[ aquarius records new arrivals

IMPORTANT (Please read to avoid confusion): Some items below may be tagged with a bold, red, all-caps OUT OF PRINT/UNAVAILABLE notice. This does NOT mean that all other items not so tagged are, in fact, in stock — or for that matter, in print and available, though there's a good chance they are. Some folks get confused on this point, and we can see why, so please read this for further clarification and other important before-you-order information. Unlike some mailorder websites, we don't have an electronic inventory system linked to our site, so you can't be sure of what we actually have or don't have in stock at any given moment without asking us — please email our mailorder department for availability status — or better yet, just go ahead and place your order using our shopping cart function and we'll get back to you with the status of each item. If you have general non-mailorder questions, email the store.

Showing results 51 through 98 of 98.

This new improvisational group of extremely prolific downtown NY musicians just happen to all be women, and is being marketed as "one of the first all women supergroups" by Tzadik. Combining the amazing percussive work of the young Susie Ibarra, the post-drum

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The third and final compilation, after Protein Source for the Future and Bitter Melon Farm, that collects all the stray songs from various sources that you may or may not have heard on one handy cd. And there's one song that's never been released before! John For all of us die hard completists, here are the original sources from which the 31 songs on Ghana came from: Object Lessons (the Beerframe compilation) Songs About Fire 7" the Wedding Record 7" (wedding invitation) Orange Raja, Blood Royal 7" with kiwi experimental fiddler Alastair Galbraith Cool Beans #4 zine comp Taking the Dative cassette Back to the Egg, Asshole tape comp a live comp from KSPC Corkscrewed, a British cassette comp tje Tropical Depression split single with Furniture Huschle the Goar 7" comp from Germany Hard Core Acoustic tape comp the Fast Forward 2 double cd comp from Holland the Cyanide Guilt Trip 7" comp and finally, the Hey Dan K. comp that was never released.

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Seems like Non Phixion have been around forever, but 'The Future Is Now' is actually their debut full length, after a handful of 12"s and a brief stint on Matador. Another posse of white boys who have managed to sidestep the Vanilla Ice/Eminem/3rd Bass

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Carsten Nicolai -- one of the most adept and original artists in the microsound aesthetic -- returns to his Noto moniker (after a number of releases as Alva Noto) for this double 10" of locked grooves. Each side contains a number of mathematically precise locked grooves that incrementally increase in frequency as one skips towards the center of the record, with each side breaking e:very pure sine tones f:solitary bleeps g:mulitple clicks h: "arithmetic division of loops through clippings" which is sort of a combination of the other three. Noto has also drilled an off-set hole, so these elements can be played with a sea-sick warble. Word of caution, the lower frequencies may cause some damage to your speakers at high volume.

Reissued now for obvious reasons, this 1974 concert recording documents an example of the vital and exciting musical tradition that Afghanistan's former Taliban regime attempted to outlaw. The late Ustad Mohammad Omar was most certainly a virtuoso on the

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That's Otomo Yoshihide, Keith Rowe and Taku Sugimoto. Recorded at LMCSound in London, the three iconoclastic guitarists team up for an excruciatingly patient exercise in restraint and controlled ferocity. High volume static crackle, lo-fi rumbles and

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When just a precocious lad of 15, Charlemagne Palestine began playing the bells in the church tower next to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He claims that he played those bells everyday for the next six years, and this physical involvement with the What I want to know is who in their right mind would let some 15 year old kid into a church tower to hammer on some incredibly expensive bells everyday for six years!?!?

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Led by Tim Furnish (Crain, Aerial M, For Carnation), this Louisville group is quite beautiful. It's a post rock instrumental record... and yeah, there's a lot of those out right now! However, this is totally at the higher end of the quality spectrum. The

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A very splendid four-song EP from this UK IDM duo! Continuing on from last year's impressive full length Double Figure, they move further from their formerly much more playful, blissed-out sounds, weighting their delicate, melodious electronics with darker,

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International experimental supergroup Poire_Z return with a third disc of improvisational electronic / electroacoustic music. Featured on "+" are three live documents in which the quartet -- featuring the Swiss experimentalists Voice Crack (Norbert Möslang

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This new Promise Ring is nothing like their previous releases. They have catapulted themselves beyond plain old emo rock. I suppose it's nice that they are using different instrumentation (strings, a choir, vocal soloists, and keyboards) and they do have

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Double disc live document of the Japanese supergroup -- which features Seiichi Yamamoto of Omoide Hatoba and the Boredoms and Yuji Katsui of Bondage Fruit, among many others -- while on their white hot jaunt across the US in 2001. Recorded and mixed by Bill

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Another solo disc from the Anticon posse, Personal Journal is MC Sage Francis' long-in-the-works earnestly-autobiographical album. With producers odd nosdam, Sixtoo, mayonnaise, Controller 7, and more, all of whom keep his voice right out front.

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This rare album (only 500 copies of the LP were originally issued in 1974) is now finally reissued on cd! "Blau" (Blue) is the second solo effort from legendary krautrock electronics pioneer Conrad Schnitzler, following his amazing debut "Rot" (Red) and his

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Here's an unexpected set of reissues: vinyl versions of two classic krautrock albums by electronica pioneer Conrad Schnitzler. They're legit, done from master tapes we're told. "Rot" (Red) was Con's amazing 1973 solo debut. Intense science-fictional bleep-drone, with ironic titles like (side one) "Meditation" and even "Krautrock" (side two). It's totally dark (but a little silly too). The Plate Lunch cd reissue of this we used to stock is now out of print, so that makes this new LP version even more essential. Of course, this vinyl reissue is pressed on red wax, in a red sleeve.

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Local duo that play a very very pleasant, quiet sort of midtempo indie rock, with lots of delicate details if you're patient enough to listen closely. They remind me a lot of another beloved local band -- Fuck -- not only because the groups share

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The title of this album "Vira" translates to 'Brotherhood", and although these two men are not related by blood, they certainly are connected in music. These recordings are of a single completely improvised performance by Singh on tabla and Chaurasia on

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Album number two from John (Bastard Noise) Wiese's cut 'n' paste, plundercore grind project Sissy Spacek. Short and sweet blasts of feedback and throat clearing kinda like Masonna crossed with the Locust. Like the spine says: "SISSISSPSSKSSISSRS".

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The newest release from these Swedish metallers marks a rather dramatic change in direction. Taking the best parts of In Flames, At The Gates and 'Heartwork' era Carcass, Soilwork have always been a huge favorite around here -- we consider them to be of the

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Spaceboy is San Francisco's oddest avant-metallic combo, starting with their name (and album title) and going from there. They smoke a lot of pot and play music like prog rockers gone death metal. Actually it sounds like half the band is playing death metal This, their second full-length (and first for SoCal's premier doom metal label, Southern Lord, home to SUNNO))), Khanate, Warhorse, Boris, etc.) clocks in at nearly an hour. There's eleven tracks, with every odd-numbered track being a brief, spacey instrumental interlude. The songs proper are super-heavy and dark, full of complex technical metal guitars & drums, distorted vox, and stoned drone ambience. All we can do is cite a bunch of stuff that this seems influenced by or kinda reminds us of: Neurosis, Voivod, Meshuggah, Mahavishnu, Hawkwind, King Crimson, Today Is The Day, Old Man Gloom... Listening to this, though, is like trying to peer through some nebular haze in a distant galaxy. It's going to take a while to fully understand the advanced calculus at work here. One thing we do understand: it's heavy!

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Inoffensive classical guitar jazz in John Zorn's new series of background music for upscale dinner parties, in which the horrors of globalization are discussed without being aware of the irony that all of the guests are sporting clothes from The Gap.

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Here is the split release from the dark, sexy Portland, OR group Glass Candy and the now dead, but equally sexy SF band Subtonix (R.I.P.). Art-punk-no-wave for the gothy 70's punk resurgence fans. In the vein of X-Ray Spex, Suicide, James Chance and the

The five Welsh boys that comprise popsters Super Furry Animals have been around for nine years and five releases. And you've probably heard them by now and formed your own opinion. This is their first release for major label Epic, and it's a long, double

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Tanakh are a new quintet (led by Jesse Poe from Richmond, VA) that just may pique the interest of those who've enjoyed the recent works of Michael Gira / Angels Of Light, Godspeed You Black Emperor and Larsen. Creating mysterious and expansive music with a

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Are you ready for a cd with more twists and turns and brutality than a Guy Ritchie movie? Then check out this, the third album by Swedish progressive death metal band Theory In Practice. Super tight, super technical, this is in math-rock for metalheads in the

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We had never heard of these folks until AQ fave Greg Weeks came to town with his travelling musical revue (Timesbold in tow) and I have to say I was BLOWN AWAY by this band. How a band could be this good, sound this polished and self assured, share so many

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Jeff Tweedy of Wilco and Uncle Tupelo wrote and performed this soundtrack to an Ethan Hawke-directed film about the Chelsea Hotel in NYC. It's mostly echoey, moody soundtrack fare, peppered with twangy numbers performed with some of the members of Wilco and/or

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All it took was one viewing of the video for Tweet's first single to make us NEED to own this. Not only is the loop for 'Oops' probably the greatest Timbaland rhythm track ever, the song itself is racy and saucy (chorus: "Ooops, there goes my shirt, up over

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Part of me sees the development of the Jamaican DJ as truly bizarre. I try to imagine the Aquarius equivalent with say, our J. Allan Horrocks (who's initials are JAH, coincidentally enough) waxing poetic over The Lord Weird Slough Feg and cutting the tracks

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This curiously titled compilation from Edition... doesn't want to make the process of uncovering its intentions and potential meanings an easy task, by obscuring the context of how this is to be heard, read, investigated, etc. Edition... has packaged this

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The first release from Afrodisiac Records, Booniay is a really fun comp of funk, afrobeat, and highlife from '70s West Africa. There's a lot of James Brown "heuh!" exclamations, a lot of Fela-style horns, a lot of smokin' groovy organs, and ridiculously

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Brainwashed.com is an indispensible website dedicated to all sorts of musical arcana, publishing an insightful number of reviews and hosting the official domains for such diverse artists as Nurse With Wound, V/VM, Matmos, Mirror, Labradford, Trans Am, Hey, we're not claiming these to be right! Have fun with it yourself, we sure did! Where this compilation succeeds in its musical content, it royally fails in packaging: three loose cds in a metal tin which requires the booklets to be bent in order to fit, accompanied by a cheap keychain, a cloth patch, and a q-tip (???). All of this is wrapped with an unkempt piece of wire. Arrggg.

Alec "The Destroyer" Empire, fed up with the Berlin scene, returned to the New York DHR offices and rummaged through the huge box of demo tapes from numerous underground and largley unheard American artists. These three jam-packed discs feature 35 of those

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The first of two Kris Kristofferson tribute albums to come out in this here year 2002, Don't Let the Bastards Get You Down was put together by local man about town Nick Tangborn. Like a Dwight Yoakum of his day, Kris Kristofferson was equally involved with

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An album of Queen covers where each song is so unlike the original that it's only slightly recognizable. And the Queen connection turns out to be enough of a good thematic idea to hold this record together! The point isn't really the Queen songs, but the On the other hand, Allan thinks this is a compilation of bands he mostly wouldn't normally want to listen to, ruining a bunch of songs he loves, but can't deny the humor value, and imagines that Freddie wouldn't be too upset. Queen were pretty campy after all.

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Manuel Göttsching, founder of legendary Kraut pioneers Ash Ra Temple, recorded a few records in the eighties under his own name. "E2-E4", the first among them and recorded in 1981, is hailed as a classic and is a great influence for early Detroit techno

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Oh boy, this is nice. A roughly 6"x6"x2" wooden box, housing a thick booklet and five beautiful colored cardboard double cd sleeves, containing ten cds amongst them. On the cds (and described in print in the booklet): work by 34 Japan-based improvising These folks do everything from improvising on tradtional instruments (Michihiro Sato's shamisen, Michiyo Yagi's koto) to full on electronic noise (Incapacitants) to avant-pop (Hoahio) to jazz to minimalist experimentation (Yoshimitsu Ichiraku's "Cymbal Orchestra"). Some tracks are long enough to be full releases in and of themselves. We could provide further description, but figure that either those names mean something to you or they don't, and if they don't, you probably aren't curious enough to blow $160 for a crash course in the world of underground Japanese jazz/electronic improv music (or are you?). And if you have this box in your future, you probably know it already. We'll just say, it really is pretty nice package, worth the investment of time and money if you already have and enjoy more than a few discs by any of the artists documented. Three of us here at AQ bought copies! But, be warned, we only have TWO of these...no wait, ack, damn, someone just bought one. We now have ONE copy! And we won't be getting any more (it's limited to 500, and these are are last we were able to get). So, the customer who stops by or gets their order in first will be in luck.

The "Minima-List" compilation of contemporary electronic minimalism could have easily fallen into the banalities of so many of the microsound compilations. Fortunately, the new French label List had enough sense to put together a collection that celebrates the

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Okay, whose w-a-c-k-y idea was this??? Today's "punk" bands take aim at today's top 40 hitmakers. On the "punk" team? Dynamite Boy, Stretch Arm Strong, Noise Ratchet, Nicotine, Reach The Sky and a dozen more. Some of their targets? Destiny's Child ("Survivor"), Pink ("Get This Party Started"), J. Lo (I'm Real"), Britney Spears ("...Baby One More Time") and the

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Fairly caught with our pants down around our ankles we were when Sharpling & Wurster's "Music Scholar" suggested that every self respecting record store would have a large collection of Greek Rembetika music. Checking our inventory we could only attest to Rembetika music developed early in the 20th century amongst the poor habitants of Greece. Much like the American blues, these marginalized members of Greek society wrote songs about pain, death, prison (many of the rembetika musicians of this time were jailed merely for playing their music), drugs (the word "rembetika" is derived from "tekes", meaning hash den), sorrow, etc. Comparisons have even been drawn to Harlem of the same period. The music is centered around the bouzouki, a home grown lute invented by rembetika musicians, but can include baglama (a smaller bouzouki), santouri (dulcimer), lyra (or violin), guitar, oud, clarinet and vocals of course. One of the things that made their music so rich was the absorption of musical influences from around the Mediterranean. Two tragic events, both in 1922, helped add to this melange: a fire that consumed the island of Smyrna forced the inhabitants to mainland Greece and the Greco-Turkish war, which caused massive shifting of populations. Both events saw a new influx of poor immigrants who added their distinctive styles and melodies to the form. By 1937 the Greek government, viewing the anti-authoritarian and Arab influenced sounds as a cultural and political threat, banned the music from being played on the radio, favoring instead the more mainstream Piraeus style of rembetika. The 45 tracks on this two disc collection capture this brief and musically fertile phenomenon, featuring some of the best of the day, including Markos Vamvakaris, Rita Ambadsi, Evangelos Papazoglu and much more. This fine edition from Trikont comes with two booklets, and though the back cover claims to include an English translation there is in fact only a brief translation of some of the lyrics. All the historical documentation will require an understanding of German.

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Don't be fooled by the title, this new fancily book-packaged compilation actually leans much more heavily on electro sounds than disco. Sort of a melting together of the two genres with the former as the dominant. Tagged in the liner notes as the "new disco",

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This Ministry Of Sound compilation strikes me as the equivalent of one of those K-Tel ultra-super-mega-smash-hit-only-on-tv-extravaganza compilations, but minus the K-Tel bargain pricetag. Take the very first track

Volume Five of this excellent early American roots music series on the very reliable Yazoo Records dusts off another wonderful selection of rare 78 records from the '20s and '30s. It features many notable and influential folk and blues figures such as Skip

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Volume Six of this excellent early American roots music series on the very reliable Yazoo record label continues on where Volume Five left off. Dusting off another wonderful array of rare 78 records, it features many notable and influential folk and blues figures from the '20s and '30s such as Skip James and Charley Patton as well as many more obscure artists. Through the hiss and scratchiness of these historical musical documents, hear the rich, reeling sounds of banjo, fiddle, guitar and voice. Oh the voices! Beautiful, distinct, passionate and often mournful, they regale tales of romance, religion and war time. 23 tracks in all.

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Hardcore noise mashup featuring a strange mix of contributions from Melt-Banana, Christoph De Babalon, Merzbow, Shizuo (& Chris), Stilluppsteypa, Patric Catani, Brezel Goring (of Stereo Total), as well as many others. Dunno if these artists have actually

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This very strange new "Stereo" from rock vet Paul Westerberg finds its home on emo-boy haven Vagrant Records. And although many of the youngsters on that label owe a great deal to the former Replacement's amazing songwriting pen, we're not so sure if this

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Gosh there's a lot to say about this record. [1] THE MUSIC: The sonic trajectory Wilco seemed to be on with their last album, Summerteeth, led us to believe the new one would be even more perfect pop-like. But they've gone and thrown us a curve ball. That's right, this is Wilco's weird experimental record. OK, it isn't *that* weird; and if you're an AQ customer then you have far more experimental records in your collection, but it *is* unusual for Wilco. Like a mix between the doleful Giant Sand and the fanciful Latin Playboys (Los Lobos' weird experimental side project), this new Wilco record doesn't have half as many hooks as previous efforts. While it certainly has the tried and true strummed acoustic guitars, lyrical piano, sad fiddles, and alterna-country tone that the group is famous for, they make you wait and wait and wait for the hooks and the melodies, or else they bury 'em in a scattered, cathartic wash of melancholy. Jeff Tweedy, leader of the band and one half of the late great Uncle Tupelo, is a-wanderin' and a-thinkin' out loud and he's a-lettin' the songs write themselves, so they meander a bit, but it's ever so heartfelt. If you can handle the assorted odd sonic elements that pop up all over -- wooden bonks 'n clonks, piano plinks, toys, static and scrapings, feedback, stereo separation novelties, strange rumblings that threaten to overtake the music, etc -- then you'll like this record. (Rumor has it several members of Wilco *couldn't* handle the weirdness, and quit the band.) And even though the ubiquitous Jim O'Rourke mixed the album and you'd think he brought in all random noises, actually the band claims the record was way more weird *before* O'Rourke worked on it. Huh. [2] THE EXTRAS: Comes with stuff you can play on your computer: a video for one of the songs, plus links to the trailer for the upcoming doc being made about 'em, plus special access to a hidden webpage that's only for folks who've bought the album. [3] THE SAGA: Wilco's shortsighted major label Reprise decides that sales of 162,000 copies of Wilco's last album isn't enough, and they don't like the new album, so they want the band off the label. Wilco buys back the masters for less than it cost to record them, and sign with Nonesuch (who btw also signed Magnetic Fields). In a nice example of corporate stupidity, Nonesuch and Reprise are owned by the same corporation, so in effect AOL Time Warner paid for the album twice. Ha. Before they signed with Nonesuch, Wilco made this new album downloadable from their website, and thus it even showed up, without ever having been officially released, on a few rockcrits' top ten lists from 2001. Ironically enough, now that the album's saga has been latched onto by the NY Times and NPR, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot will sell more copies than all of Wilco's previous albums, and someone at Reprise will get fired. [4] CONET PROJECT ALERT: Hey all you fellow Conet lovers! Didja notice the title of this record? Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Yankee... Hotel... Foxtrot... Yes folks, this record was named after a track on the infamous Conet Project, the 4cd set that collects mysterious shortwave numbers station broadcasts. (We're kind of proud to have sold more copies of this than any other store -- 387 and counting!) And yep, there's a Conet Project sample buried near the end of the record. It's uncredited, which is kind of lame -- I mean if Wilco are such ardent fans of the Conet Project, wouldn't they want to turn other people onto it? Nor did we find Conet credit given on Boards of Canada's Geodaddi, for that matter, but the makers of Vanilla Sky did!

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If ya ain't been paying close attention, you might erroneously think that our AQ collective aesthetic runs to whatever is "weird", for the simple reason that it's "weird". But you'd be wrong. Heck, there's obviously no integrity in just being anti for anti's sake. People who're into EVERYTHING weird, regardless of quality, usually are trying to prove something about themselves, it's got nothing to do with music. So, while I can totally appreciate the weirdness of this reissue of the legendary Gary Wilson album, and its first appearance on cd, I can't fully recommend it to you... because it's pretty bad. Not "so bad it's good." This is "so bad... period!" On the other hand, Neil Strauss from the NY Times thinks it's good -- he wrote that big article about Wilson that's largely responsible for the current hype and interest -- so if you actually trust Strauss or whoever, then go for it. If you trust AQ, save yer money. It sounds like a syrupy "slow jams" record made by a complete dork who's kinda bitter about some failed relationship(s). There's no pleasure to be found in listening to Wilson's pitiful attempts at songwriting and performing, no joy in knowing he feels worse than you ever did. The Langley Schools cd, with the Canadian kids singing pop hits, is a great example of rock performed by amateurs who're so earnest, super touching, and poignant... and thus the Langley Schools cd is (to *some* of the AQ staff) Good Listening. But I swear, the Gary Wilson just doesn't deliver. Did someone mash Bobby Conn through the Steely Dan filter?! Sigh. The only way to convince yourself that you like this record is to look at it ironically. And that's no way to listen to music! "Irony." Feh. This review was written by someone who has owned the Gary Wilson record for, like, seven years. Go figure. Marcy's alternate review: First, be warned: every single AQ staffer but me HATES this record (you may remember the exceptionally negative review it received in our list earlier in the year). On the other hand, I absolutely LOVE it. And I know I'm not alone, because quite a few people I've played this for have also fallen head-over-heels for Gary Wilson's incredibly unique, bizarre, charming and disturbing blend of John Cage-inspired experimentalism and 70's chart pop. Almost entirely alone in his parent's basement, wrapped in magnetic tape and new-wave shades, Wilson crafted early synths, organ, tape freak-outs, funky bass and smoove beats into an impressive musical backing for his fucked-up stories of teenage lust. Puncuated by more "woo!"s and "yeah!"s than a Michael Jackson record, the lyrics display a tension between the sort of romantic naivete normally confined to 50's teensploitation films and a twisted, neurotic and dark view of love in an increasingly technological and isolating world. I not a big fan of joke records; I generally have better things to do than listen to records described as "so-bad-they're-good;" my opinion that "You Think You Really Know Me" is absolutely brilliant is as 100% sincere as Wilson's impassioned, pleading vocals. We have here a classic love-it-or-hate-it deal; my co-workers may grimace, but this record puts a huge smile on my face.

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[ aquarius records new arrivals — issue 136 ]