[ aquarius records — Rock Pop ]

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Showing results 3701 through 3750 of 19388.

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After a couple of EPs, Colossamite has released their first full album of mutant hardcore/jazz-rock. This collective features Nick Sakes, the former vocalist for the Dazzling Killmen, and Chad & Ed from the Iceburn Collective. Odd angular guitar riffs and irregular time signatures played through a precisely calculated intensity. Very nice!

A brief but exhausting 9 minute burst of muscular noiserockskronk from these ex-members of Dazzling Killmen. Includes an unrecognizable Die Kreuzen medley--and, of course, a small frisbee.

We recently reviewed a batch of badass Buffalo reissues courtesy of Aztec Music, an Australian label that's been mining the rich ore of that country's rock n' roll history back in the '60s and '70s. Of the other Aztec releases we've checked out so far, the two albums by a band called Coloured Balls stand out as being crucial to connoisseurs of loud guitar rock. This one's their debut from 1973, and it reveals a high energy band revelling in the oldies rock n' roll of years past (witness their cover of "Whole Lotta Shakin'") while revving up the raw, anti-hippie energy that would explode in the UK circa '77... Yeah, while Buffalo were a proto-metal outfit, sort of the Aussie uncles of Monster Magnet, the Coloured Balls, while heavy, we'd have to describe as being more punk, or proto-punk. And there's a definite dose of boogie bar band bluesiness a la George Thorogood, or better yet, UK blues rock greats the Groundhogs, circa their progressive masterpiece Split. But with much more of a hooligan, kick-yer-head in edge, that's for sure. Some other early '70s acts with similar tendencies with which Coloured Balls could be aligned include the Pink Fairies, the MC5, Crushed Butler, and, not long after, AC/DC. Apparently they had a lot of trouble with their "anti-social" image (sorta skinheadish "sharpie" haircuts, violence at their shows) but this music's got a lot more going for it than that. The recording simply sounds fantastic, powerful. Real rock n' roll guts and gusto, played by guys who knew what the heck they were doin' -- Coloured Balls were the brainchild of an already-veteran guitar hero named Lobby Loyde, who is all over this album (as well as a bunch of other Aztec reissues as well...). And we gotta hand it to Aztec, they do a great job in the reissue dep't. This digitally remastered cd comes in a beautiful digipack, with a thick booklet full of pictures and liner notes, including a pro-Balls blurb from Pavement's Stephen Malkmus of all people. There's even also an essay explaining the "sharpie" subculture phenomenon of the times. Plus, the cd features a slew of bonus tracks: six songs from singles, plus a sixteen minute, freeform freakout of a live track from '73 entitled "G.O.D." aka "Guitar Over Dose"!

MPEG stream: Human Being
MPEG stream: Mama Don't You Get Me Wrong

The late great Aussie underground guitar hero Lobby Loyde lead this crew of hard rocking "sharpies", who made two albums of boogie bar band proto-punk in the early '70s: the classic Ball Power from '73, and this, their not-quite-as-great-but-still-cool 2nd album from '74. The album and its title track may be called Heavy Metal Kid, however it's NOT heavy metal. (Not any more than the unrelated '70s band Heavy Metal Kids was.) But, that title track is an up-up-uptempo proto-glam stormer! Elsewhere, the Balls offer up a high energy mix of '50s style stompers and FX-laden psychedelic fare (such as "Back To You"). ZZ/DC? Remastered from the original master tapes, pressed on 180 gram vinyl, gatefold sleeve, with lyrics insert & obi, limited!!

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We've yet to list anything from these Bay Area emo/screamo killers, which is a shame cuz these guys SLAY. Every thing we've heard from them, has been practically perfect. Heavy, mathy, complex, melodic, epic and brutal and emotional and LOUD. The songs are short and super intricate, with tons of parts, lots of stop/starts, the sound somehow chaotic but still ultra tight, the drums wild, all over the place, the vocals very raw and raspy and Rites Of Spring-ish, in fact in some ways, Comadre sound like a revved up super charged RoS or Fugazi, which is most definitely not a bad thing. And besides the -sound-, they whip up incredibly catchy songs too, hooks galore, totally unforgettable melodies, jamming more into 90 seconds than most band can pull off in 10 minutes, the sort of sound that hints at insane, sweat soaked, stage collapsing live shows, that energy captured surprisingly well on wax! If you dig stuff like Pianos Become The Teeth, Orchid, Mohinder, The Locust, and classic emo/punk like Fugazi and Rites Of Spring and Embrace and all that stuff, you should definitely check these guys out!

MPEG stream: Hamlets
MPEG stream: Tannerisms
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The final missive / swansong from this long running Bay Area emo/screamo outfit, and like the records we've reviewed before from these guys, it's another dense, mathy, moody, super heavy, crazy catchy, intricate and emotional blast of post hardcore heaviness/hookiness that KILLS, and once again has us wondering why they weren't way more huge. And while much of the ferocious energy of their early releases is still present, there definitely seems to be a more pronounced pop/melodic element. Even on tracks like "Cold Rain", it's mostly just the shrieked vox that make this screamo or emo, otherwise, it's more some sort of super poppy crazy catchy post punk, with a main guitar hook that kills, and a bouncy crunchy main riff that would be just as at home in a proper pop song. And while these guys always had a pop element, this time around, they've cranked the pop through the roof, and that poppiness is literally all over the place, which makes it even more of a tragedy that this is the last we'll hear from these guys. And sure there are some tracks that are way more rocking and punky, furious and fierce, but even at their most aggro, the sound is shot through with a poppiness they just can't seem to shrug off, but who says they even want too, the combination of shrieked chaotic heaviness, lilting melodies, weird electronics, occasional piano, organ, driving rhythms, and hooks galore, seriously tough to beat. So catchy and crunchy and heavy and so goddamn good. RIP Comadre. Vinyl version comes in a thick gatefold sleeve, pressed on 180 gram wax, with a big 12" x 12" booklet, the cd version in a digipak.

MPEG stream: Cold Rain
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Killer split from Bay Area screamo punks Comadre, here teamed up with European punk rockers Glasses. Both bands offer up some of their best material yet. Comadre (whose equally badass 10" is reviewed elsewhere on this list) dial down the frenetic vibe of their 10" and go for some seriously tuneful pop songsmithery, still heavy and distorted and intense, but this time it's all about the hooks, and the hooks are huge, listening to this, it's hard to see how these guys aren't HUGE, can't imagine these guys can stay underground for much longer. Glasses kick right back with some super aggro, ultradense, mathy metallic punk rock heaviness, wild tangled riffage, furious frenzied drumming, vitriolic vocals, all wound into 3 blasts of proggy punk metal fury, definitely need to hear more from Glasses... Super fancy packaging, two 7"s with a 12 page booklet fixed to the inner spine of the gatefold sleeve.

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Comparing a band no one has ever heard of to Neutral Milk Hotel, right out of the gate, is usually the kiss of death. NMH are such an untouchable entity at this point, that they barely qualify as indie rock, or whatever you want to call them. They are Neutral Milk Hotel, and nothing else. And in their wake of course have come a million wannabes, very few of them coming anywhere close. So while The Comas don't necessarily sound like NMH, they do share some common sonic characteristics, especially the weird crunchy harmonic soaked electric guitars, that sound acoustic half the time, and drive the songs ALL of the time. The second we threw this on, first thing we thought was NMH, but only for a second, as the record soon sprawled into all sorts of other sonic avenues. We also hear plenty of Flaming Lips, as well as a ton of the Swirlies. And if you're anything like us, Neutral Milk Hotel + the Flaming Lips + Swirlies = our new favorite pop record! But not super new, this came out last year, but we only just discovered it recently and have been listening to it nonstop. The aforementioned crunchy guitars, super distorted processed leads, wild blown out drumming, scratchy raspy emo boy vocals, soaring angelic female vocals, cool off kilter arrangements, swooshing effects, and HOOKS galore. And while we may have been listening to this record over and over endlessly, more often than not, it's the opening track "Red Microphones", that gets locked on repeat, sounding like a super charged fuzzy Elephant 6 power pop freakout, easily one of the catchiest jams of the year. Of any year. WAY recommended for all pop kids, or any one needing to feed their jones for smart rambunctious crunchy fuzzy pop.

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A couple years back, we raved about a disc called The Dematerialized Passenger, the first album from this unique band (or perhaps we should say project), remember? In case you don't, here's the deal: Combat Astronomy are a USA/UK collaboration, creating a crushing industrial/jazz/prog hybrid. Imagine Godflesh with a free improv horn section, saxophones squealing amidst the metallic riffage. Or Scorn taking a skronked-out stab at chamber music. Like their earlier release, this new Combat Astronomy opus is again laced with punishing, rigid drummachine beats, along with heavy, uber-low-end fretless bass shaking each song with doomic distortion. Which establishes an absurdly heavy context for sax, clarinet, flute and bassoon to freak out organically, like wild weeds creeping through cracks in giant slabs of concrete, on the floor of an abandoned factory somewhere. But unlike their all-instrumental debut, this time Combat Astronomy have recruited a female vocalist, Elaine di Falco, who also plays some piano, to add yet another unusual dimension to their mashup of extremes, now reminding us slightly of James Plotkin's now forgotten post-Old project Flux. (Hmm, maybe Kayo Dot and later Ulver could be other comparisons now too.) If the addition of her vocals makes this a bit more overtly melodic, it's still no less extreme overall. And certainly just as intricate, her delicate vocal arrangements in themselves quite complex, multi-tracked, as on the urban R&B influenced (???? no, we're crazy) "Touch The Moon" and the album's whispery coda, "Ordinary Miracles". And the focus of CA is still on the ominous grooves, ambient electronics, and battling horn bleats... tracks like "Alive Inside Eternity" and "Sentinel" are lengthy epics (12:36 and 16:49, respectively) of serious beats and blats and skree, in the challenging, compelling, militant manner to which actually only Combat Astronomy can truly lay claim. The vocals, when present, then take it into another, equally unlikely, atmospheric realm of twisted prog-pop. Pretty darn cool!

MPEG stream: I Can't Breathe
MPEG stream: Lightning In Her Eyes
MPEG stream: Alive Inside Eternity

You don't really hear much about Combat Astronomy, except from us at Aquarius Records (do you?). Which is weird, 'cause this band should be a lot better known than they are, among fans of heavy and/or freaky music, considering they're already on their third (and a half, counting a split) cd release, one that has been long awaited, for a certain subset of AQ-customers in the know. For those not in the know, we'll say that basically CA sound like a Justin Broadrick or Kevin Martin industrial metal act (Godflesh or God, something along those lines) mixed up with freeform improv horn-skree, for results both brutal and beautiful. This band, or we should say this collaborative trans-Atlantic project, to be precise, is the unholy spawn of American sub-bass sludge technician Jamie Huggett and British improv reedsman Martin Archer (and friends). Thus they don't play live that often, which might have something to do with their low profile. They're self-described as an "intense hypnagogic industrial/jazz/prog/doommetal hybrid", and we can't think of any other outfit that better fits that mouthful. As we now know to expect, CA's new disc dishes out uber heavy doomic annihilation, bludgeoning with squelching bass and machine-like beats, the entire thing in fact percussive in its distorted rhythmic impact, amidst ominous organ and rising electronic drone. Yet CA also has a prog/classical side, thanks to Archer's woodwinds and also some female vocals, first introduced to this previously all instrumental act on their 2nd album Dreams No Longer Hesitate, returning here only wordessly, to eerie, avant garde effect. With that in mind, and all the heavy bass, Magma fans might find this to be their extreme sludge combo of choice. We'd also of course recommend Combat Astronomy to those who appreciate the likes of Painkiller, 16-17, Scorn, and even UFOmammut... And Earth Divided By Zero might just be their best disc yet, keeping the expanded palette of sounds found on their last outing, but leaving aside that disc's occasional surprise explorations of vocal (prog) pop song-ishness, instead forging a more organic synthesis of what we REALLY dig about this unit, the grinding low end and squealing sax skronk, the heavy rhythms and atmospheric, ambient-ish interludes. Not that it's without melodic surprises, like how track two tries to lull us with a placid piano intro, shades of Bohren Und Der Club Of Gore... but soon enough the bass and distortion attack is back in force. Punishing, but such sweet punishment.

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With the arrival of Combat Astronomy's fourth album, welcome once again to that unlikely alternate universe inhabited by us at Aquarius Records (and a few others too, like you?), where this intense instrumental outfit is as HUGE as their sonic footprint, their ultra-heavy hybrid of avant garde jazz and post metal industrial doom resounding planetwide in giant concert halls... if 21st century classical chamber deathjazz sludge were the next big thing, they'd be the biggest. Whereas, heck, in real life, we don't even know if they tour, probably not, since some of the group live in England, with another crucial band member based here in the USA. When they get together (however they do it) it must be a cathartic experience for everyone involved. As they say themselves about this album, it's "LOUD BASS LOUD HORNS LOUD DRUMS MASSIVE RIFFS" all the way. Well, with some quasi-ambient interludes, and bits of melody amidst the mayhem. But for the most part, thick drone, rumbling bass, punishing programmed rhythms, screaming horn blurt. It's kinda like if Godflesh were to record an album for Tzadik, armed with an arsenal of horns and woodwinds. Combat Astronomy use and abuse a variety of saxophones and clarinets, various flutes, bassoon, bass recorder, reindeer horn (?), along with fretless 5 string bass, organ, electronics, zither, tambourine... On Flak Planet, the formula has been perfected. The disc's opening track "The Stone Tape", is both cinematic and assaultive, it's jazz, but for the squelching sub bass and trudging jackboot rhythms. As the disc spins, there's outbursts of maniacal piano, jarring prog complexities, stretches of exotic atmospheric drone, and more monolithic thud. Brutal yet beautiful, as we've said before, for fans of 16-17 (natch) as well as, we'd bet, possibly PIVIXKI, Master Musicians of Bukkake, Ehnahre, and assorted RIO ensembles.

MPEG stream: The Stone Tape
MPEG stream: Zona
MPEG stream: Inverted Universe (Part 1)

A fine follow-up to 2011's Flak Planet, here's another hectic, headspinning batch of blat, bash, and blast from this unusual unit, avant-industrial-prog-jazz-doom titans Combat Astronomy, the collaborative project of American James Huggett (fretless 5-string bass, guitar programming, production, etc.) and the UK's Martin Archer (horns, organ, electronics). Archer also brings in the Juxtavoices choir for the disc's 13+ minute finale "Cave War", Juxtavoices being the vocal ensemble we last heard on the recent Record Of The Week outing by Archer's incredible Orchestra Of The Upper Atmosphere. As any Combat Astronomy aficionado expects, 'tis total, tumbling heavy jazz-grind, the burble of Archer's clarinet or saxophones surfacing amidst the thick low-end rumble of Huggett's bass and jackbooted machine rhythms. Where else are you gonna get this fix? You'd have to go back to John Zorn's Painkiller or England's mighty God back in the '90s to hear something like this. Keeping it interesting, the iron fist of Combat Astronomy slips on the velvet glove, sometimes, with occasional snatches of sinister but blissful ambient drone or third-stream jazz or buried melody battling the propulsive chaotic crush of the riff/rhythm onslaught. The pounding power, freakout energy, and sometimes ceremonial-sounding beauty of these ten tracks have us fully entranced. Seeing 'em live (do they ever even play live??) would be amazing. Never thought about this before, but we hope that the name Combat Astronomy doesn't mean that they're opposed to the science of astronomy, as in "fight against astronomy". Combat astrology, ok, but astronomy? Or maybe, it's a type of astronomy, the kind used in combat, like if you're a starfighter pilot or something. Anyway, not important, nevermind. What is important is that this band shouldn't be as under-the-radar as they are, 'cause they're pretty incredible.

MPEG stream: Kundalini Dub
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On this, the 6th album from this unique transcontinental sludge/jazz/prog/improv unit, Combat Astronomy seriously bring the noise by providing not one but two whole discs of their extreme sonics, their most ambitious onslaught yet - part John Zorn style skronk, part industrial beatdown, part ambient dronology, part Magmoid symphonics, always reminding us of a certain strain of artists in the early '90s like 16-17, Painkiller, and God, all longtime faves of ours, as Combat Astronomy are now, too! Disc one takes advantage of the potential to sprawl out in epic fashion that a double disc set affords, offering four pieces, all of 'em long ones, starting with the 17 minute "Tenser Quadrant", that opens with a stuttering, satisfyingly-distorted bass solo, soon joined by martial drumming, horns, and keyboard pulsations. It's a good intro to Combat Astronomy's incredible sound if you haven't heard 'em before: a powerful concoction of super thick heavy bass tones, rubbery rhythms, and suspenseful coloration from the horn section. By 'horn section' we mean Sheffield, UK's Martin Archer (known also to aQ customers also for his Orchestra Of The Upper Atmosphere project), who plays all the trumpets, saxophones, and clarinets on here, along with organ, electric piano, mellotron, glockenspiel, tuning forks, "snorks" (?), and more... Also on board, of course, is the other half of the usual Combat Astronomy collaboration, Minnesota-based James Huggett (5 string fretless and fretted basses, guitar, drum programming). Additionally for this release, drummer Peter Fairclough is employed as well, along with vocalists Julie Archer and Kelli Denoyer on selected tracks - but note, they are credited not with vocals but with 'voices', suggesting a more experimental, textural, abstract role. Ok, back to our report on the first disc: Track two, "Unity Weapon", is even longer at over 21 minutes, and sounds like a BIG ensemble in full flight, a bunch of mekanik kommandos marching into an orchestral fray, lots going on, getting mesmeric in its repetition and layering, and then entering into a dense, atmospheric dream-space once a little past the half-way mark. The many moods of Combat Astronomy! The intense skronk, distortion, and staggered rhythms then come roaring back on the nine minute title track, while disc closer "Hypnogeous" is a 14 minute descent into dark ambient drone, haunting and heavy, winding up in more-or-less power electronics territory. If disc one wasn't devastating enough, there's another eight tracks in store on disc two. The second track, "SuperFestival", might be the most 'pop' thing we've ever heard from CA, while a lot of the others on this disc could vie for the most intense and speed-driven. Many moods, again. But in interest of not making the review quite as epic as the album, we'll skip the detailed rundown on all of 'em and let you investigate for yourself - which we recommend you do!!

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This isn't metal exactly, but it is HEAVY. And it's not punk, although it is raucous, unruly and unkempt. It's not screamo though there is a LOT of screaming. And it's not noise, but boy is it noisy! And it's for sure not powerviolence, even though it is indeed quite powerful and most definitely violent. This is more like a drum kit, a bunch of guitars, a bass, HUGE amps, and a guy screaming his lungs out, all loaded into a cannon and fired at your ear, mere inches away, blowing you head into a million pieces. Grinding, thrashing, chaotic, relentless, brutal metallic punk rock noise. Wow. 42 songs, 32 minutes, average song length about :40 (the shortest clocking in at :10, the longest still a brief 1:30) and some of the best song titles EVER: "Dead Parents, Yea!", "We Sticks Butter", "My Foot, The Catheter", "Plastic Bullets Are So '84", "Also Comes In Red, Orange And Fuck You", "Shit 3:16", "Q: What Kind Of (A Band) Name Is Scrotum Grinder? A: A Terrible One.", "Cumbersome Ant People" and thirty six more!

MPEG stream: Shit X 1000
MPEG stream: Plastic Bullets Are So '84
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MPEG stream: Q: What Kind Of (A Band) Name Is Scrotum Grinder? A: A Terrible One.

A brand new, short, sharp blast of rhythmic punk rock weirdness from these Florida miscreants. Four songs, fifteen minutes, and more brutality than you can shake a stick at. The first track is a stretched out hardcore/krautrock collision. Like a super heavy Laddio Bollocko or Born Against covering This Heat, all stuttering rhythms and jagged guitars. Then two minute-or-so long tracks that scrape your earhole clean, before the finale, a damaged electronic 'song' that ends the whole thing on a severely tweaked note! Nice. Nice gory colorful comic book artwork too.

RealAudio clip: Activate The Corpses
RealAudio clip: Folded Space: Mapping Unexploded Ordinance

If you 'got' it the first time, you'll like this one. As featured in the soundtrack to Four Rooms.

Cult French songwriter/soundtrack composer Comelade's new album, on which he's joined by P.J. Harvey for two songs and Faust's Jean-Herve Peron for one (a remake of the Faust classic "The Sad Skinhead")!

After reading this tome if you still haven't gotten your fill of Aaron's writings, he also wrote the extensive liner notes for the new Jawbreaker rarities cd. And who could ever get enough of one of the greatest zines ever. Cometbus has been around (sometimes pub'd under different names) for over TWENTY YEARS! Got all the issues? Me neither. For this book Aaron personally selected the best, and filtered what he thinks of as the worst, writing from Cometbus. The most recent issues aren't here, as they are still in print, but the best of the rest of it is. So great!

Everybody's favorite Bay Area band of fuzzy freak rock throwbacks are back with their fourth proper album, the eagerly-anticipated follow-up to 2004's Blue Cathedral. In the past, though very much inspired by '60s psych and '70s acid rock, Comets On Fire would always go a bit beyond, get more frenzied and noisy than any of the bands back then really got, at least on records we've heard. And they still do. But as any fan of Comets will tell you, they've gradually progressed percentage-wise from totally over-the-top distortion and Echoplex FX fueled mania to much more song- (and singing-) oriented music, reigning in their more noisy psychedelic excesses, to an extent. And Avatar is the next logical step in that progression, though rest assured there is still PLENTY of the original Comets sound shining through, blasting chaotic supernovas of spaced out electronic squiggles and fuzz guitar. But at other times, you could actually almost mistake this for an actual, authentic '70s era classic rock record, melodic and mellow, frontman and guitarist Ethan Miller honing his whiskey-soaked Southern-rock vox, a surprising set of husky pipes last aired on the recent album by his side-project Howlin Rain. Plus you've got the influence of band member Mr. Six Organs Of Admittance Ben Chasny, known for some glorious tunefulness in his own band (as well as Rallizes-like mayhem). Really we're a bit shocked at how darn pretty some of this is. And what's probably our fave track on this album, the nearly nine-minute, mostly-instrumental "Sour Smoke", sounds more like vintage Wishbone Ash (but with keyboards), kinda folky and proggy and definitely untouched by the "unclean" sounds of what we might term "classic Comets". Very cool though! So, this is, to our ears, a successful mix of Comet's new-found laid back approach, alongside sonics that are still quite reminiscent of in-the-red Japanese psych destroyers like Mainliner. The common ground are the cuts wherein they kick out the jams in the vein of an especially drug-damaged Blue Oyster Cult, who we hear here especially on the song "The Swallow's Eye". Bottom line: if you liked Blue Cathedral, you'll like Avatar too!

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Y'know, we end up saying SO many different current bands sound "seventies" is some way, that it's beginning to seem more accurate to say that they sound "now". Does that make sense? Take the amazing Comets On Fire, a band who all AQ customers and discerning Bay Area concert goers ought to already be familiar with. Their Sub Pop debut, Blue Cathedral, is really hard to describe without referencing the '70s (ok, or the late '60s too). I mean, what could be more '70s rock than having not just one but TWO songs with the word "whiskey" in the title? (One of which is not "Whiskey River" by Budgie, though we hoped it was.) But, as we said above, this is so '70s it's not '70s anymore. On this elpee, they've got blown-out Blue Cheer biker rock stomp. MC5 high energy ramalama. Freaky free jazz jamming with sax. And fully '70s Wakeman-worthy prog rock keyboards! But nobody in the '70s really mixed all that together and took it as far out as these guys do. Not really. This is some kind of insane Frankenstein monster of all the cool, heavy '70s acid rawk motifs you'd like to hear. Plug in the electricity (lots of electricity) and IT LIVES. Plus, who in the '70s thought that Echoplex should be a lead instrument? Somehow, these geniuses have managed (for the third time) to capture all that and more in the recording studio, I'm sure littering the place with broken equipment and tangles of magnetic tape. Blue Cathedral's got the Comets' usual unbeatable freakouts, and progresses into new, more melodic territory as well. Recommended! Note to Sub Pop about the cd version of this: the cardstock slipcover the jewel case is packaged in is nice and all, but next time please don't make that the only place to find the song titles!

MPEG stream: Whiskey River
MPEG stream: The Antlers Of The Midnight Sun

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

SORRY. Super limited live lp from San Francisco's kings of freaked out psychedelic garage rock. Huge shards of classic psych-rock surrounded on all sides by utter chaos: relentless tempos, feeding back guitars, flailing drums, all teetering on the edge of total collapse. Somehow they manage to keep it all in check, but just barely, and the secret thrill of hearing a kick ass rock band who at any point could chuck their instruments into the crowd and head to the bar, but until they do manage to blow your fucking mind, is just what makes Comets On Fire so damn good.

The first thing (the only thing?) you need to know about this Bay Area band is that "electric destruction fuzz guitar" is one of their instruments of choice. Wielded by Ethan Miller, and sometimes also by important Comets associate Ben Chasny of AQ fave acid-folk act Six Organs of Admittance, their "electric destruction fuzz guitar", with help from the band's fuzz bassist and sweaty drum maniac, puts Comets On Fire squarely into the psychedelic garage punk realm, shoulder to shoulder with the likes of 60's heavies Blue Cheer, and modern-day Japanese distortion fiends High Rise. Your friends from college will understand better if you compare Comets to Monster Magnet -- they channel the same sort of MC5-ish ass-kickin' and Hawkwind-like space-outin'. And if Ethan (and Ben's) acid wah guitar leads weren't enough, the Comets take things to a whole 'nother plane of noise with the Echoplex electronic tweakery of Noel Harmonson. His overdriven oscillations multiply the freak-out quotient beyond numerical calculation. And live, his spastic jerking and clapping will occupy your attention visually, at least until the guitarist wrangles his axe into a feedback frenzy jammed up against his amp. But, there's another side to Comets On Fire, besides the distortion and the garagey riffs. Their loud freak-out elements are only part of an ecstatic musical continuum that also allows for the free jazz / ethnic massed bells and chant of track one, "Beneath The Ice Age". Two songs later, Six Organs guy Ben takes center stage, starting "The Unicorn" off with some improvised acoustic folk. Beautiful. Don't worry, though, 'cause soon enough the electric destruction fuzz guitar is back in action. "Field Recordings From The Sun" totally rocks, is totally awesome, and is the excellent follow-up (that we'd been eagerly anticipating) to their self-titled, self-released vinyl-only debut reviewed here last year. We sell a lot of Acid Mothers Temple, we should sell as many of these guys! And if you're local, go see 'em, we're lucky they're here.

RealAudio clip: Beneath The Ice Age
RealAudio clip: The Unicorn
RealAudio clip: The Black Poodle

Psychedelic speed garage punk from Santa Cruz! Comets On Fire fuse the amphetamine energy of High Rise with hyper-distorted vocals and electronic tweakery. The SF/Bay Area has been sprouting lots of intense garage-punk acts lately, most of which (try to) rehash the sound of the MC5 and cop the style of the Stooges (it's hard not to), but what really sets these boys ahead of all the others

A long while back we had a super limited lp featuring a freaked out psychedelic team up between Bay Area psych rock heroes Comets On Fire, and Ohio drone noise outfit Burning Star Core. While that lp is loooong gone, the label just discovered a box containing the last 30 cd-r's of this disc, originally sold on tour only, which features completely differently music than the lp, although recorded during the same sessions. So if you missed out on the lp, this cd-r should do you right, and if you got the lp and loved it, then this here is like a perfect part two. Another massive slab of freaked out lo-fi psych-sludge. Most definitely NOISY, and quite certainly LO-FI. Blown out, ultra reverbed, psychedelic noise. There may indeed be actual songs, but they are struggling constantly to stay afloat, pummelled by wave after wave of mayhemic skree and crumbly distortion, bottomless pit reverb and fuzz Fuzz FUZZ! Wow. We're pretty sure the sessions that yielded these sound (captured on the out of print lp and this here cd-r) were purely a studio concoction, but the thought of actually experiencing this stuff live had us excitedly donning protective eyewear, thick soled boots, fire retardant clothing, industrial strength earplugs and strapping on our rock and roll hardhats! ALREADY OUT OF PRINT! We have 30 copies, and once those are gone, it's gone for good...

MPEG stream: I

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

SORRY. Pretty serious psychedelic showdown. Two bands, two extended tracks each, both recorded live in NYC and both at the top of their game. Major Stars ditch their dreamy, hypnotic buzz and indulge in a serious drug addled, instrument pummelling psychedelic freakout! Who though they were capable of kicking so much ass?! Think White Heaven, Musica Transonic, Les Rallizes, AMT, cranked WAY WAY up and let loose! Comets On Fire deliver a whole side of their sludgy, druggy Stooges-y psych, stumbling and flailing, kicking you in the head in full rock mode, and then tripping over you on the way to the bar for more beer. Easily one of the best bands in SF these days. This split is definitely every noise-lovin' psych nerd's wet dream. Four tracks of squealing squirming psychedlic nirvana. And to top it off: THICK VINYL and LIMITED TO 500!!

Pittsburgh grinders return with their second full-length of fierce death metal, and it's a doozy indeed. With Synthetics, Commit Suicide have achieved that rarest of accomplishments -- delivering a follow-up album that stays completely true to all of their original elements while bolstering every component that made them such an immediately powerful force on their debut. Everything seems just punched up a notch here. Be forewarned, this is relentless death metal without the slightest breach of accessibility for those not interested in the fastest most aggressive style of music possible. But if you're willing to submit, the execution is flawless. Non-stop blazing riffage with a million stops and changes between speeds varying from fast to pretty fast to full-on blasting, with a vicious growler roaring overtop. There really isn't a single stand-out member though -- the band functions seamlessly as a whole, with all changes felt on guitar bass and drums as one. For fans of Death, Dying Fetus, Morbid Angel and the like, look no further for uncompromising brutality.

MPEG stream: Earthly Cleansing
MPEG stream: Resonance

Hot on the heels of their stellar Root Strata release Worn, SF's Common Eider, King Eider are back with a brand new, VERY limited, splendidly dark dose of somber, atmospheric folk. After being so instantly won over by Worn, we couldn't wait to hear what kind of grim beauty lay behind this gorgeous one-sided 12" picture-disc. Amnesia patiently opens with deep stretches of weeping violin, quiet vocal haze creeps into the murky horizon, subtle cymbal splashes accent the deeply ambient swells and the piece grows into a huge orchestral bellow. A single composition that breathes and changes like a sweeping ocean tide, a wash of crystalline tones wavering from the forest floor, long-form melodies echoing from the evening sky, the strings, vocals and minimal percussion all melting together into a gloriously kaleidoscopic fever dream! So gorgeous! Packaged in a cool heavy PVC silk screened sleeve, the record pressed on white vinyl, the B side also silkscreened, super striking looking, and criminally LIMITED TO JUST 100 COPIES, these will be gone in no time, so be quick!

Originally released as an extravagantly packaged cassette via local label Black Horizons, the latest from this beloved Bay Area combo is now available on cd, also presented in a super swank package (more on that below), and like the cassette, the gorgeous packaging perfectly reflecting the epic sounds within. It begins with a slow building sonic brood, that immediately conjures Arvo Part, the rich thrum of ominous strings, the swirling voices woven into some sort of haunting chorale, a chorale that is quickly subsumed by a cloud of fierce psychedelic guitar buzz and brittle metallic clatter, all blurred into a burnished squall of warm dreamnoise density, before gradually decaying to a sea of black cloud shimmer. The second track, "Mound", begins with some distorted buzz, sounding almost metallic, stretching out into a mesmeric sprawl of lush, black buzz, sculpted into a series of swells, almost like a way more dynamic SUNNO))), but soon the vocals swoop in, hovering above those dense, crumbling, distorted bursts of black noise buzz, but tempered by spectral voices, and distant hovering drones, soon laced with streaks of feedback, and melodic shards of high end howl, still locked into that mesmerizing ebb and flow, finally disappearing in a cloud of crumbling sonic decay. The sound grows even more ghostly, CEKE unfurling a spectral sprawl of ethereal ghostlike voices, and the soft shimmer of slowly bowed strings, all smeared into soft billowy swirls, the vibe sort of classical, like an abstract chamber music, performed in some lost glade, in a dark forest, lit only by firelight, a mysterious musical ritual, timeless and otherworldly. Finally, Earth Liver concludes with "Child", beginning with some echo drenched steel string guitar, hushed reverbed vocals, a dark apocalyptic blackened folk, minimal and murky, a funereal lament drifting and droning, before unexpectedly exploding into some seriously blown out distorted doom, the guitars thick and buzzing, the drums a caveman pound, the sound though epic and brooding, the vibe more Godspeed or Mogwai, than doom proper, and before you know it, they settle right back into that folky drift, and the song continues to swing wildly, from hushed and haunting, to dense and explosive, building to a soaring climax, rife with wild streaks of psychedelic guitar, the song fading out, leaving JUST that guitar to leave a shadowy streak of high end shimmer... The tape also includes Common Eider's Amnesia, a super limited one sided picture disc, which we described thusly: Amnesia patiently opens with deep stretches of weeping violin, quiet vocal haze creeps into the murky horizon, subtle cymbal splashes accent the deeply ambient swells and the piece grows into a huge orchestral bellow. A single composition that breathes and changes like a sweeping ocean tide, a wash of crystalline tones wavering from the forest floor, long-form melodies echoing from the evening sky, the strings, vocals and minimal percussion all melting together into a gloriously kaleidoscopic fever dream! LIMITED TO 150 COPIES!!! And the packaging, again, WOW. A hand screened multi-panel gatefold mini cardstock sleeve, the text printed in gold metallic ink, each disc hand painted with the group's sigil, also in metallic gold ink.

MPEG stream: On A River Of Blood, In A Boat Made Of Skin
MPEG stream: Mound

It's finally here, the years in the works Sense Of Place, an ambitious audio/visual document that captures San Francisco drone/ambient/folk band Common Eider, King Eider's quest to build a cabin in the wilds of Alaska. It's an incredible package including both a book and a dvd, each offering up images of the process, from the flight up, the journey to the site, to the actual construction, as well as the gorgeous landscape surrounding the cabin (or cabin to be). The dvd and the cd both contain part of the music, both of which are meant to be played simultaneously, Zaireeka style, the fusion of the two resulting in a lush soundscape of layered organ drones and haunting choral harmonies, the music on its own is moving and mysterious, but when coupled with the visuals, it's that much more powerful. The dvd is a gorgeously impressionistic visual travelogue of the process, the first image is the plane soaring over the clouds, then the snowed-in city, the trip to the site through epic expanses of snow, the actual building of the cabin, from the ground up, the whole thing peppered with lots of stunning shots of the surrounding landscape, the snow that goes on for miles, gorgeous pink tinged skies, distant mountains and dense almost black forests, eventually, the shots are through the windows of the cabin, the trees bowing in the cold wind outside, the clouds drifting across stunningly blue skies, eventually, there's one more survey of the pristine landscape surrounding the cabin, animal tracks, frozen lakes, the setting sun, trees still green, gathering storms in the distance, and finally, the cabin recedes into the distance, and we're back on the plane once again, heading home. The accompanying music is the perfect soundtrack, spare and spacious, the distant drone a constant underpinning, the vocals drifting in and out, we were worried at first about matching up the two discs, but realized it almost doesn't matter, we tried multiple mixes, and it always sounded fantastic, wheezy chordal whirs, the vocals layered and wreathed in echo and reverb, a mysterious chorale that instead of building and then fading out, remains somewhat constant, with different voices receding and resurfacing, each part of the music slipping easily from just organ, to organ and voices, making for a constantly shifting landscape of muted melody and vocal texture, the vibe is sort of Grouper-ish, but a bit more medieval, a bit more arcane sounding, as if it were in fact some ancient ritual, reenacted for the building of this structure, to imbue it with the spirit of the ancients. The music is dark, but infused with a mysterious warmth, the perfect analogue really for the whole process/project. The cd and the dvd are both housed in stickered clear plastic inner sleeve, which itself is then housed in a super elaborate printed origami style fold out poster, sealed with a sticker. All that's accompanied by a trade-sized, full color, 56 page perfect bound softcover book, featuring photos from the expedition, some as mundane as a sign at the local grocery store, others stunning shots of the terrain, the roaring fire in the cabin stove, empty Pabst Blue Ribbon cans in a snow drift, a black banana, cut firewood, the plane, tracks in the snow, some obvious, others abstract, all gorgeous. Includes minimal liner notes, including a poem by Ben Chasny of Six Organs Of Admittance. And on top of that, the package also includes a silkscreened patch, featuring the Common Eider sigil. LIMITED TO 250 COPIES!! And only available at aQuarius!!!

MPEG stream: Sense Of Place (Excerpt 1)
MPEG stream: Sense Of Place (Excerpt 2)

Last year, we helped our pals in Common Eider, King Eider out an amazing, ambitious audio/visual document, a book + dvd + cd (+ patch) set that captured the San Francisco drone/ambient/folk band's quest to build a cabin in the wilds of Alaska. Both the book and the dvd offered up images of the process, from the flight up, the journey to the site, to the actual construction, as well as the gorgeous landscape surrounding the cabin (or cabin to be). But now those of you who found the full $35 set with the book a bit too spendy, and really only wanted the cd and dvd (and patch), we've got a cheaper version available, the same thing but minus the book. The dvd and the cd both contain part of the music, both of which are meant to be played simultaneously, Zaireeka style, the fusion of the two resulting in a lush soundscape of layered organ drones and haunting choral harmonies, the music on its own is moving and mysterious, but when coupled with the visuals, it's that much more powerful. The dvd is a gorgeously impressionistic visual travelogue of the process, the first image is the plane soaring over the clouds, then the snowed-in city, the trip to the site through epic expanses of snow, the actual building of the cabin, from the ground up, the whole thing peppered with lots of stunning shots of the surrounding landscape, the snow that goes on for miles, gorgeous pink tinged skies, distant mountains and dense almost black forests, eventually, the shots are through the windows of the cabin, the trees bowing in the cold wind outside, the clouds drifting across stunningly blue skies, eventually, there's one more survey of the pristine landscape surrounding the cabin, animal tracks, frozen lakes, the setting sun, trees still green, gathering storms in the distance, and finally, the cabin recedes into the distance, and we're back on the plane once again, heading home. The accompanying music is the perfect soundtrack, spare and spacious, the distant drone a constant underpinning, the vocals drifting in and out, we were worried at first about matching up the two discs, but realized it almost doesn't matter, we tried multiple mixes, and it always sounded fantastic, wheezy chordal whirs, the vocals layered and wreathed in echo and reverb, a mysterious chorale that instead of building and then fading out, remains somewhat constant, with different voices receding and resurfacing, each part of the music slipping easily from just organ, to organ and voices, making for a constantly shifting landscape of muted melody and vocal texture, the vibe is sort of Grouper-ish, but a bit more medieval, a bit more arcane sounding, as if it were in fact some ancient ritual, reenacted for the building of this structure, to imbue it with the spirit of the ancients. The music is dark, but infused with a mysterious warmth, the perfect analogue really for the whole process/project. The cd and the dvd are both housed in stickered clear plastic inner sleeve, which itself is then housed in a super elaborate printed origami style fold out poster, sealed with a sticker. Please note still have the book version too, though, if you're interested. Also, anyone planning on attending this year's Stella Natura festival, CEKE will be playing - with our own Andee on drums!!

MPEG stream: Sense Of Place (Excerpt 1)
MPEG stream: Sense Of Place (Excerpt 2)

We got a very small handful of these, the last copies in fact, released as an exclusive for the Stella Natura festival, which took place a few weeks back in the woods up near Lake Tahoe, and featured a crazy collection of bands performing on stages set up in the forest. Some of the performers included Esoteric, Stargazer, Sutekh Hexen, Saturnalia Temple, Ash Borer, Hell, Aldebaran, Dispirit, Hexvessel, Kinit Her, Loss, Knelt Rote and a bunch more. This document of local experimental ambient doom-drone outfit Common Eider (which now boasts our very own Andee on drums), features four lengthy tracks, and documents CEKE's shift into darker realms, featuring Andy Way from Sutekh Hexen on vocals, CEKE's usual haunting arrangements of ritualistic chorales, and swoonsome viola drones, are augmented by harsh, whispered vokills, that occasionally erupt into near demonic shrieks. The opener, "Uksur" is a dark ritualistic incantation, that fuses black ambience to Arvo Part like sweeping epic-ry, infusing that hybrid with a blackened malevolence, the whole thing blurred into a darkly dreamy, ashen sonic sprawl. "As The Soil Rises Up Past Our Bodies" continues the descent into darkness, layered vocals drift atop a bed of tape hiss and distant rumbles, meditative and liturgical, a harrowing and haunting soundscape that evokes barren wastelands, crumbling cathedrals and black skies casting entire civilizations in shadow, the vocals slipping into a higher register for the final movement, adding a dramatic pathos to the proceedings. Also included is an excerpt of the fantastic "Sense Of Place", which was released via aQ as a super deluxe book/cd/dvd combo (later as a stripped down bookless version), chronicling the building of a cabin in Alaska, the music split into two parts meant to be played simultaneously. And finally there's "Caribou People", which is anchored by a dreamy, softly reverbed guitar loops, and gradually blossoms into a beautifully brooding dirge, laced with clouds of buzz drenched noise guitar, woozy Spacemen 3 like basslines, and minimal percussion, all whipped up into a wildly psychedelic squall, that fades into a hazy druggy drift. Fantastic. And, fantastic packaging - the tape is housed in a multi panel, pocketed mini sleeve, hand silkscreened, bundled with a charred block of wood, the wood silkscreened with the CEKE sigil, the tape, the sleeve, and the wood, wrapped in a silkscreened oversized slipcover, held shut with a printed sticker. SUPER LIMITED. Last copies ever. So act fast if you want one... Mailorder folks, be aware that 'cause of the size and weight of the charred wood block, this will count as more than one item (which will probably only matter if it's all you were to order), so media mail or UPS will be your best domestic shipping options.

MPEG stream: Uksur
MPEG stream: Caribou People

Latest from the dronologists in Common Eider, King Eider, and this one is a bit different, but for a group that always goes above and beyond, maybe we should be used to it by now. Unhuulda was originally slated to be a cd release, but in lieu of paying to get it pressed, the group has decided to instead donate the money the cd pressing would have cost to Nunamata Aulukestai, a Native-run, non-profit conservation organization in Alaska. What you get instead of a cd is a beautifully packaged (as always), hand-bound book of poetry, that comes with a download code and a back patch. The music is (as always) similarly beautiful and carefully crafted, blissful and sparse drone with lush, snowy strings. The last track especially, a near 20 minute track of total immersion, drawn out vocal harmonies that shift, expand, and retreat, a track that fully encapsulates what CEKE are all about. Gorgeous stuff. Limited to just 150 copies, and aQuarius is the only store that has these for sale.

MPEG stream: Denning
MPEG stream: Pulsing Blood and Spit
MPEG stream: Winter Light

Another gorgeous outing of hushed acoustic sprawl and hauntingly grey ambience from San Francisco's Common Eider, King Eider. It's record number three from this mysteriously monikered band of outsiders, now expanded into a four-piece, still led by Rob Fisk, former member of both Badgerlore and Deerhoof. We've always been impressed with the ghostly decay that seems to be so effortlessly flowing through CEKE's sound, a perfect balance of organic drone and instrumental songwriting, all bundled together into a seamless journey into the coldest, deepest woods. We must say that Worn immediately appears more melancholic and somber than past CEKE releases, whether it's the doom laden vocal drawls of Grouper on "Ennui" or George Chen's heaaaaavy buzzing guitar riff on "All They Will Find Is Blood", we're totally blown away! Swells of gorgeously shimmering vocal melodies weave in and out of the rumbling distorted guitars like some shoegazing doom opera, an ocean of distortion buzzing under a glowing sky, so serene and moving. What we really love about Worn is while there are defiantly heavy moments of sheer epicness, there are also moments of precise composition and gently guided ambience. "The Rabbits Will Come Again" unfolds with gracefully bowed notes ringing out into the moonlit sky, while distant bells and shimmering feedback melt into the mournful piano. Vocal sighs and whispers set the mood for a deep forest seance, super chilling and super amazing. In addition to the special appearance made by Miss Grouper, don't miss out on Tom Carter's whirlwind cameo on "Earth Liver"! And don't forget, this one is limited to 300 copies, complete with lp covers that fold out into full size posters, lovely packaging for this ice cold, psychedelic epic!

A pop lover's delight! Common Loon's debut album dishes the most marvelous of drowsy psych-tinged pop we've heard in ages. It seems to glow with the warmth of the '70s California sun despite the duo's homebase of Illinois. Oh so good! Their record label namechecks these artists as points of reference... Sparklehorse, Sebadoh, Spacemen 3, Grandaddy, Apples In Stereo, Olivia Tremor Control. Hmmm, there just happen to be plenty of aQ faves in there, n'est pas? Of those bands, we'd say that we concur with the inclusion of Grandaddy and O.T.C. most definitely. The rest are somewhat subtler nods. We'd actually add the Posies, early Quasi and Death Cab For Cutie to the list. Each song strikes a sweet balance of melodic hooks, hazy noise-pop guitars and mellow lulling boy vocals. This just might be the perfect antidote to cast away those lingering winter's chills and make way for spring. Needless to say, The Long Dream Of Birds has charmed us to no end! Recommended!

MPEG stream: Ho-Hum Apocalypse
MPEG stream: Dinosaur Vs. Early Man
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Following his time in Rorschach and prior to forming (the sadly now defunct) Beautiful Skin, Nick Forte made feisty music in a band known as Computer Cougar. This album fills in the mysterious gap between the two groups, illustrating how Nick got from point

RealAudio clip: Too Much
RealAudio clip: Leonard Street Revival

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

SORRY. Our first experience with the Comsat Angels was on an old old Silkworm record. Silkworm covered the Angels' brilliant "Our Secret" and it immediately became out favorite song on the record. And of course hearing that cover sent us on a mad quest to find some actual Comsat Angels records. Ended up that records by these Sheffield, England post-punks were pretty damn hard to come by. Managed to find some later era stuff but it just wasn't the same. So we were super excited by this 4 cd collection that compiles their first 3 albums, Waiting For A Miracle (1980), Sleep No More (1981), and Fiction (1982) all with extra tracks and B sides, as well as a fourth disc of unreleased rarities! So what do they sound like you ask? Well, think early eighties post punk / new wave, with lots of jangly guitar, chiming harmonics, super effected drums, fuzzy fafisa organs, reverbed vocals, but with lots of Factory records gloom and doom. Dark and bass heavy, minor key and melancholy, grey and overcast and so goddamn good. The songs sort of meander and build, with vocals over simple bass and drum passages, flecked with fuzzed out keyboards and punctuated by occasional guitar skronk and spacy swoosh. Repetitive and hypnotic and ultra moody. The vocals are rich and full reminding us of bands like the Fixx or Modern English, but they take on a whole different cast when nestled in the Angels' depressive and dark-skied sonic world. Sometimes they sound like a suicidal Elvis Costello on quaaludes or maybe the Jam if they recorded for Factory. Or a slightly more upbeat / punk rock Joy Division. All you folks who have been getting way into this resurgence of eighties musical culture: industrial, electro, death disco, Factory, DFA, whatever, should definitely check these guys out. You can hear so much of that stuff in these guys, but it's so much darker and grittier and genuine, and the songs are so depressing and intense and catchy. Been listening to this non-stop since we got it in! Packaged in a weird (but kind of cool) plastic DVD style case, and pressed on black cds (which we originally assumed to be cd-r's but have been assured that they are indeed cds) and limited to 2000 copies worldwide, so we're not sure how long we'll have these and how many more we'll be able to get!

MPEG stream: Our Secret
MPEG stream: Missing In Action
MPEG stream: Total War
MPEG stream: Eye Dance
MPEG stream: Sleep No More

"Live reunion album" aren't three words (in sequence) that we normally get too excited about. But when the band is the legendary British pagan acid folk rock act Comus, who are responsible for having made one of our very favorite albums of ALL TIME (their 1971 debut on Dawn, First Utterance), one that Andee here in fact ranks as his absolute favorite record ever, well, that's another story. With their cult following growing and growing over the years (with big fans like Opeth and Current 93 helping to keep their name out there), Comus finally reunited to play the Melloboat Festival in Sweden in 2008, and at the time we seriously considered buying plane tickets to fly over and attend. They've done some more gigging since, and Allan was in fact lucky enough to get to see 'em at last year's Roadburn festival. He can attest to them being pretty darn incredible, it's hard to imagine that their younger selves could have done much better of a job, though they might have looked the part of pixies and freaks a bit more - not everyone in the band still has long hair these days, though some of 'em do, and actually their female singer Bobbie Watson looked like she practically hadn't aged at all, still a bewitching blonde beauty, with a lovely lovely voice... and they really, really were enjoying themselves. As they obviously were at this historic Melloboat gig as well, and sounding fantastic especially considering it was the first time they'd played together in 34 years!!! We've heard a bit of this recording already, the song "Diana" from their Melloboat performance appeared on a limited edition split 7" we listed a while back, and we noted that it sounded perhaps "even more woozy and carnivalesque and maniacal than they did back in the day". They definitely nailed it, maybe it's some pagan magic, 'cause remember, Comus is the ancient god of revelry, and he wasn't gonna let anybody on that boat down. While it's not the same as having actually been there, of course, we figure some diehard Comus fans are gonna be curious to hear this. Especially since it includes, in addition to renditions of five of the seven songs from their debut, a cover of "Venus In Furs" by the Velvet Underground! A song we guess they also did back the '70s, the VU being an influence on them that we wouldn't have considered, but it totally fits, creepy and catchy, with sawing violin, sounding like something that they could have written themselves for inclusion on First Utterance. The full tracklist: "Song To Comus", "Diana", "The Herald", "Drip Drip", "The Prisoner", "Venus In Furs", "Song To Comus (encore)". That's right, they did "Song To Comus" twice, but omitted two other songs from First Utterance, "The Bite" and "Bitten", oh well. At least they didn't do a bunch of stuff from their not-so-critically-acclaimed second album... You can decide for yourself if you want to hear this, or just stick with the mystical original, some folks (including some of us) may prefer to leave live Comus to the incomparable realm of our own imaginations, where they have long dwelt... Released on a new imprint co-run by C93's David Tibet, this cd includes photos, lyrics and liner notes in the booklet.

MPEG stream: Song To Comus
MPEG stream: The Herald
MPEG stream: Venus In Furs

What has to be our favorite British pagan folk psychedelic prog rock album ever (in other words, quite possibly our favorite album ever, period!) is finally available again on cd, and in a gorgeous Japanese mini-lp gatefold sleeve to boot, with the disc itself all state-of-the-art remastered, sounding great. THIS RECORD SCARES US. Hearing it is like stumbling upon some forbidden ancient ritual that scares you to death. You stand paralyzed, too afraid to look away. Comus's singular, frightening sound and violently poetic lyrics have kept them from taking their rightful place alongside Fairport Convention, Incredible String Band, and the rest of Britain's psychedelic folk royalty. And we don't write the words psychedelic folk royalty without a certain amount of trepidation. At first glance Comus would seem to fit squarely in the Ren-Faire camp: bongos, flute, oboe, 12-string guitar, and no drummer. But never has the whole of a band so completely defied its parts; their sound is as mesmerizing as it is repulsive. Upon the record's initial release, one British music journalist wrote that she "didn't get past the first track, which sounded like a cross between a frenzied version of the witches chorus from Macbeth, and Marc Bolan being squeezed to death." Funny thing is, that's a fairly apt description. Tales of murder, rape, insanity, and witchcraft unfold amid a swirling abyss of seething acid folk. Squalls of shamanistic wailing jut uncomfortably from serene, tranquil melodies; guttural growls battle a delicate angelic chorus, echoing the violent struggle of the lyrics. Flutes, hand drums, acoustic guitars, and a violin clamber atop one another in a chaotic melee, creating a pagan folk not unlike that of The Wicker Man soundtrack gone totally bonkers. Although the band has been resolutely ignored by mainstream music fans, the press, and the majority of the underground, a small rabid following has kept a reverential vigil beside the corpse of Comus. Nurse with Wound cronies Current 93 modeled their '90s sound after '70s British folk, Comus especially. They even went so far as to cover "Diana," Comus's only single, on their album Horsey. Swedish progressive black metallers Opeth have always been outspoken about their love of Comus. Their acclaimed 1998 album was called My Arms, Your Hearse, after the lyrics of "Drip Drip" (on First Utterance). And it's not surprising. This record is so powerful and frightening and totally devastating even 30 years later. And never would I have thought that a record as old as me, with flutes and bongos fer chrissakes, could be so absolutely malevolent, both sonically and lyrically! But like I said, this record scares us. And we know you like to be scared too! We were hoping that this new cd edition would include the two bonus tracks from from an early single that the Italian vinyl reissue included as a bonus 12", but such is not the case. Oh well. Still ranks as one of our all time favorites.

RealAudio clip: Diana
RealAudio clip: Drip Drip
RealAudio clip: The Herald
RealAudio clip: Song To Comus

We're not sure which is more exciting, the first new music from legendary UK seventies acid folk legends Comus in FORTY YEARS, or a lost track, from back in the day, a song from the never released (or recorded) follow up to the godlike First Utterance, a song never heard by anyone outside of the band before NOW. Thankfully, this new record from this aQ revered combo gives us both, three brand new songs, and one, that aforementioned legendary lost recording. Our very own Andee actually wrote some of the liner notes for this release (alongside some by Mikael Akerfeldt of Opeth), specifically talking about that long lost track, so we figured we might as well just reprint that part here (more on the new tracks afterwards): "For those of us who consider Comus' debut album First Utterance the pinnacle of psychedelic seventies demonic acid folk (and we are quite suspicious of anyone who doesn't), the prospect of a lost second record is nearly too much to even imagine. And the idea that such a record was written, and performed, yet never recorded, is nearly heartbreaking. While subsequent recordings from the band veered into much poppier and more commercial territory, the Comus faithful continued to believe in the existence of an elusive song suite, forever convinced that there had to have been more, an untapped reservoir of dark sonic energy, the unleashing of which was held at bay by unscrupulous record label executives and their profit driven machinations, or even more ominously, those songs were in fact actually recorded and hidden away in some sort of dusty vault. And while the truth may be less sensational and conspiratorial than we perhaps imagined, the Comus faithful have indeed finally been rewarded, with this, a sprawling almost classical sounding psychedelic folk epic, unearthed after nearly 40 years, a fragment of the never completed follow up to First Utterance, the Malgard Suite, which offers a glimpse of what might have been, a fork in time's path untaken, an alternate timeline in which the band continued along that selfsame dark path, the sinister sound of First Utterance expanded upon, less immediately maniacal and harrowing, more expansive and lush, the vocals intricate and intertwined over swirling strings, and delicate crystalline guitars, fluttering flutes and the moaning melodies of the bassoon (played by Lindsay Cooper, who would go on to join art rockers Henry Cow post Comus). And while there's plenty going on here that foreshadows the sound of Henry Cow, there is also a darkly classical vibe, with much of the Malgard Suite sounding a bit like a more diabolical Prokofiev. Those elements are woven deftly into that classic Comus sound, frenzied and fraught with drama one second, soaring and majestic the next, always lush and lovely and dreamily psychedelic. And even in this, which is quite possibly the only existing recording of the Malgard Suite, a rough raw live performance captured on a handheld cassette player, it's impossible to deny the power and emotion in the music, a lyrical sonic fever dream, delivered in this mysterious missive from another time, lost for decades and resurfacing only now, and convincing us, the Comus faithful, that it was worth the wait." So yeah, Comus fanatics will pretty much need this for just that track. There's also a spoken word intro from band leader Roger Wooten, describing the providence of that track, when and how it was recorded, and how it came to be rediscovered. And it's well worth the price of admission on its own. Which brings us to the new material, and while we have to admit we were a little wary of new songs, especially after FORTY years, our fears were definitely unfounded, cuz for the most part, these new songs sound like they could have come straight from the First Utterance sessions. Sure, some things are different, the vocals are maybe not quite as frenzied and maniacal, but they still sound pretty incredible, and the female backup vox still sound as harrowing and haunting as before. And the music, still so lush and layered and dense, and yeah, a bit demonic, incredible guitar playing, intricate finger picking, wild hand drumming, mournful violin, fluttering flute, the songs drifting into the same sort of dark psychedelic jam territory as those old classics, the lyrics appropriately morbid, the production lush and lovely, the sax being perhaps the only real difference, adding a different dimension to the sound, but it still sounds like Comus, classic Comus at that, and no one sounds like Comus, now or then, and we have to say, these new tracks were worth the wait as well!

MPEG stream: Out Of The Coma
MPEG stream: The Sacrifice
MPEG stream: The Maalgard Suite

Let's get this out of the way first: most folks around these parts consider Comus' First Utterance to be the greatest seventies pagan tribal folk prog psych freakout record ever. Hard to debate that. But among those folks, about 99 percent also consider First Utterance to be one of the greatest records ever, regardless of genre! One listen and you'll be convinced. Or you'll run away screaming in terror. Either way, it's hard to not be totally blown away and / or thrillingly confused by the mad musical world of Comus. First Utterance has now been reissued a total of six times now (by our count, with maybe yet another edition on the way!) but this UK import double cd version marks the very first time that the three tracks from the pre-First Utterance maxi-single (i.e. the bonus 12" ep included with the lp reissue) has been released on cd as well. AND this also includes another totally unreleased bonus track from the First Utterance sessions! Holy crap! Every time a new cd reissue would be announced, we'd be thinking to ourselves "please please please include the extra tracks..." but somehow it never happened. Until now! That should be enough to have you Comus obsessives and seventies psych prog freeks all in a tizzy, but that's not all. Also included is their second album released a few years later after the band reformed, as well as a final solo single from Comus frontman Roger Wooten. But we'll talk about that stuff in a moment. First, let's explain just what it is about First Utterance that has us so excited! THIS RECORD SCARES US. Hearing it is like stumbling upon some forbidden ancient ritual that scares you to death. You stand paralyzed, too afraid to look away. Comus's singular, frightening sound and violently poetic lyrics have kept them from taking their rightful place alongside Fairport Convention, Incredible String Band, and the rest of Britain's psychedelic folk royalty. And we don't write the words psychedelic folk royalty without a certain amount of trepidation. At first glance Comus would seem to fit squarely in the Ren-Faire camp: bongos, flute, oboe, 12-string guitar, and no drummer. But never has the whole of a band so completely defied its parts; their sound is as mesmerizing as it is repulsive. Upon the record's initial release, one British music journalist wrote that she "didn't get past the first track, which sounded like a cross between a frenzied version of the witches chorus from Macbeth, and Marc Bolan being squeezed to death." Funny thing is, that's a fairly apt description. Tales of murder, rape, insanity, and witchcraft unfold amid a swirling abyss of seething acid folk. Squalls of shamanistic wailing jut uncomfortably from serene, tranquil melodies; guttural growls battle a delicate angelic chorus, echoing the violent struggle of the lyrics. Flutes, hand drums, acoustic guitars, and a violin clamber atop one another in a chaotic melee, creating a pagan folk not unlike that of The Wicker Man soundtrack gone totally bonkers. Although the band has been resolutely ignored by mainstream music fans, the press, and the majority of the underground, a small rabid following has kept a reverential vigil beside the corpse of Comus. Nurse with Wound cronies Current 93 modeled their '90s sound after '70s British folk, Comus especially. They even went so far as to cover "Diana," Comus's only single, on their album Horsey. Swedish progressive black metallers Opeth have always been outspoken about their love of Comus. Their acclaimed 1998 album was called My Arms, Your Hearse, after the lyrics of "Drip Drip". And it's not surprising. This record is so powerful and frightening and totally devastating even 30 years later. And never would we have thought that a record as old as us, with flutes and bongos fer chrissakes, could be so absolutely malevolent, both sonically and lyrically! But like we said, this record scares us. And we know you like to be scared too! One of our ALL TIME FAVORITE RECORDS EVER!!! So yeah, there it is. Well worth it for First Utterance alone, and the First Utterance era bonus tracks (especially when you consider this version is a buck cheaper than the single disc, non-bonus-track havin' Japanese import version). But you also get, for the first time on cd, Comus' second album To Keep From Crying (1973), as well as the post-Comus "Fiesta Fandango" solo single from Wooten. Pretty exciting stuff for Comus fanatics indeed, but be warned, the Comus found on To Keep From Crying bears very little resemblance to the Comus of First Utterance. Some would go so far as to say that where FU is one of the best records ever, TKFC is perhaps one of the worst...yet not without its charms. Not sure if it was a bid to find pop success, or just a case of lightning already having struck once, but TKFC is not malevolent or really all that intense, instead it's a very light, very jaunty, lush seventies UK pop record, a little glam, a little Beach Boys, a little Free Design, a little Eno, not bad (well, some of it isn't), but not really all that good. It's as if the original Comus were given entirely different drugs (not bad trip acid but something more "happy") and were forced to attempt to make a Top 40 hit. You can still tell it's them, though (the vocals are just as tweaked as before) so it's pretty darn strange. A few of the songs are quite nice acid folk numbers, just not as dark as the nightmarish folk found on FU. But some of the other tracks, well, they're at least amusing in a so bad it's good kind of way. Even the band members themselves in the liner notes talk about how much they dislike that record now. Andee even bought the original LP a few years back on eBay, even though the description warned "Not as good as First Utterance." Who cares? he thought, it was ANOTHER RECORD BY COMUS!! But alas he too soon discovered for himself that it was no First Utterance. While almost any record would pale when set up against First Utterance, TKFC was a particularly watered down follow up, and outside of that equally weak solo single, that was the end of the band. Song To Comus' booklet contains lots of photos and amazing liner notes, which include this tantalizing and totally frustrating tidbit: before TKFC, there was actually a Lord Of The Rings inspired suite of songs (a proper follow up to First Utterance) already written called Malgaard, that the band had begun performing live but never got around to recording! We flipped when we read about that. Can you imagine? Sadly, it just wasn't meant to be. And they also never recorded their live version of "Venus In Furs", either (apparently Comus started out doing lots of VU covers!). Ah well. But still, we're more than happy with the amazing musical malevolence Comus left as their legacy. So those of you who haven't discovered Comus, what else can we do to convince you that you NEED this record? Folkies will love it, but it's plenty dark and creepy and sinister enough for all you metalheads, and way weird enough for all you experimental music lovers. And of course Comus obsessives (like Andee and Allan) who already have multiple versions of First Utterance will for sure need this one as well, probably for the curiousity factor of the second album, just to satisfy your all consuming love of Comus, but certainly to finally have the bonus 12" on cd and DEFINITELY for the unreleased First Utterance outtake "All The Colours Of Darkness"! Let your pagan prog rock psych folk freek flag fly!

MPEG stream: Diana
MPEG stream: Drip Drip
MPEG stream: The Herald
MPEG stream: Song To Comus

To commemorate the recent 25th anniversary Current 93 performances in London, a super limited number of these commemorative 7"s were pressed up (only 300 copies!), featuring exclusive tracks from three of the bands that performed with C93, psych drone combo Rameses III, psychedelic folk legend Simon Finn, and most excitingly, legendary seventies acid folk outfit, the mighty Comus!! The Comus track might be what gets folks most excited, and rightfully so, a recording of the group performing "Diana" on the Melloboat, in Sweden, in 2008, their first show together after nearly 40 years!!! We tried to watch clips on YouTube, but the crowd was so amped, and howling and clapping and singing along, you could barely hear the band. Thankfully this recording is pristine, and the band sound incredible, even more woozy and carnivalesque and maniacal than they did back in the day, the player practically perfect, the vocals incredible for the many decades that have passed, definitely makes us wish we had flown over. Rameses III contributes a gorgeous thick swath of densely layered dronemusic, very minimal, softly pulsing, rife with swirling overtones, hypnotic and raga like, really super nice. And finally, Simon Finn unfurls some dark brooding psychedelic folk, lovely and haunting male / female vocal harmonies, over warm soft melodic swells, the sound stripped down, the arrangement minimal, the structure skeletal, but the overall feel still darkly lush and lovely. A pretty fantastic 3 way split, we can only imagine how great the shows must have been. A gorgeous sonic artifact too, sturdy full color cover, pressed on thick colored vinyl, and again limited to only 300 copies!

Tim Green is a busy fellow. Among probably many other things he runs a recording studio, rocks out with his band The Fucking Champs, occasionally sits in with fellow Bay Area band Crime In Choir, and records in solo mode under the moniker Concentrick. His past Concentrick recordings have been often serene, occasionally krautrock rhythm'd electronic soundscapes that stand in stark, revealing contrast to his rock band endeavors. So we were surprised not only to hear some blissed out guitar work, but also to see a full band's worth of musicians make an appearance on his latest release Aluminum Lake. Then, we were even more thrown for a loop when the third track burst out of our speakers! On "White Bear" Green allows his 'Champs rock side to barge its way into his Concentrick zone with some nut-bustin' electric guitar riffage and bombastic drums. From there he, along with Jon Theodore (drums), Seth Lorinczi (bass), Lorraine Rath (flute), Jackie Perez-Gratz (cello) and Adria Otte (violin), roam freely through passages hewn from prog, metal, Kraut and pastoral inspirations. Who'd have thought we'd be describing Concentrick as being dark or propulsive or heavy? Not us! Those are words we'd normally reserve for the 'Champs. Not anymore! Seems Concentrick has become Green's catch-all for his various musical whims and moods. Quite cool nonetheless.

MPEG stream: Waterfall
MPEG stream: White Bear

Following up the recent re-worked cd re-issue of his 1996 cassette "Music For Tunnels" comes this new cd from Tim Green's Concentrick persona. Tim Green you may know as a member of The Fucking Champs, an ex-member of Nation of Ulysses, or as the producer/engineer to many of your favorite bands at his Louder Studios. With Concentrick he adds another line to his varied and impressive musical resume. Electronic pop musician? Where "Music For Tunnels" was all about the drone, this new disc is more about bubbling beats and melodic dreaminess. The '70s krautrock electronica influence is definitely still present, it's just that Concentrick has shifted focus from the placid soundscapes of Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream to the more rhythmic territory associated with Kraftwerk and late-'70s Cluster. But there's more: strings, sampled voices, frenzied percolating percussion, cinematic lushness...and you can definitely hear real drums and guitar on here, at parts it's like a band playing Aphex Twin music! (and at others, it's...just like Aphex Twin music, circa "The Richard D. James Album". Not a bad thing!) If you liked the lovely "techno" interludes on the first Champs cd, or always thought that the Champs could make a better Trans Am record than Trans Am, you'll want this! Highly recommended!

RealAudio clip: Just Walk Away

Gorgeous new full length from Gordon Ashworth (aka little brother of Casiotone For The Painfully Alone's Owen Ashworth), and like the previous Concern album, Truth And Distance (reissued on vinyl and reviewed elsewhere on this week's list!), Caesarian is another meticulously crafted series of looped and processed soundscapes, equal parts Philip Jeck, Tim Hecker and William Basinski, full of lush drones, crumbling decaying tapes, and hazy atmospherics, all assembled from a surprising array of acoustic instruments: piano, clarinet, banjo, sruti box, acoustic guitar, augmented with processed tapes and various reverbs, resulting in a sound that's both human and alien, organic and processed, beautiful and mysterious. "Discrete Memorial" might be one of our favorite tracks yet from Ashworth, a strange loopscape of melancholy piano, mournful horns, all captured on a crumbling bit of tape, repeated into a mesmerizing refrain, but the various elements stuttering and glitching out, like some beautiful bit of sad pop, recorded on an old damaged tape, and played back on a malfunctioning tape player, gorgeously hypnotic, but similar to Basinski's recordings, much of the sound is derived from what surrounds the music, strange drop outs, bits of hiss, subtle squelches here and there, the tones and notes changing speed and pitch, it's all woven deftly into a warped and warbly, beautifully imperfect bit of looped droning melodic drift. The cool thing though is that by the end of the track, the sound has shed all of the imperfections, having grown gradually more lush and less lo-fi as the song progressed, eventually ending up a gorgeously swirling Lubomyr Melnyk like flurry of rich harmonics and warm melodies. The rest of the record is equally moving, and sonically breathtaking, from the warm whirling swells and metallic buzz of "Mending", to the fractured murky folk drift and eventual psychedelic drone effulgence of "From Warmth And From Violence", to the glitchy almost Oval sounding shimmer of "Leaving Gold", and finally, the sprawling 34 minute "Immersed In Envy, Porous With Forgetfulness", which manages to somehow bring all of those various sounds together, insectoid buzz, hazy abstracted minimal shimmer, mysterious field recordings, washed out whirring organs, sunshiney dronepop drift, blurred hiss drenched ambience, all woven into a lovely, slow shifting expanse of lush minimal beauty. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!!

This awesome 2009 cd release, now available on vinyl!! Here's what we said about it before: One of several new releases on the always kick ass Digitalis label, this one from a one man band called Concern, that one man being Gordon Ashworth, little brother of Owen Ashworth of Casiotone For The Painfully Alone, as well as a member of the late great Peyote Calamity, a weird heavy outfit, who sadly never released a proper record, but neither of those bands necessarily hint at the sounds to be found here. Utilizing a vast collection of instruments and noise making devices, zither, lap harp, mbira, banjo, piano, clarinet, trombone, accordion, acoustic guitar and alto horn, Ashworth blurs all those various instruments into long streaks of hazy drone-y dreaminess. Three tracks, all long, all gorgeously lush and textured, strangely melodic and propulsive for a sound that tends toward a more static drift. Opener "Truth And Distance" bristles with energy, a glowing warm shimmer, the edges growing ever sharper as the songs sprawls outward, from a hushed whisper to a mighty heart of the sun ur-drone, the sound raw and organic, the core a deep unwavering drone, but the sound is like a stream, carrying all manner of glitch and hum, stray bits of disembodied guitar, melodic fragments, eventually transforming into a strange abstract Appalachia, a soft swirling tangle of upper register buzz and and skittery processed tones, definitely some of the most divine drones we've heard. The first track is well over half the total length of the record, but the second two tracks, while shorter, are just as beautiful and epic. "Young Birth" builds from hushed whir to almost symphonic sounding majesty, a warped otherworldly new age, all tranquil and blissed out, the various tones overlapping and intertwining before fading out in a soft flurry of crackle and hum. While the final track, "Heartsink", begins all raw and fuzzy and almost heavy with a Tim Hecker sort of vibe, only to shift gears, and allow the sound of the various instruments to become distinct and identifiable. Which in no way means the sound is any less dreamlike, soft shimmers of heavily reverbed piano drift weightlessly in an expanse of soft muted melodies, the overtones creating distant drone-y swells, the result a lovely abstract sort of classical chamber dronemusic, so so so nice. Essential listening for the drone inclined, and any one into Tim Hecker, Aidan Baker, Fennesz, Belong and the like might just have a new favorite record.

MPEG stream: Truth And Distance
MPEG stream: Young Birth

Haunted goth-industrial synthscapes from the unlikely collaborative duo of Scott Moore of Limp Wrist and Dave Coen of Whitehorse. Future Gloom!

Church music? Yeah, sorta. The first (and title) track is real churchy all right with folky singing and organ... and of course it's called "Risen Savior". These guys (and gal) were indeed a Christian rock trio, from Kansas. But they did their thing in the late sixties / early seventies and thus thankfully (for our purposes) bring in some of the acid rock psych action of the era to their musical worship. With track two, "What Shall We Do?", the Concrete Rubber Band aren't quite as soft and innocuous, getting into some wilder, keyboard-driven garagey psych. Not that they turn into Iron Butterfly or anything -- though, their name seems to derive from a similar, psychedelic logic! Overall, this is really pleasant, with gentle and earnest male and female vocals dueting over guitar, percussion, and variety of keyboard instruments (organ, synth, electric piano/harpsichord). Standout tracks include the cultish "Wicked" with its burbling electronic intro, and the dreamy "Dreamers". If you're a fan of "Jesus freak" psych (a la The Search Party, The New Creation, and that Resurrection comp, to mention three things we've reviewed in that vein) then you might dig the CRB too. Yeah, we're all into black metal here at AQ, but sometimes bands that sing about God in a nice way we like too... all depends on the music! Originally released on vinyl in 1971 by the band themselves to sell at Christian bookstores, in an edition of 500.

MPEG stream: Passover
MPEG stream: Wicked

The Concretes have been blissing out indie pop fans for well over a decade but their steadily growing spiked big time over the past year. The Swedish dreamboats were drawn further into the limelight by former Concretes singer Victoria Bergsman's appearance on the omnipresent Peter Bjorn And John single "Young Folks". Yes, you heard correctly. Former! The PBJ guest vocalist who charmed everyone and brought attention to the Concretes has jumped ship in favor of a solo career. But fret not, despite the album's title, this is by no means a 'man overboard!' emergency. Although you're not going to be hearing Ms. Bergsman's sweet and distinctly quirky voice on any of these dozen songs, you will be hearing the just as sweet and distinctly quirky voice of Lisa Milberg. Her performance makes for not such a drastic transition after all. Slightly off kilter and bittersweet. Yes, if you like Peter Bjorn And John's Writer's Block, what are you waiting for? The soft serve dream whip sounds of Hey Trouble are like a more girlie counterpart.

MPEG stream: A Whale's Heart
MPEG stream: Oh Boy