[ aquarius records — Rock Pop ]

CARISSA'S WIERDSongs About Leaving(Hardly Art)lp$ 13.98

Long overdue collection from this sort of unsung Northwest indie rock combo, whose music was often described as "chamber rock" since most of their songs are hushed and contemplative, and laced with pianos and strings, all very dramatic and heartfelt, melancholic and dreamy. They did achieve a certain amount of notoriety, sold a bunch of records, but just never seemed to be able to make the jump to the next level, even though their sound was so obviously in line with lots of bands who did. Modest Mouse is an obvious comparison, the lilting vox, the strange harmonies, the bands even toured together, but CW's sound is much more folky and stripped down, the drums often played with brushes, acoustic guitars, the vocals urgent, and plaintive, the melodies sweetly sorrowful, the male female harmonies utterly sublime. A few of the tracks do in fact get weird, but that mostly means some strange effects, or adding a bit of noisiness, but for the most part, the songs here are soft and sweet and delicate, darkly dreamy, mysterious enough to appeal to folks into the darker slower side of underground pop, groups like Low, Galaxie 500, The For Carnation, Ida, Bedhead, and even more accessible indie rock like Modest Mouse or Pinback, but catchy and pretty enough that you'll definitely find yourself wondering why these guys (and gals) weren't more popular. Although two of 'em did wind up in another group that HAS had some success, Band of Horses! A fantastic collection, gathering up tracks from the group's three out of print full lengths, as well as a couple compilations, lovingly packaged with a HUGE foldout poster/booklet, packed with photos, liner notes and other ephemera, all housed in a swank slipcover. Essential indie pop for sure!

MPEG stream: Low Budget Slow Motion Soundtrack Song for the Leaving Scene
MPEG stream: Die
MPEG stream: The Color that your Eyes Changed with the Color of Your Hair
MPEG stream: One Night Stand

Incongruent is a collection of highly intelligent, mostly melancholy songs sung extraordinarily well by a six-foot man in a frock and wig. One would never know that, of course, from any of the minimal (and "naughty") imagery included with the record... The songs here demand your attention: they're catchy, clever, and heartfelt without being sentimental. Carletta Sue Kay's Incongruent is a record that many will obsess over. An obvious comparison would be to Antony (& the Johnsons). Even though Antony and Carletta's voices occupy completely different sonic ranges, they both approach songwriting with an inherent sense of drama. And, like Antony, there's no campiness here. A bit of humor, yes, and a bit of genderbending, but Carletta is definitely not a drag performer. There's no question of Randy playing some kind of character: Carletta is Randy Walker is Carletta Sue Kay. Carletta/Randy lent his vocal talents to the most recent Magnetic Fields disc Love At the Bottom of the Sea. An honor (for a fan), and homage can be felt in the staccato, precise quality to the storytelling and playing on Incongruent. "For the Birds" and "Just Another Beautiful Boy" provide nice juxtaposition as opening tracks. Lyrically, "For the Birds" is some dark shit, but the band takes you to such a dreamy Willie Nelson kind of place you don't notice until your second time through the record. You also don't notice the song tops well over six minutes until maybe your third. After an introduction that includes some crafty arrangements and production to segue, "Beautiful Boy" kicks in with a nod-your-head pop jangle you never expected. By the end you're humming along with the refrain, but there's no way to sing along once Carletta really opens it up at the end unless you've got pipes like his, and that's pretty doubtful. The opening lines of "Pas la Meme" has CSK wondering how much dog shit is in Paris, delivered with just enough bitterness to make you wonder why Carletta has such antipathy for that city. During the entire record, Carletta's androgynous voice never strays below an alto, and is quite strong even in very high registers. He makes you WANT to listen. At a recent (albeit somewhat compact) show, he held the mic well away from him for most of the performance and his voice was still well above the instruments. "Joy Division" sounds more like the also-mentioned Echo and the Bunnymen (no complaints) but none of the songs are predictable or too traditionally arranged. Aside from "Joy Division" and "Beautiful Boy" there's very little use of percussion on Incongruent, relying on the percussive qualities of the piano and acoustic guitar to provide the pulse. The more rocking, poppier songs are great, but the songs without drums provide a more intimate cushion to caress Carletta's voice. The choice to keep the record more orchestral and less traditionally "pop" was a good one. People have been coming into the store for the past week or so asking for this record and that shows no sign of letting up... HIGHLY recommended!

MPEG stream: For the Birds
MPEG stream: Pas le Meme
MPEG stream: Joy Division

San Francisco mainstays Carlos finally return with a new record. Their quirky, heavy, punky, poppy sound hasn't changed too much, but they sure sound better than ever. A sparkling production and a batch of killer songs make this record a great pop surprise. The sound is a little Pixies, a little Weezer and a little Redd Kross. A really great record from one of the few San Francisco

RealAudio clip: Always On My Side
RealAudio clip: Heavy Metal Monday

RECORD STORE DAY 2016 ITEM! We would have been super stoked about this even if it wasn't a special Record Store Day release, the latest from our psychedelic space rock pals Carlton Melton, and we have to say, we're beginning to run out of superlatives for these guys, every record is another killer batch of hypnotic heaviness and spaced out cosmic bliss, and this new one is really no different. Well, maybe a little different. The opener is about as straight up 'rock' as these guys get, the guitars are downright Hendrixy at times, and while it's still plenty psychedelic, it definitely displays the kind of sonic structure the group often disregard completely. But as if to balance the rock, the follow up gets super loose and drifty, weaving delicate webs of smoldering sound and fingerpicked guitars into softly undulating sprawls, wreathed in a washed out soft focus haze, and then the side closes with what might be one of the coolest CM jams yet, tribal drums and squelchy synths, all over dense swells of low end rumble, while over the top, little fragments of sun dappled guitar drift and shimmer. We would have been more than happy if that track took up a whole 'nother side of the record. Side two offers up another couple long ones - the first is a gorgeously wasted, loping post rock piece, with a slo-mo groove that manages to sound druggy and dreamy and very krautrocky, the vibe super minimal and spare, another one that could stretch out forever and ever. The guitars do eventually swoop in, but again, like that opener, they unwind in streaks of hazy blooze slow-shred, all languorous and darkly emotional. Finally, the group ditch the drums completely for a hushed, crystalline finale, all delicately layered guitars, subtle synths, a woozy psychedelic lullaby that seems to just glow and fade, gradually growing more and more abstract, until it seems to finally lose momentum and settle into a little pool of soft shimmer. Not sure how limited this is, as it WAS a Record Store Day release, but regardless, we grabbed a bunch, so for now we got you covered, but can't say for how long! Pressed on clear green vinyl, and at 45rpm, and housed in another of the groups distinctively UN-distinct pastoral album covers, the band name and title easy to miss, and sadly no download code.

MPEG stream: Upon Returning
RealAudio clip: Holiday Hours

We're kind of running out of superlatives for these guys, and new ways to describe the deliriously druggy din they whip up. If only there was a psychedelic space rock thesaurus... So bear with us if it sounds like we're repeating ourselves, but in a way, that wouldn't be such a bad thing, because even though every Carlton Melton record definitely stands up as its own album, they all sound linked, which makes sense, as they're all recorded in the same space (the DOME), and are all culled from sprawling mega-jams, but instead of sounding simply 'jammy', it's almost as if these guys are psychedelic shamans, tapping into some alien sonic continuum, that the rest of us just aren't privy to, and CM are the conduit, the portal, channeling mysterious cosmic vibes from the ether, and transforming them into some of the sweetest (and hard rockingest) psych we've heard. The core members of CM are once again joined by unofficial 4th member John McBain from Monster Magnet, and together, whip up another gorgeous blast of wasted zoner dreaminess, and driving tranced out kraut-psych. The opener here is definitely familiar territory, easing us in with a sound that seems like it bled over from one of the other recent records, all softly billowing shimmer, and blurred melodic tangles, abstract and dreamily drifty, a serious kosmische kraut-age vibe, and as always, if these guys had stretched that out to fill up the whole record, we'd have been perfectly happy. Instead though, they mix it up, with "Keeping On" being one of the weirder jams we've heard from these guys, driving and propulsive, drum heavy, with thick crumblingly distorted guitars, and some awesome progged out synths, that give the sound a serious seventies prog epic/opus vibe, that these guys manage to craft into something way darker and meaner, with some seriously kick ass drum pound, and wild psych freakouts, super heavy AND heady. "Spiderwebs" pairs creepy Carpenter-ish cinematic synth with some lazy sun dappled slo-mo dream-psych languor, while "Sarsen" seems to fade into a jam already in progress, one that sounds like it's been going on since the beginning of time, primal and primordial, another muscly hard rocky, drum driven psych-kraut blow out, again laced with swirling synths and dense clouds of freaked out FX, all the while the band locked tight into some serious post-Hawkwind heaviness, and finally, "The Splurge" finishes things off with a sound much more raw and blown out, sounding like it was captured live, lots of reverb and echo, like they're playing in a big concrete bunker, the sounds crumbling and in-the-red, the vibe sorta German Oak-ish, definitely super bunkurfunk mixed into the slow-burn psych, noisy, and trippy and fucking awesome. Killer psychedelic cover art. The cd is housed in a digipak, while the vinyl comes in two versions, one on green wax, one on black wax with a poster, make sure you order the one you want, they're listed as two different items. (And maybe let us know if you're willing to take the other, if we run out of one...)

MPEG stream: Slow Wake
MPEG stream: Keeping On
MPEG stream: Spiderwebs

We're kind of running out of superlatives for these guys, and new ways to describe the deliriously druggy din they whip up. If only there was a psychedelic space rock thesaurus... So bear with us if it sounds like we're repeating ourselves, but in a way, that wouldn't be such a bad thing, because even though every Carlton Melton record definitely stands up as its own album, they all sound linked, which makes sense, as they're all recorded in the same space (the DOME), and are all culled from sprawling mega-jams, but instead of sounding simply 'jammy', it's almost as if these guys are psychedelic shamans, tapping into some alien sonic continuum, that the rest of us just aren't privy to, and CM are the conduit, the portal, channeling mysterious cosmic vibes from the ether, and transforming them into some of the sweetest (and hard rockingest) psych we've heard. The core members of CM are once again joined by unofficial 4th member John McBain from Monster Magnet, and together, whip up another gorgeous blast of wasted zoner dreaminess, and driving tranced out kraut-psych. The opener here is definitely familiar territory, easing us in with a sound that seems like it bled over from one of the other recent records, all softly billowing shimmer, and blurred melodic tangles, abstract and dreamily drifty, a serious kosmische kraut-age vibe, and as always, if these guys had stretched that out to fill up the whole record, we'd have been perfectly happy. Instead though, they mix it up, with "Keeping On" being one of the weirder jams we've heard from these guys, driving and propulsive, drum heavy, with thick crumblingly distorted guitars, and some awesome progged out synths, that give the sound a serious seventies prog epic/opus vibe, that these guys manage to craft into something way darker and meaner, with some seriously kick ass drum pound, and wild psych freakouts, super heavy AND heady. "Spiderwebs" pairs creepy Carpenter-ish cinematic synth with some lazy sun dappled slo-mo dream-psych languor, while "Sarsen" seems to fade into a jam already in progress, one that sounds like it's been going on since the beginning of time, primal and primordial, another muscly hard rocky, drum driven psych-kraut blow out, again laced with swirling synths and dense clouds of freaked out FX, all the while the band locked tight into some serious post-Hawkwind heaviness, and finally, "The Splurge" finishes things off with a sound much more raw and blown out, sounding like it was captured live, lots of reverb and echo, like they're playing in a big concrete bunker, the sounds crumbling and in-the-red, the vibe sorta German Oak-ish, definitely super bunkurfunk mixed into the slow-burn psych, noisy, and trippy and fucking awesome. Killer psychedelic cover art. The cd is housed in a digipak, while the vinyl comes in two versions, one on green wax, one on black wax with a poster, make sure you order the one you want, they're listed as two different items. (And maybe let us know if you're willing to take the other, if we run out of one...)

MPEG stream: Slow Wake
MPEG stream: Keeping On
MPEG stream: Spiderwebs

We're kind of running out of superlatives for these guys, and new ways to describe the deliriously druggy din they whip up. If only there was a psychedelic space rock thesaurus... So bear with us if it sounds like we're repeating ourselves, but in a way, that wouldn't be such a bad thing, because even though every Carlton Melton record definitely stands up as its own album, they all sound linked, which makes sense, as they're all recorded in the same space (the DOME), and are all culled from sprawling mega-jams, but instead of sounding simply 'jammy', it's almost as if these guys are psychedelic shamans, tapping into some alien sonic continuum, that the rest of us just aren't privy to, and CM are the conduit, the portal, channeling mysterious cosmic vibes from the ether, and transforming them into some of the sweetest (and hard rockingest) psych we've heard. The core members of CM are once again joined by unofficial 4th member John McBain from Monster Magnet, and together, whip up another gorgeous blast of wasted zoner dreaminess, and driving tranced out kraut-psych. The opener here is definitely familiar territory, easing us in with a sound that seems like it bled over from one of the other recent records, all softly billowing shimmer, and blurred melodic tangles, abstract and dreamily drifty, a serious kosmische kraut-age vibe, and as always, if these guys had stretched that out to fill up the whole record, we'd have been perfectly happy. Instead though, they mix it up, with "Keeping On" being one of the weirder jams we've heard from these guys, driving and propulsive, drum heavy, with thick crumblingly distorted guitars, and some awesome progged out synths, that give the sound a serious seventies prog epic/opus vibe, that these guys manage to craft into something way darker and meaner, with some seriously kick ass drum pound, and wild psych freakouts, super heavy AND heady. "Spiderwebs" pairs creepy Carpenter-ish cinematic synth with some lazy sun dappled slo-mo dream-psych languor, while "Sarsen" seems to fade into a jam already in progress, one that sounds like it's been going on since the beginning of time, primal and primordial, another muscly hard rocky, drum driven psych-kraut blow out, again laced with swirling synths and dense clouds of freaked out FX, all the while the band locked tight into some serious post-Hawkwind heaviness, and finally, "The Splurge" finishes things off with a sound much more raw and blown out, sounding like it was captured live, lots of reverb and echo, like they're playing in a big concrete bunker, the sounds crumbling and in-the-red, the vibe sorta German Oak-ish, definitely super bunkurfunk mixed into the slow-burn psych, noisy, and trippy and fucking awesome. Killer psychedelic cover art. The cd is housed in a digipak, while the vinyl comes in two versions, one on green wax, one on black wax with a poster, make sure you order the one you want, they're listed as two different items. (And maybe let us know if you're willing to take the other, if we run out of one...)

MPEG stream: Slow Wake
MPEG stream: Keeping On
MPEG stream: Spiderwebs

There's no shortage of psychedelic space rock in SF these days: recent Record Of The Weekers Lumerians, the Spyrals (who have a new tape reviewed elsewhere on this week's list), Wooden Shjips, Sleepy Sun, and these guys, Carlton Melton, not a person, but a quartet, who conjure up epic stretches of spaced out psychedelia, and who, unlike many of their contemporaries, seem to be less concerned with the pulse, and the rhythm, and the groove, as they are with the SOUND, and the VIBE, weaving lush, expansive sprawls of effects drenched psychedelic ambience, drifting more often than driving, huge clouds of swirling wah guitars, and minimal spare drumming, which seems to exist more as a pulse, than a beat proper, everything murky and muddy and washed out, at once lo-fi, but impossibly dense and heavy, the band seeming to drift weightless though swirling starlit sonic skies, their sound loose and free and abstract and ephemeral, the whole first side here is a single track, the title track, and it's a fantastically entrancing space drone epic, a sound the drifts and buzzes and flutters and swirls, the sound emerging in swells, building into squalls of warm whirling chaos only to slip back into something more druggy and dreamy and meditative, it's not until the final couple minutes that the song finally explodes, and even then it doesn't really get heavier, the rhythm doesn't get any more intense, instead, it just sounds like the whole band crank it up a notch, the swirling clouds of effects and guitars suddenly become more volatile, and more chaotic, the melodies gradually swallowed up by slashes of distorted guitar crunch and crumbling walls of distortion, the sound gets more dense, and more thick, and the whole time the main groove, now buried beneath the roiling surface, continues on unwavering, the only thing keeping the track from drifting into the heavens and toward the heart of the sun. The flipside is more of the glorious same, barring a brief bit of solo guitar, an interlude that is bookended by two more heaving walls of krautpsych swirl, the band unfurling droned out minimal hypnorock mini epics, that howl and thrum, buzz and shimmer, songs that obviously could have been stretched way out and turned this into a double lp. As always, fantastic stuff. Fans of the SF psych/space/drone/kraut rock contingent that aren't already into CM, get with it! And obviously, anyone into White Hills, Hawkwind, Pink Floyd, Cave, The Heads, Heavy Winged, Bardo Pond, White Noise Sound, Spacemen 3 and the like, these guys will definitely hit the spot.

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

SORRY. We were all ready to write an epic review of this, a special Record Store Day live record from our of our favorite outfits, local psychedelic spacelords Carlton Melton. We ordered as many copies of the 500 pressed that we could get, but as you might imagine we sold tons and as of the writing of this review, we're getting to where we have less than a dozen. Hopefully lots of you were able to grab one in the shop on the day, and those who didn't, might have seen our lists of Record Store Day leftovers and grabbed one then, but for those of you who did NOT, here's what is most likely your last chance, to grab one of these before they are gone (and by gone, we mean on eBay for crazy money). Released on Agitated, and recorded in 2012 in Belgium and the UK, these four sides of primo CM display everything we lover about these guys, sprawling droned out atmosphere, clouds of synthy shimmer, spidery guitars, all druggy and dreamy, dense and hypnotic, some serious motorik hypnorock minimalism that gives way to seriously shredding heaviness. Lots of the hits here, from all the records, a bit more live and loose and free, but not much, since most of their records are recorded live anyway, so in that sense, this is almost like a sort of alternate version greatest hits. The first side and a half is seriously blissed out, not really kicking into gear until side two, at which point things get seriously heavy and super rocking, the band channeling Hawkwind into their own swirling spaced out brand of riffy freeform psychedelia. The rest of the record(s) shifts constantly from dirgey churn, to wild psych shredding to droned out mesmer and back again. Killer performances, awesome sound, the recording is massive, if it wasn't for the crowd sound at the end of the second record, this easily could have been a CM record proper! Once again, CRAZY limited, these are the last copies we'll have EVER. Pressed on super psychedelic green/yellow/clear splatter vinyl, housed in an old school distressed looking heavy sleeve.

Latest batch of deliriously druggy psychedelic space-out from these local gents, and yet another killer collection of improvised slow burn sonic drift, as always, culled from hours and hours of wasted late night amp worship captured in 'The Dome' (a geodesic dome where all the CM stuff is recorded!). The core trio of Andy Duvall, Rich Millman and Clint Golden are once again joined again by unofficial member and (not so) secret space rock weapon, John McBain from Monster Magnet, and conjure up a smoldering sprawl of hazy, heady, darkly dreamy wasted zoner psych drift, on the mellow side of the CM canon for the majority of Four Eyes, the group unfurling lush, billowing clouds of blurred bongsmoke buzz, shot through with prismatic shimmers and lazy sun dappled melodies, all underpinned by hushed motorik drum skitter, gurgling synth thrum, all the sounds gorgeously indistinct, oozing and bleeding into each other, a gauzy cloud of tonal color, sculpted into woozy pulsing rhythms and slow shifting sheets of tripped out chordal mesmer, a lysergic slo-mo psych that's all about tripping / chilling / blissing out. While opener "Personal Space" keeps the rhythms to a minimum, spending most of its time swirling lysergically, "Glass Home" tethers CM's freeform psychedelic drift to a simple caveman kraut rhythm, the sky above filled with reverb drenched melodic squiggles, and spidery melodies, all over a softly churning backdrop of deep rumbling shimmer, while closer "Mist" pushes the rhythm to the fore, with its Necks via Hawkwind throb, the only deviation from this drugged out mellow mesmer comes in the form of "Road Swagger", which does indeed display some rhythmic swagger, easily the most rocking of the bunch, like a super charged Spacemen 3, the drums driving and muscly, the guitars thick and almost metallic, still plenty drowsy and druggy, but with some sonic heft that positions the sound closer to the Heads or White Hills, that the more Bardo Pond-y bliss out of the rest of the record. As always gorgeous stuff, and like all their records, seemingly cut from the same sonic cloth, as if Carlton Melton are permanently engaged in a jam for the ages, that dome actually some sort of space station, drifting through time and space, traversing sonic starfields into the endless blackness of the universe, playing endlessly to appease whatever gods truly rule over all, these songs the sound of a group, drifting further into oblivion, each record a mere glimpse into their epic cosmic journey. Pressed on 180 gram vinyl, and LIMITED TO 600 COPIES!!!

MPEG stream: Personal Space
MPEG stream: Road Swagger

One of two brand new Carlton Melton releases this list, the other being their strange and culty split with Qumran Orphics. This one an amazing 7" on a cool brand new deluxe 7" label, Valley King (we also have a new Sweet Apple 7" on the same label to be reviewed later). Housed in a mini-gatefold sleeve with insert and sticker, with gorgeous artwork by Alan Fobres who also did Carlton Melton's Pass It On LP as well as their split with Empty Shapes. "Handling Snakes" is a jolt of heavy hypno-blues a la Wooden Shjips but even heavier with wailing riffs and pummeling drums. The B side, "The One That Got Away", is more majestic and broodingly heavy with searing and weaving guitar lines and molten textures. It's over before you know it, but it's just long enough to hit the spot. Limited to 500 copies. Grab this taste of radness while you can!

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

SORRY. We only got a handful of these, direct from the band, and since there are only 100, odds are we won't be able to get more. Which is too bad, cuz it's pretty great. Carlton Melton doing their thing in the UK during 2012's Photos Of Photos European tour, hazy, druggy expanses of extended psych drift, sun dappled slow build epics, some pounding drum driven kraut-psych workouts, a handful of CM classics reworked live, swooping easily from hushed prettiness, to fierce, fiery heaviness, wild tangles of psych guitar draped over squiggly spaced out synths, simple motorik rhythms locked tight, anchoring the group's otherwise heavenward drift. Dense and droney, darkly rocking, psychedelic and epic, essential psychedelia for sure, and CM fans won't want to miss out. Sad thing is lots will, so those quickest on the trigger will nab one. And as if you needed to be told, one per customer. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, the tapes silver/purple glitter, with 12 different labels, each housed in a cloudy plastic clamshell case with a full color sticker.

If you got the chance to record and play music in a Geodesic Dome off the coast of Northern California, wouldn't you form a band just for the occasion? Well that's the modus operandi of this strangely monikered band made up of former members of Zen Guerilla and friends, who ventured up to Point Arena (an area rife with Utopian minded dwellings including the Sea Ranch) for this once in a lifetime opportunity. But don't expect this to sound like Zen Guerilla's trashy MC5-inspired garage R&B, instead Carlton Melton experiment with a sound more sonically befitting to the dome's acoustic resonance, Space Rock! Equally krauty, droney, and at times cosmically ramshackle, Carlton Melton channel White Hills, Wooden Shjips, Cave, bits of Kinski, Steve Hillage, and of course the less proto-metal leanings of Hawkwind with dual guitars, bass and organ hypnotically riffing through the domed stratosphere. Trippy and Limited!!!!!

MPEG stream: Happy Song
MPEG stream: Fucking Funky Shit
MPEG stream: Legion of Dome

Another killer batch of music from the dome! The dome being the home base of local space drone psychonauts Carlton Melton whose MO is holing up at said geodesic dome and spending marathon sessions recording endless, heart-of-the-sun jams, that they somehow later work into proper records. This latest might be the heaviest yet, opening with the seriously bombastic "Peaking Duck", which starts with some kosmische synth shimmer, which is soon joined by some Bonham-esque drum crush, then some hazy psychedelic swirl, laced with squiggly, pulsating FX, wild wah wah guitar freakout, the whole thing wound up into a brooding, hypno-psych churn. The sound is almost doom, especially when the low end come swooping in, not sure if it's synth or distorted bass, but it's thick, and dense, droned out and mesmeric, a tranced out, throbbing groove that oozes right into "Wheel And Deal" which is blown out, sun baked and stonery, a serious Kyuss vibe going on, but a sort of more minimal mesmeric take on that group's desert rock. "The Barrier" too is a seriously sinister sprawl of zoner-psych space doom, that never really coalesces into a song proper but instead, loops cyclically into a hazy hypnotic mesmer, while the title track is equally, if not more abstractly heavy, ditching the drums, and unfurling thick undulating layers of processed guitars and sheets of shimmering feedback. In between all this heaviness, there's plenty of grooviness and more laid back jammage, some of it, softly strummed, almost pastoral psychedelic folkiness ("Diamond In The Rough", "Similarities", "It's Been Summer All Winter"), some of it almost funky, lurching and lumbering ("Amfmpm", "Perdiddle"), and some of it super abstract, slow motion, brooding drift and thrum, laced with spidery melodies, swirling synths, and subtle tribal rhythms ("Too Close To Home"). Once again, these aQ beloved, psychedelic spacelords push all our psych/kraut/space/drone/cosmic/stoner rock buttons, delivering on a sound we already love, but giving us something just different enough to keep things interesting: plenty of extra heft, alongside more tripped out introspection. We've already been playing this to death, and anxiously await CM's next transmission of lysergic dome-doom dreaminess and zoner-drone riffiness... Available on cd, or double lp (blue vinyl, while they last) with a cd of the album included too!

MPEG stream: Peaking Duck
MPEG stream: Out To Sea
MPEG stream: It's Been Summer All Winter

The field of psychedelic hypnno-drone rock in San Francisco keeps getting wider, and more amazing. Along with Wooden Shjips, Sleepy Sun and The Lumerians comes the slow growth space rock of Carlton Melton. We raved about their first self-released cd-r, Live at Point Arena, CA recorded in a genuine geodesic dome, and we're psyched that they have returned with a vinyl only follow-up! While the first cd-r had a more rough around the edges shambling momentum to it (after all, the band had pretty much formed just to record in the dome!), Pass It On has a more penetrating and focused feel. Recording in the dome once again, the songs have the slow motion but still very heavy vibrations of White Hills, Moon Duo, Hawkwind and Pink Floyd. In fact, the album begins with a heavy cover version of Pink Floyd's "When You're In" from Obscured By Clouds, which builds with intensity setting up the stoned pillowy cushion freefall of follow-up track "Found Children". "Off The Grid" takes a more divergent path through the woods with freaked out tribal rhythms and strange loping pulsations and alien guitar swells. Side two begins with a reworking of a track from the Point Arena cd-r called "Fucking Funky Shit" now renamed "Digging In" that utilizes its bass and drum rhythmic foundation as a means for the guitars and organ to arc off into the stratosphere before descending into the final track "Sequoia", which burrows deep into the earth with a smouldering drone that leaves us, for the lack of a better analogy, cosmically wasted. On redwood colored vinyl. Recommended!

We can't be sure if this is something we actually heard from the band, or if we're just making it up, but really either way, true or not, it does paint a pretty good picture of the sprawling druggy psychedelic jamscapes of local space psych cosmonauts Carlton Melton - and it's that CM records are basically the product of a copious intake of various substances, before holing up in their geodesic dome / recording studio, to jam epically for hours on end, days sometimes, only later sifting through the reels of tape, and hours of bong-ed out headtrip cosmic heaviness. Could be true, should be true, probably is really, cuz how could sane and sober minds produce this sort of psych-bliss space-drone nirvana!?! Regardless of its provenance, we're just glad we're privy to another chunk of CM's heady heavy psychedelia. This new record finds previous CM special guest John McBain, of the mighty Monster Magnet, seemingly signed on as a full on Melton (even though he's still listed as a special guest), as he's on every track here, and can only imagine that he helped push CM's sound into realms heavier and spacier. And indeed, that's what's going on here. Opener "Nor' Easter" is a brooding sprawl of lumbering dirgey dreamy heaviness, all thick swirls of tripped out shimmer, softly roiling riffage, lazy loping motorik krautrock-ish beat buried in the mix, spidery melodies and woozy washed out shred, woven into the heaving swells of warm lugubrious thrum and churning soft focus space rock crush. The title track finds the band getting all new age-y, ditching drums, riffs, pretty much everything except warm woozy swirls of shimmery melody, slow shifting layered pulses, whirling, whooshing synths and sparkling glimmering FX, maybe the prettiest thing we've heard from these guys, all dreamlike and kosmische, a little soundtracky, lush and layered, total trip out bliss out. "Space Treader" is another slow builder, all brooding and moody, thick swaths of buzz and fuzz, a slowly developing propulsive heft, and some Queen like (!) melodies/leads that infuse the track with a gorgeously super melodic vibe, those melodies soon mirrored by synth melodies, that push this track too in a much more kosmische direction, before devolving into a murkier bit of deconstructed riffing, and droned out slow fading FX flecked drift. The record proper finishes off with "Wingspan", which sonically sounds like the title track part two, a symphony of synths, all blurred and smeared over a barely there rhythm, and a loose framework of soft psychedelic grooves, more spidery melodies, and chiming harmonics, drifting in a starfield of synth swirl and bleary jangle, woozy and wonderfully tranced out. The cd (and the download that accompanies the vinyl) includes two bonus tracks, two of the three tracks from the recent Smoke Drip 12" (good news for you cd nerds who missed out). The first track is the sprawling 22+ minute, originally side-long epic "Adrift", and the band spend the first few minutes just sort of, well, adrift, a simple motorik drumbeat, spidery tendrils of electric guitar, some sitar-like buzz, all wreathed in a swirling cloud of synth shimmer, it's the sort of hazy zoned out psych-drone mesmer that we can't get enough of, and we like to think the original was closer to 3 or 4 hours long, this being just the best 20 minutes, a totally tranced out hypnorock groove, that's druggy and dreamy, a slo-mo swagger that sounds like Hawkwind on tranquilizers, there doesn't even need to be any sort of build or explosive blown out climax, cuz once you're lost in these sounds, you're a willing celestial traveller, drifting on CM's beams of sonic light, headed for the heart of some black sun. But the band do crank it up, the guitars growing wilder near the end, and louder, but never letting totally loose, instead just slipping right back into the same mesmeric groove, and playing us out to the very end. And then the second, "Smoke Drip" itself, which like much of Photos, ditches drums completely for a heady sprawl of psychedelic ambience, multiple guitars, synths and manipulated tapes, are let loose in a sun dappled spray of softly tangled melodies and smoldering buzz, abstract riffage and swoonsome swells of FX drenched thrum unwind into slithering sonic tendrils and lush layered psychdrone shimmer. Ok, this is where cd people can stop reading, cuz that's all you get. But for you vinyl folks, at least for this first pressing, while they last, the record proper comes bundled with a whole bonus 12", with two extra tracks (30+ minutes total). The first is a remix from John McBain, of CM's "The One That Got Away", which strips down CM's sound, adds some programmed percussion, and over the course of 14 minutes, transforms the original into something WAY more druggy and trippy, the first few minutes, a lazy meander through a hazy landscape of melody and slowburn psych thrum, before the sound grows a bit more ominous, the buzz cranked up, the sounds smeared and blurry, the Spacemen 3 vibe HUGE, plenty of warped effects, swooping backwards melodies, processed stuttering melodies, muted murky riffage, all wreathed in a warm sun dappled gauze, the whole thing deliriously dreamy and druggy, and sorta makes us wish McBain would remix CM's whole catalog! The bonus 12"s finishes off with a live track from CM's recent trip to Roadburn in Holland, a 16 minute blowout of heavy, churning, retro-riffing, hard rocking, shred laced, bombastic bloozy hard psych, that KILLS. The vinyl version with the bonus 12" is most definitely EXTREMELY limited, we're getting a bunch, but odds are those will fly out of here, so be prepared to settle for the single lp version when that time comes...

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What's better than a new record from SF psychedelic space rockers Carlton Melton? Howabout a new record from SF psychedelic space rockers Carlton Melton with John McBain from Monster Magnet?! That's right, McBain, from the original space lord motherfuckers teams up with our beloved local psychlords for three long tracks of improvised spaced out psychedelia, recorded as always in a geodesic dome, where the band go to get lost, and conjure up the sonic spirit smoke that somehow becomes Carlton Melton. Hours of drug addled jamming and sonic experimentation bottled up and distilled into these sprawling smoldering slow burn epics. The A side here is a sidelong blowout called "Adrift", and the band spend the first few minutes just sort of, well, adrift, a simple motorik drumbeat, spidery tendrils of electric guitar, some sitar-like buzz, all wreathed in a swirling cloud of synth shimmer, it's the sort of hazy zoned out psych-drone mesmer that we can't get enough of, and we like to think the original was closer to 3 or 4 hours long, this being just the best 20 minutes, a totally tranced out hypnorock groove, that's druggy and dreamy, a slo-mo swagger that sounds like Hawkwind on tranquilizers, there doesn't even need to be any sort of build or explosive blown out climax, cuz once you're lost in these sounds, you're a willing celestial traveller, drifting on CM's beams of sonic light, headed for the heart of some black sun. But the band do crank it up, the guitars growing wilder near the end, and louder, but never letting totally loose, instead just slipping right back into the same mesmeric groove, and playing us out to the very end. The title track on the flipside ditches the drums completely for a heady sprawl of psychedelic ambience, multiple guitars, synths and manipulated tapes, are let loose in a sun dappled spray of softly tangled melodies and smoldering buzz, abstract riffage and swoonsome swells of FX drenched thrum unwind into slithering sonic tendrils and lush layered psychdrone shimmer, which gives way to the closer, which has McBain credited with "Dome Treatment", and is the densest and heaviest of the bunch, the riffs muddy and murky, a churning almost Stooges-y vibe, the drums weirdly chaotic and splattery, the track never locking into a groove, instead seeming to remain unhinged to any specific rhythm, the sounds super twisted, the production all over the map, with the drums sometimes leaping to the front of the mix, bit just as often disappearing beneath an avalanche of crumbling scrabbling guitarnoise, the strange skittering making us imagine Aussie jazzdrone outfit the Necks trying their hand at space rock, which we imagine would not be a bad thing at all. Loose, wild, chaotic, and borderline unhinged, everything doused in distortion, and woozy warped effects, a dizzying, disembodied dose of fucked up space psych drug-DOME bliss!! Housed in super striking psychedelic jackets, with thick printed inner sleeves, and pressed on milky clear vinyl!

MPEG stream: Adrift
MPEG stream: Smoke Drip

aQ Hits is a new collection from beloved SF psychedelic space rock minimalists Carlton Melton, and is our second annual official aQuarius recOrds Record Store Day release. Last year's was a live disc called Black Valleys, a document of a killer aQuarius instore by NY psych rockers White Hills, and that one sold out in a flash. This year's looks to do the same - if you like White Hills, you like Carlton Melton, right?! It's a super limited (just 300 copies) compact disc, collecting a handful of rare, and now out of print vinyl tracks, from various singles and split lps from the last couple years, including one super extended version. Let's run through the various tracks... "Bottle Of Heat [Extended Version]", is, as you can probably tell from the title, the aforementioned alternate cut, which takes "Bottle Of Heat", originally released on the 2011 Agitated Records 12" comp I'm So Convoluted!, and offers up the unedited full-sprawl recording, stretching out to more than 19 minutes, thick smoldering clouds of soft focus psychedelia, drifting and blissed out, free form and abstract, a meandering epic of lush chordal swell and shimmery FX drenched swirl, all over a shuffling hypnotic and motorik kraut-psych beat. "Handling Snakes" is the A side from the group's Valley King 7" single, and is a jolt of heavy hypno-blues a la Wooden Shjips, but in the hands of Carlton Melton, somehow even heavier with wailing riffs and pummeling drums. The next two tracks are from Carlton Melton's split 12" with Empty Shapes, originally released on Mid-To-Late Records in 2010: "Call and Response" is an epic (and originally nearly side-loooong) blowout, beginning with a heavy rumble of monolithic sludge eventually progressing into a slow wave of burnt-out blues riffage a la early Comets on Fire, that churns and steeps into a gnarly brew of molten fuzz. While "Purer", is more cosmic and dreamy, built on a layer of percolating synth drones that give way to a more uplifting space rock jam trajectory, total heart-of-the-sun zoner blissout. And finally, the last two tracks are from CM's split 12" with Qumran Orphics, also originally released on Mid-To-Late Records, that one in the beginning of 2011. "March Of The Cicadas" is a glorious ten minute slab of psychedelic heaviness, that sounds exactly like the title implies, a slowmotion dirge over martial rhythms with buzzing electronic hisses and stratospheric guitar leads. And things finish off with "Murder Ridge", a noirish Bardo Pond-like spiral of burning sonic embers and sustained decay, a gorgeous hazy stretch of blurred lysergic drift, the perfect final movement, psych-drone comedown. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES, each one hand numbered, the artwork is printed on metallic silver cardstock, everything housed in a slim dvd style case, only available here!

MPEG stream: "Bottle Of Heat
MPEG stream: Handling Snakes
MPEG stream: March Of The Cicadas

We sold tons of the last Carlton Melton full length, Pass It On. In fact we even sold a copy to J. Mascis who made it his top favorite record of 2009. No small feat, there! So the dudes are on a roll, and just before their first big tour, they release this awesome split with the equally heavy Empty Shapes from Delaware. The Carlton Melton side is two tracks. The first, "Call and Response" is nearly side-loooong and begins with a heavy rumble of monolithic sludge eventually progressing into a slow wave of burnt-out blues riffage a la early Comets on Fire, that churns and steeps into a gnarly brew of molten fuzz. The closer, "Purer", is more cosmic and dreamy, built on a layer of percolating synth drones that give way to a more uplifting space rock jam trajectory. This is the first we've heard from Empty Shapes, a 5 piece from Delaware, who contribute 3 tracks to their side. The first, "MLK" is a sprawling cloud of noise a la Bardo Pond, levitating around a repeating head-nodding riff with all kinds of instrumentation stretching the form and shape of the murky haze. "Hell of a Night" and "Lord" bring vocal elements into the works, but heavily effected and damaged, sometimes emotive yet incomprehensible channeling a primitive psych-blues through some New Zealandish free-rock space clutter! Limited to just 300 on brown and white swirled vinyl! Dope!

Local psychedelic space rock heroes Carlton Melton team up with UK psych drifters Kandodo 3 (which is in fact Simon Price of aQ fave the Heads, gone solo, but now seemingly a trio, thus having appended a 3 to the moniker) for this heady slab of cosmic trippiness. CM start things off with three lengthy tracks. The first, being a loping sprawl of head nodding krautrock style mesmer, the drums locked down, pulsing away beneath clouds of shimmering guitars and slow shifting chunks of effervescent riffage. It's the most straight ahead rocking CM track we've heard in a while, but fear not, the follow up gets a bit more abstract, sounding like some blown out electric blues Appalachia coming apart at the seams, dense tangles of buzz and strum gradually unfolding and unfurling, a bit twang flecked and still plenty zoned out. The final track defaults more toward the rocking side of the spectrum, this time a bit nosier and more swinging, channeling some serious classic sounding spacerockiness, although somehow via some interplanetary alien jam band, their hypno-rock churn wrapped in all sorts of slippery slide guitar, conjuring up a sound that's like some twisted Allman Brothers / Hawkwind hybrid, which you know is a very good thing indeed. The now expanded Kandodo 3 fill up the entirety of their side with a single track, one that seems to ooze from the darkest corner of the sonic cosmos, some seriously dense, trippy blissed out dronemusic, a softly pulsing, layered, chordal thrum, that grows gradually more and more wispy, until it's finally just a barely there shadowy swirl, over which a groovy bassline emerges, before it's joined by some tribal percussion, and streaks of guitar buzz drift in from every direction, a hazy cloud of druggy shimmer, over a woozily rhythmic churn. The guitars eventually grow more fierce and less distinct, moving from behind the shadows, the sound more of a Spacemen 3 style druggy drift, chiming harmonics and fragmented bits of melody swirl in the foreground, while that background churn collapses into a roiling black hole of softnoise churn, over which those guitars continue to glow and glimmer, before eventually settling back into one final stretch of tripped out psychedelic grooviness. Pressed on transparent blue vinyl, with cover art by Kandodo 3's Price. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!

We've said it before, and we'll say it again, sometimes it feels like some records were just made specifically for aQ. And this is one of em. So thanks Trensmat, for picking two of our favorite bands, and putting them together on one record, with exclusive (and killer) tracks from both. SF's very own Carlton Melton, offer up a gorgeous bit of thick psychedelic haze called "Company", a serious slow burner, and maybe one of their heaviest yet, a simple stripped down beat anchoring thick undulating layers of blurred guitar buzz, shot through with warm spidery melodies, a brooding chunk of pulsing hypnotic sonic mesmer with a seriously blown out heavy heavy explosive finish. Be sure to download the bonus material (the link's on the sleeve) to get the epic nearly 12 minute long version, which is how this was meant to be heard, sprawling and druggy and EPIC. Too short for us even at twelve minutes. Also with the bonus download you get another track, "Death Whisper", which is another murky brooder, a hazy minimal lo-fi raga, which lopes and lumbers dreamily through fields of buzz and static and dreamy chordal swirl. Former aQ Record Of The Week-ers Mugstar offer up another fantastically epic psychedelic space jam, thick driving buzzing bassline, dense busy drumming, shimmery guitar jangle, churning moody riffage, a sinisterly slow build, that manages to grow more tense and ominous and intense, without ever actually getting louder or exploding into a crashing cacophonous climax, instead, weaving a dense sprawl of churning psychedelic krautrock-style hypnorock that almost sounds like a more muscly Circle. And with the bonus download, you get a second track, the hushed minimal "Never (Part 1)", which is all sun dappled and dreamy, hushed and hazy, all soft swirls, skittery rhythms, whirring organs, definitely shades of Spacemen 3 or Loop, a sort of druggy blissed out spacepsych drift. So great. Nice full color sleeves, and as mentioned above, a download with tons of bonus material, SUPER LIMITED of course. Already sold out at the label, which means these are the last copies we'll ever be able to get.

MPEG stream: Company
MPEG stream: Black Fountain

Brand new split of heavy freakiness from one of our favorite local bands Carlton Melton teamed up here with new-to-us bizarre shamanistic cult collective Qumran Orphics. The Melton side is two 10 minutes slabs, the first, "March Of The Cicadas", sounds exactly like the title implies, a slowmotion dirge over martial rhythms with buzzing electronic hisses and stratospheric guitar leads. The closer, "Murder Ridge" is a noirish Bardo Pond-like spiral of burning sonic embers and sustained decay. The Qumran Orphics side is a stranger beast altogether. Recorded from a live set at the Blank Club in San Jose, Qumran Orphics is led by KFJC DJ Cy Thoth (host of the show Firebunker, that plays lots of our favorite metal and experimental sounds), backed by an array of simmering guitars and shifting droning electronics. Like a strange and unfurling Crowleian ritual, Cy Thoth croakingly intones bizarre utterances one might hear in an H.P. Lovecraft story. It's a wild and charged performance. Not sure where this project will go next, all info on the group is rather scant or cryptic, but we're definitely curious! Super limited to 259 copies, pressed on smoked wood and blood colored swirl vinyl. These probably won't last long....

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

SORRY. Another tripped out psychedelic missive from our pals in Carlton Melton, this one live, documenting the group's performance last year at the legendary Roadburn festival in Holland, where they were joined by the mysterious Dr. Space (from Danish space-psych crew Oresund Space Collective) and tore the roof off, with a sprawling set of wild, transcendental, psych-drone spaciness and tranced out FX heavy, hypno-rock. The band, along with the good doctor, also tackled a couple covers (Pink Floyd's "When You're In" and Hawkwind's "Time We Left This World Today"), and as you might imagine, they sound right at home amidst the group's already druggy, heart-of-the-sun heaviness. That heaviness manifests itself most notably on the Pink Floyd cover, which sounds decidedly doomy, a blown out Sabbathy lumber, laced with wild leads, and driven by some seriously churning riffage. Their Hawkwind cover is also pretty heady, big riffs swaddled in swirling clouds of sci-fi that smooth out into total low slung hypnotic mesmer, woozy, washed out and darkly pulsing, before one final burst of heavy-psych bombast. But before we get to the covers, were treated to nearly 75 minutes of CM classics old and new, running the gamut from bleary kosmische shimmer, to furious almost Stooges-y stomps, and from laid back, motorik kraut-psych to full bore lost-in-space lysergic freakouts. Not sure what else to say about these guys that we haven't already, other than the fact, that few modern psychedelic space rock outfits can simultaneously channel the past, and yet somehow sound totally modern, if not wildly futuristic, conjuring up some impossibly loose limbed, zoner-stoner sound field that entrances, mesmerizes and induces furious head banging all in the same set (and often all in the same song). Be warned, this is LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!! Includes a full color A3 poster, and is mostly sold out from the label, so odds are these are the only copies we'll ever have. Buy now or cry later.

No Reserve is a limited run release of a radio broadcast care of KALX in Berkeley from the eccentric Thomas Carnacki, whose ooze-riddled sound collages are buttressed by the likes of Gregory Hagan (Common Eider King Eider), Jim Kaiser (NFOrchest, etc.), and Jesse Burson (Big City Orchestra). Carnacki's live performances are notoriously last-minute affairs with the ringmaster collecting his resourceful motley crew of sullen noise makers a few days before any given performance, almost always resulting in spontaneous madness of illogical sounds and colliding electro-acoustics. Strangely, the gigs almost always work wonderfully, and such is the case for this KALX transmission. At the onset, the quartet finds themselves in a claustrophobic space, with metallic exhalations and looping scrapes reflecting all of the optimism of a bombed-out bunker. Gritty pulsations of electronics build out of residual drones, oscillating two and fro, with a thick clatter of that bunker-powered reverb settling at the bottom of the layering of sounds. Hagan's violin, which adds to those sadder-than-sad moods to Common Eider King Eider, creeps to the foreground at various intervals, amidst the cooing electronics, the crumblings of sand, rock, and debris, and the funereal tolls from a resonant bell. Think early HNAS, Cranioclast, and Nurse With Wound, and you'll be close to the unsettled atmospherics of Mr. Carnacki and his so-called Anti-Memorial Orchestra and Choir.

MPEG stream: No Reserve (extract 1)
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Welcome to the wonderfully eccentric world of SF's Ralph Carney - such an amazingly skilled musician able to jump genres and instruments at the witty wink of an eye and blends them together at whim. He's worked with an astounding array of artists, some of which include Tom Waits, Marc Ribot, the B52's, Bill Laswell, and William Burroughs. Plus, if you were one of the many who packed into AQ a few months ago to catch the Jonathan Richman in-store you would've also been entertained by Carney's accompaniment. Carney's music is as far from run-of-the mill as you can get, and his oft-bizarre aural trips might not be for everyone. Some might even find it all to be a bit overwhelming and disorienting at first, but that's the splendor of his work. He's so adept at completely transporting the listener to... somewhere else! You're never quite sure where he's led you nor where you're off to next! The record label makes reference to Roland Kirk and Capt. Beefheart and these are certainly right on the mark, but we'd also add the Residents, the Lonesome Organist and the criminally unsung, fellow-SF genius Graham Connah to the list of those dextrously imaginative akin. Just nine seconds shy of a full hour.

MPEG stream: Man Don't Come
MPEG stream: Heckraiser

You might say that the illustrious, seemingly tireless Ralph Carney is sorta the musical equivalent of a colorful traveling circus... uh, carney! Such a remarkably chameleon-like multi-instrumentalist / entertainer both on his own in the spotlight and in collaboration or support of others (Tom Waits, Jonathan Richman, B-52s, Marc Ribot, Beth Custer, Bill Laswell, Tipsy, Victoria Williams, Drizzoletto, Jim White, and Oranj Symphonette, to name just a few of the folks he's played with over the years)! Ever on the go, you just never know what he's gonna pull out of his hat or his bag of tricks or his magical wardrobe next. But you can pretty much bet that it'll be a little (or maybe more than a little) bit tweaked with an unorthodox yet seamless blend of styles (Dixieland, prog, bluegrass, lounge, pop or any fashion of jazz -- you name it!), and that the chops (musical that is, not his mutton chop sideburns!) will be bulletproof. Such is the case with this, the debut cd by his latest mostly instrumental project he formed with Kimo Ball, Scott Johnson and Allen Whitman (fyi: they also released a live cd-r last year which we also have in stock). Their horns, woodwinds, guitars, piano, percussion and sporadic vocals come together, become pals and have a rollicking coloring fest, shading both neatly inside and more rambunctiously outside of each track's lines. For a particular highlight, check out the third number "Interstellar Low-ways / Watusa". Great stuff!

MPEG stream: Interstellar Low-ways / Watusa
MPEG stream: (off)White Room

German progressive folk-psych with female vocals from 1978, originally a private press rarity now reissued on cd with some bonus live tracks (including a song called "Sweet Heroin", not too pastoral that).

RealAudio clip: You and Me

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

SORRY.

There was a time a few years back, that if you lived in San Francisco, you could stumble into a bar, or a club, and find yourself transported to some fucked up and freaked out otherworld, an eye popping blacklight, dayglo world of huge cardboard buildings, and weird costumed, big headed characters, a musical world, set to the strains of some sort of demented detuned, industrial post bluegrass, a noise drenched 1800's hoedown, all detuned banjos, screeching violins, wheezing organs, scattered percussive splatter, little bursts of frantic bluegrass with twisted falsetto vocals, set amidst, thick streaks of undulating drones, and shards of crumbling noise, it was a bit like a stage production of Oklahoma, as performed by members of Faxed Head, stumbling and demented and confusional, a massive crumbling sprawl of sonic whatthefuck for sure. In keeping with their confusional / obscurist approach, Caroliner took on a different name for every record. The Sabre Waving Saracen Wall originally released on vinyl in 1992, found the band christened Caroliner Rainbow Fingers Of The Underground & Their Breakable Bones, and was yet another document of the group's fractured faux historical sonic explorations, equal parts avant rock prankery, pure demented songsmithery, and an unhealthy interest in musics of the past, not to mention a visual aesthetic that fell somewhere between special ed kindergarten and drug addled Keith Haring, all blobby shapes and retina burning patterns, geometric constructions, and of course gallons of dayglo paint. The perfect backdrop for the group's unhinged pageantry. On record, it plays out like some unearthed wax cylinder, a recording of some sort of educational radio play, about the old west, but translated into some alien language, the soundtrack a demented deconstructed noise drenched country / folk, complete with random sound effects, strange voices, and what sounds like a small chamber ensemble wrestling with a bluegrass band, as the various players begin to lose brain function, resulting in a gloriously stumbling, lurching soundtrack, that starts out weird, and only manages to get weirder. Not sure why suddenly this reissue popped up, but Grux from Caroliner just popped in with a stack, packaged in that distinctly Caroliner fashion, all strange folded multi color papers, glued and photocopied, the sort of packaging that once you open, you can never reassemble, which when you think about it, suits the group's sound to a 'T'. Not necessarily limited, but they are pretty fancy and handmade, so when we run out, it might take us a little while to get more...

MPEG stream: Side 2
RealAudio clip: Side 1

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

SORRY.

Tee Pee brings us the rousing debut full-length from this Pittsburgh based band, who put out a 7" last year in Mind Cure's single of the month series. The Carousel quintet are another in the current crop of '70s worshipping heavy rockers (a crop of which we heartily approve), taking their cues from such classic bands as Thin Lizzy, Thin Lizzy, and (you guessed it) Thin Lizzy. Catchy rockin' songs with lots of tasty guitar harmonies and real singing. And they remind us in particular of a couple other bands we like a lot who've been drinking deeply from the same well of inspiration: Gypsyhawk and, even more so, Bible Of The Devil. In fact, some of us were fooled into thinking this was a new Bible Of The Devil album the first time we put it on in the store; especially as the cigarette-damaged, whisky-soaked vocals are a dead ringer for those in that band, melodic but gritty. Carousel are well worth checking out for any fan of the retro stoner metal sound, who wants to hear it done right (i.e. with the correct amount of cowbell!). These boys mix in some other influences besides the aforementioned Thin Lizzy too, ferinstance giving a tip of the hat to the NWOBHM on such songs as speedster "I'm On My Way" which rips along like a vintage Diamond Head or Savage number, or trying their hand at a full-on power ballad on the relatively mellow "Nightfall". So, "RIYL" bands like Bible Of The Devil, Gypsyhawk, Kadavar, Horisont, Scorpion Child, et. al. Oh, and another thing we dig about Carousel: the font choice for their logo. Yeah, it's the same one used on the James Gang's Rides Again album, which means it's the same one WE use for the aQuarius logo!

MPEG stream: Jeweler's Daughter
MPEG stream: Long Time
MPEG stream: Light Of Day

All right, we'll admit that we were a bit doubtful about this at first, just from reading the hypesheet/liner notes, which claim, in part, that this is one of the "last great Kraut secrets" and because of its discovery, "the history of Krautrock has to be rewritten". And we're still not entirely sure if the person who wrote that was actually joking or not. But, while this is definitely not some undiscovered classic on the order of a Can, Faust or Neu! (or even the more obscure likes of Siloah, Kalacakra, Necronomicon, etc.) it IS pretty cool. And weird. Especially weird. Imagine Reynols or Yahowha 13 gone lounge, trying to entertain a bunch of jet-setters at some hip, swinging '60s party... It's called Fantastic Party after all and that's what it was meant as, a party record! Some cheesy German record label in 1970 put this together, presumably paying (with drugs?) a bunch of studio musicians to create a one-off psychedelic exploitation album by a nonexistent "band". A dime a dozen back then, maybe, but these guys really really went for it. It is pretty darn tripped out. Groovy but really off kilter and demented. Maybe we'd compare it to the children's songbook funk of Stark Reality, if you've heard the reissue of that. Or some totally dosed jazz combo doing porno music. Good times. Yup, it's got stinging fuzz guitar solos, flute warbling, hiccuping percussion, damaged "singing", bizarro titles... this has LSD written all over it. If you went to this "fantastic party" you'd know that Peter Fonda would be there for sure. And go-go dancers with dayglo body paint. And Timothy Leary, and midgets, and people who look like extras from a Terry Southern penned movie too. A track from this appeared on the Kraut! Demons! Kraut compilation from a few years back, and if you have that, well rest assured, the entirety of this album is of the same high quality of fucked-upedness. So, true krautrock classic or not, we're glad it's been reissued, we're digging it! We only have to wonder, why did the reissuers hate the original cover so much that they felt the need to provide a new, totally ugly one?? Fortunately the LP's real (and actually quite rad, despite what they thought) cover is reproduced on the tray card, featuring a bevy of good-looking, polyester-clad partygoers truly having a FANTASTIC time.

MPEG stream: The Every Day's Way Down To The Suburbs
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This really kind of had to be Record Of The Week. We're darn excited about it, and we're sure as heck not the only ones. John Carpenter, as you probably know, is a director of horror films and sci-fi thrillers, who also composes the soundtracks - suspenseful, powerful, pulsating - for many of his movies (often with collaborator Alan Howarth). We've reviewed reissues of many of our favorites: Halloween, The Fog, Assault On Precinct 13, Escape From New York� classics, all. In recent years, as you probably also are away, there have been many, many, MANY artists who are hugely, obviously, inspired by the film music of John Carpenter. We're talking artists like Zombi, Umberto, The Night Terrors, Majeure, Nightsatan, Steve Moore, Roll The Dice, Zombie Zombie (who did a whole disc of Carpenter covers), Crypt Vapor, and quite a few others. So, in our reviews, we're constantly saying stuff sounds "Carpenter-y", "Carpenter-esque", referring to "John Carpenter worship", and in general using the soundtracks of John Carpenter as a necessary reference point for all these bands who indeed do worship him. (Italian giallo soundtrack greats Goblin, of course, are also another big influence on this crowd, but the synth-ier side of things is especially Carpenter-y.) So it's about time John Carpenter himself got in on the act, and put out an album of his own, of music for the music's sake, not associated with any particular, actual film. Sacred Bones has scooped everybody with this brand new album of non-soundtrack music by John Carpenter. Carpenter recently formed a trio with his son (who is in a rock band) and godson (a film composer) and they jammed in his home studio until they came up with these pieces, freed entirely from the constraints of scoring specific scenes in a film. Instead, YOU provide the mental images� Despite the title, these tracks weren't ever meant for any of his films - it's not like they're from the cutting room floor, or were intended for movies that never got made - although, he could always use some of these themes in something in the future, we suppose. In light of what we said above, you know it's tough for us to review this without quite tautologically saying it sounds very John Carpenter-y!! Which is EXACTLY what we all want it to sound like, obviously. Heavy on the spooky '80s sounding synths, and propulsive chase-sequence grooves. The nine tracks here are each given a simple but evocative title, almost like this is Carpenter's own collection of "library music". There's thumping opener "Vortex", urgent and ominous, haunted by a repeated piano motif, followed by the melodic nightmare romance of "Obsidian", its powerful throb taking on epic proportions. Next, "Fallen" is another suspenseful transmission from the horror-zone. Then, side one (on the vinyl) closer "Domain" takes on some more uplifting qualities, but evokes many moods, propelled by Euro-disco beats and colored by heavy synth and organ flourishes. Powerful stuff, big grooves, stirring melodies, lots of atmosphere, and a bit of that "training montage" vibe we love. And so it goes, the remaining tracks ("Mystery", "Abyss", "Wraith", "Purgatory", "Night") replete with eerie tinkling synths, creepy organ, soaring guitar soloing, minimal percussive skitter, hypnotically repetitive rhythms, thick synth bass, and the miasma of droning electronics. Very, very satisfying; recommended to all fans of Carpenter and his acolytes! While we won't say "accept no imitations" (we LOVE the imitations), it is nice to get the real deal from the maestro. Now if only they'd go on tour... and if SB would reissue the rare record JC made in 1985 with his band The Coupe De Villes, pressed only for friends... Note: there is vinyl of this too, but we didn't get as many copies as we'd ordered, and have already run out - but, we're told a repress is on the way, possibly around the end of March.

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Seven tracks of absolutely positively soothing music. Very pretty and a bit wistful; full of reverb drenched, lilting guitar arpeggios. 'Home Movies' could very well have been issued on Temporary Residence or Kranky. Hop aboard the ambient post-rock hovercraft and drift along to the sounds of Carrier.

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Barton Carroll might not be a household name, but he's certainly made his presence felt on numerous other artists' albums and live performances. He's not only the multi-instrumentalist for Crooked Fingers, but he's also shared the stage with the likes of Azure Ray, Micah P. Hinson and Dolorean (not the metal band, duh). Love & War is his second solo folk album. The simple white text on black background on the front cover reflects the music's dark starkness, while the splash of green foliage on the back cover photo hints at Carroll's well manicured earthiness. His evocative lyrics' subject matter focuses on war history and literary works. Hence, the album's dominant mood is decidedly somber, at times evoking an almost funereal tone. Includes a stirring cover of "The Dark End Of The Street".

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If you know who Corky Carroll is, it's 'cause chances are, you're into surfing. But besides being one of the top champion pro surfers of his era ('60s/early '70s), and in fact considered possibly the first ever professional surfer, he was also way into music. In 1971, at age 23, he released this album, his first of many, on a private label called Rural that he ran with Dennis Dragon (of the Dragons and later of the Surf Punks, and brother to Darryl, aka Captain of the Captain and Tennille). Corky and Dennis brought mobile recording gear with them to visit fellow surfers/musicians all along the California coast, that's where the "& Friends" comes in, as this, in addition to Corky's own guitar strum, features contributions from a variety of fine musicians, including some exquisite Hawaiian slack-key guitar picking by island-born board-crafter Raymond Patterson. Also appearing: Denny Aarberg (lead guitarist from the Santa Barbara hippy-surf band Farm, also later co-writer of the John Milius surf film Big Wednesday), David Lyons, Al Oakie, Kathy Dragon, and the members of the band Hana. All of these people were serious surfers like Corky, though the music they made doesn't sound like your typical "surf music" (though it is warm and beach-ily idyllic). Mellow, folky, mostly acoustic, largely instrumental, a little bit bluesy in spots, of course this would get reissued by Japan's wonderful EM Records, who have previously brought us a bunch of "psychedelic surf" albums in the past, in their "EM Under Water Series", like the Farm's soundtrack to The Innermost Limits Of Pure Fun. Certainly this is aptly titled, Laid Back, being so sunshiney and stoned, what what some folks here, who (ahem) know what they're talking about, would consider a perfect "wake 'n' bake" album, that you could file with David Crosby's If I Can Only Remember My Name ferinstance. Anyone who liked the These Trails album Drag City recently reissued and wants another trip to the islands in their imagination, should check this out! Packaged in the usual EM cardboard gatefold sleeve, the insert bearing interesting liner notes from Corky himself. Pricier vinyl version also available, fyi.

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SF local faves, now on cd.

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

SORRY.

Carter Tutti. Chris & Cosey. There may be a semantic difference somewhere to be discussed, but this album brigades what those differences may be as the pair of Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti have crafted an album of material mined from the back catalogue of Chris & Cosey albums under the moniker Carter Tutti. Over the past four years, the couple has been touring vigorously, with the set including revamped / recorded / reengineered versions of the older Chris & Cosey material. So many people approached them with requests for the live recordings of these newer versions that they went into the studio to properly sequence these tracks for an album. And we gotta say that Carter Tutti offer up one hell of a recapitulation, and at times, they really do better themselves than what they had done back in the '80s. When Throbbing Gristle broke up and Chris & Cosey ventured out on their own, they adopted the seductive electro-pop subversion facets of TG to their own devices. Their albums eagerly consumed technology and fused any and all forms of electronics into the sexual / somatic rhythms of the human body. Admittedly, some times their ideas were hindered by the technologies that were at their disposal. Samplers that could only fire so fast and so much. MIDI programming that was limited by latency, memory, and timing issues. Jump several decades, and what Chris & Cosey did in the '80s with a bank of synthesizers and sequencers can now be done on any given phone. So many of these recapitulations work with the same set of melodies and sequences, but smoothed out the technological stumbling blocks. "Driving Blind" was one of the better tracks on their 1984 album Songs Of Love And Lust; and here, the two flesh out the arpeggiation of the sequences with a dense polyphony of streaming electronics above their whipcrack techno production - and Cosey's skulldrill monotone mantras are as compelling, delirious, and sexy as ever. "BeatBeatBeat" is one of the most refreshing recreations, mostly because the original was pretty damn annoying, again with a minimal, surgical set of cybernetic techno and Cosey reworking the vocal chorus into more of a celestial chime and less of a mosquito irritant. The S&M inspired "Sin" finds Cosey channelling Siouxsie more so than she's ever done in the full-throated bellows of sexual depravity above another finely tuned machine of chome-plated techno. One can hope that whatever new material comes out of this redux, it will follow this template which is pretty fucking great.

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That's Nik Void of Factory Floor once again joining the esteemed duo of Cosey Fanny Tutti and Chris Carter, proving that their first collaboration was not just a flippant one-off romp betwixt likeminded technicians; and hopefully, f(x) will be just one of many albums produced by this meeting of minds. As we experienced on the outstanding album of rebooted Chris & Cosey material, Carter Tutti has been exceptionally good as of late; and the insertion of Void into the mix changes that not one bit. If anything the pop quotient from the Carter Tutti productions has been distilled into faint melodies swimming amongst a chemical amalgam of hyper-processed / semi-aqueous sounds that are all suspended upon the girders of an almighty cybernetic whump generated with teethclenched tension. The rhythms begin and end with a chest-rattling pulse that is omnidirectionally nowhere and everywhere - the beat of an underground nightclub whose entrance cannot be found... the hollow-body vibrations from a multitude of car stereos straining at the urgency of those Gas albums from nearly 20 years ago... the chrome-plated precision of perfectly tuned machines purring at 126 bpm. Vocals and guitars from both Void and Cosey lock into place within these rhythms, albeit throughly processed, abstracted, haunted, and disembodied. The amount of details that pop into focus is startlingly dense for an album so overtly minimal, yet the trio effortlessly corral all of the component parts into one hell of a great electronic album.

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"Lace Heart" was originally self-released as a cd-r in 2005 in an edition of 300 copies and quickly disappeared from circulation. Nevertheless, it was one of the recordings in Christina Carter's extensive catalogue that immediately stood out to her fans and became a benchmark for albums that followed. These spectral avant-folk numbers managed a teary-eyed, nocturnal atmosphere through Spartan arrangements for just guitar and voice. Her guitar quietly meanders along simple strumming that may only alternate between just a few chords throughout each of the tracks, peppered with occasional overdubs of distant, shimmering swells of reverberation; and the album drifts in and out of dreamstates through the hypnotic repetitions of her slowly chiming guitar. Her earthen voice occasionally rises out of her arrangements as a beautiful counterpoint, but more often than not her monophonic cooing nestles into the warmth of the guitar as a perfect complement to those elliptical plucks and strums. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, beautiful printed sleeves, the lps pressed on thick swirled red vinyl, the D side featuring an etching similar to the front cover artwork!