[ aquarius records catalogue

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Showing results 801 through 850 of 1423.

Lucinda's (Grammy-winning) seasoned songwriting skills are still intact, and her strong-woman-still-gets-wistful-sometimes stance is endearing. Yet on this new album her country road-weary voice is inexplicably smoothed out, all the attractive grittiness removed, along with the urgency and energy usually found in her songs. Nice... but if you're new to her, try an older album first.

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We've had difficulty with Ms Lucinda's past albums for being overly slick. While we loved many of her songs, the smooth AOR production has left much to be desired, often obliterating the immediacy of her fine songwriting. So this live recording is certainly welcome for its grittiness, but it's an unexpected sort of grit. In fact, this is a totally transformed Lucinda Williams. We caught a startling glimpse of her in a raucous duet with Elvis Costello on his Delivery Man album last year, but thought it to be an isolated excursion. This 2003 performance here at the Fillmore proves otherwise. It comes across as much less melodically inclined and more snarlingly aggressive -- her voice bristling with a near-Tom Waits throaty, throttled hoarseness. In fact, the very first time we played this in the store, three of us separately exclaimed, "Holy shit what is this?!" To boot, her early faves are sorely absent (y'know the ones you look forward to in live encores such as "Passionate Kisses"), but then again those songs aren't really suited to her new singing style as is made apparent in the lone oldie here "Changed The Locks". On a sticker attached to the front of the shrinkwrap, Costello compares her "rock and roll vocal style... to Keith Richards' guitar playing". We're not so sure about that. Perhaps a more direct and appropriate comparison would've simply been between their voices. However, while we're on the subject of guitars, there's plenty of lengthy solos and 'break-it-downs' (prime time for a spoken word interlude that we think she could've taken more advantage of). Nonetheless, the fans in attendance don't seem to mind one bit, fully captivated by her blistered and blistering bluesy Americana, and maybe you won't either. Approach with caution.

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Oooooh, we sorta feel like exclaiming, "Welcome back Lucinda!" We're gonna be completely frank... we were kinda scared (terrified!) to press 'play' on this one. In our humble opinionification, Lucinda Williams' recent track record has left something to be desired -- veering from over-produced AOR alt-country to live performances of near-hysteric roots rawkin' that blistered the tender ear canals like the coarsest sandpaper...ouch. BUT we did press 'play', and we're so happy that we did! Because West, her eighth album, is excellent! It reminds us why and how much we love her so. Such a stellar Americana songwriter, Williams is truly back in fine form. Few can capture the essence of hard luck and heart-sickness like she can with just her impassioned voice and guitar. Here we get that and so much more courtesy of a new collaboration and production union between her and Hal Willmer. Yes, surprising, refreshing and just darn great.

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I used to like Lucinda Williams a lot but she's sort of going thru the Bonnie Raitt style smoothing over of the rough edges, which takes a lot of the charm out of her music. Still, there are a few achingly pretty songs here, her gritty growl of a voice over minor key melodic blues. Be forewarned, though, there are also some stinkers on the album -- check the soundclip for "Atonement" to see if you can handle it. MPEG Download: "Fruits of My Labor" [/audio/lucindafruits.mp3] MPEG Stream: "Fruits of My Labor" [/audio/lucindafruits.m3u]

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SORRY. Quite possibly Lucinda Wiliiams' best album. It contains her alterna-country hit "Passionate Kisses". Despite the slick production (which seems very oddly out of place with the grit and yearning of her voice), this is simply wonderful, rootsy and earnest.

"Wilt's new album is also their first as a band, with the electronic experimentation being combined with acoustic walls of bass and noise. Wide, dusty and dark, "Dark Meadows" displays Wilt's new psychedelic and atmospheric approach to its deeply textured ambiances. "Dark Meadows" is one the most rewarding and sombre of works of Wilt, for it marries it organic darkness with an acute sense of melody and an ever-present cavernous bass. A massive, encompassing and profound work of art."

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We couldn't remember why, exactly, must have read about it sometime long ago in a krautrock reference book, like the Crack In The Cosmic Egg perhaps, but we knew that as fans of early HEAVY '70s stuff - psych, prog, krautrock, proto-metal, what have you - that apparently the German band Wind's 1971 debut Seasons was one to watch out for. Well, it finally just got reissued via the Long Hair label (who have recently brought us several kraut-prog winners from Cannabis India, Mammut, and Et Cetera, amongst others) and so, already curious about it, we ordered a copy of it in... First impression, before we even put it on, from looking at the photo on the back: damn, for a krautrock band, these guys have some seriously impressive, huge Afros!!! So, a lot of expectation/anticipation/long hair to live up to. And as it turns out, Wind don't blow it (sorry). This album is fine indeed. It hits our "heavy" buttons but also has enough melodic and groove appeal that some of the folks here at AQ who, y'know, don't spend time memorizing stuff out of krautrock reference books or obsessing about 1971 were into it too! So, we ordered some more, and here's our review... Wind were a five piece: guitar, organ, bass, drums, the singer sometimes busting out flute (yes!) and harmonica. With the organ, they're in the "heavy progressive" mode of a lot of other early krautROCK bands, sounding as much like Deep Purple as they do Can. Both of which are cool by us, and the DO sound like both sometimes. Another once-popular krautrock band they remind us of is Birth Control (who we love, but sadly have never reviewed, relevant reissues seem scarce right now). So that means lots of thumping organ and fuzzy guitar riffs, which do indeed pound forth, especially on opener "What Do We Do Now", and later on the even heavier "Dear Little Friend", but even those songs have their shades of light as well as dark. Wind featured raw sounds and tight playing, on this record definitely conveying an impassioned feeling, in part due to the singer's often gruff, sandpapery voice, that at his toughest makes us think of Nazareth's Dan McCafferty, though at times he can be quite smooth and soulful. His harmonica blowin' on the 16 minute album-closer "Red Morningbird" gives that song an evocative Ennio Morricone / Spaghetti Western vibe, also sounding a lot like one of Can's Soundtracks tracks, and this album might be worth the price of admission alone just for that epic track. Certainly kraut-fans of Birth Control, Murphy Blend, Dies Irae, Gift, early Out Of Focus, will need to hear Wind's Seasons, and like we said it has also been catching the ears of even those here who aren't the biggest prog and proto-metal fiends. Liner notes in German and English tell us that prior to the release of this album, the members of Wind were involved in recording an exploito-psych LP by "Corporal Gander's Fire Dog Brigade", and did an ill-fated, six-month tour of Vietnam (where there was a war going on, you may recall). But they survived all that to release this debut and another (much softer, we're told) album in '72, calling it a day not long after, having bad luck selling records despite good reviews and success on stage, having played clubs and festivals with the likes of Can, Family, East Of Eden, Pink Floyd and others.

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Field recordists Douglas Quin and Cheryl Leonard have gone to great lengths to capture their Arctic and Antarctic field recordings, spending countless frigid days with frozen fingers trying to hold tightly to hydrophones dangling amidst the ice floes and slushy waters. It's no wonder those two present their work in such an unadulterated fashion when the work came at such cost and at such peril. But Jana Winderen is far more creative in her approach to field recordings, only too happy to transform a watery burble she captured in some obscure fjord in her native Norway into a thickened isolationist dronescape dappled with elemental textures, creating something sonorously as frightening, cold, or desolate as the sound sources would imply. As with the work of BJ Nilsen or Jonathan Coleclough, none of Winderen's field recordings are too precious to be manipulated, compacted, augmented, or simply fucked with. The two sides of Debris were both extracted from a couple of her sound installations, the longer of which is entitled "Drying Out In The Sun", based on recordings made at / near / beneath the surface of the ocean, which plunge into the nether regions of the deep-sea trenches and alluvial plains, amassed into pressurized low-frequency drones. "Scuttling Around The Shallows" returns to her fascination with shrimp which she first displayed on her Tapeworm cassette The Noisiest Guys On The Planet, with erratic snaps, clicks, and crunches made by those small crustaceans amidst deep-ocean ambience. The fourth in Touch's ongoing 'white label' series of super limited vinyl productions.

Paralleling what the Australian sound artist Tarab achieves through his magnificent albums, Jana Winderen collects an impressive array of field recordings and edits them into her compositions without much (if anything) in the way of digital processing. For Energy Field, Winderen traveled to the barren land-and-seascapes of Greenland, Norway, and the Barents Sea, using high-end parabolic microphones for the above ground recordings and hydrophones for the seaborne sounds, capturing creaks from massive glaciers, the slippery resonance of ice crevasses, the sounds of crustaceans (remember her cassette for the Tapeworm label, The Noisiest Guys On The Planet?), the chatter of summertime birds, and huge passages of windswept vibration that sound more like one of BJ Nilsen's swarms of drone than anything produced via natural means. Winderen presents three extended pieces that steadily undulate and crest, much like the patterns of the ocean when viewed from a considerable distance, and have been pocked with various tactile recordings of ice cracking, water dripping, the strange bellows from mating fish, and whatnot. Hypnotic, beautiful, and wholly compelling, Winderen's Energy Field is another exemplary entry in the Touch catalog, and totally up our alley here at AQ.

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At first glance, it's easy to assume this is part of Touch's recent series of seven inches, and on first listen, there's nothing to dissuade us, but in fact, this is the latest release from Autofact, who does indeed have a deal with Touch to do their vinyl, but this is not a Touch record, although as we mentioned it might as well be, and will no doubt appeal to the same folks. Processed field recordings, recorded using hydrophones (underwater mics). The A side is a swirl of textured gurgles, almost a straight field recording of a pastoral creekside (birds, splashes, wind) but as the track progresses the sounds become more textural, almost rhythmic at times, sounding much more like Tim Hecker or Oval. The flipside features a collage of underwater recordings from rivers in Norway, Iceland, England and Germany, deep rumbles, soft creaks, occasional insects, the sound of a stream, water lapping on the shore, the sound shifting to more of a warm whirring very dreamy and abstract, slipping back and forth, above water, below water, crystalline and spacious, murky and muddy and indistinct, woozy and swoony and quite pleasing. Beautiful Jon Wozencroft style full color photo cover, and limited to only 500 copies.

Okay, field recording nuts, this one is for you. Just who ARE the noisiest guys on the planet you ask? Why, that would be the decapods of course, aka the ten footed crustaceans, a la crayfish, crabs, lobster and shrimp! The real question then, is what kind of noise do these noisy guys make? Well, thanks to Jana Winderen (whose Surface Runoff 7" on Autofact we raved about a while back), we now know. Describing it is the hard part. Not sure if this is a recording of their little feet on some surface underwater, or them swimming around, it doesn't sound as much like a field recording as it does some strange fuzzy, buzzy, glitchy drone record. Which is actually pretty cool. A swirling cloud of muted clattery crunch, muted skitter, what sounds like record crackle or tape hiss, static even, all over little bumps and creaks, almost like the sound of something hitting the mic, but it seems more likely that this is the creatures doing what they do, elsewhere, there seems to be rocks shifting or moving against each other. You can also hear the sound of running water, splashes, maybe it's just the current, it's a pretty awesome fascinating sound, very textural and abstract, layered and otherworldly. As a field recording artifact, it's definitely weird and wonderful and enthralling, but simply based on the sonics, it's a pretty awesome listen, minimal and drone-y and abstract and surprisingly soothing. LIMITED TO 250 COPIES, these are probably the last copies we'll get. Includes a cool tape cover, with drawings of a decapod and liner notes detailing interesting facts about the creatures.

Not Hill, Hell. The truest cult American black metal band we can think of. Windham Hell is the duo of Leland Windham and Eric Friesen, two guys, who when not scaling the glaciers near their small Washington town (where "Twin Peaks" was filmed, hence the song title "Glacier Walk In Me"!), hole up in a home studio and make unique, neo-classical black metal masterpieces. Dark, atmospheric, abyssic. Twisted obscure lyrics, cold soundscapes, and TONS of amazing lead guitar shredding from both band members. That's what really sets Windham Hell apart from their competition, why Allan's been a fan of 'em since the "Hell Is Here" demo way back in '89! An eccentric, homemade mixture of Bathory and Bach! Their third album in a decade. Recommended.

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It seems like only yesterday that Virginia's Windhand first emerged on the scene seemingly from out of nowhere, announcing their arrival with an enormous earth-splitting debut that left doomheads the world over cavorting in slow motion ecstasy. But in the year and a half that's followed their acclaim has only grown (thanks in no small part to an immense split with Cough) and now their second full length has arrived with some serious expectations in tow. But never fear! Because it's another overwhelming stoned monument of blown-out moss-specked DOOM. The first thing you'll notice about Windhand is just how damn HEAVY they are, and in the graveyard realm of doom metal that's no small feat. But just the very tone and weight of Windhand's music seriously puts most other supposedly "heavy" bands to shame. The guitars are lumbering funereal paced black magic incantations - all overdriven and decayed, but unfathomably huge, with the occasional dreamy affects drenched lead swimming out from under the murkiness. The sound is so bottom heavy that it's hard to tell where the guitars end and the bass begins. Instead they simply congeal into one slithering black leviathan mass, while the drums plod underneath like slaveship percussion. The vocals seem to be crying out from the other side of a black hole, ghostly and buried in the mix, sounding perfectly forlorn and out of reach. They immediately bring to mind Electric Wizard's landmark Dopethrone, and really we'd be remiss in not mentioning that Electric Wizard is a pretty obvious touchstone for this band in general. But there does seem to be a more serious undercurrent running through Windhand's music. While Electric Wizard's music is often imbued with a kind of acid biker B-movie kitsch, Windhand instead trade that in for a sense of urban decay and personal dread that brings to mind Pallbearer or Strength To Dream-era Warning. There is very little reprieve from the claustrophobic heaviness. The only real exceptions are the sparse Americana twang of "Evergreen"'s acoustic folk noir (a song that really allows Dorthia Cottrell's haunting vocals to shine) and the lonely acoustic minimalism interspersed into the enormous slow-burn "Boleskine", which closes out the album with 30+ minutes of intense heaviness before fading out into the bleak sounds of howling prairie winds. As a sidenote, we should also mention that the dudes (& dudette) from the band swung by aQuarius when they were in town last week - and we just happened to be playing the new record in the shop at the time, of course! Needless to say they were super nice and friendly, even going so far as to put us on the guest list for their show that night! And we're very pleased to report that when we arrived at the tiny Hemlock Tavern for the performance, we were subjected to literally one of the loudest, heaviest (and sweatiest!) live shows we've ever seen, and it really gave us a new appreciation for the band. Not that we needed another reason to recommend this record! It goes without saying, but if all things slow and heavy are what get your motor rumbling, then there's no way you can pass on this stumbling crumbling testament to relentless heaviness!

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It takes a lot for a doom metal record to knock us on our asses. Sure it's a sound we love, so even the most pedestrian doom pushes our buttons, and we tend to find it sonically pleasing, but as a genre, doom more than most metal subgenres has a tendency to become boring and ponderous. It's sort of unavoidable, it's slow and dreary and depressive, and so it takes some sort of spark to turn that sort of dreary sonic depression into something you want to listen to. So what is it exactly about this record, the debut from these Richmond doomlords (which weirdly features members of Alabama Thunderpussy) that has us losing our shit? In fact we'd been chomping at the bit to get this reviewed on the list, but our distributors continued to be out of it. So here it is, finally, presented for your approval, and we can safely say that since we first discovered this record, we've listened to little else. It's slow, heavy, Sabbathy, hell it even starts out with the whole rain and thunder and whipping wind thing (which in fact pops up throughout the record!), but it's also seriously droney and tripped out, in fact listening to it now, it definitely reminds us of Electric Wizard a LOT, the same mix of classic churning doom, and witchy psychedelia, the vocals are doused in effects and soar majestically beneath heaving walls of blackened doomic crumble, the songs are peppered with squalls of wild wah guitar, the drumming is monstrous, the riffs KILL, and the songs are catchy as fuck. The band lock into these super tranced out almost mantra like workouts, that remind us of EW's "Supercoven", the sort of drug drenched heaviness that inspires a woozy lethargic swaying hypnotic headbanging, a sort of trancey worshipful reverence that only the truly exalted doom outfits command. We're also reminded weirdly of Acid Bath, the band have a serious knack for apocalyptic psychedelic pop, but here rendered in shades of dirge and doom, just check out "Heap Wolves" which sounds like a doom band covering something off Paegan Terrorism Tactics. Heavy and psychedelic, doomy and droney, Windhand have most definitely made THEE psych doom record of the year, and a serious contender come year end top ten lists, metal OR otherwise! FYI there's also a cd version, but our supplier wuz out, hopefully we'll have 'em soon...

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What would a band composed of members of such notable post-rock / metalcore bands as Isis, Red Sparowes, Anodyne and 27 sound like? Well Windmills By The Ocean answers that question authoritatively, as this shortlived Boston band's sole album, recorded in 2003 but never before released, features musicians who went on to play in all those bands! And it's just about what you'd expect, heavy moody monumental mostly instrumental music, but it some ways it's actually quite surprising, much mathier and more aggressive than any of the bands that would come after.� Most of the tracks begin soft and shimmery, a sort of Godspeed slow build before the band begins to churn out some seriously vitriolic post rock, heck, a lot of this is straight up metal, chugging downtuned heaviness, but it's the delivery and the arrangements that make it so special, the band will be plowing through dense riffs and blown out space rock when they suddenly lock into a groove and don't quit. Endlessly over and over and over, so deliriously intense, we wish those parts would never end. Little chunks of Gore (the Dutch hypnometallers) pepper the whole record, and give Windmills an amazing and hugely hypnotic vibe. And heavy, man, this is heavy as fuck, the guitars are huge, the drums and guitars locked in mortal battle, often circling each other for what seems like forever. And those are the best parts, the metallic stalemate that results in endless mesmerizing riffage. At first we though Windmills sounded a bit like a metal Shellac, and it sort of does, mostly because of the�super clinical and LOUD drums, constantly pounding out deceptively complex rhythms, but the sound is so repetitive and circular, it's hard not to hear a bit of Circle in there. Maybe if you crossbred Circle with Neurosis, you'd come up with something like Windmills.� This�has been pushing all of our hypnometal and epic post rock and dizzying math rock buttons like crazy... The first song alone routinely sends us into paroxysms of unfettered head banging... which of course means WAY recommended!

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Fresh & Onlys' Tim Cohen and Ray's Vast Basement's Jon Bernson have joined forces to become Window Twins! The results are a crazy kaleidoscope of ever-shuffling sounds and moods. If taken literally, we can attest that the twins in their name are definitely not identical, and the window in their name is probably of the bubbly textured glass most found in old office doors. You know the kind that obscures your vision, turning people and things into mysterious figures and abstract shapes? I'm This Tall City keeps the listener guessing. It's an off-kilter, loosely stitched patchwork of loping loops and impromptu songs immersed in hazy soundscapes that shift in and out of focus. Quite reminiscent of the shuffling folk pop shambolics of early Badly Drawn Boy and Elephant Six Collective. but a bit more darker hued and brooding.

Debut 22-minute, five-song ep of dark and moody and mostly mellow post-black metal from Norway, featuring the proficient guitar soloing of Carl August Tiedeman (who's played on records by both Arcturus and Ulver). Atmospheric, almost romantic stuff (there's lots of piano synth), with clean, crooning vocals (similar to Sculptured). Black metal trainspotters should note also that Jan

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We had kind of lost track of Windsor For The Derby over the years, we weren't even sure if they were still around but when this new record arrived we realized that they've been at it all along, releasing a new record every couple years. This doesn't stray too much from what made many of us here dig them so much. Intimate and breezy indie rock with a a dreamlike shoegaze vibe. We really love when they get more into the atmospheric side of of their sound, conjuring up such beautiful hazy and wistful states. Against Love divides its time between those dreamy atmospheres and a more straight ahead intimate indie rock sound. Cool.

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Windsor has always had a prediliction for the Slintish moped-down math rock which has taken on an intellect of clinical precision on their aptly titled album Difference and Repitition. The production by M. Gira (ex-Swans) adds a particularly somber quality to the rigid structuralism of metronomic rhythms and slightly shifting plucked chords. Would I dare to say that Windsor for the Derby has created the indie rock version of Thomas Brinkman or Pan Sonic?

"Earnest Powers +" is a collection of long out of print singles and unreleased tracks from this Texas / New York interstate ensemble who traffic in post-rock repetitiveness. Many of these tracks didn't stand the test of time all that well and pigeonhole

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"The Awkwardness" is an EP of remixes by Carnival Wave, Pulseprogramming, I-Sound, Calla, and Windsor For The Derby themselves. Very few of these remixes bear much resemblance to the original downer, math-rock sound of Windsor For The Derby. Only Calla

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Precision. Exactitude. Mechanization. These have been the traits of Windsor For The Derby's previous explorations into surgically tight post-rock minimalism. This is not entirely the case with their 4th full album "The Emotional Rescue," which finds the Austin / NY trio embracing the traditions of the singer/songwriter. Similarly, little of the agitated melancholia from the preceding "Difference And Repetition" can be heard on this relatively optimistic album. Guitarists / vocalists Dan Matz and Jason MacNeely intertwine arpeggiating guitar chords and back-porch fingerpicking in forming a diverse selection of songs ranging from elegantly fragile ballads to uncharacteristically punchy pop-grooves. The production on these songs has also noticeably changed, embracing a far more hazy and humid warmth than the chilliness of some of their earlier records. A pretty solid indie-rock album for fans of Papa M and early Bedhead.

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Once the most calculating of the math-rock bands, Windsor For The Derby gave the impression of being joyless band as they executed their tight metronomic rhythms countered with clinical guitar ellipses. The intrinsic dourness of their music reached its apex with their Difference and Repetition album, which was appropriately produced by Michael Gira when he still fronted Swans. While that record is probably their most realized album in their brief catalogue, We Fight Til Death finds the Texan expatriates warming up a little bit. Well, it is a relative warmth, as they've moved from gloomy miserablism to a detatched bittersweetness; or perhaps its the difference between Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures and the underappreciated Movement by New Order. As on their earlier recordings, Windsor retains the shifting Slintish patterns colored by the aforementioned emotional timbres; but a few tracks venture into more lighthearted affairs such as the pleasantly lazy summertime tune "A Spring Like Sixty" or the surprisingly uptempo opening cut which exhibits shades of The Rapture or Interpol with their spry rhythm sections.

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Couldn't be a more perfect name for this bay area duo who craft such breezy cosmic delights. Samuel Grawe who also plays in Hatchback and Daniel Judd whose record as Sorcerer last year was one of our favorite electronic releases of '07 have created the perfect sounds for a beachside disco party at sunset. Released on a new label run by Prins Thomas, they inject such a refreshing and easy approach to creating cosmic flowing sounds that really do bring images of waves, sand and shimmering coastlines to mind. There are a couple tracks with vocals that kind of make us think of the Sea & Cake collaborating with Lindstrom, but they are at their best when they let their warm orbiting sounds find that perfect wave to ride into infinity. While most of the current crop of neo-disco cosmic peddlers tend to project a more cold and late-night vibe we think much more about how rad it would be to get to hear Windsurf play in the afternoon as we sprawl out on the warm sand and let their mellow grooves carry us off in daydreams with such delight.

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A really nice debut from Izaak Schlossman, a young man from here in the bay area who makes music perfect for long roadtrips on the open road or an afternoon in your bedroom with the windows cracked while hot water boils in the kitchen for your morning tea. It starts of sounding like some lost Neutral Milk Hotel demo hidden in Jeff Mangum's attic for years and years. And then a more electro-acoustic sound comes into play making for a great meeting of worlds between indie-folk song writing and more expansive instrumental and atmospheric passages that hint at what it might sound like if Iron & Wine was way more lo-fi and joined forces with Fennesz. Or something. Its pastoral beauty and earnest delivery also reminds us a bit of folks like Mountains, Rickard Javerling, Grizzly Bear and Horseback. A very DIY affair, the cd-r is packaged in a beautiful hand sewn cover. And we can definitely see this being one of those cd-r's that a few years from now you'll be bragging to your friends about, how you were digging this stuff well before he became a big name...

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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. Previously available only as an import 10", this CD is also a limited edition release but adds an extra track. Three shimmering tracks of dense guitar washes that give way occasionally to the faint residues of psychedelic structures.

Utterly beautiful, velvet-warm blankets of sound unfold simply and slowly on just a guitar and a bass. "Womb-like" is an overused adjective, but in Windy & Carl's case it's really quite apt. Mix the blissed-out rough strum of Flying Saucer Attack with the (Windy and Carl also have a record store, www.stormyrecords.com, tell 'em we sent ya.) (And btw, Windy of Windy & Carl is different person from me, Windy of AQ.)

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Here we thought exquisite dronesters Windy & Carl were paying tribute to Red Hot Chili Peppers' bassist, but no! This limited edition release is dedicated to their dearly departed doggie, Flea. It features two lengthy tracks of their trademark glistening guitar and keyboard drone compositions embellished with some scuttling sounds from recordings of their pup. Just over 37 minutes long. We just have a few, and it's a LIMITED PRESSING OF 500!!!

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More music to fall asleep to, which Windy & Carl call the highest compliment. The cover looks like Willie Wonka's chocolate river.

So Windy and Carl just rolled through our neck of the woods (we had the pleasure of sponsoring their show here in SF!!) and aside from unleashing an absolutely gorgeous set of dreamy pop-ambience, they dropped off a few hand painted, special edition tour lps for our lucky aQ W&C worshipers. This cool little lp comes complete with unreleased instrumental versions of songs from their latest Kranky full length, Songs For the Broken Hearted. There's even one track we've never heard or seen before called "I Won't", that could be one of our favorite instrumental tracks from this Michigan husband and wife dream duo. These tracks are so spacious and beautiful in the usual Windy and Carl way, it's easy to tell they've been perfecting their dreamy sound long before the drone was even in style. Daydream inducing and wondrous, the album immediately provides a distant, cloudy headspace to get lost in. Housed in hand-painted, hand-stenciled, hand-numbered recycled LP sleeves, each with it's own unique design and look, these will be gone super super quick, so act fast if you want one. Limited to an edition of 500 on translucent green vinyl, so nice and so essential!!

Within the sweeping orbits of the Michigan space rock community, Windy & Carl (whose Windy is not the same as AQ's Windy, thank you!) have continued to count as one of the best and most consistent projects to emerge from that fertile scene. With an incredibly simple template that finds Carl on effects laden guitar and Windy on bass and occasionally singing, the duo crafts gentle washes of blissed-out, shoegazing haziness which is lazily structured by the sparest of songwriting elements -- a vocal melody whispered on one song, an acoustic guitar strumming on another, or a bass steadily progressing through a simple chord progression on another. It seems a little hard to believe that so much of their dreamy output was through tiny edition 7" singles and EPs; yet as this triple cd compendium is filled with tracks from those early singles, as well as compilation tracks, and live / unreleased tracks. Fantastic sleepytime music.

RealAudio clip: Smeared

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

SORRY.

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

SORRY. This is not me! Rather, it's layered bliss-out from Michigan spacerock duo who boast the distinction of being the band who opened for Destroy All Monsters at recent famous reunion show.

Dream-drone, slow-slowcore uberwunder duo Windy & Carl are long-time favorites of Aquarius, and by long we mean looooong. As in, we've been with them the whole way, and this fall marks 19 years for the project. So anyway, we were plenty excited when we finally got a copy of this, their newest record. Hot on the heels of Windy's lovely (and haunting) solo record, these tracks were actually started at the same time and nearly went unfinished. Thankfully they were saved! Press releases mentioned vocals, vocals, vocals. Those who know W&C probably understand that "lots of vocals" is relative. Two or three songs a record with Windy singing is kind of a lot! Yeah, so when we got this we were totally blown away. Again! Man, there's definitely a reason we hold them in such high regard: they never fail to take us exactly where we want to go. If you're a fan, you already know that W&C can conjure up the dreamiest six-string drones, never, ever drums, and the sweetest daydream vocals, employed sparingly and pretty damn perfectly. Fans of Labradford, Stars of the Lid, maybe even the quietest Low, this is already - or soon to be - your favorite band! We love Windy & Carl, and we want you to have the chance to love them, too. This is definitely a great place to start. Oh, and check out "Snow Covers Everything," it might be our favorite track on here. If you couldn't tell already, recommended!

MPEG stream: Btwn You + Me
MPEG stream: La Douleur
MPEG stream: My Love

While the term Pop Ambient was coined by the good people at Kompakt to describe their own particular strain of electronica, it aptly defines Windy & Carl. The husband & wife duo emerged out of Michigan's space-rock scene in the mid '90s, producing a steady stream of singles and albums, as endless variations on weightless guitar drones, soft-focus basslines, and mumbled lyrics buried in piles of reverb. They eventually shifted the space-rock model of lift-off through vibrant drug-fuelled propulsion to the freefloating orbits of perpetually shimmering tones. In their bright shimmer and glistening ambience, they even push beyond the shoegaze mope into a blissed-out, pop narcotic almost wholly devoid of the pop song itself. But wisps of the song are there, and as the title of this album alludes to, those glints of pop will always be there even if the melodic hook has been reduced to a sustained, gentle wash. As such, We Will Always Be is as magical, gaseous, and beautifully familiar as every Windy & Carl album that came before hand. Yup, it's pretty much inevitable to get lost in these tracks as they are so enveloping and soothing.

MPEG stream: Remember
MPEG stream: Looking Glass
MPEG stream: Fainting In The Presence Of The Lord

Gorgeous 4 song, 35 minute 12" ep from this Michigan husband and wife dreamdrone duo, released for this year's Record Store Day, which means, these were probably meant to be gone already, but we managed to get a bunch extra for mailorder folks who might not have a record store nearby. Like other Windy And Carl records, this self titled RSD 12" is another fantastic collection of billowing soft focus droned out drift, subtly processed guitars, blurred into lush dreamlike swells, rumbling and whirring, shimmering and softly pulsing, a mesmerizing bit of late night kosmische drift. Opening track "Shadows" is a darkly dreamy sprawl of layered guitars, a swirl of subtle overtones and slow shifting tonal color, hazy clouds of hushed chordal thrum hovers in a gauzy expanse of muted melodies and abstract ambience, pretty much the perfect late night drift off soundtrack. "Columns" is much more brief, but no less hypnotic, a meditative stretch of softly keening high end and warm wispy low tones, woven into a lush layered bed of warm woozy spaced out shimmer. "The White Birch" is even more brief, not sure if its title is an homage to slowcore legends Codeine, but it does capture the same sort of hushed melancholia, the guitar tones dark, the melodies minor key, the sounds all bleeding into one another, the most active track of the bunch, but like some sort of sonic black hole, all the sounds seeming to drift inward, contemplative, and darkly dreamy. And finally, the record finishes off with the epic nearly 16 minute "Baby Alpaca Wool Pulled Over My Eyes", which opens with spare guitar strum, left to hover weightless alongside softly crooned wordless vocals, a swoonsome lament, a drowsy slowcore dirge, that doesn't build, but instead smolders contemplatively, the sound cyclical and circular, the chord progression subtle and haunting, the track trancelike and utterly mesmerizing, softly reverbed, and in a perfect world, the sort of song that would be allowed to play on forever. LIMITED TO 250 COPIES, pressed on green vinyl, with a download coupon. Another Record Store Day release, sold out at the source, which means these are the last copies we're able to get.

MPEG stream: Shadows
MPEG stream: Baby Alpaca Wool Pulled Over My Eyes

Regardless on the time of year, we usually have a handful of Christmas-y cds in stock, and now we've got some holiday themed music on vinyl too! Here's a limited edition split 7" from a couple of Midwest music makers, one of whom we know and love so well, Windy & Carl! Their side has two suitably frosty songs "Christmas Time Is Here" and "Snowing". The flip side features one track, the cut'n'paste sample-icious "Spanky The Christmas Elf" from Frankie & The S.E.M.M. The clear green vinyl platter comes in a pretty handmade watercolor-y paper sleeve which comes in a clear plastic sleeve festooned with round colored stickers which bring to mind Christmas tree balls. But wait, there's more! Accompanying the record is a bonus (Mac/PC compatible) cd-rom with some strange footage of an early nineties call in Santa Christmas television show, with the sound a little chopped and remixed giving the whole proceedings a very tripped out surreal vibe.

A very limited edition "tour only" four song split EP: one track by space rock vets Windy and Carl and three by no-slouch upstarts Landing. Enveloping mists of blissful drones, gentle twinkling guitar and an occasional sleepy boy murmur. With sleeve art hand-painted by Windy. P.S. Windy of AQ is not Windy of Windy & Carl!

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

SORRY. Space rock stalwart outfits The Lothars and Windy & Carl have both played all four of the annual Terrastock music festivals to great acclaim. The recording is a document of live performances culled from the vast Terrastock archives. The first track features The Lothars (three theremins!) and Carl on guitar, an extended improvised jam that wouldn't be out of place on the Harmony of the Spheres box set -- lush, minor key, wistful -- although at 27 minutes it's far too long for my admittedly short attention span. There are two tracks of Windy & Carl by themselves, warm and melodic and fuzzed out, at the San Francisco Terrastock in 1998. Those of you that were there will remember this truly killer set. And the final track is the grittiest of them all, the full Lothars lineup (three theremins, guitar, accordion) with the stunning violin work of Alastair Galbraith. There are no drums on the entire record, so get ready to bliss out more than (space)rock out.

RealAudio clip: Through the Portal

If you're already a fan of blissed-out space-droners Windy & Carl and or the Kranky record label, this release will probably need no introduction nor description, and will surely please many ears and calm many frazzled nerves. If you're not already familiar, well, this Dream House makes quite a wonderful introduction. There are no sharp edges in this duo's enveloping music, their washes of drones slowly and gently undulate like wisps of seaweed deep on the ocean's floor. Soooo sooothing. Now, the following bonus disc news might be considered good (if you missed it the first time around) or a not so good (if you already have the disc and don't like redundancy). Accompanying Dream House is their tribute to their dearly departed doggie, Flea. It was originally released as a limited edition cd on Brainwashed earlier this year, and features two lengthy tracks of their trademark glistening guitar and keyboard drone compositions embellished with some scuttling sounds from recordings of their pup. Just over 37 minutes long.

MPEG stream: Eternal Struggle
MPEG stream: I Have Been Waiting to Hear Your Voice

[ aquarius records catalogue — W ]