[ 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 1851 through 1900 of 4057.

From the ashes of the VSS, come the Slaves. As expected, good, dark, new-wave-y, Birthday Party-ish stuff embellished with quite impressive keyboard flourishes. Some of this was previously released as a 12" on Loveletter Recordings. (note: as of early 2001, known as Pleasure Forever)

Record number two from this now defunct, vocal/synth psychedelic shoegaze duo, recorded back in 2009, and released not long after their Debacle cd-r, Ocean On Ocean. And like that record, on Grey Angel the Slaves again masterfully conjure up some sort of cosmic otherworld, a sound so expansive and epic, its hard to believe they're just a duo, layers of smoldering synths, swirling clouds of blurred effects, and the vocals, ethereal an angelic, like a deconstructed Slowdive, or My Bloody Valentine, slowed way down, and smeared into alien torch songs, the music roiling and full of motion, the lush raga like tones draped over a swirl of fractured melodies and vocal fragments, a darkly dour, melancholic rhythmless drift, all buzz and fuzz and rumble and whir, bleeding into one organic sonic swoon. On the tracks that hew closer to traditional songcraft, the melodies coalesce into something that almost sounds like some lost eighties synthwave creep, but the Slaves add wild squalls of psychedelic guitars, and reverb drenched vocal acrobatics, all of those disparate elements again woven into something impossibly lovely and dreamily mesmerizing. A collection of melted pop songs, of deconstructed shoegaze, which occasionally, like on the cold wave poppy "Visions", definitely sounds like it could be some unearthed eighties synth pop gem, but of course spinning at the wrong speed, and not to mention the weirdly processed male vox, almost robotic, a weirdly (im)perfect foil for the gorgeous powerful soaring female vox. But of course, it doesn't take long for the band to slip back into something more abstract and tripped out, looping snipped vox over thick synth swells, all again as a backdrop to those gorgeous vocals. "Ancestors" almost sounds like witch house, with all the rhythms stripped away, and the sounds super saturated, sonically coloring way outside the lines, haunting and dreamily ominous, the track growing more and more noisy and chaotic as it goes, culminating in the sweetly brooding slo-mo shoegaze dreamwave of the closer "Angel", which sounds like the sort of thing you'd expect to hear from Sleep Over or Still Corners, a totally gorgeous hazy, hushed dreamsynth ballad, that sounds a little bit like Zola Jesus on 4AD... LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!

MPEG stream: You Could Save Me
MPEG stream: Dreamin'
MPEG stream: Angel

We love bands whose music-making formula appears, on the surface, simple and intuitive, yet the sounds they create are huge, engulfing and seemingly complex. Using two synthesizers and echoing vocals, The Slaves inhabit a sound that is as lush and dense as it is mysterious and minimal. Their debut album, Ocean on Ocean, is the perfect showcase of a group that can conjure up bountiful sounds within a restrained approach. Honestly, we can't get enough of Ocean on Ocean, something about those enormous, dreamy, engulfing songscapes just leaves us wanting more. Their oozing brew of minimal pop melts and blurs with the melodic thickness of MBV's Loveless or early Slowdive, but surrenders to a contemplative mode that falls somewhere between Gregorian hymn and pagan ritual. The duo spin a radiant web of sustained vocals and heavy synth, each chord drawn out and smeared into a neon haze while indecipherable lyrics suggest longing, loss and submission to oblivion.� "Seventeen" unfolds with a slow arching chord progression that grows and dissipates like a coastal tide. Female vocals creep into the oceanic haze while fluttering noise and cosmic wash hover in obscurity. And though the rhythm-less wash may appear to be aimless improv, a close listen reveals a defined structure beneath the veil of long tones and heavy atmospherics. And yes, The Slaves are heavy. And it's not a 'down-tuned guitars through a wall of amps' kind of heavy. It's more evident in the slow movement of the songs, and the visceral effects felt by each musical gesture. The duo have perfectly crafted a searing offering of 'soft doom', so gorgeous and mesmerizing we've had Ocean on Ocean on repeat for the past week. "Shadows" is another noteworthy track. We love the push and pull of heavy synth and whispery vocals, whirls of female voice echo into the night then dissipate into huge swells of HEAVY distorted synth. Crumbling low end amid ethereal dream chants, what else could we ask for?? One of our favorite records in recent memory and highly recommended!�

MPEG stream: Seventeen
MPEG stream: Sweet High

Last year, when we listed the Paradigms cd of Grey Angel by The Slaves, we lamented that the band had already ceased to exist. They had only produced two full albums (the aforementioned Grey Angel and the currently out of print Ocean On Ocean, which will get reissued on 2lp in early fall 2012) and a mini-cassette, all of which were thoroughly brilliant amalgams of ethereal shoegaze and doom-tinged heaviness, akin to Lovesliescrushing genetically re-engineered to sound like Barn Owl. Fortunately, the declaration of the defunct-ness of The Slaves was indeed premature, as the Portland duo of Barbara Kinzle and Birch Cooper have returned and released this epic lp Spirits Of The Sun for Digitalis! The hiatus (which, seemed to be the result of the, um, romantic disentanglement betwixt the two) didn't change The Slaves' sound all that much, with elegantly fuzzed out synth melodies girding the liturgical, somber heaviness suspended upon the slow-motion crawl of the songs. Both Kinzle and Cooper intertwine wordless vocals around the fundamental tunes, which emote with the best of sound poems from Grouper but also align with plainsong chants from forgotten cathedrals. On top of all of this, they thoroughly smother everything in a beautifully luminescent blur of dream-pop / shoegazed noise. The album's opener "III" explodes with a dense accretion of guitar noise that pops in stark relief against the languid vocal chorales. "River" and "The Field" melt together with "III" to form the first side of the album with its oceanic heaviness of synth and guitar dronescaping. "Born Into Light" is a side long majestic epic that blossoms with much more blistering guitar noise searing through the melodic synth backbone, all of which deflates back to a nocturne of vocal incantations. Totally beautiful and totally recommended!

MPEG stream: River
MPEG stream: Born Into Light

We don't list a whole lot of PUNK rock, and it's not cuz we don't love punk rock, everyone at aQ has iPods full of Crass, Flipper, Die Kreuzen, Misfits, Didjits, Amebix, Channel 3, Spazz, Sore Throat, Naked Raygun, Rudimentary Peni, Man Is The Bastard, Black Flag, well, you get the idea, but modern day punk just doesn't often do it for us. Every once in a while something kicks our ass and usually it comes out of nowhere. Such is the case with Norwegian aggro grind punks Slaxxmaal, this being their first ever vinyl release and it's a doozy. 7"s, 19 songs, many clocking in at 15, 10, even 2 seconds. Furious thrashing grinding chaos, vocals that shriek hysterically one second bellow monstrously the next, guitars more angular and obtuse than most punk rock riffing, and drums like an avalanche of percussion, all wound up TIGHT, into short sharp bursts of blinding deafening fury. Some tracks slow things down, like the opener, with it's almost sludgey groove, Greg Ginn-ish guitar freakouts and howled demonlike vocals, but the band typically explode back into super aggressive blasts of grindpunk destruction. Awesome. Comes with a printed lyric sheet, all in Norwegian, tons of photos and a bad ass skull cover.

God hates us all, and has decided to punish us with probably the worst Slayer record ever.

Reign in Blood is one of the defining moments in metal. Specifically, pissed off technical thrash. Before Slayer, no one else was faster, more brutal, or controversial. Yet at the same time they managed to somehow translate their music into something commercially successful, which is as confusing as it is impressive. This, their seminal third album, produced by Rick Rubin in 1986, is what we think of when we think of Slayer. "Angel of Death," "Altar of Sacrifice," "Jesus Saves." If you're a metalhead - to any degree - you own this, or you need this. In fact, we're not going to go on too much about it because this shit makes its own case. For greater detail, you can always pick up a copy of the book about Reign in Blood from the 33 1/3 series. Slayer fucking rule, and this is one of their best records. Get on it!

MPEG stream: Angel of Death
MPEG stream: Altar of Sacrifice

C'mon, it's SLAYER!!! Does this even need a review. What if we said it was the heaviest and maybe best Slayer record in ages? There's never really been a -terrible- Slayer record really, there have been a few missteps, a stinker here and there definitely, and there was that one record that had rapping on it, oof, but for the most part Slayer have always ruled, and continue to reign supreme (and in blood!), and World Painted Blood definitely finds them sounding the best they have in a decade. The songs here are fierce and heavy and complex, catchy in that way only Slayer can pull off, wild squiggly leads, killer riffing, incredible drumming of course, and seriously some of the best Slayer songs in a while. The opening / main riff of "Psychopathy Red" sounds like it could have come straight off South Of Heaven, the title track is another killer, total classic Slayer until about halfway through when the band slips into a crushing half time solo laced chug driven breakdown, "Snuff" explodes right out of the gate with a wild frenzied solo, which you rarely hear, the first 40 seconds are ALL SOLO, fuck yeah! "Beauty Through Order" is a chuggy dirge, with some insane drumming, a wicked hook (like "Dead Skin Mask"), and a weirdly proggy arrangement. We could go on, track by track, not a bad one in the bunch, which definitely hasn't happened in several Slayer records, and is well worth celebrating by blasting this as loud as you can and playing it over and over and over. Bad ass artwork too, really grim and creepy, almost like black metal art, a blood stain bone adorned booklet, with strange diagrams inside with the lyrics and photos, and a thick red plastic transparency in front of the booklet, making the whole thing look blood soaked!

MPEG stream: World Painted Blood
MPEG stream: Psychopathy Red
MPEG stream: Snuff

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

SORRY. Okay metalheads, line forms here, to grab this, the final (?), and most elaborate issue yet, of the legendary and supremely kick ass Slayer magazine, #20, or XX as it's grimly printed on the cover, edited and written and put together as always by Metalion, but unlike the past issues, this one is a proper, super fancy hardcover book, a massive metallic tome, and while the outside may look super slick, the inside is the same old Slayer mag, cut and paste old school zine style, lots of drawings and cartoons, different typefaces, photos, no efforts made to smooth the edges, to hide the bits of tape or the staples that might have show up in the photocopies, nope this is a total DIY, kvlt metal zine, gussied up book style. Featuring interviews with and articles about Watain, Morbid, Whiplash, Bathory, Sadus, Kreator, Master's Hammer, Sadistik Exekution, Funeral Mist, Nifelheim, Destroyer 666, SUNNO))), Grotesque, Savage Thrust, Medieval, Invidious Deathrash, Obscurity, Nocturnal Graves, Pagan Altar, Strid, Jarboe and more. Also includes an exclusive 12" ep from Pre-Nihilist / pre-Entombed outfit Morbid, featuring original Mayhem vocalist Dead, consisting of 4 tracks of super raw, thrashing black metal, murky and muddy and blown out, old demos and a live track, and a creepy bit of spoken word from Dead, raw and primitive and heavy and hateful and BLACK. The perfect sonic companion. Also included is a big poster, on one side, Jon Nodtveidt of Dissection, the other side, a blown up version of the Slayer #20 cover art, featuring killer artwork by Erik Danielsson. So totally recommended. Every metalhead's bookshelf needs one of these! LIMITED TO 2000 COPIES!!! ALREADY SOLD OUT AND OUT OF PRINT, so these are the ONLY and the LAST copies we will ever get...

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

SORRY. Known by a variety of monikers such as u-Ziq, Jake Slazenger, and Kid Spatula, Mike Paradinas records the most accessible (in other words, don't be scared by the following word) techno music I have had the pleasure to recently hear. I've been informed that Paradinas falls into the sub-subgenre of techno called 'clown hop.' I can't remain seated while listening! One track on In Pine Effect samples Kristin Hersh even. Highly recommended.

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

SORRY. Mike Paradinas a.k.a. u-Ziq a.k.a. Kid Spatula with his second Slazenger album, as we've said before, this is some of the most accessible experimental techno around. For more info, read The Wire's 1996 article about him, Luke Vibert (Plug), Witchman, and Squarepusher. English import.

Despite the name, don't think parkas and scooters. Think, well, white rap. White rap by a pair of clever & cranky British blokes, who kinda sound like if Mark E. Smith from the Fall listened to a lot of Sensational or Kool Keith and decided to make a really WTF? electronic rap album of his own. Except there's two of him (seems to be one main guy, and a kind of a sidekick). We got turned on to the Sleaford Mods thanks to a really cool record shop over in England, Norman Records, who put this album at the top of their Best of 2013 list, an apparently controversial choice even among the shop's own staffers. Some unconventional, outside of the box thinking there! So we figured we ought to check it out. And guess what? We can see why they picked it, though we can also see why it was a bold choice. Had we heard it last year, we might have been tempted too. It's addictive! And we don't always even understand half of what these geezers are on about, that's part of the charm - the thick accents (lots of "fookin'") and the British slang, only makes more wonderfully confusional their own weird brand of free-association wordplay, resulting in plenty of cryptic non-sequiturs that may or may not be intentional, though there's plenty of obvious witticisms too. The lyrics, near as we can tell, are mainly complaints about life and society and shitty music business stuff, full of references to wankers and "donkeys". Here's some lines from the track "Shit Streets Runny" (that is, if we managed to transcribe it correctly): "Attention to detail / attention to detail / fookin' email / wap! mp3 / I need a fookin' bath / you ain't no roadrunner / you ain't no shoot shoot the runner / shit take on it / meanwhile back in the crap cave / I trod on my cape by mistake / and fell into the fridge mate / I fookin' hate Northern Soul / it's like Motown on the dole". Then the sidekick guy gets some good bits in too, like the one about "Brain Eno / what the 'ell does 'e know?" And all that, their ranting and rhyming, and even a little bit of singing, sort of, comes on top of quite catchy minimalist hiphop backing tracks, with ticktocking drum machines and laid back grooves, simple and hypnotic, making for an oddly humorous and headnodding listen indeed, full of sing-song bits that will get stuck in your head, catchphrases too - we're all going "Wobble wobble wobble" ferinstance. Maybe it's even more amusing to us since we're American, and whatever we're lacking in context is made up for in sheer absurdity. Anyway, diggin' this a lot!

MPEG stream: Shit Streets Runny
MPEG stream: Mcflurry
MPEG stream: Showboat

Y'know, it's a fact that is easier for us to write reviews of stuff we just discovered, being all eager to share whatever it is with you guys. Once an artist has gotten a little bit popular, and we've had a few releases in by them, then we sometimes find ourselves slacking off on the reviewing, even though we may still be big fans. Maybe 'cause we figure we'll be repeating ourselves, maybe 'cause chances are folks are gonna wanna buy the artist's new stuff regardless. Which all goes to perhaps explain why we've been tardy in getting this Ipecac disc by English post-punk white rap duo Sleaford Mods written-up for our list. We've been spinning it a lot since it came in, though, 'cause Sleaford Mods rule. It's actually not a new album proper, but instead a compilation of tracks from a bunch of hard-to-find 7" singles that they've released over the past year or two. Any Sleaford Mods fan will dig it, naturally, it's another dose of their hilariously sardonic stream of consciousness rhymes laid down over the same sort of stripped down, lo-fi grooves as always. The main rapper guy (whose delivery never fails to remind us of Mark E. Smith, though it's a cheap comparison) is brilliant when it comes to non-sequitur witticisms taking down 'wankers' left and right. Half the time we don't even understand what he's on about with his lyrics, in part 'cause of the accent, in part 'cause of the British cultural/political references, but it's still funny and the beats will keep your head nodding and feet tapping. And while funny, they mean it, these rhyming complaints are pointed, some targets more significant than others. Twitter haters will want this for "Tweet Tweet Tweet"... Anyway we wanted to get this listed so you'd know we had it. Supposedly Ipecac released a vinyl version too but we've never been able to get any in. However, today we DID just get brand new Sleaford Mods vinyl 12", entitled Tiswas, on Invada, just FYI, also, which, further FYI, will have a picture disc Record Store Day release this year, but you can get it now on regular vinyl.

MPEG stream: Jolly Fucker
MPEG stream: Bambi
MPEG stream: Pubic Hair Ltd.

AT LONG LAST, IN STOCK ON VINYL! Here's what we wrote about the cd version not too long ago: Y'know, it's a fact that is easier for us to write reviews of stuff we just discovered, being all eager to share whatever it is with you guys. Once an artist has gotten a little bit popular, and we've had a few releases in by them, then we sometimes find ourselves slacking off on the reviewing, even though we may still be big fans. Maybe 'cause we figure we'll be repeating ourselves, maybe 'cause chances are folks are gonna wanna buy the artist's new stuff regardless. Which all goes to perhaps explain why we've been tardy in getting this Ipecac disc by English post-punk white rap duo Sleaford Mods written-up for our list. We've been spinning it a lot since it came in, though, 'cause Sleaford Mods rule. It's actually not a new album proper, but instead a compilation of tracks from a bunch of hard-to-find 7" singles that they've released over the past year or two. Any Sleaford Mods fan will dig it, naturally, it's another dose of their hilariously sardonic stream of consciousness rhymes laid down over the same sort of stripped down, lo-fi grooves as always. The main rapper guy (whose delivery never fails to remind us of Mark E. Smith, though it's a cheap comparison) is brilliant when it comes to non-sequitur witticisms taking down 'wankers' left and right. Half the time we don't even understand what he's on about with his lyrics, in part 'cause of the accent, in part 'cause of the British cultural/political references, but it's still funny and the beats will keep your head nodding and feet tapping. And while funny, they mean it, these rhyming complaints are pointed, some targets more significant than others. Twitter haters will want this for "Tweet Tweet Tweet"...

MPEG stream: Jolly Fucker
MPEG stream: Bambi
MPEG stream: Pubic Hair Ltd.

Here's the latest from this British white rap trio, who we've all become sort of obsessed with, so much so that after some initial skepticism when we first had a listen, these guys might end up being the most played group on the aQ stereo this year. And as much as we love this, and love these guys, it's hard to say exactly why. When the first record from these guys was picked by Norman Records in the UK as their record of the year last year, even the employees at Norman couldn't help themselves, explaining that they weren't sure either. But all it took was a handful of listens and now we can't stop. And we played that first one to DEATH. To the point that most of us knew some of the lyrics by heart ("Brian Eno! What the fook does 'e know?!"), totally addictive, rhythmically mesmerizing, and the lyrics and delivery, pissed off and hilariously snarky. In fact, it's only barely hip hop, instead it's like some poetry slam punks, spitting lyrics over post punk grooves, fuzzy bass and looped drums, and then a wicked stream of consciousness flow that would have most proper rappers scratching their heads. The sound on Divide And Exit is actually a bit more punk rock sounding. We compared the vocals to Mark E. Smith the first time around, and the music this time sounds a bit more like an even more minimal Fall, which is most definitely not a bad thing. Plus, while there's no Brian Eno line, at least not one we've glommed on to yet, there is this one that keeps jumping out at us: "It's the final countdown by Journey!", or this one: "Have you been for a poo poo bomb" (or maybe barn?, either way, WTF??), plus there's a song about corgis ("The Corgi"). Needless to say, it's ridiculous, and absurd, but goddamn addictive, and all it's taken is another few listens, and this new one is now getting played as much as that first one did. We joked about making that first one (and this one too) Record Of The Week, just based on how much we listen to 'em, which really, pretty much says it all...

MPEG stream: Air Conditioning
MPEG stream: Tied Up In Knottz
MPEG stream: The Corgi
MPEG stream: Tweet Tweet Tweet

We've written about this minimalistic, often hilarious, post-punkish English 'rap' duo before, and we REALLY like 'em, and here's their new record and you should buy it! Beyond that, it's not that easy for us to review this, 'cause we don't necessarily feel qualified to do so, in part because we don't really understand, like, 50 percent or more of what the guy is saying!! And there are even lyrics printed in the booklet. But he's got his thick English accent, he's talking this English slang lingo, about subjects that often unfamiliar to us, pertaining to British society, subculture, etc. Yet, maybe 'cause we're Anglophiles, maybe 'cause you gotta love a good beat and some silly words, we find it all hugely entertaining. This new disc, their eighth (!!!) album, opens with a crowd chanting their name, an appropriate reflection of how these guys have risen in popularity over the last couple of years here, since we first heard about 'em. And then immediately you've got one of their simple, fairly rudimentary bass and drum grooves, stripped down, kinda funky, with what this time what sounds like live bass if not live drums, over which the main what we'd call rapper in the group does his thing, telling like it is, usually in a spoken word rhyming way, but sometimes venturing into a bit of quasi-singing-ness, and again we can't always understand what he's on about, but we glean enough to know he's talking shit about stuff, and it's funny. Sleaford Mods' urgent and sardonic critiques of pretty much everything are full of "Did he just say that?" double take moments that require a rewind or look at the lyric sheet. One such instance comes up when he disses somebody for dressing like they they they're "Snake fucking Plissken" (Escape From New York reference, yeah!). That's in a track, titled, uh, "Cunt Make It Up", which appears to be about a particular band or a scene of bands general that he doesn't like much to say the least. Another line in there that caught our ear is when goes on to say the band looks like "Rocket From The Crypt meets an old codger with one leg". WTF? So that one's a good one, and the whole album is pretty good. If you're already into the Sleaford Mods you'll like this (and if you don't like 'em, you won't like this one either!). If you haven't heard 'em before, this would be as good a place as any to start. So that's the basic 'review' right there, eh? Good job, us.

MPEG stream: Bronx In A Six
MPEG stream: Cunt Make It Up
MPEG stream: The Blob

RECORD STORE DAY 2015!! Even after three full lengths, the joke is still funny (if it even is a joke, we're not so sure), and we remain obsessed with these goofy British lads, and their halting sing song rapping over strangely canned rhythms, like an open mic band jamming on the same 4 measure vamp over and over and over. They're definitely still a love 'em or hate 'em proposition and we fall firmly in the former camp. While they last we have this 5 song EP, offered up as a super limited Record Store Day 12" picture disc, and for fans, very little has changed, the rhymes are still cheeky, the delivery like a drunk, ranting Mark E. Smith, thick accents and all sorts of British slang that we don't get, but that's kinda the fun. Getting some ridiculous turn of phrase stuck in your head, like the chorus to "Bunch Of Cunts" (we get -that- one). Or maybe it's bollocks! Or "fookin'!!" It's pretty irresistible, and for some reason we never get tired of this stuff. And we've played the other three records to death, so a new batch of songs, even the 4 new songs here is cause for celebration, and incessant spinning in the shop! SUPER LIMITED!! This is left over Record Store Day stock, so odds are when we run out, we won't be able to get more. Swank white picture disc in a stickered PVC plastic sleeve. (FYI, there's also a slightly cheaper, non-RSD, non-picture disc version we also stock...)

If you love Sleater-Kinney and think they can do no wrong, well, hurry on down and fight with the millions of like-minded souls who'll also be desperate to purchase a copy of this. If you're not already convinced, or are over them already, or always found their vocals grating, or for whatever reason aren't a fan...this won't change things I don't think.

Our lips were sealed... Several months ago a former aQ employee and friend of the store told us a little secret. He knew that Sleater-Kinney were in San Francisco working on a brand new album. For some of us S-K fanatics this news brought squeals of disbelief & excitement but we promised to keep it like a secret. Fast forward a few months and the reissues of Sleater-Kinney's back catalog on vinyl hit along with a deluxe box set which included a 7" of a new song. The cat was finally out of the bag, as one of the most beloved bands of the '90s and '00s were making a big comeback. As much as we love and hold the band near to our hearts, we had some fears and reservations. They seemed to go out and break up at such a perfect time and we always get worried about bands we love tainting such a perfect legacy. Our fears were instantly put aside when this new album came to light, as it's filled with everything we love about the band without being a rehash, repeat or a lesser version of what they did before. In fact it feels like one of the most alive and engaging albums of their career. While not quite as heavy as their erstwhile swansong The Woods (2005), it still taps into the huge sound they were exploring on that record while infusing it with the more punchy, poppy, and melodic elements of an older S-K fave, 1999's The Hot Rock. There's an expression that comes up a lot, "more than the sum of their parts," and it couldn't be more fitting and true with regard to the three players in S-K. Since the band shut down shop they have all kept making records (The Corin Tucker Band, Wild Flag, etc.) but none of those endeavors was able to reach anywhere near the impact or power of what they do when they come together as Sleater-Kinney. While the band is often lazily referenced as merely coming from the riot grrl scene, S-K always had aspirations and a vision that looked at larger possibilities of any scene or movement. Over the course of their career they became a band that were truly monsters of rock in a way that we could fully get behind. Their live shows are legendary, and that high octane energy is present and pushed to the front on this new album. These are songs that make you wanna raise your fist, sing and scream along, and believe in the power of punk & rock n' roll. Like the heirs to everyone from The Who to Patti Smith to The Clash to Sonic Youth, Sleater Kinney show that when they are together the only thing they know how to do is make music that matters. Note: available as cd, regular lp, or deluxe fancy lp with bonus extra 12" with 2 more songs (while they last)!

MPEG stream: Price Tag
MPEG stream: Fangless
MPEG stream: No Cities To Love

Yup, Corin Tucker's voice is still kicking up the wee hairs in my ears in a manner which I've never found particularly pleasurable. Others may feel quite the opposite. For sure, it's an unmistakable, much-imitated, love-it-or-hate-it kind of voice. Really, it's the one thing that's kept me from totally digging their records. I mean, the music rocks! And that said, One Beat is pretty darn stellar. There's definitely been a lot of artistic growth and maturing since All Hands On The Bad One. Although there's plenty that's pleasingly familiar - Janet Weiss' drumming's as solid as ever, Tucker and Carrie Brownstein have honed their guitar craft into something so dynamic and complex, likewise, the vocal interplay between the three women is fab - there's also lots of stretching out, trying new things, drawing from a wider range of influences and inspirations. One Beat has some hot numbers on it, "Combat Rock" and "02" to name just two. The only song that sticks out in a less than good way is the final one. "Sympathy" is a slide guitar number with Tucker affecting an excessive country blues warble. Almost sounds as if they were sippin' from the same bottle of Mississippi moonshine that seemed to have felled Mr. Calvin Johnson on his most recent album. Au secours! Regardless, this album gets the thumbs up, baby!

RealAudio clip: One Beat
RealAudio clip: Combat Rock
RealAudio clip: O2
RealAudio clip: Sympathy

If you really liked Dig Me Out but thought to yourself 'could Corin Tucker's voice get any more annoying?' Well then here comes The Hot Rock to answer with a resounding YES! The music is excellent, really driving and intense, if you can withstand her piercing banshee wail. But if you are anything like our co-worker Marc, then it's ALL about the amazing 'voice' (and certainly not about the truly LAME album cover. That we can both agree on). Tucker's voice is not only a wholly original sound, she is developing it into a finely tuned instrument. SK is truly one of the best straight-out rock 'n' roll bands today.

First things first, this new Sleater-Kinney IS a good one...but the following review tends to dwell heavily on our various, mostly negative, reactions to the vocals. But we know that if you're already in the S-K fanclub, you'll probably have no problems with 'em, the taste has long since been acquired. So, that said: Omigod, OMIGOD! You should've seen Andee's face the first time we played this new Sleater-Kinney album. He came tearing out of the back office hollering "Holy crap! What is this?!" Lemme tell you, he wasn't smiling, and neither are any of the rest of us, well, maybe Allan is. Okay as we've mentioned repeatedly in the past, Corin Tucker's vocals are a total love/hate kinda thing -- they really illicit strong reactions from all who hear it -- but her singing on this album takes it to a whole 'nother place, and we've gotta say it's not such a good one. It's waaay over the top blood-curdling emoting that rivals Kirstin Hersh's recent vocal perfomance in her rock band 50 Foot Wave. When does an empassioned delivery cross the line into downright caterwauling? Yikes. Allan called it "lemon-squeezing", as in Robert Plant / Led Zep (and actually, he seems to like the singing). Andee and Cup both say "????" That said, as usual when Carrie Brownstein sings along, things are far more palatable, but no less potent. On (in?) The Woods, Tucker, Brownstein and Janet Weiss continue to grow and explore new paths. For one thing, they've turned up the blues, making their already churning powerhouse rock songs stomp rather than punch. Just as he did on the latest Low album, producer David Fridmann does a fine job of capturing the band's raw energy while adding his own distinct touches. The guitars are absolutely thunderous yet still defined, and the overall picture is plenty loose, heavy and full of grit. Fortunately unlike their recent press photos in which they appear strangely stiff and uncomfortable, when the three are making music it's clear that they're totally at ease with themselves and each other. With confidence to spare, they're three very distinct musicians who fit together form a wholly united force -- pursuing their muse, challenging themselves as well as their fans. That said, we still think Brownstein and Weiss should've stepped in when Tucker was tracking her vocals and said, "Whoa Nellie!" Nonetheless pretty darn kickass!

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

SORRY. One song from Sleater K's new album, plus one track -collectors alert- not on the album ("Maracas").

The now-defunct San Francisco stoner/doom band Sleep has sure gotten a lot of mileage out of this record! Dopesmoker is the original Billy Anderson-recorded (and latterly, re-mastered) demo version of their final statement, the infamous one-song-long Jerusalem. Originally slated for release by major label London, they were dropped and the album was shelved, released only as a promo with no art. Then it got bootlegged (by the band themselves?), before at last seeing a legit release via The Music Cartel. The boot and the TMC versions had different artwork, naturally, so some Sleep aficionados had to have both... Now Tee Pee brings us the same record again, under its originally intended title, Dopesmoker. And it's a different, demo recording, with rougher, more Melvinsy vocals, the whole thing sounding actually dronier and dirtier and dirgier than the Jerusalem you're already used to -- and longer too! 64 minutes vs. just 52. The twelve extra minutes aren't due to additional "parts" though, as near as we can tell, it's just 'cause the everything's played slightly slower and/or more relentlessly repeated. Not sure why they cut it down for Jerusalem -- you'd think if you're gonna do a one-song, super long album of maximum riff-repetition you might as well make it as long as possible. Did London insist that they prune it down for radio play? Ha. Anyway, Sleep fans who find High On Fire just a little too fast for them may want to indulge in the tarpit Sabbath-sludge of Dopesmoker/Jerusalem once again with this release. For further fan-temptation we should note that there's actually another (bonus) track on the cd, a live recording the singer identfies as "Sonic Titan", nine more minutes of what sounds like Dopesmoker part 2. Comes in a digipack (or gatefold LP sleeve for the vinyl) with art by Arik Moonhawk Roper.

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New Zealand's Sleep is very very different from the Sabbath worshippin' stoner-doom band of the same name. This Sleep is a quartet of New Zealand free noise musicians, including stalwarts Kim Pieters and Peter Stapleton, as well as Nathan Thompson and Susan Ballard. As with other collaborations between Pieters and Stapleton (such as Rain, Flies Inside The Sun), Sleep's work is based on

What more needs to be said about this stoner doom classic from 1992? Heavy, hooky, groovy, Sabbathy, a classic slab of metallic drugginess that launched a million pale imitators (not that Sleep were all-original either, being Sabbathy as we said!). Reissued now with, natch, a bonus Black Sabbath cover ("Snowblind" from the Masters Of Misery tribute comp) and the video for "Dragonaut", so completists might just have to buy it again, but even without those extras, anyone who somehow managed make it this far without hearing Sleep's Holy Mountain, well, now's the time to remedy that for sure... Needless to say, this shit is HEAVY! Dirge-y, cannabis fueled excursions into the dark realm, swinging Sabbathy riffs, pounding devil drum percussion, and a wailing howl over it all. Fans of Corrupted, Boris, stoner rock, sludge, doom, and all that sort of stuff, catch the hell up!! Sleep's Holy Mountain was this so-Sabbathy bands MOST Sabbath-like release, almost too close for comfort - we're not convinced that Tony and Geezer didn't actually write this stuff!! Which in it's own twisted way is a very very good thing indeed. Wow. ESSENTIAL!

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

SORRY. By now you may be familiar with the saga of this record, which consists soley of one infamous 52-minute long Sabbathy stoner-doom SONG to end all such songs (originally titled "Dopesmoker"). The original label, London Records, dropped the band (which then broke up--I hear some of the guys are possibly now born-again Christians) and this release was shelved. Now, over a year later, it finally gets legit release (there'd been a semi-official bootleg in the meantime--this has different artwork). Suffice to say, that if you're at all interested in the possiblities of mind expansion through maximum riff-bludgeonment over time, and haven't scored this yet, do so!

Vinyl reissue of this classic from the Bay area's own sludge/doomer/stoner kings, S L E E P! No longer will you have to pay $100 for this puppy on EBAY. This is thick, colored vinyl, in the original lyric sleeve and an exact reproduction of the original cover. And this shit is HEAVY! Dirge-y, cannabis fueled excursions into the dark realm, Sabbathy riffs, pounding devil drum percussion, and a wailing howl over it all. If you don't already have this, what the hell is wrong with you?! Fans of Corrupted, Boris, stoner rock, sludge, doom, and all that sort of stuff, catch the hell up!! "Sleep's Holy Mountain" was this so-Sabbathy bands MOST Sabbath-like release, almost too close for comfort -- we're not convinced that Tony and Geezer didn't actually write this stuff!! Wow.

We listed this last week on our all-vinyl in-betweener. Been selling fast, but we do still have a few left, so here's probably your last chance if you haven't already pulled the trigger... The very unexpected return of stoner doom heroes Sleep, their first new music in more than a decade. It's a single side long sprawl, originally released as part of the Adult Swim monthly series of digital downloads, now available as a super limited 12", and while they last, we have the even MORE limited green vinyl version, housed in a plain brown sleeve, and sporting a bad ass spaceman etching on the B side! And as much as it can be, "The Clarity" is vintage/classic Sleep, starting out with a weird, almost electronic pulse, that soon supernova's into crushing, slithery, swaggery, stoner doom bliss, a massive main riff, the drums appropriately caveman crushing, the vocals the strangest part, seemingly beholden to post Sleep vehicle OM, sort of sung/spoken, doused in echo/reverb, but really, it's not all that different that the druggily chanted vox of the old days, and it all bleed and oozes into a perfect slab of druggy, downtuned heaviness, with plenty of tempo shifts, long stretches of doomy lumber, some seriously Sabbathy leads, the sort of head nodding crush few do better than these guys, the track bookended by a tranced out, spacey outro, where the drums gradually drop out, leaving just arcing streaks of guitar buzz, and droned out fragmented riffs, all tangled up into a mesmeric, pulsing, doom-buzz, minimal-drone coda that ends way too soon. Here's hoping this means there's a full length imminent... As mentioned above, it's a limited edition green vinyl version, with etched art on the B side, brown cardstock sleeves, and no info except the label on the A side with the logo, the song title, minimal credits, and what could be Sleep's mantra or motto: "Praise Iommi"...

Now that '90s doomlords Sleep are back together again, touring and even releasing new music (the one-sided 12" we recently listed), it's perfect timing for this release - their very first, long out of print album, officially reissued on vinyl for the very first time!! (With download, too.) Nascent underground heavies Sleep, after changing their name from Asbestos Death, put out this, their Billy Anderson produced debut full-length, way back in 1991 (when, remember, doom wasn't the popular genre it is today). The title is likely a nod to Black Sabbath's Vol. 4, as of course Sabbath are obviously a big influence - but Vol. 1 doesn't exactly swing as Sabbathy as Sleep's Holy Mountain, their stoner-groovy sophomore album, would. Instead, Vol. 1 is a darker beginning, aligned with the contemporary likes of Gore, Eyehategod, and the Melvins; its spare, lumbering riffs and unhappy vokills giving off an opiated evil vibe, more suggestive of hard drugs than friendly ol' pot. Though we're sure lots of marijuana was smoked in the making of this feedback-laced, plodding, nihilistic heaviness that anticipated the sound of Khanate some years later. Song titles like "Numb", "Anguish", "Catatonic", "The Suffering", and "Scourge" ought to give you an idea of the mindset here - this is the sort of Sleep from which you might never wake up. FYI: while we still have a bunch on hand at the moment, this first pressing is apparently already sold out at the label, so when we run out, it'll be at least a month or two before we'll see more...

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We're tempted to say this is a weird one, coming from local black metal tape label Acephale Winter, but then pretty much everything we've heard from them has been pretty weird, this one though, definitely takes the weirdo cake. For one, it's not black metal, not at all, for another, much of it was purportedly recorded while tripping on acid. What Sleep Deprived deliver, in fact sounds like sounds created via sleep deprivation, full of swirling ambience and dark motorik kosmische drifts. The opener lays down a barely there rhythm, beneath a field of murky pulsations, and keening minor key melodies, all hazy and washed out, like some sort of ghostly disembodied krautrock, that quickly transforms into some bleak, black ambience, before blossoming into a gauzy sprawl of swirling psychedelia. The rest of the tape plays out similarly, with long stretches of pulsating synths, murky, moody atmospheres, FX drifting in and out, what sound like disembodied voices, insectoid buzz, some tracks get downright symphonic, others remain hushed and whispery, moments remind us of super dramatic film music, others sink ever deeper into creepy minimal thrum. Imagine closing your eyes after days of no sleep, those patterns you see through your eyelids, fractals and slow shifting shapes, this is like THAT set to music, gorgeously mediative, occasionally ominous, super tripped out and hypnotic, a killer collection of druggy, synth-drone, cosmic-psych ambience.

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Latest batch of blissy trippy dreaminess from Sleep Over, aka Stephanie from aQ faves Silver Pines, and it's a doozy, a lush, washed out chunk of soft focus psychedelic dream pop for sure. Lush swells of warm buzz wash over swoonsome melodies, eighties style beats are submerged in a sea of warped and woozy laid back ambience, the sound ethereal and shoegazey, very 4AD, a sort of slo-mo electro pop, rife with gorgeous hazy vocal harmonies, peppered with bits of electronics here and there, the whole thing drags dreamily, as if someone had a finger on the record while it played (and spin it at 33 instead of 45 and it sounds seriously witch house-y). The B side begins with a burst of skittery programmed rhythms, over distant swells and disembodied vox, the vibe would almost be funky if it weren't so murky and spaced out. The sound is like some primitive remix, bloops and bleeps surface amidst the muted thrum, synths swell and recede, all wreathed in a pulsing downtempo murky driftscape, the vocals growing more and more abstract and minimal, a blurred field of swirls and whorls, a fantastically druggy bit of dreamy ambient driftpop. Pressed on heavy pink/purple transparent vinyl, and housed in a super thick full color jacket, and yeah, most likely pretty dang limited...

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Finally, we got enough of these to list, the darkly dreamy lp debut of Stefanie Franciotti's hazy and gauzy solo outfit, Sleep Over. A new light in the field of female-led synthesization, a la Laurel Halo and Maria Minerva, Sleep Over is a stunning mix of Grouper's washed out and oceanic distortion, Cocteau Twins-ish pop romanticism and uncanny gothic dream soundtrack. We've been fans of Franciotti since her days as singer in aQ faves, Silver Pines, but in Sleep Over she has found her true calling as an experimental sound composer, synthesizing voice and sound in chillingly bright sonic environments and ambient textures. Gorgeous!

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Even though we have yet to review anything on the aQ list from this deep listening black ambient drone technician, most of the drone lovers at aQ were already big fans, how could we not be? Sleep Research Facility, aka Scottish soundscaper Kevin Doherty, specializes in an ultra minimal, spaced out black ambience, weaving sprawling landscapes of hushed thrum and sinister murmur, often manipulating field recordings and processing them beyond the point of recognition, assembling them into bleak, epic, haunting, somnambulant drifts. We were particular taken by this most recent missive, which finds Doherty working exclusively from a selection of field recordings, samples collected from a B-2 Stealth Bomber, at a US Air Force base in the UK, and if there was ever a more appropriate sound source for this sort of hushed sonic mystery, it's the military's most mysterious aircraft. And while these recordings are obviously not the sounds of the aircraft in flight, it's easy to imagine that this modern marvel of technology was in fact THIS stealthy, emitting just a strange series of hushed rumbles, a deep shimmery thrum, laced with the telltale sounds of radio transmissions, tinny voices from the ether that sound almost like EVP recordings, ghostly and wraithlike. Doherty's manipulations are subtle, weaving the original sounds into gentle pulsations, layering multiple recordings into lush textures, weaving strange sine wave tones and staticky gristle into the proceedings, blurring and smearing everything into hazy, darkly psychedelic sonic shadows. The mix of abstract low end ambience, and strange transmissions, can't help but remind us of all time aQ fave the Conet Project. It definitely has that same vibe, the clouded provenance of these sounds, the pure musicality of the distinctly non-musical, but Doherty does work his magic, adding subtle swaths of melody, and giving the tracks here, no matter how minimal, a sense of propulsion, beneath the murk and the droned out whir, a barely there rhythmic pulse, while at the same time sculpting the various sound sources into sprawling fields of moody mesmer, a tranced out minimalism that is at once, soothing and darkly tranquil, this record quickly becoming one our favorite records to drift off to in the evening, and yet at the same time, crackling with energy, infused with not just the sounds themselves, but the implied weight of those sounds, borne of this strange machine, one that was devised to inflict violence, the ultimate delivery system for our collective bloodlust, the sounds of which, when at rest, are strangely lovely, albeit rife with a tension implicit in the source, and speak to an alternate purpose, one where this machine, even in repose, becomes less a means of destruction, and instead is involved in the creation of something beautiful and darkly transcendent. The record proper is accompanied by a second disc, which is the 'source' material Doherty used to create his dark droney vision, and the most interesting thing is how musical that material already is. And while these aren't the raw unedited recordings, they are the 'pre-mix' versions, which are meant to represent those source sounds, and while they are definitely much less processed, they still possess a dark musicality, with much of the grit and gristle of the finished record stripped away, leaving just deep tones, and long shifting layers of thrum and hum and whir, like the record itself, occasionally the true source sounds do reveal themselves, whether it's the clang and clatter of work in the hanger, or the squelched blurts of radio static, but ultimately, the source disc is simply another version of Stealth, one that we actually find equally enthralling. Essential modern dronescaping from this master of the dark sonic arts!

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One of our fave new Bay Area indie labels Dynamophone close out 2007 with a fresh batch of aural treats. They are four installments in their limited edition 3" cd-r ep Parcel series by the likes of Sleep Robot, Science Teacher, Lullaby League and Curium. Chances are if you've been paying attention to our recent aQ lists you're probably already as enchanted with this label's richly atmospheric hazily dreamy roster as we are, and will welcome these four into your music collection. This one features three new delicate drone tracks by Sleep Robot (aka Henry Clarke). Don't delay though! Each release comes in a diminutive square cardboard box festooned with a full color cover art sticker, and is limited to 100 each. We only have a couple handfuls. Once they're gone, they're gone!

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You have to make sure when you're crafting comparisons you don't get too carried away. We're WAY into hyperbole, as by now you probably all realize, but sometimes hyperbole can backfire. We get so many records that get described as sounding like the Stooges crossed with Nirvana mixed with Black Sabbath and on and on, until you arrive as something that could not possibly be true. We weren't super familiar with the Sleepers, other than knowing they were a legendary psychedelic goth punk outfit from SF, which featured members Crime, Tuxedomoon and Toiling Midgets. But before we even heard this reissue, we read this quote from Joe Carducci in his book Rock And The Pop Narcotic, where he wrote: "The Sleepers were an awesome powerhouse live. They were an appropriate refinement of The Stooges, and what Joy Division might have developed into had they the balls." What? He had us until that last part. And we can see why Superior Viaduct would go with that quote, who wouldn't? "Like Joy Division with balls!" Sadly, as we all know, Joy Division most definitely had the balls, and while the Sleepers did aspire to the same great heights, they were definitely a whole different sort of beast. Their sound was more gloomy and gothy, more pop than punk for sure, gothic West Coast style, the sound that would later define places like the Scream Club, and would spawn bands like the Abecedarians and Kommunity FK, it's a sound we dig for sure, but a whole different thing. This record was The Sleepers' only album, and definitely tends toward the woozy brooding side of the sound, even a track like "The Mind" that starts out all crunchy and fuzzy and punky, quickly morphs into something more poppy and psychedelic. Weirdly, we ended up digging the second half of the record more. After the brief industrial rhythmscape "Intro", "Forever" unfurls as a strident slab of post punk psych pop, all tribal drumming, swoonsome guitar textures, low slung basslines, and dramatic crooned vox. "Zenith" might be our favorite track here though, with it's swirl of guitar harmonics, the opening few minutes sounding like Durutti Column, all hypnotic psychedelic guitar swirls, which are soon joined by martial snare and swirling string like chords, before launching into a dark driving gloom punk groove. The rest of the record unwinds similarly, noisy, gloomy, gothy, dark and dramatic. As with all Superior Viaduct reissues, fantastic heavy vinyl, the record sourced from the analog originals, nice thick covers, this one with a 12"x24" insert, old band flyer on one side (featuring Cabaret Voltaire and Young Marble Giants, which also gives a good idea of the Sleepers' sound), the other with liner notes from Joe Carducci.

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A few lists back we reviewed the recent reissue of the only full length from gothic West Coast punks the Sleepers, on local reissue label Superior Viaduct. As a companion to that lp reissue comes this, the group's 1978 7" debut, reproduced right down to the original cover. And unlike the full length, the 7" finds the band sounding way more punk, sure the deep dramatic vox are present, but they had yet to evolve into what Joe Carducci hyperbolically described as "What Joy Division Might have developed into had they had the balls." It's a little gloomy, and a little gothic, and a little psychedelic, but mostly punk, and it's a heady mix, one that may foreshadow the tribal drum driven gloominess of the lp, but also displays a feral punk rock energy that was less present on the lp. Five killer tracks that we've been listening to like crazy!

We all loved the blurred washed out buzz of weirdo black metallers Velvet Cacoon. Even the non metalheads around here. And when they called it quits, thus was born Clair Cassis, which was like an even more fuzzy, dreamy, and poppy version of Velvet Cacoon. But if you ever wished even Clair Cassis was more dreamy, more shoegazey and WAY more lush and poppy, well then Sleeping Peonies are for you. Most folks missed out completely on their debut, Rose Curl, Sea Swirl, we only managed to get a tiny handful for the store, but we loved what we heard, and wanted to make sure that the next SP record would get reviewed and listed. And so here it is. Like the debut, this is a lush, smeared, soft focus buzzscape that's as much eighties 4AD shimmer as it is black metal buzz, if not more. Sure there are blast beats, and howled vokills, but they drift in thick clouds of warm whirling haze, and lustrous chordal thrum, and most of the more blackened blasts end up fading into sweet sonic swirls, notes are doused in reverb and left to drift in the ether, the sound seesawing between murky buzz and spacious glimmery drift. There's also lots of cool weird production, thick corrosive low end rumbles underpinning anguished wails, piano like melodies hovering over deep softly roiling shimmer, bursts of heaviness that are so high in the mix, they causes strange ripple effects as the sound threatens to overwhelm all the other sounds around it, yet even at its heaviest, it's so ethereal and ephemeral, the sound so washed out and woozy, that the black buzz is often rendered more as a sort of blurred doomgaze ambience. Within that ambience, swaths of dreampunk drift rife with lilting melodies blossom into heaving Nadja-worthy swells of crumbling distorted rumble, or collapse into gauzy fuzz drenched slo-mo dream doom. There's also a definite cold/new wave vibe, that reminds us of a way more lo-fi, ramshackle, blackened Soror Dolorosa, who themselves are indebted to eighties gloom pop anyway... Gorgeous stuff, total blissed out dreampop blackmetal weirdness that should absolutely hit the spot for anyone into Velvet Cacoon, Clair Cassis, Alcest, Amesoeurs, Les Discrets and other purveyors of dreamy buzzy blackness... LIMITED TO 150 COPIES!!! House in a nice thick black envelope, with a hand bound 16 page booklet filled with lyrics, and a poster!

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

SORRY.

Finally, a new record from this UK black-bliss / screamo / dreamo / blackgaze outfit, who take the post black metal of groups like Alcest and Amesouers to the next level, transforming buzzing, blasting blackness into bleary, beautiful blissed out heaviness, less black metal and more black tinged dream pop. The last Sleeping Peonies was so limited we sold out in a heartbeat, and even though we are the exclusive distributor for this new one, we're expecting the same thing to happen again, as it's limited to just 130 copies, of which we got less than half!!! It's a short record, less than 20 minutes, but it's more than enough, six tracks of gorgeously, melancholic and blissfully blown out heaviness, by turns poppy and prismatic, somber and haunting, the only real black metal elements remaining, are some insectoid guitar buzz, and some anguished vokills, cuz otherwise, sonically, it's much more aligned with classic 4AD goth, nineties shoegaze, modern bliss pop, and the production reminds us to folks like TIm Hecker or Leyland Kirby, all gristly and washed out, woozy and warbly, home brewed and super distorted, the sounds melting and crumbling, all wound up in gorgeous heart wrenching melancholy melodies. The opener, with the very emo title "A Timid Eyelash Flutter", sets the scene, with dark piano chords, wreathed in reverb and echo, slowly enveloped by huge billowy squalls of blacknoise, swirling soft focus static, the sound super psychedelic, and totally mesmerizing. "Dreamrrz" adds some raspy vokills to what would otherwise be straight up fuzzy new wave goth pop, and sans those vocals could be some Brooklyn band on Captured Tracks. "Cemetery Kisses" too is all Cure and Kate Bush, tangled up into something fuzzier and blacker, but only just, a slow build to an epic softly psychedelic coda, replete with dramatic deep vox and wild swaths of distorted guitar. The title track takes buzzing black metal guitar, and wreathed it in prismatic shimmer, and recasts it as something totally dreamlike and blissed out, with a soaring sonic climax, that would give Godspeed a run for their money, but the sound here is pushed way into the red, crumbling and blurring into gorgeous abstract smears, while buried beneath all this swirl and shimmer, drums pound and piano plinks, leading into the hypnotically cosmic "Snowbound In Hazel And Furs", which begins all hazy and poppy, before the sound darkens a bit, burying the poppiness beneath some wintry buzz, heavy, but softly, and woozily heavy, settling into something much more gloom-gaze goth-pop than metal, but it's that metal underpinning that gives this bliss pop teeth. Finally, the record winds down with a gorgeous ambient closer, all looped and layered, and wreathed in soft FX, man, would we kill for a whole record of that mesmerizing dreaminess! Gorgeous stuff for sure. Maybe too blissy and poppy for some metalheads, but their loss, and popkids might find this the perfect gateway to darker sonic climes, and really, anyone into all strains of shoegaze-y dream pop, who doesn't mind a bit of black and buzz in their jangle and shimmer, this is pure black-pop perfection... LIMITED TO 130 COPIES, housed in a purple parchment envelope, with a cardstock Japanese style obi, an 11" x 17" poster, an 8 page 5.5" x 8.5" booklet, album notes printed on gray parchment, the envelope hand decorated and adorned with faeries!

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One thing's for sure, the band's name does not refer to the band members nor to those for whom this music may be suited. Perhaps the most kinetic (we might even guess caffeinated) bands to be released by this label in some time. Whereas we've come to warmly anticipate washy contemplative post-rock from this label (Kammerflimmer Kollektief, Eluvium, Sonna to name a few), Sleeping People caught us a bit by surprise. This half dozen songs contains enough math-iness to drain your calculator's batteries! Oof!!

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Sleeping States is the ongoing work of one Londoner named Markland Starkie whom some of you might be familiar with from his other band Kaito. Sleeping States is definitely a bird of a different feather. There The Open Spaces recalls the sensitive loner bedroom indie pop recordings of the '80s and '90s, but obviously more hi-fi. Starkie layers his sweet voice and hushed guitar with a gentle ruffling of dissonant plumage. It's a softer application of noise than that heard in Kaito, but it does offer a similar effect of hazy, off-kilter dreaminess. His lilting warm vocals often drawing easy comparisons to Rufus Wainwright and Ron Sexsmith. Yes, very nice! We'd definitely recommend this to fans of El Perro Del Mar as well as those of Grizzly Bear's Horn Of Plenty album. In fact, Starkie's tune "Rivers" just happens to be a favorite of Grizzly Bear's Ed Droste.

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We're huge fans of Santa Cruz black metallers Fell Voices, their sprawling epic blackness immediately held us in its thrall, flitting from total classic Scandinavian style blackness, to raw punky pounding filth, to meandering post metal drift, to furious Cascadian style epicness, all blurred into massive totally transcendental, side long black metal jams. But ever since we first reviewed the Fell Voices lp, we had a handful of customers emailing us insisting that we had to check out Sleepwalker, a side project of the drummer of Fell Voices. We managed to get in touch with him, and now we finally got a handful of the two Sleepwalker demos, one from last year, and a brand new one from 2010, most folks will probably want one of each, they're pretty crazy cheap after all, and they're amazing, but sadly, they're the very last copies we'll be able to get, we only have about 10 of each, so grab one before they're gone... Sleepwalker is similarly epic, but more washed out and murky than Fell Voices, occasionally more midtempo and depressive. The 2010 demo begins all gorgeously washed out and hazy blurred blackness that in some ways sounds more like Philip Jeck or Tim Hecker, the drums a buried metronomic pulse, the guitars a smeared swirl, a lumbering melancholic dirge that grows more and more jangly as the record porgresses, only to finally switch to what sounds like a black blast, but it's hard to tell the sound is so gauzy and indistinct, regardless it's simple more dense swirling buzz drenched blackness. The second track begins with a long stretch of frantic buzz, and spoken word vocals, only to finally slip into a punkish blast, the guitars again blurring into strange amorphous shapes, all wrapped up with weirdly crooned vocals, the production muddy enough that the heavier it gets, the more abstract and spaced out it sounds, and finally, the last track is all acoustic, but not just folky interlude style acoustic, it's almost like acoustic black metal, the guitar strummed fiercely, frantically, eventually strange almost industrial percussion surfaces and the track begins to sound like some sort of militaristic industrial folk before finishing off in a cloud of stel string buzz. The 2009 demo, is more post rock influenced, spare simple drumming, deep rumbling bass, spidery guitar melodies, repetitive and motorik, eventually the sound cranks up but doesn't get metal so much as it gets rocking, pounding away for a while before exploding into something more expansive and epic, sounding a bit like Godspeed, noise rock and black metal all woven together, surprisingly melodic and catchy, a little bit jangly too, although it does seem to get darker and blacker as it goes. The second track is much like the opening track on the 2010 demo, murky and washed out, blurred and a bit shoegazey, even the shrieks and blasts and buzz and smoothed out into something way more hypnotic and dreamlike, before the final track finishes off in a blaze of blown out, blissed out blackened post rock buzz, epic and majestic, hypnotic and repetitive, the vocals buried yowls, the drums way down in the mix, all riding on the soaring sheets of black-psych-metal-gaze guitars. Awesome. Both demos come in oversized white envelopes, each with a different pasted on front image, each with a small printed inserts, and unfortunately they're both out of print so these are the last copies we'll be able to get...

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[ aquarius records catalogue — S ]