[ aquarius records catalogue

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Showing results 3301 through 3350 of 3547.

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

SORRY.

First off, Violence Fog is Allan's new favorite band name ever (sorry, Dirty Lust). As soon as he (me, I) saw it listed in one of our supplier's catalogs, I had to order it. Plus, the description said that it had flutes on it, so I knew that Andee would

RealAudio clip: New One
RealAudio clip: Moon's New Way

We were pretty bummed out when psychedelic metallic space rock new wave weirdos Lansing-Dreiden decided to call it quits, all of their records were twisted and genius and were huge faves around aQ land, but we were psyched that at least some of those L-D's recently resurfaced in a new group called Violens, whose sound is way less obtuse and challenging, and way more poppy. The new wave element is still in full effect, with a sort of eighties UK indie rock vibe, lots of jangle guitar, thick rubbery basslines, lush vocals, lots of harmonies, and while it may not seem weird on the surface, there are lots of sonic subtleties that keep Violens from being a straight pop band, moaning bleating horns, squalls of crunchy psychedelic guitar, wild tribal drumming, streaks of electronic buzz and that's just on the first song. The vibe is definitely new romantic, with shades of the Smiths, Style Council, Simple Minds, OMD, even Duran Duran here and there, and barring the tripped out production, and weirdo elements, this really could be some eighties artifact dug up and reissued. That said, the songs here are pretty great, the opening track "The Dawn Of Your Happiness Is Rising" is the opening track for a reason, the retro pop hit of the season, and the one flecked with the most weirdness, without losing sight of the pop prize. "Trance-Like Turn" is another good one, a more broody washed out ballad, sounding more like Talk Talk, with lots of rumbling ambience, and swirling guitar shimmer and murky jangle. The record is just so full of eighties signifiers, sax solos here and there, deep new wave reverby crooned vocals, big lush production, but the way those elements are melded to the modern weirdness is what makes this work, whether it's the thick undulating low end buzz and fuzzy distortion that flows throughout "Another Strike Restrained" (which in every other way is pure eighties pop) or the Animal Collective flourishes that color "Acid Reign", or the distorted backwards guitar psych-out that closes "Are You Still In The Illusion?", it all manages to sound just right, the weirdness doesn't sound tacked on for weirdo alt cred, and the pop doesn't sound forced, it's lush and hooky and emotional and sincere, and those two disparate elements of the band somehow manage to balance, creating a pretty fantastic slab of modern retro pop, that we're digging BIG TIME.

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In our review of the first Violens records, we spent a lot of time talking about how weird it was to listen to their music, in particular because in their previous incarnation, they were such a different sounding outfit, but since then we've actually gone back and re-listened to that old stuff, and can definitely see the connection, and the path from there to here doesn't seem nearly so unlikely. That group, Lansing-Dreiden, was definitely weirder, and while even back then they definitely had an eighties new wave MTV style pop thing going on, they mixed it with all sorts of more modern conventions, but it seems like maybe we've been basing that whole idea of Violens being so dramatically different on a single song, our favorite L-D song, which melded eighties MTV pop and crushing death metal, which to be fair, WAS pretty goddamn awesome. If anything, Violens are more of a real band, less of an experimental collective, so while that meant shedding some of the cool weirdness, it definitely meant these guys got a lot better, tighter, more polished, their songs gorgeous and lush and catchy, jangly and so melodic, where other bands of a similar stripe seem to be aping the eighties doing their best to sound like they actually were from the eighties, Violens seem to take a much more mature approach, obviously influenced by those bands and that sound, but instead of crafting some sort of homage, they simply make their own music, which definitely stands on it's own as modern jangle pop, but if you're old enough to remember the eighties, and all those bands, then that somehow makes it even better, the best of both worlds, fantastic new songs that are fresh and modern, but that are inherently infused with a bit of nostalgia. And really Slumberland is the perfect home for this new record, the band actually moving away from the overt eighties new waviness into a sound that's much more classic pop, fuzzy and jangly, dreamy and divine, sounding weirdly a little more nineties this time around, and very much like a band that would have been on Slumberland back in the day as well!

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Full length number two from these local post punk noise poppers, and according to the liner notes, it might also be their last. But with VC, it's pretty hard to tell if they're taking the piss, usually safe to assume they are. And while their self-titled debut was gloriously lo-fi and ramshackle, noisy and chaotic, enough that we made it our Record Of The Week, A Celebration Of Taste manages to be even MORE, with much of it sounding like it was recorded in a cave, or a huge metal box, or underwater, on what we can only assume is probably a broken 4-track, everything with dying batteries, but then out of some impossibly impenetrable murk, will emerge a burst of crunchy, fuzzy power pop, that sounds like an unearthed gem from back in the day. So we figured this one too had to be another Record Of the Week... Check out the opening 1-2-3 punch, "(I'm A Star) In Outer Space" is some seriously classic songsmithery, jangle guitar galore, some impossibly catchy guitar melodies, plenty of background buzz, keening vocals and hooks for days, but the tinny, no-fi production makes Guided By Voices sound like U2, but then there's "Micro Flesh", which takes that same sound, and piles on the murk, treble turned to zero, bass to ten, then slowed down, so it's a muddy, woozy, warmly creep, grinding, and gristly, before suddenly, "Faster" explodes into action, sounding like some weirdo lost Mod outfit from the sixties, this still lo-fi but cranked up, gloriously noisy and psychedelic, feedback everywhere, and buried under all that noisiness, a fucking killer, classic jam. And so it goes, these guys dipping their toes into seventies power pop ("I Was Never Young" sounds like an outsider Purling Hiss), glammed out punk rock stomp ("Malleable Love"), all swaggery hip shaking crunch, total experimental noisescapery ("Abductors Pt. 1"), fifties style balladry filtered through cracked modern noise rock, and crumbled into something barely songlike ("Hairline-esque"), super distorted fuzz pop a la GBV ("Someone In This House")... Needless to say, we could go on and on and on. But if anything, this new one is somehow both more fucked up and damaged, and more catchy and well crafted, than their debut, that well crafted-ness pretty much entirely disguised by all the noise, and weirdo production, and detuned damage, and constantly in-flux production, and the varying degrees of shitty sound, but it's all glorious, and freaky, and psychedelic, and catchy and freaked out, and we're really really really hoping this isn't the last we're gonna hear from these guys, cuz this record is some seriously next level outsider pop genius! Fucked up and utterly confusional obviously, but then that's a big part of what makes it so goddamn great. Includes two inserts and a download code.

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For those who missed out on the super limited demo cassette from this SF lo-fi noise pop / post punk outfit, four of the tracks from that tape, have been re-recorded with a full band for this 7", and sound even better now. As we mentioned in our review of the now out of print tape, VC were born from late great punk pop weirdos the Sopors, who basically went mostly unheard outside of their little scene (which also included tUMULt pop heroes the Ovens!). And while Violent Change, at the time of that tape, was essentially a solo record by Sopors mainman Matt Bleyle, has since then, become a proper band, and now also includes Tony from the Ovens. And all of the above mentions of the Ovens is not for nothing, cuz Violent Change definitely has the same sort of pop vibe as the Ovens, but where the Ovens take the Beatles and Weezer and the Champs, Violent Change are a much more twisted and lo-fi proposition, an obvious comparison is definitely Guided By Voices, in fact, we'd imagine fans of GBV would flip for these guys, who kick out perfect pop jams at the drop of a hat, but don't shy away from getting more punky, or twisting a perfectly good pop song into a gloomy chunk of deeply crooned post punk dirgery. That said, the bulk of this four song 7" is some of THEE catchiest lo-fi pop you're bound to hear EVER, with excursions into blasting punk rock, noisy freakouts, and a moment or two here and there that position VC as a dead ringer for the Ovens, but the whole thing is way more fuzzy, and ramshackle and gloriously lo-fi, and punky and catchy and is definitely convincing us that Violent Change might be our (and possibly your) new favorite local band! LIMITED TO 300 COPIES, each one hand numbered, includes a download coupon as well.

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Debut release from this new SF band, born from late great punk pop weirdos the Sopors, who basically went mostly unheard outside of their little scene (which also included pop tUMULt pop heroes the Ovens!). And while we're doing our best to track down copies of the Sopors lp to review, we've got this new record from Violent Change, at the time of this tape essentially a solo record by Sopors mainman Matt Bleyle, although since, the band has been expanded to an actual group that includes Tony from the Ovens. And all of these mentions of the Ovens is not for nothing, cuz Violent Change definitely has the same sort of pop vibe as the Ovens, but where the Ovens take the Beatles and Weezer and the Champs, Violent Change are a much more twisted and lo-fi proposition, an obvious comparison is definitely Guided By Voices, in fact, we'd imagine fans of GBV would flip for these guys, who kick out perfect pop jams at the drop of a hat, but don't shy away from getting more punky, or twisting a perfectly good pop song into a gloomy chunk of deeply crooned post punk dirgery. That said, the bulk of this tape is some of THEE catchiest lo-fi pop you're bound to hear EVER, with excursion into blasting punk rock, noisy freakouts, and at least one track that is a dead ringer for the Ovens, but the whole thing all fuzzy, and ramshackle and gloriously lo-fi, and punky and catchy and probably the most listened to tape in the shop!!

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First, ever-popular album from this band, featuring such songs as "Blister In The Sun", "Please Do Not Go" and "Gone Daddy Gone". Rhino's deluxe edition tacks on eleven demos and singles tracks, plus a whole extra disc of live material!

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

SORRY. Japanese noisician/stand up comedian V.O.G. toured the USA in 1995 and this cd preserves some of his finer performances, each in collaboration with American peers Smegma (a warm up for their later split-release with Merzbow?), Truman's Water, and the ubiquitous Thurston Moore.

When we reviewed the last record from fucked up noise rock weirdos Violent Students, here's how we summed them up: Dirty, filthy, scummy, sludgy, noisy, fractured, fucked up, damaged, demented, crusty, sloppy, shitty, sweaty, punk as fuck, fuzzy, freaked out, warped, doomy, downtuned, plodding repetitive, caveman gar(b)age scuzz-rock weirdness. And very little has changed since. This new record, if anything, is even more spectacularly shitty sounding, impossibly lo-fi, a crushing, crumbling avalanche of crust and filth and sonic grime. We love this band so much, that we're desperately afraid it's all a put on. Like it's not possible for a band to be this naturally demented and inspired, for a band to create a record like this by happenstance. We tend to think it must be a noise rock prank like Faxed Head, a bunch of super talented musicians, slumming, purposefully creating utter depraved sonic sickness. But we hold on to the hope that these guys are for real. That they live in some fucked up squat in some nowhere town, and rock out in their own filth, busted amps and out of tuned guitars, the mic plugged into the shitty stereo, the floor covered in beer bottles and broken glass and used condoms, al the windows busted, and the neighbors desperately afraid to call the cops, cuz these guys are UNHINGED. Equal parts vintage Butthole Surfers, Rusted Shut, Black Mayonnaise, Liquorball, the guitars not so much riffing as spewing gouts of buzz and howl and squeal, the drums in a constant state of being hurled down the stairs, a blown out cacophony, and the vocals, a dizzying effects drenched caterwaul, malfunctioning delay and reverb and echo, all every howl and hoot and bellow exploded into a barrage of swirling tripped out abstract noise, the recording impossibly lo-fi too, the sound on the verge of crumbling to pieces, the loud parts clipping constantly, making everything even more muddy and murky, and then there's the random sampled audience applause throughout. For all its primitive amateurism, it's also sort of next level, high concept, the final track, "A Handy Magician", nearly 18 minutes long, is barely a chunky noise rock dirge, instead it sounds like some weird mix of This Heat and No Neck Blues Band, and accidental art rock, swaddled in black smears of noisy, and thick swaths of sonic filth. These guys, whoever they are, have created some seriously inspired, and fantastically fucked up and fractured avant minimal noise rock whatthefuck. Which needless to say, means this is so entirely and utterly recommended. Includes a download coupon AND a poster!

These Philly based sonic screw ups are back with a live record (unless that's a lie and they're just fucking with us, which is very likely) that somehow manages to make all of their other releases sound tame in comparison. In the past we've described these guys as Dirty, filthy, scummy, sludgy, noisy, fractured, fucked up, damaged, demented, crusty, sloppy, shitty, sweaty, punk as fuck, fuzzy, freaked out, warped, doomy, downtuned, plodding and repetitive, and we mean all of that in the best way. Gloriously scuzzy garage rock sludge stomp, like the Buttholes crossed with the Brainbombs dosed with acid and PCP. According to the liner notes, Street Banger was recorded "Live in front of horny girls who also shriek" and it definitely sounds live. But live like recorded in an airplane hangar onto a microcassette and mastered by Merzbow. This is some sort of whitenoise freerock buzz. As blown out and in the red as any recording we have ever heard. So much so that some parts literally made our eyes water when we were listening to this on headphones. When the guitar explodes the drums DISAPPEAR completely, the vocals make everything else drop out. The bass does nothing but make a huge endless rumble that gets sucked under every drum hit and hyperdistorted riff. It's like Faxed Head but somehow even more fucked up and noisy, damaged and demented. And obviously, AWESOME!

MPEG stream: Flying Priest
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You want to know just how dirty, filthy, scummy, sludgy, noisy, fractured, fucked up, damaged, demented, crusty, sloppy, shitty, sweaty, punk as fuck, fuzzy, freaked out, warped, doomy, downtuned, plodding and repetitive this latest tape by the Violent Students is? Well, it made short work of not ONE, but TWO different tape decks. Just sent them cowering and crying to wherever it is that broken and emasculated tape decks go. We recently discovered these Philly based dirge-scuzz caveman freenoise weirdos and were immediately smitten, well as smitten as you can be with a group of brain damaged Neanderthals beating you to death with feeding back guitars. Which in our case is VERY!! So if you need another blast of damaged Buttholes influenced drug drenched stomp and stumble, then act fast, we got a bunch of these tapes the band pressed up themselves but they won't last long.

Dirty, filthy, scummy, sludgy, noisy, fractured, fucked up, damaged, demented, crusty, sloppy, shitty, sweaty, punk as fuck, fuzzy, freaked out, warped, doomy, downtuned, plodding repetitive, caveman gar(b)age scuzz-rock weirdness. Phew. In the grand tradition of the Butthole Surfers, Liquor Ball, Rusted Shut, Black Mayonnaise and every other drunk and drugged dirge rock band that tried deperately to channel the Germs, Black Flag, a million out of tune guitars, a trunk full of warped drums with broken heads, and a suitcase fulll of broken effect pedals into a snarling, seething glorious mess, equal parts spastic octopoidal drumming, blown out blunderbuss bass and howling moaning vocal anguish... we bring present to you the Violent Students. A gorgeously unsightly, fabulously revolting head on collision between trashy druggy broken-instrument junk rock, spaced out Siltbreeze free noise splatter and slow motion doom drenched sludge, the Violent Students sound like a swimming pool full of broken amps and feeding back guitars, while a dumptruck empties its entire payload of cracked cymbals in a ear splitting golden shimmering shower, and the punk kid next door practices bass in the backyard while that weird drunk who's always hanging out on the corner is screaming nonsensically through a broken bullhorn. Imagine some sort of super group made up of the Butthole Surfers and the Jesus Lizard, but while they were sleeping, someone snuck in and gave them all full frontal lobotomies. The next night on stage you'd get something that might be a loose aproximation of the Violent Students, that is if you also dosed them with Thorazine and PCP and filled the room with automobile exhaust until the whole thing became a swirling, snarling, stumbling mess of drooling, gibbering, dim-witted, backward, besotted, imbecilic retarded BRILLIANCE! Believe it or not, we're told these guys (from Philly) toured with AQ fave folk-drone guitarist Jack Rose not long ago!

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When we were first told about this Violet record, it was described to us as a noise record, and we just sort of assumed Violet was the woman making the noise, when in fact, Violet Ray Gas And The Playback Singers is way more of an experimental drone record, and Violet is the name of the group, which in fact is the work of one fella, not sure what he's called, but none of that really matters, what does, is that this record is amazing. Dark and mysterious, mixing in bits of Jeck and Tim Hecker, Wolf Eyes, blending them into Violet's ominous world of sound. There's feedback all over the place, but it's far from harsh or jagged, instead it's used like color, to paint greyed out landscapes burnished reds, and melted oranges, thick tones, reverberating chimes, bits of buzz and crunch, disembodied voices, intercepted broadcasts, clouds of hiss, chugging machinery, industrial sonic detritus, warped strings, woozy synths, all wound up into dense walls of sound one second, blurred into delicate crystalline lattices the next. "Plague Numbers" is total Jeck, a skipping scratched record smeared into a gauzy washed out living portrait of sound, indistinct figures, flitting shadows, mysterious shapes, all moving as if through a thick field of static, not even four minutes, but we found ourselves wishing it would never end. Elsewhere the sound of lapping water is swallowed up by a crackling crumbling fog of burnt melodies, and slowed down riffs, a sort of sun dappled lysergic sonic swirl. The title track is a tuning up orchestra stretched out into a softly chaotic symphony of angular tones and fractured melodies, of sine waves and groaning creaking low end rumbles, augmented by curious crackles and strands of distortion arranged in patterns resembling speech, but rendered in impressionistic shards, finishing off with a gorgeous high end ur-drone, a softer Sunroof!, a field of static bagpipes, their overtones creating otherworldly patterns in the ether. Gorgeous.

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In 1984, The Virgin Prunes' vocalist Gavin Friday made a guest appearance on Coil's debut album Scatology. His hair-raisingly cathartic vocals on "The Tenderness of Wolves" seethed with a lurid expressionism to what would have been a potentially puerile theme of vampirism. Friday was a perfect addition to Coil's early masterpiece of abjection and transgressive behaviour. A few years earlier, The Virgin Prunes were commissioned by the French label L'Invitation au Suicide to score an album "concerned with insanity and its connection to art and filth." No wonder Coil wanted to work with Mr. Friday! Originally published as a double 10" box set, the resultant commissioned album Heresie featured one disc of new studio material and one disc of live material, culled from a performance at the Rex Club in Paris from 1982. During the studio sessions for Heresie, the band never slept and even allowed much of the ensuing delirious babble to bracket the more structured musical offerings. Their self-induced hallucinatory state certainly produced some amazing results, as can be heard on the exhaustingly furious tracks "Rhetoric" and "Loved One" which sort of sound like the Pathological stable of Terminal Cheesecake, Skullflower, and God with overloaded bass and pummeling tribal percussion driving the maniacal vocals and spidery guitar lines. The seasick parady of a traditional Irish tune on "Down The Memory Lane" typifies the bizarre counterpoints that the Virgin Prunes had used throughout their career. The live material on Heresie shows just how amazing they were as performers, even though none of these songs are vastly different than those found on their studio counterpoints.

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Although they produced numerous singles and elaborate art editions, The Virgin Prunes only released two proper studio albums; and If I Die, I Die... was their debut released in 1982 on Rough Trade. Adorned with torn Victorian ballroom dresses and smeared black eye shadow, the Virgin Prunes were often lumped into the British Goth scene, although their music was clearly in a world of its own. If there was a Virgin Prunes album that most closely aligns itself to Goth glam posturing, If I Die, I Die... would come the closest. This curiously baroque post-punk album centers upon the shrill interplay between the band's vocalists Gavin Friday and Guggi who come across as half-crazed, drunken Dadaists purposely undermining the traditions of the vocal duet. As idiosyncratic and unorthodox as these two often sound, their single-minded focus on emoting an aesthetic of pure delirium pulled everything together. It didn't hurt that the Virgin Prunes also had a knack for dark pop subversion, which was enhanced by the production courtesy of the Wire's Colin Newman. With brittle shards of guitar accentuating the Gavin / Guggi vocals and a plodding rhythm section, The Virgin Prunes don't immediately strike us as as having the chops to write post-punk pop songs; but tracks like "Walls Of Jericho" and "Baby Turns Blue" are undeniably catchy, if something of an acquired taste. Not to worry, there's plenty of classic Virgin Prunes dementia on If I Die, I Die... as on the viperous "Sweethome Under White Clouds" and the jagged antagonism of "Caucasian Walk." After If I Die, I Die... the band began to strain under their eccentricities and never managed to produce anything as truly great as this record.

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Released on their own Baby imprint in 1985, Over The Rainbow was the last album that The Virgin Prunes released before the band broke up, as founding member Gavin Friday ventured out on his own, fellow vocalist Guggi took up a career in painting, and several other members held onto the Virgin Prunes legacy in renaming themselves The Prunes with little or no success. Over The Rainbow -- a compilation of rarities and unreleased tracks -- was a fitting epitaph for the band, demonstrating the multifaceted nature of the unusual post-punk sound the band explored during their eight year career. While most compilations of rarities and unreleased tracks come across as an incoherent mess of throwaway tracks, Over The Rainbow actually features some of their best material, which was often composed for very specific purposes outside of their eccentric album concepts. Nightmarish drone tracks like "Red Nettle" and "Jigsawmentallama" nestle against the acerbic art-punk blasts of "Twenty Tens" and "Greylight" which come across as oblique versions of The Fall or Teardrop Explodes with two delirous Irishmen ranting over the top. This reissue from Mute digs a little deeper into the vaults to pull out a couple more unreleased tracks that weren't on the original Over The Rainbow (or the Artfuck compilation which was essentially the same as Over The Rainbow). Even if you're not a completist, Over The Rainbow is a great overview of this baffling band.

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The amazingly beautiful, highly anticipated first full album (after a couple of 10"s and a compilation of those 10"s) from this popular SF trio composed of Mary O'Neil and Brad Johnson, both ex-Wannabe Texans, and Greg Freeman of Lowdown Studios and Pell Mell. Good ole fashioned Americana that sounds like an alt.country version of the Velvet Underground or the Young Marble Giants playing Freakwater songs.

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

SORRY. 7 wonderful new songs.

A special new four-song ep from hometown favorites Virginia Dare. This trio combines autoharp, delightful twang guitar, and simple percussion with the seen-it-all, slightly gravelly, defiantly feminine voice of Mary O'Neill. Includes a great X-Ray Spex cover ("Art-i-ficial"). If you're a fan of the Dare, place your order now because we've only got about 10 copies of this ep which was

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

SORRY. Out-of-print/hard-to-find import debut from AQ-faves Virgina Dare. We got a few copies of this '94 cd back in stock so grab 'em now while you can.

Listening to Virulence, you'd never guess that these guys would eventually become the stoner rock outfit Fu Manchu, cuz this stuff is pretty far removed from what we think of as stoner rock, twisted furious metallic punk rock, equal parts Melvins sludge, Black Flag gnarl and old school hardcore punk. Not to mention other varied heaviness like Swans, Bl'ast, Neurosis, Posion Idea... The riffs are Greg Ginn-ish for sure, tangled and angular, the songs lurching and lumbering, the bass fuzzy and distorted, vocalist Ken Pucci howling and yowling over start stop churning metallic crunch, shrieking feedback, sludgey grungy low slung punkmetal thud, with the band occasionally digressing into those awesome sort of late period Black Flag jazzy metal dirge meanders, the stuff that alienated the punks, but totally hit the spot for a lot of us. Serpentine melodies, wrapped around grinding angular riffage and chaotic drummage, bursts of old school punk pound butted up against woozy dirgey heaviness, fucking awesome stuff for sure. This disc collects their debut album, along with a handful of live tracks, and their original demo, which is way more punk, but sounds as heavy and kick ass as ever. Includes a massive booklet with tons of liner notes, reflections for the various band members, photos, old flyers and more...

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Remember how excited we were a few months back about the reissue of the album Written In Waters by 'post-black-metal' weirdos Ved Buens Ende?? VBE were one of our favorite Norwegian bands EVER, all avantgarde and sorta-metal and proggy and just plain strange. Well, at long last VBE have finally made a new record! Well, not exactly. The name is different, the lineup too -- only Carl-Michael Eide (aka Czral) remains, with we think new guys rounding out the trio, though we can't be sure 'cause they all use pseudonyms anyway. But, despite all that and some further experimentation with electronics and even pop, this really does still sound like ol' Ved Buens Ende! Oh happy day. Their math-metal songwriting definitely will still draw comparisons to Voivod, and despite reports that there's a Talking Heads influence you'll still hear more echoes of Ulver and Satyricon than you will of David Byrne, though it's certainly art rock, of a sort. Some parts remind us of Swans, or even This Heat's Charles Hayward's solo records! Other possible comparisons: Arcturus, Don Caballero, Dodheimsgard, Guapo, Enslaved, Codeine, Ulver, Solefald... All very 'different', just like Virus, who are capable of being powerfully complex or lullingly pretty, always creating a sense of unease and disquiet. It's dismal, it's distorted, it's as sad and beautiful as a dead white swan floating on a misty lake. Carheart has perhaps added more sampling and electronics to the VBE equation, but it's still got all the stuff we liked about Written In Waters. Hectic drumming, twisting, atonal guitars, psychedelic drone, rubbery bass, swooning, dramatic vocals, monk-chant vocals, atmospheric, uh, atmosphere...including field recordings of wind and water that suggest the mysterious lake we spoke of above. Lyrically, it's equally as cryptic, and the cd graphics only spawn further confusion. Carheart? Cars? Dog-headed men? What's going on? Can't figure it out and really we don't necessarily want to. It's enough that VBE are back in the guise of Virus. It IS different (Carl's playing guitar instead of drums, though it's still his vocals and vision) enough to be considered a new band, but VBE fans will not be disappointed! Recommended.

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MPEG stream: Dogs With Wheels
MPEG stream: Beelevator

Carl-Michael Eide, aka Czral, of the illustrious Ved Buens Ende is back, with a 2nd Virus album, the band which continues the eccentric, eerily dissonant, darkly psychedelic sound once unique to VBE. And being back is pretty big deal, 'cause Carl-Michael very nearly died three years ago from a 4-story fall! Thankfully, he's recovered enough to mastermind this excellent Virus disc and also participate (under his guise of Aggressor) in the making of a new Aura Noir album too (also reviewed this list). The late great VBE actually only made one proper album (1995's Written In Waters, sadly again out of print) plus a demos disc. At the time, we compared 'em to Slint, Don Caballero and Voivod - but somehow also black metal. Taking up where VBE left off, Virus in 2003 released the even quirkier Carheart album, that added extra electronic elements and a more prominent role for the bass, leading some to cite Talking Heads (!) and The Birthday Party as further-from-black-metal influences on their sound. And there's no denying that this ISN'T your usual black metal, or maybe black metal at all. With 'jazzy' bits, deep voiced vocal speak-singing, no wave grooves, and some vaguely techno-ish drum beats. But we'd say this one sounds more like old VBE than Carheart did, maybe 'cause some of these songs were originally written for an abortive VBE reunion attempt, heavier and less "pop", the guitars "smeary-er". Regardless, even if VBE means nothing to you (yet), this new Virus is highly recommended for adventurous metal and non-metal listeners both, who'll appreciate its sonic similarities to Ulver and Arcturus, This Heat and the Swans... can you imagine a mathrock Amesoeurs perhaps, with Garm or Gira on vocals? It's dark metallic art rock with weird atmospheres, redolent of claustophobia and vertigo. Twisting, seasick and sinuous - not for everyone at all - but utterly compelling if you've caught the Virus.

MPEG stream: As Virulent As You
MPEG stream: The Black Flux
MPEG stream: Lost Peacocks

MPEG stream: Can't Do The Rhyme
MPEG stream: Hunger
MPEG stream: Unhappy Shopper Rinseout

Boy do we love Grime!! But we're getting a bit frustrated at the relative dearth of grime stateside. We can only listen to our Dizzee Rascal and Wiley records so many times. Plus to be honest, as much as we dig those, we're sort of hankering for something a little more, well, you know, grime-y! Overseas, you got Kano, Lethal Bizzle, Lady Sovereign, More Fire Crew and loads more but it's taken forever for any of their records to make it over here. But in the meantime, we've got the debut from the Virus Syndicate, courtesy of Mike Paradinas' Planet Mu label. And it's a corker. The thing with grime is, well, it's sort of like drum and bass, you just gotta love the sound. We can't get enough of the super distorted classic ragga drum and bass. So much so that we could listen to that shit forever. And we're beginning to feel the same way about grime. It's sort of like hip hop sure, but the rhythm is this super repetitive, slurry, stuttering beat, a very clumsy funk, over and over, every song has the same general head nodding shuffle, with grimy fuzz synth bass lines, and then maddening, tongue twisting flow over the whole thing. Virus Syndicate take that formula and give it their own twist. Big fat beats, throbbing and hiccuping, haunting stabs of operatic vocals, fuzzed out synths, burbling booming system bass, all rocking that instantly recognizable grime rhythm, while the Syndicate spit bizarre marble mouthed rhymes, talking trash, a wildly confusional flow, catchy and soulful, occasionally slipping into some almost Jamaican style toasting. So fucking awesome. Also boasts some truly and brilliantly atrocious cover art (continued inside the cd booklet with a Virus Syndicate comic!).

MPEG stream: Slow Down
MPEG stream: Major List MCs

Get your true metal fix for this week, with the Metal Blade full-length debut of Salt Lake City's truest metal horde, Visigoth! They charge forth to do battle with a triumphant metal gallop that's both barbarically heavy and super EPICK, soaring but dark, powerfully produced. Most definitely invisible-orange-gesture worthy stuff, kind of like some unholy, brawny melding of Twisted Tower Dire and Grand Magus, it's solid, stirring, sometimes quite speedy stuff with clean, commanding vocals (hitting the highs but never sounding wimpy) and plenty of power in the guitars department, unleashing both doomy riffs and shredding solos. The lengthy but memorable opening number and title track, "The Revenant King" deserves special mention not just because it's likely get stuck in your head but also 'cause the band made a pretty impressive low-budget video clip for it, you should watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqc1yNuFrps Not bad, eh? A lot of drama in that little one-act-play, with just three characters out in the snow someplace, like a mini-Game Of Thrones. The king in the video is played by the singer for another US underground epic metal outfit, Eternal Champion, btw, but it's the Wormtongue-like scheming adviser who steals the show, the dude who plays him is scarily great! Anyway, there's lots of cool songs on there for anyone into true, epic, power metal that will rock yer socks off - Allan here of course especially likes the track "Dungeon Master", with the refrain "He's a dungeon master!", Visigoth clearly unashamed of their D&D habit. Oh, and props for the kickass cover of Manilla Road's classic "Necropolis", yeah we said they were epick. All in all, damn enjoyable and impressive. Visigoth could be the American answer to Falconer. Quality stuff, we can imagine a TV ad with that old guy saying "I don't always headbang, but when I do, I headbang to Visigoth."

MPEG stream: The Revenant King
MPEG stream: Mammoth Rider

We're so so psyched to finally be getting everything that comes out on UK heavy space/psych label Cardinal Fuzz, and this week's list brings two more goodies, elsewhere is the latest from Dead Sea Apes, whose collab with Black Tempest from a few lists back was a heady dose of psychedelic drift, and these guys, who we had never heard of before, but who sound right at home on Cardinal Fuzz, their sound a bit more tranced out and angular, just check out "Heavy Saddles", that almost sounds like a heavy psych Television, a woozy angular main riff repeated over and over, draped over a super motorik unwavering rhythm, the band locked tight into a total head nodding trance-out groove, while in the background, synths whir and thrum and effects swoop and swirl, it may be about 5 minutes, but it feels epically endless. And that's pretty much what these guys do, the guitar locks into a weird little melodic tangle or a woozy riff, sometimes jangly, like on "Natural Faze", sometimes murky and detuned like on "Drag", both sides of the band given plenty of space, "Natural Faze" sounds like some Velvets outtake, stretched even further out, with echo drenched vocals, the melodies spidery and the notes sort of melty and bendy, trance inducing and super hypnotic. That melty bendiness is all over "Drag" too, making it sound like Polvo gone space rock, which as you might imagine is a VERY good thing. More vocals surface here, the song slipping easily from blown out synth buzz, to murky motorik psych-groove and back again. "In My Father's House There Are Mansions" jacks up the tempo a bit, and cranks the buzzing synth, to conjure up some snake charmer melody infused garage dirgery that should have Moon Duo and Liminanas fans freaking out in equal measure. And finally, "Black Ocean Glow", slows things back down, and unfurls some sprawling mid-tempo hypno-rock moodiness/broodiness, which churns and roils mesmerizingly until some surprise horns swoop in for the last couple minutes, giving the proceedings a seriously downer-jazz vibe, especially when all the other instruments drop out, and the horns lock into a dreamy, reverbed slo-mo outro, that could have stretched out forever. Fans of all things Cardinal Fuzz (Dead Sea Apes, Hills, Janitors, Cosmic Dead, Heads, etc.) as well as other psych space combos (Carlton Melton, Moon Duo, etc.) will dig BIG time.

MPEG stream: Heavy Saddles
MPEG stream: Natural Faze

The world of Jim Woodring's Frank is so fantastic and bizarre, so fully yet still mysteriously rendered, it would seem impossible to explore that world any further. And the thought of letting various filmmakers animate Frank and his world seems practically sacreligious. We had the same feeling before we watched the Henry Darger documentary as we'd heard that the fimmaker chose to animate Darger's Vivian GIrls and the mysterious Realm Of The Unreal. The result however was absolutely stunning, taking Darger's dreamlike vision even further, rendering the characters even more magical and mysterious, and his personal fantasy world so beautiful and haunting. Thankfully, the same is true of this collection of animated Frank films. Frank's world is so perfect as it is, that the mere thought of other people changing it or ruining it, compromising Woodring's vision, definitely seemed like too big a risk, but this handful of Japanese animators are obviously as in love with Frank as Woodring is and manage to take us further into Frank's world, allowing us to see things not visible on the printed page. Utilizing all sorts of techniques, haunting, sepia toned, water colored, parchment animation and cool angular black and white construction paper 3-D animation cut out's and fuzzy scratchy old fashioned film reels, like early Disney shorts and amazing children's book style geometric shapes with bright colored cutouts and stop motion claymation and bizarre 3-D computer animation, all done with such obvious love and reverence for the original comics, that this series of short films almost manages to be more wonderfully fantastical that the comics themselves. Even the introductory short in simple black and white, pen and ink (with music performed live by Bill Frisell) is a total trip. Always fun and wild and whimsical, with a bit of ominous mystery and usually some terrifying monsters, that somehow always seem to either be outsmarted by Frank and his pals or turn from foes into friends. Amazing music throughout as well as some extra music from Yo La Tengo's James McNew. Comes packaged in an amazing diecut oversized DVD sleeve, with a big booklet packed with Frank comics as well as notes about the animators and the musicians. So totally amazing and essential! ----* ----* In Stock, Not Yet Reviewed : ----* If you want to order one of these, just do a seacrh on the item and then click on the BUY button!

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

SORRY. Freefolk ensemble from Portland Maine

Not sure when/where/how we first found out about Visitors and their 1974 self-titled album, but for the prog lovers here at Aquarius, it was love at first sight - literally, check out that cover art! A hyperencephalic space alien standing in a glowing doorway, the open door labeled "Sesame". The back cover is pretty freaky too: the disembodied heads of members of Visitors floating in front of an atomic mushroom cloud that's exploding out of a giant egg! And, yes, the music lived up to these silly-strange images. The album's heavy opener, "Dies Irae", with backwards effects, faux-Gregorian chant, wild synth flourishes, and wailing psych guitar, among other outre ingredients, is a grand(iose) introduction to the Visitors' over-the-top prog pleasures, coming off like a hybrid of Magma and an Ennio Morricone soundtrack. The tracks that follow maintain the same majestic/eccentric momentum. Imagine our favorite, craziest '70s Italian prog (Osanna, Area, Museo Rosenbach, etc.) meeting up with groovy orchestrations of a Serge Gainsbourg or Jean-Claude Vannier album. Visitors being in fact French, hence the latter comparisons. Both Andee and Allan acquired copies of this cd for themselves as soon as they could, and always wanted to get it for Aquarius too, but only recently did we manage to contact the label in France and were able to order a bunch of this reissue to highlight. At the same time, we also finally figured out that a lot of AQ customers might be interested in this for another, specific, reason - Visitors was an exploitation-prog project of musical mastermind Jean-Pierre Massiera, whose surreal pop productions were the subject of two recent, quite popular collections we've been selling: Psychoses: Freakoid (1963-1978) and Psychoses: Discoid (1974-1981). Visitors actually appeared on both volumes, with "Flatwoods Story" (from this album) on Freakoid and "V-i-s-i-t-o-r-s" on Discoid. Now's your chance to hear, from start to finish, an entire cult sci-fi concept album as envisioned by Massiera, unabashed prog bombast that's often haunting yet groovy at the same time. Although, at the time of its release, Visitors was a one-off album intended a cash-in on the progressive rock fad of the early '70s, its sci-fi concept probably not meant to be taken seriously either, nowadays it seems as valid, and certainly as enjoyable, as any other of the fabulous prog excesses of its era. The cd booklet with this reissue includes photos, and liner notes in English giving a detailed history of Massiera's career, and includes full credits for all the twenty musicians and singers who participated, left anonymous on the original release. Among them, you'll find a future member of Magma, virtuoso violinist Didier Lockwood. And we were interested to learn that the "deep vocals" that occasionally pop up on the album were by Massiera himself.

MPEG stream: Dies Irae
MPEG stream: Terre-Larbour
MPEG stream: Visitors

Seems like stoner rockers still lament the passing of the late great Kyuss. And who can blame them, for all the kick ass stoner rock that surfaced in their wake, few could touch Kyuss, the blown out, distortion saturated guitar of Josh Homme, the wild wailing vocals of John Garcia, hell the whole band were practically perfect, and those records still sound as good as they ever did. And while Homme went on to massive worldwide popularity with the much more mainstream Queens Of The Stone Age, the other ex-members of Kyuss did their own things in the underground, until finally, reconvening, sans Homme, as Kyuss Lives. A bold ballsy name choice for sure, but a single listen was all it took to convince us that, yeah, Kyuss DOES live. Homme however wasn't pleased, and sued the rest of his old band, resulting in a name change, to Vista Chino, but thankfully, the sound hasn't changed at all, and Kyuss DOES STILL LIVE, in the form of Vista Chino, and while Homme's guitar sound and playing was super distinctive, and a huge part of Kyuss' sound, VC manage to make it work with a similarly sun baked, blown out fuzz drenched sound that sound perfect with Garcia's kick ass vox, all wound up in some totally ruling songs that do remind us of classic Kyuss, which is absolutely not at all a bad thing. While every song here is a stoner rock gem, stick around for the second half of the record, which for some reason, seems jam packed with some of the best songs, especially "Barcelonian", with a killer, super hooky main guitar melody, a slinky groove, and a tripped out psychedelic chorus, or the drum heavy, crumblingly distorted "Dark And Lovely", which really is, heavy and hypnotic, spaced out, with some of the most gloriously blown out guitar on the record. We could go on, but needless to say, way recommended for Kyuss nerds and stoner rockers, but all the folks out there into heavy space-y psychedelia (Heads, White Hills, Carlton Melton, all the Cardinal Fuzz bands, etc.) who maybe missed out on this stuff, might really dig it, cuz really, it doesn't get much better than this!

MPEG stream: Barcelonian
MPEG stream: Dark And Lovely
MPEG stream: Dargona Dragona
MPEG stream: Sweet Remain

Vita Noctis were a peculiar Belgian synth-punk trio operating the early-to-mid '80s that come across as something of a strange hybrid of the sneering irony of Der Todliche Doris, the stripped simplicity of Young Marble Giants, and the general weirdness of Alain Neffe's Insane Music label. Recording with all second hand gear - just a couple synths, a drum machine, guitar and bass - Vita Noctis produced a handful of cassettes, one mini-LP, and a few tracks for compilations, all of which have been reissued on this handsome 2LP set from Dark Entries. The trio was unafraid to unravel their songs, with the drum machines revved up too fast, spiralling beyond their ability to keep up with the plink-plonk melodies and cat-scratched guitars. The naive experiments did warrant some peculiar results, such as the Club Moral-esque tinny tirade of "Civilisation," but not all was winking idiocy evoking contempt through a dedicated lack of craft. Vita Noctis would pen some downright catchy numbers such as the Slits-meets-disco groove of "She Likes Me," the spirited jangle of "These Lies" (documented in two different versions), and the calculator melodied "Hade," which could have been a nerdy love ballad, if the lyrics weren't declaring the exact opposite. Vita Noctis is not easy to love with all of their warts, crude productions, and drooling babble proudly displayed; but then that's probably why we're digging this record as much as we are.

MPEG stream: Pitch Dark
MPEG stream: Hearing Noises
MPEG stream: These Lies
MPEG stream: Death & Smoke

MPEG stream: Icons Of Evil
MPEG stream: Scorned

Vitalic is Pascal Arbez, a programmer from France. OK Cowboy, his newest full-length, sounds like the soundtrack for a movie based on a video game. Lots of soaring through 8-bit Tron-scapes, with electro-ish digitized new-New Wave vocals on some tracks. Throughout there runs a beat that will keep your head bouncing so much it sends your brain on holiday. Makes us want to throw on neon colored stretch pants and dance like drunk robots. Playful enough to be your friend but detached enough to still be le super cool. For fans of Electronicat and Daft Punk.

MPEG stream: My Friend Dario
MPEG stream: Poney Part 1

Your introduction to this French Canadian combo comes in the form of this short-but-sweet cdep. And if these four songs are any indication, Multivitamins For You might be a more fitting moniker! In the span of just under 24 minutes, the group covers an impressive expanse of styles -- from a live performance in which their joined by a big ol' brass ensemble over to the land of remixes (by Blunderspublik and Venetian Snares) and ending with a timely dance-y cover version of an early Arcade Fire song "No Cars Go". Packaged with lovely pink homespun silkscreened artwork.

MPEG stream: It's Only Snow - It's Only Sunshine (Live)
MPEG stream: No Cars Go

While Vitiello's intention is pretty cool, his execution has been limited by his insistance that sound art must sound like it came from Mills College, with all sorts of random for the sake of being random MAX / MSP algorithims processing the sounds, a clunky

RealAudio clip: 18 (Watery Variation)
RealAudio clip: Odyssey Guitar Solo (Without The Guitar)

Not the same Vitriol as the solo project from Godflesh's Ben Green as listed on AQL #110, although both outfits operate in the isolationist / drone end of the musical spectrum. This Vitriol is the Portuguese duo of Paulo Raposo and Carlos Santos, who attempt to find an intimate space for electronics within the human condition through the use of immersive ambience. The crackle of digital glitches pop throughout extended glistening drones stretched out of organic scrapes, ending up sounding mysterious and sublime. At times this sounds like a less digitized Fennesz.

RealAudio clip: Durriyyatun

In 1995, Ben Green took a sabbatical from civilization by stepping away from Godflesh's metallic pummel to return to a site of childhood wonder in the tiny cottage of Lanfawr Cwmstwyth in the Cambrian Mountains. During his twelve month stay, Green learned to coexist with his natural surroundings and transcribed his experiences through a basic 8 track, a guitar, and some microphones.

RealAudio clip: Track 3
RealAudio clip: Track 4

Viva Voce is wedded duo Anita and Kevin Robinson originally from Alabama but now firmly rooted in Portland, OR, and their sound is definitely infused with a West Coast-y vibe. The first song of their third album lead us to wonder if the Barsuk label had hopped aboard the very au courant musical trend of neo-psych-folk or alternately if someone had been studying Fleetwood Mac's Tusk. That tune titled "Believer" is quite a rough-hewn woozy trip, but what follows it falls much more in step with what Barsuk is more well known and loved. That is polished, dreamy indie pop. The numbers sung by Ms Robinson -- which we personally prefer -- bring to mind a hazy cross between Mazzy Star and Madder Rose. The ones sung by Mr. Robinson lean more towards Beatles and Beach Boys inspired sun-baked pop stylings. Nice!

MPEG stream: Believer
MPEG stream: When Planets Collide

Much has transpired in the last year or two since the Vivian Girls first hit the scene with their exciting and refreshing brand of girl group meets blown out garage rock stomp. Their original drummer jumped ship and left to join Crystal Stilts, and loads of new bands emerged with their own like-minded approach to amped up raw and melodic garage pop (Wavves, Brilliant Colors, Dum Dum Girls, Cause Co-Motion, Pens, etc...), and all the while the Vivian Girls have been touring pretty much non stop with a schedule so rigorous they would often find themselves playing multiple shows in one day. We were quite anxious to hear how this much anticipated sophomore outing would fare, and it totally kills! Picking right up where the last one left off but played with even more confidence and unrelenting passion. Under the raucous surface of their songs, you can totally tell the Vivian Girls understand the importance of melody and hooks, and they totally sound like a band on K Records that ditched those cuddly sweaters and threw on ripped up t-shirts to get down to some seriously rocking business! Moments of Spector-like wall of sound glory collide with full throttle shredding garage pop, which these Girls masterfully and effortlessly pull off big time!

MPEG stream: I Have No Fun
MPEG stream: Walking Alone At Night
MPEG stream: Tension

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

SORRY.

[ aquarius records catalogue — V ]