[ 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 301 through 350 of 1265.

What needs to be said about the 'Em. You all know him. You all already either love him or hate him. I happen to really like a lot of Eminem songs. And this new record is pretty darn good. Some catchy songs, some wickedly funny lyrics. The real weak point is when Em gets all sensitive and trys to SING. Ugh. Badbadbadbad. And the wicked Dre production that was all over the Marshall Mathers lp isn't quite as prevalent this time around which is too bad. But overall, a big fun, catchy dumb record. Limited edition comes with a bonus disc DVD!

Dr. Dre's newest protegé and great white hope. Literally. Ultra silly and nasty and confrontational, perhaps to kill the inevitable Vanilla Ice comparisons before they start. Too late. Catchy and juvenile and way offensive. Guess that's the point.

This is the inevitable 'greatest hits' collection from the undisputed masters of hyper-technical, super proggy, grim and frosty Norwegian black metal EMPEROR!! Disc one is heavy on the covers as almost half is culled from tributes to Darkthrone, Mercyful Fate, Mayhem, etc... and is filled out with EP tracks and a few tracks from the amazing Thorns Vs. Emperor album. Disc two is all album tracks spanning their whole career. There's nothing here unreleased. About as "rare" as it gets is an Ulver remix that was a bonus track from the limited version of IX Equilibrium. So consequently, there's not much essential here for those of you who have been loyal subjects from day one, but definitely a great introduction for the uninitiated. Random note: The disc comes with the official Emperor merchandise catalog and holy shit! No less than 8 cds, 1 DVD, 7 posters, 20 shirts, 12 badges, 2 knit caps, 2 baseball hats, 1 jacket, 1 patch, 1 mouse pad and 1 silver pendant!! Phew. MPEG Download: "Curse You All Men!" [/audio/emperorcurse.mp3] MPEG Stream: "Curse You All Men!" [/audio/emperorcurse.m3u]

MPEG stream: Curse You All Men!
MPEG stream: Sworn (Ulver remix)

Not to sound all old and grumpy, but they really don't make perfect hip-hop albums like they used to. Yeah, there is still some great hip-hop going on but so much of it seems to be 'single' based and not so much about a tight coherent album from start to finish. But man there was a golden era of hip-hop glory when groups like Public Enemy, Eric B & Rakim, The Beastie Boys, and Boogie Down Productions were making such fucking amazing jams, the sort of records you could listen to from start to finish over and over again. One of the most madly respected groups from that era is EPMD. We couldn't be more stoked that this Long Island duo's classic 1988 album Strictly Business has been reissued. It really is one of the best hip-hop albums of all time. There is something so immediately unique and recognizable about Eric Sermon and Parrish Smith's laid back yet totally intelligent, playful and infectious rapping skills and their use of such awesome samples and beats. One of the things that made this era of hip-hop so damn great was that the source material that they were sampling, chopping and making beats from was drawn from so many of the amazing warm soul records from the '60s & '70s. Zapp, Kool & The Gang, James Brown, George Clinton, they knew how to take from those greats and make something totally brand new which was the bread and butter of the EPMD sound. What also makes Strictly Business such an all-time classic and different from so many of today's hip-hop albums is that there is absolutely NO FILLER. No stupid skits, no throw away tracks, every single one of the 10 songs totally kills and never overstays its welcome. It was so awesome when this reissue came into the store and just about everyone working here freaked out and we must have played it like ten times in just the first couple days, never realizing before we all shared such a feverish love for EPMD. While it's a bit annoying that this remastered reissue has a big 'Snoop Dogg Approved' banner on the cover, his name bigger than anything else, we guess we don't mind too much if his endorsement helps a whole new generation get into the greatness of EPMD.

MPEG stream: Strictly Business
MPEG stream: You Gots To Chill
MPEG stream: It's My Thing

**SALE **SALE* *SALE** Upon their release, Paid In Full (1987) and Follow The Leader (1988) were instant classics. Pioneering the recipe of simple beats, perfect samples (including a first use of James Brown) and powerful bad-ass rhyming with super smooth flow, EB&R led hip-hop into new territory and have since not quite been matched in their effortless style and effectiveness. If you've lost your cassette tape versions of these classic albums and didn't go for any earlier overly expensive reissues, here's your chance to get 'em pretty true to the original album with only a few new remixes.

MPEG stream: Follow The Leader
MPEG stream: Never Scared

MPEG stream: I Ain't No Joke
MPEG stream: Paid In Full

An essential classic!!

How many other groups can you think of that have been equally embraced by the house, the hip hop, and the punk scenes? There ain't no one but ESG. The four black Scroggins sisters from the South Bronx formed their band in the late '70s (mom bought 'em intruments to keep them off the streets). They released their first single on Factory in the UK, and on 99 Records (No-Wave home of Liquid Liquid, Glenn Branca, etc) in the US. So not only did they play with groups such as The Clash and Gang of Four, but their single "Moody" was a bona fide disco hit, and the B-side of that single "UFO" has become one of the most recognizable, most sampled parts in the history of hip hop. Everyone from LL Cool J to 3rd Bass to Marley Marl to Big Daddy Kane has sampled ESG, you will be AMAZED when you listen to these original tracks. Super stripped-down, raw percussive tracks with enough groove to make a girl forget she's not swimming in jewels. Three full lengths and a couple of singles later, ESG (Emerald Sapphire and Gold) gets the best-of treatment in this excellent compilation of the group's best tracks (including Windy's personal favorite "Erase You": "Well I got news for you boys / I'm gonna erase you / just like a drawing / Erase you / flush you like my toilet / Pump it up girls!"

RealAudio clip: Erase You

Little did ESG know, 20 years ago, when they first hit New Yorkers with their dub influenced, soul fired, minimalist funk, proto-hip-hop sound that they would impact future generations of post-punk dance minded music makers all over the globe. From Le Tigre to Tussle, M.I.A. to LCD Soundsystem, Erase Errata to Peaches, the influence of the Scroggin sisters has been felt in a HUGE way. In 2000 the world finally got to hear their prescient sound when Soul Jazz released A South Bronx Story, a killer collection of their, until that point, quite obscure recordings. Which in case you missed school that day, is absolutely an essential record for any music lover. What's so great and unique about ESG is their ability to cross, blur and erase genre lines. Sounding more minimal n' stripped down than ever, ESG show that subtlety can be the greatest weapon when you want folks to keep moving. We like their new moves and as always AQ loves our ESG!

MPEG stream: Keep On Moving
MPEG stream: Purely Physical

Slightly underwhelming reunion disc from the Scroggins sisters of ESG, whose best-of compilation A South Bronx Story, containing all their classic trax, is still the best way to get into this band. Step Off at first left me bored and wistful for the old days, but after a few more listens on the headphones, the more the new record makes sense. In other words, don't look for this record to completely funkify your life; that's not what ESG are about. And yes, the new songs are slower and sometimes even, well, less kickassedly raw than their groundbreaking older material, but ESG is still the best at leaving OUT elements of dance music that lesser, more self-indulgent musicmakers always always always overdo. For example, this album's got a track that's only Renee singing and a bass hook. Oh there's a beat all right, but they don't make a sound: you're hearing it *in your head*, and it sounds better than they coulda played it. Every song on this record is a marvel of restraint. (Which, come to think of it, invites remixing -- let's hope they pick decent remixers). Recommended, but only if you already have A South Bronx Story.

RealAudio clip: Six Pack
RealAudio clip: My Street
RealAudio clip: It's Not Me

More slick and super produced kick ass radio ready hip hop from Eve (who along with DMX, Drag-on, The Lox and a few others, make up the Ruff Ryders). We're beginning to wonder why everyone is so into Lil' Kim and Foxy Brown when Eve is poised to knock them

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

SORRY.

MPEG stream: Return Of The Hustle
MPEG stream: Baby Don't Go

Fabolous follows in the footseps of Nelly, taking the big New York gangster commercial sound and flavoring it with a bit of the dirty south and striking gold. You can hear a bit of Jay-Z, Puffy and the like, but Fabolous just has that special something that

RealAudio clip: Can't Deny It

OK, so on that list we all make, of things we plan on doing but in all reality will probably never do, a seriously long list for most of us, and that for me (Andee) includes among other things, writing a novel, scuba diving and discovering a wrecked pirate ship, and doing the Death Valley ultramarathon, was to make a record, or even just a song, all DJ Shadow-style. Using my love and knowledge of weird music to craft a DJ-scape of unfathomable coolness and originality. All sorts of black metal, and weird seventies rock and anything else I could think of. One track I already had sort of outlined, at least in my head, was using a loop from Supertramp's "Crime Of The Century". I even have a scrathed up vinyl copy set aside to sample the appropriately dustry crackly loop. It would have been awesome. WOULD HAVE BEEN. If Fabolous hadn't beaten me to the punch. Grrr. But at least I know I was onto something, because it does sound just as great as I imagined it. And Fabolous' mush mouthed cough syrup flow on top just seals the deal. And that's only one track. The rest of the record is pretty wicked too, all simple and low slung, with big ol' booming beats that'll make your rims spin and all the neighborhood car alarms sing along.

MPEG stream: Breathe

MPEG stream: Hit It
MPEG stream: Pop That Thing
MPEG stream: Hey Mami - Sharaz Mix

Some seriously sassy summer party jams go bananas in a smothering of cotton-candy & Miami-bass. A bit of a turn away from the electro-clash scene, FP get more all about hiphop on See You Next Tuesday, their follow-up to the Camel-Toe brining debut. This is a super fun album. Are you ready for it? For fans of M.I.A., Peaches, Missy Elliot and crazed boardwalkian beach parties.

MPEG stream: Seven One Eight
MPEG stream: Feet & Hands

It's been a boom in outsider music these last few weeks at AQ, first it was the random rediscovery of Doug Hream Blunt's Gentle Persuasion, a fantastic and fantastically strange disc of breezy lo-fi outsider funk, that was dropped off by the man himself and required quite a bit of reconnoitering to track him down to get more (a continuing saga). And now there's this. A mysterious disc by a one man band known simply as Fastest, a cd-r that just showed up here one day, and none of us can remember how or when. In the mail? Dropped off? Spontaneous generation? It was just here one day, and we were mesmerized from the second we laid eyes on it. The cover is a huge blue owl against a blue background. The band name Fastest is written in big green letters, in a sort of cartoonish metal font, and superimposed right on the cover is a big barcode. The whole thing printed out on a home laser printer. The tray card folds all the way up around the side so there's an extra panel visible through the clear tray that boldly proclaims: "digital audio compact disc - state of the art phonorecord." The tray card features the ASCAP logo (ASCAP is the company that determines musician royalties) no less than three times, the logo is superimposed again on the back in a little white square, and at the top, blue text explains that the record was "Produced by Daemaeen Hephaestus Chastical". We were almost afraid to throw it on, because we were convinced that there was no way the music could live up to the cryptic promise of the packaging. We were wrong. The title track starts things off, and immediately you know this is like nothing you've ever heard... a flurry of lo-fi distorted programmed beats, that sound like they could have been lifted straight off that Vijaya Anand Dance Raja Dance Bollywood compilation on Luaka Bop from years back, but any resemblance to Bollywood ends there, as some strange atonal midi synth guitars swoop in, along with some woozy warbly bass, the strangely syncopated programmed beats sputtering wildly in the background, the song slipping into a moody drift, the vocals a strange ominously hushed whisper, that even remind us a bit of the slowed down mush mouthed rapping of Sensational, eventually there's a sort of chorus, the midi guitars buzzing, while a strange synth unfurls a twisted melody, and then there's the most brilliantly baffling break, a stop/start flurry of stuttering beats, and some more warped woozy melodies, eventually joined by a sort of midi guitar least, atonal and detuned, the whole thing sounding like it's melting before your ears, before finally returning to the 'chorus'. Holy shit. What just happened? What is this? How had we not heard this before? Very reminiscent in fact of those absurd midi guitar releases we raved about on lists past, all of them work of a single man, released under different names: Shevelreq, Xynfonica, Gluttony, Thursar. If you were as into those as we were, stop reading and buy this now. Everyone else, read on, and sink deeper into the glorious musical madness that is Fastest... The first song is so perfect, and perfectly demented, we dared not go on. We just kept listening to that one song over and over and over. Heck we wanted it to be OUR theme song. But eventually we knew we had to go on, and somehow, Fastest managed to confuse us again. And again. After some simulated jet engine sounds, "Jet Sound II" begins, but it's super melodic and all 8 bit sounding, and reminds us of music from The Legend Of Zelda, but those vocals, dark and ominous, weirdly offset the cheerful melodies and loping programmed rhythms. "Televise" begins with sample bells, and immediately returns us to The Legend Of Zelda, until the vocals come in, locked in tight with the main melody, making for some strange electronic lo-fi midi-pop mystery. "While You're Here" might be our other favorite (if we were forced to pick), with it's haunting melody, over minor key distorted finger picked guitar, tinkling chimes, very cinematic, again like some dramatic moment in a video game, but definitely dark and haunting, but of course, the song slips right back into some Zelda-y minimal 8 bit balladry, replete with those slightly ominous gruff vocals. "Million Lies" begins with some dramatic syncopated start/stop dynamics, before slipping into some pulsing electronic groove, but this time, the vocals are super distorted, and even more creepy, and the drums erupt into little flurries of rhythmic tangle. And so it goes, the sound drifting from Bollywood flecked 8 bit video game soundtrack songsmithery, to eighties style midi driven synthwave, and some hard to describe stops in between, culminating in the final three tracks, maybe the darkest and heaviest of the bunch. "Seasons Change" is all distorted bass, stereo panned so the buzz flits from ear to ear, the drums spastic and skittery, the vocals as grim and ominous as at any point, the melodies creepy and minor key, which leads right into "Alter Fate" all swirling synths and stuttery almost IDM sounding beats, the whole thing blurry and smeary, before slipping back into the dirgey synthy creep of the previous track, a sort of second movement, laced with more strange disembodied high end melodies over the tumbling drum fills and more gruff whispery vox, finally culminating in "The Wind", which begins with appropriately enough, swirling wind, distorted acoustic guitar, a gauzy patina of lo-fi buzz, before finally launching into a tense stretch of buzzing swirling electronic weirdness, the various chunks of low end fuzz and warped melodies, adding some serious pathos, growing ever more distorted and finally finishing in a blaze of super distorted programmed beats, chaotic and noisy and psychedelic, before winding down with more acoustic guitar. Absolutely baffling and disturbing brilliantly, total genius outsider mystery music, this is the sort of thing groups like Gary War and Ariel Pink are striving for, but just can't ever quite reach. Fantastically idiosyncratic, highly personal, and completely warped and cracked and demented and literally unlike anything you've heard. It's not hard to imagine this finding its way onto one of those incredible strange music comps or one of those Songs In The Key Of Z collection, it's certainly divisive, it's definitely too much for some folks, so be warned, this is strange strange stuff. But folks around here have become a bit obsessed, and can't seem to get enough. Which is good, cuz there are at least THREE other cd-r's. If you decide you need those too, just ask...

MPEG stream: Theme
MPEG stream: Televise
MPEG stream: Million Lies
MPEG stream: Seasons Change

You need this record just for the single 'We Thuggin', maybe one of the best singles of the year, a wickedly catchy track of bouncing, party gangsta hip hop, with an insanely catchy R. Kelly chorus (and lucky you, there are two versions; the remix

RealAudio clip: We Thuggin'
RealAudio clip: We Thuggin Remix
RealAudio clip: King Of New York

The second self-released cd-r from these two turntablists, both of whom have had releases on the reknowned Bomb Records label. This time just a 25 minute excursion, but still with lots of fun party beats and clever turntablist action. Very limited.

A self-released cd-r from these two turntablists, both of whom have had releases on the reknowned Bomb Records label. Starts out with a lot of club friendly hip hop hooks and big booty rhythms, before turning more toward "Urban Revolution" style funky

Ok, just in case introductions are in order: Faust is the classic Krautrock band from the '70s who resurrected themselves in the '90s, demonstrating that they still knew a thing or two about making weird and avant-garde psychedelic rock music. Dalek, meanwhile, is a genre defying, indie-rock-scene-crashing rapper from New York whose album on Ipecac two years back was a big hit 'round these parts and elsewhere. The Dalek / Faust connection first became public when a Dalek cut was included on Faust's Klangbad: First Steps compilation. We then heard rumors that the two were gonna do something together...at last, here is the fruit of that unholy union! Krautrock and rap, that's a first I guess. (Krautrap? ugh.) But it makes sense in light of Dalek's allegiance to dub and electronica and Faust's interest in the same... So, how did this collab turn out? Sounds more like a Dalek record than a Faust one overall. Dark, scary soundscapes stretch out over the first track -- percussive miasma, with somewhere in there latter-day Faust guitarist Stephen Wray Lobdell (Davis Redford Triad) generating clouds of blue-black -- before Dalek starts dropping rhymes on track two, "Hungry For Now". Beats ricochet dangerously as Dalek does the urban griot routine over the grinding of the Faust factory. It's kinda in the same illbient, claustrophobic dub-sphere as Spectre and the WordSound crew, or Techno-Animal, with whom Dalek previously has worked. Faust are certainly capable of generating some heavy duty darkness -- as they have gotten older, they seem to have delved more into the Industrial-Ambient sounds their old albums perhaps presaged. You'll find no references to the surreal pop element of Faust's '70s sound here, just some hardcore hip hop in a nightmare void.

MPEG stream: Hungry For Now
MPEG stream: Dead Lies

"The DJ from Hell." Dramatic turntablism, very cool.

Local DJ / turntablist / sonic collagist / audio alchemist DJ Female Convict Scorpion (aka Josh Pollock of aQ beloved local psychedelic space rockers 3 Leafs) returns with another twisted slab of mutant fuzz funk, outsider psychedelia, tripped out cosmic prog, and whatever else he has in his record bag, but as always employed in such a way that the original track blur into one twisted single sonic miasma, from which Pollock pulls some seriously twisted musical madness. This time, the framework is Bill Cosby's iconic Talks To Kids About Drugs record, with DJ Female Convict Scorpion, actually showing the kids what being on drugs sounds like, and even to those of us here who don't partake, it sounds pretty goddamn god. Warped and wild, a super psychedelic dance party that sounds a bit like a more lo-fi Andy Votel, with much of this sounding like it could be some obscure Finders Keepers mix/comp. The opener begins with Cosby explaining the purpose of the record, to talk to kids about drugs, and then DJFCS takes over, with a blast of grinding distorted psychedelic skree, bellowed slowed down monster vox, wild tangles of psych guitar freakout, before settling into a serious groove, wreathed in sci-fi FX squiggles, and woozy sonic swells, a swirl of Jeck-like turntable manipulations, some funky wah guitar, deep ominous drones, fluttering flutes, fragments of sixties pop songs, vocal harmonies surfacing then fading away, seriously trippy for sure. And the rest of the record follows suit, with each track incorporating the original, whether as an intro, or slowing it down, so those wise words of wisdom, become a scary demonic invocation, and what follows, is all over the map, one track slips into a sprawl of record crackle and distant shimmer, over which is laid some seventies acid folk vocals, hand claps, and strange alien sound effects, the result is a stunning stretch of alien seventies freak folk (listen close and you'll even hear the Star Trek warning klaxon!), another starts off slow and contemplative, before exploding into some seriously heavy psych rock crunch, made even more freaky when the track begins to skip and locks into a woozy loop, over which DJFCS adds all sorts of warped sound effects, bleating trumpets, the looped bassline transformed into a throbbing droned out thrum, and yet another dissolves into a cloud of swirling druggy murk, before an old spiritual surfaces through the swirl, again the juxtaposition so deftly engineered, that the resulting combination is strangely moving and haunting. And there's so so much more. Like all DJ Female Convict Scorpion mixes, there's much to discover, sonic subtleties that only surface on repeated listens, and even music nerds like us find ourselves constantly trumped by the sources, crazy obscure, we're barely able to pick out any of them, which has a lot to do of course with DJFCS's mastery of weaving all of these disparate sounds and sonic fragments into one, dizzying, seriously psychedelic whole!

MPEG stream: Downers & Uppers
MPEG stream: Questions And Answers
MPEG stream: Bill Talks About Hard Drugs
MPEG stream: Captain Junkie

Mix number two from mysterious local turntablist and DJ, the brilliantly monickered DJ Female Convict Scorpion, whose mixes are less DJ mash-ups and more haunting artistic assemblages, incorporating free jazz, fuzzy funk, found sounds, bits of dialogue, sampled instruments, stripped down beats, pretty much no genre is off limits, but those genres are basically meaningless once everything is mixed together. From the opening track, with its ominous chiming bells beneath Tom Waits' gravelly voice spinning a yarn, the mix slips smoothly, into a deep laid back minimal grooves, surrounded by swirling sheets of soft focus effects, before the mix shifts, and wailing female vox are draped over a thumping beat, a sea of record crackle, bits of hum and distant whir, Shadow wouldn't be all that far off as a reference, but imagine if Shadow was raised on prog and punk rock and art films and free jazz, then how would a mix of his sound? A bit like this perhaps. The tracks veer wildly from super rhythmic workouts, to drifting minimal soundscapes, strange electronics drift in and out, mournful horns, spidery guitars, strings are bowed and plucked, deep rumbles surface from below, tribal drumming is laid beneath tangled world music voices, creating gorgeous and unintended harmonies, dense clouds of blooping bleeping effects over skittery free jazz skronk, dark reverbed noir-ish guitars shimmering beneath subtle percussion, breathless vocalizing and steel string scrape, deep ritualistic chanting drifting over the sound of sirens, funky drumming and subtle barely there dronemusic in the distance, Really good stuff. Made even better by the fact that we weren't able to identify a single source for any of the sounds within!! Beautiful packaging. Full color printing on thick matte paper, super haunting and tripped out imagery, pressed on black cd-r's each with an actual postage from some other country affixed to the face.

MPEG stream: Dum Sechs Unt Glum eine Rum
MPEG stream: Floorshow At The Top OF The World
MPEG stream: The Peaches 'n' Herb Of Freak Folk

The latest tripped out DJ mix from DJ Female Convict Scorpion aka Josh Pollack from local psychedelic space rockers 3 Leafs, and like the three before it, on Wizards (named for the genius Ralph Bakshi movie, and featuring a drawing of the movie poster done by a young Josh way back when), Pollack once again displays not just a knack for digging up insanely obscure jams, but for weaving disparate sounds together into utterly unrecognizable but totally mesmerizing sonic tableaus. Just check out the opener, "5 Terrorists", which drapes some strange buzzing percussive Asian stringed instrument, some fluttering flute, and some echo drenched vocals, over some spaced out progged out jamming, pretty impossible to tell which parts Pollack mixed, and how much of the song was already the song, which again is the magic of these DJFCS mixes, and when that first track gradually switches gears, and disappears in a field of ominous buzz, and seems to transform into a drum heavy krautprog groove, it KILLS. And so it goes, low slung slithery funk, strange movie samples, spaced out psychedelia, stuttery old school hip hop, DJ Shadow like moodiness, primitive (but effective turntable manipulation, again hard to say which is part of the music and which is Pollack), strange crooning, weird psych folk, draped over thick sinister chordal swell, shimmery dreamlike ambience drifting into fierce driving fuzzfunk, all manner of backward swoops and swirls, moaning strings, disembodied voices, glistening strings, some of the combinations more moving and intense than the originals, lots of a capellas wedded to unlikely instrumental accompaniment, everything wreathed in echo and reverb and loads of warm record crackle, and just some downright bad ass jams and grooves, not to mention the easy listening Sabbath that finishes things off. Essential listening. And most definitely the DJ you want at your wedding, assuming your goal is to alienate or downright freak out 90 percent of the guests. But that other ten percent, including us (we're invited, right?), will be in whatthefuck weirdo music HEAVEN!

MPEG stream: 5 Terrorists
MPEG stream: Righteousness Prevails (White Sabbath)
MPEG stream: You Know Nothing, In Fact You Know Less Than Nothing
MPEG stream: Necron 99

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

SORRY. Andee's favourite hip hop record of 1998, which originally came out on Alec Empire's Digital Hardcore label in Germany, has been released here in the States at domestic prices! After a year of disappointment from big name hip hoppers (RZA, Method Man), DHR surprises us all with what may be the weirdest and best hip hop record of the year. Deep, dark, and disturbingly distorted. Murky, monotone, and menacing. Sort of like Sensational and Alec Empire having a fist fight in a dark alley!

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

SORRY.

If only Flav woulda put out a solo record back in, say, '91 or so... before he did that Surreal Life show.

Fierce girls from an after school program in New York bustin rhymes with the boys from Excepter adding weird beats.

We fell so hard for the latest Flying Lotus release, Los Angeles, that we knew we had to go back and give the proper attention to his debut. We'd heard bits and pieces of it before but never really got to spend any quality time with. Until now. Proving that his latest great record was not just some fluke, 1983 offers up for display lots of the roots and promise that would blossom into the powerful cosmic instrumental hip-hop/electronica that made the latest Flying Lotus release one of our favorites of the year. This disc, from a few years back, barely pales in comparison. While not quite as explosive and engaging as FL's newest record, it's still a skillfully crafted and delightful to listen to chunk of crunchy yet smooth flowing beats and melodies with equal nods to downtempo, hiphop, and electronica. Definitely the kind of record that should appeal to anyone into Madlib, Boards Of Canada, Prefuse 73 or even prime era Morr Music outings. Glad we took a moment to look back, as this is proving to be a record that deserves a home here at AQ and we hope on your shelves as well!

MPEG stream: 1983
MPEG stream: Orbit Brazil
RealAudio clip: Unexpected Delight (Feat. Laura Darlington)

There is no doubt that this record is going to find itself near the top of many of our year end favorite lists. This is one of those rare records that on first listen you are grabbed by its immediacy & intensity and with each repeated listen you melt deeper into its richness. While just in his early 20's Steven Ellison (aka Flying Lotus) has crafted a record wise beyond his years. There is a fluidity and transcendence on Los Angeles that defies categorization. Call it instrumental hip-hop if you want, but these are songs that would sound right at home next to spiritual Afro-jazz, psychedelic soul and even dubstep. Taking inspiration from the late great J Dilla, Flying Lotus understands how to extract such punch and soul from all the sounds he takes and creates. Flying Lotus has a wide world vision that's as informed by Eastern grooves and psychedelia as it is hip-hop, electronica, video games and cartoon culture (he used to make music for Adult Swim). This is stirring many of the same emotions and excitement as when Four Tet released the Rounds record and in many ways it brings to the next level what so much of Prefuse 73 tries to do. It actually didn't surprise us that much to find out that Ellison is the great nephew of Alice Coltrane as you can hear the amazing legacy of her spiritual and universal consciousness in the sounds that Flying Lotus create. In fact there are a few upfront Coltrane moments on the record including "Aunti's Harp" which is an all too short but beautiful majestic minute of Alice on the harp. Flying Lotus has found a spot next to Madlib as a much needed ambassador of someone taking hip-hop as a launching pad orbiting to such pleasing outer dimensions. In fact , some of us couldn't help but daydream about a Flying Lotus/Erykah Badu collaboration as they both are so tapped into a magical and exciting landscape of hip-hop & soul that soars in spiritual and psychedelic horizons. Filled with undeniable passion and of course highly recommended!

MPEG stream: Camel
MPEG stream: Riot
MPEG stream: Golden Diva

This record is so wackadoo, and we mean that in the best possible way! Flying Lotus records have always been more about the whole than their individual parts, often built around a large abstract metaphysical concept, where multiple ideas and spaces can congeal and separate. This time around, that concept is revealed in the title, and this album is a journey of short vignettes where like the process of death, there is a hectic loss of control, regrets and fears bubble to the surface, and then there is the quieting and majestic expanse, and sometimes this happens all in one track. When we first put this on, some of us were like, 'What in Jaco Pastorius hell is this?' The sound of prog jazz fusion may not be everyone's cup of tea - regular Flying Lotus collaborator, Thundercat, who makes his own George Duke inspired soul jams, provides the fret-hopping bass and Herbie Hancock (!!) is on the Fender Rhodes! But, those fusion sounds are tempered by some of the most sublimely beautiful ambient passages. What keeps this from being overtly indulgent are the short track times (mostly every track is under 3 minutes) and the genre-jumps from instrumental hip-hop to jazz prog, from cosmic ambiance to mind-rattling raps provided by Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dog, and Flying Lotus alter-ego, Captain Murphy - who has a vocal affectation of stuffed-up worry that could easily be a voice from one of the Fat Albert kids. You're Dead may be the aural equivalent of the film Enter The Void, but with a sharper focus and an incredible all-encompassing flow that really feels like we have been through a life-altering event. Nothing else out there sounds like this, a black prog beauty!

MPEG stream: Turkey Dog Coma
MPEG stream: Corunus, The Terminator
MPEG stream: Descent Into Madness
MPEG stream: The Boys That Died in Their Sleep
MPEG stream: The Protest

A nice 12" from Fog, the one man band from Minneapolis that sits expertly astride the line separating "rock" from "electronica". Gorgeous strummed guitar gives Check Fraud its texture, while numerous sonic interruptions, vocal snippets, and bloopy bleeps enhance it. Kid Koala provides a stunning remix of the piece, slowing it down and making the melody even more pretty and sweet. Very nice. Good for DJs. I'm going to spin this for sure.

Way back in the beginning of 2001, we came across the selftitled debut from Fog, a one man band out of Minneapolis, and Windy took a real liking to it, thinkin' it one of the best-executed examples of rock-meets-scratching (and we all know how often that combo

RealAudio clip: Pneumonia

In early 2001 Windy got really into the original release of the Fog record, which I guess we and a few stores in Minneapolis carried, and that's it. Well, the fine and talented folk at Ninjatune signed Fog, and here's a re-release of the album, plus three Fog is a one-man project out of Minneapolis that takes you on a journey through said guy's twisted brain. As evidenced by the preponderance of mournful, epic guitarwork on the record, Andrew Broder's background is certainly with guitar-based rock music, but hey it's the new millenium now and samplers have changed everything. Thus the record begins with a spoken piece by hip hop emcee MF Doom, followed by a lengthy tornado of manic samples and swirling percussion. The tension's got you half expecting the breakbeats to kick in at that point (yeah, that's how much this record's first few minutes sound like a DJ Shadow or other Mo'Wax record), but instead you get Beck-like stuttering beats and languid, albeit heavily processed, vocals. In fact this reminds us a lot of Beck (who in fact came in a few weeks ago with Dan the Automator and they both bought the Fog 12"). A bevy of swiped genres battle one another throughout the record, turntablist scratching overtakes doom-laden moans, Broder indulges his inner DJ's penchant for using sampled vocal snippets to carry on an album-length narrative, and it all finally culminates in a nine minute impassioned aching guitarsong at the end that reminds us of Joel Phelps or Rex. Eclectic indeed! In a good way. It's not perfect, but we still recommend it. BTW, this The Fog is no relation to J. Mascis' similarly named band.

RealAudio clip: Glory (w/Dose)
RealAudio clip: The Smell of Failure
RealAudio clip: Hitting a Wall Blues
RealAudio clip: The Truth in the Laughing Gas

Subtitled: "beats to rock while bike-stealin'." ...Hey don't steal my bike!

Yeah, Foxy Brown's a tough Brooklyn rapper, she makes sure we realize that. Unfortunately her new album is tedious and uninteresting with hardly any uplifting beauty to redeem it, except perhaps for a couple numbers where she finally sounds like she's having fun, especially the weirdly bouncy, weirdly great song "730."

RealAudio clip: 730

Brand new album from Michael Franti -- ex-Beat Nigs, ex-Disposable Heroes of the Hiphoprisy -- and Spearhead.

Freestyle Fellowship's legendary status was carved out in the early and mid-nineties when the Southern California outfit made such amazing records as Innercity Griots and To Whom It May Concern. Then they broke up. Then they got back together and recorded these Anyway, this is prime Fellowship territory, with simple chopped up melodies and spare beats backing up the unbelievably deft rhyming of Aceyalone, Jupiter, Mikah 9, and Peace. Very good, much better than most of the hip hop coming out these days, including the underground stuff.

RealAudio clip: Can You Find...
RealAudio clip: Freestyle Acapella

LA-based Project Blowed Recordings releases the newest Freestyle Fellowship record, you know, with Aceyalone, one of the greatest rappers ever, his style is so distinctive and amazingly deft. "Exercise your inner thighs!"

[ aquarius records — Hiphop ]