This is a super elaborate tribute to one of our favorite labels, Germany's Hausmusik label. Just have a quick gander at some of the records they've released: Village Of Savoonga, Cakekitchen, Notwist, Lali Puna, Fred Is Dead, Alles We Gross, Calexico, Smog, Palace, and loads more, as well as one of our favorite compilations EVER: The Day My Favorite Insect Died. Always mysterious and amazing. Often in some deluxe sort of packaging. And thus we have "You Can't Always Listen To Hausmusik, But...", a 2lp collection of some of Hausmusik's brightest and best, loveliest and strangest. But there's more to it than that. The massive book includes fourteen writers paired up together to write short stories, each starting with the same sentence, each story started by one writer and finished by another, exquisite corpse style. The music was approcahed the same way, with one band supplying raw material, with another band crafting the material into a song. Pairings include Calexico / Notwist, Console / Loopspool, Sodastream / Ms. John Soda, Villaage Of Savoonga / Jersey, Fonoda / Deaf Center, Squares On Both Sides / Village Of Savoonga, Fred Is Dead / Couch, A Million Mercies / Calexico and a bunch more. Packaged in a thick, gorgeously printed book-like gatefold sleeve, with a huge build in pocket to hold the book, eighty pages, perfect bound, tons of art, some of it full color, unfortunately all the text and stories is in German, but it hardly matters. An amazing tribute to an amazing label. ----* ----* New DVD's : ----*
We're pretty sure there's never been a singer or songwriter more able to capture the abject desolation of the human soul better than Townes Van Zandt. A true master of the sad sad song. The ultimate broken hearted country troubadour. No strings or huge arrangements needed, just his achingly beautiful voice, a fingerpicked guitar and a heart full of hurt. Just listen to "Waitin' Around To Die" and try to tell us there could possibly be a sadder song.
And his life most definitely plays out like one of his songs. A rambling journey full of loneliness and confusion, drugs and alcohol, always torn between his music and his family, his need to perform and his longing for home. A gorgeously shot portrait of a tortured soul, cobbled together from rare interviews and home movies, live performances and interviews with friends and families. It's certainly not a new story, musician loves his family, but also loves music and the road, is tortured by drug and drink, and dies way too early. But it seems to resonate so much more when the subject is Van Zandt. Could be because we love his music so much, could also be that his music seemed to be about death, almost a longing for that sweet release, but complicated by his love for his family and friends, and a desire, nay a physical need to make music. Some of the anecdotes are so brutal. Committed to a mental hospital and forced to undergo shock therapy, suffering a fall and trying to record, while in a wheelchair, only later finding out he actually had a broken hip the whole time. Performing while strung out, and bombing so badly that a friend had to come on stage and force him to stop. So sad. Especially when you hear his beautiful fragile music.
Amazingly shot, and so perfectly edited, moving and emotional, so much so that at least two folks here who watched it were brought to tears. Includes interviews with Willie Nelson (who partnered up with Merle Haggard and had a huge hit with Van Zandt's "Pancho And Lefty"), Emmylou Harris (who had a hit with it first!), Kris Kristofferson, Steve Earle, Guy Clark, Steve Shelley from Sonic Youth as well as heartbreaking interviews with his kids and all three of his wives.
Bonus features include rare performances from Townes Van Zandt, his son JT Van Zandt, Devendra Banhart, extra interview footage, commentary, the theatrical trailer and more.
Unfortunately the limited edition deluxe book version of this Tom Waits collection has gone the way of the dodo bird, but here is the 'regular' and still very nice digipak edition! This is what we said about the first edition last list.
Wow, what a superb treat for fans of Tom Waits! Orphans is a fantastic three cd set that's sort of akin to those fine Merle Haggard (Cheatin', Drinkin', Hurtin', Prison) and Johnny Cash (God, Love, Murder) cd series that came out a few years ago. But unlike those which were released separately, these similarly themed cds make their entrance together in one beauty of a package. If we're talkin' numbers, get this: there are 56 tracks (30 of them previously unreleased!), and they capture Waits in all of his battered and bruised, weathered and well-worn gritty glory. Our current fave is the down and out, drown yer sorrows in whisky and tears Bawlers disc. Orphans is a veritable treasure trove of Waits' spoken word and song! Hmmm, it's getting to be official gift-giving time o' year, isn't it? Hint hint. Recommended.
Well, "Columbodia, Missouri's" own Warhammer posse showed up not too long ago here at aQ enroute to all corners of the country and they stopped in long enough to rock the asses of the San Francisco scene in a wickedly intimate "bus show" (AQ pal and former A Minor Forest-er has a huge mobile venue, IN A BUS, with a stage, a solar powered generator and an engine that runs on vegetable oil!) and to hand us off a a big pile of their new self-released second cd entitled An Ethereal Oracle.
By the looks and sounds of it, the title holds true to the old adage "what you see is what you get". That is if you can figure out what an ethereal oracle is -musically- speaking.
While the mind-melting debut Uber Om was more of a big loud thud upside your melon, An Ethereal Oracle is more like some forbidden fruit. That something or someone, you've been warned about, you know it's dangerous, potentially deadly, but you just can't resist. It's the temptation of the darkside, the dangerous, you know you're in for it, you know you're done for, you just can't ever be sure when. Or how!
The record starts off with a long scary radio broadcast track, you know, like one of those Emergency Broadcast System things warning you about "the big storm approaching", and just when you start feeling REALLY nervous, you start to get dizzy, everything becomes blurry, your head is spinning, your ears are ringing, you feel flush, you start to sweat, goosebumps, the hairs on the back of your neck standing on end, you try to resist, fight it off, but it's too much, you are completely under its spell.
You let the jagged guitar lines, birds chirping in the distance, strange what-the-fuck acoustic folk fuckery, drugged out laid-back droned-out blissful warmness and full on red-line space jam experimental shredding pummelry drag you into the darkness. Before you know it, you're bruised and bloody, naked and tied up with broken guitar strings, ears ringing and bleeding, you have strange WH48K images burned into your flesh, laying atop a pile of bloodstained broken drumsticks, surrounded by a Stonehenge like circle of towering totem like amps, in front of which stand the mysterious members of Warhammer, smiling wickedly as they prepare to do it all over again.
And that's only the first half of the cd!
Limited to 500 intricately illustrated/hand printed/hand assembled copies, and we only have about 30 left of the ones we got.
So act fast...
Wind and rain, birds and waves. Ok, that sounds a little bit like a clock radio you can get from the Sharper Image catalog. But if you're into field recordings of nature sounds, you know there's more to this than just white noise to help you sleep. On a full-length "audio documentary" such as this, your ears can aid your imagination, allowing you to "experience" far places and phenomena in a way much more immersive than a Discovery Channel program. And here, you're in the hands of two of the best field recordists around -- the UK's Chris Watson and Sweden's BJ "Benny" Nilsen (aka Hazard) should be familiar to fans of field recordings, both of whom being responsible for some of our favorite releases on the Touch and Ash Int'l labels, including several prior collaborations on Hazard's albums. We're always thrilled to get a new release from either of them, documenting where/what/when/how they've been listening to (in) the world. The aptly-titled Storm finds the duo capturing heavy weather over the North Sea, from opposite shores. There's three long tracks, the first and last solo recordings done by Watson and Nilsen, respectively, the middle track a synthesis of recordings made by both gentlemen. In Watson's words, here's more of an explanation of the genesis of this disc: "During December 2000 several significant storm fronts developed across the North Sea and Scandinavia. Benny remarked to me that he had recorded some of these on the Baltic coast and proposed a collaborative CD project based around our mutual interests in the rhythms and music created when the elements combine over land and out to sea. We spent the next few years gathering recordings on our respective coastlines and islands during the very active weather windows during the autumnal equinox and winter solstice. This was focused around our following one particular cyclonic system, which veers over Snipe Point on Lindisfarne to the Isle of May in the Firth of Forth, and finally descends upon Oland and Gotland where Benny listened in with a favorite pair of Sennheiser omnidirectional microphones."
We're not really clear on how the edits were done, other than artfully! Through the tumult of thunder and crashing surf, and the calm of gurgling water and cawing gulls, they've seamlessly stitched together 50 minutes of wondrous audio, allowing you to stay warm and dry in the comfort of your own home and enjoy the sounds of these storm-wracked coasts.
On the cover: Lee "Scratch" Perry. Inside, also: Lloyd "Bullwackie" Barnes, Motown guitarist Dennis Coffey, Andy Votel, Eric Monte (creator of TV's Good Times!), an obit for Dewey Redman, The Soul Syndicate, a discussion of magnetic tape, stuff about graffiti, and more more more, including of course all the great vintage photography and mouthwatering rare vinyl porn you'd expect...
We listed the latest record by Texas folk pop ensemble the Weird Weeds a few lists back, and everybody dug it like crazy, so we got in touch with the band and got a handful of their first record, Hold Me. Which is just as good!
A dizzying blend of random ethereal popness and shimmery dreamlike folkiness with a healthy heaping of arty angularity. Slightly confusional and a little schizophrenic, but the Weird Weeds' off kilter playfulness is exactly what makes this combo so totally appealing. Fun and freaked out, but always soft and dreamy, even at their most convoluted.
One side of the band's sound is all fluttery flutes and swoonsome strings, little bits of strum and twang wrapped into perfect little nuggets of sunshine-y West Coast pop. A little country, a little hippy, all super sun dappled with plaintive vocals and simple minor key strumming.
The other side of their sound is a much more obtuse assemblage of stumbling drums, twinkling guitar harmonics, lots of tangled squiggly almost metallic guitar solos over wildly strummed acoustic guitars, a constant angular Deerhoof art-rockiness that perfectly plays to the interaction between super high sad boy vocals and dreamy angelic female vocals. While these guys are definitely far out, and these songs are not at all straight forward, the weirdness never overshadows their pop sense, which makes Hold Me a total delight for pop kidz and artrock nerds alike.
Our pals at Conspiracy Records, a label/distro based in Belgium, who in the past have brought us records by Boris, Jesu, Shora and more, are this year celebrating their 10 year anniversary. A decade of amazing music. From a bedroom based punk rock label, to one of Europe's most important and influential labels and distros, all we can say is HURRAY! And HUZZAH! It's always so exciting, when a bunch of folks get together to spread the word about great music, great WEIRD music, and survive, even thrive. Such is the case with Conspiracy. And as if that weren't already enough, just knowing that some great people were selling some amazing music, those sweeties at Conspiracy have decided to share the love with us. And you.
To celebrate their 10th anniversary, they've decided to do a super limited subscription series, 12 records over 12 months, each limited to somewhere between 200-500 copies, ONLY available to series subscribers. EXCEPT, they've decided to let AQ have 20 copies of each, we're the only store with copies of these subscriber only lps, and for a brief moment, we can offer them to you, our loyal AQ customers. Needless to say we are thrilled, as the series lineup reads like a who's who of AQ faves, as well as including a handful of lesser knowns. All pressed on super thick vinyl, and packaged in killer hand screened original art sleeves. But be warned, we only got 20 of each, and we will run out fast and we will not be able to get more. When we do run out, there is a chance you can still get one from Conspiracy direct, but what that means is act fast and prepare to leave empty handed.
Australia's masters of monstrous sludge return with an actual studio recording. Their first if we're not mistaken. After multiple live recordings, these guys finally made it into a studio and the result is much as we imagined. These guys are seriously heavy and frighteningly brutal! One side long epic, a massive slow build, like an apocalyptic metal tinged Godspeed, swirling cymbals, keening guitars, thick drifts of distorted fuzz, underneath gargled demonic vocals struggle to be heard above the swirling din, super abstract and nearly ambient, it takes almost half the side before the song kicks in properly and then you're done for. A slow motion math metal sludge jam of unprecedented proportions. Stumbling and crushing, swathed in space rock FX, sounding very Corrupted like, Whitehorse are an unstoppable dirge, with some wild off kilter drumming and strange arrangements, so strange in fact, that occasionally, the band bursts into spastic chaotic almost 'free' sonic freakouts, like Neurosis doing free jazz. Nicely compliments their unstoppable glacier like brutality. WOW.
Amazing cover art too, angular, black and gold metallic patterns, the same patterns are also silkscreened on the B side of the lp. Quite striking! ----* ----* Black Metal Tape Mania!!! : ----*
A fresh batch of "Adventures In Modern Music" from the the Wire, the UK bible of all things clicky, glitchy skronky, riffy, drone-y and, um, modern!
This month on the cover, the new four piece double rhythm section-ed Melvins. Inside, guitarist Marc Ribot, US filmmaker Charles Atlas, saxophonist Steve Mackay (who played on the Stooges' Funhouse), British saxophonist John Surman, Portland electronic duo Reanimator, Japanese minimal soundscapist Hisato Higuchi, Swiss composer Beat Furrer as well as a KILLER primer on Texas Hip Hop: DJ Screw, Geto Boys, UGK, Fat Pat, Lil Keke, David Banner, Mike Jones, Devin The Dude and more!!
Also as always, TONS of record reviews, show reviews, book and DVD reviews and all that good stuff...
Also, this issue comes with a cover mounted cd featuring some new, some exclusive, and some not yet released tracks from Pansonic, The Slits, White Magic, Califone, Derek Bailey, Xela, Alan Vega, Carter Tutti and loads more!
Okay, we only got a handful of these in, and in very limited sizes, but we figured we oughta grab as many as we can since so many AQ fans are such huge Wolf Eyes and Grey Daturas freaks. That means act fast, and don't be too bummed if we've already sold out. We took every single one the bands had left.
So this pack includes a killer black on white exclusive Australian tour design Wolf Eyes t-shirt, a Wolf Eyes pin, and a gorgeous full color poster. Super limited, and of the sets with large t-shirts we only got 8!!!
The shirt/poster/button combo has to ship in a tube, so if you order this with other items it will have to ship separately and thus there will be an extra shipping charge.
only 4 in stock!!
Okay, we only got a handful of these in, and in very limited sizes, but we figured we oughta grab as many as we can since so many AQ fans are such huge Wolf Eyes and Grey Daturas freaks. That means act fast, and don't be too bummed if we've already sold out. We took every single one the bands had left.
So this pack includes a killer black on white exclusive Australian tour design Wolf Eyes t-shirt, a Wolf Eyes pin, and a gorgeous full color poster. Super limited, and of the sets with medium t-shirts we only got 8!!!
The shirt/poster/button combo has to ship in a tube, so if you order this with other items it will have to ship separately and thus there will be an extra shipping charge.
only 4 in stock!!
Okay, we only got a handful of these in, and in very limited sizes, but we figured we oughta grab as many as we can since so many AQ fans are such huge Wolf Eyes and Grey Daturas freaks. That means act fast, and don't be too bummed if we've already sold out. We took every single one the bands had left.
So this pack includes a killer black on white exclusive Australian tour design Wolf Eyes t-shirt, a Wolf Eyes pin, and a gorgeous full color poster. Super limited, and of the sets with small t-shirts we only got 4!!!
The shirt/poster/button combo has to ship in a tube, so if you order this with other items it will have to ship separately and thus there will be an extra shipping charge.
only 4 in stock!!
First in the series of live documents from a 2005 tour, made shortly after recording Gypsy Freedom. This one titled, "Born Free" is 40 minutes of psychedelic musings and mystic ramblings creating a mildly whirling cacophony of half-uttered voices, bells and shambling rhythms. Sustaining this feel without too much shift in dynamics, this set is more ghostly than freaky, but still a good introduction to their unique sound and how it is manifested in a live setting.
Yaotl Mictlan are a strange bunch. Hailing from Salt Lake City, Utah (by way of Mexico), they play a stark and angular version of brutal buzzing black metal, and share a few members with hateful black horde Ibex Throne.
While the sound of Ibex Throne is more of a hyperspeed humanity-hating violence, the Yaotl Mictlan crew are a bit more diverse in getting their message across. They sing of the ways of the blood thirsty Mayans and the extinct world known as Aztlan and incorporate indigenous instruments from that period such as flutes, bones and drums giving the songs a sort of tribal feel. Even when the band is blasting away, they manage to find ways to mix melody into the din, while the vocalist roars along in Spanish, a painful howl telling telling the tales of a long lost civilization. Damn if it doesn't sound amazing, kind of like a Mexican version of Drudkh or something.
It's that good.
In our book, any Richard Youngs you don't have is Richard Youngs you SHOULD have. But this one especially is a crucial Youngs document: it's a reissue of Youngs' first ever LP, originally released in a vinyl-only edition of 300 copies on his own No Fans record label. This is actually the second time this has been reissued on cd -- Table Of The Elements did it before, but let it go out of print. So Jagjaguwar gets kudos for bringing it back, as it's an important and amazing release in the body of work of someone we at AQ consider a bit of a genius. You NEED it. Especially if you've already fallen in love with Youngs unique brand of experimental, folkish improv music. Here it's almost a religious rite, a 3-part droning minimalist mantra that incorporates (in a gradually additive fashion) piano, voice, oboe and electric guitar. Its repetitive beauty put it in Alan Licht's "Minimalist Top Ten" article in Halana magazine some ways back... and it is a primal example of what we find always so compelling about Richard Youngs' records. Although it doesn't emulate the raga form, Advent does seem like it might be perhaps meant for a specific time of day, and has that special spiritual/contemplative quality -- though some listeners might not be able to meditate so well with Youngs' bagpipe-like oboe keening away! Slow, simple (and simply gorgeous), and most of all so very sincere-sounding, Advent was the wonderful beginning to what has been an uncommon career.
Now on vinyl! Another Richard Youngs fave of ours... here's what we said about the cd when it came out the first time:
Exquisitely beautiful! Richard Youngs has left the angular noisy twang of his collaborations with Simon Wickham-Smith for this eulogy for a dog, Sapphie, who he grew to love. In spite of the pathos of this concept, this is a perfect piece of melancholia for classical guitar and Youngs' haunting voice, that fits in quite nicely with fellow Scottish mope rockers Arab Strap and Mogwai.
For anyone who bought the Zadik Zecharia cd (and that's a WHOLE lot of you), an amazing disc of wild and energetic performances on a small traditional Kurdish horn called a zorna, a disc that is STILL played constantly in the store, this dvd-r is absolutely essential. The sound of the zorna is a buzzing high end hypnotic buzz, very much like snake charmer music, and is completely and relentlessly mesmerizing. A sound that is wild and festive and joyous, and that definitely has a primal power, a timeless intensity that transcends mere music, it's a sound that does in fact force your body to bounce and shimmy, dance and shake along. As is evidenced by this dvd-r, a home video recording of a wedding in 1987 that is just a nonstop dance party / zorna jam. It's a little strange to see, it's a little like watching some stranger's home videos, which it basically is. But wow!! If only weddings were this wild and festive in the US. Then again, if only weddings featured a kick ass zorna jam courtesy of Zadik Zecharia (maybe Andee and Heather would have actually gotten married by now). From the moment the bride and groom enter the building, Zecharia is playing a continuous stream of flowing buzzing melody, never stopping, accompanied by a huge thumped drum, and of course the clapping and shouting of the crowd. And that's basically it, a huge crowd of friends and family, dancing wildly, together, separately, in big groups, holding hands, forming huge chains, hands raised in the air, while Zecharia and the drummer, wander from the stage, strolling amongst the crowd and back to the stage again never letting up. In fact there are even some parts where Zecharia plays with one hand so he can use his other to communicate with some of the guests. A few folks whisper in his ear, to which he responds with a nod or a smile, still never letting the music stop. It's 1987 so there are some amazing fashions, wild pantsuits and big hair, which are fun to see, but it's all about Zecharia and his inspiring performance.
Shot on a camcorder 20 years ago, which means the picture quality is not the best, but the sound is fantastic (minus a few drop outs) and if you're anything like us you can't get enough of Zadik Zecharia and his zorna!! So recommended!
- MPEG stream: One
- MPEG stream: Two
It's a little strange that we had never written anything about Zoviet France's 1995 classic album Digilogue, since we love this band and their albums were all uniformly exhilarating and hypnotic, this one especially. So, here we are waxing poetic about this album even as Zoviet France has all but disappeared from the public eye, with founding member Ben Ponton holding onto the project even though no new recordings appear in sight and as former member Robin Storey has released a whole bunch of middling albums (amidst a couple of greats) as Rapoon.
Given how many contemporary gutteral drone artists have been delving into tape loop manipulation, multiple delay pedal configurations, and transcendent tones vulcanized from base elements, listening to Zoviet France in today's climate is essential... as it would prove that this British semi-anonymous collective had better ideas, better execution, better packaging, and better results than 99% of what's coming out today. Sadly, the Zoviet France albums that would have best paralleled much of the current lo-fi drone obsession (i.e. Eostre, Norsch, Mohnomische, and even Shouting At The Ground) are all woefully out of print thanks to a unreconcilable rift between the aforementioned Ben Ponton and Robin Storey. Only a handful remain available for public consumption; and Digilogue is one of them, demonstrating the Zoviet France process of overlapping loops, hypnotic atmospherics, and ephemeral dub activity when applied to digital technology. While there is a considerable crispness to many of the sounds heard on Digilogue, Zoviet France still managed to render their sounds as if they were the liturgical / ritualist music for some hitherto unknown non-Occidental culture hidden in the English countryside. Digilogue's opening track "Alchemagenta" is a noteworthy entry into the Zoviet France pantheon of sounds for its eerily dubbed out miltaristic horn stab which former AQ-employee Byram Abbott was convinced made its way on to an early episode of The Simpsons. Mechanized bells, streched out vocal plainsongs, and oceanic swells of electric wash all cascade through Zoviet France's graceful use of delay patterns for what truly is one of the best records of the '90s and is absolutely required listening for anyone with a passing interest in experimental music over the past 50 years.
Digilogue has been out of print for quite some time now, and now is available once again.
