[ aquarius records catalogue

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We've only got ONE of these limited edition pressings of Terry Riley's first release on his new label Sri Moonshine Studios. Perhaps you read the (positive) review in The Wire. Well, WE can't say it's all that good, but we can say it's nicely packaged and signed and numbered by the artist! You need to know more? It's a "74-minute seamless journey featuring voices, strings, synthesizer, piano and loops from India" and includes the final scene of Riley's opera "The Crucifixion of My Humble Self". There's got to be one Terry Riley fanatic out there who will want this, right? The less fanatic but still curious might wait for a normal, not-so-fancy, cheaper edition that may surface some day, or not.

Recent recording of Terry Riley's seminal work "In C." Because of its ambiguous instrumentation and relative ease of performance, "In C" has been performed and recorded in a multitude of varying arrangements in its 37 years of existence. In this version, "In C" is attacked with sitar, tabla, percusssion, voices (mostly extended technique, ie: growls) and orchestra. The performance was

The Terry Riley reissue campaign is in full effect and this week we were delighted to see his little heard seventies soundtracks, Les Yeux Fermes (Eyes Closed) from 1972 and Lifespan from 1974 arrive in our store (well, maybe Scott wasn't so delighted after shelling out $30 dollars for Lifespan on vinyl, just a couple of weeks ago). Le Yeux Fermes is comprised of two nearly twenty-minute pieces that are reminiscent of his early work on Reed Streams. The first is "Journey From A Death of a Friend" involving multiple organ and piano lines in counterpoint and the second is a more involved piece with delayed saxophone and organ counterpoints called "Happy Endings". The selections for Lifespan are six shorter pieces, which are a bit more diverse and melody oriented in their structures. "G Song" begins with an organ fugue repetition before the sax melody gives the piece more of a soundtrack theme, while "M.I.C.E.", short for Music In Curved Entrances, begins with a sustained organ and tabla drone before the melodic organ progressions kick into gear leading into the raga drones of "Slow Melody in Bhairavi" and the chanting Tangerine Dream-ish, "In The Summer". "The Oldtimer "is the most playful with an almost carnivalesque organ vamp, while "Delay" is just that, a slow burning organ drone with building and repeating organ lines that coalesce in a sea of pensive harmonics. We're surprised Riley hasn't done more soundtrack work. Listening to this makes us want to see the movies, especially Lifespan, which stars Klaus Kinski as a biochemist on a frantic search for the fountain of youth!

MPEG stream: Journey From The Death Of A Friend
MPEG stream: M.I.C.E.
MPEG stream: The Oldtimer

Elysium Fields has reissued this fine collection of Terry Riley pieces that was the kick off release of a fantastic string of reissues put out by the Cortical Foundation years ago. Here's what we said, way back when... This release compiles four early tape-works from Terry Riley that are linked by their common usage of jazz passages, even as they deteriorate over the course of the disc. Beginning with "Music For The Gift" (1963), Riley works with Chet Baker who provides his signature downer jazz warbly horn and a painterly stand-up bass, which Riley in turn tosses into his tape-loop mechanisms for some pretty tremendous, hallucinatory drones and phasing patterns. Think of the manipulations of "You're No Good" but with jazz instead of R&B. "Birds Of Paradise" (1965) is a tape-manipulation piece which loops seemingly random tape segments of jazz horns (probably from those Baker sessions) with a phasing delay predating the work of Zoviet France. "The Mescalin Mix" is a murky Robert Ashley-esque collection of neurotic whispers. The finale of the disc is "Concert for Two Pianos and Five Tape Recorders" which could easily be a No-Neck Blues Band pipe fight with an odd play-by-play narration of the concert. Certainly the current crop of drone artists can learn a thing or twelve from this collection of seminal recordings by the West Coast master of minimalism.

MPEG stream: Music For The Gift (part 3)
MPEG stream: Birds Of Paradise (part 2)
MPEG stream: The Mescalin Mix

This compiles four works from Terry Riley that are linked by their common usage of jazz passages, even as they deteriorate over the course of the disc. Beginning with "Music For The Gift" (1963), Riley works with Chet Baker for a pretty straight meditative jazz composition for Baker's warbly horn and a painterly stand-up bass. "Birds Of Paradise" (1965) is a tape-manipulation piece which loops seemingly random tape segments of jazz horns (perhaps from the Baker sessions???) with a phasing delay predating the work of Zoviet France. "The Mescalin Mix" is a murky Robert Ashley-esque collection of neurotic whispers. The finale of the disc is "Concert for Two Pianos and Five Tape Recorders" which could easily be a No-Neck Blues Band 'pipe fight' ('pipe fight' being a utilitarian term we've come up with for field recordings that sound..well..like a pipe fight) with an odd play-by-play narration of the concert. An awesome collection of seminal recordings.

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SORRY. Never before available. In 1967, students of the Nacka High School of Music in Stockholm performed this phase-shifting composition with Terry Riley accompanying on soprano saxophone. As much a pedgogical experiment as a performance, this recording is great moment in early minimalism--repetitive and hypnotic and slightly overwhelming orchestations that pulsate for a seeming eternity. Artwork by Riley and Bruce Conner. Liner notes by Folke Rabe.

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At last reissued (again), this live performance of minimal pioneer Terry Riley's signature piece, "Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band" from 1968. Using organ, saxaphone, and a "Time-Lag Accumulator" to create an echo effect (hence The Phantom Band), Riley's original performance was six hours long and lasted all night. Versions of this piece have appeared before on the B-side of A Rainbow in Curved Air and on the second disc of the Cortical Foundation's release of You're No Good (which we're hoping Elision Fields will also reissue!). This is a 40 minute edit of the original performance first released on Cortical Foundation in 1999. and we would gladly hear five hours more of this organic, lilting, and mesmerizing loveliness. Highly Recommended!

MPEG stream: Modal
MPEG stream: Fire

An absolutely stellar reissue of Terry Riley's debut album from 1966, Reed Streams. Containing two long pieces, "Untitled Organ" and "Dorian Reeds", we see the initial foundations of Riley's spiritualized minimalism that would culminate in the wide releases of A Rainbow in Curved Air and In C a few years later. "Untitled Organ" is a series of four- and eight-note patterns exchanged and interchanged in idiosyncratic modulations inevitably creating a third complex pattern. The effect is rigorous, repetitious and astounding for its lack of delay effects. "Dorian Reeds" makes use of more undulating and circular pulsations but this time is aided with tape echo to create a more time-altering effect. But the real treat of this reissue is the bonus track from 1970 of "In C (mantra)" performed by L'Infonie, a ragtag group of French-Canadian free players directed by Walter Boudreau. What L'Infonie adds to this piece is the use of propulsive percussion jettisoning this classic piece of conceptual music into a grooving krautrock tribal spree. Highly Recommended!!!!!!

MPEG stream: Dorian Reeds
MPEG stream: In C (Mantra)

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Live, recorded for French radio in 1978, this archival album from minimalist composer Terry Riley is a gorgeous solo meditation for specially modified organ and plenty of delay, running about 54 minutes in length. It's not unlike Riley's classic Shri Camel record from around the same time - he says, "the musical materials of The Last Camel In Paris are second generational belonging to the family of Shri Camel while manifesting their own distinct shape and flavor". On Last Camel, Riley's gently piping organ tones and tinklings ceaselessly unfurl, slowly modulating, truly a lovely late night listen for anyone with an ear for Riley's special brand of New Agey, neo-classical, psychedelic minimalism. It's one long, continuous performance but has been conveniently broken into ten seamless tracks on this cd release "as a guide to compositional changes" in the piece, which does move into more and more intense, ever-repetitive realms as the disc progresses. A most essential archival release for all Riley fans, despite the uninspiring album cover artwork (is that a solarized picture of a dream-catcher?). Inside the digipack, things look better, the foldout cd booklet having a black and white photo of the bald, bearded Riley in concert on one side, and liner notes (mostly in French, drat, though there is some text in English from Riley himself) on the other. Now, there's another Terry Riley reissue on this list, our Record Of The Week in fact, but don't fret, getting this along with Church Of Anthrax won't be too much of a good thing, just plenty of it!

MPEG stream: track 4
MPEG stream: track 6
MPEG stream: track 9

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SORRY. The unanimous AQ staff favorite of the week. Disc one is totally stuck in our cd player...it's only about 20 minutes long, but it may as well be infinite, 'cause we just keep playing it over and over. Appropriate, because, as with much of the late '60s work of American minimalist composer Terry Riley's work, repetition (with subtle changes) is the modus operandi here. The original source song "You're No Good", a pop-latin-boogaloo number released by Harvey Averne in 1968 (he's not credited in the liner notes to this, strangely) is a great tune in its own right. But soon after the original song's release. Terry Riley got his hands on it and created what oughta become one of his all time classic tracks. Riley used pedal-driven tape-loops and the Moog to take the infectious "You're No Good" chorus to extreme, abstract, mesmerizing lengths. It's looped over and under itself, at first sounding completely normal and then imperceptibly gets weirder and weirder until it's so odd that the customers in the store start looking concerned and asking if the cd player is skipping. It stutters wonderfully! Sometimes the left and right channels are playing different parts of the song simultaneously, to eerily beautiful effect. That the original song is so insanely catchy and hook-filled (it's a "Dancing in the Streets"-style pop number) definitely contributes to the accessibility and fun of the piece. Disco minimalism? Hell yeah. Apparently it was commissioned as theme song for what must have been a very avant-garde Philly dance club, the operator of which was a Terry Riley fan present at the concert documented on disc one... Brilliant. By the way, the original Averne song can be found on the compilation Dusty Fingers Vol. 2, and we've added a clip of the original below for you to compare. Disc 2 of this archival set is live material from one of Terry's Poppy Nogood All Night Concerts held in Philadelphia in the fall of 1967. The lovely drones produced by his soprano sax and "time-lag accumulator" must have kept the attendees happy and hypnotized in their sleeping bags 'til dawn, and now we can experience a cd's worth of it now at whatever time of day or night we choose. Nice.

RealAudio clip: You're Nogood
RealAudio clip: You're No Good (note: this does NOT appear on the Riley record!)

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It's beginning to look as though the most popularly recorded composition of the new millennium is going to be Terry Riley's "In C". Why is this? At first I thought that maybe it was because just about anyone can play it. But then I asked myself, "why

Two sidelong pieces recorded in 1969 and performed by Groupe d'Etude et Rèalisation Musicale of France, or simply the GERM Ensemble. Riley's "Keyboard Study 2" is a twenty-four minute minimalist exercise for two pianists (executed here by Gèrard Frèmy

As a founding member of the extremely successful group The Techniques, way back in 1962, Winston Riley probably could have retired at an early age. But, like many who'd started their careers under the production monopolies of Dodd and Reid, Riley eventually set out on his own to form his Techniques label. And while he never had a stable a fraction the size of Coxsone, he did have significant success. Most notable was his production of Ansel Collins' "Stalag 17" in 1973. Today the Stalag rhythm is one of the most heavily versioned rhythms on the island. But this collection doesn't cover either Riley's earlier work as a performer or producer. Instead, "Dancehall Techniques" compiles some of the producer's best work from the period between 1986 and 1991 -- the dawn of the digital era for Jamaica. 1985 saw the release of Wayne Smith's "Under Mi Sleng Teng" with revolutionarily minimal production by Prince Jammy -- the rhythm being no more than the stock Casio keyboard "reggae" rhythm. Like other producers, Winston Riley wasn't about to be left wallowing in the past. And while you won't hear the Sleng Teng rhythm used here, those who are ill disposed to listen to drum machine rhythms -- and a lot of rhythm recycling to boot -- might be advised to look elsewhere. The track that most all Aquarius customers are certain to be familiar with is Tenor Saw & Buju Banton's "Ring The Alarm Quick" -- itself a reworking of the Stalag rhythm. Also included on this comp are tracks from such household names as Super Cat, Michael Prophet, Cutty Ranks, Gregory Isaacs and Admiral Tibet.

MPEG stream: A Fi Fly Out
MPEG stream: Yu Body Good

The highly anticipated new album from Rilo Kiley doesn't disappoint! Don't know what happened since their last album but Ms Jenny Lewis' voice sounds so much more worldly and laissez faire this time around. And the group as a whole is exuding such charm and confidence as they execute punchy pop numbers (check out the excellent Cardigans-y "Portions For Foxes") and swoonworthy ballads (complete with grand string arrangements) with equal ease and polish. So much less cute than past releases, and remarkably more like '70s female singers such as... please don't take this the wrong way!... Crystal Gayle or Linda Ronstadt. Really, pretty darn great!

MPEG stream: Does He Love You?
MPEG stream: Portions For Foxes

Holy Wonder Bread, Batman! Rilo Kiley's new album is so unbelievably adult contemporary. Its title is somewhat misleading, if not downright incongruous. Don't know about you, but the thought of black lights makes us think of trippin' out at Doodle Arts in the wee hours or gettin' lost in the sweaty masses on the dancefloor. Well, Rilo Kiley's Black Light is more apropos for pondering the glowing bits of lint in your belly button or gazing adoringly at a dish of vanilla custard. On this their fourth (and first on a major label) album they seem to be aspiring for the heights of the classic rock heroes of the '70s such as Fleetwood Mac and The Eagles, but Lewis in particular has ended up more in line with Olivia Newton John circa "Have You Never Been Mellow" than Stevie Nicks. If you like your pop smooth, polished and pretty, Rilo Kiley's follow-up to 2004's More Adventurous will coat, soothe and relieve. A band you can take home to mom.

MPEG stream: Silver Lining
MPEG stream: The Moneymaker

This band name may have elicited a few snickers around these parts, but there is nothing funny about Sweden's Rimfrost. Any and all smiles were quickly wiped from the offending faces once the play button was pushed. No record in recent memory has resulted in so much spontaneous headbanging amongst the AQ metalheads. While ostensibly a black metal band, the vibe and sound on A Frozen World Unknown is way more death metal, and while we're sometimes down on the death metal, none of us would hesitate to jump all over a kick ass slab of ultra brutal death metal. And goddamn if this isn't just that. This record is so amazing. Heavy and chuggy, fast and incredibly LOUD, the drums are insane, the riffing is incredible with plenty of pick squeals and downtuned buzz, but the songs are so totally catchy, and weirdly groovy. Super convoluted stop start arrangements, but not complex for complex sake, those parts actually make sense in the context of the rest of the song and somehow manage to be just as catchy as the rest of the track. Strangely epic and anthemic, a bit melodic, but ultimately just intense and furious and fucking awesome. Absolutely one of our favorite new metal records, death, black or otherwise...

MPEG stream: Freezing Inferno
MPEG stream: At The Mighty Halls They'll Walk

More black brutality from No Colours records in Germany. Home to Nargaroth, Graveland, Wigrid and Woodtemple, so you know this is gonna be good, what you might not expect is that Rimfrost's A Journey is basically a super technical slab of brutal black death metal. Super fast tight triggered drums, downtuned but super compressed riffing, growled blackened death metal vocals, the whole thing super polished and ultra tight. We usually expect No Colours stuff to be buzzy and blurry and home recorded, sometimes stumbling, often midtempo, super personal blackness, so this was a huge surprise, but not a bad surprise at all, cuz we love this stuff just as much. Think Khold, Thorns, newer Satyricon, that sort of clinical black metal, but filtered through some early nineties death metal. Fierce and heavy, with lots of half time chug, killer pick squeals, pounding near doom, and c'mon, they're called Rimfrost!

MPEG stream: At The Mighty Halls They'll Walk

Rimfrost is either a totally grim and kvlt name for a black metal band, or a sort of goofy, possibly questionable one. These guys are from Sweden though, so odds are the rims there are indeed frosty. And the sound? Frosty as well. Super dense and heavy and punishing, a sort of Viking black metal but without all the folk, this is thrashing blackness of the highest order. Fans of classic Enslaved, old Immortal, you know, that classic Scandinavian sound, which is obviously what these guys are shooting for, and they pretty much nail it. No synths, no acoustic guitars (okay, well, maybe a few), no pretty fluttery interludes (only one, or two), instead, these guys pepper their blasting panzer attack with some super dynamic stop start arrangements, plenty of weirdly mathy bits, some incredibly drumming, the sound MASSIVE and so epic. Riffs gnarled and explosive, the rhythms galloping and relentless, blazing double kicks, the guitars chugging and crunchy, the vocals a demonic croak, the songs themselves, epic and majestic, the tempo often pounding and midtempo, but Rimfrost mix it up, exploding into a full on black frenzy here and there, or sometimes slowing down to a doomic lumber. There are melodies and hooks too, usually subtle, but sometimes brought to the fore for a moment of almost NWOBHM sounding radness, before blasting black into the (g)rim frost. Excellent.

MPEG stream: Veraldar
MPEG stream: The Black Death
MPEG stream: Void Of Time

Last Visible Dog likes to come up with some "who's that?" artists to release on their label, that's for sure. Of course, if you're super-familiar with the catalogs of such equally underground and avant garde labels as Fringes, Public Eyesore and Fusetron perhaps you have heard of Italian guitarist/experimentalist Renato Rinaldi. We confess we hadn't. But spending the 40 minutes that the single track found on this Hoarse Frenzy disc lasts with the music of Rinaldi is a fine way to make his acquaintance! Spacious and pretty "outdoor" acoustic guitar improv is mixed with intriguing field recording textures, gentle singing, and the sounds of harmonium, unplugged electric guitar, piano, dulcimer, organ, and even harmonics played by a guesting string trio. It all comes together in a nicely flowing, rough-hewn suite as imagined and constructed by Rinaldi. Sounds like something you'd hear from the Jewelled Antler or Hapna labels. Quite lovely and droney and mysterious!

MPEG stream: "Hoarse Frenzy

A few lists back we reviewed a tape by the oddly monikered Funeral Fornication, who trafficked in some pretty epic black metal buzz. But apparently, Jaron Evil, the man behind Funeral Fornication, suffered some sort of brain injury, that rendered him unable to play guitar, so while he recovered, he endeavored to create this, a sprawling, and equally, yet differently epic collection of Tolkien themed black ambience and neo-folk, and while at first we were expecting something super cheesy, it's actually pretty cool and weird. Field recorded forest sounds, gristly, lo-fi synth swirl, lush swells of droned out black ambience, dramatic piano stabs, faux strings, swirling FX, some of the tracks pastoral and blessed out ("The Second Age"), others more sinister and cinematic ("The Secret Stairs"). There are still moments of black buzz, like the second half of "Nine Riders", which unfurls a furious blast beat, harsh vokills and insectoid riffing, spread out beneath a layer of cosmic synth swirl, making for a strange, and quite cool juxtaposition. But for the most part, the tape is made up mostly of synthy ambience, ominous drones, mysterious sound design, and epic faux soundtracks to some Lord Of Rings style otherworld. Fantastical and fantastic. LIMITED TO 50 COPIES!!!

MPEG stream: The Second Age
MPEG stream: The Secret Stairs
MPEG stream: Nine Riders

Stunning debut from New Mexican born singer and ukelele player, Danielle Stech-Homsy or as she's known musically, Rio En Media. Released on Devendra Banhart and Andy Cabic's label Gnomonsong, it's easy to tell why Devendra pegged her as one of his favorite acts of 2006. With a voice like Sibylle Baier, The Bride of Dynamite is full of nineteenth century poetic romanticism with lyrics inspired by Paul Eluard, William Blake, John Ashbery and Freya Stark, the first western woman to travel the Arabian desert. Such wanderlust is shaded by a unique instrumentation of glockenspiels, bulba tarang (an instrument from Afghanistan), damaged electronic passages and the aforementioned ukelele. Siera Casady from Coco Rosie provides the back-up vocals while Vetiver's Andy Cabic, and Thom Monahan, who is the behind scenes sound wizard for many of Andy and Devendra's projects lend a hand on guitar and production work respectively Nice!

MPEG stream: You Can Stand
MPEG stream: Friday
MPEG stream: I See The Star

Reissue of this 1981 American metal / hard rock all-time classic...you like classic metal? you don't have this? Buy it! Hooky and energetic with amazing vocals and guitarwork. The USA's answer to the best of the NWOBHM. One of those 'I envy you for getting to hear this for the first time just now' albums sez Allan.

Holy grail second album from one of the best American metal bands EVER (who never get their due). While we'd say 1981's Fire Down Under (their third) is THE one to get, if you were to get only one, once you've heard that you're gonna want to hear more. And so mucho kudos to Rock Candy for at long last providing the world with a cd reish of Narita, originally released on LP by Capitol in 1979. New York's Riot were what the NWOBHM would have sounded like if it would have happened in the USA instead of the UK. A supercharged, metallized step up from the American '70s hard rock of the mid-seventies (bands like Starz, KISS, Ted Nugent, ZZ Top), definitely melodic, but much more rippin'. And also way more ass-kicking and streetwise than most of the Sunset Strip style hair metal that the US offered up a few years later, though Riot surely were an influence on the best of that bunch. They still exist today, by the way, releasing records (big in Japan!) but lots different from back when, in part due to the fact that their original lead singer, the amazing Guy Speranza, RIP, is long gone from the lineup. That guy shoulda been a famous rock star, just listen to him here.

MPEG stream: Narita
MPEG stream: Waiting For The Taking
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**SALE **SALE* *SALE**

Nope, not a single Emerson, Lake, & Palmer sample on the album. Didn't mean to get your hopes up, but The Rip Off Artist (aka Matt Haines) does pilfer from the rest of pop culture with reckless abandon, obliterating it within a cut 'n' paste / electronica mindset. This whimsical electro-glitch album has found a perfect home on Hot Air, alongside Stock, Hausen, and Walkman and People

Umpteenth record from Matt Haines and his first for Mille Plateaux. Super rigid algorithmic textures akin to the aesthetic of Schematic artists Phoenecia or Richie Devine. Skittering, frenetic rhythms whisk by your ears before you can actually process

Perhaps best known for the seventies R&B hit and wedding song mainstay, "Loving You" (as well as being the mother of former SNL comedienne, Maya Rudolph), the late great Minnie Riperton was also the angelic voice behind one of Chicago's most underrated psych-soul groups, The Rotary Connection. Come To My Garden was Riperton's first solo outing after the break-up of that group, yet plays like the band's final effort. Released on Cadet records, a subsidiary of Chess, and arranged by the mighty Charles Stepney with The Ramsey Lewis Trio and Maurice White from Earth Wind and Fire as the back-up group, Come To My Garden is one of the most beautifully majestic chamber-soul records we've ever heard. Sampled heavily by the likes of Jurassic 5, Tribe Called Quest, The Orb, and 4hero amongst many others, there are plenty of amazing orchestral breaks of harps and strings and kettle drums plus of course, Riperton's jaw-dropping five octave vocal range. While the vibe is definitely vernal and heavenly, this is not the syrupy Minnie Riperton you find in most thrift store record bins. This is a solid classic from beginning to end. So tragic that this is so little known. Perhaps the finest hour from someone who was cut down before she got the chance to really flourish. Highly Recommended!!!!

MPEG stream: Les Fleurs
MPEG stream: Completeness
MPEG stream: Memory Band
MPEG stream: Expecting

Wow, a very nice collection of the best of Minnie Riperton, who possessed one of THE most amazing voices in the history of rock and soul music -- hey, everyone from Stevie Wonder to Denzel Washington to George Benson will tell you that. (Denzel said he got thru the toughest time in his life by listening to her Perfect Angel album over and over again.) Her biggest hit "Lovin' You" amply demonstrated her astonishing (and perhaps unmatched since?) 5 1/2 octave vocal range and ability to hold notes for what seem like minutes. Minnie grew up on Chicago's Southside, cut some tracks as "Andrea Davis", then was invited to join the multiracial psychedelic / rock / soul group Rotary Connection. Most people familiar with Rotary Connection back in the day say they should've been huge, and that if they had only gotten the exposure they deserved (such as a slot at Woodstock), they would've caught on like wildfire -- that's how good they were. Three Rotary Connection tracks are included here, a totally unrecognizable version of Otis Redding's "Respect", a Cream cover, and an unreal Middle Eastern-ish epic called "I Took a Ride (Caravan)" (see soundclips below). When Minnie decided to make a series of solo albums, she left the psychedelic heaviness of Rotary Connection for a sound all her own -- part soul, part rock, always forefronting her incredible songbird-like voice. She did everything from stark Joni Mitchell covers to down home funky songs like "Reasons" (my favorite song of hers, ever, see soundclips below) to sweet bell-clear love songs penned by her and her husband by the duck pond in the idyllic little Florida backwater house they lived in for two years. Stevie Wonder was proud to produce the tracks, and she enjoyed several "hits" before her untimely death of breast cancer at the age of 31. She is sorely missed. This 2-disc collection is ultra-handy because it collects Minnie's best tracks in one place, as well as showcasing previously unreleased demos and live tracks (and admittedly just a few duds). The liner notes are quite extensive and detailed, and the photos are... well, let's just say you'll be in love after seeing the photo of her with the overalls and the ice cream cone. Recommended!

RealAudio clip: Les Fleurs
RealAudio clip: Reasons
RealAudio clip: I Took a Ride (Caravan)
RealAudio clip: You Gave Me Soul

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SORRY.

We finally saw that Rodriguez documentary, Searching for Sugarman, which was pretty great, but we couldn't help notice that the filmmakers completely ignored the best song on the Cold Fact record which in our opinion wasn't "Sugarman", but the song after it called, "Only Good for Conversation". We really wanted to know the story behind that one. Who was "the coldest bitch" he knew? That song has been a deep cut in heavy psych-fuzz circles for a long time and really hits home, at least for us, the deep bitterness of Detroit, so hard-hitting and close to the bone. Fast forward ten years later to 1981 and out of Detroit comes another beaten down hard-laborer who has big rock music dreams, ambition and a visionary album concept. But for Rich Ristagno and his sole release, What Would It Like to Be Rich?, there was no alternate universe on the other side of the globe where he was bigger than Elvis. In fact, this record may not have seen the light of day had it not been for an early single he recorded a few years earlier that went nowhere which finally caught the attention of the same Michigan rock enthusiasts who freaked out over Rodriguez. Eventually, stacks of the unreleased full length were discovered unsleeved and undistributed in Ristagno's basement. Turns out, the artwork was never made for the record, and he didn't know how to go about doing it and so his initial pressing sat there gathering dust. This private press recording was made with the help of a local Detroit studio and their in-house band Soular Flight who give Ristagno's dark autobiographical lyrics an outsider funk-rock edge. Ristagno's voice has a Lou Reed meets Shuggie Otis quality, a kind of dry soulfulness that anchors the heavy stoned funkiness of his backing band and the acid guitar shred that cascades around his straight ahead reverbed delivery. Fans of Wicked Witch and Stark Reality, take note! If Rodriguez had made a whole album that sounded like "Only Good For Conversation", this is probably close to what it would sound like. Thanks Drag City for rescuing another ill-fated obscurity.

Finland's Fonal label has brought us a lot of favorites, that's for sure -- Islaja, Kiila, Paavoharju, Shogun Kunitoki, and more. So of course we were quite curious about their latest release, from a band called Risto. Here's the informative blurb we were provided with that was supposed to describe what Risto's all about: "Leevi & the Leavings in the city, Ville Leinonen in handcuffs, Kauko Royhka in self-pity, Kari Peitsamo as a smart person. Risto brings back that self-esteem, naivity and reality that died with Gosta Sundgvist. Have you already heard what they whisper around Tampere?" Hmmm. Not being that hip nor Finnish nor both, that doesn't help a whole lot, does it? Well let's just give it a listen and see if we can figure out this Risto. Track one, "Rakkauden Rock" launches this album out of the gate with an uber-distorted rockin' basher, the band coming off as something like a Finnish language version of The Cramps!! Not what we expected exactly, but pretty cool. But then the raucous punkabilly of that song immediately gives way to the placid loveliness of "Auringon Prinsessa", all mellow and melodic. But with track three we're back to the energetic and uptempo... and track four, "Discopallo", is downright funky! But following that, the gentle "Pikkoravat" drifts back to mellow moodiness. What gives? We don't know. Crazy Finns is our default answer. The important thing is, we like it!! Risto veer from the noisy and punk to the sweet and lush, and it's all nice and catchy and weird and fun, songs influenced by no wave and doo wop and whatever else strikes their fancy, sounding like Aavikko's "monkey jazz" one moment, a lullaby the next. With all the lyrics in their native tongue, we can't tell you what the songs are actually about, but we're enjoying their spirited, schizophrenic music regardless. Another, atypical, fab Fonal release!

MPEG stream: Rakkauden Rock
MPEG stream: Pikkoravat
MPEG stream: Lampu Ja Lampu

Finland. Fonal. Two words that begin with F that tend to indicate music we might be interested in! In our review of singer and keyboardist Risto Yliharsila and his namesake band's previous album for the Fonal label, Aurinko Aurniko Plaa Plaa Plaa, we mentioned how it was hard to figure 'em out, 'cause they veered song-to-song from, like, uptempo frantic psychobilly rockin' to lush lullaby-like pop... we basically said "crazy Finns, but we like it", natch! This new album is no less confusional, and also no less enjoyable. Of course, not knowing the language makes this seem all that more odd to us. Yet it's still something that we feel could end up being your favorite new (Finnish indie) pop album despite having no idea what the catchy song now stuck in your head is about. A lot of the time this may give you the vague idea you're listening to some familiar classic rock album from the '70s, but translated into Finnish. Or, actually, more like selections from several albums, since it's all so eclectic and all over the place. There's burning blasts of guitar distortion, groovy organ, cinematic synths, sad piano ballads, garagey stomp... 10 songs in 33 minutes, that we'd imagine would appeal to fans of Sweden's Dungen, who also maybe like weirder Finnish stuff like Aavikko and Ratto Ja Lehtisalo.

MPEG stream: Elava Ihmisjumala
MPEG stream: Ihmisen Kaltainen
MPEG stream: Hiljaa, Hiljaa

Awesome old school-influenced female hip-hop. Rita J has a flow and style that feels both confident, strong and full of soul. Guest spots from folks like Guilty Simpson, Black Spade and Cap D. Solid!

MPEG stream: Body Rock
MPEG stream: Listen
MPEG stream: The Warm Up

We've been meaning to carry some Jean Ritchie for a long while. Our Appalachian folk cupboards seeming to be bone-dry bare without her exquisite interpretations of British traditional ballads of love, death and the supernatural filtered through the high lonesome rural-ness of the Kentucky mountains. Like fellow Kentuckian, John Jacob Niles, she was early on a noted student of musicology and folklore (as well as an amazing lap dulcimer player,) and keenly interested in the British roots of the songs she learned as a young girl. This anthology covers her interpretations of many of The Child Ballads, one of the first and most extensive catalogs of British traditional songs and their American variants put together in the late nineteenth century by Francis James Child, which includes songs with roots as far back as the thirteenth century, and deal with plenty of dark, gruesome and ghostly themes. Standouts on this anthology are Ritchie's version of one of our favorite morbid ballads, "Sweet William and Lady Margaret", also known just as "Lady Margaret" which was also featured on Karen Dalton's Green Rocky Road. So Beautiful!!!

MPEG stream: The Merry Golden Tree
MPEG stream: Sweet Wiliam and Lady Margaret
MPEG stream: The Unquiet Grave

Mysterious ep of ritualistic black metal from this German duo. Sorath, "visionaire and heralder" and Aer, "moulder of ritual ambience", whip up a strange black metal brew, some tracks are long slow stretches of roiling ambience, which give way to harsh slow motion doomic dirge, howled vocals, and lurching tarpit riffage, before suddenly exploding into blasts of Nordic style buzz, with stumbling double kick drumming, insectoid riffing, and strangled cries, all tangled into a murky black swirl. Others, are raw bursts of pounding midtempo riffage, simple metallic stomps, grim and frosty. A weird blend of classic Norwegian style black metal Mayhem and a more necro primitive black blast that totally slays in its own murky muddied lo-fi way...

[ aquarius records catalogue — R ]