Aquarius Records closed in 2016. This site is an archive — a place to rediscover their extraordinary music recommendations. Nothing here is for sale.
[ aquarius records new arrivals — issue 281 ]
Showing results 101 through 104 of 104.
WIRERead & Burn 03(Pink Flag)cd ep$ 10.98
"Return to form" is the ubiquitous tag granted to aging rockers who enjoy a certain cultural cache from way back when even when the new material may pale in comparison. Yet, the problematic "return to form" claim doesn't really stick for Wire, even as they've never attempted to rewrite the punk and post-punk textbooks they penned with their first three records, Pink Flag, Chairs Missing, and 154. Since the band has split and reformed numerous times with a bunch of commendable side projects filling the gaps (i.e. Dome, He Said, Duet Emmo, etc.) and with numerous stylistic changes, each with their own merit, Wire doesn't really have a stylistic norm, to which "return to form" applies. So with the third (and probably best) chapter of the Read & Burn saga, Wire "return to form" only in the fact that they managed an edgy, post-punk set of recordings that continue to follow the adventurous trajectory set forth from Pink Flag. Clocking in at almost 10 minutes, the first track parallels the opening of 154, with Graham Lewis deepening his slightly sinister baritone voice to that of Nick Cave's. But when the slow acceleration of bass / guitars / drums hits cruising speed, Wire find themselves in familiar territory -- perfect pop-punk choruses with tonguing tying lyrical twists. The production on the entire 4 song ep enjoys a digital polish, and on the introduction, when Colin Newman takes over on vocals from Lewis on the pogo-punk chorus, his voice is smoothed from the spittle and snarl of Pink Flag into what is found here. For the other songs, Wire pull in the long-form art-rock reigns for three equally nice tunes with Newman alone at the vocal helm. Well done.
It's been nearly a year since we've heard from this mysterious black sonic beast from New Zealand, a shadowy entity that may or may not be a dirgedronedoom shadow cast by the very dark side of one PseudoArcana head honcho Antony Milton.
Black Uhura is four looooooooong tracks of gorgeous viscous murk. The opening track is a dreamy drift, if you dream of being dragged through thick tarpits in the very depths of the underworld. Riffs held over a flame and melted down into shimmering black puddles of sound, rippling gently, beneath, vocals mumble and warble, buried under a crushing slab of slow sinister sprawl, like some unholy collision between SUNNO))) and the Dead C, but with the bass cranked and the treble turned all the way down.
The second track is way more caustic, a blown out riffage rendered in violent squalls and smeared sheets of crumbling buzz and low end rumble. Prickly and chaotic and dirgey, almost more Merzbow noise, than any sort of dirgey drone, but closer listening reveals some buried riffage, some moaning walls of feedback, some corrosive metallic song structure, but sounding as if it were left outside to rust and decay and slowly crash to the ground.
The third track returns to the relative tranquility of the first, with the song elements even more noticeable, a barely there voice, a sing songy melody, some sort of desiccated melody, all washed out and indistinct, beneath the slow flowing river of molten hum and lo fi shimmer. Then the final track crashes back down, but not before slowly building up from a tolling church bell, a stuttering disembodied riff, thickening guitar growl, coruscating peals of feedback and machine like grinding buzz, all slowly sinking into a roiling black abyss, eventually morphing into a super hypnotic processed low end slither, and a surprising drum machine'd smoky coda...
Packaged in a super swank oversized dvd sized booklet, offset printed. The cover black on thick brown cardstock, the inside 8 pages of hellish black and white sketches, liner notes, the cd affixed to the back cover, and a 200mg sticker. Limited of course...
Zoroaster's monster debut ep from last year had us looking forward to more from this heavier-than-thou Georgia band, and Dog Magic is no disappointment, being another devastating display of brutal doom metal in the Eyehategod tradition, putting 'em up there within the ranks of such bands as Khanate and Graves At Sea. It's six songs, just under an hour, featuring several epics approaching the 15 minute mark, like the massive "Algebra Of Need".
Zoroaster takes doom to all of its extremes, from trance-inducing passages formed from nothing but distorted electronic drones, to bulldozering bursts of thrashing speed -- that's right, doom doesn't always have to be slow! Though plenty of this is, slow and sludgy and laced with all sorts of disturbing experimental textures. Zoroaster should provide not only your requisite doom fix this week but lots of good headphone listenin' for months to come, but be careful to have mercy on your ears and not to turn it up too loud or those headphones will clamp together and crush your skull just when you're trying to enjoy the electric organ solo in the middle of "Terminally Charged", or something...
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.
