[ aquarius records catalogue

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Showing results 451 through 500 of 1919.

SKWEEE alert!! Import full-length vinyl debut from Finland's Pavan, aka Frans Carlqvist, who is actually the same guy as Limonious, another essential skweee artist who's lp House Of Usher on his own label Flogsta Danshall we highlighted here last year. If you liked that one - or like ANY skweee - you ought to like this. And if we have to explain skweee, well, you haven't been paying attention have you? It's the homebrewed electronic music sub-sub-genre that started in Scandinavia, a mix of video-gamey, chip-tuney electro soundz and instrumental hip hop. Damaged, funky, infectious. This new lp from Pavan is a great example. Nine tracks of pure groovy skweee, with titles like "Punt Kick", "Holy Volts", "Afrika" and "Crank Up". Pavan lists his gear, for those interested, he's using the Ensoniq ASR-10, Atari 1040ST, Atari STacy, Minod Vorga Prototype, Minod Bit Sampler, Yamaha CS-5, Roland Juno 106, Roland RE-201, and Otari 8-track. Great stuff from one of the masters of skweee!

We wasted much time rolling round the floor laughing at Cory Brown's Pavement 'review', that we thought we'd get some use out if it by reprinting here: "Well, there was this one Lollapalooza show we did, I think it was the middle of the tour, and Bob was getting out of control, as he tends to do. He just started going off, dancing crazily around the stage yelling 'Cacahuate!' Which means peanut in Mexican. Then he got pissed that the kids were moshing to 'Cut Your Hair' for, like, the umpteenth time, so he decided to moon the audience. Just then, some kid threw a tangerine at the stage and it got caught right between his cheeks. That was cool."

By the time we reached Pavement's Brighten The Corners, the band had ceased being a fucked up lo-fi noise drenched fractured pop underground phenom, and had transformed into something much more respectable. They embodied nineties college rock, they were most definitely indie rock darlings big time. But to be fair, with what sounded like a bid for commercial success, the band did manage to retain plenty of their snarky humor, and the hooks and catchiness that used to be buried under sheets of white noise or recorded from within a tin can on a dictaphone, are now on display for all to see, the sound lush and thick and polished and rocking and heck, it suits them. The opening one two punch of "Stereo" and "Shady Lane" is pretty tough to beat. "Stereo" with it's crunchy guitar, and goofy lyrics about Geddy Lee, and Shady Lane, with it's lilting sing songy main melody, and that super simple guitar line that is more catchy than you might thing at first. And a gorgeously, slightly atonal chorus seals the deal. Fuck it, by this time, we had made peace with the fact that the band would never make another Westing or Slanted, and all that was left to do was to luxuriate in Pavement's twisted crafty pop genius, and so we did. And so we are again. Pop music has definitely changed a lot in the last decade, so it's refreshing to hear this stuff again, and it's comforting to realize just how great it still sounds. The record proper is peppered with some weirdness, some fractured production, some strange druggy jams, some sung spoken Velvets style jams, but those are all part and parcel of Pavement's weird lovable pop universe. As with past deluxe reissues. Brighten gets all the bells and whistles, a gorgeous digipak, housed in a fancy diecut slipcover, a HUGE booklet with essays and liner notes and track info and tons of photos, and of course, a shitload of B-sides and unreleased tracks, a whole extra disc in fact, including some BBC sessions, a Clean cover (!), some live tracks, live on the radio performances, the aforementioned multitude of B-sides and two versions of the Space Ghost Theme!!!

MPEG stream: Stereo
MPEG stream: Shady Lane / J Vs. S
MPEG stream: Transport Is Arranged
MPEG stream: Date w/ IKEA

It's kind of sad when we hear stuff played to death, no matter how good it is, we find ourselves never wanting to hear it again. That's definitely the curse of commercial radio. I mean, can you imagine if you had never heard Led Zeppelin, or AC/DC or even "Freebird". How totally psyched you'd be. You would have your ass kicked on a daily basis. The same sort of thing happened with nineties indie rock. It was a time unmatched since, with band after band crafting perfect, clever jangly pop songs, but after a while, all it would have taken was hearing "Cut Your Hair" one more time to drive us into a psychotic rage. But given a little distance, and then given the chance to revisit arguably one of the finest moments in indie rock, one can't help but be blown away once again. Westing By Musket And Sextant may have been Pavement's experimental artrock masterpiece, and Slanted And Enchanted was THE ONE, the record that launched whatever you want to call it, indie rock, nineties college rock, slacker rock. But we all know that Crooked Rain was their finest moment. Where their sloppy chaotic need-to-annoy roots perfectly meshed with brilliant song writing, clever and witty lyrics and perect pop instrumentation. Lo-fi only in attitude, Crooked Rain was a solid 10. A perfect indie pop masterpiece. Shambolic and always on the verge of collapse but still so utterly without equal. No filler to be found. Or if there was filler, it was so good that you couldn't imagine the record without it. And then of course there was "Cut Your Hair", maybe the best indie rock song ever, with it's ridiculously catchy melody, ooh ooh vocals and snarky Stone Temple Pilots bashing lyrics. So here we are ten years later and you know what? It's just as good as you remember. And the icing on the double cd reissue cake is nine single b-sides, two compilation tracks including Andee's favorite Pavement song ever "Unseen Power Of The Picket Fence", a sort-of heartfelt ode to R.E.M. featuring the unforgettably funny (but right on) refrain: "TIME AFTER TIME WAS MY LEAST FAVORITE SONG!!" and a whole frickin' disc of unreleased tracks recorded during the Crooked Rain sessions. Twenty one new (to us at least) tracks plus a Peel session (R.I.P. John Peel) from 1994. So do yourself a favor and pick this up, and maybe also Guided By Voices' Bee Thousand and revisit indie rock's golden years and come to the somewhat shocking realisation, much like we did, that nothing has even come close since then.

MPEG stream: Silence Kit
MPEG stream: Elevate Me Later
MPEG stream: Stop Breathin'
MPEG stream: Unfair
MPEG stream: Unseen Power Of The Picket Fence

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

SORRY.

Hey Stephen, do you remember when you didn't take your indie rock super stardom for granted? When you liked Beefheart? What the fuck happened? Why do you have to write such crappy adult contemporary rock songs now?

Is there really any need for a Pavement greatest hits? Maybe not. But listening to this again, we are definitely reminded of just how fucking great these guys were, and how incredible these songs are. Most of us have all their records and thus all these songs, but for the uninitiated, we really can't imagine how blown away someone would be hearing all these songs for the first time AT ONCE. Probably be too much. So many stone cold indie rock classics, even the weaker tracks are still miles above most other indie rock. And the gems, the 'hits', still untouchable. Songs spanning the groups entire career, including some compilation tracks including what might be our favorite Pavement track ever, "Unseen Power Of The Picket Fence", from the No Alternative comp, a fractured, gnarled weirdo pop gem, with plenty of that Pavement style namedropping, mostly about R.E.M., featuring a classic sort-of-chorus: a howled "'Time After Time' was my least favorite song", and a totally tripped out buzzing synth, clattery, spoken word outro. Plus there's "Summer Babe", still the defining Pavement jam for most of us. As is "Trigger Cut". And of course there's "Cut Your Hair" and "Range Life" and well, we could go on and on... Needless to say, if you were just looking for a killer Pavement mixtape, then this will totally hit the spot, and if you've somehow never heard Pavement, or only heard one or two of their later records, then hell, this should definitely set you straight, and while it might be unnecessary, we can tell you that around here we've been playing the shit out of this, which pretty much says it all.

MPEG stream: Gold Soundz
MPEG stream: Cut Your Hair
MPEG stream: Shady Lane / J Vs. S
MPEG stream: Summer Babe (Winter Version)
MPEG stream: Box Elder
MPEG stream: Unseen Power Of The Picket Fence

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

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As much as I've whined and moaned about Pavement's last few albums being, in my opinion, less than wonderful, no one can dispute the fact that Slanted & Enchanted is one fucking great record. If you have never heard Pavement's full length debut, stop reading right now. Just buy it. It's like the zenith of indie rock. It could be the only indie rock record you own and you would still have the best of the genre. (And if you disagree, my friend Andee will beat you up.) The songs are so satisfyingly melodic yet delivered all fractured and suffused with a lackadaisical sort of ironic stance. Which was at one point cool, remember? Anyway, what we have here is a deluxe double disc reissue for the price of a single disc. In addition to the entire Slanted & Enchanted album, you get: several tracks from the Slanted session, a John Peel octet of tunes, the Watery Domestic ep, tracks from the Watery session, and an entire live show! A total of 48 tracks, 23 of which are previously unreleased. The accompanying booklet is full of juicy tidbits from Matador label guys Chris Lombard and Gerard Cosloy, Drag City founder Dan Koretzky (both labels wanted to release it), their booker, and the band itself. So essential.

RealAudio clip: Summer Babe
RealAudio clip: Baptist Blacktick

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. Features four tracks not to be found anywhere else (but only one, different from those on the cd, on the 7").

Hey all y'all Pavement devotees! Better make some more room on your cd library shelf because your favorite band's discography continues to be reissued in deluxe fashion. Those beloved indie rockers' third full length (originally released back in '95) gets even lengthier with Matador Records' generous retrospective double disc treatment. Of course you get the original album proper, but the hits keep on coming with the addition of the b-sides from Wowee Zowee's singles, the Pacific Trim ep, a handful of compilation tracks, another handful of previously unreleased outtakes, a pair of live numbers recorded in the Netherlands, BBC and Radio Australia sessions. That all adds up to a gargantuan total of fifty tracks of Pavement. Say it with us, "Hot damn!" And lest we forget the thick 64 page tome that's included too. Wowee, indeed! An ultra fan pleaser!

MPEG stream: Best Friend's Arm
MPEG stream: Dancing With The Elders

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Like Touch And Go, Sub Pop was another record label that began life as a printed zine, and like T&G, Sub Pop the ZINE, has now also been compiled into a big beautiful book by the fine folks at Bazillion Points. And while we're guessing lots of you are quite familiar with Sub Pop the label, odds are, unless you were living in the Northwest in the eighties, or were very connected from somewhere else, this might be the first time you're seeing the zine version. And it's pretty fantastic. Less like a zine actually, and more like a massive, constantly updated list. Of bands, stores, labels, a comprehensive sampling of the underground by Sub Pop mainman Bruce Pavitt, focused obviously on the Northwest, but also including 'scene report's from L.A., Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Portland, Vancouver, Chicago, and pretty much anyplace else amazing underground music was happening. Subterranean Pop (as it was called initially), was essentially a DIY guide to underground music, a proto-Book Your Own Fucking Life (at one point even supplying pressing plant info so folks could make their own records), and in a way, it even reads a bit like an American underground version of the infamous Nurse With Wound list. Albeit with a bit more context. That context though is pretty hilarious, one review of a Jad Fair 7" simply says: "Jad Fair is the most interesting person in the United States." The Circle Jerks' Group Sex lp is described as "Mellow folk rock. Kinda like Jackson Browne." And about the Flesh Eaters' No Questions Asked lp Pavitt has this to say: "Intense, Satan-inspired poetry. The vocalist is a distinctive, wormy tenor. Creepy punk rock." And check out the SF portions, they read like Superior Viaduct's mission statement, a list of records they have (and likely WILL) reissue. It's super fun reading, and a fantastic sampling of a specific time in the underground, as well as a look at the early days of grunge, and in general, the world of indie rock, pre-internet. Not to mention, as you might have surmised from the above reviews, a lot of the snark you'd expect. Music nerds NEED this, if just for the comprehensive lists of bands and labels, some super obscurities you've likely not heard (or even heard of), and besides all 9 issues of the Sub Pop zine, the book also compiles six months of Pavitt's column for the Seattle Rocket newspaper, which essentially read like mini issues of the zine. Tons of rare photos (by Charles Peterson among others), rare artwork (from Jad Fair, Charles Burns, Lynda Barry and more), reproductions of the columns, the zines, and essays by loads of folks, including Calvin Johnson (Beat Happening, K Records), Gerard Cosloy (Matador Records, 12XU, Conflict) anymore more more! All in a beautiful 400 page, glossy covered, perfect bound coffee table book.

Stoner/cock rock from Norway's Pawnshop whose religious icons are located under the hood of a '66 Ford 289 Mustang as well as in their pants. Required listening alongside Kyuss, Hellacopters, and Monster Magnet.

Ignore the embarrassing cover art and the too twee band name if you can, but definitely dig into Glaswegian trio Paws's unabashedly nineties style indie rock debut. A perfect hybrid of the all too obvious influences, mostly Superchunk, but a little Dinosaur Jr. too, heck if this record came out twenty years ago, heck, they might be indie rock elder statesmen themselves now, but these kids were barely even born then, but somehow they amassed a pretty kick ass record collection, one we would imagine included the aforementioned Dinosaur and Superchunk, Archers Of Loaf too, but we hear a lot of lesser knowns (which could just be us), but heck, if you're an old guy or gal like us, and remember loving Small (or Small 23), Further, Loomis, Throneberry, Clumsy, Tripping Daisy and all the myriad other fuzzy, jangly, indie rock bands that were the soundtracks to all our crushes and breakups and roadtrips, then Paws will push all your buttons. And these guys aren't doing anything new, in fact they're doing just the opposite, essentially channeling everything we loved about nineties indie/college rock, fuzzy guitars, soaring choruses, whiny sad boy vocals, lyrics mostly about girls and breakups and teenage things, but these guys do it so well, hooks galore, crazy catchy songs, strident and super rocking, with plenty of jangle too, it's a lot like the sound of modern retro indie rock outfits like Silversun Pickups (themselves dead ringers for Smashing Pumpkins), but played by kids, and it sounds like it, youthful and ramshackle, totally fun, the sort of sound that makes you almost unable to resist embracing your inner indie rocker, it'll take all your will power to not flail about, air guitaring and singing along. Maybe the best nineties style indie rock record, since, well, since the nineties!

MPEG stream: Catherine 1956
MPEG stream: Jellyfish
MPEG stream: Homecoming
MPEG stream: Pony
MPEG stream: Sore Tummy

Record number two from these nineties worshipping Scots, and while the nineties resurgence is in full swing all over, these guys do it better than most (and better than a lot of bands back in the day too!), and like their last record, Cokefloat, Youth Culture Forever is another glorious concoction of all the stuff we loved about that music/era, big fuzzy, crunchy guitars, hooks galore, chiming harmonics, earnest heartfelt vocals, all woven into a record that sounds like it could easily have been transported directly here from 1995, and like the previous record, it touches on the sound of all those bands we used to love, and heck, still do, Dinosaur Jr, Superchunk, the Pixies, and of course all the lesser known indie rockers trafficking in equally cool and catchy sounds, and cool and catchy is exactly what this record is. They've definitely expanded their sonic palette this time around, the sounds of the songs are definitely more varied, and the songwriting too is a bit more fully fleshed out, and not overly worshipful of the bands that came before, and really, if you had never heard any nineties indie rock, there's no reason you couldn't still love this, or wouldn't still love it, but if you DID dig that stuff, it gives this sound a little extra oomph, and just like when Cokefloat came out, we have to fight the urge to listen to NOTHING but this. And just like before, we're beginning to think, "Why fight it�?". Why indeed.

MPEG stream: Erreur Himaine
MPEG stream: Tongues
MPEG stream: Someone New

Those of you who dig the '70s heavy rock proto-metal stuff like we do, need to check out this rad Peruvian band. This new cd reissue is better'n previous editions we've seen in terms of track inclusion, featuring as it does all of the eponymous 1970 Pax album plus, like it says, seven bonus tracks, including their cover of "Radar Love"! They also do "Smoke Of The Water" (sic), but hey back then that wasn't quite so tired. Pax, featuring former members of Peruvian '60s beat combo Los Shains, were definitely one of the heaviest South American rock acts of their day (that we've heard, that is), easily competitive with American and British bands like Bang, Leafhound, and Sir Lord Baltimore. And they even have a bit of a groovy, Hendrix/Funkadelic (early Funkadelic) vibe as well. Yes indeed, Pax provide plenty of cowbell, wah-wah guitar, drug references, and all-right-now! rock n' roll attitude -- enough to make any fan of the aforementioned bands (not to mention the likes of Juan de la Cruz, Los Dug Dugs, and Modulo 1000) happy. They're not 100 percent heavy all the time -- few bands back then were -- but the lighter stuff is quite nice too and when they're heavy they're HEAVY, riffy with raw, in-your-face production and nicely rough-edged vocals, that you'll hear on such tracks as "A Storyless Junkie", "Deep Death", "Pig Pen Boogie", and "Firefly". Serious subjects, some of it (junkies, death) but they can be playful too, silly even, as on "Shake Your Ass". A '60 flowers and beads vibe comes through on the gentle, melodic likes of "Green Paper (Toilet)" and "For Cecilia" as well.

MPEG stream: A Storyless Junkie
MPEG stream: Green Paper (Toilet)

Probably best know for his boss bashing hit "Take This Job And Shove It" (written by David Allan Coe!), Paycheck began life as Donald Eugene Lytle, originally performing as Donny Young, before, changing his name to Johnny Paycheck, and falling in with the outlaw country movement, along with folks like Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, etc. In the sixties, Paycheck started his own label, Little Darlin, and released a handful of records, all pretty intense and twisted and gorgeous, and rarely heard. This killer comp collects those rare tracks, and while on first listen, this sounds like classic honky tonk country, his voice immediately recognizable, but the sounds pretty classic, listen closer, pay attention to the lyrics, and suddenly the sounds don't sound so classic, instead, they are dark, and sinister, and seriously fucked up. Or at least with a twisted sense of humor. The sticker on the cd describes Paycheck thusly: "Imagine David Lynch As A Honky Tonky Singer" which is not that far off. On the surface, everything appears normal, but just below the surface, something much more dangerous lurks. A killer. Maybe. A psycho, VERY likely. Tales of murder, suicide, death, insanity and oh yes, drinking, just have a gander at some of the song titles: "(It's A Mighty Fine Line) Between Love And Hate", "(Pardon Me) I've Got Someone To Kill", "It Won't Be Long (And I'll Be Hating You)", "There's No Easy Way To Die", "I'm A Coward", intense and spooky and menacing, but all set to killer country twang and foot stomping honky tonk. Another winner from Omni, and like all the Omni reissues, this comes with a huge booklet, new liner notes, and tons of photos. And as always most definitely recommended.

MPEG stream: (It's A Mighty Thin Line) Between Love And Hate
MPEG stream: (Pardon Me) I've Got Someone To Kill
MPEG stream: It Won't Be Long (And I'll Be Hating You)
MPEG stream: Don't Monkey With Another Monkey's Monkey

Adam Payne of Residual Echoes fame returns with a truly solo album. It's one of those where your appreciation (or lack thereof) of his singing may make it or break it for you. To us, his vocals here kinda sound like an uninspired, more conventional Dave Thomas (Peru Ubu). And rather than the blown out heavy psych weirdness (with some '80s SST label art-punk stylings) that we were used to from Residual Echoes, this is mostly much more of a straight ahead indie rock/bar rock blend, unfortunately tending towards the latter half of that equation. Sorry, we just weren't into most of this, at least not compared to Payne's earlier work in the Echoes, who we do really really like. Not that this doesn't have its moments. For instance, the eight and a half minute meandering track five, "Incidental Arrangement" is a lovely, sinewy psych guitar instrumental that does sound rather SST (and also reminds us of the Sun City Girls).

MPEG stream: The One After Eyes
MPEG stream: In Hell
MPEG stream: Incidental Arrangement

1974 album of deep soul burners from the legendary Freda Payne. What a voice!

For its first ever archival release, the Root Strata label delves into Bay Area composer Maggi Payne's computerized music experiments from 1984-87. Composed for a unique dance/video project collaboration with experimental video maker Ed Tannebaum for a series of performances called Technological Feets. For these performances, the movements of three dancers live on stage are captured on camera and processed in real time on a screen above them. The dancers can view the processing on video monitors in front of them and thus react to their own movements. The music is then a mixture of live performed responses over prerecorded tracks. You can check one of the videos here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98fvPSNJHpw Payne, who is a dancer herself (as well as flautist, who performed on David Behrman's "On The Other Ocean" from 1977), imbues her music with a fresh rhythmic energy that makes these pieces instantly engaging. The terrific opener, "Flights of Fancy" is full of dynamic uplift but countered by a brooding undercurrent of minor key melancholia that for us outshines many current synth practitioners, the way it inches quite close to pop music. Titles like "Gamelan" and "Shimmer", give pretty clear clues to their direction, but the title piece, "Ahh-Ahh (Ver 2.1)" sourced from many forms of white noise, flute and snare drum, where, according to the liner notes, "spatial location and modulation are of primary concerns in this piece", is all subtle layered shifts of audio spectrum effects that is a tranced out disorientating delight. Root Strata has done a great service in getting this little known composer some much deserved wider attention. Payne who is currently the Co-Director of Contemporary Music at Mills College probably has had a hand in inspiring scores of young musicians and composers, we're sure among them the likes of Mariell V. Jakobsons and Gregg Kowalsky as well as Roger Tellier-Craig (Le Revelateur) and Sabrina Ratte who had a hand in getting this release to see the light of day. We can't recommend this enough!

MPEG stream: Flights Of Fancy
MPEG stream: Ahh-Ahh (Version 2)

Originally released as a super limited (and super pricey) cassette earlier this year, Das Tor is the latest blast of swirling near psychedelic black buzz grimnity from Swiss one band band Paysage D'Hiver, aka Wintherr, who also happens to be a member of Darkspace, a group whose grim black buzz is set somewhere in deep space, as opposed to the mysterious icy forests that seem to be the source of the Paysage demos and adorn most of the demo's covers. And while we're on the subject, it does seem kind of silly to keep referring to every Paysage record so far (ten since 1998) as a 'demo', seeing as we're not really expecting any of these demos to suddenly surface, re-recorded and super polished as a proper 'album'. Plus demos are just way more kvlt and underground� The sound on Das Tor, which comes six years after the last release, 2007's Einsamkeit, definitely sounds like maybe months have past, not years, a continuation of past records, the songs remain sprawling majestic epics, most begin with the sound of wind, softly swirling synths, the bulk of the tracks made up of tranced out, droned out blasts of icy buzz, the riffs blurred into sweeping swaths of thrum, swaddled in soaring shimmering synths, the drums blasting away, a tangled rhythmic skeleton buried in the mix, the vokills a demonic rasp that bleeds into the surrounding guitar buzz, listening to it in the store, it sounds like thick billows of blown out blurry noise, but strap some headphones on and details begin to emerge, textures and melodies, dynamics, in some places those dynamics are super dramatic. On opener "Offenbarung", the whole first half is all bleary, smeary droned out buzz, when suddenly, the song blossoms into something super melodic, and droney and doomy, a second guitar swooping in, laying down a creepy dirgey riff, wreathed in haunting melodies, the drums slowed down to a death march pound, the effect is stunning and super intense, this woozy, creepy crawl continues for several minutes, the sound blissing out to just a single guitar, before the sound explodes again into a furious blizzardy blast, beneath which, melodies and textures roil and churn, and then suddenly, the black buzz is peeled back, revealing more of that whipping wind, mysterious whispered voices, what sounds like some arctic field recordings, ghostly and abstract, which seems to explode right back into some churning doomy crush, only to bliss out again into a soft focus drift of ethereal atmospheric synth swirl and haunting cinematic ambience. The rest of the tracks - all epic, the shortest clocking in at 14:20 - follow a similar pattern, a brooding slow burn intro, often a lumbering, lurching doom, exploding into full on furious winter blast bliss out, synths swirling throughout, the songs dissipating in clouds of wind and icy ambience, the tracks laced with long stretches of smoldering droned out black buzz mesmer, wrapped in fields of gauzy synth, the melodies mournful and melancholic, the record finishing with an extended stretch of hushed kosmische synthscapery, again, swaddled in wintery winds and a grim foresty ambience. And while sonically, it's very reminiscent of past PdH record, it's surprisingly lush and not lo-fi, blown out and buzzy, but also super lush and layered and gorgeously mesmerizing. Total tranced out black metal bliss for sure. And like the other 'demos', Das Tor comes housed in an oversized A5 sized 8 panel fold out book style digipak, the whole thing sealed in a black envelope, the band name and album title printed in blank ink on the black sleeve. We have a bunch of these, but once they sell out, might take a while to get more from overseas, so grab one quick before they're gone, or be prepared to wait patiently for a restock!

MPEG stream: Offenbarung
MPEG stream: Macht Des Schicksals

Black metal may be all about the buzz and the blast, the insane insectoid riffing, the furious blast beats, the howled hateful shrieks, the epic arrangements and grim production, but it's also about drama, and mystery. Lots of folks scoff at the corpsepaint, and the forest photos, the spikes and the fire, but it's all part of the magic, the mood, it may seem played out and overdone, and often a little silly, but it is part of what makes black metal so weird and wonderful. And for us the weirder and more mysterious the better.� There is Immortal, the Blizzard Beasts, strange pro wrestling looking dudes tromping around in the snow. The is Absu, alchemical musical warlocks, conjuring up all sorts of demons. And there are about a million other corpsepainted ghouls lurking in black forests and staring out from blurry black and white photos. The thing is, with most of those guys, you can imagine them donning their corpsepaint after a pint down at the pub. You can imagine them lounging around in jeans, ordering Chinese food. The corpsepaint and their character in the band are things they put on like a costume. It's a little like when you realize one of your favorite artists is a normal person, you see them at the laundromat or the grocery store and some of the mystery is lost.� Thus, we seem to find ourselves drawn to the weirdest, most mysterious, most bizarre black metallers we can track down. Necrofrost is one. We know nothing about them, other than their strange blackened sounds, their demented corpsepainted visages staring out at us from the back of the record covers, their fucked song titles. It all helps create some alternate reality where those guys lurk in some primeval forest and create that impossible damaged and brilliantly fucked up music.� Such is also the case with Paysage D'Hiver, a one man band from Switzerland, who in addition to recording by himself as Paysage D'Hiver, is also a member of the equally mysterious black horde�Darkspace in which PD'H mainman Wintherr is called Wroth and is one of three creepy corpsepainted wraiths who all look strangely like�Pinhead from Hellraiser (we're doing our best to track down the Darkspace discs for the store too). Where Darkspace is some sort of science fiction cosmic black metal weirdness, Paysage is more of a blown out buzzy ode to nature and spirituality, to winter and of course to darkness. Paysage D'Hiver have,�over the last 8 or 9 years, released eight cassettes. That's it. Almost no one we know had ever heard them, or had owned one of those cassettes. But the mystery had everyone curious. And when we did finally hear the music, it was just as magical and mysterious as we had hoped. Recorded back in 1999, Die Festung was one of three Paysage demo tapes released that year, and the second in this comprehensive reissue campaign, which will find all 8 tapes being reissued on cd, each�packaged in a gorgeous oversized A5 book style sleeves, adorned with amazing wintry art and sealed in super subtle black on black printed envelopes. Unlike the other Paysage D'Hiver reissue reviewed elsewhere on this list (Schattengang), Die Festung is an epic and expansive series of ambient soundscapes, and not specifically black ambience, instead, the sound is much more along the lines of classic Krautrock a la Tangerine Dream or Popol Vuh or Cluster. Some folks here also heard some Gooomy trancelike bliss, like Cyann And Ben or M83, but way more minimal and spacey. All glistening soundscapes of looped synthesizers, simple keyboard figures repeated over and over and slowly shifting, layers of minor key whir, and vocal like melodies, epic and grand, smooth shimmery swells and majestic sweeps, sparkling clouds of electronic twinkles all glimmering and sparkling. Paysage D'Hiver translates to landscape of winter, and Die Festung sounds precisely like that. It's hard not to imagine long tracking shots of soft blue glaciers, of snowy peaks and forests that go on forever. A view from above of frosty landscapes and endless fields of snow and ice. So totally mesmerizing and lovely. The perfect companion to the buzzing black murk of�Schattengang. Packaged in an oversized A5 book style digipak, a gorgeous snowy forest and mysterious distant castle drawing adorning the front, inside a booklet full of drawings and photos, but of course almost no information or liner notes. So completely recommended. And as with most things, super limited, not sure how long these will be around....

MPEG stream: Eishalle
MPEG stream: Koenig Winter
MPEG stream: Prinz Frost

Finally! The wait is over. The final 4 releases in what is now a nearly complete reissue collection of all 9 demos from mysterious Swiss black metal horde Paysage D'Hiver. By now, most folks are probably more familiar with Swiss sci-fi black metallers Darkspace, whose mainman Tobias Mockl, aka Wroth, was the sole force behind the frosty, grim, wintry Burzumic blur that was Paysage D'Hiver. Calling himself Wintherr in Paysage, over the course of nearly a decade, Mockl crafted 9 full length demos, and two split releases, each one a stunning landscape of frostbitten buzz and buried blasting beats, of shrieked vokills, and haunting windswept interludes, of creepy footsteps and crunching ice, of lilting blackened folk and of totally epic black metal mastery. Paysage trafficked primarily in sprawling wintery epics, up to 20 minutes in length, rife with trancelike riffage, and long stretches of haunting ambience, the sort of black trance-inducing monotone mesmer that we can't seem to get enough of, although occasionally, Mockl would unleash something totally different, a record of Tangerine Dream like kraut synth drone ambience, or in the middle of a squall of furious black blasting, a strange lurching lumbering clean guitar lope, or long stretches of almost orchestral soundtrack like drift, but always the atmosphere was grim and cold and grey, the production blurred and buzzy and murky and lo-fi, but not shitty 4-track lo-fi, instead, that low fidelity was a part of the sound, just adding to the miserable freezing chill of the proceedings, casting a patina of dour despondency, evoking the shadow of dead trees and their skeletal branches, of epic expanses, buried in snow, inhospitable, barren, forlorn, of loneliness and sorrow, emptiness and death. Easily some of the most intense, otherworldly, creative and evocative black metal ever made, and one of our all time favorites for sure... Einsamkeit was the final release from Paysage D'Hiver, originally released on cassette in 2007, but the 'band' never officially 'broke up', so who knows, there could be a new Paysage some day, but for now, Einsamkeit was the band's last missive, three sprawling tracks, all right around 15 minutes, the first, a warm swirl of abstract krautdrone, deep murky pulses beneath shimmers of glimmering melody, all woven together by a strange barely there machine like whir, the track a sort of cinematic ambient drift, wheezing rumbles bleed into strange field recordings, almost industrial sounding clatter and creak underpin the barely there whisper of brushed percussion, and mysterious music box melodies, gorgeously creepy and abstract. As is the next track, another stretch of dreamlike ambience, but this time around it's hardly wintery, instead, the sound is warm and lush, almost sun dappled sounding even, warm wisps of melody, long languorous streaks of blurred chordal drift, it almost sounds like something that could be on Root Strata or Type, far removed from most black metal, even more black metal ambience. Drifty and hazy and gauzy and washed out and lovely. Finally, the first epoch of Paysage D'Hiver draws to a close, beginning with the whirling winter wind, then some seriously filthy distorted guitar buzz, laid over ominous minor key synths, droney and buzzy and blissed out, only to dissipate nearly right away, leaving just a strange militaristic drum beat, and a deep rumbling thrum, and some glimmering ethereal synth shimmer, the squiggly bits of sci-fi melody, reminding us a bit of Oneohtrix or Innercity, that same sort of retro-futuristic vibe, but here the sound is rendered as something much more grim and foreboding. The guitar eventually returns, more filthy black buzz, and vocals surface for the first time, harsh and hellish, but way down in the mix, like another layer of hiss, suddenly the drums drop out, and for some reason the tension ratchets WAY up, and the buzzing guitar and mewling vokills drone on and on, riding an undulating low end swell, before dropping out completely, leaving nothing but the wind, and the blackness beyond. Totally amazing, and essential! Like all the Paysage reissues, Einsamkeit comes in a gorgeous oversized A5 style digibook, with a cool super abstract starscape on the front, and inside a fold out booklet, with beautiful winter landscapes and minimal text. The whole thing sealed in a black envelope, the band name and album title printed in black ink, on the black background.

MPEG stream: Einkehr
MPEG stream: Kraft

At long last! One of the most anticipated black metal reissue campaigns EVER, moves forward with the 4th and 5th installment in the comprehensive cd rerelease of the entire recorded output by Swiss one man horde Paysage D'Hiver. Judging from past installments, and how often we get asked when the next disc is coming out, most of you have already freaked out a bit, added this to your cart, and begun 'the preparations', lighting the torches, blacking out the windows, turning your freezer on high and leaving the door open to produce thick drifts of snow throughout your house (well, it worked in Tom And Jerry cartoons), in anticipation of finally getting to immerse yourself in the frostbitten winter world of Paysage D'Hiver. Paysage are almost universally revered, as THEE ultimate grim and frosty black metal band, the soundscapes and sprawling epics the make up the 11 Paysage releases so far are truly transcendent, each one dramatically different than the last, but somehow a continuation, another chapter in a hopefully never ending saga. Much like how Darkspace creates a black metal that seems at once futuristic and alien, evoking distant planets, dead suns, black holes, strange ships and mysterious beings, Paysage invokes, crumbling stone walls, set amidst icy peaks, cloaked in year round snow, thick forests painted white, the branches heavy with frost and snow, flickering firelight bravely battling against the ever encroaching coldness, of darkness, and night, of moonlight and death, of earth and sky, seasons and most importantly Winter. Makes perfect sense then, as most of you already know that Wintherr, the man behind Paysage, is also a member of Darkspace. Both bands transcend the genre, using sound, by deftly arranging sounds similar to many other bands, in a whole new way, to create something wholly original, something that is more than just music, powerful sounds that transport and transform. Like Darkspace, the music of Paysage is made up of course by buzz and blast. And there are riffs and vokills. There are drums, and keyboards and bass. But right there is where any similarity to other black metal bands ends. The world of Paysage is a world of alchemy, it's far more difficult to imagine Wintherr hunched over a four track, than it is to picture him in a cave over a fire mixing potions. When we listen to Paysage, we don't picture someone in jeans and a t-shirt playing a guitar, we imagine a lonely figure wrapped in furs, hunched over, walking up an icy path toward a black structure in the foothills of some mighty mountain range, the windows glowing amber, a distant flicker barely visible through a wall of falling snow. And somehow that's exactly what makes this music so magical, and so utterly mind blowing. Kerker was originally released on cassette in 2000, and is essentially a single piece, split into movements, and of all the reissues so far is the murkiest, all of the requisite parts are present but the fidelity is so low, the recording so strange, that all of the constituent parts are rendered one swirling muted organic whole. Bands like Wold, Amocoma, Yoga, Paysage take it to a whole 'nother level. Beginning with a rumbling ambience, the main riff soon surfaces, barely audible over the din of the intro, and very little changes when the vocals and the drums join in, the sound becomes a bit more frenentic, headphones reveal more details, but even then, the sound is a swirling churning roiling black sea of buzz and blur and hum and rumble and whir occasionally coalescing into discernible black metal before seemingly blurring before your very eyes and slipping back into the abyss. So incredibly haunting and mysterious and beautifully fucked up. The second movement is all ambient, thick swaths of keyboard, and pounding industrial drums, a gurgling blackened drift, like trudging through some underground cavern populated with demons and monsters, huddled by firepits, trying desperately to escape the blizzard that lurks above. Here too the sound is incredible, lush, yet lo-fi, muddy and indistinct, but within that muddy swirl all manner of subtle details and slow shifting colors reveal themselves. Voices too, demonic, ominous, bubbling up from below. The third movement continues the descent, the ice melting, soon the rocks themselves liquefying into viscous black pools, the sound of this approach to hell is one of deep low end buzz, a blown out distorted rumble that seems to swirl malevolently beneath a haze of blurred whir, until finally a keyboard enters, adding a glimmer of light to the pitch black sprawl. Finally, the cycle is completed with another super distorted, murky blast, this time with synthesizers adding demented shards of melody, the drums an avalanche of pound and crash, the guitars a maniacal frenzied buzz, the vocals a subterranean gurgle, and again all blurred and smeared into a gorgeously hazy washed out smear of abstract buzzing blackness, dark and dramatic, haunting and enigmatic. Like all of the reissues, the cd is housed in a book sized A5 digipak, adorned with haunting images, this time a grim looking dungeon (Kerker means Dungeon) and a swirling black hole, with lyrics and NO liner notes. The digipak is housed in a black envelope, with the name of the band and the record printed in barely legible black ink.

MPEG stream: Tiefe
MPEG stream: Schritte

At long last! One of the most anticipated black metal reissue campaigns EVER, moves forward with the 4th and 5th installment in the comprehensive cd rerelease of the entire recorded output by Swiss one man horde Paysage D'Hiver. Judging from past installments, and how often we get asked when the next disc is coming out, most of you have already freaked out a bit, added this to your cart, and begun 'the preparations', lighting the torches, blacking out the windows, turning your freezer on high and leaving the door open to produce thick drifts of snow throughout your house (well, it worked in Tom And Jerry cartoons), in anticipation of finally getting to immerse yourself in the frostbitten winter world of Paysage D'Hiver. Paysage are almost universally revered, as THEE ultimate grim and frosty black metal band, the soundscapes and sprawling epics the make up the 11 Paysage releases so far are truly transcendent, each one dramatically different than the last, but somehow a continuation, another chapter in a hopefully never ending saga. Much like how Darkspace creates a black metal that seems at once futuristic and alien, evoking distant planets, dead suns, black holes, strange ships and mysterious beings, Paysage invokes, crumbling stone walls, set amidst icy peaks, cloaked in year round snow, thick forests painted white, the branches heavy with frost and snow, flickering firelight bravely battling against the ever encroaching coldness, of darkness, and night, of moonlight and death, of earth and sky, seasons and most importantly Winter. Makes perfect sense then, as most of you already know that Wintherr, the man behind Paysage, is also a member of Darkspace. Both bands transcend the genre, using sound, by deftly arranging sounds similar to many other bands, in a whole new way, to create something wholly original, something that is more than just music, powerful sounds that transport and transform. Like Darkspace, the music of Paysage is made up of course by buzz and blast. And there are riffs and vokills. There are drums, and keyboards and bass. But right there is where any similarity to other black metal bands ends. The world of Paysage is a world of alchemy, it's far more difficult to imagine Wintherr hunched over a four track, than it is to picture him in a cave over a fire mixing potions. When we listen to Paysage, we don't picture someone in jeans and a t-shirt playing a guitar, we imagine a lonely figure wrapped in furs, hunched over, walking up an icy path toward a black structure in the foothills of some mighty mountain range, the windows glowing amber, a distant flicker barely visible through a wall of falling snow. And somehow that's exactly what makes this music so magical, and so utterly mind blowing. Kristall & Isa was originally released on cassette in 2001, and is another blast of frostbitten brilliance, a furious buzzing trek across snow choked tundras, and right out of the gate, this is one of the fiercest of the Paysage discs, the guitar a furious buzz so in the red that it's blurred into a near static streak of sound, the vocals are harsh and hysterical, buried in the mix, the drums a motorik pound, and within the swirling chaos there seems to be strange melodies lurking, what sounds like flutes or keyboards surfacing and then disappearing in the blink of an eye, definitely lending a strangely psychedelic vibe to the proceedings. The record quickly shifts gears and transforms into lo-fi bedroom ambience, sounding like it was recorded on a boom box, all manner of clatter and clunk, the music and the vocals super low, it almost sounds like someone held up a microcassette recorded to the speaker of their stereo, super intimate and creepy. The follow up is much the same, only this time the music is a whooshy soft focus blur, but still the shifting microphone can be heard, as well as lots of tape hiss, a truly creepy ambience, like listening surreptitiously from afar. "Der Kristall Ist Eis" explodes into a bleary eyed buzzy black blast similar to the album opener, and again the sounds are so blurred and blown out that the track seems to gradually shift into some spaced out buzz drenched dronemusic, hypnotic and mesmerizing. A near static blast, that pounds away while all around it clouds of static and buzz swirl, and eventually, beautiful warm melodies surface from the din, and it suddenly sounds like two records playing at once, but in a really good. really strange way. After one more extended stretch of bedroom lo-fi field recordings, this one the most ambient and abstract of the bunch, a series of hushed whispers and some barely there shimmer, the final track explodes once again in a relentless frenzy of buzzing high end, machine like jackhammer pound, and a wall of blown out static rrrooooaaar. This track is the most varied of the bunch, slipping at one point into a lurching Burzumic lope, but only briefly before returning to the relentless wintery black onslaught. The band pause for breath, while cold winter winds blow through, the band offer up a tangled convoluted off kilter outro that sounds almost Deathspell-ish, before darkness falls once again and all that is left is the sound of the windswept wintery night. Like all of the reissues, the cd is housed in a book sized A5 digipak, adorned with haunting images, this time a beautiful winter forest and a snowy stream, with lyrics and NO liner notes. The digipak is housed in a black envelope, with the name of the band and the record printed in barely legible black ink.

MPEG stream: Isa
MPEG stream: Kalte

Finally! The wait is over. The final 4 releases in what is now a nearly complete reissue collection of all 9 demos from mysterious Swiss black metal horde Paysage D'Hiver. By now, most folks are probably more familiar with Swiss sci-fi black metallers Darkspace, whose mainman Tobias Mockl, aka Wroth, was the sole force behind the frosty, grim, wintry Burzumic blur that was Paysage D'Hiver. Calling himself Wintherr in Paysage, over the course of nearly a decade, Mockl crafted 9 full length demos, and two split releases, each one a stunning landscape of frostbitten buzz and buried blasting beats, of shrieked vokills, and haunting windswept interludes, of creepy footsteps and crunching ice, of lilting blackened folk and of totally epic black metal mastery. Paysage trafficked primarily in sprawling wintery epics, up to 20 minutes in length, rife with trancelike riffage, and long stretches of haunting ambience, the sort of black trance-inducing monotone mesmer that we can't seem to get enough of, although occasionally, Mockl would unleash something totally different, a record of Tangerine Dream like kraut synth drone ambience, or in the middle of a squall of furious black blasting, a strange lurching lumbering clean guitar lope, or long stretches of almost orchestral soundtrack like drift, but always the atmosphere was grim and cold and grey, the production blurred and buzzy and murky and lo-fi, but not shitty 4-track lo-fi, instead, that low fidelity was a part of the sound, just adding to the miserable freezing chill of the proceedings, casting a patina of dour despondency, evoking the shadow of dead trees and their skeletal branches, of epic expanses, buried in snow, inhospitable, barren, forlorn, of loneliness and sorrow, emptiness and death. Easily some of the most intense, otherworldly, creative and evocative black metal ever made, and one of our all time favorites for sure... Nacht was originally released on cassette in 2004, and features 4 looooong tracks, all between 12 and 18 minutes longs, and like most of the other Paysage records, the tracks are introduced, and separated by long stretches of wintery ambience, whipping winds, cracking branches, howling wolves, the opening track here introduces creepy deep organ drones, swirling synths, all super dramatic and atmospheric, perfectly woven into the howling winds, croaked demonic gurgles, a super haunting atmospheric black winter drift, that leads right into an extended stretch of mesmerizing black metal buzz, the riffing relentless, the drums machinelike and buried in the mix, the melodies epic and majestic, the vocals a sick alien gargle, the track shifting from blast, to doomic lumber, to buzzing black ambience and back again, underscored by barely there swaths of synth, before finally fading back out into the wintery ambience. The next track is more a sort of blackened buzzy drone, the riffs stretched into streaks of melody, layered into undulating sheets of frosty buzz, the vokills a constant creaking rasp, building in intensity, eventually becoming a super melodic dirgescape, all coruscating high end melodies and crumbling distorted low end, finally finishing off with just a single buzzing guitar, unfurling its riffage over the ever present winter wind. And finally, the record finishes with a gloriously epic chunk of freezing black buzz, relentless and intense, frantic riffing blasting beats, shrieked demonic howls and soaring synths, all gradually fading into the distance, as everything is swallowed up by the swirling snow and the bleak endless winter. Fucking incredible! Like all the Paysage reissues, Nacht comes in a gorgeous oversized A5 style digibook, with a super creepy, ultra minimal cover image, where you can just see a corpsepainted face in the light of a burning torch, inside is a foldout booklet, with another creepy image and some lyrics, all sealed up in a black envelope, with the band name and album titled printed on the front, black ink, on black background.

MPEG stream: Ein Getriebener Im Schneestreiben
MPEG stream: Finsternis, Tod Und Einsamkeit Ersticken Meinen Atem

Finally, the third Paysage D'Hiver reissue, in the continuing comprehensive reissue campaign, of what is quickly becoming our favorite 'new' black metal outfit. A mysterious Swiss one man band (who also plays in the equally mysterious Darkspace) who released a series of cassette demos beginning in 1998, most of which we never heard (and we're guessing very few of you did either) all of which are getting re-released as super deluxe cds, in fancy A5 book style digipaks, sealed in black envelopes. And so far, each one absolutely essential. We raved about the first two a few lists back, Schattengang, a three song, 40 minute frosty epic, equal parts blown out buzzy, blurry, hyper repetitive, trance-like black metal, and swirling rumbling black ambience, and Die Festung, which was all ambient, a krautrocky keyboard excursion more Tangerine Dream than Burzum. Paysage D'Hiver, the self titled demo originally released in 2000 (one of two that year) is another side of Wintherr's (great name!) Paysage D'Hiver, this time, it's all black metal, relentlessly buzzing, taking the mesmerizing looped repetitive nature of our favorite BM groups, and seriously pushing the envelope, taking riffs and pounding them out for close to twenty minutes. The ultimate blissed out buzz. Frosty and grim and creepy and seriously dark, but totally hypnotic and strangely beautiful. The first track, "Der Weg", sets thee tone, launching immediately into a murky insectoid riff, buzzy and majestic, then locking into it, creating a duper tense droning blackened landscape of buzz and blast. Over which the vocals wail and croak, the guitars so blurry and relentless, the actual riffs seem to fade away leaving a never ending buzz, just a constant whir of distorted guitar. Like a black metal Niblock. But in, and amidst, and over, and around, things mutate and shift, and turn an already bizarre droney buzz into something even stranger. The most surprising element is the violin. It moans and soars, unfurling haunting melodies, slightly off key, but just makes it that much more creepy, at first it sounds really out of place, but as the song drones on, the violin seems more and more an organic part of 'the sound'. Elsewhere there are strange melodic crooned vocals, female maybe, or a high male tenor, that soar ghostlike above the ever buzzing din, there are one or two momentary respites from the relentless onslaught, one a synthy sprawl, the other an acoustic interlude, but it's always back to that gloriously mesmerizing buzz. The second track is more of the same, and if anything even more droning, lots of epic keyboards, offering up subtle ambience, lurking right below the ever buzzing riffage, the pounding blast beats so low in the mix, they just sound like another layer of buzz, and the tortured anguished howls. Near the end of track two, the song drifts into a barely there black ambience, only to immediately resume, but instead of a furious blast, a loping sea sick waltz, very Burzumic, swaying and strangely sorrowful. The final track is another nearly 20 minute blast, the first half a wall of dense buzz, the second half, a keyboard drenched swirl of blackness, each based on the same riff, creating this slowly mutating buzzing black drone, with the keyboards gradually becoming more and more intense, eventually becoming the focal point as the black buzz drifts away, and for the last 5 minutes, a gorgeous Tim Hecker-ish, gauzy landscape of muted melody and slow shifting low end, all bathed in a swirling cloud of soft focus buzz. Dreamy and divine. So goddamn good. It's amazing, that until now, music this epic and intense, this emotional and utterly amazing, could be relegated to barely distributed cassette tapes. If you missed the last two, you are absolutely gonna want all of them. We're loving this like crazy, listening to it non stop, but already we're counting the minutes until the next one... Like the other two reissues, packaged in an oversized A5 book style digipak, this time with a gorgeous windswept forest hillside, and a mysterious dark figure hunched over, near the top adorning the front, inside a fold out booklet with another alternate image of the cover, but of course almost no information or liner notes. So completely recommended. Probably super limited as these things usually are...

MPEG stream: Welt Aus Eis
MPEG stream: Gefrorener Atem

Black metal may be all about the buzz and the blast, the insane insectoid riffing, the furious blast beats, the howled hateful shrieks, the epic arrangements and grim production, but it's also about drama, and mystery. Lots of folks scoff at the corpsepaint, and the forest photos, the spikes and the fire, but it's all part of the magic, the mood, it may seem played out and overdone, and often a little silly, but it is part of what makes black metal so weird and wonderful. And for us the weirder and more mysterious the better.� There is Immortal, the Blizzard Beasts, strange pro wrestling looking dudes tromping around in the snow. The is Absu, alchemical musical warlocks, conjuring up all sorts of demons. And there are about a million other corpsepainted ghouls lurking in black forests and staring out from blurry black and white photos. The thing is, with most of those guys, you can imagine them donning their corpsepaint after a pint down at the pub. You can imagine them lounging around in jeans, ordering Chinese food. The corpsepaint and their character in the band are things they put on like a costume. It's a little like when you realize one of your favorite artists is a normal person, you see them at the laundromat or the grocery store and some of the mystery is lost.� Thus, we seem to find ourselves drawn to the weirdest, most mysterious, most bizarre black metallers we can track down. Necrofrost is one. We know nothing about them, other than their strange blackened sounds, their demented corpsepainted visages staring out at us from the back of the record covers, their fucked song titles. It all helps create some alternate reality where those guys lurk in some primeval forest and create that impossible damaged and brilliantly fucked up music.� Such is also the case with Paysage D'Hiver, a one man band from Switzerland, who in addition to recording by himself as Paysage D'Hiver, is also a member of the equally mysterious black horde�Darkspace in which PD'H mainman Wintherr is called Wroth and is one of three creepy corpsepainted wraiths who all look strangely like�Pinhead from Hellraiser (we're doing our best to track down the Darkspace discs for the store too). Where Darkspace is some sort of science fiction cosmic black metal weirdness, Paysage is more of a blown out buzzy ode to nature and spirituality, to winter and of course to darkness. Paysage D'Hiver have,�over the last 8 or 9 years, released eight cassettes. That's it. Almost no one we know had ever heard them, or had owned one of those cassettes. But the mystery had everyone curious. And when we did finally hear the music, it was just as magical and mysterious as we had hoped.� Recorded back in 1999,�Schattengang was one of three Paysage demo tapes released that year, and the first in this comprehensive reissue campaign, which will find all 8 tapes being reissued on cd, each�packaged in a gorgeous oversized A5 book style sleeves, adorned with amazing wintry art and sealed in super subtle black on black printed envelopes. Schattengang is three long tracks, the longest almost 21 minutes, the shortest just under 7. Forty one minutes of haunting ambient foresty buzz. The opening track begins with some�gorgeous shimmery tranquil ambience, which soon�gives way to a murky muddy black buzzing smear, super blown out, and washed out, thick swaths of epic keyboards, over barely audible riffing, buried drumming, and vocals that are another murky layer of sound. Occasionally, the clouds part and you can hear some grim primitive riffing, but soon they are sucked back into a swirl of whirling blackness and dense FX, it's so fuzzy, and droney, it's almost more hypnotic and mesmerizing than blasting, but listen close and there is some serious black fury within Paysage's thick wash of whirled sound. The buzz eventually shifts gears�to a lugubrious, glacial funereal doom, plodding and monstrous, with huge simple drums, and long drawn out crumbling chords, guttural vocals, all stretched into a slithery blackened crawl. It's difficult to explain precisely why this stuff is so compelling, but it's just so dark and murky, and buzzy and dreamy, but not really like some of the other buzzy dreamy blackness we have championed in the past.� The second track begins with more drifting surreal ambience, tinkling�sleigh bells, before�a huge wave of fuzzy guitar drone, and swirling spaced out keyboards engulfs everything, a dense black blur, all the parts so fast and furious, so tangled up and smeared together, it sounds almost like some strange buzzing drone underpinned by sweeping cinematic keyboards, laced with�bits of dialogue and found sounds... About halfway through the song winds down into a dark droning�interlude all dreary synths, strange thumps and creaks, disembodied voices, the distant cry of wolves, the whir of the night winds, but it's not long before it's back to�full on droneblast, before finally slowly blissing out into a very mournful Xasthur like arpeggiated minor key coda, a loping almost sea sick waltz that loops and loops hypnotically before fading out. So epic. So black yet so strangely beautiful.� The final track is all ambient,�shimmering swaths of keyboard, glistening and glimmering, very Tangerine Dream or maybe Popol Vuh,�while beneath the surface, voices whisper and groan quietly, haunting hiss and bits of wind-like whir drift by, quite haunting and again very cinematic. Our new favorite blast of freezing grim black mystery for sure.� Packaged in an oversized A5 book style digipak, a gorgeous snowy forest drawing adorning the front, inside a booklet full of drawings and photos, but of course almost no information or liner notes. So completely recommended. And as with most things, super limited, not sure how long these will be around....

MPEG stream: Moloch
MPEG stream: Atmosphaere

Finally! The wait is over. The final 4 releases in what is now a nearly complete reissue collection of all 9 demos from mysterious Swiss black metal horde Paysage D'Hiver. By now, most folks are probably more familiar with Swiss sci-fi black metallers Darkspace, whose mainman Tobias Mockl, aka Wroth, was the sole force behind the frosty, grim, wintry Burzumic blur that was Paysage D'Hiver. Calling himself Wintherr in Paysage, over the course of nearly a decade, Mockl crafted 9 full length demos, and two split releases, each one a stunning landscape of frostbitten buzz and buried blasting beats, of shrieked vokills, and haunting windswept interludes, of creepy footsteps and crunching ice, of lilting blackened folk and of totally epic black metal mastery. Paysage trafficked primarily in sprawling wintery epics, up to 20 minutes in length, rife with trancelike riffage, and long stretches of haunting ambience, the sort of black trance-inducing monotone mesmer that we can't seem to get enough of, although occasionally, Mockl would unleash something totally different, a record of Tangerine Dream like kraut synth drone ambience, or in the middle of a squall of furious black blasting, a strange lurching lumbering clean guitar lope, or long stretches of almost orchestral soundtrack like drift, but always the atmosphere was grim and cold and grey, the production blurred and buzzy and murky and lo-fi, but not shitty 4-track lo-fi, instead, that low fidelity was a part of the sound, just adding to the miserable freezing chill of the proceedings, casting a patina of dour despondency, evoking the shadow of dead trees and their skeletal branches, of epic expanses, buried in snow, inhospitable, barren, forlorn, of loneliness and sorrow, emptiness and death. Easily some of the most intense, otherworldly, creative and evocative black metal ever made, and one of our all time favorites for sure... Steineiche was the very first Paysage D'Hiver demo, originally released in 1998, and over the course of four tracks, the shortest 11:34, the longest 24:27, pretty much every side of the Paysage sound is introduced, opening with a creepy intro, clean guitar, plucking out a mournful minor key melody, swirling winter winds, a croaking creaky vocal, like stumbling upon some reanimated skeleton in a cave on the side of a mountain, and having it begin to speak in some strange language, until finally, and quite abruptly, the track explodes in a frenzy of furious blasting, the guitars frantic, the buzzing woozy and warped, the vocals a continuous demonic shriek buried way down in the mix, almost an alien squeal, the whole track the musical equivalent to a raging snowstorm. Eventually, the track sputters to a halt, the drum machine skittering into a stretch of creepy drift, with more clean guitar, only to immediately burst into frenzied action again, listen closely and you'll here some super creepy deep voice intoning some mysterious passages WAY down in the mix, before taking off again, finally, the riffage grows weirdly angular, mirrored by strange choir like voices, the drums a half tempo pound, the vocals getting more and more garbled, before fading out with a tolling bell laced lumbering chug. The second track is an odd one, even by Paysage standards, huge downtuned chugging riffs, a guitar that almost sounds like a banjo, more tolling church bell, total grim frostbitten doom, but with that guitar/banjo, it sounds almost like some strange doomfolk Appalachia, the track does occasionally grow more dense, swirling warped synths, gurgling vokills, the riffage super thick and distorted, the whole thing almost dronelike, and so it goes slipping back and forth between the strange folky doom chug, and the churning garbled black grind, only to finally finish off with some haunting campfire folk, all moaning sorrowful fiddle, all wrapped in reverb, draped over the distant howl of the whipping wind. The longest track, is all ambient, lush synths over murky percussive pulses, a soundtrack like dronescape, laced with mysterious voices, fragments of minor key melody, deep rumbles, and distant shimmer, the tolling of bells, haunting operatic vocals, super atmospheric and cinematic, which leads directly into the final track, a seemingly super minimal drone / field recording, the whirring of winds, a distant low end pulse, a hushed bass rumble, it's not until about 6 minutes in, when what sounds like a radio broadcast of choir like voices, and they sound backwards too, tinny and mysterious, so creepy when paired with the rumbles and wind, and with the little bits of crackle, that give way to a murky washed out black metal buzz, wrapped wound those same voices, a strangely shoegazey sort of drift, that peters out quickly leaving just the wind, and tinkling chimes. So goddamn weird and amazing, and still more than a decade later, better than nearly any other black metal out there! Like the other reissues, Steineiche comes packaged in a gorgeous oversized A5 style digibook, some mysterious gnarled shapes on the cover, with a fold out booklet revealing winter scenes and lyrics, the whole thing sealed in a black envelope, with the band name and record title printed in black ink, on the black background, subtle, and nearly impossible to read.

MPEG stream: The Tree Woman
MPEG stream: The Tree

Finally! The wait is over. The final 4 releases in what is now a nearly complete reissue collection of all 9 demos from mysterious Swiss black metal horde Paysage D'Hiver. By now, most folks are probably more familiar with Swiss sci-fi black metallers Darkspace, whose mainman Tobias Mockl, aka Wroth, was the sole force behind the frosty, grim, wintry Burzumic blur that was Paysage D'Hiver. Calling himself Wintherr in Paysage, over the course of nearly a decade, Mockl crafted 9 full length demos, and two split releases, each one a stunning landscape of frostbitten buzz and buried blasting beats, of shrieked vokills, and haunting windswept interludes, of creepy footsteps and crunching ice, of lilting blackened folk and of totally epic black metal mastery. Paysage trafficked primarily in sprawling wintery epics, up to 20 minutes in length, rife with trancelike riffage, and long stretches of haunting ambience, the sort of black trance-inducing monotone mesmer that we can't seem to get enough of, although occasionally, Mockl would unleash something totally different, a record of Tangerine Dream like kraut synth drone ambience, or in the middle of a squall of furious black blasting, a strange lurching lumbering clean guitar lope, or long stretches of almost orchestral soundtrack like drift, but always the atmosphere was grim and cold and grey, the production blurred and buzzy and murky and lo-fi, but not shitty 4-track lo-fi, instead, that low fidelity was a part of the sound, just adding to the miserable freezing chill of the proceedings, casting a patina of dour despondency, evoking the shadow of dead trees and their skeletal branches, of epic expanses, buried in snow, inhospitable, barren, forlorn, of loneliness and sorrow, emptiness and death. Easily some of the most intense, otherworldly, creative and evocative black metal ever made, and one of our all time favorites for sure... Winterkalte was originally released in 2001, and begins with the sounds of screaming winds, and strange footsteps, and various random sounds, in fact it almost sounds like field recordings, or lost tapes from some doomed winter expedition, finally recovered after years and years, the sound buzzy and lo-fi, finally the guitars come in, sharp and harsh and brittle, the drums a machinelike skitter, exploding into a super raw and ultra intense blast of frosty blackness, the vocals so distorted and lo-fi they almost sound like white noise, the blasting is relentless, and trancelike, until finally some synths drift in, adding some super creepy texture and melodic counterpoint, and then with about 7 minutes left, the buzz and blast drop out, leaving just acoustic guitar, over the same whipping wind, and the lonely crunch of footsteps in snow, which trudge right into the next track, a very Burzumy plodding trudge, the guitars thick and buzzy, the vocals again blasts of near white noise, the melodies haunting and mournful, the vibe super intense and dramatic, the swirling synths in the background adding even more gravitas to the already abject winter miserablism of the doom drenched black dirge. The next track is nearly nothing but wind and wintery ambience, all but for a brief bit of haunting choral music right near the beginning, ghostly harmonies drifting spectrally over the sounds of winter. And so the mysterious personage trudges onward through the wind and snow and the black night, the ambience laced with tinkling distant melodies, before once again the song kicks in, a loping woozy riff, a galloping beat, and those whitenoise vox, all wrapped in a whirring blanket of soft noise and blurred hiss, only letting up occasionally, allowing in the wind, delicate crystalline melodies, and the percussive crunch and boom of distant mysterious goings on, but always lurching back into the blast and buzz. And so it goes, one more track, a blurred monochromatic blast of frozen blackness, gives way to the final movement, still more blasting and buzzing, shrieking and blackened flailing, furious and frenzied, again leaving space for frozen winds, and melancholy acoustic guitars, before the final squall of wintery buzz, finally finishing with acoustic guitars and ethereal synths, fading into the cold black night. Incredible, and as essential as all of the Paysage records. And like the other reissues, Winterkalte comes packaged in a gorgeous A5 style oversized digibook, the front adorned with a cool painting of some bleak winterscape, while inside, a fold out booklet, featuring lyrics. The whole thing sealed in a black envelope, the band name and album title printed on the outside, black on black!

MPEG stream: Ich Schreite
MPEG stream: Ich Starre
MPEG stream: Winter

Super cool embroidered patch from one of our favorite black metal bands. Black and white and silver, the band's logo frosted with snow. Your denim vest wants one of these soooooo bad. We only have a tiny handful of these so don't be too bummed out if they're gone before you get one...

OK, I admit it. No one here is a fan of Kruder and Dorfmeister, let's just leave it at that. If you can't say anything nice... then praise the side project instead. Really, though, one snowy evening in Lake Tahoe, stoned and well-fed, I did experience several moments of communion with the debut Peace Orchestra album, Peter Kruder's solo project, which is a well-executed piece of trip hop. This here Reset record is a remix album that IMO doesn't improve on the original, in fact the differing styles of the remixers make an already sufficiently cohesive statement into a mish mash. Can't we just leave well enough alone? Remixers include: DJ DSL, Gotan Project (whose leadoff remix is actually quite lovely, especially with the added bandoneon that makes for a very Morricone-style wistfulness), Zero dB, Guillaume boulard, Truby Trio, and more.

RealAudio clip: The Man (El Hombre de la Pampa mix by Gotan Project)

This is the first-ever reissue of the sole, rare-as-hell mid '70s LP by The Peace, an Afro-rock band that may or may-not have been made up of service members from the Zambian Air Force (and definitely included members of another obscure African rock band, The Witch), and holy crap it's a winner!�Unlike the Nigerian bands of the same era that retained a more distinctly African sound (for more on that, check out Sound Way's phenomenal Nigeria Rock Special comp), Black Power is a full-on Western-styled psych-fuzz groover that rocks in a soulful, funky way from start to finish.�It's American-sounding to the point that the only thing that truly gives this record away as being from Africa is the distinctly ESL-sounding vocal delivery. Pretty awesome. We can best describe it like this: imagine that weird band that sort of sounded like a ragtag version of the Allman Brothers that played at the county Apple Blossom Festival every year when you were a kid, somehow managing to get sent to Africa's Copperbelt region, absorbing the local culture, and then playing through smashed up amps at some mining town honky tonk. Loose and funky, kinda fuzzed and Hendrixy. With some lovely mellow, melodic moments, and harder rock riffing too. We're constantly having our minds blown here at aQ by the steady stream of gems coming from African crate diggers, and this find is no exception!� � PLEASE NOTE - We'd be remiss were we to leave out the following note from the label: "The sound for this album is not perfect at all. It's understandable that it's probably impossible to get a good condition copy of the original vinyl to remaster, as this is so so rare even to find in trashed condition. So it has remastered with a decent result in the most part of the album... but there are two songs that have some prominent noise."

MPEG stream: Black Power
MPEG stream: I Have Got No Money
MPEG stream: Peaceful Man

At their best, Peacepipe peel out great '60s California biker psych-guitar jams that sound like a cross between Blue Cheer and Quicksilver Messenger Service, full of wah wah action, distortion, and massive sustain. They also remind us a bit of Japan's White Heaven. Unfortunately, there are just a few let-down tracks, where they let hippie cliche and ill-fated dabblings in pop get the best of them. So it's not all killer. But, if you're in the mood, there's a lot of good stuff here that's totally worthwhile. Recorded in Hollywood, California circa 1969, this record is very dated, but very cool -- and heavy (a la Iron Butterfly, not Slayer!). Led by guitarist John Uzonyi, the Peacepipe trio (also known as The Human Equation) highlights John's vocals and wild guitar, but drummer Gary Tsuruda and keyboardist Rick Abts get their licks in as well. Chalk another one up for the Shadoks label, who have included three bonus tracks (two from their 1968 single) that weren't included on the Peacepipe LP (first issued by Rockadelic in '95) on this cd reissue.

RealAudio clip: Sea Of Nightmares
RealAudio clip: A Biker's Tune
RealAudio clip: The Day The War Has Ended

Lookie, here's Peaches' second album. Can she top the the disturbingly rauchy raps of her debut The Teaches Of Peaches? Well, first off, we've gotta hand it to her for the album cover, if not the title. Byram prefers to call this Amish And Proud or perhaps The C. Everett Koop record. As for the musical content, well we don't think Peaches fans will be disappointed! As to what those of us here who aren't Peaches fans (she's had a polarizing effect on the Aquarius staff) think, well, as the lead off track goes (and goes and goes) Peaches "don't give a fuck". So if she's "the kind of bitch you want to get with" then go to it. Rockin' rawer than '80s beat-box grooves and rawer than Lil' Kim rhymes, Fatherfucker is maybe what Pink would sound like if she really was punk like she poses. And as if to prove how punk Peaches is, this features a duet with none other than Iggy Pop, on the track "Kick It", and elsewhere she puts "Rock 'n' Roll" on her set list. Simple but effective, this album doesn't slack on Peaches' provocative sexual/gender stance while always rockin' the parti like Gold Chains. So if you can hang with song titles like "Shake Yer Dix" then you're only $14.98 away from a good time. The cd also includes some video for computers, if you dare.

MPEG stream: I'm The Kinda
MPEG stream: Kick It

Oh dirty, sassy, strong Miss Peaches is back with another clutch of sweaty and sexy dancefloor jams. By this point you probably know where you stand with Peaches and those of us already in love with her mischievous and intoxicating sounds are finding lots to delight us on I Feel Cream. While not hugely different than past releases, Cream does have a slightly shinier production (courtesy of Simian Mobile Disco and Digitalism) and there are a few tracks where Peaches sings full on and proves to have a pretty good singing voice. But fear not, she still gets down and dirty and keeps most of the rhythms and beats primitive and stripped down. It's a perfect blend of the new sleeker Peaches with the more raw dancefloor roots of her great debut Teaches Of Peaches from almost a decade ago. We would rather hear this blasting over the airwaves than Lady Ga Ga anytime! While AQ staffers have been pretty split over the years on Peaches (she does tend to create a love or hate response) those of us who love her sound and what she does, what she stands for, and the music she makes, are feeling pretty damn good about I Feel Cream.

MPEG stream: Serpentine
MPEG stream: Mommy Complex
MPEG stream: Lose You

First things first, we were pleased to see that fortunately Peaches has shorn her last album's copious facial hair, opting instead for a gold sequined head covering (tho' on the back cover we were dismayed to discover her spandex cameltoe in full bloom!). Not one to sit on the sidelines nor one to hold her tongue, she's juiced up her funky party pants and sidled herself up alongside the hip-electro-hop likes M.I.A. and Lady Sovereign. Now she strikes a balance between those gals and Le Tigre. She's broadened her vocal range with the extremes spanning from her trademark flat-line speak-sing and a more fiery Kathleen Hanna-style scream. Thick buzzin' synths and ball-crunchin' guitars surround her from start to finish. She's sure come quite a ways from her barebones pre-set button pushing debut Teaches Of Peaches. Still as lasciviously potty-mouthed fun as ever but with a heckuva lot more craft and oomph and guest stars too (Josh Homme, Feist and Joan Jett!).

MPEG stream: Fuck Or Kill
MPEG stream: You Love It

Raunchy freeze-dried lo-fi disco queen Peaches gets the teaches in house and accelerated funk, respectively, from Chick On Speed Tobi Neumann and Detroit's DJ Assault, reworking the title track from her Teaches of Peaches full length. Kid 606 Fucks The Pain

RealAudio clip: Fuck The Pain Away (Kid 606 Going Back To Bali Remix)

Expanded North American Edition. Includes an exclusive bonus disc with new tracks, remixes and enhanced videos! Sure, Peaches is shallow ear candy, but we all need sugar sometimes. With songtitles like "Fuck the Pain Away" and "Lovertits," Peaches far surpasses Li'l Kim in raunchiness, and her cool vocal delivery is equal parts coked-out ice-queen, white girl trying out hip hop a la Debbie Harry, and fierce punk yowler on the level of PJ Harvey and Kathleen Hanna. The music is super simple freeze-dried disco / wannabe electro / digital hardcore complete with stark drum programming and disembodied armies of handclaps. The whole package is slightly tongue in cheek -- Peaches has got the Sandra Bernhard-style parody / pathetic reality thing down cold. Those who would spend their money on Chicks on Speed should really check this out instead. Peaches delivers.

RealAudio clip: Fuck the Pain Away
RealAudio clip: Hot Rod

Reissued on hella expensive vinyl. What we said 'bout it some years ago, originally, and we doubt anyone's opinions have changed much over the years... You are hereby forewarned that five AQ staffers totally hate this record, while two others like it a lot. AQ fistfight! We'd heard a lot from various customers recently about this female rapper with a disc on German indie-electronica label Kitty-Yo, so we finally had to order some in, and it's proved to be very controversial indeed. Here's what the thumbs-downers have to say: Yuck! Someone take that groovebox away from her, and wash her pottymouth out with soap. This is... really stupid and bad. Sheer aural annoyance. I could go on, but don't want to waste the space. File under: Chicks On Speed (no, actually it's worse than that). And here's the other side of the coin: Sure, Peaches is shallow ear candy, but we all need sugar sometime. With songtitles like "Fuck the Pain Away" and "Lovertits," Peaches far surpasses Li'l Kim in raunchiness, and her cool vocal delivery is equal parts coked-out ice-queen, white girl trying out hip hop a la Debbie Harry, and fierce punk yowler on the level of PJ Harvey and Kathleen Hanna. The music is super simple freeze-dried disco / wannabe electro / digital hardcore complete with stark drum programming and disembodied armies of handclaps. The whole package is slightly tongue in cheek - Peaches has got the Sandra Bernhard-style parody / pathetic reality thing down cold. Those who would spend their money on Chicks on Speed should really check this out instead. Peaches delivers.

[ aquarius records catalogue — P ]