Latest collection of forward thinking electronica from UK DJ Mary Anne Hobbs, this latest expands her focus from mostly grime and dubstep, to techno and hip hop and all sorts of variations and microgenres in between.
The compilation begins with a track by Mark Pritchard, who we had never heard of before, but his track "?" is a gorgeous bit of minimal dronemusic, that begins super spare and only begins to blossom near the end, with the drone splintering into woozy minor key melodies, creating a sort of bittersweet ambient drift, which leads right into a jam from Hudson Mohawke (Best band name ever? Quite possibly!), a lurching stuttery glitchy electronic freak out, all splatters of 8-bit beep and bloop, weird female grunts, and a killer hip hop beat underneath, warped and so good. Mike Slott is up next with a warbly slow jam, another flurry of blips and weird truncated vocals, pretty and sunshiney, but still plenty weird, which butts up against Brackles, some tripped out synth heavy techno, and so it goes, all over the map for sure, although there is some sort of sonic thread connecting all of the jams here.
We're still partial to the dubstep, and Hobbs has gathered up some killers, Mono/Poly dishes up some strangled stutter step, heavy on the glitch and crunch, plenty of bass warble, but here the treble is cranked, so that warble is more like a little blast of static. Architeq kicks up some serious warble, with a rad loping beat, and some thick thick bass, Tranqill kills it with some dubbed out hip hop, lots of Western twang, buzzy sitar, creepy flurries of
processed old school computer sounds, and Untold is super spare, and skeletal, lots of space, the beats spare and skittery, with a distinctly Eastern flair. Those jams are scattered throughout, amidst hazy almost pop ambience, glittery house-y grooves, fuzzy indie electronic pop and the killer closer, maybe our favorite track from the Legion Of Two record we made Record Of The Week a while back, some seriously grim and heavy live drummer post industrial dub step heaviness.
For a limited time, the compact disc version of Wild Angles is on sale! $2 off regular list price (which normally would be $14.98) for the next two weeks. Dig it!
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"Maschinelle + Strategeme", the latest compilation of blip bleep minimalism courtesy of Mille Plateux imprint Ritornell, is the curatorial handy work of a certain Kit Clayton. The common thread that links the work on this compilation together being the recurrent implementation of cyclical structures imposed onto fabricated electronic sound. With: Autopoieses, Kim Cascone, Taylor Dupree, Stilluppsteypa, Dean Roberts, Terre Thaemlitz, Christoph Charles, and more.
Just in, a collection of tracks previously released only as limited edition 12"s on South London's very rad Ambush label, featuring some of the best underground digital hardcore, drill 'n bass noisemakers around: DJ Scud, Shizuo, Give Up, Din-S.T. (aka Fever), and others. Note: Wabana's vinyl of this is limited to 500, and the import cd has a slightly different selection of tracks.
The "Masonic." compilation celebrates five years of operation for the Germanic tekno / noirish IDM label with a bunch of mostly unreleased tracks from m2 (aka Panacea), Funkstorung, Scorn, Lilienthal, Venetian Snares, Somatic Responses, Lusine ICL, Bochum Welt, Neutral, Dead Hollywood Stars, Beefcake, Immanent, Gridlock, Xingu Hill, Substanz-T, Starfish Pool, Noosa Hedz, and tons more. Pretty much acts as the missing link between contemporary IDM and Skinny Puppy's lineage throughout the '80s.
It's a Matador Records 15th birthday fest, and the party favors are two cds and a dvd containing highlights from 1999 through 2004, the years since their tenth birthday compilation!
The dvd features a dozen videos by the likes of Pavement, Mogwai, Wisdom Of Harry, New Pornographers, Mary Timony, Stephen Malkmus, Interpol, Cat Power, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Matmos and Cornelius. On the audio side of things, one disc compiles eighteen 'greatest hits' by artists such as Guided By Voices, Interpol, the New Pornographers, Yo La Tengo, Matmos, Bardo Pond, Dead Meadow, Belle & Sabastian, Mogwai, Cat Power, Mission Of Burma among others. The second disc is the crowd pleaser tho' with sixteen rare and previously unreleased songs kicking off with the compilation's best track "Graceland" by the New Pornographers -- totally great! it's worth buying this comp for this song alone! -- plus Stephen Malkmus live in Spain, Mission Of Burma live in Boston, Yo La Tengo live acoustic in Australia as well as remixes of Mogwai and Preston School of Industry... oh yeah, and did we mention the New Pornographers' "Graceland"? We did!
"Medical Milestones" collects all of the super limited 7" singles that Stock, Hausen, and Walkman released on their Hot Air label. Upon looking back at all of these singles through this compilation, it's possible to conjecture that all Hot Air had in mind was releasing a bunch of fart jokes, not really bothering to disguise them as art. Stahlgren & Fergusen's medical presentation of the
Hardcore drum'n'bass on Goldie's label features Source Direct, J-Majik, Ed Rush, Peshay, Dillinja, Adam F and more.
Microsolutions To Megaproblems is the electronica imprint of the esteemed Soul Jazz label, which has been mining a particular groove that ties together Philadelphia soul, New York leftfield disco, UK post-punk, and the best that Coxsone Dodd produced at Studio One, amongst many of their fine releases. As many of the Soul Jazz releases relish the forgotten aesthetics of the past, it's not surprising that their ventures into contemporary electronica would share not only an appreciation of a mighty funk but also embellishments that harken back to those earlier periods which Soul Jazz has so successfully mined. Over the past two years, Soul Jazz released a handful of 12" singles through the Microsolustions To Megaproblems sublabel from artists like Kit Clayton, Daedelus, Kid 606, Sutekh, Rekid, Ammon Contact, Tim Exile, Hu Vibrational, and other retro-active beatheads; and this compilation features many of the cuts from those singles as well as exclusive mixes of other tracks. Expect dub effects, slap basslines, and acid squiggles bouncing across mid-tempo, post-new wave, breakbeat electronica and blip house.
Veteran SF DJ Tom Thump is one tireless on-the-go fellow, and here are the fruits of his latest club culture endeavours. A deeply groovy, sexy soul and house music compilation for latenight livin'. He's selected twenty two tracks for this double disc set -- a perfect evening's soundtrack for either stayin' out or stayin' in. He kicks things off with the well-known artist Roy Ayers, then moves into more unfamiliar territory (at least for us!), introducing us to the likes of Unforscene, Faze Action, Yam Who?, Kaskade, Mark de Clive-Lowe, Mark Rae, Platinum Pied Pipers, Lizz Fields, Boca 45, Only Child, Peter Malick, Roy Davis Jr, Alison Crockett, Fat Freddy's Drop, Renaissance, JT Donaldson, Alice Russell, Fertile Ground, Linn and Crazy Penis! Released on the appropriately named label Kinkysweet Recordings.
Now, we admittedly don't carry a whole lotta house and soul tracks here at AQ. It's simply not our area of expertise. When it does cross our paths though we defer to the expert dancefloor packers such as Bay Area veteran DJ Tom Thump -- definitely a name you can trust in that department. He delivers the uninhibited goods once again on this the third installment of the Midnight Soul compilation series. He's filled the two discs with the likes of Choklate, Rich Medina, The Rebirth, Break Reform, Kid Sublime, Liquid Spirits, Black Gold Massive, Maya Azucena, 3D, Kim Hill, Deborah Bond, and Platinum Pied Pipers. Sure to have you gettin' down and gettin' busy way into the wee hours.
Over the past few years, disco has gone from being popularly accepted as a big, kitschy mistake to some sort of golden idol for the nerd intelligentsia. The New York funk of labels like West End and Prelude, the soul of Philadelphia's Salsoul records, and even the cosmic disco of Italy's very own Daniele Baldelli have all suddenly gained a very devoted following. More importantly, a healthy handful of newer artists have been hard at work recontextualizing some of the aesthetics and the various sound palettes of disco and its sub-genres. Milky Disco is a compilation from Lo Recordings that showcases some work from a handful of new disco's brightest stars; from Morgan Geist to Lindstrom to Black Devil Disco Club. Among these familiar and welcome faces are a few lesser known artists, like Johan Ageborn and Sally Shapiro, Daniel Wang, and San Francisco's own Sorcerer -- formerly one-half of Call & Response. If you can handle a little dance with your synths and a little prog with your dance, Milky Disco is a great place to check out disco's newest wave of innovators. Definitely recommended!
The first volume of Milky Disco came out a couple years ago, right when disco was really getting discovered by a whole new generation of electronic music makers, using cosmic disco as the launching point for their soaring, silky slow burning sound odysseys. That record proved be a serious grower as we still listen to it a LOT, and the sequencing from start to finish really makes for a great coherent late night album.
Round two finds Milky Disco upping the ante even more, with a really impressive collection of sound makers, both folks we already dig a lot and new names that we'll for sure be on the lookout for in the future. Hatchback (one half of Windsurf) start things off so nicely with a rolling jam that would be right at home on the new Lindstrom & Prins Thomas record. Soft Circle show off their new focus on dance floor delights, Glass Candy sound as cold and sultry as ever, Nite Jewel have a track from their Italians Do It Better 12" that we could listen to on repeat for ever, Expanded Head Band make their recorded debut (it's a new project featuring Alexis from Arp and The Alps) and it's so good! Other stand out tracks come from CFCF, Black Devil Disco Club and Secret Circuit. But what makes the Milky Disco comps so pleasing is how they really do flow as a proper record, one you would actually want to listen to from start to finish. And there isn't just one reference point for all these tracks, we hear the influence of not only early disco's cosmic voyages but also early '90s house, ambient techno, and a healthy dose of prog(!). Long drives, blurry late nights, foggy morning afters, slightly buzzed and cloudy dance floor moments... this is your perfect soundtrack!
We loved the two previous comps in Lo's Milky Disco series, and this new installment might be our favorite one yet! This time out they get super spacey on us, more spacey than ever before even, it's like the Milky Disco meets the Milky Way, way out in the deeps of space amidst glittering stars, as the subtitle suggests. Driving that point home, they've included two tracks by AQ fave synth-scapers Oneothrix Point Never, at the end of each disc here, but before you get to those kraut-channelling blissout fadeouts, you gotta get down to the main blippity buzzity bizness, mostly instrumental rhythmic contributions from Leo Zero, Ghostape, Hatchback, Ichisan, Soft Rocks, Telespazio, Brassica, Black Devil Disco Club, Cos/Mes, Moscow, Jonny Nash, In Flagranti, NDV, Coyote, Weirdo Police, The Flying Sapphire, and Black Mustang. No, we weren't all that familiar with lot of those, aside from Bernard Fevre's BDDC and a few others, but that's sorta the point of digging into a comp, and we liked 'em all, as you will too if you like cosmic disco awesomeness (fans of minimal wave, Italo-disco, Prins Thomas, Lindstrom, labels like Italians Do It Better and DC Recordings, etc.).
Pulsating beats brings this most definitely to the discotheque dancefloor, of course, though some trax thump house-like more than others, while some are mellower and focus more moodily on minimalist throb and the sizzle of the synth, but they all groove. Disc one is unmixed, disc two mixed, but it hardly makes a difference, as Lo have selected likeminded artists for sure, so on both discs this flows freely from one futuristic funk workout to the next, each of 'em somehow shimmering with cosmic stardust and incorporating similar softly zappin' video arcade FX... While we're hardly ravers, we could stay up late to dance (or sway) to this stuff. Be good to hear DJ'd in a planetarium. And great at home too. Ultimately, utterly hypnotic! Another great Milky Disco odyssey, where to next we wonder? Since they've already gone so far out, to the stars...
Also, let's commend Lo on the handsome design job on the trifold sleeve. We especially like the stylized roman numerals, and alphabet letters, made out of squares, triangles and circles.
The "Minima-List" compilation of contemporary electronic minimalism could have easily fallen into the banalities of so many of the microsound compilations. Fortunately, the new French label List had enough sense to put together a collection that celebrates the
I think this marks the official end of the electro revival. When the usually stellar, true electro vets like Ersatz Audio start releasing diluted, pale imitations, it's a sad sad day. With labels like Ministry Of Sound capitalizing on the electronic pop genre (which by the way, is a much broader and fitting tag for a lot of the current hip sounds that are being lumped excessively and incorrectly under the genre "electro". Ladytron, The Faint, Le Tigre, Peaches and Fischerspooner are NOT electro!) with K-Tel style compilations like "This Is Tech-Pop", everyone is trying to get in on the money-making action. Releases from this label are always eagerly anticipated with high expectations, but everything on this (except possibly the DMX Krew track that jumps out of the pack, highly reminiscent of Devo here!) sounds tired and weak. There's no spark or sense of excitement. The normally irrepressible Gold Chains' contribution is titled "Could Care Less"... and it sounds like it (actually it sounds like he's gone all beat poet!). What the heck's goin' on!? The songs just drag, and even the Adult. track is wack! And, trust me, I really, really like Adult. A lot. Maybe I've become jaded, but I know my tolerance for repetitive electronic pop is higher than most here at AQ. Boo, Ersatz, boo. Very disappointing.
Miss Kittin, as huge as she has become in just the past few months, has decided to treat her salivating fans with a continuous mix of some of her favorite techno house tracks (and, of course, two tracks featuring herself -- a remix of Miss Kittin & The Hacker's "Frank Sinatra" and Felix Da Housecat's "Silver Screen Shower Scene"). Also featuring Plastikman, Plaid, Laurent Garnier, Sven
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NOW AVAILABLE ON CD!!! This is a brilliant compilation of a lot of electronica outfits which are pretty obscure... Only V/VM and D'Archangelo are the really familiar artists here. Nonetheless, the tracks (which are mostly Italian in origin) share a similarity to Skam's or Rephlex's output of nu-skool electro and warped electronica. As a result we've been tracking down singles from A Credible Eye Witness, Phoenecia, and Vendor Refill.
"Modular Systems" is the latest ESL compilation of trip hop from Thievery Corporation, Nicola Conte, Thunderball, Blue States, Ursula 1000, Desmond Williams, and a few other Thievery Corporation-like groups. This also features a few remixes from Thievery Corporation, was compiled by Thievery Corporation, and released on Thievery Corporation's label. For fans of Thievery Corporation.
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Mille Plateaux's 4th in the series is a weighty collection, serving as an encyclopedia of minimalist electronica... From the clinical pulsing of Philus (aka Mika Vainio of Pan Sonic) and Thomas Brinkmann... to the neo-jazz for iMac users from Mouse on Mars and Blue Byte... and back to the theory laiden clicks of Achim Wollscheid and M.Behrens.
Also features Techno Animal, DJ Spooky, Kerosene, Pluramon, Ryoji Ikeda, Scanner, Thomas Koner, Panacea, Noto, Kim Kascone, Lithops, Gas, etc...
A 2014 Record Store Day collaboration between two amazing obscurity-obsessive labels, Finders Keepers and Dual Planet, Monster Skies features a dizzy collection of damaged library sounds, far-flung private press pop and early electronic strangeness. We've carried some of the Dual Planet releases, but have yet to review them, like the Australian electric weirdo space-funk-rock of Steve Maxwell Von Braund, who provides the titular song to this collection as well as the reclusive Italian guitarist and electronic composer, Teisco, who may be the most marginally strange of the Italian Library composers leaning more toward Bruce Haack than say, Egisto Macchi. Suzanne Cianni, Lucien Goethals and Val Stephen provide some scintillating musique concrete and electronic composition, while Don Harper, Philippe D'Aram, and Andrzej Korzynski bring some wonderfully brooding cinematic horror vibes to the table.
Finally, Emerald Web, X-ray Pop, Clone and The Ultra Sonic Perception, give us some wonderfully sublime pop moments that buffer the oddities with wistful charm and eccentric groove. A fantastic collection and excellent introduction into a staggering undiscovered world of sound. Get one while they last!
Hey Matmos, when was the last time you were in Montreal? Did you lose a powerbook there? It sure sounds like the kids in Montreal must have ransacked your gear taken all of the bits and pieces that didn't make it into "A Chance To Cut Is A Chance To Cure" or
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Norway's most advanced "black metal" label has released a fairly amazing compilation here. Moonfog's incredibly elite roster contributes exclusive material: from the blackened thrash of Eibon (the supergroup containing members of Darkthrone, Mayhem, Necrophagia, Pantera/Viking Crown, and Satyricon making their recorded debut), to Dodheimsgard's mutation into the black metal techno of their new incarnation DHG, to the primitive country/punk black metal of legends Darkthrone (recorded at Necrohell Studios, otherwise known as their 4-track machine), to intense death/black brutality from Gehenna and Thorns, and more. 25 minutes on the cutting edge of Moonfog's vision. Absolutely essential to dedicated fans and adventurous newcomers (as well as the other way around), as this comp really runs the spectrum from classic raw stuff to sacrilegious trip-hop "black metal" 2000.
And, as a kind of bonus, you also get a second disc collecting popular cuts by Moonfog bands, compiled by users of The Moonfog Dungeon (i.e. website). They're all previously released tracks, so this can be regarded as a handy mix of some black metal faves.
It's a good thing none of the artists involved with this project are local to the Bay Area, cos I'd have to go buy a gun and shoot them for crimes against music. And not just any music, this is soundtrack music by the acknowledged genius Ennio Morricone, the one and only. Yes, Morricone sanctioned this project, but that doesn't mean it's going to turn out good -- it just means whoever
We made a couple sound clips just for those of you with morbid curiousity.
Boogie global techno style along with Bebel Gilberto, Banco De Gaia, King Britt, Romanthony, DJ Cam, and others.
In 2000, the Icelandic arts collective Kitchen Motors began organizing a series of monthly events which featured commissioned collaborations between artists from differing backgrounds. The first production is dominated by the presence of two of Iceland's most prolific experimental / electronic outfits Stilluppsteypa (who originate from Iceland but now live in the Netherlands) and
Altogether a conceptually rich compilation that has been executed to near perfection. Hopefully the first of many interesting things to come!
The second installment from Kitchen Motor's series of cross-platform Icelandic collaborations takes a much more lively route than the previous collection of conceptual drone work featuring Stilluppsteypa and The Halfer Trio. The first collaborative effort is between Reykjavik's electronica darlings Mum and playwright Sjon. The script (all in Icelandic) is a monodrama about a housewife
"Mood music in a jugular vein" was the only description accompanying a list of bands: Air Wave, Bear, Bola, Cavil, Dakota Suite, Dynamite Cigar Co, I'm Sore, Lazarus Clamp, Lazerboy, M-Tec, Mus, Muma Sounds, Oneironaut, and Quigley. Without much else to go
Skweee! It's been a little while since we've been able to use that word in a review, but we're always super happy when we can, because it usually means we're listing a new release of "skweee" music. Skweee! You know, the mostly-Scandinavian DIY electro subgenre, characterized by bleep-bloopy videogame-y synth sounds and freaky, fractured funk grooves, all very stripped down and homebrewed. Still pretty much an underground cult thing, despite being the some of the most charming, fun stuff that all of electronica has had to offer, ever. Just check out this, the latest import compilation of skweee bangers from one of the form's leading purveyors, Sweden's Flogsta Danshall label. Fans will already be salivating, with cuts from top skweee artists like Randy Barracuda, Limonious, Claws Cousteau, Daniel Savio, and Joxaren, appearing alongside lots of new names we're not familiar with. 20 tracks in all, spread over four sides of vinyl, housed in a sleeve bearing black & white brick wall artwork in keeping with the earlier entries in this great series (volumes 1 and 2 were cds, vol. 3 was download-only), graphics we love so much.
It'd be too much to go track-by-track in this review; we're not even sure if we should bother calling out highlights - like, the slinky, stuttering funk of Randy Barracuda's "Black Belt", or the herky-jerky blurble of Vurado Bokoda's "Hunchback Blast", or the head-bobbing 'attract mode' keyboard jam that is Grizzler's "Orangutan Sizzle", 'cause we'd have to keep going, and mention Easy & Center Of The Universe's Eastern glitch grooves on "Bosporus Raver", as well as the spacey, swaggery chopped up blip-hop of Claws Costeau's "Sichuan Tongue", and on and on, 'cause it's all good stuff, skweee at its best - that's the point of the Museum Of Future Sound series after all. So, very recommended. If you're just gonna buy one skweee release this year (and you should, every chance you get) then make it this one!! Skweee!!!!
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Yo droids! You wanna know what's been boomin' on Pluto lately? It's gotta be skweee. Y'know here at Aquarius we're always on the lookout for something new, the next big thing perhaps (though we're talking big 'round here, not necessarily elsewhere). Well we think we've found it! SKWEEE. Skweee? That's the self-proclaimed name for a new scene of electronic music in Scandinavia. It's basically Nordic b-boys doing DIY electro, and it's true, if they hadn't called it skweee but something less silly like, uh, "Scandi-funk" or "Vikinglectro", we might have not been as initially intrigued, though we did already have an interest in electro from Finland 'cause of that Sound Of Suomi comp we listed a while back. Something about "skweee" though just grabs us. You don't have to like bad puns to like skweee but it helps. Hey what are you doing this skweeekend? There's a skweee show Saturday skweeevening. Some of our favorite skweeejays will be spinning. Skweee you there!
We kind of randomly found out about it on the internet, listened in to some online samples on the "Nation of Skweee" webpage, and were hooked. Imagine a warped crossover between old school video game music and '90s hiphop instrumental tracks, that laidback Dr. Dre style funk as if hacked on a Commodore 64, programmed by Finnish and Norwegian kids trying to stave off the boredom and depression of long sunlight-deprived winters (as opposed to embracing it like their countryfolk into black metal would do). There's an obscure but active scene up in that part of the world skweeepin' it real with the support of a couple local labels, Harmonia and Flogsta Danshall, releasing the skweee on 7" and 12" singles. We did discover this one compact disc compilation that Flogsta Danshall put out, and figured we had to get it, it features a lot of the "stars" of skweee and obviously would be a good starting point for us, and any AQ customers who wanted to get turned on to skweee. And funnily enough, the guy from Flogsta Danshall had previously been to Aquarius on a trip to the USA, so he was himself excited that we wanted to stock some skweee in our shop!
Here's the artists: Mesak, Pavan, Rigas Den Andre, Beem, The Munchies, Randy Barracuda, Wizards of DOS, PJVM, Mangrove, Uday, Vakttornet, Daniel Savio, Maja Hedin, and Claws Costeau (great name!). Although each one's different, there's a definite "skweee ID" shared between 'em: elements like distorted squelching synthetic bass, computery bloops and bleeps, fractured funk beats, crazed dance logic, and what's either a playful sense of humor or just plain weirdness. Or both. Some tracks (say, Pavan) are a bit more uptight techno-rigid kraftwerkouts than others, which skweee like along with the looser, more fucked up cuts (like Randy Barracuda's which sounds like Inspector Gadget done Doug E. Fresh style or somethin').
The Museum Of Future Sound exhibits 14 trax, 54+ minutes of the finest in skweee, packaged in a thin, square, black plastic cd case, with simple, stark black & white cover graphics and a tracklisting on stickers affixed to the front and back. [2008 update: now it's in a cardboard sleeve, not plastic, a la vol. 2.] No further info is given about any of the contributors, unfortunately, so they stay mysterious... but they probably all have MySpace pages and would love to get visitors!
Next big thing? Could skweee. We'll skweee.
In the time since we highlighted the original volume of Flogsta Danshall's Museum Of Future Sound (in the fall of '07), there have been literally hundreds if not thousands of records reviewed on our list. And while among those hundreds of records there have been a great many we really really liked, plenty of great music, the fact remains that NONE of it has been skweee.
And that just won't do. We need more skweee!!!
Thank god Flogsta Danshall has at last released "the next level" of the Museum Of Future Sound, volume two, 18 more tracks of pure skweee! Skweee, if you weren't paying attention back when we listed the first Museum Of Future Sound, is the cutting edge new Scandinavian electro-funk sound that's sweeping the globe. Well we maybe not quite sweeping. Or even skweeeping. But we're really into it, and heck it SHOULD be blowing up big, if we have anything to say about it.
Why do we love skweee so much? It's both atmospheric and groovy and sorta silly (it sometimes -sounds- silly plus there's all the skweee-punning potential), it's very DIY and has that video game chip-tune retro-ness that you know we'd think was cool. It's funky, goofy, pretty much always instrumental, full of Kraftwerkian melodies, ridiculous nasty crunching bass, and glitched-up hiphop rhythms, skweeeird broken-machine beats tailor made for your most skweeetarded robotic poppin' and lockin' dance moves. It's immediately recognizable, when someone here starts pumpin' the skweee on the stereo we all know what it is. And the whole MySpace-based, internet "nation of skweee" Nordic b-boy (skweee-boy?) community, small as it is, seems pretty cool. A whole little scene (skweeene?) of skweee-obsessiveness to get into.
Museum Of Future Sound vol. 2 is a good place to start (if you have vol. 1 you already know you want this, right??). There's cuts from a few vol. 1 superstars such as Mesak, Randy Barracuda, Claws Costeau, and Daniel Savio, plus tons more tracks introducing such skweee powers-to-be as Eero Johannes, Mrs Qaeda, Joxaren, Spartan Lover, Limonious, Wankers United, Rigas Den Andre, and more... some we already knew from our internet skweee-search, others totally new to us. All these museum exhibits are pretty fantastic!! Each with their own idiosyncracies (idiosyncraskweees?). Ok, stop! By the way, while the first volume came in a slim plastic case, this one is packaged in a cardstock sleeve with three skweee stickers as inserts.
Also, volume one of the Museum is being repressed, so we're out of them now but will have it back in the next few weeks hopefully. Also, we do have a handful of skweee 7"s still in stock, ask us about 'em... maybe we'll try to get some 12" vinyl at some point in the future too.
Nice comp featuring Him, Mice Parade, Rex (two tracks from an out-of-print 7"!), and the fabulous Matmos, among others.
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Japanese artists cover their favorite Kraftwerk tunes. Participants include Melt Banana, Zeni Geva, Buffalo Daughter and a bunch of others we're not familiar with, but who seem to be part of the Japanese avant-pop electronica scene. The whole thing is great, absolutely recommended.
Compilations are all about the concept. Come up with a good concept, and a good compilation is sure to follow. So how can you go wrong with a bunch of noisy bands, rock and otherwise, penning odes to their favorite sicknesses?! You can't. And if you make sure the list of contributors includes lots of AQ favorites, like Bomb 20, the Bran Flakes, the Evolution Control Committee, V/VM, and Deerhoof and maybe throw in some tUMULt bands like Burmese, Iran, 7000 Dying Rats and Berkowitz Lake And Dahmer and you've got it made. Songs about Gonorrhea, Gingivitis, Tinnitus, Priapism, Arthritis, Rickets, Gangrene, Alzheimers and more with sounds ranging from full on noise attacks, to silly cut up collages, to crushing ultrathick drones, to digital glitch-crunch, to dreamy lullabies. Sickness has never sounded so good.
A collection of tracks produced utilizing Nanoloop, a realtime synthesizer and sequencer for the Nintendo Game Boy developed by Oliver Wittchow at HfbK in Hamburg. Given the limited capabilities inherent in a 4-bit sound chip found on portable game modules, the results are quite impressive and undoubtedly fun (some even downright unbearable given the microtonal capabilities). Many
Were there any New Wave and/or Post-Punk bands from Liechtenstein? If there were, there will surely be a comp documenting the scene soon enough, as plenty of choice tracks have been unearthed from throughout Europe and North America care of numerous compilations that have been released in recent years - The Minimal Wave Tapes, So Young But So Cold, BIPPP, Cold Waves + Minimal Electronics, New Deutsch, and pretty much everything through Vinyl-On-Demand. So, here's Klanggalerie's anthology of the Austrian scene throughout the early to mid '80s (plus some current acts who are striking a retrogarde pose), proving that there's plenty of music between the era of Falco and the era of Christian Fennesz.
Admittedly, very few of the artists on this comp have crossed our paths, making this quite an excellent discovery. Of those, we do know, there's the masterful proto-techno artist Monoton making an appearance as does the cold wave outfit Zyx. Perhaps the most surprising find is the first band from Peter Rehberg, who fronted a sludgey, pig-fuck band with the brilliant / terrible name of Peterlicker. Over two discs, Neonbeats touches on anything and everything that tangentially came in contact with new wave and post-punk, making the comp more of an cross-section of the entire underground scene, but the selection is pretty great in spite of the diverse genre hopping of all the bands.
Much of the work here draws inspiration from the NDW sound, with darkened electronics over cheap drum machines topped with heavily theatrical vocals. Zyx's low slung bassline and monotone vocals provide an appropriately sinister mood to their skeletal, stalking electronics, with similar tracks produced in equal aplomb by Molin & Jox and Red.Chamber. Plastix and Squishy Squid add punchy punk backbeats to stripped down 3-chord tunes laced with minimal electronics. A band with a name taken from a Neubauten / Fad Gadget single - Collapsing New People - offer a charmingly spunky Trio / Young Marble Giants inspired number that belies the origins of their name. You'll also find a few No New York / 99 Records references as well, with the muscular funk-punk sax leads from Pas Paravant. And yes, Peterlicker. Rehberg's band existed for less than six months in 1989, and it seems that he's re-started the band, which is pretty fucking brutal with a Swans inspired heavy guitar plod and growling vokills. Admittedly, this sticks out quite a bit from the rest of the comp, but it's a pretty awesome track!
Several months back, a copy or two of this compilation of early '80s Germany new wave / post-punk / proto-electronica came in the shop with little or no fanfare. Yet each time I attempted to play this disc, somebody would immediately come up to the counter to ask two questions: "What is this?" followed by "Can I buy it?" Needless to say, the album must have done very well all across the globe, as it has only been recently that we've been able to get a hold of enough of these to list. With the notable exception of DAF, Der Plan, and Pyrolator, we've never come across any of these bands, much less heard of them. For the most part, this catalogue of terminally obscure groups have produced some exceptional tracks of synth-based, noir pop. Occasionally playful, but often seriously sterile, these songs often revolve around the Kraftwerk / Cluster axis of a futuristic synthesis of state of the art technology (well for 1980 with primitive sequencers and drum machines) and sci-fi leaning metaphors. Along with those aforementioned groups, New Deutsch features Weltklang, Neon, Grauzone, Gleitzeit, No More, Stratis, Christof Glowalla, Eiskalte Engel, Za Za, Keine Ahnung, Die Gesunden, Fehlfarfen, Blingaenger, and Die Hornissen.
Certainly for fans of Adult., I Am Spoonbender, Gary Numan, etc.
"Contemporary Electronic Music in the Context of Art" with Disinformation, Scanner, Thomas Brinkmann, Richie Hawtin, Kim Cascone, Goem, Ryoji Ikeda + Noto, Byetone, Pan Sonic, Signal, Coh, Pomassl, Marc Behrens, Francisco Lopez, General Magic, and a few others. In a cool, but ridiculously cumbersome folding package with the cd nipples attatched perilously to the paper.
While this is certainly a pleasant compilation from the dependable electronica label Deluxe, the wide range of artists represented unfortunately turn in uniformly similar pieces. Not to generalize too much, but most all of the tracks sit somewhere between Boards of Canada-style melancholy chord progressions and Mego-worthy precise clicks, glitches and pops. Very nice, listenable, and
Second volume of delicate, spacious electronics and minimal glitch funk from Deluxe, featuring Electric Birds, Bizz Circuits, Sagan, Pan American, Soft Pink Truth (Drew Daniel of Matmos), Warmdesk, Jetone, Emisor and Daniel Gardner.
Great collection of the current crop of electropunk mash up artists, in the post Digital Hardcore vein. Fourteen previously released tracks from Kid 606, Atari Teenage Riot, DJ Scud, Cobra Killer, Bomb 20, Kid Spatula, 2nd Gen, Aphasic, Hellfish & Producer and more!
We kind of always wondered why more people didn't do a release like this sooner. Not a cd or an lp or a tape, but a little mini usb drive, packed with sights and sounds, for this particular releases much more appropriate as it's a collaborative project, in which Noise / Experimental Artists go head to head with Subversive Technologists aka Computer Hackers. Ten from each group were asked to contribute a piece of work, which could be anything, music, sound art, images, text, a video, even software, anything that could be converted to binary! The musicians had the theme of "Subversive Computing" while the hackers had "Noise" as theirs. A pretty rad concept for sure, and the result is pretty cool. Most of the songs are in FLAC form, so you'll have to have the appropriate decoder installed. Most of the bands were new to us, although some familiar names popped up: Sarah's Charity, Francisco, Lopez, Family Battle Snake, the sounds are all over the map, from drone to glitch to 8-bit to, well, you get the drift, it's a strange comp, but definitely cool.
Then there's the subversive computing portion, which is super interesting, but for the Luddites it might be hard to figure out what to do, and / or what the various programs do. From hiding information in noise music, sample generating software (we think), producing transcripts of random audio, generating a rainbow of sound out of the colors of noise, bitmapped chaos, a poem about noise, a video depicting the visual representation of noise, software that uses hacking to create art, a project that creates awareness of the controversial and incomprehensible privacy policies on the net, and more!
Definitely need to spend some time at home, listening, and reading, and exploring, all of these digital goodies are housed in a cool, printed mini usb drive, with a strap, so you can wear it around your neck!
Noise freaks, weirdo sound obsessives, computer nerds, and everyone in between, should definitely check this out!!
Seems like it's been ages since we've got anything in on MoWax. I guess I haven't been paying much attention to them of late, their second volume of sleepy bedroom trip hop Headz bombed so bad, I thought that was the end of them. So it's a bit odd to be
BACK IN PRINT! And now augmented with an additional dvd disc!! We just got these in so we haven't been able to watch the DVD yet, but it contains over two hours of rare never before seen performances, interviews, animation and experimental video!
This box (sans the DVD) was originally released five years ago and hasn't been available for some time now. Here's what we said about the audio portion of this, previously:
Following hot on the heels of the Early Modulations compilation from a while back, the OHM box takes the same general idea; a brief and cursory overview of the whole of experimental electronic music, and attempts to give it a little more depth. And it does, to a certain degree. But such a massive undertaking could fill 10 cds, or 20. So what we have here, is 3 cds, 42 tracks, from a who's who of electronic music in the last 32 years: Clara Rockmore, Oliver Messien, John Cage, Edgard Varese, Stockhausen, La Monte Young, Xenakis, Luc Ferrari, Terry Riley, David Tudor, Morton Subotnick, Steve Reich, Raymond Scott, Brian Eno, Robert Ashley, Bernard Parmegiani and a bunch more. A pretty great assortment, for sure, and definitely the best 20th century/avant electronica primer to come along. The only frustration is that a great number of the pieces are edits, often 5 or 6 minutes from a 20 or 30 minute piece, rendering some slow building gradual shifting works a bit limp. But other than that, this OHM compilation is pretty excellent, packaged impeccably in a triple digipak, housed in a cool silkscreened transparent slipcase, with a fairly well researched book and some spot on musical choices. Definitely a great place to start. ----* ----* In Stock, Not Yet Reviewed : ----* If you want to order one of these, just cut and paste the info into the comments area on the order form, or just email mailorder@aquariusrecords.org. ABSOLUTUS "Ostendit Quam Nihil Sumus" (Goatowarex) cd 14.98 ADAMS, JOHN LUTHER "Strange and Sacred Noise" (Mode) cd 16.98 AGUATO, MATIAS "Are You Really Lost" (Kompakt) cd 15.98 ANTONY & THE JOHNSONS "You Are My Sister" (Secretly Canadian) cd ep 5.98 APPLE, FIONA "Extraordinary Machine" (Epic) dualdisc 19.98 ARPANET "Quantum Transposition" (Rephlex) cd 15.98 ASHES "Hymn To A Grey Sky" (Supernal) cd 15.98 ATHEIST "Elements" (Relapse) cd 13.98 ATHEIST "Piece Of Time" (Relapse) cd 13.98 ATHEIST "Unquestionable Presence" (Relapse) cd 13.98 BAD PLUS "Suspicious Activity?" (Columbia) cd 17.98 BASTRO "Antlers" (Drag City) cd 14.98 BEWITCHED "Unveiling Zion" (Supernal) cd 15.98 BLACK DICE "Smiling Off" (Astralwerks) cd ep/2x12" 8.98/11.98 BLACK TAJ "s/t" (Amish) cd 14.98 BOARDS OF CANADA "Hi-Scores" (Skam) cd ep 8.98 BOARDS OF CANADA "The Campfire Headphase" (Warp) cd/lp 15.98/21.00 BODY, THE "Cop Killer Dead Cops" (Corleone) 7" 3.98 BORBETOMAGUS "Barbed Wire Maggots" (Agaric) cd 15.98 BORFUL TANG "Root" (Snurp) cd 9.98 BROTZMANN, PETER & HAN BENNINK "Schwarzwaldfahrt" (Atavistic / Unheard Music Series) 2cd 21.00 BURR, ANTHONY & SKULI SVERRISON "A Thousand Incidents Arise" (The Worker's Insititute) cd 14.98 BUSH CHEMISTS "Raw Raw Dub" (Roir) cd 15.98 CAGE "Hell's Winter" (Definitive Jux) cd 16.98 CATHEDRAL "The Garden Of Unearthly Delights" (Nuclear Blast) cd 14.98 CAVE-IN "Perfect Pitch Black" (Hydra Head) cd 11.98 CHESSMACHINE "Live In Los Angeles" (Line) cd 14.98 CHEVREUIL "Sport" (Sickroom) cd 13.98 CHILDREN OF BODOM "Are You Dead Yet?" (Spinefarm) cd 14.98 CHIODOS "All's Well That Ends Well" (Equal Vision) cd 13.98 CIRCULUS "The Lick On The Tip Of An Envelope Yet To Be Sent" (Candlelight) cd 14.98 CLINE, PATSY "Walking and Dreaming" (Masked Weasel) cd 14.98 CLUSTER & ENO "s/t" (Water) cd 15.98 CODE "Nouveau Gloaming" (Spikefarm) cd 16.98 COFFIN LIDS "Round Midnight" (Bomp) cd 13.98 COHEED AND CAMBRIA "Good Apollo I'm Burning Star IV Vol.I" (Sony / BMG) cd 16.98 CRYPTOPSY "Once Was Not" (Century Media) cd 16.98 DANGER DOOM "Sofa King / Mince Meat" (Epitaph) 12" 6.98 DAVKA "Live" (Tzadik) cd 15.98 DEPECHE MODE "Playing The Angel" (Sire) cd 17.98 DIAMOND NIGHTS "Popsicle" (Kemado) cd 13.98 DRIVER, TOBY "In the L..L..Library Loft" (Tzadik) cd 15.98 DRONES, THE "Wait Long By The River And The Bodies Of Your Enemies Will Float By" (All Tomorrow's Parties) cd 15.98 DRUDKH "Autumn Aurora" (Supernal) cd 15.98 DRUDKH "Forgotten Legends" (Supernal) cd 15.98 DRUDKH "Lebedynyi Shlyakh" (Supernal) cd 15.98 EARLIES, THE "These Were..." (Secretly Canadian) cd 14.98 FIREBALL "Blessed Be" (High Roller) 12" 12.98 FOLKSTORM "Folkmusik" (Old Europa Cafe) cd + 3"cd 24.00 FORREST, JASON "Shamelessly Exciting" (Sonig) cd 14.98 FUZZTONES "LSD 25" (Get Back) cd + dvd 26.00 GRIMFIST "10 Steps To Hell" (Candlelight) cd 15.98 GUERRERO, TOMMY "Year of the Monkey" (Galaxia) cd 10.98 GUITAR WOLF "Golden Black" (Narnack) cd 14.98 HARVESTMAN "Lashing The Rye" (Neurot) cd 14.98 HORSE THE BAND "The Mechanical Hand" (Combat Records) cd 13.98 KANE, JONATHAN "February" (Table Of The Elements) cd/lp 14.98/14.98 KELLY, R. "TP.3 Reloaded" (Jive) cd + dvd 17.98 LAIR OF THE MINOTAUR "Cannibal Massacre" (Southern Lord) 3" cd 8.98 LANGENUS, COLIN "Living With The Rock" (Corleone) cd 13.98 LAPPETITES, THE "Before The Libretto" (Quecksilber) cd 15.98 LARSEN "HMKE" (Important) cd 10.98 LEAF HOUND "Growers Of Mushroom" (Repertoire) cd 19.98 LOGH "A Sunset Panorama" (Hydra Head) cd 14.98 MAGNETOPHONE "The Man Who Ate The Man" (4AD) cd 13.98 MCPHEE, JOE & JOHN SNYDER "Pieces of Light" (Atavistic) cd 14.98 MEN'S RECOVERY PROJECT "The Very Best Of" (5RC) cd 14.98 MERZBOW "Merzbuta" (Important) cd 14.98 MINDFLAYER "Expedition To The Hairier Peaks" (Corleone) cd 11.98 MOONDOG "The Viking of Sixth Avenue" (Honest Jon's) 2lp 27.00 MUGISON "Mugimama Is This Monkey Music?" (Ipecac) cd 16.98 MUM "Yesterday Was Dramatic - Today Is Ok" (Morr) cd 14.98 MV / EE & THE BUMMER ROAD "We Offer You Guru" (Child Of Microtones) cd 15.98 MY CAT IS AN ALIEN / CHRISTINA CARTER & ANDREW MACGREGOR (Very Friendly) cd 14.98 NADJA "Truth Becomes Death" (Alien 8) cd 14.98 NERVE NET NOISE "Radio Life" (Staalplaat) cd 19.98 NI HAO! "Gorgeous" (Tzadik) cd 15.98 NURSE WITH WOUND "Livin' Fear Of James Last" (Castle) cd 17.98 OCEAN "Here Where Nothing Grows" (Important) cd PARTON, DOLLY "Those Were The Days" (Sugar Hill) cd 17.98 PAUL, SEAN "The Trinity" (VP) cd 17.98 PHAIR, LIZ "Somebody's Miracle" (Capitol) cd 17.98 PINETOP SEVEN "The Night's Bloom" (Barbary Coast) cd 14.98 POISON IDEA "Pajama Party" (Abstract USA) cd 13.98 POISON IDEA "The Early Years" (Abstract USA) cd 13.98 POISON IDEA "War All The Time" (Abstract USA) cd 13.98 ROBERT POLLARD "Music For 'Bubble'" (Needmore Songs) cd 5.98 RUMPELSTILTSKIN GRINDER "Buried In The Front Yard" (Relapse) cd 13.98 SANDERS, PHAROAH "Elevation" (Impulse) cd 13.98 SHANKAR, ANANDA "s/t" (Collector's Choice) cd 14.98 SHEAVY "Republic?" (Candlelight) cd 14.98 SKYGREEN LEOPARDS, THE "Jehovah Surrender" (Jagjaguwar) cd 9.98 SONDHEIM, ALAN / RITUAL ALL 770 "The Songs" (Fire Museum) cd 13.98 STOLTZ, KELLY "The Sun Comes Through" (Sub Pop) cd ep 5.98 SUSUMU YOKOTA & ROTHKO "Distant Sounds Of Summer" (Lo Recordings) cd 14.98 TAAKE "Helnorsk Sbartmetall" (Karisma) cd 14.98 TAKAYANAGI, MASAYUKI "Action Direct" (Beta-lactam Ring) cd 33.00 TALL DWARVES "Weeville" (Cloud Recordings) cd 14.98 TALL DWARVES "Fork Songs" (Cloud Recordings) cd 14.98 TAPE "Mort Aux Vaches" (Staalplaat) cd 21.00 TRIBES OF NEUROT "Meridian" (Neurot) cd 14.98 TURN ME ON DEAD MAN "Technicolourmother" (Galaxy Groove) cd 11.98 UP-TIGHT & MAKOTO KAWABATA "s/t" (Galactic Zoo) cd 14.98 V/A "For A Decade Of Sin: 11 Years Of Bloodshot Records" (Bloodshot) 2cd V/A "Maan Matoset" (Pohjoisten Kukkaisten Aanet) cd 14.98 V/A "This Bird Has Flown: A 40th Anniversary Tribute to the Beatles' Rubber Soul" (Razor & Tie) cd 17.98 V/A "Time Machine: A Vertigo Retrospective" (Vertigo) 3cd 38.00 VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR "H To He Who Am The Only One" (EMI) cd 15.98 VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR "Pawn Hearts" (EMI) cd 15.98 VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR "The Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other" (EMI) cd 15.98 VOIVOD "DVOD 1" (Music Video Distributors) dvd 14.98 VOLTAGE "Building The Bas Castle 1" (Flameshovel) cd 13.98 WU-TANG "Think Differently Music: Wu-Tang Meets The Indie Culture" (Babygrande) cd 16.98 YOUNG BLEED "Rise Thru Da Ranks" (West Coast Mafia) cd 16.98 YURA YURA TEIKOKU "na.ma.shi.bi.re.na.ma.me.ma.i" (Mesh-Key) cd 11.98 ZOMBI "The Zombi Anthology" (VCO) cd 14.98 _______________________________________________________________________ ABOUT MAILORDER
Following hot on the heels of the Early Modulations compilation from a while back, the Ohm box, takes the same general idea; a brief and cursory overview of the whole of experimental electronic music, and attempts to give it a little more depth. And it does, to a certain degree. But such a massive undertaking could fill 10 cds, or 20. So what we have here, is 3 cds, 42 tracks, from a who's who of electronic muisic in the last 32 years: Clara Rockmore, Oliver Messien, John Cage, Edgard Varese, Stockhausen, La Monte Young, Xenakis, Luc Ferrari, Terry Riley, David Tudor, Morton Subotnick, Steve Reich, Raymond Scott, Brian Eno, Robert Ashley, Bernard Parmegiani and a bunch more. A pretty great assortment, for sure, and definitely the best 20th century/avant electronica primer to come along. The only frustration is that a great number of the pieces are edits, often 5 or 6 minutes from a 20 or 30 minute piece, rendering some slow building gradual shifting works a bit limp. But other than that, the Ohm compilation is pretty excellent, packaged impeccably in a triple digipak, housed in a cool silkscreened transparent slipcase, with a fairly well researched book and some spot on musical choices. Definitely a great place to start.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
"Oacis" -- an acronym for "Optics Acoustics Calculated In Seconds" -- documents the progress of the German collective Raster / Noton, which has been busily constructing works of utopian minimalism over the past five years. Raster / Noton rigorously applies the motto "less is more" to not only their post-techno productions, but also their intrinsically simple design aesthetic. This was exemplified by 1999's "20 to 2000 series," in which simple magnets connected a series of 12 clam shell cd cases to form what could be a model for a nanotechnist coil of energy distribution. This spindly construction perfectly housed the series's electronic minimalism, constructed out of the all mighty trio of digital synthesis -- the click, the ping, and the boom.
"Oacis" is a 100 page book with lots of articles expounding on the label's digital purity (including a rather poetic piece by The Wire's Rob Young), lots of live 'action' shots of Carsten Nicolai and Frank Bretschneider staring intently at their laptops, and of course an ultra-clean design. And in addition to all this lovely stuff to look at and to read, the accompanying cd is one of the best things to yet emerge from Raster.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Released to accompany the (fantastic) David Toop book of the same name: Aphex Twin, ("Sextant"-era) Herbie Hancock, long-missing-in-action My Bloody Valentine, John Cage, Satie, Les Baxter (R.I.P.), Beach Boys, Miles Davis, Zorn, Debussy, Sun Ra, plus bearded seals and howler monkeys and much more. Meticulously paced with an eye to flow and variety -- a stylistically broader compilation probably has never existed. [/cat/compilationsplit59.html]
