THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
More so than any of the other singles they've released, Demdike Stare here drop two heady tracks of darkened techno and horror-disco. We've long loved their mysterious, hauntological blacker-than-black dub tricknology and claustrophobic atmospherics, and all of that is still firmly intact on these tracks. What IS different here however is that DS push the rhythms forward, jacked in the mix, and not just teasing with a Chain Reactive rhythm here or a Middle Eastern groove there all of which would typically collapse into a pool of echo, dread, and ghostliness. It's actually quite nice to hear Demdike work out a more rhythmic, creeped-out floorfiller sound on these two tracks. The A-side "Collusion" begins with an intense snarl of electrocuted noise that eventually locks into a bassline throb of a skeletal drum-n-bass (yup, the quintessential Amen Break is deconstructed once again). Steadily, Demdike Stare build the rhythm back through its component parts -- a skittered snare fill, a rollicking hi-hat, and that manic frenzy which is why everybody loves this rhythm -- with those thickened, tesla-coil bursts of electricity firing around the programmatic dervish. Think Hrvatski and Aphex at their heights of influence but given over to the dark side. The B-side "Misappropriation" locks in a zombified rhythm culled from West African drum patterns, taking a cue from William Bennett's Cut Hands projects and really cranking the dynamics and darkening the tone if that were even possible. Totally brilliant! Who knows if this is a detour or a new direction for Demdike Stare? But who cares, cuz it's fucking great. Unfortunately, destined to be out of print in the blink of eye.
Here be the second 'Test Pressing' from Demdike Stare, which of course is not a real test pressing, but an actual release in an edition of 500 or so. The first of these sold out here in a weekend, and we're expecting the same result for this one too, especially given that we're presented with two more great cuts from Demdike Stare, one of our all time favorite electronica projects, divining the dark arts through horror score allusions, dubstep claustrophobia, and a witchy set of production tricks that are both heavy and ghostly at the same time. The A side "Grows Without Bounds" is a lurching number of industrially grinding electronics that are tempered into a Nocturnal Emissions sound dirge, with a quiet heartbeat pulse easing into the mix. The B side "Primitive Equations" is an updated version of the darkened, cocaine-laden drum & bass stylings of Metalheadz and No U Turn from the mid '90s, complete with sparse placed basslines that stab at a very nice breakbeat that sorta falls between the seminal Apache and Amen breaks, but seems to be something else entirely. Always great to hear Demdike Stare, but if you blink, you might miss out on this one.
The third in the super limited series of 'test pressings' from the genius witchy electronica duo Demdike Stare. As the other two earlier 'test pressing' singles are out of print (along with all other Demdike Stare vinyl at this point), those with any interest in the dark arts of Demdike Stare would be well served to pick this one, pronto. The A side "Eulogy" is cut at 45 rpm setting up an understated engineering somewhere between Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Vol. I (the really early stuff!), the techno minimalism of Carl Craig, or even the more subdued offerings from Sandwell District (i.e. Silent Servant, Rrose, Regis, etc.). Here, Demdike Stare serve up a bulbous acid-trak syncopation guided by a relatively downtempo rhythm quietly thumping behind cybernetic shimmer and off-world weightlessness. The B side darkens things considerably and follows up where Miles Whittaker left off on his recently reviewed 2013 solo album Faint Hearted. Tribal drum programming encircles the duo's interpretation of the classic Basic Channel sound of black-hearted techno accentuated by sharply rendered hi-hats and cavernously deep kicks, while haunted drones and distorted, metallic melodies creep throughout the rhythms. These singles are getting more and more 'clubby' but there's still plenty of Demdike Stare's hauntological production to keep things interesting. Grab it before it disappears!
Fourth in this ongoing series of 'test pressings' (the first three are sadly sold out) from hauntological electronic duo Demdike Stare, and like the first three, number four finds DS continuing to explore the more overtly dancefloor side of their aesthetic, delving into a twisted world of darkened techno, that is really not all that far removed from their usual sound. At least mood- and vibe-wise, it's still all shadowy and hauntingly harrowing, although this time around, DS continue to move even closer to the post industrial murk of all the Dom Fernow projects (Vatican Shadow, Christian Cosmos etc.), and the dour techno gloom of Silent Servant, with the A side featuring a buried beat, wreathed in a keening high end drone, and driven by a thick distorted pulse, like a slowed down 4/4 throb, the beat mechanical and robotic, swaddled in a softly roiling cloud of psychedelic noise and layered drones, while the B side adds some skitter and stutter, maybe the grooviest thing they've done, with chopped up jungle beats, more big distorted bass rumbles, a wild tangle of greyed out ambience, and big beat crunch, all filtered through Demdike's warped electronic sensibilities, which has us hoping that maybe there's a Demdike jungle record in the cards somewhere down the line. Here's hoping!
Like the first three volumes, these come packaged in simple, black and white, paper test pressing style sleeves, and they're SUPER limited, we usually blow out of these crazy quick, so grab one before they're gone!!!
Yet another installment in this ongoing series of 'test pressings' (the first four are all sold out) from hauntological electronic duo Demdike Stare, and like the others in the series, the tracks on the rest pressings tend to be pretty well removed from the moody creep of the Demdike records proper, and this new one is no different. The A-side, "Procrastination", begins with a barrage of sliced and diced distorted vocals, and weird stuttery burst of industrial percussion, sounding like it could explode into some sort of dense EDM at any minute, but instead, woozy rubbery bass warbles drift up from below, give the sound a sort of melting dubstep vibe, that low end rumble is soon joined by some spacey synth swirls and some strange droned out tones, all the while, that initial stutter step percussion marches on unwaveringly, as the surrounding sounds build and billow into dense clouds of gauzy ambience, and murky atmospheric smears.
On the flip, "Past Majesty" begins with a churning synthy squelch that almost sounds like electronic doom metal, especially when the weird distorted guitar sounding blast comes in, it's like electro Sabbath, and then when the loping beat kicks in, it gets even more off kilter, a lurching gallop, that is rhythmically sort of at odds with the main loop, and then when yet another loop swoops in, it just gets more chaotic and dense, but remains sort of driving, the second half settles into a similarly driving groove, but the synth churns and pulses, and suddenly it sounds like some alien heavy synth kraut-psych, but one made my machines gone haywire, some grim, terrifying scene from Fantasia that ended up on the cutting room floor, where robots armed with synths, march in unison to overtake and eventually rule the humans, and when everything drops out at the end, leaving just that thick synth riff, it's about as heavy as electronic music gets. So good.
Like the first four volumes, these come packaged in simple, black and white, paper test pressing style sleeves, and they're CRAZY limited, we always sell out of these lickety split, so grab one before they're gone for good!!!
Barely a month has passed since volume 5 in Demdike Stare's series of Test Pressing 12"s, and along comes number six, and like the previous installment, it finds this hauntological duo moving even further from their gloomy electro creep, into a world of alien dancefloor avant electro. The A side almost sounds like two different club tracks playing simultaneously, with looped pitch shifted vocals, over a skittery breakbeat, and wreathed in swaths of thick buzzing noise, and dense swells of ominous rumble, a sort of industrial hip hop hybrid, all tangled up into some post-dubstep noisiness, with the second half getting totally wild, the production splintering into all sorts of strange shapes, before finally jettisoning the beat, and finishing with a killer sprawl of thick, crumbling, almost blackened dronemusic, before unexpectedly, the beat re-surfaces right at the end, for one final beat heavy flourish.
The B side manages to somehow get even more dense and noisy, brutal and bombastic, a sort-of rhythm constructed from skipping static and throbbing bass gristle, less dancefloor and more floorcore, not hard to imagine hearing some weirdo noise dude spitting out this sort of caustic crunch, that is until part way through, when those blasts of static coalesce into a super dark, dubbed out beat, that's thick, and heavy, and darkly groovy, fiercely minimal, but ominous and sinister and seriously sick. Here's hoping the upcoming Demdike full length continues to explore similarly fierce and fucked up sounds. Might just be the best of the Testpressing so far, most definitely the meanest...
Finally, Demdike Stare's dark and dizzying, murky and mysterious hauntological black dub triptych, previously available via three separate slabs of vinyl, is now available on cd, gathered up into a single, nicely packaged triple disc set. And loaded with bonus tracks (nearly 40 minutes extra all told), which makes this pretty much a shoe-in for Record Of The Week...
Demdike Stare are one of the few bands who seem to be a unanimous aQ favorite, everyone here LOVES these guys, and judging on how many of the various lps we've sold, everyone out there does too. Which makes sense, when you consider, DS basically create a kind of black metal dubstep, or as we (and others) like to describe it, a blackened dub record on Chain Reaction. Either one should give you an idea of the sort of dark sonic energy these guys conjure up. Thick claustrophobic atmospheres, skeletal rhythms, thick throbbing bass, skittering dubbed out beats, disembodied voices, stuttering minimal sort-of-dubstep, looped and processed African folk music (??), swirling glitched out electronics, deeeep pulsing dronemusic, reverb drenched post-rock-via-techno skitter, all woven into a swirling organic mass of dub flecked blacktronica, dark and sinister and dubby, and weirdly house-y, sprawling and epic and creepy and so totally sweeping and cinematic.
The first disc, Forest Of Evil, was originally two sidelong tracks, the first starts out all deep shimmer, with a softly melodic buzz, spidery acoustic guitars, long stretches of billowy black ambience, bits of shuffly jazzy drift, peppered with thick shards of buzzy fractured dub bass and Kompakt style skitter, giving way to glistening late night techno, whirling pop ambient, and blissed out ethereal dronemusic, while the second is darkly dramatic, epic and majestic, like some lost Italian soundtrack, big drums, orchestral and ominous, looped samples, blurred melodic smears over deep pulsing bass, whirling clouds of cymbal shimmer, insectoid FX buzz, jumbled atonal melodies (hints of Bernard Herrmann), the vibe tense and haunting, with some dubstep bass buzz, that slowly dissolves into a Caretaker like outro, all layered strings wreathed in hiss and crackle, hazy and druggy and divine. The bonus track "Quiet Sky" conjures up just what the title implies, a quiet sky, but a dark, bruised midnight sky, flecked with stars, soft swirls of metallic shimmer like gauzy clouds, the song gradually developing a strange minimal hiccuppy rhythm, underpinning the deep melancholic swells, a strange almost industrial tinged bit of pop ambience.
The second disc, Liberation Through Hearing, is thematically related to the Book Of The Dead, and focuses on the space between death and rebirth. Rendered in greys and blacks, in buzz and rumble, beginning with some woozy late night Portishead style downtempo trip hop, low slung looped skitter and swell, lush swirls of cinematic strings, ghostly choirs, a softly lurching rhythmic stutter, a deep cavernous throb, sounding like a ghostly stripped down dubstep. Which gives way to heaving expanses of black tidal thrum, muted scrapings, all wound into hypnotic pulses of dark energy, laced with distant chiming melodies, a haunting, gauzey faded memory in sound, drawn from radios with dying batteries and gradually slowing turntables, a soft focus symphony of creaks and rumbles and blurred low end shimmer. The first half finishes with a swoonsome smear of looped ambience, like a field recording of an after hours nightclub captured in a temporal loop, warm and druggy and fuzzy, strangely hypnotic and rhythmic, totally trancelike, a creeped out wasteland soundscape, mysterious and chilling, which is eventually augmented by thick slabs of corrosive low end, and heavily reverbed industrial clatter, which eventually emerges into a strange sea of crackle and hum, of warbly rhythms, chiming bells and distorted crunch, sounding a bit like Jeck spinning Pole record, abstract and spaced out and hauntingly lovely.
The second half opens with thick streaks of ghostly mesmer, all washed out and slowly decaying, underpinned by thick swaths of dubstep style bass wobble, but muted and smoothed into soft smears of undulating blackness. Subtle skitter surfaces, as do distant voices, the sound getting more and more dubby, a bit like a Caretaker record on Chain Reaction, that sort of hazy abstract drift, but anchored to barely there beats, the buzz building to an intense coda, all the while wrapped in throbbing woofer punishing low end.
Some super stripped down rhythms are laid over a swirling ghostly backdrop of fragmented melodies and a buried house music thump, tangled and blurred strings wrap the proceedings in a veil of softened reverb and subtle echo, the almost Eastern sounding pulse and swell reminding us a bit of the late great Muslimgauze.
Finally, the record collapses into some sort of melancholic sonic reverie, a hushed ambient outro, a tranquil sea of soft swirling swells, clouds of echo and reverb, a dreamy darkness, a blackened bit of blurpop minimalism, laced with muted streaks of fuzz and hiss, but all gradually sinking into Demdike Stare's endless trancelike billowing blackness.
The bonus tracks on this one (3 of them, clocking in at nearly 20 minutes) continue the record's surreal sonic journey, spidery rhythms, and chiming melodies are looped and layered over a simple pulsing propulsive groove, the whole thing slightly warped and warbled, as if recorded onto an old piece of tape, and played back on some dusty old ramshackle tape player, ghostly, but surprisingly playful at first, before slipping into some seriously creepy, deeeeeep droning rumbles, wreathed in shimmering solar winds, softly billowing sheets of hiss and static, eventually shedding all of that, leaving just a thick morass of softly undulating low end, shot through with a slo-mo house music pulse, only to have the hiss and whir return, this time relegated to the background, until the track finishes surprisingly with what sounds like a bit of African style funkiness, before disappearing in a brief cloud of swirling hushed buzz.
Finally, the third disc, Voices Of Dust, unveils the Tryptych's final movement, opening with "Black Sun", a short stretch of some super minimal electronic dronemusic, all layered overtones and strange sonic shadings, which gives way to the chopped and looped and stuttery vocal driven "Hashshashin Chant" which takes tribal drums and traditional folk music vocals, and twists them all up, and tangles those elements with strange percussion, industrial buzz, the whole thing a dizzying chunk of hypno-electronic collaged psychedelic mashup weirdness, before slipping into the much murkier and minimal "Repository Of Light", which unfurls like some sort of Hawkwind-meets-Pole spaced out digi-dub drift. And so it goes, the sound flitting between impossibly realized miniature sound worlds, cinematic electronic ambience, ominously pulsing low end rumble, hazy glitchy dubbed out Jeckian smears, super blown out electronic big beat bombast, almost industrial sounding avant big band abstraction, roiling corrosive soft noise, bellowing foghorn-like melodies, warped and woozy scratchy old lp warblescapes and beyond.
The bonus tracks are the perfect, hazy, ghostly coda, the first, a warm, whispery bit of keening abstract melody and thick pulsing thrum, all very washed out and space-y and dreamlike, a constantly vibrating living thing, a throbbing organic expanse of minimal space drone psychedelic ambience, until finally, the whole disc is laid to rest with 9 minutes of heaving, glacial, metallic creep and creak, wreathed in record crackle, the final sounds unfurl like some old dusty Tim Hecker 45 spinning at 16rpm, mournful moaning melodies, buried rhythmic thumps, shimmery sitar like buzz, all hazy and smeared and lysergic and mysteriously murky, the perfect slipping-into-darkness, leaving-this-world-behind finale...
Gorgeously evocative, creepy and cinematic, abstract and otherworldly, druggy and dreamy, fantastically haunting and utterly spine tinglingly stunning. And thus, absolutely recommended.
Packaged in a super swank, oversized, hardcover book style digipak.
Finally part three in Demdike Stare's strange and wonderful hauntological black dub triptych, a logical continuation of both Forest Of Evil and Liberation Through Hearing, a sprawling twisted landscape of sound, from lurching stuttering minimal sort-of-dubstep to looped and processed African folk music (??) to swirling glitched out electronics, to throbbing pulsing deeeeeep dronemusic, to reverb drenched post-rock-via-Chain-Reaction skitter to... well wherever these cracked sonic alchemists decide to dream up.
The record opens with "Black Sun", a short stretch of some super minimal electronic dronemusic, all layered overtones and strange sonic shadings, which gives way to the chopped and looped and stuttery vocal driven "Hashshashin Chant" which takes tribal drums and traditional folk music vocals, and twists them all up, and tangling those elements with strange percussion, industrial buzz, the whole thing a dizzying chunk of hypno-electronic collaged psychedelic mashup weirdness, before slipping into the much murkier and minimal "Repository Of Light", which unfurls like some sort of Hawkwind-meets-Pole spaced out digi-dub drift.
And so it goes, the sound flitting between impossibly realized miniature sound worlds, cinematic electronic ambience, ominously pulsing low end rumble, hazy glitchy dubbed out Jeckian smears, super blown out electronic big beat bombast, almost industrial sounding avant big band abstraction, roiling corrosive soft noise, bellowing foghorn-like melodies, warped and woozy scratchy old lp warblescapes and beyond.
So gorgeously evocative, creepy and cinematic, abstract and otherworldly, druggy and dreamy, fantastically haunting and spine tinglingly stunning.
Rumor is all three lps are getting reissued as a cd box sometime next year, but the vinyl tends to disappear pretty quick, so act fast...
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Skweee!
Grizzly Bear fans, here's a reissue that might pique your interest! Department Of Eagles was the name of Dan Rossen's pre-Grizzly Bear duo, and this was their debut (originally released by Isota Records back in 2003). He along with Fred Nicolaus crafted The Cold Nose, a sprawling album that on occasion brings to mind the expansive musical patchwork of bands like Beta Band and Badly Drawn Boy. The songs languidly come into view, alternately locking into sun-dappled folksy melodies, nutty pop jigs and jazzy grooves for a stretch only to have an array of hazy samples and electronic squiggles tug it all apart. Nice! Includes four bonus tracks and new artwork!
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J. Saul Kane has for a number of years been at the forefront of the big beat / trip hop scene in the UK and has been rewarded with much critical acclaim but little US exposure. It's a shame as his work makes the Chemical Brothers and Fat Boy Slim look even more boring than they already are. "Lust 1" is thematically located within the 1970's as downer Hammond organ riffs are situated next to brassy Lalo Schifrin police chase knock offs and masculine disco funk. Kane's working knowledge of Lee Perry's warm dub production really makes this album an pretty exceptional catch.
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Depth Charge's "Lust 2" follows the previous festivities with a darker investigation into the big beat / trip hop he's been creating over the past decade. The '70s influences found on "Lust" are still present (Hammond organs, funky grooves, brassy horns) but things have been injected with a dose of Shaolin hip hop and even darker dub passages. Just as good as the first one.
Search back into the Aquarius archives, and you'll come across reviews of records that we loved with just a phrase or a sentence, giving a few choice references and adjectives. Oh, how the times have changed. Way back when, we summed up Der Plan's classic weirdo kraut new wave record with the following pithy statement: "A head on collision between the Residents and Conny Plank." Still very true to this day, although an expansion of that description is most definitely in order. Der Plan hailed from Dusseldorf, and Geri Reig was their first record, emerging in 1980 as a particularly bizarre version of the Neue Deutsche Welle (New German Wave) sound. It seemed that every single German punk and NDW band would twist and mutate some sickly sweet ballad into something monstrous and perverse. Even Neubauten did a cover of Serge Gainsbourg's "Je T'Aime" on their first record; but polkas, waltzes, and cabaret numbers seemed to the prime target for the venom, bile, and ill-thoughts of the youth from back in the day, and Der Plan had authored a good number of these cheeky tunes, with atonal blooping electronics, plinkety-plonk melodies, and disjointed scratchy vocalizations. As a result, the Residents are still an apt reference for most of Geri Reig, although perhaps the equally bizarre, although less known Die Todliche Doris should also be referenced as well. For all of Der Plan's weird disposition, they would also craft a percolatingly brilliant minimal wave track here and there, as heard in the man-machine sequencing on "Commerce Exterieur Mondial Sentimentale" and the future-shock arpeggiations of "Adrenalin Lasst Das Blut Kochen." A classic record from the NDW period, now available once again thanks to the fine folks at Medical Records!
Album number two by Der Plan came out originally in 1981, and it follows the art-pop quirkiness of the band's Geri Reig album with a slightly more conventional approach to their Neue Deutsche Welle songs. Just slightly, though. For the most part, the overt references to the vernacular of Germanic pop music (waltzes, polka, cabaret, etc.) are dropped for more of a primitive electro sound, with plenty of clipped rhythms, flanging electronic sequences, mutant funk anti-grooviness, and occasional vocoder-treated vocals. Der Plan takes delight in rendering each and every sound in a deliberate staccato choppiness, with electronic and vocal melodies often in naked opposition to each other, while the rhythms are loose skeletons that hardly anybody could dance to. The album features 17 tracks, and many more ideas running through all of those cuts, mucking up the streamlined new wave surfaces within disjointed, Residents inspired asynchronicity, and there's even a couple of early plunderphonic experiments popping up, such as "Kleine Schlager Revue" which mashes up saccharine German pop ditties with a smutty sex-recording lifted from some porno flexi-disc, and the grimmer "Wat's Dat?" snipping bits of commercials and breathy exhortations and melding them onto teletype synth modulations. Like Geri Reig, Normalette Surprise is back in print on vinyl... but probably not for long, as Medical Records only released 550 of these!
Didn't know too much about this Spanish combo, but the fact that they seemed to often be described as equal parts Kraftwerk and Arab On Radar definitely piqued our interest. And once we finally heard this latest 4 song blast of electro punk crunch, we'd probably add Black Bug to the equation, the same sort of urgent punked out riot grrly rrroooaaar. But instead of BB's synthpunk howl, the sound of DV is more garagey, a sort of punky Stoogesy groove, laced with bits of electronics and peppered with dueling boy girl vocals. The opening track here, "Kill D.I.Y Idols" is itself a killer, with fuzzy bass, programmed beats, caterwauled vocals, and a bad ass main riff, the tripped out FX and minimal electronics only adding some extra weirdness. In an odd way, it reminded us a little of Burzum, the same sort of lilting electronic melodies, but here wedded to some garage punk blast. Super dynamic, with some rad stop starts. "Potential H-Bomb" is more of the same, with a postpunk groove, some cool weirdly harmonized vox, some noisy chaotic guitars, and lots of fuzzed out synth blurt. "Scrawl" applies the same sonic approach to punk folk, acoustic guitar, simple drums, off key crooning, sassy female back up vox, and occasional feedback drenched squalls of noise. Finally "Lightning Field" gets back to the warped electro punk, with thick synth buzz under some frenetic programmed beats, some bloopy spaced out melodies, crunchy guitars swirls, the whole thing pretty spaced out and psychedelic, again laced with occasional blasts of in-the-red buzz and howl, everything wreathed in alien synths and fractured FX. So killer. A bit surprised these guys (and gal) aren't way more popular. Imagine it won't stay that way for long...
Super nice packaging, thick super striking black and white sleeve, with a full color printed insert, pressed on orange vinyl, and includes a cd version of the same music on the 7"!
We all went a little gaga for those BBC Radiophonic Workshop cds, amazing collections of freaky and far out music for movies and radio and television, crafted in mad scientist like labs packed to the gills with strange sound making devices, primitive analog synths, tape machines and all manner of random electronic bric a brac. Delia Derbyshire was one of the Workshop elite, having been responsible for the Dr. Who theme as well as the Tomorrow People theme and loads of other legendary BBC songs and sounds.
This super limited lp, is a repress of a rare and long out of print disc of library mood music released on KPM in 1972. Derbyshire and her sonic cohorts recorded the record as Electrosonic, using pseudonyms as well, to avoid any sort of complications due to their positions at the BBC. The results were of course fantastic. Moody and mysterious, wild and playful, spacey and haunting. From Goblin-esque creepy haunted house synthscapes, to freaky fuzzy funky seventies sci-fi grooves, to far out bloops and bleeps. Analog synths, jazzy upright bass, tons of primitive and not so primitive effects, all whipped into impossibly catchy and fantastical sounds and songs.
This was SUPER SUPER LIMITED. It's already out of print. We have about 10 copies and once those are gone this is gone FOR GOOD. Gorgeous super stylish sleeve with amazing artwork, extensive liner notes, and pressed on super thick milky green vinyl!
Casey Rice (one of the superstar Chicago producers whose talents have been featured in Tortoise, Liz Phair, etc.) is the latest to release a fetish object for Duophonic. Well produced, but terminally dull 'quirky' drum & bass / electronica grooves. Due to the Duophonic tag this will at least make for a good investment for future collectors.
Everything Johnny Jewel touches these days turns to sultry dancefloor gold. Whether it's Glass Candy, the Chromatics, or a handful of other groups on Italians Do It Better that have felt Jewel's magic touch, he has really been largely responsible for making IDIB a label to trust when it comes to sizzling, late night spaced out disco!
What sets Desire a little apart from other acts on Italians Do It Better is that it's much more of a full band effort, with an affection for analog synthesizers as well as strings, percussion, piano, and it's got an overall delivery that is much more warm and rich than some of the other similar sounding outfits on the label. Desire still have that icy-detached aesthetic that can be found in the sounds of Chromatics, but there is something a bit more personal sounding in the songs here. While most records in this genre tend to be filled with super immediate hooks that sometimes lose their staying power on repeated listens, this record is a serious grower. In fact on first listen we thought maybe this was going to be a bit of a let down, but we're so happy we gave it a few more spins, cuz we were eventually totally sucked into the moody, sultry stylings that Desire conjure up. Between this and the Nite Jewel record we gushed about recently, our late night coming down soundtrack is sounding better then ever. Feel the slow burn!
Always an exciting day at AQ when a new slab of vinyl from Italians Do It Better comes our way. Earlier this year we got totally addicted to the debut full length from Desire, a record that was so spot on in its 80's sleek and sultry, late-night dance jams infused with a dark romantic aching yearning. With the intoxicating vocals of Megan Luise setting such a perfect tone for the impeccable production of Johnny Jewel (Glass Candy, Chromatics, etc.). So it's rad to get different versions of two of our favorite songs from the album. Side one gives us a totally lysergic slow burning stretched out version of "If I Can't Hold You Tonight" and then a completely stripped down minimal vocal version. Side two starts off with an instrumental version of their cover of "I Can Dream About You" followed by a goosebump inducing 8-track demo of the song that proves that Desire are not just about style and dancefloors, but that their music really does evoke such strong emotions. The 12" offers a much more minimal and slow burning side of Desire then the more over-the-top, all out 80's disco vibe of the full length. We're melting into this wax!
Looping dubbed abstraction new on hip Cologne label Kompakt. There's been a lot of underground buzz, but I don't really get it.
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Taylor Deupree's sound evolved to encompass the microscopic sound heralded by Rastermusic (Noto, Coh, and the 20' to 2000 series). Conceptually based on the development of nanotechnologies, Deupree sets delicate shards of modular synthesis into repetitive post-techno structures.
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As soon as this came on the AQ stereo, Byram chimed in, "Is this on Raster?" Nope. "Oh, it must be on 12K then." That initial reaction is the blessing and curse of Taylor Deupree and his 12K label, both of whom so badly want to have that Raster-Noton sound. "Occur" is an album of "non-repetition and subdued melodic passages composed almost entirely by granular synthesis
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The packaging of the anti-static shielding bag is certainly appropriate to house the electron modulations of Taylor Deupree's "Polr" album. Released right on the heels of an album for the Mille Plateaux subsidiary Ritornell, this actually marks a big step in the development of Deupree's nano-technist productions. His post-techno rhythmic structures and delicately phased crystalline fluctuatations (dare we call them melodies?) slowly rise out of black box empty spaces much in the same way as Mika Vainio's solo work (especially the � "Metri" album). Very good!
The Brooklyn glitch-minimalist Taylor Deupree offers another decent album of looping electronic pulses layered with sublime, synthetic melodies, ringing modulations, and textured digital grit. "Stil." ends up sounding nearly identical to Oval's "Diskont 94" which predated this album by nearly 8 years. Not original, but quite good.
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An inevitable collaboration between digital clicksters Taylor Deupree and Tetsu Inoue. Insect-like.
We can probably count the major female figures of Krautrock on one hand. Most of them like Rosi Mueller of Ash Ra Tempel, Renate Knaup from Amon Duul II, Djong Yun from Popol Vuh, or Sabine Merbach from Gila were either singers or muses for their male-led bands. And don't even mention Clara Mondshine, which was a pseudonym for Walter Bachauer, a very real actual man. But even among those women, you don't find too many female krautrock composers. Actually, we really couldn't think of any, offhand. Can you? If so, please enlighten!
Thankfully, the brand new reissue label, Medical Records, who has bolted out the gate running with not only one but two amazing (and amazingly limited!) vinyl-only reissues, sets the record straight! The other reissue, Alexander Robotnick, reviewed elsewhere on this list, is a weirdo Italo-disco / French electro classic we've known about for awhile and we're super psyched to see finally reissued. But this one, Deutsche Wertarbeit , the solo project of Dorothea Raukes, is altogether completely new to us and what a fantastic discovery it is!
Released on Sky Records in 1981, Deutsche Wertarbeit was Raukes' first solo effort after years of being the singer for a German Progressive band we're not familiar with called Streetmark, who started in 1968, and released 4 lps between 1976 and 1981. Two of those were also released on Sky Records and one of them was even recorded in collaboration with Wolfgang Riechmann, the same year he was murdered. What? Really? Why didn't we know of this already? Just goes to show, there are still many treasures to be unearthed.
And if you dug Wolfgang Riechmann's Wunderbar reissue, that we raved about awhile back, or Klaus Schultze, Tangerine Dream, Cluster, Peter Baumann, or even some of the later Manuel Gottsching recordings such as New Age of Earth, then add Deutsche Wertarbeit to the essential kosmiche synthscape canon. But while she definitely fits in with those artists, she carves out her own defining sound of warm minimal hypnotic rhythms and vocoder voicings that display a joyous exhuberance you don't see as much in artists like Schultze or Baumann. In fact this would fit in well with the stuff on that Dirty Space Disco comp, as it sounds like a mystical combination of Vangelis and Popol Vuh, expansive and cosmic, upliftingly propulsive while keeping it all beautifully reigned in.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, each 180 gram colored vinyl and hand-numbered. We're not sure how long we'll have these, so don't wait too long. Highest Recommendation!!!!!!
Florida based electronica artist Richard Devine makes an attempt to draw water at the Autechre well, but comes up a bit dry. More of a "masculine" sounding rhythm programming, lacking in the subtlety of Autechre -- no tempo changes, and very little difference in the rhythmic pattern or palette of sounds in any given piece. It's as though he has discovered the "formula" to start an Autechresque piece, but once he gets it fired up he doesn't know where to go with it.
For those unfamiliar with Dhamaal SF (now abbreviated from Dhamaal Soundsystem), they're a Bay Area consortium of musicians and djs devoted to creating and promoting club music with a strong focus on Southeast Asian influences. Their lushly textured tracks are filled with sputtery frenetic breakbeats and are anchored by some deeeep dark dubby bass that's sure to stir much movin' and groovin'. This cd-r is their latest release which includes the album version of their track "Twilight Creeper" from their self-titled debut released last year ('twas definitely one of the highlights), as well as two new tracks and a remix of another album track "Z Motion". With guests Asian Dub Foundation's Dr. Das and Shiva Soundsystem!
The Bay Area music collective known as Dhamaal Soundsystem encorporate the vibrant sounds and influences of Southeast Asian music into their own with impressive results. At once gracefully fluid and aggressively edgy, they skillfully blend the electronic (spine-rattlin' breakbeats, thick dubbed out synth basslines) with the acoustic (tabla, sitar, flute and occasionally vocals). If you dig the potent sounds of groups such as Asian Dub Foundation or Tabla Beat Science, definitely check out the very like-minded Dhamaal. It's a fiery, elaborate and entirely dancefloor ready debut. Great!
Imagine the soundtrack to some strange, and apocalyptic planetarium show, all celestial and cosmic, but exploding in a supernova of looped mesmer and cyclical psychedelia, or picture Steve Reich or Terry Riley composing for minimal electronic trance music, or even the music of doomdronelords SUNNO))), transcribed for processed guitars and synths, and reduced to their rhythmic essence. Record number three from composer / guitarist Mario Diaz De Leon, is a little bit all of those, a dizzying collection of processed synths, and looped abstract guitars, all woven into sheets of blurred crystalline power electronics, smoldering slow build looped minimal majesty, and abstract epic heaviness.
Not metal precisely, but still quite metallic in places, and most definitely HEAVY. Too dense and noisy and chaotic to be strictly minimal, but in composition and arrangement, it has more in common with modern minimalism than anything else really. It's as much about texture and tone, as it is about melody and rhythm, the sound is at once atmospheric and cinematic, cosmic and abstract, pieces drifting through space only to explode into churning thrum, and alternately grinding away like some blurred tarpit spacedoom only to blossom into a kaleidoscopic series of dizzying synth swells.
Opener "Oneirogen" starts off with a flurry of layered synths, a dizzying big of melodic swirl, that immediately begins to gain momentum, blossoming in slow motion like some sort of sonic supernova, before exploding in a soft cacophony of prismatic melody, the synth sounds more distorted and frenetic, managing to strike a fine balance between hypnotic and intense, the sound pulsing and throbbing and buzzing before blurring into a soft focus cloud of gloriously blissed out dreamdrone shimmer, only to build right back up again to something much more caustic and corrosive, yet still somehow ethereal and spacey. "Consumed" displays Diaz De Leon's other more metal side. unfurling thick grinding downtuned gouts of guitar rumble and keening high end melody, all over streaks of pulsating synth, the result sounding a bit like Jesu as performed by Steve Reich, that sort of thick, blissed out, warm whirling guitar heaviness, but arranged in layers and loops, a heaving heaviness that blossoms into some sort of blackened minimal shoegaze drone-psych doom, that will have Nadja fans losing their minds.
The rest of the record finds Diaz De Leon flitting from churning downtuned crush to flurries of celestial synth, in most cases combining them to great affect, "Hypnocaust" fills the sky with wild tangles of sci-fi synth melodies and stuttering chips and chitters, while beneath, a strangely processed guitar rumbles and thrums, unfurling a crunchy bit of oozing disembodied riff-borne dronedoom, while "Cinerum" is something else all together, a hushed bit of hiss and hum wreathed drift, the shards of synth left to float weightless, over a warm woozy swath of lush chordal thrum. "Kukulkan" begins life as a noisier take on the current crop of psychedelic space synth retro futurism, but quickly (d)evolves into almost like an abstract black metal, with fast picked riffage blurred into clouds of droned out drift, before exploding into a kaleidoscopic squall of thick low end swells and pulsing synth swirls, and "Dissolution" revisits the sound of the opening track, again sounding like that planetarium show gone haywire, perhaps signaling the end of Diaz De Leon's dizzying sonic journey. But our favorite track might just be the 8 minute "Faithless", with its hazy, washed out intro, all lush blurred shimmer, and more stuttering synth throb, but here it's much more dreamlike and serene, laced with ghostly voices, definitely reminding us of Zombi, Majeure and the like, super cinematic, but then gradually, those sounds begin to transform, the sound intensifying, and then at about three minutes in, in a squall of high end skree, a thick ribcage rattling slab of low end surfaces, heaving and softly roiling, while the synths continue to churn over the top, it's the abstract minimalism equivalent to THE DROP in electronic music, it raises the hairs on the back of our neck, a sudden burst of energy and emotion and sonic power, which dissipates as quickly as it began, disappearing in a swirl of hushed shimmer, before splintering into a blast of caustic chaotic noise, processed vokills, low end synth buzz, all tangled up into a blackened squall, before finally fading out in a static wreathed drift of soft focus synth and almost Caretaker like melancholia.
Utterly fantastic.
Unless you've been living under a rock for the last year, or don't have ANY access to the internet at all, you no doubt know all about these guys, South African rappers, whose video for their jam "Enter The Ninja" seems like maybe the most watched video on YouTube, and hell, it makes sense, besides being a goofy jam, with some ridiculous rapping, the video itself is incredible, besides frontman Ninja's wild gesticulating delivery and weird homemade tattoos, there's the strange figure who pops up throughout, a weird looking dude suffering from progeria (the premature aging disease), the set decorated with strange Keith Haring style drawings, and best of all the utterly crushworthy Yo-Landi, who sings the refrain, a little elfen pixie with super angular haircut, who over the course of the video, lays on the bed in a school girl uniform, eventually stripping down to a flash dance T-shirt and some dollar sign panties, the whole time doing ninja sword moves. Even more notably, Yo-Landi was offered the leading role in the American remake of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (which she sadly turned down). Besides all that, the jams are often, goofy, funky, over the top, catchy as hell, it seemed too good to be true, and it sort of was. It was eventually revealed that Die Antwoord was a high concept musical art project, Ninja and Yo-Landi having both been members of an art collective, and active performers in the South African hip hop scene for years, and doing TV comedy, but fuck it, that almost makes it even cooler, that all those tattoos are fake, that the whole South African redneck angle is a put on, but it's no more of a put on than some satanic devil worshipping black metal band, it's all theater, and Ninja and crew are masters.
This little 5 song teaser is pretty great, but as with most bands who rely heavily on image, without the videos, it's a whole 'nother situation. And for most of us, who have spent the last year obsessively watching Die Antwoord videos, and worshipping Yo-Landi from afar, it's just not the same without the visuals, that said, this is some pretty serious synth driven hip hop techno synth groove, "Enter The Ninja" is the most commercial of the bunch, which makes it the least interesting, definitely a Die Antwoord gateway jam, but then "Wat Kyk Jy?" makes it all better, thick synths, pounding rave beats, goofy raps, strange voices, intense thick bass lines, then there's the autotuned "I Don't Need You", a sort of Kanye style hip hop ballad, but "Fish Paste" is THEE jam here, formerly titled Jou Ma Se Poes In A Fish Paste Jar", which translated is "Your Mom's Pussy...", yep, ridiculous, but the track itself is a stripped down Miami Bass style strutter with some bad ass rapping from both Ninja and Yo-Landi, and some more thick synths, deeeeep bass, and some totally over the top lyrics. The record finishes off with a remix of "Enter The Ninja", which is pretty cool, but we still find ourselves listening to "Fish Paste", watching the videos, and waiting patiently for the full length.
For those who did somehow miss out, peep this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_pS46YRMIQ (keep an eye on those Dark Side Of The Moon boxers!) and of course this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc3f4xU_FfQ
Real or not, Die Antwoord might just be our new favorite band. And yours...
The first salvo of electronic vinyl madness from AQ pal Drucifer's new label comes in the form of four 12"s, beautifully packaged in distinctive orange sleeves (dance 12" style) and on nice thick vinyl, and sonically running the gamut from stuttery glitched out electronica to shimmery drones to speaker shredding digital rhythms to dreamy beatscapes.
Die Elektrischen is the project of Dielectric label head honcho Drew Webster (affectionately known around here as Drucifer) and is a stereo punishing exploration of recording detritus. Inspired by Philip Jeck and Christian Marclay, Drucifer collected a multitude of junked turntables and cut-up and glued together thrift-store records for this project. Assembled from all sorts of recording castoffs, digital clicks, feedback, distorted/clipped signals from various recording projects, these 4 tracks are definitely a true test of your stereo system's constitution. Throbbing, grinding, buzzing digital crunch that occasionally relents just long enough for super distorted beats, or chopped drum loops to surface before they are quickly knocked to the floor by another blast of GGGRRRZZZVVVT. The final track is a dreamy droney sprawl that helps soothe after the punishment of the first three tracks. Brutal and beautiful.
MPEG Download: "Overload" [/audio/dieoverload.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Overload" [/audio/dieoverload.m3u]
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
For the second installment of Ache Records' Di/vorce split 7" series, they've corralled AQ pals Matmos and the haphazard Die Monitr Batss from the Pacific Northwest. For their part of the bargain, Die Monitr Batss offer up some skronky, lo-fi, no-wave aspirations. Meanwhile on the flipside, Matmos tackle Gladys Knight & The Pips' "On And On" although it's pretty darn difficult to recognize it once it's been put through the duo's surgical choppity chop treatment. Indeed, their contribution is an assemblage of deep, gravelly fragments of funk. Limited pressing of 1000.
The debut album from this German crunchy synth-rock duo fuses lots of analog keyboard, fuzzy guitar, open/closed post-punk hi-hat repetition, mantric vocoder vocals, and a pretty killer remixed "Fire In Cairo" (Cure) sample. Most songs build at a calculated pace giving listeners an overall sense that the circuit board is about to explode. Idealism is a really impressive first album that is highly recommended for fans of The Faint, Justice, M83, New Order, Daft Punk, Fatboy Slim, and The Rapture.
Another tres chi chi dance mix by French suave DJ Dimitri From Paris. L'homme onctueux has stylishly stacked two full cds worth of sexy, jazz-tinged clubland tracks for his follow-up to his 2000 collection 'A Night At The Playboy Mansion'. One is designated
Our heads are nearly exploding from getting not only The Beach Boys Smile Sessions box, but also this beautifully elaborate quadruple lp, in a hand pulled screen printed box set containing the 24->24 Music sessions of Arthur Russell's Dinosaur L project complete with remixes and extra Russell related Sleeping Bag Records singles! Both sets have more in common than you might think in the way they show what fastidious creators both Brian Wilson and Arthur Russell were, in that they both sought to take their musical visions to the limits and didn't know really when to finish. And in both cases, under different circumstances and contexts, had to have others come in and pick up the pieces.
It's really funny scanning back over all of our past Arthur Russell reviews. The first couple from 2004 suggest that a lot of people were into this, "but no one at aQ has become a big Arthur Russell fan", although since then there have been more than a few of us here who have become HUGE fans. While we admittedly have gushed over nearly every release, the Dinosaur L sessions have always been our favorite of Russell's work, probably because it is the one project that went beyond just being a singles project and it also unified his avant experimental leanings with his love for disco and extended dance forms.
Not to be confused with Dinosaur, the single project that Russell worked on with The Gallery's Nicky Siano and David Byrne for Sire Records in 1978 (the single, "Kiss Me, Again" was Sire's first disco single release!). Dinosaur L was born of a performance at the Kitchen in 1979 where Russell compiled a band of downtown regulars including Peter Gordon and Peter Zummo with a congo player and a drummer with Russell on cello, and presented orchestrated disco music as an avant classical performance. The move was a bold and calculated political statement, thumbing their noses at the snobby attitudes of the new music scene towards club music, to which Russell claimed no such hierarchical distinctions. But the performance created strong divides in the downtown scene even though they were largely more bemused bafflement than outright hostility. Emboldened by the reaction, Russell next step was to get these performances on tape, using most of the same musicians and enlisting vocalists like Jill Kroesen, Julius Eastman, and Marie-Chantal Martin, as well as various members of little-known New York new wave and punk bands. While the original performance project allowed the musicians to work freely and expansively, the overall music was highly composed, which adds a strange element of chance to the proceedings, allowing the pieces to include many deliberately wonky and unpredictable twists and turns. The vocals adding both a disaffected no-waveish delivery from Jill Kroesen on "#5 (Go Bang!)", as well as strange operatic fits on "#3(In the Corn Belt)" and Yoko Ono-ish yelps on "#1 (You've Gotta Be Clean On Your Bean)", make this the perfect punk and disco hybrid that delivers highly on both counts. The entire original project consisted of 4 extended cuts with two shorter interludes, the last song, "#6(Get Set)", going the deepest in to no-wave guitar territory but maintaining a forward thrusting momentum through its strange and beguiling devolution.
You probably wouldn't unleash such a leftfield dance classic like "#5 (Go Bang!)" on an unprepared dance audience unless you had the timing exactly right, with the crowd all extremely revved up and sweaty. We imagine that was the thinking when stalwart downtown DJs like Larry Levan, Francis Kevorkian and Walter Gibbons each took their editing chops to the Dinosaur L sessions and made them a bit more dance-floor friendly. Stripping out certain vocal parts, adding others, allowing tension to build up and release, each producer taking a different approach to Russell's maximalst visions with the composer's full approval. Russell thought the remix process was just another form of extended creation, and while he favored some remixes over others, he was very generous in handing his creations over to the club DJs he was affiliated with for further manipulation. Included in the set are 3 remixes of "Go Bang!" which are all highly different and all very worthy. The Francis Kevorkian mix is probably our favorite, taking a dub like approach with a tight focus on the rhythms yet utilizing dream-like atmospherics. There are also two Larry Levan remixes from other Dinosaur L sessions. The last three sides are devoted to various Sleeping Bag Records singles from Russell related projects like Felix ("Tiger Stripes"!), Indian Ocean, The Sounds of JHS 126, and Bonzo Goes To Washington.
Packaged in a deluxe screenprinted box with each record housed in a hand-pulled screen printed mat sleeve, and a 20 page booklet with liner notes, production information and testimonials from all the musicians and Djs involved. So unbelievably fantastic!
