[ aquarius records catalogue

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Showing results 1151 through 1200 of 1354.

Guitarist Keith Rowe is a busy guy. He still plays with British improvising legends AMM, and he also leads the Euro laptop improv conglom MIMEO, plus he's had a bunch of other collaborative and solo releases as of late. Here he teams up with Japanese "onkyo"

RealAudio clip: Weather Sky #2

Really beautiful improv by Keith Rowe (AMM), G�nter M�ller and Taku Sugimoto recorded live at Les Infants Chavires in October 1999. All three musicians are masters of restraint and here create a delicate and rich world of sound, Rowe and M�ller building the perfect context around Sugimoto's minimal guitar reflections. Recommended.

For the potential disaster of free-improv cacophonic sound that these five could have produced, "Thumb" is remarkably restrained and almost contemplative in its singleminded pursuit of the tiniest of details. Recorded live at the Parisian club, Instants Chavires on May 29, 2001, Rowe, Ambarchi, Sachiko M, Yoshihide, and Avenaim focus their activity on the buzzing of amplifiers and the shimmer of close-looped feedback, which they have resampled, tweaked, and modulated into a fluttering drone that is too irritable to be seductive or meditative, but is remains an understated constant. Delicate scrapings and small electrical disturbances occasionally make themselves evident, but mostly these five remain very calm. It's such a restrained effort that at the end of the brief 30 minute program the environmental din outside of Aquarius made for a nice complement to the sounds on "Thumb." How Cageian of them.

RealAudio clip: Thumb

Second volume of NWOBHM covers from this German tribute band, again, pretty great.

There's some awesome old school metal anthems here, though we'd never heard of this band before... how's that? Well, the brilliant thing about Germany's Roxxcalibur is that it's like these guys realized, hey why should they knock themselves out trying to write brand new heavy metal songs when there's so many forgotten gems from the NWOBHM era, killer cuts that only appeared on 7" singles or compilations (like 1980's seminal Metal For Muthas) that they could simply learn and play instead?? All properly credited of course, to the extent of getting the go-ahead - and liner notes - from the original artists. We jump at any chance we get to use the term "NWOBHM" in a review, or any variant thereof (like NWOFHM). We love the NWOBHM, and heck we love -saying- NWOBHM (pronounced nuh-wobbum). So this is for us. But if we have to explain that NWOBHM stands for the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal (a late '70s/early '80s phenomenon of major world historical import!) then well maybe this album by Germany's Roxxcalibur isn't for you. Or then again, maybe it is, if you want an unusual introduction to the NWOBHM. At first when we heard about this, we were a little skeptical... we're not that into tribute bands normally, and that's what Roxxcalibur are, a very respectful NWOBHM tribute. Roxxcalibur themselves agree, admitting in the cd booklet that they don't much care for tribute bands either. But then, they're not a typical tribute band doing hits by U2 or AC/DC or The Doors or whatever. Nope, how can you argue with this? Thirteen hand picked NWOBHM gems, most of 'em really REALLY obscure, dug up and dusted off by these NWOBHM mega-fans (dudes from a couple German power metal bands that you, and we, have never heard of). Classic tracks brought back to life, to be heard and headbanged to once again. Obviously, seeing this band play live would be a blast (sadly, that's not gonna happen unless we plan a trip to Germany) but this album of theirs is (for us) pretty hard to resist. You won't find anything by biggies Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, Diamond Head, or Saxon here. Though apparently Roxxcalibur do some songs by better-known bands like those live, they wanted to keep their album pretty much a lesson in obscure classics. The most famous names covered here would be Grim Reaper, Savage, and Witchfinder General. We also were familiar with Chateaux, Jaguar, Dark Star, and Cloven Hoof. But we actually hadn't ever heard of the rest of the bands covered before, we don't think. Jameson Raid, Bleak House, Trident, ARC, Radium, J.J.'s Powerhouse?? Nope. Now we'll have to look out for those on comps and reissues... They also didn't need to put any Iron Maiden on here for the simple reason that most of this sounds like it could be by Iron Maiden anyway, what with all the galloping guitars, soaring vox, fantasy tropes, and rough n' ready rockin'! A lot of this wouldn't matter either way if Roxxcalibur weren't, y'know, good, but we're glad to say they seem more than competent. They've got the right spirit -and- the chops to pull this off. We haven't compared any of these tracks back to back with the originals, but the ones we were already really familiar with, like "See You In Hell" and "Let It Loose", sounded pretty much dead-on. The singer's German accent isn't particularly noticeable, and he certainly can hit the high notes. It's a classy effort all around, from the aforementioned track-by-track commentary from members of the -original- bands included in the thick cd booklet, to the painting on the cover by authentic NWOBHM associated artist Rodney Matthews, to the way the album starts off with the chimes of London's Big Ben! All that going a long way to making this more worthwhile than the "tribute" tag usually suggests. Heck if this was an album of originals by an all-new metal band, we'd be hailing it as a remarkable retro metal masterpiece. As it is, it's still probably the best album ever released by Limb! (Though, we'll always have a soft spot for Luca Turilli's King Of The Nordic Twilight.) Unlike the generic modern day Euro power metal that label mostly traffics in, this actually rocks. And also displays much more in the way of stylistic quirks, imagination, or basically what you could call originality (ironically enough) if you didn't know this was all a tribute. If people get into Roxxcalibur, rest assured, they'll have a long career. After all, this album already only reflects a portion of their set list, and there's plenty more ol' NWOBHM nuggets for them to attempt. Maybe next time they'll do some Rogue Male. Or Quartz. Or Tysondog. Or Tokyo Blade. Or Sledgehammer. Or...

MPEG stream: Running For The Line (J.J.'s Powerhouse)
MPEG stream: The Gates Of Gehenna (Cloven Hoof)
MPEG stream: Lady Of Mars (Dark Star)

In our utopian dreams of what it would be like to get off the plane and arrive in India this is what our would immediately fill our ears! It makes so much sense that the title of this album is Namaskaar, as it's an age-old traditional greeting in India. An expression used as a warm welcome to visitors and honored guests. It also makes sense that this record was supposedly produced originally as a promotional item for Air India! Dilip Roy is an Indian composer who creates deeply inviting and warm sounds that make you feel like you've been lifted off your feet and taken to some majestic land filled with color, melody and elegance. While this record was recorded in 1983, we would have guessed it was from the late '60s or early '70s as it has that slightly tripped out sound and lush arrangement that might have been the result had R.D. Burman and David Axelrod joined forces. We can just imagine Four Tet's Kieren Hebden and DJ Shadow drooling over these sounds and wishing they had gotten their hands on them to sample and steal. Imagine the tracks those two could come up with working with this stuff!! It's was no surprise when we learned that Roy sometimes collaborated with Ananda Shankar, such amazing grooves, but what we love so much about this record is how it has echoes of Bollywood in its sound yet it's way more calm and tranquil while somehow still managing to be just as much of a bright and colorful trip. Highly recommended!

MPEG stream: Nattu Padangal
MPEG stream: Yaman
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Another amazing archival release from the Teranga Beat label, who in the past have given us records by Guelewar and Karantamba, both huge hits around here, and we're digging this one just as much. The 1979 debut from this Senegalese nine piece band, whose sound is rhythmic and hypnotic, definitely psychedelic, with dense super hypnotic percussion and a killer horn section, not to mention a bad ass axeman, the songs here are tranced out and groovy, the rhythmic structure reminds us of Konono No1, with that very distinctive staccato start stop groove, right down to the super dramatic multiple drum hit breakdowns that seems to define Konono's sound as much as the amplified thumb pianos. But that's only part of the equation in Royal Band De Thies. The sound energetic and emotional, dark and minor key, a bit of that Ethiopiques vibe going on for sure, but these guys are relentless, their sound like some impossible hybrid of traditional African music, hard bop jazz, and heavy psych rock, with some tracks slipping into more high life style, some into brooding balladry, and others with a little bit of a rocksteady feel, but with many of the tracks culminating in stretched out jams, horns and guitars all tangled up over dense driving grooves. The vocals too, super passionate, lots of call and response back up vocals, but the lead vocals are do dramatic and intense. The recording too, captured live, with just a couple mics, has the sort of energy that made classic jazz records so vital and immediate sounding, as much about the energy and emotion as the music. Just give a listen to the first two samples, it's the band at their most intense and rocking, and while the rest of the record is not nearly so intense, it definitely gives you an idea of the sort of musical ferocity these guys were capable of, and even though much of the record is a bit more laid back, it's all pretty fantastic. The cd comes housed in a full color slipcase, and both cd and lp include a big booklet packed with liner notes and photos!

MPEG stream: Cherie Coco
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Whereas other Bay Area garage rockers draw more from the psychedelia of the Beach Boys and Syd Barrett, The Royal Baths seem determined to infuse their musical brand with less jangle and more post-punk. Maybe it's the recent influence of their move to New York, maybe the Baths just like it dark, but there's a lot more swamp and stomp on their second full length lp, Better Luck Next Life, like all they've been listening to is The Birthday Party and The Black Keys and the Velvets. It's not really breaking any new musical ground, but that's okay; it's how all the various parts are put together that matters. The bass and drums pound out a bluesy rhythm while the guitars swirl jaggedly above. The vocals guide the songs into shape with warbly whisperings. At times, when Jigmae Baer and Jeremy Cox's voices harmonize and the guitar sails through some brief clear skies, Better Luck verges on the downright pretty. There's just enough dissonance, though, to keep the mood bleak, and that prettiness never lasts more than a chorus or two. Mostly mid-tempo, the Baths mix things up by slowing down and drawing blood rather than offering the listener run of the mill garage-pop candy. This is not a record that makes you want to dance. This is a record that makes you want to high, and then get lost in these dark, dark sounds...

MPEG stream: Darling Divine
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Litanies is the debut from SF garage gloom poppers Royal Baths, who have crafted a gorgeously hazy and murky bit of rhythmic hypnopop, equally indebted to the Velvet Underground, Spacemen 3, and of course the current crop of retro reverb junkies that have been spilling from garages all over the Bay Area. Gauzy and druggy, looped and mesmerizing, the drums simple and motorik, a distinctly Mo Tucker like pound, the sound reverby and cavernous, as if they recorded in an old cistern, the vocals a lazy melodic drawl, but often supported by gorgeous Beach Boys like harmonies, and the guitars, chiming and jangly one minute, howling and distorted the next, slipping from muted chug, to buzzing drone, to grinding crunch, often in the same song. All of that wrapped around crazy hooks, irresistible melodies, and some seriously kick ass songs. "After Death" is definitely a contender for song of the year, spidery echo drenched guitars hover over a primitive rhythmic thud, the vocals sweetly melancholic, gorgeous boy/girl harmonies, plenty of sixties pop vocal "Bop Bob Baaaa"s, some cool strangely angular riffage, an explosive bridge that crunches and pounds, the whole thing so deliriously druggy and impossibly catchy. And that's only one of a clutch of killer jams, "Nikki Don't" is the Velvets by way of the Beach Boys, a murky low slung slither, but infused with plenty of unlikely sunshininess. "Needle And Thread" is total Loop / Spacemen 3 style buzzdrone murk pop, washed out and woozily dreamlike, with warbly basslines and some seriously fierce fuzz guitar. "Sitting In My Room" is like Wooden Ship on tranquilizers, hypnotic and psychedelic, but so gloriously wasted sounding. Easily one of our new favorite records, and new favorite bands, druggy droney garagerock krautpop, like a SF garage rock mix tape (Ty Segall, Thee Oh Sees, the Mantles, Sic Alps) that's been chopped and screwed, the Fuzztones via the Velvets, the Beach Boys filtered through plenty of Loop, Spacemen 3 covering the Lyres, however you slice it, this totally rules!

MPEG stream: After Death
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The new movie from the guy(s) who brought us Rushmore, a BIG AQ favorite. As was the amazing soundtrack, a great mix of obscure (and not so obscure) sixties psych-pop that somehow managed to be an incredible mix-tape-style compilation as well as being absolutely perfect for the film. So we haven't had a chance to see the film yet, but we were pretty excited about the soundtrack too. So here it is, and sadly, it doesn't hit nearly as hard as the Rushmore soundtrack. I imagine in the movie these songs are probably perfect, and maybe once we've seen the movie, we'll HAVE to own the soundtrack, but on their own, these songs just aren't that exciting: Nico, Bob Dylan, The Clash, The Ramones, Nick Drake, Elliott Smith, The Velvet Underground, and a few more with incidental music by Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo. All great stuff, but does anybody need another compilation with songs by artists you already like and whose records you probably already have? Maybe if you loved the movie enough. We'll see.

Record number two from these witchy Atlanta heavies, part of, whether they like it or not, the new female fronted heavy rock movement, that includes loads of aQ faves like The Devil's Blood, Loon, Jex Thoth, Blood Ceremony, Castle, Christian Mistress, Purple Rhinestone Eagle, Cauchemar, and, well you get the drift. And as much as we love all those bands, and we do, Royal Thunder definitely stand out, for one thing, being not nearly as metal as most of those outfits, instead trafficking in something much more hard rocking, their sound riffy and heavy as fuck, but with a vibe that feels more Southern/classic/stoner rock than metal or doom. And as we mentioned in our review of the last Royal Thunder record, there seems to be a serious eighties metal vibe going on as well. A thumbnail this band plus this band description might be Lynyrd Skynrd plus Neurosis, although we tend to lean toward something more along the lines of Janis Joplin fronting Baroness. Cuz their sound definitely owes much to their Southern countrymen and women (Baroness, Kylesa, etc.), but also because vocalist Miny Parsonz has one of those voices that KILLS, throaty and sultry, witchy and powerful as fuck, the sort of voice that in a different generation might have made her a genuine big time mainstream rockstar. She can croon seductively, of wail like nobody's business, and the music is the perfect match, melodic and dynamic, riffy and groovy, heavy but also plenty psychedelic, and of course catchy like crazy, cuz these songs are less about headbanging or flailing wildly in a pit, and more about drinking beer in the parking lot and driving through town in your beat up old Trans Am, top down, parking behind the Winn Dixie, hanging out, getting stoned and blasting these jams at full volume. They have that sort of classic timeless heavy rock sound that is definitely rare, not just in this new breed of female fronted metal outfits, but in music in general. For some reason our favorite track from the first record, gets a reworking here, the band slowing it down even further, adding some mournful fiddle (or maybe it's cello), the song much more polished and even more perfect than the original, the main groove, just that much more slithery and swaggery, Parsonz vocals fierce, everything louder and more distorted and heavier and just all around more intense. But really, all the songs here kill, and some of us are tempted to proclaim Royal Thunder top of the witchy heavy rock heap at this point, and we're thinking some of you just might agree.

MPEG stream: Sleeping Witch
MPEG stream: Parsonz Curse
MPEG stream: Whispering World
MPEG stream: Shake And Shift

Yet another band to add to the current crop of boys club crashing, ass kicking female fronted, hard rock / heavy metal bands (alongside The Devils Blood, Jex Thoth, Loon, Cauchemar, Christian Mistress, Wooden Stake, Blood Ceremony), this one hailing from Atlanta, not so much a metal band as a hard rock power trio, with a lead vocalist with a serious set of pipes on her, no screeching, or buried in the mix warbling, Miny Parsonz dominates, her vocals sexy and sultry and witchy and powerful and dramatic, super distinctive, a little rough and raspy, but perfectly suited to the groups, swaggery, groovy, hard rock, almost Southern rock sounding at times, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Led Zeppelin, probably more than Sabbath honestly, the songs slow building and smoldering, the guitar smokey and spidery, the drums, subtle and laid back, the band creating lush dark mysterious twang flecked drifts, Parsonz' vocals slithering over the top, deep and throaty, the riffs getting more and more distorted, the drums crashing in, and suddenly it, the heaviest seventies hard rock jam you never heard, the hooks perfect, the vocals, so BAD ASS. There's a serious slowcore thing going on here too, like Loon, reminding us of aQ faces True Widow, that slithery moody minimal crawl, plus there's a definite eighties metal vibe happening too, mostly in the vocal melodies, that had us thinking of Lita Ford and Doro Pesch, which is not a bad thing at all, in fact, it adds a whole other dimension that other current female vocalists lack, and the fact that these guys (and gal) are obviously more about writing songs, that just SOUNDING heavy, means the more you listen to these jams, the more they stick. When we first heard this, we thought it was pretty cool, but now we can't stop listening, and damn if "Sleeping Witch" isn't the hard rock jam of the year. A new favorite for sure. And if you dig any of the above mentioned bands, this might be one of the best of the bunch. We've got cds, and colored vinyl, take your pick!

MPEG stream: Sleeping Witch
MPEG stream: Mouth Of Fire

For all you Royal Trux fans, here is a thirteen year old recording of what was going to be their second record on Drag City. Neil and Jennifer decided to ditch this and came up instead with their classic/finest moment: Twin Infinitives. Here's what you missed. Noisy, crazy, and completely fucked up.

RealAudio clip: Electric Boxing Show
RealAudio clip: Four Kings

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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Here's the sophomore release from this Norwegian duo! Whereas their debut Melody A.M. was a relatively downtempo groovy affair, this one immediately comes across as much more pumped and primed for the dancefloor -- but we should add, not at all jarringly so. One dozen ultra sleek Euro-dance productions that mirror all the good looking folks posing with their cocktails. Want some?

MPEG stream: 49 Percent
MPEG stream: Only This Moment

Another collection of maddening footwork genius, this one from one of the big names in the jukin' scene RP Boo. We've reviewed two collections of footwork jams, a twisted offshoot of hip hop, very specific to a certain style of dance, called jukin', and the sound is crazy catchy, but also insanely repetitive, so much so, that in every review, we make it clear, that while some folks (us for instance) can't get enough of this stuff, plenty of other people can't handle more than a track or two. Which is kinda understandable. Every track is essentially a single skittery programed rhythm, generally a single melodic loop, and ONE sample, chopped up, looped and layered and repeated ad infinitum. For us it's sort of trancelike, super mesmerizing and hypnotic, almost like a single measure, looped and looped and looped and looped... you get the picture. Some of our favorite tracks on the above mentioned comps came courtesy of RP Boo, so we were super psyched for this full length, and it's everything we hoped for, groovy, funky, dark, with a definite sense of humor and a serious flair for creative loopscaping. Give a listen to "Battle In The Jungle", which is probably our favorite jam here, where the main melody is a sliced and diced and manipulate sample of Tarzan's distinctive yell, here transformed into a woozy, stuttery melody, SO GREAT! Or check out the final track "Area 72", which is super cinematic and soundtracky, a dense layered loopscape of soaring synths, intoned vocals samples, and wild skittery beats. In between, there's all sorts of twisted variations, the crazy cartoon music of "Robotbutizm", the slow burn soul of "The Opponent, or the sinister string laden opener "Steamidity". Check out the samples, it'll only take a minute or two for you to figure out which side you're on, odds are, if you're regular aQ list reader, this stuff is probably weird and wild enough that its maddening insane repetition and endless loopage will only make it that much more appealing. We've been playing this like incessantly and driving people CRAZY! Love it!

MPEG stream: Battle In The Jungle
MPEG stream: Area 72
MPEG stream: Invisibu Boogie!
MPEG stream: Robotbutizm

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Local artist Rroland creates videogame soundtrack worthy synth-scapes with Reflections On A Past Life. These fifteen compositions proffer whimsical prog transmitted through some pretty lo-fi production. The single instrument used throughout is indeed a Roland synth. He seems to have a bit of an infatuation with Momus as per some hints on his website, but we won't hold that against him. Bring us more, Rroland!

MPEG stream: Frozen River
MPEG stream: The Shame Village

Folks who lived in San Francisco in the nineties may remember the band rRope, but odds are probably no one anywhere else does. A fairly obscure, but super awesome band who was part of a seriously ruling scene. Bakamono, Nitre Pit (pre-Deerhoof), Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, Caroliner, Henry's Dress, A Minor Forest, Fibulator, Lowercase, Trackstar, Hickey, so many great shows happening all the time, touring bands, loads of cool clubs and weird places to play, and so many bands that seemed destined for bigger and better things. One of which was most definitely rRope, a quartet who built their own amps and fused jagged Sonic Youth like noisiness to blissed out My Bloody Valentine like shoegaze, their songs a barrage of intricate tangled progged out post punk rhythms wrapped around chiming jangly melodies and dense chaotic drumming. Crazy catchy hooks doused in wild squalls of noise rock freakouts, glitched out experimental ambience coalesce into loping post rock mesmer. And some truly unique expressive vocals, that added a whole 'nother art rock dimension to the proceedings. The band never shied away from weird sonic experimentation either, whether it was twang flecked Tortoise-y grooves or free form avant rock meander, Jon Wayne styled garbled cowpunk or woozy math rock weirdness, often in the same song (check out "Pocket Song"), noisy blissed out drone-punk or spaced out desert-y drift, their entire sound would change from record to record, even from song to song, but there was definitely a distinctive, if ineffable something that held it all together, but just barely. One of those amazing bands that sounded impossibly tight and constantly on the verge of collapse at the same time. This sprawling triple lp collects everything the band ever recorded, including albums, 7"s, demos, and live tracks, specifically a set from 1998, right before the band broke up, opening for Sonic Youth at the Fillmore, a performance that reportedly has SY inviting them to tour the US, a tour that would sadly never happen, as the band would hang it up not long afterwards. A totally mind blowing nostalgia trip for those of who were there, and an insanely exciting discovery for everyone else who wasn't� LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!

MPEG stream: Step Right Up
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MPEG stream: Pocket Song

More mysterious six string sonic explorations from New Zealand guitar alchemist Andrew Moon, but unlike the last release (the triple cd-r Other Machines) a grinding thick heavy smear of SUNNO))) like low end rumble and Fear Falls Burning-ish smoldering amplified intensity, the sounds on Axes is pretty much exactly the opposite of what you might expect a record called Axes to sound like. Dark, dreamy, tranquil and contemplative. Where other RST releases tended toward the minimal, the static Niblockian drone, the guitar against the amp rumble, Axes features fluttering melodies, chiming harmonics, bits of simple strum. All appropriately nestled amidst distant whirs and soft shimmers. There are some heavier moments, the ultra brief "The Gate Of The Sun" is a minute plus of corrosive distorted crawl, and "Adrift" is an extended throbbing dirge of amp buzz and guitar distortion, melodies carved out of grinding buzz, beneath a sky filled with streaks of feedback, gorgeous for sure, but also heavy and dark. The rest of the record though, while peppered with bits of guitardrone and crumbling distortion, does definitely tend toward the dreamy, and while we love us some glacial heaviness, we're pretty into the softer side of RST: long drawn out swirls of druggy sound, sounding a bit like a more abstract Spacemen 3 at points, while at others, the sound is delicate and mysterious, a barely there hum, glistening cricket like high end, all wound into tense cinematic ambience. Some tracks explore insectoid ragas, muted buzzing woven into expansive slow shifting soundscapes, others fall in more with the modern free folk, abstract soundscape movement, like the opener, the appropriately titled "Crystalline", a slowed down lullaby of chiming guitars and distant blurred whirs. All of Axes is gorgeous, even at it's heaviest, the sounds are still imbued with some mysterious beauty, some otherworldly magic...

MPEG stream: Crystalline
MPEG stream: Lords Of Space
MPEG stream: L.A.S.E.R.

The welcome return of New Zealand minimal drone guitar wrangler Andrew Moon, the man who is RST. We recently managed to get a handful of his amazing Corpus Hermeticum release Warm Planes (sorry, all gone now) direct from the man himself, after years of being out of print, and it reminded us how much we loved and missed his dark abstract guitarscapes. And what do you know, hot on the heels of that reminder, BAM. A new record. And not just a new record, a new TRIPLE cd-r, which if anything, is essential for the sorts of sounds Moon creates, his expansive worlds of glacial guitar need all the space they can get, the beauty lies in the sounds of the journey, the sound of the guitar unfurling its sonic mysteries. We would have been just as happy with 6 discs, or 12, but we'll make do with three. Other Machines is three discs, three tracks, each 45 minutes plus, titled "Worlds", "Ages" and "Earth", titles that certainly sound epic and timeless, but which perfectly suit the sounds within. Each track is one looooooong piece. Ultra minimal. A single guitar, allowed to slowly uncoil, to sprawl like some planet swallowing black cloud, the guitar loosing a single note, or maybe a single chord, either way, that sound drifts from the speaker like it could go on forever. And it feels like it does. Or it should. But this is no static drone, no, the guitar is always changing, pulsing and throbbing, shifting and shimmering, floating from downtuned thrum to metallic hum to drifting high end whir and back again. Always muted and minimal, not heavy so much as intense and dense. A strangely cyclic and mesmerizing expanse of never ending guitar buzz. We could listen to this stuff nonstop (and some of us do!). You like SUNNO))), Fear Falls Burning, Phill Niblock, Vulture Club, you definitely need to hear RST. Epic, intense, super minimal, strangely melodic, and so totally gorgeous....

MPEG stream: Worlds
MPEG stream: Ages

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

SORRY. Sitting in a pooly ventilated barn behind his house outside of Auckland, New Zealand during one particularly hot winter, Andrew Moon struggled with his guitar to produce these humid noise drones layered with peculiar chord based structures. One of the best albums to come out of 'free noise' school of New Zealand in years!

Another disc of gorgeous smoldering dronemusic from long time fave RST, aka New Zealand dronelord Andrew Moon. The follow up to Tomorrow's Void, RST's Utech debut, a crushingly heavy and dark black hole of a record, The Sunset Limited, while in its own way still heavy and dark, dials back the intensity a bit, swapping downtuned thrum for shimmering murmur, metallic buzz for tranquil drift, allowing the ominous swirls and hushed low end creep, to swell and build into thick undulating landscapes of muted melodic glow and dense tectonic rumble, deep cavernous billows of blurred black sound and strangely melodic sprawls of warm gauzy ambience. Dark and grim, haunting and harrowing, but also strangely lovely, a series of gorgeously luminescent soundfields, each track a sonic alien topography, slow shifting shapes, layers unfurling and overlapping, intertwining, bleeding into one another, the notes and chords fluid, the various melodies stretched into blurred fragments, pulses and throbs coalesce from muted loops, a thick patina of fuzz and grit, swirls above the various sounds like some mysterious fog. Here and there, distorted tangles of guitar are unfurled and allowed to hover, suspended in tranquil expanses of muted buzz, a sort of glacial Appalachia, viewed in stop motion, each sonic exhalation a single frame, woven into a warped, woozy wash of slow moving sound. Elsewhere, the sound devolves into a sinister black ambience, evoking all manner of existential dread, tense and mysterious, long tones and softly swirling overtones, and near the end of the disc, the sound settles into a warm burnished buzz, a gorgeous dreamscape of chordal smolder and hazy late evening drift, a gorgeous melancholy finale, letting the listener drift off into the ether, with the last light of day. So great. Super cool car-jumpin sunset cover art too!

MPEG stream: Desolator
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Latest disc of dronemusic from aQ customer and master dronelord Andrew Moon, his first for Utech, and definitely one of his heaviest. From the opening few seconds, this is some seriously distorter metallic static heaviness, a massive crumbling wall of slow moving fuzz guitar, gorgeously layered so it's not just some guitar-against-the-amp bullshit, no, this is some serious minimal dronemusic, just instead of tones, or sinewaves, Moon has opted for BIG amps and slow glacial chords. The sound pulses and throbs like it was alive, and it sort of is really, with all manner of metallic buzz and grinding shards of feedback drifting beneath and within the humid cloud of warm whirring thickness. Moon is a master of maximizing minimalism, and this track is the perfect example, both understated and pretty, but thick and corrosive and heavy enough that some dronedirgedoom obsessive could get really into it. And it's the sort of sound we can never get enough of, and one that could have stretched the length of the cd and we would have been perfectly pleased. But there's more to Moon and Tomorrow's Void than just heavy buzz, the second track is much murkier affair, moaning deep tones gradually spread out and grow more and more melodic, even as feedback adds another layer to the proceedings. But 10 minutes later and the guitars come growling back, unfurling an avalanche of crumbling fuzz and blown out minimal anti-metal. There are 3 or 4 tracks over the remainder of the record that dip into much more muted minimal dronescaping, some offering streaks of high end with their rumbling whirring drift, but the majority of the record is spent with distortion pedals on, filling rooms and speakers and headphones with billowing clouds of warm buzz and ever expanding slow motion guitadrones, each one in its own way powerful and dark, but to our ears trancelike and dreamy, the exact sort of heaviness that has us entranced and drifting off to the other side.

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Not long ago, we discovered that one of our loyal AQ customers just so happened to be the man behind one of our favorite groups, RST, and who released two mind blowing discs, R136a which came out on Ecstatic Peace! and this one, Warm Planes, released on Corpus Hermeticum. After discussing a mutual love of all things Skullflower and Terminal Cheesecake, Mr. RST informed us that he had some new actions planned for the near future and just so happened to have a stash of this WAY out of print disc, which he want to be available again, in anticipation of some upcoming new material. We obviously jumped at the chance and grabbed a whole mess of these, just in case some of you somehow missed out on this the first time around. Whereas the Ecstatic Peace! disc was a dense assemblage of claustrophobic humid distortion, Warm Planes is much more of a drone based disc, downright dreamy at times, an amazing collection of dynamic tectonic guitar-drone rumble, very prescient considering the current love of all things doomdronedirge. And holy shit does this stuff hold up. Dense and thick and viscous, these tracks move at a crawl, slowly and completely engulfing everything it their path, filling your ears with a murky black buzz. Some of the tracks dial back the grrrrr a bit, offering up soft ripples of muted feedback, and shimmering swells of amp buzz, while others are expansive sheets of crystalline shimmer, but the majority, are thick and snarling beasts, steel strings reverberating through big black speakers, and wrapping us up in thick tendrils of guitar growl. A doomdirgedrone classic, before there even was such a thing. Fans of SUNNO))), Fear Falls Burning, Vulture Club, Earth, you got some catching up to do. Start here...

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Heavy With Illusion is a collaboration between RST and Lenz, the latter being a previously unknown singer from Shanghai; and the former being one of our favorite New Zealand drone technicians, aka Andrew Moon. The previous RST outings are all-consuming thrums of amplifier smolder and long-form drone topography, coming out of the same tradition that begat Gate, Birchville Cat Motel, Surface Of The Earth, etc; and we had loved everything Moon has ever touched. That still remains true with this collaboration, though this album is very much a departure for RST. Heavy With Illusion allows us a glimpse into Moon's craft for the song, taking up the mantle of lumbering slowcore previously mined by Codeine, Low, or even the latter day incarnation of Earth. There's a melodic miserablism to Moon's chiming if heavy guitar which make full use of loud-soft dynamics with occasional drums punctuating the crashes spread out through these songs. Lenz mostly sings in Cantonese, very occasionally in English, those instances, along with the translated lyrics, speak to the morose poetry of Lenz's lyrics - death, the loss of love, psychic dislocation, and the disconnection from nature. She alternates between a plainspoken narration and world-weary melodies, as if Jenny Toomey of Tsunami were to front a Codeine / Charalambides cover band. Moon does offer two tracks of his drone-centric work with Lenz sitting those out on the sidelines. But the two together create a special sort of minimal musical magic. Pretty amazing, we gotta say!

MPEG stream: Little Shaking
MPEG stream: They Told Me I Was Dead
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Killer split from these two bands, RST most AQ folks should know by now, New Zealand guitarist Andrew Moon, who delivers another fantastic chunk of dark, dense, humid guitardrone, darkly meditative, but surprisingly active, the swirling blackened churn alive with buried melodies, and ever shifting textures, spaced out and psychedelic for sure, but more a softly swirling bit of layered mesmer, rife with muted feedback, and jagged shards of fragmented melody buried in the mix, kinda wish this was a 12" and this track was waaaay longer. The flipside comes from US outfit Insect Factory, who we had never heard before, but who apparently played the Terrastock festival back in 2008, this being their first recording since. Good stuff, and a nice contrast to RST's darker drift. Insect Factory are a much noisier proposition, a warped psychedelic collage, muted percussive loops, all woozy and warbly, wheezing melodies, layered textures, softly distorted and dreamily chaotic, it sounds a lot like a more dreamy drifty Our Love Will Destroy The World, with a similarly skewed kitchen sink style, all the sounds blurred into something more washed out and melodic, druggy and hypnotic.

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A while back we had a little gift certificate giveaway to help raise money for aQ pal Stephen Kasner, an artist you no doubt know, his art has adorned records by Aluk Todolo, Skullflower, Lotus Eaters, Subarachnoid Space, Blood Fountains, Khlyst, Aun, Habsyll, and loads more, we used to carry his amazing art book too, anyway, he was recently diagnosed with a serious illness, and of course like many artists/musicians, he does not have health insurance, and was faced with impossible medical bills, so the underground community has been doing everything they can to help raise money so Kasner can get the treatment he needs and get better. This here split cd-r is another benefit, all proceeds from the sale of these discs will go directly to Kasner, and in addition to helping out a super nice, and ultra talented guy, you get two gorgeous, massive slabs of dark, thick. layered droned out ambience. Most of you probably already know RST, aka Andrew Moon, a killer NZ guitarist, here he shares a disc with Rahmane, who are/is new to us, but who offers up a pretty stellar bit of droned out psychedelic ambient drift, beginning with a bit of abstract shimmer, some minimal percussion, and finally some wheezing organ, haunting and cinematic, minor key and moody, the whirring organ soon gives way to a tangle of horns, wild squalls drifting over the now distant low end thrum, a sort of abstract dronejazz, which quickly erupts into a blast of noisy chaos, of gnarled electronics, twisted effects and processed vocals, a sound that gradually crumbles leaving just the sounds of a burbling brook, and a hazy layer of metallic drones, and soaring string like melodies drifting over the top. Quite nice. RST follows up with a sprawling expanse of humid guitar drone, a thick all of muted and distorted heaviness, no forward momentum, instead, the sounds themselves churn and roil, buried melodies shifting and tangling, streaks of sizzling cymbals, chordal fragments, all drift within a corrosive, glacial swells, throbbing and pulsing but somehow remaining nearly static, a gorgeous washed out almost Tim Heckerish expanse of gauzy soft noise, underpinned by bits of guitar strum, and deep rumbling low end. Gorgeous as always. And well worth the price of admission, even mores knowing that it's for a good cause. LIMITED TO 70 COPIES. Features original Stephen Kasner artwork, ALL proceeds go to the Kasner Fund.

MPEG stream: The Martyr's Finger, II. Kashf al-Asr?r, III. Santariyyah (Return) (Excerpt)
MPEG stream: Tropic Of Hull (Excerpt)

Following her former Royal Trux partner Neil Hagerty's solo path, Jennifer Herrema has fired up the scuzz-rock engines with her new band RTX. Transmaniacon (named after the Blue Oyster Cult song?) is filled with Herrema's distinct ultra distorted, raunchy bad girl goodness. A bit poppier that the Trux were, and it's all pretty rad until she gets her hands on Cher's autotune vocal processor for the sixth song "PB+J". Ugh! Truly the album's low point. Fortunately the novelty of that piece of recording gear has worn off by the next song, and we're back to the RTX slurred rawk party. That is until the very cool and Interpol-y second to last song "Is Red" with her new bandmate Nadav Eisenmann taking over vocal duties, and the final song, the totally fucked-up "Resurrect" that only gets more and more fucked up as it nears its end.

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YES! The follow up to the RTX's totally sick first record, Transmaniacon!!!! This record is the next step in RTX's path to hair metal scuzzy party excellence. The opening track, "Western Exterminator" which is a sort of dusty old Mexican cantina acoustic number, with sweet backwards guitar shreds and flute solos... might be a little unexpected, but by the second track we know what's up. The good time Shreddy Van Halen "Balls To Pass" harkens back to the debut. Filled to the brim with hot lixxxx and killer song writing. Jennifer Herrema's voice is sounding as fucked up as ever, adding a really cool noisy element to all the songs. The lyrics are also perfect. In the third track, "Black Bananas" she sings something about being the Garbage Collector...!!! Fuck yeah. Basically, if you like the first one, and also if you like the Accelerator side of Royal Trux, you're gonna love this record. Its a little bit more metal, especially on the track "Wo-Wo Din"...weird heavy. Uhhh, don't know what else to say...the whole record is killer and we're probably gonna be partying and BBQing to it all summer...poppy, heavy, party, noisy, kinda weird, and PARTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MPEG stream: Balls To Pass
MPEG stream: Wo-Wo Din

Another batch of tapes from our pal Jason's Ormolycka label means another batch of HOLY WTF!!! Starting with this, the first we've heard from / heard of Rubbed Raw, even an internet search revealed nothing but a bare bones Tumblr, talking about the tape on Ormolycka, which is a rarity in the age of everything everywhere at your fingertips, but you'd be surprised how often that happens with stuff on Ormolycka. So we have nothing to offer in the way of background, no idea who these guys are, where they're from, if it's even guys (although a couple are picture on the cover). What we can tell you, is this was originally recorded in 2008, when some guy we never heard of, who probably had something to do with the band disappeared, and it remained unreleased until now. Although that could be bullshit, hardly matters though, cuz what does matter is that this is a stone cold killer slab of twisted lo-fi, beat driven electronic weirdness. The first track along should seal the deal, weird fragmented vocals over spare electronics, that soon blossom into what is maybe the noisiest heaviest blast of electronic music we've heard in ages, a fat fuzzy bassline, big bombastic drumming, and sky full of wild squiggles and tangled feedback drenched skree, it almost sounds like the home brewed electronic version of one of the psych rock bands that everyone digs so much these days, total drugged out megajam, but just electronic, and sort of damaged and WTF. It's hard to explain, but it RULES, and we jammed the first track maybe ten times before we dug any deeper, and as unlikely as it might seem, even after that first track, it just kept getting better, blown out noisy outsider electro, colliding with mad scientist 8-bit noise drenched techno, and weirdo lo-fi dub, all blendered into the sort of thing you might imagine blasting from the speakers in a clown car shaped like a giant skull, being driven by the scariest mother fucker you've ever seen, just cruising up and down the street, top down, system booming, or rather buzzing and howling and skittering and droning and feeding back, while he trolls for his next victim. Holy shit this rules! And of course is crazy limited, so don't blow it...

Following their compilation release with Pink & Brown, The Lowdown and Lozenge (also on Toyo), SF's cardboard and tin foil superheroes Rubber O Cement are back with twenty-three more tracks of comical lo-fi power electronic action. Rumors (which are

RealAudio clip: Raman Effect On Nucleon Electroscope

We'd been hearing about these guys for a while, the new group featuring legendary Butthole Surfers drummer King Coffey, a band that apparently formed nearly a decade ago, yet Farewell Drugs is the first recorded evidence, and still all we can say is it was totally worth the wait. Just listen to the first two minutes of album opener "Cigarette Rabbit", and you'll be transported to some drug addled psychedelic sonic otherworld, or maybe just back to the eighties, to some grim, filthy dive bar in bumfuck Texas filled with flashing lights and cloud of noxious smoke, where you're immediately ensorcelled by that oh so recognizable drumming, cuz holy shit does Rubble sound a lot like vintage Buttholes, King Coffey's drumming, dirgey and tribal, and woozily propulsive, pounding its way through dense clouds of detuned guitar fug, and a grimy fog of dying-batteries FX boxes, all manner of voices and vocals dipped in effects and reverb and sent careening into the blackened swirl of rhythmic churn and blurred drugrock chaos. But Rubble is not at all a Buttholes revival, although these guys pull off that psychedelic murk like no one has ever since. There's plenty more going on, like the noise rock dirge of "It's So Easy" (we were secretly hoping it was a Guns N' Roses cover, and which is in fact a Joe Byrd and the Field Hippies cover!), driven by thick, viscous riffing, caveman drum pound and some heavily effected lysergic vox, the whole thing a sort of psych sludge dirge on the verge of total collapse. Then there's "Waiting To die" (which we were also hoping was maybe a Townes Van Zandt cover), which shrugs off much of the murk and muddiness of the first few tracks for some seriously kick ass Stooges-y swagger, with cool raspy vox, chugging riffage, some tangled psychedelic leads, and a downright catchy sing along chorus. But then it's right back into it, with "Tom Of Midland", the guitar (or is it bass), fuzzy and buzzy and practically oozing, those Buttholes drums pounding mesmerizingly, the song gradually growing more and more chaotic and noisy and finally disappearing in a wild squall of tangled psychguitar. But hold onto your hats for "Old Dominion", a bass driven slow burn shuffle, all woozy and washed out and then what the heck is that? Fucking kalimba! A thumb piano plucking out a dreamy melody over the group's druggy slow groove dirge, sorta like some Texas sludge Konono No.1, weird at first, but then suddenly you end up wishing there was kalimba on ALL the tracks. The sound shifts back to murky and crusty, until "On The Road South" that sounds impossibly like classic Hawkwind, and we're not talking freaked out space jam Hawkwind, although there's plenty of that too, we're talking catchy pop song Hawkwind, Rubble totally killing it with another hook filled psych pop heavy rock stomp that any other band would make their whole sound, but part of the joy here is you can sort of tell, it's sort of tossed off and effortless, and just maybe they don't realize (or even care) how good it is. There's one more stretch of heavy spaced out psych pound before things get weird (or weirder!), with a closing one two punch that just seal the deal. "Southside Ashes" is all dirge-y drum pound, whirling guitardrone ambience and FIDDLE!! (courtesy of Ralph White from the Bad Livers, who also plays kalimba!), a dark brooding almost Godspeed like slow build, that leads right into record closer "Grey At Grace", which is a sprawling buzzing tripped out violin laced raga (!), all muted percussion and long layered tones, layered swirling psychedelic shimmer, hauntingly and meditative, a gorgeous chunk of minimal krautdrone mesmer that is probably the most surprising ending we never could have envisioned for this twisted slab of Texas drug rock psych. Record Of The Week easy, record of the year contender for sure as well! Cool, creepy see-through skull / health film-strip visible brain artwork, includes a download coupon as well!

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Eccentric Bay Area band Rube Waddell have gone back and remastered their albums so now a whole new bunch of folks can dig these guys' fun and oddball approach to music making! The beloved local trio make great use of the usual rock instruments, but also include more oddball sound making devices such as sousa horn, jaw harp, mahogany and koa wood ukuleles, accordion, glass harmonica, marimba, autoharp, and much more. Rube Waddell's sound is a little bit acousticky punk, a little bit Tom Waitsian drunken carousing, a touch of twangy silliness, and a pinch of gravely blues rowdiness. An SF institution!

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The madcap post-modern musical quartet from SF have returned! They bring with them their trademark bulging grab bag of homespun instruments and styles such as zydeco, vaudeville, exotica, swing jazz, Appalachian folk, swamp blues... the list is endless. Musically they're often quite reminiscent of the eccentric'n'eclectic Captain Beefheart, Ween and Frank Zappa. Vocally, they possess the disgruntled yet endearing gruffness commonly associated with the likes of Tom Waits. The big picture is usually quite loosey goosey in mood, razor-sharp irreverently witty lyric-wise, but always expertly and imaginatively performed. Really, who can resist a song about one of the Mission District's icons -- the late night saviour of three-sheets-to-the-wind growling bellies, the Tamale Lady!! Note: Greatest Hits is actually an album of all brand new songs, not a best of per se... 'though we guess time will tell if the album's title rings true. Nonetheless, always a wacky good time!

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Local darlings who had the balls to play their idiosyncratic brand of jump blues punk twang outside Leeds shoe store on Mission Street. Reissue of their first album with 6 extra tracks (two are previously unreleased!)

[ aquarius records catalogue — R ]