A wonderful piece of history precedes the reissue of this recording by the British pioneer of DIY electronics and cassette culture, Philip Sanderson. Having manufactured a number of cassette-only releases from 1978 - 1981 through his label Snatch Tapes, Sanderson devised the rather cynical ploy of recording under the moniker Claire Thomas and Susan Vezey to see if labels like Rough Trade, Cherry Red, or Fast Product might take the bait of women artists producing abstract electronic music. It's the same dodgy yet brilliant ploy recently used by San Francisco's Ziegenbock Kopf to market themselves as gay leatherboys. Unlike ZK, Sanderson got so far as to get a Claire Thomas and Susan Vezey track on the intriguing Cherry Red compilation entitled "Perspectives and Distortions" alongside The Virgin Prunes, Eyeless In Gaza, The Lemon Kittens, and Robert Fripp. The charade was up when Cherry Red made an offer to Claire and Susan to release an album and wanted to meet the two. Upon learning of the ruse, Cherry Red decide to pull out of the deal instead of continuing the masquerade. It's a shame that it had to come to that as Sanderson had produced a really amazing record of low-tech Cluster-inspired electronic bubblings, although Cherry Red's reaction is an understandable one. Regardless, Sanderson shrugged it off, issued the recordings as "Reprint" through Snatch in 1980, and thankfully 23 years later re-released it on CD through Anomalous Records.
The album begins convincingly enough in regards to the Claire and Susan mythology as Sanderson has employed the vocal talents of a woman simply identified as Nancy in an ethereal collage of her voice cycling through a mantra of tape delay effects. Yet that is the only reference to anything distinctly feminine on the record, as Sanderson completes the record with variations and repetitions of clattering electronics corroding into grimy noise and smeary tape hiss, not unlike Chris Carter's productions for Throbbing Gristle and less structured than Sanderson's work as the Storm Bugs. Sanderson's liner notes describe the record as "academic rigour married to an inverted pop art aesthetic. For whereas pop art incorporated the cheap intoxications of consumer culture into the supposed lofty rooms of high art, here was an attempt to incorporate the form of high art into the low brutality of DIY electronics." Well stated! It's probably not for everybody, but with the proliferation of CD-R labels doing the exact same thing 20 years later, "Reprint" is a historical gem.
We've been waitin' so long for these folks' to bring copies of this in. They dropped off a copy for us to check out many months ago, to which we swiftly said "yes, please!". At last it's here and just in time for summer, and y'know what? That's the perfect season for Scrabbel's debut! These two pals of the Aislers Set (actually Dan Lee is the new keyboardist for the 'Set, while Becky Baron can also be found behind the drumkit for the band #Poundsign#) fit well alongside A.S., exuding a youthful sing-song air that also made me think of a less hyper, acoustic Apples In Stereo - perhaps in part due to their girl/boy buttercream icing vocals and strummy guitars. However, they do throw their own tasty twists and shimmies in there: a mellow loungey organ melody, a lo-fi drum machine beat, an assortment of kitschy samples and various other noisemakers (horns and kazoos!). Delightful.
The soundtrack to Jon Moritsugu's latest award-winning independent film - this one about the tangled struggles of indie filmmakers and indie bands - is just as packed with friends of AQ as the film itself. Dustin from I Am Spoonbender plays the bad-ass Church, our very own Cup and J-Church's Lance Hahn make cameo appearances as eager film students, and Windy's bitchin' Trans Am even has a guest spot! The soundtrack features ample doses of Casiotone For The Painfully Alone and J-Church, as well as Moritsugu and Amy Davis' own band Toni Ann. Good, raw, lo-fi fun!
Classic Slayer songs like "Dead Skin Mask", "South Of Heaven" and "War Ensemble" arranged for violins, viola, cellos and a bit of electric cello (hey is that cheating?)!!? Yep, high concept title here, pretty self-explanatory really. Apparently there's a String Quartet Tribute to just about every popular recording artist EVER -- for instance there's ones for Tori Amos, Fleetwood Mac, Nine Inch Nails, The Smiths... Andee's real partial to the String Quartet Tribute to Tool. Maybe we'll get to listing that one day, but we just couldn't help ourselves when we saw this Slayer one was released. After all, we're big fans of the Finnish all-cello band Apocalpytica, who've made their name covering Metallica and Sepultura. Byram figures that these guys doing the Slayer tribute are even better players than Apocalyptica. It's pretty cool. We thought that the violence and speed of Slayer might reduce their instruments to sawdust but they make the music their own, being metal it's quasi-classical anyway and comes off sounding nice and dark here, the speed adding a bit of Carl Stalling cartoon music hyperactivity. Neato. And there's a pretty cool bonus original done in the strings-meet-Slayer style as well, just to prove that these guys can write as well as play and arrange. Only real disappointment: "Raining Blood" doesn't get covered.
Aussie guitar experimentalist Oren Ambarchi has been a prolific gent of late, mainly doing droney improv glitch stuff we've been diggin'. But we know there's other musical sides to his personality as well -- after all, we first encountered him playing in the loud n' noisy scatological Boredoms/Buttholes influenced band Phlegm back in the early '90s. So now here's another, new and different Ambarchi project, a duo by the name of Sun (not to be confused with the doomster duo Sunn) that pairs Ambarchi with one Chris Townend (described as an "Australian music figurehead" whatever that means). And it's not noise, or drone, or improv, or electronics -- it's full on indie-pop! Really nice too, with laid back drum beats, gentle vocals, and pretty guitar strum. They're called Sun (and there's some la la las sung) but they'll have you thinking of rainy days too with their lazy, wistful songs. It's got that 60s Beatles/Floyd filtered through 90s indie-pop thing, like a Elephant 6 band or the Aislers Set or something.
Originally released in 2001 in Australia only, Sun's debut has now been licensed by Staubgold for the rest of the planet. What's great is that they've also tacked on a 2nd bonus disc of remixes, featuring all the tracks from the album redone (or done in) by the likes of Pluramon, Hrvatski, Christoph Heeman, Rafael Toral, Pimmon, Mapstation, Tom Recchion and Norbert Moslang of Voice Crack! Quite an international lineup of experimental artists there, reinterpreting the music of Sun in ways closer to what you're used to hearing from Ambarchi. Droney and fucked up, these mixes add a lot to the package, making it not just real nice but really interesting as well. And what other pretty pop duo would get Voice Crack to do a remix?? I guess Ambarchi might just be angling to become the next Jim O'Rourke...
Eclipse has undertaken the ambitious yet noble task of re-releasing the entire Sun City Girls cassette recordings -- some of which date back to the band's pre-Placebo origins. This first re-issue (in a series of ten) includes the first two releases by the band, taken from their cassettes "God Is My Solar System" and "Superpower". Recorded between 1982 and 1983, these tracks show the Girls in all their youthful exuberance -- an unselfconscious & spontaneous collision of punk rock and free jazz-- and probably made when the members of bands like the No Neck Blues Band were just a twinkle in their mamas' eyes. Sadly for SCG completists, we aren't entirely sure whether these two slabs of wax actually contain all the tracks on first two cassettes. While none of us personally owns either, according to Scott Colburn's very complete discography -- http://www.gravelvoice.com/scg/scg.html -- there are quite a few tracks missing and some included which weren't even on the original cassettes. But before you poo poo this and the upcoming LP's as unworthy of your attention, know that you a) will only be able to find these tracks otherwise on crappy nth generation dubs and b) that these handsomely pressed gatefold double LPs are limited to 1000 copies. On top of that this album cover is attractively decorated with nice archival live photos of Sun City Girls demonstrating to all who stand before them just who the Gods, or Godesses, of costume rock are.
Finally! Some new music from our favorite space-drone-free-rock-hippy-drum-circle-caveman-stomp-folk-clatter ensemble Sunburned Hand Of The Man. And once again, these are extremely limted and we don't know how long we'll be able to keep these in stock. Probably not very long at all. This double cd-r is volumes 9 and 10 in SHotM's proposed series of 50 and some of their best so far. As a whole, these two discs are much quiter and ambient than any of the other releases, focusing on space and the sound AROUND the sounds. Disc one is a spare creaky framework of mumbly, lo-fi space jams, distant melodies, ghostly and ethereal, reverbed vocals, minimal wah guitar, rhythms all clattery and loose, stumbling and barely there, almost marking out the beat like the occasional stone thrown into a still pool. All wrapped in spidery cobwebs of murk and mire and hiss and stutter. Truly gorgeous. Disc two continues on in the same vein with shuffling rhythms and vaguely Eastern melodies, chanting and mumbly vocalising. There are moments on disc two that change things up a bit, most notably a strange bastard funk jam that sounds like Starfuckers chanelling James Brown, and then as the disc progresses some No Neck Blues Band meets Sun Ra free jazz clatter with saxophone bleats, space-y rhytmic abstracts, and splattery percussion.
Already in its second pressing -- as the first had been released in an elaborate pyramid and sold out very quickly -- "Symbiosis" is a brief excursion into the dreamily expressive guitar drones of the AQ-favorite, German duo Troum. Well versed in psychoanalysis and its history over the past decade, Troum qualifies their music as a liminal space flickering with the urges and pre-cognitive thoughts of the unconscious part of the brain. Troum manifests these ideas as waves of guitar drones processed through a weighty bank of effects, offering melodic fragments that slowly tumble into repetitions of their saddened forms through vast fields of ambience. "Symbiosis" is certainly another great offering from Troum, with the small twist on their unique sound in that each of the members have produced solo tracks; however, since all tracks are untitled and uncredited, which is which is any one's guess.
While Troum and their previous incarnation Maeror Tri may be familiar to Aquarius customers, the other two participants in this three way split release, Kallabris and Tam Quam Tabula Rasa, are certainly far more obscure entries from the post-industrial, noise 'n' drone community. With loose connections to the anagramatically complex, post-industrial ensemble Cranioclast, Kallabris detaches from most external references with two lengthy cuts of clinical Minimalism, subduing all sounds into purely concrete ambience. Tam Quam Tabula Rasa hails from the Italian scene of industrial ritualists, which has presented outfits like Ain Soph and Sigillum S. The restrained atmopsheres of Kallabris are again present; yet TQTR situates clanging metallic percussion and death-industrial allusions into the perpetual droning. AQ favorites Troum are in top form on their two lengthy tracks which are clearly the strongest amongst the three. With hissing drones, muffled distortion, and bleary reverberations built from guitars, bass, and source material from Yen Pox, Troum again position themselves as the malevolent doppelganger of My Bloody Valentine, with their beautiful guitar drones creeping into empathically haunting and occasionally threatening references. Limited stock!
MPEG Stream: KALLABRIS "Napping" [/audio/kallabrisnapping.m3u]
Yet another entry into the exponentially increasing catalogue from Kawabata Makoto comes outside of the realms of The Acid Mother's Temple. Tsurubami has supposedly had a couple of releases, but this super lo-tech CD-R from Last Visible Dog is the only one that we've been able to track down so far. Fellow Acid Mother's Templar Higashi Hiroshi brings his bass to Kawabata's guitar, alongside the newcomer Emi Nobuko on drums. The album opens in similar fashion to Kawabata's "Father Moo & The Black Sheep" album, with a synthetic wash of pitch-shifting / multiverb guitar tones. Slowly these ambient tonalities develop into shimmering fragments of melody half appearing, then dissolving into kosmische haziness. Emi rattles out quiet tinklings across his ride cymbals, which starts off somewhat subdued, but gradually approaches the Fushitsusha arena of freenoise percussion tumble once the full drum kit is employed. Kawabata and Higashi maintain the dronescape mentality for about 25 minutes, before kicking the distortion pedals into overdrive and unleash a dense wall of sound to accompany the percussive squallor. Where the first track is delicate and gradual, the second is immediate and brutal. Cantankerous distortion from overblown bass and guitar join the continuous splutter from Emi. This is a really, really good Acid Mother's Temple related project... it really deserves more than just cd-r status.
A fantastic record in the sampladelic genre: fans of DJ Shadow, Barry Adamson, David Holmes should take note! It's rare that we'd quote a press release in an AQ review, but in this case the reasons why I (Windy) like this record so much are exactly what's stated herein:
"Unagi extends an invitation into his unique sonic wonderworld, constructed from forgotten vinyl and dollar bin digging. He serves up mid-fi sample based music, sidestepping the antiseptic production values dominating present day hip-hop. Influenced by luminaries such as Lonnie Liston Smith and Eumir Deodato, Unagi offers tracks carefully crafted with an ear refined through a lifetime of musical consumption. This self-titled debut album is a stylistic drive-by of love. Unagi's magazine is loaded with an array of themes ranging from space jazz, Caribbean cruise ship lounge, roller rink couples' skate and Sunday afternoon afterglow soul fusion."
Just what the world needs right? ANOTHER electronica compilation. Well, you might actually need just one more. A few household names Knifehandchop, Wobbly, Kevin Blechdom but mostly unknowns (at least to us) this is a wild and wooly, fun and funky, mashed up pisstake of all things MTV and top 40 radio. The sound is glitched out, punishing, big beat, dancehall, drill and bass madness, but the songs are all (barely) recognizable chunks of hits you know and love (or hate). And as much as maybe I wasn't prepared to, I ended up digging this a lot. And listening to it all the time. A sped up/chopped up version of that Eminem song from Eight Mile, Old Dirty Bastard and Mya's Ghetto Superstar with a DHR dancehall makeover, Madonna's James Bond theme run through the sonic shredder and tons more. Pretty fucking great!
Dark pop? New beat? Call it what you will but that's one heck of a heavy thumpin' beat thundering up from the yesteryear depths of this fine Belgian compilation.
A highly entertaining mix of vintage rump-shakers and amusingly quirky tracks (make sure to check out Will Powers, one of the obscure gems from the '80s as standard New Wave / electro rhythms back the recitation of inane 'self help' lectures). While listening to track 10 "Hypnotic Tango" by My Mine, something struck us as oddly familiar... What the heck?! It's the chorus melody to "Look Of Love" by ABC. Supposedly the "sound of Belgium nightlife in the 80s" this compilation encompasses Section 25, Vicious Pink, Metro Area, Grauzone, Executive Slacks, John Carpenter, and even the Alan Parsons Project, among others. As dj mix documents go, this one's kinda neat and off the beaten track, and surely will capture the hearts of those diggin' the likes of The Faint and The Rapture.
MPEG Stream: VICIOUS PINK "8:15 To Nowhere" [/audio/viciouspink815.m3u]
This is a nice little recording of temple music from South India. Basically your level of enjoyment of this recording depends on your threshold level for double reed instruments. Like the accordion, banjo and flute, double-reeds -- at least those in the higher octaves -- tend to put people in war camps. And while some may liken their sound to a kazoo or a bee caught in one's sinuses, their sound is truly unlike anything else. In fact, they're about as close as you can get to sounding like a fuzzed out electric guitar without plugging in. Which is why this music rocks so hard I suppose. When two of those nagasvaram get going at once, with their buzzing virtuosic melodic lines weaving together it's easy to see how this could induce ecstatic states in people. That and the fact that the guitarist's ego is replaced with a fear of god for incentive to perform. Periya Melam is the name of the particular ensemble that performs during various religious rituals, rites and festivals. The ensemble -- the instruments of which are considered "equals to the gods" -- used to be much more common throughout temples south of the river Krishna, but has declined in recent years. The instrumentation usually consists of two double reed oboes (nagasvaram and), two double headed drums (tavil) in which one head is played using the fingers and the other with a stick, metal castanets (talam) and a drone instrument (used to be another oboe, but is now commonly a harmonium or even an electronic instrument).
Rock n' roll! Hot Snakes dude John Reis (also of Rocket From The Crypt n' Drive Like Jehu n' Back Off Cupids) runs the Swami label, and with this budget label sampler he's asking you all to tighten your turbans and rock out with him and some of his favorite bands: Beehive And The Barracudas, The Husbands, Hot Snakes, Loincloth, Rocket From The Crypt, The White Apes, Testors, Dan Sartain, The Sultans, Sonny Vincent, and Mannequin Piss. One track from each, all unreleased 'til now. The highlight for us of course would have to be "Orphan Boy", the cut from from our own Sadie's happenin' sixties influenced garage rock combo The Husbands (debut album out soon on Swami)! Meanwhile, Hot Snakes are awesome as always, Dan Sartain is catchy and quirky, and we were really excited to hear the insane instrumental math-metal of Loincloth, the new band formed by ex-members of Breadwinner and Confessor!! (Which also goes to show that there's more to Swami than garage and punk, though there's plenty o' that here too.)
Plus, some historical value is added by the Testors, a '77 NYC punk band getting a Swami reissue -- there's also a new track here from their singer that's maybe better than his band's old stuff. And Mannequin Piss have not just a great band name but kick a lot of ass too, ending this comp with some Black Flag styled combustion.
MPEG Stream: THE HUSBANDS "Orphan Boy" [/audio/swamihusbands.m3u]
Born from the grim, death disco of the Subtonix and the oppressive gloom rock of The Lies, The Vanishing are no strangers to the Goth aesthetic and manage to pull off the typically stilted genre with a considerable amount of panache. "Songs For Psychotic Children" is the debut album for The Vanishing, who at the time of this recording included the SF's reigning Goth queen Jesse Trashed, Brian Hock, and Aquarius' dearly departed (not dead, just moved on to a new job) sweetie-pie Sadie Shaw who recently left the band to pursue her garage band The Husbands. Rather than turn to portentous swan songs and plodding atmospherics like the kind often produced for Projekt or Cleopatra records, The Vanishing finds success almost entirely through the theatrical wailings and panicky screams of vocalist / bassist Jesse Trashed, who has developed a vocal style that's clearly in keeping with the traditions of Goth culture, but separate from icons like Siouxsie Sioux, Nina Hagen, and Danielle Dax. Driven by her expressive, intense voice and sinewy basslines, The Vanishing furthers their black clad references with Sadie's haunted carnvival organs which would not be out of place on the seminal "Carnival Of Souls" soundtrack and with Brian exhuming the propulsive rhythm sections of the forgotten Batcave bands: Sex Gang Children, Specimen, and The March Violets. "Songs For Psychotic Children" comes together flawlessly, and marks a very good start for this local band.
Long-running Canadian sci-fi metal masters Voivod, legends in their own time, are back after a several year hiatus with this new album and a new bassist: none other than ex-Metallica four-stringer Jason Newsted! "Jasonic" not only joined Voivod but also pretty much sponsored this album, recording it at his own studio and arranging the record deal too. But the bigger deal here is that this self-titled disc marks the return of original Voivod vocalist Snake! His French-Canadian inflections and Iggy Pop aspirations were an integral part of Voivod's classics, so we were extra excited about the prospect of this release...unfortunately, once heard, of the Voivod fanatics here at Aquarius, both Cup and Andee were ultimately disappointed and give it the thumbs down. They just found it too straight-forward and poppy, almost MTV pop-punk in sound. But Allan has faith in the 'Vod, and the ears to hear their trademark weirdnesses while enjoying the big catchy heavy rock songs on offer. If MTV pop-punk really sounds like this (he wouldn't know, not having cable) then bring it on! Still, you're warned. Of prior Voivod albums, this most closely compares to the controversial college-rock-radio styled "Angel Rat" from 1991, rather than "Dimension Hatross" or "Nothingface", their acknowledged masterpieces. So it's definitely not the first Voivod record we'd recommend, but if you're a fan you might just want to check it out, especially if you liked the rockier, least psychedelic or prog cuts on "Angel Rat" and "Outer Limits". And they'll still be the best band at Ozzfest for sure!! By the way, for those keeping score, this record might not be the best Voivod ever but boy is it better than that new Metallica. Between these two former eighties thrash acts, Jason sure made the right choice.
More Sabbath-inspired doom metal from the pycheDOOMelic label. Germany's Voodoo Shock (strange name, that) rose from ashes of former Rise Above act Naevus. Even if you've never heard Naevus, though, they'll sound familar, with Ozzy-ish vox singing songs full of wonderful doom/stoner cliches like "electric mind" and "rainbow sky". Slow to mid tempo, melodic but ultra heavy, this is in the style of Terra Firma, Sheavy, Trouble, Spirit Caravan, y'know the sort of thing. The riffs are weighty, but Voodoo Shock's perculiarity might be their penchant for spacey mellow parts. Also they cover "Nights In White Satin"!
Oooh. We're super pleased to get this new Chris Watson field recordings album (see note below). He's one of our favorites in the realm of just going out in the world, shutting up, and listening. With really good equipment and recording skills, that is. In the past he's brought us up close and personal with a variety of African wildlife, as well as the fauna of his native England. Now with the perhaps too-obviously titled "Weather Report" he focuses on the bigger picture, not just animals but the places in which they reside, which means a lot of weather phenomena in the mix.
There's three long tracks, each providing an aural portrait of a location over time. Kinda like time-lapse film, but the action is not sped up here, just carefully edited together. They're all natural environments, not urban, the first ("Ol-Oloool-O") taking you on a virtual expedition into the wilds of Kenya's Masai Mara, one day in October 2002. The next, "The Lapaich" compresses four months of sound from a Scottish highland glen in the fall and winter. Lastly, "Vatnajokull" closely examines the slow flow of a glacier in Iceland, which sounds like drone piece from our experimental section. From animals, birds and insects to washes of wind and rain to quiet, creaking ice, this is all pretty darn magical. Newcomers to Watson's work should note that there's no processing of the sound to make it "experimental music", it's a straight-up documentary with no additions or interference (aside from the neccessary edits). Then again, I suppose it is "music" in the John Cage 4'33'' sense. And it's wonderful sound. Amazing, vibrantly real stuff that'll fire your imagination. If you've seen that amazing new documentary movie "Winged Migration" you've got a filmic analogy to the kind of thing Watson captures here.
NB. You know, it's a bit embarrassing, but we've never listed this man's releases in our database before, aside from the "Star Switch On" disc of remixes and his contribution to Hazard's "Wind".
Whoops! Dunno how that happened, 'cause we're all really big fans of his work. So, at least we can offer a timely review of this, his third proper release on Touch, and perhaps retroactively review his previous efforts "Outside The Circle Of Fire" and "Stepping Into The Dark" on a future list.
Why do I love Ms. Welch SO much? I dunno. Love is like that. Maybe 'cause of her careworn, exquisite voice, which she puts to such good use on songs that channel Appalachian woe and slacker angst. Maybe because she's so smart and charming and talented. Maybe 'cause she's so funny in concert... Ah, yes, she's wonderful. And so of course people like me are gonna be thrilled to hear her new album. While the title "Soul Journey" might sound corny this record isn't. Much of this sees Welch with a full backing band (including one guy from Son Volt), but it still sounds real intimate. And don't worry, Welch's partner, guitarist David Rawlings is on board too. From slow, rocking numbers to old timey ballads, Welch, Rawlings, and co. mesh rootsy "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" stuff with an indie-rock, alt-country perspective. Her songs are sad and forlorn, but also so gorgeous and comforting. What a treasure.
Not gonna spend a lot of time on this one, not because this isn't a good record; rather it's just that by the time you've finished reading about this record, it might already be gone. We have limited stock on this collaborative album of plunderphonia from People Like Us, Matmos, and Wobbly, and it's apparently already gone out of print, without any plan for future repressings. All in all "Wide Open Spaces" sounds an awful lot like People Like Us' previous album "Fistful of Knuckles," a cavalcade of bawdy jokes culled from Western storybook records, but that isn't to say that neither Matmos nor Wobbly can be heard. On the contrary, there's plenty of Maymos' twisted rhythms and Wobbly's mutant samples splattered throughout the album. Recorded live at the San Francisco Art Institute on October 5, 2002.
MPEG Download: "Clawing Your Eyes Out Down To Your Throat" [/audio/wmpluclawingyour.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Clawing Your Eyes Out Down To Your Throat" [/audio/wmpluclawingyour.m3u]
