As with every review of a release on EM records, we feel obligated to gush just a little. WHAT AN AMAZING LABEL! Most definitely the coolest reissue label going. Completely off the wall releases dug up and given new life. Amazing packaging, killer liner notes, tons of photos. So much love and passion obviously goes into each and every release we'd almost buy every one regardless of the music. Thankfully, pretty much everything we've heard so far is absolutely amazing, and well deserving of a deluxe reissue treatment.
You may remember a while back we reviewed a 1976 disc from a free jazz ensemble called the Pyramids, whose sound was not just jazz, but a strange swirling mix of Funkadelic, Don Cherry and the Art Ensemble Of Chicago, all with a groovy, funky, spaced out vibe. Chaotic and completely mesmerizing, some of the sounds as we described them in the Pyramids review: "Wild Eastern sounding tribal rhythms, shuffling jazzy post bop, fluttering flutes and skronking horns, chanted vocals, droning buzzing ragas, seventies psychedelic free folk, propulsive krautfunk jams, totally chaotic free jazz, octopoidal drumming, wild shrieking sax and haunting percussive soundscapes"! And those disparate elements were all wrapped up, in and around more traditional sounding African music. Wow! A total revelation for sure.
And it appears to have been a revelation for everyone else as well. There's a massive box set planned for the near future, and then there's this, a sort of career retrospective of Pyramids mainman Idris Ackamoor, drawing equally from the Pyramids albums Lalibela (1973), King Of Kings (1974) and Birth, Speed, Merging (1976), as well as a track a piece from three of Ackamoor's solo albums. As if that weren't already enough, there are six unreleased tracks, over an hour of music! One track from Ackamoor's pre-Pyramids group The Collective, three unreleased Pyramids tracks, one unreleased track from the Idris Ackamoor Quartet and finally a recording of Ackamoor and his wife at the time (1973) playing with King's Drummers Of Tamale, Ghana!!
Disc one is drawn from the earliest years, 1971 to 1974, and is completely mind blowing. Absolute free jazz nirvana! But with plenty of soul and groove. Long long tracks, heavy on the percussion, very tribal and experimental, but still soulful and jazzy. Fluttering flutes drift over dense beds of percussive shimmer, some tracks explode into full on drum solo percussion jams, others drift serenely, while still others careen wildly between the two. Modern ears will of course hear No Neck Blues Band and Sunburned Hand, Avarus and Kemialliset, it's hard not to, after all this is where that sound came from!! Disc one would be worth the price of admission alone, and definitely has us excited to see these whole records reissued in their entirety. But lucky for us there's a whole other disc!
The first two tracks on disc 2 are from Birth, Speed, Merging (1976) and if you don't have it already, these tracks should easily convince you that you absolutely NEED TO OWN IT! Gorgeous long form, slow burning jazz epics, horns skronk and shimmer, the bass is slippery and serpentine, the drums are wild and all over the place, utterly mesmerizing, extended blasts of controlled chaos. So goddamn good. The unreleased track is a killer too. Nearly twenty minutes. The stuff from Ackamoor's solo records is a lot less far out, but still really great, from straight up Bop, to groovy sort of cinematic jazz, to some softer Cuban style jazz (the final track taken from his album Cubana).
It's hard to believe a band could be this amazing, and revolutionary and so brilliantly far out and not be spoken of in the same breath as groups like the Art Ensemble and Sun Ra's Arkestra, but here's hoping that this, as well as past and future reissues takes care of that! Absolutely essential!!!!!!
Like all EM releases, the packaging is fantastic. A Japanese style extra thick jewel case, a printed obi as well as a MASSIVE booklet full of rare photos, and liner notes penned by Ackamoor himself, in both English and Japanese!
Here's the expensive import, for those that can't wait 'til this comes out domestically, in January we believe... At the crossroads of Kylie Minogue, Bebel Gilberto, Puffy Ami Yumi and Lady Sovereign sits this lady Ms Lily Allen. What does that mean? Sleek girlish fun, of course! Have to say though that the cover art made us a bit wary. With all the bling, lightning bolts and boomboxes it looks like it fell out of the pages of Vice Magazine. This is a candy-colored, gleeful tilt-a-whirl of an album! One weird listening moment came during the intro to the eighth song. We actually were expecting her to break into a little Cat Stevens, but she didn't. The tune "Littlest Things" does seem suspiciously infused with "Wild Life"-ness. It's almost as though she removed Stevens' vocals and lyrics and dropped her own over top. That oddness aside, ya gotta stick with her 'cause the flouncin' final track "Alfie" just might be the best! Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!
On their latest musical mission And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead have come bearing a mixed bag o' unexpected accoutrements. There's a bit of (almost) everything including some retro pop, power pop, '70s glitter rock and roots rock. Clearly they've left their hungry, volatile post-punk years behind... y'know, back when they used to trash their gear. Now, we're honestly not pulling some indie rock snobbery here when we say that with each album since they signed to a major label, it has seemed the band have seemed a bit lost, grappling for an identity. On the other hand, it could be due to the numerous lineup changes. Or maybe they've known exactly what they've been doin' all along, and they're intentionally dodging classification. What do you think? The result though is music that sounds like a lot of other artists past and present. What comes to mind when we think of And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, is probably completely different from what you might be thinking of! Very befuddling. That said, in our opinion, this one works well as an enjoyable pop/rock melange... albeit not as specifically an AYWKUBTTOD album. The lead-off track is very earthy, almost-country rock. Then there's a bit of seemingly tabla inspired percussion on the third track. Further on in the album, there's some downright Elton John Yellow Brick Road flamboyance in the number titled "Life", followed by the very Sgt. Pepper-esque marching peppiness of "Eight Days Of Hell". The undercurrent throughout is a hazy, high powered rock that's steeped with boyish emotion but not 'emo' per se. Think: Superchunk's power pop energy with Swervedriver's uh, drive. Really good! Still, you'd never guess this was AYWKUBTTOD. We sure didn't.
Yer ears ready for a bit of a challenge? This, the fourth album from take-no-prisoners English instrumental noise-rock project Aufgehoben (nee Aufgehoben No Process) ought to be just the thing. Seven tracks, 45 minutes of crumpled, crinkly skree in the form of amp-frying distortion, chaotic falling-down-the-stairs song structures, and clattering pipe-fightin' percussion. It's "music" that's been brutally improvised and manipulated, coming out sounding something like Merzbow meets the Starfuckers. At its most extreme (which is very, and most of the time) this stuff's so in-the-red it's infrared.
This time around we're hearing less of the krauty rhythmic pummel and snatches of near-melody that characterized their earlier releases (like their last one, 2004's Anno Fauve), and more just sheer blown-out, blow-it-up loud skronky noise, or threatening-to-be loud glitchscapes of brief silences, scrapery and FX. The "small print" in the cd booklet somehwhat puzzlingly specifies the instrumentation/methodology as "paper, stone, electronics, two drums, one mono GS" and "no bass, no overdubs, no no no process", along with the usual disclaimer that Aufgehoben "accept no responsibility for health or hardware". A smart lawyer they must have... Messidor is a seriously OTT session for fans of the likes of Wolf Eyes, Shit and Shine, and Skullflower.
Steven Wilson may be known best from Porcupine Tree, although he has also been quite prolific as Bass Communion producing a whole slew of darkly tinged ambient records for the past decade or so. Back in 1996, Wilson began corresponding with Bryn Jones of Muslimgauze, at first merely to share his enthusiasm over the Muslimgauze album Blue Mosque. Without expecting anything, Wilson sent a set of recordings to Jones whose urge to improve upon the recordings was too great for him to deny; hence, a few days later, Wilson received several hours of recordings with his musics radically transformed into the fiery Arabic electronica that had been the signature for Muslimgauze for countless records. Thus began a collaborative process, whereby Wilson would mould the Muslimgauze sounds into something to his liking, only to have Jones reject those mixes in favor of his own. The Muslimgauze ethos is still the dominant force here, with a ghostly dark ambient lingering in the distance the only remnants of Wilson's contributions. The recordings that comprise this CD had been released previously as a long CD EP / short album (depending on who you ask) and a CD single; both of those discs had been out of print for sometime now, so it's nice to be able to hear this stuff again!
DOOM HISTORY HERE FOLKS! And not just that, it's a fantastic album. Ok, you know something is up when almost EVERYONE here at AQ absolutely loves a doom metal album. Not just the regular metal heads (Andee, Allan, Jason, Lauren) but also Jim and Cup too. Indeed, Cup's two cents for this review is this: "fucking awesome!"
So what's all the fuss about Bedemon? Well some of you may be familiar with the band Pentagram from Maryland, who have about a 30+ year history, going on 40 in fact. Well Bedemon are essentially an obscure but very worthwhile footnote to Pentagram's history, being the "solo" recording project of original '70s Pentagram guitarist Randy Palmer, the majority of this recorded circa 1973-74 with a few tracks from a 1979 Bedemon session as well. They never played out, or even released any records. Bedemon were more of a practice room, basement-recording project that involved Palmer and friends, including the other members of Pentagram, most significantly the uniquely talented vocalist Bobby Liebling who sings on all of these cuts. It was just a way for Palmer to get his own songwriting down on tape, stuff that wasn't recorded by Pentagram. It's totally in the same vein as Pentagram though, if anything MORE dark and doomy than Pentagram's '70s output. Very heavy, and heavily Black Sabbath influenced, also with echoes of Blue Cheer, Randy Holden's Population II, and Iggy & The Stooges (the track "Time Bomb" is very Stoogey, in a way similiar to Pentagram's "Last Days Here"). And for '73, this is definitely about as heavy as it gets, Sabbath and Pentagram themselves excepted. There's so many great tracks on here, each one more sorrowful and wrought with doomful emotion than the next, all of 'em throbbing and (awesomely) distorted. Yes, the quality of these rehearsal tape recordings is downright grungey and murky, but in our opinion that isn't a distraction nor a detraction. In fact, it only makes this better, totally capturing that spirit and raw energy of jamming in the garage for your own enjoyment. And it also sounds doomier that way too. Hands down, Randy Palmer wrote some of the best Pentagram songs, and many of these are just as good. Some of his riffs absolutely lay to waste those of his contemporaries. Just imagine if Palmer had decided to promote his doom skills rather than keep them for the most part to himself. Holy shit. At least we have this, one of the best "lost" albums ever uncovered in the realm of heavy, underground music.
Sadly, Palmer died in a tragic car accident just a few years ago, so the official release of this material at long last is also something of a tribute to his memory. Some of this stuff has been bootlegged before, but this legit release has been done with the blessings of Randy's survivors and the input of the other Bedemon musicans. There's even a Wes Benscoter cover painting based on Palmer's own hand-sketched ideas, as well as lots of photos, a Bedemon history written by Palmer before he was killed, and some very fascinating, detailed, and heartfelt liner notes from fellow Bedemon/Pentagram bandmate Geof O'Keefe.
Essential to all true fans of Pentagram, and also to anyone into heavy '70s Sabbathy psychedelic garagey proto-metal!!
Hell yeah! We were just doing a bit of cleaning, and found a little stash of these, an AQ record of the week from WAY back in June of 2000!!! We only found 10 copies, and we're pretty sure this is out of print now, so as soon as these are gone, that's it!
This record is sooooo amazing. So dark, and beautiful, creepy and mysterious. So much so that we just had to make it record of the week! Initially, our interest in Beyond Dawn was due mostly to the bizarre fact that they were a trombone-fronted black metal band!! But, in the space of one record (Revelry, the record preceding this one), their sound shifted completely, to something less metal, more experimental, a morose sort of "avant-pop" with a heavy heavy heavy Swans vibe. As well as a bit of Katatonia too. And thankfully, the trombone remained. The mostly acoustic follow-up "In Reverie" also could quite easily be a late period Swans record or an Angels Of Light disc. But for our money, it's even better than most of the later Swans records. The voice is a deep ringing baritone, a dead ringer for Michael Gira's, but the music is way more bizarre. Somehow managing to be both lush and spare, Beyond Dawn create rickety tales of loss and sorrow with plaintive trombone, simple minor key strumming, bizarre percussion, clouds of subtle glistening electronics and warm emotional swells, all wrapped in a creepy atmospheric intensity. Immediately following this disc, they then went on to explore a more electronica-influenced sound on their next record, the completely different but equally amazing Electric Sulking Machine, reviewed elsewhere on the site. Not sure what happened to these guys, they sort of just disappeared, which is an incredible shame as they are just such an amazing band, a perpetual AQ favorite for sure, and this is such a totally breathtaking disc. For everyone who somehow missed out on this 6 years ago, at least ten of you get a second chance. Don't blow it again! So recommended!
This slab of black metal grimnity was originally unleashed upon the world by Sweden's Total Holocaust label. After being out of print for some time, it's now reissued in a digipack by a new label. Our prior review:
I know we talk about buzzing, primitive, grim and frosty black metal all the time. What can we say? We love that stuff. But this Blodulv record is sooooo grim and ridiculously frosty and utterly primitive. And buzzing! Don't forget the buzz! The guitars are just a swarm of buzzing metal mosquitos, filling your ears with hellish blackness. The tempos are mostly mid, even the blast beats remain just on the edge of midtempo, and the vocals are hyper distorted, to the point of sounding like modulated white noise. And the riffs! The riffs hum and whir and drone, like some sort of devilish lullaby, a hypnotic siren's song that lulls you into a trance like state, all the easier for their satanic message to sink in. For fans of Burzum, Darkthrone, and all manner of ravishing grimness.
The Blow have primarily been the work of visual and performance artist Khaela Maricich, who has released a handful of heartfelt and slightly sassy minimal pop records with electronic undertones. A couple years ago she teamed up with Jona Bechtolt, a multi talented musician who does a wildly creative electronic project called Yacht and has been a member of Devenda Banhart's touring Hairy Fairy Band. Bechtolt has helped make Maricich's sound a more full and overtly catchy. Where past records were more about subtlety and whispered seduction, this record is all about making hips swing and heads bob. Taking their cue from folks like Tracy & The Plastics and Solex, The Blow make smart pop music that's not afraid to be f-u-n. Fans of Le Tigre, The Postal Service and Stereo Total should definitely tune in to the sound of Paper Television.
Bone Awl!!! You know you want it. We can't seem to keep their shit in stock. It flies out of here everytime we get a new title. We're still waiting on two huge boxes of Bone Awl lps to finally arrive. Sorry for the folks who are still waiting. We're as frustrated as you are. AND we're still waiting for the sort of flakey band members to come by and bring us more copies of their old cassettes.
But thankfully, we just got a new tape in to tide you over! Yep, you heard us tape. These guys are old skool. No cds, just tapes and vinyl. All super lo-fi and primitive, visually and sonically.
Vinland / Finland was previously available as a super limited lp on Grievantee (now WAY out of print, so don't ask) and now as a super limited tape on Northern Sky. Four different bands, all brutal, primitive, and ultra grim black metal, Bone Awl (USA), Hammer (Finland), Volkurah (Canada) and Vordr (Finland). We obviously love Bone Awl as do you all it seems, and we are super into Vordr (although we've never been able to get enough copies of their discs to list), we had never heard of either Hammer or Volkurah, but both fit comfortably along side the other two.
So if you're in the mood for some stripped down, ugly, crusty black brutality, then this is exactly what you've been hankering for. And as much as we hate to say it, this is of course super limited. And while we did get a whole bunch, they still probably won't last long.
Bonnie Prince Billy (aka Will Oldham) keeps his music comin' in snack-size packets. He sure seems to love the ep format, and that's surely fine with his fans. Keep that flow good and steady, keep 'em all good and happy. The title track is taken from his most recent full length The Letting Go, and it's accompanied by "The Way" and "Buried Treasure". In a mere three songs, he effectively encapsulates his full Bonnie Prince Billy spectrum of muted country rock and creeping mournful balladry. Cold & Wet? Not at all, more like warm, dry and comfortingly familiar. So, if you or someone you know has yet to experience Mr. Oldham's burnished folk rock finery this little one is a really good place to start.
Bonus: The cd includes a video for the title track.
It seems like every Boris release is more anxiously anticipated than the last. But somehow this is the one everybody's been waiting for. A double cd reissue of the previously vinyl only Dronevil. And just to ensure that Boris obsessives who already have the lp don't get off easy, the cd version adds two lengthy tracks to each disc and eliminates the pressing defect that plagued the lp release.
Dronevil is like the Japanese doom sludge version of the Flaming Lips' Zaireeka! Two discs, one drone, one heavy, intended to be played simultaneously on two separate stereos, but both equally listenable on their own.
The 'drone' disc is gorgeous, the first track is a shimmering swirl of sizzling cymbals, thick clouds of reverberating metal, sounding almost like some lost Organum track. Warm metallic swells, that undulate and subtly swing, layer upon layer of gorgeous high end sound. The second is a lugubrious trawl through some dimly lit cavernous underworld, thick tones swirl and drift, super minimal, like the slowed down sound of tolling bells, a slow motion ringing that shimmers and hums, like some distant soundscape viewed through thick panes of fogged up glass. The final drone track is another high end excursion, this time it's a whirl of densely layered tones, like sheets of feedback, played back at different speeds, creating strange tonal clusters and causing the various sounds to beat against each other producing subtle rhythms and streaks of upper register melody. Like a much more minimal Sunroof! or a Phil Niblock piece using Total outtakes as source material.
The sludgier disc (or the 'Evil' disc of the Dronevil pair) starts off with the 21 minute "Red", which starts off with some rumbling low end swells, mirroring the shimmering cymbals of it's ambient corollary on disc 1, then some abstract clean guitar, lots of space, about halfway through in come the keening distorted guitar feedback, streaks of psychedelic skree above the spacious abstract soundscape, finally about 15 minutes in the drums kick in, a simple post rock skitter, the clean guitars coalesce into a sort of Morricone-ish spaghetti western twang, above which some spare soulful leads drift and delicately soar, a slow loping groove like some strange slowcore hybrid of Codeine and Low. Dreamy and so good. The second track is where it actually gets heavy, a super distorted slow motion riff builds and builds until Boris are lurching along like some monstrous space rock behemoth, a sludgy trudge, thick walls of distorted guitar, simple pounding drums, all beneath wild psychedelic leads. Very Hawkwindy for sure. A brief near silent interlude sets us up for the hammer to fall, and it does, huge crumbling riffs dripping with filthy distortion, a sludgy black hole riff, and the wild psychedelic leads just keep getting more tangled and freaked out. So totally intense and heavy and super spaced out. The final track is another massive space doom workout. Heavy and thick and dense, but still somehow spacious and epic. Guitars grind and crunch but they also drift and hover weightless, the drums pound one second, and skitter jazzily the next, everything a huge swirling mass of psychedelic spaciness wrapped in massively thick guitars, ending in a barely there acoustic steel string coda.
Now when you play the two discs together it all makes sense. The heavy disc is so spare and spacey, because the first disc introduces all of these extra layers of sound, and the first disc is so abstract and minimal, because it's main purpose is to fill out the doom drenched space rock on disc two. But it barely matters. Together, the two discs perfectly meld into a killer postspacerock doom sludge record, heavy and dense and layered. Apart, you've got two amazing records, one super abstract free drone record, and one post slow core psychedelic spacerock record. You can't really lose either way.
And as always the packaging is absolutely breathtaking: a Japanese style mini gatefold, printed inside and out, black and light blue ink on thick textured brown cardstock, along the bottom a black and grey printed vellum obi, each disc in its own pocket and beautifully packaged with three circular plastic printed transparencies, all of the images combining with the printed image on the disc. WOW.
Good grief, "Drain'd Boner" would be a stupid title, of course, if it wasn't so brilliant, in this case. That clever play on words heralds the return of the Julian "Druid dude" Cope's heavier-than-thou, super-Stoogey "stupor groop" Brain Donor, also featuring members of Spiritualized releasing their inner cock rock axe demons. The resultant splooge comes close to Mainliner, High Rise, Acid Mothers Temple territory, especially on track two, the ten minute "Nagasaki Mushroom" which is a suitably apocalyptic, head nodding heavy guitar grind... meanwhile other tracks like the more uptempo "Where Do We Take U?" (some sort of Hawkwind meets UK post punk ditty) demonstrate the English origins of these pagan rockers. Definitely lots to love here for fans of drunken, droning punk-metal psychedelic sludge! Kinda like Vincent Black Shadow playing the SUNNO))) songbook. Nicely packaged, as well, in a slipcased jewelcase.
Some of the AQ shoppin' stoner rock contingent ought to remember Buffalo, an honest to gosh band of Austrialian proto-metal pioneers from the early '70s. We used to stock a 2-fer-1 disc (can't get it anymore, dang) that collected their more Monster Magnet than Monster Magnet ever wuz albums Volcanic Rock ('73) and Want You For Your Body ('74). Missing that disc as we do, we were happy to find a few copies of this, a cd reissue of their prematurely tired-of-living debut from 1972. Dead Forever (nice title, they had a knack for that) was originally released on Vertigo, and at the time Buffalo were probably tipped as an Aussie version of Vertigo best sellers Black Sabbath. Close, no cigar, but what they're smoking has its charms anyhoo. This album's a graveyard of grinding dirgey yeah-yeah-yeah rockers, the kind that demand (as the back cover literally does) you to "play this LOUD". You've got to 'cause this band's lurching riffs and electric psychedelic blues bashings need all the help they can get since producers back then didn't yet know exactly what real metal required. True, this has a few quiet, balladic numbers on it (not bad ones either) but will be 'specially valued for trudging lead-foot boogie blooze proto-DOOM like you get with the album-closing title track coffin-nail-hammerer. For folks who also dig the similarly lost and wasted, stoned guitars and wailing vocals of such acts as Captain Beyond, Randy Holden, Juan de la Cruz, Toad, Leafhound, and Sir Lord Baltimore.
Since her departure from Belle & Sebastian, Isobel Campbell has been busy busy busy. Whether making country tinged records with Mark Lanegan, or doing Billie Holiday covers with Bill Wells it seems that she's been searching for her voice for a while now, which in no way has kept her from producing some super pleasant music. But the release of Milk White Sheets finds Campbell feeling more at home than ever. Dreamy, breezy and basking in pastoral beauty. Offering up her own versions of a handful of traditional songs, including an absolutely stunning cover of "Willow's Song" from the original Wicker Man soundtrack, this is the Isobel Campbell we can never get enough of. You can practically feel the dew on the green grass, the air blowing through the open window, eyes gazing out into the distance. Along with her flawless voice the rich arrangements and instrumentation are really what make it one of her best outings yet. Recalls the elegance of Vashti Bunyan and Bridget St. John as well as the glazed daydreaminess of Mazzy Star and Neil Halstead. Milk White Sheets evokes such pastoral beauty, yet does it with such ease, bathing your ears in the soft breeze. Absolutely charming!
Oh Billy, how your music bristles with wonderfully wry snarkiness in true blue vintage garage rock tradition! Not always pretty, not always kind, but always a down'n'dirty kick in the pants for those who're feeling a bit sluggish both mentally and physically. With raw, screamin' yowl vocals and guitars to match, this unholy terror is as punk as hell. He darn near breathes fire. If your ears have somehow missed being touched by Childish's torrent of garage rawk over the last quarter century, by all means, make this YOUR first Billy Childish album. This cd compiles songs from a whole bunch of his musical projects... and there have been many! The Buff Medways, The Pop Rivets, The Chatham Singers, The Buffets, The Delmonas, Thee Mighty Caesars, Thee Headcoats and their female counterpart Thee Headcoatees are all included here (hey, why no Milkshakes?!). Whew. Be sure to keep a cold flannel nearby to cool your fevered brow and feet.
Not any black metal band can share a split with the mighty and mighty bizarre Urfaust, with their blustery buzz and crazy crooning. But Finland's Circle Of Ouroborus were well up to the task. In fact they actually sound quite bit like Urfaust, albeit in a way more damaged way, which is saying a lot.
On the split with Urfaust we reviewed recently, Circle Of Ouroborus offered up their own cracked take on buzzing black metal, murky almost punky, super lo-fi, practice space production, mumble warbly guitars, drums tinny and buried in the mix, and a totally demented vocalist wailing in a growling cracked croon, WAY up in the mix, shouting and howling. We thought they sounded a bit like a grim black metal Fall.
On Shores, the band stretch out a bit, but still hew close to the sound they share with their sonic brethren in Urfaust, a loping lurching, midtempo buzz, sing songy melodies, a murky black swirl, downtuned and droney, but stumblingly propulsive. Seasick and swaying drunkenly, these tracks sound more like blackened versions of some eighties British post punk band than some cult black metal band. And when the vocals kick in it pretty much seals the deal. When Mark E. Smith dies, and the Fall are no more, he'll strike a deal with the devil, come back from the dead, and this is where he'll end up. Crooning, in that nasally whine, sing/speaking for some mysterious jangly black metal post punk rock band. And if there was any doubt, Circle Of Ouroborus cover "She's Lost Control" by Joy Division. It's not particularly black either, it's gloomy and gothy and propulsively punky, guitars slide and slither, the vocals a dark croon. It almost sounds like a lo-fi live recording of Interpol or some long lost Damned track. Which is a very good thing for sure. It's just weird that these guys exist as a underground, grim and cult black metal band, when sonically, they owe as much to punk rock, and goth rock, and new wave as they do Darkthrone or Mayhem. Sure there's plenty of buzz and suffocating black atmosphere, but to truly dig this you'll definitely need either a love of totally bizarre and not entirely black metal, or a soft spot for classic newwavepostpunk (Fall, Wire, Gang Of Four, Joy Division) or preferably BOTH! And we definitely have both in spades, so as you might imagine this is WAY recommended!
The mid to late '90s were a really exciting time for electronic music. Artists were emerging displaying endless possibilities for electronic music and laptops. Sadly more recently, many of those artists sort of just treaded water, while a new crop of wanna be's merely copy the Boards-Of-Aphex-Square-Autech-Plaid-Pusher of that golden era. Luckily there are still some folks committed to pushing the envelope, taking risks and releasing records that are challenging and weird. Chris Clark is one of them. He won our hearts with his debut which managed to fit perfectly with the refined Warp roster of the time (Boards of Canada, Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, etc.) while creating a totally distinct sound all his own. Since then he has taken some serious twists and turns but has yet to make a bad record. And while he has ditched his first name, the sound is still quite exciting and reminiscent of his earlier releases, all AQ faves.
Body Riddle is both melodic and challenging, diverse and flowing. We definitely get the feeling this album was mixed with headphone listeners in mind as its sonic scope is so dense and wide that the sounds constantly bounce back and forth between your ears. Not just dreamy. Not just pulsing. Not just melodic. It's a little bit of all of those, but very coherent and well thought out. Striking just the right balance between intelligent dance music for the mind and physical dance music for the body. One of the better electronica records to come our way in quite a while!
While this great Bay Area hip-hop outfit already titled their last full length Party Music, we can't think of a term that better suits what they've come up with on Pick A Bigger Weapon, their fifth full length. The Coup have perfected the mix of smart outspoken leftist politics with full servings of carefree melodies and feel good beats to help make their message go down smoother. They just want to "laugh, love, fuck and drink liquor to help the revolution come quicker." And the way they phrase their sentiments they've found a way to neither compromise their message or their sound. With tasteful elements of funk incorporated into their feel good hip-hop it's pretty impossible not to start moving and singing along. Like if Funkadelic met up with a young Prince in the heydey of hip-hop with lyrics contributed by Jello Biafra (who makes another cameo on this record). Most definitely innovative and so immediately familiar sounding at the same time.
The black cloud over sunny California grows and grows, with each addition to its dark army and each new missive from one of its elite! Black metal has found a strong foothold in this unlikely location. Xasthur, Leviathan, Draugar, Crebain and a small dark likeminded legion lurk in the shadows, far away from the fun and the sun, unleashing some of the most raw and uncompromisng black metal we've ever heard.
AQ pal Wrest and his genius one man avant black metal outfit Leviathan return with what may quite possibly be his best, most intensely weird material to date. We just can't get enough of his dark and violent, totally skewed take on grim frosty black metal. And for this release he teams up with relative newcomer Ancalagon The Black and his outfit Crebain. Not quite as weird as Leviathan, Crebain channels his darkness through a more thrashing Darkthrone/Mutiilation style.
On this split, Wrest takes his ultra distorted inhuman vocals, pummelling hyperspeed blasts, and violent riffery to a whole 'nother dimension, and moves even further away from his contemporaries, both in terms of sound and concept. There are certain sonic similarities for sure, but Leviathan has such a personal and undiluted take on the black sounds that so obviously flow through is veins. For every blast beat and every buzzing riff, there's some stuttery, fucked up breakdown, or extended blissed out ambient soundscape, or rhythmic mathrock workout, or strummy clean guitar jangle, or weird production with all sorts of glitches and strange sounds. The ambient parts here are definitely some of the most beautifully creepy we've ever heard, from a metal band or otherwise. And the metal, well, by now you should know few can touch Leviathan when it comes to black metal brilliance. And the thing is, Wrest doesn't think any of this is weird. He just makes the sounds he hears in his head, and they sound right to him. And they are right, but in such a beautifully weird way. Can't wait for the upcoming full length Tentacles Of Whorror. His half of the split ends with a straight ahead and super necro cover of cult early '90s San Francisco metallers Von's "Blood Angel." Nice.
The other half of this is Crebain's first offical cd release, having previously only released a super limited cd-r demo last year, and it's just as good as that demo led us to hope. This is as raw and buzzing and blazing as it gets. Where Wrest is a master of arranging, creating moods and ambience, Ancalagon is a master of the riff. An unbelievably good guitarist, these riffs are lightning fast and swarm into your ears like a plague of locusts. Thrashing and chaotic, Crebain is a furious no-nonsense metallic onslaught. Programmed drums allow the rhythms to keep up with the madness inducing riffery. Occasionally things slow down to midtempo, and then it becomes quite obvious that Crebain is actually writing catchy songs, not just an insane series of parts. Melodies and almost-groovy riffs propel loping hypnotic dirges towards their eventual obliteration via hyperspeed blasts and that blurry Crebain riffery. Fucking great.
This split is another nail in the coffin containing the corpses of the Nordic metal elite, as black metal's Calfiornia contigent threatens to thaw their frosty corpses with the soul shearing rays of its black sun! Aieeee! Limited to only 666 copies!
You could call San Francisco's Crime In Choir a mathy, instrumental post-rock band, sure. But you could also call 'em a kick ass '70s progressive rock act (except that they're not actually from the '70s...). This is certainly prog rock, a la Van Der Graaf Generator, Yes, Goblin, PFM, Le Orme, Soft Machine, Magma, and other greats from the prog past. Definitely a delight for all the prog-fanciers among us here at AQ. We're pretty thrilled with this album, which we couldn't wait to hear after having just seen these guys live, performing in front of a projection of the 1973 Italian art film La Grande Bouffe, providing their own soundtrack to the gustatory grotesquery on screen. So perfect for Crime In Choir's cultivated brand of ripping, groovy bombast. They deliver on record too, this one (their third) being perhaps their best yet! The energetic pulsations of the crack rhythm section -- CiC's latest drummer extraordinaire* is now Tim Soete of The Fucking Champs, and on this album the bass is played by Seth Lorinczi, formerly of The Quails and long before that, the late great DC prog punkers Circus Lupus -- are matched by the mass of keyboards employed by Kenny Hopper and Jesse Reiner, along with the guitar of Jarrett Wrenn and Matt Waters' sax. Those synths are sometimes sinuous and sizzling, sometimes spacey and soaring, and ever present. And while we know the use of saxophone is a deal-breaker for some folks, Crime In Choir's tastefully restrained saxophonist eschews any smooth jazz cheesiness, either riffing brassily along with the keys and guitar, or supplying spiraling, screeching solos with gusto (when necessary, which is not that often). Definite points for non-sucky use of saxophone in other words! Furthermore, while their '70s prog lovin' sound is right on, so is the songwriting. They've managed to hit that sweet spot for instrumental bands, where these songs -could- have singing (they're melodious enough) but don't -need- a vocalist at all. They'll grab you regardless. File somewhere in between your Champs and Zombi albums, nearby to your collection of '70s progsters, and not far from your Citay cd (another excellent San Francisco band of prog revivalists with whom CiC have shared a member or two). Recommended!
*after having Hella's Zach Hill behind the kit on their first album, and 31 Knots' Jay Pellici on their second.
Released in conjunction with Karen Dalton's freshly reissued second album, In My Own Time, this 7" single of "Something's On Your Mind" and a previously unreleased alternate take of "Katie Cruel" features two of the best cuts from the album. Her rich sweet voice was made for vinyl, and if you have never heard it before, than this is just the place to start.
Zach Hill (Hella, The Ladies, etc) and Nels Cline (Wilco, Geraldine Fibbers, etc) are probably two of the busiest and most prolific musicians in the 'underground' these days. They've been trying to find time for ages to make a record together, as their talents do seem to speak to a similar ecstatic aesthetic. But finding the time proved to be quite a feat. Luckily when Wilco had a day off in Chicago and Zach was also in Chicago, the two decided to have an improv jam together and Distressed is the result. Hill's trademark frantic drumming moves more towards avant jazz as Cline once again shows why he is such an in demand guitarist. What if in their prime Van Halen were cool enough to cover a Pharaoh Sanders record? Maybe it would sound something like this.
A few months back, we listed a one-sided, one-song 12" vinyl record that was a teaser for this, the debut album from Portland, Oregon's magnificent Danava, an eagerly awaited release 'round here for sure. And so we'll pretty much recap a bunch of what we said in the review of that 12", which featured their epic tune "Quiet Babies Astray In A Manger", also found on this disc: we first heard this stoner-garage-prog-metal combo on the Invaders comp of happenin' hipster heavy psych metal that the Kemado label released earlier this year. Their track was one of several highlights on that collection. We went to go see 'em when they played in Oakland with Parchman Farm not too long ago, and even more recently in The City when they were supposed to be opening for Witchcraft, and in both instances the Danava boys SLAYED, shredded, and (incidentally to the music) were all really skinny. Awesome band. Basically a rollicking, rippin' power trio with extra psychedelic embellishments from keyboards and electronics. If we were a label, we'd have signed 'em in an instant, and that's what Kemado wisely did some time ago. This resultant product comes close to capturing the excitement of their live show, while revealing other aspects we didn't hear whilst headbanging. It's got a reworking of their killer tune "By The Mark" from the Invaders comp, plus the aforementioned 12" track, and three others that are equally masterful, like "Eyes In Disguise" (hearing a hint of Black Sabbath in the vocal line on that one). When the fleet-fingered guitarist gets goin', and when the drummer and bassist lock in, Danava build to pure, amped up, enthused rocka rolla ecstasy and almost could just as well be a totally instrumental band and get away with it, but they have the bonus of actual decent singing capability and vocal hooks as well. Recommended if you like to rock.
In case the album's title and cover art didn't clue you in already, the music sure will... Dat Politics aren't one to take themselves seriously. Man, it's almost admirable that these folks can let out a peep from under the weight of all that irony! Lots of crudely executed indie electronic dorkery with silly, snotty vocals yelped over top -- fits like a glove on the Tigerbeat6 label. Are Oui Phony alternately makes you wanna try to dance and makes you wanna smash your stereo. We dub thee 'brat-tronica'!
The only way to find out about the best bands, has always been to check out who the other best bands are listening to. So when the black metal elite (including our own West Coast wing, Leviathan, Crebain, Draugar, etc) are all singing the praises of a band, then you know you need to check them out. Such is the case with mysterious black metal horde Deathspell Omega. With a handful of impossible to find releases in the past, Si Monvmentvm Reqvires Circvmspice is the first DO record with any sort of wide distribution. It's about time too. Deathspell Omega occupy an unholy sonic space somewhere between Burzum, Mutiilation, Leviathan and Xasthur. Droning mostly midtempo black metal (with occasional blast beats), infused with strange arpeggiated minor key guitars, melancholy riffing, super hypnotic ultra memorable songwriting, compex song structures, grim affected vocals, and all sorts of hauntingly beautiful ambient interludes / intros, with martial percussion, litugical chants and subtle drones, very dark and intensely affecting. Sonically, DO sound a bit like older Enslaved, or early Emperor, but with a strong penchant for unlikely melodies (that subtly surface even in the harshest of musical moments) and hypnotic trance like repetition. One of our favorite new black metal records.
Jonathan and Robert Scott aka The Doleful Lions only really sound doleful on a couple of songs here. For the better part of Song Cyclops Volume Two they unfurl warm breezy pop that's inflected with numerous incongruous stylistic elements -- very much in the Elephant Six Collective's tradition of crafting mid-fi tripped-out musical mosaics. Amid the generous serving of twenty two songs are five well-selected covers originally done by The Descendents, The Beach Boys, The Misfits, Close Lobsters and The Crystals. With their melted boyish vocals, shyly picked and strummed guitars, gentle bursts on hissy distortion and smattering of synths, the Brothers Scott might be likened to a bastard child of the Beach Boys and T-Rex. The eleventh song "Chinese Rockets", one of their originals, is a perfect example of this. Songs such as the seventeenth "Chrome Submarine" are sweetly woozy. Fans of Ariel Pink might find themselves equally tickled pink by these lads.
If you can't wait for a new Rufus Wainwright or Antony & The Johnsons album or are simply a big fan of lush elegant pop music, you might want to welcome Elanors's new one in a warm embrace. While this Chicago band's second full length Movements is not quite on the grand scale of Rufus or Antony's epic productions, the Elanors' eight finely crafted arrangements of piano, guitar, bass, synthesizer, drums and velvety vocals caress and charm in their own sumptuous ways. Darkly captivating.
One of those "believe it or not" type records, this one. Ok, you know the Slayeristic Texan occult black metal horde known as Absu? If you've been paying attention to our black metal recommendations, you should. Well Zeit is Absu guitarist/bassist Equitant's solo project. But it's not metal. Nor dark ambient. Or ritualistick okkult conjurations, as with another Absu side project, Equimanthorn. Nope. It's, like, ELECTRO. As in, retro '80s synth beat stylings. All cold and mechanical and dark and driving. Totally Teutonic, Kraftwerk worship, full of spacey atmospheres and robot rhythms. There's some John Carpenter in here too. And also some heavily effected, Vocoder'd vox, in part courtesy of Absu drummer and AQ fave solo artist in his own right, Proscriptor (who released this on his own label, Tarot Productions). We'd never have thunk Equitant would make music meant for the dancefloor of some smokey European nightclub, but he's done it, and done it very well indeed. Such quality at least we'd expect from a member of perfectionists in every detail Absu. So if you've got a taste for autobahn-ready electro darkness, tune in to Zeit. (There's also a second Equitant album, Konstructeur, that was released simultaneously, we'll list that soon too but we do have a couple of 'em in stock now).
Ian Mackaye threw us all for an unexpected but delightful loop a couple years ago with the debut offering from his new project with longtime Dischord cohort Amy Farina (ex-Warmers). Fugazi and Minor Threat fans weren't met with loud guitars and screaming vocals but instead really insightful and melodic pop songs that proved turning down didn't mean losing spirit. In fact it once again demonstrates the sensitivity and awareness that was always one of Fugazi's best attributes too. Get Evens is the second album from The Evens and while the debut seemed to focus more on personal topics this time out politics rise right to the surface. But really if we're going to hear protest songs at a time like this we'll gladly listen to Mackaye's. Living In DC for as long as they have it would be impossible not to be reminded on a daily basis of your neighbors in the White House and on Capitol Hill. Ian and Amy would like many of those neighbors to go far, far away and it's certainly not hard to understand why. While we find ourselves a little more drawn to their debut, this is still a strong offering. With the future of Fugazi quite unclear we're happy that Ian's found a new outlet for his passion. And by all means go see the Evens live the next time they play an all-ages show in your town for six bucks. Their show a couple years back here in SF at the Swedish American Hall was such an uplifting and inspiring night that it still holds a special place in our hearts.
Shattered is the posthumous release by this young punky power pop four piece, three of whom were killed in a highway accident driving home to Seattle after a show at the Bottom Of The Hill here in SF on July 17, 2003. This 16-song cd compiles a bunch of unreleased tracks and alternate versions. Really really good retro power pop with lots of guitars and sweet boy gang vocals. Seemingly inspired by the likes of The Buzzcocks, early Elvis Costello and Superchunk, The Exploding Hearts overflowed with raw youthful energetic fun.
Needless to say, listening to this is both utterly heartbreaking and uplifting, but making it even more so is the addition of live video footage of the band performing at the Bottom only hours before the tragic accident. Includes a terrific cover of Paul Collins & The Breakaways' "Walking Out On Love".
John Fahey hated hippies. Well, that's no surprise coming from a curmudgeonly genius that made his dislikes very well known. In a 1997 interview printed in one of the booklets in this 2cd anthology of recordings on the Table of Elements label, he says he hated playing for audiences who only wanted to hear him play his old stuff -- "I'm picking up more of an audience from younger people who have an open mind, who are more into experimentalism. I don't want to live in the past." Which explains the subtitle of this anthology: A Young Person's guide to John Fahey. Collecting the now out of print Table of The Elements releases, Womblife (1997), Georgia Stomps, Atlanta Struts, & Other Contemporary Dance Favorites (1998, recorded live) and the limited posthumously released suite, Hard Time Empty Bottle Blues (2003), this anthology sees Fahey at his most iconoclastic. Opening with "Sharks" from the Womblife album, produced and recorded by Jim O'Rourke, Fahey's dissonant and impressionist guitar work is more predatory than pastoral, eventually careening into cinematic textures of gamelan and sandy rain. The sea theme throughout Womblife is appropriate as it sounds like it was recorded deep in the ocean giving voice to the organic shape-shifting rhythms of its creatures. Only the 13 minute closer, "Juana" recalls Fahey's early self with solo acoustic guitar. The Second Disc compiles the live set from Georgia Stomps, and here he trades his acoustic for an electric (or amplified acoustic, we're not sure) and soaks it in reverb and chorus. Seeming to take cues from Loren Mazzacane Connors stark electric guitar work, Fahey builds upon his earlier delta-inspired acoustic pieces and takes them into sparse and charged new territories. Fans of Fahey's vast Takoma catalog may not like this anthology as much, but it is amazing to see an artist late in life continuing to take his sound to new worlds. We only wish the current wave of Fahey inspired string pickers could do as much. Highly Recommended!
Fear Falls Burning is quickly becoming one of our favorites artists in the suddenly way-too-crowded scene/genre/movement of guitar-doom-drone-sludge-whatever. A lot of it has to do with that while yes, FFB is one man, a very large amp, and a whole mess of effects pedals, he is much more concerned with mood and texture, structure and timbre, than just mass or heaviness. And somehow, as is often the case, the music that strives the least to sound heavy, is the music that ends up actually sounding the heaviest. Although heavy in its own peculiar way.
I'm One Of Those Monsters Numb With Grace (great title!) consists of two side long epics, the first, begins as a crumbling rock riff, looped into oblivion, repeating and repeating as it gets less and less distinct, beneath a sky filled with gauzy high end streaks of soft melodic shimmer. The track builds and builds, but not into the seemingly requisite huge explosively sludgy 'chorus', more of a glistening thick drone, a dense assemblage of layer upon layer of guitar, multiple melodies all tangled up, everything churning and squirming and growing in density and intensity more than volume.
The second side opens up with a soft minimal shimmer, tranquil and so dreamy, eventually working itself up into a completely (and impossibly) catchy hiccuping stutter, a sort of Spacemen 3 style minimal psych rock jam, but with a main riff that could almost be nothing more than a skipping cd player. It actually sounds like our favorite part of our favorite Teenage Filmstars song ("Teenage Graffiti") with it's fucked up skipping backwards production stretched out into a whole song. So amazing!!!
This is a super limited vinyl only release, LIMITED TO 399 COPIES! Packaged in a breathtakingly designed, super heavy gatefold jacket, printed with a super close up image of the bridge of a guitar, housed in a printed inner sleeve, and pressed on ultra heavy 180 gram vinyl.
An album of pure pathos, Ohne Titel by the German multi-instrumentalist Enrico Wuttke (aka Flim whose previous albums have graced the fine electronica-pop label TomLab) is his response to the death of his 8 year old daughter. Both a lilting tribute of atmospheric, instrumental melancholy and a work-through-the-pain therapy session, Wuttke's album exposes all of his emotions through his sorrowful tunes of elegantly smeared compositions for piano, organ, his daughter's toy metallophones, and plenty of computer processing. While this album falls squarely in the empathic gloominess also found in the work of Sigur Ros, William Basinski, and those Alva Noto / Ryuichi Sakamoto collaborations, a few moments of sparkling exuberance march across the album as if Wuttke were racing through the memories of his daughter to find those that were most precious to him, but all the while captured by the weighty sadness of his loss. For all of the poignancy in the album, it is also achingly beautiful.
Only recently did we finally get enough of these to list, and we've been trying since we listed Funeral Mist's more recent album, Salvation, WAY back on list #203. Even so, we only managed to get a handful so if when we run out be prepared to wait for us to get more.
For those of you whose black metal addled brains can barely remember all the way back to list #203 of last year, Funeral Mist's Salvation was quite possibly THE best black metal release of 2004, and one of our favorite BM records ever! Let's have a quick look at a bit of that review:
"It's been forever since we saw a record this beautiful and frightening looking, and so weird but utterly heavy sounding. This is definitely black metal. Appropriately buzzing and grim, with fuzzed out riffs and blasting rhythms and death rattle shrieks, but unlike most other black metal records, this is HEAVY. No, we mean H E A V Y."
And thus we went on and on about how unlike most black metal bands, where heaviness is sacrificed for speed and buzz, Funeral Mist manage to be fast and at the same time ultra heavy. Dense and completely pummeling. And beyond that, the songs are linked by and laced with bizarre suffocatingly intense ambient interludes, rife with unrecognizable samples, screams of terror, strange snippets of fifties orchestra music, thunder, lightning, droning rumble and smears of blacknoise, like the sound of hell, and Devilry is quite similar. In fact it might be even more intense, if that's possible. Devilry is from way back in 1998, and the sound is a little bit more raw, the production is a little bit more blown out, but the sound is very much the same, a frighteningly intense blast of Norwegian style black metal, with plenty of doomy melodic breakdowns, but the majority of Devilry is spent in full on blast mode, buzzed out guitars, impossibly heavy AND fast drumming, and super complex catchy songs. Hard to really put into words why this band kicks our asses so hard, their sound is just so visceral, and again SO HEAVY, the buzz is definitely still in full effect at all times, but the drums are hit so hard (there's even a sort of black metal drum solo!!) and the whole thing is just so LOUD and not at all lo-fi like so much of the black metal we love. A blackened upside down cross to the face, and we love it!
Also included is the Havoc Demo from 1996, which is a lot more lo-fi than Devilry, like a foetal version of what they would soon become, but even in their demo form, these songs leave practically all other BM in the dust, fuzzy and buzzy, tons of super bizarre affected vocals, strange production fuckery, killer riffs all tucked beneath Funeral Mist's warm black wings. SO FUCKING GREAT!!
One of our ALL TIME favorite black metal records finally repressed and available again!
It originally took us a good long while to get enough copies of Salvation so we could review it on the AQ list, and while we were super psyched to finally be able to turn every one on to this amazing disc, we were also a little freaked out, since suddenly we were faced with the prospect of trying to put into words just what it is that is so amazing about this record. And what it is we decided, is EVERYTHING, from the art to the songs to the production, just everything. It's been forever since we saw a record this beautiful and frightening looking, and so weird but utterly heavy sounding.
This is definitely black metal. Appropriately buzzing and grim, with fuzzed out riffs and blasting rhythms and death rattle shrieks, but unlike most other black metal records, this is HEAVY. No, we mean H E A V Y. We often joke about the majority of metal records that speed does NOT necessarily equal heaviness. Never has. In fact it's almost always the opposite. The faster you go, the more brittle the sonic palette, and from a drumming standpoint the softer you hit the drums (until you're forced to compensate with triggers). That's why a massive downtuned riff and a pounding caveman drummer is so completely and utterly heavy. And that's why most black metal is washed out and buzzy and droney, but that's definitely part of the appeal, so fast that everything becomes a hypnotic blur. But when a band comes along and manages to be lightning fast but still crush, with ultra dense guitars and HUGE drums and ridiculously hellish howls, well, it's hard not to be blown away. And of course the record also manages to be catchy (not 'pop' catchy, but surprisingly memorable riffs and parts you'll actually find stuck in your head!) And if that wasn't enough, the whole record rife with ambient interludes and ends up being a complex and harrowing journey through some hellish musical wasteland, Sure, the metal is heavy and the playing is furious and intense, but the production is so weird and creative (especially for a black metal record) and the songs (and the whole record) are peppered with all sorts of unlikely flourishes, that add all sort of bleak weirdness, and quasi-religious creepiness, and make Salvation one of the most chillingly grim and darkly evocative records we've ever heard. From strange lilting choral pieces, to haunting drifting old-timey ambience, to quasi religious chanting. It's all woven seamlessly together and along with the artwork, evokes some Lovecraftian otherworld, all rainy and dark and washed out in miserable greys, and where everything is dead or dying, and every step could be your last. The cover depicts one of the band members crucified next to to eviscerated malformed babies, also crucified, in an alcove in some satanic church. The rest of the booklet is equally as striking (and fucked up) as if Stephen O'Malley and Joel Peter Witkin got together to try and design the most beautiful, most dementedly damaged and disturbing black metal artwork ever. Crowns of thorns, grim reapers, malnourished and emaciated dead bodies, hooded skulls and dark riders, multi limbed and Siamese babies and fetuses, all beautifully laid out amongst lyrics and text printed in ancient-scroll style almost illegible olde English script. The whole booklet is muted black and white, fuzzy and washed out, and again evocative of your innermost fears and a truly horrible place (and sound). In fact the whole package is like some dusty artifact of ancient evil, discovered buried a mile beneath the earth, and since being brought to the surface has caused unspeakable evil and the tragic deaths of everyone who comes near it. Certain damnation to anyone who gazes upon it or lets the hellish sounds within reach of their ears. Too bad we can't stop listening to it....
Noisy, experimental rock band Gang Wizard hadn't ever really interested us much before, but we gave this new album a listen nonetheless and to our surprise, for the first eight minutes, we were captivated... rhythmic, spare, lo-fi shambling weirdness that was remarkably listenable! But, from then on the going gets a bit rougher... it's clear they used the word "headache" in the title for a reason. Intrigued, though, ended up enjoying this varied disc's more cacophonous parts as well. Heck we like throbbing distorto-jams, screamy noise, and bits that sound like beginner guitarist Allan practicing (he'll try to perfect "Soft Crust From 00" before his next guitar lesson) just as much as the next record store. Ok, maybe there's a tad too much screaming ("The Pretty Ape" is just a little taxing). So although the way the singer howls it out on "When The Song Begins" reminds us of Eugene from Oxbow, we'd have to say that the vocals aren't our favorite element of Gang Wizard, we're more into their prettier, abstract Starfuckers-ish soundscaping, and give this the thumbs up for that. Load lovin' noise rock fans ought to be pleased. As will be people who desire cd artwork which appears to be a famous Vietnam war photo melded with a notorious National Lampoon magazine cover...
For those of you who missed out on the amazing Glass Organ cassette (released on bad ass tape label Twonicorn) that we reviewed a while back, which we're guessing is probably most of you since it was limited to 45 copies and we only got about half, that amazing chunk of dreamy drifting droning weirdness is now available on vinyl! Just to refresh your memory, Glass Organ traffic in "slow moving washes of bleak ambience, creaking splintered abstract sound, dotted with bursts of acid fried corrosive synth meltdown, all heated up and poured tar like into your ears, a gurgling, burbling cauldron of warm murk and drooling grime. Filthy, fuzzy, freaked out innerspace ambience." Indeed! And that tape only takes up one side of this here lp, so on the other side, you get another long out of print Glass Organ tape, originally released on Tone Filth in a run of 100 copies (of which we got precisely NONE). It too is a gorgeous slab of corroded drones and fried song fragments. A crumbling mass of degraded sound, pretty little music box melodies drenched in static and hiss, blown out and in the red, constantly drifting from muddy and murky to super hot and fuzzed out, and the whole while slowly falling to pieces. So amazing.
And while these two tapes are finally available again, it doesn't mean they'll be around for long. Of course not. LIMITED TO 365 COPIES!! We got a bunch but odds are we won't be able to get more.
Packaged in super spare hand screened covers with printed black and white inserts.
From UK label Rage of Achilles comes this Canadian blast of molten sludge. Crushing downer-core ala Eyehategod, squealing feedback, slow motion drumming (with the occasional grinding staccato blast beat) and howling midrange shrieks. Heavy as fuck.
It's pretty amazing, that the Gravity Adjusters Expansion Band have been making music since 1967, and we hadn't even heard of them until about a week ago. Part of the reason might be that their first lp, released in 1973, was an ultra limited pressing on a tiny label. And that the second, in 1981, was equally hard to come by. Which is a shame as this is some seriously Aquarius type stuff.
But better late than never, and boy are we digging this stuff like crazy. The whole concept and sound of GAEB was based around sculptor / musician Richard Waters and his hand made instruments, essentially sound making sculptures, many of which incorporated water filled resonators used to bend and tweak and twist the sounds. So cool.
Just check out the list of instruments: diatonic sound generator, bazooki, pipe drums, Aeolian space horn, synthesizer, waterphones, mytar, saws, bass violin, horizontal and upright phoniums, birdcalls, microtonal revolving sound generator, sgourd (?), superball mallets, water gong drums, log drums, springs, keyboards, assorted gourds, Princess oil can and more. Phew. From the list you can pretty much deduce that the sound of One is mainly percussive, but calling this a percussion record would be way too reductive. Instead, this is a sprawling exploration of ambient sound, very reminiscent of GAEB's sonic compatriots Taj Mahal Travellers and AMM. The Gravity Adjusters Expansion Band take percussive sounds and spread them way out, letting the overtones and reverberations shimmer and merge, so while these are still distinctly rhythmic arrangements, with plenty of tolling and chiming and ringing peppered with random bits of clatter and clang, the various sounds and their after affects create soft billows of background burble, muted melodic murmurs and all manner of sweetly sonorous and slow shifting soundscapes, each track a lush sonic explorartion of bowed metals and vibrating strings, of objects both struck and stroked, a potential cacophony smoothed into lengthy dreamlike shimmers. So completely mesmerizing.
You can of course hear traces of modern outfits like Avarus, No Neck, Sunburned Hand and the like, bands who obviously owe quite a debt to groups like The Taj Mahal Travellers and GAEB, but the sounds on One manage to sound completely unique, perhaps because of the time period, or maybe the music making process, or even the instruments themselves, hand made and impossible to duplicate, most likely all of those things. Whatever the reasons, One is fantastic, a simply gorgeous, an intimate collection of improvised ambient beauty.
Includes 15 minutes of unreleased bonus material, as well as a booklet with liner notes, original sleeve notes and lots of photos!
So recommended.
Australia's Grey Daturas are like our very own noise rock Santa Claus. They come about once a year, and every time they show up, they have a huge bag of sonic goodies. And while Santa probably doesn't come to punish our ear drums and pummel us to within an inch of our lives, crammed into some smokey sweaty little club, we'd probably have to take the Daturas over Santa any day!!! Unless this year is the year we finally get that pony...
This time, the band brought with them a brand new record, technically an EP, but at nearly 40 minutes it's plenty long enough to be a record proper. And as always it's a corker. Somehow, it seems to be their most structured and least chaotic, which in no way is a bad thing, nor does it mean that it still isn't packed freaked out noise rock or vast expanses of abstract psych guitar because it is. And then some.
The opener is definitely the Daturas at their most rock. Simple driving drums beneath an impossible dense swirl of HEAVY guitars, drenched in FX and churning wildly. It's like the blown out psych rock endless jam outro of every Hawkwind song jacked up and compressed into seven minutes. The rest of the record is a bit less rock, returning to their abstract noise rock ambience, like a heaver, more psychedelic Dead C, from abstract guitar jangle drift wrapped around random bits of drum flutter to an explosive noisrockmindfuck halfway through the disc, thick peals of distorted guitar that crash and crush but are almost immediately turned inside out and become a strange backwards guitar squall, all warped and warbly My Bloody Valentine / Teenage Filmstars blowout, with strange rhythms created from the ssssshhhhhht sound of the guitars being sucked through time in reverse. After that it gets a bit more minimal for a stretch, with some dark rumbling dronescapes, more snippets of backward guitar, distant swirling FX, some angular Sonic Youth style guitar rock until the final track, a massive and ultra dense guitarscape, rife with acidic riffs and distorted melodies, thick clouds of clang and rrrooooaaar, each guitar piled atop one another, layer after layer of rumbling, reverberating, shrieking, shimmering, coruscating steel string skree, a bit like Skullflower at their riffiest mashed up with Acid Mothers Temple at their least. Amazing.
Limited edition reissue of a rare Swedish psych rarity from the very late sixties (or very early seventies). Perhaps you read about or bought the Terry Riley-influenced Parson Sound double cd we raved about not long ago? Well, Harvester (after releasing
We love the Buddha Machine, but we have to admit, we're still a tiny bit surprised at just how popular it became. For those of you who somehow missed the whole Buddha Machine hubub, basically, it's a small plastic soundmaker, with a tiny speaker, a volume knob, and an output jack, and it can store a handful of sounds. In Asia, it's used to store prayers and teachings of the Buddha, but the musicians in FM3 realized they could store their own little ambient loops on there, and thus we have the Buddha Machine.
We've barely been able to keep them 'em in stock. Most folks buy 2 or 3 (Brian Eno famously bought 8, Alan Bishop from the Sun City Girls bought 24!! -- not from us, unfortunately). It's the perfect gift. And you can use multiple machines to create super interesting sonic effects. And thus, we have Robert Henke's Layering Buddha. A project for which he used the built in inconsistency of each machine, and took the sounds, slowed them down to expose still more sonic nuances, and wove them together into lengthy textured drones. The results are fantastic. Fuzzy, whirring, gurgling expanses of muted murky sound. Drone fiends will love it for sure. The only drag is, that in no way can you tell that the sound source is a Buddha Machine. Had the record been called something different, and had no mention been made of the process, you'd just think this was a really gorgeous drone record. We almost would have preferred Henke had approached this project in the style of an installation. Like a thousand Buddha Boxes, all set up in some huge hall, recorded in some ingenious way, so the sounds overlapped and got all tangled up. A much more organic approach, staying more true to the spirit of the machine. That said, this is still a wonderful record. The looped dronescapes are dense with sonic detail, lots of fuzz and grit and lo-fi detritus, all wrapped in billowy clouds of warm whir, making Layering Buddha sound both lush and sort raw. Really cool.
Available as a cd in a digipak, or on vinyl, as five 7"s, pressed on grey vinyl, with gorgeous center labels, packaged in a beautiful cardboard box.
When we listed the last release from Hoor-Paar-Kraat, it was limited to only 42 copies, of which we got 12. Which was definitely too bad as it was definitely one of the most amazing releases we had heard in ages and was exactly the sort of release that truly deserved to be heard by WAY more than 42 people.
So here we have a brand new release from Hoor-Paar-Kraat, again limited, this time to 93 (when you see the amazing packaging, you'll understand why these are so limited. It must take forever to make them!) and this time we managed to get more than HALF of the pressing, but we're pretty sure these will be gone in no time just the same.
While in some ways, Mercurial Little Jitterbug has much in common with its predecessor Asha Dasha, it is in many ways a whole new creature. It's still ambient, still dark and mysterious, spare and spacious. But on MLJ, the sound is much more rooted in found sound and field recordings. Voices, conversations, children laughing and playing, traffic, wind, footsteps, the clatter and clunk of shifting objects, people working, in fact the first track is as far as we can tell a straight field recording. Which is in no way to say it's not fascinating and lovely to listen to, it is. It's just not at all what we expected. which is usually a good thing.
The second track is also based around field recordings, the honking of horns off in the distance, children's voices, bird songs, all heavily reverbed and dramatically panned, so a stick run a along a steel fence will trill from one ear to the other. But track two is also where Hoor-Paar-Kraat begins to shape and craft the sounds into dark ambient soundscapes. Adding thick swaths of low end rumble, deftly and subtly using effects to turn the sound of the city and the sounds of nature into an otherworldly dreamlike music. The next track is a barely there ambient whir, punctuated by the sound of dripping water, and some sort of distant bell or chime. Very abstract, but quite beautiful. The ten minute long fourth track is the most active, with the sound of bells and chimes and pipes, metal on metal, doused in reverb and allowed to hover in wide open expanses of room sound, only to occasionally be overtaken by huge throbs of low end and little squalls of kitchen sink clatter. Again so simple, but so strangely haunting and hypnotic. The final track is another muted clattery soundscape, although in this instance, part way through, the sounds bleed and blur, smearing into a washed out whirl of droning sound, metallic reverberations, struck metal, all stretched and blurred into a slow shifting, glacial shimmer, probably the most overtly 'musical' track on the disc. So lovely. In fact, this entire disc is just so completely and utterly captivating. Some of the most affecting, deep listening drone music we've ever heard!
And again, SUPER LIMITED! ONLY 93 COPIES TOTAL, WE HAVE LESS THAN 50!! So act fast.
Gorgeously packaged in a super elaborate, hand assembled sleeve. Hand stamped and glued thick paper sleeve, with a printed obi that is riveted to the sleeve, and folds over to seal the sleeve. The obi is also hand stamped, signed, and hand numbered. The cd disc face is hand stamped and signed as well.
AQ pal and Pink of Pink and Brown Mr. John Dwyer recommended this lovely release to us. Word is, the guy who owns In The Red likes them so much that he not only put this cd out, but roadies for them as well. A raw and raunchy combo from Cedar Rapids, IA who formed three years ago at the tender age of 18. Their self proclaimed influences range from Leadbelly to Black Sabbath to Doo Rag to Dr. Dre to Pussy Galore to Prince. The sound isn't nearly so eclectic, but it is pretty great. Lo-fi, high energy, stripped down, haphazard, kick your dick in the dirt, punk rock garage kicks. Sadie says "Hell yeah!"
A-haaaaaa! Laughing is fun... and healthful too! We're quite partial to a hearty belly laugh now and then. And if you share our sense of humor -- which we're pretty sure many of you do (test question #1: did you love the original BBC series The Office more than the US version? Are you becoming dangerously obsessed with Peep Show, the UK's version of Curb Your Enthusiasm?!)-- then you'll be doing lots of it too while watching this dvd which has finally been released domestically!
Stateside awareness of Steve Coogan, the British comic madman of many less than savory personas, has certainly grown significantly in the past year, mostly due to his prominent appearances in hip movies such as Tristram Shandy and Marie Antoinette. That said, this is the one and only Coogan domestic release that truly matters... at least where Cup is concerned. This dvd showcases Coogan at his best, most wickedly funny, most uncomfortable. It's amazing how completely immersed he is in this character. The title is no lie! We're talking about a remarkably fully realized, deceptively complex, alternately despicable and pitiful, genuine wince'n'cringe individual. It oozes from his pores, revealing itself in every word and mannerism, both conscious and unconscious.
The fictional story in a nutshell: Once upon a time, Partridge was a former TV variety show host (his program was called "Knowing Me Knowing You" -- yes, he has a thing for ABBA which in itself equals more brownie points with Cup) and news show The Day Today's sports reporter, but is now a small town early bird radio show DJ living in a motor lodge, and desperately in pursuit of his former 'glory'. Partridge vacillates between helpless, awkward manchild and horseblinder-ed arrogant wanker. But one thing is for sure, all that he does, he does with absolute conviction and determination with his own (distorted to everyone but himself) sense of logic -- regardless of (and oblivious to) the degree to which he may be making an appalling, insensitive ass of himself. His interactions with others, namely the small staff at the Linton Travel Tavern and his dutiful P.A. Lynn, are nothing short of priceless. One of the brilliant-est things about this show is that there's not only plenty of the 'holy shit, that's hilarious!' kind of moments, but also the gradual cumulative squirm that we find somehow ever so perversely irresistible. This is razor sharp, brutally frank, but equally subtle television comedy as only the Brits can do, and they've been doing it for years! Hard to believe that this series originally aired back in '97.
Stateside comedies simply can't touch 'em (and really should stop trying!), and invariably end up coming off as forced, trying too hard for shock value, and ultimately missing all of the key nuances. Really, the only American shows that's come anywhere close to this delicious discomfort are maybe Curb Your Enthusiasm and the ahead-of-the-curve Larry Sanders Show, and the latter's release on dvd got stalled at Season One... yeesh. Actually for those of familiar with the The Office (UK) and The Larry Sanders Show, think of this as the missing link between the two. Oooh! (or should that be "Ewww!") Doesn't that sound good? C'mon now, get "up with a Partridge!"
Some of you are probably hip to the Pinky Violence films of early seventies Japan, especially with a handful or recently reissued DVD's, an eye popping, mind blowing combination of not so subtle eroticism, extreme ultraviolence and over the top ACTION! The twist, being that the brutalizers tended to be bad ass Japanese women, cat fighting, beating the crap out of men, always seeming to be clad in boots and with their shirts 'accidentally' torn open to reveal their breasts. Which miraculously never kept them from kicking still more ass! What's not to love?
Sort of in concert with the movies, a whole genre of erotic music was spawned, Iroke Kayoyoku, a bastardized version of a more popular music, sexed up as it were with chanteuse like crooning, but most important of all, an amazing array of moaning and groaning and cooing and giggling, as if in the throes of EXTREME passion. And at the time, 1971 (THAT seemingly perfect musical year!) this was indeed pretty dang racy and risque.
The sound is a blend of soft core soundtrack music, groove jazz, playful exotica, a little Spaghetti Western, with Herb Alpert horns, fluttering jazz flutes, Spanish guitars, smokey sax, hip shaking rhythms, marimbas and xylophones, very moody and dreamy sometimes, wild and playful at others, but always with Reiko's sexy croon, and of course her very convincing sounds of passion, including an unexpected bout of spanking at one point (!) accompanied by the proper breathless exhalations of pain/pleasure.
Wow! Wild and fun and sexy, but so so strange. Highly recommended for sure.
Packaged in a super deluxe Japanese miniature gatefold style cd sleeve, with a printed obi, saucy nude photos of Reiko on the cover, and extensive liner notes in English and Japanese!
ULTRA LIMITED!!! This is the fourth and final pressing, after the first three sold out in no time at all. Limited to only 500 copies, this is already sold out and we only got a handful, the last 15 or so from the label, so you know what that means...
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Jeepers. Could Tatsuya Yoshida of Japan's Ruins make his music even MORE hyperkinetic and choppy and rapidfire and precise??? I mean, he already holds the undisputed "King of Japanese Crazy Prog Rock Composition" crown doesn't he? Even when performing live just by himself with no overdubs, which we've seen him do, he does more playing/drumming/singing on multiple instruments than a whole concert hall full of Berklee grads, AND his music is as catchy as it is chaotic and complex. So, team him up with another equally amazing/absurd musician, and give 'em both a computer assist and then you've got some serious insanity -- and that's what this is. Yoshida (drums, darbuka, voice, devices) in a "Japanese hyper duet" with Imahori Tsuneo (guitars, devices) who was a founding member in the eighties of experimental prog-fusion outfit Tipographica and currently has a career in the field of anime and PS2 videogame soundtracks. Their collaborative process consisted of "composition and improvisation; and file exchange, overdubbing, and extensive editing on computer." That computer probably blew a few fuses along the way. This Territory disc is sorta like the intense Magmoid prog of Ruins meets the electronic metallic complexities of James Ploktin's Phantomsmasher project. A blender on high stuffed with stabbing shards of guitar, plentiful percussion, video game FX, vocal babble, jazz licks, blissful synths, and even some campfire country ("Autonomy"). Several of the 17 tracks here, while not entirely "calm", are definitely interludes that allow the listener can catch their breath, although in most cases these relaxed moments soon give way to an outburst of frantic action.
Any Ruins fan should be pleased, particularly since there hasn't been a Ruins release in quite a while (we're not even sure if Yoshida's got a bass player for that band anymore, hasn't he been performing as "Ruins Alone"?). Though of course he has been keeping busy with a variety of other collaborations and projects like Acid Mothers Temple SWR, Sekkutusu Jean, Korekyojinn and Koenjihyakkei, and now this excellent piece of work, another new direction for the Ruins style of sound...
By the way, it's also the latest release from doubtmusic (the great, relatively new Japanese label, whose releases we've reviewed already include two crucial Masayuki Takayanagi reissues and several Otomo Yoshihide efforts, among them his Out To Lunch album), chalk another one up for them!
The singer/songwriter brethren is a sizable lot, and we've definitely all got our personal faves. This fellow has pleased our ears plenty over the years -- evolving from late '90s lo-fi troubadour to today's lush, earthy and comparatively hi-fi wonder. He's drawn many a comparison to Leonard Cohen, Townes Van Zandt, Mark Eitzel and Bob Dylan, and these reference points continue to fit. On Skeleton Blues however, his voice sounds more weathered and wryly akin to Robyn Hitchcock. Which is by no means a bad thing... just a little unexpected for those familiar with his older recordings. A fine album nonetheless!
We know you either want this, or know someone who would like it as a Christmas present! After all, it says right on the back of this thing: "Here it is, everything you ever wanted in one box." Wow. Some statement. But it's true -- as long as everything you ever wanted is more than six hours of over the top rock spectacle from "the best band in the land", the one and only KISS, back in their prime. This is all from their early days, when they were young and hungry and basically taking over the world. It's undeniably classic rock and roll from four guys who had come up with a great visual gimmick as well. Total childhood nostalgia for a lot of us, that's for sure (not for Allan here, though, who remembers thinking that KISS looked like clowns and felt he as a child was being condescended to...he's since changed his tune and now loves KISS). So yeah, we definitely recommend this DVD box. It's overwhelming, there's so much incredible footage on here. TV appearances (The Mike Douglas Show 1974, ABC's In Concert 1974, Don Kirshner's Rock Concert 1977, and more), full concerts (Cobo Hall, 1976, Budokan 1977, Winterland 1975, more), and miscellaneous goodies -- promo clips, interviews, and best of all, a documentary about KISS being invited to Cadillac, Michigan in 1975 to do a concert in the local high school gymnasium 'cause the high school football team was using KISS music and face paint to get pumped up and win their games. KISS is given the key to the city, has breakfast (in full regalia!) with the mayor, high school principal, and other local authorities, does KISS makeup for them (!), and then takes off by helicopter from the football field!! Amazing. Shows how much of a cultural phenomenon they really were, and remain.
This box is billed as "the definitive visual KISS collection." We believe it! It's all remastered & restored, with bonus audio commentary from Gene and Paul. And, while supplies last, we've got copies that come with an additional bonus dvd disc -- that's right, another half hour of live KISS, from Madison Square Garden, 1977. Plus, there's also a backstage pass sticker for the Spring Tour '75, and a booklet with photos and notes, wherein we learn, in a discussion of that Cadillac Michigan documentary, that Ace felt bad for Paul 'cause "you can't wear jackets over this stuff... [and] a lot of times he doesn't have a shirt on. A lot of times we would get sick but nobody would know." It's cold in October, in Michigan! Meanwhile, Gene had a difficult night of sleeping alone 'cause their manager insisted he not molest the underage high school girls... ----* ----* In Stock, Not Yet Reviewed : ----* If you want to order one of these, just search for it, then click on the buy button and it will be added to your cart! 3 LEAFS "Inward Sun" (self-released) cd-r 4.98 31 KNOTS "Polemics" (Polyvinyl) cd ep 8.98 AETHENOR "Deep In Ocean Sunk The Lamp Of Light" (VHF) cd 13.98 AGROVATORS MEETS THE REVOLUTIONERS "At Channel One Studios (Instrumental)" (Attack) cd 17.98 AHAB "The Call Of The Wretched Sea" (Napalm) cd 16.98 ALVARS ORKESTER "Organic Woodtrip 1991-1992" (Kning Disk) cd 17.98 AMBARCHI AND NG "Fateless" (Asphodel) dvd 17.98 AMPHIBIANS (CHRISTIAN MARTY & PHILIPPE GAUCHER) "Sound Guide To The Tailless Amphibians Of French Guiana (Guide Sonore Des Amphibiens De Guyane)" (CEBA/Centre Bioacoustique) cd 19.98 ANNUALS, THE "Be He Me" (Ace Fu) cd 12.98 APPLETON, JON & DON CHERRY "Human Music" (Water) cd 14.98 ASUNDER "Works Will Come Undone" (Profound Love) cd 14.98 ATOMIC ROOSTER "Death Walks Behind You... Plus" (Akarma) cd 16.98 AXEGRINDER "Rise Of The Serpent Men" (Peaceville) cd 13.98 BAIRD, MEG / HELENA ESPVALL / SHARRON KRAUS "Leaves From Off The Tree" (Bo'Weavil) cd 21.00 BASS COMMUNION "Loss" (Soleilmoon Recordings) cd+dvd 17.98 BELFI, ANDREA "Between Neck And Stomach" (Hapna) cd 16.98 BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL "Cranes Are Sleeping" (Ecstatic Peace) lp 14.98 BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL "Small Christian Victories" (Diagnosis... Don't!) 3" cd-r 10.98 BLACK DEVIL DISCO CLUB "28 After" (Lo) cd 14.98 BLACK ELK "s/t" (Crucial Blast) cd 14.98 BLACKSHAW, JAMES "Waking Into Sleep - Goteborg 27.05.06" (Kning Disc) cd 16.98 BOLA "Shapes" (Skam) cd 15.98 BOND, BILLY Y LA PESADA DEL ROCK AND ROLL "s/t" (Cloud Forest Recordings) cd 17.98 BOOK OF BLACK EARTH "The Feast" (20 Buck Spin) cd 12.98 BORAT (OST) (Atlantic) cd 16.98 BOTCH "Unifying Themes Redux" (Hydra Head) cd 14.98 BOUCHAIN, CATHERINE & JEAN-PIERRE GAUTTIER "Le Monde Des Singes 2 (Primate World 2)" (Sittelle) cd 16.98 BRITISH SOUNDSCAPES (JEAN C. ROCHE) "British Soundscapes (Paysages De Grande-Bretagne)" (Sittelle) cd 16.98 BUCKLEY, TIM "The Best Of..." (Rhino) cd 16.98 BURBANK, TOM "Famous First Words" (Planet Mu) cd/2lp 14.98/17.98 CALLS OF THE FROGS OF MADAGASCAR, THE (MIGUEL VENCES, FRANK GLAW & RAFAEL MARQUEZ) "The Calls Of The Frogs Of Madagascar" (Alosa) 3cd 34.00 CAPTAIN BEEFHEART & THE MAGIC BAND "Doc At The Radar Station" (Astralwerks) cd 15.98 CAPTAIN BEEFHEART & THE MAGIC BAND "Ice Cream For Crow" (Astralwerks) cd 15.98 CIRCULUS "Clocks Are Like People" (Rise Above) cd 16.98 CLOWN ALLEY "Circus Of Chaos" (Southern Lord) cd 14.98 CLUSTER "Sowiesoso" (Water) cd 14.98 COLDWORKER "The Contaminated Void" (Relapse) lp 16.98 CULPEPER'S ORCHARD "Second Sight +6" (Karma Music) cd 19.98 DEAD MOON "Dead Moon Night / Thirteen Off My Hook" (Music Maniac) cd 15.98 DEFTONES "Saturday Nights" (Maverick) cd 16.98 DENNY, SANDY "Under Review" (Sexy Intellectual) dvd 21.00 DISK, DJ "Tornado Of Urine Breaks" (Scarecrow Music) lp 12.98 DOCDAIL "Stone Me / Sad Harold" (Magic) cd 8.98 DRUMCORPS "Grist" (Cock Rock Disco) cd 14.98 DUB TRIO "New Heavy" (Roir Reachout International) cd 15.98 ELLIS, NOEL "s/t" (Light in The Attic) cd 13.98 ENTRANCE "Prayer Of Death" (S/R) cd 13.98 EOH "Wormy" (Diagnosis... Don't!) 3" cd-r 10.98 EQUITANT "Konstruckeur" (Tarot Productions) cd 14.98 ETERNAL MAJESTY "Wounds of Hatred & Slavery" (Candlelight) cd 16.98 ETHEREAL WOODS "Thickthorn" (Supernal) cd 15.98 EVERY TIME I DIE "Gutter Phenomenon" (Ferret) cd EXTRADITION "Hush" (Vicious Sloth Collectibles) cd 24.00 FAUST "IV (Remastered)" (Virgin UK) 2cd 26.00 FERN KNIGHT "Music For Witches and Alchemists" (VHF) cd 13.98 FLAVOR FLAV "Hollywood" (Draytown) cd 16.98 FRIJID PINK "s/t" (Akarma) cd 16.98 FUCKING OCEAN, THE "Le Main Rouge" (Double Negative) cd 9.98 GAINSBOURG, CHARLOTTE "5:55" (Because Music) cd 32.00 GENERAL SURGERY "Left Hand Pathology" (Listenable) cd 14.98 GESCOM "Mini Disc" (Or) cd 15.98 GLASS, PHILIP "Music In Twelve Parts" (Nonesuch) 3cd 54.00 GLAXO BABIES, THE "Dreams Interrupted : The Bewilderbeat Years 1978-1980" (Cherry Red) cd 16.98 GREAT SPECKLED BIRD "s/t" (Collector's Choice) cd 13.98 GURDJIEFF, G.I. & THOMAS DE HARTMAN "Oriental Suite" (Basta) 4cd+book 113.00 GURUH GIPSY "s/t" (Shadoks) lp 48.00 HAINO, KEIJI & KK NULL "Mamono" (Blossoming Noise) cd 16.98 HEADPINS "Turn It Loud" (Wounded Bird) cd 13.98 HIJOKAIDAN "Tapes" (Alchemy) cd 21.00 HIJOKAIDAN "Viva Angel" (Alchemy) cd 21.00 HUNTSVILLE "For The Middle Class" (Rune Grammofon) cd 16.98 I "Between Two Worlds" (Nuclear Blast) cd 16.98 ISIS "In The Absence Of Truth" (Ipecac) cd 16.98 JACKIE O MOTHERFUCKER "America Mystica" (Very Friendly) 2cd 19.98 JAY-Z "Kingdom Come" (Roc-A-Fella) cd+dvd 19.98 JOSEF K "Entomology" (Domino) cd 14.98 KAHVAS JUTE "Wide Open" (Aztec Music) cd 21.00 KIM JUNG MI "s/t" (World Psychedelia) cd 16.98 KIM JUNG MI "Wind" (World Psychedelia) cd 16.98 KING KHAN AND BBQ "What's For Dinner" (In The Red) cd 13.98 KOENIG, GOTTFRIED MICHAEL "s/t" (Editions.RZ) 2cd 33.00 KURUUCREW VS. GREEN MILK FROM THE PLANET ORANGE "Split" (Beta-lactam Ring) cd 13.98 LAMP OF THE UNIVERSE "Echo In Light" (Cranium) cd 14.98 LAMP OF THE UNIVERSE "The Cosmic Union" (Cranium) cd 14.98 LEFT, THE "Jesus Loves The Left" (Bona Fide) cd 14.98 LITHOPS "Mound Magnet" (Thrill Jockey) cd 14.98 LOON "Wizard Of Harlem" (Siccness.net) cd 16.98 LOYDE, LOBBY "Obsecration" (Aztec Music) cd 21.00 LOYDE, LOBBY WITH SUDDEN ELECTRIC "Live With Dubs" (Aztec Music) cd 21.00 MAHER SHALAL HASH BAZ "Live Aoiheya January 2003" (Chapter Music) cd ep 8.98 MANOLO Y RAMON "El Duo Din�mico en Londres : El Album De 1970" (Rama Lama) cd 24.00 MCLEAN, BARTON AND PRISCILLA "Electronic Landscapes" (EM Records) cd 23.00 MEMORY BAND, THE "Apron Strings" (DiCristina) cd 13.98 MILTON, ANTONY "The End Of This Short Road" (Deserted Village) cd 13.98 MIRRORS, THE "13 Patient Flowers" (Birdman) cd 14.98 MISSION OF BURMA "Not A Photograph" (MVD Visual) dvd 21.00 MITTOO, JACKIE "Wishbone" (Light In The Attic) cd 13.98 NATH, PANDIT PRAN "The Raga Cycle, PalaceTheatre, Paris 1972" (Sri Moonshine) cd 15.98 NELSON, WILLIE "Songbird" (Lost Highway) cd 14.98 NIHILIST SPASM BAND "In Mulhouse" (Les Mondes Mental) lp 23.00 NIRVANA "Live! Tonight! Sold Out!" (DGC) dvd 22.00 ORIGINAL HAMSTER "Trendsetter And The Followers" (Tigerbeat 6) cd 14.98 OZKENT, MUSTAFA "Genclik Ile Elele" (B-Music / Finders Keepers) cd 14.98 PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE/TONY CONRAD "An Aural Symbiotic Mystery" (Subrosa) cd 14.98 PARKER, EVAN "The Topography Of The Lungs" (Psi Records) cd 21.00 PARKER, EVAN "Time Lapse" (Tzadik) cd 16.98 PARLANE, ROSY "Jessamine" (Touch) cd 15.98 PERE UBU "Why I Hate Women" (Smog Veil) cd 12.98 PILIA, STEFANO "The Suncrows Fall and Tree" (Sedimental) cd 14.98 PINEBENDER "Working Nine To Wolf" (Lovitt) cd 12.98 PIXEL "Set Your Center Between Your Parts In Order To" (Raster-Noton) cd 17.98 PIXIES, THE "Loud Quiet Loud: A Film About The Pixies" (MVD) dvd 19.98 PLAGUE BRINGER "As The Ghosts Collect, The Corpses Rest" (Seventh Rule Recordings) cd 13.98 RADIGUE, ELIANE "L'ile Re-sonate" (Shiiin) cd 21.00 RADIOMOBEL "Tramsebox" (Transubstans Records) cd 14.98 RESIDUAL ECHOES "California" (Holy Mountain) lp 14.98 RICHTER, MAX "Songs From Before" (Fat Cat) cd/cd /14.98 RICKLES, DON "Speaks!" (Warner) cd/cd 15.98/14.98 ROCHE, JEAN C. "Le Monde Des Singes 1 (Primate World 1)" (Sittelle) cd 16.98 ROCHE, JEAN C. / BORIS JOLLIVET "Mammiferes D'Europe" (Sittelle) 2cd 31.00 ROCHE, JEAN C. / NELLY DESESQUELLE "Droles D'Oiseaux" (Sittelle) 2cd 31.00 SAMMES, MIKE & THE MIKE SAMMES SINGERS "Music For Biscuits" (Trunk) cd 16.98 SAN UL LIM "3" (World Psychedelia) cd 16.98 SCANDINAVIAN SOUNDSCAPES - 1 (KRISTER MILD) "Scandinavian Soundscapes - 1 (Symphonies Scandinaves 1)" (Sittelle) cd 16.98 SCHNITZLER, CONRAD "Klavierhelm" (Important) cd 14.98 SCHNITZLER, CONRAD "Trigger Trilogy" (Important) 3cd 28.00 SEAWORTHY "Map In Hand" (12K) cd 14.98 SHIGGAR FRAGGAR SHOW "Vol.4" (One Eyed Slug Entertainment) dvd-r 23.00 SHILO, J. P. "As Happy As Sad Is Blue" (Smells Like) cd 13.98 SIEGE "Drop Dead" (Deranged) cd 16.98 SILVERSUN PICKUPS "Carnavas" (Dangerbird) cd 12.98 SIXTING MUSIC "Rendering Pink Floyds" (Skyf Zol) cd 15.98 SKULL SNAPS "s/t" (Aztec Music) cd 21.00 SOLAR FIRE TRIO "Breakthrough / External Threat" (Invada) 12" 19.98 SPARKS "Dick Around" (In The Red) cd ep/7" 10.98/4.50 SPRIGUNS "Revel, Weird and Wild" (Acme) cd 21.00 SPRIGUNS "Time Will Pass" (Acme) cd 21.00 ST. HILAIRE, PAUL "ADSOM (A Divine State Of Mind)" (False Tuned) cd 15.98 STRANGER THAN FICTION "OST" (Columbia) cd 17.98 SUMAC, YMA "Recital" (ESP) cd 14.98 TENACIOUS D "The Pick Of Destiny" (Epic) cd 16.98 THIRSTY MOON "S/T" (Long Hair) cd 24.00 THIRSTY MOON "You'll Never Come Back" (Long Hair) cd 24.00 TROUBLE "Psalm 9" (Escapi Music) cd+dvd 14.98 TROUBLE "The Skull" (Escapi Music) cd+dvd 14.98 TWEEDY, JEFF "Sunken Treasure" (Nonesuch) dvd 21.00 TWILIGHTS, THE "Once Upon A Time" (Aztec Music) cd 21.00 UNKNOWN PASSAGE: THE DEAD MOON STORY (Magic Umbrella) dvd 14.98 V/A "#101 DIY 78-81 London I" (Messthetics) cd 14.98 V/A "#102 DIY 78-81 London II" (Messthetics) cd 14.98 V/A "7" Up" (Crippled Dick Hot Wax) cd/lp 16.98/15.98 V/A "Afro-Cuba : Tumba Francesa" (Soul Jazz) cd/2lp 21.00/21.00 V/A "Art Of Field Recording" (Dust To Digital) cd 15.98 V/A "Attack Gold Vol. 1" (Attack) cd/2lp 17.98/17.98 V/A "Chrome Children" (Stones Throw) cd/lp 17.98/16.98 V/A "Electric Gypsyland 2" (Ryko) cd 16.98 V/A "History Of Hip Hop Radio Vol.1 (NYC 1986-1991)" cd-r 11.98 V/A "How Low Can You Go?" (Dust To Digital) 3cd 58.00 V/A "Mary Anne Hobbs - Warrior Dubz" (Planet Mu) cd/3lp 14.98/17.98 V/A "Pop Ambient 2007" (Kompakt) lp 13.98 V/A "Power Up! Mutations & Mutilations of 8-Bit Hits" (Dwell) cd 16.98 V/A "Serious Times" (XL) cd 14.98 V/A "White Cock 1-4" (Cock Rock Disco) cd 14.98 V/A "You Can't Always Listen To Hausmusik, But..." (Hausmusik) lp+book 36.00 VARIATIONS, LES "Nador / Take It Or Leave It" (Magic) 2cd 19.98 WARHAMMER 48K "An Ethereal Oracle" (Papa Slag) cd 11.98 WARPIG "s/t" (Relapse) cd 14.98 WATSON, CHRIS AND BJ NILSEN "Storm" (Touch) cd 15.98 WEIRD WEEDS, THE "Hold Me" (Digitalis) cd 11.98 WILLIAMS, WENDY O "10 Years Of Revolutionary Rock & Roll" (Mvd) dvd 19.98 WRIGHT, FRANK "Unity" (ESP) cd 14.98 YOUNG, NEIL & CRAZY HORSE "Live At The Fillmore East March 6 & 7, 1970" (Reprise) cd 16.98 ZECHARIA, ZADIK "Kurdish Melodies Played On Zorna - Live At Mondial Hall - 14.12.1987" (Something On The Road) dvd-r 10.98 ZORN, JOHN "Astronome" (Tzadik) cd 16.98 _______________________________________________________________________ ABOUT MAILORDER
