You are hereby forewarned that five AQ staffers totally hate this record, while two others like it a lot. AQ fistfight!
We'd heard a lot from various customers recently about this female rapper with a disc on German indie-electronica label Kitty-Yo, so we finally had to order some in, and it's proved to be very controversial indeed.
Here's what the thumbs-downers have to say:
Yuck! Someone take that groovebox away from her, and wash her pottymouth out with soap. This is... really stupid and bad. Sheer aural annoyance. I could go on, but don't want to waste the space. File under: Chicks On Speed (no, actually it's worse than that).
And here's the other side of the coin:
Sure, Peaches is shallow ear candy, but we all need sugar sometime. With songtitles like "Fuck the Pain Away" and "Lovertits," Peaches far surpasses Li'l Kim in raunchiness, and her cool vocal delivery is equal parts coked-out ice-queen, white girl trying out hip hop a la Debbie Harry, and fierce punk yowler on the level of PJ Harvey and Kathleen Hanna. The music is super simple freeze-dried disco / wannabe electro / digital hardcore complete with stark drum programming and disembodied armies of handclaps. The whole package is slightly tongue in cheek -- Peaches has got the Sandra Bernhard-style parody / pathetic reality thing down cold. Those who would spend their money on Chicks on Speed should really check this out instead. Peaches delivers.
P.S. Interview between Le Tigre and Peaches at http://tvwww.webfreetv.com/de/de/de_national/culture_zone_de/musicrules/peach/.
Yet another collection of tracks produced by the inimitable Lee 'Scratch' Perry. Taken from sessions recorded from 1973 - 1977 and featuring D.D. Dennis, The Viceroys, Eric Donaldson, Bree Daniels and much more. The tracks are mostly of the back to back vocal /
Of course, the long awaited new Red House Painters album is wonderful. It doesn't matter how long Old Ramon waited in major label purgatory (3 years) -- it's finally here and it sounds completely fresh and masterful and light and lovely (What a relief!).
Side note: In light of Kozelek's recent, sadly ignorant remarks regarding Koreans and Korean Americans, I have this to say: Mark, jokes about Koreans eating dogs or cats might go over well for you when you're in South Korea, where Asians are the majority, but please do not ever again make the mistake of thinking that just because all Asians look the same (yeah right), we're all going to get your stupid jokes. A little Asian American kid here in California probably got beat up in school over some cat-eating stereotyping that you so casually perpetuated. That's why remarks like yours don't fly here. The experience of Asian-*Americans* has been a *minority* experience, quite different from growing up in Asia. Dude, you should know this already! Wake up.
Our pals at Revolver distro said it best in their description:
"Take a load off, sit back, and let Tara Jane O'Neil (Sonora Pine, Rodan) and Cynthia Nelson (Naysayer, Ruby Falls) do the driving for a while. The latest in the duo's ongoing love affair with quirky and emotion-fueled pop comes floating with a somber and beautiful blend of banjo, flute, accordion, violin, and English ballad sounds, designed to intrigue, relax, and bewitch. Lovely on all fronts."
Recent recording of Terry Riley's seminal work "In C." Because of its ambiguous instrumentation and relative ease of performance, "In C" has been performed and recorded in a multitude of varying arrangements in its 37 years of existence. In this version, "In C" is attacked with sitar, tabla, percusssion, voices (mostly extended technique, ie: growls) and orchestra. The performance was
Man, does this record remind me of Scrawl.
And I feel like no one in the band is probably that into Scrawl, but it's definitely a good reference point for St. Andre's sound. Kind of a weird mix of that classic 80's Homestead Records sound, meandering Polvo-ish detuned guitars, noisy walls of guitar (ala Sonic Youth) and soaring female vocals that start as a smooth croon and occasionally leap out in a fit of Sleater Kinney yelps. Melodies and scraggly guitar lines battle pounding drums and bursts of noise, and occasionally dissipate into dreamy droning post rock. This may be their last recording, as they are all going their seperate ways (one to watch making school!).
Punishing and pounding old school death metal. Heavy on the low end and furiously fast, with insane drumming, blazing riffs, grunting growling vocals and a bunch of goofy samples.
The sequel to the "Mass Projection" disc (reviewed last list), here's more live guitar/sax improv action drawn from the same 1970 performance by these cult Japanese free jazz masters. This release explores an equally "out" but just not as quite as noisy side
Well, with a title like that, you know the Fellers have arrived -- albeit after a much too lengthy absence -- with all their quirks intact. Oddly enough both Jeff and Cup thought this was Guided By Voices when it was first played in the store. And indeed
We've been waiting for this one for a long time: the debut disc by Norwegian black metal legend Thorns! Aka Snorre W. Ruch. He's been an important, if obscure part of the Norse black metal scene since the early, church-burning days, but never managed to
Jeff asked a very reasonable question about this record, "Is this Vladislav Delay or Thomas Brinkmann? No, no, this isn't clinical enough to be Brinkmann, it's gotta be Delay." While each sound (the dubbed out glitch, the monochromatic techno pulse, the big simple bass lines) is a direct copy of the Vladislav Delay sound, this is the work of one Andreas Tilliander.
Now, if you read our list regularly, or look at the tags on the cds in the store, you know that we at AQ tend to use the word "ridiculous" (in a good way) quite a lot. And we're also partial to the, again positively-meant, term "fucked". We use these words
Yann Tomita's "An Adventure Of Inevitable Chance" is either a genius work of audio pastiche or a complete put on (or both). To begin with, the album opens with an academic-sounding lecture telling us that Tomita's music is a completely synthetic re-creation of a number of established genres. Yet the musical examples illustrating these genres do not match up. For example, their idea of "Acid Rock" is a banal karaoke lounge tune, and "Country" is represented by what seems to be an excerpt from Sun Ra's "Space Is The Place"! Also, this is supposed to be a live concert from 1993 (with no overdubs, we're told), but...is it? Certainly it would be an amazing, disorienting one, as this disc moves track-by-track through propulsive early-Kraftwerk electronics, simple violin plucking augmented by analog delays, Carl Stalling / Martin Denny exotica, Cornelius-esque whimsy-rock, Barney Miller / Night Court TV show theme style jazzfunk, radio tunings and sputterings, and late '80s cheesy electric dub! Oh, two of the tracks are John Cage pieces, including a not-quite silent version of 4'33"... It's all so unexpected and unfathomable, while often being amazingly quirky and catchy. Tomita claims that his work has influenced countless musicians, DJs, journalists, and fans alike. Some of you may recognize his name from his remix on the Boredoms' Super Roots 8! For those of us who have just encounted his work for the first time here, he claims that he has "influenced you subliminally as well." In the booklets (there's two) you'll find much more to puzzle over (like the catalog of other Tomita releases, including a 7" record with a doughnut on top of it, and a 12" with an ashtray in the shape of a miniature steel drum...there are photos). Oh, in possibly the most brilliantly ridiculously fucked move EVER, this disc is actually packaged as a double cd -- but one of the discs (entitled "Heart Beat") is made of cardboard! (Thus making it unplayable for those of us with *normal* cd players). Odd is an understatement. We're thinking now that if we've judged our customers right, odds are we'll have to try and order more of these pronto...
It's been quite some time since Unwound bestowed an album upon us. Finally, the wait is over. And our reward? A double cd! And the good news is, it seems some definite musical growth has taken place in the interim enough to merit the often unnecessary two cd
Disc two starts off with perhaps the biggest surprise, a dark and smoldering mope rock masterpiece that sounds amazingly like American Music Club (or even Red House Painters); swelling strings and muted minor key guitars, dark droning melancholic progressions with strange whale-like sounds in the background. Absolutely lovely. At this point, much like on disc one, things veer back toward the old Unwound days, but with a definite Godspeed influence. Still pounding and rocking, but much more introspective and dramatic. They really made good use of the double cd format, using the extra "room" to explore new territory while not neglecting their signature sound. A really great record, and quite a nice surprise.
Curated by Tortoise & Foundation, All Tomorrow's Parties - a music and film happening - took place this year April 6th through 8th in East Sussex. This compilation documents the gathering of musical allsorts that included Yo La Tengo, Boards of Canada, Calexico, Black Heart Procession, Autechre, Broadcast, and Tortoise.
A breast cancer research benefit compilation of experimental music ranging from beautiful droning ambience to all out noise. featuring Bran, John Wiese, Skin Crime, Negative Entropy, Josh Norton Cabal, and more. Proceeds donated to the Howard Brown Health Center's Cancer Quality of Life Study. Nice. And it's for a good cause!
"House of Distraction" is the latest compilation of IDM elitism from Schematic - Miami's answer to Warp and Skam. This compilation appears to be a series of remixes / reinterpretations of older Schematic tracks by the current roster of artists, such as Jake Mandell contributing a track called "Plays With Devine's Balls." Push Button Objects' rehashing of Takeshi's "Gutta Percha" is one
This is the sort of thing that Andee tells us Lesser would subject him to while driving the van when he went on tour with A Minor Forest (to the point that Andee would volunteer to drive, no matter how tired he was, just to avoid hearing it). Retro techno
Awesome low priced sampler from the Polyvinyl Record Company. Emo and then some: Rainer Maria, Radio Flyer, Pele, Kerosene 454, Aloha, Paris Texas, American Football, AM/FM, Sunday's Best and more...
Hiphop/electro breakbeat compilation introducing a slew of up and coming Japanese DJs (Dazzle-T, Indope Psychics, Koji Sekiguchi, DJ Beat, DJ Yoh, DJ Shun, and others) all looking to be the next DJ Krush. Scratch-happy heavy beat science for those into the turntablist thing. One track gets remixed by DJ Cam, who is French not Japanese, but we won't hold that against him ;) As comps
This compilation documents a project that brought together a handful of German writers and electronic musicians to digitally mess with an series of historic radio plays, using this material (without any necessary reference to its original content or purpose) to compose new "soundstories" live on air. Participants include To Rococo Rot, Console, and Hans Platzgumer among other less
John Wall's compositions employ aesthetic strategies that pull sounds from the most sterile of digital glitch techniques as well as from the tense start-stop-silence approach from academic circles of free jazz. Wall may announce where all of his samples originate (Xenakis, Evan Parker, Luigi Nono, Fennesz, Pita, Otomo Yoshihide, Sachiko M, etc.), but he is very careful to
Yes, the notorious Whitehouse are still at it after twenty years. Love them or hate them, you've probably got a strong opinion about Whitehouse. While we at Aquarius do not necessarily agree with the lyrical content of past Whitehouse releases, some of us
Whitehouse have always seemed to position themselves in close proximity to the artworld (while at the same time alienating themselves from the music world), and in doing so, may be positioning themselves closer to the accepted forms of transgressive art such as Vito Acconchi's public masturbation or Jeff Koon's airbrushed pornography. Whatever you may think about Whitehouse (i.e. if they are or are not 'art'), that which lies underneathe the packaging is certainly not going to change your mind about them. You probably know already if you need to own this. However, Whitehouse does change things up a bit on 'Cruise', taking their normally ear shredding shrieks, and lowering the ultra high frequencies to a more gritty mid-range analogue noise. ----* ----* Printed Matter : ----* GIANT ROBOT #21 magazine 3.95 Art-focused issue of one of our favorite magazines, celebrating Asian Pop Culture and Beyond. Wong Kar-Wai, Asian haircuts, Superflat Murakami, Seattle grunge photog Charles Peterson's photos of Vietnam, Hong Kong hiphoppers Lazmuthafucka, Katsushige Nakahashi who makes stunning huge sculptures out of polaroids, Tony Leung, qi gong and its psychic potential, etc. ----* ----* In Stock, No Time to Review : ----* BERTHOLO, RENE "Um Argentino no Deserto" (SIRR.ecords) cd 14.98 CAGE, JOHN / DAVID TUDOR "Music of Change" (Hat Hut) cd 16.98 CRAWL UNIT "Stop Listening" (Ground Fault) cd 9.98 CRAWL UNIT "The Future In Reverse" (Povertech Industries) cd 9.98 CRAWL UNIT "Trans History - Works 95-99" (Ignis) cd 9.98 CRAWL UNIT "Vs. Silence" (Povertech Industries) cd 9.98 FAMOUS BOYFRIEND "s/t" (555) cd 14.98 GORILLAZ (the singer from Blur and members of Deltron 3030!) "s/t" (EMI UK) cd 25.00 ITS ALL MEAT "s/t" (Hallucinations) cd 14.98 MUM "Yesterday Was Dramatic - Toady Is OK" (TMT / Thule Music) cd 17.98 PHONOPHANI "Genetic Engineering" (Rune Grammofon) cd 16.98 PINK & BROWN "Final Foods" (Toyo) cd 10.98 ROXY MUSIC "Vintage" (Burning Airlines) cd 12.98 VITRIOL "Randonee 0.06" (SIRR.ecords) cd 14.98 WARWICK, HENRY "Keraunograph" (Kether Music) cd 11.98 _______________________________________________________________________ KOJI ASANO INSTORE APRIL 29th SUNDAY -- 4 pm Experimental musician Koji Asano (who makes his home in Barcelona, Spain, although he's originally from Japan) will be in town at the end of the month, on his first-ever US tour (West Coast, anyway), after playing shows in Italy and Slovenia. He's been a long-time favorite of ours, so we're very pleased to announce that he'll be doing a free in-store performance here at Aquarius! His work has always been super creative and eclectic, so we're really excited to hear what his stuff is going to sound like in person. His recent recordings have focused on computer-assisted electroacoustic drones, full of beautiful feedback and dark mystery. But we'll see what he does here at Aquarius -- be here Sunday April 29th at 4pm to find out! Koji's other Bay Area shows are on these evenings: April 26th -- The Luggage Store, SF April 27th -- Capp Street Community Center / Moving Target Series, SF April 29th -- Tuva Space / Acme Observatory Series, Oakland -->another AQ-fave, LOREN CHASSE (of id battery / Thuja) will also be performing at this show! From our review of his last work, a four-part set called "The Last Shade of Evening Falls": "Japanese composer/experimentalist (and AQ fave sound artist) Koji Asano is known not only for the quality of his work (almost always quite excellent) but for the sheer quantity of his releases over the last few years -- sixteen of 'em as of today, more if you count limited edition cd-rs -- which run the creative gamut from gorgeous piano meditiations, to computer noise, to chamber music, to rock guitar improv." _______________________________________________________________________ RAWA BENEFIT "To prevent music... In shops, hotels, vehicles and rickshaws cassettes and music are prohibited... If any music cassette found in a shop, the shopkeeper should be imprisoned and the shop locked. If cassette found in the vehicle, the vehicle and the driver will be imprisoned. "To prevent music and dances in wedding parties. In the case of violation the head of the family will be arrested and punished. "To prevent the playing of music drum. The prohibition of this should be announced. If anybody does this then the religious elders can decide about it." -- Taliban edicts regarding music Fire Museum is proud to present a benefit concert for the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) at the Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Avenue in Oakland, featuring the following fine artists (in reverse order of appearance): BLECTUM FROM BLECHDOM THE BRAN (...) POS + PLANETSIZE DEEP DICKOLLECTIVE CONE, featuring members of Zmrzlina SPEZZO ROTTA Saturday, May 5th 2001 The Stork Club (2330 Telegraph Avenue, cross Street 23rd Avenue, near 19th Avenue BART) Oakland doors 7:00 p.m. / $6-$10 sliding scale / 21+ concert website: http://www.geocities.com/tomato_gazelle/Fire_Museum.html _______________________________________________________________________ UPCOMING RELEASES ----> should be here any minute, if not in already! v/a "Clicks & Cuts 2" 3cd (members of) Add N to (X) / Stereolab / Hairy Butter "Alternative 3" soundtrack cd v/a "Bip Hop Generation vol. 2" cd Hazard / Fennesz / Biosphere "Light" tour cd on Touch Hazard "Wind" cd on Ash ----> April 24th (crazy new release day!) Mouse On Mars "Idiology" cd/lp on Thrill Jockey Bardo Pond "Dilate" cd/2lp on Matador Kammerflimmer Kollektief "Maander" cd on Temporary Residence Modest Mouse "Sad Sappy Sucker" cd/lp on K unreleased 1994 recordings + other rarities Vic Chesnutt "Left To His Own Devices" cd on SpinArt (rarities and demos) Mogwai "Rock Action" lp/cd The Ex "Dizzy Spells" cd on Touch And Go US Maple "Acre Thrills" cd/lp on Drag City Steven R. Smith "Tableland" cd on Emperor Jones Paul Burch "Last Of My Kind" cd on Merge Portastatic "Looking For Leonard" cd on Merge The Clientele "Suburban Light" cd on Merge, domestic Nels Cline "Destroy All Nels Cline" cd on Atavistic Raging Slab "s/t" cd reissue on Spitfire Terrie Ex & Han Bennink "The Laughing Owl" cd on Atavistic Danielson Famile "Fetch the Compass Kids" cd/lp on Secretly Canadian Of Montreal "Coquelicot Asleep in the Poppies" cd/2lp on Secretly Canadian Vivian Sisters s/t cd on Avant Mekons reissues (Rock 'n' Roll, Curse of, Fun '90) Red Allen "The Folkways Years 1964-83" cd on Smithsonian Folkways The Country Gentlemen "On The Road (And More) cd on Smithsonian Folkways John Zorn "Love, Madness and Mysticism" cd on Tzadik Rothko "In The Pulse Of An Artery" cd on Instinct Destroyer "Streethawk: A Seduction" cd on Misra Ryoji Ikeda & Carsten Nicolai "Cyclo" cd on Raster-Noton ----> May 8 To Rococo Rot "Music is a Hungry Ghost" (Mute) Burning Airlines "Identikit" cd ----> May 15 Autechre "Confield" cd/2lp on Warp Neu! "Neu! 1", "Neu! 2", and "Neu! '75" all legitimately reissued on cd and lp, on Astralwerks! Sonna "We Sing Loud Sing Soft Tonight" cd/lp on Temporary Residence Cannibal Ox "The Cold Vein" lp/cd on Def Jux Borthwick/hollAnd "helene" CD on Temporary Residence Tool "Laterus" new studio album ----> May 22 Absu "Tara" cd on Osmose Otomo Yoshihide's New Jazz Quintet "Flutter" cd on Tzadik Abigor "Satanized" on Napalm Mammoth Volume "a single book�" cd on TMC Mark Eitzel "The Invisible Man" cd/lp on Matador ----> May 29 Spirit Caravan "Elusive Truth" cd/lp on Tolotta Plaid "Double Feature" cd/2lp on Warp Karaboudjan "Sbrodj" on Relapse EyeHateGod "10 Years of Abuse and Still Broke" live cd on Century Media ----> also in May Destiny's Child "Independent Women" Oval "Commers" cd/lp on Thrill Jockey Gram Parsons "Anthology" 2cd on Rhino Whiskeytown "Pneumonia" Missy Elliot "Miss E...So Addictive" Mira Calix "Prickle" cdep/12" on Warp Squarepusher "My Red Hot Car" cdep/12" on Warp Zeni Geva "10,000 Light Years" cd on Neurot Candiria "300 Percent Density" cd on Century Media MF Doom "Operation: Doomsday" cd on Sub Verse Ex-Girl "Back To Mono Kero" on Ipecac Deltron 3030 "Tron 3030 (The Instrumentals)" cd/2lp on 75Ark (delayed from way back) ----> June 18 Summer Hymns "A Celebratory Arm Gesture" cd/lp on Misra Jeff Mangum "Live At Jittery Joe's" cd on Orange Twin Bonny Billy (Will Oldham) "More Revery" cdep on Temporary Residence Ltd. Orange Twin Fieldwork (Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel) "Volume 1" on Orange Twin ----> also in June Lucinda Williams "Essence" R.E.M. "Reveal" ----> July 23rd Neutral Milk Hotel "Everything Is" cdep reissue on Orange Twin ----> July Bjork "tba" _______________________________________________________________________ The Aquarius Records New Arrivals list has 5163 subscribers. If you like our list, please buy your records from Aquarius; we produce this list just for you and it's a lot of work! "The first record was pretty much stories about my drugged out childhood plus a little bit of Spinal Tap on top -'I'm gonna rule the world with my leather penis!' or whatever. And then all that stuff started coming true..." --Monster Magnet's Dave Wyndorf on fame, from Terrorizer #86. "I met an undercurrent of peopel that were into severe behavior, weird mind games and weird physical games- Dungeons, high faluting lawyer women who were having these massive fuckin' orgies, with slaves- and in the middle of it all I remember looking out of a hotel room in L.A. smoking a cigarette. The sun was coming up and I just remember thinking 'Who am I? What am I doing?'. And there was this girl lying there that had just applauded me for performing the appropriate torture on her- 'You were a master at it,' and I'm like 'What the fuck am I doing?'" --Monster Magnet's Dave Wyndorf on the influences that shaped the sound of the new album. From Terrorizer #86 Love, Windy Cup Byram Andee Jim Allan and Jeff
