[ aquarius records — Experimental ]

Showing results 6501 through 6550 of 9280.

RABELAIS, AKIRA...benediction, draw.(Orthlorng Musork)cd$ 14.98

Mirroring Keith Fullerton Whitman on his stellar "Playthroughs" album, digital wizard Akira Rabelais has plugged an electric guitar into what he calls Argeiphontes Lyre, an alchemical piece of software of his own design, to produce his third exceptional album "...benediction, draw." Yet Whitman and Rabelais look toward different historical precedents in the construction of their albums, inevitably shifting the resultant sound. Where Whitman found inspiration in Terry Riley's time lag accumulators and Christoph Heeman's ambient slippages, Rabelais earnestly professes Erik Satie as his mentor, proclaiming that this album "in the best sense of a musique d'ameublement (Satie's famous aphorism for 'furniture music') shows itself as an acoustic state rather than a sonic wallpaper." True enough, Rabelais presents these digital abstractions as a fluttering series of sublimated half-melodies and tonal fluctuations that embrace the spirit of Satie's compositions. There is a jewel-like preciousness to this construction, as his digital transmutations open into cascading washes of variable glints, shimmerings, and flickers -- guitar passages that very rarely resemble anything like a guitar. This is a magical album from one of the truely unique proponents of digital synthesis. Very very nice.

RABELAIS, AKIRAEN/OF 031 - limited edition autographed 12"(Bottrop -Boy)12"$ 30.00

The Bottrop -Boy label has been releasing ultra limited musician / artist collaborations in a series called EN/OF. Participants have included Ekkehard Ehlers, Heimir Bjorgulfsson, Stephan Mathieu, Jan Jelinek, TV Pow, the Rip-Off Artist, Tarentel, Pan American, David Grubbs, Nobukazu Takemura, Steve Roden, Merzbow, Tim Hecker, Jazzkammer, His Name Is Alive and Akira Rabelais. Each one teamed up with a photographer, and the result is a vinyl 12", signed and numbered, featuring original music, and an original photgraph, limited to 100 copies and ridiculously expensive. So expensive and limited in fact that we have yet to actually get any of these. However, AQ pal Akira Rabelais, got a dozen copies of his 12", minus the artowrk, the 12" ONLY, no photo, or fancy sleeve, just the 12" (pressed on ultra thick vinyl) in a plain black sleeve signed by Rabelais in silver marker. And he nicely allowed us to have all 12 to sell to folks who can't afford or weren't quick enough to get one of those 100 copies. And it's all about the music anyway right? And the music here is awesome. Side A is an Austin radio station blasting some sort of Tex Mex, that is quickly subsumed by radio static and is slowly smeared into a warm fuzzy whir, with minimal melodies, chirping crickets, haunting viola, all very dreamy and indistinct, like Jeck or Basinski. Side B features an L.A. radio station, already manipiulated beyond recognition, a fuzzy dreamscape of ahunting barely discernable melodies, chiming in the distance like ghosts, all over layers of white noise smoothed into a warm bed of static and crackle. Lovely. And yeah, it's still expensive, but hell, that's how much they cost us and it's limited to 12 COPIES!!!

RABELAIS, AKIRAEisoptrophobia(Mille Plateaux)cd$ 14.98

Not just another member of the electronica community who programs code by day and is a Mille Plateaux superstar by night, Akira Rabelais has wonderfully romantic bone in his body that affects everything he does, including programming. If his cheerleaders are

RABELAIS, AKIRAHollywood(Schoolmap)cd$ 22.00

RABELAIS, AKIRASpellewauerynsherde(Samadhisound)cd$ 22.00

The tongue-twistingly titled Spellewauerynsherde is another hauntingly beautiful record from the enigmatic electronic composer Akira Rabelais. As with his previous albums, Rabelais offers a labyrinth of elliptical allegories, subtle chance operations, and impressionistic romanticism as an accompaniment for his elegant sound constructions. Given the incredible amount of semantic engineering that went into this record, it is certainly possible that Rabelais deliberately arranged to have this album released at the same time as Bjork's Medula. You see, the source for Snellewauerynsherde is a collection of traditional Icelandic accapella songs recorded in the late 1960s or early 1970s on Ampex tapes and then forgotten about. The first few tracks of Snellewauerynsherde present the raw recordings Icelandic songs, sanitized of their tape hiss and debris. The content may remain foreign to our ears, but the songs' existential sadness transcends any language barriers. When he actually processes these sources, he extracts a mournful etherialism that he stretches into a gracefully solemn minimalism that falls between Steven Stapleton's production of Current 93's A Little Menstrual Night Music, Eliane Radigue's evocative timbral compositions, and Arvo Part's late period chorale pieces. Rabelais continues to distance himself from the clicks 'n' cuts electronica of his contemporaries and situate himself as an artist with a complex mythology, that given the right marketing climate, could be as important as Matthew Barney's.

RACCOO-OO-OONMythos Folkways Vol. III(Woodsist)lp$ 14.98

More blissed out full moon music from these multi syllabic musical mammals (say that ten times fast!). Four tracks spread out over 2 sides... And if the last Mythos Folkways lp is any indicator, blink and you'll miss this... The first half begins all fluttery and folky, dreamy melodies drifting amidst swirls of percussive thrum, all tangled up into some sort of fracture folk, peppered with random free jazz skitter, garbled vocals and dense clouds of FX. It sounds like a band -about- to stumble into action, -about- to fully rock out, tense and dense and abstract and mysterious, for most of the side, but then they DO rock out and it's awesome. A blown out mathy psych jam, drums and cymbals everywhere, guitars grinding and growling and swooping and soaring, all wrapped in thick swaths of reverb and delay and distortion, eventually petering out and finishing off with some soft blissy drift.� The flip side follows a similar sonic pattern, beginning with more abstract skree and clatter, a haphazard improvised ramble, which gradually builds into a tripped out alien krautrock jam, still abstract, but with little propulsive lurches, draped with bizarre falsetto vocals, haunting harmonies, all unwinding into a slithery garage-y groove.� Cool hand screened covers, photocopied insert, and of course way limited...

RACCOO-OO-OONThe Cave Of Spirits Forever(Time-Lag)cd$ 14.98

Probably the best part of this record has been getting to hear Allan pronounce it exactly how it looks. "Hey Andee, did we get more of those Raccoo - Oo - Oon cds?" "I'm sorry which ones did you say?" "You know, the Raccoo - Oo - Oon cds!" Hee Hee. Okay, maybe that's the -second- best thing, cuz you know what? This disc is pretty dang kick ass. We get so used to all these labels doing cd-r's and limited run cd's and lathe cuts of dark and droney dreaminess, soft folkiness, it's easy to forget that there's a whole underground of ROCK. And that lots of these dreamy folk rockers can actually rock. And on the first track here, Raccoo-Oo-Oon do indeed ROCK, albeit a tweaked and twisted sort of rock. It's a sweaty, snarling, slithering chunk or rawk, barbed blasts of pounding angular new wave garagestomp, fuzzy. murky production, a clattering kitchen sink drum kit, super blown out, scrabbly psych guitar and howled crazyman vocals. Like the Make-Up if they had been attacked by an actual raccoon with rabies, and then forced to play anyway, twitching and frothing at the mouth. But the rock then dissipate, as if Raccoo-Oo-Oon got it out of their system, at least for the most part. The next track is a weird lo-fi jazzy shuffle, with a warm horn melody, big simple drumming, like a free folk / free jazz mashup. The next track takes off in yet another direction entirely, a blown out guitarscape, drenched in sun dappled reverb and sizzling cymbal shimmer, so dreamy and drifty. The rest of the tracks sort of meander and wander, through sunny meadows, and shaded woods, fluttering flutes, shimmering guitars, warm wheezing organs, drifting horns, occasionally little fragments of that opening rock song resurface, a brief blast of super punishing riffing, only to be quickly dragged back down and picked apart, the various bits and pieces reincorporated into the dreamlike sound, spread out and stretched into more and more layers of sound, tripped out, schizophrenic, psychedelic and pretty fucking great! Gorgeously packaged like everything on Time-Lag, this time in a deluxe 3 panel, hand screened sleeve, and a REAL cd, not a cd-r, but still limited, of course.

RACCOO-OO-OONs/t(Not Not Fun)2lp$ 26.00

Man do we hate good-byes. Whether to an old friend or to a favorite band, saying farewell ain't easy. Especially for Iowa City's Raaccoo-oo-oon, who offer up this self-titled lp as their official last release. And though we'll miss tediously typing out all the necessary c's and o's to correctly spell the bands name, we feel this last record is a worthy farewell gesture. Seems like they really gave it all they got here, blown out noisy post-everything chaos, they nobly go down with the ship on this one. Noise rock annihilation, highly recommended for fans of Dead C or Skull Defekts! Don't miss your chance to say goodbye!

RADIANChimeric(Thrill Jockey)cd$ 15.98

We REALLY like Viennese instrumental glitch-groove trio Radian. This, Chimeric, is their first album in four whole years. And it's awesome. So it deserves a glowing review from us. We're having trouble writing it, though. The problem is, we made the mistake of going back and looking at what we wrote about their previous albums, and feel like we already said it best about 'em then, can't really top lines like these: "Y'know how in subatomic reality, seemingly solid objects aren't solid at all, but filled with empty space interspersed with electrons and protons and such? Radian's music is kind of like that, atomized, spacious, abuzz with crackling energy", and "There's a jazz/improv element as well, but rather than rock/jazz fusion this is more like fission, breaking down elements of both musics, and releasing volts of energy in the process." See? Good stuff, eh? And those sentiments apply here as well. Though, it's not like this is just the same as Radian's earlier work. No, their computer-processed live improv post rock electro-acoustic sound (whew!) has definitely developed, Radian themselves considering Chimeric to be more "Free", though what they mean by that we have to guess, perhaps it's why this Radian record does seem rather more noisy, raw, chaotic, rocking, & heavy than ever before, though. Which is much to our liking, as it brings 'em even closer to sounding like some bands to which we've compared 'em in the past, a "sliced-up Circle" and, especially, a "sci fi This Heat", that uniquely rhythmic British experimental prog-rock unit from the '70s, who are really one of our "touchstone" bands here at AQ that we're always referencing in reviews, always hoping to hear something new that reminds us of 'em (we're the same way about the likes of Comus, Goblin, Earth, Magma, Black Sabbath, and Circle too). Thus, one reason we dig this Radian album so much (and Radian's other efforts too) is 'cause we can hear a lot of This Heat goin' on here. This Heat gone electronically futuristic in some mad scientist's laboratory, that is... The fractured structures, jumbled rhythms, distorted guitar stabs, and rumbling textures found here are totally hitting the spot. We mentioned it's been 4 years since their last album, and it's about time. We NEED more music like this, thanks Radian!

RADIANRec.Extern(Thrill Jockey)cd$ 15.98

Buzz whir click crackle throb. Skittery drums, lovely drone. It's Glitch, but it's Rock. Post rock, anyway. It's the new disc from Radian, the computer-aided instrumental post rock trio from Vienna. Radian have previously released two cds -- a full-length and an ep -- on the Mego and/or Rhiz labels over the past few years. Now they show up with a new full-length on Chicago label Thrill Jockey, enlisting Tortoise's John McEntire on recording/mixing duties. Drummer Martin Brandlmayr lays down the fractured beats, bassist John Norman fills out the pulse, and synthesizer coloration is provided by Stefan Nemeth. And together they use computers to process their real-time playing. Hard disc edits, electronic effects, layered textures, done with a great sense of timing and placement. At times "Rec.Extern" is propulsive and rhythm-driven like a sci-fi This Heat or sliced-up Circle, at others it's atmospheric, the background radiation of a haunted laboratory, with the sounds of burbling beakers and hissing Bunsen burners quietly rising and fading. Sudden silences, sudden sounds. We like it when today's electronic artistes step out from behind their laptops to play real instruments, and Radian falls in line with the likes of Markus Schmickler's Pluramon project and Dean Roberts' "Plays The Grand Cinema" disc on Ritornell as electro-acoustic computers-meet-rock successes. We're also put in mind of the abstract sounds n' silences of Supersilent or Starfuckers (the latter who can be much more 'out' and abrasive than Radian), and recent Dead C. We certainly liked Radian's other releases, but "Rec.Extern" seems to be even better, there's just more to it. Recommended.

RADIANTG11(Mego)cd$ 16.98

RADIAN & HOWE GELBRadian Verses Howe Gelb(Radian Releases)cd$ 17.98

Huh, now this is a pretty cool, totally unexpected collaboration! Austria's Radian, longtime aQ faves who specialize in their own unique strain of instrumental, improvised, computer-processed post rock, have teamed up here with Tuscon-based indie singer-songwriter Howe Gelb of Giant Sand fame (both artists are Thrill Jockey alumni, that's probably the connection). So you get the desert-country-folk-Americana stylings of Gelb, set amidst the abstract, electronic, glitch-and-distortion infused, fractured soundscapery of Radian. Aesthetically & methodologically, this record is definitely Radian's; yet Gelb's acoustic guitar, piano, and especially voice are crucial components, spiced and edited into Radian's atmospheric, oddly rhythmic sonic constructs. It works really, really well, Gelb adding a very human, ghost-in-the-machine element to the proceedings, with his melodies, hushed spoken commentary and non-sequitur storytelling. Always intriguing, often moodily beautiful, with a sometimes-sinister undercurrent, this reminds us a bit of mysterious UK post rockers Reigns at times, also a bit of Bill Callahan's recent dub album, in a way. Highly recommended!!

RADIANT HUSKBeyond An Endless Swale(Bezoar Formations)cassette$ 5.98

Though we sold out pretty quick, some of you aQ-loyalists might remember a super killer cd-r we got awhile back from local guy Matt Erickson, otherwise known as Radiant Husk. Aside from also playing in the free-psych noise duo Sudden Oak, which is equally as awesome (although most of their releases are now out of print), Erickson has been busy conjuring a fantastic offering of ritual saxophone sorcery. In relatively the same vein as Terry Riley's alto sax work in the seventies, Beyond An Endless Swale explores the more damaged, far reaching capabilities of the sax. And despite any reservation you might have about the sax, take it from us, there ain't nothing smooth or soft about Radiant Husk. Beyond An Endless Swale will lure you to the twisted outlands of grey shorelines where distant foghorns coax you into hypnosis, improvised melodies hover above richly layered drones and singing overtones, reverbed sax riffs lull into the dreamy horizon. An endless journey exploring all kind of sonic territory, at times Erickson pushes his sax on the verge of fiery collapse, piling dense layers of blistering noise and feedback, bird-like squeaks and wails, only to let it all melt away into the soft-droning sky. All housed in hand made tape inserts assembled in a very limited quantity, this cassette is a gem and should really not be missed!

RADIANT HUSKSeveral Potem(Bezoar Formations)cd-r$ 5.98

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

SORRY. Holy shit, 30 seconds into this mysteriously packaged cd-r from SF's own M. Erickson and we're totally sucked into his hypnotic world of saxophone, synths and other various droning devices. Long tones enveloping and luring us through the darkened doors of a stone temple, beams of light pouring from an ominous orb that hangs above its dreary entrance. Mystical, entrancing and all-the-while darkly sinister. Dreary loops that move in a rhythmic march while trembling vocals ring out from the bowels of an empty cave. If Terry Riley ever spent a year alone in the deep dark woods of Norway, the final product might sound similar to this. Forested alchemic nightmare-ish minimalism, perfect for fans of Bonecloud, Ghosting or even Expo 70. But be forewarned, you WILL be left wanting more, as this limited cd-r from Bezoar barely even lasts thirty minutes. Short, sweet and to the point, highly recommended and a must have for all those who bow at the gates of the mystic minimalism temple.

RADIGUE, ELIANEAdnos(Important)3cd$ 57.00

RADIGUE, ELIANEElemental II( Rosa)cd$ 17.98

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

SORRY.

RADIGUE, ELIANEFeedback Works 1969-1970(Alga Marghen)lp$ 31.00

RADIGUE, ELIANEGeelriandre - Arthesis(Fringes)cd$ 16.98

Off the top of my head, I can think of the Monks, Glenn Branca, and Eliane Radigue as some of the musicians who've admitted that their unwitting discovering of feedback profoundly altered their ways of thinking about music. Similar to Eddie Shaw's epiphany about feedback in his biography about the Monks, Radigue's revelation about feedback might warrant religious proportions, given that her meditative compositions led her to become a disciple of Buddhism. It was in the mid-60s, when Radigue was a protege of musique concrete legend Pierre Henry, that Radigue first stumbled across electronic feedback in the studios of INA-GRM. Unfortunately, Henry (with his unwavering insistance on the Modernist superiority of musique concrete) did not share Radigue's enthusiasm and Radigue parted ways to build her own studio that centered around the technologies of the Moog and the Arp synthesizers. Composed in 1972 and 1973 respectively (though these recordings were made several years later), "Geelriandre" and "Arthesis" represent some of the earliest work of Radigue's maturation as a minimalist. While neither of these pieces appear to use feedback, Radigue's subtle shifting drones within these pieces mirrors the fluttering complexity that a feedback loop (when carefully controlled) can achieve. "Geerlriandre" for prepared piano and Arp synthesizer ripples with a melancholia through a beautiful chorus of tightly oscillating electric drones occasionally punctuated by the sustained yet muffled resonance of the piano. "Arthesis," using the Moog, is a more ominous affair, whirling back and forth between low end frequencies amidst a glacial progression of bleak ambience. This album isn't only good for historical documentation, but also is an exceptional precursor to the dronological pursuits of current artists like Jonathan Coleclough, Thomas Koner, and Andrew Chalk. Highly recommended.

RADIGUE, ELIANEJetsun Mila(Lovely Music)2cd$ 28.00

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

SORRY.

RADIGUE, ELIANEKyema, Intermediate States(Edition XI)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.

RADIGUE, ELIANEL'ile Re-sonate(Shiiin)cd$ 21.00

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

SORRY.

RADIGUE, ELIANEMila's Journey Inspired By A Dream(Lovely Music)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. Accompanying a sustained minimalist drone from an Arp, Eliane Radigue incorporated segments of the Tibetan singing from Lama Kunga Rinpoche and English vocals from Robert Ashley. This is one of her many pieces in the large scale cycle of works based on the life of Tibetan master, Milarepa.

RADIGUE, ELIANETriptych(Important)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.

RADIGUE, ELIANEVice Versa, etc....(Important)cd$ 16.98

Back in 1970, Eliane Radigue ran off ten copies of her final composition for feedback on magnetic tape, each of which included a small handwritten note. She intended for the piece to be played back at any speed and at any duration and either backwards or forwards. Given the smooth polish to her sustained drones that could easily blur into infinity, such instructions to her audience of ten seems quite reasonable, even if the tiny edition of 10 is far from a reasonable amount. Fortunately, the French sound artist Manu Holterbach (whose minimalist work is awe-inspiring in its own right) has been sifting through Radigue's archives and came across this incredibly rare document which Radigue originally released for the Lara Vincy Gallery in Paris as part of a group sound exhibition. For the cd repackaging of this lone composition, Holterbach curated a double disc of various mixes of the original recordings. The first disc being the straight versions of the composition, played back at the four standard speeds of a reel-to-reel tape deck; and the second disc being backwards versions, also played back at those four speeds. The longest version is a little over 13 minutes long, with the shortest being a bit under 3 minutes; and all four mixes exhibit variations in tonal colors and slight oscillating modulations not heard on previous mixes. The first mix is the longest, slowest, and thus deepest plunge into the Radigue drone, which balances an asymmetrical undulation of low end against a static vibration which sits a couple octaves higher than the super-low rumble and pushes a little farther into the distance. As the track develops, Radigue seems to be gradually increasing the tension of these pieces, as if tension were just a knob she were effortlessly twisting, but in fact she's deftly controlling all of the parameters of her feedback loop to cause such effects. The second piece clocks in under a brisk 9 minutes with that irregular hovering sounds more pronounced. The next two pieces are a bit over four and two minutes respectively, each brightening vibrations to a sharp resolution on the finale. Both discs exhibit essentially the same sounds, which might be accentuated if you were to play both discs at the exact same time. A peculiar excerpt, yes, but a wonderful record for sure from one of the finest authors of 20th Century minimalism.

RADIGUE, ELIANEVice-Versa, Etc...(Alga Marghen)lp$ 27.00

Back in 1970, Eliane Radigue ran off ten copies of her final composition for feedback on magnetic tape, each of which included a small handwritten note. She intended for the piece to be played back at any speed and at any duration and either backwards or forwards. Given the smooth polish to her sustained drones that could easily blur into infinity, such instructions to her audience of ten seems quite reasonable, even if the tiny edition of 10 is far from a reasonable amount. Fortunately, the French sound artist Manu Holterbach (whose minimalist work is awe-inspiring in its own right) has been sifting through Radigue's archives and came across this incredibly rare document which Radigue originally released for the Lara Vincy Gallery in Paris as part of a group sound exhibition. For the cd repackaging of this lone composition, Holterbach curated a double disc of various mixes of the original recordings. The first disc being the straight versions of the composition, played back at the four standard speeds of a reel-to-reel tape deck; and the second disc being backwards versions, also played back at those four speeds. The longest version is a little over 13 minutes long, with the shortest being a bit under 3 minutes; and all four mixes exhibit variations in tonal colors and slight oscillating modulations not heard on previous mixes. The first mix is the longest, slowest, and thus deepest plunge into the Radigue drone, which balances an asymmetrical undulation of low end against a static vibration which sits a couple octaves higher than the super-low rumble and pushes a little farther into the distance. As the track develops, Radigue seems to be gradually increasing the tension of these pieces, as if tension were just a knob she were effortlessly twisting, but in fact she's deftly controlling all of the parameters of her feedback loop to cause such effects. The second piece clocks in under a brisk 9 minutes with that irregular hovering sounds more pronounced. The next two pieces are a bit over four and two minutes respectively, each brightening vibrations to a sharp resolution on the finale. Both discs exhibit essentially the same sounds, which might be accentuated if you were to play both discs at the exact same time. A peculiar excerpt, yes, but a wonderful record for sure from one of the finest authors of 20th Century minimalism.

RADIO/GUITARThrum(Table Of The Elements)12"$ 15.98

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

SORRY. Yet another installment of Table Of The Elements massive Lanthinides anniversary series of single sided silkscreened 12"s, this time, from the duo of Barbara Ess and Peggy Awesh, known collectively as Radio / Guitar. I remember hearing a record of theirs a while back, but I certainly don't remember it being as good as this! The first half is a dreamy and otherworldly murkscape of muted guitar, simply strummed with a creepy out of tune Jandek-ian warble, buried beneath a swirling fog of radio static, modulated shortwave, an all manner of transmitter interference, fuzz, hiss and beeps. Occasionally the whole thing locks into an absolutely mesmerising Philip Jeck style loop, all fuzzy and grey. The second half begins as a much noisier affair: radio broadcast snippets and a thick wash of grainy sonic detritus, throbbing and reverberating, while barely-there melodies swell underneath desperately trying to break the surface. This chaos solidifies into a rhythmic pulse, droning and beating, but eventually settling into a rough repeating loop of scratchy radiofuzz, stuttering glitches and melancholy melodies materialising from the ether. Swirling white cloud like formations silkscreened on clear vinyl. Nice!

RADIOSONDEMeter Sickness(Ground Fault)cd$ 7.98

An action packed album on which Esplendor Geometrico-styled chunky rhythms crash against antique samples of ragtime piano and organ drone. Sorta like a more 'industrial' version of digital pranksters V/VM.

RADIOSONDESomnambul(7hz)cd$ 7.98

White hot drones of amplified electric motors and distortion feedback build, shift and scrape. Not unlike the work of experimentalist John Duncan.

RAGLANIReal Colors Of The Physical World(Editions Mego)lp+7"$ 25.00

RAHDUNESs/t(Sweatlung)cd$ 10.98

So far our only real exposure to Rahdunes, has been their recent split with krauty drone combo Expo '70 (and a few cd-r's and tapes here and there), but on that split, they definitely demonstrated their ability to conjure up some seriously cosmic sounds. So here we have the first proper full length cd from kosmiche astral travelers Rahdunes and it's pretty fantastic. And fantastical. A longform soundscape of garbled guitars, and smeared melody, a forever unwinding sonic tapestry, woven from disembodied ghostly voices, spidery guitar melodies, haunting whirring woodwinds, all dipped in LSD and doused in a suitcase full of fractured effects. Delay collides with reverb, guitars crumble to pieces only to have those pieces drift lazily heavenward, when riffs do surface, they seem to simply hover, looping in on themselves, creating slow shifting sonic latticeworks, through which all manner of synths and sounds intertwine. Most of the tracks darkly meditative, the sounds pulsing and throbbing softly, creating barely perceptible rhythms, the you feel in your bones and seeping into your skin more than you hear it. Electronics drift through ethereal clouds of distant bagpipe melodies, of buzzing low end rumbles, thick slabs of shimmery black murky splinter into fragments that collide in mid air with impossibly distorted voices, it's like some krautrock band flew to the moon and plugged their guitars into funhouse mirrors, everything woozy and gloriously unhinged, tripped out and drug drenched, what percussion there is, is mostly chimes and bells, and more often than not, those sounds are buried along with everything else beneath undulating layers of whirring spaced out effects, and blurred abstract melodies. Totally and gloriously fucked up, the perfect soundtrack for tripping out, and drifting off. Total inner space / outer space introspection overload. Which means we LOVE it. Beautiful oversized gold and green on creme printed packaging, equal parts cave drawings and old quilt. So cool.

RAIMEQuarter Turns Over A Living Line(Blackest Ever Black)cd$ 17.98

This duo of Joe Andrews and Tom Halstead, aka Raime, have conjured up this strange and mysterious slab of dark brooding black energy, equal parts minimal electronica, bleak black ambience, abstract techno and avant sound design. Right off the bat, we were reminded of last week's Record Of The Week, Roly Porter's Aftertime, as well as the grim, sinister electronic soundscapes of Ben Frost, not to mention recent techno favorites from Shed, Terence Dixon and Stefan Goldmann. In fact, in some ways, Quarter Turns Over A Living Line is like a bizarre hybrid of all of those. Casting doomic plod as stripped down electronic skitter, reminding us of Bohren Und Der Club Of Gore, creating heaving slabs of rumbling crumbling blackened heaviness, that sound like Wolf Eyes score for an orchestra, transforming mutant strains of dub and jungle into creeping expanses of sinister stutter, and stretching dubstep bass warble into droned out layers, and wrapping them around haunting sprawls of cinematic menace. The record almost plays out like a soundtrack or score, the various pieces blurring into one another, the most disparate, still sonically linked, from the opening rumbles, like some blackened hellish noise-drone, drifting beneath distant keening melodies, laced with shards of grinding glitch, all underpinned by ominous minor key melodies, gradually dissipating, leaving a sprawl of looped skitter, beneath a cloud of ominous chordal thrum the vibe dark and doomy, subtly rhythmic, a little bit dubby, the drumming splintering into near industrial crunch, with the background sounds never ceasing their woozy drift. That drift transforming into the aforementioned Bohren-like creep, minimal and cinematic, which over the course of the next two tracks, begins to slip back into something much more techno, almost jungle sounding, but somehow remains restrained, the rhythmic heft more implied, a muted pulse and stutter behinds warm swirls of melody and dark fragments of caustic crunch. From there on out, the sound unfurls and expands, slipping from Arvo Part like choral majesty, to harrowing tense rhythm flecked drone, to lush orchestral, industrial shimmer, the various pulses and crashes, groans and clatters, gorgeously rendered, the sound design lush and lovely, while also being harsh and weirdly alien, but all blurred and woven into Raime's haunting moody mesmer.

RAINBOW BODY, THEMetatron's Cube(The Rainbow Body Sound Lab)cassette$ 8.98

A while back we reviewed a mysterious cd-r from a band called Utsuro Bune, the disc was a head caving slab of single-guitar un-overdubbed black psychedelia, a massive glacial doomdrone, but one that bristled with a unique psychedelic energy, positioning itself closer to say Keiji Haino rather than SUNNO))), or as we described it in the review, some strange hybrid of the two. Well it seems that the man behind UB, Matt Kattman, has ditched the UB monicker, and started a new project, this one, The Rainbow Body, still with a similarly drone-y bent, but this time ditching the heaving heaviness for something more spaced out and kosmische, an eight part song suite that finds Kattman's guitar drifting through clouds of blissed out shimmer, encountering the occasional burst of gristled static, and conjuring up the same sort of galactic drift as aQ faves Expo 70, but The Rainbow Body takes that sound even further out, more ghostly and spectral, most of the tracks floating ethereally, the sound so dreamy and tripped out and softly psychedelic, that on first listen we thought it might have all been synth based, the guitars looped and wreathed in effects and transformed into streaks and smears, blurred expanses of chordal shimmer and disembodied melody. But there's more going on there that just drift and shimmer, Kattman laces the tracks with mysterious pulsations, strange tonal shifts, buried rhythms, woozily tangled loops, occasionally slipping into ominous sci-fi drones, but just as often blossoming into prismatic new age glimmer, and while there are some more sinister moments, where the sound grows moody and mildly malevolent, it's all part of the Rainbow Body's cinematic scope, Metatron's Cube playing out like some strange celestial soundtrack, the score to some mysterious planetarium show, it's the sound of a million stars time lapsed into a sky full of fireworks like streaks, a mesmerizing display of cosmic sonic drift and spaced out dreamdrone mesmer. Packaged in a sweet full color J-card, with a download coupon for a digital version of the whole tape.

RAINBOW BODY, THEReturn Unto Void(The Rainbow Body Sound Lab)cassette$ 8.98

The second tape this year from one man guitarscaper The Rainbow Body, aka Matt Kattman, who was also responsible for another aQ fave, the crushing blackened doomdrone of Utsuro Bune. But as we mentioned in our review of the last Rainbow Body tape, Kattman has decided to delve into something much more atmospheric and kosmische, using just his guitar and a handful of effects, creating, lush billowing landscapes of hazy, washed out guitar ambience, and slow shifting layers of longform guitardrone bliss out. An eight part songsuite, with each part bleeding organically into the next, the sound here is alternatingly sun dappled and dreamy, droned out and sinister, the sound at times reminding us of a more spaced out new age-y Roy Montgomery, lush languorous chords, drifting weightless in sprawling expanses of layered shimmer, loops tangled into dreamlike swirls of soft focus melody. Cosmic and celestial, wreathed in reverb and echo, notes and chords caught in swirling clouds of muted buzz and raga like thrum, darkly meditative, and divinely mesmerizing, anyone into psychedelic drone music, kosmische new age drift and minimal guitarscapery will want to get lost in the Rainbow Body's woozy, washed out prismatic soundworld. Packaged in a full color J-card and includes a download coupon as well.

RAINBOW BODY, THEThe Dream Stela EP(The Rainbow Body Sound Lab)cd-r$ 6.98

After two amazing tape releases, The Rainbow Body returns with this super limited (just 50 copies!) ep, which again, like Metatron's Cube and Return Under Void before it, unfurls a gorgeously gristly landscape of blown out guitar crunch and blurred kosmische psychedelia, opening with a heavy, heaving sprawl of crumbling distortion, wrapped around glistening melodies, like a Tim Hecker jam cranked way up and run through a bank of dying-battery distortion boxes, simultaneously noisy and chaotic and utterly dreamy, especially when there's a super sudden shift, and all the distortion drops away, leaving a keening stretch of muted melodic mesmer, all low end melody and swirling shimmering hiss. The rest of the ep plays out similarly, balanced deftly between full on noise, and bleary blown our dreamdronedrift, sometimes harnessing wild squalls of blackened psychedelia and crafting them into droned out soundscapes, other times, unfurling hazy washed of muted melody and blurry celestial shimmer, and still other times, conjuring up dense swells of thick chordal thrum, wreathed in soaring swirls of cosmic dream psych blur. So gorgeous. And as we mentioned, EXTREMELY LIMITED!!

RAINFOREST SPIRITUAL ENLIGHTENMENTBlack Magic Cannot Cross Water(Blackest Ever Black)lp$ 23.00

RAINFOREST SPIRITUAL ENSLAVEMENTFolklore Venom(Hospital)lp$ 24.00

Fans of dark electronic murkiness, and avant industrial minimal house, or fuck, whatever you want to call the sort of electronic music that creeps and oozes and lurches and lumbers, if you've yet to discover the black sonic joy or Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement (aka Dom Fernow, he also of about a million other projects, most notably perhaps, Prurient and Cold Cave, and most recently, Vatican Shadow and Christian Cosmos), here's another chance to catch up on some of what you've been missing. Two super limited cassettes, now available again as most likely equally limited 12"s, The Plant With Many Faces finds Fernow pushing his sound into more mysterious directions, the opener the oddball here, falling squarely in seventies soundtrack territory, with pulsing Carpenter like synths, arpeggiated bass pulsations and thick clouds of psychedelic blacknoise, before the sound quickly settles into the more minimal drift of previous releases, soft-focus chordal swells, wrapped in swaths of pixelated washed out thrum, a hazy barely there swirl of abstract sound, near ambience flecked with abject sinister sonic shadows. The flipside continues to sink deeper into whatever subterranean world these sounds emanate from, delivering a noisy industrial hum, slow shifting layers, buried melodies, all smeared into a grey-gaze atmospheric sprawl that sounds like a more desiccated Caretaker, which is precisely how the final track winds down, extending that hissy subterranean ambience, but adding some low end warble, some distant percolations, a buried rhythm that sounds like it's being broadcast from the bottom of the sea, the vibe a sort of sonar symphony of shadows, hauntingly abstract and bleakly ultra minimal, but still stunningly and obliquely beautiful. Folklore Venom is the perfect companion for The Plant With Many Faces, opening with a heroin house creep, a slo-mo techno swirl that is soon enveloped in a cloud of hiss and softly caustic crunch, that relentless pulse, a motorik constant at the heart of the track's dense drift. The sound quickly shifts to something even more abstract and atmospheric, a sprawl of sonic dread, a high end haze draped over keening far away melodies, a wasted industrial dronescape, rife with strange sonic cascades and underpinned by deep rumbling throbs, blurred into near stasis, the whole thing a dense black thrum, laced with softly psychedelic overtones. The final track is the closest either of these reissues has come to the newer RSE records, weaving a tripped out softly noisy soundscape, constructed from what sounds like manipulated field recordings, bird song, animal calls, the result is at once strangely dreamy, and yet utterly and totally alien. You can't go wrong with either, but if dark electronic weirdness, and murky psychedelic ambience is your thing, best grab both before they are gone for good...

RAINFOREST SPIRITUAL ENSLAVEMENTThe Plant With Many Faces(Hospital)lp$ 24.00

Fans of dark electronic murkiness, and avant industrial minimal house, or fuck, whatever you want to call the sort of electronic music that creeps and oozes and lurches and lumbers, if you've yet to discover the black sonic joy or Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement (aka Dom Fernow, he also of about a million other projects, most notably perhaps, Prurient and Cold Cave, and most recently, Vatican Shadow and Christian Cosmos), here's another chance to catch up on some of what you've been missing. Two super limited cassettes, now available again as most likely equally limited 12"s, The Plant With Many Faces finds Fernow pushing his sound into more mysterious directions, the opener the oddball here, falling squarely in seventies soundtrack territory, with pulsing Carpenter like synths, arpeggiated bass pulsations and thick clouds of psychedelic blacknoise, before the sound quickly settles into the more minimal drift of previous releases, soft-focus chordal swells, wrapped in swaths of pixelated washed out thrum, a hazy barely there swirl of abstract sound, near ambience flecked with abject sinister sonic shadows. The flipside continues to sink deeper into whatever subterranean world these sounds emanate from, delivering a noisy industrial hum, slow shifting layers, buried melodies, all smeared into a grey-gaze atmospheric sprawl that sounds like a more desiccated Caretaker, which is precisely how the final track winds down, extending that hissy subterranean ambience, but adding some low end warble, some distant percolations, a buried rhythm that sounds like it's being broadcast from the bottom of the sea, the vibe a sort of sonar symphony of shadows, hauntingly abstract and bleakly ultra minimal, but still stunningly and obliquely beautiful. Folklore Venom is the perfect companion for The Plant With Many Faces, opening with a heroin house creep, a slo-mo techno swirl that is soon enveloped in a cloud of hiss and softly caustic crunch, that relentless pulse, a motorik constant at the heart of the track's dense drift. The sound quickly shifts to something even more abstract and atmospheric, a sprawl of sonic dread, a high end haze draped over keening far away melodies, a wasted industrial dronescape, rife with strange sonic cascades and underpinned by deep rumbling throbs, blurred into near stasis, the whole thing a dense black thrum, laced with softly psychedelic overtones. The final track is the closest either of these reissues has come to the newer RSE records, weaving a tripped out softly noisy soundscape, constructed from what sounds like manipulated field recordings, bird song, animal calls, the result is at once strangely dreamy, and yet utterly and totally alien. You can't go wrong with either, but if dark electronic weirdness, and murky psychedelic ambience is your thing, best grab both before they are gone for good...

RAINFOREST SPIRITUAL ENSLAVEMENTWater Rose Above The Head(Bed Of Nails)lp$ 17.98

The latest project from Dom Fernow, of noiseniks Prurient, and more recently a handful of various electronic/techno projects (Bronze Age, Christian Cosmos, Vatican Shadow) comes in the form of Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement, which finds Fernow exploring a murky sort of avant new age, equal parts Chain Reaction style Heroin House and ultra minimal digidub, the A side a sprawl of moody industrial murk, a skeletal four on the floor pulse, buried in the mix, over a backdrop of woozy chordal swells and looped rainfall, a blurry hazy wash of staticky shimmer, that enshrouds the barely there rhythmic pulsations. The B side is even more abstract, spare and spaced out, a muddy expanse of processed field recordings, animal calls, birdsong, the distant hiss of a waterfall, all spaced out around deep low end thrums, and a hushed buried rhythm, the sound of dripping water, looped into another abstract rhythm, the sound a deep, dark blackened slab of shadowy new age ambience, tethered to the skeletal remains of some damaged and decayed techno.

RAIONBASHIIn Teufel's Kuche(Absurd / Ignivomous)10"$ 17.98

"In The Devil's Kitchen." So translates the German title, the first that we've stocked from Daniel Lowenbruck, who both records as Raionbashi and runs the Tochnit-Aleph mail order service out of Berlin. He's also a long standing member of the Schimpfluch Gruppe whose provocative recordings and performances directly channel the Vienna Actionists such as Hermann Nitsch, Gunter Brus, and Rudolf Schwartzkogler. Where the Austrians were pushing their transgessive acts through art world channels, Schimpfluch has their origins in punk, industrial culture, and (at least for the case of Schimpfluch's Dave Phillips) metal taken to a Dada extreme laced with theatrical ultra-violence. So begin these deconstructed tapes and mangled silences. Lowenbruck cites that the sources to his Devil's Kitchen include 'noises, instruments, body functions, and apostrophes.' The discernible sounds are a piano being struck by a hammer fist on the lower octave of the keys, a police whistle blowing out the condenser mic on a Walkman, and some downpitched vocal howls that come across as way more demonic than those wolf growlings on Ben Frost's album By The Throat. Between these recognizable elements, Lowenbruck cuts and pastes with monochromatic noises that puncture grey curtains of leaden hiss. Compositionally, certainly hits the mark with the guttural musique concrete from the Schimpfluch Gruppe, somewhere between the machined ruptures of Dave Phillips and the unsettled ambience crafted by the impeccable G*Park; or less self-referentially stated, somewhere between the sound poetry of Henri Chopin and the corroded tape work of Joe Colley. Limited to 500 copies and highly recommended!

RAIONBASHI / DANIELA FROMBERG & STEFAN ROIGKDer Strick / Blowing Up The Master's Workshop(Senufo Edition)lp$ 23.00

When the fuck is Raionbashi going to release a proper album again? Daniel Lowenbruck (aka Raionbashi) has been releasing his work on various splits over the past couple of years following a 2006 lp on Hanson that nobody seems to have anymore. Even then, much of his output has been released in tiny editions, and this split on Senufo Edition is in an edition of 280 copies. Raionbashi operates within the transgressive art collective Schimpfluch-Gruppe alongside Sudden Infant, Dave Phillips, Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock, and G*Park, all of which mine the nether regions of the id for intensely claustrophobic collages of grim noise and post-Viennese Aktionism. For this split, Lowenbruck slumps into an occult almost doom-laden piece of ritualist gong strikes that certainly look back to Coil's How To Destroy Angels, but Lowenbruck slowly ramps up a smoldering, hypnotic squallor of discordant strings and uneasy field recordings with snippets of muffled vocals which seem in the midst of an unknown criminal act. Brilliantly creepy. Daniela Fromberg & Stefan Roigk are multimedia artists hailing from Berlin, although little can be found regarding their intentions beyond their mutually crappy websites that only sport pretty pictures of their un-contextualized installations. Whatever these people are up to, it's a damn effective piece of acousmatic collage work, reflective in classic sound collage techniques found on Nurse With Wound's Homotopy To Marie, through the various bumps in the night and funhouse sound effects turned horrific and nightmarish. Arcane, oblique, haunting, and captivating. Fromberg & Roigk are an excellent foil to Raionbashi's dark ritual, and certainly should muster something else in the near future. Regardless, this is an excellent album of foreboding musique concrete.

RAIONBASHI / KRUBE.Anatze Zum Taumel(Hronir)lp$ 24.00

We don't know if there's anything like an official membership form or some sort of fucked-up ritual one has to endure before joining the inner circle of the Schimpfluch-Gruppe, but this Swiss / German collective of malcontent noise makers and tape splicers might just increase their ranks through the diabolical collage work from Krube. Schimpfluch (whose members include Sudden Infant, Dave Phillips, G*Park, Raionbashi, and Rudolf Eb.er) began in the early '90s as an aggressive / primitive hybrid between the Viennese Aktionism of Hermann Nitsch & Rudolf Schwartzkogler and the sharp collage techniques of the French musique concrete pioneers. Performance is often a critical component to the Schimpfluch aesthetic involving all sorts of transgressive theatrics, audience baiting tactics, and maybe a dead fish or two; but the recording output of Schimpfluch and associates has been exceptional throughout their history. Perhaps with all of those performative gestures hidden in the recording process, the resultant squeaks, bangs, grunts, and scrapes begin to disassociate from their origins and become all the more bizarre, more obscure, and more damaged. This is definitely true for the work of Krube, the project of a German sound-artist by the name of Alexander Schneider. His techniques begin in snipping various sounds from who knows what. The label Hronir tells us its everyday objects, body openings, and non-definable machines; but by the time Schneider is done with his digital razor blade, what's a fart and what's a piston is not terribly discernible. These sound are quickly jettisoned in squadrons of battering sounds that collide with each other in clusters of events that splutter and bristle like a punk version of Pierre Henry's classic Variations Pour Une Porte Et Un Soupir. Raionbashi's side long composition is comparatively sublime affair, more in keeping with the underappreciated G*Park sound of atonal ambience, creepy as hell field recordings, and generalized disturbances. Daniel Lowenbruck is Raionbashi, and a relatively recent addition to the Schimpfluch-Gruppe, having run the exceptional Tochnit-Aleph label and the rumpsti pumsti shop in Berlin. His track begins with a bellowing piano chord which elongates into a desolate drone, marked with scurrying vermin like noises, backward scrapings, and indeterminate swells of grey noise. That same piano returns throughout the piece with an incremental build of anxious black energy seeping through every quiet gesture and gurgling rupture. Like the work of G*Park, the more you let yourself into the details of this piece, the more terrifying it becomes. Truly exceptional!

RAISON D'ETREMise En Abyme(Transgredient / Drone Records)cd$ 17.98

There's a whole lot of history and a whole lot of meaning loaded in that title. The simple translation from the French is just "put in center" and its earliest etymology refers to the repeating pattern in a coat of arms as a symbol of the aristocratic / familial traditions being passed on from one generation to another. With this repeating formal motif, the phrase has become a term in critical theory to define self-reflexive structural forms and the potential for an instability of meaning, structure, reality etc. through repetition upon repetition. The results are the deliberate mindfucks of the play within a play, the dream within a dream where the dreamer is unaware of dreaming, and the infinite replication of images like the one found on the cover of that first Guardian Alien album (woah, so trippy, dude!). The application of this phrase to the work of Raison D'Etre points to a gnosticism of darkness that compounds upon itself within the depths of the human soul. That seems suitable to Raison D'Etre's, um raison d'etre, as this has been the long-standing project for Peter Andersson who has recorded for now two decades under this moniker, almost exclusively for the now-defunct Cold Meat Industries. For all of the torturous death-ambient and grinding industrialisms of that imprint, Andersson (not to be confused with the other Peter Andersson on CMI known also as Baby Lina Doll of Deutsch Nepal) offered up a ghastly beauty through his haunted ambience that seem to echo with the maudlin sense of loss from Tarkovsky's lesser known film Nostalgia which ends with a scene of snowstorm quietly precipitating on the innards of the desicated Gothic cathedral. All of the Raison D'Etre albums have dreamily wandered through medieval chants and extracts of Germanic hymnal music, but these albums speak more of Andersson's position on the absence of God rather than a glorification. Mise En Abyme channels these thoughts into cold sweeping passages of melacholy ambience and cinematic overtures which glide along a stately trajectory in and out of cold silences. Machined rhythms and fabricated noise disrupt the ghostly ephemera about half way through the album, but this counterpoint is hardly a distraction. Recommended for those enamored by the work of Deathprod and Svarte Greiner / Deaf Center!

RAKEFighting 2 Quarters And A Nickel(VHF)2cd-r$ 11.98

Another cd-r artifact from the dark and mysterious VHF vaults, this time documenting the live sonic mayhem of Virginia's Rake! Rake were always my least favorite part of the Virginia-UK-VHF free rock axis, but 'Fighting...' is a pretty great collection.

RAKHIMCrimson Umbrella(20 Buck Spin)cd$ 12.98

Disturbing, verrrrry disturbing. You might expect that something from Circle and Pharoah Overlord members going under the names Krypt (Jussi) and Rudimentor (Janne) might be sorta metallic (especially after that Krypt Axeripper ep reviewed last list). This silver-on-black screenprinted package certainly looks dark and evil: the illegible logo, the band photo (long hair, spiked armbands), the song titles -- there's just two of them, "Transylvanian Error" (17:45) and "Ultimate Sword" (16.34). And the album title is a nod to Jussi's favorite '80s "metal" act, Jesters Of Destiny. But we also know to expect the unexpected from our Finnish friends. So while this IS dark and evil, there's not a metal riff in sight. Rather, this duo utilize percussion, voice and effects to create a psychologically sick, rhythmically fucked drone-zone. The two long tracks are black, bottomless abysses both, caverns echoing with monstrous processed vokills and clattering pipe-fights, awash in a dense, drifting electronic miasma. The label press info references Z'ev (the percussion), Faust (the weirdness), Wolf Eyes (the noise), Darkthrone (the evil) and we hear all that for sure. We'd further compare Rakhim's improvised blackness to black metal experimentalists (and AQ ROTWer's) Abruptum, with some of the screaming sounding like the insane-asylum inmates from a Staalagh record! Maybe like Staalagh on a broken boombox, being played the the corner of a room where spaced-out Circle side project Dr. Kettu are jamming with the Black Boned Angel. Actually, last year we reviewed an expensive Qbico import LP by Rakhim (weirdly enough, we still have a few copies, if you act fast...) and ever since experiencing the mesmerizing psychedelic murkiness of that debut we've been wanting to hear more. Disturbing, yes. But we like being disturbed like this!!

RAKHIMs/t(Qbico)lp$ 25.00

ATTENTION CIRCLE OBSESSIVES AND FINNISH MUSIC FREAKS. THIS IS A CIRCLE SIDE PROJECT, IS LP ONLY, AND is VERY VERY LIMITED!! Okay, now that we got that out of the way, let's dig in. Circle freaks are obviously gonna want this no matter what, it's a single sided half hour jam from Jussi and Janne of Finnish drone rockers Circle. But don't expect this to sound anything like Circle. Well, okay, it sounds a little like that live Circle record Mountain, droney and dark and minimal. What it really sounds like to us is like Circle side project Dr. Kettu with all the bones removed, leaving some sort of dark and tribal ambient krautrock. Rakhim is a super stripped down primal tribal duo, just drums and vocals and tons and tons of effects, which the duo employ to effortlessly kick up quite a dense druggy fug. Swirling clouds and sonic squalls, a murky dronescape lo-fi and dubbed out, strange guttural grunts, freaky whispers, drums-down-the-stairs clatter, dubby FX, wordless vocal melodies, all doused with reverb and distortion, and tangled up with some abstract percussive tribalism. Some sort of Finnish space aged pagan ritual. Vast expanses of whoooosh and whiiiir and swooooosh over chaotic free jazz drum splatter and subtle shuffling skitter. Very tripped out, druggy, super muddy, mega freaked out sososo psychedelic. Could almost be some long lost, recently discovered Faust jam caught surreptitiously on tape way back in the day. Awesome. One sided heavy marbled white vinyl, packaged in a cool, very Dead C looking black and white sleeve.

RAKU SUGIFATTIFutatsu(Improvised Music From Japan)cd$ 24.00

RALEI Sit By The Window And Watch Walls And Ceilings(Monorail Trespassing)cd$ 11.98

A deep thrumming drone announces the beginning of William Hutson aka Rale's obliquely titled album I Sit By The Window And Watch Walls And Ceilings. Maybe a reference to Alvin Lucier? Maybe a reference to "I Was No Longer His Dominant" by Nurse With Wound during particularly choice NWW period in the early '80s? There is a conceptual and composition rigor to this album that is considerably stronger than on Hutson's previous recordings, as he's incorporating far more acousmatic and electro-acoustic strategies to accompany the sinister post-noise synthdrone which he mastered earlier on. While the album sports seven tracks, they all blend together into a seamless 51 minute piece marked by passages of distended minimalism, magnetic crackle, spluttering tape noise, and more than a few moments of buried melody dialed into the haunted melodicism of Tim Hecker at his most ephemeral. "Golden Hydra Chokers" snatches transient radiowaves through an ill-advised chain of effects pedals whose crumbling drones lead into the aeronautical soaring of the aptly named "Swimming Beside The Plane" with its unstable tone-float ambience. "Abnatural Burnings" accelerates through a series of tape decks and microcassette recorders spinning wildly to the point of collapse, pocked with bursts of erratic tape noise that terminate in a smoldering, ominous hum which opens up into a dour powerdrone from Hutson's flanging synths that undulates deeper and deeper toward the album's conclusion. Excellent work!

RALESome Kissed Charms That Would Not Protect Them(Isounderscore)lp$ 14.98

Another fantastic slab of hushed drone synth minimalism from William Huston, aka Rale, this time around, two epic sidelong sprawls, the first balancing deep string like swells with absolute silence, building a super dynamic dronescape that is at odds with past recordings, which seemed more crackly and rumbly, tapping into the sort of gauzy dronescapery of Tim Hecker and Philip Jeck, but this is much more controlled. The sounds lush and smooth, the swells literally separated by fields of near silence (if not complete silence), each set of tones seeming to emerge from some bottomless black hole, it's not until nearly the second half, when streaks of high end enter the picture, bell like tones, a hushed field of metallic shimmer that drifts and hovers before being overtaken by waves of warm whir and soft focus buzz, and then finally the crackle and haze come in, a deft merging of synthdrone and field recording, into something warm and wonderful, but slightly ominous, and a little bit alien, the sound moving continuously from washed out melodic blur, to barely there ultraminimal drift. The flipside is a thick wall of sound, a deep thrum wreathed in textured ambience, which gradually peels away, leaving a warm muted buzz, that fades again to near nothingess, a distant shimmer in a sea of crackling sonic motes, gradually building to something almost industrial, but still woozy and washed out, the crumbles and distorted crunch smoothed into textured drones. The crackles and various bits of noise growing in intensity, until finally the drone follow suit, exploding in a soft cacophony, which itself burns brightly, before fading out, only to burst into sonic flame once again. So nice. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES! In a gorgeous fluorescent blue, silver foil stamped jacket.

RALEWhispering Gallery(Arbor)12"$ 11.98

After a few super limited tape releases (so limited we were unable to get any at all), comes this brand new 2 song 12"s from the Bay Area sound dude William Hutson known simply as Rale, whose abstract modular synth dronescapes should absolutely appeal to all the dronelords out in aQ land. Exploring similar sonic territory as fellow sonic obfuscationists Philip Jeck, Christian Fennesz, Tim Hecker and the like, Rale unleashes a soft stream of ultra minimal crackle, draped over murky barely there melodies and deep gauzy rumbles, a sound haunting and hushed and super minimal, even a little distantly doomy. The track slowly gains momentum, growing ever more distorted and crunchy, eventually the hushed low end drift is overwhelmed by a super processed stuttery stretch of distorted glitch, which after building to a frenzied coda smooths out into a crumbling crackly drone, that finally fades out leaving just strange disembodied sounds and mysterious voices. The flip side is a similarly slow burning slab of dronemusic. A deep cavernous drift, softly textured, hushed and whispery, an underground sound, underwater, that sound grows warmer and and deeper and more dronelike before gradually transforming into something more brittle and buzzy, but no less blissed out and mesmerizing. Some seriously gorgeous, hypnotic and occasionally noisy dronemusic, a two song teaser which has been getting repeat plays since we got it in, and most definitely has us wanting more more more... LIMITED TO 400 COPIES!!