[ aquarius records catalogue

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Showing results 551 through 600 of 915.

We just did an order directly with Japanese avant-garde rock/jazz label God Mountain (sorry, those first two Hundred Sights of Koenji cds are still out of print, for now) and picked up some old favorites, this being one of 'em. Optical*8 is (was?) the

RealAudio clip: Dispossable Heroes Do 'Lunch'
RealAudio clip: Dare To Be 'Uncool'

Optiganally Yours is the duo of Rob Crow (Thingy, Heavy Vegetable, Pinback) and Pea Hicks (the curator of the ludicrous Lucas & Friends album). Rob Crow's quirky and complex popcore vocal harmonies dreamily float behind Hicks' exotica devices; the Chilton Talentmaker, the Vako Orchetrston, and the Knickerbocker Bell Organ. No Optigans were used or destroyed in the making of this album.

Uptempo blazing jammers selected by Optimo.

Raver Techno DJs like their psych music too! That's the idea with this disc, wherein two edgy Scottish DJs who spin as Optimo (JG Wilkes and JD Twitch are their names), present a mix of spaced-out grooves from the past and present, some danceable, some towards the "chill-out" side of things. Everything from old school freak rock like Silver Apples' "Oscillations" and Hawkwind's "Hash Cake '77" to club trax like "Acid Thunder (Fast Eddie Mix)" and a Carl Craig remix of Throbbing Gristle... It's pretty varied, actually, mashing the Chambers Brothers' psychedelic R&B anthem "Time Has Come Today" right next to "Johnny Cash" by Scottish indie-rockers the Sons & Daughters, for instance. However, bewarned a lot of this is pretty house-y and electro-y, maybe not for someone normally shies away from dance music (though who knows, maybe you'll find you like some of it -- and it could cross-over the other way too). It's not clear to us what makes a bunch of this so "psychedelic" after all. But then we thought of this: Nanjo Asahito, bassist for Japanese garage psych acts High Rise and Mainliner, told us once that, for breakfast, he preferred sausage to bacon because sausage was "more psychedelic"... we think what he meant (aside from a joke) is that sausage is mix of things, and that a mix is always more psychedelic... well there you go. Ingredients in Psyche Out's sausage include, besides the aforementioned: Delia Gonzalez and Gavin Russom, Vapourspace, The Stranglers, Acid Test, The Temptations, Sinnamon, Herbie Hancock, Simple Minds, Systeme Imaginique, Dinosaur, Dorau/Kohncke, Sweet Exorcist, Mr. Fingers, Chris and Cosey, Damien Donato, Koenig Cylinders, Hole In One, The Step, and Skatt Bros.

MPEG stream: DELIA GONZALEZ AND GAVIN RUSSOM "Rise (DFA Mix)
MPEG stream: Durch Die Nacht (Geiger Mix)

Now this is the kind of DJ mix cd we like! Optimo (a pair of Glaswegian DJs, though only one of 'em is responsible for this release) have already proved, with mixes like last year's Psyche Out, that they can throw down some proto-industrial or psychedelic rock tracks into a seamless set of mainly modern electronic dance stuff and make it work just fine, perking our ears up for sure. On this disc, Optimo start off with some vintage Throbbing Gristle from TG's 1979 debut LP, then skipping years (but not changing gears, that much) follow it with a recent cut by Kompakt artist Grungerman (aka Wolfgang Voigt). And so it goes. An eclectic, eccentric mix indeed. Other artists on here include: Suicide, Herbert, Black Dice, Marc Houle, Like A Tim, Godsy, Databrain, Leny Dee & Nicolai Vorkapich, 6K, Shane Berry, and Eventell and Metaboman. And Finland is represented by both Pan Sonic and Philius. At about the halfway point, Optimo even manage to include something by Japanese psych-heavies Boris! "My Machine" off of Pink, which though fuzzed-out and beat-less, somehow segues smoothly betwixt the much more dance-friendly tracks found to either end of it. Maybe the only unintentional glitch in the program is the track by Thomas Brinkmann -- though y'know we love him, his "Momomexico" included here is a bit of a party-pooper, unless a voice intoning "Mexico... Mexico... Mexico..." is your idea of a dancefloor filler. But once past that repetitious voice bit, it's a good 'un. And really, the idea isn't really that you're gonna put this on to dance to, is it? That's the question with a lot of electronic "dance" music we sell I suppose. Maybe drive, work out, jog, something like that though. And as techno-y and house-y as a lot of this is, there's a healthy amount of grinding droning experimental bzzzz everywhere on here too. We imagine that at an Optimo night in Glasgow, there's probably people dancing, but just as many sitting there nodding their heads, spacing out. If you're like us, you might pick this up 'cause of the names you know and as a result get introduced to some cool stuff you wouldn't otherwise have heard. Recommended.

MPEG stream: Aibe Stracie
MPEG stream: Control A Zoid

MPEG stream: 04:34 a.m.
MPEG stream: 10:45 a.m.

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SORRY. Ora's rotating core of musicians has at times featured AQ favorites Andrew Chalk and Jonathan Coleclough, but here Ora's ringleader Darren Tate has employed Colin Potter's aeolian strings and the extensive field recordings of Michael Northam to marvelous results. The rich details of cold soil crackle, damp rocks dripping water, and wind rustling though decaying leaves situate within a thick tonal droning haziness. In spite of Coleclough's and Chalk's absence this is a remarkable album that matches its beautiful packaging (two pieces of clear vinyl obscuring close up photographs of a marsh).

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SORRY. Andrew Chalk and Darren Tate formed Ora well over a decade ago and have released numerous self-released cassettes and limited cd-r editions of their mysterious ambience and delicate textures. In working with such prolific collaborators as Jonathan Coleclough, Lol Coxhill, Colin Potter, Daisuke Suzuki, and Michael Northam, Ora has masterfully collected a wunderkammer of drones. Each of Ora's mesmerisms possess an elegant antiquity that eeriely display a sense of history but have little context as to an origin or insight into the placement of one sound to another. Just as a 17th Century historical aesthetician would arrange heliotropes, alchemical machines, hermetic documents, and taxidemy specimens in a manner that emphasized the beauty of the object, Ora intuitively develops their slow building drones out of aqueous field recordings, undefined magnetic fluctuations, aeolian strings, and Chalk's resonant bells, gongs, and metal. "Aureum" is a double LP collection of the rarities found on their self-released cassettes / cd-rs and showcases the three distinct facets of the Ora, which parallel the distinct personalities which went into the project, specifically Chalk, Tate, and studio wizard Colin Potter (whose ICR studio was the recording site for all of the Ora sessions). Tate's aesthetic favors the textures, especially crackly field recordings. Chalk prefers the extended metallic tone float of various resonnating objects, and Potter tends to blur everything into a sweeping haze. Absolutely beautiful.

Many moons ago, Darren Tate and Andrew Chalk found their way to Colin Potter's IC Studios, where the three initiated the humble yet eccentric drone project Ora, with occasional help from the likes of Jonathan Coleclough, Daisuke Suzuki, MNortham, and Lol With Darren continuing on as Monos, Andrew working in Mirror, and Colin busy engineering / collaborating with Nurse With Wound, Current 93, Monos, and dozens of other projects, Ora has ceased to be, and "Final" is probably the last Ora document to be released. Culled mostly from the CD-Rs "Live," "Distances," and "New Movements In G," this anthology does also include a couple of unreleased tracks. As the more recent Monos and Mirror recordings reflect, Ora's specialty has been the construction of the opiated drone that implores a sort-of calmness but at the same time actively confronts the listener with its sound rather than floating to the back as aural wallpaper. Built from field recordings, bowed metals, and various electronics, Ora situates their drones within a wide spectrum of textures -- ranging from the sporadic use of angular blurts from Lol Coxhill's sax and accompanying dense scrapes like a huge boulder getting pushed across a concrete floor, to tiny fluctuations from flutes and sitars. "Final" stands as yet another exceptional record from this small aesthetic circle of UK drone artists.

RealAudio clip: Distances
RealAudio clip: New Movement In G
RealAudio clip: Roses?

Morgendammerung is another posthumous release form the drone ensemble Ora, which consisted of Darren Tate, Colin Potter, and Andrew Chalk with occasional contributions from Lol Coxhill, Jonathan Coleclough, mnortham, and Daisuke Suzuki. Both of the extended tracks from Morgendammerung originate from the long out of print cd-r New Movements In G, originally released on Darren Tate's own Gnome Records back in 1998. Vapor trails of cold watery field recordings nestle into the hushed sounds of Ora's enigmatic rituals of quiet gong and bell interplay. While Coxhill supposedly contributed some sax work on one of the two tracks, it's impossible to tell as Ora's trio of producers superbly abstracted all of the sounds into these monoliths of quivering drones. It should be noted that neither of these tracks had been reissued on the two Ora retrospectives Final and After The Rainfall. Limited to 400 copies.

The inscription for Ora's "Rosea" states that this music is "full of Elves and Gnomes" and those of you familiar with the little things in life that we here at Aquarius love, you know that gnomes and elves fit right in (last list's "Ancient Forest of Elves" anyone?). Although the notes on the back, provided by the ususally tight lipped recluses Andrew Chalk and Jonathan Coleclough, share none of the valuable insight into the music of gnome and elves that the inscription implied. Anyway, Ora is the textural drone collective that features Darren Tate, Lol Coxhill, Colin Potter (Nurse With Wound), as well as the aforementioned Chalk & Coleclough. This 94-95 record's loosely structured field recordings of geese and what Byram thinks sounds like someone rolling around on a couch with contact mics taped to their latex t-shirt coalesce into signature patterns of sound that fade in and out of delicate drones. Texturally, Ora has always been quite adventurous, and "Rosea" is no exception. Limited to 500 copies.

Previously a quadruple lp, now on double cd in a deluxe oversized package!! Perhaps the only bright side to the passing of one of the most ambitious but relatively unsung figures in early electronic music, is that the archives of hundreds of reels of unreleased recordings of sound experiments, tape compositions, field recordings, cinematic sound effects and�Musique Concrete are just starting to be released to a wider audience. Young Americans did a stellar job with the first Daphne Oram vinyl overview, Oramics, which was a retrospective of her long and varied career from her time as a wartime radio technician to becoming an electronic instrument pioneer and founder of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Now that her invention, The "Oramics" machine (the first electronic musical instrument designed and built by a woman), has gone on display at the Science Museum in London, Daphne Oram's legacy is finally moving into its rightful place. This deluxe compilation is the first in a planned series of releases that dig deep into Oram's vast recording archive. Painstakingly compiled and restored from over 400 tapes and mastered at Dubplates & Mastering, The Oram Tapes Volume One features 37 previously unheard recordings (a bit less than what was on the vinyl version). While most of the pieces are short, they show a darker and more layered compositional style than what one may be used to from the bigger names of The Radiophonic Workshop. While the typical Workshop compositional bloops and bleeps were often steeped in a science fiction futurity, Oram was more often concerned with the mystery and science of sound composition, and the place where the sounds of machines and nature overlapped. That is probably why her effects reel for the film 2001 sounds more like haunted insects and cathedral-like atmospherics rather than say, robotic whirrs and laser-like phasing. There is a thoughtful and cerebral consideration in her compositions that allows us to imagine and nearly inhabit the world she is building in sound. Quite stunning!

MPEG stream: Just For You
MPEG stream: 2001 Effects Tape 1
MPEG stream: Wool
MPEG stream: Oramics Demonstration (Excerpt)
MPEG stream: Costain Outtake
MPEG stream: For Granada
MPEG stream: Birth of Baby

Wow, What a nice and welcome surprise for early electronic music fans! This 2cd anthology is the first re-issued work from one of the most important and unsung heroes of electronic music, Daphne Oram, co-founder of the BBC Radiophonic workshop. Beginning her career in the forties with the BBC as a "music balancer" (an arduous task of syncing recorded taped music with a live performance feed so that broadcasts would remain uninterrupted in case of war-time blackouts), Oram spent most of her nights fascinated with synthetic sounds and experimenting with oscillators and tape machines, as well as composing unperformed orchestral works and sound pieces for film and play commissions. Promoted to music studio manager, she campaigned for the BBC to provide electronic music facilities for composing music and sound effects using electronic music and musique concrete techniques for use in its programming which led to the founding of the Radiophonic workshop in early 1958. However, her desires to compose music and further her studies and development of synthetic music theory, caused her to leave the BBC a year later. Working off two grants from the Gulbenkian foundation in the 1960's, and supplementing her income through advertising work, she developed her most unique contribution, the Oramics composition machine and the drawn sound technique, an elaborate mechanism that allowed her to create pure sound through the transcription of drawn lines. For being the first woman to direct an electronic music studio as well as the first woman to design and construct an electronic music instrument, her legacy remains largely unnoticed in this male-dominated field. She lectured extensively and wrote one of the most philosophical books on electronic music, called An Individual Note of Music, continuing her developments with early Apple computers until a series of two strokes forced her to retire. She died in 2003. Culled from an extensive archive of compositional pieces, film and play commissions, early sound experiments with the Oramics machine, and advertising jingles, this anthology covers material from the late fifties to the early seventies. Fans of Delia Derbyshire, Raymond Scott and early electronic music enthusiasts of all sorts will find lots to love here. Highly Recommended!!!!

MPEG stream: Birds Of Parallax
MPEG stream: Lego Builds It
MPEG stream: Snow
MPEG stream: Fanfare Of Graphs

Perhaps the only bright side to the passing of one of the most ambitious but relatively unsung figures in early electronic music, is that the archives of hundreds of reels of unreleased recordings of sound experiments, tape compositions, field recordings, cinematic sound effects and�Musique Concrete are just starting to be released to a wider audience. Young Americans did a stellar job with the first Daphne Oram vinyl overview, Oramics, which was a retrospective of her long and varied career from her time as a wartime radio technician to becoming an electronic instrument pioneer and founder of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Now that her invention, The "Oramics" machine (the first electronic musical instrument designed and built by a woman), has gone on display at the Science Museum in London, Daphne Oram's legacy is finally moving into its rightful place. This deluxe 4lp compilation is the first in a planned series of releases that dig deep into Oram's vast recording archive. Painstakingly compiled and restored from over 400 tapes and mastered at Dubplates & Mastering, The Oram Tapes Volume One features 46 previously unheard recordings cut at 45 rpm for deeper sound quality. While most of the pieces are short, they show a darker and more layered compositional style than what one may be used to from the bigger names of The Radiophonic Workshop. While the typical Workshop compositional bloops and bleeps were often steeped in a science fiction futurity, Oram was more often concerned with the mystery and science of sound composition, and the place where the sounds of machines and nature overlapped. That is probably why her effects reel for the film 2001 sounds more like haunted insects and cathedral-like atmospherics rather than say, robotic whirrs and laser-like phasing. There is a thoughtful and cerebral consideration in her compositions that allows us to imagine and nearly inhabit the world she is building in sound. Quite stunning!

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SORRY.

Fantastic! One of our all-time obscure proto-metal, heavy psych faves has now been reissued on vinyl. Long, long ago we had a cd version, but that's long gone and this is definitely a nicer, more definitive reissue, done totally legit (for the first time we're now told) with the cooperation of the original band members. Here's more or less what we said about it before: Here's good 'un for you Seventies proto-metal lovin' brothers and sisters out there, being another reissue of a vintage slab of heavy psych rock from way back when, in the vein of Captain Beyond, Dust, Bang, Leaf Hound, Jerusalem and the like... We don't know much about Orang-Utan other than that this was probably their only release, a self-titled album from 1971, and they hailed from England (we think). Certainly this is a bit Zeppish in spots. A minor lost classic? This rocks hard and melodic with a melancholic emotional edge to many of the songs, not just the mellower ones. Great vocals and riffage! This new vinyl reissue enlightens us a bit, we've learned that Orang-Utan were indeed from London, England, but operated there under the name Hunter. But their sole album was issued only in the USA, under the name Orang-Utan, unbeknownst to the band themselves (sneaky management shenanigans afoot!). Comes with insert featuring rare photos as well as liner notes, by Ugly Things writer Jeremy Cargill, explaining the whole weird story. Also we found out that the singer was previously in cult popsyke band Jason Crest. VERY RECOMMENDED HEAVY PSYCH PROTO-METAL!!

MPEG stream: I Can See Inside Your Head
MPEG stream: Slipping Away
MPEG stream: Chocolate Piano

Two cds packed full of the happy, trippy sounds of the '60s. You know what I'm talkin' about... the Beach Boys and the Mamas & Papas. Ah yes, super sunny, uplifting and just a little bit tweaked were this obscure late-'60s British pop group. Clocking in at a total of 33 tracks, this just might be all the Orange Bicycle you'll ever need!

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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. Epic, jangly pop, made amazingly enough, by one guy. For fans of GBV, East River Pipe, and Roger McGuinn. Really nice. Pick this up quick, before twenty more OCM releases come out and you forget about this one...

More midtempo loungey pop gems from the extremely prolific James Rao.

What is it about Nova Scotia and pop music? Has one place produced so much great indie pop music in the last 20+ years? Ever? We don't think so. Sloan, Eric's Trip, Hardship Post, Super Friendz, The Inbreds, Thrush Hermit, Jale, The Memories Attack... And that Halifax sound, while hard to describe exactly, is immediately recognizable by the pop savvy, but even if you've never heard any of those bands (and if you haven't, well hell, get on it!), if you love the rocking jangle of nineties indie pop, if you grew up listening to records on Sub Pop, and K, and Kill Rock Stars, and love big crunchy riffs, even bigger hooks, gloriously lo-fi production, keening sad boy vox, lyrics about love and girls and heartbreak, then you need to do some digging, and why not start here, with this collection of tracks from long defunct indie rockers Orange Glass. Now we consider ourselves pretty big fans of all those bands, Andee even released the most recent record by The Memories Attack, which happens to feature a member of Eric's Trip AND Mr. Ron Bates, a longtime aQ customer, and frontman for the late great Orange Glass. How did we not know about OG. Everything about them screams BAND WE WOULD HAVE LOVED AND OBSESSED OVER AND PUT ON EVERY MIXTAPE!! But better late than never. None of the Orange Glass records are available anymore, but Bates recently decided to put together a compilation, of album tracks, singles, compilation tracks, unreleased recordings, to pass out to his friends, we convinced him to let us have 20 of the 50 he made, so odds are once these are gone, they are gone for good. So don't miss out, you'll be sorry. There's a definite sonic link to Eric's Trip, and of course the Memories Attack, from hissy lo-fi 4 track bedroom folk, to rambunctious crashing power pop, fuzzy guitars, wild drumming, and of course hooks hooks hooks, another one of those bands that should have been huge, or if not huge, at least as popular as all the above mentioned outfits. The sound quality varies greatly from super raw demo rehearsal space sound, to full on studio shine, but nothing can disguise how fun and catchy and amazing these songs are, and Orange Glass were, and for those with an indie rock heart, you may have just discovered a new favorite that by all rights should have been an old favorite too. Super nice silver metallic covers, inside liner notes on where all the tracks comes from, each one hand numbered, LIMITED TO 50 COPIES!!!

MPEG stream: Preoccupied
MPEG stream: Saturn And The Moon
MPEG stream: Wait A Day
MPEG stream: Knock Wood
MPEG stream: Cosmic Pilot

We want to like this British stoner rock band, really we do, but despite their hard-rockin, heavy ways we really just can't get into 'em that much. But, they're ok. This, their third or fourth album (see, we just don't care) is produced by one guy from Kyuss and has another, their singer, doing guest vocals on two songs. But (to their credit, perhaps) they don't sound like those oft-cloned desert rockers. No, "Coup De Grace" is more of a shit-kickin' motorcycle-ridin' rawk affair with gruff vocals and cowboy boots. More nu-grunge for the '00s. We can't really say what if anything is wrong with this, but it's just not grabbing anyone here at the moment, sorry. Maybe we need to hear it at a party or something. Stoner rock types should check out the audio clip for yourselves and see what you think.

RealAudio clip: Whiskey Leech

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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. The newest from these retro-'70s English stoner groove merchants, fixated on motorcycles and mushrooms and similar good things. Heavy, similar to Sheavy, ready to party. Plus there's lots of blissful spaced out grooves to relax to after the party as well.

Scottish pop fans, here's something you don't want to miss... especially if you missed 'em the first time around over two decades ago! These highly influential Scots finally receive a long-overdue, respectful retrospective compilation. Edwyn Collins, Steven Daly, James Kirk and David McClymont's distinct combination of sugary sweet jangle pop sensibilities with a wry wit and sharp tongue definitely made an impression on the young hearts and minds of bands such as Belle & Sebastian (on the sticker affixed to the shrinkwrap, Stuart Murdoch is quoted voicing his deep reverence), Heavenly and The Pastels, let alone more recent upstarts such as Arcade Fire and Franz Ferdinand (Alex Kapranos' devotion is also noted on the abovementioned sticker). For The Glasgow School, Domino Records has unearthed the band's first four singles (originally released on indie label Postcard Records) along with eleven songs recorded in 1981 which were originally intended to be their debut album Ostrich Churchyard which was also to be released on Postcard. That never came to pass, and the album would in turn be rerecorded and renamed You Can't Hide Your Love Forever and released on Polydor in 1982. Ostrich Churchyard was eventually released in 1992. Also included are two previously unreleased songs -- "Blokes On 45" from a Peel Session and a raucous cover of The Ramones' "I Don't Care" from a pre-Orange Juice rehearsal tape when they went by the moniker the Nu-Sonics. Beautifully packaged like a hardcover book with an introduction and song-by-song liner notes by Steven Daly as well as a scattering of live and candid snapshots. Recommended.

MPEG stream: Falling And Laughing
MPEG stream: Breakfast Time

Orange Sunshine are a freaky, fuzzed-out power trio from Holland who really really wish they existed in San Francisco circa 1969. Their sound, their graphics, even their name is inspired by heavy Frisco sixties legends Blue Cheer (Orange Sunshine being another "brand" of LSD). They just were in the USA on tour, and we saw 'em live a few weeks back at the Hemlock. Their singing drummer was definitely the star of the show. Long haired, bearded, totally hippified, he was a wild man, pulling crazy faces the whole time he was playing. It seemed quite likely that his number one drummer hero growing up was Animal from The Muppets. Coming to San Francisco to play their Blue Cheer-y music, they took it as far as they could -- even doin' their own version of "Summertime Blues"!! This new album of theirs (don't believe where it says on the back cover that it was recorded in 1970, that's more fantasy on their part, though they do their best to make that claim almost seem likely) makes us think Acid Mothers Temple crossed with Blue Cheer. Not too hard to imagine, eh? This disc's opener, the 15 and a half minute "Ruler Of The Universe" leans towards the AMT side of that equation, being a spacey, faux Eastern sitar and tablas raga meets flying saucer lift-off sort of epic. Following that, the three minutes of "Speed" sizzle nicely. Then we get a fairly faithful cover of Cream's "Sunshine Of Your Love". They just couldn't resist cranking out Jack Bruce's (not Eric Clapton's) most famous riff themselves we guess. Nothing wrong with that, but we liked how on their earlier Love=Acid, Space=Hell album they picked things to cover that actual '60s heavy rock bands would have done, like stuff by Bo Diddley. Still it's cool hearing it given the Blue Cheer, we mean Orange Sunshine treatment. Next up, "Demonize" (or is it "Demon's Eye"?) is a blown-out, wailin' stomper that wouldn't have been out of place on Vincebus Eruptum -- although it's actually a Deep Purple cover. And then the album comes to a fuzzy finale with another Blue Cheerish number entitled "Balls Knockin'". Turns out that's the only track here that's NOT a cover. Though we've never heard of the bands that did "Speed" and "Ruler Of The Universe" before: Ron Allen Light Show and Terry Brooke's Strange, respectively. Kinda makes up for the obviousness of the Cream choice. Seems like these guys really DO live in their own drugged-out, time-looped 1968-1971 universe and it's real nice of them to let us join 'em for the authentic acid rock experience now and then!

MPEG stream: Balls Knockin'
MPEG stream: Ruler Of The Universe

Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Mangum travelled to Bulgaria in August of 2001 and came back with this aural document of the Koprivshtitsa Festival. Impossibly high female voices arch over droning pipes and strings, at times in a chorus like chattering,

RealAudio clip: (excerpt)

SF's Oranger continue to spread the love around, dishing out their generous offerings of sunbeam-bright tunes on a different label each time. Here, they've popped up on Eenie Meenie Records. Following up last year's 2cd Shutdown The Sun on Jackpine Records, New Comes And Goes' buoyant baker's dozen is once again sure to please Oranger's fans as well as those of fellow West Coast noise-poppers The Posies and Beulah. More polished, but still retaining a bit of the rough-around-the-edges, mischievous charm that characterised Shutdown and the album that came before it Quietvibrationland (released in 2000 on former Pavementer Scott Kannberg's label Amazing Grease). The album runs the gamut from bubblegum heights to more 'serious' mid-tempo downers, and we have to say that we do prefer the songs on which the band keep the mood upbeat and the energy high. That's when they shine the brightest (at least we think so). A side note: the album cover and font choice seem a little incongruous though, bringing to mind wee hours Euro dance punk festivities rather than a California beach-destined convertible on a scorchin' summer afternoon (which is what we associate this band's music with).

MPEG stream: Crooked In The Weird Of The Catacombs
MPEG stream: Sukiyaki

These SF super-pop boys bring us a new full length full of, yes, very Beach Boys-influenced shining tunes, but they've polished this album up into something all their own. With nods to the rest of their Elephant 6 comrades. Glorious vocal harmonies soar. Buoyant melodies bounce along seemingly without a care in the world. Well-written, well-crafted and well-performed. For fans of Olivia Tremor Control, the Posies, Sloan.

With the final shows of popsters Beulah looming on the horizon, waste no time wonderin' who's gonna slip their tootsies into their fine shoes and be the new Cinderella of the Bay Area pop ball. 'Cause while Beulah were soaking up a good deal of the city's pop spotlight over the past few years, their pop brethren Oranger were quietly honing their songcraft. The results? A shining album reminiscent of the great pop of the Posies, Olivia Tremor Control, Apples In Stereo, Beulah and yes of course the Beatles and Beach Boys. On this new cd (that comes with bonus disc of fine rare goodies!), Oranger have really come into their own, revealing an impressive range -- able to funk it up, lounge it down or twang it all around, and still maintain their shiny playful pop foundations. Heaps of delightful vocal harmonies, infectious hooks and fully fleshed out arrangements.

MPEG stream: Going Under
MPEG stream: Bluest Glass Eye Sea

4 local guys have fun messin' with Henry Mancini. Ralph Carney. Joe Gore. Matt Brubeck and Scott Amendola. "Eccentric." "Quirky."

Second album from local band featuring experimental reeds/horn player Ralph Carney and lauded guitarist Joe Gore, among others. "Adrenaline-fueled far-out ride through '60s and '70s film soundtracks and radically reinterpreted standards."

Yet again, Finland delivers some divine delirious musical weirdness, this time in the form of psychedelic black metal freaks Oranssi Pazuzu, whose sound hews somewhat to the conventional tropes of black metal, but only somewhat, letting the requisite buzz and blast, splinter into swirling spaced out psychedelia, slow burning ambient space rock, PROG, druggy post rock, and pretty much any other strange sonic avenue these guys decide to explore. Think classic buzzing black metal, but then mix in some krautrock, lots of space rock (there's an astronaut on the cover for a reason!), classic hard rock and heavy metal, tons of not very black metal instruments, mellotrons, synthesizers, Hammond organs, strange vocal harmonies, it's really hard to explain what these guys are going for, but it's something spaced out and blackened, gnarled and abstract, but sprawling and expansive. The opening track begins with muted drums and swirling electronics, soft focus chords, a strangely serene buzzscape, before the track kicks in with soaring high end riffage, pounding drums, only to break down into a sort of Hawkwindy workout, albeit with harsh vokills, but also all sorts of swoops and trills, sounds like maybe a Theremin, the band slip back and forth between blasting epic blackness, and tripped out stripped down spacejam, the guitars are rubbery and tangled, the bass a loping pulse, the riffs are strangely effected and stutter and ripple out, while a second guitar sprays shimmering harmonics out like stars in a black night sky. The second track opens up like a lost Gary Numan track, all Cars-style haunting synths, and simple motorik beats, over haunting high end melodies, peppered with bursts of furious blackness and weird chugging post rock parts. Soon after the band slows down to full on shimmery near ballad, warbly guitars, simple skeletal drumming, hushed growled vox, before exploding into a complex keyboard driven prog workout, which leads into a more metal march. The more we listen to these guys, the less they sound like a weird black metal band, and more like some heavy space prog band who just happens to incorporate elements of black metal into their sound. Which seems more apt considering very little of the record is spent buzzing and blasting, instead, the songs sprawl and expand into epic, convoluted spaced out prog, complex and catchy, but also obtuse and difficult, but totally unique and confounding and fantastically original. We'd recommend this to adventurous black metallers for sure, but it almost seems like it was tailor made for all you Finnish music obsessives who have been on the lookout for something heavier and blacker and proggier and more freaked out and fucked up even than the usual Finnish fare, well friends, if this isn't what you were after, we don't know what it...

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Space rock collides brilliantly and violently with blackened post metal on this third bleak transmission from an exploding alien nebula (otherwise known as Finland), courtesy of some of its weirdest astral wanderers: the incomparable Oranssi Pazuzu. Valonielu is at once a contradiction - cosmic yet organic. Simultaneously lost drifting in the stars and seemingly mired in the moss, brandishing gibbering secrets both ancient and interstellar! Oranssi Pazuzu aren't a band that's easy to compare to any other. The easiest quick description is Hawkwind meets black metal, but that descriptor doesn't really do 'em justice. There's a similar overwhelming extraterrestrial dread as Voivod, but without any of the technicality. The more psychedelic moments of Nachtmystium or Ancestors might be a good reference point, if this weren't so much weirder. Maybe if Jean Michelle Jarre were commissioned to score a black metal soundtrack to Event Horizon? Yeah, that's pretty close. On the surface the music is minimal - simple riffs layered with atmosphere, drenched in otherworldly affects. The vocals a bleak and emotionless rasp, but delivered with precision and authority (think Immortal, Deathspell Omega, Inquisition...) But that's just another contradiction, because the listening experience is anything but minimal. This album is dense and entirely overwhelming. The album opens with the dissonant pulse of cosmic synths above dizzying repetitive riffing recalling Hymns-era Godflesh. There is an immediate sense of hypnotic vertigo - a sort of warm fascinating nausea. But Oranssi Pazuzu only up the psychedelic ante as things progress. Tribal bonfire drumming alternates with a militaristic snare shuffle. The bass seems to float above the earth - a cyclical ascent and descent - while the guitars echo like the pings of a submarine's distress call. Stuttering palm muted guitars remind us that what we're experiencing here actually is a METAL record, although not much like one you've ever heard. Elsewhere in "Uraanisula" unsettling clean guitar drifts along a disquieting new age breeze before a wash of low end distortion and the sound of metal grinding against metal ushers in a minimal thrusting groove. It's 11 minutes of driving outer space suffocation before building and finally decaying into a wash of doomy crashes swathed in ambience, seeming to crash to the planet's surface like a lost satellite - clattering and rolling before finally slumping into its eternal lonely resting place. On the instrumental "Reika Maisemassa", we're met with the slow motion plod of timpani over insectoid clicks - like something from King Kong in negative focus - before the cosmic murkiness sets in and the track takes on its own nocturnal alien form - slithering and jerking like a leech. "Olen Aukaissut Uuden Silman" is as close to black metal (in the traditional sense anyway) as the record comes - guitars buzz and grind over disco drumming and the cyberorchestral hum of horror movie strings, before erupting into a section of blasting that sounds like something from Transilvanian Hunger, if Darkthrone might have taken that brown acid everyone was avoiding at Woodstock. The 15 minute "Ympyra On Viiva Tomussa" closes things out, starting off with a lazy creeping loungey menace, sounding like something from a French B-movie horror film, complete with delicate plucking and softly rolling toms - bringing to mind a barely clad 1960's vampiress stalking the alleyways by moonlight - before building headfirst into some seriously mountainous Neur-Isis post metal riffage, once again swathed in that ambient piercing of laser echoes that drenches the entire record. Valonielu is black metal in the most literal sense - the sounds from a colorless void, the crushing airless vacuum of a black hole, the last terrified scream from a doomed spacecraft - oxygen levels at 10 percent and dropping.

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So on our last list, we were blown away by the arrival of new Aluk Todolo material, in the form of their Voix cd, which was an obvious, immediate, no shit Record Of The Week. But the Gods of cosmic hypnometal smile upon us, as we get the newest transmission from Oranssi Pazuzu, the Finnish space metallers, only a couple weeks after that disc of krauty French blackness! It is without question that Oranssi Pazuzu's Varahtelija rockets right out of the atmosphere and into our Record Of The Week spot as well. We've gushed over these guys before, for good reason. Along with the aforementioned Aluk Todolo, Oranssi Pazuzu have set the bar incredibly high for their brand of tripped out, intergalactic lysergic black metal. Oranssi's take on black metal has been refined and perfected - organic, dizzying, and crushing black metal that stands toe-to-toe with any of the greats, progressive but not overly technical. The psychedelia is similarly elevated, heady, cosmic, and heavy, like Ash Ra Tempel played through My Bloody Valentine's amp stacks. Blended together, both elements amplify each other and create a pitch-perfect take on psychedelic black metal that other bands have attempted with not-quite-as-great results. Have we dropped enough superlatives on you yet? Varahtelija is Oranssi Pazuzu at their peak, simultaneously cosmic and organic, cohesive yet chaotic, precise and catchy. It goes without saying that everyone who bought a copy of Voix NEEDS to hear this disc as well - most non-metalheads will also find this album necessary. Totally essential and a easy early contender for our favorite metal record of the year.

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WOW!!! When I (Irwin) started working at AQ over a year ago it was kind of like being the luckiest kid in the greatest candy store ever. All this amazing music surrounding me, every day getting to hear something I'd never heard and being blown away again and again. Of course like any good obsessive music fanatic I tried to think of some titles that maybe the store didn't have but totally should. This disc by Kazahkhstan's Rausan Orazbaeva was pretty much at the top of my list. Allan and Andee were able to get some for the store but we never were able to get enough to list...until now! So what has been a nice little secret for our in store shoppers can now be a treasure for everyone to enjoy. Orazbaeva is considered to be the greatest living interpreter of her highly unique instrument, the kyl-koblz, which is kind of like a 2 string cello held vertically and kept very close to the body when bowed. Orazbaeva is a pioneer in many ways, one of which is that it hasn't been until very recently that Kazakh women were even allowed to play this sacred instrument. But what makes Akku such an amazing record is not just that Orazbaeva is a master at her instrument but like those few rare masters she also evokes so much soul, emotion, fragility and power in her playing. These are sounds that you just have to surrender to. Graceful yet commanding. Flowing with beauty but also with moments of dynamic dissonance. Even this week when Andee had a million reviews to be writing and should have been glued to his desk he couldn't help but come up front every time we were playing this just to get a closer listen. You could almost imagine folks like Bjork and the Kronos Quartet freaking out and thinking how great it would be to collaborate with her. The kind of record that transcends genres, traditions, and geography and lands itself in that special section in our record collections designated for absolute brilliance! (In case you come in, don't look for the "Absolute Brilliance" section, cuz it doesn't really exist, but you know what we're talking about...)

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Man, this sucks. What happened? First the album starts out with a really bad '80s revivalist track sounding like the worst from Severed Heads, then it delves into really bad '80s synthetic dub. There could be something worthwhile on this album, but with two

For some reason it feels like this is the first Orb record in forever, when in fact they have been plugging along pretty steadily for the last 15 years, a record every year or two or three. Maybe it's because this is the best Orb record in years. And maybe that's because of some strange alchemy resulting from the magical combination of the Orb and Kompakt. Either way, this is a gorgeous slab of minimal techno and lush crystalline pop ambient, the perfect blend of the Orb's pioneering ambient house, or chillout or whatever you want to call it, and Kompakt's clinical Cologne dub infused techno. The opening track is like the best Gas track that never was, a murky mumbly throbbing pulse, wrapped in a thick cowl of glistening, crackly ambience. So lush and thick you sort of just sink into it, lovely and luxurious. We would have been pleased as punch if the whole record was more of the same, but instead, things get gloriously mixed up. From the bizarre Foetus like industrial cabaret of "Lunik TM" to the shuffling bouncy techno-hop of "Cool Harbour" to the blissed out epic M83-like fuzz of "Beatitude", but all of it wrapped in the Orb's gauzy gritty production, and knack for subtly catchy melodies. The last third of the record slowly slips back into that perfect warm and swirly, lush and gritty, abstract shimmer we got but a glimpse of in the opening track. The perfect airy, fluffy-clouded send off, letting us drift off and float away. Keep your ears peeled and you might detect a brief little bit of AQ faves Longmont Potion Castle amidst all the drift and flutter!

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Undoubtedly, there are at least a few Roy Orbison songs somewhere in your collection. Most likely in the form of a greatest hits collection. Or covered by another artist. Which makes perfect sense as he wrote hit after hit, most of which have become part of our general consciousness, known to those who grew up with Orbison's songs back when, and to younger folks who may have heard them in David Lynch films. But Orbison was an artist of incredible depth and emotion and the way his actual albums were crafted deserve to be heard from start to finish, the way they were conceived. In Dreams is for sure his absolute masterpiece. A record which reaches tje very heart of longing, loss and yearning. While millions of records would follow dealing with many of these same heartbroken sentiments none of them quite understood and musically portrayed the beauty of anguish like Roy Orbison's records did. With lush instrumentation and his soaring unmistakable voice, In Dreams is a record that gets under your skin. A record for lonely nights, rainy days, and long drives. A dramatic flare that you can never doubt, not even for a second. What's so striking when you listen to In Dreams is how it actually could be be a greatest hits album. Who else could craft an entire album full of such perfect songs, each and everyone deserving to be played over and over again? Every one of these songs could be the song to take that devastating mix you're making to the next level. Every one of these songs brings a cinematic level of beauty to the heartache that undoubtedly all of us have felt at one time or another. No matter whether your current musical obsessions are psych-folk, black metal, prog, emo, indie rock, etc etc we dare you to listen to this record and not be moved. Timeless beauty and the ultimate anguish.

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Christian Fennesz (whose Hotel Parallel was one of the best electronica albums of 1997) and Christol Kurzmann laid down basic electronica compositions for academic jazz musicians to play around. At times it sounds like Amon Tobin being accompanied by Peter Brotzmann...and guess what...Brotzmann appears on one of the tracks. Quite a favorite around here.

The second album from the massive rotating ensemble of Viennese electron technicians, ensemble performers, and jazz musicians is just as much a Dadaist assault as the previous venture. Fronted by Christian Fennesz with his wicked powerbook manipulations and Christof Kurzmann on horns & electronics, Orchestra 33 1/3 rolls through damaged free jazz spliced erratically like a Burroughs' cut-up, lengthy drone workouts, and occasional electronica breakbeat algorithms. Certainly for fans of Mego.

This collection of sure-shot classics from this veritable Senegalese institution has been making us seriously crave hammocks and sunshine. All you're gonna want to do when you hear these songs is rock back and forth ever so gently as the wind blows and the sun shines and you forget all your worries at least for just a little while. The way Orchestra Baobab mix their Senegalese musical roots with elements of Latin, Caribbean and Cuban musical styles meshes so perfectly. Soulful vocals, call and response delivery, and a masterful use of horns. So good! All too often horns are brash and upfront and nothing but a shiny annoyance, but Orchestra Baobab know how to use horns, subtly and seductively, making them ring in our ears with such delight. The perfect lazy Sunday afternoon record for sure. Highly recommended!

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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. Seeing as how Orchestra Baobab had just released a brand new album, we thought we'd pick up their first album (recorded between 1970 & 1971) for kicks and it's so damn good we've decided we ought to just list it. Orchestra Baobab's namesake is derived from the club (its interior decorated like the trunk of a gigantic baobab tree) where the group backed up a fluid collection of vocalists who would sing for drink and cash. Unlike the group's later recordings, the tracks on N'Wolof have a much more subtle Latin influence with the exception of a few numbers (the vocal chorus for "Cheri Takama" sounding a great deal like "La Bamba".) At times, during the longer, contemplative numbers, they sound strikingly like Mali's Rail Band (itself the house band at a Bamako hotel) during this same period. Which should probably not come as much of a surprize considering Mali shares Senegal's Eastern border. It's these longer tracks -- some 7 and 8 minutes -- where Orchestra Baobab really shines; the vocals dropping out, leaving rhythm guitar, bass & drums to play unbelievably sensuous back up for laid back sax and guitar solos. And it's the guitar solos (by the amazing Barthelemy Attiso, who still plays with the group) that are truly *gorgeous*. It's that unmistakable African pop electric guitar sound: hollow body electric guitar with lots of reverb & tremolo. But then, on top of that, there's these insane psychedelic, fuzzed out solos with heaps of echo that fairly raises the hairs on your skin. It's almost painful when these tracks end, and you're awoken from your opiate like reverie. And it was all recorded live (sans audience I'm pretty sure) at the Club Baobab. The surviving tapes and albums -- originally released on the club's own Bao label -- are in varying states of decay -- you can distinctly hear some tape drop out more than once (but I personally love that such analog anomolies will forever survive in the digital realm.) But fidelity schmidelity, this album is absolutely fucking essential!

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Orchestra Baobab was formed in 1970 in Dakar, Senegal to inaugurate the opening of The Baobab Club. The band was made up of musicians from Dakar's Star Band (formed in 1960) and numerous other big players in Senegal's fertile music scene played parts in

RealAudio clip: Utrus Horas
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