[ aquarius records — Rock Pop ]

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Got just a little handful of these special Record Store Day singles from Thrill Jockey country string band the Black Twig Pickers, two songs of old school Appalachia and back porch bluegrass hoedowns, the A side a rollicking, foot stomping barn burner, all sawed fiddles and intense fingerpicking, replete with hoots and hollers, the B side though a much darker affair, a haunting dirge-like lament, a dark folk ballad all minor key, melancholy and brooding, with sorrowful vox and wailing mouth harp. Gorgeous stuff as always. Super limited too, so once these are gone, they are most likely gone for good. Includes a download coupon as well!

It's been a while, more than a year in fact, since we last got a batch of TRUE SHEFFIELD BLACK PSYCHEDELIA, but it's finally that time once again. We were beginning to jones pretty hard. For those of you who can't quite figure it out from the name of the genre, this stuff is black metal, and psychedelic, and most (if not all) of the bands hail from Sheffield in the UK. Beyond that, this stuff is pretty hard to describe, from blown out grinding blackened psychedelic post rock to chugging in-the-red blacknoise to glistening soft focus krautdrone to pounding distorted sludge to processed machinelike buzz and stutter, and we're not even just describing the genre, most of the bands somehow manage to incorporate all of those elements into one fractured fucked up and seriously and gloriously schizophrenic sound. We'd been waiting for a proper real cd (non cd-r) release from any of these guys, and while there have been rumors of a new Ice Bound Majesty full length on tUMULt (!), it was Black Vomit who were ultimately immortalized in aluminum and plastic first, thanks to those twisted freaks at Rusty Axe. But even by Rusty Axe's already freaky standards, Jungle Death is some seriously twisted avant heavy black weirdness. The sort of stuff that will have your standard black metal knuckle dragger scratching his head and reaching for the nearest Dimmu Borgir cd. The metal component of black vomit is a sort of metal that sounds like it was cooked up by Tim Hecker, Philip Jeck, Aidan Baker and Justin Broadrick would have conjured up in some underground lair, with no small amount of black magic. Guitars that roar and howl, piled on top of one another until they're so thick, they threaten to collapse your stereo speakers like miniature black holes, the riffs grind and buzz, blurred and smeared into huge heaving walls of blown out white hot sound, usually weirdly processed too, so buried beneath the roiling surface, lurk all manner of electronics and glitch and hiss and static. Sometimes the heaviness stumbles into streaks of sonic black tar, slowing the sound down into some blown out glacial trudge, and even then, it's no ordinary doom, the sound glistens and glows, it's heaviness more a function of staring into some alien sun, the beams of light transformed into sound, wrapping you in thick sheets of effulgent buzz and black hued shimmer. The various bits of skull crushing heaviness are balanced by some of the coolest drone and ambient music we've heard, from the rumbling, muted and melodic low end intro, that sounds like some creepy krautrock bassline slowed waaaaay down, to the glistening glitched out sun dappled shimmer of "Conderlint5", with it's mysterious alien voices and skittery crystalline textures, to the moaning lonely spidery guitar drift of "Last Cries Of The Lost". The record starts out damaged, and just gets more and more fucked and freaked out as it progresses, looped tribal drumming wreathed in swirling static, laced with strange samples, gives way to stuttering processed electronic grind, which slowly transforms into a sea of warped drones and Oval like glitches, all smoothed out into an undulating underwater soundscape, wrapped in jagged shards of distorted crunch and sonar like beeps. A brief bit of indie jangle, all minor key strum and sad lilting melody, explodes in a flurry of crumbling stumbling ultra distorted post rock pound, before slipping into some almost Pop Ambient sounding drift, only to again transform into some impossibly twisted bit of cinematic mood music, complete with haunting strings, and dubbed out drums, finally opening up into "Dark Beloved Cloud", the longest track on the record, all Burzumy and murky and buzzy and blackened, woozy and off kilter, with more processed vocals, tons of effects, long stretches of tripped out psychedelic minimalism, before the pounding D-beat climax, and then a soft focus shimmery fade out, which leads directly into the record closer, a warm warped swirl of deeeeeep thrum, and slow moving melodic murk, again shot through with echo drenched voices and bits of electronic twinkle and glimmer, fading out into nearly 5 minutes of near silence. Weird. But so fucking mind blowing. Totally wiping out any boundaries between drone music and black metal and ambient noise and electronic grind and whatever other fucked up sounds these freaks fuse into their totally genius and totally unique TRUE SHEFFIELD BLACK PSYCHEDELIA!!

MPEG stream: A Premonition Of Inevitable Doom
MPEG stream: Deluge From Hell
MPEG stream: Vigilance Night
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These oddly monikered aQ faves return with a brand new full length, and return to the True Sheffield Black Psychedelia fold, aka their original label Frequency Thirteen, after a release on aQ beloved and now sadly defunct label Rusty Axe. And what a return! Like past records, Black Vomit's sound is one that's tough to pin down, an ever shifting tangle of blurred and blackened sound collage, blown out super rhythmic noise rock, field recording flecked spaced out psychedelia, they pretty much all apply at one point or another, and impossibly sometimes all at once. It takes a while for things to get rolling, a weird creeping noise drenched into, all strange samples and shimmery layered low end, all glitchy and warbly, then some Sunroof! style high end raga drone, then finally, a thick low slung bassline slithers into action, beneath a black cloud of growling croaked disembodied vox, and then finally, true to the track's title "Forbidden Dub", the various sounds peel off, leaving just a tripped out spaced out dub, everything wreathed in echo and reverb, the drums careening wildly through clouds of cymbal sizzle, more mysterious samples, moaning guitar melodies, it's like a way more grim and blackened version of Sun Araw almost, a bastardized dub, that is teetering on the edge of collapsing into full on doomy dirge. Which is where things seem to be heading until the next track, "Riding Below A Sky Threatening Snow To The Very End Of An Empty World", explodes into what quickly reveals itself as some sort of fucked up dubstep jam, but Black Vomitized, so the sounds are all blurred and tangled, chaotic and abstract, a thick bass warble holding everything together, while beats stutter and stagger, and all of the other sounds blown out and in the red, before the record switches gears once again, laying down a bit of shimmery abstraction, before an avalanche of super distorted drums come crashing through a field of swirling electronics, the whole thing like an IDM Lightning Bolt. And so it goes, every song something entirely different, yet somehow linked to the song before it, and to the whole, a twisted songsuite of beats and buzz, of low end rumble and caustic crunch, slipping from synth heavy shoegaze blur, to tripped out reverb heavy space rock jangle, from creepy almost John Carpenter-ish soundscapery to bleary minimal low slung creep, and from distorted sun dappled dreambuzz ambience, to a final 20 minute slab of abstract synth-squelch, blur-bliss shimmer. So good. SUPER DUPER LIMITED too, ONLY 40 COPIES!! we got 20 of those, which won't last long...

MPEG stream: Forbidden Dub
MPEG stream: Riding Below A Sky Threatening Snow To The Very End Of An Empty World
MPEG stream: The Loneliness Of A Rainy Dawn Enshrouded Me Quietly

We've long been huge fans of experimental, outsider, bedroom, black metal outfit Have A Nice Life, so much so, that at one point, Andee was gonna release one of their records on tUMULt. Since then, the world has seemingly caught up, and caught on to the twisted genius of Dan Barrett's Have A Nice Life, and in the process, have also begun to discover the various other projects Barrett somehow finds time to mastermind. One of which, this record right here, might be our favorite so far. Not entirely removed sonically from Have A Nice Life, but at the same time something completely different. Apparently inspired by a recent illness, and the surrounding machines that barraged Barrett with various beeps and bleeps and tones, Black Wing is not even remotely metal, although it is dark, an it's not difficult to draw a line back to Have A Nice Life, but essentially, Black Wing traffics in a sort of gloomy electro pop, a downer darkwave that seems to be equal parts post punk, and new wave, but filtered through Barrett's cracked sonic aesthetic. The resulting record is a moody collection of droned out, minor key jams, built from cascades of sequenced synths, and primitive drum programming, all wrapped in a blurry, psychedelic song fug, and all in service of plaintive, echo-drenched vox, drifting way down in the mix. But don't get the idea that this is some straight up bummer rock, just check out "Luther", which sort of lopes and lumbers, until a second synth comes in and unfurls a gloriously melodic, and nearly sun dappled sounding melody, reminding us of a happier Cure, and when the vocals build into a lush chorale, this could almost be some outsider indie rock. The whole record is rife with those sorts of sonic surprises, the eighties production, the booming reverberant drums, the tones and drones, the buzz and shimmer that seems to underpin all the tracks, and the vocals, lilting, plaintive, a little bid sad boy indie sounding, but that's kind of what makes Black Wing so cool. It's indie pop doused in industrial crunch, a little bit burnished and blackened, but a crazy catchy melody, or sweetly swoonsome vocal hook is never far away, and really almost every track eventually blossoms into something impossibly pretty. "Black Wing" sounds like a home brewed, lo-fi, industrial-wave Postal Service, while "My Body Betrayed Me" sound like it could be some weird eighties reissue on Medical Records. While there are a few moments of twisted heaviness, the rest of the record plays out way more like some lost eighties synth pop record, albeit with extra fuzz and grit, especially the last track, which has an almost dance-y vibe, but one that is balanced by the strange harmony group vox, and a dense swirl of softly psychedelic noise. So good! Includes a download code as well.

MPEG stream: My Body Betrayed Me
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An "unplugged" Frank Black lets it all hang out on this limited edition cd and dvd set which compiles live acoustic and studio tracks that he recorded during his summer 2006 solo acoustic tour. The live footage featured on the dvd was shot at a performance in Sacramento, CA on that very same tour. Frankly (ha ha!), he hasn't sounded this good in years. His voice nails all of the far reaches of his broadly expressive range -- alternately intently focused, wildly reckless and lyrically piercing. The recordings are warm, reverb-y and sprinkled with audience hootin' and hollerin'. Some tunes do fare better than others however. Unfortunately like a bull in a china shop, he sorta tramples a few beloved old Pixies classics in the process. They might still please the diehards tho'.

MPEG stream: Bullet
MPEG stream: Wave Of Mutilation

Whoa! Twenty seven songs fill Frank Black's latest full length, a double-disc set! And it's a peculiar one. Not in a trippy wigged out eccentric kind of way, but just very unexpected and uncharacteristic. On the first disc, he's gone completely '70s country roots rock! This would be less unsettling if there were some tell-tale Frank Black Francis-isms in there somewhere, but after a few listens we haven't registered a single one! The one thing that should've given him away-- that is, his voice -- doesn't sound like him a bit. Sorta deep and gruff and weathered... or to put it another way, imagine Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen and Glen Campbell all rolled into one. Don't get us wrong this is not a bad album. It's exceptionally well done. The songwriting's as solid as ever, but it just comes across as very faceless. Was this a conscious decision? We assume so. However, that alone is the surprise (and ultimately for us the disappointment) of the first disc of Fast Man, Raider Man. Now, moving on to the second disc, we breathe a soft sigh of relief. From the first song "In The Time Of My Ruin", things are definitely more identifiably Black and characteristic of an album by such a (usually) distinct musical personality. That said, oddly enough we found many of the songs on Disc Two to be quite reminiscent of Van Morrison too. Having him swing into a rendition of "Brown Eyed Girl" would not be at all out of place. Non-diehard Frank Black fans might find themselves wishing he'd released the two cds separately.

MPEG stream: In The Time Of My Ruin
MPEG stream: If Your Poison Gets You

There was a time, before this current Pixies rennaisance came about, when a lot of us were jonesing for something, anything, by the Pixies that was even remotely rare or otherwise previously unreleased. Time was that your best bet to get anything was in mp3 format through ye olde file sharing program. Never the most satisfying way of scratching an itch if you're a music geek. We eventually got satisfaction with the BBC sessions, the Complete B-Sides, and The Blue Tape, but there are still some genuine nuggets out there worth putting on disc. A friend of mine, a swaggering pirate of the ethernet, once scored on a pillage a copy of "I'm Amazed" featuring Frank Black singing and accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. I've kept it in my treasure chest ever since. I swear sometimes I think it's better than the version with the full band that was eventually released. I always knew that if there was this one track, that there must be more out there. And why the hell wasn't anyone willing to make a little money selling it to me? Thank you Spin Art. For now we have that and 13 other gems from that same session, all classic Pixies tracks, all solo Frank Black on acoustic guitar. Like "I'm Amazed" these are all great. Whether it was all recorded in one session -- the result of a burst of inspiration -- or not, they're all quintessential un-restrained Frank Black. Obviously not intending these recordings would ever be released Frank gives running commentary on some songs "there's supposed to be screaming here", and even sings several guitar solos and a bass line. If they'd spent a few bucks more on the original recordings they could have been released as they were in 1987 and had almost as much impact as the Pixies. In an interesting addition to these seminal brain stormings is a second disc of classic Pixies tracks that Pere Ubu's David Thomas & Two Pale Boys re-recorded in 2003. We had hoped that this was going to be another collection of solo Frank on acoustic. Instead it's Thomas laying down all sorts of tracks -- guitars, keyboards, bass, drums, sequencers, effects -- using copious amounts of delay and, for the most part, destroying the great work the Pixies had done. To be fair, there are a few interesting moments: an added harmony on "Caribou" that's quite beautiful, some VU/Conrad-esque violin stylings on "Into the White" and a drugged out version of "Monkey Gone To Heaven". Just be sure to take off the disc when you've had enough of the 15 minute dub remix of "Planet of Sound" (never the best Pixies song to begin with). But after all is said and done we can't complain and can still recommend this with a clean conscience. After all, it's priced as one disc, so with the second one you can take it or leave it.

MPEG stream: I'm Amazed
MPEG stream: Oh My Golly
MPEG stream: Caribou

Though most of the throngs of Pixies fans poo pooed Frank Black's solo workings after disbanding the Pixies, both his eponymous first release and second -- "Teenager of the Year" -- were true underrated gems. Even now, I find myself picking up these albums to play more than any of the later Pixies releases, or any other rock record for that matter. So it was understandably a bit of a disappointment when "The Cult of Ray" was released, and following it, two more very disappointing Black albums. At the time, to me, it seemed that maybe a good deal of the creativity that went into making those albums was to the credit of producer / bass player / keyboardist Eric Drew Feldman (of Captain Beefheart's Magic Band & Pere Ubu) or guitarist Jeff Morris Tepper (also a Beefheart as well as a Tom Waits alum) as Cult Of Ray found these two conspicuously absent and the album self-produced by Black. With his sixth solo release though, Black may be returning to his prior songwriting glory. Returning to play with Frank for a few tracks on this album is former Pixies guitarist Joey Santiago, and Tepper lends a hand on banjo for one track ("St. Francis Dam Disaster"). To be sure, this isn't a 100% great album but it's got enough great songs on it to be an excellent short album if you just program your cd player to skip tracks 1, 2 & 6 -- at least for starters (your results may vary) and see how they grow on you in time. Among the awkward moments on this album that may require some getting used to are a couple tunes in which Mr Black apes the Rolling Stones ("I've Seen Your Picture" and especially "Hermaphroditos") and an homage to FM radio rock ("If It Takes All Night"). But there are some truly great songs on here, as good as anything he's done since the Pixies, which make this album worth giving a shot -- certainly if you own and or cherish copies of his first solo outing or "Teenager Of The Year"-- replete with Frank Black's wonderful ability not only to slip in and out of his wonderful falsetto, but his almost patented way of switching from a scream to a croon. Let's hope this is a sign of even better things to come from Frank.

RealAudio clip: St. Francis Dam Disaster
RealAudio clip: The Swimmer

This release proves how multi-faceted and talented Mr. Alan Sparhawk (of Low) is. In Black-Eyed Snakes, he switches gears from the sloooow Low loveliness to all rockin' blues garage with dirgy guitar and distorted telephone mic'd vocals. Playing it punk and

RealAudio clip: Honey
RealAudio clip: Big Black Train

Garagey blues rock meets Sonic Youth guitar squall. Yep, it's the second raw n' grungy platter from Minnesota's Chicken-Bone George and company. Chicken-Bone being better known to most as Alan Sparhawk of Low, y'know. This side project already proved with their debut from last year that Mr. Sparhawk's got some shitkickin' punked-out blues in him that Low's lovely slow sadness can't quite capture. And we're glad to hear it. Lemme crack open a brewski and crank this up. Sound distorted? Well that's the ideer ain't it! There's a dozen tracks here, including a stab at "Bo Diddley", each one fulla moanin' hollers, menacing grooves, high-energy exuberance and sheer noisy fun. Some w/ slide guitar guestin' by Tim from Califone btw. We like how it's all retro n' all but you can't quite guess what's gonna happen next, this is more creative and artier than it seems... Definitely a band in the running in the current garage revival for sure, if you're into Coach Whips and The Husbands and of course The White Stripes etc. make no mistake you oughta party with the Black-Eyed Snakes too.

MPEG stream: Mexican Half-Stick
MPEG stream: Cornbread

Former Pixies kingpin's latest release, doesn't disappoint.

Seeing as how Decibel, the Pressure Sounds anthology of dub plates by legendary UK producer / guitarist / band leader / engineer / sound system operator Dennis Bovell, did so well here it was kind of a no brainer to pick up this classic collection of dub-umentals Bovell released in 1980 under the moniker Blackbeard. Unlike much of the other dubs from this time, the tracks that make up I Wah Dub were not culled from vocal tracks, but designed solely as instrumentals. (Interestingly enough, it was only a year later that Adrian Sherwood would release his first African Head Charge album My Life In A Hole In The Ground.)

MPEG stream: Electrocharge
MPEG stream: Jazzz

What this is, is a solo album from Carey Mercer, the singer/main songwriter of love-'em or hate-'em Canadian indie-rock weirdos Frog Eyes. And like so many a front man's solo album, it sounds just about exactly like his regular band! Maybe a little bit more subdued and intimate, but closer to Frog Eyes than anything else. In his case, there's a good, unavoidable reason for it: his unique, feverish Tom Waits-meets-Bjork-at-the-wrong-end-of-a-Victrola-horn vocals mean *everything* he does sounds like Frog Eyes, it's such a part of their/his sound. It probably should be called a Frog Eyes record (like Ego Scriptor, the acoustic album he did by himself not long ago)...but I'm sure he has his reasons for calling it Blackout Beach instead. You can scratch you head over that along with much else as you listen to this, as Corey pours his heart out through songs that sound somewhere betwixt nursery rhymes and a homeless guy talking to himself, but in a good way (we think). Kind of whispery and cryptic and surreal and emotive, all good things eh? Frog Eyes fans will want this, and it's not a bad place to start for anyone else intrigued by what we just said about Mercer's singing and songwriting. PS. in case you were wondering since sentence one, we love 'em!

MPEG stream: The Stuttered XXX Breeze XXX
MPEG stream: The Quiet Merchant Gets His Song Too

Frog Eyes related goodness.

We don't care what anyone tells us, you're never too old for emo. Especially emo made by guys our age! We were pretty bummed when the Get Up Kids called it a day a recently. They were responsible for one of our favorite records ever, Something To Write Home About, a totally kick ass collection of catchy, heavy raucous poprock emo anthems. Later GUK records didn't pack the same wallop, although a recent live record was pretty kick ass. Various band members moved on, starting other bands, side projects, solo records, all that, but none of them had the same sort of magic. This Town's Disaster is the debut release from Get Up Kids' guitarist Jim Suptic and is about as close as I think we're ever gonna get. And it's good enough for us. This is like a modern emo version of classic nineties college rock. You can hear the Replacements A LOT, jangly guitars, rough raspy melodic vocals, simple steady drumming. Killer hooks, lots of instantly catchy choruses, perfect headphone rock / mixtape material / breakup tuneage for sure. Been listening to this nonstop! Comes in a cool six panel digipack with killer cover art that looks like it was done by the same guy who did the equally cool art on Something To Write Home About.

MPEG stream: This Town's Disaster
MPEG stream: Blue Skies
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This new SF trio whip out some down'n'dirty trash tunes with the rock'n'roll basics -- vocals, guitar, drums and tambourine. The vocals are delivered in a deliciously distressed, smeared sneer. Just imagine a female fronted piss'n'vinegar descendant of Jesus And Mary Chain, and you'll have some idea of where The Blacks are comin' from. We think they would fit great at a gig alongside fellow Bay Area hotties The Husbands and Von Iva.

MPEG stream: Raincoat
MPEG stream: The Flame

Latest from long time aQ fave, UK guitarist / composer James Blackshaw, and it's his most ambitious record yet, eight movements woven into a single sprawling piece, continuing in his constant evolution from one man, Fahey style neo-Appalachia finger picker, to full fledged composer and band leader. On All Is Falling, Blackshaw plays guitar, piano, glockenspiel, percussion and sings, and is accompanied by a handful of other musicians on violin, flute, saxophone, and cello, the results are stirring and dramatic, lush and totally gorgeous, drawing on classic folk music, modern chamber music, classical and the avant garde. Every movement here is a miniature epic, dense and layered and lush, evocative and emotional, from dark brooding piano pieces, wrapped in clouds of Lubomyr Melnyk like flurries, to folk flecked chamber music, spidery minor key guitar melodies, underpinned by swoonsome strings, evoking a lost time, another era, to warm swirling tangles of Appalachia, here set amidst lush swells and more soaring strings. The first five movements all flow seamlessly, a dark gorgeous timeless bit of cinematic chamber folk, which culminates in the final three movements, beginning with "Part 6", a complex looped bit of folky lilt, with powerful percussion, and what sounds like someone counting our the strange time signature, which leads right into the 12 minute "Part 7", beginning with a post rocky strand of looped guitar, which is soon mirrored by the strings, ratcheting up the tension, and the motion, a dizzying almost round, growing more and more dense, more and more complex, multiple melodies constantly shifting and intertwining, as the track seems to grow more atonal, as if it's slowly crumbling, detuning, eventually winding down completely, before the final movement comes in, a slow building, softly pulsing swell, a gorgeous hazy bit of layered drone music, the various overtones creating muted rhythms, and strange harmonies, lush and ominous and hauntingly lovely. A strangely and beautifully abstract ending to an otherwise deeply melodic and wonderfully lush bit of modern composition. Until the next list, the cd version of All is Falling will be on sale, $2 off the normal $14.98!!

MPEG stream: Part 1
MPEG stream: Part 2
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Sure, all you drone obsessives and out rock freaks can't get enough Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, an endless fount of whir and rumble and skree and grrr and rrroooaarrr. But this new record from James Blackshaw is a whole 'nother ball of... um.. steel strings apparently. Celeste is made up of two 15 minute tracks (one played in open C major tuning, the other in open C minor) of totally mesmerizing Appalachian raga folk, performed mainly on 12-string acoustic guitar with occasional farfisa organ and cymbals. Fans of John Fahey, Jack Rose, Matt Valentine and all things free folk will be completely blown away. There's still an element of drone in the repetitive raga-like riffing, but this is mainly and most definitely a weird and wonderful modern avant bluegrass / folk record. Lovely! SUPER LIMITED AS ALWAYS!! NOT SURE WE'LL BE ABLE TO GET MORE WHEN THESE ARE GONE!

MPEG stream: Celeste Pt. 1

Wow! To mark the centenary of Louis Feuillade's Fantomas silent film series, James Blackshaw was invited to perform a live score for the fifth and final film, Le Faux Magistrat in Paris on Halloween night of last year. The Fantomas film series, based on the popular character of French crime fiction, a symbol of terror and master of disguise, is an exciting match for Blackshaw who has evolved over the past few years from solo guitar work to full orchestral composition. The group assembled here includes Duane Pitre and Simon Scott from Slowdive as well as multi-instrumentalist Charlotte Glasson providing violin, vibraphone and various wind instruments. In a beautifully brooding score that at times channels David Shire's The Conversation soundtrack as one of several reccurring instrumental motifs, Blackshaw alternates between guitar and piano in a tense and moving score that while atmospheric, never seems to take rest. Fantastic!

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NOW ON VINYL!! (Includes free cd of the album too!) So on his last album, Blackshaw stepped into new territory with some orchestral instrumentation, even laying down a few piano tracks. And even though we didn't think it was possible, he just might have outdone himself, yet again, with his most dynamic album to date, The Glass Bead Game, released on the infamous Young God Records. Most aQ costumers are well aware of the talent and mystery that surrounds Mr. Blackshaw and his twelve-string mastery. And while we've really dug all of his numerous past albums, it seems like Blackshaw has never sounded so confident in his mantra-like finger picking and ornate compositions. With the freedom to compose works for piano, strings, flute, clarinet and a choir, Blackshaw's vision has grown from a small sprout into a sea of blooming vines. It baffles us how cinematic this stuff is. These tracks all tell epic tales of being lost at sea, nighttime woodland campfires, sad goodbyes and lonely mornings, all without any lyrics. Sometimes there are these moments where Blackshaw will simply change chords and suddenly the piece takes on a whole new feel, a whole new sound, and you can't help but feel emotionally struck. His playing is so recognizable and distinguished from his solo-guitar peers, a perfect marriage of patients and skill, droning and droning on one chord only to build suspense and anticipation before suddenly revealing the next movement, so good! And there's something about his playing that is so European, so different from the Americana-type sound of other finger pickin' contemporaries. Blackshaw's pieces seem to shimmer with an ethereal haze that faintly glows like an old lantern in the woods, casting flickering light on faces of spirits in the night. The Glass Bead Games starts things off running with a lush harmonium drone and Blackshaw's quick, raga-esque finger picking soaring above. Gradually female vocals and strings creep in to blanket Blackshaw's guitar in a silky ambience, creating an almost dreamlike experience. We really love how the vocals have this Philip Glass or Steve Reich orchestral kind of vibe. Instead of long swells the voices are short, repetitive wordless ohs and ahs, kind of like some carousel organ or angelic harp. "Cross" builds and retreats in some cosmic ebb and flow, continually swirling with deep, melodic range and heartfelt emotion, all with the twelve string at its glowing core. "Bled", the second track, begins with a slow, contemplative mood. Notes plucked then left to dissipate into thin air. Somber and desolate, the piece only grows into a dark journey through Eastern ragas and into celestial radiance, only to return in the 9th minute to the opening, contemplative passage. �� The album comes to a gorgeous close with the 18 minute "Arc". With James on the piano, he builds from quiet contemplative drops of rain into huge waves of quickly flourishing arpeggios, not all that different sounding from his guitar picking. We totally love how his style and aesthetic remains intact, whether he's sitting at the piano or with a guitar on his knee, his close attention to detail and use of hypnotic, emotionally captivating melodies shines throughout. Notes flickering and shimmering about as overtones soar above like clouds. There's so much about this record that you can get fully wrapped up in, so much detail it would be impossible to absorb it all in just one listen. We've already been listening to Glass Bead Game for over a week, and still new details keep popping out of the woodwork. And to top it off, beautifully fitting, earth-toned artwork of various birds of prey perfectly adorns the album with some magical visual hex. By far our favorite Blackshaw album to date and quite possibly his best, highly and fully recommended!

MPEG stream: Cross
MPEG stream: Bled

Two new tracks clocking at right around twenty minutes, from one of our favorite 12-string guitar playing wonders, James Blackshaw. Perfect time of year too, for these meditative blissed out songs. So perfect for taking a much needed break and to step away from the madness of the holiday season that is just about upon us. Blackshaw has the ability to make music that not only seems to make the outside world fade away, but it's also so perfect for those intense moments when you are in the midst of soul searching and deep introspection and you need a soundtrack to help you make sense of it all. This 12" feels like a really nice nod to his earlier more sprawling and solo guitar recordings, though there are some nice subtle touches of clarinet, violin, and flute throughout these recordings. Just like the first time we listened to his records like O True Believers and Celeste, we are once again so swept away and transported to a place of total transcendence by these two beautiful songs. Essential fall/winter listening.

MPEG stream: Holly
MPEG stream: Boo, Forever

With each new James Blackshaw release, we're always amazed at how someone who works within such a small musical framework can continuously exceed our expectations. Definitely a favorite among favorites of solo guitarists, Blackshaw has bulked up his arsenal of compositional approaches by introducing for the first time the use of piano as a key element. Bookending the album are two long form pieces of solo piano in a minimalist style that remind us of Charlemagne Palestine or Lubomyr Melnyk. When the twelve string is first heard on the second track, it's not before we're set up with a foundation of resonant timbres of violin and viola (played by Fran Bury) that give weight to the airy modal improvisations of the guitar. Adding subtle layers of richness and dynamics, the strings ground and support the ringing overtones of the 12 string creating complex harmonies to the pulsating melodies. We can't imagine we'll ever tire of hearing Blackshaw's shimmering textural pieces. Amazing how sound so deep, dark, damp and resonant can be so transcendentally uplifting.

MPEG stream: Gate of Ivory
MPEG stream: Past Has Not Passed
MPEG stream: Echo And Abyss

Of these three new James Blackshaw cd reissues of long out of print cd-r's, Lost Prayers & Motionless Dances is the only one of the three that we never managed to carry at all. We've long gone on and on about how records this good deserve to be heard by more than the 100 or 200 lucky folks who manage to get their hands on the limited cd-r's, and finally, someone (thanks Tompkins Square!) had the good sense to gussy these discs up and give them the actual proper cd reissue they so deserve. Originally released as a cd-r on Digitalis, limited to 200 copies in 2004, this one slipped right under our radar, which is a huge shame as it is just as good as Sunshrine or Celeste. But it's also quite different. Where as the other discs focus on Blackshaw's deft fingerpicking, and mastery of the steel string guitar, this disc is just as much about the drone and the ambience. Not to say, Blackshaw doesn't get to unleash dexterous little tangles of Appalachian filigree, but those stretches of strum and shimmer are set amidst thick harmonium drones and blissed out field recordings. The disc begins with a warm whirring drone, all thick wheezes and rich lustrous chords, Eastern melodies, drawn way out into long soft smears. Eventually the guitar joins in, but simple spare strums, soft chords, and gentle fingerpicking, nestled amidst the softly undulating harmonium in the background, the sounds of crickets chirping in the distance, bits of slippery sitar style squiggles. The sound gradually slips into something much more familiar, 'that' Blackshaw sound we love so much, a lot like the other reissued discs, until the guitar fades out, leaving a murky muted shimmer, which soon fades out as well, leaving nothing a strange high end hiss-scape of weird processed percussion and shortwave radio, peppered with bits of high end jangle and distant upper register guitar scrape and disembodied clatter, before the track finally shifts gears once again, filling the last few minutes with urgently strummed guitar, big chunky chords, moaning harmoniums, and billowing splashes of deep resonant cymbal shimmer, a glorious kinetic finish to a another gorgeous sprawling languorous guitardronedrift. Remastered and with new artwork.

MPEG stream: Lost Prayers & Motionless Dances

Of all the modern Appalachia-ists, James Blackshaw is definitely one of our favorites, playing solo guitar, he is most definitely a master, but he seems to have long abandoned that sort of playing in favor of something much more lush and composed, with each record seeming to push the sound, and Blackshaw's skills as a composer even further, this most recent one is no different, which once again finds him augmenting his guitar with grand piano, vibraphone and a Hammond B3 organ, and joined for this record by vocalist Genevieve Beaulieu. The opening three track songsuite doesn't veer to far from Blackshaw records past, intricately finger picked nylon string guitar, nested in soft chordal swells and laced with delicate vibraphone melodies, sounding classical one second, old time Appalachian folk the next, and brooding chamber music the next. His playing so fluid and graceful, the sound lush and vibrant. It's not until the fourth track, where Blackshaw is joined by Beaulieu, that the sound changes dramatically. That track, mostly piano, sounding like some old ballad, Beaulieu's voice rich and throaty and quite unique, but it definitely suits the sound, reminding us of scene from some old movie where the female lead is perched on a piano belting out a torch song, as the male lead observes from the shadows, the sound minor key, haunting and darkly melodic. The second half of the record, at least the two songs following that torch song, find Blackshaw back in Appalachia mode, and as always, his playing is stunning, impossibly intricate and liltingly melodic, his Appalachia infused with a bit of classic guitar it sounds like, and the result is stunning. And finally, the record finishes off with a gorgeous mostly solo piano piece, that sounds very cinematic, like some indie film soundtrack, wistful, melancholy, bittersweet, culminating in a super dramatic coda, the vibraphone adding a second melody, haunting and quite lovely.

MPEG stream: Love Is The Plan, The Plan Is Death
MPEG stream: Her Smoke Rose Up Forever
MPEG stream: A Momentary Taste Of Being

We often lament the state of musical affairs that would render records that are as good as anything and everything we've heard by James Blackshaw to be so limited as to only be heard by a mere handful of people. But until now that has indeed been the case. Cd-r after gorgeous cd-r, limited to 200 copies, 100 copies, even less in some instances. But music this beautiful, this lush, this lovely definitely deserves a wider audience, even if its cd-r / underground / outsider / avant folk / new weird America cache suffers accordingly. Who cares? Who -can- care when faced with the sounds on O True Believers. Over the last few years, Blackshaw has found a home amongst free noise fellows and their fans (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, Birchville Cat Motel, Rameses III, Vibracathedral Orchestra, Sunroof!, Avarus, etc.) even though his sound hewed much closer to Fahey and the like, a stark but sweet steel string Appalachia. Here, that sound is even more stark, more spare and oh so even sweeter. The opening two tracks will have you swooning, or drifting off, or swaying in some glorious mesmerized state or whatever it is you do when you find yourself submerged in some lush swirl of tonal dreaminess, 30 full minutes of guitar, mostly just guitar, spacious and grand, lilting and delicate, no whir or fuzz or rumble or any of the other sonic detritus that usually decorates most of the music like this we love -- no this is crystal clear and crystalline, shimmering and glistening, as if Blackshaw was some strange musical alchemist who discovered how to use a guitar to describe leaves covered in dew, green grass sparkling with morning frost, the sun reflecting on a placid pond, silvery streaks of sunlight filtered through the interwoven branches overhead. It's like wandering into a lost glade, laying in a thick soft patch of grass, and slowly sinking into the ground, until you BECOME the forest around you, sinking into a warm, wash of tranquil otherworldliness. Towards the end of track two, the guitars are joined by cymbalon, tamboura, and bells, and what was only moments earlier some sort of mysterious Appalachian folk, becomes a slow burning blissed out raga, steel strings buzz, each note smeared into warm drones, then sprinkled with delicate chimes and reverberating bells. Track three is equally as blissful, but is constructed quite differently, the guitar lines speed up and become intense and intricate tangles of notes, so snug that the melodies blur and stretch out melodic whirs, while lush major key swells, ebb and flow in the background, a swaying swooning sweetness. The final track is almost jubilant by comparison and 'rocks' as much as any foresty free folk Appalachia can be thought to rock, dense steel string strums, a simple percussive framework of cymbals and chimes, the whole thing wrapped in the wonderfully warm wheeze of a harmonium, adding a thick warm fuzzy patina to the sparkling steel shimmer beneath.

MPEG stream: Transient Life In Twilight
MPEG stream: Spiralling Skeleton Memorial

Albion's esteemed lord of achingly gorgeous acoustic 12-string instrumentalism returns to sun-dapple your fragile speakers, minds & lives once more with his painstakingly crystalline brand of tender fingerpicked loveliness. Aglow with guitar melodies that sparkle & xylophones that twinkle like campsite stars, throbbing church organs, fluttering flutes that dance around your head like little forest sprites, and the kind of mood that only seems to exist in dreams that you wake up wishing you could remember, Summoning Suns (which features a number of talented sidepersons, including Simon Scott of Slowdive) is James Blackshaw's twelfth (!) studio album by our reckoning, but only the first to feature his voice (with the exception of the occasional background breathing that could be picked up on some of his more sparse early acoustic tracks - seriously, listen for 'em!). What took so long?? The hushed patient sigh of Blackshaw's voice is a perfect accompaniment to his summery yet somber, bright yet bittersweet, lush yet longing compositions, at times recalling the pastoral Renaissance meadowland folk of Amazing Blondel and elsewhere the haunted bedroom whisper of Elliott Smith. Like much of Blackshaw's best work, Summoning Suns sublimely balances stately timeless beauty with faraway unnamable yearning, a faint sadness drifting beneath even the most glorious of melodies - a reminder that even the sunniest days only last until sundown - beautiful and fleeting, just like this record.

MPEG stream: Averoigne
MPEG stream: Confetti
MPEG stream: Failure's Flame

More gorgeously lush neo-Appalachia from James Blackshaw, finally released on a real cd instead of an ultralimited cd-r, which makes perfect sense as this is way too good to be so limited. Two tracks, the first an extended thirty minute epic, a lush and completely gorgeous steel string raga, huge dense sweeps of intricately finger picked guitar, dense with reverb, accompanied by sarod, harmonium, Farfisa organ, glockenspiel, bells and bowed cymbals. Overwhelmingly beautiful and impossibly otherworldly. Expressive and aggressive but completely delicate and introspective at the same time. The end of the track is especially powerful when the guitars fade out and all that is left is the thick wheezing drone of the harmonium and a cloud of tinkling bells. The final three minutes is a very Fahey-esque, steel string guitar workout, gorgeous folky twang, simple and so lovely. Packaged in a gold metallic paper sleeve with a small printed insert.

MPEG stream: Sunshrine (Excerpt)

A very limited (and very expensive) lp version (pressed on nice thick vinyl and housed in a gorgeous sleeve) of the two most recent releases from guitarist James Blackshaw (one a new cd reviewed elsewhere on this list, the other a cd-r release from earlier in 2005). We only got a handful of these and once they are gone, they are probably gone for good. Here's what we had to say about the Celeste cd-r: Celeste is made up of two 15 minute tracks (one played in open C major tuning, the other in open C minor) of totally mesmerizing Appalachian raga folk, performed mainly on 12-string acoustic guitar with occasional farfisa organ and cymbals. Fans of John Fahey, Jack Rose, Matt Valentine and all things free folk will be completely blown away. There's still an element of drone in the repetitive raga-like riffing, but this is mainly and most definitely a weird and wonderful modern avant bluegrass / folk record. Lovely! And here's what we have to say about Sunshrine: More gorgeously lush neo-Appalachia from James Blackshaw, finally released on a real cd instead of an ultralimited cd-r, which makes perfect sense as this is way too good to be so limited. Two tracks, the first an extended thirty minute epic, a lush and completely gorgeous steel string raga, huge dense sweeps of intricately finger picked guitar, dense with reverb, accompanied by sarod, harmonium, Farfisa organ, glockenspiel, bells and bowed cymbals. Overwhelmingly beautiful and impossibly otherworldly. Expressive and aggressive but completely delicate and introspective at the same time. The end of the track is especially powerful when the guitars fade out and all that is left is the thick wheezing drone of the harmonium and a cloud of tinkling bells. The final three minutes is a very Fahey-esque, steel string guitar workout, gorgeous folky twang, simple and so lovely.

MPEG stream: Sunshrine (Excerpt)
MPEG stream: Celeste Pt. 1

Like John Fahey's "Transcendental Waterfall", The UK's James Blackshaw can always be counted on for rich cascading 12-string rushes of beauty and mystique. Here are five dense and layered pieces that truly display Blackshaw's virtuous gifts, ones that seem to unearth new mysteries with each new release, and further carve his own distinct niche apart from his Takoma/Windham Hill progenitors. Here on some tracks, it sounds like he has some subtle string accompaniments that keep the vibrating natural harmonic overtones of Blackshaw's guitar in good company, without seeming to play it safe. And the sparsely plucked but gaseous third track, "Clouds Collapse" and final refrain of the last track, "Stained Glass Windows" show Blackshaw hasn't let go of his sonically experimental leanings. Quite mesmerizing!

MPEG stream: Running To The Ghost
MPEG stream: Clouds Collapse

So on his last album, Blackshaw stepped into new territory with some orchestral instrumentation, even laying down a few piano tracks. And even though we didn't think it was possible, he just might have outdone himself, yet again, with his most dynamic album to date, The Glass Bead Game, released on the infamous Young God Records. Most aQ costumers are well aware of the talent and mystery that surrounds Mr. Blackshaw and his twelve-string mastery. And while we've really dug all of his numerous past albums, it seems like Blackshaw has never sounded so confident in his mantra-like finger picking and ornate compositions. With the freedom to compose works for piano, strings, flute, clarinet and a choir, Blackshaw's vision has grown from a small sprout into a sea of blooming vines. It baffles us how cinematic this stuff is. These tracks all tell epic tales of being lost at sea, nighttime woodland campfires, sad goodbyes and lonely mornings, all without any lyrics. Sometimes there are these moments where Blackshaw will simply change chords and suddenly the piece takes on a whole new feel, a whole new sound, and you can't help but feel emotionally struck. His playing is so recognizable and distinguished from his solo-guitar peers, a perfect marriage of patients and skill, droning and droning on one chord only to build suspense and anticipation before suddenly revealing the next movement, so good! And there's something about his playing that is so European, so different from the Americana-type sound of other finger pickin' contemporaries. Blackshaw's pieces seem to shimmer with an ethereal haze that faintly glows like an old lantern in the woods, casting flickering light on faces of spirits in the night. The Glass Bead Games starts things off running with a lush harmonium drone and Blackshaw's quick, raga-esque finger picking soaring above. Gradually female vocals and strings creep in to blanket Blackshaw's guitar in a silky ambience, creating an almost dreamlike experience. We really love how the vocals have this Philip Glass or Steve Reich orchestral kind of vibe. Instead of long swells the voices are short, repetitive wordless ohs and ahs, kind of like some carousel organ or angelic harp. "Cross" builds and retreats in some cosmic ebb and flow, continually swirling with deep, melodic range and heartfelt emotion, all with the twelve string at its glowing core. "Bled", the second track, begins with a slow, contemplative mood. Notes plucked then left to dissipate into thin air. Somber and desolate, the piece only grows into a dark journey through Eastern ragas and into celestial radiance, only to return in the 9th minute to the opening, contemplative passage. �� The album comes to a gorgeous close with the 18 minute "Arc". With James on the piano, he builds from quiet contemplative drops of rain into huge waves of quickly flourishing arpeggios, not all that different sounding from his guitar picking. We totally love how his style and aesthetic remains intact, whether he's sitting at the piano or with a guitar on his knee, his close attention to detail and use of hypnotic, emotionally captivating melodies shines throughout. Notes flickering and shimmering about as overtones soar above like clouds. There's so much about this record that you can get fully wrapped up in, so much detail it would be impossible to absorb it all in just one listen. We've already been listening to Glass Bead Game for over a week, and still new details keep popping out of the woodwork. And to top it off, beautifully fitting, earth-toned artwork of various birds of prey perfectly adorns the album with some magical visual hex. By far our favorite Blackshaw album to date and quite possibly his best, highly and fully recommended!

MPEG stream: Cross
MPEG stream: Bled

Probably quite limited (Kning Discs are usually not long for this world!) live release from AQ fave UK guitarist James Blackshaw. Recorded in Goteborg, Sweden at the end of May this year, Blackshaw's live performance of the best of his catalog (Sunshrine, Celeste, and two songs from O True Believers) does not disappoint. For those who are not familiar with Blackshaw's majestic 12-string finger picking abilities (O True Believers was record of the week, a few lists back), this live document is a true testament to his amazing skills. Not a note is out of place and the sound quality is breathtaking. Don't miss out. We only have about 20 of these and may or may not be able to get any more when we run out, we don't know!

MPEG stream: Sunshrine
MPEG stream: Spiralling Skeleton Memorial

We're huge fans of pianist and composer Lubomyr Melnyk, his playing so distinctive, his Continuous Music System and the way he creates dense flurries of notes, and lush chordal cascades - it's transcendent, a sort of swirling, almost psychedelic modern classical / new age hybrid, the sound dreamlike but rife with melodic subtleties and tonal colorations that make his music prismatic and expansive and impossible to mistake for anybody else. We also love Blackshaw, in a field of modern minimal guitarists, mining classic Americana, we often find ourselves drawn to his interpretation, one that's not always so minimal, slipping easily from a Melnyk like style of whipping up clouds of swirling chords and notes, to weaving lush landscapes of dark dreamlike chamber music. Not sure whose idea it was to put these guys together, or if they were simply the sort of like minded artists who eventually find each other, but whatever the reason, or whoever is responsible, we're so grateful, and glad that this sonic summit took place. And it's just about as fantastic as you might hope. Four long form compositions, both Melnyk and Blackshaw effortlessly unfurling lush swaths of swirling melody, Blackshaw's guitar bathed in the reverb and overtones of Melnyk's piano, the sound sometimes so blurred it's hard to tell who's playing what, and that constant shift is part of what makes this so mesmerizing, the tracks hypnotic and tranced out, dreamy and melodic and woozily tranquil, but still sonically super active, each track is like a thick billowing cloud of dreamy melodic drift, the musical equivalent of a jar of fireflies, look away, and the world is lit by a soft warm glow, but look closely and that light is revealed as a dense whorl of tiny little lights, swooping and shimmering. The sound these two conjure up occasionally slips into something more folky, or more classical, but most often meets right in the middle, heavenly and hypnotic, rife with lilting melodies, and warm sonic swells. When things do slow down, the music settles into a moody melancholy shimmer, but those moments are fleeting, with the two tending to slowly add and build until the sound swirls and swoops and soars skyward, and blossoms once again into something truly transcendent. The vinyl version is limited to 500 copies.

MPEG stream: Tascheter
MPEG stream: Venant

CD reissue of the lone 1972 album from this German hard rock outfit with an English vocalist. This is the band that '70s-loving Swedish death-progressive metallers Opeth named their most recent opus after, leading us to think that it might be a weirdo

RealAudio clip: One's Life

Sure, spelling errors and grammatical mishaps may (and most likely do) pop up all the time on the aQ website; but we can be certain that we have correctly transcribed the name of Wayne Grim's art-prog project Blakcpullet Grimoire. Admittedly, this is one of the first projects that's come our way from Mr. Grim even though he's been very active in the Bay Area avant-garde scoring films, building installations, performing in countless guises, and appearing in this production or that. There are a ton of musical ideas splattered throughout Eating Whole Villages, beginning with a heavy, chugging guitar set against the old-school noise a dial-up modem generates, giving the album a Melvins / Mike Patton vibe from the get go. This is followed by a hissing track of noise and static aerations, muddling a delay saturated lecture from Buckminster Fuller captured on cassette. Then, you'll find electronic yawnings of bassbin rattling frequencies, bleeping glitches, and floorscraped noises barely coalescing upon their sparse structure countered by snippets from Kurt Schwitters' seminal sound poem Ursonate. These perpetual detours from track to track continue through the album, which really opens up after the rather claustrophobic beginning into some lovely stripped down acoustic guitar plucking and continues through an expanded passage of stereo-phased amplifier distortion ruptured with controlled attacks on a drum kit. Frippertronic styled guitar drones cascade out of the speakers later on as if they were from No Pussyfooting. Contemplative and enveloping, it's hard to imagine this as the same record, the end so far removed from the opening corroded heavy sounds. Confounding yes, but certainly rewarding!

MPEG stream: Overture (Repugnance)
MPEG stream: Dancer Listening To Organ Music...
MPEG stream: Tripartite

While some bands' reunions can leave you cringing, wishing they'd let your warm sonic memories of them glow on unscathed, the return of the Blake Babies does no such thing. They haven't fallen into the unfortunate reunion traps of trying too hard to

There never seems to be any shortage of hype going around the music world. These days more than ever. And all too often those being hyped so much in the blogosphere world just never really deliver the goods to warrant all the hoopla. But every now and then a record comes along that totally does deserve all that attention, such is the case with this amazing album by James Blake. Immediately it reminds us of some amazing combination of several of our favorite records ever. Radiohead's Kid A, Burial's Untrue, Arthur Russell's Calling Out Of Context, and Antony & The Johnsons if they made a record produced by Massive Attack and Swarms. Warm rushes of dubstep inspired backbeats meet gospel like vocal delivery, often auto-tuned but in such a moody and satisfying way. One of our customers who was going through a hard day when we had this playing in the store, came up to the counter and said "This is massaging my mind in ways I needed so badly." We can totally see where he was coming from. This is the kind of record made for melting, floating, and coming down softly.

MPEG stream: Unluck
MPEG stream: Limit To Your Love
MPEG stream: I Mind

This would have been a perfect entry on last week's "Ragadelic" in-between list, the debut solo recording from Guy Blakeslee, who most folks know as the man behind The Entrance Band. This is super limited, only 50 copies made, so we won't go into too much detail about it except that it is utterly amazing! Five long-form solo guitar excursions that cover Fahey-ish odes ("Oh Johnnie") to more raga-style workouts (check the Fahey-inspired titles like "Solitary Ecstasy Holiday Smile Prayer"). The last song, "The Night They Came From The Sky", is a 17 minute mind-expanding stew of looping reverse-delayed riffs that wind and coil in infinite meditative patterns. Rumor has it more volumes are in the works. A fantastic set. Get it while you can!

MPEG stream: Solitary Ecstasy Holiday Smile Prayer
MPEG stream: Mirror Of A Mirror Of A Mirror
MPEG stream: The Night They Came From The Sky

We flipped for the first installment in Guy Blakeslee's Thirdeye Memories cd-r series, which we described on the last list in our review of Volume 1 as falling somewhere between Fahey-like devotional Appalachia and more droned out abstract looped and layered psychedelic ragas, and for those of you (like us) who felt like one volume just wasn't enough, well, you might want to grab one of these before they're gone, cuz like the first one it's limited to just FIFTY copies (and we do have a tiny handful left of volume 1 if you missed out). Blakeslee is the frontman for psych rockers The Entrance Band, but for these solo excursions, the sound is much more intimate, and delicate and lovely, the opener here is a glistening sprawl of dreamlike guitar melodies, super fluid finger picking, the vibe almost carol-like, a warm glowing swirl of lovely Appalachian folk. But it doesn't take long for the disc to drift into far trippier realms, "Digital Sage" takes the sound of the opener and turns it inside out, flips it backwards, adding gloriously slippery reverse melodies and woozy shimmery FX blur, it's the sort of dreamy sonic trip out we could get lost in forever. And so it goes, the whole record unfurling in a washed out kosmische dream folk haze, slipping from crystalline beauty to dreamily dizzying trippy psych swirl, and back again, perfectly balancing sweet melodies, with something a bit more shadowy and lysergic. Like the first volume, fantastic! And like the first volume, packaged in a simple screen printed origami style sleeve, LIMITED TO 50 COPIES, each one hand numbered!

MPEG stream: Amandita
MPEG stream: Digital Sage

People have been after this record for ages, we have to admit though we were a bit skeptical, not cuz we don't dig the Black Keys, but just cuz it seemed like a recipe for disaster, two white dudes, blues rockers to boot, as a back up band for a bunch of killer rappers. But hell, we're happy to admit when we were wrong, we have been convinced, this stuff is pretty bad ass, the Black Keys laying down super stripped down beats and grooves, which isn't all that different really than a DJ just sort of playing those same grooves maybe, but it's cool to hear a live band rocking behind these rappers, and wow, what a stellar bunch, the first track features Ol' Dirty Bastard ferchrissakes!! Teamed up with Ludacris to boot! Mos Def, Pharoahe Monch, RZA, Raekwon, Noe, Jim Jones, Q-Tip, as well as a soul singer named Nicole Wray. The Wu-Tang tracks rule, RZA and Raekwon don't disappoint, ODB kills, pretty much everyone delivers some seriously killer flows, and the Black Keys are definitely up to the task, and actually, if you didn't know better, and just heard one of these jams on the radio, you'd probably never know...

MPEG stream: On The Vista (Feat. Mos Def)
MPEG stream: Dollaz & Sense (Feat. RZA + Pharoahe Monch)
MPEG stream: Stay Off The Fuckin' Flowers

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

SORRY.