[ aquarius records catalogue

IMPORTANT (Please read to avoid confusion): Some items below may be tagged with a bold, red, all-caps OUT OF PRINT/UNAVAILABLE notice. This does NOT mean that all other items not so tagged are, in fact, in stock — or for that matter, in print and available, though there's a good chance they are. Some folks get confused on this point, and we can see why, so please read this for further clarification and other important before-you-order information. Unlike some mailorder websites, we don't have an electronic inventory system linked to our site, so you can't be sure of what we actually have or don't have in stock at any given moment without asking us — please email our mailorder department for availability status — or better yet, just go ahead and place your order using our shopping cart function and we'll get back to you with the status of each item. If you have general non-mailorder questions, email the store.

Showing results 101 through 150 of 1354.

First ever live record from Radiohead, and for a person who typically hates live records, I ended up liking this quite a bit. Radiohead tend to mix it up live quite a bit, re-arranging songs, playing them all slow and stretched out, rocking out a bit more, unfortunately, there's not too much of that on this disc. A lot of the songs -do- rock harder, but I think that's just a function

RealAudio clip: The National Anthem
RealAudio clip: True Love Waits

Never before has a record been so completely overshadowed by it's delivery method. Unless you've been living under a rock for the last year, you no doubt have read or heard about Radiohead, offering their album for download, at any price the customer deemed appropriate, whether it be $20 or nothing at all. Needless to say, this sort of thing can't really be pulled off unless you're one of the biggest bands in the world, but since Radiohead ARE, it seemed to be an unmitigated success. They haven't revealed how many copies they sold, or what the average price paid was, but it's probably safe to assume, they made out okay. And then there are the Radiohead fans who don't like downloads, and who want every bit of music that they can get, and thus shelled out $80 for the deluxe double lp, double cd set, with a whole extra cd of outtakes and unreleased tracks (at least one aQ-er did! As did lots of aQ customers). We personally thought, for a band like that, it almost would have been cooler to NOT release an MP3 version, have it ONLY available in stores. After all, without indie stores they wouldn't have been where they are today. People are so worried about record sales, imagine if a handful of bands skipped the online release entirely, and you HAD to buy it in an actual store. Sure, we're sort of biased, but hell, we love records and cds and tapes, and even if we didn't have a store, we'd feel exactly the same way. Well, look at that, we were just talking about how everything BUT the music on the new Radiohead has been discussed to death, and we go and spend the first half of our review doing the very same thing... Anyway, now available on cd, and as a regular lp, Radiohead's latest, in case you haven't heard it in one way or another, is actually really quite good. Not immediately experimental, and a bit more rocking, with lots of fan favorites that have been in the works for years, the sound reminds us a lot of Hail To The Thief, but with definite nods to Kid A and Kid B (Amnesiac), it's hard to imagine these guys making a BAD record. They have such a distinct sound, and such a way with sonics, and melody, whether rocking furiously, or drifting dreamily. And In Rainbows covers pretty much all the bases, the opener, "15 Step", begins with an Autchre-ish electronic skitter, but then in comes Thom Yorke's falsetto croon, and soon the band is shuffling through swirling guitar melodies and children's voices, strange FX and dubbed out drums. "Bodysnatchers" is a serious rocker, and is one of the oldest songs here (we think), with a killer crunchy riff, distorted bass, a very motorik Neu!-like rhythm, and big chiming U2 like guitars. "Nude" is a hushed whispery ballad, but just weird enough to stay interesting, a haunting high end drift, with a super gorgeous vocal line. The rest of the record seems to slip back and forth, from rock to ballad, from swoonsome epic crashing bombast, to hushed intimate whisper. Finishing off with the amazing "Videotape", a slow soft piano dirge, with another delicate and haunting vocal melody, but underpinned with some weird muted electronic drum loop, the whole thing so hypnotic and repetitive and dreamlike. But who the heck needs to review a Radiohead record anyway? Especially this one. If you didn't download it, you're probably already gonna buy the cd or lp. And in fact, we bet half the people who downloaded it are also gonna buy the physical version. Radiohead are one of the few bands with such a crazy universal appeal, regular folks dig 'em, indie rockers of course, lots of metalheads do too, and loads of 'experimental' and 'avant' music lovers like them as well. Which makes sense, cuz, hell, they're a great band, they write great songs, they're not afraid to experiment and take regular songs and twist them all up, and this is just another great Radiohead record. Comes in cool 'green' packaging, designed so you can take the various parts and stickers and stick them in a RECYCLED jewel case and voila!

MPEG stream: 15 Steps
MPEG stream: Bodysnatchers

Collection of rarites and live stuff. Contains "Stop Whispering" (U.S. version), "Thinking About You", "Faithless, The Wonder Boy", "Banana Co.", "Killer Cars" (Live), "Vegetable" (Live), "You" (Live), and "Creep" (acoustic).

Radiohead is a band whose mythology has gotten much bigger than they are. The pop giants have steered their fate from being one hit wonders to being the elegant masters of balancing full albums with excess and economy. Like all great artists, Radiohead understands that a key tenet of the artistic process is the necessity of risk-taking. And "Kid A" is an album full of risks. It is also the album that has the unfortunate burden of needing to follow up "OK Computer" -- one of the few records on which a band has managed to perfectly realize all of their intended musical ideas. The success and failure of the risk taking on "Kid A" is measured by the lack of Radiohead's big melodic hooks which have been replaced by rolling electronica laced grooves, Rhodes organ drone chords, and a generally gorgeous production. Radiohead has wanted to create an album full of exquisite details that are supposed to draw the listener into the record to discover all of the tiny sonic jewels that are so effectively hidden throughout. But without the pop hook, Radiohead hasn't anything else in their repetoire to seduce the listener into the rich production. As a result, the band has made a nice record... one that may inevitably grow on you, but one that is far from genius. With that said, we have to commend Radiohead for their experimental spirit.

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

SORRY. Limited edition version of Kid A. Comes packaged in a booklet by Stanley and Tchock.

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

SORRY. This is it, the limited edition packaging of "Kid A". Radiohead is a band whose mythology has gotten much bigger than they are. The pop giants have steered their fate from being one hit wonders to being the elegant masters of balancing full albums with excess and economy. Like all great artists, Radiohead understands that a key tenet of the artistic process is the necessity of risk-taking. And "Kid A" is an album full of risks. It is also the album that has the unfortunate burden of needing to follow up "OK Computer" -- one of the few records on which a band has managed to perfectly realize all of their intended musical ideas. The success and failure of the risk taking on "Kid A" is measured by the lack of Radiohead's big melodic hooks which have been replaced by rolling electronica laced grooves, Rhodes organ drone chords, and a generally gorgeous production. Radiohead has wanted to create an album full of exquisite details that are supposed to draw the listener into the record to discover all of the tiny sonic jewels that are so effectively hidden throughout. But without the pop hook, Radiohead hasn't anything else in their repetoire to seduce the listener into the rich production. As a result, the band has made a nice record... one that may inevitably grow on you, but one that is far from genius. With that said, we have to commend Radiohead for their experimental spirit.

There's a video making the rounds, of a Radiohead support group, where one man has to be coaxed into saying how he really feels, that he likes OLD Radiohead better, as he admits to not getting King Of Limbs, the group leader prompts him, "was it really JUST The King Of Limbs?", other contributions include "where are the choruses?", "the choruses? where are the verses?!" and "Give Johnny Greenwood his bleeding guitar back!" (the punchline being when the man admits to thinking OK Computer was overrated, at which point, he is asked to leave, everyone looking disgusted). And while it's funny, it's also frankly true. Radiohead are not the pop band they once were, heck, they're not even the 'experimental pop' band they once were. They have essentially ditched choruses and verses and traditional song structure and from what we can tell most traditional rock band instrumentation. They've made no bones of their love for electronic music, that love having found its way into their sound as far back as OK Computer, but manifesting itself more and more with every record, on Thom Yorke's solo record The Eraser, and no more than here, on King Of Limbs, a collection of ethereal, musical trifles, but only in so much that they don't adhere to pop song tradition, for while they feel like trifles, they are hardly trifling, instead, they are impressionistic, abstract, based more around texture and rhythm, opener "Bloom" almost sounds like Yorke singing over a Boards Of Canada track, the sounds woozy and smeary and washed out and glimmering, the drums looped and motorik, Yorke's croon an echo drenched ghost. "Morning Mr. Magpie" is a bit more 'rock', but only a bit, with actual guitar, but again draped over a rhythm that in its repetition becomes more like a loop, the guitars following suit, and instead of slipping clearly from chorus to verse, the songs seems to just drift, but that's enough, the sound lush, and dense, layered and a bit dark. "Lotus Flower" is the single, and it makes sense, a bit of stripped down skeletal dubstep flecked minimalism, softly swirling and again fairly abstract, but Yorke's voice is quite nice, slipping into a higher register, and adding a bit of pathos and drama to the otherwise minimal skitter. And so it goes. The one complaint might be that it doesn't really sound like a record made by a proper band. Even the drums sound programmed (perhaps they are), the guitars are often replaced by swirls and swaths that sound more like synths, but really, if you're a fan, and have been over the last few records, then King Of Limbs is not the radical unexpected step so many are claiming it to be. And heck, if you were never into Radiohead's stadium rock bombast, as experimental as it may have been, maybe this is the record for you, a modern minimal avant dance music disc that manages to fuse a sort of ethereal abstract pop to more modern minimal electronica. We dig.

MPEG stream: Bloom
MPEG stream: Lotus Flower
MPEG stream: Separator

Wow! Do NOT (as I did for years) write off this English band as bad alterna-rockers. This is a KILLER album, conceptual in scope, consistent in quality and yet each song has an element that sets it apart from the others. Like JEFF BUCKLEY FRONTING QUEEN (all you who lament not hearing another of Jeff's albums, try this one) with elements of Paul McCartney, Pink Floyd, and U2, we kid you not. Highly highly recommended.

As Radiohead have evolved into a band much more connected to electronica than guitar rock, we knew it was just a matter of time until they released a remix album. And their latest album King Of The Limbs, really was the Radiohead record most ripe for remix, so after several 12" releases featuring many of these remixes, they've finally put together a great two disc collection of those tracks, all songs from King Of Limbs, remixed by folks like Caribou, Four Tet, Actress, Jamie XX, SBTRKT, and lots more. While there should have been no doubt, we were relieved to find this wasn't about making cheesy dance remixes of Radiohead songs, but instead they all honor and respect the mood of the album from which these tracks come and create nuanced remixes much more suited for dark rainy nights than brightly lit dancefloors. Moody and moving, just the way we like our Radiohead.

MPEG stream: "Little By Little
MPEG stream: "Give Up The Ghost
MPEG stream: "Separator

In addition to the various Silence label restocks we've listed in the past month or so (Algarnas Tradgard, International Harvester, Harvester, and Trad Gras Och Stenar) we've got another, first-time reissue of "Scandinavian krautrock" for y'all. Radiomobel ("radio furniture") were an enthusiastic, if amateur, band of teenagers coming along a few years after the aforementioned acts, circa 1975, operating in a similar psych-prog space... Basement-recorded with minimal equipment (much of it home-built), the languorous songs found on Radiomobel's rare (100 copies pressed) private-label debut LP feature lots of rhythmic chug, meandering acid rock guitar leads, and chant-like vocals. Tramsebox is often gentle, but also capable of bearing down and getting heavy, always with a similar stoned vibe to the Trad Gras Och Stenar stuff... of course, this is something for those who already have explored all those great bands mentioned above and want more of that sound, just like these guys did (or should we say, still do, as it seems they were more-or-less active thru 'til the '90s and maybe even today!).

MPEG stream: Vl Hater Stenar
MPEG stream: Three Miles

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

SORRY. After five albums on Scandivanian majors (hey, Refused have found their way on the Swedish majors), Radiopuhelimet return to their original label - Bad Vuguum - for their latest album, that maintains their well established razor sharp double guitar fire and imaginative rhythmic attacks. See Rapeman or Jesus Lizard for more sane stateside comparisons.

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

SORRY. The men who stared at goats may or may not have been a work of fiction, as reported upon by journalist Jon Ronson, investigating the more fringe aspects of the American defense establishment. But leave it up to Russia to be the source for an even more fucked-up tale of parapsychological research into ESP as a potential addition to the arsenal of weapons of war and tools of espionage. The early Soviet psychological researcher Bernard Kazhinski posited the idea that the human nervous system might in fact influence (and be influenced by) radio signals and other forms of electro-magnetism, drafting a book on the matter back in 1923. His ideas had formed the basis to the research into the zombification of an enemy combatant by means of radio, with experiments being conducted on soldiers in the Soviet army, most of whom died as a result, with the exception of one - and he currently resides in a mental hospital. The validity of these claims is vague at best, but it sure as hell makes for a great story. Enter Radioson - another project for the Russian psychonaut [S] who has recorded over the years as Five Elements Music and Exit In Grey, with this name coming from Kazhinski's "radio sleep." Where deep pools of nocturnal drone broadcast from those other projects, the cosmology of Radioson is distinctly conspiratorial and psychologically caustic. The recordings of Radioson are suitably grim and volatile yet hang from long-form compositional arcs that are emblematic of [S]'s other recordings. A languishing cosmic melody orbits the first of four lengthy track to this cassette, building a sci-fi desolation worthy of any classic '70s film of likeminded paranoia, conspiracy, and intrigue. Kirlian glows of psychic noise flare against the album's sustained analogue synth drones in the form of noxious radio transmissions, crusty static from accumulated tape hiss, and electro-static smolderings that might as well be the audio documentation of zombification experiments. The closing collage of numbers stations and shortwave jamming signals is an apt mimesis of the coded transmissions that would flood from those research laboratories, repleat with the dehumanized mechanization and the lethal hum of high-voltage wires. Another brilliant document from the mysterious [S].

MPEG stream: Radioson 1
MPEG stream: Radioson 2
MPEG stream: Radioson4

An action packed album on which Esplendor Geometrico-styled chunky rhythms crash against antique samples of ragtime piano and organ drone. Sorta like a more 'industrial' version of digital pranksters V/VM.

White hot drones of amplified electric motors and distortion feedback build, shift and scrape. Not unlike the work of experimentalist John Duncan.

Radius is the new collaboration between Mr. Mark Edwards and Mr. Jeff Ray (also of SF band Zmrzlina and one of the main organizers of the Mission Creek Music Festival). This cd-r features nine pretty acoustic folk songs laced with some very subtle electronics. Quite akin to N. Lannon... actually we put this on right after playing Lannon's Chemical Friends album and they fit together almost seamlessly. Very nice!

MPEG stream: Apartment
MPEG stream: Early Morning

MPEG stream: Flawless Crowns
MPEG stream: Rakim Tribute
MPEG stream: Rap Killers

A heavy, hard rocking Dungen? From actually back in the day? That's kind of what this newly reissued (first time on cd) Swedish hard rock rarity sounds like. Recorded in 1975 by a teenage band with big league chops, equipment, and ambition, the sole album from Rag I Ryggen (Strength And Courage, in English) is what collectors/dealers like to term a "fuzz monster". And it is full of that fuzz we love. The Rag I Ryggen boys were basically trying to be Sweden's answer to Deep Purple and Uriah Heep. And while they've got all the guitar heroics, heavy riffs, and Hammond organ action required, they're a heck of a lot more Swedish sounding, in part 'cause they sing in Swedish (and sometimes English too, on such tracks as "Queen Of Darkness") and also because they bring in a lot of folkiness on tracks like "Jan Banan" that remind us of bands like Kebnekajse. It's very rockin' mix of melody, folkiness, Moog-ed symphonic prog bombast and '70s heaviness. What's not to like? And this reish comes with three live bonus tracks, detailed liner notes, etc. Nice.

MPEG stream: Det Kan Val Inte Varta Farligt
MPEG stream: Sanningsserum

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

SORRY. REPRESSED, BACK IN STOCK! Wow! What an artifact. Here's some Egyptian jazz from the late '60s-early '70s courtesy of of the man who founded the first jazz big band in Egypt and later accompanied Sun Ra on tour in Egypt, Greece, France and Spain. We're pretty sure you must be damn curious by now, so we should tell you that beyond those enticing facts this is some seriously fine jazz played by a band made up of some of the best musicians in Egypt during that era. Five saxophones, four trumpets, four trombones, piano, bass, drums and percussion all coming together to form a super rich and tasty sound. Incorporating Middle Eastern melodies and mystique into its sound, this is the kind of jazz that's pretty impossible not to fall for. Like the best instrumental Ethiopiques tracks, Sun Ra's big-band era and Randy Weston's multicultural approach to hard bop. Incredibly pleasing!

MPEG stream: Dawn
MPEG stream: Oriental Mood

We first heard UK duo The Ragga Twins on the amazing Rumble In The Jungle compilation which we made our Record Of The Week back in early 2007. One of the first bands, in the early '90s, to combine the grooves and the toasting of reggae and dancehall with hip hop breakbeats, and essentially creating jungle, which as any avid reader of the aQ list knows, we absolutely LOVE. The Ragga Twins began life right in the midst of the blossoming rave scene which makes it a bit surprising that folks got so it. But get into it they did. Along with a handful of other underground groups, the Ragga Twins helped launch a British music movement that continues to this day, as Jungle would spawn drum and bass, which would mutate into garage, techstep, 2step, and eventually grime and dubstep. Even at its very genesis, this stuff was practically perfect, funky, and loose, groovy and aggressive, totally irresistible, big beats, loping hip hop rhythms, sped up breakbeats, the music skeletal, simple loops, all about the vocals, a rapid fire dancehall toasting, delivered in a raw bark, while the beat pounded away beneath. Some of the tracks definitely display some of the surrounding rave culture, fuzzy synths, sweeping strings, bits of techno, but for the most part, this stuff is fierce and funky dancehall jungle, the sort of stuff that The Bug is giving a modern spin. Take "Ragga Trip" with its seventies cop show groove, and squelchy synths, the toasting is incredible, rough and raw, and impossibly catchy. Or "Illegal Gunshot", with it's playful marimba melody, and skittery beat. And again, incredible vocals. Then "Spliffhead", with a reggae croon that ends up making it sound almost like Bad Brains at their most reggae. "Rudeboy" wraps techno synths and wailing sirens around a rolling breakbeat, the toasting and crooned vocals, and reggae guitar reeling it back in and keeping it from getting too ravey, while "Juggling" totally evokes eighties hip hop (especially Black Sheep) but it could just be THAT breakbeat. The second disc features older tracks, including a couple from the pre-Ragga Twins Deman Rockers, the older tracks are a bit ravier, or a bit more reggae sounding, but even then, the tracks are still pretty kick ass. Definitely essential listening for folks into jungle and drum and bass, who loved that Rumble In The Jungle comp, and who dig all that Bug stuff, this is where it all started! Like all Soul Jazz stuff, gorgeous packaging, tons of vintage photos and of course extensive liner notes.

MPEG stream: Ragga Trip
MPEG stream: Illegal Gunshot
MPEG stream: Rudeboy

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

SORRY. We first heard UK duo The Ragga Twins on the amazing Rumble In The Jungle compilation which we made our Record Of The Week back in early 2007. One of the first bands, in the early '90s, to combine the grooves and the toasting of reggae and dancehall with hip hop breakbeats, and essentially creating jungle, which as any avid reader of the aQ list knows, we absolutely LOVE. The Ragga Twins began life right in the midst of the blossoming rave scene which makes it a bit surprising that folks got so it. But get into it they did. Along with a handful of other underground groups, the Ragga Twins helped launch a British music movement that continues to this day, as Jungle would spawn drum and bass, which would mutate into garage, techstep, 2step, and eventually grime and dubstep. Even at its very genesis, this stuff was practically perfect, funky, and loose, groovy and aggressive, totally irresistible, big beats, loping hip hop rhythms, sped up breakbeats, the music skeletal, simple loops, all about the vocals, a rapid fire dancehall toasting, delivered in a raw bark, while the beat pounded away beneath. Some of the tracks definitely display some of the surrounding rave culture, fuzzy synths, sweeping strings, bits of techno, but for the most part, this stuff is fierce and funky dancehall jungle, the sort of stuff that The Bug is giving a modern spin. Take "Ragga Trip" with its seventies cop show groove, and squelchy synths, the toasting is incredible, rough and raw, and impossibly catchy. Or "Illegal Gunshot", with it's playful marimba melody, and skittery beat. And again, incredible vocals. Then "Spliffhead", with a reggae croon that ends up making it sound almost like Bad Brains at their most reggae. "Rudeboy" wraps techno synths and wailing sirens around a rolling breakbeat, the toasting and crooned vocals, and reggae guitar reeling it back in and keeping it from getting too ravey, while "Juggling" totally evokes eighties hip hop (especially Black Sheep) but it could just be THAT breakbeat. The second disc features older tracks, including a couple from the pre-Ragga Twins Deman Rockers, the older tracks are a bit ravier, or a bit more reggae sounding, but even then, the tracks are still pretty kick ass. Definitely essential listening for folks into jungle and drum and bass, who loved that Rumble In The Jungle comp, and who dig all that Bug stuff, this is where it all started! Like all Soul Jazz stuff, gorgeous packaging, tons of vintage photos and of course extensive liner notes.

MPEG stream: Ragga Trip
MPEG stream: Illegal Gunshot
MPEG stream: Rudeboy

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

MPEG stream: Ragga Trip
MPEG stream: Illegal Gunshot
MPEG stream: Rudeboy

It's about fucking time! This is one of the best and most overlooked hard rock/metal records of the past 15 years, a big fave of Andee and Allan here at AQ. Its obscurity might have something do with the fact that that they were, as frontman Greg Strzempka But the bottom line is always the songs. And Raging Slab, at least on this record, has SONGS coming out their ass. Unforgettable hooks and sing-along choruses. So catchy and fun (and funny) without being stupidly ironic. Bizarre lyrics that are sung so forcefully and with such emotion that you find yourself singing along full force: "GET OFF MY JOLLIES!!!!" or "I can bust a gut on Heebie Jeebies and holy rollers poppin wheelies", or "Just try and shave my wooly bully, I'll use the fur as fuel for folly." In fact all the lyrics are almost nonsensical but oddly satisfying and completely compelling (especially when you're in full on air-guitar, or 'air lead vocalist' mode). This should have been the "Nevermind" of groovy boogie stoner hard rock, but the money and success and fame somehow didn't happen. But now with this reissue, folks have another chance to catch on to this slab of truly unique, Southern-fried metal-rock nirvana.

RealAudio clip: Don't Dog Me
RealAudio clip: Get Off My Jollies

Joseph Raglani has released a handful of micro-editions on cd-r, cassette, and lp during the past four or five years, operating in a Klaus Schulze / Cluster vein of synthetic orchestration before catching the attention of Kranky Records. With all of the swoop and sweep of Raglani's electronics that parallel the drone-rock of Growing and Stars Of The Lid, Kranky is a good fit for Raglani. He casts a wide net of aesthetics on Of Sirens Born with some lovely pastoral moments coaxed from sampled harp and strings not that far removed from Colleen's lilting sound; and later on, he ignites a powderkeg of Merzbowian noise which disintegrates into atonal bowings of metal. But his deftly rendered ambience is rife with plenty of squiggle and slow-burning crescendos from his patch bay synthesizer, forming the crux of this enjoyable album.

MPEG stream: Of Sirens Born
MPEG stream: Rivers in the Promise of Wood
MPEG stream: Jubilee

Wow! This record totally knocked our socks off. It's not at all what we were expecting. We remembered the Rah Bras as some sort of Ruins worshipping sorta Lighting Boltish art punk freak out sorta thing. And while some of those elements linger on here, their sound is way different. This is full on blown out fuzzed out electro synth weirdness, but don't get all down on these guys for any perceived bandwagon jumping cuz this is nothing of the sort. Sure they would probably hit the spot for all those big haired, tight pantsed, white belted elctroclash kiddies, but this is WAY weirder. Some sort of unholy collision between, X Ray Spex, Essential Logic, Six Finger Satellite, Trans Am, Stereolab and Fischerspooner but with a fully Chipmunked male vocalist singing in an impossible falsetto wail, like Geddy Lee on 45. Huge buzzing synths battle with snarling guitars, wrapped up tight into BIG riffs, big BOOMing, pounding drums (REAL drums as far as we can tell) and those vocals. Yowza! Those of you who remember post Butthole Surfers group Drain, this is a bit like a synth pop version of that group's pulsing industrial weirdness, albeit with the fuzzy dance punk quotient turned WAY up. This is big and loud and wild and fun, a little goofy, but also a tiny bit menacing. The vocals have a certain snarl to them and the synths have as much BITE as the heaviest of guitars. But this is not merely an all out black light, coke fueled, all night, outerspace electro dance party, no the 'Bras sort of spin out into even stranger sounds, super thick, almost Krautrock rhythms that build into ferocious squalls of dark and sort of melancholy epicness, some full on foot stomping synth glam, like Sweet on helium, and even some haunting balladry a la Kate Bush, although even in ballad mode, the musical backdrop is still a dense swirl of fuzzy drones and bleeping blooping swoosh, spacey and shimmery and sort of creepy.

MPEG stream: As She Rah
MPEG stream: Skin = Chronized

So far our only real exposure to Rahdunes, has been their recent split with krauty drone combo Expo '70 (and a few cd-r's and tapes here and there), but on that split, they definitely demonstrated their ability to conjure up some seriously cosmic sounds. So here we have the first proper full length cd from kosmiche astral travelers Rahdunes and it's pretty fantastic. And fantastical. A longform soundscape of garbled guitars, and smeared melody, a forever unwinding sonic tapestry, woven from disembodied ghostly voices, spidery guitar melodies, haunting whirring woodwinds, all dipped in LSD and doused in a suitcase full of fractured effects. Delay collides with reverb, guitars crumble to pieces only to have those pieces drift lazily heavenward, when riffs do surface, they seem to simply hover, looping in on themselves, creating slow shifting sonic latticeworks, through which all manner of synths and sounds intertwine. Most of the tracks darkly meditative, the sounds pulsing and throbbing softly, creating barely perceptible rhythms, the you feel in your bones and seeping into your skin more than you hear it. Electronics drift through ethereal clouds of distant bagpipe melodies, of buzzing low end rumbles, thick slabs of shimmery black murky splinter into fragments that collide in mid air with impossibly distorted voices, it's like some krautrock band flew to the moon and plugged their guitars into funhouse mirrors, everything woozy and gloriously unhinged, tripped out and drug drenched, what percussion there is, is mostly chimes and bells, and more often than not, those sounds are buried along with everything else beneath undulating layers of whirring spaced out effects, and blurred abstract melodies. Totally and gloriously fucked up, the perfect soundtrack for tripping out, and drifting off. Total inner space / outer space introspection overload. Which means we LOVE it. Beautiful oversized gold and green on creme printed packaging, equal parts cave drawings and old quilt. So cool.

MPEG stream: Head Of Clouds
MPEG stream: Meeting You Is Like Sucking God's Dick

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

SORRY. DJ Roc Raida (of NYC's X-Ecutioners crew) spinning and scratching live on pirate radio. In the mix: The Arsonists, Q-Bert & D-Styles, Common, The Beatnuts, The X-Ecutioners, and others...plus "Caller Trying To Win Tickets" and other interludes.

OK kids, put down your White Stripes records, and your Clinic records, and your John Spencer Blues Explosion records, and burn your Strokes records, and your Yeah Yeah Yeahs records. This is the real shit: gritty, cocksure, whiteboy blues, junkyard

RealAudio clip: Gun Problem
RealAudio clip: Bang The Drum
RealAudio clip: What Did You Expect?
RealAudio clip: Forty Minutes
RealAudio clip: The Ballad Of Railroad Jerk

This duo of Joe Andrews and Tom Halstead, aka Raime, have conjured up this strange and mysterious slab of dark brooding black energy, equal parts minimal electronica, bleak black ambience, abstract techno and avant sound design. Right off the bat, we were reminded of last week's Record Of The Week, Roly Porter's Aftertime, as well as the grim, sinister electronic soundscapes of Ben Frost, not to mention recent techno favorites from Shed, Terence Dixon and Stefan Goldmann. In fact, in some ways, Quarter Turns Over A Living Line is like a bizarre hybrid of all of those. Casting doomic plod as stripped down electronic skitter, reminding us of Bohren Und Der Club Of Gore, creating heaving slabs of rumbling crumbling blackened heaviness, that sound like Wolf Eyes score for an orchestra, transforming mutant strains of dub and jungle into creeping expanses of sinister stutter, and stretching dubstep bass warble into droned out layers, and wrapping them around haunting sprawls of cinematic menace. The record almost plays out like a soundtrack or score, the various pieces blurring into one another, the most disparate, still sonically linked, from the opening rumbles, like some blackened hellish noise-drone, drifting beneath distant keening melodies, laced with shards of grinding glitch, all underpinned by ominous minor key melodies, gradually dissipating, leaving a sprawl of looped skitter, beneath a cloud of ominous chordal thrum the vibe dark and doomy, subtly rhythmic, a little bit dubby, the drumming splintering into near industrial crunch, with the background sounds never ceasing their woozy drift. That drift transforming into the aforementioned Bohren-like creep, minimal and cinematic, which over the course of the next two tracks, begins to slip back into something much more techno, almost jungle sounding, but somehow remains restrained, the rhythmic heft more implied, a muted pulse and stutter behinds warm swirls of melody and dark fragments of caustic crunch. From there on out, the sound unfurls and expands, slipping from Arvo Part like choral majesty, to harrowing tense rhythm flecked drone, to lush orchestral, industrial shimmer, the various pulses and crashes, groans and clatters, gorgeously rendered, the sound design lush and lovely, while also being harsh and weirdly alien, but all blurred and woven into Raime's haunting moody mesmer.

MPEG stream: Passed Over Trail
MPEG stream: The Last Foundry
MPEG stream: Soil And Colts

As much as we love the Beatles (and we do), we don't really find ourselves putting on Rubber Soul or Revolver on a daily basis. No, if we're gonna listen to Lennon/McCartney compositions, we'd rather hear 'em done a bit differently, like for instance rearranged by an obscure psychedelic orchestral jazz-rock ensemble from Norway, as found here. Recorded circa 1969-70, Rain's album features epic covers of Beatles classics "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "A Day In The Life", as well as John Lennon's own "Isolation", amidst a bunch of impressive progged-out originals, all heavy on the sweeping Hammond organ, fuzz guitar, horn arrangements, and grand Nordic vocals. The ambitious musicians in Rain shift from jazzy grooves to delicate '60s psych to electro-acoustic avant-classical experimentation (as on the stark and strange "Norsk Suite"), all except the latter staying nicely melodic as well as quite technically complex. George Martin & the Beatles were an inspiration of course, but also apparently Varese, Stravinsky, and Vanilla Fudge too! This Shadoks release includes a 20 minute bonus track of free improvisation, as well as extensive liner notes in the form of an interview with Rain's guitarist/violinist, and plenty of vintage photos.

MPEG stream: A Day In The Life
MPEG stream: Join The City War
MPEG stream: Have You Seen Your Father's Face

Does technology exist that instantly turns the rapid random wanderings of the mind into music? Listening to Street Lights sure makes us think it must! It's as if someone's gone and plugged that machine directly into the (we're guessing bong-luvvin') brain of one Mr. Jordan Rain. His new album jumps about so wildly it'll have you puzzledly scratching your own head at every turn. Hell, we felt we almost had to roll ourselves a fatty just to review it! If Jordan looks / sounds somehow familiar to you, there's many possible reasons why. A veritable North Western underground musical legend, he's been a member of Reeks & The Wrecks (whose sole posthumous release came out on Andee's tUMULt label a while back), Behead The Prophet No Lord Shall Live, Alamo Social Club and Robert Blake's High Wide & Handsome Band. He's also been spotted recently as the frontman for his eight member Yogoman Burning Band. Anyways, Street Lights is Jordan's second cd of tunes he wrote, played, and recorded all by himself. The instruments and vocals were recorded through the pinhole mic in his iBook directly into the Garageband computer program, where he overdubbed and mixed everything. The aural effects laden grab bag contains everything from answering machine snippits and non-verbal vocalizing to white boy soul falsetto crooning, trippy dubbed out reggae, slow burning laid back grooves, wild percussive freakouts and even a sing-a-long with a baby. Weird and warped, and maybe best listened to under the influence...

MPEG stream: Right Time Rockers
MPEG stream: Happy Monkey Horsie Desert Ride

So cool to see Los Angeles duo Rainbow Arabia get a release on an awesome internationally respected label, and also cool that Kompakt seems to be really branching out and releasing an album that takes a serious sonic shift into a new direction for the label. We were immediately smitten with Rainbow Arabia from when we heard their first self released album and ep a few years back. Sadly, we were never able to get them into the store, but we were quite confident they would become a band that lots of people would be hearing about soon enough. Their first bigtime release, Boys & Diamonds, does a great job of demonstrating how RA borrow from electronica, Bollywood, Congotronics, and so much more into a totally dizzying and seductive sound that is pretty much impossible not to get swept away by. This time out there's a bit more of a moody vibe to their sound which has us imagining Fever Ray remixed by Santo Gold or M.I.A. And the M.I.A. influence is definitely noticeable on much of Rainbow Arabia's output, but on Boys And Diamonds, they've really done an exceptional job of incorporating that influence into a heavy and dreamy blend of sounds and styles. So colorful and catchy, we're going to be blasting this one for months to come! Lp comes with cd of album as well.

MPEG stream: Boys And Diamonds
MPEG stream: Hai
MPEG stream: Nothin' Gonna Be Undone

A while back we reviewed a mysterious cd-r from a band called Utsuro Bune, the disc was a head caving slab of single-guitar un-overdubbed black psychedelia, a massive glacial doomdrone, but one that bristled with a unique psychedelic energy, positioning itself closer to say Keiji Haino rather than SUNNO))), or as we described it in the review, some strange hybrid of the two. Well it seems that the man behind UB, Matt Kattman, has ditched the UB monicker, and started a new project, this one, The Rainbow Body, still with a similarly drone-y bent, but this time ditching the heaving heaviness for something more spaced out and kosmische, an eight part song suite that finds Kattman's guitar drifting through clouds of blissed out shimmer, encountering the occasional burst of gristled static, and conjuring up the same sort of galactic drift as aQ faves Expo 70, but The Rainbow Body takes that sound even further out, more ghostly and spectral, most of the tracks floating ethereally, the sound so dreamy and tripped out and softly psychedelic, that on first listen we thought it might have all been synth based, the guitars looped and wreathed in effects and transformed into streaks and smears, blurred expanses of chordal shimmer and disembodied melody. But there's more going on there that just drift and shimmer, Kattman laces the tracks with mysterious pulsations, strange tonal shifts, buried rhythms, woozily tangled loops, occasionally slipping into ominous sci-fi drones, but just as often blossoming into prismatic new age glimmer, and while there are some more sinister moments, where the sound grows moody and mildly malevolent, it's all part of the Rainbow Body's cinematic scope, Metatron's Cube playing out like some strange celestial soundtrack, the score to some mysterious planetarium show, it's the sound of a million stars time lapsed into a sky full of fireworks like streaks, a mesmerizing display of cosmic sonic drift and spaced out dreamdrone mesmer. Packaged in a sweet full color J-card, with a download coupon for a digital version of the whole tape.

MPEG stream: Metatron's Cube 1
MPEG stream: Metatron's Cube 3
MPEG stream: Metatron's Cube 6

The second tape this year from one man guitarscaper The Rainbow Body, aka Matt Kattman, who was also responsible for another aQ fave, the crushing blackened doomdrone of Utsuro Bune. But as we mentioned in our review of the last Rainbow Body tape, Kattman has decided to delve into something much more atmospheric and kosmische, using just his guitar and a handful of effects, creating, lush billowing landscapes of hazy, washed out guitar ambience, and slow shifting layers of longform guitardrone bliss out. An eight part songsuite, with each part bleeding organically into the next, the sound here is alternatingly sun dappled and dreamy, droned out and sinister, the sound at times reminding us of a more spaced out new age-y Roy Montgomery, lush languorous chords, drifting weightless in sprawling expanses of layered shimmer, loops tangled into dreamlike swirls of soft focus melody. Cosmic and celestial, wreathed in reverb and echo, notes and chords caught in swirling clouds of muted buzz and raga like thrum, darkly meditative, and divinely mesmerizing, anyone into psychedelic drone music, kosmische new age drift and minimal guitarscapery will want to get lost in the Rainbow Body's woozy, washed out prismatic soundworld. Packaged in a full color J-card and includes a download coupon as well.

MPEG stream: Void 1
MPEG stream: Void 2
MPEG stream: Void 3

After two amazing tape releases, The Rainbow Body returns with this super limited (just 50 copies!) ep, which again, like Metatron's Cube and Return Under Void before it, unfurls a gorgeously gristly landscape of blown out guitar crunch and blurred kosmische psychedelia, opening with a heavy, heaving sprawl of crumbling distortion, wrapped around glistening melodies, like a Tim Hecker jam cranked way up and run through a bank of dying-battery distortion boxes, simultaneously noisy and chaotic and utterly dreamy, especially when there's a super sudden shift, and all the distortion drops away, leaving a keening stretch of muted melodic mesmer, all low end melody and swirling shimmering hiss. The rest of the ep plays out similarly, balanced deftly between full on noise, and bleary blown our dreamdronedrift, sometimes harnessing wild squalls of blackened psychedelia and crafting them into droned out soundscapes, other times, unfurling hazy washed of muted melody and blurry celestial shimmer, and still other times, conjuring up dense swells of thick chordal thrum, wreathed in soaring swirls of cosmic dream psych blur. So gorgeous. And as we mentioned, EXTREMELY LIMITED!!

MPEG stream: White Pyramid 1&2
MPEG stream: The Dream Stela

[ aquarius records catalogue — R ]