[ aquarius records new arrivals

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Showing results 1 through 50 of 101.

Strap on your electro pants, baby. 'Cause Adult. (don't forget that punctuation) are here. Witness the awesome android power of this Detroit duo - one half of which is Mr. Adam Miller, formerly of the mighty electro-kings known as LeCar. If you were a fan of

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Wow! A new release on Bruce Russell's Corpus Hermeticum label! But just who the hell are these folks? Taku Sugimoto (electric guitar) is the most well known artist in this collaboration; we've heard his beautiful mimimal guitar playing previously on records with Kevin Drumm, Gunter Muller, and Otomo Yoshihide, as well as his performances both solo and collaboratively on the Recorded in Tokyo in 1999, "Hokou" ("Spazieren" in Swiss or "Periodic Drift" in English) is an exercise in minimalist improvisation, full of abstract tones, deep droning cello swells and restrained guitar plucks. Really nice.

Amp's Richard Walker and Karine Charff were once members of a loose Bristol collective of "rural psychedelic" outfits featuring bands like Flying Saucer Attack, Movietone, Crescent, and Third Eye Foundation, all having sort of interchangeable members. Over time, each of those individual groups took on more distinct aesthetics and lost their member swappin' interconnectivity. While

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Since Richard D. James has recently been hiding from the public with no indications as to when or if another Aphex Twin album will be happening, this rare Australian import collection of Aphex Twin's mid '90s singles is certainly a welcome arrival! "51/13" During this period of Aphex Twin's sound, he was continuing his mutations of hardcore techno breakbeats, which had been popularized by the likes of The Prodigy, Meat Beat Manifesto, and XL Records. For those who care about such things, this breakbeat sound was instrumental in the birth of drum 'n' bass, yet is drastically different in that the hardcore breakbeats are internally constructed by a drum machine (usually a Roland 909), whereas drum 'n' bass actively sampled its breakbeats from the history of soul, funk, and jazz. As a result of the technological process of the creation of the breakbeat, these three Aphex Twin singles have a particularly cybernetic feel to them. However, Aphex Twin uses this sound as a counterpoint to the oddly whimsical melodies from his re-wired and re-programmed MIDI patches for piano, harp, calliope, and bells. These are the same sounds that the Aphex Twin droned out on his beautiful "Selected Ambient Works Volume 2." "51/13" also features the seemingly incongruous collaboration between Aphex Twin and Philip Glass! For this piece called "Icct Hedral," Glass scored a dramatic orchestral piece around the repetition of a distinctly Aphex Twin melodic phrase. It's surprising how well this particular piece works. For a lot of electronica, history tends to date and make obsolete certain sounds and artists... But this has never been the case with Aphex Twin.

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While it remains undisputed that Perez Prado introduced what is now known as the "mambo" to the world with his fast, punchy arrangements, it is with flautist Antonio Arcano and his orchestra that the syncopated rhythm originates. To give credit where

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During the past few years, Autechre's work has come to mean much more than a personal aesthetic expression for Autechre themselves, as members of electronica's ivory tower (the IDM list in particular) have placed Autechre's work within a universally However, "Confield" is a drastically different record for Autechre, as they have become too self-involved in making experimental art for the sake of experimentation. All of their previous records have a trace element of hip hop, as if Autechre has taken the futurism of Afrika Bambaata and Grandmaster Flash to a logical extreme of dense cybernetic spaces and whirring binary clatter. Autechre may have been predicting that hip hop wouldn't catch on to this (if at all) for quite a long time; however, the angular hip hop productions of Destiny's Child or Ludacris have indeed developed similarities to Autechre's sound. I would postulate that these similarities rather than the imitators from their own camp are what pushed Autechre towards the more experimental / less accessible forms on "Confield." This album has almost completely done away with the bass heavy hip hop breakbeats. Instead, Autechre sublimates the rhythms to seasick fluctuations of timestretched glitches and phasing sequences. Similarly, the big romantic melodies which Autechre pioneered on their first album ("Incunabula") and revitalized on their last ("AE5") have gone missing. While the individual sounds are interesting, well-groomed pieces of digital errata, Autechre's micromanagement of the sound has made them lose sight of the bigger picture: making a good record, not just a good sound.

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Latest from these Dutch stoner rock stalwarts. Sure, we like it 'cause our pal Guy Pinhas used to be in the band and co-wrote some of the stuff on this album, but even if Guy wasn't involved we'd still think this was pretty darn good, really. Heavy, rockin, and kinda weird and arty in spots. Modern psychedelia that's sorta like a cross between Wino's Spirit Caravan and something a little

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The hard-rocking midwestern all-female, uh, hard rock outfit Bottom steps up with debut cd release on Man's Ruin. Heavy, with elements of '90s noise/grunge rock and '70s style swagger. Kinda aggro.

Boxharp is the solo (with plenty of help) project of the Court And Spark's MC Taylor. So as you might expect, it shares a lot soundwise with the C+S. However, it's a bit more experimental, with much more emphasis on texture and ambience. Boxharp's muted

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Aaah, the fountain overflows with a facetious flood of tweaked tunes from Mr. Mildred Pit and Mr. Otis F. Odder. Together they are the Bran Flakes from Seattle, WA. Giving a tip of the hat to Irwin Chusid (radio host and champion of musical eccentrics everywhere ---Raymond Scott to name but one), they plunder and paste melodic incongruities (what was that?! a tv show theme? and

Brand new album from ex-Talking Head David Byrne. Big production with lots of guest musicians. Almost sounds like it was produced by Tchad Blake, but it isn't. The coolest thing about the album is the cover art and moiree effect slip cover. You can pass each panel of the fold out booklet through the slip cover and see: David Byrne blink, scream, a cup break, a hand pass through fire, a

Seems like the future of hip hop belongs to either Company Flow and their progeny or cLOUDEAD and the Anticon crew. Both seem to be the only crews really pushing the boundaries of hip hop. Cannibal Ox is a duo from Harlem, and for 'The Cold Vein', they hooked

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Soundtrack to the long awaited feature film by Sadie Shaw (infamous SF/Olympia underground filmmaker extraordinaire, responsible for numerous music videos and photography, mostly for the Kill Rock Stars label, guitarist in SF outfit The Lies) and Sarah Reed (also of The Lies). Features (mostly) exclusive tracks by Aisler's Set, Deerhoof, Thrones, The Need, The Lies, Concentrick,

New on Warp, and fuck if this isn't the only glimmer of hope in the overcrowded and under-inspired world of electronica. The glitches and pops and Pole fallout are kept to a minimum here and instead, Clark uses actual sounds, unrecognizable as they may

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Continuous Mode is the name of the real-time software that Andy Mellwig first developed when he started collaborating with Thomas Koner in the quintessential Chain Reaction post-techno / heroin-house outfit Porter Ricks. For this solo project, Mellwig has

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The Country Gentlemen were one of the great bluegrass bands to come out of the Washington DC area folk revival in the late fifties. The diverse backgrounds of core members Charlie Waller (guitar), John Duffey (mandolin), Eddie Adcock (banjo) and Tom

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Alt-country long before the term ever existed, these kings and queen of dreamy slower than slow, more bitter than sweet music have rarely strayed from the mellow path they've tread for over fifteen years. However, on 'Open' they venture into brief moments of almost psych/space-y territory and more upbeat tempos. Not sure if this is a good thing 'cause the Cowboy Junkies are at their

Awesome co-operative release between southwestern political grindsters Creation is Crucifixion, Critical Art Foundation and the Carbon Defnese League. Beautiful box with a cd/cd-rom and a huge perfect bound book. The book examines the 'reverse engineering of

This is probably one of my (Andee's) favorite new metal records. Imagine some sort of weird mix between Cradle of Filth and Voivod. Technical and blazing fast, but instead of that sing-songy black metal melody that seems to make it into every black metal

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Early recordings of mostly Cuban sones by singer Antonio Machin and his quartet, recorded in New York City between 1930 and 1931. Machin is credited with introducing the popular Cuban song El Manisero (The Peanut Vendor) to American audiences during a visit in 1930. Vocals accompanied by guitar, tres guitar and trumpet and featuring renown Cuban trumpet player Mario Bauza in some of his

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No doubt you've at least heard 'Survivor', and you've most definitely heard the Charlie's Angels song. And unfortunately, outside of a track or two, those happen to be the best songs on the record. So while it is a good record, it maybe doesn't measure up to the last one. Windy loves it, and thinks it actually might be better than the last one. But Allan and Andee are yet to be

Man oh man, with bands like The Church Steps, For Stars, Erase Errata, and Dilute (and many others), the Bay Area scene is getting to be so interesting and original again. None of this spacerock bulls---; people are writing songs again. There's real stark

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Long awaited new single from local troubadour of the downtrodden, Mark Eitzel. The title track is certainly Eitzel's most upbeat song EVER, with barely a hint of the abject depression that marked his solo work and long tenure with American Music Club. It

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Tight, technical black metal from this American band. I think they hail from the not-so-frosty forests of Alabama or some such unlikely place. This is the second album for The End and it successfully earns them a place at the head of the US of A's black metal battalions, being as it's so dark, fast, chunky, chaotic, majestic, brutal and very very metal.

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The fifth collection of songs from this amazing songwriter. In recent years, his music has been labelled Americana, roots rock, alt-country, but call it what you will -- this is simply a wonderfully earthy and lush album. A long long way from his punk rock

Yet one more time, let's hear it for Japan! Always pushing things (anything! everything!) to the next level of absurdity and wonder. The highly animated, outstandingly costumed Chihiro, Fuzuki and Kirilo return to take us on another bizarre musical

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Crushing and totally heavy new record from these good-old-days pioneers of grind. I mean these guys have been around as long as Napalm Death and Carcass and have never gotten nearly the recognition think they deserve. They were definitly more on the crusty

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As the title implies, this is a recording of The Fall made in Liverpool in 1978. That was easy. 12 tracks of a very oddly recorded set. Not exactly just lo-fi, because you can distinctly hear Mark E Smith's moaning on each track. And the bass is fairly loud just under him, but the guitars sound like their down the hall, just outside the bathroom door. And the drums? Well, sometimes you

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Barrelhouse piano, some delightfully cheesy drum machines and uptempo rhythms highlight the truly amazing Astrology Songs album. (For those who bought it when it was on Amarillo Records, note that this version has added back up vocals). There's one song for each sign, and I'll bet a dollar you will find yourself skipping ahead to your own sign within a minute of putting the record on... only to find that Harvey Sid has got you totally pegged. Each song is sung in the first person, and are as varied as moody lovesongs (like "Moonchild" -- so titled because Harvey Sid didn't want to use the word Cancer), and playful uptempo show tunes ("Talkin' 'bout the Taurus / talking 'bout the bully-bull-bull! / wooly bully / You be good I'll love you till the end / and you will have a lover you can count on as a friend / I like being rich and I like being well fed / I'm good in the kitchen and I'm good in bed"), and western-style epic ("Lib-Lib-a-Libra Lib-Lib-a-Libra / I'll flirt and conquer then withdraw / Lib-Lib-a-Libra Lib-Lib-a-Libra / then maybe might come back for more / In love with all of my heart / the act of love is more of an art / Irrational passion some will say / But uh-uh I'm no glutton more a love gourmet"). Listen to the soundclips below for the full Harvey Sid experience! Local customers might want your first Harvey Sid Fisher experience to be with the Astrology Songs *video*, which simply has to be seen to be believed. A tuxedoed Harvey sings while a modern dancer in leotards acts out the lyrics of each song. Un-fucking-believable. We have this video available for rent. Mailorder customers -- we can order this for you ($17.98).

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The Battle of the Sexes disc reminds us of the 60s-style folk-rock duets Lee Hazelwood performed with Ann Margaret, Suzy Jane Hokum, etc. Subtitled "Duets with couples fighting -- Putting the 'fun' back into dysfunctional". With subjects like money, communication, affairs, and sex, they are so so so funny. Here's some lyrics from "I Want Sex": Man: "I want sex / I want sex / You got me climbing up the wall" Woman: "You talk like I'm not giving you enough" M: "You ain't giving me any at all" W: "You know I've been busy / lots of work to do" M: "Oh please please please I work as hard as you" W: "You know I would if I could" M: "But you don't when you should!" W: "Well the fact of the matter is you're not that good!"

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Brand new album from Michael Franti -- ex-Beat Nigs, ex-Disposable Heroes of the Hiphoprisy -- and Spearhead.

Looking so fresh and bright, Jane, Charlotte, Kathy, Gina and Belinda return with a full new album after a series of peeks and teasers. Their wonderful go-girl harmonies and super hook pop melodies are all splendidly intact. Billie Joe from Green Day guests

God, this sucks ass. Only if you really liked him at the recent Peaches live show will you probably want this. With names like Patric Catani (EC8OR), Bomb 20 and even Peaches given production credits (and even a L'Trimm sample!), you'd hope for a decent record, but the godawful lyrics are just so damn bad.

Instrumental ferocity from this Michigan-based trio of feedbacking guitar, wild drums, and heavily processed brass that sound like a full on army of horns dumped underwater, struggling chaotically and desperately to get to the surface. Intense. Amusingly yet

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The second collaborative effort from this guitar/bass duo. Loren Mazzacane Connors is of course known as a unique guitar improviser with a hauntingly beautiful style of "Venusian blues". Darin Gray you may know as the bassist from Chicago

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Wow! UK noise-skree-experimental rock duo Guapo really take their prog-rock obessions to the limit on this new album, a joint release between France's Pandemonium label (home to AQ-faves Hint as well) and our own Andee's tUMULt label. Guapo have always

Two new recordings from the very prolific Keiji Haino, although there's no indication as to when or where. Disc one is a single piece for hurdy-gurdy and voice titled "Whereto can I cast away this fragment echo called The End, so that I may summon an

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The dark elf of the current Japanese noise/psych scene, Mr. Keiji Haino (from Fushitsusha, and many other projects) teams up with Eddie and Bill (they're girls, really!) from the heavy Japanese bass/drums combo COA. Previously Haino has collaborated in a

Collected works (live, as the title states) from the man behind OR Records (responsible for a slew of excellent experimental / electronic discs from artists like Zbigniew Karkowski, Francisco Lopez, Farmer's Manual, CD_Slopper, etc.). You might recognize Haswell's name as he's remixed Merzbow (Scumtron) and Thurston Moore (Root) as well as collaborated with the former on a 12" put

Light and funky hip hop from Reflection Eternal producer Hi Tek. You might remeber the Taleb Kweli /Hi Tek record from a while back. Well, the sound is similar, but this time around he's got a bunch of guests on board: Common, Taleb Kweli, Mos Def, Jonell, Buckshot, Slum Village and more.

Jojo Hiroshige is the founding member of the Osaka-based noise unit Hijokaidan. Along with Merzbow, Hiijokaidan is one of the oldest post-Masayuki Takayanagi noise artists in Japan, with recordings that date back to the late seventies. In addition, Jojo

Well, once we got past the first few tracks (that included a mildly annoying song about fucking strangers and a recording of a child singing some '70s ballad) things settled into quite a nice spartan mellowness for this posthumous Joan of Arc EP. Seemingly

Heavy on the quirk and camp in a StereoTotal sort of way, but somewhat more sexed up and raucous. Some French girl vocals, some very Euro, Fred Schneider meets Jon Spencer vocals. Well actually, maybe that *is* Jon Spencer, 'cause he does sing on here, along

Noted electronica minimalist David Kristian here collaborates with the Shalabi Effect's Alexander St-Onge and Sam Shalabi for this interesting improvised album of quiet acoustic drones and accompanying electronics. Thankfully not a laptop ensemble featuring Jim O'Rourke or Christian Fennesz, this trio resists the temptation to lapse into dense free jazz phrasings, and instead focuses on

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"Writing Aloud" is the second massive publication from experimental musician Brandon LaBelle's Errant Bodies Press, and is a collection of writings about the semiotic slippages between sound and language. His introduction states: "in speaking about

Fifth solo album from Ex-Screaming Trees vocalist Mark Lanegan and he just keeps geting better. Dark and smoky, evocative and atmospheric. Slow, whiskey soaked ballads with a country tinge. With a beautifully dreamy and washed out (but still crystal clear)

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Guitarist Licht (ex-Love Child, Run On, etc) indeed plays well (and then weirdly) on this new solo effort. Two long, half-hour-plus tracks, the first, "Remington Khan", is a dexterous display of hypnotic note-pickin' (and building backing drone)

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The prolific pop mistress Barbara Manning is back for another go-round with the Go-Luckys. Ten tunes of jangling guitars, her ever-young and sprightly voice and a ghostly flight here and there of musical saw. All the low-key prettiness we've come to expect

GGGGGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!! The ever charming German electronica maven Atom Heart (to some still better known as Senor Coconut, and to others, like his mom, as Uwe Schmidt -- his real name) retains his infatuation with the

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Analog synths galore! This Washington DC duo mix electronics and violin to make some kraut-friendly (Conrad Schnitzler comes to mind) electro drones, with moments of melody and beats...very nice!

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[ aquarius records new arrivals — issue 113 ]