0 (MIKA VAINIO)Heijastuya(Sahko)lp$ 22.00
[ aquarius records — Electronic ]
Showing results 1 through 50 of 5033.
1 SPEED BIKEDroopy Butt Begone!(Constellation)cd$ 14.98
Aidan Girt, drummer from Godspeed You Black Emperor and the man behind Exhaust, has a new side project. Gritty, atmospheric tunes laid out with hip-hop and down-tempo electronica beats give "Droopy Butt Begone!" (I know, a regretful album title, there seem to be a lot of those lately) a feel akin to Village of Savoonga's "Score" but with a bit more kick, ie: beats. Works pretty well, although the voice samples of pointless crazy guy rambling (a la Godspeed) are a bit unnecessary.
1 SPEED BIKESomeone Told Me Life Gets Easier In Your 50's(Broklyn Beats)cd$ 14.98
Much like his American counterpart Kid 606, Montreal, Quebec's 1-Speed Bike makes IDM that's not afraid to nuzzle right up beside your tender ear, only to deliver a hefty dose of ripe and robust digital flatulence. Aidan Girt (also of the very differently minded Godspeed You Black Emperor and Exhaust) tailors his jagged tracks from heavy grit electronic sandpaper providing the maximum degree of aural abrasions. As his moniker implies this music pretty much travels at a singular pace... full throttle. Heaps of distorted digital spasms and splatters elbow their way through the thumpin' programmed thuds and crashes that only occasionally allow the rubble to settle into some sort of traceable rhythms. A side note: Girt's song titles are as smart-ass and in-your-face as his music (often more so). A sample: "If You Were A McDonalds, Your Lips Would Be An Orange Soda, But Your Dick Would Be A Shriveled-Up Fry". Aaaah, ma pomme frite malheureuse!
- MPEG stream: Cats Don't Judge People Do
- MPEG stream: My Dick Is This Small Because It's -40 Degrees F
10Kitsch(Maybe Mars)cd$ 12.98
We continue to dig into the Chinese underground, as we do with every list lately, tapping into what has become a surprisingly vibrant scene as of late, and one of our recent favorites is this group called 10, whose sound is super tripped out and abstract, psychedelic, spacey and swirly, rife with drifting voices, glitched out electronics, shifting textures and mutant rhythms. Where lots of the Chinese stuff we've been digging has owed a great sonic debt to classic American indie / college / noise rock, 10 definitely move way beyond all that, maybe closer in spirit to another recent aQ fave White+, but unlike the psychedelic krautrockiness of White+, 10 seems to fall somewhere closer to Japanese weirdos the Boredoms, or maybe even Gang Gang Dance. Their songs are super rhythmic and effects heavy, with driving beats, motorik grooves, and truly strange female vocals, witchy and shamanic. 10's music is way less pop, or even rock, than a lot of those other Chinese bands, and way more experimental, almost industrial in some places, noisy and chaotic and psychedelic in others. Raw, lo-fi, primitive but also ambitious, lots of rhythmic texture, haunting ambience, dronescapes bleed into hazy ambience, which blossom into spaced out avant free-rock freakouts, which in turn devolve into tripped out minimal dirge pop, or FX drenched drifts, or sprawling textured noise, or abstract vocal mantras, draped over Nurse With Wound like sound design. Super cool, weird and wonderful, and way recommended.
13 & GODs/t(Anticon / Alien Transistor)cd$ 14.98
This is essentially the perfect mix of Anticon's off kilter avant indie hip hop, and the Notwist's melancholy electronic bliss rock. Which makes perfect sense considering that 13 And God is made up of 3/5 of the Notwist (Markus and Micha Acher, Martin Gretschmann) and all of Anticon's Themselves (Doseone, Dax, and Jel). The rest of the Notwist (drummer Martin Messerschmid and guitarist Max Punktezahl) help with production and several tracks feature guest vocals from Steffi Bohm of Ms. John Soda and Valerie Trebeljahr of Lali Puna. That should give some idea of what 13 And God is all about. Dreamy expanses of melancholy glitchpop, wistful and wandering, simple shuffling and loping drum beats, fuzzy synth melodies, warm warbling loops, soft focused and otherworldly, and then the strange entangling of Notwist-like breathy effervescent vocals and Doesone's rapid fire tongue twisting helium affected flow. Seems like it would be a mess, but surprisingly, they manage to make it all fit perfectly. Fans of the Notwist's Neon Golden should find this essential (assuming they aren't averse to a little hip hop here and there) and fans of Themselves, Doseone and those sorts of things will most likely just find this to be yet another perfect piece in Anticon's always evolving musical puzzle.
- MPEG stream: Low Heaven
- MPEG stream: Men Of Station
- MPEG stream: Superman On Ice
1349 RYKKINNBrown Ring Of Fury(Jester )cd$ 14.98
Jester strikes again! After quite a few stellar releases by the likes of When, Ulver, Bogus Blimp, Kare Joao, Single Unit and others, this time the unpredictable (except for being predictably good) Norwegian avant-garde label Jester brings us another unknown quantity: the debut cd from something called 1349 Rykkin. Initially, this seemed like an exercise in distorted clobbering noise electronics with percussive hits and crunkly rhythms, definitely for fans of recent Merzbow and Kevin Drumm. Aggro but also varied and interesting. But, there's more -- four tracks in, the destructo stuff gives way to urban field recordings (passing cars, street sounds) and some really pretty, melancholic acoustic guitar playing in the form of "Field With Flowers In Crazy Colors", revealing Brown Ring Of Fury's sensitive side. Then the noise returns, but always, as before, with some left-field component. The penultimate track, "Best Boy", is also the album's epic centerpiece, being over 25 minutes of noise-throb akin to some ominous mechanical heartbeat, augmented with washes of spacey synth and vicious drones. Merzbow/Aube/Space Machine Japanoise territory here for sure. After that, there's a recording of some blokes in a bar on holiday (it seems) that makes for a confusing/bizarre/silly coda. Funny. Our research reveals that this disc is the work of one guy, Bard Erik Strand Torgersen, with help from a few friends (including Jester label boss Kristoffer Rygg, aka Garm of Ulver). 1349 refers to the year the Black Plague devastated Norway, and Rykkin is the suburb of Oslo where Torgersen grew up. Apparently he's a Norwegian techno pioneer who hasn't made music for years, this is a new direction for him and certainly far from "techno" as it's normally conceived! MPEG Download: "Extreme Sunlight" [/audio/1349extreme.mp3] MPEG Stream: "Extreme Sunlight" [/audio/1349extreme.m3u]
- MPEG stream: Extreme Sunlight
- MPEG stream: Fields With Flowers In Crazy Colors
15 DEAD MINUTES, THEScheming Things(Trensmat)lp$ 15.98
There's more to UK space/psych rock Trensmat than, well, space rock and psych rock. Sure their catalog reads like a primer on modern psychedelia - The Telescopes, Gnod, White Hills, Carlton Melton, Mugstar, Circle, Heavy Winged, that triple 7" Hawkwind tribute - but there have been plenty of outliers as well, the kosmische synth sprawl of Cloudland Canyon, the noisebliss of Our Love Will Destroy The World, the hypno-kraut grooves of Cave, and we could go on. But recently, the label seems to have been revealing another side, a more... electronic side. There was the twisted electronic weirdness of Tlaotlon, as well as the unexpected electronic turn on Gnod ultra minimal Presents... Dwellings & Druss, and now this, the first we've heard from The 15 Dead Minutes, who apparently have been a band for a decade plus, and who according to the label are infamous for some seriously intense live shows, but we're not talking rock shows obviously, we're talking sweaty underground danceclubs, strobelights and swirling smoke, this is some dense, rhythmic, druggy, post electro industrial throb, the band unfurling long sprawls of mesmerizing loops, and pulsing, pulsating rhythms, 303's, 909's, the sound raw and rough, dark and sinister, groovy and danceable sure, but all cast with a weird shadowy sonic underbelly, that infused the jams here with a definitely density and intensity. Four tracks, each one essentially a single blast of rhythmic crunch, or dizzying electro skitter, or spaced out abstract stutter. The opener "The Runaway" is thick and caustic, corrosive and crunchy, the sounds distorted and blown out, the vibe soundtracky as much as dancey; the follow up "Children Of The 303" gets way spacier and more minimal, the beats crackly and crunchy, but more spare and skeletal, a muted bass throb, the whole thing laced with some old school acid squelch. The flipside starts out with another bumping electro blowout, the sounds WAY more aggressive than most dance music, making this the sort of fierce industrial electro-crush, that even space heads and psychlords can get into. Cuz it most definitely is psychedelic, weird wavery minor key rhythms, dubbed out beats, woozy textures, loads of FX, all tangled up into some seriously fierce writhing sprawls of alien dancefloor mesmer, culminating in the droned out minimal murk of closer "Internal Dialogue", which more than any of the tracks here reminds us of recent dark abstract electronica from folks like Silent Servant and Prurient. The lp includes a download, that gets you the four album tracks proper, but also two bonus tracks, both of which are heady bass heavy slabs of noise drenched psychedelic electro. Already sold out at the label, these are the last copies we'll likely be able to get...
- MPEG stream: The Runaway
- MPEG stream: Children Of The 303
- MPEG stream: Internal Dialogue
16 BITPut Ya Dirt Inside(Destub)10"$ 13.98
16 BITCH PILE-UP / MIKE SHIFLETsplit(Ecstatic Peace)12"$ 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
16-17Human Distortion(DHR)cdep$ 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY. Swiss jazzcore group lead by saxophonist Alex Buess, with production assistance from Techno-Animal's Kevin Martin, contribute four tracks to the Digital Hardcore label. Strangely, not as brutal as some of their past work (like the amazing Gyatso cd) but still brilliant, similiar in some ways to DHR's Shizuo. Recommended.
16-17When All Else Fails...(Vision)lp$ 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY. A couple of copies of this 1989 lp found their way out of the hidden corners of one of our distributors' warehouses... 16-17, who recently released an ep on Digital Hardcore, are a Swiss outfit led by horn player Alex Buess, who unleash a seemingly never-ending avalanche of sax squeals and skronks on top of bleating electronics and high-octane drum machine arrhythmia. Intense! (and, you're not likely to see this again!)
18+Trust(Houndstooth)cd$ 16.98
Debut full length from this boy/girl duo, who traffic in a twisted strain of avant electro pop, dark and moody, gleefully profane, and woozily hypnotic. It's a dizzying concoction, equal parts the murky slo-mo soul of groups like Vessel, oOoOO, the low slung downtempo of Portishead, and the eighties new wave pop of Berlin maybe. Trust unfurls like skeletal minimal electro pop, all primitive drum machine and glimmering synths, but this is far from straight up electro pop, it's twisted and experimental, with a drugged out witch-house feel, and yet somehow remaining glistening and futuristic and super polished. We also get a Blade Runner / Blue Velvet vibe, especially in the vox, the female vocals detached, sung-spoken, icy and witchy but so creepily sexy, just check out "Midnight Lucy" which might be our favorite of the bunch, with a cosmic bleeping, blooping melody, surrounded by clouds of birdsong, the boy, for some reason, clearing his throat occasionally, while the girl gets all ice queen, and delivers some of the record's best/most ridiculous lyrics. There's some sort of rapping too, but the chorus is a killer, it's the sort of track that you could imagine spinning in a scene from some weird art film, a dance floor filled with dead eyed club zombies, shuffling slowly in clouds of dry ice, it's mesmerizing and hypnotic, a slow motion anthem, that twists and turns continually, with some falsetto crooning woven in, the song gradually fading out in yet another cloud of birds. The bird theme resurfaces on "Crow", a sort of subtle banger with a beat crafted from the caw of a crow. And while it's really the girl's show, the boy's vocals are pretty great too, and all over the map, a hushed whisper most of the time, but sometimes slipping into some proper crooning (check out "Almost Leaving"), and when he raps, he somehow sounds a little bit like a less ridiculous Hawd Gangstuh Rappuhs MC's Wid Gatz! The sound is in constant flux, whether it's the crumbling ambience of "Jets", with its stuttery, syrupy groove, or the echo drenched dubbiness of "Drawl", that dubbiness wrapped in thick rumbling synths, or the barebones dreaminess of "Leaving", or the hazy hip-hoppiness of "OIXU", which features some nasty vox, which when slathered in vocoder remind us a little of a more wasted Uffie, or the string laden "Son", which also features some super weird FX heavy pitch shifted vocals. The tracks the boy sings reminds us of Tricky a lot of the time, the same sort of mumbling minimal beatscapery, super moody and murky, but here a bit more fractured and fucked up. We weren't entirely sure what to make of this on the first few listens, the girl's vox are definitely a bit of an acquired taste, but honestly, it didn't take us long at all to acquire it, and now we're kind of obsessed, and find ourselves wanting to listen to little else.
- MPEG stream: All The Time
- MPEG stream: Midnight Lucy
- MPEG stream: Dry
2562Aerial(Baked Goods)cd$ 15.98
2562Techno Dread(Tectonic)12"$ 12.98
2562Unbalance(Tectonic)cd$ 15.98
- MPEG stream: Flashback
- MPEG stream: Lost
- MPEG stream: Like A Dream
2ND GENIrony Is(Mute)cd$ 15.98
2nd Gen is the work of Manchester's Wajid Yaseen, whose blistering shards of electro-shock hip-hop have graced a good number of Mille Plateaux's "Electric Ladyland" compilations alongside Alec Empire, Techno Animal, and Fever. "Irony Is" finds itself
3+Kazesarai [Deluxe Version](Time Released Sound)cd$ 60.00
Another list, another fantastic new release from local label Time Released Sound. By now, regular readers of the aQ list are no doubt familiar with the musical focus of TRS: gorgeous field recording flecked ambience, pastoral dream folk, hushed, haunting dronemusic, gentle electronic soundscapery, lush cinematic shimmers; each record another glimmering facet in TRS's prismatic world of sound. Their latest melancholy musical missive comes from Japanese pianist/soundscaper Masashi Shiraishi, aka 3+, who sets his delicate crystalline piano pieces amidst the rustle of crashing waves, letting his softly reverbed notes drift through fields of ephemeral electronics, or settle gracefully like leaves falling from Autumn trees. Imagine Ryuichi Sakamoto, set up on a grassy hilltop on the coast, above a grey sea, the waves crashing on the rocks far below. Occasionally strings drift in, adding a bit of near symphonic gravitas. In places, this blissed out melancholia is threatened by swaths of deep resonant buzz, or alternately flecked with the distinctive twang of a mouth harp, or even woven into a brooding dark jazz reminiscent of The Necks or Bohren & Der Club Of Gore. There are moments of soundtrack like mood music, heart wrenching and dreamlike, there are moments where the piano is wrapped in a dense fog of modern minimalism, all rib cage rattling low end, and gristly, glitchy static, and there are moments where the individual notes seem to bleed and blur into woozy swaths of sound, but throughout it all, Shiraishi proves a master of mood and melancholy, the sounds here grey and cloudy and windswept, darkly dreamy and really quite divine. As always, there are two versions, the standard, which comes in a full color digipak and is limited to 200 copies, and the ultra fancy, meticulously handmade, deluxe version, limited to just 90 copies, of which we have a tiny handful, housed in a 6" square collaged green envelope, which in turn is wrapped in a hand stamped and tagged, translucent vellum outer envelope, held shut by a full tissue 'obi' made from the pages of a 50 year old book on Bonseki (tray landscape art, a little like Bonsai). The 'obi' can be removed, and wrapped around a votive candle to make a miniature paper lantern. There's also a second inner sleeve made from the pages of a vintage book of Japanese flower and pattern design! Phew! Fans of Anton Batagov and Lubomyr Melnyk, this comes HIGHLY recommended!!
- MPEG stream: Kazesarai - Enchained Dark And Blink
- MPEG stream: Myou Getsu
- MPEG stream: Tentolori
- MPEG stream: Hiltosarai
3+Kazesarai [Regular Version](Time Released Sound)cd$ 14.98
Another list, another fantastic new release from local label Time Released Sound. By now, regular readers of the aQ list are no doubt familiar with the musical focus of TRS: gorgeous field recording flecked ambience, pastoral dream folk, hushed, haunting dronemusic, gentle electronic soundscapery, lush cinematic shimmers; each record another glimmering facet in TRS's prismatic world of sound. Their latest melancholy musical missive comes from Japanese pianist/soundscaper Masashi Shiraishi, aka 3+, who sets his delicate crystalline piano pieces amidst the rustle of crashing waves, letting his softly reverbed notes drift through fields of ephemeral electronics, or settle gracefully like leaves falling from Autumn trees. Imagine Ryuichi Sakamoto, set up on a grassy hilltop on the coast, above a grey sea, the waves crashing on the rocks far below. Occasionally strings drift in, adding a bit of near symphonic gravitas. In places, this blissed out melancholia is threatened by swaths of deep resonant buzz, or alternately flecked with the distinctive twang of a mouth harp, or even woven into a brooding dark jazz reminiscent of The Necks or Bohren & Der Club Of Gore. There are moments of soundtrack like mood music, heart wrenching and dreamlike, there are moments where the piano is wrapped in a dense fog of modern minimalism, all rib cage rattling low end, and gristly, glitchy static, and there are moments where the individual notes seem to bleed and blur into woozy swaths of sound, but throughout it all, Shiraishi proves a master of mood and melancholy, the sounds here grey and cloudy and windswept, darkly dreamy and really quite divine. As always, there are two versions, the standard, which comes in a full color digipak and is limited to 200 copies, and the ultra fancy, meticulously handmade, deluxe version, limited to just 90 copies, of which we have a tiny handful, housed in a 6" square collaged green envelope, which in turn is wrapped in a hand stamped and tagged, translucent vellum outer envelope, held shut by a full tissue 'obi' made from the pages of a 50 year old book on Bonseki (tray landscape art, a little like Bonsai). The 'obi' can be removed, and wrapped around a votive candle to make a miniature paper lantern. There's also a second inner sleeve made from the pages of a vintage book of Japanese flower and pattern design! Whew! Fans of Anton Batagov and Lubomyr Melnyk, this comes HIGHLY recommended!!
- MPEG stream: Kazesarai - Enchained Dark And Blink
- MPEG stream: Myou Getsu
- MPEG stream: Tentolori
- MPEG stream: Hiltosarai
310After All(Leaf)cd$ 16.98
With Kruder & Dorfmeister and Thievery Corporation striving for the lowest common denominator, trip hop hasn't been an arena of adventurous music for many years now. It could be due to hip hop's increasing appetite for eccentric production (see the latest Missy Elliot record, Anticon, Chocolate Industries, etc), which has diminished the interest in instrumental hip hop (a slightly
- RealAudio clip: An Seanachi
310Nod(Leaf)12"$ 8.98
310Nothing To See Here(Desolat)cd$ 14.98
Simply subtitled "Short Stories by 310," "Nothing To See Here" lives up to its name as a series of short tracks culled from processed field recordings of waves crashing, creaking floors, crickets, Southern gospel call-and-response choirs, distant church
- RealAudio clip: Nothing To See Here 4
- RealAudio clip: Nothing To See Here 6
310Recessional(Leaf)cd$ 15.98
4MOD3A Translation of Simplicity(Phthalo)cdr$ 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY. One of the cd-r releases from Phthalo with an edition of 250, 4mod3 is the work of SF electronica genius Kit Clayton. Recorded in early 1999, "A Translation of Simpilicity" is a precursor to the neo-dub mastered on Clayton's albums for Scape. Setting up what could be an aquatic virtual sound arena, Clayton's highly processed glitches float to the surface with all of the erratic behaviour of air bubbles around reverberant sonar-dub tones and hypnotic downtempo rhythms. Brilliant as always.
5TURNS25Evolution of the Human Heart(Time Released Sound)cd-r$ 40.00
The latest ultra limited and lovingly handmade release from SF one man label Time Released Sound. And actually, calling TRS merely a label does not at all do justice to the things he puts out. In some ways it's almost more art than music. Sure we're a record store, so we get these and think, wow, this amazing record has the most incredible packaging. But taking a step back, it's easy to imagine just the opposite, the man behind TRS is an artist, and each new 'piece' just so happens to be accompanied by a soundtrack. Either way, it's pretty impossible to resist, and pretty much every music nerd we know, has gone nuts for this stuff, and a little bit obsessed with the label, so much so that we have standing orders for ANYTHING Time Released Sound puts out (just ask, we can add you to the list). This latest release/art object comes courtesy of a duo from the Northeast US who call themselves 5Turns25, and who specialize in a sort of electronic flecked ambient folk, reminding us a bit at times of aQ beloved Rameses III, the same sort of pastoral drift, skeletal acoustic guitars, thick undulating drones, swirls of washed out shimmer, a sort of droney drifty Appalachia at times, something much more hushed and intimate at others, the sound lush and expansive, as capable of blossoming into a rich majestic epic as floating lazy through soft clouds of whir and thrum. Some of the tracks have a sort of Avarus vibe, not so clattery or free, but a kind of foresty folk. The guitar here is the main instrument, weaving gorgeous lilting melodies, swirls of chordal hum, all over a constantly shifting bed of muted industrial sounds, hushed FX and blurred dreamlike ambience. The band records in an old barn, and the music is thus peppered with sonic evidence of their location, creaks and groans woven right into the music. Crystalline and glimmering and so lovely, which is of course reflected in the insanely elaborate and impossibly meticulously crafted packaging. Where to begin? The cd-r itself has a full color face, and is housed in a fabric sleeve, there are two inserts, printed on thick textured paper, with strange stickers affixed in various places to interact with the printed images, with art, and liner notes, a discography, there's also a hand worked / collaged notebook page with original art, each one unique. Affixed to the notebook page are a pair of mismatched clock hands, everything housed in an oversized vellum sleeve, printed and stamped, this one featuring an elaborately cut front panel, with the images of clocks punched out of a smoked white sheet of plastic, held to the vellum sleeve by a hand printed Japanese style obi. Phew! So wonderful, sonically and visually, worth every penny! LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, we have just 15, and that's all we'll be able to get!
- MPEG stream: Beneath The Noise
- MPEG stream: Money In Hand
- MPEG stream: Snowy Future
6666 (DJ 6666 FEAT. THE ILLEGAL)Death Breathing(DHR)cd$ 22.00
6BLOCC VS. R.A.W.Live At Various 7.5.08(Various Bass PDX)cd-r$ 9.98
Another bad ass live set, equal parts weirdo mash up, speaker rattling dubstep and dancehall, pounding old school jungle, abstract hip hop, all wound into an action packed hour long ass shaking, bass heavy, big beat blow out. Courtesy of our pals at Lo Dubs, who brought us the atmospheric dubstep of Clubroot, the bad ass Starkey mix from a while back, as well as a mess of killer 12"s. This live set is packed with tons of unreleased dubplates, mixed with a handful of classics. Dismiss the opening chunk of Rush's "Tom Sawyer", at least until it gets all tangled up with some rad jungle beats and we're off, Ice Cube, Ninja Man, Shabba Ranks, Cutty Ranks, Mobb Deep, Capleton, Dread Foxx, Pharoahe Monch and more, but even the tracks we recognize are all chopped up and slung over different beats, records are stuttered and stopped, rewound and played again, over a different beat, or a different vocal, classic hip hop gets all dubbed out, toasting, drill and bass, classic jungle, all wrapped around wild flows, the beats are big, the bass thick and wobbly, when the mix slips into dubstep, it's some of the heaviest sickest shit you've heard, skittery, stuttery and downright heavy, woven into old school dub, or pulled apart into super spaced out minimal pulses, wild and totally all over the map, but heavy on the bass, and the big beats, the dubstep and the DUB. Easily one of the coolest mixes we've heard lately. And CRAZY LIMITED, pressed up for a tour, we have a handful of copies, but odds are these will be the last ones we see...
8-BIT OPERATORSThe Music Of Kraftwerk(Astralwerks)cd$ 14.98
8-bit tribute to Kraftwerk. Almost sounds TOO Kraftwerky if you know what we mean. How 'bout an 8-bit tribute to, uh, Amon Duul, now that would be interesting.
9DW / BORISGolden Dance Classics(Catune)cd$ 16.98
It's been a while since we've heard from Boris, mostly because they've seemingly been touring non stop for the last few years, but it looks like finally some new music is happening, including a forthcoming split with low end sludge popppers Torche, and this, another split with a Japanese band we've never heard of called 9DW, who as far as we can tell is sonically about as far removed from Boris as any band could be. A sort of eighties cosmic disco, like a way less edgier Justice maybe. More on those tracks in a second, since odds are most aQ customers will be all over this for the two brand new Boris tracks. But be warned, not sure if it's a general shift in sound, or they were just trying to mix it up for this split, but this is Boris like you've never heard them. The first Boris track, "Tokyo Wonder Land", in a blind listening test, everyone here, when asked who they though it was, invariably said Ariel Pink, or John Maus, yep, a warbly warped blurry lo fi alien FM radio pop, with primitive drum machine, mumbled vocals, shimmery eighties production, whirring synths, jangly reverbed guitar, buzzy rubbery cop show basslines, super woozy and trippy and WAY druggy, there are even some falsetto 'oooh's. It only really gets Boris-y briefly in the middle with a wild tangle of super distorted psychedelic leads. Woah, What the fuck? Not sure what's going on, or what happened, but we are digging it BIG time, in fact, we might go so far as to say, this is one of our favorite Boris jams in ages, as is the second track here, "Akirame Flower", which finds Boris in full on washed out bleary eared nineties shoegaze mode, My Bloody Valentine, Bailter Space, fuzz guitar, weary vox, tons of delay and reverb and effects, all smeared and blurred into a gorgeous hazy 16 Candles / Dinosaur Jr / M83 soft focus, dream jam. Fuck. Awesome. So what the heck are Boris doing with a band like 9DW? Can't say, and can't really say, how often we'll find ourselves listening to their two tracks, groovy, slightly jazzy, a little house-y, definitely eighties, not one guy, an actual band, sounds a bit like M83 if he were to do a techno record, stir in a little Justice stomp, some post rocky skittery, looped synths, and some total eighties MTV new romantic guitar jangle, a little Shadowfax and some worrisome funkiness... But fuck it, Boris is why you're here, and if you're an adventurous Boris fan, who won't be disappointed by the lack of fuzzed out buzzy psych rock, then two Boris jams will kick your ass something good. Dying to hear if they continue on in this direction, and give the rest of the warbly new wave noise pop outsiders a run for their warped druggy money.
- MPEG stream: Stingray
- MPEG stream: Tokyo Wonder Land
A GUY CALLED GERALDEssence(Studio K7)cd$ 17.98
A drum & bass styled outing for this famed electronica producer-guy (David Bowie!).
A.R. & MACHINESEchoes From Times Of The Green Journey(Polydor)cd$ 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY. An anthology of the hypnotic output of this krautrock/electronica pioneer, taken from albums spanning the years 1971 to 1975. Beautiful, rhythmic stuff, way ahead of its time. For fans of Frippertronics, Cluster, Neu, Kraftwerk, Can, and (more recently) Kriedler. Not new, but we just got a few of this fantastic disc at a bargain price, so we thought we'd list it, get it while you can. We've had it before for 19 bucks and it was worth it at that price too!
AAIMONAmen(Klangverhaeltnisse)cassette$ 9.98
It's easy to tell something very witch housey is going on with these guys, present are all the usual signifiers, the band name is actually spelled with a triangle instead of the first 'A' in the band name, the song titles are a mix of lower case and capital letters, as well as all manner of symbols, but the proof as they say is in the creepy, electronic gloom pop ambience, and so it is, as the band unfurls a haunting expanse of swirling ominous ambient synthscapery, before the beats kick, an awesomely distorted and blown out dream-drag groove, a little bit skitter, the beats crumbling in clouds of buzz and crackle, the opener is super epic, almost a sort of cinematic theme type vibe, you can almost imagine some backlit figures walking in slow motion through the ruins of some old Victorian ballroom. And so it goes, we're gonna stop feeling like we need to defend witch house, cuz separated from the blog hyped hipster championed genre signifier, there's very little NOT to dig about this stuff, and this tape in particular. The second track offers up a sort of decayed Portishead, a skittery slowcore downtempo creep, the vocals an almost death metal cookie monster growl, but slowed way down so it sounds even more demonic, the in-the-red synth stabs, that sound more like a malfunctioning dubstep bass wobble only add to the woozy off kilter feel. There are of course creepy angelic (demonic?) female vox, gloomy and gothy and dreamy, with later tracks almost sounding like bastardized gloom pop versions of radio ballads. For everyone into Zola Jesus, LA Vampires, Circuit Des Yeux, Esben And The Witch, as well as the usual witch house culprits like Salem, Mellow Grave and Mater Suspiria Vision. But again, unlike those outfits, Aimon deliver something more darkly dreary and fuzzy, gloom-poppy and bestially balladic. Of course as these things always are, EXTREMELY LIMITED, includes a download coupon as well!
AAVIKKONovo Atlantis(Stupido)cd$ 17.98
Electronic. Muysic. Finland. When we see those three words, which appear in small type on the top right corner of the cover to this album, we get pretty excited. Even when Music is spelled Muysic. ESPECIALLY when it's spelled like that. 'Cause that's means it's an Aavikko album. The mostly instrumental Finnish synthesizer/synthesizer/drums trio's new disc, Novo Atlantis, is finally here! Now, each album of theirs has always been a little bit different, but we've always loved Aavikko, from their early "maniacal monkey jazz" days as a lo-fi Casiocore band circa 1997's Derek to their more recent and polished productions of space age bachelor pad exotica like 2005's Back From The Futer. So what's in store for listeners on Novo Atlantis? Initially we were struck by this album's even MORE electronic sound, taking Aavikko into techno-disco territory, more computery, less live band sounding. Though human metronome Tomi Leppanen (also the drummer for AQ faves Circle) is still behind the drum kit, there's plenty of purely electronic beats and rhythms on here it seems. Yet at the same time, this album also features French horn, trombone, trumpet, tuba, and even church pipe organ!! So while on one had it's all very futuristic (in a spaced out cosmic disco way), this also takes inspiration from way way back, the pre-electronic, classical music era in fact. You could call Novo Atlantis the "switched-on Bach" version of Aavikko, or more precisely, "switched-on Hoppel", Egil Hoppel allegedly being an obscure Finnish composer of the baroque period, discussed in the sleeve notes of Novo Atlantis. Supposedly he was some sort of child prodigy (he only lived 1722-1737!), an organist whose music has apparently become a major influence on Aavikko's new direction. We say allegedly and supposedly since we halfway suspect they made him him up, that he's a hoax much like those "funerary violin" fellows. Probably some quick Googling would resolve the question, but we prefer not to know for sure. If Aavikko invented him, they certainly were thorough about it - there are two purported Hoppel compositions included on the cd format as a hidden bonus track (we won't tell you how to find it, but check out our review of the most recent Agoraphobic Nosebleed disc for a clue!). And having heard those, it does seem like you can hear Hoppel's purported influence right in this disc's very first track, "Syntaksis", which definitely has an Aavikko goes classical feel, like a lot of the stuff here having shades of the "classically trained" approach of all those Moog-laden '70s prog keyboard bands a la ELP and krautrockers Novalis... But don't let that make you think this is somehow stuffy, over-serious or highbrow or whatever, nope not at all, far from it as any Aavikko fan would guess. While it's got its moody moments, most of Novo Atlantis is percolating, infectious electronic fun. Super groovy, quirky, krauty - in the Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder sense of krauty. The album ends with what must be Aavikko's longest track ever, the 15 minutes of "Novo Atlantis II". Wow, quite an epic, with echoes of Joe Meek's "Telstar" in its melodies, and long mesmeric burbling sequencer trance-outs, something like early '80s Tangerine Dream, Wolfgang Duren, or Zombi's "Sapphire". A Lindstrom remix seems to be in order, where is it? Certainly Aavikko's new album fits nicely into the current disco craze. It also goes well with our obsession with skweee, too. Electronic muysic Finland, hooray!
- MPEG stream: Syntaksis
- MPEG stream: Dies Irae Discodelico
- MPEG stream: Novo Atlantis II
AAVIKKOPlanet Fun-Fun(Muysic For Peoples)lp$ 27.00
Yay! We LOVE Aavikko. This would belong at the top of the list even if their name didn't start with two A's. It's been a long four years since Aavikko last entertained us, with 2009's Novo Atlantis, and we've been jonesin' for more of this trio's delightful Finnish synthbeat krautgroove "monkey-jazz" weirdness, or as they put it, "Synthesator Disco Muysic Finland". True, this new release is but a "mini-album", but it'll do. It'll do nicely. Six new tracks, totaling 27 minutes, of spacey synthy discofied burble from another planet - Planet Fun-Fun! Two of the tracks feature some vocal parts, a rarity from this usually-instrumental outfit, they're provided by guests including Swedish singer & "Pop-Sensation" Slobyn. With vocals or without, electronic synthesizer sounds whoosh and swoosh and zap and zip - and form catchy melodies - whilst precision drum beats percolate incessantly & infectiously. Those beats are of course provided by the "human metronome" known as Tomi Leppanen from those other Finnish aQ faves, Circle (he's also in Pharaoh Overlord, K-X-P, and a bunch of other bands too). Meanwhile, Tomi Kosonen and Paul Staufenbiel both man the synths, with Staufenbiel being the band's main songwriter - which is why he gets his bust on the cover, as if he were a classical composer, this bit of hubris merely an example of typical Aavikko absurdity. (Busts of the other two appear on the back cover.) Kosonen also plays the "electronic wind instrument", some kind of a synth-sax, adding an extra jazzy touch. There's some electric guitar on at least one track too, apparently for the first time ever on an Aavikko recording, from another guest, a guy from a death metal band we think (?). All all it's what we want from Aavikko: quirky, poppy, synth-laden good times!! They mix together Moroder-esque Italo-disco, space age bachelor pad exotica, cosmic experimental electronics, skweee-like video-game funk, faux-classical motifs, and more into these fun-fun tunes that you'll be flipping over repeatedly (both you and the record we mean) as you play it again and again. Or so we assume you will, unless you a have a cold, serious heart of stone. And this might even fix that. Limited-edition 12" vinyl only. Includes an mp3 download card, however!
ABBOTT, LUKEHolkham Drones(Borders Community)cd$ 16.98
This has just about everything we love in an electronica record. It's got enough melody and rolling rhythms to allow for serious high rotation listening but its the nuances and unique take on an almost kraut-techno like vibe that has made us fall so hard for Holkham Drones. This is turning out to be one of the most unique electronica records we've heard in a long time. As it's not just an easy fit into a certain specific all the rage sub-genre, but instead it really is the essence of what we thought IDM was supposed to be all about. Music that pulls from minimalism and cosmic kraut sounds yet also is so full of fractured color and a melting Technicolor warmth. Like Gui Boratto being remixed by Arp or Emeralds and Oneohtrix Point Never paired with Four Tet and given the task of reimagining tracks from Cluster's Zuckerzeit album. This is the kind of record that will draw in both fans of minimal techno and left-field electronica as much as it will fans of hypnogogic pop and washed out psychedelic weirdness. We've been blasting this so much in the store and in our headphones as it really is one of those records that is perfect for the imaginary warped and woozy dancefloor we have in our heads. So great!
- MPEG stream: 2nd 5th Heavy
- MPEG stream: Soft Attacks
- MPEG stream: Sirens For The Colour
ABDU ALIInfinity Epiphanies(Araca)7"$ 8.98
We loved the Public Guilt label, who brought us so many amazing releases - from the occult rock of Aluk Todolo, to the glacial avant doom of Habsyll; from the noise-jazz of Zu, to the spaced out dronescapery of Destructo Swarmbots; from the experimental turntablism of Strotter Inst, to the alchemical folk of Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat, and so much more. We were bummed when Public Guilt decided to call it a day, but were super excited to discover that PG mastermind JR was back with a new label, one that maybe surprisingly is focused entirely on underground / outsider hip hop and club music, all 45rpm 7"s, and all pretty goddamn great. First up is this blast of crunchy, distorted B-more noise-hop, courtesy of Abdu Ali, whose sound is all club music drum skitter, big distorted bass throb, some dubsteppy bass wobble, and a wild flow that had us imagining him toasting over a Bug track, and really, The Bug is not a bad reference, this is futuristic club music, hints of old school DHR, a little dancehall, definitely noisy, but groovy and funky as fuck, the sort of bangers that must send the dancefloor into a frenzy, and even if you're averse to actually making it out on the floor, strap on some headphones, and dig into the twisted, avant production, sounds swirl, beats fracture, melodies crumble, grinding, frantic, electro freak-outs that lurch from noisy funky stutter to almost cinematic sounding big beat bombast. Killer stuff. Definitely wanna hear more, and super duper psyched on JR's new label!! LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!!
- MPEG stream: Say Something
- MPEG stream: Shiva
ABOUTBongo(Cock Rock Disco)cd$ 14.98
ABRAMS, DANStream(Mille Plateaux)cd$ 16.98
The latest offspring in Mille Plateaux's propagation of minimalist techno comes from Los Angeles graphic designer Dan Abrams, who continues the trend of elegeat glitch techno also heard from SND, Andreas Tilliander, Mikael Stavostrand, and Taylor Deupree.
ABSTRACKT KEAL AGRAMBad Thriller(Gooom)cd$ 15.98
Finally back in stock again!! How does Gooom do it? Where do these bands come from? (I know, I know, France...) Release after release, they somehow dig up more and more amazingly breathtaking slabs of fuzzy, droney, poppy, rocking electronic weirdness. Bad Thriller is no different. The newest record from the bizarrely named Abstrackt Keal Agram is quite possibly our favorite Gooom release since the mighty M83. Like M83, AKA also dabble in fuzzed out My Bloody Valentine worship, skittery glitched out electronica, and murky creepy atmospherics. But where M83 are all glistening sparkling effervescence and warm pulsing throb, AKA are a much darker proposition, falling somewhere between the epic downer ambience of Godspeed, the shuffling glitch pop of the Notwist and the bastardized hip hop of some of the weirder Anticon artists. Drone-y and moody melancholia woven from spare acoustic guitars, heavy fuzzy electronic organs, squiggly synthesizers spitting out dizzying melodies, mumbly sadboy vocals, stuttering, a vast array of alien sounds and even more alien soundscapes and all sorts of unfunky drum programming and live drums. And it is most definitely about the rhythms. The whole record is an experiment in rhythmic juxtaposition. Warm languid indie rock or fuzzed out shoe-gazey bliss pop or dreamy epic instrumentals, all demarcated by beautifully damaged rhythms that shift from song to song, and sometimes even in the course of a single track, funky almost hip hop drums, stumbling, seemingly random rhythmic chaos, big booming simplicity or dense complex Autechre-ish programming. Sounds like it could be a mess but it all falls (im)perfectly into place. A gorgeously unlikely electronic indie pop dipped in a thick viscous druggy space fuzz. The biggest surprise though is track two, which is straight up hip hop! Somehow it fits though, a chaotic Anticon / Mush sort of number, with multiple whining whiteboy flows, chaotic funky bounce and lots of weird loops and samples. Turntables do surface occasionally throughout the rest of the record, as do some Anticon-ish moments, but in more of an ambient supporting role to the overall buzzing fuzzy murky sonic dreaminess. Once again, SO GOOD!
- MPEG stream: Bad Thriller
- MPEG stream: Ghost Version (+ Atoms Family)
- MPEG stream: Riviere
ABSTRACKT KEAL AGRAMCluster Ville(Gooom)cd$ 15.98
The last AKA record was such a huge hit around these parts we figured we would go back a bit and track down their earlier album. And good thing we did 'cause it's pretty darn great. On Bad Thriller, AKA spun a sugary web of M83-ish shoegazey blisspop, with the occasional bit of glitchy electronica and out of left field hip hoppery. Well, here we are back a few years and AKA's penchant for hip hop is in full effect. And it definitely suits them. The record is a dark, head nodding assemblage of DJ Shadow-ish ambient groovescapes, and full on hip hop. But the hip hop is constructed from the Gooom sonic staples we should all be familiar with by now, blissed out slightly melancholic ambience, buzzy fuzzy summer-y day soundscapes, electronic birds singing, digital clouds drifting by, occasional DJ scratching. Think M83 meets Boards Of Canada with Del or Sensational rapping. A super dense and a rich sonic stew of trad hip hop, modern glitch pop, eighties shoe gaze, a truly weird concoction, but it works somehow. Might be too much rapping for some (those of you coming at it from the fuzz pop angle) but avant hip hop headz will be blown away and anyone who's been jonesing for a record that hits the same sweet spot Shadow's Endtroducing did, should definitely check this out!
- MPEG stream: Del
- MPEG stream: Piece
- MPEG stream: Brouillard
AC/3PWatch Me Explode(Spasticated)cd$ 12.98
From the folks who brought us the hilarious/funky/brilliantly twisted Ministry Of Shit compilation reviewed some lists ago, comes this blast of weird and silly electronic dementia. Did you love the recent Powerslaves record of the week, that selection of Iron Maiden tracks done electro style? Well, then this *might* just hit the same sweet spot. AC/DC covers, done lo-fi midi style, with a vocalist that sounds like a strange hybrid of Anton Maiden and Udo Dirkschneider from Accept, sometimes giving a homoerotic twist to the lyrics. Dumb? Absolutely. Funny? Maybe. Do you need this? Uh, definitely!
- MPEG stream: Hells Bells
- MPEG stream: Whole Lotta Woman
ACCELERA DECKSunstrings ep(Scarcelight)cd ep$ 8.98
ACTRESSGhettoville(Ninja Tune)cd$ 14.98
We described the 2012 R.I.P. album from Actress, aka Darren Cunningham, like this: "subtly detailed, psychedelic sonic prisms drip playfully onto murky haunted fuzz-drones, other worldly squelches and squiggles interplay with analog drum machines, and science fiction melodies get tangled up with hazy, half remembered samples, creating an electronic alchemy that of which this world has never seen!" Tall praise for sure, but that record, was a unanimous store fave, and got played to death in the shop. So the prospect of a new record had us all pretty excited. And while we were expecting, maybe even hoping for, more of the same, the sound on Ghettoville is much darker and more minimal. Which if you know anything about us, is most definitely not a bad thing AT ALL. Things do still get woozy and alien and psychedelic, the sounds are in constant flux, but at least for the first half of the record, the vibe is super chill, low slung, and washed out. "Forgiven" sets the tone, with a sprawling, slo-mo slither, a gorgeous bit of downtempo slowcore, laced with field recordings, and little bits of gristle and rumble, but all anchored by a glitchy skeletal rhythm, and bolstered by some thick low end swells, it's the sort of dreamlike dirgery that could have stretched out for the entirety of the record, and we would have dug it just as much. If not even MORE!!! But this is Actress after all, so sonic restlessness manifests itself in the form of constant sonic shifts, although as we mentioned, things stay pretty murky in the early stages, so "Street Corp." is more of the same, an almost jazzy skitter, wreathed in crunchy crackle, a submerged bass pulsation, eventually, some soft billowy shimmer surface in the background, but again, a track that ends WAY too soon. "Corner" adds a bit of lo-fi hip-hop swagger, but casts it like those first two tracks in shadow, the edges blurred and smeared, everything sort of hazy and darkly druggy. "Contagious" is another beauty, almost metallic, industrial, a heaving distorted dirge, heavy and haunting, still super lo-fi, but with a different production, it could rival outfits like Nadja or the Angelic Process, bleary metalgaze churn that takes the dubbed out murk of Burial, and adds some serious heft. It's right around here, that Actress starts sonically drifting into less shadowy spaces, with some chiming, almost Pop Ambient shimmer, some dreamy prismatic electro, even some almost new wave-y sounding house music, but even then, the sound remains gorgeously woozy and washed out, a little bit alien, and for every moment like that, there's another one like "Frontline" near the end of the record, that takes some groovy house, and submerges it in thick, tarpit murk, gristly static, hazy thrum, and again recasts it as something swirly and shadowy and sublime!
- MPEG stream: Forgiven
- MPEG stream: Street Corp.
- MPEG stream: Contagious
- MPEG stream: Frontline
ACTRESSHazyville(Werk Discs)cd$ 17.98
We only just discovered one man UK electronica outfit Actress a few weeks ago, when we reviewed their (his) record Splazsh, and we flipped, proclaiming it electronic record of the year, describing it as "a dizzyingly varied and truly curious collection of post techno minimal skitterscapes, abstract rhythmic mystery, and playful electronic weirdness, looping and repetitive and hypnotic, truncated vocals worked into strange circular figures, and then laced over muted thumps and shuffling laid back pulses, fields of glitch and squelch rain down on glimmering fields of chiming melody and twisted Pop Ambience." So of course we immediately tracked down the first Actress records, and goddamn if it's not just as good. Another tripped out assemblage of fucked up sounds and fractured beats, so weird and wonderful, in some ways we wonder how this stuff ever appealed to regular dance music / e-music folks at all, hell, maybe it didn't, or maybe we're not giving folks enough credit. Be damn difficult to dance to this stuff, but if you're in the market for some head nodding, psychedelic, warped electronic ear candy, then this is for YOU. Right from the start, you can tell this is not a normal electronica record, with muted muddied loops swirling and whirling beneath mechanical skitter, and strange chopped up voices, constantly shifting, but never really going anywhere, but why would you want it to? It's a heady tranced out weirdo loopscape. Which leads directly into the appropriately titled "Hazylude" which is indeed a hazy blissed out dronedrift interlude, that segues into "Doggin'", a warbly, skitter-laced bit of woozy electronic ambience, sounding like the tape is warped, and the drum machine is malfunctioning, but it's all wrapped in a gauzy big of shimmer and whir, making it hypnotic and dreamlike as well as twisted and tweaked. There's no real way to describe Actress except by going song by song, there is a thread that connects all the various sounds, but we're not sure exactly what it is, and even if we did know, not sure we could describe it. Probably better to just go with it, get lost, let the sounds push and pull, drag you wherever they may, whether it's some loping locked groove exotica, or some beep-click Rater-Noton style minimalism, or warm washed out hazy heroin house, or squelchy avant electro, or even blurred prismatic outsider IDM, it's all gorgeously twisted, and like Splazsh, we can't seem to get enough. Now we have to figure out what year this came out originally so we can retroactively proclaim this the electronic record of whatever-that-year-was. Can't wait for next year now...
- MPEG stream: Again The Addiction
- MPEG stream: Doggin'
- MPEG stream: Ivy May Gilpin
- MPEG stream: I Can't Forgive You
ACTRESSMeets Shangaan(Honest Jon's)12"$ 13.98
ACTRESSR.I.P.(Honest Jons)cd$ 16.98
Welcome to the next bejeweled terrace in the hypnogogic sonic cave that is the music of Darren Cunningham, aka Actress! And holy shit, R.I.P., his third full length, is a wonderful terrace indeed! A beautiful and unique sound world in which subtly detailed, psychedelic sonic prisms drip playfully onto murky haunted fuzz-drones, other worldly squelches and squiggles interplay with analog drum machines, and science fiction melodies get tangled up with hazy, half remembered samples, creating an electronic alchemy that of which this world has never seen! R.I.P is a musical expedition through a bizarre alien landscape. Starting off with the title track and moving into the second, titled "Ascending", you feel as though your entering some sort of strange galactic portal. The kind of "relaxation" music you might hear if you were stuck on the space station from Tarkovsky's Solaris. The soothing synths rub up against analog hiss, everything ping ponging blissfully inside the caverns of your space brain head, headphone magical to be sure. "Holy Water", the third track, starts to introduce a stronger rhythmic element, although we haven't entered the club yet. As the title suggests, everything is dripping and cascading on this one. There's a consistent hi-hat upbeat, and a load of squelchy hyper color drifting atop. Its all blippy and beautiful, clicky and ice cavern reverberated. The sounds transporting and trance inducing, rippling outward, and perfectly easing the listener in to the first beat we hear, "Marble Plexus". This one is all hiss and dub, with a four on the floor pulse to anchor the proceedings. That warm hiss is the glue to the R.I.P. sound. In a lot of ways "Marble Plexus" is classic Actress. We hear all the echoes of ghostly rave-tones that made their former Record Of The Week Splaszh and earlier Hazyville so special. Inhabiting similar territory as Burial, albeit from a more dreamy dark Detroit kind of perspective (as opposed to UK Garage ghosts). It's not so much dance music, but more of an extraterrestrial reinterpretation of the common tropes. There's equal amounts of glistening bubble as there is dirty texture. And it organically flows along, a beautiful synth solo floating over the rhythmic miasma, adding a lovely touch of personality to the tune. Before long we are back out on the open Martian frontier, where the cricket chirping and plucked strings of days on Earth long gone remind us of our isolation in this desolate new world. "Jardin" is a gorgeous respite, plinking and plonking electric piano melodies whirling around the mind's ear as bits of lovingly placed static provide the rub. Honestly reminding us of a more brightly hued and less earthbound approach that Circle took to cinematic soundscapery on their double cd Miljard from a few years back. An infectious sonic cloudburst, enveloping and strangely emotional. "Shadow From Tartarus" is by far the heaviest tune of the bunch. And by heavy, we mean HEAVY!!!! This is another 4/4 adventure, but the chord progression is wrought out with a sort of droney, dare we say it "metallic" fuzz bass line. Imagine a buzzing SUNNO))) like monolithic noise underpinned by a dirty bass drum thump, laced with the kind of cosmic synth drift arpeggio sounds propagated by the likes of Oneohtrix Point Never and Pulse Emitter, flying upward and upward into an endless heaven of sound. A beautiful and unique combination to be sure! Cunningham's work is always solid and original, but as is widely recognized by the blogosphere as well as the critical vanguard (blogosphere elite), R.I.P. represents his finest work to date. It is an album that is constructed as a whole work, a true piece of modern electronic music. We kind of imagine this music arriving on Earth buried deep within the remnants of a wayward meteor, clicking and pulsing from inside the cosmic rock, beckoning the discoverer to chip away until the full sonic transmission is exposed! Or better yet, R.I.P. would make the perfect time capsule of jams to be discovered by some highly intelligent, and futuristically funky race of alien space travelers, perhaps long after we're gone, if only to prove that in the year 2012, on this rock called earth, there was a dude by the name of Actress making some super groovy and hyper evolved, deeply personal yet transcendentally universal, glistening, yearning, and overall BEAUTIFUL sonic tapestries for his fellow earth dwellers (and perhaps for said Martians as well)! TIP! BEYOND RECOMMENDED, ESSENTIAL ACTRESS!!!
- MPEG stream: Holy Water
- MPEG stream: Jardin
- MPEG stream: Shadow Of Tartarus
- MPEG stream: Tree Of Knowledge
ACTRESSRainy Day Dub(Honest Jon's)12"$ 12.98
ACTRESSSilver Cloud(Werkdiscs / Ninja Tune)12"$ 14.98
ACTRESSSplazsh(Honest Jon's)cd$ 17.98
When it comes time to pick our favorite electronic record of the year, it's gonna be seriously tough to narrow it down... Pantha Du Prince's Black Noise, that killer T++ 12" of African sampled dubstep, the hazy expansive ultra lush dubstep of Clubroot, the shoegaze-y haze pop of Walls, the Vex'd Record Of The Week from a while back, that amazing Thomas Fehlman soundtrack to Gute Luft, Klimek's latest pop ambient masterpiece, Oneohtrix Point Never, Emeralds, we could go on and on and on, but we may not have to, cuz Splazsh, the second record from UK electronic one man band Actress might just trump them all. A dizzyingly varied and truly curious collection of post techno minimal skitterscapes, abstract rhythmic mystery, and playful electronic weirdness, looping and repetitive and hypnotic, truncated vocals worked into strange circular figures, and then laced over muted thumps and shuffling laid back pulses, fields of glitch and squelch rain down on glimmering fields of chiming melody and twisted Pop Ambience. The sound is definitely on the chill out side of the spectrum, with most of the beats muted and washed out, the overall feel hazy and dreamy and dreamlike, but there's so much going on, deep slow burning synth swells, little squalls of lazer like bleeps and bloops, thick fuzzy warbly bass, strange clipped beats, and female vox all over the place, but less like vocals and more like another instrument, like a more psychedelic, more groovy take on the second Burial record, but augmented by lurching angular new wave-isms, blissed out streaks of soft focus prismatic shimmer, but underpinned by more-felt-than-heard bass throbs, twisted future funk, laced with alien hi-hats and lo-fu four on the floor thumps, lurching gnarled rhythms, liquid and amorphous, wrapped around jagged shards of synthesizer crunch, and woozy low end melodies, some tracks get all vintage retro soundtrack, sounding like Carpenter or Goblin, as if Daft Punk was scoring seventies Italo thrillers, or cheesy eighties MTV, like Michael Jackson or even better Rockwell, all chopped up and smeared into new warped shapes. There are definitely some more straight up style Kompakt techno/house jams, but even those tracks are pretty twisted, with the synths wrapped in wah wah's, or the beats constantly changing timbre, slipping from crisp and sharp to muffled and muddy and back again, often dragging the whole track with it, but most of the tracks veer wildly in their own freaked out direction, spinning off into strange swirls of tweaked melody and stuttering chopped beats, or mutated Oval style cd skip skitter, or lumbering machine disco with distorted vocals and wild squiggles of space age glitchery, or super tripped out minimal techno crafted from what sounds like fields of white noise static and heavily chorused piano... Holy shit this record is amazing. Weird as hell, and not necessarily something that will fill the dancefloor, but then that was never really what it was about for us. This is some truly unique, far out and freaky, avant outsider electronic weirdness, that will definitely be vying for our electronic record of the year top spot, but just might just be a contender for the top spot, electronic or otherwise!
- MPEG stream: Hubble
- MPEG stream: Lost
- MPEG stream: Futureproofing
- MPEG stream: Bubble Butts And Equations
ADAMixtape #1 / Adaptions(Kompakt)cd$ 15.98
ADAMSON, BARRY + PAN SONICThe Hymn Of The Seventh Illusion(Kitchen Motors)cd$ 15.98
From its beginnings, the Icelandic arts organization Kitchen Motors has been pairing off interesting cross-platform artists who may not have otherwise had the opportunity to work together. "The Hymn Of The Seventh Illusion" was a commission by Kitchen Motors Compounding the collaborative spirit, Kitchen Motors employed The Hafler Trio (whose solo member Andrew McKensie now lives in Iceland) to remix "The Hymn Of The Seventh Illusion." As McKensie has been moving further away from the fictional research projects and more towards the electro-acoustic studies from Luigi Nono, The Hafler Trio is a perfect fit. This remix has stretched and abstracted the polyphony of the chorus into a very creepy extended drone collage. Very nice work!
- RealAudio clip: The Hymn Of The Seventh Illusion
- RealAudio clip: The Hymn Of The Seventh Illusion (Hafler Trio Remix)