[ aquarius records new arrivals

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Showing results 51 through 95 of 95.

24 tracks from one of Jamaica's original ska vocalists. Though the majority of the tracks here were recorded during the sixties, and thus mostly ska, there are a number of early R&B tracks on here that not only bridge the gap between US and Jamaican music,

RealAudio clip: Lover Boy
RealAudio clip: You Never Miss The Water
RealAudio clip: Housewives' Choice

Boston-based guitar improviser Joe Morris busts out the steel-string acoustic for this solo set, which doesn't really sound too far removed from his electric excursions, since he's known for his clean, bright, effects-less sound. In fact, the twang and resonance of the steel-string seems *more* distorted than other stuff of his we've heard. Anyway, this is a nice, mesmerizing,

RealAudio clip: Shape

We've got just a few copies of this recently reissued live disc by the legendary Mutantes -- but be warned, this is post-Rita Lee, mid-'seventies Mutantes, a much different beast than the Tropicalia psych-pop group that made those all-time AQ-fave classics "Os

Along with part-time collaborator Sachiko M, Toshimaru Nakamura positions his work in the Japanese movement known as "onkyo" which translates as "the reverberation of sound." Nakamura emphasizes the texture of sound through the manipulation of a restricted

RealAudio clip: NIMB 15
RealAudio clip: NIMB 18

It's always been hard being a woman in a male dominated scene, but it must be doubly hard when you're driven to explore and expand and alienate the dance floor the way Riz Maslen is. But the scene's loss is our gain. This double cd (disc two is a cd-rom movie

RealAudio clip: Still
RealAudio clip: Closer to the Sun

Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Mangum travelled to Bulgaria in August of 2001 and came back with this aural document of the Koprivshtitsa Festival. Impossibly high female voices arch over droning pipes and strings, at times in a chorus like chattering,

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In the same limited (to 150 copies) edition series as the Kawabata Makoto disc reviewed last list, comes this improvised psychedelic excursion by Gravitar guitarist Geoff Walker and friends. It was recorded live "in 'The Roosevelt National Forest' on a beautiful sunny day under the influence of abnormally high amounts of hallucinogens", or so we're told -- certainly the drug

RealAudio clip: Side Show

A record that demands the kind of attention a small novella might: short but intense... and you can't do anything else while you're listening to it but maybe smoke cigarettes and dumbly stare at the half-filled whiskey glasses left over from the night

RealAudio clip: Johnny Bad

Combining beautiful harmonies and heartbreaking epic songs, this first effort from these local boys as Pleasure Forever (formerly Slaves), displays elements of the Doors if they were good and the sadder parts of great eighties rock, such as Swans or the Birthday Party. The recording itself is so complex and layered it's hard to believe this band is a 3-piece.

RealAudio clip: Any Port In A Storm

This hitherto unknown Russian black metal band has quickly gained some converts here at Aquarius with this disc. Of course, we're suckers for folky, flute-heavy pagan forest metal! You might laugh at the jig-dancing potential of this disc, and sure, we like it

RealAudio clip: Fear (Wasn't In The Design)
RealAudio clip: Planeshift

Digging up more rare metal history (starting with the Solitude Aeturnus demos vinyl pressing), Rob Preston's Doomed Planet label presents a reissue of obscure '80s Bay Area (non-thrash!) metal act Rellik's lone 12", with unreleased bonus tracks filling it out to full-length status. On vinyl only, of course, and limited to 500 copies, almost sold out. OK, most folks who get this list

The soundtrack to the film Songcatcher is filled with compelling performances by such songbirds as Iris Dement, Dolly Parton. Alison Moorer, Deana Carter, Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch, Emmy Rossum, Patty Loveless, Hazel Dickens, and Lone Justice's Maria McKee. About half of the songs are traditionals and they fit in well with the original compositions. Wonderful.

RealAudio clip: Pretty Saro
RealAudio clip: Sounds of Loneliness

Following on the heels of his "My Red Hot Car" single, Tom Jenkinson has blessed us with an additional 9 tracks of Squarepusher salvation. Though the single is by far the best track on the album, you can be rest assured that fretless bass licks, Miles Davis

RealAudio clip: My Red Hot Car
RealAudio clip: Boneville Occident

Six laptops, three Icelanders, and three Chicagoans embarked on a collaborative tour in October 2000 throughout the US (but alas, not making their way to San Francisco). While certainly familiar with each other's work, they hadn't any previously working

RealAudio clip: Intenational Starving Artists
RealAudio clip: This Place Looks Like Flint

One of the hardest working bands in San Francisco demonstrate on this second release their own brand of atmospheric, dreamy pop. Combining pretty boy/girl vocal harmonies. Reminiscent of Mazzy Star, Opal, and the Go Betweens.

RealAudio clip: All Mistakes Are Mine

One of our favorite Japanese improv guitarists takes his brand of minimalist abstraction to a new level on this disc, which 1) you have to turn WAY up to even hear the notes he's playing, 2) features lots of notes *not* being played, and 3) is fucking gorgeous. What we mean by 2) is that the three long tracks on here would be a lot shorter without all the silence. Not everybody will be

With the sunlit psych melodies of, say, the Olivia Tremor Control, and the hushed sweetly plaintive vocal delivery of Flaming Lips, Fuck, For Stars, or Grandaddy, plus a much smaller, more intimate right-there-in-front-of-you sound, Summer Hymns have made a pretty album. It's not the best of the current crop of bright eyed young Elephant 6 popsters, but it's pretty good nonetheless.

RealAudio clip: Something's Going On

Swell co-founder David Freel stands alone at the helm a decade after they hit the indie-rock air waves. The latest effort maintains the integrity of David's heart-felt, shiny-sad lyrics and the swell's distinctively angular riffs that culminate in catchy pop choruses. Recommended.

RealAudio clip: This Story
RealAudio clip: Someday Always Comes

The folks that brought us the fantastic Thai Elephant Orchestra disc are also responsible for the release of this almost as unusual album -- avant-garde jazz music made by an orchestra of Brooklyn pre- and grade-schoolers! They are definitely more

RealAudio clip: The Aliens Blow Up Antartica
RealAudio clip: The Navy Bombs Them
RealAudio clip: Everything Is Soft

Sophomore album from these Swedish stoner rock/doom metal practicioners. As with their debut, this is heavy, groovy, psychedelic stuff that owes the usual big debt to the Masters Black Sabbath. Vocalist Lord Christus (ex-Count Raven and St. Vitus!) has the Ozzy-vox down cold, and his band sweats out a suitable bottom-heavy riff-oriented accompaniment to his wailings. Good stuff! For

In the world of quietly melodic experimental electronica, I seem to be the designated AQ reviewer / expert, and that's fine, because I like this world, which is peopled by such relatively popular acts as Boards of Canada, Mouse on Mars, To Rococo Rot,

RealAudio clip: United World Elevator (excerpt 1)
RealAudio clip: United World Elevator (excerpt 2)
RealAudio clip: Tusovska Dub Version

Why does anyone bother with the current crop of "stoner rock" when there's so much better stuff made back in the original stoner age (the '70s) now being reissued?? If you're into the Man's Ruin roster, and prone to buying albums by the latest Swedish Kyuss

RealAudio clip: Cotton Wood Hill
RealAudio clip: Life Goes On

This acclaimed Lisbon-based experimental musician-producer-academic continues to create lush ambient soundscapes using electric guitar and effects (as well as some "silence" recorded from a space shuttle mission). Very beautiful. Recommended.

RealAudio clip: Measurement of Noise

When we first put this on, Jim and Jeff immediately thought to themselves "Hey! This sounds just like later period Einsturzende Neubauten!" And that it does, Blowback is also a highly polished smooth electronic downtempo funk record guested by the likes of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Cyndi Lauper and Live's Ed Kowalczyk. Need we say more? Should we tell you that one song sounds like

Troll stars Nagash (of Kovenant, Dimmu Borgir fame) and drummer extraordinaire Hellhammer (Mayhem, Kovenant, Arcturus, and about two dozen other bands). These Norwegian black metal vets have tied their long hair back in ponytails and traded their medieval blade weapons for pistols and shotguns, thus giving their Satanic image a Tarantino style makeover. But the music is still

RealAudio clip: Sannhetens Plagiat

Limited edition lp only issue of Twilight Circus' "Dub Voyage". Pressed on 180 gram virgin vinyl.

Are you ready for some darkness? 'Cause here's a tribute to Norway's kings of darkness -- no we don't mean Emperor or Dimmu Borgir or any other black metallers, we mean those bastard spawn of the MC5 and the Village People, the one and only none-too-PC-punks

RealAudio clip: No Beast So Fierce
RealAudio clip: I Got Erection
RealAudio clip: Good Head
RealAudio clip: Bad Mongo

Third in the series of international blip-bleep compilations from this French label. This edition features 14 tracks of previously unreleased music from six electronic musicians: AQ-fave Neotropic from England, Austrialian "lowercase" artist Pimmon, Bovine Life (UK), Novel 23 (Russia), Zonk't (France), and Atau Tanaka (Japan).

What first caught our attention about this international compilation of "space rock" bands was the presence of both utter AQ-faves Circle and equally fantastic (and Finnish) Circle-variant Ektroverde! Those band's tracks (both over nine minutes each, bookending

Mixmaster of the moment DJ Spinna shows his impeccable taste in "rock breaks and guitars for funky people" with this compilation (put together by Spinna and Monty Burns). The '70s ride again with the choice cuts found here: tracks by Sly Stone ("Trip To Your Heart", which you'll recognize from its sampled use by LL Cool J on "Mama Said Knock You Out"), Santana, Herbie Hancock's Head

A tribute to Antonioni's 1966 classic film "Blow-Up". Features a wide range of contributors including Matmos, Sun City Girls, Starfuckers, Dean Roberts, Richard Youngs, Arthur Doyle (!), Loren Mazzacane Connors, William Parker, Amy Denio, Dorgon, Mushroom and Birdsong's Air Force. Vinyl only.

New collection from New York dancehall label Massive B featuring cuts by artists toasting over Massive B's new improved upon -- punchier bass -- "2G1 Answer" and "Dun Dem" rhythms. 17 cuts (8 using the Answer rhythm and 9 using Dun Dem) featuring such notables as Jr. Kelly ("Ghetto Region"), Elephant Man ("The Anthem"), Burro Banton ("Settle Yours"), Half Pint ("She's Fever"),

RealAudio clip: The Anthem (Answer rhythm)
RealAudio clip: Nine Dem (Dun Dem rhythm)

In 2000, the Icelandic arts collective Kitchen Motors began organizing a series of monthly events which featured commissioned collaborations between artists from differing backgrounds. The first production is dominated by the presence of two of Iceland's most prolific experimental / electronic outfits Stilluppsteypa (who originate from Iceland but now live in the Netherlands) and Altogether a conceptually rich compilation that has been executed to near perfection. Hopefully the first of many interesting things to come!

RealAudio clip: Kort Kort Kredit
RealAudio clip: Veltipunktur
RealAudio clip: Telefonia

The second installment from Kitchen Motor's series of cross-platform Icelandic collaborations takes a much more lively route than the previous collection of conceptual drone work featuring Stilluppsteypa and The Halfer Trio. The first collaborative effort is between Reykjavik's electronica darlings Mum and playwright Sjon. The script (all in Icelandic) is a monodrama about a housewife

RealAudio clip: She Introduces Herself
RealAudio clip: Ondula Nova
RealAudio clip: The Hamburger That I Ordered

Compilation celebrating the big apple's cornucopia of ethnic populations and the various musical traditions they uphold amidst mainstream media and culture's hegemonic tendencies. 31 tracks, representing a wide variety of groups are collected here: Puerto

RealAudio clip: Fiesta De Plena
RealAudio clip: Sanjo Kayageum
RealAudio clip: Fakoli

Between 1995 and 1997, Hrvatski and various accomplices put together a vinyl only collection of two minute electro-shock / drill 'n' bass tracks called "Attention: Cats." That homage to the short attention span has in turn been reworked into even an even

RealAudio clip: Shifty's Cut Bait Shoppe
RealAudio clip: Soft-Corpse Mix
RealAudio clip: Implements Amenable
RealAudio clip: Steaktippin Freerange Mix

Mikael Stavostrand has done all that he can to distance himself from his earliest recordings in Archon Satani, whose bleak post-industrial work parallelled the earliest manifestations of the Norwegian black metal scene. No longer embracing the dark theatrical atmospheres embraced by the Cold Meat Industries label, Stavostrand is currently championing the minimal, tasteful,

The subtitle says: "rare tracks from the best Italian '70s crime movie soundtracks". A *great* collection of music from these flicks, with lots of previously unreleased or unreleased on cd stuff by soundtrack composers Cipriani, Vasile, Bixio, and of

RealAudio clip: La Via Della Droga
RealAudio clip: Mark Il Poliziotto
RealAudio clip: Il Giorno Del Cobra

Producers DJ Scud, I-Sound, and Errorsmith present this 4-track mini-comp. There's one track each by Scud, I-Sound, Disco Consultant (I-Sound & Errorsmith), and Thunder And Lightning (DJ Scud & I-Sound) of fucked-up glitch-dub beat/bass mayhem. It's not as heavy and damaging as some of their other stuff, but it's in the ballpark. On the new sister label of noise/reggae imprint

The Britain-based pan-Asian label Outcaste releases the third in its series documenting Indian film soundtrack songs from the country's incredibly prolific Bollywood industry. (The first two being Bollywood Breaks and Bollywood Funk.) The songs, called "filmi", found here are some of the biggest hits spanning 1969 thru the '90s. As the liner notes point out, that means there's no

RealAudio clip: Chaiya Chaiya
RealAudio clip: Choli Ke Peeche

From the same label that released the three volumes (so far) of the wonderful "Love, Peace, & Poetry" international '60s psych compilation series, comes this new collection focusing on, uh, abnormal country music of the psychedelic era? Or as the label

RealAudio clip: White Trash Hillbilly Trick
RealAudio clip: Lover Now Alone

We don't either...still, here's vol. one of infamous UK electronic jokesters V/VM's unoffical/unneccesary Aphex Twin "remix" project.

Ummm, can't say much about this band other than they're getting tons of press and are selling out venues like the Fillmore. People love 'em and Jack White's certainly got a great voice, and he's a lot less annoying and attitudinal than his contemporary-in-sound

RealAudio clip: Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground
RealAudio clip: Hotel Yorba
RealAudio clip: The Union Forever

Hailing from Detroit, 66 year old Andre Williams plays blues based, ruckusy heartfelt drinking music for fans of The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Mick Collins and the like. This release has noodly guitar leads and old school soul organ. The Lovely Ronnie Spector apears as lead vocalist on one song.

Zorn's latest venture consists mainly of tributes to twentieth century artists/visionaries. Zorn's homage to Harry Smith is his first attept at an exclusively electronic music; it sounds like abrasive short-wave crackle with twinkly star-trek video game

RealAudio clip: American Magus
RealAudio clip: Beuysblock

[ aquarius records new arrivals — issue 116 ]