NORTH SEA, THETacazze Sunbird(Crazy Iris records)lp$ 21.00
[ aquarius records — Experimental ]
Showing results 5701 through 5750 of 9280.
NORTH SEA, THEUnderneath The Jesus Tree(Barl Fire)cd-r$ 11.98
Recorded way back in 2004, in and around Tulsa, Oklahoma, this is the latest from Digitalis mainman Brad Rose's solo psych folk project The North Sea. Utilizing a free folk arsenal of acoustic guitar, glockenspiel, melodica, kalimba, bouzouki, field recordings and a bunch of other stuff, Rose crafts glistening folkscapes of twang and drift. Less free and abstract than many of his sonic brethren, Rose often writes actual songs, with riffs and parts and lyrics, lovely lilting forest folk, that just seems to glow and shimmer. His soft falsetto drifting above lush steel string guitars and random sounds of nature, birds and wind and running water. But he can get loose and free with the best of them, offering up primal forest drones, rife with percussive clatter and steel string buzz, abstract ragas, plenty of soft shimmer and warm warble, but even those tracks are infused with a certain lyricism that ties them to his more song oriented side. So lovely. Definitely another essential addition to your already bursting at the seams modern free folk collection. LIMITED TO 200 COPIES!! Packaged in a swank white digipak, with full color insert and pasted-on front cover artwork by George Parsons of Dream Magazine.
- MPEG stream: Asleep Underneath The Jesus Tree
- MPEG stream: Marigold Perfume
NORTH SEA, THE & RAMESES IIINight Of The Ankou(Type)cd$ 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY. Oh boy, is this one absolutely beautiful record. The UK's Rameses III, who we've raved about in the past (and whose previous releases are now all sadly unavailable) team up with Digitalis head honcho Brad Rose aka The North Sea, for a total dream drenched blissout. There's nothing really ominous or dark or creepy about this at all. Instead this is warm and thick and so so pretty. Long lazy drifts of muted melody float weightless beneath soft cotton candy clouds of gauzy ambience, fingerpicked guitars surface here and there, just long enough to release a few notes, melodic fragments that just hover in the air before gently settling and drifting away, floating lazily like leaves in a mountain stream. Elsewhere, slow swells of chordal shimmer are woven into fuzzy soundscapes, while strings swoon over the top of everything, just another subtly sweet layer in a truly divine sonic tapestry. So totally gorgeous. Packaged in a beautiful Touch-like digipak, a single flowered field on one side, a lone dandelion clock, most of it's puffy white seeds lost to the wind.
- MPEG stream: Death Of The Ankou
- MPEG stream: Return Of The Ankou (Xela Remix)
NORTH SEA, THE / THE ROME CHELLsplit(Ruralfaune)cd-r$ 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY. This here little cd-r is so limited it almost seems silly to bother, but we have 15 copies, that's basically 50 percent of the pressing, so this will definitely be gone in a matter of minutes. The North Sea is Brad Rose who runs the Digitalis label, and sounds like you might imagine, post-Fahey steel string dreaminess, strummy and lilting, lots of reverb, warm and glistening and quite lovely. Not sure who the heck the Rome Chell is, but they are a perfect match for the North Sea, exploring a similar sound, although their take on the post Appalachian free folk is much more subdued and murky, steel strings are strummed, but the result is a muted pulsing melody, warm waves of sound that sort of drift and hover. Also quite lovely. Would love to hear more from both outfits. However, only about 15 of you are ever gonna hear this particular disc. So act fast. LIMITED TO 32 COPIES! We have about half. Guaranteed to be gone in minutes! Packaged in a plastic sleeve, with a black wallpaper insert, sealed with a twig and a piece of twine!
- MPEG stream: Seabirds
- MPEG stream: Misere-Passio-Arbos
NORTHAM, MICHAELSolar Night(Mirror Tapes)cassette$ 9.99
The peripatetic sound artist Michael Northam built these psychedelically tinged compositions for liquid drone, field recordings, and hypnotic instrumentation via his longstanding affinity for the work of Rene Daumal. A mystic who ventured in and out of the Surrealist circles in the early 20th centuries, Daumal had done much in the way of metaphysical introspection, with only a few written works published. Mount Analogue would have been his second novel, had he not died before it was finished; this allegorical travel narrative, even in its unfinished state, became the template for Jodorowsky's film The Holy Mountain. Northam in his investigations of found sounds, activated spaces, crackled minimalism, and recent studies in Indian raga has put forward an earth-bound transcendence, not far removed from Daumal's mystical visions. Out of masses of bowed metals and small flutes, Northam constructs haunting elongations of harmonic tones that flicker throughout streams of textural noises, which sound like leaves rustling through through a wind-swept house perched somewhere up in the Himalayas. Northam's work is far from static, as tones subtly shift and burblings of those textural abrasions slip between a variety of monochromatic variations. Here, Northam offers something not too far from the classic sounds of Zoviet France mingled with those of Small Cruel Party and one-time collaborator Loren Chasse. More gritty, tape machinations speak throughout Northam's work, providing a post-industrial touch to all of the floating flute loops and bell tones suspended in meditation and harkening back to one of his early masterpieces The Absurd Evidence (with John Grzinich). This is an excellent recording, and limited to 250 copies through the Malaysian label Mirror Tapes.
NORTHAM, MICHAELSuhira(Substantia Innominata / Drone Records)10"$ 13.98
These two tracks of hypnotizing dronemusik from the wandering sound artist Michael Northam originated from a night camping in the Finnish hinterlands, where he became fascinated with the sound of wind whipping through the trees. Field recordings have long been central to Northam's work dating back to his tactile compositions of corroded ambience and titanic drone arcing; and even the aspects of wind had featured heavily in work through the Aeolian harps he built in a bunker on a desolate Finnish island. Where those recordings were attempting to harness to power of wind as something of an intersection between technology and the landscape, these two beautiful recordings of brightly shimmering ambience are more of a poetic response to the dynamics of wind. So those whispings and scatterings of summertime arctic winds introduce the first side of this 10" and quickly subside amidst Northam's billowing drones from his Indonesian flute and an overblown Casio keyboard. The resulting waving tones flicker with the lingering glow of the sun arching toward the horizon at twilight, with golds, oranges, and reds radiating through each timbre. So striking are the colors that Northam gets through these tones, it can almost distract from his conceptual anchor. No matter, as he's creating one of his finest pieces in a long time. Nice!
NORTHAUNTHorizons(Cyclic Law)cd$ 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
- MPEG stream: Until Dawn Do Us Part
- MPEG stream: Night Came To Us
NORTHERN VALENTINEThe Distance Brings Us Closer(Silber)cd$ 14.98
So this is one of those records where the cover totally gives away what's hiding inside. These Philadelphia drift-heads sent us this disc a few weeks ago, and we were totally blown away. The music so nicely reflects the cover photograph: beautiful, expansive oceanic horizons, almost glowing with a looming grayness. With keyboards, violin, three electric guitars and a bass, this five piece really hone in on a super liquidity, an organic, fluid type of drone composition. Their third album out of four, The Distance Brings Us Closer resonates with long, lush tones and delicate melodies that seem to blend and form chords in mid air. Always moving and turning like fog creeping along the forest floor, Northern Valentine has a distinct sound that kinda reminds us of a more darkened and coastal Windy and Carl playing with Rameses III in some giant cathedral. Very dark and mysterious, the record travels through blissed out walls of trance inducing drones and into more textural noisy Fennesz-like atmospheres. Though they call themselves a post-rock band, the guitars and instruments used are so dripping with reverb and delay that it might be more accurate to describe Northern Valentine as a dark and drifting ambient group. At least that's how they sound on this particular record, as word on the street is their other albums have drums and are more propulsive and less drifty. Either way we dig what they're doing A LOT, and couldn't wait to share it with all of you! If you like anything Type records related or that recently reviewed Elegi, you'll love this too! Completely and utterly recommended!!
- MPEG stream: Born Yesterday
- MPEG stream: Escaping Light
NOS PHILLIPEShh... Camille(Confront)cd$ 11.98
Short and sweet. This 24 minute piece from London's obscurant drone duo Nos Phillipe (aka Jonathan Webb and Robert Hopps) is pretty damn good, having been culled from field recordings, guitar, turntable, and lots of electronics. Elongated tones brightly shine with the sheen of a chrome surface being struck by rakish streaks from the sun, countered by a fluctuating low-end rumble, locating the work somewhere near the early constructions of Jonathan Coleclough. Aerated rotations, which could be field recordings of wind billowing over a pipe or maybe that's the sound of the turntable heavily compressed, transitions these earlier drones into a bending chorus somewhere between Tibetan horn bleats, an Amazonian insect chorus, and the blurred distortion of Birchville Cat Motel. These sounds buzz, hum, swarm, and shift into a time-stretched growl of low-end drones which leads the piece to a gradual conclusion. Pretty damn good...
- MPEG stream: Shh... Camille
NOS PHILLIPEs/t(Black Atlas)cd$ 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY. The twenty minute and change teaser that Nos Phillipe offered through Confront last year, definitely piqued our interest for another offering from their dark, organic drone experiments. This album opens with a hauntological set of ghostly piano melodies whispering behind an aerated hiss, broken with tactile events. A thick swarm of doom-guitar drones and square waves blackens the sky, and the horror-film mood is furthered with a delirious sequence of Bernard Hermann-esque screeching violins. Bowed gongs, reversed bell-tones, and quiet metal scrabblings follow, amassing into a tense drone alluding to shadowy esoteric ritualism with black clad minions lurking about subterranean spaces lit only by candles. Certainly creepy stuff that Nos Phillipe are exploring here. Coarse, gritty loops and deep swelling frequencies seem to come from the Philip Jeck school of turntable manipulation, although this London duo embraces much more of a Gothic sensibility than you'd find in Jeck's antiquated warblings. The album's finale cut is an extract from a live session captured at Cafe OTO in London. In this live performance, bowed metals and cymbals shimmer with an eternal glow of those Organum recordings from way back when. A really fine set of motorized vibration, psychoacoustic phase-shifting, and synthetic ambience envelopes the acoustic dronescraping, building upto an exceptionally dramatic crescendo. References abound to irr. app. (ext.), Nurse With Wound, and some of Christoph Heemann's dada expressionism. Recommended for sure!
- MPEG stream: Deacons: Control Of The Candidate
- MPEG stream: Deana
- MPEG stream: Live At Cafe Oto
NOTHINGThe Grey Subaudible(Nostalgium Directive)cassette$ 8.98
NOTO20' to 2000: September(Raster-Noton)cd$ 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY. The September release in the 20' to 2000 series of experimental/minimalist/electronica is from Noto. What has been so surprising of this series is the exceptional quality... I mean is there going to be a dud in the lot? Not yet! Carsten Nicolai - aka Noto and label boss for Noton/Rastermusic - presents perhaps his best best work of minimalist clicks and electronic pops emerging rather unassumingly at first, but later structuring themselves against slow moving rhythmic bass pulses.
NOTOEmpty Garden(Watari-Um Museum Tokyo)cdep$ 23.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY. Using the same sort of cdep format as the 20' to 2000 series (with 3" of data housed within the clear confines of a normal 5" disc), "Empty Garden" was designed as a soundtrack to an installation of the same name. Noto uses his oscillators, laptop glitchery, and other gizmos to mimic the insect buzz / cricket chirp disrupting the silence of an empty garden. After establishing the metaphor of these sounds, Noto forces the erratic chirp / buzz into his trademarked patterns of repeating rhythms and signatures. Unfortunately short at 20 minutes in length, but nicely presented.
NOTOEndless Loop (e, f, g, h)(Raster Noton)2x10"$ 17.98
Carsten Nicolai -- one of the most adept and original artists in the microsound aesthetic -- returns to his Noto moniker (after a number of releases as Alva Noto) for this double 10" of locked grooves. Each side contains a number of mathematically precise locked grooves that incrementally increase in frequency as one skips towards the center of the record, with each side breaking e:very pure sine tones f:solitary bleeps g:mulitple clicks h: "arithmetic division of loops through clippings" which is sort of a combination of the other three. Noto has also drilled an off-set hole, so these elements can be played with a sea-sick warble. Word of caution, the lower frequencies may cause some damage to your speakers at high volume.
NOTOEndless Loop Edition(Raster-Noton)10"$ 15.98
NOTOKerne(Plate Lunch)cd$ 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY. Supernice packaging (three die cut holes in the booklet cover so you can see the three dots on the cd) and minimal electronics.
NOTOTelefunken(Raster-Noton)cd$ 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY. Musically, Noto's "Telefunken" is merely an oscilloscope modulating a headache inducing buzz for 16 minutes and test-tones for 3 minutes. To give Noto credit, "Telefunken" is cool in one respect, that it was designed to be hooked up to your TV through a VCR for a primitive multimedia experience! We haven't watched it yet (no such capabilites in the store), so perhaps the visuals, made from the same electronic signals as the audio, make up for what's lacking in the "music". But if you want to hear some really really great work by Noto (who just won top honors at this year's Prix Ars Electronica festival) definitely check out Alva Noto (one of Allan's favorites of the year) or Noto's 20' to 2000 contribution.
NOVA SCOTIARameses II(PseudoArcana)cd-r$ 12.98
Found a little stash of these, a 2005 release on New Zealand cd-r label Pseudo Arcana, long long long out of print, so odds are these are the last copies any one will see, but for a lucky few, you'll get to nab one of these to call your own. A single sprawling track of avant free noise drift from this NZ improv drone trio, a super minimal, surprisingly lush expanse of tinkling chimes, spidery fragmented guitar melodies, singing wineglasses, random percussive skitter, deep metallic rumbles, distant feedback, ominous psychedelic whir, occasional horn bleat, deep low end thrum, even some turntables, playing an old scratchy record of train sounds, a murky muted symphony of sonic smears, and blurred drift that ends up sounding like Philip Jeck spinning records by No Neck Blues Band, Avarus, Sunburned Hand Of The Man and Shadow Wing, in the hold of a giant freighter. Creepy, and moody, and mysterious and pretty goddamn cool. Long out of print, and so obviously crazy limited, we have 7 or 8 of these, and once they're gone, they're WAY gone... for good.
- MPEG stream: Rameses II (excerpt 1)
- MPEG stream: Rameses II (excerpt 2)
NOVA SCOTIARamses II(PseudoArcana)cd-r$ 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
NOVA SCOTIAN ARMSCult Spectrum(Digitalis)lp$ 19.98
Nova Scotian Arms is the solo project of Grant Evans, who runs the psychoactively inclined Hooker Vision label with his wife Rachel Evans, better known as Motion Sickness of Time Travel. Her ephemeral electronica laced with moonshine hallucinations and rural psychedelia made quite an impression in these parts with her first two albums on Digitalis; and there's definitely some overlap with Grant's debut lp Cult Spectrum as they appear to be sharing the same synths, set to druggy swoosh and sodden ambient amorphousness. But where Rachel crafts narcoleptic vocal melodies amidst her hypnotic, post-Kosmische synth patterns, Grant follows more the organic, accretive processes that aren't that far from Emeralds' early dronecentric work and the polyglot explorations of Brian Pyle (e.g. Starving Weirdos, Ensemble Economique, and especially RV Paintings). Amidst the Popul Vuh style elongated ambient phrasing of "Overcast Strumming (1st Delay)," Grant conjures hissing whispers and distantly tapped percussion hung with thick coats of reverb and echo, creating a somber elegance of faded memories furthering their decay through layers of dust and cobwebs. On the sixteen minute long "Emulsion," spooky wisps of synthesized smoke spiral into a darkly shimmering ambient wash undercut by the sound of Grant rasping his knuckles against an acoustic guitar, whose forceful riffs ooze out of the decomposing mass of decade-long growth from kudzu and Spanish moss. In all this spectral ambient decay, Nova Scotian Arms comes across not too far from the Twinsistermoon / Natural Snow Buildings camp or like a thoroughly deconstructed Steven R. Smith album. Druggy bliss-out dronemuzik, for sure!
NOVATRONNew Rising Sun(Cold Spring)cd$ 16.98
Novatron is the latest project from Anthony Di Franco (former noisemaker for Skullflower/Ax and no relation to Ani). Black electronics, heavy doses of malevolent feedback drone and sporadic chugs of grinding guitar & hammering electronic beats make for a particularly bleak album. If you liked Noisegate or Neurosis' most droning moments, this album is for you!
NOVELLERDesert Fires(Saffron Records)cd$ 13.98
This one is going to be a major contender for drifty/dreamy/droney record of the year! We really have loved everything we've heard (and seen!) from Sarah Lipstate (she is a great filmmaker as well as a blissed out drone music maker). And each release of hers seems to soar just a little higher and reach new levels of daydream hazy washed out perfection. Desert Fires might just be our favorite outing yet from her, as it drifts and drips with a drugged out disposition that wanders through the outer realms yet flows so totally serenely. It reminds us a bit of the more spaced out and glacial outings by Kawabata Makoto, Steven R. Smith and Roy Montgomery. It's remarkable the way she's able to use her guitar to create such an ethereal and tripped out ambience, similar to the sound and feel that folks like Tim Hecker and Emeralds create in their soundscapes. It's a record that makes you want to close your eyes and just get lost in its soft focus and hypnotizing waves of sound forever. Utterly beautiful!
- MPEG stream: Almost Alright
- MPEG stream: Kites Calm Desert Fires
- MPEG stream: Toothnest (for Chris Habib)
NOVELLERGlacial Glow(Weird Forest)cd$ 13.98
For some reason, it has been frustratingly difficult to restock last year's outing by Noveller, Desert Fires, which is such a shame as it was truly one of the years best drifting and dreamy albums. Here's hoping that her new record, this one right here, Glacial Wave, will not suffer the same distribution problems, as she has again crafted another exquisite collection of some of the most substantial blissed out sounds you are liable to hear all year long. It's been so nice to witness the evolution of Noveller's music, from her much noisier, harsh and slightly unfocused beginnings to the much more serene, spaced out and majestic tones and songs she's creating now. But we think that background in the noise scene has helped her create such a strong core and depth to these beautifully ethereal soundscapes. There is something both so mournful and harrowing about the sounds on Glacial Glow. Much like Grouper and Windy & Carl, Noveller has this amazing ability to create utterly haunting and mesmerizing moods in her music. We've been playing this as we go to sleep, as we wake up and actually at all hours in between as there's no better sounds for when we are feeling dazed and glazed. Highly recommended!
- MPEG stream: Entering
- MPEG stream: Alone Star
- MPEG stream: Blue
NOVELLERNo Dreams(Important)cd$ 14.98
We've been big fans of Noveller's trance inducing guitarscapes for quite a while now. She's one of those artists that takes her sweet time between albums, and that sort of meticulousness and patience comes with rewards. While her first five records all seemed to showcase just what she could do with just a guitar and handful of pedals, this time out she's expanded her sonic palette, adding washed out synths, subtle piano, even some murky electronics. What separates Noveller, and this album, from its peers, is that there is real song structure beneath the wall of sound that seems to cascade gloriously up and down and all around this whole record. Haunting melodies are deftly woven into the tracks, making the experience of listening to No Dreams one that taps into worlds of washed out memories, distant yesterdays, and a present moment that blurs the line between the material world and something much more ethereal and ephemeral. With soaring sonic elements that remind us of Robert Fripp alongside majestic crescendos that recall Glen Branca and Rhys Chatham, No Dreams also has a cinematic quality that evokes the come down moments of some of our favorite records by folks like Godspeed You Black Emperor and Mogwai. Noveller has managed to create a record that manages to be drifty and dazy without ever getting stale or static. The perfect soundtrack for when all you want is to wash away you day and let dreams whisk you away, blast this at full volume, and let yourself disappear into Noveller's gorgeous world of No Dreams...
- MPEG stream: Mannahatta
- MPEG stream: No Dreams
- MPEG stream: The Fright
NOVELLERPaint On The Shadows(No Fun)lp$ 16.98
Noveller is the working name for avant-drone guitarist / filmmaker Sarah Lipstate. Having graduated from the legion sized guitar symphonies of both Glenn Branca and Rhys Chatham, Lipstate produced a couple of cd-rs, a cassette, and some tracks for some compilations. She's also been moonlighting as the guitarist for Parts & Labor, but it's this album that caught our attention. Recorded for the increasingly confounding label No Fun (less aggro noise these days and more occluded psychedelic dronemusik), Paint On The Shadows begins with a liltingly pretty, side-long construction of intertwining guitar loops and elliptical fingerpicked patterns that conjures all of the best that Grouper and Colleen had managed through their loopstation laboratories. All of these sounds blossom out of a harmonic bed of bowed guitar drones; and steady low end thrums sublimate into richly plucked chiming notes that could even double for Jozef Van Wissem. The flipside offers up two pieces which seem to reflect her live presentations, with ebows, motors, and hand-held tape decks driving the strings and pick-ups from her double necked guitar. With precise placements of the ebows and some choice tremolo effects, Lipstate generates phasing tones often heard in the cosmic explorations of Eno & Fripp's No Pussyfooting or certainly not that far from Emeralds. Another one of those hyper-limited lp pressings from No Fun. Just 300 were made, and don't expect these to last very long!
NOVELLERRed Rainbows(No Fun Productions)cd$ 12.98
Former guitarist for Parts & Labor, Sarah Lipstate, has been fully entrenched in her far more minimalist ventures under the moniker Noveller. There seems to be a constant round of performances in New York and Brooklyn, occasionally finding Lipstate in one of Rhys Chatham's guitar symphonies; and she has found a comfortable home amongst the boys at No Fun. Red Rainbows is her second album released by No Fun, following the limited Paint On The Shadows LP. For the most part, Red Rainbows is a darker maelstrom than the first, although Lipstate does include the very lovely track "St. Powers" from Paint On The Shadows, accentuating chiming notes from her double necked guitar which blossom against a set of looping drones. The two opening tracks are far more ominous constructs with rasping noises streaming against the pure tonal flutterings from her bowed / ebowed guitar. "Tunnels" is the suitably nocturnal piece for ebbing low frequencies, glowing harmonic drones, and ghostly clatterings bathed in subterranean reverberations. Deathprod or Svarte Greiner certainly come to mind on a track as evocative as this. The finale features No Fun label boss Carlos Giffoni, although this is hardly the overblown excess you would expect from the man; rather, he offers some growling sawtooth electronics which sit in the background against the sustained vibrato from Lipstate's guitar. Very nice indeed!
- MPEG stream: Brilliant Colors
- MPEG stream: St. Powers
- MPEG stream: Tunnels
NOVELLERWolf(FTAM)7"$ 6.98
After two full lengths on No fun, a split with Aidan Baker from Nadja, as well as a handful of limited releases and comp tracks, comes this latest, short sweet burst of beautiful avant drone, from Sarah Lipstate, who besides making beautiful drone music, also plays (or played?) guitar for the group Parts & Labor, and is an accomplished filmmaker. Over the course of her recordings, we've become quite enamored of Noveller's approach to drone music and minimal ambience, and this 7" just continues to demonstrate that she deserves the same sort of hype afforded to groups like Emeralds, considering the similar sonic terrain they explore. Warm liquid buzz, hazy and otherworldly wrapped around swirling FX and looped processed guitar, deep rumbling tones, shimmering synths, all floating on a wheezing chordal drift, an amorphous cloud of sound, soothing and tranquil and hypnotic. The A-side builds to a bit of a Sunroof! style climax before drifting off into a muted thrum. The B-side adds a loping guitar figure, a mesmerizing looped melody, bathing the sounds in an ethereal glimmer, creating a gorgeous slab of gauzy dreamlike pop ambience. So nice!
NOVELLER & THISQUIETARMYReveries(Shelter Press)lp$ 23.00
NOVIK, AARONSecret Of Secrets(Tzadik)cd$ 16.98
Secret Of Secrets is the latest record from San Francisco clarinetist and composer (and long time aQ customer), Aaron Novik, and we were all ready to review it for the list, when we discovered that another friend of aQ, our pal Monte, had already picked up his copy from us, and LOVED it, and on top of that, Monte might just be the biggest fan of the Tzadik label that we know, so we figured he'd probably be able to review this way better than we ever could. So take it away Monte... San Francisco clarinetist / composer Aaron Novik, assembles an all star cast of local Bay area musicians, among others, for his first Tzadik release. Featuring Fred Frith, William Winant, Ben Goldberg, Carla Kihlstedt, and Adam Theis, "Secrets of Secrets" is a brilliant new work exploring the Kabbalah, over the course of five long compositions that incorporate traditional klezmer song structures with contemporary classical music, as well as rock and metal, accented with brilliant improvisations, churning percussion, and passionately engaging string and brass arrangements. "Secrets of Creation" starts things off with a soft pulsing bass line that is soon joined by violin. Slowly and methodically the song builds adding more strings and subtle brass accents. Then, a short tympani build leads to clarinets and violins playing a vibrant melody while roiling staccato processed bass hits pulsate underneath. The song then drifts into the 'experimental' world briefly before returning to that percussion heavy groove supporting the electric clarinet madness. And then, seemly out of nowhere, enters a crackling sample of old style klezmer, before returning to the preceding percussive, dense interplay of instruments. Building on the intensity of the first song, "Secrets of the Divine World" starts off with all cylinders firing. Clarinet, bass, and percussion flirt with the rock world while firmly rooted in the Jewish tradition. When the gears shift the listener is transported to a mysterious sonic world where exotic strings and dumbek take center stage. Returning to the main theme, the players take turns participating in a series of abstract and psychedelic solos woven deftly into the piece as a whole. Lush Jewish themed strings and clarinet in "Secrets of the Divine Chariot" remind the listener that this is on the 'Radical Jewish Culture' series and not the 'New Japan' series, respectively. Again, the balance between strings and brass is nothing short of brilliant. Leading again to dominating percussion, both acoustic and processed. "Secrets of the Holy Name" focuses on a series of player solos. Fred Frith... shit, how do we even begin to describe this playing? Well, anyway, he starts things off with one of his most empathic and sensitive solos we can ever recall hearing (and we've been listening to him for years) over a low clarinet drone. From there violin and clarinet solos bleed together creating an improvised psychedelic world of Jewish beauty. Despite the abstract, drifty nature of this song, it's still clearly referencing the music's roots, the song is based on a 'Donia', which is a formless improvisational lament in the Jewish tradition that references Jewish prayer and other Eastern melodic modes. Like the best Tzadik releases (and there are a lot of them), "Secrets of Secrets" is original and genre defying while respecting the past. It builds on traditions, while simultaneously tearing them down, creating a new sound world of complexity and beauty, mystery and passion.
NOVY SVET / SPETTRO FAMILYsplit(Black Horizons)7"$ 11.98
A split release between like-minded, combat-folk minstrels Novy Svet and Spettro Family on the local imprint Black Horizons. Novy Svet hail from the Death In June / Der Blutharsch aesthetic of an elegant and bleak romanticism bathed in the pomp of militaristic chic and a fast-n-loose use of totalitarian imagery. This track marks the first recorded material from Novy Svet in close to five years. The band's ringleader Jurgen Weber has oft proclaimed his current release as Novy Svet's final statement; and the pronouncement in 2008 looked to be conclusive. But once again, Novy Svet return even if it is a brief exegesis in the form one half of a split seven inch. Here, the band delivers a quiet, dark, and impassioned ballad through an acoustically strummed dark folk laced with polyglot lyrics. Spettro Family delivers more of a cinematic prog-horror with the heavy synth arpeggiations channelled directly from John Carpenter and Goblin. With the single cut at 45 rpm, the tracks from both acts are teasingly short. The cover features a split portrait of Jarboe and Jessica Way of Worm Ouroboros, neither of whom have anything to do with the musical content within. Limited? You bet.
- MPEG stream: en soledad perfecta
- MPEG stream: hotel del salto
NOXAGTThe Iron Point(Load)cd$ 13.98
Second Load release from this dark and weird instrumental band from Norway featuring our pal Kjetil Brandsdal, whom the more 'experimental' among you might know as a solo drone musician. But playing bass and baritone guitar in Noxagt he makes a much more *rock* racket. Actually Noxagt are hard to pin down, surely fitting in among the other Load label misfits while doing something unlike anyone else. That's because their sound has evolved from the short sharp 'Nor Wave' punk fuckery of their earlier releases into something...folky. But very heavy. The instrumentation is key. Along with Kjetil's bass, and the drumming of Jan Kyvik, what stands out is the viola (and violin and piano) played by Nils Erga. The Iron Point is an album his of cyclic string drones wedded to crunching, spronging bass and sometimes almost black metallish blasting drums. With sudden prog-rock changes, punk/metal urgency, and the aforementioned folkish melody...all instrumental except for the vocals of guest Hagbard Heien on traditional tune "Kling No Klokka" which is a fine surprise. Speaking of surprises, the disc concludes with Noxagt covering "Regions of May" by Tom Rapp of Pearls Before Swine! Gentle yet bomastic, it's lighter than what's come before yet totally fits in on an album that overall we think is Noxagt's best yet, wherein they've really developed into something more melodic, more 'folky' yet even heavier and more focussed than before. And, continuing a tradition begun on their last album, there's smart ass liner notes courtesy of noted British smart ass Stefan Jaworzyn (ex-Skullflower). Also, again production by noted producer Billy Anderson, who knows as much as anyone about heaviness. (Nice cover/design by the way -- you can tell Kjetil is a big record collector.)
- MPEG stream: Acasta Gneiss
- MPEG stream: Svartevatn
NOXAGTs/t(Synesthetic Recordings)cd$ 12.98
Kjetil Brandsdal may be known best for his antique, guitar-grit drones that got released on Corpus Hermeticum and Ecstatic Peace, but he's also been quite active in the "Nor Wav" scene in his native Norway. Where much of the No Wave sensibilities have been resurfacing in the US through the angular, noise-core, costume rock of Pink & Brown and Lightning Bolt, Brandsdal's Noxagt finds
- RealAudio clip: Ch Dron
- RealAudio clip: Drid Machine
- RealAudio clip: Final Countdown
- RealAudio clip: Formule Norvegienne
- RealAudio clip: Paid In Cunt
NOZAKI, TOMONARIUne Histoire De Bleu(Invisible Birds)cd-r$ 11.98
Invisible Birds introduces us to another exceptional composer through their ongoing series of limited edition hand-fabricated cd-rs, where we had been previously graced by the langous tones of Arthur De Eriomem and got a brilliant full length out of Thomas Bel. Here, the imprint offers us an album from the Japanese ambient composer Tomonari Nozaki who started out in the techno scene, but grew fascinated with the purely analogue forms of tape loops and and synthesizers. A sense of rhythm and timing is definitely at play in his work, alluding to the beatless Pop Ambient sensibility that Wolfgang Voigt inspired through his classic Gas albums; but the placid, cinematic grandeur of Nozaki's sources harken more to The Caretaker and William Basinski's emotionally laden scores of forgotten dreams. The four lengthy tracks could endlessly cycle through their maudlin melodies that are stretched and swept as if carried away the currents of a cold, gray ocean. Like Basinski, Nozaki is not averse to including the dusty crackle, ferric drop-outs, and tape machined errors in with his composition. They do come across with a greater deal of randomness than on the aggregated decomposition of Basinski's Disintegration Loops; but all of the wooziness and gauzy ambience makes for a beautifully spellbinding listen. Limited to 100 copies.
- MPEG stream: Chapter I
- MPEG stream: Chapter III
NRIIISolus Patior(Neon Doom)cd-r$ 9.98
This is the debut full length from Floridian experimental blacknoize / psychedelic drone technicians NRIII, it just showed up in the mail one day, we weren't sure what to expect, we did dig the strange two-headed-horse-and-sigil on the cover, but the second we threw it on, we pretty much knew that folks into the sort of abstract ambient blackness conjured up by folks like Sevile Sect, Locrian, Ural Umbo, Gog and the like, NRIII could very well have just found their favorite band. That said, NRIII's sound definitely hews closer to the noise side of the sonic spectrum, the vibe very industrial, and at times reminding us of SF outfit Sutekh Hexen, the same sort of grim blacknoise vibe, but NRIII definitely have their own thing going on, taking weird blasts of almost metallic sounding percussion, strange sampled voices, dense blackened shimmers, super distorted blasts of psychedelic noise, or alien sounding processed vocals, and transforming them into something super atmospheric, darkly terrifying, and strangely and very abstractly rhythmic. The sound shifts dramatically from brittle shards of hiss and skree, to churning, rumbling blackened rumble, both sides often peppered with strange jagged fragments that seem to act as vocals, but sound more like steam escaping from fractured vents, or blasts of white noise, those 'vocals' seeming to ooze into drifting clouds, or blurring into thick crumbling layers, the tracks driven by simple dubbed out machinelike rhythms, sometimes sounding like the churning chug of a train, other times the lumbering crush of ultradoom, and still others like a skipping jazz cd (which is the only track to feature some wild sax skronk). But even there, that skittery stuttery chaos is underpinned by ominous moans and bizarre demonic vocalizations. Here and there the sounds do seem to coalesce into a sort of abstract black metal, twisted into strange and -nearly- unrecognizable shapes, but still retaining that a hellborn grim black energy and abject demonic fury. But just as often, the sound seems to collapse into strange tangles of churning speaker shredding low end and thick corrosive industrial crunch, often accompanied by those same sick vokills creating a strange sort of industrial black psych crush that KILLS. Needless to say, WAY recommended.
- MPEG stream: Delirious
- MPEG stream: Factory
- MPEG stream: Capitalism
- MPEG stream: Underground
NRIIIThe Algea(Prison Tatt)lp$ 17.98
First lp from these Florida experimental blacknoise / psychedelic dronelords, and like their Solus Patior cd-r we reviewed back in 2012, it's another terrifyingly grim landscape of haunting black ambiance, post industrial crush, and blackened grimnity. The band lacing hellish vokills over softly swirling drifts, burying strange fractured rhythms, beneath cascades of glitch and squelch, often all blurred into something downright dreamy, but just as often, splintering into something abjectly noisy and filthy. The opening track here sets the template, with some venomous vocalizations WAY up in the mix, over a bed of muted pulsations, moaning melodies, mysterious chordal smears, the background sound surprisingly tranquil, those vox transforming the sound into something much more harrowing and hellish. The rest of the record tends toward the more brutal, but manages the nearly impossible task of crafting a noise record, that manages to be hypnotic and listenable, mesmerizing, and in its own way, blackly beautiful. The shorter tracks here are blasts of grinding glitch, fractured electronics, clouds of swirling static, monk like chants, and crumblingly distorted gristle, often settling into downright beauty, but before you know it, launching right back into another burst of blacknoise or churning power electronics. The longer tracks deliver some seriously stunning sound design, fields of sonar pings, woven into crystalline sonic lattices, of hushed samples tangled into strange textures, those backdrops, often perfectly offsetting the more bombastic and abrasive sonics up front, although in many cases, NRIII let it drift, creating haunting ambience, epic sprawls of mysterious minimalism, the vokills are often present there too, but are WAY off in the distance, buried in the mix, like another layer of static, while above it, barely there sounds hover and shimmer. In fact, much of the second half of the record tends towards the surprisingly serene, the noisiness dialed back, crafter into something more textural, it's as if side two was designed as a blissed out soft noise come down antidote for the beautiful brutality of the first side. Fantastic stuff, and the sort of rare noise that might even appeal to those who generally find noise music is not their thing. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!! Each one hand numbered.
- MPEG stream: Primal Misery
- MPEG stream: Fall Apart
- MPEG stream: I Refuse
NUCLEAR DEATH WISHs/t(self-released)cassette$ 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY. [/cat/experimental131.html]
NUDGEAs Good As Gone(Kranky)cd$ 14.98
Featuring folks from some other Portland aQ faves like Fontanelle, Strategy, and Valet, Nudge seem to have really hit their stride and found their voice on this, their fourth outing. With the wonderfully melty and psychedelic vocal delivery of Honey Owens (Valet, Jackie O Motherfucker) swirling in the midst of subtle electronics and smoky instrumentation, As Good As Gone kind of sounds like some amazing amalgamation of Mazzy Star, Grouper, Windy & Carl and Nite Jewel, if they all joined forces for a blissed out 4AD inspired late night musical love affair. Dazed and hazy in all the right ways, with such a nice touch on the electronics that gives the record its unique slant on cloud surfing shoegaze glory. So good!
- MPEG stream: Two Hands
- MPEG stream: Tito
- MPEG stream: Dawn Comes Light
NUGENT, CIANChildhood, Christian Lies & Slaughter(Incunabulum)cd$ 14.98
We first heard Cian Nugent on the recent volume of Tompkin Square's Imaginational Anthem series. For such a young newcomer (he's still a teenager!) to the ever crowded solo acoustic scene, his track was a highlight among the more seasoned performers like Steffen Basho-Jungens and R. Keenan Lawler. Childhood, Christian Lies & Slaughter documents a live performance (his fourth ever!) in Nugent's home town of Dublin, Ireland. Released on Jozef Van Wissem's Incunabulum imprint, the performance showcases the talent that has folks turning heads. Sweetly beautiful melodies that swing and swirl into complex and melancholic knots. Of course the Takoma influences are ever-present but they lean toward Leo Kottke rather than John Fahey in using early American song-form structures. Yet Nugent's playing also draws from Davy Graham's folk-blues raga style as well as Balkan gypsy rhythms that offer something slightly different than we've heard before. Something wonderously ineffable that we can't quite put our fingers on, but makes us ever curious to hear more.
- MPEG stream: I Will Take The Top Of A Tall Cedar And Break Off A Tender Sprout
- MPEG stream: The Emerald Tablet
NUGENT, CIANDoubles(VHF)cd$ 13.98
We first heard from Cian Nugent on the Robbie Basho tribute We Are All One In The Sun, but hadn't heard much since, which makes sense seeing that as far as we can tell, this is the first readily available full length from this Irish guitarist. Who, as you might imagine, just from having taken part in that Basho tribute, whether you actually heard it or not, is another purveyor of modern Appalachia, carrying on the tradition of Fahey, Basho and Kottke, a la James Blackshaw, Ilyas Ahmed, Jack Rose, Glenn Jones, Marisa Anderson, and the 20 minute opening track here positions Nugent well within that pantheon, with his own take on the sound, dark, and tense, clear and crystalline, with lots of droning notes, subtle overtones, less melodic than many of his contemporaries and more textural, although as the track progresses, Nugent's fingerpicking becomes more elaborate, and a more traditional Appalachia surfaces within his dark droney tones, his sound dynamic and varied, lots of ebb and flow, and then close to the end, the sound seems to expand a hundredfold, with an out of nowhere swarm of layered drones, which add a whole other dimension to the piece. The second track starts out similarly, albeit a bit more traditionally, until the band kicks in, yep, the band, a full band, drums, strings, horns, with Nugent taking on organ duty as well, the sound blossoming into something more than old timey Appalachia worship, the sound spare and sparse, again very dynamic, until about three minutes in, when the song seems to coalesce into a sort of Appalachia flecked chamber pop, but only for a few minutes, the song, also quite epic at 24+ minutes takes lots of twists and turns, slipping back into something more skeletal and darkly brooding, then dark and cacophonous, droney and softly psychedelic, then hushed and barely there, before a bit more chamber pop, with a slow build to something intense and slightly cacophonous, and then finally, a slow, lush, horn flecked steel string final movement. So lovely, fans of modern guitar music and classic "American primitive" (especially both) would do well to check this out.
- MPEG stream: Peaks & Troughs
- MPEG stream: Sixes & Sevens
NUISANCEBeacon(CIP)cd$ 10.98
Nuisance is an interstate power electronics / noise assault group with its members hailing from both the Bay Area and Chicago. It looks as if Blake Edwards of Vertonen and Thomas Dimuzio have something to do with this one. Opening with blistering shards of Whitehouse like high frequencies piercings, Nuisance gradually expands into the full-frequency power found in the Merzbow and
NUIT NOIREFantomatic Plentitude(Armageddon)cd$ 9.98
The return of our favorite faerical blasting punk rockers, France's new wave black crust dynamic duo Nuit Noire. We went nuts for this band the first time we heard them, expecting some sort of grim black buzz, seeing as they were signed to a black metal label, were distributed by black metal distros, etc., but instead we had our blocks knocked totally off, by their furious short sharp bursts of super tweaked angular riffing, flurries of chaotic drumming, and some of the most tweaked damaged whiny yelpingly brilliant vocals ever! All tangled up into a confusional blackened aggro metallic pop, part punk rock, part grim buzz, part no wave, part new wave. In the past we described Nuit Noire as sounding like a black metal Rudimentary Peni, but we're also hearing plenty of Christian Death, Joy Division, Crass and weirdly enough, on this new one more than ever, the Toy Dolls, mostly due to vocalist Tenebras' voice which is a dead ringer for the Toy Dolls' Olga. This new disc is half new tracks, half older classics recorded live. All of em fantastic of course. The new tracks are even shorter and poppier and more fucked up than before. Take the second track "I Am A Fairy", a crusty gloomy jam, with a killer main riff, streaks of high end new wave squiggle, and the vocals, just repeating the title over and over and over, super fast, then drawn out and crooned, while the music beneath shifts from hooky and poppy to blasting and buzzing. Or how about "I Love You", another furious eighties crust punk jam, but with some black buzz spread over the top, and a totally strange, but incredibly catchy vocal line, sung sort of like "I love yooooooooooooo, I love yooooooooooooou". The rest of the tracks range from loping eighties grooves to washed out dreamy murk to chaotic old school punk rock to full on lo-fi grim black metal, usually all in the same song. It's really hard to describe the sound, we're pretty surprised this stuff appeals to black metallers at all, there is some buzz and some serious riffing, but it's way more punk, and way more new wave, and the vocals are so strange and high and hysterical and freaked out and over the top, they sort of define Nuit Noire's sound, and are definitely the element that will make it or break it for you. The live tracks are awesome. And if we didn't know it would have been hard pressed to even realize they were live. Almost the exact sound quality (maybe they're just live in the studio, but then why re-record old songs?) heavy and buzzy and furious and catchy as fuck. Even a wicked version of their "Faeries Of Paper" a song we proclaimed to be one of "the best songs EVER" with one of the greatest catchiest weirdest riffs we've ever heard. A few of the other live tracks we hadn't heard before and are just as good, if not even better than the songs we already loved. Need more reasons to love these guys? Howabout the cool pencil drawings of the band members, one depicted as a huge monster-armed drumming demon, head cloaked in shadow, the other a faerie, in tunic and cape, big eyes and pointed ears, mic cable wrapped around a broadsword stuck in the ground. Or howabout the photo on the back of the cd, a very skinny, nearly naked band member, clad in a loin cloth and a cape, holding a guitar aloft in one hand, a sword in the other, cape spread out like the wings of a bat. C'mon!!! How much more perfect can a band be? So goddamn recommended.
- MPEG stream: Les Fees Volent Dans La Nuit
- MPEG stream: I Am A Fairy
- MPEG stream: Fantomatic Plentitude
- MPEG stream: Nuit Blanche
NULL AND VOIDPossibilities(Bunkerpop)lp$ 16.98
Usually when the description of a band is too good to be true, it actually is. We can't even count the times we've gotten descriptions of bands to check out that read like "Nirvana, with John Bonham behind the kit, playing ELP style prog epics, but in the style of Sabbath, all remixed by the Caretaker", okay, that actually does sound amazing, but our point exactly, that's not even remotely possible, and if it is, we promise to listen to nothing else forever! But in most cases, that hyperbolic and entirely inaccurate description ends up being essentially worthless, as not a single part of the description, applies to any element of the music. So when this long lost slab of classic California post punk was described to us as Chrome's Half Machine Lip Moves meets Brian Eno's Here Come The Warm Jets, we were most definitely suspicious, and skeptical. And when we threw it on, we were even more confused, the record opening with a track called "Bach Variations", which is in fact Bach, but played in the midst of a wild thunderstorm, pelted with crashes of thunder, wreathed in the sound of rainfall, lots of tape hiss and sonic detritus, it's weird and not a little bit Caretaker-y, and then "Japanese Forest" comes in, and while we're no less confused, we're into this big time. No surprise that this had been making the blog rounds for ages. Apparently this was Null & Void's third record, and was rejected at the time for being too weird, which is tragic, cuz it's so good, but they were right, it IS weird, seriously warped and gloriously fucked up. "Japanese Forest", adds a distinctly Asian melody, to moaning slo-mo synth throbs, and a laconic laid back vocal, the result is haunting and beautiful and darkly poppy. But then as soon as "When I Fell Down" started up, that whole Chrome/Eno thing didn't seem so far fetched, we'd maybe throw in some Bowie as well. Glammy and swaggery, fractured and lo-fi, total warts and all recording, streaks of feedback, sudden stop/starts, all adding a distinctive whatthefuck factor to the proceedings. "Einstein's Theory Of Relativity, No. 2" is another creepy industrial sci-fi glam ballad, that has a total Eno / Chrome / Bowie vibe, and is laced with awesomely weird bursts of white noise static, disrupting an otherwise sweet slab of garage glam swagger, which then slows down into a woozy washed out psychedelic echo drenched dirge, before big booming drums start things up again. Check out "Our New Life", which might be the 'hit' here, way better produced, and with a killer pounding new wave / punk rock vibe, with swirling synths and fuzzed out bass, the song splintering into a weird sing-songy sort-of-chorus part way through, the buzzing synths mirroring the vox, before the whole thing explodes into a serious chunk of blown out Warm Jets style blissout, before a final bit of drum driven glam rock croon. So twisted, and so fucking great! And it never lets up, the rest of the record flitting from classic glammy weirdo pop, to groovy, almost funky grooviness, to almost Suicide like drone-pop, to free form synth freakouts, to violin flecked classic rock super jams, rife with progged out organs, tangled psych guitars, and shredding leads, before finishing off with the three part songsuite "A Dream Wah!", which begins as a piano ballad, before splintering into some sort of avant glam-psych breakdown, before shifting into a garage rock shuffle, all soft focus jam band groove, which quickly devolves into a dark sprawl of ominous crooning, only to blossom into one more glamrock stomp, before fading into a weird collaged outro, sort of bookending the rainstorm outro, all tape hiss, and found sounds, murky melodies, and mysterious voices, disappearing into the background of hiss and hum. Reissue of the year hands down!!! Absolutely essential and totally recommended!!!
- MPEG stream: Bach Variations
- MPEG stream: Japanese Forest
- MPEG stream: Einstein's Theory Of Relativity, No. 2
- MPEG stream: The Motorcycle Song
- MPEG stream: The Philosophy Song
NULL, KKDatacide In Year Zero(Crucial Blast)cd-r$ 6.98
Our friend Adam who runs the super cool Crucial Blast label, has, for over 6 years now, been quietly (and not so quietly) putting out some of the coolest shit around. From crusty Finnish metal to droning electronica to sparse folk to brutal power electronics. This new series of cd-r's, limited to 100 copies and nicely packaged in oversized DVD cases will only be available via Aquarius records (unless you get them directly from Crucial Blast). So don't blow it... KK Null, guitarist for mighty Japanese rockers Zeni Geva has been releasing solo guitar records for a while now. Ranging from noisy freakouts to dreamy lullabies to guitars played with vibrators. All of them have been stellar. 'Datacide In Year Zero' falls on the mellow dreamy side, but only just. And is one of the best we've heard. This is an effect-laden soundscape where Null's guitar is transformed into all manners of creaks and clangs, squeals and rumbles, burbling and sputtering, beeping and whirring, creating a sort of haunting and ominous futuristic soundscape, technical and electronic but organic at the same time. Kind of creepy but also fairly lovely at moments. The disc ends with a 13 minute heavy drone worthy of Troum or Organum. But as the track winds down, a Skullflowerish cloud of high end shimmer and a vaguely techno rhythm slowly encroach and overtake. Really nice.
NULL, KKFertile(Touch)cd$ 15.98
The veteran Japanese noisician (and guitarist of heavy prog act Zeni Geva) K.K. Null is back with his first solo album on the Touch label, and it's one of KK's best solo efforts we've heard to date. Perhaps inspired by labelmate Chris Watson (with whom he collaborated a few years ago, in conjunction with Z'ev), K.K. has brought some field recordings (birds, bugs, frogs, fire...) he made on a trip to a national park in Northern Australia to this project, mixing those with his own studio-conjured electronic sounds. No wonder, then, that Fertile is a spooky soundscape of nocturnal hiss and buzz, parts of it sounding like video games played by insects, others ominous with ghostlike voices buried beneath... chattering rhythmic components underlie what sound like shortwave freakouts, tracks often building to stactic-y explosiveness, droning and noisy, extremely dynamic and distorted. You could almost imagine that this is what a hybrid of a John Carpenter soundtrack and a Japanese noise record would sound like. Null calls it "cosmic noise maximal/minimalism." We don't know what to call it, exactly, but we like it!
NULL, KKOxygen Flash(Neurot)cd$ 14.98
Yet another solo electronics album from Japanese guitarist and experimental musician KK Null. Again it's full of the glitchy zip and zap of his "cosmic noises", which are somewhat aggravating at first, but if you stay with it, can be enjoyable in a mad scientist's laboratory gone haywire / crash landing flying saucer sort of way, especially when you get to the more rhythmic parts. At the same time though, we'd much rather KK put his efforts back into his genius heavy rock band Zeni Geva, as we're not sure we really need another one of these solo discs that sound like he's playing video games in the recording studio...
- MPEG stream: Oxygen Flash 1
- MPEG stream: Oxygen Flash 2
NULL, KK & BILL HORISTInterstellar Chemistry(Beta-Lactam Ring)cd$ 10.98
Fans of Japanese avant-drone guitarist and electronic experimentalist (and sometimes heavy metal dirge-master, when playing in his band Zeni Geva) Kazuyuki K. Null are a happy bunch of late, as his recent "Datacide In Year Zero" cd-r on Crucial Blast (reviewed here last time) is now joined by another new K.K. title, a collaboration with Seattle musician Bill Horist. Null recorded much of the disc's source material, then gave it over to Horist to manipulate and structure (and add to as well, as Horist himself is a textural guitarist akin to Null). The results are, to go along with what Beta-lactam Ring has been saying about this release, kinda in the IDM vein: skittery, bleepy instrumental electronica with crunchy, squeaky (guitar-generated, we'll assume) noises and beats. Like Null's sci-fi sounding GeV cd on Staalplaat, this isn't nearly as "ambient" as some of his past work, though it has its mellow and mysterious moments, amidst many fairly chaotic ones. Indeed, at times this can be harsh (the heavy, grinding "Gravitation"), at other times quite lovely (the acoustic-y "Luminous Lullaby"). In general, you get pulsating, bleeping soundscapes out of which some recognizably human guitar playing will surface, which is what makes these pieces more interesting than your average IDM, I'd say. Null and Horist aren't really breaking any new ground, but they've created a varied and enjoyable disc for fans of quirky computerized electronic music and avant guitar utilization. Pretty cool.
- RealAudio clip: Feast Of Heathern
- RealAudio clip: Go, No-Go Astronaut
- RealAudio clip: Luminous Lullaby
- RealAudio clip: Gravitation
NULL, KK & OREComponents Of Circulation & Dawn Of Time(Endtyme)7"$ 9.98
What might you expect from a collaboration between KK Null, mastermind behind Japanese heavies Zeni Geva, and UK tuba doom duo Ore (you read that right, TUBA DOOM!)? Probably not this. Two tracks of hushed, delicate, droned out ambience. Moody, muted and morose, long tones unfurling gradually in a field of sculpted soft static, and distant keening melodies, slow shifting textures, drifting serenely, over a surprisingly tranquil sonic sprawl, a sort of blackened, nocturnal drift, deftly processed electronics, the mournful moan of the tubas, stuttery rhythmic pulses, all blurred into something downright dreamy and hypnotic. The flipside is even more minimal, the processed tubas transformed into lush, layered swells, pocked with glitch and crackle, and wreathed in field recordings of birdsong, a strange mix of ominous thrum, and pastoral ambience, the sound gorgeously lustrous and thick, the low end massive, a dark slo-mo swirl, that gradually gathers subtle momentum, beneath an increasingly dense cloud of singing birds, that begins to mutate into a tangle of psychedelic squiggles, that is soon subsumed by the churning bass tones and strange skittery fields of clipped static and glitchy electronics. Haunting and sinister and at moments harrowingly heavy, yet somehow still darkly dreamy! Probably super limited too...
- MPEG stream: Components Of Circulation
NULL, KK / DAVID BROWNTerminal HZ(Ground Fault)cd$ 11.98
NULL, KK, CHRIS WATSON & Z'EVNumber One(Touch)cd$ 15.98
Less of a collaboration and more a solo Z'ev album with some source material provided by Chris Watson and K.K. Null, this album begins with a very heavy-handed conceptual framework, manifesting in three elements that Z'ev proposed to his contributors. The first element was to use the structure of the Noh Theater cycle as the basis for the composition; the second was to consider the initial sound development in terms of developing characters which would then interact with one another through the specific scene which is a fairly non-traditional way to work with sound elements; and the final element was to place the character interactions as the figure inside of particular sound-scapes as the ground. In executing this concept, Z'ev collected the source material -- including Null's vibrator-on-guitar-strings / faux-Frippertronics and Watson's field recordings from East Africa -- and ran them through a whole arsenal of mesmerizing DSP effects, which are very similar to those used in the Z'ev / Organum recordings. In keeping to his idea that the sounds would pose as characters interacting with each other, Z'ev repeats various snippets from the composition in a manner that may be a simulation of speech. Good ideas, they all may be; but Z'ev often stumbles under the heavy burden of his conceptual conceits. Still quite interesting.
- MPEG stream: Invocation
- MPEG stream: Introduction
NUMBER NONEStrategies Against Agriculture(Land Of Decay)cassette$ 7.98
We loved NN's Urmerica record, reviewed here a long while back, a strange concoction of thick layered drone music, noise flecked field recordings and blissed out ur-drone shimmer, a sound we likened to Jazzfinger, Birchville and other sonically likeminded longform noisescapers, and this latest offers up more of the same, which makes sense when you realize that this is not in fact a new recording, but instead is an archival release, that had sat on the shelf for years, originally intended for release way back in 2007-2008. Not sure if this band is still active, but the fact that these guys were making noise like this and somehow managed to remain mostly under the radar boggles the mind. This shit is massive, dense, heavy, brutal, blown out, the group deftly weaving guitarnoise and harmonium drones into heaving swells of crumbling crush, blowing speakers with a fearsome intensity, before shifting ever so subtly, and those same sounds are transformed into something much more blissed out and hypnotic. There's a definitely soundtrack element, but it's the sort of music you wish some director actually had the balls to use in a film, emotional and hauntingly bleak, dense and fearsomely atmospheric, evoking all manner of images, most sinister and otherworldly, but sometimes it's easy to let your mind drift, eyes closed, headphones strapped on, and get lost in some grim, grey city, devoid of life, or some lost highway, that seems to trail off into the horizon, disappearing into the blackness. Way recommended for folks into grim black ambience, psychedelic noise, and post industrial soundscapery, which as we often say, is most likely a whole lot of you. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!