[ 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 751 through 800 of 19388.

Always the ones to offer up an ep of odds and ends to tide their fans over 'til the next full length appears, the perky Elephant 6ers Apples In Stereo have collected together a live track, an acoustic studio outtake (of a song that appears on Discovery Of A World Inside The Moon), a Powerpuff girls tribute, a demo of the same song, and one other track. As bouncy and jubilant as we've

RealAudio clip: Signal To The Sky

A new song from Robert Schneider and co. new album "The Discovery Of A World Inside The Moone" (forthcoming in April) plus four extra tracks with no prior US release. Fans of Elephant Six pop are sure to rejoice. Did you know that The Apples call their recording studio Pet Sounds? Not surprised...

Hurrah! Those delightful lil' Apples In Stereo have come bursting back from a much too long absence. Yes, it's been five long years since we last heard from these Elephant Six collective pop dynamos, but from the bright eyed and bushy tailed sounds of New Magnetic Wonder it's as if they never skipped a beat. Some things never change... head Apple Robert Schneider is still carrying a mighty big torch for Brian Wilson, but he's visiting the E.L.O. camp occasionally on a few tunes here too. This is some seriously yummy pop! Recommended for everyone young and young at heart and particularly those with a big sweet tooth. Not recommended for diabetics or old fogeys.

MPEG stream: Sunndal Song
MPEG stream: 7 Stars

One of our favorite pop bands collects early releases, b-sides and sundry out-of-print gems, plus one new song. You may have seen this recently available as expensive Japanese import.

Hip hip hooray, super great news! Apples In Stereo's long out of print albums -- The Discovery Of A World Inside The Moone and Fun Trick Noisemaker -- have been reissued! With such a beloved band, you might be wondering why we never reviewed these awesome early Apples In Stereo delights. We were asking ourselves the same question, then we realized that the records predate our aQ website and review writing. Yeah, waaay back before we had the invention known as the computer! Now, we get to take another kick at the can (and replace our own worn copies!)! While The Discovery Of A World Inside The Moone is not quite as immediately addictive as Fun Trick Noisemaker, it is sooo unabashedly sweet and effervescent nonetheless! Shhh, hear that? Is that maracas or is it the fizz in your ginger ale? Is that a cowbell or is it the snapping of your bubble gum? One can't be sure when the Apples are on the stereo! Wherever their very Beatles and Beach Boys influenced tunes go they leave a sticky candyfloss tree lined trail paved with jelly beans. It's all feel-good yum-pop, but there's brains behind the bounciness. If you're new to this band, for sure start your new crush with Fun Trick Noisemaker, then proceed along your merry way with this one!

MPEG stream: The Rainbow
MPEG stream: Submarine Dream

Wonderful new work from Elephant6ers.

A new super perky 'n' a bit punkier album from those popster Apples. They've always drawn scads of comparisons to the Beach Boys, but this time around for some reason it sounds a lot more like Brian Wilson and co. extra amped up and on helium. Robert Schneider's trademark high nasality seems to reach even higher than on their last album (hard to believe!), but fortunately it's countered by Hilarie's honey-sweet voice. This just might be their most rambunctious album to date but it still has all of their trademark harmonies and hooks. Quite a funtime racket that will surely delight sugar pop fans whereas those with a considerably smaller sweettooth might wanna skip this pep rally.

RealAudio clip: Please
RealAudio clip: Rainfall

For the life of us, we can't figure out why The Apples In Stereo never reached the same great heights popularity wise as groups like The Shins or Arcade Fire, cuz when it comes to immaculately crafted indie pop gems it just doesn't get much more perfect then Apples In Stereo. #1 Hits Explosion, as you might have been able to tell from the title, is a collection of Apples 'greatest hits', songs that in a more perfect world really would have been #1 hits on the radio, at least if we were in charge. These songs are so bright and full of sunshine and color, taking a love of The Beatles and amping it all up with so much energy and enthusiasm that it's nearly impossible not to become a a little bit smitten by their ultra smart and super fun power pop. Every song has more hooks and more melody than most bands can manage on an entire album. If you've somehow managed to miss these guys so far, this is such a perfect way to get introduced to this awesome Colorado outfit who remain one of the lasting lights of the amazing Elephant Six collective, that also included the likes of Neutral Milk Hotel and Olivia Tremor Control. When you want the feeling of eternal spring, or that perfect summer that lasts forever, Apples In Stereo is pretty much the perfect soundtrack. Blast it loud, with the top down, and soak in the sounds of sunshine!

MPEG stream: Go
MPEG stream: Seems So
MPEG stream: Energy

Great timing! To go with the recently reissued pair of early Apples In Stereo albums that we've been jumpin' for joy over, you'll surely also wanna nab a copy of this incongruously titled awesome compilation of AIS rare and unreleased tunes! Want some music that'll float your boat? Look no further! This band has enough buoyancy to keep a million seacraft riding the waves, and even if your ship sinks you'll go down with a smile on your face thanks to these gleeful sounds. From the downright silly (they have their own theme song and of course they've done music for cartoons -- Powerpuff Girls! Yay!) to the coyly romantic to the dreamily orchestral ("Dreams"), they're always sweet, sweet, sweet. Somehow they've always tread so close to the danger zone of saccharine twee without inducing cavities!

MPEG stream: Shine (In Your Mind)
MPEG stream: The Apples Theme Song
MPEG stream: Dreams

SF's Applesaucer rev up their popmobile, and cruise along with a confident bounce and energy akin to early Weezer, but with also a bit of '70s balladry thrown into the mix. Slightly quirky, well-crafted retro power pop with bright vocal harmonies, punchy drumming, and full'n'feisty guitar and keyboard interplay.

While their bio utilizes words like "groundbreaking" and "innovative" to describe this new release from Appleseed Cast, to these ears (Cup's) those are hardly the most suitable words to describe it. Instead try wonderfully "solid" and "familiar". Their immensely well-received Low Level Owl two volume album was epic, clearly a hard act to follow. Try as they might have, Lost Songs pales in comparison. Not a bad album by any means, just not quite of the same caliber as its predecessor, and not quite as immediately engaging. Guitars soar, shimmer and swell as the vocalist sings his heart out, indeed this is emo music on a lush, grand scale. Actually, what sprung to mind was how this album sounds a lot like what the great pop of Superchunk might sound like today if they'd continued on their energetic power pop path instead of taking their somewhat mellower and more composed route.

RealAudio clip: Novice
RealAudio clip: State N W/K

These two long time aQ faves have now been re-issued on vinyl, as a deluxe gatefold triple lp. YOWZA! Here's the skinny on these two classics, originally released way back in 2002: Though Lawrence, Kansas based Appleseed Cast has been around since 1998 they haven't been as widely heard as their contemporaries The Get Up Kids and The Anniversary, and we would have imagined that the release of Low Level Owl volumes one and two would change all that (although it seemingly hasn't helped too much as this record came out last year and Appleseed's public profile hasn't really improved all that dramatically). Though AC was basically your run of the mill emo band (Andee's old band even played with them a few years back at a hardcore festival!), we highly doubt their most recent efforts will be confused with their mid-west emo contemporaries. Within the emo/post-hardcore spectrum Low Level Owl has much the same hue as Sunny Day Real Estate's angst-ridden How It Feels To Be Something On. Anthemic, meandering, and contemplative are definitely some of the adjectives that might describe this new sonic one two punch. Taken together Low Level Owl I and II are a much more sophisticated work than How It Feels was (and we love that album very much thank you), combining a sense of pop hook writing akin to Death Cab For Cutie or even Built To Spill, but with the added epic glory of Godspeed You Black Emperor, Radiohead or Mogwai's arrangements and production, but none of that overbearing pretension (esp. G.S.Y.B.E.'s incessant use of homeless street poets) and more a wide-eyed excitement to just make music!. This is good clean all American pop music for the emo lover who's old enough to have been drinking for at least a good ten years. The songs are filled with gorgeous melodic guitar lines soaked in spacious reverb, huge drum sounds and earnest vocals. If part of emo emanates a sense of nostalgia (Get Up Kids with Rick Springfield, Sunny Day with Christopher Cross) then we almost want to put Appleseed Cast on the same page with U2 circa Under A Blood Red Sky with many of the guitar and drum parts, but we imagine that might bum out some AQ customers so we'll refrain. Oops, too late! The thing that really kicks a hole in our pants with these albums is the obvious love and meticulous care that went into recording them. The band apparently spent three months recording all the tracks; laying down the initial tracks and then sculpting them with additional overdubs and extensive tweaking, even miking leaves blowing along the driveway outside the studio and including it as a segue between two songs. In fact, both albums are obviously meant to be listened to in their entirety, with nary a second of silence between songs, as tracks bleed and drift into one another. Volume two begins, quite ingeniously and literally, where volume one leaves off -- with a brief reprise of the ending track. It could be us, but volume two seems to contain more Mogwai style extended jams and instrumental musical forays and experiments. So hearing the two together is pretty much perfect, the more ebullient "pop" record set up right there alongside the more drifting and pensive one. Almost everytime we play this in the store, someone buys a copy or comes to the counter to see what the heck we're playing. Fans of Death Cab, Get Up Kids, Flaming Lips, and all things emo, pop, and power pop, who missed out on the Low Level Owl a few years back should definitely have another listen and see what they've been missing!

The marketing blurb on the top-obi of The Appleseed Cast's Peregrine reads "America's closest answer to Radiohead." Well, that's an apt description if one emphasizes the fact that the Appleseed Cast are undeniably American. Unlike many of the anorexic boys with black eyeliner who populate the United States of Emo, The Appleseed Cast genuinely approach emo simply as a starting point, the template upon which they can heap spacious washes of post-Mogwai guitar crescendos and assorted other sonic embellishments. But Appleseed Cast's thick atmospheres have much more of a bittersweet nostalgia than Mogwai's dejected brooding, as The Appleseed Cast still retains emo's charming optimism in spite of being brokenhearted. Where The Appleseed Cast's Low Level Owl twin set of releases sprawled over the American heartland, Peregrine is a bit more driven by pop-hooks a la Death Cab For Cutie and Modest Mouse, although there's plenty of dramatic release-then-silence guitar episodes, and of course impassioned melodic bellows that would make Jeremy Enigk proud. If The Appleseed Cast ever got heavy, they'd make for a good touring partner with Jesu as there's more than a passing similarity between Peregrine and Jesu's recent slab of indie industrial pummel Silver.

MPEG stream: Sunlit Ascending
MPEG stream: February

First things first, admittedly our socks weren't totally knocked off on our introductory listens to this new Appleseed Cast album, but with such a glowing emo epic such as Low Level Owl Volumes 1 and 2 in their catalog of past releases... geez! Hopes were pretty darn high and expectations were just as specific. Much like its most recent predecessor Lost Songs did, Two Conversations inevitably fell victim to comparisons to the almighty Low Level Owl. Those were some big boots to fill, maybe it's best to just find a different pair to slip into? 'Tis true, AC fans (us included) simply have to accept that the band has evolved. Those familiar with AQ-land might recall that this was also the case with fellow Lawrence, KS band The Anniversary who, following their emo pop delight Designing a Nervous Breakdown, shook things up quite a bit with the very different full length Your Majesty - an album we all grew to adore. Anyways, all of that aside, this *is* a fine, inspired and well-executed full length. Appleseed Cast pick up where they left off on Lost Songs - continuing to move away from the energetic and anthemic into more slow, spacy shoegazer territory. Although they do kick into a couple of punchier heartbreak songs filled with crunchy hooks here and there ("Fight Song"), the guitars provide more fuzzy atmospheric washes and more plaintively picked melodies. Vocals are boyish, slightly melted and yes, very emotive. A few songs even brought to mind the well-crafted luminous melancholia of Grandaddy and Sparklehorse (particularly on the final two "How Life Can Turn" and "A Dream For Us"). Give'r a listen!

MPEG stream: A Dream For Us
MPEG stream: Hanging Marionette
MPEG stream: Fight Song

Though Lawrence, Kansas based Appleseed Cast has been around since 1998 they haven't been as widely heard as their contemporaries The Get Up Kids and The Anniversary, and I would have imagined that the release of "Low Level Owl" volumes one and two would The thing that really kicks a hole in our pants with these albums is the obvious love and meticulous care that went into recording them. The band apparently spent three months recording all the tracks; laying down the initial tracks and then sculpting them with additional overdubs and extensive tweaking, even miking leaves blowing along the driveway outside the studio and including it as a segue between two songs. In fact, both albums are obviously meant to be listened to in their entirety, with nary a second of silence between songs, as tracks bleed and drift into one another. Volume two begins, quite ingeniously and literally, where volume one leaves off -- with a brief reprise of the ending track. It could be me, but volume two seems to contain more Mogwai style extended jams and instrumental musical forays and experiments. So if you wish to start with a more "pop" oriented record, choose volume one and if you want more of a drifting and pensive record, choose volume two. Chances are that you'll wanna pick up both eventually anyhow. Everytime we play this in the store, someone buys a copy or two.

RealAudio clip: On Reflection
RealAudio clip: Steps And Numbers
RealAudio clip: Bird of Paradise
RealAudio clip: Mile Marker

RealAudio clip: Strings
RealAudio clip: A Place In Line
RealAudio clip: Ring Out the Warning Bell
RealAudio clip: The Last In A Line

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

SORRY.

It's been almost 3 years since we've heard from the Appleseed Cast, and closer to 7 since we were truly obsessed with these guys, back when their, multi disc Lo Level Owl opus was released. Those two records totally threw us for a loop, encompassing everything we loved about indie rock, taking all the tried and true elements, and pushing them further, creating a massive sprawling concept record of sorts, without ever losing sight of the song, of the melodies, the hooks, the stuff that made it indie rock in the first place. So since then, the band have continued to plug away, releasing maybe 5 or 6 records, all of them pretty decent, but none doing it for us the way Low Level Owl did. The most recent one before this, Peregrine, came close, reigning in the band's tendency to drift and explore and get all experimental, in favor of something more immediate, and perhaps commercial, mining a sort of Modest Mouse / Death Cab For Cutie sound. But on Sagarmatha, the band seems to have decided to return to their roots while trying something a bit heavier on for size. The opening track, mostly instrumental, is all brooding pop jangle and epic post rock drift, seemingly content to just meander, and we're perfectly content to just listen, and then the band explodes into a super heavy crescendo / coda and suddenly, these guys could (and maybe should) be giving bands like Explosions In The Sky a run for their money. Then the vocals come in, and while it makes it poppier, a hint of Radiohead in the lilting almost falsetto, the vocals are very uncommercially buried in the mix, more just another layer of lush sound, but adding a sweeping epic emotional vibe to the proceedings. And so it goes, the band mix, dreamy nineties style jangle, with muscley riffage, crushing metallic crunch, soaring chiming arena guitars, and washed out blissy shoegaze blur, into mini indie prog jams, that get catchier and catchier every time you hear them. They might not be as 'cool', or metal, or heavy, or underground, but fuck it, anyone into Explosions In The Sky, This Will Destroy You, Godspeed, Irepress, Angel Eyes, all that sort of modern metallic post rock, as well as people just looking for some indie pop with more heft, something a bit more cerebral and musically adventurous, should absolutely check these guys out, and while it may be no Low Level Owl (out of print sorry to say), it's still pretty kick ass, and has been getting plenty of spins around these parts.

MPEG stream: As The Little Things Go
MPEG stream: A Bright Light
MPEG stream: The Road West

Appealing instrumental post-rock from the label that never puts out bad records. More doleful than Tortoise or Ui and without the jazz influences, but mining similar territory. Each format limited to 1000 copies. Recommended.

Whoahh man. San Francisco's own Appreciation is a writhing force in belted sheets, surrounded by mountainous abstractions and shrouded in fog! Now, usually with a band like this, their involved and award-winning art-school-typisch live show would totally rule over any recording. BUT NO. Healing The Father Wound is awesome!!! Partially self-recorded at a band member's house, partially at Louder Studio by engineer Tim Green (The Fucking Champs), this four song ep cd-r is their totally freaked-out psychedelic, metallic, noisy space-jam... and if you've never seen/heard 'em before, it's not what you think. It's more kid in under-roos with a sheet tied around his head, light saber in hand than anything more organized or fully constructed n' polished. But anyway, yeah -- it's all self-made and awesome sounding! That said, we must gush a tiny bit about this cd for one more reason: the packaging is all hand-made featuring artwork by the band's drummer, Bert Bergen, who silkscreened and sewed each cd sleeve by hand!! And if you have the chance to see them live, the experience is equally as rewarding as this recording. I mean, who wants to just go see a stilted band stand up on stage playing their "songs", anyway? A weird band that crosses the trying-to-be-weird barrier into genuine weirdness, where so many others have failed. Seriously, go see 'em live sometime, and tell us that hand painted volcano stage sets and the fact that no one in the band will ever rise above a crouch the whole time they're playing isn't amazing.

MPEG stream: Track One

The first thing worth mentioning about the geniusly warped and bafflingly brilliant debut release from Apprentice Destroyer, is that the whole thing was recorded at Guitar Center. Secretly and surreptitiously, over the course of months (maybe years?). Repeat trips were made to capture bass parts, drum loops, synth melodies, essentially treating Guitar Center like an impromptu multitrack studio. And as any one who's been to Guitar Center knows, it's often infuriating, as random folks pound away on drums, or shred on guitar. So now imagine one of those guys was actually recording an album. Playing whatever part was needed until an employee would make him stop. Enlisting his girlfriend as a distraction, to keep the clerk busy while he bashed out another drum part of another layer of sound. That alone had us sold. It almost didn't matter if it was even good or not. Just the concept, and the execution. And of course, that's not to mention that Apprentice Destroyer is the work of the same madman behind sci-fi tech-prog improv black metal one man black metal band Mastery, as well as actual one man black metal band Pandiscordian Necrogenesis (as in he plays drums with his feet, while playing guitar and singing) AND he also sings and plays bass in SFBM horde Pale Chalice! But don't be expecting metal, Apprentice Destroyer is more psychedelic krautrock styled, tripped out kosmische spaciness, wild, FX drenched 8-bit bleep and bloop, whirring zoner dronescapes, skittery mutant electronica, a little bit of all that fused into a totally trippy, mesmerizingly moody sprawl of heady, sonic delight. The opener sounds like Neu! hopped up on amphetamines, or some early Stereolab B-side spinning at 78rpm, all cascading arpeggios and sped up motorik grooves, the sound switching back and forth as if some mad scientist producer with ADD was cycling between channels. The whole record isn't as maddeningly hypnotic, in fact, much of Glass Ceiling Universe is nearly ambient, there's the churning cosmic swirl of the title track, sounding like music from some twisted planetarium show, or an alternate score to the retro-thriller Beyond The Black Rainbow, or the hazy pulsating shimmer of "Downward To Greendeep". The record does deliver moments of super charged crunch and energetic, rhythmic disruption throughout, the almost Afro-noise sounding "Welcome, Destroyer", or the gristly electro-skitter of "Metamammal", but they're surrounded by surprisingly tranquil soundscapery, and moody, muted, softly rhythmic pulsations, that make Glass Ceiling Universe align more with sonic bliss out than blow out. It's easy to forget that this was recorded at Guitar Center, and not in a proper studio, which is a testament to the genius involved, and the perfect foil to what is ultimately a gimmick, but the fact that that gimmick is subverted by these incredible, and fantastically realized sounds, is really what makes this so special. But just to make sure you DON'T forget, there's a whole track made from recorded snippets of Guitar Center employees, including some serious dude/bro talk, somehow expertly woven into a cool, smear of murky, psychedelic kraut-drone! In case it wasn't obvious, this RULES, and gets THEE highest aQ recommendation. And you can expect this to end up on a lot of our year end lists. And we're guessing very likely yours too!

MPEG stream: Chrome Temple
MPEG stream: Jovian Sky
MPEG stream: The Cloud Fortress
RealAudio clip: Metamammal

There are countless reviews on our site where we have to remind ourselves of that age old lesson about not judging a book (a record) by its cover. As all too often we have fallen in love with some amazing records that we were initially resistant toward because of their awful cover art. But every so often, our attraction to the cover pays off, as we discover a record that lives up to the joy of its cover. Such is the case with this wonderful 1973 Korean folk/psych gem. The cover shows the two men behind April & May hands locked as they run through a field, both of them clad in dapper duds and with big smiles on their faces. It's such a sweet and endearing image, and the sounds on this best-of collection seem to match those visual sentiments so perfectly. While they often get billed as the Korean, Simon & Garfunkel, there is much more of a range to their sound. From catchy ye-ye like pop, to orchestral show stoppers, to stripped down folk, to candy color happy psych-pop. Equal parts Kuni Kawachi, The Free Design, Billy Nicholls, Francoise Hardy, Happy End, Hermans Hermits, and The Left Banke. We also would love to put some of these songs on a mix for folks like Belle & Sebastian, Cornelius, Jens Lekman, and Saint Etienne. We so want to mimic the cover when listening to this record, putting on our favorite outfit and scarf and skipping down sidewalks and fields hand in hand with our best friend in the world. One of our favorite discoveries of the year.

MPEG stream: My Love
MPEG stream: The Sea To The Mountain
MPEG stream: The Song
MPEG stream: Department Store (and)

We hadn't paid too much attention to this band, but listening now to this super swank lp version of their second full length, Eras, we're beginning to think we have definitely been missing out. The record begins with some murky, muddy, washed out psychedelic drone rock, motorik beats, thick clouds of churning chordal distortion, glistening melodies, super shoe gazey, but super dark and blurred as well, but the record soon slips into something more dreamy and twangy, Eastern melodies over a mass of soft swirling drones and minimal percussion, vocals buried in the mix, ghostlike and mysterious, some big booming drums, very druggy and psychedelic, reminds us of Wooden Shjips, or Moon Duo actually, and the whole record sort of weaves back and forth, between weirdly bombastic post industrial shoegaze dirgery, and a more sort of Velvet Underground / Spacemen 3 style psych drone sprawl, but with a little Scenic style atmosphere mixed in. Sound strange, and it is a bit, but the band make it work, a constantly shifting psychedelic rock bliss out / trip out, that should definitely appeal to fans of the current crop of space gazers. As with all Equation releases, the design and packaging are fantastic, super thick 180 gram vinyl, deluxe full color gatefold jacket, printed inner sleeves, various inserts, LIMITED TO 425 COPIES, each one hand numbered...

This album arrived quietly enough. The band's name, the album title and stark black slipcover offered little fanfare of what sounds might lurk within. For that matter, Madrid based label Acuarela has such an eclectic array of artists on its roster that we weren't allowed any tell-tale hints from peeking at their catalog. So, we tentatively slipped the jewelcase out of its slipcover. It revealed a dreary, fog blurred outdoor photo with leafless tree branches vanishing into the mist and damp mossy banks sinking into the chilly river's edge. That image totally captures the overriding mood of Spirit, leaning towards the dark, the mysterious, the slightly sinister. Apse's stormy post rock soundscapes churn up the gloom with a goth industrial edge. Hushed high male vocals lend a ghostly quality to the already haunted atmosphere. In fact, this may draw comparisons to Sigur Ros, but its heart is far more heavy and unsettling.

MPEG stream: Shade Of The Moor
MPEG stream: The Crowned

We're big fans of weirdo French psych rock outfit ANO, but it's taken us a while to list their latest, maybe 'cause at first it kinda threw us for a bit of a loop, upping the 'whatthefuck' vibe we mentioned in our review of their previous outing for Tee Pee, while still providing major doses of the spacey, fuzzy, Hawkwind/Heads/White Hills style rockin' we love about 'em. Not really sure what the problem for us was, except that every time we'd put this on and settle down to write a review, we'd seriously start spacing out and getting all dazed and confused and not know exactly what to say, which is probably as good a recommendation as any for this album!!! Apparently they used to record their music in a medieval Parisian cave (?) but for this album they decamped to an ancient chateau in the countryside or somesuch. Perhaps it's the change in venue that has made for a more varied and atmospheric, dare we say mature, record. They've mellowed out a bit here, with more in the way of dreamily quiet/creepy acoustic parts, hushed and melodic - but it's still totally freaky and strange, and never fear they DO kick out the distortodelic garage rock jams too. Ferinstance track three, "Turn On Your Mind" - a drug-gobbling throbber in the vein of Pink Floyd meets The Stooges (which kinda equals Hawkwind). That one also confused us 'cause of how familiar it sounded - aha, it's actually a song reprised from their previous album, Third, where it was simply titled "Turn On". Huh, maybe they were so high they forgot they already recorded it once? Great track in any case so no complaint. But weird. Another weird one we also gotta mention is their plodding, guttural cover of "Roller Coaster", a classic track from Roky Erickson & The 13th Floor Elevators. This ANO version is a bizarre take on the original, making it their own, which is quite a statement, since the Elevators were THEE first and most 'sincere' psychedelic rock band. We guess that Elevators lyricist and psychedelic guru Tommy Hall would most likely approve of ANO and their implied taking up of the torch, as dedicated modern-day acid rockers (and now on this album, also sorta acid folksters). So, Spiritus Mundi is another strange & compelling trip into the collective inner-mind obsessions of these French psychonauts, and should appeal to fans of both the Elevators and La Ira De Dios, the Groundhogs and GR & The Full-Blown Expansion, the Pink Fairies and Psychic Ills, amongst others old and new exploring those druggy, dark dimensions.

MPEG stream: Up To The Sky
MPEG stream: Roller Coaster
MPEG stream: Human Toad

Alex Cobb's Students Of Decay imprint must issue an edict to those who pass through its doors to deconstruct the song to particular base elements - primarily noise and drone with a ghost of melody - and rearrange them, for some truly compelling albums. Evan Caminiti, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Brendan Murray, Celer, Peter Wright, and Natural Snow Buildings (the latter being perhaps the most 'traditional' of these SoD acts) have all obeyed Cobb's edict, alongside plenty of lesser knowns. Aquarelle (aka Ryan Potts) is not a project we've heard all that much about, but the work certainly holds up to the high Students Of Decay standards of scattered drone pocked with sculpted noise. Beginning with cyclical patterns of cello and guitars all encrusted with rough-cut shards of glass that reflect and refract sound into a consonant shimmer of white noise. The fundamental tones from the cello in particular surface through "With Verticals" brightening the space with all of the cinematic flourishes one hears in Stars Of The Lid, but produced with the granularity of a particularly discordant Christian Fennesz (e.g. Endless Summer). "The Blue Light Was My Body" sets undulating washes of static-noise upon a finger-picked acoustic guitar riff and a stately drone that forms a enveloping corona to the track. Again, the references to Fennesz, Loveliescrushing, and Tim Hecker ring true, with Aquarelle flashing Americana-hues from weathered wood and rusty nails to his grit-laden ambience. Limited to 300 copies!

One of our fave one-man bands is Aqueduct (aka David Terry), and here we have a brand spanking new full length. Once again he's tackling the lion's share of vocal, guitar, bass, keyboard and programming duties, but he's also brought in some friends to handle drums and additional guitar parts. With each release Mr. Terry's songs have gotten more polished, and the eleven on I Sold Gold are no exception, and they continue to give hearty nods to the pop craft influence of both the Beach Boys and XTC.

MPEG stream: The Suggestion Box
MPEG stream: Laundry Baskets

Whoa Aqueduct (aka David Terry), wha'happened?! It's as if sometime between now and your last album I Sold Gold you absorbed a cache of cheesy '80s TV sitcom theme song capsules into your system -- especially in the horn, keyboard and synth line departments. Think equal parts Billy Vera And The Beaters, Bruce Hornsby And The Range and Andrew Gold with lyrics like "you gotta keep it together before it all falls apart" ("Keep It Together") and "When it's all said and done you know that I'll be the one" (Broken Records")! Much of Or Give Me Death is strangely cliched in places and treads precariously on the borders of sappy schlock. Granted, that unto itself takes its own special skill. But that said, it's tempered back into something more palatable by Terry's consistently clever songwriting and vocals which do shine through and more closely resemble those of Andy Partridge and XTC.

MPEG stream: Keep It Together
MPEG stream: Split The Difference

We totally dug Aqueduct's debut album Power Ballads from a couple of years ago, and we're pleased to report that the new ep by this one man band (aka Oklahoman David Terry) is just as much of a pop treat with its quirky, slightly ramshackle indie poppiness and funky little electronic bits. Our past comparisons to Pinback and Modest Mouse definitely still hold true. Totally catchy and sweet. Can't wait for his next full length due to be released next year!

MPEG stream: Hardcore Days & Softcore Nights
MPEG stream: Who Wanna Rock?

Check out this one-man band from Tulsa, OK! David Terry is Aqueduct. Don't be expecting any knee cymbals or harmonica-chinstraps though. Recorded in his apartment over the past three years, "Power Ballads" is Aqueduct's debut album, but we should also stress

RealAudio clip: Assignment #1: Heart Design
RealAudio clip: Growing Up With GNR
RealAudio clip: Try It Now
RealAudio clip: Krushed (Special Edition)

OK, so Arab On Radar broke up, due to "irreconcilable differences" that have "compromised the creative process." This is their final "gift to the world" (their term) in the form of a collection of 7"s and a cassette from their 7 year career (includes their part of the Locust split, singles and comp tracks from Load and GSL, etc.). Them breaking up is really sad, because now we won't have anymore choice AOR quotes such as: "Wire has that Pink Flag record which for a week or two in the 90's was OK." (when asked about their influences) "Life... the totality of all stimuli since birth be it auditory or otherwise... But to humor your question, I guess... it was Six Finger Satellite, Birthday Party, Capt. Beefheart, Albert Ayler, Coltrane, Chuck Berry, Van Halen, but this is all when I learned guitar waaaay back when I was 12." And my personal favorite: "If you read a Noam Chomsky book or two you will probably be educated enough to understand the irony of our band name... " Weh-heh-hell! I bet YOU weren't listening to Beefheart waaay back when you were twelve, huh chump? Them's some awfully self-important pretensions for a band who sound suspiciously like Fugazi, when they don't sound like every other group of noisy post-hardcore-post-punk-no-wave referencing scensters currently crowding Providence and San Francisco. To give credit where it's most certainly due, Arab On Radar had been together since '94, so they were there first (OK, first in the sense of the newwer wave of bands that call to mind no-wave of the late seventies/early eighties- first wave of the second wave of no-wave? Oh yeah, Skin Graft called it now wave-- remember that?), and they're definitely one of the best of the bunch, so the fact that disco-beats meets fucked-up noise-punk is kinda starting to get boring really isn't their fault. For all that's been said about how annoying and harsh Arab On Radar are, "The Stolen Singles" is really listenable, and despite the time span, these obnoxious and spazzy and simultaneously juvenile (title examples: "Swimming With A Hard on," "Miss American Hair Pie") and pretentious (see above) songs work cohesively as an album. Recomended for those who dig Lightning Bolt, Black Dice, Total Shutdown, no wave, Pere Ubu, and, uh, Fugazi. Not recommended for TRUE Arab On Radar fans who bought all these singles three years before they even came out. Suckers.

RealAudio clip: Inventor
RealAudio clip: Samurai Fight Song

Jeff was supposed to review this new Arab On Radar atrocity (their fourth long-player), 'cause he's one of the only folks here at Aquarius who actually likes these Providence, RI art-spazz noisemakers. Heck he even usually has one of their discs of yelping no-wave chaos stuck in his car stereo. For most of us, this would be pretty far from "driving music" but not for Jeff! Anyway,

RealAudio clip: Birth Control Blues
RealAudio clip: My Mind Is A Muffler

Originally released in England on Go Beat in 1999, Arab Strap's third studio album follows the epic "Philophobia" album in spilling itself all over the floor of some grimey Scottish pub. These are sorrowful drunken dirges that encapsulate the Arab Strap sound: an elegance in simple arrangements, pedestrian drum machine, and minor key guitar strum. Aidan Moffat's half muttered/half sung vocals tell tales of sexual dependance and alcoholic self-desctruction, with a clarity in its miserablism that isn't far from the best work of Robert Smith or Morrissey. While a few tracks falter into uptempo jazzy stutters, Arab Strap make you want to either never drink again, or get really hammered and ramble for hours to an ex's answering machine.

After a handful of painfully limited edition 12"s which never really got any distribution in the States, Arab Strap has released this single with a fortunately much larger pressing. While the title track is one of Arab Strap's more idiosyncratically upbeat songs (with a funky Ninja Tune-esque trip hop / pseduo jazz groove), the other two tracks are more quintessentially Arab Strap -- dark, epic dramas that sound like the more dymanic moments of Mogwai and allow for Aidan Moffat to mutter his morose tales of heartbreak and alcoholism. It's good.

RealAudio clip: Love Detective

For a live recording this is a pretty damn good one... A superb recording quality of a great performance from these Scottish pessimists. Most of the songs come from Philophobia plus some new tracks that follow the Arab Strap aesthetic of simple acoustic songs, crappy drum machine, occasional Mogwai-style explosive guitars, and those mopey lyrics of too many pints and sexual frustration.

Arab Strap return with another record of lurid relationship confessionals. Tales of love and fucking gone wrong are given a musical backing that mixes up warm strings and outdated drum machine dance beats, languorous guitar downer pop and funky bass. As always, tragic and ugly, a made-to-order soundtrack for bad sex, worse breakups and the corner pub where you drown your sorrows afterwards. It's all singing this time from Aidan (half of the Strap), but I kinda miss the spoken confessions of nastiness, betrayal and sorrow, all breathy gruffness barely covering the underlying heartbreak on previous records (but then I have a personal fondness for spoken vocals). Arab Strap's strength is getting away with hyper-personal, depressing sentiments without sounding totally self-indulgent or whiny (maybe it has something to do with their singer being a burly, drunken Scot and not some fey, barely post-pubescent midwestern college boy? or is it due to the honesty in singing about fucking other people over as often as gettting fucked over?) That strength is thoroughly apparent on "Monday At The Hug & Pint," a wrenching experience even if it's not as deliciously dirty as my personal fave Strap album "Philophobia." MPEG Download: "Act Of War" [/audio/arabstrapactofwar.mp3] MPEG Stream: "Act Of War" [/audio/arabstrapactofwar.m3u] MPEG Download: "Serenade" [/audio/arabstrapserenade.mp3]

MPEG stream: Act Of War
MPEG stream: Serenade
MPEG stream: Shy Retirer

Scottish duo whose melancholy murmurings remind us of Tindersticks more than anything else.

Nooooo, say it isn't so! Ten Years Of Tears -- a collection of Arab Strap odds'n'ends -- marks the close of Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton's tavern of awesome melancholic vitriolic folk (the band played their final shows in late 2006). These Scots always shined brightest when they were sounding their most liquor-blurred, beleaguered and foul tempered singing about fucked up relationships, tawdry sexual liaisons, and assorted other daily downers atop programmed beat driven folksiness. Theirs was (and is) the perfect music to play when you wanna be dancing and be all bummed out at the same time. This fan-pleasing cd compiles alternate versions, remixes, live recordings and B-sides rounded out by a few album tracks. Keep an ear out for their rousing cover of Bonnie Tyler's "It's A Heartache".

MPEG stream: The Shy Retirer
MPEG stream: Blood (Live '04)
MPEG stream: It's A Heartache

What's been concocted in the Arab Strap brewery since their last album Monday At the Hug & Pint back in 2003? Something big. To mark their tenth year of existence, they've opted to pour their sixth album into a sleekly produced affair with surprisingly fleshed out full band arrangements (horns, strings, the whole kit'n'kaboodle). As a result, it's mighty big on rock, lush and slightly shoegazerly, and their trademark endless-night-at-the-pub melancholia really benefits from this new turn of events. Never fear, Malcolm Middleton and Aidan Moffett are as bleary-eyed, sneering and ill-tempered as ever, but their sourness has never sounded so sweet. Their battered romantic hearts have muscled over their whiskeyed vitriolic spirits this time. Some songs here are downright beautiful. Check out "Don't Ask Me To Dance" and the album's official closer "There Is No Ending". You just wanna give 'em a hug. Psst, a secret bonus: we just noticed that there's an additional two songs at the end ("El Paso Song" and "Go Back To The Sea") that aren't mentioned in the track listing on the back of the cd!

MPEG stream: Stink
MPEG stream: (If There's) No Hope For Us
MPEG stream: Don't Ask Me To Dance

Arab Strap's fourth album finds the Scottish duo returning to Chemikal Underground / Matador after an ill-conceived stint with Go! Beat, who were pushing the purveyors of miserablism to produce the big hits like Portishead. It's not really clear what Go! Beat The title of this album refers to an ancient eastern theology which posits that an invisible red thread links soulmates. Yet within Arab Strap's semi-autobiographical tales, the quest for the soulmate has been marred by the regrets of casual sex and the physical misery of one too many hangovers. As on previous albums, Aidan Moffat's half spoken / half sung confessionals reveal little guilt (and more pleasure) from alcoholic misadventures. Musically, this is just as spartan as before, with crappy drum machines given fantastic production and simple minor-chord guitar melodies. Instead of putting those 'Parental Advisory' stickers on this album, there should be stickers advising not to drink when listening to Arab Strap's albums.

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

SORRY. Arab Strap's application of their unmistakable hungover dourness to a couple of '80s hard rock megahits -- the ever-brooding Scots cover AC/DC's trademark "You Shook Me All Night Long" and Van Hagar's chart-topper "Why Can't This Be Love?" -- proves to be a somewhat trying experience for the listener. However set those two songs aside, and you're left with three others which fare considerably better. Plus, of course no EP these days can be without an obligatory remix, and The Shy Retirer is no exception... voila, Dirty Hospital contributed a remix of the title track.

MPEG stream: The Shy Retirer (radio edit)
MPEG stream: Why Can't This Be Love?

The domestic release of the first album from this amazing Scottish duo. Not nearly as morose or cohesive of an album as Philophobia, The Week Never Starts Around Here displays a remarkable sense of humor in between all of the references to alcohol and sex. Think either Lou Barlow, Tindersticks, or Nick Cave on a drinking binge of your favorite hard liquor.

Remixes of Scottish duo Arab Strap's first single off of their newest "The Red Thread" album by Bis, Jason Famous and... Arab Strap. Three pleasant, if not particularly challenging tracks for diehard AS completists (AS newcomers should definitely check out

RealAudio clip: Bis Remix

Weird and wonderful one here, folks. And it's for folky folks, though it's got a HEAVY pedigree. A lot of you are fans, like us, of South American stoner rock cosmonauts Los Natas, so you'll sort of (but not really) know what to expect here, Ararat being Los Natas guitarist Sergio Chotsourian's solo side project, and it is psychedelic like the most darkly psychedelic of Los Natas' output, coming closest perhaps to the proggy spaciness of Los Natas' two Toba-Trance discs for Circle's Ektro label, but is even more abstract and stripped down, not actually rock at all, often all-acoustic, "New Weird Argentina" maybe we'd call it! Ararat could be some kind of haunted, campfire krautrock, more like a field recording than the finished product of a studio session (even if the studio is called Death, which is where this was in fact recorded). It starts off with "Gitanoss", an quietly epic almost 14 minutes of moody late-night strum, ambient hum, echoes, drifting melody, hazy organ drone, ritual percussion, backwards effects... quite a trip, as is this whole disc, Chotsourian climbing his personal Holy Mountain here (Mount Ararat!), it seems, this album a musical sketchbook of his ascent, of sorts. Track two turns out to be a reprise of "Dos Horses", the album-ender of most recent Los Natas disc, Nuevo Orden De La Libertad, this alternate version not that far removed from the acoustic guitar/piano interplay of the original (Chotsourian just must be very proud of this particular composition, and it is quite nice). Next, there's the spooky "El Carrusel", all billowing fuzz and tinkling bell, like Stephen Wray Lobdell's Davis Redford Triad doing the soundtrack for a John Carpenter film! While that one got heavy, the next is not, the pretty "Little Grissy" being under a minute of guitar and guitar only, Chotsourian giving a delicate demonstration of his chops for the Takoma crowd, leading into the hushed and melodic "Ganar-Perder", which to us sounds like Ghost's Masaki Batoh reinterpreting "Planet Caravan" or something (it too is a version of a song from Nuevo Orden De La Libertad, but in this case much altered, extended and acoustic). That's followed by the delicate Spanish guitar and atmospheric creaky crackle of the nearly 12 minute long "Magia Negra", one that Sir Richard Bishop fans should enjoy. Only finale "Castro" is a "real" rock song, sounding like a band (Los Natas, or even Circle), with proper drums, and amps fully cranked, with vocals that Circle's Mika Ratto might think were his own, and even this one stays freaky and uncommitted, 'til it ends with the clatter of abandoned drumsticks, electricity flickering, Chotsourian and his mysterious band wandering away into the desert night. We always say Boris fans should check out Los Natas. And Boris fans should check this out too, but we think Ararat is also for folks into Six Organs Of Admittance, James Blackshaw, Jozef Van Wissem, Feathers, Steven R. Smith and other Jewelled Antler stuff, all that whole post-Fahey psychfolk scene, with the astral Argentinean/Amerindian/Armenian/Appalachian vibes here flowing as ominous, minimalist mesmer, intimate and entrancing...

MPEG stream: Gitanoss
MPEG stream: El Carrusel
MPEG stream: Ganar-Perder

International Harvester, Algarnas Tradgard, Trad Gras Och Stenar, Kebnekajse. If those names mean anything to you then you're probably like us -- a big fan of Sweden's answer to krautrock, the Svenska psych-prog-folk bands of the seventies. There's been a veritable smorgasbord of cd reissues of awesome if obscure classic LPs by these and other '70s Swedish outfits over the past couple of years, and now comes this, a cd version of the third (we think, but maybe it's the fourth?) album by this legendary group, Arbete & Fritid, from 1973. Like Harvester and Kebnekajse especially, you'll hear plenty of traditional Scandinavian traditional folk music mixed up with a kinda Velvet Underground rock style in A&F. They've been described as sounding like the "Third Ear Band meets Terry Riley" and that's pretty accurate, especially on the last track here, a 20 minute drone-jam called "Ostpusten-Vastpusten" that's probably worth the $17 this costs alone. That's actually a bonus cut, taken from the Arbete & Fritid side of a 1972 split LP with some other band we've yet to hear. While that's the highlight, the rest of this disc is mighty fine too, the only problem perhaps being how their diverse interest in folk, politics, repetitive minimalism, and experimental jazz doesn't always lead to them maintaining a consistent vibe. During one song you'll be transported to the a cold farmhouse in the Swedish wilderness filled with rustic hippies sawing on violins, but then on the next you're in a basement radical jazz club pondering urban issues after a streetfight with the Man. In a way though that's kinda cool. Tea party waltzes and heavy fuzz jams, they're all here. Had we heard A&F before those other bands mentioned above, it's quite likely that they'd be the measure by which we'd judge the rest, as apparently they were a seminal influence on the scene -- in fact, members of the Parson Sound/Trad Gras Och Stenar axis later joined A&F after this particular album. Hopefully then this is only the first of a slew of A&F reissues!

RealAudio clip: Ganglat Efter Lejsme Per Larsson, Malung
RealAudio clip: Petrokemi Det Kan Man Inte Bada I