[ aquarius records — Rock Pop ]

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Hey all right, now a couple years after the cd reissue, the UK's Acme label has also pressed this on vinyl! No BBC bonus tracks here though, just the original album. Some of what we said 'bout it before: We KNOW this is gonna be one that the legions of AQ customers into psych, prog and other late sixties/early seventies heaviness will want. And even if that's not one of your primary musical specialties, this would be a good choice to check out anyway if at all curious. British psych/prog power trio T2 released this one amazing album on Decca in 1970, the bizarrely-titled It'll All Work Out In Boomland. Somehow, that lp didn't make much of an impact at the time (although the band did play the Isle of Wight Festival) and has pretty much been forgotten by all except obsessive psych/prog record collectors. Until now, it's been pretty hard to come by - the previous cd reissues we know of were either crappy bootlegs or rare, expensive Japanese imports. We've always wanted to list it, though. T2, composed of drummer/vocalist/songwriter Peter Dunton, guitar whizz Keith Cross, and bassist Bernard Jinks, played HEAVY psychedelic bluesrock (a la Cream, Hendrix, Blue Cheer), mixed with progressive stylings (incorporating acoustic guitar, piano, mellotron, strings). Their songs combine Cross's big fuzzed-out hard rock riffs and psych-skronk leads with mellow, melancholic pretty parts and Dunton's gentle, whispery vocals. Very melodic yet heavy, totally classy and special. For instance, the song "No More White Horses" perfectly weaves amped up electric guitar feedback fury into a tasteful tapestry that also glows with lovely piano and majestic horns. Boomland also features T2's side-long, 21+ minute long masterpiece "Morning", a massive, memorable epic of many moods, a track meant to musically and lyrically describe (or potentially enhance?) an LSD trip, as the text and elaborate diagram included underneath the cd tray explains! There's two other songs on the album proper, the storming opener "In Circles" (which reminds us of stuff on Stray's first album, if you know 'em) and the calmer, exquisitely beautiful "J.L.T.", replete with lush orchestration. Definitely one of the best bands from those magical years of the early '70s! Certainly one that should be better known. Do you dig the fuzzy, proto-metal heft of the aforementioned Blue Cheer? And also heavy progressive Krautrock stuff like Amon Duul II, Gila, Necronomicon, and Out Of Focus? Well kinda put those two together and you'll have some idea of T2's genius. Or imagine Randy Holden's Population II project gone all symphonic. Also, if you're into early, pastoral British psych/prog like In The Court-era King Crimson, Wishbone Ash, or the more obscure Bachdenkel then you need to hear T2! And for weird, psychedelic cover paintings, this is up there with Culpeper's Orchard, another lost '70s heavy druggy psych classic that we could compare this with musically as well. Boomland is the kind of thing that turns up in the personal "Top 10 of All Time" lists of those lucky enough to have heard it.

MPEG stream: In Circles
MPEG stream: No More White Horses
MPEG stream: Morning

We KNOW this is gonna be one that the legions of AQ customers into psych, prog and other late sixties/early seventies heaviness will want. And even if that's not one of your primary musical specialties, this would be a good choice to check out anyway if at all curious. British psych/prog power trio T2 released this one amazing album on Decca in 1970, the bizarrely-titled It'll All Work Out In Boomland. Somehow, that LP didn't make much of an impact at the time (although the band did play the Isle of Wight Festival) and has pretty much been forgotten by all except obsessive psych/prog record collectors. Until now, it's been pretty hard to come by - the previous cd reissues we know of were either crappy bootlegs or rare, expensive Japanese imports. We've always wanted to list it, though. So we're very happy that the Lion Productions (US) and Acme Gramophone (UK) labels have just teamed up to put out this nice new reish, which boasts three bonus tracks as well! T2, composed of drummer/vocalist/songwriter Peter Dunton, guitar whizz Keith Cross, and bassist Bernard Jinks, played HEAVY psychedelic bluesrock (a la Cream, Hendrix, Blue Cheer), mixed with progressive stylings (incorporating acoustic guitar, piano, mellotron, strings). Their songs combine Cross's big fuzzed-out hard rock riffs and psych-skronk leads with mellow, melancholic pretty parts and Dunton's gentle, whispery vocals. Very melodic yet heavy, totally classy and special. For instance, the song "No More White Horses" perfectly weaves amped up electric guitar feedback fury into a tasteful tapestry that also glows with lovely piano and majestic horns. Boomland also features T2's side-long, 21+ minute long masterpiece "Morning", a massive, memorable epic of many moods, a track meant to musically and lyrically describe (or potentially enhance?) an LSD trip, as the text and elaborate diagram included underneath the cd tray explains! There's two other songs on the album proper, the storming opener "In Circles" (which reminds us of stuff on Stray's first album, if you know 'em) and the calmer, exquisitely beautiful "J.L.T.", replete with lush orchestration. Definitely one of the best bands from those magical years of the early '70s! Certainly one that should be better known. Do you dig the fuzzy, proto-metal heft of the aforementioned Blue Cheer? And also heavy progressive Krautrock stuff like Amon Duul II, Gila, Necronomicon, and Out Of Focus? Well kinda put those two together and you'll have some idea of T2's genius. Or imagine Randy Holden's Population II project gone all symphonic. Also, if you're into early, pastoral British psych/prog like In The Court-era King Crimson, Wishbone Ash, or the more obscure (but recently highlighted here) Bachdenkel then you need to hear T2! And for weird, psychedelic cover paintings, this is up there with Culpeper's Orchard, another lost '70s heavy druggy psych classic that we could compare this with musically as well. Boomland is the kind of thing that turns up in the personal "Top 10 of All Time" lists of those lucky enough to have heard it. This is an official reissue, done up deluxe with those bonus tracks (live BBC Radio sessions from '70, including two non-album songs among them) and a thick cd booklet crammed with insanely extensive liner notes (excerpted from a book about the album or something) that discuss not just T2's history but also provide in-depth examination of Boomland's songs in regard to both the lyrics and the musical theory behind the compositions. Talk about prog! This goes even beyond the usual thorough Acme/Lion packaging treatment. Highly recommended.

MPEG stream: In Circles
MPEG stream: No More White Horses
MPEG stream: Morning

British psych/prog power trio T2 released one amazing album on Decca in 1970, the bizarrely-titled "It'll All Work Out In Boomland". That LP didn't make much of an impact at the time (although the band did play the Isle of Wight Festival) and has T2, composed of drummer/vocalist/songwriter Peter Dunton, guitar whizz Keith Cross, and bassist Bernard Jinks, played HEAVY psychedelic bluesrock (a la Cream, Hendrix, Blue Cheer), mixed with progressive stylings (acoustic guitar, piano, mellotron, orchestration). Dunton's songs combine big fuzzed-out hard rock riffs and Cross' psych-skronk leads with mellow, melancholic pretty parts and gentle, whispery vocals. Very melodic, very heavy yet beautiful, totally classy and special. Definitely one of the best bands from those magical years of the early '70s! (If you dig the aforementioned Blue Cheer, and can imagine them crossed with heavy progressive Krautrock stuff like Gila and Amon Duul II, or even early, pastoral British psych/prog like King Crimson, you've got some idea about the genius of T2.) The seven tracks on this self-titled, 45 minute cd were recorded in 1970, intended as the follow-up to "Boomland" -- but the band broke up and this material languished in the vaults until this cd release. Had it come out at the time, who knows -- maybe people would have caught on and T2 would be more than just a cult band today. But, that's the way it is, and here's your chance to join the cult...

RealAudio clip: Highway
RealAudio clip: Careful Sam
RealAudio clip: Fantasy

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

SORRY. The Orchestra includes Mike Watt, Nels Cline and a fellow from Drive Like Jehu.

They had us at Taco Leg. These Aussie garage rockers lay down a sort of swaggery low slung garage punk, that's super simple, skeletal and stripped down, there's some serious Stooges worship going on, but it sounds like the guitar player is not playing ANY chords, just single notes, which gives the sound a really weird vibe, but we dig it, that combined with the caveman drum plod makes this another one of those records we would have expected to discover via Brian Turner's show on WFMU. Total outsider garage punk thudrock that kills. Apparently at some point on their most recent US tour, someone told the band they sounded like punk rockers Fang, so after figuring out who the Fuck fang was, they decided to cover a Fang song, and deliver a pretty kick ass version of Fang's "The Money Will Roll Right In", all dirgey and blown out, and it sounds like maybe the guitarist decided to play chords, or at the very least, stomped on a distortion pedal, it's dirgey and swampy and punky and is pretty much a perfect Taco Leg cover. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!

Besides having one of the best band names EVER, Aussie punks Taco Leg also kick out some serious, and seriously twisted jams. Twelve tracks in less that twenty minutes, of raw, low-fi, post punk garage rock radness, simple riffing, stumbling rudimentary drumming, and tranced out monochromatic vocals, catchy as fuck, but constantly on the verge of collapse. The label jokes that this is the record where they finally figured out how to play their instruments, tongue partially in cheek we imagine, but it definitely sounds like that's precisely what happened, in fact, some might argue, maybe the next record is where that actually happens, but it's that ragged what the fuck looseness that gives these stripped down jams a weird sort of urgency. Check out the plodding, riffy churn of "I Can't Decide", that almost sounds like a garage punk version of the Shadow Ring, in fact, the more we listen to this, the whole record sort of sounds like the Shadow Ring, maybe crossed with the Fall, via some super obscure underground Aussie punk rock outfit from the seventies. But back to "I Can't Decide", holy shit, some of THEE most loose and fucked up drumming ever, totally twisted, but fucking perfect. We're reminded of black metal sorta-surf weirdos Varghokoghargasmal too, the same sort of inspired stumble and shambolic genius. It's almost like a punk rock Shaggs, or something. So fucking great!

MPEG stream: I Can't Decide
MPEG stream: Raiders
MPEG stream: Shut It Down
MPEG stream: Across The Park
MPEG stream: Shadow Pal

Lost Time, the third slab of power pop by Seattle's Tacocat, is a stunner of a record. The lead song, an homage to Scully from the X-Files, perfectly sets up the quirky cleverness implicit in Tacocat's approach. Drawing heavily from the riot grrl back-catalog, Tacocat unapologetically takes the listener back to the 1990s. Their songs are catchy as hell, dancing is almost inevitable once you put the record on, but the smart, sometimes hilarious lyrics make you want to really listen. After hearing one of their songs on the radio a few weeks ago (the appropriately named "Horse Grrls") we were completely hooked. It has a simple, no-frills verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure, the chorus double-timed and impossible not to nod your head to. An absolutely perfect punk rock song. Anyone who liked the excellent self-titled record by Feels reviewed a few lists ago will want this too. Highly recommended!

MPEG stream: Dana Katherine Scully
MPEG stream: Plan A, Plan B
MPEG stream: Horse Grrls

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

SORRY.

TAD!!! Fuck yeah! We've long championed grunge around here. Green River, Mother Love Bone, Afghan Whigs, Mudhoney, Rein Sanction, Nirvana, and most of the grunge obsessives here were members of the Sub Pop single of the month club, and cherish records by The Fluid, Blood Circus, Malfunkshun, Love Battery, Soundgarden, Screaming Trees, Cat Butt, The U-Men, Skin Yard, Gruntruck, Swallow, Green Magnet School, Les Thugs, Pond, Sprinkler and loads more, many of whom only released one or two 7"s. Grunge quickly became a bad word, as the mainstream caught on, and suddenly it was a movement, a style of dressing, a movie with Matt Dillon, but it never took away from how powerful the music was, a sloppy, glammy punky mix of garage rock, heavy metal and punk rock, with huge heapings of POP mixed in. And no one did it better, or heavier, than Tad. Tad Doyle the man, fronted TAD the band, one of the coolest of the grunge crop. As heavy and intense as any of the other bands at the time, but with a surprising amount of musical complexity, not to mention killer hooks galore. Plus they were just such a cool and weird looking band. Outside of the Screaming Trees, you were not gonna see another HUGE long haired dude fronting a killer rock band. And they played up the whole scary mountain man, right down to the song titles ("Wood Goblins") to the promo photos, that were almost always in the woods, and Tad almost always seemed to be brandishing a chainsaw. When we discovered there was a documentary about Tad, we were so psyched. We also wondered how a whole movie about Tad would play out, since they weren't a hugely Behind The Music worthy outfit, nobody died, nobody O.D.'d, minimal bad blood between ex-band members, they never got HUGELY popular, they sort of just plugged along. But thankfully the movie is super fun, and super watchable, due in no small part to the fact that Tad is super fucking charming. As is his bandmate Kurt Danielson. They talk about all the different records, their co-headlining tour in Europe with Nirvana, the 8-Way Santa record cover lawsuit, their first major label experience, resulting in being dropped midtour, and their second, with the same result, the "Jack Pepsi" lawsuit, lots of drinking, smoking pot, drugs, interviews with Mark Arm of Mudhoney, Krist Novoselic from Nirvana, Bruce and Jonathan who ran Sub Pop, but most importantly, so much rocking. Amazing live footage of Tad in action, the band were a powerhouse, and Tad's between song banter was funny as shit, and it's amazing to see Tad leaping into terrified crowds. We even watched it with someone who wasn't all that into Tad or grunge, and they thoroughly enjoyed it as well. Maybe not as much as us. For some reason Tad elicits all sorts of fanboy adoration in even the most jaded of rockers. Might be because they always seemed like underdogs, and they always seemed like cool guys too, but most importantly they just completely RULED. One of the grunge bands that almost all heavy music lovers seem to completely dig. This dvd had us going nuts relistening to all our Tad records, and even suddenly wanting to track down the last two major label records as well. One of our favorite music dvds of the year for sure. And if that weren't enough, it also includes all the Tad videos, which like Tad, the man AND the band, completely rule.

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

SORRY.

Not sure why this never got listed, but if it had, we definitely wouldn't have any left. A killer match up, one man drone against blown out psych rock trio. A deluxe vinyl version of a long out of print cd-r. Heavy winged kick up some serious shit with their sidelong jam, freaked out andheavy as fuck, a serious sonic pumelling for sure. Taiga Remains offers up a gorgeous thick fuzzed out dronescape, and tacks on a bonus track not on the original cd-r. Packaged in over the top hand screened vinyl sleeves with cut out triangular stickers artfully arranged on top, Pressed on foggy clear vinyl. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES! We're guessing this is probably WAY out of print, we do have 5 or 6 in stock, and odds are that's all we'll ever get...

FINALLY BACK IN STOCK. THE ULTIMATE DRONE RECORD. We love this record so much. The Taj Majal Travellers are so utterly mind blowing. This is a double cd reissue of this legendary Japanese psych ensemble's second lp which has been unavailable for several years now, but when we did have it in stock, if anyone asked about drones, this is the record we would always suggest. One of the most hallowed artifacts of the psych-rock collector scum scene (originals on vinyl could set you back more than $1000!), this album is an epic higher key improvised drone extravaganza, all performed live on beaches and deserted hills in Sweden, India, Iran and England. Slow, complex, irregular throbbing waves of sound, broadcast through distant loudspeakers and recaptured and reincorporated. Feedback, time-space lag, horns, echo machines, and primitive handmade electronic devices all contribute to the ever shifting clouds of sound. So unbearably awesome. And this is not electronic music, or studio based carefully constructed drone music, this is massive and organic, dreamy and natural, waves of sound drifting through sun and sky, rain and fog, trees and electrical wires, the shape of the earth, the temperature, the wind, all affecting the sound, changing the timbre ever so slightly, band members spaced out over hundreds of yards, improvising on an impossible grand scale, the earth as their stage, nature as their recording studio, a deliriously abstract sound world of subtle drones and drifting ambience. Imagine some long hairded seventies Japanese psych rock combo, but filtered through the Jewelled Antler Collective, jamming with Chris Watson, set up on sandy dunes, grassy knolls, forest glades, each not necessarily -playing- their instruments, but instead coaxing sounds from within the instruments, setting those sounds free and sending them skyward, watching it drift downwind, where a bandmate snatches the sounds and coaxes complimentary sounds from his instrument, sending a sonic respone, until these messages, these sounds weave into and around each other, the sky full of warm warbly mysterious sound. Psychedelic for sure, but more a sort of eyes closed, mind open dream drift drone psychedelia. ONE OF OUR ALL TIME FAVORITE RECORDS!!

MPEG stream: 1
MPEG stream: 2

The Taj-Mahal Travellers double cd 'August 1974' has to be one of the most essential drone music documents of the 20th century. Our description of that record describes the Taj Mahal Travellers sound perfectly: "epic higher key improvised drone extravaganzas Three extended tracks of sublime and transcendental musique concrete/drone. Sparse and spacious. With vocals and electronic trumpets augmenting the violin, contrabass, harmonica, sheet iron, castanet, vibraphone, guitar, percussion and radio oscillators. Dreamy and otherworldly, three epic tracks of hum and rumble, squeak and skree, clatter and tinkle envelop you in a completely new world of sound. So essential.

RealAudio clip: Between 6:20-6:46P.M.

This all time aQ psychedelic / drone favorite reissued for the first time on vinyl. One of our favorite groups of all time, whose rare recordings are psych-drone holy grails, we gushed extensively about the (now out of print) cd version ages ago, so for those of you who have somehow yet to discover the transcendental sonic beauty of TMT, or even if you've just been dying for this to come out on vinyl, read on� In the AQ canon of all time essential artists, of groups who have shaped all the music that followed in their wake, somewhere very near the top spot would be Japan's Taj Mahal Travellers. This sprawling seventies�psych drone unit led by Fluxus legend Takehisa Kosugi, were crafting gorgeous abstract drone drenched ambience long before most of the current crop of dronesters were even born.� The Taj Mahal Travellers were masters of the organic, of vibration, texture, timbre, utilizing bowed cymbals, violins, loudspeakers, tape loops and all sorts of unique source material, this collective created some of the�most enduring and unique psychedelic music ever recorded. Their music and performances were the physical embodiment of a philosophy, a way of life more than just simple 'playing music.'� It's hard to imagine the Skaters or Birchville Cat Motel or the Yellow Swans or even Wolf Eyes without the Taj Mahal Travellers. Often referred to by the press as "La Monte Young on acid", in a review of another, unfortunately out of print TMT album, we described their sound as "epic higher key improvised drone extravaganzas performed on beaches, deserted hills in Sweden, India, Iran and England. Slow, complex, irregular throbbing waves of sound, broadcast through distant loudspeakers and recaptured and reincorporated into the sound. Feedback, time-space lag, echo machines, and primitive handmade electronic devices all contribute to the ever shifting clouds of sound."� The music of the Taj Mahal Travellers thought is stubbornly indescribable. No words can possibly do justice to the spirits they were able to invoke, the atmosphere they were able to create, dark and dense and mysterious and ominous, but at the same time beautiful and brilliant and epic and spacious. This double lp features nearly 100 minutes of improvised droning captured live in Stockholm, Sweden in 1971, the group run stand-up bass, tuba, trumpet, select percussion, violin, flutes, mandolin, harmonica and synthesizer, not to mention "suntool" and "electronic technique" through primitive tape loops and delay effects for an awesome ritualistic performance, predating the likes of Zoviet France and about a million others by decades! The live sound is just as amazing as their records, which makes sense since their albums were essentially documents of live aktions.� The first lp is a single nearly hour long low end ritual, strings buzz and reverberate, as do voices, and bits of bowed metals, all beating against each other and creating all manner of cosmic vibrations, all accompanied by simple bells, or a single plucked note repeated over and over. Near the end, the vocals are soaring, and the tones have become long buzzing streaks, with plenty of spacey echo and strange damaged FX, it's hard to hear this and not exactly where Sunburned Hand and No Neck found their inspiration, these guys were creating the same sort of primitive primeval sounds, nearly 4 decades earlier, and with so much depth and emotion. The fact that a music so minimal and abstract can be so utterly moving is testament to the Travellers' unparalleled skill.� The second lp is much less low end rumble, and more a dizzying swirl of strange sonic events, here the horns are in full affect, sounding like a herd of alien elephants, moaning and bleating, the tones stretched out and draped across all manner of lower register rumbles and whirs. Percussion surfacing now and again like an angry rattlesnake roused from a midday nap, or a swirling cloud of tiny buzzing insects. Vocals drift in and out, shamanistic and chant like, moaning out strange melodies, mostly low and throaty but sometimes like curious feline mewling, all intertwined with the various other drawn out sounds. An incredibly intense organic ritual, purified by its intransitive nature, the improvisation guaranteeing that each performance belonged to the time and the place as much as the players. Absolutely and utterly breathtaking. Absolutely essential, and like pretty much ALL Taj Mahal Travellers records, probably more recommended than nearly any other record we've ever reviewed! REALLY!

MPEG stream: Improvisation, Part 1 (excerpt 1)
MPEG stream: Improvisation, Part 1 (excerpt 2)
MPEG stream: Improvisation, Part 2 (excerpt 1)
MPEG stream: Improvisation, Part 2 (excerpt 2)

Yay! Another old favorite finally reissued and back in stock. We first listed this back in 2000, and we still love it more than ever. First we had a Drone Syndicate edition, then a more expensive one on Walhalla, and now the DS version has been repressed, at the same cheaper price (though it lacks the liner notes, photos, and overall fancier packaging of the Wahalla one). In the AQ canon of all time essential artists, of groups who have shaped all the music that followed in their wake, somewhere very near the top spot would be Japan's Taj Mahal Travellers. This sprawling seventies psych drone unit led by Fluxus legend Takehisa Kosugi, were crafting gorgeous abstract drone drenched ambience long before most of the current crop of dronesters were even born. The Taj Mahal Travellers were masters of the organic, of vibration, texture, timbre, utilizing bowed cymbals, violins, loudspeakers, tape loops and all sorts of unique source material, this collective created some of the most enduring and unique psychedelic music ever recorded. Their music and performances were the physical embodiment of a philosophy, a way of life more than just simple 'playing music.' It's hard to imagine the Skaters or Birchville Cat Motel or the Yellow Swans or even Wolf Eyes without the Taj Mahal Travellers. Often referred to by the press as "La Monte Young on acid", in a review of another, unfortunately out of print TMT album, we described their sound as "epic higher key improvised drone extravaganzas performed on beaches, deserted hills in Sweden, India, Iran and England. Slow, complex, irregular throbbing waves of sound, broadcast through distant loudspeakers and recaptured and reincorporated into the sound. Feedback, time-space lag, echo machines, and primitive handmade electronic devices all contribute to the ever shifting clouds of sound." The music of the Taj Mahal Travellers thought is stubbornly indescribable. No words can possibly do justice to the spirits they were able to invoke, the atmosphere they were able to create, dark and dense and mysterious and ominous, but at the same time beautiful and brilliant and epic and spacious. This double cd features nearly 100 minutes of improvised droning captured live in Stockholm, Sweden in 1971, the group (minus Kosugi for some reason) run stand-up bass, tuba, trumpet, select percussion, violin, flutes, mandolin, harmonica and synthesizer through primitive tape loops and delay effects for an awesome ritualistic performance, predating the likes of Zoviet France and about a million others by decades! The live sound is just as amazing as their records, which makes sense since their albums were essentially documents of live aktions. The first disc is a single nearly hour long low end ritual, strings buzz and reverberate, as do voices, and bits of bowed metals, all beating against each other and creating all manner of cosmic vibrations, all accompanied by simple bells, or a single plucked note repeated over and over. Near the end, the vocals are soaring, and the tones have become long buzzing streaks, with plenty of spacey echo and strange damaged FX, it's hard to hear this and not wonder where in the hell Sunburned Hand and No Neck get off, these guys were creating the same sort of primitive primeval sounds, nearly 4 decades earlier, and with so much more depth and emotion. The fact that a music so minimal and abstract can be so utterly moving is testament to the Travellers' unparalleled skill. Disc two is much less low end rumble, and more a dizzying swirl of strange sonic events, here the horns are in full affect, sounding like a herd of alien elephants, moaning and bleating, the tones stretched out and draped across all manner of lower register rumbles and whirs. Percussion surfacing now and again like an angry rattlesnake roused from a midday nap, or a swirling cloud of tiny buzzing insects. Vocals drift in and out, shamanistic and chant like, moaning out strange melodies, mostly low and throaty but sometimes like curious feline mewling, all intertwined with the various other drawn out sounds. An incredibly intense organic ritual, purified by its intransitive nature, the improvisation guaranteeing that each performance belonged to the time and the place as much as the players. Absolutely and utterly breathtaking. Absolutely essential, and probably more recommended than nearly any record we've ever reviewed!

MPEG stream: Improvisation, Part 1 (excerpt 1)
MPEG stream: Improvisation, Part 1 (excerpt 2)
MPEG stream: Improvisation, Part 2 (excerpt 1)
MPEG stream: Improvisation, Part 2 (excerpt 2)

In the AQ canon of all time essential artists, of groups who have shaped all the music that followed in their wake, somewhere very near the top spot would be Japan's Taj Mahal Travellers. This sprawling seventies psych drone unit led by Fluxus legend Takehisa Kosugi, were crafting gorgeous abstract drone drenched ambience long before most of the current crop of dronesters were even born. The Taj Mahal Travellers were masters of the organic, of vibration, texture, timbre, utilizing bowed cymbals, violins, loudspeakers, tape loops and all sorts of unique source material, this collective created some of the most enduring and unique psychedelic music ever recorded. Their music and performances were the physical embodiment of a philosophy, a way of life more than just simple 'playing music.' It's hard to imagine the Skaters or Birchville Cat Motel or the Yellow Swans or even Wolf Eyes without the Taj Mahal Travellers. Often referred to by the press as "La Monte Young on acid", in a review of another, unfortunately out of print TMT album, we described their sound as "epic higher key improvised drone extravaganzas performed on beaches, deserted hills in Sweden, India, Iran and England. Slow, complex, irregular throbbing waves of sound, broadcast through distant loudspeakers and recaptured and reincorporated into the sound. Feedback, time-space lag, echo machines, and primitive handmade electronic devices all contribute to the ever shifting clouds of sound." The music of the Taj Mahal Travellers thought is stubbornly indescribable. No words can possibly do justice to the spirits they were able to invoke, the atmosphere they were able to create, dark and dense and mysterious and ominous, but at the same time beautiful and brilliant and epic and spacious. This double cd features nearly 100 minutes of improvised droning captured live in Stockholm, Sweden in 1971, the group run stand-up bass, tuba, trumpet. select percussion, violin, flutes, mandolin, harmonica and synthesizer through primitive tape loops and delay effects for an awesome ritualistic performance, predating the likes of Zoviet France and about a million others by decades! The live sound is just as amazing as their records, which makes sense since their albums were essentially documents of live aktions. The first disc is a single nearly hour long low end ritual, strings buzz and reverberate, as do voices, and bits of bowed metals, all beating against each other and creating all manner of cosmic vibrations, all accompanied by simple bells, or a single plucked note repeated over and over. Near the end, the vocals are soaring, and the tones have become long buzzing streaks, with plenty of spacey echo and strange damaged FX, it's hard to hear this and not wonder where in the hell Sunburned Hand and No Neck get off, these guys were creating the same sort of primitive primeval sounds, nearly 4 decades earlier, and with so much more depth and emotion. The fact that a music so minimal and abstract can be so utterly moving is testament to the Travellers' unparalleled skill. Disc two is much less low end rumble, and more a dizzying swirl of strange sonic events, here the horns are in full affect, sounding like a herd of alien elephants, moaning and bleating, the tones stretched out and draped across all manner of lower register rumbles and whirs. Percussion surfacing now and again like an angry rattlesnake roused from a midday nap, or a swirling cloud of tiny buzzing insects. Vocals drift in and out, shamanistic and chant like, moaning out strange melodies, mostly low and throaty but sometimes like curious feline mewling, all intertwined with the various other drawn out sounds. An incredibly intense organic ritual, purified by it's intransitive nature, the improvisation guaranteeing that each performance belonged to the time and the place as much as the players. Absolutely and utterly breathtaking. A really nice reissue of this long out of print two disc set, with liner notes, a history of the band, the story of this recording as well as amazing photos. Not sure how long we'll be able to keep these in stock, so please be patient if we run out, and it takes us a while to track down more. Absolutely essential, and probably more recommended that nearly any record we've ever reviewed!

MPEG stream: Improvisation, Part 1 (excerpt 1)
MPEG stream: Improvisation, Part 1 (excerpt 2)
MPEG stream: Improvisation, Part 2 (excerpt 1)
MPEG stream: Improvisation, Part 2 (excerpt 2)

After parting ways with her band The Concretes a few years ago, Victoria Bergsman has since shown the world that she not only possesses one of the most lovely voices around, but also has a musical mind that is as tasteful as it is creative. Her first album as Taken By Trees was nothing short of pure bittersweet pop perfection, and this sophomore effort follows suit with some really tasty twists. The main twist being that she headed to Pakistan to record most of the album with local musicians there which adds such a unique texture to her richly crafted songs. Tablas, flutes, violin, tumha, dholak, etc. all come together with such a free flowing ease and Bergsman's singular touch and vision shines through the entire record. Most folks who embark on similar projects often forget about subtly, and awkwardly inject another region's sounds into their songs with no regard for how the various elements will flow. But Taken By Trees creates that fusion effortlessly, never letting the new sounds overpower the old, a delicate balance achieved so gracefully. With the amazing voice she posses it would be so easy for Bergsman to just make very straight ahead coffee house ready songs, but instead she injects as much thought and passion into the texture of her songs as she does her beautiful vocal delivery. Noah Lennox (aka Panda Bear) also lends his voice to a few tracks, which makes the awesome cover of Animal Collective's "My Girls" (here transformed into "My Boys") even more endearing. Conjuring images of greats like Astrud Gilberto, Taken By Trees really is a true modern day chanteuse.

MPEG stream: Greyest Love Of All
MPEG stream: My Boys
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We've been smitten with Victoria Bergsman ever since she first made the scene with her band The Concretes, whose debut album hit the states via Sweden a few years back. Her enchanting voice and melancholic lyrics just hit the spot so right on. We knew it wouldn't be long until the rest of the world would fall in love with her as well. Last year it was her voice on "Young Folks", the big hit for Peter Bjorn and John that helped get her name out to a wider audience. When the latest Concretes album came out and she was no longer in the band we knew she had to be working on something new. Luckily she was, and it was her new project Taken By Trees. It's a stunningly beautiful album filled with songs that ooze with bittersweet pop perfection. Produced by Bergsman and Bjorn Yttling (of PB&J) the songs are remarkably lush with striking arrangements filled with varied instrumentation including mandolin, harmonium, piano, guitar, zither, flute, synth, and of course the dreamy and mesmerizing voice of Bergsman. Every single song on Open Field takes you on a soft focus daydream filled with heartache, longing and just that perfect dab of honey to make it all go down just right. Bergsman definitely has that special touch very few possess. A sentimental sound that is as timeless as it is breathtaking. It's not a stretch to say that her voice and songs should fit comfortably alongside legends like Francoise Hardy and Dusty Springfield as well as modern day chanteux like Isobel Campbell and Cat Power. A strong contender for pop record of the year!

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Oh how we love Victoria Bergsman. From her days with Swedish indie pop sensations The Concretes to her new life as Taken By Trees nobody does bitter sweet pop as spot on perfect as her! Open Field, her debut full length as Taken By Trees was one of our favorite pop records of last year. This new 45 finds her doing the Guns N' Roses classic on the A side, of course in her trademark somber and pretty style and the B side is a new original track that's oh so short but oh so sweet.

We could find out almost nothing about this bad ass art pop trio from Seattle. Other than, well, they're from Seattle, they're a trio, their record is on the same label that released the Pretty & Nice record, and they were named for some weird executive car developed by Chrysler in the eighties. Oh and apparently the drummer is a teenager who still lives with her Mom (OK, we did find something out about them on the web). The art pop thing we just figured out on our own about 2 seconds after throwing this disc on. The label sent us a press release, but it was jam packed with all sorts of surreal dadaist mumbo jumbo, we sort of wanted to reprint it here, but it's loooooong, and heck, it really has nothing to do with the glorious racket these guys (and gal) kick up. Angular guitars, yelped almost new wave sounding vocals, lots of effects, tons of reverb and delay, some notes and vocal parts get looped and spin off into the ether, the guitars chug and chime and even jangle, the bass is rubbery and has a distinctly Joy Divisiony vibe. The overall sound is jittery and manic, frenetic and frenzied, Bouncy and brittle, lo-fi and off kilter. Lots of early nineties college rock reference points but filtered through the cracked lens of the current lo-fi noise pop movement. Folks into stuff like Wavves, Blank Dogs, Gary War and the like might find TT to their liking as well. Passages get repeated over and over, turning cracked no wave pop into something much more abstract and mesmerizing, songs explode into furious squalls of freaked out mathy blow outs, guitars soaring, drums splattering all over the place, the vocals desperately howling along, hooks are there, but are wrapped in delay and buried in the murky mix, some of the tracks so drenched in effects that they seem to blur before your very ears, only to suddenly snap back into focus and stumble through an awesomely dense tangle of atonal guitar and stuttery drum damage. Warm synths warble woozily, draped over crunchy riffage and sea sick melodies, the whole record a sprawling chaotic swirl of fractured pop, that we can't seem to stop listening to.

MPEG stream: Mixed Signals Through Miles Of Pilgrimage
MPEG stream: Ichthus Hop
MPEG stream: Bounty Hunter
MPEG stream: Solar Puppets

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SORRY. Awesome band name for sure! We were dying to hear these guys before we had any idea what they might sound like. And they do sort of sound like the name, explanation point and all. A whirling dervish of a three piece, Matthew Mottel on synth, Kevin Shea (Coptic Light, Storm And Stress) on drums and Ed Bear on baritone saxophone and electronics. The presence of Kevin Shea should give you a hint as to what you're in for. His spastic, impossibly octopoidal drum splatter is all over this disc, a stuttering spastic free jazz soundscape dense and impenetrable. Above this tangled percussive squall, the synth and the sax do battle. And this is a serious fucking knock down drag out battle to the death. The synth seems to come out on top turning what could have been more of a free jazz record into a seriously fucked up freenoise record. Mottel is like Keith Emerson on a serious PCP bender, spitting out thick snarling sheets of synth buzz, spraying it like machine gun fire, melodies are tangled and complicated little knots hurled into the fray like cannonballs made out of steel string and roof nails. The sax is all over the place, adding tonal color, mad squawking, chittering chirps and deep fuzzy moans, this is a massive chaotic free for all. Sometimes the band members lock into a cohesive sort of drone, but even then Shea is still hurling his kit all over a huge concrete bunker, like every free jazz solo drum record played simultaneously, it's never long before the synth splinters and the sax shrieks and suddenly it a big black musical cloud, you know like in cartoons when people are fighting and there's a big black swirling cloud with arms and legs sticking out. Only now there's broken drumsticks, shattered keys from an abused synthesizer, bent saxophones as well as bruised and bloody body parts. This an exhausting listen, but it's worth it. Heavy and thick, weirdly groovy, totally spastic and really really great. Comes packaged in spray painted sleeves made out of old chopped up lps, each disc includes a jagged shard of some old vinyl lp as well.

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After the reissues of Talk Talk's final masterpiece, Laughing Stock and the band's reclusive frontman Mark Hollis's sole solo record, we get these two amazing Talk Talk Records reissued from the Parlophone label, third album The Colour Of Spring from 1986 and fourth album Spirit Of Eden from 1988. Unfortunately both are Dutch imports and pretty pricey, but they both come with dvds containing a high audio transfer of the original album masters and an exclusive bonus track. So true fans and audiophiles should really dig these! Colour Of Spring marks the exact dividing line between the early Talk Talk bold Euro-pop style of It's My Life and the later subdued improvisational spaciousness of Spirit Of Eden and Laughing Stock. It's My Life (and ultimately this album as well) were such a commercial success that it gave the band a lot of capital with their label to begin pushing boundaries musically, so Colour Of Spring is really a concept-album song-cycle about the nature of romantic relationships where the band really begin exploring with unconventional song structures and complex hypnotic arrangements. They even use a children's choir. That album also afforded the band the opportunity to work with multiple musicians instead of synthesizer programming for the first time, making this record their last big commercial hit and the last time the band ever toured. The bonus track on the dvd is "It's Getting Late in The Evening", an outtake from the album sessions. Spirit Of Eden, on par with Laughing Stock as one of the best and essential Talk Talk records is a magnificently realized studio album that proves what a band can do when everything they ever needed resource-wise is handed to them by their record label. Although it would eventually lead to severed ties and burnt bridges when the band finished the record and told the label that due to how the record was recorded (with several improvised parts complexly and fastidiously interwoven together in post-production), a tour supporting the record would be impossible. Fans at the time didn't know what to make of the new direction, which saw the band moving away from preconceived composition and pop sensibilities into a subdued improvisational unit borrowing more heavily from jazz and the avant-garde. It's as if the band went from being romantic Euro-poppers a la ABC to a more elegant, jazzier version of Slint. But the album presages the advent of post-rock and nineties indie rock, so it and its follow-up Laughing Stock which took the new direction out to it's farthest possibilities have long been heralded with cult-like status by legions of new fans. The bonus dvd comes with an outtake from the original sessions, "John Cope". Pricey, but recommended!

While virtually ignored upon its release in 1991, this continuingly influential album continues to elicit marvel from music lovers of all stripes. The final album from Talk Talk, the once New Romantic Euro-popsters turned introspective chamber minimalists, pretty much foreshadowed most post-rock music that would follow throughout the rest of the decade, especially with groups like Low and Movietone, but you can also hear the nascent strains of Tortoise and Labradford in there too. At the time, there was nothing at all remotely like this (and there really still isn't!), and though it didn't completely come out of the blue for the band (both Colour Of Spring and especially Spirit Of Eden clearly displayed minimalist leanings far away from the Euro-pop of their beginnings), Laughing Stock is a culmination of the reductivist sound the band through the tireless vision of its leader, Mark Hollis, had been striving for. Both Laughing Stock and Hollis' self-titled solo album from 1998 have been given the vinyl reissue treatment (first time ever on wax domestically) by the fine folks at Ba Da Bing. And since Laughing Stock is essentially a Mark Hollis solo album with a group of friends and session players, both records are more like essential companion pieces of measured and restrained beauty than any of the previous Talk Talk material would have been. Said to have been inspired by Can and John Coltrane, though not sounding much like either of them, Laughing Stock instead trades on those artist's methodologies of musical structure, incorporating delicate textures and nuanced atmospheres into hushed but dynamically attuned elegiac compositions. The songs are stripped of excess, but are stylistically complex, mining elements of jazz and chamber music in finely-tuned and polished layers that build up slowly, with no verse-chorus-verse type of considerations or big overt payoffs. This is music that requires patience to appreciate but offers many rewards over repeated listens. A "long-tail" classic, this is one of our favorite late night listens. Completely and unabashedly essential!

MPEG stream: Ascension Day
MPEG stream: After The Flood

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SORRY. There seem to be two kinds of people: people who haven't heard Talk Talk since the mid-80's and those who think they are one of the greatest bands ever. I am of the latter type, always looking for converts. This live recording is somewhat of a signpost for the shift in Talk Talk's sound from a complex Europop band (early 80's) into the large heavy orchestrations over delicate, melancholic songwriting present on "Spirit of Eden" and "Laughing Stock". London 1986 lies between the early and late Talk Talk sounds (making their old songs sound like their later songs.) Tim Friese-Greene (their co-writer and producer who is as much responsible for their sound as Mark Hollis, the singer/songwriter, is) seems to have as much control over the live show as he had over the studio. Perfect. I don't think that this cd will necessarily make converts of any of you, but if you already are, you will be quite thankful to own it.

Helloooo all you faithful Talk Talk completists! This cd compiles the singles from their extraordinary 1991 album Laughing Stock (which surely already holds an honorable place in your music library) along with four other tracks. Actually two if the "singles" are different versions of the originals - "After The Flood" is an alternate take/outtake and "New Grass" is an edit. "Ascension Day" is unaltered. The other tracks include "Myrrhman" (also from Laughing Stock) as well as the "Stump", the abstract soundscape "5:09" and a meditative 14 minute piece of solo piano minimalism performed by TT mainman Mark Hollis (originally a contribution to the Allinson/Brown experimental ambient album AV 1). Not an essential cd, but if it spurs you to revisit Laughing Stock, then we're fortunate for its release.

RealAudio clip: After The Flood
RealAudio clip: 5:09
RealAudio clip: Piano

We had never heard this Portland duo before, until their new record showed up at aQ. Obviously the band name was intriguing, and when we threw it on, we were pretty blown away, a haunting sort of electronic flecked rhythmic post rock, or blackened ambient electronica, hard to know exactly how to describe them, one thing we definitely would not have guessed is that they were a drums / viola duo!! The drummer is also the programmer, who we imagine is the one who fills out the sound with all manner of buzz and crunch, but the viola adds some dreamy drama to the proceedings, drifting over percolating rhythms, and wreathed in wild swirls of space-y effects. The opening track "Slumber Verses" sounds like the music from some soundtrack, remixed and revamped, the melancholy melodies are blurred and buzzy, the sounds are streaked with feedback, and hazy droned out chordal shimmer, the heartbeat like pulse, blossoms into a distorted drum beat about halfway through, while the guitars explode into a blissed out sky full of shoegaze high end. It's a pretty dreamy mix, darkly rhythmic, but also noisy and fuzzy and seriously psychedelic. The second track though, the title track, is the first song we heard and the one that really won us over, with a skeletal skittery beat, and a sky full of crumbling distortion and buzzing melody, some electronic bleep and little bits of glitch, washes of hiss and hum, while the viola offers up dreamy melodies, the drums getting super distorted at one point, a totally psychedelic freakout, the electronics freaking out to match, and then when the viola comes back in, so dramatic. Every track here sounds like it could be the music from that super intense movie in some quirky indie film, without the music being quirky itself, which is rare indeed. Oh did we mention how the title track tumbles though some in-the-red backwards drum damage before slipping right back into a sixties Stereolab like groove? The songs are super varied, but manage to all work together, dreamy and hushed and droney one second, wildly propulsive and blown out the next, fuzzy and poppy one moment, hazy and dreamy and washed out the next. So good! Released on the dude from Modest Mouse's new label.

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Yippeeeeeeee! Reissues of albums by those beloved New Zealand popsters, Tall Dwarfs (nope, that's not a spelling mistake where they're concerned)! This is Fork Songs their fourth album from 1991. Not quite as solid and immediately engaging as its predecessor Weeville, but pretty darn good nonetheless. Their minimal, lo-fi tunes stitched together a loose patchwork of psychedelia, country and folk but the fillin' was all pop charms. Their music was characterized by deliriously catchy off-kilter song structures, boyishly emotive (but not 'emo') vocals and crunchy janglin' guitar duties. From their formation in 1979 through to their split in 1988, the duo of Chris Knox and Alec Bathgate made quite a captivating and inspiring songwriting team. You can hear their immense influence on bands such as Pavement to Yo La Tengo to any one of the numerous Elephant 6 Collective bands. Yup, we love 'em!

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Finally! The long awaited new Tall Dwarfs album is in our hot little hands. The New Zealand indierock duo of Chris Knox and Alec Bathgate have each released solo work, but in my opinion *pure magic* occurs when they pool their prodigious talents. Their songs are constructed from delightfully unpredictable vocal, found sound, and percussive loops all overlayed with Bathgate's incredibly sweet, melodic guitar and various casio tinklings. There are poppy Beatles-y tracks, tracks with a rough T Rex-style buzz to them, and one that sounds like an excellent Capt. Beefheart outtake! The combination is, however, immediately recognizable as Tall Dwarfs' own singular sound, and I love it. While this new album is not as stunningly, unbelievably perfect as Fork Songs (IMO their peak), it easily sits near the top of Tall Dwarfs extensive catalog, and I have no doubt you will be pleased with it. It is also a fine place to start for the neophyte Tall Dwarfs listener. PLUS!: included here is the second volume of the International Tall Dwarfs project, wherein Dwarfs-friendly likeminded musicians collaborated with the Knox and Bathgate on eight individual tracks -- one features Jad Fair, two have Jeff Mangum (Neutral Milk Hotel) and Laura Carter (Elf Power), plus the Clean's Kilgour brothers, Robert Scott of the Bats, Graeme Downs of Verlaines, a Dutch group called Mongrell, etc.

RealAudio clip: Room to Breathe
RealAudio clip: Deodorant

Yippeeeeeeee! Reissues of albums by those beloved New Zealand popsters, Tall Dwarfs (nope, that's not a spelling mistake where they're concerned)! This is one of the absolute standout albums of their career, 1990's Weeville. It's their third album and the one on which they really found their stride. It starts off with one of their best tunes (and a particular Andee fave) "Log". If you're gonna start somewhere with Tall Dwarfs, this is it! Their minimal, lo-fi tunes stitched together a loose patchwork of psychedelia, country and folk but the fillin' was all pop charms. Their music was characterized by deliriously catchy off-kilter song structures, boyishly emotive (but not 'emo') vocals and crunchy janglin' guitar duties. From their formation in 1979 through to their split in 1988, the duo of Chris Knox and Alec Bathgate made quite a captivating and inspiring songwriting team. You can hear their immense influence on bands such as Pavement to Yo La Tengo to any one of the numerous Elephant 6 Collective bands. So great! Yup, we love 'em!

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MPEG stream: Sign The Dotted Line

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This is definitely not the kind of music we ever expected to hear from Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace! label. A dark and languorous folk, moody and murky, spare sinewy guitars, barely there percussion, and a thick warped ambience. Not that we're complaining, it just seems like the Tall Firs are a little too melodic, and maybe not difficult enough to fit in with their labelmates. But hell, we're always up for surprises, and this debut from the Tall Firs was a big one. Featuring a very misleading musical pedigree (including At The Drive In among others) the band weaves gorgeous and delicate soundscapes of thick reverb, gently fingerpicked guitar, subtle rhythms, from muted thumps to tinkling chimes, warbly organs and gorgeous world weary vocals, into a totally riveting dreamlike slowcore folk. Fans of Red Red Meat, Califone, Low and the like will be immediately smitten for sure. Tall Firs began way back in 1990, didn't play their first show until 2001, and didn't record an actual album until this year. You can sort of hear the slow burn of fifteen years emanating from each of these songs. Intense and intensely personal, foggy and fuzzy, like sitting in a huge hall, lit only by candlelight, flames flickering and casting ghostlike shadows, the band at the far end of the hall, letting notes and melodies drift from the stage, slowly filling the room with a thick hypnotic shimmer, each song a buried memory played out in the flickering firelight like some otherworldly shadow puppet show, acoustic guitars getting tangled up into little squalls of mumbled buzz, the vocals slipping from a croon to a whisper, every word dripping with some ineffable melancholia, often underpinned by bits of harmonic dissonance or random snatches of electronic glitch or machine made skitter. Dreamy and creepy and lovely. psst: They also do a gorgeous Quix*o*tic cover!!

MPEG stream: More To Come
MPEG stream: Don't Complain
MPEG stream: Go Whiskey

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SORRY.

Last list we highlighted two somewhat unusual "surf music" reissues, by Farm and Peter Martin & Finch, both brought to us by our favorite Japanese reissue label, EM Records, as part of their Summer 2007 "EM Under Water Series"! Those were quite cool, and now we've got the remaining three discs in the series, all of 'em (like those first two) soundtracks to several now-legendary surfing movies from back in the sixties/seventies. With the exception of Farm (from the USA) all the bands in EM's series are Australian, and in all cases the movies they were doing soundtracks for were Australian productions and/or featured Australian surfers. And as before, this isn't your typical SoCal Jan & Dean, Beach Boys style surf music... it's *psychedelic* surf music. Well 2 out of 3 of these anyway (the Tim Gaze Band album being more of a yacht rock outing). Now this one is a bonafide Australian garage psych rock classic! It's also the only disc in the "EM Under Water" series that we'd ever actually heard before, as there'd been at least one (possibly non-legit) cd reissue in the past, and so we already know it was a good 'un, which boded well for the series as a whole. Tamam Shud, who took their name from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (it's Persian for "The End"), were a heavy (for the era), fuzz-drenched psych pop combo who recorded two albums in their brief career. This was their first, from 1969, and it served as the soundtrack to a motion picture on the subject of surfing (natch) called Evolution. Which was appropriate 'cause these guys were indeed surfers, even if their music sounded a lot more like The Amboy Dukes, The Litter, and The Count Five than, say, The Ventures (though apparently earlier in the sixties they did, when they were called The Sunsets). It's total Nuggesty stuff (why "Mr. Strange" or one of the other 11 tracks on Evolution didn't appear on the Nuggets II box set is puzzling), with a "progressive", Sgt. Peppers bent, full of ripping wild FUZZ guitar soloing, stomping riffs, and catchy hooks. The Shud could do wigged out blues rock jamming, or they could do totally poppy vocal cuts...as long as there was plenty of freaky freeform fuzz action to go 'round, which, there was. Like we said, a classic, one any '60s psych lover will be happy to spin. This reish is of course presented with the usual deluxe-level of care and attention characteristic of EM Records, complete with lyrics, photos, graphics, movie stills, and extensive liner notes by both Aussie "surf music historian" Peter J. McParland and Evolution's director, Peter Witzig. And EM has also dug up three bonus tracks, from a 1972 ep called Bali Waters, material which appeared on the soundtrack to another surf move, Morning Of The Earth. Who knows, maybe there will be another "Under Water" series next year wherein EM will reissue The Shud's second album, 1970's Goolutionites And The Real People, which was a concept album against pollution... we can hope.

MPEG stream: Mr. Strange
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Ready for an ecological concept album from an Australian psych/prog/pop act, circa 1970? We are, we've been waiting for a reissue ever since Tamam Shud's first album, Evolution, appeared on cd as part of EM Records' odd & enjoyable "Under Water Series" of psychedelic surf music last year. Released by the deluxe Aussie reissue imprint Aztec (who brought us Buffalo and Coloured Balls already), The Shud's wonderfully titled second album should charm all who loved the earlier one EM put out. And while we haven't really wrapped our brains around their whole Goolutionites concept, which probably is along the lines of "give a hoot, don't pollute!", we're certainly enjoying this groovy record. The Shud's music here is mostly mellow and melodic, lazy and laidback and even loungey, but the album is littered (whoops) with sudden proggy shifts and somber mood swings (as befits the serious subject matter), and they are definitely capable of doin' some harder rockin' too, with the bluesy, fuzzy, acid-rock guitar leads getting whipped out often enough. It maybe reminds us of stuff like the Amboy Dukes, Cream, Vanilla Fudge, and (to cite another recently reviewed reissue) Mecki Mark Men. Plenty would qualify as Vertigo-esque "hairy funk" as Andy Votel would put it, like the loping riffery of "I Love You All". This reish is handsomely digipacked, with a thick, info/photo packed booklet, and there's a whole bunch of bonus tracks too, weirdly some of 'em the SAME as the bonus tracks on EM's Evolution disc (the three cuts from the the Morning Of The Earth soundtrack, originally released as the Bali Waters ep) which you think someone would have realized was a bit redundant, but there's also four fairly rockin' (though sax-laced for some reason) numbers from a 1971 live performance, and a couple of especially sunny singles tracks too.

MPEG stream: I Love You All
MPEG stream: Heaven Is Closed
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If you were expecting Tamaryn's new record to be another slab of hazy shoegaze brilliance, you'll have to adjust, cuz even though it's still brilliant, Cranekiss is nothing like what's come before. On Cranekiss, the washy guitars have mostly been replaced with synths and the live drums have been replaced with programming. Shaun Durkan of Weekend fame has replaced Rex John Shelverton as Tamaryn's primary collaborator. Above all else, though, what's changed is the musical tone. Unlike The Waves or Tender New Signs, Cranekiss is not a record to listen to alone in your room with candles and headphones. The beats are too infectious and the synths too heavy to listen alone. Tamaryn the pop diva comes on strong, like a cross between Madonna and Elizabeth Fraser, and it's surprisingly good. Despite the new direction, it doesn't feel like an act, or like she's trying on a mask that doesn't fit. The Cocteau Twins influence is powerful and pervasive throughout the album, but is definitely an homage rather than a ripoff. Whereas the Tamaryn of yore came off as slightly unapproachable, an ice queen for the ages, Cranekiss introduces a vocalist who's willing to let the listener in more. Her lyrics seem more personal, less symbolic and metaphorical, and her vocals are (usually) less effected and right up front in the mix. Songs like "Hands All Over Me" and "Softcore" exemplify Tamaryn's new direction. One could imagine hearing them played in a smoky dance club right after Soft Cell's "Sex Dwarf" and fitting right in (lyrically as well as sonically). Cranekiss is not all energy and beats, though. "I Won't Be Found" is possibly the closest, musically, to something that might have been on Tender New Signs - drawn out and slow, the guitars drenched in reverb. Although mostly lighter in tone than her previous records, there's still darkness in Cranekiss and won't disappoint long-time fans. We're a little late to the game with this review, the record having been released a couple of months ago, but Cranekiss will most definitely be on at least one aQ top-ten list for 2015.

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Released almost two years before The Waves, Led Astray Washed Ashore is a different kind of (awesome) record. It's power lies in being direct and driving: the drums are tribal, the layers of sound are starker and sparser. Though there's still a lot of nice washy reverb in places, Tamaryn's vocals are recorded without a lot of doubling or many effects. Where The Waves makes you feel like you're floating in a dream, Led Astray Washed Ashore is grounded in the close and crisp dynamic of mostly clean vocals and tom-heavy drumming. The first song, "Return to Surrender," has echoes of the darker songs of the Eurythmics. "The Unknown" is all chanting, tribal drumming, and what sounds like an organ: a cacophonous interlude between the energy of the opening track and the colder, more stark "Sarah In The Aeadrone." "Golden Song" sounds like the best song Siouxsie and The Banshees never wrote, though the sparkly guitar work is pure Rex Shelverton. "Ashore" and "Metal Beasts" continue the lyrical themes of death and water and drowning present on the entire record (including the cover). Yes! Truly, there's nothing more nourishing for a blackened soul than beautiful music about death.

NOW ON CD!!! Released almost two years before The Waves, Led Astray Washed Ashore is a different kind of (awesome) record. It's power lies in being direct and driving: the drums are tribal, the layers of sound are starker and sparser. Though there's still a lot of nice washy reverb in places, Tamaryn's vocals are recorded without a lot of doubling or many effects. Where The Waves makes you feel like you're floating in a dream, Led Astray Washed Ashore is grounded in the close and crisp dynamic of mostly clean vocals and tom-heavy drumming. The first song, "Return to Surrender," has echoes of the darker songs of the Eurythmics. "The Unknown" is all chanting, tribal drumming, and what sounds like an organ: a cacophonous interlude between the energy of the opening track and the colder, more stark "Sarah In The Aeadrone." "Golden Song" sounds like the best song Siouxsie and The Banshees never wrote, though the sparkly guitar work is pure Rex Shelverton. "Ashore" and "Metal Beasts" continue the lyrical themes of death and water and drowning present on the entire record (including the cover). Yes! Truly, there's nothing more nourishing for a blackened soul than beautiful music about death.

MPEG stream: Return to Surrender
MPEG stream: Sarah in the Aeadrone
MPEG stream: Metal Beasts

This record is a must have for anyone who bought The Waves or anyone wanting an introduction to the shoegazey brilliance of Tamaryn. It features an alternate take of "Mild Confusion," one of the best tracks on The Waves, and an unreleased song, "Light Shadows" that could have stood with pride anywhere on the full length. There's only a few of these left floating around (we got these from the artist herself) and it's doubtful if we'll ever get any more. Limited to 1000 copies and pressed on white vinyl.

Latest album of fuzzy, ethereal dreampop from this aQ beloved SF songstress, and like her past efforts, Tender New Signs is another glorious collection of lush retro pop loveliness, the sound a dreamy druggy pastiche of modern goth pop and classic shoegaze bliss out, all big chiming guitars, softly propulsive rhythms, low slung basslines, all the sounds doused in echo and reverb, and wreathed in big billowing clouds of crystalline 4AD shimmer, the sound this time around bolstered by a big eighties style drum sound on the more rocking tracks, but most of the record gloriously washed out and gauzey, due in no small part to a fantastically lush, layered production, all of this woven into a luxurious sonic backdrop for Tamaryn's gorgeous vox, breathy and sultry, settled way back in the mix for much of the record, existing more as another sonic layer, but on the slower numbers, slipping to the foreground, transforming those numbers into slowcore dreampop torch songs. The record, while sonically cohesive, definitely lets Tamaryn and her band stretch out, unfurling an evershifting super varied songscape, slipping from soft focus slowcore dreaminess, to swoonsome jangle pop balladry, to driving, surprisingly rocking shoegaze crunch, to hushed haunting broodiness. So good. And as always, recommended for fans of Beach House, My Bloody Valentine, Mazzy Star, 4AD, etc.

MPEG stream: I'm Gone
MPEG stream: While You're Sleeping, I'm Dreaming
MPEG stream: Heavenly Bodies
MPEG stream: No Exits

Sometimes a record can hit you in the face like a punch, other times the music can pierce you like a needle, sinking deep into a sensitive place without you even realizing it's still in your flesh. Tamaryn's debut album, The Waves, is like the latter. It's so light, pain and tension melt away while you listen, but also so sharp and brilliant, you can't get it out of your head. Strongly evoking the slowcore brilliance of My Bloody Valentine, the layered reverb on the guitars give the effect of distance while at the same time the dreamy vocals keep the listener close. A veteran of many outstanding bands (Vue, The Audience), Rex John Shelverton's guitar playing is tempered perfectly throughout the record, never seeking to override the vocals, filling in gaps and expanding outwards in huge planes of reverb wash. At times, like the song "Haze Interior," the atmosphere is hazy and slightly chilled, a frustrated plea for understanding from a loved one whose language you can't quite understand. The next song "Sandstone" builds from a punctuated guitar riff into a driving bass and drum beat that manages to make you nod your head while still leaving plenty of room in the mix for layers of vocals. If Beach House's Devotion and Mazzy Star's So Tonight That I Might See were to have some sort of precocious offspring, the result might very well be The Waves. Highly recommended.

MPEG stream: The Waves
MPEG stream: Choirs of Winter
MPEG stream: Haze Interior

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

SORRY.