[ 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 15301 through 15350 of 19388.

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

SORRY.

With Boss mania in full swing once again and a rare appearance on AQ's list a few weeks ago with his split 10" with Suicide, we thought why not offer up a few words on his latest album, Working On A Dream? Truth be told Springsteen has made some really fine music in the last several years. His 2005 album Dust & Devils was his most bleak and dark affair since Nebraska, and his Seeger Sessions, We Shall Overcome which came out a year later displayed Bruce at his stripped down best. This record finds the boss being his biggest, most arena ready and triumphant self. It almost sounds like the 2nd disc of a greatest hits collection, which is to say it's so familiarly Springsteen for better and for worse. Lots of midtempo songs ready for high rotation on commercial radio and then there are some full on fist in the air anthems as well. Big time Springsteen fans will find lots to like on here but for sure it's not his greatest or most adventurous outing.

MPEG stream: Outlaw Pete
MPEG stream: Tomorrow Never Knows
MPEG stream: The Wrestler

We seem to be in the midst of another round of Springsteen mania, with The Boss recently wowing the crowd at the Super Bowl, coming out with a brand new record and once again flexing his muscle as one of rock n roll's strongest shepherds. While we all have our own favorite Springsteen document (Nebraska, Greetings From Asbury Park, etc.) we have to say we were pretty thrown off in a pleasant way a few years back when we caught a YouTube clip of The Boss doing an incredible live rendition of the Suicide classic "Dream Baby Dream." Made us have way more respect for the Boss and also made us realize that no matter how much of an underground sensation those first two Suicide albums were, underneath it all were totally brilliant and long lasting pop songs. So with The Boss in the spotlight once again we thought we'd get around to listing this 10" that's part of Blast First Petite's series of Suicide splits with the other bands all doing their own versions of Suicide classics. We listed the Lydia Lunch/Suicide split a little while ago. We're not sure if it was the unexpected delight of when we first saw the clip of Springsteen playing "Dream Baby Dream" that made it seem so incredible but it's not quite as mind blowing here. Still pretty cool to hear him doing it. The flipside finds Suicide performing their track back in 1979 for an NBC late night show and then another Suicide cover by a contemporary group called Beat The Devil with their take of "Mr Ray." We just found out that all these Suicide splits have been released in honor of Alan Vega's 70th birthday, how cool!

During his time with Ohio's Guided By Voices, Tobin Sprout wielded his pop songwriting pen and four-track studio with sweet skill, but unfortunately all too often he was overshadowed by mainman Robert Pollard. Since his departure from GBV in '97, Mr. Sprout has been quietly continuing his lo-fi popcraftsmanship on his own in Michigan. As the title states this cd compiles some of his demos

RealAudio clip: Water On The Boaters Back

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

SORRY. Second solo turn from guitarist for Guided By Voices.

Well, if you've been in mourning about the demise of beloved band Guided By Voices (who played their final show this past New Year's Eve), you can take some solace in the fact that its individual former members haven't stopped making music... nor playing it live! This is a double cd of a complete Tobin Sprout performance in Toronto last year. From the very first unmistakable guitar strum, it's a definite fan pleaser filled with lots of old Sprout/GBV favorites and plenty of crowd hoots and hollerin'. Added bonus: demo versions of even more old faves "And I Wonder", "Inside Your Serious", "Over Then, and Back Again".

MPEG stream: Get Out Of My Throat
MPEG stream: Inside Your Serious

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

SORRY. Second full-length from Guided By Voices guitarist.

Pretty-pop from the non-Bob Pollard mainstay of Guided by Voices. A seven song teaser for his upacoming full length. Dreamy and lush and kind of eighties sounding but really good. Fans of GBV obviously need this!

RealAudio clip: Secret Service
RealAudio clip: Branding Dennis

No, it's not an album of dubs that Sprung Aus Den Wolken wrangled out of their Cassettencombinat studio; but these stripped down recordings represented the first officially released work from the seminal art-punk / industrial outfit, originally released back in 1981 on ZickZack as an eponymous album. That said, these were not the first recordings for Sprung Aus Den Wolken, as their Cassettencombinat studio / tape imprint had been recording a prodigious amount of material which actually warranted a 3lp boxset for Vinyl-On-Demand, much of it through the Sprung Aus Den Wolken moniker. Alexander Hacke and Kiddy Citny were the principal agents of Cassettencombinat in the day, and here on Dub & Die, Hacke was still in the band at the time, having not fully committed to the Einsturzende Neubauten cause. He proves once again to be an excellent foil to Kiddy Citny's punk poetics. Compared to the sparkplug frenzy of the Faux Pas collection, Dub & Die is downright minimalist with lots of room spacing strangulated guitar and the loping basslines amidst the primitive electronics with Citny rambling as loose as ever but with considerable restraint. None of this is a bad thing, especially when the title track comes across like a German version of Young Marble Giants. There are other tracks tracks whose jittery funk mutations allude to a junkyard mish-mash of Gang Of Four and A Certain Ratio, and a few which do hold worthy comparisons to the early Neubauten spring-loaded Industrial numbers. Klanggalerie once again has unearthed a great record, which is limited in this cd reissue to 500 copies.

MPEG stream: Dub & Die
MPEG stream: Leidenschaftlich
MPEG stream: Jeder Tag

Sprung Aus Den Wolken came out of the Berlin underground in the early 80s, right alongside Einsturzernde Neubauten and Malaria, producing their own claustrophobic rhythm and noise out of junked electronics and instruments. Just as Neubauten built their own studio to serve their metal bashing purposes, Sprung Aus Den Wolken had their Cassettencombinat studio in which to tinker around with mutant grooves, sparkplug guitar scratchiness, and yelping vocals. Given the lo-fi material produced through Cassettencombinat, the studio was probably little more than a tangle of 1/4" cables, a 4-track, and whatever gear the various participants could cobble together. Yet out of these constraints, Sprung Aus Den Wolken had managed some truly inspired post-punk tunes, which sort of come across as a weird hybrid of Neubauten, The Ex, and Gang of Four. The Neubauten connection may be obvious as a very young kid named Alexander Hacke had found his way into the Sprung Aus Den Wolken camp at about the same time he began scraping infernal noises alongside Blixa Bargeld and crew. Where Neubauten was all about a bleak destruction of sound with darkly serious connotations, Sprung Aus Den Wolken were considerably more playful in their slop and sonic debris, often working in catchy grooves, basslines, and guitar bursts that tease with the notion of a pop hook into their danse macabre. Faux Pas was their first LP, recorded back in 1982, with some of this material appearing on the Vinyl On Demand boxset of Cassettencombinat material. But none of this has been on cd, until now. Klanggalerie has also included a couple of tracks from a few years later when Sprung Aus Den Wolken actually went into a proper studio (or maybe Cassettencombinat got a really fancy upgrade) for the "Pas Attendre," which earned the band a wider audience through its inclusion on the Wings Of Desire soundtrack.

MPEG stream: Akcam La
MPEG stream: Noch Lange Nicht
MPEG stream: Warte
MPEG stream: Pas Attendre

Finally available on vinyl! After a tape and a couple 7"s, comes the much anticipated debut full length from this new crew of SF psych rockers, who by now should be quite familiar to fans of other Bay Area psychedelic space rock and garage rock, cuz if you dig Wooden Shjips, Moon Duo, Sleepy Sun, Carlton Melton and all the rest, as well as Ty Segall, Mikal Cronin, Thee Oh Sees and the like these guys should be right there in your space/psych pantheon. And while the spacier of those other bands tend toward the more droned out and krautrocky, these guys are much more classically rocking, melding a love of Spacemen 3 and other dronier drug rock with the classics, the Velvets, the Doors, even the Stooges, their songs simple and trancelike, plenty of jangle and simpler stripped down drum stomp, the vocals wreathed in reverb, and nestled in the mix, the guitars alternately chugging and crunchy, chiming and melodic, transforming simple pop songs into something more mesmerizingly hypnotic. Even album opener, Lonely Eye on the surface is simple and spare, but over the course of its nearly 5 minutes, it gets to the point where it could go on forever, and we'd sit there glassy eyed and blissed out. Some of the other tracks are more garagey, like "Disguise", which should totally have Oh Sees fans flipping their lids, although the sound here hews much closer to old garage classics like the Fuzztones or the Lyres, which is most definitely not a bad thing. In fact if anything, much of this new record definitely leans toward that more stripped down garage rock sound, with fuzzy guitar, wandering basslines and fuzzy organs, but here and there, like on "Calling Out Your Name" the band unleash a riff that KILLS, in the case of "COYN", it's a dead ringer for the Stooges, one that the band could have ridden hard, but instead of getting all swaggery, the band sort of blisses out, applying multiple layers of guitars and upping the psych quotient considerably, not to mention some cool rhythmic weirdness, which lurks throughout the record, and reveals itself on repeated and closer listens. And so it goes, the whole record, a killer collection of super hooky, spaced out psychedelic garage pop gems, the sort of sound we can't get enough of, and the sort of sound that should definitely position these guys alongside other garage/space/psych rock luminaries, and again if you dig Crystal Stilts, Thee Oh Sees, Wooden Shjips, or any of the other above mentioned bands, and have not checked these guys out, do yourself a favor...

MPEG stream: Lonely Eyes
MPEG stream: Long Road Out
MPEG stream: Radiator
MPEG stream: Evil Kind

A brand new batch of tracks the latest addition to the SF psychedelic space rock pantheon, with just a single 7" under their belts, and now this 5 song cassette, these guys are definitely poised to be another next big thing. After all, folks are so gaga for Wooden Shjips, Moon Duo, Sleepy Sun, Carlton Melton, the Lumerians, hell, we can't imagine those same folks wouldn't flip for these guys too. They definitely have a similar sound, Velvets, Spacemen 3, etc., although here, they open up with a way more straight ahead chunk of sixties style psychedelic pop jangle, stripped down, a little fuzzy, but not buzzy or droney or druggy so much as just hooky and jangly, it's not until the second track that they kick on the pedals, opening with a blast of crumbling distortion, only to fade away leaving just some strummed acoustic guitar, and then bam, the song kicks in, fuzzed out guitars, ear whirring organ, washed out reverbed vocals, motorik drumming, totally blissed out druggy droney psychedelic garage rock. But then they switch right back, and offer up another slab of classic sixties style psych pop jangle, before launching into a track that manages to mix both, that sort of Doorsy / Velvetsy style druggies, wrapped around some swaggery pysch pop shuffle, there's even some harmonica, that manages to make it all sound that much droopier and druggier. Finally the band wrap it up with a short sharp blast of fuzzy drone rock bliss, all hazy and hypnotic, the Spacemen 3 vibe looming large, drawled vox, crunchy guitars, looped and hypnotic and mesmerizing, with some serious hooks hidden throughout, the sort of song that definitely deserves a multi minute psychedelic freakout tacked on the end, but instead winds down after just three minutes. Killer stuff, another ep length tease, but just enough to tide us over until these guys finally get together a proper full length. Like the 7", these babies are pretty limited, so grab one quick before they're gone...

MPEG stream: Black Clouds
MPEG stream: Calling Out Your Name

Okay, all you Wooden Shjips / Moon Duo obsessives. There's some new kids in town, vying for your psychedelic space rock dronekraut affections, and they're called The Spyrals, and they traffic in the same sort of droned out post Velvets, post Spacemen motorik fuzz drenched psychedelic garage kraut mesmer. Which means, pretty much anyone who digs WS or the slightly less rocking Moon Duo, are probably gonna go nuts for these guys too. With songs that sound like they should go on forever, and lord knows we certainly wouldn't complain if they did, the Spyrals manage to pack plenty of blissed out hypnotic drug rock droniness into a matter of minutes, so much so that you'll likely find yourself flipping this single over and over and over and over again. The organs are thick and fuzzy, the guitars chime and churn and jangle and ring out, the drums simple and solid, the melodies are mesmerizing, a little bit of twang here and there, it's pretty much everything you could hope for from this sort of thing, cyclical, repetitive, motorik, propulsive, druggy, dreamy, fuzzy, buzzy, psychedelic and still most definitely catchy. We'd be awfully surprised if these guys didn't blow up big time soon. Which means, you better act fast, these 7"s are CRAZY limited, as in only 30 copies, each one hand numbered, and hand screened. And most likely gone before you know it.

Latest full length from these SF psychedelic garage rockers, who unlike many of their more spaced out and droney compatriots, don't so much drift druggily as stomp bloozily, fusing modern day fuzzed out garage rock with classic sixties style jangle pop and seventies psychedelic blooz. In reviews of past records we mention the usual modern suspects, Wooden Shjips, Sleepy Sun, Moon Duo, Ty Segall, Thee Oh Sees, and no doubt fans of any and all those groups are gonna still dig the Spyrals, but on Out of Sight, the band have pushed their already retro sound even further, again channeling the Stooges, the Doors, the Velvets, but now sounding like they could actually BE some lost sixties/seventies band, and like Out Of Sight could in fact be some obscure reissue, the sound echo-y and reverby, the guitars and drums simple and stripped down, the vibe a sort of groovy garagey stomp, with some cool psychedelic leads, lots of fuzz, even some harmonica! Fans of the last self titled record will feel right at home, as it pretty much takes up right where that one left off. Let's leap to the title track first, as it might be our favorite here, and it's easy to see why they chose that one to name the record, starting off like some vintage baroque pop, all backwards swirls and sitar like guitar buzz, the vibe promising an eventual blossoming into some early Bee Gees style lush pop majesty, but instead they get right back to rocking, more garagey fuzzy bliss, although throughout there's a definite Eastern vibe and that sitar like melody, which surface here and there, which helps make the track super distinctive. Crazy and catchy, and while this is the track we find ourselves returning the more we listen, the more new favorites emerge, "Now You Know What I Need", with its super fuzzed out main riff which sounds a bit like "Spirit In The Sky", or "Tell All The World" which sounds like some straight up skiffly sixties Beatles style rock, albeit with a bit of a noisier, garagier chorus. Then there's the slithery moody groove of "Down In The Hole", the twangy folkiness of "Easy Now", and "Such A Pain" which gets seriously Stones-y, with a gorgeous main riff, and some super emotive vox, not to mention a big fuzzed out crunchy chorus, and a heavy psych final almost-space jam outro, and garage rockers should definitely dig" Lying", probably the garagiest jam of the bunch, definitely one for the Ty Segall / Oh Sees set. Killer stuff! Retro garage fuzz psychedelic jangle radness that we can't seem to get enough of!! LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!! Pressed on red vinyl!!

MPEG stream: Need Your Fire
MPEG stream: Comin Down
MPEG stream: Such A Pain
MPEG stream: Who's Up There?

Second 7" from these Bay area psychedelic space rockers, featuring a redone version of one of the tracks from their Clouds cassette and a brand new B side, and both kill. As we mentioned in our review of the first 7"s, fans of Wooden Shjips / Moon Duo should be al over these guys, as they traffic in a similarly minimal spaced out hypnorock, borrowing liberally from Spacemen 3, the Velvets, not to mention various kraut and space rock forebears, but they definitely have their own sound, both sides of which are represented here. The A side title track is fuzzy and heavy and distorted, the drums are driving and propulsive, the vibe is swaggery and almost Stooges-y, the guitars wild and psychedelic, the main riff a monster, plenty of reverb and echo, it's the kind of jam that should have other local space/psych rockers shaking in their boots. The flipside, "Long Road Out" is way more retro, the drums stripped down and low slung, the main riff all surfy and reverby, the vocals a laid back drawl, the melodies all buzzy and a little sitar-y, there's even some harmonica, all very fuzzy and dreamily druggy and not a little bit hippie. Great stuff, another couple songs to tide us over until these guys finally release a full length. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. Pressed on clear yellow vinyl.

MPEG stream: Sunflower Microphone
MPEG stream: Long Road Out

Finally! After a tape and a couple 7"s, comes the much anticipated debut full length from this new crew of SF psych rockers, who by now should be quite familiar to fans of other Bay Area psychedelic space rock and garage rock, cuz if you dig Wooden Shjips, Moon Duo, Sleepy Sun, Carlton Melton and all the rest, as well as Ty Segall, Mikal Cronin, Thee Oh Sees and the like these guys should be right there in your space/psych pantheon. And while the spacier of those other bands tend toward the more droned out and krautrocky, these guys are much more classically rocking, melding a love of Spacemen 3 and other dronier drug rock with the classics, the Velvets, the Doors, even the Stooges, their songs simple and trancelike, plenty of jangle and simpler stripped down drum stomp, the vocals wreathed in reverb, and nestled in the mix, the guitars alternately chugging and crunchy, chiming and melodic, transforming simple pop songs into something more mesmerizingly hypnotic. Even album opener, Lonely Eye on the surface is simple and spare, but over the course of its nearly 5 minutes, it gets to the point where it could go on forever, and we'd sit there glassy eyed and blissed out. Some of the other tracks are more garagey, like "Disguise", which should totally have Oh Sees fans flipping their lids, although the sound here hews much closer to old garage classics like the Fuzztones or the Lyres, which is most definitely not a bad thing. In fact if anything, much of this new record definitely leans toward that more stripped down garage rock sound, with fuzzy guitar, wandering basslines and fuzzy organs, but here and there, like on "Calling Out Your Name" the band unleash a riff that KILLS, in the case of "COYN", it's a dead ringer for the Stooges, one that the band could have ridden hard, but instead of getting all swaggery, the band sort of blisses out, applying multiple layers of guitars and upping the psych quotient considerably, not to mention some cool rhythmic weirdness, which lurks throughout the record, and reveals itself on repeated and closer listens. And so it goes, the whole record, a killer collection of super hooky, spaced out psychedelic garage pop gems, the sort of sound we can't get enough of, and the sort of sound that should definitely position these guys alongside other garage/space/psych rock luminaries, and again if you dig Crystal Stilts, Thee Oh Sees, Wooden Shjips, or any of the other above mentioned bands, and have not checked these guys out, do yourself a favor... For now, only on cd-r, but with possible vinyl version to come.

MPEG stream: Lonely Eyes
MPEG stream: Long Road Out
MPEG stream: Radiator
MPEG stream: Evil Kind

When we were teenagers, we pretty much listened to nothing but Billy Squier's Don't Say No and Emotions In Motion. You know that scene in Wayne's World, when they're all singing along and head banging to Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody"? Well, we were like that with Billy Squier's "The Stroke" and "My Kinda Lover" (which we always though was "My Candelabra"!) Also, as young rockers, we were totally into Billy Squier cuz supposedly he had a rider in his contract that said if they misspelled his name as Squire on the marquee he was then entitled to 100 percent of the door receipts!! How bad ass is that? All of that aside, those two records were practically perfect. Massive, super heavy power pop that managed to meld the heft of classic Led Zeppelin to perfect FM radio pop. Heavy and hooky as hell. It wasn't until way later though that we actually heard Squier's first record, the equally fantastic Tale Of The Tape, that just so happens to feature some of his best songs, as well as a couple classic drumlines (predating the ubiquitous drum part from "The Stroke") that have been heavily sampled over the years... Anyway, this record is a blast. This is the sound of the top down, driving around, blasting fucking super guitar rock, singing at the top of your lungs, Super Big Gulps in the cup holders, full of sugar and youthful exuberance, later this was also probably the sound hanging in the 7-11 parking lot, scamming on chicks and all that, but for us, it was just the coolest rock we had ever heard. "The Big Beat" is "The Stroke" a year earlier, big and dumb, super rocking, catchy as fuck, the perfect song to air guitar too, air drum to, whatever! Then there's the metallic stomp of "You Should Be High, Love" with its huge wall of backwards guitars. Total Zeppelin worship and it still sounds amazing. There's also the killer guitar pop of "Who's Your Boyfriend?", the minor key metallic pop angst of "Rich Kid", the organ heavy groove of "Calley Oh", the stadium sing along "The Music's All Right" and the album closer, the minor key dirge "Young Girls". Every song on here is packed with hooks, killer riffing, amazing drumming, Squier's soaring vocals. Should've been hits every one of 'em (and some of them were, rightfully so!) A lot of eighties rock doesn't really stand up so well after 20 or 25 years, but this record sounds as fresh and catchy, as heavy and totally rocking as the first time we listened to the cassette when we were 13 or 14.... This super deluxe reissue (from the same folks who brought us the Plasmatics reissue a while back, and the Armored Saint reissue elsewhere on this list) contains tons of liner notes, loads of photos, as well as two bonus tracks, acoustic demos of two of the album tracks, which are super cool! Andee sez ABSOLUTELY RECOMMENDED!!!

MPEG stream: You Should Be High, Love
MPEG stream: Who's Your Boyfriend
MPEG stream: The Big Beat

High recommendations for this British record which seemingly came out of nowhere to reach our pop-lovin' ears. Equal parts perfect psych pop something like the first time I heard Olivia Tremor Control and XTC side project the Dukes of the Stratosphear, coupled with a Sea-and-Cake-ish serene cool and a cocktail lounge melancholy, the Squire's first full length is a real pleasure. And you know how much AQ likes discovering bands who might otherwise go without deserved attention. There's tessellated, shimmering trebly guitar, indomitably upbeat harpsichord, "ba da ba, BA DA BA"-style happy vocals... plus at times a warm rolling bass -- the sort of rare grooves sound that DJ Shadow searches 7" bins for -- that mixes with the pop astonishingly well. Give this a try for sure.

RealAudio clip: Transverberations
RealAudio clip: Raw Custard

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

SORRY.

We ranted and raved about the mighty Bastro a few lists back, and almost as if planned, both records by the band that would become Bastro get re-pressed not a few months later We're talking about Squirrel Bait, post punk, pre math rock, a dense mix of massiveÔhooks, a twin guitar attack and raw vocals which manged to be not punk enough for the hardcore kids but too fast and fucked up for the indie rockers resulting in Squirrel Bait being, overlooked andÔTOTALLY UNDERRATED. The pride of Louisville, Kentucky, these guys were LITERALLY just kids when they started this sonic bombast. A bit thrashy perhaps for power pop purists (boo!), these boys wrote the book on post-hardcore for sure. Good enough (or better than, depending on who you ask) to be as influential SB's second and final release clocks in at under 30 minutes, but even more than their debut, Skag Heaven packs the future of indie rock and the blueprint for post rock right there in that half hour. This band explodes and offers up song after song dense with strange melodies and furious rocking, delicate arrangements and hooks galore. These guys accomplished more in this half hour than most bands do in their entire careers. They may have been POST hardcore, but the hardcore spirit meant you didn't need a 80 minute double album to say your piece, short and sharp, and pretty darn near perfect. Maybe more twin-guitar buzz this time around, more refined songwriting (without giving up the innovation OR the aggression),Ôsome of the best drumming EVER, and vocals that show real angst and depth without devolving into that indie sad boy whine. All this andÔstill not one member legally old enough to purchase alcohol!

MPEG stream: Virgil's Return
MPEG stream: Choose Your Poison

We ranted and raved about the mighty Bastro a few lists back, and almost as if planned, both records by the band that would become Bastro get re-pressed not a few months later We're talking about Squirrel Bait, post punk, pre math rock, a dense mix of massive hooks, a twin guitar attack and raw vocals which manged to be not punk enough for the hardcore kids but too fast and fucked up for the indie rockers resulting in Squirrel Bait being, overlooked andÔTOTALLY UNDERRATED. The pride of Louisville, Kentucky, these guys were LITERALLY just kids when they started this sonic bombast. A bit thrashy perhaps for power pop purists (boo!), these boys wrote the book on post-hardcore for sure. Good enough (or better than, depending on who you ask) to be as influential as Husker Du or the Replacements, but more genuine in their attack as they were young bucks making an unholy racket well beyond their years. Squirrel Bait's debut is a wild and loud messy mix of pop and punk, but this ain't no 'pop punk', this is just a furious blast of mathy, heavy, catchy, hooky, thrashy, sloppy rock and roll. Later folks would call this post-hardcore, post punk, stuff like that, but the truth is, Squirrel Bait were making music that while similar to other groups at the time, was taking chances, and making sounds and writing songs like no one had heard before. It's still fiery and furious and in your face, but amidst all that youthful exuberance, were the bits and pieces that would define a whole generation of post rockers. It's no coincidence that members of Squirrel Bait would go on to play in Slint, Bastro, Gastr Del Sol and The For Carnation. Even to this day, this record sizzles and crackles and sounds as original and innovative as the day it was released!

MPEG stream: The Final Chapter
MPEG stream: Sun God

Here's another great collection of tunes from a band that never quite got its due, Detroit's psych-soulsters SRC. Coming out of the burgeoning Ann Arbor garage scene, SRC (short for Scott Richardson Case, the name of the singer) worked their way up through the rigamarole of early band struggles and of band name and lineup changes before they got signed to Capitol in 1968. Influenced by Motown soul and British Invasion rock like the Yardbirds and the Pretty Things, SRC utilized doomy organ, angelic vocal harmonies, and searing electric guitar with cave stomp beats. Yet being in Detroit in the late sixties amongst heavyweights such as MC5, The Stooges, and the Amboy Dukes, SRC's brand of Brit-inflected soul-psych, though heralded by John Peel in Britain, made little headway in the states. SRC struggled through three albums before calling it a day in 1971. This collection features 19 tracks from their three albums, including the stellar tracks, "Black Sheep", "Daystar" and their classical rip off of the Peer Gynt Suite, "Morning Mood". Essential for fans of The Pretty Things, MC5 and hard psych soul-rock from the fringes!

MPEG stream: Black Sheep
MPEG stream: Daystar
MPEG stream: Paragon's Council

"So. I walked into the record store Aquarius Records in the Mission of San Francisco, this store was manned that day by the mastermind of tUMULt Records, Andee Connors, and I head straight for the water cooler in the Blue Room, where I get involved in a conversation with one of his co-workers. I can't concentrate much on the chat, however, since some quite messed up and wondrous music is flowing out of the Aquarius speakers. I can't quite place the music, and I know that as soon as I approach the counter, I am in for some serious oneupmanship if I can't figure out what I am hearing. It sounded pretty great. Damaged, fractured sounds, not unlike the glorius flow of tonal and atonal that the con-e-sewer [sic] might enjoy on 'Meet The Residents', Nurse With Wound's 'Chance Meeting on a Dissection Table...' Deep Freeze Mice, or even the Homosexuals' more atmospheric stuff. I am just about to place the material as coming from the UK in the late 70's. Some sort of wonderful Rough Trade / Recommended / Fuck Off Records release that I missed out on, and I catch myself and think that what I am hearing has to be American: faint glimmers of Appalachian hillbilly flow through the din... I give up, 'Hey, Andee, what are you listening to?' 'Do you like it?' 'Yeah, it sounds like prime homemade mid-70s slop.' 'It's that fucker Harmony Korine (overrated indie film-maker/scenester) and his pals.' 'Wow. Are you going to put it out?' 'Nope, Omplatten already did.' 'Too bad.' 'Yeah, this *is* great, but I've got that Iran record coming out soon that blows this one away.'" -- directly misquoted from the Omplatten press release. Kidding aside, SSAB Songs is indeed a stumbling, drunken musical homage to all things Ralph, Nurse With Wound, Vertical Slit, made by Gummo auteur Korine. Really great if you can get past the inherent schmooze / scenester / clique-you-could-never-be-a-part-of vibe.

Ruleth is the debut full length from Austin (via LA) goth-gloom synthwrangler Jose Cota and comes courtesy of the always impressive Holodeck label, who in the past have brought us all manner of electronic and abstract weirdness from outfits like Silent Land Time Machine, Good Stuff House, Smokey Emery, Survive and Thousand Foot Whale Claw. Ssleeperhold's sound is definitely a good fit, falling more toward the witch house / grave rave side of the Holodeck spectrum, a sprawling, claustrophobic world of alien synth-wave and eighties style electro-goth synth pop. The opener is dark, and clattery, distorted and darkly heavy, reminding us quite a bit of Soft Moon, all churning gristling synth squiggle, and brittle rhythmic skitter, wreathed in layers of noise and crumbling effects, but then the follow up track, transforms the sound into something much more akin to eighties MTV, pulsing bass buzz, glimmering synth shimmer, poppy and dreamily washed out, and the whole record seems to be a fantastically tense push and pull between the two sides of Cota's musical personality, minimal dystopian dissonance, a sort of sci-fi cyborg dark synth dirgery, and more blissed out (but still weirdly eerie) electro pop. The two part "Timeghosts" deftly balances the two, draping some lilting melodies over a churning field of pulsing industrial buzz, an chopped up vox, the first part a tranced out minimal loopscape, the second a super tripped out score to some alternate universe planetarium show, atonal and fractured, a twisted bit of avant synthscapery, that leads us right into the darkly dreamy brooder "Ashes", which again pairs a percolating melody, to some weird hissy noise, and wraps it in clouds of grinding hiss and static, the glimmering warmth of main melody just barely keeping the ominous noisiness at bay. "F.I.S.T." is a fierce blast of Soft Moon style electro-goth synth buzz moodiness, the rhythms distorted and crunchy, draped over thick swells of buzzing bass, and peppered with FX drenched percussive splatter, less a song, than a chunk of tranced out sonic mesmer, eighties industrial by way of modern retro gloom punk. The record finishes with another two parter, "Dreamwaves", the first half all melancholy synth buzz and stuttery rhythmic skitter, loping and woozily washed out, distorted but sort of blissed out, the vibe super cinematic, evoking long brightly lit hallways, running endlessly through abandoned space stations, the galaxy sprawling endlessly outside the windows, a sort of spaced out witch house, that culminates in a more melodic, moody synth pop outro, sounding a bit like the soundtrack to the above mentioned lost in space, trapped in an abandoned space station art house flick, playing on as the credits crawl, wistful, and minor key, a little bit haunting, and darkly lovely. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!

MPEG stream: Ruleth
MPEG stream: Beatslave
MPEG stream: Timeghosts I
MPEG stream: F.I.S.T.

With cover art and lettering by free improv legend Peter Brotzmann, you might expect skronkity-skronk improv from this drums and guitar duo, and yes it's improv, but not nearly so skronky as some can be, instead being something rather more massively, miasmically mesmeric. The guitarist unfurling moody jet airplane drones (sounding a bit like Brotzmann's son, Caspar, or maybe Keiji Haino) is none other than SUNNO)))'s Stephen O'Malley, while the endlessly riffing percussionist is one of O'Malley's bandmates in abstract ensemble Aethenor, Steve Nobel, the noted British avant-garde drummer and one time member of Rip, Rig & Panic. Recorded at the St. Francis De Sales Church, Philadelphia, the two long tracks here reveal O'Malley and Nobel to be well suited improvising partners, neither of 'em hogging the proceedings, O'Malley providing a billowing cloud of amp worshipping drones for Nobel to punctuate with nervous cymbal shimmer and propulsive freeform thwap thwap. It's all purely texture and arrhythmic exploration, of ominous & hypnotic proportions. Fyi, vinyl version forthcoming as well.

MPEG stream: 1

So we've worked are way backwards with the recent reissues of great British folkstress Bridget St John. A couple lists ago we reviewed her most pop and upbeat release Thank You For..., then last time it was the ever so lush and orchestrated '71 release Songs For The Gentle Man and this time we focus on her debut, 1969's Ask Me No Questions. An outing that's the most stripped down of her first three albums. Produced by her biggest supporter, John Peel, this was by and large a totally solo affair. Her totally beautiful voice and sparse guitar instrumentation help create an overall somber and peaceful mood that is usually so hard to get so right, but St. John demonstrates that she knew so well how to evoke those sentiments without hitting people over the head, instead slowly wandering and tiptoeing her way through leaves and trees and finding beauty, truth and sadness along the way. The reissue of this debut also contains two bonus tracks including a stunning cover of Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne." These recent reissues have proven she is worthy of that spot in your record collections next to Nick Drake, Vashti Bunyan and Marianne Faithfull, voices that are timeless and always ring so true and wise.

MPEG stream: To B Without A Hitch
MPEG stream: Curl Your Toes
MPEG stream: I Like To Be With You In The Sun

We've been so happy that Cherry Red has made available some of the wonderful records of late '60s early '70s UK folkstress Bridget St. John. Last time we listed the wonderful Thank You For... and this time it's the lush sounds of Songs For The Gentle Man that we have been swept away by. This is for sure one of her most beautiful albums. Teamed up with producer Ron Geesin who she was introduced to by their mutual friend John Peel (his record label Dandelion originally released this in '71). Geesin's production was such a perfect match for the breezy and beautiful sound of St. John's voice. He actually co-wrote one side of Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother as well as making lots of interesting, challenging records of his own. The lush arrangements on this record will make you think of Vashti Bunyan more so then maybe any of St. John's albums. There is that same gentleness meets strength in her voice that listen after listen sinks deeper into our ears. We've got a feeling that Isobel Campbell might have been a big Bridget St. John fan as so many of these songs remind us of Campbell's contribution to early Belle & Sebastian records. Not a weak song in the whole bunch and her take on the Donovan penned "The Pebble and the Man" is pretty damn irresistible... as is this entire album. Highly recommended!

MPEG stream: A Day A Way
MPEG stream: The Pebble And The Man

Another great British folk re-discovery! Bridget St John was on the scene during the late 60's/early 70's and recorded just a handful of albums. A few of which were originally released on John Peel's Dandelion label. Luckily Cherry Red has gotten a hold of the original reels so those of us who missed out first time around can finally hear what we missed. And wow what a great voice and presence she had! She had this great ability to be both delicate and breezy, recalling the best of her contemporaries like Nick Drake and Vashti Bunyan while dipping her feet a bit more in carefree wind-in-her hair styling. Her voice also reminds us a lot of Marianne Faithfull and even at times Nico on a sunny day with a smile on her face. Some of the standout tracks on the record like "Fly High", "Lazarus" (which was her sort of hit), "Silver Coin", "Thank You For.." are the kinds of songs you know will be on every mix tape (ok...mix cd) that we make this year. So nice when songs recorded 34 years ago can still resonate so strongly in the present moment. Oh that's called timeless...and that's what this record is!

MPEG stream: Fly High
MPEG stream: Thank You For...

Limited to 300 copies and originally released WAY back in 1998, a handful of these copies somehow survived the last decade, stowed away in some storage space, amazing for the fact that the sleeves are made out of sheets of Nori (sushi seaweed wrap) and thus most of the pressing was eaten by mice. But we snagged the last copies ever of this document of late nineties angular deconstructed art pop, featuring members of such art rock luminaries as Deerhoof, Comets on Fire, The Curtains, The Lowdown and Open City. Angular guitar scrape and jangle, stumbling drums, weird warbly vocals, all sort of off kilter and homespun. Fans of Deerhoof will especially dig this. We only have 10 copies and then this is gone for good!

Though some have accused her of getting by on cuteness alone (this being St Vincent's second record and the second to feature Annie Clark's face on the cover), Ms. Clark really is a damn good songwriter. Actor features more lush layers than Marry Me (St. Vincent's first record) and also a few heavier moments (just a few, though). If listening to this record on headphones, be prepared to close your eyes and float away.

MPEG stream: The Strangers
MPEG stream: Actor Out Of Work

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

SORRY. RSD release.

Here we have the debut from St. Vincent (aka: Anni Clark), who for years has lived in the shadows as one of many members of The Polyphonic Spree and a member of Sufjan Steven's band. It seems Clark hasn't just stepped out of the background, she's plunged head first (playing more than a dozen instruments on the record) into the creation of a lush wall of sound. Clark's voice may be most readily compared to that of Beth Gibbons (Portishead), and on her more upbeat tracks one can imagine that St. Vincent may be what Portishead would sound like a bit less digitized and intense. There is definitely a nod to Sufjan's musical style present here (she did help create it after all!). That is to say that dashing horns, lush strings, a sweet chorus, and many musical accessories that often fall to the wayside (vibraphone, clavieta, dulcimer, triangle, etc.) add a brisk, rich quirkiness to some songs. She seems to have incorporated a little breathing room by interspersing "Human Racing," a more stripped down frolicking soft pop track and, "We Put A Pearl In The Ground," a short piano interlude. In short, Marry Me is a wonderfully orchestrated and beautifully executed record that we highly recommend, particularly for fans of Portishead, Sufjan Stevens, Broadcast, PJ Harvey, Amy Winehouse, and Rufus Wainwright.

MPEG stream: Now Now
MPEG stream: Paris Is Burning

Most of us had been on the fence about St. Vincent up until this point. We definitely appreciated that she had a nice voice, but her records always seemed a bit middling to us. It wasn't until Andee saw her play on a late night TV show, covering BIG BLACK (!!) and was totally blown away by her performance, that we decided to give this new record a close listen, and damn we're glad we did cuz this is a really interesting and awesome album. Way more complex, eclectic and unique than we expected. With a voice that's equal parts Elizabeth Fraser, Kate Bush, and Sinead O'Connor, and guitar playing that is so rad and even dizzyingly dense at times, and songs that take unexpected twists and turns. In fact, there are even a couple songs here where she seriously shreds and it's like this awesome melding of Marnie Stern and Cocteau Twins. We also really dig how there are these very '90s indie rock moments on the record that could have been from a Helium album. We're glad that we gave this record a chance, because it's turning into one of our new favorites.

MPEG stream: Chloe In The Afternoon
MPEG stream: Cheerleader
MPEG stream: Year Of The Tiger

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

SORRY. NOW WITH BONUS DVD! Most of us had been on the fence about St. Vincent up until this point. We definitely appreciated that she had a nice voice, but her records always seemed a bit middling to us. It wasn't until Andee saw her play on a late night TV show, covering BIG BLACK (!!) and was totally blown away by her performance, that we decided to give this new record a close listen, and damn we're glad we did cuz this is a really interesting and awesome album. Way more complex, eclectic and unique than we expected. With a voice that's equal parts Elizabeth Fraser, Kate Bush, and Sinead O'Connor, and guitar playing that is so rad and even dizzyingly dense at times, and songs that take unexpected twists and turns. In fact, there are even a couple songs here where she seriously shreds and it's like this awesome melding of Marnie Stern and Cocteau Twins. We also really dig how there are these very '90s indie rock moments on the record that could have been from a Helium album. We're glad that we gave this record a chance, because it's turning into one of our new favorites.

MPEG stream: Chloe In The Afternoon
MPEG stream: Cheerleader
MPEG stream: Year Of The Tiger

With Cold Cave crashing into a baroque mania on their Cherish The Light Years album, it's good to see a retro-garde minimal wave band properly filtering the wheat from the chaff when it comes to all of the references of '80 synth-pop. For all of the fetishization of antiquated sounds, one has to be very aware that for every great Human League, OMD, Depeche Mode record there were dozens that were truly horrible. And that's what makes the retro-synth-minimal-wave thing so appealing, since the most evocative, the most decadent, the darkest attributes of what came out of that entire history of music should be the goals for this schizophrenic recombination of tropes. Perhaps even more so than fellow Wierd recording artists Xeno & Oaklander, Staccato Du Mal totally gets that, finding some pretty great references to stitch together in his studio, overflowing we'd imagine with analog keyboards, step sequencers, modular synths, patchbays, and the like. Throughout all of the electronics on Sin Destino, you'll hear the ghosts in the machine from the lo-tech synth wunderkammer that is Throbbing Gristle's "United", the mechanoid alienation of Nocturnal Emissions' album Drowning In A Sea Of Bliss (especially the second half of that album), Dark Day's post no-wave synth excursions on Exterminating Angel, the proto-industrial adventures which sporadically detoured Harmonia, and even the cybernetic rhythmic electro of Adult and Model 500. Vocals are sporadic, always distorted, blurred, and buried in the mix, and Staccato Du Mal sounds all the better when nothing is said at all, as the synths in their dark arpeggiations, funereal atmospheres, and icy melodies are more than strong enough to stand on their own, and even expand into a darkly cosmic mindfucks as well. Super recommended!

MPEG stream: Walls Fade
MPEG stream: Salvation Through Suffering
MPEG stream: Happy Endings

New split from former aQ Record Of The Weeker Stacian, who delivers two tripped out kosmische synth workouts that sound like alien Kraftwerk, pulsing and tranced out, the tons in constant flux, locked into stiff robotic grooves, but then occasionally growing all slippery and squiggly, and then the vocals come in, weird processed, FX heavy bellows, drifting above the field of bleeps and bloops below, but somehow transforming the blessed out sci-fi synthiness into some weird fractured future pop, dizzying and drone and druggy and divine. The second track on the Stacian side slips into something a bit more lo-fi and new wave-y, all primitive drum machines, and sing songy synth melodies, but all the sounds distorted and crunchy, a little crumbly, the vibe melancholy and minor key, a little wistful, some sad robot, drifting through space, alone for eternity, and then again, the vocals, now pitched down to a Scott Walker like croon, make this some sort of interstellar torch song, epic and majestic, a sprawling slab of downer space pop that sounds like it could easily not just be from another galaxy, but also another time, like some lost eighties artifact that could have been a reissue on Medical or Dark Entries! Gel Set, who we've previously heard on a split with Windbreaker, delves into something sonically similar, weaving a minimal cold wave electro pop from squelchy synths, minimal programmed drums, what sounds almost like tablas, and some haunting processed vocals, again that sound pitched down into some spooky spectral croon. The background synths get more and more active, soon all tangled up into intricate melodies, wound around a roiling dark pop murk. The second track gets a bit more electro/new wave, sounding like it might have been transported from some alternate universe eighties MTV, but something went wrong in the process, rendering the resulting sound more woozy and warped, slowed down, and a bit sonically smeary, a hazy, gauzy, drowsy and druggy electro space pop that is definitely a good fit with Stacian. The coolest/weirdest track might be the close, which is super stripped down and percussive, moody and murky, rhythmic and -almost- funky, almost like some alien electro / hip-hop, but slowed down, and pulled apart, and stretched way out, the vocals here too a deep moan buried in the mix, it's all about the beat, and the rhythms, and it ends way too soon, would have happily listened to a whole record of this sort of warbly, alien electro-kraut space-hop! LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Each one hand numbered. Housed in cool metallic silver on matte black sleeves.

What's that breezy '80s vibe tickling your ears? Might it be Todd Stadtman's debut album Only I Can Save You? Filled with pretty-pretty pop melodies, Stadtman's suitably sensitive boy vocals and a gauzy blend of acoustic and electronic layers'n'loops, at times it's reminiscent of The Style Council (circa "My Everchanging Moods", check out the second song "Something Less Than Tenderness") and Casiotone For The Painfully Alone. Or you might even imagine a lower-fi younger brother of David Sylvian (at least in comparison to Sylvian's most recent Blemish album). The songwriting of his more structured songs is seemingly inspired by the smart popsmith likes of XTC's Andy Partridge and Elvis Costello, while the less song-y ones are more along the lines of Dntel or something from the Morr Music label. A nice and sweet how-do-you-do!

MPEG stream: Something Less Than Tenderness
MPEG stream: String Of Pearls

...Eignast Jeppa is total la-la-la music without any la-la-las. Instrumental drifting bliss-out from the frosty, mystic isle of Iceland -- although it's a lot warmer sounding than that land of origin might suggest. And I don't think we're guilty of any cheap comparisons when we say: for fans of Sigur Ros. Indeed, for folks who aren't fans of Sigur Ros too, 'cause there's none of those sappy vocals that put us off Sigur Ros a bit here at AQ, just some quiet whispers now and then. It's just lovely lovely stuff in a post-rock vein that could be from the Temporary Residence camp, or perhaps the work of Sweden's Bjorn Olsson, or an echo of krautrock duo Cluster from decades past. Epic yet snuggly. This is but one of *three* new albums by Stafraenn Hakon, the solo project of one Olafur Josephsson, with the other two being released by the UK's Resonant label (one's out already and will be reviewed here next time, the other should be out soon too). This one's his first, though, having been originally released on cd-r in Iceland in 2002 but now out domestically on cd with 2 extra tracks via the Secret Eye label run by folks from Black Forest/Black Sea. Josephsson records on a 4-track in his basement, layering guitars and melodica over sparse drum loops, all very mellow and pretty. Whenever we play any Stafraenn Hakon in the store, somebody always asks what it is and buys a copy (or at least asks to write down the name for future purchasing reference). A very nice discovery.

MPEG stream: Vomiz
MPEG stream: Silfurgeitungur

Today on my way to lunch I passed a pretty young woman singing softly to a small child cradled in her arms, as she walked down a leafy sun-lit street in the neighborhood of Aquarius. What could better express the gentle joy of life? Perhaps the lovely music of Iceland's Stafraenn Hakon. Hopefully you're already familar with -- and maybe a fan of -- Stafraenn Hakon from our recent reviews of his two previous releases. This new disc, his second for Resonant, is yet more warm and comforting music situated somewhere between instrumental 'post-rock' and new age ambient. Melodic lullabies built from gentle guitar drift, piano chiming, and unobtrusive percussion take what time they need to unfold in Stafraenn Hakon's mild, magical, and a little bit melancholic soundworld. Sooo blissful. We always mention Sigur Ros in our Stafraenn Hakon reviews and we'll do so here again, not just 'cause of the Iceland connection but because for whatever reason this seems like a natural for anyone who likes Sigur Ros...

MPEG stream: Hvarf
MPEG stream: Skortur

Well it says right on the shrinkwrap sticker that this is "mellow, instrumental post-rock so freaking lovely...Sigur Ros move over". Hmm, can't really argue with that since it's quote from the Aquarius review of one of this Icelandic one-man-band's other albums! He's now back with his third Resonant label full-length, and if you liked the gentle sounds made previously by Stafraenn Hakon (aka Olafur Josephsson) you'll undoubtedly swoon for this disc as well, especially if you thought his music should be even more sweet and lush and blissful, 'cause that's where he's going with this. But there's a certain sadness inherent in his compositions that keeps them from ever getting too treacle-y. Gauzy ambient shimmer melts over organic instruments and some shuffling, vaguely glitchy electronic beats, as this album-length lullaby drifts by, pleasant and glorious. Though it may seem like this artist has cranked out a lot of releases lately, this is actually his first 'new' material recorded in two years! We're glad to see he's still in top form.

MPEG stream: Unnar
MPEG stream: Gorecki Magnus

This here is the second solo album by Mr. Moe Staiano aka Sleepytime Gorilla Museum's found percussionist. Frantic, dizzying and cacaphonous, but not without its elements of structure surfacing every now and again to make the explosions of mayhem all the more impactful. Hyper spurts of music boxes, food pans, oil barrels, sheet metal, brake drums, plastic horns, slide whistles and numerous other objects (yes, including a kitchen sink!) as well as the more conventional guitars, cellos, bass, thumb pianos, contrabass, vibraphones, drum machines, clarinets, musical saws, theremin and drums. There's some seriously twisted yet totally tight rhythmic interludes going on here - just as we've come to expect from Sleepytime G.M. not to mention their previous spectacular incarnation Idiot Flesh. Other slower, more haunting/haunted moments that take place deeper into the album brought to mind Nurse With Wound and Mr. Bungle. These tracks were actually recorded back in 97/98, but are just now seeing their release. However, Staiano does acknowledge this tardiness in his liner notes: "This is a Late album. It is dedicated to those who wait." A wonderfully bizarre listen.

MPEG stream: Al Capone Died Of Syphilis
MPEG stream: Encompassed

Moe! Staiano (former member of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum) is one heck of a dynamic avant percussionist and soundscaper who exercises restraint in both composition and performance, but he's an uncorkable fountain of recordings (as not only a solo artist, but also a collaborator and in his improv ensemble Moe!kestra). He's so prolific that it's hard to keep up with all of his activities. We're trying our best tho'! Inspired by the Dada and Surrealist movements, Staiano's music incorporates found object percussion instruments be they pots, pans, pipes, cooking utensils, industrial machinery or children's toys. Recorded in two separate sessions, this is his first album of purely solo improvisations. Over the course of this sixty two minute long album, Staiano moves deftly through cacophonous, sonically crowded spaces into stark, serene minimalism and back again.

MPEG stream: Three Legs
MPEG stream: Forfeit Breathing