[ aquarius records catalogue

IMPORTANT (Please read to avoid confusion): Some items below may be tagged with a bold, red, all-caps OUT OF PRINT/UNAVAILABLE notice. This does NOT mean that all other items not so tagged are, in fact, in stock — or for that matter, in print and available, though there's a good chance they are. Some folks get confused on this point, and we can see why, so please read this for further clarification and other important before-you-order information. Unlike some mailorder websites, we don't have an electronic inventory system linked to our site, so you can't be sure of what we actually have or don't have in stock at any given moment without asking us — please email our mailorder department for availability status — or better yet, just go ahead and place your order using our shopping cart function and we'll get back to you with the status of each item. If you have general non-mailorder questions, email the store.

Showing results 1151 through 1200 of 3547.

This is a recording of an annual festival held in Bengal and the performances on this recording are mostly of solo voice and male choruses. What's odd is that, though made in May of 1999, the recording sounds as though someone stuck a microphone in a tin can,

What's one to do, after the Beauty Bar closes, or Tonic or whatever your local watering hole is, where us ugly people are not welcome? And you and your model junkie girlfriend need some music to make out to or nod off to. And she's really pretty 'exotic'.

The Western obsession with India's prolific film industry, and even more so the musical numbers that drive the narratives forward, has nearly reached its saturation point. The amount of "best of Bollywood" anthologies released to date seems to almost equal India's annual theatrical output. Which all just makes it that much harder for us when we want to tell you that Indiavision is quite assuredly the best collection of Bollywood music we've come accross. See, so much has come before that such a claim will be immediately written off as so much of the usual record reviewer hyperbole. So just hear us out. First of all, what is it that makes Indian film music so great? Well, one of the things most often cited by fans is the over-the-top arrangements on some of the better numbers. The really great film music composers like Kalyanji & Anandji and Laxmikant & Pyarelal are some of the most worldly specialists in all genres of music, integrating the talents of Ennio Morricone's Western period, entire western orchestras, regional Indian classical music, the newest in electronic developments and whatever fad happened to be big in the year which they were composing (Hawaiian slide guitar, psychedelic music, soul, funk, you name it). The greatest film scores manage to somehow meld all that together in a way that just begs for some kind of clever culinary analogy (which we will spare you from in this review). What else makes a great Bollywood song? The vocalist(s). A good song can survive without a male vocalist; they're only needed in duets with the female lead. The female vocalists in Indian film music are the equivalent of lead guitarists in the golden age of American rock and roll, and their vocal chords have the same dynamics, presence and range as most amplified guitars. Singers like Asha Bhosle (India's shining star of singers), featured heavily on this collection (and all collections) have a way of disembodying their voices from their bodies. When Bhosle sings her voice cuts through the speakers like a scalpel. Half of this phenomenon is due to her amazing lungs, the other to the insane engineering skills of the producers who record these scores who choose to overload the microphone preamps and super-saturate the magnetic tape during the loudest passages resulting in an unholy natural compression of the signal. Second only to the likes of Lee Perry in his Black Ark period of the early seventies or dub master King Tubby, the production values of Indian film music is singularly twisted in their techniques. Like the aforementioned Jamaican demigods of the multi-track, the recordists here have an arsenal of reverb, echo and compression tools that -- while not as new as the gear used in Hollywood's recording studios -- are used to their absolute functional limit. All of those essential elements of Indian film music are represented on each and every song here. But unlike many earlier collections, which focus their range on a particular era, composer, or vocalist, Indiavision draws from a wide range of sources. The tracks included here date from as far back as 1966 on up to 1984, it includes such film score heavyweights as father S.D. and son R.D. Burman, Laxmikant & Pyarelal, Kalyanji & Anandji and Bappi Lahiri. The broad time spanned by the tracks makes this collection as a whole more varied and easy on the ears. There's also quite a good variety of both slow, sultry numbers and completely batty comical ones. Some, like the title music for "The Burning Train" (listed as an instrumental), which features gruff female vocals like those of Yma Sumac, or the "Cabaret Dance Music" from the film "Dharmatma" with its maniacal laughter are completely off the wall. Others, like "Yashomati Maiya Se Bole Nandala" -- a deadly serious romantic number with crooned vocals by Lata Mangeshkar -- and "Come Closer" -- a mellow and sincere funk/soul song sung by Salma Agha -- are beautiful respites from the cornball antics which are more often the songs of choice for Bollywood anthologies. Comes with a 30 page, full color booklet with plentiful liner notes in both French and English. Highly recommended!

MPEG stream: Yashomati Maiya Se Bole Nandala
MPEG stream: Cabaret Dance Music
MPEG stream: Come Closer
MPEG stream: Title Music from the film The Burning Train

Yay, here's the 3rd vinyl release from Sham Palace, the internationally-minded reissues label run by our pal Mark Gergis (Neung Phak, Porest, Mono Pause) as sort of an adjunct to the other "world music" label he's involved with, the celebrated Sublime Frequencies. We're all for it, Sham Palace just makes it like Sublime Frequencies releases are more, uh, frequent. The previous two offerings from Sham Palace were devoted to Middle Eastern "Dabke" music, one a record from aQ fave Omar Souleyman and the other a comp. But for this lp, something different, from a different (but still Islamic) part of the world. Mark has compiled just what the subtitle says: Pan-Indonesian Pop, Folk, Instrumentals & Children's Songs, 1970s-1980s. It's a diverse selection, the dozen tracks here variously representing different genres as well as coming from different islands - Java and Sumatra - in the Indonesian archipelago. But all, to some degree or other, hybridize both traditional Indonesian musics and Western rock/pop styles. There's folk-rock, and funk, and Bollywood inspired pop, and child singers, and plenty of synth. And all the tracks are pretty darn great - which of course is precisely what we'd expect from this label & compiler. So, highly recommended. Vinyl-only, limited to 1000 copies!

Sometimes, in the midst of all the excitement we feel at the release of a new blippy cutting-edge electronica disc, or the next undiscovered indie-rock pop gem, we lose sight of the fact that much of the best music made has nothing to do with computers or hip scenes. Instead, it's made by musicians you've never heard of who are unlikely to ever grace the cover of The Wire or Magnet. Especially, musicians in the Third World, who have a contemporary, living, often innovative relationship with the musical traditions of their communities. People who do what they do with a great deal of feeli guitar music that we've ever celebrated on this AQ-list. We're all quite taken with it, and thus chose to make it Record of the Month. Indeed, the disc's final track, a song called "Fajar Di Atas Awan" written by Irwansyah Harahap, is assuredly the most gorgeous seven minutes of gentle guitar folk-drone and female vocals that we've been blessed to hear, ever. The guitar, though rarely mentioned by ethnomusicologists, has been a part of Indonesian music ever since the Portuguese introduced it to the region back in the 16th century. Over the years it has made its way into various musical idioms and been paramount in the formation of others. At times used to imitate traditional instruments such as the Kecapi (a Sundanese zither), or, conversely, to play the bizarre, Indian film music styled electric pop of modern Dangdut (see Volume 2 in this series, "Indonesian Popular Music"), guitars (or "home-made instruments resembling guitars") have had a rich history in Indonesia. Featuring primarily solo guitar and vocal accompaniment from Sumatra, Java, Sumba, Timor and Sulawesi, this cd, with its very informative 32 page (!) booklet, is yet another testament to Yampolsky's dedication to documenting the multi-faceted musical world of Indonesia, in all its riches and wonder. With twenty volumes in the series, we can't be too sad that this is the last, as it's certain that even picking up only this (a good start) and a few of the others would keep the adventurous music fan thrilled for a long while, and perhaps hook them on a whole new realm of sounds. The other two most recent installments are Volume 18, "Sulawesi: Festivals, Funerals, And Work", ranging from sorrowful flute pieces to drum and vocal based harvest celebrations, and Volume 19, "Music of Maluku: Halmahera, Buru, Kei", a variety of musics from the Molucca Islands, including music from a Sufi-derived ritual that involved men stabbing themselves with iron awls! Like the rest of the series, both too are recommended and are also 15.98 a piece.

You'd never accuse Mad Deadly Worldwide Communist Gangster Computer God of having much artistic integrity, after the hilarious if tabloidish collections of "Celebrities at Their Worst." "Industry Wannabes and Radio Anomalies" is a far more cruel piece of humor than its predecesor... one that you feel really bad for laughing at. Yet, laugh you will. The best parts of this collection are culled from tapes sent with the greatest of sincerity to record labels by chemically imbalanced individuals whose desire to be a part of the music industry far surpasses anything they may be able to offer to the industry. One such individual is Mr. Paul Super Apple - a huge Keith Richards fan who sent a tape to Atlantic Records desperately pleading with Keith to produce his songs, which have much more in common with the ironic pathos of East River Pipe than the Rolling Stones. The most bizarre tape is from J & H Productions - a fictional holding company whose spokesman rambles through an excessive amount of legalese in hopes of booking "all of the stars" for the biggest venues in Cinncinati. Follow all of this with some incredulous prank phone calls from "The Cambodian Refugee Center" to some conservative asshole in Garden Grove who is as dimwitted as he is confrontational. The prank begins as the telemarketer from the Cambodian Refugee Center insists that the person on the other end of the phone has signed a contract to adopt a Cambodian baby. Of course he hasn't and the exchange rivals some of the Great Phone Calls by Gregg Turkington. Quite amazing.

RealAudio clip: Cambodian Refugee Calls
RealAudio clip: Paul Super Apple
RealAudio clip: J & H Productions

A massive 4 cd collection packaged beautifully in an oversized hardcover book from Stephen O'Malley's (Sunn, Burning Witch, etc...) Anja label. Featuring a who's who of underground expreimental ambient noise-icians, each doing a song about a different flower. Features: Circle, Amber Asylum, Alio Die, Ultra, Jonathan Coleclough, Troum, Steve Roden, Kawabata Makoto, Inade, Mnortham, Aube, Chaos As Shelter, Lotus Eaters and tons more. Absolutely gorgeous, looking and sounding. And of course quite limited.

In 1998, Ochre began a series of 7" compilations titled "Infrasonic Waves", which was centered on post / space rock and electronica. Among the many artists contributing were Magnetophone, Our Glassie Azoth, Mount Vernon Arts Lab, Avrocar, and The Freed Unit. The first disc of this 2cd set compiles all of the series. Disc two is a collection of new and unreleased recordings

Pretty much all you gotta say about this one is EXCLUSIVE TWELVE MINUTE CIRCLE TRACK!!! Okay, so at least a handful of you already leapt wildly for the click-to-buy button and have already moved on. For the rest of you, this comp, the first release on Barge Recordings, has way more to offer than just one track (although it is a killer... more on that in a minute). This is one of those compilations that is perfectly balanced between names you know and love, and bands you've never even heard of, but the good thing is, the tracks by the lesser known bands are just as good! You've got Finnish hypnorockers Circle but you've also got Polmo Polpo, Tim Hecker, Loren Connors, MGR, Geoff Mullen, sounds like an AQ dream compilation already. So the tracks by The Fun Years, the Kallikak Family, Bird Show and Animal Hospital are just gravy. But with a comp like this, the only real way to get a feel for it is to go track by track. Needless to say, if you dig Circle, and Tim Hecker and the rest of those, odds are you're gonna dig all of this. The Fun Years offer up a lovely soundscape of warped melodies, delicate guitar strum and all sorts of staticky record crackle. Much more dreamy and melancholy than the band name might lead you to believe. Next up is the Kallikak Family, whose track is like a glitched up, chopped and screwed version of some classic Appalachian folk tune, steel string guitar, dreamy vocals, all crunched up and stuttered into strange rhythms and droney swirls. Cool! Then it's Bird Show, a Kranky Records outfit which should give you a rough idea, with muted thumb piano melodies, like some drugged out less festive Konono, underneath strummed guitars and haunting monotone vocals, creepy and super pretty. Polmo Polpo follow up with a grainy grinding dronescape constructed from what sounds like sine waves, bird calls, fragments of guitar buzz, shortwave radio and theremin. Tim Hecker is up next and does that thing he does so well, the blown out fuzzy soundscape, melodies and rhythms indistinct and buried under swirls of gauzy hiss and shimmery whir. So goddamned perfect. One of those tracks that should be hours long. Loren Connors follows Hecker's thick swath of sound with a much more spare and somber track, simple plaintive electric guitar, shimmering reverb, lots and lots of space, delicate and elegiac. Then we have Animal Hospital, who unfurl a thick Sunn 0)))-like guitar, a churning glacial throb, over a static field of cricket chirping high end. Like a more moody melodic Skullflower, or Godpeed tackling a track from Earth 2. But way prettier. Finally we get to the Circle track, which eschews there usually propulsive, almost metal, hypnotic krautrock style groove in favor of a weird ambient soundworld, of pulsing low end drones, caveman like grunts, bizarre muttered vocals, abstract guitars, lots of tinkling percussion, thick swirls of ambient sound. It almost sounds like the Orc obsessed soundscapes of Za Frumi, or a more Quest For Fire version of their live sound on the long out of print live Mountain lp. Either ay, essential for all you Circle nuts. Hot on Circle's Neanderthal heels is Geoff Mullen, who takes his stringed implements (guitar and banjo usually) and transforms them into a grinding corrosive battery of moans and groans and wails, of buzz and glitch and crunch, a clattery, keening industrial psychedelia, that manages to be harsh and caustic, as well as strangely pretty. And finally, MGR, 1/4 of the mighty Isis, who under the name Mustard Gas And Roses, weaves dreamy, darkly doomy, meanderingly melancholy abstract post rock dronescapes, lovely and mysterious, the track here is no exception, the main difference being a strange Morricone Spaghetti Western vibe, that gives the track a cool, cinematic deserty feel. So nice. A killer comp for sure, and a whole mess of new bands we're gonna have to track down more music from! Note: Be warned, it is quite difficult to get the disc out of the sleeve. The inner sleeve is just a little too big. Be careful removing it, best to open it all the way and push from the inside. A bit more work, but it's WELL worth it!

MPEG stream: Dungeoneering
MPEG stream: No Battle, No Fire
MPEG stream: Gold Eyes

This is the sort of thing that Andee tells us Lesser would subject him to while driving the van when he went on tour with A Minor Forest (to the point that Andee would volunteer to drive, no matter how tired he was, just to avoid hearing it). Retro techno

RealAudio clip: Crazy Comets Main Theme
RealAudio clip: Magnetic Fields IV (As Used In Yie Ar Kung-Fu)
RealAudio clip: BMX Kidz Title Theme

Funny that there's such a renewed interest in cheesy seventies porn music. Especially considering that music in pornos always seemed to be some mediocre funk or soul, or sometimes super cheesy soundtracky fluff, and existed solely to fill out the sounds of a scene that would otherwise be nothing but grunts and groans and slapping skin. Not sure who decided that people looked (and sounded) better screwing to some totally innocuous R&B, but at some point it stuck, and thus porno music became a genre unto itself, immediately recognizable by its cloying melodies, boppy walking basslines, simple shuffling rhythms, silly synths and very un-funky funk. That said, these Deep Note collections have done a pretty great job of collecting the weirdest, and funniest, and thus the best the genre has to offer. None of these songs immediately evoke images of wild orgies or group sex or intimate lovefests, instead they mostly seem to evoke chase scenes, the credits of a sitcom, or background music for instructional videos. Which I suppose is what makes these so darn cool. Timeless in that totally dated way only porno music can be. But the real attraction here is the inclusion of a DVD, containing loads of the silliest scenes, weirdest dialogue, biggest... moustaches, Afros, and boobs, hairiest bods, unlikely locations and bad acting you will ever see! And prudes fear not! The editing has deftly left plenty up to the imagination, so the original X-rated clips have become a bit more R-rated!

MPEG stream: Theme From Sweet And Sticky
MPEG stream: Crusin' Downtown
MPEG stream: Can't Get Enough (Of That Hot Buttered Stuff)

We have VERY few of these, as in just 3 or 4, so we'll keep this brief. But holy cow, is this something else, a massive 88 page oversized soft cover coffee table book, accompanied by two cds containing unreleased recordings made at the Institute For Psychoacoustics And Electronic Music at Ghent University in Belgium, which is sort of like the Belgian equivalent to the GRM studios in France, or DIEM in Denmark. The book celebrates 50 years and includes tons of rare photos of the various instruments and their operators, as well as a pretty extensive study of the Institute's contribution to the development of electronic music, the text in both English and Dutch, the book alone would be worth the price of admission, but the cds too, featuring tons of amazing music, from some names we recognize, but loads we don't, and the sounds, wow! Insane to think how prescient some of these noisemakers and academics were, considering much of this sounds like it could be contemporary, there are wild cut up collages, whirring blurry soundscapes reminiscent of the Caretaker, woozy, warbling ambience a la Philip Jeck, lots of drones, and abstract Musique Concrete, tape music and more, all recorded between 1963 and 1999. Again, the book is incredible, the music too, dark and mysterious, haunting and wildly experimental, SUPER recommended for weird music obsessives, and fans of early electronic / tape music. There's a good chance we won't be able to get more, so order super quick if you want one of the few we have, and be prepared to wait a while for more to come in, assuming we can even get more at all once we run out...

MPEG stream: Incantations
MPEG stream: Studie 1
MPEG stream: Les Cephalopodes
MPEG stream: Simparolo
MPEG stream: Monochroom

Collection of recordings made at this Utrecht, Netherlands as a studio for electro-instrumental music and attached to the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. Contains your standard academic tape and electronics fare for the period. Features pieces composed

RealAudio clip: Piano-forte
RealAudio clip: Freflexen

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

SORRY.

Yes you read that right. $1.98 list price for this Matador and True Pather label vinyl sampler. Previewing upcoming 2012 releases, there's tracks by The Young, Ceremony, Lee Ranaldo, Perfume Genius, and Tanlines (or maybe theirs is totally exclusive?). Plus, it's got previously released 2011 hits from: Girls, Kurt Vile, Esben & The Witch, and Cold Cave (though theirs is a remix/remaster). And Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks contribute an unreleased cut from the Mirror Traffic sessions.

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

SORRY. Interference is a nicely varied local compilation filled with text and sounds that run the mellow gamut from washy electronics to airy atmospheric folk. Nothing too raucous nor abrasive. Draws plenty of queries whenever it gets played in the store. Nice!

Wow, what an amazing compilation! Really, how could it be anything but awesome with a title like International Sad Hits?! We sure do love us some sad songs, the sadder the better. It's always fascinating to observe how different performers and composers around the world turn their sadness into sound. And in turn, how those sounds effect us as listeners. This collection was assembled by Damon and Naomi -- a duo who certainly know a thing or two about sad songs. It features four artists whom D&N had heard while touring 'round the world. The duo have most certainly stumbled on some seriously lovely sad sounds, and now the rest of us can wallow in them too. Hailing from Turkey, Korea and Japan these artists echo a somber '60s folk aesthetic (a la Tim Buckley or Bob Dylan), or in fact are obscurities from the '60s themselves. Actually the Japanese contingent here (avant-folk veterans Kazuki Tomokawa and Kan Mikami, who also performs in Vajra with Keiji Haino) we at aQ and many of our customers are plenty familiar with and fond of already... Though they and the others (Turkey's Fikret Kizilok and Korea's Kim Doo Soo) may not be household names in the USA, and might only be known to a handful of adventurous music lovers, hopefully this comp will expose their amazing music to at least a few more lovers of melancholy folk! Totally fascinating liner notes too, by Damon and Naomi as well as Allan Cummings. A gorgeous melancholy collection put together with much thought and love. So great!

MPEG stream: Just As Long
MPEG stream: Mountain
MPEG stream: What Is That Place

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

SORRY.

Howard Stelzer's press release for his compilation of improvisational, dronecore experimentalism entitled Intransitive Twenty-Three gushes about his love for compilations, harkening back to high school days of making mix tapes for friends. While I (Jim) certainly have a strong sense of nostalgia for the mix tapes of my youth, I do not always share Mr. Stelzer's love affair with 'the compilation' (in general though, not this one specifically). In many instances, compilations emerge as lackluster collections patchworked from tracks that didn't quite fit on an artist's latest album. There are obvious exceptions; and in every case, those exceptions are the result of the care that the compiler puts into what he or she chooses, where he or she places those selections, and what thematic constraints he or she demands from each of the artists. Accordingly, Intransitive Twenty-Three is one of those rare compilations that succeeds on all fronts. When Stelzer began assembling this album, he asked that each of the artists record these tracks without the use of any digital devices. How they interpreted what "no digital devices" meant was up to them. Obviously, Stelzer was seeking a more tactile approach to sound making (as opposed to the potential for sterility that laptop jockies might revert to). He also hedged his bets by asking the cream of the crop including Jonathan Coleclough & Colin Potter, Francisco Lopez, Frans De Waard, Birchville Cat Motel, Giuseppe Ielasi, Atau Tanaka, nmperign, Alexandre St. Onge, the Animist Orchestra, and many others. Across the twenty two tracks, quiet passages, textural events, and field recordings make up the bulk of the content, with everything punctuated by periodic silences which divide all of the tracks and whisper that another interesting turn of haptic improvisation is around the corner. Another great album from Intransitive.

MPEG stream: Two Chords
MPEG stream: Untitled Piece For Analog 4-Track Tapes
MPEG stream: Leaves On The Track

At last reissued, which is cool, 'cause we meant to write about this a few years ago but never did. This is a compilation of traditional Greenlandic music, mostly voices and drums. These songs in their multitude are shamanic or sad, heartfelt or humorous, providing an intimate sonic glimpse into a remote culture. Remote not just geographically but temporally as well, as these tracks were collected by ethnomusicologists over the past century, some taken from wax-cylinder recordings made as far back as 1905! Charm-songs, singing games, duel-songs, drum-dancing, and other unique Greenlandic folk forms are documented. At least one song here required the singer to put a stick crosswise in his mouth, to distort both his face and his voice, for play-acting purposes. Strange stuff indeed! Meanwhile, some other tracks with female vocals remind us, bizarrely enough, of indie rock sister act Cocorosie. The wealth of musical material here -- 55 tracks! -- is matched by the detailed 24 page cd booklet.

MPEG stream: Uaajeerneq-song
MPEG stream: Qivttoq-song

If you're into heavy rock, psych and metal the way we are, then just one glance at the tracklist for this new compilation should sell you on it without much trouble. Yep, there's a bunch of the heavies here, for sure. Witchcraft! Witch! Pelican! High On Fire! The Fucking Champs! The Sword! and a dozen others. And quite a few of these 18 tracks are previously unreleased, over fifty percent in fact. So not a bad dealio indeed, rockers. This focuses on current indie darlings and more obscure upandcomers as well -- including several from right here in San Francisco -- so chances are you'll hear from a favorite band or two and probably get into something new too. Though the cover art (swiped from an old Metal Massacre comp) seemingly promises old school '80s metal action, that's not really what this is about. We wouldn't even classify a lot of these bands as "metal", really. There's just as much stoner psych and post rock and prog and Melvinsy dirge punk, but it IS all on the heavy side. As far as retro inspiration goes, it's the '70s and Sabbath that get the most nods. Faves? Among the Sabbathy, we already love Sweden's Witchcraft (who contribute a live version of "Queen Of Bees") and Witch (a track from their awesome album) but were also stoked to hear Portland's Danava for the first time, so spacey and rollicking. Of course Dungen's song is great (flute!) and you can't argue with Comets On Fire's blown out psych-noise either. Or with the metallic Yessisms of Diamond Nights. We also dug the unreleased cut by SF's hard rockin' Night After Night quite a bit. Heck it's hard to pick stuff out, there's a lot of cool tracks on here, from a bunch of bands we (mostly) love or soon will... Ok, here's the fairly drool-worthy list of bands found here (asterisks indicate that they're contributing previous unreleased material): Saviours, Danava*, Big Business*, Black Mountain*, The Sword*, Dungen, Witch, The Fucking Champs*, Torche, Pelican, High On Fire, Witchcraft*, Comets On Fire*, Diamond Nights*, Wolfmother, Night After Night*, Warhammer 48K, Parchman Farm*.

MPEG stream: By The Mark
MPEG stream: Backseat Astronaut
MPEG stream: Behind The Fall

We are suckers for dancehall. Always have been. It's one of those sounds/musics (like black metal buzz, or THE DRONE), that we just can't ever seem to get enough of. That distinctive dancehall rhythmic stutter, so hypnotic and mesmerizing, it's irresistible, and then there's the wild toasting, all woven into this strange skeletal rhythmic party music, that manages to be fun and funky but also weirdly dark and heavy, especially on the first disc here, compiled by Kevin Martin, aka The Bug, who seems to have collected the weirdest dancehall jams around, even the opening track, a classic dancehall number, from way back in 1999, is pretty strange, the beat big and heavy, the vocals chopped up, some super cinematic strings, the toasting way off in the distance, buried way down in the mix, a dub seemingly gone haywire, which when you think about it could describe dancehall in general. Or at least the kind we love. And the first disc here is overflowing with it. Thick buzzing synth over low slung skitter, super effects heavy 8 bit stutter, weirdly produced so the sound slips from blown out and brittle, to murky and muddy, the sound laced with all manner of strange sound effects and WAY dubbed out drums, there's gypsy folk fiddles fused to clipped electronics and slithery basslines, or steel drum driven sunshiney party grooves underpinned by some seriously ominous low end, big skipping synth shuffles beneath snap and clam rhythms, and some swirling drugged out effects heavy vox, and so it goes, the first disc playing out like some twisted big beat experiment, that ranks up there with our favorite dubstep comps for speaker punishing beats, and fuzzy funky grooves, this one maybe the most twisted and far out yet, finishing off with a Bug track of course, Martin offering his own take on dancehall, this one a thumping chunk of bass heavy murk, that almost sounds like super charged double dutch, with some glitch electronics and echoey vocals, the sound slipping from gristly and crunchy, to hazy and washed out. The second disc, ostensibly slightly more 'traditional', with more obvious nods to the dub and reggae that birthed dancehall, ends up being almost as wonderfully far out as the first, compiled by Soul Jazz head honcho Stuart Baker, disc two manages to shine a light on a different side of dancehall, but one that's just as twisted. Right off the bat, the opener sounds like a squelchy warbly dancehall-ed version of some classic hip hop jam, while the follow up is like some sort of dancehall / dubstep soundtrack to a futuristic sci-fi police chase movie, all fat bass warble and wah guitars, pulsing synth and BIG beats. The rest of the second disc plays out just as strangely as the first few tracks, slipping often into sounds more classically dub or dancehall, but even then, the beats get all twisted up, the loops warped, these tracks obviously chosen as the stranger examples of what was going on in dancehall, even King Tubby contributes some cool lo-fi Casio-driven dancehall weirdness, and near the end of the disc, the sound seems to gradually be slipping back toward a more traditional dub sound, but again, the far out aspects that define the tracks on the first disc, and to a lesser extant the first half of the second disc, remain present, just employed more subtly. We make proclamations like this all the time, but this is quickly becoming our favorite dancehall comp, definitely the strangest, and most far out. WAY recommended of course. Even if you've yet to be won over by dancehall, if there was ever a record to do it, it would probably be this one. Besides the fact, that the whole thing is presented as an over the top concept collection, the music here apparently some sort of sound shield, to protect Kingston, Jamaica, where a crazy battle is set to take place, between the Alien Sound Lord Abductors, who are trying to recapture humanoid souls, and the Digital Defenders! And you can read all about it in the included comic book! So rad! Also available, as so many of these Soul Jazz comps are, spread out over two separate vinyl volumes.

MPEG stream: Streetsweeper
MPEG stream: Modern Times
MPEG stream: Bazooka Riddim
MPEG stream: M.D.M.A.
MPEG stream: Aktion

Vinyl part one, here's the review we wrote of the complete 2cd edition: We are suckers for dancehall. Always have been. It's one of those sounds/musics (like black metal buzz, or THE DRONE), that we just can't ever seem to get enough of. That distinctive dancehall rhythmic stutter, so hypnotic and mesmerizing, it's irresistible, and then there's the wild toasting, all woven into this strange skeletal rhythmic party music, that manages to be fun and funky but also weirdly dark and heavy, especially on the first disc here, compiled by Kevin Martin, aka The Bug, who seems to have collected the weirdest dancehall jams around, even the opening track, a classic dancehall number, from way back in 1999, is pretty strange, the beat big and heavy, the vocals chopped up, some super cinematic strings, the toasting way off in the distance, buried way down in the mix, a dub seemingly gone haywire, which when you think about it could describe dancehall in general. Or at least the kind we love. And the first disc here is overflowing with it. Thick buzzing synth over low slung skitter, super effects heavy 8bit stutter, weirdly produced so the sound slips from blown out and brittle, to murky and muddy, the sound laced with all manner of strange sound effects and WAY dubbed out drums, there's gypsy folk fiddles fused to clipped electronics and slithery basslines, or steel drum driven sunshiney party grooves underpinned by some seriously ominous low end, big skipping synth shuffles beneath snap and clam rhythms, and some swirling drugged out effects heavy vox, and so it goes, the first disc playing out like some twisted big beat experiment, that ranks up there with our favorite dubstep comps for speaker punishing beats, and fuzzy funky grooves, this one maybe the most twisted and far out yet, finishing off with a Bug track of course, Martin offering his own take on dancehall, this one a thumping chunk of bass heavy murk, that almost sounds like super charegd double dutch, with some glitch electronics and echoey vocals, the sound slipping from gristly and crunchy, to hazy and washed out. The second disc, ostensibly slightly more 'traditional', with more obvious nods to the dub and reggae that birthed dancehall, ends up being almost as wonderfully far out as the first, compiled by Soul Jazz head honcho Stuart Baker, disc two manages to shine a light on a different side of dancehall, but one that's just as twisted. Right off the bat, the opener sounds like a squelchy warbly dancehall-ed version of some classic hip hop jam, while the follow up is like some sort of dancehall / dubstep soundtrack to a futuristic sci fi police chase movie, all fat bass warble and wah guitars, pulsing synth and BIG beats. The rest of the second disc plays out just as strangely as the first few tracks, slipping often into sounds more classically dub or dancehall, but even then, the beats get all twisted up, the loops warped, these tracks obviously chosen as the stranger examples of what was going on in dancehall, even King Tubby contributes some cool lo-fi casio-driven dancehall weirdness, and near the end of the disc, the sound seems to gradually be slipping back toward a more traditional dub sound, but again, the far out aspects that define the tracks on the first disc, and to a lesser extant the first half of the second disc, remain present, just employed more subtlely. We make proclamations like this all the time, but this is quickly becoming our favorite dancehall comp, definitely the strangest, and most far out. WAY recommended of course. Even if you've yet to be won over by dancehall, if there was ever a record to do it, it would probably be this one. Besides the fact, that the whole thing is presented as an over the top concept collection, the music here apparently some sort of sound shield, to protect Kingston, Jamaica, where a crazy battle is set to take place, between the Alien Sound Lord Abductors, who are trying to recapture humanoid souls, and the Digital Defenders! And you can read all about it in the included comic book! So rad!

MPEG stream: Streetsweeper
MPEG stream: Modern Times
MPEG stream: Bazooka Riddim
MPEG stream: M.D.M.A.
MPEG stream: Aktion

Vinyl part two, here's the review we wrote of the complete 2cd edition: We are suckers for dancehall. Always have been. It's one of those sounds/musics (like black metal buzz, or THE DRONE), that we just can't ever seem to get enough of. That distinctive dancehall rhythmic stutter, so hypnotic and mesmerizing, it's irresistible, and then there's the wild toasting, all woven into this strange skeletal rhythmic party music, that manages to be fun and funky but also weirdly dark and heavy, especially on the first disc here, compiled by Kevin Martin, aka The Bug, who seems to have collected the weirdest dancehall jams around, even the opening track, a classic dancehall number, from way back in 1999, is pretty strange, the beat big and heavy, the vocals chopped up, some super cinematic strings, the toasting way off in the distance, buried way down in the mix, a dub seemingly gone haywire, which when you think about it could describe dancehall in general. Or at least the kind we love. And the first disc here is overflowing with it. Thick buzzing synth over low slung skitter, super effects heavy 8bit stutter, weirdly produced so the sound slips from blown out and brittle, to murky and muddy, the sound laced with all manner of strange sound effects and WAY dubbed out drums, there's gypsy folk fiddles fused to clipped electronics and slithery basslines, or steel drum driven sunshiney party grooves underpinned by some seriously ominous low end, big skipping synth shuffles beneath snap and clam rhythms, and some swirling drugged out effects heavy vox, and so it goes, the first disc playing out like some twisted big beat experiment, that ranks up there with our favorite dubstep comps for speaker punishing beats, and fuzzy funky grooves, this one maybe the most twisted and far out yet, finishing off with a Bug track of course, Martin offering his own take on dancehall, this one a thumping chunk of bass heavy murk, that almost sounds like super charegd double dutch, with some glitch electronics and echoey vocals, the sound slipping from gristly and crunchy, to hazy and washed out. The second disc, ostensibly slightly more 'traditional', with more obvious nods to the dub and reggae that birthed dancehall, ends up being almost as wonderfully far out as the first, compiled by Soul Jazz head honcho Stuart Baker, disc two manages to shine a light on a different side of dancehall, but one that's just as twisted. Right off the bat, the opener sounds like a squelchy warbly dancehall-ed version of some classic hip hop jam, while the follow up is like some sort of dancehall / dubstep soundtrack to a futuristic sci fi police chase movie, all fat bass warble and wah guitars, pulsing synth and BIG beats. The rest of the second disc plays out just as strangely as the first few tracks, slipping often into sounds more classically dub or dancehall, but even then, the beats get all twisted up, the loops warped, these tracks obviously chosen as the stranger examples of what was going on in dancehall, even King Tubby contributes some cool lo-fi casio-driven dancehall weirdness, and near the end of the disc, the sound seems to gradually be slipping back toward a more traditional dub sound, but again, the far out aspects that define the tracks on the first disc, and to a lesser extant the first half of the second disc, remain present, just employed more subtlely. We make proclamations like this all the time, but this is quickly becoming our favorite dancehall comp, definitely the strangest, and most far out. WAY recommended of course. Even if you've yet to be won over by dancehall, if there was ever a record to do it, it would probably be this one. Besides the fact, that the whole thing is presented as an over the top concept collection, the music here apparently some sort of sound shield, to protect Kingston, Jamaica, where a crazy battle is set to take place, between the Alien Sound Lord Abductors, who are trying to recapture humanoid souls, and the Digital Defenders! And you can read all about it in the included comic book! So rad!

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

SORRY. For the past few years now, we've been singing the praises of the Last Visible Dog catalog, which mostly consists of cd-r editions from the likes of Thuja, MCMS, Shizuka, Dead Raven Choir, and many other bands specializing in primitive electronics, droning lo-tech minimalism, or drugged-out psychedelic improvisation. Having recently made the jump to manufacturing real cds with their reissue of the Jewelled Antler project The Birdtree, Last Visible Dog now offers "The Invisible Pyramid" as a double-cd primer to their catalog, with *all exclusive* tracks from Thuja, Reynols, Charalambides, Omit, Birdtree, Fursaxa, Birchville Cat Motel, Karma (yet another Kawabata Makoto project!), Pelt, The Iditarod, Kemialliset Ystavat, SubArachnoid Space, Avarus, MCMS, Drona Parva, Karl Precoda & Mike Gangloff, Miminokoto, Pylon, Sandoz Lab Technicians, Black Forest / Black Sea, and Peter Wright. A wonderfully steady listen, "The Invisible Pyramid" fortunately doesn't suffer from the problems of most label comps, which are often filled with tracks not good enough to make it onto proper albums. Since all of these bands are SO prolific (just look to Birchville Cat Motel and the Jewelled Antler collective for evidence of the wealth of great recordings), getting great tracks couldn't have been that difficult a task for Last Visible Dog. The highlights include a massive four-part opus of space-fug from Reynols, the alienating electronic cryptography of Omit, the minimalist, sleepwalking strum of Fursaxa, and the wistful avant-folk of The Birdtree. Altogether, a wonderful compilation!

MPEG stream: 1st.Sex
MPEG stream: Chartreuse My Green
MPEG stream: Ice Caves

We just got this in earlier this week, and well, what do you want already? A review?? It's SIX count 'em SIX CDS!!! We can't listen to all of this and review it, nor do we need to. C'mon, just buy it. You know you want one. How can you not?? There's SEVEN HOURS AND 36 MINUTES of music on here from pretty much EVERYBODY that you love from the international drone / psych / folk scene, from the US and NZ and Finland and Japan and lots of other places. Here's just a partial list: Birchville Cat Motel, Avarus, Bardo Pond, Black Forest/Black Sea, Doktor Kettu, Steven R. Smith, Fursaxa, Peter Wright, Urdog, Seht, Uton, Loren Chasse/Of, Renato Rinaldi, Miminokoto, Matt De Gennaro, Geoff Mullen, Flies Inside The Sun, Up-Tight, Es, Wolfmangler, My Cat Is An Alien, One Inch Of Shadow, Keijo, Ashtray Navigations, Ben Reynolds, and a half-a-dozen more. GEEZUS. All kinds of haunting textures, space rock excursions, and free improv splurge. Of course, we'd love to provide you a detailed, multi-paragraph review where we discuss each track in depth and mention all the highlights, describe the variety, etc. etc. But that's crazy. We wouldn't get this listed until next year if we did that. And you want this NOW don't you? So, suffice to say that this is an amazing follow-up to the excellent, out-of-print "Invisible Pyramid" 2cd comp released a few years back by LVD. This time compiler Chris Moon, inspired by the classic triple LP comp Harmony of the Spheres released by Drunken Fish in 1996, encouraged the contributors to give him more material or longer tracks, in the 12-18 minute range. Perhaps later he saw this as a foolhardy decision when he realized the comp was going to take up six whole cds. But he did it anyway, and we can thank Chris for doing this, 'cause of course, most of these artists are all about the extended track length experience. These aren't bands that write three minute pop songs (although, some artists do provide suites of shorter tracks rather than one long one). They want to let loose and DRONE. And what's the use of a drone that gets cut short after a couple minutes? Exactly. So this comp avoids that problem, and is really a bargain at the price for so much music! Includes an appropriately thick booklet with liner notes, track info, and dedications to various extinct species.

MPEG stream: Hamaran Humina
MPEG stream: Guise Of The Eskimo Curlew
MPEG stream: Steller's Sea Cow
MPEG stream: Falling Into A Doze

The third compilation of eclectic electronica and noirish post-rock, conceptually linked as all are productions to films that never existed (definitely taking cues from Brian Eno and Barry Adamson). Artists include Rothko, Freeform, Susuma Yokota, Rob Ellis (Spleen, PJ Harvey), 310, Bass Communion, and more!

Back in February 2005, the eccentric, Anticon hip-hop outfit Subtle was on Interstate 80 in Iowa while touring the mid-west, when their van hit black ice and flipped over several times. The band members emerged from the wreckage bruised but unharmed, except for one: Dax Pierson had broken his neck. Since then, Dax has undergone extensive physical therapy; and while his insurance has covered his medical expenses (hooray for small businesses who give their employees health benefits!), there's plenty which his health insurance does not cover. As a result, there has been an international campaign to aid in Dax's recovery. Dax is a man who has touched many people's lives, inspiring them not only with his incredible musical talents but also with his generosity and jovial nature. For those who have lived in the Bay Area, tribute concerts for Dax have been occurring regularly throughout the spring and summer of 2005 often spear-headed by Anticon itself but also by many of the Dax's co-workers at Amoeba Records in Berkeley; and this compilation continues in these efforts. Curated by Amoeba's Andy Way and Jim Kaiser, the Irreplaceable Hand may speak more to their affinity for the oddball things that float through their experimental section, but this nonetheless speaks to the numerous people whose hearts have opened for Dax. Nurse With Wound, Matmos, Odd Nosdam, irr. app. (ext.), High Volture (aka Bruce Anderson of MX-80), Moe! Staiano, and Petit Mal are some of those who have contributed to the Irreplaceable Hand. A.C. Way opens the album with a track of nightmarish ambience with Lustmordian overtones and a persistently unnerving squiggle. High Volture quickly changes gears with a splatter of post-Derek Bailey improv. The always impressive irr. app. (ext.) offers a piece of bowed metal dissonance and drone bristling with post-surrealist aural fragments. Matmos' quirky collage of re-engineered vocal samples and Moe! Staiano's all-fists on the organ keyboard stand out as moments of comic relief against the rather dark atmosphere that this comp. As one could image, the highlight of the album is the Nurse With Wound track, as Stapleton moves from ominous drones similar to those heard on the Angry Eelectric Finger sessions and slowly introduces a pretty groovy breakbeat, perhaps an indication of how a NWW hip-hop record might sound. Of course we can't resist mentioning that there's of picture of Dax shot by Matt Waldron of irr. app. (ext.) while the two where shopping here at Aquarius! For information about Dax and his progress, please check out www.daxpierson.com.

MPEG stream: Moaner Whisper Drums
MPEG stream: Knit, Semble, Straighten and Mend
MPEG stream: Perfectly Pink Path

Another electronic music compilation featuring the usual suspects (and hometown favorites) Kid 606 and Lesser, plus Christoph de Babalon, Pisstank, Knifehandchop, and a dozen others. A loud, abrasive, and, well, *irritating* (like the label proudly proclaims)

RealAudio clip: What?Subjunctification?
RealAudio clip: Irritant

With a Designer's Republic deconstruction of archetectural symbols and texts as the cover art, this compilation has all of the trappings of looking like it should be on Warp. Musically, the aesthetics of the American label Schematic do not stray very far from the triumverate of the UK intelligensia of electronica: Warp, Skam, and Rephlex. 70's sci-fi / horror score ambience, post-electro breakbeats, and the non-household name factor of Phoenicia, Push Button Objects (who did just have a single for Skam), Richard Devine, Gliese, Metic, and David Kristian make this compilation quite an attractive collection.

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

SORRY. First of three internal remix eps of Schematic artists by Schematic artists. While comparisons to Autechre's fractured electro crunch are inevitable, Freeform, Richie Devine, Takeshi Muto, and Phonecia add noirish horns to digital skitter, along with occasional 4/4 stomps, and odd reconstructed future jazz that could have originally found their way onto Herbie Hancock's Sextant.

**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** It seems like most Mississippi Records obsessives are also fans of the Sun City Girls' Sublime Frequencies label, which makes perfect sense, they both seem to have a somewhat similar aesthetic, both focus on unheard gems, and curate some of the best compilations we've ever heard. Mississippi tends to focus on blues and country and gospel, while Sublime Frequencies looks further out, focusing on world music from Africa and Asia and beyond, but this record right here, the latest on Mississippi, might be the perfect Sublime Frequencies / Mississippi crossover, in fact, listening to this now, it's hard to believe it's not actually on Sublime Frequencies. A fantastic collection of recordings of guitar music from West Africa (Senegal and Mali) focusing on various bands who are essentially unknown outside of Africa, but are quite popular in their villages, and are called upon often to play parties, celebrations, political events, their sound most likely immediately recognizable to fans of Group Bombino, Tinariwen and Group Inerane, which we'd imagine most aQ customers are. That sound is a totally distinctive African folk music, captured live in various settings, houses, backyards, town squares, parties, you can hear people talking, birds chirping, kids laughing, random conversations, it all just adds to the sound, warm and inviting, emotional and so melodic, heavy on the acoustic guitars, lots of handclaps and foot stomps, the guitar playing is quite percussive too, a sort of low slung twang flecked desert blues, alternatingly moody and melancholy, effusive and festive, sometimes the sounds are distinctly Western, other times they're reminiscent of traditional African music, more often they're a hybrid of the two. Most of the groups here are made up of just acoustic guitars and vocals, but the sounds and songs they create are so lush and layered, so fantastically evocative, and just so totally beautiful. Fans of all things Sublime Frequencies and Mississippi will definitely dig this, and it's absolutely essential listening for folks who love those Sublime Frequencies' Guitars From Agadez records... The packaging is fantastic, super thick full color jacket, with a massive full color booklet, featuring tons of photos and liner notes, as well as plenty of history of the region and the musicians.

Never been much for poetry, but this one was tough to resist. First you've got a big ol' book of poetry, most of it actually quite good, from young American poets, and all about love, as the title and subtitle suggest. Very few names were familiar, David Berman of the Silver Jews and Jeff Tweedy being the only two we immediately recognized, but then again we're not exactly plugged into the poetry scene, hip and young or otherwise. So besides a pretty cool book of poetry you've got a cd with exclusive tracks from VIC CHESNUTT, COCOROSIE, DOUNG MARTSCH (Bulit To Spill), MAGNOLIA ELECTRIC COMPANY (Songs:Ohia), NINA NASTASIA, RICHARD BUCKNER, RAY'S VAST BASEMENT, SILVER JEWS, MARK MULCAHY (Miracle Legion), JENNY TOOMEY, NANANG TATANG, NEW RADIANT STORM KING and more!!

MPEG stream: In my Way, Yes
MPEG stream: Loving Pauper
MPEG stream: The Ocean Cliff Clearing (Live)

This historical document collects a handful of the sporadically released singles from the US based Isophlux label, which for better or for worse completely mirrors the tastes of the IDM on-line gossip/news list. The most curious thing about the Isophlux sound is that the latest singles have the most primitive sound, as if they are doing their best to mimic the early disjonted techno of Plaid or Global Communications, rather than the contemporary digital glitch manipulation which has been so prevalent. Still Autechrist/Aphex-ish algorithmic sequences and post-electro breaks dominate the IDM discourse for Isophlux. This compilation features tracks from Shad T. Scott, Greg Chin, L'Usine, Lexancaulpt, etc.

This comp was recorded by a variety of artists from 1950 to the present. The music ranges from traditional blues to mid 60's soul pop to the rad blues rock that made bands like The Gories, The White Stripes, Demolition Doll Rods, and Black Top what they are.

RealAudio clip: Smokestack Lightning
RealAudio clip: By Your Side

It's a Mint Records family gathering of holiday sorts! This disc includes the five songs by Carolyn Mark, Duotang, David Carswell (who along with New Pornographer John Collins co-runs JC/DC Recording Studios) & Megan Barnes, the Evaporators and their offshoot Thee Snowglobe-lins originally released on the Team Mint Xmas Vol. 1 compilation that came out four years ago on 7" vinyl only. Adding to the festivities are eight more songs by country folks, diverse popsters and instrumental combos galore -- Ms Carolyn Mark (yes, she appears again!), Tennessee Twin, John Guliak (covering a Commander Cody song), the positively dreamy Young And Sexy, garage rawk party kings the Smugglers, the newwave-twangin' Buttless Chaps (covering a Johnny Cash song), the Ramblin' Ambassadors (members formerly of Huevos Rancheros), and Atomic 7 (ex-Shadowy Man From A Shadowy Planet Brian Connelly). Plus a bunch of the Vancouver based members of the abovementioned groups got together with members of Beans, Maow, The Gay and The Organ and beat the Brits to the punch with their new rendition of "Do They Know It's Christmas?" There's even a video clip included on the cd. But we wonder... being Canadian and all, why didn't they remake the Canadian counterpart from back then "Tears Are Not Enough"? Y'know the one with Bryan Adams, Anne Murray, Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot and Burton Cummings! Note: Keeping with the spirit of the original project, $3 from each cd sold will go to the Stephen Lewis Foundation, which was established by the U.N. Secretary-General's Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa.

MPEG stream: Santa Claus Likes Rich Kids Better
MPEG stream: Do They Know It's Christmas?

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

SORRY. Of the many many rocksteady albums that I (Windy) own, this is my absolute favorite. Every song is an absolute gem, and will lead you to wanting to acquire whole albums by groups such as Phyllis Dillon, Tommy McCook, Justin Hinds, etc. Super highly recommended.

Though he was most known for being the producer behind Justin Hinds & The Dominos and Burning Spear, Jack Ruby was quite a prolific roots reggae producer throughout the seventies and eighties. This compilation features a sampling of some of his best, including: Burning Spear, Big Youth, The Black Disciples, The Heptones, Justin Hinds & The Domninos, and more -- plus a large amount of unrealeased tracks.

Having travelled to Indonesia in 2008, the sound artist Jesse Paul Miller (who also does time as a member of the Factums and has dabbled on the recordings of A Frames, Climax Golden Twins, and the Sun City Girls) collected a wealth of amazing recordings of the various street musicians throughout Java. Given his proximity to Sublime Frequencies, we can't help wonder why this didn't get released through that increasingly venerable label. No matter, Miller offers a great mix of folk musics that express the vast cultural patchwork of Javanese music beyond the principle exports of gamelan and dangdut. That said, one of the first tracks that Miller presents is from a trio of street musicians on a homemade gamelan offering a spirited rhythmic backdrop for a trained monkey who was delighting a group of squealing children. Another track features a krontjong troupe serenading passengers at the train station with a double timed acoustic guitar strum set to a rather maudlin croon. One of the highlights of the album comes from another island Lompok, which is home to an ensemble called Sakhabad, who present an urgent folk number that could easily be one of those acoustic guitar tracks that the Sun City Girls would have appropriated on 330,003 Crossdressers From Beyond The Rig Veda. The vocalist even sounds a lot like Alan Bishop crossed with Jello Biafra (this is meant in the best possible way, mind you!). Miller concludes the album with a lengthy series of Islamic calls to worship, one from the break of dawn and another from the end of the day. There's only 50 of these in circulation, and they certainly won't last long.

Unless you are one lucky cool cat there is a pretty good chance you don't have any of the great Jamaican 45's from 1972-1978 on this amazing comp. All here on cd for the very first time. As the title suggests, this comp focuses on the awesome infusions of soul and funk into the Jamaican sound. This movement was of course heavily influenced by the trend in the US at the time, a glorious funk and soul explosion, but make no mistake, these tracks still retain the classic reggae/dub feel that Jamaica was beginning to export to the rest of the world on great labels like Capo, Jaywax and our long lost Jamaican twin Aquarius (who also had a rad looking record store in Jamaica at the time). Covers of folks like Earth Wind & Fire, Betty Wright and The JB's as well as original soul cookers from folks like The Heptones, Lee Pery and Cedric Brooks. As always the impeccable packaging by Soul Jazz makes this comp a total treat, with photos of the original 7" covers and super informative liner notes. Really nice!

MPEG stream: Lama
MPEG stream: Lightning Chap Version
MPEG stream: I Love The Way You Love Me

Wow! When we think of great soul funk and reggae we have to say that Canada isn't usually the first place that comes to mind -- but we also weren't so aware of the huge migration of Jamaican musicians to Toronto that took place in the late '60s/early '70s. Which explains a lot. How lucky Toronto was to have these infectious sounds to call their own during this special era. This ranks as one of the best soul/funk/reggae collections we've had in a long while. And it really is equal parts reggae, funk and soul with that original reggae sound that many of these artists adopted after leaning way more towards a more soul sound for many years. Recent comps we've been loving like Studio One Women showed how much of the vintage reggae sounds were so influenced by doo-wop and the heyday of American soul music. Jamaica to Toronto is filled with that same kind of raw catchy soul we just can't get enough of. If you've fallen for the Eccentric Soul series that we've also been digging, then this is for you. Killer songs and elaborate 36-page booklet included. Highly recommended!

MPEG stream: Fugitive Song
MPEG stream: Grand Funk
MPEG stream: Love Is The Answer

From the liner notes: "Recording a hit record is of course a major acheivement for any artiste, but while breaching the national music charts in your own country is one thing, repeating that success in others is quite another. Indeed, some of the most important recordings in Jamaica's musical history still remain relatively unknown anywhere outside its golden shores, and it is 50 such sides that make up this collection. All the recordings included on this set appeared on the annual top 25 chart for one of Jamaica's premiere radio stations, JBC, from 1960, up until its final year, 1973 - a fascinating period in the island's musical history. From Jamaican Blues, through the Ska and Rocksteady years, and finally, up until the more contemporary sounds of Reggae, this collection not only presents a wonderful opportunity to trace the development of Jamaican music during this golden age, but also to hear some of the most popular sounds of their day." Presented on three, chronologically arranged discs, this is a "best of" Jamaican music to top them all. Very highly recommended.

Do the names Vicki Anderson, Marva Whitney, and Lyn Collins mean anything to you?

[ aquarius records catalogue — V ]