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 299 ]
Showing results 101 through 104 of 104.
WOLFMANGLERCooking With Wolves(Aurora Borealis)cd$ 13.98
The newest slab of blackened wyrd doom-folk from the misty moors of... Texas? Poland? Mordor? Well, wherever main-mangler Smolken makes his home these days. Smolken, also the man responsible for the equally dark and fucked up Jandekian "black metal" of Dead Raven Choir, always has had a skewed take on his favorite subgenres of music, in the case of Wolfmangler entering the realm of doom metal riding a swaybacked country-folk steed, but eschewing the cinematically Western wide-open spaces that Earth has been roaming of late, to plow deeper into the muck and mire of the direst of wagonwheel-sucking mudflats... There's 14 doleful and dirgey tracks here, Smolken sawing away on some classical-sounding stringed instrument like an uber-depressed, one-man chamber music outfit. Besides those suicidal strings, this is sparse and skeletal, there's not much more here... some background ambience, clanking percussion, and creepy whispers... all of which work for us in a Dead Raven Choir like fashion. But then Smolken airs some almost-spoken, sorta-theatrical clean vocals (on tracks 12 and 13 fersinstance) and we're not quite as into it. For DRC fans surely, but maybe not doom metallers this time out (unlike Wolfmangler's earlier split with Moss).
WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOMTwo Hunters(Southern Lord)cd$ 13.98
Southern Lord snagged 'em. Good call, since Olympia, WA's Wolves In The Throne Room are one of the absolute best things that US Black Metal has got going right now. Sure there's lots of awesome, oxymoronically one-man "hordes" (Leviathan, Xasthur, Draugar) but no offense meant, this is an actual band, one that you can go see live, y'know? And they slay. Firmly (and intentionally and worshipfully) in the tradition of the now legendary San Francisco epic black metal act Weakling, WITTR build the same sort of trance-inducing, technically tight, extended compositions (here, up to over 18 minutes in length) of unending grimness and sheer majestic, melancholic beauty.
Post-rock dynamics, classical-sounding female vocals, newagey synth drone, acoustic intros, and other more-prog-than-metal elements are utilized with ease, while the music, in all its ambient-stormclouds-pregnant-with-ominous-doom glory, is such that would waft and wail through the tall trees of the dark forest of black metal myth exclusively... a forest that these dwellers of the Pacific Northwest can easily conjure, living amidst dark primeval woods for real.
AQ customers of the black metal persuasion won't need much persuading, WITTR's previous record Diadem Of 12 Stars is one of our biggest black metal sellers already and this new album has been eagerly anticipated. And it's good. As if there was much doubt of that.
Packaged in a handsome and very sinister looking miniature lp-style gatefold sleeve, this cd is another stellar offering showing that these Wolves are in the Throne Room not as interlopers, but by divine (or, rather, diabolical) right of rule. Along with Bay Area bands like Ludicra, Leviathan, Asunder, and Hammers Of Misfortune, WITTR are leading the pack in putting the West Coast on the map as the home of avant-metal artistry, Nordically blackened or otherwise opposed to the norm.
YELLOW SWANSDeterioration(Modern Radio Record Label)cd$ 11.98
Deterioration was originally released as a tour only cassette, which is interesting given that it seems more instantly accessible than many of their more widely available and well-known records. Of course, even though this Portland duo has since broken up, it's going to take a while to slowly sift through their catalog and really make sense of it all. The earlier days found these guys making overtly political noise tracks, devoid of really any discernible melody at all. Towards the end, the final releases (the 12" split with Ex-Cocaine, the 12" collaboration with Burning Star Core, the full length At All Ends, etc.) showed a somewhat different side. More obviously psychedelic, more melodic, and seemingly an increased attention being paid to composition. Not to say that the older tracks were completely improvised, because we can't definitively say without asking, but there is a greater cohesion and flow with releases like this one. It really is a shame the guys parted ways, because the last year or so of their records seemed like one collective Revolver. If you're a fan of YS and haven't picked up anything in a while, you'd be well-served to check this one out.
The magic of the band Lungfish, was that they didn't approach their songs like songs. More like loops or pieces. Each of their 'songs' was a single riff, locked into trancelike repetition, rife with subtle tonal variation, but ultimately, almost static and incredibly mesmerizing. The band somehow propulsive while managing to not move forward, but instead looping in on themselves. Even Lungfish offshoot duo the Pupils displayed the same affinity for repetition, almost like a stripped down acoustic Lungfish, letting the vocals of frontman Daniel Higgs carry the melody, while the guitar and rhythm formed the mesmerizingly repetitive support.
So when Higgs took off on his own, his music was appropriately cyclical and looped and trancelike, so it seemed the root of Lungfish's sound was in fact to be found in the personal soundworld of Higgs. Or so we thought until now.
Zomes is the solo project of Lungfish / Pupils guitarist Asa Osborne, and the sound nears a remarkable resemblance to the solo work of his ex-partner Higgs. Short tracks, each centered around a single melodic figure, the sound allowed to shift subtly, but ultimately locked into a mesmerizing loop. Whether it's heavily effected guitar, simple muted tribal drumming, chiming guitar harmonics, whether the sound is dense and fuzzed out, or spare and spacious, Osborne conjures up a gorgeous world of trancelike sound. Maybe we were premature in declaring Higgs the music shaman of Lungfish. Perhaps the power of Lungfish stemmed from the shamanistic energy of two like minded musical seers. Zomes seems to make that abundantly clear. However, where much of Higgs' solo work is steeped in crumbling distortion, glowing with a burning intensity, Osborne's sounds seem to do just the opposite, to lope lazily, to drift dreamily. Just as powerful, sometimes almost as intense, almost Lungfish like once in a while, certainly just as mesmeric, but instead of threatening to crumble or explode, they are content to just spread and sprawl, sun dappled and dreamlike, the sound lush in its lo-fi hiss and buzz, the actual instrumentation simple, often a single guitar, and a single drum, sometimes even less, but it's the melodies, it's the timbre and the quality of the recording, the immediacy, the subdued power lurking within these slow soft spirituals, the reveals Osborne to be the musical shaman his past outfits have only hinted at. So gorgeous and sublime, mysterious and so so powerful. Zomes has been spinning NONSTOP around here over the last few weeks, and once you finally immerse yourself in the sounds of Zomes, it won't be difficult to see why. Now we can't seem to stop fantasizing about them reuniting, not as Lungfish, but as some impossibly mind expanding ritualistic future trance space bliss innerspace drone duo. Maybe someday...
