[ aquarius records — Rock Pop ]

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Showing results 13851 through 13900 of 19388.

This new Rush album came out earlier this year, and we didn't review it at the time -- it's a Rush album after all! But several of us here are in fact Rush fans (Andee and Byram for sure, plus Allan's a reluctant Rush fan), and it developed that more than one of us somehow ended up with copies of this, and liked it, so we thought we'd give it a mention after all. It certainly doesn't sound as tired as you'd expect. They've cut back on the keyboards and gone for a surprisingly heavy, classic, not terribly proggy rock sound. Actually, if it wasn't for Geddy Lee's distinctive vocals, you might not even guess this was Rush. As it is, this is what the second album from Cyclefly should have sounded like. And *another* reason we wanted to finally list this is the chance to include the URL (http://www.prorec.com/prorec/articles.nsf/articles/8A133F52D0FD71AB86256C2E005DAF1C) for a totally amazing rant on the ProRec.com website about the allegedly extra-loud production/mastering job this album received. ProRec.com editor Rip Rowan sounds off on how, despite being Rush's best album songwriting-wise in years, it nonetheless sounds "like dogshit". He goes into great, obsessive, hilarious detail about this harmful trend in record production and how it's manifested on "Vapor Trails", complete with graphic analysis of sound samples from the cd. Here's a caption from one of them that we found particularily amusing: "One of thousands of ruined kick drum transients from the Vapor Trails CD." He also puts a portion of his article IN ALL CAPS to illustrate his point...so, check it out!! And, in case you're wondering, ol' Rip Rowan might be right, he's a pro after all, but the Rush fans here still enjoyed giving this a spin.

RealAudio clip: One Little Victory

Featuring songs by Creation, Unit 4+3, The Who, Cat Stevens, Yves Montand, John Lennon, The Faces, The Kinks, and Chad and Jeremy. Plus incidental soundtrack music by Mark Mothersbaugh. The whole soundtrack is so well done that you don't even have to have seen this film in order to love the music contained here. And for what it's worth, Andee and Allan loved this movie but Windy and Matt-from-CoolBeans!, who thought it was good, also felt it was fatally flawed (weak character writing) and cannot recommend it, although the music ALMOST saves it.

Not to be confused with the similarly-minded Roska, Rusko, aka Christopher Mercer, seems destined to be the next hardest working producer in dubstep. Taking the dark serious side of the genre into more uproarious and exuberant blends of house, soul, rave and dancehall, Rusko strives to fit so many genre-busting ideas in one record that it makes for a rather head-spinning listen. But each delirious track stands out on its own. Much like the Major Lazer debut, they're a lot of guests including Gucci Mane and The Dirty Projector's Amber Coffman (whose track "Hold On" is one of our favorite tracks this year!) There's lots of hip hop autotune vocal hooks, eighties synth washes, rave sirens, donks, sped-up yelps, 8-bit woots, but Rusko weaves them into sublimely energetic and soulful motifs. It's more than a pastiche of previously explored sounds, Rusko creates a winning dance combination that we'll be listening to all summer long!

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The curious case of Arthur Russell continues with a new posthumous collection of previously unreleased versions of archival material recorded in the early eighties, but sounding as modern as ever. Like Love is Overtaking Me and Calling Out of Context, Corn was material that was being prepared for release at the time of its making, but for reasons unknown was scrapped. Russell was infamous for never being able to finish anything (he only released one proper album, World of Echo, in his lifetime, and many of his most popular dance tracks had multiple versions and often had to be finished by other producers such as Walter Gibbons and Francis Kevorkian), and it wasn't until after his death from AIDS in 1992 at the age of 40, that the world got to hear the full breadth of his musical genius. Flirting with modern classical, folk, disco and rock sometimes all in the same track but oftentimes exploring one genre expansively at great length, Corn mostly explores electro-pop, with a little bit of everything in between. With voice, drum rhythms and distorted cello, the music is neither quite aimed for the dancefloor like The World of Arthur Russell collection, nor is it as spare and oceanic as World of Echo or Another Thought. Instead, it strikes a highly listenable middle ground that takes a few of his better known tracks such as "Let's Go Swimming" and "This Is How We Walk On The Moon" into quite different pop-dance territory than on previous collections. And we don't recall the distorted cello having been such a sonic force on previous collections either, culminating in the eight minute abstract noisescape "Ocean Movie" that concludes this collection. While we originally thought this wouldn't be the collection we'd recommend for the uninitiated, we have been consistently selling copies every time we have played it in the store to folks who have no idea who Arthur Russell was, and we ourselves and been loving this release more and more each time we listen. Recommended!

MPEG stream: Lucky Cloud
MPEG stream: See My Brother, He's Jumping Out (let's Go Swimming #2)
MPEG stream: They And Their Friends
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Fourteen years after his death, the music of Arthur Russell is more alive than ever. Mostly known as a left-field disco producer and classically trained cellist, Russell was also an accomplished avant-garde composer, as evidenced here. Audika records, who re-issued Russell's World of Echo and Calling Out Of Context releases, focus their attention here on two little known early pieces: Instrumentals Vols. 1 & 2, and Tower of Meaning. It's no wonder they are so little known. While Instrumentals Vol. 2 was released on Belgian label Les Disques Du Crepescule in 1984, and Tower of Meaning was previously released on Phillip Glass's label, Chatham Square in 1983, Vol. 1 was made only into a test pressing and for some reason shelved (this is its first official release). The Instrumentals disc is the most interesting because for music so rooted in the New York avant-garde of the '70s and '80s, it's surprisingly accessible. Instrumentals 1 feels like Rhys Chatham playing with the Penguin Cafe Orchestra as harmonic variations of horns and strings play across bass and drum rhythms, while Instrumentals 2 leaves the rhythms behind. Towers of Meaning, a suite of 7 pieces, has a more classical Gavin Bryars vibe as the horns play out long melody lines with unusual intonations and harmonics with each piece stopping abruptly. Rounding out each disc are two other unreleased compositions, Reach One and Sketch for the Face of Helen. Known to obsessively tweak mixes of his songs (Supposedly, Let's Go Swimming, a left-field disco classic, was mixed *ninety-six* times) and then never release them, it's been rumored that Russell left one thousand tapes of unreleased music at the time of his death, making the title of this release a small inside joke. Hopefully Audika, unlike Russell himself, will be able to tell when enough is enough.

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With this one track from 1986, Arthur Russell clearly set his sights for the future of dance music and pretty much became the godfather of chillwave, balearic house and other modern day pop forms dedicated to all that's the sun-kissed, blissful and breezy. This newly remastered version features three dubs of the song (Gulf Stream, Puppy Surf, and Coastal, the last one mixed by the legendary Walter Gibbons!) and a previously unreleased track called "Make 1.2 (Gem Spa Dub)", that has a more funk oriented vibe, but still as left-field as can be. There have been rumors that Arthur Russell had made 96 separate mixes of "Let's Go Swimming", and the versions here don't sound exactly like previously released versions on other compilations like Strut's Disco Not Disco 2 or Soul Jazz's The World of Arthur Russell, which felt more orientated to the dancefloor and could have been stripped down mixes by Gibbons and others. The Gulf Stream Dub may be the truest of the three mixes here to Russell's original vision of the song, a submerged percolating paean to the return to innocence of summertimes past. But the three mixes here are like one extended jam of the song going into a more balearic house mode on the Puppy Surf Dub then into Gibbons' more economic and percussive but mind-bending and body shaking Coastal Dub. Essential!

MPEG stream: Let's Go Swimming (Gulf Stream Dub)
MPEG stream: Make 1.2 (Gem Spa Dub)

AQ pal, experimental musician, yoga instructor and Root Strata label head, Jefre Cantu, was so in love with this record that he nearly insisted that he review it for our list. Being the overly busy beavers that we are, we were more than happy to oblige. Take it away, Jef..... I have to admit it, I'm a late bloomer when it comes to the work of Arthur Russell. My ears didn't exactly perk up when I first heard his re-released early disco recordings a few years back (which says more about my taste for the genre at that time than his take on it). But when a good friend of mine passed along the collection of airy rock/jazz/classical mutant instrumentals that are collected on First Thought, Best Thought I was floored. And hooked. It proved to be the perfect entry point for me into Russell's storied body of work, and lead me on a path to other equally addictive outings such as his hallucinatory World Of Echo, and the weird electronic funk of Calling Out of Context. And now, thanks in no small part to Russell's long time lover Tom Lee, we have Love Is Overtaking Me' a lovely set of folksy pop songs culled from (literally) hundreds of cassette and reel to reel tapes that span his carrier from the early '70s to the year before his untimely death in 1992. I'm happy to say it's a real pleasure to listen to, as this collection highlights a side of Russell's work that's hardly been hinted at before. Tunes like the opening "Close My Eyes" or "Maybe She" are arresting to hear if for no other reason than how bare Russell sounds, his mellow croon laid blank against an acoustic strum. The opening passage on "Goodby Old Paint", a cover of a cowboy standard, may just be one of the most gorgeous things he's done, only disappointing in its brevity. It's the kind of thing I could listen to over and over for an entire Sunday morning. Joined with a full band for most of the disc, tracks like "I Couldn't Say It To Your Face", "Hey! How Does Everybody Know" and "The Letter" are sunny summer day pop songs, cast in lyrics about love, dogs, dads and full moons. Each one's a perfect bit of headphone candy, layered with hooks that may go unnoticed on the first, or even second listens, but ultimately stick to the sides of the brain for days on end. It's really staggering to think that the 21 tracks here have never been heard by the public before, and just as staggering to consider what could have become of Arthur Russell had he lived till now. Finally, the disc winds down with the heartbreaking romantic downer�"Love is Back", where he softly sings over a spare constellation of keyboards & electronic beats "Being sad is not a crime...."

MPEG stream: Goodbye Old Paint
MPEG stream: I Couldn't Say It To Your Face
MPEG stream: Love Is Back

Yesss! Everyone knows we love pretty much all sides of the late Arthur Russell. But as much as we love his avant composer and country pop tangents, we always keep coming back to his left-field disco productions of the late seventies/early eighties which is what introduced him to us in the first place. On this excellent compilation, we get 10 mixes from Russell's legendary Sleeping Bag Record imprint, and luckily it's not all a rehash of what's been featured on other Arthur Russell compilations. Using lots of different monikers, we get cuts from Bonzo Goes To Washington (Featuring Bootsy Collins), Felix, Dinosaur L, Indian Ocean, Sounds of JHS 126, and Clandestine (w/ Ned Sublette). With a penchant for odd sounds, strange vocal inflections, and long late-night dancefloor stability, Russell imbued his mixes with off kilter breaks and enough subtle rhythmic details that keep you invested in the groove without them ever becoming monotonous. Highlights include the Ronald Reagan cut up fuckery of Bonzo goes to Washington and the underwater hip-hop of Sounds of JHS 126's "Chill Pill" with its slightly staggered hard panned dual vocals creating a kind of Terry Riley "You're No Good" effect. But the star track is Walter Gibbon's 12 minute plus mix of Dinosaur L's "Go Bang!". We were a bit wary when we saw this wasn't the Francois Kevorkian mix, because in our minds that track is just about untouchable, it's so damn awesome. But Gibbons breaks down the original slowly stripping it to its essence and making a whole new song out of it that isn't so much mutant disco as it is early house. Yet he still manages to keep its oddities in tact: the shrill organ drones that last a little too long, the changes every 24 measures, Lola Blank's flat delivery (here cut up and reformed into new shapes). So awesome and Soooo Recommended!!!!!!

MPEG stream: 5 Minutes (B-B-B Boming Mix)
MPEG stream: You Can't Hold Me Down (Extended Version)
MPEG stream: Go Bang! (Walter Gibbons Mix)

Twenty-two years after his death, the music of Arthur Russell is more alive than ever. In fact in addition to this tape, and the Love Is Overtaking Me repress also listed this week, we have the new Red Hot + Arthur Russell Master Mix tribute lp in stock, just ask! Mostly known as a left-field disco producer and classically trained cellist, Russell was also an accomplished avant-garde composer, as evidenced here. Once reissued on cd in 2006 as part of the Audika collection First Thought Best Thought that documented his orchestral work with luminaries of the New York Downtown Scene (Rhys Chatham, Jon Gibson and Peter Gordon) following his stint as musical director at The Kitchen in New York, Tower of Meaning was originally released on Philip Glass's new music label, Chatham Square in 1983. A suite of 7 movements performed by an ensemble of horn players and conducted by Julius Eastman, Tower of Meaning has a slow epic funereal vibe reminiscent of Gavin Bryar's The Sinking of The Titanic, or indeed like a Philip Glass piece in slow motion. While not quite as emotionally devastating as the Bryars piece, the horns in Tower of Meaning play out long plaintive tones simultaneously resulting in unusual intonations and harmonics as the tones overlap creating modalities of clustering chords that aurally seem to both march forward and float upward without ever quite resolving itself, the "meaning" in the title forever remaining elusive and out of reach. The Bryars connection is a bit ironic however, because Towers of Meaning was originally intended as incidental music to accompany a staging of Robert Wilson's Medea, but creative squabbling between the two forced Russell out and Gavin Bryar's took over the project. The resultant recording is only a fraction of Russell's score which included voices and other instrumentation as well. Embittered by the experience, it was Russell's final orchestral effort. Limited to 100 copies.

MPEG stream: Tower of Meaning

Having recently listed the highly popular Love Is Overtaking Me, we thought we'd bring in the other side of the Arthur Russell sound, World of Echo, a magical record he released towards the end of his life. We surprised ourselves realizing we never listed it previously, so it's time to do it some justice. While Love Is Overtaking Me introduced a previously unheard side to Arthur Russell fans, it also brought in a new audience perhaps less in tune with Russell's more high-minded musical pursuits. World of Echo is a perfect in-between place for fans and new-comers. Released in 1987, World of Echo concentrates on Russell's use of the cello, percussion and voice filtered through a bank of effects. There is a minimalist oceanic dub vibe that weaves through these highly personal songs that are affecting, not so much by what he is singing but how. Soft and low, his voice quavers over spare echoing instrumentation that bends towards the beautifully abstract. Like floating in calm oceans towards the void of the sun, melting into its warmth, this is a record that influenced a generation of music makers (Grizzly Bear, Coconut, Final Fantasy, Juana Molina, Animal Collective / Panda Bear, Hanne Hukkelberg, etc) and continues to beguile us. Highly recommended!

MPEG stream: Place I Know-Kid Like You
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New Zealand noise-guru Bruce Russell has taken some time away from his busy schedule running the Corpus Hermeticum megacorporation and recording with The Dead C and A Handful of Dust to release this solo recording. "Maximalist Mantra Music" perfectly describes the improvized clatter and guitar feedback wrestled into a hypnotic drone. So we'll just leave it at that, well, except to say this this is one of Andee's current drone faves.

Dead C main man Bruce Russell's latest solo record is a gorgeous slab of gurgling textures and humming buzzing drones. Built from a seven meter pre-recorded tape loop and slowed down thumb piano, these two lengthy pieces build from rich, soothing foghorn like tones into shimmering washes of high end feedback and rumbling clatter. Really, really beautiful and much less abrasive than a lot of Russell's work.

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Latest blast of epic sprawling instrumental heaviness from this Chicago power trio, and with every record these guys just continue to get better and better, heavier and heavier, and their songwriting too, so much more intricate and nuanced with every record, which is pretty important, especially when your band is instrumental, considering the biggest problem with most instrumental bands is that you find yourself wondering when the vocals are finally gonna come in. But with Russian Circles, it doesn't sound like anything's missing, in fact, vocals would just get in the way at this point, these guys deftly weave dense metallic soundscapes that weave brooding slow building post rock to churning mathy metal, and they don't shy away from serious experimentation, whether that means stretching out sounds into spacey psychedelic drones, are mashing everything together into dense proggy blowouts, or even dipping their toes into some almost grooviness, but even those groovier moments typically splinter into something much heavier and mathier, slipping from chugging churn, to glistening soundtracky moodiness (like a more metal Majeure at moments), to full bore metallic crush, to almost krauty hypnorock, to crushing lumbering doom, to gorgeous almost shoegazey buzz, these guys don't miss a beat, effortlessly cramming all those disparate sounds into a single record, hell, into a single song. While we happen to be particularly partial to instrumental music, especially of the heavier variety, and even though there's no shortage of bands doing this sort of stuff, there are definitely few who do it this well, and who manage to craft a sound that is pretty uniquely their own. Fans of all things instrumental and/or heavy and/or hypnotic a la Mogwai, Godspeed, Explosions In The Sky, Pelican, Circle, Magyar Posse, Salvatore, etc, these guys should already be in your pantheon. And metalheads who are up for some serious heaviness that's maybe slightly more hypnotic than heavy, would do well to check these guys out...

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We've never actually reviewed a record by these guys for some reason, but at least some of us here have been fans for a while. Listening to this now, all we can think is that we don't remember these guys being so heavy. Or so metal. But for math rock / post rock, this is some seriously brutal and fierce stuff. It's definitely melodic and mathy, the band definitely finding inspiration in Mogwai, Godspeed, Explosions In The Sky, Pelican, Jesu, but rather than aping those groups, Russian Circles definitely make that sound their own. And one of the ways they do that is by making it HEAVY. They spend a good amount of the record chugging ominously, or locked into some epic riffing, the drums pounding, the bass an incredible grinding crunchy low end, the songs often following the sort of post rock template of slow build to explosive chorus, but just as often not, sometimes locking into long contemplative drifts, other times pounding away relentlessly on a single riff, and still other times exploding into a full on frenzied psych metal blow out. In the time it took to write the above paragraph, two people came over to see what was playing, and when they were told it was Russian Circles, both responded by saying they didn't remember Russian Circles being so metal. Which is not a bad thing at all really, in fact, they've kind of out-Pelican-ed Pelican, the same sort of general sound, but RS are now the heavier of the two. But they still get pretty post rock and pretty, "Hexed All" is a gorgeous super mellow string laden meander, "When The Mountain Comes To Muhammad" spends much of it's time slithering and brooding all Slint style, and record closer "Philos" is a long sprawling post metal drift, spending much of its time hushed and abstract, and building briefly, but never to a full on metallic climax, but in between all this prettiness is "Malko" is a sort sharp blast of melodic heaviness, and even some of the pretty tracks are peppered with bits of crunch and pound. Regardless of whether you think this is metallic post rock, or post metal, or if you even care, this is some seriously good shit, and anyone into ANY of the above mentioned bands, who might be looking for some melodic heaviness, should for sure check this out.

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What would you think if someone described a band to you, as sounding like a mix of Butthole Surfers, Black Flag, the Brainbombs and black metal? Want if they went on to describe the band's sound in more detail, and they came up with something like "thick oozing ultra distorted, totally chaotic, drone drenched, drugged out, noisy as fuck, weirdly hypnotic, punishing and pulverizing, scuzz drenched doomic plod"? Well your first thought, if you were anything like us, would be "could such a band actually exist?" It does sound too good to be true. Your next thought might be "well okay, if a band like that did exist, not only would they be scary as shit, they'd also probably be my favorite band EVER." Thus we have Rusted Shut. Going on 20 years now, these Texan noisemakers have somehow only managed two proper records and a single or two, each one of those jammed to overflowing with the abovementioned thick oozing ultra distorted, totally chaotic, pulverizing scuzz drenched plod. When we reviewed their Hot Sex ep, we alluded to the fact that if said ep wasn't an ep, wasn't vinyl only, wasn't over a decade old, and wasn't WAY too fucked up for most normal ears, it would have not only been out Record Of The Week, but our Record Of The YEAR. Of our EVER! Well, it's as if whatever God enjoys inflicting sonic torture on his children heard our prayers and conjured up this festering bit of blackened noise punk brilliance from whatever pit these guys call home. It's rare that a band 20+ years old makes a record on the tail end of 20 years even half as good as the record that started it all, but we're tempted to say, this just might be the heaviest, freakiest, most brutally brilliant thing we've heard from these guys so far. Which is indeed saying a whole hell of a lot. The opener "Home", is 5 minutes of blown out punk-drone, the guitars unwinding in thick gnarled tangles, moaning and rumbling and howling, a dense undulating layered swell of roiling sonic filth, fragmented riffs, squiggly downtuned Greg Ginn-ish guitar scrabble, the drums skittery and abstract clouds of cymbal sizzle, bursts of free rock splatter, while over the top, some sort of harsh, whiskey soaked punk rock testifying, spouting all sorts of misanthropic misinformation, like a post punk noise rock gutter scum Whitehouse. The music grows more and more frantic, faster, more freaked out, the various streaks of sound coalescing into riffs, that blur into still more smears of sound, the song an exercise in droned out filth caked tension. Then there's "Heart Of Hell", total old school punk rock, but filtered through a sort of washed out lo-fi Brainbombs dirginess, the main riff, total classic punk rock, but locked and looped, and played over and over and over and over, totally trancelike, the vocals just as sneeringly scowly as on the first track, but once they drop out, the song locks into a total droned out punked up krautrock groove, that sounds a bit like Circle covering the Brainbombs, albeit doused in crumbling distortion and blurred reverb and delay. Then comes "Intellect", 15 minutes of total blown out garage dirge bliss, the sound so in the red, that every time a cymbal hits, it swallows up the rest of the sound, the vocals so loud it sounds like the singer grabbed you by the head and locked his lips around your ears, you can feel his hot hellish breath and the spray of spittle. But all the while the music underneath, grows more and more distorted and somehow more and more hypnotic, so damaged and fractured that it sounds like the song might crumble into pieces at any moment. But that's just the first few minutes. Soon the band switch gear and the bass EXPLODES, like suddenly while the band was playing, the bass player went out to his truck and got 3 or 4 more amps and just let fucking loose, low end overload, everything acid drenched and psychedelic, the sound of speakers frying, of headphones melting, the vocals garbled like speaking in tongues, the bass unleashing a sludgey doomy groove, the song an endless noise rock blown out druggy musical brawl that makes the Butthole Surfers at their fiercest sound practically tame. This song more than anything here reminds us of our first live run in with these weirdos. At SXSW this year, they played an instore, everyone was waiting to see the Mayyors, but Rusted Shut were just destroying the place, super noisy and scuzzy and awesome, and they just NEVER STOPPED PLAYING. The homeless-looking singer/guitarist guy kept getting shocked by the mic, so eventually he simply walked outside, after leaning his guitar up against his amp... some punk dude in the audience then picked up the mic, and freestyled some "I hate SXSW" lyrics... when he was done and threw the mic down, it seemed like the drummer and bassist would wrap it up, but instead they kept on jamming... and jamming... and jamming� then the guitarist came back in after being outside for what felt like (and pretty much WAS) ages, picked up his guitar, and then it seemed like, OK, this must be the grande finale... but that was only the beginning!! They literally kept on playing for another half hour at least. After a while, most of the crowd had gone outside to wait for the Mayyors, driven away by the bands wall of harsh vibes and skull stomping crush, and someone even joked that they should shut the doors of the shop and lock Rusted Shut inside... These guys are lifers, they're insane, a total mess, which is the only way a piece of glorious sonic filth like this could ever happen. This is not music made by nice guys slumming it, by punk rockers getting their hands dirty, no, this is the sound of old guys pissed and insane, hell bent on punishing the rest of the world, a furious plod and pound fueled by hate, and misery, and drugs. Lots and lots and LOTS of drugs. And that instore, for all of it's confusional chaos, is pretty much the exact same vibe captured here. That is what this band is all about. About relentless endless riffing, hypnotic crustpunk dirges, wild damaged Neanderthal noise rock. The sick sick energy of Rusted Shut is an anomaly. This is not music, this is the sound these guys conjure up from their dead souls and black hearts, a fucked up noise drenched hardcore psychedelic space sludge whathtefuck that's just about the greatest thing we've ever heard.

MPEG stream: Home
MPEG stream: Heart Of Hell
MPEG stream: Intellect

Another filthy, fucked up slab of crusty chaotic blown out whatthefuck noise rock, from the same black bottomless pit that produced the Rusted Shut full length we went nuts for a while back. These Texan freaks kick up a wicked din, equal parts Butthole Surfers, Brainbombs and buzzy black metal. BUT, they take those pieces, chop em all up, dip 'em in liquid LSD, roll 'em in hash, light them on fire, then have the guys in Faxed Head record them onto a wax cylinder. They then relearn the songs, record them in a big metal shed, with broken mics and a busted up 4-track with all the levels stuck at 10. At least that's what it sounds like. These guys should have been as big as their Texan noise rock brethren, Buttholes, Scratch Acid, Stickmen With Rayguns, but even in such drug addled freaked out company, these guys still managed to sound fucked up. These 4 tracks were recorded in 1997, supposedly during the same sessions that produced the full length, but somehow these track sound even more far out and freaky than the record. Sheets of atonal organ and SUPER distorted vox over stuttery skipping rhythms and tons of hiss and distortion, that eventually slips into an organ drenched Brainbombs-y groove, throbbing bass, buried drums, and organ and vocals so loud, that every time they come in, the rest of the tracks almost disappear completely. Slowed down voices, rumbling downtuned guitars, a definite and distinct Buttholes vibe. The flipside is a bit more atmospheric, the first track sounding like Goblin gone fucked up fuzz rock, all haunting and creepy and sort of ambient, but still roiling and noisy and harsh. That gives way to a pounding closer, big distorted drums, throbbing bass, all muted and muddy so it sounds like it's coming from the car behind you stopped at the light. How they make this racket is beyond us, it's inhuman, so heavy and noisy and drugged out. The instrumentation might be a clue, featuring "godstrike", "earthscreamer" and of course "dums" not drums. At first we didn't know quite what to make of this, but repeated listens, have almost convinced us that if this were not just an ep, not vinyl only, over a decade old, and not WAY too fucked up for most ears, it just might be our record of the year. Still might be, but be warned, this is some seriously UNeasy listening. Eye popping full color cover, nice cardstock insert, and pressed on nice thick vinyl.

Only in Texas. Any state that can produce the Butthole Surfers, Stickmen With Rayguns, Scratch Acid, and of course George W. Bush, must have something weird going on. The heat? The drugs? Whatever it is, we wouldn't trade it for the world (well except maybe for the Bush part). How Rusted Shut managed to remain so obscure is a mystery for the ages. The horrible grinding noise these guys can muster up out of a plain old rock band is mind boggling. It's downright harrowing listening to this disc. They've been around since 1986 (and part of this disc was released as a cd-r in 2003), but this is their first official release. A massive, pulverizing crush of simple, plodding, gritty, grimy, filthy, scuzzy, dirge-y sludge that is just obscenely heavy and the grinding buzz that permeates and suffocates every second of this disc has to be THE most distorted guitar sound ever. Sounds like the riffs are crumbling to jagged little pieces the second they emerge from the speakers, a Marshall stack and a suitcase full of distortion pedals run through a meat grinder and then flung at you like white hot shards of jagged metal. Like the sickest most doped up, deliriously deviant noise punk free-rock outfit, but all wrapped up in a fuzzy, sick black cloak of grim black metal buzz. Sometimes this sounds like the Buttholes meets the Brainbombs, sometimes like Celtic Frost meets Today Is The Day fronted by Cronos from Venom, sometimes like the Lightning Bolt dipped in hot tar with a heavy metal Captain Beefheart on vocals. So whether Rusted Shut sound to you like black metal, or dirge punk, or sludgecore, or all out noise, pretty sure after getting an earful of this you won't be able to hear much of anything else. At least until the ringing stops and the bleeding lets up a little.

MPEG stream: Jesus Christ Inca
MPEG stream: End Is Near (Veranda)

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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Another excellent reissue of the work of French experimental / pop musician Thierry Müller (who we know from the reissues of his pre-Ruth albums under the Ilitch moniker, one of which we recently reviewed). Fast becoming a unanimous staff favorite, Ruth's Remastered with three lengthy bonus cuts from 1982 and 1984 that teeter on more experimental ground, like Müller's celebrated work as Ilitch, which was more of a dark, droney, experimental prog guitar / synth project.

RealAudio clip: Polaroid / Roman / Photo
RealAudio clip: Polaroid/Roman/Photo (Instrumental First Mix, 1982)
RealAudio clip: She Brings The Rain

From the same label that brought is the amazing Starfuckers collection Ordine, and the My Violent Ego ep collection of blissed out shoegaze, comes this strange collection of home recorded 4 track artpunk gloompop noiserock from Paolo Miceli, a one time member of abovementioned shoegazers My Violent Ego, but as the title of this collection makes clear, this stuff was recorded back when he was 21 (circa 1998-2000), channeling the spirit of, as the label suggests, "Distorted Pony, My Bloody Valentine, Sonic Youth, Christian Death, Unsane and The Cure", which is indeed a motley lot, but does definitely hint at the nineties vibe and twenty something sonic angst on display here. More modern references would most definitely be Total Control, Night Control, Pink Noise, and if RVK were around today, there's a good chance they'd end up on Sacred Bones or Captured Tracks. The guitars are buzzy and blurry, chugging and churning, sometime warm and washed out, other times super sharp and jagged, the basslines are woozy and wandery, a definitely gloomy Joy Division vibe, the drum machine is buried way down in the mix, more a pulse and pound than a proper rhythm, and the vocals, they're pretty down in the mix as well, a sort of nineties sad boy croon, the songs themselves, slipping easily from crunchy propulsive rockers to more midtempo almost dirges, the production gloriously blown out and in the red, the first few tracks are ultra lo-fi and murky, but somewhere around track 5, something happens, and the guitars get HUGE, the sound is essentially the same, a sort of shoegazey post punk gloom rock, but the guitars are thick slashes of fuzz and buzz, almost Dinosaur Jr style, but more minor key and blurry. The record drifts all over the place, occasionally slipping into drugged out slo-mo psychedelic drift, or locking into some seriously propulsive chugging hypnorock, or some epic metallic guitarscapery, or even some murky buzzy tangled guitar dirge. But as the record progresses, chronologically we're guessing, the sound seems to shift from angry punky gothy to something more blissed out and poppy, maybe foreshadowing his eventual tenure in My Violent Ego, and as the sound gets glossier, his home studio skills improve markedly, so alongside these hazy dream pop jams, are plenty of twisted sonic experiments, drones and drifts and glimmery guitarscapes, this fuzzy blissed out second half perfectly balancing the low slung dirgey gloomy first half. 30 songs in 58 minutes, a collection of fleeting super short brief blasts of gloomy fuzzpop shoegaze postpunk noiserock, and within all these bursts of buzz and jangle and crunch, lurk plenty of hooks, and loads of melody, RVK displaying a surprisingly sweet pop sensibility, that informs even the least poppy jams here. Killer stuff, and totally recommended for anyone into loner psych, bedroom post punk or fuzz drenched shoegaze gloom pop... LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!

MPEG stream: Upsidedown Visions
MPEG stream: Shadow Of The Moon
MPEG stream: Dimensions
MPEG stream: I Couldn't See It
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Two brothers from Humboldt County are RV Paintings - one is Brian Pyle, whose name should probably strike a chord as one of the principals in Starving Weirdos and recently has been generating some impressive work under his solo Ensemble Economique moniker; the other is Jon Pyle, who occasionally makes a guest appearance in the Weirdos but also operates in Nudge with Honey Owens, Paul Dickow, and Brian Foote. For all of the method acting from the brothers Pyle in getting stoned and jamming, they have been remarkably consistent and consistently good in all of their ruminations, with RV Paintings probably the best that they've mustered. The RV Paintings debut on Root Strata is three years out but is still a timeless, gorgeous dronesmear of bowed metals and elongated guitar; this was followed by a well-suited split with Taiga Remains on Blackest Rainbow, and now, they've got this stunner on Helen Scarsdale. RV Paintings speak about, to, and from their own immediate surroundings: the moss, mushrooms, and mycelium of the awe-inspiring redwood forests, the heavy fog that hangs at the coast and from their bongs, and the weightiness of the Pacific Ocean just off to the west. The title Samoa Highway gives the impression that the two brothers were on their own trip during a cold, wintery day, gazing off to the southwest and pondering the warmer climate of American Samoa. But no, the Samoa Highway is located in Humboldt County, connecting Eureka with the small community of Samoa on the other side of the bay which was thought to resemble that of Pago Pago in the mid-19th Century. It's also the bridge that would get you to the Arcata/Eureka Airport. So, the album begins with field recordings of airplanes lifting off on the jawdropping track "Millions," as sitar-like harmonics and ghostly, levitating drones emanate from the distance. It's a perfectly narcotized smear of echo and drift, hanging in space as the remnants of a particularly lucid dream or the foggy headspace from an afternoon of smoking pot and staring at the sun. This is a track that could spiral onward forever. So nice! Samoa Highway continues with "Mirrors" driven by melancholy looped melody from a cello that dissolves into a flurry of shimmered guitar fuzz, whose shoegazed mantra has been submerged under centuries of felled trees and lichens. Cyclical patterns of samples from dark yet pastoral orchestral passages rounds out the album. If it weren't for the delicate freeform clamor of the drumkit, tracks such as this wouldn't be that far removed from the 'pop ambient' cuts by Gas. Citations of Taj Mahal Travellers, Organum, Grouper, Barn Owl, and The Caretaker certainly hit the mark. Music for airports? More like Music for California airports! Fuck yeah! And a download coupon is tucked within the sleeve as well!

MPEG stream: Millions
MPEG stream: Mirrors
MPEG stream: As Far As We Could See

One of our favorite tracks from The Numero Group's excellent Wayfaring Strangers: Ladies From The Canyon compilation was "Cricket" by Collie Ryan. A hippie devotee of Theosophy, Ryan recorded three lovely private press records in the early seventies that featured her stunning artwork and songs that subtly touched on mystical and Native American themes. Her high-pitch bird-like vocals, sheathed in reverb, and complex guitar arrangements fall heavier on the Linda Perhacs side of the Joni Mitchell coin than say, someone like Judee Sill, who also dealt with mystical themes but was more tied to a commercially viable singer-songwriter scene. The Hour is Now is a vinyl-only "best of" of sorts that combines tracks from all three records (yet mysteriously no "Cricket"...) and will save the less diehard fans from shelling out a couple of hundred dollars for the originals. The analog mastering was even supervised by none other than by J. D. Emmanuel! Beautiful stuff!!!

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Long awaited full-length of crazy, noisy, quiet, mathy, spazzy...dare I say...emo.

This is high energy 70's, ironic, arena rock, heavily influenced by Kiss, Grandfunk Railroad, MC5, Cheap Trick and especially AC/DC. They have toured with The Fucking Champs and Drunk Horse, which is so appropriete given the tight muscianship, crazy riffin', silly irony, and love of all things 70's rock. Some songs vary from the formentioned style sounding remarkably like the Jesus Lizard, which I didn't like nearly as much, but all in all an energetic and tight lil' record.

RealAudio clip: Communication Breakdance
RealAudio clip: Snow Job

It's good to see/hear that Rye Coalition continue to succeed where the seemingly likeminded And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead have recently fallen flat. That is, this NY outfit maintain a consistent level of intensity in their aggressive angry boy

RealAudio clip: Stairway To The Free Bird On The Way...

You gotta love this band. First off, best band name EVER. Really. Except for the fact that it could get 'em confused with the British rapper The Streets, this band's acronymic moniker S.T.R.E.E.T.S., which stands for Skateboarding Totally Rules, Everything Else Totally Sucks, can't really be beat as a band name. The album title is pretty good too, as is the skeletal skater carvin' in the prog parody cover art complete with faux Roger Dean logo. Or at least that's what we think, and we don't even skate! Too bad they broke up (members went on to Bison B.C. and Children, the latter of whom were possibly named after one of the songs here). But at least this, their third and final album, originally released in 2005, is again available, now reissued in a digipack with 5 bonus tracks! Keep the dream alive!! The disc starts off with a skit, yes about aliens invading from the Planet Gnars... there's pretty piano, sci-fi warfare sound FX, and a portentous voice-over... before the face-melting retro-trash skatecore riffage of track two "Keep The Dream Alive" kicks in and the band goes off. Spiralling guitar frenzies, chugga chugga riffs, throat ripped vocals, gang shouts, pick squeals, adrenalized hook in mouth songwriting stylez. We're hearing many parts Megadeth, Iron Maiden too (the wooahh-ooaha-ooohs!" of "Peace On Earth" ferinstance, and some galloping action elsewhere), some D.R.I. crossover of course, a touch of Motorhead, and maybe even we're catching a hint of Heart's "Barracuda" in here someplace. Sweet. But whoops, then when you've got 'em pegged as whirlwind skankin' skate party thrash metal, they'll do somethin' like suddenly slow it down and get all moody and post rock there for a minute, like right in that very first song in fact. So S.T.R.E.E.T.S. has some twists, obviously a sense of humor ("Armageddon Wasted" is a song title here... geddit?), and most importantly, they totally rip. Simply bad ass and infectiously grin-inducing, surprisingly melodic mosh fodder. The ironic thing is that the S.T.R.E.E.T.S. motto that forms their name is proven to be untrue, by the band themselves. Cause they couldn't possibly be skating and playing this music at the same time, and this disc definitely falls into the Rules, as opposed to Sucks category. Basically there's NOTHING that's not ruling about this. They're even Canadian (from Vancouver). It'd be stupid not to have this in your collection, since you're gonna wanna be spinning it all the time, and looking at that cool skeleton on the cover. Equally recommended to fans of 3 Inches Of Blood, and Annihilation Time...

MPEG stream: Keep The Dream Alive
MPEG stream: Living Future
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We know that Magma mainman/genius Christian Vander is back on the scene with a new, updated version of that classic monster prog rock band of the seventies. And he's been doing quite well (as the lucky few who saw Magma perform at '99 SF Progfest know) at maintaining Magma's formidable reputation as France's amazing prog-rock answer to both John Coltrane and Richard Wagner. But what of his '70s Magma bandmates, who aren't involved with the current line-up? Here's a disc that shows what bassist extraordinaire Jannick Top (best known for his proto-Ruins composition "De Futura" on Magma's 1976 album "Udu Wudu") has been up to lately. STS is his trio with sax player Eric Seva and drummer Claude Salmieri, and "System Solaire" is a live concert recording from '97, for which they were joined by guest guitarist Thibault Abrial. The nine planetarily-aligned tracks are both moody and energetic, dark jazz fusion with heavy Magma touches (Top and the drummer lock into some unmistakably Magmoid grooves), and the guitar adds a definite psych-rock element. The booklet features a photo of bald-headed Top looking very metal indeed in shades and leather.

S.Y.P.H. was a German punk quartet who originally released this album in 1980 and sound as if late 70s Gang of Four / Mekons were covering Malaria's angular and certainly Teutonic new wave.

If you never heard of this obscure eighties female fronted world-pop outfit, get in line. An unlikely mix of Teutonic new wave and dubby balearic dance pop created in Bremen, Germany, Saada Bonaire only released one single in their lifetime. Now Captured Tracks, through its new imprint Fantasy Memory, has brought to us the complete recordings of this short-lived outfit, and it's pretty amazing, especially if you are into lost post-punk disco rarities as much as we are. Created by Bremen DJ Ralf Behrendt in 1982, and recorded in Kraftwerk's studio by legendary dub-punk producer Dennis Bovell (The Pop Group, The Slits) featuring an array of jazz and world musicians hired from the local immigrant center, Saada Bonaire was fronted by Stefanie Lange and Claudia Hossfield, whose sultry but blase delivery make their sound a sort of hybrid between the domineering dance music of Gina X and Grace Jones and the breezy dub of Brenda Ray. The aforementioned single "You Can Be More As You Are" is an infectious post-disco club classic, that probably had a lot more traction in southern Europe than in the west. Their music, with its exotic flourishes and dreamy tropical rhythms, seems tailor-made for warmer climates, and we can easily see these tracks being played in sunrise dance sets after a long night of clubbing. Definitely a band that should have been a lot bigger than they were, their lack of success the fault of EMI's A&R man who notoriously went over budget with the acts he developed. After going over 5x the budget for Tina Turner's Private Dancer, EMI pulled the plug on Saada Bonnaire and they were rarely heard from since. This anthology covers everything the band recorded between 1982 and 1985, but still remains surprisingly modern sounding for being 30 years old.

MPEG stream: You Could Be More As You Are
MPEG stream: Invitation
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Got something here for fans of Jex Thoth, the No Neck Blues Band, AND weird religious cults... there's probably some overlap there, we imagine! The Ajna Offensive, best known for black metal releases by the likes of Deathspell Omega and Funeral Mist, and also that fancy Bobby Beausoleil box set not long ago, now bring us the Sabbath Assembly, singing "glorious songs of praise to Lucifer, Satan, Christ, and Jehovah". Huh? These are indeed REAL hymns, and all from one church. Some would say, cult. The explanation: ever heard of the Process Church Of The Final Judgment? This is their music, "reProcessed" by a contemporary psychedelic (super)group of underground musicians, including Jex Thoth of, um, Jex Thoth on vocals, David "Xtian" Nuss (NNCK, Angelblood, Under Satan's Sun), and Randall Dunn (Master Musicians Of Bukkake)!�So you can expect this will be ominous and esoteric. The subject of a recent Feral House book, the Process Church was a '70s phenomenon, of course, a kind of apocalyptic Jesus-freak cult with radical political dimensions. We're told they wore black cloaks (always cool) and had German shepherds (really?). We first heard of 'em years ago thanks to George Clinton's band Funkadelic, who for a while in the early '70s were, if not followers, at least supporters of the Process Church, who presumably had a chapter in Detroit. Several Funkadelic lps feature Process Church teachings (propaganda?) on the sleeves. The music of the Sabbath Assembly doesn't sound much like Funkadelic, though. Not quite that funky! Nor are they metal as you might assume from the label... it's actually often pretty, mellow stuff, presumably sounding close to what the Process Church folks themselves sounded like when singing the Lord's (or Lucifer's?) praises back in the day, these hymns very hippie sounding, churchy and folky, but also garagey, with twangy guitar and groovy organ, building into throbbing rhythmic psych workouts. It even gets a bit jazzy in spots ("The Power That Is Love"). Still, while this isn't heavy in the guitar dep't the way Jex Thoth's regular band is, it is definitely "heavy" in terms of subject matter. Jex is the perfect vocalist for this, her dramatic, devotional delivery at once both innocent and intense, sincere and sinister. Her exaltations and exhortations rise from a delicate whisper to commanding, demanding heights, sometimes unaccompanied, at others, with backing vocals reinforcing the message. Be warned, this ain't Sunday school. When Jex asks "will you serve the will of God?", it seems like you had darn well better answer (yes!). Dunno if the Process Church is still around (haven't read the book yet) but if they are, there's a good chance this record might recruit some converts... And at least, it's certainly making us curious to read that book. Creepy, yes, and quite catchy too, we can understand why these folks were drawn to reinterpreting these songs. Though of course curious about what the original source material was (lyrics? vintage recordings?). Perhaps it says somewhere inside the lp packaging, we haven't checked for liner notes as yet. This was produced in association with Feral House, so it would seem the Sabbath Assembly had access to whatever inside archival info there was on the Process Church's musical activities. As "religious" recordings go, this is what we dig! For fans of Jex of course, and Yahowah 13, Family Jams, Sounds Of Ascension, and other "cult" audio... recommended! For now, vinyl-only, 180 gram, gold-colored. There will also be a compact disc version, out later this month sometime.

MPEG stream: Glory To The Gods In The Highest
MPEG stream: Hymn Of Consecration
MPEG stream: Judge Of Mankind

Once more, it's time for Church. The Sabbath Assembly has reconvened to sing the songs of the idiosyncratic '70s hippie religious organization (some might say, "cult") known as the Process Church Of The Final Judgment. Not your everyday hymns here, folks! These are songs of praise to both Christ AND Satan. If you've heard Sabbath Assembly's 2010 debut Restored To One, which we highly recommended, you sort of know what to expect. Arcane Jesus/Satan Freak music reinterpreted by a psychedelic rock outfit helmed by David Nuss of the No Neck Blues Band. The results: lovely, atmospheric, sing-song catchy, sometimes soulful; slightly sinister, yet strangely uplifting (as it was meant to be). Ye Are Gods is mostly gentle and folky, sometimes jazzy and trippy, and kinda Comus-y, with sudden dramatic eruptions and majestic excursions. We wouldn't call it at all metal, yet at certain times, this reminds us a bit of SF's own operatic prog-power metallers Hammers Of Misfortune - perhaps not surprising since one of Nuss's other bands is the very much Hammers-influenced Under Satan's Sun. And, aha, in fact, none other than former Hammers (and Wolves In The Throne Room) vocalist Jamie Myers turns out to be Sabbath Assembly's lead singer on this recording, having taken over the mic from their previous frontwoman/high priestess, Jex Thoth. While some might miss Jex, Myers' delicate, dulcet tones admirably fill the void. The full on gospel pop sound of "Exit" was a surprise, but she pulls it off! Also new on board this time, Genesis P-Orridge. Her presence brings a Current 93 element to the proceedings, Genesis doing the David Tibet thing, providing portentous spoken sermonizing, credited in the role of "Sacrifist". Ye Are Gods also features performances by Imaad Wassif, Eyvind Kang, Kevin Rutmanis (ex-Cows/Melvins), and quite a few others eager to embrace the Process message (or at least, who find it intriguing?). The deluxe digi-book cd packaging is quite handsome, and contains lyrics, original sheet music, Biblical quotations, and various other related texts. The similarly-fancy vinyl version also includes this material, in a lp-sized booklet. Nice. While most of us here aren't regular church-goers, you can believe we'll be spinning this a lot, and twice on Sundays...

Sabers? What's this? The picture on back is one of those band equipment in the studio photos that resemble a sculptural art gallery installation, all wires and mic stands and pedals and mixers and drums and amps. Interestin'... well, as you may know, the Neurot label has done us darn right of late, with several recent releases being AQ-list highlights (House Of Low Culture, Grails). Here's another one that also impressed the heck out of us, the debut from NYC's Sabers. They're a two-man band, one guy on guitar and effects and the other on percussion and effects. Not a little effects, a lot of effects. And a lot of amps -- it's a baritone guitar they use that goes through a multitude of bass and guitar amps. These two guys and their gear make glorious, miasmic music -- sparse, rhythmic and wholly instrumental abstractions that ought to appeal to both Starfuckers and Skullflower fans to use two relatively obscure references (sorry). Sabers' heavily droning yet quietly restrained soundscapes are also a bit like Neurosis stripped of most instruments, vocals, song structure, and aggression (but not menace). Artful, original, and extremely moody. Massive and mysterious. We like.

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Now this was a surprise. Two former members of Bay Area stoner sludge metal heroes Sleep (not the guy who's now in High On Fire) venture back into the rock n' roll arena with a new band called The Sabians that we have to admit we really hadn't heard many good things about (we'd been told they were terrible live). And, upon hearing this, their debut album, I can kinda understand the naysayers... Number 1, this sure *doesn't* sound like Sleep (it IS heavy, but very different -- High On Fire sounds MUCH more like Sleep for sure) and number 2, it's, well, weird. Just read the sticker on the album cover: "the Sabians' sound is a combination of punk, folk, metal, and chant." What? So we were a bit apprehensive ourselves. But, the truth is, this is kinda cool, and, yeah, weird! Stoner/Sleep fans will have to admit that even track one has its moments of Sabbathian rifferama but it also reminds us of The Pogues! (That's the folk bit.) As the album progesses, it remains dark and dynamic and different, with the sounds of acoustic strum, metal guitar, and even falling rain welded together into earnest, anthemic songs with polished production courtesy Alex Newport. Definitely the one thing you have to get used to is the vocals (a clearly-enunciating Michael Stipe? no, that's not it. A wimpier James Hetfield with a fake European accent?) but if you do, you might really like this. Really, one of the weirdest things about this band is how melodic they are! They actually kinda sound like a hypothetical catchy, radio-friendly Neurosis -- or an art-rock Metallica. But if Tool could get big (another band these guys remind us of) then maybe The Sabians will someday be heard on Live105 too. Anyway, kudos to these guys for trying to do something different and original, and more-or-less succeeding.

RealAudio clip: Via Dolorosa
RealAudio clip: Downcast

Bass and drums boy/girl duo who were popular in San Francisco before taking off to the Czech Republic. Urgent, angular stuff that's as weirdly hyper as the early Minutemen. Both punk and prog in a lo-fi fashion. We're lucky that their latest album made it all the way here! Comes in a cd-sized little fold out book with two pop up panels. We have only three copies in stock.

RealAudio clip: Forever
RealAudio clip: Road Rage

Whereas *this* drums/bass duo (male and female) relocated from San Francisco to Prague, for a much more prog sound than COA. Also, they are all instrumental. This is their second album, it's quite nice.

Behold! Six minutes of absolute blasting grindcore analogue destruction courtesy of Tampa's Sacridose and Florida's Absolute Contempt records. A frantic blur of blastbeats, hellish screams and buzzsaw guitars. Virtually guaranteed to give you a heart attack! Vital stuff. Recommended for anyone looking for a natural caffeine replacement. Includes a download code!

Side project of ALL the members of Cave In recorded during the off time of the sessions for their last record. No, it's not a return to their abandoned-in-favor-of-Radiohead-emulation metalcore roots, or even an extension of the "OK Computer" style art-rock found on their last brilliant album "Jupiter". Instead, Sacrifice Poles are all about post rock jamming. Repetitive, dreamy and directionless.

Out of the same politically fervent Chilean psych scene that brought us Congregacion, Los Jaivas, and Embrujo, we get another amazing spiritual-minded psych-folk artifact, this lone album from Sacros. Creating songs inspired by the great gods of South America, such as Quetzalcoatl, The Plumed Serpent, god of the ancient Mayas, and Viracocha, Lord of Tiahuanaku in the Andes Mountains, Sacros were a short-lived group supported by the Divina Providence Church, who in exchange for practice space, commissioned the band to write and perform an electric mass. Unfortunately, their debut album was released one week after Augusto Pinochet and his right wing regime took over the country and called for the destruction of the state run music label along with all released recordings, thus very few copies of the original album survived. Recently featured on the Chilean installment of the Love, Peace, and Poetry compilations, Sacros' unique sound - gentle Byrds-ish country-rock mixed with the psychedelic tinges of Popul Vuh - is quite beautiful and highly recommended.

MPEG stream: Quetzacoatl
MPEG stream: Cobre, Pobres, Viejos
MPEG stream: Su Herencia