[ aquarius records

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As hard as we tried, we were never able to get in all the 7" singles that Hunx & His Punx released on labels like Bachelor, Shattered House, True Panther and Bubbledum, since Hunx began recording with his Punx while his other band Gravy Train! was on an indefinite hiatus. So we were so psyched to find that True Panther was compiling all those 7"s on a single lp, and since they're are all pretty much already out of print, so this might be your only chance to get all those tracks. Appropriately titled Gay Singles, the cover features an eye popping close up of a zebra stripe jockey clad crotch. Hot on the heels of a long tour he's just embarked on supporting Jay Reatard, we're so excited that Hunx & His Punx gets to spread his amazingly flamboyant and sexy spirit and pure garage pop and punk perfection to a wider audience. A total student/lover of all things popular culture, Seth Bogart (aka Hunx) has become such a master of infusing his songs with playful and seductive themes, crafting killer pop jams, displaying plenty of tongue in cheek lyrics and a whole lot of skin, yet this is not just some kind of joke rock, as there is a really great understanding of true pop music, girl group sound and power pop and Ramones style punk rock. So damn catchy and loaded with innuendo and sex appeal that's sure to create a party anywhere and anytime these punx perform (or even just get blasted on your boombox!). So damn fun!

With all the great music they've put out it's easy to forget that Hunx & His Punx had still not put out a proper full length until now. With Too Young To Be In Love, Hunx shows he's not just good only for singles but that he can keep the momentum up and fun flowing for a whole full length record. His love of girl groups shines so bright in these songs as you can hear how the sounds of The Crystals, The Shangri Las, and The Ronettes are given such respect as they are channeled through a gay punk's point of view. With great back-up vocals from some fine ladies including Shannon from Shannon & The Clams, this is a record that gives you all the hand claps, high energy, and tales of heartbreak that you want in a great pop record. "The Curse Of Being Young" might just be Hunx's finest song yet as it for sure will be a contender for favorite pop song of the year, and luckily everything else on the album stands near that level of pop excellence.

Stompin', rockin' new 45 rpm blast of grit and groove from the fabulous trio of Sarah, Sadie, and Nikki aka The Husbands, San Francisco's latest and most successful export in the marketplace of hot female retro garage bands that like to party with vampire zombies. Sides A & B are both raucous originals, fast and fun ones that you'll be flippin' over and over again.

Finally! The debut album from local garage rock trio The Husbands -- a band that just happens to feature AQ's beloved Sadie Shaw on guitar, maracas and backup vocals. In fact it's all girls on this record, though they've got a boy playing added percussion on stage with 'em now. In addition to Sadie's fabulousness there's the authentic, so-appropriate voice of Sarah Reed -- sexily raspy from whiskey and cigarettes, but she still hits the notes, the girl can sing; and then there's the rhythmic pound of drummer Nikki Sloate. This fierce, all-attitude band is really into rockin', with a deep love for and knowledge of their '60s inspirations / source material. Half the songs are well chosen covers that get the rough 'n raw Husbands treatment -- tunes by Half Pint and the Fifths, The Barbarians, Carole King, even a punk-energized version of Bo Diddley's "Cadillac". Definitely a super-fun live band (go see 'em if you get the chance, which you probably will 'cause they're so hard workin') who've managed to capture their energy and attitude on this lil' round disc.

MPEG stream: Orphan Boy
MPEG stream: Dirty Mouth

Wow, what a difference a few years make! Since their debut album in 2003, The Husbands have endured a seemingly non-stop revolving door on the drummer seat, finally lockin' in with Ms Casey Ward (of Weakling and The Lies) for this album. In that time the gals also spent a stretch expanding their vocal repertoire with awesome sassy results. The results are a much tighter, tuneful Husbands. Most notable is the occasionally very '60s girl group style singing which serves as a nice counterpart to their former predominantly snarky vocal cord shredding fury. That by no means is any indication that this SF garage rock trio has softened up. Sadie, Sarah and Casey will still kick your ass 'round the block with their music (and we'd bet they'd do so literally too if you wrong 'em!). All members share in multiple instrument duties and are joined by such guests as Dave Sartain, Russell Quan (of countless garage rawk combos), and Trans Am's Phil Manley. Seventeen short'n'sweet party-ready tunes (only one of which exceeds the three minute mark!).

MPEG stream: Tell Me Your Love Is Only Mine
MPEG stream: Cut Me Loose

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SORRY. Limited edition large poster screenprinted on blueprint paper - so each is one-of-a-kind! Features the face of Crack: We Are Rock member Erin. Designed by Slang (who's responsible for a number of other stunning, highly covetted, non-paper posters for SF artists like Church Steps, Sounds Of The Barbary Coast, Kit Clayton, and O.S.T. go to: www.slanginternational.org).

1" button: uniquely shiny chrome with black print of the band's head-bending-fork logo.

1" button: uniquely shiny chrome with black print of the Teletwin logo.

A brand new IAS 1.25" button to go with their brand new album! Uniquely shiny chrome with black print of the 'magic/magnetic hand' image from the front cover of their Buy Hidden Persuaders limited edition album.

New I Am Spoonbender stickers are now here! Striking Egyptian motif. Bright orange, black and white weather-proof vinyl. 2" wide by 6" high.

The debut album from the San Francisco avantgardists I Am Spoonbender is quite a brilliant fare, in which the telephone operates as metaphor to semiological, aural, and sidereal transmissions (Andee's interpretation: "They sing into phones"). But this object finds itself in need of repair, disrupting and misinterpreting the original signals of This Heat and Gary Numan into mutant grooves propelled by Dustin's post-Jaki Leibezeit percussion and Brian's prog bass angularity. On top of all of this rhythmic disruption, Cup's delicate synth melodies fall somewhere in between the tropes of early 80's new wave and Nurse With Wound's Soliloquy for Lilith. Yeah, I already run the risk of making this review far more advanced than it really need be, so I say that this - the aural equivalent of Avital Ronell's Telephone Book - is one of my favorite records of the year. No shit.

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SORRY. The original IAS sticker design! 8"long by 1.5"wide vinyl sticker with silver band name and shiny black antique fork design on matte black background.

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SORRY. 2" high by 5"wide vinyl sticker with white band name and silver logo on matte black background.

Limited edition 1.5" button: uniquely shiny chrome with black print of the phrase "I went to see I Am Spoonbender and all I got were memories."

Back in stock! An unexpected I Am Spoonbender object for your multidimensional delight and reflection. It's a limited edition 2.25" circular mirror! These were formerly only available from the group at their performances and have been long long gone. However, to commemorate the release of their latest album Buy Hidden Persuaders which has mirror themes running throughout, IAS have made a fresh batch. We've got a small quantity here at aQ. The back is imprinted in black with their logo and the phrase "this is a 2 way mirror" (Who is on the other side? And where are they watching from?) on the same sleekly unique chrome finish as their 1" buttons. Perfectly stylin' and perfectly handy.

A brand new I Am Spoonbender t-shirt design to go with their brand new album! Black 50/50 t-shirt with metallic silver and red print of the 'magic / magnetic hand' image from the front cover of the Buy Hidden Persuaders limited edition album. Sizes: YL, S, M, L, XL. Please specify in the comments section of the order form which size shirt you want.

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SORRY. This black 50/50 t-shirt is graced by a white telephone handset design that glows in the dark! It's surrounded by thin red lines. Adult extra large only.

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SORRY. Black 50/50 t-shirt with metallic silver print of the band's head-bending-fork logo. Various sizes available. Please inquire.

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

SORRY. Black 50/50 t-shirt with red telephone and white lines design. Large only.

Black 50/50 t-shirt with metallic silver print of the three forkmen from the Teletwin album. Various sizes available. Please inquire.

When I first moved to San Francisco in the early nineties, I kept hearing about a band called the Icky Boyfriends. Can't remember exactly what I heard about them, but it did seem like, judging from how often people mentioned them, that they must be THE San Francisco band. And they kind of were, but in a way I wouldn't be able to properly appreciate for years. The Icky Boyfriends were a three piece, guitar drums and vocals, sloppy, sweaty, shitty, noisy, punk as fuck, but not PUNK ROCK punk, more sort of some chaotic dirge-y freaked out what the fuck kind of punk rock. They were an unholy collision of nerd rock and noise rock, fronted by Icky Jon, with his unruly white guy 'fro and thick black glasses, and his histrionic stage presence and that wailing caterwaul. Each song a two or three minute burst of simple slow sludgy riffing, fuzzed out garage rock crunch, pounding drums and that wild sort of sung, sort of spoken nasal wail, expounding on the public transit system, Mexican food, cops, flea baths, sex, meat, crappy jobs, the mission, Frank's Mom and all sorts of other bizarre randomness. Like some pop band that got confused, ended up in the Mission, got super wasted, then beaten up and left for dead, and then somehow ended up putting a record out on Siltbreeze. Damaged and demented and so fucked up. The whole thing culminating with the independent film I'm Not Fascinating, starring the Boyfriends, as well as loads of other Mission rock luminaries, in a demented, super low budget, slice of Super 8 weirdness. This double disc collects every little bit of recorded Boyfriends there ever was, lp, cassette, seven inches, compilation tracks, live recordings and even a bunch of unreleased stuff! Lots of liner notes too, photos, a history of the band from drummer Anthony Bedard, as well as a bizarre drug addled song by song play by play from Icky Jon.

MPEG stream: Burrito
MPEG stream: Ann Can Fly
MPEG stream: Frank's Mom
MPEG stream: Drug War
MPEG stream: I'm Not Fascinating

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SORRY. Recorded almost two years ago, "Inferno From An Occult Diary" is the fourth album from the lo-fi dronologist outfit Id Battery. Here, Loren Chasse and Brandon La Belle present their alchemical duets crafted around field recordings, slow rumbling bells, creeping organ drones, and the lo-fi errors of cable buzz. Between the seemingly placid aquatic sounds of rain tumbling onto sheet metal and the sounds of electricity, an ominous realization occurs that these sounds - however tranquil - are also charged with a certain life threatening danger. Recommended as with the rest of Id Battery catalogue!

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SORRY. Blip. Bleep. Boom. Pole. Dub. Autechre. Skitter. Electro. If. Then. What else? ...recommended Bay Area electronica, originally featured on the acclaimed Emanated compilation.

Everybody's favorite Oakland-based Carcass-worshipping death metallers Impaled are back, with another bloody slab of gore, this time under the auspices of the Century Media label -- a step up from previous label Deathvomit, we think. They also seem to have dropped the shit schtick. They're less fecal, more foresnic this time around. Musically, they continue to improve as well, and although you can't accuse 'em of being the most original band ever, at least they are true to their roots and at this point must be the world's leading "medical metal" outfit (followed closely by the County Medical Examiners), proudly keeping the Carcass legacy alive -- they even NAME their guitar solos a la Carcass! Interestingly, Death After Life was produced by Trey Spruance of Mr. Bungle/Secret Chiefs 3, who also makes some instrumental contributions, and handles the string arrangements!! Also new on (fret)board: guitarist Jason Kocol who a few of you might know as the collaborator of Steven Schultz in Puny Humans and Stalin Claus Superstar!

MPEG stream: Gutless
MPEG stream: Medical Waste

Local gorecore heroes Impaled (Ludicra bassist Ross Sewage's *other* band) vomit forth another gnarly dose of their death metal medicine. It's definitely the cure for those wasting away from a lack of Carcass in their diets -- Carcass, y'know, being the UK grindcore greats who Impaled ape so well. Nothing wrong with that, we love Carcass as much as Impaled do. Well, maybe almost as much, 'cause we didn't actually start a band to try and emulate the razorsharp riffing and sickening lyrics of those Brits. But Impaled have other influences as well, to be fair: Italian splatter cinema and, um, shit. (We didn't say they were *wide-ranging* influences...) Anyway, this Impaled is a good 'un, go get it you death grind freaks!

RealAudio clip: The Worms Crawl In

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SORRY. The Bay Area's finest...shit-metal band? Their brethren Exhumed had cover art featuring bloody butchery in the kitchen, now Impaled (with ex-Exhumed guys) come along with even more disgusting cover art illustrating gory toilet follies. What's next, carnage in the rec room? Or the den? Anyway, Impaled play fast, fierce death-grind with titles like "Immaculate Defecation" and "Faecal Rites".

Another in our ongoing campaign to get caught up on reviewing cd-r's that somehow slipped through the cracks, and have ended up no getting reviewed until now! And as usual, these are WAY out of print, the equivalent of a warehouse find, we have about 10 copies of this one, never to have more. A while back. Robert Horton was releasing a record a week it seemed like, threatening to out Aidan Baker, Aidan Baker himself. This disc is from back then, and was one of the discs we never managed to get through, being so busy reviewing all of the others. Anyway, it's a pretty great slab of abstract folky strum and haunting jazzy horns. The Imperfect Masters finds Horton teaming up with Dan Plonsey, and the two, create some sort of alien jazz folk. Horton's guitar is brittle and high end, lots of slippery slide and squalls of buzz and scrape, Plonsey's horn is wild and unhinged, hooting and skronking over the top. It threatens to be too much, when they shift gears and lock into a killer muted forest groove, all plucked strings, and pulsing bass, still slightly unhinged, but more haunting and hypnotic. The rest of the disc is tripped out and droney, the horns taking a backseat to buzzing guitars and sporadic percussion. The disc finishes with a 22 minute epic, a slow build, guitars and horns, some bass and other noisemakers, slowly building layer upon layer, to a frenzied free jazz climax, then winding down for the tracks final 5 minutes or so, locking into a droning almost bagpipe like dirge jam. Cool stuff. And again, this is almost 2 years old, so once the 8 or so copies we have are gone, we will not be able to get more.

MPEG stream: Phantom Of The Lunch Cart
MPEG stream: The Old Revolutionaries Of Bughouse Square

Imperial Teen are back with what might be their brightest, bubblegum-iest album ever! All the familiar faces are back in the fold -- Roddy Bottum, Lynn Truell, Jone Stebbins and Will Schwartz! You probably know that the latter has been keeping busy during the band's five year hiatus with his fun-fun-fun dance party Hey Willpower! He might've been workin' it on out on the dancefloor, but he's not gonna get much rest with the equally energetic Imperial Teen. Packed with crunchy electric guitars, boy/girl vocals, snappy drumming and hooks galore, this is some jubilant, ultra carefree pop! It begs for an endless supply of exclamation marks!!!!! Go on, whatever age you are, take a gleeful sock-footed bound around your living room! And like any kind power pop band should, Imperial Teen give you a sweet slower closing number for you to cool off to! For fans of Redd Kross, Tralala, The Go! Team, and The Rondelles.

MPEG stream: Everything
MPEG stream: 21st Century

Ultra limited (already out of print) blast of bizarrely beautiful outsider noise, a la Skaters, Dead C, Yellow Swans and all that groovy shit! Only 100 copies and we got about 5...

A new record (or sort of new, as the A side was originally on a super limited out of print cd-r released on the Yellow Swans' Jyrk label) from Inca Ore, aka Eva, a frequent collaborator with the Yellow Swans, and it's another gorgeously murky swirl of affected vocals, as vocals are the main sound source here, but not regular old singing, no, Eva takes her haunting sing song vocals and drenches them in reverb and echo and delay, letting them pile up and swirl aimlessly, a rich thick soundscape of melody atop melody, vocals moaning and keening, all smeared into a super primitive, yet somehow super lush expanse of creepy psychedelic dreaminess, drifting and shifting and nearly ambient at points, but just as often buried beneath a fuzzy layer of downtuned guitar grit, a thick morass of ghostly sounds and sludgy atmosphere. Like hearing some lost transmission from the other side, broadcast from another plane, through your crappy beat up old radio, wraithlike music, seeping like smoke through that tiny speaker, the original transmission muddied and hard to recognize, wrapped in fuzzy indistinctness and ectoplasmic detritus. Real nice. And limited to 450 copies!

Over the course of three solid albums, the Bay Area's Unagi has blended traditional hip hop with the smooothest love-you-down r&b and soul. On his latest release, he's joined by Memphis based MC Infinito 2017. Combined, their sound is super loose and laidback (especially on the mildly chaotic track "On Air Takeover"), but exceedingly 'up' vibe-y. Seven tracks addin' up to 17 minutes of good times!

MPEG stream: Game Winning Moment
MPEG stream: Home For The Weekend

Well, this is a first for the aQ list, at least as far as we remember. We're hitting list #469 so forgive us our senility if it's happened before, but we do believe this is the very first 7" we have made Record Of The Week! And it's not just any 7" but a double 7", one that hasn't seen the light of day since it was first released in 1981 right here in San Francisco by Subterranean Records, containing the sole recordings (five songs) of legendary all female art punk eccentrics, Inflatable Boy Clams. Long sought after by collectors of bizarre music and fetching indecent prices online, it's amazing to have this left-field punk artifact available again. Featuring Carol Detweiler and Judy Gittlesohn of local new wave heroes Pink Section (whose collected recordings were just released as well and reviewed on this list), Jo Jo Planteen and saxophonist Genevieve Boutet de Monvel of Longshoreman and Club Foot Orchestra, Inflatable Boy Clams were not so much a traditional band as they were a performance art collective, rotating instruments and vocal duties for each song. Barebones arrangements with minimal musicianship of carnival organ, saxophone, angular bass riffs and incredibly oft-kilter singing put them in a kinship with bands like Monitor, Flying Lizards, The Art Bears, and The Raincoats, and later with bands like The Double U, Thinking Fellers, and Smack Dab, but the Inflatable Boy Clams were even weirder, funnier and much more cooly deranged. The first 7" features "Skeletons", a Halloweenish children's song made by what sounds like very unhinged children, with the B-side "Snoteleks" being, you guessed it, "Skeletons" played backward making a weird surreal song even more fun-house like and disorientating. The second 7" has three songs, starting with the satirical "Marin", a sort of send-up of richness and comfort of the affluent county north of San Francisco, sung by Gittlesohn in an arch French accent. The next track, "I'm Sorry", was perhaps the Clams most well-known song, often getting airplay on Dr. Demento's radio show. A sort of cover of Walter Donaldson's 1926 hit "What Can I Say After I've Said I'm Sorry" (Donaldson gets a writing credit), a chorus of voices sing a slow refrain of the main lyrics, while Gittlesohn and Planteen trade confessional stories of mutual bad friendship to each other (stealing boyfriends - or maybe girlfriends, electrocuting pets, ruining a dress, destroying beloved cassette tapes), with very disingenuous apology. The final song on the B-side, "Boystown" is a curious martial dirge about boys going back to Boystown with their guns and knives as the gals sing with slow sinister "good-riddance" tra-la-la glee. But really, words and descriptions can't quite quantify what a bizarre, hermetic and wholly contained piece of DIY musical art from content to packaging this is. One whose mystery and unexplainable attraction would likely have been diluted had the group attempted to continue and make more recordings. That shirk of commercial success brand identity and skewering of gender politics is in turn what makes San Francisco punk stand apart and sound so fucking great right now. Thanks to Superior Viaduct for making this and the Pink Section recordings available again! Highly Recommended!

MPEG stream: Skeletons
MPEG stream: I'm Sorry
MPEG stream: Marin

Ingenting is Swedish for 'nothing,' and this American collective (half living in California, the other in North Carolina) pays homage to all of the varied meanings that Ingmar Bergman ascribes to the state of 'nothingness.' This certainly entails all of the dark and heavy aspects of Bergman's nihilism and the long pregnant silences that are sporadically interrupted by dialogue; but they also dig into Bergman's films finding poetry in such banal phrases as "I want nothing to eat." Around this conceptual framework, Ingenting Kollektiva recorded their first album in "direct response to music recorded or released in 1969" from which they announce something akin to the Nurse With Wound list, with entries including Holger Czukay, Amon Duul, Ornette Coleman, Pentangle, King Crimson, Alan Silva, etc. None of those artists mentioned seem to offer the construction of Ingenting Kolletiva's darkly kaleidoscopic abstractions and acoustically driven drones; but the ghosts of those sounds certainly haunt the grooves of this record. The two long-form pieces of Fragments Of Night allude to more contemporary practitioners of the avant-drone, especially Mirror, Thuja, zoviet*france, and Taj Mahal Travellers (to throw things somewhat near the 1969 year-zero mark). The instruments of the collective's choosing include harmonium, cello, guitar, flute, old 78s, psaltry, etc; and the collective deftly obscure those sources through interwoven harmonics, dense layering, and plenty of delay & reverb. The first side opens with gaping, deep thrums of low frequencies that ripples as if dialed into the reflective black ice from some distant moon around Saturn. The plucked notes from the psaltry gracefully pulls back the gloom of that opening passage and sets off a slow-motion dissolve of foghorn bellows, come across somewhere between Deathprod and Caretaker. The flipside is more acoustically sourced, or at least the guitars and horns can be heard amidst the time-delay effects and tape-decay loops, from which melodies form through rasping Tibetan bowls, guitars amass in dense vibrating chunks of space, and a rather dramatic crescendo of agitated violin scrapes builds to a crashing end of tense noise and drone. Limited pressing in a gatefold sleeve, what else could you want from this fantastic record? Oh yeah, there's a download code, too!

Here's one of those beautiful drone albums that should resonate with anyone keen on something to follow Stars Of The Lid, The Caretaker, or Basinski. The Ingenting Kollektiva remains something of a mystery both to us and, so it seems, to the rest of the world. Some information about their ideas are available (thanks to the impressionistic "art of memory" blog run by the Kollectiva's M. Swiezynski), but much remains purposefully arcane, which suits their smoke and mirror approach to sound design. The Kollectiva's first album seemed an homage to Ingmar Bergman's definition of nothingness, in spanning the existential gap between the mundane and the eternal void. It also channelled a zeitgeist that threaded together various pieces of music and film from 1969, but the results of that project formed an ethereal set of dronemuzik that found a particular voice that transcended the cultural references. The ghostly mood and nocturnal spell of their first album continues here on Lost Beyond Telling, tracking further back in time with references to Messiaen and Baudelaire. And again, the Kollecktiva finds itself making a slow, almost liturgical album of minimalist serenades through heavy processed instruments (guitar, cello, psaltry, etc.), field recordings, and manipulated pieces of crusty vinyl. A beautiful night sea music opens the album with pools of deep drones that gradually fracture into Basinski-like looping patterns phased through a refined use tremolo and delay. Comparatively scabrous textures churn through spiralling bird-song-like twitter on "The Dark Backward Abysm Of Time" all leading up to the somber, twenty-three minute conclusion of damp field recordings and backmasked bells dragging through a darkened loveliness of oceanic driftscaping getting close to a Salt Marie Celeste vibe. So nice! The dvd portion of the program features two distinct visual aesthetics from within the Kollektiva. The first four short films come by way of Tarrl Lightowler, who operates with an intense stroboscopic flickering of ever magnifying, ever vibrant images. Thickets of wire, bright petals, chunks of ice, and piles of leaves are just a scant number of the images that Lightowler projects in his videos, all siphoning out of a violent vortex of pulsing light. For all of its natural source materials, his videos are quite violent, countering the hypnotic wash of the sound, much of which originates from the material on the cd. Brilliant stuff for sure, but please watch carefully, as retinal fatigue comes on very quickly with these films. The two latter films are from Matthew Swiezynski, whose videos are far murkier with whisps of fire and shadows of the landscape dominating the darkened field of vision. On both of his films, the sounds are wholly unique based on creepy sounding loops that could have been culled from Tibetan horns and harmonium.

MPEG stream: Visions Obscurcies
MPEG stream: A Suffering That Turns To Light
MPEG stream: The Dark Backward Abysm Of Time
MPEG stream: Everything Is Abyss

The aftermath of an earthquake in the near future. Mission District residents as viewed by an eighteenth-century journalist. An ill female bank robber. Even mutant cowboys and vampires! Local San Francisco literary journal, Instant City is back with its 8th installment of unusual literary explorations of our fair city. The brainchild of cultural producer, Gravity Goldberg (who also organizes events for LitQuake and the Contemporary Jewish Museum) and started at Adobe Books with designer Mitch Manitou, each volume features great local writers and artists. Including a painting by our own Scott Hewicker, this issue features stories by Alvin Orloff, William Poor, Sean Taylor, David Corbett, Loren Rhodes, Alia Volz, Richard Jay Goldstein, Atom Wong, Trent Tano, India Mandelkern and Alia Volz.

We just got done raving about the brand new record from weirdo garage-pop punks The Intelligence, when what should show up, but ANOTHER new record, well, not actually new, but new to us! Originally released in 2009, on the French label Born Bad, and only showing up here for the first time in the last few days, but we're not complaining, in fact it's like some sort of garage punk Christmas. And like Everybody's Got It Easy But Me, Crepuscule With Pacman is another killer chunk of whatthefuck garage pop that manages to be catchy and jangly and fuzzy, and yet totally bafflingly bizarre. Crepuscule is much more raw and low fidelity, but it definitely suits them, the songs super stripped down, and repetitive, a but minimal, a little murky, but still impossibly catchy. the more we listen to these guys, the more we're surprised so many people dig em, cuz they are definitely difficult. The songs here run the gamut from frenetic angular almost new wave, to Velvets-y dronedirge, from crunchy atonal post punk noise rock to stripped down classic sixties style jangle pop, but really, whatever these guys are doing, they're just a little bit off, a little bit twisted, making the tracks here sound like some sort of alternate universe garage pop band, whose very existence and interruption of the space time continuum, cause their music to warp and warble, but every time we begin to think that (and yes, we think that a lot), they'll slip into some totally perfect pop, or unveil a ridiculously masterful hook. Mixing synths and surf rock, twisted guitars, and warped outsider pop into something that we can't get enough of, and should definitely appeal to fans of groups like Thee Oh Sees, Bare Wires, Ty Segall, White Fence and all the rest, who like their garage pop on the seriously skewed side of the sonic spectrum.

MPEG stream: My Ears Are Dust
MPEG stream: Intromentals
MPEG stream: I Walk In A Lonely Light
MPEG stream: Astrology

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

SORRY. We've sold many many copies of the first in this series (which, confusingly, was actually titled Vol. 5) and here's the next installment. 19 tracks of "an orchestrated turntablist session featuring DJs Shiggar Fraggar, Disk, Q-Bert, Shortkut, and Flare, recorded live, January 16th, 1996 with host Billy Jam at Hip Hop Slam, Oakland, CA as part of the 100 Pirate Fuckin Radio series between 1994 and 1999.

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

SORRY.

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

SORRY. From the back cover... "In Annual 2, grab your popcorn & seats because 'Sneak Attack' - the 1st ANIMATED SKRATCH MUSIC VIDEO [QBert's Wave Twisters] and one of many chapters to complete the Wave Twisters movie is installed in this video for your viewing enjoyment. Learn how to perform test tones with DJ World Champion 8-Ball. Sneak inside another World Champion skratch practice session with Vinroc, Craze, Develope, and Babu. Tips and Secrets from DJ Swamp, Lamb Chop, and Butchwax! A frightening Halloween! Magic tricks! Cage dancing! The heckling Masked Skratcher! Mardi Gras! A shark attack! Skratchy Seal tours the NAMM show! Toenail Man! Beautiful women! Unbelieveable performances by QBert, Revolution and the Scratch Perverts! All this and much more from the No. 1 DJ video series in the world, TURNTABLE TV!!!"

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

SORRY. Hey indie pop fans, check out this fine new Bay Area band! Invisible Cities easily go from fun, bouncy indie pop to considerably darker somber numbers in the wink of an eye. The first few gal-sung songs brought to mind a thoroughly charming combination of Bangles style sweetness, Lois' indie chutzpah, and the smart crunch of Throwing Muses. At the fifth tune "Shooting Star" though, a fella steps up to the mic lending a more slouchy boyishness to the proceedings a la Quasi or Portastatic, and he returns for the title track too. A very promising debut!

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We must admit, we don't know too much about these mysterious local post-metallers. Here's what we do know: They're from San Francisco (we think?), this is their debut full length (maybe??), and they're called Ion (we're actually pretty sure about that one). Oh, and they play totally killer, frenzied, chaotic, hyperblasting post black metal. Ion are all about contrasts: Beautifully melancholic melodic riffs suddenly dissipate into a whirling disarray of dissonance. Frantic blast beats give way to wide open minimal spaciousness before becoming enveloped again in an avalanche of buzzing guitars and pummeling drums. The vocals alternate between anguished rasps and bellowed death metal growls. During their downtime, the songs may descend into disembodied shortwave ambience. Hushed acoustic guitars haunt the landscape. A full five minutes may go by spent on reverb soaked drifting sonic post-rock bliss, before the music erupts again into a wall-of-noise onslaught of rolling double bass and grinding guitars. The affect is certainly suffocating, overwhelming and emotionally draining, but also somehow sleek, postmodern and bleak, kind of bringing to mind Altar Of Plagues' last record that we loved so much around these parts. And although Ion are definitely melodic (even downright pretty) and certainly fit comfortably into the post-black metal spectrum, their music feels too technical and scatterbrained to stand right alongside bands like Alcest or Deafheaven (although there's no reason they won't appeal to fans of those bands). Instead their relentless approach, while still maintaining a constant ear for lush melody, recalls someone like Panopticon. Meanwhile the hints of Isis-style doom and prog-metal flirtation bring to mind bands like Vatnett Viskar or even a much less earthy Agalloch. It's one of our favorite things here at aQ when a local band we've never even heard of comes out of the blue with a release this good. We're thinking they won't be going unnoticed much longer!

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Another new release from tUMULt laboratories, finds our coworker Andee's label dipping its toes into pop, and recoiling in horror, as it pulls its feet back covered in muck and crud. Iran take 'Indie rock' and bury it in fuzz and hiss, taking ultra catchy pop, and dragging it through the detritus of lo-fi noise rock, picking up an ungodly assortment of buzz and blur and scuzz. Imagine a Pavement record on Siltbreeze. Or Sebadoh, if Lou Barlow was a jaded fuck instead of a sappy romantic. Or old Smog covering Skullflower. Or Harry Pussy playing Built To Spill. A beautifully cacophonous mess. Iran play damaged folk music, bombarded on all sides by a wild assortment of squeals and shrieks, static and hiss, and speaker clogging grit. Huge and slowly shifting, dronescapes that evolve into perfect little pop songs and then explode into jagged shards of high end skree. Iran are psychedelic and textural and noisey and totally catchy, hardcore, hook-filled low fidelity un-pop noise. Pop. Plus fucking wicked 'tiger' cover art.

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[ aquarius records — Local ]