[ aquarius records — Rock Pop ]

CORROSION OF CONFORMITYEye For An Eye(Candlelight)cd$ 14.98

**SALE **SALE* *SALE**

In a way, it'd be way easier to review this if it was the debut album from some new, unknown band. Then we could just talk about how it's a dark, heavy album of often speedy stoner metal with cavernous, killer riffs and a seemingly old school hardcore punk edge to it, that SLAYS. There, we said it, and really, 'nuff said. But, 'cause it's in fact the new album from the reunited three-piece lineup of seminal '80s punk/metal act Corrosion Of Conformity, the same lineup responsible for the CoC's all time crossover classic Animosity from 1985 (Mike Dean, Woody Weatherman, and Reed Mullin), it comes with a lot of baggage. Some folks, punk rock CoC purists, probably won't even listen to it, having given up on the band years ago after they "went commercial" in the '90s. And even fans of '80s CoC willing to give this a go, won't find an Animosity part II here anyway. Which could understandably have been the expectation, one subject to unavoidable disappointment. Others, into the band's latter day Southern stoner rawk thing, might not understand why they're doing an album without longtime frontman Pepper Keenan (he of Down fame, as well). So yeah, lots of baggage, that really we don't want to delve into much more here, 'cause what we're saying is, give this a chance on its own terms, it's actually damn good. This boldly self-titled album is its own beast, a blend of the old and the new really. And the trio for sure seem energized by this return (somewhat) to their roots. They sound like they MEAN it. While Animosity it ain't, they did prove on tour not long ago that they still could rip it up on the old Animosity-era material live (causing many 40-year old fans to risk injury in the moshpit, boy that was a bit scary). And for sure some of the tracks here are written that way, like the feedback laden "Leeches" and the speedy chugger "Rat City", both barely over 2 minutes in length. But there's a lot more to this album than putting the punk back into CoC... they also bring the metal. So, it's more like if some of their (better) later stuff was done with Animosity-era attitude, by those same dudes. Certainly CoC's "Southern Sabbath" tendencies are on display on tracks like "The Doom" (natch). We know they were/are fans of Trouble, you can hear that here... Also (though it almost seems weird to say), some Melvins too. And what about the vocals? At first, we too thought, hmm, if they're gonna have longtime bassist and former frontman Mike Dean sing again, wouldn't the idea be for him to growl and yowl like he did back in the day? Instead, he's much more melodic here than we remember (but still, sounds a heckuva lot more punk than Pepper). Dean snarls and spits, but also SINGS. And sounds pretty cool doing so, we think! Love his slightly gargled, high pitched, fists-clenched croon on the rippin' "Your Tomorrow" for instance. (Reed also takes the mic on a few tracks, too.) So, for what it's worth to fellow CoC fans/followers, in our opinion this is definitely their best album since Deliverance, at least. And the most metal they've been since Blind. And the most punk since Technocracy. But, we don't want only those folks who already knew what the initials CoC stand for to buy this! Anyone who hates bourgeois society but likes skateboards and Sabbath ought to check this out. Likewise if you're just into badass metallic doomed out rockin'. Like we said, it slays. Oh, the Seldon Hunt version of the CoC skull that adorns the cover is pretty cool, by the way! (We've got the digipack cd edition with 2 bonus tracks while they last, or the import vinyl version w/ bonus 7"...)

MPEG stream: River Of Stone
MPEG stream: Leeches
MPEG stream: Your Tomorrow

Boris may be the drone dirge darlings right now, but we've always had a soft spot for their more obscure countrymen Corrupted. Where Boris revel in cartoonish imagery, seventies kitsch, eighties heavy metal, bell bottoms, double neck guitars, and balls out rock and roll, Corrupted lurk in the shadows, sullen and distanced, weary and wary, crusty and curmudgeonly, wrapped in mystery, each record printed in stark black and white, a Japanese band singing exclusively in Spanish strangely enough, who are obliquely political, and much more grim and gloomy than Boris at their droniest. Every record a massive plodding slab of depressive doom, epic and monstrously heavy, but with stretches of delicate beauty. Rumors have been floating around of a triple cd, single three hour song, Corrupted release, but until that truly materializes, El Mundo Frio will probably remain the heaviest, creepiest, most beautiful, epic, expansive slab of slowcore doom drone you will ever hear. Ever. One hour and twelve minutes. A cloud of shimmering drone underpins hazy, haunting piano and warm chordal swells, plucked harps and simple finger picked guitars. For almost ten minutes, Corrupted creep along dreamily, stepping lightly, drifting lazily through a stark ambient soundfield, before the heavens collapse and the sky begins to fall in huge crushing chunks, and massive stabs of super distorted guitars swell and crumble into an abstract pounding rhythm. Completely heavy, but strangely lovely at the same time. A lilting melody is hidden somewhere beneath all that buzz and rumble. Eventually the stabs slowly mutate into a creeping, loping post rock rhythm, with minor key strums, simple shuffling drumming and growled semi-spoken vocals, before the whole thing fades to almost nothingness, revisiting the delicate shimmer of the beginning of the record. The last twenty five minutes are mostly ambient with snatches of that hypnotic post rock, and a brief but furious explosion of soul crushing heaviness with the same vocals delivered now in a glass gargling gurgle, and then the track drifts off into ten plus minutes of barely there dreaminess, mostly single notes on the harp drifting like snow flakes against a black night sky. So lovely. Easily the most fully realized 'doom' or 'dirge' track ever wethinks. So emotionally charged, so effortlessly complex and yet so utterly and beautifully simple. Somehow it's the perfect blend of Boris's Flood (our favorite Boris!), the doleful slowcore of Low, the abstract dirge of Harvey Milk, the epic expansiveness of Godspeed You Black Emperor, the metallic post rock of Pelican, the downtuned ultradoom of Skepticism, and the majestic dreaminess of Growing. Mighty expensive but well worth it. Comes packaged in an extravagant hardcover book style digipak, with a gorgeous booklet, lots of abstract black and white landscapes, printed on vellum and overlaid other images. So nice!

MPEG stream: El Mundo Frio

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SORRY. THEY REPRESSED THESE, SO WE NOW HAVE A FEW MORE COPIES, BACK IN STOCK!! The unexpected return of Japanese doom lords Corrupted!! Unexpected mostly because after the last record, as far we knew, the group had called it quits following the departure of long time vocalist Hevi. But lo and behold, Corrupted are back, with a new singer in the form of the oddly named Mother Sii, and a single sprawling song spread out over both sides of this new 7". Beginning with an extended sprawl of hushed ambience, all moaning vocals and drifting drones, the song soon explodes into some churning, roiling, downtuned crush, a monstrous sound, tribal drumming beneath blurred riffage that is so distorted and washed out that it almost sounds like grey noise, the new vocalist delivering a hellish bellow. Tranced out and super hypnotic, the song splinters into something totally different at the end of side A, getting all mathy and angular, almost punk, before fading out, sounding as if the group played on long after they stopped recording. We sort of expected the B side to pick up right where the A side left off, but instead, the flipside unwinds metal-less, a gorgeous sinister stretch of blackened thrum, a haunting, harrowing expanse of minimal drift, anguished wails and strange sonic interference way off in the distance, surfacing occasionally, but quickly sinking back beneath the uneasy surface of the smoldering, sinister sea of blackened rumblings and suffocating drones. Here's hoping this means a full length is coming soon. And as you might imagine, SUPER DUPER limited. Nicely packaged in minimal matte black sleeves with a printed insert.

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SORRY. One of the very first releases from thee rulers of downtuned heaviness, of doomy sludge, Japan's Corrupted. Most of the folks reading this list are pretty well familiar with Corrupted, whose records rank among all our all time favorites, sludge or otherwise. We recently listed the rerecording of the group's debut album Paso Inferior, now we have a vinyl reissue of one of their very first recordings, the Nadie ep, originally releases way back in 1995! It's been remastered, has all new artwork legendary Japanese photographer Kyotaka Tsurisaki, it comes in a super deluxe gatefold sleeves, and comes with a big poster on nice thick paper, and beyond all that, it is three tracks of the heaviest, most crushingly beautiful music you'll ever hear. Years before doom and sludge and drone was a viable musical direction, Corrupted were one of the few bands in the underground carving their own doomy slow motion path. Back in the day, they played with and toured with and shared splits with punk and grind bands, as while they may have not shared a sound, they shared an aesthetic and a DIY ethic. And even 12 years ago, Corrupted were already turning pounding drums, massive downtuned riffage and howled vocals (in Spanish of course) into something almost symphonic, majestic, epic, beautiful, while remaining punishing and brutal and heavy. Nadie is three tracks, 45pm, two shorter tracks that pound and pummel, a third sidelong track that hints at the droniness that would infuse their later recordings, with sheets of Eyehategod-like feedback, long drawn out chords, gorgeous and trancelike, as amazing now as it was more than a decade ago, and this record definitely casts lots of the wannabe doomdronedirge outfits as unworthy to even lug Corrupted's gear around. This is not just drone and sludge for drone and sludge's sake, these are SONGS, perfectly arranged, parts woven into other parts, melodies, and harmonies, it's incredible complex, which is why the music of Corrupted resonates, and continues to move well beyond the boundaries of the genre they find themselves defining. The is, needless to say, totally essential. The bad news is that it is LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES! And is already out of print. We got a BUNCH, but judging from how quickly the last limited Corrupted record disappeared, these are bound to be gone in a flash.

A lot has changed since we first listed Paso Inferior nearly a decade ago. Here's our very short review from way back then: "Japanese crust-sludge band, super slow, super heavy. Their new disc. Some facts: 1) they just toured the States. 2) their lyrics are all sung in Spanish. 3) the drummer used to be in Omoide Hatoba, Boredoms guitarist Yamamoto's weird jazz/pop project, but he quit when Omoide signed to a major. 4) this album features only one song, it's 40+ minutes long... Great vegging-out music for fans of Earth, Sleep, Eyehategod, Swans, etc." Well, all of that stuff still applies for sure, but this is not, as we thought, a vinyl reissue of the original cd. Instead this is a rerecorded version of Paso Inferior, recorded in 2002, utilizing the same themes and melodies, but a whole new song, the A side sonically similar to the original, the B side, a droney blissed out drift, which is in fact an 'ambient version' of the original Paso Inferior!! Since the original release, the group has released several more records, each slower and more epic than the last, even incorporating piano and acoustic guitar. And you can hear that in the reimagined Paso. Their appeal spread way beyond the punk rockers and hardcore kids who held them so beloved. Metalheads are Corrupted obsessed nowadays, as are the new breed of dronedirgedoom fanatics. But back in the Paso Inferior days, they were the underground kings of sludge, sharing splits with pretty much every power violence band that was up for it. A band that was spoken of in hushed reverent tones, but whose actual recorded output, included only a single full length, Paso Inferior. The spirit and power of the original are definitely present, but the sound is better, heavier, and weirdly pretty in that way only Corrupted seem to be able to pull off. One sidelong doomsludge crawl, the guitars black and viscous, the track laced with squealing washed out feedback, the vocals a growled gurgle, the drums a loping lumbering pound, recent talk of a single 3 hour song don't seem at all far fetched when listening to the reimgined Paso Inferior, there's something magical and mysterious about the music of Corrupted, no matter how slow or sludgey or stripped down, it never gets boring, it sucks you in and soothes your spirit, while it crashes and pummels, mesmerizing, hypnotic, so heavy, but weirdly transcendental. The other half of the new Paso Inferior is another sidelong epic, this one dark and ambient, all shimmery drones, haunting melodies, mysterious voices, a dreamy drift rife with long tones, layered chords, but all muted and blurred and stretched into something more dark and lovely than grim and ominous, perfectly balancing the sludgey sprawl on the flipside. All new artwork to go with the music, black on black, shiny on matte, the band logo and flames or drips or streaks of some kind, inside a printed insert, pressed on nice thick vinyl, and of course CRAZY limited. In fact pretty sure this is out of print now and we might be one of the only places with copies. Which means, as always, these will go FAST.

Sadly, the legendary Japanese label HG Fact, longtime home to sludgelords Corrupted, closed up shop recently, rendering loads of amazing records gone for good, but Corrupted managed to acquire a handful of remaining copies of this otherwise out of print doom/sludge classic, and we got as many as we could from them - not many. So this is indeed available again, for what we're guessing will be a very, very limited time... Here's our review from way back in 2004 when we first listed Se Hace Por Los Suenos Asesinos (and back when Boris were still a doom/sludge band as well): It's time. Be afraid. Very afraid. Or if you're a typical AQ customer and love your rock music glacier slow, tarpit thick and skull crushingly heavy, well then, in that case there's nothing to be afraid of! Everyone may quake and tremble when the mighty Boris unleash a new slab of black hole mega dense heaviosity. And rightfully so. Few can keep up when it comes to slow motion riffage, tectonic pummel and massive planet destroying rock. But there is another....one who came before....one who resurfaces occasionally....to remind the world that this sleeping behemoth can rise at anytime and raze all that dare proclaim themselves HEAVY. That beast...is known as... the Corrupted. One of the few bands in Japan, nay the WORLD, that can go toe to toe with Boris and hope to survive, perhaps even triumph. Some of you may remember Corrupted's massive two disc set Llenandose de Gusanos, from 3 or 4 years back, one disc of minimal drones, one disc of crushing sonic sludge (and piano). Maybe the finest document of death/doom/drone/sludge ever recorded - except perhaps for the rumoured-to-exist triple disc (!) SINGLE SONG (!!) Corrupted epic that has yet to surface. But for now, we'll have to be happy with this new 35 minute monster. The disc opens with a 17 minute ambient folk dirge, just acoustic guitar and harshly whispered/grunted vocals. In Spanish (as always) and rumblingly hypnotic. Like a ultra grim, creepily acoustic Neurosis, all stripped down and stretched out. Never imagined just a voice and an acoustic guitar could be so fucking scary, but for almost twenty minutes, the low end folk sludge stretches on seemingly forever, narcoticizing and mesmerizing, before the second track drops like a ton of lead Marshall stacks. Massively loud and perplexingly heavy, HUGE slabs of downtuned guitars pour molten riffs down your willing throat, filling you with black tar melodies, jagged limb smashing drumming, and bass so low it seems to loosen the earth's crust around you. The final track picks up the pace, to barely midtempo, but certainly a breakneck speed for a lumbering behemoth like the Corrupted. Drummer Chew (formerly of Omoide Hatoba) gets to go all Animal on this track, smashing everything within reach, the only thing keeping him behind the kit is the impenetratable wall of mile-thick ocean-deep sonic sludge, like pouring a bucket of hot molasses on a porcupine. Or dropping a sea anenome in a vat of hot glue, or like listening to Black Sabbath with your ears full of mud. Where Boris is channelling all sort of seventies rock, and stoner riffage, albeit through their own slow motion filter, Corrupted are just really fucking scary. A huge uncontainable, slithering, squirming, unstoppable, slow-motion, crusty metallic black hole.

MPEG stream: Track One (Se Hace...)
MPEG stream: Rato Triste

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SORRY. 3 songs in 20 minutes of festering brutal heavy sludgecore 'sung' in Spanish by this band from Osaka. Features Chew, ex-Omoide Hatoba on tambor/drums.

SORRY -- we have only 5 copies of this left in stock, and that's probably gonna be it... so act fast, five of you. Awesome split lp of free jazz / drone folk / modern musical mystery from two different but similar in sonic spirit angles. Side one features underground free jazz wunderkind Chris Corsano (drummer for Sunburned Hand Of The Man, as well as sometime music partner of Paul Flaherty, Joe McPhee and more) teaming up with Six Organs Of Admittance's Ben Chasny again (Corsano has drummed for Six Organs in the past) for a skittery, scattery guitar versus drums duel. Guitars slither and skitter, shimmer and scrape, matching Corsano's bursts of jazzy percussive scribble almost note for note, occasionally Chasny unleashes thick swoops of chordal hum, or spray his opponent with little squalls of psychedelic freakout. It's all very mumbly and murky and very very free, Six Organs fans might be a little taken aback, but it's an awesome sixteen minutes if you can handle it. The other side is taken up by "jazz" guitarist Paul Metzger, who plays a modified axe, cobbled together from bits of music boxes and an electric tanpura (like a fretless sitar, sort of) and the result is divine. A long slow burning raga woven from buzzing steel string drones, dense and deftly interwoven, over the top, simple Eastern melodies, that also buzz and rumble, and above it all soft crystalline chimes from the modified music boxes, adding a bit of subtle sparkle and dreamy melody to the dark and moody minor key raga-scape beneath. Really cool. Definitely for fans of Jack Rose, Pelt, James Blackshaw, Greg Malcolm, Matt Valentine and the like. Limited to 766 copies, with silkscreened wood covers. Beautiful!

Oh boy. Now here's a real "holy grail" psych album, at last reissued on cd and widely available!!! You've heard a taste of this if you've got the Brazilian edition of the Love, Peace & Poetry compilation series. Lula Cortes E Ze Ramalho's amazing acid-psych-folk-prog album Paebiru came out in Brazil in 1975, and at some point afterwards, many of the original copies were apparently destroyed in a fire (y'know, kinda as if they knew that collectors were gonna cry over that later). So, it possesses such desirable status in part 'cause the record is so rare and obscure. But in fact it's truly deserving of its holy grail rep 'cause the music on it is so terrific -- so lovely and so freaky. The Shadoks label has done us all a favor here. The talented multinstrumentalist Lula Cortes was one half of the wonderful acoustic hippy folk duo Satwa, whose eponymous 1973 album was reissued and reviewed here earlier this year. If you picked that up, you've got an idea of how nice the folky parts on here are, inspired by both Portuguese/Spanish and South Amerindian musical tradition. But that's only a part of the sound here. On the elaborately produced Paebiru, Cortes and equally gifted collaborator Ze Ramalho, along with several supporting musicians, have expanded the scope of their music to include pulsating krautrock-ish throb, wild jazz improvisation, and distorted electric fuzz attack, utilizing both rock and ethnic instruments, piano, horns, and more -- all with a high degree of inspiration, emotion, and technical skill. The result is a sprawling but consistent masterpiece, originally a double LP. Four sides, four elements: Terra, Ar, Fogo, Agua. This elemental concept allows for many moods and revelations. As Shadoks says, it's "uninhibited tribal psychedelic rock" that they compare, rightly, to the brillance of Amon Duul II and Algarnas Tradgard. Recommended.

MPEG stream: Omm
MPEG stream: Raga Dos Raios

ATTENTION: LOVESLIESCRUSHING FANS!! We managed to get a handful of these split 12"s direct from the man himself, one side a gorgeous slab of hazy LLC style shimmer, the other an equally lovely bit of abstract guitarscaping from a new to us outfit, it's already out of print, we have a handful of copies, but they will probably not be around for long. The Cortez side is of course Scott Cortez, the man behind Lovesliescrushing, and the sound is quite similar to much of the LLC stuff, in particular the fantastic Voirshin record, hushed and hazy, ultra minimal, a blurred lovely stretch of softly layered drones, glimmering and glistening and aquatic sounding, very much reminiscent of William Basinski, like if you locked up the tapes that were the source for this record, in 20 years, it'd be all crumbling and decayed and disintegrating. The flipside is from a group called Language Of Light, who we've never heard until now, a good match for Cortez, similarly washed out and ethereal, but more structured, chiming guitars streaks over processed metallic shimmer, with muted hazy melodies, before the sound shifts to something much darker and ominous, a jagged processed loopscape, weirdly warped and noisy, but that quickly gives way to the final movement, more lovely guitar ambience, blurred and gauzy and otherworldly.

We've long championed the beautiful bliss of Lovesliescrushing, which was born in the early '90s as a deconstructed shoegaze project producing billowing masses of blown-out drift-drone on oversaturated 4-track recordings with bits of song smeared amidst the ethereal guitar and voice. It seems as though Lovesliescrushing's guitarist / principle sound sculptor Scott Cortez has been digging through the archives. First there was the Girl Echo Suns Veils boxset which issued some of the demos and alternate mixes from way back in the early '90s, and now he's gathered this collection of unreleased guitar drones recorded outside the context of LLC from 1997-1999. Robin Guthrie and Kevin Shields certainly loom large as the icons for Lovesliescrushing's guitarist Scott Cortez; but this work also looks forward to the guitar driven driftscaping produced by Fennesz and Tim Hecker (on Black Sea and Radio Amor especially). Cortez opens the album with lovely ambient passages of smooth surfaces that whisper hints of an impressionist romantic underbelly. For those familiar with the most recent work from Cortez on Lovesliescrushing's restrained Crwth (Chorus Redux) or the split lp he did with Language Of Light, these amorphic tones will be instantly recognizable. But as the album progresses (and this becomes apparent by the 5th movement of Twin Radiant Flux), the smooth surfaces at first become disturbed in a series of darkened shimmers, slightly distorted passages, oceanic swells, and harmonic rumblings. Slipstreams of blurred noise which extend into the aforementioned Hecker / Fennesz territory act as a suitable crescendo, however subtle that might be, to this exceptional album!

MPEG stream: Part II
MPEG stream: Part V
MPEG stream: Part IX

The Vancouver based minimal wave outfit Cosmetics floored us a couple years ago with two singles they made for Captured Tracks. Those singles now command collector's prices, having gone quickly out of print. A proper full-length record has been long in the works, supposedly to be completed by sometime in 2015. While we eagerly await that one of these days, at least we've now got this compendium featuring those two singles, along with some unreleased material and a couple of tracks that only previoulsy showed up on their Bandcamp page. Here's what we said about "Soft Skin / Black Leather Gloves" - two stellar variations on the death-disco synth sexiness of Miss Kitten & The Hacker. These two songs are dripping with a chic and sensual haze that we can't get enough of. Lo-fi synths, woozy lysergic vocals, and a stripped down DIY aesthetic that makes the Cosmetics' sonic silver clouds sound that much better. It's like they took the most rudimentary elements of early Gina X, Grace Jones, Eurythmics and Ruth, stripped away the gloss and shiny big production and brought it all into a seedy basement in the wee hours of the morning after a drug fueled wild night. In lots of ways its like a less glossy and more smoldery version of the Italians Do It Better groups (Chromatics, Glass Candy, etc.). As for "Sleepwalking / The Cries," it's like the most sensual, seductive steam just comes pouring out of the speakers and takes us to a dark lit, after hours nightclub made for coming down softly, a sonic soundtrack for chilling out in the most striking and sexy way imaginable. As hot and seductive as the Chromatics are, somehow Cosmetics roam in a very similar territory but turn up the heat, with a dark dripping potency that washes through our bodies with a sound so pleasing and yet still slightly sinister. Taking cues from synth wave seducers like Ruth, Dark Day, and Liaisons Dangereuses. Fans of all things minimal wave will definitely want to check this out!

MPEG stream: Soft Skin
MPEG stream: Black Leather Gloves

The second we lay the needle on the clear vinyl of this 45, it's like the most sensual, seductive steam just comes pouring out of the speakers and takes us to a dark lit, after hours nightclub made for coming down softly, a sonic soundtrack for chilling out in the most striking and sexy way imaginable. We fell so hard for the first Cosmetics 7" and it's been impossible to get it back in stock so we're happy to have two brand new songs to get hooked on all over again. As hot and seductive as the Chromatics are, somehow Cosmetics roam in a very similar territory but turn up the heat, with a dark dripping potency that washes through our bodies with a sound so pleasing and yet still slightly sinister. Taking cues from synth wave seducers like Ruth, Dark Day, and Liaisons Dangereuses. Not sure how fast we will be able to get more of these so best act fast on this one!

This new duo from New York have us totally hooked, with just these two killer tracks, their debut on Captured Tracks. Rare is the band that can pull that off. These two songs are dripping with a chic and sensual haze that we can't get enough of. Lo-fi synths, woozy lysergic vocals, and a stripped down DIY aesthetic that makes the Cosmetics' sonic silver clouds sound that much better. It's like they took the most rudimentary elements of early Gina X, Grace Jones, Eurythmics and Ruth, stripped away the gloss and shiny big production and brought it all into a seedy basement in the wee hours of the morning after a drug fueled wild night. In lots of ways its like a less glossy and more smoldery version of the Italians Do It Better groups (Chromatics, Glass Candy, etc.). Fans of all things minimal wave will definitely want to check this out! Everything about this 7" works perfectly. Their name, the silver chromatic cover, all the visuals complement the two hypnotizing slow burners inside. We've been playing this over and over in the shop nonstop. We have a hunch that probably won't change any time soon. A sizzling debut for sure!

After months and months of trying to track down releases on UK label Cardinal Fuzz, a few weeks ago, we managed to get copies of lps by two Swedish outfits, the Hills and the Janitors, both of which we could barely keep in stock (although we lucked into a few more copies of the Janitors, revisited elsewhere on this week's list, most likely the last ever!), so this week, we have two more Cardinal Fuzz jams, which by the title might give you an idea of what sort of sounds to expect. Heavy psychedelic space rock seems to be Cardinal Fuzz's mission statement, and this reissue (originally released on cd by another UK label, Paradigms) from Glasgow psychedelic space-kraut kosmonauts Cosmic Dead is very much in keeping with that, unfurling four epic tracks (one that clocks in at nearly 40 minutes and takes up both sides of the second lp!), of slow burn kosmische drift, that explodes into heavy heart-of-the-sun Hawkwind style space rock mega-jam blowout. The 19 minute opener "The Black Rabbit" is pretty much all you need, a long stretch of glimmering FX and smoldering kraut-age drift, explodes into pounding motorik heaviness, a Circle like groove wreathed in clouds of swirling effects and keening guitar melodies, like a revved up Spacemen 3, the band somehow keep building the sound getting more and more dense, driving and hypnotic, squalls of psych guitar freakout are smeared into chordal washes, while the bass and drums continue to get wilder and more chaotic, shades of early Monster Magnet for sure, the sort of endless drug fueled hypnorock jamming that even at 19 minutes is not nearly long enough. And that's pretty much it, all four tracks here are built for maximum trance out. whether it's the relatively brief "Spice Melange Spectrum" (clocking in at 6:47), that is heavy on the drums, a driving chunk of druggy dirgery that manages to transform the sound into something transcendent, or the 13+ minute "Infinite Death Of The Godhead", which locks into a more krautrocky groove, all low slung and motorik, murky and mesmeric, but then explodes partway through into some serious dense heaviness, again traversing a landscape of soaring swirls and cosmic shimmer. There are even some vocals here too, a sort of OM-like chant, that suits the sound perfectly, a sort of trancey, ritualistic mantra that only adds to the the track's murky mesmer. And of course, there's the aforementioned "Father Sky, Mother Earth", that starts at the beginning of side 3, and doesn't let up 'til the very end of side 4, vinyl limitations be damned, an epic sprawl of freeform drug-drone space-psych drone-drift hypnorock majesty, each part given plenty of time to develop, slow sloooooow builds, and when the band is locked in, it's the sort of endless ur-psych jammery that we never tire of. But it is 40 minutes after all, so there's lots going on, the sound drifting into some almost doomy dirgery, some slowed down druggy dream-psych, some thick riffy crunch, some bass heavy almost noise rock, and yeah, of course, a total blown out super psychedelic megajam. Needless to say WAY recommended, especially if you dig stuff like The Heads, White Hills, Carlton Melton, Gnod, Hookworms, Moonrises, the Hills, Bardo Pond, Assemble Head In Sunburst Sound, Telescopes and the like. We got a bunch of these, but if the Janitors and Hills records were any indication, this is EXTREMELY LIMITED and won't be around for long!!! Packaged in a swank orange and silver gatefold jacket.

MPEG stream: The Black Rabbit
MPEG stream: Infinite Death Of The Godhead

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

SORRY. Japanese heavy psych supergroup, with Masaki Batoh and other Ghosts, guitarist Michio Kurihara of White Heaven/Ghost, and ex-Subvert Blaze drummer Okano.

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

SORRY. Klaus Schulze and others.

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

SORRY.

You've got to be a pretty good band to live up to a name like Cosmic Psychos, and as you may know already, these Aussies certainly DO, even though they're not the surrealistic hippy space rock freaks that one might initially think from the name. No, this is fuzzed out, beer swilling PUNK rock, heavy and catchy, beholden most of all probably to bands like The Stooges and Black Flag, made by self-described farmers whose main interests in life appear to be beer, sex, shotguns, and loud rock n' roll, not necessarily in that order. Which of course means they're awesome. The Cosmic Psychos have been around for forever - just a couple years ago their earliest albums from the late '80s were reissued on Goner and you can check elsewhere on our site for our enthusiastic reviews of those longtime faves. In fact, they've been around long enough for there to have been a documentary film made about them! Cum The Raw Prawn (no, we don't know what that means exactly, and probably don't want to know) is their latest album, first in six years actually, and rest assured they're still as Psycho as ever. Bad (yet fun!) attitude, foul language and lots of volume, that's their formula, and therefore this album delivers an abundance of gruff aggro vocals and big bouncy riffage. In addition to the title track, this record features such ditties as "Fuckwit City", "Bum For Grubs", and "Pint Girl". Basically, if you're ever loved the Cosmic Psychos, you'll love this. If you've ever loved kick your head in, cranked to ten, hammered on Foster's rock n' roll, you'll love this too. So there you go, have at it. FYI if you get the vinyl, it includes a download code; if you get the cd, you probably don't need a download code.

MPEG stream: Better, Not Bitter
MPEG stream: Come And Get Some
MPEG stream: Cum The Raw Prawn

Here at aQuarius, we've sure got a soft spot for ugly, noisy Australian punk, much of it swaggery and swampy and fucked up, and sometimes kinda poppy too - such varied bands as The Scientists, Radio Birdman, feedtime, Grong Grong, Venom P. Stinger, The Lime Spiders, The Birthday Party, Lubricated Goat, and (more recently) the likes of Slug Guts and Cuntz - amongst MANY other excellent rawk acts from Down Under. And one of the softest spots we've got, is reserved for Melbourne's Cosmic Psychos, whose earliest efforts have recently been reissued by the fine folks at Goner, yah!! It's been forever since this band's crucial late '80s output has been available Stateside, so those who haven't eBay'ed a precious Sup Pop pressing of Go The Hack, for instance, are now in luck - if your idea of lucky is the opportunity to have your ears peeled back by a drunken trio of Aussies, with amps and attitude both cranked to 11, pounding out rough hewn garage punk! Primitive, badass rockin' that's part Motorhead, part Black Flag. Some Stooges and Ramones in there too. These blokes bring it when it comes to widdly wah wah guitar distortion, walloping rhythmic thump, mean gravely vocals, and nasty feedback... all good things, eh? And better yet, the songs are all catchier than the most popular of venereal diseases. The tracklisting of each of these records is just gnarly gem after gnarly gem. Maybe there's the most singalong potential with the hooky material on Go The Hack (1989), while debut mini-lp Down On The Farm (1985) features a couple of the band's lengthiest, most spaced out/wasted tracks (like the FX laden jam "Crazy Woman"), and the self-titled album (1987) perhaps finds 'em at their most, uh, psychotic, but we strongly recommend picking up ALL of these reissued releases, done as 3 separate vinyl 12" records, or two compact discs. What the Cosmic Psychos do isn't rocket science (in fact, part of their charm is being brilliantly dumb, check out the chorus to Go The Hack's "Back In Town", also you gotta love the '80s pop culture references of songs like "Rambo" and "David Lee Roth", both found on the s/t album) but they do it with, shall we say, an ample amount of gusto. And certainly some humor. These hooligans have got a special something all right. They're called the Cosmic Psychos after all, they've gotta be good. Psychos? No doubt. Cosmic? Well, it for sure ain't krautrock. But there is plenty of sick FUZZ, so we think folks into the garage psych of the The Heads, ferinstance, could dig this stuff big time, especially after a few beers. Heck, there's even some unexpected "arty" bits like the various spoken samples (including a Hitler speech) inserted amidst the miasmic mayhem of Down On The Farm's "Gangrene Dream". Hopefully their '90s AmRep records will get reissued sometime too - we'd love to hear "Dead Roo" again... And if you haven't seen it yet, there's a Cosmic Psychos documentary too, that's AWESOME, check out the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7CbDQ2ZryA

MPEG stream: Down On The Farm
MPEG stream: Gangrene Dream

Here at aQuarius, we've sure got a soft spot for ugly, noisy Australian punk, much of it swaggery and swampy and fucked up, and sometimes kinda poppy too - such varied bands as The Scientists, Radio Birdman, feedtime, Grong Grong, Venom P. Stinger, The Lime Spiders, The Birthday Party, Lubricated Goat, and (more recently) the likes of Slug Guts and Cuntz - amongst MANY other excellent rawk acts from Down Under. And one of the softest spots we've got, is reserved for Melbourne's Cosmic Psychos, whose earliest efforts have recently been reissued by the fine folks at Goner, yah!! It's been forever since this band's crucial late '80s output has been available Stateside, so those who haven't eBay'ed a precious Sup Pop pressing of Go The Hack, for instance, are now in luck - if your idea of lucky is the opportunity to have your ears peeled back by a drunken trio of Aussies, with amps and attitude both cranked to 11, pounding out rough hewn garage punk! Primitive, badass rockin' that's part Motorhead, part Black Flag. Some Stooges and Ramones in there too. These blokes bring it when it comes to widdly wah wah guitar distortion, walloping rhythmic thump, mean gravely vocals, and nasty feedback... all good things, eh? And better yet, the songs are all catchier than the most popular of venereal diseases. The tracklisting of each of these records is just gnarly gem after gnarly gem. Maybe there's the most singalong potential with the hooky material on Go The Hack (1989), while debut mini-lp Down On The Farm (1985) features a couple of the band's lengthiest, most spaced out/wasted tracks (like the FX laden jam "Crazy Woman"), and the self-titled album (1987) perhaps finds 'em at their most, uh, psychotic, but we strongly recommend picking up ALL of these reissued releases, done as 3 separate vinyl 12" records, or two compact discs. What the Cosmic Psychos do isn't rocket science (in fact, part of their charm is being brilliantly dumb, check out the chorus to Go The Hack's "Back In Town", also you gotta love the '80s pop culture references of songs like "Rambo" and "David Lee Roth", both found on the s/t album) but they do it with, shall we say, an ample amount of gusto. And certainly some humor. These hooligans have got a special something all right. They're called the Cosmic Psychos after all, they've gotta be good. Psychos? No doubt. Cosmic? Well, it for sure ain't krautrock. But there is plenty of sick FUZZ, so we think folks into the garage psych of the The Heads, ferinstance, could dig this stuff big time, especially after a few beers. Heck, there's even some unexpected "arty" bits like the various spoken samples (including a Hitler speech) inserted amidst the miasmic mayhem of Down On The Farm's "Gangrene Dream". Hopefully their '90s AmRep records will get reissued sometime too - we'd love to hear "Dead Roo" again... And if you haven't seen it yet, there's a Cosmic Psychos documentary too, that's AWESOME, check out the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7CbDQ2ZryA

MPEG stream: Down On The Farm
MPEG stream: Gangrene Dream
MPEG stream: Quarter To Three
MPEG stream: Jellyfish

Here at aQuarius, we've sure got a soft spot for ugly, noisy Australian punk, much of it swaggery and swampy and fucked up, and sometimes kinda poppy too - such varied bands as The Scientists, Radio Birdman, feedtime, Grong Grong, Venom P. Stinger, The Lime Spiders, The Birthday Party, Lubricated Goat, and (more recently) the likes of Slug Guts and Cuntz - amongst MANY other excellent rawk acts from Down Under. And one of the softest spots we've got, is reserved for Melbourne's Cosmic Psychos, whose earliest efforts have recently been reissued by the fine folks at Goner, yah!! It's been forever since this band's crucial late '80s output has been available Stateside, so those who haven't eBay'ed a precious Sup Pop pressing of Go The Hack, for instance, are now in luck - if your idea of lucky is the opportunity to have your ears peeled back by a drunken trio of Aussies, with amps and attitude both cranked to 11, pounding out rough hewn garage punk! Primitive, badass rockin' that's part Motorhead, part Black Flag. Some Stooges and Ramones in there too. These blokes bring it when it comes to widdly wah wah guitar distortion, walloping rhythmic thump, mean gravely vocals, and nasty feedback... all good things, eh? And better yet, the songs are all catchier than the most popular of venereal diseases. The tracklisting of each of these records is just gnarly gem after gnarly gem. Maybe there's the most singalong potential with the hooky material on Go The Hack (1989), while debut mini-lp Down On The Farm (1985) features a couple of the band's lengthiest, most spaced out/wasted tracks (like the FX laden jam "Crazy Woman"), and the self-titled album (1987) perhaps finds 'em at their most, uh, psychotic, but we strongly recommend picking up ALL of these reissued releases, done as 3 separate vinyl 12" records, or two compact discs. What the Cosmic Psychos do isn't rocket science (in fact, part of their charm is being brilliantly dumb, check out the chorus to Go The Hack's "Back In Town", also you gotta love the '80s pop culture references of songs like "Rambo" and "David Lee Roth", both found on the s/t album) but they do it with, shall we say, an ample amount of gusto. And certainly some humor. These hooligans have got a special something all right. They're called the Cosmic Psychos after all, they've gotta be good. Psychos? No doubt. Cosmic? Well, it for sure ain't krautrock. But there is plenty of sick FUZZ, so we think folks into the garage psych of the The Heads, ferinstance, could dig this stuff big time, especially after a few beers. Heck, there's even some unexpected "arty" bits like the various spoken samples (including a Hitler speech) inserted amidst the miasmic mayhem of Down On The Farm's "Gangrene Dream". Hopefully their '90s AmRep records will get reissued sometime too - we'd love to hear "Dead Roo" again... And if you haven't seen it yet, there's a Cosmic Psychos documentary too, that's AWESOME, check out the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7CbDQ2ZryA

MPEG stream: Alright Tonite
MPEG stream: Back In Town
MPEG stream: Go The Hack

Here at aQuarius, we've sure got a soft spot for ugly, noisy Australian punk, much of it swaggery and swampy and fucked up, and sometimes kinda poppy too - such varied bands as The Scientists, Radio Birdman, feedtime, Grong Grong, Venom P. Stinger, The Lime Spiders, The Birthday Party, Lubricated Goat, and (more recently) the likes of Slug Guts and Cuntz - amongst MANY other excellent rawk acts from Down Under. And one of the softest spots we've got, is reserved for Melbourne's Cosmic Psychos, whose earliest efforts have recently been reissued by the fine folks at Goner, yah!! It's been forever since this band's crucial late '80s output has been available Stateside, so those who haven't eBay'ed a precious Sup Pop pressing of Go The Hack, for instance, are now in luck - if your idea of lucky is the opportunity to have your ears peeled back by a drunken trio of Aussies, with amps and attitude both cranked to 11, pounding out rough hewn garage punk! Primitive, badass rockin' that's part Motorhead, part Black Flag. Some Stooges and Ramones in there too. These blokes bring it when it comes to widdly wah wah guitar distortion, walloping rhythmic thump, mean gravely vocals, and nasty feedback... all good things, eh? And better yet, the songs are all catchier than the most popular of venereal diseases. The tracklisting of each of these records is just gnarly gem after gnarly gem. Maybe there's the most singalong potential with the hooky material on Go The Hack (1989), while debut mini-lp Down On The Farm (1985) features a couple of the band's lengthiest, most spaced out/wasted tracks (like the FX laden jam "Crazy Woman"), and the self-titled album (1987) perhaps finds 'em at their most, uh, psychotic, but we strongly recommend picking up ALL of these reissued releases, done as 3 separate vinyl 12" records, or two compact discs. What the Cosmic Psychos do isn't rocket science (in fact, part of their charm is being brilliantly dumb, check out the chorus to Go The Hack's "Back In Town", also you gotta love the '80s pop culture references of songs like "Rambo" and "David Lee Roth", both found on the s/t album) but they do it with, shall we say, an ample amount of gusto. And certainly some humor. These hooligans have got a special something all right. They're called the Cosmic Psychos after all, they've gotta be good. Psychos? No doubt. Cosmic? Well, it for sure ain't krautrock. But there is plenty of sick FUZZ, so we think folks into the garage psych of the The Heads, ferinstance, could dig this stuff big time, especially after a few beers. Heck, there's even some unexpected "arty" bits like the various spoken samples (including a Hitler speech) inserted amidst the miasmic mayhem of Down On The Farm's "Gangrene Dream". Hopefully their '90s AmRep records will get reissued sometime too - we'd love to hear "Dead Roo" again... And if you haven't seen it yet, there's a Cosmic Psychos documentary too, that's AWESOME, check out the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7CbDQ2ZryA

MPEG stream: Quarter To Three
MPEG stream: Jellyfish

Originally released on tape a while back, this primo slab of Orange County garage-psych has been recently reissued by our pals at Permanent, and we're so grateful it has, since that tape disappeared before we could grab one, and listening to this now, we can't imagine folks into the current crop of fuzzed out psych won't flip for this SoCal crew, who whip up a heady brew combining Spacemen 3 like druggy mesmer blown out swaggery Oh Sees style distorto garage stomp. Fierce and feral, raw and urgent, just check out "Neon Kids", all dirgey and Stooges-y, the guitar fuzzy and drenched in effects, the vocals a marble mouthed yowl, the whole mix WAY in the red, or "Dorothy", a furious blast of chaotic surf-punk fuzz pop chaos, but which spends its last couple minutes all droney, unfurling a buzzing sitar-like main riff, trancey and super hypnotic. There's also a definitely Wooden Shjips / Moon Duo vibe, and we hear plenty of Ty Segall's glammy garage in Cosmonauts' druggy dronerock, but they manage to take all those influences and craft something, that to a certain degree is all their own. Tracks like "Yer So Rad" slow things way down, into super head nodding lysergic dirgery, which balances the other more frenetic jams, but those jams, especially tracks like "T.V. California" display a pretty serious knack for classic pop songsmithery, they just tend to take whatever pop they whip up, and douse it in distortion, and send it careening, sweaty, bruised and bloodied, into the fray. Sorta surprised these guys aren't on Castle Face, which already pretty much probably tells you all you need to know. Fans of the usual garage psych suspects, will dig big time!

MPEG stream: Neon Kids
MPEG stream: Dorothy
MPEG stream: Yer So Rad

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Now reissued on vinyl, Gal Costa's self-titled debut fits nicely into the canon of essential Tropicalia records. Beautiful production by Rogerio Duprat, and of course songwriting and vocal assistance from both Caetano Veloso, and Giberto Gil. While this only hints at the unhinged fuzz psych of her follow-up, Gal, there are some amazing moments that all fans of this crucial era of Brazilian music will love, especially her versions of "Nao Identificado", "Baby", and "Lost In The Paradise."

Long, long before he hooked up and mellowed out with Burt Bacharach (how 'bout twenty four years ago!?), a young Elvis Costello kicked ass with the punchy greatness of "Radio, Radio" and "Pump It Up" and here is the excellent album that featured these early

RealAudio clip: Pump It Up
RealAudio clip: Radio, Radio (Capitol Radio Version)
RealAudio clip: Running Out Of Angels (Demo)

This is Mr. Costello's first solo record in seven years, and a couple of his Attractions -- pianist Steve Nieve and drummer Pete Thomas -- join him on this release. He planned to make it a rowdy work... at least in contrast to the abundance of balladry he's

RealAudio clip: 45
RealAudio clip: When I Was Cruel No. 2

Elvis abandons most of the rock and schlock and finds a simpler, gentler self. Vocals soar high above the music -- tactfully executed with tinkling pianos and harmonizing synthesizer. It's nice to see someone back on the right track, huh?

Once you get past the first couple of songs on Elvis Costello's 21st (!) album, it's smooth sailin'. Why? Well, for one thing the third song is a rambunctious duet with Lucinda Williams that really kicks things into gear. After that, he slows things down to his trademark poignant croon for "Either Side Of The Same Town", then peppers up the tempo for the funky groove of "Bedlam". For the most part, he cycles through this trio of moods for the rest of the album. It makes for a lively mix that brings together the spark of his early power pop self with the mature composure of one of pop rock's elder statesmen. The album's high points though are definitely his duets with Emmylou Harris. She provides a fittingly dreamy counterpart to Costello's balladeer persona on three songs -- the lulling, velvety "Nothing Clings Like Ivy", the bittersweet "Heart Shaped Bruise", and the barebones ukelele and voice number "The Scarlet Tide". Totally worth the price of admission! So what's the problem with the album's beginning? Geez, to be honest, it's just a pretty jarring howdoyoudo with Costello taking on an uncharacteristically ballsy, jazzy soul voice with music to match (ending it with some James Brown-y yelps even... oh my!).

MPEG stream: There's A Story In Your Voice
MPEG stream: Heart Shaped Bruise

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SORRY. *Not* the Couch from Michigan, rather the latest post-(kraut)rock offering from the label that brought you Village of Savoonga. More German Slintish, angular, brooding math/chamber rock. Highly recommended.

German post-rockers Couch veers from the brooding math rock of their previous album to this rather festive collection of Hammond organ driven grooves and a jazzy-prog-pop not at all dissimilar to that recent Sam Prekop album.

These German post-rockers continue on in the light, jazzy, prog-ish pop vein that they embarked on in their previous endeavour 'Fantasy', but it's perhaps even more bright and pretty than that. Yes, it appears they've definitely left the advanced math books behind. Lovely and chiming like a super-deluxe music box, but with a steady, anchoring rhythm section so it won't float away.

2 women from the Red Aunts and the guy from Clawhammer. Uncontrollably chaotic and fascinating, like a female Cows. Recommended!

We were pretty crazy for the Cough Cool cd-r on Debacle we reviewed a while back, heavy on all 3 of the aQ D's: Droney, Druggy and Dreamy, a sort of warped slo-mo bedroom pop that blurred shoegaze shimmer into lo-fi jangle dirge drift, within which lurked all sorts of warm liquid poppy goodness. If anything this latest lp just finds the band doing what they do even better. All of the above mentioned elements are still present, and heck it's one of those records where we could probably have just used the same review over again, but it's definitely worth mentioning that while this might on the surface sound just like that cd-r part two, it's way more, the sounds are more lush and dense, without really getting that much more high fidelity, and the songs too, manage to be even catchier, but again, without losing any of their sonic nonchalance. The rhythms are rudimentary, dirgey and almost stumbly, to the point that they almost sound like real drums (heck, maybe they are), and the definitely goes a long way to giving CC a lush organic feel, and on songs like "Got A Show", it's like they're channeling nineties indie pop, big fuzzy guitars, swirls of reverb and effects, the vocals are the main thing that keep it mired in a glorious tarpit murk, all slowed down and mumbly, deep and woozy, and when the vocals do slip into something more properly croonsome, they're invariably swept up and thick dustdevils of echoey blur and prismatic shimmer. We're definitely reminded of faves from our past like the Swirlies, and of course the Jesus And Mary Chain, and plenty of other purveyors of shoegaze jangle, but there's just something about these guys that push all our buttons, and not just the droney, druggy, dreamy ones, CC obviously have a knock for the perfect pop hook, and have classic jangle pop sensibilities, it's just that somehow the sounds get all twisted and tangled, warped and mangled on the way, which is exactly how we like 'em!

MPEG stream: Pete Perez
MPEG stream: Got A Show
MPEG stream: Sup Girls In The 60's
MPEG stream: Watery Mirror

This is hardly a new record, but one we had for some reason or another never listed, and now we got it for a nice low price. Coughs (not to be confused with the doom band Cough) were part of Chicago's fertile underground noise rock scene from a few years back, and even though they have long since broken up, it's clear that today's crop of atonal noise mongers could still learn a thing or two. The band whips up a mighty hell of a racket, and people in Chicago still speak of them in somewhat mythical tones. Somehow they were able to merge numerous stylistic influences into something else altogether. Among other things, you will probably react immediately to the crazed female vocals stuck within a downtuned sea of no wave sludge... or something. Craziest of all is how musical it all is, in a scary as fuck, I'm losing my mind kind of way. The opening number, appropriately named "Quagmire", sets the stage for Secret Passage with intense, tom heavy drumming, a buzzing guitar riff, some skronky saxophone and awesome female screaming. "Happy Harvest" lurches forward with some strange riffing that seamlessly shifts from both extremes of the fretboard while super distorted bass rumbles nonstop. There's so much tension in the sound, like the band is just ready to take off into some crazy void, but the rhythm section keeps everything, maybe "grounded" isn't the right word, but at least right in your face where you can't ignore it. The insectoid guitars and the cloud of doominess on songs like "Bunny Slope" conjure up all kinds of disturbing imagery, while the forceful rhythms just can't be denied. It's cool how the songs go to all kinds of unexpected places, clearly the result of a band who had spent plenty of time bashing out improv noise into something that no one else could touch, like on "Intentional Community", which makes use of negative space for a truly disconcerting vibe. This is definitely not metal, but when listening, one can't ignore that Coughs were responsible for a truly unique and brutal attack that many metal bands would kill for. Tough luck for them, though. You either got it or you don't, and anyone who missed this the first time around should do themselves a favor and check it out. Highly recommended.

On Michael Gira's Young God imprint comes the debut solo album from David Coulter (ex-Pogues & Test Dept, strangely enough). He creates a folk-influenced, dark but not too creepy, mostly-instrumental "sonic meditations" using instruments like the theremin, jew's harp, and didjeridu. Guests include guitarist Marc Ribot and avant-vocalist Phil Minton. For fans of Gira's Angels of Light.

**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** Super rad ultra crazed blast of old school Portland punk from this short lived outfit. So short lived in fact that this two song single from 1979 is all they ever managed. The sound is feral and punk as fuck, but also weirdly new wave and a little electronic, equal parts Devo and the Units, the title track a pounding blast of sinister electro punk, driven by a maniacal organ pulse, thick fuzzy low end, and some maniacal vox, peppered with some awesome angular guitar, and a super tripped out staccato second half that is about as close to a deranged sing-along as we can imagine, totally killer, and irresistible, we've listened to it like ten times in a row, a dirgey swaggery jitter-punk classic. The B side is less bizarre, a more standard (but only slightly) chugging punk rock blast of political indignation, furious fist in the face, fuck the man radness. So recommended.

MPEG stream: I'm A Mutant