[ aquarius records — Rock Pop Prog Rock ]

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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. We'd never heard of Luciano Cilio before, but of course Jim O'Rourke has. The ubiquitious O'Rourke (Wilco/Sonic Youth/you name it) contributes liner notes to this beautifully presented deluxe digipack cd reissue of what amounts to the collected works of Cilio, an Italian avantgarde composer from the '70s whose music is indeed experimental but less academic than you might expect. But even without O'Rourke's endorsement, a listen to the cd should reveal to you that Cilio was exquisitely talented, and maybe something of a genius. This disc is a simply fantastic document of what we might consider a hybrid of 20th century classical, minimalist psych-prog, and folk music, not entirely of this world. The all-white cover perfectly echoes Cilio's lovely, quietly haunting compositions for acoustic guitar, cello, piano and flute, sometimes visited by wordless female vocals. Achingly melancholic, immensely deep, truly beautiful. Limited to 500 copies, this cd consists of Cilio's sole album, Dialoghi del Presente, originally released on EMI in 1977, along with several previously unreleased tracks. Apparently he more or less abandoned music after the album's release, and sadly committed suicide in 1983. Allan's favorite new long-lost reissue after the Flamen Dialis disc reviewed on list #194...

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Right on schedule, the prolific band that The Wire insists on referring to as "Finnish Metal Minimalists" and who of course are all-time AQ faves, have come out with another disc (they're in the double digits now!) of their trademark mantric, repetitive space-rock music that's our addiction. Granted, their previous album, the amazing "Sunrise", did dabble in the devil's music. But while on this one Teemu and Jyrki's guitars do get heavy at times, and vocalist Mika does an Udo Dirkschnieder impression at least once here, "Alotus" is primarily about plenty of late-night rhythmic slow-burn stuff that references prior Circle discs like "Hissi" and "Pori" -- recalling as well their krautrock forebears Neu! and Can, as always. Circle's grooves simmer here, brooding yet pretty, only exploding with heavy prog/psych power towards the conclusion of a track, if at all. With Mika whispering and crooning weirdly more than screaming, "Altous" is driven by ticking clock tension provided by drummer Janne's metronoymic pulse. Some songs are dark and spooky (though Mika's vocals to some might verge on silly, which is ok with us), instrumentally relentless and ominous, while others have a more gleeful exuberance, as captured (for instance) by the repeating Magmoid bass riff from Jussi as the title track percolates along... The tension is resolved when "Potto" ends things with the disc's most potent eruption of "metal" (actually just loud rock) mayhem. Both of the tracks just mentioned might actually sound a little familiar to Circle fans, for they've been aired before in live form on their recent "Raunio" disc! Released on Faust's label Klangbad (and produced by Faust's Hans Joachim Irmler, who had a hand in the arrangements as well), this boasts liner notes in German and English by Rolf Jaeger that highlight the connection 'twixt classic Krautrock and Circle's modern day take off on the form. Comes in a digipak with purple-tinted photo of a wall and a hedge or tree to puzzle over. MPEG Download: "Tyolaisten Laulu" [/audio/circletyolaisten.mp3] MPEG Stream: "Tyolaisten Laulu" [/audio/circletyolaisten.m3u]

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AVAILABLE AGAIN!!! Finally one of our all time favorite Circle records back in print! We first listed this way back in 1999, and it was for many people their first exposure to this amazing and mysterious, dreamy and hypnotic, modern spaced out krautrock band from Finland. By now, Circle is practically a household name, at least for those of you living in a seriously cool music household, having released about 15 or 16 records since Andexelt. But way back in 1999, Circle were a a brand new discovery for most American weird rock fans, and Andexelt knocked everyone on their asses. A delirious dose of droning, hypnotic neo-kraut rock that effortlessly managed to out-post most post rock bands and out-space most spacerock bands. Circle were (and are) the northernmost heirs to the Krautrock tradition. On Andexelt, the band were taking basic riffs, stretching and reshaping them, twisting them into brand new shapes, creating bleak, ever shifting underwater grooves and dizzyingly repetitive rhythms, sounding like an otherworldly This Heat or a more damaged Can. A mesmerising wall of sound delivered with the sheer force of Loop or Godflesh, but with dark precision and melodic restraint. Mellow, delicate jazzy passages intersected with crushing Bonham-esque beats. Fans of Circle's other great records, past and present, can already guess that this is completely amazing and absolutely essential!!! While fans of Salvatore and Tortoise and Mogwai and�TransAm and all other practitioners of epic bombastic hypno-rock, mesmeric math rock and even the current crop of sludgy metallic post rock, would do well to pick this up if they missed it the first time around. Andexelt is the perfect mix of their current more metallic drone rock pummel and their older more mesmerizing krautrock groove bliss. So absolutely brilliant and completely and utterly essential. Exactly the same as the original tUMULt pressing, including the 10 minute bonus track and kick ass secret song not included on the import version, originally released on Finnish weird-prog label Metamorphos. SO AWESOME!!!!!

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Finalnd's mighty masters of metallic hypno drone rock return, with yes, another limited LP only release, and their obsession (one of many obsessions they have) with Southern Rock has finally reached critical mass. Not so much musically, although there are subtle hints here and there, as visually and conceptually. This set, recorded live on Brian Turner's radio show on WFMU when Circle were in the states last time is a monster. Two side long tracks, combining the metallic leanings of their later records, with the murky propulsiveness of their earlier records, as well as their droney improvised abstract side (most noticable on the LP only Mountain). It's kind of remarkable how all of Circle's disparate musical personalities fit so well together. But before we get to the music, let's talk about the sleeve. And the Southern Rock. The cover features a knotty pine background, riddled with bullet holes, two crossed pistols above the band name. Very Sergio Leone... The reverse side features a band photo seemingly branded into the wood, with Circle donning cowboy hats and sombreros, whooping it up like that last freeze frame in an episode of Bonanza (maybe it was CHiPs, but Bonanza makes more sense here). Then there's Brian Turner's eyewitness account of the musical showdown that occurred when Circle showed up at WFMU to record their set. Woe was the pasty British garage band that felt Circle's wrath. Broken glass and tobacco spit figure prominently. And let's not forget the Confederate flag on the LP label. Thankfully (or maybe not, some might be thinking) this Southern Rock doesn't filter all the way down to the music. Instead we've got more of that Circular genius we just can't get enough of. Side one begins as an abstract soundscape of spacey affected riffs, sort of blurry and drifty, above strange mumbled mutterings and what sounds like alien scat singing. The vibe is strangely dubby and Middle Eastern sounding. Eventually a warm wash of woozy distorted guitars builds into a monstrous swell of sound, warm and thick and sort of heavy, while buried beneath is a burbling cauldron of electronic squiggles and gurgling vocal sputters. Out of nowhere, like a beam of sunlight with a small flock of faeiries flitting about, comes a strange dreamy drift of almost rennaisance faire sounding festive folk, which dissipates quickly into a swirl of speaking-in-tongues vocals and insect like electronics before drifting off. Side two is a bit darker, with faux throat singing over ominous psych sludge riffing like classic Circle but slowed way down. Groovy and dark, peppered with subtle tribal percussion. Weirdly enough, that weird dreamy stretch of faerie flecked folk sunniness that surfaced briefly on side A, shows up again here in a slightly different form, and disappears just as quickly, returning to a VERY Circular propulsive groove. Drums skitter instead of pound, while a guitar drifts and stutters, sounding a bit like the guitar line from the Smiths' "How Soon Is Now" but way more druggy and psychedelic! So we'll all have to keep waiting for the inevitable, that record they keep threatening us with, when Circle finally become a bizarre krautrock psychrock dronemetal version of the Marshall Tucker Band, but for now, just crack open that Jack Daniels, throw those boots up on the desk (careful with those spurs!), pull the brim of your ten gallon down over your eyes, put a little pinch between your teeth and gums, turn it up and drift off...

New 7" from our favorite Finnish masters of hypnotic rock groove, that's right, Circle! Two tracks that find the circlular ones continuing in their more rocking trajectory with side A being a bouncy groover, like a smoothed out AC/DC riff, that slowly builds into a psychedelic squall. Side B is a bit sludgier, a sort of MC5 / Stooges dirge with muttered spaced-out vocals and dirty distorted guitar. A good teaser for their upcoming Guillotine album which we should have soon!

Four new songs from AQ faves Circle! Maybe that's all we need to say... but perhaps foolishly we'll go further. After many years of cultish obscurity in this country, Circle are at last beginning to get some wider recognition. They've managed to briefly tour in the States twice in the last year or so, most recently playing a handful of dates (not in San Francisco, unfortunately) centered around their appearance at the South By Southwest music convention in Austin, Texas just a few weeks ago. So more and more people are getting to see and hear 'em, and that means more and more converts to Circle fandom. They're an amazing live spectacle -- a hypnotic, headbanging, minimalist metallic post-krautrock juggernaut that doesn't stint on the hair and the sweat. And their many albums are equally incredible. We'd always wondered why they weren't the latest post-rock big thing...well maybe it's 'cause they're so dang weird! Which, of course, we like. Bands that sing in their own made-up languages (a la Magma) and do other unashamedly "prog rock" and sometime metal things too are definitely cool with us. But does that get them signed to Thrill Jockey or Matador? No. Not yet anyway. And as popular as they've become in recent years, Circle (you know) are still weirdos. Just take a look at the cover of the live LP we listed here last time! So, what do you suppose they decided to do for the cdep that was intended to be released to coincide with (though, it got delayed) their SXSW appearance and surrounding tour? Unsurprisingly, something strange. But very Circle. You see, Jussi from Circle is a HUGE fan of a band from LA in the '80s called Jesters Of Destiny. As are Andee and Allan. Chances are, if you're an AQ customer who's heard of them, it's because Jussi reissued an album of theirs on his label Ektro a few years ago. Crazy, catchy alternative metal/new wave/punk/pop music. Jussi loves Jesters of Destiny so much that, having met up with their former singer Bruce Duff in LA when Circle played the Arthurfest last year, Jussi got Duff to sing on this here ep! Since we're fans of Jesters too, we were stoked, and hoping for a 30 minute jam on the JoD's big hit (not really) "Diggin' That Grave"! But that's not what they did. What you get here are four tracks, three of 'em featuring Duff on vocals, one an instrumental. It definitely sounds like Circle, but the usual mock-operatics sung in Meronian by Circle keyboardist Mikka Ratto have been replaced by Duff's equally unique vocal stylings. It's maybe a bit like the 3 Dead People After The Performance album that Circle recorded with Can's Damo Suzuki, except that these are real songs with lyrics (written by Duff) in English, not improvs. We're not really used to understanding the words in a Circle song, so it's all very strange. Musically, though, it's the repetitive hypno-rock these guys do so well. First track "Earthworm" is hectic and heavy, the second one "Connection" is almost more of a pop tune, and the third track "Taking It Back" is calmer and more Can-like, with Duff delivering his lines in a whisper. And then the instrumental "Coda" wraps things up in fine Circle fashion. Because of Duff's vocals, this is definitely one of the odder Circle documents. But not a bad concept for an ep, just the sort of thing an ep is for!

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This went out of print not long after we first listed it in October of '04. And it's still out of print. But one of our suppliers somehow found 15 copies. Which we promptly snatched up. So... our previous review gets a one-time-only-rerun: Vinyl Only. Limited. 750 copies. Circle. Did you get that? Circle. Vinyl Only. Limited. 750 copies. And we only have 15. That said, here follows a possibly superfluous review... Anyone who liked the last cd we listed by our Finnish friends Circle, Forest, ought to also like this live recording. It's all new material -- two side-long cuts, "Dragon" and "Empire" -- but they are definitely in the hippified, semi-acoustic jamming vein of Forest, all dark and psychedelic and Can-like. Both tracks are epics, with peaks and valleys, the second side eventually building up into a guitar riff-repetition thing that's classic Circle indeed. Frickin' gorgeous and hypnotic.

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It's incredible how AQ's Finnish faves n' friends Circle always manage to maintain their trademark sound -- repetitive, hypnotic post-prog grooves -- even as they produce new albums with such distinct, different identities. Their latest disc, Forest, is another great, unique Circle effort. This time around, they've gone semi-acoustic, kinda folky. Also spooky and sinisterly-synthed. In a way, Forest is perhaps Circle's most "hippie" album. We know Jussi's a big Dead fan after all. And the krautrock stuff they've obviously always been inspired by was hippie rock too. But there's a back-to-the-land, pot smokin' jam vibe here, although night-shrouded and mysterious, NOT rainbow-colored and dippy. This a Forest of nightmares, with whispering and groaning in the trees. Maybe Jussi and Co. have been listening to the likes of Kalacakra and Siloah and Amon Duul... and Goblin, and early Tangerine Dream... For sure it seems that the four lengthy tracks on here (shortest six+ minutes, one nine, the other two in the double digits) owe a lot to Can (maybe moreso than other Circle albums do) and also to...the blues! That's the biggest shock. Vocalist Mika Ratto's love 'em or hate 'em operatic vocals are shucked in favor of a mumbling, moaning, singin' the blues style. And, equally shocking, he's singing in English this time! Not that you can make sense of much of what's coming out of his mouth. And of course most of the time Forest is all-instrumental, spacious, suspenseful, grooved-out, darkness. The final, longest track dabbles in ambient, experimental witch-project drone before those Circle rhythms return and Mika moans his last. So good.

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When we first listed this way, way back in 2004, our review started with the words "Circle. Vinyl. Limited." And we really didn't have to say too much more. Though we did, a bit, of course. All of which we'll repeat here in a sec, and add a lot to, 'cause Circle's label Ektro has FINALLY gone and reissued this, the band's uh, maybe 14th or 15th or so album (how do you even count, since it's a double?), released the same year as Forest and the live lp Empire. Awesome to finally have it on cd, 'cause it was so limited and has been gone so long, we almost forgot about it. But it's a good one. AND there's bonus tracks! It's one half live (Golem), one half studio (Vesiliirto). Of course, we like 'em both. Golem's got titles in English (such as "Salamander Sword", "At War With Mercy", "Forbidden Steel Patriot", "True Incubus From Beyond" and "Destination Thunder"!!!) that are all very metal-sounding, though in actuality these tracks are quite far from metal, even Circle's own weird brand of metal. Having been recorded live, it was (and possibly remains!) the most free-form, ambient, fucked up, droned-out, abstract Circle document we had yet heard, unique in their catalog though hinted at by parts of their previous album Guillotine, and Circle side-project Doktor Kettu. Rife with jazzy piano plinking (shades of Circle's mellow masterpiece Miljard from a couple years later), demented echoing operatics out of Mika Ratto's mouth, damaged druggy harmonica blowin', throbbing fuzz, and FX laden percussive skitterscapes, it's a wild woozy sound world, suitable for some serious, dedicated late night listening, with the lovely final track, "Forbidden Steel Patriot" a sweet lullaby to send you off to sleep as the audience (forgot about them) softly applauds at the end. Whereas, the second disc in this set, Vesiliirto, with all-Finnish titles, is much more in Circle's tradition of tight, rhythmic, repetitive rock riffage. Though it's got a loose, live feel to it too, even though it's the studio session. There's definitely a ramshackle, rustic vibe on opener "Korahteleva Haapa", like Circle are channelling some of the old bluesmen on the Fat Possum label or something, also getting crazy with skronky guitars threatening to overwhelm the "Circular" order of things. Monstrous mumbles segue into the second cut, a light groovy number adorned with blurts of spacey FX, warbling organ and echoed vox. And so it goes, Vesiliirto sharing much of Golem's far out freeform aspects, fitting in too with the hippie blues bad drugs feel of Forest, but also bringing in a lot of what we'd have to call spaced out sci-fi funk, influenced perhaps by Sun Ra and psychedelic '70s era Miles Davis? That organ comes to the fore later on the exotic, carnivalesque freakout of "Haulikko Ja Kivaari", which also seems to feature UFOs hovering overhead, everything locked down though by the drummer's ticking motorik pulse that picks up over the course of the track's eleven minutes... Dang that's a good one, reason enough for any Circle fan to be happy this was reissued. Not to mention that for this cd version, they've added one track to the Golem disc, while Vesiliirto boasts two bonus tracks, for a total of 34 minutes of Circle that you've never heard before, even if you already have this on vinyl - so true obsessives just might need to get it again.

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Our favorite Finns are back, again. After a dozen or so albums, this one is perhaps their tribute to entropy, wherein Circle's characteristic clockwork mechanisms wind down into uncharacteristic disorder. Their last album on Ektro was the phenomenal headbanging hard rock production Sunrise, an album that got The Wire to somewhat misleading refer to Circle as "Finnish metal minimalists". The metal stylings of Sunrise are not to be found on Guillotine (despite this new album's much more metal title) but our friends Jussi & co. continue to innovate while remaining true to their trademark "circular" sound. A good portion of Guillotine finds them venturing in a hazy, oft-noisy primitive psych direction (hinted at by the few tracks on Sunrise that didn't rock you like a hurricane). But it's a varied album, equally likely to offer up 'classic' Circle repetitive-rock pulsations and noodly fusion. So, quite different in parts, yet with enough of the same Circle of yore to satisfy stogy old fans as well. Guillotine starts off with the incredibly authentically '70s sounding kraut/fusion of "Metsan Henget". A very very Can-like ten minutes right there. Soon the listener's ears are graced by Mika Ratto's absurdly amazing, amazingly absurd vocals. Babbling goofily operatic, probably a love 'em or hate 'em component of the current Circle sound. Then, Guillotine takes a low-fi turn into what we might consider Circle's version of Jewelled Antler's psych-folk. Perhaps they've been influenced by countryfolk like Avarus, Kemialliset Ystavat, and Doktor Kettu (the latter being a likely source of cross-contamination, as their recordings appear on Jussi's cd-r label). Circle create a mellow caveman hippy jam of sorts, followed by an example of twangy acoustic psych that leaves Circle's classic motorik machine stylings far behind. Except that then "Teraskylpy" kicks in with a totally Circle krautrock beat, shuffling like David Shire's Taking Of Pelham One-Two-Three noir funk soundtrack. It's a 12-minute-plus build-up that devolves into some maniacal noise drone. Surprises continue, with "Saapuvat Ne Merelta" being waaay more spastic and chaotic than we'd ever expect from Circle. Normally they're so mechanically precise and repetitive, but so much of this sounds improvised and unpredictable. There's even a track that could be an ambient version of a rap record intro, complete with police siren. Weird. So Guillotine is quite possibly the most 'organic' and 'free' sounding Circle ever, clanking and primitive. And the '70s vibe is palpable, our obscure music geek peanut butter/chocolate analogy being: like Captain Beyond meets Neu! stoner prog kraut.

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Reviewing new Circle albums is one of the very very pleasant tasks to crop up regularly here at Aquarius. 'Cause the ever hypnotic, always weird Finnish band is one of our all time faves as we're sure you already know. Although, it's difficult too, after writing umpteen different Circle and Circle side project reviews, what's left to say but "buy it"!? Well, this time, we might have to qualify that recommendation just a bit. There's a definite 'your mileage may vary' element to this new Circle, due to the presence of a certain Bruce Duff on vocals. (He also plays lead guitar, and dulcimer on here too!) Duff's the guy from the '80s alt-metal band Jesters Of Destiny, who had their album reissued on Circle's Ektro label some years ago (a fantastic disc, sadly now out of print again). He also sang on Circle's 2006 Earthworm ep, the first two tracks of which inexplicably also reappear here, hmm, why? And presumably Duff's participation is why they called this album Hollywood, as he lives in LA. Of course, Circle's WFT?! factor is always pretty high, so with Duff on board it's just bumped up a few notches more. Let's examine... The disc starts of with the energetic and remarkably melodic "Connection", also on Earthworm, where we noted it was "almost a pop tune". Well heck it IS a pop tune. Though backed with Circle's usual hypno-rock and some indecipherable grumble-mumble from regular Circle vocalist Mika Ratto. Pretty cool, but we're not sure we'd want a whole album of that... and we're in luck, as Hollywood is a REALLY diverse (and thus hard to grok) platter, although we won't know it until after the second track, "Mercy And Tuesday". Again it's a pop tune (with a lovely, jangly all-instrumental second half). However, the first half has Duff spinning a rhyming tale of sex drugs and rock n' roll, and sorry we might just have to hit skip on this more often than not, the vocals/lyrics just aren't what we think when we think Circle. Instead, they make us think Tom Petty, sort of! But maybe we'll come back around on this one if give it a chance... Next is the other Earthworm track, "Earthworm" itself. If you haven't heard it before, we'll tell you it's frantic and metallic and certainly strange, in the eccentric "New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal" style that Circle has been championing. If you like side project Steel Mammoth, you'll like it. But better yet for NWOFHM is the following track, "Sacrifice". Definitely Hollywood's most metal moment. A catchy, chunky gallop with fierce vocals and fleet fingered guitar shred soloing. It sounds something like Swedish retro-metallers Wolf, actually. Horns up from us! Maybe Circle's most successful stab at true metal yet. Of course, there's a sudden change of pace with the very next song, the much moodier and mellower "Spam Folder". Is Duff actually singing lyrics taken from the subject lines of junk emails? Yes, it sounds like he is, but somehow the conceit actually works, they're like 'ambient lyrics'. And then, this disc gets even further from the metal, with the semi-acoustic, ramshackle backporch country-ish ramble "Hard To Realize", some Lee Hazlewood gravel creeping into Duff's voice, cool! After that, yet another stylistic shift occurs, as we come to the final two tracks on the album, lengthy epics both of 'em. Penultimate track "Madman" is a sort of suspenseful kraut/prog/metal jam, stretching out for 15+ minutes, with Duff doing a sort of Iggy Pop or Leonard Cohen spoken-singing-whispering. Keyboards hover in the background over a repetitive guitar lick and chugging, gear-shifting rhythms. And then finally the disc reaches a glorious climax with "Suddenly" (clocking in at a not so sudden 11:33). It's a massive, melodic, powerful prog masterpiece, a reworking of "Murheenkryyni" that appeared previously only on Circle's live album Rakennus. So much multitracked guitar, that solo and harmonize to the heavens as this track builds and builds. Duff's vocals are also quite effective here, adding to the melancholic, MAJESTIC mood. Wow! By the end of this, we're quite convinced, and we'll say it for sure: "Buy it!!" Heck we'd get this just for "Suddenly" alone, but there's plenty else on here that makes the all-over-the-place Hollywood a worthy, weird addition to the Circle discography, despite a few missteps.

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Ok, this is going to take a lot of explaining... Our favorite Finnish hypno-rock band Circle got this funny idea to change their name to Falcon (Ex-Circle), supposedly due to the pressures the musicians in Circle were feeling about the expectations of their audience, in continuing to operate under the "Circle brand" after so many years and releases. So, they became Falcon (Ex-Circle), under which guise they could follow their newfound dream of making poppy, retro-'80s hard rock - see our review of Falcon (Ex-Circle)'s Frontier album, simultaneously released with this Circle disc, below. No longer using the Circle name, they then "leased" the brand to a totally different bunch of musicians, who now have released THIS cd, Incarnation, as Circle. There's more to the plan, apparently the contract is for a year and then Circle will revert back to the original Circle guys, who will then supposedly be called Circle (Ex-Falcon). Right. So this is just the kind of ridiculous stunt we'd expect from our friends in Circle, we mean Falcon. And maybe they're just being silly and confusional, or trying to get extra publicity, but we do think it's a kind of a neat idea, certainly one that hasn't been tried before (wonder why?). And it raises a lot of interesting questions, some of them philosophical, and some of them musical. Like, is the new Circle still "Circular"? So, first off, what you need to know about Incarnation: it's a DEATH METAL album (sort of). Make that, an experimental death metal album. But made by real deal Finnish death metal musicians, most of 'em from the band Stench Of Decay, also members past and present of thrashers Speedtrap and Pyrotoxic (the latter old faves from the Thrash Clash series). Stench Of Decay have a pretty killer album of their own out on the Jussi of Circle's Ektro label that we've previously reviewed. And in that review, we actually said: "It remains to be seen if Jussi's interest in death metal heralds a harsh new direction that Circle and the NWOFHM might take, hmm? And while they sure don't sound like Circle (yet), in their own way, Stench Of Decay are quite brutally hypnotic, with repetitive riffs pulverizing repeatedly." Little did we know how prophetic that was, in a weird way. 'Cause now Stench Of Decay, more or less, ARE Circle. The heaviest Circle ever. We're pretty impressed, 'cause when we first heard about this Circle/Falcon switcheroo idea, we thought that probably it was just a ruse, and the Circle record would be made by the Circle guys anyway, just under pseudonyms or something. But nope, they really did hand over the reins to these death metallers, who even made a new logo themselves, and did the cover art. It would appear that Jussi & Co. had no hand in it at all... But the new Circle lineup DOES rise to the occasion of being "circular", somewhat. Incarnation is both a brutal slab of crushing death metal, and also a unique, experiment in tranced-out avant-death-drone sonics, that embodies the Circle penchant for mantric repetition, in its own way. The drumming is quite different, of course, motorik beats replaced with double kick blasting, and the vocals are more extreme on the low end than anything Mika used to do on the high end, and the guitars unleash gnarly shredding solos also previously unheard from the Circle camp. But, it is hypnotic, in the most dense, droney way possible. We're pretty sure open minded death metal fans, those into stuff like Portal, will dig this a lot. Open minded Circle fans too of course (is there any other kind?). Some of the five tracks thrash it up in proper metal fashion, others leave the realms of DM to sound more like Skullflower or Sunroof - like track three, "Transcending", with its building, crashing waves of doomed-out sound, almost like some imagined "extreme" 20th century classical composition, or the Gnod-like track five, "Burden", super dense and layered and propulsive, sounding like everything is going all at once, almost like several tracks overlaid, a mesmeric monster of abstract extremity. As is this whole album. So that's one question we CAN answer: yes, this is damn good and worthy of the Circle name. Also damn good and worthy of the death metal name, just imagine Incantation or Disma doing music for a Hermann Nitsch aktion. Here's another question we've got, though: will Circle, when the band is back to being the actual original Circle guys again, ever have to learn these songs that they didn't write, and try to play 'em live?

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As regular readers of the AQ New Arrivals list might guess, we're pretty much always in a state of simmering enthusiasm for Finland's Circle here at AQ. But our fannish obsession has gotten even more feverish this month, as our favorite band of far-out Finns is taking their amazing hypno-kraut, repetitive pseudo-metallic space rock on a rare US tour and will be playing here in San Francisco on September the 27th! And if all goes according to plan, they may also be doing an Aquarius in-store performance (we'll keep you posted). So naturally we're excited, it's always great to see them, and also it's gonna be cool to hear material from this amazing new album of theirs live and in person. New album? Yes indeedy. Their fourth this year, or fifth if you count the recent compact disc reissue of Arkades too. Prolific they are, but have yet to disappoint. So, what's the deal with Katapult? (Assuming you need to know and didn't already just "add to cart" like we guess most folks will.) The press material that the label has been circulating makes reference to influence from the likes of seminal black metallers Venom and Celtic Frost. And we know that these boys do like their metal, witness the Steel Mammoth side project reviewed last list. But while they've always championed their own so-called New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal, they're always far from being an actual metal band (even in the case of Steel Mammoth). And Katapult brings them no closer, even as it displays a definite ease with metal idioms. Sure it's got heavy guitars and the eccentric vocals sometimes approximate a black metal rasp -- there's even a few trademark Tom G. Warrior style death grunt "unghs!" in there -- but the only people who would think this really sounds like Venom and Celtic Frost are those who've never actually heard those bands. Opener "Saturnus Reality" does start with riffing that Norwegians churchburners wouldn't turn up their corpsepainted noses at, but the use of keyboards is much more Tangerine Dream than Dimmu Borgir. Later on, you'll hear as much Can and Goblin as anything Frosty. Song titles like "Torpedo Star Throne" and "Skeletor Highway" also seem a bit metal, don't they? But what about "Snow Olympics" and "Understanding New Age"? It's Circle being Circle, the NWOFHM an unserious moniker for their own, uniquely Circle style, that here takes what they were doing on Tower and Miljard and goes evil hard rock with it. Or not even hard rock, just evil -- ferinstance, track six, "Four Points Of The Compass" is a throbbing, suspenseful instrumental totally in the John Carpenter/Zombi vein, with stabs of guitar, spooky synths, and burbling rhythms like a diabolic version of the tracks on Circle's Tower album. Circle bassist and bandleader Jussi Lehtisalo had told us in an email that Katapult was "sixties black metal"... which he followed up with a characteristic "hahahahahaha". Sixties black metal? After hearing it, what we think he meant is that it's a mix of psychedelic space rock effects (as usual, and especially in the vein of the synthy ambient zoneouts on their recent Panic album) with a dark, heavy, maybe mystical moodiness. The rhythms have all the usual mesmerizing motorik Circle urgency, moreso than usual even. And the spiked fist of metallic chug is always gloved within an astral ambience of shimmering trippy bliss, sinister bliss. Part of the proggy psych / Nordic black metal crossover here can be ascribed to the primitive recording conditions -- they tracked it at a summer cabin in the Finnish countryside -- for an especially raw and live feel. No other band in the realms of post-rock, modern day psych, and/or NWO-anyplace-HM sparks our imagination and instills such a gleeful response in us as much as does Circle. They've always got a left-field, extra-dimensional, conceptual something that makes us shake our heads and wonder what next? even as we press repeat again and again on their current disc. Again, can't wait to hear this live!

Although of course we like to say that EVERY day is Record Store Day, officially Record Store Day 2012 was a couple weeks ago - but that doesn't mean we're entirely done with the special limited edition RSD stuff. That's right, thankfully, we managed to get more copies of this, the album from one of our faves, Circle, that came out, on vinyl only via Hydra Head, for Record Store Day. (Hard to believe they had any left, but just maybe Circle is a little more popular with our customers than at other record stores?). So, yay, now we can list it! Manner is Circle's latest studio album, and it's a doozy. Naturally. Like the last one of theirs we listed, Rautatie, there's a distinctly '70s prog vibe to some of the proceedings, and in fact they do a cover here (their first ever cover, on an album?), of Brian Eno's "Here Come The Warm Jets", which comes across as very suitably "circular" in its pulsations here. Fans of Circle know that the band's output is as as diverse it is prolific, and it would be far too simplistic to say that there's two basic types of Circle albums. But, maybe there are, at the extremes. There's the pensively moody & atmospheric (Miljard, Infektio, Hissi), and the metallicized & rockin' (Sunrise, Katapult, Tulikoira). Of course, most of their records somehow display both tendencies at once. Manner leans towards the latter, there's definitely some heavy duty hard rock action going on here, stuff that could even have fit in on alter-ego Pharaoh Overlord's stadium rock Out Of Darkness album, like the triumphant, full on prog/metal opus "Blue King" that precedes the Eno cover on the first side. A lot of this has that epic intensity, also familiar from Rautatie. Frontman Mika Ratto's wiggy operatic croon is in full effect, on album opener "Lintu Joe", soaring up n' out nonsensically over dramatic crashing guitar chords, restrained rhythms, uneasy synth squiggle, and in general, weird Yes-like proggery. As an introduction to Circle for the masses of Hydra Head fanboys & fangirls who perhaps have never heard these freaky Finns before (this is Circle's first album for HH), it's a bit of a bold move, but heck why not jump in at the deep end? Like we said, this is vinyl only, but four of the six songs here also appear in more recklessly thrashed live concert renditions on Circle's recent Serpent cd, which we had in stock very briefly at about the same time we originally got Manner. Eventually we'll get more of those back in. Of note, the die cut cover art, which looks amazing. Limited to 1000 copies in three different colors. We had the "red eye" colored vinyl for Record Store Day, but aren't sure what color the additional copies we got are, probably black.

Ok, you could be forgiven one of these days for saying, "Hey Aquarius, if you love Circle so much, why don't you marry them?" (We'd consider it, would be get Finnish citizenship?) It's true, we love love love this astonishing prog/space/psych/metal/wtf? band from Finland, and aren't afraid to say it. Our love affair got even more heated if possible these past few weeks when not only did we have a great new album (their collaboration with Sunburned Hand Of The Man) to list last time, and another great new album (Katapult) to list the time before that, but also as you probably know, they were just in town on tour, blowing minds at the Bottom Of The Hill this past week. And we also hosted a Circle in-store performance and helped arrange a secret show for them inside our friend John's bus!! Andee even flew up to Portland to see them (and help drive their van down to SF so they would get here in time for all these events). Totally worth it, they certainly put on a show to see... They're back in Finland now, but they left us with a whole bunch of copies of this at-long-last reissue of their debut album, originally released on the Bad Vugum label in 1994. It's been out of print for years but now Circle has just regained the rights and put it out again on their own Ektro label. Yay! (FYI, if you already have Meronia, don't worry, there's no extra tracks or anything, the artwork somewhat revised but otherwise no significant changes from the original so you don't have to buy it again.) We probably don't need to say too much about it, basically if you love Circle and never had a chance to get this before, get it now, it's essential. This IS the stuff that made us fans of Circle in the first place. Actually, we could be all snobby and be like, so, you think you like Circle, eh? ha you haven't even HEARD Circle. But of course we're not like that. However it's true, if you're a Circle fan unfamiliar with Meronia, you're gonna both be instantly satisfied -and- in for a surprise (isn't that always the case with these guys?). Back in '94, they had a rather different lineup to the one that just played here (or on many of their other albums... bassist/bandleader Jussi has been the sole constant in Circle over the years). But their trademark "circular" repetitive pulse was of course fully formed, and some other things haven't changed either (it would seem that their favorite keyboard patch has remained the same for a loooong time, that synth strings sound is just like what they used on the tour that brought them here last week). What is different is the emphasis on angular heavy guitar rock riffs, washes of symphnonic magnificence, and the choral vocals -- which sound like monks chanting! Like Magma, Circle created their own "language" in which to sing, called Meronian. Pretty incredible. This album links Circle to so such late '80s/early '90s alt-metal influences as Gore and Helmet, even Voivod. Turns out, Circle's metal leanings go way back, though of course this weirdness isn't really metal itself. It's some kind of monk-prog that oddly creates a mood that reminds us a bit of Swedish goth/doom metallers Katatonia, if they were a no wave Magmoid motorik space rock ensemble, perhaps. Meronia is one of those albums that while we were listening to it, revisiting it while writing the review, ALL other thoughts and worries and everything was washed away. The head starts uncontrollably nodding, feet tapping in time, and ... huh, what, where were we? Yep, hypnotic Circle to the core. Obviously, recommended. And we're also happy to report that several other long-gone Circle titles are also soon to be reissued by Ektro, including this album's similar but krautrockier successor, and arguably our favorite Circle album ever, Zopalki. So keep it tuned.

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Delicate? Calm? Circle? Yes. Listen up. You'd think that for a band with, no less than, what, twenty albums to their name AND who always write songs with an invariable central musical concept (circularity, natch, the repetitive pulse that all their songs share no matter what else is different betwixt 'em) we'd by this point feel like we'd heard it all from them already -- even if their all is ALL really great. But no. This new album surprised even us. And it too is great. Really great. If you're expecting the NWOFHM (New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal) stylings of Tulikoria or Sunrise, or the motorik krautrockiness of Alotus or Guillotine, or the heavy prog of Prospekt, or the spacey jazzy dubbiness of Pori, or all of the above (as these descriptors actually apply to pretty much all their albums to varying degrees), well that's NOT exactly what you get with Miljard. There's really no comparisons this time to Neu!, Can, Tortoise, or Hawkwind, let alone Judas Priest! Instead we'll mention Thuja, The Necks, Morton Feldman, Bohren und Der Club Of Gore, Philip Jeck, 3/4hadbeeneliminated... But it's still definitely Circle. It's just that, as Ektro's website puts it, "rocking has been traded for some quiet reading on the couch at home". And boy is this hauntingly atmospheric, instrumental music PERFECT for such activity. Miljard NEEDS two discs, because this music is so spacious and expansive, a slow-moving stream, or the ripples in a pond. The pond, perhaps, frozen in the Finnish winter, in a twilight landscape softened with snow... The first track on the first disc, "Parmalee", is a twenty minute piece that sets the relaxed and gorgeous tone of this record. Meandering, pretty piano, reminding us of Rob Reger's playing in Thuja, quietly joined by abstract electronics and guitar...and Circle's usual repetition and pulses are still there, at about 11 minutes the pulse becomes more noticable, by that time you're absolutely entranced... already we're convinced, this is a fantastic record, and there's still 1 and 2/3rds discs to go!! The next track, "B.F.F." is slightly more uptempo, but still has the classical vibe from the piano. And then another twenty-minute cut "Duunila" comes on, a whispery dark drone, hushed, with some sparse clatter, and gentle bass notes. Oooh, sheer beauty. And on it goes, all the way through to the gauzey, vaguely gamelan-like 20-minute "Viitane" which closes out disc two, nearly two hours of amazing music, the soundtrack to a limpid dream from which we'd never hope to wake. Out of the whole Circle discography, the atypically riff-less stuff here comes closest to the material on side one of Mountain, a very brooding and unusually ambient live set which not everybody got to hear 'cause it was a limited, LP-only release. This at least is not so limited. Geeze, what *can't* they do? With Miljard we're pretty sure Circle have cemented their status as just about the best band ever, as far as we're concerned. Ok, the AQ universe of best bands ever is pretty big, but Circle might just be the best of the best... Recommended, people!!!

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If there was ever a show worth flying 6000 miles for, it would've been this one. In fact Allan and Andee were seriously considering doing just that. Not only was this show unmissable, but we were imagining how completely nuts it would have been to just stroll into a show and say hi to our friends there all casual-like, as if we lived down the street instead of on the other side of the globe! Clearer minds prevailed, but thankfully we're able to experience at least part of the show in the form of this lp. The show of which we're speaking took place in Leeds, in a big old church and featured AQ faves Circle, the amazing prog duo Guapo (formerly on tUMULt, soon to be on Ipecac), the gloriously drone-y Jazzfinger, whose most recent record we reviewed here a couple lists back, Like A Kind Of Matador, who sound like a more prog-tastic Boris, and have a flute player, and who have a record coming out on tUMULt later in the year, Ultralyd, featuring Kjetil Brandsal from Noxagt, and a couple more! Holy crap! Damn those clearer heads! From what we heard it was totally amazing, and everyone seemed to focus on Circle's epic and broodingly ambient set. And rightfully so, as this here slab of wax proves. An ultra slow-building Krautrock roar, airy clouds of ambient flutter, sizzling cymbals, simple plucked guitar rhythms, bleeping and blooping barely-there melodies, looping and clattery, a gorgeously swirly, roiling miasma of sound. Gets more dynamic as it progresses with rough industrial whir and hellish howls. Side two is much more aggressive, noisy and rhythmic, very much akin to later Boredoms, manic percussion underneath billowing sheets of murky guitar blur, before the whole thing slowly decays into an ambient wash of tribal chants and muted drumming. SO NICE. Very reminiscent of the recent spate of Doktor Kettu cd-r's, in its simmering slow shifting murkiness. And for Circle fans who have had issues with the presence of more and more vocals on recent Circle records, Mountain finds the vocals settled way back into the mix, careening wildly -amidst- the music not -atop- it. We have a whole bunch but it's VERY LIMITED. In fact according to the label it's already out of print. So act fast!

Ah, Circle. We love 'em. You love 'em (or, if this is the first you've heard of them, then please do an artist=circle search on our website for plenty o' info). And we've all come to expect the unexpected from these freaky Finns, yet also always expect the "Circle" sound: rhythmic, krautrocky, "circular". And they always deliver. Yet we'd have to say, with this new record Panic they've also managed to come up with the Circle album that we doubt -anyone- would quite have predicted, nosiree. Spoiler warning! Since we know that the legions of Circle fans reading this pretty much don't need us to tell 'em that they want this or any new Circle cd and will be all over this like stink on a pig regardless, we should mention that this review contains something in way of a "spoiler" about the album's contents and if you're already planning on buying this you might want to read no further. Not that the surprise is, y'know, like The Crying Game or anything. So read on if you want. Looking at this, you might be wondering, what do the apocalyptic, crusty-punk looking black-and-white graphics mean? And why'd they call it Panic? And what's with the sticker on the front, proclaiming Circle to be "Finland speed-kraut pioneers" and telling us that they consist of ex-members of Sorto Ja Riiso, Saaste, Nyrkinen Kehitys, Spiders, and Suomen Ruutivarasto? Are those even real bands? Ultimately, you're wondering, what's this gonna sound like?? So, let's put it on... it starts off with "Black Tape", reminiscent of their recent lovely Miljard set: minimal piano plinking amidst spacey organic washes of synth, sort of Circle in an ambient Aphex Twin / Terry Riley mood. As that track flows into the next, and the next, the tone becomes more urgent, ominous, and busier... And then, without warning (well, unless you've read this) track number four ("Neverending Dinner") blasts from the speakers, a loud n' raging PUNK rock shock to the system, 38 seconds long. Seriously retro '80s styled hardcore punk, boots and spikes and all that, with vocals angrily shouting subversive political diatribes, the music uber-distorted and as catchy as a veneral disease. Wow. That's what we mean by a surprise! Thus begins this mayhemic middle portion of the album, six tracks, averaging not much more than a minute in length each, is Circle's teenage punk rock rebellion reborn and moshing hard. But since it's Circle's version of punk, so you can still hear the sci-fi prog rock keyboards layered in there, twittering and swooshing amidst the purely punk noise. Weird weird weird. Then, like a summer thunderstorm, all that's over with... and we're back to the vast, instrumental reaches of deep, dark space, the disc coming to a conclusion with its two longest tracks, the 12 minute "Tunnel" and the 14 minute "And Far Away", both even dronier and spacier than the synthscapes that began the album. Wow again. If you think about it, those two extremes -- spacey prog and quasi-metallic rockin' -- are both integral parts of the hard-to-define Circle sound. So it's as if on Panic, they've taken the "usual" Circle thing and pulled it apart, like taffy. The opposite ends of the album are stretched out into a bleak and beautiful drone-zone, while the heaviest densest craziest stuff settles into the middle. Some might criticize Circle for what might appear to an indulgence in high-concept joking around... post-modern appropriation... punk playacting... taking the piss... whatever. But what we think is that they're all the more amazing for it, for deciding to do a "punk" record yet keeping it Circle. After all, if you're gonna make as many albums as these guys have AND always have to make sure you stay true to the very distinctive sound they're established (the "circular", repetitive thing), you've gotta be creative, which they are. So their solution here is to sandwich their warped '80s punk pastiche between something completely different -- cosmic electronics like '70s Schulze or maybe a John Carpenter soundtrack. The jarring juxtaposition is brilliant and maybe even meaningful, somehow tying in with the nuclear nightmares depicted on the album graphics. And there are many clever details in the graphics dep't by the way, from the collaged riot pics to the fonts used to the barbed wire borders and the Ektro flag-logo... tight. In fact, we might wonder which came first, the graphic notions or the music...!? By the way, while we've got your attention, may as well let you know to look forward to another new Circle album coming out on No Quarter in September. Haven't heard it yet, but Jussi from Circle tells us it sounds like "60's black metal"... whatever that means! No doubt more surprises in store.

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Oh lord, what will the mischievous mind of Circle mainman Jussi Lehtisalo come up with next? Not long ago, there was the conceptually confusional arrangement under which our Finnish space rock faves Circle changed their name to Falcon (Ex-Circle), and then recruited a completely different group of musicians to record an album under their former name of Circle (which was great!), after which the original Circle guys switched back to being called Circle (Ex-Falcon). Whew. And now they're just Circle, again. BUT, how's this for another confusing idea: Circle, and their not-all-that-different-really side-project band Pharaoh Overlord have now simultaneously released albums with the titles "Circle" and "Pharaoh Overlord", no, not self-titled albums, the Circle one is called Pharaoh Overlord and the Pharaoh Overlord one is called Circle. And they have very similar art/graphics. Yep. That's what they do for laffs up in Finland, although knowing Jussi, he probably has some very serious, meaningful reason behind this scheme, but the explanation would be impossible to understand. It makes a circle or something. Regardless, what we've got here are TWO NEW Circle and/or Pharaoh Overlord albums, however you slice it, and that's a good thing! Of course, they just showed up yesterday, the day before our list, but we already have spun these a bunch of times and know we will spin them lots more, so sure let's make 'em both Records Of The Week! The Circle album is quite, well, it's pretty much redundant and superfluous to say in a review of a Circle album that the music is "mesmeric" but goshdarnit, this is indeed mesmerizing. They don't try to sound especially like Pharaoh Overlord, by the way, whatever that would entail, not of course that they don't, either. Instead, the quick takeaway here would be that this is "the Circle album with horns". (Oh, wait, there's a PO album called Horn, maybe that's the weird connection, hmmm??) Anyway, the horns are the big X-factor here, tooting along syncopatedly and cyclically Circle-like. A little jazzy, certainly proggy, those horns, along with the wordless vocal choirs, make us think of Magma and other '70s large-ensemble prog symphonics. We're also put in mind of some suspenseful '60s/'70s film soundtracks, like David Shire's The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three just a bit. It gets intense, with stabs of distorted guitar chords to further intensify the mood. Meanwhile, the vocals, which include some impressive caveman freakout screams, are also crucial, and hark back to the early days of Circle, when they did the monk-chanting thing in their own made up language (a la Magma as well) on albums like Zopalki. Ultimately, it's really gorgeous and, again, super mesmeric, these tracks all of course built around endless repetitive grooves, simple (deceptively so, we're sure) and effective in the usual Circle style. And the only reason one track ever ends, it seems, is that another one needs to begin. And we wouldn't have it any other way. This Circle consists of circles within circles to spin the mind around. Wow, nice. Recommended, as is the other one by the other band. FYI, vinyl versions of both of these are forthcoming in a month or two...

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One of the more recent Circle records finally released on vinyl by our pals at Static Caravan. Good thing too since the cd is out of print. Double lp, colored vinyl in a nice gatefold sleeve with some of the most tripped out artwork we've seen in a while, different from the cd version. Here's what we had to say about the cd when it first came out. Is there such a thing as Circle overload? We don't think so. In their case, you can't have too much of a good thing. A brand new disc of their hypnotic avant-rock compositions. Newer than their recent "Andexelt" album, and just as good. Not as sparse and dubby as that disc, "Prospekt" is rather heavier and denser, mesmerizingly repetitive as always, and kinda startling, with some incredible vocal acrobatics / operatics in the opening track "Dedofiktion". Really great!

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Our favorite predictably unpredictable, hypnotically rockin' Finnish band, Circle, have made so many amazing albums (dozens of 'em!) that they're essentially an institution now, an integral part of our lives, an eternal manifestation of the creative energy of the universe. In other words, we can count on 'em to come up with something wonderful on a regular basis. They're kinda like Christmas, or your birthday, or something, except sometimes Circle gift us with more than one album per year. Sure, some Circle albums (like some Christmases) are better than others, of course, but we've yet to be disappointed. Though their last one, 2008's Hollywood, was a bit of an odd duck, what with featuring special guest Bruce "Jesters Of Destiny" Duff on vocals... This new one, however, we can recommend without any warnings about unexpected vocalists, though you do have to be into Mika's trademark faux-operatic excesses, which Circle fans should certainly be used to by now. And in fact, while he croons in his usual over-the-top manner some of the time, there are also songs here where the singing is much more "normal", making for some of Circle's most conventionally melodic pop moments ever, relatively speaking. Well, make that prog-pop. Rautatie is an EPIC effort from Circle indeed. Or maybe "effort" isn't the right word. 'Cause they make it seem effortless. So natural, the unique Circle sound just surging through 'em as soon as they enter the studio. In any case, it's epic, especially grand finale "Kaasukello", 8 minutes 18 seconds long, which builds from a sheen of shimmering rhythmic patterning in the style of Circle's possibly prettiest album, Miljard, into soaring waves of massive majestic choral prog triumph, causing all within earshot to raise their fists in the air, and look to the skies with a shared sense of exaltation. Wow. We kept putting that one on repeat, but the whole album is compelling, worthy of, like, infinite spins too. And it's a varied experience, lots to grok... the opening, title track starts off with some heavy "NWOFHM" riffage, immediately making us think this is gonna be one of Circle's "metal-ly" efforts, perhaps like Katapult or Sunrise. But then that song suddenly switches to a repetitive (natch) '70s prog sounding section, adorned with weird wordless vocal outbursts from a (seizure-suffering?) Mika, before the guitars get kinda punk, and then return to the metal majesty with which it began... all that in under 5 minutes. And it's catchy, too. As is a lot of this, such as the rousing "Vaellus", sure to be a hit, that is if they'd play a 7:58 song on the radio, with lyrics in Finnish (or is it their own language "Meronian"?), some of 'em sung in a chipmunk-metal shriek. The synths are laid on thick on that one, and elsewhere, ferinstance on the equally epic "Kohtalon Sormi", from which we're getting a nice Ennio Morricone-ish vibe. Propulsive rhythms, incongruously placid piano parts, atmospheric interludes, and distorted guitar wailings are also all part of the proceedings on Rautatie. Especially those propulsive rhythms, of course. It's definitely a proggy album, in more of an overt classic '70s prog style than some Circle albums have been, though of course they're ALL quite proggy and krautrocky. Plus those metal moments crop up more than once too, so those into Circle's heavier, leather and spikes side will get their fix as well. (However tongue in cheek that "NWOFHM" aspect of Circle is, it cannot be argued that they don't rock hard, and we know 'em to be true metal fans for sure.) And, as we said, it's practically pop at points too. And experimental. And... well, lots of things, as only Circle can do. Furthermore, with a week's exposure to Rautatie so far, we feel it's been getting better and better with every listen, always the sign of a great album. Yay, go Circle! Heck, hyperbolically speaking, if they ever stop, it'll be like the end of the world...

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We listed this last time, on the same day we got it, so we thought we'd list it again now after having had some time to give it a few more spins... though really we don't have much more to say - it's Circle, it's great! Here's what we said last time, with a little bit more commentary added in: This new lp with the sibilant all caps title, by our & everybody's fave Finnish hypno-rockers Circle, just showed up at the shop TODAY, and is thus being treated to a fairly brief "first impressions" review so we can get it on the list, not that it really even needs a review cuz heck it's a new Circle lp after all, and one thing about Circle is that they're pretty darn reliable. Their previous record (if we don't count the recent avant-death metal Incarnation album, by the Circle-that-isn't-actually-Circle) was last year's Six Day Run lp, a soundtrack to a documentary by Finnish artist and filmmaker Mika Taanila. This one's also sort of a soundtrack for something by Mika Taanila, but it's a live album, recorded at a museum in Helsinki (the Kiasma Museum Of Contemporary Art), where Taanila was holding an exhibition called Time Machines, a retrospective of his works over the past decade. Circle wrote these songs to perform there, accompanying a film installation of Taanila's, and we get the idea that the visuals have to do with science and technology, experimentation and exploration. Hence, well-respected space rock band Circle makes a good match-up! About the music on SSEENNSSEESS, there are four exclusive (and long) tracks here, two to a side: "Kudos", "Radiant", "Sleepwalker" and "Terminal". Giving it a first spin, and expecting the unexpected as always with Circle, we're happy to hear actually-not-so-unexpected yearning, surging, epic keyboard-laden stuff that's majestic and mostly instrumental (though keyboardist Mika Ratto does contribute some of his operatic glossolalia at key moments), tracks like the 11+ minute "Terminal" reminding us of Circle's Rautatie album. The volume and energy and slashing psych guitar soloing situates this somewhere between the shoegazing and the Stoogesy. Apparently Circle and Taanila are taking this music/film installation on tour, but probably only in Europe, so this lp is the closest our senses will come to experiencing the entirety of SEENNSSEESS, and while getting the full multimedia effect like at the museum would undoubtedly be cool, there's something to be said for being able to spin this again and again at home, as we imagine will we be doing a lot!

MPEG stream: Terminal (live)

It's here! Saturnus Reality is the first ever dvd release from the amazing & unclassifiable (prog? space rock? metal? psych?) Finnish band Circle. And being Circle, the dvd is unclassifiable too. It's not any sort of straightforward live concert film, or even interview-style documentary. Instead, it's more of an art film, a subverted, semi-pretend DIY documentary, with a lot of "meta" elements, ostensibly showing the band recording one of their recent albums (apparently Miljard? we didn't even figure that out) at a remote cabin in the Finnish mountains. For the pristine winter scenery alone, with snowy forests and a frozen lake, this is wonderful to watch. So lovely, it really makes us want to visit Finland!! And making the visuals even more strange and beautiful, director Esko Lonnberg has crafted this film in a visual approximation of Circle's trademark "circular" musical style, that is, with lots of repetition, certain shots recurring again later... it's all quite dreamlike, also because of his extensive use of cinematic layering, ghostly images double or triple projected over what you think is the "real" scene, which shifts in a hallucinatory fashion. Meanwhile of course, the documentary's "subjects" themselves, Circle, also provide much weirdness. Making the seemingly mundane into something mystical and mysterious, they get up to all sorts of bizarre, ritualistic antics, that seem inspired both by religious ceremony and old silent film comedies. If we hadn't met these guys before, we might think it was a big put-on... well it is, sort of, but not really. They DO act like this, we know! Silly people, with serious purpose. Or the other way around, maybe. In any event, a lot of it is really funny. At our screening, some folks in the audience were laughing out loud. But it helped that they were some of the biggest Circle fans in the room. Others might not have been paying close enough attention to what's going on to notice the humor. But more than being amusing, Saturnus Reality is simply gorgeous. With all the trippy visuals and Circle's hypnotic music on the soundtrack, it's quite mesmerizing. We've seen it multiple times (we helped host a pre-release screening party for it at a local bar back in February, and also watched it at home more than once), and haven't been bored. But someone who's not already a Circle fan might have trouble getting into it (unless they're big into avant-garde cinema). And even Circle fans have to realize that they're not going to see much live footage of the band in action. They do perform - but not always music! The actual rehearsal scenes are NOT the focus of the film. Instead they're busy filming the filming of this "documentary", indulgently creating their own cryptic Circle mythology in the process, playing characters that may or may not be themselves. Really, rather than thinking of this as a film "about" Circle, it's more like another Circle album, just in a different than usual medium. It's in Finnish, but with English subtitles, thankfully. And the dvd specs are: NTSC, all region, 98 minutes in length.

Circle are getting to be like a Finnish hypnorock version of the Grateful Dead, a comparison which would no doubt thrill Circle mainman Jussi Lehtisalo, who is very upfront about his obsession with the Dead. In so much as between albums, Circle, like the Dead, crank out killer live record after killer liver record, often with some of the same songs, always including a few live staples, familiar enough to hit the spot, but different enough that a Circle fan could be forgiven for needing them ALL! This vinyl-only latest from these fantastic Finns, is indeed yet another live set, and not only features a super striking crystal skull cover, but also finds the band bolstered by some extra axe power in the form of members of fellow NWOFHM combo Pharaoh Overlord. Recorded last year, in Finland, Soundcheck, as the label puts it, "offers the most contemporary document possible of a Circle soundcheck / concert experience". Indeed! The Aside offers two new tracks, beginning with the brief "Kukkakaalia Kapteenit!", a wispy swirl of shimmery synths, laid back tribal drumming and some dramatic, emotional crooning, very cinematic sounding, almost like it could be some lost 4AD single, dreamy and ethereal, giving way to the way more rocking and intense "Tuhatsata", which takes up most of the side, a slow burning, blackened bit of Finnish krautrock, super epic, with dueling vocals, crooning versus grunted and growled, fusiony keys, still more tribal drumming, spidery guitars, the track pulsing and pounding, building to multiple crescendos, frenzied freakouts that always lip right back into more looped mesmer. The flipside features two instantly recognizable live set staples, first up, "Virsi", dramatically progtastic, with that super soaring epic intro, all dynamic shifts and huge bursts of instrumental crunch, with vocals howling and wailing almost operatically, before lurching into some rad atonal krauty, fusiony, jazzy, hypno groove skitter. The second track, another Circle classic, and live staple, "Nopeuskuningas", explodes right out of the gate, with its chugging almost surfy, ZZ Top-ish boogie riff, locked in groove, the whole thing stretched out over the remainder of the side, the band solid, and hypnotic, and intense, and rocking and tight as fuck. Their showstopper for sure, and it clearly did the job at this show as well. Heavy vinyl, super swank skull jacket, and most definitely LIMITED.

Brilliant, shockingly brilliant! Herewith we present to you what we can only say is the headbangingest record yet from our Finnish friends Circle (containing also, paradoxically, a couple of their most gentle numbers). The Circle concept is one of repetition, and while ALL their records are in fact great, one can find some of them to be a lot like another. So it's nice that this new Circle really goes out on a limb, with so much success, while totally managing to remain Circle to the core. How do they do it? The album opens with "Nopeuskuningas", seemingly Circle's answer to Judas Priest's "Breaking The Law"! Down and dirty hard rock riffing (cyclic and repetitive in the trademark Circle way, of course) with keyboardist/vocalist Mika Ratto -- a relatively recent, and significant, addition to Circle's lineup on their past three or four discs -- simultaneously channeling screechy metal gods Rob Halford (Judas Priest), Klaus Meine (Scorpions), and Brian Johnson (AC/DC), but in an indeciperable, or Finnish at least, babble. It stretches to nearly eight minutes after the space-rock effects and swirly keys kick in. But then, when you think this is going to be The Heavy Metal Circle album, track two gets all mellow and pretty and folked-out, even MORE unlike any previous Circle we've ever heard. Acoustic guitar, and lots of la la la's from Mika. Unbelievable -- and lovely. But then the next song triggers the dormant motorik Circle drum pulse, overlaid with heavy guitars and vocal histrionics akin to the opening track. Plus new wavey/Axel F keyboards. Hit material here! Following that, track four, "Vaanen Valtiatar", heads back to the forest glade where Circle do that hippy jamming again a la track two, but more plugged-in, turning into a spacey jam session. And then, as you might now expect, it's back to the mosh pit for the monstrous rifferama of the next song, "Kylan Suurin Miekka". Evil stuff. This is True Circular Metal indeed. From then on the album maintains the heaviness, getting spacier and spacier though, culminating in the droning fifteen-minute "Lokki". Wow. An amazing album, making effective use of Mika's unusual/unique vocals -- he's developed some sort of exotic (Middle Eastern? American Indian?) meets metal style, delivered in a manner as over-the-top as the most insane Italian prog of the '70s. Throw in some violin and moog and of course all the heavy metal moves, and you've got a bizarre blend of, uh, Yoko Ono, Hawkwind, Judas Priest, and of course Circle's krautrock forerunners Neu! and Can. While "Sunrise" is in many ways a departure for Circle, it can also be seen as an album harking back to their hard-rockin' roots (they've nodded that way on the guitar-heavy "Prospekt" and Jussi's Kyuss-ish Pharoah Overlord side project, but you've got to also remember that the very first Circle album, "Meronia", drew quite a few comparisons to Helmet at the time). Recommended.

RealAudio clip: Nopeuskuningas
RealAudio clip: Vaanen Valtiatar
RealAudio clip: Kylan Suurin Miekka
RealAudio clip: Hautain Takaa

A long lost Circle album??! Sort of. One of Circle's best albums?! Definitely. The deal with Taantumus is that it came out on the Finnish label Bad Vugum back in 2001, falling betwixt Prospekt and Sunrise (approximately, it's hard to keep track) in the ever-expanding Circle discography. At the time, there was talk of Taantumus getting a domestic release in the US, so we never imported any copies from overseas. Well, that domestic release never ever happened, but thankfully, years and years later, this amazing "lost" (to most folks outside of Finland, anyway) Circle album has been reissued by the band's own Ektro label, now crowned with the 9:21 bonus track "Veitsi"! Now, you should already be aware we LOVE this hypnotic Finnish space/prog/psych/metal/kraut band. If we could marry them, we would! So of course we're excited by any release of theirs. However, this one is definitely extra-deserving of Record Of The Week honors, as it's really one of their best efforts (though we'd be hard pressed to agree upon a definitive Circle top ten, let's not get sidetracked). One listen should convince. To one track, even. The first track, "Kultaa", that's IT. Right there. Damn. Hit Circle song, in the universe where Circle could have hit songs, which is our universe, as far as we're concerned. Boom boom on the floor tom, the guitars hitting the same chord over and over again. Repetition, repetition, repetition. But utterly energizing and maddeningly catchy. And then, the vocals - Meronian monks whooping it up. Track two, "Kekkone", tick tock drums and electronic flutter, with melodic guitar lines tiptoeing across the stereo field... utterly exquisite! Track three, "Valtaisa Hahmo", another monster motorik HIT. With whistling FLUTE, well maybe it's a recorder, and droning synths. Track four... well heck we're not gonna go through 'em all. What's the point, you already know you want this, right?? So get it and listen for yourself, at home, cranked up LOUD. (Not that this is loud music, per se, some of it sure is, but lots of it is subtle, stuff that if listened to at volume will simply allow one to more easily bask in its glory). That way you can find out about the kick ass harmonica jam of track 9, "Morn", all on your own. (Shades of Itavayla there.) Rest assured, Taantumus is stocked with plenty of Circle's trademark mantric riffs, throbbing bass, precision timekeeping, cosmic shimmer, and curious noise. OK, we'll mention a few more of the many treats to be found on this 66 minute disc... Track 5, "Suopea", brings in extra distortion and heaviness, contrasted with a haunting vocal choir that floats over, of course, a tight percolating rhythm. Track 7, "Lyhytaallosta", is a slab of bass heavy angular postpunk, Circle style, with chiming no-wavey guitars and deepvoiced Viking vox - plus weird glitch and gurgle. Into the more "metal" side of Circle? Try track 10, "Siivet", a killer "speedkraut" cut foreshadowing their later Panic disc, albeit with piano. And Mika's operatic vocals, something first unleashed on the preceding Prospekt disc. Heavier still is "Pelqton", which sounds like Circle doing abstract Isis... but, again, with piano. Oh, and yeah the bonus track is awesome too. Droning density that skitters into deep grooves with some near spoken singing. Actually, elsewhere on the album there's mysterious vocal bits in the background that somehow sound like they could be a song from The Mighty Boosh, if you are familiar with that British TV comedy you'll be scratching your head too. So, wow. This is the sort of album that leaves us puzzled - why isn't Circle the biggest band in the world? (Maybe they really HAVE hypnotized us.) But really, aside from being really WEIRD, and not widely released, you'd have thought that an album like this would have made Circle megasuperduper stars. I mean really, what do they gotta do, besides being one of the best bands ever? You think that'd be enough. You'd think Taantumus would be enough. Well whatever, in our universe it is.

MPEG stream: Kultaa
MPEG stream: Suopea
MPEG stream: Rautasilta

When it rains, it pours. And when Finland's Circle is concerned, there certainly has been no drought of releases lately. Fine with us though, we say bring it on! Last list, we reviewed their excellent new live disc, Rakennus. We mentioned that there was *another* live release upcoming, and this is it. Dare we ask, do you need another live Circle album so soon? Silly question. And Telescope IS quite a bit different from Rakennus. While that cd documented an hour-long show recorded on Circle's 2007 US tour, Telescope contains an epic 131 minutes of music, spread over two cds, captured in 2003 at a show in Wurzburg, Germany. And it's all looong tracks, several of 'em jams in the 20-30 minute range, which means there's only six individual tracks here (three per disc) as compared to the eight songs found on the single disc Rakennus. Circle's lineup of four years ago is the same as it is now, but the material they're doing here differs somewhat. Maybe it's 'cause they were playing in Germany, but the "krautrock" side of Circle (as opposed to, say, their "metal" side) is to the fore here. Total jammed-out space rock grooves in the usual ultra hypnotic, ultra repetitive, trance-inducing Circle tradition. The air is thick with amped-up psychedelic guitar textures, some of this recalling Spacemen 3, or more accurately, since it's heavier than that, Loop. At moments you'll think you've stepped back in time into a San Francisco '60s hippie ballroom concert (or krautrock commune)... at others you'll be surprised by the angular, garage-rock guitar shards flying from the stage. Much of this is totally flowers and beads pretty, while some of it breaks into a dervish frenzy. Circle's cyclical riffs and beats are certainly in full effect, and due to the happily stretched-out durations of these songs, the band can really develop shifting patterns of their seemingly endless pulsations... also having many minutes to build from spaciously mellow, minimalist meandering to more urgent, energetic explosions. We can only imagine that being in attendance at this concert, if you really let yourself get into it, would have resulted in some sort of altered state of consciousness, time slowing down or even seeming to stop completely. What, it's over already?? Some "Circle-casualties" might never snap out of it, spending the rest of their days in a head nodding daze, communicating with others only in an approximation of Circle vocalist Mika Ratto's nonsensical but beautious babble... And if this happens to YOU as a result of purchasing Telescope, consider it money well spent! As far as we can tell, most of the tracks are exclusive to Telescope, being previously unreleased/unrecorded compositions or improvisations, while the couple we do recognize are derived from their album Guillotine, which was Circle's current studio release in 2003. And on the final, 33 minute mega encore track "Kaare", Circle is joined by a special guest, from the German psych rock bands Sula Bassana and Zone Six, on "space bass". Not that they need any help in that department... FYI this is limited to 1000 copies, not to be repressed... we got 100 and that's it.

MPEG stream: Matka
MPEG stream: Metsan Henget
MPEG stream: Ajannopeus

Certain bands around these parts don't really need much more than a "NEW RECORD OUT NOW" style announcement to get their fans all in a tizzy. Those groups engender a certain sort of slavish worship and maniacal obsession, that used to be reserved for top 40 bands and their teenage minions. But heck, what's wrong with loving a band enough to want it all?! Everything they do, every cd, ep, lp, 7", whatever. A list of those bands will probably look mighty familiar to most of you, and will quite possibly elicit that record nerd Pavlovian response that even we can never quite seem to shake. SUNNO))), Boris, Corrupted, Earth, and yes of course Circle. Longtime readers of the aQ New Arrivals list are well aware of our obsession with Circle, odds are most of them share it, as well as a certain obsession with Finnish music in general, but Circle are for sure our favorite group of musical Finns. And for good reason. Going on two decades, Circle have managed to take a simple sound, and twist it all up, keeping it fresh and exciting and surprising, a sort of hypnotic and yes CIRCULAR sound, simple arrangements, repetitive riffing, motorik drumming, a little kraut rock, a little space rock, but Circle have taken those sounds and run them through the wringer, transforming them into murky mantra like hypno rock for one record, bombastic eighties style metal for another, long brooding dronescapes for one disc, majestic triumphant over the top prog for another, and never hesitating to mix and blur and blend their various sounds and personas to suit their whim and whimsy. For those folks who have seen Circle live, they understand the magic of this band, the improvisation, the incredible stage presence, the killer riffing, we never would have thought a weirdo space-kraut-prog rock band from Finland could get US audience losing their shit, but we've seen it. Heck at one show, bass player Jussi Lehtisalo ripped his shirt off midsong, and we were nearly deafened by a gaggle of shrieking girls right in front of us. But we digress, Circle rule. You know it. We know it. Live especially, which is why there are so many live records in their discography, because those songs that you've listened to a million times, sound totally different live. Thus we have Triumph, a vinyl only double lp documenting Circle's second time performing live on WFMU (the first was released as Arkades back in 2006). Triumph was recorded in New Jersey, in 2007, on Brian Turner's show on WFMU, and finds the band tackling a couple live Circle classics, and offering up a bunch of new stuff to boot. The record begins with "Virsi", which some of you may remember from Rakennus, another live album, a total live set staple, "Virsi" finds Circle at their bombastic prog rock epic best, totally dynamic and majestic, Mika Ratto's vocals even more unhinged than usual, slipping into an almost black metal shriek, when not crooning dramatically, such a killer part, you kind of want it to go on forever, but the band slip smoothly into a super minimal circular groove, with atonal piano, and the bass and drums locked tight, sounding like some cocktail jazz combo gone krautrock, before returning to the opening bombast to finish it off. The shorter second track is so awesome, and is either a new song, or a dramatically reworked version of an old one, but finds the band unfurling lush strings and shimmering effects, simple drumming, very proggy and dramatic but understated and smokey, very Scott Walker or Serge Gainsbourg, like some lost sixties ballad, albeit slightly tweaked. The flipside is all spidery guitars and skittery jazzy percussion, with wild speaking-in-tongues vocals, a massive tripped out psychedelic drift, super spare and minimal, but with a relentless groove hovering right below the surface. The second record begins with a gorgeous deep resonant shimmery drone, laced with delicate melodies, whispered vocals, spacey FX, the vocals eventually getting deeper and more dramatic, the whole thing building to an abstract almost free jazz sounding climax, a bit like a space rock torch song gradually going haywire. Flip the record over, and we've got what might be our new favorite Circle song, a looped music box melody (or maybe a toy piano), all tangled up with soft flurries of real piano, a strange push and pull between the fluid melodies of the piano, and the mechanical loop of the toy piano, the end result sounds a bit like some strange hybrid of Lubomyr Melnyk and Pierre Bastien. Machinelike, meditative, repetitive and hypnotic, the various notes and tones building into a gorgeous swirl of melodic fragments and splintering sonic overtones. So awesome. And finally, the band finish off with another live staple, "Murheenkryyni", also found on Rakennus, but again, it's a whole 'nother beast here, the heaviest of the bunch, a total classic rock prog rock dirge, with crunchy distorted guitars, bombastic drums, and Mika's operatic howl. Yowza! Packaged in a beautifully designed heavy gatefold sleeve, with all the liner notes printed on the lp labels, including a brief missive from Jussi of Circle about how he's worried that Brian Turner might just be losing his mind haha....

NWOFHM. That's what it says on the inside of the cd booklet, in big bold letters. NWOFHM? WTF? If you don't get the joke, explaining it won't help, but here goes: New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal. Our Finnish friends Circle are apparently referencing the famed NWOBHM (New Wave Of British Heavy Metal) that took the rock world by storm circa 1979, giving us Saxon, Angel Witch, Def Leppard, Iron Maiden, Venom, Samson, and many many many more. What's that got to do with the Can and Neu! pulsed space/prog/post-rock normally practiced by Circle?? Well Circle fans know that these guys have indeed established their very own trademark "circular" sound (repetitive, rhythmic, looping, hypnotic rock) that, whirlpool-like, pulls in all sorts of influences, from the aforementioned Krautrock forefathers to jazz and dub and lo-fi drone improv and, yes, metal. When you get a new Circle album, you kinda both know what to expect *and* never know what to expect. Well we'll tell you about Circle's latest studio effort, Tulikoria. In part, it's Circle donning the leather and spikes (metaphorically, perhaps, though they do threaten to do so for real live on stage at their show in San Francisco THIS FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2nd, THAT'S TONIGHT IF YOU'RE READING THIS THE DAY WE SENT OUT THIS LIST!! SO GET DOWN THERE!!). Ahem. Circle's love of metal, specifically the true, traditional heavy metal of the '80s, has borne fruit before, on several of the songs from their amazing Sunrise album released in 2002 (sadly now out of print). So, the heavy metal component present on Tulikoira is precedented in the Circle discog. But, like Sunrise, this isn't just Circle "doing metal". It's a lot of other things besides! Nobody will confuse it for an "actual" metal album. But heavy metal is definitely, proudly an element here, amongst others. And graphically, too, it's an inspiration, as you'll see from Circle's new fangled, tough-looking symmetrical logo, which even incorporates a lightning bolt! There's four tracks here, starting with "Rautakaarme", an atmospheric seven-minute cut featuring monkish chant, eerie drone, and energetic bursts of rock action. Second track "Tulilintu" is *entirely* active and energetic, really bringing in the headbanging, fist-pumping metal, complete with guitar leads and soaring screams in the manner of Rob Halford. Seriously. The lyrics are in Finnish (presumably) so we don't know how tongue-in-cheek-or-not they are. Track three, "Berserk", is kinda weird, another atmospheric exercise with some lines in English like "I'm a scorpion" and "I'm a crocodile" spoken over rather spooky, bass-heavy grooves. A lot of tension in this one. Could almost be a noirish film soundtrack from the '70s, but with additional "circular" electric guitar riffing. Then the final track "Puutiikeri" arrives, pretty much taking over the album since it's an epic 24 minute affair, beginning and ending with authentic heavy metal riffing, but journeying far and wide in-between. Creaky improv splatter, lush keyboards, gently whispering vocals, spacey electronic effects, chugging, pulsating rhythms (of course!), and even some quasi-techno beats (!) are stirred into this weird mix. Ranging in mood from calm tranquility to flat out rockin', this is a real trip, as is all of Tulikoira. If you've been following Circle's output in recent years, and rolling with all their eccentricies, from Sunrise to Guillotine to Forest to Empire, you'll be happy to add Tulikoria to your collection too!

MPEG stream: Rautakaarme
MPEG stream: Tulilintu
MPEG stream: Berserk

This 2005 Circle album, out of print for a bit, is now newly reissued on cd, this time its jewel case wrapped in a spiffy slipcase, featuring some cool new artwork (and a "no posers" symbol)! NWOFHM. That's what it says on the inside of the cd booklet, in big bold letters. NWOFHM? WTF? If you don't get the joke, explaining it won't help, but here goes: New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal. Our Finnish friends Circle are apparently referencing the famed NWOBHM (New Wave Of British Heavy Metal) that took the rock world by storm circa 1979, giving us Saxon, Angel Witch, Def Leppard, Iron Maiden, Venom, Samson, and many many many more. What's that got to do with the Can and Neu! pulsed space/prog/post-rock normally practiced by Circle?? Well Circle fans know that these guys have indeed established their very own trademark "circular" sound (repetitive, rhythmic, looping, hypnotic rock) that, whirlpool-like, pulls in all sorts of influences, from the aforementioned Krautrock forefathers to jazz and dub and lo-fi drone improv and, yes, metal. When you get a new Circle album, you kinda both know what to expect *and* never know what to expect. Well we'll tell you about Circle's latest studio effort, Tulikoria. In part, it's Circle donning the leather and spikes (metaphorically, perhaps, though they threatened to do so for real live on stage at their show in San Francisco that was happening the night we originally posted this review). Circle's love of metal, specifically the true, traditional heavy metal of the '80s, has borne fruit before, on several of the songs from their amazing Sunrise album released in 2002. So, the heavy metal component present on Tulikoira is precedented in the Circle discog. But, like Sunrise, this isn't just Circle "doing metal". It's a lot of other things besides! Nobody will confuse it for an "actual" metal album. But heavy metal is definitely, proudly an element here, amongst others. And graphically, too, it's an inspiration, as you'll see from Circle's new fangled, tough-looking symmetrical logo, which even incorporates a lightning bolt! There's four tracks here, starting with "Rautakaarme", an atmospheric seven-minute cut featuring monkish chant, eerie drone, and energetic bursts of rock action. Second track "Tulilintu" is *entirely* active and energetic, really bringing in the headbanging, fist-pumping metal, complete with guitar leads and soaring screams in the manner of Rob Halford. Seriously. The lyrics are in Finnish (presumably) so we don't know how tongue-in-cheek-or-not they are. Track three, "Berserk", is kinda weird, another atmospheric exercise with some lines in English like "I'm a scorpion" and "I'm a crocodile" spoken over rather spooky, bass-heavy grooves. A lot of tension in this one. Could almost be a noirish film soundtrack from the '70s, but with additional "circular" electric guitar riffing. Then the final track "Puutiikeri" arrives, pretty much taking over the album since it's an epic 24 minute affair, beginning and ending with authentic heavy metal riffing, but journeying far and wide in-between. Creaky improv splatter, lush keyboards, gently whispering vocals, spacey electronic effects, chugging, pulsating rhythms (of course!), and even some quasi-techno beats (!) are stirred into this weird mix. Ranging in mood from calm tranquility to flat out rockin', this is a real trip, as is all of Tulikoira. If you've been following Circle's output in recent years, and rolling with all their eccentricities, from Sunrise to Guillotine to Forest to Empire, you'll be happy to add Tulikoria to your collection too!

MPEG stream: Rautakaarme
MPEG stream: Tulilintu
MPEG stream: Berserk

We made the cd version of this Circle disc our Record Of The Week a while back, only for it to go out of print WAY quicker than anyone expected. So now, Tyrant is available once again, for a limited time, on vinyl, a double lp to be precise. But again, like all Latitudes stuff, very very limited, and add to that the fact that it's Circle, well, you should know what that means. Here's what we had to say about Tyrant when we first got it WAY back in 2006!! Be sure to read to the end though, as there's some extras with the lp edition.... BRAND NEW CIRCLE ALBUM!!! TYRANT!! INCREDIBLY LIMITED LATEST INSTALLMENT IN THE LATITUDES SERIES!!! IT'S HERE!!!! Okay, just wanted to get your attention. We've been waiting for this for a long, long time. As have many of you, we imagine. We've all been loving the Latitudes series of ultra limited releases from bands like Ginnungagap, Shit And Shine, the Grails, Ariel Pink, Sir Richard Bishop... so when we heard that Finland's gods of metallic hypno drone rock were going to do one, we were so psyched, and so we waited anxiously, but patiently, until finally, after months of waiting, they arrived, just a few days ago, and as if we even have to tell you, IT'S AWESOME!!! But this declaration of awesomeness does require a bit more elaboration, as Circle have a wide variety of awesome sounds: murky propulsive modern day krautrock, wild guitar heavy NWOFHM proto-metal, extended ambient drones, loping mesmeric jazzy shuffle, it's really hard to know where the band will head next. As if it were too much to wish for, Tyrant, somehow manages to combine all of their disparate sounds into one practically perfect whole, and some of us are declaring this our favorite Circle record in ages (no mean feat, since their last one, Miljard, was fantastic, a Record Of The Week too). Three 15 minute tracks, each one a slow building epic, droning, dense, dark, hypnotic, but each with its own unique elements. The opener, "Screaming Luovutus", is an endlessly looping space rock drone mantra, a relentlessly throbbing bassline, haunting little swirls of fluttering keyboard melody, little bits of guitar filigree, simple propulsive rhythmic shuffle, all woven into a endlessly throbbing krautrocky swirl, when suddenly over the top strange whispery demonic growls surface, super distorted, another layer of fuzzy sound, howling and whispering all ragged and harsh, almost like Circle covering Abruptum or a black metal Necks, if that makes any sense. Dizzying and weirdly heavy, a black ambient krautrock drone groove, if such a thing were possible. And if it were, you know Circle would be the ones, ahem, ARE the ones to make it happen. The second track, with the very metal title "Steel Torment Warrior", is maybe the least metal of the batch. A super creepy, almost jazzy, soundscape, of muted rumble, bursts of super effected dubbed out drums, flurries of spaced out FX, hushed hissed vocals, splattery free jazz skitter, warbly, seasick guitar tangles all wrapped in a druggy blissy ambience. It's like a less propulsive Necks, a damaged jazzy shuffle looping into infinity, but twisted into a uniquely Circular shape. The closer, with the even MORE metal title of "Amputation Crusade", is the grooviest and space rockiest of the three, a simple darkly melodic guitar figure, loops lazily above a slow slithery bassline and a super laid back, barely there rhythmic shuffle, like Can or Faust in extreme slow motion... you can hear the Necks again, but the band add some extra druggy fuzz guitar, and the laid back riffing is pregnant with the possibility of imminent explosion. Strange vocals lurk below the surface, the whole thing an epic trawl through some jazzy black space rock soundscape. Near the end, things build to a bit of a subdued climax, the guitars ringing and chiming, the drums pounding a bit more, very epic and majestic, but still somehow muted and laid back, petering out into a creepy little coda of guitar FX and gurgling monster vocals... Wow. Seriously, we love Circle and everything, more than most folks, but this disc is an absolute killer!! Heavy and droney, groovy and jazzy and completely epic and mesmerizing and amazing!! Comes packaged in the usual black and white Latitudes diecut 12" sleeve, includes the same black and white insert from the cd, featuring the band posing with spiked gauntlets in front of Stonehenge!!! Well, actually, in front of the chainlink fence in front of Stonehenge, which somehow makes more sense. The inner lp label has two strange NWOFHM / Tyrant (the 't's in tyrant are battle axes of course) hooded knights. And as if that weren't enough, the second disc is a PICTURE DISC, one side features the Stonehenge band photo blown up, the other side is an image of... well, an lp, in fact the -other- record in the set, complete with the hooded knights in the center and printed record grooves, which while actually being playable grooves, seem to be there just for show.... Either way, one more chance to pick up this kick ass Circle record, and on vinyl to boot! LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES!!!!

MPEG stream: Screaming Luovutus
MPEG stream: Steel Torment Warrior

BRAND NEW CIRCLE ALBUM!!! TYRANT!! INCREDIBLY LIMITED LATEST INSTALLMENT IN THE LATITUDES SERIES!!! IT'S HERE!!!! Okay, just wanted to get your attention. We've been waiting for this for a long, long time. As have many of you, we imagine. We've all been loving the Latitudes series of ultra limited releases from bands like Ginnungagap, Shit And Shine, the Grails, Ariel Pink, Sir Richard Bishop... so when we heard that Finland's gods of metallic hypno drone rock were going to do one, we were so psyched, and so we waited anxiously, but patiently, until finally, after months of waiting, they arrived, just a few days ago, and as if we even have to tell you, IT'S AWESOME!!! But this declaration of awesomeness does require a bit more elaboration, as Circle have a wide variety of awesome sounds: murky propulsive modern day krautrock, wild guitar heavy NWOFHM proto-metal, extended ambient drones, loping mesmeric jazzy shuffle, it's really hard to know where the band will head next. As if it were too much to wish for, Tyrant, somehow manages to combine all of their disparate sounds into one practically perfect whole, and some of us are declaring this our favorite Circle record in ages (no mean feat, since their last one, Miljard, was fantastic, a Record Of The Week too). Three 15 minute tracks, each one a slow building epic, droning, dense, dark, hypnotic, but each with its own unique elements. The opener, "Screaming Luovutus", is an endlessly looping space rock drone mantra, a relentlessly throbbing bassline, haunting little swirls of fluttering keyboard melody, little bits of guitar filigree, simple propulsive rhythmic shuffle, all woven into a endlessly throbbing krautrocky swirl, when suddenly over the top strange whispery demonic growls surface, super distorted, another layer of fuzzy sound, howling and whispering all ragged and harsh, almost like Circle covering Abruptum or a black metal Necks, if that makes any sense. Dizzying and weirdly heavy, a black ambient krautrock drone groove, if such a thing were possible. And if it were, you know Circle would be the ones, ahem, ARE the ones to make it happen. The second track, with the very metal title "Steel Torment Warrior", is maybe the least metal of the batch. A super creepy, almost jazzy, soundscape, of muted rumble, bursts of super effected dubbed out drums, flurries of spaced out FX, hushed hissed vocals, splattery free jazz skitter, warbly, seasick guitar tangles all wrapped in a druggy blissy ambience. It's like a less propulsive Necks, a damaged jazzy shuffle looping into infinity, but twisted into a uniquely Circular shape. The closer, with the even MORE metal title of "Amputation Crusade", is the grooviest and space rockiest of the three, a simple darkly melodic guitar figure, loops lazily above a slow slithery bassline and a super laid back, barely there rhythmic shuffle, like Can or Faust in extreme slow motion... you can hear the Necks again, but the band add some extra druggy fuzz guitar, and the laid back riffing is pregnant with the possibility of imminent explosion. Strange vocals lurk below the surface, the whole thing an epic trawl through some jazzy black space rock soundscape. Near the end, things build to a bit of a subdued climax, the guitars ringing and chiming, the drums pounding a bit more, very epic and majestic, but still somehow muted and laid back, petering out into a creepy little coda of guitar FX and gurgling monster vocals... Wow. Seriously, we love Circle and everything, more than most folks, but this disc is an absolute killer!! Heavy and droney, groovy and jazzy and completely epic and mesmerizing and amazing!! Comes packaged in a super intricate hand screened die cut fold over sleeve with a full color insert (featuring the band posing with spiked gauntlets in front of Stonehenge!!! Well, actually, in front of the chainlink fence in front of Stonehenge, which somehow makes more sense). The cover has two strange NWOFHM / Tyrant (the 't's in tyrant are battle axes of course) hooded knights silkscreened on the front and each copy is hand stamped and numbered. Limited to 1000 copies worldwide, 500 of which made it to the United States, about 250 of which made it HERE. That's right, we got an entire quarter of the pressing. And we're pretty sure that still won't be enough, we guarantee these will not be around for long...

MPEG stream: Screaming Luovutus
MPEG stream: Steel Torment Warrior

Everybody knows that we at aQuarius are HUGE fans of the Finnish space/prog/hypnorock band Circle, right? We have raved about 'em for years, even had 'em play our 35th Anniversary Party back in 2000. So, naturally we get lots of folks, just starting out with their own Circle obsession, who ask us, which Circle album is The One To Get? 'Cause there's at least, like, over thirty albums in Circle's vast discography, thus far (though not all are still in print), and they're all pretty great. Well, among the longterm Circle fans here at aQ, the answer to that difficult question is, when it comes down to it, if we have to chose: Zopalki, Circle's second album, originally released back in 1996 by the Bad Vugum label. For a lot of us, it's arguably Circle's best ever record, among many great ones. And, significantly, it's also the one that we first heard, that first caused us to totally freak out about Circle, and led us to become such ardent fans, ever after. So, yeah, Zopalki! But, for years and years, it's unfortunately been one of those out of print titles. Kind of a holy grail for latter day Circle initiates. Until now - because we just got the brand new remastered, reissued version on Circle's own Ektro label in the mail. And thus, an automatic Record Of The Week! Like we said, this is The One that, so many years ago, turned us on to Circle's unique brand of rhythmic psychedelic hypnosis. It's heavy, it's atmospheric, it's tight, it's sprawling, it's incredible. The staccato Helmet-like riffage of their debut Meronia is still in effect, but even proggier experimentation is afoot, with a darker, murkier, neo-krautrock, chamber rock vibe pervading the proceedings. There's choppy guitars, dubby drumbeats, sinister string arrangements, and eerie Gregorian chant style vox (yes, this was many Circle lineups ago, long before current operatic weirdo Mikka Ratto joined the band, but the vocals are still quite unusual). Originally released on vinyl also, as a double lp (the new liner notes in this edition amusingly explain the "negotiation" with their record label that resulted in this being a double), it's got a dozen tracks stretching over 72 minutes. They range from explosive & percussively propelled to the dolefully droned out (often accomplishing both feats in the same epic composition). "Bonoroid" is among the most blissful, "Sector" the most psychotically hectic, "Argont" perhaps the most grindingly heavy, but heck we just picked a favorite Circle album, don't make us pick a favorite song too! Our only complaint about this reissue, is we wish they'd have included the bonus track found only on the long-gone vinyl version... for a moment we thought this reissue had the bonus track, but it's just that for some accidental reason the tracklist here says the final song is "Contact" (which was that bonus track) when it's actually "Gregorium Vaernd Valerii", which closed the original cd. Whoops. Regardless, we're SO glad to have this back. It's remastered (louder!), and the redesigned, expanded cd booklet now contains Zopalki-era photos of the band, as well as brand new retrospective liner notes from former guitarist Teemu Elo, from which we learn that "Zopalki" means "matchsticks" in Polish (though we don't learn why that was chosen for the title, or why the title was in Polish). More importantly, we learn a lot about the young band's struggle to make the record. It's worth noting that he says, "Zopalki caught most of us in the process of widening our horizons more than any other Circle album". It widened OUR horizons too...

MPEG stream: Valerian
MPEG stream: Warszawa
MPEG stream: Bonoroid
MPEG stream: Re-Masturbated

What? Another disc ALREADY from our favorite Finnish psych/space/prog/metal/drone/wtf? rockers, the one and only Circle? Good grief, we're still reeling from their amazing Miljard two cd set on Ektro, and their even more recent, mindblowing Tyrant disc in the limited edition Latitudes series! Who do they think they are, Acid Mothers Temple? Well, to be fair, this new album Tower wasn't actually supposed to come out until April. But it seems that one of the Last Visible Dog label's distributors, gripped perhaps by Circle-mania, accidentally jumped the gun on the release date and started shipping it early -- so, well, here it is! And we can't complain, who wants to wait when a new Circle is concerned?? Especially when we're all trying to keep up with (as it says on the face of this cd) the "NWONWOFHM", in other words, the "New Wave Of" the "New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal"... which, as it turns out, isn't in any way metal at all! Nope, the all-instrumental Tower follows Miljard in exploring the really really pretty side of the Circle sound. But unlike Miljard, which was slowly unfolding, almost stately, Tower has much more of an uptempo, rapid pulse. The album seems to divide into two parts. The first four tracks flow together in sort of suite, burbling beautifully and hypnotically...just so so pleasant. No heavy riffs, nothing edgy at all. Then there's a pause, and the remaining two tracks reveal something of a darker, more mysterious sound. Just a bit though, like a bright sunny day edging towards twilight, the knowledge of the coming night starting to seep into one's consciousness, some clouds drifting in as well, but the sun still shining... Also, you'll note that this album is billed to Circle "featuring Verde" -- referring to special guest Mika Rintala, who has played with Circle and their jazzier cousin Ektroverde as well, and whose solo albums, recorded under the Verde monicker, we've raved about here before. We're not sure how to judge the "Verde-factor" here, but we do note that in addition to playing on this album he also recorded and mixed it. Maybe this does remind us a bit of some of Ektroverde's output, come to think of it... there's definitely a spaced-out, jazzy fusion groove here, of shuffling drums and chiming synths, that makes for a relaxing soundtrack we wouldn't feel foolish recommending to fans of The Necks and Miles Davis as well as Ektroverde, Verde and Circle too of course... Now we wonder, what will the NWONWONWOFMHM be like? At this rate, chances are we'll find out sometime soon...

MPEG stream: track 4
MPEG stream: track 5

Split cd from AQ faves Circle and Japan's Marble Sheep, recorded in 1996 (Circle) and 1989 (Marble Sheep) and released 1998. Circle contribute a stellar live set of their perfect cyclical drone rock including a haunting and breathtaking cover version of

RealAudio clip: Brilliant Colours For Bright Ideas
RealAudio clip: I Saw the Light
RealAudio clip: Good Old Marble Sheep

Originally a cd released on Last Visible Dog back in 2006, Tower has now gotten a super swank vinyl reissue on Full Contact, a label run by Jussi from Circle (the vinyl-only offshoot of his Ektro label). And in typical Circle fashion, the sleeve of this new version has been updated with the self deprecatingly boastful legend: *Slightly disappointing jams from 2006 by "The Best Band In The World 2010"* Haha! So here's what WE had to say about Tower when first listed it way back in 2007... What? Another disc ALREADY from our favorite Finnish psych/space/prog/metal/drone/wtf? rockers, the one and only Circle? Good grief, we're still reeling from their amazing Miljard two cd set on Ektro, and their even more recent, mindblowing Tyrant disc in the limited edition Latitudes series! Who do they think they are, Acid Mothers Temple? But we can't complain, who wants to wait when a new Circle is concerned?? Especially when we're all trying to keep up with (as it says on the face of this cd) the "NWONWOFHM", in other words, the "New Wave Of" the "New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal"... which, as it turns out, isn't in any way metal at all! Nope, the all-instrumental Tower follows Miljard in exploring the really really pretty side of the Circle sound. But unlike Miljard, which was slowly unfolding, almost stately, Tower has much more of an uptempo, rapid pulse. The album seems to divide into two parts. The first four tracks flow together in sort of suite, burbling beautifully and hypnotically...just so so pleasant. No heavy riffs, nothing edgy at all. Then there's a pause, and the remaining two tracks reveal something of a darker, more mysterious sound. Just a bit though, like a bright sunny day edging towards twilight, the knowledge of the coming night starting to seep into one's consciousness, some clouds drifting in as well, but the sun still shining... Also, you'll note that this album is billed to Circle "featuring Verde" - referring to special guest Mika Rintala, who has played with Circle and their jazzier cousin Ektroverde as well, and whose solo albums, recorded under the Verde monicker, we've raved about here before. We're not sure how to judge the "Verde-factor" here, but we do note that in addition to playing on this album he also recorded and mixed it. Maybe this does remind us a bit of some of Ektroverde's output, come to think of it... there's definitely a spaced-out, jazzy fusion groove here, of shuffling drums and chiming synths, that makes for a relaxing soundtrack we wouldn't feel foolish recommending to fans of The Necks and Miles Davis as well as Ektroverde, Verde and Circle too of course... Now we wonder, what will the NWONWONWOFMHM be like? At this rate, chances are we'll find out sometime soon...

MPEG stream: track 4
MPEG stream: track 5

Why are we highlighting this fairly obscure, UK prog/pop/jazz band's one-off album from 1969? For an AQ prog-pick this Circus reissue is not all that weird, it's not really heavy (though there's some moments of killer fuzz), not from some exotic locale, not "cosmic", not a lot of other things that we normally get off on regarding this genre of music, no, BUT it's one that we found very appealing regardless, when we first randomly encountered this record some years ago. It's simply a classy, enjoyable album from a bygone era, combining pleasant psych pop rock with the freeform exuberance of jazz improv. Generally laidback and melodic, it also grooves hard when it wants. We were probably initially won over by the way the album opens, with an awesomely fuzzed out (and also swingingly jazzy too, somehow) version of the Beatles' "Norwegian Wood". Especially towards the end of this lengthy jamming track, the guitarist really wails in full fuzz-garage fashion, while elsewhere non-sucky sax soloing is actually incorporated quite effectively. As Beatles covers go, it's a keeper, and almost alone worth the price of admission! That track is followed by the much mellower "Pleasures Of A Lifetime", and indeed as we said a lot of the rest of this album is rather laid back, with gentle vocals and a melancholic vibe, though some tracks boast funky flute and groovy percussion as well, not so melancholic those, more sunny really, even with a tropical island feel. Another highlight is their version of "II B.S." by Charles Mingus. Again, a groovy launch pad for improv, which apparently was a big part of the live Circus show, whose performances of "II B.S." and "Norwegian Wood" each could stretch out for 20-30 minutes on stage we're told. (They clock in at 7:20 and 6:34 here, respectively.) So it's neat that this has just been nicely reissued again, as it's a minor classic in a genre that doesn't really exist anymore (though there were a spate of SST bands in the '90s exploring some of the same jazz crossover elements, we're thinking of Hotel X in particular, who also covered "II B.S." on their debut A Random History Of The Avant-Groove in '93, but we digress). Anyway we'd recommend this to those that liked previous prog-picks of ours such as Bachdenkel and East Of Eden, NSU and Luv Machine. For fans of Caravan and King Crimson too - in fact, Circus features future King Crimson member Mel Collins on flute and tenor saxophone. You can definitely hear here why/how Collins would wind up in KC, playing on several of their early/mid period albums that had a sort of pastoral vibe to 'em. Collins' career actually started before Circus, and continued far beyond KC, his quite impressive c.v. including appearances over the years on a myriad of records from such diverse artists as Camel, Caravan, the Alan Parsons Project, the Rolling Stones, Eric Burdon, Baron Rojo, Dire Straits, Tears For Fears, David Sylvian, the Stray Cats, the Small Faces, Uriah Heep, Phil Lynott, the list goes on and on... In Circus, though, he's not just a sideman but definitely one of the stars, though the guitarist gets his share of the spotlight too!

MPEG stream: Norwegian Wood
MPEG stream: Pleasures Of A Lifetime
MPEG stream: II B.S.

Heavy progressive electric raga psychedelia here folks!! And it's soooooo good. All the songs here are long (there's five of 'em, between 7:16 and 13:09 in length) and you'll only wish they were longer. Described as "a two-man, all-British electric symphony orchestra", this album was originally released in 1969 on Decca and is utter nirvana for those into psych headswirlers. The lead electric guitar on here is incredible (and the bongo playing isn't bad, either!). While this duo came out of the '60s British blues rock scene, Mick Hutchinson's guitar playing displays tripped-out, classically trained chops and certainly also a strong sitar influence... percussionist Andy Clark plays guitar at times too, and between them they switch back and forth on a number of instruments. The first track, "Improvisation On A Modal Scale" has got a heavy-riffing acid folk sound, sounding like early Wishbone Ash, sitting crosslegged off on an Indian ashram, or Comus if they ever plugged in and cranked it up. "Acapulco Gold" (hmm, the only song here not given a technical musical title is named after marijuana!) follows in a more acoustic, Spanish-guitar flavored mode. Lovely. Then "Impromptu in 'E' Minor" is another mellow number, yet darker, incorporating tribal percussive throb and jazz-inflected piano improvisation. "Textures In 3/4" also has a moody, jazzy vibe, with some saxophone coloration, and of course extended electric guitar improv, gorgeous and glorious. Very krautrocky, stuff that fans of Amon Duul II and Agitation Free would certainly love. And then Hutchinson's playing gets even more sitar-y on the epic "Improvisation On An Indian Scale", the track that wraps up this amazing album of Eastern-tinged, psychedelic instrumental interplay. He's endlessly spinning out slippery, sinuous melodies over a quietly galloping beat that brings to mind Spaghetti Western soundtracks. Wow. We'd been wanting to list this for a long time, but the previous cd edition on Repertoire has been out of print for years and years. Stoked are we that Sunbeam has reissued it again, on compact disc and vinyl, both versions coming with an entire bonus disc to boot! That second disc, however, is full-on 12-bar blues rock, total chooglin' boogie stuff, with song titles like "Bad Loser" and "Someone's Been At My Woman". So... maybe for blues lovers only, that one. If you're really into Clapton/Cream and John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. But it's just a bonus disc, the A=MH2 album on disc one is worth the price of the package alone. And the guitar playing on the blues disc is of course ace. It always kinda seems like the British blues rock bands, the ones we really like anyway, we like 'em especially for the one album they did where they got away from the basic blues template (stuff they might have done really well) and weirded out, got all beardistic and beyond-blues improvisational and Eastern and freaky and proggy. Say, Steamhammer's Speech. Or the Groundhogs' Split. There's always one. In this case, it was Clark-Hutchinson's debut, A=MH2. But, beforehand they'd been way more bluesy, as that bonus disc here proves (it's material from their unreleased -first- first recording sessions in March of '69, laid down just a couple months prior to the two days in the studio they spent recording their actual debut). EVERYONE we play A=MH2 for, or who hears it in the store, has been blown away. You know how the "ragadelic" acoustic folk guitar playing of folks today like Jack Rose and James Blackshaw is something we love? If you like that sort of thing too but want it a bit more druggily psych-rock, Clark-Hutchinson doing it electric way back when should satisfy! So very recommended (along with another obscure classic of the era, by T2, also reviewed this list).

MPEG stream: Improvisation On A Modal Scale
MPEG stream: Impromptu in 'E' Minor
MPEG stream: Improvisation On An Indian Scale
MPEG stream: "Crow Jane

aQ pal Kip Uhlhorn returns with another collection of psychedelic kraut-pop, even heavier on the pop this time around. Joined by members of the Flaming Lips, Big Star (!), LCD Soundsystem as well as M. Geddes Gengras, Ezra Buchla and Pete Kember (aka Sonic Boom), Uhlhorn and crew whips up some prismatic, propulsive dreaminess that sits somewhere between vintage krautrock worshippers Stereolab and krautrock legends Neu!. Just check out the opener, a loopy, pulsating groove, a gloriously wide eyed slab of rhythmic, synth soaked hypno-pop, with wild drumming, and all manner of sonic filigree. And that pretty much sets the template for the rest of the record, which almost sounds like it should have come out on Dark Entries or Italians Do It Better. There's some serious experimentalism happening for sure, but that mad scientist sonic tinkering is subtly applied to heady swaths of retro dream pop, gauzy, shimmery, hook heavy synth wave and dream-gaze Italo-disco, all of which are wreathed in billowy clouds of druggy, soft focus shoegaze psychedelia.

MPEG stream: Try Faking It
MPEG stream: Faulting Fate

The time has come. That very special time, that only comes once in a long, long while. Open the gates! Unfurl the red carpet! Prepare thyselves! It's time to induct yet another record, into the eliteand exclusive pantheon of Andee's favorite flute records. The Pantheon currently looks about like this: Phill Niblock's Four Full Flutes, Eberhard Blum's Berlin To Buffalo, Comus' First Utterance, Koukiji Kougezan's The Live [11th] Final Hyakusenmansyuuraku, Byard Lancaster's It's Not Up To Us, the first four Osanna records, Za Frumi, Alan Silva, Jethro Tull and pretty much all Roland Kirk and Eric Dolphy. Well, you can now add French flautist/double bassist Jean Cohen-Solal to that list. Flute Libres & Captain Tarthopom collects Cohen-Solal's first two ridiculously rare albums originally released in 1971 and 1973, on one cd. Long considered progressive rock masterpieces, these two records feature Cohen-Solal's ultra personal take on classical, jazz and avant garde, even mixing in some psychedelic rock and ambient minimalism to the mix. The disc starts off with a jazzy psych rock workout, sort of funky, with a boppy rhythm and wailing flutes, very catchy and cool. But from that point on, the record travels down a much darker path, as the jazz and funk and rock dissipate into spacy, shimmery soundscapes, reminiscent of Tangerine Dream, Pink Floyd or even Taj Mahal Travellers, with warm melodic swells, shimmery washes of cymbals and gongs, and lonely notes, flute and double bass, swathed in reverb or wah, and sent to drift through the ether. Things rev up later on, adding shuffling jazz rhythms, dizzying flute melodies and faraway freakout guitars, channelling Magma and Focus, weaving meandering, propulsive and progressive, spacerock and jazzrock mantras. So good.

MPEG stream: Concerto Cyclique
MPEG stream: Raga Du Matin
MPEG stream: Matiere

Really excellent Czech prog rock from 1973. Collegium Musicum were an instrumental organ-bass-drums trio in the best classically-influenced tradition. In other words, E.L.P.!!! This live album (their best release) is full of extended, virtuoso soloing from all three members. Energetic, kinda heavy, sometimes happy, sometimes dark, great music. Full-on '70s prog with a nice Eastern-European vibe. And we love the cover shot! (Not new, but we got a couple and wanted to list it, along with the equally awesome Fermata disc, for the Iron Curtain prog freaks we know populate our mailing list!)

RealAudio clip: You Are Impossible Part 1
RealAudio clip: You Are Impossible Part 2
RealAudio clip: Monument

A couple years back, we raved about a disc called The Dematerialized Passenger, the first album from this unique band (or perhaps we should say project), remember? In case you don't, here's the deal: Combat Astronomy are a USA/UK collaboration, creating a crushing industrial/jazz/prog hybrid. Imagine Godflesh with a free improv horn section, saxophones squealing amidst the metallic riffage. Or Scorn taking a skronked-out stab at chamber music. Like their earlier release, this new Combat Astronomy opus is again laced with punishing, rigid drummachine beats, along with heavy, uber-low-end fretless bass shaking each song with doomic distortion. Which establishes an absurdly heavy context for sax, clarinet, flute and bassoon to freak out organically, like wild weeds creeping through cracks in giant slabs of concrete, on the floor of an abandoned factory somewhere. But unlike their all-instrumental debut, this time Combat Astronomy have recruited a female vocalist, Elaine di Falco, who also plays some piano, to add yet another unusual dimension to their mashup of extremes, now reminding us slightly of James Plotkin's now forgotten post-Old project Flux. (Hmm, maybe Kayo Dot and later Ulver could be other comparisons now too.) If the addition of her vocals makes this a bit more overtly melodic, it's still no less extreme overall. And certainly just as intricate, her delicate vocal arrangements in themselves quite complex, multi-tracked, as on the urban R&B influenced (???? no, we're crazy) "Touch The Moon" and the album's whispery coda, "Ordinary Miracles". And the focus of CA is still on the ominous grooves, ambient electronics, and battling horn bleats... tracks like "Alive Inside Eternity" and "Sentinel" are lengthy epics (12:36 and 16:49, respectively) of serious beats and blats and skree, in the challenging, compelling, militant manner to which actually only Combat Astronomy can truly lay claim. The vocals, when present, then take it into another, equally unlikely, atmospheric realm of twisted prog-pop. Pretty darn cool!

MPEG stream: I Can't Breathe
MPEG stream: Lightning In Her Eyes
MPEG stream: Alive Inside Eternity

You don't really hear much about Combat Astronomy, except from us at Aquarius Records (do you?). Which is weird, 'cause this band should be a lot better known than they are, among fans of heavy and/or freaky music, considering they're already on their third (and a half, counting a split) cd release, one that has been long awaited, for a certain subset of AQ-customers in the know. For those not in the know, we'll say that basically CA sound like a Justin Broadrick or Kevin Martin industrial metal act (Godflesh or God, something along those lines) mixed up with freeform improv horn-skree, for results both brutal and beautiful. This band, or we should say this collaborative trans-Atlantic project, to be precise, is the unholy spawn of American sub-bass sludge technician Jamie Huggett and British improv reedsman Martin Archer (and friends). Thus they don't play live that often, which might have something to do with their low profile. They're self-described as an "intense hypnagogic industrial/jazz/prog/doommetal hybrid", and we can't think of any other outfit that better fits that mouthful. As we now know to expect, CA's new disc dishes out uber heavy doomic annihilation, bludgeoning with squelching bass and machine-like beats, the entire thing in fact percussive in its distorted rhythmic impact, amidst ominous organ and rising electronic drone. Yet CA also has a prog/classical side, thanks to Archer's woodwinds and also some female vocals, first introduced to this previously all instrumental act on their 2nd album Dreams No Longer Hesitate, returning here only wordessly, to eerie, avant garde effect. With that in mind, and all the heavy bass, Magma fans might find this to be their extreme sludge combo of choice. We'd also of course recommend Combat Astronomy to those who appreciate the likes of Painkiller, 16-17, Scorn, and even UFOmammut... And Earth Divided By Zero might just be their best disc yet, keeping the expanded palette of sounds found on their last outing, but leaving aside that disc's occasional surprise explorations of vocal (prog) pop song-ishness, instead forging a more organic synthesis of what we REALLY dig about this unit, the grinding low end and squealing sax skronk, the heavy rhythms and atmospheric, ambient-ish interludes. Not that it's without melodic surprises, like how track two tries to lull us with a placid piano intro, shades of Bohren Und Der Club Of Gore... but soon enough the bass and distortion attack is back in force. Punishing, but such sweet punishment.

MPEG stream: Astralized
MPEG stream: Parallax Of One Arc Second
MPEG stream: Earth Divided By Zero Part 1

With the arrival of Combat Astronomy's fourth album, welcome once again to that unlikely alternate universe inhabited by us at Aquarius Records (and a few others too, like you?), where this intense instrumental outfit is as HUGE as their sonic footprint, their ultra-heavy hybrid of avant garde jazz and post metal industrial doom resounding planetwide in giant concert halls... if 21st century classical chamber deathjazz sludge were the next big thing, they'd be the biggest. Whereas, heck, in real life, we don't even know if they tour, probably not, since some of the group live in England, with another crucial band member based here in the USA. When they get together (however they do it) it must be a cathartic experience for everyone involved. As they say themselves about this album, it's "LOUD BASS LOUD HORNS LOUD DRUMS MASSIVE RIFFS" all the way. Well, with some quasi-ambient interludes, and bits of melody amidst the mayhem. But for the most part, thick drone, rumbling bass, punishing programmed rhythms, screaming horn blurt. It's kinda like if Godflesh were to record an album for Tzadik, armed with an arsenal of horns and woodwinds. Combat Astronomy use and abuse a variety of saxophones and clarinets, various flutes, bassoon, bass recorder, reindeer horn (?), along with fretless 5 string bass, organ, electronics, zither, tambourine... On Flak Planet, the formula has been perfected. The disc's opening track "The Stone Tape", is both cinematic and assaultive, it's jazz, but for the squelching sub bass and trudging jackboot rhythms. As the disc spins, there's outbursts of maniacal piano, jarring prog complexities, stretches of exotic atmospheric drone, and more monolithic thud. Brutal yet beautiful, as we've said before, for fans of 16-17 (natch) as well as, we'd bet, possibly PIVIXKI, Master Musicians of Bukkake, Ehnahre, and assorted RIO ensembles.

MPEG stream: The Stone Tape
MPEG stream: Zona
MPEG stream: Inverted Universe (Part 1)

"Live reunion album" aren't three words (in sequence) that we normally get too excited about. But when the band is the legendary British pagan acid folk rock act Comus, who are responsible for having made one of our very favorite albums of ALL TIME (their 1971 debut on Dawn, First Utterance), one that Andee here in fact ranks as his absolute favorite record ever, well, that's another story. With their cult following growing and growing over the years (with big fans like Opeth and Current 93 helping to keep their name out there), Comus finally reunited to play the Melloboat Festival in Sweden in 2008, and at the time we seriously considered buying plane tickets to fly over and attend. They've done some more gigging since, and Allan was in fact lucky enough to get to see 'em at last year's Roadburn festival. He can attest to them being pretty darn incredible, it's hard to imagine that their younger selves could have done much better of a job, though they might have looked the part of pixies and freaks a bit more - not everyone in the band still has long hair these days, though some of 'em do, and actually their female singer Bobbie Watson looked like she practically hadn't aged at all, still a bewitching blonde beauty, with a lovely lovely voice... and they really, really were enjoying themselves. As they obviously were at this historic Melloboat gig as well, and sounding fantastic especially considering it was the first time they'd played together in 34 years!!! We've heard a bit of this recording already, the song "Diana" from their Melloboat performance appeared on a limited edition split 7" we listed a while back, and we noted that it sounded perhaps "even more woozy and carnivalesque and maniacal than they did back in the day". They definitely nailed it, maybe it's some pagan magic, 'cause remember, Comus is the ancient god of revelry, and he wasn't gonna let anybody on that boat down. While it's not the same as having actually been there, of course, we figure some diehard Comus fans are gonna be curious to hear this. Especially since it includes, in addition to renditions of five of the seven songs from their debut, a cover of "Venus In Furs" by the Velvet Underground! A song we guess they also did back the '70s, the VU being an influence on them that we wouldn't have considered, but it totally fits, creepy and catchy, with sawing violin, sounding like something that they could have written themselves for inclusion on First Utterance. The full tracklist: "Song To Comus", "Diana", "The Herald", "Drip Drip", "The Prisoner", "Venus In Furs", "Song To Comus (encore)". That's right, they did "Song To Comus" twice, but omitted two other songs from First Utterance, "The Bite" and "Bitten", oh well. At least they didn't do a bunch of stuff from their not-so-critically-acclaimed second album... You can decide for yourself if you want to hear this, or just stick with the mystical original, some folks (including some of us) may prefer to leave live Comus to the incomparable realm of our own imaginations, where they have long dwelt... Released on a new imprint co-run by C93's David Tibet, this cd includes photos, lyrics and liner notes in the booklet.

MPEG stream: Song To Comus
MPEG stream: The Herald
MPEG stream: Venus In Furs

What has to be our favorite British pagan folk psychedelic prog rock album ever (in other words, quite possibly our favorite album ever, period!) is finally available again on cd, and in a gorgeous Japanese mini-lp gatefold sleeve to boot, with the disc itself all state-of-the-art remastered, sounding great. THIS RECORD SCARES US. Hearing it is like stumbling upon some forbidden ancient ritual that scares you to death. You stand paralyzed, too afraid to look away. Comus's singular, frightening sound and violently poetic lyrics have kept them from taking their rightful place alongside Fairport Convention, Incredible String Band, and the rest of Britain's psychedelic folk royalty. And we don't write the words psychedelic folk royalty without a certain amount of trepidation. At first glance Comus would seem to fit squarely in the Ren-Faire camp: bongos, flute, oboe, 12-string guitar, and no drummer. But never has the whole of a band so completely defied its parts; their sound is as mesmerizing as it is repulsive. Upon the record's initial release, one British music journalist wrote that she "didn't get past the first track, which sounded like a cross between a frenzied version of the witches chorus from Macbeth, and Marc Bolan being squeezed to death." Funny thing is, that's a fairly apt description. Tales of murder, rape, insanity, and witchcraft unfold amid a swirling abyss of seething acid folk. Squalls of shamanistic wailing jut uncomfortably from serene, tranquil melodies; guttural growls battle a delicate angelic chorus, echoing the violent struggle of the lyrics. Flutes, hand drums, acoustic guitars, and a violin clamber atop one another in a chaotic melee, creating a pagan folk not unlike that of The Wicker Man soundtrack gone totally bonkers. Although the band has been resolutely ignored by mainstream music fans, the press, and the majority of the underground, a small rabid following has kept a reverential vigil beside the corpse of Comus. Nurse with Wound cronies Current 93 modeled their '90s sound after '70s British folk, Comus especially. They even went so far as to cover "Diana," Comus's only single, on their album Horsey. Swedish progressive black metallers Opeth have always been outspoken about their love of Comus. Their acclaimed 1998 album was called My Arms, Your Hearse, after the lyrics of "Drip Drip" (on First Utterance). And it's not surprising. This record is so powerful and frightening and totally devastating even 30 years later. And never would I have thought that a record as old as me, with flutes and bongos fer chrissakes, could be so absolutely malevolent, both sonically and lyrically! But like I said, this record scares us. And we know you like to be scared too! We were hoping that this new cd edition would include the two bonus tracks from from an early single that the Italian vinyl reissue included as a bonus 12", but such is not the case. Oh well. Still ranks as one of our all time favorites.

RealAudio clip: Diana
RealAudio clip: Drip Drip
RealAudio clip: The Herald
RealAudio clip: Song To Comus

We're not sure which is more exciting, the first new music from legendary UK seventies acid folk legends Comus in FORTY YEARS, or a lost track, from back in the day, a song from the never released (or recorded) follow up to the godlike First Utterance, a song never heard by anyone outside of the band before NOW. Thankfully, this new record from this aQ revered combo gives us both, three brand new songs, and one, that aforementioned legendary lost recording. Our very own Andee actually wrote some of the liner notes for this release (alongside some by Mikael Akerfeldt of Opeth), specifically talking about that long lost track, so we figured we might as well just reprint that part here (more on the new tracks afterwards): "For those of us who consider Comus' debut album First Utterance the pinnacle of psychedelic seventies demonic acid folk (and we are quite suspicious of anyone who doesn't), the prospect of a lost second record is nearly too much to even imagine. And the idea that such a record was written, and performed, yet never recorded, is nearly heartbreaking. While subsequent recordings from the band veered into much poppier and more commercial territory, the Comus faithful continued to believe in the existence of an elusive song suite, forever convinced that there had to have been more, an untapped reservoir of dark sonic energy, the unleashing of which was held at bay by unscrupulous record label executives and their profit driven machinations, or even more ominously, those songs were in fact actually recorded and hidden away in some sort of dusty vault. And while the truth may be less sensational and conspiratorial than we perhaps imagined, the Comus faithful have indeed finally been rewarded, with this, a sprawling almost classical sounding psychedelic folk epic, unearthed after nearly 40 years, a fragment of the never completed follow up to First Utterance, the Malgard Suite, which offers a glimpse of what might have been, a fork in time's path untaken, an alternate timeline in which the band continued along that selfsame dark path, the sinister sound of First Utterance expanded upon, less immediately maniacal and harrowing, more expansive and lush, the vocals intricate and intertwined over swirling strings, and delicate crystalline guitars, fluttering flutes and the moaning melodies of the bassoon (played by Lindsay Cooper, who would go on to join art rockers Henry Cow post Comus). And while there's plenty going on here that foreshadows the sound of Henry Cow, there is also a darkly classical vibe, with much of the Malgard Suite sounding a bit like a more diabolical Prokofiev. Those elements are woven deftly into that classic Comus sound, frenzied and fraught with drama one second, soaring and majestic the next, always lush and lovely and dreamily psychedelic. And even in this, which is quite possibly the only existing recording of the Malgard Suite, a rough raw live performance captured on a handheld cassette player, it's impossible to deny the power and emotion in the music, a lyrical sonic fever dream, delivered in this mysterious missive from another time, lost for decades and resurfacing only now, and convincing us, the Comus faithful, that it was worth the wait." So yeah, Comus fanatics will pretty much need this for just that track. There's also a spoken word intro from band leader Roger Wooten, describing the providence of that track, when and how it was recorded, and how it came to be rediscovered. And it's well worth the price of admission on its own. Which brings us to the new material, and while we have to admit we were a little wary of new songs, especially after FORTY years, our fears were definitely unfounded, cuz for the most part, these new songs sound like they could have come straight from the First Utterance sessions. Sure, some things are different, the vocals are maybe not quite as frenzied and maniacal, but they still sound pretty incredible, and the female backup vox still sound as harrowing and haunting as before. And the music, still so lush and layered and dense, and yeah, a bit demonic, incredible guitar playing, intricate finger picking, wild hand drumming, mournful violin, fluttering flute, the songs drifting into the same sort of dark psychedelic jam territory as those old classics, the lyrics appropriately morbid, the production lush and lovely, the sax being perhaps the only real difference, adding a different dimension to the sound, but it still sounds like Comus, classic Comus at that, and no one sounds like Comus, now or then, and we have to say, these new tracks were worth the wait as well!

MPEG stream: Out Of The Coma
MPEG stream: The Sacrifice
MPEG stream: The Maalgard Suite

Let's get this out of the way first: most folks around these parts consider Comus' First Utterance to be the greatest seventies pagan tribal folk prog psych freakout record ever. Hard to debate that. But among those folks, about 99 percent also consider First Utterance to be one of the greatest records ever, regardless of genre! One listen and you'll be convinced. Or you'll run away screaming in terror. Either way, it's hard to not be totally blown away and / or thrillingly confused by the mad musical world of Comus. First Utterance has now been reissued a total of six times now (by our count, with maybe yet another edition on the way!) but this UK import double cd version marks the very first time that the three tracks from the pre-First Utterance maxi-single (i.e. the bonus 12" ep included with the lp reissue) has been released on cd as well. AND this also includes another totally unreleased bonus track from the First Utterance sessions! Holy crap! Every time a new cd reissue would be announced, we'd be thinking to ourselves "please please please include the extra tracks..." but somehow it never happened. Until now! That should be enough to have you Comus obsessives and seventies psych prog freeks all in a tizzy, but that's not all. Also included is their second album released a few years later after the band reformed, as well as a final solo single from Comus frontman Roger Wooten. But we'll talk about that stuff in a moment. First, let's explain just what it is about First Utterance that has us so excited! THIS RECORD SCARES US. Hearing it is like stumbling upon some forbidden ancient ritual that scares you to death. You stand paralyzed, too afraid to look away. Comus's singular, frightening sound and violently poetic lyrics have kept them from taking their rightful place alongside Fairport Convention, Incredible String Band, and the rest of Britain's psychedelic folk royalty. And we don't write the words psychedelic folk royalty without a certain amount of trepidation. At first glance Comus would seem to fit squarely in the Ren-Faire camp: bongos, flute, oboe, 12-string guitar, and no drummer. But never has the whole of a band so completely defied its parts; their sound is as mesmerizing as it is repulsive. Upon the record's initial release, one British music journalist wrote that she "didn't get past the first track, which sounded like a cross between a frenzied version of the witches chorus from Macbeth, and Marc Bolan being squeezed to death." Funny thing is, that's a fairly apt description. Tales of murder, rape, insanity, and witchcraft unfold amid a swirling abyss of seething acid folk. Squalls of shamanistic wailing jut uncomfortably from serene, tranquil melodies; guttural growls battle a delicate angelic chorus, echoing the violent struggle of the lyrics. Flutes, hand drums, acoustic guitars, and a violin clamber atop one another in a chaotic melee, creating a pagan folk not unlike that of The Wicker Man soundtrack gone totally bonkers. Although the band has been resolutely ignored by mainstream music fans, the press, and the majority of the underground, a small rabid following has kept a reverential vigil beside the corpse of Comus. Nurse with Wound cronies Current 93 modeled their '90s sound after '70s British folk, Comus especially. They even went so far as to cover "Diana," Comus's only single, on their album Horsey. Swedish progressive black metallers Opeth have always been outspoken about their love of Comus. Their acclaimed 1998 album was called My Arms, Your Hearse, after the lyrics of "Drip Drip". And it's not surprising. This record is so powerful and frightening and totally devastating even 30 years later. And never would we have thought that a record as old as us, with flutes and bongos fer chrissakes, could be so absolutely malevolent, both sonically and lyrically! But like we said, this record scares us. And we know you like to be scared too! One of our ALL TIME FAVORITE RECORDS EVER!!! So yeah, there it is. Well worth it for First Utterance alone, and the First Utterance era bonus tracks (especially when you consider this version is a buck cheaper than the single disc, non-bonus-track havin' Japanese import version). But you also get, for the first time on cd, Comus' second album To Keep From Crying (1973), as well as the post-Comus "Fiesta Fandango" solo single from Wooten. Pretty exciting stuff for Comus fanatics indeed, but be warned, the Comus found on To Keep From Crying bears very little resemblance to the Comus of First Utterance. Some would go so far as to say that where FU is one of the best records ever, TKFC is perhaps one of the worst...yet not without its charms. Not sure if it was a bid to find pop success, or just a case of lightning already having struck once, but TKFC is not malevolent or really all that intense, instead it's a very light, very jaunty, lush seventies UK pop record, a little glam, a little Beach Boys, a little Free Design, a little Eno, not bad (well, some of it isn't), but not really all that good. It's as if the original Comus were given entirely different drugs (not bad trip acid but something more "happy") and were forced to attempt to make a Top 40 hit. You can still tell it's them, though (the vocals are just as tweaked as before) so it's pretty darn strange. A few of the songs are quite nice acid folk numbers, just not as dark as the nightmarish folk found on FU. But some of the other tracks, well, they're at least amusing in a so bad it's good kind of way. Even the band members themselves in the liner notes talk about how much they dislike that record now. Andee even bought the original LP a few years back on eBay, even though the description warned "Not as good as First Utterance." Who cares? he thought, it was ANOTHER RECORD BY COMUS!! But alas he too soon discovered for himself that it was no First Utterance. While almost any record would pale when set up against First Utterance, TKFC was a particularly watered down follow up, and outside of that equally weak solo single, that was the end of the band. Song To Comus' booklet contains lots of photos and amazing liner notes, which include this tantalizing and totally frustrating tidbit: before TKFC, there was actually a Lord Of The Rings inspired suite of songs (a proper follow up to First Utterance) already written called Malgaard, that the band had begun performing live but never got around to recording! We flipped when we read about that. Can you imagine? Sadly, it just wasn't meant to be. And they also never recorded their live version of "Venus In Furs", either (apparently Comus started out doing lots of VU covers!). Ah well. But still, we're more than happy with the amazing musical malevolence Comus left as their legacy. So those of you who haven't discovered Comus, what else can we do to convince you that you NEED this record? Folkies will love it, but it's plenty dark and creepy and sinister enough for all you metalheads, and way weird enough for all you experimental music lovers. And of course Comus obsessives (like Andee and Allan) who already have multiple versions of First Utterance will for sure need this one as well, probably for the curiousity factor of the second album, just to satisfy your all consuming love of Comus, but certainly to finally have the bonus 12" on cd and DEFINITELY for the unreleased First Utterance outtake "All The Colours Of Darkness"! Let your pagan prog rock psych folk freek flag fly!

MPEG stream: Diana
MPEG stream: Drip Drip
MPEG stream: The Herald
MPEG stream: Song To Comus