[ Andee favorites ]

IMPORTANT (Please read to avoid confusion): Some items below may be tagged with a bold, red, all-caps OUT OF PRINT/UNAVAILABLE notice. This does NOT mean that all other items not so tagged are, in fact, in stock — or for that matter, in print and available, though there's a good chance they are. Some folks get confused on this point, and we can see why, so please read this for further clarification and other important before-you-order information. Unlike some mailorder websites, we don't have an electronic inventory system linked to our site, so you can't be sure of what we actually have or don't have in stock at any given moment without asking us — please email our mailorder department for availability status — or better yet, just go ahead and place your order using our shopping cart function and we'll get back to you with the status of each item. If you have general non-mailorder questions, email the store.

Showing results 1301 through 1350 of 2844.

This is indeed the best of both worlds. Touted as the first ever superstar, hip hop/R+B collaboration, ok maybe, but whatever. The pont is, this shit is goooood and I am digging this record like crazy. Imagine any of the last two or three Jay-Z records (and we

RealAudio clip: Best of Both Worlds
RealAudio clip: Take You Home Wtih Me A.K.A. Body

Finland's Kemialliset Ystavat (and Avarus, and Anaksimandros, and Uton, and Lau Nau, and Doktor Kettu, etc.) are often referred to as "forest-folk", implying some sort of quiet, gentle rustling mystery amidst the trees, and sometimes that's quite the case. But the first few tracks here, on Kemialliset's latest, would certainly scare off any friendly small animals -and- wake up the sleeping forest trolls. It's woozy woodsy cacophony unleashed. This be outsider "folk" at its most abstract and noisy and "free". But, by track four or five things have calmed down a bit, the sounds have gotten more organized. Some charismatic, long-haired, bearded guru has obviously taken charge of the previously wild music-makers, their pagan energy now channelled down paths previously trod unshod by the likes of Parson Sound and Amon Duul... more mellow and musical, still druggy and damaged. Track six, "Superhimmeli", comes off like something by cult '60s ESP tribe Cromagnon!! (Perhaps due to having the same keening horn cry as heard in Cromagnon's "Caledonia".) There's a hippy chant drone density to a lot of this that's VERY satisfying. It's like an ancient celebration underway, wooden space rock rituals, accompanied by electronic squiggles or birds atwitter, burbling and gurgling sounds in the margins... sunshiney yet strange, very strange. Fonal thinks this is one of their best yet and we wouldn't argue. NB. There IS vinyl of this, but unfortunately the copies we got were damaged -- we're expecting replacements from Finland soon, though.

MPEG stream: Tulinen Kiihdytys
MPEG stream: Superhimmeli
MPEG stream: Himmeli Kutsuu Minua

We've been waiting for this one for ages, since we first heard rumors about a new Bay Area black metal band featuring P. Helmkamp (Angelcorpse, Revenge, Order From Chaos), J. Read (Cremation, Revenge, Axis Of Advance) and local shredder B. Wolaniuk, formerly of local black metal horde Horn Of Dagoth. And this 4 track chunk of frenzied filth definitely does not disappoint. A crushing, atmospheric, blasting occultic black metal blowout, the riffs lurching from frantic insectoid buzz to angular woozy tangle, the drums pounding and chaotic, effortlessly shifting from caveman pound to lighting fast blast, the record begins super creepy and ominous, militaristic and doomy, but explodes into a frantic black thrash, that twists and turns, stops and starts, the arrangements super dense and complex, it's easy to hear the band's pedigree, but we also hear plenty of more modern influences, like Deathspell and Katharsis. It's a churning, roiling black abyss, rife with jagged shards of black riffery, glass gargling demonic hell-vox, and the drums, holy shit is Read a monster behind the kit. The sound of Kerasphorus is like a massive black force, enveloping everything in its path, lumbering demonic crush gives way to frenetic blur, a dizzying, exhausting, punishing brutal black cloven hoof to the soul, but it's not all blast and buzz, the melodies are serpentine, and wind their way through even the most fractured and fucked up parts, the riffs are strangely gnarled and occasionally transform into loping, almost seasick sounding slithery stretches, the drums locked in tight following right along, with Read's weird hissing high hat black waltz rhythm leading the way, the band always eventually returning to the grim black blast, furiously pounding away, a relentless, dynamic, unstoppable blackness. Fucking awesome.

MPEG stream: The Abyssal Sanhedrin
MPEG stream: Aosoth Paradigm

As much as we think sometimes we have a real way with words, there's always somebody who totally puts us to shame, which is exactly why we're gonna start our review of this, the sixth and latest record from Finnish underground outsider rock weirdo one man band Keuhkot ('lungs' in Finnish), with a description written by Jussi of Circle, whose label Ektro released it: "The sixth struggle album of Kake Puhuu. The combat noise and insect world music downpreaching book. Rawer than its precursors, this album strips it down to marrow and squeezes juice out of it. Keuhkot batters mindless attributes of humanity from insects' point of view by means of reverse pop music. The aim is towards backwoods motorism, meritocamping, real men, moose hunt madness and established global upstarts. The most bearded feminist of Finland, Keuhkot, kicks the real man's groin. Keuhkot makes its own ethnic fusion gadding from rhythmic highways to distorted sidepaths in a refreshed guitar oriented soundscape. You may call it freaky but according to Kake, pop music (including metal, of course) is a freaky industrialized illness that needs a vaccination � which is Keuhkot." We definitely couldn't have said it better ourselves, but heck, why not give it a try? Longtime readers of the aQ list might remember Andee's harrowing and ultra personal private Keuhkot performance in an abandoned schoolhouse in the wilds of rural Finland (you can read more about it elsewhere on the aQ site, in one of the other Keuhkot reviews), and are quite possibly already fans of Kake Puhuu's twisted sonic world of primitive programmed drums, twisted percussion, weird samples, layered loops, warped and woozy synths, detuned guitars and warbled guttural vox, and how could you not be, Puhuu is like the underground electro minimal abstract noise rock Jandek of Finland, record after record of totally idiosyncratic, ultra personal, musical weirdness, that sonically is all over the map, be it twang flecked almost Western sounding folk, woozy crooned torch songs, junkyard percussion driven lo-fi dirge rock, stumbling hypno-prog, who knows how the heck to classify any of this, easiest to just say this is some sort of utterly singular, surreal Finnish psychedelia, equal parts the Residents, Tom Waits, Birthday Party, Cop Shoot Cop, and who knows what else, all filtered through that totally cracked Finnish sensibility that informs so much of the Finnish music we love. A little bit circusy, a LOT whatthefuck, droney, fuzzy, distorted, stumbly, we want to say this is the best Keuhkot yet, but we sort of love them all, cuz they're all great. We'd say it's the weirdest, but they're all pretty goddamn weird too. We will say the opening track "Kuuluisia Alkemisteja Vol 1", is one of the coolest jams we've heard in ages, all super blown out synth buzz, pulsing and undulating, laced with haunting disembodied vocals, but the sort of droned out abstract psych trip out we could listen to forever. Just check out the samples, and prepare yourself to be baffled and confused and totally transported to some seriously demented sonic otherworld, and Jussi did in fact say it best: Keuhkot kicks the real man's groin!

MPEG stream: Kuuluisia Alkemisteja Vol 2
MPEG stream: Puhumatta Paras
MPEG stream: Pinkki & Ruskee
MPEG stream: Aikakauden Loppu

Whatever you do, don't let the godawful cover art fool you. This is not some crappy new age cd you'd buy in an art gallery in New Mexico, while picking up some healing crystals. This is some seriously demented, gloriously inspired outsider free jazz abstract psychedelic dub tribal weirdness. You'd never know from the cover though. A super cheesy crayon drawing of the band beneath some pyramids... ugh. Inside there's a bad ass photo of the band, killer afros, leather jackets, cravat, one guy holding a flute, leaning against a wall, looking ready to unleash some seriously cosmic musical might. Had that picture been on the cover you'd know exactly what you were getting into. Cuz this is indeed some seriously cosmic shit. Released originally in 1973 in a run of 300 copies, this disc by vibraphonist Khan Jamal has become a jazz head free music freak holy grail. And it's easy to see why. A heady mix of vibes, marimba, clarinet, drums, glockenspiel, guitar, bass and percussion. But it's all about the drums. These four lengthy tracks are all about rhythm. If the opener doesn't totally blow your mind, there is something seriously wrong. A completely effect drenched burst of free jazz drum splatter, careening and echoing all over the place, horns bleating, reverberating into infinity, adding more tripped out percussive swirl to the already chaotic soundfield. Eventually the drums drift off, and the track morphs into some dizzying glockenspiel marimba jam, all tinkle and shimmer, still drifting in swirls of FX and random clatter. This track alone makes this disc essential. But it's only the beginning. The second track is like a supercharged, blown out, extended version of the opener, just with more horns and a more obvious rhythm. A groovy free jazz drum jam, beneath skronking horns, shouting and hand clapping, reverb drenched horns, a total wild and wooly free for all, before the marimba comes in, and things coalesce into a slightly less abstract funky free jazz percussion blow out. So good. Track three is the most subtle of the bunch, but that in no way means it's any less weird or tripped out. A droney bass line, some jazzy smokey guitar, all beneath a dense swirl of percussive shakers, wrapped in tons of FX, a sort of dubbed out ambient jazz. A slow mellow groove that sort of drifts and slithers, occasionally bits of freaky effects float by, but for the most part it's all late night mellowness, a slow stroll through a moonlit alley, or hold up in the dark corner of some alien jazz bar. The final track takes the smokey moonlit ambience of track three and gives it the King Tubby treatment, Sounds are dubbed to kingdom come, melodies become distorted and crumble into pieces before they're sent careening into the ether, drums shuffle and stutter, occasionally being propelled dubwise, the whole thing sounding like some Wes Montgomery b-side produced by Lee Perry. A supreme, super laid back dub drenched free jazz freakout of the highest order. In fact this whole disc is some sort of cosmic dub drenched free jazz from beyond. Some seriously Sun Ra meets King Tubby in the great hereafter shit. A divine jam session transmitted through some mysterious sound system and captured on tape. Totally and completely mindblowing.

MPEG stream: Cosmic Echoes
MPEG stream: Drum Dance

We usually start reviews of records released on Mississippi Records with a blaring announcement that looks a little like this: **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** Cuz we know there are plenty of folks out there, that like us, are crazy obsessed with that label, and will buy ANYthing and EVERYthing they release. And we imagine those folks will no doubt buy this one as well, but for the folks who might not be quite so Mississippi obsessed, or who might have gotten in the habit of seeing that announcement and skipping on by, we didn't want anyone to miss out on this one, because this record just might be the one to suck you in and MAKE you that obsessed. Sure it's yet another incredible unearthed gem from the crazy music obsessives who run the impeccable Mississippi Records label, and as we hinted at above, pretty much everything they release is worth checking out, and yeah, they're all special in their own way, there's a bunch of others on this very list, but this one, this one is something else altogether, a collection of 78s from legendary Indian classical vocalist Khansahib Abdul Karim Khan, dense, lush, emotional and spiritual ragas, haunting and mystical and completely gorgeous. A huge influence of legendary minimalist composer La Monte Young, in fact the liner notes offer up a quote from Young that basically says it all: "When I first heard the recordings of Abdul Karim Khan I thought that perhaps it would be best if I gave up singing, got a cabin up in the mountains, stocked it with a record player and recordings of Abdul Karim Khan, and just listened for the rest of my life." We can definitely understand his feelings, this is the sort of music, so powerful and so passionate, that it definitely puts most 'singers' to shame. The instrumentation is very traditional classical Indian, but it's the vocals that drive these songs, the instruments way down in the mix, Khan's gorgeous vocals soaring and dramatic, haunting and moving and utterly breathtaking. We've seen descriptions of these recordings as being "not easy listening, but ultimately very rewarding", and while we definitely agree with the second half of the statement, these sounds while complex and totally unlike most of the other music you've heard, are not at all difficult to listen to, just the opposite, after just a few seconds, you'll be whisked away, totally transported, as the sounds surround you, and seep into your spirit and soul. The music here so utterly transcendent, so lush, warm and welcoming, yet at the same time, so strange and wondrous, Khan's voice sounding like its bathed in divine light. Khansahib Abdul Karim Khan truly was a sonic shaman for the ages, delivering these divine musical messages to us, his willing supplicants. Incredible. Packaged in super thick full color old school tip-on jackets, with a big booklet packed with liner notes and photos.

MPEG stream: Pyare Nazar Nahin - Bilawal
MPEG stream: Phagwa Brij Dekhanako - Basant Khayal Jalad Tritaal
MPEG stream: Jamuna Ke Teer - Bhairavi Thumri
MPEG stream: Jadu Bhareli Kaun - Gara Thumri

Recently released on vinyl by Mississippi Records, and made a Record Of The Week by us, this fantastic collection of 78s from legendary Indian classical vocalist Ustad Abdul Karim Khan is now available on cd (with different cover art for some reason). Compiled by Ian Nagoski (who also put together some of our favorite old timey 78's collections, including Brass Pins & Match Heads, Unheard Ofs & Forgotten Abouts and Black Mirror: Reflections In Global Musics, among others!), the sounds here are unlike anything you've ever heard, so haunting and mysterious, timeless and powerful, a collection of lush, spiritual ragas, which manage to be both simple and Spartan, yet simultaneously sonically dense and melodically complex, a soundworld both moving and mystical, emotional and utterly gorgeous. Khan was a huge influence on legendary minimalist composer La Monte Young, in fact the Mississippi lp liner notes offer up a quote from Young that basically sums it up better than we ever could: "When I first heard the recordings of Abdul Karim Khan I thought that perhaps it would be best if I gave up singing, got a cabin up in the mountains, stocked it with a record player and recordings of Abdul Karim Khan, and just listened for the rest of my life." We can definitely understand his feelings, this is the sort of music, so powerful and so passionate, that it definitely puts most 'singers' to shame. The instrumentation is very traditional classical Indian, but it's the vocals that drive these songs, the instruments way down in the mix, Khan's intense and ecstatic vocals soaring and dramatic, so commanding yet still impossibly warm and mellifluous. We've seen descriptions of these recordings as being "not easy listening, but ultimately very rewarding", and while we definitely agree with the second half of the statement, these sounds, while complex and totally unlike most 'Western' music you've heard, are not at all difficult to listen to, just the opposite, after just a few seconds, you'll be whisked away, totally transported, as the sounds surround you, and seep into your spirit and soul, soft swirls of soothing sonorous, sonic spiritual bliss. The music here so utterly transcendent, so lush, warm and welcoming, yet at the same time, so strange and wondrous, Khan's voice sounding like it's bathed in divine light. Ustad Abdul Karim Khan truly was a sonic shaman for the ages, delivering these divine musical messages to us, his willing supplicants. Incredible.

MPEG stream: (Drut)
MPEG stream: (Adatai)
MPEG stream:
MPEG stream: (Ektal)

We're huge fans of Norwegian black metallers Khold, who we've described in the past as a black metal Nirvana, which while perhaps simplifying it a bit too much, does essentially get at the root of their sound. The weird thing is we thought Khold were dead and gone. Before Khold were Khold, they were an equally kick ass, but sonically quite different outfit called Tulus. After several records Tulus got an image overhaul as well as a sonic one, and become Khold, their new sound much more, hence the black metal Nirvana reference, and their look, well as we've mentioned in past reviews, probably the coolest looking frontman we've seen, wearing some sort of black furry skirt, a black turtleneck, then face painted black just up to his nose, so it looks like some black entity is creeping up his body, the top half of his bald head painted white. The effect is quite striking. Anyway, we reviewed the most recent Tulus record a while back, assuming Khold were on hold, but it seems both bands can exist simultaneously, all the better for us!! So Khold is back, and their sound is pretty similar, the riffs simple and almost groovy, the tempos a slow pounding chug for the most part, barring the occasional almost blast, the vocals a raspy howl, the drums simple and stripped down, the bass a deep throb, in fact the more Khold progress it's hard to say what even makes them black metal anymore beyond their pedigree. This new disc sound almost more punk than metal, some sort of crusty, metallic garage punk, albeit with a wicked huge percussion. The hooks aren't as obvious this time around, which on the one hand is a bit of a bummer, but on the other makes this record sound a lit meaner, and harder, and well, a bit more punk. Although repeated listens have definitely revealed some hidden killer hooks that stick in your head like crazy: the tangled little angular bridge in "Forrykt", the strange melodic almost post-rock-isms of "Rekviem". And weirdly enough the more we listen, the more the vocals start reminding us of Killdozer, who we LOVE. And the bottom line with any metal record, black or otherwise, is that it's all about the riffs, and the riffs here KILL. This is probably not the kind of record that will appeal to most black metallers, way too groovy and punky, and not enough buzz or blast, but for the rest of you, who might be into some slightly blackened, heavy as fuck, catchy, punky metallic rock, Khold might be right up your alley.

MPEG stream: Forrykt
MPEG stream: Hundre Ar Gammal
MPEG stream: Der Kulden Rar

This is easily my favorite metal record this year (sez Andee) along with the Crest of Darkness, and the Thorns record. Like the Thorns record, Khold has a very clinical, wintery feel, but the sound has much more in common with Burzum. Fierce and buzzing,

RealAudio clip: Nattpyre
RealAudio clip: Svart Hellingdom
RealAudio clip: Kaldbleke Hender

Album number two from these grim purveyors of Nordic darkness. The first Khold record was one of Andee's favorite records of last year, so our expectations were high for this one, and 'Phantom' did not diappoint. But it did surprise, however -- more on that

RealAudio clip: Skjebnevette
RealAudio clip: Phantom
RealAudio clip: Dodens Grode

A record like this is pretty much destined to be an aQ Record Of The Week. A super limited double lp, on Sublime Frequencies, featuring two whole lps of spaced out Arabic instrumental psychedelic surf rock and Eastern progressive beat, from legendary Arabic actor and musician Omar Khorshid, who is criminally unknown outside of the Middle East, especially considering his high profile, and the fact that this is some of the heaviest, buzziest, most rockingest stuff we've heard yet on Sublime Frequencies. Born in Cairo, and widely considered to be the greatest guitarist in the Arab world, Khorshid became a ubiquitous presence in the Middle East, performing live, in televised concerts as an actor in films and on television, by the seventies he began working with a legendary Beirut composer, and his music became more and more avant and progressive, as did those who looked to him for inspiration, he helped introduce modern electronics, reverb, delay and other effects, pushing his sound way out, and creating something totally unique, and pretty fantastical. On first listen, you can't help but be blown away. Wild tangled outer space synths, buzzy sitar like guitars, wild drumming, a strange sort of hypnotic buzzing Eastern style surf rock, which to these ears sounds like it was cooked up in a makeshift kitchen recording studio by an Arab Joe Meek. Fuzz guitar all over the place, almost like a Middle Eastern Ventures, propuslive, hypnotic, totally rocking, energetic and inspired, and seriously progressive, especially for the time. His death was as dramatic as his life, after performing in 1977 at the Egyptian / Israeli summit at the White House, and being seated between Presidents Carter, Begin and Sadat, he was constantly harassed, enduring several assasination attempts and near constant surveillance, before being killed at age 36 in a mysterious car crash. But his legacy lives on in his music, finally being exposed to a wider audience, a music at once original and forward thinking, exuberant, ebullient, fun and funky, wild and rocking and totally unique. Definitely one of our favorite Sublime Frequencies releases. Only on vinyl for now, and while it's likely there will be a cd version (which we'll also make a Record Of The Week when the time comes), we can never be 100 percent sure, so better grab one of these quick, espeically considering we only got 40 of these and most likely won't be able to get any more! ----* ----* Highlights : ----*

It all started with a video on YouTube. Odds are one of your music nerd friends sent it to you already, or maybe you WERE one of those music nerds, sending it to everyone you know. Check it out: KHUN NARIN ELECTRIC PHIN BAND [http://youtu.be/IYGl-l0Toig?list=FLCuwmGlbaOAStwXMiPVY5Kw] A mysterious video with very little in the way of description, but really, it hardly needed a description, the sound was incredible, a wild, percussive, effusive, droning psychedelia, like a Thai version of Konono No.1, all buzzing distorted melodies, hypnotic rhythms, we, like many of you, must have watched that video a hundred times. And the visuals too, a group of musicians, relaxing in plastic chairs, in a town square, all in matching red vests, presumably from their jobs as taxi drivers, the sound pumped out through a wheeled, home built PA, all manner of instruments, double necked guitar style lutes, hand cymbals, drums, percussion, while all around them, people mill about, seemingly oblivious, to the psychedelic genius going on right before their strangely averted eyes! Well somehow, some fella got in touch with the band in the video, and organized a proper recording for the group, which we discovered was in fact, Khun Narin Phin Sing, or Khun Narin's Electric Phin Band, the name taken from the group's use of an electrified, double necked version of a traditional Thai instrument, the lute-like phin. As for the folks in the video that seem to be ignoring the music and the musicians, apparently this sort of music is pretty commonplace in Thailand, even former aQ staffer Byram, who lived there for the last few years, told us he'd wander past bands like this playing all over, all the time, but for the rest of us, this stuff is a revelation, and Khun Narin Phin Sing crazy new Thai psych rock stars that we're totally obsessed with. The record itself was recorded in a way to as closely as possible replicate the YouTube video, no fancy studios, no expensive mics and multi-track recorders, no overdubs, instead, the band set up in a field right outside their town, in the mountains on Thailand's Northern border, and the music was captured field recording style, live, one take, the group made up of multiple generations, from kids in high school, to men in their '60s, the band running their instruments through chains of guitar pedals, using home built instruments and amplifiers, and of course that custom PA system, a visually and sonically striking behemoth made of 8 loudspeaker horns mounted atop a huge bass cabinet, with wheels of course, and the group just let loose, unfurling a glorious sprawl of droning, buzzy, heady, hypnotic Thai psychedelia, spidery distorted guitar melodies over motorik rhythms, minimal percussion, loping sinewy basslines, the sounds growing more urgent and frenzied, the wild phin shredding drifting atop a roiling bed of constantly swirling and shimmering buzz and thrum, gloriously mesmerizing, and totally transcendent, so utterly amazing, and absolutely recommended to anyone into weird and wonderful sounds, but especially fans of Sublime Frequencies style desert psych, who will be in heaven!! Vinyl version comes with a download card, btw.

MPEG stream: Lam Phu Thai
MPEG stream: Lai Sing
MPEG stream: Show Wong Khun Narin

This is definitely one of my favorite metal records from the '80s (and now Allan's too even though he hadn't heard it until a few years ago). And one of the few that has actually held up pretty well, all things considered. Sure it's cheesy, I mean, c'mon,

RealAudio clip: Cause For Alarm
RealAudio clip: Dreamin' About You
RealAudio clip: Stay On Top
RealAudio clip: Heavy Metal Shuffle

I know we seem to be kind of hard on Kid606. We are. He's the artist du jour. He's on practically every electronica compilation that came out in the last two years, everyone wants to put his records out, everyone wants to remix him (or be remixed by him),

RealAudio clip: MP3 Killed The CD Star (Excerpt One)
RealAudio clip: MP3 Killed The CD Star (Excerpt two)
RealAudio clip: Kiddy Needs A New Pair Of Laptops
RealAudio clip: Never Underestimate The Value Of A Holler (Vipee-pee Mix)

Oh boy. It had to happen. And it did, at 2007's Festival International de Musique Actuelle in Victoriaville, Quebec. Kikuri is the heavyweight team up of two folks who cast long shadows in the realm of Japanese underground music: Japanoise master Merzbow (for he is Masami Akita) and that totemic Tokyo psych veteran, Keiji Haino, longtime leader of the free rock band Fushitsusha. There they are in the photo on the inside of the cd booklet, Haino and Akita both standing stoically in a leafy green forest... hey has Haino's hair turned grey, a la J. Mascis (with bangs)?? It's about time (not for the grey, for the team up). Haino has collaborated recently with Tatsuya Yoshida of Ruins (including another highlight on this week's list!), and KK Null of Zeni Geva, and some years back with all of Boris, but this one's definitely as earthshaking (literally) as any of those, if not moreso. So, think this might be dark, dense, and noisy? You're right! Putting this on is like telling your stereo, wake up, time to die!!! The first four of five tracks on this disc are all extreme, crinkled, screaming, disssstorrtted NOISE. It's interestingly varied, and very Merzbovian - although the cryptic, wordy song titles which are definitely the work of poetic soul Keiji Haino... such as: "Give Me Back That Colour You Stole From My Guts" (track 3) and "That Place Into Which You Fell Was Lined With A Cushion Of Pain And Is No Proof Of You Continuing Existence" (track 4). Yep, these initial four tracks of brutal catharsis, all but one of them over 10 minutes long, are quite excellent if you're a Merzbow fan, though those who know Haino will definitely be able to hear his input too, beyond the titles. The track "By Mischance That Soul I Devoured Was A Transparent, Vertical Blues" features bursts of his trademark tortured vocals amidst the throbbing hissing static that could be the work of either party. (Making it more of a "blues" is an outsider guitar part, well we think that's a guitar, plucked probably by Haino.) In any case, up to track five, this disc sounds most like Merzbow, with Haino as a special guest. But then, tipping the balance back towards Haino and his special brand of electric guitar apocalypse, comes the disc's last and longest track, with the shortest title, "Pulverized Purple". That's got to be Haino's title too, 'cause he has always had a thing about the color purple, no not the Alice Walker book. It takes up about half the disc, over 30 minutes long. And while it too is plenty distorted and noisy, like what came before it, it also features gobs and gobs of totally recognizable-as-guitar guitar playing, sheer howling psychedelic feedback style, that had even Andee here (who normally is a Haino hater, weirdly enough, and also thinks he's heard enough Merzbow already) declaring that this was fantastic. Heavy, heavy, droney, droney, and definitely worth the price of admission even if you maybe wouldn't normally buy a Merzbow record. Allan, who IS a big Haino fan, is happy that Andee has finally found something he likes by Haino (in large part 'cause it downplays his distinctive vocal stylings in favor of the way out heavy guitar wailin'). Shut up and play yer guitar is Andee's advice for Haino, and he takes it here. This is definitely something for fans of Fushitsusha (natch), Skullflower, White Heaven, Boris, Brotzmann (Caspar), Les Rallizes, LSD-march... The thick feedback wranglin' and added buzz and hiss sounds a bit like Hendrix' famous "Star Spangled Banner" trip given Striborg-style production!! Meanwhile, Masami Akita gets behind the kit to provide urgent drum tumble and cymbal splatter, reminding us that he played drums on that ol' krautrocky Crystal Fist cd that was a fave 'round here some years back. Damn. Recommended!

MPEG stream: Give Me Back That Colour You Stole From My Guts
MPEG stream: Pulverized Purple

Not sure why we didn't review the recent full length from Killing Sound, a trio of producers which includes aQ fave Vessel, but this remix of the opening track from that record has us thinking we better right that wrong, although here, that track gets reworked as something way more fierce and fucked up and brutal. The more chilled out original, here recast as some dark, dark jungle, all droned out ambience, brooding sonic malevolence, laced with haunting vox, that devolves into some seriously grimy, dubbed out drum and bass, all oozing low end throb, echo drenched skitter, the whole thing laced with all manner of creepy sound FX, what sounds like a power drill, stretched out into a keening tone, plenty of crunch and crumble, a slow build to a seriously bombastic finale, rib cage rattling bass and pounding beats, all wreathed in a swirl of grim atmospheric ambience. Killer!

MPEG stream: $ixxx Harmonie$ Version

Man, this is one of those records that just makes you feel dirty. We explained all this in a previous review, but it probably bears repeating. Initially we thought this band was called Kill WHITEY Dead. Pretty cool name. The we discovered that in fact the band was called Kill WHITNEY Dead. Whitney? Huh? Not so cool. Until we realized that the whole record was just a massive vitriolic hate letter from the band to a despised ex-lover. Who we shall call Whitney. Then it made a lot more sense, and was way more creepy and intense. Hateful (but funny) song titles, punishing, ultra heavy, grinding metalcore, but the key to KWD's sound is their use of samples. There are plenty of vocals, howled gutteral death metal growls, but the message is in the choice of samples. And KWD don't just use samples here and there. No, samples are in and around EVERY song. Every break, or stop start riff (and there are tons) is filled with some sample, from some movie, invariably a terrified woman, or an angry angry man. Quite fucked up and intense. But the samples are perfect, as if instead of two vocalists, they have one live vocalist and one sampled vocalist. Hundreds of samples from movies like Apocalypse Now, The Ring, Murder By Numbers, Alien 3, Magnolia, Full Metal Jacket, Wet Hot American Summer, The Abyss, Point Break, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Punch Drunk Love, Planet Of The Apes, Robocop, European Vacation, To Live And Die In L.A., American Psycho, Legend, Rushmore, Red Dawn and tons more. The insane thing is they got permission for ALL of them. Crazy, So what we've got here is possibly one of the heaviest, meanest, most fucked up and certainly most sample heavy grind metal records in a long long while. For a short while, So Pretty So Plastic also includes a bonus remix disc. I know, we're just as sick of remix discs as you, but this one is different. And totally brilliant. The remix disc is essentially the EXACT same record. No wait, not even essentially, it IS the same record, the only difference being that ALL OF THE SAMPLES ARE DIFFERENT! So fucking nuts, Same places, same lengths, but completely different samples. Wow! We already thought these guys were movie nerd / tech geeks before, but the bonus disc really seals the deal! Plus the bonus disc is packaged perfectly to look like a KMFDM record, only the band is called KWDMF (Killwhitneydead motherfucker?)!

MPEG stream: The Age Old Dilemma Of Romance Vs. Retribution
MPEG stream: Save Your Sermons For Sunday So I Can Sleep This Night Off
MPEG stream: If I Told You I Loved You Would I Get It Any Faster?

This has quickly become THE chill out / going-to-sleep, warm inside rainy outside record of the last few weeks. So lush and lovely. Sort of in the vein of Kompakt's Pop Ambient series. Warm and muted, skittery rhythms and deep distant heroin house throbs beneath gently finger picked guitars, shuffling shifting chordal drones and drifting hazy melodies. The perfect mix of Gas's ambient shimmer, Oval's crystalline underwater flutter and Chain Reaction's propulsive thump, all set nicely into a strangely post rock framework. So good.

MPEG stream: Farn
MPEG stream: Sonntagsblute

Um, ok, either you're reading this review BECAUSE the band is named King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, or you were just about to stop reading it 'cause the band is named King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. If the latter is the case, please stick with it, they're actually a better band than their name might suggest (we're making this a Record Of The Week after all!!). Or, if you do think the name is cool, then they ARE as good of a band as you're hoping for. But maybe not the sort of band you'd think they'd be. It's actually kind of hard to pin down exactly what kind of band Australia's King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are, anyway. Kind of cosmic garage psych pop? The first disc here, Float Along - Fill Your Lungs (originally released on its own last year in their home country) starts off stonery enough with a fifteen minute spaced out extravaganza called "Head On/Pill", truly a trippy psychedelic swirl, a mind-altering mix of lilting melodies, gentle vocals, and driving motorik rhythms, with loads and loads of FX, all sorts of fuzz and distortion. It's spacey and sunshiney and somehow like a much more garage-poppy Hawkwind or Acid Mothers Temple track. Had us sold right there. But this 7-piece ensemble aren't just about the extended space rock (pop). Most of rest of the songs on Float Along are much shorter, taking elements of that first track, or not, and going to other delightful garage-pop places, variously strummy and twangy and foot-tapping and head-nodding, fuzzy and shambolic, before winding the disc up with another long, tripped out (but mellower) jam in the form of the Eastern-tinged, drone-laced title track. THEN, there's the 2nd disc, also released separately this year Down Under, the aptly titled Oddments, which is even more varied than the 1st disc. This one starts with a Bollywood-sampling instrumental that makes us think of ol' Money Mark and the Beastie Boys, super groovy and kinda chaotic, fuzzy "hairy funk", with lots of organ and synth sizzle. The psych-groove continues on the next, vocal track, bringing in visions of early Funkadelic and Shuggie Otis. But then, as the disc spins, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard (love typing that name out!) get back into the ramshackle '60s teen garage pop inspired songwriting that also made up the bulk of the first disc, with a dash of distorted Ariel Pink-ish dementia. The wispy vocals of "Work This Time" make us think of Vincent Gallo's solo album When, "Hot Wax" is a weird, catchy jam incorporating some "Surfing Safari" quotes, "Homeless Man In Adidas" (!) is a hushed acoustic folk number... you see, all over the place. Oddments indeed. Overall, soundwise, King Gizzard align themselves with the Ty Segall / Thee Oh Sees type of crowd, and so it's no surprise then that they're gonna be over here in the States in October touring with White Fence. Hope we get to see that. Seems like they'd be a blast live. But King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard's style of "garage rock" is waaaay more cosmic and psychedelic and randomly bizarre than a lot of their US contemporaries, that's for sure. We'll be indulging ourselves heavily in both these records for a while yet, trying to fully get our heads around 'em. Nice, nice, nice.

MPEG stream: Head On/Pill
MPEG stream: Mystery Jack
MPEG stream: Pop In My Step
MPEG stream: Alluda Majaka
MPEG stream: Vegemite

You'd think it would be easy to write reviews of records you love, but it's not, not always anyway. This band, though, makes the task easier, 'cause maybe we can just say a few key words: JAPAN. DOOM. PSYCH. CRAZY. Uh... is that doing the trick? Tokyo trio King Goblin, who describe themselves as a "progressive space psychedelic death rock band", definitely have that "anything goes", totally WTF?! Japanese thing going for 'em, mixing up prog and punk and funk and metal and noise whatever else they want, you know what we mean if you have albums by bands like Boredoms, Melt Banana, Children Coup D'Etat, Space Streakings, Omoide Hatoba, Green Milk From The Planet Orange, and others of that ilk in your collection. Specifically, though, the Japanese bands that King Goblin most especially make us think of are CSSO, Solar Anus, and Sigh (circa Imaginary Sonicscape). Somehow melding gonzo grind and druggy doom, plodding heaviness and catchy grooves, the nine strange songs here bouncing from spaced out acid rock to lumbering funk, with rubbery bass, squiggly guitar, gruff guttural vocals, and, as it says here, "hand craps" (sorry if it's not PC to chuckle over that particular credit in the cd booklet!). Imagine if retro-disco-doomsters Cathedral got even weirder than they already are now, turned Japanese, and went no wave... that might approximate the dizzying extreme entertainment offered up by King Goblin. Also, how can songs with titles like "Boiled Again (Born To Ride)" and "Motordead" not be entertaining? This disc, their debut, actually dates from 2007, but we only discovered 'em recently, and got some copies directly from Japan as quick as we could. They're working on a new album, to be entitled Cryptozoology, but unfortunately the guitarist of King Goblin is currently suffering from some unspecified, serious illness, so that's delaying things. Hopefully he gets better soon!! However, a couple of the King Goblin guys are also in wicked sick grindcore band called AKBK, who have a brand new album out that smokes, so look out for us to list that, soon!

MPEG stream: Megalomaniacs
MPEG stream: From Dusk 'Til You Die
MPEG stream: Datura

Originally discovered by one of our pals at Root Strata, you can just imagine the emails: "You guys gotta check out this band King Kong Ding Dong!" "Um... really?" "Seriously, they're so amazing, KING KONG DING DONG!" "Ummm, okay..." Originally we thought maybe it was all a ploy, and it was them messing with us, maybe they had recorded a bunch of stuff themselves and were trying to dupe us into heaping praises on what was essentially a joke, but we took their advice, sought out KKDD, and gave it a listen, and HOLY SHIT. All it took was about a minute of "Evil", and we were hooked. We made a sample, it's down below, we'll wait... listen, and read on... After some woozy guitar and amp buzz and cord crackle, the band lock into a mesmerizing minimal groove, a loping melody, disembodied voices, swirls of effected buzz, simple tribal percussion, and then BAM, the main riff comes in, all languid and stoned sounding, super spaced out, just two notes, a weird sort of indie folk doom, crooned and hummed vocal harmonies underscore the warm warped riff and the stumbling drums wrapped around it. It's almost like some weird hybrid of Silvester Anfang, True Widow, Animal Collective and No Neck Blues Band or something. Raw and lo-fi, loose and shambling, but so darkly heavy and groovy and hypnotic. We listened to that track about 100 times, before we even moved on to the rest of the record, which was just chock full of sonic surprises. Nothing else on the record is quite like "Evil", the rest of the record flits all over the place from super abstract soundscapes to tuneful indie jangle, to vocal driven bliss out anti pop, to warm warped drone, but they are all somehow woven together into one organic, and constantly transforming whole. Opener "Jample", winds a strange looped crunchy riff over a simple pounding beat, and some reverby "whooo"s, female vocals belt out an equally reverbed counterpoint, the whole thing building to a super tripped out effects heavy dream pop freakout. Backwards guitars, lead out of that track into a gorgeous hazy acousticguitarscape, ethereal vocals definitely drifting into Animal Collective territory, but way more scrappy and lo-fi, shimmery sheets of indie jangle give way to blown out distorted drums and looped detuned melodies. Dreamy buzzy pop music gets twisted up into a strange Beach Boys dirge, all choral and chaotic, shot through with spidery high end melodies, which slips sweetly into a spare field of twinkle and twang, wrapped around distant drums and sweetly crooned falsetto vox. Then we're back to "Evil" again, which, heck, deserves yet another listen... The final four offer up more off kilter outsider dream pop stumble, high crystalline vocals drifting over distorted drum splatter and looped guitar shimmer, soft swirls of effects drift beneath almost operatic sounding harmonies, a sort of twangy slowcore, but slowly crumbling into something much more atmospheric and abstract. After a brief fanfare, what sounds like a soft cacophony of horns, comes a strange harmonica loop, which erupts into some gorgeous, hazy, near perfect minimal space psych drone dream pop. Shouldn't take long for the rest of the world to catch on. And wouldn't be surprised if these guys started getting hyped by Pitchfork or Matador or any other number of 'tastemakers', and heck, they deserve it, this stuff is mysterious and magical, and the fact that they're called King Kong Ding Dong, somehow only makes it that much better....

MPEG stream: Evil
MPEG stream: A Violent Light
MPEG stream: The Tiniest Anything
MPEG stream: Jample
MPEG stream: Here We Rest

The Coachmen are probably mostly known as the band that featured a pre-Sonic Youth Thurston Moore. We always just assumed that JD King was in fact a made up entity and was in fact Moore. But apparently the two met way back in 1976, bonding over their love of all things Velvet Underground, Flamin' Groovies and the like. So the two joined forces, started a band, and jammed around NY until they broke up in 1979. At which point Moore went on to Sonic Youth while King went on to become a illustrator / cartoonist. A few of those records came out in the mid eighties on Ecstatic Peace, which is probably why we all assumed that The Coachmen was just Moore in disguise. But King and the Coachmen resurfaced in the mid nineties with a new record before sort of fading away again, and then wham! 2006 and they're back again! So what the heck do these Coachmen sound like? Well, it's been ages since we've heard the old records, but we do remember it maybe being some sort of disconnected convoluted garage rock buzz blues stomp although it's been so long it's all a bit fuzzy. But fuzzy actually does begin to describe JD King And The Coachmen circa 2006. Imagine abstract streaks of fuzzed out guitar and dreamy tendrils of minor key melodies, hovering over thick swells of distorted buzz and a dense web of noodily bass lines, peppered with muted percussive thuds, or deep cavernous tangles of dense guitar over angular riffs and thick swaths of fuzznoise and simple tambourine, or tripped out space rock drift all tangled up in thickly reverbed guitar, freaked out psychguitar drift and moody mumbling backdrops of shimmering acoustic guitar and muddy bass rumble, or a tripped out disembodied Stoogesy stomp wrapped in swirling layers of distorted psychedelia and warm whirls of frothy fuzz. This is some sort of alien garage rock, some disembodied blues, broadcast from some other time (past? future? both?) from some other plane, a mysterious alternate universe that has more in common musically with bands like the No Neck Blues Band, Avarus, Excepter, Sunburned Hand and the rest of those druggy free rock troubadours than it does with the Velvets or the Groovies. But that's the magic, it's like King and his cohorts are a tribe of modern mediums, who mixed up a magical brew of guitar, bass and percussion, managing to conjure up a brood of garage rock ghosts of the past, letting them get all tangled up with the free noise spectres of the present.

MPEG stream: Agony (For Arshile Gorky)
MPEG stream: Bees Caught In The Wrong Hive
MPEG stream: Blues For Elizabeth Bentley

We've been meaning to review this for a while now, a fantastic release from composer / ethnomusicologist / field recordist Laurent Jeaneau, who is also a contributor to the Sublime Frequencies series, which makes sense listening to Xinjiang, a gloriously mesmerizing world music audio collage, named for the province in China where all of these sounds were captured. Xinjiang has a similar vibe as those 'Radio' collections on Sublime Frequencies, a dizzying sampling of local musics, but also the sounds of the city and the country and the people, a series of seamlessly arranged soundscapes made up of gently manipulated field recordings, voices from the radio, rural folk music, the sounds of animals, the clip clop of horses' hooves, bowed and plucked strings, simple percussion, mournful melodies, the various recordings varying dramatically in tone and timbre, some lush and vibrant, as if you were right there, others tinny and warbly, as if being broadcast from the past, but all blurred into a mesmerizing whole. In places the music gets super frenetic with wild percussion and manic melodies, but for the most part, the vibe is much more meditative and laid back. The sound slipping effortlessly from almost bluesy twang to dense melodic tangle, often rhythmic and tranced out, at times sounding like some sort of Chinese court music, with fluttering woodwinds, strange detuned string buzz and martial percussion, while other times like some timeless folk music. The A side is much more varied, and peppered with much of the more obviously constructed elements, while the B side is much more tranquil, stripped down and mostly acoustic. The collage aspect is really quite subtle throughout, with much of the record sounding more like an actual recording of indigenous musics, complete with the ambient sounds of the locations, the only overtly collaged aspect is the mix of the broadcasts, and the occasional shortwave interference, but strap on some headphones, or crank those speakers, and the machinations become a bit more obvious, and the record reveals itself as a gorgeously and meticulously arranged sonic construct, all of which only somehow makes it that much cooler. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY. Where to even start... HAWKWIND. The mighty lords of drugged out space rock, without whom, most of the bands we love might not even exist. These four Hawkwind records: Doremi Fasol Latido, Hall Of The Mountain Grill, In Search Of Space, and Space Ritual, are pretty much all anyone needs to know about space rock. Or whatever it is that Hawkwind do, long sprawling jams, extended psychedelic workouts, heavy and trippy, totally drugged out and divine, while at the same time, surprisingly catchy. But yeah, aQ folks probably already know how much we love Hawkwind. So if we were to pick six bands to cover classic Hawkwind tunes, we might not have picked these six, but then again, we very well might have: Mudhoney, Mugstar, Acid Mothers Tempo And The Cosmic Inferno, White Hills, Kinski, Bardo Pond. Holy hell! If this were just a comp with those bands, we'd be all over it, but the fact that they're covering Hawkwind seems like it was made just for the aQ faithful, and who knows, maybe it was. Spread out over three 7"s, we almost didn't list these separately, but as a set, 'cause to our minds, who the heck would only want one or two of these? But you never know, so for those of you who didn't already freak out and toss all three into your cart, here's a brief bit about each specific 7": On volume three, "Lords Of Light", Kinski definitely get their Hawkwind on, covering "Master Of The Universe", and like Mugstar on the first volume, not so much making it their own, as transforming themselves into a vessel through which the spirit of Hawkwind can flow, and flow it does. That main riff is such a killer, all the band have to do is ride it out, adding plenty of freaked out effects and psychedelic leads, the vocals buried in the mix, not getting in the way of the endless spacepsych jamming. And finally, the series is closed out by another group of modern psychedelic masters, Bardo Pond, who add female vocals to their take on "Lord Of Light", the vocals drifting ethereally, over a roiling black cloud of FX drenched guitars and some seriously pounding drums, even a bit of flute (we think), and maybe more than any of the others managing to meld the sound of the original with their own, plenty of wah wah guitar, loads of effects, most of the track spent drifting through space, cloaked in blown out super distorted psych guitar and shimmering outer space ambience. Surprisingly heavy and totally blissed out. The packaging is brilliant, perfectly tripped out psychedelic acid flashback, naked lady, geometric design, cribbed from the original Hawkwind artwork (or at the very least, an incredible simulation), the sleeves are printed complete with shelf wear and corner creases (so don't complain, they're meant to look like they've been on your shelf for decades), each one SUPER LIMITED, and already sold out at the label, we have a bunch, but these will be the only copies we'll ever have!!

Our favorite new hip hop record for sure. The minute we first heard this, we knew we had to get a bunch for the store. We finally did, but then realized we were at a loss for words (who, us?), so we hit up the guy who turned us on to the record in the first place, AQ pal / gay gangsta Matt Wobensmith, who had this to say about Kirb And Chris: Take your favorite '80s new wave and pop hits, chop them up, lace them with party rhymes and what do you have? "Niggaz and White Girlz," maybe one of the most brilliant hip hop albums in years. Concept album? 80s revival? Party record? Political statement? Shameless excuse to get laid? Oddly, all of the above. Inspired by the San Francisco club scene -- where Kirb and Chris do most of their "new wave thuggin'" -- reworking '80s megahits comes effortlessly, as they give new life to the Cure's "Close To Me" ("Closer"), the Smiths' "This Night Has Opened My Eyes" ("Doorstep, Girl"), and not one, but TWO Gary Numan joints, "Cars" and "Down in the Park." Round it out with Simple Minds, Talking Heads, the Human League, the Police, the B52's and others, and you've got quite a rich library to sample from. But does it work? Absolutely. As crate diggers constantly scrape the bins for new source material, it only makes sense that synth-driven new wave could be the next wave. Highly enjoyable, and we didn't even mention how hilarious this album's between-song skits are. This album should totally be huge!

MPEG stream: Closer
MPEG stream: Down In The Park
MPEG stream: Cars
MPEG stream: When The World Is Running Down

It had to be an aQ Record Of The Week. Nearly four hours of warbly and washed out ambient beauty spread out over 3 cds (and 6 lps!), from the man behind the looped and warped ambient jazz minimalism of The Caretaker and the electronic fuckery of V/VM. We've been listing/reviewing the vinyl versions as they were released, part one: When We Parted My Heart Wanted To Die, part two: When Did Our Dreams And Futures Drift So Far Apart, and part three: Memories Live Longer Than Dreams (elsewhere on this week's list). We would have made the vinyl ROTW too, but we thought it was a lot to ask, 6 lps, nearly $80, so we held off, for THIS. A gorgeous compact collection of all 6 lps on 3 discs, in super minimal sleeves, gathered in an equally minimal and mysterious slipcover, printed to look like an old wooden crate. The art and the sound are all inexorably linked. The music of Kirby is mournful and mysterious, melancholy and otherworldly, everything shot through with a certain degree of sadness. Check the song titles: "When We Parted, My Heart Wanted To Die", "The Beauty Of The Impending Tragedy Of My Existence", "And As I Sat Beside You I Felt The Great Sadness That Day", "Tonight Is The Last Night Of The World", and the sounds those words represent, impart the same sense of heartbreak and loneliness, the music feels grey, like looking through a rain speckled dust coated window, at an old abandoned lot, the metal rusted, broken swingsets, collapsing barns, dead grass, mud and old pieces of wood, artifacts of a happier time, all reflecting the blackened sky above. But somehow, this isn't miserable music, it manages to be warm, and thick, and rich, and deceptively simple, lots of layers constantly shifting. It's definitely dronemusic, but not minimal or static, these sounds are alive, record crackle, buried voices, old record, warped instrumentation, sounds are looped and stretched and inverted, tied into knots and then pulled slowly and delicately apart. Fans of Philip Jeck, and Tim Hecker, and William Basinski, this is another gorgeously decayed artifact to add to your collection, evoking many of the same emotions as those like minded soundscapers, yet, the music of Leyland Kirby manages to sound unlike any of them. This is the perfect soundtrack for introspection, for long nights, candlelight, grey days, windswept storm drenched hillsides, for drifting off, for huddling up with another and sharing warmth, dark, delicate and so beautiful. An incredible, sprawling collection of blurred ambience, obfuscated field recordings, and sad piano melodies hint at the furniture music of Erik Satie, the mood engineering of Angelo Badalamenti, and the emotional resonance of Basinski's Disintegration Loops. While technically the vinyl wasn't Record Of The Week, it essentially has been, for a couple months now, just delivered in installments, each one a mysterious missive from some otherworld, those who have been keeping up, no doubt understand, and are surely already utterly and inexorably tangled up in Kirby's magical and mournful world of sound, but for the rest of you, who have yet to delve, to climb through, to step beyond, to lose yourself completely. Now is the time, and the message is clear, Sadly, The Future Is No Longer What It Was...

MPEG stream: I
MPEG stream: III
MPEG stream: IV

Apparently, Basil Kirchin is a highly regarded, even legendary composer in some circles. Not surprising we hadn't heard of him as his only two recordings were released in 1971 and 1973 and disappeared without a trace. Some of you may recognise the name as it can be found on that legendary Nurse With Wound list of influences, and it doesn't take more than a few minutes of Quantum to see why. This recording, also from 1973, has never been released until now and is a pretty wild ride. Perplexing but quite amazing. Buzzing synth tones weave a warm and warbly melody while sweet female vocals, soaked in reverb, emote atop them (think Bjork mixed with Brigitte Fontaine), sputtering free jazz (courtesy of Evan Parker) lurches wildly over a swirling sonic miasma of industrial clatter, found sounds, voices and birds chirping, rumbling drones, strings and xylophones, roaring lions, creaking and scraped strings and grand tonal swells. And that's just part one! Part two starts off with the moaning, hysterical vocals of an old woman (his wife) mixed with the random voices of autistic children, before a regal trumpet call sounds out over a swirl of hissing white noise and turns into a nursery rhyme rhythm played by a calliope and accompanied by what sounds like a very simple jazz combo. Eventually the voices return, over a writhing bed of screeching free jazz, intensifying, and lending the proceedings a truly terrifying and disturbed vibe. The rest of part two skips schizophrenically from atonal modern classical, to Bjorkish ballads, to haunting dronescapes, to mad jazz-splatter, to Namtchylak-ish wild vocalisations. Gorgeous and haunting and WAY OUT. Hard to believe this was recorded 30 years ago. And hard to believe he's remained a secret for so long. But according to the liner notes, this is just the first in a series of Kirchin reissues. Can't wait!

MPEG stream: Quantum - Part One - Once Upon A Time (excerpt)

It seems like time for a rant again. Don't worry, I'll make it short. Roland Kirk is God! Or at least as much a god as Mingus, Sun Ra, Davis or Coltrane. So here's your chance to see what you've been missing. And what the majority of jazz fans can't get their narrow heads around: soulful, jazzy, funky, groovy, funny, soul shaking, gut busting, tear jerking brilliance from this musical genius. Master of every instrument he picked up (as well as a handful he invented!), able to play three horns at once (not as a gimmick, as a way to play three melodies), blind since birth and later suffering paralysis from a stroke, wandering around NYC with a huge wheeled staff with various horns duct-taped to it as well as a portable tape recorder that he used to record the sounds of the world and would sometime incorporate into live performances, a brilliant and funny orater, telling jokes and stories, ranting and testifying, preaching and proclaiming, and once even handing out cocaine to folks in the crowd. This man was remarkable. Musically, socially, personally. Unclear why he tends to get overlooked, and underappreciated by the majority of jazz fans. Too weird I guess. But I know that won't bother you (speaking here to YOU, the erudite AQ list subscriber) !!! So it's always a happy day, when some new Kirk gem is unearthed, or some classic Kirk record gets the re-release/remaster treatment. So kudos to Collectables for reissuing 7 essential and timeless Kirk masterpieces. Some terrible design ideas though: the cheesy Collectables logo, HUGE ADS taking up whole pages in the cd booklets, and the 'Collectables Jazz Classics' tag line pasted everywhere over the original art, making them look like those bargain collections you find at truckstops or drugstores. But it's all about the music right.... This legendary record originally released in 1972 features one of Kirk's most moving tunes ever, his sorrowful take on Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine", complete with soaring minor key strings and Kirk growling the lyrics through his flute! Mostly covers, this finds Kirk straddling the line between overt sentimentality, and more of that party/boppy/get-up-and-dance-dammit vibe. While some of the tunes here are tepid and sort of straight ahead, there are moments where Kirk slays, the aforementioned "Ain't No Sunshine", the testifying gospel tinged "Blacknuss", and an unlikely cover of Bread's "Make It With You"??

RealAudio clip: Ain't No Sunshine
RealAudio clip: Make It With You
RealAudio clip: Blacknuss

As we may have mentioned in a review or two or five, RAHSAAN ROLAND KIRK IS GOD!! We love us our Coltrane's and Ayler's and Sun Ra's sure, but Kirk holds a very special place in our heart. He's the ultimate outsider jazzbo, like the Moondog of jazz, blind since birth, later paralyzed from a stroke, could play sax, flute, you name it, eventually he even had to begin inventing his own instruments, often played three horns at once, an actual one man band, dressed in rags and carried around a huge wheeled staff with various musical instruments duct taped to it, was shunned for being a novelty act, live would spend half the set telling stories, interacting with the audience, playing back stuff he had recorded on his portable tape player, whooping, shouting, singing -- this man was possessed by jazz and exuded utter and absolute joy when he was playing. And the music reflected that, a dizzying mix of traditional and free, a complete disregard for genre, embracing bop, soul, gospel, whatever. We can never get enough, and we're always excited when a new live record sees the light of day, because live, in front of an audience is where Kirk reigned supreme. This live set was recorded in Germany in 1972 and is a seriously aggressive, fiery and free set. Really intense and super kick ass. Kirk does his usual, depending on the track wielding the sax, the flute, the nose flute, the manzello, the stritch or the clarinet, sometimes more than one at a time. Not a whole lot of between song banter, but the songs speak volumes. A killer mix of Kirk classics, standards and some unlikely covers including a killer version of Bread's "Make It With You". Really funny and bitter liner notes from long time Kirk confidante Joel Dorn, relaying a conversation between Dorn and his partner, talking shit about Dorn's always amusing liner notes, and how after years of ranting about Kirk's brilliance, he decided to just fuck the serious liner notes, since it isn't liner notes that would convince someone to dig Kirk, it's the music. And the music on Brotherman In The Fatherland should be enough to convince anyone.

MPEG stream: Intro / Like Sonny
MPEG stream: Make It With You
MPEG stream: Rahsaan's Spirit

It seems like time for a rant again. Don't worry, I'll make it short. Roland Kirk is God! Or at least as much a god as Mingus, Sun Ra, Davis or Coltrane. So here's your chance to see what you've been missing. And what the majority of jazz fans can't get their narrow heads around: soulful, jazzy, funky, groovy, funny, soul shaking, gut busting, tear jerking brilliance from this musical genius. Master of every instrument he picked up (as well as a handful he invented!), able to play three horns at once (not as a gimmick, as a way to play three melodies), blind since birth and later suffering paralysis from a stroke, wandering around NYC with a huge wheeled staff with various horns duct-taped to it as well as a portable tape recorder that he used to record the sounds of the world and would sometime incorporate into live performances, a brilliant and funny orater, telling jokes and stories, ranting and testifying, preaching and proclaiming, and once even handing out cocaine to folks in the crowd. This man was remarkable. Musically, socially, personally. Unclear why he tends to get overlooked, and underappreciated by the majority of jazz fans. Too weird I guess. But I know that won't bother you (speaking here to YOU, the erudite AQ list subscriber) !!! So it's always a happy day, when some new Kirk gem is unearthed, or some classic Kirk record gets the re-release/remaster treatment. So kudos to Collectables for reissuing 7 essential and timeless Kirk masterpieces. Some terrible design ideas though: the cheesy Collectables logo, HUGE ADS taking up whole pages in the cd booklets, and the 'Collectables Jazz Classics' tag line pasted everywhere over the original art, making them look like those bargain collections you find at truckstops or drugstores. But it's all about the music right.... Left And Right (from 1969) starts off with a bizarre intro for bouncy cinematic string section and a ranting Roland Kirk as well as sound effects (breaking glass etc...).The record stays pretty far out with Expansions, the 20 minute, 9 part epic, sounding equal parts swinging sixties soundtrack, Morricone score, jazzy funereal dirge, and shrieking grandiose epic! The strings play a huge part on the rest of the record, fleshing out and gussying up some smooth dreamy, late night jazz workouts into gorgeous cinematic melancholia.

RealAudio clip: Black Mystery Has Been Revealed
RealAudio clip: Expansions

It seems like time for a rant again. Don't worry, I'll make it short. Roland Kirk is God! Or at least as much a god as Mingus, Sun Ra, Davis or Coltrane. So here's your chance to see what you've been missing. And what the majority of jazz fans can't get their narrow heads around: soulful, jazzy, funky, groovy, funny, soul shaking, gut busting, tear jerking brilliance from this musical genius. Master of every instrument he picked up (as well as a handful he invented!), able to play three horns at once (not as a gimmick, as a way to play three melodies), blind since birth and later suffering paralysis from a stroke, wandering around NYC with a huge wheeled staff with various horns duct-taped to it as well as a portable tape recorder that he used to record the sounds of the world and would sometime incorporate into live performances, a brilliant and funny orater, telling jokes and stories, ranting and testifying, preaching and proclaiming, and once even handing out cocaine to folks in the crowd. This man was remarkable. Musically, socially, personally. Unclear why he tends to get overlooked, and underappreciated by the majority of jazz fans. Too weird I guess. But I know that won't bother you (speaking here to YOU, the erudite AQ list subscriber) !!! So it's always a happy day, when some new Kirk gem is unearthed, or some classic Kirk record gets the re-release/remaster treatment. So kudos to Collectables for reissuing 7 essential and timeless Kirk masterpieces. Some terrible design ideas though: the cheesy Collectables logo, HUGE ADS taking up whole pages in the cd booklets, and the 'Collectables Jazz Classics' tag line pasted everywhere over the original art, making them look like those bargain collections you find at truckstops or drugstores. But it's all about the music right.... Other Folks' Music (from 1976) starts out years ahead of its time, with a fuzzy distorted tape recording (think Godspeed) that slowly turns into a creepy crawly harmonica flecked scene setter worthy of any Morricone/Leone western. Worth it for that track alone. The rest of the record ranges from dreamy late night cocktail jazz, to really hard bop, to almost loungy exotica to timeless/classic Kirk nu-bop.

RealAudio clip: Water For Robeson And Williams
RealAudio clip: Donna Lee
RealAudio clip: Samba

It seems like time for a rant again. Don't worry, I'll make it short. Roland Kirk is God! Or at least as much a god as Mingus, Sun Ra, Davis or Coltrane. So here's your chance to see what you've been missing. And what the majority of jazz fans can't get their narrow heads around: soulful, jazzy, funky, groovy, funny, soul shaking, gut busting, tear jerking brilliance from this musical genius. Master of every instrument he picked up (as well as a handful he invented!), able to play three horns at once (not as a gimmick, as a way to play three melodies), blind since birth and later suffering paralysis from a stroke, wandering around NYC with a huge wheeled staff with various horns duct-taped to it as well as a portable tape recorder that he used to record the sounds of the world and would sometime incorporate into live performances, a brilliant and funny orater, telling jokes and stories, ranting and testifying, preaching and proclaiming, and once even handing out cocaine to folks in the crowd. This man was remarkable. Musically, socially, personally. Unclear why he tends to get overlooked, and underappreciated by the majority of jazz fans. Too weird I guess. But I know that won't bother you (speaking here to YOU, the erudite AQ list subscriber) !!! So it's always a happy day, when some new Kirk gem is unearthed, or some classic Kirk record gets the re-release/remaster treatment. So kudos to Collectables for reissuing 7 essential and timeless Kirk masterpieces. Some terrible design ideas though: the cheesy Collectables logo, HUGE ADS taking up whole pages in the cd booklets, and the 'Collectables Jazz Classics' tag line pasted everywhere over the original art, making them look like those bargain collections you find at truckstops or drugstores. But it's all about the music right.... 1973's Prepare Thyself... album found Kirk mixing bop with cinematic soundscapes, bizarre vocalisations, bells and chimes and tribal percussion. The opening track is another barnstormer, totaly menacing and haunting, percussive and hypnotic. Why he was never hit up to score movies I'll never understand. The 10 minute Seasons was my introductionm to Roland Kirk, although the version I first heard was recorded live at the Montreux Jazz Festival documented on the live release Eye Aye I. A tripped out tribal intro gives way to summery fluttery flute improvisations. But the real attraction here is an epic 21 minute free jazz workout called "Saxophone Concerto", complete with ranting female testifying, Kirk and band swinging from bop to swing and bopping from swing to bop, often in the same passage. But the focal point is Kirk's endless, breathless, tenor sax, wailing and squealing and screeching for 20 minutes, until any normal man would have passed out. Or dropped dead.

RealAudio clip: Salvation And Reminiscing
RealAudio clip: Seasons

It seems like time for a rant again. Don't worry, I'll make it short. Roland Kirk is God! Or at least as much a god as Mingus, Sun Ra, Davis or Coltrane. So here's your chance to see what you've been missing. And what the majority of jazz fans can't get their narrow heads around: soulful, jazzy, funky, groovy, funny, soul shaking, gut busting, tear jerking brilliance from this musical genius. Master of every instrument he picked up (as well as a handful he invented!), able to play three horns at once (not as a gimmick, as a way to play three melodies), blind since birth and later suffering paralysis from a stroke, wandering around NYC with a huge wheeled staff with various horns duct-taped to it as well as a portable tape recorder that he used to record the sounds of the world and would sometime incorporate into live performances, a brilliant and funny orater, telling jokes and stories, ranting and testifying, preaching and proclaiming, and once even handing out cocaine to folks in the crowd. This man was remarkable. Musically, socially, personally. Unclear why he tends to get overlooked, and underappreciated by the majority of jazz fans. Too weird I guess. But I know that won't bother you (speaking here to YOU, the erudite AQ list subscriber) !!! So it's always a happy day, when some new Kirk gem is unearthed, or some classic Kirk record gets the re-release/remaster treatment. So kudos to Collectables for reissuing 7 essential and timeless Kirk masterpieces. Some terrible design ideas though: the cheesy Collectables logo, HUGE ADS taking up whole pages in the cd booklets, and the 'Collectables Jazz Classics' tag line pasted everywhere over the original art, making them look like those bargain collections you find at truckstops or drugstores. But it's all about the music right.... The main attraction here is the bizarre interludes between almost all of the songs. Whether it's a voice from beyond commanding Kirk to sleep, and Kirk explaining why he can no longer dream, to thundering horse hooves, ping pong, sampled TV music, strange ambient interludes, that same voice from beyond commanding Kirk to wake up and Kirk ranting right back, and then a 13 minute 'Side Four' featuring 10 minutes of silence, then all sorts of conversation, tape recorded howls, etc.... The actual music here (recorded in 1975) is classic Kirk, but with the unlikely inclusion of some surprisingly hard funk!!

RealAudio clip: Conversation
RealAudio clip: Echoes Of Primitive Ohio & Chili Dogs
RealAudio clip: Freaks For The Festival

Yet another in the long overdue series of reissues from the legendary and under appreciated Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Not only an amazing player, but also as bit a character and as completely nuts as Mingus, Sun Ra or any other jazz greats you can think of. Best Kirk anecdote ever: "In the late 60s we were in the studio getting ready to mix one of his albums, He wouldn't let me start working with the tapes until I could 'do it like me'. I didn't know what he meant. He told me to sit down and close my eyes. He got behind the chair and started to wrap my head, mummy style, with masking tape, from the neck up. Enough room was left for me to breathe. When Rahsaan was convinced that I couldn't see, he held a gun to my head and said 'I just want you to know how I feel all the time'." The liner notes have more amazing stories from Joel Dorn long time producer / pal to Kirk as well as tons of cool Kirk quotes. Not sure if this was ever an actual release, seems more like a collection of random tidbits, but it has everything: Kirk on clarinet (rarely recorded), saxophone, manzello, stritch, Kirk talking/joking with the audience (even does a dead on Miles Davis impersonation), slow smoldering blues, wild live shows with Kirk on clarinet and tenor (also a rarity), playing two and three horns at once...it's all great. Really fun to hear how wild and excited the crowd gets, whooping and hollering. Like being at a revival meeting! If you're new to Kirk, this is as good a place as any to start. And most of it's unreleased so even if you got it all, you need this. RRK is GOD!

RealAudio clip: Bye Bye Blackbird
RealAudio clip: Multi-horn Variation

It seems like time for a rant again. Don't worry, I'll make it short. Roland Kirk is God! Or at least as much a god as Mingus, Sun Ra, Davis or Coltrane. So here's your chance to see what you've been missing. And what the majority of jazz fans can't get their narrow heads around: soulful, jazzy, funky, groovy, funny, soul shaking, gut busting, tear jerking brilliance from this musical genius. Master of every instrument he picked up (as well as a handful he invented!), able to play three horns at once (not as a gimmick, as a way to play three melodies), blind since birth and later suffering paralysis from a stroke, wandering around NYC with a huge wheeled staff with various horns duct-taped to it as well as a portable tape recorder that he used to record the sounds of the world and would sometime incorporate into live performances, a brilliant and funny orater, telling jokes and stories, ranting and testifying, preaching and proclaiming, and once even handing out cocaine to folks in the crowd. This man was remarkable. Musically, socially, personally. Unclear why he tends to get overlooked, and underappreciated by the majority of jazz fans. Too weird I guess. But I know that won't bother you (speaking here to YOU, the erudite AQ list subscriber) !!! So it's always a happy day, when some new Kirk gem is unearthed, or some classic Kirk record gets the re-release/remaster treatment. So kudos to Collectables for reissuing 7 essential and timeless Kirk masterpieces. Some terrible design ideas though: the cheesy Collectables logo, HUGE ADS taking up whole pages in the cd booklets, and the 'Collectables Jazz Classics' tag line pasted everywhere over the original art, making them look like those bargain collections you find at truckstops or drugstores. But it's all about the music right.... Originally released in 1969, this finds Kirk in a very soulful mood. The jazz here is only an afterthought, with these funk/soul/gospel numbers heavy on the horns, the testifying and the party/dance vibe!! Covers of '"I Say a Little Prayer" (a Kirk staple) and an awesome version of Stevie Wonder's "My Cherie Amour" complete with Kirk's over the top Biz Markie style vocals!! The second half was recorded live at the Newport Jazz Festival and features some smoking versions of "One Ton", "Three For The Festival", and a Coltrane melody, all interspersed with Kirk's insanely inspired introductions and some of the wildest, most intense flute playing EVER!

RealAudio clip: Intro/A Tribute To John Coltrane
RealAudio clip: My Cherie Amour
RealAudio clip: Volunteered Slavery

It seems like time for a rant again. Don't worry, I'll make it short. Roland Kirk is God! Or at least as much a god as Mingus, Sun Ra, Davis or Coltrane. So here's your chance to see what you've been missing. And what the majority of jazz fans can't get their narrow heads around: soulful, jazzy, funky, groovy, funny, soul shaking, gut busting, tear jerking brilliance from this musical genius. Master of every instrument he picked up (as well as a handful he invented!), able to play three horns at once (not as a gimmick, as a way to play three melodies), blind since birth and later suffering paralysis from a stroke, wandering around NYC with a huge wheeled staff with various horns duct-taped to it as well as a portable tape recorder that he used to record the sounds of the world and would sometime incorporate into live performances, a brilliant and funny orater, telling jokes and stories, ranting and testifying, preaching and proclaiming, and once even handing out cocaine to folks in the crowd. This man was remarkable. Musically, socially, personally. Unclear why he tends to get overlooked, and underappreciated by the majority of jazz fans. Too weird I guess. But I know that won't bother you (speaking here to YOU, the erudite AQ list subscriber) !!! So it's always a happy day, when some new Kirk gem is unearthed, or some classic Kirk record gets the re-release/remaster treatment. So kudos to Collectables for reissuing 7 essential and timeless Kirk masterpieces. Some terrible design ideas though: the cheesy Collectables logo, HUGE ADS taking up whole pages in the cd booklets, and the 'Collectables Jazz Classics' tag line pasted everywhere over the original art, making them look like those bargain collections you find at truckstops or drugstores. But it's all about the music right.... Again, Kirk opens proceedings on 1970's Rahsaan Rahsaan with a rant to end all rants, delivered in quite a state, and backed up by clattery percussion and gloomy droning chords. A few minutes into it though, the band kicks in and were back on more familiar bop territory, although as with a lot of Kirk's work, it's dark and dangerous and tinged with an ominous vibe, mysterious and unsettling. Kirk takes great pains in a two minute introduction to explain his two horn technique and how he gets his mind to think two different things. He then proceeds to play Sentimental Journey on one horn and Dvorak's Going Home on the other. AT THE SAME TIME. 4 minutes of impossible brainsplitting, ultra complex, totally impossible horn playing. Mindblowing. The record finishes off with more classic Kirk bop and another really funny introduction that as always, keeps the audience in stitches.

RealAudio clip: Intro/Medley (2 melodies at once!)
RealAudio clip: The Seeker

We can't really think of anything that more symbolizes our musical generation than the four Kiss solo records released way back in 1978. Well, okay, maybe if we tried we could think of a few things, BUT C'MON!!! KISS!!! ACE, PAUL, GENE and PETER!! Sure bands do solo records all the time. But it was never more of a production than when the biggest band in the world decided to simultaneously release 4 solo records, each adorned with a killer airbrushed painting of the artist, in full Kiss makeup and backlit with different colors. This was a huge deal when it happened, and while the records didn't sell nearly as well as the worst selling Kiss record, they still became instantly iconic and most folks we know, owned 'em, and listened to 'em and many of those same folks hung the covers on their walls!! Hell, even sludge masters the Melvins did their own version, even going so far as to emulate the original cheesy cover paintings. But now they are available as PICTURE DISCS!!! Holy shit!!! If there was ever a set of records more ripe for picture disc immortalization we sure as shit can't think of any. So the real question is which one to buy. C'mon. As if there was any other answer, ALL OF THEM. Seriously, what kind of doofus would only want one. They are a set. One at a time is okay, but you are gonna NEED all four. They have been on the wall at Aquarius facing the counter since they were released and they look SOOOO badass all in a row. Worth building a little Kiss shelf in your bedroom just to display these beauties for sure! So Ace's solo record is pretty much univerally accepted as the best of the four. Pretty heavy and catchy, it definitely proved that maybe Ace and Gene could have let him write more songs for Kiss. "New York Groove" was an actual hit. But there were some killer hard rockers on there: "Rip It Out", "Snow Blind"... Definitely the only one of the four solo records that got heavy play (or any play at all actually). But who cares? You know you need all four!

We can't really think of anything that more symbolizes our musical generation than the four Kiss solo records released way back in 1978. Well, okay, maybe if we tried we could think of a few things, BUT C'MON!!! KISS!!! ACE, PAUL, GENE and PETER!! Sure bands do solo records all the time. But it was never more of a production than when the biggest band in the world decided to simultaneously release 4 solo records, each adorned with a killer airbrushed painting of the artist, in full Kiss makeup and backlit with different colors. This was a huge deal when it happened, and while the records didn't sell nearly as well as the worst selling Kiss record, they still became instantly iconic and most folks we know, owned 'em, and listened to 'em and many of those same folks hung the covers on their walls!! Hell, even sludge masters the Melvins did their own version, even going so far as to emulate the original cheesy cover paintings. But now they are available as PICTURE DISCS!!! Holy shit!!! If there was ever a set of records more ripe for picture disc immortalization we sure as shit can't think of any. So the real question is which one to buy. C'mon. As if there was any other answer, ALL OF THEM. Seriously, what kind of doofus would only want one. They are a set. One at a time is okay, but you are gonna NEED all four. They have been on the wall at Aquarius facing the counter since they were released and they look SOOOO badass all in a row. Worth building a little Kiss shelf in your bedroom just to display these beauties for sure! Gene's record was the biggest surprise. We all expected some serious heaviness from THE DEMON, but instead got Beatlesy jangle, funk and DISCO!! Weird. Maybe the most listened to disc for novelty value. Featured some serious guest star power: Joe Perry from Aerosmith, Bob Seger, Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick, Janis Ian and Donna Summer. Woah. But who cares? You know you need all four!

Finally, volume two in what seems to be an ongoing series of amazing archival dvd releases from "the hottest band in the world", Kiss, and as awesome as this set is, and it is, we're sort of hoping it's the last, cuz it spans the years 1978 to 1991, and by then, Kiss was a whole different, way less appealing proposition.�Obviously, EVERY Kiss fanatic is absolutely gonna NEED this (and at least a few of us here would count ourselves as such), but only the truly diehard (and dare we say, ummm... misguided) will make it all the way to disc 3, as that's the way later stuff, but up until then it's a total blast. It's probably best to just give a run down of all the amazing stuff included, beginning with: 1979's Kiss Meets The Phantom Of The Park!�Worth the price of admission alone for this legendary made for TV movie, presented here, on dvd for the first time, with the slightly altered title (not sure why) of Kiss In Attack Of The Phantoms. Maybe the altered title is due to the fact that it now includes additional and alternate Kiss concert footage as well as music from the various members' solo albums. Huh? But who cares?! What a prime slice of killer hard rock history. Filmed at Magic Mountain in Valencia California, the band take on a mad inventor who has created a legion of robotic phantoms who kidnap patrons of the park with the ultimate goal of destroying Kiss or stealing their secret amulets or something. Most notable for the fact that this was the first time most of us had ever seen Kiss -not- rocking on stage, sitting, talking, and hanging out and hamming it up BIG TIME. We get to hear Ace�Frehley's maniacal laugh, observe Paul Stanley's queen-y swish, and Gene Simmons barely speaks at all, mostly delivering his lines in an overdubbed monster roar/growl. But the band look amazing, and are goofy and funny and engaging, the live performances are killer. Made us feel like we were 9 years old again... Also on the first disc, the band are interviewed by a very grumpy Edwin Newman on the short lived show Land Of Hype And Glory, with some cool interviews and some amazing live footage. And then disc one finishes off with a bang, featuring an excerpt of the band on The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder. It's a crime that it's only an excerpt. Super funny and animated, Ace�Frehley is on fire (and seriously wasted) cackling like a madman, sparring with Snyder, the whole band collapsing into uproarious laughter every few minutes, in jokes and barbs flying every which way, so casual and relaxed and super fun, they break for commercial and never come back... arrrghhh!!! Hopefully the rest will be included in a future Snyder/Tomorrow Show dvd release. Disc two starts off pretty rough, with the music video for "Shandi" from 1980, remember that song? Neither do we. But it's brutal, Night Ranger ballady pap, with the super cheesy eighties style video, bad, but still kinda fun. Next up a CNN interview with Peter Criss after leaving the band, And for some reason, he keeps his face hidden the whole time, as he discusses his future plans and� his frustrations after writing a number one smash for Kiss ("Beth"). Then some amazing outtakes as the band attempt to film a promo for their upcoming trip to Australia, and to introduce new drummer Eric Carr. The band blow take after take, mainly because Frehley seems to be utterly wasted. Pretty funny stuff though. After that some killer footage of Kiss live on German TV doing two more random songs ("She's So European" and "Talk To Me") and then an amazing documentary about the band's first trip down under. Streets mobbed with Aussie youths in full Kiss makeup, and much like in the first volume, various public officials greeting the band with open arms. The rest of the disc is mostly live stuff, a long set in Australia in 1980, lots of hits, including the band doing some of our favorite tracks from Ace's solo record (the only truly great solo record of the four).� Then a real treat (well, sort of) for the truly obsessed. A three song live performance of tracks form Kiss's concept record The Elder!!! The band have really short hair, and the songs are bizarre and proggy, but The Elder truly is weirdly cool for being one of the most hated Kiss discs. Finally, the band kick ass on a killer lip synched version of one of their better later songs "I Love It Loud", featuring new guitarist Vinnie Vincent. Disc three is the weak link, but there are still some moments worth checking out. Mostly live footage, the best of it being the band performing in front of a huge crowd in Rio, doing some old Kiss classics, cuz up next is the legendary MTV special where the band were shown without makeup for the very first time. Hosted by MTV veejay J.J. Jackson, the show begins by showing awesome glamor shots of each member in full makeup, then dissolving to the haggard pasty makeupless dudes -behind- the masks. I remember even back in the day it being fairly anticlimactic. But seeing it again immediately transported us back to the living room of our childhood homes, Cheetos in one hand, coke in the other, DYING to find out what Kiss REALLY LOOKED LIKE. The rest of the disc is mostly live stuff, some pretty good, the band sans makeup, some awesome moments, the giant tank drum riser, some problematically glam costumes, and some really bad songs. There's a brief clip of the MTV news segment where it was announced that drummer Eric Carr had died from cancer at the age of 41. Still really sad. And it finishes off with the video for maybe one of the cheesiest Kiss songs ever, "God Gave Rock And Roll To You".... Beautifully packaged as before, massive multi panel fold out dvd digipak style cover, with killer photos, a reproduction of a ticket to see Kiss And The Phantom Of The Park, a bonus dvd featuring Kiss live at Budokan in Japan on the Crazy Nights tour (of interest only to the most fanatic of the Kiss Army, like our friend Josh maybe...) and a huge booklet, with liner notes, and photos, and anecdotes regarding each segment, including our favorite, a bit about Eric Carr's original makeup before he became the Fox, when he was some sort of bird, with a ruffled feathered jumpsuit, padded in the front like a penguin and a yellow beak painted on his face! Wish there were photos of that.� According to the booklet, volume three is coming soon, which would cover 1992 and beyond it would seem, although it's hard to imagine that being very interesting, but at least they could include footage from 11 farewell tours, and 5 or 6 last-tours-ever as well as 3 more unmaskings and 2 re-make-upings... but whatever, this volume and the first are absolutely well worth owning.� Now we're gonna go make some popcorn, and watch Kiss Meets The Phantom Of The Park for about the millionth time....

We can't really think of anything that more symbolizes our musical generation than the four Kiss solo records released way back in 1978. Well, okay, maybe if we tried we could think of a few things, BUT C'MON!!! KISS!!! ACE, PAUL, GENE and PETER!! Sure bands do solo records all the time. But it was never more of a production than when the biggest band in the world decided to simultaneously release 4 solo records, each adorned with a killer airbrushed painting of the artist, in full Kiss makeup and backlit with different colors. This was a huge deal when it happened, and while the records didn't sell nearly as well as the worst selling Kiss record, they still became instantly iconic and most folks we know, owned 'em, and listened to 'em and many of those same folks hung the covers on their walls!! Hell, even sludge masters the Melvins did their own version, even going so far as to emulate the original cheesy cover paintings. But now they are available as PICTURE DISCS!!! Holy shit!!! If there was ever a set of records more ripe for picture disc immortalization we sure as shit can't think of any. So the real question is which one to buy. C'mon. As if there was any other answer, ALL OF THEM. Seriously, what kind of doofus would only want one. They are a set. One at a time is okay, but you are gonna NEED all four. They have been on the wall at Aquarius facing the counter since they were released and they look SOOOO badass all in a row. Worth building a little Kiss shelf in your bedroom just to display these beauties for sure! Paul's record sounded the most like a straight up Kiss record since he was the principal songwriter anyway. While it lacked the spark of a lot of the Kiss material it was still pretty decent. Hard rocking and catchy. Also featured legendary drummer Carmine Appice (Vanilla Fudge, Cactus, Rod Stewart, King Kobra, Blue Murder!) on the skins! But who cares? You know you need all four!

We can't really think of anything that more symbolizes our musical generation than the four Kiss solo records released way back in 1978. Well, okay, maybe if we tried we could think of a few things, BUT C'MON!!! KISS!!! ACE, PAUL, GENE and PETER!! Sure bands do solo records all the time. But it was never more of a production than when the biggest band in the world decided to simultaneously release 4 solo records, each adorned with a killer airbrushed painting of the artist, in full Kiss makeup and backlit with different colors. This was a huge deal when it happened, and while the records didn't sell nearly as well as the worst selling Kiss record, they still became instantly iconic and most folks we know, owned 'em, and listened to 'em and many of those same folks hung the covers on their walls!! Hell, even sludge masters the Melvins did their own version, even going so far as to emulate the original cheesy cover paintings. But now they are available as PICTURE DISCS!!! Holy shit!!! If there was ever a set of records more ripe for picture disc immortalization we sure as shit can't think of any. So the real question is which one to buy. C'mon. As if there was any other answer, ALL OF THEM. Seriously, what kind of doofus would only want one. They are a set. One at a time is okay, but you are gonna NEED all four. They have been on the wall at Aquarius facing the counter since they were released and they look SOOOO badass all in a row. Worth building a little Kiss shelf in your bedroom just to display these beauties for sure! Peter's record was considered by pretty much everybody to be the worst of the bunch. Some of us tried extra hard to like it, cuz, c'mon he was the DRUMMER. Of Kiss!!!! Peter leaned more toward the ballad end of the spectrum which should have boded well since most of his Kiss contributions were ballads, and were also some of the band's biggest hits! But his solo record, even in the ballad department tended to be a bit, well, weak. There are definite moments. And there might have been a minor hit or two, but mostly this disc exists to complete the set. And who cares anyway? You know you need all four!

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY. The sticker on the new record from longtime aQ faves Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat, the project of musician / instrument builder Stef Heeren, compares the band to Current 93, Woven Hand, Richard Youngs and Comus. That's some serious company for sure, and typically we scoff when a band is compared to Comus, but in fact, we too have compared KTAOABC to the mighty Comus, an honor reserved for an elite few. And that comparison still stands, but this time around, it's not so much the urgent pagan folk vibe as the overall misanthropic feel, the new Kiss The Anus is the least song oriented, the most abstract, definitely the most doomy, with long stretches of thick droning noise, simple pounding drum plod, the vocals in most cases seem like an afterthought, just another layer of sound. The Woven Hand vibe is much more pronounced, but we also hear plenty of Codeine, some Skepticism, even some Earth and SUNNO))). This might be the record that turns a whole new crowd onto the freaked out apocalyptic doomfolk of Kiss The Anus. The opening track is the perfect example. For nearly half of its 15 minutes, the track plays out like a doomier Sunroof!, a squall of high end skree, upper register tones, wailing and squealing, weirdly harmonious and soothing, a massive trancelike ur-drone underpinned by a drifting languorous bassline, and then the drums come in, simple and slow, powerful and subtly propulsive, It's like Birchville Cat Motel covering Codeine, until the high end fades out, leaving just the bass and drums, to slither along into the second half, where the vocals come in, a dead ringer for Current 93's David Tibet, offering up a haunting invocation, over a minimal doom drift, that is soon joined by piano, a second vocal, and builds to a bit of a dramatic climax before drifting off. The second track begins as another strange doomdrone guitar workout, at least in the beginning, a moaning scraping landscape of low end swoops and drones and rumbles, atop which tribal percussion clatters restlessly, sounding not unlike Finnish forest folk Avarus, before slipping into a deep, synthy minimal drone, long wheezing tones, an ominous minorkey melody, accordion and pump organ beneath passionate vocals that soar dramatically, gorgeous and intense, and weirdly minimal and trancelike, and again, the Woven Hand vibe is uncanny. The record finishes with the shortest, and least abstract, track of the bunch, but also maybe the best, and most Comus-y, simple fingerpicked acoustic guitars, plaintive vocals, reverby piano, all lowkey, offering up a deep shimmery counterpoint to the main melody, peppered with brief sort-of-choruses, with urgently strummed steep string guitar, haunting falsetto harmonies, subtle effects, strange ethereal production, the whole thing pagan and ritualistic, but still folky and lovely, super moving and powerful, a gorgeous bit of dark apocalyptic dream folk for sure.

MPEG stream: Between Skylla And Charybdis
MPEG stream: Dyptich

A few lists back we reviewed a killer disc from a German band called Woburn House, who traffic in a killer blend of repetitive hypno rock a la Dutch outfit Gore, but blended with a heaping dose of mathy post rock, a combo that totally kicked our asses. But then we discovered that there was in fact a Woburn side project called Klabautamann, who were supposedly a super weird black metal band!! This we had to hear. So after some internet sleuthing, we got in touch with the band and managed to get a bunch of the Klabautamann debut cd Der Ort, and if anything, it's even cooler, and WAY WAY weirder than we would have ever hoped. Take the first track, it begins like most black metal songs, with a buzzing insectoid riff, which explodes into some epic blackened riffing, we love it already, but then suddenly, the guitars drop out, and leave a skeletal post rock jam, lilting clean guitars, but with blasting double kick drums and growled demonic vocals, a weird combo for sure, but so good. Then the song transforms into some mathy metallic breakdown, before blissing out into some dreamy melodic drift, before bursting back into full on black blast again. And that's just the first track. The second track begins with acoustic guitars and drums, a dreamy strum and pound that could easily be some weird indie rock band, the vocals kick in, a sort of sing song monotone, with little melodic curlicues underneath, until the song lurches into some complex stop start groove, with wild octopoidal drumming and little bursts of squiggly guitar leads. After a gorgeous classical breakdown, the drums kick in, a blazing blast beat accompanying this lovely finger picked guitar, another bizarre juxtaposition that sounds amazing. The next track is a dense tangled black angular workout, all impossibly convoluted Voivod-ish riffs over furious drumming, before again breaking into a weird loping post rock jam, punctuated by brief bursts of blazing blackness. It's hard to explain exactly what's going on, but whatever it is, it's awesome. Every track is dense with riffs and parts, gorgeous clean sections are butted up against filthy frosty blackness, acoustic guitars routinely jam alongside metallic blast beats, crazy complicated riffs are chopped into stuttery fragments, and rearranged around mathy rhythms... Then there's the final track, a total out of the blue mind blower, a nine minute epic, that is still sort of black metal, but also sounds like Tool or Coheed And Cambria, chugging riffs, wailing vocals, both male and female, all tangled up in killer harmonies, the whole thing shoegazey and kind of emo and super poppy, the guitar weaving elaborate textures, but it's the vocals, so weird and cool, it almost has us wishing the whole record had singing like this. So unexpected and so goddamn great. After the recently reviewed Lifelover, probably our most listened to new 'black metal' disc for sure!

MPEG stream: Der Ort
MPEG stream: Forlorn Sea
MPEG stream: Winternacht

Second disc from this mysterious blackened outfit, that just so happens to feature members of AQ faves Woburn House, a modern metallic post rock combo, who knocked our socks off with their recent Message To Ourselves Outside The Dreaming Machine record on UK label Paradigms. Where Woburn house took math rock and metallized it, creating a sound much more akin to some unlikely blend of Shellac and Gore, in Klabautamann, they take the buzzing blur of black metal, and add all sorts of melody and strange convoluted arrangements. The record opens with the crunch of winter footsteps and glistening arpeggiated guitars, a lilting swoonsome introduction to the record proper, which erupts out of the gates as track two lurches into black aktion, manic drumming, buzzing crusty riffage and growled demonic vocals. But that's where any resemblance to traditional black metal ends. The songs buzz and thrash and pound, but it's so much more melodic, with cool little Iron Maiden-y guitar harmonies, strange mathy breakdowns, all sorts of strange guitar parts lurking around and under the main riff, lots of jangle and shimmer, even at its fiercest, there always seems to be some sort of sweet melody lurking underneath. The riffs too are much more rock than black metal, giving the record another strange twist. Lots of parts even sound like a blackened Treepeople, with multiple guitar lines all tangled up into gorgeous melodic knots. So cool and so weird. Could very well be the perfect gateway black metal band for folks who may have been a bit shy about taking the plunge into the dark side. And for the rest of you, whose musical souls are already tainted, this is strange and twisted, mathy, melodic, buzzy and blackened heaven!

MPEG stream: Walking Through Twilight
MPEG stream: Der Nock
MPEG stream: Trolldance

What is more amazing than discovering a whole movement in music that had never been documented, let alone even heard of. EVER! No mention in any books, magazines, not a single trace. What if that music was in fact the music of Funerary violins. A music created and composed to be performed at funerals. The only evidence of these musics, some scratchy old wax cylinder recordings, some faded photos, and brittle sheafs of old sheet music. A music that flourished in the 1800's and disappeared almost completely by the 1900's after the Catholic church's Great Funerary Purges. Only recently discovered in a locked trunk was the music of Herr Gratchenfleiss, recorded to wax cylinder by Wilhelm Kleinbach. The sound a mournful miserable, gorgeously minor key dirge. So completely moving and emotional, the recordings thick with static and crackle, only adding to the power and timelessness of the music. What could be more amazing? How about making the whole thing up? Constructing an elaborate history of a genre that never existed. Populating this history with lifelike characters, creating photos, sheet music, historical documents, but most amazingly, recording all the music, and treating it to sound as if it was some old wax cylinder recording. Hard to say which would be more amazing, a wholly undiscovered hidden dark corner of musical history, quashed by the church and relegated to be lost forever, or an insanely detailed project, the ultimate conceptual art piece. Either way, we are in love with this stuff. Simply from a musical standpoint, this is everything we could hope for. The recordings are fuzzy and staticky, bathed in layers of crackle and grit, and years of neglect and decay, but beneath the recording inconsistencies we love so much, are some truly moving and emotionally rich performances, the melodies are so intense and sad, minor key and mournful. truly funereal. It's impossible not to imagine some old funeral procession, a row of black clad mourners, trudging down a dirt road, with their deceased atop an old wooden cart, the sky grey, the music of the Funerary violinist winding around the procession like wreaths of black smoke. So goddamn lovely. We have been listening to this non-stop since we got it. And then there's the story. The "history". Is it real? Is it possible that a musical movement could disappear so completely. So much so that not a single person anywhere EVER had heard of the Guild Of Funerary Violinists? Or is it all a huge put-on? A massive made up world? The ultimate outsider art project. Either way, we are completely blown away. If this is indeed real, HOLY SHIT! How utterly mysterious and romantic!! We do sort of want to believe it's real. It's so perfectly evocative of some other time, of death and sadness throughout the ages. But if it is in fact made up, it has to be one of the most brilliantly conceived and executed hoaxes of all time. There's even a book (you can probably find at you local bookstore), filled with photos and sheet music, and histories of all the players, the birth and death of the genre, it's so detailed and elaborate, so much so it almost seems impossible that someone could have created all of this from thin air, if it was made up, it must have been the creator's life's work. Years and years of methodical planning and writing and recording for sure. But either way, it's magical and fascinating, and 'real' or not, the music is truly gorgeous, and the story completely captivating, both intertwined into some sort of time machine, perfectly transporting us to that rain splattered dirt road, the soaring sad sounds of the Funerary violin drifting into the black sky...

MPEG stream: The Noble March Of Death
MPEG stream: The Dizzy Flight Of Death
MPEG stream: The Stately Tragedy Of Death

Washed out, hazy, dreamy, shimmery, warm, droney, otherworldly, gauzy, ethereal, all perfectly describe a microgenre we've come to love, called simply Pop Ambient. A techno subgenre, that essentially removed the beats from electronic music, leaving just the shadows, the outlines, the colors, loosed from the stricture of rhythm (for the most part), those colors and moods and textures are free to seep and bleed and drift and vaporize, into whirring soft focus streaks of blurred, almost new age-y ambience. A sound that various other music makers have definitely referenced, Jeck, Tim Hecker, the Fun Years, anyone creating haunting drone music or textured minimalism, will no doubt find themselves drifting into a certain sort of pop ambience. But it seems, that pop ambience has a certain warmth, not quite sunshine-y, but definitely a glow, the imbues the majority of that music with a dreamlike luminescence. While the other folks traffic in something much darker, and while their sound may touch on pop ambience, it remains in the realm of the black, the grey, the sonic underworld. Weirdly enough, we do find ourselves wondering about a pop ambience that was, well, less glowing, more ominous, something darker and more sinister, that could somehow remain ambient pop, without slipping into something else, into dronemusic, or some sort of minimal noisemusic. Strange that it would come from Klimek, who is responsible for some of the dreamiest prettiest pop ambient music we've heard, but Movies Is Magic, Klimek's 'film music' record, is in fact that rare beast, a gorgeous slab of pop ambience, that seethes with tension and emotion and drama, sure it shimmers and glistens, but it also creeps and hums ominously, drones are layered and pulled taut, melodies are minor key and are wrapped around looped cycling strings, field recordings, voices, organic instruments, all woven into Klimek's constantly mutating noir soundscape. Gorgeous and haunting, these tracks evoke everyone from Bohren, to Autechre, Philip Jeck to Pole,�Barry Adamson to Oval, this record would be a perfect fit for Kompakt if it weren't so dark, or Chain Reaction if there were some beats, instead, it exists in some strange rain soaked constant midnight nether region, the pop dialed way back, as is the ambience, this is anything but placid, or calm, this music is alive, crackling with dark energy, tense, and intense, very evocative and textural and moody. The songs are quite varied, but work perfectly together as a whole. Dark moaning horns surface here and there, Bernard Herrmann strings everywhere, the occasional skittery snare, rubbery bass, everything woven and smeared and layered, woozy and dreamlike, a few of the tracks sound all rural, a bit Morricone-ish and Western, subtly twangy with reverbed harmonica, others drift into flute flecked almost Kitaro sounding new age-y flutter, beneath a murmur of rainfall,�disembodied reverbed voices, murky percussion, and hazy looped melodies. Here and there, the record does get all dubby, with little synth stabs, and careening not-quite beats, all wrapped in whir, and exuding a serious sonic import, sometimes sounding almost sinister, but just as often pulling back into something much more melodic and mysterious, straddling the line between lush drift and blackened beauty. Movies Is Magic is our new late night chill out drift off soundtrack, and should certainly appeal to folks who like us maybe always fantasized about a little darkness in their ambient drift. And folks into dark drone music, black ambience, and soundtrack music, might find this the perfect gateway to the fuzzy dreamy drifty world of pop ambience.

MPEG stream: Abyss of Anxiety (Unfolding the Magic)
MPEG stream: Exposed to Life In It's Brutal Meaninglessness
MPEG stream: Exploding Unbearable Desires
MPEG stream: Tears of Happiness (Dismissed Into Mundanity)

Not sure what to say about Knifehandchop that we haven't said before. Big dumb noisy fun. Splattery break core, with throbbing gabber four on the floor thumps, breakbeats chopped beyond recognition, jungle and drum 'n' bass and hardcore thrown in a blender with heaps of funny/catchy top 40 song fragments. From his own twisted take on the mash up (Destiny's Child mixed with Eminem over impossibly damaged and hyper distorted beats) to DJ Scud-ish hardcore dancehall to hyper silly chaotic noise. Good fun stuff. MPEG Download: "Sunjammer Is My Favorite Pokemon Trainer" [/audio/knifehandpokemon.mp3] MPEG Stream: "Sunjammer Is My Favorite Pokemon Trainer" [/audio/knifehandpokemon.m3u] MPEG Download: "Tutti Fruity Booty" [/audio/knifehandtutti.mp3]

MPEG stream: Sunjammer Is My Favorite Pokemon Trainer
MPEG stream: Tutti Fruity Booty
MPEG stream: Taking The Soul Out Of Music

This record has been out for a while in Europe, but is only now being released in the U.S. by the folks at Hydrahead. Knut (pronounced like newt, not like nut) are a punishing metal core powerhouse from Switzerland, who play heavy downtuned midtempo

RealAudio clip: Crawling On All Fours

Switzerland hasn't exactly been known for their metallic output. You could probably count all the great Swiss metal bands on one hand (Celtic Frost, Coroner, uhhhh...Krokus....uh) but when they do metal, man do they do it right. This is album number two from

RealAudio clip: Whacked Out
RealAudio clip: El Nino
RealAudio clip: Neon Gide

Knut are an intense Swiss metalcore band from Switzerland that seem to have found the perfect home on Hydra Head, their sound having much in common with Isis, Old Man Gloom and the like. This is their newest e.p. and teaser for their upcoming full length.

RealAudio clip: Dissolve