goes for the rest of the record, careening from glorious shoegaze distortion drenched buzz pop, to in-the-red lo-fi black metal crunch, but with those two various sonic strains constantly bleeding and leeching into the other, resulting in the record's finest moments, the impossibly dense, epic, majestic guitar drone shoegaze blowout of "Old Woman In The Woods", impossibly heavy, yet gorgeously melodic at the same time, the strange distorted folky raga buzz of "His Reward", the frenetic ultra distorted surfy twang of "Skeletal" and finally the brief closer, "The Bees", a lovely chunk of overdriven steel string Appalachia that near the end explodes into a brief blown out buzz-drenched burst of looped digital fuzz.
Be warned, these are hand made, each and every one. And by hand made, we mean, made by hand, with scissors, and glue, and perhaps not a ruler anywhere in site. Each copy is different, most of them strangely fitted together, a paper gatefold, some slightly smaller than others, some seriously skewed, the color varied from copy to copy, some slightly wrinkled, some almost normal looking, others like maybe they were made as an arts and crafts project at a grade school. But heck, that just adds to the coolness, and makes each one TRULY unique. Cool cover image (but one that has been used before, several times, sadly) and a full color thick paper stapled insert. And probably limited as most things like this usually are...
A customer turned us on to the Mausoleums, a super distorted buzz drenched experimental 'black metal' combo, which we later discovered was in fact an aQuarius mailorder customer! Small world for sure. But even if we had no idea who the heck this was, we would still be suitably blown away.�
You think Wold and Velvet Cacoon know a thing or two about buzz and distortion, well, those guys have nothing on the Mausoleums...
It's hard to even quantify how blown out and buzzy the sound is here, it might make more sense to reference Japanese noise music cuz this almost sounds like straight up super distorted speaker melting N.O.I.S.E., on the surface at least. Until you notice a roiling whirlpool of blackened riffing and howled vocalizing, just beneath all that harsh hiss and brutal buzz. It's almost like Ildjarn or Beherit recorded by Masonna and produced by Merzbow. Blasting and relentless, face melting fury, guitars so distorted they sound like they might crumble into jagged shards, drums that sound like bursts of white noise, but all deftly shaped into riffs and songs and chunks of seriously scalding blackened metal.�
But then the band will unleash something like "Cicada", a gorgeous�loping slowcore jam, again doused with delay�and buried under a layer of distorted grit, but strangely lovely, with a bit of melancholy twang mixed in.�
Or the freaked out blackpsych blast of "Joan Of Arc" a track that sounds like a dense slab of pure black buzz and howl, until suddenly a�gorgeous chunk of indie jangle surfaces, still dripping with distorted buzz, but so goddamn dreamy and melodic, like an even more distorted damaged My Bloody Valentine,�the drums and cymbals so corroded and decayed, they balance out the dreamy jangle. Elsewhere, riffs are dipped in molten hellfire and pushed all the way�into the red, crumbling distortion is draped over lilting minor key guitar, strange Greg Ginn-ish angular guitars are twisted and melted down into more black buzz...
And while the majority of the record is some of the filthiest, blackest buzzingest metal you'll ever hear, the buzzing blackness is split up by all sorts of unlikely and not that black jams, the strangely skeletal Stereolab-ish post rock of "Lenin Not Lennon", the creepy black electro (replete with strangely Beatles-esque guitar) of "Insignificance", the metalized buzz wrapped Neu!-isms of "Running Through The Reeds", the warbly organ flecked garage stomp of "I Guess I'm Like A Prince, Maybe" and the Spacemen 3 like druggy drone of "Like A Prince", all seemingly out of place, but when listened to as a whole, seem to perfectly balance the extreme brutal buzz of the rest of the disc.�
Maybe too fucked up and far out for most metal heads, but folks into super damaged heaviness, and freaked out whatthefuck metal will dig this BIG TIME.�
Originally released as super limited cd-r's back in 2008, these killer slabs of twisted, outsider fuzz-pop black-gloom weirdness/genius are finally available again, now on the kvltest of formats, the cassette! Two cd-r's on a single tape! Here's what we had to say about I Am The Mausoleums back when we first reviewed it on New Arrivals List #276:
You think Wold and Velvet Cacoon know a thing or two about buzz and distortion, well, those guys have nothing on the Mausoleums...
It's hard to even quantify how blown out and buzzy the sound is here, it might make more sense to reference Japanese noise music cuz this almost sounds like straight up super distorted speaker melting N.O.I.S.E., on the surface at least. Until you notice a roiling whirlpool of blackened riffing and howled vocalizing, just beneath all that harsh hiss and brutal buzz. It's almost like Ildjarn or Beherit recorded by Masonna and produced by Merzbow. Blasting and relentless, face melting fury, guitars so distorted they sound like they might crumble into jagged shards, drums that sound like bursts of white noise, but all deftly shaped into riffs and songs and chunks of seriously scalding blackened metal.
But then the band will unleash something like "Cicada", a gorgeous loping slowcore jam, again doused with delay and buried under a layer of distorted grit, but strangely lovely, with a bit of melancholy twang mixed in.
Or the freaked out blackpsych blast of "Joan Of Arc" a track that sounds like a dense slab of pure black buzz and howl, until suddenly a gorgeous chunk of indie jangle surfaces, still dripping with distorted buzz, but so goddamn dreamy and melodic, like an even more distorted damaged My Bloody Valentine, the drums and cymbals so corroded and decayed, they balance out the dreamy jangle. Elsewhere, riffs are dipped in molten hellfire and pushed all the way into the red, crumbling distortion is draped over lilting minor key guitar, strange Greg Ginn-ish angular guitars are twisted and melted down into more black buzz...
And while the majority of the record is some of the filthiest, blackest buzzingest metal you'll ever hear, the buzzing blackness is split up by all sorts of unlikely and not that black jams, the strangely skeletal Stereolab-ish post rock of "Lenin Not Lennon", the creepy black electro (replete with strangely Beatles-esque guitar) of "Insignificance", the metalized buzz wrapped Neu!-isms of "Running Through The Reeds", the warbly organ flecked garage stomp of "I Guess I'm Like A Prince, Maybe" and the Spacemen 3 like druggy drone of "Like A Prince", all seemingly out of place, but when listened to as a whole, seem to perfectly balance the extreme brutal buzz of the rest of the disc.
Maybe too fucked up and far out for most metal heads, but folks into super damaged heaviness, and freaked out whatthefuck metal will dig this BIG TIME.
And here's what we had to say about Blackened Fawns Cleanse The Earth With Fire back on aQ New Arrivals List #288:
The long overdue return of aQ faves The Mausoleums, whose last record was a confusional swirl of grim black buzz and weird jangle pop, blown out bliss and thick dense noise. For this second record, the Mausoleums seem to have turned down the buzz (just a bit) and turned up the pop. That's right. POP. Not that there wasn't pop all over the last Mausoleums disc I Am The Mausoleum, but the opening track on Blackened Fawns Cleanse The Earth With Fire, "Livelihood", is a gorgeous organ drenched slab of crunchy distorted shoegaze jangle. And we're not talking about the new wave of "metalgaze" that so many metal bands seem to be glomming onto, this is just glorious and resplendent and soaring, shimmering blisspop nirvana, the guitars jangly but washed out and fierce, the melodies sprawling and sun drenched, the sound crumbling and gloriously distorted. In fact, one song in and we're thinking it well worth the price of admission.
But it doesn't take long for the band to dip back into their other true love, the next track, "The One Who Sees", finds the band returning to a furious blackened buzz, howled vocals, pounding drums, insect like riffage, but even then, the sound is still rife with disembodied pop jangle and soaring guitar buzz, an impossible hybrid that sounds way better than it should. The next track is neither, instead a dense processed soundscape of soaring guitar feedback, little curlicues of buzzing melody, looped stuttering drums, dizzying minor key strum, all tangled up in a gloriously seasick hypnotic whirl.
"Thief" begins as straight up pop, like some super distorted Pavement outtake, or lost Sebadoh jam, all fuzzy jangle and simple propulsive drumming, until the vocals come in, a super distorted black metal shriek, bringing with it another layer of buzzing blown out distortion.
And so it goes for the rest of the record, careening from glorious shoegaze distortion drenched buzz pop, to in-the-red lo-fi black metal crunch, but with those two various sonic strains constantly bleeding and leeching into the other, resulting in the record's finest moments, the impossibly dense, epic, majestic guitar drone shoegaze blowout of "Old Woman In The Woods", impossibly heavy, yet gorgeously melodic at the same time, the strange distorted folky raga buzz of "His Reward", the frenetic ultra distorted surfy twang of "Skeletal" and finally the brief closer, "The Bees", a lovely chunk of overdriven steel string Appalachia that near the end explodes into a brief blown out buzz-drenched burst of looped digital fuzz.
The return of the Mausoleums! Well, not so much a return, it's not like the man behind the Mausoleums went missing, for the last several years, he's actually been working alongside us right here at aQ, but for whatever reason, the Mausoleums as a musical entity had remained silent, which was definitely a shame. After two obsessively loved cd-r's, we had been hankering for more.
Those cds, sadly both out of print (any labels tuned in that might want to reissue those on cd or vinyl, really SHOULD!), were a confusional mix of super distorted buzzing blackness, crunchy blissed out shoegazey pop, jangly post rock, and whatever other sonic weirdness Mr. Mausoleums felt like mixing in. On Just A Certainty, the first new Mausoleums record in 3+ years, much has changed, it's a much more cohesive record for sure, but all of the above sounds are glaringly absent, no jangly indie pop, no buzzing blackness, no dreamy shoegaze, instead, The Mausoleums have crafted a gorgeous disc, of lo-fi, murky mesmer, that manages to fuse fuzzy folk with mantric hypnorock, looped ritualism with druggy psychedelic space rock, buzzing dronemusic with abstract lysergic drift.
The opening track "Destination III" is a bit of Appalachian style folk, but wreathed in a prickly swirl of crunchy static, the recording so muted and muddy, the notes bleed into each other, the folky fingerpicking transformed into a fuzzy chordal swirl, dripping with reverb and delay. "Negation" is another bit of folky strum and stomp, but even more muted and washed out and indistinct, the vocals and guitars tangled up under layers of hiss and hum and whir and thrum, there seem to be drums too, but so buried they become a muted pulse, all woven into a weirdly rollicking chunk of murky dronefolk. "Swimmin In A Sea Of Sand" displays the other side of the Mausoleums new sound, one that fuses the drugged out hypnotic repetition of groups like Spacemen 3 and Wooden Shjips, with the alien trancelike audio ritualism of Zomes, a looped buzzy guitarscape that could go one forever.
"Doomed/Where You Go" continues that same sort of lysergic dronerock, with the drums almost punching through the murk and mire, but remaining more of a distant throb, while the muted buzz is laced with spidery melodies and hushed whispery vox, a tripped out buzzy bit of hypno psych rock for sure. "Gypsy Moth" might be our fave, a hazy, gauzy layered landscape of pulsing organs, dreamlike loops and all manner of overtones, it may be just an interlude, but it will have you completely entranced.
The last three tracks are longer, and allow The Mausoleums to stretch things out, and get way spacier and psychedelic, "Psychic Overthrow" is like a space rock jam reduced to it's core elements, a churning sea of pulsing, reverb drenched riffs, roiling endlessly, bleeding into each other, creating one epic and organic psychscape, while "Opposite Shores" sounds like some old school psychedelic garage rock, but recorded underwater, all the sounds washed out and blurry, the drums propulsive, but still buried beneath layer upon layer of fuzz, this jam the poppiest of the bunch, with some cool Eastern sounding buzzing guitar leads wound into the shimmery swirl, and finally, "H774119" offers up a Mausoleums style stab at new wave, programmed drums, buzzing synths, hypnotic and krautrocky, sounding a bit like a super raw, and WAY more fucked up Stereolab, dark, dreamy, druggy, and WAY psychedelic.
A rad to return to form, even though it's a decidedly different form, but it's one we like a a lot, maybe even better. Recommended for fans of Zomes, Wooden Shjips, Spacemen 3, Amps For Christ, Suicide, Stereolab and other masters of murky cosmic mesmer...
CASSETTE ONLY, AND OF COURSE CRAZY LIMITED!!!!
The Mausoleums are back with a new collection of hypnosis-inducing riffs and sonorous tape-saturated grit transmissions in tow. With this, their fourth outing, The Mausoleums continue to refine the ball-lightning-like blown out energy of their earlier missives' psychedelic black metal into a somewhat more dynamic nuanced approach consisting of heavy doses of fried amp guitar buzz, churning organ, bass and percussion. Even with the feeling of simplicity achieved via elemental reduction and experiments in fidelity shift, the result is equal parts fist-pumping and cerebral, like a foggy haze trapped in a perpetually ascending NASA shuttle. This album retains the feeling of claustrophobia and paranoia of earlier ones; yet, more than before, production accentuates mood, providing just enough space for the sounds to breathe and create texture and depth, particularly in the buried yet aggressively melodic, occasionally double-tracked, vocals. There's a strange sense of reassurance in the music; the knowledge of plant growth overrunning remnants of civilization, perhaps, while Hawkwind riffs warble on the last Victrola. While the Mausoleums have always felt like an unearthed, organic compost of sound, elements of rural black dirt psychedelia and even Appalachia drape like a shrouds of mist on this record more heavily than before, alongside wafting echoes and half-remembered dreams of other distinctly domestic traditions: Detroit Rock, Southern Blues, metal, and hardcore, among others. And the Mausoleums' dirt-under-the-nails approach extends beyond the sonics; in spite of the diversity of influences and implications of cross-pollination, the Mausoleums seem to exist wholly on their own terms, offering a compelling statement in support of the simplicity of homegrown songcraft, production, and maintaining a singular vision in an era of hyper-aware referential complexity.
Another discovery via aQ pal / black metal weirdo Cloak Of Displacement, this one a super obscure collection of dark ambient sound collage from the mysterious Estonian soundscaper known as Mavra (who is in fact Veiko Rebane, live vocalist for CoD), all created from audio samples from films, old records and a delay pedal. A very primitive sort of Philip Jeck in a way, the sounds barely recognizable, instead transformed into woozy looped rhythmscapes, or layered into shimmery drones, the vibe is propulsive and a litrle bit krauty, but definitely very primitive and ritualistic, lo-fi and home brewed.
Some of the tracks are downright pretty, and sound a bit like Boards Of Canada, albeit a slightly more abrasive, more evil version, the melodies a bit off kilter, a little atonal, the tracks laced with shards of crunch and glitch, all drifting atop warm sinister swells of chordal thrum, the second track here in different hands could have been a sweet bit of dreamy IDM, but instead is a bit more raw and moody. Elsewhere the sound shifts into almost soundtrack territory, heaving bits of organ swirl underpin tense high end tones, and cascading avalanches of primitive electronics, but all masterfully woven into a strangely mesmerizing sort of lo-fi electronic ambience.
The final three tracks offer up variations on the electronica versus black ambience versus droney drift, the sound flitting between the three, noisy and chaotic one second, swirly and sci-fi the next, and finally, dark and dolorous, haunting and hypnotic, which is how the record unwinds in its final moments. So good.
LIMITED TO 20 COPIES!! That's it. We got 15 and once they are gone we won't be able to get more!
- MPEG stream: I
- MPEG stream: III
The Universal Consciousness label returns with another batch of tapes, following the Moon Knight and Lord Time cassettes we reviewed a few lists back. There's another amazing Lord Time release, and this one the debut from this mysterious outsider ambient doom one man band (whose sole member also does time in Lightning Swords Of Death and Endless Blizzard). The label describes the sound as funereal and majestic and it most definitely is, the guitars soaring, epic and melodic, the drums minimal, super echoey, like this was recorded in some black cavern, the strange mix of off kilter percussion and the super mournful melodic guitars makes this sound almost psychedelic. Eventually the sound shifts into more classically doomy plod, but even then, the echoey drum pound is all dubbed out, and the guitars chug and churn, often unfurling long stretches of droney buzz, before slipping right back into those majestic melodies. The sound spends as much time drifting ominously as it does plodding and lumbering, those ambient stretches are hauntingly beautiful, not just your typical metal synth interludes, instead, it's a sort of blackened kosmische, lush and layered, infused with streaks of feedback, and grinding muted industrial thrum, all blurred into dark passages of sinister rumble and buzz, the sound of which seems to ooze into the doom proper, making the creep and crunch a bit more abstract and psychedelic, mysterious and otherworldly. This is the sort of rare 'doom', that could very well appeal to non metal folks into strange dark sounds and more abstract avant heaviness. And it may be a bit too out there for your typical metalhead, but if you like your doom twisted, tripped out and drone drenched, then this will definitely hit the spot.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. Packaged in super deluxe, embossed, heavy textured metallic paper J-cards, each one hand numbered and sealed with a sticker.
No, not some quaint, lovey-dovey coupling between a waif-like chanteuse and her mustachioed beau-hunk. This is an Oakland minimal wave duo, whose emotional detachment through cold electronics and monotone vocals is hardly the stuff of romance. The former half of this duo is Max Brotman, who had released a pretty fantastic album of Sheffield-influenced synth-punk under the banner Brotman & Short. As good as that record (and this record is), we gotta wonder about the lack of imagination when it comes to naming his projects. Anyway, the latter is Mara Barenbaum, who records her Not Not Fun approved work of pop-surrealism as Group Rhoda. Let's hope this is not some one-off collaboration, as Brotman really seems to bring a sense of clarity and structural direction, and Barenbaum has plenty of weird-girl cards up her sleeve at any given time. The two come up with some choice synth-pop sequences on vintage gear reflecting a Chris Carter / Clock DVA sense of robo-funk. One of the rare outings from Dark Entries of contemporary work, but easily lives up to rest of the label's impressive catalog.
Long overdue reissue of this legendary and mostly unheard early eighties Flying Nun artifact. Even Flying Nun obsessives would be forgiven for missing out on Max Block's sole 12" release, but odds are you're familiar with the members of Max Block, specifically Maryrose and Brian Cook, who first found themselves in a band together here, having previously done time in Above Ground (recently reissued and reviewed right here) and Scorched Earth Policy respectively, and eventually going on to form long time aQ faves the Renderers.
This lp comp collects both that long lost 12", as well as another, until now unreleased ep, The Max Block's sound a woozy art damaged punk, lots of angular jagged guitars, wild octopoidal drumming, dueling male / female vox, super active melodic basslines, tribal rhythms, swirls of spacey effects, the vibe droned out and propulsive, with whirring organs adding a strange almost circusy vibe at times, but usually reminding us of groups like The Ex and Pere Ubu, even Wire here and there, some tracks frantic and frenetic, others brooding and downcast, sounding like with some extra noise and heft they could've been Dead C jams, in fact the live tracks are downright noisy, but MB's sound is firmly on the pop side of the spectrum, although unlike many of the NZ bands of the time, their's was less concerned with jangle, and more with crunch, less twee and more tangle, slipping from noisy and dirgey to trance-y and minimal to crunchy, angular and chaotic. Awesome stuff, and if you dug the track on the recent Time To Go Flying Nun compilation we reviewed recently, you've probably been wanting more!!
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, includes a download coupon as well!
I'm pretty sure that this is Thomas P. Brinkmann, although no information can be found on the record inspite of an etching with Pole and Din (it sound like neither) scrawled on the run-out groove. Yet the metronomic techno punctuated by a disjointed looping sample of a jazz riff has all the signifiers that Tom is the man behind this one. Fans of Plastikman and Chain Reaction should take note!
Damn, the metalheads here are geeking out over this gem! As super obscure cult '80s metal bands go, Max Planck from up in the boonies of Port Townsend, WA, are definitely one of our faves. A few years back, Buried By Time And Dust did a pricey vinyl reissue, now out of print, of this bizarro band's 1985 demo, that we never managed to review, so we're stoked that Stormspell has just done a nice new, less expensive (but still limited) compact disc version, complete with bonus track.
Of all the demos that could be rescued from the dusty past, this one is so very worthy. Max Planck were a three-piece playing a charming homebrewed brand of DIY metal, putting on their own shows out in the woods, though they also played clubs in Seattle too. Epic and melodic, rockin' and catchy, eccentric and sorta psychedelic, this should definitely appeal to those into the marginally less obscure likes of Manilla Road, Cirith Ungol, Brocas Helm, Black Hole, and even Dwarr and Zolar X.
We were surprised to learn that the guitarist and bassist were husband and wife, with kids!! That'd be Rod Freeman, also the vocalist, and Colleen "Spike" McCormick. The trio was rounded out by 15 year old drummer Eddie Forcier.
Proggy and punky at the same time, their song titles include "Fucked Up" and "Everywhere Is Nowhere", but they weren't really such a negative, nihilistic bunch. The song "Starscream" is in fact about the Transformers cartoon, a sci-fi subject that makes a lot of sense considering that Spike and Rod were raising two small children and Eddie was basically still a kid himself.
Weird and nerdy as their metal is, it makes sense that they'd be named after a famous German physicist, the founder of quantum theory - but, the name of the band was in fact selected through a chance operation that also involved the help of a mystical forest druid. Read the liner notes.... (And also be aware that though we're not reproducing it due to the limitations of our website's coding, the band's official spelling of their name of course includes a very metal umlaut over the "a" in Planck.)
Max Planck's namesake scientist won a Nobel Prize in 1918, and if they gave out an award for quirky, inspired, old school metal-making, Max Planck the band would be a deserving recipient.
Limited edition, hand-numbered, 500 copies only. The cd booklet includes biographical liner notes, full lyrics, gear specs, vintage b&w photos, and graphics from their rare vinyl appearances (on the Metal Meltdown lp compilation, and on a split 7").
Definitely an auspicious start for Stormspell's new "arcane collector series" of obscure '80s metal demo reissues, look for other volumes by Aerian Rage and Battlecry to be reviewed here soon...
And, as they liked to say, it's now time to CRANK THE PLANCK!!!!
Awfully hard to find any information about this unique afro-funk pioneer. The first track on the album "Bananaticoco" we had heard before when we got the popular "Club Africa 2" compilation in a year ago, but a search on google under Max B's (Max Boulois) name
A split release between Richard Maxfield and Harold Budd (known for his collaborations with Eno) showcasing their 1960's experiments in electronics and free jazz. Maxfield's work ranges from synthetic 60s concrete / electronic pieces to narrated poetry over uptempo Ornette Coleman style free jazz. Budd's "The Oak of the Golden Dreams" is the highlight - a gritty piece of Steve Reich / Angus MacLise inspired minimalism of persistantly droning chords and loopy flanging notes making the whole piece sound like an electronic bagpipe.
When we listed the Maximo Park ep a few lists back, in the review we proclaimed that if only it had been a full length it would have been record of the week for sure. Well, here we are a few months later, and what do ya know? Maximo Park is record of the week. It wasn't a done deal though, not at all. That first four-song ep was so perfect, Interpol meets XTC, flawless angular pop, we listened to it non-stop. So much so that when we first threw this on, it didn't quite live up to our expectations. Those first four songs from the ep set the bar pretty high. Maybe too high. But like all great records, each subsequent listen offered us more, and revealed each song to be even catchier than the one before. A Certain Trigger has quickly become the pop record of the year for us. Hyperbole? Maybe, but we just can't stop listening to this record. As we've mentioned many times before, we fought tooth and nail against this whole new wave dance punk revival, but a good band is a good band. What can you do? And ya know, we dug Interpol, Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs, but hell if Maximo Park doesn't trounce them all. They do have "the sound", that sort of jagged off kilter post punk pop that will ensure that they get lumped in with the flavors of the month. But the songs here are so much more timeless sounding. Unlike the loads of bands just aping Gang Of Four, Maximo Park sound like their own band, sure they share some sonic elements, but they sound like they could have easily existed in 1980 as much as 2005. And they draw their inspiration not only from the obvious, Gang Of Four, XTC, Interpol, but also incorporate the moody dramatic electropop of Ultravox, the gloomy buzz and burn of Joy Division, and even bouncy eighties power pop, with super fuzzed out synths, kinetic new wave rhythms, and of course MP frontman Paul Smith's immediately engaging vocals. The songs are bouncy and poppy, but manage to be dark and minor key and edgy enough to give the whole record an intense emotional buzz. Two songs from the ep are present, our pop song of the year "Apply Some Pressure" and the XTC worshipping "The Coast Is Always Changing" (you can hear samples of both with the review of the "Apply Some Pressure" ep), but there are plenty of new classics that have been getting repeat play here like crazy. The massively catchy "Now I'm All Over The Shop" with its pounding piano and weirdly arpeggiated rhythm, and a vocal melody that literally gives us chills, like that one song on a mixtape that makes you want to either smash everything to bits or run across town to declare your true love. And then there's the bouncy XTC count-by-numbers pop of "The Night I Lost My Head" with its angelic background Oooo's and a weird stop start chorus, and the gloomy bass driven "Once, A Glimpse" with it's chiming guitars, tribal rhythms and guitar heavy refrain and the gorgeously languid "Acrobat" that sounds like an updated version of Ultravox's "Vienna". So pretty. All of A Certain Trigger is totally classic sounding, enough that it was tough to pick which songs to make sound samples for. So yeah, all you folks who froth at the mouth for every band that has any of that Killers / Franz Ferdinand / Bloc Party sound going on will probably love this record, but it's way more than just another one of -those- bands. Maximo Park are an amazing pop band, and this is an amazing pop record, with enough sonic precedents to make it feel familiar and classic, but enough new stuff going on and enough killer classic songs to make it one of our favorite new records. Period.
For a limited time, a bonus disc is included featuring 7 tracks recorded live in Japan!
