[ aquarius records catalogue

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Showing results 101 through 150 of 3006.

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

SORRY. Hip hop remix. Rhythm = "One Minute Man" (Missy Elliott).

How's this for a feather in yer bluegrass straw hat? This Bay Area band recently played with the legendary bluegrass combo The Dillards just down the street from us at the intimate lil' Amnesia bar. A rollicking good time! Their high spirited Live At The Delta Of Venus will surely knock the crusted mud off yer cowhide. It's a boot stompin' jamboree of homegrown true country and bluegrass music which was recorded live at the Delta Of Venus Cafe & Pub in Davis, CA. The sixteen tracks are nicely balanced between instrumentals and singalongs, fresh originals and solid renditions of old traditionals. They sure do give those stringed instruments a workout -- snappin', pluckin' and bowin' the fiddle, banjo, mandolin, acoustic guitar, standup bass ever so vigorously! Includes a temporary tattoo so that you can show your love... at least until you next bath.

MPEG stream: You Wrecked My Wallet
MPEG stream: Minor Swing

Cow bell knockin', kick-ass hard rockin' seventies proto-metal here folks! Michigan power trio Mad Dog's lone album, cryptically entitled 617, was a private press LP originally released in 1977, though recording began back in '74. It features a raw production, heavy guitars, rough and ready vocal wailin', and songs that blend urgent, punkish energy with more languid psych stylings. Sounds like these guys didn't live too far from Detroit. And it's got a whiff of Blue Cheer and even the Pink Fairies, at least enough that we expect this tuff lil' low-budget obscurity might well charm those of you into that sort of thing.

MPEG stream: Goodnight
MPEG stream: Cold Steel

Just as it first appeared in the Boston Area around 1977, there are no song titles, contact info or any other identifying information accompanying this mysterious release, a reissue of a private press recording of serene but outsider-inflected new age classical composition. Like another similarly minded aQ fave, Moolah, the music presented on Mad Music Inc. is an oceanic mixture of echoed piano, harp and gong, in short sketches with one track adding percussion, some subtle bass groove and female spiritual cosmic jazz vocals (not quite the "cosmic disco" stated on Drag City's cover sticker, but still pretty cool!). The primitive cover painting of two diametrically opposed naked women looks like it was inspired by Da Vinci's famous Vitruvian Man, with the women jumping out of their constrained environs. This seems like it would be an easy candidate for the Nurse With Wound list, especially with the back cover graphic of a chuckling Ming The Merciless type character with a tape machine implanted on the side of his head. Whatever it means, it must have been too elusive for even Stephen Stapleton, an obsessive authority on such obscurities. Regardless, for fans of weirdo new age, library records, and private press mysteries, this should be a nice sounding addition to your collection!

Collaborative work betwixt dub guru Mad Professor and the German reggae group Puls Der Zeit, originally released in 1989 (recorded from 1984 to 1987) on cassette by Roir. All the tracks on this album were written by Peter Vinyl of Puls Der Zeit and performed alternately by Mad Professor (with his crew) and Puls Der Zeit.

In the same Collector's choice series that has brought us classics by Faust and H.P. Lovecraft, comes a single-disc reissue of the two albums ("Mad River" and "Paradise Bar & Grill") by this lesser-known '60s San Francisco psychrock outfit. Their guitars are employed in both the "acid" and "country/folk" modes common to other Bay Area bands. Mad River is comparable to a somewhat spookier sounding Quicksilver Messenger Service, I guess. Not really classic stuff, but cult material nonetheless for fans of the era/genre, certainly possessing some weird, dissonant charm.

With the recent reactivation of legendary NZ label Flying Nun, and the spate of recent reissues, it makes a weird sort of sense that legendary NZ indie pop outfit the Mad Scene would return with their first new record in nearly twenty years. It makes a bit less sense (at least at first), that the band has been expanded to a sort of indie rock supergroup, which now features, among others, Georgia from Yo La Tengo, and aQ pal and WFMU music director Brian Turner. But to our ears, that was a great move, cuz the the Mad Scene sound as great as ever, and really relatively unchanged from the MS records of old. If someone had told us that this was in fact a lost record simply being reissued, we would have bought it in a second. Still fronted by the inimitable Hamish Kilgour (he of the legendary Kiwi crew The Clean), Blip is warm and woozy, dreamily minor key, washed out and a little bit druggy, makes perfect sense that the group got Sonic Boom of Spacemen 3 to produce and mix, his fingerprints are definitely all over it, giving the record even more of a gorgeously murky haze. Beyond the sound though, the songs too are pretty magical, subtly catchy, a little bit dream poppy, a little bit twee pop, the hooks all tangled up in blurred guitar crunch, and simple propulsive drumming, the vocals buried way down in the mix, and all the songs rife with layered guitars, strap on some headphones, and hear buzzing rumbles beneath shimmery jangles, sinewy melodies atop chiming thrum, the backdrop to each track a constantly shifting guitarscape, with various elements deftly moving to the fore and then slipping right back into the mix, without ever sacrificing the group's pure poppiness. The Mad Scene somehow sound so timeless, at once right at home with the current crop of lo-fi, reverbed garage poppers, but also so reminiscent of classic twee pop, and ramshackle psychedelia, sounding in places like some lost Scottish or British pop group as much as a classic NZ Flying Nun band. So great! Includes a download coupon as well.

MPEG stream: Cupid 2
MPEG stream: Lorelei
MPEG stream: Quiet Day

Oh this is so lovely! A new Baltimore, MD quartet has joined the blossoming fray of young bands heavily influenced and inspired by traditional Balkan folk which includes A Hawk And A Hacksaw and Beirut. Madagascar takes a bit of an airier, more sprawling post rock approach than those two groups which in turn may also draw comparisons to Rothko, Pan American or Growing. A wistful gathering embraced by accordion, acoustic guitar, musical saw, non-verbal vocals, and glockenspiel.

MPEG stream: The River In Its Sunday Garb
MPEG stream: The Innocence Of Facts

Here's the second self-released ep from this brooding young SF band. Since their first cd-r a couple of years ago called Untrue, they've played feverishly around town, toured a bit and made plenty of steady progress. Their rhythm section has definitely gotten considerably tighter and more propulsive. As a result,�the band as a whole seems much more solid and in tune with each other. The very early-'90s Brit-inflected male lead vocals which formerly veered into strained melodramatic excess are now supported by backing vocals that serve to tempered and flesh things out quite nicely. Definitely makes for a more affecting overall presentation. Moody, sinewy guitars and atmospheric keyboards churn, harking back fondly to Echo & The Bunnymen, The Cure�and Siouxsie & the Banshees. If you dig Madelia, you'd best be nabbing a copy of this cd-r soon 'cause we've heard word that they've already got a third one on its way!

MPEG stream: Non Fiction

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SORRY. Your introduction to this new SF band comes in the form of this four song cd-r ep. Very much wearing their influences on their sleeves, but moving towards defining their own sound. Untrue features some very '90s British shoegazer-esque waves of slinking guitars and wispy string synths. A frail, yet very present, male voice swoons and yearns over the proceedings. However, instead of deepening the shadowy dramatic mood crafted by the rest of the group, these highly emotive vocals overwhelm the the music. It seems that if they were melted into the mix a bit more, they'd be much more effective and the overall picture would be much more moving and impactful. Nonetheless, Untrue is quite a promising debut. If you've a penchant for music that broods and laments, you might wanna lend this young quintet an ear.

RealAudio clip: Untrue

This local band of brooding lads have finally completed their very long-in-the-works self-released self-titled debut cd. You might already be familiar with them via the handful of cdrs they've released prior to this. Since those shoestring budget cdr recordings on which they wore their musical influences readily on their sleeves (the '80s post-punk of Gang Of Four and Echo and The Bunnymen, the early '90s shoegazerness of Slowdive and Ride, the late '90s grandeur of Radiohead), there's been some radical transformations. The band has matured and tightened up ship considerably, honing their own lush, dark pop/rock sound into something more tumultuous. A major factor in their development is that they recorded and mixed this in a top notch SF studio with professionals at the helm. The proof's in the pudding -- the recordings sound big and defined. Sure lo-fi home/rehearsal space recordings work just fine for less lavish artists, but for the ideas sprouting from the mind of Madelia's frontman and central creative force Bryan Bindloss, clearly more resources are required than a lone room microphone capturing the proceedings. Each of the nine songs are ambitiously composed with layers of guitars and synths, but the defining elements that really lock things in are the ornate piano embellishments. Also vastly improved (in both performance and production) are the vocals which in the past were strained with over-the-top melodramatic angst (and perhaps straining to be heard above the rest of the band). Now, the range of expressiveness is still there, but the delivery is much more controlled and effective with a bit more bite. Quite an impressive cd debut! If you dug the recent album by fellow SFers The Very Hush Hush, definitely check out Madelia... and vice versa.

MPEG stream: Departures
MPEG stream: Scaffolding

Do you like Sibylle Baier, Cat Power, Julie Doiron, Jolie Holland, Josephine Foster, Meg Baird, Rio En Medio, Diane Gluck, Jana Hunter, Jesse Sykes, Marisa Nadler, Beth Orton, and/ or Isobell Campbell? If so, then meet your newest friend.

MPEG stream: To Hell and Back
MPEG stream: The Demise of Madame Butterfly

Madlib, the beat conductor of the title, has produced records for Lootpack, Quasimoto etc and here he issues four sides of funky breakbeats, heavy dub beats, and hip hop tracks. Instrumental. Useful for DJs, surely! On Stones Throw, Peanut Butter Wolf's label.

As everyone must know by now, we're huge suckers for Bollywood music. Just when we think we've had enough, another Sitar Funk or Bombay Beat comp comes in and we're madly in love all over again. Even if some of those comps revisit the same songs that were on other comps, we don't seem to mind too much, because there is always some new groove that we haven't been turned on to yet, or in the case of this record, hasn't been re-edited yet. Madlib's Beat Konducta series has fast become our favorite side-project from this uber-prolific producer. Vols. 1 and 2 were like short unrealized film scores culled from the unlikeliest of musical places such as Van Dyke Parks. On Vols. 3 and 4, Madlib concentrates solely on Indian film music, painstakingly editing and reworking 34 newly unique and beat-heavy nuggets out of what is by now a classic and well-trafficked genre. But our guess is you won't be able to recognize much of the original sources, making it extra fresh listening for fans of Bollywood funk and instrumental hip hop alike. Recommended!

MPEG stream: Dancing Girls Theme
MPEG stream: Piano Garden
MPEG stream: Sitar Ride
MPEG stream: More Rice
MPEG stream: Duel

Vol. 4 Now on Vinyl. Here is what we said about the Vol. 3 and Vol. 4 CD: As everyone must know by now, we're huge suckers for Bollywood music. Just when we think we've had enough, another Sitar Funk or Bombay Beat comp comes in and we're madly in love all over again. Even if some of those comps revisit the same songs that were on other comps, we don't seem to mind too much, because there is always some new groove that we haven't been turned on to yet, or in the case of this record, hasn't been re-edited yet. Madlib's Beat Konducta series has fast become our favorite side-project from this uber-prolific producer. Vols. 1 and 2 were like short unrealized film scores culled from the unlikeliest of musical places such as Van Dyke Parks. On Vols. 3 and 4, Madlib concentrates solely on Indian film music, painstakingly editing and reworking 34 newly unique and beat-heavy nuggets out of what is by now a classic and well-trafficked genre. But our guess is you won't be able to recognize much of the original sources, making it extra fresh listening for fans of Bollywood funk and instrumental hip hop alike. Recommended!

MPEG stream: More Rice
MPEG stream: Duel

Madlib's and J-Rocc's tribute suite to the late great J Dilla offers 42 instrumental hip-hop tracks of stony, wobbly and loping tape edits. It's testimony to the power of J Dilla's uncanny ability to wring the golden essence of perhaps an inessential soul side, that even the best hip hop producer in the biz can't quite capture the same magic as the incomparable Donuts. But this wasn't done to outshine the master, only to make his star shine brighter, and with a new Dilla anthology on the way, we're realizing more and more what a huge talent we lost. Still worthy to burn a tree or two to, and be fully satisfied!!

MPEG stream: J's Day Theme #3
MPEG stream: The String
MPEG stream: Infinity Sound
MPEG stream: The Main Inspiration
MPEG stream: Smoked Out
MPEG stream: Dillalade Ride

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SORRY. I'll try to not be a cynical bastard and talk about the fact that the last two critically acclaimed Madlib records have been nothing but mixtapes. Partially because they just happen to seriously kick ass mixtapes. This time around, Madlib plunders the Trojan catalog and comes up with a dangerously wicked 65 minute mega mix. Byram was less than impressed, but I'm way more of a neophyte when it comes to reggae, and find myself listening to this all the time. Features David Isaacs, King Stitt, I-Roy, Lee Perry, Dillinger, King Tubby, Gregory Isaacs, Barrington Levy, the Aggrovators, the Ethiopians, Mikey Dread, the Upsetters, the Skatalites, Roland Alphonso, Prince Jazzbo and loads more. Mixing and scratching is kept to a minimum letting these classic tracks speak for themselves.

MPEG stream: Blunted Mix One

We're up to number 6 in Madlib's 12 part Medicine Show series, all of them great, but THIS is the one we've been waiting for, a dizzying megamix of "global psychedelic, progressive and hard rock & funk circa 1968-1976", hell yeah, we were already way into Madlib, but the thought of him spinning a crazy selection of mysterious and amazing heavy funky jams, well shit, we were pretty much sold before we heard it. And it's pretty much just how you'd imagine, crazy fuzzy psych rock covers, buzzy guitars, fluttering flutes, exotic ballads, skittery rhythms, wild progged out organs, frenzied drumming, woozy grooves, lysergic jams, all chopped up and looped and woven together, laced with really funny spoken word bits, girls talking about all the drugs they've taken, Pee Wee Herman, comedy records, commercials, plenty of thrift store weirdness and tripped out effects peppering the otherwise heavy rocking proceedings. Separated into smaller mini mixes, each track is jammed with buzz and fuzz, howl and shimmy, tracks skipping and slowing down, voices sped up, garage rock colliding with surf rock, hard rock giving way to dreamy soul giving way to wah wah drenched acid rock, flutes and organs and jawharps and animal calls, wild crowd sounds, drum solos, totally drugged out musical meltdowns, this is definitely not a straight mix, or a selection of classic jams, instead it's a classic hip hop style mix, just sourced from prog and psych and hard rock records, and it's fucking awesome.

MPEG stream: World Leaders Plan Centralized Power & Remote Brain Control
MPEG stream: It Has Widespread Support
MPEG stream: Predicted 2000 Years Ago
MPEG stream: It's Almost Here

Listening to all these great mixes Madlib has been self releasing lately is sort of like the audio equivalent of reading Wax Poetics, one of our favorite magazines. You pretty much just get totally schooled in different eras of soul, funk, and jazz. This time out Madlib takes us on an upbeat adventure in the early '80s landscape of post-disco, boogie delights. Sounds that really bridged the gap between the disco era and electro-funk. In fact we could see folks like Dam-Funk and Hot Chip blasting this backstage at their shows and at after-hours parties 'til the break of dawn. All kinds of fun!

MPEG stream: To Promote Illogical Thinking
MPEG stream: To Withstand Privation, Torture And Coercion

On first listen it's practically impossible to even consider that this isn't some awesome live DJ set of rare jazz grooves, spiritual, modal, post bop, funky, soulful, don't really recognize most of the names, but then they're just crazy obscure right? Well, in fact, this is not so much a Madlib DJ set, spinning mad jazz, as it is a collection of groups featuring Madlib PLAYING real jazz. Every band here is a different permutation/alias of Madlib and his extended jazz crew, and as if it wasn't enough that he was an amazing producer and DJ, he is also apparently some sort of jazz master, as he and his bandmates conjure up every variation of classic jazz under the sun, whether it be psychedelic soul jazz, funky far out jazz fusion, classic bop, Latin jazz, sitar tinged Eastern jazz, the playing and composition is impeccable, but also far out and psychedelic, woozy organs, wah guitars, soulful female vox, shuffling drum skitter, amazing horns, lush piano, tinkling chimes, tribal percussion, all woven into an ever shifting array of sounds, funky blaxploitation style wah wah jazz funk, smooth laid back coffee house smoulder, wild psychedelic free jazz freakout, brooding dark ballads, soaring spiritual jazz shimmer, old school big band jazz, and it's not just the music, not only is the record named for a legendary seventies jazz fusion jam, the booklet features spot on fake Blue Note style album covers for the records from each of these groups that these tracks were supposedly taken from. So genius!

MPEG stream: Electric Dimensions
MPEG stream: Pretty Eyes
MPEG stream: High Jazz
MPEG stream: Reality Or Dream

Madlib's last Medicine Show compilation, High Jazz, was a collection of recordings by Lib's modern jazz outfits, doing their best to simulate classic jazz, and as we mentioned in that review, had we not known better, we definitely might have been fooled. But THIS is the one we've been waiting for. ADVANCED jazz, as in REAL jazz records from the past 40 years, funky, soulful, hard bop, free, big band, all stripes and flavors, woven into an insanely kick ass DJ mix, and separated into movements, titled appropriately enough: Miles, Ornette, Pharoah, Herbie, Mingus, Ra, Dolphy, Ranelin, Deodato and Coltrane. The cover art too has been jazz-ed up, the painting of Washington and crew crossing the Delaware, updated to include various jazz greats, even Herbie Hancock's Headhunter can be seen across the water in another boat. And that's the vibe of the whole record, a definite reverence for the music and the artists, but mixed playfully, all sorts of random snippets interspersed between killer jazz jams, interviews and recording of various jazz greats, hilarious impressions of Miles Davis, spoken word jazz poetry, a stretch of wacky drug conversations and what sounds like an anti marijuana PSA, blaxploitation trailers, commercials, a hilarious Herbie Hancock anti-drug PSA (specifically "skag and downers"!), and while those segues are pretty funny, they're just interludes between some of the most amazing jazz ever, c'mon, a DJ like Madlib with a handful of classic jazz lps? Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out it's gonna rule, and RULE it does, although some folks here found the snippets and samples a bit distracting, but taken as a whole, Advanced Jazz, is a dizzying trip back in time, not just music, but sounds, voices, vibe, it's like strapping on some sort of temporal time travel helmet, and having 40 years of jazz and jazz-related culture flash by in 70 minutes. So awesome. Maybe the best Medicine Show yet!

MPEG stream: Miles
MPEG stream: Mingus
MPEG stream: Dolphy

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SORRY.

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.

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

SORRY.

There's nothing new about hip hop headz stealing wholesale from the Blue Note catalog. Never has there been a collection more ripe for the sampling, And years of funky jazzy hip hop can attest to that. So what's all the fuss about? Why is this new Madlib Blue Note record getting so much attention? Not sure exactly. On the surface, it sounds like it could be any group, with a knack for simple funky beats and a deft hand at sampling. I think maybe the key is choice of source material. In the case of Shades Of Blue, it's totally impeccable: Donald Byrd, Horace Silver, Herbie Hancock, Andrew Hill, Bobby Hutcherson, Wayne Shorter and more. But Madlib is more than just a competent sampler. He's managed to transform classic jazz and funk into a strangely appealing modern hybrid, by enlisting a bunch of musicians to flesh out the original recordings, many from nicely worn records (replete with snaps and cracks and that warm old record fuzz), adding some scratching, and funky beats, as well as some rapping on a few tracks, and then weaving all of those elements into a catchy, jazzy, funky whole. Nothing ground breaking here, but it is definitely a great party record or laid back late night listen.

MPEG stream: Slim's Return
MPEG stream: Song For My Father
MPEG stream: Distant Land

We're often a little wary when hip-hop producers and DJs make mixes that seem all about showing off what an awesome record collection they have. But on the other hand, we've always been fans of Madlib's many productions and we are of course rabid fans of Brasilian music in all forms, so there's plenty to love about this latest mix. Collected during the same trip to Recife documented on the dvd Brasilintime: Batucada Com Discos we reviewed a while back, this is the first in a series of six mixes of the most obscure corners of Musica Popular Brasileira: Folkloric Chants, Samba, Bossa, and Tropicalia. There are only a couple of songs we recognize, but we've been playing this non-stop since we got it as it's a mind-melting hour long trip that unveils one solid gem after another.

MPEG stream: Speto Da Rua 1
MPEG stream: Speto Da Rua 2
MPEG stream: Speto Da Rua 3

Madlib is a man of so many musical hats and so far we gotta say that no matter which one he is wearing we eat up whatever it is he's serving. A few months ago it was his live band Sound Directions and their spot on take on 70's funk & soul. This release finds him back behind his turntables with crates full of old great soul records, and his sampler and drum machines all fired up. The end result is 35 hip-hop instrumentals that are short, sweet and keep intact the raw analog quality of their source material. Madlib doesn't use computers in his music making process and maybe that's partly why he's always able to keep such a nice raw sound in everything he does. While his love of 70's soul & funk runs deep, he also throws in some great surprising samples along the way. Hearing Madlib drop the needle on Van Dyke Parks pretty much made our day. Like J Dilla's (R.I.P.) swan song, this is sonic collage done right, with skill and soul.

MPEG stream: Left On Silverlake
MPEG stream: West Zone

This new release from hip hop's hardest working man in show business showcases two of his musical personas coming together: the hip hop producer and the master of the sound sample. Collaged together like a stony late-nite radio set, with snippets of loops and breaks abruptly breaking into full guest MC-led or laid back R&B productions. The highlights are definitely all the Beat Konducta tracks - amazing! Madlib has the ear (and the extensive vinyl collection) to select and isolate just the right sample. Among the many delights that surround the listener are cat meows, raunchy casual conversations, scratches, psychedelic meanderings, and countless layers of recorded sound. And the women represented on this are all fantastic - from the spaced out visions of Georgia Anne Muldrow to the cool R&B grooves of Stacey Epps and Frezna, whose "Yo Yo Affair" recalls a cognac dipped Roy Ayers sea cruise. Unfortunately the duds come from most of the guest rappers. Is that a cultural thing to say you like the music without the vocals? We wish we liked the raps more but we've just about had enough of dated aggressive braggadocio and homophobic rhymes. But we can't dismiss the solid music that backs all of these tracks.

MPEG stream: The Plan Pt. 1
MPEG stream: Gambe On Ya Boy
MPEG stream: Parklight
MPEG stream: Yo Yo Affair Pt. 1 & 2

Two excellent DJs offer side-long excursions of cut up voices, breakbeats, wonky scratching and tons of groove. Very very fun, along the lines of Z-trip, DJ Quest, and of course Cut Chemist's other solo work. For Future Primitive Soundsession regulars and

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

Despite her country-western look on the cover, this is Madonna with William Orbit again, continuing the rather successful electronica efforts of her last album, "Ray of Light". You'll be/have been hearing it.

I know, we were just raving about that Jaylib record (Madlib and Jay Dee from Slum Village) from a few months back. I think we even pulled out the ol' hip hop record of the year championship belt thinking the contest was OVER. But here it is a matter of weeks later and Madlib is back and dang if he hasn't outdone himself again! Doesn't hurt that he decided to team up with MF Doom (Viktor Vaughn, KMD, etc) and the combo is unbeatable. Madlib is in full effect, pulling out all the sonic stops. Of course, there's fat lazy beats, throbbing basslines and groovy jazzy samples, but that ain't all! Madlib's hip hopscapes are so dense and multilayered it's almost overwhelming. Hawaiian slide guitars slip and slide over syrupy funk bass lines, clipped bouncy funk glitched out and fuzzed up, human beat box butted up to jangly wah guitar, string sections soar and James Bond horns blare in the background, warbly movie theater pipe organs over disintegrating loops of old soundtracks, chopped up calypsos, groovy acid jazz electric piano, regular funk loops cut and snipped and rearranged into stuttery spastic alien funk, fluttering flutes, percussive pounding piano low end, all the while. clips from old B movies, sound effects and found sounds careen from ear to ear in a serious display of extreme stereo panning. And that's just the music. MF Doom (formerly of the godlike KMD and about a million other nom de plumes) is all over the record too, adding his laconic, idosyncratic flow to the mix, spitting rhymes that sound lazy and off the cuff, delivered in a just-woken-up mouthful-of-marbles mumble, but are just way too clever and funny and biting to be freestyled. His smooth, raspy delivery perfectly compliments Madlib's scratchy, muffled and mysterious groovescapes. And to add to the chaos, there are loads of guest MC's (a bunch of which just happen to be MF Doom alteregos!), Viktor Vaughn, Quasimoto (rhyming in his helium/chipmunks sped-up falsetto), Wildchild, and M.E.D. Also, the cd contains possibly the best video we've ever seen, done old Marvel comics style, but so cleverly edited and so perfectly synced to the song and with all sorts of clever animations and weird special effects. It like being a kid and being able to walk right into a comic book, travelling not just through the story, but the ads for selling seeds and magazines as well. So cool! And so weird. Definitely hip hop record of the year! Barring of course any sort of Madlib / MF Doom / Jay Dee / Doseone / Jay-Z / Ludacris / Method Man supergroup match-up! In that case we'll happily reconsider our vote! But for now, BUY THIS RECORD!

MPEG stream: The Illest Villains
MPEG stream: Accordian
MPEG stream: Meat Grinder
MPEG stream: All Caps

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SORRY. Ahhh, here we go. The instrumental version of one of the best hip hop records of the last year. Vocals stripped away so you can observe Madlib's insane production skillz in full effect, pulling out all the sonic stops. Of course, there's fat lazy beats, throbbing basslines and groovy jazzy samples, but that ain't all! Madlib's hip hopscapes are so dense and multilayered it's almost overwhelming. Hawaiian slide guitars slip and slide over syrupy funk bass lines, clipped bouncy funk glitched out and fuzzed up, human beat box butted up to jangly wah guitar, string sections soar and James Bond horns blare in the background, warbly movie theater pipe organs over disintegrating loops of old soundtracks, chopped up calypsos, groovy acid jazz electric piano, regular funk loops cut and snipped and rearranged into stuttery spastic alien funk, fluttering flutes, percussive pounding piano low end, all the while clips from old B movies, sound effects and found sounds careen from ear to ear in a serious display of extreme stereo panning. Amazing.

MPEG stream: 7xx7
MPEG stream: The Melody
MPEG stream: Kingdom Come

Disco heads take notice! When we first got this white-sleeve 12" in the store and gave it a whirl on the turntable everyone here was sure they were hearing the sounds of some lost obscure disco platter circa '77. In actuality this 12" is a brand new release put out on the Solardisco label, which just so happens to be run by the artist Maelstrom, whose deft touch in cutting, pasting and recording vintage disco sounds is displayed on this edits EP. No doubt he hit his target right on. The sweeping horns, the cosmic vibrations, the Paradise Garage, Patrick Cowley and Giorgio Moroder influences are wielded with pride. With folks like Prins Thomas, Lindstrom and James Murphy already geeking out over him and playing his edits out when they DJ, it's just a matter of time before the Glasgow based Maelstrom becomes a household name, in houses where disco is in high rotation at any rate!

The liner notes to this reissue from a 1990 cassette boldly state that, "all sonds you hear on this cd originated from natural ambient sources. No electronic sound-sources were used." For those who would think that such a disclaimer would result in Maeror Tri's excursion into field recording and acoustic documentation, you would be wrong. All of the effects and heavy treatments that plant Ambient Dreams firmly within Maeror Tri's well established aesthetic of dark atmospheric drones and post-industrial bleakness are still present and accounted for. If anything, Ambient Dreams demonstrates that Maeror Tri (and their contemporary incarnation Troum) are all about their arsenal of effects units and their backmasking tape techniques; but they sure as hell know how to use them as effectively on Ambient Dreams as on any of their other records. As on all of their other albums, blurred masses of sound ground everything for Maeror Tri's droning productions whose amorphous structure fluctuates with a frigid liquidity. The half melodies, breathy fragments of sound, and rippled textures that break through the aforementioned dark ambience have all of the trappings of Maeror Tri's typical guitar strategies, rebuffing their claim that all of the work is of "natural ambient sources," unless of course those highly treated sounds found their way into a sampler and sequencer. Regardless, Ambient Dreams conjures the recurring image for Maeror Tri of blackened clouds of ash, dust, and soot suspended in desolated abandoned warehouse whose interior is sporadically pierced with dim shafts of light.

MPEG stream: Window To The Absolute
MPEG stream: Piano Bursting Soul
MPEG stream: Amputation

The material from the cassette releases of Maeror Tri have been trickling back into circulation over the years thanks to a nearly global campaign to keep these recordings into print. Maeror Tri should need no introduction from us by now, they being the German industrial-drone trio that enjoyed a vibrant existence from 1988 to 1996. In the best tradition of the DIY / mail-art / cassette-culture values, they eagerly recorded material for pretty much every request that came their way, with cassette releases and compilation tracks that barely saw much in the way of distribution during that time period, given the limited pressings. Ambiguitas was one of these cassette-only releases that was released in 1995 by the Lebensraum subsidiary of the French power-electronics / dark-ambient imprint Nuit Et Bruillard. It should be noted that the recordings are actually much earlier, dating back to 1991. This is a very bleak album even by the standards of Maeror Tri, who seem to be augmenting their thrumming drones with power-tool expressionism and nocturnal percussive clamor as heard on "Fusion Of Sementary Intelligence" which follows the guttural tape-noise chimney sweeping of the aptly named "Death Surrounds You". The latter half of the album shifts towards those achingly maudlin, long-form guitar drones that Maeror Tri's Stefan Knappe has mastered over the years, transitioning into those into a epochally cinematic form within Troum. Ambiguitas is fleshed out with two possibly unreleased tracks that date back to 1988, when the trio buttressed their ashen bellows with lugubrious synths and delay-pedal dub tricks. This cd edition was reissued by Sergey of Five Elements Music / Exit In Grey on his new imprint Teta-Morphosis in an edition of 500 copies.

MPEG stream: Death Surrounds You
MPEG stream: Fusion Of Segmentary Intelligence
MPEG stream: Northern Lights

Originally released in 1997 on the now defunct Iris Light imprint out of England, Emotion Engramm was the final album from Maeror Tri - the haunting, post-industrial drone trio that was the precursor to the equally haunting, post-industrial drone DUO Troum. This record - more so than any of the other Maeror Tri albums - engaged the complex structures that Troum would later push through their interlocking, shadowy melodies and slow-motion, effects-heavy drone. At the same time, the concepts that went into Emotional Engramm are more closely related to the clinical psychological themes of the Maeror Tri albums Multiple Personality Disorder or Language Of Flames & Sound, as referenced by the titular engram (purposefully misspelled in the title), a Scientology term for a mental image embedded into the brain by any type of trauma - physical, emotional, psychic, or otherwise. Far from prescribing the teachings of Scientology, Maeror Tri uses that concept as a jumping off point in conjuring "resonance of control, impact, fortuity, the randomly instigated yet inedibly etched emotional memory: Kodak ghosts." It's easy to read particular passages within the frozen din of washed-out guitar noise, spectral melodies, tectonic bass rumblings, and metallic slashes of grim electronics as the seizures within the psyche that might get caught in an infinite loop for the inner-mind. Some of those images provide an emotional resonance that's deeply sad and full of despair, while others are enraged with a blackened hostility. As we mentioned, many of the ideas and strategies that went into this album continued to develop through Troum; but even so, this stands as one of the best albums that either Maeror Tri or Troum had produced.

It's been a very slow process, but the massive catalogue of cassette only releases from Maeror Tri appears to be making its way into the digital realm. Back in the early '90s, the Italian label Old Europa Cafe had released a very interesting tape series including two albums by this legendary German industrial drone outfit. It is a shame that in their recovery of these archival Maeror Tri recordings, OEC released the two cassettes as a double CD-R instead of giving them a proper CD release. No matter, it's still nice to see these recordings back in circulation. How long they'll be around is, of course, another matter. Hypnobasia (1992) is one of the noisiest manifestations of Maeror Tri, as trio of guitars spew volcanic slabs of distortion upon their signature low-end drone work and deep space ambience. Ultimate Time (1994) featured a bunch of tracks that had originally been commissioned for compilations, which for whatever reason never materialized. The flanging bass drones, metallic scraping, phased delay patterns, backwards masked screeches, and eerie crashing noises buried in digital reverb make for a much bleaker, more nightmarish version of the Krautrock antecedents in Popul Vuh and Kluster, but with ample references to Zoviet France and Lustmord thrown in the mix. VERY LIMITED!! We only have a handful of these, and assuming we -can- get more it might take us a while.

MPEG stream: Drowning Souls
MPEG stream: The Reckoning Space

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

SORRY. Almost entirely overlooked by 'post-rock' journalists for their fascination with industrial culture, Maeror Tri (now disbanded though Stefan and Martin have continued as Troum) have nevertheless constructed some of the most beautiful and simultaneously terrifying drone rock, complete with delicate melancholic melodies sublimated beneath glacial guitar washes. These tracks were culled from the backing tapes Maeror Tri performed with on their last European tour. Opens up a can of whup-ass on Windy & Carl and Labradford. A pretty limited piece of vinyl from Soleilmoon.

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

SORRY. AQ favorite dronologists Maeror Tri dissolved in 1997 (with two thirds of the band reincarnating as Troum), but a handful of MT recordings have recently seen the light of day. "Hypnotikum II" is the second (and final) part of a series based on the tape loops used in a series of MT performances in 1996. Maeror Tri's dreamy oversaturation of drone-guitar noise is reminiscent of the old skool power electronics in which you can't tell if the melodic interludes are actual elements buried deep within the sound or hallucinated fragments. As with everything Stefan Knappe touches (either as MT/Troum or on his Drone 7" label), this is golden.

Here is the second pressing of Maeror Tri's 1996 album Language Of Flames And Sound, which has long been noted for the brain-shaped packaging (faithfully restored in the second edition) and also has the distinction as being Maeror Tri's noisiest recording. This German trio began in the early '90s as a bleak, Dark Ambient project that brought a simple, if elegant use of effects-driven melodies to post-industrial noisescapes proposed by the Hafler Trio, Lustmord, and Illusion of Safety. While there are plenty of drawn out periods of flanging drones, spectral hiss, and those evanescent melodies which have become the trademark for the post-Maeror Tri project Troum, Language Of Flames And Sound brutally slams down on the distortion boxes, turning these languid, pseudo-Goth drones into thickened buzzsaws of melodic guitar noise that's not all that far from where black metal has progressed in recent years. An album like this should also make Aidan Baker blush as so many of these sounds have been mirrored in Najda. Throughout these megawatt explosions of radioactive noise splattering the all-consuming, ever dark ambience, Maeror Tri set down grinding loops of mekanoid pulsations that get at the band's Industrial roots. It's nice to have this back in print, although it's pretty limited. So who knows how long this batch will last.

MPEG stream: "Viurunge
MPEG stream: Onus
MPEG stream: Diving Into Monument

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

SORRY.

The two Meditamentum collections stood as the 'best of' Maeror Tri's offerings culled from their numerous cassettes released from 1989-1996 at the tail end of the first wave of cassette culture as we know it; and these collections had in fact gone through a couple of different reissue iterations themselves eventually getting released through the seminal dark ambient label Manifold, some fifteen years ago. Of course, those are long out of print; now the Polish label Zoharum has brought all of the material from those anthologies into this double-disc set, with much nicer packaging and artwork than any of the previous versions. But the strength is still in the sounds produced by Maeror Tri, whose Stefan Knappe and Martin Glitsch continued as Troum after Maeror Tri disbanded in 1996. Melody and rhythm soon became parts of Troum's droned-out vocabulary, but these musical aspects were far more fleeting in the work Maeror Tri, which hinged on an abstraction of grim noises that have more in common with the formation of cold planets out of comet dust, iron ore and ice than the instrumentation of guitars, bass, synths, flutes, accordions, etc. Here, it is the thrumming reverb of inhospitable galactic forms colliding in deep space, rippling through time and the cosmos as an existential shot of raw nihilism. As such, the recordings of Maeror Tri have much more of an industrially tinged, thousand-yard stare, which is fully on display on Meditamentum. The cassettes from which this collection was drawn include Peak Experience, Somnia Et Expergisci, Ambient Dreams, Sensuum Mendacia, Sublimal Forces, Allianz, Hypnobasia, Venenum, Beauty Of Sadness, Archaid States, Ultimate Time, and a handful of tape comps. Yes, a few of these cassettes have enjoyed reissues themselves; but this collection makes for one of the best bodies of work that Maeror Tri has ever produced.

MPEG stream: Voices On My Skin
MPEG stream: Soma II
MPEG stream: Philemon
MPEG stream: Tartarus

[ aquarius records catalogue — M ]