[ aquarius records — Rock Pop ]

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The Tower Recordings' Matt Valentine teams up with some of his freedrone pals for a disc of lengthy, blissed out ur-drones and psychedelic ragas. Subtle, slow burning melodies, and buzzing steel string hum are woven into dense swirling drug psych ambience. Various bits of percussion are sprinkled like glitter throughout, sparkling like distant stars amidst the thick whir of bombinating guitars, and fuzzy stringed buzz. From fiery and fierce to drifting and barely there, this is indeed a divine disc of mesmer, And holy crap is it super trippy to watch this picture disc spin, the colors and shapes, the perfect visual representation of the mind melting sounds within!

First off, the music IS pretty cool. If you like bombastic, progged out folk/psych symphonics (think Citay meets Six Organs) then definitely check this out, it's good! Leave aside all your preconceptions of its possible pretentiousness (a "New Weird America" tribute to the Czech New Wave of cinema) that seems like someone at Arthur Mag's wet dream, and just bask in its sheer instrumental glory, evocative of its inspiration (the 1970 celluloid cult classic Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders, one of the must surreal, sexy and psychedelic "vampire" stories ever filmed, with a mystical mood quite different from, say, Vampyros Lesbos) but also free standing as a soundtrack to whatever similarly delirious imagery your imagination can conjure. Jittering strings, crashing cymbals, wordless moaning female vocals, storms of heavy-duty psychedelic guitar... grandiose and heavy, also lilting and lovely. It's done with full-on chamber rock instrumentation, which means flutes-a-twitter and harps-a-zing. Atmospheres of dusk, of ancient ritual, of your utmost acid-prog-folk-dreamings are readily achieved. Yep, pretty cool! Onboard for this project are a bunch of well known indie rock/folk artists from the environs of Philadelphia, perhaps foremost among them Greg Weeks, a longtime AQ fave both solo and with his band Espers. Also in the band, other members of Espers, Fursaxa, Fern Knight... the whole Philly "acid folk" scene essentially. Now, we're both fans and friends with a bunch of these folks, and in fact Aquarius was a co-sponsor (along with Drag City and Arthur Magazine, natch) of the recent Valerie Project performance at the Castro Theatre here in San Francisco. But, we can see how some might have a few issues with the whole thing. Issues? Well, as controversies go, this one's pretty minor. Some might be critical of some musicians being "arrogant" enough to make a new soundtrack to to a film that ALREADY HAS an awesome soundtrack -- especially when that soundtrack was recently released on cd to much ballyhoo (you can read our review of it elsewhere on our site if you haven't already). Heck, a lot of people probably only know about this movie because of the soundtrack. So to remake it takes some nerve. But why not? It's not like the original is being erased or something. So we don't have a problem with that. And if folks want to associate themselves with the "coolness factor" of Valerie, well that's understandable too. And like we said, the results are pretty swell. No, it was more the actual fact of the performance that caused some qualms. There were even a couple "protesters" leafleting outside the Castro (among them, former San Francisco mayoral contender Matt Gonzalez! Hmm, you'd think he'd have other demands on his time... but that's why we like the guy, you'd never catch Gavin Newsom up to something like that!), and we can see their point. Basically, it's 'cause the film had NEVER BEFORE been screened in the United States, until now, but WITHOUT any of its original (and like we said, awesome) music, dialogue, or foley work!! You can see how some hardcore cineastes are gonna find that a tad upsetting! All this "controversy" could have been avoided had they simply ALSO shown the film in its intended form, like earlier that day or the night before or something. Heck those protesters could have pooled their dough and put it on. Oh well. Especially since the Valerie Project's "soundtrack" didn't appear to be synced shot-for-shot with the action in the film anyway, perhaps another solution would to have had the band on the stage (instead of hidden in the orchestra pit), with scenes from Valerie projected over them as an imagistic backdrop, presenting it as a rock show, instead of as a legitimate screening of the movie, a move that you'll otherwise never get to see in a theater. Anyway, such quibbling has little to do with the worth of this album, which we like quite a bit!

MPEG stream: Introduction
MPEG stream: Fire Fountain

Brand new vinyl only 12" ep from long time aQ fave Honey Owens and her (often) one woman project Valet. We've been raving about Valet for ages, since the first few cd-r's on Owens' Yarn Lazer cd-r label. Her sound has definitely grown more refined, gotten a bit more polished even, but still manages to sound intimate and fuzzy, warm and languid, dreamy and druggy. False Face Society is another fantastic collection of diamond eyed free folk drift, with Valet now expanded to a quartet, and a lot less reverb than on past outings, so less murk and mumble, in exchange for something a bit more crystalline. The vocals are still delivered in a darkly druggy haze, but the music now glistens and glimmers, shines and sparkles, the combination at once ethereal and ephemeral, lush and layered. And all very dreamlike. Imagine some dark meandering free folk, slowed waaaaaaay down, dipped in acid and then played back frame by frame, a stop motion sprawl of flutter and whir, of woozy warble and unmoored psychedelia. The guitars are spidery and spare, effects are looped within soft clouds of slow shifting textures and spaced out melodies and Honey O's angelic soporific croon. The single song-ed A side amps up a bit part way through, the drums get tribal, and the various abstract strands of sound and melody coalesce into some seriously hypnotic high end shimmer, transformed into a weirdly propulsive bit of Sunroof! like ur-drone, the guitars gradually growing more buzzy and distorted. Two shorter songs n the B side, the first all spaced out synth blurts and distant drifting psych guitars, moaning strings, slivers of feedback and barely there wordless vox, while the second finds Honey O. tackling "Rainbow" all by her lonesome, and yeah, we're talking about THAT "Rainbow", as in Boris and Michio Kurihara's "Rainbow". Here it becomes something super minimal and tripped out, tons and tons of space, reverbed emptiness, shot through with delicate traces of melody, hushed voices, wah wah guitar unfurls lazily, muted understated percussion lurks beneath soft swirls of minimal buzz, and of course Honey O.'s sultry FX-wreathed vocals, the guitars getting more and more psychedelic, over a backdrop that seems content to just hover and shimmer and drift. Druggy, languorous and so so lovely. Packaged in super heavy, full color sleeves, pressed on thick black vinyl, with a photocopied insert, and a download card, so you can get these tracks for your iPod (although, when we tried, we couldn't figure out where or how to download the tracks on the Mexican Summer website).

These days, Portland seems to be at the epicenter of a new wave of seriously creative DIY underground 'noise' rock. From the last Yellow Swans record to the wonderfully incestuous Marriage Records crew, there have been a seriously ridiculous number of great releases in the last couple years. The thing is, though, that while you could argue that there is a "Portland sound," every project is totally distinct, so you can't really go lumping them all into some generic category. Well, Honey Owens' newest release under the Valet moniker is absolutely no exception. It's absolutely amazing. If you've been following her work, and you were lucky enough to grab one of the Fire/Beachside 7"s, you have probably noticed a trend toward more structured and more accessible songs. The pop-ophile in us who loves hooks and pretty melodies was pretty excited, while the nerdy drone-monger side was seriously scared. "What if she goes too far? Too poppy?" Alas, Naked Acid is simultaneously a seamless blend of previous works, and -- yes -- a step toward tracks that are more easily digestible. It's like Fripp & Eno had a hippie baby with Karen Dalton and Tangerine Dream. But through it all, one thing that keeps us more than happy is Honey's voice. It's gorgeous, but not at all fragile. Not even so much confident. Instead, it seems beautifully unconcerned with those sorts of paradigms. The overall feeling is one of blissful engagement with melody and texture. Analog synth-sounding drones, gentle strumming, then suddenly everything is heightened by vocals and searing psych guitars. Just like a good movie, the final impression of any artistic experience is at least partially governed by the ending. On Naked Acid, the second to last song is "Fire" from the eponymous 7", which quietly dies down before bringing us to the final piece, a techno song. While on paper it may sound off-putting, it somehow works. If you can picture everything else about this record somehow being woven around some sort of late '90s Detroit techno, created in the wake of Basic Channel and Chain Reaction, then you've got a good idea. Maybe the reason it works so well is simply because it hints at unpredictable ambitions of Ms. Honey Owens, and we've got to say, the future is looking pretty good. Absolutely, wholeheartedly recommended.

MPEG stream: We Went There
MPEG stream: Fire

Honey Owens sweetly surprises us with a return as Valet, on this beautifully kaleidoscopic record on Kranky. Much has changed in the six years since the nocturnal folk music of Valet's False Flag Society. For starters, Owens increasing attention over the past few years to her live dance music project, Miracles Club, with her partner Rafael Fauria, has given her a broader palette of sound design and a keener focus on production. A recent child had to put that project on hold (cue "babies ruin everything" rant from avid Miracles Club fan and aQ staffer Jill!), so Nature is a way of focussing that conduit of energy from one project to the other with a transition from a solo experimental act to a fully fleshed out band featuring Fauria and others. Enthralled with the shimmery dream-pop of Cocteau Twins and Lush and the evocative shoegaze of Slowdive and Ride, Valet boosts up the production and songcraft on Nature from previous releases, but uses it to channel some of the internal and organic changes that come with new life and new responsibilities. It's a big change in sound for them, though not entirely new to us, as there seems to be a shoegaze revolution all over again these days with bands like Balms and Chasms, just to mention a couple from here in SF. Yet Valet use it to stunning effect and it's very nice to hear a band comfortable enough to just say fuck it to the complexities of experimentation and just give us a direct gorgeously-realized dream pop record. Kudos!

MPEG stream: Sunday
MPEG stream: Nature
MPEG stream: Transformation

Another rockin' Radioactive reish. The cover art promises a lot: a Viking longboat burning at sea! But of course this is no proto-black metal, this is an obscure, organ-heavy American psychedelic rock LP from 1969 that'll remind you a bit of early Purple, the Doors, Cream, Iron Butterfly, and others of that ilk/era (Billy Joel's Attila would be another!). At its best, quite hard and energetic, though there are of course some lighter tracks found here as usual within the '60s/'70s proto-metal genre, so you'll have to enjoy Valhalla's mellow, melodic flowers and beads vibe if you're gonna feast on the guitar/organ riff-outs you need.

MPEG stream: Hard Times
MPEG stream: Conceit

A nice surprise! Shadows is a new one from retro-riff-rockers Valkyrie, a band we haven't heard from in a few years - good to know these Virginia boys are still around, and if anything now taking it to the next level with this, their Sanford Parker-produced third album. Clearly they didn't rush it, and it shows. They're on Relapse now, perhaps 'cause one of their guitarists also happens to be in popular Relapse act Baroness - or maybe just 'cause they're really darn good and Relapse realized it. Shadows is dazzling in a laid-back way, the music heavy yet tender, glorious with guitar harmonies (their twin guitars are played by brothers, dunno if they're twins too or not). As we've mentioned before about Valkyrie, they do the '70s sounding metal thing, influenced by the likes of Pentagram and Thin Lizzy, with a Southern rock slant as well, that sometimes recalls Corrosion Of Conformity and Down. The warm, earnest vocals give this character, but Valkyrie are no doubt a GUITAR band, with psychedelic instrumental passages that Carlton Melton and Earthless fans could certainly bliss out to. And while this is stoner/doom metal, "Wintry Plains", for one, features a positively sunshiny soft rock interlude before the guitars rush in full force, so they are indeed as adept at the more soulfully mature, mellow stuff as well as (mountain) stomping riffage. We figure folks into Golden Void and Gypsyhawk, among others, will get off on this for sure.

MPEG stream: Mountain Stomp
MPEG stream: Golden Age
MPEG stream: Shadow Of Reality

A massive triple lp set of damaged, improvised, outsider free folk from member of various Kentucky rock/noise outfits (Magick Markers, Virgin Eye Blood Brothers, etc..). The stuff we'd read compared Valley Of Ashes to Siloah, Amon Duul 2, Trad Gras Och Stenar and Stone Angel, which seems pretty much impossible, but to be honest, those comparisons are not all that far off the mark. Imagine some impossible blend of all four of those bands, but seriously up the druggy stumble quotient and the damaged lo-fi fuzz and murk levels and you'll be pretty close to getting a feel for VoA's dirgey backwoods krautfolk. Like a folkier NNCK, Valley Of Ashes, weave and stumble through a dark droney landscape of slightly off kilter folk, cracked basement blues, hypnotic alsmot raga-like hum and whir, all with a distinctly Eastern vibe. Delicate chimes drift behind buzzing detuned steel string guitars, clangy pots and pans percussion is wrapped in distant sheets of feedback and laid to rest on a thick blanket of warm fuzz. For being super muddy and lo-fi, at times, everything just clciks and the sound becomes impossibly lush. There are moments when the drifting free folk locks into a seriously stoned groove, getting heavier and much more aggressive, guitars snarling, BIG riffs staggering and lurching, a stone wall of fuzz and clatter, dizzyingly exotic and darkly ominous, a bit like some stoner krautrock band coming completely unmoored, trying desparately to rock, but drifting further and further from the riff, sounding a bit like the No Neck Blues Band on ESP. Some impossible mix of Sabbath, Cromagnon and the Godz. But the fury never lasts long, usually settling back into another perfect doomy dreamy free folk drift... Packaged in a gorgeous thick full color psychedelic sleeve. Be warned though that all of the sleeves are slightly scuffed around the edges. Most won't notice, but bound to get record collector nerds' knickers in a twist!

Killer collab between Justin Broadrick (Godflesh, Jesu, JK Flesh, etc.) and Matthew Bower (Skullflower, Total, Hototogisu, Sunroof!, etc.) along with Samantha Davis who plays with Bower in Voltigeurs, who team up for some seriously old school blackened industrial noise dirge bliss. aQ pal Matt described it as sounding like Skullflower's Birthdeath / Form Destroyer / IIIrd Gatekeeper records "but maybe just a little prettier", which is definitely not that far off the mark. Four long tracks, thick clouds of caustic guitar swirl, blurred riff-noise, and churning chordal thrum, shot through with buried melodies, streaks of feedback, all anchored by a primitive plodding drum machine rhythm. That's the first track at least, best listened to through headphones, which like a lot of recent Bower projects, reveals a whole other world of sonic subtleties beneath the roiling surface, and here it's dreamily keening melodies, some woozy downtuned chugs, and some dense layered noisiness that ends up sounding more trancelike and hypnotic that harsh or brutal. "Ourobous" is more of the same, only with the treble dialed way back, and the low end cranked as high as it'll go, a murky muddy dirge, with a more forceful, double kick driven beat, the dueling guitars sparring in jagged tangles over a swirl of blackened buzz and crunch, until the drums drop out, and the song is transformed into a weirdly mesmerizing ur-drone, one guitar rumbling and whirring while the other unfurls almost black metal sounding riffs, that soar skyward like some black metalized Sunroof! "Naga" pushes the robotic rhythm to the fore, letting the guitars (and this time a very audible bass) grind away, plenty of skree and howl, the bass providing some serious heft, the rhythm section seriously pulverizing, wreathed in a cloud of wild psychedelic guitar freakout. "The Exit Door Leads In" is the longest of the bunch, at 12+ minutes, and is the perfect mix of Godflesh industrial dirge, and Skullflower blackened skree, with all sorts of riffs and melodies and rhythms seeming to gradually come into focus only to dissipate back into the endless psych-noise squall. This final track also seems to have a driving melodic component, that makes it feel the most songlike, sort of gloomy and haunting, like if you stripped away all the guitar noise, you'd be left with some sort of gloomy gothic almost cold wave sounding dirge, but add the guitars, and the noise, and it becomes a dense, darkly driving noise rock space-psych jam that could go on forever and ever, and is the sort of thing that might even appeal to super adventurous fans of outfits like White Hills, The Heads, Carlton Melton and other psychedelic space rockers. Needless to say, fans of Skullflower, Godflesh and and various like minded, Broken Flag beholden, industrial psychedelic noise outfits, will dig this A LOT!! Limited to 500 copies.

MPEG stream: Serpent's Trail
MPEG stream: The Exit Door Leads In

It's well-known that the members of Godspeed You Black Emperor and all of its offshoots -- Silver Mt. Zion and Do Make Say Think to name just two of them -- collaborate and perform together all the time, but just how hard will fans of the Montreal clan weep with joy when they hear this self-titled debut album from Valley Of The Giants? Supergroup indeed! Members of said bands as well as Shalabi Effect, Broken Social Scene and lesser known Canadian pop combo Strawberry thought it would be a good idea to record together. Good idea? How about great idea! Not surprisingly the goodness of each band meshes beautifully, crafting eight richly atmospheric aural treats! Some are hypnotic terracotta-hued instrumentals with layers of foreboding horns and slinking strings that waver and haunt like a mirage. Some are considerably more tumultuous journeys with swelling electric guitar squalls. A particular highlight however are the dreamy female vocals that grace the second song "Westworld" (inspired by the movie of the same name which starred Yul Brynner). Recommended!

MPEG stream: Westworld
MPEG stream: Beyond The Valley

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Hype and Vampire Weekend seem to go hand in hand, and while we still don't totally see what all the fuss is about, we sit somewhere nicely in the middle opinion-wise about these unabashed prep-school popsters, as we aren't blown away by what they do but we don't think it's terrible either. This time out it seems as if the overwhelming influence of the Animal Collective has for sure touched the Vampire boys as this sounds a lot like a more commercial and smoothed out version of AC's signature sound. There are some really catchy standout moments here, especially "Cousins" which could have been on the last Dodos record, and we're not afraid to admit that we've listened to that song over and over and definitely find it to be pretty much undeniably one of the most joyful pop songs of the year. They still have their light afro-pop side that feels like a modern day version of Paul Simon or Peter Gabriel. Maybe not the most original or amazing band around but no doubt they are peppy, preppy, catchy and fun. The first batch of these comes with an extra disc featuring three bonus tracks/remixes. And the lp includes a download of the whole record too...

MPEG stream: Cousins
MPEG stream: Horchata
MPEG stream: Run

Two new summery jangly nuggets from these preppy popsters.

Don't know what all the fuss is about with this current flavor of the day, but we suspect that XL Recordings must've gotten a particularly crack team of marketing schemers and hype generators 'cause their name is absolutely everywhere! Sure, it'd be easy to be suspicious and slag this band on that aspect alone, but we won't. They're not bad really, but nothing really special or 'holy shit!' either. Nope, they sound like an adequate cross between Arcade Fire, The Shins and New Pornographers... who've eaten way too many Cracker Jacks. Worth checkin' out if you're looking for some lighter fare along the lines of those two abovementioned bands.

MPEG stream: Oxford Comma
MPEG stream: A-Punk

It's pretty obvious why the folks at B-music (like DJs Andy Votel and Dom Thomas) dig these particular collectible exploito obscurities so much, and why they're so excited to be reissuing 'em in their new "Germanic Miner" series dedicated to "krautsider music"! What could be more B-musical than these two faux soundtracks concocted in the late sixties by a couple of creative German producers, operating at the weird, wacked out intersection of kitschy library music and freaky krautrock? One's a slice of slinky, sorta-scary "horrotica", the other a spaced out sci-fi fest for the Barbarella set. Both are delirious, demented party-pleasers. The Vampires Of Dartmoore and their Dracula's Music Cabinet conjures a sexy frightmare of hip swinging, bloodsucking sounds. "Mord Im Ohio Express (Murder In The Ohio Express)" seems kinda surfy, but mostly this is about groovy porno lounge music, with smoky horns and jazzy percussion, interwoven with screams and creepy sound effects, moaning and groaning, dogs barking and something going boing boing boing... It's a very NON-academic application of musique concrete technique, noises worked into the songs, such as the rumbling explosions that punctuate "Eine Handvoll Nitro (A Handful Of Nitro)". The mix is fairly chaotic, stuff fading in and out, levels up and down. If this WAS a movie soundtrack, it would have been a pretty crazy movie. Tracks reference Hitchcock, Dr. Caligari, and Frankenstein's monster. And sex. Definitely sex. Equally bizarre, if less R-rated, is the Science Fiction Dance Party. Again, it's groovy, jazzy, sometimes fuzzy "instro-hipster" style stuff, laced with loads of goofy outer space sound effects and rocketship radio drama theatrics. It sounds like music for a cocktail party and/or acid test on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. You can imagine Robbie the Robot getting down to this. Distorted alien and/or computer voices abound, song titles include "Visitors Of A.D. 2022", "The Whistling Astronaut", and "Hit Parade In The Light Year 25" (which doesn't even make sense, don't they know that light years are a measure of distance?). As well as whistling, there's some screams here too, as spacemen are presumably being zapped with rayguns, but the music remains jaunty. Even the song "Death Rays Out Of The Universe" is inexplicably upbeat. So, it's all very silly, but a lot of fun. Both albums feature bonus tracks (2 previously unreleased "Petting Party" jams on Vampires, 4 extra tracks on Science Fiction that come back to earth to delve into disco and Eastern exotica instead). The slipcased cds of these are now domestic releases (we waited instead of getting the expensive imports) but the LP versions remain imports.

MPEG stream: Crime And Horror
MPEG stream: Mord Im Ohio Express (Murder In The Ohio Express)
MPEG stream: Tanz Der Vampires (Dance Of The Vampires)

New line-up, slight name change (dropping the "Generator") for this 1977 album, the band's last studio effort until 2005!

Another awesome VDGG reissue, remastered w/ bonus track action. 1975's Godbluff was their first mid-'70s "comeback" LP and it indeed slays.

Yay! Three classic albums by one of our favorite '70s prog rock bands just got reissued, with bonus tracks and remastering and vast new liner notes and all that good stuff, with more reissues to come. So we thought we'd list the two that we'd reviewed previously, and then maybe next time we can write up the other one we've got as well. Back when we first reviewed these, we did it 'cause we knew that lots of AQ customers had been digging our Italian prog recommendations (like Osanna) and buying tons of Magma reissues and of course always loving the good ol' Krautrock, and we figured that such customers are just the types who'd probably like VDGG too. As you may know, several folks here are pretty big into the '70s prog thing (despite having been but little kids back then) and one band we really all agree on is the mighty Van Der Graaf Generator from the UK. They're definitely a bit out of the ordinary. He To He... was the group's third album, from 1970. It's a great example of their bombastic, dark power and unique instrumental formula. Saxophone (with "devices"), Hammond organ, and tympani are the sort of thing that dominates VDGG's sound, along with the crucial component of Peter Hammill's dramatic, declamatory vocals of course. He's had his own successful solo career running in parallel with Van Der Graaf from the band's very earliest days, and clearly he's a cult figure, a frontman that some will love and some will hate. His wide-ranging voice courses like blood through the flesh of this album's five epic conceptual tracks (the shortest song here is over 6 minutes, the longest more than 12), tracks that must have elicited many a "heavy, man" comment at the time. The heaviest might be opener "Killer", the sad saga of, yes, the lonely killer whale. Other songs, like "House With No Door", are more gentle and melodic, yet still quite gloomy and bleak. Please don't mistake our use of the term "heavy" here -- although Hammill's voice will sometimes rise into a metallic shriek, the Generator have more in common with jazz than heavy metal, being way more Soft Machine than Machine Head (Deep Purple). The bonus tracks are but two in number but one of 'em is over fifteen minutes long, the previously unreleased "Squid 1 / Squid 2 / Octopus", an early VDGG concert staple recorded live in the studio.

MPEG stream: The Emperor In His War-Room

"Pawn Hearts" was Van Der Graaf's fourth album, originally released in 1971. Like its immediate predecessor "He To He Who..." it's certainly one of their classics, equally as epic, emotive, and extravagant. These guys were outrageous musicians, ambitious lyricists, and definite prog rock nutters who made music so outre and intense at the time that it should appeal to weirdos today just as much as it did back in the early 1970s. The side-long, ten-part "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" is one of those prog rock suites that belongs in the pantheon alongside "Karn Evil #9" and "Supper's Ready" and "Gates Of Delerium" for sure. Next to King Crimson (whose Robert Fripp contributes some guitar work on both of these albums), VDGG is the darkest, weirdest, most "outside" commercially-popular '70s prog rock band we can think of from the UK. A worthy contemporary to the likes of Magma, Amon Duul II and Goblin from the Continent. All right, more VDGG to come on future lists...and then maybe we'll move on to Yes, Caravan and ELP! MPEG Download: "Lemmings (Including Cog)" [/audio/vdgglemmings.mp3]

MPEG stream: Lemmings (Including Cog)

They're back... and pretty darn good, Vandergraffy all the way. One disc of new songs, one disc of improvs. Peter Hammill and Co. still have it.

Ok, here's another one for ya from the nice new reissue series of albums by these '70s prog faves of ours, Van Der Graaf Generator. We're trying to list 'em all (eventually) just 'cause we think if you like prog or really any sort of unusual, emotional rock music you should at least give VDGG a try. If you make it to the end of the 12+ minute "Childlike Faith In Childhood's End" on this album, for instance, chances are you will be a convert! We'll admit they might be a bit of an acquired taste, 'cause VDGG are darker and weirder than the general run of classic British prog a la Yes and Genesis and even (closest comparison) King Crimson. And even if you're down with the "usual" blend of epic length songs, pastoral pop, symphonic keyboards, virtuosic playing, and complex compositions, with VDGG you've also gotta handle a good deal of saxophone and the exceedingly dramatic vocal stylings of singer Peter Hammill. So you've been warned. But if you shop at AQ you probably like a challenge! The prog rock juggernaut known as Still Life was VDGG's sixth album, dating from 1976 (during the band's second-wind peak era in the mid-'70s) and is full of all the poetry and pain you should expect from a classic VDGG album, all the grand melody and raw fist-clenched vocal monologues, the extremes of gentleness and angsty intensity... yes indeed a fine place to plunge into the VDGG oeuvre if you haven't already. It's hard to explain, but as much as we love the flash and fantasy of other prog bands, like ELP for instance, VDGG are just the more psychological, serious artists. This reissue comes remastered, with copious liner notes and printed lyrics and a previously released bonus track -- "Gog" (10:26) recorded live in Wales in '75.

MPEG stream: Pilgrims
MPEG stream: La Rossa

Real nice, these new Van Der Graaf Generator reissues are. We're glad they they've now got US distribution, though we'd have happily paid $30 for the import versions (Andee and Allan both did for some of 'em, actually, oops). All the prog fans here are stoked, 'specially since VDGG are one of our top prog faves. We've already listed the reissues of Pawn Hearts and H To He Who Am The Only One, and we'll try to get to them all, one by one... so here's VDGG's second album, from 1969 (following their debut Aerosol Grey Machine, not a part of this reissue series though there is a cd we do stock), maybe the first that really displayed their signature sound in a fully formed fashion. That sound: bombastic, epic, emotional, complex, slightly jazzy, eccentric. And probably an acquired taste. Partly because VDGG's instrumentation isn't the standard guitar/bass/drums -- they've got saxophone and keyboards, mainly, alongside the drums. Plus their most distinctive sonic feature, Peter Hammill's exceedingly dramatic, dominating vocals! Love 'em or hate 'em vocals, we'd venture to guess. His voice is perfect, though, for the sweeping grandeur of VDGG's music, which can be quite gentle (as on this album's most pop hit, speaking loosely, "Refugees"), and at other times so much darker, heavier, and more hectic (as on "White Hammer" wherein Hammill sings about the Inquisition). All this power and passion is reflected in Hammill's intelligent, questioning, quasi-mystical lyrics, and is furthermore augmented by the suggestion of church and worship brought in by the use of the electric organ. Yes indeed, VDGG is very weird and very much it's own thing... there's definite connections to the likes of King Crimson and Genesis, and '60s psychedelia, but ultimately nothing else sounds quite like these guys. The Least We Can Do, which features a surreal depiction of an actual Van Der Graaf generator on its cover, is a fine starting point and/or an essential part of their discography for fans building a VDGG collection. This reissue, in addition to being digitally remastered and boasting extensive liner notes in the cd booklet, also features two bonus tracks, the single version of "Refugees" and its non-album B-side, "Boat Of Millions Of Years". Recently we came across an old print advertisement for this single, the tag line of which was: "Some of today's violence is innocence defending itself... some of today's music is Van Der Graaf Generator."

MPEG stream: Refugees
MPEG stream: Whatever Would Robert Have Said?
MPEG stream: After The Flood

Ok, so it's taken us a little while to list this, since it got reissued on cd domestically last year (originally this came out as a cassette release in 1982). But, doesn't matter, it's called Time Vaults after all, it's super old already, being an odds and sods collection of unreleased (at the time) material recorded in the early '70s by British progressive rock weirdos Van Der Graaf Generator, one of our fave prog acts ever, when the band was officially on hiatus (between their Pawn Hearts and Godbluff albums). So, these tracks are of varying production quality, some sound like they could have been on either of those two actual albums, while others have more bootleggy sonics. Likewise, while a few are fully realized songs (e.g. dramatic, melodic opener "The Liquidator", and the quite jagged and intense "Rift Valley"), many others are more improv/experimental/instrumental type things, like the bizarre collage style title track (shades of Faust), but still interesting though, and not just to VDGG buffs, though of course that's who we'd mostly expect to pick this up. If you like VDGG, and aren't uptight about "perfect sound quality" then it's quite recommended. With wonderfully distorted rehearsal space jams like "Drift (I Hope It Won't)" complete with background chatter and feedback, this is vintage VDGG with their hair down, their trademark sound (bombastic vocals, with sax-and-keys instead of guitar) gone all lo-fi, like a lot of bands in the current underground. It's almost like a shitgaze VDGG, a VDGG that you could put on a mix tape with Sic Alps or Ducktails or something like that! Heck, they should/could have reissued it on cassette, again...

MPEG stream: Rift Valley
MPEG stream: It All Went Red

1978 release, VDGG tearing it up on what was originally a double live LP (now a single cd).

From 1976.

First things first, recommended. Yes, you heard us right! Ok, like everyone else, after catching an appalling earful of the... errr, flaccid lead-off single trumpeting the return of THE Van Halen WITH David Lee Roth, we were totally gun shy and almost ready to toss the new album in the dumper unseen and unheard, especially after so much drama and so many false starts and empty promises (read: bottles) over the last twenty seven years (!), BUT to honor old allegiances to the genius pre-1985 Van Halen (i.e. before Roth left), we just had to give the new disc a fair spin. So, we did, albeit somewhat gingerly. Needless to say, we skipped right past the lame opening track (the abovementioned "Tattoo"), and kicked things off with "She's The Woman" (a reworked version of a 1976 demo), and... HOLY SHIT... it... really... sounds... and... grooves... like... THEM (circa VHII, Fair Warning, Women And Children First, 1984). Once we recovered from the shock, the goosebumps and glee took over! That song slays like '79 all over again! Really should have been the first single... Yeah, we know at this point you're probably thinking "what are they thinking?!" Still a bit skeptical, right? Sure, the relationships seem to be business-calculated. Sure a bunch of the songs are based on old demos, and many songs are fundamentally riffin' on archetypes of their various early styles, for instance, the terrific "Stay Frosty" = "Ice Cream Man", but over the majority of this record this all actually works in the favor of the band, and these tunes ultimately reveal themselves to be more than mere sonic nostalgia (and actually the band's practice of reworking old material is nothing new, it was their modus operandi after the first couple years of existence). But try to block out all the hype, preconceptions, and "Tattoo". Forget the embarrassing, drunken EVH YouTube clips. Don't scoff and dismiss before you've given it a listen... or two or three. If you like/love vintage Van Halen, you will be surprised and happy and super stoked to hear that everyone has risen to the challenge. The playing is technically and musically brilliant, and as entertaining and fun as old VH. They're still the mad geniuses expertly disguising themselves as airheads. Meticulously composed, deceptively complex, yet totally on the verge of careening out of control. Eddie in particular sounds absolutely revivified. There's some spine tingling EVH guitar playing going on here. The bongo-Bonzo intricate drumming is unmistakably Alex Van Halen, with his signature snare and cymbal sounds. David Lee Roth's vocal range ain't what it used to be, but it's still plenty there, with authentic deliveries of his usual characterizations, delivered Tarzan-like (we'll forgive/turn a blind eye to his shout-out to Facebook). And what about Wolfgang Van Halen's bass playing? Totally fat. Very solid, and full of Michael Anthony-esque beefy vrroooms and BASS counterpoints. Wolfgang's sound is a little tighter than MA's, and he is really fantastically locked in here. The whole band is really quite on fire and up-to-snuff with their best vintage material throughout A Different Kind Of Truth. Most importantly - because VH were known to record their albums very quickly and quite live - the band sounds rejuvenated without sounding reliant on modern technology (unlike most other reunited rock bands and their love affair with the rhythm grid). The faithful vintage vibe is at many times remarkably fast, heavy and crammed full of mesmerizing riffery from all involved (check out "China Town", "Bullethead", "Outta Space", "Honeybabysweetiedoll", "As Is", and "Big River"). A welcome return to form, as VH was largely devoid of any sense of wild danger or threat of pyrotechnic-wizard combustion during the non-DLR years. Well, it's clear that something has sparked, and the friction makes for some magical chemistry and hard rock firepower channelled through all four players. Really, the only obvious element (and it is a considerable one) that could make this an old VH fan's complete dream come true would be the return of Michael Anthony, but we doubt that'll ever happen since it seems obvious that Wolfie's been groomed to be the VH bassist since he was a tot. He rips on this record though, and his backing vocals are quite satisfactorily in the ballpark of the MA model. And the band IS called Van Halen. So, there you have it. A major portion of A Different Kind Of Truth fucking smokes! We can only guess that the "Tattoo" single debacle was an ill-timed April fool's joke and/or a poor decision by them. But these guys ain't no dummies, so maybe it was all part of a reverse-psychology master plan - that is, to first deliver what everyone naturally expected from the even-up-til-recently-EVH-trainwreck, and then hot on its heels deliver what everyone hoped for, yet doubted they could ever actually have (i.e. pretty much the rest of the album). Heavy rock comeback of the year! (At least until the Black Sabbath record? Assuming they have Bill Ward. Cuz while we may have been convinced to abide a Michael Anthony-less VH, a Bill Ward-less Sabbath reunion is utterly unacceptable)!

MPEG stream: She's The Woman
MPEG stream: Honeybabysweetiedoll
MPEG stream: Outta Space

Those Vinyl On Demand boxsets are a very tempting proposition. Some are no brainers - SPK, The Hafler Trio, and John Duncan all offered up utter classics of unreleased or impossible to find recordings spanning multiple pieces of wax and housed inside handsome packaging. But others are a bit too obscure to fork over well over a hundred bucks for an unknown quantity. Van Kaye & Ignit were one of those terminally obscure minimal wave projects whose collected works had been anthologized through a massive 5lp boxset on Vinyl On Demand. It came and went as too much of an expense for us to invest in. Thankfully Dark Entries has extracted a good chunk of that material in the form of this 2lp set, plus the tracks from the duos first seven inch not found on that VoD set. Van Kaye & Ignit (nee Ed Van Kasteren and Ignatine Bekken) began their fruitful collaborations in the late '70s with the former hailing from more of a punk background and the latter from the realm of performance art, with both sharing an infatuation with DIY electronics. A Slight Delay was a cassette release the band self-published on their own Ding Dong Records, which later would go on to release works by the Legendary Pink Dots, Bene Gesserit, and that amazing Andre De Saint-Obin album. The idiosyncratic melding of experimental modelling, pop-song naivete, and inventive use of electronics found in all of those other bands is something that Van Kaye & Ignit share. Given a spacious Martin Hannett production, the turbine electronic stabs and spry drum programming of "Beach" could have been a Hacienda hit for Factory Records, but as it stands, it's just one of many deft synth-wave / mutant-disco / synth-punk tunes on A Slight Delay. While that track's an instrumental along with about half of those found on this 2lp set, Van Kaye and Ignit do share the vocal duties when called for, with Ignit being the stronger of the two with her Nina Hagen theatricality and Van Kayen adopting the untrained approach of Genesis P-Orridge. Along with the Belgian comrades of Bene Gesserit, Pseudo Code, and the rest of the Insane Music network, Van Kaye & Ignit have a sympathetic sound to those antipodean malcontents Severed Heads. Another great find from Dark Entries; and we gotta wonder if there's going to be a cottage industry of somebody going through the Vinyl On Demand catalogue to reissue those reissues in more economical chunks.

MPEG stream: Negroe In N.Y.
MPEG stream: Beach
MPEG stream: Excerpt From Toys

Latest release in the ever expanding, and extremely eclectic catalog of mysterious (possibly Touch Records related) UK tape label The Tapeworm. Past Tapeworm releases from Philip Jeck, Stephen O'Malley and Simon Fisher Turner have been big hits around here, as was a strange reading of works by Jean Baudrillard. This one might be the weirdest of the bunch though. For several reasons. Purportedly a lost live set from a band called the Van Patterson Quartet, nothing at all can be found online about the VPQ, -except- all sorts of folks trying to find out who the heck these guys were. One record collector claims to have stumbled across an unlabeled 12", which in fact turned out to be these recordings, but the dearth of information leads us to believe that maybe this is not actually a real artifact of sixties psych, but instead an elaborate, and incredibly kick ass hoax. There's the sound too, which on the surface definitely sounds vintage, the recording super fuzzy and fucked up, lots of tape warble, and lo-fi primitive recording artifacts, but at the same time, the sound is weirdly modern, the effects blown out and trippy, sure there's tons of Hammond organ, which again lends this some serious vintage vibes, but plenty of the tracks get super heavy and super damaged, because of the degraded recordings, much of this sounds like a sixties psych rock Faxed Head, drop outs and hiss as much a part of the jams as the jams themselves. The guitars and organ are HEAVY, the drums mathy and jazzy and powerful, everything hazy and druggy, but the tracks are laced with seriously tweaked effects, and hell, if this IS really a band from the sixties, then this is THE HOLY GRAIL, and the fact that it has never been heard before boggles the mind, and makes it criminal that it's being released on a tape label in a run of only 250 copies. If this WERE real, it would be the reissue of the year, the DECADE. It's that fuzzy and fucked up, dark and droney and hypnotic, which definitely leads us to believe it's some young rockers who built themselves a band / time machine, and are channeling some vintage sounds, and just added all the crowd noise and record crackle and tape hiss and bleedthrough to confuse and obfuscate. It hardly matters really, this is some seriously heavy, droney, twisted, hypnotic, druggy, tripped out shit, fans of modern retro psych like the Wooden Shjips and the Heads and the Telescopes will go nuts for this, as will sixties psych-heads who might want to see if they can figure out if this stuff is new or old. But like we said, hardly matters, cuz what it is, is fucking AWESOME. LIMITED TO 250 COPIES.

When we first heard about this band, it's because some magazine touted them as having "the best keyboards since Van Halen's "Jump"! We hardly needed more than that to get us curious. And when we first heard the single "Kelly" we pretty much concurred, a winsome eighties MTV rock ballad, with a soft swooshy chorus and THOSE keyboards everywhere. But when we finally got this EP, the big surprise was the opener "Mission", quite possibly our most played to death pop song these days. Some impossible mix of Tears For Fears or Fun Boy Three or ABC, and one of the more modern retro rockers like the Killers or Maximo Park or The Kaiser Chiefs, with spacey reverbed guitars, electronic drums, soulful crooning, crunchy guitars, that explode into an absolutely KILLER chorus thick with buzzing synths, swooshy space rock FX, a huge hooky riff and awesome falsetto vocals. Absolutely worth it just for that track, definite contender for pop song of the year, but "Kelly" is a definite guilty pleasure, and "Sex City" is a dead ringer for the Fixx, and the closer is some weird Ultravox / Echo And The Bunnymen hybrid. There's also a super awesomely cheesy video for "Kelly", but if you're anything like us, you'll just throw on "Mission" and set your cd player to repeat FOREVER!! So good!

MPEG stream: Misson
MPEG stream: Kelly

A few of us were very lucky to catch Jozef Van Wissem's recent AQ instore where he played his new 13 Course Swan Neck Baroque Lute, a super long and intricately exquisite variation of the lute we've never seen before, that he wielded mightily, rocking out heavy metal guitar style, and also played whilst walking around the store like a medieval troubadour (check our blog for pictures!). While unfortunately it wasn't our best attended instore, Van Wissem played like it was, and we were graciously rewarded with an intimate and beautifully hypnotizing performance. NEXT time, don't miss him! And that is what you will find with his latest (vinyl-only) release on Important, Ex Patris. On vinyl only (for now at least), Ex Patris (The Fathers) gives us four new tracks of gorgeous plucked string majesty. Building upon his repertoire of mirrored palindromic compositions, he focuses this release on layered and repeating melodies rather than sparse reductions of past releases. At times, we wonder if he might be using overdubs, something we haven't noticed before in his recordings or if it is just that his new lute offers more depth and range than the ones he used in the past. Hard to tell, but oh so easy to become seduced by its magnificent spell!

The cover of this latest Jozef Van Wissem release is one of our favorite photographs of him, showing the mighty lute player wearing a studded leather wrist cuff, head low with hair hanging down, wielding his instrument like a heavy metal guitar. And while he doesn't necessarily "shred" the same way a metal axeman would, there's definitely a connecting thread between Van Wissem's hermetically spiritual lute extrapolations and the doom-laden esotericism of today's drone metal practitioners. Thematically based on the first chapter of Genesis, the seven pieces here are at first played forward then reversed in an attempt to create the feeling that the pieces have no beginning or end. Van Wissem often uses mirror imaging and palindromic takes on classical lute music to create these compositions, but more and more, he's using plenty of space and restraint placing a greater emphasis on the concentrated listening experience, instead of musically filling the space. Thus the pieces are becoming ever more glacial and dramatic, highlighting the dark beauty of creation but never denying the slow decay of death in all its infinite and ever spiraling momentum. Transcendent!

MPEG stream: It Is All That Is Made
MPEG stream: The Stars Fall From The Sky and The Heavens Are Rolled Up Like a Scroll

We always knew that famed indie filmmaker Jim Jarmusch had good taste in music, judging by the soundtracks to his movies, but we were only vaguely aware of his extracurricular musical activities. In fact it was with some surprise that we recently encountered him on record, as a guest guitarist in a cameo appearance on the latest 12" by avant-punks Fucked Up! Meanwhile, AQ fave experimental Renaissance lutist, Jozef Van Wissem (who, yes, is also the ONLY experimental lutist we know, though if there were others he'd probably still be our favorite, after his rocked out performance at a memorable aQ instore awhile back) has collaborated in the past with a variety of interesting personages - Gary Lucas, Smegma, James Blackshaw. And now, Jim Jarmusch! Who actually played on a track on Van Wissem's previous album, The Joy That Never Ends, one we stocked and listed on our website but somehow never managed to get around to reviewing, which we should have 'cause really everything we've heard by Van Wissem has been excellent and that one is no exception... Anyway, we'll try to make up for that lapse by reviewing this new one, his full-on duo disc with Jarmusch. And it's a beaut. Slowly and steadily, Van Wissem plucks prettily at the strings of his instrument, while Jarmusch's electric guitar hovers gently in the background, an ambient wash. As the disc goes on, though, Jarmusch becomes more assertive, accompanying Van Wissem like a ghostly, twanging echo, until eventually the cyclical note patterns chiming from Van Wissem's lute are almost fully enveloped by Jarmusch's doleful dense guitar distortion, approaching Ulaan Khol or Urthona levels of softly droning bliss. His past association with Neil Young (Dead Man) definitely makes sense... The disc as a whole, at all points in the Van Wissem/Jarmusch duet, is meandering, melancholic, mesmeric... The final track, "He Is Hanging By His Shiny Arms, His Heart An Open Wound With Love", is perhaps the loveliest, and happiest, all-acoustic, brought to a close with a brief spoken supplication from Jarmusch, reciting words by St. John of the Cross. So, another Van Wissem winner - and we'd definitely be happy to hear more electric guitar emanations from Jarmusch, how 'bout a solo album? By the way... is it possible that Jarmusch and Van Wissem got together because both men are members of a secret society called The Sons Of Lee Marvin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sons_of_Lee_Marvin)? Jarmusch is known to be a founding member, and Van Wissem looks like he might qualify...

MPEG stream: Concerning The Entrance Into Eternity
MPEG stream: Continuation Of The Last Judgement
MPEG stream: The Sun Of The Natural World Is Pure Fire

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

SORRY. The other one, also great!!

Brigitte Fontaine wasn't the only influential feminine avant-gardist of french chanson. The recently celebrated domestic reissues of Fontaine's first two records have coincided with this incredible reissue of obscure cosmic dream-prog by Jacqueline Thibaullt, better known under her recording pseudonym Laurence Vanay. Vanay, wife of Laurent Thibault, the bassist and guitarist for Magma, recorded Galaxies in 1974, and on it, the classically trained composer, keyboardist and songwriter takes us on a deeply epic trip of dreamy Hammond organ and fender rhodes led spacy jazz-prog that is incredibly beautiful and unique. A mysterious and moving mix of Gong, Alain Goraguer, Igor Wakhevitch, Catherine Ribeiro + Alpes, and even Magma at their most gentle. Yet the music seems to have teleported from some insular private place in a far-off dimension. Its intricate arrangements, and the complex moods they convey seem very otherworldly, like the lonely astral-psych chanson of a remote dying alien race. Listening to a song like "Le Bateau", it's apparent Vanay had as much an influence on bands like Stereolab as Brigitte Fontaine did. Wonderful. The cd version features 9 bonus tracks.

MPEG stream: Demain
MPEG stream: Galaxies
MPEG stream: Soleil Rouge
MPEG stream: Le Bateau
MPEG stream: Catalepsie As Nanajo (bonus)

It wasn't that long ago before we were turned on to the amazing cosmic prog-folk of Laurence Vanay (aka Jacqueline Thibault, wife of Lauren Thibault of Magma) through her two commercially released lps from the seventies, Galaxies and Evening Colours. We never got to review Evening Colours, because it went out of print before we could list it, but it evolved from the spacey chanteuse side of Galaxies into a deeper impressionistic approach to melody and nuance, that was mostly instrumental. Now, Lion has released Vanay's last two lps from the late seventies that were never released before due to a string of complicated events. Les Solelle De La Vie (The Suns of Life) and Le Petite Fenetre (The Little Window) were recorded years apart, but they feel like companion records with compatibly different moods. Solelle has a vibrant daytime quality similar to Evening Colors while Fenetre is a late-night record of spacious ambiance closer at heart to Galaxies (sorry, sound samples weren't available, but we liked Fenetre a bit more, though both are great.). Each has at least one track with vocals. Solelle was intended as a follow-up to Evening Colors but her label Decca insisted on changes in the calibration of the mix, which due to a lack of funding or demands in her professional life as a co-owner and studio arranger at the Chateau d'Herouville, couldn't be done right until years later when Decca had already lost interest. She had already recorded Le Petite Fenetre by then, but the market for instrumental music had waned, so on the shelves both records sat untouched for years. It's easy to ponder how the development of post-rock would have been different had these two records seen the light of day in their lifetime. In many ways, Vanay's intricately knotted electric piano fugues with proggy flourishes of flute and electric guitar evoke a more watercolor approach to the avant-jazz inspired compositions of early nineties groups like Tortoise or Movietone. Hermetic ego-less music that marvels at the vastness of the universe from its delicate microcosmic shell. Perhaps we wish Lion had done a double lp instead of doing 'em as separate releases, but at least it's great they are both now seeing the light of day! Limited to 500 copies each. Each comes with the same six panel color booklet with poems, photos and liner notes of Vanay's amazing story.

MPEG stream: Majunga
MPEG stream: Mamie
MPEG stream: Picopiki

Here's a pretty fantastic discovery we just made (although the disc was released a few years ago). It's a seventy-minute long single track entitled "Neheh", the result of four members of French prog-weirdos Magma jamming together one night in '73. We thought this would sound like a scaled down Magma, or some sort of jazz improv session. But, instead, this neither. It's absolutely unlike the jackboot precision of Magma circa '73's "Mechanik Destructiw Kommandoh" (which was in fact recorded, like, the next day!). Although this does share the esoteric spiritual aspects of Magma, there's none of Magma's grandiose rock/jazz/Wagner fusion here. Rather, it's a late-night excursion into kosmiche avant-hippy freakout realms, starting with unearthly vocal chant/drone and moving into percussion spasms, clarinet eruptions, and organ improv. So, instead of mother-band Magma, this should be compared to Amon Duul, the Sun City Girls, the No Neck Blues Band, Yahowah 13, and (closer to home) Thuja. Beautiful and wild, totally inspired. It's strange that this went unreleased until the '90s-- maybe Vander and Co. didn't want to dilute the Magma concept with something so loose and organic and, uh, 'of the times'. Still, it's one of our absolute favorite Magma-related documents, and should even appeal to those scared off by Magma's prog/fusion chops. Recommended!! (By the way, along with this, we've restocked a bunch of Magma classics, and we definitely have 'em at the best price you'll probably find anywhere.)