[ aquarius records catalogue

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Showing results 3501 through 3547 of 3547.

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Another warehouse find, this one the 2007 full length from these Hungarian (!) black metallers, named for a remote Siberian city that was the location for an infamous wartime gulag, Into The Chasms of Lunacy is an appropriately, grim and depressive slab of harsh blackness, that blackness of course is at its core made up of: howled vokills, pounding drums (way up in the mix) and plenty of brittle buzz, but these sounds are wreathed in a haunting atmosphere, thick swaths of mournful melancholia, be it spidery minor key guitar melodies, or creeping droned out ambience, even the blasting black buzz seems to constantly be pulled toward something more lumbering and hauntingly melodic, with the bass a surprisingly strong presence, adding even more melody and a dark low slung slither, not to mention the hazy swirls of washed out synth. In fact, that drift and shimmer makes up most of the disc, with the group spending more time weaving lush atmospheric landscapes, hushed minimal ambience and sprawling droned out drifts, only occasionally peppering that minimal moodiness with some surprisingly raw and constantly shifting buzz and crunch. Not sure how we missed writing this up this first time around...

MPEG stream: Gargoyle
MPEG stream: My Flaming Soul

We've been a bit burnt out on electronic music lately. Sorry, but it's true. We've just sort of been IDM'd to death over the last few years. We still love us some Aphex Twin and some Boards Of Canada and some Kompakt stuff sure, but that's just a drop in the bucket of the thousands of records of 'dudes with laptops crafting complex beatscapes'... And before we get a million emails, yeah we know there's probably some killer electronic record that we haven't heard, and if there is, please free to shoot us an email and let us know... But every once in a while, especially lately during this laptronica burnout period we've been experiencing, an 'electronica' record will surface that just hits the spot. Maybe incorporating similar elements, but in a new and unique way. Chris Clark was one, his post Aphex skitter and swoon became a bigtime aQ fave. And Vorpal seems poised to be the latest. Taking the head-spinning splice, dice and chop approach of folks like Venetian Snares and Jason Forrest, but infusing it with all sorts of warm sweet melody, and classic dance music groove, Vorpal manages some magical just-right balance that perfectly hits the spot. There's lots of drill and splutter, skip and hiccup, shuffle and slitter, plus a bunch of weirdly staggery full on dead stop glitches that get us every time, but it's all over warm smears of moody melody and shimmery twinkle that gives the whole record a sort of dreamy blissed out vibe no matter how splattery the programming is or dense the chopped soundscapes are. It's really not sonically miles apart from any of its predecessors, but like with lots of records we love, there's just some special something, some ineffable element, that makes it so goddamn good. Plus some seriously killer cover art...

MPEG stream: Track #13
MPEG stream: Doubts Like Angry Birds

Debut ep from this Scottish one man depressive doom laden black metal band and it's a good 'un, mixing lumbering downtuned riffage, howling chaotic blackness, and some serious melody, all wrapped up in a blown out, low fidelity production, that only serves to add a cool creepy vibe to the already grim proceedings. After a short-ish intro, all sprawling chords, spare drumming and some cool layered super distorted minor key melodies, in come clean, melancholic finger picked clean guitars, weaving a haunting miserable atmosphere, before the song explodes into a murky pound, a stumbling blurred blackness, everything washed out and muddy, the vocals a demonic mush mouthed yowl, tortured and anguished, while the blurred smeared blackness underneath swirls darkly, the loping drumming anchoring the otherwise amorphous black sonic cloud. About 4 minutes in, the blackness flakes away, leaving spidery, distorted melodies, electronic sounding drum plod, all woozy and depressive, and as the track progresses, the sound grows slower and sicker and more dour, finishing off with several minutes of weirdly melodic ultra doom plod. The vocals are super twisted, reminding us of Shining or even Abruptum, adding a seriously ominous fucked up vibe to what might otherwise me more traditionally depressive blackness. The record that transforms into some trudging spaced out doomic crunch, before slipping into some weirdly clean jangly post rock lope, reminiscent of later Hypothermia, before exploding into some seriously intense, yet still melodic black howling buzz, with those pounding drums, more gloriously inhuman screeching, the result trancelike and weirdly epic. Finally the record finishes off with a short stretch of woozy lilting doom, more pretty and washed out than heavy, thick minor key chords, simple percussion, a gorgeously miserable crawl, that grows more and more anguished, with the chords fragmenting into upper register skree, and the vocals growing more and more hysterical, still beautiful, but also beautifully harrowing. SUPER LIMITED, and in super swank, hand made packaging...

MPEG stream: From Lofty Peaks
MPEG stream: Badbea

From the same brain that created the fragile, pretty electronic sounds of French Paddleboat comes this decidedly more glitchy and at times more cacaphonous effort. Scott August is the young gent from Kelowna, BC who began making music while still in his teens. Holed up in his bedroom like a sonic mad scientist. On the usually much more dissonant and obtuse music label Scratch Records.

Rocky Votolato's debut EP has been out of print for ages... until now! Yes, let's holler a big "Hooray!" 'cause it's been reissued with new artwork. Then let's settle down to enjoy his gentle, subdued Spartan folksy pop stylings. If you share our love for his full length titled Makers which came out on Barsuk Records in 2006, you've probably been on the look out more mellow, restful Rocky. Fortunately Second Nature Recordings felt the same way releasing this seven song EP to satiate our craving. So good...

MPEG stream: These Old Clothes
RealAudio clip: Plastic Jesus

Ahhh, the lonely ballad of the singer songwriter. A lone troubadour, pouring out their heart and soul, naked and alone, with no band to hide behind, no crashing guitars and pounding drums to shield their delicate psyche. There was a time when being called a singer songwriter was a badge of honor. But now, we might just as well turn tail and run. Sure the legacy of singer songwriters is a mighty one, Bob Dylan, Elton John, Gordon Lightfoot, Janis Ian, Cat Stevens, Jim Croce, James Taylor, Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Donovan, Bruce Springsteen, but you'll notice a serious dearth of more -modern- musicians in that league. That's not because there aren't singer songwriters anymore, it's just that now, we typically equate singer songwriters with commercial radio, faceless pap, bad top 40, coffee houses, guys who couldn't start a band so decided to just 'do it themselves'. We're definitely generalizing, sure. There have definitely been some notable exceptions, Iron And Wine's Sam Beam, Damien Jurado, Edith Frost, Elliott Smith, Joel Phelps, Devendra Banhart, Cat Power's Chan Marshall, Simon Joyner, Fiona Apple, Jeff Mangum, Sufjan Stevens, Will Oldham, and now you can add Rocky Votoloto to the list. Now the funny thing is, as we mention again and again and again, if Votoloto had chosen to release this record under the name Waxwing (the name of his previous band) it probably wouldn't get lumped in with the singer songwriters at all, and might eeven get a bit more attention, even if it sounded exactly the same. That's why it's always better to make up a band name even if it's just you. We've said it before, we'll say it again. No matter how cool you think your name is, unless it's Van Halen or something like that, think again! Try this out: "I'm going to see John Smith". Or "I'm going to see Black Dungeon Firefly". Or "Strangle Flanger". Or whatever. You get the idea. Anyway, before this review loses any more of its momentum, let's just say this is one of the most beautiful records we have heard in ages and mere months into the year has most definitely secured a spot on some of out 2006 top ten lists! Votoloto has a gorgeously husky, whiskey soaked voice, and has an amazingly deft touch with melody and harmony. The first track is a dead ringer for Iron And Wine, delicate steel string guitar, hushed breathy vocals and sweet sweet harmonies, but the rest of the record is not nearly as restrained. Votolato's vocals are too rough and raw and powerful to be tiptoe-ing and shuffling sad boy style. No, the rest of the record sounds more like that Nirvana Unplugged record, Votolato's vocals the centerpoint, raw and ragged, but thick and warm and completely intense and emotional, more raspy and sandpapery like Cobain or Spoon's Britt Daniel or even Pete Searcy from Squirrel Bait. Not to say that he can't get all smooth, cuz there are plenty of dark and delicate tracks, where the vocals glide smoothly over sweet mournful melodies and hushed melancholy moments. But as with all "singer songwriters" (sigh) it's all about the songs, and this record is so chock full of amazing songs. Dark and dreary, warm and weary, folky and twangy, hushed and indie, a perfect mix of Iron And Wine, Ryan Adams, Elliott Smith, Uncle Tupelo, Spoon, and all that stuff we love. Acoustic guitars, harmonica, lapsteel, organ all woven into perfect chunks of dark and dreamy pop and twang.

MPEG stream: White Daisy Passing
MPEG stream: Portland Is Leaving
MPEG stream: She Was Only In It For The Rain

One customer thought this was Jeff Tweedy, while another could have sworn it was Ryan Adams, but no, it's Rocky Votolato! He might be a bit lesser known, but in addition to the vocal resemblance we'd also venture to say that his songwriting chops are pretty on par with those two fellows' too. Hell, as far as we can tell Rocky's not prone to sonic experimentation nor alternate identities, which makes him generally more even-keeled temperamentally and stylistically speaking than both of them. As you may well know, we absolutely loved his last album Makers -- it was our record of the week back in January 2006 -- and we recently got in the reissue of his debut ep A Brief History. So we were primed and ready to hear some new Rocky tunes. We'd heard there were a few changes brewing with his new album, but despite its title, don't be expecting The Brag And Cuss to fill your ears with expletives and exclamations. No, it's nothing but hushed earthy twang pop... an ol' reliable! Whereas Makers was considerably barebones and intimate, this album was recorded with a full band featuring James McAllister (who also plays with Sufjan Stevens), Bill Herzog (who is also in Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter), Pedro The Lion's Casey Foubert and Rick Steff (who also accompanies Cat Power and Hank Williams Jr.). They play together beautifully, complementing each other with nuanced performances. There's definitely more heft to the production, but it doesn't crowd his songs. If anything the company adds to the emotional gravity of his lonesome words. Real good!

MPEG stream: Lilly White
MPEG stream: Postcard From Kentucky

Somewhere in France, sometime in the '80s: a radical independent underground micro-scene peopled by creative teenagers who grew up listening to Kraftwerk, Throbbing Gristle, A Certain Ratio, Metal Urbain, and Cabaret Voltaire, making their own synth- and sample-based music, with heavy beats and noisy dubbed out FX, that's like a post-punk/industrial hybrid of old school hiphop, Detroit electro, and tape-splicing musique concrete experimentation, releasing it themselves on artfully packaged cassette tapes and occasional pieces of vinyl, in limited editions heard only by the most dedicated international networkers in that pre-internet age. Sound good? It is! That's what this release documents, remarkable DIY music that's been aptly described as "like Wild Style on dust". Or imagine some other underground '80s industrial experimentalists from France, like Le Syndicat, toning down the noise (a little) and trying to make tracks like Afrika Bambaataa. And please don't get confused, either, 'cause noted turntablist, producer and crate digger Cut Chemist's name is on the cover. This isn't a DJ mix, or remix, or collaboration, or anything like that. Cut Chemist doesn't himself have anything to do with the music of the two closely related bands on here, Vox Populi! and Pacific 231, other than having discovered 'em on one of his record-buying excursions (specifically via finding Vox Populi!'s track "Megamix" on a rare compilation LP called Alternative Funk, released by VP!'s own Vox Man label), and then making it his mission to find out more about them and get their stuff reissued - which he did, after many years of research, and friendships forged with both Vox Populi's leader Axel Kyrou and his colleague Pierre Jolivet, whose own project Pacific 231 ran parallel to Vox Populi!, and was also an important part of the collective described above. So, thanks to Cut Chemist, whose imprimatur will hopefully help get this music some additional well deserved attention, we've now got this fantastic anthology of twenty VP! and P231 tracks rescued & remastered from rare cassette and vinyl comps, eps, etc., with plenty of previously unreleased material too. It's a real treasure trove of headnodding, mindblowing, utterly rad stuff, what could be indeed called, "alternative funk". Make that, alternative WTF? funk. These wide-ranging tracks contain, in varying combinations and degrees, all manner of frizzled blip bloop electronics, propulsive drum machine rhythms, subversive cut-ups, spanking funk bass, gothic cold wave vocals, ambient synth trances, crazed echoing dub effects, and reel-to-reel tape manipulation (the DJ "scratching" sounds you'll hear). All we can say is, upon hearing this, we immediately understood Cut Chemist's obsession! Musically, the French always seem to have their own unique, unusual take on things, whether it's disco or prog or black metal, and the hard-to-define genre this represents is no exception. The thick cd booklet (or big lp insert) is full of detailed liner notes, graphics and photos, which should give one a good sense of the exciting artistic/cultural/musical milieu these folks inhabited. Highly, highly recommended. (Note, the double vinyl version comes with a bonus 7" of extra tracks, which are also included on the cd.)

MPEG stream: Bala Mala
MPEG stream: Mind
MPEG stream: Funk Off
MPEG stream: Radio Moscou/Satyriasis

Folks have been asking for Voxtrot lately, and we're happy to oblige. They've had a handful of eps released over the last few years which have amply whetted appetites across the nation for a full length debut... and here it is! Our initial impression of this Austin, TX band is that they're sorta like a hybrid of The Arcade Fire and a more stable Fiery Furnaces, but with perhaps an even broader appeal that at times is quite reminiscent of The Kinks circa "Lola". Super exuberant and catchy! We predict this'll surely be blasting outta the hip kids' boomboxes at the beach all summer long.

MPEG stream: Kid Gloves
MPEG stream: Blood Red Blood

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MPEG stream: Da Draumen Rakna
MPEG stream: Left To Hate

Why drop the "enetian" from the perfectly good name Venetian Snares? I dunno; but there isn't much of a big departure for Aaron Funk (aka VSnares / Venetian Snares) from his last couple of albums of chemically acerbic, drill 'n' bass workouts. "2370894" is a spastic album that shreds the common drum 'n' bass signatures into a shock / horror splatter: sometimes stretching the speed limits into Panacea's darkcore tactics for stalking rhythms and hoovering basslines into atonal stabs of breakbeat mania, then overloading the rhythmic density of free-jazz clatter into a headache inducing digital mess, then wallowing in the downer sentiments of Morrissey samples on top of conditionally minimal electronic arrangements. Vsnares concentrates all of the truely abrasive numbers at the beginning of the album and gradually lightens up the album to end up closer to where his label boss Mu-Ziq has been residing.

RealAudio clip: Fuck Toronto Jungle
RealAudio clip: We Are Cesspools
RealAudio clip: British IDM Present Fanfare

Words can't describe how fuckin' happy we are to see this! Finally, The VSS's long out of print (and pretty hard to track down even when it was in print!) 1997 album Nervous Circuits has been remastered and reissued... and how! The new edition is bursting at the seams in sound and visuals with tons of bonus historical documentation packed on the cd and dvd! The VSS = a short-lived yet incredibly influential and genre defining band from Southern California / Colorado in the mid-90s. The VSS = Josh Hughes' deeply textured apocalyptic air-raid guitars, Andy Rothbard's lithe double fisting of snaking bass guitar and Juno 60 synthesizer, Dave Clifford's fevered muscular drumming, and Sonny Kay's clenched spewed vocals delivering cryptic wordplay and caustic socio-politically charged lyrics (mind you, due to his impassioned expulsionary singing style they're pretty unintelligible, you'll need to refer to the lyric sheet!). The members of The VSS surfaced from the ashes of legendary post-punk band Angel Hair, burned incredibly hot and bright for only a couple years, and then later went on to other mighty bands Slaves, Pleasure Forever, Year Future, Rabbits, Red Sparowes and solo projects (Andrew Douglas Rothbard!) and an independent record label (Gold Standard Laboratories). These days on paper, the marriage of post-punk, hardcore, synth-wave, electronic rock and metal is nothing short of commonplace. It's become a hip lifestyle genre, but this wasn't the case back then. And even so, this album still sounds fresh and immediate eleven years after its original release! Seeming at once wild and untethered and totally in control, it's a remarkably composed aural assault with plenty of quick shifts in mood, atmosphere and tempo that still stands head and shoulders above the rest of the pack. The dvd offers what criminally few were able to witness in person back in the day... a young band who absolutely slayed in the live setting! There's nine song clips from various stops on their '97 U.S. tour as well as three sets in Brooklyn (six songs), Boulder (seven songs) and Berkeley (four songs). Be forewarned though, the quality of a lot of the footage is pretty poor -- having been culled from many fans' handheld home camcorder vhs tapes -- but our eyes have become accustomed to this sort of grainy, shaky stew a la murky cellphone-shot YouTube clips. Nevertheless a welcome electrically charged video document. Yeah, definitely recommended!

MPEG stream: Death Scene
MPEG stream: In Miniature
MPEG stream: Nervous Circuits

A re-issue of this 1996 collection of 7" tracks by the amazing but unfortunately now-defunct VSS. Not quite as excellent as their full-length "Nervous Circuits" (which is rumoured to be on it's way to a re-issue also. Fingers crossed!), but definitely offers many a glimpse at the awesomeness of this band. The sound? Dissonant, angst-y and very Roland Juno 6 synth-driven. Totally furious and ass-kicking. FYI: Andy, Dave and Josh are now the excellent Portland based Pleasure Forever (formerly SF band Slaves), Sonny now heads the very label on which this release appears.

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SORRY. So good! An awesome textured guitar and thick Roland Juno 6 synth attack combined with some very angsty vocals sputtering out peculiar thoughts and phrases. This rocks.

Vue are a five piece from San Francisco who previously went by the moniker The Audience. Very much of the retro 70's sweaty, bluesy rock ilk, this record sounds so much like the Rolling Stones it's eerie... in a good way, all high energy and sexed up. Rex is an awesome frontman. They're definitely good at what they do, but it's hard because what they do falls into this vein of music

RealAudio clip: Hitchhiking
RealAudio clip: You Can Take Her Now

San Francisco kids Vue (formerly known as the Audience) have taken their 60s inspired rock sound to Sub Pop following a brief stint on the indie style makin' label Gold Standard Laboratories. Raw, feisty blues rock riffing with sinewy keyboard lines. On this their debut album, Vue deliver a quite good Suicide cover, Phil Ek production, and a sound that fans of The Make-Up might really dig.

"The hottest Psych - Prog - Garage - Punk reissues are on Radioactive", or so say the stickers that adorn the cover of each and every release on the Radioactive label out of England. Well, it's true they have uncovered some good ones, like The Nova Local and Francisco, but really out of what seems like the hundreds of "rare collector's items" they dig up out of the vintage vinyl graveyard every month, only a small handful seem all that worth bothering to reissue at all... some things are rare and obscure for a reason! Vulcan's Hammer, though, we feel is should get a mention, as this British band's 1973 private press LP is actually nice to have on cd, if you're into acoustic hippy trad UK folk of the era a la Pentacle, Steeleye Span and Mellow Candle... Very rustic stuff, with both male and female vocalists singing in harmony, doing traditional tunes as well as their own material in a similar vein, as for instance on track 11, which has lyrics about hobbits and Gandalf! We love that sort of thing. Sadly, Radioactive didn't bother to include the track listing anywhere on this package (we don't know, but we'd assume the original LP must have had a track listing) so we don't know what that song is called. Or any of others here either. But they're all pretty nice, putting us in the mood of some of the material on the Wicker Man soundtrack, without the sinister undertones...

MPEG stream: track 10
MPEG stream: track 3

First things first, we know some folks have strong feelings both positive and negative for all things 'Star Trek'. So if you fall into either camp you might wanna disregard this band's name and the album's title completely! We found the music to reveal very little connection to Star Trek and/or Vulcans. In fact, we sensed very little overt sci-fi action here at all. Well aside from the song titles... and the galactic analog synth action that accompanies the reggae riddims. While the name choices did successfully grab out attention, we were subsequently a bit disappointed by this discovery, however, the music quickly won us over anew in surprisingly different ways! This album is sooo awesome and sooo perfect for baking in the (late) summer sun! Imagine this... what if Os Mutantes lived in Jamaica? And had a rendezvous with Perry & Kingsley, Joe Meek and an Arp 2600 synthesizer? Or how 'bout some kick-ass psychedelic prog dudes getting their reggae on while sipping fresh fruit cocktails? Got you hooked yet? Well, here's the skinny... The Vulcans were actually not a band in the traditional sense, although after hearing this cd we sure wish they were! As legend tells it, back in the early '70s some session musicians including Ken Elliot of UK prog-psych band Second Hand got together and recorded these songs. They group were dubbed The Vulcans by Trojan Records when the smart decision was made to release an album. We have to stress once again that despite what the title and band name suggest this is far from a novelty album. You can drift off, trip out or sink right into this generous serving of Vulcans tunes - there's two albums on one cd, 1972's Star Trek and perhaps slightly heavier and edgier Interstellar Reggae Drive (the latter originally released under the wacky moniker Colonel Elliot & The Lunatics). Recommended!

MPEG stream: Journey Into Space
MPEG stream: Shang Haied
MPEG stream: Cosmic Bust

Bay Area sound sculptors Dominic Cramp and Jared Blum don many musical hats of their own design and in collaboration with others (perhaps most notably, Cramp is in Carla Bozulich's wonderful Evangelista band), and we've carried quite a few of their various projects' recordings here. Have to say, Vulcanus 68 might be one of our faves. This is their second release, and it's as cryptic as the first. They dispel with song titles, instead each track is cataloged with a number/letter. From the seemingly innocuously described instrumentation of electronics, and multispeed turntables and tapes, they churn up a stewed aural bog for you to sink your ears into. It's an ominous sci-fi soundscape populated by insectile prickles, slippery gelatinous gurgles, gritty buzzing masses and heavy rolling drones. Might just be us, but compared to the darkly mischievous tone of Vulcanus 68's debut release, we sense more of an undercurrent of skin-crawling malevolence here. Potentially nightmare inducing. Aaiiieeee... heh heh... good stuff! 47 minutes. Recommended.

MPEG stream: 4a
MPEG stream: 5b

Opening the latest Vulcanus 68 release is the haunting "Monochrome Canon I" which possesses a lost in space sense of lonely melancholia. This tone resurfaces in the second and third passages of the canon which are evenly spaced amidst the seven other tracks. Evoking the indistinguishable shift from dream to nightmare, these are the kind of beautiful and foreboding soundtracks you'd expect to hear in some 1970s post apocalyptic near future sci-fi movie in which insect communities slowly amass to engulf a human civilization (a la 1974's "Phase IV"). Putting their characteristically woozy pitch/speed manipulated samples, analog synth buzzing drones and shimmering resonance to fine use, these Bay Area audio sculptors transport your ears through zones of claustrophobia and expanse, imbuing each of their soundscapes with rich dynamics, texture, subtle movement... and yes, plenty of contour and colour. A terrific addition to your Gigante Sound library!

MPEG stream: The Monochrome Canon I
MPEG stream: Silent Spring

Jared Blum and Dominic Cramp are two very prolific fellows, releasing a very eclectic array of music both collaboratively and individually under a variety of monikers -- Borful Tang and Blanketship are just two -- on their own Gigante Sound label. Here's their latest collaboration! The Vulcanus 68 self titled release features no song titles, just green, red, yellow and blue dots beside each of the seventeen track numbers. We haven't deciphered the code yet, but it appears the green dots are winning! Ominous dirt and dirge, scrapings and grindings open the album evoking a sci-fi claustrophobia, but the chilling bleakness quickly gives way to curious squeaky squidgey gizmo mischief. However, that doesn't last for long either as the dank drones flood back in. Such is the Vulcanus 68 mission on this cd-r, roaming through explorations of electronics, musique concrete and intriguing collaged samples. If you dig the awesome pioneering craft of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop as well as the dingier, gritty sounds of the JYRK Collective (Skaters and Axolotl), Vulcanus 68 envelops elements of both into their own perplexing amorphous creation. Cool!

MPEG stream: track 2
MPEG stream: track 4

Ok, with their nasty-sounding name and mostly-black cover art with a festering skull on it, you might get the idea that Vulgaari are gonna be a dark and heavy band. And they are! But their brand of blown-out, brutal death-doom sludge metal is also pretty darn spacey and psychedelic too, making even more to our liking. Vuglaari recorded this, their debut album, as a duo, but have an expanded live line-up, doubtless a necessity if they were ever gonna hope to sound this heavy outside of the studio. So sheer wall-of-FUZZ heaviness is indeed a big part of their equation. But what makes their catastrophic, claustrophobic crush work for us is the way it's interspersed with spacious ambience and eerie trippiness and sometimes out-and-out BEAUTIFUL guitar not-so-gently-weeping moments. Harmonies and all that. Gorgeous harmonies. Yeah, that's a major factor contributing to the greatness of Vulgaari, they're a sludge band that's more than just about the filthy "sound" and the slowness (though they have all that checked off for sure), they've also got some melodic, very "metal" lead guitar shred going on too, which, with the occasional squealing lick, reminds us a little bit of Zakk Wylde. In the context, though, of druggy-spacey-evil atmosphere and uber-low-end chugging riffage, "bendy" riffage that's usually in super slo-mo but sometimes speeds up to bulldozing effect. Their page on the Metal Archive site lists their lyrical concerns as: "Outer Space, Hallucinogens, Motorcycles, Death". Cool. All of that makes perfect sense with this music, even though of course it's pretty tough to decipher the content of the singer's guttural vokill exhalations. But the occasional samples used to introduce the tracks are definitely about such things. The songtitles too are suggestive ("Outride The Reaper", "Dirt From The Grave"). Recommended heaviness! Available as compact disc, or double vinyl in gatefold sleeve, that also includes a cd of the album.

MPEG stream: A World Created
MPEG stream: Match
MPEG stream: 77 74

Archival recordings from the late great Vulpecula, an American black metal band (featuring members of Order From Chaos) who strove to combine 'space music' a la Steve Roach and Vangelis with black metal. The result might not live up to what one might hope for when faced with the possibility of some sort of ambient space black metal, but it's still pretty awesome. The "spaciness" comes mostly in the form of the track intros and outros, long swirling swaths of spaced out FX and whirring synths, as well as the occasional interlude of ambient shimmer, sometimes laced with wandering minor key guitar lines or weird samples and sound snippets. The core of their sound though was a more classic nineties blackened death metal, buzzing guitars, killer riffing, demonic vocals, but unlike a lot of those bands, Vulpecula had a definite prog vibe, strange extended song structures, lots of meandering melodies, extended melodic instrumental passages, strange sonic tangles and dense bursts of busy drumming, definitely shades of Opeth and Samael as well as some other distinctly less metal influences. Probably the weirdest part of In Dusk Apparition is the cover of Peter Schilling's "Major Tom", beginning with that immediately memorable buzzing synth melody, before it's swallowed by thick growling chugging guitars, the vocals a whispery demonic ghostly rasp, draped over the strangely melancholy dirge. Lots of reverb, and a lot less melody, make Vulpecula's version sound more like a black shadow of the original, but within the rest of the disc it sounds perfect, more like an original referencing some classic melody, than an actual cover. For folks who miss the sprawling death flecked blackness of the late nineties, a kick ass spaced out swirl of ambient black metal prog...

MPEG stream: Eltanin Shadowcast
MPEG stream: Major Tom (Coming Home)

We always wondered when and how we could finally remove the musician from the equation entirely. Not like synthesizer and sequencer sampled electronic music or anything. And not like some Chuck E. Cheese robotic band. No, we mean just taking a drumkit or a guitar, plugging them in or setting them up and letting them go. Some bands have come close for sure, SUNNO))), Earth and the like. Music so slow moving that it seems to just sort of hover, a music that seems to be playing itself via huge swaths of amp hum and wild sheets of feedback. It's almost as if the music would still play even if the band members took five. All of the robes and smoke machines and demonic imagery in the world can't disguise the fact that you could get almost the same sound from just plugging in a guitar, turning the amp to 10, the distortion all the way up, and leaning the guitars up against the amps, and letting the guitars just feedback, moaning and squealing and rumbling and droning gloriously on and on and on.... Thus we have Vulture Club, a band, MAYBE, or perhaps just some guitars and amps who somehow figured out a way to capture their nocturnal rumblings on tape and press up a bunch of cd-r's. Either way, this record has been kicking our asses since we first got a copy a few weeks back. Imagine a more minimal Earth 2, or SUNNO))) without the riffs, or a more metal Troum! Slow shifting, churning, warm thick swells of guitar hum that swirl and eddy like some strange black tide. Alternately, at its most fierce, a seriously Total like skree, like a plane flying overhead, or someone mowing their lawn down the street, or all of your neighbors vacuuming at once heard through the apartment walls, or the sound of the mighty Ditch Witch that has been sucking sewer water out of ditches all along Valencia Street outside our store for the last two weeks. A thick and gloriously corrosive din! But the noisy edge is tempered by long stretches of tranquil drone and hum, a whirring and warbling rumble, that would sound not at all out of place hovering dreamily between your Maeror Tri records and all of those limited PseudoArcana and Celebrate Psi Phenomenon cd-r's! Really, the thing to do would be to actually buy those amps, three or four 100 watt amplifiers, a handful of distortion pedals, and a couple guitars, and let them loose, set the amps up around your bed, cranked as loud as they'll go, plug the guitars into the distortion pedals, crank 'em up, lean the guitars against the amps, lay down and just get buried in guitars. But assuming you're not up for spending the $10,000, or are short on space, Vulture Club should most definitely do the trick for now! LIMITED TO 50 COPIES (we took almost the WHOLE pressing!!) Hand numbered and stamped in cool oversized cardstock sleeves, with strange hairs/fibers affixed to the front, with a lovely vellum insert and track list.

MPEG stream: Dusk On Owl Creek
MPEG stream: From Afield
MPEG stream: Pure Agitator

The first Vulture Club cd-r was the ultimate man vs. machine battle royale, with the machine winning. A record where the instruments called the shots, an army of guitars and amplifiers, marching across a blackened bloody battlefield littered with the corpses of musicians, the masters now bone and blood, the guitars and amps allowed to ring out, reverberate, to unfurl epic swaths of rumbling, crumbling feedback flecked drone. And we loved it! The ultimate doomdrone sound, no riffs, no rhythms, just the sound of steel strings vibrating, amplified, played back at incredible volume, in turn causing the strings to vibrate, and the cycle continued... Another one of those sounds that is practically perfect unadorned, we could listen to an E chord ringing out through a wall of Marshall stacks FOREVER. But at some point, the amps and guitars that make up Vulture Club, decided more could be done with their buzz and drone, so they did the unthinkable, they recruited players, musicians, they chose not to give up their freedom, but to work together with their former masters, to create a new world of sound, a world where the guitars and the amplifiers were still in control, but the musicians were able to coax certain sounds from the guitars, to gently bend necks, stretch strings, fret certain notes, and thus, we have Live Young, Die Fast And Leave An Exquisite Corpse. The sound is still dronedirgedoomsludge but just like the debut, that sound is stretched to its absolute limit, a soundworld where notes and chords mean less than timbre and tone, melody is supplanted by power, you can feel the sound more than hear it. BUT, for this new disc (a real cd this time), the action ante has been upped just a bit. Instead of letting the guitars just buzz endlessly, the droning distortion is more dynamic, with percussive attacks, and extended decays, notes and chords barely visible in their flatlined form, the sound pulsates and throbs, creating unintentional rhythms, guitars unleash simple tones which are wrapped in layer after layer of distortion, and allowed to slowly crumble to bits, revealing all the secret tonal color inside. It's all very subtle, this still sounds like a room full of amps cranked to ten, with guitars run through distortion pedals and leaned up against the amps, the sound a glorious low end cacophony, but repeated listening, deep listening, reveals an amazing amount of subtle sonic variation beneath the glacial whirs and buzzing blur. Vulture Club is the sound of SUNNO)))'s and Earth's colliding, the music of black holes, the sound of guitar and amplifier joined in the unholiest of unions, an absolutely glorious sound indeed!

MPEG stream: Ancient Nun Stripped Bare Her Head Exploding Foreign Deserts Even
MPEG stream: Intro To Ghost In A Foxhole
MPEG stream: Live Young, Die Fast And Leave An Exquisite Corpse

On first listen, this sounds like the ultimate aQ record. Crumbling processed blackened vocals, strange electronics, stumbling synths, fractured riffs, damaged drum programming, all wound up into some freaked out super fucked up electronic black metal weirdness. Bursts of furious electronified black buzz, bursts of furious gabber, stretches of new wavey synthesizer, pounding blackened dance music, all a serious what-the-fuck. If it was some mysterious one man band from Finland or Japan or Tasmania, who lived in a shack, with nothing but a 4-track and a bunch of busted electronics, we'd very likely be going on about how we just discovered the most awesomely retarded metal record ever. But actually, Vvervvolf Grehv is in fact the work of the dude from Nebraska synthwavers The Faint, with a studio full of gear, doing his best fucked up black metal. And to be fair, this is pretty fucked up and weird, and appealing in its random electronic black metalness, but it's hard not to be predisposed to NOT like it. Some hipster dude slumming it, and making his own brand of electronic metal. But we experience this stuff all the time, we'll get some record, and someone sort of likes it, but then we wonder, "Well, what if it was some all girl group from Japan? Or some Swedish dwarf? Or some invalid who has never left the bedroom where he makes this music?" The answer is usually, "well then it would be the best thing ever?" But how much should that stuff have to do with the music. Theoretically none. A good record is a good record, whether it's on a major label, or an indie, whether it's a band or one person, whether everyone hates them or they're hugely popular. But it's easier said than done. We're all predisposed to dig certain things and hate others. We've joked about having a record store with NO album covers, and NO band names, just everything in plain white sleeves, filed by number, where you base EVERYTHING on the sound. No personalities, no band discrimination, just purely music for the sake of music. Some day maybe. So that all said, this record is actually pretty cool. Definitely WAY freaked out and fucked up. Black metal fans might find it to be way more electronic than metal, but there's enough bizarre riffing, pounding blast beats and demonic howls, to offset the buzzing synths, the squelches and glitches, the groovy dancefloor throb. Fair warning, it's a bit maniacal and intense and borders on some serious Steven Schultz territory (Busuchan, Puny Humans, History Of Vats, Stalin Claus Superstar!) a la Mr Bungle / Zappa ADD relentless freakout spazzcore, but if you can handle it, this is most definitely the weirdest electronic black metal what-the-fuck record you're liable to hear, maybe EVER.

MPEG stream: Emancipation Of Dissonance
MPEG stream: Eureka Ghost
MPEG stream: Audio Processor

Many of you probably remember a strange release from a group called Throne Of Blood, that we reviewed years ago. Beyond the music, the packaging was ridiculous and amazing, a rubberized dvd style case, with evil looking faces and vines and flowers and a unicorn, complete with a glass eye, all molded into the cover, Evil Dead Necronomicon style. At the time we thought no bad could live up to that crazy packaging, but somehow Throne Of Blood did. A furious grinding noise metal juggernaut with wild splattery drumming and shrieked vocals, short sharp bursts of fuzzy, fucked up lo-fi Melt-Banana like noiserock math metal which KILLED. And then to seal the the deal, the second half of the record was just the first half in reverse, which transformed the sound into a tripped out metallic psychedelia. We had often wondered what happened to ToB. And now we now what happened to at least one of them, they ended up in this warped, twisted outfit, a duo called Vvltvre, whose sound we had seen described as sludge/doom, and while much of this is, some of it is way more fucked up and far out, in fact, most of it is. Just check out the opening title track, which spends its first few minutes unfurling some sort of creepy ritual, all tinkling chimes, distant drum pound, weird breathing, seriously demonic vocalizing, the sound growing increasingly more agitated, louder and more caustic, the drums becoming more tribal, the vox weirdly processed, resulting in something that sounds like a way more damaged and demented and blackened version of No Neck / Sunburned Hand / Avarus, until about 7 minutes in, the song explodes into a churning blackbuzz dirge, the black buzz provided by what sounds like an insanely distorted bass, while the tribal drums pound away underneath, think The Body crossed with Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, a sort of blacknoise doom, or a noise rock sludge, when the band lock into these dense looped rhythms, it almost sounds like a Lightning Bolt 45 spinning at 16 rpm. The opening track gradually begins to revert to the opening, like some sort of doom sludge palindrome, the sound getting more abstract, the rhythms more spare, a death march pound, over rumbling crumbling low end, laced with some cool tripped out backwards effects. The B side follows a similar pattern, beginning with some ritualistic ambience, chanted vox, soft focus chordal shimmer, barely there percussion, then the drums come in, and it remains hauntingly tribal, like some ancient sonic ritual, and then eventually, the track again splinters into some seriously harsh heaviness, reminding us a bit of Monarch for sure, but with a definite Whitehouse vibe, the sort of droned out buzz beneath near hysterically shrieked vox, which again eventually erupt into some pounding noise rock dirgedoom mathiness. The third side mixes things up by foregoing the heaviness completely, and instead offering up a sprawling rhythmscape, all abstract drum pound, gurgling low end, subtly employed effects, lots of dark drones and washed out thrum, a gorgeous bit of meditative abstract ambient doom minimalism, which gives way to the closer, the 15 minute D side, which is all bass drone for the first 6 minutes, super minimal and hushed, before the drums creep in, beneath clouds of cymbal shimmer, the bass growing more distorted, the final few minutes, a strange lurching, stuttering feedback drenched, super dynamic slo-mo math doom that ends WAY too soon. WAY recommended for fans of Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, Khanate, Moss, Bunkur, Gnaw Their Tongues, Monarch, Wicked King Wicker, Wolf Eyes, Otesanek, Habsyll, Human Quena Orchestra and other purveyors of slow, low sonic sickness. Fantastically packaged in a deluxe gatefold sleeve, with some super striking artwork, while inside lurks a gorgeous handmade 32 page booklet, hand painted and glitter-ed, LIMITED TO 500 COPIES.

MPEG stream: Hang Me
MPEG stream: Ill Omen

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

SORRY.

Yet another lost cd-r, dusted off and wheeled out for your perusal, and perhaps purchase. Released last year, this little gem from the now prolific VxPxC was limited to only 50 copies, and thus is long gone. These 8 or 9 being the only remaining copies, means that only a few of you will get lucky, and emerge from the melee with Lizard In The Spring tucked safely in hand, and you will be pleased, for this is a hearty slab of droned out fractured folks and space-y drift. Deep snowdrifts of sound, distant voices, wind chime percussion, all very lo-fi but warm and whirring. Track two introduces some laxy drawled vocals, some stripped down rhythms, all drifting weightless in reverb drenched blackness. Like a seriously wasted (or more wasted) Velvets. There's even some harmonica! The next two tracks are super murky and muddy, like listening to an Avarus cassette on a boombox under a blanket. Wheezing and weary, with that harmonica surfacing again. There's a brief blissy drone coda, but before that, the band spread waaaaay out into a 13 minute underwater space blues jam, that sounds almost orchestral, with deep swells, what sounds like soaring strings, broadcast speakers stuffed with steel wool. Packaged in a cool mini dvd style case, full color artwork, inserts, hand numbered and crazy limited and way out of print. Last copies ever.

MPEG stream: Heated Temples
MPEG stream: Sidewalk Melter

Now here's a tape label that knows how to do it right. Each tape, even though they're limited to only 100 copies, comes with super deluxe full color artwork, printed labels on the tape, each hand numbered, AND each tape is a different color to match the artwork. Nice! Third in the opening salvo of releases from this brand new label comes from the until recently unknown to us VxPxC, and we were pretty dang pleased. Another in the new wave of drifting sonic abstracticians, weaving drone and folk, and simple primitive percussion, into a strange modern genre we have taken to calling freedronefolkdrfit or something similar. And VxPxC fit right in, hovering comfortably somewhere between Avarus and Davenport and the Starving Weirdos, with a bit of Dead C thrown into the mix (but a not so noisy bit). This release would have been right at home on Digitalis or Barl Fire or any of the handful of other labels documenting the modern soundworld. On Reticent Manifest, the sound is laid back and wide open, there is a main riff, but it is murky and minimal and barely there, drifting, sort of throbbing in a mildly seasick manner, while atop this soft fluttering backdrop, random bits of percussion are shaken and rattled, keyboards wheeze out minimal melodies, it's all very playful and primitive, wistful and melancholy, dark and dreamy, although here and there, it does get dark and heavy with dense swells of rumble and throb, but it usually dissipate quite quickly back into another stretch of dreamy reverbed abstract drift. Limited to 100 copies! Each tape hand numbered. ----* ----* FINALLY!! Black Metal Cassette Grab Bag Is Back!! : ----*

It's getting harder and harder to review that particular strain of music we love so much, the sort of abstract, meandering foresty folk, the drifting drone and shimmering soundscape. As much as we love it, and can't get enough, unless someone comes out with a whole new thesaurus will all new words, we're not sure what's gonna happen. So we were getting ready to introduce this latest disc from VxPxC with the above lament, when they go and do what we wish everyone would do, blindside us with a whole new sound, with all sorts of unexpected sonic weirdness. That's the true test of a great band, not releasing a million cd-r's a month, but to change your sound, make it new and exciting, every disc an adventure, but without losing the essence of what makes your band distinctly your band. The opening track on this Stoned To Death is maybe the best thing these guys have done, an acid fried blown out guitar crawl, a simple melody, sort of plucked out on an electric guitar, but so caked in grit and buzz and hiss, it sounds like it's being dragged through a pit full of shortwave radios, the sound crumbling to pieces before our very ears, wrapped in halos of glistening harmonics, and muted melody, but the guitars front and center, rotting and gradually turning to dust. The effect is breathtaking, and as far as we're concerned even if there was only one song on here, if it was this one, it would be well worth the price of admission alone. But lucky for us there's 50 more minutes of cracked and stoned sonics, The rest of the disc is just as evocative, maybe not as immediately gut wrenching as the opener but still warped and damaged, gorgeous and haunting, from a weird swoonsome country sprawl, complete with pitch shifted vocals and all sorts of slippery melodies, to lugubrious low end rumbles, so distorted it's almost like the musical version of what you used to do as a kid where you held a note so long and so slow that it started cracking and making weird rhythms (you know what we're talking about), to distorted dubby jams, to weird eighties disco jams by way of Faxed Head... it's all amazing, and once again proves VxPxC might just be the underdog everyone forgets to watch while they gradually and systematically blow all the other home brewed lo-fi cd-r combos out of the water... SUPER LIMITED of course. Packaged in an oversized handsewn sleeve with a printed insert.

MPEG stream: Empty Mall
MPEG stream: Lower Still

A relative new name in the neofolk / modern free rock scene, VxPxC have definitely been making up for lost time with a whole mess of releases, cd-r's cd's, cassettes, and of course, all crazy limited so it's been tough to get our mitts on enough to review and list. We grabbed as many as we could of this one, but as it's limited to only 50 copies, that still doesn't amount to much. So those of you looking for some more gorgeous blissy druggy psychedelic drone drift might want to jump on these quick.� Only 20 minutes long, but these guys make it count, a brooding, mysterious trawl through some dark desolate landscape of deep mesmerizing melody and thick lustrous swells of sound. Imagine a soft focus Wolf Eyes with a way more psychedelic bent and you might have a rough idea. Some of the track sound like actual songs, with vocals, and riffs, but they're so obscured by dense clouds of reverb, they seem to be pulling apart, stretching and crumbling into smears of indistinct sound that only -resemble- songs. A gorgeously laid back and languid drift through some tripped out inner space, like a Burnt Hills jam, recorded at 5:00 am after the band was dosed with thorazine and horse tranquilizers. The perfect collection of bad trip, bleary eyed, unable to move, still sort of wasted, comedown jams... LIMITED TO 50 COPIES!!! We only got a handful. The cassettes are hand painted and are housed in printed full color covers each one hand numbered.�

It's been a while since we've been excited about a post metal doomgaze post Neur-Isis outfit... It was a sound that, we, and lots of other folks got pretty obsessed with, mixing the mathy sprawl of post rock with the doomy heft of sludgey metal, but like most exciting new discoveries these days, it didn't take long for us to be inundated with boring clones, and pointless pound and meander. There were definitely exceptions, bands who took that sound and made it all their own, Pelican, Snowblood, Cloaca, Conifer, Rosetta, and you can Boston heavies VYGR to that list. Formerly called Voyager, a shift in sound and membership resulted in the moniker change, and while we have no idea what they sounded like before, we love how they sound now. This epic post metal writ surprisingly melodic, the only holdover to the forefathers is the bellowed vocals, without those, this would be more like a metalized Explosions In The Sky, the same sort of slow build brooding majesty, but this is definitely metal, massive downtuned riffage, big pummeling drums, flurries of double kick, but for every bit of doomy crunch, the band get all synthy and proggy, spacing way out, getting super melodic and poppy, wedding double kick to spacey synths and woozy major key melodies, or taking those same melodies and dropping them right into the middle of some serious metallic churn. "Galactic Garbage" is a highlight, with its almost stonery groove, its cool minimal droned out space rock middle, and a killer chugging second half. So is "The Hidden", textured and dynamic and melodic, the synths way up in the mix, adding a sort of sci-fi prog element to the loping post rock doomisms, not to mention one of the best little chunks of guitar harmony EVER, we wish the song was 10 minutes longer just so that part would never end. And it's those guitar parts, the harmonies and leads, that definitely elevate this stuff, adding a distinct melodic and almost poppy component that works surprisingly well amongst the chug and pound. Unfortunately for these guys, the specter of Isis and Neurosis and all the post metal that came before will loom large, but it's still an awesome sound, and this is a killer record, and if you're like us, and love THAT sound, then this stuff will for sure hit the spot.

MPEG stream: The Hidden
MPEG stream: Solar
MPEG stream: Flares
MPEG stream: Galactic Garbage

Yes, this debut album from SF's Vytear does indeed sound rather rubbery. Kooky, thick analog-y bloops and programmed beats bounce about like a barrel of superballs. Melodies bend and spin and frolic madly, closely resembling a Commodore 64 playground run amok. A fun, sputtering 'n' spastic listen.

MPEG stream: King Of Taste
MPEG stream: Feel My Boots

[ aquarius records catalogue — V ]