[ aquarius records — Rock Pop ]

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

Showing results 451 through 500 of 19388.

Europe is the debut full length from this dreamy UK jangle pop combo, who besides sounding like the perfect Slumberland band, also are distinctive for the fact that they feature the ukulele pretty prominently! That said, if we didn't know we might not have picked out the ukulele, it sounds a bit like another guitar, although at times, you can hear that distinctive strum beneath the group's glistening summery sunshine pop. And really, it's hard not to love this sort of dreamy jangle, there's nothing weird or outsidery, even the ukulele can't make Allo Darlin's sound anything but perfect girl pop loveliness. Softly fuzzy, super melodic and twee, simple and sweet, with hooks galore, the vocals soaring over a warm bed of lush pop mesmer, definitely beholden to the classic age of nineties indie pop / college rock, Sarah Records, K Records, Heavenly, Velocity Girl, etc. So great!

MPEG stream: Neil Armstrong
MPEG stream: Europe
MPEG stream: Northern Lights

For some reason, this is the first thing we've reviewed from this ukelele fronted UK jangle pop combo, who sound right at home on Slumberland. This is the third single from their second album, and fans of Slumberland style dream pop and sixties girl group style twee pop jangle will fall in love for sure. Lilting and softly fuzzy, effervescent and wistfully washed out, both tracks here are sweet slab of simple summery pop, with shuffling rhythms, gorgeous vocals, subtle hooks and a classic nineties indie pop sound that we still never get tired of. Pressed on orange vinyl!

MPEG stream: Northern Lights

The Blackbean & Placenta label are certainly not pinning themselves down genre-wise what with artists like Reynols, Orange Cake Mix and this pretty Swedish combo Alma holding court. Gentle, folky female vocals bringing to mind a Cowboy Junkies-like flourish into three part harmonies. They're joined by subdued banjo, lap steel and flute. A very nice end-of-summer record.

Another fantastic obscurity rescued by the fine folks at Medical Records, this one from a German duo called Aloa, who were part of the Neue Deutsche Welle movement, and whose only record from 1982, this one actually, has been a long sought after rarity. Hearing this now it's easy to see why. A darkly dramatic electronic krautrock/new wave hybrid, with robotic programed rhythms, pulsing synths, playful melodies, sci-fi FX, and some super dramatic, almost over the top vocals, the opening track here an almost campy sounding electro-kraut cabaret. But it hardly defines their sound, which is really all over the map, from brooding futuristic electro, to strange spaced out minimal post punk, from fuzzy, dirgey, glammy cold wave, to synth, cinematic weirdness, replete with wild vocal ululations, it's a pretty twisted collection of Germanic electro cabaret weirdness and experimental synth pop for sure, sounding at times like some weird hybrid of the Residents and the Human League, or maybe Felix Kubin crossed with Roxy Music? Sounds weird, and cool, and it is definitely both. It's easy to see why upon its original release it was misunderstood and overlooked, cuz it's pretty damn far out, but it's also really cool, a dark gloomy avant synth wave gem, that we're seriously tempted to proclaim as one of the weirdest Medical reissues yet. And fast becoming one of our faves. Pressed on 180 gram green vinyl, housed in a heavy full color jacket, includes insert with liner notes and interviews.

MPEG stream: Weisser Wal
MPEG stream: Deutsche Begegnung
MPEG stream: Banane Zitrone
MPEG stream: Lebedndig Und Vital

"Raindrops streaking down the car window music", complete with a mechanical windshield-wipers sounding beat, music that possesses a feeling that is blurred and melancholy, pretty and abstract, just like the way lines of rain water coursing across window-glass through which one is lazily viewing a passing landscape can be... that's our assessment of this new disc from Norwegian electronic 'pop' duo Alog. Minatures is their third album for Rune Grammofon, and we must say it's quite nice indeed. It's a very organic sound Alog have, each piece a shimmering, droning, rhythmic steady-state with decorative sonic, melodic embellishments. The Alog moniker comes from a combination of digitAL and anaLOG (we're told, seems likely) so it's no surprise that one track, or part of a track, here might sound like it could only come from the inside of a computer, while another part might be an ambient field recording from nature. And 'regular' instruments (guitar, cello, etc.) are also employed, to construct these Steve Reich-like, blissful (but sometime suspensefully tense) minimalist minatures. As per the title, which was apparently inspired by Turkish minature paintings, an artform that holds to certain strict rules, one of which apparently requires that they depict "only pure radiant coloured objects configured in mysterious patterns". Which is as good as any as a description of Alog's lovely music on this album (along with our visual rain-window notion). PS. We'll try to get the recent Phonophani album Oak Or Rock reviewed soon, that's one-half of Alog and also on Rune G., and in stock too.

MPEG stream: Severe Punishment And Lasting Bliss
MPEG stream: St. Paul Sessions II

Funny to discover a project from San Francisco by way of LaGrange, Georgia; but that's the way it goes some times. Aloonaluna is the one-woman project of Lynn Fister who landed her first cassette of thoroughly drugged-out drone-pop on the thoroughly drugged-out imprint Hooker Vision (run by Grant and Rachel Evans, of Nova Scotia Arms and Motion Sickness Of Time Travel respectively), and it's a warped gem of twisted psychedelic lullabies that seem to bridge the damaged tape resurgence with a Jewelled Antler style miasma of half-dreamt songs and half-remembered drones. She loops bells, guitars, field recordings, gristly synths, her own voice, and whatever else she can find into hazy, atmospheric songs that turn inward on many tracks (a la Grouper) but at times like on "Watercolor Rabbit" she breaks out a punchy drum machine to turn her somnambulant, stumbling songs into giddy, lo-fi dance numbers (sorta like Kwjaz remixing Julee Cruise). "Antarctica" could almost be her homage to Richard Pinhas' "Iceland" in terms of coldwave synth propulsion. Twelve tracks in all over this 45 minute tape. Nice stuff, but unfortunately this tape is already sold out at the source... so what we got now is all we'll ever get!

If Roy Montgomery didn't noodle so much within his excessive delayed psychedelia and laid down very simple chords for the effects to work their magic, it would sound pretty close to what this side project of Our Glassy Azoth sounds like. Totally trippy.

NOW ON CD!!! As regular readers of the aQ list no doubt know by now, the current underground indie rock scene is China is blowing up, tons of amazing bands, in both Shanghai AND Beijing, killer record labels, so many incredible records, loads of shows and tours (in fact, Carsick Cars, White+ and others are touring the US right now!), but there are also a ton of American, European and Australian ex-pats in the scene, who have popped up in some aQ faves like Pairs, and now Alpine Decline, two Americans from Los Angeles now living in China, and making some sweet sounds as Alpine Decline. Hard to say where they fit in sonically, but it's definitely a sound we dig. Sort of hazy and druggy, a bit like a slo-mo shoegaze slowcore, loping, droned out noise rock ballads, wreathed in gristly distortion, simple motorik drumming, and wasted zoner vox, ethereal and drifty, the songs slipping from hushed creep, to swirling explosive psychedelia and back again. Just give a listen to opener "Mid-Level Functionary In A Criminal Syndicate", a gorgeous heavy brooder, that should definitely appeal to fans of True Widow and the like, dark and hypnotic, hushed and dreamy, but laced with some dense tripped out noisiness. Some of the tracks are a bit more propulsive, sounding a bit like old Sonic Youth, or some lost Homestead / Touch And Go band, a little bit gloomy and gothy, the guitars jagged and angular, swirling synths underpinning the urgent crush of these brooding jams, the vocals buried in the mix, and doused in reverb and delay, plenty of swagger too, the sound shifting from churning noise rock crunch, to woozy slowcore drift, to spaced out, dream-drone ambience (check out the gorgeous "Hang Around The Creases"), to fuzzy krautpop ("The Transmission Comes Apart"), with plenty of stops in between. We hear hints of other pretty disparate influences too, like Animal Collective, the Wipers, Galaxie 500, a weird concoction, but one that works, and makes AD a good fit with their newly adopted Chinese underground rock brethren, while displaying a distinctly American sonic lineage, that goes all the way back to some of the darker nineties stuff that we loved back then, and still love now. Includes a download code!

MPEG stream: Mid-Level Functionary In A Criminal Syndicate
MPEG stream: The Visions Run
MPEG stream: Walk With Mask
MPEG stream: Hang Around The Creases

We've just gotten ahold of a handful of self-released recordings from Alpine Decline - one of the many amazing projects to arise from the panoply of Beijing bands. This boy-girl duo are in fact American expats (one shaggy haired kid from Ohio, one Chinese-American from Los Angeles) who uprooted their existence in LA after the demise of their previous band (Mezzanine Owls) to open shop in Beijing. Visualizations is the second album from the band, released in 2010, same year as the debut. A mystical spaciousness permeated their sound on Visualizations, which may not be surprising as the band employed the talents of Californian psychonaut M. Geddes Gendras to produce the record and flesh out the sound with bass, modular synths, and guitars. Jonathan Zeitlin sounds like he's singing through a tin-can telephone with all of the depth provided by the expanse of spring reverb. There are tons of effects laced throughout the album's 10 tracks - swirling, druggy pools of evanescent shoegazing blur and wash propelled through their jangled noise-pop. There is still plenty of Unwound and maybe a bit of Boyracer to be heard in the mix, but the album defines itself more via heavy doses of psychedelic atmospherics and the selective bombast of Pauline Mu's drums.

MPEG stream: Avalanche
MPEG stream: Night Market

We've just gotten ahold of a handful of self-released recordings from Alpine Decline - one of the many amazing projects to arise from the panoply of Beijing bands. This boy-girl duo are in fact American expats (one shaggy haired kid from Ohio, one Chinese-American from Los Angeles) who uprooted their existence in LA after the demise of their previous band (Mezzanine Owls) to open shop in Beijing. We've witnessed the arc of Alpine Decline's development all the way through to the release of their gorgeously heavy shoegazing album Go Big Shadow City, which proved to be an aQ favorite from 2014, and now here we have their eponymous first album. While defining just what makes up the Beijing sound is next to impossible, Alpine Decline's first recording certainly engages fully with the American underground, Jonathan Zeitlin's vigorous vocals dripping with a Midwestern drawl, and his guitar chops channelling the angular / ebullient indie-rock sound of the mid '90s, amidst the steady pound of Pauline Mu's drums. Think Unwound, Blonde Redhead, and Dinosaur Jr (sans J Mascis' penchant for the relentless guitar solo), but dusted with bright synths and plenty of reverb.

MPEG stream: Altitude Sickness
MPEG stream: The Ghost

One of two new releases recently from Wierd Records, the other reviewed last list, the long awaited new one from Xeno & Oaklander, and then there's this, the debut from Los Angeles one man dread-dance coldwave synth wrangler Frank Alpine, aka Rich Moreno, an LA punk scene veteran, who channels all that pink energy into a bit of synthwave that's surprisingly grim and grimey, evoking images of the gritty LA streets, of squalor and filth, the sound shadowy and dark and sinister. The opening track has to be THEE synth jam of the year, all creepy crawly, but weirdly melodic, the synth sounds buzzy and thick, cool weird handclap rhythms and all manner of mysterious sonic embellishments. It actually reminds us of a cold wave reinterpretation of The Specials' "Ghost Town", that same sort of haunting moodiness, but wedded to a sound that's weirdly danceable. We've probably listened to that track about 20 times so far, and besides it being a great song, couldn't quite figure out why it resonated with us so much, until we learned a little bit more about Mr. Alpine, who apparently only uses consumer Casio synths to create the harshest, most lo-fi sound possible, which is exactly what that ineffable thing is, other cold/synth wave outfits sometimes sound like they went to Guitar Center and just charged a bunch of cool gear, but these tracks, you can imagine Alpine with a bag full of crappy synths, trudging down the Sunset strip, head down, middle of the night, headed for his dank basement of a practice space, where he creates THESE sounds. The rhythms are immediately recognizable, as those brittle skeletal beats, but hear, wreathed in synth buzz, and woven into gristly shadow epics, they become a weirdly propulsive pulse, driving these grim late night anthems. Just might be our favorite thing on Wierd yet, and definitely the best thing to emerge from this new wave of new (cold/synth/dark) wave in ages... Packaged in a super striking red and black mini lp style jacket (or not so mini, in the case of the actual lp version).

MPEG stream: No Exit
MPEG stream: Heart Is Grey
MPEG stream: Painted Eyes

Latest from these sunshiney new age krautfolk drifters, a trio featuring our very own Scott Hewicker, along with Jefre Cantu (Tarentel, Root Strata) and Alexis Georgopoulos (Arp), The Alps' Easy Action is record number five if you're keeping track, although it's not in fact exactly a proper full length, instead, it's a bit of a collaged inbetweener, a gorgeous, surprisingly noisy at times, druggy and deliriously delightful hodgepodge assembled from various sources, old tapes from past sessions, unused takes from their last record Le Voyage, a handful of new recordings, as well as various other sounds, all meticulously assembled in the studio into a pretty fantastic record. As mentioned above, the sound here is not nearly as laid back and soft focus as Le Voyage. That record definitely found the band in full on meandering mode, the guitars were jangly, the rhythms subtle and minimal, when there were rhythms, the noise was kept to a minimum, it was all about tone and timbre, ambience and atmosphere, the propulsion seemingly an afterthought, the band happy to let the songs drift lazily, but if a rhythm did surface, the band would just let that rhythm guide them, until it eventually wound down, leaving the band to drift ever onward. But here, the sound is actually a bit fierce, and a little dark. The opener starts with a cloud of swirling textures and hushed effects, muted melodies, and little flecks of buzz and glitch, but it's not long before a black cloud of grinding distortion and hissing electronics threaten to swallow up the other sounds, the song is transformed into a swirling bit of soft noise chaos, culminating in a strange stuttery glitched out finale. Wow. As if that weren't enough, the second track too delivers some powerful drumming, laid over some tangled steel string guitar, and some buzzing psychedelic guitar, a guitar that gets wilder and noisier as the track progresses before everything drops out leaving just the guitar unwinding a swirling cloud of FX heavy freakout. And so it goes, "Pink Orange" is more of a interlude, a looped bit of processed guitar, but then "For Isabel" drifts in with its seventies folk guitar, but then suddenly glitches out, as some strange bits of studio buzz swoop in, the gorgeous looped guitar figure wreathed in a cloud of hiss and buzz, and rapidly expanding crunch, good stuff for sure, just surprisingly intense. "Loves Of A Blonde" is a sprawling bit of abstract droney drift, some steel string buzz, some muted percussion, more crunchy distorted guitar noise, a sort of abstract raga, underpinned by dark piano chords, everything wreathed in gristly bits of static, eventually, all the noise fading out, leaving just some sitar like buzz and some echoey piano, the prettiest stretch on the record thus far. The title track dabbles in some dub, adding a little reggae inflection to a loping slo-mo krautrock groove, the guitars warm and shimmery, the bass sinewy and melodic, but even here, the band lay a thick bit of crunchy, lo-fi guitar fuzz over the otherwise tranquil proceedings, which we quite like, and definitely adds a needed edge to the otherwise placid drift underneath. The rest of the record unwinds similarly, with the band taking the more serene and melodic elements and fusing them to strange studio misfires, and random, but fantastic bits of noisiness, tinkling looped melodies, that seems to fluctuate wildly within a field of hyperactive static, transforming a shimmery sleepy loop into a mysterious bit of crumbling crunch. They take a break on the hushed and crystal clear solo guitar outing "Reflections For Peter Green", only to slip right back into it with the nearly 10 minute "Instant Light" which was previously released on the super limited Root Strata cd-r A Path Through The Sun), a track that builds slowly, lush steel string strums drifting beneath whirling bits of distant ambience, definitely channeling the spirit of Le Voyage, but the band pile on some lush, effulgent guitar buzz, and some keening layered guitardrones, filling the sky with warm sonic streaks, while underneath the sound continues to drift along melodically, a practically perfect balance between the dreamy old and the more abrasive new, before finishing off with a brief 2 minute swirl of whirling, swirling, blurred and smeared, echo drenched new age shimmer. So good. And a bit of a sonic surprise. Which has us wondering if their next proper studio full length will find the band incorporating some of this new found, more 'difficult' audio experimentation. We sure hope so! Super limited, and packaged in a super elaborate fold out psychedelic pyramid sleeve, designed by artist Tauba Auerbach, that is easily one of the coolest things we've seen. Includes a download code as well.

MPEG stream: Today & Tomorrow
MPEG stream: Spray
MPEG stream: Pink Orange
MPEG stream: Easy Action
MPEG stream: Until Tomorrow

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

SORRY. *** COLLECTIBLE USED VINYL *** Media: VG+ (looks very clean) Sleeve: NM Latest (or the last?) from these sunshiney new age krautfolk drifters, a trio featuring our very own Scott Hewicker, along with Jefre Cantu (Tarentel, Root Strata) and Alexis Georgopoulos (Arp), The Alps' Easy Action is record number five if you're keeping track, although it's not in fact exactly a proper full length, instead, it's a bit of a collaged inbetweener, a gorgeous, surprisingly noisy at times, druggy and deliriously delightful hodgepodge assembled from various sources, old tapes from past sessions, unused takes from their last record Le Voyage, a handful of new recordings, as well as various other sounds, all meticulously assembled in the studio into a pretty fantastic record. As mentioned above, the sound here is not nearly as laid back and soft focus as Le Voyage. That record definitely found the band in full on meandering mode, the guitars were jangly, the rhythms subtle and minimal, when there were rhythms, the noise was kept to a minimum, it was all about tone and timbre, ambience and atmosphere, the propulsion seemingly an afterthought, the band happy to let the songs drift lazily, but if a rhythm did surface, the band would just let that rhythm guide them, until it eventually wound down, leaving the band to drift ever onward. But here, the sound is actually a bit fierce, and a little dark. The opener starts with a cloud of swirling textures and hushed effects, muted melodies, and little flecks of buzz and glitch, but it's not long before a black cloud of grinding distortion and hissing electronics threaten to swallow up the other sounds, the song is transformed into a swirling bit of soft noise chaos, culminating in a strange stuttery glitched out finale. Wow. As if that weren't enough, the second track too delivers some powerful drumming, laid over some tangled steel string guitar, and some buzzing psychedelic guitar, a guitar that gets wilder and noisier as the track progresses before everything drops out leaving just the guitar unwinding a swirling cloud of FX heavy freakout. And so it goes, "Pink Orange" is more of a interlude, a looped bit of processed guitar, but then "For Isabel" drifts in with its seventies folk guitar, but then suddenly glitches out, as some strange bits of studio buzz swoop in, the gorgeous looped guitar figure wreathed in a cloud of hiss and buzz, and rapidly expanding crunch, good stuff for sure, just surprisingly intense. "Loves Of A Blonde" is a sprawling bit of abstract droney drift, some steel string buzz, some muted percussion, more crunchy distorted guitar noise, a sort of abstract raga, underpinned by dark piano chords, everything wreathed in gristly bits of static, eventually, all the noise fading out, leaving just some sitar like buzz and some echoey piano, the prettiest stretch on the record thus far. The title track dabbles in some dub, adding a little reggae inflection to a loping slo-mo krautrock groove, the guitars warm and shimmery, the bass sinewy and melodic, but even here, the band lay a thick bit of crunchy, lo-fi guitar fuzz over the otherwise tranquil proceedings, which we quite like, and definitely adds a needed edge to the otherwise placid drift underneath. The rest of the record unwinds similarly, with the band taking the more serene and melodic elements and fusing them to strange studio misfires, and random, but fantastic bits of noisiness, tinkling looped melodies, that seems to fluctuate wildly within a field of hyperactive static, transforming a shimmery sleepy loop into a mysterious bit of crumbling crunch. They take a break on the hushed and crystal clear solo guitar outing "Reflections For Peter Green", only to slip right back into it with the nearly 10 minute "Instant Light" which was previously released on the super limited Root Strata cd-r A Path Through The Sun), a track that builds slowly, lush steel string strums drifting beneath whirling bits of distant ambience, definitely channeling the spirit of Le Voyage, but the band pile on some lush, effulgent guitar buzz, and some keening layered guitardrones, filling the sky with warm sonic streaks, while underneath the sound continues to drift along melodically, a practically perfect balance between the dreamy old and the more abrasive new, before finishing off with a brief 2 minute swirl of whirling, swirling, blurred and smeared, echo drenched new age shimmer. So good. And a bit of a sonic surprise. Which has us wondering if their next proper studio full length will find the band incorporating some of this new found, more 'difficult' audio experimentation. We sure hope so! Super limited, and packaged in a super elaborate fold out psychedelic pyramid sleeve, designed by artist Tauba Auerbach, that is easily one of the coolest things we've seen.

MPEG stream: Today & Tomorrow
MPEG stream: Spray
MPEG stream: Pink Orange
MPEG stream: Easy Action
MPEG stream: Until Tomorrow

The latest from Bay Area new-kraut-folk-age combo Alps, finds the band sounding more�high fidelity than ever, and more kraut than folk, which in both cases suits them big time. For those new to Alps, a rundown of several members should help give you an idea of where their sound is coming from: our very own Scott Hewicker (Troll), Alexis Georgopoulos (Arp, formerly of Tussle) and Jefre Cantu (Tarentel, Colophon, J.C. Ledesma). But Alps is definitely more than the sum of its parts, their sound is quite varied, expansive, even epic at times, but simultaneously, they manage to craft a sound simple and solid, based as much on rhythm and texture as on song and melody. On past releases, Alps were a much more ramshackle concern, which at the time was definitely a big part of their sound, and thus set them firmly amongst the lo-fi cd-r drone folks scene, their sound a sort of ghostly Appalachia, mixed with longform drone music, muddy muted ambience, minimal soundscaping and plenty of lo-fi buzz and hiss much of the record mired in a corrosive murk, that only added to their dark dronelike vibe. The move to Type Records, coincides, perhaps not coincidentally, with a sonic shift, where once was abstract and low fidelity, is now rhythmic, and propulsive, looped and repetitive, and most importantly, glistening and glimmering, the sound crystal clear, and this time the dreaminess doesn't come from poor recording, it comes from the compositions, and the arrangements, and a super nice sounding recording courtesy of Phil Manley of the Champs and Trans Am. The core members of Alps also have a keen interest in new age music. Not the Deep Breakfast sort of schlock that most seem to equate with the genre, but instead more the sort of inner space, dreamy drift of Tangerine Dream, Deuter, Steve Hillage and the like. And those sounds are all over III as well. The opener is a gorgeous looped soundscape of repetitive guitar figures, and glistening chimes, almost like a dreamfolk Steve Reich, bits of Appalachia, big buzzing synths, strummed zithers, a gorgeous melancholy melody played out over the course of five and a half minutes. The second track finds the band getting their kraut on, channeling Neu! Or Agitation Free but through a much more washed out and weary space rock, like Hawkwind gone new age. Distant drifting vocals, all manner of layered buzz, distorted guitars buried in the mix, space-y FX, very tranquil and mesmerizing. The follow up "Cloud One" finds Alps revisiting their folk roots, taking strummed acoustic guitars, and simple piano, and draping them over a woozy melody and a super spare abstract rhythm. "Trem Fantasma" is a barely there whisper of spaced out dronemusic, Gloriously wreathed in musical mystery, drifting piano, fragmented guitars, some soft sixties 'ladada' vocals, another dreamy drifter that threatens to spirit the listener away to some sun dappled green grassed knoll. "Labyrinths" is another new age / krautrock meander, washed out and shimmery, the drums the only thing keeping the rest of the song from just floating away, playful melodies, that sound like Perry and Kingsley rendered in shades of grey. The next few tracks are more abstract, sounds swooping in and out, rhythms, if there are any, buried beneath soft layers of sound, everything hushed and minimal, until album closer, "Into The Breeze", which sounds just like the title would have you imagine, breezy, soft focus, the drums, simple and stripped down, shimmering steel string guitar, that ever present piano, the melody wistful, the production hazy and a little woozy, effects swirling in the background, the drums gradually becoming more and more tripped out, before fading out completely, leaving just the guitar and the piano to drift heavenward, through a field of soft shimmer and the glistening afterglow of the sounds that came before. The more we listen to III, the more obvious the new age-isms become, which is not a bad thing at all, it wraps the proceedings, no matter how krautrocky or folky or droney, in a sweet swirl of moonlit dreaminess, turning each song into its own sort of otherworldly mesmer. LIMITED TO ONLY 400 COPIES ON VINYL!!!!! (& the compact disc version is coming soon, but not out yet...)

MPEG stream: A Manha Na Praia
MPEG stream: Hallucinations
MPEG stream: Cloud One

From the looks of the felt pen scrawled disc artwork you might be expecting some Wolf Eyes, Black Dice or Lightning Bolt sweaty dirge-noise bursts, but The Alps go in the opposite direction, offering up glistening meditative soundscapes well-suited to gazing at frosty mountain peaks such as those of their namesake. Makes more sense when you discover that The Alps are Scott Hewicker (Troll), Alexis Georgopoulos (Tussle) and Jefre Cantu (Tarentel, Colophon, J.C. Ledesma), doesn't it? Squeaky clarinets and alien flute toots melted into whirls of swish and whoosh, all laid over ominous drones and instrument hum and tape hiss. Quite beautiful. And as with many cd-r releases, quite limited!

MPEG stream: Tintinnabulations

Gorgeous reissue of two long out of print cd-r's from Bay Area abstract drone drift outfit The Alps, featuring AQ staffer Scott Hewicker (Troll), Alexis Georgopoulos (Tussle) and Jefre Cantu (Tarentel, Colophon, J.C. Ledesma), who together weave breathtaking expanses of blissed out shimmer and glistening meditative soundscapes well-suited to gazing at frosty mountain peaks such as those of their namesake. The Alps explore mysterious worlds of haunting folky foresty freeform loveliness, trafficking in dark dreamy wonder, disembodied strains of some lost Appalachia float weightless in a dusky forest of murky mumbly ambience, while muted guitars and stumbling tribal drumming swirl and sway amidst delicate tendrils of creepy ghostly falsetto croon and swoon. Elsewhere, deep pools of shimmering cymbal wash sparkle and glimmer, the sky above a moonlit smear of ethereal electronic effervescence, all run through with streaks of subtle melody. Squeaky clarinets and alien flute toots melt into whirls of swish and whoosh, all laid over ominous drones and instrument hum and tape hiss. Think The Wickerman meets Jewelled Antler or Neu! played at 16rpm broadcast through a moss covered speaker on the bottom of the sea, or the sound of the Northern Lights, recorded onto a wax cylinder and played back through a shortwave radio, while a boy on a nearby rooftop hurls broken cymbals into the drained swimming pool next door, the entire thing subtly underpinned by the relentless throb and pulse of rain dripping on upended plastic garbage cans. So good. The only drag here is that the label decided to leave off one of our favorite tracks, the final number on Spirit Shambles, fearing its lo-fi sprawl and clatter didn't fit in with the Alps' lush ambience and moonlit glimmer, which is precisely why it worked so perfectly. Oh well, to hear what we're talking about you just might have to do some internet searching or late night eBaying, but don't let that deter you from picking this up, even minus that burst of corrosive murk, you'd be hard pressed to find a lovelier batch of shambling sonic swoon... Packaged with all new artwork in a cool, sleek oversized digipak style folder.

MPEG stream: Tintinnabulations
MPEG stream: O Wind
MPEG stream: Bird With The Crystal Plumage

Full length number four from these Bay Area kosmische krautfolk visionaries, the sound on Le Voyage (aka IV) the perfect extension of the soundworld they created on 2008's III, and perhaps their most fully realized record thus far, as the band have developed from lo-fi drone and ramshackle free folk, abstract Appalachia and dreamy dronemusic, to something much more measured and sonically subtle, still consisting of many of the same basic elements, yet somehow more haunting and delicate, and occasionally exploring heavier more rhythmic territory. Part of this new expanded sound is the fact that the core trio, our very own Scott Hewicker (Troll), Alexis Georgopoulos (Arp, formerly of Tussle) and Jefre Cantu (Tarentel, Colophon, J.C. Ledesma), is augmented by some serious guests, who contribute tamboura, pedal steel, bass guitar and field recordings to the already impressive (and occasionally baffling) list of sonic implements: palm guitar, 12 string acoustic guitar, Moogerfooger delay, mountain drums, electric clouds, Mini Moog synthesizer, falling piano, symphony space, radiophonic synthesizer, parabolic guitar, memory man, desert guitar, melted glass guitar and more. But don't let the bizarre instrumentation mislead, the sound here is definitely abstract and 'out there', but perhaps not as much as that list might lead you to believe. Those instruments, subtly wielded, result in something dreamy and divine, rhythmic, propulsive, and totally mesmerizing. The record begins with some crystalline Appalachian guitar, warm and sun dappled, underpinned by upper register shimmers, bits of piano, super minimal percussion, and some gorgeous pedal steel that gives the track a sweeping, wide open space vibe, the musical equivalent of laying in knee high grass, watching the clouds drift by in a cobalt blue sky. After a brief bit of jumbled psychedelic samplage, voices, horn fanfares, explosions, dinner party strings, applause, running water and random swirling FX drenched, the band get seriously krauty, with some stripped down tribal drumming, muted squalls of wah guitar, definitely dark and brooding, but as the track progresses, and various instruments join the fray, loping bass, steel string strum, all manner of melody, the track begins to glow, a smoldering almost space rock sounding work out, that sets its sights for the heart of the sun, but instead settles back to earth in a brief stretch of piano flecked drone, before launching into the next track, a dreamy slice of classic sounding psychedelic pop, all spare drumming, and chiming acoustic guitar, not to mention some rubbery basslines and more delicate piano, the second half of the track decidedly less propulsive and more washed out rainy day contemplative. After another brief respite, soundtracked by a warped collage of shortwave buzz, reverbed horns, electronic glitches, swirls of hiss and grit and a brief flurry of marital snares, "Saturno Contro" commences, a lazy, lugubrious bit of dour acoustic dreampop, laced with tinkling chimes, moaning strings, softly cinematic and quite lovely. Which leads into the records closing salvo, a three track, 20 minute fugue, that is the record's climax for sure, beginning with "Black Mountain", a piano laced buzzing raga, a gorgeous sprawling slow burn, that builds to something slightly more rhythmic, a sort of brooding chamber folk, bookended by field recordings of crickets, as if the track was merely the soundtrack for an early evening stroll through the forest. The title track is up next, a lush, loping chunk of hypnorock slowcore krautdrone drift, the drums simple and skeletal, the other instruments subtly urgent, the tone tense and intense, like the final few minutes of some space rock epic, stripped way down, slowed way down and stretched way out, still psychedelic and space-y, but more earthbound, the sound of night and day viewed in time lapse, flowers opening to the sun, and then folding back up to shut out the dark, the shadows rushing across the ground, the sky and ever shifting prismatic expanse, dark and emotional and gorgeous, eventually fading into the buzzing final track, another hazy druggy raga, thick layered buzz wrapped around a simple propulsive bassline, the song building bit time, the drums crashing, the various tones and sounds seeming to blossom like miniature supernovas, the various elements bleeding into one another, a lush cloud of swirling buzzing bliss, that could go on forever, but instead, crumbles into a fractured dubby outro before blinking out completely. A perfectly realized hybrid of krautrock, new age, raga, Appalachia, dronefolk, an ever shifting expanse of cinematic sound, a pop music redefined and reinterpreted as something much more esoteric, hauntingly beautiful, and darkly mysterious.

MPEG stream: Drop In
MPEG stream: Crossing The Sands
MPEG stream: Le Voyage
MPEG stream: Telepathe

SF's The Alps (featuring our very own Scott Hewicker) returns with their second full length of haunting folky foresty freeform loveliness. Featuring members of Tarentel and Tussle, the Alps traffic in dark dreamy wonder, disembodied strains of some lost Appalachia float weightless in a dusky forest of murky mumbly ambience, while muted guitars and stumbling tribal drumming swirl and sway amidst delicate tendrils of creepy ghostly falsetto croon and swoon. Elsewhere, deep pools of shimmering cymbal wash sparkle and glimmer, the sky above a moonlit smear of ethereal electronic effevescence, all run through with streaks of subtle melody. Think The Wickerman meets Jewelled Antler or Neu! played at 16rpm broadcast through a moss covered speaker on the bottom of the sea, or the sound of the Northern Lights, recorded onto a wax cylinder and played back through a shortwave radio, while a boy on a nearby rooftop hurls broken cymbals into the drained swimming pool next door, the entire thing subtly underpinned by the relentless throb and pulse of rain dripping on upended plastic garbage cans. The final track however veers into much stranger territory, but somehow still sounds very Alps. An ultra lo-fi, pagan freakout, creepy and muddy and druggy, blown out drumming, bizarre animalistic vocalisations, all seemingly captured on a hand held microcassette recorder. Weird. But very cool. LIMITED TO ONLY 150 COPIES!!!!!

MPEG stream: O Wind
MPEG stream: Bird With The Crystal Plumage

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

SORRY.

Finally, the first two records from stoner rock heavies Altamont, originally released as cds on Frank Kozik's Man's Ruin label, and LONG out of print (as in 15+ years), have been rescued, resurrected and reissued by the fine folks at Valley King in the form of two super limited picture discs, both sporting new eye popping Alan Forbes artwork, and sounding as good as ever. For those who might not know, Altamont features none other that Dale Crover from the Melvins, but not drumming, nope, he's the frontman, guitar and lead vocals, with the bass and drums handled by the rhythm section from Acid King! And don't be expecting any sort of Melvins style avant-sludge, or fucked up sonic experimentation either, Altamont is all about rocking, much like Acid King in fact, but less sludge and more Southern, stoner style hard rock, you heard us, Southern stoner rock, big riffs, big drumming, drawled vox, plenty of hooks, lots of wah wah, some groovy shred too, we're often reminded of another favorite of ours, Raging Slab, which is most definitely a good thing. All that said though, all those years in the Melvins couldn't help but rub off, so there are plenty of Melvins-y moments, but generally like the popper Melvins moments, given a seriously Southern twist. 1998's Civil War Fantasy probably freaked Melvins vans out big time, but anyone into big, distorto riffs, and slithery almost Sabbathy grooviness, this stuff slays, and you might not even recognize the Hendrix cover ("Ezy Rider") if you didn't know the song already, which should give you an idea of the sound, and yeah, fear not, there's plenty of cowbell too! But it's really about the riffs, and the songwriting, both of which are pretty top notch, and we had sort of forgotten how good this stuff was, but hearing it again all these years later, we're digging it heavily! 2001's Our Darling is more of the same, plenty of swampy slither and big riff churn, if anything, it might be a bit heavier than the first, with Crover confidently slinging that axe like he wasn't actually a drummer, kicking out the jams, and unleashing some seriously shred throughout, and again, the Melvins influence pops up throughout, maybe a bit less subtly than on Civil War Fantasy, but still it's all Crover and crew, and their twisted world of southern rock, and there are covers this time around too, Johnny Thunders' "Pirate Love" and Mose Allison's (by way of The Who) "Young Man Blues", and again, like on Civil War Fantasy, you might not know they were covers, since they fit so perfectly with the rest of the Altamont originals, although the B-side does feature one particularly trippy stretch of abstract psychedelic drone-y drift, but it's surrounded on both sides by plenty more Southern psychedelic blooze rock stomp. Each picture disc is limited to 500 copies, both feature all new artwork by Alan Forbes, and each comes housed in a stickered, heavy PVC plastic sleeve.

MPEG stream: Civil War Fantasy
MPEG stream: Ezy Rider
MPEG stream: Bitch Slap

Brand new blast of shit kicking heavy rock from this local outfit, who have been pretty much out of action for close to a decade. But this new two-fer on local label Valley King finds Altamont in fine form, fronted as always by none other than Dale Crover from the Melvins, stepping out from behind the drum kit to strap on an axe and man the mic. He's backed up by Joey Osborne, from another bunch of local stoner heavies, Acid King, along with Dan Southwick, also of Acid King, and they're joined this time around by Coady Willis from Big Business and the Melvins, and Toshi Kosai, also of Big Business. And yeah, this is the first new music from Altamont since 2005, but it almost sounds like the first new music since, say, 1978!! Total hard rocking classic rock a la AC/DC, Blue Oyster Cult, etc., with a bit of extra noise rock heft, but really, "Mrs. Creech" could be some long lost seventies B side from some super obscure hippie heavies, sounding a bit like the Melvins covering Skynrd, distorted vocals over some serious Southern rock style heaviness, complete with a cool, weird feedback/harmonic solo. It's not hard to imagine some sixteen year olds parked behind the 7-11, drinking beer, making out, car doors open, tape decks cranking this jam right here. And then on the flip, they tackle a Blue Oyster Cult classic, which if you weren't sure already where these guys are coming from, well, there's no doubt now, and they do it pretty straight, total seventies hard rocking radness... Super limited as usual, with awesome Alan Forbes cover art. Swank silk screened sleeves, each one hand signed and numbered by Forbes, and each single includes a sticker as well.

Melvins drummer Dale Crover's side band, where he straps on a six string and does his southern rock, '70s stoner thing. The Altamont trio also includes a member of Acid King. Their last album had a Hendrix cover, this time they do one by the Heartbreakers, and a Mose Allison by way of The Who tune, among their retro originals.

Here it is, the third and final installment in Valley King's picture disc lp Altamont reissue campaign, resurrecting all three, long out of print full lengths from these guys, a groovy, stonery, Southern rock style outfit, fronted by none other than Dale Crover, drummer for the Melvins. In Altamont, though, he's on lead vocals and guitar, and while this stuff was pretty removed from the sound of the early Melvins records, as the Melvins got more melodic and poppy and more classically rocking, their sound weirdly started drifting closer to that of Altamont. But don't be expecting any sort of Melvins chug and churn, Altamont is way more straight ahead, a little Sabbath, a little Molly Hatchet, maybe a little Skynyrd, to these ears a good comparison might be NY Southern rockers Raging Slab. Originally released in 2005 on AntAcidAudio, The Monkee's Uncle fits pretty perfectly alongside the other two Altamont releases, 1998's Civil War Fantasy and 2001's Our Darling, the same sort of swaggery hard rocking riffs, gruff bellowed vox, plenty of fuzz, pretty psychedelic too. The Monkee's Uncle sounds a little bit more punk though too, the vocals slipping into something more sneering, scowling, snotty, the music as well, a bit more frenetic and frantic, culminating in a killer cover of "In A Better World" by legendary Cali punks The Screamers, replete with buzzing new wave synths. That said, the bulk of the record is still solidly hard rock, loads of stonery groove, big riffs, blasts of distorto chug, some wild shred here and there, and in places, the sound does in fact reference later Melvins, check out the title track or "The Bloodening", both of which could have found their way onto a Melvins record proper. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, featuring new eye popping Alan Forbes cover art, and housed in a stickered, heavy PVC plastic sleeve.

MPEG stream: Frank Bank
MPEG stream: Dum Dum Fever
MPEG stream: Laughing Boy

It's always a little weird when a sound becomes cool, or hip, and suddenly the bandwagon is groaning under the weight of a million bands doing their very darnedest to cash in, to bask in even a little sliver of that reflected limelight. And with the advent of Facebook and MySpace the amount of time it takes now for a new sound to proliferate and make its way to every corner of the underground as essentially been whittled down from months, to weeks, to days, heck maybe even minutes. Such has been the case with the recent resurgence of interest in fuzzed out dream pop and eighties synth wave, cold wave, dark wave, all the various retro waves, besides the now hundred of new bands popping up every few weeks, it's even gotten to the point where Built To Spill recently re-recorded a bunch of their songs transforming their jangly indie pop into eighties new wave. But heck, at least it's a sound we dig, and amidst all the chaff, there is definitely some serious wheat, we focus a lot on those groups here, bands that obviously love that sound and aren't just aping it, in some cases, it's folks who remembered it the first time around, and were reminded how much they dug it, in other cases it may be a new discovery, but it ends up revelatory, and of course there are folks who take that sound and twist it all up, just another element and influence in a swirling sea of disparate elements and influences, which seems to be the case with Altar Eagle, the project of Digitalis head honcho Brad Rose and his partner Eden Hemming (who played together previously as psych folk duo Corsican Paintbrush), whose new lp under the guise Altar Eagle, is a heady swirling morass of murky dreampop, cold wave drift, eighties style shoegaze shimmer, and post industrial pop flecked fuzz, and is truly divine, but more importantly, manages to sound wholly original amidst a glut of bands attempting to create something similar. Opener "Battlegrounds" with its bubbly propulsive beat, hazy vocal harmonies, and swirls of soft focus synth fuzz, definitely set the stage, for a sort of drugged out lazy afternoon fuzz pop drift, not all that far removed from Beach House, Mazzy Star, Cocteau Twins, Galaxie 500 and the like, but these two keep piling on the layers of buzz, letting the synths whirl and hum, the voices (and pretty much everything else) swaddled in reverb and echo, almost like some eighties classic slowed way down and doused in effects. "Honey" is similarly fuzzy and poppy, the boy/girl vocals pulled straight from some eighties C64 single, but settled amidst something much more modern, a stuttery rhythm and a tangle of warm liquid synths. "You Lost Your Neon Haze" might be the 'hit' if bands like this actually had hits, with its looped mesmerizing rhythm, gnarled electronic backdrop, and buried in the murk vocals, a gorgeous chunk of smoldering slowcore, barely audible through the washed out dreamlike haze. Although a few tracks later, there's "Monsters", a total gloom pop anthem, like Cold Cave's "Life Magazine", that sounds ripe for someone to snap up and toss in a hip commercial. Swirling synths, a propulsive beat, a killer hook (still buried under layers of fuzz and buzz) a crazy catchy chorus, with some awesome ooohs and ahhs background vox. And so it goes, the rest of the record unfurling like some sort of drugged out hazy sonic fever dream, eighties pop transported to the nineties, leaving a twisted spray of swirling shimmering gloomy new wave doom pop contrails in its wake, warm and woozy and daydreamy, and easily one of the best things we've heard in this new wave craze of retro synth wave dream pop. WAY recommended.

MPEG stream: Battlegrounds
MPEG stream: You Lost Your Neon Haze
MPEG stream: Monsters
MPEG stream: Pour Your Dark Heart Out

When you imagine a tribute to Austrian apocalyptic industrial / militaristic folk legends Der Blutharsch, you might not imagine it being black metal by way of Italy and the Netherlands, but that's precisely what transpired way back in 2005, when Italian black metallers Altar of Perversion and Dutch BM horde Mordaehoth each offered up their own sonic homage to DB, each taking up a side of the record with their own twisted take on DB's already twisted blackened sounds. While that slab of vinyl disappeared before we could manage to get a single copy, it's now been released on cd, with the original tracks from the 10", but with the added bonus of SEVEN Der Blutharsch tracks, over thirty minutes of grim grey sonics, the sounds which ostensibly inspired these blackened reworkings. Altar of Perversion are up first, with a sprawling 11 plus minute epic, that blurs the line between lurching doomic creep, and frenzied black blast, the sound raw and lo-fi, the guitars murky and droney, the track a lumbering dirge for the first little bit, melancholic and depressive, the sounds seem to bleed and ooze, sometimes slipping into killer droned out stretches of blurred buzz, before slipping back into that doomy trudge. It's not really until maybe half way through that things get really black and buzzy, but even then, the production is so warped, brittle and weirdly spare, that it retains that doomy energy of the first half, while wedding it to blasting beats and soaring fast picked majestic melodies. Eventually the sound does explode into a more standard blasting blackness, still, the sound retains a sort of seasick lurch that lurks just below the surface. Hard to say if it's a cover, or just a song dedicated to the mighty DB, but either way, it definitely exudes the same sort of black energy. Mordaehoth take up three tracks, starting off with what sounds like some wartime radio recordings, only to launch right into it, weaving pagan flute like melodies into an almost punky sounding crush, clean vocals add to the pagan vibe, lulling us into thinking there won't be much blackness until the song darkens considerable, the vocals transformed into a sinister demonic croak, the music following suit, blasting and buzzing, only to return to that opening lilting shuffling blackened folk. The second track is a bit more dirgey, and simultaneously more majestic, soaring melodies, over crumbling distorted riffage, buried lo-fi drumming, but it's the third track where the Der Blutharsch homage becomes way less subtle, after starting out with a blast of growled buzzing blackness, the song slips into a more folky buzzy sort of cadence, which is soon joined by a distorted voice, sounding like some sort of militaristic sloganeering, over loudspeakers, before the band explodes into some serious churning black buzz, still accompanied by those voices, transforming the black metal into an almost military sounding march, and then the metal is peeled away leaving, some old scratchy military propaganda record spinning, then what sounds like some super dramatic footage from a war film, all ominous horns and more mysterious voices. Pretty goddamn great. easy to imagine this is what DB might sound like if they were black metal. But then come the DB tracks, worth it for the price of admission alone even if you're not into black metal, unclear if these tracks are exclusive, but they are fantastic, brooding and dramatic, haunting and cinematic, deep spoken vocals, all manner of samples, martial snares, woozy ominous strings, warped swirling black ambience, wheezing industrial crunch, blurred blackened melodies, darkly rhythmic apocalyptic folk, Caretaker-like fuzzy, faded atmospheric drift, mysteriously cinematic soundscapes, raga like drones, and of course plenty of military marches, snippets of propaganda films, all woven into DB's gorgeous, barren, blackened soundworld. Gorgeous packaging too, all black on black and extremely subtle. LIMITED TO 999 COPIES.

MPEG stream: Untitled
MPEG stream: Untitled
MPEG stream: Untitled
MPEG stream: Untitled

A couple years ago, we discovered a musical gem someone had dropped by the store which had sat unnoticed for awhile until it finally caught the eye of AQ staffer Andrew. It was a double cd-r set of coldly seductive improvised instrumental synthscapes called Tripping The Dark Fantastic, by a little known five member group from Scotland called Altres. Most of their music was recorded in 1983-84 and released in limited cassette runs. The band went on hiatus in '85 but has since reformed 17 years later! We described the group's sound like this: "Altres manage to recall some of the best things throughout the history of electronic music as well as some of the hazier realms of rock n' roll (their website lists Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Philip Glass, Throbbing Gristle, Faust, the Doors, and the Church as influences; at various times we also picked up on Cluster, Heldon, Popul Vuh, and Zombi's coked out disco side), but the end sound is clearly their own. The songs effortlessly ooze deep, krauty melodies with a sustained and cinematic ambience, and when they break out the drum machines things can head into high speed Moroder territory, always a good thing." After we reviewed it, we ended up selling a ton of 'em. Well, that review was noticed by Dark Entries label head honcho and aQ pal Josh Cheon, who became a fan and got in contact with Altres, and now 30 years after the band was formed they finally have made their vinyl debut! Archives selects seven of the best tracks from their five cassette releases. For those thinking there may be a lot of overlap between this record and the 2cd-r set, fear not. There is in fact only one song, "Icefield" that's on both releases, which we initially described as a darkly unsettling interlude that makes you think of, yes, ice fields, and probably some foreboding windowless compound as well. Coming at the end of side one, it's a great connecting piece between the two sides, showcasing the rest of the killer new-to-us material. It's really quite special to see some attention being paid to this ambitious but short-lived group, who managed to sound both cold and melodic, cinematic and claustrophobic, robotic and utterly human. The sheer array of equipment used on these recordings is staggering as well and enough to make any synth geek salivate: Casio MT40 Moog Prodigy, EDP Wasp, Roland SH-101, Casio VL-Tone, Korg MS20, MS50, SQ10 Poly-61, Ibanez guitar and vocoder. All of the instruments are fed through various effects and echo units and yet, amazingly everything is played and recorded live - there are no overdubs - which is pretty incredible to think about as so much of their work is so complex and rich that an extraordinary amount of musicianship seems to be at play to bring forth such strong compositions. The pieces here are less minimal wave than one would expect, but instead seem to come through as a hybrid of provocative pulsating kraut-inflected atmospheres, Moroderic overdrive, a futuristic foreboding and cinematic robotic woe. We're reminded at times, of Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury's recently rejected score for the new Judge Dredd reboot, which gets played a ton in the store, especially on the second track, "Panic". Of course there's been no shortage of synth-worshippers past and present that we could compare this to, but there is something so stirringly visual about Altres' music that makes it beautifully all its own, probably stemming from the fact that when this music was made, the members didn't have a quarter of the contextual relationships with similar music and movements that we can easily nowadays connect them with. We're proud to have been instrumental in the group's rediscovery, and we hope more folks discover them because of this record. The vinyl comes housed in a neon green jacket featuring the original design from the "Rise" cassette by Mike Nelson. Each lp includes a photocopied clear acetate with unreleased photos and notes for each song. Fantastic!

MPEG stream: Everything Is
MPEG stream: Panic
MPEG stream: Ghost

A few months back we bellowed loudly about the impressive Berlin Super 80 DVD / CD compilation, which presented the parallel activities of the nascent German DIY film community and the incendiary musical scene which collectively qualified themselves as The Ingenious Dilletantes in the late '70s and early '80s, after a huge arts festival co-curated by Einsturzende Neubauten's Blixa Bargeld. Exasperated by the pressure cooked environment, the members of this very loose community which also included painters, performance artists, actors, etc. embraced an aesthetic of bleak nihilism often tinged with post-ironic absurdity. While not being featured on the musical program of Berlin Super 80, Alu was one of many bands mentioned in passing in that document, having played alongside the likes of Sprung Aus Den Wolken, Neubauten, and Malaria back in the day. Like many of those terminally obscure but often exceptional electro/post-punk projects that Vinyl-On-Demand has reissued in recent years, Alu set forth Frankensteinian, synth-punk and monotone grooves, upon which they chanted dead-pan German vocals sounding not too far from early SPK, Throbbing Gristle, or even Suicide. What's curious about Alu is not the fantastic sound of this, their only studio recording Autimenschen (which actually never saw the light of day back in the '80s, and only now has been discovered and released by the good people at C.I.P.), but in the fact that the two members of Alu also hailed from the obscure '70s Krautrock trio Sand. The morose hallucinations and sprawling psychedelia of Sand are a far cry from the tense, motorized bleakness of Alu; but nonetheless both Alu and Sand stand out as magnificent discoveries from their respective genres.

MPEG stream: Halt Dich Fest
MPEG stream: Bitte Warten Sie!
MPEG stream: Sie Kriegt Alles Was Sie Will

Finally, the first full length from these mysterious French post black metal krautrock alchemists. And if you think calling a band French post black metal krautrock alchemists might be overdoing it, you haven't hear Aluk Todolo. An offshoot of black metal horde Diamatregon (who have one record on tUMULt, and another one coming soon), this trio, just guitar, bass and drums, are most definitely alchemists, working some sort of ancient magic, turning the simplest of rock band instrumentation, into something massive and mysterious, heavy and haunting, brutal and mesmerizing, repetitive and motorik. Crafting songs, that manage to be both pieces, in the classical sense, abstract and intellectual collections and arrangements of sound, subtle shadings, tonal color and timbre, harmony and dissonance, and SONGS, in the rock sense, fucking kick ass jams, that seem to go on forever, killer riffs, and relentless head nodding rhythms, like krautrock, only heavier and darker and way way blacker. Like black metal but without all the buzz and howl, stripped down to its very essence, to just mood and rhythm, ambience and propulsion. In the review of the previous 7" we described the band's sound as: Ominous krautrock rhythms over Einsterzende style industrial clatter, some lost seventies psych rock holy grail channeled through modern post rock. Dreamy and dark and mesmerizing. Hypnotic guitar lines and simple shuffling rhythms that build into clattery propulsive jams, all clanging angular riffs and dense tangled drumming. VERY This Heat like, and reminiscent of the late great Laddio Bolocko. Some sort of dangerous and mysterious postrock / krautrock hybrid, lo-fi but thick and dense and amazingly heavy. And the full length essentially still sounds like that, but having loosed themselves from the shackles of the way too brief 7" format, the band can take all those elements, and lay them out, an epic massive post rock, krautrock, dronerock, experimental post black metal sprawl. These are the kinds of songs and sounds that need space, and time, need to lull the listener in, to entrance, ensorcel, the rhythms are stripped down and repetitive, looped and hypnotic, simple, but surprisingly and subtly complex at the same time. It's not hard to hear other hypno rockers in Aluk Todolo's sound, Circle, Salvatore and the like, but also space rock masters of repetition, Hawkwind, The Heads, and of course krautrock legends Can and Faust. Especially Can, with their focus on the power of the rhythm, no mater how seemingly simple or plain. But more than anything, it's legendary UK experimentalists This Heat whose, haunting mysterious rhythmic influence is all over Descension. The opening track is the heaviest, a brutal slab of in the red distorted riffage, the actual riffs barely discernible, more like a heaving mass of crumbling distortion and space rock FX, but the rhythms that frame the whole record are already in place, pounding steadily beneath the buzz and skree. A head nodding pulse underpinning the swirling distorted clouds above. A bracing and white hot burst of blackdronekrautpsych that has the speakers rattling for all of its 8+ minutes. But that track mostly serves as an intro to the complex and moody rhythmic sprawl that makes up the other three tracks. "Burial Ground" begins with what sounds like a slowed down This Heat rhythm track synched up to the free abstract drift of legendary seventies dronepsych collective Taj Mahal Travellers. The drums unwavering, but the background constantly in flux, swaths of black buzz, brief flurries of chaotic FX, distant low end swells, haunting fragmented melodies, a gorgeous spare kraut rock jam dropped into the abyss. "Woodchurch" is a dense wall of high end buzz, all swirling distorted hum and keening feedback, tones all tangled up, a chordal wash of tuned vacuum cleaners, a sort of Sunroof! Style urdrone, but beneath it, the simplest of bass lines, distorted and downtuned, a heartbeat like throb, only a handful of notes, just enough to tie into the even simpler drum part, just kick drum and snare, a two step tattoo, as completely mesmerizing as it us utterly simple. The background buzz, swaying and pulsing, like some massive black sea, or clouds of insects ravaging a blighted sonic landscape. The disc closes with "Disease" which opens with an ultra heavy slide guitar, unfurling a slow motion blues riff, caked in black buzz and thick distortion, the notes left to hang, ringing out until the tones slowly transform into feedback, immediately being swallowed up by the riff right behind it. It's like Robert Johnson playing SUNNO))), and then suddenly, the sound shifts, and the band reverts to its murky trawl, a thick throbbing bass line, another Can like rhythm, guitars warm and warbly, more like a layer of wet fuzz than distinct riffing, but occasionally, bits of that opening salvo return, offering up brief blasts of speaker destroying crunch, or brief bits of grinding buzz, a sudden start that almost, but doesn't quite wake you from your soporific reverie. Near the end, the distorted slide guitar returns, and drums drop out, and the track finishes with a thick coda of pealing guitar roar and shimmering chordal drone� Intense and hypnotic and heavy and fucking genius. Ritualistic sounds, both black and brilliant, pulled from the void, a mysterious and sonic netherworld. Definite contender for record of the year.

MPEG stream: Obedience
MPEG stream: Burial Ground

It's been two long years we've been waiting for this, another mysterious rhythmic communique from French blackened post krautrock alchemists Aluk Todolo. But it's not like they've been idle. Since 2007's Descension, two thirds of Aluk Todolo have recorded a record and toured the world as Gunslingers, and all of Aluk Todolo do double duty in French black metallers Diamatregon, who recently released a new full length on tUMULt called Crossroad. But as much as we love those other two bands, and we do, there will always be something magical about the strange sonic world Aluk Todolo are able to conjure up. Especially considering they're a three piece, a power trio, drums, guitar, bass. Nothing else, no synths, no strings, just the basic rock band instruments. It's testament to the power these three wield, that they can do so much with so little. Or more accurately, so little with so little. As the music of Aluk Todolo, is disarmingly simple, subtle and minimal, but in its minimalism, lies its power. The power of rhythm, of texture, of mood, these five long pieces are so evocative, so expressive and strangely emotional. Even at its most spare and skeletal, the sound is palpable, almost a physical presence, which is surprising again considering just how stripped down Finsternis actually is. Descension, Aluk Todolo's debut, was heavy and space-y and rhythmic, we described it as a buzz-less black metal, some of the songs were thick and caustic, others were loping and motorik, but on Finsternis, it's as if the band decided to strip away all the extraneous sounds, leaving just the core, the root, the heart of the music, and that heart beats out a simple, hypnotic rhythm. The record is split into 4 parts, with a brief interlude, but those four parts are split into two distinct movements. The first, which comprises the first two parts, is much of what we described above, simple skeletal rhythms, surrounded by minimal guitar whir, bursts of grinding distortion, fragmented jangle, keening feedback, but it's all about the rhythm. After a brief burst of mathy chaos, the track reverts to its initial rhythm, this time the bass more prominent, fuzzy, distorted, woozy and mesmerizing, the band locked in tight, the bass and drums solid and unwavering, while the guitar sings in the background, moaning and keening and howling, giving the track an ominous otherworldly vibe, a trudge across some hostile alien landscape, a weary, washed out deathmarch. Then the interlude, a haunting abstract percussive sprawl, simple percussive thuds set amidst a sea of warped distorted low end, bits of glitch and hiss, and grinding shards of industrial clatter, which gives way to the second, noisier movement, the drums transformed into a simple machinelike pound, snare and cymbal crashing over and over and over, the guitars whipped into a frenzy of blurred buzz and warped swirling blackened chaos, what at first sounds noisy and harsh, soon reveals itself as strangely textural, and as hypnotic as the more stripped down first movement, the guitars slip from monochromatic whir, to insectoid black metal riffing, constantly swirling around the motorik pound and pummel, the final track finds the guitars slipping into ever higher registers, blissing out, laced with feedback, smoothing out into warm smears and blurs, before a brief deconstruction, and a surprisingly tranquil last few minutes, the drums back to a woozy lope, the guitar offering up warm swells and shimmering thrum, the bass throbbing beneath, eventually stumbling to a halt in a cloud of creaking metals and static-like tape hiss. Woah. Just like Descension, Finsternis is an intense and emotional journey through sound, a haunting and hard to describe exploration of rhythm, mood and texture, a slow shifting otherworld defined by This Heat, Geronimo, Laddio Bolocko, Can, Faust, accessible only via the three shadowy figures that make up Aluk Todolo, whose magic and mystery has been rendered in these glorious black rhythms. Housed in a multi panel jacket with super striking original artwork by Stephen Kasner, on the always impressive Utech label (whose other two new releases, from Gog and Olivier Dumont, we'll review on the next list, although we do have both in stock if you want 'em, and we're fairly sure you do!).

MPEG stream: Premier Contact
MPEG stream: Deuxieme Contact
MPEG stream: Totalite

The latest from aQ beloved occult rockers Aluk Todolo begins sounding like a black metal This Heat, and it only gets better from there. These metallic minimalists from France are masters at maximizing their instrumental guitar/bass/drums assault, taking what most bands uses to make some regular old rock and roll, and instead weave lush, elaborate rhythmscapes, unleash throbbing sprawls of textured and nuanced noise, create math-metal in the guise of dark psych, and conjure psychedelic krautrock in the form of barely harnessed black buzz. Like on previous releases, the music here is less about songs and more about movements, and movement - fiendishly deft arrangements of sound, like miniature black symphonies. It's hard to articulate just what Aluk Todolo do, cuz honestly it's kind of difficult to even understand it. From a purely sonic standpoint, all analysis and deep digging set to the side, the music is pure, organic, and emotional. It's dark, but not theatrically, or even introspectively, so. It's a constantly shapeshifting musical chimera, seemingly always more than what it seems, moody and mesmeric, melodic and measured, unhinged and chaotic, heavy and hellish, delicate and abstract, jazzy and atmospheric. The drums are just as often used to create textures as they are rhythms, while moments surface throughout that sound like some lost Goblin soundtrack, sometimes morphing into a brief moment of almost Van Halen worthy riffery, other times blurring into tension filled stretches of blackened mesmer. Some tracks sound like Australian jazz minimalists the Necks covering Motorhead, some sound like Godspeed You Black Emperor tripping on acid and amphetamines, the moody broodiness of that group whipped up into a cloud of pulsing, chaotic black energy. This record in particular is their least metal so far, and maybe the jazziest, the drums are in constant motion, with frenzied skitter giving way to abstract shuffles, the bass too, no simple basslines, dense tangle and knots of sound, the rhythm section somehow impossibly, inhumanly tight, yet totally loose at the same time, balancing on a razor thin line between composition and collapse, and it's the constant push and pull that makes every moment fraught with energy and emotion, passion and pathos. And that's not to say there is no metal, the band effortlessly rip into jagged shards of downtuned crush, and furious frenzied riffing without batting an eye, but contextually, those moments seem to be more about evoking a certain feeling, or reaching a certain musical destination, but with the idea that this whole record, and arguably this whole band, is entirely and utterly about the journey. Every song here could be stretched out forever, and as a listener, we would not hesitate to let ourselves get sucked in, and LISTEN forever. And ever. The energy of Aluk Todolo is transcendental, a concept that if removed from sound would seemingly exist beyond human comprehension, but here, delivered as pure, instrumental, sonic energy, it takes on a form we understand, and fundamentally enjoy, a sound that touches on many other sounds near and dear to our hearts, and souls, but it's the arrangement, the composition, the delivery, the power, the depth, the ineffable otherworldliness that transforms this divine musical message from the great beyond, into something that speaks directly to us, in a language we all understand.

MPEG stream: 8:18
MPEG stream: 5:01
MPEG stream: 5:34

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

SORRY.

AQ has been all Gibbons Brothers all the time lately. First these Bardo bros hit us with maybe the best record yet from their main band Bardo Pond, Ticket Crystals, which has stayed in seriously heavy rotation all summer long. Then we got floored by Alaeshir, another of their many side projects, that one a sort of headbanging rock meets daydreaming bliss-out. And then Vapour Theories with its droning sax and psych guitar offerings, AND a super limited ultra kick ass live Bardo Pond release on Archive, and now... --pause to catch breath-- this two track, 40 minute disc of deep in the forest ethno-drones, drenched in buzz and shimmer. Sitar, guitar, cumbas and all sorts of percussion create exquisite layers psych drone Nirvana that will transport you to another dimension. Strangely peaceful, the music we hear in our heads when we lay in grass at night staring at the stars. So very nice!

MPEG stream: Principium I
MPEG stream: Green Lion

The most calm and serene of the four Bardo Pond related lps from Important, Alumbrados documents the mystic explorations of John and Michael Gibbons through the hazy scope of loosely arranged cosmic atmospheres and acoustic psychedelic ethno-droones. Though it probably goes without saying, Monochord reaches out from the deep ringing center of an ancient gong, sending soaring tones of bowed acoustic guitar, buzzing sitar, and ritual percussion high into the midnight sky. A short step away from the driving, more rockin' sound of their Alasehir project, Alumbrados shimmers with the distant glow of woodland lanterns and dreamy grasslands, all effortlessly sculpted into a somber raga-esque drone masterpiece. Calm acoustic finger picking in the distance, ritualistic percussion thumping away, all drenched in an eastern wash of buzzing strings and far off flutes. Limited to 500 copies, this one will be gone in no time, so pick it up while you still can!

Soft, sleek pop that harkens back to '70s AM radio as well as '60s space age lounge-y flair. Aluminum Group is primarily brothers Frank and John Navin, however on this release the band roster is a veritable orchestra of 19 members including Chicago starlets John McEntire, John Herndon, Doug McCombs, Rebecca Gates, Rob Mazurek, and Jeff Parker. Bubbly synths fizz and flutter amid Mangione-esque horns and crisp percussion while the suave gent croons in dulcet tones that bring to mind ELO, the Moody Blues, the Alan Parsons Project or more recently Kings Of Convenience. Occasional female vocals add an extra prettiness to the already glistening proceedings. That said, they may be from the Midwest but their music sounds as though it's coming to you from some euro jetset club - maybe having a nightcap with Air, the Style Council and Burt Bacharach. Laidback and smooooth! And there's more to come, apparently this is the first installment of an Aluminum Group trilogy.

RealAudio clip: Kid
RealAudio clip: Stroke

With a name that recalls Stereolab and a bunch of guest appearances from indie-cred names like Jim O'Rourke (sickly-sweet avant-pop production, guitars, piano, etc), Sean O'Hagan (High Llamas dude on banjo), Sally Timms (Mekons vocalist doing backing vocals), Edith Frost (also on backing vocals), and Doug McCombs (from Tortoise adding his 6 string bass), this Chicago band brings together the corniest aspects of Eno, Steely Dan, the High Llamas, and the Sea & Cake into a cute pop album.

Hey didn't Stereolab already apply a heavy dollop of Os Mutantes-style Tropicalia to their aloof space age bachelor pad sounds? In case you need to hear more of the same, here's the second album from Chicago's Aluminum Group, complete with a Laetitia impersonator.

This mysterious all-female avant-chamber-rock trio from Florida, who wowed discerning attendees with their performance at the '98 Terrastock II, and who released their first album on John Zorn's Avant label, make their return with this disc of strange and wonderful songs. Perhaps this could be described as mostly instrumental, almost Carl Stalling-like cartoon classical music combined with improv and no-wave. Unique and excellent.

Here's the much anticipated cd reissue of this way-too limited Alvarius B album which came and went on vinyl in a matter of days early in 2011. Alvarius B is the solo project of Alan Bishop, better known as one of the Sun City Girls - a project which dissolved after over twenty years following the death of drummer and fellow provocateur Charles Goucher. The Girls (a trio rounded out by Bishop's brother Richard) were specialists in frustratingly brilliant psychedelic-punk, damaged with free jazz, Southeast Asian pop, and fucked-up beat poetry. They were notorious for their designed lack of editorial constraints in situating brilliantly over-charged weirdo-pop melodic crescendos often hybridizing the likes of Ennio Morricone and Vietnamese songwriter Trinh Cong Son next to an uncomfortably misogynistic rant from Alan Bishop's slimy Bukowski parody as Uncle Jim. Even the most die-hard Sun City Girls fans who could stomach and perhaps grow to love their confrontational affronts will undeniably say that it's Torch Of The Mystics or 303,003 Crossdressers From The Rig Veda that are the masterpieces of borderless songwriting. So with the Girls no more, where would Alan Bishop take his own work? The Sir Richard Bishop records have been uniformly brilliant in their fiery elliptical fingerpicking, exploding the Takoma handbook; and Alan has often given off the appearance of being a trickster figure, presenting himself as a minstrel with an immense emotional range only to pull back the mask to reveal a devilish, blackened heart intent on causing misery upon all who hear. With all of this as a preamble, we can say that Alan has followed where the Sun City Girls ended their career on Funeral Mariachi, with this gorgeous record in the form of Baroque Primitiva. The album is rich with covers, although an Alan Bishop cover would certainly amount to a delirious transfiguration. The man has long been obsessed by Ennio Morricone, and this expertise has been applied to some of the best compendiums of Morricone's best work during the '60s and '70s. And 6 of the albums 12 songs are attributed to Morricone, or "Maestro Padre Supremo" as Bishop describes him in the liner notes. These songs enjoy the lilting yet complex melodies that Morricone had been so known for, with Bishop crooning all of the wordless oohs and ahhs that Morricone had originally penned for a female vocalist. Bishop has long been known for his ability to hit sharp falsettos in the Girls. Even though he does bend many of the notes towards atonality, he is quite reverential towards the Morricone text. In fact, the contrast between Morricone's ecstatic songs and the many cracks in Bishop's deliberately lo-fi production (think Sebadoh's four-track recordings with just multi-tracked voice, guitar and chord organ) serves to heighten the drama of these recordings. There are a couple of Bishop originals, "Humor Police" is very much a manic carnavalesque number and "Well Known Stranger" is a classic downer jam of strum and vocal mope that sounds like it could be a lost Neil Young tune, but done way better. The two other covers on the album are also quite noteworthy: the only song to emerge from his aborted album of John Barry covers in the form of "You Only Live Twice" and one hell of jubilant romp through the Beach Boys' "God Only Knows." This is very nicely packaged in the form of a 30 page hardback book, featuring various close-ups of the nude mandala artwork photographed by Kristen Anderson, to sweeten the deal. Already proving to be one of the best albums of 2011. So don't let the cd pass you by, if you didn't have the good fortune of getting hold of the vinyl already.

MPEG stream: Well Known Stranger
MPEG stream: Funny Thing Is...
MPEG stream: God Only Be Without You
MPEG stream: Humor Police

Originally released on vinyl in 2005 on the Sun City Girls' Abduction label, Blood Operatives Of The Barium Sunset was at the time the first Alvarius B release in 7 years, a project of Sun City Girl Alan Bishop, accompanied by long time SCG accomplice Eyvind Kang as well as Randall Dunn, Tim Young and Andrew McGinnis. Alvarius B is some sort of weirdo psychedelic cabaret folk music, somewhere between Tom Waits, Nick Cave, and show tunes (?). The opener is a swampy bit of country folk, all slithery acoustic guitars, junk yard percussion, weird voices, Bishop's snarly vox, lots of buzz and tense atmospheric shimmer, and the lyrics, an over the top tale of miserable miscreants, while the second track is even more Tom Waits-ish, a piano ballad, haunting and melancholy, distorted and creepy, over a chorus of nighttime crickets, as if Bishop was set up on the porch of some old house on the edge of a black swamp. From there on, the sound slips into a strange lilting doom folk, Kang's viola, moaning over some atonal strum, and Bishop ranting like a madman. Deep chanted vocals draped over jagged acoustic guitar, a distant choir competes with some strange grunting, jaw harp, moody hushed vocals drift over a latticework of spidery steel string buzz, super dramatic and over the top, helps that that one is actually a cover, a piece by Italian horror soundtrack composer Fabio Frizzi, lyrics of course courtesy of Bishop. Which is what turns it into something much sicker and more hauntingly demented than even Frizzi could have ever imagined. They also tackle a Morricone track, and a traditional, but it hardly matters, Bishop and company make the songs their own, transforming them into oozing, misanthropic swamp folk dirges, creepy, and funny, and fucked up, exactly what you'd expect from one of the Sun City Girls, an aural roadtrip through the hellish mind of a madman, a lost world of run down houses, bleak swampland, of destitution and despondency, but viewed through a serious cracked lens, that makes even the most dismal and brutal and miserable situations and characters seem endlessly fascinating and mysterious. Awesome stuff, essential for Sun City Girls obsessives of course, but maybe a bit TOO out there for the general population, which is precisely what makes this so awesome. LIMITED TO 150 COPIES!!!

It goes without saying that the Sun City Girls often exhibit splashes of hallucinatory brilliance throughout their pseudo-eastern psychedelia mashed with cinematic grandeur and way-fucking-far-out esoterica, but at the same time, the Girls have a bad habit of releasing way too much meanderingly psychotic material that definitely tries the patience of even the most die-hard SCG fan. Curiously enough, the smattering of solo recordings from the Bishop brothers, Sir Richard Bishop and Alvarius B (aka Alan Bishop), have managed to avoid the failings of some of the SCG recordings. The reissue of the first Alvarius B record clearly demonstrates this (as well as the 2005 vinyl-only record Blood Operatives Of The Barium Sunset). Recorded between 1981-1989, many of Alan's severely mangled folk-songs are curiously prescient of the current flourishing of acid folk fingerpicking. At the same time, these fucked-up lo-fi indie-spluttering instrumentals sound like an excessively complex Sebadoh tune played by one guy with a tuneless guitar. Either way you look at it, here's one of the great recordings from one of the Bishop brothers. It went out of print quickly the first time it was released on vinyl back in 1994. We hope it won't happen again.

MPEG stream: Track 3
MPEG stream: Track 11

One of the remnants from Record Store Day 2014. Each of the Bishop brothers from the Sun City Girls gets a side of vinyl to bloody their knuckles on the guitar. While the cover sports a sunken portrait of Alan Bishop (aka Alvarius B) at the microphone with cigarette in hand, he doesn't turn up in his Uncle Jim guise. In fact, he doesn't even sing at all. His spluttering acoustic guitar instrumentals are full of piss and vinegar, taking up the violent folk-punk strum that was one of many focal points for the Sun City Girls as well as much of his Alvarius B output. Richard Bishop offers a set of his cocksure flamenco-meets-Egyptian acoustic guitar solos of effortless esotericism and beguiling mastery of his instrument. Just a few left.

Cerberus Shoal wrote a song. Alvarius B wrote a couple songs. All in all, three songs were written. between 1996 and 2002, Alvarius B, who is Alvin Bishop from the Sun City Girls, recorded his two songs and the Cerberus Shoal song and Cerberus Shoal, who do their droney folky collective thing with lots of instruments from all over the world way out there in Maine, recorded their song and the two Alvarius B songs. Ok, so that's the story of how this second installment in North East Indie's series of splits came to be (first was " The Whys and Hows of Herman Dune and Cerberus Shoal," upcoming splits in the series will include Magic Carpathians and Guapo). This pairing seems natural; past AQ reviews have compared Cerberus Shoal with Sun City Girls, and each person / group's style suits the songwriting of the other one very nicely. Alvarius B brings warm lo-fi acoustic guitar and vocals; Cerberus Shoal's musical universe, not so overtly "ethnic" here as on some of their other recordings, is populated by banjos, clattering typewriter percussiveness, and a uniquely droll vocal delivery. Both Cerberus Shoal and Alvarius B contribute darkly surreal lyrical imagery, alternately plaintive and fucked-up, contributing to a psych-folk sound that manages to be simultaneously blackly comic and genuinely moving. MPEG Download: CERBERUS SHOAL "The Real Ding" [/audio/cerberusshoalrealding.mp3] MPEG Stream: CERBERUS SHOAL "The Real Ding" [/audio/cerberusshoalrealding.m3u]

MPEG stream: The Real Ding
MPEG stream: Viking Christmas

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

SORRY.

Never heard of the oddly monikered Ama-Dots? Neither had we. But apparently this experimental post punk outfit from Milwaukee, having formed in the seventies, releasing their only proper single in 1980, were poised for greatness, having opened for Captain Beefheart, Sun Ra, Gang Of Four, even the Talking Heads, but somehow these guys were WAY weirder, just check out "Luxury With Her" the first track on this lp reissue of everything the group ever recorded. It's a filthy, grimy, loping bass driven creep, all low slung bass, woozy riffage, a lurching stop/start arrangements, some angular guitar scrape, some sample baby cries (?!) and some of the coolest, creepiest female vocals EVER, a raspy sort of growly croon, it's dark and weirdly groovy, sinister and seriously tense/intense. But Ama-Dots weren't all doom and gloom, their 'hit' "Hit Girls" is all angular and frantic, with super dramatic vox, over spidery guitar melodies, and a frenetic rhythm, a super distinctive call and response chorus, the sort of female fronted punk that was in short supply, and definitely struck a chord with the girl punks. Frontwoman Boolah Hayes has the craziest voice, the music is pretty cool and weird, but when coupled with her deep raspy vocals, sometimes swopping into something super dramatic, putting on all manner of made up accents, but just as often slipping into a demonic growl or a feral bellow, transforming some of the sounds here into near metal, like some crazy female death metal vocalist found her way into an eighties post punk combo, making for some seriously kick ass, and super unique post punk, weird that this stuff has taken this long to get a proper reissue, but holy shit is this stuff great. And did we mention weird? This collects the group's only 7" release, a lost EP, as well as unreleased demos and some live material, the studio stuff recorded by the legendary Ian Burgess (Big Black, Ministry, Effigies, etc.), pressed on swirled gold vinyl, housed in a super striking jacket, and includes a full color printed insert, with rare photos, liner notes and accounts of the group from friends, fans and writers.

MPEG stream: Luxury With Her
MPEG stream: Hit Girls
MPEG stream: Love Slug
MPEG stream: So What

On local / Santa Cruz-based label Galaxia comes this supergroup of sorts. Amalgamated Sons of Rest is Will Oldham of PALACE, Jason Molina of SONGS:OHIA, and Alasdair Roberts of APPENDIX OUT. These guys have basically written the book on broken-voiced, broken-hearted, hollow-eyed, lovely back porch indie twang. A one of a kind 5-song session. Nice. Vinyl is one sided with a marine-life themed etching. CD available Sept 10, 2002.