[ aquarius records — Rock Pop Prog Rock ]

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Showing results 301 through 350 of 785.

RealAudio clip: Born To Go
RealAudio clip: Down Through The Night

Two discs of sonic mayhem beamed from space through a hazy cloud of pot smoke. Hawkwind are seriously kicking my [Andee's] ass. This is a double live disc of Hawkwind at their best (that would be Lemmy-era). Taking the studio cuts and stretching them out, twisting them all out of shape and turning them into endless jams, looping and repetetive and hypnotic. Once the rhythm section locks into their motorik groove, the rest of the band just follows, through a swirling morass of drug addled psychedlia and into another plane altogether. Never has a band made me want to get high so much. [This from a guy who's completely straight-edge.] I already almost feel high just listening, when I'm all stretched out, eyes closed, stereo turned up as loud as it'll go, my whole body vibrating from the sound, my mind drifting off. Like a faster, meaner, hippier Spacemen 3 but with better drugs, or Loop or Godflesh or Circle or any band that tries to transport you through repetition and subtle shift. Simple riffs spread out into a warm landscape of fuzz and thrum, while flutes and saxophones and tweaked wah wah guitars ride wildly atop the mayhem. So so so so good. Hawkwind make music to take drugs to make music by better than almost anyone else.

Oops, we meant to review this ages ago, but somehow it slipped through the cracks, and wasn't called to our attention until someone from the band recently dropped off their brand new release which hopefully won't take us 2 years to review. Sorry guys! So this is not new, but then again it's not like this ambient kraut-prog outfit with local and international ties will be easily found anywhere, so better late than never, right? Hedersleben may sound like some obscure krautrock group from back in the day but it's a relatively recent group that features seasoned members from British punk legends UK Subs (!) who formed after working with Nik Turner from Hawkwind on a music project a few years ago (and indeed, Nik Turner makes a guest cameo on flute here). Rounded out by local San Francisco musicians, members of Hollow Mirrors and Dragontime, together they channel the fluidly amorphous spacerock jams of Brainticket, Embryo, Gong, Hawkwind and Temple. With tripped out proggy instrumental interludes woven throughout with druggy whispered female vocal passages, Hedersleben pay such devotional tribute to their influences that it's difficult to decipher that this wasn't recorded in some German commune 40 years ago. In fact, the group has gone on to become the touring band for Nik Turner as well as the studio band for the latest incarnation of Brainticket under the leadership of founding member Joel Vandroogenbroeck. How 'bout that. Very cool dreamy and spacey kraut-psych stylings!

MPEG stream: Upgoer pt. 1
MPEG stream: Dark Nebular
MPEG stream: End of Love (Dreamstate)

2nd album from this seminal French electronic rock act lead by Richard Pinhas (Guitars, ARP, VCS 3, Mellotron and tapes). With Pinhas on this record is Georges Grunblatt (Mellotron, Guitar and ARP). Features the Pinhas composition "In The Wake Of King Fripp" -- tells you his big influence, don't it?

The first and third Heldons as one double cd.

Fourth album (of course) from Heldon. Great cover, great album.

This unanimous store favorite has been newly reissued on vinyl with a beautiful gatefold sleeve. Come on, who could resist that classic cover of a mysteriously sexy lizard alien in a retro space helmet? Surely not us! Ok, anyone into Magma and/or Moogs pay attention! Pretty much anything by Heldon, the pioneering French electronic rock act from the '70s comes highly recommended by us, but Interface perfectly combines Pinhas' Frippertronics guitar obsession with (what are now) vintage synth sounds into some of the best psych-prog sci-fi jamming EVER. Interface was Heldon's sixth LP, dating from 1977, and features the latter-day Heldon trio line-up of Pinhas (guitar, various Moogs, electronics), Patrick Gauthier (later of Magma, on the Moog bass and Minimoog) and Francois Auger (drums and synthesized percussion). Tracks like "Jet Girl" and the nearly twenty minute title cut are kinda like King Crimson meets Suicide or something like that. It's at once both hectic and contemplative, filled with dynamic energy and industrialized nervous ambience. Essential!

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MPEG stream: Interface - Live (Part 2)

This triple cd set in a fat ol' jewel case combines two previous Captain Trip releases of rare live Heldon material that we'd previously reviewed -- those were the Live Elektronik Guerilla: Paris 1975-1976 cd and Well and Alive: Live in Nancy 1979 2cd. It's a lot cheaper to get 'em both together in this 3cd package, though you're missing out on the miniature lp style sleeves. Here's a conglom of our reviews of the two: The disc that collects the 1975-'76 live recordings consists (in contrast to the rhythmically precise spaciness of the later '79 material) of looser, stoned, rockin' jamming. Indeed. Of course, still pretty darn spacey. This wasn't recorded by electronic robots by any means. Sounds more like mellow Hendrix-digging freaks doing drugs and getting off on droning acid rock guitar. We can't exactly argue with that, though. Be warned that sound-quality-wise, this is fairly hissy and lo-fi. Not a pristine studio recording, that's for sure -- but it really works with all the fuzz, effects, and feedback, akin to a Rallizes boot. Still, not the place to start if you're utterly new to Heldon. Then on to the two discs from '79...what a difference a few years made! The '79 stuff kicks so much precision ass. Awesome! On the first disc, the band effortlessly locks into hypnotic rhythmically complex cycles driven by Francois Auger's incredibly tight yet dexterous drumming. Some stretches are austere, atmospheric and almost soothing, while others possess a mysterious dark force that'll thrust you back in you seat, and still others' synthed-out spaciness might have you tripping your pants off. Mind-melting. The second disc is less kinetic, more along the lines of frontman Richard Pinhas' later solo guitar and synthesizer drone explorations (think: more Tangerine Dream, less King Crimson). Please note: be forewarned that the recording quality is less than stellar (somewhat murky at times), but also keep in mind that these are previously unreleased tracks. Personally we feel the pros outweigh the cons in this situation, but of course you'll have to decide for yourself. If you're new to this group, allow us to simply proclaim: late '70s Heldon = psych-prog / electronic rock at its finest. Prior to entering the live Heldon arena, we'd highly recommended checking out 1977's Interface and 1979's Stand-By. Fierce, menacing and propulsive.

MPEG stream: 1984 Apres Cosmic C'Etait
MPEG stream: Track Of Cocaine
MPEG stream: Heldon UFO War Machine
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OK, all you dedicated fans of the French synth prog act Heldon, here's the other live document of Richard Pinhas' band recently released by the Japanese label Captain Trip, alluded to in our review last list of the double cd Well and Alive: Live in Nancy 1979. We mentioned that while the 1979 set was both rhythmically precise and wonderfully spacey, this single-disc collection of earlier live recordings from the 1975-'76 era consisted of looser, stoned, rockin' jamming. Indeed. Of course, still pretty darn spacey. This wasn't recorded by electronic robots by any means. Sounds more like mellow Hendrix-digging freaks doing drugs and getting off on droning acid rock guitar. We can't exactly argue with that, though. Be warned that sound-quality-wise, this is fairly hissy and lo-fi. Not a pristine studio recording, that's for sure -- but it really works with all the fuzz, effects, and feedback, akin to a Rallizes boot. Still, not the place to start if you're utterly new to Heldon. 52 minutes, seven previously unreleased tracks, limited to 1000 copies, packaged in a nice Japanese mini LP styled sleeve.

MPEG stream: 1984 Apres Cosmic C'Etait
MPEG stream: Track Of Cocaine

Ok, anyone into Magma and/or Moogs pay attention! A couple lists back we got our friend Loren Chasse to write some nice things about Tranzition, the latest album from cult French musician Richard Pinhas, the guy who masterminded the pioneering electronic rock act Heldon back the '70s. That made us realize: hey, we really should get some of those old Heldon records up on our website too! So if you look you'll see we already stuck a few up there with real brief reviews. However, Cuneiform happens to have just brought these two Heldon albums back into print on cd and that gives us a perfect excuse to further sing the praises of Pinhas and his band, as these are two of our faves (though all Heldon comes recommended by us), perfectly combining Pinhas' Robert Fripp guitar obsession with (what are now) vintage synth sounds into some of the best psych-prog sci-fi jamming ever. Interface was Heldon's sixth LP, dating from 1977, and features the latter-day Heldon trio line-up of Pinhas (guitar, various Moogs, electronics), Patrick Gauthier (Moog bass and Mini-Moog) and Francois Auger (drums and synthesized percussion). Tracks like "Jet Girl" and the nearly twenty minute title cut are kinda like King Crimson meets Suicide or something. Then there's 1979's Stand By which was Heldon's final studio outing and sees the Pinhas/Gauthier/Auger trio augmented by several additional musicians, including vocalist Klaus Blasquiz of Magma fame. The three tracks here (two of them quite lengthy) will definitely appeal to fans of Magma's "zheul" style. But the Fripp and Suicide allusions above also apply. One track is an extended space-rock opus loosely based on "Bolero"! Even judged by their covers alone, Stand By and Interface both possess a lot of the future-retro cool that's so hip nowadays, while being legitimately classic albums that anyone who digs krautrock or Circle or that kind of thing should investigate. Both discs have been reissued with two bonus live tracks apiece, by the way. So if you aren't already hip to Heldon, either or both of these would make good starting points!

MPEG stream: Stand By
MPEG stream: Une Drole de Journee

From 1976, the 5th album by Richard Pinhas's classic band. This one's super dark and dense, Magma gone industrial? Proto-industrial French electronic rock anyway. With 2 bonus live tracks. Heldon on this recording features bassist Janick Top (Magma).

What a difference a few years made! Of the two live Heldon albums that we just got in, this one from '79 kicks so much precision ass (while the other from '75-76 is looser, more straight-forward jam rock). Awesome! On the first disc, the band effortlessly locks into hypnotic rhythmically complex cycles driven by Francois Auger's incredibly tight yet dextrous drumming. Some stretches are austere, atmospheric and almost soothing, while others possess a mysterious dark force that'll thrust you back in you seat, and still others' synthed-out spaciness might have you tripping your pants off. Mind-melting. The second disc is less kinetic, more along the lines of frontman Richard Pinhas' later solo guitar and synthesizer drone explorations (think: more Tangerine Dream, less King Crimson). Please note: be forewarned that the recording quality is less than stellar (somewhat murky at times), but also keep in mind that these are previously unreleased tracks. Personally we feel the pros outweigh the cons in this situation, but of course you'll have to decide for yourself. If you're new to this group, allow us to simply proclaim: late '70s Heldon = psych-prog / electronic rock at its finest. Prior to entering the live Heldon arena, we'd highly recommended checking out 1977's Interface and 1979's Stand-By. Fierce, menacing and propulsive. Limited to 1000!

MPEG stream: Heldon UFO War Machine
MPEG stream: Red Line Target

The precision, nutso drumming of Zach Hill and the frantic, fearless guitar playing of Spencer Seim is something the world needs more of, and they are happy to oblige with this, only their second full-length recording after a few eps and live discs. Yay, Hella! This dynamic duo hold the lease on hectic, headspinning math rock mayhem, tempering their breathless performances with a very eclectic, electric variety of sounds and good sense of what's catchy and what isn't. The Devil Isn't Red is perhaps denser than their debut Hold Your Horse Is, but no less delightful. As almost always, this is all-instrumental, with cryptic art and song titles to add to their aesthetic of controlled chaos. Into indie-prog a la Don Caballero, Lighting Bolt, Ruins, This Heat? Well if you haven't already, now's the time to make room for a Hella section in your record collection. (By the way, did you notice how 'Hella' no longer seems like a dumb band name, it just means Hella the band? You know, just like with the Melvins, for instance. They're good enough and have been around long enough now to make that transition.)

MPEG stream: The Kid The Mother Could Be You
MPEG stream: Welcome To The Jungle Baby, You're Gonna...

Epic heavy metal fans know that it's been fairly frequent occurrence of late that we've gotten new a reissue of an old '80s album by US underground metal eccentrics Manilla Road, and also once in a while, a brand new release from that still active (and still epic) cult unit. But this is a bit more unexpected - the debut from a Manilla Road SIDE PROJECT, called Hellwell, featuring MR main man Mark "The Shark" Shelton. The Hellwell name we thought was kind of faux-scary goofy, until we learned that the other driving force behind the band was a personage in fact named Ernest Cunningham Hellwell, who plays organ and synths. Also on board, Bryan "Hellroadie" Patrick, sharing some of the vocals with lead guitarist Shelton much as has been the case on Manilla Road albums of recent vintage. And really, name aside, this is basically another new Manilla Road album, and a good one. MR fans will feel right at home with it, it's hardly a big departure. Except, imagine Manilla Road with ornate Deep Purple style keyboards, loads of 'em (courtesy of the eponymous E.C.), AND an extra emphasis on the more "extreme" side of the MR equation - lots of fuzz, some guttural death metally vox and the like - whilst keeping it quite epick and eldritch indeed. Think Poe and Lovecraft. 'Cause lyrically, these songs are rooted in good old pulp literature. It's tale-telling of the horror story variety, in the grand tradition of Mercyful Fate/King Diamond and of course Manilla Road themselves, among others� Music to listen to after dark, in other words, especially if you can get yourself in the mindset of someone in the '40s listening to a creepy radio play or something, as delivered by a band part '70s prog, part '80s heavy metal, part gothic doom, part modern extreme metal� It's a cool mix, again one that most MR fans will dig 'cause that's basically what MR is all about anyway. You know how Slough Feg has gotten their share of Manilla Road comparisons? Well, perhaps Hellwell could likewise be compared to Hammers Of Misfortune.

MPEG stream: The Strange Case of Dr. Henry Howard Holmes
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MPEG stream: Acheronomicon I: Tomb of the Unnamed One

"Western Culture" was the final recording of Henry Cow and the end result of a tumultuous two year period of tour mishaps, line-up changes and general hardship amongst the group's many members. Formed in 1968, this legendary English group (which takes its name

RealAudio clip: Industry
RealAudio clip: Falling Away

We imagine the master sleeps soundly, if THIS is the music loudly vibrating in his dreams! He may never wish to wake up. Here's the 2nd album from (to be sibilantly alliterative) this spacey Swedish psych band, the first we've listed - though if this proves as popular as we think it really should, we'll try to get more of their self-titled 2009 debut to review as well. Plain old Hills are not to be confused with WHITE Hills, though they almost could be - their brand of mantric, mesmeric, FX laden, krautrocking groove is definitely in the same druggy realm as White Hills, and that of other AQ faves like Circle, Salvatore, and especially Wooden Shjips. No doubt they all share many of the same influences, from Can and other krautrock to Hawkwind to Spacemen 3. So if that sort of stuff is your bag, Hills comes highly recommended! While mainly instrumental, there's more singing here than on the debut, but the echo-effected vocals are just another part of the throbbing wash of sound, riding waves of heavily phased guitar, motorik drums, and insistent organ (that specifically reminds us a bit of Circle relatives Itavayla). While we KNOW we're always saying stuff is repetitively hypnotic, Hills really do it to perfection, locking into to inescapable, all-encompassing grooves you never want to end. They also delve into instrumental electric, folky passages with melodies that perhaps draw upon their native Nordic traditional tunes, a la Kebnekajse back in the '70s, though they can sound somewhat Eastern-inflected as well. And final track "Death Shall Come" is a spaced out droning ritual, getting into OM territory there... We'd love to see these guys (and gal) play live, do a US tour soon please please please! In the meantime, this disc will be in heavy rotation 'round here, and should be required listening for anyone into SF's Wooden Shjips for sure...

MPEG stream: Rise Again
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RennFaire gone Rock In Opposition? Italian prog meets medieval madrigals?? We're still puzzling about how to describe this wonderful, wonderful disc, a remastered cd reissue of a rare LP (long awaited by some, totally new to us but very welcome -- thanks Robot!) which was recorded by composer Kay Hoffman in Florence, Italy in 1977, though not released until 1985, on vinyl in Japan only! On Floret Silva, Hoffman and her collaborators, including members of the very excellent and arty Italian prog band Pierrot Lunaire, took a trove of medieval Latin poetry known as the Carmina Burana -- poems written by anonymous authors around 1200AD that are both religious in nature as well as very earthy and real, about such subjects as love and money -- and set them to music. The settings are diverse (as befits the variety of these texts), and the results are often eerie and pretty and even a little bit groovy, with quirky chamber ensemble/prog rock backing and even the use of field recordings. Utterly magical for the most part, most especially due to the delicate vocals of Jacquline Darby. One song reminds us strongly of Stereolab, others call to mind (rather more obscurely) that Flamen Dialis album we've raved about before. This should appeal to experimental psych-folk fans for sure, even if this unique treasure is really something outside almost any genre designation you'd care to come up with!

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

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On the same label that brought us the amazing avant grind of PIVIXKI on the last list, comes another stunning find, this one from UK avant/free/math rockers Honey Ride Me A Goat, who apparently have been around for a while now, although this is the first we've heard from them, but we are appropriately blown away. You think with a name like Honey Ride Me A Goat, we would have been all over these guys, but hell, here we are now making up for lost time. Imagine some dizzying collision between old school SST style free jazz weirdness, stop on a dime NoMeansNo style mathiness, the tangled riffy jangle of nineties college rock, and super spazzy sonic tangles a la everything Mick Barr, and you'd probably be close to capturing the head spinning sonic weirdness these guys traffic in. After a stretch of swirling abstract free jazz avant noise splatter, the band launch into the first track with something almost surfy, gnarled riffs, skittery rhythms, crunchy distorted guitars, all very looped and hypnotic before finishing off with another squall of chaotic crunch. But it's the second track where we're totally and irreversibly smitten, a seriously progged out post metal, space metal math jam of epic proportions, think the Ruins and Orthrelm battling it out on stage, only to occasionally slip into some churning hypnotic almost krautrock grooves, with lots of woozy basslines, angular abstract guitar grind, and some of the most perplexing arrangements EVER. And so it goes, the band leaping dexterously from mesmerizing Necks-like avant jazz drone creep, to spastic math grind freakouts, to churning carnivalesque genre leapfrogging grooves, to blown out free jazz / avant grind, to sounds even more abstract and difficult to describe. Needless to say, this stuff RULES, freaked out and frenetic, frantic and frenzied, fans of Orthrelm, Ocrilim, Ruins, NoMeansNo, Hella, Lightning Bolt, Upsilon Acrux, Flying Luttenbachers and all that sort of post prog / math / grind / avant weirdness will dig BIG TIME.

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RealAudio clip: I'm Not A Packhorse
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Quiet/loud saxophone squealing and squawking, over a background ambience of ominous clatter and drone...piano, percussion, tape hiss... Free jazz fairy tale music from France circa 1971. It's very moody and dark, but then there will be eruptions of Warner Bros cartoon music, almost. You could imagine a cartoon mouse tip-toeing around to some of this. A very scared little mouse. This ultra-rare Futura LP now sees cd reissue via Italian label Mellow, and fans of skronky Euro-improv as well as the more cosmic psych soundscapes of, say, Taj Mahal Travellers, should investigate.

RealAudio clip: Gestation Sonore 4

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

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

SORRY. One of the absolute standout tracks on the recent "Slave To The Power" double cd Iron Maiden covers collection was the version of "The Trooper" by an obscure Finnish chamber-rock combo called Hoyry-Kone. It was certainly the weirdest inclusion on the comp, as they were the only band to pay tribute to Maiden with trombone, cello and saxophone! We'd never heard of them before, but resolved to find out more. Now we've tracked down this reissue of their second album, from 1997. Hopefully their upcoming third album won't take 'em too much longer, 'cause this one is pretty great! They play an eclectic sort of progressive rock, starting the disc off with a lulling, beautiful, quasi-religious six-minute mostly-vocal piece that suggests Nordic folk influences, before erupting into a hard-hitting classical rock attack that combines Naked City-style dynamics with "Eleanor Rigby" strings. From there, we hear echoes of everything from prog greats King Crimson and Area to cabaret music and even a little metal riffing (hence their interest in Maiden I guess)... For fans of Uz Jsme Doma, Samala Mammas Manna, Borknagar, Bondage Fruit, Arcturus, and other international exemplars of complex, melodic, progressive, and (last-but-not-least) *bizarre* rock. Recommended!

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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. NOW AVAILABLE ON THE SKIN GRAFT LABEL DOMSTICALLY, THOUGH, SEE ELSEWHERE ON OUR SITE! This amazing 1994 debut by Ruins side-project Koenjihyakkei (aka Hundred Sights of Koenji) is supposedly out of print, but miraculously back in stock! We're not sure if it's actually been repressed or if somebody just found a hidden cache of these in a warehouse somewhere, but either way we're happy (and suggest you get 'em while you can)! If you're familiar with the Magma-obssessed Tokyo bass and drums duo Ruins, imagine them becoming EVEN MORE Magma-obsessed and adding female vocalist/keyboardist and a guitar player (actually, adding a bass player, as the Ruins bass player switched to guitar for this). This uber-Ruins quartet then wrote a bunch of insane, gorgeous prog rock tunes (or, in one case, adapted a traditional Bulgarian one) and play them to dazzling perfection. The French '70s prog band we keep mentioning (Magma) were insane, but not quite this heavy or hyper. If you like Ruins and/or Magma and/or weird prog music, you might want to get this if you haven't already. Probably the best of Koenjikhyakkei's three albums, which are all pretty cool ("II" being out of print still, though).

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This might be the coolest, weirdest release yet from Medical Records, which is saying a lot considering how much cool, weird stuff they put out. From the French synth pop of Mathemetiques Modernes, to the twisted WTF? guitar & synth one man band Lou Champagne System (a previous Record Of The Week!), and from the space-y psychedelic synthscapery of Axxess (another past ROTW!), to Swiss teenage electro poppers Guyer's Connection, it's all so good, and we could go on, but you get the picture. We love this label, and their ability to consistently dig up the most amazing, baffling, brilliant gems, maybe none so brilliant and baffling than this rarity, a 1979 record from an Italian outfit called I Signori Della Galassia, who play cosmic prog space disco, but with plenty of sonic twists and turns. Might as well start with the cover, a stunning super surreal painting of a stylized naked woman, whose bottom half is a tree, her roots and branches disappearing into the sand of what looks like an alien beach. Flip the record over, and peep the band members' photos, they all look like regular seventies rockers, that is except for the giant collars on their different colored capes/jumpsuits!!! Holy cow, everything is screaming PROG so far, and opener Proxima Centauri (prog title too, no?) does not disappoint, 8+ minutes of pulsing sci-fi, futuristic chase music, swirling synths, wild percussion, loads of FX, crazy catchy melodies, the beat is definitely disco, but it's pretty progged out too. Fans of groups like Majeure, Zombi and Umberto, will FLIP. The Carpenter and Goblin vibe is obviously huge, but when combined with some pulsing Euro-disco propulsion, the track explodes into some serious space-disco-prog radness! It sounds like the follow up track is more of the same, if anything, even MORE prog, heavier, with some fuzzy acid riffing, the vibe darker, laced with swirling soundtracky strings, and this time vocals, super dramatic, alternately pushing the sound toward something more disco, but then something poppier and proggier. Super dynamic, super psychedelic, and pretty goddamn heavy! Things slow down around track three, the sound growing even more cinematic, pulsing and puslating, droned out and ominous, tinkling synth melodies over a bed of cosmic shimmer, and sinister low end thrum, some acoustic guitars, as well as strange voices, and mysterious effects, and then suddenly, about halfway through, the song explodes into a weird, almost jaunty groove, proggy and funky, and SO GOOD! And so it goes, the band laying down carnivalesque keyboards, fuzzy guitars, and then BLAM, track 4 turns into what sounds like the music for Christmas On Ice, goofy and playful, the main motif totally holiday, but all the while, Eastern guitar melodies swirl in the background, a push pull between festive and exotic, at one point sounding a bit like a disco-prog version of Perrey And Kingsley! And it only gets weirder from there on out. Slipping into some seventies yacht rock balladry, lush and heartfelt, before flitting right back into more disco-prog, this time heavier on the disco, it's not hard to imagine some alien discotheque, I Signori the house band, the dancefloor looking like the Cantina scene in Star Wars. Later, the sound is transformed into creepy cosmic balladry, Tangerine Dream synths wrapped around grooving hard rock drums, Queen like guitars, and some super twisted processed vocals, before finally moving into a songsuite that is total cosmic disco-prog bliss out, swirling synths, wild drumming, complex arrangements, the sound lush and epic, spacey and psychedelic, until the very strange closer, which begins like it might be another pulsing prog out, even when the vocals come in, it's total classic Italo-prog, a synth driven chorale, that is suddenly transformed into some treacly seventies yacht pop, which is somehow still peppered with bursts of tangled prog, not to mention some weirdly abrupt stops and starts. So weird, and SO GREAT! Like all Medical Records releases, elaborately packaged, pressed on 180 gram silver vinyl, and LIMITED TO 600 COPIES!!!

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Bombastic '70s progressive rock proto-metal from Italy! I Teoremi were a quartet who really kicked out the jams hard, specializing in muscular, complex stuff that, amazingly enough, at its most extreme reminds us of the prog-punk of much more recent bands like Stinking Lizaveta, Breadwinner, and Ruins! Seriously. For 1971 (when this, their only album, was released), they're one of the heaviest and most spazz-tastic we've heard. Sure, you have to enjoy some grandiose vocals in the typical dramatic Italian prog style, but mostly this is about their instrumental ass-kicking. With its herky-jerky riffing and spiralling guitar patterns, "Il Dialogo d'un Pazzo" could be a song off of one of the first two albums by Greg Ginn's Gone for gosh shakes! Now, we should mention that there's actually a somewhat more recent reissue of this on Arkarma, in one of their mini-lp style digipaks, that's got a bonus track...but we won't be getting any of those 'til we get rid of the two copies of this older jewel case version we happen to have. So we're selling 'em cheap, come n' get 'em! Everyone (well, two people) into early '70s hard prog and metal need to hear this.

RealAudio clip: Passi da Gigante
RealAudio clip: Il Dialogo d'un Pazzo

I (Allan) once came across this band in one of those encyclopedic psychedelic record collector reference works (Scented Gardens of the Mind, I think it was) and was intrigued by the description: an *Icelandic* hard rock band from 1971, comparable to Black

RealAudio clip: 1999

Gruesome/frosty looking logo, very metal-sounding name, morbid b&w cover art. looks like proto-metal... maybe even proto-BLACK-metal?! Icecross has intrigued us for years. Long ago, we read about 'em in one of those encyclopedic psychedelic record collector reference works (Scented Gardens Of The Mind, most likely) and were struck by the description. An ICELANDIC hard rock band from 1972, comparable to Black Sabbath, supposedly! Man we wanted to hear that. Certainly the scary album cover and song titles ("Jesus Freaks", "Nightmare", "Scared", "The End") suggested they played some sort of heavy, Satanic psych-metal. Of course, the book said the record was super rare and impossible to find. Oh the despair. Then, some years ago, a bootleg cd edition surfaced, and we got to hear it. Was it everything we were hoping for? Yes and no - no, it didn't sound much like Black Sabbath, not nearly as heavy as that, or metallic. But, yes, it was pretty darn cool, and weird. Once past the relatively normal first track "Wandering Around" (a standard bluesy boogie with lyrics about "looking for my baby"), then things get hella freaky. Icecross definitely deliver the dark and twisted psych, with songs full of sharp slashing tangles of dissonant guitar, total primal-prog power trio action, playing hard and fast on cuts like "Scared", with wailing psych leads. The vocals remind us a bit of the drama of Van Der Graaf Generator - or on downer-ballad "A Sad Man's Story", of uber-mopey krautrockers Paternoster. Lyrically, the anti-Christian "Jesus Freaks" stands out, with the line "They believe in Jesus, we believe in ourselves" - though the liner notes to this new, at long last legit cd release, indicate that one of the former members of the band did later become religious. This new edition also states the original lp was released in '73 by the way. So, while not exactly an early Icelandic example of heavy metal as described in that reference book, these demented Viking hippies maybe do belong somewhere far back in the lineage of Scandinavian blackness, yeah. Thanks to Vintage/Rockadrome for reissuing this, complete with a booklet full of vintage photos and firsthand accounts of the band's history. And, they're doing a vinyl version too, upcoming in a few months.

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"Anachronistic Belgrade prog/psych record from 1979. Heavily influenced by Pink Floyd, Can Hawkwind and Herman Hesse."

Long, long ago, we reviewed this band's complex second album, 1972's Ys, calling it "crazy '70s Italian prog" and remarking upon the band's "nutzoid sci-fi keyboard attack". A super rad record, we think. Same goes for Sirrio 2222, Il Balletto Di Bronzo's first album, from 1970, now reissued on cd, which is a bit different but equally cool. Proggy, sure, and sometimes also "nutzoid", but not quite so dark and intense as Ys, this one's more '60s flower power psych pop sounding, but super fuzzy, and often heavy like early Led Zep. Yep, proto-metal fans will like that there's lots of lumbering low-end (the wonderfully titled "Eh Eh Ah Ah" incorporates a fat, bluesy "Mississippi Queen" like riff, ferinstance), while prog weirdos will dig, uh, all the prog weirdness that pops up, amidst the pop. There are moments of over the top acid rock freakery, others of twee folk melody or romantic classical chamber-rock, and others of cowbell-knocking "hairy funk" groove. A baroque 'n' roll classic, really. Italians DO do it better, when it comes to '70s prog rockin'!

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Every now and then we like to spring some crazy '70s Italian prog on y'all just to see who can take it. We're not just talking Goblin (though we love Goblin), or any of the more "mainstream" Italian prog acts of the period (PFM, Le Orme, Banco), who were cool but didn't go far beyond the Yes/Genesis/King Crimson template. We're talking weirder stuff like Museo Rosenbach, New Trolls, Osage Tribe, I Teoremi, and Area. We hope to soon have some copies of the cds by an amazing band called Osanna (possibly Allan and Andee's all time favorite prog band!!) but while we wait for those, we did manage to bring in a few of this, the 2nd album by another fave Italian group of ours called Il Balletto Di Bronzo. Sure, their nutzoid sci-fi keyboard attack will bring to mind ELP, but you'll also think of Magma (and their descendants Shub-Niggurath and Koenjihyakkei as well). Complex, powerful, heavy, precise yet darkly psychedelic, Ys (from 1972) is one of those timeless pieces of rock n' roll art that's definitely very '70s yet not entirely dated: you could imagine a Laddio Bollocko or Tarantula Hawk kicking out these jams, that is, except for the occasional operatic vocal chorus. This album's five long songs (plus a bonus track), with their acid guitar action, haunting female vocals, droning keyboards, martial drumming, baroque/classical motifs, and weird changes, are just about as good as over-the-top Italian prog can get, and that's pretty damn good. That is, if you are willing to get into it like we are. A top ten prog album (if Aquarius had a prog top ten, and please don't ask us for one, we'll be arguing for weeks).

RealAudio clip: Introduzione (excerpt 1)
RealAudio clip: Introduzione (excerpt 2)
RealAudio clip: Primo Incontro
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Just recently on our New Arrivals list (in our Record of the Week review of the Vertigo Mixed compilation) we mentioned (again) how much we love prog. Combine that with how much we also love the music of UK songwriter and experimentalist Richard Youngs, and you can imagine how excited we are by this brand new Ilk offering. Canticle is the unexpected second album from Richard Youngs' long-dormant "prog" project Ilk, a band (of sorts -- it's just Youngs and collaborator Andrew Paine, though we don't remember if Paine was involved with the first Ilk cd from 1999) that celebrates both the idea of '70s British progressive rock epics (including the pretentiousness of narration and the like) and the related field of pastoral folk-psych. Which isn't too far from what Richard Youngs is often all about anyway. Anyone familiar with his two most recent solo albums, the AQ faves Airs Of The Ear and River Through Howling Sky, will find much that's familiar about Ilk's Canticle. There's gorgeous melodic material on here, Richard's honest English voice accompanied by gentle acoustic guitar for some stuff with a moving, quasi-religious tone... but the intentionally, overtly "prog" aspect is borne out by tracks like "A Guiding Principle", which consists of a scrambled jumble of guitar, drums, and electronics, something like the Dead C playing a free jazz version of Relayer by Yes on 45! These more active, electric "prog" and "rock" elements interact interestingly throughout the album with the folk/drone loveliness we've come to expect from Youngs, for a listen that satisfies both our love of "classic" prog in general and the not so easily catagorized work of fellow prog-lover Richard Youngs in the particular. Recommended!

MPEG stream: Landsong (Walking)
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SORRY. The first release on Richard Youngs' No Fans label since the early '90s is quite a surprise -- it's not experimental noise stuff like much of his work with frequent collaborator Simon Wickham-Smith, this is actually the debut album by Young's one-man progressive rock band Ilk. Yup, '70s style prog rock -- but not really. Young has constructed mock-suites of beautifully intricate rock structures that include classical guitar, flute and sleigh bells. (No mellotron though.) Actually, the "prog" aspect of this seems kinda conceptual. I mean, there IS a Roger Dean-eque painting of a floating island of monoliths (that spell I-L-K) on the cover, and there's some portentous introductory narration by someone (Youngs' dad?). But the music isn't full of weird time changes or bombastic instrumentals to show off his chops -- it's simply beautiful, focusing mainly on Youngs' haunting vocals, and/or (in song "Nocturnal Path Flow" for instance) the mesmerizing sheets of eerie, shimmering sounds from his keyboards. It's elemental in its majesty -- you can understand how the album was inspired by his travels on the coast of Scotland. If you've gotten into Young's much more recent and equally gorgeous (if mellower) collaboration with Kawabata Makoto on vhf, you should definitely check this out! Allan LOVES this album.

Japan's Ruins are/were a bass and drums prog-spazz duo lead by octopoidal drummer Tatsuya Yoshida. Ruins have been longtime faves 'round here for their manic precision and complex catchiness, kind of a cross between Melt-Banana and Magma, played by a two-piece. Hopefully, you know all about Ruins already. And if you're a fan, then you're reading the right review! Goddamn, if you thought that Ruins were crazy... believe it or not, Yoshida's latest duo project has upped the ante quite a bit. Teaming with guitarist Imahori Tsueno, and further augmented by computer processing, this takes Yoshida's brand of frenzied prog palpitations into hyperdrive. Considering what we know Yoshida can do live with no overdubs (and even all by himself) it's positively dangerous to allow him and his collaborator to crank up the craziness with technology. Yet the Doubtmusic label has allowed them to do it, twice -- this is their second disc. As you may recall, we already raved about the first one, Territory, last year. This one is equally awesome, if you're at all inclined towards this sort of technical musical mania. It will leave you breathless, staring at your stereo, jaw on floor. There's 17 tracks, ranging from one minute four seconds to eight minutes fifty seconds. All of 'em action packed, constructed through a partially improvised creative process that incorporates malfunctioning video game sounds one nano second, virtuoso jazz fusion licks the next... kecak-like vocal parts, blasting rhythms, heavy guitar rippage. And there's also artificial speed manipulations, pitch shifting, and jump-cut electronic edits -- yeah just when you thought it couldn't get any more dense or intense, it's like they flip a switch and suddenly achieve superhuman levels of prog rock performance (beyond even what the Ruins are known for!). It's not all speedy spasmodicism, as they also delve into some momentary moody, much calmer atmospherics... always ready to turn a corner into utter ADD insanity, however. While still always retaining a knack for ear-catching riffage, as per the Ruins at their best. And this IS the most Ruins-y thing we've heard in a while!! Of course. Boy this makes us happy.

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The late sixties Swedish musical aggregation that was Parson Sound / International Harvester / Harvester / Trad, Gras Och Stenar (really all one evolving band) was basically an example of the genre we've decided to call "international krautrock". Like a Silence has added an incredible, lengthy (24 minute!) bonus track called "Skordetider" ("Harvest Times") that the band originally intended for an album B-side but never used. It's hypnotic, powerful jam that could have fit well on that Parson Sound release. In other words: wow! Additionally, this cd features extensive liner notes documenting the group's history (the same essay is also found in Silence's reissue of the Harvester album, but with different photos). Along with the Parson Sound double cd, this is definitely one of the reissues of the year for us.

RealAudio clip: Ho Chi Minh
RealAudio clip: Skordetider
RealAudio clip: Sov Gott Rose-Marie
RealAudio clip: There is No Other Place

Back in 2007, this female Japanese singer-songwriter (and improvisor, too) made a cd with Ruins drummer Tatsuya Yoshida, called Slip Beneath The Distant Tree, that we really loved. Experimental pop/prog, which included covers of Genesis, This Heat, Soft Machine, and several classical composers. Eiko's multi-instrumental skills were impressive, and her sweet voice appealing - we said then we were curious to hear more from her. Apparently the ubiquitous Jim O'Rourke is a fan too, and probably had something to do with Drag City releasing this new Eiko Ishibashi solo outing, her vinyl-only domestic US debut, which he produced and also plays on. It's a dreamy set of songs, what Drag City calls "a progressive sci-fi pop album", and we can see why Eiko is apparently already kinda "big in Japan". Her gentle, whisper-ish vocals grace songs that swell with elegant yet jaunty piano melodies; there's tight chamber pop orchestration in back of it all, with rhythms that can get prog-propulsive, though this is definitely more light and airy of an affair than the more mathematically-minded music she made with Yoshida. Quite nice indeed.

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What's the scariest and creepiest of instruments? Could it be the downtuned electric guitar, that sound that marks all things dark and heavy and brutal and grim? Or could it be the cello with its soaring keening deep throated moan? Well we might posit, especially in light of this Jacula record, that the creepiest of all instruments is most certainly the church organ. Surprising that an instrument used chiefly to inspire and praise can illicit such utter unease and create such a pervasively creepy ambience. And that's pretty much what Jacula is all about, creepy ambience. Thick and haunting washes of warm rich church organ drone, resonant and reverberant, sometimes accompanied by simple pounding drums or mournful folky guitar melodies or wild psychedelic freakouts or soaring female operatic vocals or even occasional lyrics spoken ominously in Italian, but more often than not it's just the massive and ominous swells of a church organ. So effectively and utterly evil sounding. Jacula are sort of like a doom metal soundtrack to a Dario Argento movie. Goblin meets Skepticism! A Krautrock Thergothon? But is's not all mellow murky moodiness, tracks three and four, "Triumpratus Sad" and "Veneficium", both feature seriously fuzzed out, almost punk rock riffs, that sound about a decade before their time, insistent and completely heavy, even more so when they're eventually joined by a pounding one-drum beat or strident atonal piano or wild swirling progrock keyboards. Amazing! It's no wonder we sold the first couple of copies we got in of this to members of local black metal bands Ludicra and Leviathan! In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum (literally "The Poison Is Always At The End"), which was supposedly recorded in an English castle, was originally released in an edition of only 300 copies in the late sixties and has been completely unavailable until just recently (this reissue cd is not entirely new, but it took us until now to get enough copies to list). Formed in 1968, Jacula even counted a medium as a member of their band who we assume was critical to the process of creating this record, considering that In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum was "Composed By Spiritualist Seance (1966-1969)" Woah! And for those of you well versed in sixties and seventies prog, be aware that this reissue is NOT the same as the Jacula record released in the early seventies (1972's Tardo Pede In Magiam Versus), even though for some strange reason Black Widow has given it pretty much the exact same cover.

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SORRY.

Finally available again, one of our favorite weirdo psych folk records EVER, reissued, with a whole 'nother record tacked on. The previously reviewed disc, Mice And Rats In The Loft, it definitely the reason to pick this up, the other record, the band's debut Sorcerers, is just a bonus. More on that one further down, first let's talk about the genius of Mice And Rats In The Loft: After Comus' genius First Utterance record was re-released, this left Jan Dukes De Grey as THE missing seventies psych / prog / folk holy grail. And rightfully so. Originally released in 1971 (the year Allan has determined that almost every great seventies record was released, even though he was only two years old then), this record manages to be totally brilliant and absolutely absurd at the same time. It has much in common with the Comus record, super dramatic trilling vocals, frenzied acoustic guitars and manic bongos. But there the similarities end. Where Comus took those elements and created a harrowing pagan ritual, Jan Dukes De Grey take those same elements and embark on a freaked out prog journey into utter madness. Sweetly melodic flutes, acoustic guitars, and weirdly bombastic drumming are woven into a weird and wonderful lilting British folk, peppered with an ultra-memorable little arpeggiated guitar lick that you won't be able to get out of your head, pausing once for a fierce heavily strummed riff that sounds almost Sabbathy before resuming it's sweet folky journey. Then suddenly the whole thing is thrown into chaos by a brief splattery drum break, which the band emerges from in entirely different garb. An epic journey through angular, almost eighties sounding nowave skronk, damaged seventies prog, ultra twee psychfolk and avant jazz krautrock. Weaving wildly from sound to sound, muted duck like saxophone, super distorted acoustic guitar, warbling trumpets, manic bongos, soaring strings, fluttering flamenco sputter, employing a massive arsenal of instruments: violin, cello, zeldaphone (!), clarinet, recorder, chanter, harmonica, hunting horn, glockenspiel, as well as a 'clothes horse' contraption with a hanging flat drum, tabla, cymbal, chimes and Indian bells. And that's all in the first song! Twenty plus minutes of freaked out psych-prog-folk brilliance. The second track sounds much more traditionally seventies British folk, but only compared to the first track. Jaunty and folky, occasionally dark and menacing, with bursts of maniacal strumming, and sweet vocal harmonies, before the band switches gears and belts out a wild klezmer folk-prog shuffle that sounds quite a bit like Uz Jsme Doma. The final track is a dense and relentless, heavy psychedelic swirl, with jagged wah guitars, throaty theatrical vocals and wild octopoidal Krupa-ish drumming, thumping tribal tom toms and sizzling cymbals. Phew. Take a dash of Comus, a pinch of the Incredible String Band, a hint of Jethro Tull, a splash of Captain Beefheart, a drop of Uz Jsme Doma and a whole lot of LSD and shake vigorously! As if that weren't enough, this double disc reissue tacks on the group's 1970 debut, Sorcerers, which while still quite cool, is not nearly as weird or rocking or proggy as the follow up, instead it's a heady slice of lysergic seventies acid folk, lots of acoustic guitars, fluttery flutes and of course, those acidy trilled Comus like vocals. Seems unfair to Sorcerers to pair it up with a record as mind blowing as Mice And Rats, but they do work well together, it's easy to hear the seeds in Sorcerers that would soon blossom into something much more twisted and gnarled and freaky. Definitely essential for folks into classic British sixties and seventies psych folk, and a great record, but odds are you'll probably find yourself gravitating toward Mice And Rats In The Loft anyway. Either way, this set is way way way recommended! Includes all new liner notes, as well as the original album notes, newspaper clippings, and tons of super cool photos.

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Here's one of those albums that we KNEW we'd make Record Of The Week - IF ever it was reissued. And now it has been! Here's a fully legit reish of this cult '70s hard rock rarity, a record by one of those bands who seem simultaneously to be both testosterone-tanked young men and wizened ol' wise wizards. Yeah, a Record Of The Week easy, on account of it not only being an old fave of some of us here, but something that immediately caught on with the AQ staffers who hadn't heard it before, this reissue getting played in the store quite steadily (and loudly!) since it arrived. Let's listen in, as Jerusalem's vocalist belts it out, in an emotive yowl a bit like Robert Plant but with Ozzy Osbourne's paranoid feelings: "Hey girl, will you never learn? Who d'you think you're fooling with your lyin' and your cryin'? You'll only be happy the day you see me dyin'!" But then, in more of a normal speaking voice, we get the casual aside: "Oh yeah, that's the way it happens sometimes. Ha." Right on, brilliant. That's from "Frustration", the first of nine fantastic tracks on the one and only album by this English band, recorded in 1971, released in '72 on Deram/Decca, produced by Deep Purple's Ian Gillan. Why Jerusalem didn't get big is a mystery, though the liner notes give some clues as to why they disbanded. Heck they're even fairly unknown (or a well-kept secret) among connoisseurs of '70s heavy psych and hard rock, with this being its first ever official, non-bootleg reissue on compact disc. Now, there's lots of great obscure heavy rock rarities from the early '70s. We've raved about reissues of many of them (Dust, Leaf Hound, Toad, Bang, T2, etc.). But as far as unheralded proto-metal goes, this belongs pretty much at the top of that longhaired, bellbottomed heap, as essential as any of 'em anyway. Pentagram, Bedemon, Blues Creation, Budgie, Night Sun, you name it. Allan here first heard Jerusalem a few years back when a friend who shares his taste for proto-metal passed along a cd-r copy of this otherwise unavailable album (thanks, Glenn!). Killer stuff indeed, damn it was good. One of the heaviest things from the era he'd ever heard, Jerusalem took it to an extreme that most of their peers didn't approach. With elements of both biggies Sabbath and Zeppelin, but more frenzied and frantic on one hand, more plodding and suicidal on the other. Crashing, fuzzed out guitars. Energetic hectic riffage. Doomy, thudding blues. Wicked stinging, sliding soloing. Punkish attitude (competitive with contemporaries Crushed Butler). The vocals often hoarse, on the verge of screaming, or gone over that edge. Yeah, pretty heavy for '72! This is rough, raw, proto headbanging mania mixed with mystical, melodic proggy interludes, of course we love it. Plus it's got a genuine dark, occult, despairing vibe, with poetic lyrics about madness, murder and death... And you can't get much more "downer rock genocidal" sounding than the truly, uh, primitive bludgeon what might be the heaviest track here, "Primitive Man". Pretty darn metal when it comes down to it, forget the "proto". In their own way though, Jerusalem sounding halfway betwixt '60s garage rock and '80s New Wave Of British Heavy Metal... which on balance puts them a bit ahead of their time. In fact, since what's old is new again, this actually sounds like if could have been made now, not because it sounds modern (it doesn't) but because it's so line with certain stonery retro-stylings popular today, particularly in Sweden. In other words, if you like Witchcraft, you'll love Jerusalem!! We always thought that of all the obscure '70s bands that are their forebears, Witchcraft sound most like Jerusalem (well, next to Pentagram). Remember what we said in all caps about Witchcraft's debut? "PERHAPS THEE BEST '70s INSPIRED DOOM ALBUM EVER!" Well the same would go for this, except that it's the real deal, which makes it even better. Anyway, to return to our story, after Allan got that cd-r dub, he knew he had to find a proper cd. There HAD to be one, this was too good not to have been reissued, right? But, after looking and looking, no luck. Then, one day, Allan came to work at Aquarius and lo and behold what did he hear, but Jerusalem blaring from the store stereo! No, it wasn't this reissue. This was still a few years ago. Turns out, Andee had found a used copy of a bootleg cd someplace, and had bought it simply 'cause he thought the cover looked cool (he's like that), without knowing anything about the band. Life is so unfair, thought Allan. But he was able to eventually guilt Andee into giving him the cd for a birthday present (thanks, Andee! You can have that one back now). Later on, we discovered a Japanese reissue that may or may not have been a boot but in any event was way too expensive and hard to get, nothing we could easily stock and sell for a reasonable price. But NOW, we happily are able to share Jerusalem with you thanks to this nicely done reissue on the Rockadrome label's Vintage imprint! Yeah! In addition to the nine songs from the original LP, this cd comes with five bonus tracks, including non-album single "Kamakazi Moth". The thick booklet is filled with lengthy liner notes, complete lyrics, vintage photos, all that good stuff you want in a reissue. Once more, yeah!

MPEG stream: Hooded Eagle
MPEG stream: When The Wolf Sits
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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. From the same label we got those cool petri dish Warhammer 48K cd-r, Jerusalem And The Starbaskets and Skarekrau Radio are a gloriously ramshackle mess. Produced by Warhammer 48K's Cooper Crain, both groups (hard to tell which is which) are a stumbling, distorted whomp of detuned hillbilly indie twang. Or something. Kind of hard to describe. Crunchy guitars splattered with little bits of twang, over tripped out shuffling drums. Very noisy and chaotic, sort of like some lost Velvet Underground live tape, run through a Liquorball filter and dipped in some sparkly moon dust shuffle and twang. There's even a Roky Erickson cover, which even though the bands are so wild and chaotic, should give you an idea of where their roots lie. Packaged in handmade, silkscreened, recycled, pasted and painted sleeves. Cool. LIMITED, we only got about a dozen!

Yay, we mean uh oh, we mean yay, heck it's a new ep from the controversial ('round here anyway) psychedelic doom chanteuse Jex Thoth and her band of the same name. Controversial? Well, let's just say her trademark theatrical vocal stylings are a subjective, love 'em or hate 'em proposition, though we all pretty much agree the band's heavy, hazy music is awesome. And among the AQ staff, Allan at least has finally succumbed entirely (it was inevitable) and now proudly declares himself a true Jex Thoth fan, which means he was quite happy to see 'em play last week at the Roadburn Festival in Holland. In live performance, Jex's apparent thespian background proved quite effective, she had excellent stage presence not to mention witchy sex appeal, cape-draped and with candles burning. They played to a packed house and it was quite obvious they had lots of fans in the audience! We also know Jex has plenty of fans out there among the AQ faithful, and they'll be pleased with Witness, comprised of three new recordings, suitably dramatic and lugubrious, clocking in at just over 15 minutes total: "Raven Nor The Spirit", "Slow Rewind", and "Mr. Rainbow", the latter a cover of a song by '70s European art rockers Slapp Happy (a good choice, if you didn't know better you'd think it was a Jex Thoth original). Bearing a dedication to the late Jack Rose, and again graced with cover art by Reverend Bizarre's Sami "Albert Witchfinder" Hynninen, this ep is a fine continuation of the eccentric underground doom-prog sounds heard on Jex Thoth's 2008 self-titled full-length, although apparently there's been another lineup change in the band since that release (for one thing, Silas Paine, aka Jewelled Antler's Glenn Donaldson, is no longer playing guitar). However, they still sound like a bit like Curved Air taking downers with Electric Wizard (or something), totally vintage, bass heavy '70s psych sounds with prominent Hammond organ action, both bombastic and atmospheric, over which Jex's cleanly-sung, clearly enunciated vocals soar. Probably if you're at all interested in this ep, you've already got the earlier full-length, and if you liked that, you'll like this, need we say much more? Uh, how 'bout for fans of Jacula, Blood Ceremony, The Devil's Blood, and Witchcraft (capital 'W' and otherwise)?

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