[ aquarius records catalogue

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Showing results 1201 through 1250 of 4057.

Awesome mix, as we would expect from firsthand experience, when he DJ'd in the store!

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

SORRY.

Part field recording, part free jazz improv. As the title indicates, solo sax in the subway, that's what this is. But definitely not your usual "busker" fare! Beautiful, but also definitely dog-whistle intense. Japanese saxophonist Tamio Shiraishi has been active since the '70s, and played in an early incarnation of Keiji Haino's Fushitsusha, we're told. He been living in New York City for at least a decade, collaborating with NNCK among others, and apparently likes to haunt the subway in Queens, with his sax, when he's in a pensive mood. The sax he blows here generates a thin, piercing, upper-register "whistling" sound, sometimes a subtle squeal, sometimes a haunting soul-cry, that we'd think would be lost in the clangor of the subway system. But, instead it sounds like he's playing in an abandoned area of the subway, it seems often almost totally silent, but for the saxophone. And except, now and then, for the sounds of a passing train. Clearly it's a lonely stop, late at night or very early in the morning... or maybe the sine-wave like tone of his saxophone has chased all the commuters away. When a train does "run though" the station where Shiraishi is playing, a whole 'nother dimension is added, the ambient, field recording character of this disc becomes apparent, that's definitely what makes this most interesting to us, as listeners. Rumbling, clanking, hissing, rhythmically choo-chooing in its subway way, first in the distance softly, then louder, then receding again to be replaced by the sax it didn't quite drown out... The loneliness of the delicately shrill saxophone soloing is accentuated as the train fades away, each a drone of its own, for moments in brief duet. More than the sum of its parts, we'd definitely rather hear Shiraishi in this subway setting than in a studio - and at the same time, it's NOT quite what you might have thought a subway platform saxophone recording would sound like. So, move over DJ Shadow, David Shire, and Charles Gayle... this is the new sound of the NYC subway system!

MPEG stream: track 1
MPEG stream: track 5

Finally back in stock. One of the best soundtracks to one of the greatest movies EVER!! Really. The last time we listed this was almost 5 years ago and we just now managed to get another batch in. Here's what we had to say about this amazing disc: This is simply one of the greatest films ever made. You can call AQ and argue with us if you disagree. This film is so personal and intense. So completely thrilling and perfect. And it features what has to be Gene Hackman's best performance ever (except maybe for The French Connection). Also features Harrison Ford and Cindy Williams in one of the best scenes of all time (the scene in the park, filmed in San Francisco's Union Square). And the soundtrack is equally impressive. David Shire, who also did the score for the oh so amazing Taking Of Pelham 123, was presented with a new challenge in the scoring of the Conversation. First, Coppola insisted that the score be simple and stripped down, unlike the bombastic full orchestras Shire was so adept with. Second, the score was composed before the film was finished (like Morricone with Leone), which allowed the score to guide the filming and really help focus the performances. So the score ended up being mostly just solo piano (with Shire believing the whole time that they would orchestrate it later). Dark and minor key. Simple, but so goddamn creepy. It's absolutely chilling and almost too perfectly captures the paranoid unhappiness of Hackman's Harry Caul. It's way scarier and dismal sounding than anything more modern doomsters like Piano Magic or Tindersticks have been trying to pull off. Another interesting aspect of the score is the 'jazz records' that Hackman's character plays sax along to in the film. Those 'records' were actually composed by Shire specifically for the film and Hackman actually played the sax. He had never touched a saxophone before, so on the set he had someone teaching him to play, and he would spend his time practicing scales instead of going over his lines. Those tracks are on this disc, complete with Hackman's sax accompaniment. Another bonus on the disc is a full band version of the Theme From the Conversation, where Shire finally gets to flex his arranging muscles. This soundtrack has never been released in any form, so it's pretty exciting that the folks at Intrada managed to pull it all together and get this out (they actually had to do quite a bit of legwork, remixing, re-EQing, and re-editing to put this all together!). Not really available at stores, we're managed to get a few copies 'cause we're such slobbering The Conversation fans. And for those of you who haven't seen The Conversation...WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU? WALK AWAY FROM YOUR COMPUTER RIGHT NOW. WALK TO YOUR NEAREST VIDEO STORE. RENT THE VIDEO. UNPLUG THE PHONE. AND WATCH. YOU WILL NOT BE SORRY. An absolutely beautiful film with some of the best performances, directing, and music you will ever see or hear.

RealAudio clip: Theme From The Conversation
RealAudio clip: No More Questions / Phoning The Director
RealAudio clip: To The Office / The Elevator

Even if David Shire had only ever done the scores for The Taking Of Pelham 123 and The Conversation, those two alone would seal the deal, ensuring Shire a top spot as one of our favorite film composers EVER. Those two soundtracks are so amazing, so intense and emotional, incredibly dramatic and really really strange. The recurring melodic motif of the Conversation is one of those rare musical moments, a tiny chunk of music that once it enters your head, it sticks there forever. It helps that it's repeated over and over and over in the movie and on the cd... But Shire did so much more, amazing films, ridiculous movies, tons of TV, silly and fantastic, dark and depressing, some were fairly surprising, cuz who would have ever assumed that the guy who did Pelham 123 and The Conversation was the same man responsible for some of the music for Saturday Night Fever and Norma Rae... From the same folks who brought us the long overdue cd release of the Conversation comes the soundtrack to The Hindenburg from 1975. One of the final entries in the spate of disaster movies, Airport, The Poseidon Adventure, The Hindenburg is the story of the legendary 1937 crash of The Hindenburg, a German Zeppelin, which remains still one of the worst disasters of the 20th century and one of the first to become a media event due to live radio broadcasts and newsreel footage. The movie transformed the disaster into a mystery, a secret plot to destroy the Hindenburg. A pretty killer cast, George C. Scott, Anne Bancroft, Charles Durning, Burgess Meredith... The music, while not as idiosyncratic as either Pelham or The Conversation, is still moving and dramatic, much more classic sounding old school soundtrack music, with haunting strings, playful little melodies, sweeping expanses of orchestral swoon, occasional bursts of atonal Bernard Hermann style high end tension, fluttering woodwinds, deep ominous low end, some more classical sounding string sections, it's all pretty great, even removed from the visuals, our favorite moments of course are the darker, dronier more tense and ominous bits, which thankfully make up much of the score. Also included is a strange vocal track, called "There's A Lot To Be Said For The Fuehrer", a croony tin pan alley style ballad, and the whole record is bookended by newsreel broadcasts, the opening is a brief history of ballooning and the development of the zeppelin, all jaunty and playful, the closing is really intense, a rough scratchy live recording set to music of an eyewitness to the disaster, describing the crash as it unfolds, visibly shaken, his voice cracking as he struggles to keep from weeping. Heavy. Certainly not the weirdest score, but soundtrack fans will definitely dig, and Shire fans should check this out for sure (as well as the recent Zodiac score that we also have in stock). And as with all the Intrada reissues, tons of photos and super extensive liner notes.

MPEG stream: Suspect Montage
MPEG stream: Fin Repair Sequence
MPEG stream: Boerth Sets The Bomb / Preparing To Land
MPEG stream: Prelude To The Holocaust

The nice guys over at (Film Score Monthly [http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/]), a glossy magazine devoted to soundtracks, have issued this never-before-available soundtrack to fantastic 1974 suspense film featuring Walter Matthau as salty New York Transit Authority cop. The 12-tone jazz/funk masterpiece of a score was composed by David Shire, who is responsible for the all-piano score to The Conversation, among many others. So now Windy doesn't have to start a label to reissue this soundtrack, but maybe she will anyway -- Barbarella and Yojimbo still beckon...

MPEG stream: Aftermaths
MPEG stream: Graysmith
MPEG stream: Law & Disorder

Latest blast of outsider sonic WTF and avant rhythmic weirdness from these Texas noise rockers turned avant beat making electronic experimentalists. And they're back on Rock Is Hell, one of our favorite labels, specializing in the bizarre and baffling, and as if to celebrate this reunion, Shit And Shine offer up what we can only describe as, their 'jazz' record? No bashing blowouts, no fractured drum machine rhythms, instead, the vibe is cool and mellow, skittery and softly skronky, woozy and a little psychedelic. A subtle krautrock influence runs throughout as well. Just check out the 16 minute opener "Denim Do's And Don'ts" which is a sprawling, late night shuffle, all languid organs and electric piano, draped over a hypnotic, minimal groove, and peppered with horns here and there, all the background for a strange narration, the vibe is sort of rainy night in an empty city mixed with a beat up old lounge in the middle of nowhere, both populated by shady characters, and all manner of mysterious shapes lurking in the shadows. We kept expecting the record to explode into some crushing cacophony, or splinter into some sort of fractured beatscape, but instead, the band just sort of unwind, the house band at some jazz dive, jamming into the wee hours. And we'd like to say there are moments of fucked up, damaged Shit And Shine weirdness, but the fact that there's really NOT, is precisely what makes this so fucked up, and so strangely cool. A few tracks do almost devolve into more twisted murk, but really, they never drift to far from this a moody, dimly lit downer jazz, EXCEPT for "Jump On The Feeder", which sounds like one of the other tracks, slowly melting and crumbling, the voice too processed, and gnarled into an alien spoken word. But yeah, who thought they had it in 'em?! And who woulda thought King Coffey of the Butthole Surfers would be behind the kit on a record that sounds less like drugged out chaos than moody minimalism. We certainly wouldn't have, but goddamn we dig it. And as always, Rock Is Hell pull out all the stops - colored vinyl, super thick sleeves, all unique, and a download code to boot!

MPEG stream: Denim Do's And Don'ts
MPEG stream: TJC 16
MPEG stream: Jump On The Feeder

You could argue that EVERY record from these Texas via UK via Texas noise rock weirdos is sort of a 'dance' record. Every one rife with rhythms and grooves, hypnotic and repetitive, tranced out and yeah a little bit groovy. Although most of that was countered by blown out distorted bass buzz, squealing noise made by squeezing air from balloons, thick swaths of analog synth blurt, crushing down tuned bass buzz, multi drummers, bizarre and ultra creepy costumes, but really, at the core of $&$, was rhythm. And as the band has shed its revolving phalanx of multiple drummers, and slimmed down its ranks to what is essentially just one man, $&$ mastermind Craig Clouse, the sound has changed as well, with Clouse pushing the music of his previously bombastic noise rock juggernaut into something more electronic, the entity that is now Shit & Shine, instead of being some weirdo noise rockers, are in fact some twisted, avant, and yeah, still noisy and WTF version of electronic music, one that's not strictly electronic, just to muddy the waters just a little more. In fact, right from the get go, the sound is akin to the Butthole Surfers recording for Warp, or some extremely bastardized version of that new slo-mo soul sound. Opener "Hiss" sounds like Burila or How To Dress Well, but all drugged up and doused in FX, at least for a minute or two, then in comes some proper guitar some synths, and the 'band' sound like an actual band, a cleaner, more streamlined, more 'danceable' Buttholes perhaps, but in the history of $&$, it doesn't sound all that out of place, even though it is a lot different than most of what's come before. But we dig it, a noisy, rock groove, peppered with swirls of squelch and gristle, some buried progged out synths, FX that send sounds stuttering into cloud of dizzying psych, but al wedded to that unwavering groove. And that's just the beginning, with Clouse utilizing his kitchen sink approach, but in this case, the kitchen sink in question is a dirty rusty sink in an old abandoned meth lab on an empty lot somewhere in bumfuck Texas, but that only adds to the WTF of Clouse's 'electronica' and doesn't prevent him from conjuring up squelchy little bas driven synth heavy grooves like "You Can't", which sounds like some warped version of Neu!, or the ultra minimal glitchy electro skitter static of 'Pearl Drop", or the big bass, block rockin' "PG 13" that takes a super funky groove, adds some metallic vokill screech, some distort blasts of psych noise, all of which eventually devolves into a sort of eighties soundtrack groove. From there on out, there's the demented James Brown-ish "Blowhannon', which sounds like his back up band was either Earth Wind And Fire or Rusted Shut or BOTH. "Who's Your Waitress", is a shittier shinier take on FM radio yacht rock, a smooth groove, laced with just enough subtle WTF-ness to keep it confusional, "Value" is all big beat bombast, sounding like it could be some lost DHR b-side or another Meat Beat style cruncher. There's more of course, from low spun, creeps wrapped around rubbery bass billows, and dubbed out drum splatter, and some pounding 4 on the floor acid house, albeit equally acid fried, and wreathed in some creepy John Carpenter synthiness. And if you're lucky, and remain a cd person, the aluminum version has bonus tracks from the last $&$ 12", one a cool collaged rhythmic groove, replete with mangled vocal samples, skipping bass blurt, some gurgled cookie monster vox, even some guitar crunch, one is a full on disco blowout, albeit a bit distorted and twisted, and FX heavy, especially toward the end, where it seems to melt into a sort of Butthole Surfers megamix, and one is a murky skitter, that slowly builds to a sort of warbly dubbed out funk-murk electro dirge, that is about as danceable as it is weird. Which is 'very' on both counts.

MPEG stream: Hiss
MPEG stream: You Can't
MPEG stream: Pearl Drop
MPEG stream: PG 13
MPEG stream: Blowhannon

When we first heard / heard about Shit And Shine, a mysterious noise rock collective from the UK, they definitely seemed custom made for aQ, multiple drummers, multiple bass players, someone playing lawnmower, a sound equal parts vintage Butthole Surfers, classic Hawkwind, and modern kraut-psych-drone-rock a la Circle and Pharaoh Overlord and Cave and the like, not to mention the garish, sometimes offensive album, art, the hilarious and usually offensive song titles, we were sold, smitten, totally obsessed. And thankfully, in the several years since that very first 12", very little has changed, almost all of the aforementioned essentials are still part and parcel of the Shit And Shine experience (minus the lawnmowers, but then the more we've come to understand these jokers, the more we realize that probably a lot of the 'facts' circulating about S&S is total bullshit, so odds are there never was any lawnmowers, sigh), and if anything, they've managed the impossible, getting tighter and more polished, more rocking, with better and somewhat proper 'songs', while simultaneously getting more and more fucked up and far out, taking super minimal elements and combining them into something massive and bewitching and baffling and heavy as fuck, but sounding literally unlike anything we've ever heard. Sure there are elements of plenty of stuff we love, but the way these guys twist those elements and cram them into whatever shape THIS is, just blows our minds, and eardrums. So yeah, garish pink on white cover, masked lady with one of her breasts out on the front, a weird long necked headless super hero lady on the back, inside an awesome scary photo of two little girls, long hair obscuring their faces, standing hand in hand in front of a massive wall of amps, and song titles: "Have You Really Thought About Your Presentation?", "Goodbye And Good Gardening", "Girls Against Shit", "20 Years Of Caring For The Nations Eyes", "The Cusp Of Innocence, Prettily", "I'm Making My Lunch", " People Like You... REALLY!" and on and on, but none of that would mean shit if there wasn't a head spinning gut churning din to back it up, and holy shit do these guys bring the noise this time around. The opening track, "Have Your Really Thought About Your Presentation" is equal parts Brainbombs and last list's Record Of The Weekers Rusted Shut, but with a little bit of krautish hypnorock mixed in, so what you get is a crushing, super distorted mega main RIFF, a pounding mesmerizing drum beat, everything super hot and blown out and in the red, looped and locked and pounding away over and over and over and over, but with some weird stuff going on, buried vocals, strange bits of glitch and crunch, and the weirdest part of all, seems impossible to play, but every few measures, it sounds like the band skips a beat, almost like the record skips, but it's super subtle, like a weird stutter step, that just makes it all the more weird, but no less trancelike and heavy, and it only gets weirder from there on out. All the songs here are based on rhythms, which comes with the territory when you have multiple drummers, the second track begins all skittery, an almost drum machine sounding shuffle, which slips into a looped dubbed out pound, while all around the rhythms is buffeted by swirling FX, jagged shards of jangle guitar, and super distorted wild over-saturated leads and weird voices buried in the mix. The next track explodes in a tangle of twisted string buzz and fractured electronics, before those sounds coalesce into a crazy noise drenched rock racket, rife with angular guitars and layer upon layer of drones and voices and feedback and sonic chaos. "USA / Mexico" is some Buttholes gone black metal weirdness, super murky muddy riffage, pounding blast beats, start stop rhythms, bizarre vokills and crazy electronics all over the place. The crushing stop start chug of "The Cusp Of Innocence, Prettily", almost makes the record for us, with a killer main riff, and an increasingly distorted guitar tone, until a sample of some cheesy European sounding folk song comes in, and like magic, the crunch and chug and pound lock in and fit perfectly with that lilting little ditty, turning it into something nasty and scary and AWESOME. It's only a second, but it's sooooo good. The abstract dub of the title track, the main rhythm made out of what sounds like someone writing on a chalkboard, some super effected tripped out dubby bursts, random spoken words, thick sheets of warm washed out guitars, until the track gets all Circle-y, but filtered through some fractured nineties industrial, like Pharaoh Overlord jamming Meat Beat Manifesto, but with strangled metal guitars and vrooming motorcycle sounds. There's some dance-y almost house sounding throb and pulse, but it's butted up right against a twisted angular noise rock / electro mashup, that is so distorted it's dabbling in Merzbow territory. The other looooong track "Roberts Church Problem" sounds like it was recorded live, ad thus sounds like vintage S&S in full on unhinged Buttholes mode, multiple pounding drummers, wall of buzz, fuzzed out heaviness, repetitive and looped and seemingly never ending (we wish!). "Friseur Nelson is another good one, all very Circle, distorted and murky, a killer tribal rhythm, crumbling fuzz bass, and a muted chugging low end, some weird haunting chiming minor key melodies, another one that could have been stretched out to the end of the record and we would have been perfectly happy. We could go on and on and on (even more than we already have), but why bother? Every song here rules, they're all super strange and heavy and hooky and groovy and noisy, and somehow, for being so disparate, they all manage to sound like part of a proper record. Well, certainly not a PROPER record, but you know what we mean. And while the rest of the songs are just as tripped out, and what-the-fuck and holy shit! as the ones we already described, odds are by now you probably got the feel for whether this is your cup of blown out rhythmic heaviness or not. The sound of Shit And Shine is like some constantly twisting and transforming, bloody and mangled wreckage, equal parts This Heat, Aluk Todolo, Geronimo, Butthole Surfers, Rusted Shut, Brainbombs, Merzbow, Terminal Cheesecake, Strangulated Beatoffs, Faust, Laddio Bollocko, all pulled apart and reassembled into some damaged Frankenhooker noiserock drum circle spacejam. And odds are if you like any or all of those bands, you're gonna LOVE this...

MPEG stream: Have You Really Thought About Your Presentation?
MPEG stream: USA / Mexico
MPEG stream: The Cusp Of Innocence. Prettily
MPEG stream: Girls Against Shit
MPEG stream: Friseur Nelson

Texas by way of UK, noise rock weirdo Craig Clouse, under the moniker Shit And Shine, continues to craft confusional and baffling sounds that for a while seemed to move ever further away from the knuckle dragging noise rock of the group's multi-drummered early years, but on this new one, Clouse seems to have fused his two dip rate sonic paths, the confrontational pound and pummel, and the tripped out electronic minimalism into something wholly other. Not sure what the title means, we can only assume it will reveal itself upon repeated listens, but even on first spin, opener "Electric Pony 2" delivers a twisted, tranced out wallop, fusing a churning, tribally rhythmic backdrop, to shards of jagged crunch, bursts of fragmented riff rock weirdness, processed vocals, glitched out sputter, and smears it all into a sort of heady kraut-psych done Texas style. Can covered by the Butthole Surfers might not be that off the mark. Or Rusted Shut jamming out covers of early Kraftwerk? Mesmerizingly motorik and groovy as fuck, at least in some avant WTF way. And things don't get any easier to understand as the record progresses, but it's also not as willfully antagonistic as much of the $&$ catalog, instead, it's all about grooves this time around, programmed beats (or it could be live drums) locked into circular patterns, loping and cyclical, usually accompanied by some thick bass throb or rumbling low end, over which Clouse and Co. drape all sorts of sonic detritus, whether it's strange little squelches, melting tape loops, blurry samples, it all sort of oozes lysergically into one pulsing, throbbing, organic dance-drug trip out. As the rest of the record unfolds, the sounds grow more and more dense, and damaged, never drifting very far from whatever head nodding, bass bumping rhythm is serving as its anchor, the sounds distorted and crumbly, and yet, as often as the sound begins to degrade and transform into caustic crunch, it flits right back into some jazzy shuffle, or down-tempo lope, the whole thing a dizzying concoction of beats and textures, a new form of psychedelic dance music that is most definitely not designed for dancing.

MPEG stream: Electric Pony 2
MPEG stream: C2-6
MPEG stream: Goat $hit

They pretty much had us at "dubstep Shit And Shine". Yep, UK mysterious masked multi drummer-ed noise rock weirdos, who recently destroyed at SXSW, and did a fair bit of damage in the Bay Area recently as well, return with their own take on dubstep, and it's just as fucked up and freaked out as we might have imagined (or hoped), and we have to say it's pretty much how we wish ALL dubstep sounded, heavy and super distorted, blown out, the beats pounding, the bass fuzzed out and crushing, a lurching hypnotic groove, surrounded on all sides by crumbling FX, distorted howls, a dizzying swirl of demented sounds, it's like the Butthole Surfers remixed by Burial, or Kode9 covering Rusted Shut. The B-side is the blissier of the two, but only just barely, with deep undulating bass, a locked and looped main groove, weird grunts, and blurred voices, little bits of melody, twisted and tweaked, but weirdly tranquil and hypnotic. Some DJ somewhere is gonna whip this out midset and either utterly destroy the dancefloor, or seriously freak folks the fuck out. Much more likely the latter. Best dubstep jam of the year? Quite possibly...

The first time we heard from the UK's bass and drum (not to be confused with drum and bass) ensemble Shit And Shine, we were already predisposed to love them. Seeing as they featured multiple bass players, a stage full of drummers, and most importantly, at least to us, several lawnmowers. Fuck. Yeah. Over the course of the last three or four years, these guys have continually pummeled us within an inch of our lives, with their throbbing tribal Butthole Surfers style onslaught, a furious blown out in the red drug drenched psych rock, but only the loosest approximation of rock. More like some sort of government drug experiment, where various deviants and ne'er do wells, criminals and sociopaths, were incarcerated, dosed with all manner of experimental psychotropics, then let loose in a concrete bunker filled with drums and amps and busted up old bass guitars, everything recorded for posterity, until someone started leaking the tapes, code name: SHIT AND SHINE. This was the most wacked shit we'd heard since Terminal Cheesecake or the Strangulate Beatoffs. And every record drifted further and further out, as the band became more and more unhinged, and now there's this, Cherry, a massive double lp that while still demonstrating the kind of physical and psychic damage Shit And Shine can do, also reveals a whole new world of fucked up sound these guys have tapped into. In fact, when we first threw this on, we weren't even sure it was the same band. The record opens with a simple percussive drum jam, all toms, sort of tribal, beneath a series of samples, and film clips, a little weird, reminiscent of old industrial, until the next track obliterates the first with a blast of awesome processed metallic riffing, almost like some heavily FX-ed Iron Maiden leads, draped over some shitty shiney sludge, then suddenly guitars flip backwards, the sound becoming some freaked out psych damage, lurching into some killer stop / start dynamics, a churning what-the-fuck sort-of metal jam. Oh yeah, there's also a long long track of old school proto disco, groovy, druggy dancefloor shit, unexpected, but it sort of works in S+S's tweaked sound world. And all of that stuff is peppered with brief super short tracks of classic Shit And Shine tribal drugpsych pummel, but it always slips back into something� curious. Side three is a single side long track, a gorgeous chunk of layered drone, guitars buzz and rumble, basses throb and pulse, there are probably some synths in there too, the various layers churning and shifting, drifting and shimmering, super hypnotic but still subtly fucked up and creepy. And finally, for those folks who were put off by all this weirdness, meaning even more weirdness than normal, all of side 4 is taken up by a full on, head crushing Shit And Shine blow out. Doped up and spaced out, huge loping rhythms, pounding multiple drumkits, the basses and guitars a chaotic tangle of crumbling riffs and throbbing distortion, everything locked into relentless looped churning crush. So completely filthy and crusty and damaged that it sounds constantly on the verge of falling to pieces, but it's this continuous chaos and impending doom, that makes S+S's freaky jams so intense and so fucking awesome! Need we say, TRES RECOMMENDED! More totally and hilariously garish cover art. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES! We got a bunch but AQ folks seem especially partial to Shit -AND- Shine, so these will probably go pretty quick. You have been warned.

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

SORRY. We thought UK noiseniks Shit & Shine couldn't get any more brutal or abrasive or, well, noisy, but of course we were dead wrong� This two track monstrosity lets us hear us two very different sides of the multi headed S+S beast. The A side finds the band kicking up an absolutely ear shredding din, so noisy and blown out that it's almost impossible to hear the actual band. There are multiple drummers, and multiple bass players, but here it sounds like they're all armed with white noise machines and sine wave generators. Layers of in-the-red buzz and high end hiss, super distorted vocals and a murky rhythmic throb. It almost sounds like what we wished Merzbow sounded like, a fierce super dynamic heavy as fuck white noise juggernaut. But then there's the unexpected B side, which is downright tranquil, a carnivalesque loop warbling beneath children's voices, tons of delay and reverb, a dizzying blur of funhouse ambience. Weird as fuck, but somehow a good balance for the chaotic skree on the flipside. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES. Each one hand numbered.

"Cunts With Roses" doesn't really seem like such a surprising name for�a Shit And Shine record when you cast you mind back a few months to their equally problematically titled "Toilet Door Tits" lp on Conspiracy. But then why should a band with such a brilliantly problematic sound, not follow suit with their song titles, album titles and artwork? (Oh, did we mention the cover of�"Cunts With Roses" features a close up of a booty being extricated from a thong, with the band name printed in fancy metallic gold leaf? Yep.) So here we have a crushing archival recording from these UK noisemakers, captured live in a rehearsal studio, preparing for a show opening for the mighty Laibach. Supposedly this is the first recording EVER of the live Shit And Shine experience, and it's a bloody earful for sure. TWO SIDES, ONE RIFF. That's right, just one. But one's really all you need, any more than that and you're basically a prog band, right? A relentless pounding pulverizing repetitive crush, a looped tribal brick to the forehead, churning over and over and over and over and over, it would be quite lulling and soothing if it weren't so fucking skull crushing.� The sound is almost industrial and machinelike, an army of zombie drummers pounding away amidst roiling coils of vacuum cleaner ambience, shouted vocals are sucked under, the bass is slung waaaaay loooow, not so much rocking as churning and throbbing, everything wrapped in a thick crumbling coat of crusty sonic filth. Think Aufgehoben, Swans, Butthole Surfers -- maybe if you took all three, lobotomized them, locked them in a dank cellar with nothing but drums and amps and a tape recorder, and dosed them with PCP, until the whole lot of them went completely berserk, a moldy basement full of convulsing noise rockers pounding and howling and droning as they slowly rot and fall to pieces and lose their minds completely. In other words, WAY recommended.� Ultra limited of course, and a bit pricey cuz of the crap exchange� rate and the weight of vinyl shipped overseas. But well worth it for those of you who need a good sonic bashing, which we'd guess is most of you.

Venerable noise rock miscreants Shit And Shine have essentially been a one man show for a while now. And long gone are the days of costumed, multi-drummered Buttholes Surfers-like rhythm-noise blowouts. No, in addition to being a one man band, they've also essentially transformed into a sort of outsider dance music / damaged DJ / UIDM (unintelligent dance music!) outfit. Which is not to say Mr. Shit And Shine, Craig Clouse, is a dummy, cuz he's most definitely not. In fact, he's some sort of Joe Meek like mad genius, it's just that the 'dance' music he creates, is fucked up and fractured, demented and brain damaged, occasionally funky or groovy, but just as often chaotic and caustic. Usually some dizzying, ear shredding mix of all of those. This latest clutch of jams, which somehow found its way onto the Editions Mego label (where to be honest, it's a pretty great fit) is actually the least obtuse, with Clouse seemingly either mastering the tools of his trade, or opting to be less willfully antagonistic, at least sonically. Which again is not to say this shit is smooth, it's most definitely not. In fact it's defined by its rough edges - opener "Signal Noise" sounds like some mutant strain of Neanderthal house music, filtered through a drug addled Art Of Noise if that makes any sense. It probably doesn't, but that only makes the comparison somehow that much more apt. "Upside Down Cheeseburger" is a stuttery low slung groove, with processed children's voices, some reverby twang, it's kind like a home brewed dub, but with some kraut-psych energy, and like most of the tracks a motorik element, with most of the songs a single loop, that essentially goes through various permutations, a minimal techno by way of outsider noise and Texas psychedelic noise rock. Everybody's A Fuckin' Expert does keep a relatively low profile when stacked up next to the rest of the Shit And Shine catalog. Tracks like "Hay Ride" are murky sprawls of alien techno, which transform into looped, fragmented block party electro ("Chop The Night"), but remains plenty muddy and lo-fi. This might actually be the first Shit And Shine record that could properly find its way into an actual DJ set, and we mean like a proper dance floor DJ, not some experimental weirdo. "Picnic Table", for all its avant filigree, is pretty goddamn groovy, hypnotic and sorta slinky. Then there's "Rastplatz" that sounds like some lost Chain Reaction rarity. But it is Shit And Shine after all, so there's also "Ass" (the title should have given it a way), a manic bit of frenzied lo-fi skitter, underpinned by blurred buzz and squiggly squalls of noisy FX. But again, even here, Clouse manages to rein it in, balancing delicately between total collapse, and total, well, whatever the opposite of collapse is. We love these guys (this guy?) and always have. And, fuck, we still do. Big time! Rare is the band that can make full bore speaker destroying noise rock pummel, and then weirdo avant techno, and not only keep their identity intact, but do it in a way, that folks who dig the former, can't help but like the latter, and vice versa. Every record is somehow, fantastically confusing, eminently satisfying, and bafflingly brilliant, and Everybody's A Fuckin' Expert is no different. PS There's double vinyl of this too, we'd be listing it now but our supplier accidentally sent us the wrong record, whoops. However, we'll have copies early next week, fyi...

MPEG stream: Upside Down Cheeseburger
MPEG stream: Working On My Fitness
MPEG stream: Ass

Return of the mighty Shit And Shine, a massive sprawling noise rock collective from the UK. Multiple drummers, LOTS of guitars, even some lawnmowers and other noisemakers. This new disc takes their caustic freaked out psych-noise in a whole new direction, channeling their energy into blissed out sort-of krautrocky grooves, albeit still drenched in thick grinding crumbling grit with the needle ALL the way in the red. In fact -most- of the tracks here are some sort of hypnotic stripped down rhythm, just completely damaged and dinged up and pelted with thick slabs of hissy fuzz. Vocals struggly desperately to be heard, even the drums keep getting sucked under the massive swells of acidic sound, swirls of buzzing glitch and super blown out melodies are all draped over the endlessly propulsive rhythms, as they struggle to keep moving forward with layer after layer after layer of dense prickly buzz and drone piled atop them. A gloriously cacophonous caterwaul of rhythmic chaos. Imagine the Psychic Paramount filtered through a Merzbow production and mastered by Masonna, pressed onto a lathe cut, then played a thousand times until the grooves all began to run together, then play it on a turntable made from an old microwave using a rusty nail as a stylus, and broadcast it through the blown out speakers in that junked car that's been sitting in your neighbor's yard for the last ten years. The record THAT sound, and broadcast it through a HUGE tuba shaped loud speaker with your head stuck all the way into the horn. Kinda like that. Imagine some Aufgehoben No Process, some Laddio Bolocko, some Wolf Eyes, some Butthole Surfers, even some Whitehouse and eighties no wave, but mix in a serious dose of Can and Faust and then douse it in thick swaths of noise, freeze it and shatter it into a million pieces. It all comes together on the album's 30 minute centerpiece "Practicing To Be A Doctor", a simple rock and roll drum beat, a million pounds of grinding low end, some grungy sludgy garage rock riffing, some buried mumbled vocals, and set the whole thing to just sort of lazily unfurl over the course of a lurching, druggy, damaged half hour. Suddenly we're also hearing some Brainbombs, some Terminal Cheesecake, even a bit of the Melvins, all wrapped up into endlessly motorik spaced out tribal sludge rock nirvana. For a limited time, Jealous Of Shit And Shine also includes an extra cd, which contains their long out of print 12" "You're Lucky To Have Friends Like Us" on cd for the first (and last) time! Here's what we had to say about the 12" when we listed it way back in 2004: You might want to keep an old rag next to your turntable for this one, to wipe the grit and grime and goo off your needle when you're done listening to this slab of sonic what-the-fuck. A confusional mix of buzzy, damaged psych rock spaceout, Buttholes style tribal weirdness, straight up icepick in the ear noise rock, speaker melting sludge and some very unlikely pop filigree. Instrumentation includes multiple drummers, multiple lawnmowers (?) and lots of guitar all melded into a pummelling wall of grindsludgepopnoisepsych.

Shit And Shine sure have come a long way from the multiple-drummer-ed Neanderthal noise rock rock pummel that was their M.O. for years. Recent recordings and performances have run the gamut from warped noise drenched dubstep to pounding psych rock laced with balloon squeak solos, so every live show and ever new record is a total unknown, and even once you get into a new record, every track ends up being a warped surprise. But really we wouldn't have it any other way. This new lp Jream Baby Jream pretty much continues right where the sprawling Le Grand Larance Prix triple lp left off, a handful of warped jams that end up going in whatever fucked up direction the $&$ guys want them too. Which requires a quick run through of all the songs... The A side starts off the 10+ minute "Dinner With My Girlfriend" which couples alien vocoder-ed and auto-tuned vox to some dirgey, blown out super distorted beats, the whole track sounds like it's at the wrong speed, the sounds filthy and crumbling, swirling FX and all manner of weirdness going on beneath the surface, a stunted electro-drug groove that should have some dancefloor bumping, just not one where normal folks congregate. "Mermuda Triangle" is a blast of electronic weirdness, pitch shifted buzzes and constantly shifting layered drones, all over stuttery beats and weird ominously spoken vox, the whole thing laced with weird eighties melodies, which makes the track sound like Faxed Head covering some obscure eighties pop song. The A side closes with the title track, which is the weirdest of the bunch, mostly for being the least weird. It's a straight slow jam rock tune, all stripped down guitar and shuffling rhythm, the weirdest part being the mush mouthed vox, but otherwise it sounds like some warped slow jam high school dance ballad, playing in a gym in bumfuck, nowhere. The B side starts off with "Woodpecker", a short blast of heavy No U-Turn style dubstep / jungle, all stripped down and pounding, but plenty fractured and fucked up, noisy and rife with all manner of glitches and squelches, before leading into the 10 minute "Rodeo Girls", a woozy, psychedelic slab of looped weirdly distorted kraut-funk, the sound shifting constantly, getting blown out, murky and muddy one second, brittle and crunchy the next, strange melodies surfacing throughout, all the while the main loop remains maniacally mesmerizing. And finally, "Youth Led Worship" is a dark minimal coda, all murky and pulsing, a dirgey droned out drift, with haunting processed vox, and a field of deep moaning buzz, a blurred blackened sprawl of hushed sinister creep. Weird as fuck, of course, but bafflingly brilliant too. LIMITED TO 400 COPIES! On either green or orange vinyl! Already sold out at the label and out of print. These are the last copies we'll be able to get!!!

Ahhh, Shit And Shine, even the name give us the warm fuzzies. That's because multiple drummer-ed lawn mower bass tribal drug jams often do. And no one does it better, or quite like the UK's Shit And Shine. With a constantly shifting lineup that often swells to double digits, including as many drummers as they can pack into a room. And a wall of amplifiers that makes SUNNO))) seem like they're playing through practice amps, several bass players, often just a phalanx of shitty Casio keyboards, howling vocals, all tangled up into a heaving mass of post-Butthole Surfers drug psych heaviness. Much like the cd reissue of Cherry (last week's Record Of The Week), Kuss Mich, Meine Liebe is not entirely brand new, the two longest tracks we've had before on a super limited, crazy expensive lp, but here on cd for the very first time. Along with one other loooooooong jam, and a handful of shorter, but no less appealing chunks of what-the-fuck tribal psych-out heaviness. Let's cover the tracks we've heard before. "Biggest Cock In Christendom" is an in-the-red tribal workout, like a more metallic and way more distorted and druggy No Neck Blues Band. Or a WAY heavier Chain Reaction disc. Thick pulses of low end drift beneath streaks of super distorted amp damage, all very krautrock sounding, but filtered through a bank of effects pedals, all broken or with dying batteries. Definitely blissed out and mesmerizing, but so ominous and creepy. This is the shit musical dreams are made of. 15 minutes of this stuff is not nearly enough. Set it to repeat, drink a bottle of Nyquil and let yourself get sucked under. The other track from the 12", "Toilet Door Tits", is an endless rhythmic jam, with ultra blown out drums, sounding a bit like some Butthole Surfers / Laddio Bolocko hybrid, albeit WAY more distorted and damaged. The sound is completely fried, the whole track sounding like it's crumbling through your speakers, strangled vocals drift amidst the tribal pummel, as do weird alien sounding squiggly leads that squirm and slither from speaker to speaker giving the whole track a super disorienting effect. The other long track on Kuss Mich is the epic and drowsily sprawling "Preventions Arise", 10 minutes of muted almost industrial sounding rhythms, way more moody and washed out than the other tracks, an endless muddy murky rhythmic jam, pulsing and throbbing, a propulsive groove beneath a very noir spoken word. Strange but a good balance to the sheer brutality of the other tracks. Scattered all around these three massive jams are jagged little chunks of shiny shit, blasts of noise and crunch and buzz and pound, from brief flurries of machine like grind, furious blast beats, and stuttering off kilter rhythms, to total Buttholes worship, pounding tribal rhythm, buzzing fuzz guitar, hypnotic and intense, to tripped out abstract skitter, all warbly distorted bass, and processed vox, to huge blown out chug and churn, heavy and epic and massively distorted and blown out. Once again, more proof that these guys (and gals) are the current reigning kings and queens of crushing chaotic drugged out drone drenched drum corps psych-doom heaviness. Killer packaging, very simple and cryptic, shit brown paper and metallic gold ink shine!

MPEG stream: Biggest Cock In Christendom
MPEG stream: The Germans Call It A Swimming Head
MPEG stream: Kuss Miche, Meine Liebe

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

SORRY. These Latitudes cds have beeen a bitch to get. Thanks to everyone for beeing so patient. They are super limited and only a handful even make it to the states, and of that handful we have to fight tooth and nail to get enough to list. We only now managed to get 20 copies of the inaugural Latitudes dics, number ONE, from the UK's Shit And Shine, a gore soaked, bloody nosed, sweat stained knee to the groin. Multiple drummers, lots of guitars, a toy keyboard and one mighty riff. Think prime era Butthole Surfers, add some Stooges stomp and some Hawkwind spaciness, an unstoppable wall of crushing churning psychedelic crunch, thick sludgy basslines, fuzzy filthy guitars, grunted shouted vocals, all in a druggy swirl of effects, random noises and full on brain frying weirdness. A glorious forty minute pummelling. Comes packaged in a super intricate hand screened die cut fold over sleeve with a full color insert. Each copy hand stamped and numbered. Limited to 1000 copies worldwide, 500 of which made it to the United States, only 20 of which made it here. So you know what that means!

MPEG stream: Ladybird (Excerpt)

One of our favorite in Southern's Latitudes series, available on super duper limited vinyl!!!! We got 30 copies and will never be able to get more. So jump on these quick... Full on, over the top, freaked out psychedelic, drum drenched guitarnoise from this massive UK ensemble Shit And Shine, a a gore soaked, bloody nosed, sweat stained sonic knee to the groin. Multiple drummers, lots of guitars, a toy keyboard and one mighty riff. Think prime era Butthole Surfers, add some Stooges stomp and some Hawkwind spaciness, an unstoppable wall of crushing churning psychedelic crunch, thick sludgy basslines, fuzzy filthy guitars, grunted shouted vocals, all in a druggy swirl of effects, random noises and full on brain frying weirdness. A glorious forty minute pummeling. Comes packaged in a cool diecut sleeve, a variation on the immediately recognizable Latitudes cd packaging, although this time, white on black instead of white on brown. Includes the same insert as the cd. Pressed on bright red vinyl. And of course, SUPER SUPER LIMITED!!!

MPEG stream: Ladybird (Excerpt)

Originally released on the Rock Is Hell label as a super limited triple lp, this twisted chunk of sprawling rhythmic whatthefuck weirdness from these Texas-by-way-of-the-UK-by-way-of-Texas-again multiple drummer-ed noiseniks is now finally available on cd, also super limited, originally only orderable direct from the label, we're the only store in the US to have these, and they won't last long, so grab one before they're gone... Le Grand Larance Prix just might be Shit And Shine's most ambitious and most over the top record yet, which is saying a lot, considering pretty much everything these guys do pretty goddamn over the top. But this one really takes the cake, pushing their sound in a whole different direction. We might have imagined them going even noiser, more drum heavy, but no, instead, $&$ offer up a bunch of epic jams, looped out and tranced out, that tend toward the super minimal, the mesmerizingly rhythmic, ultra repetitive and hypnotic, but not in the usual bombastic heavy $&$ way, no these are like alternative universe minimal dancefloor chillout jams. Or something. Probably best to just go through em one at a time... "Flirtations At A Cocktail Party", pretty much sets the template, looped tribal drumming, a revving engine, loping low slung bassline, all blurred and looped into a sort of abstract rhythmic mesmer, laced with strange robotic vox, like some sort of alien lo-fi electro, the track gradually growing more and more blown out, finally becoming extra melodic and dense right near the end. That's the most typically Shit & Shine track of the bunch, cuz the next one, "Frankies Theme" dials everything back, loopy and minimal, with muted melodies, a sort of circular slow motion groove, motorik and locked in, while around it sounds swirl and shimmer, distant melodic swells ebb and flow, it's sidelong but it's the sort of thing that sounds like it could have gone on forever. "Switching 2 Nite Mode" definitely lives up to its title by swiping the main part of the Rolling Stones' "Emotional Rescue" and looping it into a jumbled psychedelic freakout, adding swirls of processed vox (even some sliced and diced Jagger falsetto), dubbed out production, some deep ominous vocals all slowed down, before the song transforms into a slo-mo creep, all weirdly muted and creepily sexy. Which leads right into "Frenchys Automotive", another super minimal loop-jam, a main melody repeated rhythmically, pulsing hypnotically, the vibe almost kosmische, but more sort of murky and mesmerizing, that main figure looped and looped, while all around it, random sounds swirl and shimmer druggily. The home stretch starts off with "How To Rattle A White Tailed Buck", which unfurls a brittle looped melody, peppered with occasional rib cage rattling boomin' system low end bass thumps, the whole thing sort of blurpy and lumbering, a stuttery groove that shuffles through clouds of staticky hiss, which bleeds right into the final track, "Klipp", which is most definitely the most high fidelity of the bunch, super heavy, repetitive, Circle like hypno-rock, but a bit more minimal, the main guitar riff and shuffling rhythm totally in sync, while all around it sounds swirl and decay, shards of melodies and and crumbling FX, processed vocals and constantly shifting layers wreathe the hypno-rock in a buzzy, blurry, noisy gauze. Fuck yeah. The cd version comes in a green minimal digipak style sleeve that sort of apes the original lp packaging. And as mentioned above, SUPER limited, we have about 25 copies, and then that's probably IT!! Packaged in a 6 panel hand screened triple gatefold jacket!

MPEG stream: Flirtations At A Cocktail Party
MPEG stream: Switching 2 Nite Mode
MPEG stream: Klipp

Back in print/stock, now in a red sleeve with black printing, these came in the mail slightly damaged, so anal record nerds steer clear, but for everyone else, these are seriously discounted, so if slightly bumped corners and less than perfect sleeves don't bug you, snap one of these up before they're gone... Latest sprawling rhythmic whatthefuck epic from these Texas-by-way-of-the-UK-by-way-of-Texas-again multiple drummer-ed weirdos, and it's maybe their most ambitious and most over the top yet, which is saying a lot, considering pretty much everything these guys do pretty goddamn over the top. But this triple lp takes their sound in a whole different direction. We might have imagined them going even noiser, more drum heavy, but no, instead, $&$ offer up six sidelong jams, looped out and tranced out, that tend toward the super minimal, the mesmerizingly rhythmic, ultra repetitive and hypnotic, but not in the usual bombastic heavy $&$ way, no these are like alternative universe minimal dancefloor chillout jams. Or something. Probably best to just go through em one at a time... Side A, "Flirtations At A Cocktail Party", pretty much sets the template, looped tribal drumming, a revving engine, loping low slung bassline, all blurred and looped into a sort of abstract rhythmic mesmer, laced with strange robotic vox, like some sort of alien lo-fi electro, the track gradually growing more and more blown out, finally becoming extra melodic and dense right near the end. That's the most typically Shit & Shine track of the bunch, cuz the next one, "Frankies Theme" dials everything back, loopy and minimal, with muted melodies, a sort of circular slow motion groove, motorik and locked in, while around it sounds swirl and shimmer, distant melodic swells ebb and flow, it's sidelong but it's the sort of thing that sounds like it could have gone on forever. The second lp starts with "Switching 2 Nite Mode", which lives up to its title by swiping the main part of the Rolling Stones' "Emotional Rescue" and looping it into a jumbled psychedelic freakout, adding swirls of processed vox (even some sliced and diced Jagger falsetto), dubbed out production, some deep ominous vocals all slowed down, before the song transforms into a slo-mo creep, all weirdly muted and creepily sexy. The flipside, "Frenchys Automotive", is another super minimal loop-jam, a main melody repeated rhythmically, pulsing hypnotically, the vibe almost kosmische, but more sort of murky and mesmerizing, that main figure looped and looped, while all around it, random sounds swirl and shimmer druggily. The final lp starts off with "How To Rattle A White Tailed Buck", which unfurls a brittle looped melody, peppered with occasional rib cage rattling boomin' system low end bass thumps, the whole thing sort of blurpy and lumbering, a stuttery groove that shuffles through clouds of staticky hiss, which finally leads to the final side / track, "Klipp", which is most definitely the most high fidelity of the bunch, super heavy, repetitive, Circle like hypno-rock, but a bit more minimal, the main guitar riff and shuffling rhythm totally in sync, while all around it sounds swirl and decay, shards of melodies and and crumbling FX, processed vocals and constantly shifting layers wreathe the hypno-rock in a buzzy, blurry, noisy gauze. Packaged in a 6 panel hand screened triple gatefold jacket!

MPEG stream: Flirtations At A Cocktail Party
MPEG stream: Switching 2 Nite Mode
MPEG stream: Klipp

Last year's aQuarius / WFMU South By Southwest showcase was pretty tough to beat, if we do say so ourselves. An entire night of aQ faves, every single one kicking huge amounts of ass, and basically blowing us away over and over again. Just check out the lineup: Speedwolf, Iron Man, Moon Duo, Pierced Arrows, Dengue Fever, Epileptinomicon, Todd, True Widow, Sonny & The Sunsets, Headdress, Home Blitz, Drunkdriver, and Shit And Shine. We'd be hard pressed to pick a favorite set of the night, but lots of folks, ourselves included, might find ourselves leaning toward the rhythmic chaotic cacophony of Shit And Shine, a UK based multi-drummer drone-psych-noise unit who once called Texas home. And who, besides kicking up a glorious drum heavy racket, managed to keep the crowd riveted for their whole set, the members clad in strange costumes, a bunny suit, creepy plastic masks, furry animal heads, all while manning multiple drumkits and constantly switching instruments, and creating a glorious wall of pulsing, pounding, hypnotic sound. Luckily, the whole thing was captured on tape. And while maybe something is lost without the visuals, the music holds up surprisingly well on its own, the group's single song set spread out over two sides, right out of the gate, the band lock into a rhythm and don't let up. The sound is blown out and in the red, helping make it sound exactly like being there (and like you forgot your earplugs), the legion of drummers, pounding out a rhythm in perfect unison, while the rest of the $+$ crew do their thing, their thing in this case being super distorted fuzzed out bass, processed alien vocals, blasts of screeching feedback, squalls of psychedelic white noise buzz, a sound that is basically krautrock writ NOISY and BLOWN OUT and HEAD CAVINGLY LOUD! By the time the second half (side) rolls around, the buzz and pound are interrupted by thick shards of almost poppy melody, streaks of almost shogazey looped fragmented noise, until finally the jam switches gears, just a bit, and we get the $+$ version of 'bringing it down', a churning Circle like sludgekraut hypnorock groove that plays out until the record settles into a locked groove, which if you're not paying attention, will have you listening to that single groove for EVER, before realizing something is up. And hell, we actually listened to it for 5 or 6 minutes, and probably would have let it keep on playing... (and the first side ends with a locked groove too, so be prepared to be mesmerized, endlessly there too!)... Heavy and hypnotic, the perfect sonic souvenir if you were there, an even more perfect slab of crushing corrosive rhythmic noise rock weirdness if you weren't. Housed in a full color sleeve, an Austin backyard on one side, one of the $+$-ers on the other. Includes a Xeroxed insert, LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, each one hand numbered. ----* ----* Highlights : ----*

Our pals at Conspiracy Records, a label/distro based in Belgium, who in the past have brought us records by Boris, Jesu, Shora and more, are this year celebrating their 10 year anniversary. A decade of amazing music. From a bedroom based punk rock label, to one of Europe's most important and influential labels and distros, all we can say is HURRAY! And HUZZAH! It's always so exciting, when a bunch of folks get together to spread the word about great music, great WEIRD music, and survive, even thrive. Such is the case with Conspiracy. And as if that weren't already enough, just knowing that some great people were selling some amazing music, those sweeties at Conspiracy have decided to share the love with us. And you. To celebrate their 10th anniversary, they've decided to do a super limited subscription series, 12 records over 12 months, each limited to somewhere between 200-500 copies, ONLY available to series subscribers. EXCEPT, they've decided to let AQ have 20 copies of each, we're the only store with copies of these subscriber only lps, and for a brief moment, we can offer them to you, our loyal AQ customers. Needless to say we are thrilled, as the series lineup reads like a who's who of AQ faves, as well as including a handful of lesser knowns. All pressed on super thick vinyl, and packaged in killer hand screened original art sleeves. But be warned, we only got 20 of each, and we will run out fast and we will not be able to get more. When we do run out, there is a chance you can still get one from Conspiracy direct, but what that means is act fast and prepare to leave empty handed. We sure do love Shit And Shine. Every record we get by this UK sort-of-collective is weirder, noisier and more fucked up than the last. With a massive lineup featuring multiple guitarists, multiple drummers as well as various unorthodox, non-musical noise makers, these guys manage to make beautiful sounds ugly, and ugly sounds beautiful. It's confusing actually. Their sound is so chaotic and harsh, but so totally captivating and hypnotic, this 12" is no different. Two epic, massive sidelong tracks. The first, an endless rhythmic jam, with ultra blown out drums, sounding a bit like some Butthole Surfers / Laddio Bolocko hybrid, albeit WAY more distorted and damaged. The sound is completely fried, the whole record sounding like it's crumbling through your speakers, strangled vocals drift amidst the tribal pummel, as do weird alien sounding squiggly leads that squirm and slither from speaker to speaker giving the whole track a super disorienting affect. The second side is a bit more subdued, but only a bit. An in-the-red tribal workout, like a more metallic and way more distorted and druggy No Neck Blues Band. Thick pulses of low end drift beneath streaks of super distorted amp damage, all very krautrock sounding, but filtered through a bank of effects pedals, all broken or with dying batteries. Definitely blissed out and mesmerizing, but so ominous and creepy. A side of this stuff is not nearly enough. Set it to repeat, drink a bottle of Nyquil and let yourself get sucked under. Cool silkscreened 'bug' cover and some amazingly problematic song titles!

You might want to keep an old rag next to your turntable for this one, to wipe the grit and grime and goo off your needle when you're done listening to this slab of sonic what-the-fuck. A confuional mix of buzzy, damaged psych rock spaceout, Buttholes style tribal weirdness, straight up icepick in the ear noise rock, speaker melting sludge and some very unlikely pop filigree. Instrumentation includes multiple drummers, multiple lawnmowers (?) and lots of guitar all melded into a pummelling wall of grindsludgepopnoisepsych. White vinyl with a hand scibbled insert in a thick plastic sleeve. Limited to 500 copies.

MPEG stream: The Trees Will Mourn
MPEG stream: Don't Look At Me Don't Leave Me
MPEG stream: Recommencons

A pretty good match up, and not just based on the band names (although it doesn't get much more perfect than that). Our beloved Texas by way of the UK by way of Texas drum heavy rhythmic noise rockers Shit And Shine start things off with some super lo-fi, looped and repetitive dubbed out minimalism, weird echoey vox draped over a surprisingly super mellow bit of drift and drag, creepy and spaced out, a little skittery and shuffly, at least until it EXPLODES in a blast of grinding distorto noise and howling feedback, transforming the sound into some sort of blacknoise power electronics industrial stomp, yet for all it caustic noisiness, it remains surprisingly rhythmic and hypnotic, the sound SO distorted it seems to be crumbling and decaying as the track plays, replete with all manner of glitches and drop outs, which makes it almost sound like Shit And Shine covering Faxed Head! We had never heard of Expensive Shit before, but it definitely sounds like the equipment they're using is anything BUT. They counter with their own sort of lo-fi noise rock dubbiness, a twisted, murky, FX flecked dark sonic churn, laced with all manner of clatter and crunch, all over a roiling spaced out dronescape. After a brief blast of noise, the track settles into a slithery, skeletal bit of abstract industrial noise dub, that sounds like Throbbing Gristle recording at King Tubby's and as that might have you imagining, it sounds pretty damn good.

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

SORRY. When Brentley of SF's finest nerd-rock band Three Day Stubble brought these homespun dvds into AQ, he recommended wearing a diaper while viewing it -- i.e, 'cuz you're gonna shit yerself laughin'! While we didn't quite have that exact experience when we watched it, we did find ourselves put through the full spectrum of mental states -- shock, bummer, boredom, agitation and elation. The dvd is divided into five chapters that span fifteen years, and each one offers a home video glimpse into the life of the lad who calls himself Mark Shit. And we can tell you he was one intense kid! Sometimes hyper, sometimes bratty, often punk as fuck, but always completely focused on the video camera. In our opinion, the high point musically is the second chapter named TDRtones Session -- intentionally or not, it features a claustrophobic performance of some pretty great, tightly wound propulsive post-punk. Songs include "Spratley Went To The Bathroom", "She Didn't Know I Was A Midget", "Gah Gah's Coming Out" and an odd very Hendrix-icated "Star Spangled Banner". The low point in every sense is the 'reunion'. You'll have to see for yourself.

What would you expect from a band called Shitfucker? Whose record is called Sucks Cocks In Hell? And whose cd cover features a 'shiswastifa', or a 'shitstika', essentially a swastika, but made from an 'S' and an 'F', for Shitfucker (only on the cd though btw)? And with song titles like "Satanisanity", and "Smash Your Skull (Against the Wall)", and "Sex Dungeon", and maybe best of all "Rock N' Roll Freaky Dude"�? You'd probably expect something filthy, and depraved, some sonic scum designed to offend and outrage, and hell, that's exactly what you get from these Detroit scumfucks, who take knuckle dragging, head banging thrash metal, tangle it all up with some snarling punk rock, and some crusty D-beat, and vomit it all back up in a glorious lo-fi rush of noisy thrashy riffage, wild metallic gallops, trashy drumming, belched, glass gargling vokills, the label compares 'em to Gism, Sodom, Abigail and Bathory, and yeah, that pretty much nails it, we'd also probably include Motorhead, and Venom, especially Venom in regards to the aforementioned "Rock N' Roll Freaky Dude", which even starts out with a pretty hilarious, heavily accented, spoken word intro, that either sounds just like Venom, or maybe Dethklok, or even Bad News, but it leads right into the dumbest, and thus greatest song ever, with the title delivered in a hellish rasp, over a galloping blast of chaotic thrash punk, and the weird part it, it's kind of catchy too. A total drunken headbanging anthem for sure. And hell, that basically describes the pretty much every song here. There's some weirdness going on as well, the clean kinda crooned almost falsetto vox on "Demonic Rock", some weird samples (a la Church Of Misery) on "Sex Dungeon", tolling bells on "I Am Of The Devil", not to mention the truly creepy intro and outro, but the weirdness is just a byproduct of whatever crazy shit these guys were smoking, cuz really, it's about the metal, a metal that reeks of booze and weed, leather and denim and spikes, filthy dreads and band patches, motorcycles, beards and of course SATAN.

MPEG stream: Smash Your Skull
MPEG stream: Demonic Rock
MPEG stream: Rock 'N' Roll Freaky Dude

We've said it once, we'll say it again, we CAN NOT get enough jungle. Especially the mutant strain of spastic junglized, hard raga drill and bass practiced by folks like The Bug, Kid 606 and of course Shitmat. And if we had to pick, Shitmat would most likely be our pick of the bunch. Amazing programming, keeping enough of that classic cheesy drum and bass sound to satisfy our nostalgia, but fucking it up just enough to hit the spot for those of us always in need of a head spinning, ear shredding blast of complete jungle mayhem. The first Shitmat record was just multiple versions of the same song albeit all drastically different, but it's still a huge thrill to finally get a new record of all new (well new in their current form, ya know?) songs. And blessed be, it's even weirder, funnier and harder than the first one. Originally released on 5 separate 12"s, this disc collects almost all of the tracks (one from each 12" was left off jsut to piss us off, but that's okay, we still have been spinning this like crazy). Just like the first album, this collection is a massive buzzing electrified briarpatch of ultra complex drum and bass, huge booming low end and sliced and diced hard ragga. Highlights of Full English Breakfast include the track "Day O," where Shitmat takes the "Banana Boat Song" and turns it inside out and shreds it to ribbons adding crashing amen breaks and booming low end, "There's No Business Like Propa' Rungleclotted Mashup Bizznizz," a totally fucked up take on Irving Berlin's classic show tune, and "Dis Dancehall Ting...", a chopped up, and junglized version of Aled Jones' "Walking In The Air", junglizing tunes by The Archers, Trisha and the Blue Peter theme, and loads more rumbling, pummelling raga dancehall gabber jungle dancefloor destroyers. WE FUCKING LOVE THIS STUFF!!!!!

MPEG stream: UK Swampcore Sucks
MPEG stream: Night Of The Scorpion Scumland Riders
MPEG stream: Dubplate Murder Sound

We went on and on about the Shitmat record a few lists back. A massive buzzing electrified briars patch of ultra complex drum and bass, huge booming low end and sliced and diced hard ragga. So fucking good!! One of Andee's favorite records of the year by a longshot. So we were super psyched for this new series of five limited 12"s. Be forewarned, these 12"s are being reissued on cd eventually, but one track on each 12" will NOT be on the cd, and those are FIVE tracks you CAN NOT live without!! Volume One is jam packed with that booming buzzing, speaker shredding old school jungle, new school drill and bass we love so much! FUCK YEAH!!

We went on and on about the Shitmat record a few lists back. A massive buzzing electrified briars patch of ultra complex drum and bass, huge booming low end and sliced and diced hard ragga. So fucking good!! One of Andee's favorite records of the year by a longshot. So we were super psyched for this new series of five limited 12"s. Be forewarned, these 12"s are being reissued on cd eventually, but one track on each 12" will NOT be on the cd, and those are FIVE tracks you CAN NOT live without!! Volume two features the track "Day O," during which Shitmat takes the "Banana Boat Song" and turns it inside out and shreds it to ribbons adding crashing amen breaks and booming low end. Plus four more tracks of rolling pounding, stuttering drum and bass madness.

We went on and on about the Shitmat record a few lists back. A massive buzzing electrified briars patch of ultra complex drum and bass, huge booming low end and sliced and diced hard ragga. So fucking good!! One of Andee's favorite records of the year by a longshot. So we were super psyched for this new series of five limited 12"s. Be forewarned, these 12"s are being reissued on cd eventually, but one track on each 12" will NOT be on the cd, and those are FIVE tracks you CAN NOT live without!! Another blast of all orignal (well, you know...) rumbling, pummelling raga dancehall gabber jungle insanity. Set your speakers for stun!

We went on and on about the Shitmat record a few lists back. A massive buzzing electrified briars patch of ultra complex drum and bass, huge booming low end and sliced and diced hard ragga. So fucking good!! One of Andee's favorite records of the year by a longshot. So we were super psyched for this new series of five limited 12"s. Be forewarned, these 12"s are being reissued on cd eventually, but one track on each 12" will NOT be on the cd, and those are FIVE tracks you CAN NOT live without!! On the final volume, Shitmat indulges his goofy side (much like on his recent cd) by covering and junglizing tunes by The Archers, Trisha and the Blue Peter theme, as well as another 4 tracks of huge ragga dancehall gabber brutality. We can never get enough of this stuff!!!

We went on and on about the Shitmat record a few lists back. A massive buzzing electrified briars patch of ultra complex drum and bass, huge booming low end and sliced and diced hard ragga. So fucking good!! One of Andee's favorite records of the year by a longshot. So we were super psyched for this new series of five limited 12"s. Be forewarned, these 12"s are being reissued on cd eventually, but one track on each 12" will NOT be on the cd, and those are FIVE tracks you CAN NOT live without!! Volume three's standout numbers are "There's No Business Like Propa' Rungleclotted Mashup Bizznizz," a totally fucked up take on Irving Berlin's classic show tune, and "Dis Dancehall Ting...", chopped up, and junglized version of Aled Jones' "Walking In The Air" as well as two other dancefloor destroyers.

We love Shitmat. A lot! As any regular reader of the AQ list must realize by now. But this new one sort of threw us for a loop. Shitmat was our go to guy for that blasting old school nineties heavy ragga jungle, bass bin rattling drum and bass, with super blown out synths, buzzing bass, and those hyper charged drum breaks. As we've said before, it's one of those sounds that we could listen to FOREVER. Well, Hang The DJ starts off from a whole different angle. With a more mash-up vibe going on. In fact, the first few tracks could pass for Girl Talk tracks, with their million bits and pieces all cobbled together into a head spinning pop culture dance floor concoction. Well, once we got over our initial shock, we started to really dig it, sure it wasn't what we were expecting, but damn if it wasn't kicking our asses. Furious and freaky, skittering skipping and completely brilliantly baffling. Classic pop songs, old diva standards, heavy metal guitars, snippets of hip hop, and pretty much everything else under the sun. It began to almost sound like Girl Talk crossed with Venetian Snares. But the more we listened, the more we could hear the Shitmat sound. A bit obscured and all tangled up in there, but still that same cheeky sense of humor and flair for killer stuttery beats. But about halfway through the disc something happened. The jungle returned, subtly at first, but soon, we were in full on dance floor destroying ragga jungle heaven, killer toasting, gnarled Amen breaks sliced and diced, huge drops, massive slabs of synth bass, some full on bursts of hardcore gabber... And then before we knew it, it was gone, and we were back to stuttering skittering mash-ups, but suddenly it all made more sense. The next time through, those opening mash-ups sounded perfect butted up against those wild jungle tracks, and the jungle bits perfectly segued into the million-sample-a-minute freakouts, and all of a sudden, it seemed like we just might have ourselves a new fucked up electronic sort-of-jungle mash-up dance record....

MPEG stream: Badman And Robin'
MPEG stream: Bloodclot Jungle Techno!
MPEG stream: Jesus Was A Raver

The last Shitmat record was just a tad too ravey for us, when what we really want from Mr. Shitmat, is wild pounding ragga jungle. He's probably responsible for one of our favorite ragga jungle records ever, Killababylonkutz, a whole record of multiple version of the same dancehall jam, but holy shit did that one slay. Wild drill and bass, over the top toasting, bizarre samples, all chopped up and looped into chaotic careening slabs of junglized pummel. Since Killababylonkutz, Shitmat has moved more and more toward straight up rave music, sometimes doing sort of mashup thing, other times going for the goofy retro angle a la the recent Zomby, record. No matter how much we liked all of those records, we couldn't help hankering for more of the hard stuff. Well, it looks like Shitmat heard our prayers somehow, cuz even with that title, this is the hardest most jungly record since Killababylonkutz and we've been going nuts. Sure there's still plenty of rave-y jams, and mashup bits, but there's also plenty of wild chopped drum and bass, some serious chunks of ragga jungle here and there, even some toasting, and Shitmat lets his spastic programmed insanity run wild, spitting out dizzying tangles of impossiby complex drum jams, making even the cheesiest of dance grooves sound hard and heavy. The best jams are definitely the ragga jungle numbers, worth it for those 3 or 4 tracks alone, but like we said it's all pretty great, and makes for excellent listening even for the dancefloor phobic! Awesome Cabbage Patch Kid cover art too!

MPEG stream: Clash and Carry (Old Socks Remix)
MPEG stream: Archaeology
MPEG stream: Whitelabel Unity

We've long been complaining about the dearth of "grime" in the States, so we were psyched to discover that the folks at Planet Mu decided to do something about it. They've been reissuing UK grime releases for the states, but this latest batch of 12"s offers up some grime / jungle hybrids as well as their own twisted take on dubstep and grime. And it kills! AQ fave Shitmat whips up this nutty two step banger, with all sorts of pop culture detritus mixed in to a swirl of throbbing distorted grime, FAT fuzzy bass lines, pounding low end and all sorts of vocal fragments and electronic chaos. Chevron takes the same track and stretches it out a bit, removing all the random sonic extras, turning it into a stripped down minimal skittery jam, sort of lo-fi with affected vocals, burping bass and skeletal grimy beats. Finally Mu-Ziq turns the track inside out, chopped up and super spastic, stuttery and shuffly, a minimal grimescape, sounding creepy and intense and about to blow, like it might shift into some manic Squarepusher drill and bass at any moment but it never does leaving you tense and exhausted. Awesome.

There's been much talk about grunge around aQ these days. A lot of it has to do with the fact that a bunch of us just love grunge, STILL, and thus talk about it all the time. But beyond that, Andee recently dedicated an entire radio show to his grunge favorites, and this summer is the Sub Pop 20th anniversary celebration, which rumor has it, might entail a Green River reunion! And now there's this, the first volume in a proposed series called Grungecore. And the second we heard about it, we knew we needed it! Gabber jungle dancehall electronic freak Shitmat, covering Nirvana's "Negative Creep"!!! As if that weren't enough, the flipside is some other crazed electronic tweaker taking on Nirvana's "Senseless Apprentice" (aka "Scentless Apprentice"). And if even that weren't still enough, every single 7" comes in a sleeve, hand sewn from actual flannel shirts! Holy shit!!! So the Shitmat side is a killer. It begins with all this throbbing black ambience, weird rhythmic skitter, which explodes into a fierce relentless blast of gabber madness. But it no way does it sound anything like Nirvana. UNTIL, the vocals kick in, and then it fits, it sound so right, it wouldn't be hard to imagine Kurt Kobain fronting some band on DHR back in the nineties, the rhythm of the original is kept intact, with the little pauses filled with flurries of jungle instead of that moaning guitar, the howling at the end of the chorus processed into some fucked up digital scream. Only reminds us how much we love Shitmat. The flipside is someone called Ladyscraper, and their version of "Scentless Apprentice" sounds nothing like the original, less of a remix, more of an interpretation. Huge chunks of throbbing sizzling synth, massive grinding bass, the beats are more like speaker shredding bolts of digital crunch, the churn and skitter and occasionally explode into impossibly dense tangles of digital glitch. The vocals are super distorted, almost black metal, the whole thing stops and starts, super convoluted, it's basically impossible to tell it's a Nirvana song, but that doesn't mean it's not awesome. Each 7" comes in its own flannel sleeve, hand sewn, from various parts of various different flannel shirts. Some are sleeves, and have buttons or cuffs, others have parts of collars, a few have a strange mudflap that flops outside the plastic sleeve. Each sleeve has a Grungecore sticker affixed to the front and a FUKDUP label Sub Pop parody sticker on the back, LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, the label on the 7" is hand stamped and hand numbered, and includes a photocopied insert with liner notes and rad high school drawings. WAY recommended.

***Ariel Pink alert!!!!*** ***Total mind-fuck alert!!!*** Shits And Giggles is a brand new band that features Ariel Pink alongside the mutant sonic terrorists the Vas Deferens Organization. While everyone in the world seems to be biting on Ariel Pink's brand of outsider pop, recently, it's kind of awesome to see him take a total left turn and create a completely different, but equally warped sonic beast. Shits And Giggles wander in a musical landscape that feels like it's being beamed over from a different galaxy. Collapsing fucked up jazzy rhythms melt into plunderphonic like excursions while taking turns into psychedelic funk and other worldly whatthefuckness. All totally insane yet somehow still so damn compelling and weirdly trance inducing. You can hear how records by Negativland, Nurse With Wound, John Oswald, Throbbing Gristle, Muslimgauze, Wicked Witch, Sublime Frequencies, etc. have seeped their way into Shits And Giggles' subconscious, and no doubt about it this is a uniquely distorted musical adventure. Vas Deferens Organization are some of the folks who run the totally awesome blog Mutant Sounds, so it's no surprise that they have found their own way to create some completely tripped out magic of their own. Even though it's nothing like an Ariel Pink album there are still moments, the production, specific sounds, certain melodies and phrases, that are still so recognizably Ariel Pink. A total must have for Ariel Pink fans and everyone else into the demented done right!

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

SORRY.

The return of the Shitty Listener, and as always, we feel obliged to comment on what has to be one of the best band names EVER, and as always, The Shitty Listener is Jason Honea, a one time member of the Jewelled Antler Collective, who's played in or with Teenage Panzercorps, Franciscan Hobbies, the Knit Separates, Child Readers and a bunch more, but as always, the Shitty Listener is a much more intimate, personal affair, in the past, hushed and home brewed, or recorded outside Jewelled Antler style, but for this new ep, Honea has expanded his sonic palette, with what sounds like a full band, and a sound that harkens back to classic eighties new wave and post punk, "No Thrones", is all tribal drumming, and waves of crystalline guitar shimmer, while Honea croons over the top, his vocals powerful and throaty and dramatic, but still it's The Shitty Listener, so it lasts barely 90 seconds before "Beautiful Same" brings things back down, some field recordings, clouds of cymbal shimmer, woozy synths, but the vocals remain upfront, and way up in the mix, like some lost obscure 'wave rarity from the eighties, but again, the song doesn't even reach two minutes, instead, Honea crafting a gorgeously faded sonic fragment, out of time, but also strangely timeless. The flipside gets more Jewelled Antler-y, "Pool Of Light" is all music box melody over what sounds like a crackling fire, or maybe rain on the roof, the vocals super loud, and up in the mix, lots of reverb, as if Honea was singing right in your ear, hushed and haunting, super intimate, and mysteriously lovely. "Candle On Water" too is super lo-fi, acoustic guitar strum, tape hiss and field recorded ambience, the sound of windshield wipers maybe? Strange fragmented synths drift by, the vocals an ethereal falsetto, a gorgeous bit of swoonsome, wistful, dreamy bedroom 4 trackery to finish things off. Nice heavy full color covers, and probably super limited too!

MPEG stream: No Thrones
MPEG stream: Pool Of Light

Latest from The Shitty Listener, still one of the greatest band names EVER, and the work of Jason Honea, a satellite member of the Jewelled Antler Collective, having done time in Child Readers, Franciscan Hobbies, Knit Separates, Chord Fort, Teenage Panzercorps and loads of others, but The Shitty Listener finds the Berlin-based Honea going it mostly alone, creating, delicate, hushed, ultra fragile minimal anti pop, gorgeous drifts of barely there sound, the various non musical elements as much a part of the sound as anything else. Organs whir, Honea's gentle croon hovers and flits, suspended in a cloud of tape hiss, while all around, children play, footsteps clomp by, dishes clank and crash, as if Honea was huddled in the corner, trying desperately to capture a sound, before the outside world intrudes, and only sort of succeeding, but in that partial failure lies the magic of the Shitty Listener. Each song is a captured moment, alive, and immediate, and organic, this is not music you can play in the store, or blast in your car stereo, this is music made to get lost in, the sonic equivalent of the musician, sneaking up to you and crooning directly in your ear. A pair of headphones, and your transported to the world of The Shitty Listener, where music is only a part of the sound. The songs are not just home recorded, many are captured out in the open, on walks, in fields, by the beach, near the seaside, birds chirp, people walk by, oblivious to the fact that they are contributing to a magical micro moment of musical mystery. And for all its low fidelity, the sound is strangely lush, and impossibly warm and enveloping. Hissing melodies and softly strummed guitars are whipped up into blurred swirling clouds of feedback drenched drones, but somehow it's never noisy, just dense, and layered, and even in these noisy moments, you can still hear the detritus of life surrounding the music. "I Keep Dreaming To Myself" sounds as close to a proper song, until Honea stops midsong to talk, and again, lovely strummed guitar is wrapped around, weird moaning melodies, creaks and rumbles, distant bells, a slowly crumbling collage, which leads right into the 12+ minute "The Burst Heart", which begins with a cacophony of crunch and scrape before settling into an ultra minimal bit of dronefolk, which builds to some intense strumming, before slipping right back to a whisper. The record plays out in a similar fashion, fractured folk gives way to abstract ambience, gentle croons set amidst fluttering flutes, and strange space-y melodies, loops and drones way off in the distance, while rattles rattle and bells tinkle, and voices chatter in a cloud of burnished hiss, finishing off with the Shitty Listener version of a Murder Ballad, melancholy and mournful, infused with a bit of blurred warmth, some streaks of feedback, some tinkling toy xylophones, some reverberant buzz, before Honea instructs everyone to stop playing, and Shitty Listener's buzz and chime finally stumbles to a halt. So strange and magical and fantastic.

MPEG stream: Seeing Through Eyes Of Tears
MPEG stream: Area Women
MPEG stream: Pray Me Away
MPEG stream: Grow Up To Dreams

The return of The Shitty Listener! Maybe one of our all time favorite band names EVER. And it's about time. We all completely dug the Girls All Say EP we listed a while back, but it just wasn't enough. It was only 9 minutes long after all. Well, Fruitless Accomplishment clocks in at a whopping 26 minutes, and thus manages to take all the elements we liked on the EP, and spreads them out, expands and explores, which just means there's so much more to like. Actually released as a book, that just so happens to also contain a cd, for our purposes, we'll just go ahead and consider Fruitless Accomplishment a cd, that just so happens to come with a book! For those new to the Shitty Listener, it's not really a band, instead it is one man, Jason Honea, from from the Jewelled Antler outfits The Child Readers and the Franciscan Hobbies, as well as the Chord Fort, the Knit Separates and Teenage Panzercorps. The Shitty Listener is his Honea's mostly solo, lo-fi, bedroom folk project. And is deeply connected to his poetry/lyrics and artwork. As is evidence by this deluxe book/cd combo. The sound is incredibly intimate and low fidelity. Mostly recorded on micro cassettes or handheld tape recorders, Honea incorporates tape hiss and whatever ambient sound happens to occur in the background, whether it's a plane flying by, a dog barking, the sound of crickets, it all just becomes part of the sound. And just like old Sebadoh tapes, the ch-chunk sound of the record or stop buttons being pushed, as well as weird warbles in the tape, become as much a part of the song as the song itself. Lilting melancholy piano, gentle acoustic guitar strum, and not much else support Honea's warbly falsetto, plaintive and emotive, always way down in the mix, a sort of drifty fuzzy dreamy melody within each song. But that's more than enough. Each song ends up sounding surprisingly lush. Our favorites though have to be the ones that sound like they were recorded from a distance, or through the wall or window. Those tracks almost sound like Honea was singing and strumming indoors, while the mic was outside, capturing most of the music, but more than anything all of the ambient action happening around it. Other highlights include the a capella "Bad Wonder", "I Call You Up" which sounds a bit like Morrisey fronting Sentridoh, the minute long "Across My Dreams", a sort of processed dreamy guitarscape, and the 7 minute medley "Sweet To My Mind w/ Someone Flame-Like & Up Too Much", the first half of which sounds a bit like a Basinski composition, but made manually, by playing a figure on the piano, pushing stop on the tape player, pressing record and playing the figure again, over and over and over. So weird and wonderful. Fruitless Accomplishment is a strangely compelling collision between abstract experimentation and lo-fi pop loveliness, and the results are truly divine! The packaging is pretty dang divine as well. And just to frustrate and confuse, there are TWO different versions. Both are exactly the same on the inside, just different on the outside. Packaged in either a newsprint covered hard cardboard box, or in a sewn green felt sleeve, inside is the cd-r, an insert with the liner notes, four full color and two black and white inserts featuring various drawings and collages by Honea, and Real Flowers, a small book of poetry, gorgeously printed on nice paper and with a full color paste on cover!

MPEG stream: Get A Grip
MPEG stream: Pretty Soon Now
MPEG stream: Sweet To My Mind / Someone Flame-like & Up Too Much

[ aquarius records catalogue — S ]