[ 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 2101 through 2150 of 4057.

What a find! We had no idea who Verdelle Smith was, but it only took one listen to this latest Omni Recording Corporation release, a compilation of her complete recordings to be, well, completely hooked. She only recorded music for two short years before disappearing from the music world altogether. But in a just universe, Verdelle Smith would have been as huge as Dionne Warwick and her producers and songwriters, Paul Vance and Lee Pockriss, more famous than Burt Bacharach and Hal David (though to their credit, they were already pretty big due to a novelty hit "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" and Perry Como's "Catch A Falling Star", but we digress...). Verdelle Smith's songs were no mere novelty. Originally from Asbury Park, New Jersey, Smith grew up singing gospel, but had big musical ambitions, so she moved to Manhattan where she auditioned for Vance and Pockriss who were looking for a specific type of singer for a Shangri-la's style song called "Juanito", a song about overcoming the social stigma of an inter-racial relationship. With high production values, lush orchestration, hook-laden arrangements and Smith's big voice, she fit the part perfectly and the duo recorded one lp and several singles, one of which "Tar & Cement" made it to No. 1 in Australia (which is probably why Omni is reissuing this.). That song and its B side, "Piece of The Sky" are both big pop laments to urban sprawl, and the dehumanizing effects of industrialization. It's rare to see such social issues being addressed in soul-pop fashion, and probably why they received little notice in the states. But Smith's drop-dead voice and the fabulous production give these songs such a deep, knife-sharp edge. "If You Can't Say Anything Nice" could easily have been a lost Bacharach / David hit. But it was the song, "(Alone) In My Room", that was quickly covered by both Nancy Sinatra (on the Boots record, no less) and The Walker Brothers, that seemed to secure her the most fame, fleeting as it was. Smith's delivery throughout her brief career shares the same dramatic largesse as Scott Walker on his first four solo records. So if you're as much of a fan of them, Nancy Sinatra, Lee Hazlewood, early Dionne Warwick or Burt Bacharach as we are, then Verdelle Smith will be right up your alley. So what happened to her? Well, she wanted to make gospel records but her producers weren't into it, so she gave up the music business to become more involved with her church and social activism, which according to the liner notes she still actively pursues to this day under her real name. So there you go. Thank you Omni for digging this up. Fantastic!

MPEG stream: Tar & Cement
MPEG stream: A Piece of The Sky
MPEG stream: In my Room
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Kaiser and Smith join together to pay tribute to Miles Davis' electric '73-'75 period, joined by The Rova Sax Quartet, Nels Cline, Elliot Sharp, John Medeski, Lukas Ligeti, Oluyemi Thomas and many others...

Winter is coming, and this new sound piece by San Francisco-based sound artist and graphic designer Wayne Smith is the perfect soundtrack for when the weather gets colder and more intensely calm and still. Smith, more well known under his Aero-Mic'd moniker, is a master of miniature electronica and ephemeral detail, pairing blithe melodies with gentle atmospheres of drones, modular synths and field recordings. Here he creates a soundtrack for an art exhibition at local apartment gallery 2nd floor projects with the poet Norma Cole and painter Leonie Guyer. The resultant "Piano Lake" is a 14 minute piece of sparse chordal clusters of piano filtered through various effects, at times sounding like a strumming guitar with blurred ringing tones that are meditatively left hanging in mid-air. Far off in the background are what sound like footsteps walking by gently lapping waters, and occasionally a high keening synth phrase will whistle out and float above, but what is most apparent is the lavish amount of open space that frames these sounds in high relief adding a sense of devotional calm and seasonal drama. Like watching a quiet snowfall on a beautiful moonlit evening, this is the kind of recording you can just put on repeat and listen to for hours. Silent Night indeed. Comes with a 15" x 10" poster on newsprint of a printed collage of floating cut-outs of various found objects Smith sourced from magazines and printed ephemera. Each cd-r comes in a plain white gatefold cd sleeve with hand-pasted collage elements. Limited stock.

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Arhoolie has finally got round to reissuing this fine bluegrass album (originally released in 1961), and with four additional tracks that weren't included on the original LP release. Though the group's name and the album's title imply a cajun infused bluegrass sound, in truth Jim Smoak's bluegrass is a lot closer to its Kentucky origins in sound than Louisiana (Smoak himself was born and raised in South Carolina.) What the tracks lack in the traditional gospel derived vocal harmonization is made up in spades with variations on traditional old-timey and good humored numbers like "Kissin' Cousins", "Old Dan Tucker" ("...was a fine old man, washed his face in a frying pan"), "Whoah, Mule, Woah" and more. I wouldn't typify this as solemn or high-lonesome, but rather high powered and light hearted bluegrass with a strong connection to the early string band and minstrelsy of J.E. Mainer's Mountaineers or Gid Tanner's Skillet Lickers. Jim Smoak was one hell of a banjo player who played not only in Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys in the early fifties, but was hired by Earl Scruggs to play for Hylo Brown, who Earl was managing at the time. And there's not a better pair of personal recommendations for a bluegrass banjo player to have on his resume than that. And Smoak's playing, though certainly informed by Scrugg's innovative style was by no means a mere copy. The old-timey / bluegrass blend that was a big part of the Louisiana Honeydrippers' sound was a perfect place for Jim Smoak's playing style which utilized a faux-clawhammer picking for rhythm backup when not soloing, with some of the strongest Scruggs' style picking you're likely ever to hear and emphasized with heavy downstroke thumb strumming. Some of the melodies Smoak brings out to the fore from his arpeggios seem almost certain to break the strings right off the banjo, and yet his solos sound smooth as silk, not clunky and overdone. At times it's like listening to a bluegrass banjo player on crystal meth.

RealAudio clip: Old Dan Tucker
RealAudio clip: Woah, Mule, Woah
RealAudio clip: Hop Light, Ladies

5 song EP from the lo-fi kingdom's own antihero Bill Callahan who's been recording for over a decade as Smog. Just as imploded and hard-to-talk-to as ever, with a lushness we've missed in his other recent recordings. Augmented with some nice slide guitar and the Dirty Three's drummer Jim White. Recorded in Australia. Three new songs, plus one song from Red Apple Falls and one reworked from Smog's very first album Sewn to the Sky. This makes two, count 'em TWO eps we now have in the store featuring indie rock stars photographed in Australia next to sea cliffs. The other being Archer Prewitt.

RealAudio clip: I Was a Stranger

On his new Smog album (yep, he's shed the parentheses for the time being), Bill Callahan has opted to situate the somber instruments (primarily his own guitar, piano by Joanna Newsom and understated drums from Dirty Three's Jim White) and Connie Lovatt's backing vocals in a very distant backseat and his vocals right up front and center. No complaints here though 'cuz his pipes are in fine form, conveying a similar deep velvety heft and thoughtful phrasing to those of Giant Sand's Howe Gelb or Son Volt's Jay Farrar. Actually A River Ain't Too Much To Love fits quite well right in the enigmatic Americana alcove between those two artists. Callahan continues to pen his intimate songs with bare bones economy (but no longer 'lo-fi', this was beautifully recorded at Willie Nelson's studio in Texas), and a few of those included here are some of his most captivating. Look no further than the fourth song "Rock Bottom Riser". We've had something of a love/hate relationship with the mournful music of Smog, there's been some unbelievably powerful albums (the unfortunately titled Dongs Of Sevotion and Red Apple Falls) and some frustrating disappointments (Rain On Lens), but this album and the previous one (Supper) have kept us securely in the loveseat.

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MPEG stream: Rock Bottom Riser

Liking Smog (umm, I mean (smog)...whatever) at this point is somewhat masochistic. In fact, it always has been. Bill Callahan invites you into the painful, personal side of his life through intense, heartrending lyrics, only to give you a distancing smack in the face via tales of unrepentant cruelty or worse, by making shitty wannabe rock n' roll albums. It's like having a crush on a beautiful boy whose moroseness, which you initially mistake for depth, actually stems from unhealthy self-obsession. You know better, you're only going to get hurt, but you do it anyway. So. "Accumulation: None" is a collection of singles and live radio sessions and b-sides and things. At least one song has never been released before in any fashion. These primarily come before Bill Callahan was, as mentioned, making misguided efforts to rock. Mainly what he does here is sulk, muse, and warn of his own lone-cowboy unloveable bad-boy nature. On "I Break Horses," horses serve as a thinly-veiled metaphor for women. Callahan sings, "I break horses, they seem to come to me asking to be broken... It doesn't take me long, just a few well placed words and their wandering hearts are gone." But although "at first her warmth felt good between my legs," that warmth "turned to an itch, turned to a scratch" that needs to be eliminated. He continues, "Tonight I'm swimming to my favorite island, and I don't want to see you swimming behind. I break horses; I won't tend them." Moreso than any indie group I can think of, including kings of sordid relationship tales Arab Strap, Smog's songs are just... yucky. Brutal, even. Bill Callahan, what a dick! And although it kinda makes me feel like a woman staying in an abusive relaionship, I have to say that I like it that way. I love Smog (except for when I love to hate Smog), ridiculous self-centeredness, obnoxious attitude and all. The songs on "Accumulation: None," ranging from his earliest experimentalism and sloppy, intimate four track recordings to the relatively more plush recent years, are all pretty good, occasionally brilliant, and in any case vastly better than his last album. Yes, it hurts, but you might like it.

RealAudio clip: A Hit
RealAudio clip: I Break Horses

Another album of alienation from Mr Loneliness himself, Bill Callahan. Callahan's never been a proper songwriter, so much as a lonely old soul who wraps his starkest depression in almost-melodies and minor key urgency. Beautiful and exhausting in its utter despondance. This time he enlists the assistance of Tortoise's John McEntire and Isotope 217's guitarist Jeff Parker. Some moments of breathtaking beauty here, definitely much better than last year's Knock Knock.

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 the recent album, plus extra songs unavailable elsewhere (3 on the cd, 1 on the 7").

"Knock Knock" is incredible. Expect the penetrating, intimate ballads of the last several Smog albums (this one's closer to The Doctor Came At Dawn than "Red Apple Falls"), but be completely surprised by the incredible rock'n'roll production and upbeat arrangements of a few tracks. Callahan's got a chorus of children singing on not one, but two different songs! Instant classic. If you loved the A Hit 7" and believed what he was singing about ("I'll never be a Bowie"), I'll tell you right now that he was wrong. (--description by AQ-mascot Cory Brown)

It seems that people either love or hate Bill Callahan's songs. Actually a lot of people love old Smog and hate it now. I must say I've remained loyal. Though I have a hard time stomaching lines like "how could I forget your left breast", I do think he has a

RealAudio clip: Song
RealAudio clip: Dirty Pants

If your copy of Smog's last full length A River Ain't Too Much To Love has gotten buried beneath the year's worth of cds that followed it, this cdep brings two of that album's songs back to the top of the stack in new even more achingly beautiful versions including one of the album's best, suitably the title track here. Ahh, such deep velvety melancholia! To sweeten the deal even further there's a couple of previously unreleased, non-LP tracks and a video for "Rock Bottom Riser".

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MPEG stream: Bowery

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

SORRY. Bill's first album, Sewn..., c. 1990, out of print for eons, is finally available on vinyl again. It's also on cd.

New Smog ep with a brand new song 'Strayed', to hold us over until his new full length 'Under the Puke Tree'. The best part of this e.p. is that it also contains 8 songs from his long out of print cassette release 'Cow', which features Smog at his stumbling, lo-fi, Jandek-ish noisiest best!

Latest in God Is Myth's ongoing series of super limited 3" cd-r's. each a tribute, homage, musical offering to the legacy of H.P. Lovecraft, who, as we've posited before, has had more of an affect on heavy metal, than even J.R.R. Tolkien! And these are crazy limited, only 100 copies, we got 20, and it's already out of print, this is your first and only stab and nabbing one of these. The series so far has been pretty stellar, and surprisingly varied. Past installments have included UK experimental folk black metal one man band Caina, Appalachian heathen black metallers Harvist, mysterious blacknoise dronelords LVTHN, and Kentuckian black buzzers Sapthuran, who shared a split with the mighty Leviathan a while back. The newest comes from a truly bizarre and epic post rock avant black metal trio called Smohalla, who hail from France, and while not shoegazey like the other French BM outfits we've been so obsessed with as of late, Alcest, Amesoeurs, etc., they do display a similar unconventional approach to their black metal, and while not as blissy, it is quite fuzzy and tripped out and in many ways not very black at all. The intro is a brief swirl of atmospheric cinematic sort of krautrock, reminding us a bit of Silver Mt. Zion, epic and intense with some very Achim Reichel like vocals, delayed and tripped out. The second track we expected to burst into furious buzz, but instead begins like some apocalyptic folk track, all martial snares, and mournful melodies, swoonsome melodic swells, chanted crooned vocals, clean finger picked guitars, all dense and reverby, wrapped in a mist of fuzzy swirl, definitely more post rock than metal, very reminiscent of Ved Buens Ende, but more washed out and druggy. There are some black metal riffs, but they're delivered cleanly, and stretched over a loping rhythmic backdrop. Before the pic doomy breakdown near the end, a thick wall of roiling guitars, heavy, but more melodic and mysterious. The whole record tends to hover in a strange post rock landscape, where chunks of metal and buzzing riffage, drift by on steady currents of midtempo dramatic math rock minimalism, with occasional howly metal vox, but even then they're strewn over a chaotic avant rock framework, and the occasional blast beats too are nestled in thick reverby swaths of soft buzz instead of grim blackness� The only truly metal moment, is the opening of track 4 with it's dense furious buzzing riff, and harsh vocals, but even that is long passages of haunting piano, strange swirling FX, and disembodied voices, some very choral, the vocals like some ancient angelic choir. These guys may be a metal band, and this may very well be a black metal record, but the typical tropes of black metal are not the focus, instead, they're just elements of a bigger whole, a weird, creepy, off kilter, fucked up, epic, cinematic whole, the sound more dark and haunting than heavy, more loping and midtempo than blasting and buzzing, but in many ways that makes this an even more appropriate tribute to the Lovecraft and the magical worlds he created. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, and again we have 20 of those. You know what that means. Full color cover, each disc includes an insert with information on Lovecraft as well as a killer creepy portrait.

MPEG stream: Les Yeux Du Temps
MPEG stream: Nova Persei

This French avant post black metal outfit from France is named for a Native American 'dreamer-prophet', and the word can be loosely translated simple as 'dreamer', which might sound a bit pretentious, at least until you hear this stuff, which really, is barely black metal at all, other than in vibe and mood, lineage and perhaps the occasional bit of buzz, cuz for the most part, the sound of Smohalla is much more abstract and spaced out, swirly and shimmery and dreamlike, hints of post rock and krautrock and a sort of ethereal melancholia, lots of synths and effects, strange spectral vocals, all woven into a sort of gloomy avant pop, the sort of thing that will no doubt have folks into groups like Alcest and Amesoeurs flipping their lids. But Smohalla are even LESS metal than either of those bands. There are some killer riffs, that at first sound like they could explode into some frenzied buzzing, but instead seem to blossom into a weirdly prismatic blackened pop. The record opens with "Quasar", the title hinting at the cosmic / celestial sounds within, simple skeletal drumming, lots of glitch and swirl, echoey piano, and blurred synth smears, thick layered thrum, epic and majestic, strange sampled voices, choral like harmonies, some big distorted drums, with the synths and effects cranked up alongside for a seriously druggy shoegazey final few seconds. Which gives way to the aforementioned almost-black metal riffage, the song intricate and expansive, ghostly and surreal one second, lumbering and dirge-y the next, hints of BM weirdos Virus about, with weird mathiness, and gnarled atonal guitars. The bellowed dramatic vox and soaring synths, wrapped around more metallic riffage, definitely remind us of Borknagar, Solefald and Ved Buens Ende, but this is so much more far out, totally blissed out experimental blackness, but infused with huge heapings of pop, and a what-the-fuck streak a mile wide. That's not to say the band aren't capable of some serious blackened heaviness, just check out "Oracle Rouge", with one of the best riffs on the record, and loping woozy rhythm, some actual black metal shrieks, not to mention some furious blasting, fans of Peste Noire will dig this off kilter weirdo black metal doom pop weirdness, there's even some skittery programmed drums, some soaring strings, the final bit of the song seriously cinematic. And then it's right back into more creepy black pop mystery and abstract avant gloom dreaminess. There are a few more instances of serious blackness but for the most part, Smohalla continue to unfurl a fantastical black soundscape that has us thinking even a few weeks in, and even though technically this came out last year, we might already have a contender for (sort of) black metal record of the year!

MPEG stream: Quasar
MPEG stream: Au Sol Les Toges Vides
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Remember godheadSilo? That uber-loud and heavy bass and drums duo from North Dakota that sounded something like a mix of the Melvins and Lightning Bolt? Some of their stuff was pretty damn amazing. And loud. Well now they're back, sort of, as two-thirds of this new band Smoke And Smoke. The other third is the ex-singer of punk rockers the Murder City Devils. And it sounds just kinda like you might expect -- loud and heavy with a snarly punk element to it. Very energetic and kick ass, with pounding drums and bombastic distorted bass -- and some equally crazed synth sounds we think. Raucous and damaged but in a soulful and tender kind of way...

MPEG stream: Into The Smoke And Smoke
MPEG stream: Boys, Books, and Kitty Cats

In spite of the fact that over the last few years, minimal techno has become an increasingly bloated, boring, and pretentious genre, Scotland's own Alex Smoke manages to create beautiful and thoughtful tracks. We just hear so music made by artists that seem as if they have nothing else in their record collection other than just more techno, so it's an encouraging breath of fresh air when someone steps in and revitalizes what's happening. And even though it's true, we slept on this record for a while, it's better late than never, right? European clubs have recently been packed full of tight-lipped, scarf wearing DJs spinning record after record of filtered plug-in synths with deep kicks and way too much reverb on the snare. Almost like someone wrote a half-ass bassline, paired it down to the essentials, and threw some other effected shit on top. Bleh. Tracks have begun to feel as formulaic and stale as a Britney Spears track. What Smoke brings to the table is akin to Steve Reich's understanding of arrangement and flow, the starkness of minimal wave, and a dark, melodic understanding on par with groups like Depeche Mode. If it made sense to call something a linear phase composition, this would be it. Time signatures weave in and out of each other, each piece of the track eq'd just so that no piece of the spectrum is left untouched, while everything has ample room to breathe. Not just as a producer, although he is exceptional, but as a bizarre kind of songwriter, Alex Smoke excels. Completely recommended.

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This reissue isn't new, but we overlooked listing it when it came out and it's GREAT so figured better late that never. A one-off symphonic pop-psych masterpiece circa 1968, one of the many lost classics of the era, and really this is so good it's hard to understand how it wasn't a big hit. Listen to these songs and you'll wonder why as well. Southern California's The Smoke (not to be confused with the UK's Smoke of "My Friend Jack" fame, though these guys sound British too, and use British spellings and Peter Max style artwork) weren't really a band, but more of a studio concoction, the brainchild of 20 year old wunderkind producer Michael Lloyd, who was a founding member of the legendary West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. He also was responsible for producing (and writing most of the songs for) the lone album from '67 by a band called October Country. Like that fine band (whose Michael Lloyd-penned "theme song" is reprised here), Lloyd's own The Smoke is Beatles and Beach Boys influenced big time, total paisley pop perfection. Lloyd sure knew what he was doing. And we'd be surprised if discerning DJs haven't mined this album for breaks, what with all the fanciful baroque prog bits and lush orchestration in there alongside the wistful balladry. Perhaps since The Smoke didn't play live, album sales never took off. Too bad, but we're so glad it's been reissued. And Lloyd at least went on to a very successful career as a producer for a bunch of big names in the '70s and '80s so you don't have to feel bad for him. But we think you'll be definitely happy to add the likes of "Cowboys And Indians" and "The Hobbit Symphony" to your personal '60s popsyke hit parade...

MPEG stream: Cowboys And Indians
MPEG stream: Gold Is The Colour Of Thought
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Hot of the heels of our Bollywood Bloodbath Record Of The Week from last list, we're happy to have another blast of banging Bollywood greatness for you.�Arjuna Sayyed (aka DJ Smokestack) has proven to be not only one of the most knowledgable and deep digging DJ's in the Bay Area, but pretty much anywhere in the world as far as we're concerned. Some of us were lucky to snag the first volume in his Shitala series so we already knew how damn good his mixes were. Filled with some of the most insane '70s & '80s Bollywood jams, and mixed with such a flawless touch, this mix highlights all those amazing sitar freakouts, tabla jams, dynamic vocals, funk filled beats and everything that make this era of Bollywood music so endlessly enthralling... Clocking in at about an hour, Shitala 2 is a testament to the greatness and forward thinking musical minds that were at the helm of the sounds of Bollywood during this classic era. Call it Indian funk, or disco, or whacked out pop, whatever it is, we call it killer! Smokestack's mix has crazy broad appeal, sure hardcore Bollywood heads will flip, but also hip-hop lovers, funk diggers, dance floor DJ's, and probably YOU. DJ Smokestack not only honors the legacy of Bollywood, but uses his knowledge and talent to infuse new life and energy and share the results with so many who may otherwise might�never encounter and engage with the originals. Highly recommended!

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Miho Hatori the former chanteuse for Cibo Matto here makes dreamy, Astrud Gilberto-style, very light and floaty bossa nova with fellow Brazillian music fetishist Smokey Hormel. On this their second EP, they've focused on the works of Baden Powell, respectfully covering five of his classic songs. Performed with an increased ease and confidence by all involved, these are finely executed, faithful renditions of this Brazillian music master's works. So lovely.

RealAudio clip: Bocoche

Yay. Here's this combo's two out of print (but wildly popular when they were available) eps collected onto one handy disc. Now folks who missed out on Smokey & Miho before have another chance to get acquainted. Miho Hatori, former chanteuse for perky, groovy indie popsters Cibo Matto, here makes dreamy, Astrud Gilberto-style, very light and floaty bossa nova with fellow Brazillian music fetishist, guitarist Smokey Hormel, and friends including John Birdsong (trumpet) and Joey Waronker (drums). Their second, five song ep (the first half of this disc) focused on the works of Baden Powell, respectfully covering five of his classic songs. Performed with an increased ease and confidence by all involved, these are finely executed, faithful renditions of this Brazillian music master's works. So lovely. The second half of this disc consists of the five tracks from their debut self-titled ep, and is equally mellow and nice. Soft'n'easy, jazzy cocktail hour numbers that get a bit more abstract closer to the close of the cd. All but one are Smokey & Miho originals, sung in English and Japanese (the cover being an Angolan tune from 1965 written by Ngola Ritmos).

RealAudio clip: Ocean In Your Eyes
RealAudio clip: Bocoche

Actually a quintet, Smokey & Miho are: Smokey Hormel (guitar), John Birdsong (trumpet), Don Falzone (bass), Joey Waronker (drums) and Miho Hatori (vocals). An altogether mellow EP from this outfit that includes one half of the perky, groovy Cibo Matto (we

RealAudio clip: Ocean In Your Eyes

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

SORRY. One of the staples of the Holodeck roster of gorgeously shoegazing electronics, Smokey Emery (aka Daniel Hipolito) presents this cassette on the industrial strength cassette imprint Chondritic Sound. The change in venues does not equate to a change in aesthetics, however, as Hipolito continues with the cavernous droneworks that have captured our imagination over the years. Thick bellows of tape loop drones with melodies grafted from varispeed explorations, all of which buried upon soupy reverberations that make the dense pall constructed by Flying Saucer Attack or The Caretaker seem light and ethereal. The slomo bpm of a drum machine clicks through variously churned loops of church organ chords and exhumed orchestral motif, all the details of which degrade into a disquieting miasma and a hypnogogic din. Thunderous clangs and suspended ectoplasm drones tangle into balls of cyclical patterns and decentered compositions. It all leads up to a grandiose denouement in the final track, where Hipolito presents a breathtakingly dour Gate-like pop song deconstruction of slow-motion smoldered electronics. All that's left behind is a depressive minor-key melody and its whisper of a drum track amidst his signature reverb in this exhustingly repetitive mantra of washed out blur. So mysterious, sad, and tortured.

MPEG stream: City Of Dreamers
MPEG stream: The Sun Is Gone But I Have A Light

Austin based artist Daniel Hipolito has been recording as Smokey Emery for over a decade making small runs of self-released cd-rs of drone-based tape and field recordings. His musical aesthetic of manipulating industrial sounding drones made with vintage tape recorders into warm shimmering layered compositions that evoke the feel of memories of a fading past, rainy days and old photographs, the mystical feel of night and unspoken, perhaps terrifying secrets, have made him one of the more interesting figures to come out of Austin's growing experimental music scene. For this special but extremely limited 3" release (only 12 copies made!) on local Austin label Kendra Steiner Editions, there are two new pieces. The title track is like a Brian Eno recording for the Twin Peaks Soundtrack, giving off a dark foreboding yet alluring ambience. The second track, "Nightly" creates a chilly peacefulness of a dark meadow before sunrise, perhaps a restful solitude after a night of violence. Limited to 12 copies, we have 6, of those, and -might- be able to get a few more, but odds are once these are gone, they're gone for good!

MPEG stream: Incident At Town Lake
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Originally made as a tour only cd-r in 2011, the four tracks on Lives document the live sound of one of our favorite tape-drone artists as of late, Smokey Emery. Recorded on cassette and digital camera in warehouse spaces in San Francisco and Austin between 2006 and 2010, these long-form tracks take pieces made with multiple tape recorders plus the abundant room ambiance and filter them through a murky drift of concrete industrial drones, machinic whirs, woozy snippets of orchestrated music and murmured vocals. Subtle gauzy shifts in tones hint at underlying ghostly melodies, giving a glowing aura to the chill. Like a more shoe-gazing Indignant Senility, these live tracks tantalize in their blissfully gloomy gloam. Limited!

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Volume II in Smokey Emery's series of live performance edits expand from the first volume into 9 pieces taken from performances over the last couple of years around Austin, Texas and Colorado. Adding to the industrial foggy ambience of Smokey Emery's sound proper is the fact that these recordings were made on low-fi tape recorders, cell phones and digital cameras, further murking up the cloudy din. Listening at low volumes might be akin to listening to your refrigerator hum, but turned up a bit, there are distilled blooms of haunted sounds, muffled dialogue and far off buried music. We had this playing loudly one morning in the store, the day after the election in fact, when we had a sudden cold snap after days of warm dazzling sunshine and the store took on this sudden charge of a soft industrial autumn haze that was chilling and melancholic, but also blithely peaceful. We guess we'll be looking forward to winter after all! Limited!

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MPEG stream: Track 8

The debut vinyl release from Smokey Emery aka Daniel Hipolito on Silent Land Time Machine's Indian Queen imprint is a pastoral grey affair, lush with church organ ambience and analog equipment malfunction, a sort of Carnival of Lost Souls meets the Sinking of the Titanic. Split into three movements, the first called "Movement VI (Jumping the Fire)" is an abrupt organ loop shifting in pitch maniacally in a zombie-ish two-step wrenched in the reverbed clacking and whistling of old portable tape machines. "Movement VII: A Craft in Control" sounds at first like an old ballpark anthem slowed way down to a ghostly crawl, but its source may be more sacred or sinister, eventually churning what could be a hymn into a demonic funeral dirge just like the female lead in the aforementioned film. The flip side dedicated to the final movement "Movement V" expands on the previous theme, letting the sound sprawl into a foggy underwater wash of ocean liner doom and the muddled voices of once heralded memories of happier times. Limited to 300 copies comes in a thick duotone b&w folder-cover of dueling catastrophe-collages by Daniel Hipolito himself.

We're pleased to present three inaugural cassette releases from psych/noise label Holodeck, championing the exploding underground electronic experimental scene in Austin, Texas, with beautifully packaged and designed cassettes. Have a look elsewhere on this list for other releases by Lumens and Thousand Foot Whale Claw. But we're really pleased to see Smokey Emery's Soundtracks For Visibility series getting a full cassette reissue run. Long out of print on cd-r, here is what we said about Volume One when we first listened the cd-r version: Recorded in 2002, these tracks of cinematic drones and loops quietly build from slow-burning sonic embers that pulse and throb to subtlety shifting drifts of piano, bells, and music boxes mutating into far-off whirring rhythms and wobbly melodic ellipsis. "Invisibility Vignettes" is an epic 16 minute track of 5 movements that lays out what sounds like a barren mechanical wasteland before a soft guitar and organ figure shines a small ray of humanity on the proceedings slowly evolving into an off kilter robotic heartbeat leading into the final track of a lovely far-off and decaying church organ loop. Lonely, Beautiful and of course LIMITED!

NOW AVAILABLE ON CASSETTE! One of six new tapes from the always awesome Holodeck label out of Austin, Texas. Here is what we said about this Austin murkscaper's long out of print record when we first had the cd version back in 2009: Austin-based painter and installation artist, Daniel Hipolito has been composing and releasing music in limited releases under the moniker Smokey Emery for awhile now. Composed of far away drones and loops, Hipolito builds his compositions like he builds his cave-y black and white painted installations and environments, cinematically, with a fine-tuned sense for mystery, vague longing and subtle dramatic flair. Like the lights of heavy traffic at sunset or a slowly sinking ship, there is an ineffable lonely quality to these compositions that is both beautiful and doomed, but fully engaging enough to still make us keep listening as the lights slowly fade.

MPEG stream: Over The Side, Into The Storm
MPEG stream: The Lights Are Big and I'm Driving Home
MPEG stream: Over a Thousand Lakes

This is the third installment reissued on cassette by Holodeck Records of Smokey Emery's great Soundtracks For Invisibility series. Based on field recordings from various locales and processed into tape loop constructed compositions, this series has always shown a deeper range between pieces. Recorded between 2006 and 2010, the trademark cavernous dronework here is augmented by degraded guitar pieces that bring a wondrous melancholy to the grey din. Vaguely romantic and tender, yet raw and chilling, a piece of gorgeously disquieting contemplation. Comes with download code. Limited to 200 copies.

MPEG stream: 01
MPEG stream: Afore
MPEG stream: The Room Falls Away

Austin-based painter and installation artist, Daniel Hipolito has been composing and releasing music in limited releases under the moniker Smokey Emery for awhile now, but we've only just finally managed to get some for the store. Composed of far away drones and loops, Hipolito builds his compositions like he builds his cave-y black and white painted installations and environments, cinematically, with a fine-tuned sense for mystery, vague longing and subtle dramatic flair. Like the lights of heavy traffic at sunset or a slowly sinking ship, there is an ineffable lonely quality to these compositions that is both beautiful and doomed, but fully engaged enough to still make us keep listening. Each cd-r is hand packaged with a unique photographic cover and wrapped in a vellum envelope. Lovely and Limited!

MPEG stream: Over The Side, Into The Storm
MPEG stream: The Lights Are Big and I'm Driving Home
MPEG stream: Over a Thousand Lakes

Volume one of Smokey Emery's Soundtracks For Invisibility Series (we reviewed Vol. 2, a couple of lists ago). Since we listed these out of order, Daniel Hipolito, the man behind Smokey Emery, repressed Vol. 1 just for us! Recorded in 2002, these tracks of cinematic drones and loops quietly build from slow-burning sonic embers to subtlety shifting drifts of piano, bells, and music boxes mutating into far-off whirring rhythms and wobbly melodic ellipsis. "Invisibility Vignettes" is an epic 16 minute track of 5 movements that lays out what sounds like a barren mechanical wasteland before a soft guitar and organ figure shines a small ray of humanity on the proceedings slowly evolving into an off kilter robotic heartbeat leading into the final track of a lovely far-off and decaying church organ loop. Lonely, Beautiful and of course Limited!

A while back we reviewed a disc by a group called Flittermice Of Eld, a sort of abstract ambient drone homage to Darkthrone, in particular their classic track "As Flittermice as Satan's Spys", which of course ended up sounding nothing like Darkthrone at all, but kicked our asses nonetheless (and rest assured, we should be getting more of those soon!). So what do these Flittermice do when they're not pulling apart black metal institutions and reshaping the bits into their own twisted little soundscapes? Well, actually, sort of the same thing, just without the Darkthrone bits (although we can't say for sure there are no Darkthrone bits here). But Mr. Dave Smolen, he of the aforementioned Flittermice, here strikes out on his own, and the result is very similar to the sound on Flittermice, albeit a bit more minimal and electronic, a slow burning lowercase trawl through a soundworld of electronic crackle and minimal glitch and buzz, twenty minutes of drifting static discharge, bursts of high end shimmer and shift, layers of metallic reverberation drift through spacious expanses of whir and rumble, clouds of spacey FX swirl around disembodied shards of percussion and muted rhythms. Serene and ambient, but also dense and intense, like slithering through a lightning storm, or crawling through a field of electrically charged vibrating steel strings... Weird and quite cool... SUPER LIMITED!!! Of course, packaged in hand screened cardstock jackets housed in thick vinyl sleeves.

MPEG stream: Malleable Laminates

There's something really nice sometimes about listening to something without knowing the back story and just appreciating it for what it is. I (Irwin) came in early today to catch up on some review writing. This new release on Barsuk (home to Nada Surf, Death Cab For Cutie, etc.) was on my list. I popped it in and started listening and what I heard was so refreshing. Totally earnest catchy pop with mainly keyboards, piano, drums and sugary sweet female vocals. I started thinking of the charm of Mates of State, the way the Aislers Set could make you want to sing along, the catchy melodies of Call & Response, the heyday of K records twee charm. It wasn't until later in the day that it hit me why the band's name sounded familiar. I had read about them in Vice a while ago. Two sisters who started playing music at the age of 8 years old. They learned drums from Chris Walla of DCFC and now at 14 this is their second album. We all though the first one was pretty decent, but we all agree that this is by far a better more assured outing. Really refreshing and delightful sounding.

MPEG stream: Find A Way
MPEG stream: Free To Stay

What does it mean when Chan Marshall of Cat Power lip-syncs to one of your songs for her encore set? Hmmm... we're not quite sure, but Ms Marshall apparently has been closing her recent shows with one of this band's songs. So what's the big deal? Well, the two band members are eight year old Asya and ten year old Chloe! But before you cry "gimmick!" and unleash your torrents of skepticism about whether or not there are some scheming grown-ups pushing the buttons and pulling the strings behind all this, check 'em out. Apparently the lone adult who's played a role in their development is Death Cab For Cutie's drummer Jason McGerr who taught Chloe how to play the drums. From what we can tell, they've got more personality and accomplished song smarts in their baby toes than a hundred pithy pre-teen Debbie Gibsons and Tiffanys. And they're not bound by genre limitations -- the album runs the stylistic gamut from lilting Cat Power-ish folk pop tunes to a playful funky yo!-filled rap. Totally exuberant and carefree. That said, it is somewhat perturbing to hear girls of this age emoting like a thirty or forty year old on a few songs. Geez, it's unsettling enough when twenty-ish year old Alicia Keys does it! PS: they bear no resemblance nor connection (musical or otherwise) to the fictitious band of the same name on Mr. Show.

MPEG stream: Massive Cure
MPEG stream: It's Cold

From the same label that brought us the damaged depressive blackened genius of Happy Days, and the melancholic doom-ed black metal of Leaden, comes this, the first release from Swiss outfit Smorzando, who craft a strange and haunting world of melancholy black metal, mixing the creepy drone-y miserablism of Burzum, with strange abstract post rock, and super blown out in the red production, creating something both black and brutal, fucked up and mysterious, with a super unique sound that is as much noise rock or post rock as it is black metal. The drums are simple, the guitars go from distant minimal jangle, to blown out crumbling distortion, the melody is a simple keyboard suspended in a sea of black buzz, the vocals go from guttural growl to hysterical shriek, but are buried under swells of super distorted �in-the-red, shoegazey blackness. Occasionally, the songs lurch into furious blasts, but for the most part just lurch and lumber, lonely and forlorn, the deep bass and strange melodies sound like foghorns, the production wrapping everything in a grey fuzzy fog, the guitars effected and warbly, sometimes sounding almost electronic, other times sounding like a black avalanche of sound, always underpinned by a lilting melancholy melody or some ghostly ambience, so gorgeous and sad and heavy and absolutely beautiful. One of our new favorite slabs of depressive doom drenched black metal misery for sure. LIMITED TO 200 COPIES. Each packaged in a super cool plastic clamshell cassette case, with haunting black and white artwork, and printed black and white fold out insert.

Nasty, smutty hip hop, that's surprisingly pretty good. Great production, great beats, and two whiny white MCs that don't sound all that white. Starts off really strong but wears a little thin after a while. Guests include Kool Keith, Kool G. Rap, R.A. The Rugged Man, and Howard Stern Show regular Beetlejuice.

So what's a band to do when they're not playing their particular brand of crushing metal flecked noise rock brutality? Well, take on new identities of course. Offer up their masked visages and craft a whole new set of songs, under a different name, with an ostensibly different sound, but one that really is just a way poppier, stonier, spacier version of their band proper. Which is fine with us. So the mysterious Snailface, who hail from right here in SF, are in fact, the alter ego of aQ faves Kowloon Walled City, and traffic in a sound that has more in common with Kyuss and Queens Of The Stoneage and Torche and other heavy pop combos than the AmRep-y sludge that KWC specializes in. And the funny thing, which happens with lots of side projects / one offs / joke bands, is that the band is super relaxed, having fun, no pressure, none of the big band worries that come with a 'real' band, so whether they mean to or not, they end up ruling, and writing killer songs, and coming up with songs that are not just fun and funny, but that totally rock and are catchy as fuck, and if that band was their actual main focus band, it might even end up being super popular. Which is the case with Snailface. Sure, the songs have goofy titles, and silly lyrics, they're called Snailface, they wear costumes in the band photos, but you sort of forget all about it when you throw it on, big stonery riffs, super melodic vocals, catchy choruses, the sound epic and heavy and hooky, psychedelic and spacey, some killer leads, plenty of weirdness too, fucked up production, backwards vocals and guitars, field recordings, bizarre samples, but all that stuff just sort of decorates the songs proper, which RULE. The first record is way more blown out and desert rock, stonery and drug-poppy, while the second record, a concept record about Yetis. is way more classic rock / big production epic heaviness, with shades of Thin Lizzy, Blue Oyster Cult and Kiss added to the mix. But together, this doubleshot two-fer is fucking awesome. Fans of any of the above mentioned bands, as well as anyone into catchy groovy heaviness, this stuff will definitely hit the spot. Comes packaged in a hand screen printed cardboard box, the tapes both with full color printed inserts, one of 8 different buttons, all nestled on a nice bed of Yeti fur (3 different kinds!). LIMITED TO ONLY 100 COPIES!!!

MPEG stream: Dancing On Landmines
MPEG stream: Drug School
MPEG stream: Toxic City Of The Sea
MPEG stream: Yowie Wants A Piece
MPEG stream: The Almasty (Kelermes Mirror)
MPEG stream: Triangle Visage Of The Hibagon / Skunk Ape

Nobody makes real punk rock anymore it seems. Sure, there's pop punk, or screamo, or generic 3 chord bash and thrash, but we miss the gnarled grinding ugly punk of SST or Amrep, the sludgey slithery guitars, the sheets of feedback, the plodding drum damage, the clouds of amp buzz, and the howled reverbed vocals, the Stooges-y stomp, the damaged groove, the atonal angular riffage, the slippery squiggly leads... Well thankfully Providence punk rockers Snake Apartment are doing their best to change all that. We've been eating up everything we could track down from these guys, which up until now was just a split 7" and a split lp, and as far as we know this is their first proper full length, at the very least, the first one we've managed to carry, and it's a killer.� Every sone starts off with a squall of feedback, the scrape of pick on strings, thick swaths of ungrounded amp buzz, before the riff kicks in, usually some sort of Ginn-ish tangle that manages to be thick and heavy, but still atonal and damaged (as in Black Flag's Damaged), the drums lurch and swing, the guitar and drums dueling to the death, getting all wound up in each others bizness to glorious result. The bass is just a huge gooey low end throb, permeating every inch of the proceedings, the vocals a drawled laconic lazy shout, sometimes slipping into Nick Cave-ish croon, sometimes turning into a harsh howl, but draped over the jagged punk like a bloodied corpse tossed in a copse of black rose bushes.� Imagine some unholy union between Black Flag, the Brainbombs, The Stooges, Tad and some old SST doom stuff, then have them take lots of drugs and record a record for Amphetamine Reptile... as if that didn't already say it all, this fucking rules.� Killer garish, eye popping drug tripping cover art too!

MPEG stream: Paint The Walls
MPEG stream: Pigs is Pigs
MPEG stream: No Raises This Quarter

[ aquarius records catalogue — S ]