[ aquarius records

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The Dodos continue to remain one of the most immediate and satisfying voices to rise above the crowded indie rock scene. With each subsequent record they've built on what came before, pushing it a little further every time, their sound becoming more fleshed out and fully realized, and the songs just getting better and better. With their last outing, Time To Die, Dodos showed they could make a record that kept their frenetic energy but also really raised the bar on their songwriting capacity. On No Color, they've made an album that so perfectly melds their unique ability to sound so urgent while also being rife with such lush melodic layers, unique time changes, incredible guitar shredding, and powerful percussion, all of which really makes their songs sound like sonic marching orders to get through the mundane of the every day. There is an epic nature to these tracks, as Dodos have the rare ability to make a four minute song sound so big and wide in scope, yet still remain grounded by an intimacy that shines through it all. It doesn't hurt that their pal Neko Case joined them on many of these songs. Alongside Pinback, they stand as one of the most substantial and engaging indie rock bands around!

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Long gone are the days when Meric Long's sweet vocals and talented songwriting skills were just our little secret. After carrying his debut self released cd-r from a few years back, Meric has merged his forces into creating one of the most refreshing and rewarding bands in the modern indie-pop landscape. The Dodos have proven to be a force to be reckoned with, their record from last year, Visiter, launched them into the stratosphere and rewarded them with a whole new and very large fan base. Which was well deserved considering that Visiter was most definitely the sound of a band finding their sound, everything falling into place perfectly, passion, hooks and creative instrumentation. Time To Die finds the band sounding even more assured with a refined sound that is pretty darn irresistible. Like a more effervescent Built To Spill, The Dodos create songs that have maximum mix-tape potency, every song here a gem, really not a wasted moment or a throwaway track anywhere to be found. While not many of today's indie rock bands really do it for us, The Dodos are a shining exception!

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Now On Vinyl! Meric Long, the man behind The Dodos, was calling his band The Dodo Bird for a spell, which just so happened to be the title of his debut cd-r release which we carried earlier this year (which was billed as a Meric Long album). Now they go by the abbreviated The Dodos. Confused? Well, all you need to remember is that Meric Long along with percussionist Logan Kroeber are The Dodos. Their engaging music makes keeping them in mind and heart as easy as pie! As far as we can tell unlike their namesake they are neither feathered and flightless nor extinct. In fact, from the sounds of this, their first full length cd, these Dodos are flourishing, blossoming, ready to take flight. With his contemplative lyrics, terrific songwriting and rich arrangements of vocals, acoustic guitar, piano, percussion and... trombone(!), Long more than makes good on the impressive promise he showed on his debut. Throughout the proceedings he exudes a warm charm and confidence and an occasional willingness to gently nudge the boundaries of the acoustic folk singer/songwriter terrain. Jeff Mangum and John Darnielle, set a place at the table for The Dodos!

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It's really exciting to be digging a band just as they are hitting their special 'moment in time.' Such is the case with San Francisco's The Dodos. We've been championing the work of Meric Long for the last couple years with his self-released records, released under his given name, also as The Dodo Birds and finally as The Dodos. With Visiter, The Dodos are no longer our little secret, as the rest of the world has finally taken notice of Meric and Logan Kroeber and their fantastic debut for French Kiss. We love when every once in a while a band who truly deserves the hype and press, actually gets it. From the opening seconds of this record you can hear and feel that this is a record that they poured all of themselves into. Their is an immediacy and urgency in Visiter that draws you right in and makes you want to listen again and again. The instrumentation is so well thought out and the recording keeps things punchy and tight but never too glossy or slick. We hear the influence of recent Animal Collective, the rich back catalog of the Elephant Six collective, Polvo, the more rocking elements of Vetiver and we also are reminded a lot of a way underrated band from Boston from the late '90s / early '00s called The Wicked Farleys (yes bad name but they were so rad!) What really sets The Dodos apart from the indie rock herd is what a great vocalist Meric Long is, he has a truly beautiful voice that he isn't afraid to actually USE, but is also never too precious with, even occasionally letting out some exhilarating screams as well. And while other bands who have a great vocalist usually lack, and tend to bore with their instrumentation, The Dodos truly have the entire package. Musically they are so charged and varied, creating sounds that get you to stand tall at attention as they make your heart beat a bit faster and give you goosebumps. Whew. Highly recommended!

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Meric Long, the man behind Dodo Bird, is now calling his band Dodo Bird, which just so happened to be the title of his debut cd-r release which we carried earlier this year (which was billed as a Meric Long album). Confused? Just get this, that Meric Long along with percussionist Logan Kroeber are now Dodo Bird, but as far as we can tell unlike their namesake they are neither feathered and flightless nor extinct. In fact, from the sounds of this, their first full length cd, this Dodo Bird is flourishing, blossoming, ready to take flight. With his contemplative lyrics, terrific songwriting and rich arrangements of vocals, acoustic guitar, piano, percussion and... trombone(!), Long more than makes good on the impressive promise he showed on his debut. Throughout the proceedings he exudes a warm charm and confidence and an occasional willingness to gently nudge the boundaries of the acoustic folk singer/songwriter terrain. Jeff Mangum and John Darnielle, set a place at the table for Dodo Bird!

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Fans of the recent Low / Dirty Three In the Fishtank collaborations should clamber and swoon to this new SF outfit. Sparse drumming and strumming, and lulling bass and strings share the space with the quietly emotive female vocals. Mellow and melancholic.

Folks outside of the Bay Area may not be privy to the burgeoning black metal scene known as the Black Twilight Circle, a small insular group of musicians all playing in multiple bands, all on different instruments and in different arrangements, a scene modeled after the legendary French Les Legions Noires, which featured Mutiilation, Belketre, Aakon Keetrah, Torgeist, Vlad Tepes and others. In the case of the Black Twilight Circle, the bands include Blue Hummingbird On The Left (the only one we've reviewed on the aQ list until now), Volahn, Ashdautas, Axeman, Arizmenda, Kalathonn, Kuxan Suum and others, but Dolorvotre is the first group to get a proper cd release, and on the ruling Ajna label to boot, previously released on tape, several times in fact, this is the first full length from the duo Dolorvotre, and is raw and lo-fi, primitive in part, but also surprisingly progressive and experimental, the band offering up simple slabs of black blast alongside haunting doomy creeps, their songs laced with surprising melodies, weird little guitar filigree, the vocals often doused in strange effects, the tempos shifting constantly, the two piece managing to sound surprisingly lush and full, even with the primitive recordings, the vibe crusty and almost D-beatish at times, those elements though woven deftly into something much more grand, with headphones, much of what sounds raw and primitive reveals itself as way more layered and complex, the record peppered with haunting folky interludes, acoustic guitars draped over chanted vox and swirling synths, the haunting moodiness of those interludes bleeding over into the songs proper, and imbuing the record with a strange black energy that definitely transforms it into something much intense and unique. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!

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Wot is the first proper solo record from Mike Donovan, aka Sic Alps, and as is often the case with bands that are really essentially one man shows, at first it's not entirely clear what exactly made this set of songs a Donovan solo record, and not just a new Sic Alps record, cuz really, on the surface, and with the first few listens, the songs really does sound like Sic Alps, how could they not, and had it been presented as such, we probably wouldn't have batted an eye. But it IS different, the songs themselves are actually much more stripped down and folky, channeling the classic sixties psychedelia that no doubt informs Sic Alps, but here that sound is much more straight ahead, no fucked up recording, no lo-fi his, no tripped out WTF weirdness, in fact barring a few moments, nothing on Wot is at all as overtly psychedelic, freaky and fractured as Sic Alps. In fact, this could totally be some lost sixties rarity reissues, it's got that same sort of vibe, sunshiney, California hippie, dope smoking grooviness, think Moby Grape, Have A Nice Day, those sorts of Sixties Fillmore bands, there's harmonica, trumpet, bongos, lap steel, the songs are laid back and dreamy, Donovan's vocals sound as good as they ever have, the songs too are pretty, and softly psychedelic. The typically fucked up song titles ("Baroque Ass", "Sexual Reassignment Surgery Blues", "MP3 Farm", "New Fieldhand Bop") and occasional twisted lyrics are really the only things that point to Donovan's more warped sonic past in Sic Alps, with most of Wot sounding like Donovan seemingly strapped on an acoustic guitar, and pulled songs from some lost American songbook, some of the songs swampy and bluesy, reminding us of Railroad Jerk or even the Rock*A*Teens, others remind us alternately of Dylan or Skip Spence, we hear a little Kinks here and there, some seriously dreamy, and darkly delicate ballads, some lush horn flecked Appalachia, some garage-y folk, and some slithery blooze. Sic Alps fans will definitely dig, but so will folks who maybe found that group a little too far out. And who knows, this could be the sort of record that lures those folks over to the musical dark side. Here's hoping...

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Doralice is a local chamber music duo specializing in instrumental acoustic music, their sound touching on Americana, gypsy folk, Flamenco and tangos, inspired by film and world music, the interesting thing being that the two members of Doralice, hail from another band recently featured on the aQ list, Ventid, whom we described as sounding like classic nineties math/post rock a la Rodan, Shellac, June Of 44, A Minor Forest, Rumah Sakit. One half of Doralice also plays in the Pickpocket Ensemble, which makes Doralice not seem like such an unlikely musical vehicle, treading some of the same sonic ground, but definitely doing their own thing, utilizing guitar, violin, banjo and toy piano, and joined by a handful of guests, creating the sort of sounds that fans of Tin Hat Trio, Calexico, Ennio Morricone, Nino Tora, Astor Piazolla, Rachel's and similar outfits will no doubt dig. Quite lovely!

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Dose One, of underground hip hop phenomenon the Anticon collective, here reissues his 1997 debut and it's a doozy. Filled with hiccupping beats and incredibly deft rhyming. Not doom-laden, like some other hip hop we've been enjoying (ClouDdead, Zion I), this is more fresh and not as heavy but still bass-thumping. Mr Dibbs, Mr Len (Company Flow), J Rawls, etc on the decks and behind

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I like this record so much but I can't for the life of me think of how to describe them. Of course they sound A LOT like The Thinking Fellers, as every review will tell you, but I doubt they would deny that. It's when I go to describe the music I'm at a loss. It's rich and creepy, sounds like demented nursery rhymes. The vocals are unique to say the least. Ranging from little girl eeriness, whispering in your ear to booming and indecipherable. Most of the songs are groovy meandering numbers, with odd scraping, sliding, creeping sounds. and there are some carnivalesqe songs that give you the chills like a good horror movie. Odd instrumentation recorded with expertise by Tim Green at Louder Studios. Art rock that will scare you.

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Hard-to-find Italian import of this trumpeter recently heard with John Zorn's Masada. Mark Feldman on violin, plus Erik Friedlander on cello, Drew Gress and Michael Sarin. Excellent.

"Music by and for Wayne Shorter" featuring John Zorn's Masada members trumpeter Douglas and drummer Joey Baron, along with Chris Speed, Joshua Roseman, Uri Caine, and James Genus.

The local label Out of Round has been laboring quietly in the background, not calling a lot of attention to itself yet turning out record after record that are consistently of similar mood -- due to the fact that they all play on each others recordings. The homegrown label's "sound", then, is one of a grimy circus atmosphere, like Fellini's La Strada if it was set in some dusty corner of an urban American metropolis. There are lots of slowed down polkas and depressed waltz time-signatures, dour vocals, sad accoridans, and dolefully plucked guitars. Great mood music for the Tom Waits fan in all of us who feels like Waits is just too hip for his own good these days. Check out www.outofroundrecords.com -- we carry all of their releases. For a limited time only, get an out of Round Records label sampler free with purchase of this disc.

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

SORRY. Debut cassette from local parody-rapper (& member of a popular local punk band) Dr. Dre Del, featuring "over 45 sexy, surly jams & hundreds of bad words". Samples used and abused range from the expected P-Funk to Emperor, Oxbow, Herb Alpert, and Harvey Sid Fisher! Funny stuff indeed.

We may have unfairly pegged local guitarist Matt Baldwin. His records are big time faves around here, gorgeous mesmerizing guitarscapes, from raga infused psychedelic folk to Fripp / Rother style cosmic guitar explorations, we sell them like crazy, and they get played all the time in the store as well, so when it cam time to review a recent release on Baldwin's Psychic Arts label, we were all prepared for some blissed out guitarscapery, but instead, we got Cryptic Cross, a twisted lo-fi weirdo metal band from the East Bay, whose sound was murky and buzzy and psychedelic and sort of insane, and really about as far as you can get from Baldwin's solo records. So we were determined not to make the same mistake with this most recent Psychic Arts release, from the strangely named Dragontime, another group from Oakland, the cd featuring some cool psychedelic Rainbow Brite style paste on cover art, that definitely points to something a bit on the weird side. And it's that artwork that maybe gives the biggest clue to what's going on here, cuz it's as far removed from the warped metal of Cryptic Cross as it is from Matt Baldwin's records. The opening track is all pulsing rhythms and synth swirls, kind of new agey, a little bit like video game music, a bit of swirly kosmische shimmer, quite cool actually, but definitely not what we were expecting, a sort of prismatic glistening rainbowscape. The second tracks adds ethereal female vox, and it's transformed into a soundtrack to some low budget fantasy film, a little 4AD, a little swoonsome shoegaze dreampop. After that the record continues to mutate and shift, from fuzzy, warbly organ minimalism, to an almost jazzy sounding lo-fi synth heavy tropical ballad, and from strange alien Asian video game folk music, all processed vox and dreamy melodies, to a murky, softly buzz shimmerscape, and from skeletal sun dappled folk pop, to droned out ominous cinematic synthscapery. Definitely far out, and seriously super cool too, a little like a female Fastest, conjuring up her own sort of 8-bit shoegaze soundworld, that we can't seem to stop listening to... LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, hand numbered!

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SORRY.

Who knew so much pure evil lurked deep in the depths of (supposedly) sunny California, especially right here in San Francisco. The legendary Weakling (R.I.P.), the ungodly blackened evil of Leviathan, the blazing, bleak torment of Crebain (also coming soon on tUMULt), and now the grim, funereal, majestic savagery of Draugar's From Which Hatred Grows. Haunting and atmospheric, brutal and buzzing, blighted and black. Fingerpicked acoustic guitars explode into roaring, soul-shearing riffs, pounding drums demarcate hazy blackened soundscapes of misanthropic brutality and gorgeously melodic impurity, damaged and demented arrangements underpin hellish profane howls of utter anguish. Yeah, black metal at its best with nary a glacier or fjord in sight. Yet, as Burzumically brutal as it all is, you could be listening to this and suddenly forget and mistakenly think you've got some fucked up experiment in lo-fi ambient drone psychedelia on your stereo instead. Keyboards warble WAY above the mix, drums and vocals and guitars are whipped into Merzbow-ic blasts of white noise, blast beats are obliterated into gentle expanses of delicate acoustic guitars and droning ambient hum, the whole thing a gorgously perplexing blast of bizarre blackened sonic experimentation. Much like the infamous Benighted Leams confused and astounded us once upon a time with its outsider genius, Draugar transcends black metal musical norms, making truly abnormal, artistic sound with unknown boundaries. Like Leviathan and our other favorite California black metal act Xasthur, it's the one-man-alone, far from the "scene" aspect that seems to foster a creativity beyond that of many ordinary black metal bands. From Which Hatred Grows is one of those rare metal records that manages to be true and grim, buzzing and black, but also a truly unique sonic vision that should find its way into the collection of every adventurous music lover.

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The black ice continues to spread, a grim black metal glacier slowly enveloping all with ears to hear. The West Coast black metal contingent's influence grows steadily, until one day hell walks the earth. Sorry, getting carried away. If the above scene had some sort of hierarchy, Leviathan would undoubtedly be the king. Xasthur would be a prince, or perhaps another king vying for supreme power. Crebain would be a knight, sent to slay all who shall dare oppose, and then Draugar, well Draugar would be the kings ex-vizier, locked in a dark dank dungeon, insane and murderous and demented, from years of no light, eating bugs, lack of sleep, and staring endlessly into blackness. Draugar is definitely the black sheep of this already black family, imbuing his home recorded evil, with the grim buzz of classic black metal, but with a healthy dollop of damged brilliance a la Benighted Leams, Lurker Of Chalice, or Striborg. Buzzy and black, droning and depressive, Draugar more than holds his own amidst the blackened elite, but somehow, everything he touches turns to what-the-fuck? Gentle clean arpeggiated clean guitar melodies are way up in the mix, layed atop a sluggish stream of indistinct guitar fuzz and Whitehouse-ish vocals. Sounding a little like somebody taped Darkthrone over a Slint record on an old C90 that had been in their back pocket for a month. Loping midtempo buzz over buried angelic choruses, like Morricone's The Mission performed by Graveland. Occasional ambient breaks, where guitar melodies wander aimlessly across barren soundscapes of distant rumble and creepy shimmer. Sometimes the riff seems to just splinter apart and what was moments earlier a galloping black metal juggernaut, has become a seasick drone. contructed from fuzzy almost melodies and vocals so distorted and so affected they sound like bursts of radio static. As always, heavy and grim and completely fucked!

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We've got two new releases from local label Time Released Sound on this week's list, the other is the latest from long time aQ fave Sonmi451, and then there's this, the first we've heard from Drawing Virtual Gardens, an American ex-pat living in Belgium, who sounds right at home on TRS, crafting a moody, lowercase sprawl of isolationist tones and darkdrone textures. Another ultra minimal excursion into some sonic otherworld, not as lovely or pastoral as many of the other TRS releases, instead, much more ominous and sinister sounding, at least from the outset, bell like tones, woozy chordal blurs, an overcast ambience that spreads its delightfully dour pall over the rest of the tracks, a blackened blanked of dreary dreaminess, beneath some of which soft swirls of strings sing, and others, wispy clouds of pointillist piano. For the most part, the sounds get lost in streaks of static, blunted glitches, and wheezing swells of softly crumbling thrum. A disembodied black dub rendered even more disembodied, emerging as a spectre like impression, as if viewed through a rain drenched window, or heard from afar. As always, two different versions, one of 'em ultra deluxe, that one limited to just 70 copies, a corner hinged booklet of industrial engravings, hole punched pages from vintage children's books along with other antique ephemera. Everything is housed in a hand stamped / hand worked envelope covered with a 120 year old engraving. There's also the standard version, that one in the usual lovely TRS digipak, and limited to 150 copies.

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Following the 2006 self-released debut 7" ("The One I Need / Dance Party") from these Bay Area honey pies, here's Dreamdate's slightly longer winded first full length. As the 'cut to the chase' title suggests, why wait? Dreamdate get right to their business of brightening our day with their short, snappy tunes. The overall sound of Dreamdate can readily be spoken of in the same breath as early '90s crushworthy indie pop a la Lois, cub and Tiger Trap. As the unaffected and uneffected electric guitars strum away happily and the drums keep things simple with an uncluttered beat, you might find yourself hummin' along with these gals' warm, smooth female vocals. Nice. Two songs were recorded, mixed by the equally sweet pop minded Aaron Burnham of The Makes Nice who also mastered the album.

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The proof's in the pudding... indie girl pop is alive and well! Evidence? Patience, the sophomore full length from those Bay Area sweeties known as Dreamdate. The follow up to 2007's Come On Now is as perky, peppy and pretty as its predecessor, but maybe a bit more self assured. Patience is packed with one dozen youthfully spirited, mid-fi tunes that'll put a skip in your step and a jingle-jangle charm in your heart! Most certainly for fans of cub, Tiger Trap, Heavenly, Lois and The Shams, as well as recent like-minded combos such as Summer Cats and Dum Dum Girls! And they even give a snuggly nod to the original cuddlecore queens Cub with their cover of the Vancouver trio's ditty "Go Fish". Ooooh la la! Oooh eeee cha cha!

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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. Here's a short, sweet, little treat from new Bay Area band Dreamdate! Their pair of bright girly indie pop tunes comes perfectly pressed on thick bubblegum pink vinyl. Yummy to look at, yummy to hear!

Another super limited cd-r release of underground noisiness, this time from Dreams, a Skaters side project. We only managed to get a handful of these, so act fast, they'll be gone in no time. Those of you familiar with the Skaters, already know they are masters of the free floating murk, a clattery chaos harnessed into dense smears of sound. A while back we reviewed a 7" by the Pan Dolphinic Dawn which definitely hints at what you can expect from Dreams, mostly because it's the same person, James Ferraro, one half of the Skaters, and Dreams is another example of the leaf not falling very far from the tree (and again begs the question, why make a solo record that sounds exactly like your band), but that's definitely okay, since we love basking in the murky muted shade of the Skaters' sound. If anything, Dreams is a bit murkier, less active, more of a drifting murmur. There's definitely lots going on sonically, but Ferraro renders all that action in subtle shades of grey and greyer, melodies, and voices, and riffs and whatever might be part of the overall sound, enter a whole new world once they're captured by Ferraro's four track. It's a bit like sitting at the foot of an empty well, watching storm clouds drift back and forth way above, constantly altering the ambient light, dusky, to dark, to darker, to pitch black and back again. Creepy and haunting and ominous but also strangely beautiful. SUPER LIMITED. WE ONLY GOT A HANDFUL OF THESE, AND AS ALWAYS WE'RE NOT SURE IF WE'LL BE ABLE TO GET MORE.

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A new somber rock trio has emerged from the Bay Area's shadowy fog featuring three SF metal vets! Though their other musical endeavors are decidedly metal leaning, Old Grandad's Max Barnett and Erik Moggridge along with Chewy Marzolo of Hammers Of Misfortune take Drift Of A Curse in a post rock direction on their debut album. Throughout the album's eight songs, the band smoothly weaves in and out of ominous overcast atmospheres and more fervent tempos. The Wrong Witness commences with "Blink" a number that creeps along at a brooding funereal pace, and things proceed along as such. Very heavy in tone and mood, but by the fourth song "Straits And Narrows" they get far more propulsive - almost poppy even! - with cool multi-part vocals and high sinewy guitars. This comparatively 'up' mood doesn't linger too long though. The very next song is the album's title track and with its subtle spacey effects and gentle gruff vocals it draws everything back down into a forbodingly solemn contemplation. If you dug the dark weathered beauty of Erik's other side project Aerial Ruin, definitely check this out!

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Local San Francisco favorites, The Drift, return three years after their stunning Memory Drawings album with a beautiful memorial to their fallen bandmate, trumpeter Jeff Jacobs who succumbed to cancer early this year. Jacobs had given a plaintive exploratory charge to that last album that greatly attributed to its majesty, and Blue Hour shows the band taking a moment to regroup and reflect on the band's core strengths than to venture into strange new territory. Alternating between large rhythm heavy instrumental post-rock explorations and quieter blissed out but melancholic interludes, Blue Hour features all that we love about this group, intricate intertwining melodic passages, a delicate weaving of soft textures and forceful rhythms and that wonderful dynamic sense of floating and being propelled forward by hidden but benign forces. Quite Beautiful!

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The venerable Bay Area independent hip hop / electronic collective Entartete Kunst keep the socio/politically charged sounds comin' as they welcome the debut full length from Drowning Dog into their fold (you might recall her from a split 7" with The Deletist released back in 2003). Her sample-heavy music comes in short uncompromising agitated and empassioned lunges. Much like many of her labelmates (such as Malatesta and Phantom Patient) there's a heady dankness that seeps into every nook and cranny fusing her vocals, collaged dialogue shards and angular rhythm tracks into solid masses of grit both in word and texture.

Oakland's ironic cock rock masters bounce back from the demise of their former label Man's Ruin with this new album for Tee Pee. Ironic? Yep, that's the one problem we might have with these boys. Otherwise, they rock hard, crankin' out good party tunes like something from your older stoner bro's record collection circa 1973-1980. They fit right in with other modern bands doing that retro rock thing, like Cherry Valence, All Night, Boulder, and even Drunk Horse pals The Fucking Champs in their more Thin Lizzyish moments. Drunk Horse are great players, indulging in total '70s worship...but I can't help thinking that they learned their riffing from Cheech & Chong's "Earache My Eye" rather than from the real, non-goof rock bands of the era. Maybe that's not fair, but I can't help but imagine how good these guys would be if there wasn't the joke element going on. Sure, these are smart guys playing dumb rock...but can't you be genuine about it though? Maybe it wouldn't have to be so dumb if they didn't make it intentionally so, with songs about Lube Jobs and so forth. That said, this is pretty darn good AND kinda funny too so maybe I should just enjoy the witty lyrics, kick-ass guitars, and sweaty songwriting regardless. Plus when they go off instrumentally you know they are -- or could be -- more than just a campy pastiche of '70s rock cliches. There's hints of jazz fusion, genuine pop smarts, and mucho guitar intelligence, so someday I want to hear the Advanced Drunk Horse record. Whatever, whoop it up!

RealAudio clip: National Lust
RealAudio clip: The Bitch Is Bach

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

SORRY. With "Dirty Mind" on the flip -- yep, both are Prince covers, done up all rock n' roll by SF's smartest '70s style rockers.

Sheer rawk powah. Just tune into the first cut "Strange Trangressors" from this, the third and best album yet from Oakland-based hard rock throwbacks Drunk Horse, and get blown away by the power of riff and sweaty rhythm section action (and some tasty slide work courtesy of our pal Josh who used to play in Drunk Horse, after leaving The Champs). It's sophisticated riff rock, a bit more clever and complex than you might realize, when you're busy hoisting beers to their boogie as you should be. Though titled In Tongues, this album certainly seems less overtly tongue-in-cheek than Drunk Horse has in the past... The jokey element is here pretty much limited to slightly humorous song titles like "Reformed Asshole" and "Nice Hooves". Drunk Horse have always taken themselves and their music seriously, but now they're letting us know it too. For sure Drunk Horse have grown, and gotten even better. One major area of improvement would be the vocals, Eli took a lot more care with his singing this time around and it shows. The band has always had a lot of chops in other areas, so now they're even closer to becoming the new millenium's answer to the classic likes of ZZ Top, Humble Pie and Thin Lizzy. In Tongues is bursting with clever arrangements, wicked leads, gorgeous twin guitar harmonies (there's the Thin Lizzy...), and pop hooks. And that aforementioned sheer rawk powah. Unbeatable.

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SORRY. Pretty damn good sophomore effort from San Francisco rockers Drunkhorse. Basically, these guys play a heavy, '70s inspired style of honkin' hard rawk, a la Fu Manchu and other "stoner" outfits also found on the Man's Ruin roster. But, unlike a lot of those bands, the Drunkhorse musical and lyrical IQ isn't really down in the double digits. Like current tourmates The (Fucking) Champs, Drunkhorse work on several levels at once. It's definitely music to party to, but not if you can't deal with the occasional sideways lurch into jazz fusion or musique concrete. No, don't worry, that sort of eclecticism is carefully employed, so there's always a heavy groove or boogie woogie piano break or something to balance any overt weirdness. And the singer's rock drawl conceals a great sense of hipster wit. It's hard to decide if Drunkhorse are at heart overachieving stoner rockers or dumbed down art rockers, and it doesn't matter. Get drunk, play this loud, and simultaneously exercise and destroy brain cells. If you're wondering about the title, by the way, we're told this is two miniature concept albums in one...for more info, buy it!

RealAudio clip: AM/FM Shoes
RealAudio clip: Secret Ingredient
RealAudio clip: Manchild

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

SORRY. Here's an interesting new single from Drunkhorse, that SF/Oakland crew of '70s lovin', hard rockin' stoner dudes who are smarter than you think they are. As the purported volume two in a series of "Unearthed Gems" releases, it features Drunkhorse covering two way rare, obscure tunes by their rock n' roll forebears: "The Weed Elf" by Sri Lankan '80s metallers Zilla, and "Pismo", by late '70s Cali bar-rockers Andy Sherman And The Sherms. Yes, we said obscure...maybe suspiciously so... Liner notes by Dr. Armando "Mondo" Johnson of Great Crates! Magazine (which, we must confess, we've never heard of either...) provide more info, in copious detail (Zilla's lone album was called "Heavy Yeti"...believe it, or not). The Zilla tune, which in the hands of Drunkhorse comes across like a cover of something by Slough Feg, is a NWOBHM styled romp with jaunty, folky Thin Lizzyish guitars and Dio-esque lyrics. It's like Drunkhorse crossed with their pals the Fucking Champs. On the flip, the Andy Sherman and the Sherms composition is revealed to be a good-times, summer-time, all-the-time rocker, an ode to Pismo Beach were one can "relax and play hackysack". Here's to Drunkhorse for digging up these "gems" and giving them such loving treatment -- hopefully we'll see these influences shine through on their next album of originals.

Gorgeous psychedelic folk from right here in SF, featuring members of aQ faves Citay, which will make sense once you hear this. Lush, eerie, dreamy and haunting, gorgeous vocal harmonies, minimal percussion, equal parts seventies British folk and seventies Laurel Canyon pop, woven into a witchy gothic brew that is totally enchanting. Strings soar, unfurling melancholy melodies, and guitars jangle, but it's the female vocals that seal the deal, a la Sandy Denny, Jacqui McShee of Pentangle, Bobbie Watson from Comus, Stevie Nicks, you get the idea, bewitching and ethereal, raw and powerful and emotional, and the harmonies, so captivating and otherworldly, wow. The Dry Spells manage to sound so timeless, this record definitely sounds contemporary, but if the lush production was dialed back just a little, this could easily have been some lost seventies psych folk reissue. Absolutely stunning. Most definitely for fans of Pentangle, Incredible String Band, Comus, as well as modern groups channeling that sound like Citay, Vetiver, Fleet Foxes... The lp includes a download of the whole record, including a killer bonus track, a cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Rhiannon", which is included on the cd version as well.

MPEG stream: Lost Daughter
MPEG stream: Black Is The Color
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When we first got this record in, we thought we had it totally figured out. Just take a look at the lineup: Tony Dryer, an accomplished double bassist and former touring member of the Flying Luttenbachers, Jacob Lindsay, local clarinet free-jazz virtuoso, and last but not least, Jacob Heule, a member of SF's only acoustic free/death/grind duo Ettrick! So naturally we figured this record would be a chaotic frenzy of fierce free jazzy madness. And while it is definitely loosely composed and rather abstract, the trio delve into some unexpected territory here. We checked out Heule's website and he describes the Idea of West as an album of "quiet and static acoustic musical territories explored through the pragmatic application of compositional and improvisational structures". Damn, and we thought we had this one figured out! "In Order to Reroute the Wind" starts things off on a rather minimal note. Rickety scratching and scraping that sound like creaking boats swaying in a harbor of sizzling electric waste. Quiet industrial, barely there type of sound meanderings, a reserved and delicate sound for these ferocious free jazz contemporaries. On first listen, the jazz aesthetic of Idea of West is a bit hidden underneath a more ambient guise. Don't get us wrong, this sounds more like a jazz collaboration than a drone/ambient record, but it defiantly lacks the smack you in the face ferocity of other releases put out by these dudes. But that doesn't mean Idea of the West isn't an awesome piece of work in its own right. On the contrary, the trio confidently evolve Idea of West into a beautifully arranged aural invitation into a strange world of alchemic precision and skilled musicianship. Like a sorcerer who meticulously adds ingredients to a potion, paying careful attention to every detail in hopes of casting the perfect spell, these dudes play with close attention to detail. The record builds up and dissipates as the trio feed off each other's playing, letting chance determination sculpt their meditations into a hauntingly beautiful sonic narrative. Perfect for those of you aQ-addicts open to the weirder, more mystical side of free jazz!! And most certainly recommended by us!

MPEG stream: Before There Was Mass
MPEG stream: Light From Another Light
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Man, with so much music coming through our doors every day... week... month... year, we try to stay on top of things as best we can, but it's inevitable that sometimes a wonderful release will slip under our radar and be sitting right under our noses. Case in point, William Duke's The Ghost That Would Not Be which we have carried in the store for the past couple years, but somehow never reviewed. 'Tis a fine folksy west coast pop album. Lush, earthy, sun-baked and just a little bit melancholic... just the way we love 'em! Better late than never though, right!? On this his solo debut, Mr. Duke certainly draws plenty of inspiration from pop greats The Beatles (he even does a rendition of "Baby's In Black"), The Beach Boys and The Byrds, as well as the classic rock of the '70s. For more recent touchstones, we can say that this is definitely for fans of the New Pornographers, Pernice Brothers, Grandaddy and Sloan. Y'know, bands who don't shy away from a clear-as-a-bell melody, an irresistible hook or a generous tug on the heartstring, but who also flesh out their songs into more elaborate arrangements. Actually, Mr. Duke's voice reminds us quite a lot of Sloan's Chris Murphy, New Pornographers' Carl Newman or a young Elvis Costello. It's got an earnest emotiveness and boyish charm that we dig. Sweet backing vocal harmonies and warm keyboards soothe and smile their way around the comparatively snarlin' gritty electric guitar and occasional quirky synth lines. Scattered throughout the album are a few brief instrumental, soundscape-y and collaged interludes, offering some nice pauses for reflection. Recommended! Psst, letting the cat out of the bag... even though there's fifteen tracks listed on the digipak, there is actually a generous nineteen including the abovementioned Beatles cover, some demos, and alternate versions.

MPEG stream: Black Is The Color
MPEG stream: Home To Nowhere
MPEG stream: A Part Of Me

Hurrah! William Duke has hand-delivered his latest album to our doorstep. You might recall our recent better-late-than-never review of his 2007 full length The Ghost That Would Not Be. Well, we're getting properly up to date now with this, his follow-up to that wonderful debut, and y'know what? It's just as delightful. Carrying on in similar fashion, The Sunrise and the Night is a pop lover's dream. Such a perfect soundtrack to these late summer eves... or really any time you're feeling in a particularly wistful, reflective mood. His songwriting has a luster that echoes the finely crafted west coast rock pop of the '70s. On the surface it initially seems all breezy and honey sweet, but there's a subtle darker melancholic core. The whole album is lovely and downright swoonsome, but standout track "The Canyon" is its crowning jewel, a solid yearning yank on your heartstrings. Duke sings with an earnest, drowsy delivery which fits nicely against the instrumental backdrop, a glistening balance of acoustic guitar and synths that brings to mind Sparklehorse or Grandaddy. Interspersed with the vocal numbers are a handful of plush instrumentals. Recommended!

MPEG stream: The Canyon
MPEG stream: The Great Escape

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

SORRY. Mr. Bungle bassist Trevor Dunn, with Adam Levy on guitar and Kenny Wollesen on drums make up the Trio-Convulsant.

We got some olde style banjo storytelling here! It's sparse and earnest. Sort of dark and damaged, maybe even drunken. It's rythmically spastic, melodically sour. The vocals are atonal and a little out of rhythm, but absolutely endearing. A musical saw sweetens things up on "Nymph Du Prairie". This album's totally awesome! Features Al's brother, Andy Duvall (formerly of Zen Guerilla) on percussion.

MPEG stream: Saxonburg, Ohio
MPEG stream: Nymph Du Prairie

This is the very first we've heard from the oddly monikered DVVLLXNS (pronounced "Vallens", we think), which in fact is the new project from Jon Porras, one half of doomdrone duo Barn Owl. Originally releases as a download, LXTVNY is only now getting a proper release. As we mentioned in our recent review of Porras' latest solo album Orilla Oscura, as much as the various Barn Owl related projects and records push past Barn Owl's twang flecked ambient drone sound, they all still share a similar sound and vibe, something that Porras was aware of when he conceived off DVVLLXNS, which still shares the same vibe, it's dark and psychedelic, it's most definitely a whole different beast. When we first got these in, we joked about the very witch house-y logo that adorns the cover, but once we threw it on, we realized that maybe that cover is sort of appropriate, cuz the sound on LXTVNY is actually kind of witch housey to these ears, murky and swirling and psychedelic, lots of processed voices, programed beats, the opener is all skittery drum machines, and ethereal vocals molded into psychedelic swirls, stuttering loops, the result is sort of dance-y, but more sort of hazy and rhythmic, certainly super shoegazey, the whole thing ethereal and ghostly and fantastically washed out and shimmery. The second track adds some dubbiness to the equation, the beats fading in and then out, over which soft swirling shimmering swells drift dreamily, before the rhythm resurfaces and the song is transformed into a weird sort of witch-kraut groove, again crafted from more distorted voices and a pulsing beat, before splintering into an abstract drift of echo drenched sonic fragments. The flipside starts out all haunting and dramatic, a blurred slo-mo chamber music almost, super minimal and Caretaker-y, a buried heatbeat like pulse beneath the soft psychedelic swirls, before an oscillating synth melody swoops in, the sound blurring into some super minimal Kompakt style Pop Ambience, and then finally, the record finishes off with a woozy cascade of arpeggiated synths, wreathed in tinkling music box melodies and a thick ominous low end drone, the sound super cinematic and sinister, when the beat comes in, it's less a beat, and more a sort of rhythmic filigree, swooping hard from speaker to speaker, wreathed in gauzy hiss, leaving a crackling contrail draped over the percolating synths beneath, fans of all that Carpenter / Goblin worship, will dig this track especially. As much as we love the sound of Barn Owl, and Porras' various side projects, we're digging this new direction a LOT, and we probably say this every time, but this might be our favorite Porras recording yet!

MPEG stream: Litany
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Hey all right!! We hadn't heard much from these local, long haired, lost-in-time rockers for far too long, 'cause their singing drummer moved away for a while, but is back in town, and now they have a new album out, however only released on limited edition vinyl, a European import (which by the way comes with a cd-r burn of the album as well). We just got some of the last few copies there are direct from the band. If we weren't already familiar with 'em, and didn't deal with these guys in person, though, we'd coulda been fooled into thinking it was a reissue of something from the early '70s proto-metal era, or ever earlier, as they so convincingly channel the likes of Sir Lord Baltimore, Blue Cheer, Highway Robbery, Speed Glue & Shinki, James Gang, Dust, and other inspirations of that ilk in their badass heavy psych groove, totally authentic circa 1969-'72 sounding (well, except that we think we hear 'em head 'em make an anachronistic reference to Beyonce in the lyrics to "Nasty Girl"). And amidst the lumbering riff-rock, they also get into what's simply fuzzed-up '60s garage, Nuggets style, so bands like The Seeds are probably big influences too. Plus, most of the lyrics pertain to girl trouble, a traditional, very garagey subject. So if you're into heavy fuzz rockin', this is quite recommended. Furthermore, we were delighted to discover that side one contains a Rodriguez cover!! They do "Only Good For Conversation", the fuzziest one from the Detroit Dylan's cult classic 1970 debut Cold Fact, a track we described in our review of the Cold Fact reissue as a "stone(d) cold classic when it comes to heavy duty fuzz guitar crunch" so it's a natural for the Dzjenghis Khan boys. Very cool. Also very cool is that side two starts off with a recording of Dzjenghis Khan's best song ever, or at least our favorite, called "God Damn", we remember it from probably the first time we ever saw 'em play, always a show stopper, encapsulating everything rad about this band. By the way, we still have a couple (literally, two) copies of their self-titled cd debut from a few years back, on the the now defunct Japanese stoner metal label Leaf Hound, otherwise totally out of print.

MPEG stream: Shameless
MPEG stream: Only Good For Conversation
MPEG stream: God Damn

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

SORRY. The European label Who Can You Trust? brings us two new tapes in their series of limited live cassette-only releases by some of our favorite heavy/psych bands, that began with their instantly-out-of-print White Hills live at WFMU tape last year. One from Massachusetts doompunk stuporgroop Witch (featuring J Mascis on drums), and one from SF's own retro-proto-metal power trio Dzjenghis Khan, basically the second coming of Blue Cheer, y'know... Prehistoric Rock - Live In San Francisco is as advertised. The Dzjenghis Khan boys recorded live at the Elbo Room, a few blocks down Valencia Street from aQ, in 2006. And this is a band that's AWESOME live, it's what they're all about. We know, that's why we had 'em play our 40 anniversary party the year before last. They bring it, and amid the 8 tracks on this tape not only do their signature song "God Damn!" (which gives their singing drummer some) but also a cover of the classic "Green Manalishi" by Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac (a tune that's also been covered by Judas Priest, and the Melvins). Their acid rock here is raw and rollicking, as it should be. Djenghis Khan are the real deal, they should be huge (and woulda been, say back in '71) but at least a few cool folks know what's what, and we wish they had more stuff we could push on you. But everything they've put out so far has been limited and is out of print. So, while they last, we're glad we have this tape and you will be too if you're quick enough to snag one, assuming you dig long haired, heavy riffing, cowbell knocking, bellbottomed, weed smoking good times. Orange cassette, super limited (150 copies only!), and we only have a few...

[ aquarius records — Local ]