[ aquarius records — Experimental ]

AQ-fave Japanese sound experimentalist Asano is putting us to the test with another of his monthy (!) releases, another one on the "difficult" (for him) side of things. Maybe the monthly schedule is getting the better of him, too, 'cause here he kinda takes a

RealAudio clip: Spirit Of The Wardrobe (excerpt)

Ok, it's that time again. We've got two new ones here from AQ fave Koji Asano, the eclectic and very prolific Japanese experimental composer. These are numbers 38 and 39 in his steadily growing cd catalog!! Number 39 is his very latest recording, Spring Estuary. The vague information we have seems to indicate that Asano used water as a sound source for this disc. But it sure doesn't sound like him splashing about in the bath! It's really shimmery and sort of churchy -- we would have guessed that he was manipulating recordings of pipe organ and/or bells, though the third track sounds like more like wheezing horns, all distorted and billowy. There's a total of four tracks here, the final one taking up the majority of the disc at almost 34 minutes in length. Imagine that the children's carousel in the park is somehow also one of Philip Jeck's turntables -- a giant Jeck turntable/carousel, turning and turning, its pretty music blurred and warped and utterly overwhelming and enveloping all around it. Very nice!

MPEG stream: Spring Estuary II
MPEG stream: Spring Estuary III

See "Avalanches" for info.

Man, we've got some catching up to do. Since we last listed anything from prolific AQ-fave Koji Asano (that'd be 2002's Octopus Balloons), the Japanese avant-composer has moved from Barcelona back to Japan, gotten married, had a baby, and somehow managed to record and release another NINE albums. He's up to his thirty-seventh release now!! Dunno if we're gonna manage to retrospectively, individually review all of 'em but we'll at least try to get back with the program by presenting to you now numbers 36 (Sanctuary On Reclaimed Land) and 37 (Takoyakikun). We do, however, also have a couple copies each of The Giant Squid, Gondola Odyssey, Piano Suite Vol. 1: Fitness Club No. 1-20, Absurd Summer, Suite For Organ And Recorders No. 1: The Alien Power Plant, Zoo Telepathy, and Wind Gauge in stock for any fellow Asano enthusiasts that need to complete their collections right now. Takoyakikun is a bit of a departure for Asano, or maybe a return to his roots. For one thing, it's not one long, cd-length track, but several different, individual songs. Songs? Well, instrumental rock numbers anyway. Yes, rock. Or avant-rock, or prog-rock, or something. And, unlike most of his releases which are solo recordings (or sometimes string ensembles), this is a band project -- the very same band with which he made one of his first discs, Gravity. Maddeningly convoluted and repetitive at times, this is choppy, angular, occasionally melodic, no-wave instrumental improv prog from a trio of guitar, keyboards and drums (Asano being the guitarist). We think folks into other skronky underground Japanese prog-core acts like Ruins and Korekyojinn would find this of interest... The keys definitely give it a "classic" prog vibe, and there's even a drum solo in track five! Recorded in 1997 (and released as a cd-r only at the time) now Asano has remastered and repackaged Takoyakikun for a proper cd release on his Solstice label.

MPEG stream: Takoyakikun track 1
MPEG stream: Takoyakikun track 2
MPEG stream: Takoyakikun track 3

Beautiful! This new release from prolific Barcelona-based Japanese experimental composer Koji Asano, number 22 (!) in his ongoing series of fascinating self-released recordings, is described by Asano as "a long lost memory of a once heard piano." Now, he has

RealAudio clip: The End of August (excerpt)

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

SORRY. Briefly, part two rachets the tension up even further with some insectoid drones, lonely and menacing.

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

SORRY. Part three seems to have the most dynamism, with Asano's gurgling late-evening drones meeting with sudden, eerie, shudder-inducing stabs in the growing darkness.

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

SORRY. ...And the fourth and final installment of Asano's "Last Shade" wavers and keens like the mad monstrous pipers of Azathoth's court in the center of the universe trying to play a Tony Conrad composition!

A noisy/ambient one, in a digipak.

So lovely. Another AQ-fave by this AQ-fave Japanese composer. "You Cannot Open The Door Because It Is Already Open" is moody, abstract piano improv, recorded in an abandoned Russian castle, which provides the mysterious background ambiance.

Japanese composer/experimentalist (and AQ fave sound artist) Koji Asano is known not only for the quality of his work (almost always quite excellent) but for the sheer quantity of his releases over the last few years -- sixteen of 'em as of today, more if you count limited edition cd-rs -- which run the creative gamut from gorgeous piano meditiations, to computer noise, to chamber music, to rock guitar improv. Also unique about Koji is that ALL his music has been released on his own label, Solstice (now based, as he is, in Spain). And as if to cement Koji's reputation as a prolific composer, now Solstice presents the simutanous release of four new cds, comprising one extensive composition of abstract electro-acoustic drone, entitled "The Last Shade of Evening Falls". Now if there's one thing that drone-lovers can agree on, is that you never want 'em to end -- so what could be better than the over four and a half hours of this piece? Each disc is over an hour long, one track. Now it's not at all pure drone all the way through, that's but a part of the equation. Over the course of these four cds, Koji utilizes all sorts of slow groaning burbling tones, higher-pitched distortion, moaning echoes. His sounds are derived from violin and contrabass -- not that you'd guess, although you can tell they're from something "organic". Koji wrote music for those instruments that was recorded in Japan by his Koji Asano Ensemble, and then he spent the long dusks of a week in Barceleona near the time of the summer solstice to reconstruct and recompose the piece in his computer, processing and manipulating the original recording. Overall, "Last Shade" is dark, textural work that's going to take us longer than the running time to come to fully digest -- but what we've heard so far has been lovely. We're selling the cds seperately but obviously you need to get all four! However, a capsule review of "1/4" is that it's relatively more "melodic" than the other discs, and establishes a murder-mystery sense of tension as well.

In the wake of Jesu, and about a million other shoegazey bliss-metal combos, it's a little surprising that Asbsestoscape is the first band to take that blown out dreamy heaviness to an entirely new place. Well okay, maybe not entirely, but this, the debut cd-r by this mysterious one man band is actually quite refreshing, and a handful of folks we trust are proclaiming this their record of the year. And we can see why. In a nutshell, imagine sweeping post rock epics, merged with crumbling distorted blissed out metalgaze, but now lace the whole thing with skittery programmed rhythms, bursts of stuttery jungle, stretches of shuffling downtempo grooves, it's pretty fucking great. And the sound, deconstructed, can result in two different equations, one: a metal band, a slow, fuzzy dreamy metal band, mixing in cool jungle rhythms, or two: an electronic outfit, jungle or drum and bass or whatever, incorporating guitars and post rocky melodies. Either way, the results are sublime. But this juxtaposition, while cool, is not enough to sustain an entire record. Thankfully, Asbestoscape has a deft hand with composition too, the tracks here are dark and minor key, grand and majestic, epic and super dramatic. Instrumental of course, but never boring, the textures and melodies and rhythms more than enough to keep it interesting. It's easy to hear bits of Jesu, Mono, Explosions In The Sky, Mogwai, Nadja, but those sounds get their own unique twist, the deal sealed by flurries of spastic drum splatter, or mechanical minimal almost industrial rhythmic crunch. There are long slow building epics, the jangly guitars, shot through with high end streaks, underpinned by thick swells of muted heaviness, all held together by crystalline frameworks of programmed skitter, there are huge chugging metallic riffs gradually blurred into shimmering squalls of blissy buzz, some gorgeous slow burning dirges, that almost sound like a slowed down, prettier Godflesh (doing it almost better than Jesu), simple glistening stretches of stripped down post rock, wreathed in prismatic guitar jangle and a deep droney low end that sounds almost like strings, there's even a track that sounds like a post rock-ed chunk of dubstep. But it all works, and while in lesser hands the programmed rhythms could sound forced and gimmicky, they don't here, not only do they manage to sound organic, they also become an integral part of the Asbestoscape sound. The more we listen to this, the more we dig it. And thankfully, as Jesu moves more and more toward M83's eighties retro revival, albeit heavier (a move we're not at all opposed to, btw) it seems like Asbestoscape are here to fill that void, in addition to offering up a new take on the post rock / metal sound that should have fans of any of the above mentioned bands freaking out big time.

MPEG stream: Arctic
MPEG stream: Mono
MPEG stream: Ashen

A double-disc live recording by the amazing extreme improv duo of guitarist Stephan Jaworzyn (ex-Skullflower, ex-Whitehouse) and drummer Tony Irving (Derv), as broadcast by San Jose's KFJC live via ISDN from their home of London, England. Noisy, heavy, "out" guitar explorations/explosions don't come much better. Highly recommended for fans of Derek Bailey, Harry Pussy, Keiji Haino, etc.

Killer guitar/drums free improv mayhem from members of Skullflower and Derv, circa early '90s.

First we've heard from this doom drone trio from Iowa, and it's definitely right up our alley. How could it not be when two members are credited with "drones", and one with "contact mics", in addition to the usual metallic instrumentation? Not your run of the mill doom/drone we're thinking� A smoldering blackened ambience starts things off, all haunting creaks and whirling winds, distant guitar buzz and abstract strum, the build ultimately culminates in some seriously pummeling and lumbering doomic plod, the crashes and churning riffage spaced way out, leaving plenty of room for long stretches of heavily layered guitar buzz and blurred expanses of low end shimmer. The vocals are deep and bellowed, and everything is subtly infused with a bit of melody, but those melodies seem to bleed into the blackness surrounding them, each track a haunting downtuned black doom creep. The B side pushes the drone element even further, so dirgey and slow that the doom almost seems to transform into drone right before our ears. Occasionally interrupted by little blasts of extra riffage, and driven by some abstract drum pound, the song lumbers monstrously, eventually the drums taking up less space, the crashes happening less often, causing the second half of the B side to lean heavy on the drone and drift, lulling you into a druggy haze before exploding with another blast of blackened doomic churn. The sort of stuff that will definitely appeal to fans of Monarch and Whitehorse and all that sort of slo-mo crush. Super sweet packaging, thick heavy jackets, nice thick vinyl, each record with an old parchment, with the original writing, but also augmented with a more modern stone rubbing. WARNING, the jackets got a little beat up in transit, so if you need absolute collector nerd perfection, you're out of luck...

From the seemingly infallible Paradigms label, who in the past have brought us amazing releases from (we're gonna have to stop doing this, pretty soon the list of killer Paradigms releases will be longer than most reviews): Hjarnidaudi, Amber Asylum, Throne Of Katarsis, Blueprint Human Being, Utlagr, the Angelic Process, Titan, Jarboe and that amazing Walking With Ghosts compilation. Avid readers of the list should probably own all of those by now. Each one totally unique and amazing in its own way. This time around we have two more releases just as unique and amazing, the post rock avant doom of Woburn House, reviewed elsewhere on this list, and this disc of droning doomed classical beauty from Icelandic composer Hallvardur Asgeirsson. It's hard to know exactly how to describe this. That Icelandic sound is there. You can certainly here bits of Sigur Ros, that sort of dramatic dreaminess, but it's way more abstract. Almost like some twentieth century classical minimalism played by Sigur Ros, or even the other way around. Strings soar and drift, weaving melancholy sadscapes of sound, the whole thing wrapped in gauzy streaks of industrial noise, buzzing metallic shimmer, high keening tones, crackling hiss, fuzzy low end rumbles. It could almost be a track from some nonexistent Kranky records tribute to Schonberg. Dark and droney enough to appeal to the usual suspects, but at the same time this is ABSOLUTELY classical music. Mainly piano and strings, but occasionally accompanied by operatic vocals and various percussion, these pieces are alternately minimal, abstract, droney, dense, dreamy and doomy. In fact, track six is simply titled "Doom" and is most definitely doom, with a guitar / bass / drums / contrabass lineup replacing the more traditional classical arrangement, but it somehow manages to still sound classical, albeit, with a heavier dirge element. The final track, the nearly 19 minute "Vitisvelar" takes the super spare sound of modern classical minimalism, mixes in strange fanfares, as well as some driving propulsive rhythms, the result being a very cinematic sound, like the action scenes from some lost sixties spy move. So cool! Unlike most of the Paradigms releases, which come in cardboard sleeves wrapped in hand stamped, brown paper, this disc is in a white DVD case, with black and white printed insert...

MPEG stream: Doom
MPEG stream: Seasons In Black
MPEG stream: Die Blume Des Lebens

Finally! The first proper full length from these NY based, ultra sick, primitive black metal noise merchants. Everything we've heard so far we've dug like crazy, a single and a tape, each filthy and dripping with blown out black buzz and pounding punkish riffing. This full length is more of the same, and if anything ups the ante sonically.� Meaner, heavier, thrashier, filthier, more raw and primitive and blown out, and like the other records, still poppy and weirdly catchy. This is most definitely black metal, but a crushing primitive D-beat style BM, following a similar sonic path as fellow black hordes Bone Awl, Ancestors, Akitsa, Malveillance and the like.� Ash Pool is one part blacknoise outfit Prurient, so you knew there was gonna be noise, but the noise here is deftly harnessed into roiling black riffs and blasting beats, woozy, dizzying seasick blasts of relentless pound, furious and fierce, the production thick and blown out, in the red, crumbling distortion and murky reverb everywhere.� But this isn't just the same song over and over, set the instruments to blast and let the record play out. No these songs are varied and bizarre, occasionally epic and dramatic, sometimes so fast and brutal it borders on pure noise, sometimes a Brainbombs style caveman pound, sometimes a weird minor key mathrock jam, always appropriately blown out and noisy, but now and then the songs veer into strange, creepy, almost pretty territory, a slow and loping doomic lurch, with minor key melodies that manage to be mournful and funereal but still jagged and buzzy. Winding melancholic lopes that just sort of meander and chug abstractly. But it's never long before the tracks splinter into jagged shards, with the song exploding into another stretch of raw toxic pummel, the�vocals doused in FX and convulsing wildly atop the relentless riffage. And every once in a while, the band lock into some crazy melodic groove, and for a brief moment you almost forget you're listening to some harsh and hateful black noise outfit.� Hard to explain how great this stuff is, it all manages to be so visceral and intense, emotional and depressive, melodic with losing it's flesh-peeling edge, so sonically varied without losing it's focus, the slow songs are perfect bridges between the speaker shredding streaks of black brutality, but even when things are chaotic and on the verge of collapse, the songs still manage to be catchy and melodic and heavy as fuck.�

MPEG stream: Sin Of Life
MPEG stream: Crucifixion Fantasy
MPEG stream: Vices Triumph Over Wisdom

We weren't at all familiar with this German dronelord / bliss-drift technician, but we got an email from him, describing himself as a "romantic drone musician", so really how could we resist? While we may have been skeptical and first, this really is some romantic dronemusic, longform sprawls of lush layered shimmer, deep resonant thrum, a slow-motion swirl of constantly shifting overtones, tracks laced with melancholy melodies, or underpinned by heaving slabs of rumbling low end, but everything smeared into something ethereal and gauzy and abstract. The track "9" alone is worth the price of admission, a haunting, heavenly, smouldering sonics, pocked with a repeating beacon like tone. Over the course of the track, that tone gradually sinks into the lush, lustrous surroundings, more and more layers being revealed, the sound getting ever richer, more majestic and dreamlike. Streaks of high end come swooping in, bleeding into the soft, gentle pulsations, the vibe somewhere between Sunroof! and Stars Of The Lid, or maybe Vibracathedral Orchestra covering Reich or Riley. At any point it seems like the sound has reached a saturation point, but then somehow, there are more melodies, more layers, and the sound is in constant flux, drifting easily from sun dappled raga drift to something more ominous, a deep rumbling thrum, and back again, it's dizzying and heady, like the best drone music, it seems to envelop not just your ears, but your whole body. There's a brief bit of hushed tranquility near the end, before the gorgeously cacophonous coda, that sounds orchestral, a psychedelic squall that sounds like a million Arvo Part pieces playing at once. Awesome! And that's just ONE song. Elsewhere, the sound gets moody and cinematic, like a lost score to some classic noir, or dense and bombastic, sounding like a prettier, less in your face, Our Love Will Destroy The World, a strangely robotic bit of mesmeric churn, that also reminds us a bit of a heavier, dronier Pierre Bastien or Strotter Inst. And there is in fact some heaviness happening, some gut rumbling, rib cage rattling low end, that sounds like it's gonna destroy your speakers, often blossoming into wild swirls of static, but it's more than balanced by the sweet stretches of whispery drift, and gauzy glimmer. Some tracks drift into spacey psych folk territory, albeit way more abstract, while others devolve into murky churns, that sound like some lost post industrial drone-dirge experiment, and of course, all of those disparate elements are somehow fused into a strangely cohesive whole. Fantastic stuff, that definitely leaves us wanting more. LIMITED TO JUST 50 COPIES!!! It's likely that when we run out we won't be able to get more. Each tape is unique, every one designed by a different artist.

MPEG stream: 9
MPEG stream: Feet
MPEG stream: C.I.G.
MPEG stream: O

Another gorgeously subdued missive from one of our favorite cd-r labels, Mystery Sea. Each release somehow fits into the label's focus on "night-ocean drones" whether literally, sonically, conceptually or spiritually. And every disc impeccably designed and packaged, the artwork as much a part of the art as the music inside.� This installment (one of two on this week's list) comes from the East Coast, Massachusetts to be exact, from a one man band�known only as Asher. One of the better-known artists to release a record on Mystery Sea, Asher, focuses on field recordings, processed and manipulated into fantastic minimal microlandscapes of sound, creating textures and melodies, spreading found sounds and bits of generated music into long-form, slow-moving near static drones. But closer examination reveals all sorts of subtle rhythms, and constantly changing tonal colors, deep swells and distant shimmers, keening slivers of amp skree, but smeared into glistens rather than glares, the sounds of people and things, barely visible through the glorious blurry fuzz. Really quite lovely. Very close listening is definitely required, but the listener will be suitably rewarded by a beautiful and haunting otherworld of sound.�

MPEG stream: Partly Framed In Sunlight
MPEG stream: The Blue Gently Linked

Intentional or otherwise, Asher Thal-Nir and Ubeboet (also known as Miguel Tolosa) have created a near perfect soundscape for winter. While Cell Memory is not nearly as isolated and grim as the classic Thomas Koner records that looked to Greenland for inspiration, the hushed noises and barren drones of Cell Memory capture a similarly cold environment. The album is split almost evenly between two near 20 minute tracks. "Alter" echoes a muted howl across a billowing mass of radio snow, nocturnal hallucinatory gestures, and soft focus noise, all of which has been muffled into a long-stare miasma of ghostly repetitions flickering against a fog-laden horizon line. While the mood of "Alter" has something akin to being awakened at 3am by a snowstorm, the second track "Nullus" is more of a subterranean, bunker recording, with flecks of static dropping on the cavernous subharmonic drones like seeped water from the ceiling into a massive concrete cistern. Electrical murmurings and accreted layers of smeared textures ebb and flow against the near constant background hum. Beautifully chilling impressionism that would fit very well next to Jonathan Colecough, Mirror, Murmer, Bernhard Gunter, Steve Roden, and the aforementioned Thomas Koner. As with all of the Wind Measures Recordings, Cell Memory comes in an elegant folio, letterpressed by WMR's Ben Owen. It's a professionally duplicated cd-r and is limited to 150 copies.

MPEG stream: Alter
MPEG stream: Nullus

Another gorgeous collection of blissed out ambience from local label Time Released Sound, this one from a TRS vet, Mr. Wil Bolton, whose Quarry Bank release was a big hit around here, and who in Ashes Of Piemonte, is teamed up with another like minded soundmaker by the name of Lee Anthony Norris. The two together have conjured up a broody bit of haunting minimalist drift, one that's not that far removed from what we're discovering is a sort of "Time Released Sound SOUND", and while each band has their own distinct take on THAT sound, at its core, it's typically an ethereal, ephemeral ambience, neo-classical dronescapery that's softly psychedelic, hushed and mysterious, almost new agey at times, an electronic flecked dreaminess that blends organic and machine generated sounds into something lush and lovely. Winter's Fire though takes that TRS sound and darkens it a bit, adding an overcast patina, the sound more grey and rainswept, low tones rumbling and shimmering beneath crystalline flecks of glimmering melody, hazy swaths of voice like synth floating weightless above softly thrumming chordal swells, the sound almost choral in places, very cinematic, wistful and melancholy, a weary, washed out sprawl of delicate moody mesmerism, drifting spectrally through field recordings of rainfall, mysterious echo drenched samples, and ghostly voices, all of which seem to fade eerily into the gauzy shimmery backdrop Bolton and Norris so effortlessly weave. Fans of other Time Released Sound releases will most definitely not be disappointed, but folks into sounds darker and dronier, might just want to give this one a try, a perfect mix of hushed haunting ambience, ominous cinematic soundscaping and dark droning drift. As with all Time Released Sound releases, Winter's Fire comes in two versions, one a pricey ultra deluxe package, and less expensive standard one. The deluxe version this time around consists of a stamped and printed page from a 100 year old apothecary's ledger, complete with all the original hand written prescriptions, the page has tiny twigs woven into it, and the whole thing is tied with antique string, to which is attached an old brass clothespin. All of that is then housed in an antiqued envelope, printed and distressed with ash, ink and pastels, then hand stamped and sealed with wax. WOW. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, we have but a handful. The Standard version is less limited and comes housed in a simple printed paper sleeve, slightly smudged and distressed.

MPEG stream: Isola
MPEG stream: Under The River
MPEG stream: Ordained By Winter's Fire

Another gorgeous collection of blissed out ambience from local label Time Released Sound, this one from a TRS vet, Mr. Wil Bolton, whose Quarry Bank release was a big hit around here, and who in Ashes Of Piemonte, is teamed up with another like minded soundmaker by the name of Lee Anthony Norris. The two together have conjured up a broody bit of haunting minimalist drift, one that's not that far removed from what we're discovering is a sort of "Time Released Sound SOUND", and while each band has their own distinct take on THAT sound, at its core, it's typically an ethereal, ephemeral ambience, neo-classical dronescapery that's softly psychedelic, hushed and mysterious, almost new agey at times, an electronic flecked dreaminess that blends organic and machine generated sounds into something lush and lovely. Winter's Fire though takes that TRS sound and darkens it a bit, adding an overcast patina, the sound more grey and rainswept, low tones rumbling and shimmering beneath crystalline flecks of glimmering melody, hazy swaths of voice like synth floating weightless above softly thrumming chordal swells, the sound almost choral in places, very cinematic, wistful and melancholy, a weary, washed out sprawl of delicate moody mesmerism, drifting spectrally through field recordings of rainfall, mysterious echo drenched samples, and ghostly voices, all of which seem to fade eerily into the gauzy shimmery backdrop Bolton and Norris so effortlessly weave. Fans of other Time Released Sound releases will most definitely not be disappointed, but folks into sounds darker and dronier, might just want to give this one a try, a perfect mix of hushed haunting ambience, ominous cinematic soundscaping and dark droning drift. As with all Time Released Sound releases, Winter's Fire comes in two versions, one a pricey ultra deluxe package, and less expensive standard one. The deluxe version this time around consists of a stamped and printed page from a 100 year old apothecary's ledger, complete with all the original hand written prescriptions, the page has tiny twigs woven into it, and the whole thing is tied with antique string, to which is attached an old brass clothespin. All of that is then housed in an antiqued envelope, printed and distressed with ash, ink and pastels, then hand stamped and sealed with wax. WOW. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, we have but a handful. The Standard version is less limited and comes housed in a simple printed paper sleeve, slightly smudged and distressed.

MPEG stream: Isola
MPEG stream: Under The River
MPEG stream: Ordained By Winter's Fire

The latest release from local label Time Released Sound comes via the UK duo Ashlar, who traffic in a hazy, dreamy ambience, a field recording flecked sprawl of spidery crystalline guitar melodies, lush chordal swells, and blurred dronedrift shimmer. Softly looped passages seem to gradually decay, revealing all manner of textures beneath, each track here dreamy and ethereal, tending toward the hushed and minimal, but in places blossoming into dense droning buzz or keening high-end skree, but always settling back into something much more serene and tranquil. The fuzzy gauzy sound reminds us of Philip Jeck or Tim Hecker for sure, but the music is more in line with Jasper TX or Machinefabriek, darkly delicate, lushly woven soundscapes that manage to be both haunting and cinematic, melancholy and slightly sinister, the field recordings, giving many of these tracks a slightly paranoid vibe like an alternate modern score for The Conversation. Gorgeous stuff. As with all the TRS releases, there are two versions. There's the ultra deluxe version, in this case, limited to just 80 copies, and we only have a small handful, each one housed in an original old school 'clock dial' hobby store style package, with the original (slightly modified) clock dial decal, as well as a series of reproduced prints of (slightly altered) drone related projects from the imagined Ashlar Industries. Also included is a sticker, old aerial photographic ephemera, and of course an actual cd (not cd-r) housed in a hand printed and stamped envelope. And of course there's the standard version, which is simply the cd in the hand printed / stamped envelope, that one is quite limited too this time around, just 70 copies!

MPEG stream: The First Saturday
MPEG stream: Hope Street
MPEG stream: The Last Drone

The latest release from local label Time Released Sound comes via the UK duo Ashlar, who traffic in a hazy, dreamy ambience, a field recording flecked sprawl of spidery crystalline guitar melodies, lush chordal swells, and blurred dronedrift shimmer. Softly looped passages seem to gradually decay, revealing all manner of textures beneath, each track here dreamy and ethereal, tending toward the hushed and minimal, but in places blossoming into dense droning buzz or keening high-end skree, but always settling back into something much more serene and tranquil. The fuzzy gauzy sound reminds us of Philip Jeck or Tim Hecker for sure, but the music is more in line with Jasper TX or Machinefabriek, darkly delicate, lushly woven soundscapes that manage to be both haunting and cinematic, melancholy and slightly sinister, the field recordings, giving many of these tracks a slightly paranoid vibe like an alternate modern score for The Conversation. Gorgeous stuff. As with all the TRS releases, there are two versions. There's the ultra deluxe version, in this case, limited to just 80 copies, and we only have a small handful, each one housed in an original old school 'clock dial' hobby store style package, with the original (slightly modified) clock dial decal, as well as a series of reproduced prints of (slightly altered) drone related projects from the imagined Ashlar Industries. Also included is a sticker, old aerial photographic ephemera, and of course an actual cd (not cd-r) housed in a hand printed and stamped envelope. And of course there's the standard version, which is simply the cd in the hand printed / stamped envelope, that one is quite limited too this time around, just 70 copies!

MPEG stream: The First Saturday
MPEG stream: Hope Street
MPEG stream: The Last Drone

This is one of three separate shards of electronic music history (Ashley, Neuhaus, and Palestine) recently unearthed by Italian audio archaeologists Alga Marghen. "Wolfman" collects four pieces circa 1957-1964 by American original Robert Ashley, a composer known for his releases on Lovely Music. Noisy tape-music and electronics to accompany equally extreme vocal performances. Pretty wild, and hard to take, certainly pioneering stuff! MPEG Download: "The Wolfman" [/audio/ashleywolfman.mp3]

MPEG stream: The Wolfman

As we mentioned in the review of the Exxasens cd elsewhere on this list, Belgian label NOTHingness, a long time aQ fave, is no more. The folks who ran NOTHingness decided to close shop and start a new label called Consouling Sounds. But we did manage to get one last NOTHingness release, this gorgeous collection of haunting forest dronescapes from a Canadian outfit called Ashtorath.� And yeah, drone records are a dime a dozen these days, but this is much more than just a drone record, it's more like a collection of creepy cinematic soundscapes which just happen to be intensely droney. The music of Ashtorath is moody and melancholic, dramatic and dark, haunting and harrowing. Beginning with the sound of insects in the night, thunderstorms, whipping wind, a tolling bell, it sets the stage for what's to come. A slowly unfolding sonic narrative, synths unfurl woozy melodies, mysterious drones and whirs lurk just below the surface, guitars wrapped in reverb ring out over the sound of rainfall, peppered with bits of muted glitch, moaning ghostly tones, creepy tinkling chimes, deep resonant rumbles, mysterious voices, warbly woozy music box melodies, this tuff is just so creepy and weird, definitely sounds like it could have been pulled right out of some super sinister underground arty horror film. A little bit neoclassical, a little bit dark ambient, a little bit horror movie score, some drone, and even some almost metallic distorted guitar, lurching and lumbering through a field of whirring weirdness on the last track. Pretty and droney enough for the free noise drone rock cd-r crowd, but of particular interest to folks into Zombi, Goblin, Trollman Av Ildtoppberg, Ensepulchred, Zombie Battle Axe and actual horror movie music.� SUPER LIMITED. ALREADY OUT OF PRINT. We got the last copies...

MPEG stream: Stormshard
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Second Ashtray Navigations disc in two weeks! This time, it comes courtesy of our pal Glenn (Blithe Suns, Ivytree, Jewelled Antler, etc.) and his Pink Skulls cd-r label. Originally begun to release stuff that was too weird / out there or just too different from the Jewelled Antler aesthetic, Pink Skulls seems to be getting a little closer to its big brother label with this release, as this new Ashtray Navigations wouldn't be all that out of place on JA. A sweet dreamy three-part mini epic. Part one is a long meditative simple high end drone, keening and warbling, up and down in a simple two note melody. Parts two and three are brief addendums, one a series of rumbling low end swells, chirping crickets, and detuned guitars, the other a sort of echo of the first, with distorted lilting melodies over a wash of Skullflower style high-end scree. So nice.

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The UK's Ashtray Navigations (aka Phil Todd) has been spitting out cd after cd after tape after tape after cd-r after cd-r for years now. Close to twenty would be our guess. If not more even. Which is pretty dang impressive. So here we are twenty years down the line and Todd is still kicking up the sort of glorious din that shames most of the other free noise outifts out there. Billowing clouds of thick chordal bliss, washes of high end feedback and layer after layer of sonic skree, all shifting and swirling and drifting with subtle acustic guitars in the background as well as whining reeds unfurling melancholy Eastern melodies. The closest comparison would have to be Sunroof! or Vibracathedral Orchestra, who just so happen to occupy the same sonic scene as Todd and his Ashtray Navigations. From pixilated clouds of abstract tinkle and glimmer to dense supernovas of roiling sonic fury, The Love That Whirrs is totally essential listening (like all things Sunroof!, VCO, Pelt, Skullflower, Jazzfinger, etc.) for all you freeambientdronedrifters out there!

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First we've heard in a long while from this prolific home recordist, going on 20 years now, and while at one point we may have gotten a wee bit burnt out on AN, we have to say, this new single is definitely reminding us why we liked it so much in the first place. The A side begins all lo-fi with a spidery melody unwinding over a bed of swirling electronics, laced with some raga like buzz, a little droney psychedelia, would have been perfectly happy to listen to just that for five minutes, but the side shifts dramatically, and the sound is transformed into a sort of cosmic synth swirl, the sort of sound that would be right at home on an Emeralds record, a sun dappled wall of blissy hazy soft focus buzz. The flipside follows a similar pattern, this time opening with some slow synth creep, sounding a bit like a lost John Carpenter soundtrack, and then it too blossoms into another chunk of kosmische bliss out, this time, a high end raga drone that sounds like Sunroof! crossed with Muslimgauze, driven by a pulsing rhythm, everything wreathed in a blurred shimmer and tangled up with muted psychedelic leads, totally heady and hypnotic, and another one of those tracks that could have stretched out forEVER. Gorgeous stuff, and again, we're reminded of just how much we may have been missing Ashtray Navigations. Not sure how limited these are, but we're guessing, probably pretty limited, so grab one before they're gone.

Another fucking drop dead record of gorgeous, hazy ambience from this UK mystery man. Droning and buzzing and humming with tinges of middle eastern flavor and No Neck Blues Band style free chaos. Fans of NNBB and Chalk/Coleclough should deinitely check this out.

New release from AQ pal Jon Dale's Rhizome Recordings label. Three gorgeously hazy tracks of shimmery minimal abstraction from this mysterious UK outfit. Track one is all warbly synths, bleating horns, and keening angelic oscillations, like slow motion free-jazz played over Sunroof! outtakes. Track two is a sun dappled blissout of buzzing sitar-like guitars over Spacemen Three guitar pulses, with fuzzed out melodies and found sound snippets. The final track is a buzzing mosquito soundscape of squiggly synths, scribbled shortwaves, and ghostly hums over muted conversations. Good stuff for fans of Skullflower, Sunroof!, Vibracathedral Orchestra and the like!

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Ah, the many tentacles of Gordon Ashworth. Once, this Portlander recorded as Concern delivering an updated version of American holy minimalism through Riley, Maclise, and Conrad in fine style. He also had his wall-noise moniker Oscillating Innards, and plenty of black/grind/scuzz-fuck/noise projects to extend his aesthetic range (e.g. Knelt Rote, Deep Jew, etc.); but it was always the work of Concern that tickled our fancy. While he shelved Concern as a project back in 2010, this solo album released under his given name seems to be carrying on that aesthetic thread. Languid drones blur between field recordings from his one-time job as a taxi driver and subtle melodies sketched out via banjo and piano for the first couple of tracks, lend a less digital but equally favorable comparison to Tim Hecker's fizzing post-ambience. On "Suite For Broken Sex," Ashworth really hits his stride through the billowing minimalism for a hypnotic piano, churning through notes akin to Lubomyr Melnyk's less frenetic compositions, all brightly rasping with overtones and swirling raga-drones from the interlocking arpeggiation. The wistful banjo fingerpicking of "To Be The Man I Want To Be" and "Desperate & Indebted" takes on a Tim Hecker / Christian Fennesz jaggedliness adhering to the hillbilly minimalism of Henry Flynt, plucking away at a tearjerkingly maudlin series of melodies over the course of side two. Gorgeous stuff for sure! Limited to 300 copies on clear vinyl with a download.

The amazing Drone Records label, run by Stefan Knappe of Maeror Tri / Troum, has been quietly releasing super limited, hand made slabs of gorgeous drone music for years now. Mostly 7", always vinyl (although there will soon be a 2cd collection of early out of print singles on Andee's tUMULt label), each disc an ultra personal exploration of the drone, sometimes soft and dreamlike, sometimes harsh and noisy, but always beautiful. Recently, Drone has launched a new series, 10"s this time, with a very complicated premise: "A concept that embraces the prospect of infinite possibilities for artists to create music about the intangible such as: the unnameable, the unspeakable, the unthinkable, the unidentifiable, etc. Various aspects related to "The Unknown". Sound artists and artwork designers were invited to work on the theme of the "grey matter" / the "dark continent" surrounding us & within us. Transforming this paradoxical idea into acoustic and visual objectifications." Phew. Pretty heady stuff. But these first three installments are up to the task, creating dark and disturbing and truly though provoking dronemusic. We can hardly weight for the rest of the series. The second in the series is from Asia Nova, who hail from California, and offer up slow shifting instrumental swells, like an orchestra tuning up in outer space, crumbling waves of deconstructed melody slowly stretched into a vast ocean of hiss and static and tiny sonic events that gradually dissipate into the surrounding sounds. In the background hovers ominous gurgling rumbles and far away melodic sparkles. The other side is barely there, an ultra minimal drone, more space than sound, like drifting through some darkened undersea cavern, a barren abstract sonic landscape. Incredibly spare but strangely alluring. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Pressed on pink and white swirled vinyl.

For those of you who missed out on the first seven installments of Astral Social Club's limited series of self released cd-r's (us and probably most of you), the ASC swoops in to save the day with this massive MP3 cd-r, containing every track from all 7 of those discs, 589 mb's, 57 tracks, over FIVE HOURS!!! All for 11 bucks! Hard to beat, and as we've only made it through the first three, we can tell you already, it's well worth it. Astral Social Club just so happens to be Mr. Neil Campbell, the mastermind behind the genius Vibracathedral Orchestra as well, who for years, has been spending his days off from VCO, recording disc after amazing disc of deliriously spaced out drone, blown out extended ragas, and seemingly endless slabs of hypnotic pulse and drift. Pick any track on any of these seven releases and you'll be instantly transported to some other world, where sounds are alive, everything is glistening, the sky is full of vivid blinding streaks of sound, synths pulse and throb, it's like Terry Riley or Steve Reich transported to some imaginary sci-fi future where they spend all their time composing for Tangerine Dream and Popol Vuh. These seven discs cover a whole lot of ground, from epic droning raga like bliss a la Skullflower or Sunroof!, to simple mesmerizing minimalism a la Riley or La Monte Young, sometimes both at the same time. All of it amazing.

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On the last list we reviewed #1-7, an Astral Social Club mp3 cd which collected the first 7 volumes of their self released cd-r series and everybody flipped. We've barely been able to keep them in stock (if you're waiting, more are on the way!). Well, the series is now up to volume 12! No plans as of yet for another mp3 collection, and volumes 8 through 10 seem to be already gone, but we've got a bunch of number 11 and number 12, both of which are killers.� This here disc, number 11, begins with some strange (and not very ASC like)�murky, looped percussion, with bits of electronic glitch, sounding almost a little like some�sort of twentieth century classical filtered through some primitive krautrock. After that though we're back in familiar territory, with�glorious sparkling epic shimmering drones, technicolor cascades of rich reverberant sounds and all manner of glimmering glittering ear candy,�super minimal dark ambience, with drifting whale call melodies and deep rumbling swells,�Sunroof!-y bit of high end raga sparkle, complete with the sounds of crickets and running water, sun dappled, dreamy looped guitar sheen, all wrapped up into one big glorious space drone whole.� The last three tracks might be the best here,�dense synthscapes, lots of hiss and whir, with buried rhythmic pulses, weird underwater bloops and burbles... all three tracks sounding very much like some white label Pop Ambient 12". Awesome.� Packaged in thick plastic sleeves with a full color paste on insert. And of course, quite limited...

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**SALE **SALE* *SALE**

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Latest in the ongoing series of self released cd-r's from Mr. Neil Campbell, aka Astral Social Club, formerly of divine dronesters Vibracathedral Orchestra. This is number 14, and sonically begins with a track (after a brief noisy intro) that had us thinking this might end up sounding like the recent releases on Important, taking the blessed out incandescent white hot ragas, and transforming them into some strange propulsive alien dance music. And yeah, on the Important discs, dance music might have been stretching it a bit, but here, at least on the opening track, the beat is definitely the focal point, insistent and pulsing, laying down a simple groove amidst flittering clouds of spacy FX and little bleeps and bloops. But after that it's right back to business, the business of thick corrosive washes of overblown distortion and buzzing droning ragas, thick slabs of feedback, grinding chunks of guitarbuzz, processed vocals, all wound up into a snarled dronepsych blowouts. A few of the track eschew the noisy psych side completely, choosing instead to tinkle and drift through tranquil smears of soft sound, but even those tracks eventually build to intense climaxes, high end streaks and tangled slivers of feedback all wound up into gorgeously shimmering upper register skreescapes. Another gorgeous collection of dense freeform psychedelia, definitely for fans of all things Vibracathedral, Skullflower, Yellow Swans, Skaters and the like, and those afraid of beats, or dancefloor phobic, no matter how noisy and strange that particular dancefloor is, can just skip over that second track�

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It's that time again, another volume in Astral Social Club's ever expanding self released cd-r series. It's been only a few months since the last one, but who's complaining? If we didn't have to work and do stuff and eat, and all that, we might just spend all our time high as a kite, sprawled out on a big ol' fuzzy sofa, with Astral Social Club blasting through 1000 watt quadraphonic speakers mounted in the ceiling. But, as it is, we'll just have to make do rocking these cd-r's in our iPods. Which is fine, as this stuff is perfect to drown out daily life, or to fill your head with whirs and buzzes, drone and spaced out psych, to chillout, drift off, or to groove to on some alien dancefloor, or to blast from your strange sleek pod like vehicle as you speed down some alien highway. Neil Campbell, ex-Vibracathedral Orchestra, the man behind ASC, continues to dabble in dance music, as well as spacekraut, taking his usual Sunroof!-ed ragas, into all sorts of new directions. Sure the core of the sound is still the circular looped hypnotic longform drone, but many of the tracks here get twisted into strange mesmerizing rhythms, some bordering on dance grooves, but even at its 'funkiest' it's still blissy and droney and spaced out and druggy. A few of these tracks still show that Campbell can hold his own within the dreamdrone set, offering up transcendental slabs of glistening high end that Sunroof! Or Birchville would love to call their own, but then right after, will come some super minimal percussive flutter, some swirling abstract FX-scape, or some pounding almost house sounding banger. But all filtered through Campbell's uniquely cracked effects-soaked, drug-infused, blissed out, space drone soundworld.

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The series continues... Neil Campbell and his Astral Social Club return with two more installments, each a limited cd-r of trippy, druggy, spaced out dronemusic, but more and more the sound of ASC has been drifting toward some sort of otherworldly dancemusic, and that's just how number 18 starts off, with a dense chunk of drone-raga house music, a thumping 4 on the floor beat, that pounds its way through swirling clouds of blurred buzz and industrial crunch, the beat flips backwards, and the surrounding sounds just get more thick and dense. The rest of the disc is all over the map, from super tangled speaker abusing blasts of strangled high end and stuttery glitch, to washed out noise drenched loops, all warm and fuzzy and textural, to super minimal muted buzzscapes, to cool jagged downtempo anti-grooves, to barely there hushed rhythmic skitter, to gorgeous fluttery ur-drones that slowly transform into billowy almost pop ambience, to crunchy heard-through-the-floor dancefloor throb and so it goes. Definitely the sound of the more beat oriented ASC, but even at its beatiest, Campbell still has a way with drones and ambience, wrapping every beat here in swirling squalls of soft noise, crumbling distorted rumbles and twisted glistening effects. Awesome stuff as always. Each in a handmade sleeve with all sorts of random clippings affixed to the front.

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The latest in the ongoing Astral Social Club cd-r series is in fact a collection of live recordings, gathered over the past 9 months, recorded in multiple locations with a bunch of guests including a veritable choir on the last track. 6 tracks, 34 minutes, the first track sounds like Yello's "Oh Yeah" chopped up and reassembled into a dizzyingly skittery psych jam, the beat relentless, wrapped in all sorts of chirping high end squeaks and bleeps, looped and super hypnotic. The second track, from the same set, takes that first number and strips away the frantic rhythms, leaving just a buried pulse, and a thick swirl of high end hiss and smoothed out glitches, a droned out high end drift, that manages to entrance with that barely there beat. The final track from that same show is a chaotic cacophony of sci-fi stutter, and fractured effects, a symphony of what sounds like lazer pistols, looped and layered into a head spinning sonic free for all, underpinned by some haunting almost Goblin-y super distorted mood music. The second set of tracks is a much murkier affair, the first track an endless Sunroof!-y drone, long tones overlapping and intertwining, the second pulls back the skree, leaving a cool, industrial sounding drum loop, that is soon joined by a house-y 4 on the floor kick drum high hat pulse, which transforms the song into some sort of damaged, house-drone-industrial mash up, but again, ASC are able to turn it into something hypnotic and if not danceable, at least in some strange way groovy. The final track is another murky industrial flecked crawl, spread out over what sounds like some strange undulating drone, but on closer listening is in fact a sort of choir, but they all seem to be moaning or humming, not a harmonious exactly, but it does make for some truly strange and haunting textures, a very abstract, organic human dronemusic. Cool. And definitely the first time we've heard anything like it. Each cd-r is housed in a printed cover with a pasted on live photo.

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The second in the Astral Social Club mp3 reissue program. One disc, 9 cd-r's and close to 8 hours worth of blissed out shimmer, soft dreamy noisescapes and mutant alien discodrone, all jammed onto one little disc. So for those of you who missed out on any of the numbers 8 through 16 (heck we did too, we only reviewed 3 of those!), then this is a good way to get it ALL! First, an Astral Social club primer would probably be useful: For those who don't already know, Astral Social Club just so happens to be Mr. Neil Campbell, the mastermind behind the genius Vibracathedral Orchestra, who for years, has been spending his days off from VCO, recording disc after amazing disc of deliriously spaced out drone, blown out extended ragas, and seemingly endless slabs of hypnotic pulse and drift, and more recently a sort of fractured otherworldy dancemusic. Okay then, odds are, most of you are probably gonna want this, but in case you need a quick description of some of the sonic joys to be found within, here goes: Strange and murky, looped percussion, with bits of electronic glitch, sounding almost a little like some sort of twentieth century classical filtered through some primitive krautrock, glorious sparkling epic shimmering drones, Technicolor cascades of rich reverberant sounds and all manner of glimmering glittering ear candy, super minimal dark ambience, with drifting whale call melodies and deep rumbling swells, Sunroof!-y bit of high end raga sparkle, complete with the sounds of crickets and running water, sun dappled, dreamy looped guitar sheen, all wrapped up into one big glorious space drone whole, dense synthscapes, lots of hiss and whir, with buried rhythmic pulses, weird underwater bloops and burbles... all sounding very much like some white label Pop Ambient 12", thick corrosive washes of overblown distortion and buzzing droning ragas, thick slabs of feedback, grinding chunks of guitarbuzz, processed vocals, all wound up into a snarled dronepsych blowouts, tranquil smears of soft sound, high end streaks and tangled slivers of feedback all wound up into gorgeously shimmering upper register skreescapes, circular looped hypnotic longform dronemusic, blissy and droney and spaced out and druggy, transcendental slabs of glistening high, super minimal percussive flutter, swirling abstract FX-scapes, pounding almost house sounding bangers all uniquely cracked, effects-soaked, drug-infused and blissed out and more more more more. Essential listening for fans of all things drone-y and blissed out, fans of Vibracathedral, Skullflower, Yellow Swans, the Skaters and folks looking for some truly twisted outsider dance trax to go with their ambient dronemusic. packaged in a thick PVC plastic sleeve, in a plain white jacket with a paste on front cover image.

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