[ aquarius records catalogue

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Showing results 2901 through 2950 of 3006.

Live document of recent reunion tour. It may not have Rita Lee, but it's awesome nonetheless.

Uhhh, what?? Leave it to Mike Patton's Ipecac label to put out this head spinning disc of super spastic & grinding bizarro-world "pop". It's the debut of Mutation, a band whose lineup is equally mind boggling as its music, featuring Ginger from '90s UK rockers The Wildhearts (who, strangely enough, masterminded this), Jon Poole from aQ fave UK prog-punk act The Cardiacs, the ubiquitous Shane Embury from Napalm Death (and a million other projects), Mark E. Smith of The Fall, and even Japanese noisican Merzbow!! The most unlikely, unexpected "supergroup" ever? Yet this meeting of musical minds garners predictably demented results. Mutation is a crazy, catchy synthwave mathmetal noisepop collision, kinda like Sparks meets Meshuggah, or Devo + Dillinger Escape Plan, or Melt-Banana under the influence of Queen, trying really hard to have a hit (and somehow succeeding - but again, only in bizarro-world). Heavy and hectic, these tunes blenderize blasting onslaughts of industrialized chunkiness and majestic processed poppiness. The complex, chaotic song structures find electronic glitch freakery alternating with soaring melodic vocal choirs. It's some infectious ADD weirdness all right, and while anything this intentionally outre, combining all these diverse artists and aesthetics coulda been a trainwreck, it's actually pretty amazing, if perhaps a bit too Mr. Bunglized for some folks. If what we've already said so far, any of the names mentioned, makes you think you MIGHT like this, then we're pretty sure you WILL like this. A lot.

MPEG stream: White Leg
MPEG stream: Mutatations
MPEG stream: Benzo Fury

Mute Socialite are a new aural maelstrom featuring Bay Area avant music vets Moe! Staiano, Ava Mendoza, Alec Karim and Shayna Dunkleman. Don't even attempt to define this new group's sound by the words in their moniker. They are anything but mute, and we wouldn't consider theirs to be the most social of musics. It's like a sonic blow to the solar plexus that then proceeds to march on odd time signatures upon your fallen form. The dozen pieces deliver plenty of mighty post-punk churn, no wave spasm and math rock count-that-shit! At once fiercely precise and wildly chaotic. Blistering.

MPEG stream: Dirt Never Burns
MPEG stream: A Quiet Execution

The unexpected return of one of the most infamous black metal bands of the nineties, French horde Mutiilation (yep, two 'i's), one of the best known of the Black Legions bands (along with Vlad Tepes and Bleketre) even though technically Mutiilation was kicked out of the group early on for abusing drugs (who knew a black metal 'collective' would have such a tough stance on drugs?) although another report replaces drugs with an argument about Meyhna'ch from Mutiilation's childhood molestation by his father, which seems even stranger... Lots of folks were bummed out on the last two Mutiilation discs, Majestas Leprosus and Rattenkonig, although if you ask us, it might have been more a case, of that cooler than though "oh I only like the old stuff" sort of thing, cuz both those records were pretty fierce and furious, grim and black. But Sorrow Galaxies is definitely an improvement on both of those, being that there's now live drums, and the songs are much more fleshed out, more melodic, longer and more varied, lots of doomy slow parts and half time breakdowns scattered amidst the blasting buzz. It definitely doesn't compare to the first two, since for one, it doesn't sound shitty, er, we mean cvlt, it actually sounds lush and heavy, a seriously great production, and because it's been 12 years since Vampires of Black Imperial Blood, the world has changed and one would assume that so has Mutiilation mainman Meyhna'ch (who also fronts Malicious Secrets, Hell Militia and Gestapo 666). It seems like most of us were sort of assuming Mutiilation were dead and gone, it had only been 2 years since the last record, but there has been barely a peep about Sorrow Galaxies until it was suddenly out. But the fact that there was a new record was the first surprise, the second was how cool and weird the new record is. Four long tracks, the shortest 9+ minutes, the longest 12+, each one epic and expansive, and as mentioned above, super lush and complex, with the addition of haunting samples, gorgeous melancholy melodies over slow buzz, garbled super effected vocals, creepy ambience, all woven into and around some thick relentless riffing, the guitars buzzy, but not brittle, instead thick and warm, a swirled washed out vibe, that makes the whole record sound even darker and more melancholy, a bit like Xasthur in that respect, but these songs are dense and serpentine, with blurred blasts separated by strange, almost proggy breakdowns, the guitars angular and obtuse, a sort of stumbling mournful doom, but the tracks never veer far from another burst of dense black blur and anguished buzz. The best track is definitely "The Coffin Of Lost Innocence" with its killer super melodic main riff, and it's almost Black Flag sounding verse, the guitar doing some sort of muffled chug, before slipping back into the haunting fluid minor key melodic refrain, so so pretty and sad sounding, even the fastest and heaviest bits are rife with melancholy, the drums a strange convoluted rhythm beneath, not a blast, a weird shuffle, with some truly intense and moving ambient interludes. Who would have thought a Mutiilation song could be so pretty, and emotional, and still be black and grim. But it really suits them. All four tracks definitely have that vibe, although maybe not to that extent. "Cesium Syndrome 86" has some strange breakdowns in the middle, and a strangely groovy bridge, peppered with all sorts of strange effects, atonal chords and lots of random bits of dialogue, while the epic closer, "Acceptance Of My Decay" begins with some awesome and unlikely high end guitar lick, that continues on beneath the warm buzzing blast that takes us into the rest of the song. There's also an almost cabaret sounding middle portion, and the end just loops the same minor key riff over and over, before dissolving into a confusional, partially ambient coda, with that strange lick resurfacing, more voices and dialogue, soft synth swells, and what sounds like a distant heartbeat. Pretty fucking awesome. Not at all what we were expecting, but way better than just a Vampires Of Black Blood part two, although we're sure the grim black hordes might think otherwise...

MPEG stream: Cosmic Seeds Of Anger And Dimentia
MPEG stream: The Coffin Of Lost Innocence

This is as grim as it gets. Yet another legendary lost French black metal classic gets reissued. The French Black Legions, Vlad Tepes, Belketre and Mutiilation (yes, two i's are more evil than one) were stirring up black clouds of hate way back in the early nineties, early enough to influence basically every black metal band worth a shit, but a little too early (and a little to far from Norway) to be caught up in the black metal mania that made Emperor, Mayhem, Satyricon and the like household words (even in only mildly blackened households). But that's probably for the best. As their records became impossible to find, and only the grimmest and truest BM warriors could boast of ever having heard Mutiilation, their legacy and legend as black metal visionaries was sealed. And listening to this, arguably their best and most revered release, it's easy to see why. And let's not forget that Mutiilation continue to record, having just released a brand new record earlier this year, easily as grim and buzzy and amazing as ever. Vampires Of Black Imperial Blood, released in 1995, sold out of its limited pressing and has remained incredibly difficult to find for years. So this reissue is a godsend (um, devilsend?) with extra artwork, two bonus tracks and remastered sound. But no amount of remastering can disguise the ultra primitive sound quality, that 4-track, practice space sort of recording, the -sound- that fits this sound so perfectly, making Darkthrone sound downright hi-fi. Buzzing minor key guitars, a mournful sounding arpeggiated midtempo droniness that certainly informed Xasthur's sepia toned fuzz, chaotic way-up-in-the-mix drums, guttural, growled vocals, and strangest of all some really catchy songs underneath all that buzz and blackness, Even this reissue is for some reason ULTRA LIMITED, so if we run out we may not be able to get more.

MPEG stream: Black Imperial Blood
MPEG stream: Eternal Empire Of Majesty Death

Lordship And Bondage is filled with images of the most garish of theatrics, tattered velvet drapes and torn gowns stained with red wine and smeared rouge. Like an errant banshee, Mannequin Lamar'sïaffected, operatic vocals hold unstable court over the erratic gothmetal assembly. One dozen mean and dirty cabaret indulgences primarily driven by an industrial rock stomp. Imagine if Klaus Nomi were an overwrought goth fronting Marilyn Manson's band. You may find yourself asking "Are these guys from Florida or SF's Mission District?"ï It seems that something is keeping me from enjoying the 'Mannequins intended pursuits, however. Hindered by an overt self-awareness? A forced eccentricity? Not unlike spotting an immaculately coiffed and perfumed dandy in a full tailored suit strolling proudly down the street, but as your eyes drink in this vision they fall to his feet and are disappointed to find the most scuffed, unkempt boots - promising, but the image is marred. Cover art features the same Man Ray photograph that John Zorn chose for his 1993 album, Radio.

MPEG stream: What Have I Become?
MPEG stream: Grieving And Glamour

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

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

SORRY. The first and latest Takeshi Muto singles ('Mud Dauber' being the second single on Schematic, now reissued) of compressed Black Dog inspired anti-funk, loaded with dark cybernetic modulations, computerized hip hop breaks, and ample digital skitter.

Longtime readers of the aQ list know by now just how much we loved Cave In, from their crazy crushing ultra heavy early records all the way up to their more recent, way poppier 'Radiohead' period. And we've raved about pretty much everything Cave In frontman Stephen Brodsky has done since, his solo records practically perfect, and super poppy. So when we found out Brodsky was teaming up with drummer Ben Koller from Converge, we were thrilled, imagining all sorts of sonic scenarios, variations on heavy pop, or maybe poppier Converge style metallic mayhem, and truth be told, that's SORT of what Mutoid Man sounds like, but only sort of. Brodsky's songwriting is definitely on display, hooks galore, and his vocals, sound as good as ever, but the setting is definitely different, with Brodsky and Koller conjuring up some wildly technical, progged out metal weirdness, at times sounding like supercharged classic rock, and at others, like some furious metal-prog, with some super rad WTF sonic craziness in the mix, whether it's twisted churning mosh parts, or squiggly FX drenched psychedelia, or a ridiculously cool, and ULTRA heavy Animals cover (!), it all makes for some serious, and seriously kick ass heaviness. We were sold one track in, opener "Gnarcissist" sounds like classic hard rock mutated and revved WAY the fuck up, killer riffing, fuzzed out bass, wild drumming, this track in particular sounds a LOT like Brodsky's poppier solo material but given a punk as fuck Converge style metallic makeover, THE rawk jam of the year, with its blown out wah guitar, frenzied riffing, progged out drumming, and soaring super hooky vocals, frantic and caffeinated, head bangable but hooky as hell, all of which basically applies to the rest of the record in equal measure. And while nothing is quite as overtly poppy as the opener, tracks like "Scavengers" wrap super tech guitar shreddery, around poppy hooks, and dizzying prog arrangements, the sort of sound that is exhausting to even listen to, but these guys make it sound effortless, transforming their hooky tech-metal punk-prog into something as crushing as it is catchy. Fans of Converge and early Cave In, who aren't averse to some serious goddamn poppiness, this ones for you. We've been jamming this NON-stop, and have no plans to stop anytime soon.

MPEG stream: Gnarcissist
MPEG stream: The Manimals
MPEG stream: Scavengers
MPEG stream: Scrape The Walls

The first record we've reviewed from local label Father/Daughter (which also has another bass of operations in Miami) comes in the form of this split between Ohio/Boston based combo Mutual Benefit and Brooklyn combo Holy Spirits, who crossed paths on tour earlier this year and decided that sharing a record would be the logical next step. Mutual Benefit offer up a sweetly melodic indie pop, and open up with a dreamy bit of thumb piano and handclap driven dreaminess, with lush vocals draped over a warm skeletal instrumental bed. The rest of MB's tracks are equally swoonsome, lush distorted guitar shimmer, wrapped around chiming melodies and softly reverbed vocals, simple acoustic guitar strum and squiggly sci-fi electronics, tinkling chimes, and music box like lullabies, whirring warbly organs and washed out sun dappled thrum a sort of hushed shimmery dream poppy indie folk, with some lilting sadboy vox and a warm layered production. Holy Spirits are a good match, not nearly so twee, instead a bit darker and more contemplative, shuffling minimal percussion, lush steel string guitar, woozy weary vocals, a sort of Appalachian folk pop, with a lush orchestral vibe, and some cool strange percussion, not to mention some almost choral harmonies, and some thumb piano as well! Our favorite HS track might have to be the lush and lovely "Handmade Sun", with its minimal melodic swells, spidery guitars, hushed almost whispered vox, and then a little bit of shoegazey bombast, only to slip right back into that whispery drift, laced with subtle electronics, slipping easily from delicate fluttery folk to a crashing almost chaotic climax, before a dreamy and delicate wind down. So nice. LIMITED TO 250 COPIES, pressed on swirled cream vinyl, and includes a digital download.

We generally consider ourselves pretty knowledgeable as far as weirdo obscure music goes, but every time there's a new batch of tapes from NYC cassette label Ormolycka, we get seriously schooled. Sure we generally recognize a couple of the groups, but we always discover something new and amazing. And in this most recent batch, we were introduced to the Japanoisecore dual drums and vocals trio World, super obscure Redwood City hip hop crew Shed Dwellaz, Japanese psych pop outfit Dotsuitarunen, and these guys, or this guy. We weren't able to find ANYthing about Mutwawa on the web, other than this was recorded in 2013, but fuck it, it hardly matters, what does matter, is this is a seriously sick slice of twisted electronic industrial madness. Churning programed drums, wild squalls of glitchy electronics, pounding and Teutonic, but also sort of psychedelic, a little bit house-y, a little bit EDM, some of the tracks sound like they could be remixes of some Depeche Mode song, but instead of vocals swooping in, the tracks explode and splinter into dizzying electro workouts, multiple beats, cascading distortion, crumbling melodies, some cheesy eighties drum pads, but also some caustic bursts of static, all wound up into dense, and tense and intense dancefloor destroyers. Like everything on Ormolycka, this pretty much rules, and is also pretty goddamn limited...

So here's another psychedelic offering of mountain time, roots raga for the true trippers. Only this time the duo have turned their amps up to 11 and leave the acoustic guitars in the closet. Some of you might even be pleased to know J. Mascis holds down the heavy driving rhythm section on drums!! The east coastin' folksters don't veer too far from their past few Ecstatic Peace records, although Barn Nova does seem louder, bigger and more on the electrified country tip. Perhaps with the addition of Mr. Mascis the duo have crafted a more driving and more post-rock sound. "Wandering Nomad" is a perfect example of this more driving, pastoral hugeness, giant chords rip through the country air, vocal harmonies peer through the enveloping reverb, wailing guitar solos beam overhead. We can even catch some glimpses of some dissonant, Sonic Youth type jam outs, wailing feedback and chaos blistering into the red, so unlike anything else we've heard from these cats. So if you're even wondering whether buying another MV and EE album is a good idea, take our word for it and just do it for the Mascis.

MPEG stream: Feelin' Fire
MPEG stream: Get Right Church

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We were (and heck, still are) HUGE fans of avant abstract folk outfit The Tower Recordings. And we've tried desperately to keep up with Matt Valentine's post-TR output, but it's been tough as most of his recorded output has been relegated to ultra limited cd-r's and short run vinyl. So finally, we get a not so limited, and seriously hefty dose of Valentine's new psychedelic folk direction, with his long time musical partner Erika Elder and his new musical sidekicks the Bummer Road. Two discs, jam packed with dreamy druggy OUT THERE free folk psychedelia. Hints of Tower Recordings past do surface here and there, but the sounds on Mother Of Thousands are way more dense and dizzy. Slippery spacey squiggles float like motes of dust over a warm whirling landscape of mumbled atonal guitar, stuttering alternate tuning strum, super-processed electric guitar whir, wheezing harmonica, lilting falsetto vocals, washed out distorted whirls of crumbling amp buzz, a gorgeously laid back, blissed out afternoon sunlight back porch drug drenched slow motion moonlight abstract folk jam. The second disc takes all the same elements but weaves them into lengthy minimal buzz drenched ragas. Mysterious sounds swoop and swoon over slowly unfurling melodies, warm layers of harmonica and buzzing steel strings drift over a deconstructed free folk, with disembodied ghostlike voices, gurgling drones, reverb drenched female vocals, the final 20+ minute track is one slow burning meditation equal parts rumbling whir and gentle minor key strumming. Quite lovely. Valentine and his fellow folkies, Mo' Jiggs, Sparrow Wildchild, Nemo Bidstrup, Tim Barnes and Samara Lubelski take a few moments out to reimagine some killer covers, Mississippi John Hurt, Charley Patton and Reverend Gary Davis, but soon return to their mesmerizingly freeform drift and drone and croon. Packaged in a super deluxe, ultra thick gatefold, each cd in a woven Japanese style inner sleeve, the sleeve a mini lp style cd gatefold, with a metallic silver printed insert. LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES.

MPEG stream: The Joyous Within
MPEG stream: Cold Rain
MPEG stream: Beautiful Mountain

After releasing a legion of limited cd-rs and vinyl only releases of droney, and smoky, arcane mystical acoustic weirdo raga from the Vermont backwoods (which we loved!!), Matt Valentine and his partner Erika Elder have finally released an album that is neither limited nor expensive. Marking their debut on Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace! Imprint, Green Blues is a more straight ahead roots-rock album than we've heard before from this camp, which ultimately makes this release pretty disappointing. There's no doubt to what the "green" in the title refers to, as Valentine and Elder have been for many years living off the grid in a wood cabin and making lots of heady music. But here they seem to have been listening to their Neil Young, Grateful Dead and Canned Heat records a little too long, making their honest hippie affirmations veer into near-comical shtick. On the plus side, it's thankfully short and it does gets better as it goes along with the songs getting longer and stranger with less singing towards the end. Maybe this is just a one-time kink in a long string of amazing releases. Let's hope next time, they'll take a step back from the bong.

MPEG stream: East Mountain Joint
MPEG stream: Big Deal

It seems romantic to think about living out in the country, sleeping in a trailer and spending all your time making music and hanging out with a dog named Zuma. That's sort of a reality for East Coast trippers MV and EE. And it's funny to us how many people love to label this band as "that hippy, Neil Young wanna-be" duo. Which is sorta true, I mean they DO live a very alternative lifestyle, and take a listen to any of their albums and tell us you can't hear the Neil Young similarities. Buuuuut, on the other hand, MV and EE have been on the lo-fi psych folk tip for over a decade! Yes it's true, some aQ customers might even remember Matt Valentine's super influential acid-folk band from the nineties Tower Recordings, killer stuff that was sadly overlooked. And while we don't completely disagree with the insensitive hype that hovers around MV & EE, we DO have to say that Drone Trailer, the latest release from these extraordinary acid folk experts, is AWESOME, some of their best material yet! A murky glimpse into some sprawling cosmic countryside, more of the usual sun-baked tripped-out Americana, but thanks to the heavy hitting Golden Road backing band, Drone trailer is more driving and rockin' then most other MV and EE releases. Barn burning space fuzz meets twangy foot-stomping psychedelic meltdown. Loosely arranged jammers that waver under the blaring sun, mind-warping drones laced with lazy day vocals and bluesy guitar, the clumsy rhythms of Crazy Horse meet the expansive sprawl of Flying Saucer Attack. Kinda like if Ignatz recorded his last record with a full band, or if Spacemen 3 did a folk record. Spaced-out rural twang, the perfect soundtrack for your next lazy Sunday afternoon, highly recommended!

MPEG stream: The Hungry Stones
MPEG stream: Drone Trailer

If you've ever asked yourself just -exactly- when Matt Valentine will abandon any pretense that would suggest he isn't Neil Young's little brother, wonder no more. MV & EE's inebriated folk drones of yore have given way to a much more straight-forward style of writing, which means more riffs and less hippie freak-outs. As usual, Erika Elder's vocals have that feeling of hearing someone singing in the shower from the next room over; novice but strikingly pleasant. Valentine's voice is an acquired taste at best. In spite of his singing, catchy melodies abound as they churn out a good pop-folk-rock record that both complements their other work and serves as a good starting point for anyone who's curious. This is anthemic folk Americana for the uninitiated. Recommended!

MPEG stream: Easy Livin'
MPEG stream: Speed Queen

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

SORRY. We Offer You The Guru might be a folk record, in some other time, and some other world. Sure there are steel string guitars, harmonica, jews harp, even sruti box and electric dulcimer, and there is a melancholy strumminess, and dreamy twanginess to be sure, but Matt Valentine and Erika Elder (aka MV / EE) wrap their druggy spaced out folk in a dense cloud of thick reverb and smoky ambience, traditional folk melodies are stretched and twisted apart into creepy snippets and fuzzed out musical vignettes, the whole thing reminding us a little bit of the movie Gummo at times, very cinematic in a fucked up and back woods-y sort of way, damaged and not a little drug addled, but at the same time hauntingly beautiful. Elder's vocals are slurred and indistinct, intertwined with wheezing harmonicas and plinking plonking Jandek-ian guitars. Valentine's usual droney raga steel strings, aren't so droney here, instead they become lovingly lugubrious deconstructed strums and picked apart picking, textural and abstract, a rickety framework for the ghostly clouds of vocal / harmonica interplay drifting through these hazy shimmery soundscapes.

MPEG stream: Rural Boogie
MPEG stream: Lost Lover Blues

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

SORRY. A super limited vinyl reissue of a long out of print cd-r from MV (Matt Valentine) and EE (Erika Elder) recorded live at the Glad Tree festival a few years back and released in a tiny edition on Valentine's Child Of Microtones label. Valentine And Elder also play in Tower Recordings, and while some of TR's free form psychedelia is present, Moon Jook, is much more of an abstract exploration of classic Appalachia filtered through a drone-folk sensibility. Quite similar to Jack Rose, in the way traditional sounding Appalachian bluegrass is stretched into slowly shifting extended ragas. The instrumentation here is mostly guitar (12 string, adapted silvertone) but with Elder contributing ukelele and tambura. The result is quite lovely, a drone-y drowsy stee string raga, hypnotic and repetitive with plenty of buzzing and lots of harmonic overtones. Haunting and otherworldly, slowly developing from simple melodic fingerpicking to dense layered folk flecked drones. The second side is mostly taken up by the epic "Megh Blues", a nearly side long soundscape of ambient swirl, distant swooshes and barely audible buzz, the whole thing a spare backdrop for lonesome atonal minor key slide guitar, slowly emitting strange voice like melodies, almost like an alien voice, speaking through a bizarrely tuned Jandekian guitar. Quite strange and beautiful. The record ends with a brief snippet of sepia toned ambience, bathed in warmth and crackle, like much of the record, giving Moon Jook the sound and feel of some dusty old 78. Lovely.

A few months ago, Pitchfork released their list of the most overlooked releases of the year (which happened to feature a few we highly raved about, including former ROTW William Tyler, along with Pharmakon and Prurient), and we were wowed by the sound clips of the British soul singer Laura Mvula and her kaleidoscopic orchestral debut, Sing To the Moon. Mvula blithely channels a psychedelically pastoral folk-soul sound that reminds us of Magic Garden-era Fifth Dimension and Minnie Ripperton from her Rotary Connection days in the late sixties. Sounding like a major Van Dyke Parks production, the orchestral arrangements swell and transport us into a dreamy tapestry of sun-dappled majesty. Cascading harps, bells, horns, flutes and strings tethered by modern rhythms and ethereal gospel choirs are given weight by Mvula's strong yet cool delivery that highlights her incredible control and range. One of the best and unusual modern soul records we've heard in quite awhile. We have been listening to this repeatedly for the past few months and it never fails to transfix. Recommended!

MPEG stream: Like The Morning Dew
MPEG stream: Green Garden
MPEG stream: Sing To The Moon
MPEG stream: Flying Without You

aQ pal Phil Franklin turned us on to this mysterious Danish crew MX (believed to have something to do with the two main members obsession with BMX bikes, but that's another story we won't get into), and we were quite surprised and taken by what an amazing and flat out bizarre record this is! This is an anthology of recordings from the past ten years, and we're wondering why we haven't heard of these guys before, but we're so glad we know about them now! Our Danish language skills are lacking, so we can't really tell exactly what is going on or how many players are involved, so of course it leaves the music open to speculation. It sounds like it could be a whole bunch of people, or the careful tape manipulation of just a couple. But the sounds are dirty and lo-fi, recorded on four track and feature mostly short rhythmic compositions of acoustic string instruments (banjo, guitar, and violin), with distorted wheezing accordions, fuzzy pulsating synths, clattering percussion and cultic chanting. Occasionally strange tape manipulated vocals that sound like old folkway recordings of pygmys or some far-off South Asian tribe will appear, along with brain-melting primitive electronics effects. It reminds us a lot of the "ethnological forgery" of groups like Harappian Night Recordings and Sun City Girls, the hippie shamanism of Daniel Higgs and Ur-Dog, as well as the collective free-folk ingenuity of Kemialliset Ystavat. But for all the strangeness and noise, the songs seem more composed than improvised, full of beautiful otherworldly melodies and a stunning sense of DIY psychedelic exotica. LPs are hand silkscreened on repurposed thrift store record covers. We only have about 8 of these and while we're trying to get more, it might be awhile until we see a restock, so act fast!

Classic Bay Area band.

Once again, the holy grail(s) / canon of 'shoegaze' indie rock, gets yet ANOTHER series of reissues, although these are THE ONES. As in the ones we've all been waiting for, the ones Kevin Shields has been slaving over for years, the ones that by now we can assume are PERFECT. Or at least perfect as Shields sees them, which is really all that matters when it comes to his music. Of the three 'reissues' this is the only one that is truly an essential purchase, considering that it's not really a proper reissue, but is instead a compilation of all the groups singles, the first time in fact they've ever been gathered up together on one release and holy moly, do they make for what is essentially a head spinning My Bloody Valentine double album. And again, fanatics most likely already have all these singles, but besides collecting them all together, there are also a handful of PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED TRACKS!!! So even you completists, will need this too. And again, like the other ones, if you're new to MBV, probably Loveless is the one to get first, but an argument could definitely be made for this collection, which gathers up these ep's: You Made Me Realize, Feed Me With Your Kiss, Glider, Tremolo, and tacks on two tracks from the Isn't Anything bonus 7", a 1991 single B side, a track from a French pressing of the "Only Shallow" 7", and three previously unreleased songs!! Pretty exciting. Fans are probably already sold, but again for folks who are new to MBV, these singles are some of the best tracks MBV ever recorded. "You Made Me Realize" might be one of our favorite songs EVERY, heavy and buzzy and super rocking, fans of Loop will flip their lids. And then "Slow", all woozy and slowcore dreamy, definitely predicting the sound of Medicine, and the Swirlies and loads of others. "Feed Me With Your Kiss" sounds like Sonic Youth via MBV, all dense guitar buzz and intertwined boy/girl vox, and wild chaotic drumming, total shoegaze noiserock. "Glider" is all shimmering swirling psychedelic freakout, barely even a song, more a tripped out sonic experiment, that somehow manages to be crazy catchy, and reminds us a LOT of Teenage Filmstars. "To Here Knows When" is a blurred big of hazy dreampop shimmer, and there's so many more. And then the previously unreleased tracks, are surprisingly good, on the heavier rocking side, hard to believe these are the songs the band chose NOT to release, when most bands would have killed for any of em!! Needless to say, absolutely essential for fans, new AND old, and of all these reissues, the one that has been getting the most play. Housed in a gatefold mini lp style sleeve.

MPEG stream: You Made Me Realise
MPEG stream: Feed Me With Your Kiss
MPEG stream: Glider
MPEG stream: Swallow
MPEG stream: Angel

During the two years between their first recordings in 1985 and the series of singles for Lazy records, My Bloody Valentine had blossomed from a second rate swamp-rock group into a charming Brit-Pop ensemble, poised to unleash their crushingly beautiful Unlike the disappointing debut recordings of "This Is Your Bloody Valentine" which exists only for completists, "Ecstacy and Wine" is an excellent album that should definitely have a home next to your other My Bloody Valentine records!

RealAudio clip: Never Say Goodbye
RealAudio clip: Can I Touch You
RealAudio clip: The Things I Miss
RealAudio clip: I Don't Need You

As we recently listed My Bloody Valentine's hard to find collection "Ecstacy and Wine" as well as their masterpiece "Loveless," it's about time that we got "Isn't Anything" into the Aquarius Records archives. I seem to remember an odd anecdote about the recording process of this album, that it was recorded somewhere in the outskirts of their native Dublin near a sheep farm and the band ended up crashing at the studio throughout the entire recording session. Yet, their sleep patterns were constantly interrupted by the incessant bleating of those sheep, and the collective insomnia contributed to the lethargy and torpor found within "Isn't Anything." Of course, I've been unable to verify this story with anything factual, but this album sure does sound sleepy, mostly sliding towards the realm of deep slumber, but occasionally hopped-up on punchy sleep-deprived nerves. In the name of revisionist history, "Isn't Anything" stands as the transition album between the gilded jangle of "Ecstacy and Wine" and the radioluminescence of "Loveless." My Bloody Valentine had begun to bury much of their emulation of '60s psychedelic pop in Sonic Youth mack-truck riffage and intertwining guitar haze that upstages the Velvet Underground strum-as-drone. Tracks like "Feed Me With Your Kiss" and "Sueisfine" thickly blur the sad lullaby vocals from Kevin Shields and Bilinda Butcher through overblown bass distortion and strangely uptempo rhythms. Yet, My Bloody Valentine will instantly glide out of these into the shoegazing drone-pop of something like "Lose My Breath" with its tone bending extended chords and lack of pronounced rhythms. Only a couple of the songs on "Isn't Anything" are as memorable as those found on "Loveless," but there are plenty of swirling dreamy-pop songs that make this album a treat for shoegazing fans!

RealAudio clip: Soft As Snow (But Warm Inside)
RealAudio clip: Lose My Breath
RealAudio clip: Feed Me With Your Kiss
RealAudio clip: Sueisfine

We just realised that this record, one of AQ unanimous all time favorites, never got listed on the website OR the AQ list. And while most of you may already have this, a few of you are in for a big surprise and a musical awakening. "Loveless" stands at the That track along with the equally groovy-yet-dreamy "Glider" ep had been the basis for Simon Reynolds curious thesis that My Bloody Valentine had produced some of the earliest jungle tracks. More plausible was that MBV were one of the first rock bands to actively incorporate sampling into their production techniques. My Bloody Valentine had resampled their guitar feedback digitally to created strangely warbling layers of sound and allow for additional tools to build their bittersweet, melancholic melodies. "Loveless" may remain the final testament to the musical prowess of My Bloody Valentine, as Kevin Shields continues to state the claim that another album is in the works... well it's been in the works for over a decade and has no signs of ever being realized. Nevertheless, this album *still* sounds totally fresh and wholly superior to all of the bands that have attempted to revive the My Bloody Valentine sound (Lilys, Swirlies, Flying Saucer Attack, Third Eye Foundation, Fennesz, Chessie, etc, etc, etc). Perhaps our opinion best stated by former Aquarian Marc Kate: "If you don't own it, I won't be mad, but you will certainly earn my pity." An earthshattering record. Period.

RealAudio clip: Only Shallow
RealAudio clip: I Only Said
RealAudio clip: Sometimes
RealAudio clip: Soon

There will be some of you who will not heed this review and pick this up simply because this may in fact be the earliest documentation of My Bloody Valentine. At this time in 1984, Kevin Shields' project consisted of an entirely different line-up than

So, it only took twenty-two years? It's a little hard to believe that this album is actually finally here, and not at the bottom of some Irish loch as was rumored to be the fate of some tracks recorded in the mid '90s. But here it is, the follow-up album to My Bloody Valentine's iconic, legendary Loveless. No doubt, you've already read a review or two of mbv, which was initially being sold directly from the band's website and is only now being made available in the shops; and we probably won't sway too far from the prevailing opinions that most seem to have about MBV '13. Yeah, this is definitely My Bloody Valentine, and it's really fucking great to hear another album from the band; but no, it doesn't compare to Loveless. The latter statement isn't fair, as very few records are on par with Loveless; but so many people (we definitely count ourselves amongst those) have been waiting with various degrees of patience for Kevin Shields and company to finally finish something. And here it is. The album opens with a heavily fuzzed-out, dream-pop number in "She Found Now" with Bilinda Butcher taking up the cooing vocalizations that drift along with Shields bending the whammy bar on his languid, magenta guitar notes. "Only Tomorrow" and "If I Am" are tracks that really do date themselves (favorably, of course!) back to the early '90s again with Bilinda singing to a hip-swaying backbeat and shoegazed guitar melodies that could have graced albums by the more astute MBV acolytes (e.g. The Lilies, Medicine, Lush, etc.). "Who Sees You" is probably about as close to a track from Loveless as you'll get on mbv, but it's more of a the narcotic swarm of sound as opposed to those huge noise-pop singles in "Soon" and "Only Shallow." At the album's conclusion, My Bloody Valentine takes a huge swing into some serious damaged sonic weirdness with "Wonder 2" - which had aQ-ers divided (Jim thought it was a big 'miss', Andee thought it might be his favorite track here, reminding him of MBV style weirdos Teenage Filmstars) - it's clearly a response to Simon Reynolds' long standing argument linking My Bloody Valentine to the birth of jungle / drum 'n' bass. The skittering breakbeat is there; but the song itself with its atonal chunks of sampled guitar noise, that had us thinking it was the sound of a truck driving by outside, seems wholly unrelated to the rhythm and while some here found it forced others found it fractured and blissfully fucked up. That said, mbv is totally worth getting, and diving into, but the big question remains, why the hell did it take so long? The vinyl edition of mbv includes a cd of the record as well! Oh and sorry it's not cheaper, but we imagine Kevin Shields wants to make the most of / from this release! Plus it's of course an import.

MPEG stream: Only Tomorrow
MPEG stream: If I Am
MPEG stream: Wonder 2

Two new lps from UK label Trensmat this week. The latest from Astral Social Club can be found elsewhere on this week's list, and then there's this one right here, the latest from Italo-outsider-alien-folk-psych siblings My Cat Is An Alien, aka Roberto and Maurizo Opalio. Sadly, MCIAA is one of those bands who for a while churned out so many releases it got difficult to keep up, and at some point it seemed like lots of folks reached a definite saturation point. Thankfully now it's been just long enough, that a new My Cat Is An Alien record is actually kind of exciting, and listening to Alien, All Too Alien, it's easy to see, why, for a while there, so many folks were sort of obsessed. Two sidelong sprawls of freeform outrock dronefolk splatter, tons of space, the percussion skittery and skeletal, disembodied tangles of atonal guitar twang, wheezing harmonica, it's almost like a psych folk Dead C, which is not a bad thing at all. The harmonica oozes and blurs into sheets of keening high end thrum, which is soon joined by some low end buzz, what sounds like some sampled birdsong, mysterious falsetto vocals, building to a woozy, detuned Jandekian dirge, before everything splinters into a dizzying squall of tangled loops and swirling FX. The flipside seems to take up right where the A side leaves off, two halves of a single near 40 minute epic, lilting guitars over a bed of gnarled buzz and undulating textures, some seriously mesmerizing drone-folk, which seems to splinter into something way more abstract, ultimately landing closer to a sound that reminds us of a campfire No Neck Blues Band, the harmonica returns, as do weird distant drums, a slow motion tribal creep, that is soon subsumed by thick swaths of industrial buzz, and wreathed in squiggly effects and spaced out sonic streaks, while the drums lock into something darkly propulsive, a minimal softly noisy hypnorock coda, that we sort of wished would have spilled over onto a third side, or heck, even a fourth. Like all Trensmat releases, this is SUPER LIMITED, already out of print at the label. We will most likely be able to get more, but probably best to grab one before they're gone for good. Includes a link to a download of the lp tracks.

MPEG stream: Alien, All Too Alien (Part 1)

MPEG stream: One
MPEG stream: Three

This newest release from the curiously monickered Italian duo My Cat Is An Alien comes courtesy of local label Starlight Furniture and continues their skewed trajectory of deconstructed outer space blues and scraping drone-y minimalism utilising a wild array of poper and toy instruments. Il Segno is a two part epic, with the first part the more subdued, with the buzzing of long wires, like a slowed down sitar, under mumbled Italian spoken word, creating a dreamy, drawly, syrupy soundscape. Near the end of part one, things pick up a little with the introduction of crackling, scraping, feedback and what sounds like distant peeling sirens. Part Two is like outerspace Jandek, a minimal, deconstructed blues jam (if something this lugubrious and hazy can be called a 'jam'), just heavily reverbed, plucked guitars notes, hanging effortlessly in the ether, while scattered percussion drift by like shooting stars, with the occasional supernova of cascading cymbal wash, all partially obscured by distant Skullflowery skree, tinkling chimes and warm moaning drones.

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

SORRY.

This band is much better than their horrible name would imply. My Cat Is An Alien is the delicate avant-rock project of the Italian brothers Maurizio and Roberto Opalio, who have garnered a considerable amount of respect from Sonic Youth. So much so that MCIAA has opened for SY on a number of recent Italian gigs, jammed with Kim Gordon during one of those tours, and got this album released through Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace label. The brothers open their album very quietly with quiet Slint / Tarentel guitar chords and lots of silence between the repeated stanzas. Equally spartan blurts of synthetic 8-bit noise emerge in congress with the guitars, eventually doubling up with a time-stretched / down-pitched reflection of itself. All of this very slowly gets smeared into a spiralling pattern of cosmic delay and tape-loop mechanisms. This track (or movement as MCIAA calls it) takes up all of side one, and is worth the prices of admission alone. The rest of the album is a bit of a turn downhill. Side two tumbles through a passage of lo-fi noise, sounding like a hand-cranked cheese grater being amplified with an occasional John Fahey-esque splutter behind it all. This lp had originally been released as a CD-R / demo before it was sent to Thurston Moore. The other LP is a one-sided affair with the band spitting out spastic sort-of-no-wave.

RealAudio clip: Movement 1

Ultra limited lp from Italy's masters of spacey sonic drift, My Cat Is An Alien. Released on Root Strata, the label of Tarentel's J.C. Ledesma. The two brothers in MCIAA again set their controls for the heart of the sun, but spend most of their time drifting lazily through space. Simple folk guitar, spread over random percussive clatter, the two tangled and stretched into some sort of amorphous spacey blissy drone. Tones stretch and shimmer, the background a distant whir, with soft vocals, fragile and whispery, so delicate and dreamy. The second 'movement' on the first side sounds a bit like the incidental music from some long lost sixties sci-fi lost in space type program, a soundscape of bleeeps and swooshes, bloops and alien trills, but it MCIAA's universe they are buried beneath a thick unwavering high end guitar drone. This sci fi dronescape continues onto the flipside where it spreads out over the whole side, a feedback guitar drifting weightless through the alien soundscape that is My Cat Is An Aliens peculiar sonic world. SUPER LIMITED TO 300 COPIES! Each copy hand numbered. Packaged in gorgeously silver inked hand screened sleeves.

Here we go again. Remember that really limited cd-r that came out a few years ago, the one that was practically impossible to get, and maybe you bought on eBay for way too much, remember how bummed you were that you missed out on it? You really wanted it. REALLY. So now you have the gun loaded, the rope over the beam in the living room, a bottle of whiskey and a handful of pills on the counter, the note is almost finished. HOLD UP!! C'mon, if we've learned anything by now, as frustrating and annoying as it is, pretty much EVERY cd-r, will at some point be reissued on a much sturdier, longer life-spanned actual compact disc. Especially as there are labels that seem to exist exclusively to re-release albums that have already been released on cd-r. Okay, so maybe that was a bit snarky, but what the heck is the point of a limited cd-r when it will just be re-released in an unlimited version later on? Why not skip the cd-r step and just make a cd to start with? There's nothing entirely wrong with cd-r's, we LOVE cd-r's, we all buy cd-r's like crazy, and you know what? Some records are meant to be limited. A couple hundred copies is all the world needs. But for bands that are popular, with fans all over the world, a cd-r limited to 100 copies is just ridiculous, especially when fans will no doubt be expected to buy the actual cd version (most likely with bonus tracks) later on. We're not complaining (well, we sort of are) because heck, any record good enough to compose, record, and release, probably deserves to be heard by more than 50 or 100 people (not in every case, obviously!), we just wish bands and labels would have the foresight to realize that a handful of copies won't be enough and it's just as simple and cost effective in that case to make real cds! Ok, enough ranting... So we have the The Cosmological Eye Trilogy from Italian free noise siblings My Cat Is An Alien. Most definitely the kind of epic and beautiful music that definitely deserves a wider audience. So kudos to LVD for making these discs available again. The original versions of these discs came packaged with original artwork from Roberto of MCIAA and thus were pretty nice and worth owning, and certainly made a limited run necessary. While the paintings are only present in photgraphic reproductions here, the music more than makes this 3cd reissue worthwhile. MCIAA's musical world is populated by huge expanses of sound, broad minimalist soundscapes woven together with all sorts of guitars: electric alien guitar, astral alien guitar, electric nebulae guitar drone, as well as mini-xylophone, spacee toys, whirlpool, toy mic, percussion, metal sticks, cosmic cymbals, helix cymbals, Plutonian percussions and of course astral percussions. All recorded live with no overdubs, these spaced out sonic explorations are pretty amazing, from clattery, gritty industrialism, with scraping percussion and distorted vocals, to delicate barely there expanses of swoosh and waver, with distant foghorn-like moans, minimal drones, strange machine like whirs, almost inaudible chimes and melodies, to tribal space rituals with swirling blooping bleeping synths slipping and sliding around manic percussion, to strange alien sounding free jazz noise hybrids, shuffling cymbals, lots of dubbed out reverb, peals of feedback, and little bits of clatter and clink suspended in fields of looped fuzz and repeating cycles of hum and drone. A completely overwhelmingly brilliant assemblage of outer space free jazz drone rock minimalism that will most definitely hit the spot for all you free-ambient-noise-drone cd-r hounds, but will probably also appeal to fans of Acid Mothers Temple style space rock, twentieth century minimalism, "new weird America" (Italy?), and all stops in between. Packaged in a strange triple fold plastic sleeve that is unfortunately not ideal for keeping cds from gettins scratched...

MPEG stream: Untitled One
MPEG stream: Untitled Two

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.

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

SORRY.

Another band that seems poised to challenge Acid Mothers Temple to a who-can-release-more-records duel. But much like AMT, Italy's My Cat Is An Alien have somehow managed to keep the quality control pretty high (minus the unforgivable series of limited $100 split lps, that were released on cd not soon after). On Through The Reflex Of The Rain, MCIAA drift even further into deep space psych, with a free drone workout that rivals Total or Sunroof!. Angular guitars over warbly organs, shimmering reverb drenched chords stretched into endless sheets of cosmic vibration, clouds of beeps and bloops drift dangerously close, swirls of tonal color are excited into such a state that the rest of the instruments seem to be drawn toward some distant point of maximum gravity. Blissful and droned out, but at the same time, charged with a ominously crackling energy. Packaged in a beautifully silkscreened blue and metallic gold cardboard sleeve.

MPEG stream: Through The Reflex Of The Rain (excerpt)

[ aquarius records catalogue — M ]