[ aquarius records — Country Folk Blues ]

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Showing results 551 through 600 of 1618.

Full length number five follows hot on the heels of number four, but unlike the dreamy poppiness of 'Couples In Trouble' with its melancholy twang and wistful sentiments, '13 Hillbilly Giants' shows Fulks returning to his position as No Depression's bad boy

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Chicagoan Robbie Fulks, here with his fourth full length album, makes the leap from the country troubadour's lonely road to much broader horizons, as many of the songs on this album remind me of non-country folks as diverse as Nick Lowe (Fulks' voice is

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These days the appearance of skits on music albums has been pretty much constrained to the hip hop realm. True? But Robbie Fulks ain't one to follow trends, is he? Hence on his new live album we're hit with a studio recorded skit right at the get go! It all begins with what resembles an old tyme radio advertisement jingle. Y'know the ones that had a group of male singers in turn assuming different characters. The prim barbershop quartet stylings are quite a change from Fulks' slow burnin' smokehouse blues and rowdy barnburners, but the tune's lyrics uproot the well-mannered facade ("Spreading our hillbilly sound... just like a cancer! Ha!"). Fulks' music has always been a study in contrasts, bringing together the rowdy and the sober, loose ramblin' and razor sharp musicianship, the true blue rustic old country feel and his biting, black wit. This 2cd release continues on in that fashion, offering two sides of the Fulks coin -- Disc One is all electric, Disc Two is all acoustic. The actual live recordings took place one wild night in Champaign and one more subdued eve in Chicago. One yowch! moment pops up on the second disc when he unleashes a cover of Cher's "Believe". Yikes.

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The Bay Area gent known as Levi Fuller crafts somber elegant folk in league with Low, Black Heart Procession, Sixteen Horsepower, Red House Painters and Mountain Goats. Fans of any/all of those artists very well could find themselves taking quite a shine to the slow smoldering beauty of This Murder Is A Peaceful Gathering. An earth-toned tapestry of strummy acoustic guitar, sinewy electric guitar textured with unexpected percussive and atmospheric elements.

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Debut full-length from Jake Xerxes Fussell (yes, his real name), a collection of rearranged and re-imagined traditional folk and blues songs. It should come as no surprise once you hear it that this came out on Paradise of Bachelors, the Southern-fixated label that has released other aQ faves Hiss Golden Messenger and Steve Gunn. It's easy to think you know what you're getting when you first turn this record on - these songs feel familiar and ancient, something you've heard in movie soundtracks and Ken Burns documentaries. The songs themselves may be traditional, but the arrangements and atmosphere are fully modern. Fussell (and his crew of musicians which features members of Bonnie Prince Billy's band and Silver Jews) has a remarkable ability to not forget what makes the original versions special and to simultaneously inject his own cosmic twist into them. The result is a dreamy, drifting trip down a new tributary of a familiar river, both adventure and nostalgia.

Another day, another rare sixties pop-psych reissue with quite a bit of collector cachet... that is also pretty darn great! First time on cd for this Eddie Vartan-produced 1969 LP, wonderfully dreamy and baroque and folky and orchestrated. Lots of languid, lazy-day la, la, la's here! Talented, curly-haired singer-songwriter Nick Garrie was youthful, peripatetic, and quite cosmopolitan (you can tell from his lyrics, referencing all corners of Europe). He had a Scottish mother, a Russian father, and was raised in both France and England, calling Paris his home at the time this record came out. Though nowadays it gets compared to the work of Nick Drake, Billy Nichols, Peter Sarstedt, Bill Fay, and others of note, due to music biz circumstances beyond Nick's control, it immediately sank into obscurity upon initial release. But now thanks to Rev-ola it's been reissued, complete with extensive liner notes, track-by-track commentary by Nick himself, and seven bonus tracks including his fantastic and even harder to find than the LP 1968 single "Queen Of Spades" b/w "Close Your Eyes" (the B-side of which you may have already heard on the Nightmares at Toby's Shop compilation we listed last year). Great stuff for fans of UK popsike like Kaleidoscope.

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**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** We were so psyched to see Mississippi Records release this collection of recordings made by these two little known Louisiana musicians whose beautifully melancholic contribution to early American Cajun folk music is as indelible as it is mysterious. If you were a fan of HBO's True Detective this past year, you may recognize the title song that opens this record, "Sur Le Borde De L'Eau", a spellbinding Cajun ballad sung by Gaspard featured on the soundtrack of that series. Gaspard, blind at an early age, sang and played guitar, and is known to have formed a string band with both his brothers who grew up in the rural parishes of Louisiana, but we're not sure if they ever recorded. He also played backing guitar for cajun fiddler Delma Lachney who recorded for the Vocalion label in the 1920's. During those sessions, Gaspard recorded four solo tracks, and the pair's combined recordings make up the entirety of this here release and is about all we know of the two. The duo's instrumental, "La Danseuse", featured on Volume 2 of Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music, is absolutely one of our favorite old-timey songs ever, a song we could easily see being used in a period film like Heaven's Gate or Days Of Heaven. And similarly the other Lachney instrumentals follow suit quite sweetly in Cajun bluegrass form. But also heavenly are the songs where Gaspard sings. In a high French patois, Gaspard reminds us a bit of John Jacob Niles or Roscoe Holcomb, as well as early Devendra Banhart, but the sentiment behind the songs, full of romantic old country longing and nostalgia is wonderfully heartbreaking. Like the great Mississippi comp, I Don't Feel At Home In This World, there is a weary pain to these sweet songs. We were hoping to learn more about these two with this release, but sadly no extra info is provided, only some of the most haunting and lovely early Americana we've heard. Highest Recommendation!

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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. From out of nowhere comes this wonderful new record from the leader of Giant Sand (who also spawned Calexico). This is dark, melancholy, stripped-down angular country. Really beautiful. Kind of like a less goofy Giant Sand. Highly recommended.

You never know what to expect from Giant Sand's Howe Gelb, but if you are going to board his musical caravan, you gotta know you're in for quite a ride. Roaming the musical landscape freely, sometimes the unexpected turns he takes may leave you scratching your head. Definitely one to always follow his muse, and the results - although frequently quite puzzling - are seldom a disappointment. On the surface, many of the songs appear to be very "normal", skillfully executed smoky lounge or dinner jazz or desert twang, but allow the music to sink in a bit further and gradually those distinct Gelb nuances and eccentricities reveal themselves. They manifest as subtle details, a slightly tweaked vocal effect or texture creeping just under the surface. Like an image in a slightly distorted mirror, the music is ever-shifting (in style, tempo, instrumentation, mood), casting light into the shadows, twisting perceptions. Gelb's deeeep, sedated vocals only furthers the emotional and cerebral slip. Often very stream of consciousness, he veers off on tangents about Lou Reed (on "Felonious" and does a remarkably convincing Reed impression, we might add!), scoops lyrics from the song "Lean On Me" (on "B 4 U") and slips into an odd Hazlewood/Sinatra-esque mode (on "Torque"). Intriguing, inspiring and a listening pleasure.

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We had this before and sold many, but it was always difficult to re-stock 'cause it was being sold by the Tuva Foundation themselves, not a record label. But sad we are no more, because it's just been re-issued on San Francisco-based "world music" label Six Degrees (home of DJ Cheb I Sabbah and Bebel Gilberto!). For those of you new to this, Genghis Blues is the soundtrack to the fabulous documentary movie (of the same name). Blind San Francisco blues musician Paul Pena travels to Tuva (Central Asia) to compete in their national throat-singing competition, a skill in which he is entirely self-taught! A funny, touching movie, and of course blessed with some great music. Lots of blues, lots of throat singing and even throat singing blues, plus some Cuban son-esque tracks.

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One of the legendary figures of traditional folk and bluegrass music , Alice Gerrard's new album is devastatingly beautiful, deep and dark. Most known for her collaborations with Hazel Dickens on the Folkways and Rounder labels, the ache in her voice has only made her singing more penetratingly profound over the years. Here it's a tour-de-force, its tone of resilient strength through trying times is brought up directly front and center over compelling but restrained arrangements courtesy of Hiss Golden Messenger's M. C. Taylor, who also produced. The album is a mix of traditional and original songs, from stark folk ballads to vintage country tunes, some with full band and some more spare, with her lovely banjo playing and guitar. And then there's the eight minute a cappella track, "The Vulture", which left us quietly shaking in awe. Just Incredible!

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It's been a few years, Mr. Gelb, we've sure missed you! Your new album is absolutely wonderful, and not just because you've got Neko Case, M. Ward and Isobel Campbell on board this time around... although that definitely sweetens the deal! Each of the thirteen songs slowly unwinds in the dusk hour shadows with the ever enigmatic Gelb occasionally bringing to mind a southwest desert sun-baked Leonard Cohen. While he definitely pulls out a few classic Giant Sand twangy eccentric yarns (particularly late in the album - "Belly Full Of Fire" and "Saturated Beyond Repair"), overall Provisions seems to be his most mellow, straightforwardly melodic and song structured work to date. Even when he drifts off into the downright cryptic and bizarre, the raw emotion and poetry of his music somehow still speaks straight to the heart. Some of the album's best moments feature are the most bare bones with just voice and piano ("Spiral"). Wow. You might recall the short lived superb collaboration that took place many years ago between Gelb, Lisa Germano, and Calexico's Joey Burns and John Convertino. OP8 was its name, and Slush was the title of their amazing album (it's still one of Cup's all time top faves!). Of any of the albums that the individual artists have released since, this new Giant Sand full length comes the closest to capturing that magic (albeit with different parties involved). And attention all you new Calexico fans picking up the latest album from those fellow Arizonans, time for a little history lesson! Burns and Convertino were members of Giant Sand prior to forming Calexico. If you haven't checked GS out yet, you are missing out! Some early GS albums may initially seem impenetrably strange and more of an acquired taste, but you don't wanna miss this album! Most certainly highly recommended!

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Wow! if you've a penchant for rustic melancholia richly rooted in American country folk traditions, don't miss this new SF quintet's debut album. Although these days The Gilded Rooks are a full band of five, for these recordings which were captured in Nashville, TN, the band leaders Jessy Brown and Devon Angus were backed by locals Red White Blue. From the sounds of things, they got along smashingly well. The performances are terrific!, so easy-going and relaxed, you can easily imagine that they've been playing together for years. Scarecrow's Pockets is wonderfully drowsy and withery in mood and tempo. Brown's honeyed lilt and Angus' considerably more bristly, Waits-tinged delivery play off one another beautifully. The band tastefully embellishes the core guitar, bass and drums with piano, lap steel and organ, as well as surprise appearances of bright horns and a ghostly whisper of musical saw - all while still maintaining plenty of space to allow the duo's vocals to truly take flight. Each of the dozen songs is burnished to a mellow, whisky hued glow. Very warm and inviting despite the plaintive tones. Highlights are the opening title track, "31 Pages (Of Country Music)", and the closing "Joan Of Arc Of Bernal Hill". Along with the ten originals, they transform Jules Shear's "All Through The Night" (popularized by Cyndi Lauper) into a sweet shadowy lullaby, and also do a terrific rendition of Richard Thompson's "Walkin' On A Wire". Recommended!

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What a voice, that of an angel. Are there angels in Buddhism, we are not sure. A long long time ago in Lubbock, Texas, Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, and Jimmie Dale formed the Flatlanders, who released classic selftitled album (still available on cd). Gilmore's wiry, ethereal vocals on "Dallas" still generates chills down the collective Aquarius back, nor does this new album disappoint.

So peppery and full of vigor! Dare we say, such a whippersnapper! Jimmie Dale Gilmore's puttin' lads a third of his age to shame. They sure could learn a thing or two from this revered country music veteran. With his unmistakable voice in top form, he sounds absolutely terrific on Come On Back. Dedicated to his father, it's a collection of his renditions of thirteen country, honky tonk, and folk classics. The pace doesn't let up until the closing track, the solemn, deeply moving "Peace In The Valley". Inspiring and wonderful!

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Here's the follow-up to The Goat Family's lively debut album Unstopperable from a few years ago! Sounds like these seven fellas are still bustin' their britches with rambunctious energy and mighty fine pickin'! All We Need is jam-packed with sixteen old fashioned bluegrass and country tunes written and performed in both conventional and somewhat less conventional fashion by modern day folks fueled by ample jugs o' moonshine. Good times for sure!

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The Bay Area's Goat Family are sure kicking up some dust on Unstopperable. It's an off-kilter hillbilly jamboree filled with originals and covers of old classics like "Ring Of Fire", the rousing rais-a-pint "All For Me Grog" and you might recognize the number "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" from the front porch scene of the movie The Jerk!

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It's always a little nerve wracking listening to a friend's record. Hoping that it's good so you don't have to hem and haw and eventually say something like "Wow...really interesting" or "Wow. Great guitar sound" or some other non-committal could-be-construed-as-saying-you-like-the-record sort of thing. So it's even more intense when it's someone's -first- record. But luckily, this time, there was no need to worry, 'cause this Golden Hotel record is a gorgeous, droney, space-y, drugged out psychedelic folk record. Golden Hotel is our customer Cayce (who has appeared in several of the AQ neighborhood films, he's the bearded fellow with the dog Cowboy) and his brother Sidney who is in AQ faves Torrez. And the Torrez connection definitely shows, with shimmery guitars and warm thick atmosphere, but the female vocals of Torrez are replaced with the brothers' rough but melodic warm warbly rasps and the sound is a little less lush and a bit more buzzing and immediate (plenty of instrument buzz, lip smacking, breathing). Warm swells of thick guitar wash over shimmering high end harmonics whirling quietly in the background as gently strummed acoustic guitar underpins delicate minor key melodies. Lots of stray sounds, varied instrumentation and production fuckery augment these ultimately simple folk songs, turning them into languid, stoned epics, with simple stumbling percussion, fuzzy far-away guitar, droning buzzing harmonies, pulsing underwater bass, and dreamy blissed out ambience. Definitely influenced by/reminiscent of Greg Weeks, Six Organs Of Admittance, Charalambides, Joshua, Songs:Ohia, Herman Dune, and other current practitioners of modern psych-folk. A great surprise and a fantastic record.

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This super duper group stars Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, Dan Murphy of Soul Asylum, Run Westy Run singer Kraig Johnson, and The Jayhawks' Gary Louris and Marc Perlman. It's taken the gents eight long years to get another album together. You might recall their last one the casually patchy Weird Tales came out back in 1998. Another Fine Day is their third full length, a generous fifteen song serving of Golden Smog. It starts out as pretty much by the books country rock. That's all fine and dandy enough, but on the fifth song the band throws the listener a great curve ball. "Corvette" is an unexpectedly lightning bolt of power pop (uh, we just found out that it was originally written for an actual Corvette commercial... sigh.). The vocals for this one tune sound charmingly like Guided By Voices' Robert Pollard. We hit repeat on that one a bunch of times. It's a perfect mixtape tune. The follow-up ain't no slouch either. It's a gentle psych rock number reminiscent of Bowie and Bolan that starts out with a willowy instrumental intro. Nice! From there the album continues it's pleasingly varied path from the sweet pretty pop of "Cure For This" to the considerably grittier electric guitar riffin' of "Hurricane". Despite Golden Smog being a side project for many of its members, they've assembled a very dedicated, fleshed out, un-side project-y album. Recommended.

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Strange and shambling ode to the underbelly of the American heartland from this duo comprised of Ezra Buchla (ex- Mae Shi) and Ericka Anderson (Amps For Christ). Mixing dusty feedback squalls, damaged electronics and bummed out gospel-y folk with distorted narratives involving drugs, cataclysmic weather and self-abuse, Gowns sounds at times like a primitive Cat Power if Chan Marshall went in a much darker direction after recording Moon Pix. Red State is mournfully elegiac with a simmering intensity that is barely restrained, much like the rarely lit corners of our troubled country.

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Latest reissue from the Omni Recording Corporation, and as with most of the Omni releases, it's an odd one. But what's so odd about Grandpa Jones? A kindly older gentleman, dressed like and old time prospector, playing banjo, yodeling occasionally, playing classic old timey bluegrass, lush vocal harmonies, plenty of twang and strum, the music itself is not especially strange, just some classic country and bluegrass. Well, it's all in the way Jones BECAME a "grandpa" - before he was even 20 years old! And no, he didn't somehow sire a child at an impossibly young age who then sired a child at an equally impossibly young age. He apparently was grumpy during early morning recording sessions, which earned him the nickname Grandpa, and at some point he decided to BECOME Grandpa Jones, which entailed, an old hat, some silver hair dye, a big fake mustache, and some old clothes, and voila! Grandpa Jones was born, and would then go one to record and perform for decades, until presumably, he could do away with the fake mustache and dyed grey hair, and no one would be the wiser. Although apparently he DID perform at the Grand Ole Opry, as a real grandpa, dressed up as a fake grandpa! The story behind Grandpa Jones may be pretty far out, but the persona was in part tied to his love of old timey music, and suited his sound, playing classic bluegrass ballads, gorgeous steel string strum, intricate banjo, shuffling percussion, slippery slide, timeless tales of heartbreak and misery, farms and trains, the Wild West, Jones' vocals a warm and weathered croon, that could also yodel with the best of them. This reissue collects two of Jones' classic albums, and tacks on various singles and B sides, and like all Omni releases, includes a massive booklet with meticulously researched liner notes and loads of photos.

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Just a list of the folks playing on this here record should have most aQ customers all in a lather: The Skaters, Glenn Donaldson (Jewelled Antler Collective, Skygreen Leopards, Blithe Sons), Clay Ruby (Burial Hex, Zodiacs, Totem), Mansfield (Bruce Carkiss, Garage Indians), Nic Stage (Davenport), Endless (Craig Microcassette System, Drunjus), Tyler Olson (Davenport), Clay Kolbinger (Math Balance Volumes, Davenport), db Pedersen (Ng Keindhiet, Three Bags Full, Rope)... Recorded one night in 2004, in a barn, and it sounds like it. Fuzzy and warbly and creaky, these tracks were originally released as a super limited tape, and are now available as a slightly less limited lp, with an extra track from the same session, not on the tape! You know who was there, so you probably have a rough idea of what it sounds like. Gorgeous gauzy drift and drone, lots of fuzz and crackle, everything muted and washed out, clattery percussion, chant like vocals, lots of room sound and delay, swirling FX, underneath the soft swirl of lo-fi ambience lurks some sort of rickety skeletal dronefolk, songs that are barely recognizable, threatening to fall completely apart, all wrapped up in the warm whir of the recorder, bits of feedback, electronics, and here and there some propulsive krautrock like drumming, but all muddy and blurred into something more tribal and primal. Anyone who digs any of the folks taking part, is bound to dig this A LOT. Beautifully packaged in old lp sleeves, turned inside out and hand screened in green and brown, quite lovely and QUITE LIMITED!!!!

The lovely Vancouver singer/songwriter Ida Nilsen came through town while on tour opening for The Waterboys. Why? Well, story has it that she covered one of their songs on her last album, and band leader Mike Scott caught pleasant wind of it. He also invited her to help out with the recording of their new album. Anyhoo, Ms Ida kindly dropped off a batch of her new full length How They Fly, and it's terrific! She's buddies with many Canadian aQ faves too, particularly from the Mint Records stable of artists. Everything is warm and comforting about Great Aunt Ida's music -- her singing, the well-placed entrance of horns, a nicely recorded piano, some understated electric guitar. We can see why Mr. Scott among others have taken a shine to her music. While it's rooted in country folk, there's also glimmers of '70s West Coast soft rock and '90s indie girl pop. So nice, she just might become our new Canadian darling!

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From the same label that brought us two amazing records from Hotel Alexis�(aka Sidney Lindner who also played in Golden Hotel):�Goliath, I'm On Your Side and�The Shining Example Is Lying On The Floor, comes another captivating slab of dark moody twang.� The Great Invisibles was recorded as part of�The Record Production Month, styled after the�National Novel Writing Month, the challenge being to write and record a full album in 30 days. The Great Invisibles was the entry from folk / free jazz guitarist and�professor of Surrealism in literature ,�Michael Deragon, and is a gorgeously dark and dreamy chunk of dark ambience and lilting abstract Appalachia. Recorded on a 4 track, but surprisingly lush, these tracks are mini epics, rife with moaning minor key melancholia, strange distant rumbles and whirs, muted effects drifting in grey sonic skies, guitars that buzz and shimmer, ring out dreamily and unfurl mournful laments, the various tnagles of steel string strum, are strung within�murky drifting cinematic smeas of sound, distant drifting harmonics, often over soft wheezing whirs and swirling seas of soft tape hiss. A few songs have vocals and are dark gems, sounding a bit like Califone or Red Red Meat or even Hotel Alexis, sultry and slithery, brutally beautiful back porch ballads, lovely and utterly heartbreaking.� Deragon would perform live in galleries, accompanying short films by local film makers, and this set includes a bonus dvd featuring a short film used as the visuals for the Great Invisibles first performance, from�filmmaker Michael Winters, a part-time truant officer. Truly striking, mostly black and white or sepia tone (a brief bit in color), scratchy film stock, old images of factories and children, flowers, old buildings, strange shadows, dolls and leaves, strange graphics of clocks, passing landscapes, haunting masks, the whole thing quite beautiful and mysterious, and really the prefect visual accompaniment to�Deragon mournful twangscapes.� The packaging is amazing as well, every single one unique, handmade by Deragon, a collaged fold over sleeve, so dense and covered with clipping and bits of paper it's almost 3-D, old newspaper clippins, drawings, blueprints, various bits of writing in pencil and pen, hand numbered, with a stapled and typed insert, the two discs affixed to the two inside panels of the gatefold. So nice.� LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!! When we run out we won't be able to get more.

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Everyone remembers Lorne Greene as Ben Cartwright, big boss of the Ponderosa Ranch on the TV show Bonanza. He cut a striking figure, salt and pepper hair, deep stentorian voice, broad shouldered and ruggedly handsome, so of course like most stars of the time (and really ANY time), Greene set out to be a recording star as well as a television star, and is the case with so many wouldbe rockstars, or country stars, Greene managed a few records, might have even had a hit or two, but it just wasn't in the cards. It's not really that he's a bad singer, although he does seem to slip into a more sung/spoken thing that actually belting it out, and it's not that these are bad songs, some of these jams are CRAZY catchy, it seems like maybe he was mismarketed at the time, instead of separating his singing career from his TV career, someone made the choice that Greene would be a singing cowboy, singing about the sort of stuff that Ben Cartwright might have sung about. The result being some serious (silly) kitsch, almost every song features a spoken word intro by Greene, his voice booming, reverbed, as if speaking from on high, and every song is about working on the railroad, or mining, or being in prison, or playing poker in a saloon, or a love song from a cowboy to his gal, then there's the music, fuzzy guitars, weird doo wop background vocals, gorgeous harmonies, a little bit of exotica, some goofy sound effects, some definite Morricone-isms (how could there not be, the twangy whistly Western vibe is all over these tracks obviously), and of course Greene crooning over the top, again spending much of his time sing/speaking, but when he does let loose, he almost sounds like Thurl Ravenscroft (who sang the them from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas), and at times some of these tracks even sound a bit like Screamin' Jay Hawkins, really good stuff for sure, and so fun, definite mix tape / party music, we've been playing this non stop, thankfully it doesn't quite devolve into a vanity vehicle like the William Shatner / Leonard Nimoy records. Instead it plays like some awesome, slightly cheesy, way over the top, catchy as all get out, lost country record, which it basically is. Anyone who dug the Plantation Gold comp we made Record Of The Week a while back will WAY dig this. Another killer job from Omni, whose reissues have set a new standard, tons of photos, a long vintage interview with Greene and tons more. The Man collects two albums in their entirety, as well as a handful of tracks from several later records, a killer package for sure. Now, if only Omni would put together an Eddie Noack collection!!! One of the most amazing (and sickest) country rockabilly legends ever...

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A dark and dreamy drift through a late night world of moonlit sound from this UK driftrock slowcore duo. Silky serpentine guitar lines, moody meandering dreaminess, hushed whispery vocals, simple brooding dark ambient swirl, disembodied melodies. So so lovely. Like your favorite Low songs, set adrift in outer space, reflecting the twinkle of distant stars, shimmering in the soft vacuum of space. So absolutely gorgeous and otherworldly. Packaged in a hand numbered black digipak with a tiny square piece of mirror affixed to the front.

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The third beautiful lp of sublime guitar instrumentals from local luminary Danny Paul Grody. Grody has a rich history of intricate musicianship with bands The Drift, and Tarentel and his side-projects Believer and Moholy-Nagy, but it's with his deeply introspective solo records that Grody shines the most. He tends to be lumped in with the American Primitive scene, and he can play with the best of them, but his music draws from deeper wells, such as Eastern mysticism, ritualistic drone music and the timbre explorations of influential composer Lou Harrison. Grody uses chiming guitar figures and sonorous synth drones that build slowly into vast mountains of sound then cascade into fluid filigrees and rapturous waves. We've loved all of Grody's solo records, but this one may just be our favorite. Download code included!

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Newly reissued on deluxe vinyl (at a steep import price unfortunately), only one album can be called the first psychedelic OUT-country record, and if it's not Peter Grudzien's The Unicorn, we can think of no other album in the universe that would accurately fit that description (well, ok The Legendary Stardust Cowboy would come close, but that's a different animal entirely). For the emphasis on "out" here refers to all connotations of that term: far out, outsider and homosexual. Handling all the recording, arranging and playing of the instruments over a period of 14 years from 1960-1974 , The Unicorn is a strange and beautiful metaphysical concept record of love and salvation. Featuring a vast array of characters including hillbilly tricks, blue-eyed queens, monkey people and of course unicorns, Grudzien's off-kilter twang is augmented by slide guitar, banjo and otherworldly tape loops of ghostly choirs, backwards effects and warm reverb. An odd and lovely record!

MPEG stream: Queen Of All the Blue-Eyed
MPEG stream: Return Of The Unicorn

We've said it before, but it bears repeating, we LOVE when we discover amazing music made by one of our customers. Gyron V is in fact our customer / pal Terje Oeveraas, from Norway, who has been quietly self-releasing limited cd-r's, very few of which it seems have made it over here, in fact if we didn't know Terje personally, odds are we wouldn't have heard or seen any of them. So thanks to Jason at Living Tapes, who's stepped in on the 10th anniversary of Gyron V, and put together a sort of greatest hits / career retrospective, gathering up tracks from the first five cd-r's as well as some compilation tracks, and thus we have Muscae Volitantes. But what does it sound like? Well, the label describes the music of Gyron V as being "fueled by folk music and new wave in equal measure", and that's not all that far off. There's definitely a serious neo-folk vibe happening here, deep dramatic vox, urgently strummed acoustic guitars, spidery melodies, a moody intimate ambience, everything echo drenched and bathed in reverb, the opener "Climbing The Blue Pavillion", reminds us a bit of country-goth crooner King Dude, while "In The Circles Of Ether" adds primitive drum machine, a motorik mechanical rhythm beneath, shimmery chords, and some dreamy falsetto vox. There's definitely a new wave feel to some of the songs, but it seems to be more in mood and melody than sound, as most of Muscae plays out like a super intimate home recorded bedroom folk, although at times, we're alternatingly reminded of Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat, Death In June, New Model Army, Angels Of Light, Current 93, Roy Montgomery, fans of any or all of those bands will dig this stuff big time, and will most likely find themselves hunting down the original cd-r's as well. Moody and darkly psychedelic, the instrumental backdrops lush and brooding, melancholic and achingly contemplative, the vocals transforming the mood of each song, whether it's haunting and hushed, moody and brooding, or strident and majestic. Gorgeous stuff for sure. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!!

MPEG stream: Climbing The Blue Pavillion
MPEG stream: In The Circles Of Ether
MPEG stream: Such Grotesque Music Of Light
MPEG stream: Killing For Satan
MPEG stream: A Blood-Red Rose Of 49 Petals

Apparently in an effort not to be out done by Columbia / American and their Johnny Cash "Love / God / Murder" trilogy, Capitol has decided to release a quartet of themed best of compilations -- Drinkin', Hurtin', Prison & Cheatin' -- from California's own bad boy of country Merle Haggard. Unlike many of his country contemporaries Haggard actually lived much of the life he sang about:

RealAudio clip: High On A Hilltop
RealAudio clip: It's Not Love (But It's Not Bad)

RealAudio clip: I Threw Away The Rose
RealAudio clip: Who'll Buy The Wine

RealAudio clip: Silver Wings
RealAudio clip: Every Fool Has A Rainbow

Goddamn. Merle Haggard is so much cooler than you or I could ever be. I mean, he just oozes cool. Maybe even more than 'the man in black'. This record, released through Epitaph (who also recently released the Tom Waits record) is as good as any of the records he released 20 years ago, but holds up in 2000. Definitely better than hearing Johnny Cash do Tom Petty. It's rough and raw and beautiful. Sometimes playful, sometimes scary. And as always, I hope that kids who love Palace and Songs:Ohia and all that stuff, hike up their pants and give this stuff a try.

RealAudio clip: Mama Tried
RealAudio clip: Branded Man

The Haggard resurgence continues unabated. Coming right behind those low priced compilations we previously listed, here's a brand new record. Well, sort of. It -is- a new record, and they -are- new recordings, but most of the tunes are oldies but goodies, that see Merle reaching back to the honky tonk style his career so heavily is based on. There are also three brand new Haggard

RealAudio clip: Take These Chains from My Heart

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

SORRY. In terms of 'keywords' this review should go something like this: Hala Strana, Jewelled Antler, Thuja, Steven R. Smith, Mirza, limited edition cd-rs, Eastern European folk music. Eh? Ok, now some of you are already clicking ADD TO CART or headin' down to our store. But if all that was more-or-less gobbledygook to you, let's elaborate. Hala Strana, which you may already have encountered as an entry in the Jewelled Antler Library series of 3" cdrs, is a project of LA-based multi-instrumentalist (and multi-instrument builder) Steven R. Smith, who is a member of Jewelled Antler flagship improv psych group Thuja and a solo artist in his own right. Hala Strana is his vehicle for instrumental droned-out Eastern European folk music appreciation/interpretation, and really represents some of his finest work to date. Multitracking turns Steven R. Smith into a one-man village orchestra, playing everything from violin to optigan, bul bul tarang to gourd guitar, harpsichord to clay flowerpots! Bouzouki, cello, harmonium, percussion, etc. These songs also incorporate snippets of field recording tapes and sampled recordings of traditional music. Plus some of his Thuja cohorts also show up to help out. Many of the tracks are based on traditional folk tunes from Hungary, Albania, Macedonia, Croatia, and other Balkan backwaters. If you've heard any of the wonderful Muszikas records, you'll understand Steven R. Smith's inspirations. His arrangements and instrumention turn 'em into total folk-psych gems, reminding us of certain krautrock bands, International Harvester, the Dirty Three, Kemialliset Ystavat, Black Forest/Black Sea, all sorts of good things. Utter old world beauty meets underground drone aesthetics = some kind of Transylvanian trance music. Really nice. And we're looking forward to *another* new Hala Strana disc, a cd being released on Emperor Jones next week. That one's gonna be good too. But Fielding is hard to top. After all, there's TWO discs worth of music, and a handsome, handmade lil' booklet of art and text included. Unfortunately, there's only about 25 of these still available, so act fast!

MPEG stream: Villages
MPEG stream: Time

Every time we get in a new album from Steven R. Smith's Hala Strana it's as if we've been magically, mystically transported to one of the Olde World vistas with which he always adorns his cd covers (this one comes from the Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493). He's an Eastern European influenced, drone-folk one-man-band, crafting gorgeous, mesmerizing, sometimes melancholic instrumental compositions in his home studio, incorporating sundry ethnic instruments and tapes and field recordings, in a manner quite in keeping with that of his Jewelled Antler brethren (instrument-builder Smith is an alumnus of Thuja, you might know). Only three of the songs here are authentic traditional tunes (from Latvia, Hungary, and the Caucasus), but all the rest of them also seem to derive from an ancient, far-off land of Smith's imaginings...organic, rustic, autumnal...music for meandering along a trickling stream, lazing in a meadow, peering at distant crags through a morning mist, or drinking in a ruined old tavern at night. Harmonium drones and gently plucked strings and wheezing accordion and keening hurdy gurdy (and more) are all woven by Smith into the medieval tapestry of Hala Strana's music. Ah, we love it. These Villages is Hala Strana's fourth release -- we can't say it's the best yet, only because the others were also so superlative too. Quite recommended.

MPEG stream: October
MPEG stream: Nepdal Tarogaton

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

SORRY. Three songs from Steven R. Smith and his Hala Strana, ultra limited lathe cut, hand numbered, only 60 copies pressed. We got FIVE.

It doesn't always work out that when frontmen from heavy bands begin to fancy themselves troubadours, ditching all the distortion and metallic bombast and laying everything bare, it's the sort of thing that in the worst case can reveal all the shortcomings that are disguised by all that volume, and all those other instruments, we've seen plenty of ultra painful unplugged sets, that were just begging to be plugged back in. But in the best cases, like this, the solo debut from Nate Hall, frontman for psychedelic heavies US Christmas, it can demonstrate just why the heavy stuff is so compelling, cuz there are actual songs lurking underneath, and a vocalist who can actually sing, and has a knack for classic songsmithery. To be fair, it's not like the singer from Cannibal Corpse making a psych folk record (oh how we want to hear that now!), since US Christmas is essentially just a supercharged cranked up more metallic version of a psych folk band anyway. And plenty of the songs here actually sound like they could easily have been retooled into proper US Christmas jams, but that doesn't take away from how good they sound. Hall's voice is a slightly raspy croon that reminds us a bit of Nikki Sudden, ragged and rough around the edges, but it's perfect for USX and perfect for these songs here. Rooted around simple strummed acoustic guitar, but wreathed in thick swaths of distorted effected psych guitars, theremin here and there, a bit of slide guitar, plenty of echo and reverb, the songs droned out and a little druggy, there's even a killer cover of Townes Van Zandt's "Kathleen", and Hall definitely makes it his own, adding some cavernous reverb, but for the most part playing it straight. Helps that it's such a great song, and Hall's got the kind of voice that can do justice to a song that was basically already perfect (not sure why Hall wasn't included on the recent three way Townes Van Zandt tribute with Scott Kelly, Steve Von Till and Wino). But not all the tracks are so psychedelic, a handful of the songs here are even more stripped down, no electric guitars, just straight up Appalachia, steel string guitar and banjo, and those tracks kill as well. Folks into other psych folk should check this out for sure, and heck who knows, this might be the gateway that gets you into US Christmas that gets you into other heavy stuff, it's a slippery slope, but we're all waiting for you down here at the bottom!

MPEG stream: The Earth In One Cell
MPEG stream: Dark Star
MPEG stream: Kathleen