[ aquarius records catalogue

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Showing results 1051 through 1100 of 1910.

A collection of rarities, singles (that SubPop single you never see anymore), and unreleased recordings... one of the tracks seems to be a Pavement cover. Lovely cover art is a riff on Duke Ellington's "Anatomy of a Murder" soundtrack.

Since the 2006 departure of one of the founding members, multi-instrumentalist Dickon Hinchliffe (along with longtime drummer and bassist Al Macauley and Mark Colwill), the Tindersticks' sound has shifted quite dramatically away from their trademark well-worn velvety orchestral grandeur. Some fans delighted in the new developments, while others were torn. On this album it appears they've gone the farthest afield, and we're not quite sure if the challenging shifts will send us packing. Even where you'd think there could be no chance of change there is some - that is, in the deeeep intonations of lead singer Stuart A. Staples! He's singing ascends into a slightly higher register which certainly makes for a more varied tone, but we feel it often undermines the overall impact. The songs come in a grabbag of styles - smoky jazz, a little flamenco, cowboy twang - and if that were the extent of the band's new directions, things would probably be less perturbing. But without Staples' baritone delivery it all seems to drift somewhat nebulously, lacking the potent nail-you-in-the-gut gravity of their earlier releases. Nevertheless, we simply can't turn our backs to this beloved band just yet. Might need to take this for a few more spins. It will be interesting to see if they continue along this new path on their next album, and venture beyond these seeming growing pains into altogether new terrain. So, all of you diehards, we know this review probably won't dissuade you, but we just wanted to issue a warning!

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Tindersticks creep their way back into our hearts with their latest (and seventh) album - their first studio full length since 2003's Waiting For The Moon. As always, their music lures you into its clutches with its balance of soulful threadbare emotions, gently caressing instrumentations and slowly (downward) spiralling arrangements. No one captures the essence of devastatingly beautiful despair like Stuart Staples and co. However, there are a couple of unexpected numbers on Hungry Saw in which the band, dare we say, almost has a skip in their step - case in point, the title track! Nevertheless, this is classic Tindersticks, a fine bruise-red vintage to drown your sorrows in. Sure to not only please their legions of devoted fans, but also captivate many new ones!

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

SORRY. Finally a domestic re-issue of this Tindersticks soundtrack to Claire Denis' French film about Nenette and Boni.

While we found 2010's Falling Down A Mountain slightly underwhelming, we've quickly fallen under the spell of UK mope rockers Tindersticks' new one, the spoken word driven opening track "Chocolate" playing out like a much more lush (and less sexually deviant) take on Arab Strab, the music so lovely, shuffling drums, tinkling chimes, twang flecked softly psychedelic guitars, a little bit slowcore, a little big Godspeed slow build epic, a dark orchestral late night sprawl of horns and warm sonic swirls, lead vocalist Stuart Staples in story telling mode, it's actually quite compelling, and hauntingly lovely. The rest of the record returns to the Tindersticks sound of old, smoldering and sensual, the instrumentation spare, but the arrangements lush and almost symphonic in places, but nearly skeletal in others, Staples' distinctive croon sounding as good as ever, the music gorgeous and lush as always, but some of our complaints about the last record still ring true, the band trying out different sounds and vibes, none of which suit them as much as the dour dreary doomy pop miserablism that defined their early records, the horns too are a bit much in places too, as are the female background vocals, but folks who dug the last record will like this one too, and longtime fans will of course be pleased, but that first track is definitely a stunner, and might be worth the price of admission on its own...

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This is the sophomore album by this oh so elegant band from Nottingham, England.

Tindersticks' soundtrack to Claire Denis' eagerly awaited and rather infamous new film 'Trouble Every Day' (starring Vincent Gallo and Beatrice Dalle). The film has been out in France and other parts of Europe since mid-July 2001, following its controversial

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Don't let the embittered scowls, anguished winces and brooding stares of the front cover art dissuade you. Each Tindersticks album finds its way into your heart and mind -- creeping in ever so gradually and deeply -- and this one is no exception. On this their fifth full length, multi-faceted member Dickon Hinchliffe takes on more of a vocal presence. The contrast between his thoughtful, mellow delivery and main vocalist Stuart Staples' deeeep smoky velvet near-spoken word brings a touch of ambered light to the usually all-consuming trademark Tindersticks shadowy gravity. At the beginning of the fourth song "4.48 Psychosis" a voice asks "What do you offer your friends to make them so supportive?" In the Tindersticks case, it's maintaining a consistently grand body of work steeped with immense drama and glistening beauty. Wonderfully somber elegance.

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Although the existence of a 'greatest hits' collection for the Tindersticks seems a bit odd... really, who would think of this band as having 'hits'? Fan favorites? Sure. Hits? Uh uh. Nevertheless this new Tindersticks cd is great for many reasons. For one thing it serves as a great introductory sampler for anyone unfamiliar with the band. It also serves as a great career overview revealing the subtle changes that their smoky, langourous balladry has taken over the years (for instance excursions into Morricone style western soundtracks and Mayfield-inspired soul). Along with their recent Bareback video collection dvd, this cd is sure to please their devoted fans and perhaps garner them some new ones too.

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Hurrah, two early Tindersticks albums have recently been re-released on vinyl, and we heartily recommend them both! If you're only going to get two Tindersticks lps, these are they. Of this band's first two triumphs, their second (and also self-titled) album, from 1995, is at least as good as the first, maybe even better and more sophisticated, but of course still similarly somber and elegant, with a lush sound that is definitely reminiscent of Scott Waker (1-4), plenty of vibes, delicate melodies, swirling strings and vocalist Stuart Staples deep haunting sung/spoken croon, that at times reminds us of a more torch songy Lambchop, and years later, we can't help but realize how much bands like the National and the Editors and the like owe to the mighty Tindersticks. Absolutely gorgeous stuff, another moody masterpiece. 180 gram vinyl. Not a gatefold though, unlike the other one.

Hurrah, two early Tindersticks albums have recently been re-released on vinyl, and we heartily recommend them both! This is the Nottingham, England band's self-titled debut album which was originally released in 1993, not to be confused with their second album from 1995 which was also self-titled. Although lead singer Stuart Staples and company have shifted into different stylistic choices in the past few years, back in the early days you could definitely count on the band for a consistency in sound, mood and aesthetic (and album titling too, apparently!) that was distinctly their own and which drew masses of diehard fans.� This one is where it all started, and where any potential fan should start. Staples' trademark deeeeep vocal delivery is on display amidst their somber, elegant, downright lush chamber pop compositions. Lyrically, Staples delves into some less than elegant areas, however (song titles include "Jism" and "Drunk Tank"), although like Arab Strab, Staples and company are masters at taking such salacious sentiments and transforming them into brooding loveliness.� Nice to have this on vinyl again, for maximum decadent atmosphere. 180 gram wax, gatefold sleeve.

Annoyingly infectious! You know the feeling. The minute it comes on, you roll your eyes and then a minute later against your better judgment you can't help singing along. Sassy Brits, The Ting Tings have created a nice buzz thanks to "Shut Up And Let Me Go" featured on a recent iTunes ad. Sort of like if Tegan and Sara invaded clubland or Le Tigre without the politics, We Started Nothing has some nice head-nodding moments where they pillage new wave, electroclash, and classic rock like it was a big tangled box of shiny bangles. Yet overall, it's pretty hit and miss. Most evident when the girl singer actually tries to sing. But if you like big summer jams to get your party on, there are more than a few right here.

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Wisconsinite Michael Hopkins (with help from a few friends) presents his debut album under the name Tinsel. He's responsible for the music -- lovely drone-folk, with a moody, late-night atmosphere. That's fantastic, but he also is responsible for the vocals

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Unless you've been in some sort of high security isolation unit, or stranded on a deserted island, you've no doubt been inundated with the hype around this band, Tinted Windows. We were just at SXSW in Texas, and they were one of the bands everyone wanted to see. It sort of makes sense, c'mon, a band with the guitarist from Smashing Pumpkins, the bass player from Fountains Of Wayne, the drummer from Cheap Trick and, wait for it, the singer is one of the Hanson brothers! Exactly. They had it made before anyone even heard a note. Or maybe they were doomed to fail, the most ridiculous and unlikely supergroup ever, one that on paper seemed like a put on. But you know what? This record kicks ass. It's not ground breaking or anything, it's just a killer chunk of old school seventies / eighties style power pop. You can hear Cheap Trick all over Tinted Windows, but you can also hear "Jesse's Girl" era Rick Springfield. We know Fountains Of Wayne dude is a pop master, having written tons of power pop classics, as well as writing the music for the movie That Thing You Do (still one of our favorite rock movies), and Iha definitely had a hand in some classic Pumpkins jams, and maybe most surprising of all, Taylor Hanson has got a decent set of pipes on him, surprisingly gritty and kick ass, but able to slip smoothly into a falsetto, and right back. And as mentioned above, with a pop pedigree like this (and yeah we're counting Taylor Hanson too), these guys were bound to be able to kick out some seriously catchy jams, and they do. The slower songs don't fare quite as well, sort of ballady, a little bit cheesy, but thankfully those are few and far between. Tracks like the first single "Kind Of A Girl", "Can't Get A Read On You" and our favorite of the bunch "Messing With My Head" (which we just listened to about 10 times in a row, no lie) just kill. Total mix tape, cruising with the top down, kick ass, eighties rom-com montage, stereo cranked, feel good, rock and roll, power pop radness for sure!

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Every once in a while, we find ourselves missing the sound of classic math rock. The sound of late nineties post rock. Oh hell, who are we kidding, we're ALWAYS missing that stuff. Slint, Rodan, Bastro, Bitch Magnet, Breadwinner, Dazzling Killmen, Hurl, Crain, heck, even Andee's old band A Minor Forest. Mathy, convoluted, serpentine, minor key, weirdly catchy, strangely structured, lots of starts and stops. As much as we're loving the new breed of metal bands gone post rock or math rock. They definitely tend to lean toward the post side of the equation, preferring to bliss out rather than math out. But for any one who finds themselves getting a little chill when reading the above list of bands, Tiny Hawks are the band to give you everything you've been missing. Tiny Hawks are a duo from Rhode Island, but don't be expecting tangled Lightning Bolt spazz, or stripped down guitar and drums duo rock, this is a huge sprawling explosion of gorgeously melodic and deftly complicated math rock. You'd never know this was a duo (the drummer plays bass on the record) as these guys create a huge sound, thick and textured, dense and dreamy. Some tracks are spastic freakouts, all chaotic drum splatter and manic riffing, others are shimmery expanses of muted strum and dreamlike shuffle. There's definitely an early nineties Dischord element to their sound as well. Intricate, erratic, experimental, bits of jazz and metal twisted into post rock shapes and then set in a dizzyingly mathy framework. Convoluted minor key workouts peppered by sudden bursts of jagged aggro crunch and pound, and plenty of loping blissed out mellowness, drifting harmonics, clanging guitars, all drifting in a jangly haze. This is ALL the shit we love about the genre, all tangled up in a hugely fresh sounding kick ass blast of super aggressive, sweetly melodic, math rock anvil to the head. So goddamn good. Like your favorite band from 1996, got in a time machine, got a practice space down the hall from yours, and invited you over to stand around a sweaty, stinky practice space, get drunk, bounce around and have your mind and ears fucking blown!

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We're sure many of you are familiar with the eccentric ukulele playing, helium-voiced singer Tiny Tim from his surprising successes in the 1960s. Most view the man as nothing more than a novelty act, which may be easy to understand if you think "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" and Laugh-In is where the story begins and ends. But Tiny Tim (born Herbert Khaury) was more than just some flash in the pan weirdo, and one thing this compilation makes abundantly clear is that he WAS indeed a highly talented musician. Born in 1932, Tiny had been an avid listener and player of a wide variety of music since his youth. These recordings, many thought to have been lost, span his pre-fame years in the early '60s Greenwich Village scene to his post-fame comedown in the '70s. The range of material here will be surprising to many, and the songs are wisely sequenced without regard to their recording dates to demonstrate this more clearly. The falsetto vocals are featured on many tracks, sure, but Tiny Tim also possessed an impressive and dramatic croon, while the instrumentation goes way beyond the sparse ukulele accompaniment, even going into some bombastic orchestral arrangements like in "I Ain't Got No Money". When "Ten Little Fingers, Ten Little Toes" follows in the style most people associate with Tiny Tim, his unique genius and skill as a musical interpreter become more obvious. Elsewhere, like on his arrangement of "Maggie May", things are played impressively on piano and delivered in a mushmouthed old man voice. He also completely KILLS with a spooky, Halloween-y rendition of the oft-covered classic "In The Pines". Listened to together, it's all pretty hilarious, not as some joke, but because one man was capable of being not only incredibly strange but also so endearing and highly listenable. The sound quality here is murky, but in a good way, lending a strange out-of-time feel to many of these songs, which makes sense considering this comes to us via the same label that released Michael Yonkers' Goodby Sunball album. We expected to dig this for sure, but really had no idea just how much this stuff would rule. Highly recommended. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Includes extensive and super interesting liner notes from Tiny Tim historian/biographer Justin Martell.

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Tiny Vipers is a lone lady, Ms Jesy Fortino, a drowsy dark folk songstress whose voice bears a striking resemblance to both Diane Gluck and Kim Deal. Very shadowy and very affecting. The fourth track "Forest On Fire" might be our favorite on this 7-song cd as the relatively conventional structure of the song is allowed to sprawl and dissipate out into a droning noisescape. Very cool.

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A couple of years ago, we were drawn into the captivating shadows of a "Forest On Fire". 'Twas a fantastic lengthy track from Tiny Vipers' Hands Across The Void debut album. It brought together two of our favorite things - droning soundscapes and heart-baring folk melancholia. So good. On this Ms Jesy Fortino's second full length, the haunting shadowy tendrils of her dark dark folk wind themselves even deeper into the dark recesses of your heart. As Life On Earth progresses at its solemn pace, each word and pluck from her acoustic guitar strings tighten the grip further in wringing despair. She's drawn comparisons to elder acoustic folk foremothers Sybille Baier and Karen Dalton as well as contemporaries Joanna Newsom and Chan Marshall, but electrified embellishments set her apart. Oftentimes, her drowsy guitar and whispery tremulous vocals are so hushed and bare bones that they seem in danger of shattering or being drowned out by any external elements. You want to hold it close, and offer it safe harbor, but then a slow creeping haze of drone or feedback materializes and provide a haunting veil of refuge. In a sense her music is conjuring its own stormy forces. Crushingly beautiful.

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add to cart [/images/addtocart.gif]/af4105.html Imagine if you could have a band that was just the best parts of, say, DestrucTION, KreaTOR, GorgorOTH, and EnslavED. Or maybe even SuffocaTION, AnnihilaTOR, MorgOTH, and DeceasED. Well, imagine no more. TIONTOROTHED arrive to usher in THE END of all good metal. The first band that is simultaneously genre defying AND genre defining. Like the END of every classic metal song, the END of every classic album, all seamlessly joined together into the ultimate metal band, the sort of band that in name and in deed represent THE END of all good metal!

MPEG stream: Altars Of Pleasure
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Very reasonably priced 12" from smart label whose renown is only going to get better, mark my words. Crowd-pleasing Tipsy is instrumental lounge exotica -successfully- updated (read: don't even -think- Combustible Edison) for the 90's. For fans of Sukia and Esquivel. With contributions from Joe Gore and Trevor Dunn (of Mr. Bungle, tho this sounds NOTHING like Bungle).

This new Tipsy cd is so appropriately titled! The lively festivities feature some fabulous reworkings of their playful trip hop tracks by a bunch of AQ faves from around the globe: Matmos (SF), People Like Us (Kent), Bran Flakes (Seattle), and Optiganally Yours (San Diego), as well as World Standard (Tokyo), High Llamas (London), Curd Duca (Vienna) and nine others. With nutty collage cover art (guinea pigs! green slime! shag carpet!) that'd be just as suited on a cd by Stock, Hausen & Walkman or the aforementioned People Like Us. Very bubbly and fun, for people who don't take electronica without a dose of bubblegum.

RealAudio clip: Sweet Cinnamon Punch
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What with Ken Nordine, Paul D Miller, and this newest band, local label Asphodel just keeps on putting out winners; the label doesn't limit itself to any genre, locale, or era = bravo. Tipsy is like lounge exotica successfully updated for the 90s, not as weird as Sukia but coming from a similar planet. 'Trip hop' fans will like this as will Esquivel lovers. With contributions from guitarist Joe Gore and Mr. Bungle's Trevor Dunn.

It would be easy to dismiss this record as more nostalgic "space age bachelor pad" music tailor-made for today's Cosmopolitan-imbibing yuppies, but Tipsy deserve more than that. Sure, they're obviously huge fans of such acknowledged geniuses as early synth experimentalists / producers Raymond Scott, Joe Meek, and Perrey & Kingsley, as well as exotica pros Arthur Lyman, Martin Denny, and Les Baxter. All of those folks made their mark in the sixties or prior, but the smartasses in Tipsy know that while imitation is the sincerest flattery, it don't get you much street cred. So their weirdly successful millennial take on that music is to mix it up, layering genre upon genre, psychedelic synthesizer alongside birdcalls, squeaky toys, vintage organs, and inspired percussion. They do it pretty damn well. The sound is sometimes a little too exotica-"on-acid", and one occasionally feels the need to be more aurally challenged, as if they're some Holiday Inn bar band wasting their lives playing the tongue-in-cheek theme to I Dream of Jeannie when they're obviously capable of much more. (With esteemed Willie Winant, Joe Gore, and Ralph Carney guesting -- all of whom have turned in more challenging music than this -- you KNOW Tipsy is capable of more.) Nonetheless, you'd probably be better off listening to this than most of the other dreck that passes for "lounge music" these days. Fans of Cornelius and most of the artists mentioned above will likely appreciate this record.

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Tired Tape Machine is a Swedish one man project, who, based on the moniker, we initially expected to sound LIKE a tired tape machine, all warped and warmly, garbed and faded, maybe a little Philip Jeck, a little Caretaker, in fact the record was recorded in a cabin in the Swedish forest! But instead, TTM sounds more like a mini orchestra, unfurling dreamy swaths of hazy, sixties drone-pop shimmer, all baroque and wistful, a sort of chamber folk, rife with slow smoldering builds, some classic psychedelia, plenty of swirling strings, folky acoustic guitars, space-y FX, the sound slipping from brooding downer pop to soaring almost Stereolab groop sounds in fact, on first listen, we found ourselves thinking 'Low meets Stereolab', but that shorthand doesn't do justice to the sound here. We hear shades of Cardinal and Witch Hazel, and other practitioners of timeless baroque pop, but it all has a slightly sinister undertone, a mysterious cinematic ambience that seems to infuse even the poppiest moments. The more we listen, the more the moniker makes sense, it's a music out of time, and this strange dusty old tape machine is in fact more than what it seems, pulling in these transmissions from the ether, the moody poppiness, laced too with stretches of haunting, near choral drift, pocked with squalls of psychedelic freakout, all the various disparate sonic elements distilled into a dark, gauzy, softly psychedelic chamber folk, retro pop that we can't get enough of. Fans of aQ faves Death & Vanilla, hankering for some similarly ghostly, symphonic, dreamy-downer, sixties style pop, this will definitely hit the spot. Probably extremely limited, grab one now just in case. You won't be sorry.

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This is the debut solo album by Ms Tirill Mohn. Some may remember her from the Norwegian prog-folk band White Willow. Lovely!

Two new reissues of badass obscure African '70s garage fuzz rock on this list, hot damn! One from Witch (whose album Lazy Bones!! we were already big fans of) and this record from Nigeria's Tirogo, one of the bands who appeared on that rad Lagos Disco Inferno comp. Tirogo were labelmates with the band Blo, and ought to appeal to folks into Blo, Ofege, Sjob, and others from the Nigerian scene, as well as "Zam Rockers" like Witch, Amanaz, and the Ngozi Family from down in Zambia. Originally released in 1977, Tirogo's Float, their debut, is a stoned masterpiece of psychedelic garage groove with authentic African vibes. Seriously, at this point, can't we just say, if you like those others, you'll like this? 'Cause you will. Stinging fuzz guitar leads swirl and sizzle over seriously funky, energetic rhythms, as the vocalists chant about girls and the devil... yeah! The sort of thing that when you're listening to it, you can't help but think, "this is the best shit ever!"... and it's kinda true!! Dunno how many more records like this they can dig up, it's hard to imagine, but we're grateful for what's been reissued thus far, winners like Tirogo and Witch, wow. And they do it right, the cd booklet includes an extensive, interesting interview with original Tirogo lead vocalist and bassist Wilfred Ekanem, conducted by African music collector and Now-Again head honcho Egon, who coordinated these reissues.

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Our favorite Brooklyn-based stoner space rockers are back, with their first proper studio album (the limited Paradigms cd, and the self-released cd-r we've had before were both live recordings, apparently). If you liked those, you'll like this -- though they get up to some new tricks here as well. In fact, we weren't sure we were even listening to Titan when we first put this on, as the first of the four tracks found here starts off all folky for a minute, with strumming and singing that could be Comus or Devendra... before blasting into loud, distorted, truly TITANIC heavy instrumental psych rock powered in part by some extremely proggy keyboard action. It's like ELP jamming with Comets On Fire, or Tarantula Hawk gone '70s, or a much heavier, blow-out n' drugged-up Crime In Choir! A wild torrent of amp-ed up, cosmic crunch, spiralling energetically. The following tracks have their blissed out interludes, and droning FX, and mantric rhythmic pulses, and other bits of weirdness (field recordings of what might be crickets chirping, and a fan blowing, are mixed in at one point), but that heavy space prog riffola isn't lacking either. Definitely there's plenty here to appeal to fans of the abovementioned bands, as well as, oh, AMT, Circle, Zombi, Ufomammut, Boris, Mammatus, and MoRkObOt among others... in a word, recommended!!

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Remember a couple lists back we reviewed a Paradigms disc by a mysterious, very cool instrumental space rock band called Titan? We told the story of how, some months previous, these guys had sent us some cd-rs to check out, but with no contact information. And then when they finally did follow up with an email, and we tried to order some, we got no response! So we never ever got those cd-rs, but the Paradigms cd was a nice surprise. Well, of course what happened was this: the slightly-flakey-but-nice Titan folks (hey this IS some kinda stonery drug rock, so some flakiness is to be expected, eh?) read our review, and emailed to see if we still wanted the cd-rs.... only they didn't have the one they'd sent us originally any more. But they did now have a new cd-r release, recorded at the same sessions as the Paradigms cd release. Plizmarmelade is a single 40 minute long track, starting off skronkily aggressive, with the noisy bite of a Lightning Bolt, before getting building into a relentlessly energetic, almost... jaunty... crazy crunching howling throbbing bass groove, like Zombi or Circle or Pharaoh Overlord on happy pills, freaking out on the guitar solos and sci-fi effects!! Acid Mothers Temple would be proud of this. Eventually the pills wear off and things fade into a calmer, deeper, droned-out zone, still way out in space. Wow. Basically krautrock from Brooklyn, that's the deal here. If you dug their Paradigms release, this should turn you on too. We do have a bunch of these, but since they're cd-r's in home-made looking (silkscreened) digipacks, chances are they're limited...plus who knows if Titan will email us back if we need more...so get 'em while you can.

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Brand new blast of spaced out prog-tastic heaviness from this Brooklyn quartet, and holy shit, everything we loved about their last one, A Raining Sun Of Light & Love For You & You & You, is even MORE this time around, more heavy, more proggy, more keyboards, the songs way more epic, total cosmic super distorted loud as fuck space prog metal bliss out, like ELP crossed with the Fucking Champs, stir in some Comets On Fire, Tarantula Hawk, Crime In Choir, La Otracina (with whom they share members), and of course some Yes and Osanna and New Trolls and loads more of that sort of '70s stuff, cuz this time it's definitely the prog that has been cranked way up, synths all over the place, every song like a non stop synth / guitar / drum battle to the death, totally exhausting and exhilarating and over the top, epic and majestic and complex and intricate and melodic and somehow catchy as hell. Barring the 3 minute synth interlude "Synthasaurs", which sounds more like some sort of Goblin / Tangerine Dream / John Carpenter hybrid, the other 4 tracks are total progged out super jams, almost entirely instrumental, the melodies constantly mutating and intertwining, the keyboards unleashing wild flurries of notes, the bass and drums holding it all together, dense and thick and powerful, the guitars wailing and flailing and howling, constantly parrying with the keyboards, there are organs too, thick and fuzzy and gloriously distorted, like a supercharged Deep Purple, Titan are like the prog version of all those Hawkwind worshipping space rock groups, who take the psychedelic tripped out outros and stretch them into whole songs, Titan seem to do the same thing with prog, taking short bursts of classic prog, adding all sorts of metallic chug and modern psych rock crunch and stretching them out into gloriously endless sprawling epics, this stuff is so fierce and frantic and the pace so relentless and dizzying. This stuff RULES. Heavy and spacey and proggy and mathy and fucking incredible, pretty much everything we could possibly want in a band. Comes in a swank diecut digipak too!

MPEG stream: Sweet Dreams
MPEG stream: Synthasaurs
MPEG stream: Maximum Soberdrive

A few months ago, we got a package of cd-rs in the mail. Pretty cool looking discs, no information whatsoever on the cd-rs, or on the envelope they came in, just the name Titan on the front. We threw it on and were pretty impressed. Some seriously spacey blissed out modern day Hawkwind/krautrock stylings. So, we thought, let's order some of these to list, but then we realized we had no idea how to contact the band -- no phone number, no email, no website, no nothing. We weren't even sure how much to charge for the handful we already had. So we waited. And waited. Finally one day, we got an email from the one of the guys in the band, who had just realized that they had sent us discs with no contact info. So we immediately emailed back, letting them know that we were definitely interested in selling their record. Asked them to send us 20 or 30 copies and NEVER. HEARD. FROM. THEM. AGAIN. Then suddenly, we discover this new release on Paradigms by the name of Titan. Could it be? The song titles are all in German, but the Titan we heard was from Brooklyn. Sure enough, it was indeed them. Not sure if it's the exact same record we heard, but boy is it some divine spaced out drug drenched psychedelic krautrockiness. Three lengthy tracks, all ten minutes plus, the first opens with a lengthy stretch of meditative Tangerine Dream like organ drones, slowly shifting, melodies drifting and subtly intertwining, before the rest of the band joins in, locking into a groove and slowly building into a pretty serious psych rock jam. The band is rock solid, but still loose and free, loping relentlessly over a thick wash of organs and beneath wild squalls of freaked out psych guitars. The second track launches right into an ominous spy thriller krautrock jam. Tense and propulsive, a totally mesmerizing groove surrounded by swirls of analog synth and swooping space FX. A bit like a way more rocking Zombi. About half way through, the jam dissipate and the track becomes a thick swirling free drone, with feeding back guitars ands and rumbling ambience. The final 15 minute track starts off much like the opener, a dreamy serene soundscape of sizzling cymbals, warm subtle drones and murky effects, before the band once again clicks into a slow sultry jazzy groove. The track builds into a near cinematic epic, like Godspeed or Mogwai, before slowly drifting back to Earth, and drowsily winding to a halt. Limited to 750 copies, packaged in a colorful mini lp style sleeve wrapped in a hand stamped brown paper outer sleeve.

MPEG stream: Die Morgensonne / Die Mitternachtssonne
MPEG stream: Weideraufladen

By now, Finland must seem like one big musical forest, will small tribes of elfin music makers, sitting around fires, with home made instruments and beat up old guitars and primitive tape recorders, spending their days kicking out clattery, meandering free folk pagan jams, tribal and hypnotic. Venture a little further into the forest and you'll find Circle, harnessing the power of the sun to power their amps and keyboards, kicking out endless psychedelic drone rock jams. Chop your way through some dense underbrush, delve deeper into the woods, where there is less life and less light and it's a little dark and scary and you'll find Pharaoh Overlord, big hairy Yeti's, clubs in hand, making a sludgy racket around a huge funeral pyre, horrible blackened shapes dancing on the canopy overhead. But go no further, because there's a cave, with a mouth as black as pitch, where no one dare enters, for fear of the unholy racket emanating from within. For it's here you'll find the mysterious members of Tivol. Look closer and the cave sort of resembles a beat up old garage. But stand back and prepare yourself for the wild and wooly psychedelic freakouts spewing from the mouth of this cave / garage. Pounding trashcan drums, druggy, super affected space rock guitars, and howled banshee vocals, screeching and wailing. This is the scuzzy, fuzzy, sloppy, noisy soft white underbelly of the Finnish rock scene, and we LOVE IT. Like the unwanted lovechild of Guitar Wolf, Hawkwind and Liquorball, let loose in the woods, only to be raised by pot smoking, psych rockin' wolves. The ultimate pounding psychedelic garage space-sludge. Ah, Finland. Where else could it come from? This lp collects two long out of print cd-r releaese (one on 267 Lattajjaaa, one on Time-Lag) that were cleaned up a little (only a LITTLE) made louder and more in your face and then etched into a massive slab of wax with a sharp stick. Packaged in a gorgeous hand printed sleeve, courtesy of Rob Fisk and The Free Porcupine Society.

Tivol were always the unkempt, crusty, scuzzy garage rock, deformed cousin-locked-in-the-basement, dirty, filthy side of the Finnish musical underground. Where Circle were channeling classic Krautrock, Tivol were spewing a sort of Brainbombs / Liquorball hybrid. Where Islaja was whispering flowery lullabies, Tivol were stomping through the flower garden in big black boots. Sure they were sloppy and noisy and scattershot, but even at their most chaotic and blissfully blownout, there were definite traces of Hawkwindy spacerock, propuslive krautrock, and full on stoner rock. Albeit obscured by clouds of pot smoke and an awesomely lo-fi production. A lot has changed since last we heard from Tivol. They clean up real nice. They're still a sloppy noisy scuzzy bunch, but now they've got their hair all slicked back, shirts tucked in (at least in the front), shoes polished, and have begun to faintly resemble their countrymen in Circle. That's right, this is relentless and repetitive kraut flecked space rock, with a stoner rock streak a mile wide, pulsing and pounding, with swoops and swooshes of interstellar synth and most surprising of all, vocals, real vocals, a sort of throaty croon way up in the mix, super dramatic and bizarre. A bit Bauhaus maybe, a bit Dave Vanian.... But their garagescum roots definitely shine through, there's nothing clinical or super tight, or polished here, the drums are splattery and pounding and the guitars are warm and muted and fuzzy, the vocals drift bizarrely, crooning and wailing, everything drenched in cosmic rays and super space FX. A little like Circle if they smoked a lot of pot, recorded on a 4 track in their parents' garage, and listened to nothing but Hawkwind and Mainliner. Which of course means FUCKING AWESOME!

MPEG stream: Tivoloid Part 1
MPEG stream: Pratkabarbaarit

"Reissue of the Five Tjolgtjarian Keys + The Gate To Vruguun (2003) and Nuun Raaguun Skuulkuun (2002) Demos comes with a Bonus Track "Devil,Take Me" and marks the first time these recordings have been pressed to CD"

MPEG stream: The Second Key - Mysterion
MPEG stream: The Third Key - Therinium

We've never really listed any releases by Midwestern lo-fi black metal combo Tjolgtjar, at least not knowingly. Let your mind wander back a list or two, to a band called Xexyz, a bizarre stumblingly blackened horde who employed a Nintendo game system in lieu of a keyboard, even going so far as to cover (or re-imagine) their favorite 8-bit video game theme songs, transforming them into a truly freaked out bleeping buzzing black metal. Well, we later discovered that this Xexyz band, was in fact essentially a permutation of mighty Midwestern black metal warriors Tjolgtjar. Which makes a lot of sense when you hear their latest, Halloween, a tribute of sorts to the classic eighties slasher flick of the same name. And it's another far out, what-the-fuck blast of damaged and demented black metal. Made even moreso by the fact that about half of the tracks are in fact blackened versions of music from the movie. The opener will be immediately recognizable to anyone who was a horror movie obsessed nerd in the eighties, that ubiquitous theme song, here rendered in buzzing guitar and pounding drums, complete with relentless double kicks WAY down in the mix. Fucking genius. Track two is more incidental music from the movie, that creepy, stalking song that kept surfacing throughout the movie, here incorporated into the bands buzzing black verses, an ultra lo-fi riff beneath harsh gargled vocals, but always returning to that theme. Still sends shivers up our spines, and somehow it sounds even scarier all blackened up. It's hard to always tell which bits are actually from the movie, some parts are obvious, but it all sounds ultra creepy and like perfect horror movie music. We still wonder why someone hasn't had some grim black metal band score their film. Someday... The rest of the record blasts through various motifs from the movie, usually set amidst stumbling black blasts of grim buzz, a couple tracks are just creeped out keyboard ambience, haunting and droney, with bits of dialogue from the movie popping up here and there, truly spooky. And so fucking brilliant. And demented. Dementedly brilliant! Anyone who bought that Xexyz disc NEEDS this, and should probably pick up any Tjolgtjar they can find. We'll definitely be listing more in the near future. And be sure to stick around for the bonus track, an unbelievably annoying metallized version of that song the kids sing in the movie "Eight more days to Halloween, Halloween, Halloween...", gradually counting down the days until it's "No more days til Halloween...". Ssssssscary...

MPEG stream: Night Of The Living Dead
MPEG stream: Judith Myers
MPEG stream: Mask Of Michael Myers
MPEG stream: The Myers House

MPEG stream: The Ceremony Of Tjolgtar
MPEG stream: Exorcism Spell

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

SORRY.

We first heard these New Zealand psychedelic loop-noise, beat wrangling weirdos on a split 7" with Whirling Hall Of Knives released on Trensmat, and one of the tracks from that single opens up the group's debut lp, with a glorious, dizzying blast of abstract psychedelia, looped and rhythmic, rife with woozy low end synth buzz, swirling tangled melodies, a robotic rhythmic pulse, sounds swirling and beats stuttering, like we mentioned in the review of the 7", we're reminded a bit of a more electronic, slightly less noisy Our Love Will Destroy The World, or a way noisier, beat driven High Wolf. The record flits from woozy groove to almost jungly skitter, from pulsing spaced out psychedelic electro, to crunchy, churning soft focus noisiness, churning industrial dub to tripped out cosmic alien dancefloor destroying, noise drenched, house music of a sort, only house music as it has that 4 on the floor pulse, but otherwise it's some sort of cracked and freaked out avant kitchen sink home brewed weirdo electronica. "Wild Rent" is one of our favorite jams, a slow building chaos of colliding beats, and looped melody, that eventually transforms into a super tripped out minimal dub, but that dub is buried beneath a cascade of sonic swirl, "Cassini Tubs" is a good one too, a spare bit of skitter, that is soon surrounded by thick buzzing synths, gradually transforming into a sort of alien M83 slowgroove shoegaze dubstep. The record finishes off with the 10+ minute "Tropfend Platz", which starts out as the prettiest, dreamiest track on the record, all glimmering looped high end, and whirling soft focus thrum, and then the drums kick in, a super spastic sort of fucked up and fractured drill and bass, with thick squelches of low end buzz, the whole thing gradually surrounded by a hazy cloud of shoegaze-y shimmer, becoming a dense chunk of beat heavy bliss, that's as psychedelically mesmerizing as it is infuriatingly groovy. Pressed on splattery clear gold vinyl, housed in hand silkscreened red and white jackets, and includes a link to a digital download of the whole record, which includes two bonus tracks, 16+ minutes, not on the lp!

MPEG stream: Attitudes Blankets To Nada
MPEG stream: Flayed Vert
MPEG stream: Strem

An almost-unanimous store favorite. Some people aren't willing to admit that they like TLC. But, damn if this isn't a pretty great pop record. I'm sure you currently hearing 'No Scrubs' everywhere you go, and Aquarius is no exception. Those of you familiar with AQ faves Heavy Vegetable, will instantly pick up on the HV vibe all through 'No Scrubs'. I kid you not. Plus some skittery drum n' bass, some bad ass Lil Kim/Foxy Brown moments, and some Timbaland-style stutter. Be warned, there are a few weak ballads, but if you can forgive them their slow jams, you shall be rewarded. "A hard man is good to find."

One of three new releases on Don't Fuck With Magic, Campbell Kneale's (he of Birchville Cat Motel and Our Love Will Destroy The World) new post Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label, the others being an archival sonic blast from the now defunct BCM, and a killer collab between OLWDTW and Finnish noisemakers Tomutonttu (both reviewed elsewhere on this week's list). We're the only source for these in the US and we have HALF the already small pressing, of which we've already sold half before even reviewing, which means these are going quick, and will be gone before you know it, so act fast if you want any/all of these. The consonant heavy Tmpls is yet another Kneale project, and you thought his other projects were noisy, whoo boy, they ain't got nothing on Tmpls, a nearly 47 minute blast of ear shredding, head melting, speaker destroying white noise sound, a heaving wall of crumbling sound, blown out and distorted, crunchy and corrosive, on the surface, pure Merzbowian brutality, and heck even a little bit below the surface too, but in places you can definitely tell this started out as maybe something a bit more melodic, or something(s), in fact it sounds a bit like multiple Kneale jams laid on top of each other and then sent through a battery of malfunctioning distortion pedals, only to come out the other side a roiling chaotic crush. The timbre and tone constantly shifts too, from warm and warbly, with what could actually be buried melodies, to pure rhythmic crunch, as if any bits of melodies were stripped away, leaving a strange bit of glitched out garble, and elsewhere the sound is infused with undulating sheets of lowend, as if the noise component might be shed at any second, leaving a woozy warbly thrum, but it never does, it's a continuous sprawl of wild noise drenched sound, that is about the most intense and brutal thing Kneale has ever whipped up. You have been warned, only the iron eared need apply. And as mentioned above, we have a handful left, but odds are even these noisy little buggers will disappear in a flash.

MPEG stream: Untitled (excerpt 1)
MPEG stream: Untitled (excerpt 2)

The world needs another SUNNO))) or Earth like it needs� well, it doesn't. Nor does it need another Slint, or a Mogwai, or a Justice, or an Animal Collective. Every time a band blows up, suddenly a million bands are there to get sucked along in their wake. But never was this phenomenon more egregious than with the new wave of doom/drone/dirge outfits. At the risk of repeating ourselves again, it seems like every band, heavy or otherwise, that features at least one member with a "drone side project" or a "minimal doom side project", barely keeping ahead of the various people dabbling in back metal, but we digress. Like most things, it probably seems easy, but isn't. The whole leaning your guitar against the amp and letting it go, sure we joke about that in reviews, but it's way harder than that. Compare the millions of ho-hum guitardrone cd-r's to something like the last amazing record by Vulture Club (we still have some, if you haven't bought one, you should, really). It's like night and day. So we're always pretty cautious when we hear about a new guitar drone group or some doomdirge record we oughtta dig. But once in a while, a group comes along, who only just barely fit into that whole genre, skirting it, creating something totally their own, with just the merest hints of sounds more familiar, like all great bands, borrowing and stealing freely, but not just regurgitating those sounds right back at us, instead, spreading them out in some underground lab, pulling them apart, exploring how they tick, dissecting them, then attempting to put them back together again, with some of their own parts, some sounds and songs that have been fermenting in a dusty corner of said lab, the results then something new, a patchwork of sounds, that in the right hands, can be deftly woven into something beautiful, something dark and mysterious, something like this. A Semblance Of Something Appertaining to Destruction is the latest from the mysteriously monickered To Blacken The Pages, part four of an ongoing series in sound, a sprawling dirgescape that owes much to meandering post rock, downtuned slow motion sludge, drifty abstract doom, and the sort of heavy doomic countrified sludge that Earth has been exploring over the last few records. Three tracks, the shortest 11 minutes, the longest nearly 18, each a dusty, moonlit drift, simple minor key twang, slowed down space rock riffage, streaks of feedback and buzzing distant drones, swirling FX, layers of guitar fuzzy and druggy. The opener, more than Earth or SUNNO))) or any of those, sounds much more in line with Loop or Spacemen 3, a drugged out soporific riff, that lumbers a little too slow to rock, even a little too slow to constitute any sort of groove. Instead, it's a dreamy droney drift, heavy and mutedly chuggy, churning onward through a sky of whirls and swirls and rumbles, underpinned by plenty of buzz and fuzz and blur. It's like a super slowed down way more abstract Loop, which we probably don't need to explain to you is in fact a very good thing. The second track introduces drums, which do little to up the propulsion, this is still weary, dreary and delightfully spaced out. A super spare, abstract doomy lope, the sky above criss crossed with high end guitar skree, the drums supporting another blown out slow motion space rock riff, the whole track trudging across an endless expanse of shimmery buzz and swirling space-y effects. Everything muted and mumbly and lazily mesmerizing. The final, longest track, ditches the drums, returning to the lazy smoky sprawl of the opener, but this time even more abstract, the central guitar part, drifting well below the constantly shifting layers of sound, coruscating high end, over billowing deep rumbles, a glacial, stately, almost funereal anti-groove, perfect late night, drift off, trip out slow motion space rock krautdrone. Fans of Earth and Expo '70 will dig especially, as in some ways, this does sound like a strange hybrid of the two, although all of you into the slow dreamy droney heavy minimalism would do well to check this out.

MPEG stream: Trek In
MPEG stream: A Semblance Of Something Appertaining To Destruction

It's been ages since we've heard from Irish one man drone/dirge/doom guitarscaper Paul McAree, not since a 2009 collaboration with fellow axewrangler/soundscaper Korperschwache, and while we were assuming nothing much had changed, and were simply in for another fantastic sprawling landscape of smoldering low end dronemusic on this new TBTP, Bogland is in fact a whole 'nother sort of thing. Not that you'd know it by the opener, which is exactly what we expected: a hushed, feedback drenched slo-mo shimmer, all long layered tones, and haunted twang, laced with strange sci-fi FX, trippy and woozy, landing somewhere right between Earth, and Barn Owl, and SUNNO))), but taking that sound and spacing it out big time, drifty and abstract psychedelic dronemusic. And it sounds as good as ever, a whole hour to whisk us away to some other plane. But then something happens around track two, McAree doing his best Jandek, unfurling a murky bit of raw-blooz balladry, all angular detuned guitar, and warbly mumbly vocals, weirdly trancey and hypnotic, some serious outsider dirge folk for sure. We of course expected the sound to slip right back into dreamy droneland, but whattayaknow, McAree had something else in mind, a sprawl of gnarled mangled minimalism, a strange bit of abstract Derek Bailey like guitar action, scrapes, and weird truncated melodies, atonal chords, buzz and warble, there also seems to be a weird wheezy backdrop way off in the distance, subtly swooping effects, but that gnarled guitar is definitely the centerpiece. And for all its strangulated churn, it actually ends up being pretty mesmerizing as well. The rest of the record offers up variations on those sounds, definitely leaning more toward the tweaked angular guitarscapes and Jandekian croon, occasionally wedding weird scrapey abstract guitars to lush layered shimmer, or unfurling thick rumbling low end, dirgey and dark, still shot through with weird guitar squiggles, but blurry and smeary, but really barring the opener and closer, both of which hew closer to the TBTP sound of old, this record is kind of a warped singer/songwriter affair, filtered through a cracked chunk of experimental guitar, resulting in something weird, and weirdly wonderful.

MPEG stream: Sodium Haze
MPEG stream: Bad Heart
MPEG stream: Wintering Out
MPEG stream: Battered Heart

The return of Irish one man guitar dronedoomdirge noisemaker, Paul McAree aka To Blacken The Pages, with his first vinyl release, and to commemorate, McAree mixes it up a bit, offering up at least one side dramatically different from what we're used to hearing on TBTP records up until now. Originally recorded for a sound exhibition in Dublin, "Crow's Nest" strips away most of the thick rumbling distorted guitars we might have been expecting, leaving a strange haunting bit of effects drenched shadowy sound in their place, the result though is quite pleasing, much more mysterious and otherworldly, lots of delay and reverb, bits of clang and crunch sent spinning into the ether, here and there long notes ring out, the overall sound is super spare and abstract, soft tangled melodies, the guitars smolder instead of roar, plenty of scrabble and scrape but smeared and blurred into solar flares of Sunroof!-ed sound, but unlike the raga-like ur-drone of Sunroof!, the sound and sounds here are way more spaced out, both figuratively AND literally. Warm washes of feedback bathe the whole track in a rich glow, and strange little flutters surface here and there, like some alien birdsong. The track on the B-side is more similar to past TBTP outings, but McAree manages to meld the old sounds, with the new sounds found on the flip, the same strange assemblage of high end crunch and scrape and squiggle, but set in a landscape much more black and buzzy, thickly layered, undulating sea of sound, blown out an streaked with feedback, the weird effected shards of melody, drifting on that thick, rumbling undercurrent. Dense and drone-y looped and hypnotic sounding here and there, but for the most part a massive organic sprawl of minimal psychedelic guitar drone dreaminess. Housed in a simple black 12" style sleeve with the middle holes cut out, a printed obi with all the artwork and liner notes, and comes with a black cd-r, packaged in its own sleeve with a proper insert, containing, both the tracks, but a WAY extended and remixed version of the B-side!

MPEG stream: Crows Nest
MPEG stream: Crowsun

[ aquarius records catalogue — T ]