[ aquarius records — Compilation Split ]

One on one showdown remixes from some of the top fighters in Tigerbeat6's roster. Kid 606 vs. Adrien75, Stars As Eyes vs. Lusine Icl, Cex vs. Com.a, Lesser vs. Kid606 (as heard on the Mensa Dance Squad disc), knifehandchop vs. Meccaknifehandchop (!) and Cex vs. gamers in exile. Dreamy mid-nineties Autechreish atmospherics on side A. In Your face raggadancehallmashup on the B side. Boys only? How about a girlfight!

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

SORRY. The folks at Mississippi Records most definitely have good taste in reissues, picking lost, rare, and just plain cool stuff to get reissued on vinyl, but as good as they are at simply picking stuff to be reissued, they're even better at creating compilations, mix tape masters, whose skill at curating collections is way beyond reproach. Just have a look at some past Mississippi comps: I Don't Feel At Home In This World Anymore, Life Is A Problem, Last Kind Words, Love Is Love, Lipa Kodi Ya City Council. Everyone darn near perfect, packaging, song selection, sound, feel, vibe, pretty much everything, every aspect. Some major label with tons of money should swoop in and hire all these folks and get them to do what they're already doing, just with way more resources. For now though, we're perfectly happy to dig into a new Mississippi comp every few months, and thus, we're super excited about the latest release, another collection of old time gospel and blues called Fight On, Your Time Ain't Long. And it's of course fantastic, an amazing compilation of artists, some well know, others not so, but it's the song selection, the sequence, it's like a mix tape, and as we said above, Mississippi are the masters. The opener is amazing, and already has us looking for more from Bukka White, his voice rough raw and ragged, but still rich and soulful, backed by some amazing female vocalists, the sound lush and rich, wreathed in old record crackle. Then there's the amazing Bessie Johnson, who has a truly unique voice, a distinctive croon, haunting and throaty, draped over a minimal background, but it hardly matters, her voice is powerful enough to carry any song. Blind Mamie Forehand offers up a gospely number, simple steel string guitar and her deep soulful voice. The Edward Clayborn track sounds super old, the static and hiss almost as loud as the music, but it only makes it sound that much warmer and gorgeously timeworn and weary. Folks heavily into the blues, probably know all of these artists, maybe the songs too, but for some of us, who only have a cursory knowledge, these comps, this comp, offer up an amazing glimpse into another time, a world of sound and songs both personal and passionate, powerful and mesmerizing. And as we all know, there's nothing quite like getting an amazing mixtape, crammed with songs and sounds that not only mesmerize, but often have you desperately searching for more from the various artists. Mission accomplished. Another winner from Mississippi.

We know Lucky Kitchen as a kind of home-brew electronica label that's fascinated with things like childhood recordings, videogames, and other everyday sounds. This compilation is a sort of remix of their first ever release, featuring as participants the likes of Lucky Kitchen masterminds Alejandra and Underwood ("known for dynamic electronics and humorous anthropological explorations"), Pimmon, Sachiko M, To Rococo Rot, Jansky Noise, Matmos, and Hrvatski, among others. The idea? For these electronic artists to essentially do "cover versions" of field recordings! Interesting...

Maybe you think you'd already have to be pretty into gospel music to purchase a 3cd set like this? But, when you're through listening to all three of these discs (for the first and certainly not the last) time, you'll DEFINITELY be into gospel music. Of course it helps that, as the subtitle states, this is gospel music of the "raw" and "other-worldly" variety, compiled by Yeti magazine's Mike McGonigal. And moreover, you need to realize, if you don't know already, that the relationship of gospel to secular music - soul, blues, R&B - is strong. Even (especially) rock n' roll has gospel roots. In fact, if you think gospel is some sort of goody two shoes churchy hymn singing lameness, take a listen to this and think again. There's powerful stuff here, stuff that's BADASS. Beautiful too, but let's stick to badass for the moment. Seriously, try your favorite hipster garage rock combo against Elder Beck's astonishing 1956 "Rock and Roll Sermon" and see who wins. Answer, the garage rockers will repent and sell their guitars - not 'cause they've found the Lord, but 'cause Elder Beck would obviously blow them off stage with his performance. That track in particular represents one of the brilliant ironies of this collection, 'cause whilst railing against the evils of rock n' roll music, Elder Beck manages rock harder than just about anyone, EVER. It's almost kinda difficult to believe that he and his congregation weren't aware of this fact, and were simply secretly enjoying a chance to really go wild under the guise of "gospel". Certainly the guitar player is getting into it. Whatever the case, it's amazing, as are so many other tracks on here. With three jam-packed discs (80 tracks total!), there's really too many gems here for us to even begin to mention 'em all. There's some other early rockers, lots of groovy funkiness from the '70s that could make even the blackest heart want to join in with the praising, low-down busted-up blues guitar workouts played by old old men, all sorts of impassioned testifying that could constitute a new definition of "emo", and (not surprising, considering Satan is so often the subject, along with his opposite) plenty of eerie atmosphere and weirdness, often augmented by the relatively dusty and distorted nature of some of these recordings. There's a few names here that some may know from other recent reissues on Mississippi and CaseQuarter among others, like Isaiah Owens, Abner Jay, Bishop Perry Tillis, and Rev. Utah Smith. And plenty more that you'll be happy to get to know, 'cause unless you're a gospel collector its doubtful you do. Here's a dozen, just for starters: Rev. Lonnie Farris, Elder Roma Wilson & Family, Madison County Senior Center Singers, Singing Son Of Zion (Brother Shelby Bransford, Jr.), Little Ax & The Golden Echoes, Madam Ira Mae Littlejohn, Fannie Bell Chapman, Hickory Bottom Harmoneers, Ray Branch & His Guitar, Napolian Strickland, Precious Bryant, Mississippi Nightingales... It's a diverse collection for sure, covering all sorts of gospel traditions, and serves as a survey of all the amazing post-war black gospel music that you probably haven't heard before. Providing some food for your mind as well as your soul, the thick, illustrated cd booklet in this nicely-packaged set provides some notes on each track, but it's the music that's really gonna speak to you. Despite our love of black metal, comps like this remind us that the Devil does NOT have all the best tunes. As McGonigal states in his liner notes, the music represented here is "among the most vibrant, playful, beautiful and emotionally charged music in the world." We can only but agree.

MPEG stream: Rock and Roll Sermon
MPEG stream: I Got a Telephone in My Bosom
MPEG stream: Power Is in the Heart of Man
MPEG stream: Don't Let the Devil Ride

"The Fire This Time" is an unnervingly prescient release with the current US foreign policies that find the US attempting to bully the United Nations into accepting the US draft of a Security Council resolution, which would inevitably lead to another war with Iraq. Compiled by maverick British journalist Grant Wakefield, "The Fire This Time" is a detailed audio collage, deconstructing media events of the Gulf War within a political context that is encapsulated in the following statement: "it is morally necessary to be opposed to Saddam Hussein, but simultaneously to be equally, perhaps even more, opposed to the continued imposition of sanctions on Iraq. The two positions are not mutually exclusive. You can be anti-sanctions and anti-Saddam." While the recontextualization of media samples is far from novel (see Negativland, Illusion Of Safety, Tape Beatles, and even Steinski & Mass Media for the pinnacle of post-Burroughs' cut-ups in the late '80s and early '90s), Grant Wakefield's presentation is in a far more spectacular form, as a detailed argument that spans a full 72 minutes with a running soundtrack that Wakefield mixed together from Orbital, Pan Sonic, Aphex Twin, Bola, the Higher Intelligence Agency, and other electronica darlings. Even if you don't care for the politics found within, Wakeford had enough sense to produce "The Fire This Time" with an 'instrumental' disc featuring just the electronica soundtrack.

RealAudio clip: From The Cradle (with Michael Stearns)
RealAudio clip: The Whore Of Babylon (with Pan Sonic)

Crawlspace has been releasing very limited lathe cuts (from Peter King's famous press on the South Island) of "peripheral New Zealand music" for some time now. Collaborating with Drunken Fish, Crawlspace has collected the best tracks of sloppy free noise (Crude, Witcyst), atonal free jazz (Children's Television Workshop, Casagrante Apparatus), and droning din-scapes (Parmentier, Aesthetics).

Volume two in Crawlspace's compilation of New Zealand noisemakers. Just like volume one, the tracks here are culled from Crawlspace's Artist Series, which are all unique eight inch polycarbonate (as opposed to conventional vinyl) records individually handpressed at King Records in New Zealand. All original editions are long gone, but selections from series two are available

**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT****MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** Coming off as something of a companion piece (at least in our eyes) to their recent gospel compilation Last Time Around, Mississippi offers up this cool six song 10" to keep things spinning. The artists were all unknown to us, but Mississippi rarely lets us down, and the songs here offer up some dynamite vocal performances with some surprisingly scrappy instrumentation to back things up. All these intense tracks were culled from rare 7" singles originally released three or four decades ago, by the following: Missionary Mamie Sample, The Skylifters, The Missionaries, The Sensational Six, The Willenette Gospel Singers, and Rev. R. Henderson. If you dig your gospel gritty and on the more loose and ramshackle side, you'd definitely dig this big time. And obviously, anyone who bought the Last Time Around, will likely want this one too...

Not to be confused with the RZA's recent nom de guerre, Bobby 'Digital' Dixon is one of Jamaica's hot producers in the modern dancehall era, having cut his teeth as one of King Jammy's top engineers during the eighties. While this album's release is highly anticipated -- there being many rare cuts here -- the pall that hangs over this collection resides in the second half of dear Bobby's moniker: "digital". The press for the album seems to put it immediately on the defensive, with doubts expressed as to whether the cold and sterile world of the digital studio-- synth bass lines, drum machines and sequencers -- can express the humanity necessary for roots music. Proponents of the genre's developments can point out to nostalgic naysayers that Jamaica's music has always been in flux and that innovations in technology have gone side by side with those of rhythm and melody. Besides, given the economic restraints coupled with the fierce competitive nature of the island, it was only a matter of time before undemanding rack mountable gear began replacing session musicians. As fasr as being an appropriate spokesperson for this new recording M.O. in Jamaica Bobby Digital is certainly placed in a direct lineage from the days of old: having succeeded King Jammy who had, years before, brought reggae into the digital age after having worked for King Tubby. In his time Bobby Digital has worked with Jamaica's top vocalists, many of them highlighted here: Sizzla, Capleton, Shabba Ranks, Cocoa Tea, Yami Bolo and more. His innovative style is highlighted by his recycling of classic rhythms such as Bob Marley's 'Natural Mystic' and bringing them into the modern age. The failures that beset this collection lie not so much in the limitations of digital production, but in singers who sound like they're just going through the motions with cheesy modern soul style vocalisings. So where a rhythm of Bobby Digital's used by Morgan Heritage produces an almost unlistenable "Protect Us Jah", in the capable hands of Shabba Ranks' booming voice it's something grand. A majority of the cuts on this disc seem to suffer from this malady, alas. I'd almost be willing to write this whole collection off if it were not for the very first track by Garnett Silk, "Mystic Chant" (which uses the above mentioned Marley derived rhythm) which keeps nagging me to play this disc over and over. Over a stripped down and unchanging rhythm -- no bridges, no chorus -- Garnett Silk chants out scriptures from the bible. The tension of this track just builds and builds. It's friggin' heavy. Having gone through the album several times now, some other tracks begin to stand out as well so if the sample of "Mystic Chant" strikes your fancy you might consider droppping the dime for this one. Don't bother trying to track down a 12" of this one either, as it (and many others collected here) is an exclusive sound system cut that has only existed as a rare dub plate.

RealAudio clip: Mystic Chant
RealAudio clip: Protect Us Jah
RealAudio clip: Heart of A Lion

Yet more interesting compilations from the equally interesting German label Trikont. From the label that brought us collections of La Paloma covers, songs with yodelling and songs of death, all drawing from every genre imaginable, plus Roady music from Vietnam, and other remarkable concept mixes, comes the Flashbacks series. Six disks of music from as early as 1914, spanning to 1947 and each organized by a particular theme. Volume one, Drug Songs: High & Low, is a collection of songs celebrating the use of drugs: from coffee to cocaine, moonshine to marijuana, hash to heroin and with such colorful titles as "Who Put the Benzedrine in Mrs. Murphy's Ovaltine" & "The Candy Man". Blues, Big Band, and Jazz tracks here from the Ink Spots, Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, Big Bill Broonzy, The Memphis Jug Band, Gene Krupa, Bukka White and much more.

RealAudio clip: Who Put the Benzedrine in Mrs. Murphys Ovaltine
RealAudio clip: Cocaine

Yet more interesting compilations from the equally interesting German label Trikont. From the label that brought us collections of La Paloma covers, songs with yodelling and songs of death, all drawing from every genre imaginable, plus Roady music from Vietnam, and other remarkable concept mixes, comes the Flashbacks series. Six disks of music from as early as 1914, spanning to 1947 and each organized by a particular theme. Volume two, Novelty Songs: Crazy & Obscure, is an interesting collection of off kilter numbers and arrangements. Some of the tracks are from those you'd expect: Hoosier Hot Shots, Groucho Marx, Spike Jones and Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy. But there's a lot of other tracks from maybe less likely sources as Cab Calloway, The Andrews Sisters and the Memphis Jug band.

RealAudio clip: Hawaiian War Chant
RealAudio clip: Mr. Ghost Goes to Town
RealAudio clip: The Okey Laughing Record

Yet more interesting compilations from the equally interesting German label Trikont. From the label that brought us collections of La Paloma covers, songs with yodelling and songs of death, all drawing from every genre imaginable, plus Roady music from Vietnam, and other remarkable concept mixes, comes the Flashbacks series. Six disks of music from as early as 1914, spanning to 1947 and each organized by a particular theme. Volume three, Copulation Blues: Hot & Sexy, is a collection of Hokum blues. Those who aren't satified with one hour sessions of dirty music and have worn out the springs on their copies of Please Warm My Weiner (Yazoo) should pay heed to this. Lots of randy big band, blues, and texas swing numbers dedicated to everyone's favorite past-time. Tracks here from Alberta Hunter, Cab Calloway, The Light Crust Doughboys, Mae West and much more. The only odd ommission is that there's not one single Memphis Minnie number to be found on this disk. Oh well.

RealAudio clip: Organ Grinder Blues
RealAudio clip: Pussy Pussy Pussy
RealAudio clip: Shave 'Em Dry

Yet more interesting compilations from the equally interesting German label Trikont. From the label that brought us collections of La Paloma covers, songs with yodelling and songs of death, all drawing from every genre imaginable, plus Roady music from Vietnam, and other remarkable concept mixes, comes the Flashbacks series. Six disks of music from as early as 1914, spanning to 1947 and each organized by a particular theme. Volume four, Hearbreakers: Blue & Lonely, is a disk dedicated to broken hearts. Probably the largest selection of wider known tracks and artist on this disk, starting with Am I Blue? sung by Libby Holman. Also included are tracks by The Ink Spots, Dinah Shore, The boswell Sisters, Bessie Smith, Blind Willie Johnson, Duke Ellington, Ma Rainey, Benny Goodman, Memphis Jug Band and much more.

RealAudio clip: Nobody Knows You When You're Down & Out
RealAudio clip: If I Had My Way

Yet more interesting compilations from the equally interesting German label Trikont. From the label that brought us collections of La Paloma covers, songs with yodelling and songs of death, all drawing from every genre imaginable, plus Roady music from Vietnam, and other remarkable concept mixes, comes the Flashbacks series. Six disks of music from as early as 1914, spanning to 1947 and each organized by a particular theme. Volume five, Halleluja: Gospel & Prayers, is a collection of gospel recordings, both a capella quartet, accompanied soloist, and even some recordings made at church services, all from 1926 to 1946. An amazing variety of gospel recordings, Featuring tracks from Bessie Smith, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Blind Willie Johnson and much more.

RealAudio clip: Golden Gate Gospel Train
RealAudio clip: Then We'll Need That True Religion
RealAudio clip: I Want Two Wings

Yet more interesting compilations from the equally interesting German label Trikont. From the label that brought us collections of La Paloma covers, songs with yodelling and songs of death, all drawing from every genre imaginable, plus Roady music from Vietnam, and other remarkable concept mixes, comes the Flashbacks series. Six disks of music from as early as 1914, spanning to 1947 and each organized by a particular theme. Volume six, American War Songs: Hitler & Hell, is an interesting collection of inspirational fighting anthems from before and through World War II. Because nazi propaganda that was spreading throughout Europe and the United States unfettered people, such as film mogel Harry Warner, inspired others to lash back with anti-nazi propaganda. Harry is quoted in the liner notes addressing the American Legion in a speech that was broadcast on news reel in 1939: "...Drive them out. Make America unsafe for those who seek to tear down what others have built through the generations since 1776. Drive them from their secret meeting places. Destroy their insidious propaganda machines. Drive out their bunds and their leagues, their klans and black legions. The silver shirts, the black shirts and the dirty shirts. Help keep America for those who believe in America..." More is included in both German and English in these very thorough liner notes. The disk itself features tracks by Leadbelly, Eddie Cantor, The Hoosier Hot Shots, Bing Crosby & The Andrews Sisters, Nat King Cole, Marlene Dietrich and much more.

RealAudio clip: Mr. Hitler
RealAudio clip: The Last Page of Mein Kampf
RealAudio clip: Hitler Lives

Someome at Trunk records has a very dirty mind. And apparently a very dirty collection of recordings. But lucky for us, they're happy to share their dirty little treasures with the rest of the world. Flexi-sex compiles actual recordings originally issued as flexi discs that came free with certain British porn mags in the late seventies/early eighties (Whitehouse and Rustler if you must know) and contain some of the most hilarious and patently un-sexy sexy recordings we have ever heard. Over cheesy, bawdy seventies porno-jazz-schmaltz, older sounding British women, recite their sexy scripts, some more convincingly than others. Lots of talk of pricks and shafts and tits and hairy balls (Kathy Mcginty anyone?) and stems and bottoms and fannies (and fanny means something much different in the UK, needless to say there are no fannypacks over there...) and lots of heavy breathing and sighing and moaning, but all delivered in super prim sounding British accents. Which maybe could make it more sexy, that whole Educating Rita thing, but actually seems to have the opposite affect. Several of the women also make sure to let you know that while they may not be the sexiest women around, they are most definitely the horniest. Good to know. Be warned before you listen to the sound samples that this is definitely X-rated (well, at least R rated) so prudes steer clear.

MPEG stream: Folky Fenella From Dorset
MPEG stream: I'm Juicy Lucy
MPEG stream: Babs

Third volume of this truly international space-psych rock compilation series, for all you cosmopolitan (and cosmic) Terrastockers out there. You've got a few relatively well-known names like Acid Mothers Temple (Japan), Amp (England), Magic Carpathians (Poland), Smoking the Century Away (Mexico), alongside others less well known from Germany, Sweden, Texas, Italy, Greece, Hungary... Ranging from the poppy to the proggy, with synths and exotic instrumentation in equal doses. There's nothing too heavy to behold on here, with some bands more genuinely psychedelic than others, but it's at least a pleasant ride nonetheless.

There has not been a shortage of amazing soul reissues recently and we sure as heck aren't complaining. But we gotta say that the two new comps of golden era soul and funk we're listing this time out are two absolute must haves for vintage soul and funk lovers! You'll hear about the great "Super Cool California Soul 2" comp elsewhere on this list but right now let's focus on this hot collection of deep hitting, soul wrenching, body moving, Florida fried funk! An amazing collection of songs pulled from rare and mostly impossible to find 45's from funk artists all across Florida during the prime-time funk years of 1968-1975. While lots of soul comps throw around the word Funk with careless abandon we find many of them to be way more old school soul and even doo-wop sounding where this is for sure some 100 percent fortified FUNK! Fuzzy guitars, breakbeats that would make any hip-hop producer drool and all sorts of in your face attitude! Everytime we play this (which has pretty much been daily since we've gotten it in) someone in the store comes to check out what we're playing and says something along the lines of "Damn, this is good!" and we couldn't agree more!

MPEG stream: New Generation
MPEG stream: Los Feligreses
MPEG stream: Butterfly Theme

What first caught our attention about this international compilation of "space rock" bands was the presence of both utter AQ-faves Circle and equally fantastic (and Finnish) Circle-variant Ektroverde! Those band's tracks (both over nine minutes each, bookending

We've had this compilation on cd a few different times before but never on lp. As you may recall it went out of print, but then a few more were discovered a while back. Now it's available once again, only now on the long playing phonograph record format (we're still hoping that they'll work their way back to a 78 box set on this one.) The collection itself is a document of the music (and

Holy shit, this is what we've been waiting for! Soul Jazz comes correct with an essential collection of the fierce and fired up sounds of the early queens of hip-hop. This is basically everything we love about hip-hop, captured in one monstrous collection, perfectly reflecting out love of both old school hip hop and more specifically female MC's, proving one again that the ladies knew how to do it best! Filled with sass, strength, humor and charged sexuality, these ladies weren't just trailblazers, they made songs that still sound so damn catchy and irresistible all these years later. While a big shift happened for sure it's important to remember that hip-hop's origins were strongly connected to strong females and even queer spirit. Coming out of the disco and funk scenes of late '70s New York there was a whole generation of girls who grew up empowered to take the mic and take no prisoners as they did so. So many of those amazing women are on this collection. Roxanne Shante, Sweet Tee, Sequence, Cookie Crew, JJ Fad, Queen Latifah (yes, she once was way fierce!), MC Lyte, Dimples D, Missy Elliott, and way more. There are those of us who remember these tracks from back in the day and we're equally excited for a whole new generation to get blown away by the colorful energy in these sounds, kids who have grown up on MIA, Lil' Kim, Fannypack, and Yo Majesty will get to hear just where those sounds came from! While the early '80s was the heyday for these sounds, what makes Fly Girls such a cool collection is that it's a three decade retrospective which brings the best of the female MCs from the late '70s all the way to the early '90s. These tracks make us wanna dust off our old sneakers and head to the playground with nothing but a boombox, a piece of cardboard and some friends 'cause with these songs blasting that's all you need for an instant party!

MPEG stream: Simon Says
MPEG stream: B-Boys Beware
MPEG stream: You're Goin Down
MPEG stream: Sucker DJs
MPEG stream: Bite This
MPEG stream: To The Beat

Holy shit, this is what we've been waiting for! Soul Jazz comes correct with an essential collection of the fierce and fired up sounds of the early queens of hip-hop. This is basically everything we love about hip-hop, captured in one monstrous collection, perfectly reflecting out love of both old school hip hop and more specifically female MC's, proving one again that the ladies knew how to do it best! Filled with sass, strength, humor and charged sexuality, these ladies weren't just trailblazers, they made songs that still sound so damn catchy and irresistible all these years later. While a big shift happened for sure it's important to remember that hip-hop's origins were strongly connected to strong females and even queer spirit. Coming out of the disco and funk scenes of late '70s New York there was a whole generation of girls who grew up empowered to take the mic and take no prisoners as they did so. So many of those amazing women are on this collection. Roxanne Shante, Sweet Tee, Sequence, Cookie Crew, JJ Fad, Queen Latifah (yes, she once was way fierce!), MC Lyte, Dimples D, Missy Elliott, and way more. There are those of us who remember these tracks from back in the day and we're equally excited for a whole new generation to get blown away by the colorful energy in these sounds, kids who have grown up on MIA, Lil' Kim, Fannypack, and Yo Majesty will get to hear just where those sounds came from! While the early '80s was the heyday for these sounds, what makes Fly Girls such a cool collection is that it's a three decade retrospective which brings the best of the female MCs from the late '70s all the way to the early '90s. These tracks make us wanna dust off our old sneakers and head to the playground with nothing but a boombox, a piece of cardboard and some friends 'cause with these songs blasting that's all you need for an instant party!

MPEG stream: Simon Says
MPEG stream: B-Boy's Beware
MPEG stream: You're Going Down

Holy shit, this is what we've been waiting for! Soul Jazz comes correct with an essential collection of the fierce and fired up sounds of the early queens of hip-hop. This is basically everything we love about hip-hop, captured in one monstrous collection, perfectly reflecting out love of both old school hip hop and more specifically female MC's, proving one again that the ladies knew how to do it best! Filled with sass, strength, humor and charged sexuality, these ladies weren't just trailblazers, they made songs that still sound so damn catchy and irresistible all these years later. While a big shift happened for sure it's important to remember that hip-hop's origins were strongly connected to strong females and even queer spirit. Coming out of the disco and funk scenes of late '70s New York there was a whole generation of girls who grew up empowered to take the mic and take no prisoners as they did so. So many of those amazing women are on this collection. Roxanne Shante, Sweet Tee, Sequence, Cookie Crew, JJ Fad, Queen Latifah (yes, she once was way fierce!), MC Lyte, Dimples D, Missy Elliott, and way more. There are those of us who remember these tracks from back in the day and we're equally excited for a whole new generation to get blown away by the colorful energy in these sounds, kids who have grown up on MIA, Lil' Kim, Fannypack, and Yo Majesty will get to hear just where those sounds came from! While the early '80s was the heyday for these sounds, what makes Fly Girls such a cool collection is that it's a three decade retrospective which brings the best of the female MCs from the late '70s all the way to the early '90s. These tracks make us wanna dust off our old sneakers and head to the playground with nothing but a boombox, a piece of cardboard and some friends 'cause with these songs blasting that's all you need for an instant party!

MPEG stream: Sucker DJs
MPEG stream: Bite This
MPEG stream: To The Beat

Foglands is the follow up to the gorgeous and very well received compilation The Threshold Of Silence reviewed a while back, which featured a bunch of AQ faves: Aidan Baker, Troum, Paul Bradley and a bunch of others. A gorgeous collection of minimal dronemusick running the gamut from ominous Lustmordian darkness to glistening dreamlike ambience. Foglands is sonically similar, but features a lineup of groups for the most part unknown to us. Thankfully, all the bands involved are mining the same mysterious sonic soundworlds as our favorite soundmakers and dronelords. There's the slightly ominous, almost new wave blisss out of Seren Ffordd's "Haze", the rich lustrous whir and cavernous shimmer of Darkened Soul's "Visu", Mathias Grassow offers up a sprawling expanse of hazy glimmering soft focus hum in the form of "Deeper Purity", Netherworld's "Frostnetter" is an reverb drenched percussive soundscape, Eastern tinged and rife with bits of feedback, and strange clanks and clangs, dreamSTATE deliver "Fogbound", a lengthy dreamy drift of soaring cinematic strings and soft swirling swells, Oophoi's "Outremer" is a super abstract, stark soundscape of whirring winds and almost static stretches of slow shifting hushed blur, and finally Thomas Weiss closes the proceedings with "Isolation", an appropriately isolationist sprawl of whispered melodies, deep throbbing low end, and gently swaying bits of chordal glimmer. Fans of all things drone and ambient and dark ambient and black ambient and drifting and dreamlike, will definitely fall under the soporific spell of Foglands. Packaged in an oversized full plastic sleeve, with an oversized card, full color image on one side and liner notes on the other. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES, each disc hand numbered.

MPEG stream: Visu
MPEG stream: Outremer

British DJ Andy Votel (also responsible for the mindblowing Vertigo Mixed set that we'll be reviewing as soon as we have enough!) has compiled this fantastic disc devoted to, as you might expect, some way cool "folk" music sounds from approx. three decades ago... he's selected tracks from acts that range from pagan UK acid folk to SoCal styled sunshine popsyke to would-be Joni Mitchell songstress stuff to far-out hippy jams. Even a Polish blues band. Some of this had unrealized commercial potential, other stuff was willfully experimental...all of it is mellow and pretty, sometimes melancholic, sometimes sunny and buoyant. The folksters found here are mostly pretty obscure and uncelebrated, though AQ customers are likely to be already familiar with, say, Brigitte Fontaine and Linda Perhacs. And there's a track from Spain's wonderfully stoned Musica Dispersa, whose reissued album we so recently reviewed. Here's all the artists: Carol Batton, Kathy Smith, Sarofeen & Smoke, Brigitte Fontaine, Linda Perhacs, Breakout, Musica Dispersa, The Poppy Family, Wendy & Bonnie, Bonnie Koloc, Heaven & Earth, Erica Pomerace, Audience, The Roundtable, Sidan. Lots of lovely female voices, some menfolk too. As you'd expect, a lot of this is a wee bit twee -- some cuts are more our thing than others -- but it's a fine comp with no duds and lots of gentle gems. Votel provides enthusiastic and well-researched liner notes with info on each artist featured. Nicely done!

MPEG stream: Warm Up My Lips
MPEG stream: It's Love
MPEG stream: Shadows On My Wall

It seems like we've been waiting forever for this, and finally it's here!! As you know we're big fans of Andy Votel's folk and prog comps as well as the Finders Keepers reissue series, and this collection does not disappoint. The first volume had all sorts of amazing songs from mostly bands we had never heard of, save for two or three exceptions. But with that and the help of Bob Stanley's stellar Acid Folk comps, Gathering In The Mushrooms, and An Early Morning Hush, as well as reissue labels Lion, Water and Sunbeam, our ears have been pricked up to rare folk ever since, so we are a bit ahead of the game in terms of making a whole lot of new discoveries here on this collection, which includes store favorites, Sibylle Baier, Pentangle, Turid, Susan Christie and Emmanuelle Parrenin. But there are plenty of surprises and wonderful inclusions such as the female Spanish/Dutch duo, Vainica Doble, the sitar-folk stylings of Paul Parrish, the Swedish prog-folk of Midsommar, the child sung lullabyes of Jan and Lorraine, Hawaii's These Trails, the Dutch commune folk of Elly & Rikkart, The Christian folk of Parchment and 11.59 and stalwart blues-folk heavyweight, Alexis Korner, among many others. So Awesome!!!

MPEG stream: Of Broken Links
MPEG stream: Number 33
MPEG stream: Dime Felix
MPEG stream: Dialogue of Wind and Lover

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

SORRY. Three cd set of the earliest existing recordings of Swedish folk music - primarily solo fiddle, with occasional clarinet and dulcimer - recorded onto wax cylinders between 1913 and 1920. Includes a 39 page booklet with liner notes in Swedish and English along with archival photos.

We're pretty damn excited by Sun City Girls 33.3 percenter Alan Bishop's new Sublime Frequencies label. "Dedicated to acquiring and exposing obscure sights and sounds from modern and traditional urban and rural frontiers" Sublime Frequencies is slipping on the shoes apparently discarded by such pioneering labels as Smithsonian Folkways, Nonesuch Explorer, et al. Unlike previous explorers in such unheard music, Sublime Frequencies is not restricted by academic or commercial purposes. The latter probably deserves a bit more explanation; for where much of the post-Explorer purveyors of "world music" shamelessly produce an endless slough of slick garbage that sounds like the crap you can hear on any U.S. top 40 radio station merely sung in another language (Christ, if I had a wooden nickel for every fuckin' starry eyed NPR music review extoling the uniqueness of some generic world music outfit that combines electronic music with traditional folk, yadda, yadda, yadda the world's forests would be clear cut by now) the recordings you'll hear presented by Sublime Frequencies come from the cracks in the pavement of the culture makers. Through field recordings (many made by Bishop himself in his travels), radio and shortwave broadcasts some of the most fucking great music and audio you've never heard has been culled together. Balls to fidelity, none of the artists here would be allowed within 10 miles of a Putamayo AR executive, this is the punk rock of field recordings! Assembled from cassettes acquired by Alan Bishop through trade or purchase in 1989 while traveling through Sumatra, "Folk And Pop Sounds" contains some of the most obscure recordings of the three initial CD releases from Subliminal Frequencies. Located on the furthest Western edge of the Indonesian archipelago, Sumatra is big (as big as California) and widely unexplored in the audio realm in comparison with its neighboring islands to the East, Java and Bali. The disc begins with the Haba Haba Group in which a male singer is accompanied by flute, two alternating gongs and percussion and secondly by an unknown Sumatran Dangdut (crazy overdriven pop with a heavy Indian film music influence). The most immediately noticeable difference in these recordings from Sumatra to Bali & Java is the overt Arabic influence on the music. The Dangdut track even sounds similar to the music on a Somalian CD, "Jamiila" which we used to sell here years ago before it went out of print. As if to admonish us against generalizations, another later Dangdut track, with runaway farfisa organ, pleasant arppegiating electric guitar and female vocals sounds not dis-similar to the "keroncong" music of The Steps CD from Java released on Warn Defever's Time Stereo label. While the disc may begin innocently enough, the sequencing of the tracks seduces the listener into the strange world of Sumatran music. The very Arabic sounding Indang Pariaman which features a female singer who's melody line interweaves beautifully with end blown wooden flute and some more incredibly nutty buzzing electric keyboard (one can only imagine that the sound is intended to imitate a double reed instrument of old) is moved along by jovial electric bass and casio-rhythm. The combination of acoustic and archaic electric instruments is shamelessly wonderful. Later an orchestra of sorts, complete with violin, electric organ, bass, drums, female voice leads us down a fragrant path that's oddly reminiscent of a Sun City Girls track. Speaking of which, though this one technically isn't, there are a couple of tracks on here which indeed are songs covered by the Girls, can you figure out which ones? Along with the songs proper included here, there are some great excerpts from dramas. The first instance begins with sweet flute and what's supposed to be a rooster crowing, but emulated by what sounds like an old air raid siren played through a broken megaphone. A melodramatic dialogue ensues between a terribly afflicted female and a stoic male voice. needless to say, this one comes highly recommended!

MPEG stream: Sitogol #1
MPEG stream: Piso Somalim #1
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This second volume of Sumatran music does not disapoint. Not at all. Different than the music of Java and Bali, the Arabic influence on Sumatran music is unmistakable. More than that though, Sumatran music seems to not only include a wide variety of influences from near and far, but seems to wear it on its sleeve. And yet, despite the insane amount of musical diversity, the Arabic thread runs strongly through every single track here. The 17 tracks on this disc feature some eight different genres of music from Sumatra. The Rabab Dangdut cuts tend to be like the country music of Sumatra. At least that's what the scratchy fiddle parts immediately sound like to a western ear. But melodies and the interaction between the vocals and fiddle are slightly reminiscent of Thai Mo Lam. Add on top of this some ska rhythm guitar, electric bass and drums and things start to get a little thick. The other styles are no less odd. The Orkes Gambus are all orchestral numbers with oud, huge sounding violin sections, electric organs and female vocals. In a blind listening test one might guess the origins as Syria or Egypt. The Tari Minang tracks are about as close to Java as you'll get here. Along with a small gamelan ensemble are Arabic double reeds, flutes and female vocals. Like the first volume, there's nary a dud on this one. Highly recommended!

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Old Hat seems to be picking up the slack from Yazoo these days when it comes to reissuing American roots music. On the last AQL we got the "Music From the Lost Provinces" disc, which was great, and now comes a pair of great discs showcasing black fiddle players from the 20's and 30's. For while the fiddle was a prominent instrument in black string bands way back when, it's been all but disassociated from blues and jazz in the present. So what happened to the violin's place in black string bands to relegate it from lead instrument at the turn of the 20th century, to being all but unused before the century was half way through? And why isn't the violin used more often in the blues today? Maybe it comes down to ergonomics; the lone singer with a guitar not only has an easier time with singing and playing, but certainly cuts a more striking pose with his ax than a fiddler. While it's generally agreed that guitarists were indeed more popular than fiddlers at the dawn of commercial recording, the editors of these discs argue that recording companies were extraordinarily biased towards recording guitarists for the sole interest of profits from record sales. So what's new? That might explain the blues, but what about jazz? At the birth of jazz during the 1920's there were more violinists in New Orleans' Storyville (according to the local registry of musicians and bands) than the now ubiquitous horn players. That, I suppose, can be chalked up to volume. A loud horn section will always have an edge playing to large audiences in an urban setting such as New Orleans. What Old Hat has collected here are some of the finest examples of fiddle players who were, by some thankful foresight, preserved for our edification and enjoyment. And for what is lacking in quantity of fiddle recordings available from this period is made up for in quality. The majority of tracks here were recorded between 1926 and 1935 (with one straggler taken from a 1948 session). The greatest thing about the music on these discs is that it's not "jazz" and it's not "blues" per-se either. Performers themselves took the liberty of calling their tunes "_________ (insert word here) blues" even when the tunes didn't follow the rigid parameters of the blues chord progression. This in the hopes of capitalizing on the increasing popularity of the new genre. The popular form of the day, ragtime, spawned both blues and jazz. Old Hat has done a fine job with both of these, as with all of their reissues, including excellent liner notes and historic photos. Highly recommended!

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Originally released for Record Store Day earlier this year, this killer comp is finally more widely available, and thankfully less limited. And there were definitely lots of Record Store Day releases to be excited about, but we were especially psyched on this one, a sprawling double lp collection of lost sixties psychedelic jams, collected from the Vanguard vaults, this collection marking the first time those vaults have been explored for lost records and 45's, gathered with the intention of an elaborate and extensive digital reissue project, but 18 of the best were gathered up and compiled here for Record Store Day. And holy crap. Some of you may recognize some of these bands, and maybe some of these songs, but for the most part, this was mostly all new stuff to us. The Third Power's "Getting Together" which sounds, as impossible as it may seem, like the bastard child of Jimi Hendrix and Kiss. Or Erik's "You Said / But I've Got My Way", with its weirdly distorted guitar buzz, and brooding minimal lowslung stripped down sound. Listening offer up "Stoned Is", with a music example of just what stoned is, with whirring organs, warm washed out guitars, wild psychedelic leads, skittery drums, and weary druggy vox. The 31st Of February deliver the oddly named "A Nickel's Worth Of Benny's Help" a fuzzy, distorted garage-y groove, with some awesome weirdly effected percussion, and Elizabeth's (a band not a person) "You Should Be More Careful" is a jangle drenched rapid fire lyrical warning, while Jeff Monn's "I Can Understand Your Problem" is a brooding, slithery, organ drenched Doorsy jam, all murky and moody� We could pretty much go on and on, track by track, but you get the drift, there's not a weak one in the bunch. Tripped out, psychedelic, groovy, fuzzy, heavy, jangly, garagey, surfy, and pretty much every and any stop in between, every one of these most definitely a lost gem, making this one of our favorite psych reissue comps in ages! Incredible packaging too. Pressed on ultra heavy vinyl, with the original Vanguard inner sleeves, all housed in a super thick full color gatefold sleeve, with extensive liner notes, as well as descriptions of each band, and eye popping psychedelic graphics.

MPEG stream: Getting Together
MPEG stream: A Nickel's Worth Of Benny's Help
MPEG stream: Travelin' Around
MPEG stream: Take My Hand
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From Dust To Digital, the label that brought us the absolutely breathtaking Goodbye Babylon collection of early gospel music comes this exhaustive collection of lost 78's released between 1956-1969 on Fonotone Records, the last 78-RPM record label in the land. None of these tracks has ever been available on cd before, but now, after years and years of extensive research, digging through old records, sifting through old photographs and tracking down musicians, we're finally able to hear these amazing recordings. 5 discs, 131 tracks of some of the most amazing and long unheard latter-day American Primitive music, bluegrass, blues, folk, country and more. Housed in a cigar box, this set includes five cds in full color printed sleeves, a massive 160 page book with photos, liner notes, notes on each track and each artist, seventeen full color postcards, three record label reproductions, a souvenir folder and a Fonotone bottle opener! Most of the artists were new to us with the notable exception of Mr. John Fahey recording as Blind Thomas and as the Mississippi Swampers (with Mike Stewart) and of course Fonotone head honcho Joe Bussard. But that almost makes it cooler. So many unheard and unheard of artists. Fans of Goodbye Babylon, the American Primitive compilations, and American Folkways will most likely find this pretty darn essential!

MPEG stream: Chinese Breakdown
MPEG stream: Carry Me Back To The Mountains
MPEG stream: Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
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Oh Bloodshot how we love thee. You singlehandedly (okay, well maybe not SINGLEhandedly) convinced a nation of hipsters that it's okay to love country music. And that there was more to country music than Kenny Chesny or Toby Keith. And that maybe a quick peek at your parents records might prove that they weren't so square after all, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Hank Williams, David Allan Coe, Patsy Cline, George Jones. So we had a generation of punk rockers discover their inner twang and thus was born the so-called No Depression movement. Named for the first Uncle Tupelo record, which in turn owed everything but it's country punk sound to the Carter Family, this upstart generation of REAL young country grew and changed and became a gorgeously varied patchwork quilt of all the various strains of strum and twang. And Bloodshot was there to document it all. From the swampy Bliblical blues of Sixteen Horsepower, to the stomping punk-as-fuck broken bottle bluegrass of Split Lip Rayfield, to the rambunctious country power-pop of the Old 97's, to the mysterious darktwang of Richard Buckner to the psychpop country of My Morning Jacket and on and on. This comp reads like a who's who of the last 10 years of independent music, and is a testament to the vision of Bloodshot. Lots of rare and exclusive tracks from: Paul Burch & Ralph Stanley, Bobby Bare Jr., Andre Williams & The Sadies, the Meat Purveyors, the Bottle Rockets, Carla Bozulich, Minus 5, Nine Pound Hammer, Sally Timms, Kelly Hogan, Crooked Fingers, Mary Lou Lord, Jon Rauhouse, John Doe, Jennie & The Pinetops, Hanl Wiliiams III, The Court And Spark, Rex Hobart, the Waco Brothers and tons more. Comes with a big 'ol booklet of liner notes and amazing photos.

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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. Interesting collection of tunes documenting the Jamaican music industry's fascination with Westerns, Spaghetti and otherwise. Starting in 1969 with Lee Perry's "Django Shoots First" (curiously not included on this collection, though seekers may pick this track up on the excellent "Upsetter Collection" disc which Aq regularly stocks), inspired from Sergio Corbucci's 1966 film Django. A battle ensued when Joe Gibbs (who Perry had worked for previously) released the track "Franco Nero" (named for the actor who played the hero in the film Django). This was the beginning of many a musical gunfight between producers on the island that would last into the seventies.

We're embarassed to say we were late in getting hip to the damaged druggy folk genius of Pearls Before Swine. But a recent spate of reissues, had us rushing back to catch up on all the stuff we missed. And apparently we were the only ones so sadly far behind the curve, as this Tom Rapp / Pearls Before Swine tribute, featuring loads of AQ favorites, is already on volume 2 and 3. Oh well, better late than never. So this double cd features a who's who of the underground indie free folk scene: Kemialliset Ystevat, The Olivetree (Glenn from Thuja, Blithe sons, etc...), Bardo Pond, Acid Mothers Temple's Kawabata Makoto, Thurston Moore, Mike Watt, Oren Ambarchi, Black Forest / Black Sea, Noxagt, Fursaxa, Alastair Galbraith, Dead Raven Choir and those are just the bands we're familiar with. There's a whole host of others including Marissa Nadler, Aquarium Poppers, Gentle Tasaday, Prydwyn, James Jackson Toth, Bevel, Ron Chelsvig, Cauldren, Mutter and a bunch more.

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In the realms of extreme metal, few bands have had as much impact as NOLA doom sludge legends Eyehategod. Even if said impact is based solely on the number of bands who cite them as a musical influence (read: totally ripped off their sound).� Do you think we'd have Cavity, Mistress, Floor, Dove, Monarch, Khanate, Goatsblood, Iron Monkey, Bongzilla, Khanate, Moho, Zoroaster, Graves At Sea, Shallow North Dakota, Sourvein, Crowbar, Dot [.], Fleshpress, Marzuraan, Toadliquor, Wellington, Weedeater, Ramesses, Electric Wizard or any of about a million other downtuned doom metal sludge bands without Eyehategod? Don't think so.� So finally, Eyehategod get their due, in the form of, a two disc tribute album, For The Sick, a massive collection of sonic prayers from various worshippers at the throne of Eyehategod. Lots of the above mentioned bands, as well as loads of other heavy headz like Cable, Bowel, Alabama Thunderpussy, Deadbird, Kylesa, Brutal Truth, Byzantine, Raging Speedhorn, Total Fucking Destruction, Minsk, Lair Of The Minotaur, Bloody Panda, Mouth Of The Architect, Swarm Of The Lotus, Kill The Client and loads more! Most folks will want to buy this already either because they LOVE Eyehategod, and need to own anything even peripherally related, want to hear their favorite EHG songs done by some of their other favorite EHG acolytes, or they love some or all of the bands involved. Probably for most of us it's all three. Two discs, over two hours, a veritable downtuned doomsludge orgy, guitars grind, low end throbs and buzzes, riffs are glacial and soul crushing, squealing serpentine feedback all over the place, vocals are spittle spewing glass gargling, throat shredding howls, every track a tarpit dirge with pummeling pounding drums, and that strange slowed down almost-groove that seems to lurk within every EHG song no matter how slow or blown out. Hard not to recommend this. It's slow, heavy, crushing, and it's got some of the most amazing songs ever! "Sister Fucker", "White Nigger", "My Name Is God (I Hate You)", "Kill Your Boss" (What?! No "Hit A Girl"?!) Positive vibes, not. If somehow you've managed to miss out on Eyehategod, drop everything and run out and pick up Dopesick or�In The Name Of Suffering or�Take As Needed For Pain, and then once you're properly indoctrinated into the cult of EHG, come on back and pick this up. The rest of you sludge heads already know you need this...

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MPEG stream: Left To Starve
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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. Interpretation of the work of Tom Rapp and Pearls Before Swine. With such luminaries as Flying Saucer Attack, Ghost's Masaki Batoh, Damon and Naomi, Bevis Frond, Mourning Cloak, and Tom Rapp himself.

A collection of covers of Depeche Mode songs from The Cure, Monster Magnet, Meat Beat Manifesto, Rammstein, Smashing Pumpkins, etc.... But the two that take the cake are the brilliant interpretations by Hooverphonic ("Shake the Disease" a wistful noirish trip hop track that recalls Portishead) and Locust ("Master & Servant" smooth dark basslines that sounds more like Barry Adamson than the electronica shards normally constructed by Locust).

This disc is pretty much Force Inc's answer to Richie Hawtin's "DE9: Closer To the Edit", method-wise. Guest producer Algorithm was commissioned to create this album, using a series of digitized loops from Force Lab's catalog of singles as well as some

RealAudio clip: Track 3
RealAudio clip: Track 13

As elemental to psychedelic music of the sixties and seventies as fuzz-fueled freakouts and surreal mystical lyricism, was the dirge! Those slow and heavy head-nodding anthems of bittersweet self-reflection often replete with powerful descending chord progressions and moody and soulful angst-laden vocal crooning. The amazing folks at the Now-Again label (who usually focus on the funk side of the psychedelic equation) have assembled quite a tour-de-force with these rare heavy-hitters from around the globe, including long-time aQ favorites as well as plenty of new discoveries. Here's the line-up: Top Drawer (Kentucky), Sensational Saints (Cleveland, OH), East of Underground (USA via Germany), D.R. Hooker (New Haven, CT), Shin Jung Hyun & The Men (Korea), T. Zchiew & The Johnny (Thailand), The Strangers (Nigeria), Damon (Los Angeles, CA), Ellison (Montreal), Morly Grey (Cleveland, OH), Shadrack Chameleon (Dakota City, IA), Ofege (Nigeria), Ana Y Jaime (Columbia), Kourosh Yaghmaei (Iran), and Baby Grandmothers (Sweden)! Focusing not only on the rare, but also the rather unconventional modes of the ballad, this compilation doesn't just cover heavy psych territory, but also crosses currents with gospel, soul and downbeat international funk by obscure artists who sought after their own kind of sound. Just in time for those cold winter months, this is perfect fireside listening. In fact, it's the perfect, sad and beautiful companion to the energetic exuberance of that Psych Funk 101 compilation, we raved about a couple of lists ago. Meaning, it's a total must-have! The cd comes with a beautiful booklet of album covers and notes about each band.

MPEG stream: Song of A Sinner
MPEG stream: Forge Your Own Chains
MPEG stream: Two To Make A Pair
MPEG stream: Don't You Feel Me
MPEG stream: Who Can I Say You Are?

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

SORRY. You may recall a couple of AQ lists back (#114) we were raving about Adult., and named it one of the records of the week. Well, Adam Miller (one half of the Detroit duo and Ersatz Audio label mastermind) has many more electro gems up his lab coat sleeve and on his label. He shares a sampling of them with us on this dark, kinetic compilation which documents the music on Ersatz Audio from 1995-99. Included are a handful of tracks from each of his own projects LeCar, Adult. and Artificial Material, as well as notable cuts from Platex, Third Electric and G.D.Luxxe. Pulsating beats and thick synths prod your boogie mechanism as spartan synthetic voices seep through to the inner reaches of your ears.

A new San Francisco music compilation that totally runs the gamut style-wise. Comprised of tracks by 16 diverse artists including Twenty Minute Loop, Etienne De Rocher, John Vanderslice, and Ian Brennan.

Subtitled "A Collection of Music From Around the World", this compilation contains twenty-five tracks, all of which are 30 seconds apiece, from the likes of Faust, Skullflower's Stefan Jaworzyn, Merzbow, Incapacitants, Pickle Factory, Illusion of Safety, Nurse With Wound, Lee Ranaldo, and many others. We've had this on 10" vinyl before, but this is the first time it's been available on disc.

Of the hundred of Record Store Day special releases, we got as many copies of as many titles as we could, sold out of most of them, but a few we managed to get enough to list for out of town folks who might not have a local record store do visit on that oh so sacred of record nerd days, one of which is this, a super cool 5 track sampler, featuring new music from some names that most loyal aQ list readers will recognize right away: Blonde Redhead, Ariel Pink, Gang Gang Dance, The Big Pink, Tune Yards. Most of these tracks will show up on forthcoming full lengths from these groups, but 4 of the 5 are different versions, demos, rough early versions, definitely worth it for fans of any of these groups. It's weird enough that Ariel Pink is signed to 4AD, but with this first taste of the upcoming record, we hear a whole new side of AP and his gang, not nearly as lo-fi, or twisted, instead, loping, groovy, almost funky basslines, shuffling skeletal rhythms, reverbed guitars, and deep crooned almost gothic sounding vox, a sort of creepy broody ballad, but fear not, it does get pretty damaged by the end, all crumbling FX drenched psychedelic free-eak out meltdown, can't wait to hear more. Blonde Redhead offer up a demo for a song from their new record, their first music in 3+ years, lush, woozy, electronic, warm and organic, less indie sounding, way more 'adult', like the most accessible Bjork tracks, still really dark and mysterious and beautiful, shimmery and dreamy, just more restrained and mature. The Gang Gang Dance track, their first music for 4AD is awesome, a sprawling, super spare, stripped down dubscape, thick warbly bass, clipped samples, disembodied vocals, hazy and softly psychedelic, but really mesmerizing and beautiful. The Tune Yards track is super soulful world music sounding demo, groovy and lovely, with crunchy looped samples, shimmery blurred acoustic guitars, sweet vocals, gradually growing more and more distorted. Cool. And finally, a previously unreleased track from The Big Pink, all washed out and druggy, total Spacemen 3 / Jesus And Mary Chain vibe, buzzy guitars, buried barely there rhythms, reverbed and echoey and woozily hypnotic. We have a bunch of these left, but once they're gone we won't be able to get more, so grab one while you can...

Beginning back in 2002, Framework is a radio show hosted by Patrick McGinley, who presents his listeners with an hour dedicated to field recordings and their use in composition. The first broadcasts appeared via Resonance FM in London, with syndication of the show expanding through various stations online and over-the-air in Belgium, Greece, and on occasion New York. The shows are stellar productions (even when streamed online) with McGinley often able to solicit exclusive field recordings from his numerous contacts around the globe. In celebration of the 250th broadcast and in support of his original host Resonance FM, McGinley has assembled this amazing 4cd document of exclusive compositions that in some way, shape, or form incorporate the art of field recording into the final piece. The list of contributors is quite large, and certainly acts as a who's who in the realm of avant-garde composition, featuring Phill Niblock, Asmus Tietchens, Peter Cusack, Steve Roden, Giancarlo Toniutti, and of course Chris Watson (arguably the pinnacle of sound ecology). But there's plenty of those who we here at aQuarius have long championed: Loren Chasse, Michael Northam, McGinley's own project Murmer, Jonathan Coleclough, Tarab, Keith Berry, John Grzinich, Eric Cordier, Richard Garet and our own Jim Haynes. With four discs, there's a lot to cover and a surprisingly large amount of high caliber material. So, here it goes... Wooden creaks, bell strikes, and distant bird calls slowly percolate to the surface of Jonathan Coleclough's collaboration with Ben Owen, who collectively augment those sounds with Feldman-like gestures of windswept tonal clusters. Stalwart concrete / sound artist Toy Bizarre offers a compacted mass of water sounds; and Mark Schrieber offers a composition of squeezed noise courtesy of a windshield wiper grating against a contact microphone. Jim Haynes scrapes slabs of slate together before transmitting a harmonic overdrive of clustered bell-n-shortwave tone-floatation. Toshiya Tsunoda's exquisite study in low-end vibration patterns originated from a rope lashed from a boat to pier in his native Japan. Seth Nehil turns the cacophony of a traffic jam into a meditative thrum punctuated by mechanical gestures, aerated hisses, and oblique moanings. Having set contact microphones upon several pieces of wood mounted to a small dam, Maksims Sentelevs captured a polyphony of chiming noises amidst the bubbling watery percolation that's quite unsettling. Eric Cordier's haunted ululations and distant squeals loop hypnotically, making allusions more to horror sound effects rather than typical field recording fodder, even if the material is probably the sound of a gull screeching just off the shoreline. Jeph Jerman's grey hiss of a field recording scrabbles with the sound of insects rummaging around bamboo, all the while sounding like an extract cassette from the bottom of a tarpit. Conducting something of a small ritual with objects around his apartment, Loren Chasse layers textural sounds into an enthralling, mysterious mass of hushed sound. Tarab's corroded drones and tactile spillages from pure field recordings are as captivating as ever, proving that he's one of the more under-recognized composers around today. Steve Roden's contemplative, lulling piece is beautifully composed from two notes on guitar quietly plucked against the hiss of a rainstorm recorded back in 1930s on a 78 as an early sound effects record. Keith Berry's hauntological ambience could easily give Leyland Kirby a run for his money. Industrial rumble and concrete bunker reverberation dominate the low-end frequencies of Jez Riley French's exceptional contribution, perfectly situated next to the obscurant documentation from Giancarlo Toniutti's rattlings of ironworks and deep environmental droning. Chris Watson makes no secrets as to the source on his recording "Ravens" who sound as ominous and cackling as you would expect. Phill Niblock's contribution was sourced from a field recording he made back in 1986 of church bells, but elongated digitally into a slightly atypical piece for the minimalist, as it's less than 6 minutes long! Whew! All of this and more. There's also the fact that this is limited to 250 copies. Actually, none of these discs were to be available in shops at all, but McGinley made one exception to this rule, allowing Aquarius to have a handful of these. We have less than a dozen, and it remains to be seen if we'll be able to get more. Yes, it's expensive, but it is worth it for the material at hand, plus the proceeds are going to support McGinley's production for Framework and Resonance FM.

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Patrick McGinley has been broadcasting his exemplary Framework Radio series since 2002, showcasing the wild and wooly uses of field recordings in composition with the occasional Finnish freak-folk tune (laced with bird song, of course!). He began Framework through the seminal London-based Resonance FM, gradually expanding his scope with stations licensing the series around the globe. In support of these productions, McGinley started a small cd-r imprint whose releases would only be available to the donors supporting Framework; but he's made one very kind exception to this, appointing aQuarius as his sole retail outlet. The first collection McGinley offered was a 4-disc set of exclusive tracks with some heavy hitters amongst the lot including Chris Watson, Phill Niblock, and Giancarlo Toniutti with plenty of AQ-favorites dotted in the nearly five hours worth of music. Here, McGinley begins what looks to be a quarterly cd-r series of exclusive material whose compositions feature field recordings in some way, shape, or form. At least for Issue #1, McGinley has picked an array of artists not featured on that aforementioned 4-disc set. Here, the artists include Marc Behrens, Ernst Karel, Gill Arno, Sebastiane Hegarty, Mark Peter Wright, Mecha/Orga, Paulo Raposo, Lee Patterson, and Joe Stevens. The swarming, buzzing drone of Sebastiane Hegarty's track is a magnificent piece of field recording, originating from a couple of contact microphones attached to a taut wire vibrated by stiff English winds. Eerie and beautiful in its harmonic humming as an Aeolian harp. The Marc Behrens track reworks the chaotic urban soundscape of Hong Kong into a complex musique concrete piece looking back to those early collages by Jim O'Rourke. The enveloping thrum of Mark Peter Wright's very impressive "Around And Within" originated from a network of decommissioned drain pipes that resonate with a thick, vibrating set of frequencies captured with open air microphones along with the drips from melting snow. Very nice. Lee Patterson's hydrophone recordings capture the rich chorus beneath the surface of various fish and water-borne insects, with a skittering almost electrified-sounding bed of staccato chatter and sferic arcs. Paolo Raposo also uses hydrophones, although he coaxes ringing tones and drones from those recordings in this brightened piece of minimalist shimmer. A brilliant collection through and through. Yes, the price is steep for a cd-r, but the offset folio packaging is quite nice and proceeds from this disc go to support Resonance FM!

MPEG stream: Resistance 4
MPEG stream: Yes, China
MPEG stream: Around And Within
MPEG stream: Planting A Tree Inside Water

Patrick McGinley's Framework radio show has been on the air for well over a decade now, sporting the tag line of "Phonography, field recordings, the art of sound hunting. Open your ears and listen." He began Framework through the seminal London-based Resonance FM, gradually expanding his scope with stations licensing the series around the globe. In support of these productions, McGinley (who also records under the moniker Murmer, fyi...) started a small cd-r imprint whose releases would only be available to the donors supporting Framework; but he's made one very kind exception to this, appointing aQuarius as his sole retail outlet. This is the second in the ongoing series of the semi-regular Framework Seasonal publications, featuring a fantastic array of sound artists using field recordings in composition. Most of the artists featured are making their aQ debuts, although we are well acquainted with the work of the aktionist performance artist Dave Phillips of the Schimpfluch Gruppe and the industrial clamor of Australian engineer Camilla Hannan. Phillips's piece, being a field recording, is not the overt aggression one would find in his bloodcurdling performances or his diabolical sound designs; but certainly holds true to his abject agenda. He managed to capture the sound of a very drugged out transvestite shrieking into the night sky, punctuated by metallic clanks presumably from Phillips banging on the rails of a stairwell. Whether the transvestite was responding to Phillips sporadic percussive klank or not is unknown, but it does make for a very strange, and very unsettling duet. The Lithuanian sound artist Sala constructs an equally creepy track called "Arboreal Burial" that draws inspiration from a dream he had about a group of trees which bid farewell to their fallen brothers and sisters by sending them down to the river. The field recordings of creaking trees and deep resonant windscapes amass into churning thickets of acoustic noise. Very unsettling. Situated next to Sala's mobile tree rituals, a sense of dread rubs off on James Wyness' "6 Listening Environments," a collection of rustic scrapes and springtime weather events from the English countryside. Both Camilla Hannan and Aymeric De Tapol draw from the ultrasound and thrumming resonance of ship engines, with vastly different results. The former focuses on the wheezing repetition of the chugging pistons; where the latter collects the massive drones diffused through large bodies of water. There's all of this plus tracks from JD Zazie, Anton Mobin, Pali Meursault, and Lass-Marc Reik. Another brilliant collection from Framework!

MPEG stream: Arboreal Burial, Pt. 2
MPEG stream: You Don't Have To Pretend To Be What You Are
MPEG stream: Straddie

Framework is a radio broadcast wholly dedicated to field-recording, and its use in composition. The tagline to the show is "Field-recording, phonography, the art of sound-hunting; open your ears and listen!" Each quarter, the show's producer and host, Patrick McGinley (aka Murmer) has been commissioning composers, sound ecologists, dronologists, and noise technicians for work to be included in a parallel series of limited edition cd-rs for subscribers to the show. None of these discs have been made available to any shops, except for aQuarius; and now, McGinley offers us the fourth installment in that series. As before, McGinley offers some heavy hitters intermixed with some emerging artists. Here, the former includes Francisco Lopez, Yannick Dauby, and Maile Colbert; with the latter including Terje Paulson, Flavien Gillie, and Luis Antero. These recordings demonstrate considerable manipulation of the sounds and / or engagement with the environment, even if that's just through the deliberate choices of context. Flavien Gillie's placid recordings of the winter birds from a nature reserve in Brussels speak to the contextualization approach, while Yannick Dauby & Olivier Feraud's manhandling of a fallen tree trunk, render its fibers all of the squiggliness of a theremin. Stefan Paulus' collage of farm-built bells that jangle from the necks of meandering cows and deep thrumming subharmonics from nearby shipping docks makes for one of the more compelling compositions from this edition. France Jobim's liquid drones were sourced from surreptitious recordings made at the Morongo Casino in Southern California, with the racket of the slot machines and the controlled carnavalesque cacophony inverted into ephemeral wisps of minimalism. Francisco Lopez proves once again why he's been one of the most respected artists using environmental sounds over the past two decades. His eerie reverberant tones and elongated slashes of razor sharp frequencies bend and curve along an amorphous surface that is both organic and synthetic, akin to the latter day works from The Hafler Trio. Maile Colbert laces her ecological portraits with a series of slow, maudlin melodies that points to the grandiose, dreamtime pieces of Stars of the Lid. Really beautiful!

MPEG stream: Liminal Drift
MPEG stream: Untitled#293
MPEG stream: Helen's Hands