[ aquarius records catalogue

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Showing results 451 through 500 of 1910.

The return of UK based one man ritualistic doomdrone shamen Tenhornedbeast, and another collection of abject darkness, grim sonic mystery, folk flecked dronemusic and epic black ambience, and as in the past, things have definitely shifted during the extended period of silence between this new record and the last. The very first 10HB record we had heard, was recommended to us as "epic, sprawling primitive doom/drone" which at the time was all we needed to hear, and indeed, that's precisely what it was, but with each record, 10HB's sound mutated and morphed, into something new, not always super dramatic, more an ever evolving sonic darkness, definitely dronemusic, but not so much primitive, a more composed sort of doomy black ambience, a post industrial drift that definitely leaned more toward drone than doom, but also more toward industrial then metal, which makes sense that he's found a home on Cold Spring alongside Toroidh, Laibach, Nordvargr, Prurient, Von Thronstahl, Wicked King Wicker and the like. And in fact, the first track here, the evocatively titled "Reaching For The Stars We Blind The Sky", finds the sound of Tenhornedbeast definitely moving even further in a sort of industrial direction. It begins like we would have expected, dark and mysterious, spaced out and shimmery, with keening high end drifts, underpinned by deep rumbles, muted downtuned guitar buzz, feedback, all the sounds gauzy and grey, until about halfway through the guitars begin to grind the riffs crumbling and distorted and the drums kick in, not a straight rhythm, and not really free either, a bit martial here and there, but they seem to wander and drift, stumbling through a bleak field of stretched out tones and layered streaks of howling feedback, slipping from minimal and spare to chaotic and aggressive and back again, a little bit doomy, but more like some blackened neo-folk. A 12 minute jam that really could have stretched out to fill up the whole record. But instead, the rest of the disc drifts into deep, tranquil dronemusic, laced with birdsong and melancholic melodies drenched in reverb, downtuned bass thrum driven creeps, held aloft by skeletal percussion, and again swathed in blurred effects and layered drones, heavy sure, but more mesmerizing and trancelike, string laden neo-folk, with haunting slowed down samples and disembodied voices, clouds of cymbal shimmer, and grinding mechanical guitarscapes, with hypnotic machinelike rhythms, swirling minimal lullaby like interludes, and finally the 20 minute title track, slow glacial riffage pulled and stretched until the riffs becomes long layers of undulating low end, billowing distorted bass like some sort of sonic avalanche, everything washed out and almost shoegazey, instead of getting heavier and heavier, it gets more and more shimmery and fuzzy, booming gongs, swirling effects, all wound around a simple, downtuned bassline, a slowed down doomic anti-groove, that creeps and crawls and finally drifts into the ether. Gorgeous packaging, an exquisitely designed 6 panel digipack, all browns and golds and greys and metallic inks...

MPEG stream: Reaching For The Stars We Blind The Sky
MPEG stream: Hilnaric
MPEG stream: Father Of The Frosts

It's been quite a while since we've heard from Tenhornedbeast, one of our favorite purveyors of deep blackened ritualistic dronemusic, but as always, it was well worth the wait. Like past releases My Horns Are A Flame To Draw Down The Truth is grand is scope, unlike much of the ambient music and dronemusic we hear, the sounds here sound deliberate, the songs composed. We can only assume that the years between releases are due to a certain meticulousness, one can almost imagine Mr. THB as a mysterious cloaked figure, in his subterranean lair, hunched over a workbench of strange assemblage of electronics and burbling cauldrons, a lone alchemist working by torchlight, crafting these elegant dronescapes, equal part dark shimmer and caustic buzz, cinematic creep and smoldering sinister doom-ed minimalism. The opener is a softly cacophonous slow build of cavernous tones and groaning low end rumbles, but these sounds are not smooth at all but raw and rough around the edges, an organic thing, something musical, but removed from 'music' as we know it, a sort of synesthesia, like shadows flickering in firelight, THB deftly assembles layers of drone, and weaves together barely there melodies, into massive dreamy drifts of delicate ambience, that slowly shifts from grim shimmer to ethereal hush. The appropriately titled "My Horns..." takes what does indeed sound like a horn, and slows it way down, and loops it into a gorgeously textured hypnotic low end mantra, playing on and on and on, while all around, various other sonic shadings surface, and lilting melodies seem to peek from behind the heavy black shades of sound. The final track begins with distorted guitar, a riff slowed down to near stasis, a plodding doom rendered in a washed out muted blur, a doomdronedirge that builds to a soft roar, the whole time gradually letting the light swallow the dark, the heaviness and riffiness gradually receding, while the song begins to glimmer and shimmer and glow with an otherworldly warmth, as if emerging from some blackened captivity, but all of that is cut short, as the moaning groaning minor key melodies that opened the track return, swaddling the fading shimmer in their ominous embrace.

MPEG stream: Ruins Son
MPEG stream: Black Walls Rising/Black Stars Falling

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

SORRY.

It's been two long years we've been waiting to hear more from mysterious UK outfit Tenhornedbeast, after a mindblowing cd-r of�"epic sprawling primitive doom/drone" that was so limited it was gone in a flash.� This is THB's first proper full length, and just as we'd hoped and expected, it's epic and intense. Massive and cavernous, abject and utterly terrifying. Dark ambient, but so much heavier than that would lead one to believe.� From the very first track, the listener is sucked into some dark otherworld, a long sprawl of oozing black slither, chanted monk like vocals, crashing distant percussion, and crushing swells of deep rumbling blackness. It's a slow trawl through the bleakest pits of the underworld, filled with groaning melodies, creaking and threatening to crash to the ground like rotten timbers. The first of three ultra long tracks is "Our Lady Of The Lightning Bolt", a nearly twenty minute threnody of mournful strings draped over glacial slabs of slow shifting blacks and greys, streaks of feedback and shards of high end skree spread out over the top, the sound becoming more and more intense and distorted, like a rising tide of amp buzz and guitar rumble, peppered with haunting dynamics and strangely orchestral arrangements. "Strength Through Fear" is a brief respite from the black hole crush, a menacing melancholy string section, being performed in some underground cavern, the notes ringing out against the dripping black walls, eventually being smeared into an intense fuzzed out chordal wash that gradually swallows everything else whole.� The record's centerpiece seems to be the 22 minute "In The Teeth Of The Wolf", a terrifying guitarscape, that plays out like a harrowing journey through some bombed out razed landscape, nothing but smoldering blackness, distant thunder, ruins and chaos, a thick patina of corrosive guitar drone laid over everything like some warm wet blanket, a metal riff deconstructed and pulled apart, smeared and blurred, until it all coalesces into a slow motion pummel, an industrial plod beneath a monstrous guitar part, doom metal, abstracted and mechanized, stretched out over an army of hissing steam engines, of pounding martial drums, soaring triumphant melodies, nearly obscured by skies full of flame and black smoke, definitely one of the most intense pieces of music we've heard in ages.� The record unwinds with a gorgeous drawn out black veil of sound, a rib cage rattling thrum, densely layered swells of distorted low end throb, woven into a subtly melodic, almost static dirge, that churns relentlessly like an orchestra of fog horns, before drifting off in a fuzzy cloud of hissy shimmer.� Gorgeously packaged in a matte brown digipak, adorned with a haunting image of a shadowy figure holding an antlered skull aloft, beneath a strange symbol, printed in glossy reflective ink.

MPEG stream: Oppression
MPEG stream: Our Lady Of The Lightning Bolt
MPEG stream: Strength Through Fear

One day we got an email from one of our mailorder customers who mentioned he was currently listening to a band called Tenhornedbeast. Just the name had us frothing at the mouth. Then when we asked him what it sounded like, his response "epic sprawling primitive doom/drone" had us on the internet in seconds flat trying to track down copies for the store. Well, the good news is that we did manage to get some for the store. The bad news, as is often the case, is that it was incredibly limited, is already out of print, and we got the very last 20. So be prepared to be disappointed if you're not super quick on the buy button trigger. Okay, now that we got that out of the way, let's get to the heart of this beast. Tenhornedbeast, a band that does indeed traffic in an epic sprawling primitive doom / drone. The do have a drummer too, but he mostly offers up little cymbal flourishes here and there, a big snare splat every long once in a while, the meat of the beast though is obviously the churning squirm of downtuned guitars, riff upon riff, all dirty and scuzzy and lo-fi and gorgeously doomy and drone-y and dirge-y. That sound we can't seem to get enough of. And again, VERY LIMITED. WE HAVE 20 COPIES. ONCE THEY ARE GONE THEY ARE REALLY GONE FOR GOOD.

MPEG stream: Silver Horses Brought Us Here
MPEG stream: Come And Make Me Holy Again

Every once in a while, someone will release a record, and we can't help but feel like it was made specifically for us. And for you. Some records just perfectly speak to the aQ aesthetic, as undefinable as that seems to be. This is another one of those cases. Someone thought it would be a perfect combination to match up UK one man ambient drone outfit Tenhornedbeast, with UK slow motion doomlords Marzuraan. And it is perfect. And a fantastic idea, but just because something is a great idea, doesn't always mean someone thinks of it. And we're not saying we had been thinking someone should get these two bands together specifically, we're just glad they did, and we sort of wish we HAD thought of it. But that's neither here nor there. The important thing is that it happened, and now we can all luxuriate in the deep dark heaviness both of these bands explore. And while the bands are indeed different, their aesthetics are not all that far removed. The both exist in some blackened nether region, haunting sonic realms, where heaviness can be expressed in both utter darkness and extreme force, sometimes both, and once in awhile neither. Tenhornedbeast offer up a nearly 30 minute long sonic ritual, beginning as a bit of swirling black minimalism, but slowly building to a truly intense wall of doomdrone, the sound thick and textured, a churning cauldron of low end buzz and downtuned disembodied riffs, all brought to a boil and poured out in a viscous black torrent, left to flow like some subterranean river. But these deep drones are laced with melodies, and keening high end shards, allowed to shine forth occasionally, but often swallowed up before they can fill those caves with their unnatural light. The track continually changes shape, sound and timbre, various shades of grey and black, lightening and darkening as the landscape changes, a haunting journey through some lost world, where sound replaces sight, allowing us to navigate ever deeper. Marzuraan counter with what must be one of their prettiest tracks ever. It's still sludgey and doomy, but the notes ring out, the melodies almost soar, the sound fuzzy and glimmering, almost like these guys have caught the shoegaze bug as well. Washed out and blissy, super melodic and melancholy, but the coolest part is that the track seems to warble and waver, almost like someone is manually adjusting the tape speed, so the notes sound drunken and drugged, the track lurches and weaves drunkenly, only adding to the haunting and off kilter beauty. Part way through, the riffs get a little more riffy, and then the vocals come in, a moaning distant croon, and we're most definitely in serious Jesu territory, but that weird speed shifting hitch, keeps it from sounding too pretty, or two blissy. But if these guys keep heading in this direction, they could definitely give Jesu, and Nadja and other metallic shoegazers a run for their money. The packaging is super swank, a three panel gatefold, each of the front panels diecut with each band's symbol, printed inside and out, housed in a thick plastic sleeve with a sticker affixed to the front.

MPEG stream: Law Of The Needle
MPEG stream: Into Countless Battles

If there's one thing you can count on with those Wolfe identical twins (Alison from those grrrrrls Bratmobile and Cindy from this much more southern twangy band you're reading about right this very moment), it's that if they've got something on their minds

RealAudio clip: The Apple Of Your Black Eye
RealAudio clip: Wildflowers

From the label that brought us Neko Case, the Corn Sisters, and the New Pornographers, it's time for a little Tennessee Twin! Legend has it that following the break-up of Allison Wolfe's band Bratmobile, Allison and her twin sister (and puppeteer extraordinaire) Cindy Wolfe had planned on collaborating forces on an old-country outfit in Olympia, WA. Well, as you may know

Hot damn! The amazing girl group inspired sounds just keep on coming, and Tennis are serving them up in such an irresistible fashion. We knew very little about this Colorado husband/wife outfit before Cape Dory came our way, but once it hit our ears we jumped aboard their timeless yet fresh approach to bringing rich harmony and hooks into driving, melodic songs that are so so catchy. Alaina Moore's vocals are truly the driving force that makes Tennis rise to the top of the recent wave of like-minded bands, her voice is beyond warm, seductive and engaging. If you've been swept up by groups like Best Coast, Dum Dum Girls, Vivian Girls, Aias, and Girls At Dawn, we promise you'll find Tennis to be your next fix. We are so addicted, and have a feeling we are going to be playing Tennis all year long! PS. we were tempted to go even more overboard with the tennis cliches, but we still say this is one ace of a record!

MPEG stream: Take Me Somewhere
MPEG stream: Marathon
MPEG stream: Pigeon

Tennis is the collective nom de plume for British electronica artists Ben Edwards and Douglas Benford, who are respectively known better as Benge and Si-Cut.Db. At first, their collaboration sounds like a mutation of the utopian neo-dub of Pole and Kit Clayton, in which all of the grooves have been shredded into jagged patterns, and reassemled into disjointed filter techno

We remember first getting a glimpse of the sweet charm of Japan's Tenniscoats a year or so ago when we heard their track on the children's comp Songs For Nao. We had only been able to get a copy or two of Live Wanderus, never enough to list until now. Before we had even heard the record, the dreamy cover art had us super curious as to what we might find inside. We ended up loving Tenniscoats' take on naive pop. A LOT. A little more dreamy and meandering than some of their sonic brethren like Maher Shal Hash Baz and Nagisa Ni Ti, Saya's sweet hushed vocals and tasteful trumpets and sax, guitar, drums and piano help to create a nice dreamlike atmosphere, a perfect serving of daydream twee. These are live recordings from shows throughout Japan over the last few years, and the recordings sound great, nice and warm, like you were right there in the room while they were playing, sitting on a blanket in the dark with your head on the shoulder of a good friend. So nice!

MPEG stream: Red Haired Eric
MPEG stream: Everyone

We loooooooooove the spare and wistful dream pop of Tenniscoats (See, we can put as just as many "o's" in "love" as we do in 'doom'.). Although we must admit, it took us awhile to really get into Tan-Tan Therapy as this time around they collaborated with Swedish band Tape along with other Swedish musicians, resulting in a much broader and much more lush production but also with an even more somber and melancholy feel. The chamber pop instrumentation of horns, woodwinds, organ, cello, zither and glockenspiels along with some subtle electronic flourishes definitely provides richer textures, but we were kind of missing at first Saya and Takashi Ueno's more spare and naive side that comes closer to their Maher Shalal Hash Baz roots. But this release is definitely a grower, and one with each new listen we are loving it more and more.

MPEG stream: Baibaba Bimba
MPEG stream: One Swam Swim

This bespectacled Finnish eccentric continues his journey into the darker corners of exotica lounge-land... often coming across as an accomplished, cocktail hour Joy Division. Sort of like a soundtrack to the dark'n'swirlies you get after one too many flaming fruity hi-balls. A great wind-down album after you've boogied the night away to the strains of the Moroder cd we've also listed

RealAudio clip: Natural Cosmic Relief
RealAudio clip: Paradise Can Wait

This record was quite a surprise. None of us had any really strong feelings about Jimi Tenor, other than knowing we really didn't care for his weird brand of loungey exotic electronica. And while that sound is still evident, it is tempered by some amazing pieces written for and performed with a 60 piece Polish orchestra. Dark and brooding and surprisingly original, sort of like an extra dark Hitchcock soundtrack laced with loungey jazzy exotica. Really great. Also, the sticker on the front points out that the players on this record got their inspiration from eating the same cabbage and sausage meal every day!

More trippy dippy lounge-a-tronic from Finland. Yes, Mr. Oddball Jimi Tenor is back as we knew he'd be. In his "Utopian Dream" he draws from the past... his own. He borrows bits from both of his earlier albums "Intervision" (1997) and "Out Of Nowhere" (2000).

RealAudio clip: Natural Cosmic Relief
RealAudio clip: Grilli-Ilda (Barbeque Pleasure)
RealAudio clip: Bacon Alive

Is this a soundtrack for a porno film? Jimi Tenor and his funk lounge rhythm section Kabu Kabu are certainly laying it on hot and heavy on this new outing on nu-soul label Ubiquity. We've been entertained in the past by Tenor's eccentricies whether they be working with a drunk Polish orchestra or channeling Prince via his own Finnish techno-cabaret style musings. Not sure what people will think with this one. While the rhythm section is tight, with some full on seventies blaxsploitation "schwing", Tenor's creepy lothario persona can either make folks swoon or cringe. You decide.

MPEG stream: Hot Baby
MPEG stream: Smoking
MPEG stream: Horror Water

Polyphonic vocal blasts in the long-standing tradition of Central Sardinia. The four singers in the Italian quartet Tenores Di Bitti take you away with their dead on acapella, singing in one of the oldest musical traditions from the Mediterranean. Much like recent AQ faves Konono No.1, this is an ensemble that has been making totally unique and striking sounds for the last three decades but it hasn't been until recently that they've been getting more notice here in the states. Collaborations with Ornette Coleman and Lester Bowie (Art Ensemble of Chicago) have helped gain them attention in this part of the globe. Each song finds one of the vocalists on lead while the other three back him up with rhythmic pronunciation of syllables. Guttural and primitive in its history and delivery, these are songs that tell the story of the solitude of shepherds and their tie to nature. This new release was recently in rotation at KUSF where the phone lines would ring almost every time it was played. The kind of record that could bridge the gab between opera fans and experimental music zealots, that sounds like nothing you have heard before, cantorial vocal delivery that will puzzle and please you at the same time.

MPEG stream: Battos Turritas E Unu Caddone
MPEG stream: Satiras De Remunni

We might as well mention right up front, we only got 19 copies of this, so be prepared to leave empty handed. But if you are one of the lucky 19, you'll get the chance to fill your ears with that sweetly shimmery Skatery mumbled murky sonic gurgle. Which of course makes perfect sense since Teotihucan is the work of one half of Bay Area noisemakers the Skaters. This super limited tape, recorded "In Tijuana mexico and the desert outskirts of El Cajon California October-December 2004", is an expansive world of lo fi drones blurred into fuzzy slabs of indistinct melody, peppered with twinkling sonic sparkles and squeaking creaking feedback, buried loops of hypnotic disembodied vocals and strange instrumental smudges, all under layer after layer of buzz and rumble and hiss, then all washed out, like a chalk painting on the sidewalk after a rainstorm, a barely there swirl of soft focus color and blurry whirls of faint melody, a big beautiful colorful smear of sound. Packaged in super janky, beat up, dirty and old-price-tagged thrift store answering machine style cassettes, which leads us to a brief aside: While we totally support and celebrate DIY artists -- as seen/heard on the plethora of homespun cassettes and cd-rs we have in stock and that we seek out from all over the world -- we also heartily encourage said artists putting the same effort they put into music making into the presentation, the art and the packaging. Sure photocopied covers, recycled vintage record sleeves, handwritten liner notes are all parts of the aesthetic, but could you at least clean the old price tags and label adhesive off of your taped-over thrift store tapes and their cases before releasing them to your audience? C'mon, a little lighter fluid goes a long way towards makin' something look like it wasn't just dredged up from the bottom of a dumpster. Your art and your audience deserve it.

MPEG stream: Akh Issudar
MPEG stream: Soubhanallah

This ain't that new of a release - it came out in 2011 - but we hadn't yet reviewed it, and when we got some copies back in the other day, wondered, why the heck not? Haven't been able to stop listening to it lately, it's so dang electrifying and infectious. What we have here is a killer collection some of the best tracks recorded by one Takeshi Terauchi, who in the mid-'60s was known as Japan's "King Of The Electric Guitar". In fact, he may still be. We all know what instrumental surf music guitar sounds like, give it a Japanese twist and you have "Eleki" (what they called electric guitar music). The "Tsugaru" of the subtitle refers to traditional Japanese folk songs, which were also adapted to the '60s rock n' roll invasion. Badass guitarist Terauchi was a pioneer of the Eleki craze, building his own gear, playing to crowds of screaming young girls with his bands The Blue Jeans and The Bunnys. So just imagine a Japanese version of Link Wray and/or Dick Dale, all exciting, exotic surf twang and groovy fuzz. There's some achingly romantic, folk based melodic moments, and we like that, but the best parts are when Terauchi is ripping it up on his fretboard to surfy, psychedelic excess! FYI, they fit 25 tracks on the cd, and 14 on the vinyl.

MPEG stream: Rising Guitar
MPEG stream: Summer Boogaloo
MPEG stream: Tsugaru Eleki Bushi

Got some "early heavy" freakdom for here for ya, Shadoks digging up and reissuing this 1970 album by a bluesy acid rock power trio from Denmark. If you're familiar with some other Danish heavy psych bands like Moses and Blues Addicts, these guys are in that grungy ballpark, all appearing on the same label originally. There's some stormin' tracks here all right, with plenty of Iommi-ish guitar moments, topped by some quite unhinged, strangled-sounding vocals in English. Not sure if we'd call this proto-metal or not, the fuzzy guitars are loud and wild enough, with some urgent riffing, but really it's more like a mix of raw garage punk with some more mellowed out hippie stuff too, definitely very much of its time and ultimately quite charming in a ramshackle way. This reissue's cd booklet includes cool old photos and show fliers, plus new liner notes by bassist/vocalist Joachim Ussing wherein he recalls the three days of extremely stoned recording sessions that produced this album, as well as the story of how in 1968 the band made it to the finals of a national pop group contest, in which in response to the "nice pop covers" played by their competitors, they instead unleashed a 15 minute psychedelic improv freakout on live radio. No, they didn't win...

MPEG stream: Between The Shields
MPEG stream: Ricochet

Hands down the best mix collection we've heard in ages. Something about those Norwegians, damn do they know their way around space disco. We've already loved what we've heard by folks like Lindstrom and Prins Thomas, but Todd Terje's ability to create seamless mixes and imaginative edits and remixes has made him one of our favorites from that fertile scene. Remaster Of The Universe finally gives a nice big document to the amazing work Terje has been doing over the last few years. The first disc is his continuous mix of tracks by folks like Chaz Jankel, Gichy Dan, M, Jose Gonzales, etc. while the second disc is a collection of individual remixes and versions he's created for some of the same folks on the first disc as well as Antena, Lindstrom, Studio, Shit Robot, and more. Terje really is a master at creating mixes that roll with such a shimmering vibration. He's able to respect the original tracks he uses yet totally infuse them with a new energy and a signature sound that is unmistakably his own. We like how that as seamless and smooth as he can be he's also not afraid to get really weird and left-of-center in his approach and song selection. Crossing eras and genres like the best kind of DJ's can, Terje has got us all moving and gliding to these dancefloor gems.

MPEG stream: On A Day Like This (Terje edit)
MPEG stream: Camino Del Sol (Todd Terje Remix)
MPEG stream: Glad To Know You (Todd Terje edit)
MPEG stream: Killing For Love (Todd Terje Brokeback Mix)

Kraut and dub flecked heavy rocking drone-groove psych rock from this Julian-Cope-approved Ohio combo. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!

Kraut and dub flecked heavy rocking drone-groove psych rock from this Ohio combo.

When we reviewed Halo's seminal Guattari (From the West Flows Grey Ash and Pestilence) album, we described them as "one of the heaviest, creepiest, most intense bands we have heard", we went on to compare them to Godflesh and Neurosis and Earth and Whitehouse and Cop Shoot Cop and Gore and Noisegate, holy shit, just writing that has us wanting to hear Halo again... Anyway, it's been at least 5 years since we've heard a peep out of Halo, but even back in the day, one of the Halo guys had a side project called Terminal Sound System, which at the time ditched the crushing industrial metallic pummel of Halo in favor of creepy dark ambience and skittery electronica. Well since then, it seems that Terminal Sound System has developed into a full time concern, and in the process TSS's sound has soaked up all kinds of electronic music along the way, from jungle to dubstep, while remaining creepy and heavy and super intense, and we are digging it big time. The record begins with some creepy pulsing ambience, the drums an almost jazzy skitter, until 'the drop', where the background sounds grow jagged and harsh, the drums exploding in a squall of rhythmic freakout, before it immediately simmers right back down. It almost sounds like a junglized Necks, long stretches of smokey dark shimmer, peppered with blown out blasts of grinding metallic dubstep rhythms and thick buzzing drones. But then the song shifts gears, and the drums pull way back, returning to their muted skitter, while over the top, Young Gods like guitar loops add a sort of carnivalesque prog element to the proceedings, growing ever more dramatic and tense, exploding in an incredible climax of massive rumbling bass, like some sort of doom dubstep. Fuck, I know we say this all the time, but that track alone is worth the price of admission. But moving forward, the title track, is a brooding chunk of old school tech-step jungle, with plenty of blackened droney ambience hovering beneath the still sort of jazzy programmed drum and bass stutter. "Year Of The Pig" is another fractured take on dubstep, the drums, chopped and hiccuppy, heavy with FX, careening from space-y shuffle to dense staccato pound, while all around the beat swirls minor key piano stabs, swooshing spaced out effects, shards of metallic buzz, the whole track freezing occasionally and locking into a super jagged stop start stutter. Again, somehow the sound is a bit jazzy, but so heavy and dark and aggressive... The rest of the record is all over the place, from subtly industrial post rock, complete with chiming guitars hook filled melodies, and strange effected vocals, sounding almost like a Jesu / Nadja sort of thing, to dark shimmery black ambience laced with super low bass buzz, and haunting minor key swells, to Eastern Muslimgauze style electronic drifts, to what can only be described as a sort of fractured dubstepped cabaret jazz, to fuzzy gauzy, reverb drenched Portishead-ish downtempo shimmer, to epic, ethereal blissed out post rock electronic drone, like Jesu meets Godspeed meets Asbestoscape, which is how the record finishes up. Seriously fucking awesome. Has us wanting to hear more Terminal Sound System, and has us hankering to go back and revisit Halo as well...

MPEG stream: In Your Planet
MPEG stream: Constructing Towers
MPEG stream: Year Of The Pig

Indie cult flick fans, here's something to celebrate! It's the dvd release of Jon Moritsugu's wild'n'weird underground classic Terminal USA! Yep, his 1993 twisted, gritty ode to a most unconventional Asian American family has finally followed the slow but steady dvd birthings of his more recent films Scum Rock, Fame Whore, and Mod Fuck Explosion. What's possibly most bizarre about the film itself is that its creation was actually commissioned by PBS (yes, that meant a serious production budget for the usually shoestring Moritsugu!), was broadcast across the land in 1994-1995, and was screened at film fests around the globe. That and the film itself might not seem all that strange by today's standards, but need we say, it was a whole different world in the early '90s. This probably caused convulsions and conniptions in many unexpecting viewers. Totally raw, gnarly, and punk-as-fuck on PBS! Yow, keep your eyes peeled for appearances by Neil Hamburger and a bleach blonde haired Moritsugu! This dvd features the original cut as well as Moritsugu's director's cut which includes 14 additional minutes.

Another treasure trove of classic archival New Zealand underground jams from one of our favorites from back in the day, a band that, for NZ music nerds who might not have already known, also featured past and future members of Bailter Space, Pin Group, the Victor Dimisich Band, Scorched Earth Policy and others. And while the Terminals were always dark and buzzy, dense and driving, they also always had a bit of cabaret to them, in fact in our review of their Little Things record from 1995 (reissued on Last Visible Dog), we make comparisons to Antony & The Johnstons, Interpol, Nick Cave, the Swans. It definitely has that sort of vibe, for all the murky churn and wild psychedelic squalls, the songs themselves are sprawling and dramatic, slipping easily from moody pop bombast to noise drenched kraut-psych hypnorock, and dotted throughout this collection are some serious gems, in fact opener "The Deadly Tango" has a hook/chorus that KILLS, and we've had stuck in our heads since this first showed up. That track (along with some of the others) also has a bit of eighties LA vibe, a little Scream club gothic twang to it, sonically referencing bands like Kommunity FK or the Abecedarians. This collection gathers up rarities from the group's entire career, and vary both in fidelity, and in sonic scope, with some sounding like ultra rough boommbox recordings, others like well crafted studio concoctions, but they're all great, with even the muddies, murkiest jams somehow sounding epically brooding, check out "Witchdoctors" which sculpts wild streaks of chaotic noise into epic swells, and winds them around a minimal krautrock style pulse and hazy, psychedelic swaths of synth drone, or the stripped down swampy dirge of "Black Creek", laced with some strange electronic squelches, but which otherwise is some sort of dark troubadour moodiness, or "Medusa", which is all crumbling distortion, sounding a bit like the Terminals jamming with the Dead C, which the vocals soaring, gypsy folk like fiddle, and some seriously frenzied guitar freakout. So much fantastic stuff here. Dig into this compilation, and before long you'll find yourself needing to track down all their albums proper too. Which you should! You won't be sorry. Includes a download too!

MPEG stream: The Deadly Tango
MPEG stream: Do The Void
MPEG stream: Psycho Lives

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

SORRY.

We've always loved the Terminals, one of the originators of the NZ sound that once was the specialty around aQuarius. Their early nineties albums were so fantastic, moody and dramatic, epic and dark, lo-fi, but sprawling and expansive. It's been a while since we revisited these guys, and this, their 3rd album, from 1995 just got reissued so we've been immersing ourselves once again, and holy shit does this stuff still sound fantastic. Wild buzzing distorted guitars, thick synths, dense driving drumming, but it's the vocals that seal the deal. We had sort of forgotten how over the top and dramatic they were. Like a punk rock, lo fi, rougher rawer Antony maybe? It's a wonder, without it, the music is swirling and chaotic, a sort of dark gothic pop, intense and emotional, slipping from woozy laid back drift to frenetic almost psychedelic freakout, but then mix in those vocals, and we're talking some nineties noise rock cabaret, some Antony, a little Michael Gira, a bit of Nick Cave, some hints of Paul Banks from Interpol, heck, listening to this again, we realize a whole bunch of new bands who have been mining the goth pop and new wave past owe a LOT to these guys, even if they don't realize it. Driving, moody, intense, infusing their more straightforward dour pop with the noise rock of their NZ brethren, creating a charged hybrid that smolders intensely, even at it's most minimal and mysterious, but which becomes evident when the band lets loose and explodes into freaked out blasts of grinding guitar and splattery drum chaos, only to reel it right back in and slip back into some brooding jangle or lurching clanging doom pop dirge. Includes two bonus tracks and liner notes from aQ customer and pal Jon Dale!

MPEG stream: Coasts Of The Shrunken
MPEG stream: Mekong Delta Blues
MPEG stream: Medication

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

SORRY.

We didn't know anything about this band, until we heard Handmade Birds was gonna put out a tape, and then sorta randomly the band showed up at aQ with tapes, and having known nothing about the band, we probably would have ordered a bunch anyway, since A. They're on Handmade Birds. And B. They're called Terminator 2, which is either the most genius name for a band, or the dumbest. Maybe both! And finally C. The packaging is CRAZY, a cool color tape in a full color J-card featuring what looks like a Bosch painting, the whole thing wrapped in a black oversized slipcover, with both the name of the band and the label lazer cut, the slipcover oversized so that on one side a little scroll could be inserted, the tiny scroll featuring lyrics and liner notes. Wow. Thankfully, the music inside, more than lived up to the promise of A,B and C! A duo we think, noise guys from what we could figure out, from Denton Texas, and they kick up a pretty sick skree, all low slung bass buzz, jagged blown out guitars, swirls and squalls of analog synth, huge bashing drum damage, the drums mic'ed super hot, so they peg the meters with every hit, the sound slipping from murky, detuned churn, to grinding metallic doom drenched bombast, to super stripped down post rock lope, beyond the main instrumentation of bass and drums (and maybe guitar), there's a lot of other noise going on, even the most minimal stretches, are barraged on all sides by blasts of buzz, and weird sci-fi squiggles of FX, all sorts of textures and treatments, but at it's core, the sound here is pure minimal slo-mo black-doom crush, and when the vocals do come in, it's a throat shredding yowl, giving the sound a vibe somewhere between epic Neurosis-y doom, super lo-fi sludge metal creep, and blown out ultra distorted noise rock. We're definitely hearing Harvey Milk, Thrones, Prizehog, recent aQ faves [[[Altar-Thron]]], and other like minded purveyors of bellowing, lurching, doomy noise rock sludge. Cool! As mentioned above, super insane packaging AND OF COURSE EXTREMELY LIMITED!!!

MPEG stream: Revival
MPEG stream: Hollow Earth
MPEG stream: Melodic & Serpentine

The metal label Stormspell's motto is "Old farts stuck In the '80s and proud of it". They're the folks who have been bringing us a lot of cool cd reissues of obscure, cult metal bands from the '80s (such as Max Planck, Xinr and Detest), some of 'em as part of Stormspell's ongoing "Red White and Heavy Arcane Collector Series For The Initiated" featuring long-lost demos from bands that are SO cult and obscure they never even got signed to make a proper album. Well, the old farts at Stormspell have now found some young bands also stuck in the '80s, and have begun a new series of releases, putting these bands' demos out on cd but this time not waiting 30 years to do it. Fantastically dubbed the "Jewels Of Gwahlur" series (the Jewels Of Gwahlur being the macguffin of a Conan story of the same name), five volumes have now been released, and we're reviewing 'em all this list. It's a bit like something else Stormspell did some years ago, the "Thrash Clash" series of splits by underground thrash acts. But these bands are even more "old school" in sound. Each entry in the series comes in nice trifold digi-wallet packaging, the covers pretty much identical except for the band logos, with a standardized "bejewelled ancient leather tome" look, a la the 3rd Edition D&D rulebooks if you're familiar with those; doubtless some of these bands are! However, despite the uniform design, each entry in the series gets its own unique artwork on the inside, as well as credits, liner notes, etc. Most of these discs are ep-length, around 4-6 tracks, but it should be noted that they're quite cheaply priced. So even though we're reviewing each one individually you might as well buy 'em all and let your cd player sort 'em out! As for us, we're looking forward to hearing more from all these bands (pretty sure we will!), and are curious as to what further Jewels Of Gwahlur will be uncovered by Stormspell in the future. TERMINUS hail from Northern Ireland, and like Graven Rite, another band in the Jewels Of Gwahlur series, also play what's described in the liner notes as "arcane heavy metal". Chugging forth speedily but with what seems like a sense of profound sadness, again this is quite epic. In fact, this four-song demo appears to be some sort of science fiction concept ep, with each song referencing a story from the first book in Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. That's where the band's name comes from too. The sweeping, epic feel of the music, along with the vocals, very much reminds us of doomy British metallers Solstice, big aQ faves. And Manilla Road, too, yep; the words "crystal logic" are even worked into the lyrics on the first track here. So, very cool, and with Graven Rites, one of the most "arcane" sounding entries in the Jewels Of Gwahlur series.

MPEG stream: The Psychohistorians

Finally! After we rightfully raved about their gleaming jewel of a demo (Jewel Of Gwahlur that is!) about 40 or so lists ago, Northern Ireland's epic purveyors of rousing sci-fi themed true metal have jettisoned forth from distant dimensions to unveil their debut full length. And man alive, if it wasn't worth the wait! Brought to us once more via Stormspell Records (who are fast becoming one of our favorite sources for arcane heavy metal both old and new), The Reaper's Spiral is an altogether breathtaking display of hard hitting melodicism, galloping dual guitar harmonies, and glorious heavy metal craftsmanship. Theirs is a style of epic heavy metal both regal and charged, somber yet undeniably high energy - otherworldly, timeless and arcane, yet as fist pumping, head banging and face melting as any new metal band you're gonna find in this galaxy or the next, drawing to mind such past luminaries as Solstice (or maybe more aptly the short lived Solstice offshoot Isen Tor), Grand Magus and Traveller-era Slough Feg, along with a classically NWOBHM-ish knack for hooks a la Satan and Iron Maiden. Four of the demo's tracks are redone here, and they continue to mine Asimov's Foundation series for inspiration, as well as tackling other, epic subjects. If recent releases by Visigoth, Stone Dagger and Dawnbringer have left you awaiting the next battle call summoning you to the nearest air guitar, then look no further! Terminus are here for you. Some of us here (Harry, Allan) can't stop listening to it... Epickallly recommended!

MPEG stream: The Reaper's Spiral
MPEG stream: The Mayors
MPEG stream: Fortress Titan

jeremiah

Sophomore album from these Swedish stoner rock/doom metal practicioners. As with their debut, this is heavy, groovy, psychedelic stuff that owes the usual big debt to the Masters Black Sabbath. Vocalist Lord Christus (ex-Count Raven and St. Vitus!) has the Ozzy-vox down cold, and his band sweats out a suitable bottom-heavy riff-oriented accompaniment to his wailings. Good stuff! For

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

SORRY. As the vocalist says like two seconds into the first song, in his best Ozzy-ish drawl, and amid a swirl of distorted guitar, "Whooaaa! Let's go!" What you get here is some quality stoner metal from Sweden, featuring some guitarist guy from death metallers Unleashed (whatever) and vocalist Lord Chritus (formerly of both Count Raven and Saint Vitus)...Fans of the similarly Sabbath-y band sHeavy and other bands on the groovier side of the stoner rock spectrum (Kyuss, Orange Goblin, Roachpowder, Monster Magnet), grab this.

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

SORRY. DJs! Here's an instrumental version on wax of the fab Shing02 album! 13 tracks of Japanese/American hiphop musick to cut up.

Terranova's trip-hop grooviness (with guest appearances from Tricky and Rasco) is definitely for fans of Kruder & Dorfmeister.

MPEG stream: Car Fumes
MPEG stream: The Sailor

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

SORRY. Hip hop remix. Rhythm = "One Minute Man" (Missy Elliott).

Been a while since we've heard from Terror Danjah, whose past releases have been HUGE faves around here. As the world of dubstep moves further and further toward the dreamy and pastoral, the minimal and blissed out, and grime seems to have disappeared completely, we sometimes find ourselves missing the massive rib cage rattling basslines, the pounding big beat pummel, the crazy grimy flows, and the grim sinister dark edges sonics that seemed to define that sound in the early days. Thankfully, in Terror Danjah's warped soundworld, very little has changed, the beats still stutter and pound, MC's still toast wildly over rambunctious beats, and most importantly, things are dark, and scary, ominous and freaky. After a killer near symphonic cinematic intro, rife with killer chaotic programmed beats, in comes "Mirror's Edge", which starts out like some twisted seventies horror flick, all ominous pianos, wistful vocals, everything wreathed in static and record crackle, until BLAM, the beat drops, the bass too, thick and squelchy, that churning dubstep groove fused to the weird dark grimnity of that soundtracky opening, the whole thing fractured, funky, fucked up and seriously dark. The track laced with a sinister laugh that pops up on most every track here. And speaking of recurring sounds, the "Dark Crawler" track pops up constantly, as a sort of interlude, but featuring some seriously bad ass toasting from all sorts of killer MC's, hell if this record was just multiple version of this one song we'd be perfectly happy, but those "Dark Crawler"'s, are bookended by some seriously dizzying dubstep workouts, warped bass heavy electro jams, and psychedelic breakbeat driven groovers, the bass throughout super thick and ultra distorted, the beats dense and complex, that creepy laugh, it's almost as if this is some sort of alternate universe soundtrack, to the sort of fucked up horror movie / dubstep musical that we wish existed, so goddamn good. And for some of us, this might be THEE electronic record of the year!

MPEG stream: Dark Crawler (Intro)
MPEG stream: Mirror's Edge (Feat. Lex NV)
MPEG stream: Dark Gremlinz (Feat. D.O.K.)
MPEG stream: Air Max 90 (Feat. Champion)

Once again, Planet Mu steps up to the plate, to single handedly provide us with our grime/dubstep fix, this time in the form of Power Grid, a brand new ep of avant abstract griminess from mysterious producer Terror Danjah, who mixes classic rave sounds and playful melodies, with blown out buzzy bass warble, warped stuttery beats, clipped vocal snippets, spaced out FX, fuzzy squelchy synths, into something simultaneously cosmic, groovy, melodic, yet rough and gruff and a little bit aggressive. "Space Traveller" is all synth and minimal, sounding a bit like Ital Tek or Zomby, but then "Menace" swoops in, sounding, well, menacing, with a woozy atmosphere, swirling melodies, dramatic strings and orchestral stabs, all sent skittering, maybe one of our favorite electronic jams in recent memory. "Twisted" is another killer, that drops big beats, over buzzing FX drenched warped synth swirl, some twisted (yup) toasted vox, a clinical two step beat, all wound up into some seriously tense dancefloor damage. "Horror Story" is haunting and harrowing and skeletal, the beats cloaked in grit and buzz, the track laced with weird haunted house ambience, the rhythm sliced and diced, sped up vox, all creepy and crawly, but still fuzzy and funky. This stuff is so goddamn good. Can't imagine it'll be too long before Terror Danjah finally gets the same sort of hype as folks like Zomby and Benga and Skream and the like, especially considering the fact that this stuff is SO much cooler and weirder...

MPEG stream: Space Traveller
MPEG stream: Menace
MPEG stream: Horror Story

Oh man do we love Terror Danjah. We may get more and more dubstep over here, but grime seems harder and harder to come by, not sure why, but thankfully Planet Mu is still on the case, and finally offers up this the latest brand new full length from Terror Danjah, a killer disc equal parts synthy dubstep skitter, and sinister, blackened dubbed out grime, which KILLS. Like the Power Grid ep we reviewed a while back, TD whips up super cinematic landscapes of big stuttery beats, squelchy synths, tangled melodies, orchestral stabs, looped samples, choral-like backdrops, that are situated firmly in dubstep territory, that is until an MC grabs the mic, and then everything shifts and stuff gets gloriously grimy, FAST. And Undeniable shifts frequently back and forth, from brooding ominous low end darkness, to buzzy synth swirl and back again. The record opens with the very grimey "Grand Opening", with its stripped down beats, choir like textures, synthy strings, booming bass, and fuzzed out low end warble, all beneath Dream McLean's raw rough flow, winding and slithering through the fields of buzz and thrum and skitter. "Acid" is a blast of house-y Daft Punky dubbed out synthy stutter, which leads directly into "This Year (Pro Plus)", another grime jam, fuzzy and washed out, with some seriously dueling MC's both male and female, stuttery and twisted and abstract. "Minimal Dub" is just that, a super minimal slab of abstract dubstep, peppered with vocal snippets and bits of synth squelch, all laced over a fragile sounding crystalline beat, which leads directly into the pounding almost dubhouse-y "Breaking Bard", with its relentless beat and swirl of buzz and rumble and thrum, not to mention fractured vox and ravey synths. And on it goes, long stretches get all sci-fi and synthy, sounding like the dubstep version of the current craze of Carpenter/Goblin worship, but heavy on the bass buzz and stuttery beat, while others get super stripped down and minimal, skeletal and spidery, while still others get all soulful and trip hoppy. A killer collection of dubstep /grime, that is absolutely essential listening for anyone who has been digging the recent spate of dubstep comps or any of the recent jams from Zomby, Clubroot, Vex'd, Ikonika, Guido, Mount Kimbie, etc. And be sure to stick around until the end for a secret track, a bad ass blast of old school dubstep ragga style jungle, Terror Danjah style. Makes us wish he'd do a whole record of that stuff for sure!

MPEG stream: Grand Opening
MPEG stream: Acid
MPEG stream: Sonar (Selassi Mix)
MPEG stream: Creepy Crawler (Jungle Mix)

Evil Avenger has to be one of the weirdest and demented and most original sonic alchemists in black metal. Besides being the mastermind behind 'wooden metal' horde Varghkogarghasmal, and playing in Front Beast, Necroslaughter, Szarlem, Witchslaughter, Angel Of Damnation, Black Priest of Satan, and about a million others, he also is the psychotic genius behind one man blackened grind metal 'combo' Terrorazor, which just might be the weirdest of the bunch. Ultra chaotic, murky, muddy, noise drenched blackened free metal. Or something like that. This stuff is really far out, and difficult to describe. Disintegrating riffs, splattery free jazz rhythms that only occasionally coalesce into beats, blast and otherwise, guitars swirl and grind and buzz beneath grunted inhuman vox, imagine a black metal Faxed Head, or even a more avant, free jazz Abruptum, or some sick combination of both! As if Terrorazor wasn't enough madness, the flipside comes from electronic metal weirdos H418ov21.C, named for a record by Finnish metal gods Beherit, but don't be expecting anything like Beherit, or really like anything you've ever heard. The music of H418ov21.C is a totally bizarre blown out tangle of impossibly distorted drum machine and low slung, throbbing free-form downer doom bass. Like Joy Division basslines were stripped from their original songs, and layered over a cacophony of ancient drum machines gone totally haywire and run through a bank of distortion pedals with dying batteries. So fucking bizarre and so amazing. LIMITED TO ONLY 150 COPIES. Housed in a plain gold sleeve with a printed transparent front cover. Cool.

A few weeks ago we got a killer batch of 'metal' tapes from Hospital Productions, two of which we reviewed, the 2nd album from Vegas Martyrs, and the debut from death-obsessed doom flecked black metal weirdos Curved Blade, both of which sold out and went out of print crazy quick. In the same batch we also got two other releases, twisted lo-fi outsider sci-fi death metal weirdness from a band called Time Crypt, and super blown out noise metal damage from Terrorism. The bummer is that we intended to check these out, and then order more to review, but before we knew it, both of these were sold out and out of print as well. But we do still have THREE copies of each, they're both bizarre and baffling and perfect for folks into fucked up confusional metal, so at least a few folks will get to check them out... Terrorism traffic in some seriously terrifying sounds, totally blasted out, in-the-red, screechy, caustic, harsh and hellish noise drenched black metal, think Bone Awl or Akitsa, Ancestors, Malveillance, that sort of raw primitive pound, but then bury it beneath squalls of harsh high end skree, wild chaotic drum splatter, malfunctioning electronics, moaning low end bellows, a crashing, careening, noise metal juggernaut, the sound slipping from total abstract free noise howl, to murky ploddy drift, to brittle blown out black metal blast, to industrial power electronics and back again. Seriously brutal, but pretty dang great. Too bad we only have 3 copies... Twisted, shrill, harsh, hateful,

[ aquarius records catalogue — T ]