[ aquarius records catalogue

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Showing results 951 through 1000 of 1910.

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

SORRY. Finland's Jussi Saivo (who is in Ovalki with Jussi from Circle) builds atmospheric milky drones into slow rhythmic circles. Released by Stephen O'Malley, graphic designer of the metal underground and publisher of the awesome Descent magazine, this cd-R is limited to 100 copies and comes packaged with a five inch square of rusted metal.

It's been several years since we last heard from Finland's mysterious drone ensemble Tiermes, and even then it was an ultra limited (100 copies) cd-r packaged with a sheet of rusted metal. So odds are a lot of folks have yet to discover the mystickal black drone beauty of Tiermes. So a last here we have their only actual in-print cd release and it's nothing short of astounding. Again lovingly hand packaged, this time the cd is housed in a thick cardstock sleeve, wrapped in an unbelievably gorgeous two sided poster (so ultra detailed and intense, very reminiscent of Nick Blinko's artwork for Rudimentary Peni), the whole thing wrapped in thick black paper and tied up with twine. A dark and mysterious package that perfectly reflects the music within. Three lengthy tracks, the first, a glistening shimmer of minimal drone, like delicate layers made up of the overtones of struck bells or Tibetan bowls, a slowly radiating reverberation, that drifts and fades, like ripples in a black pond. The second track hints at Tiermes mainman Jussi Saivo's Finnish rock pedigree (an early member of Circle and a member of Ovalki with the -other- Jussi from Circle) with ten minutes of ultra distorted electric bass, and a strange minimal squelchy rhythm, very Circular and hypnotic, the same figure repeated over and over. a gorgeous ultra simple meditation in dirge drone. Might hit the spot for adventurous SUNNO))) / Earth / Boris / Corrupted fans. The final track is a massive 40 minute track, or shimmering crystalline drone, very similar in makeup to the first track, but stretched even further out, with even more overtones and distant drones added to the mix as well as some strange minimal percussion. A truly otherworldly ambience, darkly dreamy and absolutely lovely. As beautiful and breathtaking as anything by Chalk, Coleclough, Basinski, Mirror, Monos, Ora or any of our other favorite dronologists.

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There's such wonderful chemistry between Mr. Jann Tiersen (composer of numerous soundtrack works for films such as Amelie and Good Bye Lenin) and Ms Shannon Wright (singer/songwriter of four fine dark, druggy folk rock albums). Whoever thought of this inspired pairing deserves a hearty toast! Tiersen's presence seems to offer a grander scale to Wright's usually more intimate works which in the past have drawn plenty of comparisons to a PJ Harvey fronted Dirty Three. With its gorgeous arrangements composed mainly of piano, strings, electric guitar, and vocals, this collaboration actually serves as quite a smooth and fitting progression from Wright's last solo album, Over The Sun (which was a particular fave around here). Fans of hers will surely not be disappointed. With each track the pair delve deeper and deeper into the shadowy depths of lost hopes and despair -- only breaking briefly from this downward spiral at the sixth song "While You Sleep". It's like a sudden surfacing, a desperate gasp for breath in the midst of a drowning, a shattering of the relative calm. Check out the howling violin and empassioned vocal performance, thrashing and clawing to escape the misery. Whoa, that in itself was a sudden geyser of metaphors, but the music definitely stirs up such imagery.

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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. To be blunt, Asmus Tietchens is one of the many prolific experimentalists whose long career (begun in the '70s) hasn't really amounted to much of any great merit. Fortunately, there's at least one disc like "A-Menge" which makes up for all of those other inconsequential albums full of cheap beatboxes and out of key analogue knob twiddling. After so many failed attempts at mimicking the aural plasticity of composers like Vladimir Ussachevsky or Morton Subotnik, Tietchens finally got it right. On the three lengthy pieces, Tietchens slowly phases together layers of processed sine-waves and crystalline bleeps of granular synthesis. The trebly hypnosis spins in syncronicity with the inorganic whir of a mainframe computer's cooling fan or perhaps with the motion of tiny nanotechnic machines. The success of his debut for the Mille Plateaux sub-label is in the subtlety and delicacy in each of the gradual shifts of sound, that relates this work much closer to Bernhard Gunter than the clinical rigidity of the Raster kids. [/cat/experimental178.html]

This is the first in a massive 18 CD reissue campaign from Die Stadt of the German electronic music composer Asmus Tietchens. "Adventures in Sound" documents some of the earliest recordings from Tietchens dating from 1965-1969. To the best of my knowledge, these had only been released in tiny private editions back in the day; but Tietchens may have transformed some of these on his seminal album "Formen Letzter Hausmusik" released by United Dairies in 1984. Working with two close friends Otto Becker (who to this day still helps with Tietchens' productions) and Hans Deiter Wohlmann, Tietchens offers a messy explosion of freeform experimentation into anti-structuralist streams of sound, playing both with the concepts of free jazz through loose psychedelic improvisations with guitar, flute, bass, piano, trumpet, drums, toy pianos, rubber bands, etc. and through primitive tape machine tricks (i.e. backwards masking, varispeed manipulation, rudimentary splicing, etc.). While not as well developed as Nurse With Wound or H.N.A.S., "Adventures In Sound" sounds not dissimilar to those projects' improv aesthetics, predating them by a good decade. Originally released in 1980, "Nachtstucke" was the first major album for Tietchens despite his experimentations with music dating back to 1965. It was his one and only album for Egg Records, the shortlived division of Barclay in France specializing in progressive music (i.e. Christian Vander, Conrad Schnitzler, Popul Vuh, Vangelis, Roedelius, Heldon, etc.). This was the beginning of his 'pop' phase which lasted 4 albums, before announcing a dramatic shift towards electro-acoustic experimentation. With "Nachtstucke," he used rudimentary pop structures of simple one-finger keyboard melodies and arpeggiated electronic repetitions to build his obtuse electronic compositions, that fall somewhere between ice-rink music, Vangelis, and the Dr. Who theme. MPEG Download: "Cripple Story (from Adventures In Sound)" [/audio/tietchenscripplestory.mp3] MPEG Stream: "Cripple Story (from Adventures In Sound)" [/audio/tietchenscripplestory.m3u]

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Number 11 in Die Stadt's ongoing reissue campaign of the Asmus Tietchens back catalogue. Originally released in 1988 on Dom America, Aus Freude Am Elend is Tietchens response to the Plunderphonics campaigns of Negativland and John Oswald, sans the culture jamming context. It's all voice stolen from the bargain bins of throw-away pop tunes and re-engineered through looping devices, ring modulators, and pitch shifters into what has long been claimed as one of his better releases.

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Die Stadt marches on with the second in the series of CD reissues documenting the unique career of German electronic musician Asmus Tietchens. "Biotop" was originally released in 1981 on Sky Music, marking the second album in Tietchens' self-professed 'pop intermezzo,' before unleashing a torrent of emphatically abstract electronic recordings. Tietchens' definition of pop music was always a bit suspect, as his Moog synthesizer melodies while playful and cheeky are often stiff and lacking in basslines. That said, "Biotop" is a charmingly naive record that is far more suited to the ironic listening experiences within Jean-Jacques Perrey, Dick Hyman, and even some of Atom Heart's clever recapitulations of dorky electronics. Comes with two bonus tracks of likeminded material not found on the original vinyl version.

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Over the next year, German electronic / new music composer Asmus Tietchens will be re-issuing many of the vinyl only albums that had been published during the last couple of decades. With a catalogue as massive as Tietchens' (rivalling both Muslimgauze and Merzbow in sheer volume of work), there are bound to be some duds. Fortunately, this 2CD reissue of two limited edition LPs originally released on Korm Plastics 'Ambient Series' is NOT one of those. While the press release describes "Eisgang / Dammerattacke" as "not your everyday ambient music," these two albums fall within the 'classic' definition of ambient as proposed by Brian Eno. Both of these albums use similar tonal palettes with vaguely chilly, but far from ominous electronic washes soaked in blurring reverb, and are slightly more dramatic than Eno's "On Land" or like those darkened Gas albums devoid of their skeletal rhythms.

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Up until the release of Formen Letzter Hausmusik in 1984, Asmus Tietchens had released several curious electro-pop albums built upon rudimentary keyboard melodies and jaunty drum machine rhythms. However, this facet of Mr. Tietchens represents a very minor aspect of his entire catalogue; and in fact, many qualified Formen Letzter Hausmusik as the first 'real' Asmus Tietchens record, as some of the material for this album dates back to the late '60s when he first began to experiment with reel-to-reel tape and primitive electronics. When these recordings caught the ear of Steven Stapleton (of Nurse With Wound), he gushed, "I nearly fainted, never before have I heard music which touched my heart, indeed, I would go so far as to say it's possibly the most exciting sound I've heard for at least 10 years!" Woah! Now, that's high praise, and Formen Letzter Hausmusik does not disappoint. Tietchens presents sad accordion droning melodies next to synthetic, post-Dockstoder squiggle and whirling tape machine splutter, occasionally punctuated by Z'ev-ish metallic clanging and feedback squeals. Certainly fits in more with esoteric, post-industrial collage of Stapleton's United Dairies label (which actually released this back in the day) than the more clinical electro-acoustic presentations that Tietchens has produced over the past two decades.

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Stalwart German electronic composer Asmus Tietchens presents the third in the 'teilmengen' series. It appears that this series features recordings of generative sound from a computer program called "Perpetuum Mobile", but then again, the broken English from the press-release has the tone of a poor internet translation. Regardless, this album sounds like the infinite variations which can be generated from a granular synthesis patch on Max / MSP.

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In what looks to be the beginning of an onslaught of Asmus Tietchens' archival recordings from Die Stadt (who will be releasing 18 of Tietchens early LPs on CD), comes "Leuchtidioten", featuring two tracks that were recorded during the 'Teilmengen' sessions which resulted in the "a-Menge," "b-Menge," and "g-Menge" albums on Mille Plateaux. Comparatively more rhythmic than those compositions of post-'60s computer-based abstraction, the two tracks on this 10" are filled with tense percolations, with one track sounding like a paranoid acid house number run horribly amok, generatively shifting frequencies, adding / subtracting chunks of sound, and devoid of bass drum kicks, mind you. The other track appears as a synthetic reworking of tribal percussion, with tightly controlled flanges and ring modulation. Limited to 500 copies.

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Marches Funebres is volume 13 in the ongoing series of Asmus Tietchens reissues from Die Stadt (here, in conjunction with Auf Abwegen). Tietchens, of course, is the experimental electronic krautrock musician who began his lengthy career back in the late '60s and stylistically morphed his compositions from obliterated tape music to coy electronic pop to sterile acousmatic seriousness as well as countless collaborative projects with Moebius, Conny Plank, Thomas Koner, Merzbow, Richard Chartier, Vidna Obmana, Arcane Device, and his long standing partner Okko Bekker. Originally released on the now defunct Swedish label Multimood on vinyl in 1989 (and later on disc in 1994), Marches Funebres is something of a retrogarde piece of electronics for Tietchens looking back to the cosmic synthesis of his contemporaries in the late '70s. "Linea 5" is a slow-motion 20 minute piece of synthesized tension churning with step sequenced notes whose minor key repetitions ripple further in dynamically evolving delay patterns and aggregated ambience. Composed in '89, Tietchens offered an alternate take on what John Carpenter and Goblin were creating in their electronic sequencing, stripping away the melody and leaving behind the anxiety. The next track "Grunschattiger Nachmittag" is all melody, with Tietchens embarking on an orchestral work utilizing the technological advances in sampling circa 1989, creating a hyperbolic, trashy filmscore music dripping in pathos and saccharine emotion through the simulated timpani, strings, and even fake baritone vocalist. The 1979 version of "Grunschattiger Nachmittag" which is a bonus track on this reissue is far more compelling due to the more limited set-up of a Minimoog and drum machine, resulting in a much more impressive piece of Kraut-electronica akin to the best work of Cluster and Harmonium. The irony which became so prominent in the 1989 version is lost in translation early on, and the piece is better off without it. As a result, this track is probably the best 'pop' track Tietchens did during that spell on Sky Records in the late '70s and '80s.

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In their ongoing series of Asmus Tietchens reissues, Die Stadt presents Seuchengebiete, an album which originally came out on A-Mission Records back in 1985. For this album, Tietchens used recordings of water as the sole source material in composing this album of electro-acoustic minimalism, predating the reductivist methodology espoused by current dronescapists such as Aube, Jonathan Coleclough, and Paul Bradley. Judging from the rudimentary diagram included alongside the liner notes, Tietchens positioned several hydrophones in a sink basin with a contact microphone on the drainage pipe below and recorded the fluid motion of water spiralling through the sink. As commonplace as the source material is, Tiecthens renders these metallic drips, klangs, and aquatic surges into throughly alien soundscapes thanks to his deft application of ring modulation, delay, and reverb. On "Hydrophonie 2" (actually the first track on this album), Tietchens sets up his aquatic parameters and lets them do their own thing, allowing the tactile sounds to plink and plonk within the web of electronic effects. Yet on "Hydrophonie 5" and especially on the bonus track "Hydrophone 4," Tietchens extracts choice moments from these recordings out of which he clinically orchestrates repetitive surges of watery tones. Well done!

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Asmus Tietchens albums are uniformly austere, and his collaborations with Thomas Koner are no exception. Those two pioneers of German sound-art have collaborated over the years under the banner of Kontakte Der Junglinge, whose title itself is an homage to Stockhausen, another German artist with a penchant for austerity matched only by his gravitas. Sinkende Schwimmer dates back to 1991 and marks the earliest collaboration between Tietchens and Koner, as the elder statesman processed and manipulated source material from the younger Koner. While the ghosts of a glacial ambience trace from Koner's source material (whatever they might have been), Sinkende Schwimmer is very much a Tietchens productions, described through his serialist actions for electronic mark-making and mathematical formalism collaged into an exacting piece of abstraction. Tietchens has long been an advocate of 'absolute music' implying that there are to be no external references interfering with the sounds themselves. Sinkende Schwimmer fights with this definition somewhat as the irregular pointillism, ring-modulated atonalities, and sterile grey drones deflect much of the signifiers; but the gasping shadows that haunt this album (perhaps thanks to Koner's presence) speak to a vacancy and an isolationism that hold a subtle poetry at the edges of these complex compositions. Limited quantities on this original pressing from back in the day!

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The reissue campaign of the early works by Asmus Tietchens continues, here with a 1988 recording with long-standing collaborator Okko Bekker, originally released on Dom, now sporting four bonus tracks not on the original. Intentional or otherwise, E parallels much of the library music that was being quietly generated in institutional electronic studios across the globe, jumping thematically from pre-serialist melodicism played on period-specific digital sampling keyboards to Eno-esque avant-pop electronic numbers with a few forays into thoroughly abstracted / splintered sound collages and way out saxophone improvisations. E was always an eclectic record and one that seemed out of place next to Nurse With Wound or HNAS; but in a context of Ghost Box relocating the KPM catalogue for themselves and those digging into the not-quite-new-age electronics of sci-fi exuberance and baroque horror synthesis (e.g. K. Leimer, Craig Leon, Laurie Speigel, etc.), this album will definitely bring delights in its fancifully cheeky electronic simulacrum.

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The catalogs of both Asmus Tietchens and Richard Chartier deservedly have reputations for stoic minimalism. But even so, there are plenty of differences between these two exemplars of contemporary electronic music, with Tietchens embarking on a 40-year adventure of post-Krautrock experiments refined into barren, microsonic transmissions and Chartier distilling composition into elemental tones whilst maintaining a grasp of emotive impressionism. Tietchens has never shied away from the collaborative process, and his work is often better for it. Take his impressive Kontakt Der Junglinge project with Thomas Koner, for example; this (hopefully ongoing) collaboration with Richard Chartier is another. The first disc is the source material that Chartier composed for Tietchens to rework. Had Chartier not mentioned that this was his own material, it would be easy to qualify the disc as a happy marriage between the two stalwart composers, as the rhythmicist patterns and generative forms which seem so much the signature of Tietchens are fused upon hushed slippages of tone and the faintest whisper of a half-melody. Perhaps Chartier did compose this specifically with Tietchens in mind, although he does state the piece was "an unusual improvisation," however that may be interpreted. It's a damn fine piece of microsound composition, no matter how you look at it. The second disc finds Chartier's work deconstructed and augmented by Tietchens, who also seems keenly aware of Chartier's aesthetic and seems to slant his contributions more towards that end of the spectrum. In the accumulated digital dust, sinewave obfuscation, granular synthesis, and glitched errata, Tietchens constructs glacial piles of filtered hiss pocked with enigmatic electronic glistenings and repeated mechanoid phrases, occasionally consumed by subharmonic rumbles. Like many of the best works from both catalogues, you'll find plenty hints of grandiose drama expressed through electronic gestures of shadow and innuendo. Very well done.

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Yes, the "Gorey" in the title refers to the late beloved genius Mr. Edward Gorey whose artwork both graces and inspires this release. And yes, this album has been nominated for a Grammy. According to the liner notes, Edward Gorey took such a liking to one of the Tiger Lillies' songs that he was spurred to send them a bunch of his unpublished stories. In turn, they spun a number of them into song for this album, and hooked up with the Kronos Quartet to make for quite an impressive and suitably tweaked cast of players. The results are thirteen songs characteristically (for all involved) very high on twisted theatrics and eccentricities. Vocalist Martyn Jaques possesses a highly affected, oft-operatic voice which he unleashes with a commanding flair on the audience, squawking, cackling and howling out his adaptations of the stories which stay quite faithfully in spirit and tone to that of Gorey (lyrics are included in the booklet). All the while a piano is prodded and tickled, an accordion huffs and wheezes, the Kronos strings weigh heavily on the heartstrings, and a toybox is plundered for more sonic embellishments. Together they weave a delirious cabaret atmosphere that's at once unsettling, macabre, and surreal.

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We were WAY skeptical of the claim that Tiger Throat sounded like "an Instrumental Bone Awl thrown into a blender with Mono and HEALTH", but it kind of really does, and even though such a description would piss off the misanthropic Bone Awl, we're pretty into it. This are only three songs (even though there are 10 actual tracks, the rest are weird noisy interludes), but those 3 songs cram in a crazy amount of wild spastic drumming, frenetic buzzing riffage, and all manner of blown out glitch and skitter. The record opens with a soaring almost Cave-like fuzzy hypno krautrock workout, pounding and epic and melodic but still pretty raw and frenzied, until part way through the track crumbles, the song lurching through a field of downtuned guitar groan, grinding effects, backwards drumming, only to explode in an almost D-beat blast, while somehow remaining poppy as fuck, like a more fractured and melodic Ancestors? Whatever you compare these guys to, it works, the track winds down into something more slowcore and post rock, all loping drums and sprawling downtuned buzz. All kinds of sounds worm into the mix. And even though it thrashes pretty hard, it's also catchy and sort of fun. Plenty of weird electronic parts (the HEALTH influence) mixed with the aforementioned thrashy, punkish energy. Pretty unique in parts, pretty psychedelic and very melodic. The second track is way more dirgey and doomy, but in a sort of spaced out post rock way, the guitar shimmering and ringing out, not really distorted, the drums WAY in the red, very practice space sounding, until the track shifts gears and the guitars explode, and vocals come in, super processed and warped, the whole track music and vocals seems to undulate and twist, like a sonic funhouse mirror, but it's also probably the blackest moment on the record, it goes on for a few minutes, but we were sort of wishing it would KEEP going. So rad. The final track opens with a mathy manic start stop, you can hear a band member breathlessly counting it off in the background, the result is a lurching squelchy skronky no wave-ish electronic noise rock jam, that gets more and more dense and harsh as the track progresses, finally spilling into a rad hypnotic dirge, the guitars are all overblown while the drumming is teetering on the edge of distorting, the track winding up with a cool staccato grinding metallic outro. Probably not metal enough for most metal heads, even with the Bone Awl / Ancestors references, it's obvious from the artwork and band name that the black metal influence, while definitely there, is more sort of abstract and just another part of the noise, that said, adventurous metalheads line up here, and for the rest of you, who dig noisy, hooky, electronic, metallic, psych rock weirdness, this is WAY recommended.

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From the same label that brough us the amazing September Songs tape from Souvenir's Young America comes another blast of furious rock, this time, not epic metallic post rock, instead, Virginia's Tigershark traffic in old school post punk noiserock with a bit of a metal bent. AmRep, Jehu, Dazzling Killmen, you know, grinding angular guitars, big riffs, convoluted rhythms and crushing drumming, howled vocals, tons of lurching breakdowns, stop start arrangements. Not a lot of bands do this sort of stuff any more and it's a real shame, cuz listening to this band totally hit the spot, it had us fighting the urge to head bang and air guitar like it was 1995 all over again. The label mentions bands like The�Melvins, His Hero Is Gone, Akimbo, Baroness, and sure, we hear some of that, but it's much more classic sounding, heavy and catchy, intense and brutal, weird enough to keep it interesting, but not so much 'experimental' as creative and original. A fresh new take on an old sound that we had been missing like crazy.� LIMITED TO 200 COPIES. On blood red cassettes with super pro full color artwork.

We went a little nuts for the is Richmond, VA outfit a while back, when we reviewed their demo tape. So now they're back, and they still totally kick our ass, with their modern take on sludgy chaotic Amrep style mathy noise rock. Everything we loved on the tape is here in full effect, heavy, crushing drumming, huge chugging bass, ultra tangled riffery, with grooves buried amidst the murk and crush, lots of distortion, howled vocals, crumbling downtuned guitars, it's a sound we miss a lot and so few bands are able to pull it off, but these guys can, BIG TIME. Amrep, Dazzling Killmen, Drive Like Jehu, if that stuff pushes your buttons, you gotta get this (and the tape while you're at it). On the flipside, Brooklyn comb Apeshit also channel some retro sounds, but their sound is yet another one we've been missing like crazy, and hardly any bands can manage anymore. That super spastic, over the top Gravity style screamo, think Heroin, Orchid, Mohinder.... short furious bursts of damaged thrash chaos, loads of feedback, thick swaths of scrape and grind, super lo-fi but still crazy heavy, tons of tempo changes, super dynamic with killer bits of epic drama and speaker shredding blasts of white hot howl and buzz. Together these two bands sound like they must destroy live, the sort of show you crawl from, bruised and bloody, deaf and drenched in sweat, and dying for more. The ultimate noise-rock / screamo tagteam matchup... Gorgeous full color cover, printed insert with liner notes and lyrics, pressed on transparent lavender vinyl. And as all things like this, crazy limited!

One of the best bands from Olympia, Washington are back, better than ever. They (try to) sound a lot like the MC5 and other great propaganda-rock from the 70's. Though their inspirations are obvious, they stand out as a fun band that puts on one of the best

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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. Members of Karp and Behead the Prophet N.L.S.L. and a few of their thuggish cronies team up to make an unholy racket not unlike a noisy, clumsy mating of AC/DC, MC5, and Grand Funk Railroad. Very rockin'.

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

SORRY.

Is there no end to the wonderful musical mysteries Finland has to offer? We sure hope not. Whether it's demented black metal, crushing doom sludge, freaky forest folk, or shimmery pop, Finland never disappoints. And now you can add, ultra minimal outsider solo guitar to that list. Topias Tiheasalo, who we know absolutely nothing about, and google searches also reveal practically nothing, other than the fact that he is 29 years old, is less of a "guitarist" and more of a guitar explorer, a guitar experimentalist. Falling somewhere between the abstract scrabble of Derek Bailey and the moody minimalism of Loren Connors, Tiheasalo, crawls all over the guitar, spending as much time thumping the body, scraping the bridge, and coaxing all manner of buzz and rattle from his guitar as he does either picking or strumming. The opening track is a strange percussive soundscape, punctuated by an awesome deep reverberent buzz drenched throb, as well as some fragmented chunks of slide. While all around these almost-melodies, lurk tons of black space, and all manner or subtle shuffle and accidental squeaks and creaks. Later on, some deliberately stumbling strum becomes a harmonic drenched melody, lurching and stuttering along a very abstract path. Elsewhere the guitar is rubbed to create strange whispery ambience, notes are hurled violently from the guitar, left to flutter to the ground, where they are sprinkled with glistening flurries of harmonics. Lots of angularity and atonality, but their are bits of delicate beauty tucked amidst the twisted and convoluted guitarscapes. A strange strange record. Not beautiful in any sort of typical way, but damaged and difficult and in that musical obstinance, quite lovely indeed. Fans of Bailey, Connors, Taku Sugimoto, Fabrice Eglin and of course Keith Rowe as well as other atypical six stringers will find much to explore and enjoy...

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This is the debut release from this Kansas City supergroup comprised of members of New Amsterdam and Get Up Kids. It's a blend of heartfelt neo-folk crooning, twangy roots rock, and Moog-enhanced pop sounds. It's good, pretty and lovely and I'm in love with

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Jeff asked a very reasonable question about this record, "Is this Vladislav Delay or Thomas Brinkmann? No, no, this isn't clinical enough to be Brinkmann, it's gotta be Delay." While each sound (the dubbed out glitch, the monochromatic techno pulse, the big simple bass lines) is a direct copy of the Vladislav Delay sound, this is the work of one Andreas Tilliander.

MISSISSIPPI RECORDS NEW RELEASE!!! MISSISSIPPI RECORDS NEW RELEASE!!! MISSISSIPPI RECORDS NEW RELEASE!!! We gotta do that every time, there's so many folks now who want them all, every Mississippi Records release, be it blues, or country, or gospel or punk rock. And can't say that we blame you, pretty much everyone at aQ is the same way, a box from Mississippi shows up, and we all gather round to see what magical sounds are awaiting us. This time, it's a collection of unreleased recordings from Bishop Perry Tillis, preacher, and master of the electric blues, with a super idiosyncratic guitar playing style and a gorgeous voice, and a truly strange approach to music and spirituality. Unlike the Tillis cd a couple years back on Birdman, which featured songs recorded in the seventies, these tracks here were collected from home recordings, made in the years right before Tillis' death. Super lo-fi and raw, these tracks were recorded on an old boombox in Tillis' living room, even going so far as to use multiple boomboxes for a primitive sort of multitracking, the results are fantastic and strange and gorgeous. Yeah, it's classic sounding blues, but the guitar parts are dense and angular and tangly, his voice raw and rough, but everything smoothed by the lo-fu recording, and there are strange harmonies happening too, the result of Tillis "channeling angels" who want to help him by singing along and testifying. The enclosed liner notes, feature an interview with Tillis, where he answers questions in the voice of his 'guardian angel', and, well it's a bit confusing for sure, but he, or she, tells the story of his life, talks about the angels, really fascinating. But it's the music that matters, and once again Mississippi seemingly can do no wrong. The sounds here are soulful and energetic, mysterious and beautiful, spiritual and emotional, but also surprisingly rocking and groovy, and bluesy and bad ass. The packaging as always is fantastic, super thick sleeves, nice heavy vinyl, and extensive liner notes. Needless to say, if you haven't started collecting Mississippi releases, this one is as good a place to start as any, and like the other Mississippi lps, these go our of print pretty quick, so grab one while you can.

Most of the underwater environmental recordings we're familiar with are of whale songs and Antarctic seals and penguins, but this one takes us to an even more unusual locale: the moat of a medieval castle! How cool is that? The ten tracks on this 55 minute disc consist of material selected by French sound artist Thomas Tilly from about five hours of hydrophonic field recordings he made in the murky green waters of the moat of Sanzay Castle in the west of France. These excerpts represent what Tilly, in his careful listening, found most interesting, a dense buzzing micro-sound world created by the aquatic insects and plants, apparently reacting to the intensity of the summer sunlight on the surface of the water. Aside from some "slight equalisation", he made no electronic treatments or altering edits of the raw recordings; weird as it is, this is what you'd hear if you dunked your head in the moat and gave a long listen! Yet, it SOUNDS quite electronic (something that other nature recordings have prepared us for). They certainly don't sound of organic origin. Buzzing, pulsing, chattering drones. Rhythmic, intriguing. Steady mechanical whirr. Sometimes subtle, sometimes not so subtle. Constant clicking, like the ticks of a Geiger counter. Sudden sharp whines... decay... Even Morse Code like BLEEPS! (Is that a robot rusting away at the bottom of the moat, still emitting sounds? Did a mad scientist once inhabit this castle?). It makes us think, Raster-Noton meets Sounds Of North American Frogs. Almost makes you wonder why the likes of Alva Noto, Ryoji Ikeda, Nerve Net Noise, all the experimental electronica, digital glitch, clinical clicks and cuts types even bother, when instead of investing in a laptop computer and software, it seems you merely need to submerge a microphone in a suitable stagnant moat. Of course we're kidding. But the thought does occur. The varied ambient textures of these tracks are mesmeric for sure, and surprising. The most fascinating Found Sounds / Field Recordings find we've run across in recent weeks (unless you count the new Thai Elephant Orchestra, but those elephants are playing instruments).

MPEG stream: Cables & Signs 1
MPEG stream: Cables & Signs 5
MPEG stream: Cables & Signs 10

Last list we highlighted two somewhat unusual "surf music" reissues, by Farm and Peter Martin & Finch, both brought to us by our favorite Japanese reissue label, EM Records, as part of their Summer 2007 "EM Under Water Series"! Those were quite cool, and now we've got the remaining three discs in the series, all of 'em (like those first two) soundtracks to several now-legendary surfing movies from back in the sixties/seventies. With the exception of Farm (from the USA) all the bands in EM's series are Australian, and in all cases the movies they were doing soundtracks for were Australian productions and/or featured Australian surfers. And as before, this isn't your typical SoCal Jan & Dean, Beach Boys style surf music... it's *psychedelic* surf music. Well 2 out of 3 of these anyway (the Tim Gaze Band album being more of a yacht rock outing). Whoa. Or, "whoa-whoa". 'Cause that's what they're singing. Sunshiney '70s soft rock mellowness abounds here, disco-era goodtimes on a sandy beach Down Under. Surfer-musician Tim Gaze (the guitarist on Tamam Shud's second album, who also played with proggers Kahvas Jute) and his Band recorded this music in 1979 as the soundtrack to a surfing film entitled Band On The Run (nothing to do with Wings by the way). The original soundtrack LP was only released in a limited promotional run in 1982, and also featured several songs by J.J. Cale as well as the eight cuts by the Tim Gaze Band found here on this cd reissue. Such vocal tracks as "Lazy Day Fever", "Brothers And Sisters" and "Beautiful Lady" are full of melodic lushness, some rockin' with a smile, others more laidback and gentle. There's also some more jazzy, "soundtracky" instrumentals, our favorite being the spacey, organ-jammy "Bermuda". All of it conjures up images of sunsets and bikinis -- even if you weren't looking at the movie-poster album cover painting. Kitschy, yes, quite, but hey "yacht rock" is the new big thing isn't it?? This pretty yacht-y. Includes liner notes both from Aussie "surf music historian" Stephen J. McParland and also Tim Gaze himself, along with lyrics and lots of vintage photos and graphics. Ok, this is probably the weakest entry in the EM Under Water Series as far as our tastes are concerned, but if you get into the spirit of the thing you'll want it, also to complete the collection -- and did we mention "yacht rock"?

MPEG stream: Lazy Day Fever
MPEG stream: Bermuda
MPEG stream: Give Me Life

MPEG stream: Bounce (Feat. Dr. Dre, Missy Elliott & Justin Timberlake)
MPEG stream: One And Only (feat. Fallout Boy)
MPEG stream: Throw It On Me (Feat. The Hives)

By track two on Timbaland and Magoo's second full length, you realise why Timbaland is the man. He makes every drum loop totally his own, every song a slithery hiccupping classic and there's very few producers who have such a knack for crafting such a bizarre

RealAudio clip: Drop
RealAudio clip: Indian Carpet
RealAudio clip: Party People

We all kinda secretly like Justin Timberlake, don't we? Some of us not so secretly.

MPEG stream: Damn Girl
MPEG stream: SexyBack

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... Time Crypt unleash a stumbling blast of midtempo lo-fi blackened death metal, the guitars jagged and buzzy, the drums buried in the mix, the vocals a snarly grunt one minute, a reverbed bellow the next, there are occasional bursts of frenzied blast, but they quickly collapse into more lurching lumbering chug and churn, some weird little bits of keyboard surface here and there, the production is damaged and off kilter and perfectly fits the music, which is chaotic and trancey and buzzy and bizarre. We're digging this big time. Too bad we only have 3 copies... Also features some killer dead astronaut artwork! ----* ----* In Stock, Not Yet Reviewed : ----* If you want to order one of these, just search for the item, then click on the buy button and it will be added to your cart! A SUNNY DAY IN GLASSGOW "Autumn, Again" (self-released) lp 15.98 AGALLOCH "Marrow Of The Spirit" (Profound Lore) cd 11.98 ANBB (ALVA NOTO & BLIXA BARGELD) "Mimikry" (Raster-Noton) cd/2x12" 17.98/25.00 ANWORTH KIRK "s/t" (Pre-Cert) lp 19.98 ASSS "August 2010" (self-released) cassette 5.00 AVEY TARE "Down There" (Paw Tracks) cd/lp 14.98/17.98 BAD TRIPS "Open" (Rocketship) lp 15.98 BEACH FOSSILS "Face It / Distance" (Captured Tracks) 7" 6.98 BIRKIN, JANE "Di Doo Dah" (Light In The Attic) cd/2lp 16.98/22.00 BLACK HEART PROCESSION, THE "Blood Bunny / Black Rabbit" (Temporary Residence) cd/lp 12.98/14.98 BLACK MOUNTAIN "Wilderness Heart" (Jagjaguwar) cd 14.98 BLANK DOGS "Land And Fixed" (Captured Tracks) cd/lp 13.98/16.98 BLUE WATER WHITE DEATH "s/t" (Graveface) cd/lp 13.98 BROKENCYDE "Will Never Die" (Breaksilence Recordings) cd 14.98 CALL BACK THE GIANTS "s/t" (Kye) lp 16.98 CINDYTALK "The Poetry Of Decay" (Editions Mego) lp 32.00 CRAFT SPELLS "Party Talk / Ramona" (Captured Tracks) 7" 6.98 DOLPHY, ERIC "Out To Lunch" (Blue Note) lp 12.98 DRUIDS OF STONEHENGE "Creation" (Axis) cd 17.98 ENO, BRIAN WITH JON HOPKINS & LEO ABRAHAMS "Small Craft On A Milk Sea" (Warp) cd 14.98 EXCEPTER "Late" (Woodsist) 12" 14.98 FAUST "71 Minutes" (ReR) 2lp 38.00 FENN O'BERG "Live In Japan Part One" (Editions Mego) lp 21.00 FENN O'BERG "Live In Japan Part Two" (Editions Mego) lp 21.00 FJELLSTROM, MARCUS "Schattenspieler" (Miasmah) lp 19.98 GAUNTLET HAIR "Out...Don't" (Mexican Summer) 7" 5.98 GIRLS AT DAWN "Call The Doctor" (Norton) cd 14.98 GIRLS NAMES / BRILLIANT COLORS "I Lose / You Win" (Slumberland) 7" 4.98 GREEN, CEE-LO "Lady Killer" (Elektra) cd 16.98 HOLTKAMP, KOEN "Gravity/Bees" (Thrill Jockey) lp 14.98 HOWELL, PETER & JOHN FERDINANDO "Tomorrow Come Someday" (Acme) cd+dvd 17.98 IMAGINARY SOFTWOODS "s/t" (Digitalis) lp 33.00 INTERNATIONAL HELLO "s/t" (Holy Mountain) lp 14.98 INVADERS "There's A Light There's A Way" (Fresh) cd 17.98 IRON BUTTERFLY "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" (Atco) lp 12.98 JEFFERTITTI'S NILE "Hypnotic Rivers Of Sound" (Jnile) lp 9.98 KAREL, ERNST "Heard Laboratories" (And/Oar) cd 14.98 KRIEG "The Isolationist" (Candlelight) cd 14.98 LAZER SWORD "Batman" (Innovative Leisure) 12" 9.98 LAZER SWORD "s/t" (Innovative Leisure) cd 15.98 LEE, DAVID JR. "Evolution" (Universal Sound) cd/lp 19.98/24.00 LESSER / MATMOS / WOBBLY "Simultaneous Quodlibet" (Important Records) lp 17.98 LOWBROW READER OF BASEMENT BROW COMEDY "Issue #8" zine 3.00 MADLIB "Medicine Show No.10 - Black Soul" (Madlib) cd 17.98 MELECHESH "Epigenesis" (Nuclear Blast) cd 15.98 MONARCH "Sabbat Noir" (Heathen Skulls) cd 14.98 NADJA "White Nights / Drone Fields" (Beta-Lactam Ring) 2xdvd 22.00 NECROMANDUS "Orexis of Death & Live" (Rise Above Records) cd 24.00 OLYMPUS "Bob Mould" (Soft Abuse) lp 14.98 PHANTOM PAYN DAYS "s/t" (De Stiijl) lp 17.98 RUNNING "s/t" (Permanent) lp 16.98 SETI-X "Scrambles Of Earth" (Seeland) cd SHINDIG! "#19" magazine 8.98 SISTOL (VLADISLAV DELAY) "Remasters & Remakes" (Phthalo / Halo Cyan) 2cd 14.98 STELLAR OM SOURCE "Trilogy Select" (Olde English Spelling Bee) lp 17.98 STEVENS, SUFJAN "The Age of Adz" (Asthmatic Kitty) cd/2lp 14.98/29.00 TOBACCO "La Uti" (Anticon) 12" picture disc 15.98 TORSKE, BJORN "Kokning" (Smalltown Supersound) cd 17.98 UNTOLD "Come Follow Me" (Soul Jazz) 12" 10.98 V/A "Great Googly Moo" (Ace) cd 16.98 V/A "I Love Techno 2010" (Lektro) cd 17.98 V/A "Peruvian Funk" (Secret Stash) lp 20.00 V/A "Riddim Box Vol.1" (Soul Jazz) 2lp 24.00 V/A "Riddim Box Vol.2" (Soul Jazz) 2lp 24.00 V/A "Riddim Box" (Soul Jazz) 2cd 21.00 WILD NOTHING "Golden Haze" (Captured Tracks) cd 10.98 _______________________________________________________________________ Please place your order via our website. [1] We will contact you to verify your order and let you know when it will be shipped. Please note that occasionally it may take a day or two for us to reply. We are not a faceless bunch of computers replying to your order -- we are human beings! [2] If we are out of some of your items and we think we will get them within the same week, we can wait to ship. Or... If it's going to be more than a few days to complete your order, we will ship what we have and then will contact you as the remainders arrive. [ note ] Due to the everchanging nature of the independent record business, we are not responsible for listed price changes (due to supplier price changes) and often cannot update our site fast enough to reflect these changes, but we will always try to let you know of any differences.

Sophomore album from Oakland '70s style punkers The Time Flys, which leads off with the title track of their 'tween albums single, "Reality (Is A Rock Band)". Like their debut, this retro-rockin' disc is appropriately snotty and undoubtedly well-schooled in their chosen genre, with lotsa energy, not a lotta chords, and some handclaps, but this time 'round we're not feeling it as much... something here (the lyrics, maybe) just seems a bit forced. It's like, they're trying too hard. If you're gonna emulate the likes of the Ramones, you've gotta make it seem easy, c'mon! On the other hand, maybe we just weren't in the mood for the 'tude when we first put this on, and it's just gonna take a few more spins (and a few more PBRs?) for us to 'get'... we'll see.

MPEG stream: Reality (Is A Rock Band)
MPEG stream: Bronzo's A Bruiser

This looks and sounds like it's gotta be a reissue, a lost '70s punk vinyl classic dug up by a devoted record collector and at long last put out on cd. But actually The Time Flys are a band from the here (Oakland, specifically) and now, so if you live 'round these parts you can not only spin this disc but also go see 'em play, which is a good show I'm telling you. The Flys are three guys and one girl, the girl playing drums, all of 'em rock-star skinny, one of the guys being Andy from The Cuts. And I'm sure none of 'em are teenagers but they're all about the teenage angst and energy. Just check the song titles here: "Smokin' Dope", "Jailbait", "In My Skool", "Teenage Is The Stone-age" (which comes right after another song called "Teenage Tears"). There's 12 songs in 27 minutes 32 seconds, total '70s wasteoid punk stylings in the vein of thee MC5, New York Dolls, Heartbreakers, and (to mention another current band similarly retro-fitted) Chicago's Vee Dee. With snotty vocals, distorted guitar jangle and primal drum clatter that altogether does the shimmy, not to mention the packaging -- b&w pics and typewritten lyrics -- in a blindfold test this would probably fool even some not-so-casual old skool punk rawk collector types. Produced by Greg Ashley of the Gris Gris, another great Oakland garage band with a way-back machine (though theirs is dialed more to the '60s). Very kool.

MPEG stream: Jailbait
MPEG stream: 1900's

All right! Three energetic new tunes for those of you who have been rockin' to these teenage (well, in spirit, anyway) '70s garage punk throwbacks' debut from last year. With their authentic vintage stylings, Oakland's Time Flys surely do belong on seven-inch black wax... you'd almost think you'd have to buy this from some collector scum on eBay but this is here and now and in print, for only $3.98.

MPEG stream: Reality (Is A Rock Band)
MPEG stream: Bronzo's A Bruiser

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

SORRY. NYC-based quartet who play an insane variety of time signatures and styles, and they do it so athletically and manically that I broke out in a sweat listening to it. You'd think they were Mr Bungle or something. Or maybe even better? This group certainly has been inspired by Bungle, but now that Bungle have split off into so many other projects, it's nice that these guys are carrying the torch so adroitly. Crashing power metal chords are interrupted by furious screeching, pummelling bass and advanced percussion. Contemporary avant pianist Marilyn Crispell even guests on one amazing track, the 18-minute long "Laugh Track" which stretches out pastoral paino tinklings and culminates in layer after layer of cascading piano randomness. Nice!

NYC-based quartet who play an insane variety of time signatures and styles, and they do it so athletically and manically that I broke out in a sweat listening to it. You'd think they were Mr Bungle or something. Or maybe even better? This group certainly has

RealAudio clip: Age Gracefully
RealAudio clip: Laugh Track

Geeky and proud artrock prog math madness from the same scene, more or less, as Infidel?/Castro!, Behold The Arctopus, and Kayo Dot. So if you're into those bands, and Mr. Bungle, Secret Chiefs, Estradasphere, Idiot Flesh, that sort of thing, then this new release on John Zorn's Tzadik label might just be the ticket for you. But then again, they're probably not quite what you'd expect (which is the idea). While sometimes heavy and more often mathy, they aren't really so much of a metal deal like some of those other bands. Plenty of indie rock melody makes it into their quirky, claustrophobic mix. We're actually reminded a bit of Heavy Vegetable (remember them?) and we're pretty sure that both OK Computer and Angel Dust just might be in somebody in this band's top 10. Along with lots of the poppier '70s and '80s prog. They're a quartet (augmented by a guest trumpeter and vocalists, including Julee Cruise) and a look at the cd booklet will reveal that one guy, for instance, is credited with "keyboards, vocals, guitar, machine parts, hair dryer and sequencing" which might give you some idea of the weirdness amid the melody that they get up to here.

MPEG stream: It Gone
MPEG stream: Earned Over
MPEG stream: Everyone Is Suspended

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