[ aquarius records — Rock Pop ]

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Showing results 16501 through 16550 of 19388.

Your parents like Windham Hill, you like Kranky.

Volume six in the Darla "Bliss Out" ambient pop series. This band is now signed to Kranky, and that should tell you something; if that doesn't, maybe these song titles will: "Sea Of Serenity" and "Kepler Planet Harmonies." For fans of Labradford and Magnog.

Another reissue from Finland's Tomutonttu, the solo guise of Jan Anderzen, better know as a member of Avarus, Anaksimandros, Kemialliset Ystavat and about a million others. Tomutonto (notice the slight difference) as originally released as a super limited lp on Ultra Eczema back in 2006, and is now available on cd for the first time. Anderzen explores all sorts of sonic space as Tomutonttu, on the recently listed self titled cd, another reissue, the sounds was a kaleidoscopic tripped out primitivism, a stumbling forest folk, ritualistic and abstract, and while this disc offers up some similar sounding jams, it's much more out there, much more unhinged and experimental. What songs there are, end up fragmented and all tangled up in a squirming heap, droned out organ tones, squeaks and creaks and thumps and clangs, muted percussion, processed vocals, hiccupping loops, bursts of distorted voices, damaged effects, malfunctioning electronics, fractured loops, swirling filed of spaced out buzz and birdcall like flitter, chant like vocals over Spanish sounding guitars, all wrapped in weird murk, reverb drenched operatic howls and moans, over distant creaking, and warm riffy humming, sped up strings, rhythmic clickings, all twisted and tweaked and warped and warbly. Definitely on the TRIPPY end of the Finnish free rock underground foresty freak folk spectrum, but anyone into the rest of the Fonal catalog, and other Finnish weirdness should for sure check it out, give the sound samples a listen, that should decide it or you lickety split.

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Tomutonttu is Jan Anderzen, member of Kemialliset Ystavat, Avarus, Anaksimandros, and who knows how many other Finnish free folk outfits. He's one of the kings of that scene. His hand (and gnarled guitar, and wheezing keyboard...) have been in tons of our favorite records and projects. This however is the first chance we've had to hear Anderzen on his own as Tomutonttu, seeing as the first Tomutonttu was so limited it disappeared before we were able to get even a single copy. Needless to say, fans of all things folky and Finnish will love this, it fits perfectly amidst the Avarus and Kemialliset releases, but it stands on it's own too, strange in its own right, personal, and lovely, but also spacey and kind of freaked out. But then why would we expect anything else? The record begins with the calls of whippoorwills, soon joined by the calls of yet more birds, all whipping wildly above a thrumming drone made up of buzzing kazoo vocals, moaning muted strings, and some mysterious pulsing minimal throb. Sounding almost like a super lo-fi "Symphony Of The Birds" all tangled up with some chunk of freaky forest folk. Ends up those aren't real birds, as their calls slow down and get all twisted up, it becomes evident it's a record of birds being slowly manipulated, becoming more and more abstract, the bird calls transforming into weird rumbles and flurries of high pitched squiggles, all over the growing buzz of a shimmery space guitar and more of that strange buzzy kazoo like moaning, peppered with deep rich sonic swells, very dreamy and alien, like some sort of otherworldly nature recording. The next track hews closer to the Finnish folk sound, sort of medieval sounding with drifting high end keyboard melodies draped over muted rhythmic clang and sweet swoonsome swirls of soft sound. The last track on side A sounds like some strange Bollywood Western, minor key and very Eastern sounding, processed guitar and blown out keyboards all tangled up into a gorgeously lilting melody, dreamy and sparkly and super playful. Side B begins with more playfulness, this time the percussion, all drenched in reverb and echo, like some sort of wind chime garden, muted into strange melodies, droning keyboards beneath, very haunting and otherworldly, it almost sounds African, like likembes, sometimes there are hints of gamelan too, at least in the timbre and the melodies, but all warm and distorted and dreamily blown out. The next track is a brief snatch of what sounds like some unearthed old time recording, all fuzzy warble and a softly keening melancholy melody. And finally, the lengthy final track is a reprise of the opener, all tinkling chimes, distant moaned vocals, and soft clouds of constantly shifting and swirling bird calls, dizzying but also strangely soothing. Definitely one of the nicest records we've heard from the Avarus/Anaksimandros/Kemialliset Finnish freakfolk axis... LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!! Pressed on 220 gram vinyl, packaged in amazing jackets with eye popping artwork and printed full color inner sleeves. These are gonna go fast and once these are gone they are GONE.

With all the Cold Wave and Minimal Synth reissues from the late seventies and early eighties coming back in vogue, we knew it wouldn't be long before we'd see some goth, industrial and deathrock bands from that period being re-issued too. Tones On Tail weren't all that obscure, coming out of the ashes of Bauhaus who disbanded in 1983, but they were very short-lived, only lasting about a year before Daniel Ash and Kevin Haskins reunitied with Bauhaus bandmate, David J to become Love and Rockets in 1984. However, Tones On Tail produced an exceptional amount of material over one lp and numerous eps and singles. While best remembered for their club hit, "Go!", their output covered a range of gothic styles from gloomy pop to dark jazz, but always with an ear towards strong songwriting and evocative atmospherics. We always liked them a bit better than Bauhaus. Everything compiles pretty much everything you will ever need. So good!

MPEG stream: Lions
MPEG stream: Movement of Fear
MPEG stream: Rain
MPEG stream: OK, This Is The Pops
MPEG stream: You, The Night and The Music
MPEG stream: When You're Smiling

With all the Cold Wave and Minimal Synth reissues from the late seventies and early eighties coming back into fashion, we knew it wouldn't be long before we'd see some goth, industrial and deathrock bands from that period being re-issued as well. Tones On Tail weren't all that obscure, coming out of the ashes of Bauhaus who disbanded in 1983, but they were very short-lived, only lasting about a year before Daniel Ash and Kevin Haskins reunited with Bauhaus bandmate, David J to become Love and Rockets in 1984. However, Tones On Tail produced an exceptional amount of material over one lp and numerous eps and singles. While best remembered for their club hit, "Go!", their output covered a range of gothic styles from gloomy pop to dark jazz, but always with an ear towards strong songwriting and evocative atmospherics. And we always liked them a bit more than Bauhaus anyway! Weird Pop is a new double vinyl collection that covers most of the same ground as the older 2cd collection, Everything, with a few previously unreleased alternate versions of songs like the full original version of "Performance", the studio version of "Heartbreak Hotel", the single edit of "Go!" and the extended version of "Twist". But unless you want these tracks on vinyl, or you are a completist collector, you might not need this if you already have the Everything collection (which is also available to order from our website) as that features more tracks (24 tracks vs. 19 tracks on the vinyl). Nonetheless, it's always great to see one of our favorite bands get some more much-deserved attention!

MPEG stream: Lions
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MPEG stream: OK, This Is The Pops
MPEG stream: You, The Night and The Music
MPEG stream: When You're Smiling

Wow, is this record ever bizarre, not at all what you might expect from the same label that released the record of Pajo Misfits covers or Paz Lenchatin's gorgeous country drone folk record, but like those records, Tonetta's 777 is truly unique and weird and to some ears perhaps also wonderful. Incredibly strange music for sure... Some folks might recognize the name Tonetta (or Tonetta 777) from his various videos on YouTube, and no doubt some of you were probably forwarded them as they are truly truly odd and were becoming a sort of sensation. So we were trying to find a simple succinct way of describing Tonetta, and decided to turn to the online source for all things freaky, Freakipedia (oddly enough there was no entry for Tonetta on Wikipedia) where Tonetta's entry described him as "an incredibly gay older man on YouTube who dances half naked to songs he pre-recorded. While most of the music sounds the same in his videos, his lyrics largely differ dealing with sexual fetishes such as pissing and pooping, larger women and men, and ass to mouth." Which does pretty much sum it up. Tonetta dresses in strange ripped Flashdance style outfits, g-strings, torn sweatshirts, bustiers, weird masks, sometimes pantyhose over his head, wigs, dresses, whatever, sometimes he's practically nude, he shimmies and shakes, in a diamond shaped frame surrounded by trippy colors, in front of a backdrop that looks like it's probably in his basement, white curtains, a black sheet hung on the wall, a bunch of balloons, and we haven't even gotten to the music yet, simple primitive drum machines, looped disco basslines, blown out guitars, everything in the red and blown out and distorted, the vocals either a deep croon, or a weird almost falsetto trill, the sound warped and warbly alternatingly funky, groovy, and/or psychedelic, sometimes the music sounds like some underground post punk lo-fi disco, other times it sounds almost like Ariel Pink or John Maus, and then there's the song tiles and lyrics, which as the Freakipedia entry alludes to, are subversive and sexual and bizarre and problematic and pretty goddamn funny: "My Bro", "Still A Slave", "A Really Big Cock", "Toronto Is Starting To Stink", "Metal Man", "Peeping Tom", "Drugs Drugs Drugs", "God Treats You Right", "I'm Gonna Marry A Prostitute", and on and on. Fucked up and freaky, but weirdly addictive, and as skeptical as we may have been about a whole album of this stuff, after seeing a bunch of his videos, we find ourselves digging this a whole lot, and listening to it more than we ever thought we would, which pretty much says it all! LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, pressed on 140 gram vinyl, housed in a super nice thick cover, adorned with a 2 color serigraph, and comes with a cd version of the record as well.

MPEG stream: John And Yoko
MPEG stream: My Bro
MPEG stream: Still A Slave
MPEG stream: A Really Big Cock

Some of us are shocked that there's a volume two, collecting still more of the cracked electronic soul pop lo-fi disco of mysterious YouTube phenom Tonetta, but then, there are plenty of folks, like most of us here, that have been waiting for another volume. Why you might ask? Why indeed. Not sure we can describe Tonetta better than we did in the review of the first volume, so probably better to just revisit: "We were trying to find a simple succinct way of describing Tonetta, and decided to turn to the online source for all things freaky, Freakipedia (oddly enough there was no entry for Tonetta on Wikipedia) where Tonetta's entry described him as "an incredibly gay older man on YouTube who dances half naked to songs he pre-recorded. While most of the music sounds the same in his videos, his lyrics largely differ dealing with sexual fetishes such as pissing and pooping, larger women and men, and ass to mouth." Which does pretty much sum it up. Tonetta dresses in strange ripped Flashdance style outfits, g-strings, torn sweatshirts, bustiers, weird masks, sometimes pantyhose over his head, wigs, dresses, whatever, sometimes he's practically nude, he shimmies and shakes, in a diamond shaped frame surrounded by trippy colors, in front of a backdrop that looks like it's probably in his basement, white curtains, a black sheet hung on the wall and/or a bunch of balloons." Wow huh? It's definitely weird stuff, but it's engendered a bit of a crazy obsession among all sorts of music lovers, ourselves included. And you'll know how you feel the second you hear it. The songs are super simple, usually, just one or two parts, drum machines, looped samples, disco basslines, all lo-fi and distorted, alternatingly groovy, psychedelic, stumbling and damaged, tripped out and funky, sometimes a head spinning collision of all of those. The song titles, like on the first volume, speak, well, volumes: "Hot Little Fuck, "G+B Showers", "Rape Victim", "Doin A Dyke Tonight", "Picking On Lennon", "Ultimate Whore", "Daddys Little Boy", "Big Rig", "Death Sentence", you get the drift. It's warped, and bizarre, demented, and weird as all get out, but it's also surprisingly catchy, and a bit irresistible, and while you may scoff now, once you get an earful you might find yourself as obsessed as the rest of us. Don't believe us? Check out the sound samples, or better yet, go watch a few Tonetta vids on YouTube, and then come back for this (and volume one!) when you're ready! Super fancy packaging, thick silkscreeened jacket, each one hand numbered, LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, printed full color inner sleeve, pressed on nice heavy vinyl, and includes a cd that features all the tracks on the lp PLUS two bonus tracks.

MPEG stream: Big Rig
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Our favorite funky sleaze merchant is back with a whopping double lp (plus 2cds of the same material included!), and while we were shocked enough to think that there could be more than one volume of Tonetta's inflammatory outsider dance rock, we're practically, um... gagging on the abundance of grooves this time around. And it's not only the revelling in sexual deviance that make up the subject matter here (though there's plenty of it: assplay, scat play, gloryholes, four-ways, prostitution, bare-backing, basically, the works!), there is a lot of skewed political diatribes ("Obama's Prize", "Saddam", "This Old World"), and a questionably racist song using the N-word (though it could be viewed as anti-skin-head too maybe). But the most shocking of all perhaps, are the love songs which are some of the sweetest and most heartfelt tracks on here. Not sure if some of these tracks are old recordings or just shittily recorded, but this collection overall has the most range musically, with Tonetta's vocal style sounding at times like a crooning Roy Orbison, a bleating Captain Beefheart, or a seductive Leonard Cohen with lots of distorted circular guitar rhythms, lo-fi pans, tweeked-out synths and relentless predatory dungeon sex beats. Freaky!

MPEG stream: Ride Me
MPEG stream: Obama's Prize
MPEG stream: 81 Inch Prime Ass
MPEG stream: Saddam
MPEG stream: Apachie Woman
MPEG stream: Only Girl I Love

Everybody went crazy for Tonstartssbandht band's recent cassette, titled Parson Sounds, which was in fact covers of legendary Swedish psychfolk jams from Parson Sounds, Harvester and International Harvester, it was the first we had heard from these guys, but it's tough to go wrong, covering stone cold classics like that. Of course when we got this 7" in, we realized that because that first tape was all covers, and pretty faithful ones at that, we didn't actually know what these guys sounded like. And the weird thing was, we didn't actually imagine they'd sound like THIS, but we're digging it anyway, big time. A bit of that Swedish psychfolk from the tape makes its way onto this here 7", but it's woven into a sort of heavy blown out psych pop, big booming drums, echo drenched vocals, thick, muddy, murky riffs, super catchy and still pretty psychedelic, totally ramshackle, super distorted, fuzzy, warped and lysergic, big hooky choruses, a little bit Animal Collective, a little bit Japandroids, a little bit Lightning Bolt (especially in the frantic tangled bass harmony breakdowns) all tangled up into a heavy, hooky freaked out blast of in-the-red mini noise pop gems, the sort of stuff that sounds like it would be amazing live, a heaving sweaty crowd spilling onto the stage, the band loose and on the edge of collapse, loud as fuck and totally on fire. And the 7" does a pretty great job of capturing that normally-quite-difficult-to-capture rock energy!

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

SORRY.

How could we resist? This Canadian two piece (recently relocated to New York), two psych rock obsessed brothers, covering their favorite Swedish psychedelic folk drone jams of the geniuses known variously as Parson Sound, Harvester and International Harvester. Perfect timing too, as we've all been RE-obsessed with Parson Sound, after the deluxe triple lp reissue of their self titled masterpiece we made Record Of The Week last list. And while we're often skeptical of modern day folks covering CLASSICS, sure it's fun, but does everyone need to hear it, well, in this case the answer is hell yeah! These guys totally nail it, channeling not just the spirit, but the sound as well, from the lilting folky vocals, to the acid fried in-the-red guitars, to the pounding motorik drumming, right down to the recording, which sounds all murky and muddy and OLD, like it was itself some unearthed recording from the seventies. The duo lock into those incredible grooves, so thick and dense but lush and expansive and HEAVY, trancelike and mesmerizing, the sort of jams that should go on forever, slipping from fuzz drenched proto-metal, to dreamy, acid folk, to haunting acoustic laments, vocals doused in reverb, careening over roiling swells of super saturated fuzz and wild chaotic drumming. If these guys can do this sort of justice to stone cold Swedish classics like these, we've definitely got to hear more. In the meantime, grab one of these before they're gone, whether you're a Swedish psych obsessive like us, or just dig on the sort of space psych drone dirge of bands like Heavy Winged, Eternal Tapestry and the like, this will hit the spot either way!

One of our favorite analog electronic prog-hippie jazz-psych records from the magic year of 1971 has finally been given the reissue treatment, and it's a doozy! TONTO stands for "The Original New Timbral Orchestra", the first, and still the largest, multitimbral polyphonic analog synthesizer in the world. Created by Malcom Cecil and Robert Margouleff, the duo's first outing with their new creation was originally released on jazz flautist, Herbie Mann's Atlantic Records sub-label, Embryo. The album was so influential that Stevie Wonder collaborated with the duo on several of his most essential recordings of the seventies including Talking Book, Innervisions and Fulfillingness' First Finale. It was also the instrument featured on screen and used by Paul Williams character in Brian DePalma's Phantom of the Paradise! The machine later became a key player in lots of eighties RnB, seemingly miles away from the soundscapery on this first record. While Zero-Time acted largely as a showcase for what the TONTO could do, it's still a pretty killer record of synthetic cinematic prog groove, subterranean alien library funk and spacey folk electronic ambience. Over six tracks, there are several varying moods from sexy (there's a song called "Jetsex" after all), to blissfully solemn. The opener "Cybernaut" sounds like a movie theme for a sci-fi crime thriller, all foreboding and mysterious, while our favorite track is the floating space raga, "Riversong" which has strange treated vocal modulations that are completely sublime. Recommended!

MPEG stream: Cybernaut
MPEG stream: Jetsex
MPEG stream: Timewhys

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

SORRY. The cd reissue on Shadoks of this that we used to stock has, sadly, gone out of print, but here's a new VINYL reissue of this great album! Here's more-or-less what we said back in 2002 about the Shadoks cd version: The amazing, beautiful, anarchic, DIY psych-folk-pop of Tony, Caro & John's terribly rare All On The First Day lp (originally privately released in an edition of just 100 copies) has now been revived for, hopefully, a larger audience! This comes to us from the label that's been responsible for bringing us those fab "Love, Peace & Poetry" psychedelic rock compilations (y'know, the Latin American one, the Asian one, the Japanese one, etc.). Among the most recent installments in that series was a disc devoted to British psychedelic obscurities. One of that comp's highlights, we all agreed, was a cut by this trio. That track, the amazingly Neutral Milk Hotel-ish "There Are No Greater Heroes" appears here as well, on Shadoks' reissue of Tony, Caro & John's entire sole album, from 1972. Now, we know that a lot of the time it's true that a great track selected for a compilation doesn't a great album make from whence it came...after all, the compilers are likely to pick the BEST song off an album for their comp. So we were wary - but curious - when we heard this whole album was being reissued. Happily, there's actually a lot of other great songs on here besides "There Are No Greater Heroes", although that one still reminds us the most of Jeff Mangum's stuff. "Eclipse Of The Moon", "Apocalypso", "Don't Sing This Song", and others, all fantastic... Taken together, Tony, Caro & John's songs manage to strike a balance between creepy melancholy and kaleidoscopic psych silliness. Not only that, but they have more than just a nostalgic vibe going for them - they are good songwriters/performers with some delightful, weird ideas. Fans of the Incredible String Band and other British hippie folk psych of the period definitely need to hear this.

In the realm of doom metal, what could be more weird and cult and underground than Voci Dal Passato, the brilliantly bizarre DIY Goblin-meets-Vitus album by one-man-band Tony Tears that we made a Record Of The Week a few years ago?? Well the answer is obvious: Tony Tears' demos!! We we're pretty excited when we heard about this new release (dampened only by the fact that this turned out to be a cd-r, not a cd, though it's nicely done, pro-printed and everything) and we think everyone who became obsessed, like us, with Voci Dal Passato - which was quite popular - will want to check this out. Likewise with those who missed out on Tony Tears before 'cause that cd so sadly went out of print. So, this is first official release of TT's debut demo from 2000, Fears And Sensations In The Claustrophobic Mirror, consisting of six tracks (the last an extended, 4 part suite lasting 15 minutes). Just like the Tony Tears album we made ROTW, it's a lo-fi morass of mesmeric doomed-out psychedelia, inspired by Paul Chain, Goblin, Black Hole, and other esoteric Italians, with wobbly keyboards, crude drum programming, chant-like and sometimes extremely distorted Italian-language vox, and of course heavy fuzzed out doom guitar riffage, the whole thing giving off uniquely eerie, eccentric vibes galore as each track slowly plods forth through a haze of hiss and murk. We mentioned Umberto with Striborg-level production and performance in our review of Voci Dal Passato, and guess what, these earlier recordings are even MORE like that. It's a beautiful thing. Tracks like "The Return To The Underground Temple", mostly echo effected keyboards and weeping guitars over simple steady rhythms, have so much weird psychedelic atmosphere that Tony Tears should not be limited to a 'cult doom metal only' audience. Devoted dronologists should hear the quietly ominous "Forze Invisibli Bussano Al Cuore", the aforementioned four-part suite - it's pulsating electronic cosmic mystery that could be from some lost '70s krautrock lp or sinister soundtrack, at least until the super slowed down sludge part kicks in, with vocals and guitar sounding like they're recorded at quarter-speed or something, as if you're listening to it on a device with dying batteries. Again, too bad this is just a limited cd-r, these are probably the only copies we'll be getting, and we have just under a dozen.

MPEG stream: Coniurationes Mundi
MPEG stream: The Return Of The Underground Temple
MPEG stream: Forze Invisibli Bussano Al Cuore

We first got a couple of these in a few weeks back ('cause we were curious) and it didn't take long before we realized we had a Record Of The Week on our hands. It was obvious, really, since some of us here ending up getting so obsessed with this that it was just about ALL they'd listen to, for days, getting home after work and throwing it on, listening to it going to sleep at night, and when they'd get up in the morning, playing it at the store too... At first, though, we thought well heck maybe that's just us, maybe we're weird to like Tony Tears that much. But of course, we ARE weird, and so are a lot of AQ customers, and that's why this is definitely a good choice for Record Of The Week. Anything this hypnotic and dirgey and doomy and last but not least weird, has got AQ (and possibly you) written all over it. We had to go to some trouble to acquire enough of these to list, contacting Tony Tears via MySpace, importing copies from Italy, getting all the cds we could lay our hands on. Which means we may or may not be able to get more when we run out, and if we can, it will certainly take a while, so be forewarned... Tony Tears? So what IS that, you ask? Actually when we first saw the name, we thought it said Ebony Tears, which is the name of another band. But no, it's Tony Tears, as in a guy named Tony, last name Tears. And the "band" is indeed just the work of one man, whose (we presume) stage name gives this its monicker. How perfect is that, a mournful Italian doom metaller named Tony Tears? Already you feel sorry for him. Awww, Tony Tears... Tony Tears' MySpace page is also perfect for this sort of depressed, lonely sounding music. It's really stark and plain, with a sort of electric purple/pink background color. He's got, like, only 66 friends (one of 'em us), and in his "top friends" listing he still has Tom. You know, Tom the founder of MySpace, who is automatically your first and only friend when you first sign up, but then of course you remove Tom 'cause he's not actually someone you know or care about... But lonely Tony, grateful for Tom's friendship, keeps him around. So, anyway, to answer your question, this is some sort of underground doom metal, but also Italian in that spooky proggy soundtracky way, so it's kind of like Goblin crossed with St. Vitus, or Umberto teamed up with Trollman Av Ildtoppberg. Or, our early '70s proto-doom prog faves Jacula, channelled through someone's (Striborg's?) basement 4-track today. Tony wrote the lyrics and the music, sings, and plays all the instruments... there's layers of fuzzy, foggy bass, gorgeously melancholic psychedelic electric guitar leads, eerie Goblin-y synths tinkling and droning, and a rhythmic foundation of slightly stumbling drum machine programming. Along with enough echo effects to give parts of this a bit of a dubby, or druggy, vibe. Perhaps most crucial to our enjoyment of this are the vocals, which are spoken rather more than sung, and are all in Italian. Which works great, it's a language which even when simply spoken still sounds rather musical, we LOVE hearing Italian in this manner (we're reminded of old fave "Ordine Pubblico" by Starfuckers, especially by the track "Antichi Messagi" here), and we feel Tony's echoing, emotional chant-like recitations further enhance the hypnotic aspect of this lugubrious music. We can imagine Om fans zoning out to this quite easily! Speaking of hypnotic, one of the times recently we had this playing in the store, a customer asked if it was some sort of new Circle side project... we can see why he thought it might be. The overall atmosphere of this record is sooooooooo sad, yet somehow comforting. Even though we don't understand the Italian, this comes across as being very intimate & personal, and not just because of a certain sparseness to the mix that speaks to this being a one-man effort. Tony Tears' repetitive lumbering heavy riffs and dark keyboard coloration, punctuated with mechanical, but not entirely predictable drum beats, awash with flangey, spacey effects and further embellished with his poetically mannered, incantatory Italian, has had quite an effect on the psyches of those here who can't help but keep this in heavy rotation. While rather raw and ragged in a charming DIY home-recorded way, the results are sheer beauty, weird weeping dreamlike beauty. Definitely in the tradition of such strange Italian dark underground metal/prog/psych as Death S.S., Paul Chain, and Black Hole. But quite something else besides, with no prior interest in that tradition being necessary for appreciation of this. Even moreso maybe than The Puritan album we ROTW'd last time, being into doom metal isn't a prerequisite, as long as you like unusual music. Being into Goblin though might help. If we can persuade a ton of folks to buy this, hopefully that won't make Tony Tears any -less- unhappy, because we're looking forward to more from this miserable, mesmerizing, and altogether unique act... stay doomed Mr. Tears!

MPEG stream: Le Ossa E Il Fuoco
MPEG stream: Voci Dal Profondo
MPEG stream: Antichi Messagi
MPEG stream: Mondo Parallelo

The amazing, beautiful, anarchic, DIY psych-folk-pop of Tony, Caro & John's terribly rare "All On The First Day" LP (originally privately released in an edition of just 100 copies) has now been revived on CD for, hopefully, a larger audience! This comes to us from the label that's been responsible for bringing us those fab "Love, Peace & Poetry" psychedelic rock compilations (y'know, the Latin American one, the Asian one, the Japanese one, etc.). Among the most recent installments in that series was a disc devoted to British psychedelic obscurities. One of that comp's highlights, we all agreed, was a cut by this trio. That track, the amazingly Neutral Milk Hotel-ish "There Are No Greater Heroes" appears here as well, on Shadoks' reissue of Tony, Caro & John's entire sole album, from 1972. Now, we know that a lot of the time it's true that a great track selected for a compilation doesn't a great album make from whence it came...after all, the compilers are likely to pick the BEST song off an album for their comp. So we were wary -- but curious -- when we heard this whole album was being reissued. Happily, there's actually a lot of other great songs on here besides "There Are No Greater Heroes", although that one still reminds us the most of Jeff Mangum's stuff. Taken together, Tony, Caro & John's songs manage to strike a balance between creepy melancholy and kaleidoscopic pysch silliness. Not only that, but they have more than just a nostaglic vibe going for them -- they are good songwriters/performers with some delightful, weird ideas. Fans of the Incredible String Band and other British hippie folk psych of the period definitely need to hear this. Kudos to Shadoks for digging this up, and doing such a nice job of it too. The booklet has some charming color photos of Tony, Caro and John in their garden, modeling the latest in hippy fashions circa '72. There's also complete lyrics and liner notes from the band, who are still active making music together! AND, five bonus tracks appended to the album make this an even nicer find, consisting of stuff from the period that didn't make it on to the original LP, but *should have* (unlike the general run of bonus tracks!).

RealAudio clip: Eclipse Of The Moon
RealAudio clip: There Are No Greater Heroes
RealAudio clip: The Snowdon Song

Who or what is TOOG? The answer is simply the alter ego of Gilles Weinzaepflen. A gent from Paris. Warm vocals swoon over a keyboard-y electronic pop backdrop. Is it any surprise that this release finds its home on a label that also boasts Momus? Quirky sound effects, strange lyrical twists, a frail bare chest, not to mention song titles such as "Cyclope Haine" (Cyclopean-Hate), and "L'Amour Dentaire" (Dental Love)... you can tell they are frequent Momus musical co-conspirators.

Shagrat was a British psychedelic "mystic-rock" group formed by Steve Peregrine Took after he parted ways with Marc Bolan and Tyrannosaurus Rex. This is apparently Shagrat's complete output, compiled from scratchy acetates and so forth dating from 1970 and

RealAudio clip: Still Yawning, Still-Born
RealAudio clip: Steel Abortion

We just looked back on past Tool reviews, and it seems like we're always defending them, or defending ourselves for loving them so much, but the more we've thought about it, the more it's become obvious that there's no need. Not at all. Not only does Tool not need us to defend them, they have tons of fans, sell millions of records, but they hardly qualify as a guilty pleasure at this point, other than for the fact that a bunch of dicks with backwards baseball caps and jacked up trucks love them. But those same dicks love Slayer too, but you don't see people embarrassed to love Slayer. And what's not to love here, lengthy epics, sludgy crunchy guitars, impossibly complex drumming, lurching and grooving, moody and so intense, creepy crawly vocals, this is some seriously dark and heavy shit. Maybe more so than a lot of 'heavy underground' bands. Plus Tool just seem super cool. They refuse to sell their tracks on iTunes, they spend years crafting epic sort-of-concept records, totally elaborate and complex, right down to the packaging. And holy shit, the packaging this time around is mind blowing. And mind you Tool have long championed the ultra deluxe packaging for their records, but this one is definitely the most outrageous. In fact it just might be the most amazing packaging we've ever see. When we cracked open the box we all gathered around and ooh'ed and aah'ed like kids on Christmas. What it is, is a super thick black plastic folder type sleeve, with two lenses embedded in the flap. When you open the sleeve, and check out the full color booklet each photo is split in two, two images side by side, and then you realize that it's a stereoscope and as you look through the lenses at the photos, they become strange 3-D tableau's, band photos are rife with tiny little details, ghosts in the background, strange items on the desk in the foreground, fire and smoke, other images are strange surreal juxtapositions and creepy Eastern psychedelic images, even the song titles are in 3-D!Ô It's funny, but Tool are one of the few bands that almost everyone we know loves, customers, band members, folks who run labels, over the last week or two, lots of our 'underground music' pals have emailed or called to opine on the new Tool, as if that made perfect sense, and it kind of does. it's a little bit like somehow one of our own managed to crack the code and miraculously made it to the big time, and in their own way are subverting from within. When Opiate came out years back, we never would have thought that a band that dark and that weird would one day be mentioned in the same breath as Coldplay or U2. But it's gotta happen once in a while. And it's pretty great that if anything, Tool have not softened or mainstreamed at all, but maybe gotten more strange and more obstinate with age. Just like us.Ô

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MPEG stream: Jambi
MPEG stream: Wings For Marie (Part 1)

Unfortunately, we can't really discuss how fucking unbelievable this record is (and it is!) without first addressing the skeptics and the naysayers. I have long been a champion of Tool and urged people to check them out, regardless of their preconceived Lateralus is dark and brooding, rhythmic and atonal. Beautifully complex, with insane time signatures, bizarre tunings and huge riffs. A doom rock epic, skillfully forced into some completely alien prog/metal/ambient shape. Tense and droning tribal workouts, pummelling double bass, chugging power chords, whispered feathery stretches of ambience, and great fucking songs. Misanthropic lyrics and amazing (sometimes shrieked, but more often sung) vocals. Ultra dynamic and staggeringly technical. Great parts are stretched to their breaking point, where they cease to be just great parts, and instead become torturously tense. And so satisfying. Obviously, you already know whether you -think- you like or dislike Tool. But if you think you dislike Tool, maybe it's time to think again.

RealAudio clip: The Grudge
RealAudio clip: Eon Blue Apocalypse / The Patient

Tool is easily the best of all the so called "nu-metal" bands and like the Deftones seem to have been unfairly lumped in with the Korns and the Limp Bizkits. Tool have always had a pretty well developed aesthetic, in their music, their (lack of) image, and especially their videos. This DVD (or vhs tape if you're so inclined) collects all of their videos, and they are amazing. Futuristic surreal vignettes played out by tiny depressed sexless figures, traversing a dangerous and lonely world of living flesh and rotting appendages. Owing much to Svankmeyer and the Quay brothers, these videos are absolutely mesmerising, and Tool's weird syncopated depressia-rock underpins the dour goings on perfectly. There's also a whole disc of rarities, which is really great as well, but it's all about the videos.

After a long absence from the indie scene this former Tsunami and Simple Machines Records gal returns with a double cd. And seems like she's leaving the indie pop realm behind in favor of a decidedly more mature, accessible sound. Her low voice affects a world

RealAudio clip: Word Traffic

Unloading The Sun is both the premier release on new SF label Grand Gallop Music and the first solo cd by Luke Top. Perhaps you're already familiar with this gent as he has also been known to play in The Cave-Ins (plural) and Ceramic Isles, and perform on the road with Cass McCombs. For his debut he keeps things all breezy and easy-going. Unloading The Sun is filled with eight nicely crafted mid-tempo pop tunes featuring muted horns and drowsy lilting vocals quite akin to those of Rufus Wainwright. A well timed, mellow, wind-down-your-summer kind of album. Limited edition of 300 packaged in a cool 3-color screenprinted cardboard case.

MPEG stream: Feel So I Am
MPEG stream: Further Than Comfort

Don't know too much about these guys, they've had a bunch of records out, but somehow this is the first one we've heard, and it didn't take long for us to realize we had really missing out. Haunting, creepy, dirge-y psychedelia, thick undulating bass buzz, effects drenched guitar shimmer, spidery sitar like melodies, abstract bits of drum skitter and sizzle, processed ghostlike vox, all wrapped in a muddy murky production, blurred into a swirling cloud of dronepsych bliss out. The flipside is even dirgier, with the bass run through a wah wah pedal, the spectral voices wilder and more witchy, a lurching, lumbering dirge, a washed out and woozy soft noise lysergic drift, the guitars jagged and fragmented, notes and bits of melody draped over that grinding buzzing groove, totally dark and ominous and hypnotic. LIMITED TO 345 COPIES!!!

This tireless veteran DJ is certainly no stranger to SF party-goers or regulars to his weekly Red Wine Social. The omnipresent DJ TophOne (psst, not to be confused with the other Bay Area Toph aka Gold Chains!) has released a mix cd-r so that you can take the good times home with you! How 'bout a peek at what he's spinning? It really runs the good time gamut from current locals such as Lyrics Born and Paradise Boys to classic rock Steely Dan, John Cougar Stevie Winwood, Eddie Money and Queen to a multitude of other tracks by other DJs such as DJ Zeph, DJ Shadow, DJ Marz, DJ Smash and Z-Trip. 33 tracks total.

If all of the customer queries and requests we've been getting about this cd are any indication, Ms Martina Topley-Bird is perhaps most known for her personal and professional ties to Tricky -- she sang on a number of his albums -- but on Anything her voice definitely overrides the gossip-mongers and stands on its own merits. Actually this material on this new release is not really technically new. It's a reworking of her 2003 album Quixotic which was never available domestically and which featured the likes of Mark Lanegan, David Holmes and Queens Of The Stone Age's Josh Homme (on the song "Need One"). In fact, it's fairly unrecognizable from its predecessor -- different running order, three omitted songs, etc. If you've already got Quixotic, you'll probably find this to be quite an altogether different listening experience. If you're unfamiliar with those Tricky albums and haven't seen the sultry album cover photo, you'll be forgiven if you deduced (as some of us did) from Ms Martina's wonderful surname that this might be something akin to the neo-folk of Joanna Newsom or Faun Fables. It's not remotely close! No, this is as far from the pixie-dusted woodlands as you can get, think 'cosmopolitan' and more in the vein of lush smoky trip hop a la Massive Attack or yes, Tricky.

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By now, probably everyone knows who Torche is, and has an inkling of what they sound like, but if not, you're in for a pretty kick ass surprise. Cuz these guys are like the pop band you always wished existed, in that they fuse big hooks and crazy melodies to massive downtuned guitar crush and pounding drum damage, and with every record, they seem to move further and further away from their sludgey beginnings and toward a sound that manages to be more and more accessible, without getting any less heavy. Seems impossible but it's true. Torche are like what we wished Queens Of The Stoneage sounded like, catchy as shit, and crazy heavy, just check out a track like "Kicking", with it's almost bubblegum chorus, and it's furious churning metallic main riff, the combination is pretty much a dream come true for folks like us who like our pop crazy catchy, and our heavy HEAVY. There were hints on past records of what these guys were capable of, but holy shit, Harmonicraft pretty much realizes all of that potential, it's so catchy and fun, and hooky and heavy, that it's almost like sonic candy, total heavy pop bliss, we've listened to this record probably 50 times in the last two weeks, and we're not even close to getting tired of it. For more in depth raving about Torche and their particular peculiar brand of sludge pop songcraft, you can check out the other Torche reviews on the aQ site, but for now, just know that this is probably THEE best heavy pop / sludge pop record this year, and heck, really any year, and based on how many plays this gets, it might just be a contender for RECORD of the year, pop, sludge or otherwise!!

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MPEG stream: Kicking
MPEG stream: Walk It Off
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Longtime readers of the aQ list should need no introduction to Torche, our favorite sludge pop geniuses, who by our reckoning should be HUGE. They may be heavy and loud and distorted, and feature members of Cavity and Floor and Dove, but the music they make as Torche is something else entirely. The guitars massive chugging and crunchy, the drums pounding and brutal, the bass thick and buzzy, the vocals a totally unique wail / croon, they sound a bit like the Foo Fighters, if the Foo Fighters were heavier and catchier and more punk rock. To really get into Torche, check elsewhere on the aQ website and read the reviews of Meanderthal, s/t and In Return, we go into way more detail and gush like crazy, cuz these guys absolutely rule. But this one might be for fans only, although we can guarantee, all it would take is these three songs and you will freak out, become obsessed, and need to buy everything these guys have ever done, so maybe give it a try. Two tracks from Meanderthal, the two 'hits' on a record that was pretty much all hits, both epic and hooky and heavy and genius. But the reason we're here are the two bonus tracks, both unreleased, and both as good as anything on the record proper. Big guitars, a killer hook of a chorus, amazing harmonies, kick ass drumming, even some shredding leads, this band just keeps getting better and better, but also tighter and more polished, without ever sounding wussier or like sellouts. C'mon, if a bands b-side toss offs are this good, then holy shit they are MONSTERS. The second unreleased song here is total commercial radio alt rock heaven. If more FM radio programmers had balls, Torche would get played as much as the Offspring! But it's not just two more killer Torche songs, you also get a dvd, with videos for the two Meanderthal tracks, one is a straight up performance clip, totally rocking and awesome, but it's the video for "Across The Shields" that's the mind blower, the whole band in furry costumes, but not just bears and rabbits, no one is a fanged teddy bear monster, one is a big headed baby with another fanged jaw at waist level, one is a creepy demon faced rabbit eared furry, and the other looks like a furry piece of French toast, with long fingers and claw like toes, and 4 heads on the front of the toast, all the band members heads, but one is the actual head stuck through a hole. Wow. The video is of them cavorting in the forest. And of course stills from that video are used for the cover of the lp and the dvd. And as always insanely deluxe packaging, outrageously thick colored vinyl, equally thick and deluxe sleeve, and a black and gold metallic sticker on the plastic. Not sure how limited these are, but we only got a handful.

A few lists back we gushed unapologetically about the gorgeous ultra heavy sludge pop of the mighty Torche, their self titled debut having just been rerecorded remixed and reissued. And as we mentioned in that review, that sucker had been lodged in our cd player for years, since the very first time we laid ears on it. The heir to Nirvana's throne, adding a megaton of heaviness to Nirvana's near perfect sound. The result was some sort of impossibly heavy pop music, as downtuned and punishing as it was hooky and anthemic. So here we have the long in the works follow up, and on first listen it's got a definite different vibe, distinctly less poppy, more heavy, and aggressive, less groovy, more well metal. Not a bad thing, but we kind of had our fingers crossed for THE heaviest pop record of all time. And on first listen, this wasn't necessarily that. But, the more we listen, the more the magic of this record becomes clear, and the more the pop side reveals itself, blossoming like the flowers on the cover, revealing blissed out beauty amidst all the downtuned pummel. In fact, we just noticed that the third track, "Bring Me Home" sounds like a heavier mathier Jesu, which is a very good thing indeed. All washed out My Bloody Valentine swirls of sound, big booming drums, wailing guitars, and a hook to die for. Some of the other tracks are fast and heavy and groovy and play almost like some sort of stoner rock, but still twisted into a distinctly Torche-like shape. The Melvins vibe is BIG all over this record, which is also a very good thing, and while we don't hear as much of the Torche we loved so much on their s/t full length, we do hear lots more of the other Torche related bands like Floor and Dove, and even some Harvey Milk. Which is our way of saying while we were slightly disappointed by the not-quite-as-poppiness, it's more than made up for by killer riffing and insane heaviness. And this is some heavy heavy shit, but still with just enough groove and pop to keep us listening NONSTOP. And holy shit! The Packaging is mind blowing. A deluxe gatefold 10", adorned with a super close up of John Baizley's Pushead like painting, all smeared inks, water drops, flower petals and bees, inside, more amazing artwork, including portraits of each of the band members inside flowers, and right in the middle 4 little flaps holding the cd version of the record, a three inch cd housed in a clear 5" plastic cd shell, also adorned with a flower, the inner sleeve also printed in full color, the vinyl super thick and on various different colors of swirled clear vinyl, everything housed in a plastic sleeve, with a cool art deco clear sticker with more artwork and the track titles and band name. WOW.

MPEG stream: Warship
MPEG stream: Bring Me Home

We have loved Torche from the very first time we heard them. Rare is the band who seem to effortlessly create a sound, that whether we all realized it or not, was exactly what we had always wanted to hear. We haven't met a single person who wasn't immediately smitten with Torche, their sound, the one we had all been hungering for, some kind of perfect pop, made impossibly, and irresistibly heavy. A dizzying collision of incredible hooks and downtuned pummel. And Torche were, and are, the undisputed masters of that very unique heavy catchiness, or catchy heaviness. Their debut sounded like a super charged heavier than Heaven Nirvana, or maybe the Foo Fighters crossed with the Melvins. That was the sort of shit we should be hearing on the radio. And seeing on MTV. Torche's recent ep, In Return, while still awesome, found the band ditching much of the pop in favor of a much heavier sound, embracing their inner Melvins, yet thankfully never completely losing that pop side, just obscuring it beneath riff after riff and furious skull splitting drumming. So here comes the long and anxiously awaited second full length, and while maybe after In Return, we were expecting them to move even further away from the pop, we really needn't have worried. Somehow they managed to make a record that falls somehere right in between. Easily as catchy and hook filled as their debut, but even heavier than In Return. The riffs are massive, the guitar sound HUGE, the vocals keep getting better and better, still way down in the mix, but perfectly complimenting the sound, not too melodic, but none of that pointless caterwauling. The drums too, are LOUD and incredible. And the songs, shit, strip away some of the distortion, and we're talking top 40. Sort of. The opener is an instrumental blast, that sounds like the late great Karp, super dense churning hyper riffage, and super complex drumming, dizzying guitar harmonies, almost like some Fucking Champs / Melvins mashup. But the second is all pop, right out of the gate, an awesome melody, big thick riffs, soaring vocals, over the kind of drumming that is as catchy as any of the other instruments, not since Nirvana would we find ourselves humming the fucking drum fills, but this is Torche, what do you expect? It's like pop punk given a sludge doom makeover. The whole record is an exercise in extremes, coexisting impossibles. No record this poppy and this catchy could possibly be this dense and distorted and downtuned and heavy, but it is. And no metal record, or sludge record, should be able to be so hook filled and catchy and still retain it's sheer fury and intensity, but again, the proof is right here. "Across The Shields" sounds like a primo slab of nineties college indie rock, a main vocal melody that sticks in your head the second you hear it, a killer bassline that on its own is as catchy as anything any of the other instruments are doing, but here it's wrapped around super metallic harmonies, dense squalls of tribal drumming, and some chest rattling downtuned chug. "Without A Sound" begins like some sort of early SST jam mixed with dirgey Melvins jam, but deftly transforms into a crazy catchy pop song, "Amnesian" seems to take the obtuse melodic sludgery of Harvey Milk, and turns it inside out, offering up soaring harmonies and a totally majestic main riff, but separated by atonal slabs of slow motion dynamics and pounding percussion, as well as wild FX drenched psychedelic leads. We could probably go song by song, and talk about how heavy and/or catchy each one is, because they are. ALL of them. Some tracks do veer in one direction or the other, but even then, the band seem incapable of sounding anything but both heavy AND poppy. There are certainly worse problems. But like any band worth their salt, they do delight in confounding, so the record finishes off with the 4 minute, VERY un-poppy title track, incredible sludgey and dirgey title track, beginning with a roiling miasma of guitar buzz and hum, eventually a riff kicks in, the drums stuttering and staccato, the riff a churning start stop, lurching and hypnotic, a dark slithery groove, the guitars crumbling and wet with FX, in the background clouds of glimmering whir and twinkling reverb drenched guitar squiggles, a primo classic Melvins era trudge, and while not overtly catchy, Torche still seem unable to commit to full on pummel, so even in this climax of primal riffage, lurk some unexpected, very subtle hooks. Whether you realize it or not, hours, days, weeks later, you'll find yourself humming along to what ostensibly is the least catchy song here. And if that's not a sign of pop genius, well then we don't know what is... INCREDIBLE packaging, borrowing its main concept from that Open Hand record from a few years back, the booklet cut into overlapping layers, the tray card, covering only half of the jewel case revealing the art on the inside, the booklet folding out into a massive sprawling, garishly cartoon horrorscape, but beware, if you take the booklet out, it's a bitch to get back in!

MPEG stream: Triumph Of Venus
MPEG stream: Grenades
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MPEG stream: Meanderthal

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

SORRY.

It must be practically impossible for a band to follow up a record like Torche's Meanderthal and not disappoint, a seemingly universal favorite, topping pretty much everyone's year end lists, and rightfully so, a pretty much perfect slab of super catchy, ultra heavy sludge pop, like Nirvana's Bleach writ brutal and pummeling but no less impossibly infectious. So what's a band to do? Well obviously more of the same. But if you're Torche, you go one better, and somehow make a record that's even catchier. Is that even possible? Well judging by the 2 minutes of opening track "UFO" it sure as fuck is, with a killer main riff, and some super catchy guitar harmonies, some vocal oooooh's, and a total stop start power pop / pop punk verse, it's pretty much perfect, they even throw in some minor key chug, just for a second, so no one can claim they sold out. And it just doesn't stop. The 52 second long "Lay Low" is just as catchy, wild drumming, and a killer hook, and some weird stumbling stop start weirdness near the end that definitely makes it official, these guys are the real kings of pop, just so happens their pop is twisted and sludgey and heavy as fuck. Eight songs, in 22 minutes, and consider that the last two tracks combined are close to 11 minutes, which means most of the other songs clock in at 2 minutes or less, but who needs more, it's like the Guided By Voices school of popsmithery, why beat a chorus into the ground, leave the listener begging for more, and you can always just set it on repeat, after all we just listened to "UFO" and "Lay Low" about 10 times in a row. "Shine On My Old Ways" is epic classic pop, with a bad ass start stop riff, squealing feedback filling all the spaces, the band have a definitely Melvins/Kiss thing going on, but dipped in some Archies style sonic sugar. And a little Queens Of The Stoneage too. Just like Meanderthal, this has us wondering why these guys aren't HUGE, maybe they are and we just don't realize it, but we think some band like Fallout Boy or the Killers or Interpol should take Torche on tour with them. Why the hell not? And if the first _ of the record was short sharp perfect pop, the last two tracks, while still equally poppy lets the band sprawl, "Face The Wall" is a smoldering fuzz pop epic, soaring guitars, big booming drums, super melodic vocals, the whole thing dark and brooding but still melodic, leading right into "Out Again", a meandery dreamy super rocking melodic almost krautrocky noise pop dirge, repetitive and hypnotic and a weirdly perfect way to finish off a record made up primarily of 2 minute heavy pop songs. So awesome! We never should have doubted...

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MPEG stream: Lay Low
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This is totally kick ass stoner sludge pop! So right up our alley! Not surprising, as Torche is fronted by the main guy from equally heavy / poppy AQ faves Floor and also features one of the guys from AQ faves Cavity as well. Try to imagine the Melvins mixed with the the Foo Fighters and you'll get a rough idea. Massive downtuned metal riffs, stoner rock slowed waaaay dooown, and then wrapped in pop hooks and perfect harmonies. Ultra catchy sing songy melodies draped over pummelling dirges, like Christmas lights strung over a tarpit. AQ pal Josh was touting this as record of the year. And who are we to argue?! We dream about the day that this is the top forty we see on MTV and hear on the radio. It's as catchy if not catchier than most of the crap that gets shoved down kids' throats. And we're all for that 'your chocolate in my peanut butter' sort of unlikely combo, and you don't get much more unlikely than this. Sludge pop? Dirge pop? Stoner pop? Hardly matters. This is the record of the summer, the one you'll be blasting with the top down as you cruise along the beach. Assuming of course that it's the dead of night, and your car is black with bones hanging from the rearview mirror, and the stickshift has a human skull on it, and there's a corpse in your trunk, and your car is engulfed in a cloud of vampire bats, and all the windows are tinted blood red and you run down every one in your path. Exactly. Now there's no excuse for the metalhead in you life to safely indulge his or her musical sweet tooth!

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

SORRY. Okay, so this disc was one of our favorite releases of 2005. A massive, pummeling ultra catchy slab of hook filled sludge pop. Or something. Like Nirvana but a million times heavier. Anyway, we played the shit out of this disc, and still do. Recently, the band decided to re-record the record, not completely, but they were unhappy with the mix, especially the vocals, so this here, as the title explains, is reissued, remastered, and partially re-recorded. Hard to say how different it is without doing a side by side comparison. It does sound a bit louder, maybe a little clearer, the vocals sound pretty much the same, maybe a teensy bit more in tune, but so what. The record was already perfect the way it was. If anything, now it's just a little bit more perfect-er!! Probably not worth buying again if you already have it, but if you somehow missed out on the divine slab of sludgy pop brilliance, the gods have chosen to bless you with one more chance... This is totally kick ass stoner sludge pop! So right up our alley! Not surprising, as Torche is fronted by the main guy from equally heavy / poppy AQ faves Floor and also features one of the guys from AQ faves Cavity as well. Try to imagine the Melvins mixed with the the Foo Fighters and you'll get a rough idea. Massive downtuned metal riffs, stoner rock slowed waaaay dooown, and then wrapped in pop hooks and perfect harmonies. Ultra catchy sing songy melodies draped over pummelling dirges, like Christmas lights strung over a tarpit. AQ pal Josh was touting this as record of the year. And who are we to argue?! We dream about the day that this is the top forty we see on MTV and hear on the radio. It's as catchy if not catchier than most of the crap that gets shoved down kids' throats. And we're all for that 'your chocolate in my peanut butter' sort of unlikely combo, and you don't get much more unlikely than this. Sludge pop? Dirge pop? Stoner pop? Hardly matters. This is the record of the summer, the one you'll be blasting with the top down as you cruise along the beach. Assuming of course that it's the dead of night, and your car is black with bones hanging from the rearview mirror, and the stickshift has a human skull on it, and there's a corpse in your trunk, and your car is engulfed in a cloud of vampire bats, and all the windows are tinted blood red and you run down every one in your path. Exactly. Now there's no excuse for the metalhead in your life not to indulge his or her musical sweet tooth!

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For whatever reason, we never paid much attention to Part Chimp, you think with a monkey related name like that we'd be all over those guys, and listening to this split now, we're sort of kicking ourselves, a cool monkey name AND they shred, laying down some seriously blown out heaviness, a sort of stoner rock sludge, the guitars thick and oozy, the riffs Sabbathy and slow, laced with shredding psychedelic leads, the drums bombastic, everything woven into a serious head caving chunk of head bangable downtuned metallic riff rock, that is TOTALLY hitting the spot. To the point that we might just have to go track down all of these guys records. Cuz both tracks here kill, one a Hawkwind cover, that sounds like the original dipped in filth and supercharged. Note to self: Part Chimp RULE! Ok, now that we've got that out of the way, we can say, that it almost didn't matter WHO was on the other side of this split, and not just cuz they'd be going up against Torche, but also cuz they'd be going up against Torche doing ALL GUIDED BY VOICES COVERS!! And yeah, it's just as great as it sounds, they tackle "Exit Flagger", "Postal Blowfish" and "Unleashed! The Large Hearted Boy", all of which could totally be Torche songs proper. Usually when some super heavy band covers a pop song, we think to ourselves, "why isn't there just a band who actually sound like that, who are crazy heavy, but write killer pop hooks", but in this case, we know the answer, there IS, and that band is Torche. The GBV songs were mini masterpieces to begin with, so when wedded to pounding drums and huge distorted guitars, they turn into pretty much totally perfect pop metal bliss, and we can honestly say, we've listened to these three songs over and over nearly nonstop since we got this in. Maybe Torche will cover Bee Thousand in its entirety. We can dream. Probably crazy limited, and features super cool space ape sci-fi cover art!

MPEG stream: Exit Flagger
MPEG stream: Dr. Horse

If Tom Waits were to put out a record of instrumental collaborations with Christian Fennesz, Torngat's Le Petite Nicole might be the result. There's just enough pounding drums to satisfy the thinking-person's need for rock, and enough contemplative sweeping synth pieces to make a rocker feel like an intellectual. Titles to songs without words are by definition abstractions, but the droning repetition of "6:23 PM" captures the essence of the early evening after-work-brain-fry perfectly, both in the sense of "this is exactly what I want to listen to" and "this is exactly how I feel." The previous song, "Afternoon Moon Pie", through jaunty percussion and a distorted Rhodes piano, also invokes a particular time and place, like late summertime light through the leaves of trees at the park. Torngat definitely has elements of (early) Black Heart Procession at work, as well: a little bit of minor-chord sadness, mixed with minimal drumming and guitar picking. A record not to be missed.

MPEG stream: Interlude
MPEG stream: 6:23 PM
MPEG stream: Going Whats What

Somehow we never carried the debut by Toro Y Moi, which fit crazy comfortably next to releases by Washed Out, Neon Indian, and Nite Jewel as one of the most promising offerings in the 'chill-wave/glo-core' movement that seemed to blossom a couple years ago. With his anticipated follow up to that debut, he's shown there is much more to them to just being a part of a potentially passing trend, as this album proves with glorious cascading pop sounds that come swirling and dripping from all of his songs. Imagine if the Sea & Cake let their hair down and loosened up big time, that's the vibe of this record, the sounds rushing and swirling with a tropical breeze that just feels so damn good. Instead of trying so hard to be weird or lo-fi like so many of his peers, Toro Y Moi has shown he's way more interested in creating a broad sonic landscape that invites you in with open arms and leads you ever deeper and deeper, going wherever the sounds may twist and turn. So delightful.

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MPEG stream: How I Know
MPEG stream: Good Hold

Torrez features Sidney Lindner, who is brother of AQ regular/wildman Cayce (who you may rememeber from several of the Neighborhood Films) and one half of AQ faves Golden Hotel with Cayce. Sidney's production seems to have a great deal to do with both bands' sound: a rich, thick, miasma of warm hums, shimmering reverb, and spooky ambience. In Torrez, unlike the meandering drug addled psych folk of the Golden Hotel, the focus is definitely more on the songs, and especially the vocals of Kim Torrez, who has a gorgeous, langorous torch singer voice, dark and deep and throaty but also dreamy and ethereal. This is the sophomore album from Torrez and reveals a more fleshed out and accessible sound for this New Hampshire group which I'm not so sure is a good thing. Mind you it's definitely not a BAD thing. It's just that Lindner's unsettling and off kilter soundscapes kept Torrez from slipping into Norah Jones/Dido/Sarah McLachlan territory. And while it's definitely nowhere near that point, there's less of the smoldering, slightly unsettling energy that loomed gloriously over their 2001 debut. Things are generally more evenkeeled and thus more accessible. Rumour has it their apparently-not-so-indie-after-all label KimChee rejected the first version of The Evening Drag for being too fucked up and not commercial enough...hmmmmm....would love to hear that original mix! A standout song is "The Evening Sun" in which they conjured a secret gathering of Godspeed, the Dirty Three, Mazzy Star and Cowboy Junkies. Still quite lovely and miles above their more famous contemporaries.

RealAudio clip: The Girls will Haunt You
RealAudio clip: After The Carnival

Dark and langorous, sweet and shimmering country. Super sparse arrangements, delicate lap steel, gorgeous vocals and an amazing super spacious recording make this a sweet surprise. Think Mazzy Star, Souled American, Giant Sand, Low, but recorded late at

RealAudio clip: Wild Horse
RealAudio clip: Tonight

Having thoroughly enjoyed her 2000 album Love In The Time Of Science, we were looking forward to Ms Torrini's newest offering. Sad to report though that apparently she's gone though some sort of transformation in those five years. She's shed her 'Bjork meets Portishead' tendencies in favor of a more 'Tori Amos at the piano' elegant, womanly approach. Very vanilla and adult contemporary. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Emiliana Torrini really sounds a lot like Bjork, and it can't be entirely 'cause she's from Iceland too (her dad is Italian, hence her non-Icelandic name). Indeed this is released via Bjork's One Little Indian label... Her voice has all of the breathy cracked beauty and enthusiastic mystery that the Icelandic pop star employs, although not the full range of wonder and eccentricity possessed by Bjork. Their music is a close comparision though, this is kinda like a Portis-bjork, you could say, with some of the even more commerical gloss pop of the Cardigans or Garbage. While not super original, there's no denying her ability to capture these sounds, and fans of the aforementioned will find this difficult to resist. As a result, this will be huge and you'll soon be seeing her name EVERYWHERE. Strangely, we first saw her name on currently ongoing series of Fat Cat remix 7"s, where Emiliana meets up with the decidedly less "pop" sounds of the likes of V/VM and Process! (We have a few of these in stock as well.)

RealAudio clip: Baby Blue