[ aquarius records — Electronic ]

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Showing results 3801 through 3850 of 5033.

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It states quite clearly on the sticker Nothing applied to the outside of this record, that this is Jazz. Mr. Jenkinson has reinvented his approach to music, having more in common with Miles Davis' "Dark Magus" or even "On the Corner" than with the drill & bass excesses of his previous outings. No drum programming... instead, complex ever shifting live percussion with hammond organ and fretless bass. Either you'll love it or hate it--some here feel that this is possibly Squarepusher's best release yet.

This ep is a comeback of sorts for our Tom Jenkinson, after a few weak (to our ears) records of breakbeats set to smooth jazz. "My Red Hot Car" is arguably Squarepusher's best dancefloor thumper since Big Loada's "Come On My Selector". Topped off with a catchy vocal line throughout, it's the perfect soundtrack to cruising with the windows down on a warm summer evening. Let's just hope

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

SORRY. Jazzy jungle with really freaky rhythms programmed by Tom Jenkinson a.k.a. Squarepusher, current darling of the idm-list (idm, you know -- what they insist on calling INTELLIGENT DANCE MUSIC). Smooth yet wacked. Challenging not boring. If you like Wagonchrist/Plug/Luke Vibert then this will meet your high standards. Also usually available: the full length, Feed Me Weird Things. Both English imports.

Four new songs and three remixes from our favorite drill and bass turned jazz funk artist...yep, this is still '70s Miles Davis-inspired jazz as per his great Music Is Rotted One Note album, but there are reminders of the crazy noise beats of old Squarepusher too--especially in the remixes, by Autechre, Matt Yee-King (of the Trash collective), and Wagonchrist. Great stuff. Mr. Jenkinson (with some help from his friends) still impresses.

Hot on the heel of the coolest/funniest rumour we've heard in a long time, that Squarepusher aka Tom Jenkinson is in fact actually Richard D. James perpetrating a mighty hoax, comes the latest, and greatest in quite a while, full length Squarepusher album. Track one brought us all the way back to Feed Me Weird Things, his debut that blew us all away at the time. An opening salvo full of hyper spastic skitter, funky burbling basslines, minor key soundscapes, relentless and insane, with a recurring melody that -almost- sounds like the theme from Beverly Hills Cop! But that track is a bit misleading as the next track finds us back in more recent 'jazz' Squarepusher territory, all spaced out and noodly, dark electronic fusion and shuffling late night acid jazz. Cool, but doesn't quite have the same impact. But hold tight, after a few tracks of some serious wankery, the bass noodling gets more and more manic, more and more distorted before things fracture and splinter and become very heavy and very noisy and very very fucked. Hyper complex rhythms careen wildly between bursts of static and pink fuzz, oddly placed rapping is chopped and deconstructed, heavy metal guitars are sped up and smeared into fuzzy melodies, blasting beats blur into buzzing Merzbow style white noise, and the whole thing takes on the sound of some long lost abstract DHR recording. Some of you may want to skip past the lighter portions, but give it a chance, taken as a whole, Ultravisitor is a really disorienting, perplexing, challenging but ultimately super ass kicking ride!

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

SORRY. Latest blast of jungly goodness from Squarepusher and boy is it old school. You'd almost never guess this was Squarepusher. The beats aren't insanely spastic and there is nary a funk bass to be found. Side one is a classic blast of drum n' bass, very early nineties but if you're like us, you can never get enough of that stuff. Side two is a little bit more mellow, a couple blissed out dreamy ambient tracks with occasional bleeping outerspace sound effects stuttering blithely through the tranquility messing up everything quite nicely and eventually turning the ambience into a stuttering jungle workout. Good stuff.

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

SORRY.

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

SORRY.

I hate to admit it, but I like this record. St Germain is jazz for people who don't listen to jazz, but listen to Kruder and Dorfmeister or Kid Loco and wouldn't mind if it was, well, a little jazzier. And damn if it isn't. The first track is a Mo Wax style slow burner made from a looped old Blue Note record making for some awesome smoky late night cruising music. There's some crazy breathy hiccupping flute ala Herbie Mann or Roland Kirk and some really nice grooves. The only downside, is St. Germain's propensity for house music. A lot of the tracks start off really wicked, but then are watered down by a generic house 4/4 beat. That aside, this is a pretty cool record (and I do listen to jazz!).

RealAudio clip: La Goutte D'or

With Cold Cave crashing into a baroque mania on their Cherish The Light Years album, it's good to see a retro-garde minimal wave band properly filtering the wheat from the chaff when it comes to all of the references of '80 synth-pop. For all of the fetishization of antiquated sounds, one has to be very aware that for every great Human League, OMD, Depeche Mode record there were dozens that were truly horrible. And that's what makes the retro-synth-minimal-wave thing so appealing, since the most evocative, the most decadent, the darkest attributes of what came out of that entire history of music should be the goals for this schizophrenic recombination of tropes. Perhaps even more so than fellow Wierd recording artists Xeno & Oaklander, Staccato Du Mal totally gets that, finding some pretty great references to stitch together in his studio, overflowing we'd imagine with analog keyboards, step sequencers, modular synths, patchbays, and the like. Throughout all of the electronics on Sin Destino, you'll hear the ghosts in the machine from the lo-tech synth wunderkammer that is Throbbing Gristle's "United", the mechanoid alienation of Nocturnal Emissions' album Drowning In A Sea Of Bliss (especially the second half of that album), Dark Day's post no-wave synth excursions on Exterminating Angel, the proto-industrial adventures which sporadically detoured Harmonia, and even the cybernetic rhythmic electro of Adult and Model 500. Vocals are sporadic, always distorted, blurred, and buried in the mix, and Staccato Du Mal sounds all the better when nothing is said at all, as the synths in their dark arpeggiations, funereal atmospheres, and icy melodies are more than strong enough to stand on their own, and even expand into a darkly cosmic mindfucks as well. Super recommended!

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Out of nowhere comes this grimy slab of murky, sci-fi, synth kraut, cold wave, psych dub weirdness, that sounds a bit like former aQ ROTW-ers Fabulous Diamonds gone cold wave, or a way more blissed out and krautrocky Soft Moon, it's like some mutant strain of futuristic Euro disco, heavily dubbed, and then reimagined as the soundtrack for some dystopian post apocalyptic future age. A woozy, blurred landscape of pulsating squelches, arpeggiated melodies, lo-fi rhythms, lush space age synth swells, and hazy, washed out vox, dripping in echo and reverb and delay, gauzy and ethereal and almost dreampoppy one second, super dubbed out and near psychedelic the next. The songs here less verse-chorus-verse, that a single looped melody over a near static groove, locked into endless cylical sprawls, super tranced out and utterly mesmerizing. Stacian hails from Milwaukee, but could just as well be have been transmitting these sounds via tachyon beams from some mysterious planet, in an alternate universe, and from a wholly other timeline, it definitely fits sonically alongside outfits like the above mentioned Fabulous Diamonds, and it has a distinctly Carpenter / Goblin vibe, not to mention that whole modern retro Brooklyn cold wave thing, but Stacian adds a heaping dose of murky minimalism, with some of the tracks ditching the vocals completely, and oozing into a sort of zoned out space-kraut dirgey, while other tracks blossom into impossibly catchy near poppiness. Songs like "Almos Telos Tenoste", almost sound like something Joe Meek might have whipped up his mad scientist kitchen/recording studio/laboratory, while tracks like "Formida" anchor near weightless synth simmer, to a lurching robo-kraut rhythm, while vocals swirl and spin over the top, Stacian's throaty croon dubbed to high heaven and sent careening into the ether. And the whole record in fact splits the difference between the two, pulsing, pounding, percolating, motorik and mesmerizing, a sort of warped electro synth-pop run through a bank of malfunctioning electronics, and played back by a cyborg backing band. It's not hard to imagine Stacian, dressed in a strange metallic gown, hovering above an elevated dais, in front of the cosmos, spinning darkly behind her in the distance, while all around her, shadowy machine-like shapes churn and grind, gears spinning, lights blinking, a primitive futuristic symphony, unfurling wasted zoner kraut-pop gems and loosing them into space, left to glimmer and glisten in a sky full of dying stars. The cd version tacks on FIVE bonus tracks, which while retaining the same sort of cosmic kraut-murk energy, are way more lo-fi, and much more propulsive, the sound brittle and tinny, the synths buzzing over skittery robotic grooves, a brief songsuite of melancholic kraut-synth space pop, that while sonically not as lush and fully realized as the record proper, might just contain the catchiest jams of all, check out the closer "Micro-Trauma", which will get lodged in your mechanical brain after one listen, and gloriously gum up the works. WAY recommended.

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New split from former aQ Record Of The Weeker Stacian, who delivers two tripped out kosmische synth workouts that sound like alien Kraftwerk, pulsing and tranced out, the tons in constant flux, locked into stiff robotic grooves, but then occasionally growing all slippery and squiggly, and then the vocals come in, weird processed, FX heavy bellows, drifting above the field of bleeps and bloops below, but somehow transforming the blessed out sci-fi synthiness into some weird fractured future pop, dizzying and drone and druggy and divine. The second track on the Stacian side slips into something a bit more lo-fi and new wave-y, all primitive drum machines, and sing songy synth melodies, but all the sounds distorted and crunchy, a little crumbly, the vibe melancholy and minor key, a little wistful, some sad robot, drifting through space, alone for eternity, and then again, the vocals, now pitched down to a Scott Walker like croon, make this some sort of interstellar torch song, epic and majestic, a sprawling slab of downer space pop that sounds like it could easily not just be from another galaxy, but also another time, like some lost eighties artifact that could have been a reissue on Medical or Dark Entries! Gel Set, who we've previously heard on a split with Windbreaker, delves into something sonically similar, weaving a minimal cold wave electro pop from squelchy synths, minimal programmed drums, what sounds almost like tablas, and some haunting processed vocals, again that sound pitched down into some spooky spectral croon. The background synths get more and more active, soon all tangled up into intricate melodies, wound around a roiling dark pop murk. The second track gets a bit more electro/new wave, sounding like it might have been transported from some alternate universe eighties MTV, but something went wrong in the process, rendering the resulting sound more woozy and warped, slowed down, and a bit sonically smeary, a hazy, gauzy, drowsy and druggy electro space pop that is definitely a good fit with Stacian. The coolest/weirdest track might be the close, which is super stripped down and percussive, moody and murky, rhythmic and -almost- funky, almost like some alien electro / hip-hop, but slowed down, and pulled apart, and stretched way out, the vocals here too a deep moan buried in the mix, it's all about the beat, and the rhythms, and it ends way too soon, would have happily listened to a whole record of this sort of warbly, alien electro-kraut space-hop! LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Each one hand numbered. Housed in cool metallic silver on matte black sleeves.

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. On probably our favorite of these first four Dielectric releases, Karen Stackpole employs an elaborate arsenal of percussion instruments: lots of gongs as well as cymbals, tibetan bowls, Thai tuned gongs, wind-up toys, music boxes, metal rods, dried bean pods and more. These are all played, rubbed, pounded, bowed, and struck to create a dense but spacious ambient soundscape of thunderous low end, rumbling ripples that wash lugubriously outward, as high-end shimmers and squeaks nestle alongside clatter and tinkle and splashes of percussive splatter. Gorgeous and thick, noisy and hypnotic, drony and transcendental, somewhere between 20th century classical, the stumbing free-rhythm workouts of No Neck Blues Band or Sunburned Hand Of The Man, and the dreamy upper register Ur-drone of Sunroof! or Vibracathedral Orchestra. So nice! MPEG Download: "One" [/audio/stackpoleone.mp3] MPEG Stream: "One" [/audio/stackpoleone.m3u]

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What's that breezy '80s vibe tickling your ears? Might it be Todd Stadtman's debut album Only I Can Save You? Filled with pretty-pretty pop melodies, Stadtman's suitably sensitive boy vocals and a gauzy blend of acoustic and electronic layers'n'loops, at times it's reminiscent of The Style Council (circa "My Everchanging Moods", check out the second song "Something Less Than Tenderness") and Casiotone For The Painfully Alone. Or you might even imagine a lower-fi younger brother of David Sylvian (at least in comparison to Sylvian's most recent Blemish album). The songwriting of his more structured songs is seemingly inspired by the smart popsmith likes of XTC's Andy Partridge and Elvis Costello, while the less song-y ones are more along the lines of Dntel or something from the Morr Music label. A nice and sweet how-do-you-do!

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Hard to tell if "Dr. Stahlgren" and "Dr. Ferguson" are in fact members of Stock, Hausen, & Walkman, but I would imagine they are, as this little 3" CD was released in the series of "educational recordings" on their Hot Air label. Supposedly, these two Of course, the two "doctors" made many hours of recordings of those machines, of course "solved" the problems, and of course this album "Printing With Magnetic Inks" is the resulting collage of those recordings, of course with "some artistic license, editing and processing. With this audio fuck-you (much more listenable than V/VM 's attempts at the same), Hot Air offers yet another exceptionally funny piece of contemporary musique concrete filled with all sorts of whimsical bleeps and bloops.

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A band with a purposefully lengthy Nordic name on the outsider electronica label Phthalo is not going to make for the easiest of listens. Fortunately, this actually *is* a really good listen albiet difficult, in which Stalatiken Och Mirjam erratically sets squiggly electronic sequences of semi-Acid modulations in non-techno circumstances, adding fractured hip-hop anti-funk and piercing manipulations of surface noise. A truly experimental record that ends up falling somewhere between the mania of V/VM and the academic headiness from the Raster label.

'80s retro sci-fi sexiness from these would-be Teutonic (actually Texan) clubgoin' droids known as Starchaser Network... two thirds of whom (Equitant and Proscriptor) are also key members of cult black metal thrash masters Absu!!! Actually that's not so strange, really, since we're already familiar with other Absu side projects that displayed far-from-black-metal tendencies. Absu drummer Proscriptor's solo recordings had their art-rock and new wave elements -- he even did covers of both Flock Of Seagulls and the Art Bears! There also has been two unusual offerings of Electro pastiche from Absu guitarist Equitant. Definitely if you dug those Equitant discs, you should check out Starchaser Network, whose influences are similar: Eno, Gary Numan, Kraftwerk, Pet Shop Boys, Egyptian Lover, Detroit Techno, etc.... yeah, apparently these guys were listening to more than just thrash back in the '80s. Thus all the darkly poppy, spacey-synthy, computer-grooved stuff here, with its decadent/deviant discotheque vibe. We'd recommend skipping track one, "Sintro", though, as it is by far the weakest, mainly due to some unfortunately cringeworthy vocals. They should have left it off, rather than putting it first! The rest of the disc is better, and while much of this may quite well be a bit tongue-in-cheek, only on that first track does it seem like "the joke's on them". We wish that they would have included instead their rumored cover version of the theme from the the '80s TV show Knight Rider (which should give you some idea about where they're coming from conceptually!).

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A brand new label focusing on grime and dubstep, from the same folks who do Anthem Records, responsible for the recent Birchville Frog Prince 7" as well as the amazing Brainbombs Stinking Memory 7" (both now out of print so don't ask). The first release on LoDubs is a one sided 12" from Starkey, who has been popping up on dubstep comps all over the place lately, and this one sided 12" single is a killer. Dense and dark, with ultra damaged bass lines, all sorts of strange synth melodies, stuttering almost jungly rhythms, all tangled up and convoluted, and funky as fuck. Maybe one of the best dubstep tracks we've heard. Totally reminds us of recent AQ record of the week Milanese, which is most definitely a good thing. Packaged in recycled brown paper sleeves, hand stamped with the label logo.

As we've mentioned in some of our other dubstep reviews, dubstep as a genre has gone through a crazy amount of permutations, constantly shifting and twisting into new shapes and sounds, hell, even the folks we already dig will kick out a new record and they'll have gotten inspired and totally mixed it up. Which is what seems to have happened to Starkey, already a long time favorite, based on just a handful of 12"s and a couple DJ mixes. Not sure if his style did dramatically shift, or if it's just that since this is Starkey's first full length, it just so happens to be the record he always wanted to make. Whatever the reason, we're digging this big time. A weirdo hybrid of classic dubstep, glitchy 8-bit electronica, and that sort of Zomby style rave-step. The first track sums up the Starkey sound pretty perfectly, some 8-bit bloops and beeps, some washed out eighties style synths, and then BANG, some thick fuzzed out bass warble, some glitchy warble lo-tech melody, and some woozy super dramatic, soundtracky melodies. A bunch of the tracks have guest MC's and thus get all grimey, with stuttery beats, tangled fuzz bass, and mush mouthed flows, and yeah, more of that retro (borderline cheesy) synth, that when incorporated into the griminess sounds almost more ominous than cheesy. Some of the jams are super lo-fi, all glitchy and fuzzy, but eventually explode into something more block rocking and groovy. The thing with this Starkey joint and lots of the newer dubstep records coming out, is that instead of stringing a bunch of beats together and calling it day, folks are concerning themselves more with actually writing songs, coming up with melodies, crafting actual music instead of just trying to get asses moving. But in the process, they're managing to do both. Lots of Ear Drums And Black Holes veers way off the dubstep beaten path, getting all electro, dipping toes into electronic pop, fuzzy chill out techno, abstract jungle, with a little thread of dubstep running through them all, making this super varied record, impossibly cohesive. Anyone who's been digging Zomby, Ikonika, Rosko and any of the more melodic dubsteppers might just have found a new favorite...

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We only have a handful of these, live double cd-r's, recorded at the record release party for that Starkey mix we reviewed a few lists back. A mix which KILLED by the way. And Starkey's live set is equally ferocious, packed with tons of unreleased jams and dubplates, some of the best dubstep we've heard EVER, crushing buzzing bass, swirling synths, jagged stuttering beats, the first track alone, a Starkey jam if we're not mistaken, is worth the price of admission alone, super intense and cinematic, about as heavy as dubstep gets. The only bummer about this collection, is that it's a live disc, so some of the tracks are interrupted by shout outs, but that's a minor complaint with a mix this strong. There's practically no information, no tracklisting, no artist names, just two printed discs in a clear jewel case. But that almost makes it better. One big ol' mysterious collection of low slung grooves and pounding rhythms, a few have vocals, one or two get all grime-y, but throughout, the sound is devastating, so much bass, plenty of rumbling buzzing low end, some wild synthy squiggles, chopped up loops, weird melodies and fractured samples, all woven into dense speaker shredding bass bin crushing jams, and the beats, holy shit, stuttering, shuffling, skittering, if we were more inclined to dancing, this would definitely have us destroying dancefloors like there was no tomorrow. As it is, even us wallflowers can dig Starkey's deep dark dubbed out din.

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We've long been fans of dubstep DJ/producer Starkey, in part because even when dubstep was his bag, he was constantly pushing the boundaries of that sound, preferring terms like 'street bass' or 'bass music' to the flavor of the month 'dubstep', and introducing all sort of other flavors into his dubstep. Orbits finds Starkey delivering the latest installment in his 'street bass' series and easily the best, a forward thinking collection of modern electronica, still heavy on the dubstep, but all of those classic dubsteppisms are recontextualized here into a whole new sound. The opener "Renegade Starship" sounds like Starkey trying to mash up DJ Shadow and Daft Punk, which somehow sounds amazing, darkly dramatic, soaring sweeping synths, and stuttering beats, a woozy atmospheric first half, and tangled, beat heavy, second half, with a cool, haunting droned out synth denouement. But "Command" is the single here, and it's obvious why, moody and atmospheric, with sped up and stuttered soul vox, all wound up into a killer alien hook, and when the drop comes, BAM, an avalanche of synth buzz, that gives way to some skeletal 808 skitter, then big block rocking beat, wound around some seriously slithery synth, this is the sort of shit that some pop star should be singing over on the radio, listening to this now, we're imagining it can't be long before some mainstream big names catch on and start hitting up Starkey to produce their tracks. Orbits plays like the perfect transition records, still fucked up and experimental, and underground, but so close to breakthrough mainstream pop hit material, which is what makes Orbits so good, best of both worlds. And yet for every booming bass hook heavy hit, there's a jam like "Magnet", all murky vocodered celestial electro ballad, creepy and dreamy and haunting, with a surprising final big beat climax, or "Distant Star", which starts out all kosmische and psychedelic, before exploding into full on Deadmau5 / Daft Punk territory. And in-between, more stone cold killers, like the weird stuttery synth crunch of "And Then God Built To Cosmos" or the super minimal old school squelch heavy "Lzr", or even the lush atmospheric synth swirl of "Crashing Sphere". Easily our favorite Starkey record so far, and the more we listen it it, the more it seems inevitable that some big names will pop up with some crazy new jams with some twisted Starkey productions in the near future. Bieber? Beyonce? Britney? Ke$ha? Nicki Minaj? Taylor Swift? We can only hope...

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It's always tough with DJ mixes, to figure out how much credit to give to the DJ, sure, we all have rad record collections, so why does this or that DJ get his mixtape pressed up and released as an actual cd and not us? Well, to be fair, some of those DJ's DO have way cooler record collections than any of us, and no matter how kick ass your mixtape skills are, there's something about actually having a job, that essentially IS making a mixtape every night for a living, that's gonna mean that person is probably gonna come up with some seriously kick ass mixes. That situation is made all the more reasonable when the DJ in question is also a music maker himself, which not only means he or she has a good ear for sounds and arrangements, but can link the mix with their own tracks, and assuming their tracks also kick ass, well then heck, we'll happily fork over our hard earned cash. And such is the case with this mix from dubstepper Starkey, who offers up a pretty wild and schizophrenic mix, that does indeed touch on dubstep and grind, but spends most of its time careening wildly between techno and house and hip hop and Miami bass, all tangled up with bits of dubstep and techno, some jungle, and some stuff that doesn't at all fit in any one genre. That said, fans of all the dubstep mixes we've been digging over the last little while, Mary Anne Hobbs, Box Of Dub, Science Faction, will for sure want to check this out, and folks into techno and electronica, will probably find this an easy way to ease into those offshoots. It's pretty solid all the way through, and from a mixing standpoint, the songs flow smoothy into each other, so much so that sometimes it's hard to tell when one stops and another starts, but there are some definite standouts, Drop The Lime's "Crazy Love" is an awesome chopped pop workout, very eighties, but all revved up and transformed into a lurching start stop stutter. DZ's "Oooh" is an awesomely heavy slab of woozy synth and dubstep skitter, fuzzy and new wavy, buzzy, almost like a grimier Justice, Zomby's "Aquafre5h" is a dizzying underwater bloopy groove, constructed almost entirely from eighties video game sounds, Pacheko offers seasickly ebb and flow of chopped synths and rumbling buzzing basslines, Food For Animals do their own 8-bit freakout, with skeletal drums over a constantly mutating wall of fractured electronics, and some weird murky rapping, and of course Starkey delivers 5 or 6 of his own tracks, ranging from dark harrowing dubbed out minimalism, to almost cheesy eighties disco, to pounding synth bangers, to a strange piano outro, all smoky and jazzy, laced with bits of intercepted radio transmissions and streaks of warm whirring hiss. KILLER mix. And thus, needless to say, WAY recommended. Packaged in an eye popping bright orange jewel case. Total dancefloor destruction, easily one of the best mixes of the year. So far...

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The latest tape from this Oakland duo finds these guys drifting ever further into the cosmos, their crumbling soundscapes and blurred fields of synth shimmer, stretched way out, a sprawling, hushed world of minimal sound, a seemingly never-ending drone, softly pulsing, and surrounded by clouds of gristle and crackle, slowly unfurling, and emitting subtle sonic sparks, like buried melodies, and and ripple like shimmers, that background noise starts to take more solid shape on the second track, transformed from a whisper into a dense thrum, a distorted slo-mo stasis, cascading sheets of distortion burnished into woozy blurs, before finally receding and leaving just shadows, barely there voices, all set in a field of digi-dub like crackle, a woozy loopscape like some Philip Jeck fever dream. The second half of Eruptionem dials back some of the low end, instead layering tinny pulsations into a glimmering crystalline stretch of grainy resonance, one that picks up grit and grime as it progresses, the shape becoming more and more Caretaker-like, all crackly and faded, sun dappled and wistful, before unexpectedly splintering into some lurching beats and thrumming low slung bass throb, but things quickly slip back into tranquility, the title track another SUNNO)))-like sprawl, all decaying distortion and slow motion riffage, smeared into a dream-doom haze, before things finish off with a gorgeous bit of Stars Of The Lid like dronescaping, moody and cinematic, minimal, but with a density and tension that gives the proceedings a seriously heavy heart, perfectly paired with the song's otherwise melancholy sonics. LIMITED TO 140 COPIES, each one hand numbered, super swank 6 panel full color J-cards and light blue tapes.

First we've heard from this Oakland outfit, whose sound is a glorious, throbbing, crumbling, super distorted droned out world of grinding, glitched out synths, and heaving blurred heaviness, two tracks of ritualistic psychedelic drone-noise, that manages to blunt the sharp edges, and create something almost kosmische sounding, like Skullflower style ur-drone crush fused to glimmering synthy shimmer, dense walls of sound, crumble and warble, sprawling into oozing expanses of blackened rumble, underpinned by gristly buzz and softly pulsing shimmer, the B side blissing out into some hazy, dreamlike soft-noise thrum, shot through with lilting melodies, the whole thing swaddled in undulating sheets of looped buzz and soft swirls of heavenly chordal thrum, the whole thing building to a huge finale of softly swirling dream-noise. The tape also includes a download coupon, that in addition to the two songs proper, tacks on a bonus 10 minute track, a lush, deep listening, cavernous chunk of droning, dreamy driftiness, lush and all enveloping minimal slow burn bliss out. LIMITED TO 66 COPIES!! Each one hand numbered, already sold out at the label, so the few copies we have is all we're gonna get. The packaging is super over the top too, the tapes dubbed onto old school vintage reel to reel looking cassettes, housed in three color hand screen printed J-cards, and blue or pink dayglo cases.

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Oh Canada! The land of such wonderful pop music! Toronto-based band Stars weave the dreamiest grand pop gems. Very much in the swirling orchestral electronic vein of Saint Etienne crossed with the sugar twee bliss of Belle & Sebastian with very sweetheart boy/girl vocals much like Postal Service (particularly on the title track). Amy Millan and Torquil Campbell sing atop a swelling sea of gorgeous strings, horns, woodwinds, keyboards and theremin. Fans of any/all of the above will surely welcome this into their... uh, heart. So lovely!

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MPEG stream: Elevator Love Letter

Hailing from Providence, Rhode Island and signed to Kid 606's Tigerbeat 6, Stars As Eyes certainly don't sound like they belong to either camp, as the duo has nothing in common with the aggro-costume-rock of Lightning Bolt or Arab On Radar nor is there much in common with the ironic-electro shock schtick endorsed by The Kid. Rather, Stars As Eyes embraces the instrumentation of rock within a context of pure electronica, fusing chopped 'n' diced rock riffs (complete with moderately heavy guitars, drums, and occasional bullhorn vocals) within a quirky, slightly sad structure of electronica (i.e. Mum, Boards of Canada).

RealAudio clip: If I Could I Would Be You
RealAudio clip: Important Youth Movement

This newest act on Tigerbeat6 isn't quite what I expected from the supercool, yet quirky and generally fucked tastes of Kid 606 and friends. Add the fact that just about any band from Providence is most likely to be an art-damaged in your face blast of aural terrorism. So imagine my surprise when I slapped this puppy on: the duo of Stars as Eyes create thick, lush, beautiful landscapes

RealAudio clip: Le Punisher
RealAudio clip: Freedom Rock
RealAudio clip: Figure It Out
RealAudio clip: Retarded Future

Stars As Eyes traverse through such varied musical terrain on their new cd that it almost sounds like a compilation of a bunch of different bands. Perhaps they've been drawing inspiration from their vast array of Tigerbeat6 labelmates (psst, check out the label's recent bargain-priced compilation Open Up And Say...@<%_|^[!] for a thorough sampling of their roster)? Actually this is more of a remix collection than an album proper. Of the dozen tracks, one third are new, and over half are remixes... which probably factors in greatly to the diversity of the track selection. It all starts familiarly Stars As Eyes-y. That is, chiming, airy electronic dreaminess (track 1 "Some Life"), then things darken and churn somewhat into something akin to 'industrial-lite' (track 2 "Rotten"). But wait! Let's not get all gloomy! Party down with some disco punk a la The Rapture, Outhud (track 5 "Falling Picture - Shy Child Remix"), and lighten back up with more soothing melancholic-tronica (track 9 "Our Light - Casino Versus Japan Remix"), then brood, brood, brood into some very moody Brit rock-ish songs (track 10 and 11 "La Methode Francaise - Dwayne Sodahberk Remix" and "Resistance Days - Mum Nostalgia"). Delightfully eclectic or puzzlingly wishy-washy, you decide.

MPEG stream: Falling Picture - Shy Child Remix
MPEG stream: La Methode Francaise - Dwayne Sodahberk Remix

State Of Bengal is a new "Tabla n' Bass" project by Talvin Singh co-conspirator Sam Zaman -- he worked with T. Singh on the Anokha project. For fans of DJ Cheb i Sabbah -- who appears on the same label -- or, of course, Talvin Singh.

Trensmat continues to deviate from their previously psychedelic/space rock focus, and delve deeper into obscure electronica, with this latest blast of rhythmic murk from Chicago producer Stave, who delivers a gorgeous bit of gristly rhythmatism, all hazy, synthy swirl wrapped around churning tangled skitter, and all sort of washed out and hazy, buried melodies drifting serenely beneath the roiling surface, all tangled clockwork beats, and mechanical grooves. In a way, it reminds us a little of the more electronic leaning outings from Campbell Kneale's Our Love Will Destroy The World, but where that stuff was total blissed out kitchen sink chaos, Stave is much more measured, sounding at times like classic Autechre dipped in a weirdly noisy psychedelic brew, just check out the opener, strip the beats away, and it's almost some serious Pop Ambient dreaminess, and the beats do drop out at one point to reveal just what's lurking below the surface, but only briefly, before the sound slips right back into more electro-crunch, IDM mesmer. The rest of the tracks follow suit, the sound dense and noisy, the beats wreathed in clouds of static, and fracture melodies, each track a swirling rhythmscape that skirts chaos, but instead of crumbling and fracturing, Stave somehow sculpts that chaos into something propulsive, and moody, and atmospheric. One track goes full on jungle, but Stave style, surrounding the classic break, with a barrage of auxiliary beats, that only add to the strangely psychedelic vibe of the whole thing, before things mellow out into a gorgeous field of muted pulsations, and hushed rhythmic skitter. Includes a download of the whole record with two bonus tracks! The first of which sounds like it was plucked right from the record, another murky psychedelic chaotic banger, while the closer, sounds almost live, the drums pushed way up to the front, while hazy clouds of chordal thrum, and distant keening melodies, drift dreamily in the background.

MPEG stream: Trust
MPEG stream: Anon
MPEG stream: Tower 9

Mikael Stavostrand is a reformed industrialist (the musical sort, not the capitalist sort) who has abandoned the doom & gloom of his previous identity (the Cold Meat Industry staples Archon Satani and Innana) in favour of the contemporary electronic glitch sound. The emulation of his new peers is so striking that each track could be direct to digital copies. The first track being Oval, then Vladislav Delay, then Wolfgang Voigt, then Taylor Deupree, then Pole. Like all of those technically proficient guitarists who cop riffs from Hendrix, Deep Purple, or Zeppelin, it's a not a bad thing to practice mimicking your heroes, but is it neccessary to subject your audience to it?

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

SORRY. 2nd album from this heavy noise techno joyride artist.

It may be surprising that one of the godfathers of hip-hop and DJ culture was a former ad-man who in response to a Tommy Boy remix contest in 1983 delivered one of the best mastermixes of all time. "The Payoff Mix" (aka Lesson No. 1) along with Lesson No. 2 (James Brown Mix) and Lesson No. 3 (History of Hip-hop) are legendary examples of Steinski's (and sometimes partner Double Dee) fast and furious collage style of song snippets, movie dialogue and cartoon bits over an array of classic drum breaks. More amazing because they weren't products of turntablist wizardry but painstakingly put together using a box of records, tape machines and hours of studio editing. Taking cues from of all unlikely places, the novelty records of Dickie Goodman ("Flying Saucer", "Mr. Jaws"), whose interview style parodies using snippets of popular songs as humorous responses provided Steinski with readymade samples of sixties and seventies hits. Steinski would also follow the same path as Goodman in terms of legal troubles from record companies, giving early rise to the debate over sampling and issues of fair use. Which is apropos since this 2 disc reissue is being released on Girltalk's Illegal Art label. What Does It All Mean? collects those early singles along with later production work including darker collage forays into the assassination of JFK and 9/11, with the second disc containing the entire mix album "Nothing to Fear: A Rough Mix" which was made for the Coldcut-associated show Solid Steel on the BBC. That second disc alone will jump-start any party, which you will need after the first disc schools your ass on early hip-hop history!

MPEG stream: Lesson No. 2 (James Brown Mix)
MPEG stream: I'm Wild About That Thing
MPEG stream: Country Grammar (Hydro Mix)
RealAudio clip: Hit The Disco (Mc Enuff Mix)

Stellar Om Source is a one woman sci-fi space-synth, cosmic (or kosmische?) sonic starship piloted by Christelle Gualdi, a fusion of droned out minimal krautrock, raw private press naive electronic experimentation, Carpenter/Goblin influenced retro soundtrack synthscapes, and percolating analog atmospherics, all woven into lush landscapes of low-grade futuristic synthdrone kraut drift mystery. Culled from three long out of print cd-r's: Ocean Woman, Alliance and Crusader, Trilogy Select gathers up a handpicked greatest hits, and assembles them into something resembling a proper album, a woozy, amorphous drift through dark starlit skies, through vast crumbling futuristic cities, evoking the landscapes of low budget late night science fiction B movies, blocky shapes and neon colors split into jagged sine waves and square waves, kinda like Tron meets Logan's Run scored by John Carpenter as performed by Oneohtrix Point Never (who collaborates on one of the tracks here!). Totally mesmerizing and spaced out, the tracks slip from hushed droney blur to cascades of Riley like repetition, soft cacophonies of layered synth swirl, to sun blasted upper register ur-drone bliss, hazy ethereal new age shimmer, to muted textural thrum, always infused with some sort of dark pathos, and dramatic tension, all very cinematic and atmospheric, hypnotic and totally mesmerizing. Absolutely essential psychedelic space synth drone music for anyone into Oneohtrix Point Never, Emeralds, Dylan Ettinger, Caboladies, Pulse Emitter, Innercity and other like minded sonic cosmonauts... Comes with a download coupon as well!

MPEG stream: Fantazia
MPEG stream: Red Green Blue
MPEG stream: Alpine Architecture
MPEG stream: Zones Under Influence

From the album title to the album's music itself, Stereo Total are pulling no party punches. From the get go, they vault themselves into the bubbliest, brightly hued, campy heights of electronic dance pop -- dishing out covers (of the Rolling Stones, Serge Gainsbourg, Nico & Velvet Underground among others), remixes (by the duo themselves as well as Thieves Like Us, Vredus, Justus K�hncke, Echokrank, Munk and Mad Professor!), new versions of songs from their last album Do The Bambi and more likeminded fare. They once again season each of their songs with a bit of space age lounge, a dash of spy movie, and tons of sticky, chewy, rubbery goodness. Soooooo deliriously fun!

MPEG stream: Mother's Little Helper
MPEG stream: Chelsea Girls (Thieves Like Us Remix)

Yay! Yay! Yay! It's time again for some stylin' Euro fun 'cuz StereoTotal have just unleashed a new album. It's called Do The Bambi, baby! Careful tho' you might go into sugar shock from this sparkly kooky multilingual electro-pop explosion. Lead singer Francoise Cactus has perfected the pout in her coquettish '60s Ye Ye Girl vocals, while her ST partner Brezel Goring once again does his best Monsieur Gainsbourg. A whopping nineteen wonderfully silly and gleefully playful songs packed with lots of cheesy Casio-style beats... nay, Bontempi-style beats churned out by a vaguely named "rhythm machine". They close the festivities with a cover of The Velvet Underground's "Chelsea Girls". Party guests include Hawnay Troof and Felix Kubin. Yay! NOTE: Again, there's a street date of 1/25/05 on this puppy, so we can't sell 'em 'til Tuesday...but you can go ahead and order it if you're doing mailorder.

MPEG stream: Do The Bambi
MPEG stream: I Am Naked

When we first encountered Stereo Total back in 1999 with this album (originally released by Bungalow Records), our initial reaction was a rather perfunctory "Stereo-Total are Stereolab meets Musical Youth with herky-jerky female vocals you will either love or hate." Over the years, the duo have certainly improved and endeared themselves to a few of us... or maybe back then our hearts were just colder. Now that the folks at Kill Rock Stars have reissued two of the duo's early albums, we've been spurred to revisit 'em. Y'know what? We've been having a grand ol' time kicking up our heels and tapping our toes to this album and its also-reissued follow-up My Melody (with which we were already smitten the first time around). While we can't say that we luv Francoise Cactus' pouty cooing vocals, we sure don't hate 'em either. They make a great companion to Brezel Goring's droll Gainsbourgian delivery. We're happily humming along even if we haven't a clue what they're singing about in French, German, Japanese and Italian! If you dig '60s French Ye Ye girls, bubbly electronic pop, and all things Euro-cute, Stereo-Total is sooooo for you!

MPEG stream: Holiday Innn
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Another Euro-pop swingin' shimmy-shake affair from the very cosmopolitan Stereo Total. Once again, a lyrical cocktail shaker of French, German, English and... Turkish! Many moments that would make obscure, eccentric '60s lounge-y/ad jingle composer Charles

RealAudio clip: L'Amour A 3
RealAudio clip: Je Suis Une Poupee
RealAudio clip: Nationale 7

Ooooh la la! This was the Stereo Total album that really caught our ears back in late '99 -- especially the irresistible ultra-kicky tune "Vilaines Filles, Mauvais Garcons". Clearly it caught the ears of the Kill Rock Stars folks too 'cause they've reissued it domestically (it was originally released by Bobsled Records) along with their previous album Juke Box Alarm. Here's what we said the first time around: Quirky German, French and English vocals frolic over a mish mash of tinkly, woobly melodies. A dash of Pizzicato Five, a sprinkle of Francoise Hardy, a pinch of Thee Headcoatees. This is the soundtrack to your next pyjama party, wear your pinkest of lipsticks and fluffiest of pjs... Or perhaps, this is the soundtrack to your next Sanrio soiree, wear your battiest of lashes and froufrou-est of frocks. Go go go!

MPEG stream: Vilaines Filles, Mauvais Garcons
MPEG stream: Ringo, I Love You

Five remixes of the instant classic that Stereo Total has been performing live for the past four or so years, only recorded recently for their latest long player, "Musique Automatique". Remixers include Candie Hank (aka Patric Catani of EC8OR, Audio Chocolate, Flex Busterman, et al), Felix Kubin, Christopher Just (producer of a handful of Chicks On Speed tracks), Bis and Brezel

While they released some great 7"s that were compiled onto one disc a couple years ago called Fab Four Suture, it's actually been over four years since these swirling pop masters have released a proper full length. Chemical Chords finds them in top form and while there are still plenty of keyboards, organs and electronics the album's real magic comes from the rich and layered string, brass and horn arrangements. This is Stereolab at their most lush and catchy. mining the gold out of of their love and rich appreciation of '60s French pop, Motown, exotica, and psych-pop. Chemical Chords is filled to the brim with songs that get right to the point and the band effortlessly keeps them filled with the brightest colors and most vivid of sonic shapes throughout. While we're not always crazy about High Llamas records (although we do like some of them) we have to say that the Llamas' Sean O'Hagen's contributions to this record are so striking (he's responsible for all the string and brass arrangements). Like all Stereolab records it's important to remember that it takes several listens for the songs to really reveal themselves and start sinking in. It's easy at first to say this just sounds "like Stereolab" which of course it does, but sounding "like Stereolab" means being one of the best pop bands of our time and Chemical Chords is one more great record to add to their already impressive catalog. The first batch of these come with a free 7" with two non-album tracks, while supplies last!

MPEG stream: Neon Beanbag
MPEG stream: Valley hi!
MPEG stream: Chemical Chords

If by some freakish chance, you or someone you know has never heard the music of Stereolab, this is *the* cd to get him/her/yourself. Really, Serene Velocity could easily be titled The Best Of Stereolab collection. Sure there'd be lots of disputing the song selection -- we've all got our personal favorites of course! -- but each time we've played this in the store someone (customers and staff alike) inevitably bursts out an "oooh, I love this song!" for almost every song! The sweet sixteen songs are "Crest", "French Disko", "Ping Pong", "Cybele's Reverie", "Metronomic Underground", "Percolator", "Brakhage", "Miss Modular", "Infinity Girl", "Come And Play In The Milky Way", "Space Moth", "Double Rocker", "Vonal Declosion", and "...Sudden Stars" as well as rare 7" versions of "Jenny Ondioline (Part 1)" and "Wow And Flutter". Sure, devoted fans probably already have multiple copies of each of these tunes, but heck! Even they might find it to be like the yummiest Stereolab mixtape around!

MPEG stream: French Disko
MPEG stream: Ping Pong

Released on Uwe "Atom Heart" Schmidt's Rather Interesting label, The Stereonerds are an Australian duo -- one guy programs, one guys sings -- making good ol' electro rather straightforwardly (vocoder, rubbery beats), which is interesting given that Rather Interesting releases are usually genre-fucking entities (Atom + Tea Time, Senor Coconut, Roger Tubesound, etc). It's jittery yet smooth. Two of the tracks contain samples from Atom's Harddisk Rock 12". Also contains a cover of Joe Meek's "I Hear a New World" that gets them points for having great taste but then, oops, well, we're gonna have to wipe those points on account of the cold Teutonic pokerfaced vocals and a total erasing of the original melody. Still, a good listen, dare you to stay in your seat... MPEG Download: "F.U.N.K. (Is What You Don't Play)" [/audio/stereonerdsfunk.mp3]

MPEG stream: F.U.N.K. (Is What You Don't Play)

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

SORRY.

Skweeeeeeeeeee! We've got some more of that freaky funky Scandinavian (not always!) glitch hop electro 8-bit fun for y'all... A few months back, after we listed "the first American skweee release" by Portland's Lazercrotch, we received an email from Boston-based producer Stickem politely letting us know that he was the first American skweee artist to put something out, actually. However, Stickem's debut ep was a digital download only so we couldn't have stocked it anyway. Now, however, he's got physical product that we've been able to bring in, a brand new 7" single. A-side "This Thing Is On" is on indeed, slamming yet slinky low-slung groove, snapping and popping with electronic blip blap. An intermittent simple synth keyboard melody tickles the ear throughout. The B-side confirms Stickem's skweee cred, being a remix by Stockholm's Beem, who smoothes things out just a bit, like the original track's kicked back and taken a few tokes. Nice. Stickem is definitely hooked up with his Scandinavian brethren, also being responsible for an entire skweee mix, featuring Beem, Claws Cousteau, Mrs. Qeada, Mesak, Randy Barracuda, and other skweee notables, that you can download free from http://skweee.com/let-skweeedom-ring.

When we first heard London retro murk poppers Still Corners, it was on a split single with another retro pop combo called The New Lines, and we were so smitten by The New Lines song, that it even had us wondering why it was Still Corners who got signed to Sub Pop and not The New Lines. Well, if there was any doubt about whether Still Corners should be on Sub Pop, it was wiped away within seconds of putting on their debut full length. Like Portishead crossed with Ennio Morricone crossed with Stereolab crossed with The Caretaker, the sound is so washed out and careworn, organs warble and wheeze, the drums minimal and skeletal, the guitars chiming and jangly, the production muted and muddy, all supporting the breathy angelic vocals of singer Tessa Murray, whose childlike croon is ethereal and spectral, the result is some sort of out-of-time faded memory dream pop. Opener "Cuckoo" is a perfect example, about as dreamy and divine as pop music gets. Fans of the various Girls bands (Dum Dum, Vivian, etc.), who want something dreamier and darker and more late night sounding, this might be the ticket. "Circulars" definitely displays the bands Stereolab side, propulsive and a little bit krautrocky sounding, but as if broadcast from underwater, or through an old radio hooked up to the sixties. The distinctive organ sound and the washed out production is what really defines Still Corners' sound, there aren't even any proper vocals on "Circulars", instead just some buried oooh's and aaah's, woven into the softly undulating fabric of the song's gauzy shimmer. Elsewhere the band look to Mazzy Star for sure, even the Cocteau Twins, but their sound is firmly rooted in sixties girl group pop, but not in the way the current crop of garage rockers channel that sound, no Still Corners have made that sound their own, it's not just echo and reverb, the sound is thick, and organic, the vocals dreamlike and crystalline, the songs subtly hooky, as much about the sound as the song, and vice versa. Our favorite track would have to be "I Wrote In Blood", which almost sounds like a female Chris Isaak, channeled through some sort of Southern gothic PJ Harvey, the guitars fuzzy and distorted, but still minimal and spare, chiming melodies draped over the chugging swampy blues that seams to be blurred and smeared into a sort of ethereal slither, and when the drums do finally kick in, it's immediately all soundtracky, haunting and mysterious and so darkly evocative. And just as we pick that as our favorite, another one begins vying for the honor, until we finally give in and proclaim the whole record as our favorite. Easily one of the prettiest, darkest, most mysteriously lovely retro pop, dream psych records we've heard in ages, and absolutely destined to top our year end list. At least until that New Lines full length comes out...

MPEG stream: Cuckoo
MPEG stream: Circulars
MPEG stream: I Wrote In Blood