[ aquarius records catalogue

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Showing results 1251 through 1300 of 1910.

If all of the customer queries and requests we've been getting about this cd are any indication, Ms Martina Topley-Bird is perhaps most known for her personal and professional ties to Tricky -- she sang on a number of his albums -- but on Anything her voice definitely overrides the gossip-mongers and stands on its own merits. Actually this material on this new release is not really technically new. It's a reworking of her 2003 album Quixotic which was never available domestically and which featured the likes of Mark Lanegan, David Holmes and Queens Of The Stone Age's Josh Homme (on the song "Need One"). In fact, it's fairly unrecognizable from its predecessor -- different running order, three omitted songs, etc. If you've already got Quixotic, you'll probably find this to be quite an altogether different listening experience. If you're unfamiliar with those Tricky albums and haven't seen the sultry album cover photo, you'll be forgiven if you deduced (as some of us did) from Ms Martina's wonderful surname that this might be something akin to the neo-folk of Joanna Newsom or Faun Fables. It's not remotely close! No, this is as far from the pixie-dusted woodlands as you can get, think 'cosmopolitan' and more in the vein of lush smoky trip hop a la Massive Attack or yes, Tricky.

MPEG stream: Need One
MPEG stream: Too Tough To Die

"Cyclorama Lift 3" is a 21 minute out-take from the same sessions that warranted the "Aeriola Frequency" album for Perdition Plastics. These recordings marked Toral's first exploration beyond the guitar based approach to the Phil Niblock drone minimalism. Here, he has used an open circuit on an empty circuit on a mixing board with two 8 second delay pedals and a 4-band parametric

The fourth in series of live performances, published by Touch although lacking Jon Wozencroft's elegant design touches, "Engine 03_04_03" was taken from Rafael Toral's performance at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Continuing his experiments with the guitar as a complex dronemaking device, the Portuguese sound artists overlaps slow moving glissandos and sinewave modulations from "two guitars, one bass, twin modulated feedback circuits, motorized strings, analogue modular system, routing audio mixer, and several other devices." Similarities run rampant to Phill Niblock, Steve Reich, and Jim O'Rourke. MPEG Download: "Engine 03_04_02" [/audio/toralengine030402.mp3]

MPEG stream: Engine 03_04_02

On his entry in Table Of The Elements Lanthanides 12" series, Portuguese experimental guitarist Rafel Toral uses his guitar like a simple sound generator, coaxing forth warm and sonorous, gossamer strands of crystalline low end drone, nestled in equally diaphanous tendrils of analog electronics and computer generated sinewaves. Truly sublime. On clear aquatic blue vinyl, with an ancient sea map silkscreened in metallic ink.

Recorded live in Japan in 2003, this 40 plus minute single piece is a slowly building exploration of harmonics, using just a sinewave generator, custom software, random electronics and just to keep things slightly analog, a good old guitar. None of those parts are easily discernable though, as Harmonic Series 2 is one epic gentle, slowly shifting tone, working its way through various abstract melodies, and gently rolling tonalities. Really quite beautiful and soothing.

MPEG stream: Harmonic Series 2

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SORRY. Rafael Toral is a Portuguese experimental guitarist given much critical acclaim by the likes of Lee Ranaldo and Jim O'Rourke (who ended up reissuing this early 90s album). Lush ambient guitar drones with gossamer avant-pluckings cross the likes of My Bloody Valentine's glide guitar sound, Eno's embryonic ambient, and John Fahey's more sedate meanderings.

Rafael Toral has adopted the persona of Keith Rowe (minus the guitar this time) in crafting a series of improvisations for home built electronics that squiggle, bleep, and fizz. There's absolutely no processing to these expressionist burblings, and the whole thing comes off as something similar to early computer music with a freewheeling scribble crafting the sounds instead of algorithmic functions.

MPEG stream: Portable Amplifier
MPEG stream: Echo-Feed

This acclaimed Lisbon-based experimental musician-producer-academic continues to create lush ambient soundscapes using electric guitar and effects (as well as some "silence" recorded from a space shuttle mission). Very beautiful. Recommended.

RealAudio clip: Measurement of Noise

Cold frosty, grim and furious black metal from Germany. Total Transylvanian Hunger worship, and we LOVE it. Taking the feral blackness and primitive old school buzz of Darkthrone and somehow making it even more blown out and black, more drenched in hiss, this is total vacuum cleaner whir, hailstorm on a tin roof ambience, the band blasting away behind thick sheets of dense gritty distortion, at low volume, it almost sounds like a TV between stations, but listen closer, and the abstract buzz coalesces into killer riffs, howling hellish vocals surface, the drums are buried WAY down and stay buried, a distant clatter beneath the suffocating maelstrom of blackened riffery, this one is not weird or fucked or damaged (although the extreme buzz might just set the record for the most buzz drenched disc we've heard), but it is as we said above, buzzing, cold, grim, cvlt, frosty, hateful, brutal, old school, TRUE black metal.

MPEG stream: What Is Sleeping In Bloodlines
MPEG stream: Wolf Among Sleep

By now, probably everyone knows who Torche is, and has an inkling of what they sound like, but if not, you're in for a pretty kick ass surprise. Cuz these guys are like the pop band you always wished existed, in that they fuse big hooks and crazy melodies to massive downtuned guitar crush and pounding drum damage, and with every record, they seem to move further and further away from their sludgey beginnings and toward a sound that manages to be more and more accessible, without getting any less heavy. Seems impossible but it's true. Torche are like what we wished Queens Of The Stoneage sounded like, catchy as shit, and crazy heavy, just check out a track like "Kicking", with it's almost bubblegum chorus, and it's furious churning metallic main riff, the combination is pretty much a dream come true for folks like us who like our pop crazy catchy, and our heavy HEAVY. There were hints on past records of what these guys were capable of, but holy shit, Harmonicraft pretty much realizes all of that potential, it's so catchy and fun, and hooky and heavy, that it's almost like sonic candy, total heavy pop bliss, we've listened to this record probably 50 times in the last two weeks, and we're not even close to getting tired of it. For more in depth raving about Torche and their particular peculiar brand of sludge pop songcraft, you can check out the other Torche reviews on the aQ site, but for now, just know that this is probably THEE best heavy pop / sludge pop record this year, and heck, really any year, and based on how many plays this gets, it might just be a contender for RECORD of the year, pop, sludge or otherwise!!

MPEG stream: Letting Go
MPEG stream: Kicking
MPEG stream: Walk It Off
MPEG stream: Reverse Inverted

Longtime readers of the aQ list should need no introduction to Torche, our favorite sludge pop geniuses, who by our reckoning should be HUGE. They may be heavy and loud and distorted, and feature members of Cavity and Floor and Dove, but the music they make as Torche is something else entirely. The guitars massive chugging and crunchy, the drums pounding and brutal, the bass thick and buzzy, the vocals a totally unique wail / croon, they sound a bit like the Foo Fighters, if the Foo Fighters were heavier and catchier and more punk rock. To really get into Torche, check elsewhere on the aQ website and read the reviews of Meanderthal, s/t and In Return, we go into way more detail and gush like crazy, cuz these guys absolutely rule. But this one might be for fans only, although we can guarantee, all it would take is these three songs and you will freak out, become obsessed, and need to buy everything these guys have ever done, so maybe give it a try. Two tracks from Meanderthal, the two 'hits' on a record that was pretty much all hits, both epic and hooky and heavy and genius. But the reason we're here are the two bonus tracks, both unreleased, and both as good as anything on the record proper. Big guitars, a killer hook of a chorus, amazing harmonies, kick ass drumming, even some shredding leads, this band just keeps getting better and better, but also tighter and more polished, without ever sounding wussier or like sellouts. C'mon, if a bands b-side toss offs are this good, then holy shit they are MONSTERS. The second unreleased song here is total commercial radio alt rock heaven. If more FM radio programmers had balls, Torche would get played as much as the Offspring! But it's not just two more killer Torche songs, you also get a dvd, with videos for the two Meanderthal tracks, one is a straight up performance clip, totally rocking and awesome, but it's the video for "Across The Shields" that's the mind blower, the whole band in furry costumes, but not just bears and rabbits, no one is a fanged teddy bear monster, one is a big headed baby with another fanged jaw at waist level, one is a creepy demon faced rabbit eared furry, and the other looks like a furry piece of French toast, with long fingers and claw like toes, and 4 heads on the front of the toast, all the band members heads, but one is the actual head stuck through a hole. Wow. The video is of them cavorting in the forest. And of course stills from that video are used for the cover of the lp and the dvd. And as always insanely deluxe packaging, outrageously thick colored vinyl, equally thick and deluxe sleeve, and a black and gold metallic sticker on the plastic. Not sure how limited these are, but we only got a handful.

A few lists back we gushed unapologetically about the gorgeous ultra heavy sludge pop of the mighty Torche, their self titled debut having just been rerecorded remixed and reissued. And as we mentioned in that review, that sucker had been lodged in our cd player for years, since the very first time we laid ears on it. The heir to Nirvana's throne, adding a megaton of heaviness to Nirvana's near perfect sound. The result was some sort of impossibly heavy pop music, as downtuned and punishing as it was hooky and anthemic. So here we have the long in the works follow up, and on first listen it's got a definite different vibe, distinctly less poppy, more heavy, and aggressive, less groovy, more well metal. Not a bad thing, but we kind of had our fingers crossed for THE heaviest pop record of all time. And on first listen, this wasn't necessarily that. But, the more we listen, the more the magic of this record becomes clear, and the more the pop side reveals itself, blossoming like the flowers on the cover, revealing blissed out beauty amidst all the downtuned pummel. In fact, we just noticed that the third track, "Bring Me Home" sounds like a heavier mathier Jesu, which is a very good thing indeed. All washed out My Bloody Valentine swirls of sound, big booming drums, wailing guitars, and a hook to die for. Some of the other tracks are fast and heavy and groovy and play almost like some sort of stoner rock, but still twisted into a distinctly Torche-like shape. The Melvins vibe is BIG all over this record, which is also a very good thing, and while we don't hear as much of the Torche we loved so much on their s/t full length, we do hear lots more of the other Torche related bands like Floor and Dove, and even some Harvey Milk. Which is our way of saying while we were slightly disappointed by the not-quite-as-poppiness, it's more than made up for by killer riffing and insane heaviness. And this is some heavy heavy shit, but still with just enough groove and pop to keep us listening NONSTOP. And holy shit! The Packaging is mind blowing. A deluxe gatefold 10", adorned with a super close up of John Baizley's Pushead like painting, all smeared inks, water drops, flower petals and bees, inside, more amazing artwork, including portraits of each of the band members inside flowers, and right in the middle 4 little flaps holding the cd version of the record, a three inch cd housed in a clear 5" plastic cd shell, also adorned with a flower, the inner sleeve also printed in full color, the vinyl super thick and on various different colors of swirled clear vinyl, everything housed in a plastic sleeve, with a cool art deco clear sticker with more artwork and the track titles and band name. WOW.

MPEG stream: Warship
MPEG stream: Bring Me Home

We have loved Torche from the very first time we heard them. Rare is the band who seem to effortlessly create a sound, that whether we all realized it or not, was exactly what we had always wanted to hear. We haven't met a single person who wasn't immediately smitten with Torche, their sound, the one we had all been hungering for, some kind of perfect pop, made impossibly, and irresistibly heavy. A dizzying collision of incredible hooks and downtuned pummel. And Torche were, and are, the undisputed masters of that very unique heavy catchiness, or catchy heaviness. Their debut sounded like a super charged heavier than Heaven Nirvana, or maybe the Foo Fighters crossed with the Melvins. That was the sort of shit we should be hearing on the radio. And seeing on MTV. Torche's recent ep, In Return, while still awesome, found the band ditching much of the pop in favor of a much heavier sound, embracing their inner Melvins, yet thankfully never completely losing that pop side, just obscuring it beneath riff after riff and furious skull splitting drumming. So here comes the long and anxiously awaited second full length, and while maybe after In Return, we were expecting them to move even further away from the pop, we really needn't have worried. Somehow they managed to make a record that falls somehere right in between. Easily as catchy and hook filled as their debut, but even heavier than In Return. The riffs are massive, the guitar sound HUGE, the vocals keep getting better and better, still way down in the mix, but perfectly complimenting the sound, not too melodic, but none of that pointless caterwauling. The drums too, are LOUD and incredible. And the songs, shit, strip away some of the distortion, and we're talking top 40. Sort of. The opener is an instrumental blast, that sounds like the late great Karp, super dense churning hyper riffage, and super complex drumming, dizzying guitar harmonies, almost like some Fucking Champs / Melvins mashup. But the second is all pop, right out of the gate, an awesome melody, big thick riffs, soaring vocals, over the kind of drumming that is as catchy as any of the other instruments, not since Nirvana would we find ourselves humming the fucking drum fills, but this is Torche, what do you expect? It's like pop punk given a sludge doom makeover. The whole record is an exercise in extremes, coexisting impossibles. No record this poppy and this catchy could possibly be this dense and distorted and downtuned and heavy, but it is. And no metal record, or sludge record, should be able to be so hook filled and catchy and still retain it's sheer fury and intensity, but again, the proof is right here. "Across The Shields" sounds like a primo slab of nineties college indie rock, a main vocal melody that sticks in your head the second you hear it, a killer bassline that on its own is as catchy as anything any of the other instruments are doing, but here it's wrapped around super metallic harmonies, dense squalls of tribal drumming, and some chest rattling downtuned chug. "Without A Sound" begins like some sort of early SST jam mixed with dirgey Melvins jam, but deftly transforms into a crazy catchy pop song, "Amnesian" seems to take the obtuse melodic sludgery of Harvey Milk, and turns it inside out, offering up soaring harmonies and a totally majestic main riff, but separated by atonal slabs of slow motion dynamics and pounding percussion, as well as wild FX drenched psychedelic leads. We could probably go song by song, and talk about how heavy and/or catchy each one is, because they are. ALL of them. Some tracks do veer in one direction or the other, but even then, the band seem incapable of sounding anything but both heavy AND poppy. There are certainly worse problems. But like any band worth their salt, they do delight in confounding, so the record finishes off with the 4 minute, VERY un-poppy title track, incredible sludgey and dirgey title track, beginning with a roiling miasma of guitar buzz and hum, eventually a riff kicks in, the drums stuttering and staccato, the riff a churning start stop, lurching and hypnotic, a dark slithery groove, the guitars crumbling and wet with FX, in the background clouds of glimmering whir and twinkling reverb drenched guitar squiggles, a primo classic Melvins era trudge, and while not overtly catchy, Torche still seem unable to commit to full on pummel, so even in this climax of primal riffage, lurk some unexpected, very subtle hooks. Whether you realize it or not, hours, days, weeks later, you'll find yourself humming along to what ostensibly is the least catchy song here. And if that's not a sign of pop genius, well then we don't know what is... INCREDIBLE packaging, borrowing its main concept from that Open Hand record from a few years back, the booklet cut into overlapping layers, the tray card, covering only half of the jewel case revealing the art on the inside, the booklet folding out into a massive sprawling, garishly cartoon horrorscape, but beware, if you take the booklet out, it's a bitch to get back in!

MPEG stream: Triumph Of Venus
MPEG stream: Grenades
MPEG stream: Pirhana
MPEG stream: Meanderthal

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SORRY.

It must be practically impossible for a band to follow up a record like Torche's Meanderthal and not disappoint, a seemingly universal favorite, topping pretty much everyone's year end lists, and rightfully so, a pretty much perfect slab of super catchy, ultra heavy sludge pop, like Nirvana's Bleach writ brutal and pummeling but no less impossibly infectious. So what's a band to do? Well obviously more of the same. But if you're Torche, you go one better, and somehow make a record that's even catchier. Is that even possible? Well judging by the 2 minutes of opening track "UFO" it sure as fuck is, with a killer main riff, and some super catchy guitar harmonies, some vocal oooooh's, and a total stop start power pop / pop punk verse, it's pretty much perfect, they even throw in some minor key chug, just for a second, so no one can claim they sold out. And it just doesn't stop. The 52 second long "Lay Low" is just as catchy, wild drumming, and a killer hook, and some weird stumbling stop start weirdness near the end that definitely makes it official, these guys are the real kings of pop, just so happens their pop is twisted and sludgey and heavy as fuck. Eight songs, in 22 minutes, and consider that the last two tracks combined are close to 11 minutes, which means most of the other songs clock in at 2 minutes or less, but who needs more, it's like the Guided By Voices school of popsmithery, why beat a chorus into the ground, leave the listener begging for more, and you can always just set it on repeat, after all we just listened to "UFO" and "Lay Low" about 10 times in a row. "Shine On My Old Ways" is epic classic pop, with a bad ass start stop riff, squealing feedback filling all the spaces, the band have a definitely Melvins/Kiss thing going on, but dipped in some Archies style sonic sugar. And a little Queens Of The Stoneage too. Just like Meanderthal, this has us wondering why these guys aren't HUGE, maybe they are and we just don't realize it, but we think some band like Fallout Boy or the Killers or Interpol should take Torche on tour with them. Why the hell not? And if the first _ of the record was short sharp perfect pop, the last two tracks, while still equally poppy lets the band sprawl, "Face The Wall" is a smoldering fuzz pop epic, soaring guitars, big booming drums, super melodic vocals, the whole thing dark and brooding but still melodic, leading right into "Out Again", a meandery dreamy super rocking melodic almost krautrocky noise pop dirge, repetitive and hypnotic and a weirdly perfect way to finish off a record made up primarily of 2 minute heavy pop songs. So awesome! We never should have doubted...

MPEG stream: UFO
MPEG stream: Lay Low
MPEG stream: Hideaway

This is totally kick ass stoner sludge pop! So right up our alley! Not surprising, as Torche is fronted by the main guy from equally heavy / poppy AQ faves Floor and also features one of the guys from AQ faves Cavity as well. Try to imagine the Melvins mixed with the the Foo Fighters and you'll get a rough idea. Massive downtuned metal riffs, stoner rock slowed waaaay dooown, and then wrapped in pop hooks and perfect harmonies. Ultra catchy sing songy melodies draped over pummelling dirges, like Christmas lights strung over a tarpit. AQ pal Josh was touting this as record of the year. And who are we to argue?! We dream about the day that this is the top forty we see on MTV and hear on the radio. It's as catchy if not catchier than most of the crap that gets shoved down kids' throats. And we're all for that 'your chocolate in my peanut butter' sort of unlikely combo, and you don't get much more unlikely than this. Sludge pop? Dirge pop? Stoner pop? Hardly matters. This is the record of the summer, the one you'll be blasting with the top down as you cruise along the beach. Assuming of course that it's the dead of night, and your car is black with bones hanging from the rearview mirror, and the stickshift has a human skull on it, and there's a corpse in your trunk, and your car is engulfed in a cloud of vampire bats, and all the windows are tinted blood red and you run down every one in your path. Exactly. Now there's no excuse for the metalhead in you life to safely indulge his or her musical sweet tooth!

MPEG stream: Charge Of The Brown Recluse
MPEG stream: Safe
MPEG stream: Mentor

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

SORRY. Okay, so this disc was one of our favorite releases of 2005. A massive, pummeling ultra catchy slab of hook filled sludge pop. Or something. Like Nirvana but a million times heavier. Anyway, we played the shit out of this disc, and still do. Recently, the band decided to re-record the record, not completely, but they were unhappy with the mix, especially the vocals, so this here, as the title explains, is reissued, remastered, and partially re-recorded. Hard to say how different it is without doing a side by side comparison. It does sound a bit louder, maybe a little clearer, the vocals sound pretty much the same, maybe a teensy bit more in tune, but so what. The record was already perfect the way it was. If anything, now it's just a little bit more perfect-er!! Probably not worth buying again if you already have it, but if you somehow missed out on the divine slab of sludgy pop brilliance, the gods have chosen to bless you with one more chance... This is totally kick ass stoner sludge pop! So right up our alley! Not surprising, as Torche is fronted by the main guy from equally heavy / poppy AQ faves Floor and also features one of the guys from AQ faves Cavity as well. Try to imagine the Melvins mixed with the the Foo Fighters and you'll get a rough idea. Massive downtuned metal riffs, stoner rock slowed waaaay dooown, and then wrapped in pop hooks and perfect harmonies. Ultra catchy sing songy melodies draped over pummelling dirges, like Christmas lights strung over a tarpit. AQ pal Josh was touting this as record of the year. And who are we to argue?! We dream about the day that this is the top forty we see on MTV and hear on the radio. It's as catchy if not catchier than most of the crap that gets shoved down kids' throats. And we're all for that 'your chocolate in my peanut butter' sort of unlikely combo, and you don't get much more unlikely than this. Sludge pop? Dirge pop? Stoner pop? Hardly matters. This is the record of the summer, the one you'll be blasting with the top down as you cruise along the beach. Assuming of course that it's the dead of night, and your car is black with bones hanging from the rearview mirror, and the stickshift has a human skull on it, and there's a corpse in your trunk, and your car is engulfed in a cloud of vampire bats, and all the windows are tinted blood red and you run down every one in your path. Exactly. Now there's no excuse for the metalhead in your life not to indulge his or her musical sweet tooth!

MPEG stream: Charge Of The Brown Recluse
MPEG stream: Safe
MPEG stream: Mentor

For whatever reason, we never paid much attention to Part Chimp, you think with a monkey related name like that we'd be all over those guys, and listening to this split now, we're sort of kicking ourselves, a cool monkey name AND they shred, laying down some seriously blown out heaviness, a sort of stoner rock sludge, the guitars thick and oozy, the riffs Sabbathy and slow, laced with shredding psychedelic leads, the drums bombastic, everything woven into a serious head caving chunk of head bangable downtuned metallic riff rock, that is TOTALLY hitting the spot. To the point that we might just have to go track down all of these guys records. Cuz both tracks here kill, one a Hawkwind cover, that sounds like the original dipped in filth and supercharged. Note to self: Part Chimp RULE! Ok, now that we've got that out of the way, we can say, that it almost didn't matter WHO was on the other side of this split, and not just cuz they'd be going up against Torche, but also cuz they'd be going up against Torche doing ALL GUIDED BY VOICES COVERS!! And yeah, it's just as great as it sounds, they tackle "Exit Flagger", "Postal Blowfish" and "Unleashed! The Large Hearted Boy", all of which could totally be Torche songs proper. Usually when some super heavy band covers a pop song, we think to ourselves, "why isn't there just a band who actually sound like that, who are crazy heavy, but write killer pop hooks", but in this case, we know the answer, there IS, and that band is Torche. The GBV songs were mini masterpieces to begin with, so when wedded to pounding drums and huge distorted guitars, they turn into pretty much totally perfect pop metal bliss, and we can honestly say, we've listened to these three songs over and over nearly nonstop since we got this in. Maybe Torche will cover Bee Thousand in its entirety. We can dream. Probably crazy limited, and features super cool space ape sci-fi cover art!

MPEG stream: Exit Flagger
MPEG stream: Dr. Horse

We've long been fans of New Zealand guitarist Roy Montgomery, his guitar sound so distinctive, able to conjure up whole other worlds with his music, having cut his teeth in legendary groups like Dadamah and Dissolve, it was really as a solo artist where Montgomery finally unleashed his full potential. A sort of reverbed minimalism writ large, Montgomery takes simple melodic phrases, fragments, riffs, even just a few notes, and transforms them into mesmerizing landscapes of sound, hazy and spacey, multitracked expanses of melodic mesmer, his playing fluid and lyrical, all of the edges smoothed out by a battery of deftly employed effects, transforming the guitar into some sort of alien psychedelic sound generator, able to fashion strangely inviting sonic worlds for the listener to explore, and get lost in. So we were curious to hear this, the oddly named Torlesse Super Group (a reference to some NZ geology apparently), which is (or was, this was actually recorded back in 2004-2007), Montgomery's new group, or duo to be more precise, and finds Montgomery teaming up with Nick Guy, who we had never heard of before, for a strangely haunting, and surprisingly rhythmic bit of hazy, psychedelic, post industrial, dreamlike guitarscapery. The record opens with the three part, 16 plus minute "Erewhon Sentinel", the first part of which is a super abstract stretch of looped skeletal rhythm, a barely there bit of staggered static, distant melodic swells, twisted flecks of glitchy electronics, eventually a deep low end thrum surfaces, as well as some creepy soundtracky chimes, not to mention some ven creepier bits of distorted crunch, the low end beginning to pulse, all cinematic and a little bit ominous, honestly we would have been happy if this was ALL the record did, but then we would have missed out on part two, which might be our favorite new jam, beginning with more rumbling low end, laced with some cool super distorted melody, the result is very ghostly and otherworldly, and then a beat comes in, a slow, slithery, downtempo skitter, and suddenly this sounds like some post Portishead, post Bowery Electric sort of electronic ambient creep, now THIS definitely could have continued for the rest of the record, hypnotic and low slung, woozy and warped, a sort of subterranean underwater lope, very soundtracky, evokes all sorts of super striking images, rain slicked streets, dark abandoned cities, low lit late night speakeasies. The sound continues to develop, additional melodies, more layers, harmonies, distant lo fi chimes, looped electronic high end squiggles, all drifting on that low thrum and hypnotic shuffle. Part three is something else entirely, sounding like a lo-fi melding of Autechre and Seefeel, a little bit glitchy, but warm and organic, swoonsome and woozy and dreamily looped, wound around some serpentine melodies, and plenty of fuzz and thrum. Definitely a surprise, if Montgomery is playing guitar over all this, then he's even more of an alchemist than we already thought, cuz nothing here sounds distinctly guitar-like, at least in this opening salvo, all textural and ever shifting timbres, and layered loops, and swirling atmospheres, and propulsive rhythms and dark sonic swirl. It's not until the fourth track, where the guitar finally makes its presence obvious, with Montgomery unfurling a looped bit of repetitive riffage, eventually joined by a super skeletal beat, and then an avalanche of guitars, all buzzy and psychedelic, warm and washed out, creating a heady, hazy sprawl of mesmerizing drone rock shimmer, definitely more reminiscent of past recordings. The rest of the record plays out in a similar fashion, with Montgomery laying down some spare, sparse guitar, sometimes lacing it with muted feedback, or woozy folky strum, while his partner (we presume) wraps these delicate bits of melody with streaks of glitch, fragmented rhythms, even seeming to add some dub to the sound, letting various elements careen and drift before settling back into their original druggy drift, the sound is super hypnotic, fantastically lysergic and dreamy, the sounds tapping into a psychedelia akin to Spacemen 3, repetitive, cyclical, a core droned out loop, but surrounded by crumbling distortion, sonar like pings, but with Montgomery's melodic reverby strum at its core. The final track in fact begins with that reverby strum, hear letting a single strum repeat, ring out into the ether, before gradually, various other sounds creep in from the periphery, streaks of pulsing buzz, hushed shimmery swells, it's almost like the dreamiest, prettiest, softest doom ever, which weirdly enough is more like the Montgomery of old than anything else here, it's late night drift off dreamdrone psychedelia, strummy and shimmery, it's not really until about 9 minutes in that some crunch and heft are added to the mix, but subtly, so they don't overwhelm, instead, they just add density, and Montgomery's strummy grows more urgent as well, and added layers of melodic counterpoint and guitar harmonies, only make the sound blossom into something both lush and lovely, crunchy and a little bit dark, before finally fading out into a sweetly melancholic softly psychedelic haze. Gorgeous!

MPEG stream: Erewhon Sentinel Number 1
MPEG stream: Erewhon Sentinel Number 2
MPEG stream: Erewhon Sentinel Number 3
MPEG stream: Evening

If Tom Waits were to put out a record of instrumental collaborations with Christian Fennesz, Torngat's Le Petite Nicole might be the result. There's just enough pounding drums to satisfy the thinking-person's need for rock, and enough contemplative sweeping synth pieces to make a rocker feel like an intellectual. Titles to songs without words are by definition abstractions, but the droning repetition of "6:23 PM" captures the essence of the early evening after-work-brain-fry perfectly, both in the sense of "this is exactly what I want to listen to" and "this is exactly how I feel." The previous song, "Afternoon Moon Pie", through jaunty percussion and a distorted Rhodes piano, also invokes a particular time and place, like late summertime light through the leaves of trees at the park. Torngat definitely has elements of (early) Black Heart Procession at work, as well: a little bit of minor-chord sadness, mixed with minimal drumming and guitar picking. A record not to be missed.

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Somehow we never carried the debut by Toro Y Moi, which fit crazy comfortably next to releases by Washed Out, Neon Indian, and Nite Jewel as one of the most promising offerings in the 'chill-wave/glo-core' movement that seemed to blossom a couple years ago. With his anticipated follow up to that debut, he's shown there is much more to them to just being a part of a potentially passing trend, as this album proves with glorious cascading pop sounds that come swirling and dripping from all of his songs. Imagine if the Sea & Cake let their hair down and loosened up big time, that's the vibe of this record, the sounds rushing and swirling with a tropical breeze that just feels so damn good. Instead of trying so hard to be weird or lo-fi like so many of his peers, Toro Y Moi has shown he's way more interested in creating a broad sonic landscape that invites you in with open arms and leads you ever deeper and deeper, going wherever the sounds may twist and turn. So delightful.

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As we've mentioned many times in the past, we're practically obsessed with the music of Mr. Henrik Nordvargr Bjorkk. From the blackened drone of his old church burning corpsepainted ambient horde MZ 412, to the industrial noisefolk of Folkstorm, the full on noise assault of his collaboration with Goat, the rhythmic noise experiments of his collaboration with Merzbow, the bleak drone drenched dark ambience of his projects with former partner in MZ412 Drakh (including an upcoming release on tUMULt!), he also plays in a couple black metal bands, has a noise group, and of course there's the haunting militaristic ambient drone folk of Toroidh. When does this man find time to sleep?! As much as we love everything he's donee, we have a particular soft spot for the music of Toroidh. It's just so evocative, so dark and creepy, beautiful, but incredibly ominous, haunting and downright frightening at times. We had never been able to get any Toroidh records for the store, so we were super ecstatic to discover that the first three Toroidh records were being remastered and re-released as a box set!! It's hard to put into words just how massive and breathtaking these records are, how huge in scope. Epic explorations of history through sound. The three records are definitely distinct and unique, but they work together perfectly as a trilogy, their sound, themes and structures perfectly compliment each other. A long strange dark and soulful journey through sound. Haunting looped military marches, snippets of speeches and rallies, lilting waltzes with moaning horns give way to militaristic drums, over slow soft swells of murky gloomy shimmer, peppered with more snippets of speeches. Thick church organ drones wrap themselves around deep densely reverbed operatic vocals, throughout muted percussive thumps and throbs pulse rhythmically, everything swirled into woozy Skepticism like dirges. Warm swells of brass moan in the distance, beneath mesmerizing male chanting. Huge expanses of abstract drone, slowed down mournful murmurs wash over forlorn minor key melodies, spread out into murky whorls of sonic sorrow, dizzying swirls of 16rpm warble and deep droning drift. Crunchy industrial marches wrapped in smoky blackness underpin simple propulsive rhythms. Minor key acoustic guitar strum floats on thick beds of soaring strings. Each record manages a seemingly impossible balancing act, situating itself somewhere between cold martial pound, and super emotional melodicism. European Trilogy is a completely mesmerizing, and ever shifting sonic expanse, the listener is sent into battle to wander cold and alone, lonely and afraid, allowed to wander along the streets of some unnamed village, observing some unnamed war, watching the people, the buildings, the destruction, the devastation, but most specifically the sounds. From hypnotic propulsive militaristic marches to strange processed field recordings and bits of historical sound to deep dark cavernous drones. An absolutely astonishing piece of sonic beauty! Gorgeous, super deluxe, over the top packaging. A black matte rubberized box with the title debossed, a super striking black on black, inside each disc is in its own thick textured paper sleeve, embossed with the band name and disc number (in Roman numerals of course), and a booklet on super thick glossy paper, with track listings and credits, everything appropriately spare and striking, very simple and streamlined and Teutonic. WOW!

MPEG stream: Those Who Do Not Remember The Past Are Condemned To Repeat It I
MPEG stream: Those Who Do Not Remember The Past Are Condemned To Repeat It II
MPEG stream: Those Who Do Not Remember The Past Are Condemned To Repeat It III
MPEG stream: Europe Is Dead I
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It's getting harder and harder to keep up with the many sides of Henrik Nordvargr Bjorkk. He may be perhaps best known for his blackened ambient combo MZ412, but that's just the beginning. He's released tons of stuff under his own name, sometimes collaborating with his former MZ412 partner-in-noise Drakh for a few records (including the recent Betrayal Of Light album on tUMULt). Then there's his militaristic folk combo Folkstorm, his damaged blackened noise outfit Goatvargr, his blacknoize black metal band Vargr (see elsewhere on this list) his full on noise group Hydra Head 13, and of course, quite possibly our favorite side of this sonic Renaissance man, the epic historical ambience of Toroidh. A sonic trip through the history of the world, told through its wars and atrocities. Some heavy stuff for sure, but the music is suitably powerful, so much so that much of Toroidh plays out like some PBS documentary set to music, heart wrenching at moments, dark and ominous at others, but always completely enthralling. Testament was originally released on Nordvargr's own 205 Recordings label back in 2003, but has been resurrected here with two bonus tracks as The Final Testament. Split into two lengthy movements, Testament is sweeping and epic, haunting and mysterious, dense and multilayered. Militaristic marches, fanfares and anthems, woven into long stretches of rumbling drone, strident neo folk, strummed acoustic guitars, and swooning synths, Teutonic industrial pummel, ominous martial drumming, thick swaths of black ambience, snippets of operas, soaring super dramatic strings, tolling bells, murky expanses of low end whir, soaring strings and soundtrack like mood music, chanting monk-like vocals, all woven around bits of speeches, radio broadcasts and other wartime soundbites, the whole thing buried beneath a black sonic pall, like thick smoke over a burning city. The bonus tracks are brief, and are more like a sort of sonic addendum, the first track "The Final Testament", is a propulsive industrial dirge, all tribal drums and thick serpentine synths, deep rumbling low end and tinkling percussion, very neo-folk martial industrial, while the final track, "Hail Wermland II", is a recording of an old scratchy dusty '78, a mournful lament, proud, deep, crooned vocals, and simple minor key melodies, all wrapped in staticky crackle and pop, bookended by brief smears of smoldering drone. So good. Remastered, and with all new artwork, an eight page booklet with liner notes and lots of appropriately teutonic images.

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Torrez features Sidney Lindner, who is brother of AQ regular/wildman Cayce (who you may rememeber from several of the Neighborhood Films) and one half of AQ faves Golden Hotel with Cayce. Sidney's production seems to have a great deal to do with both bands' sound: a rich, thick, miasma of warm hums, shimmering reverb, and spooky ambience. In Torrez, unlike the meandering drug addled psych folk of the Golden Hotel, the focus is definitely more on the songs, and especially the vocals of Kim Torrez, who has a gorgeous, langorous torch singer voice, dark and deep and throaty but also dreamy and ethereal. This is the sophomore album from Torrez and reveals a more fleshed out and accessible sound for this New Hampshire group which I'm not so sure is a good thing. Mind you it's definitely not a BAD thing. It's just that Lindner's unsettling and off kilter soundscapes kept Torrez from slipping into Norah Jones/Dido/Sarah McLachlan territory. And while it's definitely nowhere near that point, there's less of the smoldering, slightly unsettling energy that loomed gloriously over their 2001 debut. Things are generally more evenkeeled and thus more accessible. Rumour has it their apparently-not-so-indie-after-all label KimChee rejected the first version of The Evening Drag for being too fucked up and not commercial enough...hmmmmm....would love to hear that original mix! A standout song is "The Evening Sun" in which they conjured a secret gathering of Godspeed, the Dirty Three, Mazzy Star and Cowboy Junkies. Still quite lovely and miles above their more famous contemporaries.

RealAudio clip: The Girls will Haunt You
RealAudio clip: After The Carnival

Dark and langorous, sweet and shimmering country. Super sparse arrangements, delicate lap steel, gorgeous vocals and an amazing super spacious recording make this a sweet surprise. Think Mazzy Star, Souled American, Giant Sand, Low, but recorded late at

RealAudio clip: Wild Horse
RealAudio clip: Tonight

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

SORRY.

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

SORRY.

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

SORRY.

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

SORRY.

Having thoroughly enjoyed her 2000 album Love In The Time Of Science, we were looking forward to Ms Torrini's newest offering. Sad to report though that apparently she's gone though some sort of transformation in those five years. She's shed her 'Bjork meets Portishead' tendencies in favor of a more 'Tori Amos at the piano' elegant, womanly approach. Very vanilla and adult contemporary. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Emiliana Torrini really sounds a lot like Bjork, and it can't be entirely 'cause she's from Iceland too (her dad is Italian, hence her non-Icelandic name). Indeed this is released via Bjork's One Little Indian label... Her voice has all of the breathy cracked beauty and enthusiastic mystery that the Icelandic pop star employs, although not the full range of wonder and eccentricity possessed by Bjork. Their music is a close comparision though, this is kinda like a Portis-bjork, you could say, with some of the even more commerical gloss pop of the Cardigans or Garbage. While not super original, there's no denying her ability to capture these sounds, and fans of the aforementioned will find this difficult to resist. As a result, this will be huge and you'll soon be seeing her name EVERYWHERE. Strangely, we first saw her name on currently ongoing series of Fat Cat remix 7"s, where Emiliana meets up with the decidedly less "pop" sounds of the likes of V/VM and Process! (We have a few of these in stock as well.)

RealAudio clip: Baby Blue

For her latest album, the Italian-Icelandic Ms Torrini reconfirms her lithe, limber voice's chameleon-like nature. She's shunned both her early personas -- the tweaked arty nymph persona a la Bjork and the smoldering chanteuse a la Portishead -- as well as her more recent Tori Amos-esque ivory-tickling songstress guise. No, you might've guessed we weren't fans of that turn of events! This time though she has opted for a much more swooning elegance a la Nina Persson and The Cardigans. Me And Armini offers an ultra dreamy, languidly groovy, and sleekly produced blend of late night pop and flowing folktronica that also brings to mind Beth Orton. That said, she takes a chance on an unexpected detour late in the album on the comparatively gritty song "Gun". Nevertheless consider it to be a minor bump in an otherwise lovely listen (and it's actually Allan's favorite track here, though it does stick out). Wonder where she'll go from here!

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Over the years Smalltown Supersound has released some of our favorite creative dance minded records from folks like Tussle, Kim Hirothoy and Lindstrom. And in the last year they have shown a really cool widening of their scope putting out the beautiful kosmiche sounds of Arp and the charged driving and druggy excursion that was Sunburned Hand Of The Man as envisioned by Four Tet. While they do release records from artists across the globe they are best down for flying the flag of the electronic music scene of their home turf of Norway so it makes perfect sense that their latest release is from one of the pioneers of the minimal house/creative dance scene in Norway. We are kind of late to Torske, only recently discovering him as we loved his remix on the latest Lindstrom ep. But we've come to find that he is actually a huge influence on folks like Lindstrom and Prins Thomas, and Feil Knapp demonstrates exactly why. This is seamless and wonderfully playful and smart electronic music. Managing to mix elements of down tempo, disco, dub and video game sounds into songs that bubble over with rich melody and infectious rhythms. We love how Torske makes it all sound so calm, cool and collected. In lesser hands the worlds he mixes together could sound haphazard or annoying but his unique touch gets it all so right. An early contender for electronic record of the year!

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Wow, 2010 really turned out to be an amazing year for electronic music. And not just one style or passing trend. We loved the resurgence of truly creative artists making such varied and dynamic sounds in the world of electronica, reminding us of those special times in the mid '90s when we really fell for this music so strongly to begin with. From Demdike Stare and Pantha Du Prince to Luke Abbott and Actress, there has been so much awesome and varied and super unique sounds to get lost in during this year. And now comes yet another major contender for electronic record of the year courtesy of Norway's Bjorn Torske. For all the attention his Norwegian peers like Prins Thomas and Lindstrom have received, we really hope this amazing album starts getting him the wide praise he so rightfully deserves. On Kokning, Torske demonstrates an amazing ability to create graceful and elegant sounds while also still allowing those sounds to be playful and exploratory. The album really does flow so perfectly from beginning to end, exploring many different sounds and soundscapes in the process. Like the electronica we will always love most, Torske is not just a one note artist, he can create the most tender and beautiful of songs while also traveling though left-field dancemusic brimming with African drum rhythms and ecstatic cosmic revelations. We're deeply addicted to this record right now and we've got a strong feeling you will be too!

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MPEG stream: Langt Fra Afrika
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Another killer, super limited cd-r from the ALWAYS kick ass Small Doses label. This one a split between Torso, who we've dug for a while, and Gack who are new to us. Torso, who we last heard from on a split with fellow dronesters Unicorn, offer up six tracks of deep dark raw drone/noise music. Beginning with some super minimal shimmer, streaked with low end groans and shards of feedback, Torso wander through fields of power electronics, spaced out glitch, thick synthscapes, complete with super distorted demonic vocals and all sorts of industrial buzz and grind, to crumbling malfunctioning electronic dirges, to dense melodic drones culminating in a nearly 10 minute blast of sci-fi outer space abstract glitched out FX drenched dronoise. Gack respond with something much more minimal and muted, but no less caustic and ominous, LOTS of low end, the sound smeared and blurred and crumbling, tons shimmer and drift, disembodied voices, creaks, and machinelike grunts and murmurs, jagged shards of industrial clatter, deep rumbling ambience, Gack's tracks here sound more like the foley work for some fucked up outer space sci fi horror movie, which is not at all a bad thing. Fans of Wolf Eyes and other modern bleak post industrialism as well as folks into the current crop of abstract noise drenched drone cd-r-tists should definitely check this out. LIMITED TO 103 COPIES. Packaged in a plain black and white sleeve, printed on heavy cardstock.

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We've been fans of Unicorn for a while now, not nearly as long as we've been fans of -unicorns-, but close. On their Playing With Light� record, we began our review with these words: "Goddamn this record is beautiful. We mean seriously beautiful. So beautiful it sort of has us at a loss for words." Needless to say, we sold tons of those, and it remains an AQ favorite (and we'll hopefully soon have more copies, thanks for being patient). So since then we would snap up anything those guys (or that guy, we're not sure) did.� This latest one is no different. Well, no different in that we snapped it right up, but definitely different sounding. At least the first Unicorn track here, a hissy high end drift, all upper register whir and shimmer and skree, what sounds like balloons and compressed air, very strange, but after that it's back to the Unicorn of old, with deep resonant drones, strange electronic glitches, haunting rhythmic loops, really quite beautiful, but Unicorn here are all over the place, the next track is another abstract industrial soundscape of low end whir and rhythmic hiss, some more high end weirdness, then back to more dark droniness finishing off with some super minimal hushed drift. Not as straight up beautiful as the other discs, but way more varied and interesting, intense and unique.� Unicorn are paired off here with Torso, who we had never heard before, but we're led to believe features members of Man Is The Bastard / Bastard Noise, and it sounds like it could be true, Torso's take on the drone is much more raw and abrasive, gritty and buzzy, with the tones blown out and crumbling, verging on power electronics, but remaining just on this side of noise, like a much heavier more lo-fi Niblock, with long drawn out notes layered on top of each other, allowed to pulse and beat and subtly shift and change. Torso also add all sorts of other sounds to the mix, random slabs of distant buzz, electronic crackle, what sounds like a drill of some kind, creepy voices, warbly turntables, bits of found sound, distorted vocals, feedback, all woven into the mesmerizing fabric of Torso's harsh drones. Really cool. Definitely need to hear more.� Packaged in a gorgeous, multi colored, metallic ink, screen printed fold over cardstock sleeve in a thick vinyl pouch. Nice!

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One of three new releases from Jerusalem based Total Rust label, who specialize in the slow and heavy, the sludgey and dirgey, so it makes sense that these Spaniards would find a home there, even more so when you consider that Tort features members of another Total Rust band, the late great Lords Of Bukkake. Like LoB before them, Tort kick out some seriously crusty, filthy jams, a sort of dirgey sludgey stoner doom? The Sleep vibe is huge, the massive riffing, the sort of slowed down Sabbathy groove, but there's also a serious old school crusty metal vibe a la Hellhammer, and guess what, the label agrees, but goes even further describing these guys as "Hellhammer meets Sleep meets Godflesh meets Black Sabbath meets Voivod meets Saint Vitus meets Bolt Thrower meets Eyehategod", which as far as descriptions goes is pretty high praise, and definitely a tall order, and while no band could possibly live up to that, these guys definitely come close. Ther perfect mix of stoner swing and downtuned dirge, the guitars insanely thick and caustic, the bass a blown out rumble, the drums crushing, the vocals might be the best part, super harsh and intense, a fierce and inhuman demonic rasp that transforms the sound into something way more sick and sinister. These guys also traffic in some serious tranced out heaviness, locking into grooves that could go on endlessly and we would be totally in their thrall, churning, roiling epic heaviness, that slips easily from lumbering crush to thrashing blast and back again. This is one of those records that we find ourselves listening to WAY more often than we thought we would, and with every listen, we dig it more and more, and find ourselves with some of these riffs, seriously lodged in our head which is most definitely a rare occurrence. Definitely recommended for metalheads who like their metal slow and low, sludgey and sick, primitive and atmospheric, dirgey and HEAVY.

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MPEG stream: Cannibals Of Ma'Arrat

It feels weird to be reviewing a Tortoise record in 2006. There was a time, way back in the mid nineties, that Tortoise was one of our favorite bands. Everyone we knew loved Tortoise. Not since Slint, had a band so captivated the world of indie rock, and so distinctly defined post rock. And not since Slint had a band been the impetus for the formation of so many similar sounding bands. Makes sense. Tortoise were an amazing and ingenious mix of instrumental post rock, dub, jazz, free jazz, electronica, and anything else that sounded good to the band, all deftly woven into a super unique and utterly distinctive sound. Their self titled debut was near perfect, dubby rhythms wrapped up in moody lilting post rock soundscapes, blissed out and hypnotic. And if their debut was merely -near- perfect, their next record, Millions Now Living Will Never Die was absolutely perfect. Everything we loved about post rock, post punk, post everything, melted down into simple, mesmerizing krautrock laced rhythmscapes. Jazzy and dubby and dreamy, subtly propulsive, expansive and epic. No record could touch Millions, although hundreds did certainly try (and still do). There was also the way too limited remix record, Rhythms, Resolutions And Clusters, featuring alternate versions of classic Tortoise tracks by Steve Albini, Brad Wood, Bundy Brown, Jim O'Rourke, John McEntire and more. Many folks consider that to be Tortoise's finest moment, since most of the remixers were in fact in Tortoise, or had in some way contributed to past Tortoise recordings, it was almost like the band simply reimagined and reinterpreted their own songs, a sort of meta-Tortoise record. After that though, it was a gradual downhill slide, the band continued to release records sporadically, but nothing they did after that had the same resonance. All of it was pretty good certainly, but where they were once the ones creating the post rock template, a freejazzdubrock sound for others to emulate, it just seemed like the band was treading water, creating more out of obligation than passion. And it showed. This greatest hits / out of print rarities collection reminds us just how amazing Tortoise were, while serving as a perfect introduction to those who missed out the first time around, or for all the post-post rock obsessives into Isis and the Grails and the Red Sparowes and all of that stuff who might not have realized that none of those bands would exist if it weren't for Tortoise. Plus, this box collects lots of vinyl only tracks, compilation tracks all in one place for obsessive fans, as well as finally reissuing the remix record in its entirety while adding one of the tracks that was cut from the original release. All we can really say is wow. WOW. This stuff sounds so amazing, so fresh, so alive. Weird and wonderful. Droney and dreamy and hypnotically catchy. Some of our all time favorite tracks are here: "Gamera", a killer 12" track never on cd before, a couple of Autechre tracks from the 12" only remix series, as well as the Tortoise tracks from the Headz 2 comp, the Red, Hot + Indigo comp, a Yo La Tengo remix, a Joy Division cover. A bunch of singles and Japanese bonus tracks round out the first two discs. Our only complaint is that this isn't EVERYTHING. Anyone willing to pay $25 for 4 discs, would probably be willing to shell out $40 for 6 or 7 discs if it meant that this set collected ALL the random Tortoise tracks instead of just a lot of 'em. But what the heck, this still kills. Disc three is the remix record Rhythms, Resolutions And Clusters, originally released in 1994, well before we were fed up with remix records, and sounds so goddamn amazing. The added track is a Mike Watt remix with Mike and his partner Kira from Dos adding extra basses, and extra basses can never be bad! The Albini remix is a killer, as is the O'Rourke mix. In fact ALL of the mixes are amazing, and they flow perfectly unlike most remix records. If you didn't know better, you might think it was just an actual, albeit much more experimental proper Tortoise release. Worth the price of admission alone for sure. Although if you dig RR+C you'll obviously love almost everything on the other two discs too. The dvd has a handful of music videos, all very striking and perfectly matched to the music, from a slow motion procession of floating spheres, drifting stuffed animals, and contorted band members, to manipulated grainy super 8 footage of cities and seas, to gorgeous expanses of sped up nature footage, swirling clouds, and snowy forests, to strangely primitive computer animation, to super abstract video collage. So nice. Also included are a whole bunch of live performances, often filmed super creatively. Some are super high tech, recorded in some sort of huge venue, with multiple camera angles and video screens, while others are obviously in small clubs filmed on grainy super 8 and edited with random live projections. There's also some live footage of Tortoise with the Chicago Underground Trio at some jazz fest, a pretty amazing piece, like a jazzy Reich. There's also what looks like some sort of cable access show, with the band obviously lip synching, all wearing plastic monkey masks, and a wild crowd dancing cartoonishly in the background on a tiny TV sound studio, and finally a Tortoise performance recorded for the Burn To Shine project, where bands play in abandoned and about to be demolished houses. The whole set is housed in individual printed sleeves and a cardboard box, all adorned with cool creepy super striking traffic accident photos by Arnold Odermatt. And if you couldn't tell from all of the above, this is WAY RECOMMENDED!!

MPEG stream: Gamera
MPEG stream: The Source Of Uncertainty
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Now this is indeed a pleasant surprise. The return of Tortoise. A band we were OBSESSED with in the beginning, whose first few records are classics, undefinable masterpieces that managed to totally transcend their classification as mere post rock. Tortoise's self titled debut still sounds classic and timeless, a loping hypnotic blend of math rock and krautrock and jazz. Their Millions Now Living, which was released in the very early days of the aQ list, so it only has a barely descriptive two sentence review, was a mind blowing meld of Oval like electronics and abstract jazziness, of brooding post rock and almost orchestral arrangements. The remix record, which found the band being reimagined by Steve Albini, Brad Wood, Bundy Brown, Jim O'Rourke, John McEntire and others, still ranks as one of the few examples of how a collection of remixes, in some ways can even transcend the originals. But from that point on, the band seemed to lose their way, it's hard to explain just how, but their record, often literally years in the making, surprisingly enough didn't sound fresh anymore, the sounds tired and played out, maybe meant to be 'mature' or 'academic' but instead mostly sounded boring, and in some cases bad. There was always a spark, and every record had brief flashes, little musical moments that reminded us what they were once capable of. Which brings us to the awkwardly titled Beacons Of Ancestorship, which while not a total mind blowing complete return to form, is pretty dang good. A handful of the tracks ranking up there with some of their classic jams from years back. Most folks have been focusing on record opener "High Class Slim Came Floatin' In", and rightfully so, the band definitely had something to prove, some lost ground to make up, and some fans to win over again, and hell, "High Class Slim" is just the song to do it. It still sounds like Tortoise, but it's all revved up, skittery jazzy drums wrapped around deep woozy bass and reedy synth buzz, before in swoops some tripped out Stereolab / Tangerine Dream keyboard swirl, and then some super out of place buzzy keyboard groove, but it somehow works, the track gets more intense, the sounds smolder and throb, blissy and subtly psychedelic, a little bit funky, a lot bit space-y, even a breakdown that gets all cybotronic robot funk, washed over by some new age shimmer, and sparkely space-y effects... it was almost too much to hope for that the whole record would sound like that the whole way through, but then it wouldn't really be Tortoise, for these guys it's just a launching point for their latest exploration of sounds both simple and sinister, serene and cinematic, jazzy and funky. There are definitely a few moments where things lag, where it definitely sounds like they're back to doing Tortoise by numbers, some Morricone-ish guitar, that while we usually love, here doesn't do much, some of the stretched out jams bog down more than bliss out, but those moments are few and far between, the rest of their time is spent weaving pretty fantastic flights of instrumental fancy, mathy jams rife with melodic curlicues and warm whirls of warble and whir, cool skittery almost dancehall sounding bits of buzz and blurt, wrapped around some truly funky rhythms, long stretches of stuttering almost African sounding grooves, laced with sitar like buzz, and cool psychedelic flourishes, and at least one track that starts off with some looped Afterschool Special music that is transformed into what sounds like the perfect backing track for a Kanye West song. And then there's the unpronounceable "Yinxianghechengqi" which finds Tortoise getting their Trans Am on, fuzzed out, snarling guitars wrapped in crumbling distortion, pulsing bass, John McEntire pummeling his kit like he probably hasn't since his Bastro Days, but then this IS Tortoise, so over the top they drape some atonal modal Return To Forever sort of buzz drenched melodic weirdness which ends up turning the song into something else entirely. And minus those few aforementioned lulls, the rest of the record continues on, and manages to hold our attention, and definitely has had us returning again and again. So while it's not quite Millions, Beacons is definitely the best Tortoise record since the mid nineties, and once distanced from the legacy and the expectations and all the non musical bullshit, on it's own as simply a record by a band, a collection of songs and sounds, Beacons is really pretty fantastic.

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MPEG stream: Yinxianghechengqi

If you're like us, one sentence is all it should take: Best song from the new Tortoise record, remixed by Eye from the Boredoms. We'll pause a second so most of you can just add to cart and move on to the next review... Seriously though, Tortoise were one of the few bands, rock bands especially, to RULE the remix. So here we go again, years later, and this two track reinterpretation, does again, in fact, rule. Hard to go wrong really getting Eye to remix your track, especially when it's a song as bad ass as "High Class Slim Came Floatin' In", which isn't just a great NEW Tortoise song, it might be one of their best tracks ever. So get Eye to twist it all up and well, you just sort of have to hear it. The Tortoise original basically becomes a Boredoms jam, all sundappled and super spacey, rhythmic and hypnotic, the drums become the focal point (of course), tribal and heavy, while the bass buzzes intensely, and peppered throughout are little processed squalls made up of fragments of the original. Electronic squiggles, weird warped effects, swirling synths, all take a backseat to those pounding rhythms. And if you weren't super familiar with the original, you could easily believe this was a jam off a new Super Roots, groovy, hypnotic, space-y, psychedelic and awesome! The B side is remixed by some guy we've never heard of, Mark Ernestus, and most folks would blanch at the idea of sharing a split with the mighty Eye, but nope, he steps up and offers up his own mix of another killer track from the new Tortoise, and gets all This Heat, complete with the handclaps. Stuttery acoustic guitars and looped skeletal drumming, buzzing dubstep bass warbling intensely over the skitter, somehow super minimal and abstract, but also strangely intense and aggressive. If you can imagine a slightly jazzy stripped down dubstep This Heat, well, then you might come up with something like this. Both mixes kick ass. Part of the new Thrill Jockey singles series, not sure how limited these are, but probably safe to assume VERY, and snag one before you're kicking yourself later...

The first of the two audio tracks on this li'l single (meant for sale on Tortoise' recent tour, so we don't have many) is pretty interesting and engaging, smatterings of lightly-wielded Autechre-style drum'n'bass whispering amongst arpeggiated guitar and

RealAudio clip: Waihopai

Tortoise pretty much defined post rock in the nineties. And rightfully so. They took all those indie rock and 'rock' rock conventions and turned them on their ear, adding lush orchestration, vibes, improvisation, extended song lengths, inventive instrumentation, jazz, and all sorts of stuff that never really found its way into mainstream indie rock/rock. And for a couple records Tortoise kept at it, pushing boundaries, stretching definitions making great records. They kind of lost us after a while, as their sound got more bland and watered down. Too much studio fuckery and not enough playing instruments, too many gigabytes and not enough blood sweat and tears. So here we are a few years later, the indie rock world is a whole different beast, with bands like Godspeed You Black Emperor taking on the post rock champions mantle and pushing the boundaries of rock even farther. So how to Tortoise fare? Not as bad as you might think. The new record is very mellow and dreamy, very lite and almost adult contemporary at times. They still suffer from too much time to mix, too much money to take as long as they want, and too much after the fact mixing and tweaking. A lot of the immediacy and intensity is lost. But that may just be us, maybe Tortoise are not about intensity anymore. Maybe they're about chilling out, sweet smooth sounds to let drip easily into your ears. And if that's the case, then hell, they hit the mark. The sound is immediately recognizable if you've heard any of the recent Stereolab records, as John McEntire's 'sound' was all over those, very glossy, glistening and sort of euro, sleek and streamlined, no rough edges. It's pop, but on a grand scale, with little electronic smudges here and there, a rumbling bassline once in a while, some cool shuffling drums, sweet lilting melodies, and some definitely interesting song ideas. Somewhere between Tortoise of old, Calexico, Friends Of Dean Martinez and that sort of evocative, ambient pseudo-soundtrack stuff. Lots of simple guitar lines over gentle vibes and simple drumming, occasional glitched stuttery soundscapes, occasional sweet female vocals, all very nice. But that's it. Very nice. And I know it was a while ago, but we got used to Tortoise being more than very nice. So every new record is another little diappointment. Granted this record is pretty good. And it sounds great. It's just really really lite. Very little substance. Like Godspeed if they weren't stoned fucked up hippies and instead were white sweatered Yalies. Or like a 21st century Free Design. For such a technologically and sonically savvy band there are a few serious missteps, the occasional super cheesy Peter Gabriel flute sound (you know the one) and some string parts that sound really midi and kind of hokey. But all in all, a pretty decent record. Perhaps a perfect late night cocktail chillout record, maybe after rocking out to Stereolab, the perfect winding down sound. But it still leaves us a bit cold, longing to hear "Onions Wrapped In Rubber", "Tin Cans And Twine" and especially "D'jed" From Millions Now Living... quite possibly Tortoise's Finest moment.

MPEG stream: It's All Around You
MPEG stream: The Lithium Stiffs
MPEG stream: Crest

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

SORRY. Tortoise' first 2 singles (one from back when they were called Mosquito), long out of print and unavailable (not even on the rare Japanese compilations). Thrill Jockey printed just 1000 more of each of these, so they'll be gone too before long. Buy now or cry later. Coming first week of April: Soul Static Sound reissues what may be Tortoise' best single, "Why We Fight."

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

SORRY. Tour single on opaque white vinyl. Very limited.

Gorgeous packaging holds a 20-minute tour de force called "DJed," which by now has been remixed to death! And it still sounds good. Better than 90 percent of what's out there, believe me. To this day.

[ aquarius records catalogue — T ]