[ 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 3651 through 3700 of 4057.

We won't go too deep into this review, because this is so limited and we likely won't be able to get more after we run out. Dedicated readers of the list know that we've reviewed tons of records from the far out jazz maestro Sun Ra (who may or may not have come from outer space) and his interplanetary Arkestra. So many in fact that it may be difficult to figure out where to start. Well, we've got the perfect introductory solution in this here tape mix. Mostly taken from rare '60s and '70s recordings, we've got cosmic synth stylings, solo abstract piano work, deep trip hop like grooves mixed with horn freak-outs, gospel vocal chants and even some Sun Ra speech insights, as well as beautiful call-and-response jams from Outer Spaceways Incorporated and beyond. The Oakland-based Sanity Muffin label has done an incredible job packaging this with different variations of the cover, hand decorated by Oakland school children and it also includes a faux card from Saturn Records, Sun Ra's record label who had offices in both Chicago and Oakland. Super limited so act fast!

Now available on vinyl! (Sans squeaky door bonus track found on cd reissue, though.) Strange is right! And it's not just the strings. This 1966 recording by out-jazz pioneer Sun Ra and his adventurous Astro Infinity Arkestra is strange all over. This could SO totally be a current day improv psych cd-r from some of our Finnish friends, for instance... if it weren't recorded 40 years ago by one of the foremost geniuses of 20th century American jazz (and Afro-Outer-Space art). The idea here is that alongside the horns and flutes and bass all the usual instrumentation of the Arkestra, they're improvising on a collection of completely unfamiliar instruments -- the sundry "strange strings" of the title. Odd, exotic stringed instruments possibly including: Chinese lute, "moon-guitar" (?), mandolin, banjo, koto, bandura, ukelin (a zither type instrument), and others yet to be identified. Directed only by loose gestures from Sun Ra, the band expresses themselves freely on these strange strings... and the results must rank among the weirdest and most abstract sounds in Sun Ra's vast catalog, an unhinged tangle of sputtering pluckery and string-scrape. In addition, some sort of percussion adds thunderous rumbling metallic drones (this is presumably the "lightning drum" with which Ra is also credited, along with electronic piano). It could be a sheet of metal, or even a metal musical sculpture, as this reissue's extensive and investigative liner notes postulate. Another sonic element making the proceedings even stranger is the wordless, otherworldly "space vocal" of Art Jenkins aka Thlan Aldridge. "Worlds Approaching" starts things off with a 10+ minutes of woozy Wurlitzer, clonky horn burble, and percussive clatter. Then the shambolic strange strings orgy begins with "Strings Strange" (12:47) and continues through to side two's epic "Strange Strange" (20:53). Log drums pulse beneath the reverbed apeshit freeform freakout of strings, space vocals, and metallic crashes. Another great Ra reish.

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Man, it seems that's there's ALWAYS a new Sun Ra reissue or archival release. And that is, of course, a good thing. Though we can't always list every one of 'em. But this one definitely caught our attention, a 2-on-1 compact disc reissue of two rare Saturn label elpees, featuring material recorded live in concert in Detroit around New Year's Eve, 1980. Maybe it's the title (who wouldn't want to go Beyond The Purple Star Zone??), maybe it's the particularly unhinged and exuberant version of the classic funky Ra chant "Rocket Number Nine" that appears here, maybe it's all the wicked Sun Ra synth soloing (yeah, there's lots of spaced out Moog, also hard to resist!). Other than "Rocket", all the compositions are original to these two records, it appears. Great stuff, well recorded, with Ra's (Omniverse Jet-Set) Arkestra in fine form. That ensemble included such regulars as John Gilmore, Marshall Allen, June Tyson, Michael Ray, and many others. We were amused to note The Bell Brothers credited with, of course, "bells". With wonderfully off-kilter keys, uncredited electric guitar, percussive skitter, moody melodic horns, AND massive wailing freak-outs, this is definitely for those into the more far-out, sci-fi, and downright noisy aspects of the Sun Ra sound as well as his sentimental side.

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Super rare Sun Ra record originally (and barely) released by the UK post-punk label Y Records in 1984 (with two tracks coming out as a 12" single in '82), an album that in response to the spectre of nuclear armaggedon, asks the musical question: "now whatcha "Smile, even though your heart is aching / smile, even though it's aching / when there are clouds in the sky, you'll get by / if you smile, through your tears and sorrow / smile, and maybe tomorrow / you'll see the sun come shining through..." Think about *mushroom* clouds and wonder what Ra is trying to get across here...

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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. *** COLLECTIBLE USED VINYL *** Handnumbered (#22) - only 40 copies made. Black Utopia (collector's edition) includes a book of sketches and notes, interviews with Sun Ra scholars and collaborators, and a 2lp set, with original music and lectures, packaged in hand-printed sleeves. The records collage together rehearsal moments with spoken passages based around Ra's music. Media: NM SLeeve: NM

One of two new releases on the Imminent Frequencies tape label, the other from long time favorite Zomes, this one from the curiously named Sun Son Sun, who craft, gorgeous and ominous soundscapes of bass clarinet and manipulated tapes, creating a haunting low end drift, long moaning melodies suspended in a field of tape hiss and natural reverb, a cavernous free jazz slowed down to a near crawl, a subterranean sonic crawl, glacial tangled melodies, looped and recontextualized into blurred textural streaks and fragmented melodies, slipping from warm and washed out and melodic to rumbling distorted throb, often hovering somewhere right in between. Mysterious and otherworldly, equal parts abstract improvisation, dark ambience, and psychedelic dronemusic. Cool. LIMITED TO ONLY 50 COPIES!!

What might one expect from a band named after a Dead C record? Something a tad bit noisy would be our guess, and you know what? We wouldn't be all that far off. Unlike the grinding Amrep style dirge rock of Trapdoor Fucking Exit, another Dead C named outfit, Sun Stabbed definitely occupy a sonic space much closer to their forbears. But unlike the splattery noise rock of the 'C, Sun Stabbed sound like a ghostly after image, like looking directly at the Dead C, then staring into the sun, then everywhere you look you see these shimmery white hot feedingback shapes, white hot outlines of the original. Imagine the Dead C stripped of drums, and any forward momentum and you'll have something resembling Radio, a big static swirl of incandescent guitar, huge throbbing thrum, keening streaks of luminous feedback: Bits of Sunroof! and Vibracathedral Orchestra surface here and there. And it's heaviest, it could be a dreamier mellower, more blissful SUNNO))), while on the other end of the spectrum it's a gentle lilting confection of lighter than air strums and ringing out chords, of amp buzz and soft warm whir...

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It's easy to hear bits of No Neck Blues Band and Sun Burned Hand Of The Man And Avarus, and various other practitioners of that sort of rambling free folk stumble when first listening to this mysterious disc by some group called Sun Supreme. But listen closer for a minute and think about it. SUN Supreme, and where would any of those bands be without... Well, yeah, without the Sun City Girls, and while we can't really confirm it, this disc -was- recorded in Seattle, in 2004 and does pretty much sound like a late night, druggy ramble through some serious SCG territory. The give away, is that it's not nearly as abstract as those other groups, it's way more melodic and musical, with a heavy emphasis on the guitar, and a distinctly Eastern bent, lots of strummed chords and kitchen sink percussion, bits of piano and other noisemakers, going from that sort of stumbling campfire improv to decidedly propulsive krautrocky groove, occasionally devolving into ramshackle chaos, but just as likely to coalesce into huge epic swells, before settling back down into more dreamy late night rambling. Really cool. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!! Packaged in beautiful hand screened chipboard sleeves and pressed on ultra thick vinyl.

We're gonna say right up front, we LOVE this band. We only discovered them a few weeks ago, but have been listening to virtually nothing else. To the point where we were beginning to think we should slow down, to keep from getting sick of it. And yet, repeated plays every day, and still we seem to be no closer to wanting to stop. In fact, we continue to discover all sorts of new details, a cool little melody here, a turn of phrase there, we honestly can't remember when we were so blindsided by a record. And now here we have ANOTHER Sun Valley Gun Club record, and while we're thrilled to death, we're also actually pretty torn. A whole new set of songs by what is fast becoming one of our new favorite bands! What's not to love? But then we really don't want to stop listening to the other record quite yet... These are the kind of problems we should always have! So Into The Valley Sun is SVGC's previous record, and everything we love about the new one is already in full effect here, it's a bit scrappier, and maybe a bit more obviously beholden to the group's influences (that nineties sound we love love LOVE), and all those comparisons we made in our review of the other record are even more apt here: Ovens, Weed, Herzog etc. This is classic indie popsmithery for sure, with some of the catchiest songs we've heard in ages. And while the newer record is a bit darker, this record, at least on the surface, is more fun, more sunshiny, more jangly, the melodies, even the lyrics, but even so, there's some serious bittersweet melancholia lurking throughout. It took us a minute to warm up to it (but c'mon, really only like A MINUTE), we were still so immersed in the new record (and BTW, if you don't have that one yet, you might as well just toss that one in the cart with this one, you won't be sorry!), but now we're getting lost in this whole new set of songs, and wondering all over again how these guys have remained a secret, and why the fuck they're not huge. Pop nerds, indie rock geeks, trust on this one, this is absolutely your new favorite band. It most certainly is ours. And even though that new record just came out, and we're listening to the shit out of this one too, we're somehow already wanting more!!! Includes a download code as well.

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Yeah, you know us, record store weirdos who love us the latest batch of blurry black metal, the newest glitched out electro noise, the fresh sound of gut rumbling, tectonic, cosmic dronemusic, BUT, we also love songs, and we love pop, and we love rock, and we particularly love a strain of said rock and pop that they don't really make so much anymore. We're all children of the nineties, so our later formative years were spent listening to Pavement and Polvo, Dinosaur Jr and My Bloody Valentine, Superchunk and Silver Jews and Soul Asylum (when they were great, and they WERE great), the Afghan Whigs and Uncle Tupelo, Codeine and Archers Of Loaf, we could go on, but you get the picture. So if any of that strikes a chord, you just might find yourself falling for Sun Valley Gun Club, who hail from right here right now in the Bay but sound like they could be from 1995 Chapel Hill, or 1998 Seattle, or Athens in 1992, but we definitely don't wanna push the retro angle to the exclusion of everything else, cuz while these guys are definitely rooted in that era, and owe a lot to the above bands, they also manage to craft some of the best songs we've heard in ages. In fact it only took one listen to the song "Hey Collapser", before we were hooked, which then lead to about a hundred more listens, and as seems to be our process, we literally listened to nothing else but that song, until once, when we weren't quick enough to cue it up again, and the record went right into "Nebraska", and goddamn if we didn't then become obsessed with THAT song. And you can guess where it went from there. But seriously, "Hey Collapser" is a total stunner, with its smoldering slow build, the laconic, laid back vox, the chorus that kills, the bridge that kills EVEN MORE, big build ups, plenty of bombast, a little bit of broodiness, it sounds like Built To Spill crossed with Uncle Tupelo, and maybe a little Radar Bros., some Pavement too, but really just a sort of classic songsmithery, that for us never gets old. And the aforementioned "Nebraska", which takes all the same elements, and crafts them into a super dark, tense, brooder, that explodes into some epic math rockiness, getting totally anthemic throughout, with some killer guitar parts, and with some of the most irresistible hooks EVER. Goddamn, if this was a seven inch with just those two songs, we'd be talking potential pantheon placement for sure. But lucky for us, and you, there's about three more double A-sided singles' worth on here of classic sounding indie rock crunch and twang flecked, noise pop brilliance. Fans of aQ faves like Herzog, Weed, Ovens, Swearin', Telekinesis, Iran, the Wrens and other modern indie rock revivalists will definitely lose their ever loving shit. Expect this to show up on some year end top ten lists for sure!! (Andee's already got a space reserved!)

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We're constantly hearing that the printed newspaper (along with other tactile media like records, books and dvds) are quickly going the way of the dinosaurs. But we don't buy it. Physical media creates sense experiences that can't be articulated quite the same way digitally. Case in point, this beautiful publication by artists Kyle Williams, Matthew Stromberg and Whitney Horn, who have taken the old school newspaper format and made a journal of beautifully printed full page black and white images. Planned to be released quarterly, the first edition of The Sun is taken from a film-based project called "Foss" which was shot in both Iceland and San Francisco and the images capture stills and snippets of narrative text from the film that suggest a poetical rumination on landscape, memory and longing with gloriously printed large format images of mountains and hauntingly shrouded landscapes. We wish all newspapers took such advantage of their print formats to make inspiring images this large and beautiful. Can't wait to see more!

Numbered, ltd. to 250

Any one lucky enough to visit hypnorockers Circle in Finland, besides being showered with hospitality and crazy adventures, hockey games, private concerts, lots of record shopping, reindeer dinners and Finnish pizza, also is quite likely to be invited to record with the band, as they seem to be in a constant state of ready-to-record-ness, as our very own Andee can attest to: just check http://www.tUMULt.net to hear Jaappollot, the results of several sessions he shared with the boys in Circle! Seems a similar thing happened to abstract free rock collective Sunburned Hand Of The Man when they were in Finland, and it's hard to imagine a better match. Sunburned seems to have lured Circle back into the murky woods, for long languorous stretches of slow burning psychedelia. The metallic sheen of recent releases has been rusted and caked with mud and old dried branches, the result a trancelike folk flecked tribal krautrock, the perfect mix of what we like best about both bands.� The sound on first listen is like some sort of�alien world music, with dense, but laid back�tribal drumming, swirling serpentine guitar lines,�whispered chanted vocals, all wrapped in a cavernous production, making the tracks sound warm and wide open, expansive and endless, there is clatter and clang, but for the most part it's smeared and blurred, buried in sonic murk, wrapped around abstract krautrock rhythms and chunks of angular guitar riffage. Some of the tracks get wild and chaotic, but even then, the sound is still restrained, not jagged or harsh, more swirling and washed out.� One of our favorite tracks ever, by maybe either band, is the super hypnotic�"Heinavelho", another growling ambient sprawl, but strangely rhythmic and musical, still�murky and muddy and super hypnotic, but with ultra subtle�repetitively strummed guitars, held in check by martial drum rolls and little squalls of brushed snares, eventually building to an FX drenched gothy cabaret crawl, all moody and drunken, lurching and downtuned, staggering through a thick cloud of chirping bleeps and bloops and dense swells of rumble and shimmer.� Fans of either band will definitely dig, and a good gateway for anyone into one, but not yet so into the other...

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Getting tough to know what to say about these guys. For no reason other than the constant flow of new releases, cd's, lp's, double lp's and so many cd-r's!! But what the hell! They're all pretty fantastic so who's to complain. We managed to get about twenty of these from the band when they were here, therfore there's a darn good chance we won't be able to get any more, so if you want one act fast. Packaged in that by now immediately recognizable brown paper sleeve, pasted-on art on one side, hand written text on the other, Anatomy was recorded from 2002-2004, and features a much more 'rock' SHOTM, which seems to be the direction the band has been headed lately. Shuffling spaced out psychedelic grooves, sort of Grateful Dead meets Acid Mothers Temple meets No Neck Blues Band. Plenty of processed vocals, heavily affected guitars, and shuffling Krautrock rhythms, simple and hypnotic. There are brief song fragments that harken back to their more hippy pagan free folk drum circle daze, but for the most part Anatomy is chock full of amazing head nodding, dreamy and druggy space psych grooves!

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Finally! Some new music from our favorite space-drone-free-rock-hippy-drum-circle-caveman-stomp-folk-clatter ensemble Sunburned Hand Of The Man. And once again, these are extremely limted and we don't know how long we'll be able to keep these in stock. Probably not very long at all. This double cd-r is volumes 9 and 10 in SHotM's proposed series of 50 and some of their best so far. As a whole, these two discs are much quiter and ambient than any of the other releases, focusing on space and the sound AROUND the sounds. Disc one is a spare creaky framework of mumbly, lo-fi space jams, distant melodies, ghostly and ethereal, reverbed vocals, minimal wah guitar, rhythms all clattery and loose, stumbling and barely there, almost marking out the beat like the occasional stone thrown into a still pool. All wrapped in spidery cobwebs of murk and mire and hiss and stutter. Truly gorgeous. Disc two continues on in the same vein with shuffling rhythms and vaguely Eastern melodies, chanting and mumbly vocalising. There are moments on disc two that change things up a bit, most notably a strange bastard funk jam that sounds like Starfuckers chanelling James Brown, and then as the disc progresses some No Neck Blues Band meets Sun Ra free jazz clatter with saxophone bleats, space-y rhytmic abstracts, and splattery percussion.

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A visit from Sunburned Hand Of The Man always means a bunch of new releases, this time it's two lps, and a handful of cd-r's they've been lugging around on tour. We'll get to as many as we can, but let's start with Complexion. Like all of their releases, this lp, recorded live in 2004, is a gorgeous and stumbling tribal and primal mess, psychedelic and tripped out, space-y and rhythmic. There are multiple tracks listed but this plays like one massive track, two sides of loping campfire dirges, detuned guitars, simple shuffling rhythms, warbly organ melodies, super freaked out vocals all wrapped in reverb and delay, distant distorted wah guitar, and even some tape drop out that sounds as intentional as any of the other sounds present. Occasionally everything coalesces into super dense, perfectly concise passage of abstract rhythm and propulsive skitter that definitely reminds us of the legendary This Heat. This is druggy and dreamy bliss! All woozy and seasick and completely mesmerizing. At its most psychedelic it sounds a bit like Santana's little brother, high on tequila and peyote, sneaking into his big brother's practice space with his drug buddies and proceeding to get even higher and jam out all night long. Side two is a little more mellow and abstract, super minimal and trippy, a simple shuffling rhythm and all sorts of vocal and instrumental weirdness drenched in effects and splattered with little bits of random percussion, ghostlike vocals, and hazy drifting melodies.

If you've kept up with the prolific and often very limited and hard to track down back catalog of Sunburned Hand Of The Man you'll know that they're always eager to explore new territory and widen their musical horizons. But even so, we still think you'll be thrown for a loop, in the best possible way. In fact this disc has even won over a few of us here who had always been on the fence with these Sunburned fellas in the past. What's important to know about Fire Escape is that it's just as much of a Four Tet record as it is a Sunburned Hand Of The Man record. Four Tet and Sunburned!? Huh! What?! Sometimes the seemingly oddest pairings produce the most creative and unexpected results. And wow, we've totally been swept away by the magic these two forces have created, each contributing the best of of their respected, yet disparate qualities. Sunburned got to do what they do, improvising and travelling in all their drugged out and mystifying glory, while Four Tet then collected hours upon hours of their recordings and worked his own magic on them to create a final product that might be the most realized, colorful and immediate Sunburned record yet. From the opening track, which had us all thinking of 23 Skiddo in all the best ways, and throughout the entire album, you get to hear a band who pride themselves on their improv abilities but with the much more careful and deliberate and musically astute filter of Four Tet's Kieran Hebden, who has proven over the years that he not only makes really great music, but that he understands and appreciates great music in so many shapes and varieties. It's almost as if his recent collaborations with free jazz legend Steve Reid opened him up to the possibility and power of improvisation while still allowing him to retain the great sensitivity to sound that his made him one of the most compelling musicians to emerge out of the electronic scene in the last decade. It's so exciting and exhilarating to see this kind of creative energy exchanged and brought together by folks from two seemingly different scenes, sharing the common thread of aiming to make transcendental music that transports you to different dimensions and offers up all kinds of unexpected twists and turns. After their recent collaboration with Circle and this totally successful meeting of musical minds with Four Tet we have to say we are loving the collaborative spirit of Sunburned Hand Of The Man more than ever, and while there was all kinds of hype surrounding SHOTM a few years ago, we are happy to report that they just might be only just reaching their most realized moment right now!

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Wouldn't really be an AQ list without a little gushing from Andee. So that said. SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN is my new favorite band!! Which is pretty amazing seeing as they have kept a pretty low profile. And I eventually had to get in touch directly with the band to get a hold of their stuff, but I WAS NOT disappointed. This lp is their first official release, although they have released 8 cd-r's (of a proposed series of FIFTY!!!) six of which we will have in stock and list in the near future. But what the hell does it sound like?!?!?! Well, the easiest comparison is the No Neck Blues Band, especially since they supposedly share a member or two. But unlike NNBB's free form hippy drum circle drug rock neanderthal clatter, Sunburned Hand take their hippy psych folk and mix in all sorts of disparate elements, motorik krautrock, droning ambient soundscapes, ROCK, free jazz, ESP style caveman thud, and delicate melodies and hints of seventies British folk. Also unlike NNBB, Sunburned Hand forego primitivism for primitivism's sake and weave all those elements together seamlessly, and musically, and most importantly, with a lush and rich and surprisingly full production. With a lineup eleven members strong, and instrumentation consisting of guitar, flutes, drums, keyboards, congas, blades of grass, whistles, djembe, shakers, trumpet, stunts, spirit, organ, horns, 'mountain top leads', 'the jazz', 'breath' and of course 'the looking glass', how can you go wrong? Well, you can't. So for now, this lp is the only way you'll be able to sample Sunburned Hand's otherworldly psych/kraut/rock/folk/drone/thrum/hum/skree until we eventually get some of the cd-r's. And there may be a release on tUMULt eventually as well!!!

It's pretty amazing that one of the most talked about underground bands in the world, one that has graced the cover of the Wire, as well as the inside of numerous other hipster music bibles, has no actual cd releases, and in fact, has nothing currently in print. EXCEPT for this 7". And that won't last long either as we're fairly sure we won't be able to get more of these. It's also too bad that these two tracks don't do much to demonstrate what SHOTM are capable of. Side one is a fairly tepid free percussion jam / hippy drum circle, sort of stumbling and meandering. Fairly pleasant but nothing to knock your improv socks off. Side two fares a little better, a little wilder and more focused, but the track doesn't really get going until about 20 seconds before it's over, when a wicked Can-ish groove kicks in only to be snuffed out moment later. Leaves you wanting more definitely. Not sure a 7" is the ideal medium for a sprawling, wandering, free form inprov outfit, but since this is all they got right now, if it sounds like your cup of tea, don't dawdle or you'll be out of luck.

There are prolific bands, and then there are PROLIFIC bands. Take Acid Mothers Temple. Not a month, or even a week goes by sometimes without a new record by those Japanese psych rock freaks. Then there's Guided By Voices' Bob Pollard who has supposedly written over 3000 songs. Or what about Wolf Eyes with their insanely extensive back catalog of cd-r's? None of em can touch Sunburned Hand Of The Man. Every time they swing through town not only are they pushing a handful of lps or proper cd releases, they also always seem to have boxes and suitcases and pockets full of all new super limited cd-r's. This time was no different: An lp (listed last time), a cd-r (listed elsewhere on this list), a handful of super limited tour only cd-r's that sold out before we could even list them (there are benefits to visiting the store in person!) and now this epic two years in the works double lp. Entitled Wedlock, the music on these 2lps was compiled from a weeks worth of recording in 2003, on the way to, and in, Alaska, where the band were playing at a friend's wedding. Recorded live to two video cameras and then cobbled together using two cd decks and a mixer, this is definitely SHOTM at their most jubilant. And maybe most funky! C'mon, it was a wedding after all! The record starts off with haunting maudlin piano beneath damaged snippets of conversation, before it's cut off abruptly by rambunctious bluegrass steel guitar, recorded in a lo-fi haze and surrounded by random conversations, whooping sirens in the distance, and all manner of animal calls and ambient sounds. That's before the whole thing twists itself into a full on white boy groove, drunken reverbed vocals over a wildly sloppy shuffle, reckless and whooping and drunk and delirious. The rest of side two and three don't deviate too much from that sound. Imagine Funkadelic playing German Oak and you'll get an idea of the sort of Kraut-flecked folk funk we're talking about. A confusing swirl of tripped out effects, manic percussion, tweaked vocals, wah guitar and a throbbing simple rhythm beneath it all. At some points it sounds almost like a much more tribal, much more groovy Eagles, but with WAY more beer and WAY better drugs. Pulsing and throbbing through the murk of an all night party, liquid guitar lines slither endlessly around slippery slow burning rhythms. There's a brief spurt of spastic blown out free form pagan tribalism at the end of side three that hints at what is to come on side four, a side long, classic SHOTM-sounding blast of drug addled drum circle freak out, all hands on some sort of drum or cymbal or noisemaker, whipping up a wild squall of rhythmic chaos. Wow. The whole thing comes packaged in a thick gatefold sleeve, with a full color insert, featuring photos from the wedding and the Alaska trip and a reproduction of the original invitation.

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

SORRY. Super limited brand new release (May 2006!) cd-r from our favorite free folk hippy collective, more wonderfully druggy and spacey shambolic psychfolk and tripped out tribalism. In a cool striped cover with skulls on it! We only got a few of these from the band when they were here on tour...

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Ultra limited tape from this Russian black metal horde, whose sound is anything but traditionally black metal, whether this is by design, or by chance, the sound of Sunchariot is a thick, washed out, blurred bit of murky buzz, that minus the bellowed vox, could very well be mistaken for a weirdly rocking bit of Philip Jeck or Tim Hecker, the riffs smeared into warm gristly swells, the machinelike pound of the drums, buried under the heaving blackened swells of crumbling melody, and weirdly swoonsome synths, that only reveal themselves when the blast and buzz recedes. The vocals two, transform into a sort of raspy croon during those brief moments, only to revert to a gruff bellow. All the while, a second guitar unwinds a twisted bit of melody that sounds strangely processed, pulsing over the top, a sort of of twisted, atonal lead, that seems to be melting into the roiling blackness beneath it. Definitely fierce and heavy and intense and most definitely black metal, it's also twisted and off kilter enough, that the sound here almost transcends black metal, and is transformed into some sort of buzz drenched apocalyptic folk, or some soft noise industrial dronemusic, the songs and melodies almost sounding like some mysterious traditionals all twisted up. And when the vocals also slip into the fuzz and buzz, it becomes even more blearily bizarre and darkly dreamy. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. Each one hand numbered.

Tape number two from this local one man band, who as we mentioned in our review of his first tape, has an awesomely skewed take on black metal, as is evidenced again here, on the haunting delictae opening, a lilting melody that is repeated over and over, creating a trancelike mood, before the buzzing guitars swoop in, but again, in keeping with the warped blackness, the guitars here are muted and washed out and weirdly quiet, a hazy buzzy blur, undulating and pulsating, beneath bellowed vokills, the drums, if there are any, absolutely buried beneath a blackened haze, which is how the whole tape plays out, a blurry sprawl of droned out buzzscapes, the drums occasionally making an appearance, but revealing themselves as more of a distant buried pulse, the vocals too, here and there leap to the top of the mix, a wild monstrous demonic croak, the music still blurred in the background, the result is somewhere between a super raw, ultra lo-fi rehearsal tape, and some sort of avant experimental blackness, either way, we dig it a LOT, and we're imaging most of you into weirdo black metal will find this tranced out black metal minimalism right up your alley. LIMITED TO 200 COPIES!! Each one hand numbered!

After several awesome tapes on local black metal tape label Brotherhood Of Light, comes the debut full length cd (don't worry, it's also available on cassette!) from this Bay Area one man band (run by the guy who also heads BoL), and continues on Sunchariot's blackened path, mixing grim black buzz, with blissed out kosmische ambience, infusing raw primitive blackness with washed out shoegaze-y ambience. Right from the go, the sound is all blurred swaths of smeared guitar buzz, and arcing melancholic melodies, and like much of this music, sans the vocals, we're getting into some seriously downright pretty sonic territory, the harsh howled rasps, really the only thing keeping the opening track from drifting into full on blackened bliss out mode. But Warrior Of The Winds is super diverse, delivering super raw pounding black metal grimnity ("Bald Eagles Of Resistance"), alongside mystical avant folk, all echo drenched and mysterious ("Flying Wheel With Lights"), leading into sprawling tranced out black drones, where buzzing riffage is transformed into huge swells of crumbling black riff-shimmer and drumless near-dreaminess ("Sunwheel Of Life Shines White In The Darkest Days"). Some tracks start out hazy and woozily washed out, all clean vocals and warble guitar strum, only to splinter into something equally dreamy, but way more black and buzzy ("The Wood Spirit's Path"), while others unwind gorgeous psychedelic drifts of smoldering spidery distortion drenched melodies over mournful synth shimmer, all meditative and hauntingly tranquil. And in between all of these are blown out blasts of grim black buzz, all woven into a pretty stellar batch of truly transcendental blackness. Cool bald eagle cover art too!

MPEG stream: Sunchariot
MPEG stream: Bald Eagles Of Resistance
MPEG stream: Empire Of Fog And Wind

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

SORRY. Remember how the first Sundowners single sounded like Palace's Will Oldham had taken some hallucinogens and someone stole the tape and released it? The new Sundowners single plays the same prank on Bill Callahan of Smog. Cathy loves the synthesizer-drenched b-side. Whose bedroom will Drag City sneak into next? Hint: they'll find the duo in the kitchen.

Chicago alt-country label Bloodshot Records now has an 'old school' offshoot! 'Tis called Bloodshot Revival, and one of the first releases is this collection of two dozen Sundowners' tunes from the '60s and early '70s (and one more recent song from '88). If you find yourself askin' "Who were the Sundowners?", you probably weren't in Chicago back in those days. 'Cause if you were, heck you'd know that they were a beloved down-home tavern trio. Their set lists were filled with originals and covers ran the gamut from the traditional to the contemporary. Covers included The Beatles' "Something", Bobby Darin's "Things", Robbie Fulks' "Cigarette State" and "Tom Dooley". A wonderful tribute and treasured document of a bygone era.

MPEG stream: Tears
MPEG stream: Guess My Eyes Were Bigger Than My Heart

Somehow, even after releasing THREE full length Guided By Voices albums last year (or was it four) on top of the hundred or so that came before, and having recorded about a million more under his own name, apparently Robert Pollard still needs homes for some of his songs, so thus, The Sunflower Logic was born. And as you might imagine, the sound won't be at all unfamiliar to fans of GBV and all the various related offshoots. But then us GBV fans are indeed a voracious lot, and thus won't (and probably shouldn't) think twice about picking up another batch of Pollard-y pop perfection. The Sunflower Logic though is definitely a slightly noisier proposition, just give "UFO Nights" a listen, it's a fantastically loose-limbed droned out psychedelic noise pop, lots of buzz, and weird warbly melodies, some weird paranoid lyrics, and yeah, the sort of tossed off hook most other bands would trade their firstborn for. The rest of the ep is just as off kilter. "I Wanna Marry Your Sister" begins with a creepy voice mail message, before the song unfolds as a super raw lo-fi home recorded acoustic dirge, Pollard's vocals weirdly processed, the guitar angular, all over a weird filed of glitchy static. "I Was A Boy" is classic GBV pop, doused in weird noises, muted and murky, laced with shards of squelch, and some near metallic chug. "Felt Stars" is a twisted bit of piano cabaret, Pollard's vocalizing over pounded piano, sounding like an unrealized GBV outtake, and finally, "Fuck You Mr. Smith", which starts off dirgey and near metallic, but instead of exploding into something heavy, it transforms into a loping droned out jangle, again, all over a weird drone, this time a churning processed guitar swirl, looped and layered, the song devolving occasionally into twisted little catchy choruses, the whole thing seriously druggy and damaged. In fact, to some ears, this might sound like a tossed off odds and ends cash grab, which who knows, it could be, but GBV/Pollard obsessives will find lots to love amidst all the noise and deconstructed anti pop weirdness. Reservedly recommended, and only for the GBV faithful!

MPEG stream: UFO Nights
MPEG stream: I Was A Boy
MPEG stream: Fuck You Mr. Smith

Somewhere between The Free Design, The Incredible String Band and The Buggaloos lies Sunforest. Sunforest were a mysterious British female trio that recorded this sole 1969 gem of acid-folk prog-tinged popsike that has been a holy grail of sorts for sample-searching record heads. Even our own Antaeus (Lazer Sword) admitted to sampling the opening track "Overture To The Sun" to make a beat. That song along with another track, "Lighthouse Keeper" are also famous for their inclusion in the film "A Clockwork Orange". Medieval and baroque at times with harpsichord, piano and pump organ flourishes, lilting horns and sublime triple harmonies, Sound of Sunforest also features some of the best British session players around including Herbie Flowers (bassist on Lou Reed's "Walk on The Wild Side, Bowie's Space Oddity and Serge Gainsbourg's Histoire Du Melody Nelson), and Big Jim Sullivan (Lord Sitar) on guitar. Like most British records of the era, whimsy and zaniness can gain the upper hand at times with songs about candy shops, insect weddings, and eccentric old hippy ladies taking us back to the Sid and Marty Kroft days of our youth, but there is plenty of insanely beautiful songs of the likes we've never heard making this an odd but highly satisfying listen.

MPEG stream: Be Like Me
MPEG stream: And I Was Blue
MPEG stream: Magician in The Mountain

One of six new tapes from the always awesome Holodeck label out of Austin, Texas features a new release by Texas psych-heavies, Sungod. We raved about them awhile back for their debut release, Crash Galactic, now sadly out of print. On Contakt, these cosmic explorers are setting foot on a new and strange alien landscape, starting with a More-era Pink Floyd desert soundtrack vibe before breaking out with full kraut-inflected heaviness of lysergic guitar washes and pummeling poly-rhythmic momentum. A heady mix of gaseous electronics and acid guitar shred is nicely tempered by Blade Runner-like ambient passages of forlorn piano and slow burn synth-scapes. The final track, "Third Reichel" brings in layered acoustic guitar treatments in sequenced repetitions that evolves into full deep space rock take off. Limited!

We've been meaning to review something from these Texan psychedelic space-kraut heavies for ages now, this one is as good a place to start as any, their latest, a super limited cd-r that finds Sungod traveling the astral plane, and offering up a pretty fair (and extremely varied) sampling of what these guys are capable of, their sound all over the map, but all held together by an underlying kosmische drift, the opener, is a hushed brooding slow build, that wreaths subtle low end shimmer, in clouds of swirling space-aged blips and bloops, total planetarium show trip out, until part way through, when the drums come in, transforming the sound into something much more dense and driving, but still plenty abstract. The second track is a lush expanse of harmonium like drones, pulsing beneath swirling FX and acoustic guitar Appalachia, haunting and meditative, before slipping into the next track, a swirling retro synth groove that would sit petty perfectly alongside the current crop of retro futuristic synth wranglers. Krautrocky and cosmic! The sound shifts dramatically after that, a sort of slow slithery acoustic blues, all slippery slide, laced with piano, and peppered with empty tin can percussion, which gives way to a heady slab of pulsating spaced out synthscapery, all droney, and Necks-like with skittery free jazz drumming, and delicate piano, under clouds of swirling synths, and from there on out, all bets are off, the band slipping easily from super distorted fuzzy kraut flecked garagerock groove, to super abstract collaged ambience, to blown out blissed out freeform noise, to heavy Hawkwind style spacerock freakout, to hazy, druggy musique concrete, to heavy cosmic synthdrone mesmer. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. Packaged in a dvd style case, with a full color printed insert.

MPEG stream: Constellation Of Ions
MPEG stream: Breechclout
MPEG stream: Bounded Hessians
MPEG stream: There's Hell In That Girl

Yet another collection of haunting and gorgeous dronemusic from Antony Milton, who in addition recording as Sunken with Stefan Neville, plays in the Stumps, Mrtyu, The Nether Dawn and about a million others, PLUS he runs the PseudoArcana label, and we think he might even have a real job as well. Not sure how he does it, we're just glad he does. So as we mentioned above, Sunken is Milton and his pal Neville who also records as Pumice. In Sunken, the two mainly play organs, reed and Hammond, but the two also make sounds with intercoms, tapes, delay pedals, guitars and of course vocals. But the organs are what Sunken is all about, and the sound is awesomely fuzzy, simultaneously lo-fi and lush. The opening track is 30 minutes long and throughout organs whir and wheeze, the sounds they produce so rich and textured, so fuzzy and buzzy and imperfect, the tones crumbling and shifting, the chords wavering and warbly, long drawn out melodies, that sound sort of drunken or seasick, thick tangled layers of sounds, heaving and whirring and churning out long Niblockian drones, but not nearly as static. It almost sounds like obscure NZ outfit Wreck Small Speakers On Expensive Stereos covering the Dead C. A sort of droned out free rock, rendered in quavering organ tones and hissy fuzzy warble. Here and there, the tracks splinter apart briefly offering up some skittering electronic glitchery, some analog stutter and skip, before slipping right back into that woozy mesmer. The second track is a bit more abrasive, what sounds like guitar is strummed into a field of blurred high end buzz and shimmer, but within, tones materialize, bits of percussive whatsits thump and creak, all manner of sonic detritus drifts by, always surrounded by a cloud of organ and guitar whir. And boy does this track remind us of Wreck Small Speakers, which in case we didn't make it obvious already is most definitely a good thing. The record finishes off with a little lullaby outro, some sweet swoonsome organ, over the top some distorted minor key guitar, the perfect warm and warbly finish...

MPEG stream: Sounding / Salt / Seacow

This eponymous cassette from Sunken Cathedral is a reverential swath of transcendent West Coast minimalism. The principle architect is Oakland's Ryan Jobes who has recently matriculated from the hallowed halls of Mills College. Whether or not there is an intentional aesthetic from those graduates of Mills, a number of recent students have employed the overtone rich strategies of long-stringed instruments and alternate tunings upon sustained / extended techniques in composition. The recent wunderkids outta Mills would include Marielle Jakobson, Ashley Bellouin, Zachary Watkins, and Ben Bracken; and Jobes' compositions via his Sunken Cathedral project are another example of this trend. Much of Jobes' other work slants heavily toward the doomdronemantra side of things with a smattering of cassettes of blackened heaviosity released through his own Vestige Recordings; but for Sunken Cathedral, he's eschewed pretty much all of the darkness in favor a radiant lilting exploration of elongated shimmer and tone-float. He's employed the talents of Evelyn Davis on pipe organ and Kimberley Sutton on amplified cello & electronics, with his own miasma generated through guitar, piano, violin, harmonium, harpsichord, and electronics. The graceful swells and excursions from Sunken Cathedral speak of the Terry Riley colorings and chromatics, whose psychedelic expressionism is muted through Pauline Oliveros deep listening strategies. Beautifully done. Nicely printed offset artwork on opalescent paper in an edition of just 100 copies.

MPEG stream: I

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

SORRY. Out of the blue, this slab of heaviness is now available on vinyl! A real swank package with new artwork courtesy of the UK's Dirter. Here's our review of the original cd release from 2001: The world's first, best, only, (and last?) EARTH tribute band oozes forth with their second album. Some might question if there was more to be accomplished in their emulation of the glacial "power ambient drone" metal practiced by Earth, but this album should quell any skeptics -- it's slower and lower and sets yet another standard for heaviness. Thus, probably an essential addition to the collections of AQ's extreme doom fanatic patrons! And this time the boys in Sunn go beyond their obvious Earth worship to acknowledge another influence: one of the four lengthy tracks found here is a cover (or, an interpretation, anyway) of a Melvins tune! Recommended.

RealAudio clip: Richard

Now reissued on vinyl!! First released way back in 2001, SUNNO)))'s 00Void was later re-released on Japanese label Daymare, which included a bonus disc, on which Nurse With Wound remixed and re-envisioned the record, and transformed it into something haunting and surprisingly lovely. That bonus disc was recently reissued on vinyl (with some slight alterations, apparently), as was the double cd version, but for folks who got the remix disc vinyl, and need 00Void to complete the set, your prayers have been answered, as now Southern Lord has re-released 00Void on vinyl once more (the previous vinyl edition years ago was on Dirter). 00Void was in fact, SUNNO)))'s first proper album, the preceding Grimmrobe Demos, being just that, demos, but sonically, it picked up right where Grimmrobe left off, huge undulating slow motion riffscapes, epic, majestic, glacial, ominous and black hole heavy. Although it hardly seems necessary at this point, for those who have managed to somehow avoid SUNNO)))'s sonic influence, SUNNO))) began life as the world's first, best, only, (and last?) EARTH tribute band, emulating and bowing before the glacial "power ambient drone" metal of Earth, creating a little cult of the dronedoomdirge faithful, long before the hipster set caught on, but this record, as much as Grimmrobe before it made a case for SUNNO))) as their own entity, sure they owed every aspect of their sound to the band they were birthed to honor (still do really), but they managed to subtly imbue that same sound with their own influences and experience, creating something even more slow and low if that were even possible, setting yet another standard for heaviness. So on 00Void, SUNNO))) indulge in pure unfettered doom, loosed from any sort of rhythmic constrictions, unmoored from traditional song structures, letting riffs and tones and pure vibrations emanate from their wall of speakers, like some monstrous black tuning fork, almost more a physical sensation than an aural one, but those movements of blackdrone infused with a musicality that blossoms slowly the deeper you allow yourself to sink. Suffocating, pummeling, crushing, oozing, but also soothing and beautiful. Maybe one of our favorite SUNNO))) records for sure. And if the pure grim heaviness of the three originals wasn't enough, 00Void also includes a cover (or, an interpretation, anyway) of a Melvins tune! Another band who were dabbling in slow motion heaviness long before it was cool...

MPEG stream: NN 0)))
MPEG stream: Ra At Dusk

The final installment in Daymare's comprehensive SUNNO))) reissue campaign, and probably the most eagerly anticipated, not just because 00 Void is one of their best, but because the extra bonus disc features the original record reimagined and recontextualized by dadaist sound sculptors Nurse With Wound. 00Void is in fact, SUNNO)))'s first proper album, the preceding Grimmrobe Demos, being just that, demos, but sonically, it picks up right where Grimmrobe left off, huge undulating slow motion riffscapes, epic, majestic, glacial, ominous and black hole heavy. Although it hardly seems necessary at this point, for those who have managed to somehow avoid SUNNO)))'s sonic influence, SUNNO))) began life as the world's first, best, only, (and last?) EARTH tribute band, emulating and bowing before the glacial "power ambient drone" metal of Earth, creating a little cult of the dronedoomdirge faithful, long before the hipster set caught on, but this record, as much as Grimmrobe before it made a case for SUNNO))) as their own entity, sure they owed every aspect of their sound to the band they were birthed to honor (still do really), but they managed to subtly imbue that same sound with their own influences and experience, creating something even more slow and low if that were even possible, setting yet another standard for heaviness. So on 00Void, SUNNO))) indulge in pure unfettered doom, loosed from any sort of rhythmic constrictions, unmoored from traditional song structures, letting riffs and tones and pure vibrations emanate from their wall of speakers, like some monstrous black tuning fork, almost more a physical sensation than an aural one, but those movements of blackdrone infused with a musicality that blossoms slowly the deeper you allow yourself to sink. Suffocating, pummeling, crushing, oozing, but also soothing and beautiful. Maybe one of our favorite SUNNO))) records for sure. And if the pure grim heaviness of the three originals wasn't enough, 00Void also includes a cover (or, an interpretation, anyway) of a Melvins tune! Another band who were dabbling in slow motion heaviness long before it was cool... This deluxe Japanese reissue is gorgeously packaged as always, swank matte finished textured paper gatefold, printed inner sleeves, insert with liner notes (all in Japanese), but most importantly of all, a whole extra disc, a complete reworking of 00Void by Nurse With Wound. Most folks probably never even made it this far in the review anyway, the mention of NWW remixing SUNNO))) in the first paragraph probably had most people scrambling for the add to cart button, but for folks who stuck it out, it's well worth rebuying 00Void again for the extra disc, as it's a fantastic disc of haunting drones and abstract soundscaping, constructed using the glacial doom of SUNNO))) as the building blocks, which is surprising considering how shimmery and serene much of this is. The opening track is one long slow billow of sound, gentle clouds of muted metallic reverberations, deep resonant chiming tones, soft smeared bass notes, all blurred into a creeping drift, that is more Chalk or Coleclough than SUNNO))). The second track is evenmore abstract, isolating, or adding voices, peppering the dreamy drone with strange metallic clang, moaning horn like bleats, sprays of hiss and buzz, all over a warbly wandering bassline, the vocals driving the song at points, a nasally croon entangled in the tracks gauzy gurgle, the bass getting thicker and thicker, coated in grit and grime and hiss, the vocals effected and almost demonic, breaking glass, weird industrial clatter, and lots and lots of hisssssssss. The final track, another gorgeously minimal drone, the sound of SUNNO))) smeared and blurred and muted into a hushed thrum, soft subtle layers shifting and blending, warm and rich and textured but simple and spare, near the end, voices and radio static surface, but still barely audible, another whispered layer beneath a sea of tranquil hushed whir. Pretty dang cool, even if it's fairly far removed from the sound of the original, but then again, that's sort of the mark of a good remix as far as we're concerned. Be warned, we got a bunch but they'll probably go quick, so when we run out, be prepared to wait for us to get more from Japan.

MPEG stream: NN 0)))
MPEG stream: Ra At Dusk

The third (duh) album from the lower-than-low doom duo of Stephen O'Malley (Burning Witch, Khanate) and Greg Anderson (Goatsnake, ex-Engine Kid). SUNN O))), formed in tribute to defunct Sub Pop heavies Earth, never fails to warm our doom-drone lovin' hearts, The first two tracks, totalling 22 minutes, constitute a new SUNN original, with dark waves of Earth-worthy droneriff rolling relentlessly ever onward. (Track one is called "Mocking Solemnity" and track two is called "Death Becomes You", but there's no discernable break between them, it'll really all one piece.) Then come the two mixes, and the surprise is that they're even better than the SUNN-alone tracks! Maybe that's 'cause they were produced by Masami Akita, aka the notorious Japanese noise artist Merzbow! His first mix (5 mins) drops some atonal piano into the dronezone of Sunn, while mix number 2 (13 mins) really goes for a grinding godhead experience. He really takes it to another level. After the Merzbow tracks, "Flight" closes out with another original track called "F.W.T.B.T.", and it's another good 'un, featuring guests "Bootsy Kronos" on bass, and, uh, "Aspirin Feast" on drums. Drums! Steve O'Malley did a great job with the album design, too, somehow emulating the graphics of Earth's "2" with nicely colored picture of a hunting dog, a shot of the SUNN boys looking like long haired, black clad twins, and -- get this -- what appears to be Ozzy Osbourne's Klonopin perscription from a Beverly Hills pharmacy! Southern Lord recommends this to fans of Earth, Melvins, Thrones, Thomas Koner...and we do too!! Add to that list Boris, Corrupted, Fushitsusha, and Loop (the last two are SUNN fan Julian Cope's comparisons)... "Flight of the Behemoth" is truly a massive, rumbling, varied, experimental DRONEDOOM ESSENTIAL!

RealAudio clip: O)))bow1
RealAudio clip: Mocking Solemnity

Yet again, proving that you haven't really owned a Sunn 0))) record until you've bought it at least twice, preferably three times, comes two more blasts from the dark side of the doom, what many consider to be Sunn 0)))'s finest moments, their debut, The GrimmRobe Demos, and Flight Of The Behemoth! Both expanded with over the top new packaging, gorgeous Japanese style mini lp gatefold style cd sleeves, inserts, printed inner sleeves and Japanese style obi's, but most importantly a whole disc of unreleased material!! The third Sunn 0))) disc (still waiting on record number two, 00 Void, to get reissued), Flight Of The Behemoth, is packaged in an amazing metallic gold on black mini gatefold sleeve, printed inside and out, the various images from the old version reproduced on the printed inner sleeves, a fold out poster with liner notes and track listing and a discography on the other side. The first disc is discussed in great detail below, but the new, extra disc is a live recording from earlier this year, featuring Sunn 0))) and Merzbow performing together, and engineered by Masami Akita, Mr. Merzbow himself. Which makes sense since the second half of Flight Of The Behemoth was actually Akita remixing Sunn 0))) anyway. So you probably know what you're in store for, some seriously noisy business, which is of course what you get, two massive slabs of Sunn 0)))-y sludge, caked in blown out sheets of Merzbowic grit, shrieking feedback, malfunctioning electronics, high end shrieks, thick chunks of crumbling distortion, blasts of spaced out FX, while beneath it all, the sound of Sunn 0))) continues to grind and churn like some subterranean sonic lava flow. Pretty awesome, and much like when he performs with Boris, Akita knows how to make his noise compliment, instead of overwhelm. So yeah, Sunn freeks and Merzbow obsessives will absolutely need this, and if you somehow never managed to pick up Flight Of The Behemoth, now is as good a time as any. So here's what we had to say about Sunn 0))) 3: Flight Of The Behemoth, when we first reviewed it way back in 2002: The third (duh) album from the lower-than-low doom duo of Stephen O'Malley (Burning Witch, Khanate) and Greg Anderson (Goatsnake, ex-Engine Kid). SUNN O))), formed in tribute to defunct Sub Pop heavies Earth, never fails to warm our doom-drone lovin' hearts, even as SUNN's thick, sludgy wall of bass-heavy guitar distortion utterly numbs our bodies. We loved their last album "OO Void" so much that we were both eager to hear this new one, and a bit apprehensive 'cause we heard it had a bunch of remixes on it, which sometimes means throw-away BS. But as it turns out, not in this case, thankfully! The first two tracks, totaling 22 minutes, constitute a new SUNN original, with dark waves of Earth-worthy droneriff rolling relentlessly ever onward. (Track one is called "Mocking Solemnity" and track two is called "Death Becomes You", but there's no discernible break between them, it's really all one piece.) Then come the two mixes, and the surprise is that they're even better than the SUNN-alone tracks! Maybe that's 'cause they were produced by Masami Akita, aka the notorious Japanese noise artist Merzbow! His first mix (5 mins) drops some atonal piano into the dronezone of Sunn, while mix number 2 (13 mins) really goes for a grinding godhead experience. He really takes it to another level. After the Merzbow tracks, "Flight" closes out with another original track called "F.W.T.B.T.", and it's another good 'un, featuring guests "Bootsy Kronos" on bass, and, uh, "Aspirin Feast" on drums. Drums! Steve O'Malley did a great job with the album design, too, somehow emulating the graphics of Earth's "2" with nicely colored picture of a hunting dog, a shot of the SUNN boys looking like long haired, black clad twins, and -- get this -- what appears to be a certain rock star's Klonopin perscription from a Beverly Hills pharmacy! Southern Lord recommends this to fans of Earth, Melvins, Thrones, Thomas Koner...and we do too!! Add to that list Boris, Corrupted, Fushitsusha, and Loop (the last two are SUNN fan Julian Cope's comparisons)... "Flight of the Behemoth" is truly a massive, rumbling, varied, experimental DRONEDOOM ESSENTIAL!

MPEG stream: O)))bow1
MPEG stream: Mocking Solemnity

ATTENTION: the limited edition 2cd version of this is totally gone, this is the single disc version! As you may have noticed, the aQ speakers have been quite clogged of late with the black sonic tar of glacial doom and slow motion sludge, molten flows of downtuned guitars, rumbling bowel churning drones, impossibly slow and primordially plodding drumming, all tangled up in huge squirming, blackened riffs, like mammoths struggling to loose themselves from pits of black tar. We've also been quite obsessed with the more virulent strains of buzzing, bizarre black metal. Leviathan, Xasthur, Benighted Leams, Blackdeath, Deathspell Omega, Furze, Lurker Of Chalice and the like. But just imagine for a moment, if that river of sludge we love so much ran right through the darkened Nordic forest, or if you took all that buzz and fuzz and held it under a thick layer of black pitch, while it struggled desperately for breath, or if you took the bombinating blur of Burzum and slowed it waaaaay doooooooown, or better yet, what if Dylan Carlson of Earth grew up listening to Darkthrone and Mayhem instead of Hendrix and the Mentors. Well you'd probably get something like Black One. To be honest, what forms the basis of Black One is really not all that different than other SUNNO))) records. It's still a series of 16 rpm metal riffs, morphed beautifully into plodding hypnotic smears of metallic ambience. The blackness here comes from several sources: the art and the imagery for one, a very metal looking cover drawing, olde English fonts, O'Malley and Anderson have adopted properly metal monickers for the instruments used: axe subs, icy inverted crosswinds upon four string zamboni, grail, glacial winds, calls from beyond the grave! Then there is the presence of two current BM legends, Malefic from Xasthur and Wrest from Leviathan. That said, there are moments, where SUNNO)))'s immediately recognizable sludge does twist itself into more black metal shapes, and it's those moments that Black One truly taps into a direct line to the fiery abyss. Imagine listening to Immortal through some sort of time warp, where Blizzard Beasts is stretched into a single icy contrail spread out over 666 years, a hazy black cloud swallowing everything in its path. Add some truly frosty and fucked up vocals and ghostly guitars from Wrest and Malefic, all manner of gorgeous sonic filigree from Australian experimental guitarist Oren Ambarchi and noise guru John Weise, some text by Seldon Hunt, and that oh so familiar Sunn-y O'Malleyïartwork, lyrics via Dead (from Mayhem), Malefic, Wrest and Abbath (of Immortal) and you might just be looking at a truly and utterly black one indeed.

MPEG stream: It Took The Night To Believe
MPEG stream: Cursed Realms (Of The Winterdemons)
MPEG stream: Orthodox Caveman

Besides Boris, SUNNO))) are the undisputed masters of the limited, the repackaged, the-must-buy-for-a-single-track, the must-have-every-color-vinyl, a crazy cult of completism. Almost every release by both bands, has seemingly been offered in multiple limited releases, slightly altered versions for Japan and the US, ridiculously limited runs, and impossible to get tour only editions. We put up with it, cuz, well, both bands rule, and continually kick our asses. And it's kinda fun chasing down weird hard to find releases and super limited editions. To a point. We're happy to report, that unless you are one of the very lucky ones, saw the band on tour, or spent a fortune on eBay, then these three Japanese reissues are absolutely worth rebuying, as each one includes a bonus disc (or discs) that most folks probably never got their hands on. In fact, we were never able to get any of them for the store. So we'd wager lots of you will be super psyched to pick these up, even if you already have the Southern Lord version. Especially since buying the original versions on eBay would probably cost as much as these multiple disc Daymare versions, and they look amazing, re-designed packaging by Stephen O'Malley, printed inner sleeves, cool miniature lp style gatefold jackets, Japanese liner notes, obi's, really really nice. LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES too, so these will probably not be around for long... Black one includes La Mort Noir dans Esch/Alzette, a super limited (1000 copies) tour only cd, gone in a flash, within the first few dates of the tour, so even folks who made it out probably never even saw it. We never managed to get ANY copies at all, and it's been a super expensive eBay item ever since. The thing about La Mort Noir dans Esch/Alzette, is it might be even better than Black One proper! Recorded live in Luxembourg, the core duo of O'Malley and Anderson is augmented by Malefic of Xasthur on vocals, Dylan Carlson from Earth, the guy from Beaver on synths and Steve Moore on trombone (who also plays horns for Earth), and the set is monstrous, a dark and oppressive black dronescape, guitars are thick and glacial, the horns add another layer of buzz and throb as do the synths, Malefic shrieks and howls atop the din, it's pretty heavy and intense. And it sounds good enough that it we find ourselves digging it more than the album, and it sounds like it could very well have just been a second disc of a Black One double cd. Which, well, it is now! And just in case you need the scoop on Black One, here's our review from when we first listed it: As you may have noticed, the�aQ speakers have been quite clogged of late with the black sonic tar of glacial doom and slow motion sludge, molten flows of downtuned guitars, rumbling bowel churning drones, impossibly slow and primordially plodding drumming, all tangled up in huge squirming, blackened riffs, like mammoths struggling to loose themselves from pits of black tar. We've also been quite obsessed with the more virulent strains of buzzing, bizarre black metal. Leviathan, Xasthur, Benighted Leams, Blackdeath, Deathspell Omega, Furze, Lurker Of Chalice and the like. But just imagine for a moment, if that river of sludge we love so much ran right through the darkened Nordic forest, or if you took all that buzz and fuzz and held it under a thick layer of black pitch, while it struggled desperately for breath, or if you took the bombinating blur of Burzum and slowed it waaaaay doooooooown, or better yet, what if Dylan Carlson of Earth grew up listening to Darkthrone and Mayhem instead of Hendrix and the Mentors. Well you'd probably get something like Black One. To be honest, what forms the basis of Black One is really not all that different than other SUNNO))) records. It's still a series of 16 rpm metal riffs, morphed beautifully into plodding hypnotic smears of metallic ambience. The blackness here comes from several sources: the art and the imagery for one, a very metal looking cover drawing, olde English fonts, O'Malley and Anderson have adopted properly metal monickers for the instruments used: axe subs, icy inverted crosswinds upon four string zamboni, grail, glacial winds, calls from beyond the grave! Then there is the presence of two current BM legends, Malefic from Xasthur and Wrest from Leviathan. That said, there are moments, where SUNNO)))'s immediately recognizable sludge does twist itself into more black metal shapes, and it's those moments that Black One truly taps into a direct line to the fiery abyss. Imagine listening to Immortal through some sort of time warp, where Blizzard Beasts is stretched into a single icy contrail spread out over 666 years, a hazy black cloud swallowing everything in its path. Add some truly frosty and fucked up vocals and ghostly guitars from Wrest and Malefic, all manner of gorgeous sonic filigree from Australian experimental guitarist Oren Ambarchi and noise guru John Weise, some text by Seldon Hunt, and that oh so familiar Sunn-y O'Malley�artwork, lyrics via Dead (from Mayhem), Malefic, Wrest and Abbath (of Immortal) and you might just be looking at a truly and utterly black one indeed.

MPEG stream: It Took The Night To Believe
MPEG stream: Cursed Realms (Of The Winterdemons)
MPEG stream: Orthodox Caveman

Recorded live, in an ancient cathedral in Bergen, Norway, Domkirke is pretty impressive slab of avant heaviness, and continues to display SUNNO))), the duo of Stephen O'Malley and Greg Anderson (and usually any number of auxiliary members), moving further and further away from their Earth worshipping roots. Having become a bona fide ART band, you're now more likely to catch SUNNO))) in a gallery, or a cathedral, than on a metal bill, which is fine, as their sound is the rare beast that does manage to bridge that gap, and most appealingly, manages to alienate and piss off folks on both sides of the divide. So for this performance, the band chose to create a piece that reflected the history of the cathedral, creating something much more ritualistic sonically, vocal based, incorporating chants, Gregorian hymns of the Middle Ages, evoking the despair of a time of plague and death, a truly medieval sound, woven into SUNNO))'s more modern minimal glacial dronemusic. The two most noticeable additions to the SUNNO))) sound for this performance are Attila's powerful operatic vocals, and the gorgeous buzz of the cathedral's massive pipe organ. And the opening track is just that, ditching the guitars entirely, letting the organ unfurl massive minor key whirs and shimmering rich harmonies, while Attila moans and croons, sometimes adding another layer of low rumbles, other times, wailing dramatically. The organ so rich and lustrous and majestic and powerful. Reminds you that no matter how many amps you have and how much distortion you use, some things are inherently heavier than guitars. But that doesn't keep the Sunn boys from trying, as the second track returns to more familiar territory, offering up a glacial slow motion flow of crumbling super distorted guitars, more melodic than usual, churning over a back drop of shimmering organ drones, and again Attila's vocals slipping from hissed whisper, to rich mellifluous chant. Add to that a bit of electronic filigree from noisemaker Lasse Marhaug, and you've got a pretty ominous and intense slab of medieval murk. The guitars do unwind into surprisingly melodic figures now and again, but always return find their way back to that main, heaving tarpit riff. The third side (movement), begins as more of the same, although this time the track sprawls into some almost free noise, the vocals demonic and intense, the guitars spilling out of the amps in noxious black clouds, squalls of electronics, sheets of feedback, sounds almost like SUNNO))) free jazz, unhinged and frenzied, but still bleak and black and heavy. The final movement might be the heaviest of the bunch, those oh so familiar slow motion riffs, wash over that swirling sea of whirring organ, a massive organic, almost fluid sound, alive with energy, black, yet glowing from within, building to a suffocatingly intense climax, the guitars crumbling and blown out, the organ at fever pitch, the vocals another layer of buzz and howl, the whole thing threatening to bring down the ancient stone walls, before dropping out completely, leaving Attila's rumbling low end growl, and then finally leaving just the organ, to play out mournfully and mysteriously. Pretty fantastic. It almost makes us wish SUNNO))) would just get a pipe organ in the band, permanently. Might make touring a bit tough, but heck, it might just be worth it! Incredible packaging, one of the thickest gatefold sleeves we've ever seen, adorned with gorgeous abstract oil paintings on the outside, and photos of the performance on the inside, full color printed sleeves, with more performance photos, pressed on black vinyl, limited to 5000 copies, never to be released as a cd or a digital download.

The first thing we thought when we threw this on, was, man, it's gonna be pretty tough to top Domkirke. The last SUNNO))) release, vinyl only, found the duo of Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley recording their low end Earth worshipping drone symphonies in an actual cathedral, incorporating the cathedral's church organ. Hard to imagine anything heavier. For Monoliths and Dimensions, the duo drafted in all sorts of extra help. The usual suspects sure, Attila Csihar on vocals, guitarist Oren Ambarchi, but also, a veritable orchestra, French horns, violas, piano, hydrophone, English Horn, Conch Shell, double bass, and that's just on album opener "Aghartha", which on first listen sounds like the SUNNO))) of old, all churning low end, slow motion glacial riffage, but as the track progresses, the heavy riffage peels back, revealing, a sea of moaning horns, Csihar's haunting intoned vocals, creaks and groans, and the actual sound of water (the hydrophone?), eventually getting super abstract and minimal, before fading out completely. "Big Church" featues four guitarists (Ambarchi, O'Malley, Anderson and Earth's Dylan Carlson) as well as trombone, trumpet, organ, tubular bells and a choir!!! The choir giving the track a definite Arvo Part vibe, haunting and choral, drifting ethereally over the slow burning rumble of the multiple guitars, before locking into a strangely melodic almost slowcore creep. "Hunting & Gathering (Cydonia)" featueres yet another expanded lineup, this time including a "Man choir", the track begins all standard doom, crushing lugurbrious riffage, growled gurgeled vokills, but the man choir's deep haunting chant adds a whole other dimension, creating a sort of choral doom hybrid, much like the other track, but this one remains much darker and heavier. Finally, the record closes with Alice, this time with horns AND strings, and the song that probably is most responsible for describing this record as "SUNNO))) with strings". It starts out all woozy and twangy like some nineties slowcore jam, except for the Morricone-ish horn swells, the guitar crunches few and far between, the sound quite spare and skeletal, and weirdly enough, downright pretty, a shuffling slow motion drift, the whole thing surprisingly melodic, and spacious, quite possibly one of the loveliest (and most unlikely) SUNNO))) tracks yet. SUNNO))) have done wonders with their limited sonic pallete, who would have thought a one time Earth cover band would have survived this long, and resulted in such an impressive body of original work, but the group have grown and expanded and explored, they manage to incorporate all manner of sounds and textures and guest players, to realize their ultimate vision, while somehow keeping the core sound intact. We only just got this in, and we've been listening to it like crazy (which should tell you something), and the more we hear it, the more we dig it, especially that last track. Quickly becoming one of our fave SUNNO))) discs... Incredible packaging as always. Deluxe booklet, exquisitely designed, with lyrics, lineups, diagrams, photos, illustrations, some of the pages vellum, all housed in a transparent printed vellum slipcover.

MPEG stream: Aghartha
MPEG stream: Big Church

Yet again, proving that you haven't really owned a Sunn 0))) record until you've bought it at least twice, preferably three times, here comes two more blasts from the dark side of the doom, what many consider to be Sunn 0)))'s finest moments, their debut, The GrimmRobe Demos, and record number three, Flight Of The Behemoth! Both expanded with over the top new packaging, gorgeous Japanese style mini lp gatefold style cd sleeves, inserts, printed inner sleeves, but most importantly a whole disc of unreleased material!! The GrimmRobe Demos was the first most of us had ever heard of this supposed Earth tribute band, their debut disc in a cardboard sleeve, wrapped in a black trash bag silkscreened with the Sunn 0))) logo in metallic gold, the sound a filthier, sludgier version of Earth's classic 2 album. We were in doomdirgedeathdrone nirvana. And still are. After a million Sunn 0))) wannabes, the GrimmRobe Demos still sound as heavy and sludge-y and as gloriously grim as ever. The packaging is of course fantastic, a super thick gatefold mini lp style sleeve, printed in that deep blue and silver, inside a HUGE booklet affixed to the front, with extensive liner notes, in English and Japanese, including a looooong essay, Ode To The Grimmrobe, by Seldon Hunt. Each disc is in a plastic sleeve housed in a full color printed sleeve, the disc proper has more images like those inside the gatefold, while the bonus disc has a flyer and photos from the live show within. So yeah, Sunn 0))) performing live, back in 1999, when they were still an opening act (opening for Angel Rot, who?), 25 + minutes of crumbling low end destruction, gritty and grimy and filthy, a massive roiling morass of downtuned guitar rumble and shimmering feedback, gorgeous and of course brutal, and capturing Sunn 0))) near the beginning. Fans will of course want this, the packaging, the essay, the killer live show, but just like Flight Of The Behemoth, folks who missed out on the GrimmRobe Demos the first time around, should must definitely rectify that situation RIGHT NOW. Of all the SUNNO))) cds, and there have been a LOT, this remains perhaps the closest to the original template of worshipping Earth II to a T. Which as far as we're concerned, at least sonically, is a very very good thing. Earth tribute band? Sunn? Huh? For those confused, or new to the world of Sunn 0))), let's elaborate. Once upon a time, there was Earth, a slower than slow, heavier than heavy Sub Pop combo that took the Melvins molasses drone riffing over the edge. Turning sound into something so slow and physical you could almost feel it more than hear it. They disbanded, disappeared, and since then they've resurfaced, albeit with a new, WAY less sludgey sound, so it was and IS up to the dudes in Sunn 0))) (get it, Earth, Sunn, there's also a Sunn tribute band called Moon) to revisit, and resuscitate Earth's genius genesis (back when Kurt Cobain used to play with 'em!), and thus, Sunn 0))) deliver what could be a part two to Earth 2, loooooong tracks of primordial dirge, humming and rumbling and crumbling and moving like a blackened glacier, riffs sprawled out over minutes instead of seconds, a slowly churning propulsive murky low end beast. One track is even named after Earth leader Dylan Carlson. And of course, as we mentioned above, the band name Sunn is derived from the proximity in the solar system to Earth, but also, and maybe moreso, the amps of choice for both outfits, appropriately so 'cause it's the amps more than the guitars that you hear here. They're not covering Earth tunes here, but are basically following the same formula towards drone metal godhead. Essential for all devotees of the ultra-heavy!

MPEG stream: Defeating: Earth's Gravity

We know lots of you SunnO))) fanatics missed out on the various versions of the GrimmRobe Demos 2lp. So we're happy to report that we finally got a bunch more of these in. Supposedly the LAST pressing, on good old black vinyl (the best sounding BTW). Not sure how long they'll last, so act fast. Now all serious connoisseurs of depression, death, doom and utter grimness have reason to celebrate. No, we're certainly not talking about G.W. Bush's second-term inauguration! It's music we're going on about, and for fans of that brand of heavy, doomful drone that we know so many of you AQ-customers are, this IS good news: the re-release of the debut album from not-so-dynamic doom duo SUNNO)))! Yes! So log off of eBay, save your ninety bucks (that's what Southern Lord says the original cd was going for) and thank 'em for at last reissuing this disc, previously out on Hydrahead subsidary HH Noise Industries back in 2000. And yes, there's a BONUS TRACK. Sixteen minutes and forty seconds of bonus track entitled "Grimm & Bear It"...those jokers. That brings this album to over 72 minutes in length, perfect for enjoying your own mini-coma in its ambient embrace. Of all the SUNNO))) cds since, this remains perhaps the closest to the original template of worshipping Earth II to a T. For some "historical" perspective (and for any who are puzzled, to explain that last comment), let's revist our original review of this disc, upon its first release: "Whoa, an Earth tribute band! Y'know, Earth, the slower than slow, heavier than heavy Sub Pop combo from a few years back, the band that took the Melvins molasses drone riffing over the edge. They're not around anymore (and weren't that great toward the end anyway) but this project (featuring members of Burning Witch/Goatsnake/Engine Kid) revisits Earth's genius genesis (back when Kurt Cobain used to play with 'em), for some long long tracks of primordial dirge. One track is even named after Earth leader Dylan Carlson. And of course the band name Sunn is derived from the amps of choice for both outfits, appropriately so 'cause it's the amps more than the guitars that you hear here. They're not covering Earth tunes, but are essentially following the same formula towards drone metal godhead. Essential for all devotees of the ultra-heavy!" And as some of you have mentioned to us, the Southern Lord website lists a super limited purple vinyl version, but those are available only via direct mailorder from Southern Lord and are most likely gone already anyway.

MPEG stream: Defeating: Earth's Gravity

[ aquarius records catalogue — S ]