[ aquarius records

The Brothers Hinds return with another eclectic release. Don't let the title fool ya, this is a far cry from a typical dub mix collection. It's a super trippy meltdown of jazz, drum'n'bass, and yes, some dub too. As always, well executed and with a few unexpected twists thrown into the mix.

The brothers responsible for the locally-produced, fab, & obsessive "Sun Ra Research" zine have released this very original and enjoyable electronica/jazz recording, kinda like a meeting of Muslimgauze and Bill Laswell. Organic grooves. Recommended.

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It's been more than 3 years since the last Court And Spark full length, the gorgeous aQ fave Hearts, we were wondering when there would be a new C+S record, but we're beginning to think the answer to that question might be never, as at least part of the band has relocated to North Carolina. Thankfully, the music plays on, Court And Spark frontman MC Taylor, and his musical partner Scott Hirsch are now Hiss Golden Messenger (how great a name is that!), who take the sound of later Court And Spark, a sort of psychedelic folk with bits of dub (a la Souled American), and incorporate some more jammy improvised sounds, taking inspiration from Traffic, and especially the Grateful Dead, mixing slow burning twang, with wild sprawling grooves, wah wah guitar and horns (lots of horns!). Fans of the Court And Spark will definitely want to check this out, Taylor's voice is as warm and rough and emotional as ever, but a bit more melodic, and there's still plenty of twang, and Hirsch and Taylor can still pen a mean tune, but they definitely let loose a bit, embracing what some in the underground might consider guilty pleasures, and some of the songs and sounds here are definitely surprising and a bit unexpected. Smooth and groovy, laid back and mellow, a definite seventies FM radio vibe, a little Laurel Canyon, even a bit of funk here and there, a little jazziness, from country ballad to boogie stomp to jazzy dark pop (a sound that were it a bit more fucked up and acid fired could even be an Ariel Pink jam!) to one track that definitely gets a bit ska, but those songs are all wound up in a warm woozy playful sound that manages to be all it's own while proudly flying the flags of all the sounds that came before. As well as still keeping some of that Court And Spark, um, spark we love so much, alive! The record finishes with "Tongue In Cheek", a gorgeous stripped down acoustic lament, with lush harmony vocals, and a killer main hook, just to remind us that whatever wild tangent these guys decide to head out on, beneath it all, beats a heart of country gold. Country Hai East Cotton definitely might be too commercial sounding for some folks, it's not hard to imagine some of these tunes finding a home amidst other seventies classic rock, but then that's precisely what Taylor and his crew were shooting for. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Each one hand numbered, packaged in super nice, full color gatefold mini lp style sleeves.

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We haven't managed to catch Hodag live yet, but it sounds like it must be a bit like having someone fire ice picks right into your ear canal from a high powered rifle. Or imagine being stripped naked and rubbed raw with some free jazz sand paper. CMJ wrote that Hodag's�debut "doodles corpsepaint on Albert Ayler,�sounding like jazz-spazzes trying to claw their way out of Xasthur's murky coffin." Hard to come up with anything better than that. This is definitely some sort of free jazz, or some sort of ambient noise, there is no black metal per se, but it does sound very black, with swirls of damaged synth, sputtering drum kit spazzouts, lots of space, but lots just as many bursts of ultra dense brutality. For the pure souled and strong eared amongst you! LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!! Each disc packaged in a cool hand screened cardboard sleeve.

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Hush now... You'll greatly regret it if you miss the gentle folk stylings of Ms Jolie Holland. Her debut album is a down home treasure. Each song is ever so earthy with rough-hewn acoustic guitar, fiddle, bells and percussion providing the spartan backdrop for her distinct, softly lilting voice. Her music truly seems from another time sounding as if it were whispering out of a rickety victrola -- haunting memories of lonesome porchswings at dusk and dirt roads leading off into the dark. At once, it's both achingly intimate and immediate. The dozen songs are peppered with waltzes and borrowed Syd Barrett lyrics (in her song "The Littlest Birds" taken from "Jug Band Blues"). Lovely!

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Yes, along with the first blossoms of May the highly anticipated new Jolie Holland album has arrived! Definitely less mysterious than her previous two albums, but no less magical. There's not so much of the 'from where did this antique gramophone recording get unearthed?' kind of feel that characterized both Catalpa and Escondida. While Springtime Can Kill You still maintains a foundation of old country petticoats, the recordings sound quite contemporary. Very full, fleshed out and crisp... so much so in fact that the brushes played on the snare drum effectively conjure the crunch of frost beneath your boots or the first bite into a freshly picked apple. It might be a bit of an overstatement, but it seems Holland's evolved from porchswing peasant gal into more of a composed chanteuse. No complaints here tho'. This is a beautiful album with captivating songs and fine performances by all involved. Guest players include multi-instrumentalist Ara Anderson of Iron And The Albatross, and singer/songwriter David Dondero. Sure to cause extensive bouts of swooning.

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We have to say, anything that we could mistake for Pink Floyd one moment, and Freedom Hawk the next, is pretty darn cool. And thus, this is! The vinyl-only debut release from a local San Francisco groop whose hypnotic, propulsive neo-kraut rhythms are wedded with muscular rock riffery in a kind of stoner rock meets retro prog blend that should appeal big time to folks into the likes of Wooden Shjips, Moon Duo, White Hills, Lumerians, 3 Leafs, and Circle. The guitars sprawl psychedelically, the drums (played by the former drummer of trance-inducing Bay Area black metal legends Weakling, also ex-Saros) lock into endless grooves, and upon occasion cleanly-sung melodic vocals soar up and over those mesmeric beats and churning, chiming guitars... There's also heck of analog synths put to traditional good use here, especially on the album's big finale, the nearly quarter hour "Fading Twilight", an epic track, both gorgeous and powerful, that you could play alongside your favorite, most spaced-out, pot-perfumed '70s album sides for sure. Hollow Mirrors really display their authentic love for real old school prog (a la Atomic Rooster, Eloy, Far East Family Band, ELP, Steve Hillage, and anything Roger Dean ever painted an album cover for, probably) on that one! And elsewhere too, although overall Hollow Mirrors are a modern, original band, not a retro exercise to the extent of say, an outfit like Astra or BigElf (cool as they are). If we had to make any (hopefully constructive) criticism at all about these killer spacegothkrautstonerjams from Hollow Mirrors, well, maybe we'd like to hear a bit more dirt and grit in the production next time, it's almost a bit too clean, and could possibly be heavier too, considering the metallic pedigree of some of the folks involved (like the aforementioned drummer!). But that's not really a criticism, just an observation. They can do their thing their way and we're happy to hear it. 'Tis fine stuff we think a lot of you will like. A lot.

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'90s style downer rock pop.

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SORRY. Here's a new smoky, swaggerin' single from The Holy Kiss. Very much in the grand tradition of Birthday Party, Gun Club and Nick Cave, lead singer Matty Rue Morgue once again sings of love, death and despair in his leer and sneer delivery. Dawn Hillis' guitars are extra sinewy and slinking this time out, and all the while Nick Ott pounds out his steady primal rock beat. This Bay Area trio just gets better with each release!

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SORRY. A double 7" record set from this SF trio! The Holy Kiss continue to mine the crushed velvet lined catacombs of such angst-laden artists as Nick Cave, Gun Club, and Birthday Party, however unlike their debut 8-song cdep 'The Sacred Heart Of Eddy and Jones' on which they seemed somewhat caught emulating their idols, it seems they've got their own genuine fire and passion happening these days. Four songs: "Black, Etc.", "The Holy Kiss Revival", "Sister Temptation" and "Motel Room Cabaret" (the third appeared previously on the Sound Of San Francisco compilation). Lyric sheet included.

Having recently disbanded after their European farewell tour, the Holy Kiss have reached from beyond the grave to throttle us one last time with this four song ep, limited to a scant 50 copies! As on their recent Under Noon Of Night album, the Holy Kiss channel the spirits of druggy, blues based post-punk greats like the Birthday Party, the Gun Club, and the Cramps, with enough post-millenial insanity coloring the songs to better suit the kids of today. Singer Matty Rue Morgue's unhinged vocal delivery and the overall group dynamic make it clear that the Holy Kiss called it a day at the top of their game, as this darkly aggressive four song ep is full of reckless abandon and a bleary-eyed but cocksure swagger. Super trebly, reverb drenched guitars wrap themselves around wandering Birthday Party styled basslines, as the drums thump frantically (courtesy of our very own Nick) like a heart getting ready to explode. It's as if these deranged songs are alive, like feral children covered in grime and moving about the shadows, waiting to pounce on and sink their teeth into the shoulders of an unsuspecting populace. It may be true that parting is such sweet sorrow, but at least we have this delightfully insane last affront by the Holy Kiss to accompany us in all future moments of mental instability. R.I.P.

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Local dark scary prettiness and sneering trashiness. Truthfully, this San Francisco trio's debut album (named not after two people as you might assume, but after a street intersection) sounds completely like early Birthday Party and Nick Cave, which is not entirely a bad thing although that shadowy, angstful path has already been feverishly tread bare by innumerable young bands. The raw, unadorned basic rock line-up - vocals, guitar, bass and drums - is fleshed out well with some organ and piano. The latter is most notable on the final song, a short somber piano interlude that sounds like they're moving more in the dramatic direction of former San Franciscans now Portlanders Pleasure Forever. This is also not a bad thing, but hopefully future recordings will meld all of those influences that they wear so prominently into something distinctive and much more of their own. Eight songs in all. MPEG Download: "The Exquisite Corpse Of One Mr. Lucius McBride " [/audio/holykissexquisite.mp3] MPEG Stream: "The Exquisite Corpse Of One Mr. Lucius McBride " [/audio/holykissexquisite.m3u]

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Proudly following in the tradition of druggy punk blooz derelicts like the Birthday Party and the Gun Club, San Francisco's the Holy Kiss (featuring the tallest aQ staffer and all around good guy Nick Ott pounding the skins) is sure to satisfy your demented lust for bluesy, gothic tinged post-punk on their third album, which is also sadly their swansong. Bittersweet indeed, as the sounds within come off like the work of a quartet of sooty-faced Victorian street urchins, frantic and generally teetering on the edge of total madness, with enough restraint to make you feel nice and nervous before completely losing yourself to some sort of absinthe-induced mental breakdown where you gleefully tear your hair out, rip off all your scabs, and burn down the orphanage where you grew up. Under Noon Of Night possesses a sexy swagger that makes you want to dance wildly AND writhe around in your own cold sweat. The band's darkly sardonic humor and lyrical approach will definitely appeal to fans of groups like Jonathan Fire*Eater and Pleasure Forever, with singer Matty Rue Morgue spitting out deranged tales of love, lust, and death over a frenzied hurricane of shakers, bluesy guitar squall and basslines that would make Tracey Pew proud if he weren't, you know, dead. There are even two delightfully melancholy piano ballads. Things flow at a steady pace, with a wry, underlying wit and general sense of red-eyed insomnia keeping it all together. There's also a bit of swampy apocalyptic folk in the mix, adding to the end of the world / end of the night vibe, and making them the perfect band to open for Woven Hand, which these guys (and gal) did recently. Limited to 500 copies, this vinyl platter comes housed in a cool hand silkscreened cover and also conveniently includes a cd for the non-turntable inclined. So choose your format, throw on a pot of coffee, break out the whiskey, kick up your boots, turn down the lights, and let yourself get lost under noon of night...

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Two thirds of Tarentel (Jefre Cantu-Ledesma and Jim Redd) take their already abstract bliss even farther into outer (or inner) space, with 70 plus minutes of alien transmissions beamed from the heart of the sun to a dark cave 1000 miles below the surface. From slow shifting slabs of high end drones, all caked in crackle and grit, to muted murmured minimal thrum, to simple spare streaks of nothing but percussion, to pulsing robotic rhythms over a backdrop of humming machinery and industrial clatter. Dark and dense and divine! Hand painted wooden covers, each totally unique and each with a hand painted, typewritten insert. LIMITED TO 200 COPIES. THERE'S A VERY GOOD CHANCE THAT ONCE THESE ARE GONE, THEY ARE GONE FOREVER.

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Local all-around nice guy's WONDERFUL new album of impossibly lush pop songs that remind us of Chris Bell and Big Star, yes they're that good and that touching. With the added talents of Barbara Manning, Melanie Clarin, and Greg Freeman.

One of two cassettes that we're listing from Serbian cassette / objet d'art label No Basement Is Deep Enough. This one comes by way of local wackadoodle Hora Flora (nee Raub Roy); and the tape itself is buried within a large knot of rope braided out of plastic bags that stands in as the ready made artwork. Annoying? Awesome? Stupid? Brilliant? Yes to all of the above. The two twenty minute pieces document one of Roy's sound installations that involve a series of simple aeolian harps constructed out of flexible bamboo rods and giftwrapping ribbon which resonates with all of the eerie harmonics of Egyptian reeds. The first side is a straight field recordings of these objects through a couple of well-placed condenser microphones that never get overblown by the wind itself, with the sounds of passing trucks and wind-chimes swirling around the constant raga-drone flutter from Roy's aeolian harp. The second side finds the objects recorded by contact microphones, offering less of the harmonic interplay and more of a dichotomy between death-knell rattlings and deep thrumming vibrations. This is one of those pieces that falls into the Fluxus category of sound research alongside the works of Gordon Monahan, Alvin Lucier, and George Macunias. We've got five of these; and it's VERY unlikely to be restocked.

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Bay Area sound artist Raub Roy goes by the name of Horaflora; and his performances are really impressive exercises in controlled electro-acoustic chaos, with low-tech electronics skittering above various tactile scrapes counterpointed by reversed currents of placid bass frequencies and tonal undulation. One of his best performance stunts is to fill up large balloons, shove a trumpet mouthpiece inside the balloon, and drop the metal mouthpiece on a large drumhead. With two of these devices going, Horaflora can generate prolonged vibration and acoustically phased drones that are really amazing. Gland Canyon is a small run edition released by Instal Records (which had released a Caretaker disc a while back, although this shares little aesthetic similarity), and works through many of the clamorous, decomposing sounds that Horaflora generates in a live setting. It can't be qualified as 'noise' as these collages are more in keeping with a tradition of automatic writing through sound, with idiosyncratic juxtapositions of electronic bloops, ring modulated flanges, minuscule clatter of wood and metal, mad-scientist weirdo percolations, and those sublimated balloon drones. As such it's more in keeping with some of the HNAS collages or something deconstructed from Small Cruel Party and old P.16.D4 tapes. The various tracks ebb and flow with an unhurried pace that slowly magnifies some of the many sounds into more sparse hypno-repetitive passages and then sweep everything into rather dense crescendos of scattershot sediment. Limited to 100 copies.

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San Francisco's Raub Roy (aka Horaflora) met Ryan Martin (aka Secret Boyfriend), during an ambitious Horaflora tour in 2008, whereby he biked from Georgia to Maine, playing his unique brand of acoustic noise along the way with just what he could carry and what he could scrape together at each show. Martin hosted one of these shows in his hometown of Carrboro, NC; being impressed by the performance, he offered Roy a split release on his own Hot Releases imprint. While it would have been cool to have a document from the Horaflora bike tour, this is a damn fine split release of nocturnal murk linking the two projects. The Horaflora side is actually a recording of a live radio broadcast at KALX in Berkeley, with Roy being accompanied by Andrea Williams. One of Roy's best tricks - expanded balloons expelling their innards across drum heads and metal surfaces - is on display here; and it's great to hear the variety of these blustery elongated textures in an audio environment when it has been such a great visual aspect to his live performances. Amidst these sounds, Roy and Williams interweave acoustic noise-junk textures from found metal, tin cans, and hypercompressed recordings from hand-held tape decks, spluttering towards a dense climax of floor rattling low end and aerated acoustic noise. The Secret Boyfriend side opens with a meandering set of Roy Montgomery styled noise-drone guitar melodies collapsing into a murky spectral-decay wash of no-fi shoegazing. Fuzzy piano tones begin to emerge as graceful calliope like melodies, still hung with enough grit and cobwebs to make these sound haunted. All of this comes to an end with a menacing burst of noise grafted upon a cheap synth melody that tone bends from the depths of cavernous cistern, but the noise begets a couple of darkened mope-folk tunes of just acoustic guitar and voice buried in echoplex. 300 copies and that's it for this great split!

Another pestilential black cloud of ultra raw, primitive thrash and buzz from Horn Of Dagoth. It's been 2 years since the last rehearsal disc, and while the sound is similar, the songs have gotten even better, more complex, more dense, their buzzing old school black metal sprawling and expanding to incorporate long swaths of trudging doom, blown out blasts of furious black drone, stacatto bursts of machine gun like rhythm, dizzying insectoid riffing, loping midtempo lurch... Not to say that HoD aren't still ultra raw, ultra grim, and ultra KVLT black black metal, cuz they are, and their black flame still obviously burns for bands like Mutiilation, Darkthrone, Vlad Tepes, Beherit and other practitioners of the raw black arts. But like any band worth their salt, as time goes on, the more interesting their music becomes, and even with a core sound of black buzz and chaotic thrash sure to please the die hards, and a production (it is a rehearsal after all) that renders every thing in blown out smears and blurs - a swirl of cymbals sizzling atop a roiling murky black abyss, the songs and sound are interesting enough to keep weirdo black metallers equally entranced, at least when they're in need of a good old fashioned black thrashing. LIMITED TO 200 COPIES!!! Each disc numbered in the band's blood, and each booklet also numbered, as well as decorated with an upside down cross and the triple sixes, ALL IN HUMAN BLOOD!

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Behold, the first full-length, facegrinding slab of psychedelic stoner rock malevolence from these San Francisco heavies, the all-caps and very plural HORNSS, who appeared on that Monsters Of Mission Rock comp lp we listed last time. Hell yeah. A little Sabbath, a little Hawkwind, probably a lot of beer and weed, this is kinda trippy, and super HEAVY - another thing we must put in all-caps about 'em. HORNSS sure have a lot of gnarly gargly punked out energy to their hard, rollicking riffing, which goes hand in hand (and fist in face) with the raggedly wailing vocals that, while gruff, we found to be much more melodic than expected (and we're not talking about the dainty female guest vox on the track "Ejaculation Of Serpents"). Groovy sludge, sludgey groove, did we already say "hell yeah"? We did. And we will again, every time we spin this. No Blood, No Sympathy sure can be a real ripper, reminding us of young hardcore Melvins on such cuts as "Graceless And Aged", while also having its laid back moments of spacey Sabbathy "Planet Caravan" style psychedelia, elsewhere. The Melvins comparison also comes into play on "Debreeding", where the vocals make us think of Buzz Osbourne singing an Alice Cooper cover. All lovers of the riff, all lovers of the rockin', can chalk up another big win for the Easy Rider label (billed here as Riding Easy for some reason, but it's the same label we're pretty sure, they're not foolin' anyone)!

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Horrid Red can hardly be qualified as a side-project anymore, but pretty much everything born from the twisted vision of Glenn Donaldson is in a constant transformation from one aesthetic strain and/or band to another. Horrid Red emerged out of the creative overload of Teenage Panzerkorps through the talents of Donaldson (here cloaked in the guise of Edmund Xavier) and the Teutonic punk vocalist Bunker Wolf. Where Der TPK blasted outward as a furiously darkened drone-punk, Horrid Red sought more of an elegant take on the post-punk agenda with Factory inspired synths and Death In June's urgent acoustic guitars; but those megaphone vocals from Bunker Wolf on all of the Horrid Red and Der TPK recordings make the projects somewhat interchangable and just goddamn great! Celestial Joy is the second record in about twelve months for Horrid Red, following Der TPK's impressive German Reggae and a 'singles' collection; and this album finds Burial Hex's Clay Ruby joining the fray. Some of the songs on Celestial Joy seek a minimal-wave brightness such as on the skittering groove of "Marble Staircase, III" complete with electric piano lines and Bunker Wolf crooning the vocals instead of barking them through a megaphone. "Nothing In My Heart" cops a few choice guitar licks from The Cure's "In Between Days." But other tracks sport the bass-driven punk propulsive favored by Der TPK, such as "Men And Sand" and the death-disco vibes on the title track. The Holiday Records vinyl version of Celestial Joy is limited to 400 copies and comes with a much nicer print-job on the artwork than the domestic version, hence the higher price.

An offshoot of Teenage Panzerkorps / Der TPK, Horrid Red is described by the band's Glenn "Edmund Xavier" Donaldson as a militant new wave project somewhere near the likes of Death In June circa Nada. A beloved album of Death In June fans for sure, but Nada was a very clumsy attempt at bringing an occult obliqueness and right-wing imagery to the more romantic strains of new wave - Donanldson's recapitulation of '80s stark post-punk is WAY better. The name Horrid Red might also be a play on the peculiar, forgotten new wave iconoclast Snowy Red, who sort of fell between Suicide and Fad Gadget; this was a band that Donaldson once professed considerable admiration for. That said, Horrid Red doesn't fall that far from the TPK sound, especially since Bunker Wolf is very present in delivering his booming Teutonic vocals with megaphone volume and clarity. Donaldson's arrangements are more stripped down than in TPK, but no-less spiky with their propulsive basslines, and also feature these sad, melodic leads that certainly look back to his earlier work in the Knit Separates and early Blithe Sons. But then there are the minor-key, haunted synths that take a page out of the Blessure Grave / Zola Jesus playbook and the minimal wave rhythms that gird almost every song. Released on Holiday Records, who seem to be the Sacred Bones of Italy. A necessary album for all fans of the recent wave of new goth. Limited to 300 copies!

Another blast of post-apocalyptic cold-wave inspired dark goth-pop from Horrid Red. Comprised of members of Teenage Panzerkorps, including the ever prolific and talented Glenn Donaldson (Art Museums, Skygreen Leopards, Jewelled Antler, etc.) as well as a rotating cast of band members including some AQ alumni. "Silent Party" is perhaps the most infectious song Horrid Red have crafted yet. Sounding like some lost gem of gloomy dark wave pop that one might hear on some awesome reissue by Dark Entries. But just as we played that song over and over several times and finally allowed ourselves to hear the next track "The Horror & The Cruelty" we had to seriously rethink if this track now takes the cake for their best blast of sneering motorik Fad Gaget inspired darkness. The two tracks on the B side "Marble Staircase" and "Parts I & II" are less immediate but showcase their ability to create a downer atmosphere with such success. At a time when we've been getting lots of 7"s with just one killer song, we appreciate that there are four totally strong tracks on this 7" making it well worth the price.

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Brand new disc from local kraut-drone dreamweavers Horseflesh, who in our review of their last record we compared to a cross between Expo 70 and Wolf Eyes, which is not so much the case anymore. They're still drone-y and dreamy, but here, the sound has been pushed even farther out, and from the opening few minutes alone, you know you're in for something different, a gurgling low end shimmer builds in pitch and intensity, faster and faster and louder and louder, until the band locks into a high end Ur-drone, a symphony of synthesized skree, Sunroof! set to stun, difficult and dense, bordering on full on noise, but handled so deftly, we almost don't want it to end. Thankfully, instead of ending, it just sort of changes, the high end drops out leaving a strange pulsing dynamic sea of synth notes, chords, whirring buzzy warbly throbs, creating a strange staggered rhythm, haunting and off kilter, but strangely arresting too, unlike almost anything we've heard but we dig it. This constantly shifting sonic field is anything but ambient, synths and guitars fade in and fade out, reverberating metallic shimmer becomes grinding industrial crunch, warm muted tones become a burbling sea of fragmented melody, it all sort of builds and intensifies into a churning doomdrone finale, dense and effulgent, and strangely majestic. Most bands would probably hang it up there and call it a day, but we're not even 1/3 of the way through yet. The second track is much more spacious, the high clarion tones clear and resonant, ringing out like car horns and fog horns, the long notes beating against each other, occasionally slipping into strange distorted crunch, but slipping just as effortlessly back into swirling tendrils of warble and whir, the track continues to get more and more dense, the synths more and more like horns, more dissonant, the notes more rapid and closer together, resembling some sped up Hermann Nitsch piece or some other droning atonal chunk of modern classical. The final track is much more melodic, at least in the beginning, deep washed out blissy tones wreathed in crumbling warm fuzz, the fuzz quickly dissipating, leaving another strange sea of almost chiming upper register tones, their color slowly shifting from whites and yellows and reds, to greys and browns and blacks, growing more ominous and more darkly clouded by the second, the layers peeling back one at a time, eventually leaving a single tone, that drifts and warbles and shimmers and whirs finally fades out completely. Not nearly as krautrocky or dreamily drone-y as the last Horseflesh, but it would have been too easy to just make another same sounding record. Synthenesia is a much wilder collection of sounds, much more intense and inventive, challenging and difficult, and ultimately, because of that, even more magical and mysterious. These cd-rs are packaged in super striking handscreened digipaks, with a printed cardstock insert and a sticker.

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Two of our favorite local bands team up for some serious noisemaking. Horseflesh usually traffic in longform dronescapes and epic post industrial kraut drone, while Borneo specialize in a sort of pop infused heaviness, that we described as Harvey Milk or Jesu covering Lync or Seam or even Codeine. So the question is not necessarily why these guys decided to get together, the real question is what happened when they did. And Courage Rock is the answer. A twisted post rock hybrid, not in the sense of post rock the genre, but rather POST-rock, beyond rock, beyond even post rock, the opening salvo finds the Borneo duo unfurling thick, repetitive anti-grooves, thick chugging metallic riffage, pounding motorik thumps, while Horseflesh bathes the whole thing is thick swaths of tripped out kosmische effects, streaks of white noise, layers upon layers of hiss and buzz and crunch, tossing in the occasional squall of bleeps and bloops and swoops. As the record continues, Borneo dial it back a little contributing some more minimal pulse like rhythmic minimalism, while the guitars rumble and buzz, and Horseflesh keeps things thick and murky and spaced out. Elsewhere, full on bursts of white noise give way to hazy sun baked riffage, a doomy crawl, almost like Earth, wrapped in a speaker rattling undercurrent of tectonic rumbles, long stretches of layered haze wrapped around incendiary feedback, that pulse like thump holding it together, a gloriously noise flecked spaced out druggy drift, rife with stuttery loops, shards of FX and buried melodies, crushing downtuned doomy sludge, almost stonery, with heavy Neanderthal drumming, and woozy minor key guitars, pounding through a cloud of black fuzz and twisted effects, a seriously fierce psych-drone blowout, so good that it makes us almost think these guys should ALWAYS play together... SUPER LIMITED, in hand painted and hand assembled packaging....

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Sometimes we want to grab Robert Horton, and shake him like crazy, screaming "For God's sake man, slow down with the releases!!! Even if we listened to one very day for the rest of our lives, we're not sure we'd get to all of them!!" But sometimes, we want to grab Robert Horton, and shake him like crazy, screaming "For God's sake man, DON'T EVER slow down with the releases!!! We are going to listen to one every day for the rest of our lives, and we never ever want to run out!!" So by now, you're take on this latest cd-r (number 34,221 by last count) will depend on which sort of shaking you want to do. To be totally honest, we tend to lean toward the latter, sure, it's exhausting keeping up with this man's prolific output, but pretty much every thing we've heard has been absolutely fantastic. I guess that's why we have entire rooms of our houses dedicated to storing all of our records and cds. -sigh- Anyway, Diamond-Beak-Hornet-Hell finds Horton employing the same bizarre array of soundmakers (including boot, vibrator, sex machine, raven, rubber band and more) to create his thick soundworlds. DBHH is a bit heavier than past outings, all of the swirling bits of sound coalescing into a seriously propulsive riff, like a less drifty Sunroof! but that's just the first track. The rest of the disc dabbles in deep drone, flecked with bits of disembodied slide guitar and what sounds like processed didgeridoo, swirling abstract psychedelia, thick warped rhythmscapes of warped backwards guitars and strange keening reeds and clattery deconstructed blues, transformed into some sort of almost industrial looped dronescape. Cool. And we managed to make it through the whole disc before the next one was released. So now we're ready Horton! Bring it on!!!

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Holy crap, we weren't kidding when we mentioned in the -other- Robert Horton review on this list, that this man has been busy busy busy. Releasing records for going on 30 years now, but everything we've heard has been absolutely amazing. So we're not complaining, we're just scrambling to keep up, and to make enough room on our shelves at home. You pretty much need a dedicated Horton shelf by now, but it's well worth it. As we said, everything we've heard has been great, and this latest release is no exception. Horton seems to derive perverse pleasure in getting pretty sounds of some of the most unlikely sources. Even at his droniest and dreamiest, it's not uncommon to discover he was using vibrators and electric toothbrushes, vacuum cleaners or footwear. And this disc follows suit. He employs the usual array of soundmakers: Boot, sex machine, pump organ, dulcimer, vibrator, turntables, contact mics and on and on. Weaving all of the disparate sounds these items produce deftly into gorgeous dronelike shapes. This record in particular sound especially guitar heavy, one track with buzzing slipper slide, another with repetitive strum, over some deconstructed Appalachia, some weird blown out fuzzy psych, but these 'jams' are balanced by a delicate world of drone, pulses and shimmers, some truly lovely stuff. The most far out track has to be "Tern", where Horton performs solo on a barometer, creating a clattery clanging percussive workout. As always, super stuff!! LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!! Packaged in a screen-printed/photo cover, with a photocopied insert, pressed on cool black cd-r's and housed in a heavy vinyl sleeve.

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The Bay Area's very own Robert Horton has been a very busy beaver, and it hasn't just been lately, as is evidenced by this, volume THREE in the Horton archives, collecting various bits and baubles recorded between 1985 and 1988, all of it just as stunning on anything from the last few years. The opener is a massive 12 minute epic utilizing 8 guitars, using just intonation, producing harmonics by vibrating the strings with vibrators and electric razors, the result a gorgeous keening high end drift, slow peals of upper register drone slowly shifting and shimmering. The rest of the tracks here are also drone based, with subtle variations, dancers swinging rocks together for percussion, various unlikely stringed instruments, chanted vocals, even horns, the results without exception, lovely and serene. It's frustrating sometimes, trying to keep up with the prolific output of many artists and labels today, now that putting out a cd-r is as easy as stopping at Office Depot on your way home from work, but whenever we almost give up, we throw a new disc on and are whisked away to some droney dreamy sonic wonderland and just drift away, wondering how the heck we could have been thinking about giving up... Includes full color insert and extensive liner notes, Horton history and info on each track. LIMITED TO 150 COPIES. WE GOT 30 COPIES, ONCE THESE ARE GONE, THEY ARE GONE FOR GOOD, IT'S ALREADY OUT OF PRINT AT THE LABEL!

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Some of us who hadn't heard The Hospitals before always assumed they were just some ordinary garage rock band, at least based on the context of how we had heard about them or flyers we had seen, but when we finally got to hear Hairdryer Peace we quickly discovered that something much more fucked up and unique was at play! This ain't no garage rock, in fact we think most folks into your ordinary punky garage rock wouldn't know what to do with this record and that's a very good thing. Dense with layers of fuzz, junk and some serious noise, The Hospitals have created an album that is always just on the verge of self-destruction and which often erupts into something brilliant just when you thought the ship was about to go down. This is some full on weirdo-rock, we hear hints of the most extreme lo-fi wonder of the New Zealand scene as well as the freakout psychedelics of the Japanese underground. Jandek on meth playing High Rise covers?! A pumped up Pumice joining forces with The Shining Path, Black Dice and Excepter!? The Skaters covering the first Comets On Fire album?! If you can start to imagine any of those scenarios then you start getting an idea of the charged and bizarre world in which Hospitals are operating. We slept on this album when it came out last year and you may have seen it listed as the number 3 record of the year picked by the Bible of the avant underground, The Wire. While a cd release of the album is in the works, this is your last chance to snag a copy of the vinyl as the band is down to it's last batch. Get it while you can!

The fog rolls in almost every night here in San Francisco, but only once in a very great while is it a HOT fog. Which is to say, we've been waiting for this second album from these local, retro heavy metallers for a while now, and at last it's here, on both cd and vinyl, resplendent in eye-catchingly colorful, phantastic Alan Forbes artwork. Gotta love these guys - though they may be dad-aged dilettantes (previously in punkier bands), they rip it up mightily, paying homage to Iron Maiden and Metallica. The goods they deliver here range from galloping NWOBHM influenced stormers like "Priest Of The Hillpeople" to sleazy, quasi-ironic party time rockers like "Tonight! (In The Night)" to triumphant epics like the 9+ minute "Agamemnon's Gambit" to doomed-out thrashers like "Epoch Of The Tyrants". There's plenty of melody, even plenty-ier of riffs, lots of shredding leads, and some sweet acoustic intros. Amateur air guitarists, flex your fingers! Also, the vocalist wails away quite convincingly, even when his lyrics are ever so slightly tongue-in-cheek. You can be a troo grim sourpuss and complain that these overgrown teenagers are having too much fun with their metal, but we'd rather have fun too and headbang along to Hot Fog's energetic & majestic old school tuneage. Seriously, this rules. Fans of certain other Bay Area 'bangers, like Hammers Of Misfortune and Space Vacation, should check Hot Fog out, if you haven't already. FYI, there's also going to be a cd edition on Stormspell that we'll have in just a few days (and list next time), but right now we've got the band's own self-released limited vinyl version while they last, it's a 45rpm double lp 'cause they wanted a gatefold sleeve (and also for maximum fidelity).

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RealAudio clip: Epoch Of The Tyrant

The ranks of the Bay Area's true metallions continues to expand, kick ass band by kick ass band. Old timers like Brocas Helm and Stone Vengeance are finally seeing a whole new generation take up the '80s metal torch, like Saviours and Space Vacation. Locals HOT FOG now join the cause, making their debut with this limited edition, vinyl-only five-song 12" release - of which we've got the SUPER LIMITED (100 copies) red colored vinyl, while they last (there's 400 more on black vinyl). It's 180 gram, 45 rpm, with cover art by psychedelic San Francisco poster artist Alan Forbes. Nice. One side of the insert bears the lyrics, the other is decorated with a dungeon map appropriated from an old D&D module! (And there's a picture of an owlbear from D&D as well, gotta love that!) We also can't help but love the punning title. As with any true metal band in this day and age, it may be that their tongues aren't entirely removed from their cheeks. Without being utterly ironic, you can still have a sense of humor about this brand of D&D metal (you maybe have to). Doesn't stop it from ruling though. And they're definitely SERIOUS about loving medieval metal and kicking ass. Having fun, drinking beer, all that, but not taking the piss to the extent of a band like Boyjazz (who, we gotta say, were pretty killer, silly though they were). What it comes down to it though, all you need to know about Hot Fog is, do they rock? And more to the point, do they slay? We'd say yea, and verily. Like a fist in the air, the vocals scream and soar. The galloping guitars storm to attack. It's 1983 all over again, and in your face! The riffs are all instant headbangers, dished out with practically punk energy. It's hard for us to decide which song is the most catchy, maybe the Cat Scratch Feverish "Blood Wedding", which reminds us of another local act, Night After Night (RIP). Their biggest influence is probably (or, should we say, obviously) Iron Maiden, a fact confirmed by their singer/guitarist, who also told us that early Metallica has been sneaking into their songwriting as well... but he's adamant that they shouldn't ever get too thrashy. As he says, you've got have choruses "for the ladies". He also gave us some insight into the band's creative, artistic process: they got drunk and made a long list of cool if nonsensical names for songs (like "Dwarf King Of The Sovereign", "To The Helm", "Blood Wedding", "Death Killers", and "Gloved Vengeance", which happen to be the tracks here). Then, later, whenever someone would come up with good riff, they'd get to pick which song title to use. And the singer then had to write lyrics to fit! Something of a challenge, but he managed to do it, and with flair. Hey if it works for them... maybe that's what 3 Inches Of Blood do too? If you want to check 'em out in person (we haven't yet had the pleasure, but are looking forward to it), they're playing tomorrow night (that's Saturday, June 19th, 2010 as we write this) opening the "Parkerzalooza VI" at the Bottom Of The Hill, with Earthless, Carlton Melton, and Dirty Power. All those bands are cool, but Hot Fog will definitely be the most METAL of 'em!

MPEG stream: Dwarf King Of The Sovereign
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On the same label that released the recent live White Hills tape as well as a post Brainbombs No Balls jam we were never able to get, comes this brand new 7" from these San Francisco psychedelic stompers, thick with blown out guitars, classic rock riffage, wild octopoidal drumming, Stooges-y stomp and wild manic almost Jello-like vocals, the sound a glorious tangle of sixties style psych, eighties punk rock, hairy fuzzy proto-metal and seriously shredding guitar mastery, the lyrics and unhinged vox remind us of some lost proto-punk classic, but then it's all set amidst some BIG riffs and killer melodic leads, which sound way more heavy seventies. Either way, killer stuff, and we're definitely hankering for a full length. Features some super scary green-goo'd space teeth cover art.

2nd 7" from these local skate punk/psychsters.

On the same label that released the recent live White Hills tape as well as a post Brainbombs No Balls jam we were never able to get, comes this brand new 7" from these San Francisco psychedelic stompers, thick with blown out guitars, classic rock riffage, wild octopoidal drumming, Stooges-y stomp and wild manic almost Jello-like vocals, the sound a glorious tangle of sixties style psych, eighties punk rock, hairy fuzzy proto-metal and seriously shredding guitar mastery, the lyrics and unhinged vox remind us of some lost proto-punk classic, but then it's all set amidst some BIG riffs and killer melodic leads, which sound way more heavy seventies. Either way, killer stuff, and we're definitely hankering for a full length. Features some super scary green-goo'd space teeth cover art.

We just have a very small handful of these limited split singles, and when they're gone, they're gone... So you probably already know if you want to (quickly try and) get one, if you're a big fan of one or more of the four badass SF rawk groups on here, all throwbacks to sweet times in the heavy, glammy '70s for sure. Of special note, two of the bands do covers: Dirty Fences taking on Blondie, and big aQ faves Hot Lunch covering the obscure yet mighty UK proto-punks Crushed Butler - a perfect choice for 'em!

It would seem that the idea behind Howlin Rain, featuring members of Comets On Fire (guitarist/vocalist Ethan Miller) and Sunburned Hand Of The Man (drummer John Moloney), is to be a total California-style hippy throwback rural rock n' roll band, like from the late '60s or early '70s. Think Creedence, Quicksilver, Crazy Horse, and The Dead. They do a pretty good job of it -- these sprawling songs are all full of strummin' sunshine and scented smoke and even some swingin' saxophone. Ethan's raggedy whiskey voice (very Rod Stewart, actually) sounds just perfect for this, whilst the band choogles authentically. Or gets mellow, very mellow. But don't worry, just when you think maybe they're just getting a little bit -too- laid back and melodic, Ethan will unleash some truly fucked, utterly obliterating noisy psych guitar to remind you that he's the dude from Comets On Fire after all. Those fuzzy guitar freakouts are really what makes this work for us, actually, and keeps this from being, uh, just an underground Black Crowes. We're reminded (to make a reference probably not too many folks will be familiar with, sorry) of Slap Happy Humphrey, the Japanese band that combined acoustic '70s folk with blasts of Japanoise guitar mayhem courtesty Jojo Hiroshige of Hijokaidan. This isn't -that- extreme but it's the same general idea, as also applied by Japanese psych acts like Nagisa Ni Te and Shizuka. Howlin indeed.

MPEG stream: Calling Lightening With A Scythe
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Last year one of our favorite records was one of those limited edition Latitudes eps from Paradise Island. Sadly that great ep is now out of print but luckily Jenny Hoyston, who is Paradise Island, and a member of the great Erase Errata has unleashed her first full length solo recording, sonically similar, just now under her own name. Isle Of is everything we've come to love about Jenny's music. It's eccentric, impassioned and so fully engaging. From anthemic blood rushers like "Spell D-O-G" and "Bring Back Art" to twangy numbers like "Even In This Day And Age" and "Send The Angels" to the Mary Timony/Helium like "Novelist" to late-night burners like "Ruff Ruff/Rainbow City," Isle Of is a record filled with unpredictability but with a common thread of honest delivery and colorful expression. While most people treading such wide ground would most likely trip up at some point, Jenny is able to get all those sounds and songs to make perfect sense. Her range and great taste comes shining through brightly, bringing the same kind of intensity that she's perfected in Erase Errata, yet without any of the usual band boundaries.... We love the free and loose sounding Jenny, singing any kind of song she wants, and doing so with a conviction and flare that's impossible not to fall for. Liberating, exciting and totally infectious. Isle Of is highly recommended!

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Sixth full length from one of San Francisco's treasures: Sonya Hunter. Sonya is a singer songwriter whose music is like a cool drink of water. Her calm, unhurried, super melodic style reminds me of Aimee Mann, her phrasing and slight melancholy is similar to fellow SF gal-with-guitar Barbara Manning, and her clear, unblinking strength brings to mind Linda Thompson and folk/rock singers of the '60s. Includes a lovely Buffy Saint Marie cover. Nice.

RealAudio clip: Aquamarine
RealAudio clip: Tall Trees in Georgia

[ aquarius records — Local ]