YES! We're big fans of lesser-known krautrock guitarist Gunter Schickert (who also did production work with Klaus Schulze, like, for Japan's Far East Family Band). As soon as we heard that his Uberfallig album was getting a new reissue, we knew it was going to have to be a Record Of The Week. We've been in love with this record forever, referencing it and Schickert plenty of times in other reviews when we want to cite something incredibly atmospheric and minimalistically trance inducing from deep in the krautrock zone. There was a previous cd edition of this we stocked years ago, but that's been out of print for ages. Now Germany's industrious Bureau B label have stepped in and added this rare late-krautrock masterpiece to their ongoing, essential series of reissues of essential kraut / kosmishe albums. And it's on both digipak cd *and* vinyl now as well!
Uberfallig was Schickert's second album, originally issued in 1979 on the Sky label, the follow up to his 1975 Brain debut Samtvogel. It's hard to believe somebody this good didn't record more, or with other people, but we're only aware of a couple later recordings that have ever surfaced. Here on Uberfallig, Schickert's exceptionally hypnotic space-echo guitar work, similar to Manuel Gottsching of Ashra, is matched by fascinating rhythmic pulsations, at times recalling prime Can-like velocities or the circular bubbliness of aQ faves AR & Machines, and some Pink Floyd Meddle era pastoral psych vibes as well. And it's mostly just Schickert (guitar, voice) and a few friends (drums and vocals) plus nature sounds, deftly deployed.
Opener "Puls" is worth the price of admission alone. It does indeed pulse, for nearly 16 epic minutes, building from calmly rhythmic beginnings to pure hypno-guitar bliss, mixed with subtle, splashy, sploshy field recordings - evoking the idea of Schickert and his drummer colleague Charles M. Heuer wading upstream in the wilds somewhere as their music plays. That begins the recurrent watery theme found on this album, an ever present liquid watery ambience, the sounds of wind and rain and surf and babbling brooks woven in among the "actual" instruments. The cover image of an intense looking Schickert suggests this too, his visage overlaid with what looks like the play of light on the surface of water.
The second cut, "In Der Zeit", is a shorter, folkier number, with more surf-sounds and bird calls and a gentle, hushed female vocal, accompanying Schickert's pleasant, repeating acoustic guitar motif. So nice.
Track three, "Apricot Brandy II", as some may guess from the name, is a sequel to the first track on Schickert's debut Samtvogel (wish we still had a reissue of that - maybe Bureau B will do something about that, too). Again with a watery intro, then the nervous ticking of drumsticks, heralding a quietly unfurling, slightly sinister and suspenseful 12 and a half minute, gently percolating proto-post-rock trip. We're hearing some Can circa Tago Mago, and Tortoise and Circle, too, especially with the murmuring vocals chanting "Apricot Brandy" amidst other drones and moans. It's all druggy and delicate, moody and mesmeric. Quite the tour de force, coming to a close with strange samples and lovely crackling.
If that wasn't enough, the album ends with even more haunting mesmer, the aptly titled, the 8+ minute long "Wanderer", slow and spooky at first, with more of that tick-tock drumming and watery splashes. It's got a twilight sound to it, so beautiful and mysterious and mesmeric, like this whole amazing, organic, echo-laden album.
Includes, along with credits and lyrics, new 2012 liner notes from Schickert's contemporary Asmus Tietchens, in both English and German, and also an interesting note from Schickert, explaining that some of this music was used on the soundtrack to a film about the gay community in New York called Brooklyn 11238, which we'd never have guessed...
While we'll state that this is reissue definitely something crucial for fans of Agitation Free, AR & Machines, Moebius & Rodelius, Michael Rother, You, Ashra, and latter-day krautrockers Village Of Savoonga, we should also make clear that this is NOT just for krautrock collector nerds - even if you've NEVER heard a krautrock record before, we'd still recommend this one, obscure as it is. It's that good.
Oranur III is a classic postindustrial album from Schloss Tegal, a cryptic American duo who traded in death-shroud ambience and paranoiac aesthetics - both of which feature prominently here. Originally, released back in 1995, the album drew inspiration from the latter day ideas of Wilhelm Reich. This Austrian psychoanalyst from the early 20th Century had attempted to reconcile Marxism and psychoanalysis, causing the beginning of a rift with some of the more conservative elements within his field. Over time, his ideas about human sexuality and the energies of the human body became more radical and more bizarre, including such notions of orgone energy and its convoluted mythological system that included extraterrestrial beings, UFO manifestations, deadly forms of radiation, and his tool to fight such nefarious entities - Reich's cloudbuster.
It's these more metaphysically loaded ideas that Schloss Tegal are employing as allegory for the demise / deterioriorization of society, paralleling much of the critiques mapped out by Genesis P-Orridge, SPK, and Monte Cazzaza in the heyday of industrial culture. Schloss Tegal settles all of their tracks with a heavy, foggy atmosphere that gives the sense of being anesthetized whilst various engineers and technicians probe, prod, and invade the body. Murky repetitive samples, some of which speak directly to experiences with extraterrestrial beings, cycle throughout Schloss Tegal's mercury poisoned dronings and irradiated windstorms of blurred noise. The work is not quite as oppressively dark as Brighter Death Now, but embraces a similar existential horror. Great to have this one back in print, now with two bonus tracks not found on the originals.
Y'know how there's been a lot of folks doin' the "American Primitive" solo acoustic guitar thing lately, all of them inspired to one degree or another by the late great John Fahey and the other denizens of Fahey's Takoma Records label? Folks like Jack Rose, Glenn Jones, Ben "Six Organs Of Admittance" Chasny, Patrick "Langtry" McKinney, Sir Richard Bishop... the list goes on and on and we're happy to add another name: Charlie Schmidt. But Charlie Schmidt has greater claim than most to the "fake Fahey" tag: not only was he was a friend of Fahey's (or maybe even, we should say, a protege), but some of his own recorded compositions meant for a collaborative album with Fahey wound up being mistaken for actual Fahey performances and were included as previously unreleased tracks on the Best Of John Fahey Vol. 2 album released after Fahey's death! Whoops. When the producers of such an anthology can be unintentionally fooled like that, you've gotta belive that this Schmidt fella sounds a heckuva lot like genuine Fahey. And that's no bad thing, is it? Not at all. So for fans of Fahey and Fahey-like steel string guitar explorations, Schmidt's debut cd Xanthe Terra is quite recommended. Not surprisingly, this disc is dedicated to John Fahey, but it's also dedicated to the scientists and engineers of the Mars Exploration Rover Project, as Mars exploration is a big interest of, and influence on, Mr. Schmidt. Xanthe Terra is the name of an area on Mars, in fact. And this record is Schmidt's idea of a soundtrack to accompany a mind's-eye hike on the surface of Mars! Includes one Fahey cover tune ("Dance Of The Inhabitants Of The Palace Of King Philip XIV Of Spain") and a dozen Faheyesque originals, technically graceful and sweetly melancholic. A relaxingly familiar sound with intricacies that ultimately belong to Charlie Schmidt, as watched over by the benevolent ghost of JF.
A fantasy opera, based on Mervyn Peake's gothic novels, written by keyboardist Irmin Schmidt of krautrock legends Can. He utilizes everything from traditional operatic vocals to synthisized breakbeats to tell the story inspired by the great castle Gormenghast and its inhabitants.
Wow, it's definitely Christmas around here and how can we tell? Well, for one thing we got this amazing new soundtrack reissue that we never realized until now we have been looking for most of our adult life. It's on Crippled Dick Hot Wax, one of our fave reissue labels that we haven't heard from in years and had feared they disappeared for good. And it's another lost gem from the proto-Can universe of The Inner Space, the same early group incarnation that gave us the soundtrack to the unreleased surreal-politico film, Agilok and Blubbo!
One of our favorite Krautrock obscurities compilations from years and years ago was called Kraut Demons Kraut and two of the tracks were credited to The Can, but didn't sound like Can at all. These were pastoral and pretty with flutes and guitar, one featured very folky female vocals by Margareta Juvan called, "I'm Hiding My Nightingale", the other track was called "Kama Sutra" (billed here as "Indisches Panorama I"). We had always wondered where those recordings had come from, and how they related to Can. It wasn't until someone put this on in the store after we just got it in that it all came rushing back. Those songs were from a rare 1968 German erotic film by Kobi Jaegar called Kamasutra: Consumation Of Love and were arranged and performed by Irmin Schmidt & The Inner Space, whose then lineup of Jaki Leibeziet, Malcolm Mooney and Michael Karoli was essentially the same line-up of Can's debut full length, Monster Movie.
But much of this is different from the Can we know (though the Malcolm Mooney-sung "There Was A Man" points at what Can was to become, and Michael Karoli's simmering electric guitar lines are as signature as ever), it even sounds very different from the other Inner Space release, Agilok and Blubbo. That soundtrack was more exploratory, improvisational and experimental, while Kamasutra is much more focused and musically gorgeous. Lots of sitars, flutes, acoustic and electric guitars playing slow-burning compositions with loping repetitive rhythms. Occasionally rocking out a groove, but more often wandering through many pastoral raga-tinged extrapolations. This is the most psychedelically kosmiche recording we've ever heard from this outfit, which of course gives it our highest recommendation!
Swooooon!! He made us wait years, but finally Mr. Schnauss's follow-up to 2003's A Strangely Isolated Place has arrived! Are you ready for some epic shoegazer splendor? Well, sink your ears into this swirling blown-out shimmering dreaminess. The heavily processed and effected vocals, guitars and synthesizers are all melded together into one envelopingly dense yet somehow airy procession. Absolutely gorgeous and absolutely recommended!
New record from shoegaze electronic maestro Schnauss, here joined by Mark Peters from the band Engineers. While we wait near impatiently for Schnauss's next proper full length in a couple of months, we're happy to spend time in the moody atmospheres of this latest collaborative effort. Underrated Silence takes the familiar synth washes we've come to expect with Schnauss, and tempers them with Peters' Robyn Guthrie-style guitar treatments. The mood is frosty, but beautifully dreamy, taking in the crisp vibrancy of a clear winter's day (which sadly we didn't have much of this year). While not necessarily typical of Schnauss's more pop-oriented recordings, Underrated Silence plays out as more cinematic and mysterious with more experimental edges in sound, and is a welcome addition to his too short discography. Recommended!
Once a member of Tangerine Dream and Kluster, Conrad Schnitzler evolved into one of the most distinctive artists within the Krautrock scene. Through such seminal albums as Ballet Statique and Con, Schnitzler developed an uncompromising aesthetic that blossomed beyond the cosmic expansiveness of his fellow psychedelic journeymen and into oblique experiments whose bleak results were the templates that inspired post-industrial expressionists such as MB, Giancarlo Toniutti, Arcane Device, and Cranioclast, not to forget about his impact on the works of Emeralds, Omit, and Oneohtrix Point Never.
10.10.84 is a document of one of Schnitzler's 'kassetten konzert', during which he played back a number of pre-recorded cassettes through upwards of six decks that he would sometimes suspend from a belt around his waste and broadcast through a megaphone wired to a metal helmet that he wore on his head. Given his studies with Joseph Beuys in the '60s, one could postulate that these performances might also warrant some theatrical gestures given the mobility of this set-up. For this konzert recorded in Berlin, Schnitzler overlays sweeping oscillations, clouds of static, and nervous electronic percolations, all of which hold a metallic sheen as if each of these sounds could sharpen knives intent on scraping out the collective inner ear canal of the audience. While the step sequencing of his more accessible works isn't all that present, scattershot firings of horror-laden synth notes burst throughout Schnitzler's signature use of heavily filtered electrical tones. Limited to 250 copies, of which we probably have the last ones.
An album that launched thousands of better known records, Ballet Statique is Conrad Schniztler's masterpiece. Schnitzler, of course, was a maverick in the Krautrock community, having been an original member of both Tangerine Dream and Kluster, and later developing an expressive language of tape collage and electronic synthesis which expanded upon his early studies with Joseph Beuys. His most influential works, however, came out in the late '70s following an almost serialist body of work based on the poetics of various colors through electronic sound, eventually leading to Ballet Statique. It was originally released with the title 'Con' back in 1978 through the Barclay funded Egg Records, Ballet Statique is a skeletal distillation of progressive electronics into a bleak hypnosis of rotating melodies, atonal slashes of synthetic noise, and proto-techno rhythmic propulsion. While this album has been reissued a few times since it's original release, the current infatuation with late '70s electronics - especially through the psychedelic and minimal-wave sensibilities - make this reissue especially timely. "Electric Garden" is one of those elegantly simple pieces of electronica with an abstracted, almost random melody guiding Schnitzler's rigid step sequence cast in a cosmic shower of delay ripples with bent electro-shock noises sliding up and down against his motorik drum machine. From a track like this, one can see where Aphex Twin would have been able to make such a profound break from rave culture with these head-spinning sequences. "Metall 1" is all space-dust and comet debris hung weightlessly through Schnitzler's ominous undulations of bright synthetic shimmers and lurching rumbles of metallic low-end, clearly the inspiration for pretty much everything that John Elliott of Emeralds has ever touched. The deep-space sonor pulses of "Black Nails" reprise the tone-bent noises Schnitzler produced on "Electric Garden," looking forward to the robotic bleakness of Monoton, Dome, and Omit. It's pretty shocking how good this record is, and how timeless it sounds, even with the current strain of '70s revivalism. So highly recommended, it's actually embarrassing that we've not written about this record sooner.
This rare album (only 500 copies of the LP were originally issued in 1974) is now finally reissued on cd! "Blau" (Blue) is the second solo effort from legendary krautrock electronics pioneer Conrad Schnitzler, following his amazing debut "Rot" (Red) and his
"Gelb" is an unreleased 1974 album produced by the iconoclastic electronic musician Conrad Schnitzler, who sought to demystify the academic strangle hold on electronic music in reducing all of the avant garde techniques and ideas into a simple interplay of tonal color. Often realized as overlapping electronic patterns, cyclical rhythms, and synthetic swooshes, Schnitzler's early '70s compositions appear now as the prototypes of a lot of modern day electronica, especially IDM, ambient, and techno. "Gelb" does sound a little dated, due to the less than perfect recording conditions and the limited palette of electronic sounds, but the sweeping, space-age surfaces of Schnitzler's electronic tones and jittery drum machine arpeggiations are as good as anything he released during that time. Vinyl only.
The last of the five 'color' releases is the Green one. The original LP consisted of two very long, elegantly minimal environmental pieces. "Der Reise Und Seine Frau" from 1976 features an endlessly wandering synth solo, meandering over a very distorted & churning drum machine loop without much development for 32 minutes. The synth patch is a very modest one, but pretty enough: Schnitzler for Mother. There's a lot more going on in 1980's "Bis Die Blaue Blume Bluht": interlocking, circular melodies looping endlessly over a percolating Wurlitzer rhythm for 20 minutes. A very tropical mood: imagine Kraftwerk's "Ananas Symphonie" without the Hawaiian slide guitar left looping for the night and you're halfway there. The original vinyl encouraged playback at both 33 and 45 rpm, so unsurprisingly the 14 minute bonus track is "Bis Die Blaue Blume Bluht / 45" -- although, surprisingly, the piece isn't simply pitched up, it's digitally time compressed to a faster tempo without actually changing its pitch, so you basically get a 35 minute version of the piece that picks up the pace about halfway through. Grun might seem a bit modest compared to the untamed worlds of Schwartz and Rot, but I have to admit that this pleasantly relentless album won me over by the end. (guest review by AQ pal Jon "Wobbly" Leidecker)
First, before we get into the review, we should mention that this double lp is housed in an oversized French paper hand silk-screened jacket. While it's a beautiful package, the combination of its oversized shape and the delicacy of the material means it's prone to damage in shipping, and of course all the copies we have received arrived a bit bent up. The label has no replacement covers so this is all we're going to get. We've taken a couple dollars off the price to compensate a bit, but those who are more fastidious about the shape of their vinyl sleeves, might want to steer clear of this, as we won't be able to replace them. Sorry about that!
But WOW!, this is a beautiful double lp live set from 1972 by the late experimental kosmiche composer, Conrad Schnitzler. Salvaged from decaying tapes of a performance for an art exhibition, the sounds on this are like a multifaceted sci-fi ballet. The coordination of individual electronic sounds operating in harmonic tandem of each other showcases a brilliant array of synthesis and restraint, while at the same time emanating a warm centrally vibrant core. For some reason in some of our minds we always have this impression that Conrad Schnitzler was the most abstract and cold of the German musicians of this period, but lately with each new reissue that becomes available, that impression is proven wrong time and time again. This is a gorgeous set, as essential as any of his key recordings from this era. And as usual, crazy limited, ONLY 1000 COPIES and at this point almost gone so act fast!
Here's an unexpected set of reissues: vinyl versions of two classic krautrock albums by electronica pioneer Conrad Schnitzler. They're legit, done from master tapes we're told.
"Rot" (Red) was Con's amazing 1973 solo debut. Intense science-fictional bleep-drone, with ironic titles like (side one) "Meditation" and even "Krautrock" (side two). It's totally dark (but a little silly too). The Plate Lunch cd reissue of this we used to stock is now out of print, so that makes this new LP version even more essential. Of course, this vinyl reissue is pressed on red wax, in a red sleeve.
Ten thousand cheers to Captain Trip Records for reissuing all five of Conrad Schnitzler's Color Albums. Originally available only in private pressings, and only sporadically available since then, this cycle included his first solo albums and his first forays into purely electronic music. Before these, Schnitzler had already been a founding member of Tangerine Dream and Kluster (who renamed themselves Cluster after Schnitzler's departure).
His first 'solo' album, Schwartz, is technically the third Kluster album, a trio improvisation by Schnitzler, Moebius and Roedelius -- and was actually reissued as such on cd in the '90s as Eruption. Similar in sound to the first two albums, we hear a variety of traditional instruments (cellos, drums, guitars, organs) played in the most rudimentary manner possible, treating them as raw sources that are then filtered, delayed, and otherwise processed into a bizarre and barely recognizable cavern of pure sound. There actually aren't any synthesizers on this record -- the sounds are all vaguely acoustic in nature, though transformed into something very alien. Whereas their first two albums were commissioned by a Church on the condition that the records also contain strangely religious spoken word texts, this album is purely instrumental -- but more than that, they just get much further out this time -- this is the best of their three records. Though not as compositionally refined as the astonishing Cluster '71 that Moebius and Roedelius would go on to create with Conny Plank, this gains points for audibly being a live performance. A very ahead of its time one at that -- bands are beginning to sound like these records again now, 35 years later -- if you've been spending quality time with Yellow Swans and Skaters cdr-rs recently, you will definitely dig this record from out of their mind Germans playing in a basement 35 years ago, and hitting the source.
This new edition adds a four minute soundcheck from a different trio -- Schnitzler, Freudigmann & Seidel. Otherwise it's identical to the 1997 CD reissue. (guest review by AQ pal Jon "Wobbly" Leidecker)
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Not really new, but I don't think we listed it before. Krautrock/electronica pioneer Schnitzler (original member of Kluster, with a long solo career) sets aside the synths and investigates actual piano sounds on this release. Of course, these compositions are not humanly playable--a computer has assisted with the process. Kind of an update on Conlon Nancarrow's player piano pieces, or doing for piano playing what drum and bass programming does for human drumming... Insane stuff, but not utterly chaotic--this is really melodic and quite musical. Schnitzler, indeed, remains a genius.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The history behind this particular Conrad Schnitzler track is a little vague. Supposedly, Zug is also known as the "Red Cassette" which the German electronic pioneer self-released in 1973 (some say 1974). M=Minimal reissued one of the two 20 minute cuts from that tape as Zug, and fleshing out the rest of the vinyl with two remixes - one from glitched-dub expert Pole and another from Borngraber & Struver. Both of those remixes are reprised on this cd, but Ricardo Villalobos & Max Loderbauer are the artists who get the marquee treatment by having their names affixed to the title. A little strange, yes, but don't let the lack of parity dissuade you from this fine remix collection of one of the most influential electronic artists of the post-Krautrok era. Schnitzler's history has been well mapped here at aQuarius, so we'll merely mention his inspired involvement in Tangerine Dream and Kluster. Villalobos & Loderbauer recently wowed us with their abstract recontextualization of ECM chamber jazz. On the first remix here they adopt more of a motorik / minimalist techno vibe that fits with the taut rhythms that Schniztler embedded into that old tape; and the second spins Schnitzler's dystopian synth drones into a clattering decentered piece more reminiscent of the New Zealand outsider Omit (who really would make for a stellar artist for M=Minimal to reissue!). Pole's remix shifts the rhythm to the offbeat, plenty of percolating metallic tones and ghostly filigrees of digital debris; but the clear winner of all of these remixes is from the previously unknown duo of Borngraber & Struver, who snap the darkest, nastiest swells of Schnitzler's synth patches onto a techno-noir grid that reconnects the Detroit / Berlin axis of techno all over again through the mid-tempo 909 thump and locomotive samples. As good as the other three remixes are, Borngraber & Struver tap a vein most in keeping with Schnitzler's grim futurism. Totally worth the price of admission just for that one track!
NOW ALSO ON VINYL!
The history behind this particular Conrad Schnitzler track is a little vague. Supposedly, Zug is also known as the "Red Cassette" which the German electronic pioneer self-released in 1973 (some say 1974). M=Minimal recently reissued a collection of Zug remixes, a couple of which had already appeared on vinyl before; but now the excellent remixes from Ricardo Villalobos and Max Loderbauer get now appear on vinyl. Schnitzler's history has been well mapped here at aQuarius, so we'll merely mention his inspired involvement in Tangerine Dream and Kluster. Villalobos & Loderbauer recently wowed us with their abstract recontextualization of ECM chamber jazz. On the first remix here they adopt more of a motorik / minimalist techno vibe that fits with the taut rhythms that Schniztler embedded into that old tape; and the second spins Schnitzler's dystopian synth drones into a clattering decentered piece more reminiscent of the New Zealand outsider Omit (who really would make for a stellar artist for M=Minimal to reissue!). Download card included!
So often you might read about an album we carry here at Aquarius that sounds as if it were recorded in a bunker, a tomb, a sewer, a cave, a warehouse, or some other nasty, gritty space whose nastiness and grittiness seeps into the recording itself. As much as we would like for each of those times we make such allusions to be true, it's actually quite rare that musicians would record an album in such a location. Conrad Schnitzler and Wolfgang Seidel have done just that, as they brought a bunch of synthesizers down to an abandoned cellar at the Tempelhof Airport in Berlin to record this excellent set of Kosmische electronic blorp. Schnitzler, of course, is a Krautrock legend having worked with the earliest incarnations of Tangerine Dream and the first sessions in Kluster (before the K became a C), and moving on to producing some of the finest examples of claustrophobic proto-electronica from the Krautrock era (e.g. Con and Ballet Statique). Seidel had worked with Schnitzler in the aforementioned Kluster as well as Eruption way back in the day, with sporadic collaborations throughout the past couple of decades. It's impossible to tell who's doing what on this recording of oblique electronic mashings that are equally psychedelic and claustrophobic. Warbling structures of algorithmically complex patterns get torn apart with thrumming electronic noises, weird semi-melodic clunkery, and mad-scientist erratic behaviors. Consequenz 010B is a full 65 minutes in length, but it's limited to 250 copies of which we have limited stock.
We were so saddened by the recent passing of krautrock legend Conrad Schnitzler, a one-time member of both Tangerine Dream and Kluster, who then went on to create one of THEE most incredible bodies of solo work of perhaps any of the krautrockers. This record is not so much a proper Schnitzler record, as it is a strange sort of collaboration. It seems that Schnitzler was forever recording sounds from his many electronic synthesizers, creating an expansive music library, from which all of these sounds were taken. Borngraber and Struver, who run the M=Minimal label, were afforded the opportunity to go through Schnitzler's library, and create a series of new compositions, and Con-Struct is the result.
It's difficult to suss out how much of this is pure Schnitzler, and how much of it is Borngraber & Struver, but really it hardly matters, much of this definitely sounds like a Schnitzler record, the krautrock vibe is big, but there's also definitely a sort of minimal techno vibe, the record opens with a gorgeous stretch of deep buzzing pulses and percolating rhythms, the mood haunting and slightly sinister, all laced with swirls of electronics and thick swells of rumbling whir, before giving way to the following track, which has more of a Kompakt vibe to it. But even here, that minimal techno rhythm is wreathed in swirls of dark layered thrum, and mournful minor key melodies, the sound trancelike and cyclical, which is how most of the record plays out, each track essentially a simple looped arrangement, the core sound and rhythm repeated for the length of the track, while the various elements shift gradually, and all around it various sounds swirl and shimmer. Our only complaint really is that all of the tracks could have been stretched WAY out, and turned into epics even more trancey and hypnotic.
But overall, the mood is surprisingly dark and haunting, the occasional almost house-y rhythm or skittery groove, does little to take away from the record's darkly cast sonic shadows, the swirling low end, the rumbling drones, the thick bassy buzz, the melancholy melodies, it's pretty much the perfect slab of dark minimal rhythmic krautdrone mesmer.
Besides drumming for grind gods Spazz (as well as loads of other grind / fastcore band that found themselves in need of a kick ass drummer) and being one of the nicest guys ever, Mr. Max Ward somehow found time to go to school, run a record label (the awesome 625!) and front this band of well read uber-nerds! Scholastic Deth wasn't just a name for these punks, it was a way of life. All four members are or were or are about to be in grad school and don't hesitate to tackle serious subject matter in their lyrics and in between song banter. But it's not preachy or Fugazi-like. These guys are funny and dorky and engaging as well as being smart! And as you might then imagine, the HUGE book of liner notes is an awesome read, with the stories and anecdotes behind each song often stretching significantly farther than the three of four lines of lyrics. In fact, the record will be long over by the time you plow through the emminently readable liner notes. The Deth spit out brief, blinding explosions of pummelling punk rock fury, 50 tracks in 43 minutes of buzzing lightning fast riffing, chaotic, confusional drumming and Max's earnest shouted vocals. While there -are- metallic moments, this is more punk than metal, more grind than thrash, but heavy and noisy and fun as fuck. Also includes a video collection of various live performances playable on your computer. The whole package is nicely designed like punk rock Cliff's notes too!
This band offers a bouquet made of slide rules and roses ('cause they play technical, math-metal with gothic/romantic keyboard flourishes). They're maybe the heaviest, most intense band to make piano a major part of their sound (Alboth! excepted).
We're a bit late on the draw for this, but it's taken awhile for this record to fully sink in and work its mysterious magic. Like a hybrid of The Knife and M83, these electro-dream popsters make intriguing and dynamic shoe-gazey ear candy, that both baffles and delights. A fine self-assured debut!
When we recently posted our top ten lists for 2011, some folks might have noticed Andee's top spot was a record we had never actually reviewed or listed, but it wasn't for lack of trying. It was actually released way back in 2010, but we didn't even hear about it until 2011, and then it took until 2012 for us to actually get enough copies in to review. Lots of aQ folks probably recognize Schreifels' name, whether it's as the frontman for nineties post punk combo Quicksand, or more recently in Rival School, but even before Quicksand Schreifels played in legendary NY hardcore outfits Youth Of Today and Gorilla Biscuits! But don't be expecting anything remotely hardcore or punk rock (although there are nods to those days, more on that in a second), the sound here is much more classic indie pop jangle, which is really the direction Schreifels had been moving in anyway since the end of Quicksand, with Rival Schools, World's Fastest Car and now solo.
An open Letter To The Scene is crazy catchy, jangly indie pop, and from the very first play, we found ourselves spinning it constantly, over and over on a daily basis, much to the displeasure of the less pop inclined, but it's that sort of irresistible collection of songs, and again, as with every subsequent record, we can't understand why mainstream success continues to elude Schreifels, the songs here are so much catchier and hookier and more original than 90 percent of the indie rock we hear, but it's probably that whole original thing that throws people off, but for the rest of us, who like our pop smart, and quirky, catchy, crunchy and fuzzy, and jangly, well, this record is pretty tough to beat. We're tempted to go through the record song by song, but we'd probably end up just gushing crazily about how every song is SO CATCHY and SO GREAT, but hell, every song here IS so catchy and great, from dark strummy almost-ballads, to big jangly power pop, from intimate bedroom pop to fuzzy poppy classic indie rock, all driven by Schreifels' distinctive vocals, a little bit gruff but super warm and melodic, the sound rife with strange cool lush arrangements, and subtly trippy production, and then there the abovementioned nods to his punk rock past.
First there's a killer cover of Agnostic Front's "Society Suckers", which works surprisingly well as an acoustic guitar and bongo driven chunk of strum and jangle, there's also a new version of "Don't Gotta Prove It", originally recorded by another one of Schreifels' early outfits, the melodic hardcore group CIV, here transformed into a killer slab of distorto guitar and organ driven fuzz pop stomp, and that's not to mention liberal lyrical references to various bands and hardcore musicians and reappropriations from classic hardcore songs (one pointed out in the lyrics borrowed from Warzone!), but they're so subtle and work so well with the music and the lyrical content, that you might not even notice it at first (if at all), it's just part and parcel of Schreifels' twisted indie pop sound, which is a sound we somehow STILL haven't tired of, even after literally listening to this record almost daily for the last year. The only thing that might get us to stop, is the supposed impending release of a brand new record. But until then, we'll keep digging this one. And we're betting the popfans that read the aQ list will too.
Quirky, mostly instrumental tracks reminiscent of the Sun City Girls ethno-ambient forays, or the Residents' Eskimo. So it should come as no surprise that sometimes SCG collaborator Eyvind Kang appears here and that both the Girls and Alan Bishop are thanked within. The ten pensive, meandering compositions here include a wide variety of instrumentaion including piano, viola, recorder, bathtub, various percussion (including taos drum timpani), zither, harmonica, saz, mandolin, casio, guitar and more. Nice.
Subtitled, Another Suplex Prune Hittite Fantasy! But I think this needs a little more explanation. Argh. Ok, some of you will remember Steven Shultz for his remarkable "History of Vats" cd, or his more recent rap album, the "I Forgot To Get A Rap Name!"
The four cds come packaged in a cardboard box, complete with a thick booklet providing you with the entire libretto, and more. Basically, this is the Conet Project of "comedy"! (that is, if you can consider this comedy...)
This also features a special guest star, a certain local metal singer who wisely desires to remain anonymous (hint: he's on one of Andee's recent tUMULt releases), who, as a favor for Steve, played the role of Hulk Hogan! ...I also think I heard Bob Dylan on here...
So, if you think pro wrestling characters from the '80s are amusing and that the slang term 'hella' is funny and you like Frank Zappa, or if you are simply a connoisseur of the idiotically ridiculous, this is for you!! Don't say we didn't warn you. Basically, if you can stand to listen to the entire thing, you've got problems. (See www.harmful.org/stalinclaus for more information, including a helpful flowchart explaining the, uh, plot. Or so we're told, we were too scared to go there.)
You never know quite what you're going to get with a Klaus Schulze record. Well, you know you 're gonna get long and alienlike synthscapes, but you never know where or how Schulze's particular eccentricies are going to manifest themselves. Not sure if Blackdance was reissued out of chronological order or we are just reviewing it late but after having reviewed Irrlicht, Cyborg and Timewind, we jump back a year before Timewind to 1974. Maybe this makes sense because out of the four, Blackdance is the most different, it's slightly warmer, more playful and there is much more weird stuff happening. Of course the tracks are still epically long, but beneath the synth-drones we find a lot more rhythms, bongos and drums, acoustic guitars, a lot more propulsive phasing, electronic squiggles and just in general much more movement than the previously reviewed records. By the third track, we hear some Gregorian chanting before some pulsing and clicking rhythms appear to duel with the church-y organ cycles. But it's the two bonus tracks that set this release apart from the rest. "Foreplay" has a sci-fi epic-ness to it as it sounds like the arrival of a giant spaceship preparing to battle backed by choir like synth-voices and explosive rumblings. And the strangely titled "Synthies Have (No) Balls?" is full throttle heavy organ drone with pitch-shifted synth phases and spectacular drumming that is Schulze's most rocking outing we've heard yet. Pretty awesome!
Well, it's about fucking time. The quintessential space-drone-komische-psychedelic headtrip has finally been reissued. Cyborg is one of those albums like the first couple Os Mutantes albums or Comus' First Utterance or Amon Duul II's Yeti that should NEVER go out of print, yet due to negligence or contractual issues or what have you, there have occasionally been times where those sorts of record do disappear, which then forces us to hop up on our soap boxes and holler until somebody makes it right.
Curiously enough, Klaus Schulze began his musical escapades as a drummer, first in Ash Ra Tempel and then communing in the early incarnations of Tangerine Dream; but his solo work is solely electronic. Moogs, mellotrons, and all types of synthesizers became part of his increasing arsenal for his sprawling electronic compositions; but in many ways, Schulze's best work was composed through simpler means. Cyborg, like its equally impressive predecessor Irrlicht, is a relatively sparse affair of floating electronic patterns, tones, and drones, without really hiding Schulze's admiration of Wagner's compositional grandreur and weighty moods. In framing the album about technology infiltrating the human condition, Schulze alternates between a sense of wonder, heralded by technology's promise of progress, and a sense of horror, with technology absorbing humanity within that drive for progress, whatever that may mean. It's an emotionally dymanic yet ultimately sinister record, and one that clearly has influenced hundreds if not thousands of electronic musicians since it's original release back in 1973. Brian Eno, Pete Namlook, Omit, Wolfgang Voigt, and Troum would be the artists we could cite as being hugely influenced by Schulze's work.
With the reissue of Cyborg with its four sprawling tracks of electronic scintillation, Schulze has fleshed out this double cd with a fantastic bonus track that's well over 50 minutes long! Even without that hefty bonus track, Cyborg was brilliant back then, and it's still brilliant today.
Wow! We are so excited that this has been put back into print. Klaus Schulze has an extremely extensive back catalog, and sometimes it can feel a bit overwhelming as to how to navigate it and where you should begin. With Irrlicht once again available we say that answer becomes a little easier. This was his very first solo album which he recorded in 1972 shortly after he left his stint drumming for legendary Krautrockers Ash Ra Tempel (he was also was the drummer in the earliest and maybe greatest incarnation of Tangerine Dream.) After stepping away from the drum-kit Schulze found where he really was most comfortable, and that was behind his elaborate setup of keyboards. With the advent of the Moog, and his mastery of the organ, Schulze was interested in making a new kind of music. Electronic music that was oozing with atmosphere, tension and sensuality. When Schulze was making this record he was heavily under the influence of Musique Concrete along with some other things we are sure! He had a damaged amplifier at the time which would break out into internal feedback when he turned up its volume control. He also went to a large classical orchestra in Berlin where we was allowed to attend a rehearsal that he recorded and then played backwards throughout Irrlicht. For an artists who would go one to make so many more records this still stands as one of, if not his greatest (even though it actually pre-dates his adoption of the Moog synth as instrument of choice!). Along with Cluster, Eno and Kraftwerk, Schulze stands as one of the fathers of electronic music as we know it. What's also so amazing about this record is how you could imagine so many of our favorite black metal bands hearing this and it seeping its way into the more moody/damaged elements of their records. The eerie ambiance of many Burzum and Striborg records can be heard in the totally intense undertones of Irrlicht. Thanks in part to many of the limitations that he was facing back then, there is an eerie and majestic presence to this album. Sometimes beat up organs, messed up amplifiers, and youthful enthusiasm stand the test of time. Especially when the person behind the controls had this amazing knack for creating eerie, haunting otherworldly sounds.
This reissue comes in a nice digipack with liner notes in both German and English, some in the form of an interview with KS himself. And, there's a 24 minute long bonus track called "Dungeon"! It's not necessarily from the Irrlicht sessions, in fact no-one seems to know exactly when or where it's from (other than somwhere in Europe, early '70s), but it's agreed that it's more early Klaus Schulze dronework that needs to be heard...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Well, here is yet another monumental two cd Klaus Schulze reissue from Revisited who have previously reissued Irrlicht from 1972 and Cyborg from 1973. This time around we'll spare you Schulze's back story as you can read more about it in the above mentioned reviews.
Klaus Schulze's fifth album Timewind, his 1975 debut for Virgin Records has long been considered, in some circles, his masterwork. Yet quantifying Schulze's immense output in such a way is a difficult and slippery task. Surely signing to Virgin introduced him to a wider audience, but Timewind is hardly any more "accessible" than his prior output nor is it the kind of precedent to New Age music that you would expect from the label who released Tubular Bells. Dedicated to Richard Wagner, Timewind's two sidelong pieces further explore Schulze's fascination with starkly sensual and droning soundscapes, where icy synth pulsations converge with long tonal organ flights until these overlapping rhythms simultaneously gain and decrease in momentum becoming slowly bubbling Moog passages with shimmering electric washes. Like a windy barren landscape on some depopulated planet, Schulze's compositions read like epics of a post-human technological future. Included is a second bonus disc of two long unreleased tracks recorded around the same time and one recently recorded track that harkens back to a sound more affiliated with the late seventies output of Schulze's former band-mates in Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel, which means it's awesome!
From the scene that brought us Village of Savoonga, Tied and Tickled Trio, Couch, and Tarwater comes Schwermut Forest. Very similar in feel to their musical scenemates, but with a much lighter feel. Some vocals in German, but mostly Tortoise-y instrumentals.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Scianka is a Polish group whose name as 'spaceship'... A fitting name as the singer for Scianka clearly learned how to sing (and speak English) by listening to Elvis Costello and Iggy & the Stooges, and fronts a band who blatantly rips off riffs from Zeppelin and the Stones only to have them obliterated by totally weird mutant polka and hyperactive carnivaleseque moments worthy of Uz Jsme Doma! So jarring that Allan got up from his desk in the back office 4 or 5 times in disbelief that this was still Scianka blaring from our humble stereo.
Also available on (import only) vinyl!
It's pretty obvious why the folks at B-music (like DJs Andy Votel and Dom Thomas) dig these particular collectible exploito obscurities so much, and why they're so excited to be reissuing 'em in their new "Germanic Miner" series dedicated to "krautsider music"! What could be more B-musical than these two faux soundtracks concocted in the late sixties by a couple of creative German producers, operating at the weird, wacked out intersection of kitschy library music and freaky krautrock? One's a slice of slinky, sorta-scary "horrotica", the other a spaced out sci-fi fest for the Barbarella set. Both are delirious, demented party-pleasers.
The Vampires Of Dartmoore and their Dracula's Music Cabinet conjures a sexy frightmare of hip swinging, bloodsucking sounds. "Mord Im Ohio Express (Murder In The Ohio Express)" seems kinda surfy, but mostly this is about groovy porno lounge music, with smoky horns and jazzy percussion, interwoven with screams and creepy sound effects, moaning and groaning, dogs barking and something going boing boing boing... It's a very NON-academic application of musique concrete technique, noises worked into the songs, such as the rumbling explosions that punctuate "Eine Handvoll Nitro (A Handful Of Nitro)". The mix is fairly chaotic, stuff fading in and out, levels up and down. If this WAS a movie soundtrack, it would have been a pretty crazy movie. Tracks reference Hitchcock, Dr. Caligari, and Frankenstein's monster. And sex. Definitely sex.
Equally bizarre, if less R-rated, is the Science Fiction Dance Party. Again, it's groovy, jazzy, sometimes fuzzy "instro-hipster" style stuff, laced with loads of goofy outer space sound effects and rocketship radio drama theatrics. It sounds like music for a cocktail party and/or acid test on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. You can imagine Robbie the Robot getting down to this. Distorted alien and/or computer voices abound, song titles include "Visitors Of A.D. 2022", "The Whistling Astronaut", and "Hit Parade In The Light Year 25" (which doesn't even make sense, don't they know that light years are a measure of distance?). As well as whistling, there's some screams here too, as spacemen are presumably being zapped with rayguns, but the music remains jaunty. Even the song "Death Rays Out Of The Universe" is inexplicably upbeat. So, it's all very silly, but a lot of fun.
Both albums feature bonus tracks (2 previously unreleased "Petting Party" jams on Vampires, 4 extra tracks on Science Fiction that come back to earth to delve into disco and Eastern exotica instead). The slipcased cds of these are now domestic releases (we waited instead of getting the expensive imports) but the LP versions remain imports.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Originally released on Record Store Day, this little Aussie power pop / post punk gem is now available again, in a non Record Store Day version, it's a repress of the original debut 7" from legendary Australian punks The Scientists, originally released in 1979, this still sounds as great as ever, and more shockingly, it really shines a light on the current crop of retro poppers and how beholden they really are to what came before, and how what came before is SO MUCH BETTER. These two jams KILL, the A side is a timeless chunk of swaggery punky pop, snarly vox, big crashing guitars, surprisingly buys drums and some drop dead hooks, the B side too, a little bit glammier, but still snarly and swaggery and totally untouchable.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!
Holy crap, this long circulated bootleg, originally released in the early eighties as a crazy limited unofficial cassette, has now been remastered and reissued as a super deluxe double lp. Capturing a classic period in the early years of these Aussie post punks, four sides of swaggery, snarly, swampy garage punk action, the sound delivered in varying degrees of fidelity, it was bootleg after all, but all the tracks here rule, loose and ramshackle, sloppy and wild, unhinged and fuzzed out and catchy as hell, a bunch of cool covers too, Alex Chilton, Chuck Berry, the Troggs, some rarities but also some Scientists classics. All recorded between the late seventies and early eighties, and sounding way better than any of the versions you might have dug up on some blog.
Pressed on 150 gram vinyl, housed in a thick full color gatefold sleeve (with printed innersleeves), featuring lots of rare photos, and extensive liner notes from various Scientists, all telling wild tales of back in the day!
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES!!!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Snappy new ep from female Chicago no-wave band often described as the Raincoats meet Melt Banana.
The Robert Mapelthorp cover art is our favorite part.
