[ aquarius records — Rock Pop ]

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Showing results 8801 through 8850 of 19388.

First cd issue of what is reportedly a highly sought after record of UK psychedelic rock. The singer's got a nice Skip Spence strain in his voice, and there's a lot of sitar on top of the more traditional instrumentation, and the winsome harmonies are

RealAudio clip: Jolly Mary
RealAudio clip: Hallo to Me

We've gotten to a really weird place in our music obsession, as evidenced by the fact that sometimes a recommendation against, is almost stronger than a recommendation FOR. Sounds weird but it's true. We have friends at other stores, who will tell us something is terrible, they hated it, but then will add "you might like it though." And the weird thing is, they're usually right (that we'll like it). We've developed such a taste for the bizarre, it's sometimes hard to tell if something is bad, or so fucked up it's genius. However, one of those friends recommended against buying this very record, very vehemently in fact. Hard to recall, but it was something along the lines of it not being very metal and being all jangly and wussy. Fair enough. But they are from Finland, and they do have a song called "Discover The Pigtail"! Those two pieces of critical info were enough to overrule our friend's warning, and we're so glad they were. This latest ep from Finnish black metal, psychedelic post rock horde Jumalhamara is AMAZING. Three songs, all on the long side, with a sound that is pretty difficult to pin down. It is easy to see why someone questing for serious black metal grimness might be disappointed. The record begins with the sound of children, laughing, playing, and what sounds like oinking pigs, a field recording of some village, until the band ROAR into action, pounding out a fierce blast of blackened buzz, grinding and intensely heavy, but it literally only lasts for about 10 seconds, then the band drifts off into some washed out hippy psych territory, all crooned reverbed vocals, lazy sun baked melodies, simple hand drums, slippery minimal bass, streaks of dubbed out distorted guitar, but for the most part, this is almost like some blackened Finnish Grateful Dead. Near the end there's even some fuzzy organ, the guitars get a bit heavier, the vocals moaning and chant-like, but it never really explodes, just gets thicker and more dense, while still seeming jammy and druggy. So awesome. Almost like a slightly heavier, way more fucked up black metal version of the recent Dead Man record. "Discover The Pigtail" begins with glistening harmonics, which are soon joined by some strange off kilter drumming, tangled riffing and howled vocals, the cool thing about this track is that those harmonics never go away, so even as the band slithers and sprawls, spewing out a sort of buzzy blackness, the glistening shimmer totally shines through, diluting the heaviness, turning what might be something raw and heavy into something way more bizarre and trippy, at times it almost sounds like two records playing simultaneously, they drift in an out of sync, all very dizzying and gloriously tweaked. The final track is the briefest of the bunch, and begins as a grinding gnarled and blackened doomic dirge, but not typically sludgy and murky, instead it's super dense and layered, the drums doing much more than pounding away, stumbling and skittering, beneath streaks of high end guitar, and chugging blown out riffage, the cymbals sizzling, the whole track recorded super hot and in the red, blasting and pounding and twisting until it fades out. Definitely not really black metal, more like some sort of twisted doom-ed post rock avant psych, but still plenty heavy and really fucking great!

MPEG stream: The Swing
MPEG stream: Discover The Pigtail

Veering drastically from their Slintishly Rodanic past, Anahata heads for Fugazi country, with new markedly off key vocals, and some pseudo-ethno percussion. Immersed in the insulated world of indie rock, where a pedigree is everything, and everyone is an ego stroking yesman, there is no one to tell JO44, that they are not breaking new ground, they are slowly becoming less and less unique, and that Doug Scharin is not Stewart Copeland. A lot of people I know like this record, but if June of 44 for you (like me) were merely one of many bands, trying desperately to fill the void left by the demise of Slint/Rodan/Bastro, then this record will surely disappoint. Oh yeah. their usually sublime packaging has been replaced by the bad-rock-band-collage normally reserved for bands like Foghat or UFO.

Taking up where The Anatomy of Sharks left off, Four Great Points is probably the best June of 44 yet. The singing and the songs are better, and toward the end of the record they wander further into (for them) unexplored territory, incorporating moog, samples, spoken word, and meandering soundscapes.

Following the Tortoise/The Ex collaboration, here's the newest installment in Konkurrent's "Fishtank" series. Recorded in February 1999 while on tour in Europe, here are six exclusive tracks of June of 44's unique jazz/post-rock experiments. The liner notes suggest that this is the "missing link" between their albums "Four Great Points" and "Anahata".

New three-song ep from these post-rockers®. Maybe more experimental and stretched-out than before, with the drummer Doug Scharin bringing in some dub concepts from his band Him.

While many have followed their lead, aping their electro fueled indie-pop, Junior Boys still have so much more class and sophistication than the wannabe masses that flood the scene with their watered down sounds these days. Begone Dull Care is the Junior Boys' third album and while their songs have always been slow burners, this album is probably the slowest yet, with a bit of patience required to fully appreciate, but if you stick with it, the rewards are pretty damn great! It's tricky to make an album of electro-pop that isn't totally initially catchy or in your face, but Junior Boys have proven that they understand so well how to create an overall mood and sound that can take a few listens before the impact is truly felt! Always the perfect soundtrack for late nights and coming down sessions, enticingly sleek and so richly smooth. While so much of electro-pop these days is about flashing fluorescent colors as bright and obnoxiously as possible, Junior Boys remind us all that it's possible to create something much more fluid and composed while still being able to move bodies with such ease.

MPEG stream: Work
MPEG stream: Hazel
MPEG stream: Bits & Pieces

The same way that the Swim album marked a point of true arrival and a renewed sense of purpose for Caribou, the same can be said for this new album by Junior Boys. In fact we've always sensed a kinship in the way that Dan Snaith (Caribou) and Jeremy Greenspan (Junior Boys) have emerged in recent years as two of the best musical minds in melding smart songwriting wth infectious electronics. While Junior Boys have always been more about the slow burn, this new record finds them picking up the pace and moving towards driving, intoxicating late night dance floor material. While this finds them embracing a bolder persona, what makes this record so great is the way it's still rooted in the emotional undercurrents that Greenspan has always been adept at exploring through his sensual voice, bittersweet melodies, and lyrics. There's the way that the word "baby", which pops up on almost every song, becomes detached from its usual frivolous use as a trope in pop and dance music, instead ringing loudly with the shifting meanings that the word takes on as our relationship changes shape with whatever "baby" is being evoked. An early contender of pop record of the year!

MPEG stream: Over It
MPEG stream: C'mon Baby
MPEG stream: What You Won't Do For Love

Over the last few years there has been no shortage of '80s inspired bands, creating electronic infused pop with an indie sensibility. But well before this retro explosion of bands boldly proclaiming their love for the '80s, Junior Boys hit the scene at a time when indie pop was in such desperate need of something more sensual danceable, an indie pop sound that did more than just flirt with the dance floor. What's given the group lasting power is that they aren't just about tapping into an era, or sound, or giving you ironic winks about the keyboards they are playing or the outfits they are wearing. While many continue to nail the strictly aesthetic side of '80s electro-pop, Junior Boys are one of the only groups who truly capture the romantic and emotional side of this often cheapened landscape. There is so much soul and substance in the songs they create, and Jeremy Greenspan has one of the smoothest and most seductive voices of any singer around. It's All True continues their streak of great albums, filled with steaming movers, and sizzling slow burners. Imagine Aphex Twin getting a hold of George Michael and Boy George and helping them create their most understated and sexiest recordings ever. Or New Order reworking Japan's Gentleman Take Polaroids. As refreshing as Junior Boys were when they originally hit the scene, their continued earnestness and ability to craft songs that have an emotional weight to them is equally as refreshing in this moment in time when it all seems to be about irony and capturing just the surface of another moment in time. Highly recommended.

MPEG stream: Itchy Fingers
MPEG stream: Playtime
MPEG stream: Banana Ripple

Hailing from the cold climate of Ontario, Canada, Junior Boys are back with their second full length to add some warm sleek soul to the too often cold and icy dance floor. This is is how you always wished the Pet Shop Boys sounded. With his irresistibly smooth vocal stylings Jeremy Greenspan perfectly lays that laid back inviting voice atop synths, guitar, bass, drums and a laptop, creating a fully realized electronic pop sound. While so many others playing so called electro-pop are smothered in irony and look-at-us-we're-so-hip garb it's so refreshing to listen to the Junior Boys as they mean what they play and do it so so well. If you miss the magic of early Depeche Mode and Japan records this could be a welcome addition to your collection. The kind of sounds that you want to hear after a long night out, it not only keeps the beat on the dance floor, but when you finally get home, it slows things down and lets unwind as you take off your dance shoes and sink into some new romantic dreams. So nice!

MPEG stream: In The Morning
MPEG stream: So This Is Goodbye

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

SORRY.

Sirens is a new limited edition cd from this fine Bay Area foursome! Our first encounter with Junior Panthers was back in 2002... no, not really all that long ago! Their band name was fitting, collegiate and energetic. Their self-titled debut album was a bright sunbeam of buoyant pop. The next we heard from them was their Derelicts cdep in 2006, and it seemed they were still destined for jangly indie pop darling status. Now just two years later, they're a whole 'nother band... still very good, but very different. Think: a lot less bounce, and more beefed up rock. Ultra drenched in reverby guitar effects, Sirens is far more shoegazerly and spacily psychedelic than past recordings seemingly inspired by equal parts My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Jesus & Mary Chain, Swervedriver and Polvo. Cool.

MPEG stream: Another Side
MPEG stream: Solar Attraction

Sweet, sunny pop has the power to brighten a day! Those jangle'n'crunch guitars. Those mellow, uplifting vocal harmonies. Listening to this album sure stirred flashes of familiarity. While the Junior Panthers certainly brings to mind the beloved power pop beauty of Big Star or their disciples Velvet Crush, Teenage Fanclub, Matthew Sweet, there was something else that rang even closer to home. It wasn't until the thirteenth song began that I knew for certain that I'd heard this band (or some other incarnation of them) before. The song in question is "Defy Your Radio" (there's two versions of it, the second radio edit version doesn't appear numerically on the cd player counter, but rest assured it's there) and you may recall our enthusiastic review of it when it appeared on SF band The Damsels' debut release a little over a year ago. Yes, that band has transformed into the Junior Panthers. That song was a stand-out on that cdep, and it's definitely a highlight here as well. As for the rest of the album, there's eleven more songs filled with energetic pop smarts. A solid 'debut'!

RealAudio clip: Defy Your Radio
RealAudio clip: California

With the evidence clearly stated in Ka-Spel's solo projects, no one can doubt who wears the pants in the extended family of the Legendary Pink Dots. Edward Ka-Spel expands the downer psychedelic strum frosted with ample doom & gloom found on the "Hallway of the Gods" Pink Dots album into smoldering experimental if baroque arrangemnts maintaining his Syd Barrett vocal mimicry all the while.

We've dipped our toes in the extensive catalogue of The Legendary Pink Dots and Edward Ka-Spel from time to time; and here we have one of the true gems from both bodies of work in Ka-Spel's 1991 solo outing Tanith And The Lion Tree. The Pink Dots have long been a baroque ensemble of goth portent, psychedelic wooziness, Victorian theatricality and kosmische adventurousness. With Ka-Spel's lilting lisp picking up right where Syd Barrett left off, it's interesting to ponder where Pink Floyd might have gone under Barrett's direction instead. Nonetheless, the Ka-Spel / LPD aesthetic is always an eclectic patchwork of sound collage and oblique songwriting as the backdrop to Ka-Spel's lyrical invocations. The opening track "O From The Great Sea" is driven by a John Carpenter / Halloween set of horror-synth arppegiations and staccato piano lines that counterpoint the languid pleas from Ka-Spel, who leads into the black lullaby found in the title track which features a memorably melodic phrase that spotlights the allegorical imagery found in his enigmatic / mythological poetry. Droning loops, slumping organ chord passages, chemical playschools, and washes of musique concrete expressiveness tumble through much of the album, only to coalesce into a homunculus of a song here and there complete with structured tension, balladeering croon, lyrical obtusion, and mutant tales of love, death, and misery. Long out of print, it's very good to have this one available again!

MPEG stream: 'O' From The Great Sea
MPEG stream: Tanith And The Lion Tree
MPEG stream: Four Out Of Ten
MPEG stream: Prisoners Of War

Just take one look at this record's cover - if you guess these longhaired & bearded hippie boys in their vintage duds are another retro-proto-metal band in the Sabbathy style of Witchcraft, Graveyard, Horisont, and Noctum, you'd be guessing correctly!! Only thing is, time trippers Kadavar aren't from up in Sweden like those bands, they're from Berlin. But damn, just like all those Swedish faves, they are sure good at kicking out the jams with authentic sounding, bellbottomed bombast. The six tracks here are like the March Of The Riffs, unstoppable; from start to finish it's a rollicking ride of fuzzed out retro-riffery frequently adorned with ripping wah wah psych guitar leads, and some even psychier synth (that to be found on the spaced out final track, "Purple Sage", courtesy of guest synth wiz Shazzula, she of Black Mass Rising fame). The tones are fat, the grooves loping, the vibe very much 1972 or so, harking back to the likes of Sir Lord Baltimore and Kadavar's hard (kraut-)rockin' countrymen Night Sun and Tiger B. Smith� funnily enough, the drummer here is named "Tiger". The rest of this classic power trio is rounded out by "Mammut" on bass and "Lindemann" (ok that sounds like a real name) on guitar and vocals, which are in a generally more gentle mode than his dun-dun-dundering heavy riffs, suggestive of folky ritual at times. Kadavar's debut gets a hell yeah recommendation to all fans of any of the doomy '70s sounding stoner rock, particularly the Swedish bands mentioned above and their counterparts over here like Danava, Witch, and SF's own Dzjenghis Khan. Digipak cd release or colored (translucent vanilla?) vinyl with digital download.

MPEG stream: All Our Thoughts
MPEG stream: Black Sun
MPEG stream: Forgotten Past

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

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From Osaka, Japan: Eastern psych-trance space rock. A treat for fans of Ghost and other mind-expanding PSF-label bands. Really nice, especially when leader Atsushi Kobayashi is playing his zurna (double-reed horn).

Aussie prog reissued.

She of the angel voice and lyrics that bite, it's Kaia from Team Dresch with another solo record of realness. This beats Jewel and Mary Lou Lord into the ground and leaves them writhing in the knowledge of their total inferiority.

Okay folks, let's just state what has become increasingly obvious... if you're over the age of twenty seven, you're probably not hearing a lot of new music these days that doesn't sound like [fill in the blank]. So we've sorta gotta accept that 'good music' is gonna be that which is probably somewhat lacking in the originality department but done exceptionally well. Case in point, Kaiser Chiefs. Expect that name to be shoved down your throat in the next few months beyond Franz Ferdinand proportions. Yeah, just like F.F. they're on a major label and hence have the big bucks and suits makin' sure you know who they are, but also just like F.F. they've got the chops and hooks to back up the hype... and yes, what they do is very much like F.F., Killers, Futureheads, Maximo Park, et al -- y-know, late 80s/early 90s-inspired catchy-as-fuck choruses, woozy synth keyboards, sinewy guitars, punchy drumming, hammered piano keys, cocky lead vocals and falsetto na-na-na-na backing vocals -- but with more of the lanky bombast of Pulp, more of the sneering bite of The Clash (especially on the first single "I Predict A Riot" and the fourth song "Na Na Na Na Naa"... yes, it's really called that!) and yeah even a bit of Adam & The Ants too (check out the tenth song "Time Honoured Tradition")! I'm sure some folks will be trying to turn up their noses at this, but it's pretty hard to resist. Aw heck, kids who were born the year that this kind of music first became popular will probably think Employment is groundbreaking, but for those of us...uhhh, older folks, it's gonna simply be a gosh dang dandy summertime album! So get a jump on it.

MPEG stream: I Predict A Riot
MPEG stream: Time Honoured Tradition

The flood of compact disc reissues of obscure krautrock albums has been constant and overwhelming in recent years, but few discs are truly as cosmic and inspired as collector hype claims make them out to be. Usually an album's rarity is confused with "classic" status. But every once in a while, we get pleasantly blown away by an unexpected unknown. Kalacakra is one such album that deserves its mythical, mystical reputation (and $300 price tag on the collector's market). Reissued in 2001 (but not heard by us until more recently, due to the glut of such reissues alluded to above), Kalacakra's "Crawling To Lhasa" contains eight tracks of mantric acid-folk self-released in 1972 by the apparently drugged-out duo of Claus Rauschenbach ("guitars, kongas, percussions, vocals, harmonica, slentem") and Heinz Martin ("electr. guitars, flute, piano, vibraphon, schalmi, cello, violin, synthesizer"). Their strange, hippie sense of humor and obsession with the culture of Tibet (the name Kalacakra is the Tibetan term for "wheel of time") results in some fantastically nonsensical, eastern-influenced psychedelia (nonsensical? well, that "slentem" that Claus plays is in fact a non-existent, made-up instrument!). The album begins with the dark, hypnotic "Nearby Shiras", a song about a plague-ravaged town in olden Persia, which features some totally sinister and maniacal whispered German-language vocals, reminding us a bit even of Comus. As their crawl to Lhasa continues, Kalacakra venture into zones of lovely folk-strum and raga-rock as well, before the album wraps up with a a deranged and damaged blues stumble called "Tante Olga". Oh, then there's two "bonus" tracks, recorded by Heinz in 1993, that are perhaps best ignored: electronic "world music" unfortunately lacking the mystery and insanity of his 1972 output, inoffensive but an unnecessary addition to this reissue for sure. Claus, we're told, still lives (on social security) in Kalacakra's home town of Duisburg, but does no recording. Good for him. Some folks we know (who often make music under the name Thuja) got so inspired upon hearing this disc that they determined to start their own hippie psych side project, to be called "The Ways Of God To Man", drawing upon Kalacakra as well as the similar sounds of Yahowah 13 and Maru Sankaku Shikaku and Faust's "Tapes" as influences. We'll let you know if they manage to actually record anything! Garden of Delights did their usual thorough job with this reissue, which boasts a thick booklet full of liner notes (in German and English), reproductions of label art from the original LP *and* from bootleg versions, plus photos of Claus and Heinz looking about as weird and long-haired and hippie-ish as it's possible to get! Albums like this make us worry about overlooking other hidden gems amid the multitude of kraut/psych/prog reissues that we're blessed/cursed with every month, so we'll do our best to try and check 'em all out, eventually...whew...

RealAudio clip: Nearby Shiras
RealAudio clip: Raga No. 11
RealAudio clip: Tante Olga

Now reissued on vinyl! Krautrock obscurity alert! Definitely a fave, an album deserving of its mythical, mystical reputation. Kalacakra's Crawling To Lhasa contains eight tracks of mantric acid-folk self-released in 1972 by the apparently drugged-out duo of Claus Rauschenbach ("guitars, kongas, percussions, vocals, harmonica, slentem") and Heinz Martin ("electr. guitars, flute, piano, vibraphon, schalmi, cello, violin, synthesizer"). Their strange, hippie sense of humor and obsession with the culture of Tibet (the name Kalacakra is the Tibetan term for "wheel of time") results in some fantastically nonsensical, eastern-influenced psychedelia (nonsensical? well, that "slentem" that Claus plays is in fact a non-existent, made-up instrument!). The album begins with the dark, hypnotic "Nearby Shiras", a song about a plague-ravaged town in olden Persia, which features some totally sinister and maniacal whispered German-language vocals, reminding us a bit even of Comus. As their crawl to Lhasa continues, Kalacakra venture into zones of lovely folk-strum and raga-rock as well, before the album wraps up with a deranged and damaged blues stumble called "Tante Olga".

Though we sadly haven't been able to get copies of the first Kaleidoscope album on cd of late (the one entitled Tangerine Dream, not to be confused with the krautrock band of that name), we are very happy to now have copies of this perfectly twee UK psych pop combo's recently reissued second album, 1969's Faintly Blowing! And it comes in a nice digipack with six bonus tracks! Now if only we had some tea and crumpets we'd be all supercalifragilistic. Ahem. Kaleidoscope were one of the best unsung post-Peppers British psych-pop acts. This one carries on from their first (a solid AQ fave) with more of the same delightful dreamy oh-so-melodic and lysergically lyricized pop psyke, some of the best ever in our humble opinion. Orchestrated, emotive, shoulda-been-hits abound, along with some way-out psychedelic experimentation. The Kaleidoscope story continued into the proggy '70s with a name change to Fairfield Parlour but Faintly Blowing was really their last colourful hurrah of dainty dandy '60s poppiness.

MPEG stream: Faintly Blowing
MPEG stream: Snap Dragon

Nice! The two crucial albums by this aQ fave sixties psych pop act, now reissued as a double cd, complete with bunches of bonus tracks! Not to be confused with the various other Kaleidoscopes of the era from the US and Mexico, this perfectly twee UK psych pop combo's were one of the best unsung post-Peppers British psych-pop acts. We believe these guys might in fact have been THE ULTIMATE psychedelic pop band ever. The first of the two discs here contains their 1967 debut album Tangerine Dream (which is also not to be confused with the famous krautrock/soundtrack outfit Tangerine Dream) is just incredible. Gorgeous vocals, killer melodies, lush orchestrations, and, especially, beautifully baroque psych-speak lyrics that put "Strawberry Fields Forever" to shame - with lines like "Battalions in baby blue are bursting beige balloons / the water pistols are all filled with lemonade / the jester and the goldfish have joined minds above the moon / oh please kiss the flowers and you too will be safe / oh swing and sway..." It's very British, twee and dreamy, being that perfect blend of sunshine and melancholy so many psych pop bands of the era were striving for. The Kaleidoscope did it best right here. I mean, if you like the Zombies and the Hollies and heck the Olivia Tremor Control, you should know about these gents too. Indeed, the album's final track "The Sky Children", might be THE ULTIMATE pop-psych track on this ultimate pop-psych record. (Hey a little hyperbole never hurt anybody.) It's an eight-minute epic, with a thrilling vocal hook on endless repeat, and amazing lyrics continually pouring forth the whole time. Truly awe-some, if you're attuned to the vibe. The disc is rounded out with six bonus tracks, from singles and such. Disc two contains the band's second album, 1969's Faintly Blowing (and an additional 4 bonus tracks). This one carries on from their first with more of the same delightful dreamy oh-so-melodic and lysergically lyricized pop psyke, some of the best ever in our humble opinion. Orchestrated, emotive, shoulda-been-hits abound, along with some way-out psychedelic experimentation. The Kaleidoscope story continued into the proggy '70s with a name change to Fairfield Parlour but Faintly Blowing was really their last colourful hurrah of dainty dandy '60s poppiness. Quite nice, fantastic, possibly even supercalifragilistic.

MPEG stream: Dive Into Yesterday
MPEG stream: Flight From Ashiya
MPEG stream: The Sky Children
MPEG stream: Faintly Blowing
MPEG stream: Snap Dragon

Not a new release -- nor even a new reissue -- but we just manage to get some and wanted to list it 'cause it's something that several of us here have been listening to a lot lately! This Kaleidoscope were a sixties British pop psych band (not to be confused with the various other Kaleidoscopes of the era from the US and Mexico) and we believe these guys might in fact have been THE ULTIMATE psychedelic pop band ever. This album (also not to be confused with the famous Krautrock/soundtrack outfit with the same name as the album's title) is just incredible. Gorgeous vocals, killer melodies, lush orchestrations, and, especially, beautifully baroque psych-speak lyrics that put "Strawberry Fields Forever" to shame -- with lines like "Battalions in baby blue are bursting beige balloons / the water pistols are all filled with lemonade / the jester and the goldfish have joined minds above the moon / oh please kiss the flowers and you too will be safe / oh swing and sway..." It's very British, twee and dreamy, being that perfect blend of sunshine and melancholy so many psych pop bands of the era were striving for. The Kaleidoscope did it best right here. I mean, if you like the Zombies and the Hollies and heck the Olivia Tremor Control you should know about these gents too. Indee, the original 1967 album's final track (followed here by six bonus tracks), "The Sky Children", might be THE ULTIMATE pop-psych track on this ultimate pop-psych record. (Hey a little hyperbole never hurt anybody.) It's an eight-minute epic, with a thrilling vocal hook on endless repeat, and amazing lyrics continually pouring forth the whole time. Truly awe-some, if you're attuned to the vibe.

RealAudio clip: Dive Into Yesterday
RealAudio clip: Flight From Ashiya

Record Of The Week honorees Los Dug Dugs aren't the only vintage psych band from south of the border that we dig, of course. Here's another, recently reissued rarity as well. The Mexican Kaleidoscope, not to be confused with the UK Kaleidoscope (a huge AQ favorite) or the USA Kaleidoscope either. Actually this Kaleidoscope was only sorta from Mexico - while record was originally released there, the band had begun in Puerto Rico, and then later moved in on the Mexican scene, via a stopover in the Dominican Republic, where this album was recorded, in 1967. Interestingly, on the back cover of the cd booklet, there's a show poster for 'em (billed as The Kaleidoscopes) that says they're from here in San Francisco, psychedelic central at the time, a promoter's claim made probably just to help sell tickets. But they did sound like they *could* have been from 'Frisco all right. Swirling organ and guitar fuzz dominate the uptempo numbers, like garagey, groovy opener "Hang Out", and there's plenty of organ and fuzz to be heard on the more melodic, moody likes of "Once Upon A Time There Was A World", a somber eight minute opus that one. Definitely killer psychedelic pop stuff for all you "Nuggets" fans, Kaleidoscope for sure fitting in with such acts as The Electric Prunes, Strawberry Alarm Clock, Question Mark & The Mysterians, The Lollipop Shoppe, and others of the era. They seemed to specialize in the wild and unhinged, there's even a song called "I'm Crazy". The urgent and intense "Colours", with its stinging fuzz, burbling electronics, sudden horn-honks, and desperate vocals, is especially tripped-out. Crucial lines from the lyrics: "acid colors burn my brain / I'm just insane"! Also something about the singer's delivery on that track reminds us of Mexican-American punks The Plugz (of Repo Man soundtrack fame)... That's probably the number one nugget here, a classic, but all the tracks are pretty good. One song here, with the great title of "I'm Here, He's Gone, She's Cryin'", was written by their Venezuelan pals Ladies WC, the others all originals. This is a nicely done, totally legit reissue (they even tracked down the original cover artist), with extensive liner notes, vintage photos, and cool full color artwork in the cd booklet. It also includes 3 bonus tracks: 2 bluesy ones from a Kaleidoscope offshoot (which may or many not date from the '60s, we wonder) and a live recording of Kaleidoscope in 1969, doing Donovan's "Season Of The Witch". Shadoks pronounce themselves pleased to put this out, and they should be.

MPEG stream: Hang Out
MPEG stream: A Hole In My Life
MPEG stream: Colours

The Kalevala is the Finnish national mythological epic, and thus no surprise this '70s prog/boogie band hails from Finland. Yes that's right, we said prog/boogie. And Finland. Wonder if Itavalya are fans? There's two LPs reissued here on this single cd, the band's 1972 debut People No Names, and their 1975 follow-up Boogie Jungle. Of the two, well, you can maybe guess which is the best... People No Names is simply a crazed hard rockin' prog behemoth, kicking ass and taking names (no names?). The nine-minute title track doesn't hold back the rapid-fire changes, the ripping guitars, the jazzy grooves, the weirdly gruff vocals...it's wild stuff!! The other cuts here veer from instrumental shred to folky melodiousness to heavy psychedelic jamming, oftentimes all at once! Not for those with no tolerance for wackiness, though. The countryish hoedown "Tamed Indians" will see to that... Record number two, which appeared three years later, after the band broke up and reformed with a new line-up (including a new vocalist), is a bit more of an ordinary, less-prog, more Jimi Hendrix-y affair. Still wacky though. And, of course, they've gone BOOGIE big time. Some will find this just too ridiculous but we're having wonderful nostalgic flashbacks to a '70s rock n' roll Finland we never actually experienced. Interesting note: Liner notes that reveal the band's original name was Vietnam, which didn't fly with concert promoters at the time, hence the change... Another note: one annoyance is that Walhalla did that annoying thing labels so often do when they put out 2-on-1 cds, trying to cram both album's covers on one panel of the cd booklet rather than giving each cover a panel. Pet peeve #294,391.

MPEG stream: People No Names
MPEG stream: Lady With The Veil
MPEG stream: Mind The Fly Hunter

One would usually never align The Beach Boys with early freak folk, but then this strange and lovely oddity suddenly emerges out of nowhere and all kinds of links can be made. Stephen John Kalinich was (and still is) a poet and songwriter who with the help of Lindsey Buckingham in a project called Zarathurstra and Thelibus cut a demo of "Leaves of Grass" inspired by the Walt Whitman poem. Moving to LA in the mid-sixties, he met the Wilson brothers and based on the strength of the demo was signed as the first artist on their newly formed Brother Records imprint. He co-wrote songs mainly with Dennis such as "Little Bird" and "Be Still" from the Friends album (one of our Beach Boys favorites) as well as songs from the recently reissued "Pacific Ocean Blue". "A World Of Peace Must Come" was to be his debut release. Recorded by Brian Wilson at Brian's house in 1969, the tapes were immediately lost and never heard from since... until now. The production is not what you might expect from Brian Wilson, instead these are beautiful lo-fi recordings of beat-like impressionistic poetry and song, backed by simple arrangements of acoustic guitars, field recordings and tablas, with bits of dialogue between Brian and Stephen interspersed. One can't help but be reminded of the Jewelled Antler collective's foresty acoustics when listening to tracks like "The Deer, The Elk, The Raven". Or the gentle spoken word psych of Bobby Brown. Like Eden Ahbez was to Nat King Cole, Kalinich was a strange visionary figure in the Wilson's lives, and this is a fascinating document of their relationship, and an interesting curio of The Beach Boys in their peak era. Now if someone would only reissue that American Spring album........

MPEG stream: The Deer, The Elk, The Raven
MPEG stream: Be Still
MPEG stream: America, I Know You
MPEG stream: Leaves Of Grass

Mari Kalkun is a contemporary Estonian folk singer, who has taken up the task of resurrecting the early 20th century folk songs from her homeland, with many of her lyrics reworked from works by Estonian poets dating back to the 1920s. Kalkun was the artist who introduced us to the haunting singing quartet Utsiotso, a group that shares a similar influence and inspiration, in those selfsame early Estonian folk music traditions. That said, there's quite a lot we don't know about Estonian folk music; but from what she mentions about her own songwriting, Kalkun follows one particular strain - vaibakloppimine. This is a stripped down style for voice, minimal accompaniment, and a distinctive lack of drums, which presumably are prominent or at least present in other Estonian folk musics. In order to even attempt such a style, one has to have decent pipes; and Kalkun certainly has a beautiful voice, one that would bring to mind the empathic delivery of Chan Marshall. But with her minimalist arrangements for guitar, zither, or piano, the most obvious reference to us is Sibylle Baier. That should certainly register as high praise from aQuarius! "Hommukuvalge" is a downright beautiful number gliding around the simple vocal and guitar melodies that evokes the carefree daydreaminess of a wander through a sun-flecked forest collecting mushrooms and blueberries (quite the common weekend excursion for Estonians!) Kalkun puts the words of Estonian poet Raimond Kolk to music on "Tuulo Kaen" with a blossoming accordion drone, fragile clusters of piano notes, and her full-throated, harmonious voice taking a rather dramatic turn at the chorus. Elsewhere she adopts lyrics from Tove Jansson's Moomin stories, which were allegorical children's books with fantastical creatures akin to a Scandinavian Dr. Seuss. This song "Koduvana Puhendus" eschews the bittersweetness of the rest of the album, with its Germanic oompa rhythm cast in soft focus and Kalkun's cascading trills that sound a lot like John Jacob Niles. All sung in Estonian, mind you; but Kalkun's ability to emote transcends languages, and she's crafted quite a gem of an album.

MPEG stream: Hommukuvalge
MPEG stream: Maalapsekas
MPEG stream: Tuulo Kaen

As the Kallikak Family's debut album opens mournful drones seep forth slowly. The track is titled "Organ Tuning / Surgery", and indeed that is what it sounds like. The tones lull themselves in and out of different ranges. Eventually the somber atmosphere is gently stirred by the surfacing of shimmery aquatic vibrations and vocal samples in the title track. These in turn give way to peals from distant chapel bells. Although the album's title is seemingly a date in the not so distant future, the sounds contained within evoke a sense of fleeting memories from the past. Airy and contemplative and yes, recommended.

MPEG stream: Organ Tuning / Surgery
MPEG stream: May 23rd 2007
MPEG stream: Bells In Bergamo

John Balance once suggested that Coil was attempting to compose music in the same manner that Austin Osman Spare had written his theosophical musings, laced with magic, sigils, and a highly personalized cosmology. The same could go for the thoroughly enigmatic project Kama Rupa, a loose occultist undertaking that also conducts their dark spiritualism through the lens of music. Whatever meaning lays within the cryptic philosophies of Kama Rupa, they are keeping it to themselves, only sporadically broadcasting their beliefs in the form of a handful of ritualized industrial productions. Such epistemological secrecy informed Kama Rupa's earlier works in parallel with the ceremonial / apocalyptic imagery of Metgumbnerbone and Zero Kama; but here on Sistinas Sanguis, there's much more emphasis on electronics. Very dark electronics. At the onset, carillon bells are sampled and laid upon a static encrusted surface of somber sequencing, a strategy that wouldn't be out of place on any of Coil's majestic, instrumental numbers. Darkly sequenced tracks of modulated noise, with sinister vocals lurking in the shadows, and maudlin piano dirges square as elegant meditations on death and dying without ever sounding like the overwhelming flood that Lustmord and Brighter Death Now would unleash. The four tracks found on this mini-album are exceptional, with the only quibble we have being the brevity of the work. About 20 minutes, fit onto just one side of the vinyl. Limited to just 250 copies, we've been told.

MPEG stream: A Straight Line
MPEG stream: The Wolf Is Dread
MPEG stream: Absence

Another outing of hazy, jazz-dappled beauty from this instrumental German collective, I mean, kollektief, who are long-time AQ faves. Burbling drones, noirish atmospheres, electronic beats, lush melody, sampling and improv all combine on this gorgeous fifth album of theirs, Absencen. They've been compared (by us and others) to everyone from Fridge to Mum to AMM to Miles Davis... we're not gonna add any new names to that illustrious list for this review, rather we'd like to make the point that not only do they deserve such comparisons, Kammerflimmer now have pretty much established themselves as a standard for others to be compared against -- anyone who makes lovely, densely woven, textural soundscapey instrumentals that fall somewhere betwixt post-rock, jazz and electronica should be glad to be told they sound a bit like the Kammerflimmer Kollektief!

MPEG stream: Lichterloh
MPEG stream: Equilibrium

One of the few "post rock" bands to play somber organic, electronica-imbued music and have it NOT be background filler, but full of emotion, narrative, texture, and meaning, Germany's Kammerflimmer Kollektief have delivered their prettiest album with Cicadidae. The squiggly processed electronics frolic, sounding like seagulls, over warm violin, harmonium drone, and chattery, shimmering drums. There's saxophone, vibraphone, double bass, all so evocative and melodic. Exploratory experimental jazz bits contrast nicely with the epic lush resolutions, reminding us sometimes of Amon Tobin's quieter moments, also Kreidler, To Rococo Rot, the Tied + Tickled Trio. Windy's new favorite record and one of the most satisfyingly lovely albums since Fridge's Eph. Just listen to that first sound clip and my guess is you'll be hooked.

MPEG stream: Neuhmon Inselhin
MPEG stream: Blood
MPEG stream: Mantra

In contrast with their most recent album Maander, which pulsed and shuffled and rollicked along in a similar mellow electronica vein as To Rococo Rot, Fridge, and Boards of Canada, this new disc from this AQ fave band is a more abstract offering, with

RealAudio clip: Hysteria

The AQ-beloved German 6-piece, as we've noted in reviews of their other records, "take (post) rock and a bit of subtly handled electronics and mix them up so skillfully that it doesn't sound like a 'mix' anymore -- it sounds like an organic hazy wash of On Incommunicado, now finally released stateside, leader Thomas Weber asked the bandmembers to reinterpret their lovely Maander album, only this time the recording would be entirely improvised on different instruments (including guitar, strings, upright bass), and neither edited nor overdubbed. The recording is thus fresh, alive, and very very good. Those of us who already love Maander will enjoy this one too, it is substantially different and super interesting while still retaining the flavor (minus the electronics) of Kammerflimmer's signature sound. Recommended.

RealAudio clip: Venti Latir

If you regularly peruse our New Arrivals list (of course you do!) then you're probably aware that we sometimes review an album the week it's released, or sometimes the week after, or even the week before, or a few months later, or even a whole year later. This is due to a lot of random factors, and also some constant ones -- like the number of hours in the day! All this by way of saying, this excellent new album (the sixth) from Germany's always dependable Kammerflimmer Kollektief came out a month or two back, and it's about time we got it up on our website! A slowly unfolding, gloriously pretty affair, dense with buzz and shimmer, a mix of acoustic strings and electronic embellishment, gentle rhythms and lovely ambience. Never can tell just what to call 'em: post-rock, jazz, electronica, definitely a heavenly hybrid of all those things. Heck we could just call it krautrock couldn't we? Definitely falls into that tradition. Their moody mood this time around is even more calm and crackly and contemplative than we recall in the past, replete with harmonium and double bass drones... percussion and piano intertwining... and the abstract but alluring vocals of Heike Aumuller. As we like to say (feeling very self-reflective at the moment): quite nice!

MPEG stream: Palimpest
MPEG stream: Jinx

Abso-fucking-lutely brilliant record that got little attention when it was imported to the US last year. Temporary Residence has finally issued the all-instrumental Maander stateside, and perhaps now the German 6-piece will get the recognition it's due.

RealAudio clip: Mond?
RealAudio clip: Implodiert
RealAudio clip: Rand
RealAudio clip: Simultan

The title pretty much says it all... and the cover art tells you the rest. This cd features ten remixes of Kammerflimmer Kollektief tracks by Noze, Sutekh, Radian, Secondo, Lump200, David Last, Jan Jelinek, Aoki Takamasa and Hans Appelqvist. Each track sounds exactly like a textbook definition of "remix" -- skillfully dismembered, edited, and augmented glitchy electronica in which both artists are sufficiently 'represented'. That said, the Jan Jelinek and Aoki Takamasa tracks were particularly pleasing treatments of these German faves.

MPEG stream: After The Rain - Remix
MPEG stream: Unstet-Schleifen

Don't know too much about this Icelandic (not Canadian) group, but this record really knocked us out. Starts off sounding like a souped up, surfed up version of Finnish Casio-popsters Aavikko, but over the course of the next few tracks it turns into something

RealAudio clip: La Go
RealAudio clip: Demon Child
RealAudio clip: Skop Konunnar

Simon from aQ faves The Heads is back with his second stellar solo opus under the name Kandodo. Once again he draws upon the rhythms and vastness of the sea and the sky to inspire the music on this album, which is a much more spacey and organic affair than the more intense fuzz freakage he indulges in UK garage psych masters The Heads. If you liked Kandodo's first one, you'll dig this too - it's again lovely and zoned-out, the tracks being pretty much entirely instrumental, composed of overdubbed, effects-laden guitar, shimming and fuzzy and droney, slowly and gently unfurling, sometimes building to a steady, krauty throb - as on the side-long epic "Swim Into The Sun", which Moon Duo fans will certainly love. The longer tracks like that are totally mesmeric and even the shorter interludes are too, before they fade out into the next. These pieces aren't so much "songs" as they are mood-setting soundscapes, the repetitive, layered guitar parts working alone or in many cases mixed with field recordings (the sound of surf, appropriately, on both "Waves" and "Swim Into The Sun"), subtle bass pulsations, and occasional hippie hand percussion. Some voices are heard too, in a couple places, but they're buried samples, almost unintelligible, though we did figure out that the track "Grace And" incorporates an edited audio-tour of Elvis Presley's Graceland, to hypnotic effect. Odd, but there's a sort of soothing Conet-quality to it. This radiantly glowing album is quite nice indeed and recommended; we can imagine Barn Owl fans enjoying the twang of "July 28th", we already mentioned the likes of Moon Duo, and also this has some post-rock appeal - folks into the softer side of Mogwai or Godspeed for instance might feel at home with a lot of this, though Kandodo is much more "wah wah psychedelic" in sound than yr usual post-rock. Vinyl comes with bonus limited edition 7" with an exclusive B side, "Left My Heart In Monkey Bay" (the A side is on the cd).

MPEG stream: Slowah
MPEG stream: Kandy Rock Mountain
MPEG stream: Swim Into The Sun

Kandodo? If the name sounds familiar it's maybe 'cuz you've got the Wooden Shjips remix 12" wherein Kandodo was one of the participants. Aha, that's right, Kandodo is the solo project from guitarist Simon Price of UK fuzz psych mongers The Heads! And, following that Shjips remix, here's his first full-length under that moniker (the name of a supermarket in Malawai, where Simon grew up), released also through Thrill Jockey. So, this should be of extreme interest to the legion of Heads fans out there. Even though, this -isn't- one of those solo projects that sounds just like the person's main band. Kandodo, a spacey guitar n' effects based, all-instrumental manifestation of chilled out cosmic krautronics, is a different, more blissful beast indeed, one that's rather more in the mode of deep, late night and early morning listening, for prayerful headphone inner/outer mind explorations. Still, this is the sort of thing that we'd expect any fan of The Heads to enjoy as well. Also fans of Zomes, Expo 70, Barn Owl, Bjorn Olsson, Urthona... and there's also just a hint of Dr. Who theme music whoosh to this too. It's epic and echoing; both gentle and ominous, rhythmic and serene... Mellow and memorably melodic (each track, individually) even though composed, in the main, of hypnotic waves of droning distorted guitar, seeming simple and stark. Also some keys, tambourine, and lo-fi field recordings are woven into these "fuzzy lullabies" as Simon calls them. While in OUR universe Simon is a rock star, if he ever needs to pick up some extra work, this release proves he could / should easily get commissioned to do soundtracks to BBC documentaries about, like, ancient science and cosmology. We're envisioning this music accompanying images of pyramids and henges and starry night skies quite effectively. Furthermore, certain tracks here could give the likes of Umberto some competition in the imaginary giallo suspense film soundtrack department, too. About our only complaint is that this disc eventually comes to an end (after nine tracks) rather than being somehow limitless in duration, infinite and eternal the way it seems it should be. Quite highly recommended, in fact, we came pretty close to making this a Record Of The Week, probably should have, as we think it's a must have for many of our customers...

MPEG stream: Dawn Harmonix
MPEG stream: Laud The Hyena
MPEG stream: Kandodo