[ aquarius records catalogue

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Showing results 401 through 450 of 915.

This soundtrack won an academy award in 1976 for best score and we can see why. It is so fantastic. Jerry Goldsmith also scored the original Planet of the Apes, Chinatown, Poltergeist, and the first Star Trek movie, among others. The Omen is full of maniacal chanting in latin and slow, super creepy instrumentals. Listening to this record made me feel like you feel as a child, when you're left alone and you're afraid to walk down the darkened hallway to the bathroom. It almost made me afraid to walk out back, behind Aquarius to get my bike where it was parked in one of the 'slaughterhouses'. Do you remember when Gregory Peck finds out his child's mother was a wolf and then shaves the patch of hair off his head to reveal the triple 6's? Ohhh... and do you remember in Omen Two when the black bird pecks the womans eyes out on the foggy road. The Omen one and two are irrefutably two of the most amazing 80's horror movies! But this soundtrack functions just as well by itself, a haunting and beautiful epic slice of evil!

RealAudio clip: Ave Satani
RealAudio clip: Where Is He?
RealAudio clip: A Doctor, Please

Watch out Senor Coconut! You might have someone on your tail. This is a record that was put out on a German label by an Amsterdam based Ukrainian born electronic artist known as German Popov who calls his project OMFO(Our Man From Odessa). With its Kraftwerk inspired title, Trans Balkan Express is made up many traditional Eastern European folk songs gone totally electro, dubbed out and quirky. OMFO do the same kind of genre and global combinations and bastardizations that Senor Coconut has made famous and somehow manage to come out sounding so endearing and infectious instead of schlocky and annoying. Old world sounds given a proper modern weirdo twist. Trans Balkan Express actually came out a couple years ago without much press or attention. Though it was a big hit at KUSF and much college radio it didn't seem to get its rightful attention. But thanks to its inclusion in the Borat movie and soundtrack it's been given a new lease on life. And with a new record in the works and an upcoming tour with none other then Senor Coconut we're sure to be geeking out to lots more OMFO in the future.

MPEG stream: Magic Mamaliga
MPEG stream: Chupino

Anytime you can get metalheads to start dancing and smiling you know you got some special skills! The latest offering from Amsterdam based and Ukrainian born electronic prankster/mastermind German Popov (aka OMFO), has been making all sorts of folks tap their foot and start grinning goofy wide smiles as we've been blasting this from our stereo. We Are The Shepherds picks up where Trans Balkan Express left off, with old world eastern European sounds given a proper weirdo kick in the ass. It makes so much sense that this outing was co-produced by kindred spirit Atom Heart (aka Senor Coconut) as these two have such a grasp on making electronica that's as goofy as it is good, so spazzy and well crafted. Sort of like Aavikko doing world music! The last three times we've been playing this folks who are usually camped out in our metal section couldn't help themselves and had to take one of these home with them. So fun and undeniably charming!

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MPEG stream: Tequila Gang Bang

Omit is the longstanding project of New Zealand's finest electron technician Clinton Williams, who dropped out of high school close to two decades ago and holed himself up in a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere New Zealand to wrangle with analogue synthesizers, 8-track tape decks, unruly drum machines, and a small army of effects pedals. There was a time in the '90s when Williams' output was ridiculously prolific, through countless cassettes in tiny editions and a handful of lathe-cut singles. His work caught the attention of the Dead C's Bruce Russell, who was so taken by Williams' work that he collaborated with the man as Dust/Omit and released a handful of discs through Russell's seminal Corpus Hermeticum imprint. Upon the release of the 1997 3cd boxset Quad, Williams' Omit project began to slow down tremendously. The quality of work had certainly continued, but the wealth of releases was considerably diminished. In 1999, there was Interior Desolation, brilliant with its squealing pigs adding to electronic claustrophobia. Then Anomalous released Rejector in 2002; and Helen Scarsdale had the honor of releasing the epochal darkness of Tracer (2005), and now the skeletal rhythmicist drones on Interceptor. Working in isolation has lead Williams to develop a language which is entirely his own, yet exhibits a curious convergent evolution with many of the other greats in DIY electronics - most notably Chris Carter from his days in Throbbing Gristle, Mika Vainio and his early hyper-minimal phaseshifting experiments in post-techno, and the gaping proto-industrial paranoia of Klaus Schulze. His work is simultaneously ponderously huge and effortlessly simple, as his sounds hover along intertwining sweeps of synthetic ambience grafted to simple rhythmic structures. The saddest melodies in the world poke through Omit's cold and barren surfaces, accenting the isolationist tendencies already inherent in these sounds. Interceptor is a slight detour in the Omit aesthetic, and the detour was by design as Williams had ventured outside of his hometown of Blenheim in search of a job. But he also brought two suitcases of gear with him to continue his recording. The frustrations he felt in his failure to secure employment are matched in the bleak gestures found on Interceptor. Williams had stripped away much of the grandiose sweeps of ambience and shadow, leaving behind a life-support system grid of overlapping, phase-shifted blip and click. An undertow of hypnotic tonalities pulls those rhythms towards a crepuscular gloom, which as with all of Omit's work are effortless in their compositional appearance. Anybody, and we mean ANYBODY, who has a passing interest in electronic music - contemporary, historic, surreal, arcane, Warp-ish, Kompakt-ish, or otherwise - has got to do themselves a favor and investing the time into Omit. The rewards are infinite from this under recognized, autodidactic genius.

MPEG stream: LockNut Shadow
MPEG stream: POD 4 Lander
MPEG stream: Loop ReBounder
MPEG stream: SkiMMEr

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

SORRY. With dozens of self released tapes, a 3cd boxset, and a handful of collaborations with Dead C/A Handful of Dust guitarist Bruce Russell, this New Zealand reclusive misanthrope returns with more dark & claustrophobic dronescapes. Found sounds, homemade instruments, & barely perceptible rhythms are forced into Omit's mostly broken 8-track in the form of tape loops which shift and pulse ominously. Plus the recurrent motif of squealing pigs. An absolutely stunning record!!!

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SORRY. Clinton Williams (aka Omit) is a misanthropic recluse who dropped out of high school and holed himself up in a small house in Blenheim, New Zealand to construct hundreds of hours of sinister looping sound collages. 3 discs of field recordings and bedroom drone constructions as if Nurse With Wound were to remix Main, obsessively illustrated with black and white diagrams. We have only a limited quantity of these...

Through his DeepSkin imprint, the hermetic New Zealander Clinton Williams has released dozens of cassettes as Omit, housed in his obtuse artwork of bizzare post-Dali monsterisms and awkward geometric shapes. Due to the absence of Williams' artwork on this CD-R production of "Rejector," SySecular doesn't apppear to be the CD-R extention of the Deep Skin cassette catalogue. As Omit's work for haunted synth / loop constructions are incredibly well-executed and sublimely creepy, it's a shame that "Rejector" has only received CD-R status; regardless it's a more accessible format than the nearly-obsolete cassette. Omit's work has clear predecessors in '70s Kraut synthesists like Conrad Schnitzler, Kluster, and early Tangerine Dream; yet his apparently sinister intentions and sci-fi isolationism push his productions closer to the sounds of mid '80s Nurse With Wound (i.e. "Homotopy To Marie") and Zoviet France (i.e. "Mohnomische"). His work uses some amazingly simple techniques of counterpointed tape loops (crackling wood, creaking doors, down-pitched tape splice clicks, etc.) that warble in and out of phase with each other, while dark synth drones swell in and out of the mix to form slowly developed two or three note melodies. As with all of the Omit recordings, "Rejector" comes highly recommended! Super limited too, so don't dawdle.

RealAudio clip: Full Relay
RealAudio clip: Divider
RealAudio clip: Rejector

Over the past few years, we have made quite a fuss over the free-noise / dronescraping scene out of New Zealand, as perenially great artists such as the Dead C, Birchville Cat Motel, Flies Inside The Sun, Surface Of The Earth, RST, Eso Steel, Seht, Peter Wright, and many others form a population that is proportionally way larger than countries many many times the size of New Zealand. Amongst all of those NZ artists we mentioned, there is another artist who gets name-checked from time to time: Omit. At one time back in the mid-90s, Clinton Williams -- the sole knob twiddler and tape-splicer behind Omit -- put all of today's hyper-prolific cd-r artists to shame with his own stream of releases through his own cassette and lathe-cut imprint Deep Skin. An artist whose paranoiac aesthetic was completely wrapped up in the bunker mentality of '70s analogue electronics, Omit never really made the logical transition by updating from cassette to cd-r, having only re-released a fraction of his old tapes on disc, the Rejector reissued on Anomalous, the Quad boxset released on Corpus Hermeticum and now the monumental double disc set Tracer, rescued from obsolescence by The Helen Scarsdale Agency. While Williams calls the tiny farming comunity of Blenheim, New Zealand his home, there is very little in his work that latches upon the gristled noise and feral folk tunes heard in many of his fellow New Zealanders. Instead, his work sprawls from the sci-fi bleakness that ran through the post-psychedelic explorations of German electronics, most notably Klaus Schulze, Conrad Schnitzler, and Cluster. At the same time, Omit's kosmische homage stands as an eerie parallel to the Raster-Noton sound that ripples with Omit's millenial horror, albeit through the sterility of digital production. Comparisons have also been made to early '80s Cabaret Voltaire, but Omit is infinitely better in executing his ideas than CV ever were. It could be said that Mr. Williams is a man in the wrong time, in the wrong part of the world; and all things considered, Mr. Williams would probably like it that way. Perhaps the best way to make the world's most isolating music is to be thoroughly isolated oneself. Following his previous work on Anomalous and Corpus Hermeticum, Tracer demonstrates a finely crafted execution in these bleak, isolationist recordings. The slow moving synth sweeps, creeping electric atmospheres, unnerving loops of mechanized clamour, and low-slung rhythmic austerity have all of the trappings of industrial culture strategies in using technology to critique technology's alienation over mankind; yet, Omit has never really stated what this is about, instead leaving hints that Omit is merely a reflection of Clinton Williams' soul expressed through blighted electronic hypnosis. Emotive expressionism isn't something you think of when it comes to Cabaret Voltaire or Throbbing Gristle, but that's the ground where Williams has consistently tred. You would be hard pressed to find an electronic album as majestic, melancholy, and profoundly human as Tracer.

MPEG stream: Sequester
MPEG stream: Syn Flex Dump
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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.

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. Boredoms guitarist Yamamoto's trio has made their poppiest record yet and still it kicks ass, never sickly sweet at all, just excellent chiming guitars alongside a whole lot of that genre-twisting racket we already love Hatoba for perfecting. This is the US version of the import, and it has an extra song NOT on the import.

1987-1993 live collection from this Boredoms offshoot.

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 Omo's, second major label effort, not scheduled for US release. Their records keep getting better and better, this one reaching new heights of toothy melody and sludgy sweetness, along with their usual tour through the murky depths of rock's weirder edges. Yamamoto (of Boredoms), Tsuyama and friends explore new post-rock-electronica realms...

On, not to be confused with the mysterious New Zealand mindfuck punk band of the same name previously released on Campbell Kneale's Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label, is a collaboration between French composer Sylvain Chaveau and percussionist Steven Hess of Pan American and Haptic. But then built into the concept of their collaboration, the recordings they make together are then handed off to a third party, this time around to the one and only Helge Sten, aka Deathprod, to be "remixed", for the lack of a better description, and thus we have Your Naked Ghost Come Back at Night. Like much of the dark and trembling chill of many Type releases from Svarte Greiner and Xela, listening to the blurred spectral ambience of On's sound, it is nearly impossible to distinguish the original source material from Sten's treatments. We can only know the ghosts. Originally recorded in 2003 with a limited release in 2004 on the Les Disques Du Soleil Et De L'Acier label, Type has fittingly reissued this unique release which in all but name is pretty much the final Deathprod release as Sten has vowed never to record under that name again! Like all of Type's releases, the vinyl is limited so act fast!

MPEG stream: Your Naked Ghost Comes Back at Night and Flies Around My Bed
MPEG stream: In The Forest of The Night
MPEG stream: Too Many Demons Still Haunt This Land

This one is a total mystery. Not sure where they're from (New Zealand we guess) or what their story is, other than the fact that it was released on Campbell Kneale's (Birchville Cat Motel) Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label, and that it is one seriously blown out punked up slab of garage-y scuzz and roll. Heavy and noisy, spastic and sludgy, when this was playing in the front of the store, Allan went up to see what black metal record was playing if that tells you anything. Filthy and crumbling ultra distorted guitars, boy girl vocals WAY down in the mix, riffs that go from paint peeling shred to gut churning rumble. Some ungodly hybrid of vintage Dead C, the Butthole Surfers, The Germs, Flipper, recent AQ faves the Violent Students, and recent Siltbreeze noisemakers Times New Viking. This is definitely punk as fuck, but wrapped in layer after layer of guitar grit and broken amp splatter, classic punk rock swallowed whole, chewed up and spit out in huge sludgy gobs of grrrrr and rrrroooaaar. Epic sludgescapes of pound and churn, showered with wild lightning bolts of squealing feedback. There seem to be pop songs in there somewhere, but don't even try to dig that deep, you'll just end up bruised and bloodied, or you'll lose a hand or an arm. Best to just lay back, close your eyes real tight, clamp your hands tight over your ears, let these noise rockers just back their ten ton punksludge steamroller right over you and pray you survive.

MPEG stream: We've Got TV
MPEG stream: Fire Down Below
MPEG stream: My Head

Record number three from the duo known simply as On, made up of composer / producer Sylvain Chauveau and percussionist Steven Hess, a member of both Pan American and Haptic, all favorites around here, so it's no surprise that we dig On as well. And their recording technique has always been pretty cool, capturing various improvisations, song fragments, completed songs, various textures and sound experiments, and the handing the whole thing over to another musician to shape into whatever sort of record he or she imagined. Deathprod was the guest arranger/producer/assembler on the last album, and this time around, it's none other than long time aQ fave, experimental guitarist and soundscaper Christian Fennesz, and Fennesz definitely works his magic, assembling the various parts into sweeping smoldering minimal epics, gorgeous dronescapes and wide swaths of glimmering ambience. The record opens with a cloud of layered feedback, all high end skree, before gradually dissipating into something more delicate and tranquil, hushed chiming melodies, and crystalline overtones, give way to a much more soothing stretch of throb and thrum, wreathed in gentle static and subtle glitch, dark tones glide and shift, drifting through clouds of cymbal shimmer, fields of click and skitter, but all smeared into a slowly unwinding spiral of smoldering lysergic swells. The record switches gears part way through, and becomes much more woozy and soft focus, muted tones, a warm washed out haze, and finally some stripped down skeletal drumming, the vibe almost krautrocky, simple and spare and propulsive, the background ever swirling and whirling, a softly lopped melody drifting in and out of earshot, the whole thing mesmerizing and hypnotic, before the drums eventually fade out, leaving a bleary landscape of slowly melting tones, and gently collapsing melodies, a hushed abstract, dreambliss outro. Which makes the darkness of the next track that much more dramatic, churning buzzing muted riffage, looped and layered, wrapped in a cloud of delicate cymbal sizzle, subtly rhythmic, locked in an awesome groove, WAY too short at a little over 4 minutes, but that leads right into the epic 20 minute closer, mirroring the opening track, with another field of hushed and muted feedback, tangled buried melodies, the various bits of guitar, and barely there percussion woven into a slowly shifting gradually mutating dreamscape, sounding more and more like a proper Fennesz record, prismatic, kaleidoscopic, warm and lustrous, lush and fantastically abstract, very reminiscent of Oval, that sort of looped glitchery, but here, it's much more organic, much more soothing and entrancing, totally captivating and utterly lovely.

MPEG stream: The Inconsolable Polymath
MPEG stream: Blank Space
MPEG stream: Something That Has Form And Something That Does Not

Still more metalcore, and STILL we can't get enough. This is some seriously punishing, pummelling brutality. Plenty of death metal chug and that double kick/muffled guitar syncopation that drives me crazy no matter how many times I hear it. It wouldn't be metalcore without some sensitive emo-boy breakdowns, and there's some of that here, but those sensitive moments are brief, and before you know it are buried under a full metal crush, squealing feedback, pounding double kick, paint-peeling riffs, throbbing earthquake bass. On Broken Wings seem to have a thing for the half time breakdown, that slow-down-to-a-crawl, guitar tuned so low the strings hang loose from the fretboard, molten lava riff, with sub-human death metal grunt vocals, and Metallica's 'One' style double kick bursts. SO HEAVY. It kills me. A wicked wall of sludge, grinding and throbbing, before it erupts into a full-on metallic fist to the sternum. There's also some weirdly melodic post rock bits, but even those bits are slathered with massive drop-D (or C) riffs that mow down everything in their path leaving a stage full of destroyed equipment and a pit full of broken bodies. There's even a couple handclaps(!), that's right just a couple, dropped in the midst of the metallic maelstrom, but you'll just have to find those yourself. So good. Quite possible the heaviest metalcore record yet!

MPEG stream: Listless
MPEG stream: Maybe The Earth Is Flat

On Fillmore is Darin Gray (Brise Glace, Dazzling Killmen, Gastr Del Sol) and Glenn Kotche (Boxhead Ensemble, Wilco). These two put their heads together and come up with something new for both of them. Acoustic bass and vibraphone are the foundation, laying down simple almost jazzy/funky grooves. But the focus seems to be on wild and scattered percussion: triangles and chimes and bells and drums and pots and pans are WAY up in the mix and are responsible for most of the tecture and melody. The sound is kind of how you imagine Brise Glace or You Fantastic covering Sun Ra with a purposefully limited pallet. Very hypnotic and noir-ish, slightly jazzy but more just simple, dark and moody.

RealAudio clip: Unexpected Guest
RealAudio clip: Cricket Conquers Cave

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Creeper Lagoon fans can take some comfort that after a brief break, former singer guitarist Ian Sefchick of their fave band has gone on to make more poppy goodness in On The Speakers. Following a similar path to that of his former band in more ways than one, Sefchick's new combo released this EP on the lil' indie label 17 Reasons last year only to have it re-released shortly thereafter on major label Universal. Not surprisingly, On The Speakers sound bears more than a striking resemblance to the Creeper Lagoon template of catchy clever guitar indie rock. Each of these six songs come complete with soaring choruses, boyish vocals, winking lyrics and swelling teen movie soundtrack fuzzy distorted guitars.

MPEG stream: Could I Be Right

Oakland's Once And Future Band, featuring among their ranks guitarist Eli Eckert (ex-Drunkhorse) and keyboardist/vocalist Joel Robinow (ex-Howlin' Rain), have become minor sensations in the local scene, with friends of ours like Phil Manley (Trans Am, Life Coach), singing their praises. And having heard this record, and also having seen 'em live, we can see why - musically, they're REALLY GOOD, and they have to be, 'cause their chosen style - super '70s soundin' laid back groovy pop prog jazz fusion (!!!) is all about chops, after all. And they have 'em. Chops, chops, chops - more chops than a kung-fu flick. But, also due to their chosen style, we can see how one -could- have a differing opinion about 'em. Depends on your taste/tolerance for certain aspects of '70s kitsch. What we mean, is, ok, virtuosic '70s keyboard prog, yeah, we like, a lot actually, maybe more than we should (ELP! ELP!). So go whole hog on that, ok. Er, but then, the more yacht-y, Steely Dan-ish side of Once And Future Band, well, is it ironic? Is it NOT ironic? We suppose it doesn't matter, if you like Steely Dan, which you certainly can. Still, it's funny how these guys are SO perfect at every detail of what they're doing that it comes off a bit like historical reenactment. That's not a criticism - in fact, it might be a compliment. A matter of perspective. We never complain about bands that sound like Goblin, after all, and parts here do. A band like these guys, who also have parts that sound like Caravan, and parts that sound like Return To Forever, is perhaps just braver and bolder (and better?) than most. Anyway, Brain, their 24 minute mini-album debut, is what they call "a four-song suite of soaring psychic jazz and Rundgrensque pop" and well that does describe it pretty well, leaving aside the question of just what is 'psychic jazz'. Something to do with their collective chops perhaps. But Brain is about more than chops, melody is big too. The songs and the singing strongly support the pop side, and all in all, it's pretty dang impressive - and quite enjoyable, if you like listening to music now that, when very similar music was made in the '70s, was more or less the reason punk rock happened (in reaction to it). Let the pendulum swing back!! 140 gram vinyl, gatefold sleeve, download included.

MPEG stream: Brain
MPEG stream: Heavenly Bodies

The Once And Future Herds brings together two overlapping Jewelled Antler duos: The Blithe Sons (Glenn Donaldson and Loren Chasse) and the Skygreen Leopards (Glenn Donaldson and Donovan Quinn). The material on this five song, 18-minute lil' 3" cd-r released by our friends PseudoArcana in New Zealand finds Glenn, Loren and Donovan relaxing back at the ranch (literally, this was recorded on a hillside out at Borges Ranch State Park) after a hard day of wrangling field recordings. As Jewelled Antler efforts go, this leans in a country-folk direction, more strummy and structured than is sometimes the case, with guit-fiddle to the fore and vocals that, at times, remind us of a muffled, mumbled Devendra Banhart. But all the weird, textural nature ambience you'd expect is also fully in the mix. It's really really nice and all you Jewelled Antler fanatics need to jump on it now, as we only have a dozen in stock of this limited release.

MPEG stream: Ranch Raga

Soundtrack to the fabulous documentary movie, which hopefully you were lucky enough to see. Blind blues musician Paul Pena travels to Tuva (Central Asia) to compete in their national throat-singing competition, a skill in which he is entirely self-taught. A funny, touching movie, and of course blessed with some great music! So, here's the hard-to-find soundtrack album.

With a press release that simply declares this as "sinister psych, semi-acoustic noise" and a photograph on the back of the LP with the band posturing with instruments in a crumpled shack out in the forest, this record was pretty much made for Aquarius. Onde is a project that has come out of Noise Maker's Fifes, a theatrically Neo-Dada ensemble in the same orbit as Nurse With Wound and HNAS. The best known member of these groups is Timo Von Luijk, who had recorded briefly in Mirror with Andrew Chalk & Christoph Heemann and more recently has continued on with Heemann as In Camera. Onde delivers with the sinister psych and semi-acoustic noise with four long form slabs of drone murk with one side being more of the dark, gloomy drone strategy, the other belonging to a monstrous heaviosity for sheer noise. The mellower shadowy half recalls Taj Mahal Travellers meandering through electronics and instrumental flutter with bits of the impressionist atmospheres of Mirror and In Camera coming through. On the flip, Onde crash head forward into the acoustic noise compaction of bowed metals, screeched steel strings, and growling amplifiers somewhere between Birchville Cat Motel, Organum, and Sunroof! It's pretty awesome.

Onde hail from the Belgian underground, and members of Onde had all been part of the psychedelic collage ensemble Noise-Maker's Fifes, a project that had more than a few parallels to HNAS. The first Onde record was something of a continuation of the gloomy atmospherics built from semi-improvised gestures; but Purple is an entirely different beast, that seems to lock itself onto the motorik rhythm and atonal squalor that Tony Conrad & Faust generated on their seminal Outside The Dream Syndicate. Even if they are not intentionally paying homage to that album, they do a damn good job of replicating that single-minded, art-rock minimalism with sustained violin harmonics shot through with an insistent heartbeat kick-drum rhythm and double-timed guitar arpeggiation that phases out of its monotone with throat-singing harmonics. Onde's harmonics seem to have more of an expressionist urgency than the cantankerous pursuit of a pure minimalism that Conrad demands on Outside The Dream Syndicate; but this is nevertheless fantastic. While the album was cut to be played at 45rpm, we are probably not alone in dropping the needle onto this record at 33rpm. This surely must have been by Onde's design, as at 33rpm the record now takes on a Neu! 2 feel with a slow-motion crawl of those hypnotic rhythms and detuned heaviness now oozing forth from the thick stringed drones, sounding all the more monstrous. Yeah, it's like getting two records for the price of one. Fuck, yeah!

We discovered the 200mg label via their recently released No Skull Left Unturned retrospective, which covered all the various Man Is The Bastard offshoots, the music of course was amazing, but it was also incredibly packaged, with multiple discs, patches, pins, books and booklets, so over the top. We decided to dig a little deeper and discovered a whole slew of strange and mysterious dark sounds, from ambient drone to outsider blackness to noise, everything we heard we dug, so we decided to dig a little deeper and list everything we could get. This release, from an entity known simply as Ondo, comes to us from Sweden, and is one looooong 40 minute track, of deep metallic dronemusic, thick shimmering layers of distorted sound, reverberating buzz, and smeared streaks of electronics. The sound is creepy and ominous, very cinematic, it's not hard to imagine some long tracking shot of an old graveyard, huge black birds soaring overhead, a dilapidated old house, a rusted out car in the yard, a tire swing barely shifting in the afternoon breeze, the sort of sloooooow shot that builds the suspense, that readies you for whatever horror might lie in wait. That's what the music of Ondo sounds like. Long drawn out tones, deep resonant notes, thick crumbling corrosive rumbles, bits of feedback and snippets of voices, everything dripping in effects and oozing with menace. This is definitely dark ambient music, but it's not all that ambient, it's active, some strange lifeforce inhabits these sounds and propels it forward, along with the listener, drawing us ever closer to some inexorable doom. Awesome. LIMITED TO 101 COPIES! Packaged in a cool oversized screenprinted cardstock sleeve, inside a 12 page printed black and white booklet on thick cream colored paper, packed with cool creepy old woodcuts.

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The second of two new releases on the always kick ass Paradigms label from the UK. The first being the reviewed-elsewhere-on-this-list latest release from 4AD ethereal drifters The Victims Shudder, the other, being this, the latest slab of crushing black ambience and deep dark dronemusic from Sweden's Ondo. Weirdly enough, we were already fans having dug heavily the cd-r released on 200mg a short while back, and were already pining for more, and voila. Whereas that cd-r was a single looooong song, this disc is split into distinct movements, each a bleak and caustic chunk of truly ominous ambience. Actually, there is so much stuff going on, and this is so dark and heavy, it's almost disingenuous to call it ambient music. This is cinematic abstract free noise drone music. Heavy enough to worm its way inside the ears of drone inclined metalheads, but dark and blissed out enough to keep the drone obsessed in downtuned druggy nirvana. The label mentions early Earth, Raison D'Etre and Fennesz, and damn if all three of those don't definitely apply. Pretty melodies are buried under slabs of grinding buzz, chords are woven into undulating sheets of fuzzy sound, everything is hissy and glitchy, with a gauzy sheen. Imagine Earth 2 as reimagined by Christian Fennesz and you might be getting close. Chords and notes, churn and throb, blackened sounds pulse ominously enveloping crystalline shimmers and music box like melodies, voices and samples are chopped up and distorted, riffs are pulled apart into washed out smears of sound. Some of the tracks definitely border on serious doom territory, while others are blurred distorted dreamscapes, all skittery and smeared, dark pianos, radio distortion and amp buzz, distant melodic whir, all tangled into something creepy and beautiful, strings draped over crumbling industrial crunch, all woven around heaving heaviness, rendered in slow moving swells. Way recommended for fans of things slow and low, dark and doomy, murky and mysterious. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Packaged in a white dvd style case, with a full color cover and printed black and white insert.

MPEG stream: Mahavishnu
MPEG stream: Forrest

The return of Swedish black metal masters, Ondskapt , who alongside blackened brethren like Funeral Mist, Deathspell Omega, Watain and the like, keep the black fire burning, but unlike the weirdly melodic classic metal of Watain, or the gnarled and twisted blackness of Funeral Mist and DSO, Ondskapt are something much more raw and primeval, primitive and TROO, their sound still hewing closely to the classic BM sound, the buzz and the blast, the howled monstrous bellow, the epic riffage, the frantic frenzied brutality, but where Ondskapt truly shine, is in their ability to conjure up atmosphere, to create a sound that evokes horror and misery and grim blackness, sure the riffs slay, and the band is brutal and punishing, but their sound oozes with a black spirit, an abject hopelessness that black metal is meant to embody, and that ambience, while not always overt and obvious, finds its way into every note, and every riff, the sound becomes more than black metal, it becomes blackness ITSELF, the buzz and blast just a mechanism for delivering that true grim blackness. The tracks here are epic and intense, veering from relentless blasting black metal buzz, to woozy lumbering doom, to pounding midtempo dirge, the riffs are epic and melodic, the melodies majestic and soaring, the drums powerful and crushing, the vocals hellish, but again, it's less what the various elements are doing, and more HOW, it's like these sounds are some sort of conjuration, a grim black ritual, moaned clean vocals, spiraling warped Burzumic buzz, depressive melodies and intense sorrowful ambience, all woven into a more traditional black metal framework, the sum a magical and mystical sonic spell that imbues the sound with an atmosphere of utter dread and black grimnity, and makes Ondskapt blackened high priests of black dread and demonic sonic evocation, and Arisen From The Ashes is their gospel.

MPEG stream: Ominous Worship Of The Divine
MPEG stream: A Graveyard Night

This is another one of those record we've been trying to list for ages but only just now managed to get enough of. This latest offering from Swedish black metallers Ondskapt will fit perfectly right there on your shelf next to your Deathspell Omega, Funearl Mist, Watain and Nortt records (that is assuming you don't alphebatize). Super reminiscent of old Mayhem (circa De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas) this is black metal in the classic style, buzzing and furious, epic and majestic. Few modern bands can pull that stuff off and not sound like second rate clones, but Ondskapt sound straightr out of the early nineties EXCEPT for their strange penchant for doom! Amidst all the buzzing and blasting, there are all sorts and manner of doom, litling, loping, seasick bits of midtempo doominess with creepy arpeggiated minor key melodies over simple pounding drumming, droning, buzzed out slow motion dirges with Iron Maiden-ish leads over the top, stretches of doom-flecked Burzumic buzz, all wrapped in black and surrounded by brutal bursts of black metal and occasional stretches of droning near-ambient malevolence. Then there's the vocals as well, which are pretty bizarre, veering from sort of shouted, through a bullhorn, politcal rally sort of vocalizing to full on throat shredding howls, demonic shrieks bordering on total hysteria a la Weakling. That's sort of what makes Ondskapt so cool and weird, a definite homage to the classic sound of Scandanavian black metal, but mixed with a heaping helping of depressive doom, and then all that sort of weird stuff, strange vocals, obtuse riffing, convoluted song structures and creepy ambient interludes, all mixed into a bizarrely brilliant black whole!

MPEG stream: Djavulens Ande
MPEG stream: Feeding The Flames

A grim, dank blast of fetid subterranean buzzing blackness from these Satanic Swedes, originally released in 2003, Draco Sit Mihi Dux was Ondskapt's debut, and found the band channeling a black frenzy similar to other Swedish groups like Watain, Ofermod and Funeral mist, mixing murky midtempo dirges with gnarled bursts of frenzied buzz and epic black metal majesty. The sound simultaneously raw and grim, dense and thick, a tranced out discordant dissonance, that while distinctly Swedish, seemed to owe much to the French as well (Deathspell, etc.), the tracks epic and serpentine, with the guitars slipping from doomy churn to atonal grind, the drums booming and echo drenched, mathy and complex, with some seriously dizzying stretches of wild double kick, the songs epic and ever shifting, moody and murky, the vocals tending toward guttural growls, only occasionally slipping into more hellish shrieks, or even more strangely, warped, clean crooned, almost operatic vox that give the proceedings a bit of an unhinged vibe. But for all the howling blackness and churning riffage, the atmosphere here is key, suffocating and fantastically tense, ritualistic and ominously grim, with much of the record devolving into thick sprawling expanses of droned out dirgery, laced liberally with blast and buzz, but even at its buzziest and blastiest, the sound still retains much of those slower parts' inherent bleak miserablism and dense sonic murk. Awesome. Reissue comes in a swank digipak with a big booklet, all printed metallic gold on black.

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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. This release on Polish label Perunrun comes to us via AQ pal Smolken who is Dead Raven Choir. One Inch Of Shadow are DRC labelmates in Poland and share a similar aesthetic although OIOS are essentially a pop band, but sort of a slowcore pop band, all murky and dreary and reverby. Creeping lugubrious basslines, whispery, heavily affected vocals, dreamy, swampy ambient backgrounds, simple shuffling beats, fuzzy far-away horns, smeary indistinct melodies, and repetetive, pulsing, rhythmic arrangements make this a gorgeously hypnotic late night listen. Fans of Low and Codeine, and even Tindersticks or the Blackheart Procession might really dig this.

MPEG stream: In Chapels and In Hotels
MPEG stream: Things To Change

Although this cd is credited to the individual talents of three artists -- Colophon aka Jefre Cantu of Tarentel, the guitar and synthesizer duo 1 Mile North and The Wind-Up Bird aka multi-instrumentalist Joe Grimm -- you really can't tell where one ends and the other begins. Indeed, Conduction. Convection. Radiation. as a whole is a cohesive, near-seamless work. Very spacious, drifting and atmospheric, the first three tracks are by 1 Mile North, and the following three are by Colophon. Gauzy drones cloud the skies with occasional austere guitar melodies coming in and out of focus. The latter four tracks are by The Wind-Up Bird and they're crafted from delicate elements such as violin strings that softly wheeze, and piano keys that sound as if they're being struck as if by random raindrops. Beautiful and haunting.

MPEG stream: Texas Heat
MPEG stream: Violin & Trumpet

Nico meets Jandek in these beautifully introspective proto-goth dirges by an anonymous woman from Czechoslovakia who moved to Canada and self-released these songs on a series of singles in the late seventies and early eighties. Music was her outlet to deal with the depression and alienation she felt living away from her home country, and these songs are almost laughably dour, though also quite lovably naive. Mostly performed with delicate Eastern-European tinged organ drones, she later recorded under the name, The Triffids (no connection to The Australian group), with an instrumental track that includes percussion and synth. Early demos are also included here, and display a slightly brighter air with acoustic guitar and reverbed vocals that will appeal to fans of Liz Harris (aka Grouper). Perhaps not a record for everyone, but those with unusual and eccentric tastes towards obscure but sincere outsiders will find a lot to love here! Comes with insert with lyric translations. Limited edition of 500.

MPEG stream: Life Is So Hard
MPEG stream: Faded Flowers

Does this One Umbrella possess special powers a la Mary Poppins? Not quite sure, but we can say that they are a duo from Austin, TX whose members have suitably unconventional, enchanting names Quebron and Novella, and whose soundscapes just might set you adrift. Their 23 minute long debut floats in from the outer space wing of the new SF label Tell-All Records. Layers of drones ebb and flow, while gentle and not so gentle digital glitches, pulses and hisses provide the more insistent elements along with an occasional unexpected pretty piano melodic line. Sooo dreamy.

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MPEG stream: XESTYL

Yes. God created a new Oneida ep and it is GOOOOOD. Unearthly constructions of aural impairment deliver us once again unto the artfully murky and damaged realm of Ooooonnnneeeeiiiiiiiiiddddddaaaaaaaaaaaa. This ep psychedelically drones its way through guitar drawn melodies and distant, fuzzy, darkly dreamy vocals. "Hakuna Matata"'s 15 minutes is an entrancing ROCK monolith that forcably delivers the nearly signature-Oneida prog-psych-rock kick in the head we've grown to love. This is a must-have for all fans of this band of Oberliners and hopefully a teaser for the next full-length. Might even be the release to sway the many Oneida-doubters on the AQ staff...

MPEG stream: Summerland
MPEG stream: Inside My Head

Ok, we admit that we have never been the biggest fans of this group, having only reviewed one previous full length and an ep out of the almost dozen or so they have released over the past ten years. And even when we gave praise to the releases we reviewed, not everyone here was so convinced. Their was always something a little too precious, mannered and often inconsistent about their past recordings that left many of us unsatisfied. Overrated, we thought. So we are all quite wonderfully surprised that their latest has become a unanimous store favorite. Big time! A far cry from the lush lavender orchestrations of The Wedding, the last Oneida record we dug, Preteen Weaponry is the first part of a planned trilogy that showcases the bands new beefed up sound. One full of thick rumbling krauty trance pulse, acidy sheets of distortion, and big dynamic cavey pummel. Thanks to the addition of Phil Manley (Trans Am, The Fucking Champs), the band's sound has more "in the red" heft and focus, earning heaps of praise for their recent stint of mindblowing live shows. Comprised of three long parts, Preteen Weaponry is less vocal-driven than previous outings. In fact, there's barely any vocals on here at all or melodic song structures even. Instead we're introduced to the album by a loud buzzing wall of subtlety shifting noise before the drums make the song propel forward in a lurching rhythm while bass keyboards and guitar start begin layering interweaving progressions reminding us of This Heat, Cave or a more fucked up Mogwai. The rhythms become more tribal and Boredoms-like for the second piece with layered and swelling sheets of feedback that build intensely into the albums only vocal passage before unwinding into the final part. Beginning with an almost cosmic peacefulness before hurtling full throttle into the sonic stratasphere, exploding and unfurling synth stabs and loud ear-shattering drones leave us aurally exhausted by the end. Definitely the heaviest and trippiest album we've ever heard from this group, and one that makes us extremely excited for the next two rounds. If you dig any of the bands mentioned above than you need to have this record. We're doubters no more!

MPEG stream: Preteen Weaponry Part 1
MPEG stream: Preteen Weaponry Part 2

Here it finally is. Oneida's loooooong promised TRIPLE album, itself part two in a trilogy of releases that appear to chronicle the long and epic history of Oneida itself. We're still trying to piece together a narrative, but judging by song titles like "Story Of O" and "O", not to mention the album title, the fact that the previous record was called Preteen Weaponry, and artwork that seems to imply the chronicling of said long and epic history, we're just going with our gut on this one. Either way, with a decade plus of mostly ups, Oneida have delivered what is arguably their best record yet, or at least since 2001's psychedelic mind fuck Anthem Of The Moon, and it's really one of the most challenging, out there, and overwhelmingly rad albums of the year. The greatest thing about this band is how they use psychedelia as a blueprint, reinterpreting it in the process, and twisting their tunes into something beyond simple classification. There's heaps of krauty goodness, ominous electro groove, strange dubbed out hellscapes, and bluesy psychedelic squall, but in the end Oneida sound unlike anyone else, not even themselves on their other records (though we won't neglect to mention that anyone digging the recent works of groups like Circle and Cave will find plenty to go crazy for with this one). One of the most noteworthy things about Rated O is the truly astounding precision playing that keeps everything in place. Everyone in the band (now augmented by Shahin Motia of Ex-Models and long time collaborator Barry London) is an ace performer, but GODDAMN is drummer Kid Millions' sense of pure rhythm mind boggling. The patterns Kid creates are essential to holding it all together, and his cyclical drumbeats are definitely the kind of next level shit that we should all aspire to. Coupled with literally some of the best fuzzed out organ tones ever committed to tape (EVER) and plenty of amazing psych guitar work, Rated O rocks and sways in all kinds of different directions, and it goes without saying that over the course of almost two hours, Oneida have given themselves plenty of time to seer their super repetitive jams deep into every nook and cranny of your brain. Throughout it all, they never cease to surprise, amaze, and with one song in particular, completely terrify (more on that in a bit). Rated O plays out like a long journey, with each disc representing specific elements of the diverse sound Oneida has forged over the years. The album begins with the uncharacteristic yet somehow totally appropriate "Brownout In Lagos," an electro-dub sort of number with a constant sub bass presence providing much of the movement as atmospheric noises swoosh about. When the awesome guest vocalist comes in you have to remind yourself that you are listening to Oneida as your eardrums are pounded into supplication. "What's Up Jackal?" sounds more like what you might expect from these guys, with feral, distorted howls and a bubbling, percussive organ accompanied by all kinds of synthy ambience and what sounds like an electric sitar. While they have no difficulty pounding out expansive drugged out numbers, this song perfectly displays Oneida's unique talent at creating tense, claustrophobic psych pieces that seem much more focused than anything that could be produced with mindless jamming. No doubt, the big surprise here is "The Human Factor," which pretty much succeeds at redefining "heavy". We almost couldn't believe what or who we were listening to, since this number is more what you might expect from Khanate of Fleshpress. The song begins with an impossibly slow, yet super tight drum pattern, which remains throughout the 13 minute song. The only other sound is provided by an electronic hum, and eventually creepy siren noises and the most HELLISH, completely out of control screaming we have heard in ages. We're still trying to figure out just how Oneida managed to create such an unsettling and awesome piece with so little, making most doom bands sound like Dan Fogelberg in comparison. This song obviously tested the limits of many folks, but if you are able to sit back and focus, you will find yourself marveling at the almost comedic yet totally fucked up intensity of it all. Disc 2 is the most typically Oneida-sounding of the three, starting with the epic jam "The River." This song is very much in the vein of the material from "Each One Teach One," with awesome repetitive organ pulses and fuzzy guitars that are both heavy and beautiful. Things really take off with this song, as the majestic sustained guitar chords and somewhat mournful vocals add a good amount of emotion. "I Will Haunt You" follows into similar psychedelic territory with big MC5 guitars and a generally mountainous sound. The final disc is the loosest and seemingly most improvised of the album, its three songs venturing farthest into the drug zone with their lumbering improvisational feel. Closing number "Folk Wisdom" is a huge 20 minute piece, perfectly sounding like the culmination of the entire record with its epic, growing intensity before ending with a queasy organ blip. If you've gone about things the right way, you will have listened to all of Rated O straight through, and you will wonder just what the hell hit you. Double albums are often enough to scare the shit out of any discerning music fan, and triple albums are generally unheard of. But Oneida cannot be generalized in terms of what is going on now or in the past. They are one of the few bands that truly has found its own unique voice and has taken things into realms most bands would never consider. Rated O is a serious piece of work, maybe a little too intimidating for the casual listener, but enough to keep Oneida's rabid fanbase jonesing for part three of the trilogy.

MPEG stream: Brownout In Lagos
MPEG stream: The Human Factor
MPEG stream: The River
MPEG stream: Ghost In The Room
MPEG stream: Folk Wisdom

First things first, it was just brought to our attention that those Oneida guys actually BUILT A GIANT MUSICBOX (apparently the largest in Eastern U.S.) out of plywood, saw blades, marine pilings and motor parts. Then they put it to good use forming the foundation of this album. Okay, hang on a sec, can we just say, HOLY SHIT!! Before we were aware of this considerable undertaking, we'd already written the following review. While we have added a few points, we still stand by our initial glowing praise: A very different Oneida greets us on their latest album The Wedding. More somber and delicate, less propulsive, abrasive and multipersonality-ed, but fortunately still unmistakably Oneida. The compositions and the album as a whole appear to be their most cohesive and even-keeled (in style, mood and tempo) to date. It's a refreshing change from past albums which been very rollercoaster-y with some of the band's strongest and weakest moments right next to each other -- perhaps due to their jam tendencies to fearlessly and freely follow their muse. Having said that, by no means does this shift indicate that Oneida has become any less adventurous, dynamic or challenging in their music-making. Hell, the fact that they dreamed up *and* constructed a GIANT MUSICBOX is proof of this alone (although to be honest, a few of us couldn't actually hear the music box, mixed as it is amidst the usual rock instrumentation, and due to the fact that the giant music box apparently ends up sounding a bit like the synths it's nestled up against). These guys are fucking astounding musicians with a wealth of creativity and chops that show no signs of drying up anytime soon. The analog synthesizers with which they've created some dense, fierce and otherworldly atmospheres in the past have been joined by not only the musicbox but also an impressive string ensemble (arranged and assembled by New York's Fireworks Ensemble's Brian Coughlin) which certainly makes for some of the band's most stunningly beautiful and introspective songs ever. Also contributing to this new persona is the consistency of the vocals which occasionally swoop up to falsetto, but generally linger in the gentle range of Pink Floyd's David Gilmour or Radar Brothers' Jim Putnam. Definitely more psych-folk than psych-rock. Quite a stunning achievement. Highly recommended.

MPEG stream: Heavenly Choir
MPEG stream: August Morning Haze

This vinyl-only split 12" from Oneida and Plastic Crimewave Sound is pretty darn rulin'. Recorded during their Thank Your Parents session, Oneida's "Psychedelic Maze" is an eerie and homespun late-night jam which sparsely used ukuleles, hexoleles, a lute and homemade drums to conjure a sorta hokey but amazing self-conscious folk sound that's almost more Sun City Girls-ish than Oneida-y. PCS's side is a fuzz-soaked drone-rock opus. "End of Cloud" utilizes some production tricks, motorik drumming and various waves and blasts that creates a pulsing frenzy to which a very stoned person could "meditate".

A while back we reviewed Hypnos, the most recent release from composer/guitarist Mario Diaz DeLeon, which at the time we described as sounding like the soundtrack to some strange apocalyptic planetarium show, fusing tranced out minimal kosmische drift and processed guitar textures to churning SUNNO))) like doomdrone, all blurred into a constantly shifting landscape of seriously heavy modern minimalism, that bordered on the maximal. So here we have DeLeon's most recent release, now under the name Oneirogen, the name of a track from Hypnos, and it should this come as no surprise that Oneirogen is not all that far removed from Hypnos, if anything the sound here are more song-like, and overall more metallic. Just check out the first track, which begins as a swirl of processed guitars, before suddenly a massive downtuned riff rolls in, thick, sludgey and doomy, and soon those two disparate elements seem to coalesce, and a second guitar swoops in the lay down soaring dramatic guitar melodies over the top. Almost leads in fact, giving the whole thing a seriously epic power metal vibe. It's not hard to imagine this as the intro track to some unreleased Lost Horizon or Blind Guardian record. Which if you couldn't tell, means we're digging this like crazy. We were all prepared to say that the rest of the record wasn't so overtly metal, but then track two "Pathogen" starts up with shimmering synths, pulsing cosmically, and then BAM, in comes the guitar, a roiling low end rumble, and a soaring distorted melody, another track that sounds like some strange hybrid of epic power metal and blissed out komische new age. And this time we won't bother, the rest of the record IS more of the same, and it's awesome, and epic, sure the guitars don't always come crashing in. Occasionally the sound stays locked in a shimmery synth swirl, or a gristly drone, but more often than not, those two sounds collide in a glorious supernova of sound. The 14+ minute centerpiece "Katabasis" is the ultimate example, with long stretches of wild squealing drones, and tranced out minimal buzz, but then total epic power metal riffage, some cool wavery high end sine tone shimmer, and some grinding epic upper register sort-of-shred, not to mention some creepy, twang flecked synth soaked ambience, and one stretch that sounds almost chorale. We were wondering when the worlds of kosmische new age, modern minimal composition and epic power metal would collide. And now that they have, it sounds so much better than we ever could have imagined.

MPEG stream: Numina
MPEG stream: Pathogen
MPEG stream: Mutilation
MPEG stream: Katabasis

[ aquarius records catalogue — O ]