Fans of heavy duty improv jazz guitar freakout awesomeness, who were so recently thrilled by the sudden, first time on cd re-release of Japanese electric guitar improv legend Masayuki Takayanagi's super-rare Axis Another Revolvable Thing Parts 1 and 2 (those cds reviewed here two lists back) now have *another* incredible Takayanagi document from way back in the day to get excited about! Again from 1975, this album by Takayanagi and his fierce New Direction Unit is definitely in the same mind blowing mold as the Axis discs. Side one (tracks 1 and 2 here) are slow-burning "Gradually Projection" pieces, to use Takayangi's unique terminology. Side two (the 25+ minute third track) is a "Mass Projection". Whether "gradual" or "mass", these "projections" all share a dense, dark, energetic sound (potential energy in the case of the former, energy fully unleashed with the latter). Here, as on those Axis albums and elsewhere, Takayangi's music is filled with sinuous drones, sharp-edged feedback, trilling fret frenzies, scabrous sax soloing, freeform flute flutter, roiling percussion... the group really creates a living thing, compelling, threatening, electric, violent, beautiful. Thirty years later, this still destroys!!
This reissue is on a different Japanese label than the Axis reissues, but comes in similarly nice packaging, a miniature replica of the original LP sleeve, which came out in an edition of just 100 copies back in '75.
Ahhh, so delicate, slinky, and ephemeral. UK solo artist Ryan Teague implements no solid objects nor hard lines on Coins & Crosses. If we were able to get our ears right up close, this is what we imagine the hazy clouds taking their sweet time making their way across the evening sky would sound like. There's a very slow motion film soundtrack feel. Later in the album electronic glitch and long gauzy tones materialize and draw musings of: what if Boards Of Canada were to perform segments of the Andromeda Strain soundtrack? At once, it's a haunting and blissful affair.
We've sort of been burned out on death metal for a while now. Occasionally, something will catch us by surprise and kick our asses, like the most recent Deicide (yet to be reviewed) and some of the more over the top insane super technical stuff like Necrophagist. But for the most part, a few Incantation discs, a few Suffocation discs, some Cryptopsy, and maybe a few more odds and ends, and we've got our death metal fix perpetually, umm.. fixed! But for some reason this cold blast of blackened death metal from Swedish horde Thoron totally knocked our blocks off. Heavy and hooky, with super dense churning riffage, blasting drums, huge stretches of buzzy ambience, and all kinds of cool guitar harmonies, squiggly leads, and lots of classic metal sounding licks. As with all great metal, it's about the riffs, and Thoron come up with a mess of 'em, super original, but somehow completely familiar and catchy. It's sort of like a super charged, more downtuned, blacker, thrashier, version of some other classic thrash metal outfit. The vocals are gruff and gravelly, instead of the usual death metal gurgle, and suit the more classic sound. Heavy and buzzy enough to still hit the spot for the black metal obsessed among you, but for fans of classic metal, Bay Area thrash, Maiden, Slough Feg, stuff like that, this should totally kick your ass. Around here, it has definitely become one of our most listened to metal records of late! Way recommended!
It's been several years since we last heard from Finland's mysterious drone ensemble Tiermes, and even then it was an ultra limited (100 copies) cd-r packaged with a sheet of rusted metal. So odds are a lot of folks have yet to discover the mystickal black drone beauty of Tiermes. So a last here we have their only actual in-print cd release and it's nothing short of astounding. Again lovingly hand packaged, this time the cd is housed in a thick cardstock sleeve, wrapped in an unbelievably gorgeous two sided poster (so ultra detailed and intense, very reminiscent of Nick Blinko's artwork for Rudimentary Peni), the whole thing wrapped in thick black paper and tied up with twine. A dark and mysterious package that perfectly reflects the music within. Three lengthy tracks, the first, a glistening shimmer of minimal drone, like delicate layers made up of the overtones of struck bells or Tibetan bowls, a slowly radiating reverberation, that drifts and fades, like ripples in a black pond. The second track hints at Tiermes mainman Jussi Saivo's Finnish rock pedigree (an early member of Circle and a member of Ovalki with the -other- Jussi from Circle) with ten minutes of ultra distorted electric bass, and a strange minimal squelchy rhythm, very Circular and hypnotic, the same figure repeated over and over. a gorgeous ultra simple meditation in dirge drone. Might hit the spot for adventurous SUNNO))) / Earth / Boris / Corrupted fans. The final track is a massive 40 minute track, or shimmering crystalline drone, very similar in makeup to the first track, but stretched even further out, with even more overtones and distant drones added to the mix as well as some strange minimal percussion. A truly otherworldly ambience, darkly dreamy and absolutely lovely. As beautiful and breathtaking as anything by Chalk, Coleclough, Basinski, Mirror, Monos, Ora or any of our other favorite dronologists.
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Oooh, buzz, buzz, buzz! Here's an album that barely needs announcement! People have been chatting up a storm about it for months. Didn't hurt that the ridiculously anticipated Return To Cookie Mountain came out overseas well in advance of the domestic release. That said, unlike most other grossly hyped to excess bands, TV On The Radio is fully deserving of both the hipster hysteria and the critical acclaim lauded upon them. Those who've waited patiently will be rewarded not only with this exceptional album, but also with a handful of bonus tracks ("Things You Can Do", "Snakes And Martyrs" and "Hours (El-P Remix)")!
On this NY band's sophomore full length, some key aspects pick right up where Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes left off, while there are also some marked differences and new developments. There's certainly no shortage of heady mood, steamy atmosphere and dark tension, but Return To Cookie Mountain is far more lively and kinetic and less brooding than the fellows' debut. Take the peppery fifth song for instance with its infectious rhythm that recalls Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk" and sultry sinewy guitars. "Wolf Like Me" is a standout TVOTR single if we ever heard one (it was actually the lead-off track on a pre-release album sequence). Another highlight is the deeeep saxophone-laced ninth track "Blues From Down Here". Soulful goodness! Overall, there's more layers of (yes, still very Peter Gabriel-esque) expressively throaty and fasletto vocals, more melodic elements, more energy, more depth, more MORE -- making for a most compelling and immersive listen! Adding the almost extraneous cherry on top are guests who include David Bowie, Blonde Redhead's Kazu Makino and Katrina Ford of Celebration.
A few lists back we were singing the black praises of the grim, necro, frosty, raw black metal of Transylvanian trio Tymah. Not only do they masterfully blend the raw buzz of outfits like Darkthrone, Mayhem and Ulver into their own bleak fuzzy blackened sound world, but they are the rare black metal beast, a female fronted BM horde, she a demonic hellion whose banshee shriek and hellish riffing are the driving force behind these brutal black warriors. Funeral Fog is Tymah's demo cd, limited to 666 copies, which finds the band's sound even more murky and raw, and it almost sounds even better than their record proper. Opening with a Mayhem cover (title track "Funeral Fog") that hews pretty dang close to the original, Tymah, continue to spiral gloriously Southward, a relentlessly buzzing blast, thick swaths of corrosive riffing and thrash attack drumming, with insanely howled vocals, sounding quite a bit like Weakling at times. It's that perfect buzzing blackness we can NEVER EVER seem to get enough of. The bonus track ups the production a bit, shrugs off a bit of the murk, and in the process gets even buzzier and harsher. So good.
The disc also includes a video for "Transylvanian Dreams", gorgeous shots of forests and fires and fjords, the corpse painted band members superimposed, either in the studio, carrying torches and swords, or just a murky mysterious visage, shrieking harshly over the glorious background buzz.
LIMITED TO 666 COPIES. Each disc hand numbered!
Latest musician curated compilation on Arthur Magazine's Bastet imprint. Curated this time around by Ethan Miller of Comets on Fire, it of course features songs from both CoF and Comets off-shoots Colossal Yes, Six Organs of Admittance, and August Born. But there is also lots of other new and old noisy and folky weirdness from Albert Ayler, 7 Year Rabbit Cycle, Michael Yonkers, Ghost, and Brother JT among others. One of the most interesting tracks is by the mysterious Shit Spangled Banner, a band we couldn't find much information on because the page in the booklet is oddly missing (although a few AQ'ers have some old SSB tapes!). Beard, Bread & Bear's Prayers is of course equal parts noisy and folky, soft and harsh, given the penchants of Miller's musical dichotomy with Comet's noisy psych and seventies west coast rock. Sweet!
Back in stock! (And, also, when we reviewed this a few weeks ago, we spaced out and somehow listed it under the title of Electro Grind Holocaust, which is a totally different comp on the same label, whoops!)
For those of you who just flipped over our recent Record Of The Week selection the Drum>MachineGun compilation, and want MORE crazed drum machine grindcore insanity, this other collection entitled Electro Grind Gore Compilation should also be of interest! It's slanted a bit more toward the underground and obscure than the Drum>MachineGun comp, and also more towards the porno/gore obsessed side of this bizarre metal/punk subgenre -- a subgenre that features, as displayed here, razor sharp spastic guitar riffage, techno dance beats, belching death metal grunts and growls (some so subsonically extreme that they sound like bubblings from below the earth), non-sequitorial samples (often offensive and, um, humorous), and lots of bleepy bleepy bleargh distortion and noise. There's a unexpectedly high catchiness quotient, in spots, but these tracks are definitely utterly maddening at the same time. It's kind of a "chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter" deal with the electro danciness and the harsh splattermetalgrindnoise in collision. In fact, it's kind of unclear just who this sort of music is supposed to appeal to: we can't imagine techno fans digging all the noise and gore, and we didn't think so many metalheads liked techno-dance beats -- but I guess we were wrong! Of course we like it, so...
Electro Grind Gore contains 28 tracks from 17 bands, most of whom we'd never heard of before. Some names: Atomik Surfing, Shunt Incision, Basket Of Death, Vomitrone, Skrotum, 666.Porn.Star, SMES, Posthuman Worm, Absurd God, Tourette Syndrom, Firbrosarcoma... A very international line-up indeed, the bands hailing from Brazil, Japan, Mexico, France, Croatia, Holland, Germany, Panama, Spain, Australia, and Italy. It's a veritable World Cup of sick underground electro grind! While here at Aquarius we're better versed in black metal, doom, and "true" metal, if we ever do decide to turn this drum machine fueled electronic grindcore deviancy into an AQ specialty, we'd definitely start by tracking down more stuff by the bands on this comp!
It's always kind of exciting to tackle a compilation where you haven't heard of most of the bands. Could be awesome, could be terrible, one of the tracks might be from your new favorite band, one of the tracks might just be the worst song you've ever heard. You don't often get a chance to hear compilations like this (and there are millions of 'em) because why would anyone order a record filled with bands no one knew of or cared about? So we got sent this comp of underground outsider local bands from Oregon, and gave it a listen, and dang if it wasn't pretty great all the way through. The only band we had heard of was the Portland Bicycle Ensemble, who perform on contact miked bicycles, creating spacious and percussive soundscapes. Their track here is awesome, clattery and abstract, spare and spacey. But from then on out we were in unchartered territory...
Tonehenge open up the disc with a weird sound collage, beginning with a woman telling a story, she begins to sing, and suddenly, the track is a dense droning waltz, a swirl of strings and pianos, the main melody whistled, and beneath it all, crunchy looped and processed voices and glitching sound FX. Up next are Lindsay Kaplan and Andrew Wilshusen, whose track is delicate minor key piano, sweet female vocals, surrounded by all sorts of random percussive clatter and found sounds, another pretty and haunting number. JP Jenkins does some solo guitar, detuned and angular, with lots of shimmering overtones, string buzz and slippery slide, really nice, like Jack Rose meets Loren Connors. Another track from Tonehenge, a dizzying Tape Beatles like sonic collage rife with sixties horns, spoken word and lots and lots of record crackle. Next up, Doug Theriault, with a glitchy slab of freaked out, psychedelic music concrete. Followed by Shalloboi, who deliver a murky lo-fi dirge, with creepy piano (does every band in Portland have a piano player?) haunting monotone vocals, and lots of ambient grit and grime. We expected a lot from the band Metal, who were as we expected not metal at all, instead, their track is a drifting soundscape of distant melodies, soft shimmery drones, recordings of birds, and, you guessed it, piano! Next up, the strangely named Biathalon, who craft a sweet, melancholy dreamy abstract pop, soft focused and darkly dreamy, but with something ominous lurking just below the surface, a gurgling , glitchy rumbling drone. Owl Dudes give us a brief, burst of mumbly murk and stuttering electronic skitter, flecked with bits of crunch and sonic detritus. Cup Na Cup, who organized the comp, stretches bells and chimes and shimmering metallic reverberations, into a swoonsome high end drone, with subtle little skips and glitches adding some barely there rhythmic flutter. Every Drum A Star does their thing with swirling synth sounds, burbling water sound, and all sorts of squiggly whoomps and shhhhzts and bleeping bloops. Last but not least, Bryan Eubanks, with a lengthy drone piece, simple stretched out tones, slowly beating against each other, very reminiscent of Conrad, Cale Or Niblock.
So there you have it. Pretty dang nice. A brief glimpse into the underground experimental music scene in Portland. And what we learned was, we'd pretty much by a full length record from any of these bands, but more importantly, if you play the piano, get your ass to Portland, there are several bands who don't yet have a piano player!!!
Black cd-r, packaged with nice full color artwork in a slim, clear dvd case.
If you love your booty shakin then you probably got the first installment of this totally endearing and bumpin' collection of Baile Funk deep from the heart of Rio. That held us over for a bit but our booty's were in need of a recharge and we got it thanks to this 2nd volume in this collection. A raw, mutant mixture of booty bass, hip-hop, carnival, and mash-up culture at its most contagious. What makes this collection so infectious is that you can't help but hear how these songs were made free of irony, and giving us a little peak into what a colorful and risquÅ kind of party scene is happening in Rio. Throw this on in between some M.I.A and Lady Sovereign and you're sure to get everyone around you shaking their booty like it's meant to be shook. 100 percent F-U-N!
Kompakt is quite possibly our favorite techno label (who just so also happen to be responsible for the absolutely divine Pop Ambient series) and this is volume 7 in their sort-of-annual best singles of the past year collection, and as always it's pretty awesome. You probably already know if Kompakt's particular brand of minimal house and lush but skeletal techno hits the spot for you. if not, take into consideration, that most of the folks here are not all that into house or techno at all, but somehow, Kompakt stuff seem to always hit the spot. Not quite as murky and divine as Chain Reaction's heroin house, but still definitely more abstract and far out than most techno we hear. There are of course a few tracks of more straight ahead house music, and some breezy dreamy club anthems, but for the most part, this is some cool, tripped out, laid back Kompakt style techno, house, and space disco! Two disc featuring tracks from Triola, Justus Kohncke, The Modernist, DJ Koze, Mikkel Metal, Superpitcher, SCSI-9, Jurgan Pappe, Robert Babicz, Reinhard Voigt, Jonas Behring, Thomas Fehlmann and a bunch more.
We have no reason not to trust Paradigms. Since their inception, this UK label has bestowed upon us slab after slab of weird and wonderful music. From the Stooges-meets-Hawkwind krautrock jams of Titan, to the massive glacial beauty of the Angelic Process, to the tripped out prog of Blueprint Human Being, to the grim blackness of Throne Of Katarsis, to the mysterious moodiness of Amber Asylum, to the epic sun baked sludge of Hjarnidaudi to the classic Pagan grimness of Utlagr. We've yet to be disappointed, and are beginning to consider Duncan who runs Paradigms an auxiliary aQuarian. How could we not? His label seems to perfectly reflect the AQ aesthetic, or will as soon as he puts out a killer power pop record and some wicked grime (haha), but for the most part, Paradigms has been batting 100% as far as we're concerned. So we were pretty excited to receive the newest Paradigms release, a compilation of drone, dark ambient, slow core, tripped out glacial prog, sludge metal, ambient doom and all of the indescribable genre nooks and crannies in between. Band name will most likely mean nothing to you, as we haven't heard of a single one of these bands: And Machine Said... Behold:, Catonium, Selaxon Lutberg, Escape The Day, Throne Of Glaktus, Paul Mercer, Monarch, Le' Rue Delashay, The Victim's Shudder, The Walking Cold, Vulf Sentient, Annastatsea and The Visions, but the music on this comp, holy shit! If there was ever a more AQ sounding compilation, we sure as shit haven't heard it. The opening track is a sort-of-industrial dirge, huge Teutonic beats, with haunting minor key melodies and super distorted low end piano, circling the crushing rhythm like vultures circling some dead and desiccated carcass. Like a stripped down instrumental Swans track. Beautiful and brutal. And that pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the record. Each track a different shade of black, from warm muted greys to pitch fucking black: from haunting elegiac piano dirges, wrapped in creeped out ominous atmosphere, an expansive cinematic ambience, so cold and washed out and utterly epic, it sounds like Basinski if he had scored a film consisting of one slowly panning shot of some arctic tundra, to creeping Codeine worship, with slowly unfurling minor key guitar and softly crooned sadboy vocals, from massive murky soundscapes of keening glistening ambience and throbbing moaning low end, to super blown out dirgey sludgy Swans-like grooves, with haunting angelic vocals and strange skittery percussion, from creepy reverb drenched chamber music, operatic vocals and moaning strings, to hellish black ambience woven from deep resonant metallic shimmers, and guttural low end rumblings...
Definitely for fans of SUNNO))), Earth, Boris, Corrupted, MZ 412, Nordvargr, Codeine, Nadja, Fear Falls Burning, Hwyl Nofio, Andrew Chalk, Jonathan Coleclough, Earth, Khanate, Catacombs or any one into musicks dark and dirgey, dreamy and droney, dense and doomy. So fucking good.
This is the first Paradigms release to not be packaged in hand printed paper sleeves, instead it's housed in a white DVD case, with a gorgeous black and white photograph cover.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
We always wondered when and how we could finally remove the musician from the equation entirely. Not like synthesizer and sequencer sampled electronic music or anything. And not like some Chuck E. Cheese robotic band. No, we mean just taking a drumkit or a guitar, plugging them in or setting them up and letting them go. Some bands have come close for sure, SUNNO))), Earth and the like. Music so slow moving that it seems to just sort of hover, a music that seems to be playing itself via huge swaths of amp hum and wild sheets of feedback. It's almost as if the music would still play even if the band members took five. All of the robes and smoke machines and demonic imagery in the world can't disguise the fact that you could get almost the same sound from just plugging in a guitar, turning the amp to 10, the distortion all the way up, and leaning the guitars up against the amps, and letting the guitars just feedback, moaning and squealing and rumbling and droning gloriously on and on and on....
Thus we have Vulture Club, a band, MAYBE, or perhaps just some guitars and amps who somehow figured out a way to capture their nocturnal rumblings on tape and press up a bunch of cd-r's. Either way, this record has been kicking our asses since we first got a copy a few weeks back. Imagine a more minimal Earth 2, or SUNNO))) without the riffs, or a more metal Troum! Slow shifting, churning, warm thick swells of guitar hum that swirl and eddy like some strange black tide. Alternately, at its most fierce, a seriously Total like skree, like a plane flying overhead, or someone mowing their lawn down the street, or all of your neighbors vacuuming at once heard through the apartment walls, or the sound of the mighty Ditch Witch that has been sucking sewer water out of ditches all along Valencia Street outside our store for the last two weeks. A thick and gloriously corrosive din! But the noisy edge is tempered by long stretches of tranquil drone and hum, a whirring and warbling rumble, that would sound not at all out of place hovering dreamily between your Maeror Tri records and all of those limited PseudoArcana and Celebrate Psi Phenomenon cd-r's!
Really, the thing to do would be to actually buy those amps, three or four 100 watt amplifiers, a handful of distortion pedals, and a couple guitars, and let them loose, set the amps up around your bed, cranked as loud as they'll go, plug the guitars into the distortion pedals, crank 'em up, lean the guitars against the amps, lay down and just get buried in guitars. But assuming you're not up for spending the $10,000, or are short on space, Vulture Club should most definitely do the trick for now!
LIMITED TO 50 COPIES (we took almost the WHOLE pressing!!) Hand numbered and stamped in cool oversized cardstock sleeves, with strange hairs/fibers affixed to the front, with a lovely vellum insert and track list.
Between this new album from M.Ward and those from Jason Molina and Lambchop, whoa, this is quite the week for country rock excellence!
Always such a welcome sight and sound! On the opening song, M. Ward comes drifting back on his somber raft of haunting, heavy-hearted Americana. Post-War is his much anticipated follow-up to his excellent album Transistor Radio. Ward picks right up where he left off and even rollicks things up a bit. There's an increased sense of both immediacy and intimacy to these recordings. His mood, atmosphere and energy meters are all set to 'full'. The album slips in comfortably right between My Morning Jacket's At Dawn album and Sparklehorse's Good Morning Spider. Listening to all three in a row is a supreme pleasure. Don't believe us? Try it for your yourself! Adding a nice surprise touch, Neko Case slips in to add some unmistakable backing vocals to his great cover of Daniel Johnston's "To Go Home". Ah Mr. Ward, you just get better and better and better.
We're not exactly sure how we stumbled upon the Weird Weeds, a mysterious experimental pop outfit from Texas, but we're sure glad we did. This, their second full length, is totally captivating and weird as fuck. Even the opening one two punch is sort of confusingly brilliant, the sweet opening track, softly strummed guitar, simple chimes, and harmonized female vocals, followed by the bizarre rhythmic workout of the second track, a processed whump of a rhythm track, quickly surrounded by effervescent swirls of droning high end, and gorgeous intertwined vocals. It is definitely pop, but unlike any pop we've ever heard. Maybe the closest comparison would be Animal Collective, but Weird Weeds are a whole different animal, the core of their sound seems to be an upper register drift, be it some weird metallic shimmer, high end guitar jangle, or the dreamy female vocals combined with the mostly falsetto male vocals. And just as important to WW's sound is percussion. Every song leans heavily on whatever off kilter rhythm the band establishes, often lurching from near static shuffle to a loping pound, and just as quickly back again. The song structure is a bit off kilter as well, super complex and convoluted, sounding either like a pop band afflicted with the worse case of ADD ever, or like each song is a composite of 10 or 20 other little songs. The effect is intoxicating, and when the band unfurls a twangy little ditty, you find yourself braced for the inevitable shift to some other random melodic tangent, and when it sometimes doesn't come, you find yourself being almost disappointed. Hard to believe such a massive expansive sound could come from such a compact ensemble. And that the simplest ingredients, guitar, percussion and vocals, could be whipped into such a heady psychedelia! Droney, drifty, twangy, dreamy and strangely lovely.
As any avid reader of the AQ list can no doubt attest to, we have long been huge fans of Mr. David Eugene Edwards, formerly of Southern Gothic swamp folk outfit 16 Horsepower, currently performing as Woven Hand, a band that takes the swampy folk of 16HP somewhere even darker, a world of imminent damnation, and dreams of glorious salvation. The music of Woven Hand is a dark and brooding, fire and brimstone, apocalyptic doom folk, with Edwards testifying like his life depended on it. And maybe it does. Edwards makes no bones about being a Christian, and the music of Woven hand plays like the Old Testament come to life. Damnation and suffering, a cold cruel world, the only hope of life everlasting is to somehow weather the harsh and hellish, to bow down and be lifted up. And the thing is you don't necessarily have to be religious to be terrified of death and suffering, or eternal torture, and even the staunchest atheist might think twice if offered a chance at eternal life, and eternal happiness. Typically, the word of God, the usual messages from on high, repent or die, do unto others, are hugely heavy handed, granted, they are meant to be as they do concern your eternal life, but when delivered in the context of the Woven Hand, some of us find our agnostic selves chilled to the bone, the fear of God, -some- God anyway, gets us quaking in our boots. But it's more about the delivery than the message for us, and from a purely musical approach Woven Hand's music is gloriously grim, an expansive and minor key world of darkness and drama, lost souls and true love, simple strummed guitars, dramatic understated strings, fiddles and wheezing accordions, haunting arrangements, bizarre percussion, strange FX and incredibly intense ambience, and of course Edwards' gorgeously affecting croon: dramatic, intense, emotional, but so obviously troubled, conflicted, hopeful too, yet streaked with a dark despair.
So although Woven Hand's chillingly morose gothic twang is perfect on its own, when tangled up with Edwards' moody tales of punishment and salvation, of love and death, it takes on even more emotional weight. And compared to the first Woven Hand record, Edwards seems to slowly be moving away from the sound of 16 Horespower, the first Woven Hand could have been another 16HP record, but such is the way with records like that, a 'solo' record from the band member who wrote most of the music for the band he just left. But each record has been getting darker, more personal, disturbingly so, but at the same time, more epic, more cinematic, and more and more beautiful.
Again?!?! Whoa, in the last five years we've had triple deja vu where X-Ray Spex cds are concerned -- specifically these British punk pioneers' Germ Free Adolescents album which was originally released (on vinyl and cassette, we assume!) in 1978 by Blue Plate / Caroline.
Back in 2001 we carried the GFA cd which was released by Virgin Records. Then in 2002 a double cd titled The Anthology was released by Castle Music. It included the GFA album as well as a whole extra disc packed with rarities. In 2005, Castle Music couldn't leave well enough alone and shook things up again, issuing Germ Free Adolescents - Expanded which fit the GFA album and some extras onto a single cd. Now only a year later we get Let's Submerge: The Anthology, a slipcovered two disc set containing a total of fifty-two tracks (the GFA album, John Peel Sessions, live recordings, early demos, and more).
Anyway, one more time with feeling! Here's what former AQ owner Windy said about the previous 2cd version (it totally still hold true for this release!): In the last years of the '70s, X-Ray Spex, fronted by singer / songwriter Poly Styrene, were one of the most visible and artistically successful punk originals. Led by Poly Styrene who had charisma with a capital C, the British band's songs were super intense, noisy and ragged -- while simultaneously catchy, ridiculously melodic and hook-filled. Powerful, hundred-miles-an-hour drumming, wailing skronk saxophone, Poly's sandpaper yowl of a voice -- it all adds up. X-Ray Spex obviously influenced Sleater-Kinney (especially in the vocals -- if you're a SK fan you simply have to get this), as well as pretty much any grrl punk group you can think of, and, heck, a lot of male-led bands too. And along with the Raincoats and LiliPut, X-Ray Spex is THE foundation of the female vision of Punk.
Simply put, this is one of the best albums Punk ever produced (and one of Windy's all-time favorites). If you haven't already, you owe it to yourself to hear this record. YOU WILL LOVE IT.
We're not going to go into too much detail with this as it is limited to 612 copies worldwide of which we managed to get 10 or 15! Not sure we'll be able to get more. So act fast. A match made in heaven. Assuming heaven is packed with broken amps, detuned guitars, beat to shit drum kits, cheap beer, and all manner of freaked out smashstomp noise rock! And lots of us are praying to Jeebus it is!!! In one corner we've got SF's total destruction unit, Total Shutdown, guitar, bass, keyboards, drums, harmonica and double sax!! In the opposing corner we've got the East Bay's (that means Oakland) new wave angular swat team XBXRX. Two 5" vinyls, one red, one blue, each vying for the noise rock crown, we're leaning towards a good ol' fashioned tie, the kind that after the post battle hug, once the opponents turn their back they each lurch back into action wielding flaming drumsticks and spiked axes (that means guitars). Dig in if you dare!
Utterly amazing packaging. A massive fold out, technicolor acid drenched cartoon freakout, all creatures and shapes and clouds and elves all on cool fuzzy paper, the inside is similar just with all the color sucked out, with little sleeves for each of the 5" vinyls. COOL!!! ----* ----* Compilations : ----*
Something for Xiu Xiu diehard fans and completists... A sturdy 7" picture disc featuring two very fleeting collaborative glimpses of Xiu Xiu and photographer/Xiu Xiu merch guy David Horvitz (one vocal number "Boy Soprano" which is filled with the group's characteristic angsty drama and the other a low-key loosely structured instrumental "Saint Pedro Glue Stick" -- both from their most recent full length The Air Force), and two very different Horvitz-shot photos (one of a grey cloudy sky and the other of a blue mud-masked, fully clothed, shell-shocked looking guy lying in a motel bed next to a bored looking gal. Limited to 600.
This has been a big year for Bay Area noise combos, with loads of releases, write ups, tours and much higher profiles in general for bands like the Skaters and the Yellow Swans. Oakland free noise duo, the Yellow Swans, also run their own label Jyrk, responsible for lots of AQ favorites recently, including the Yellow Swans / Grey Daturas 2 cd-r collaboration we listed not too long ago. This time around, Dove Yellow Swans (they often switch between different D-words reflecting the sound or mood of each particular record) have taken a handful of older releases and chopped 'em up, and re-assembled and re-worked them into an entirely new beast, forty seven minutes of sputtering, splattery, free noise, drone drenched, druggy and damaged, malfunctioning electronic chaos. However, unlike most noise outfits, the Yellow Swans know a thing or two about dynamics, and are quite adept at taking all sorts of horrible noises and weaving them into an entirely listenable, and often quite gorgeous whole. Drum machines spit out all sorts of random beats and sounds, stumbling and clattering and careening around your head like shotgun pellets, beneath a thick wash of shrieking feedback, sick sounding synths, super processed vocals, and distorted and dizzying guitars. A little bit Wolf Eyes, a little bit Sunroof!, a little bit Merzbow, but all twisted and tangled into it's own deliriously damaged Yellow Swan-ed shape.
Packaged in a cool oversized cardboard gatefold, with a bit of black felt to protect the disc. Cover art by Devendra Banhart. And as always, extremely limited!
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It must be a blast to stay with the Yellow Swans on tour. Most bands who put up other bands are pretty good hosts, but only to the extent that a punk rock pad can be. Floor space to crash on. Maybe some pasta or pizza. A TV with every episode of the Simpsons on tape. A shower or a bed if you're really lucky. But it seems like that in addition to all that, when you stay with the Yellow Swans, after a nice dinner and some TV, you make a record. We're not complaining (well, okay, maybe we are, that never really happened to us when we were on tour) since most of these collaborations have been completely amazing.
We never really considered ourselves 'noise' fans. Sure we love the occasional Merzbow or Masonna, but 'noise' isn't really something you throw on at home while you're cooking dinner, or relaxing reading a book. But somehow, this new breed of noisemakers, have devised a way to make 'noise' interesting again. It's no less caustic and abrasive (well, maybe a little) but it's just more interesting, more varied, more textured, it's less about 'making noise' than it is playing music that just happens to bee noisy. The Yellow Swans are one of the main practitioners of this new noise, and we've pretty much been digging everything we've heard. This here collaboration features the unknown to us Moth Drakula, who team up with their pals the Yellow Swans and proceed to make a seriously corrosive and brutal racket. More than any of the Yellow Swans stuff we've heard, this is most definitely a NOISE record. Recorded live in L.A. last year, these three tracks are white hot, as in white noise, a swirling cacophony of grinding electronics, processed feedback, and maybe there's some real instruments in there, but if so they're beaten into nearly unrecognizable shapes. A squirming squealing shrieking metallic monster, a burst of blinding harsh brutality. Harsh and harrowing, jagged and grating, fierce and fucked up, and very, very, very, very noisy!
Packaged in a super cool folded printed cardstock sleeve sort of like one of those Independent Project Press packages.
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Finally, one of our favorite magazines returns, and heck, we didn't have to wait a year between issues!! We think this is a sign of a steadier, more reliable Yeti! Which is definite a good thing, considering how totally badass both the mag and the accompanying cd are every single time. Within the 242 pages of Yeti number 4 you'll find a rare interview with Souled American, as well as a piece on Reverend Louis Overstreet, an interview with artist Fred Tomaselli, "How To Sing Along With 'Sweet Home Alabama'" by Matmos' Drew Daniel, harrowing and fascinating images from the Sydney Police archives, an eight year old interviews Dan Bejar from Destroyer, an interview with Sam Lipsyte from Powell's Bookstore, an interview with Peter Lamborn Wilson, an Okkervil River tour diary, an interview with Todd Barry, a reminiscence on ABC No Rio and the '80s New York open-mic scene, an interview with writer Octavia Butler as well as a bunch of fiction and tons of comics. As always, also included is a cd compilation, this time featuring, Radio 4, Destroyer, Bright, Califone, Michael Hurley with Tara Jane O'Neil, Ghosting, Page France, Okkervil River, Fly Ashtray, Valet, Theo Angell and a bunch more. Awesome!
It's been a little over 3 years since YLT graced us with their Summer Sun and we have to say we were starting to get a little antsy. We have pretty much worn out all of our copies of their back catalog. Every album, every single. Everyone here can probably boast a different favorite YLT record, but we all knew we needed some new sounds from them pronto. And here we have it, and it does not disappoint. In fact it delights, confuses, and makes us fall in love with them all over again. While the last couple records (which are some of our favorites!) had a pretty consistent feeling and tone (more on the soft and somber side of things) this is a YLT record that truly connects with all their various sides and shades, moods and sounds. Bookended with two long rockers clocking in at around 11 minutes each, the 12 songs in between touch on all the different sounds Yo La Tengo have explored over the years. From their perfect, super catchy indie rock, to sad and melancholy dreampop to a surprising and irresistible dance number, to some groovy horn section action, and all stops in between. I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass most definitely sounds like a band connecting with every part of their past, present and future. And like plenty of other YLT records, it blossoms and reveals secret after secret on repeated listens. A record that demands you spend time with it, but who needs to be told, one listen and that's all you'll want to do....
Viva La Yo La Tengo!
Another beautiful sounding and gorgeously packaged super limited release from Jefre Cantu-Ledesma's (Tarentel) Root Strata label. This one, from a mysterious band of noisemakers from Chicago (even though they're named for a city in Pennsylvania), Zelienople. Having lurked on the periphery of the underground drone / noise / free folk scene, releasing a handful of limited cd-r releases on labels like PseudoArcana, 267 Lattajjaa and others, Stone Academy finds the band at their darkest and most expansive, droney and buzzy but still so delicate and beautiful, hopefully this release will be the one to get these guys more widely heard 'cuz they do belong right up there alongside Avarus and Starving Weirdos and Yellow Swans and Birchville and all of those ambientdronefolk household names.
Stone Academy, at its core, is basically a stripped down folk record. Simple strummed steel string guitar, wavery plaintive vocals, warm swells of ambience, wrapped in TONS of thick reverb, like it was recorded in a cave or a gymnasium or empty swimming pool, and while each song has this strummy folk center, each track evolves or devolves in a totally unique way, into a barely there minimal crawl, into grinding washes of distorted guitar, into warm thick swirls of My Bloody Valentine like buzz, into weird 20th century abstract clatter, into Murky Dead C like blurry noise rock, and sometimes into nothing at all, just sort of quietly and contemplatively drifting along, shimmering in a druggy haze of warbly ephemeral folk and whirring ambient rumble.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES! Each copy hand numbered. Thick brown sleeves, each with an original ACTUAL photo by Diane Jones affixed to the front. Five different, equally striking images. So lovely.
Ah, Zoffy. Times change, eh? Isn't it weird that the classic rock band responsible for such hoary hits as "Smoke On The Water", "21st Century Schizoid Man" and "Stairway To Heaven" would be playing at little clubs in Tokyo, Japan, and putting out limited edition cd-rs? Er, wait a sec. This isn't an example of the "still big in Japan" phenomenon. Turns out that Zoffy didn't write those songs at all! They're just a very tongue-in-cheek unit formed by members of Acid Mothers Temple (specifically, Kawabata Makoto and Tsuyama Atsushi), who play very krautrocky originals and a whole lotta classic rock covers in a loose, silly, folky, psychedelic style, using quite an assortment of acoustic and ethnic instrumentation. Tsuyama's underwater-sounding vocals on "Purple Haze" are a good example of the goofy fun they're having here with these '60s and '70s rock chestnuts. But when they're not yukking it up, this can be really beautiful too... a weird blend of laffs and serious psychedelic feeling. The material here was recorded live over the course of several years (1999-2003) and was first released in a 100 copies only cd-r edition, now it's on a real cd with 3 bonus tracks. Oh, and one unexpected cover choice bears mention, to Ruins fans anyway: "Hyderomastgroningem"! That one, definitely NOT a '70s radio staple...
