[ 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 7601 through 7650 of 19388.

As one of the many indie-rock bands resurrecting the theatricality of the New Wave, Heart of Snow has almost perfected their mimicry of Siouxsie and The Banshees, down to the bombastic vocal delivery of Cynthia Mansourian to the phased 'n' flanged

RealAudio clip: Red
RealAudio clip: Start Carving

You would never in a million years guess that this band wasn't Swedish. And you would never guess they weren't a real metal band. I mean, they -are- a real metal band, but listening to this record, you imagine long haired Swedes banging their heads with one

RealAudio clip: God Complex
RealAudio clip: Subsiding the Floods of Indifference

Named after Miami's basketball team, or perhaps not, this heavy band of psychedelic stoners hails from Berlin, Germany, and really rip it up here on this disc, brought to us by This Charming Man Records, who also first turned us on to aQ faves Kadavar. They are very '70s sounding, in the vein of Kadavar, yep, and Witchcraft, Graveyard, and the like. Hard rockin' stuff, with vaguely Ozzy-ish vox (but not as Ozzy-ish as some bands) wailing over twin guitar jamming, lotsa bellbottomed wakka-wakka-wah-wah action, and some Hammond organ too, Heat riffing away like it's still 1973, pretty darn kick ass really. They have a melodic side to 'em too, on moody but still energetic numbers like "The Golden Age", and deploy plenty of non-lame bluesiness as well (the band features ex-members of Samsara Blues Experiment, by the way). This sort of thing is of course the result of years of study of the masters: Sabbath, Zeppelin, Lizzy, early Scorps, Wishbone Ash, etc., but besides the worship and woodshedding, you've gotta have an authentic spark, and Heat sound like they have it for real. Heat will surely warm the hesher hearts of all who've been digging the recent likes of Spiral Shades, Electric Citizen, Ovvl, Sons Of Huns, Carousel, Admiral Sir Cloudsley Shovell... man we're living in a real heavy retro rock renaissance these days!!

MPEG stream: Siamese Smile
MPEG stream: The Golden Age
MPEG stream: Barbarossa

Local label The Flenser may have started out as a straight up metal label, but lately, it seems metal has taken a back seat to all sorts of other weird sounds, and we have to say, even as metalheads, we're digging it. Elsewhere on this week's list you'll find the electro gloom pop side project of Have A Nice Life, and recently we've dug the druggy psych folk of Boduf Songs, the twisted avant cabaret of Father Murphy, the crumbling shoegaze of King Woman and now this, the debut from New Orleans post punks Heat Dust. And it's a doozy. A murky sprawl of gloomy, reverby howl and pound, all bellowed dramatic vox, slithery low slung bass, and chiming angular guitar. Plenty of riffy crunch too, at times just as heavy on the punk as the post, with a heaping dose of dark swagger energy, swirling and psychedelic, the sort of stuff that should definitely appeal to fans of Iceage, Holograms, Interpol, Savages, Cold Cave, His Electro Blue Voice, Cold Showers, Beast Milk and all that (post punk) jazz. But unlike most modern bands of this ilk, Heat Dust do more than ape the sound, they're actually pretty bad ass songwriters too, all the songs here kinda crazy catchy. We didn't really notice at first, since this is just a sound we love, but the more we listened, the more we found ourselves humming along, returning to songs we wanted to hear again, and realizing that even sans the post punk trappings, these are just goddamn great songs. Needless to say, WAY recommended for folks into this kind of thing, and for folks who aren't, this might just change your mind. Includes a download code.

MPEG stream: Nothing Left To Lose
MPEG stream: Seeking A Praxis
MPEG stream: Something For Nothing

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

SORRY.

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

SORRY.

Oh the '90s! We can't get enough of that decade these days. With the 20th anniversary of Nirvana's Nevermind upon us, and reissues of our favorite albums by folks like Archers Of Loaf, Sebadoh, and Pavement, we're remembering just how damn special and earnest so much of the music we love from that decade was. Heatmiser were one of those bands who actually didn't catch on with folks that much when they first hit the scene in 1993, but thanks to its members' other musical output, folks did finally start paying attention to them. Those members being Elliott Smith and Sam Coomes (Quasi), as well as Neil Gust (No.2). But let's be honest, it's really all about Elliott Smith. Heatmiser allowed folks to get to hear his amazing voice, and guitar playing in a much more rocking venue. And a lot of these songs, sounded like his solo songs just supercharged and punked up. And it was so good to hear Smith let loose, rock out and have fun. Mic City Sons is our favorite of Heatmiser's three albums, while their previous two albums each had some really good songs, this was the album where they seemed to really hit their stride and the songs and the players just meshed so well. Even if you take away the big names in the band, this stands as one of the best indie rock albums of the '90s! As you can tell, we're so stoked it's just been reissued on vinyl!

MPEG stream: Get Lucky
MPEG stream: Plainclothes Man
MPEG stream: Low-Flying Jets

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

SORRY.

The latest release on the Pan label comes from UK producer Steve Warwick, aka Heatsick, and continues to make the label hard to pigeonhole, with the last handful of releases running the gamut from experimental avant electronics, to minimal acoustic dronemusic, to Japanese psych, to weird non-jungle jungle, to ethno-experimental modern composition, to... well, to whatever Heatsick is. It's definitely electronic, maybe IDM, but even within those genre parameters, Heatsick's woozy eighties exotica, campy Euro-house Italo-disco and murky minimal techno hybrids confound and confuse in equal measure, fantastically we might add! The opening title track sets the scene with a big banging beat, wreathed in lots of sonic detritus, some looped breathing, plenty of squiggly squelch and disco handclaps, peppered with some Kompakt style skitter, wreathed in soft focus cascades of kosmische shimmer, groovy and psychedelic, over the top a female voice recites lines, cold and clinically, giving the song a sort of cold-wave vibe, but the music itself, replete with some spidery psych guitar, is warm, and lush, and lustrous. Laid back and chilled out, but with some serious rib cage rattling thump. But really, that's just the first track, and while there is a sonic thread that runs throughout all these songs, it's very loose, allowing the sound to drift all over the place, from the stuttery alien disco of "E-Scape", rife with chiming melodies and wobbly bass swells, to the almost calypso sounding "Mimosa", that even adds horns, making it sound like some twisted James Ferraro pastiche, but instead of being tongue in cheek, Warwick seems to be conjuring some other world, and some other time, a smokey late night, in some seedy club, in some alternate past, on some other planet. Again, the sound manages to sound exotic and psychedelic, as does most of the rest of the record, with "Clear Chanel" getting all washed out and drowsily house-y, while "Speculative" recasts Right Said Fred as something much more sinister and ominous. "Emerge" channels classic eighties pop, through a warped alternate universe discoteque, before the record winds down with the tripped out experimental coda "Accelerationista", a collage of tangled bird song, distant loudspeaker broadcasts, the rumble of wind on microphones, truly creepy, and mysterious. Like all Pan releases, the packaging is fantastic, the record housed in a clear PVC plastic sleeve, the artwork an artful arrangement of typography and iconography, over an inner sleeve adorned with a full color image of texture metal grillwork.

MPEG stream: Re-Engineering
MPEG stream: E-Scape
MPEG stream: Mimosa
MPEG stream: Accelerationista

This rare orchestral psych-folk gem finally sees the light of day, complete with bonus tracks, alternate mixes and a Christmas-themed single just in time for the holidays! Heaven & Earth were a female duo, so named for the harmonious elemental quality of their voices, one earthy, the other airy. Refuge is the lone record they made for Dick Schorry's Chicago-based Ovation Records imprint in 1973, and it's got his spacey percussive production all over it, especially in key Chicago session players, Bobby Christian on percussion and Phil Upchurch on guitar (Rotary Connection, Dorothy Ashby, Soulful Strings). The folk-funk opener "Jenny" has been on many DJ playlists including Andy Votel and was recently featured on Trish Keenan of Broadcast's final tour mixtape that was making the rounds after her untimely demise. But the whole album proper is stunning, showcasing a wistful and mystical autumnal vibe that connects the airy pop folk of Linda Perhacs, The Poppy Family, and Wendy & Bonnie to the next wave of singer-songwriters and rock groups like The Roches and Heart. We'll be playing this tons to warm us through the long cold winter. The cd features the album proper with 15 bonus and unreleased tracks pretty much containing their entire recorded output including their perhaps ill-advised attempt at heavy motorcycle rock,"Hawg For You Baby"! Also comes with two booklets of photos and liner notes and remembrances from each member. Quite beautiful and recommended!

MPEG stream: Jenny
MPEG stream: Voice In The Wind
MPEG stream: Sixty Years On
MPEG stream: A Light Is Shining

I was in Japan, in a record store and they were playing the most amazing record. I went to the counter to find out what amazing Japanese band I had discovered, and after some struggling with my poor (read: non-existent) Japanese, the clerk handed me a cd, and it ends up we were listening to a German metalcore band called Heaven Shall Burn. It's a bit silly to call this metalcore

RealAudio clip: To Inherit The Guilt
RealAudio clip: Cold

MPEG stream: Counterweight
MPEG stream: Tresspassing The Shores Of Your World

The Last Heaven Shall Burn record was one of my favorites of last year. A metalcore band that wasn't just a bunch of punk kids trying to play metal, they kicked out the metal jams better than most 'actual' metal bands. And we wouldn't have known about them Totally essential.

RealAudio clip: Behind A Wall Of Silence
RealAudio clip: The Worlds in Me
RealAudio clip: The Martyrs Blood

The sweetest of Scottish melodic confections. Amelia Fletcher and her bunch of like-minded sugar popsters offer up this ten song collection highlighted by the tune "C Is The Heavenly Option" which features a guest appearance by Beat Happening / Dub Narcotic / K Records commander Calvin Johnson. Amelia's voice flits and flutters above Calvin's deeeep monotone. For fans of the Softies, Marine Girls, and the like.

The final release from this group of Scottish sweetie-tarts lead by the cuter-than-cute Amelia Fletcher. More twee than you might be able to handle, but if you do have a super strength sweet tooth I say "Go for it!"

Following the sad demise of Tallulah Gosh and prior to forming Marine Research, perpetual girlie girl Amelia Fletcher and company were known as Heavenly, and y'know, they certainly were just that. This is a re-issue of the long out of print debut mini-album

RealAudio clip: Cool Guitar Boy
RealAudio clip: Our Love Is Heavenly

Single number two from this Beach Fossils side project, and it definitely takes up where the first one left off, jangly, handclappy, eighties dreampop, still reminding us of the Style Council, acoustic guitars, soaring strings, hazy twee vox, low slung new wave bassline, all echoey and softly reverbed, with a cool production and some interesting production tricks this time around, mostly some subtle dubbing out of the vocals. The flipside offers up more of the same, super stripped down minimal pop, but here the strings are allowed to soar, while the verses are even more hushed and subdued, lovely and lush, summery sunshiney eighties retro pop, that we're finding surprisingly addictive!

MPEG stream: Presence

Latest from this Beach Fossils side project, and another dreamy disc of eighties style new wave poppiness. And if the last few Heavenly Beat records were twee and precious, this new one might be the most yet, twee and precious that is. The opener "Lust" pretty much sets the template, all hushed wistful sad boy vox, chiming crystalline guitars, swirling ethereal synths, skittery programmed drums, all blurred into a sort of gauzey new wave jangle pop, that sounds like it could / should / would have been on Sarah or Postcard or one of those labels back in the day. We always seemed to mention the Style Council in our reviews of other Heavenly Beat records, but this time, the sound is even more delicate and soft focus, thinking that more apt comparisons might be Orange Juice, the Fire Engine, the Field Mice and the like. Really, this stuff sound so genuinely of that era, that we would have easily believed that this was in reality a long lost rarity, reissued from some super obscure Scottish twee pop band from back in the day. Which, if that's your cup of tea, makes this a seriously sweet slab of ultra-twee, new wave-y jangle pop dreaminess.

MPEG stream: Lust
MPEG stream: Messiah
MPEG stream: Faithless

A new 7"s from this Beach Fossils offshoot, and while HB traffic in that same sort of soft focus dreamy pop sound, the arrangement is much more spare and skeletal, infused with a wee bit of rhythmic skitter, a little new wave shimmer. On the A side, "Suday", that shift is almost imperceptible, it could very well be a Beach Fossils track proper, all spidery reverby guitar lines, swirling ethereal background vocals, the result sweetly melancholy and totally dream poppy. The B side, though, starts off similarly with a sort of hushed breathless retro pop (reminding us quite a bit of the Style Council in fact), but at the end of the track introduces a propulsive electronic beat, that definitely changes the vibe, and hints at something a bit more gothy and dramatic. Fans of all that retro gloom pop and new wave will dig big time. As well as folks who like their pop on the twee side...

Finally, the full length debut from this Beach Fossils side project, and it absolutely fulfills the promise of the preceding singles. It's all achingly lovely wistful softly shoegazey eighties beholden dream pop, all breathless vox, shimmery crystalline guitars, warm woozy melodies, programmed rhythms, swirling atmospheres, like a less bombastic M83. Heavenly Beat have conjured up a strangely abstract bit of eighties style pop, that deftly balances sweetly twee popsmithery with an experimental streak that can't be denied, with most of the songs taking all sorts of twists and turns, from swoonsome swirling strings, to spare abstract breakdowns, haunting processed vox, psychedelically stereo panned sounds that drift from ear to ear and speaker to speaker, bits of jangle guitar, low slung gloom pop basslines, soaring choruses. The A side from the most recent single shows up, all jangly hand clappy eighties dream pop, still very much reminding us of the Style Council, with acoustic guitars, soaring strings, dreamlike melodies, more twee vox. And while that track might be the most immediately poppy of the bunch, the whole record is brimming with unlikely poppiness, the band deftly weaving together distinctly UN-pop components into impossibly hook filled pop, shimmery and softly shoegazey, skittery and subtly new wave, the sound super dynamic, lush and lovely, and really quite weird, especially for a pop group, which is precisely what's making us dig this record so much. We have to say, of the current crop of retro-pop new wave twee poppers, Heavenly Beat is fast becoming our favorite.

MPEG stream: Lust
MPEG stream: Messiah
MPEG stream: Faithless
MPEG stream: Tolerance

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

SORRY.

For some people, J Mascis' distinctive vocal whine was a make or break element in their appreciation of Dinosaur Jr. But Mascis had more to offer than his peculiar and to us, quite endearing vocal style. He's also a serious shredder, as fans of Dinosaur Jr. no doubt appreciate. Yes, Masics is a master axeman, which brings us to Heavy Blanket. An all instrumental heavy psychedelic blooze trio, with Mascis on guitar. And while these songs are fairly sonically dissimilar to Dinosaur Jr, they do offer Mascis the opportunity to let loose, and he does, six songs, 37 minutes of full on heavy psych jams, no vocals, the rhythm section tight and not flashy, but a little shredding in their own right, locked tight into dense hypnotic grooves, which seem to be made with the express intent of letting Mascis go nuts. Fans of the endless shredding of Earthless will find much to love here, i.e. more endless shredding. And yeah, you really have to be into the sort of heart of the sun, blown out, druggy psych blowouts to get into Heavy Blanket, but then that probably describes a whole lot of you. And, fans of all that psychedelic space rock like White Hills, The Heads, Mugstar and all the rest, who just want to dispense with all the 'songs' and 'songwriting' and 'arrangements', and just get right to the endless shredding, then this is for you too, with much of this falling squarely in that sort of Hawkwindy psych-rock, droned out druggy psychedelic jam freakout zone, loping, and hypnotic, and the sort of jams, that while not technically or literally endless, sure as shit could be. Absolute space-psych-shred bliss. Thus obviously WAY recommended. (Vinyl version expected in June.)

MPEG stream: Galloping Toward The Unknown
MPEG stream: No Telling No Trails

Here's another group you can add to the current pantheon of warped, lysergic, fractured WTF outsider pop songsmiths. John Maus, Ariel Pink, James Ferraro, Gary War, please welcome Heavy Hawaii, whose sound is hazy and softly psychedelic, a little bit tropical, a little bit dream poppy, a little surfy, but a LOT twisted up and tweaked. Even at its prettiest, it sounds like the vinyl is melting while it's spinning on your turntable, your turntable which suddenly seems to have a faulty pitch control. Just give a listen to the opener, which sounds like some lost Beach Boys B-side, covered by Ariel Pink, and played back on a Fischer-Price turntable, plugged into your Walkman, you know the one with dying batteries. Detuned guitars, loping, lumbering beats, chiming melodies, woozy textures, buried loops and samples, all deftly woven into some seriously swirly sunshiney avant pop weirdness, the vocals get pitched down on a bunch of the tracks, and those might be our favorites, the vocalist transformed into some alternate universe alien crooner, belting it out over slipper squiggly melodies, distorted drumming, and warbly atonal melodies, not to mention swirls and squalls of soft noise, the songs occasionally locking into tranced out loops, other times breaking down into woozy sprawls of falling to pieces hypno-rock mesmer. Some of the tracks sound like they were recorded in a crazy karaoke dive bar, others are surprisingly hi-fi, but sound like they were recorded by someone who had no idea how to work a studio, and just twirled knobs and slid faders up and down. Dizzyingly tripped out, fantastically prismatically hooky, fuzzy, and gauzey and very very druggy and dreamy. And yet for all of its demented damage, and seemingly haphazard ramshackleness, the sound is so luch and full and layered, sounds careening everywhere, hidden melodies surfacing and then slipping back into the shadows, lots of noises transformed into rhythms, voices doused in effects and sent spinning into fields of fuzz and shimmer. Sure it's damaged and supremely fucked up, but it's also inspired, and total classic pop given a botched sonic lobotomy, and transformed into utterly divine, and impossible to resist ear candy, obviously the work of a genius. Or a madman. Probably both! Easily our new favorite WTF lo-fi weirdo pop record!!!

MPEG stream: Washing Machine
MPEG stream: Tijuana Teal
MPEG stream: Fuck You I'm Moving To San Francisco

We flipped for Heavy Times' 2011 full length Jacker, a killer collection of scuzzy, fuzzed out, jangly, noisy garage pop that somehow combined elements of the Pixies, the Ramones, and the Misfits with the current crop of garage rockers (Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, Mikal Cronin, etc.), and this time around we're hearing much of the same but somehow, the sound now is even catchier, without losing any of the grit and lo-fi grime of Jacker, just check out "Might Not", which as one of those main riffs/melodies, that pretty much seals the deal a matter of seconds into the song. Then there's the vox, which remind us a LOT of the the Grave Babies, a little bit gloomy, multi-tracked, more shouted than sung, but when paired with THAT melody, pretty tough to beat. And another one of those cases, that for a while ALL we wanted to listen to was that one song. So it took us a while to get any deeper than track two, but once we did, we discovered that there was most definitely more where that came from, from the gloomy, chuggy garage of "Night Looks", with its murky jangle, and a chorus that sounds like it could have been plucked from an alternate universe John Hughes movie, or "I'm Single" a frantic punk pop blowout that features a cool modulated melody, and more super catchy buzzing guitar, or the super brief and super punky "Future Creeps" that pairs a pounding punky verse with a weirdly twang flecked catchy noisepop chorus, or the strummy Summery garage poppy "American Love", and it goes on and on. Hozac has been on a roll lately (see elsewhere on this week's list for our review of the Shocked Minds, also on the label) and so has Heavy Times, we've been listening to this new one nonstop, and are maybe digging it even more than Jacker... now we're just hoping someone will finally reissue the first Heavy Times record, Dead. Hozac, we're looking at you!

MPEG stream: Ouija Board
MPEG stream: Might Not
MPEG stream: Night Looks
MPEG stream: Denim Girls

We had never heard (of!) these Chicago noise poppers before, but heck, their new record is on Hozac, home to the Wax Idols (reviewed elsewhere on this week's list), as well as Black Bug, Fungi Girls, Puffy Areolas, Smith Westerns, Woven Bones, Super Wild Horses and loads more, so we had good reason to expect this might be right up our alley, and guess what? It most definitely is, fuzzed out jagged guitar noise pop, equal parts classic Pixies style pop and new fangled lo-fi scuzz pop garage rock, the guitar slipping from chiming and melodic to raw and crunchy, the vocals also melodic but still rough and raw, with some crazy killer hooks, just check out the opener "Motionless Drift", 100 seconds of buzz and jangle that you won't be able to get out of your head. But then there's tracks like "Future City", which is all synthy and fuzzy, and a little bit eighties new wave pop, but revved up a bit, and transformed into something just a bit noise poppier. The title track is a minute long blast of twang flecked fuzz pop bliss, with some super hooky guitar melodies and a sing-along chorus to die for. There's definitely a Ramones vibe too, maybe some Misfits too, and a gloomy vibe that has us thinking the Wipers, and Crystal Stilts, many of the songs barely cracking the minute mark, most not making it to two, which is plenty of time for these guys to pound and buzz and howl their hearts out, a heady hybrid of post punk, gloom pop and punk rock, that any fans of the above mentioned groups will most likely flip for. Definite contender for pop record of the year, another record we want to keep listening to instead of all the other things we're supposed to be reviewing.

MPEG stream: Motionless Drift
MPEG stream: Future City
MPEG stream: Jacker

Another one of the world's most amazing bands that somehow always seems to be overlooked and underappreciated. A complete collection of 28 songs from singles, compilation tracks, unreleased songs and studio embarassments, most clocking-in at about a minute and a half. Each contain unbelievable harmonies, ridiculous time-changes, baffling musical prowess, stupidly profound lyrics and head-splitting pop hooks.

We talk about records being heavy, and blown out, and in the red, and super distorted, and being the sort of weird music freaks we are, we're constantly on the hunt for that one record that trumps all others and out heavies and out distorts them all. THE most distorted and THE most blown out and THE HEAVIEST. And every once in a while, a new record does come along, and climbs atop the pile of bloodied and bruised bodies that made up the previous heaviest most distorted bands, and stand tall, prepared to defend the crown with axes held high and an avalanche of drums ready to drop like a ton of bricks on all comers. We'd be hard pressed to find another band that more deserves to sit atop that pile, at least for a while, than bicoastal masters of the psychmetal blowout, Heavy Winged. Now based both in Portland and Brooklyn, these guys just keep getting heavier and heavier, more and more intense and fucked up sounding. We went nuts for their recent Blacc Lust record, but if anything Feel Inside is even better. They are not metal, so comparisons to groups like SUNNO))) and the like would mean nothing. Heavy Winged are basically a psychedelic rock band, who for whatever reason, decided being loud just wasn't enough, and being distorted wasn't enough, and writing songs wasn't enough, so the band gradually transformed into some insane psychedelic noise rock behemoth, creating 10, 20, even 30 minutes soundscapes of repetitive pummel, drums pounding relentlessly, the guitars spewing white hot psych, a gorgeously hypnotic heavy heavy heavy crush. If you can imagine Les Rallizes Denudes and White Heaven crossed with Circle and Can, but mixed by Wolf Eyes and Merzbow, you wouldn't even be close. The three tracks here begin white hot and only get hotter, sometimes locking into a groove, but more often then not, burying the groove under blistering squalls of feedback and crumbling distortion, the drums played with baseball bats instead of sticks, the whole band shoved down a mile long flight of stairs, deftly turning their chaotic tumble into some sort of psychedelic rock, but the sort of psychrock that has about as much in common with psych than it does with rock. This is freaked out, spaced out, ultra damaged, utterly gorgeous, ear drum destroying, face melting free psych heaviness. The final track is the standout here, letting lots of space in, the drums doing some complicated dance in an epic expanse of sizzling feedback, and white hot streaks of guitar skree, damaged effects squiggle wildly, chunks of riffs fly off in all directions only to be swallowed by clouds of buzz and rrrooooaaar, there's even the occasional gorgeous warm chordal swells and creepy melodies, but it's the drums driving instead of the guitar, the whole thing surprisingly pretty and melancholy, although you have to brave a mile of prickly fuzz and explosive amp punishment to get there, but then the journey is always the best part... Another gorgeously and extravagantly packaged release from aRCHIVE, this one comes in a six panel gatefold, decorated with angular designs in shades of black and brown and white, but that six panel gatefold is housed in another 6 panel gatefold, that one printed on vellum, so the various designs mesh into something completely new, the cd affixed to a nub on the middle panel of the inside gatefold. LIMITED TO 600 COPIES. We probably will NOT be able to get more once these are gone...

MPEG stream: The Frozen Darkness
MPEG stream: The Tangled White

Dronepsych trio Heavy Winged are definitely HEAVY, and have been getting moreso with every release, consistently unleashing thick blackened sprawls of psychedelic dronerock, churning guitars, and pounding tribal drumming, all wound into extended heart of a black sun freakouts / blowouts that manages to be textural and hypnotic while still being weirdly free and abstract, slipping from riffy crunch to total balls out free form heaviness. These two new tracks find these guys pushing it about as far as it can go, ditching conventional song structure almost entirely (not that they were ever THAT songy to begin with), the A-side is all "Among The Maeori" and sounds like a supercharged, less pop Dead C, the drums a continuous anti-rhythm, almost more textural than rhythmic, while the guitars do very unguitar like things, weaving thick undulating layers of woozy drone, laced with soaring distant high end tones, the whole track seeming to pulse and throb, eventually those high end tones, leads perhaps, are transformed into dense atonal tangles, while the drums explode in a frenzy of freaked out tribal pound, up until that point everything was tight and muted and muffled but at this point the track explodes and the band stumbled into some lumbering avant doom, super in-the-red, like some space rock jam slowed way down and wreathed in buzz and skree and crunch, some seriously supreme heaviness. The B-side, "The Hum Of The Universe", begins with a huge downtuned crash, only to fade out, leaving a strange haunting buzz (either bowed bass or viola), until the band begins a super spare, spacious doomic trudge, the drums MASSIVE, the buzzing drones getting louder and more intense, the background hum and thrum billowing like black sonic smoke, the lurching abstract slowcore doom, not heavy so much as thick and dense, the guitars layered into black hole streaks of pulsing sound, the drums a demonic throb, the various background tendrils, druggy and psychedelic, impossibly heavy and atmospheric at the same time, it's only 17 minutes, but these are the sort of sounds that surround and suffocate, you get lost and emerge on the other side, feeling exhausted and exhilarated, trancelike tripped out psych space doom drone bliss for sure! The first batch of lps include a bonus disc, an actual cd (not a cd-r) called Infinite In Every Direction, which features another nearly 40 minutes of heavy psych jams, recorded live in the studio, the first an extended slab of psychedelic kosmische krautdrone featuring Dave W. from White Hills, the second a full bore heavy rock jam, that is way less doom and atmosphere, and way more crushing, a relentless heavy Hawkwind blackpsych drugrock freakout, that RULES... LIMITED TO 994 COPIES, includes a download coupon, and while they last, the lps are paired with the above mentioned bonus disc (Infinite In Every Direction), which itself is limited to 434 copies, so grab one of these quick!

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

SORRY. SORRY.

Two more sidelong tracks from these masters of metallic psychedelic and blown out krautnoise bliss. And as always it's a glorious earful. The first side starts out all woozy and contemplative, spaced out, but somehow already epic, doused in distortion and feedback, the band build the sound into a dense tangle of muted riffs, murky and washed out, bleary and buzzy, they stretch it out, total trancerock for sure, before eventually blissing out into deep swells of smeared and streaked feedback and warm crystalline shimmer, finally exploding into some full on chaotic supernova psychnoise. But even at it's most freaked out, the sound is still warm and enveloping, all the jagged edges smoothed off, creating a mysterious cloud of sound that manages to be both heavy and intense, laid back and serene. The second side offers up more of the same, but with the introduction of some dizzying machinelike chugging, draped over long strands of drifty cinematic whir, peppered with bits of spare percussive skitter, all very looped and hypnotic and very very krautrocky. Gradually, the sound expands into a fiery ball of chaotic drummage, wild steaks of psychedelic guitar skywriting and a thick, drone-y, sprawling looped churn that unfurls gradually to the end of the side. Impossibly both heavy and dreamlike, as if the band we're playing full bore, amps to 11, but we're listening from the room next door, our ear pressed to the wall, or the sound being projected through loudspeakers inside a massive fogbank. Similar to how Skepticism turned doom into something more murky and choral then downtuned and depressive, Heavy Winged continue to drag their psychedelic krautrock through some underwater otherworld, the result something still psychedelic and heavy, but also truly transcendent. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Pressed on heavy transparent grey vinyl, in super thick full color sleeves.

Yet another blast of blown out psychedelic guitar rock from this East Coast space-psych trio, who in the past have given us extended slabs of doomy heaviness, of kraut flecked psychedelic grooves, of motorik in the red hypnorock, and often some mix of the three, but the opening few minutes of Sunspotted had us thinking the band had abandoned all that, as it's a furious, super rocking, ultra propulsive almost mathy post rock blow out, the drums frantic and frenetic, the guitars chiming and distorted the bass thick and heavy and DENSE, the band flinging themselves headlong into what has to be the most rocking blast of freaked out crunch and soar that we've ever heard from these guys, the sound is epic, lush, so heavy, definitely a step up from past muddier murkier outings, and it suits them, that first blast goes on for ages, and we didn't really want it to ever end. But about 4 minutes in, the song seems to collapse, leaving a wreckage of drum skitter, and atonal guitar strum, not to mention sheets of feedback, the band settle down into a weirdo bit of spare drift, the guitars atonal and angular, the drums splattery and abstract, with weird bursts of electronic crunch, only to finally settle into a weird woozy lumber, the guitars rubbery and all twisted up, the drums a caveman plod, everything still wreathed in sheets of buzz and feedback, the doom eventually dissipating, leaving a sky full of tangled high end guitar skree, peppered with chiming guitar chords, and spare drum crashes, growing more and more abstract, before fading out completely. Holy shit! So free and loose and wild, but still so tight and composed sounding, easily the coolest stuff we've heard from these guys, and hell, we're only halfway through. The second track is even longer (clocking in at close to 25 minutes), and begins with less of a bang, but it doesn't take these guys long to get things going, with some crumbling distortion, some throbbing downtuned riffage, some churning low end crush, a whirling, swirling dronescape of roiling dirge-y guitar rumble, which after close to 10 minutes gives way to some squealing feedback drenched dirgery, the band pounding, and lumbering, a weird sort of spaced out Sunroof!-y almost doom, that grows gradually more blissed out and hypnotic, while remaining super abstract and drifty, the band slip into a strange meandery lope, the guitars shimmery and layered and washed out and sort of dreamy, the drums laid back and loose, the sound hazy and hypnotic, never coalescing into anything rocking, instead, playing out like more of a decompressing wind down from the first track, gorgeously minimal, and understated, textural and surprisingly lovely.

MPEG stream: Breathe Life
MPEG stream: Vapor Trails

First proper non cd-r full length from these Brooklyn space psych noisemakers (as far as we can tell) and it kills. In past reviews we described Heavy WInged as some blown out super distorted bastardized mix of the Dead C, Loop, Spacemen 3, Hawkwind, My Bloody Valentine, White Hills, Burnt Hills and whatever other freaked out drug drenched psychnoise rockers we could think of, and we're happy to report that very little has changed, the biggest difference, especially with bands like Heavy WInged, is they thrive given enough space, so two tracks, one to a side, and these guys fucking destroy. They're a trio, guitar, bass and drums, but it seems impossible that all of this glorious noise could come from just three people. Both tracks are improvised, but constantly lock into killer grooves, the guitars coalescing into bad ass riffs, the drums switching from splattery chaos to motorik pulse in the blink of an eye, it's pretty amazing. Side one begins all spaced out with layers of drifting guitars, a throbbing low end pulse, and over the top, super processed squiggly leads, draped over a chugging riff, everything all tangled up into a thick wall of fuzzy blown out sound. When the drums finally kick in, they don't so much 'rock' as emulate the guitars, all spastic and splattery and shuffling. But about halfway through, the band settles into a super saturated psychedelic space rock groove, relentless and throbbing, but everything still bathed in a druggy haze of fuzzed out guitarnoise. The second track taking up all of side 2, follows a similar sonic path, but instead of turning into a space rock jam, it becomes more of a midtempo krautrock groove, the drums constant and simple, the bass locked in with the drums, but the guitar all over the place, laying thick sheets of fuzz and skree everywhere, an ear shredding cloud of keening feedback and amp destroying buzz. Super nice thick sleeve, with printed hand numbered insert and sticker on the front, pressed on swirled clear blue vinyl. LIMITED TO 450 COPIES!!

Less a split, than a sort of adjustable collaboration, Monolith: Earth is the first in a series of single sided lps, where two bands are paired together, and each contributes a single mono track, one track stereo left, the other stereo right, so depending on how the listener dials it in, he or she can listen to just one of the bands' tracks, or some easily adjusted blend of the two. Thankfully, the lp comes with a cd featuring stereo version of both the tracks, as well as an extra track or two. For the first volume, the to bands are pretty stellar choices, dreamdrone duo Windy & Carl, and distorto psych rock trio Heavy Winged. For this experiment to really work, without turning into a sonic clusterfuck, one or both of the bands has to be the ambient half, and Windy & Carl are more than happy to take on that role, their track being a slow burning shimmer, all processed and effected guitars, smeared and blurred into long smeary streaks, layered and woven into subtle soft melodies and warm gauzy expanses, there's some buzz buried way down in the mix, but for the most part it's all glorious drone and drift. Heavy Winged take on the other role, which is not that different from their usual sound, super blown out distorted guitars, pounding drums, super lo-fi and high end, the guitars not riffing so much as offering up thick sheets of sound and dense squalls of feedback and psychdrone freakout. Which suits the concept perfectly, as it's basically like two drones wrapped around each other, leaving the drums to meander and skitter and do what they will. Perfectly happy to listen to each track on its own, but they do sound pretty badass together, and the picture disc image spinning round and round is quite mesmerizing. The extra track on the cd is an actual collaboration, or seems to be as far as we can tell, but ends up sounding more like a Heavy Winged track with some extra texture and ambience, as HW's super blown out distorted heaviness overwhelms the Windy & Carl's shimmery sounds, but with the picture disc, you can control the levels, creating quite possibly one of the few instances where Windy & Carl sonically overwhelm Heavy Winged! We only have a dozen of these, the label was sold out, we got all the copies the band had too, so once these are gone, that's probably it...

We've been big fans of the previous collaborative efforts between Kieren Hebden (Four Tet) and legendary free jazz drummer Steve Reid, but NYC demonstrates the two truly finding their own pulsating and exciting outer groove. This isn't fusion or jazz, instead it really sounds like two musical innovators reaching out into each other's orbits and succeeding in making something wholly new. NYC was recorded right in the heart of New York City over just a couple days and both the city and the urgency shines through as these tracks play like some amazing version of Liquid Liquid performing live at the Village Vanguard. We almost want to send copies of this to some of our favorite rhythmic and percussion fueled bands like Tussle, Mi Ami, !!!, Lemonade and Trans Am, for a shot of fresh inspiration. Hot off the heels of Hebden's recent collaboration with Sunburned Hand Of The Man and a dazzling stripped down and drugged out Four Tet ep he's really sounding like he's on top of his game lately and Reid keeps proving that getting older has hardly dimmed his soul and passion as his percussive skills have never sounded more alive and full of fire. Highly recommended!

MPEG stream: Lyman Place
MPEG stream: Arrival
MPEG stream: Departure

On his third full length, the spotlight is fully on Maximillian Hecker's voice. It brings to mind a drowsy Joe Pernice or David Gates from Bread. Y'know, it's that sort of voice that just starts the hearts a-melting as soon as he opens his mouth. Hecker's backed by the full elegant pop assemblage of piano, strings... soooo lovely! Lady Sleep captures the deep ache of lovelorn yearning and loss. It's a box o' tissues listen. He'll probably also draw many comparisons to the grand swooping likes of Radiohead or Coldplay, and fans of those bands (particularly the latter) would do well to check Hecker out. The only song that steps outside of the hushed beauty comes late in Lady Sleep. "Yeah, Eventually She Goes" is the tenth of the album's eleven songs, and it jars with it's sudden barrage of guitars which push it into that tired ol' quiet/loud camp. Really, it's somewhat disappointing, coming across more as a Radiohead knock-off that this album could've done without. That said, setting that brief exception aside, we can say this album is absolutely haunting and heartbreaking.

MPEG stream: Birch
MPEG stream: Help Me

This is either totally fucking stupid, or absolutely brilliant. Like a lot of records we love, it's really tough to tell sometimes. And we do love this record. The last Hecker record was one of our favorite post-Oval cd-manipulation/glitch record ever. Dense, thick soundscapes made up of damaged, manipulated and chopped up discs. 'My Love...' follows the same modus operandi, only this time all of the source material is Van Halen. That's right, Van Halen. Your first clue was the pen and ink sketch of David Lee Roth on the cd cover, your second clue is the Van Halen-lyric title 'My Love Is Rotten To The Core'. And of course if you know Van Halen, it's easy to pick out the riffs that surface in bits and pieces amidst all the stutter/shuffling/skipping/skittering. The record itself is gorgeous. Super dense, with the VH guitars lending themelves perfectly to being manipulated into thick slabs of SOUND, shifting ever so slightly, changing the ebullient VH party melodies into stretched out minor key dirges. The songs are separated by collages of VH interviews and radio snippets. We're tempted to dismiss this record as a silly gimmick, with all the clever allusions to Van Halen (without ever actually fessing up to stealing all the songs): the between song collages, the song titles and the cover art! It would've been way more intense and effective to just let the music speak for itself (like COH's metal album 'Iron') because the music, in Hecker's hands, becomes a wholly unique and original sound. But maybe Tim Hecker just really loves Van Halen and this is the best way he knows how to show it!! Either way, this is definitely one of the most fun and creative, and fucked glitch/drone/cut-up/plunderphonic records of the year.

RealAudio clip: Introducing Carl Cocks
RealAudio clip: Sammy Loves Eddie Hates David
RealAudio clip: Hello Detroit

What do you get when you take members of Gong, William Burroughs, Robert Wyatt's 5 year old son Sam and probably some pretty amazing drugs and mix 'em all up? The answer is THIS, Obsolete, a lost psych/prog masterpiece from 1971. Dashiell Hedayat's second record found him recruiting Daevid Allen and Gillie Smith from Gong to round out the lineup of his band, and began work on what would turn out to be a crazy twisty and turny cosmic psych/prog epic, from start to finish. There are moments of structure and actual fleshed out songs and melodies but there are also of course a non stop litany of amazing outbursts, squeaks, rantings, yells, and cutups. But what makes the record so great is how it can go from manic acid soaked freakout to stunning beauty in the blink of an eye. There are guest appearances from William S. Burroughs, the the cooing of Sam Wyatt (Robert's son who was 5 years old at the time), but ultimately this record is fueled by the great pairing of Gong and Hedayat, whose vocals run the spectrum from beautifully sung, to subtly spoken to wild and deranged. The LP was originally released on the legendary avant-garde label Shandar, an amazing label out of France in the '70s who put out records by folks like Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, Stockhausen, Steve Reich, Sunny Murray, Pandit Pran Nath, Cecil Taylor, and more. Obsolete is such a perfect snapshot of early 70's free rock exploration. There are moments that are confusing, moments that are absurd, moments that are HEAVY and moments that are utterly profound. Hedayat sums it up perfectly in the original liner notes: "This record must be played as loud as possible, must be heard as stoned as impossible..." And whether or not you are actually taking his words to heart, when you listen to Obsolete, it's pretty impossible not to feel like you're on some kind of wonderful and deranged trip. Recommended!

MPEG stream: Cielo Drive
MPEG stream: Long Song For Zelda

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)

We're liking this Nordic notion of 'jazz fusion', all right. The heavy duty debut from the Hedvig Mollestad Trio comes to us from Norway's Rune Grammofon label, who specialize in such things - the 'death jazz' of Supersilent, for instance, and also the likes of Scorch Trio, Ultralyd, and Bushman's Revenge - the latter of whom even covered Motorhead on their latest disc. Well, not to be outdone, the Hedvig Mollestad Trio cover the Melvins, here! That ought to give you an idea of where they're coming from, jazz-wise. These guys - actually, two gals and one guy, on electric guitar, bass and drums, respectively - are a skronky power trio who rip it up instrumentally, their tunes twisty, turny, and full of distortion and feedback. In other words, they rock, rollercoaster style, reminding us of AQ instrumental faves Stinking Lizaveta at times, and eponymous guitarist Hedvig Mollestad has a dash of Nels Cline in her playing. Though the band members are all jazz-trained musicians, their brand of fusion is heavy on the grungy rock side of the equation, though they tone it down for the moody meanders of "Doom's Lair" and "The Valley" amongst a few mellower moments. Not to be counted among those moments, of course, is that Melvins cover (the chunky, rockin' "Blood Witch" from A Senile Animal), the only song here to feature vocals. All in all, this is catchy stuff, as far as noisy noodling jazzrock goes! Recorded live in the studio with minimal overdubs, capturing a lot of raw energy and jaunty glee indeed. Available as a digipack cd, or on lp w/ download code.

MPEG stream: Gun And The E-Kid
MPEG stream: Ashes
MPEG stream: For The Air

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

SORRY.