[ 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 12951 through 13000 of 19388.

Vinyl reissue of this classic psych-pop 'rock opera' album from 1968. A long-time AQ-favorite.

For his third solo album Archer Prewitt (Coctails, Sea and Cake) heads down to Gerroa in Australia's New South Wales. In a sprawling building surrounded by the sea, cliffs, kangaroos and dolphins he made this new record (and there's photos to prove it). It's the most mellow, doleful music he's done, filled with restrained melodies and quiet intimacies, but some of the songs feel somewhat unfinished, more like fragments of songs that might've been really fleshed out had nature, perhaps, not called the musicians outdoors so often in Gerroa. That said, there's a lot here to like: instrumentals, Archer's soft vocals, sweet violin, coo-ing female oohs and aahs. Fans of Badly Drawn Boy, Sea and Cake, Halifax Pier may like this.

RealAudio clip: Waves Waltz
RealAudio clip: Tell Me Now

Archer also plays in Coctails and the Sea & Cake and he draws the comic Sof'Boy. *Beloved* by everyone who works here, this record is excellent solo material -- less precious than the Coctails and way more Bacharach than recent Sea & Cake -- think S&C's first record, mix in some sunny trumpet, a loping, relaxed tempo and meditative, grooving whiteboy vocals. At least 3 extra tracks are included on the 7". Highly recommended!

Now that he's reached his third proper album (not counting his Australia recordings, Gerroa Songs), I guess we can pretty much accept the disappointing fact that Mr. Prewitt will not be revisiting the wonderful pop terrain of his first album In The Sun. Alas, we all must move on. His second full length White Sky was something of a letdown, falling more in the mellow snooziness of his other group Sea & Cake (some even thought it to be Steely Dan-ish), while the follow-up Gerroa Songs did raise our spirits considerably. Happily though it appears he's returned all rejuvenated with a little spring in his step. This is a by far more energetic Archer Prewitt than we've heard in quite some time crafting some darn uplifting pop songs. Most notable are the interesting pop-rock twists and turns of "No Defense", the Split Enz-ish jangly guitar and keyboard accented "Second Time Trader", and the swirlingly epic pop orchestrations of "Gifts Of Love". Soaring backing vocals abound, but it is a bit disturbing to note that his smooth voice is edging eerily closer and closer to that of James Taylor. Yikes! Nevertheless, the more I listen to Three, the more I like!

RealAudio clip: No Defense
RealAudio clip: Second Time Trader
RealAudio clip: Gifts Of Love
RealAudio clip: Tear Me All Away

At long last the wait is finally over for Mr. Prewitt's follow-up to his excellent first solo album "In The Sun", an AQ fave. Some here at AQ feel this new collection of mellowness finds the Sea and Cake / ex-Coctails multi-instrumentalist pushing the Steely Dan envelope, adding more horns, and even squeezing the songwriting fruits of James Taylor. "White Sky" is definitely a much more unified album and less of a cornucopia of musical styles. The list of Chicago music luminaries helping him out here include his former Coctails-mate Mark Greenberg (bass and vocals) as well as Edith Frost (vocals). The album also features artwork by Archer. Which reminds me, oh how long will we have to wait for the next outpouring from his mighty pen in the form of a new Sof'Boy comic?

Dagnabit, if we didn't know this was Archer Prewitt, we're not sure if we'd be touching it with a ten foot pole! Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but even if it is, that's a still pretty unsettling thought, isn't it? I mean, we've loved many of his past recordings (particularly his solo debut In The Sun and EVERYTHING with the Coctails), and new Prewitt albums are always warmly anticipated around these parts. So what's the deal? Well, in a blind listening test, the words "soft rock" and "mainstream" immediately sprung to mind. Many songs on Wilderness sound like something you'd have dialed in on your AM Radio back in the '70s... and not necessarily in a cool Eagles-y or Fleetwood Mac-y bewitching kind of way though... no, more like Bread or England Dan & John Ford Coley (meaning: solid, sentimental, adult contemporary pop). Not that that is any surprise really, you might recall us comparing Prewitt's voice on his last album Three to James Taylor. Okay, that's not always such a bad thing, but Prewitt used to insert details and personality quirks that gave each song a little edge and made it stick in your head... and made you happy that it was stuck there. Those have grown increasingly scarce with each subsequent album. Hate to say it, but the very smooth'n'elegant Wilderness just may be a little TOO smooth'n'elegant. Actually fans of ultra mellow pop a la Kings Of Convenience might find this album quite to their liking.

MPEG stream: Way Of The Sun
MPEG stream: Judy, Judy

Christina Applegate's mom! nancy sinatra mamas & papas ny folk scene lee hazlewood

I can tell you this about Priestess: they're one kick ass live rock n' roll band. I saw 'em on a bill not long ago with heavy metal revivalists The Sword -and- Early Man (both of those bands hotly tipped, and by us too!), and y'know what? Priestess simply DESTROYED both The Sword and Early Man, good as they were. Priestess were just the better live performers, working the crowd and wowing with musicianship and showmanship both. They had rock star swagger, and the skills to back it up -- guitar pyrotechnics, harmony vocals, and some darn catchy real riffy rock n' roll songs. Oh yeah, and a really frickin' good drummer, whose non-sucky *drum solo* definitely put Priestess over the top (in more ways than one) in competition with their tourmates that night. I'd never heard of 'em before and was pretty darn impressed. Turns out they were from Montreal, and had an album out in Canada, not yet out in the States... well it's here now, this is it. I bought the Canadian version at the show, and didn't even listen to it for a long time 'cause I figured that they couldn't really live up to that live experience. And it's true to some extent, the album doesn't blow away Early Man's album, for instance, the way they did to the band in person. But it's definitely a good, honest-to-God hard rock album that you'd want to blare loudly from your (hypothetical, in all likelihood) Camaro as you put the pedal to the metal. And having said that, get this: it's non-ironic too, near as we can tell, which also might explain why they had the advantage over those other two bands at that show (and by the way, it wasn't just that show, I saw 'em again opening for Dinosaur Jr. and Comets On Fire, and they were pretty good too, though suffering from the usual opener's lack of energetic crowd response, specifically due to the lack of a crowd at that early hour). Now how can a band like this be non-ironic, you ask? A band so partial to the cowbell, and clearly with visions of stadium-sized showmanship already hard-wired into their songwriting? Maybe 'cause they're Canadian? For whatever reason, their punchy and emotional three-minute pop hard rockin' songs are presented with more authentic feeling (to these ears) than, say, obvious comparison Wolfmother does it. More about their sound: despite their name (which, unfortunately, conjures the image of an all-female Judas Priest cover band, doesn't it?) they're far from being an '80s retro metal band. More bluesy '70s, and less metal than that. The stoner/grunge thing is closer to the mark. Yeah, a bit White Stripesy at times like Wolfmother, also all AC/DC and QOTSA at others. Can't wait to see 'em again! In the meantime, we'll be spinning this...

MPEG stream: Lay Down
MPEG stream: Time Will Cut You Down
MPEG stream: Everything That You Are

2nd album from these Canadian rockers, a great live band, pretty good on their debut, trying maybe to be a bit too poppy and not quite as metal on this follow-up. Who can blame 'em, they'd like to be as big as Wolfmother too. But as far as we're concerned, while there's some nice twin guitar harmony moments and stuff, we prefer the album prior to Prior To The Fire (which we imagine they like to pronounce, Fie-or).

Primal Scream's follow-up to the blazing XTRMNTR of 2000 continues on in a similar adenalin-pumped vein as that mighty fireball, but the firepower seems considerably less focused and less fully realized this time around. Many of the tracks spiral and claw at your eardrums with their battalion of distorted electronic beats, effected vocals, and overdriven squelching guitars courtesy of Kevin Shields. However, an equal or greater number bring a much more straightahead trashy Detroit rock sound. Two particular example is the sneering "City" and "Skull X". An even more odd turn of events occurs between those two songs, as they present their renovation of Lee Hazlewood's "Some Velvet Morning"... they're assisted in this mission by Kate Moss on ultra-breathy vocals. Other notable individuals making an appearance are Two Lone Swordsmen (in the producer's seat), Robert Plant (on harmonica), and Jim Reid (on vocals)! Not only does Evil Heat come with a bonus limited edition dvd containing an assortment of live footage and videos, but the cd itself can be used as a secret decoder on their website.

RealAudio clip: City
RealAudio clip: Some Velvet Morning

Been itchin' for some bar room brawlin' blues rock? Primal Scream are ready to take you on! Sounds like they've taken a step back from the searing techno-rock of their great last album XTRMNTR towards more traditional rock'n'roll instrumentation and songwriting. Very very Rolling Stones-y, this is Primal Scream at their most loosely slung! Seems like these Brits just can't help but switch back and forth between their two very distinct personalities -- that of slick dancefloor packers and unkempt hard rawkers. They've done the switcheroo on pretty much every one of their albums, and in our opinion they're much more potent doin' the latter. That said, regardless of their chosen arena, you can always count on much sneering attitude and driving aggression, both of which Riot City Blues has in ample doses.

MPEG stream: Country Girl
MPEG stream: Little Death

Primal Scream's latest has Bobby Gillespie getting Kevin Shields to help (smoke pot) in the studio. Big beats and pop hooks galore. Those in the know, tell me, that when on the dancefloor, this is the shit. But seeing as the dancefloor is the last place I want to be EVER, i'll just say that this is a surprisingly catchy, block rockin' big beat extravaganza, that to me, the little wallflower, sounds remarkably like Pop Will Eat Itself (complete with the unfunky British white guy raps!). Actually if you're not prone to fancy footwork neither, you might instead wanna take this one out for a drive. Pretty hot freeway cruisin' music!

A few years back we were digging a cool 10" of orchestral pop from a San Francisco band called Lady Genius. We had wondered what happened to them and as it turns out, they are still around but have changed their name to Primary Structures. With this full length we are once again taken by their ability to effortlessly create such bright and colorful pop songs. While they try to trick the listener into thinking its just very straightforward indie pop, the truth is their songs have really interesting arrangements and changes. We're reminded of some of our favorite records by The New Pornographers, The Dodos, and Dismemberment Plan. There are hints too of mathiness and even a touch of new romantic glam. But at its core, the sound is punchy and bright, fueled by confident vocals and crisp instrumentation.

MPEG stream: Jetset
MPEG stream: Balsa Tree
MPEG stream: Green Islands

We'd been hearing about this band for a while now, the new project featuring Kevin Sharp of Brutal Truth and Bill Kelliher of Mastodon and a few other dudes, playing what? Grind of course, what else? But not really grind like you might be imagining it, Primate offer up a pretty fresh take on classic grind, merging the churn and pound and punkish ferocity with something WAY more melodic, a sound one could posit as the perfect mix of Brutal Truth and Mastodon, which is not such bad math when you think about it, and listening to Primate it definitely works. Pretty much all the tracks here thrash and grind to varying degrees, the drums heavy and complex, the guitars downtuned and chugging, the songs slipping from midtempo punk rock thrash to dense blackhole blast, Sharp's vocals as fierce as ever, but without fail, even the heaviest and most brutal of the bunch, are laced with some sort of serious melodic component, subtle in places, but totally overt in others, with tracks like "Global Division" getting CRAZY poppy, with some rad shredding guitar leads, and classic old school metalisms, or the punk metal pound of "Hellbound", which channels the same classic metal into a much more frenzied near-grind gallop. Or the harmonized metal guitars on "March Of The Curmudgeon, they even cover Black Flag's "Drinking And Driving" too, staying pretty true to the original. And of course, throughout, the group never hesitate to erupt into straight up full on grind, which of course kills, but it's all tangled up into songs that are surprisingly hooky while remaining super heavy. It helps too that the production is massive too, super polished, everything sounds loud, the mix is perfect, which is another thing that keeps this from sounding like standard grind. Instead, Draw Back A Stump is like some weird, sorta poppy modern grind metal record, one that could most definitely be a gateway for all those Mastodon fans out there to sounds much more fast and frantic, furious and fucked up.

MPEG stream: Global Division
MPEG stream: Hellbound
MPEG stream: March Of The Curmudgeon

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

SORRY.

A few months back we raved about the Primitive Calculators anthology which came out on Chapter Music. Thanks to that review, we were contacted by Denise Hilton who had been one of the electronic wizards for that seminal Australian synth punk and had some rare singles that she was willing to part with. The Glitter Kids single was recorded live at the Champion Hotel in Fitzroy, just outside of Melbourne back in 1979. The three tracks fuse the electric arpeggiations of Suicide with DNA's brittle guitar attacks on top of a quintessential punk antagonism, and they don't appear on that afforementioned CD anthology. We only have a few of these, so don't dawdle!

During the fall of 2004, I (Jim) had the privledge of travelling to Australia for a month or so. Well, I guess that technically makes it *spring* of 2004; anyway, I met a lot of great people who had some amazing record collections, including a bunch of Australian post-punk and new wave stuff that probably never made it outside of Melbourne or Sydney. Of everything that I heard, there were a few bands that stuck in my memory: the Laughing Clowns, Microfilm (which happened to be the first band of Lisa Gerrard who later went on to found Dead Can Dance), and then there was the Primitive Calculators which was by far the best thing I heard. After asking around about those recordings, it became clear that I was probably going to be out of luck or out of a ton of money. So, I simply filed those band names away in hopes of coming across them somewhere, sometime, somehow. You could imagine my surprise when I discovered a compilation from the Primitive Calculators in a box from one our distributors. It's sort of like Christmas when you get that cool gift that you forgot you asked for, instead of the ugly sweater or pair of wool socks from Grandma. Anyway, The Primitive Calculators were Melbourne's answer to the Screamers, although I'd be hard pressed to believe that they actually heard that legendary techno-punk ensemble. It was more likely that The Primitive Calculators came to their sound through Suicide and the No New York compilation, in particular DNA and Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. Their intense, throbbing post-punk songs centered around the raw electricity of twin synthesizers and drum machines hammering out noxious arppegiations whilst the lead singer / guitarist Stuart Grant screamed, grunted, and scraped up and down his guitar in short, sharp blasts of epileptic energy. This CD documents their one and only LP, which was a live recording in which the audience appears to dwindle despite the fact that their set gets more and more intense, culminating in a ridiculous cover of Lloyd Williams' soul standard "Shout." Fortunately a bunch of their studio recordings round out the CD, giving their exceptional songs a much fuller sound. Even without the serendipitous experience of re-discovery, I'd still love this record!

MPEG stream: Do The Icepick
MPEG stream: Stains
MPEG stream: Beat Goes On
MPEG stream: Shout

MPEG stream: Do The Icepick
MPEG stream: Stains
MPEG stream: Beat Goes On
MPEG stream: Shout

Existing a few years in the late '70s and early '80s, The Primitive Calculators were a tireless synth-punk band from Melbourne, Australia paralleling what Suicide and The Screamers were doing in New York and the West Coast, respectively. A four piece, the band specialized in dissonant and suitably primitive synths, dangerously fast drum machines, knife-on-the-guitar-strings screechiness and amphetamine-riddled vocal barks, snarls, and agitation. Back in the day, they released only one album, which was a sweaty live album featuring a wreckless performance to only a handful of Aussie art-punks who must have left with blood streaming from their ears. This had been reissued with a bunch of other additional live tracks on Chapter Music in 2005; and the same label has released this anthology of the Primitive Calculators ventures into a recording studio which resulted in a couple of singles. This collection also documents the Melbourne phenomenon known as "The Little Bands," through which the members of the Primitive Calculators would reconvene with other musicians and non-musicians alike to explore various aesthetic trajectories of electro-shock no-wave, splattered metal bashing, post-punk theatrics, and even some Young Marble Giants-esque art-pop. The sound of The Primitive Calculators obviously bleeds into the sounds of "The Little Bands" all sporting names such as Too Fat To Fit Through The Door, The Take, Morphions, and Thrush & The Cunts. As rough as many of these recordings are, this anthology is yet another example of how fertile the post-punk scene was in Melbourne, no matter how much the world had neglected it.

MPEG stream: Do That Dance
MPEG stream: Summer
MPEG stream: Let Her Know

OK no matter how indie, underground, death metal, experimental, minimal techno you are you can't deny that at one point in time you dug Prince at at least one of his songs kicked your ass and made you shake it like crazy. Prince's 1999 was actually the very first record Andee bought with his own money! Some of us here are still darn proud of our pure love of Prince. An amazing musician and songwriter whose eccentric persona is what usually gets him attention these days insted of his music, but we still think he's got some juice left in his songwriting. 3121 is one of his stronger albums in recent years with definite nods to his prime past. Of course like most of his recent outings it's not great from start to finish but when he's "workin' up a black sweat" he's still pretty irresistible.

MPEG stream: 3121
MPEG stream: Black Sweat

Portland, Oregon based Princess Sweepstakes self-deprecatingly describe themselves as "vaudevillian, amateur rock. Wirey and kind of annoying", but they're much better than that. Vaudevillian, yes, but they're closer to an amphetamine fed, punk rock reworking of the Thinking Fellers Union Local 282. They're all over the map, with heartfelt and playful proggyness that's neither stuffed shirt conservatory uptight, nor too full of its east coast expensive art school education either. Muppet vocals and farfisa organs weave in and out of catchy tunes and spazzy restlessness. Quite nice. Comes packaged with a very nicely hand silk-screend cover.

MPEG stream: Nice To Beef You
MPEG stream: Pandas In Hell

By now, this debut from the duo of Tobin Prinz and Suzi Horn may have already gotten your attention... after all, they're on a hip label (DFA), they're English, and they play a, yes, danceable style of music that's both retro and very much "of the moment". Super stripped-down, DIY-sounding, arty post-punk that almost comes across as a parody of something from the '80s, more than just inspired by the era. It's slow, simple, sometimes maddeningly catchy music, effectively mixing minimal grooves and gloomy vibes -- for example, the track "Worker" with its doleful, repetitive bass line, and Tobin Prinz' total Mark E. Smith of The Fall derived vocals barking out all about how you're, unfortunately, "the worka". When Suzi Horn contributes vox, it's more of an X-ray Spex-ish yelp. Ultra-sparse production, angular guitars and various other nervous tics are also part of the Prinzhorn formula, including plenty of perplexing non-sequiturs in the lyrics dep't. We'll admit all this could possibly get a bit wearisome over the course of the 16 tracks on this album, but there are certainly some potential hits here (like "Worker" and "Crackerjack Docker") you may want to hear again and again... some of us at AQ were able to resist the Prinzhorn Dance School's calculated charms, but others ended up giving in and getting in to 'em. After all, if these tracks were from one of those Messthetics compilations (and you could be fooled into thinking so, maybe, if only they were more lo-fi) it's quite possible we'd be hailing them as lost classics.

MPEG stream: Worker
MPEG stream: Crackerjack Docker

Remember the good old days? And by old days, we mean the nineties. When there were regular bands, who wrote real songs. Just sort of indie rock, punk rock, rock and roll, whatever? At the risk of sounding like old fogies, we miss those days now and then. The sort of college rock heyday. Soul Asylum (when they were awesome), the Replacements, Husker Du, Pavement, Skunk, Guided By Voices, the Grifters, the Swirlies, the Volcano Suns, the Lemonheads, you know exactly what we're talking about. Regular old rock bands that write real songs and play guitars and basses and drums, are becoming more and more rare, amidst the dudes crouched on the floor with a garage sale of equipment, nerds hunched over laptops, scary guys in corpsepaint. As much as we love all that stuff, we sometimes miss a bunch of drunk dudes in jeans and t-shirts playing awesome catchy indie rock. One of those bands was Prisonshake. They never hit it big, like some of their indie brethren, but they made a handful of kick ass records back in the day. We thought they were long gone, but all of a sudden here comes a brand new single, and man if it doesn't have us flashing back to those days, smoky dingy clubs, bands sweating up a storm on stage and just rocking out. They may be older and a bit less brash, but they still sound pretty great. A stumbling chaotic mix of all the above mentioned bands, lots of indie jangle, distorted crunch, angular riffing, even some handclaps, the vocals are not entirely tuneful, but suit the music. The A side has some wicked funny and snarky lyrics (it's called "The Cut Out Bin" after all) and a weird coda, a randomly recorded conversation and some backwards guitar. The flipside is all over the place, more of a collage than a song, bits of studio stuff, lo-fi live action, more backwards guitars, all tangled up into a stumbling indie blues jam. The single comes with a bonus cd, including the tracks from the 7" as well as two extra numbers, a groovy, downtuned jangle rock jam, and a shorter poppier one, both instrumental, and both sounding like they could be unfinished tracks from the last proper Prisonshake record. We like! We got a handful of the SUPER limited version, only 200 made, a blue vinyl 7" housed in a cardstock fold over obi instead of a sleeve, with the cd, and each one hand numbered.

Nocturnal Earthworm Stew? Ew. Well, perhaps the French title of this Canadian record will tempt your appetite: Bouillabaisse Nocturne Aux Vers De Terre. Sounds much tastier, eh? Actually as long as you have an appetite for unusual, analog-synth based, musique concrete fashioned psychedelia, you'll find this to your liking! Yes, that Hans Edler album isn't the only weird and wonderful, long lost '70s electronic music artifact that we've been digging here at AQ lately. Lucky us, we also just got in this reissue of an amazing 1976 album from one David Pritchard, a Canadian underground radio DJ who was so into the experimental electronic sounds coming out of Germany at the time (Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Kluster, Kraftwerk, and the like) that he started collecting the requisite equipment and began writing music that proved well worthy of his overseas influences. Seriously, this could be one of the best Krautrock rarities ever, if Pritchard were German not Canadian. His instrumental compositions feature both an array of analog synths (vintage machines cooler today than ever, the ARP 2600 and EMS AKS) and more conventional instrumentation (violin, guitar, drums, etc.) as well shortwave radio noise / samples and field recordings. All of which you'll hear, for instance, on the fifteen-minute album centerpiece "Thunderpeat", a true tour-de-force of headphone listening, as is the rest of this disc. Quite rhythmically soothing, but with challenging and unusual sonic textures, recalling everything from Stockhausen to Eno to Dr. Who soundtracks to AQ-fave obscure krautrocker Gunter Schickert. Maybe because of the title, we had expected this to sound like some dark, scary proto-industrial thing, but instead it's remarkably pleasant, full of pretty little melodies -- including a synthesized version of "My Favorite Things". But although Pritchard was the first Canadian artist signed to Island Records, we can't imagine that Nocturnal Earthworm Stew ever hit the pop charts in Canada or anywhere else. It's just too weird and eerie and arcane. Despite how lovely his songwriting can be, this certainly does possess a hefty share of foreboding atmosphere, some of this (tracks like "Evil Orge Interlude / Satan's Seaside Walk" for instance) coming across like an ominous mixture of Tangerine Dream and Italian horror soundtrack masters Goblin. Not a bad thing! This cd reissue includes four bonus tracks and a thick booklet full of photos and informative text, including notes from Pritchard himself. Note to Canadian music nerds: this album also marks the recording debut of none other than Nash the Slash, who guests here on a couple tracks on violin.

MPEG stream: The Harry Parchment
MPEG stream: Yellow Stickers
MPEG stream: An Admission Of Guilt

Who loves Coldwave? We Do! And we just got a handful of these 7" from Russian synth duo Private Entertainment. If you liked the female sung side of Cold Cave, Nini Raviolette, or Gina X Performance, then you should check out the icy shimmer of this Soviet male/female duo. On one track, they even remind us of "Me and My Rhythm Box" from the Liquid Sky soundtrack! So good!

We were heartbroken when our pals, the local weirdo boy-girl-boy doom crush psych sludge trio Prizehog, decided to leave San Francisco, but we understood - hell, SF is a harsh place to live these days if you're not rich, and ultimately, we weren't surprised to see Prizehog settling in Portland, a city arguably much more hospitable to struggling musicians and artists, but listening to the sonic results of this move, you'd think they were transported to some alien planet, transmitting this new record via some sort of futuristic technology. Cuz holy fuck, if this band was one of our favorites already, they somehow still managed to up the musical ante, taking everything we loved about them before, and making it, well, more. More heavy, more noisy, more psychedelic, more warped, more twisted, more confusional, more proggy, more what-the-fuck, and really just more ridiculously, mindblowingly next level doom-sludge genius. We may be prone to hyperbole, but it still feels like we might be understating just how goddamn good Re-Unvent The Whool really is. Imagine a warped doom-prog, like some alternate universe metal Magma, processed vocodered vox, tangled up in churning spaced out riffage, underpinned by droning rumbles, and laced with twisted fragmented melodies, launching occasionally into full on sludge-pop creep, like some killer Torche jam spinning in slow motion, a gloriously glacial single digit rpm onslaught, that definitely makes the usual the Harvey Milk comparisons still pretty apt, but imagine HM if they were somehow slower, druggier, proggier and more totally and confusionally WTF. Songs explode some furious grinding metal, squalls of chugging riffage, barraged by machine gun drumming, all wrapped around the bellowed alien vox. But this is doom or sludge, or some twisted avant version, so songs inevitably slow down to a tarpit crawl, swirls of sparkling sci-fi FX surround the proceedings like glittery clouds of malevolent sonic fairy dust. And that's just one song in! And it only gets more gloriously fucked up and next level from there. It's hard to describe what's even going on, cuz some of the music here is literally so unlike anything else out there. These hairy weirdos are channeling some twisted alternate universe sonic garble, and transmuting it into fucking blown out, twisted genius ultra doom, noise pop, prog-sludge nirvana. The record seems to blackly blossom in stop motion, flitting from near stasis, to frenzied crush and back again, tribal drumming avalanches over thick, coruscating chords, synths spitting out symphonies of klaxons and alarms, the backdrop for the unfurling of an impossibly downtuned, droned out slab of multiple o'd doooooooooom dreaminess, that manages the impossible feat of being crushingly, punishingly heavy, but also, kinda pretty too. Some seriously lovely 'oooooohs' will surface in the midst of a wild chaotic squall of churning blacktar throb, or a cascade of harmonics will rain down like shooting stars over a field of grinding, corrosive crunch, it's goddamn musical alchemy, the sort of musical magic almost no bands are capable of. And then out of fucking nowhere, Prizehog will get all twangy, offering up some sort of country doom, that sounds like it should be ridiculous, and it sort of is, but it's also just about the goddamn greatest thing you'll ever hear, like Earth, Barn Owl, Morricone, Scenic, all melted down, and spit out as a creepy massively metallic Wall Of Voodoo sort of campfire crush, sounds bizarre, and it totally is, but it's a bizarre brilliance that once again, should convince pretty much any doom lover with a penchant for sonic weirdness, that these three are the sludge saviors we've been waiting for, written about in some forbidden text, a fragment from the lost metallic scriptures, and Re-Unvent The Whool, their second coming, signalling some musical rapture, where we're all engulfed in fields of musical flames, but fuck, if this is what the end sounds like, and we can only hope it is, then we say bring it on, and what a way to go. It's hard to know what else to say, other than repeat what we've always said, Prizehog should be adored, they should be worshipped the way Harvey Milk and Boris and the Melvins are, cuz maybe at one point, Prizehog were simply kids aping their heroes, aspiring to the sludge-y genius and twisted outsider metal of those other groups, but as hard as it may be for some folks to believe, Prizehog, might have outheavied, and outweirded, and outgeniused those masters, and become masters themselves, masters of fucking alien prog-doom, long haired, psych sludge, dirge-drone, damaged art pop. Fuck yeah. Super striking, full color, eye popping, Wildildlife-worthy cover art, swank spot varnish printed jackets, and includes a download too...

MPEG stream: Parradiggum
MPEG stream: Whoady
MPEG stream: Shed
MPEG stream: Gnumskull, The Ruler

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

SORRY. NOW ON CASSETTE! Not sure if it's a different mix or different mastering for real, or if the parenthetical subtitle is just a clever reference to Earth 2... but in any case, if you want the most recent killer album from these aQ-fave heavies on tape, then this is it! And cheap, too... We were heartbroken when our pals, the local weirdo boy-girl-boy doom crush psych sludge trio Prizehog, decided to leave San Francisco, but we understood - hell, SF is a harsh place to live these days if you're not rich, and ultimately, we weren't surprised to see Prizehog settling in Portland, a city arguably much more hospitable to struggling musicians and artists, but listening to the sonic results of this move, you'd think they were transported to some alien planet, transmitting this new record via some sort of futuristic technology. Cuz holy fuck, if this band was one of our favorites already, they somehow still managed to up the musical ante, taking everything we loved about them before, and making it, well, more. More heavy, more noisy, more psychedelic, more warped, more twisted, more confusional, more proggy, more what-the-fuck, and really just more ridiculously, mindblowingly next level doom-sludge genius. We may be prone to hyperbole, but it still feels like we might be understating just how goddamn good Re-Unvent The Whool really is. Imagine a warped doom-prog, like some alternate universe metal Magma, processed vocodered vox, tangled up in churning spaced out riffage, underpinned by droning rumbles, and laced with twisted fragmented melodies, launching occasionally into full on sludge-pop creep, like some killer Torche jam spinning in slow motion, a gloriously glacial single digit rpm onslaught, that definitely makes the usual the Harvey Milk comparisons still pretty apt, but imagine HM if they were somehow slower, druggier, proggier and more totally and confusionally WTF. Songs explode some furious grinding metal, squalls of chugging riffage, barraged by machine gun drumming, all wrapped around the bellowed alien vox. But this is doom or sludge, or some twisted avant version, so songs inevitably slow down to a tarpit crawl, swirls of sparkling sci-fi FX surround the proceedings like glittery clouds of malevolent sonic fairy dust. And that's just one song in! And it only gets more gloriously fucked up and next level from there. It's hard to describe what's even going on, cuz some of the music here is literally so unlike anything else out there. These hairy weirdos are channeling some twisted alternate universe sonic garble, and transmuting it into fucking blown out, twisted genius ultra doom, noise pop, prog-sludge nirvana. The record seems to blackly blossom in stop motion, flitting from near stasis, to frenzied crush and back again, tribal drumming avalanches over thick, coruscating chords, synths spitting out symphonies of klaxons and alarms, the backdrop for the unfurling of an impossibly downtuned, droned out slab of multiple o'd doooooooooom dreaminess, that manages the impossible feat of being crushingly, punishingly heavy, but also, kinda pretty too. Some seriously lovely 'oooooohs' will surface in the midst of a wild chaotic squall of churning blacktar throb, or a cascade of harmonics will rain down like shooting stars over a field of grinding, corrosive crunch, it's goddamn musical alchemy, the sort of musical magic almost no bands are capable of. And then out of fucking nowhere, Prizehog will get all twangy, offering up some sort of country doom, that sounds like it should be ridiculous, and it sort of is, but it's also just about the goddamn greatest thing you'll ever hear, like Earth, Barn Owl, Morricone, Scenic, all melted down, and spit out as a creepy massively metallic Wall Of Voodoo sort of campfire crush, sounds bizarre, and it totally is, but it's a bizarre brilliance that once again, should convince pretty much any doom lover with a penchant for sonic weirdness, that these three are the sludge saviors we've been waiting for, written about in some forbidden text, a fragment from the lost metallic scriptures, and Re-Unvent The Whool, their second coming, signalling some musical rapture, where we're all engulfed in fields of musical flames, but fuck, if this is what the end sounds like, and we can only hope it is, then we say bring it on, and what a way to go. It's hard to know what else to say, other than repeat what we've always said, Prizehog should be adored, they should be worshipped the way Harvey Milk and Boris and the Melvins are, cuz maybe at one point, Prizehog were simply kids aping their heroes, aspiring to the sludge-y genius and twisted outsider metal of those other groups, but as hard as it may be for some folks to believe, Prizehog, might have outheavied, and outweirded, and outgeniused those masters, and become masters themselves, masters of fucking alien prog-doom, long haired, psych sludge, dirge-drone, damaged art pop. Fuck yeah.

MPEG stream: Parradiggum
MPEG stream: Whoady
MPEG stream: Shed
MPEG stream: Gnumskull, The Ruler

Folks outside of San Francisco are probably unaware of the bitchin' underground rock scene going on here, and we're not talking about the experimental / drone / cd-r scene, that scene is happening too but those folks get way more press. We're talking about the bands, the rock bands, that play basements, play at Thrillhouse Records, a killer performance space / shop in the Mission, who release cd-r's too, but whose sound is more metal and sludge and rock than drone and drift and shimmer. Wildildlife when they were here were part of that scene. So are Ovens, THE best pop band in the city (with a record coming out on tUMULt any day now), then there's Robocop III, who we've yet to hear, but like based entirely on their name. And then there's Prizehog, who have probably played with all those bands, but whose sound is all their own. Their cd-r is 5 long songs, each one a slow building, brooding chunk of slow motion heaviness. It's metallic, but not really metal, heavy and sludgey and dark, but with weird bits of epicness and majesty mixed in. There's definitely a Harvey Milk thing going on, and we'd be WAY surprised if fans of that band didn't dig these guys as well. Not so say they're aping HM, more like they're sort of orbiting the same sonic black hole. Plus Prizehog have a lot more spaciness going on, lots of swirl and shimmer, long drawn out stretches of dark drift, rumbling low end and ominous dronescapes, often sprawling into moody abstract slowcore drifts, peppered with synths, skeletal rhythms and blooping bleeping effects, that slowcore sometimes sounding almost like a blackened doom metal, before returning to their glacial downtuned pound, impossibly slow crawls through near static metal riffage, and squalls of drum splatter, and a howled guttural voice that sounds like it's gargling glass and spitting blood, the whole band a lumbering beast, lurching from chord to chord, note to note, occasionally pausing to rest beneath the glimmering starlight, before rising again to continue on its path of utter destruction. Heavy, fucked up, freaked out, distorted and brutal, space-y and sometimes sorta pretty, bet these guys destroy live, but for now this chunk of filthy heaviness and sludgey crush will do just fine.

MPEG stream: Ramsong
MPEG stream: Sleuth

Full length number two from these Bellingham Washington psychedelic spacekraut hypno rockers, and as we mentioned in our review of their first cd-r, PRND features one of the members of late great weirdo ramshackle doom blues outfit The Reeks And The Wrecks, and while some of that ramshackle blues vibe does find its way into the new band, the sound is much more low fidelity, still loose and improvised sounding, but darker and more driving, rhythmic and spacey and droned out, and more along the lines of other modern krautrock revivalists like the Moon Duo. In that same framework of slow burning extended jams, with wild squalls of blown out guitars, motorik skeletal rhythms, and long stretches of layered ambience, PRND make that sound even more abstract and tripped out, letting the guitars buzz and rumble and howl, often blurred into extended smears of almost SUNNO))) like glacial dirgery, but just as often, they dial back the buzz, and let the sounds shimmer and skitter and creep. Just take the sprawling opening track, which begins with a long stretch of blurred riffage, and woozy spidery melodies, a sort of slo-mo almost Barn Owl sounding twangscape, haunting and cinematic, the guitars in-the-red, but muted and shaped into dark swells, the sound eventually getting louder and louder until the guitar sounds seem to crumble, and the meters peg, and that blown out distortion becomes like another instrument, pulsing and throbbing, while the band weaves a dreamy psychedelic swirl underneath. It's not until about 7 minutes in that the drums first show up, and like the first record, the rhythm is some rinkydink Casio keyboard preset (or at least sounds like it) and is also super distorted, locked into a shuffling looping groove, that the band then wrap in wild squalls of heart-of-the-sun Hawkwind style soaring swirling guitar shreddery, loping and hypnotic and sorta heavy, which is sort of how we pictured the whole rest of the track to go, but then band switches gears again, shedding the wall of guitars, and leaving just that skittery rhythm, some wheezing keyboards, and little melodic fragments, and bits of twang and buzz, drifting in the surrounding space. There are strange reverbed sonar like chirps, moaning chordal hum, the song creeps and slithers dreamily before finally fading out. And so goes the rest of the record, each of the tracks a dreamily propulsive skeletal rhythm, locked and looped, the band unfurling warm tangles of muted melody, and lush layers of buzz and hum, sometimes loping and meandering, other times churning and almost doomy, sounding glimmering and crystalline one second, murky and dirgey the next, always spacey and psychedelic, finally finishing off with a nearly ten minute abstract space jam, that is all sputtering rhythms, echo drenched organ stabs, stunted fragmented riffs, super abstract and almost ambient, and very very dubby. Killer stuff for sure. And like the first cd-r, absolutely recommended. SUPER LIMITED, each one hand numbered, and gorgeously hand painted.

MPEG stream: 1
MPEG stream: 2

This new trio was born out of the ashes of late great Bellingham combo Reeks And The Wrecks (whose record Knife Hits was released on Andee's tUMULt label, and whose lost first lp is reviewed elsewhere on this week's list) and trades in the Reeks's ramshackle doom blues for something way more psychedelic and krautrocky, spacey and hypnotic, in fact before we get lost in the gushing wordy description that's about to follow, we thought we might head off some of you 'skimmers', by saying that all you folks who dig Moon Duo, and other similarly stripped down modern psych/kraut combos, will most likely go nuts for these guys too. Just check out the opening track, after a few minutes of abstract psych guitar drift, the a simple, skeletal, propulsive rhythm surfaces, and the band lock into a sort of post Spacemen 3 / Jesus And Mary Chain chunk of psychfuzzkrautrock that is totally mesmerizing and hypnotic. The rhythm is locked in, looped endlessly, pounding away, while above, the multiple stringed instruments, unfurl epic swaths of sound, wild spidery leads, fuzzy pop-like jangle, crunchy angular riffage, layered drones, a lush tangle of melodies and textures, the result totally divine. Drugged out and dreamy. And the rest of the record plays out in a similar fashion, that minimal machinelike beat driving sprawling expanses of psychkraut bliss, the sound shifting from blissed out and sun dappled to darker and driving, from ethereal and blown out to slithery and almost bluesy (which is when the Spacemen 3 comparison seems particularly apt), finally culminating in the gorgeously hazy slow burn ballad that finishes things off. We obviously love Reeks And The Wrecks, and love Frozen Cloak (another post-Reeks band, reviewed elsewhere on the aQ site, their sound blacker and buzzier, and we actually have it back in stock, just ask), so you can add PRND to the list of incredible Reeks-born Bellingham bands, that should be WAY more popular than they are. Easily one of our new faves... SUPER LIMITED, each one hand numbered, and gorgeously hand painted.

MPEG stream: 1
MPEG stream: 2

Just in case you were wondering, there IS a universe. A universe in which a band from Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley released a privately-pressed lp in 1975 containing some crazy sci-fi jazz fusion prog rock jams. You may not have heard that record yet, but you live in that universe, too. That band was called Probe 10, and that lp was called There Is A Universe. Imagine an underground hippie space rock band, with plenty of acid rock guitar and fuzz bass, teaming up with a groovy trumpet playing jazz cat who wandered in from some '60s nightclub. It's like Herb Alpert, smoking a lot of herb (ha). Usually when obscure private press reissues are billed as long lost psych/fuzz gems, especially when there's any sort of 'jazz' component, you have to be skeptical. But, in this case, it's actually pretty cool artifact. Super over the top with chops, and with the fuzz. The band, obsessed with the likes of Return To Forever, get busy with hectic tempo changes and rollercoaster song structures, brassy attacks, and flute too, lots of flute. And there's a big drum solo on here as well, part C of the five part suite "Invasion Of The Malladroids". Just ridiculous, really. And when they aren't conjuring jazzy sci-fi space battles with their instruments, they get all new agey, check out the babbling brook and spiritual spoken word on "To Improvise A Dream", and then there's the very first song, the title track, the only one with singing on it (courtesy guest vocalist Susan Rudelich), shrill and sweet at the same time, misleadingly melodic and hippified though, setting you up for a surprise as the band kicks into the first of the Malladroid invasion cuts immediately afterwards, some of the fuzziest, freakiest prog fusion absurdity we've ever heard. Nicely packaged in a miniature lp sleeve, the cd booklet featuring personal liner notes from two of the band members, Jim McGee and Barry "Buzz" Bachman. Also, there's five unreleased bonus tracks on the cd (a vinyl version of this reissue is forthcoming too, btw).

MPEG stream: Invasion Of The Malladroids: A. Invasions
MPEG stream: Intergalactic Crossfire
MPEG stream: Solar Winds

Don't get us wrong, we like this record a lot, another classic example of what we love most from Slumberland records releases, beautifully distorted, fuzzy, reverbed girl-group jangle pop! But if it was ONLY Slumberland putting this music out right now (what we have perhaps-not-so-lovingly dubbed: THE NOW SOUND OF 2010) and not many, many other labels like In the Red, Captured Tracks, Sacred Bones, Castle Face, Fat Possum, and even Sub Pop and 4AD, then we might find it just a bit more special. But while we're just about to reach breaking point on this particular sound, our ears couldn't help but perk up on the opening bars of "Feel Sorry For Me" and figure out what was playing. Sort of an expanded take on Black Tambourine's shoe-gazing distorted gloss and the Dum Dum Girls' earnest disaffection, Procedure Club's debut is as catchy and infectious as both of them, if not quite as perfect.

MPEG stream: Feel Sorry For Me
MPEG stream: Artificial Light
MPEG stream: Seventh Circle of Hell

A brand new, sprawling collection of celestial darkness and buzzing black ambient drift from this black metal / black ambient master. As we've mentioned in the past, more often than not, PV will dedicate a whole record to either side of his sonic personality, sometimes it's a disc of swirling and dense blackened black metal buzz, other times it's gorgeously bleak and minimal ambient dronemusic, but in both cases, the man behind Procer Veneficus is able to conjure up gorgeously sinister sounds and nightmarish atmospheres, be they buzz or drift, blast or shimmer. How The Heather Moonlit Shivers, is, as the legend on the back of the record makes clear, "Dedicated to Her", and judging from the black sonic mystery within, the 'Her' in question either broke his heart, or is the object of a seriously grim obsession, or both. Extended stretches of layered black drift, Philip Jeck style crackly loopscapes, muted subterranean pulses, thick swaths of distorted crumble, processed ghostly vox, swirling soft focus effects, minor key steel string folk dirges, keening streaks of fragmented melody underpinning slowed down voices, haunting reverb drenched avant Appalachia gives way to abject post industrial black ambience, which gives way to dense clouds of low end bellow, laced with melancholic finger picked acoustic guitars. Elsewhere thick walls of guitarbuzz dirge lumber and throb, but are infused with subtle bits of melody, transformed from brute force crush into something moody and soothing and beautiful, while spidery guitars wrap their tendrils around long stretches of layered voices and alien harmonies, while here and there, fragments of voice, or a bit of guitar, will be doused in reverb and echo and delay and sent spinning into the aether, creating a dizzying looped out dronescape. The record closes with a 10+ minute interpretation of an Amber Asylum song, complete with strings, the strings along with languid steel string guitars, and swirling ambient background shimmer create a sort of droney, depressive otherworldly chamber music. There's also an Espers cover (a cover of a cover oddly enough), which is equally beautiful, but a bit more tripped out, a sort of druggy heavily effected space folk, but both covers fit perfectly amidst the equally evocative and hauntingly beautiful PV originals. Folks who ONLY like the black metal side of Procer Veneficus, may be disappointed, but anyone into mysterious dark soundscapes, cinematic blackened drone music, and creepy sinister black folk, will be immediately and inexorably ensorcelled. Packaged in a super swank and thick matte finish gatefold jacket, pressed on thick red vinyl, LIMITED TO 406 COPIES, each one hand numbered.

MPEG stream: Orchidblood
MPEG stream: Crimsonblack Bordeaux
MPEG stream: Amaranthine Aura

On a European tour about ten years ago, a curious 7" was unearthed in a used record store. It had an amazing black and white cover, a painting of Golgotha, with the cross lost in a cloudy haze and surrounded by watercolored trees. The band was called Professor, their logo in splattery hand drawn Olde English. And the record was called The Academizer ep. One of the tracks was "Into The Auditorium". Suddenly thoughts of an evil black metal band made up entirely of doctoral scholars leapt to mind. Sort of the whole Carcass medical student thing, but with academia. This was just getting better and better. The record sat unplayed until returning to the States, where it finally made it onto the turntable. And holy shit! It was as good as the cover suggested it could be. A sloppy noisy blackened slab of Carcass worship. Blast beats and grinding guitars, howled gutteral vocals, and crushing heaviness. Over the course of the next decade, several more copies were discovered and hoarded like the treasure they were. Until a random series of circumstances led to tUMULt discovering the man behind Professor and the quest to make that amazing, out of print 7" available to a wider, turntable-less audience. What happened, was that an unsolicited package was sent to tUMULt HQ, with some new music for the tUMULt overlord to check out, but the sender also included a cdr of his old bands. A cursory listen was blasted to an immediate halt, when the hauntingly familiar strains of Professor came screeching from the speakers. Oh shit. Is it possible? Could it be? And what do you know? The sender was none other than a real live living member of Professor. After much convincing and cajoling, he agreed to let tUMULt re-release the Academizer ep. And even now, a decade later, this shit is so good. Fierce and furious, stumbling and blasting drunkenly like a grinding blackened metallic juggernaut. Four tracks of crushing grind, pummelling crush and grinding pummel. Heavy and noisy and fucking great! Rumour was, that Professor was maybe a joke. But if that's true, this is some sick joke. Fans of Carcass, Drop Dead, grindcore, black metal, and all things heavy owe it to themselves to enter the auditorium, and bow before the Professor!! In the form of a 3" cd packaged in a mini jewel case.

MPEG stream: Professor
MPEG stream: Immatriculation

Or, translated from the Polish, the Magic Carpathians Project. If there's ever a Terrastock Festival held in Warsaw, this band should certainly headline. Well-done Eastern-European space-mantras.

Eco-hippie ethno-drone Polish ensemble otherwise known in English as the Magic Carpathians (formerly, Atman) play doleful, quirky, space-mantras with distinctive vocalizing, sometimes reminiscent of Brainticket. Their second album.

A record with so much kickass climactic energy, seems yr speakers're pulsating like living things --like the Replacements' video for "Bastards of Young!"-- Prolapse reminds us of The Fall crossed with Stereolab and Crass. One song, "Flex," is fifteen minutes yet still too short. Scheduled to take over the world after opening much of 1996 Stereolab tour.

Prolapse's latest offering finds the duets between Linda Steelyard and Scottish Mick far from the drunken shouting matches and domestic disputes of their previous albums. Rather the two have come to a rather melodic compromise (as the Sugarcubes did with Bjork and Einar) with a much moodier instrumentation dominated by PiL/Jah Wobble basslines.

If Arab Strap and Mogwai occupy the depressive end of Scottish mope rock, than Prolapse can claim the bittersweet band of the spectrum. The dueling male / female vocals come off as a beleaguered working class couple in mid-fight with a propulsive fusion of The Fall and My Bloody Valentine backing them up. An excellent album, their best yet!

Lovely! The entrance of The Prom is one of grand descending orchestral processions. Would make the perfect soundtrack to a '70s film of doomed romance and drama. Sumptuous chamber pop instrumentation with the piano leading the way. Beautiful, heartrending lyrical tales from the graceful pen of Mr. James Mendenhall - quite reminiscent of Elliott Smith and XTC's Andy Partridge. The third song's piano beginning really made me think of a Journey ballad (uh-oh!) until the vocals came in, then it felt much more in line with Quasi (whew, a good thing!). This album finds itself on Barsuk Records, home to the likeminded intelligent pop of John Vanderslice, The Long Winters and of course Death Cab For Cutie, but it fits just as comfortably in the finely crafted company of lush Brit bands like Doves or Coldplay. A very very impressive debut!

RealAudio clip: Guarantees Aren't Easy
RealAudio clip: The Same Complaints

The Promise Ring and their increasingly lackluster indie pop have made Jade Tree a commercially successful venture. Sadly, it's much more interesting to attribute lame ass artschool rhetoric to the decidedly wrong colors (a title of 'Electric Pink' with a cover that is solid Mauve... boy that's conceptual.), than to ascribe adjectives beyond mediocre to this cdsingle.

Super catchy emo-pop. Close your eyes and it's Sunny Day Real Estate (for anyone still broken up about their breaking up.) Sprung from the same source as Joan of Arc and Cap'n Jazz, the newest post-hc sensations...very handsome packaging to boot.