Small Cruel Party turns up again, just a few weeks after the release of the impeccable 3cd anthology An Accident In Substance released by Harbinger Sound. As we mentioned in the review of that set, Small Cruel Party was the obscurant sound-art project for then Seattle-based Key Ransome, who applied the grandeur of minimalism to the sodden detritus of his surroundings, creating a brilliant amalgamation of texture, noise, drone, atmosphere, tension, bombast, industrial euphoria, and mystical threat. Three Simple Eyes Of The Insect Ancestor was an early cassette by Small Cruel Party, released by Apraxia in 1992 in a package smeared with wax and oversized sticks that would have surely fallen off merely by looking at it sideways. In a rare piece of text accompanying these recordings (found on the Kaon website, and not the cd), Ransome describes a considerable difference in the sound quality between the original cassette and remastered cd, the latter of which negated the former's overblown mulched sound from faulty replication providing 'clarity' for the murky sounds found within. Ransome admits a lack of memory when it comes to the recording of the first track "Crowd Of Small Things" - but the dank atmosphere that hangs on a mysteriously motorized droning erratically hums amidst a slow arcing crescendo of ever-increasing tactile crunches. If anything, it's an existentially bleak soundtrack to an environmental disaster, with the damp forests of the Pacific NW suffocating under the slow ooze of a bunker oil spill. The second track "Tank Ecstasy Between Floors" features recordings make with the members of Yeast Culture in the reverberant stairwell of the Seattle Public Library. Those huge thumps and klangs from the SCP/YC industrial pipe fights are set against a shimmering stream of aquatic field recordings processed with a dreamy delay & reverb combination. In the final mix, Ransome balances the menace of those heavy-handed, thunderous booms in the stairwell with the rapturously hypnotic calm of the watery recordings. A classic Small Cruel Party strategy that's as brilliant as ever.
LA based guitarist Steven R. Smith returns with this double vinyl release, a split... with himself, essentially! Sides A and B featuring S.R.S.; sides C and D, S.R.S. again - in his Ulaan Khol guise, which means heavier and howlier. Doing different versions of the same instrumental compositions, as well. The idea being that the S.R.S. half is pretty, placid, and "minimal" while the Ulaan Khol versions are "maximal", with more volume and fuzz. The concept sounds good to us - Steven R. Smith can basically do no wrong, after all, and we like him in all his projects, whether it be the guitar blow outs of the assorted Ulaans (Khol, Markhor...) and the Eastern European folk reimaginings of Hala Strana, as well as solo under his own name (in recent years the the lps Old Skete and Cities, the latter also released by Immune), not to mention his participation back in the day in assorted Jewelled Antler groups like Thuja.
Giving this a listen... man, it's good. Both records are gorgeous, fortunately we don't have to choose between 'em. The quieter S.R.S. renditions make nice use of piano, quite lovely, the slow moving melodies gently drifting. The same songs done Ulaan Khol style are equally beautiful and entrancing, but warmly droned out with thick guitar distortion and effects, blissfully psychedelic. We could go on and on, but want to get this on the list today, and figure really we probably don't need to say a lot about it, chances are, you love S.R.S. as much as we do and can't wait to hear it. Or, if you've never encountered Steven R. Smith's work before, well, trust us, this one's recommended! Also since it's limited vinyl in lavish packaging, and the version we have is a special even MORE limited version (200 copies made) that comes with a chapbook filled with Smith's art and text for each of the album's songs, not available from most other retailers. We've got about a dozen copies, when they're gone, they're gone, no more chapbooks anyway.
We reviewed a single from this Chinese outfit on the last list, our first taste of their take on American nineties indie rock, and like lots of the stuff we've been hearing from China lately, these guys do it so well, sounding almost like a band from back in the day. And on this full length, everything we dug about the single is in full effect, the only real difference, are the vocals, which were more mumbly and sorta sad boy sounding on the single, here are pretty much belted out, but over the same sort of noise poppy fuzzy guitar indie rock crunch, with lots of wild leads, and like that single, the band split their time between rollicking Pixies / Dinosaur Jr. / Sonic Youth style rocking out, and more broody, loping post rock style slowcore. The best moments are tracks like "Bi Li Hou Mian", with its dueling boy/girl vox, chiming super distorted guitars, and crunchy fuzzed out riffage, or the super tripped out psychedelic noise pop of "Guo Cuo", which finds the band getting all Mogwai, and sprawling out into epic slow builds before spending the last half of the song in a wild, free from freakout, that's all swirling electronics, burbling synths, FX laden guitars, wild octopoidal drumming, but in between are plenty of gems, that push all our classic indie rock buttons, noisy and fuzzy, to jangly and drifty, to hushed and moody. Cool stuff for sure...
The debut demo from these East Bay doomlords gets a deluxe vinyl reissue, and will be the first time most folks get an earful of Swamp Witch, and in a seriously overpopulated scene, SW definitely do their own thing, in fact, from the first few seconds, we were a bit thrown off, cuz the vibe was way more stonery and classic metal, not sludgey or really even all that doomy, we were ready for some soaring eighties style metal vocals to swoop in, they definitely would have fit, but before that can happen, the song shifts gears and slows to a lurching crawl, accompanied by some demonic vokill bellows, some serious stonery sludge, but then that opening riff resurfaces, and adds some serious melody to the proceedings, this time with added sort-of-leads, but it's what keeps this from being just another slab of boring doom, and it's that push and pull that makes the track so good, the band easily shifting from that lurching crawl, to the more propulsive classic metal rocking and back again, the cool thing being that you can almost feel the pull of the opposing sound the whole time, the sludge-y parts sound like they desperately wanna explode into melodic metal, and the melodic metal parts feel like they're on the edge of being sucked into the black tarpit dirge of the sludge parts. Then at the end it gets sort of psychedelic, with some crazy, sorta shrieked vocals. Such a killer track, definitely worth the price of admission right there. Then there's the second track, which is a bit more traditionally stonery sludge, but with a KILLER main riff, that again, slows down to an absolute slo-mo creep, a chugging, churning crawl, and so it goes again, the band lurching from stonery dirge to creepy crawl, finally culminating in an outro that's all swirling psychedelic feedback.
The sidelong flipside is a doozy, the brooding title track takes ages to get revved up, building lots of tension, the vibe super cinematic, all swirling feedback, and groaning bass rumble, keening melodies, all blurred into smeary swaths of mournful minor key sound, and when the song kicks in, it's MASSIVE, so heavy and blown out, some seriously brutal ultra doom crush, the sound remaining mostly entrenched in a tarpit dirge, the variations this time for the most time arrangement wise, some mathy chugging, a slightly more midtempo, groovy stretch, with some killer psychedelic guitars, which eventually bliss out into another feedback drenched guitardrone finale.
So killer. Not sure how we haven't heard these guys before now.
And if these three tracks are still somehow not sludgey enough for you, do some searching on the internet, and you can find a killer 'chopped & screwed' version, which finds the whole thing slowed way down, fucked with, looped and layered, stuttery and staggery, replete with weird scratching and DJ manipulations, as well as woozy, pitch shifted DJ Screw like vocals. Wish they would have pressed up an extra lp and included this version too...
Super nice packaging, a heavy gatefold sleeve, with a little baggie with two buttons, the lps pressed on 180 gram vinyl. Also includes a poster, a patch and a download code!
One of those bands to emerge from the Creation Records class of 1992 that brought forth My Bloody Valentine, Swervedriver, and Slowdive, The Telescopes hardly resemble a shoegazing Brit-pop band these days. Their slow-burning, hypnogogic engagement with psychedelia has blown out the final vestiges of the song which even by the time of their previous single on Trensmat had become a smeared deconstruction of Nick Drake's "Black Eyed Dog" through a smoldering space-rock mandala of hashish-laced guitardrone. Harm takes things even further, by tuning all of the instruments to a reference pitch of 444hz and letting everything drift towards oblivion. Yes, that is the vibrational frequency of the human body, often described as the 'healing' frequency; but no, this isn't some exercise in holistic wellness through sound. Sure, we have been getting more 'inner mind music' these days; but The Telescopes blast these frequencies through cranked distortion boxes which give these holy minimalist tendencies a serious White Hills / Bardo Pond crunch. With the multiple guitars swarming on this tone through sheets of buzz, fuzz, glisten, and grime, the drummer mostly glides across the cymbals and only sets up a thoroughly buried motorik kick-drum pattern on the second side. Similarly, the bass is handled as more of a sympathetic rumble than anything remotely structural. Supposedly, the only remaining original member Stephen Lawrie is present behind the microphone; but there's very little evidence amidst these gaping, drooling, totally drugged out ur-drones. Limited? Yeah, probably. The download code on this album also comes with an 8 minute video to boot!
Not exactly a new album proper, but more an anniversary celebration of sorts, Across Six Leap Years finds Tindersticks convening at Abbey Road to re-record an album's worth of lesser known tracks from their illustrious 20 year career. But far from a fans-only affair, this works surprisingly well as an album in its own right. So much so that this particular aQ staffer didn't even realize it wasn't an actual lp until approximately listen number three! For those unfamiliar with Tindersticks, Across Six Leap Years is a sleepy nocturnal wash of lonely xylophones, spacious pianos, gently strummed guitars, and brushed drumming that pitter-pats like rain against a window. Stuart Staples' hushed fragile vibrato lends a weight to the songs that brings to mind the less schmaltzy moments of latter era Roxy Music, while musically the sparse balladeering of Nick Cave's The Boatman's Call or the woozy nighttime lounge of Morphine would be good comparisons. "Marseilles Sunshine" with its twinkling bells and humming violins has an affect that's truly dreamy, like floating over an empty city in the middle of the night. It's all quite peaceful, but lyrics like "I've got memories / I keep them away from me" reveal a gloomy restlessness creeping underneath, while "Say Goodbye to the City" creates a genuinely menacing sensual tension with its slithering bass, blustery horns and shrill female backing vocals. It's not hard to imagine that the patient slumbering drama of Tindersticks might have had quite an impact on relatively newer groups like The National or Antony & The Johnsons in their younger years. Best enjoyed with a bottle of red wine, a crackling fire and a few old memories you've been trying to rid yourself of.
If the opening track to this album sounds awfully familiar to the customers here at aQuarius, that's because "Ater" was originally commissioned for the Painted Black compilation on tUMULt - an album of radical demolitions of the Stones' classic track "Paint It Black." The devilish chords from that song loom as a majestic overture above an insistent, infernal cauldron displaying Troum's darkest, most malevolent dronecraft. Troum, being the duo of Stefan Knappe and Martin Glitsch, eschew the vocals and the drums of the Stones' number for just those chords that collapse wearily into a black hole of negative energy. It still sounds as amazing as when Andee issued it on tUMULt back in 2003 (and we still have copies, if you haven't heard it, it's FANTASTIC!!!). As you might guess, Syzygie is a collection of the compilation tracks that Troum produced at the turn of the millennium. This track is a great opening number no matter how you slice it, leading immediately into a comparably pretty track "Makaria" from the Walls Are Whispering compilation on EE Tapes, with a pastoral shimmer from maudlin guitar chords awash with Cocteau Twins' tears. This, like the Painted Black track, is one of the few tracks on this compilation that we were fortunate enough to hear; but much of this material was released on super obscure compilations. Another highlight here is the slow-burning "Fantauma" which predates much of the Nadja crush of doom-drone guitars and machined drum loops by a couple of years. Amidst the cold drone and heavy hypnosis, Troum's consistency is really notable, especially when so many artists release throwaway tracks for compilations; and it makes for a very solid album. It would have been great if Syzygie included their version of "Cold" by The Cure, from the Pornography cover album on Fear Drop; but we suppose we'll have to wait for the next Syzygie volume.
Originally released way back in 2005, the first volume of Choubi Choubi, a collection of folk and pop music from Iraq, remains one of everybody's favorite Sublime Frequencies releases. And for good reason, besides the political implications of the music, made almost entirely during the reign of Saddam Hussein, which might have you envisioning the typical Middle Eastern story, of people forced to make music in secret, fearing for their lives, their livelihoods, but strangely, as we mentioned in our review of the first Choubi Choubi release, Hussein was in fact an avid supporter of the arts, and started cultural centers for both art and music throughout Iraq. Sadly, performers, artists and musicians who were not commercially successful, were deemed to be of a lower class, and the idea of Choubi, an Iraqi style of music that features rapid fire beats, buzzing oud melodies and wild fiddle playing, was considered by most to be a province of the seedier side of Iraq, dingy nightclubs, prostitutes, criminals, etc. In fact many female performers would wear masks to hide their identities. And while the music was encouraged by the government, music by its very nature is rebellious, so this music of the people had a power that made Choubi essentially the 'national dance of Iraq', and as the liner notes explain, even with Choubi's stigma and reputation, and parties and weddings, Choubi is the music of choice, with people whipping out their best Choubi moves.
The first Choubi Choubi comp has been out of print for a while now, so it's super exciting to have another volume to dig into. With the songs culled from the same era and time period, sonically, it's more of what we loved about the first one, wild, chaotic beats, flurries of percussion, super passionate vocals, dramatic and intense, lots of strings, the oud playing distorted and truly psychedelic, the recordings far out and lo-fi, in-the-red, the drums and rhythms slathered in cool primitive FX, reverb and delay, some of the tracks freaked out and energetic, others moody and minor key, some have an almost Bollywood vibe, others, are totally far out drum driven weirdness that reminds us of the twisted Indian soundtracks of Vijaya Anand, and still others sound almost liturgical, while others are distorted and buzzy and hypnotic, but really all of the tracks here incredible!
The story of the music and the musicians in Iraq at the time is super fascinating, and is gone into in more detail in the liner notes by Sublime Frequencies' Mark Gergis. As is the roots of Choubi, and what's gone on post Hussein, and post war in Iraq. Those extensive liner notes are accompanied by tons of awesome photos, as well as notes on each track, all on a super heavy full color gatefold sleeve.
- MPEG stream: 1
- MPEG stream: 2
- MPEG stream: 3
- MPEG stream: 4
You pretty much know what you're gonna get with a compilation called Drone-Mind on a label called Drone Records. The vinyl series is the continuation of what the label started back in the early '90s, when Drone Records released some of the choicest slabs of obscurant dronemuzik, post-industrial occultations, and deep-down dark ambient tracks. Maeror Tri (whose Stefan Knappe is the man in charge of Drone Records), Aidan Baker, Francisco Lopez, Small Cruel Party, Murmer, and Spiracle rank as some of the more well-known projects to have graced the Drone Records imprint, with lots more enigmatic projects to emerge from the sewers of Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, and the former Soviet republics. Although the first artist to grace this compilation comes all the way from that foreign land known as Los Angeles, with this track being from Yann Novak, whose hauntological track is a deft recapitulation of the psychological ambient pieces by Clock DVA, crafted entirely from run-out grooves on pieces of vinyl. The drone diptych from the Slovakian outfit Strom Noir belies their name with a radiant, shimmering, graceful piece of golden ambience that aligns itself more with those cinematic, open-space constructs by Stars Of The Lid. Very lovely. Emme Ya -- a South American project with some connections to Cold Spring -- turns the album's mood definitely toward the darkside with a gloomy set of rumblings, disembodied voices, and catacomb echo. Playing the part of the contrarian is Karl Bosmann, a German sound-sculptor who has wowed us in the past with inventive electronics and uncompromising experiments. His atonal, radiophonic swells build up to a dramatic crescendo that snaps to some strange vocal incantation only to break into a gnarled, overblown rhythmic churn for the final four minutes of his 13 minute excursion that wouldn't be out of place next to Le Syndicat or Esplendor Geometrico. Pretty fucking rad stuff from all four artists!
Here's volume three in the five part Ecstasy Of Gold series of lps collecting some of the best, and lesser known, tracks from Italian Westerns. As many of you probably already know, the title comes from an Ennio Morricone track, and Morricone is no doubt the godfather of Italian Western soundtracks, but there are so many other incredible composers and musicians responsible for some of the most iconic movie music of that era. Lots of the folks represented on the first two volumes show up here too, with different tracks, there are again, plenty of big time aQ faves: Bruno Nicolai, Piero Umiliani, Francesco De Masi, Lallo Gori, Alessandro Alessandroni, some of which we already knew, but NOT for their Italian Western soundtracks! Plus again, lots of new names, folks we hadn't heard before this series: Luis Bacalov, Nora Orlandi, Michele Lacerenza, Angelo Lavagnino, Robby Poiteven and a bunch more. And again, all of the fantastic variations of Italian movie music are represented here, fluttering flute, fuzzed out psych guitar, deep dramatic vocals, lots of twang and galloping rhythms, moody ambience, soaring orchestral arrangements, Flamenco guitars, wild drumming, whirring organs, strings galore, mournful trumpets, harmonica galore, tolling bells, martial snares, plenty of sound effects and so much more. Like the other comps, this just makes us want more more more. More music from all these artists, another installment in the series, and most of all, we wanna do nothing but watch crazy Italian Westerns!!!!!!!
Like the first two volumes (which are already out of print), this is LIMITED TO 750 COPIES!! And housed in a super swank eye popping gatefold jacket adorned with classic images from Italian Westerns, film stills, poster art and more. The gatefold image in particular is super striking, a bloody woman draped over what we can only assume is a dead man, sprawled in the dirt, in some dusty village, so crazy looking it has us wanting to track down whatever movie it's from!
- MPEG stream: 1
- MPEG stream: 2
- MPEG stream: 3
- MPEG stream: 4
- MPEG stream: 5
The long unavailable solo soundtrack debut of Greek composer Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou (aka Vangelis) finally gets an official reissue. The soundtrack to this obscure 1970 French film directed by Henry Chapier (so obscure that the only info IMDB has on it is this eight minute opening sequence found here: http://www.ina.fr/video/VDD08000001/sex-power-video.html), has only seen previous release as a bootleg cd-r and it has been rumored that Vangelis himself has suppressed many attempts to reissue it. Sex-Power, starring a young Jane Birkin, is similar to Zabriskie Point in that it seems to be a desert quest for meaning by young beautiful intellectuals giving up on society for more earthly concerns like walking in the desert naked, and apparently having lots of sex... But regardless of the arty tone of the film, in our book, you can't go wrong with the music of early seventies Vangelis. Early Vangelis recordings are often marked by exotic instrumentation (tribal percussion, water gongs, flutes, and ethnic string instruments) as well as piano, early synthesizer and ethereal female vocal choruses. Like Morricone's majestic early soundtrack work, Sex-Power has a strange free-folk mystery of lilting passages and beguiling pensive mystical soundscapes. It was recorded the same year Vangelis's prog band Aphrodite's Child released their final album, the legendary 666.
Recommended for fans of the soundtrack work of Jean-Claude Vannier, Lubos Fiser, and Alain Goraguer, and of course very limited!
Emerging once more from the shadowy subterranean recesses of bleary Brooklyn, aQ's favorite misery merchants Vaura have returned with their second dose of heavy glistening gloom rock (and their first for avant-metal tastemakers Profound Lore). By definition a side project of sorts, Vaura features members of Dysrhythmia, Kayo Dot, Gorguts and Secret Chiefs 3... and sound exactly nothing like you would expect a band with that pedigree to sound. There's a myriad of influences here - all brought together with an admirable cohesion. Black metal, '80s goth, post rock, psychedelia... The elements are all there, but The Missing is at its core an atmospheric rock record. Although you wouldn't believe that from the first 30 seconds of the album. The introductory title track opens with a gorgeous wall of sound black metal tremolo grind, a pummeling frantic drum blast and a minimal spacey guitar lead, immediately bringing to mind the recent crop of euphoric black metal bands like Alcest or Deafheaven. But only half a minute later the track crumbles into a bittersweet mid paced dirge of plodding toms, shuffling militaristic snares and deep brooding vocals - much more akin to Ian McCulloch or Andrew Eldritch than any spike gauntleted shrieker. There's also a distinct similarity to mid period Katatonia in the numbed, almost frail vocal approach. Much of The Missing in fact seems to recall a very specific time in recent metal history - a period in the late '90s when extreme metal bands, usually on the doomier end of the spectrum, started experimenting with more traditional rock & roll elements. The uptempo mournful melodic rock of "Incomplete Burning", with its strummed acoustic guitar mingled with distant distorted leads and reverb washed vocals, is pure Judgement-era Anathema - invoking the same sense of wistful psychedelic melancholy. Elsewhere on songs like "Pleasure Blind" and "Putting Flesh to Bone" the slinking basslines creeping under warm ethereal strings bring to mind Beyond Dawn's subtly surreal Electric Sulking Machine. "The Things We Hide", with its dissonant plucked Eastern melodies and sinister echoed vocals, even recalls the more atmospheric moments of British avant-death weirdos Akercocke, as does the pummeling blasting, warped clean guitar and droning synths of "Passage to Vice". It's not all so wonderfully obscure though. There's plenty of Joy Division in those distinctive post-punk basslines and that disjointed repetitive drumming, and the aforementioned Sisters of Mercy are clearly a big influence. "Braced for Collapse" even brings to mind some of Sunny Day Real Estate's more downtempo moments. And could this record have come at a more perfect time? It's that time of the year... The days are getting darker, the winds are getting more bitter, and our playlists are getting even gloomier to match. If the atmospheric goth tinged heaviness of Pinkish Black - or maybe even In Solitude's latest - are your idea of a perfectly dismal night in, then you couldn't do much better than lighting those ceremonial candles, laying out your finest black velvet, and spending some quality alone time with The Missing.
Sometimes the true test of a record, is how many times you can listen to it in a row, and the first time we threw on the new EP from East Coast dream folk duo Widowspeak, we ended up laying it nonstop for at least an hour. Every time it ended, all we wanted to do was start it over again. Like the Almanac full length before it, The Swamps, is dark and lush and luxurious, the opener, dirgey and swampy, stripped down and wreathed in weird FX and field recordings, but after that, it's back to that fuzzy, dreamy, drifty sound that has us so in love with Almanac. The vocals breath and ethereal, floating above acoustic guitars, minimal percussion, and soft swirls of gauze-y ambience. Hooks galore too, and impossibly lovely vocal harmonies. The slower tracks are definitely reminiscent of Mazzy Star, check out "Calico", all wasted and woozy, and darkly dreamy, a strummy, sun dappled dream-folk dirge. The rest of the ep splits the difference between jangly pop, and more laid back dirge-folk, culminating in the closing title track, which is a haunting backwoods ballad, lush and layered, the music a softly swirling, elegantly strummed backdrop for those angelic vocals. Dreamy. And we're gonna listen to the whole thing, again, right, NOW...
We first heard from Brennendes Gehirn, aka Matt Harries, via his Epidemics Of The Modern Age release, which delivered a crumbling, blown out, black noise sprawl of abstract atmospheres and post industrial murk, that definitely pushed all out MZ412 / Wolf Eyes / Blue Sabbath Black Cheer buttons, so we were super psyched to discover this new releases, a split / collaboration with some guy called Dorian Williamson, who happens to be a member of Adoran, whose lps we raved about recently. For this cd, both Harries and Williamson contribute a single track, and collaborate on a third.
Harries opens the disc with a a creepy bit of sonic ritualism, a reverbed female voice speaks over a bed of blurred electronics and deep rumbles. As the voice fades out, in swoop more swaths of low end, deep chordal swells, the only remnant of that voice, a clipped breath, which is looped rhythmically, and ends up adding a strange tense vibe, to the already tense dronescape. The track flecked with crunch and buzz, which slowly builds to a caustic chaotic squall, of swirling feedback and metallic skree, that sustained tension spreading out over most of the track's running time, sounding a bit like a supercharged, more psychedelic Organum, dense layered drone-noise that manages to be weirdly hypnotic, the blunted noisiness transformed into something much more tranced out and mesmeric. Williamson's contribution is much more minimal, a churning expanse of deep, crumbling, blackened sonic swells, foghorn like tones, and rumbling bowed string shimmer, all layered over a mysterious backdrop of miniature sonic events, that sans headphones, simply add texture, but deeper listening reveals a deep dark world of sound lurking below the surface. And while things get noisy here too, it's a muted, washed out noisiness, the net effect being less loud and chaotic, and more sort of blurred and oozing and abstract.
The two together surprise by conjuring up something much more than the sum of its parts, channeling the Eastern rhythmic mesmer of Muslimgauze, with a blunted beat, beneath swirls of gristly crunch, a strange reverbed vocal, the sounds building to something noisy, but again it's more a psychedelic noisiness, heady and hypnotic, that beat, anchoring the proceedings, while voices and melodies, dripping with FX and noise, swirl and blur and are eventually smeared into hazy sheets of blissed out softnoise dreaminess. Super cool. But sadly, LIMITED TO JUST 100 COPIES!!!!
The new issue of this essential UK new music magazine features Demdike Stare on the cover (what? we don't wanna know what they look like! how can we call 'em "mysterious" any more??). Still, of course a very interesting feature.
Also: new age zitherer Laraaji, having a bit of a renaissance of late. House/industrial artists Heatsick + Helm. GNAW. R Millis. A Savage Pencil tribute to the late Lou Reed. A Moscow scene report. Dot Wiggins of the Shaggs. Robert Beatty of Hair Police. Lots and lots of reviews. A cool picture of Attila Csihar of Mayhem. And, more! ----* ----* In Stock, Not Yet Reviewed : ----* If you want to order one of these, just search for the item, then click on the buy button and it will be added to your cart! A FIELD IN ENGLAND "OST" (Rook Films) cassette 10.98 ABDUL-RAUF, LEILA "Cold And Cloud" (Saadi Saati / Pesanta Urfolk) lp 19.98 ABYSSION "Satanic Taste Of Neurotic Virtuosi" (Sylvan Screams Analog) cassette 5.00 AQUA NEBULA OSCILLATOR "Spiritus Mundi" (Tee Pee) cd 14.98 ARTEMIEV, EDUARD "Solaris (Music From The Motion Picture)" (Mirumir) lp 36.00 ARTEMIEV, EDUARD "Stalker / Mirror" (Mirumir) lp 36.00 BLIZARO "Strange Doorways" (I, Voidhanger) 2cd 16.98 BOARDS OF CANADA "In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country" (Warp) 12" 17.98 BOARDS OF CANADA "Trans Canda Highway" (Warp) 12" 17.98 BOARDS OF CANADA "Twoism" (Warp) lp 17.98 BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS, THE / TEENAGE MONSTER (WALTER GREENE) "OST" (Monstrous Movie Music) cd 27.00 BRAN (...) POS "Den Of Ordure And Iridescence" (Resipiscent) lp 15.98 CAR-SICK CARS "Rock 'n' Roll Hero / Mexico 7"" (Maybe Mars) 7" 9.98 CORYELL, LARRY "Barefoot Boy" (BGP) cd 11.98 COUM TRANSMISSIONS "Home Aged & The 18 Month Hope" (Dais) lp 22.00 CULTS "Static" (Columbia) lp 22.00 CYBOTRON "Sunday Night At The Total Theater" (Dual Planet) cd 16.98 DAMNATIONS HAMMER "Disciples Of The Hex" (I Hate Records) cd 16.98 DANTESCO "We Don't Fear Your God" (Inframundo) cd 13.98 DAY OF THE DEAD (JOHN HARRISON) "OST" (La-La Land) 2cd 28.00 DECEMBERISTS "Castaways & Cutouts" (Jealous Butcher / Hush) lp 17.98 DEMENT, IRIS "Infamous Angel" (Plain) lp 16.98 DODOS "Carrier" (Polyvinyl) lp 16.98 DOT WIGGIN BAND "Ready! Get! Go!" (Alternative Tentacles) lp 14.98 ENTRANCE BAND, THE "Face The Sun" (Beyond) lp 19.98 EXTINCTION DE LOS INSECTOS "Untitled" (Lupus / Chingaste La Confianza) lp 19.98 FLAMIN' GROOVIES "Shake Some Action" (4 Men With Beards) lp 16.98 FUZZ "s/t" (Easy Rider) cassette 12.98 GHOST BC "If You Have Ghost" (Republic / Rise Above) cd ep 8.98 GIBSON, ERNEST "Island Records" (Skrot Up) lp 14.98 GOODBYE & AMEN (GUIDO & MAURIZIO DE ANGELIS) "OST" (Intermezzo Media) cd 29.00 GORGUTS "Colored Sands" (Season Of Mist) cd 14.98 GROUP RHODA "12th House" (Not Not Fun) cd/lp 13.98/14.98 GUEULE OUVERTE "s/t" (Stochastic) lp 9.98 GUSTAFSSON, MATS & DIDI KERN "Eissalon (Live)" (Rock Is Hell) lp 17.98 HAVOK "Unnatural Selection" (Shadow Kingdom) cd 14.98 HEADBOGGLE & VIBRATING GARBAGE "s/t" (Beer On The Rug) cassette 8.98 HEAVENLY BEAT "Prominence" (Captured Tracks) cd/lp /21.00 HEDERSLEBEN "1: Upgoer" (Unternarz) cd/lp 9.98/19.98 HEDGEHOG "Blue Day Dreaming" (Modern Sky) cd 12.98 HEDGEHOG "Honeyed And Killed" (Modern Sky) cd 12.98 HEDGEHOG "Noise Hit World" (Modern Sky) cd 12.98 HIDDEN MASTERS "Of This & Other Worlds" (Rise Above / Metal Blade) cd/lp 14.98/32.00 HUSERE GRAV "You Are Transparent" (Crucial Blast) cd+zine+button 9.99 HWYL NOFIO "Dark" (Hwyl Nofio) cd INHALT "Occupations" (Dark Entries) 12" 11.98 ISHIBASHI, EIKO "Imitation Of Life" (Drag City) lp 17.98 J. TEAL BAND "Cooks" (Vintage / Rockadrome) cd 13.98 JACUZZI BOYS "s/t" (Hardly Art) cd/lp 12.98/13.98 KRAYL "Froide Et Sombre" (Sylvan Screams Analog) cassette 5.00 KRONOS QUARTET "Aheym" (Anti) lp 26.00 LARAAJI "Celestial Music: 1978-2011" (All Saints) 2cd 17.98 LARAAJI "Essence/Universe" (All Saints) cd 15.98 LAST DAYS OF HUMANITY "The Sound Of Rancid Juices Sloshing Around Your Coffin" (Fat Ass) lp 16.98 LAUREL HALO "Chance Of Rain" (Hyperdub) cd 15.98 LIMINANAS, THE "Costa Blanca" (Trouble In Mind) lp 16.98 LORD NASTY "Phuck Em And Forget Em" (self-released) cd-r 11.98 LORELLE MEETS THE OBSOLETE "Live In Mexico City" (Captcha) lp 17.98 LYSET "Vi Som Hater Guden Deres" (Sylvan Screams Analog) cassette 5.00 M.I.A. "Matangi" (Interscope) cd 13.98 MAGIK MARKERS "Surrender To The Fantasy" (Drag City) lp 19.98 MAJEURE "Romance Language" (Temporary Residence Ltd.) 12" 19.98 MASTER MUSICIANS OF BUKAKKE "Far West" (Important Records) lp 17.98 MAZZY STAR "Seasons Of Your Day" (Rhymes Of An Hour / Fontana) cd/lp 15.98/29.00 MCCOMBS, CASS "Big Wheel And Others" (Domino) 2lp 26.00 MCDOWELL, FRED & ANNIE MAE "My Home Is In The Delta" (Sutro Park) lp 14.98 MELNYK, LUBOMYR "Three Solo Pieces" (Unseen Worlds) cd/lp 16.98/23.00 MINOT "An Era Of Institutional Failure" (self-released) cd-r 11.98 MOD TALES "#1" (self-released) zine 4.98 MOIRA SCAR "Scarred For Life" (Resipiscent) lp 15.98 MONOTON "Monotonproduct 07" (Desire) 2lp 30.00 MOOMAW "Don't You Just Love" (Gazebo Music) lp 9.98 MOORE, ANGELO "Sacrifice" (self-released) cd 8.98 MR. WILCOX "s/t" (Self Released) cd 7.98 NEW PANTS "Boxset 1998-2011" (Maybe Mars) 7cd box 90.00 NIBLOCK, PHILL "Nothin To Look At Just A Record" (Superior Viaduct) lp 17.98 NO AGE "An Object" (Sub Pop) cd/lp 13.98/15.98 NOCTOOA "Adaptation" (Owl & Troll) cd 11.98 NOSTALGIST "Monochromantic" (Nostalgium Directive) 7" 8.98 NOTHING "The Grey Subaudible" (Nostalgium Directive) cassette 8.98 NOVELLER "No Dreams" (Important) cd 14.98 O RANG "Herd Of Ins" (Sleuth) lp 24.00 ONYEABOR, WILLIAM "World Psychedelic Classics 5: Who Is William Onyeabor?" (Luaka Bop) cd 15.98 OOZING WOUND "Retrash" (Thrill Jockey) lp 19.98 PENNY PENNY "Shaka Bundu" (Awesome Tapes From Africa) cd/2lp 15.98/29.00 PETER BESTE "Houston Rap" (Sinecure) book + 7" 42.00 PUTNAM, CURLEY "World Of Country Music / Lonesome Country" (The Omni Recording Corporation) cd 17.98 QUELLA VILLA ACCANTO AL CIMINTERO aka HOUSE BY THE CEMETARY (WALTER RIZZATI) "OST" (Beat Records) cd 29.00 QUTTINIRPAAQ "Let's Hang Out" (Rural Solation Project) lp 13.98 RAJATTTAJAT "Awopbopaloopop Alopbam Raja" (Ektro) cd 14.98 RANALDO, LEE AND THE DUST "Last Night On Earth" (Matador) 2lp 19.98 RENE HELL "Vanilla Call Option" (Pan) lp 28.00 RFCL "Joyful Noise Vol 2: Nomina Nuda Tenemus" (Black Note) cd-r 9.98 ROBOT BY THE RIVER "Birdsong Sayonara" (self-released) cd ep 5.98 ROLLIN HUNT "The Phoney" (Moniker) lp 16.98 SALOMAN, GABRIEL "Soldier's Requiem" (Miasma) lp 19.98 SATAN PANONSKI "Hard Blood Shock" (S-S) lp 15.98 SCHICKERT, GUNTER "Kinder In Der Wildnis" (Bureau B) lp 23.00 SKELETONWITCH "Serpents Unleashed" (Prosthetic Records) cd/lp 27.00/27.00 SKORNIK, GUY "Pour Pauwels" (Lion) cd 14.98 SPEEDY ORTIZ "Major Arcana" (Carpark) cd 14.98 SSLEEPERHOLD "Ruleth" (Holodeck) lp 17.98 STARSKATE "Goodnight Nobody" (Goth Horse) lp 11.98 STEEL POLE BATH TUB "Tulip" (Boner) cassette 8.98 STERLING SISTERS, THE "Hale" (Pesanta Urfolk) lp 17.98 STOLTZ, KELLY "Double Exposure" (Third Man) lp 21.00 STRAY "Time Machine: Anthology 1970-1977" (Castle) 2cd 17.98 T2 "1971-72" (Acme) cd 14.98 TAIST OF IRON "Resurrection" (Skol) 2cd 16.98 TURNER, MICK "Don't Tell The Driver" (Drag City) lp 22.00 TWILIGHT FAUNA "The Grotesque Travesty Of Creation" (Sylvan Screams Analog) cassette 5.00 TWILIGHT FAUNA "The Silence Of A Blackening Abyss" (Sylvan Screams Analog) cassette 5.00 V/A "Bridge Into The New Age" (Ace) cd 15.98 V/A "Classic Blues Artwork From The 1920's 2013 Calendar" (Blues Images) calendar+cd 19.98 V/A "Copendium: A Sonic Companion To Julian Cope's Expedition Into The Rock 'N' Roll Underwerld" 3cd 52.00 V/A "Dead Good: Eternal Classics From The Grim Reaper's Jukebox" cd 10.98 V/A "Hassaniya Music From The Western Sahara And Mauritania" (Sublime Frequencies) lp 25.00 V/A "Mobilisation Generale: Protest And Spirit Jazz From France 1970-1976" (Born Bad / Digger's Digest) cd/cd 16.98/29.00 V/A "Rebita 74" (Analog Africa) lp 28.00 V/A "SMM:Opiate" (Ghostly International) cd/lp 15.98/19.98 V/A "The Devil Is Busy In Knoxville" (Mississippi) lp 14.98 V/A "The Orchestra Of Futurist Noise Intoners" (Sub Rosa) 2lp 26.00 VASTUM "Patricidal Lust" (20 Buck Spin) lp 17.98 VENOM P. STINGER "1986-1991" (Drag City) 2cd 16.98 VESTER, HEIKE / OCEAN SOUNDS "Marine Mammals And Fish Of Lofoten And Vesteralen" (Gruenrekorder) cd 17.98 VILE, KURT "It's A Big World Out There (And I'm Scared)" (Matador) 12" 11.98 VOIDS "Burial In The Sky" (Popnihil Recordings) cassette 8.98 WAKE, THE "A Light Far Out" (Factory Benelux) lp 41.00 WALLS "Urals" (Ecstatic) 12" 14.98 WHEN PROPHECY FAILS "Baffling Configurations" (self-released) cassette 4.98 WIKKID "The Intro (1 Man Black Metal Band Bay Area California)" (self-released) cd ep 4.98 WILDHONEY "Like Me" (Nostalgium Directive) 7" 5.50 YO LA TENGO "Fade (Deluxe Edition)" (Matador) 2cd 16.98 YOUNGS, RICHARD "Calmont Breakdown" (Fourth Dimension) cd 17.98 ZAG MEN, THE "Crime Spree" (Vetoxa) lp 19.98
Not really sure what needs to be said about psych rockers Wooden Shjips, that we probably haven't covered in our multiple and voluminous reviews of past Shjips records. We've long championed the drowsy, druggy kraut-psych of these local boys (although they're not all local anymore), and have heaped praise upon praise on each and every records, and we should warn you right up front, that this one's not gonna be any different. Cuz it's another great Shjips record, brimming fuzzy guitars, motorik rhythms, simple loping basslines, and echo drenched Velvets/Doors style lugubrious and laid back vox, the songs not so much songs, as jams, no super obvious verse or choruses, instead, much like WS offshoot Moon Duo, these guys pick a riff and lock in, most of the songs, consisting of not more than two parts, but two parts is plenty, for these guys to conjure up a moody sprawl of sonic mesmer, that sounds bit like Hawkwind dosed on horse tranquilizers, the same sort of endless heart-of-the-sun jamming, but dialed down, and stretched way out, not explosive or bombastic, as much as tranced out and hypnotic, and the solos, not so freaked out, more textural and melodic, whether it's guitar or organ, the solos wind their way around the riffs, and become an organic part of the Shjips' hypnorock jammage. On first listen, we were convinced that the band had jettisoned much of the krautrock influence of the earlier records, our theory being that mainman Ripley Johnson took it with him when he formed his new group Moon Duo, which IS heavy on the krautrock, but the more we listen, the more that krautrock influence asserts itself, due in no small part to the endless repetition and the stripped down minimal rhythms, with many of the tracks here sounding like a supercharged, cranked up Can, albeit filtered through some fuzzy sixties garage rock. However you slice it, it's seriously good stuff, head nodding, mesmeric, tranced out, stoned and dreamily druggy, heady, and in its own laid back psychedelic way, also sort of heavy, but like 'heeeavy, maaaaan'. There are a surprising number of uptempo jams, but even those retain the laid back vibe that infuses most of the more druggy droney numbers, it's hard to say if this is the best Shjips record, or our new favorite, but probably safer to say that it's just another great record, from a great band we still dig a while lot. And certainly closer "Everybody Knows" might be the catchiest, poppiest Shjips track yet!
The cd comes in a 4 panel mini lp style gatefold sleeve, wrapped in a custom die cut O-card, pretty swank. And while they last, we have the super ultra deluxe limited lp version, green vinyl, housed in a heavy gatefold jacket with glossy UV printing (on the inside too), and also wrapped in a die cut slipcase - and it comes with a bonus 7" with two songs, "Colors" and an acoustic version of album track "These Shadows"!!! (Oh, and we've got a few of the limited cassette version too, nothing deluxe about it, but it's a cassette.)
Not really sure what needs to be said about psych rockers Wooden Shjips, that we probably haven't covered in our multiple and voluminous reviews of past Shjips records. We've long championed the drowsy, druggy kraut-psych of these local boys (although they're not all local anymore), and have heaped praise upon praise on each and every records, and we should warn you right up front, that this one's not gonna be any different. Cuz it's another great Shjips record, brimming fuzzy guitars, motorik rhythms, simple loping basslines, and echo drenched Velvets/Doors style lugubrious and laid back vox, the songs not so much songs, as jams, no super obvious verse or choruses, instead, much like WS offshoot Moon Duo, these guys pick a riff and lock in, most of the songs, consisting of not more than two parts, but two parts is plenty, for these guys to conjure up a moody sprawl of sonic mesmer, that sounds bit like Hawkwind dosed on horse tranquilizers, the same sort of endless heart-of-the-sun jamming, but dialed down, and stretched way out, not explosive or bombastic, as much as tranced out and hypnotic, and the solos, not so freaked out, more textural and melodic, whether it's guitar or organ, the solos wind their way around the riffs, and become an organic part of the Shjips' hypnorock jammage. On first listen, we were convinced that the band had jettisoned much of the krautrock influence of the earlier records, our theory being that mainman Ripley Johnson took it with him when he formed his new group Moon Duo, which IS heavy on the krautrock, but the more we listen, the more that krautrock influence asserts itself, due in no small part to the endless repetition and the stripped down minimal rhythms, with many of the tracks here sounding like a supercharged, cranked up Can, albeit filtered through some fuzzy sixties garage rock. However you slice it, it's seriously good stuff, head nodding, mesmeric, tranced out, stoned and dreamily druggy, heady, and in its own laid back psychedelic way, also sort of heavy, but like 'heeeavy, maaaaan'. There are a surprising number of uptempo jams, but even those retain the laid back vibe that infuses most of the more druggy droney numbers, it's hard to say if this is the best Shjips record, or our new favorite, but probably safer to say that it's just another great record, from a great band we still dig a while lot. And certainly closer "Everybody Knows" might be the catchiest, poppiest Shjips track yet!
The cd comes in a 4 panel mini lp style gatefold sleeve, wrapped in a custom die cut O-card, pretty swank. And while they last, we have the super ultra deluxe limited lp version, green vinyl, housed in a heavy gatefold jacket with glossy UV printing (on the inside too), and also wrapped in a die cut slipcase - and it comes with a bonus 7" with two songs, "Colors" and an acoustic version of album track "These Shadows"!!! (Oh, and we've got a few of the limited cassette version too, nothing deluxe about it, but it's a cassette.)
It was tough to not be won over by this one before we even heard it. It's called Damp Circuits, it features a twisted cover with bright Chinese characters over a murky landscape of clouds and lightning, over which an image of a man fiddling with a huge bank of electronics is superimposed, and it's subtitled The Golden Era Of Synthesizers In East Asia, and yeah, it's just as good as all of that had us hoping it would be.
Young was a Hong Kong musician and producer who modernized Chinese folk melodies by performing them on (at the time) state of the art synths, adding fuzzed out wah guitar, groovy basslines and whirring organs, the vibe slips from groovy funkiness to woozy exotica, to fuzzy sixties garage to what sounds like a revved up synthesized traditional folk (replete with weird crowd sounds). Fans of Perry & Kingsley, Dick Hyman, and other synth pioneers will FLIP. Listen to the samples and you'll be smitten, here's hoping there's lots more where this came from! On the Sublime Frequencies offshoot sub-label Sham Palace!
- MPEG stream: 1
- MPEG stream: 2
