[ aquarius records

IMPORTANT (Please read to avoid confusion): Some items below may be tagged with a bold, red, all-caps OUT OF PRINT/UNAVAILABLE notice. This does NOT mean that all other items not so tagged are, in fact, in stock — or for that matter, in print and available, though there's a good chance they are. Some folks get confused on this point, and we can see why, so please read this for further clarification and other important before-you-order information. Unlike some mailorder websites, we don't have an electronic inventory system linked to our site, so you can't be sure of what we actually have or don't have in stock at any given moment without asking us — please email our mailorder department for availability status — or better yet, just go ahead and place your order using our shopping cart function and we'll get back to you with the status of each item. If you have general non-mailorder questions, email the store.

Showing results 101 through 150 of 1265.

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

SORRY. Arizona DJs Emile & Radar (who along with Z-Trip make up the Bombshelter crew) take their turntable wizardy to the deep realms of dark drum 'n' bass anthems, cutting tracks from Decoder, Dylan, Jonny L, Ganja Kru, as well as a super dark track from Radar.

Another old school hiphop collection, compiling the best of KRS-One and Scott La Rock's early BDP output, documenting the historic Bronx vs. Queens battle (on tracks like "The Bridge Is Over", the rebuttal to MC Shan's "The Bridge"). Also included: "South

Boom Bip's third and best album to date. Hands down. Well, at least to me. Boom Bip (aka Bryan Hollan) seems to have learned from his explorations in hip-hop leaving a song-kraft that has transcended into a beautiful pop-bathed electronic wonderland. Synthy leads into songs. Composed and respected beats. Hints of analog instrumentation everywhere. It's great!

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Abstract hip hop maestro Boom Bip returns with a lengthy EP of new tracks as well as a handful of remixes from a bunch of AQ faves. The Five originals, including two Peel Session tracks, are all lush and funky, dark and moody, sort of like DJ Shadow meets Godspeed, with gorgeously hazy atmospheres over skittery shuffling rhythms and occasional block rocking beats. The remixers include Boards Of Canada, who make their track sound like it could have been a BoC original, with warm summery swoon and a loping down tempo beat; Venetian Snares adds some subtle (for him) drill and bass and turns Buck65's formerly smooth flow into a manic, distorted tirade; Clouddead, who takes the original and stretches it into a gauzy summer afternoon stroll through soft breezy drones and barely there beats; Lali Puna, who add a smooth and shiny electronic sheen to their track; and finally Mogwai who pull their track apart into a spare and minimal whisper, drones and chimes and fractured rhythms over a shadowy trace of the original track.

MPEG stream: Last Walk Around Mirror Lake (Boards Of Canada Remix)
MPEG stream: The Use Of Unacceptable Colours In Nature (Mogwai Remix)

Excellent! Now this is the sort of stuff Mo'Wax should be putting out, this is what those yuppie lounge bars should be playing instead of fuckin' Kruder and Dorfmeister. Boom Bip may be familiar to you through his Four Tet remix and collaborations with Dose One (Them, cloudDead), but you'd be forgiven for thinking he might be on Mo'Wax -- this record's got all the trademark spacious open wide sonic vistas, echoey breakbeats, movie dialog samples, hip hop reverence, and melody galore. A different take on the whole rock meets electronica thang that only a few bands can pull off well (Fridge, Tarwater, DJ Shadow when he's sampling guitars), Boom Bip mixes space rock with electronica absolutely perfectly, and grounds it with hip hop, lest the thing get too cerebral. There are slow breakbeats, sweet chamber strings, throbbing epic bass, dubby echo, unabashedly rock-based chord progressions, and eccentric scratching. Plus lots of dynamic changes -- the record never gets boring. There's even a finishing track that makes use of Felt-like or Durutti Column-ish tinny guitar. Now, it's not a "weird" record, not even ultra challenging, but it does what it does perfectly. I am very impressed! Oh, it must also be said that this disc has got artwork we're fairly wetting our pants over -- brown coffee cup stains on neutral cardboard, with gold foil pressed graffiti logo, and a die cut thru which shows the barcode. And then the insert incorporates the barcode stripes into all these pretty loops spelling out Boom Bip. Wow.

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Last year's Them record was easily one of the coolest, weirdest and most creative hip hop records we'd heard in a while. Dose One (the main mc from Them) takes it a step further out on this one, hooking up with dj Boom Bip to come up with a sort of 'free-hip-hop' record, like a cross between a poetry slam gone bad, a handful of rap records playing at once, phones and buzzers and bells gone haywire, and a particularly disorienting acid trip. A mix of freeform spoken word, erratic and non-linear beats, bizarre samples (even Van Halen makes it into the mix), lots of low-in-the-mix mumbling and muttering, and Dose Ones whiny nasal white boy drawl make this one crazy, schizophrenic, sloppy and beautiful mess.

Here's a cool concept, particularily if you could see 'em in person: a live funk covers band does the work of a hiphop dj. That is, they play a groovy medley of classic funk/soul breaks all segued together in a very dancable mix. On noted DJ Peanut Butter

If you hated the first Brokencyde full length, you'll hate this one even more. And if you loved the first one, you'll still probably hate this...

AKA Bullet Proof Scratch Hamsters, this Bay Area "supergroup" is comprised of DJs Eddie Def (Skratch Piklz), Cue (Cue's Hip Hop Shop), Quest (Live Human), Marz, and MC Eddie K.

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The seven piece Bullfrog hail from Montreal and recently swept thru our town, bestowing just a few cds upon us. This is a 5-song 3" cd (their 2nd 3" cd). Not just a Kid Koala project at all, this band is really finding their sound and running with it, and Koala's turntables are just one part of the delightful equation. They play tone-perfect seventies sweet soul / Parliament-style

RealAudio clip: Slow Down
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Bullfrog hail from Montreal and have bestowed two little 3"cds upon AQ over the past year. And now here's their full length -- which contains tracks from the two 3" cds but also lots of new stuff never before heard. Not just a Kid Koala project at all, this band is really finding their sound and running with it, and Koala's turntables are just one part of the delightful equation. They play tone-perfect seventies sweet soul / Parliament-style funk (think "Can You Get to That" from Maggot Brain), complete with falsetto vocals and chiming bwang.bwang.bwang guitar. They also do a Sunday morning style of hip hop that's heavy on the SoCal-esque flowing vocals and wah guitar. Fans of Ozomatli, Jurassic 5, Antibalas -- this music is right up your alley. It's so good!

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With totally off the wall lyrics invoking bunions & corns, sasquatch & gazpacho, "where the red fern grows" and "I am the hollowman", etc, you'd think emcees Busdriver (Project Blowed) and Radioinactive (West Coast Workforce) along with producer Daedelus (Plug Research) had come up with an album just exploding with originality and fun. Sadly, I found this blip-hop joint entirely incoherent, frustratingly unlistenable, full of decent ideas but none of them carried out for long enough to be satisfying, always interrupted by more of their love-it-or-hate-it nasal singsong delivery. Sorry but I think this is bad; it sounds more like an afterschool blunt-befuddled hip hop take on, like, Ween or something. Your mileage may vary, however, so listen to the soundclips. Otherwise, see others on the Mush and Anticon rosters for the real excellence in new underground hip hop -- Boom Bip, DoseOne, Clouddead, etc.

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Here's a 2013 Record Store Day release that we just discovered we still had a small stash of! Well known collector/musician Joe Bussard doing a couple of acoustic guitar songs on an old-timey 78 rpm 10" record, packaged in a plain manilla sleeve like in the old days. Bussard's been collecting jazz, folk, blues, bluegrass, etc. 78's since the 1940s and so he sure knows how it ought to sound, the two tracks "Guitar Rag" and "Screwdriver Slide" (yep, played with a screwdriver) coming off like authentic dusty (but lively) old tunes indeed. For fans of John Fahey (who's first recordings came out on Bussard's own Fonotone label), Jack Rose, and all the old-timey down-home stuff those guys were fans of, too... LIMITED TO 625 COPIES.

Busta's got some way-metal looking cover art, like a nu-Sepultura album or something. The album? At first listen, not too impressive. Kind of wacky and silly. Too bad, 'cause we usually like Busta.

Busta Rhymes has always been a sort of guilty pleasure...well, not really a guilty pleasure, since I've never really felt at all guilty for digging this stuff, but more like a pleasure that's tough to explain. People have a hard time believing (and rightfully

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

SORRY.

New rap group, the duo of Planet Asia and the popular-on-his-own Rasco. AQ's hip hop "headz" say yeeaah.

El-P, producer and beatmaker extraordinaire, here reprises in instrumental form the entire Cannibal Ox album Cold Vein, in order. And we have to say, good call. Because the music behind Cannibal Ox's rapping is totally stellar and indeed deserves its own

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Seems like the future of hip hop belongs to either Company Flow and their progeny or cLOUDEAD and the Anticon crew. Both seem to be the only crews really pushing the boundaries of hip hop. Cannibal Ox is a duo from Harlem, and for 'The Cold Vein', they hooked

RealAudio clip: Iron Galaxy
RealAudio clip: Raspberry Fields

This is the 'slow jam' from the mighty Cannibal Ox's 'The Cold Vein' record. But not like -any- slow jam you've ever heard. Funky and sinister, the meanest saddest love song in quite a while. Huge burping bass and minor key synths under a growled flow full of

RealAudio clip: The F Word (Original/Dirty)
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THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

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very very limited pressing of 300!

In 2001 East Bay's Catfive released a good record filled with unlikely samples -- Fela-style afrofunk, Brazilian batucada, lounge, moments of dub, scratching that sounds like a twisted harmonica -- that worked so well atop a mix of beats and groove. The new 7" is somewhat timely -- a pro-peace, anti-war message -- but as such is maybe a little too predictable, featuring samples of Bush I and II, other politicians, journalists, Elvis, etc. Negativland is funnier, but Catfive's hearts are certainly in the right place. The B-side is a cool gimmick, though. It plays backward -- i.e. the needle starts in the middle and works its way outwards. It's a bunch of cartoon / old movie / tv samples with a similar political bent as side A, but without added music. On transparent red vinyl.

Remember that amazing Milk Cult record from last year? I'm liking this Cat Five record for the same reasons: it's a winning combination (a bit lighter than Milk Cult) of unlikely samples mixed together in a very accessible, headnodding fashion. Every sound or sample works both as a percussive and a melodic element, whether it's Fela-style afrofunk, Brazilian batucada, lounge music, moments of dub, scratching that sounds like a twisted harmonica, or silly film clips, it all works well, like a hip hop gig filmed in 1920s madcap silent film style. Or DJ Shadow's ditzy younger cousin or something. Cat Five are from East Bay, headed by the guy otherwise known as Balanceman (who released an album on Deluxe). A nice surprise!

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

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Before the release of Rainforest, the first proper solo effort from New Jersey producer / beatmaker Mike Volpe, aka Clams Casino, he was primarily known for making tracks for hop hop icons like Lil' B, Soulja Boy and others, and here those tracks are presented sans vocals, revealing them to be pretty much fully formed as they are, and making it perfectly clear why hip hoppers were freaking out over these jams. The witch house vibe still looms large, as does that whole slo-mo RnB thing, obviously fans of How To Dress Well, not to mention the whole Tri Angle catalog will flip for these tracks, gorgeous, and low slung, creepy and haunting and pretty, deeply rhythmic, softly psychedelic, blissed out and a bit druggy, in some ways these tracks couldn't sound less hip hop, but again, that's precisely what made them stand out. It's hard to imagine Soulja Boy rapping over "All I Need", with its hazy, woozy Portishead creep, slowed down vocal croon, and strange crunchy percussive skitter. Everything wrapped in an ethereal gauze, peppered with skittery high hats, hand claps, a spare simple drumline, it's all ballady and blissfully blurry. It's equally hard to imagine Lil'B rapping on "Real Shit From A Real Nigga", and it's just as difficult to imagine a track this pretty and washed out with that title, and the sound, all warm swirling synths, distant choral vocals, clouds of shimmering glistening melodies, and a low slung shuffling beat drifting amidst all manner of glistening flutter and smeared sparkle. And so it goes. The tracks here are incredible, and definitely have us wondering why more big names haven't tapped this guy for backing tracks, this stuff is totally next level, way more advanced than any of the stuff we hear on the radio, but as we mentioned before, these songs already sound essentially finished, totally fleshed out, expansive and lush and melodic, and in some ways, adding anything else would only take way from their power. And as much as we loved Rainforest, and we did, BIG TIME, we might be digging this one even more!!

MPEG stream: All I Need (Soulja Boy)
MPEG stream: Real Shit From A Real Nigga (Lil' B)
MPEG stream: Realist Alive (Lil' B)

While the rest of the world is freaking out over Death Grips' drum driven aggro noise drenched hip hop, especially with the recent release of a downloadable new collaboration with Bjork called Niggas On The Moon, it might be a good time to also dig into the brand new Sub Pop debut from LA noise-hop trio Clipping. (and yeah, the period is part of the name). Their sound, like Death Grips, finds its roots in classic hip hop, but both diverge in interesting ways. In the case of Death Grips, it's a live drummer (Zach Hill from Hella), and some seriously bombastic noise, not to mention the confrontational flow of rapper Stefan Burnett. It's a sound we love for sure, but the sound of Clipping. we love even more. Imagine that instead of that drum driven noisiness, you replaced the music with super minimal abstract noise, the sort of stuff you might hear on an RRR comp, think Bastard Noise or Sissy Spacek making a hip hop record and you'd be close. Even more interesting though, is that the two guys responsible for the music in Clipping. are Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson, whom avid readers of the aQ list, and film nerds too, might know more from their stunning score to the Stanley Kubrick conspiracy documentary Room 237, the soundtrack which was released on Death Waltz. But this is no retro soundtrackery, this is twisted noisy weirdness, wild feedback drenched analog skree, squelch drenched gristle, hiss and hum and screech and howl and thrum and buzz, blasts of digital noise wound around low slung beats. Check out the intro, which features rapper Daveed Diggs, spitting rapid fire flow a cappella over an ear piercing sine wave tone, eventually delivering the closer "It's Clipping bitch", before launching into the record proper, which gets no less weird, and no less noisy. "body & Blood" rides a grinding industrial beat, with a creepy processed voice 'chorus', but then "Work Work" surprises (as does much of the record), with its almost dreamy looped glitchy gamelan, that transforms into some low slung low rider booming bass throb. And while at first blush, some of the lyrics sound typically hip hop sexist, dig deeper, and there's way more going on, which is again balanced when Cocc Pistol Cree delivers her bad ass verse. And there are other guests too, King T, Gangsta Boo, Guce and more, but it's the core three who have their sound down. King T's guest verse on "Summertime" is a crusher, especially when the background sound swells into a cloud of alien laser blasts, deep bass thrum, and woozy sonic squiggles. Then there's tracks like "Taking Off", which sounds like it was made from damaged cd's, all skipping rhythms, looped and layered into a weirdly lurching beat, the perfectly wasted stuttery backdrop for Diggs' rapid fire flow. Gangsta Boo delivers a killer verse as well, over a weird bed of creaks and gristly moans, again a weirdly perfect match for her toasting flow, not to mention the strangely Kanye-ish chorus croon, with a rumbling thick low end swell underneath, the sort of track that would be all over the radio, if there was any justice. And let's not forget the insanely infuriatingly brilliant "Get Up", where the music is essentially JUST the sound of an alarm clock, maddening for sure, but then so satisfying when they modulate the sound into a weirdly radio pop chorus. And so it goes, Digg's flow world class, the background sounds a continually shifting landscape of fractured loops, woozy synths, clanging pipe fight rhythms, digital glitchery, weird damaged turntable rewinds, and dizzying noise collages, so unlikely, but so impossibly catchy, the magic of Clipping. in that it can be so obtuse and difficult, but still so groovy, so hooky, so funky, and so goddamn, catchy, this is exactly the sort of shit we'd be blasting through our booming system, no doubt shattering glass and bursting eardrums as we passed. On both cd, and vinyl, both of which are slightly different (the aforementioned "Intro" is not included on the lp, but the version of "Body & Blood" is longer for example) but vinyl nerds are still in luck, cuz the lp comes in a super swank spot varnish printed triple gatefold, with an extra lp side, loaded with ONE HUNDRED locked grooves, noisy, distorted, blown out, abstract, dubby, clicky, funky, bloopy, bleepy and pretty much every variation in between. Both versions feature a bad ass blinded out Sub Pop logo too...

MPEG stream: Intro
MPEG stream: Body & Blood
MPEG stream: Work Work
MPEG stream: Summertime
MPEG stream: Taking Off
MPEG stream: Tonight

MPEG stream: Momma I'm So Sorry
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Not sure why we never listed the previous two Clipse records as they were definitely some of the best, most addictive and hard hitting hip-hop records to come out in the last decade. Combining the instantly gratifying production of modern day mainstream hip-hop while retaining an urgency and strength in vocal delivery that reminded us a lot of Rakim had his records been produced by The Neptunes. So we were way excited for 'Til The Casket Drops and while it's not terrible it just doesn't pack the same knockout punch that the previous records did. Somehow it feels a little more typical and mainstream, although there are for sure some totally fun and standout moments.

MPEG stream: Freedom
MPEG stream: Counseling

Definitely my favorite cLOUDEAD recording yet. The latest installment of limited 10"s finds them stretching out, mellowing out and getting all stoned/psychedelic/dreamy. Dark and loping with simple hiccupping beats and sinister samples and a gauzy ambience over the whole thing. Super melodic and minor key with lots of scratchy surface noise, background incidental noise and all sorts of mumbling and muttering. Much more song-y than other cLOUDEAD records, sounding almost moody indie rock-ish with the lyrics practically sung instead of rapped. Perfect four in the morning chill out weirdness. So good.

It's been quite a while, but the forefathers of this new fangled whiny white boy avant hip hop movement, Why? Oddnosdam and Doseone all finally reconvene and resurrect their slumbering supergroup cLOUDDEAD. Hot on the heels of a cover story in British magazine The Wire, comes Ten, a record the band claims may just be their last. A bold statement from a band/collective that seem to release a record every week or so... The strange thing about cLOUDDEAD, and Anticon in general, is that they showed up all fresh faced, white boys into hip hop struggling to be taken seriously in the hip hop world, but as they progress, and with each successive record, the hip hop element becomes less and less an integral part of their sound. Which is a little disappointing, since instead of taking hip hop and reinventing it as folks claim they are doing, they basically become more and more like a weird experimental electronic pop band that digs and borrows a little bit from hip hop. Which on second thought is perfectly fine. In fact, it makes it easier to just enjoy cLOUDDEAD as a great band without all the "are they hip hop? are they not hip hop?" bullshit debates. So what does this record sound like, you ask? Well, the first track is definitely classic cLOUDDEAD, throbbing calliopes pulse over a shuffling hip hop beat with loopy stream of conciousness lyrics delivered in whiny falsettos. But after that the hip hop element is subsumed by grand Sgt. Peppery pop, glitchy ambient electronica, and skittery, electro pop with dreamy harmonies and warm ambient hum. The sound overall is closer to stuff like the Notwist or the Postal Service and all that poppy electronica, albeit with some of Doseone's bizarre nasal rapping tossed in here and there. This is just a really amazing and amazingly produced multi-layered pop record! So don't dive into this expecting to jam this in your boomin' system, but definitely dive in.

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MPEG stream: The Keen Teen Skip
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Hip hop's great white hope is not Eminem, no matter what MTV tells you, it's cLOUDDEAD and the East Bay's Anticon collective which he proudly represents, and that has already produced avant-hip-hop masterpieces from Boom Bip and Dose One and Them. This cd collects the 6 super limited cLOUDDEAD 10"s, (some of which we still have in stock) and much like the Them record, this is

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[ aquarius records — Hiphop ]