Aquarius Records closed in 2016. This site is an archive — a place to rediscover their extraordinary music recommendations. Nothing here is for sale.
Showing results 51 through 69 of 69.
SCREAMERSIn A Better World(Extravertigo / Xeroid)2xcd$ 17.98
Finally got more of these back in! Now in a jewel case with a few extra photos. Still super limited, so we're not sure how long we'll have these in stock. If you want one, don't dawdle. Amazing seminal punk group the Screamers hailed from Seattle/LA and,
SELDAVurulduk Ey Halkim Unutma Bizi(World Psychedelia)cd$ 17.98
Surface crackle, yes! And the record from which this cd was transferred sounds maybe a little warped. But no matter, we like all that!! Makes it all the more psychedelic, eh? This is a reissue of some potent Turkish protest pop from the '70s, featuring folky strumming, irresistible Anatolian grooves, and Selda Bagcan's beautiful, often urgent-sounding voice. Sounds like something that should immediately be of interest to any AQ customers into radical East meets West psych-folk from Turkey (of which we know there are plenty, nowadays!) particularily those who've already heard Selda via the inclusion of her songs "Bundan Sonra" and "Ince Ince Bir Kar Yagar" on the recent and quite recommended Turkish installment of the Love Peace and Poetry series ("Bundan Sonra" shows up here, too). As alluded to above, this certainly isn't digitally remastered from the pristine master tapes, but at least folks that put out this cd deserve kudos not only for digging it up for us but also providing lyrics and liner notes in the cd booklet -- although the lyrics are given only in the original Turkish, with no English translations, which would have gone a long way to making Selda's message more understandable to us today, outside of Turkey. Ah well. At least the liner notes, which are in English, provide some context. It's a little unclear, but it seems that Selda was considered a subversive figure by the repressive Turkish government at the time. This record may in fact have been banned -- at the very least we're told that original copies were (and are) hard to find due to government disapproval. And Selda was banned from foreign travel at least until 1987. The first 12 tracks on this cd are from a 1976 album entitled Selda Vol. 2 (aka Vurulduk Ey Halkim Unutma Bizi, it seems), and then there's also eight additional, bonus tracks taken from Selda singles released in 1971 and '73, songs that are slightly less-rock, more-folk than the Vol. 2 material (which are already pretty folky). However, electric guitar, whining and fuzzed, figures into a few of this disc's tracks, while a lot of the rest is much more in a traditional (if electric) folk vein, with lush arrangements and a great emphasis on Selda's powerful, emotional voice. To be filed with your reissues of 3 Hur-el and Mogollar (members of which are apparently are in Selda's backup band for some of this)...
SIRONELive(Atavistic)cd$ 14.98
Most well known to most as the leader of the Revolutionary Ensemble in the 70's, Sirone was also a sideman for such jazz legends as Cecil Taylor, Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp, Charles Gayle, Ornette Coleman, Roswell Rudd, Clifford Thornton, Sonny Sharrock, Pharoah Sanders, Sun Ra and more. But he was way more than just a sideman, an amazing composer in his own right and a completely orignal and creative bass player. For this live set, recorded in 1991, Sirone teamed up with Dennis Charles on drums and Claude Lawrence on alto sax, and the results are sublime. The performance starts off with a long piece for solo flute. A dense squall of tweets and trills and twitters and flitterings, like strange and haunting bird calls. After that it's all about the bass, as Sirone stretches out and slides smoothly all over the fretboard with two tracks of almost nothing but bass (one track gets a smattering of free jazz rhythmic splatter), it's dark and deliriously languorous, warm and thick and totally dreamy. When the rest of the trio does join in, it's dense and focused and intense, with Sirone and Charles locked in tight but somehow still wild and loose and free, while Lawrence skips gingerly atop a squirming tangle of shuffling rhythms and throbbing pulsing low end. So good.
ST. JOHN, BRIDGETThank You For...(Cherry Red)cd$ 16.98
Another great British folk re-discovery! Bridget St John was on the scene during the late 60's/early 70's and recorded just a handful of albums. A few of which were originally released on John Peel's Dandelion label. Luckily Cherry Red has gotten a hold of the original reels so those of us who missed out first time around can finally hear what we missed. And wow what a great voice and presence she had! She had this great ability to be both delicate and breezy, recalling the best of her contemporaries like Nick Drake and Vashti Bunyan while dipping her feet a bit more in carefree wind-in-her hair styling. Her voice also reminds us a lot of Marianne Faithfull and even at times Nico on a sunny day with a smile on her face. Some of the standout tracks on the record like "Fly High", "Lazarus" (which was her sort of hit), "Silver Coin", "Thank You For.." are the kinds of songs you know will be on every mix tape (ok...mix cd) that we make this year. So nice when songs recorded 34 years ago can still resonate so strongly in the present moment. Oh that's called timeless...and that's what this record is!
SUPERSILENT7(Rune Grammofon)dvd$ 25.00
Our favorite Norwegian death-jazz electro-acoustic improv ensemble, the one and only Supersilent, are back with a new release -- and it's a live DVD! As such, it serves as something of a consolation for myself (Allan) and AQ pal Cayce, who showed up to see Supersilent perform here in San Francisco for their first and only time (this was a year or two ago, at the Great American Music Hall) only to discover that the band who were breaking their gear down and vacating the stage upon our arrival was in fact Supersilent, making way for Jagajazzist who we had thought were to be the opening act. D'oh!! It was an especially cruel twist of fate for Cayce, who through a set of circumstances we needn't describe here, ended up holding (and paying for) FIVE non-refundable tickets to the show. He actually didn't really mind shelling out $100 to see Supersilent (that's how much of a fan he is) but then to miss 'em in the end was, unfortunate to say the least... So, now through the magic of the DVD format, Cayce and I can experience what that show might have been like. And all Supersilent fans can experience what the show on the DVD (filmed in Oslo, August 16th 2004) was definitely very much like! We were actually a little worried that the visuals would somehow reveal too much about this band, but the DVD is shot in moody black and white 16mm which helps maintain their mystique... and it is cool to see how the actual humans involved interact with their instruments and equipment to produce the sounds of Supersilent, which have always been a blend of very live sounding playing and electronic processing, with the breathy trumpet of Arve Henriksen, snake charmer sinuous at times, suggesting the jazz of Miles Davis amidst the "improv musique concrete" (and this concert is entirely improvised) also being made by keyboardist Stale Strlokken, drummer Jarle Vespestad, and "audio virus" engineer Helge "Deathprod" Sten. The great thing about this DVD is that after a viewing or two, it still functions as a great new Supersilent album (hence the title, 7, designating it the follow-up to their last album, 6). And since now it's hard to buy a cd player that's not also a DVD player, if you've got one of those hooked up to your stereo system you can just put this disc in and listen to it sans video, as if it was a regular cd that's just a bit longer (109 minutes) than normal.
TEENAGE PANZERKORPSGleich Heilt Gleich(Pink Skulls)3" cd-r$ 5.98
Pink Skulls is a new cd-r label run by Glenn Donaldson of Jewelled Antler, for stuff that's too "punk" for Jewelled Antler to put out. A recent list's Record of the Week, Leaf Yard, was one of Pink Skulls' first releases (if you've heard that, you know that what Glenn means by "punk" sure ain't Green Day). Now comes the Teenage PanzerKorps, a band which actually features Glenn himself (under the name Edmund Xavier) in its ranks. This lil' 3" cdr looks a lot like the stuff in the on-going Jewelled Antler "Library" series, but sure doesn't sound like Thuja or Tomes or even Dead Raven Choir. It's raucous, droney, arty rawk with a German singer (a 40-year old punker going by the name Bunker Wolf here). Bunker and Xavier and joined by drummer "Catholic Pat" Toves and Boy True on bass (quite possibly actually Jason Honea, who's a member of the Knit Separates with Glenn). Loud (or at least distorted), not too fast, and Teutonically snotty: nine songs in as many minutes, with titles like "Burma Crawl", "Chinese Machine Gun parts 1 and 2", and "Get Out Of My Shadow!". It references '80s downer artpunk (The Fall, Factory Records stuff I guess or maybe some of Savage Republic's tracks), '60s garage with fuzz organ, and the hardcore bands Boy True and Catholic Pat used to play in. Noisy breaks, abrupt edits, and poppy grooves are all important to Teenage Panzerkorps' sound, but it's Bunker Wolf's accent and delivery that stands out the most. No fake German here like Zeigenbock Kopf! Then there's Glenn. He proved in his old band Mirza's more loud, scree-filled moments that he can do the aggro guitar thing, yet his sensitive side is still in evidence here, so his 6 & 12 string guitar parts here betray an indie-pop influence as pretty as what he's come up with in such outfits as The Birdtree, The Knit Separates, Blithe Sons and even Thuja (with whom Teenage Panzerkorp at least share a partly improvised approach). An interesting blend of inspirations/expertise to be sure. These guys recorded this for fun a couple years ago, and have finally found a proper outlet for it, which is cool 'cause it's pretty great.
TWO GALLANTSWhat the Toll Tells(Saddle Creek)cd$ 13.98
San Francisco's Two Gallants second album has found a well-suited, comfy home on Nebraskan cool kids' label Saddle Creek! Funnily enough when we reviewed the band's last album The Throes, we compared their vocals to a more aged Conor Oberst (of of the label's breadwinnin' band Bright Eyes). Those similarities are still quite prominent, and fans of B.E. might also find themselves warmin' up all toasty to the sounds of What The Toll Tells. Mind you it's not all slow, hushed and brittle, weep in your pint, this is ragged, rugged country rock. Then again, actually Oberst has also been known to roughen and rile his music up on occasion hasn't he? Simply, we reckon they're all in good company. Perhaps this will open the door for some dandy collaborations?
V/AA Tribute To Will Oldham : I Am A Cold Rock, I Am Dull Grass(Tract)cd$ 13.98
Wow! Here's a terrific tribute to Will Oldham (aka Bonnie 'Prince' Billy aka Palace aka Palace Brothers aka Palace Music, etc). This homage comes in the form of a collection of cover versions performed by many familiar AQ faves and fine contemporaries of Mr. Oldham. Each of them brings his/her own distinct flair to the chosen tune, but we noticed that some come remarkably close to absolute replication of the original. Hmmm, what's that old saying about mimicry being the sincerest form of flattery? But is it mimicry when someone really does sound like someone else without even trying? No, of course not. Anyways, the highlights and notables include Calexico, Iron And Wine, Mark Kozelek, Scout Niblett, Rivulets, Court And Spark, Pinetop Seven, and Jolie Holland. Great for fans of one and all.
V/AAnd To The Disciples That Remain(Amish)cd$ 14.98
In celebration of their 11th year Amish records has released this comp filled with some names you know and some names you soon will from the murky wide world of the underground folk scene. A totally solid collection with not a loser in the bunch. From folks we've come to love like P.G. Six, Samara Lubelski, Dan Brown from Hall Of Fame, Helen Rush of Tower Recordings and totally stand out tracks from Oakley Hall and Bird Show. What's so nice about this comp is that while there is a connection in style and aesthetic between the artists they don't all sound alike and each brings their own slant to good old fashion american underground folk. Also nice to hear a collection like this that doesn't have some of the same names we're always used to hearing in this scene (Devendra, Sufjan, Joanna, etc) nothing against them, of course we love them but nice to remember there are many others doing wonderful things in that world.
V/ACongotronics 2: Buzz 'N' Rumble From The Urb 'N' Jungle(Crammed)cd + dvd$ 16.98
You'd have to have been living under a rock for the last year to not know about Konono No1, but for those of you who have been, let's recap shall we? Konono No.1 formed over 20 years ago in Kinshasa (the capital of Zaire) and have been performing their own version of Bazombo trance music, incoporating into their sound, more out of necessity than any avant garde aspirations, home built amps and microphones, hand made instruments, all assembled from old car parts and batteries, pieces of wood and various found bits of scrap material. Performing in the city and thus forced to compete with the din of cars and people and city sound, they built their own PA and speaker system, making their sound much louder but also lending it a buzzing distorted sound that became as much a part of the music as the insturments themselves. The main instrument though, and the one which defines their sound, is an amplified likembe, a sort of thumb piano, which when run through the homemade pickups and ramshackle PA speakers buzz and distort and the melodies end up sounding like some strange sixties psych fuzz guitar. So those distorted melodies atop a wild festive bed of tribal percussion, hand drums, whistles, call and response vocals, it's like African highlife music but infused with all manner of, well like the title suggests BUZZ and RUMBLE. But it would be naive to think a band like Konono No.1 developed in a complete vacuum. And one would assume that the music scene in Kinshasa would at least in some ways be like any place else, with loads of bands, all playing together, swapping members, that sort of thing, and this record demonstrates that for sure. While Konono No.1 ended up being the worldwide ambassadors for the Kinshasa sound, they are most definitely just one of many groups creating an amazingly vibrant scene. In fact some of the groups on Congotronics 2 take some of our favorite parts of Konono's sound and take them even further! All of the bands on Congotronics 2 sound at least similar, employing the same basic song structure and same basic instrumentation. Cyclical repetitive rhythms, bells and hand drums locked in dense pulsing frameworks, loose but definitely the backbone of the music, the vocals are festive and wild, a single voice joined by a chorus. Each track is typically one part, maybe two, repeated and repeated with subtle variations, being as that it is an offspring of trance music, this hypnotic quality definitely defining all of these bands, a buzzing looped joyful noise, the sort of music that makes people want to dance and sway and move, eyes closed, getting lost in the mesmerizing repetition. All of the bands also seem to employ the electric likembe as well to different effect. Sobanza Mimanisia up the distortion, their thumb pianos practically growl, super percussive and blown-out, definitely the heaviest band of the bunch. Whereas the Kasai Allstars employ their likembes as a swirling delicate percussive background, not at all distorted, gentle, liliting and pretty, sounding the most like traditional high life music. The one way in which many of the bands differ from Konono is their use of guitars, the interplay between a distorted thumb piano and a distorted guitar can be beautifully dizzying. While all the bands are different, those differences are subtle enough that this could very well be a record by a single, albeit quite varied band, almost as if Konono No.1 decided to expand and explore a little for record number two. If you loved Congotronics, then this will for sure hit the spot, and actually the more we listen the more we think this might be even better than the first one. Konono No.1 have a SOUND, and that sound is amazing and beautiful and practically perfect, but they truly traffic in trance music, every song a subtle variation of the song before, almost like they have ONE hour long song that just happens to be split into parts, which we love, like most droning repetitive music, if there was a way to have each track last for six hours we would, but by the same token, one has to be in the right frame of mind to bliss out and trance out. So while this collection is still most definitely trancey, it's a bit more varied, with more instrumentation (one group even incorporates accordion!) and thus ends up being a bit more engaging, especially to the casual listener. And as if another disc of buzzing rumbling joyful trance music wasn't enough, there is also a DVD featuring live footage of 6 of the bands, including Konono (so for those of you who missed their recent visit to the US, here's your chance to see what you missed). Each band performs live, surrounded by throngs of families and children, often performing in houses, on street corners, people dancing, smiling, embracing, this is truly happy joyful music. And the footage is amazing, allowing us a glimpse not only of these amazing bands, their individually customized instrumentation, sardine cans, milk crates, springs, lengths of PVC pipe, hubcaps, film canisters, wooden boards, tin cans, thier costumed and face painted dancers, their dramatic introductions to performances, but also a look at the people, and the city, and the houses, and the streets of Kinshasa, and the culture that inspired such an amazing music.
V/ADada et La Musique(Muza)cd$ 17.98
Dada is nearly 100 years old; yet the ideals of Dada which adamantly insisted on the negation of its own aesthetics and an espousal of transgressive irrationality still resonate with elements of contemporary culture. Due to the volatility of Dada and its resistance to grounding aesthetics, Dada has proven to be a very difficult movement to document; hence, the collection Dada et la Musique reads as a historical document that only sporadically taps into the agitation and provocation that Dada intended. There's no doubting the historical importance of Erik Satie in the development of 20th century composition; but Satie's playful and impressionistic piano works hardly engender the ideas of Dada. The same should be said for Authur Honegger and Francis Poulenc; yet all of these composers feature prominently on Dada et la Musique. After listening to Nurse With Wound, Luc Ferrari, R.H.Y. Yau, and Merzbow whose work may not be true Dada but comes closer to its lunacy, noise, abjection, and irrationality, we may be comparing apples and oranges. Yet the underlying question remains, are the musical entries on Dada et la Musique actually Dada? Probably not. Even the frenzied cacacophony of the semi-automated "Ballet Mechanique" by Georges Anthiel from 1917 engages a whimsy that could be mistaken for Carl Stalling's cartoon scores. So what makes this collection Dada is not really the music, but the sound poetry from Kurt Schwitters (e.g. the ever-baffling glossalia of Ursonate) certainly does qualify as Dada. There's plenty of sound poems from Raoul Haussmann, Richard Huelsenbeck, Jean Arp, Hugo Ball, and Tristan Tzara, many of which have conetmporary recitations and reinforce the fact that we need to learn French.
V/AHeavy Meckle(Shadetek)cd$ 16.98
I know we keep saying this but we LOVE grime! It's so frustrating how little of it makes it over to the states. Not sure if it's just too weird for hip hop kids or what, but it seems like something folks would eat up here. It's dark and fuzzed out, super aggressive, the beat is BIG, and the MC's flows are off the hook, rapid fire and tongue twisting, all garbled cockney flows that makes you head spin. It's everything we USED to love about hip hop, before it became just another bland corporate thing to fill up space on MTV. And we figured after Lady Sovereign and M.I.A. folks in the US would be clamoring for more and lables would be throwing money at all the big UK grime acts. But still no dice. Thus we're forced to make do with import comps and what few records make it here. We've dug the recent Run The Road comps on Vice (a review of volume 2 coming soon) and even the Grime comps on Warp, but this comp is definitely the one that could turn people's heads around. This is rough and raw, really dark and fucked up and funny. The beat is pretty consistent, sort of the way dancehall is, so it's important what folks do with the beat, and this comp is all over the map. Huge thick buzzy synths shred the cones on your speakers, while the beats skitter and boom. It's a groove that's impossible to resist. It does the same thing to us that jungle does, we could listen to it forever, even if it was just a continuous loop. But thankfully the tracks here are super varied and the MCs are a fucking nutter bunch, like a madhouse of rappers and MC's, from growling dancehall style toasting, to whiney Eminem style flows, to muttered mush mouthed mumbling, but all of it SO FAST, and so impossibly dextrous, and the lyrics are really funny, and super snarky, hating on other MC's and talking all sorts of shit. Highlights include a bunch of tracks from Lethal B who is huge in the UK, but not even known over here, especially his "Kylie Freestyle", where, yep, you guessed it, he freestyles over a Kylie Minogue loop, some gues spots from Wiley, who DOES have a record out on Matador, if you missed it, check it out elsewhere on the aQ site, the fuzzed out stutter of Jon E. Cash, a killer rapid fire track from the More Fire Crew, the UK grime crew that both Wiley and Dizzee Rascal call home, a wicked track from female grime MC Shystie who sounds like she could definitely lay waste to Lady Sov and so many more. In fact it's a bit silly to try to pick out favorites. This is the rare comp where there is literally not a bad track. We listen to this everyday and never skip tracks, unless we're skipping back to hear that track again! So. c'mon, what the hell! Where's LETHAL BIZZLE, KANO, KLASHNEKOFF, ROLL DEEP CREW, let's go US labels, make your move, let's get all these records released over here. Would kill to see Lethal B or Dizzee on MTV instead of P Diddy or Fifty Cent! But for now we'll just rock this comp and dig all this godlike grime!
V/AI Am The Resurrection: A Tribute To John Fahey(Vanguard)cd$ 14.98
Paying tribute to one of the greatest musical beings of our lifetime is a pretty hefty challenge but luckily M. Ward, who put together this comp, did a really nice job of bringing together artists who have been greatly influenced by Fahey's guitar playing and legacy. You can hear in the these covers how deeply felt Fahey's music has been to the next generation of musicians who use guitar as their tool of expression. This is one of those rare tributes that doesn't feel like a haphazard hack job. Fahey's music is so spiritual and pure that there is no doubt everyone on here was honored to pay their respects and came through with excellent versions of Fahey originals. With people like Devendra Banhart, Lee Ranaldo, Howe Gelb, Sufjan Stevens, Calexico, Pelt, Cul De Sac, Currituck Co. and more all contributing covers, it's so nice to hear how they each came to a Fahey song with their own aesthetic at hand. Released on Vanguard who put out many of Fahey's classic albums, the packaging is really nice with each artist contributing a blurb about their relationship with Fahey's music. Tribute records aren't usually this thoughtful and well executed and we're so glad that for John Fahey it was done right because he deserves nothing less then excellence in his honor!
V/APainting The Time: New Rubble Volume 6(Past & Present)cd$ 17.98
The New Rubble series hits volume six with this collection of rare '60s pop psych singles, entitled Painting The Time. We haven't reviewed all the volumes in the series so far but this one's worth a mention, with enjoyable tracks by twenty different artists (the few we've heard of before being Aphrodite's Child, The Velvet Opera, The Orange Bicycle, and The Nashville Teens). The truth is, though, that we expected to sell a lot more copies of volume FIVE in this series than we did -- that was the girl-fronted freakbeat comp Scratch My Back we reviewed here last list. So go back and review that review, folks! It's a damn good comp. Not that this isn't pretty cool too, but doesn't have quite the same level of thematic unity as Scratch My Back. The common denominator here is that these tracks, many but not all of 'em by bands from the UK, have for the most part never been compiled before. So says complier and liner notator Nick "Bevis Frond" Saloman, at any rate, and he's obviously knows more about this stuff than you or I! So even if you're a rabid '60s psych comp collector maybe you haven't yet heard the songs by The Twilights, Andy Ellison, Abel Fletcher, Chris Kerry, Cats Pyjamas, The Bystanders, Herbie's People, The Executives, The Shame, and all the others found here. And the good news is that though obscure, these songs are definitey better than mere barrel-scrapings, many of 'em excellent uptempo fuzzy finger-snappin' popsters. So '60s fans, check this out...and definitely think about picking up vol. 5 too while you're at it!
V/ASafe Travel with Phil Pratt & Friends(Pressure Sounds)cd$ 17.98
Rock steady -- the Jamaican musical form that bridged ska and reggae, and somehow seems cooler than either, at least to some of us here -- flourished circa '66-68, and here's a collection of 23 rare tracks from that era, both vocal and instrumental, from such famous artists as Horace Andy (his first ever recording), Ken Boothe, Tommy McCook, and many more. Comps on Pressure Sounds are a pretty solid bet and this is a nice one with extensive liner notes and all. So if you are in a rock steady mood (relaxed, or in need of relaxation!) Safe Travel is a great compilation of Phil Pratt productions for the Calton and Jon Tom labels, featuring mellow, mellific vocals and laidback bass grooves.
WATCHMAKERErased From The Memory Of Man(Willowtip)cd$ 12.98
In our review of Boston metalcore outfit Watchmaker's previous album Kill.Fucking.Everyone, we stated that they were "THE MOST PISSED sounding band we've ever heard". Well, it doesn't appear that in the time elapsed since that album Watchmaker have been to anger management classes, or tried therapy, or fallen in love, or adopted puppies, or anything like that, as they certainly haven't gotten any happier!!! Erased From The Memory Of Man is as extreme and brutal and p.o.'d as ever. These sixteen tracks feature negative titles like "Lice Crawling Humanity", "Relentless Post Mortem Killing", "Theraputic Dirt Nap" and "Infidelity's Eyestabbing Unease"... and theres an epigraph of sorts in the cd booklet taken from Werner Herzog's film Grizzly Man, as follows: "The common denominator of the universe is not harmony -- it's chaos, hostility, and murder." This is definitely the disharmonic, chaotic, hostile, murderous soundtrack to Herzog's statement! Pounding drums, throat-ripped vox, gnarly guitars...sheer sonic armageddon on cd. Turn up as loud as you dare, and stand back! But, pissed as they are, it's nice to know that they do have a sense of humor about it all, judging by how the band members are credited with such creative job descriptions as "yearning flame of drum turret" (drums), "vocal fucking sawblade terror" (vocals), "rick and fucking backer" (bass) and "ghetto fucking bee keeper" (?). Recommended.
WATSON, CHRISOutside The Circle Of Fire(Touch)cd$ 15.98
When it comes to the art of field recordings, Chris Watson is in a realm all of his own. As much as we love the Sittelle series (i.e. The Inaudible World - A Sound Guide Of The French Bats, Rutting Red Deer, and Pastoral Bells), Watson still stands quietly alone, so unique in what he is able to do with a microphone in a natural setting. So great is his work that the acclaimed naturalist Sir David Attenborough sequested Watson for recording on his breathtaking BBC series The Life of Birds and Life in the Undergrowth. Watson's history also separates him from many naturalists who have come to field recording or engineers who like being out in the woods, as Watson began his career as a founding member of Cabaret Voltaire and later established The Hafler Trio with Andrew McKenzie. In both cases, the provocative use of sound required a considerable fastidiousness in order to express the convoluted ideas (especially for The Hafler Trio) through the ephemerality of sound. It's been said that Outside The Circle Of Fire was the best electro-acoustic record that was never made, and that's a fair assessment. This album was Watson's second solo recording made back in 1998 and has recently been repressed. This features 22 recordings of various animals in their indigenous locales. The opening track of a cheetah purring is a sublimely intimate recording, in which the rasping ur-drones can easily be mistaken for the bowed minimalism of Taj Mahal Travellers or Organum expect for the fact that these sounds originate from an animal that wouldn't think twice about killing you. Similarly, the male capercallie display could be confused for a musique concrete piece by Pierre Henry or Luc Ferrari with its dynamic movement and expressive bouts of noise. Other notable creatures that Watson records are the Hippopotami (which make sounds as cute as the animals are large), a southern right whale surfacing off the coast of Argentina, and curious clatter from deathwatch beetles. Quite simply stunning.
WOODEN WAND & THE VANISHING VOICEGipsy Freedom(5RC)cd$ 14.98
Don't know about you, but when we hear saxophone from a band that is not usually associated with jazz, we cringe a little. We know there are plenty of excellent uses of saxophone on non-jazz related records (Van Der Graaf Generator, Gong, and Terry Riley come immediately to mind), but when the first song on a CD begins with lone saxophone, We just don't expect good things. So what to say about this new WW&VV recording, the latest in a flurry of releases, (their second on 5RC), that keep getting weirder and weirder? Don't rely too hard on first impressions. Especially when the saxophonist is Daniel Carter, outstanding free jazz alumnus and member of the Other Dimensions in Music collective. This is not to say Gypsy Freedom is a jazz record, but rather WW&VV this time around weave some Sun Ra-style free jazz dynamics into its already expansive and wandering palate of clattering rhythms, sad mountain ballads, witchy tribal dirges, and twee space folk psych jams, mixing both instrumental psych excursions with more structured vocal based songs. There's definitely an interesting dark forest vibe here, not so much of the communal drum circle variety but more akin to the feeling of watching The Wicker Man on Special K. But like most WW&VV releases, their experimentation can get so random that they sometimes misfire. Yet, this is only a minor complaint for a band that makes challenging and creative music that is of nature and against nature at the same time. CD includes a DVD of "Don't Love the Liar", the closest WW&VV get to a rock number.
ZIPPO ZETTERLINKs/t(Psycho-Path)cd$ 11.98
Back in stock at last! Compact disc reish of a 1971 private press LP from Krautrock obscurity Zippo Zetterlink, who play wacked-out, damaged hippy blooze rawk like the they thought their kraut contemporaries Ash Ra Tempel, Guru Guru, and even German Oak were too, uh, polished and tight...yup this sure is raw, loose, "crude and demented" (according to the Crack In The Cosmic Egg authorities, and we must concur). The album starts off with the side-long "Zippo Zetterlink In The Poor Sun At Sunday Night In The BLOW UP" (at least, I *think* that's the title...who knows!). Twenty minutes of broken-down electric blues acid excess, the band a wrong-track train(wreck) chugging along at 15mph, spewing a black/purple/yellow cloud of steam and smoke with a sweet musty smell. Following that, four more tracks, equally jagged, meandering, and messed-up. Mainly this melts rather than fries, if that makes any sense to you. There's some comic relief from ZZ's drug-induced instrumental claustrophobia in the form of some actually decipherable bogus blues vocals at one point, and a sample of a news report on Beethoven's birthday that surfaces in the last track. Maybe just maybe these guys thought they sounded like Cream, but if so they were insane (or more like, way too high) 'cuz this is the sort of blues rock that closer in spirit to Michael Yonkers or Keiji Haino than Eric Clapton that's for sure! This is sure gonna sound *wrong* to most folks, but that's where you come in, the discerning kraut/acid/psych fan who just wants the worst (wurst?) 'cuz the best won't do, or already did.