Another killer release from Black Horizons, this one from Lebanese industrial band 20.SV. A super dark collection of strange post-apocalyptic industrial noise that starts sparse and haunting and builds to a massive wall of violent, almost Whitehouse-esque climax. And those vocals? That's Alan Dubin of Khanate. As if there was anything that could amp up the already anxiety-inducing mayhem of this release, but Dubin's vocal insanity manages to. Spooky stuff.
Don't know about you, but we can listen to the serpentine melodies of Nigerian organist Mamman Sani Abdoulaye for days on end. His spacey psychedelic approach using subtle rhythm pulses, wah-wah effects and spiraling and minimal but exotically lyrical melodic figures are so captivating and magical that we can't help but be completely spellbound. Sahal Sounds has done us a great service by unearthing even more gems from the early eighties from Mammane Sani that haven't been released before. Just as utterly amazing as his first two collections (the Afro-futurist Taarit, which is now back in print!, and the debut La Musique Electronique Du Niger, still unfortunately unavailable for now). This one even features one awesome song with vocals: "Arman Doley", and also a different version of the track "Bodo", which was on the first collection.
This one is super limited, likely the only copies we'll be able to get. No download code, sorry, but so highly recommended!
Airway is the on-again / off-again performance art ensemble featuring most all of the various members of the infamous Los Angeles Free Music Society - one of the most what-the-fuck conflagrations of Fluxus conceived anti-art and freeform cacophony EVER. Iconclastic LAFMS stalwarts Joe & Rick Potts, Joseph Hammer, Dennis Duck, Kevin Laffey, Juan Gomez, and Vetza are all present on this recording made in 2014 in celebration of the 35th anniversary of LAFMS, along with fellow LA oddballs Don Bolles (yup, from The Germs) and noise maverick John Weiss. A frenzied roar of physical and sonic activity has been the core of the Airway performances; and that's what's found on this disc of celebratory chaos, featuring multiple drummers given the task of sounding like they are all tumbling down a stairwell, amplifer / electronics / floorcore pedal form-destruction, chanting raga-like vocal ululation, and Peter Brotzmann-esque horn muscularity. There's an almost psychedelic vibe to this madness that makes us think back to the very first Amon Duul recordings.
We got new aQuarius tote bags made for our big 45th b'day party last month, and sold out of all of 'em on the day, wow. So, we decided to print a few more, with the same vintage flaming A guitar "New Wave Music Is Our Specialty" design, in a different color scheme - the totes at the party were either white on black, or red on 'natural', whereas these newly printed ones are blue on 'natural'. So if you missed out before, you can grab one (or another!) now!
Dimensions: 15" x 15" with a 3" gusset (flat bottom); with cross-stitched straps. Will hold a bunch of records and stuff.
Could the time be any more right for an album of intimate, individual psychedelic folk music from three decades ago to be reissued? This is almost more 'now' than it was then, really! Ed Askew's Ask The Unicorn was originally released on LP by the legendary, eccentric free-jazz and folk label ESP-Disk back in 1969. Now at last it's on cd (twice, in fact, more on that in a sec). We think anyone into, say, Devendra Banhart will enjoy this. In fact, we wonder what Mr. Askew thinks of the music of Mr. Banhart (if he's ever heard him). We'd imagine he'd think... "Not bad, but I did that 30 years ago!!"
One artsy guy with a weird imagination and a nasally-but-nice, gentle, emotive voice and a guitar, singing and playing from the heart, his tripped out lyrics turning tight circles with their rhyme schemes, Askew comes across a bit like a druggier, rawer, more obscure and stream-of-conciousness Bob Dylan or something.
Note: weirdly enough, two different editions of this have just been released on cd. The one we've got doesn't actually say Ask The Unicorn on it (except as a song title) but is indeed that album, with three bonus tracks and a sticker proclaiming this to be the "Artist's Edition". Not sure what's going on there, as we also received word that Askew, while happy this was in stores, didn't actually know it was coming out! The extra tracks apparently come from a cd-r version he'd been circulating to friends or something. Anyway, this version seems to be the better deal, and we're only mentioning all this so as to preempt any confusion about what exactly this is.
The bonus tracks are quite worthwhile, with two ("The Accordion Man" and "Green Song") dating from back in the day and one ("A Soldier's Song") from 2005! Yeah, the new track sticks out, both his voice and the production being quite different, and Askew even seems to be deliberately making it seem up to date with references to computer mice and monitors -- and there's even a drum machine part that starts up halfway through the song! But actually it's a nice tune and comes last on the disc so its inclusion isn't too jarring. Indeed, it helps bring this great music into the present, where it belongs.
A spooky ambient recording from this Turkish project who conceptually based this album on Aokigahara, a forest near Mount Fuji in Japan which has achieved notoriety because of the large number of people who have committed suicide amongst the trees, leaving behind considerable ephemera of their lives. Notes, pictures, objects all litter the forest floor as the final tracing of a human life. While a cascading horror is evident on the first half of this album, evinced through dynamic, tumultuous roars of caustic rumble and desolate pools of isolated tone, Asphodel conjure a shifting internal drama of emotion not limited to sadness, hope, and loss through flecks of wooden guitars and flutes, eerie reflective modulations from feedback manipulation, disembodied voices crackled through ghostboxes, and a ton of reverb. This is a very complex piece of abstraction that honestly confronts the topic at hand while not forgetting to draw from the existential bleakness in mapping out these very impressive recordings. Originally released on Asphodel's Wounded Wolf imprint as a cd-r, now issued on swank vinyl via Invisible Birds, limited of course.
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REISSUED ON VINYL! For the first time we think since it originally came out in '94.
Chances are that you know and love this album. If not, you probably just don't know it yet. As far as '90s indie rock goes, this is literally, completely, and wholly essential. Make friends with this record. It sounds exactly like a day dreamer's high school experience should. Catchy songs, breezy reminiscences, and more hooks than you can shake a stick at! Never heard it, lent it to a friend, or sold it during financially thin times in college... now's the time. Carpe indie!
Early lp featuring guitarist Ry Cooder, originally released in 1967. Ceyleib People was Cooder's '60s hippy acid rock outfit, super spacey and groovy and trippy, with a lot of Eastern mystical twang to it (SITAR!). Ravi Beefheart? Mostly instrumental dronestrum with stabs of distorted guitar picking and mesmeric rhythm, like a Spaghetti Western raga or instance of 'California Krautrock'. Pretty cool!!! Note: all tunes published by 'Hookah Publishing Co.', which should tell you something.
2015 repress, 180 gram vinyl version.
Snowthorn is likely not the sort of album you'd expect from an ex member of legendary noiseniks Wolf Eyes, and that's part of what makes it so good. Mike Connelly and his wife Tara have conjured up a strange sonic beast, far removed from the noisiness of Wolf Eyes, instead drifting through slow shifting fields of piano-laced ambience, woozy dream pop drift, crumbling abstract distortion, wheezing drone-folk and haunting, chamber music ballads. There are moments of 4AD-ish gloom rock as well, reverby electro-pop, and even some brief bits of black metalish buzz, but those have been slowed down and stretched out into something more maudlin and moody, making it a perfect fit for Dominick Fernow's Hospital Productions.
Latest from the dronologists in Common Eider, King Eider, and this one is a bit different, but for a group that always goes above and beyond, maybe we should be used to it by now. Unhuulda was originally slated to be a cd release, but in lieu of paying to get it pressed, the group has decided to instead donate the money the cd pressing would have cost to Nunamata Aulukestai, a Native-run, non-profit conservation organization in Alaska.
What you get instead of a cd is a beautifully packaged (as always), hand-bound book of poetry, that comes with a download code and a back patch. The music is (as always) similarly beautiful and carefully crafted, blissful and sparse drone with lush, snowy strings. The last track especially, a near 20 minute track of total immersion, drawn out vocal harmonies that shift, expand, and retreat, a track that fully encapsulates what CEKE are all about. Gorgeous stuff. Limited to just 150 copies, and aQuarius is the only store that has these for sale.
NOW ALSO ON VINYL!
Not sure what most devout Buddhists would think of this band, but we suppose if they're into heavy psychedelic Finnish space sludge drone trips, they'd like it! And the name Dark Buddha Rising isn't that bad of a shorthand description of the band's sound, really, in a way. There's definitely an ominous ceremonial vibe here, with trance-inducing ritualistic percussion and mumbling monkish chant amidst the slabular riff repetition. Is Yoga Doom a genre yet? These guys could teach a class in that for sure, heck they'd be at the top of that zoned-out heap, alongside aQ faves Nibiriu, whom this music reminds us of a lot. Speaking of esoteric Italian psychonauts, this reminds us of UFOmammut as well.
With just two long tracks, "Eso" and "Exo", each a vinyl side in length, you know this Dark Buddha takes some time to rise, that's what it's all about, that process, that practice, that spaciousness, an exploration of the whole calmness/crushingness spectrum.
The first of the two tracks is a slow, slow build from vaporous drone on into eons of tumbling tribal rhythm and throbbing riff stumble accompanied by occasional, worshipful chants and screams of supplication - and more drone, waves and waves of it. The second similarly starts off quiet and blissful but gets into the action (of scaling the holy headbanging mountain) with less preamble, powering up the morose megaton throbulation earlier on, with some jazzy drumming around the edges (shades of Bohren), getting more massive and mesmeric as it goes, eventually approaching the lift off potential of the late, great Tarantula Hawk, with riff detonations on the SUNNO)))-scale. Earthshaking sonic ritual in other words, and our only disappointment is that after about 24 minutes, this sweaty yoga mat magic carpet ride to the dark side of the sun ends rather more abruptly than what we expected (endlessness???).
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Deluxe double vinyl pressing gatefold w/ foil stamp and embossing. Includes download. Here's some of what we said when we reviewed the cd version a few weeks back:
Deafheaven have returned with another titanic wall of overwhelmingly emotional post-black metal. Now personally, we've been firmly planted in Camp Deafheaven since day one, but it's no secret that their blend of shrieking blasting black metal and life-affirming skyward-gazing post-rock/shoegaze has rubbed some of the more conservative members of the metal community the wrong way. Well, New Bermuda seems to be a direct attack upon any mortal foolish enough to question the band's metal chops. Compared to 2013's genre-melting crossover smash Sunbather, this new record is immediately darker, heavier, more frenetic, more suffocating, to put it simply more METAL - a flurry of palm-muted Slayer style riffery, adrenalized blast beats and anguished rasps contrasted with extended passages of absolutely stunning melody - invigorating, gut-wrenching, uplifting, and longing all at once. New Bermuda sounds like Sunbather in overdrive, twisted and tweaked just enough to evoke an entirely different mood - a tireless assault of raw desperate emotion. Deafheaven could have easily rested on their laurels here, content to make Sunbather Pt. 2, but instead took a much thornier path, and this record is all the better for it.
The first we've heard from this Portland trio despite them being around for almost seven years! They also feature old aQ pal Myles Of Destruction in their ranks. Disemballerina play dark, brooding chamber music, think the darker, more sparse moments of the early Godspeed You! Black Emperor records, or a much more sinister Rachel's. In fact, Poison Gown would totally fit in with the best of the Constellation Records back catalog. Funeral baroque, or neoclassical gloom perhaps. Comes in either a very affordable minimal cd-r format or a more ornate and unique cassette release from our friends at Black Horizons.
A painter of emotional torpor through sound, perhaps. Brian Pyle (also known for his work in Starving Weirdos and RV Paintings) returns with another cinematic gem of slow blooming atmospheres that ooze from his ever-reductive songs for pooling synth tones, ethereal yet weary guitar strum, and plenty of hypnotic ellipses that always seems floating halfway down deep sea trenches or recently jettisoned from an spacecraft's airlock. Even though this is very much a Brian Pyle production, he's employed the talents of Peter Broadrick to contribute live drums for one track, the synthwave coldness of Soft Metals on another, and especially the hitherto unknown vocalist J. Moon who croons perfectly in step with Pyle's shimmered portents. Badalamenti and Barry Adamson certainly have some very worthy competition in this longtime aQ favorite!
Last list we recommended an album of ethnic-improv jamming recorded in Morocco, circa 1991, by eccentric Canadian avant-garde instrumental trio FAT. That was one of two previously unreleased (and very different!) FAT albums from the early '90s that only just saw the light of day, and this is the other one - which, getting even more eccentric & avant-garde, doesn't actually even feature a single note of music played by anyone in FAT. Instead, it's an illicit, unauthorized 'remix' of a 1990 album by a then-popular Czech heavy metal band called Citron, the 24 track masters of which FAT somehow got their hands on while on a sojourn in Prague, and proceeded to completely fuck with, to the point where it sounds pulled apart and twisted inside out, Citron's cheesy metal processed into a very strange, unrecognizable soundscape, full of histrionic vocals soaring into echoing void-space, backing synth fills morphed into symphonic ambience, and stripped-down drums juxtaposed with random-seeming guitar licks. It's like the album itself took some very bad drug, with various elements oddly emphasized and effected, stuff sped up or slowed down, making for a delirious, utterly WTF? mix that's both creepy ('cause it's so insane-sounding) and amusing for the same reason, reminding us a little bit at times of what those 'shreds' videos on YouTube sound like, if you know what we're talking about. Certainly unique, and certainly weird.
Our favorite Female Convict Scorpion DJ returns. Ok, he's very likely the ONLY Female Convict Scorpion DJ, and to most he's known simply as Josh Pollock, of local space rockers 3 Leafs (among many other projects), and he's not so much a DJ, as he is a twisted musical mad scientist, with a killer record collection, and a ridiculous knack for assembling disparate bits of those records into, well, into whatever this stuff is. Imagine a more experimental, less hip hop DJ Shadow, with the most unlikely parts of other songs re-appropriated and recontextualized. It's not so much about 'name the sample', which is good cuz odds are you couldn't possibly, it's more about letting yourself get lost in DJFCS's way out WTF soundworld, which gleefully flits from creepy cult like incantations, to cosmic psych funk, woozy, cinematic ambience to FX flecked tribal exotica, freaky free jazz, to crooned, downer doom. One of the best tracks fuses a cappella folk vox to some seriously sinister Carpenter-ish synthiness, sounding like the Incredible String Band scoring Logan's Run or Pentangle covering the soundtrack to Phantasm.
Needless to say, like all the other DJ Female Convict Scorpion releases, this one too, is totally essential. And we may have wondered this before, but really, how is this shit still so under the radar?? Turntablists, avant music nerds, sample slingers and sound artists / experimental composers should definitely be bowing down before the 'Scorpion. Easily one of the best "DJ's" out there, and one who should be doing this stuff on a much larger scale...
Here's another brilliant cassette of obsessive, stark techno from the mysterious Los Angeles based Granite Mask. One could easily parallel the contents of this lengthy cassette to the interwoven rhythms and flanged noise of Vatican Shadow or the more punishing components of the whole Sandwell Disctrict ethos. Pulsing electronic murk, metallic synth melodies, harrowing industrially minded atmospheres, and sinister abstractions veer throughout these rhythmic structures of splintered breakbeats and hypnotic Chain Reaction like stomps. We have mentioned before that we would not be surprised if Granite Mask were to land a record or two on Blackest Ever Black, given the strength of their work; and that still holds true with the excellent Exit Strategies.
Three long out of print cassettes conveniently collected and remastered onto one cd. Greh Holger (aka Hive Mind, and head honcho of the always impressive Chondritic Sound label) is a master of heavy tone oppression, leaden industrial swarm, and synth-noise miserablism, oozing out of Greh's malignant electronics. Gritty pulses, septic oscillations, and death-throe drones coagulate around the structural spines of rudimentary panzer rhythm and haunted melody as if their were genetically re-engineered macrophages attacking the human body from the inside out. In these brilliantly crude recordings, Hive Mind strikes a balance between the funereal primitivism of the best MB releases and the crumbled organ dirges that Gate sprawled forth on Dew Line.
RennFaire gone Rock In Opposition? Italian prog meets medieval madrigals?? We're still puzzling about how to describe this wonderful, wonderful disc, a remastered cd reissue of a rare LP (long awaited by some, totally new to us but very welcome -- thanks Robot!) which was recorded by composer Kay Hoffman in Florence, Italy in 1977, though not released until 1985, on vinyl in Japan only! On Floret Silva, Hoffman and her collaborators, including members of the very excellent and arty Italian prog band Pierrot Lunaire, took a trove of medieval Latin poetry known as the Carmina Burana -- poems written by anonymous authors around 1200AD that are both religious in nature as well as very earthy and real, about such subjects as love and money -- and set them to music. The settings are diverse (as befits the variety of these texts), and the results are often eerie and pretty and even a little bit groovy, with quirky chamber ensemble/prog rock backing and even the use of field recordings. Utterly magical for the most part, most especially due to the delicate vocals of Jacquline Darby. One song reminds us strongly of Stereolab, others call to mind (rather more obscurely) that Flamen Dialis album we've raved about before. This should appeal to experimental psych-folk fans for sure, even if this unique treasure is really something outside almost any genre designation you'd care to come up with!
The fourth album already from Sweden's fabulous hard rocking Horisont, who are one of those bands (mostly Swedish) who just seem to beam in from a fantastical parallel dimension where it's still the '70s, but somehow way MORE the '70s than even the '70s ever were. So they play over the top, prog-tinged, ripping retro-proto-metal heavily inspired by Uli-era Scorpions, Rainbow, fellow countrymen November, and early Judas Priest (just check out the track "Bad News" on this new disc), and they do it freakin' well, mixing hot rockin' with more moody, emotive moments.
On Odyssey, Horisont come brandishing hectic fistfuls of rollicking riffs, alongside heroic, heartfelt vocals and dazzling drumming - total '70s style shred, if you will. If after the first track, which is also the title track, you're not, like, WOW!, then this ain't for you, but we were, like, WOW! within the first few minutes of said track, which by the way is the longest on the album, a 10+ minute pulp sci-fi opus (hence a bit of extra zappiness to the keyboards). Definitely recommended to fans of Danava, for sure.
An impressive literary, cinematic, and musical knowledge base is at the root of the Ingenting Kollektiva's inspiration for crafting their hauntological compositions of spectral minimalism. "May pain be my reward" is a line of text taken from an incomplete 1836 play by Georg Buchner, later adapted by Herzog in 1979 for film and various theater groups over the centuries; and that text becomes the central tenant to the Kollektiva's An Anatomy Of Melancholy, that mines the dissonance of Penderecki through the lens of the guitar-n-pedal, buzzsaw blur of Maeror Tri, Mirror, and even some of the less low-end centered works of SUNNO))). The backmasked incantation and the snippets of dialogue further the shadowy references to an occluded and arcane ritual of an otherworldly mysticism. Beautiful, spiritual, and haunted all at once!
BACK IN STOCK!!
We fell in love with this on the cover alone, a bizarre illustration of a screaming space explorer with devilish eyebrows, his face almost in shadow against a Technicolor backdrop of alien abduction motifs with the words GALACTIC NIGHTMARE in '80s computer gradient font on the cover. No other information included. What the hell is this?
Turns out this was the dream project of Alan Jefferson, an amateur musician from Hull, England, who upon hearing The War of The Worlds (not sure if that's the Orson Welles Radio Broadcast or the British seventies musical featuring Richard Burton, but we're betting the latter based on the songcraft displayed), decided he could make a better version. Using his bedroom as his studio, a Moog, a reel-to-reel, a guitar and some pedals, he set about making his four part sci-fi epic in 1979, which took six years to complete, and he alone made every single part of it including the illustrations!
And what an epic it is! A kaleidoscopic radio play of proggy electronics, spacey sound effects, and engrossing narratives of alien battles, and planetary shipwrecks. But also with bizarrely heartfelt rock-musical songs like "Wrinkled, Old and Gray", sung from the point of view of a stranded young space explorer whom aliens have sucked out his life energy making him old before his time, sounding very much like a naive cover of a Roxy Music song.
Finally finished in 1985, it was made available on cassette to readers of the magazines Future Music and CU Amiga, but few people bought it. Through the efforts of one of the writers for Future Music who was given a preview, he has passed the tape around through a handful of folks over the years where it finally reached Jonny Trunk who sent a letter of interest to the original address in the ad - and miraculously managed to get in touch with Jefferson, with the result that for the first time, this incredible piece of outsider ingenuity and vision is made available to a wider audience. Features interviews with Jefferson and the players involved in rescuing this from obscurity, with original adverts and pictures and fantastic documentation in a beautiful gatefold package. For serious devotees of the bizarre, this is quite incredible and amazing and super limited!
Full length number two from these SF heavies, and while they haven't sacrificed any of their Teutonic crush, or noise rock heft, they do display a surprisingly melodic side on Container Ships, a soft white sonic underbelly that was hinted at on their recent split 7" with Thou, on which they covered a Low track, and it feels like much of the sensibilities that not only drove that choice, but determined what they did with it as well, are all over Container Ships. And while nothing here is quite as darkly delicate, the band do definitely dial back the heaviness, letting the sounds linger, letting clean guitars spread out and set the mood, and when the hammer does fall, the sound this time around is much more crisp and lush, even when the guitars are downtuned, churning and chugging, they ring out, the sounds reverberant and rich. The debt to the Unsane and Helmet no longer so obvious, at least not all the time. On the opener, which might be the prettiest song here, the band offer up their own sort of slowcore minimal math rock / noise rock sprawl, subtly nuanced, and super melodic, another big change on display here is frontman Scott Evans' vocals, which have transformed from a gruff bark, to a serious croon, still rough around the edges, but way more emotive and the perfect match for the band's ever developing sound.
But fear not, get an earful of the second track, "50's Dad", which is all loping, chugging noise rock crush, Evan's vocals higher than on past record, which definitely changes the vibe throughout, and makes even the heaviest tracks here, less of a knuckledragging vibe, and more of an emo edge, which again totally suits them, especially when the band lock into a weird loping groove, and Evans sings himself ragged, his voice rough and raw and impassioned. Not to mention the burst of tangled psychedelic guitar leads that are wrapped around the middle of the track.
The guys have been busting their asses for years now, and we always sort of wondered why they weren't huge, but goddamn if this record doesn't change all that nothing will.
The whole record is a sort of push and pull between the muscled mathy noise rock of the early records, and this desire to make beautiful music, even if it's dark, mean, ugly, hard and heavy beautiful music, which this most certainly is, and it's that balance that makes this record, and these guys so good. The title track here is a dirgey doomy drag, the chords ringing out, the vocals carrying all the melodic weight, and transforming a dirgey chugfest into something epic and intense, the song revealing a grasp and mastery of dynamics that was most definitely underutilized on past records, but gets a serious workout here.
"Cornerstone" is about as poppy as these guys get, and again, they not only mange to pull it off, they also make it this hook heavy noise-pop fit seamlessly into the way heavier rest of the record, not to mention demonstrating another element the band have in their arsenal but obviously choose to employ very judiciously. The record finishes off with the 9 minute epic "You Don't Have Cancer", which again reveals their slowcore proclivities, and demonstrates their ability to subsume that sound into their own, the resulting hybrid another sprawling, gut wrenchingly emotional, crushingly heavy, surprisingly melodic epic, that would, and does, put most other heavy bands to shame.
The unchallenged masters of space-tech interdimensional black metal, Krallice, have returned with a new slab of labyrinthine insanity. Krallice, strangely, is Mick Barr and Colin Marston's most restrained project, and with each release, they continue to refine the songwriting that their other projects (among them Behold The Arctopus, Dysrhythmia, Infdel?Castro!, Gorguts, Orthrelm, and Encenathrakh) don't necessarily focus on, and despite most of us already being huge Krallice fans, this was the first to really impress this particular reviewer. On Ygg Huur, you obviously get the dizzying space-riffage, but refined into easily their best written SONGS yet. Incredibly hard to pigeonhole, too, Krallice have managed to craft a sound that isn't strictly black metal but definitely isn't death metal either. Idiosyncratic, obtuse, and strange, yet somehow catchy and powerful. Tech done right.
Oh man, we wanted to see this movie from the second we first heard about it. Kids in a primary school get a wicked case of the 'cooties', which transforms them into zombie like wee beasties, and it's up to the teachers to survive, and if need be (which need very likely does be!) dispatch of the hungry, demonic hordes roaming the playground. The trailer looks ridiculous and over the top (we haven't actually seen it yet), and very much like a grade school version of another awesome horror-school classic, The Faculty. Beyond that just being such an amazing concept for a movie, there's the added bonus of the incredible score by weirdo soundsculptor / dronelord / avant grade composer (and huge aQ fave) Kreng, aka Pepijn Caudron.
Longtime readers of the aQ list are also likely fans of the Miasmah label, which Kreng generally calls home. His releases on Miasmah are moody and murky and minimal, twisted and shadowy, waste and faded and gorgeously mysterious. And while all that sounds like the perfect ingredients for a seriously sinister horror score, since this is not your typical horror movie, Caudron gets to explore WAY out of his usual sonic comfort zone, whether it's long sprawls of DJ Shadow like beat driven grooviness (in one instance, the haunting main theme is played by what sounds like a sitar!), or swirly, symphonic exotica, or hushed, somber shimmer, it's all woven together into a proper album, that is a pretty fantastic listen, even sans the film.
The DJ Shadow comparison is actually pretty apt as beats and breaks surface throughout, but it's in the execution that things get and stay weird, in fact one of the best musical moments is when a loping beat limps along beneath a cacophony of detuned brass. But it is a horror soundtrack, so Carpenterisms abound (reworked in Kreng's inimitable style), there are plenty of tense, driving synth jams, barely there haunted house ambience, darkly delicate pianoscapes, strangely dubby drifts, some deliriously atonal 20th century sounding cacophony and bursts of what sounds like some rad eighties VHS soundtrack, all dayglo distorted, blaring and bombastic.
While not nearly as dark as some of the Miasmah releases, there's an ominous underpinning to the proceedings, even at it's most playful and melodic, it's fun and freaky, and like the best soundtracks, not only is a great listen, but has us wanting to see the movie even more than we already did!
We've mentioned it before, but there are a handful of bands that seem to perfectly embody what aQ is all about. Bands and records that even though they shouldn't, have crazy crossover appeal. Weird black metal records that pop nerds obsess on, wild noisy hypno rock that inexplicably appeals to hip hop headz as much and indie rockers. It's not a set in stone list, it's nebulous, and it's different for everybody. Depending on the person, different bands mean different things, and pretty much everybody might have a different idea of the ultimate aQ band or record. The Conet Project is a definite contender. Finland's Circle are definitely in the running. And then there's Laddio Bolocko. Easily one of THEE greatest indie rock / noise rock / post rock / math rock bands ever. Pretty sure there are no aQuarians who don't worship at the altar of Laddio Bolocko.
And anyone who's heard these guys understands why. The group are masters of some ineffable musical alchemy, at once willfully difficult and extremely challenging, but also totally melodic, and mesmerizingly hypnotic. The krautrock vibe is huge, a motorik streak a mile wide runs through the works of LB, but they're also an explosive rock band, capable of total facemelt on par with most metal bands, they're also immersed in some wild, avant psychedelic free jazz, which also looms large in their canon. That might sound like it makes for a mess, but if it is, it's a glorious, unfuckwithable mess.
We've lavished much praise on Laddio Bolocko over the years (as well as on post-Laddio project The Psychic Paramount), and now it's time to do it again, with this stunning collection of rare live and unreleased recordings. And before you think this must be some sort of cash grab, releasing a bunch of shitty live tapes, consider that: A. This band is not nearly popular enough to merit any sort of cash grabbing (sadly), and B. just listen to this shit. The live stuff here blows most bands' best studio albums out of the water. The proof is in the 43 minute opening track pudding (appropriately titled "43 Minutes Of (Excerpt)"), a sprawling mega-jam that is constantly mutating, beginning as a gloriously blown out, and super melodic sort-of-space jam, gradually growing more gnarled and distorted, some of the tones reminiscent of Amps For Christ, before devolving into a droned out, buzz drenched slo-mo soft-noise dirge, that once again slowly builds to a wild psychedelic squall, that swirls and whirls and gradually settles into a slow burn fade. We used to compare LB to This Heat, and that's even more apropos here, with the band locking into dizzying rhythmic permutations, and slathering those various iterations in wild noise, or blurred chords, or crumbling distortion, or free jazz skronk and bleat. That This Heat influence becomes more marked as this collection progresses (just check out the clattery skeletal dub of "Afrostructure Pt. 1", or "As If By Remote", which imagines This Heat as a modern math rock band). Slintisms abound as well, with some moody meanders, and the live in Slovenia set sounds like some heavy rock band channeling the roots of spiritual jazz. What the fuck?! How did these guys do it? And why were they not huge? How did so much of the world miss out on these guys?! Laddio Bolocko is the rare group that has the potential to not just appeal only to weirdo music nerds (although if you are one of those, you very likely already LOVE this band!). The jazzy bits are not like some rock band simply aping jazz, they OWN jazz, and in doing so, create a new musical vocabulary for a classic musical form. The same is true for krautrock, math rock, noise rock, whatever the fuck kind of rock they want to take on, every song, every performance is a reinvention, every new movement a discovery. It's exciting and organic, tense and expansive, gnarled and abstract, alive and emotional, and just utterly and breathtakingly stunning.
Liner notes by Kid Millions. And both the double cd and limited triple lp formats (the latter of which is packaged in a deluxe box) come with a dvd disc, featuring more than two hours of live performance footage, that's really nicely done, looking less like typical live video than monochrome art film from decades earlier. Fans will be stoked.
Are You Alone is the latest from moody Montreal downer duo Majical Cloudz, whose last record, Impersonator, remains one of our all time favorite records. On Are You Alone, the general modus operandi remains the same, swirling synths, minimal programmed rhythms, and dramatic, crooned vocals over the top. The main difference this time around, is that the vibe is not nearly as dark as on Impersonator. That record was dense and brooding and super introspective, and while some of that most certainly remains here, the overall feel is much lighter, hewing closer to maybe Magnetic Fields than Scott Walker. More electro-pop than electro-torch-song, and while some folks might be disappointed, the songs are still pretty fantastic, and play like the perfect soundtrack to a lonely stroll on a grey afternoon, a melancholy mixtape meander along rain swept streets, wistfully winding its way into your psyche.
Weltanschauung was first released by William Bennett's Come Organisation in 1982, with Bennett changing MB's nom de plume to Leibstandarte SS MB. These recordings have long been controversial, given that one of the tracks overlayed Third Reich speeches on top of Bianchi's wall of noise, although both Bennett and Bianchi denied responsibility for having done so. Bianchi's frigid electronic orchestrations drip with sinister echoes of bone-chilling vibrations, throbbing rhythms, deranged anti-melodies, and horrifying atmospheres. For this reissue on Rotorelief, Bianchi has replaced the offending track from the Come Organisation original with the thoroughly grim track "Plutometrio" recorded during the same sessions, sans the Nazi speechifying. Such additions were unnecessary in the first place (whoever was to blame), and Weltanschauung is much better off without them.
REPRESSED on vinyl again!!
Okay, so he was "the English Phil Spector". Whew, got that out of the way. In fact he's arguably one of THE most innovative, albeit the most obscure, producers *ever* (other candidates being Spector, Brian Wilson, Lee Perry, other votes welcome!). Though famous first and foremost for his hit with the Tornados' "Telstar" (the first English pop song to hit #1 on the charts in the US), this tone deaf wunderkind had a penchant for the very strange and esoteric as well. It's been said that the man turned down the opportunity to have a first stab at recording The Beatles and David Bowie while counseling an aspiring band to axe front man Rod Stewart if they wanted to work with him. Bad judgements or refined tastes? Given much of the work Meek chose to produce in their stead one might quickly point the finger in the direction of bad judgement, but Meek's visionary "I Hear A New World" suggests that the man had an altogether sublime inspiration that was far ahead of its time.
Fascination with what life could possibly exist on the moon was the seed which drove Joe Meek to compose what could be considered the first "rock" concept album. He wanted to "create a picture in music of what could be up there in outer space." Quite a task. A task that required Meek to use every producing trick in his bag (a very, very big bag.) Take the foundation of an instrumental band, in this case Meek's The Blue Men - a sort of Venturesy, Shadowsy, Les Paulsy kind of thing - then squash the hell out of the drums with compression, throw delay and reverb around like a death battle with King Tubby, and add a potpourri of unusual instruments including the Clavioline (a super primitive pre-synthesizer) a purposefully out of tune tack piano, the occasional double speed vocals and you can almost hear Joe's New World. Top this off with the fact that Joe was attempting to create a stereo recording working only with primitive two track machines (not a huge multi-track facility) in his two room apartment recording studio and you know the man had to be a mad genius. (Certifiably mad, if the murder of his landlady and his suicide are any indication.)
Debut full-length of melodic and occasionally morbid ("Suicide Note", "Crib Death") garage rockin' from this Canadian husband-and-wife duo, the hubby being Jeff Clarke, frontman of garage rock freeks Demon's Claws. Together Jeff & spouse Emily Frances have come up with an enjoyable album of sloppy, lo-fi catchiness that touches on Nuggetsy '60s style pop psych, raw bluesiness, fuzzy punk, and twangy, hazy country-rock, the couple delving into their shared love of certain sorts of cool sounds from dusty decades past. You get the idea that they probably both had subscriptions to Ugly Things magazine before they met, and just might have some Lee & Nancy fantasies.
(Vinyl version upcoming on December 18th, btw.)
A follow-up to Robert Millis' magnum opus Victrola Favorites, Indian Talking Machine is an amazing document of Millis' research into the rich history of the early recording industry of the subcontinent. There has not been a lot done in the way of archiving much of this material over the decades, and so thankfully Millis' research & collecting has salvaged these shellac 78s from moldering into obscurity on a monsoon soaked garbage pile. These recordings include dizzying instrumental ragas, trilling vocal glissandos matched by equally tumbling performances on violin, banjo, bagpipes, etc., and theatrical folk numbers that clearly stand as a precedent to Bollywood bombast. The book, like Victrola Favorites, is a visual feast that details the imagery of the original shellac records and their artwork in various states of antiquated collapse. A highly recommended document from one of the finest curators of forgotten sounds from around the globe!
A different facet of the darkened electronics of Granite Mask, who is one of the members of this murky industrial project from Los Angeles. Primitive sequencing laced with searing white-noise, sicktone oscillation, drowning atmospheres, and surging synth beacons of dread and unease are accompanied by the sporadic female voice, which appears as muttered incantation of unknowable intent, naked gasps, and creepy tape looped confession, making some rather striking parallels to Puce Mary or to those Sasha Grey penned Atelecine recordings. There's none of techno underbelly, but still the crumbling, ominous craft here clearly connects Mortal Bodies to Granite Mask, making for really great introduction to this project.
NOW AVAILABLE ON CD!!! This is one hell of a great album of wastoid electronics thumping with bad-ass techno and mired in noise fetish miserablism. Gloomy metallic synth chords ooze into leaden marches of frightening intensity thanks to the relentless drum machine pound and big-muff overdrive that crunches all of the electronics into a blinding rage. The sporadic use of throat-mulching vocal delivery is one that owes considerable debt to Godflesh, furthering along all of any and all references to crushing nihilism. Such is the case for the eponymous lead track "The Beginning" and "Dirt & Humbug" whose dark techno workouts thunder with roiling noise of obliterated surfaces compounded with teeth chattering tremolo patterns. Then there are tracks such as "Death Sieve" and "Dead Finks Don't Listen" offer a suitably ominously droned-out design for blackened ambience and industrialized abstractions that serve to augment all of this barking punk drama for Wagnerian portent. Remarkable in more ways than one.
First we've heard from this particular group called Pyramids in quite some time (though we did wait for the cassette version to appear before reviewing it - the cd and lp formats of this actually came out earlier this year, which we're also now belatedly listing). Pyramids' self-titled record on Hydra Head garnered a lengthy (and quite favorable review) from us back in 2008 for its avant-black weirdness. On A Northern Meadow, Pyramids once again confound anyone thinking they've settled into a sound. The presence of Colin Marston (Gorguts, Krallice, Dysrhythmia) and Vindsval of Blut Aus Nord, and the fact that this release is (with the exception of the cassette) on Profound Lore might give you an idea of what you're dealing with here, but that idea is probably wrong! Shoegaze dreaminess, strange vocals that alternate between straightforward reverbed-out cleans and strange black metal wails, and bizarre drum machine rhythms (provided by Vindsval, obviously) are all blended to something that resembles Blut Aus Nord without the black metal ferocity.
We'd be skeptical of ANY other artist releasing a record called The Best Dub Album In The World, but when that artist is the one and only Scientist, well, then it probably goddamn well is. Hell, probably EVERY Scientist record is potentially the best dub album in the world. But this one in particular is a doozy, his 1980 debut, recorded at Channel One Studios, mixed at King Tubby's (Scientist's mentor), and featuring Sly & Robbie, it's all woozy grooves, swirling rhythms, tripped out delay, jittery space echo, cosmic and psychedelic, groovy and hypnotic, spaced out and near perfect, and yeah, THE BEST DUB ALBUM IN THE WORLD.
In 1985, Severed Heads were commissioned to collect a retrospective of their (then) six years in existence. Instead of the standard 'best of' anthology, Tom Ellard and Co. took the opportunity to create a sprawling collage of a whole slew of material never heard before, with cutting room edits, tape loop assemblages, live tracks, and numerous experiments that never found their way onto any of their albums. That approach is emblematic of the subversive manner in which Severed Heads produces and contextualizes their heavily mediated electronics, tracks that boisterously flaunt new wave pop structures butted against chunks of machined voltage-control noise and volatile industrial rhythm. On this release, more than pretty much anywhere else in Severed Heads catalog, do comparisons to Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle make the most sense.
Venerable noise rock miscreants Shit And Shine have essentially been a one man show for a while now. And long gone are the days of costumed, multi-drummered Buttholes Surfers-like rhythm-noise blowouts. No, in addition to being a one man band, they've also essentially transformed into a sort of outsider dance music / damaged DJ / UIDM (unintelligent dance music!) outfit. Which is not to say Mr. Shit And Shine, Craig Clouse, is a dummy, cuz he's most definitely not. In fact, he's some sort of Joe Meek like mad genius, it's just that the 'dance' music he creates, is fucked up and fractured, demented and brain damaged, occasionally funky or groovy, but just as often chaotic and caustic. Usually some dizzying, ear shredding mix of all of those.
This latest clutch of jams, which somehow found its way onto the Editions Mego label (where to be honest, it's a pretty great fit) is actually the least obtuse, with Clouse seemingly either mastering the tools of his trade, or opting to be less willfully antagonistic, at least sonically. Which again is not to say this shit is smooth, it's most definitely not. In fact it's defined by its rough edges - opener "Signal Noise" sounds like some mutant strain of Neanderthal house music, filtered through a drug addled Art Of Noise if that makes any sense. It probably doesn't, but that only makes the comparison somehow that much more apt. "Upside Down Cheeseburger" is a stuttery low slung groove, with processed children's voices, some reverby twang, it's kind like a home brewed dub, but with some kraut-psych energy, and like most of the tracks a motorik element, with most of the songs a single loop, that essentially goes through various permutations, a minimal techno by way of outsider noise and Texas psychedelic noise rock.
Everybody's A Fuckin' Expert does keep a relatively low profile when stacked up next to the rest of the Shit And Shine catalog. Tracks like "Hay Ride" are murky sprawls of alien techno, which transform into looped, fragmented block party electro ("Chop The Night"), but remains plenty muddy and lo-fi. This might actually be the first Shit And Shine record that could properly find its way into an actual DJ set, and we mean like a proper dance floor DJ, not some experimental weirdo. "Picnic Table", for all its avant filigree, is pretty goddamn groovy, hypnotic and sorta slinky. Then there's "Rastplatz" that sounds like some lost Chain Reaction rarity. But it is Shit And Shine after all, so there's also "Ass" (the title should have given it a way), a manic bit of frenzied lo-fi skitter, underpinned by blurred buzz and squiggly squalls of noisy FX. But again, even here, Clouse manages to rein it in, balancing delicately between total collapse, and total, well, whatever the opposite of collapse is.
We love these guys (this guy?) and always have. And, fuck, we still do. Big time! Rare is the band that can make full bore speaker destroying noise rock pummel, and then weirdo avant techno, and not only keep their identity intact, but do it in a way, that folks who dig the former, can't help but like the latter, and vice versa. Every record is somehow, fantastically confusing, eminently satisfying, and bafflingly brilliant, and Everybody's A Fuckin' Expert is no different.
PS There's double vinyl of this too, we'd be listing it now but our supplier accidentally sent us the wrong record, whoops. However, we'll have copies early next week, fyi...
Two new releases from this mysterious two man remote collaboration (actually not so mysterious, half the duo is in fact aQ pal Howard Ryan who also helps run the amazing local co-op bakery Arizmendi, the other being Minneapolis-based Sam Sharp), and while we thought about reviewing them separately, they really are the perfect pair, and odds are if you get one, you're gonna want the other. The music on both releases is super lo-fi, an avant, abstract, minimal murk pop, that to these ears sounds a bit like Mercury Rev crossed with The Caretaker, wistful psychedelia, all swoonsome melodies and earnest vox, but wreathed in TONS of FX, swaths of blurred reverb, a soft focus haze that renders the whole thing washed out and fantastically faded. Gorgeous indie pop hooks are stretched to their breaking point, and caked in crackle and crunch and hiss. It's a druggy, woozy, downer melancholia with nods to Sparklehorse, Sentridoh, the Supreme Dicks, and other home brewed pop oddities, a crystalline collection of warble and waver that we're digging a whole lot. Both are great, so while either are worth it on their own, if you're not beholden to a specific format, we highly recommend just grabbing both.
Two new releases from this mysterious two man remote collaboration (actually not so mysterious, half the duo is in fact aQ pal Howard Ryan who also helps run the amazing local co-op bakery Arizmendi, the other being Minneapolis-based Sam Sharp), and while we thought about reviewing them separately, they really are the perfect pair, and odds are if you get one, you're gonna want the other. The music on both releases is super lo-fi, an avant, abstract, minimal murk pop, that to these ears sounds a bit like Mercury Rev crossed with The Caretaker, wistful psychedelia, all swoonsome melodies and earnest vox, but wreathed in TONS of FX, swaths of blurred reverb, a soft focus haze that renders the whole thing washed out and fantastically faded. Gorgeous indie pop hooks are stretched to their breaking point, and caked in crackle and crunch and hiss. It's a druggy, woozy, downer melancholia with nods to Sparklehorse, Sentridoh, the Supreme Dicks, and other home brewed pop oddities, a crystalline collection of warble and waver that we're digging a whole lot. Both are great, so while either are worth it on their own, if you're not beholden to a specific format, we highly recommend just grabbing both.
Kelley Stoltz is no stranger to John Dwyer's stalwart Castle Face label, where he has worked on various projects of other artists as a studio engineer and session musician behind the scenes, but In Triangle Time is Stoltz's first solo release on Castle Face and it's a beautiful match. We've always been big fans, but there is something so freeing about this album, more so than on Stoltz's last couple of records. Always well-versed in great production, perhaps it's 'cause of working with friends, and with less pressure, that his songwriting and studio chops on In Triangle Time just cut right to the chase. There is so much energy and drive here, with a keen focus on a glammy infectious psychedelia, that like a magician he pulls out of his bag of tricks one song after the other to our utter glorious amazement.
The necessary vinyl reissue of the 1992 album Love Of Life! A propulsive, almost jubilant Swans is heard here, foreshadowing the Americana twang that Gira would later adopt in the Angels Of Light after Swans called it quits in the late '90s. Gira's great trick on this album is that he layers his shimmering, chiming guitars into slowly building walls of dissonant harmonics that rasp out of the acoustic instrumentation. It's a much more sophisticated dynamic than the emaciated bombast of such claustrophobic Swans recordings like Greed and Holy Money; and comparatively, it makes for a more subtle incarnation of Swans, even when Gira implores his multiple drummers to hammer away at their kits with militaristic flair and insistent rumbling.
The necessary vinyl reissue of the 1991 album White Light From the Mouth Of Infinity! Swans were in a time of transition, after what M. Gira considered an epic failure in their one and only major label release, The Burning World (1989), and it is also worth noting that founding member / guitarist Norman Westberg had parted ways with Swans at this juncture. The tempered acoustic strum that Gira first mapped out on Burning World carries over as the much more aggressive underpinning of the crashing hypno-drone-rock of much of White Light, most dramatically cast in the downer blues ballad "Failure" and the J.G. Thirwell coproduced drum-corps march of "Power & Sacrifice". The lilting jangle of the guitars and the brightly rendered drones that hang throughout both that album and Love Of Life counterpoints Gira's booming vocals, all of which helps to conjure a very triumphant Swans sound, effectively surging with huge crescendos of texture and density out of monolithic chords, riffs, and rhythms.
A three cd compendium of work tracking two very prolific years for Swans, including the 1991 album White Light From the Mouth Of Infinity, the 1992 album Love Of Life, and full disc of bonus material! Swans were in a time of transition, after what M. Gira considered an epic failure in their one and only major label release, The Burning World (1989), and it is also worth noting that founding member / guitarist Norman Westberg had parted ways with Swans at this juncture. The tempered acoustic strum that Gira first mapped out on Burning World carries over as the much more aggressive underpinning of the crashing hypno-drone-rock of much of White Light, most dramatically cast in the downer blues ballad "Failure" and the J.G. Thirwell coproduced drum-corps march of "Power & Sacrifice". The lilting jangle of the guitars and the brightly rendered drones that hang throughout both that album and Love Of Life counterpoints Gira's booming vocals, all of which helps to conjure a very triumphant Swans sound, effectively surging with huge crescendos of texture and density out of monolithic chords, riffs, and rhythms. Further, Love Of Life foreshadows the Americana twang that Gira would later adopt in the Angels Of Light after Swans called it quits in the late '90s.
Bonus material spans a bunch of various sources - the Love Of Life EP, the Omniscience odds & ends collection, the 'official bootleg' Anonymous Bodies In An Empty Room, the World Of Skin album 10 Songs For Another World, and three unreleased / live / demo tracks!r
Yippeeeeeeee! Reissues of albums by those beloved New Zealand popsters, Tall Dwarfs (nope, that's not a spelling mistake where they're concerned)! This is one of the absolute standout albums of their career, 1990's Weeville. It's their third album and the one on which they really found their stride. It starts off with one of their best tunes (and a particular Andee fave) "Log". If you're gonna start somewhere with Tall Dwarfs, this is it!
Their minimal, lo-fi tunes stitched together a loose patchwork of psychedelia, country and folk but the fillin' was all pop charms. Their music was characterized by deliriously catchy off-kilter song structures, boyishly emotive (but not 'emo') vocals and crunchy janglin' guitar duties. From their formation in 1979 through to their split in 1988, the duo of Chris Knox and Alec Bathgate made quite a captivating and inspiring songwriting team. You can hear their immense influence on bands such as Pavement to Yo La Tengo to any one of the numerous Elephant 6 Collective bands. So great! Yup, we love 'em!
If you were expecting Tamaryn's new record to be another slab of hazy shoegaze brilliance, you'll have to adjust, cuz even though it's still brilliant, Cranekiss is nothing like what's come before. On Cranekiss, the washy guitars have mostly been replaced with synths and the live drums have been replaced with programming. Shaun Durkan of Weekend fame has replaced Rex John Shelverton as Tamaryn's primary collaborator. Above all else, though, what's changed is the musical tone. Unlike The Waves or Tender New Signs, Cranekiss is not a record to listen to alone in your room with candles and headphones. The beats are too infectious and the synths too heavy to listen alone. Tamaryn the pop diva comes on strong, like a cross between Madonna and Elizabeth Fraser, and it's surprisingly good. Despite the new direction, it doesn't feel like an act, or like she's trying on a mask that doesn't fit. The Cocteau Twins influence is powerful and pervasive throughout the album, but is definitely an homage rather than a ripoff. Whereas the Tamaryn of yore came off as slightly unapproachable, an ice queen for the ages, Cranekiss introduces a vocalist who's willing to let the listener in more. Her lyrics seem more personal, less symbolic and metaphorical, and her vocals are (usually) less effected and right up front in the mix.
Songs like "Hands All Over Me" and "Softcore" exemplify Tamaryn's new direction. One could imagine hearing them played in a smoky dance club right after Soft Cell's "Sex Dwarf" and fitting right in (lyrically as well as sonically). Cranekiss is not all energy and beats, though. "I Won't Be Found" is possibly the closest, musically, to something that might have been on Tender New Signs - drawn out and slow, the guitars drenched in reverb. Although mostly lighter in tone than her previous records, there's still darkness in Cranekiss and won't disappoint long-time fans. We're a little late to the game with this review, the record having been released a couple of months ago, but Cranekiss will most definitely be on at least one aQ top-ten list for 2015.
The acid rock experts at Permanent & Riding Easy teamed up to produce this cool comp of underground American hard rock / proto-metal obscurities from the '70s, full of badass bands that would never, ever have had to be told "more cowbell!", bands who aspired to arenas but probably didn't get much beyond the garage, with a lone self-released demo single to their names, most of 'em - real finds, and real rarities, so we'd only heard of, like, one of 'em before! Lotsa fuzzed out grooves, wailing vocals, and heavy riffing guitar, a lot like the tracks on Numero's brilliant Darkscorch Canticles comp, but less mystical and D&D-ish, more straight up hard rockin party times tunes, probably inspired by Led Zep and Grand Funk but coming closer to Frijid Pink and Bubble Puppy. Crank this loud enough, and it's another Record Of The Week for some of us here, and likewise should be for those of you who daydream about the airbrushed fantasy artwork that'll go on the side of the van you'd like to own one day. For the curious, the acts on here are: Box, Snow, Tour, Zebra, Bob Goodsite, Raw Meat (whose track reminds us of Simply Saucer in a weird way), Punch, Bacchus, Lenny Drake, Todd, and Josefus.
More over, Adele! The original Songs Of The Humpback Whale record was a big best-seller in the '70s, and while this sequel, curated by philosopher/composer David Rothenberg, might not go on to sell millions of copies, it's still a wonderful collection of more recent recordings from around the globe of the otherworldly music made by our remaining blubbery friends - watery recordings that are as strange as they are compelling, at times reminding us of some free jazz saxophone improvisations we've heard. There's a quality of 'communication' one can sense here that goes deeper than, say, your average bird twitter (or most Twitter for that matter). And, in addition to scientific liner notes, the cd booklet features colorful graphical representations, created by infographic designer Michael Deal, to help human listeners better appreciate the complex structure and dare we say artistry of these lengthy whale songs.
