[ aquarius records — Spoken Word Comedy ]

Showing results 201 through 205 of 205.

WATTS, ALANOM: the Sound of Hinduism(Infinite Zero/Warner)cd$ 13.98

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

Reissued by Henry Rollins' (major) label. Alan dispenses wisdom over what has been described as a totally high-grade psych freakout.

WILLIAMS, SAULAmethyst Rock Star(American)cd$ 17.98

Saul Williams is an all around Renaissance Man: an artist, poet, actor, writer, and musician, who was recently seen writing and starring in the film Slam. The guy does it all, and here we're treated to his music and his singular vocal method -- intensely And the musical accompaniment? It's decent -- and quite varied. Some tracks have atmospheric guitar feedback, the better to showcase the voice and creep out the audience. Other tracks feature modern 2-step-ish breakbeats, and yet others sound like Rage Against the Machine-style rock workouts complete with heavy pseudo-metal guitars and fingerpicking acrobatics. Why doesn't Techno Animal get Saul to front one of their tracks? Have you heard their Dead Man's Curse ep, cos if you haven't now is the time! Look it up on the website; we've got a soundclip of 'em and I'll bet after hearing it you'll agree all parties would benefit from a collaboration.

XYNFONICAA Feast For Famished Ravens(Hekaloth / Cyclops)cd$ 15.98

What we're about to say, we don't say lightly. Trust us. We may traffic in hyperbole. And our shelves may be stuffed with lots of 'best evers' and 'worst evers' and 'greatest evers', but this friends, is quite possibly the weirdest record we've ever carried. When we first threw it on, we were immediately struck with the realization, that what we were hearing, was either the most amazing thing we had ever heard, or absolutely the worst piece of shit EVER. Andee quickly decided on the former. And no matter how hard he tried, or how many repeated listens he was subjected to, Allan is sticking with the latter. But the more we play this in the store, the more the tribe of Xynfonica worshippers grows, Antaeus, Matt, Cameron, one can only handle a few listens before you're forever in its thrall. We're not sure how Allan does it, maybe there's some sort of chip in his brain, or maybe he's not really human at all, who knows. What we do know is we will wear him down, and just like you, faithful yet doomed reader of this list, he will eventually bow down to the damaged glory that is Xynfonica. By now you're probably wondering what the fuck we're on about. Fair enough. So let's go back a bit. Not sure how we first heard about Xynfonica, but we got the disc in, it had an amazing cover, an old painting of some ancient battle, men on horseback, wielding swords, the record title: A Feast For Famished Ravens, song titles like: "From Your Father's Skull" and "The Viking Zodiac", a huge booklet jammed with more lyrics than could possibly fit in the three songs here, there are even footnotes!!! So we still hadn't listened to it, but we were pretty much sold already. So we finally threw it on, and were greeted with some strange synthesizers, guitar synthesizers to be specific (we later discovered) and a growled demonic vocal, the synths, sort of atonal and detuned, like a demented Peter And The Wolf, the vocals, a strangled black metal rasp, so okay, we're thinking, a cool weird intro, so we waited for the band to kick in, and waited, and waited, and waited some more, scanned forward� So then we thought, okay, maybe the whole first track is the intro, so we skipped to the second track, which of course started with the raspy vocals and the seasick synths, but we gave it the benefit of the doubt and waited and waited, scanned forward, and then it dawned on us. HOLY SHIT. This was the band. There were no drums, no guitarist. It was just some trollish demon and his damaged synth, spewing endless tales of mysterious battles and lost civilizations. And suddenly, it had us. Xynfonica. Sure it's creepy and demented, and borderline retarded, and the synths sometime sound so wrong it makes us dizzy, so 'off' it makes our eyes water, the melodies are demented, alien, creepy ominous one second, bouncing cheerfully the next, but always those vocals, an everpresent demon storyteller, it's hard to explain exactly why we're so taken, but we are. Every time we play this, initial reactions range from confusion, to hysterical laughter, to anxiety to sheer unadulterated joy. Imagine if Jandek was the keyboard player in a black metal band and decided to make a solo record, or imagine Mr. Roger's neighborhood but Mr. Rogers is out sick, so the dude from Abruptum is filling in, or imagine the music files from some medieval video game getting corrupted, and then used as the intro music for some evil metal band. Well you know, what? There's no need to imagine. It's all right here. Xynfonica will give you all of that and more. With just a rudimentary grasp of the synthesizer, and a frog in his throat, all will be revealed, and we shall all revel in his stumbling, confusional musical brilliance. Xynfonica. Xynfonica. Xynfonica. Xynfonica. Xynfonica...

ZEIGENBOCK KOPFI.D.M. LP(KSR)cd$ 12.98

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

SORRY. Review courtesy of AQ pal / Soft Pink Truth mastermind / Matmos co-mastermind Mr. Drew Daniel: I've never seen an honest to God minstrel show in which white people dress up and perform as stereotypical black people. But the last show I saw by Zeigenbock Kopf was the queer equivalent. Ostensibly straight scenester cutie-pie John Dwyer (also of Coachwhips, ex-Pink and Brown, etc.) kitted out as Hans Bunschlapen in mustache and mirrorshades and backed up by shirtless go go dancers, pretended to be a gay German clone of the 70s, barking sadomasochistic slogans over superdistorted electronic chugging courtesy of bandmates Ulrich Bunschlapen and beatmaker Detlef. When Dwyer stays in character as Hans, Zeigenbock Kopf is some funny shit: imagine the "Sprockets" guy in leather chaps pulling a train on a Munich motorcycle gang after too much coke. To give Dwyer and co. their due, 70s gay clone culture and chilly German electro posturing *are* kinda silly, no doubt; the first Zeigenbock Kopf cassette "The Architecture of Dark Dance" ran with these clich�s as far as they could feasibly go, and rocked to boot with hard, dark synth/gabber minimalism overdriven into Incapacitants territory. Funny and disturbing in equal measure, that cassette entered this particular fag's select pantheon of uncomfortably indeterminate queer-baiting comedy along with The Meatmen's "Tooling for Anus", The Angry Samoans "Homosexual" and The Frogs' "It's Only Right and Natural". A joke band's only job is to be funny, but woe to the joke band that isn't funny anymore. On this release, Zeigenbock Kopf teeter on that brink, but at 23 minutes total they cut things off before it wears out completely. The motto this time around seems to be: darker, harder, dumber, and when Z. K. decide that just saying the words "I Dig Men" is, like, totally hilarious, the shtick threatens to wear thin, curdling into something just perfect for "Skit Night" at the frat house. I guess straight white male privilege and the appropriation of funny/"exotic" otherness go together like Crisco and fisting. If you can bracket the creepy/phony aspect of this project, the saving grace is that the music still rocks like a bastard: Whitehouse-ish scree spurts and Esplendor Geometrico-ish crunched beats and DJ Scud-ish breakcore and Suicide-ish synths and basslines fight for attention while Dwyer spits tuff, horny nonsense about what a hair-pulling, ass-slapping queer stud he is. Maybe when the penny drops and he comes out of the closet we can look forward to his "comedy straight guy" band in which he emotes about downloading Catholic schoolgirl web porn, fixed rate mortgages, and finding the right babysitter over bland MOR rock. Heaven help us . . .

ZOFFYLive!(Acid Mothers Temple)cd$ 21.00

Ah, Zoffy. Times change, eh? Isn't it weird that the classic rock band responsible for such hoary hits as "Smoke On The Water", "21st Century Schizoid Man" and "Stairway To Heaven" would be playing at little clubs in Tokyo, Japan, and putting out limited edition cd-rs? Er, wait a sec. This isn't an example of the "still big in Japan" phenomenon. Turns out that Zoffy didn't write those songs at all! They're just a very tongue-in-cheek unit formed by members of Acid Mothers Temple (specifically, Kawabata Makoto and Tsuyama Atsushi), who play very krautrocky originals and a whole lotta classic rock covers in a loose, silly, folky, psychedelic style, using quite an assortment of acoustic and ethnic instrumentation. Tsuyama's underwater-sounding vocals on "Purple Haze" are a good example of the goofy fun they're having here with these '60s and '70s rock chestnuts. But when they're not yukking it up, this can be really beautiful too... a weird blend of laffs and serious psychedelic feeling. The material here was recorded live over the course of several years (1999-2003) and was first released in a 100 copies only cd-r edition, now it's on a real cd with 3 bonus tracks. Oh, and one unexpected cover choice bears mention, to Ruins fans anyway: "Hyderomastgroningem"! That one, definitely NOT a '70s radio staple...