[ 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 14001 through 14050 of 19388.

Featuring members of Velocity Girl, The Ropers, Tree Fort Angst and The Castaway Stones. For fans of said groups as well as Biff Bang Pow, Orange Juice, The Grass Roots and The Weather Prophets. Soft, straightforward pop with a blend of '60s soft-rock and

RealAudio clip: Find out
RealAudio clip: Working for the Weekend

Probably the best description of the music on this first-time-reissued Brazilian '70s acoustic acid-folk rarity comes in the form of a picture, that's right there on the sleeve -- a drawing on the back cover depicting two naked hippies sitting crosslegged with guitar and sitar. And, they have wings. Winged hippies. One's set of wings is butterfly-like, while the other is sorta batwinged, demonic. And both make sense, as the music is light and pretty enough for the butterfly one but also serious and sad enough for a guy cursed with batwings to play. On this, their eponymous and only album (a private press LP originally released in 1973), the Satwa duo unfurl delicate psychedelic rainforest folk ragas, super pretty, mellow and meandering maaaaaan. These tracks are largely instrumental, but there's are occassionally some wispy vocals wandering high (indeed) over the sparkling string play. And a lil' fuzz guitar makes the mix too. Utterly beautiful stuff. It's kind of a South American, decades-past version of Jewelled Antler faves Ivytree or Skygreen Leopards... If we didn't know any better, we'd suspect Glenn Donaldson had a hand in it. But Glenn's too young, doesn't speak Portuguese, and also doesn't have wings. This cd version comes in a mini-LP style sleeve... lovingly packaged, lovely music.

MPEG stream: Can I Be Satwa
MPEG stream: Apacidonata

We've just received two terrific self-released cd-rs by this solo artist from across the pond -- History+3 and this one! First impressions of Danny Saul's music stir a traditional folk singer/songwriter stance, but delving deeper you become aware that there's more layers to his songs. Each one moves through subtle mood shifts and occasionally some startling dissonance. Alternately intimate and expansive, he captures a nice counterbalance between bristling electric guitars and slow smooth minimal piano strokes. Definitely check out the title track and the final one "Tracks". Great stuff! Fans of Badly Drawn Boy and Arab Strap, don't miss!

MPEG stream: Balance
MPEG stream: Tracks

We've just received two terrific self-released cd-rs by this solo artist from across the pond -- Balance and this one which includes a fine cover of Jandek's "I'm Ready"! First impressions of Danny Saul's music stir a traditional folk singer/songwriter stance, but delving deeper you become aware that there's more layers to his songs. Each one moves through subtle mood shifts and occasionally some startling dissonance. Alternately intimate and expansive, he captures a nice counterbalance between tremolo'd electric guitars and warm picked acoustic guitars. Great stuff! Fans of Badly Drawn Boy and Arab Strap, don't miss!

MPEG stream: History
MPEG stream: I'm Ready

Whoo-hoo! SDD #2!! Well, in "zine time" getting 2 issues done in as many years isn't that bad. At least, at last, it's here: the 2nd issue of Savage Damage Digest, a 'zine that with but one issue became one of our faves in the realm of enthusiastic dead-tree rock n' roll writin'. As good as the first issue was, this one's maybe even better, it's got great stuff about a wide variety of long-lost legends... '60s UK popsyke geniuses July, '60 NZ garage gods Chants R&B, '70s pub rockers Ducks Deluxe, and more... The cover story, especially interesting for those of us located in the Bay Area, is about '70s San Francisco proto-punks La Rue. No, never heard 'em, but boy do we want to now. What we love about SDD is that it's the sort of thing that really puts the FAN in fanzine. We mean, they even devote two pages to some non-musical fandom - about the special San Francisco ice cream sandwich known as an It's It! And, most amazingly, there's pages and pages about guitarist Ross The Boss and his various bands over the years: The Dictators, Shakin' Street, Manitoba's Wild Kingdom, and... Manowar!! The Manowar stuff, especially, makes this issue required reading. We just tend to think that a lot of "typical" SDD readers and AQ customers might not already be Manowar fans, but this is the sort of thing that just might covert 'em (you?). And, this issue comes with a free button, bearing the Vertigo records label swirl design! With accompanying label appreciation essay for anyone not already aware of just how cool UK '70s prog imprint Vertigo was. Hopefully it won't be another 2 years before issue 3 of Savage Damage Digest comes out, though we won't be holding our breath. But we will be looking forward to it. And, let's say, the highest form of praise we can give a 'zine like SDD is that it makes us want to get to work on our own 'zines, like some of us used to do back in the day.

The Savage Republic song "Birds of Pork" has been the preamble to each and every Neurosis show for many, many years now; so if anybody should be subsidizing a Savage Republic reunion recording, it should definitely be Neurot Recordings! And yes, the influence that Savage Republic had on Neurosis can still be heard in these recordings, as the heavy tribal percussion is still the underbelly to these expansive post-punk crescendos. The current incarnation of Savage Republic revolves around Thom Fuhrmann, Ethan Port, and Greg Grunke (all of whom were members back in the day) alongside Val Haller (who had played with Fuhrmann in the grossly underappreciated Autumn Fair in the late '80s) and Alan Waddington. 1938 is pretty true to the sounds that Savage Republic had produced on Ceremonial or Customs, with that tribal percussion grounding slashes of drone guitar which slide into post-Morricone / proto-Godspeed crescendos for guitar and violin. Vocals have always been the problematic area for Savage Republic; and fortunately, they keep this album almost entirely instrumental.

MPEG stream: Marshal Tito
MPEG stream: Monsoon

The beautifully packaged boxset of all of the recent Savage Republic reissues ("Tragic Figures," "Ceremonial," "Jamahiriya," and "Customs") has of course been designed by former-Savage Republic member Bruce Licher and his reknowned Independent Project Press and is a bargain if you plan on buying all four.

Upon the release of the "Ceremonial" album and the "Trudge" ep in the mid-'80s, Savage Republic underwent a number of personnel changes which altered the group's sound from the primitive, percussion heavy art-punk found on "Tragic Figures" toward a far more Again, beautifully packaged by Bruce Licher and Independent Project Press.

RealAudio clip: Trek
RealAudio clip: Andelusia

"Customs" was the final studio album from Savage Republic, recorded under considerable duress in Greece during an ill-fated 1988 tour in which all of their gear was confiscated by Greek customs! Thus, "Customs" was recorded entirely on borrowed equipment. The

RealAudio clip: Birds of Pork

Since Savage Republic dissolved in the late '80s, most of its members went onto other projects, with Bruce Licher and Robert Loveless forming Scenic, Ethan Port working with Scot Jenerik in F-Space, and Thom Furhmann founding the amazing but shortlived

RealAudio clip: So it Is Written
RealAudio clip: Tabula Rasa
RealAudio clip: Viva La Rock 'n' Roll (Instrumental)

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

SORRY. Right on the heels of a reunion tour (reunited after 13 years), Savage Republic offers us this collection of live recordings, dating back to their first live performance as Africa Corps in May, 1981. The legends that surround the band all state that they were much better live than they were in the studio; for on stage, a punk energy came to the forefront in the massive bass ploddings, slashing guitars, and junk-yard percussion. This collection, while clearly lacking in fidelity, proves the point that Savage Republic was certainly a kick-ass live band. Most of the material present also appeared on their debut "Tragic Figures" album, with a couple of previously unreleased / undocumented tracks. As I've never thought that Savage Republic's lyrics and vocals were particularly strong, they are fortunately few and far between in these live performances. The majority of the words are spoken as between song banter highlighted by the announcement that "Every band's gotta have a surf song!" Their's being the incendiary instrumental "Ivory Coast."

RealAudio clip: The Ivory Coast

Savage Republic was one of Los Angeles' leading art-punk bands, fusing gritty post-Joy Division basslines, slashing guitars with occasional Arabic cadences, and a massive clatter of dense percussion at times worthy of comparisons to Test Dept. or Einsturzende The band's Bruce Licher has since gone on to form the acclaimed Independent Projects Press, developing a unique, celebrated style of beautifully letterpressed packaging, of course utilized for these new Savage Republic reissues on Scot Jenerik's Mobilization label. This disc features all of the tracks from previous CD editions, including the proper recordings from "Tragic Figures," the "Film Noir" 7" and a couple of alternate versions.

RealAudio clip: When All Else Fails
RealAudio clip: Ivory Coast
RealAudio clip: Film Noir

Album number two from London quartet Savages is an blighted and bleak construct of death-rock tropes to equal what was found on their debut, 2013's Silence Yourself. The band's intensity is still driven by front-woman Jehnny Beth, who showcases many commonalities with PJ Harvey's most feral invocations of power, sexuality, and the social constructs around the female body. Beth's subject matter for Adore Life revolves around the nuances of love and the psychological complications of relationships in the modern age. The pacing of the songs often accelerate as if Beth is careening towards a catastrophic end to the narratives she's drawing through the propulsive rhythm section and buzzsaw guitar work; but they can slow to a rhythmless torpor as on album's finale "Mechanics", in which Beth delves deep into emotional well on par with the most cinematic, ice queen torch songs of Siouxsie. Adore Life isn't as immediately anthemic as their fisrt album, but there's a slow-burning intensity to it, and a greater complexity and range to their potent rewrite of the post-punk songbook.

MPEG stream: The Answer
MPEG stream: Evil
MPEG stream: Mechanics

The hype surrounding Savages has almost eclipsed the album itself. Here was a London quartet that erupted on the scene in 2012, hybridizing your favorite post-punk reference into a violent buzzsaw of Teutonic falsetto and martial rhythms, delivered with a sneering abhorrence of anything melodic. While it's easy to hear a riff from Wire, a plod from Joy Division, or a scream from Siouxsie in Savages, all of those bands had the potential to deliver an unforgettable pop hook; and that is something that these four lasses have no interest in delivering. Instead, these songs are built through jagged layers of propulsion, aggressive thrusts into guitar noise, and unconventional mathy structures that start-stop-start-stutter-then-stop-start-stop. In listening to Savages, we're really getting that sense of deja vu; but not for those bands we had already mentioned. Instead, Savages really come across as a re-incarnation of Bestial Mouths, the LA goth-punk outfit which matched an unhinged drumming with a caterwauling vocalist in the most inhospitable of atmospheres, and again nary a melody to be heard. While that LA band seems to be undergoing an re-invention themselves with their fantastic drummer leaving Bestial Mouths, Savages pick right up from where Bestial Mouths left off a couple years back on their LP for Dais. That record made a lot of sense coming out of the bowels of the underground, but Savages' campaign through the mainstream music press is all the more unlikely. If you were expecting Matador to deliver the next Interpol through Savages, that's not the case... but if you were hoping for a feral squallor of post-punk volatility, Savages will happily oblige.

MPEG stream: Shut Up
MPEG stream: Strife
MPEG stream: Husbands

Savant is an apt name for a band that is not actually a band, but a project with many blind contributors and collaborators playing unfamiliar instruments with minimally open instruction, recorded remotely without prior knowledge of how their parts would be used, and passing tapes amongst each other, years before the practice of electronic musicians sending each other Logic files over the internet became common. What binded the project together was the alchemic vision and studio wizardry of reclusive Seattle ambient auteur, Kerry (K.) Leimer, who released Savant's lone record, The Neo Realist (At Risk) in 1983. RVNG's Artificial Dance reissue ccollects that record with their debut 12" and a grip of compilation and unreleased tracks. You may remember our earlier review of the RVNG's anthology of Leimer's lesser known ambient works, A Period of Review (1975-1983), which displayed an outsider affinity with the generative and open compositional tape works of Cage, Stockhausen and Eno. Leimer's Savant project at first glance may seem like a devout following into the Fourth World tape experimentation and global intrigue of Possible Musics and My Life In The Bush of Ghosts, or David Byrne's soundtrack for Twyla Tharp's dance piece, The Catherine Wheel, but its construction is much stranger and obtuse. Employing a move towards rhythm and texture in transportive and evolving phases, the way these cobbled bits of varying studio perfomance are pieced together so seamlessly to create their own visionary world is its own extraordinary accomplishment. One that connects to the methodical ethnographical productions of Wally Badarou, Finis Africae and Haruomi Hosono and clears a path to later developments of digidub and trip hop a decade later. We can't emphasize enough how good this sounds right now. Recommended!

MPEG stream: Using Words
MPEG stream: Knowledge and Action
MPEG stream: Stationary Dance
MPEG stream: Sensible Music
MPEG stream: Fault Index

Anthemic indie-rock on the Get-Up Kids label. LA sing-along-songsters rock in the dynamic power-chord tradition of Get Up Kids, the Anniversary and The Stereo. Since when did punk rock get so bubblegum? (Not to mention a suspiciously glossy website where they brag about working with a producer who has worked with Beck.) However, this is a fine kickass pop record. Check out the song

RealAudio clip: Jukebox Breakdown

Originally from Tokyo and now living in the states, Sawako has a really nice and subtle touch in creating delicate sounds that drone, crackle and flow in such a beautiful way. Delicate but never too precious this is a record sure to catch the ears of fans of the Fennesz/Sakamato collaborations, Christopher Willits and the final track (the only one with vocals) reminded us a lot of the early sound of Mum that we've been missing.

MPEG stream: Utouto
MPEG stream: Wind Shower Particle

No, this is not some outsider electronic record based on Arthur C. Clarke's dark tale of alien invasion (although that would be rad, wouldn't it?). No, this is actually an extremely rare psych-folk record from Down Under originally released in 1971. How rare? Well, a recent eBay seller was asking $700 dollars for this. Whoa! A bit country-tinged with some really great songwriting, this remind us of a more electric Gordon Lightfoot (whom we love!). We believe this is Phil Sawyer's only release, and even this album is not very well known outside high-caliber record collector circles, which is a shame because it's really good. Looking for some psych-dappled singer-songwriter fare in the vein of Graham Nash, Gary Higgins or the abovementioned Mr. Lightfoot? Look no further. Awesome!

MPEG stream: Nightbirds
MPEG stream: Stranger in The Street

Hey guess what? It's a sequel to the first Sax Ruins record, 2009's Yawiquo on Ipecac, which we had kind of assumed was a one-off. But nope, they're at it again, sax and drums to the max! In Sax Ruins, Japanese drummer extraordinare Tatsuya Yoshida, who (in Ruins) normally teams up with a bass player, is instead accompanied by the saxophone stylin's of Ryoko Ono. She's got a set of lungs on her, all right. Squealing and bopping like John Zorn hopped up on happy pills. Of the 13 instrumentals here, four are improvs (all in a row at the end of the disc), two are brand new Yoshida compositions, and the rest are interpretations of pieces from previous 'real' Ruins releases, some of their most 'mathiest' in fact, the songs being mostly drawn from Vrresto, Pallaschtom, and Refusal Fossil, though our resident aQuarius Ruins nerd (Allan!) was particularly happy to hear a much older fave, "Bighead", from 1990's Stonehenge. As before, hearing these Ruins tunes with saxophone rather than distorted bass, they are less heavy but no less intense. The complex structures remain, and the melodic content becomes more pronounced. Some of this is really lovely - but hectic hyperactivity is always, like, a nano-second away. Of course! So, if you forget what you're listening to, it's a little bit like the jazzy theme music to some old TV variety show GONE CRAZY. Or, as we said about their first effort, "Imagine a stripped down, pepped up marching band playing really wild Carl Stalling / Raymond Scott style cartoon music". Also, just think of the sort of sounds the saxophone/peacock collage creature on the back cover might make. Recommended to serious fans of Ruins, Zorn, and all crazy math/jazz crossovers. By the way, we noticed that along with the array of saxophones Ono plays (alto, baritone, soprano, and tenor), she also is credited with flute. But not enough of it. That's what we want for their next album together, please - Flute Ruins! FYI, Blimmguass vinyl version upcoming in January 2014.

MPEG stream: Quopern
MPEG stream: Lariko Shodel
MPEG stream: Bighead

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

SORRY.

We loved the last Scale The Summit record, a soaring shredding, super epic, majestically scenic chunk of instrumental metal, jubilant, sweeping, kinda prog, but totally mesmerizing in its scale and cinematic vibe. Like we mentioned in the review of that record, it was almost like a metal soundtrack to one of those nature films, the sweeping shots of the coastline from a helicopter, or maybe the music playing while the credits roll, and the main characters drive off into the distance, the shot growing wider and wider, until the car becomes barely a speck on a fantastically panoramic vista. As we also mentioned, the only downside, and it's a downside that didn't really seem like a downside at all to us, is something that probably dogs lots of epic instrumental prog metal bands, the fact that no matter how rocking, or how shredding or how epic things get, it's hard not to think of Joe Satriani's Surfing With The Alien. Lots of folks out there probably don't even remember that record, but when that record came out we LOVED it. Now it's considered supremely cheesy, but at the time it was totally epic shredding genius. Which we suppose makes Scale The Summit the modern Surfing With The Alien, which is fine with us. And this record is more of the same. Maybe even better than the last one. It's heavy, the riffs are awesome, the arrangements are intricate and complex, the vibe is totally epic, like a shreddy prog metal Godspeed, but the band slip deftly from that sort of slow build chug, to super intricate stop/start progged out workouts, and then right back into something emotional and cinematic and sweeping. There's some fretless bass, and some woozy almost jazzy bits that definitely drift awfully close to cheese, but those parts are few and far between, and in the context of the whole, they offer a brief respite from much of the rest of the record's Champs meets Satriani progshred crunch. Check out the sound samples, it'll probably take you all of 30 seconds to figure out if this is your cup of tea, but trust us, if you find that it is you might find it hard not to blast this in your convertible as you speed down the highway along the coast, driving off into the sunset...

MPEG stream: Colossal
MPEG stream: Whales
MPEG stream: Emersion

Tony Molina from pop heroes the Ovens returns again, with yet another new band. And that hardcore obsession that popped up in the Ovens all the time, whether it was shout outs to obscure NYHC bands on stage or weird straight edge covers, an obsession that first truly became flesh in his hardcore combo Caged Animal, surfaces once again in the form of Scalped, yet another HC outfit, and another one featuring Molina and at least one other Oven. There's no secret poppiness or any of that bullshit, this is some seriously pummeling, punishing old school style metallic hardcore, and metallic it is, with fierce fucking riffs, bellowed throat shredding vox, four songs in less than 6 minutes, a furious onslaught that will no doubt get that pit spinning. Ovens fans seem to be an obsessive bunch, snapping up Caged Animal singles along with Ovens singles, so odds are, you Ovens nerds might want one of these too, but really, this one is strictly for the hardcore kids. And yeah, probably super limited to boot!

MPEG stream: At A Cross
MPEG stream: Effort

This is the most recent issue of this NYC zine, the first one we've carried, but it's a great one to start with. This issue is entirely about the making of the very first proper Black Flag full length album, 1981's Damaged. And while it may be in zine form, all photocopied, hand written, cut and pasted old school style, the writing is fantastic, super smart, and the research extensive, with interviews with all the key players, there's even footnotes, that are expanded upon in the back. It's as much about the band and the record, as the scene at the time, and the political and social climate that contributed to the energy and anger of that record, that band, and that scene - including a lot about chief of the LAPD at the time Daryl Gates, the Rodney King riots, and the polcie versus punks mentality that was prevalent at the time. In many ways the mag reads like an excerpt from a bigger, more comprehensive book, and yeah, we know there's been much written about Black Flag and this era, but Scam mainman Erick Lyle does a fantastic job of condensing it all down to a very readable, 50 or so pages. Lots of photos and flyers, as well as a cool introduction by Lyle about why this record means so much to him. All in all an awesome read, and definitely has us wanting to check out the other eight issues we missed...

The second cosmic synth-drone-rock missive from Scantily Clad, a duo of instrumental improvisers split between Northern and Southern California. We loved their first cd-r, an amalgam of lo-fi synth styles from soft lullabies to abrasive noise that showed a lot of promise. Well, that promise is made good on their follow-up, a richer, more focused, and self-assured outing than before. The sonic intensity is beefed up, the songs more composed, the instrumentation more varied, the dreaminess heightened ( especially on tracks like Vanilla, Baby"), and the nosier parts (like what sounds like chipmunks speaking in tongues on "Deep Witch") are even weirder. But it all fits together very well as a fully-realized piece of heavy instrumental spaciness. Even the packaging is cooler, with their clipart collages of mandalas and symbolic animals housed in a sturdy transparent plastic case. Fans of groups like Emeralds and Carlton Melton will find lots to dig here!

MPEG stream: Plain Galaxies
MPEG stream: Vanilla, Baby
MPEG stream: Mud Dreams

The bedroom synth-rockers of Scantily Clad return with their third home-brewed communique. And as always, they deliver the lo-fi/sci-fi goods with tracks that teeter from distorted cosmic rock instrumentals to moody cinematic soundscapes. They often pack a lot of ideas into short songs that only add to their listenability. White Noise and other fucked-up and broken electronic textures are painted on over prettily composed pieces that add a noirish sublime element to the proceedings, like lullabies for powered-down robots before they retire to obsolescence. Packaged in a homemade gatefold digipack with their usual xerox copy art inserts. Limited to 99 copies, these most likely won't last for long. Their other two releases went out of print in a flash, so don't wait too long!

Album number 4 from these home recorded synth rock improvisers, each one has been a beautifully hand assembled package rife with bizarre xerox collages that riff on retro-futurist themes, as does the music though in a more roundabout way. This is modular synth music that doesn't winkingly nod to the vast past of synth heavy music, but takes a more DIY off the cuff attitude towards shaping its sounds and song. Though we can hear strains of groups like Chrome, Add N To X and Stereolab, Scantily Clad don't seem to try and emulate either of those bands instead focusing on a hodgepodge of moods and tropes: Noisy interludes, distorted shoegaze psych, vibrant pop, kosmiche bliss, and avant experimentation. All with strange titles like "Vacant Stare World Exciter" and "Exotic Fabrics And Materials". This is library music for the new modern age!

5 is the magic number for this central California duo of stoner over-driven electronica, looped samples and big noisy drum breaks. The oddly monikered Scantily Clad not only celebrate their fifth cd-r release, but it contains 23 tracks (2+3=5), limited to 55 copies and priced to move at $5.55! That's a lot of high fives! But seriously, we have loved this duo since their first cd-r, their sound a home-brewed collaged confection of dirty over-driven electronics and big beats with a humorous Lynchian sensibility for melody, song titles and packaging, each one a hand-assembled venture of surrealist clip art collage and scrappy recycled cd cases from what must have been from those free AOL trial cds they used to mail out in the nineties. On their fifth release, the sound is more sample-based and dreamier then ever before. Each track is a miniature world of vintage electronic soundscapery with often a mysterious jazz soundtrack vibe deconstructed, cut and repasted that reminds of something like Madlib or J Dilla remixing Dymaxion or Quintron, or a less self-aware Tipsy. Way eccentric and off-kilter, but also shimmery and narcotic, with occasional clipped vocal snippets peering through the stony layers of hazy sound, twangy strings, cascading harps and drum breaks. Super unique and very likely our favorite release from them so far. Again, LIMITED to 55 copies. Grab one while you can!

MPEG stream: Those Photographs Aren't Anything Special
MPEG stream: Bottomless Veil of You
MPEG stream: Drums Falling Down The Stairs
MPEG stream: Flood Insurance For Substratum Weavers
MPEG stream: Double Shot Sweet Envy Love
MPEG stream: Life Builds To Know Nothing
MPEG stream: As Lonely As The Moon

Scantily Clad is the curious moniker of this duo of bedroom space-rock improvisors from Paso Robles, CA. Creating cosmic percolating synthscapes that venture from electronica lullabies ("Bedroom Giggles") to Yellow Swans-ish drone abrasion ("Stoned, Street Goblins") to epic post-rock swells ("Promegranate") and tribal abstractions ("Bone-Colored Moon"). Bathed in a lo-fi glowing fuzz, the warm sound of the vintage analog synths immerse us in its dreamy drifting wake, a sound we can live in forever in its multiple mutating forms. Though short, the six tracks over 25 minutes definitely leave us wanting more and we hope to see what this group does next. Packaged in handmade bronze or silver sleeves with black and white photocopied artwork. Not sure how limited these are, but with all things homemade and self-released, don't wait too long!

MPEG stream: Prickly Glow
MPEG stream: Promegranate
MPEG stream: Bone-Colored Moon

NOW ON VINYL!!!!!!!!!! We can't think of any album in recent history that was more set up to fail than this one. A "love her or hate her" actress with dubious musical abilities performing mostly Tom Waits covers (with the exception of one original, "Song for Jo"). Even in the highly capable hands of David Sitek from TV On The Radio manning the production (and providing a healthy dose of indie cred), they must have realized this was a high risk venture. Which means we think most people will never bother to give this a listen, which is too bad, because if you didn't know it was Scarlett Johansson and you didn't know these were Tom Waits covers, it's actually a pretty good ethereal pop album. One could easily mistake this for a record by Beach House or even Mazzy Star. There's been much worse music put out by actresses than this (ahem, She and Him), that got away with so much less scrutiny. Perhaps this is the problem, it's setup to be a vanity project when it really isn't (Johansson's vocals are just as much of an instrument in Sitek's production as the swirling music boxes and atmospheres), leaving the actress to bear much of the blame for its failure. Perhaps if it was released under a band name that just happened to have Johansson on vocals or whatever, under any other circumstances this would be a hit. Oddly, David Bowie makes a guest appearance.

MPEG stream: Town With No Cheer
MPEG stream: Song For Jo
MPEG stream: Green Grass

Working apart from the Geraldine Fibbers, Carla Bozulich and AQ-favourite guitarist Nels Cline team up as Scarnella. Slow building intense walls of droning guitar strum not unlike late period Swans and lilting ballads that wouldn't be out of place in a German cabaret.

This very interestingly, artfully packaged disc is stickered with the information that the debut from Scatter includes a member of Scottish NYC-wavers Franz Ferdinand. And while at least of few of us here at Aquarius really like Franz Ferdinand, that fact is much less relevant to the sound of Scatter than that the nine member Scatter also includes percussionist Alexander Neilson in their ranks, who we only recently were introduced to via Neilson's excellent collaborative cd with AQ fave Richard Youngs, Ourselves. And Scatter indeed proves to be in line with the experimentation of Youngs and others in the UK free-folk underground. On Surprisin Sing, Stupendous Love, you'll find Scatter appropriately enough scattering their music with elements drawn from such diverse traditions as folk music and free jazz. There's some sweet female vocals, softly melodic *and* plenty of abstract, jazz oriented group blowing. Both Appalachia and Sun Ra are referenced. Less dense than delicate, but definitely lively and lovely. We think this is on roughly the same wavelength as the likes of A Silver Mount Zion, Vibracathedral Orchestra, and Black Forest / Black Sea, though sounding mostly unlike any of those.

MPEG stream: Nationa Magic
MPEG stream: Alternations Of Pasture And Urban Conurban

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

SORRY. We can't really think of anything from Australia that sounds like the post-punk / art-rock collective Scattered Order. Maybe bits of the Swell Maps or the very first SPK recordings, but Scattered Order were way weirder. The band formed in 1979 around a couple of blokes from Sydney bored with the prospects of pub rock riffs, taking any number of signal altering gizmos and throwing them into a jagged post-punk context. The band purposefully deconstructed what they came up with into a myriad of dubbed-out rhythms, hazy melodies struggling through the trebly din, angular stabs from guitars, junked metal, and electronics, and a go-fuck-yourself sense of humor. Prat Culture was the first album from Scattered Order, having been self-released through their own M Squared imprint back in 1981. This was a record that teetered on the edge between control and chaos, with a jagged minimalist fug-rock, with spluttering table saw noises coalescing around jackbooted rhythms that looked forward to what Swans were doing just a year later on their eponymous debut. "Swiss Like Knives And Forks" was something of a 'hit' for Scattered Order, as it was much more a legitimate song with a driving rhythm section, a swaggering Buzzcocks-inspired guitar riff, and appropriately barked vocals. This was actually the track that made us jump at the chance to get a whole Scattered Order album, with a version of this song being included on the Can't Stop It 2 compilation of Aussie post-punk from a few years back. As thoroughly awesome as this one song is, it does stand out against the more amorphous excursions into monochrome riffs, druggist rhythms, atonal drones, and indifferent attitudes. "Slot Car Synth" recreates the accelerating roar from drag-racing through cheap machines and hammered rhythms, "Koo Koo Kamus" is an anti-groove dub track whose chicken scratch guitar rhythms are on par with the oddball post-punk expressionism of Sprung Aus Den Wolken, and other tracks have the feel of This Heat trying to work out how to play Mars songs. This cd version of Prat Culture features all of the tracks from the "Screaming Tree" 7" - an equally impressive and equally obtuse recording, alongside a couple of live tracks that actually serve to complement the studio recordings without sounding tacked on at all. A weird and wonderful find!

MPEG stream: Swiss Like Knives And Forks
MPEG stream: Koo Koo Kamus
MPEG stream: Boys In Coal Trucks
MPEG stream: World's Longest Intro (2JJ Mix)

... but lazy are not the Scattered Pages! The new full length from these three troubadours from Houston, TX comes swiftly on the heels of their fine cdep This Is Where The Story Ends, and even in that short time the band has evolved and fleshed out their sound tenfold. Their not so secret weapon is the combined songwriting force of Kurt Coburn and Brandon Hancock, both have proven themselves to be quite the richly imaginative storytelling lyricists and crafty songsmiths. Many of the songs here reminded us quite a bit of The Hidden Cameras or Belle And Sebastian, but more rootsy folk inclined. An engaging listen.

MPEG stream: Alice To Wonderland
MPEG stream: I Was Never Someone In Love

Yet another incarnation of the Ian Svenonius / Michelle Mae thing (the Make Up!), and perhaps our favorite to date, that's for sure -- though that's not necessarily saying too much 'cause there's really no big Make Up fans at AQ. However, Ian & company have progressed from sounding like a watered down version of a James Brown backup band or a bad Prince cover band to this actually kinda fun fucked up fuzzed out 70's funk/trippy/soul thing. It sounds like it would indeed be exciting to see them perform live -- we figure they'd be fun, dancey and crazy in a good way. Actually Allan can confirm this, he happened to see 'em play (rather by accident, he was there to see another band) not long ago and though he's never been a Make Up fan, he had to admit that the Scene Creamers put on a good show -- Mr. Svenonius is a geniune showman indeed and you can't argue with some good ol' fashioned rock n' soul entertainment with a sense of humor. Does that come through on record? Well, while some of this reminded us of what we didn't like about the Make Up -- the line between funny & kitsch and pretentious & dumb being crossed in the wrong direction too often -- all in all we're into it. It's true that all the posturing and styling and preaching that Ian and Michelle do can cause people who don't immediately dig that sort of thing to hate them before they've heard 'em, but really their whole propaganda thing about how "making sexy music and dressing well will uplift the oppressed proletariat" can be fucking hilarious. So give 'em a chance, we did and ended up thinking this was surprisingly rad.

RealAudio clip: Better All The Time
RealAudio clip: Session Man

*** COLLECTIBLE USED VINYL *** Art Rock / No Wave record from 1985. Media: VG+ (looks very clean) Sleeve: NM

These Death Valley instrumentalists haven't put out a record in four years, so here at last is...a three-song ep. One track is exclusive to this, the others are alternate versions of songs from that as-yet-unreleased new album. Scenic sounds like their name -- they're aiming to bowl you over with epic, stretched out instrumentals. Gorgeous and labor-intensive Independent Projects "discfolio" packaging, letterpressed, of course.

Assuaging any fears I may have had that this was about Scenic doing some kind of new diva house or something, "The Acid Gospel Experience" consists of languorous, lovely instrumental space rock washes to lull you to sleep. Nestled in new-age haven Sedona, Arizona amidst energy vortexes, galleries full of bad Georgia O'Keefe knock-offs, and very picturesque big red rocks, former Savage Republic guitarist Bruce Licher expresses his appreciation for the harsh beauty of the desert landscape through the kind of slow, gently droning psych rock more conducive to weed than acid, methinks. Very pretty.

RealAudio clip: The Acid Gospel
RealAudio clip: Skylight

Lanterna and Scenic would make for an excellent live billing, as both ensembles accent their guitar driven narratives with details of the open road from their respective homes (Lanterna from the Midwest, and Scenic from the Southwest); hence, this 4 song ep of live recordings from the two bands works quite well together. Although both bands preceded Godspeed You Black Emperor and Tarentel by several years, they've managed to carve a similar niche as their younger contemporaries with expansive soundtrack-ish instrumentals with majestic crescendos and introspective atmospheres. This split EP has also been beautifully packaged within a letterpress 'discofolio' by Scenic's Bruce Licher through his beloved Independent Project Press.

RealAudio clip: End Of The Tunnel
RealAudio clip: Angelica

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

SORRY.

UT Publishing being the book arm of Ugly Things magazine, just the folks to publish the story of Dutch sixties beat-psych greats Q65! 205 b&w illustrated pages, full of drama, drugs, and of course the making of some amazing music. Fans know that Q65 were, like, Holland's answer to the Stones, or maybe the Pretty Things, so you can imagine that they have some stories to tell! Definitely lots of rock n' roll craziness, at least as much as the surviving members can remember...

Solo album from Yob frontman, a lot less heavy than Yob that's for sure!

The members of spacerock outfit Hovercraft team up with, surprisingly, Mary Hansen of Stereolab, for lighter duty than Hovercraft's normal heavy psychness. Comparisons to Stereolab are unavoidable since Mary provides the pretty murmured vocals and bloopy synth effects. Swooping meteorite guitar and rumbling drums keep you tethered to your space capsule. A successful collaboration indeed. Released on 5RC, Kill Rock Stars subsidiary label.

MPEG stream: Armed And Ready
MPEG stream: Cry For The Nations

This is the third reissue of a recording by German guitarist/soundscaper Gunter Schickert that we've listed - and also the third that we've made a Record Of The Week. That ought to tell you a little something about just how much we like the music of Herr Schickert! Up until fairly recently, Schickert's work has been shrouded in obscurity, the original albums being super rare and hard to find, reissues equally scarce. But thankfully, just in the last couple of years, several legit, long-deserved reissues, appearing on the Bureau B and Important labels, have helped to make Schickert's mesmerizing music more widely known - and has hopefully established him where he belongs, as one of the crucial names in the classic krautrock pantheon, up there with contemporaries like Klaus Schulze, Manuel Gottsching, Achim Reichel, and Michael Rother. Certainly as far as we're concerned, he is! If you dig any of the aforementioned gentlemen, you should definitely get to know Gunter Schickert as well. The previous two albums of his we've Record Of The Week-ed, 1974's Samtvogel and 1979's Uberfallig, are both all-time aQ faves. There's not much more to Schickert's small discography - but there is this, and it's another fave for sure. Originally released as a cassette tape in 1983, then reissued again on cassette in the '90s and on cd-r in the early 2000's by the Freeman brothers (of Auricle Magazine / Crack In The Cosmic Egg fame), the material on Kinder In Der Wildnis consists of disparate DIY recordings drawn from Schickert's archives, so it's a bit more varied than either of his earlier albums, though if you've heard those, you'll recognize right away that you're back in Schickert's sonic realm, one of organic field recording atmospheres and trance-inducing minimalist pulsations... but something about this is so much more nervy and dark. More "rocked out" too at times. Maybe it's the influence of the NDW, aka Neue Deutsche Welle (punk new wave music of Germany), but we're still talking krautrock. Even though Schickert does EVERYTHING himself (guitar, tape, vocals, percussion, trumpet) it somehow sounds like a whole band, and that band sounds like Amon Duul II and Faust trapped together in a bunker, jamming endlessly in the middle of the night, the music dark and claustrophobic despite the environmental nature sounds that (as always) Schickert likes to weave into his recordings. There's the children's voices on here too (his daughter sings on the jittery title track) but that's in stark contrast to the druggy darkness of so much of this. Tracks like "Rabe In Der Nacht" and "Hollentanz" are a dense lo-fi mesh of percolating beats, wailing psych guitar, and sound FX. Bird twitter-y field recordings (and crazy crow-like cawing from Schickert himself, we assume) meet overdubbed layers of chanting vocal parts, including more animal-like cries, in the hallucinatory mix. Swirling drones of synth coalesce into hypnotic throbbing rhythms, over which lilting keyboard motifs hint at the likes of Goblin. Also significant is Schickert's sad, electronically-treated trumpet, heard ferinstance on "07.Mai", alongside pleasingly placid repetitive guitar, phasing effects, and field recordings of fireworks exploding (heard elsewhere on the record as well) that sound like sferic squiggles of electronic sound, buried in the mix along with disembodied unknown voices. The trumpet here foreshadows the future sounds of Supersilent, while the pulsating patterns of proto-glitch music also remind us of This Heat's Repeat. Yep, it's a freakin' great record all right. Trippy and weird and psychically round the bend. In other words, super satisfying. How it stayed so far under the radar for so long is crazy. Big props to Bureau B for giving it a proper reissue now on both compact disc and vinyl for the very first time, with excellent artwork, liner notes, and even two bonus tracks (on the cd only). The bonus tracks, fyi, are feeling a lot more NDW, Schickert employing a drum machine it sounds like, a bit dancey, still dark and damaged, looping layers of vocals coming and going amidst the beats. Could easily be something Dark Entries of Medical Records would be expected to reissue. Very cool, fans of Pyrolator / Der Plan will enjoy these as well as the rest of the album. But with or without the bonus tracks, Kinder In Der Wildnis is super recommended, in heavy rotation in the store right now, a record that with Schickert's other two solo albums makes for an impressive trifecta of unsung krautrock genius.

MPEG stream: Rabe In Der Nacht
MPEG stream: Suleika
MPEG stream: 07. Mai

Years ago we fell in love with Gunter Schickert's Uberfalling, a 1980 late-krautrock guitarscape epic. The cd reissue of that is now sadly out of print, but we've recently been turned onto Schickert's first lp from 1974, Samtvogel, which at last has been reissued on vinyl courtesy of the Spanish Import label Wah Wah, who have also recently reissued Heldon, Vainica Doble, Inner Space and other international psych gems. Sure, they're a bit expensive, but everything we've heard from the label has been amazing, so they're pretty much worth it. Especially this one, a three track epic of cavernous space guitar extrapolations and buried lysergic vocal incantations that sounds like an alternate soundtrack to Fantastic Planet. The first track, "Apricot Brandy" gently introduce us into Schickert's sound world, a spacy lyrical repetitive commune riff with murmured vocals and spindly multi-layered guitar percolations that gently float in an echo-y atmospheric chamber. The second track, "Kriegmaschinen, Fahrt Zur Holle" is nearly 17 minutes of space-echo, belltones and strange echo effects that slowly build into more intense repetitive and multi-layered motifs, sometimes urgent and cinematic, and other moments more billowy and sinuous, reminding us of Achim Reichel and Manuel Gottsching, and even obscure krautrock band Temple. The final twenty-one minute track, "Wald", brings the intensity to the fore, with a buzzing guitarscape that sounds like John Carpenter, but soon gives way to a more lilting spacey bubbling and exploratory improvisation before the intense riffs return and interject and subside in strange surges, finally dissipating in little clouds of helium. A beautiful piece of outsider kosmiche! Highly Recommended!

MPEG stream: Kriegmaschinen, Fahrt Zur Holle
MPEG stream: Wald