[ aquarius records

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

Showing results 1401 through 1450 of 2798.

This is the debut album from Bay Area indie rockers Low Red Land. The band wastes no time in stepping up to the plate to take a swing at the emotive smart pop ball being played by the likes of Pinback, Built To Spill, and Modest Mouse. Plenty of punch, big fuzzy guitars, emo boy vocals and some nice rhythmic twists.

MPEG stream: Dreams That Heroes Dream
MPEG stream: You're Alive

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

SORRY. This SF drums and guitar duo has added a bassist for their sophomore release. Maybe you'll catch them opening for the Melvins on tour.

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

SORRY. San Francisco's most under appreciated post rock band (due mostly to a rather unsuccessful stint on Amrep) really come into their own on this record. The addition of a bass player (Tiber from P.E.E.) has bolstered their sound, making their droning hypnotic take on Unwoundy Slint rock rumble and throb like never before; from the catchy as fuck title track to the 'good morning captain' of 'Thistrainwillnotstop'. Improved songwriting and an awesome Tim Green production will hopfully make this the record that gets people to sit up and take notice. The single has 2 unreleased tracks including a beautifully delicate piano piece that even Allan liked.

We've been waiting a while for this debut record from local boy Jeffrey Luck Lucas. An ironic name for the guy, as Lucas' songs are not those of luck or good fortune or smiling faces or bright sunny days. No, Lucas is a musical man after our own hearts, spinning morose, minor key tales of misery and loneliness, heartache and pain. Monochromatic musical snapshots of dingy hotel rooms, run down bars, boarded up stores, empty bus stations, blood in the sink, empty bottles by the bed. The dark swampy folk of Sixteen Horsepower, the lonely drunken storytelling of Tom Waits, but with a more distinctly classic country sound. Simply strummed acoustic guitars, mournful strings, sweetly singing lap steel and an arsenal of odd instruments that help give the record its haunting quality: water glasses, bowed cymbals, bowed guitar, vibraphone, optigon, function generator, guitarra quinta, toy piano, bamboo dulcimer, and more. All underscoring Lucas' raspy drawl, soaked in booze and dried out on the side of a lonely highway, warm and rough and beautifully weary. Guest vocalists include Wendy Allen from the Court And Spark and Janis Tanaka, formerly of Hammers Of Misfortune!

MPEG stream: Cascade
MPEG stream: Sway To The Roll

We always seem to be trumpeting the virtues of some dark folk troubadour around here, whether it's the biblical fire and brimstone of Woven Hand, the swampy backwoods folk of Sixteen Horsepower, the deconstructed skeletal country of Souled American, the mopey slowcore twang of Califone, or the deserty mariachi of Calexico. Sometimes with all of this searching far and wide it's easy to overlook something right under your nose. Thus, right here in SF, we have Mr. Jeffrey Luck Lucas, whose music speaks to anything BUT a life of luck. But whose dark sonic magic is certainly equal to any of the above mentioned night wanderers. In fact, if anything, Lucas seems to incorporate little bits of all of those different shades of black into his own dizzyingly dreary world of heavy heartedness. A dark Tom Waits-ian lurching meander through tall weeds and dark alleys. A minefield of broken hearts, and long lonely nights. Perpetual sadness lit from within with glimmers of hope flitting in the darkness like fireflies. Lucas' voice is a ragged drawl, slipping from whisper to growl and back, over warm beds of dramatic shimmer, simple percussive shuffles, twangy reverbed surf guitar wrapped in a mist of nighttime murk, backdrops of moaning cello, slithery lap steel, angelic female vocals. Simple fingerpicked guitars pick out haunting melodies, swaths of dreamlike soul draped over tinkling pianos, singing saws and wheezing accordions get all tangled up in a seasick waltz. This is the kind of music that evokes back woods and small towns, trailer parks and barren landscapes, empty city streets and lonely rooftop vigils. Like the score for some unfinished Jim Jarmusch film, dramatic but understated, dark and doleful but so goddamn pretty. Along with folks like Tom Waits, American Music Club, Calexico, Sixteen Horsepower, and the like, Lucas continues to explore some mysterious lost Americana, a timeless world where the shadow of the past still darkens today. So nice.

MPEG stream: You Knew It Well
MPEG stream: Fall In Love Wrong

The return of Wuvable Oaf!!! If you remember a few months back when we listed the first issue of the Oaf (#0 for those keeping track), we gushed over the goofy funny story, the incredibly detailed art, the many many kitties, and did we mention the hair? ALL that hair!! The first issue, if you don't remember, contained plenty of goofy dancing, man love, saucy almost sex, penis shaped birthday cakes, high fashion, reality TV, feline birthing, and an art punk band called Ejaculoid. The life and times of a big bearlike creature called Wuvable Oaf, and his friends, and his cats, and his dolls stuffed with his own body hair. Now seems like a good time to revisit the hair. The art is so intricate and detailed, all the characters so hirsute that it really must take as much time to draw the hair as it does the rest of the comic. But it's worth it, so over the top, and so completely and awesomely ridiculous. So this issue gives us a glimpse into the creation of Oaf's stuffed little creatures as well as his ability to regenerate body hair just by 'forcing it', various 'worst' dates throughout the years, 1986, 1992, the origin of the Oaf, from his birth (his actual birth, euuw) to his misfit early years and eventual adoption, a visit to the gym, another feline misadventure, as well as a run in with punk rock band Ejaculoid, culminating in a visit to AQUARium records!! Hmmm. And that guy behind the counter, looks suspiciously like, OK, heck, it is! It's our own ANDEE, in all his Oaf drawn glory, surly and standoffish (not at all like the real Andee btw), giving Ejaculoid the cold shoulder, spouting his timeless catchphrase "I hate your band". Beside the thrill of being drawn into the Oaf universe, the record store is another example of artist Ed Luce's incredible eye for detail, the various records behind the counter, the posters on the wall, the band t-shirts, it's pretty amazing. We're dying to see what happens as Oaf pursues his Ejaculoid lead singer crush, and of course we can never get enough kitties, drawn or otherwise, there are big plans in the works for Oaf, including more kick ass merch (check it out: http://www.wuvableoaf.com/) as well as an actual single from the imaginary(?) Ejaculoid. Punk rock, kitties, lots and lots of hair, and of course big muscly dudes, what's not to love???

A little while back, we listed issue #2 of one of our favorite comics, starring the big, hairy, doll making, lovestruck punk rock behemoth better known as Wuvable Oaf! But now for a very limited time, we got a handful of copies of the super limited special edition version of Wuvable Oaf #2. And we're the only store that's got em. So what's so exciting about the special edition you ask? More on that in a second, first a bit about the Oaf... We've been champions of Luce's crazy creation since the moment we first laid eyes on Oaf and his equally hirsute cadre of pals and lovers and hangers on. Not to mention the kitties! For those new to the Oaf, in a city, suspiciously like San Francisco, lives the Wuvable Oaf, who spends his days making cool little stuffed dollies, filling them with his shaved body hair, living in a house full of kitties, and pining after Eiffel, the diminutive lead singer of the band Ejaculoid, who are constantly battling their arch rival band, Sphincterine, and that's just scratching the surface. There's lots of unrequited love, nightmarish dream monsters, wild punk rock gigs, nightmare dates, aggro-massage, jilted evil ex-boyfriend chefs, blind dates, bands with names like Muff 'N' Top Grrrlz and Wasp Women, a broKENCYDE shirt pops up during a show, so do the bad guys from Superman 2, as does our very own Andee! It's definitely a wild ride, the art is amazing, super detailed, over the top, there's so much hair everywhere, on the big beefy dudes, on the kitties, it's no wonder why it takes Luce ages to finish each issue, but it's well worth the wait, funny, and fun, and sexy and silly, now we're dying for issue 3, especially after the back page teaser, a big hairy, horned, devil tailed man-beast with the legend "Who is Gote Blud?". Well?? WHO IS IT?????????????? So okay, the special edition, what's so great about it? Well howsabout a custom glow in the dark cover, each one signed and hand numbered by the artist? Or what about a set of custom Ejaculoid picks, affixed to a special printed insert? Okay, well if that ain't enough, the special edition comes with a bonus 7" SINGLE, one sided, featuring Ejaculoid's synth punk grind jam "Fearce" on one side (and just so you know, the musical Ejaculoid is made up of members of Limp Wrist, Los Crudos and Needles!), the flipside featuring an awesomely gory etching, that goes along with the super gory eviscerated super model record cover, and it includes a torn ticket stub with info on where you can download a digital version of "Fearce"! All in a plastic bag sealed shut with a kitty sticker (of course). Only 200 in existence, and we're the only store, comic, record or otherwise that has 'em!

Another Great Love Song? Yes that's the unlikely title of this, the second album from this supremely confident and capable and sometimes confounding Bay Area black metal band. Ludicra, whose very name seems a veiled, half-ironic challenge to black metal orthodoxy, are one of several bands making a black metal name for the San Francisco scene, alongside Leviathan and Weakling (R.I.P.) and Crebain, etc. Ludicra are indeed a band (more than just one damned soul) and include members of Hammers Of Misfortune and Impaled among others. And they are just a bit different from most black metal acts, even if sonically you'd swear they were among the Norwegian elite. For one thing, their line up is 2/5ths female (including one of the most fearsome vocalists), for another, this new album sure doesn't look like your typical black metal record, and...they're now on Alternative Tentacles! Yup, Jello probably heard the tinges of Neurosis in their music we guess...indeed it's there (the two bands share some guest musicians in fact, members of Amber Asylum perform strings with Ludicra as they have on past Neurosis releases). But Ludicra is also a very very black metal entity. With keyboards and raging guitars and blasting drums and screams of triumph and despair, it's got a density of sound put to tape that incorporates both the heaviest violence and the prettiest melancholy...in fact a lot of this is really quite pretty, to our ears, when they get into a midtempo plod and let the little melodies up for air... Black metal fans will find this band bows to no one, even as it reminds us of Enslaved, old Emperor, Opeth, old Solefald, and others of their ilk. Ludicra, however, are urban not ancient, emotional not evil...musically they do conjure the wolves and longboats of Nordic black metal even though any such references (there IS a song called "1000 Wolves") are allegorical in nature. We thought their debut Hollow Psalms was great, and this is an equally fantastic follow-up.

MPEG stream: In The Green Maze
MPEG stream: Aging Ghost

The evil, epic sounds of San Francisco's Ludicra ooze forth once again, their third album demonstrating that they're still among the most highly emotive and intelligent masters of brutality in the business, no less despairingly obsessed with urban decay and man's inhumanity to man than on previous efforts Hollow Psalms and Another Great Love Song. Interestingly (perhaps) this album is their second for Jello Biafra's Alternative Tentacles label, hardly a bastion of nihilistic black metal art -- indeed, they haven't signed any MORE black metal bands since Ludicra, but we'd imagine that's 'cause they rightly figure that they already have one of the best! And also one of the most unique -- how many black metal bands feature not one but two female lead vocalists (one of 'em on guitar as well), alternating demonic rasps and moaning clean singing? Not exactly typical. Something that has also been said of their sister band, the amazing Hammers Of Misfortune (both share the talents of guitarist John Cobbett). And Ludicra are in some ways a crustier, filthier, bleak black metallized version of Hammers, with similar progressive urges and social concerns...and displays of neo-classical, heavy metal guitar! Which is where the most sophisticated "beauty" is to be found amidst the midtempo grimy grim grind of these five tracks (none of 'em short -- in fact the album terminates with the twelve minute "Collapse", gripping guttural symphonic sickness with cello courtesy of one of the members of Amber Asylum).

MPEG stream: Dead City
MPEG stream: In Fever

MPEG stream: Dead City
MPEG stream: In Fever

About time! After eight years, finally the debut record from this fearsome local black metal fivesome sees the light of day ON VINYL. The cd is currently out of print too, making this all the more essential. Like the cd version did, the lp comes in a rather deluxe package. Mastered at 45 rpm for extra fidelity, it's two slabs of clear vinyl packaged in a gatefold, handbound booklet with art and handlettered lyrics, inside a thick silkscreened cover, limited to 500 copies! As impressive as the original cd's "storybook" packaging, definitely the way this deserves to be vinyl-ized, in style. Here's what we said back when about the cd release, though by now you probably know all about this band, considering all the accolades they've garnered here and elsewhere, with their latest opus The Tenant, on Profound Lore, being highlighted here not long ago... Ludicra is yet another project from the fertile metal mind of John Cobbett (Hammers Of Misfortune, The Lord Weird Slough Feg, Iron Cemetary, etc.), this time with the help of local rockers/scene fixtures Aesop (Hickey, Dr. Dre Del, etc.), Christy Cather (Missile Command), Ross Sewage (Impaled), and Laurie Sue Shanaman (who works at the veterinarian where Andee's girlfriend and Erik his housemate take their cats!). Ludicra's debut reveals them to be a highly advanced black metal creation. They're complex, moody, darkly psychedelic, and 'post-rocky' like AQ-faves Enslaved - a very good thing. The droning savage trance rock of another AQ black metal fave (and fellow San Franciscans) Weakling is also evident. Maybe it's Aesop's punk-derived drumming, or the song-writing dynamics, but while this is very metal indeed it also betrays an awareness of other strands of underground rock. And of course it's heavy, textured, and exceedingly well-crafted, as you would expect from the pen/plectrum of Sir Lord John Cobbett. Ludicra has two singers: Christy (who also plays guitar) and Laurie Sue, and while both vocalists are women, you won't hear any of the sweet singing that Hammers of Misfortune's female vocalist does. No, it's all very extreme - except for some wordless background choruses and an interlude or two of gentle chanting, they mostly deliver scary throat-shredding screams that upend gender stereotypes. But, like Hammers, having more than one vocalist allows for interesting variety and dynamics. Lots of acoustic interludes and dark and rhythmic breakdowns that hint at the band members' diverse indie rock/post punk/punk rock backgrounds. That, and Ludicra's ability to yet generate at the same time such a convincing black metal atmosphere, makes for a very satisfying and compelling listen.

Local black metal favorites Ludicra return with The Tenant, their first for the great Profound Lore label, and as always, the band delivers. Ludicra masterfully mixes majestic black metal with brooding post-rock for a formula that pretty much touches on everything we love about metal in 2010, including some of the most vile and amazing female vocals we have ever heard, not that you'd necessarily think it was a woman screaming when you first hear this. Another strength is Ludicra's awesome male/female vocal harmonies which certainly add an element of beauty often missing in this kind of music. The amazing arrangements are certainly the work of a group dedicated to forging their own blackened path. It's clear that this is a band of lifers, all of them veterans of the fertile Bay Area metal scene, having served time with the likes of Hammers Of Misfortune, Agalloch, Slough Feg, Impaled, and quite a few others. "Stagnant Pond" opens the album with some cool acoustic flourishes before the shrieking female vocals come in, sounding a bit like a banshee clawing its way from the depths of hell, as the song builds and builds in intensity. "A Larger Silence" is a super melodic piece of baroque sounding metal with some great harmonies, while "Undercaste" rocks at a nice midtempo groove before going into a surprising outro that seems to owe just as much to British folk music as it does to metal. Throughout it all, the lengthy songs flow into one another perfectly, making for one of the most well thought out metal albums we've heard in quite some time. It's rare that a band is able to seamlessly merge a wide array of influences into something they can call their own, but Ludicra appear to be up to the task and we couldn't be more thrilled. Highly recommended.

MPEG stream: Stagnant Pond
MPEG stream: In Stable
MPEG stream: Truth Won't Set You Free

Although Life Is Abuse is the name of the label, they want to make life easier on those of us who love the inner city black metal art of San Francisco's Ludicra by putting out this brand new EP, featuring three unreleased songs from the Billy Anderson-recorded Another Great Love Song sessions, to hold us over until the next full-length Ludicra album coming out on Alternative Tentacles in the fall. Yay! These three tracks are prime Ludicra insanity, majestic and dark and fucked up and brilliantly composed as only a band featuring members of Hammers Of Misfortune and Impaled (among others) could do it. Actually, you get more than just those three new tracks here: the cd comes with Quicktime footage of Ludicra performing live & brutal on October 7th, 2005 (five tracks) plus a Ludicra photo slideshow!

MPEG stream: Wooden Wheels

One of our fave new Bay Area indie labels Dynamophone close out 2007 with a fresh batch of aural treats. They are four installments in their limited edition 3" cd-r ep Parcel series by the likes of Lullaby League (nice Wizard Of Oz reference there!), Curium, Science Teacher and Sleep Robot. Chances are if you've been paying attention to our recent aQ lists you're probably already as enchanted with this label's richly atmospheric hazily dreamy roster as we are, and will welcome these four into your music collection. This one features one new nineteen minute long piece for you to sink into. Don't delay though! Each release comes in a diminutive square cardboard box festooned with a full color cover art sticker, and is limited to 100 each. We only have a couple handfuls. Once they're gone, they're gone! Psst: Cantus comes with a cinnamon apple-y scented votive candle!

MPEG stream: Cantus

Here's another addition to always dreamy sounding and delightfully packaged Dynamophone Parcel series (psst, we still have one final copy in stock of the now out of print Science Teacher edition... please let us know if you're interested in it or any of the others!). Filia Melusine is a lovely spoken word piece read by Ms Phyllida Law. Her tender voice floats atop a soundscape of Evan Sornstein's soft drones and Jacob Phelps' delicate piano and guitar. The words can be traced back to a 15th century tale. Achingly intimate and deeply romantic, 'tis a magical bedtime story of personal quest and loss. The limited edition cd-r comes in a sweet little 3" box along with an added little treasure.

MPEG stream: Filia Melusine (excerpt)

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

SORRY. Another badass slab of psychedelic hypno dirge space rock courtesy of local boys The Lumerians, who definitely have the druggy drone-y dirge dirgey thing down pat. If you dig the Wooden Shjips, Sleepy Sun, Cave, Moon Duo, and other practitioners of blown out drug rock mesmer, well then you're gonna love the Lumerians. Channeling Spacemen 3, mixing in some serious krautrock, adding heaping doses of spaced out FX, these guys lock into a groove and then ride it out, totally hypnotic, cyclical, trancelike. Reverb soaked guitars, murky distorted vox, washed out, looped bass, buried melodies, all blurred and smeared into lysergic drone rock that is totally captivating. Be sure to stick around for the B-side, a barely recognizable cover of the Osmonds' infamous killer jam "Crazy Horses", given a total hazy space drone dreamdrug makeover. So awesome. Now we have just one question, WHERE'S THE FULL LENGTH?!?

Latest vinyl-only release from these SF psychedelic space rockers, whose sound has gradually grown funkier with each record, culminating in the recent Transmissions From Telos Vol. IV tape, which found the band aligning itself with Bitches Brew era Miles and Sextant era Hancock, not bad company at all for sure. And while that release, a tour only tape oddity that found the band experimenting in the studio, was twisted fun for sure, this new Horizon Structures 12" finds the band getting back down to business, this time the business of crafting four futuristic jams, equal part seventies jazz funk, eighties new wave, and some mutant strain of kosmische synth exploration. The sounds here definitely hew closely to the cover art, a 3-D rendering of some psychedelic tripped out spacescape, with the opening track a pulsing sprawl of buzzing synths, and laser beam bloops, spaced out and cinematic, and seriously poppy, maybe the poppiest thing we've heard from these guys, percolating swirling melodies, FX drenched vocals, a sort of space-y future pop, that culminates in a percussion heavy, wah guitar dowsed final freakout groove! The second track on the A side is a minimal new wave dirge, laced with all manner of percussion, and like the rest of the tracks here, with a sort of retro futuristic sheen. The first track on the B side is the killer here, a groovy blast of sci-fi space funk, peppered with electric piano blurts, woozy basslines, wheezing keyboards, swirling synths, dense driving percussion, which then seems to get reworked on the second track, the same groove, but this time even groovier and funkier, wild freaked out drumming, chaotic synths, tripped out FX, all leading up to a dreamy kosmische synth finish. Cool. Packaged with, according to the sticker on the front, "4D glasses for access to transdimensional viewing portal", which to these eyes seem more just like 3D glasses, but the cover looks AMAZING viewed through those specs, and if you DO wear them outside (with Lumerians blasting in your headphones, we'd imagine) they do seem to make things glimmer and sparkle, a secret glimpse of what lies beneath/beyond?

Local psychedelic space rockers Lumerians started life as a more straight ahead psych rock band, exploring much of the same territory as groups like Wooden Shjips, Sleepy Sun, Spacemen 3 and the like, trafficking in a sort of druggy spaced out mesmer with lots of FX, heck, on their first single they even did a killer (if nearly unrecognizable) cover of the Osmonds' unlikely proto-metal classic "Wild Horses". Over the course of a handful of full lengths and 12"s, the band began to move in a distinctly different direction than their psych/space rock peers, for one, they had a percussionist, in addition to a drummer, and for another, they definitely had a funk thing going on, subtle in the beginning, but becoming more and more evident, culminating in the recent Transmissions From Telos tape, which was full on Bitches Brew, and their most recent, Horizon Structures, which mixed that Bitches Brew sound with something more wildly sci-fi and psychedelic. So we were kind of expecting them to keep moving in that direction, but on the opener here, it's a total spaced out, motorik kraut-psych slab of Hawkwind / Spacemen 3 mesmer, fuzzy cyclical riffing, propulsive drumming, swirls of FX, plenty of synth swirl, hazy laid back vox, minimal percussion, the sound slipping from washed out and woozy, to a bit darker and driving. However, the second track finds the group slipping right back into the psych-funk of the last few records, with a groovy, funky bassline, driven by some cool busy drumming, more of those washed out vox, some reverbed guitar shimmer, that impossible combo of space rock and psych-funk yielding something pretty awesome, sounding a bit like Hawkwind with a bit more groove, which is absolutely not a bad thing. There's some serious progginess going on to, as evidenced by the sudden shift, to what is essentially lead bass, the bass handling the main melody, the rest of the band soon falling in line, locked tight, before slipping right back into the psych-funk groove that started things off. Lumerians are definitely tough to pin down, their sound constantly shifting, but always ending up somewhere cool, whether it's the Stereolab-ish electro-kraut of "The Bloom", that has a definite retro pop vibe going on as well, or the full on funkiness of "Koman Tong", which adds some weird processed guitar and vocodered vocals, and ends sounding like the theme song to some futuristic cop show, or the heady psychedelic mesmer of "Smokies Tangle", which definitely harkens back to the Lumerians of old, or finally, the Goblin-y closer, replete with sexy female spoken word vocals, which soon transforms into full on buzz drenched space psych hypno-rock, and eventually lands somewhere closer to a brooding, epic, cinematic future exotica. As always, so cool!

MPEG stream: Dogon Genesis
MPEG stream: The Bloom
MPEG stream: Smokies Tangle

We got a very small handful of this, a super new, ultra limited, tour only tape from local psychedelic space prog aQ faves Lumerians, who for this single half hour track, recorded a handful of the instruments, then flipped the tape, playing back those instruments in reverse, and tracking the rest of the band to the backward sounds. And if that weren't cool enough (we're a sucker for backwards sounds), the B side is the A side in reverse, which makes the original tracks play properly, while the proper tracks/instruments from the A side are now reversed. Trippy! And seriously psychedelic. Both sides a dizzying sprawl of minimal drone-psych drift, swooping backwards rhythms, soft synth swells, twisted swirling melodies, lush builds to gorgeous expanses of dense sonic swirl, noisy and abstract, droney and hypnotic, a bit industrial in places, streaks of black ambience drifting through field of electronic shimmer, grinding electronics wrapped around whirling FX squiggles, both sides, obviously quite similar, warped mirror images of each other, a two sided palindromic psychedelic freakout, both halves heady, and dizzyingly divine, total mind melting headphone bliss. VERY VERY LIMITED. Most of these the band sold on tour, it's LIMITED TO 200 COPIES, each one hand numbered, we got a bunch, but unclear how many more we'll be able to get once these run out. If any!!

MPEG stream: The Weaning And The Dreaming (Side One Excerpt)
MPEG stream: The Weaning And The Dreaming (Side Two Excerpt)

It's been a long time coming. After the tease of a 7" and a 12" ep, both tantalizingly KILLER, and a ton of incredible live shows, including a show stealing performance at the aQuarius records 40th anniversary party, comes this, the full length debut from SF psychedelic hypno drone psychedelic space rockers Lumerians, and it's just as good as we'd hoped and imagined. For those who've yet to hear these guys, have a look at this list of bands: Wooden Shjips, Hawkwind, Circle, Spacemen 3, Loop, Cave, Cloudland Canyon, The Heads, White Hills, Assemble Head In Sunburst Sound, 3 Leafs, Mugstar. Does that look anything like your record collection? Then odds are you've just found your new favorite band. And if there's any justice in the world, these guys will get the same sort of hype and adoration that Wooden Shjips do. Not necessarily because they sound the same, they definitely don't, but they both DO explore similar territory, spaced out buzzy, fuzzy droney psychedelic rock, but where the Shjips are minimal, Lumerians are maximal, with multiple keyboards, even a percussionist, their sound more lush and layered, similarly propulsive and driving, but maybe with more of a nod to Spacemen 3 and Hawkwind, creating super mesmerizing cyclical hypnorock epics. And these tracks are indeed epic, slow building, smoldering, hypnotic, totally trancelike but still super heavy and rocking. Opener "Burning Mirrors" pretty much sums it up, loopy low slung bass, simple motorik drumming, crunchy super distorted fuzz guitars, and thick swaths of spacey keyboards, not to mention drawled laid back vox, all appropriately reverby and echoey, these guys traffic in the sort of sound, where every song, whether 5 minutes or nearly 10, sound like live, they could go on for 20, 30, even 40 minutes, druggy, lysergic, tripped out and psychedelic, head nodding, body moving drone rock bliss. "Black Tusk" gets all sixties, the drums shuffly and busy, the keyboards crunchy and fuzzy, lots of percussion, the bass driving everything, swirly and psychedelic and minus the killer production, and the super distorted stuttery organ buzz could be some lost psych jam from back in the day. "XuluX" is another sprawling droned out jam, that gets seriously groovy, with all sorts of heavily effected guitars, and more crunchy organs, before blissing out into some seriously swoonsome keyboard driven psychedelic drift. And so it goes, "Atlanta Brook" definitely conjures up the spirit of Spacemen 3, the vocals a dead ringer, the hazy warped buzz the perfect prescription, but Lumerians add their own twist, infusing it with some strange rhythmic bridges, and buzzing sitar melodies, before slipping back into a washed out almost Beatles-esque outro. "Calalini Rises" might be the heaviest track, murky and muddy, the drums locked tight, tribal and propulsive, all the other instruments loose and chaotic, a constant sonic swirl, totally spaced out and abstract, definitely a song that could have stretched out for another couple hours. But one of our favorite jams might just have to be "Longwave" which sounds like Lumerians at the wrong speed (which we presume it must be), Neu! style, the band unfurl a droney dirgey spacerock jam, slowed to a crawl, the guitars even thicker and grungier than usual, the drums lumbering, but then the vocals come in, and they're perfectly melodic and dreamy, and drift over the undulating psychedelic murk below, culminating in a gorgeously tripped out second half, with lots of rumble and whir and buzz and drone and swirl and shimmer (but be warned vinyl folks, in order to fit the whole album on a single lp, they had to speed this song back up, shortening it quite a bit, everything is essentially the same, just the murky background music is a little less murky). So good. Seriously. If any of the above bands are your cup of tea, try spiking that tea with some Lumerians, you won't be sorry. Easily, THEE space drone psychedelic hypno rock record of the year. Drop out, and dig in!

MPEG stream: Burning Mirrors
MPEG stream: Black Tusk
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There's 2 brand new mind-spacer-outers on this week's list direct from UK psych specialists Cardinal Fuzz, one by the Dead Sea Apes, and this one from local faves the Lumerians! As you know, we love love love the Lumerians, we had 'em play at the AQ 40th birthday party, we made their first full-length a Record Of The Week, and this new one, a prequel we guess to their Transmissions From Telos Vol IV release, does not disappoint. Cardinal Fuzz is a great place for 'em, their motorik psychedelic electro-kraut fits right in. There's four long songs (37 minutes total) on this slab of vinyl, two per side, and damn if they won't free your mind, your ass following right along, like some sort of pulsating Can meets Herbie Hancock meets Circle meets Cave instrumental groove machine. Opening track "Murder Dubbs" is a headnodding groover, super tight and controlled, with bits of flute flutter and bursts of wriggly synth. The groove gets mellower on the faux-ethno "Turiya", with fuzzy sorta thumb-piano sounds like Bebey or Konono, and electric organ a la Mammane Sani. On the flip, there's more krautrocky propulsion and delightful synth sizzle via "Hook For An Eye", before the record wraps up with the longest cut, the twelve and a half minute "Impossible Windows / Caballero Futuro", super spacious and pretty and hypnotic. Nice!! LIMITED, of course! Cardinal Fuzz stuff is usually not long for this world...

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It's been ages since we've heard from these local psychedelic space rockers, but it seems like a storm of new Lumerians activity is brewing, records, shows, touring, all starting with this, a brand new 12" which displays a side of the band that always seemed to be lurking just below the surface, but is now revealed for all the world to see. The A side of this 12" finds the band exploring a funkier sound, sounding at times like Bitches Brew era Miles Davis, or Sextant era Herbie Hancock, dense percussion, swirls of wah wah guitar, whirring organs, a little bit spacey, and a little dubby, but loose and free and indeed funky, the second track introduces more buzz, and adds some psychedelic freakout to the mix, getting downright proggy before finishing off the side with something much more drone out and soundtracky, swaddled in woozy fuzzy synths. The flipside is a whole 'nother kind of beast, a dense buzzy churn, layered and thickly psychedelic, it's on the verge of collapsing into full on noise, but the band deftly corral the sounds into a blackened swirling dervish, that manages to sound like a proggier spacier SUNNO))) before blossoming into a tripped out krautfunk blowout, which in turn transforms into a long outro of creepy synths and scattered percussion, a spaced out cinematic sprawl that is at once haunting and harrowing, melodic and lovely. Great stuff as usual, can't wait for more, and to hear this stuff live! Packaged in a super striking, heavy stock jacket, and pressed on milky, yellowish/off white vinyl. And yeah, totally LIMITED!

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

SORRY. Well, it looks like the Wooden Shjips don't have the market cornered on sixties inspired drone drenched psychedelic drug rock after all. The Lumerians offer up their own take on modern psych with their debut ep, 5 songs, all of them looooong and gorgeously tripped out. Where as the Shjips seem to be channeling the Doors, the Lumerians take ? And The Mysterians, mix in some Fuzztones, and filter it through the sound of Spacemen 3 and Loop resulting in a mesmerizing, repetitive organ infused doped up hypnorock. The second the opening track kicked in we were SOLD. Fuzzy blown organ, pounding simple drum beat, super sixties vibe, buzzy and trippy and druggy and totally divine. The vocals drawling over that relentless beat and that warm thick organ. Wooden Shjips fans will freak, and just might have found a new favorite local band. The second track is just as cool, but way different, super minimal, almost jazzy, with muted percussion, subtle bass grooves, soft shimmery synths, very spacious (and space-y) and laid back, like a druggier more psychedelic Necks. The B side is all slow lugubrious organ drenched crawl, shuffling drums, a wall of washed out buzz, with one track introducing some ethereal, blissed out female vocals, drifting weightless above the fuzzy groove, giving that track a serious shoegaze vibe. Killer stuff. Super limited. Only 500 copies, each pressed on nice thick clear vinyl, housed in a plastic PVC jacket with a thick color cardstock insert, and comes with a code, so you can download MP3's for your iPod as well.

For those of you who just skim the list or only read the first few sentences of reviews, let us get your attention real quick. Lurker Of Chalice, in case you didn't realize, is the work of one WREST, aka SF black metal overlord LEVIATHAN. Paying attention now? Good. let's proceed. Lurker Of Chalice has existed in one form or another for several years now, but outside a cassette or two this is the only recorded evidence and man will it blow your mind. Originally conceived as a less black metal, more experimental musical outlet (and possibly inspired by Leviathan / AQ faves Benighted Leams) Lurker Of Chalice is constructed from lots of black metal parts as might be expected, but lot of very un-black metal bits as well: arpeggiated post rock guitars, martial percussion, simple propulsive krautrock rhythms, swirling droning ambience, strange haunting vocals, obscure found sounds and samples, doomy slow motion dirges, reverb drenched, almost sun dappled melodies over creepy warbly soundscapes, warm thick keyboards, heavily strummed steel string guitars, rich throaty crooning, super overblown distorted guitars, all smeared into a warm fuzzed out, dreamy and melancholy, mostly midtempo blackened doomscape. Occasionally, Lurker blasts into full on black metal, like on the second track "Piercing Where They Might", but even in a BM context, things are beautifully way off kilter, rumbling bizarrely affected vocals, dizzying riffs that swirl and slither and make it impossible to focus, huge jangly guitars over miltaristic snare drums and warbly Michael Gira like vocals. So weird. But so perfect. Imagine Leviathan and Benighted Leams and the Swans and Ved Buens Ende, all somehow mixed into some darkly evolving, gothic tinged expanse of moody metallic melancholia. This is maybe the best sounding record Wrest has made which is saying a lot. And it's definitely the weirdest, and most certainly the saddest. The whole record is dripping with intense emotion, minor key and slowly stretching toward some bleak future of broken promise and crushed spirit. From slowly evolving, almost cinematic instrumentals to massive and majestic dirges to woozy effect drenched post rockisms to ultra bleak ballads to damaged black metal crush, Lurker Of Chalice evokes total and utter misery, a musical invocation to the lost and alone, wandering in search of hope, under the suffocating black cloak of night, crushed beneath a starless sky and adrift in a soulless universe, exposing every raw nerve and dark corner of Wrest's twisted musical soul. So fucking good!

MPEG stream: Piercing Where They Might
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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. Luster is a straight-forward indie rock trio from right here in the Bay Area. Their second album Besides And Other Rarities is high spirited and empassioned in a similar vein to early Sleater-Kinney. Check 'em out.

One of two new releases on local label The Flenser, the other being the latest full length lp from LA black metallers Lake Of Blood (reviewed elsewhere on this week's list), and this one, the first demo from Oakland funeral doom band Lycus, who existed briefly years ago in Sacramento, but reshuffled their lineup and relocated to the East Bay, and finally released their first record, and it's a doozy. A gorgeous sonically lugubrious crawl, glacial and downtuned, the sort of sludgey ultra-doom bliss that should hit the spot for folks into Skepticism, dISEMBOWELMENT and the like. And like those bands, there's a huge melodic component, this is not the sort of slow motion tuneless ultrasludge (which we also dig!), this is like classic doom, slowed waaaaaay down, there's even some groove, a little Sabbathy swing, but it's subtle, the band creeping and lumbering for the most part, but with a surprising amount of complexity, in the arrangement, the melodies, the drumming quite busy for music this slow, and the riffing active, with all manner of intertwined melodies and churning riffage. The sound slipping from classic metal to funereal dirge and back again, often letting the two bleed into each other, the resulting hybrid, impossibly catchy, heavy, and doomy all at the same time. In fact, when we were playing this in the store, it got Allan to come investigate, he being notoriously finicky about his doom, but it's that sort of sound, grim and slow and murky and dirgey enough to appeal to the doomlords, but melodic and subtly poppy enough to immediately stick in your head, rare is the sort of doom that is actually catchy, and catchy without losing any of its dark energy and blackened heft. The band also mix the typical doom vocal gurgle with clean vocals, monklike chants in places, but that dramatic croon just adds another element, not just melodic but also textural. There are even some strange melodies that sound almost like horns in one track, and the band also don't hesitate to explode into blast of furious black metal crush, but when they do, it's only briefly, then it's right back to that loping, lumbering impossibly catchy, melodic downtuned churn.

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Bay Area's The Lymbic System bring us instrumental indie post-rock pop with a jazzy lean, a la Tortoise. That said, their ep Carved By Glaciers maintains a looser and slightly edgier sound, thus keeping a safe distance from truly formal post-rock constructions. Low frequency distortion, hints of a Moog-y synth, a Wurlitzer, layers of electronic melody and many incredibly delicate moments form these songs within a generous spatial structure. Very nice guys! May we have another?

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The mysteriously titled record, The Dreams Of M. Kourie, is actually the work of local dronelord Nathan Berlinguette, who manned the bass in techgrind outfit Creation Is Crucifixion, as well as exploring spaced out dronescapes with his partner Travis Ryan (of Cattle Decapitation) in the now defunct 5/5/2000. We listed the 5/5/2000 reissue recently, a collection of newly discovered tapes of old old recordings, a haunting world of dronelike nihilism and inner space exploration. With The Dreams Of M. Kourie, Berlinguette takes up where 5/5/2000 left off, setting a course for the heart of a black hole, and taking the scenic sonic route to get there. This is the sound of stargazing, a blackened landscape of warm shimmer, that almost imperceptibly shifts and contorts, each new shape even more abstract and more black than the shape before, tracing a minimal path that simultaneously drifts beneath the sea, through subterranean caverns, amidst the vacuum of space and through the impossibility of alternate universes, the pieces and parts and sounds and arrangements are not in and of themselves mysterious, there are soft rumbles, and warm chordal swells, glistening abstract melodies, drifting gauzy shimmer, but the way they are put together, the way the sounds fall into one another, subtly mix, or rest atop one another, these are the things that turn sound into emotion, these are the aspects that are impossible to explain but precisely what make this journey special. Eyes closed, laying in tall grass, atop a lonely hill, a night as clear as glass, the air warm and humid, watching a million years of starlight shift and shimmer. So nice. Packaged in a simple two panel black sleeve, printed in metallic gold ink.

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Here's the second self-released ep from this brooding young SF band. Since their first cd-r a couple of years ago called Untrue, they've played feverishly around town, toured a bit and made plenty of steady progress. Their rhythm section has definitely gotten considerably tighter and more propulsive. As a result,�the band as a whole seems much more solid and in tune with each other. The very early-'90s Brit-inflected male lead vocals which formerly veered into strained melodramatic excess are now supported by backing vocals that serve to tempered and flesh things out quite nicely. Definitely makes for a more affecting overall presentation. Moody, sinewy guitars and atmospheric keyboards churn, harking back fondly to Echo & The Bunnymen, The Cure�and Siouxsie & the Banshees. If you dig Madelia, you'd best be nabbing a copy of this cd-r soon 'cause we've heard word that they've already got a third one on its way!

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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. Your introduction to this new SF band comes in the form of this four song cd-r ep. Very much wearing their influences on their sleeves, but moving towards defining their own sound. Untrue features some very '90s British shoegazer-esque waves of slinking guitars and wispy string synths. A frail, yet very present, male voice swoons and yearns over the proceedings. However, instead of deepening the shadowy dramatic mood crafted by the rest of the group, these highly emotive vocals overwhelm the the music. It seems that if they were melted into the mix a bit more, they'd be much more effective and the overall picture would be much more moving and impactful. Nonetheless, Untrue is quite a promising debut. If you've a penchant for music that broods and laments, you might wanna lend this young quintet an ear.

RealAudio clip: Untrue

This local band of brooding lads have finally completed their very long-in-the-works self-released self-titled debut cd. You might already be familiar with them via the handful of cdrs they've released prior to this. Since those shoestring budget cdr recordings on which they wore their musical influences readily on their sleeves (the '80s post-punk of Gang Of Four and Echo and The Bunnymen, the early '90s shoegazerness of Slowdive and Ride, the late '90s grandeur of Radiohead), there's been some radical transformations. The band has matured and tightened up ship considerably, honing their own lush, dark pop/rock sound into something more tumultuous. A major factor in their development is that they recorded and mixed this in a top notch SF studio with professionals at the helm. The proof's in the pudding -- the recordings sound big and defined. Sure lo-fi home/rehearsal space recordings work just fine for less lavish artists, but for the ideas sprouting from the mind of Madelia's frontman and central creative force Bryan Bindloss, clearly more resources are required than a lone room microphone capturing the proceedings. Each of the nine songs are ambitiously composed with layers of guitars and synths, but the defining elements that really lock things in are the ornate piano embellishments. Also vastly improved (in both performance and production) are the vocals which in the past were strained with over-the-top melodramatic angst (and perhaps straining to be heard above the rest of the band). Now, the range of expressiveness is still there, but the delivery is much more controlled and effective with a bit more bite. Quite an impressive cd debut! If you dug the recent album by fellow SFers The Very Hush Hush, definitely check out Madelia... and vice versa.

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If we were talent scouts for Slumberland records we'd be jumping all over San Francisco's Magic Bullets, who hit the scene with this self released 12", filled with a dreamy and dramatic '80s indie-pop sensibility. We're reminded a bit of the great Pains Of Being Pure At Heart record on Slumberland that we've been pretty addicted to, but there is something a bit more brooding and bittersweet in the sounds of Magic Bullets. A strong Smiths sensibility shines through these four songs for sure, and while everyone seems to be going the fuzz-pop route these days it's actually kind of refreshing right now to hear these flowing dreamy-pop nuggets that soar so nicely on their own without relying on lo-fidelity fuzz for instant credibility. We're sure these guys wish they could have come of age in the early '80s Manchester scene but we're super happy they are here now creating songs that while nod to that era still sound so fresh and relevant. We're kicking ourselves for missing their recent show opening for The Homosexuals and Brilliant Colors, but if this 12" is any indicator we're gonna be hearing lots more from these Magic Bullets. The band only pressed a limited amount of these records and they each come with a free download card so you can crank these jams on your iPod!

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Holy shit! The year is just starting but this record (um, cassette) by Magic Leaves is going to find itself on some of our year end best of lists in 11 months or so for sure, as this is totally blowing us away. We had heard some cd-r's by this Bay Area group in the past, but nothing prepared us for the psychedelic wonderland they have created here. Their music really does fit their name so perfect as it sounds like glimmering sunlight bouncing through the leaves of some crooked old tree in some mysterious magical forest. Expansive and so creative, they take several twists and turns on these eight songs, tapping into everything from Dead Meadow, Ariel Pink, Led Zeppelin, The Fresh & Onlys, Ducktails, Moon Duo,�Caetano Veloso, and The Meat Puppets. From tropical vibrations, to darker stoner riffs, to blissed out explorations, every track on here has taken us to somewhere we are so happy to be. So fucking good!

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Yet another full length from the crazy prolific Tim Cohen, mastermind of SF jangle poppers The Fresh & Onlys as well as the man behind weird one man black metal band Amocoma (released on Andee's tUMULt label), who was STILL not busy enough so started a 'solo' project, which was in fact a band called Tim Cohen's Magic Trick, but for this new album, a couple things have changed, now it's a proper band, right down to the name, and instead of perfect little 2 and 3 minute pop nuggets, this record is four long songs, the sounds shifting and sprawling, Cohen and company stretching out a bit, keeping much of the pop intact, but weaving it into much more expansive and experimental frameworks. This permutation of Magic Trick includes members of Thee Oh Sees, the Sandwitches and Citay, and Cohen and his cohorts unfurl some gorgeously lush folk, all glimmering melodies, hushed vox, strummed acoustic guitars, ethereal harmonies, the sound beholden to classic sixties psych pop for sure, but reimagined and filtered through Cohen's twisted pop lens, the opener jangly and dreamy, a seriously epic pop song, almost prog pop, and then about 10 minutes in the song shifts dramatically, and is transformed into a buzzing drone-y raga, hazy and psychedelic and darkly dreamy. And from there on out, the record continues on in a similar fashion, not shying away from abrupt shifts, or melding disparate sounds, "Daylight Moon" takes a strummy shuffle, and adds all sorts of progginess, some cool start stop arrangements, some jazzy psychedelic freakouts, but all wound around a delicate pop core. "Clyde" starts out all hushed and strummy, rife with woodwinds, lush vocal harmonies, infused with a dreamy droniness, the song subtly propulsive but growing less so as the song progresses, evolving into a sort of shimmery drift, before the strangely jaunty almost cabaret sounding coda. And finally, "High Heat" begins with some Fahey style American primitive guitar, draped over a buzzing thrum, before slipping into a reverbed skeletal folk, the sound blossoming into something much more lush, almost like some sort of chamber pop, and then again, the song shifts into a dark drum heavy psych folk, almost dirgey, but still impossibly poppy, and laced with vocal ooh's and aah's and swoonsome soaring strings, Cohen and his crew managing what in most hands would be impossible, creating catchy, perfect pop that just so happens to be in the form of 10+ minute long epics. Almost makes us hope he never goes back to the 3 minute pop song...

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Awesome campfire indie folk from this new (at least to us) San Francisco band. Stripped down, raw and warm songs that are as intimate as they are intoxicating. Their sound brings to mind a lot of our favorite tender records that were coming out of the Pacific Northwest in the late '90s by folks like Rose Melberg, Kaia, Sarah Dougher, and Lois, as well as displaying hints of a darker disposition, sort of like a more twee Cat Power or Edith Frost. We've got a feeling their future releases will be more fleshed out and include more instrumentation, but we are really digging how stripped down this sounds, allowing the beautiful vocals and sincere songs to stand on their own. The tape comes with a digital download as well.

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A new record from Sic Alps is always cause for celebration, especially if you dig washed out, reverb drenched, stumbling noise pop, which is precisely what you get on these three new tracks, the first, an abstract drift of angular clang, murky crooning, barely-there rhythm, dark and a little dirge-y, but with a gorgeous streak of melancholy melody. The second track is way less abstract, still tweaked and a bit off kilter, with some tangly Eastern sounding guitar melodies WAY up in the mix, but right below, a simple drum part, some sad boy singing, mumbly one second, and belting out a little falsetto the next, a pretty pop song subverted, and transformed into a gorgeous staggering lo-fi sprawl. The last of the three is maybe the prettiest, total classic fuzzy pop, lilting and catchy, but again wrapped in a warped woozy haze, that makes the song sound like it's subtly changing speed throughout. Tweaked and twisted, but still so goddamn catchy. Magik Markers Counter with three tracks of their own, forgoing most of the pop for something much more tripped out and psychedelic, clouds of swirling psych guitar over almost krautlike drumming, the vocals formless and all tangled up with flurries of wah guitar, everything looped and stretched out and blurred into a full-on unhinged, reverb drenched, washed out, dreamy and druggy space rock trip out, some of our favorite MM stuff for sure. Super swank, thick glossy jackets, and most likely limited...

Given the look and sound of this short EP, Magnetic Stripper could be some terminally obscure DIY-industrial-synth project circa 1982, with the tinny drum machines, noisy blurts from various synths, and plenty of references to Absolute Body Control, Minimal Man, The Units, and Chris Carter's synth moments within Throbbing Gristle. But in fact, this is the work of San Francisco's James Ellis, currently working and performing today. There are four short pieces that would make for a great teaser for a forthcoming record, with the weird-science array of disjointed synth melodies and electro-static squiggling, all hanging upon skeletal drum machine pulses. The title track has more of a bedroom project New Wave feel with its motorik rhythms and percolated step sequencing. The other three tracks take more of an early SPK direction with all of the drum rhythms taking on a lumbering pace, minus the snarled noise and grizzy imagery. Both sides of the 7" end on locked grooves, and the single comes with a retro-looking button. Very cool.

The wonderful, willfully naive Japanese indie-pop psychedelic ensemble Maher Shalal Hash Baz takes the first half of this split cd with a live performance recorded in Scotland. Honking sax, wayward vocals, sad-sack percussion, helpless guitar, plinking piano, and even skipping rope make it into the mix. Somehow, it's gorgeous, in a melancholy off-kilter way that few bands could pull off. Following Maher Shalal Hash Baz's seventeen tracks there's ten more by San Francisco outfit The Curtains, who likewise manage to make a virtue out of simplicity and spontaneity, their technical abilities (or lack thereof) never hampering their expressiveness. A good pairing indeed. The Curtains are noisier and more 'plugged-in' than MSHB, with electronic keyboard sounds forming some of their most striking moments. With both bands, what's improvised and what's not is hard to suss out, but experiencing the results can be quite pleasant either way if you don't demand much precision from your 'pop'. To us, these 27 tracks are a pleasant jumble worth experiencing.

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All right, before we go naming the debut album from San Francisco's The Makes Nice the #1 Pop Album Of The Summer Even Though It's Barely February Already, full disclosure: we do happen to know these guys. An especially good friend of ours is guitarist/vocalist Josh Smith, whom you too probably know from some other bands of his in the past -- he used to play lead guitar in the The Fucking Champs, and also was integral to the legendary SF black metal band Weakling! So after Josh quit the Champs a few years ago, you can imagine our reaction when, eventually, he told us that his next band project was gonna be a power pop, power trio -- with him singing as well as playing guitar! That's pretty far from the instrumental metal of The Champs, or the epic evil of Weakling, eh?? But damn if he didn't pull it off! Teamed up with Aaron Burnham (of The Mothballs) on bass and vocals, and Jack Matthew (of Harold Ray Live In Concert) on drums, Josh's new band has not only only blown us away with their live shows but now present their killer debut album, the cryptically-titled Candy Wrapper And Twelve Other Songs. The thirteen tracks here run about 31 and a half minutes -- most of 'em not even hitting the 2 minute mark. But each is crammed with so much blazing pop energy in the vein of freakbeat, psych-pop heroes of yesteryear who populate compilations like the Nuggets 2 box set (they'll tell you themselves) that it's got enough head-nodding, foot-tapping hooks for an album twice its length, and could power a full on ballroom blitz to boot. Hopping on a White Striped bandwagon? No, not at all. What sets The Makes Nice apart from a lot of the current crop of garage rock outfits is their emphasis on Beach Boys/Beatles styled vocal harmonies and sheer songcraft. Yeah, most of these songs are totally raw and rockin' and full of high energy sonics, but also carefully arranged with vocal sweetness that would do Brian Wilson proud. Furthermore, the album is woven throughout with memorable guitar solos. Peeling off licks with tasteful abandon and doses of thick fuzz, Josh's virtuosic playing really gives The Makes Nice their unique signature and vitality. Fucking Champs fans who pick this up just 'cause Josh is on it won't find any metal, but they will hear plenty o' great guitar playing -- and in fact, Josh really lets loose with more soloing here than he ever did in the Champs! So rad guitar + sweet harmonies + utter catchiness = why The Makes Nice totally rule, basically. And they didn't got to all that work with the vocals without giving some thought to the lyrics as well, so this thing has just got about all the angles covered, top of the pops as far as we're concerned. Definitely this disc should have a lot of appeal to fans of sixties Brits like The Who, Pretty Things, Creation, and Tomorrow up through '70s, '80s, and '90s North American acts like The Raspberries, Cheap Trick, Redd Kross and Sloan! Seriously, the toughest thing about writing this is that we still have to write a bunch of other reviews before this week's New Arrivals list goes out, but from working on this, we've got pretty much this entire record stuck in our heads right now -- and we don't want to make it stop!

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MPEG stream: Enough Is Enough
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This Time Tomorrow? As in, by this time tomorrow, all these songs will be stuck in your head! San Francisco power pop power trio The Makes Nice hit us with their second album, again crammed with catchiness, boasting a bunch more action-packed, altogether killer, no filler tracks. A pitch-perfect hybridization and revitalization of all of their varied retro influences, from '60s Nuggets style garage to Elvis Costello to the Raspberries to Cheap Trick to the pansiest of paisley psych to, even, Devo. All 14 numbers are poppy n' boppy, but there's definitely two general sorts of songs The Makes Nice like to knock out, to knock us out: one is the energetic, nay frenzied, punker fueled by whiplash Keith Moon-ish bashing, full of slashing guitar rippage. Or, we get foot-tapping, sunshine n' lollipops hooks and harmonies... but even then, the headspinning guitar licks are in full force, Josh Smith doin' proud such legends as Billy Gibbons, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page. Even though it's only 33:48 long, this album is an embarrassment of riches. Heck we made their debut Record Of The Week. This one's just as good, maybe even better. No sophomore slump here! 'Nuff said? If anything, The Makes Nice sound even more assured and dangerous this time 'round. If they've got any competition, they sure shut 'em down. Their not-so-secret weapon remains the wham-bam-thank-you-mam soloing of guitar whiz Josh (still formerly of The Fucking Champs, and Weakling too if it matters) but drummer Jack Matthew and bassist Aaron Burnham hold up their sides solidly for sure, and actually it's the whole band's involvement in complex arrangements, clever boy-meets-girl lyrics, and vocal harmony that really makes The Makes Nice something special. That's the thing, despite how prolific they are (by this time tomorrow, they probably will have written another cool song or two!), their craftmanship is prodigious, little details get a lot of thought. And as a result, they're not for everyone. The scuzzy sloppy garage crowd may find them too accomplished, complex. While pure pop fans might not get into their raw garageiness. And both camps could be scared off by Josh's advanced Stratocaster chops. On the other hand, in our book those are all real good things. So get with the program!

MPEG stream: Do It Again
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The self-titled debut release from Malditos is a minimal and dark synthesizer driven ep filled peppered with some unlikely but super awesome electric tablas! Because most of the songs are sung in French you might be tempted to think this is a slab of obscure European '80s gothic vinyl reissued by Dark Entries; but no, this Oakland, CA band is comprised of current or former members of Swann Danger, The Phantom Limbs, and Black Ice. The aforementioned tablas and Eastern scales recall more than a few of the moodier aspects of Dead Can Dance, but there's also echoes of Rowland S. Howard's angular phased guitar work. The record is quite heavy, the two synths proving a driving and repetitive low end while occasionally swirling around the upper registers. As previously mentioned, three out of the four vocal tracks are in French. Pretty much the only French word you need to know, however, is "Noir". When listening to lyrics in a foreign (to this reviewer) language, what is said is less important than how it's sung and Cyn M. does an excellent job of setting a brooding and dark mood with her powerful vibrato. The last track is an almost industrialized cover of Serge Gainsbourg's "Requiem Por Un C..." (sung in French, of course). Limited to 259 hand numbered copies, this record is sure to go fast.

MPEG stream: La Nuit Noir
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MPEG stream: Requiem Por Un C...

Maleficia is the work of Bay Area noise artist Andy Way (French Radio, NF Orchest) and avant-vocalist Ilysea Simpson. Their debut cd-r begins with an evocative wordless vocalization from Simpson conjuring the likes of Christina Carter and Jarboe in decontextualizing Southern hymns away from their spiritual intent and toward the raw emotional expression of just voice. After about five or six minutes of a capella delivery, Simpson's duet with Way begins as he gradually unleashes a torrent of tactile noise, all bathed in reverb, which somewhat mutes the sharpness of the distortion, static, and turbulant noise. As her voice becomes more processed and takes on more shrill characterists alongside Way's caustic noise, Maleficia begin to resemble the volatile noise and voice couplings of Fe-Mail to remarkable results. Stitched paper artwork completes this limited edition production of which we only have a handful.

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With feet firmly set in the fevered footsteps of the late great VSS, as well as perhaps later Man Or Astro-Man, and The Fall, SF post-post-punkers The Mall have been raising a party ruckus around town for the last couple years. Following up their well received First, Before And Never Again vinyl 12" from earlier this year, this is their riotous debut full length. The cd version is self-released and the vinyl was released by a friend of theirs, but this album would be right at home on the current Gold Standard Laboratories label roster. On Emergency At The Everyday, The Mall keep their teeth sharp and a fire in their hearts. They tear through the thirteen churning spewsome tracks like there's no tomorrow. All except one is under two minutes long, and the exception is the final track which is -gasp!- downright pretty! Raw, splattery and a bit crusty.

MPEG stream: Harboring Hosts
MPEG stream: Hospital Mouth

Phew, this is one furious fuzzed out blast or RAWK! Local rockers The Mall offer up 4 short sharp tracks of trashy garagey new wave artrock fuzz and splatter. Taking an arsenal of sounds formerly employed by the rosters of GSL and Gravity records and giving them a 21st century makeover, The Mall, take jangly angular guitars fuzzy warbly casio keyboards, yelped distorted vocals and BIG bloopy Gang Of Four bass. In fact the thick throbbing bass is what hold this all together. And gives it a sort of dancepunk vibe. But this isn't shiny and well coiffed, no this is dirty and noisy, scummy and crusty, Like Interpol if they were taken into an alley, roughed up a bit, hair mussed, suits ripped, soiled and dirtied, and forced to play through broken old amps and hand me down guitars and keyboards held together with duct tape. Super chaotic, wild and aggro, but subtly funky. So if the current wave of artpunk, dancepunk, electro whatever is just a little too smart and smooth, crisp and clean for you... The Mall would be more than happy to take you out back and show you a thing or two. Packaged in a cool hand silkscreened blue, white and maroon sleeve, with an equally cool matching insert.

[ aquarius records — Local ]