THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
I'm all for the concept of compilations when the purpose served is to expose unknown bands, or give folks a cheap way to check out lots of different bands, or to present a really cool concept, or to document something that hasn't already been documented to death. It seems more and more, compilations are a cheap way for a label to make money, and God knows, it's much easier to convince a 'famous' band to contribute one track as opposed to an album!
This compilation, is for the most part, made up of bands that are already famous, at least kind of, from a scene/town that is already 'legendary' and that has been fairly well documented. So why make a compilation of tracks most of the bands chose not to release? Who knows? While there are a few gems here (the At Right Angles track is a gorgeous Fahey-esque instrumental), the bulk of this comp is out-takes and alternate versions of previously released songs. Overall I still think it feels a lot like 'I better take advantage of the Louisville hype and time's running out!!'. If you already own the albums many of these songs appear on, don't bother buying this. But if you want an okay introduction to a few great Louisville bands like Crain, Papa M, Evergreen, Tara Jane O'Neil, and Bonnie Prince Billy, then by all means check this out.
Compilation from this always-excellent and invariably eclectic Norwegian label. Exclusive tracks by the previously-known and explictly AQ-approved Supersilent, Deathprod, Alog, Biosphere, Arne Nordheim, plus many others by a variety of (more) mysterious names. From electronic dronescapes to improv noisejazz...there's even experimental music by the guy from A-ha on here!
One of THREE new lps on Mississippi Records on this list. One brand new release, and two re-presses of records that slipped under the radar first time around. And we are giving mighty thanks to the folks at Mississippi for repressing those (this is one), because they are fantastic!! (Surprised? You shouldn't be, by our count Mississippi is batting 1000!!! not a stinker in the bunch so far).
Love Is Love in particular, we've been waiting and waiting for, a killer collection of African music, from Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Kenya, South Africa, Zambia, Nairobi and Tanzania. Super varied, from Ethiopian groove to high life, to African blues, juju to pop, every track a total gem. Fans of the out of print Lipa Kodi comp also on Mississippi NEED this.
We were pretty much hooked from the very first track, a smoky sexy slab of groovy Ethiopiques from Alemayno Eshintay, but the rest of the tracks are just as fantastic, jubilant highlife grooves, every track, swinging, jazzy, funky. The B side is a bit more folky and bluesy, lots of acoustic guitars, sweetly sung vocals, much less groove and swing, definitely more African blues and folk, but still just as lovely and magical.
Another amazing collection, housed in gorgeous sleeves, an actual photographic print affixed to the cover, and like all things Mississippi, when we run out of these, be prepared for a bit of a wait as the label represses, considering they've got about 5 or 6 musical irons in the fire at any one time...
It's just past the fortieth anniversary of the Summer of Love, and while we San Franciscans have never stopped being reminded of those legendary months of drug abuse, panhandling and squatting, perhaps the rest of the world needs a large dose of that dirty hippy love. And in what better form than this latest installment of the Nuggets box set series?
Unlike past volumes, what we have here is a 120 page book full of rare photos detailing the scene and 4 cds compiled under various themes: "Seismic Rumbles", "Suburbia", "Summer Of Love," and "The Man Can't Bust Our Music".
Beginning with Dino Valenti's original version of "Let's Get Together" and ending with the Youngblood's more famous version, this Nuggets edition includes many famous and familiar San Francisco bands including Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe & The Fish, The Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Count Five, Blue Cheer, The Great Society, The Charlatans, Sly and The Family Stone, Santana and Big Brother and The Holding Company. Some with more than one track. But the real price of admission is for the obscurities: The Syndicate of Sound, The Harbinger Complex, The Stained Glass, Fifty Foot Hose, Kak, Salvation, The Vejtables, The Wildflower, The Tikis, The Frantics, The Serpent Power, and Frumious Bandersnatch. There are only a few omissions, like Cold Blood, The Fire Escape, Tripsichord, and Parish Hall (though some would argue those aren't really omissions at all) that would make for a more well-rounded collection focusing more on the obscurities (the reason we like Nuggets in the first place) rather than the heavyweights who are quite well represented on plenty of other more mainstream compilations. But if anyone is looking for the definitive San Francisco music experience of the sixties, you probably won't find one more lovingly detailed than this. Trip on and Trip out!
This latest installment in the on-going, ever-awesome Love, Peace & Poetry compilation series of rare psych rock music from around the world features tracks from African bands. While not as far-fetched as the Extreme Music From Africa comp we used to stock some time back, some might still be surprised by this. Of course, previous volumes in the LP&P series have conclusively demonstrated the all-pervading influence of the Western '60s rock revolution on the rest of the world, and we've stocked lots of cd reissues of LPs by acid-rockers from such 'exotic' locales as Turkey, Brazil, and the Phillipines. Not to mention all those Cambodian Rock collections! So of course there's gonna be African bands for Shadoks to compile. And in fact, we think they maybe included more South African (i.e. white) bands here than they really needed to -- not that the chosen tracks aren't worthy, just that they give the impression that Shadoks couldn't find enough stuff from the rest of the continent. Maybe their definition of "psychedelic music" is a little narrower than ours, but we'd have thought some Ethiopian groove stuff, or early Orchestra Baobab, would do nicely here. Too funky maybe? But already this collection boasts a wide range of styles from jazzy to spacey to folkish to heavy, hard rock. There's room here for both fuzz guitar fests (Chrissy Zebby Tembo & Ngozi Family's "Oh Ye Ye") and Beatles-esque balladry (Quentin E. Kolpjaeger's "Weatherman"). 17 tracks total, with several standouts including Nigeria's Blo (now that's some authentic African psych rock there) and South Africa's Freedoms Children (who managed to land three cuts on here) and the proto-metal of fellow countrymen Suck, among others. Perhaps not the strongest of the series (heck, that preceeding Mexican volume was a tough act to follow) but as always, well-stocked with gems -- stuff you're unlikely to hear elsewhere, either!
American version of the above. It's not nearly as immediately catchy as the Latin American comp, but nonetheless is a great way to sample the sounds of Damon, Darius, Hickory Wind, and the New Tweedy Bros.
The Love, Peace & Poetry series compiles the obscurest of the obscure lost psychedelic music of the sixties, records that collectors spend vast sums of money on. Following the American and Latin American volumes, this long-awaited third volume brings together gems from Japan, Korea, India, Cambodia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Turkey, spanning the years 1967 to 1977. Authoritative liner notes from OR Records' Stan Denski round out the package. Get this and soon you too will be a fan of such artists as The Mops, Erkin Koray, Jung Hyun & the Men, Mogollar, and the unknown Cambodian combo that provides this disc's very rockin' track five. Recommended!
Spanning 1969 to 1978, the newest volume of Love, Peace & Poetry brings to light totally rare gems from the Brazilian psychedelic rock movement. While we may all be relatively familiar with the giants of the Tropicalia scene -- Os Mutantes (Windy's favorite band ever), Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, Caetano Veloso, etc -- this comp features far more obscure groups whose albums are sought-after treasures in the underground psych LP collecting community (you know who you are!). But less obsessive folk now too have the opportunity to enjoy these obscurities! Springing from the creatively fertile ground of an at the time politically oppressive society, this is a fantastic collection of songs ranging from sunny Beatles-esque, Byrds-y jangle pop to other harder stuff more explicitly influenced by the Doors, Hendrix, and other fuzzed out acidheads. Highlights include the latter type of thing from Modulo 1000, a track from Brazilian psych crown jewel Lula Cortes e Ze Ramalho, the Zep-worthy hard rock groove (with a touch of proto-new wave in one guitar break) of Terco, and a track by Spectrum (whose utterly brilliant film soundtrack album "Geracao Bendita" album has been reissued in its entirety, due for review soon in an upcoming New Arrivals list, although you can come buy it now if you want!). Some tracks pay allegiance to Tropicalia, others are straight-up freak rock, and all are pretty cool.
As with all the Love, Peace and Poetry comps, this is highly recommended not only because it's good listening, but also because it's damn hard to find full lengths from most of these groups, not 'til someone reissues 'em! The liner notes are again by our pal Stan Denski, cover art is again a cheesecake blond go go girl courtesy famed photog Bunny Yeager.
Another new entry in Normal's Love, Peace & Poetry series devoted to giving a round-the-world tour of rare album tracks from the psychedelic era. Unlike some of the other volumes in the series (Latin American, Asian, the newly released Japanese volume, and
There's a few heavy, rockin' tracks here too, like the Blue Cheer-ish acid rock of The Dark, or Bodkin's Deep Purple-isms, but mostly it's folkier fare (Parameter, Mark Fry, Oliver), spacey, proggy stuff (Forever Amber, Lightyears Away), and some late '60s pop-psych too (Gary Walker & The Rain). Also: Pussy, Dogfeet, Motherlight, Candida Pax, Andwellas Dream, and Red Dirt. Most come armed with a lot of fuzz-distortion. Not our favorite of the LP&P series, but definitely worthwhile for fans of drugged-out hippie rock!
For their tenth installment in the Love Peace and Poetry series, Shadoks once again takes us to South America. At first we must admit we were disappointed. This is the fourth volume in the series to cover Latin American psych and so many other regions in the world remain potentially untapped by this series (Italy, Poland, Scandinavia, Indonesia, North Africa, to name but a few). But then we thought better, because we've always known Chile to be an amazing source of some of the best South American psych and sure enough many of the bands on this compilation are amongst our very favorite: Embrujo, Congregacion, Blops, Los Macs, El Congresso, Kissing Spell. Yet there's others here just as good we'd never heard before. In fact this is one of the better volumes in the series, not just because the music is so good, but that much of it was made under hostile political conditions and barely managed to survive, as most records made after 1973 were often contraband, and many master tapes were subsequently destroyed. (Pinochet's CIA-installed military dictatorship ruled until 1990!) It's surprising that given the constantly changing political climate, that bands took so much risk with their music, and album art. Like Aguaturbia, a sort of Latin Brainticket featuring a female vocalist (a rarity on these comps), depicted the singer naked and crucified (a la Salvador Dali) on their second album cover, and even one of the two songs representing them is called "Erotica" feauturing some hot and heavy sounds. Other bands like Congregacion and Sacros take a more mystical and spiritual approach. Some bands are deeply inspired by Hendrix and Deep Purple (Tumulto and Escombros), and others more influenced by the jangle pop of the Byrds and Beatles (Los Macs, Los Beat 4 and Los Vidrios Quebrados). But for all the bands heavily influenced by American and British psych and R&B, it's nice to hear more Andean roots come in to play from bands like Los Jaivas, who mix electric and traditional folk instruments. Another score in this amazing series with hopes for farther flung outings in the future.
Following the excellent Latin American psych and Asian psych collections in the Love, Peace & Poetry series (and the not as hot American one) comes two new comps, one devoted to British bands and this one, dedicated to the wild and crazy sounds of
As with the rest of the Love, Peace & Poetry series, it should be noted that all the cheesecake blonde girl photos decorating the cd package were taken by Bunny Yeager, the awesome woman photographer most famous for her work with Betty Page. That doesn't mean that they're terribly appropriate images to this comp, but still, Bunny Yeager, yeah.
Ignore the cheesy pinup girl cover art and instead give thanks that someone finally compiled someof the best tracks from Latin American psych pop groups of the '60s, most of whose original LPs now change hands for hundreds of dollars, and whose cd reissues even seem overpriced. We're talking bands like Traffic Sound, Laghonia, Kissing Spell, and Kaleidoscope, etc. A great intro to this scene, provided you have a very strong stomach for Beatles ripoffs; it sounds very much Of Its Time.
Any disc that opens with Los Dug Dug's doing their super catchy and fuzzed-out "Lost In My World" is all right by us! The rest of the cd is pretty great too. This new installment in the always-cool Love, Peace & Poetry series of comps -- which bring us an international array of wonderous '60s and '70s psych songs you might never otherwise encounter -- proves that things were shaking south of the border way back when, in the realm of rock n' roll. The strength of the Mexican psych rock scene was hinted at by an earlier volume in this series, Latin American Psychedelic Music, which is where we found out about Dug Dug's in the first place.
While the USA had Woodstock (and Altamont), Mexico had 1971's Avandaro Music Festival, and several of the bands featured here performed at that event -- and were then banned from playing regular clubs because of government repression. Bummed out by politics and driven undergound, these bands let loose with tons of fuzz (and some melody). These 17 tracks mostly date from about 1970-72, with a few late '60s entries. You'll experience punky garage numbers, some hippy blues workouts, lots of acid rock dementia, and even some lighter, folk-rock efforts -- all sorts of psychedelic era indulgence indeed. The bands: Dug Dug's, The Kaleidoscope, El Tarro De Mostaza, La Vida, The Flying Karpets, The Spiders, Tocho Pilatos, Three Souls In My Mind, Grupo Ciruela, Los Ovnis, The Survival, Nahuatl, La Fachada De Piedra, La Libre Expreession, Ernan Roch, Renaissnace, and La Revolution De Emiliano Zapata. As with the rest of this series, unrelated-to-the-music beach bunny cover photos by Bunny Yeager, informative-about-the-music liner notes by Stan Denski.
We were so excited when we heard that the newest installment in the always-cool Love Peace And Poetry series was going to focus on Turkish Psychedelic music! For a few years now, we've been loving all the '60s and '70s Turkish psych we could lay our hands on (which unfortunately is not as much as we'd like). We've had reissues of such bands as Mogollar, 3 Hur-el, Erkin Koray, Edip Akbayram, and Bulent. So, when we heard about this comp, we were excited -- but also wary of getting TOO excited, faced with the possibilty that this would simply consist of tracks by artists we already know and love, from records we already own, with nothing new and unknown to sate our appetite for more Middle Eastern psych treats. Well, holy halva! We couldn't have been more blown away when we finally got this in. Of the sixteen tracks, only five were by the above mentioned artists, while the rest were by artists totally unknown to us. And on top of that, EVERY track is amazing! From the Eastern-tinged, faux sitar, raga-like sixties garage rock of Selda, to the sunny proggy keyboard heavy folk of Ozdemir Erdogan, to the crooning soulful psych of Alpay, to the almost disco-y wild guitar groove of Hardal, to the strange Ethiopiques meets ska horns of Erkut Tackin. Wow! A lot of killer cuts on this one. We just can't stop playing it. Definitely lives up to the standards set by the two compilations that pretty much first introduced us to the Turkish psych scene, Hava Narghile on Bacchus Archives and (the now out of print) Turkish Delights on Grey Past.
And why do we like Turkish psych so much? Well, Turkey has a long tradition of musical talent to begin with, and being a part of Europe as well as Asia, the whole phenomenon of East-meets-West hybridization (in this case, traditional Anatolian folk and '60s pop beat) makes for some amazing music that couldn't come from anyplace else. Plus, psychedelia as a musical genre has always held a fascination with the East, the exotic... so psych music FROM such lands has a built-in advantage. Just check this out and you'll see.
Wow, such a superb treat for any longtime Kath Bloom fan! This will surely win her many new ones too! Loving Takes This Course not only features a tribute cd packed with sixteen amazing artists covering her tunes, but also a second disc with the fifteen originals by the lady herself! Wondering why there's a discrepancy in track count? It's because there are two fine covers of "Come Here" - one that opens the tribute proceedings and one that closes it. So with these two discs, you can swiftly hear just how faithfully close the artists stuck to Bloom's delicately lilting and deeply intimate blueprint or how far they ventured away from it. Unlike some other tribute albums where you sorta end up having to step gingerly around the well-meaning, but not quite successful renditions, this collection is terrific and absolutely heartfelt from start to finish. Really, everyone shows their love and respect to this wonderful folk artist soooo beautifully in song!
Here's the who's who: Bill Callahan, Josephine Foster, Devendra Banhart, Meg Baird, Mark Kozelek, Marianne Dissard & Joey Burns (of Calexico), The Concretes, Tom Hanford, Peggy Frew & Mick Turner (of Dirty 3), Scout Niblett, Amy Rude, Marble Sounds, Laura Jean, Mia Doi Todd, Corrina Repp, and The Dodos! Wow.
Have to say, Monsieur Banhart's take on Forget About Him", Dissard & Burns' darker hued "It's So Hard To Come Home" and The Concretes' dreamy "Come Here" are particularly tickling our fancy this week! Don't miss!
Think you know what good music is? Think you know bad music when you hear it? How about a third option: 'wrong music '? From the folks who brought you Metallica Drummer, here's a 70 minute, 26 track compilation cd-r sure to please said video's fans, outsider music followers, and WFMU djs. Low Band Width is the result of some disturbingly obsessive trawling of the internet's outer reaches to rummage up the most jaw-dropping sonicïtreasures. All songs found as genuine mp3's. All songs from the heart. One man's proverbial trash...
The comp eases you into things with an a capella performance of Toto's "Africa". Seems harmless enough, doesn't it? How aboutïa singer/songwriter whoïheard theïtheme song on 'Cheers' and perhaps thought "I can do that... about my favorite bar, too!" And he can. And did.ïAlong the way, we also encounter absolutelyïexcessive drum programming, lisps, odes to Jesus, Mexican Food and sea rescues(!), anthems to friendship, andïwhat resembles Emerson, Lake and Palmer on a budget of zero. Oh, and a Christian death metal band so committed to the cause that they're going to fight Satan themselves PHYSICALLY. "Aam gonna body slam saaatan - Aam gonna rip his head off!!" No one plays a single note that any of us recognize. Sooooo fun, but definitely a subjective experience: as The Alphaï(the track-inclusion-number-winner) states "you will be let down, but not by me... I promise."
At times endearing, inspiring, unsettling, and disturbing, but always entertaining! And they mean it! Seriously, everyone on this comp is absolutely *there*, wherever that is.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
'Lowercasesound' is a term that was spawned by LA sound artist Steve Roden to define the microsonic work of close listening network of artists like Bernhard Gunter, Richard Chartier, and himself. This compilation is a lengthy double cd documentation of ultra quiet sound investigations from Roel Meelkop, Artificial Memory Trace, *0, Pimmon, Taylor Deupree, Oren Ambarchi + Matthew Thomas, Kid 606, Ios Smolders, the aforementioned artists, and a whole lot more. Along with the set of 5" x 5" cards which were designed by all of the artists, there's also an EXTRA double cd set (of the same material) that is to be given to "another curious listener."
The term 'lowercase' was coined a few years back by Steve Roden as a means of describing his music, reflecting a very quiet, contemplative compositional strategy that focused on the minutae of sound. Since then, a Yahoo newsgroup has taken shape as an unmoderated forum for discussion and announcement, concerning musics that emphasize the exploration of sound at low volumes. While there have been a number of semantic arguments in that newsgroup stating rigid parameters for what is 'lowercase' and what is not, this compilation offers an overview of two of the dominant forms within the 'lowercase' sound. Disc one deals with almost Fluxus like procedures that document physical gestures as a sonic form, and disc two holds the purely electronic manipulations of sound. On the first disc, highlights include works from Gal (with an excerpt from recordings of an installation of amplified teakettles and hotplates set on timers, in which the boiling water and the cooling metal becomes the action in question), Matt Shoemaker (with an evolving crackling of nervous textures, deep rumbling, and whirring drones for the most action packed recording on the 2 disc set), and Reynols (with an unreleased take from their great "Blank Tapes" sessions). Others include the Beige Channel, Tucker Dulin, Josh Russell, Bob L. Sturm, Dale Lloyd, Yannik Dauby, Electric Company, Joseph Seimion, Animist Orchestra, Radu Malfatti, Jason Lescalleet, David Gross, Under Quartet, and John Hudak.
Disc two with its focus on electronic composition features the more well known names although tends towards the subaudible end of the 'lowercase' sound. Artists include Francisco Lopez, Akira Rabelais, Stephan Mathieu, Otaku Yakuza, Rsundin, Immedia, Dan Abrams, Peter Van Hoesen, Michael Schumacher, Carl Stone, Tetsu Inoue, Taylor Deupree, Kim Cascone, Toshimaru Nakamura, Jonas Lingren, and Civyiu Kkliu. As with the first 'lowercase' compendium, this also comes with an extra set of discs thar are intended to be given to friends who may be curious as to what this incredibly quite music is all about. How thoughtful of them!
We recently went a little crazy for a compilation on Finders Keepers called Thai Dai, which was was more specifically, a collection of tracks from "The Heavier Side Of The Luk Thung Underground", Luk Thung being the 'country music' of Thailand, a form of pop song that is the voice of the rural community, of the disenfranchised, and thus is a powerful and important part of Thai culture, past and present. Unlike the Thai Dai collection, which explored the sound of Luk Thung tethered to heavier fuzzier rock, and a more Western sound, even going so far as to reinterpret songs by Chicago and Black Sabbath, the songs here are gathered up from obscure 78s, all from the sixties, none of them EVER available outside of Thailand before, offering a fantastic overview of the sound and the songs of the time. Sublime Frequencies and Mississippi records obsessives, anyone who loved the Molam: Thai Country Groove From Isan compilation (sadly now out of print), folks who dug the Excavated Shellac comp (also on Parlortone) odds are this is gonna hit the spot too, the sounds are lush and lovely, the vocals so emotional and distinctive, warm wheezing accordions, traditional hand drums, Latin style horns, the melodies so intoxicating, so distinctly Thai, Gamelan like rhythms, the sound percussive, and propulsive, groovy and funky, the arrangements intricate and complex complex, but still immediate, and intimate and heartfelt and joyous, even when singing about loss and struggle, the sounds seem infused with hope, joyful and exuberant.
Packaged in a gorgeous eye popping full color cover, with an extensive full color six page insert, with photos, reproductions of 78 labels, a history of Thailand, and the music and musicians featured on the compilation.
Originally released on vinyl, now available on cd, here's our review from when we reviewed the lp version back in 2011:
We recently went a little crazy for a compilation on Finders Keepers called Thai Dai, which was, more specifically, a collection of tracks from "The Heavier Side Of The Luk Thung Underground", Luk Thung being the 'country music' of Thailand, a form of pop song that is the voice of the rural community, of the disenfranchised, and thus is a powerful and important part of Thai culture, past and present. Unlike the Thai Dai collection, which explored the sound of Luk Thung tethered to heavier fuzzier rock, and a more Western sound, even going so far as to reinterpret songs by Chicago and Black Sabbath, the songs here are gathered up from obscure 78s, all from the sixties, none of them EVER available outside of Thailand before, offering a fantastic overview of the sound and the songs of the time. Sublime Frequencies and Mississippi records obsessives, anyone who loved the Molam: Thai Country Groove From Isan compilation (sadly now out of print), folks who dug the Excavated Shellac comp (also on Parlortone) odds are this is gonna hit the spot too, the sounds are lush and lovely, the vocals so emotional and distinctive, warm wheezing accordions, traditional hand drums, Latin style horns, the melodies so intoxicating, so distinctly Thai, Gamelan like rhythms, the sound percussive, and propulsive, groovy and funky, the arrangements intricate and complex complex, but still immediate, and intimate and heartfelt and joyous, even when singing about loss and struggle, the sounds seem infused with hope, joyful and exuberant.
Packaged in a gorgeous eye popping full color digipak, with an thick booklet, with photos, reproductions of 78 labels, a history of Thailand, and the music and musicians featured on the compilation. So great!!
More jacked up space funk and acid drenched future musik from the libraries of Chappell, Southern, iM, Bruton, Peer and Parry. For those unfamiliar, what has come to be known as library music is essentially commissioned music pieces -- usually instrumental (though there's the occasional ambiguous vocal harmonies, la-la-la's and what not) -- and archived for use as backing tracks in film and televison. As expected, some of the heavy hitters of documented library music are here: Roger Roger, Jack Arel, Georges Teperino, Eric Peters, Paul Bonneau, etc. Like Vibert's first volume, this collection rides all sorts of genres, though ultimately what holds everything together is tha funk. There's psychedelic orchestral funk ala Alain Goraguer's "La Planete Sauvage". Roger Davy's aptly titled "Crazy Flute Happy Guitar" fuses distorto hammond space organ with tripped out flute (all breathy and raw like Roland Kirk) and porno wah wah strumming and snazzy horn rawkus. Lots of Moog, tons of drum breaks, and loads and loads of sticky cheese. Big props to Lo for scavanging the choice cuts in the massive collections and making them available to us! A must for any self respecting sample happy musician -- breakbeats and exotica galore! For more space funk dementia, be sure to check out Luke Vibert's Nuggets volume one and Barry 7's Connectors (both on Lo), as well as the Music For Dancefloors collections on Strut!
Maybe this will make up for all the Satanic Norwegian church-burning music we sell! A compilation of, as the subtitle puts it, "A Selection Of Norwegian Christian Jazz, Psych, Funk & Folk 1970-1980". And it's quite fantastic. Quasi-kitschy Xtian funky and folky fun, with an acid-rock edge, really good stuff indeed, and 'cause the lyrics are all in Norwegian, those of us with an aversion to God-talk can comfortably listen to this without feeling like we're being preached to! Well you can tell when they sing "Hallelujah" and "Jesus" but the accent makes it cool. Apparently, there was quite a burgeoning youth-oriented Christian music scene and attendant recording industry in Norway in the '70s, kickstarted in the late '60s by something called the Ten-Sing or Teenage Singing movement, a kind of Norwegian version of Up With People!, further powered by the whole Jesus Freak thing that came along when hippies everywhere started to find God. So, this music, while Christian, isn't exactly square. It's full of fuzz guitars and fuzzy analog synth, gorgeous female vocals and bombastic brass, and is moving not just in spiritual way, but also movin' in more of a GROOVY kind of way. And is very delightfully very seventies sounding, from jazzy disco fusion to rock opera to delicate singer-songwriter stuff. There's 20 tracks in all on this import cd (13 on the vinyl version), sunshiney testifyin' from the following artists: Joyful Singers, Good News, That's Why, Arnold Borud, Keryx, The Crossing, Angelos, Sky Sing, The Heralds, Jan Simonsens, Kari Hansa & Gregers Hes, Grete Salomensen, Soli Deo, Reflex, and Presens. The digipak cd comes with a 36 page booklet, and the lp too has a printed insert, featuring extensive liner notes and vintage photos.
Hip '70s Norwegian groovy gospel music, who knew? Hallelujah! Highly recommended.
Now this is a weird one. Not that we would expect anything less than totally twisted and whtthefuck from Smolken, he of Dead Raven Choir and Wolfmangler, both of whom offer up their very last tracks EVER, in the form of covers of tracks by eighties Swedish dance pop outfit Army Of Lovers. Told you! Weird. And somehow, Smolken recruited some other aQ faves to also try their hand at reinterpreting some AoL tracks: Gnaw Their Tongues, Persistence In Mourning, Josh Lay. A pretty serious lineup for sure, for something that at first blush seems as unserious as it gets, but all it takes is a few seconds of Dead Raven Choir's version of "Crucified" to convince us that maybe this is way more serious than we thought. A grinding, super distorted, lumbering sprawl of buzzing, shrieked black folk cacophony, that manages to retain enough of the original's poppiness to make it weirdly 'catchy', but that onslaught is countered by Josh Lay, whose version of "Requiem" is a gorgeously murky crawl, all muted pulsations, a sort of heroin-house vibe, slowed down voices and plenty of buzz and drone blurred into a swirling blackened morass, the vocals delivered in a demonic croak, twisted, but weirdly moody and mesmerizing. The side is finished off with Gnaw Their Tongues, who transform Army Of Lovers into an epic symphony of black buzz and gargled demonic vokills, of blasting beats and frantic black riffing, it's GTT at its most traditionally black metal, which is odd considering the circumstances, and the murky blasting buzz is laced with all manner of cool melodic flourishes and dense layered textures, although all that subtlety is ground into one massive heaving wall of frenzied black fury.
The B side begins with Persistence Of Mourning, who open up with a squalls of electronics and sci-fi buzz, and weird samples, eventually smothering that in a sprawling oozing black doom, thick glacial riffage, pounding Teutonic rhythms, the sounds all blurred and smeared into a woozy downtuned creep, haunting and heavy, and in its own abject way, darkly dreamy, and then finally, Wolfmangler finishes everything off with what is Wolfmangler's final track EVER, in which Army Of Lovers becomes a cello driven doom folk crawl, grinding low end tones, moaning mournful melodies, urgently whispered vocals, a haunting hellish chamber doom that slithers and groans, and unwinds woozily before finally fading to black.
INSANE packaging, the tape wrapped in a black rubber glove, the rubber wrapped tape bundled with a thick full color printed insert, all wrapped inside of a full color O-card, and then everything housed in a eye popping full color outer sleeve, almost like the limited cassette version of a Russian nesting doll! LIMITED TO ONLY 100 COPIES!!!!
Almost a decade has passed since Warp Records issued "Real Intelligence" -- a compilation of electronic music that expanded the boundaries of techno beyond the mere utility of club music. That compilation has often been viewed as the blueprint for IDM (Intelligent Dance Music) introducing artists like Black Dog, Autechre, B12, and Aphex Twin. The aesthetic successes that these artists have enjoyed during the ensuing years has been both a blessing and a curse to the genre, as many of the IDM proponents have indulged in the rich veneer of IDM (with its fractured breakbeats, minor chord melodies, complex algorithmic patterns, aloof references towards obscure musique concrete composers, a techgnostic favoritism of circuitry over flesh, etc.) as opposed to the conceptualization behind IDM as a continuous examination of how 'intelligence' can marry 'dance music.' "MAS Confusion" is a compilation that undeniably falls into the worship of IDM surfaces. Curated by Don and Roel Funcken (the brothers who call themselves Funckarma) from the boxes of demo tapes collecting dust at the house of Michael Fakesch (from Funkstorung), "MAS Confusion" follows the same formulas that Funkstorung liberally acquired from Autechre. There is no inquiry or new solutions being put forward into the IDM discourse, but instead offers some exceptionally well-executed renditions of Autechre, Aphex, and the Autechre side-project Gescom. The artists in question include Metamatics, Lusine ICL, Stars As Eyes, Zela, Autophmc, Adam Johnson, Quench, Tomato Weirdo, Michael Fakesch, and Mr. Projectile.
For a mere $14.98, what could be better than a cd (in hand-assembled, colorful felt-tip art adorned sleeves) featuring fifteen tracks from such Finnish underground free-freak-folk luminaries as Kiila, Lau Nau, Kemialliset Ystavat, Paivansade, Avarus, Kuupuu, Pekko K”ppi, Islaja, and a host of others whom we've mostly never heard before (Hertta Lussu Assa, Sala-Arhimo,Taikuri Tali, Lauhkeat Lampaat, Keijo & Jussi Karsikas, Tomutonttu, and SewerPyysalos) but prove to be equally as wonderful as the ones already mentioned?? Well, how 'bout such a cd, with all those folks on it, and... a twig? Yep, Maan Matoset is referred to 'round these parts as "the Finnish twig comp" because it comes with an authentic twig, borrowed from some Finnish tree or bush, and built right into the packaging. We're already sold a lot of these in the store -- maybe the twig caught people's attention -- and listing it now we hardly need to give it a recommendation, 'cause we know AQ customers love all things Finnish, and twigs too. But it is indeed recommended, if you like haunting gentle sounds from the forest, including nature noises, female voices, electronics, bells, flutes, and myriad creaking things... The tracks range from abstract dronology to melodic, structured song singing, always hazy and mysterious in that imaginative, experimental, Finnish folk-psych fashion. A must have for fans of this scene and great introduction for those just tuning in!
By the way, should we start a section in the store for discs that come with twigs? Ok, so far there's only a few we can think of, mainly out of print cd-rs on the Jewelled Antler label, but then there was Romanian avant-black metal act Negura Bunget's deluxe digibook cd that came with a twig. Of course that's out of print too. So, I guess if you want a twig with a cd you've gotta get this. You won't be disappointed.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Wow...Very broad selection of electronica styles compiled by The Wire's David Toop and featuring the likes of Alec Empire, Plug, Mouse On Mars, Him, Bill Laswell, Third Eye Foundation, Spectre, Rome, and many more. This takes the growing indie/post-rock love affair with breakbeat music to a new level, as exemplied by the Ice Vs Palace cut - yep, a techno cut up remix of a Will Oldham song...
We were so blown away by this film. One of those rare rock docs that is totally fascinating and fun to watch whether you like the bands or not. Although if you already love the bands, and the sound of that scene, then even better! Sort of like a filmic version of Mojo magazine (no matter who's on the cover, even if it's someone you don't care about at all, the article about them is always totally captivating)! So Made In Sheffield focuses on a bunch of bands we all dug at one time or another, Human League, Cabaret Voltaire ABC, Heaven 17 as well as loads of band from that scene we had never even heard of: Artery (one of John Peel's favorite according to his interview in the film) the Extras, I'm So Hollow and more. But as with most films like this, it's the clips, live and video, that make this movie so amazing, Human League on the BBC, tons of hand shot video footage of early shows and clubs, some rare early live Kraftwerk footage (inspiration for much of the scene), an interview with a very cranky Chris Watson (one of our favorite field recordists, and former member of Cabaret Voltaire), some killer Top Of The Pops footage, and sure Human League were sleek and good looking and beautiful back in the day, but somehow they still look just as good twenty years later!! Weird.
Extra stuff includes live footage of Sheffield lesser known legends Vice Versa, Artery, I'm So Hollow, extra interviews with Phil Oakley of the Human League, Chris Watson, Martyn Ware and Jarvis Cocker of Pulp, the trailer, and loads of photos. Also comes with a big booklet of liner notes and cool rare photos! ----* ----* In Stock, Not Yet Reviewed : ----* If you want to order one of these, just cut and paste the info into the comments area on the order form, or just email mailorder@aquariusrecords.org. A CERTAIN RATIO "Live America 1985" (Melodic) cd 14.98 AC/DC "Family Jewels" (Epic Music Video) dvd 21.00 ACID KING "III" (Small Stone) cd 15.98 AFRIRAMPO "Kore Ga Mayaku Da" (Tzadik) cd 15.98 ALIO DIE & FRANCESCO PALADINO "Angel's Fly Souvenir" (Hic Sunt Leones) cd 14.98 ALLIEN, ELLEN "Thrills" (BPitch Control) cd 15.98 ARCHETTI, LUIGI / BO WIGET "Low Tide Digitals II" (Rune Grammofon) cd 16.98 BAND OF BEES, A "Free The Bees" (Astralwerks) cd 17.98 BLACK SABBATH "Master of Reality" (Get Back) lp 16.98 BLACK SABBATH "Paranoid" (Get Back) lp 16.98 BLACK SABBATH "s/t" (Get Back) lp 16.98 BLACK SABBATH "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" (Get Back) lp 16.98 BLACK SABBATH "Vol 4" (Get Back) lp 16.98 BLUT AUS NORD "Memoria Vetusta I" (Candlelight) cd 13.98 BLUT AUS NORD "Ultima Thulee" (Candlelight) cd 13.98 BRIGMAN, GEORGE AND SPLIT "I Can Hear The Ants Dancin'" (Solid) cd 16.98 BUZZOV-EN "Welcome To Violence" (Alt Tentacles) cd 14.98 CAN "Future Days (Remastered)" (Spoon) cd 16.98 CAN "Landed (Remastered)" (Spoon) cd 16.98 CAN "Soon Over Babaluma" (Spoon) cd 16.98 CAN "Unlimited Edition (Remastered)" (Spoon) cd 16.98 CARTER, TOM & MARCIA BASSETT "Zaika I-IV" (Eclipse) lp 14.98 COUP, THE "The Best Coup DVD Ever!" dvd 14.98 DANGER DIABOLIK (Paramount) dvd 14.98 DEMONS & WIZARDS "Touched By The Crimson King" (SPV) cd 16.98 DRUNK HORSE "In Tongues" (Tee Pee) cd 15.98 ENBILULUGUGAL "Noizemongers For Goatserpent" (Rusty Axe) cd-r 7.98 ENO, BRIAN "Another Day On Earth" (Opal / Hannibal) cd 16.98 EYEHATEGOD "Preaching The "End-Time" Message" (Emetic) cd 14.98 FAY, BILL "s/t" (Eclectic Discs) cd 21.00 FAY, BILL "Time of the Last Persecution" (Eclectic Discs) cd 21.00 FENNESZ / SAKAMOTO "Sala Santa Cecilia" (Touch) cd ep 12.98 FOO FIGHTERS "In Your Honor" (Sony) 2cd 17.98 FORREST, JASON / DONNA SUMMER "Mastadon Razor / 100% Goodiepal" (LJUD) 7" 9.98 GENE LOVES JEZEBEL "Discover" (Beggars Banquet) 2cd 13.98 GENE LOVES JEZEBEL "Immigrant" (Beggars Banquet) 2cd 13.98 GENE LOVES JEZEBEL "Promise" (Beggars Banquet) 2cd 13.98 GORILLA "Gimme Some..." (Beard Of Stars) cd 14.98 GRAHAM, DAVY "Folk, Blues & Beyond" (Fledg'ling) cd 16.98 GRAHAM, DAVY "Hat" (Fledg'ling) cd 16.98 GROWING "Dry Drunk On Woman b/w Residual Effects of Inertia II" (Nail In the Coffin / Mega Blade) 7" 4.98 ICKY BOYFRIENDS "A Love Obscene" (Menlo Park) 2cd 15.98 KIRCHIN, BASIL "Abstractions of the Industrial North" (Trunk) cd 17.98 LAST EXIT "Koln" (Atavistic) cd 14.98 LEE, RITA "Build Up" (Cherry Red) cd 17.98 LIPPOK, ROBERT & BARBARA MORGENSTERN "Tesri" (Monika) cd 15.98 MASADA "Sanhedrin" (Tzadik) 2cd 34.00 MC5 "1965-1968" (Get Back) 2lp 17.98 MC5 "Are You Ready To Testify! The Live Bootleg Anthology" (Sanctuary) 3cd 21.00 MC5 "Rehearsals" (Get Back) 2lp 17.98 MONOLAKE "Polygon Cities" (Monolake) cd 16.98 MONOS "Generators" (Die Stadt) cd 27.00 MONOSOV, ILYA & PRESTON SWIRNOFF "Seven Recorded Works" (Eclipse) lp 13.98 MONOSOV, ILYA & PRESTON SWIRNOFF "The Shining Path" (Eclipse) lp 13.98 MOPING SWANS, THE "Lightninghead To Coffeepot" (Fading Captain) cd 10.98 MY CAT IS AN ALIEN "When The Windmill's Whirl Dies" (Eclipse) 2lp 15.98 NARITA MUNEHIRO "s/t" (PSF) cd 19.98 NDEGEOCELLO, MESHELLE "The Spirit Music Jamia: Dance Of The Infidel" (Shanachie) cd 16.98 NEGURA BUNGET "Inarborat Kosmos" (Code 666) cd 13.98 NETHER DAWN, THE "Whiskey Mute-Down" (Last Visible Dog) cd 11.98 NETO, LULIEN "Le Fumeur de Ciel" (Type) cd 16.98 NORDENSTAM, STINA "The World Is Saved" (V2) cd 14.98 NUDGE "Cached" (Kranky) cd 14.98 OCEAN, THE "Fluxion" (Throne) cd 13.98 ODD NOSDAM "Burner" (Anticon) cd 14.98 OFERMOD "Mysterion Tes Anomias" (Norma Evangelium Diaboli) cd ep 13.98 OL' DIRTY BASTARD "The Definitive Story" (Atlantic) cd 17.98 ONDSKAPT "Dodens Evangelium" (Next Horizon) cd 14.98 PEPPERMINTS "Jesus Chryst" (Paw Tracks) cd 15.98 PERNICE BROTHERS "Discover A Lovelier You" (Ashmont) cd 15.98 POSIES "Every Kind Of Light" (Ryko) cd 15.98 RAMASES "Space Hymns" (Vertigo) cd 19.98 RIBOT, MARC "Spiritual Unity" (Pi Recordings) cd 15.98 RINALDI, RENATO "Hoarse Frenzy" (Last Visible Dog) cd 11.98 SCHMIDT, CHARLIE "Xanthe Terra" (Strange Attractors Audio House) cd 13.98 SEVENTH SONS "Raga (4 A.M. at Frank's)" (ESP-Disk) cd 15.98 SHOCKED, MICHELLE "Threesome (Limited Edition)" 3cd 33.00 SIRONE "Live" (Atavistic) cd 14.98 SO SO MANY WHITE WHITE TIGERS "s/t" (Weird Forest) picture disc 11.98 SPIRES THAT IN THE SUNSET RISE "Four Winds the Walker" (Secret Eye) cd 13.98 SPOOKY, DJ & DAVE LOMBARDO "Drums Of Death" (Thirsty Ear) cd 15.98 STILL "Remains" (Public Guilt) cd 14.98 SUGIMOTO, TAKU "Live In Australia" (Improvised Music of Japan) cd 27.00 TAR PET "The Artist Revealed Is Taralie Dawn" (Eclipse) lp 14.98 TARENTEL "Ghost Weight" (Acuarela) cd 11.98 THING, THE "Live at Bla" (Smalltown Superjazzz) cd 16.98 TLC "Now & Forever: The Hits" (Arista) cd 16.98 TRAFFIC SOUND "Yellow Sea Years" (Vampisoul) cd 21.00 V/A "Down In A Mirror: A Second Tribute To Jandek" (Summersteps) cd 12.98 V/A "Ikon Records Story" (Frantic) 2cd 26.00 V/A "Lean Into It: A Tribute To Die Kreuzen" (Erosion) cd 13.98 V/A "PSF & Alchemy: 20th Anniversary Live" (PSF) cd 19.98 V/A "Vertigo Mixed ...by Andy Votel" (Vertigo / Family Recordings) cd 19.98 WALKABOUTS "Slow Days With Nina" (Shingle Street) cd ep 5.98 WHITE MICE "ASSPhIXXXEATATESHUN" (Load) cd/lp 13.98/13.98 WOLD "L.O.T.M.P." (Profound Lore) cd 10.98 WOODEN WAND AND THE VANISHING VOICE "Xiao" (Troubleman Unlimited) cd 13.98 WRIGHT, FRANK "The Complete ESP-Disk' Recordings" (ESP-Disk) 2cd 24.00 XIU XIU "La Foret" (5RC) cd 14.98 ZION I "True & Livin" (LiveUp) cd 15.98 ZS "Karate Bump" (Planaria) cd 8.98 ZZZZ / UZ JSME DOMA "split" (PolyVinyl) 7" 4.98
A "Yoshida Tatsuya Compilation" -- meaning, it's all tracks from bands that Yoshida plays in, from Ruins to Sunkich to ZubiZuva to Musica Transonic to Tairikuotoko vs. Sanmyakuonna to Koenjihyakkei to Ruins-Hatoba to Korekyojin to Akaten, 13 in all. Mostly live cuts, some studio out-takes too. All one can do is say "wow".
This cultural exchange of sound artists from Australia and France was curated by sonic ecologist Eric La Casa and the electro-acoustic composer Philip Samartzis, having presented a series of performances and installations in both countries, exploring secret channels of communication through post-concrete composition and experimentation. The compilation as a whole is a fantastic listen, dynamic presentations of field recordings, found object manipulation, tuned instrumentation, and/or pure acousmatic works, with contributions from plenty of exceptional artists (e.g. Tarab, Cedric Peyronnet aka Toy Bizarre, Camilla Hannan, Jean-Luc Guionnet, Thomas Tilly, Thembi Soddell, etc.). From an overhead view, many of the tracks seamlessly blend together in the rustlings of damp earth and scrabbled soil juxtaposed with drones engineered out of environmental sources, cut with decontextualized snippets of language. It's hard not to see the connections of all of artists - both Australian and French - to the early '70s concrete pieces of psychologically agitated collages and concrete constructions. Throughout the compilation, there are some inevitable highlights. Tarab, as always, delivers a gem of a piece, overlaying rusted water drips upon a spatialization of huge objects being wrangled in a vacant architecture. Not surprisingly, these sodden sounds originated from the Estonian netherlands of post-Soviet crumble and toxic ruin. Cedric Peyronnet's aggressive drones spiral and collapse like the best minimalist pieces of Charlemagne Palestine or Jim O'Rourke. By contrast, Lizzie Pogson's layered atmosphere from harpischord is hauntingly beautiful. Philip Samartzis's composition of breath and aerated sound is at once creepy as hell and strangely seductive. One of the best things we've heard from him since his days in Gum! Camilla Hannan's insectoid miniatures extracted from the Amazon begins with delicate clicking of beetle shells and ant thoraxes and blossoms into a huge organic chorus that transitions nicely into Eric La Casa's buzzing swarm of processed bees. Like we said, an excellent listen through and through, showcasing the best and brightest coming out of the French and Australian sound communities these days.
Another classical tradition on the verge of extinction, thankfully immortalized to some degree on this disc from Smithsonian Folkways. The repertoire of the Burmese harp long considered the zenith of Burmese cultural expression has, like most art forms in this world which require vast study and patience, been on the losing side of a battle with popular music for many years now. It's maybe somewhat ironic that the current repressive government of Burma (since renamed Myanmar) is responsible for the attempted resurgence in the instrument's place in society. The efforts have apparently been too little, too late as the master harpist featured on this recording, Inle Myint Maung, passed away shortly after these recordings were made. Whether he was able to impart enough of his knowledge onto his students and whether they take it to heart to continue the tradition remains to be seen. On these recordings Inle Myint Maung is accompanied by vocalist Daw Yi Yi Thant. The pair mix and mingle their melodic lines in a melodic counterpoint with the vocalist's sustained notes punctuated by percussive embellishments from the harp. As you've come to expect from all Smithsonian Folkways releases, this comes with extensive and well written liner notes.
MPEG Download: INLE MYINT MAUNG & YI YI THANT "The Glory of the King" [/audio/mahagitagloryofking.mp3]
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Another beautifully packaged limited edition double cd from this great label. This time going back to the late '80s to uncover Major Force, who kick out "dope up cyber-rap from Tokyo." 32 tracks in all.
To commemorate their 100th release, Bloodshot Records put out this release which is loaded with out of print or hard to find singles. There's plenty of lively covers (of Funkadelic, Loretta Lynn, Poison, and Madonna to name a few) and a handful of previously unreleased treasures too. Tracks include: Waco Brothers "Harder They Come", Kelly Hogan "1,000,001" (previously unreleased), Ryan Adams "Goodbye Honey" (previously unreleased from the "Heartbreaker" sessions), Andre Williams & 2 Star Tabernacle "Lilly White Mama/Jet Black Daddy", Moonshine Willy "Complicated Games, The Meat Purveyors "The Madonna Trilogy", Neko Case & the Sadies "Rated X", Rex Hobart & the Misery Boys "Every Rose Has Its Thorn", The Sadies "Little Sadie", Moonshine Willy "George Set Me Strait", The Volebeats "Maggot Brain, Parts 1 & 2", Kelly Hogan & the Mellocremes "Hanky Panky Woman", Ryan Adams "To Be Young" (previously unreleased acoustic version), Rex Hobart & the Misery Boys "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights", Kelly Hogan & John Wesley Harding "It's Only Make Believe" (previously unreleased), Andre Williams & 2 Star Tabernacle "Ramblin' Man", Moonshine Willy "Alone", and Jonboy Langford "Nashville Radio".
Here's another super limited missive from the mysterious black-noise-goth-dirge imprint Vaald, with Malediction being a compilation featuring the suitably enigmatic projects Lock, White Resin, Interference, and Marble Verse. As is the case for pretty much everything that Vaald has released, there's no information about who, what, where, when, or how. It's just as well, as Vaald could simply be opening up a portal for phantoms, fallen angels, and wandering ghosts to channel their ectoplasmic energies into a dark foreboding pall, with each moniker being less a pseudonym for a particular artist and more of a chance meeting between this world and another. We've managed to get a good chunk of titles from Vaald, but not always in quantities to list; and Malediction maintains that same limited, fetish-quantity productions. It's a 46 minute cross-section into Vaald's aesthetic proclivities for black noise and dark electronics. Crumbling distortion, greasy turbine noise, and aggressive metal bashed aktionism gird the activities of the first three projects with White Resin shifting more towards the Italian Industrial axis (MB, Mauthausen Orchestra, Murder Corporation, etc.) and Interference pushing towards the non-structural passages of Le Syndicat. After doing some web-sleuthing, it seems that Lock is the noise project of Rachel "Motion Sickness Of Time Travel" Evans working with free-noise artist Leslie Grove. Marble Verse maintains the ghastly vibe, albeit with less of a the strong-arm tactics of the other three. Here, it's a drifting cauldron of creeping, half-melodic black ambience that could easily be mistaken for those non-BM Paysage D'Hiver albums. Sad to say that this was released in just an edition of 20 copies - all housed in a oversized case - and we have VERY few. Too bad, as this album and label deserves much wider attention!
Originally recorded and released on LP in 1970, "Ancient Strings" was the first recording devoted solely to the art of playing the Kora. Though it has been around for centuries in various shapes and under different names, the Kora -- a bridged lute with a large
We've long been champions of the mighty mysterious Fflint central label and their beautifully bizarre droning electronic weirdness. And we've raved about every single one of their cd-r releases. So we were pretty excited when the kind folks at Birdman decided to collect the best bits from all those releases and compile them on a real cd to create the ultimate Fflint primer. Essential for those of you who have yet to discover the amazing sonic world that is Fflint Central; absolutely necessary for those of you who have worn your old Fflint cd-r's down to spinning plastic nubs; and don't think you Fflint obsessives are getting off easy, there are several exclusive tracks never before released that you of course need! We could go on and on and gush endlessly, but since our very own Andee wrote the liner notes, we might as well just let you read what he had to say:
What the fuck is Fflint anyway? A place? A label? A bunch of cheeky bastards who have, in the matter of a few short years, rendered all other UK electronica obsolete? Umm, a place?
In the world of popular music, world-changing things get old fast. With the advent of punk rock, it was a thrill realising that anyone could start a band, but that wore off -real- quick, once everybody did. And then, when the laptop replaced the guitar as the "instrument" anyone could buy and thus have their own" band", it wasn't long before we found ourselves at shows, watching nerds check their emails on stage while we sipped overpriced drinks and fantasized about slipping into the bar to play some Galaga. And then came the cd-r. Christ, you thought the tape was bad. At least with tapes you always had something laying around to dub the new Van Halen or Motley Crue record on. But cd-r's, c'mon. Fuck. Not only can you not tape over them, but even my mom has a limited cd-r release. (And it's not half bad!)
So when you discover some mysterious group, who are quietly releasing cd-r's filled with sounds that are beautiful and perplexing and dreamy and annoying and dark and mesmerising and fucked beyond all possible comprehension, you cling to them like you were a mama bear and these cd-r's were your newborn cubs. But at the same time you are constantly wondering why -- knowing that these sounds exist and are somewhat readily available -- anyone would knowingly choose to listen to the rest of the shit out there.
Well that's all about to change.
And I guess that brings us back to the big question. What the hell is Fflint anyway? Obviously it's music, after all you're holding their cd in your grubby little paws as we speak. But is it electronica? Noise? Dark ambience? Twentieth century? Twenty First Century? Who the hell knows? And honestly, who gives a shit.
This is sound, pure and not so simple. An endless series of unlikely musical events. Some soothing and serene, some droning and delirious, and some so harsh it hurts to even listen. But all of it, every single bit, is unlike anything you've ever heard. Or ever will hear again. It's not just music, but the sounds of music. And the music of sound, entering your ears from the inside, filling your wide open skull with malfunctioning maelstroms of stuttering, fuzzed out synth and hiccupping bursts of thundering glitchery colliding with sputtering clicks and oscillating low end rumbles, draped over chest rattling modulated pulses. Ultra harsh noise smeared over a strange man humming into a broken telephone, while an orchestra of detuned guitars tries desperately to compete in the background. Thousands of tiny hands unwrapping cellophane candies in a hyperbolic chamber, while little girls in tap shoes run laps around your eardrums. Epileptic bagpipes and faraway seal calls rub up against scratching and scraping woodblocks, timestretched into sinister growls or raw and ultra distorted high end melodies, while player pianos are reverbed to death until they become an ominous hum, like a swarm of mechanical wasps pinned down by loping, stumbling Autechre-ish loops and rhythmic workouts: all stuttering thumps and slow motion handclaps, like Timbaland being held down in your bathtub struggling for air. Mysterious and sing-songy Krautrock, jangly and noisy, rambling and shambolic, giving way to shimmery skree, melodies shifting and eventually splitting apart and forming new more abstract melodies, while chirping birds and guttural Orc-ish vocalisations convulse atop a bed of keening chimes and high end swells. Abstract IDM gets deconstructed into shards of jagged dance refuse, beats, shuffling and skittering beneath shifting chords and slabs of minor key sound. Rich sheets of dense sound, layers of sweet ambience, and the metallic hum of excited strings, eventually becoming clipped and static, a hypnotic looped rhythm over accordions, crowd sounds and more bird calls. Grinding scraping pulsing drones unfurl like a small village being over run by snakes made out of bowed cymbals and broken samplers. A dense, crushing melodic downpour, like laying prone in a pool of Rephlex 12"s while hundreds of 'electronica artists' piss on you from above. Hissing ambience created by a choir of tracheotomy patients with malfunctioning hearing aids spewing intercepted shortwave transmissions, interrupted by occasional gunfire; only the bullets are Masonna cassettes and Merzbow cd-r's. A skittery but smooth drone-dirge, like someone drugged Boards of Canada and then pushed them down the stairs, while outside the Fflint guys try desperately to start the getaway car.
Yes, but is it music? Can I dance to it? Will it make the opposite sex swoon and want to sleep with me? No, probably not. Actually, most definitely not. This is not like the music you're used to. This is not music you'll hear on the radio or download from iTunes or hear on a car commercial. This is not music to dance to, or fuck to, or headbang to. Or maybe it is. At least for some of us. But that's precisely what makes Fflint and their divine din so special. And so goddamn important. This is pure sound, sound outside of music. But music the way we wish all music could be: Pure and freed from all the constraints that keeps "popular music" so boring and pointless and well, popular.
This is unpopular music. We are unpopular people.
And we couldn't be happier.
PS: actually, we should say that this is Record of *next* Week, technically. Since we actually can't sell it 'til its "street date" on Tuesday, the 12th. But go ahead and mailorder it now, 'cause you won't get your shipments until after then anyway. Locals, line up Tuesday morning!
First off, while B-Music/Finders Keepers have come up with some good puns before (Welsh Rare Beat ferinstance) we gotta give it up to 'em for the title to this comp. So we were already predisposed to like this, a collection of vintage heavy rock and rockin' bumblegum, all by manly bands from Manchester, England, if you haven't figured that part out yet. Also those are genres we're totally into, and besides when has a B-Music comp not delivered? Never! So this is quite recommended, 18 tracks (17 on the vinyl) by a bunch of obscure '70s Mancunian bands, most of which we'd never heard before. Rare singles and unissued demos full of fuzz guitars and sleazy horns and "hairy funk" and all that.
A person or band called Oscar starts things off, setting the mood with a stomping song about wanting a "Good Lovin' Woman", whom they'd also prefer to be good looking as well if possible. That brand of grunt continues throughout the disc, the heavier side of things represented by tracks by, among others, gritty blues bashers Stackwaddy. But it's a variety pack, ferinstance the delightfully named Greasy Bear gets a little bit country, sounding like Southern rockers on "Windy Day", while disco rears its head on the catchy "Come On In" by Sliped Disc, which somehow sorta turns into a ballad. Socrates throw down with some honkin' horns on the funkified "Johnny"; Plasma are fairly funky too, busting out with some seriously groovy instrumental prog. And freaky heavy psych is not neglected - J.C. Heavy deliver some driving, female-fronted (but still tough) proto-doom on the spookadelic, organ-laden "Is This Really Me?", which we remember well from another comp, and aQ faves The Way We Live (aka Tractor) offer up one of their classics, "King Dick II". Good stuff all around, packaged with the usual Finders Keepers informative care and colorful flair. We should list the other artists on here since some of the names are so great: Urbane Gorilla, Savoury Duck, Spider Jive, Sweet Chariot, Samsun, So On And So Forth, Grisby Dike, Young And Renshaw, & Chris Statham.
Arrrrggggggghhhhhh!!! When will it end?! Okay, so at least there's no mention of O' Brother Where Art Thou in this collection, but there can be no doubt as to what goose Yazoo is pulling their eggs from this time round. To their credit, Yazoo has an excellent catalog of early rural American music in their possession. Unfortunately, that catalog is not getting any bigger as time goes by. So those of you who have picked up previous concept anthologies on Yazoo such as: 'Times Ain't What They Used To Be', 'Before The Blues', 'Rose Grew Around The Briar', 'Music of Kentucky', and 'My Rough & Rowdy Ways' have probably noticed a lot of overlap in the songs included on them. The end result is that the average person interested in the wares offered by Yazoo picks up a few titles until the redundancy gets to be too great and they stop. Of the 20 tracks on 'Man of Constant Sorrow' half of them have been included on one of these other collections, so you can play your chips on this one if you've got a few of the others or pass. However, if your eye was caught by this title because of its connection to the platinum selling soundtrack to that particular Coen Brothers film and you have not previously delved into the anthology world of Yazoo, this collection may be the thing for you. And I think that's what the intent is anyhoo. 'Man of Constant Sorrow: And other Timeless Mountain Ballads' is the compiler's attempt to demonstrate the rich heritage of brutally straightforward ballads in rural American music from the 30's and 40's. From well known classics such as the album's namesake "John Henry", "John Hardy", "Darling Cora" and a heap of lesser known tiles as well.
'70s glam songster Bolan gets his due as a great composer up there with Serge Gainsbourg and Burt Bacharach in this third installment of Tzadik's tribute series. Worshippers include the Tall Dwarfs, Buckethead, Melvins, Cake Like, Mike Patton, Marc Ribot, Kramer, Sean Lennon & Yuka Honda (Cibo Matto), Trey Spruance (Mr. Bungle), Medeski Martin & Wood, etc.
A compilation of music and dialogue from over forty years of fairy-tale movies produced in the former GDR??!! Sounds like a total AQ cream dream! And it is... especially if you're part of our lucky German-speaking demographic! While the music magically ranges from wide-eyed, sparkly "why, hello bluebird!"-type crescendos to tense "no, Hans, don't go in there!" moments, we should mention that a hefty portion of the CD is dialogue highlights that are most likely dramatic conversations about golden geese and, um, prinzes und konigs und such, but since our German is limited, we're not entirely sure. Still, it sounds great and seems to transform everyone's mood into something sunny and full of possibility. Plus, the CD booklet contains saturated color photos of busty, blonde women in braids and bearded forestmen. Wunderbar!
What the hell more can we say about grime?! Other than we love it. We're obsessed with it. Grime and dubstep are everything we wish hip hop still was (and some still is, the new Clipse absolutely destroys!). Fresh and funky, wild and weird. Fucked up beats and even more fucked up flows. Stuttering hiccupping what the fuck rhythms. It's maddeningly mind bending. And we just can't get enough. And the thing is, we're forced to subsist on a new grime/dubstep release every few weeks or every couple of months, when we could easily be eating up ten times that. This is the only music that stands any chance of getting our non-dancing asses out of our chairs and out onto the dancefloor. And even if dancing is even lower on your list of priorities that it is on ours, this shit is the perfect kicking back music, drifting off, mellowing out, late night dubbed out chill music, it also sounds absolutely amazing blasting in your car. Like we said, we just can't get enough. So here we have a collection of some of the best dubstep (and grime) jams of the last little while compiled by legendary DJ Mary Anne Hobbs. About half of these tracks were recorded or at least remixed specifically for this comp, the rest being all time grime/dubstep classics.
The disc starts off with a track from recent AQ Record of the Weeker Milanese, a furious muted blast of grime-y groove and some killer dancehall style toasting over the top. The grime element is sort of pushed aside in favor of the more blissed out dubstep sound for the rest of the disc, featuring a track from another AQ record of the week Burial, as well as a track from Kode9 & Space Ape whose full length we raved about not too long ago. And of course a track from Kevin Martin's Bug... This whole record is just so dark and deliriously groovy. Beats are all over the place, alternating between shuffling and pounding, slithering and stuttering, huge basslines fuzz and buzz, thick swaths of low end synth threaten your woofers, vocals are minimal, sometimes wild tongue twisting flows, other times growled dancehall toasting, bits of jungle surface here and there, thick swirls of ominous ambience EVERYWHERE. So goddamn good. We've been listening to this non stop!! And every time we play this in the store somebody comes up to find out what it is, and usually ends up buying it. So what else do you need to know. Buy this now!
The first mix cd from dubstep diva DJ Mary Anne Hobbs, Warrior Dubs, was a sort of greatest hits snapshot of the dubstep/grime scene at the time. Lots of well known names, tons of aQ faves: Milanese, Burial, Kode9, Bug, and loads more. And while it was an incredible comp, for those of us who had already been obsessively tracking down as much grime and dubstep as we could get our hands on, it was a little light on new discoveries, a terrific mix for sure, but one we might have made ourselves. Which is ironic considering that dubstep, like jungle and garage and techno before it, is a genre that thrives on the newest thing, on the latest tracks, so much so that all the great DJ's tend to spin dubplates, unique copies of discs that have yet to be commercially released.
This latest collection from Miss Hobbs is something completely different though. And precisely what we were hoping for. Not only does if feature a whole mess of new names and never-heard-of's amongst the usual suspects, it also spreads out sonically, way beyond the realms of grime or dubstep, incorporating all manner of other electronic musics, but all somehow woven into something incredibly cohesive, and darkly groovy.
Much of this collection is super minimal, laid back and downtempo, lots of murky production and slowly skittering beats, some haunting almost completely ambient tracks, but some serious bangers as well. But before we get to all those, we might as well talk about the biggest surprise here, "Theory Of Machines" by Ben Frost, a nine and a half minute slab of slow burning blurred dronemusic, that over the course of its 9 minutes builds from soft shimmer to dense crumbling Tim Hecker style blurred beauty, to thick caustic blown out soft noise, to an super distorted almost-trip-hop. The sound is immense and epic, and so gorgeous, wreathed in crackle and underpinned by buzzing downtuned lowend, streaked with soaring synths, the track's climax, all skittery beats beneath clouds of hiss and whir and crackle and fuzz is totally intense and gorgeous. And the fact that it's dropped right between a super spaced out reverb drenched out chunk of muddy dubstep and some sun dappled Boards Of Canada style downtempo shuffle, speaks to Hobbs' skills as a DJ. Song choice, arrangement, segues.
Even with the artists we know, Hobbs didn't necessarily pick their big hit, instead opting for the song that best suited the mix, and it pays off. Opening with Ital Tek's glitchy dubby stutter, and closing with Claro Intelecto's hushed techno whisper, a soft washed out dreaminess over a barely there pulse, the tracks in between manages to be all over the map, without sounding random or just thrown together. A grinding buzzing synth heavy grime jam from Wiley follows hot on the heels of Cult Of The 13th Hour's Kode9-ish slow dub, replete with a motorik pulse, some muted muddied skitter, and some deep spoken word vocals. DJ Pinch offers up some super abstract dubstep, the usual synth buzz relegated to a distant murmur, the main rhythm, surrounded by little flurries of tribal shuffle, which is quickly followed up by Magnetic Man's electronic dub, that minus the dubstep synth warble brings to mind On-U-Sound or the Dub Chemists. Surgeon offers up some awesome Kompakt style techno, all looped and hypnotic, minimal and murky, which quickly gives way to a Boxcutter track that almost sounds like some electronic dub infused free jazz, all abstract skitter, crooned vocals, throbbing bass, strange space FX, bits of free freakout, even some whirring organ.
Definitely not the mix for someone looking for a dubstep greatest hits, we've got the recent Steppa's Delight collection among others for that, this is more a collection of modern electronic music, a glimpse into the future of sound, how these various tracks fit together, how electronic music continues to change before our very ears, dub becomes dubstep but what will it become next, techno and grime and downtempo and trip-hop seep back into the 'new' sound and makes it even newer, hybrids of hybrids of hybrids, how these sounds look to the past to reach the future. But more importantly, you can dance to them. Well, sort of.
Latest collection of forward thinking electronica from UK DJ Mary Anne Hobbs, this latest expands her focus from mostly grime and dubstep, to techno and hip hop and all sorts of variations and microgenres in between.
The compilation begins with a track by Mark Pritchard, who we had never heard of before, but his track "?" is a gorgeous bit of minimal dronemusic, that begins super spare and only begins to blossom near the end, with the drone splintering into woozy minor key melodies, creating a sort of bittersweet ambient drift, which leads right into a jam from Hudson Mohawke (Best band name ever? Quite possibly!), a lurching stuttery glitchy electronic freak out, all splatters of 8-bit beep and bloop, weird female grunts, and a killer hip hop beat underneath, warped and so good. Mike Slott is up next with a warbly slow jam, another flurry of blips and weird truncated vocals, pretty and sunshiney, but still plenty weird, which butts up against Brackles, some tripped out synth heavy techno, and so it goes, all over the map for sure, although there is some sort of sonic thread connecting all of the jams here.
We're still partial to the dubstep, and Hobbs has gathered up some killers, Mono/Poly dishes up some strangled stutter step, heavy on the glitch and crunch, plenty of bass warble, but here the treble is cranked, so that warble is more like a little blast of static. Architeq kicks up some serious warble, with a rad loping beat, and some thick thick bass, Tranqill kills it with some dubbed out hip hop, lots of Western twang, buzzy sitar, creepy flurries of
processed old school computer sounds, and Untold is super spare, and skeletal, lots of space, the beats spare and skittery, with a distinctly Eastern flair. Those jams are scattered throughout, amidst hazy almost pop ambience, glittery house-y grooves, fuzzy indie electronic pop and the killer closer, maybe our favorite track from the Legion Of Two record we made Record Of The Week a while back, some seriously grim and heavy live drummer post industrial dub step heaviness.
For a limited time, the compact disc version of Wild Angles is on sale! $2 off regular list price (which normally would be $14.98) for the next two weeks. Dig it!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
"Maschinelle + Strategeme", the latest compilation of blip bleep minimalism courtesy of Mille Plateux imprint Ritornell, is the curatorial handy work of a certain Kit Clayton. The common thread that links the work on this compilation together being the recurrent implementation of cyclical structures imposed onto fabricated electronic sound. With: Autopoieses, Kim Cascone, Taylor Dupree, Stilluppsteypa, Dean Roberts, Terre Thaemlitz, Christoph Charles, and more.
Just in, a collection of tracks previously released only as limited edition 12"s on South London's very rad Ambush label, featuring some of the best underground digital hardcore, drill 'n bass noisemakers around: DJ Scud, Shizuo, Give Up, Din-S.T. (aka Fever), and others. Note: Wabana's vinyl of this is limited to 500, and the import cd has a slightly different selection of tracks.
The "Masonic." compilation celebrates five years of operation for the Germanic tekno / noirish IDM label with a bunch of mostly unreleased tracks from m2 (aka Panacea), Funkstorung, Scorn, Lilienthal, Venetian Snares, Somatic Responses, Lusine ICL, Bochum Welt, Neutral, Dead Hollywood Stars, Beefcake, Immanent, Gridlock, Xingu Hill, Substanz-T, Starfish Pool, Noosa Hedz, and tons more. Pretty much acts as the missing link between contemporary IDM and Skinny Puppy's lineage throughout the '80s.
