Been a little while since we've heard from either of these legendary black metal hordes, one French, one German, but who share much in common sonically, and if you're anything like us, you probably saw the names Katharsis and Antaeus on the same record and already decided this was essential and hurled it into your cart, and you know what? You would be RIGHT. Two new killer blasts of frenzied and gloriously fucked up blackness, both bands offer up something slightly different, but still plenty in keeping with their sound respective sounds.
Up first is Katharsis, or at least that's the side we listened to first, and it DESTROYS!! A blurred expanse of relentlessly buzzing guitars and buried blast beats all murky and muted, a swirling sort of blackness, hovering beneath a creepy deep voice, intoning, testifying, speaking in tongues (?) before the band explodes into a super fast, ultra furious squall of swirling buzzing black metal fury, the vocals really loud and way up in the mix, gargling and growling and slipping into wild falsetto shrieks, doused in reverb and delay, there is also some super surprising poppiness that surfaces during the bridge, super melodic bits all tangled up with the thrashing flailing buzz beneath it, as well as some awesome crazed super shredding guitar leads. Definitely weird, but still completely amazing. Dying for a full length more than ever.
Antaeus have been MIA even longer than Katharsis, and their track, while still pretty ruling, sounds like it could be a demo, or rehearsal, or outtake, but because of that, it gives the song a seriously fucked up and freaked out vibe. After a mysterious blackened industrial drone intro, the band launches into a super fast, almost looped sounding blast, the drums sounds like a machine, except for the strange flurry of fills, the guitars super brittle and buzzy and backed off in the mix, the flurries of lightning fast kick drums are WAY up in the mix, along with the vocals, so much so that it almost sounds like just vocals and drums, with a backdrop of swirling distant buzz. Not as epic and crushing as their records proper, but still plenty heavy and buzzy and black.
Housed in a beautiful printed heavy cardstock sleeve, inside there's a fold out poster sized insert with artwork and liner notes, and the record itself is pressed on some of the thickest vinyl EVER.
ALREADY OUT OF PRINT, so these are the last copies we'll likely be able to get!
We couldn't resist. What better time than now to list one of Allan and Andee's favorite metal records?
Metalheads argue a lot. Which band is heavier. Which singer was the best. Who painted what album cover. Which bands are true metal. And one argument that rages on (at least around here) is which Anthrax singer was/is the best. While Allan and I both agree that current Anthrax throat John Bush (former Armored Saint frontman) is a great vocalist, we also both agree that he isn't very good in Anthrax. Allan tends to lean toward Neil Turbin, who sang on the first two, more decidedly thrash albums, and those records definitely contain some of Anthrax's finest moments. But it was Joey Belladonna who took Anthrax to the next level. His super high pitched wail added some melody to their thrash and opened a lot of people's ears to heavy music. And 'Spreading The Disease' is definitely the best of the Belladonna-era, pre baggy shorts and post 'new yawk hawdcoah'. Super heavy and surprisingly catchy, this record has stood the test of time far better than most eighties metal. A speed metal classic, highly recommended.
Got a big ol' batch of new releases from UK psych label Cardinal Fuzz, and while we're one of the only places in the US to carry em, they're super limited so odds are they won't be around for long.
This one is full length number two from Anthroprophh, aka Paul Allen, frontman of psychedelic space rockers The Heads, but the sounds here, like on the debut, are pretty well removed from the blown out heavy psych of The Heads, instead, Allen weaves long form kraut-psych sprawls, two side long epics this time around, the first, a woozy spaced out shimmer, draped over some motorik tribal rhythms, a tranced out drift that soon morphs into some seriously propulsive hypnorock, with muted guitar chug, softly swirling FX, and eventually, some wild Hendrixian guitar shred, blown out and wildly psychedelic, while in the background, that rhythm churns away, wreathed in billows of spaced out thrum. The flipside adds some creepy Carpenter vibe to the mix, another loping drum rhythm, this time laced with strange industrial clanks and clatter, over which snake charmer melodies buzz and warble, before the guitars swoop in, adding extra layers of riffy buzz and blistering arcs of distorto guitar, before gradually slipping back into a hazy drone-psych swirl, which stretches way out into an extended finale of woozy, drifty sonic mesmer.
SUPER LIMITED, housed in cool black on green silkscreened sleeves, and NO download.
First new full length since the waaay expensive Japanese import 'Shopping Carts Crashing' which we also carry, and it's a good one. With every release, the NY avant hip hop crew of rapper/producers Beans, M Sayyid and High Priest along with engineer
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Anti-Pop has been one of my favorite hip hop groups almost from the first time I heard them, melding an old school, deadpan sort-of tongue-tied De La Soul flow, over unlikely loops and strange samples, with bizarre and confusingly brilliant lyrics that occasionally move beyond bragging and boasting. The deal was sealed when I got to see the ultimate soundclash: Alec Empire spinning rafter-rattling, hyper-distorted beats, Merzbow spitting out shrieking, hissing white noise, and the Anti Pop Consortium, somehow rapping over the whole mess, and fitting perfectly. 'Shopping Carts Crashing' is a Japanese-only release that came out last year, but we only just now got enough to list it. And it's worth the wait. Sparse and dark loop-scapes under a landslide of rapid fire rhyming, boasting on a level so beyond mere mortal rappers that those dissed will very likely not even realise it, instead, scratching their chins, confused, and reaching for their dictionaries. Awesome production, with soaring strings (plucked and bowed), buzzing electrical interference, woofer-rattling synths, old 606 and 909 drum programming, vocoder, space echo, and of course...shopping carts crashing, literally. But the MCs are the main attraction, spitting out rhyme after rhyme of verbose lyrical fuckery, free flowing non-sequiters, mutated metaphors and straight up old fashioned bad ass mouthing off! So so good. Worth the import price tag! And I like it even more since I discovered that one of the guys in the Anti-Pop Consortium is the same guy who is always mean to me whenever I visit a certain 'other' record store.
Rarely does a band make it to its third or fourth record, especially when the band plays sloppy, trashy, violent, totally uncommercial punk rock. But here it is, the year 2000, and Antiseen are still carving their messy, bloody swath across the punk underground, 15 years and counting. Especially amazing considering that frontman Jeff Clayton has been abusing his body in true rock and roll style, ending every show in a bloody disheveled heap on the floor. This is a collection of 7"s, compilation tracks, weird out of print stuff and some unreleased songs, as well as a bunch of covers (Roky Erickson, Screaming Lord Sutch, Troggs, Stooges) showcasing Antiseen at their trashy, fucked up, southern-fried best.
Holy shit, this record destroys me. Within 30 seconds, this record had already given me chills, unnerved me, and literally made me want to cry. On the first listen even! Just listen to the first sound sample and you'll know just what I mean. It's all about Antony's voice. A rich throaty tenor, that slips effortlessly into a keening falsetto. A luxurious vibrato, trilling and wrapping itself around every note. Equal parts Nina Simone, Tiny Tim, Tracy Chapman, Jimmy Scott and even a little Elvis Presley. The instrumentation is minimal, piano, upright bass, shuffling jazz drums, occasional electric guitar. Some songs sound like jazz standards, some like lost gospel classics, others like timeless spirituals. Soaring and maudlin, without becoming overwrought or overly dramatic. He's sort of like an otherworldly, avant-garde Rufus Wainwright. Or the sort of singer you would find in a piano bar in your strangest dreams. Not sure what it was that kept us from getting into Antony And the Johnsons in the past, whether it was the overplayed Coil / Current 93 connection or the whole gender bending novelty aspect, but this record has definitely turned us around. Totally chilling, absolutely haunting and completely beautiful. Features guest performances by Rufus Wainwright, Boy George, Lou Reed and Devandra Banhart.
Weirdo black metal obsessives no doubt remember Italian band Leaden, whose awesomely titled album, Monotonous Foghorns of Molesting Department, we raved about a while back. Not only were the songs called things like "Black Apartment Of Depression" and "When Out Seems To Vanish", but the music was a stumbling confusional mix of blackened doomy slowcore and lurching murky black fuzz, that managed to be more droney and hypnotic than blasting and buzzing, but so weird and unique that we just couldn't get enough of it.
So when we discovered the guy from Leaden had another band, we knew we had to track it down. This isn't that new, but it's the firs time we've managed to get enough to list. And while it doesn't really sound much like Leaden, it is just as weird, but in a whole different, maybe even more brilliantly fucked up way.
My Frozen Dream Slept Too Eternally is only 4 songs, but they're all long, and there's so much packed into each. It would be worth it even if it was just one song, the opener, "Strongest Nocturnal Silence" is the black metal gloom pop what-the-fuck jam of the year. Of any year. Beginning with a simple doomy, almost Sabbathy riff, the drums join in, simple and stripped down, and then the vocals, holy shit. Somewhere between the Ethel Merman like warble of Urfaust and a doped up Axl Rose. A raspy harsh falsetto croon, draped over a warm thick doomy black groove that is equal parts black metal, slowcore and slooowed way down punk rock. The end result is something haunting and creepy and off kilter and amazingly moody and evocative. When the track shifts to the 'chorus', it's a hook that will stick in your head forever, the lurching riff, the anguished vocals. And we're only 5 minutes in. The track shifts gears and suddenly it's just a guitar, unfurling a mournful melody, the notes dripping in effects, drifting over space-y Tangerine Dream style synths, until a distorted guitar comes back in adding a layer of woozy swirling riffage, then the track builds and builds, the guitars getting more psychedelic and frenzied, the synths more dramatic and tense, and suddenly it's some sort of spaced out epic, Godspeed versus Hawkwind by way of Abruptum and Urfaust, the vocals come back in, and finally, the track explodes into a blast of about as black as it gets here, minor key doom-ed black metal, rife with super movie melodies, that minus the vocals and some of the buzz, could be some sort of dark post rock record.
Wow. Like we said, that song alone would be worth the price of admission, but there are three more long ones to go, and they hardly tread the same ground.
The next track starts off all churning downtuned chug underpinned by stumbling double kick, an almost Khold style groove, with some strange murky synthesizers than transform the track into something much more moody and unhinged, the vocals adding their own bit of anguished mystery, the track veering all over the place, the synths shifting the mood from punkish pound to swirling dizzying doom psych and back again. The next track is another punkish jam, with those disembodied keyboards that make this sound like Burzum covering Khold covering Nuit Noire. Shifting repeatedly from loping melancholy dirge to blurred buzz to lumbering moody dirge.
The final track is total blackened post rock. The guitars tangled and minor key, a swirling layer of ghostly keyboard over the whole thing, the vocals, a raspy mournful howl, the melodies constantly shifting and swirling, the song slipping into post punk groove, then dirgey doom metal pound, then black metal blast, but always twisted up by those vocals, and the off kilter keyboards, and the thing is, it may be damaged and demented, but beyond simply being 'bizarre', the sound is intense and emotional, epic and melancholic, dark and weirdly beautiful, while still managing to be heavy, buzzy, totally freaked out, fucked up and so fantastic.
The return of French black metallers Aosoth, with what many are proclaiming to be black metal record of the year. And we have to say we're ready to agree. Obviously, as long time aQ list readers no doubt already know, we love French black metal, as probably do many of you. Deathspell, Blut Aus Nord, Diamatregon, Antaeus, Hell Militia, Otargos, Peste Noire, Spektr, S.V.E.S.T., Mutiilation, Wolok, and of course Aosoth belong to that elite group. This is record number three, originally a side project of Antaeus vocalist MkM, who seems to have maybe been downgraded here, as only the other two guys get their pix in the booklet, while MkM is credited with "audio propaganda", which we can only assume are vocals, and the vocals here are appropriately fierce and fucked up and awesome, and are no doubt still delivered by MkM.
But it's the music that's mindblowing, impossibly relentless, insanely heavy, gnarled and ultra complex, taking the sort of avant blackness of Deathspell, and rendering it in a form much more raw and low fidelity. The riffs are black tangles, the drums insane blasts of lightning fast pound, the atmosphere is super creepy and murky, the melodies soar, the arrangements epic and majestic, but the sound is just this side of lo-fi, the sound managing to be dense and heavy, without being slick and polished, instead, the sound is feral and RAW, and it's a strange combination, the raw lo-fi sound, and this seriously complex avant garde blackness, the tracks slipping from old school black buzz blast, to soaring epic majesty, to total mathed out confusional chaos, all super twisted and psychedelic, just take the extended breakdown on "II", which is a head spinning swirl of constant drum fill and swirling interlocking manic melody, a blurred cloud of frantic heaviness that is so tense and intense, that when it does finally switch, it seemingly takes a few seconds to readjust.
There are plenty of strange interludes, buzzing black ambience, haunting pianos, hazy stretches of guitardrone, hushed expanses of hushed shimmer, but this is the kind of record that is already inherently twisted, those non-metal extras only add to the atmosphere, in fact, in a way, it's those parts that offer a brief respite from the actual music's hellish black weirdness, the core sound a grinding, buzzing dense black tangle, occasionally slipping into something woozy and doomy, lumbering and creeping, a haunting bit of depressive darkness, but inevitably those parts explode into flurries of wildly chaotic drum damage and fucked up and fractured riffage. But for all this perceived weirdness, the sound is not 'weird', all of those strange elements are deftly woven into an incredible suite of grim black metallic mastery, creating a series of songs that manage to be heavy, haunting, brutal and black, fucked up and totally fucking incredible. Black metal record of the year? Could be...
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The album from which Richard D. James' electronica genius became obvious. Selected Abient Works 2 is as if James sonically replicated the post-slumber / pre-waking state when sunlight first strikes the dream riddled eye within the memory banks of his rewired samplers. A beautiful, synaesthetic and haunting post-techno ambient that really must be heard!
We listed this back on #108, when it first came out as an import (we were stocking the Canadian version, thanks to our friends at Scratch Records in Vancouver who ordered 'em for us and smuggled 'em down here) but it's taken over a year for this to get a
We've been huge fans of this Finnish all-cello quartet for a while now, and how could we not be? Their first record was of them sawing away at all Metallica covers! Their second record was almost all covers too, not just Metallica, but Sepultura and Faith No More. It's not all that surprising that these pseudo classical instrumental versions of metal songs worked so well (sometimes better than the originals), especially considering the epic Wagnerian quality of a lot of metal, especially Metallica.
On their third record though, Apocalyptica have almost completely abandoned their metal/Metallica covers (except for a couple bonus tracks) in favor of originals, and the result is probably their best record yet. They have obviously learned all they can from the masters (classical and metal), and have struck out on their own, to create something new, certainly not conventionally metal, but not classical either. Definitely 'heavy' though! The four cellists (here augmented by double bass and all sorts of percussion) craft explosive and complex, super intense epics, fusing classical movements with traditional song structures, bizarre techniques with impeccable chops, all delivered with decidedly un-classical aggression, making for a record way heavier and better than anything Metallica themselves have done in the last few years. Not bad for a bunch of cellists!
This new US edition is a little different than the import -- the bonus tracks are the same (two Metallica covers plus their version of Grieg's "Hall Of The Mountain King"), but they've also included a new version of their song "Path" that adds vocals from the woman from the band Guano Apes (who I guess are popular in Europe), and there's also a cd-rom video included for that same cut. While it's neat to see them flailing away at their cellos in the stylish video, if you already have the import it's not enough to make you trade it in for this version. But if you *don't* have the import (and we know quite a few of you missed out), now's your chance to pick up this awesome album!
(Oh, quick note to the people who write press sheets for Spitfire: "Hall Of The Mountain King" is NOT a Savatage cover, guys!)
This disc by the one man dark ambient drum ensemble Apoptose has long been a favorite around these parts, but as it was a few years old, we were never able to get enough to list. And eventually it just went out of print completely. We were thrilled recently to discover however, that it had just been reissued, and thus, now all can share in our mass musical obsession with this amazing slab of percussive overload.
In a small village in Spain called Calanda, the villages gather each year during the holy week of the Christian Easter festival. The villages, clad in purple robes, are all carrying drums, of various shapes and sizes and sounds. The villages all stand completely still, in near silence, until all at once, the whole lot erupt in a frenzy of wild drumming, which continues practically nonstop for 36 hours, the rhythms of the thousands of drums finding their way into every corner of daily life, mundane activities are suddenly performed to some hypnotic rhythm, many of the players enter some sort of fugue state, a trancelike stupor, many passing out, some oblivious to their hands being rubbed raw and beginning to bleed.
The festival is nearly 100 years old, and predates its current Christian orientation, with heathen roots in a tradition of warning of danger outside the cities walls. Sounds almost like A Hermann Nitcsh action. And it must sound like it as well.
Blutopfer is a tribute, a musical homage, an impression of what that festival might sound like. Filtered through a distinctly dark ambient lens, but still dense and complex and hyper rhythmic.
The opening track begins with a low droning hum, as if to imitate the opening hush of the actual ceremony, a dark smoky swirl, which hardly prepares you for the massive crush of a million snare drums, all tangled and intertwined, various distinct rhythms surfacing amongst the dense drum line cacophony. It's so dense in fact, that the drums almost begin to resemble radio static. But unlike the actual festival, there are all sorts of other sounds, huge throbbing bass melodies, rumbling pulses, the drums locked into a super hypnotic martial rhythm, while the buzzing bass propels it forward. So epic and heavy and majestic and dense with drums!
The sound is almost like LUSTMORD JAMMING WITH A MARCHING BAND DRUM LINE, which we shouldn't have to tell you sounds AMAZING.
While that first track is ultra heavy, and rhythmically fucking fierce, much of the rest of the record is more skeletal, more spare, with long stretched out black ambience, slowly unfurling barely there melodies, all beneath totally intense, completely mesmerizing drumming. A relentless militaristic drum corps, weaving killer complex snare rolls. At it's darkest and most intense, it sounds like some drum heavy Toroidh or Folkstorm track, a teutonic industrial throb, the snares just adding to the intensity, but most of the record, it really does sound like a drum line transported to some wasted bleak doomscape, their insistent rhythms just barely keeping the blackness at bay. SO GODDAMN GOOD.
All new packaging, a dark purple, six panel, thick card stock folded sleeve, with liner notes detailing the Spanish festival that inspired this record.
If you've already guessed from the band name and album title that this is old school DOOM METAL, you'd be correct. What could be more doom than the idea of "Sincere Misery"?? Doom, depression, misery, of course. Sincerity, that's also a hallmark of the truest doom, from Ozzy's earliest croakings with Black Sabbath... he always sounded so sincere, that was a big part of his charisma. Later on, the prayerful likes of Trouble held the same sort of feeling...
So, with this debut, these guys are part of the grand tradition, that's for sure. Cleanly-sung vocal lamentations, soaring o'er CRUNCHY, crawling riffs, sheer epick heaviness in copious quantities, basically. With a variety of interestin' twists here and there to give Apostle Of Solitude their own identity, such as the sampled spoken narrative of some Depression-era old timer over the wide-open-spaces jamming of "This Dustbowl Earth", like a psychedelic Americana. And when comes solo time, they really shine. As achingly gorgeous as doom'd metallic guitarwork can be, yet sharp and fierce too. Perfectly complimenting the glacial gloominess of the band's pained plodding, which reaches its peak on the massive "Warbird", stretched out to over 14 minutes. File alongside the slow and low likes of Solitude Aeturnus, Reverend Bizarre, and home-staters Gates Of Slumber (for whom their guitarist/vocalist played drums, once upon a time).
Oh and we've gotta mention the hidden bonus track, a cover of Sabbath's "Electric Funeral". We think doom bands should resist the urge to cover Sabbath songs, but we're sure for obvious reasons it's an overpowering urge, so we don't blame 'em. At least AoS had the sense to make it an unlisted track at the end of the album. Why do we think doom bands shouldn't cover Sabbath? Well, we ALREADY know you like Sabbath, right? And you're not gonna improve upon the original, nor sound different enough to be interesting from the novelty angle. And now you've gone and ensured that the best song on your album is a cover. Whoops. However, hardly a serious complaint, and true doom fans will enjoy not only AoS's reverent cover of "Electric Funeral" but the whole album for sure. So, TDFs, get this, and also don't miss the new one from Finland's The Wandering Midget, from the same label, reviewed this list too!
Finally! The first in a series of super limited, artist designed aQ T-Shirts, featuring original art by some of our favorite artists, who just so happen to be loyal aQ customers as well! Each one will be super special, totally unique, and will only be available for a limited time, as we're only making a finite amount of each.
The first shirt design is by aQ pal and infamous killustrator Justin Bartlett, whose style many of you no doubt will recognize. He's done tons of drawings for Oaken Throne black metal magazine, as well as record covers for grim groups like SUNNO))), Moss, Nadja, Pentemple and loads more. His style is incredible, super detailed, pen and ink with tons of stippling, lots of skulls and guts and demons and various crusty oozing offal. For aQ he's designed a super creepy and super evil mother and child, heads in bags, their rotten innards spilling out, skulls on spikes, and "Aquarius Records" carved into the stone archway in the background. It looks amazing, and will for sure get some eyes a popping as you wander through the grocery store or sit in church (heaven forbid).
The back features a small aQ logo up near the collar, the shirts are white on black, they are Hanes heavyweight T's, 100% preshrunk cotton, and we have sizes all the way from Youth Large (for kids and little ladies) all the way up to XXL (for the big guys).
We will only be selling these for a couple months, so don't miss out. Once they are gone, they won't be reprinted. EVER.
Future aQ Artist Edition T's will include designs by Savage Pencil, Stephen O'Malley, Aaron Turner and more more more!!!
Finally! The first in a series of super limited, artist designed aQ T-Shirts, featuring original art by some of our favorite artists, who just so happen to be loyal aQ customers as well! Each one will be super special, totally unique, and will only be available for a limited time, as we're only making a finite amount of each.
The first shirt design is by aQ pal and infamous killustrator Justin Bartlett, whose style many of you no doubt will recognize. He's done tons of drawings for Oaken Throne black metal magazine, as well as record covers for grim groups like SUNNO))), Moss, Nadja, Pentemple and loads more. His style is incredible, super detailed, pen and ink with tons of stippling, lots of skulls and guts and demons and various crusty oozing offal. For aQ he's designed a super creepy and super evil mother and child, heads in bags, their rotten innards spilling out, skulls on spikes, and "Aquarius Records" carved into the stone archway in the background. It looks amazing, and will for sure get some eyes a popping as you wander through the grocery store or sit in church (heaven forbid).
The back features a small aQ logo up near the collar, the shirts are white on black, they are Hanes heavyweight T's, 100% preshrunk cotton, and we have sizes all the way from Youth Large (for kids and little ladies) all the way up to XXL (for the big guys).
We will only be selling these for a couple months, so don't miss out. Once they are gone, they won't be reprinted. EVER.
Future aQ Artist Edition T's will include designs by Savage Pencil, Stephen O'Malley, Aaron Turner and more more more!!!
Finally! The first in a series of super limited, artist designed aQ T-Shirts, featuring original art by some of our favorite artists, who just so happen to be loyal aQ customers as well! Each one will be super special, totally unique, and will only be available for a limited time, as we're only making a finite amount of each.
The first shirt design is by aQ pal and infamous killustrator Justin Bartlett, whose style many of you no doubt will recognize. He's done tons of drawings for Oaken Throne black metal magazine, as well as record covers for grim groups like SUNNO))), Moss, Nadja, Pentemple and loads more. His style is incredible, super detailed, pen and ink with tons of stippling, lots of skulls and guts and demons and various crusty oozing offal. For aQ he's designed a super creepy and super evil mother and child, heads in bags, their rotten innards spilling out, skulls on spikes, and "Aquarius Records" carved into the stone archway in the background. It looks amazing, and will for sure get some eyes a popping as you wander through the grocery store or sit in church (heaven forbid).
The back features a small aQ logo up near the collar, the shirts are white on black, they are Hanes heavyweight T's, 100% preshrunk cotton, and we have sizes all the way from Youth Large (for kids and little ladies) all the way up to XXL (for the big guys).
We will only be selling these for a couple months, so don't miss out. Once they are gone, they won't be reprinted. EVER.
Future aQ Artist Edition T's will include designs by Savage Pencil, Stephen O'Malley, Aaron Turner and more more more!!!
Finally! The first in a series of super limited, artist designed aQ T-Shirts, featuring original art by some of our favorite artists, who just so happen to be loyal aQ customers as well! Each one will be super special, totally unique, and will only be available for a limited time, as we're only making a finite amount of each.
The first shirt design is by aQ pal and infamous killustrator Justin Bartlett, whose style many of you no doubt will recognize. He's done tons of drawings for Oaken Throne black metal magazine, as well as record covers for grim groups like SUNNO))), Moss, Nadja, Pentemple and loads more. His style is incredible, super detailed, pen and ink with tons of stippling, lots of skulls and guts and demons and various crusty oozing offal. For aQ he's designed a super creepy and super evil mother and child, heads in bags, their rotten innards spilling out, skulls on spikes, and "Aquarius Records" carved into the stone archway in the background. It looks amazing, and will for sure get some eyes a popping as you wander through the grocery store or sit in church (heaven forbid).
The back features a small aQ logo up near the collar, the shirts are white on black, they are Hanes heavyweight T's, 100% preshrunk cotton, and we have sizes all the way from Youth Large (for kids and little ladies) all the way up to XXL (for the big guys).
We will only be selling these for a couple months, so don't miss out. Once they are gone, they won't be reprinted. EVER.
Future aQ Artist Edition T's will include designs by Savage Pencil, Stephen O'Malley, Aaron Turner and more more more!!!
Finally! The first in a series of super limited, artist designed aQ T-Shirts, featuring original art by some of our favorite artists, who just so happen to be loyal aQ customers as well! Each one will be super special, totally unique, and will only be available for a limited time, as we're only making a finite amount of each.
The first shirt design is by aQ pal and infamous killustrator Justin Bartlett, whose style many of you no doubt will recognize. He's done tons of drawings for Oaken Throne black metal magazine, as well as record covers for grim groups like SUNNO))), Moss, Nadja, Pentemple and loads more. His style is incredible, super detailed, pen and ink with tons of stippling, lots of skulls and guts and demons and various crusty oozing offal. For aQ he's designed a super creepy and super evil mother and child, heads in bags, their rotten innards spilling out, skulls on spikes, and "Aquarius Records" carved into the stone archway in the background. It looks amazing, and will for sure get some eyes a popping as you wander through the grocery store or sit in church (heaven forbid).
The back features a small aQ logo up near the collar, the shirts are white on black, they are Hanes heavyweight T's, 100% preshrunk cotton, and we have sizes all the way from Youth Large (for kids and little ladies) all the way up to XXL (for the big guys).
We will only be selling these for a couple months, so don't miss out. Once they are gone, they won't be reprinted. EVER.
Future aQ Artist Edition T's will include designs by Savage Pencil, Stephen O'Malley, Aaron Turner and more more more!!!
Finally! The first in a series of super limited, artist designed aQ T-Shirts, featuring original art by some of our favorite artists, who just so happen to be loyal aQ customers as well! Each one will be super special, totally unique, and will only be available for a limited time, as we're only making a finite amount of each.
The first shirt design is by aQ pal and infamous killustrator Justin Bartlett, whose style many of you no doubt will recognize. He's done tons of drawings for Oaken Throne black metal magazine, as well as record covers for grim groups like SUNNO))), Moss, Nadja, Pentemple and loads more. His style is incredible, super detailed, pen and ink with tons of stippling, lots of skulls and guts and demons and various crusty oozing offal. For aQ he's designed a super creepy and super evil mother and child, heads in bags, their rotten innards spilling out, skulls on spikes, and "Aquarius Records" carved into the stone archway in the background. It looks amazing, and will for sure get some eyes a popping as you wander through the grocery store or sit in church (heaven forbid).
The back features a small aQ logo up near the collar, the shirts are white on black, they are Hanes heavyweight T's, 100% preshrunk cotton, and we have sizes all the way from Youth Large (for kids and little ladies) all the way up to XXL (for the big guys).
We will only be selling these for a couple months, so don't miss out. Once they are gone, they won't be reprinted. EVER.
Future aQ Artist Edition T's will include designs by Savage Pencil, Stephen O'Malley, Aaron Turner and more more more!!! ----* ----* Highlights : ----*
As mentioned on last Friday's in-betweener, for this year's Record Store Day, we finally got around to producing some aQuarius tote bags! People are always asking, and it's the eco-friendly thing to do, hope you like 'em.
It's a black bag, with metallic silver print, featuring a brand new, elaborately 'black metal' styled aQuarius Records logo, done by "the Lord of the Logos" himself, the very talented (and super nice) Christophe Szpajdel. He did Emperor's logo, among many others. He's the man. It's a nice lookin' logo, kind of black metal meets art nouveau. These 14 1/2" x 16" bags, with securely cross-stitched straps, are big enough to hold a bunch of lps (like, up a dozen single lps).
Scottish duo whose melancholy murmurings remind us of Tindersticks more than anything else.
We've long been fans of Swedish one man black metal band Arckanum. Even those who haven't heard his music, probably remember the 'band' photos, which always featured a cloaked creature with a deformed troll-like face, huge hook nose, and carrying a massive staff. Some folks were put off by this bit of theatricality, probably giving them visions of the much cheesier Mortiis. But then they were missing out. This Swede kicked out the classic black metal jams, nothing avant, or experimental really, barring the occasional ambient interlude, but just pure raw grim blackness. With a lo-fi production and a great crusty black sound, Arckanum released 3 full lengths in the late nineties, and since then, it's been nothing but a handful of splits and eps. So we were pretty excited for the first Arckanum full length in ten years, and we were not disappointed.
The sound, at its core is similar to the classic Arckanum sound, but the production is massive, the guitars thick and monstrous, the drums pounding and brutal, the whole vibe is much more sleek and streamlined and 'produced', but thankfully manages to retain most of its grimness and blackness, although now the music is imbued with a power never present before, and if anything, dare we say it, a new found groove.
We've heard this record compared to discs by Craft and Inquisition, among others, but we can't help hearing a little Khold, which as far as we're concerned is actually a good thing. Take the album opener, after a creeped out drone-y intro, and a swirl of guitar buzz and cymbal sizzle, the song launches into a furious blast, which sounds punkier and crustier that we remember, and again, groovier. It has much to do with the chord progression, as on the surface this is still all blasting beats and buzzing guitars, but then the deal is sealed with the bridge, where the guitars and drums lock into a weird droney, almost poppy part that sounds like it could have come from a Torche song! And that vibe, those melodies, those subtle touches are present throughout, even at its most intense and furious, the band easily will slip in a subtle, yet impossibly catchy hook or phrase, almost like they don't even know they're doing it, some mysterious musical force manifesting itself, hidden among the black brambles and jagged harsh heaviness. Then there's a track like "Rokulfargnyr", which is primarily a strange clipped staccato guitar chug, the drums locked in, peppered with dynamics, but it almost sounds like some sort of fractured math rock. Even when the song kicks in for real, the stop start guitar, the super technical drumming, eventually gives way to more soaring melodic buzzing blackness. "Nakjeptir" is all eighties groove and chug, laced with cool stretches of black dissonance. "Eksortna" is just guitar, distorted and melodic, unfurling a stately court-of-the-king style melody,
while closer "Formala" is classic blackened doom, very spacious and sprawling, with some weird drumming, a killer main riff, and an outro of demonic murmurs and buzzing distorted rumbles.
This disc has been getting crazy play around here, and has had us revisiting the older records as well, which sound even better than we remember. Lots of folks we know have been talking about Antikosmos as BM record of the year, and while we still have other contenders to consider, we're definitely inclined to agree that this could very well crack the top ten. Maybe even the top five...
Not entirely sure why we never reviewed the Arctic Monkeys' Favorite Worst Nightmare, considering how much we flipped for their debut Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, that second one was good too, but here we are at record number three, Humbug, and their sound has definitely taken a strange turn. It still sounds like THEM, but it's much darker, more brooding and crunchy, less kinetic and snotty and wild. Could be lots of things, musical maturity, regular maturity (after all they were all in their teens when they recorded that first record), lots of people are blaming Queens Of The Stone Age's Josh Homme, who handled most of the production, but maybe 'blaming' is the wrong word, cuz as far as we're concerned, there's no blame to be assigned, if anything Humbug is just a grower. On first listen, nothing stood out single wise, like the first record. But then "Crying Lightning" caught our ear big time, with its big drums and fuzzy bass, and spidery guitar lines, it only took a few listens and BANG, heavy rotation. And so it went with the rest of the record, track by track, blossoming into a new favorite, the sound definitely beefier, heavier, more crunchy, that we can give Homme some credit for, but as for everything else, blame the band, at least for making another killer record of super catchy crunchy new wavey post punk pop. Dig it!
Besides having possibly the coolest, and most illegible metal logo ever, these Knoxville Tennessee blackened doomlords unleash some seriously sick sludge, that is after an extended stretch of ominous ambience, more than a quarter of the opening 12 minute track. It begins with a dark swirl of field recordings, the sound of the forest, or the swamp, insects, splashing water, all underpinned by an ominous low end rumble, the sound getting more industrial and noisy as it goes, with strange percussion, looped fractured rhythms, all over a churning collage of layered nature sounds, the whole thing seriously psychedelic... The track finally settles into a hushed stretch of clean guitar shimmer, before erupting into what is essentially slo-mo black metal, lumbering, and downtuned, the sound then shifting from that blackened buzz, to some seriously knuckle dragging doom-ic crush, eventually building to something a bit more frenzied and propulsive, the same creeping riffage, but with wilder, more chaotic drumming, before the guitars amp up too, the band getting sort of chugging and almost math-metally for the last couple minutes, finishing off with some shrieked, feedback drenched, FX-flecked, Eyehategod-worthy ultra-doom. Whew! The second track begins with some furious fast pick riffing, sheets of feedback, and then the sound explodes into some blasting blackness, a murky, noisy, chaotic black buzz blowout, rife with gnarled riffage, some true metal chug, plenty of noise, and some seriously tangled arrangements. The third track, the shortest of the bunch, again starts off with some soaring, almost Orthrelm style black-shred, before being swallowed up by another cloud of shrieking feedback, erupting into a final furious sprawl of frantic black buzz and harrowing hellish howl.
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Arkha Sva are another one of our favorite black metal bands, who for whatever reason, have yet to appear on out list save for one solitary cassette listed way back in 2006. But holy shit, these guys are amazing, from Japan, these guys, along with aQ faves Avsolutized (who it's rumored might share a member or two) as well as Manierisme, make up a whole scene that seems to be lurking well beneath the underground, but we can't imagine for long, as the music of these bands is mind blowing, at once beholden to the BM that came before, but so much its own entity.
Arkha Sva create a soundworld both buzzy and murky, lo-fi, with tangled arrangements, droney blasting blackness, so super atmospheric and evocative, managing to be grim and buzzy, but also haunting and intense, with some of the most insane vocals ever, a wildly operatic shriek, that will later define the band's sound, but here only pops up once or twice, more often existing as a harsh howled hellish growl.
This disc collects two early tapes from 2005, and finds the band much more raw and primitive and rough, the sound only hinting at the more outsider and avant elements that would surface later. But in 2005, Arkha Sva were creating super grim, ultra murky buzz drenched black rituals. Channelling the spirit of the black legions, Mutiilation, Belktre, Vlad Tepes (one of the Black Legions members does all the cryptic calligraphy on AS records!), this is fierce and furious lo-fi blackness, the buzzing guitars a muddy swirl, the drums a throbbing murky pulse, all underpinning guttural strangled vocalisations, a swirling fuzzy black missive to the dark lord, there are some strange sonic surprises tucked away, most notably the aforementioned WAY louder-than-everything-else high pitched scream and weird falsetto. But for the most part this is just an awesome, droney blast of murky black buzz that is as hypnotic and space-y as it is blown out and brutal. They even do a couple covers, Mutiilation and Belketre!
So so so recommended. And we suggest you do whatever you can to get everything you can by these guys, and we can guarantee that their next full length will be an epochal moment in black metal. People freaking out over Paysage and Darkspace and whoever else might just find themselves switching their allegiance.
And check out this awesome live clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpuBqeCdOCM
Now that doom legends Reverend Bizarre are dead and gone, main clergyman Sir Albert Witchfinder has time to dabble in about a dozen other projects, such as this one, primitive raw black metal outfit Armanenschaft. Sir Albert is in fact known as Ancient Fisherman here, as he and his partners Morbid Necrovore and Hyperborean Princess whip up a furious squall of filthy fucked up black metal. Most of the tracks are fast and furious, brutal and buzzing, although the record begins with a super spacey tripped out Tangerine Dream style synthscape before launching into some ultra raw necro buzz. The guitars are totally blown out, ultra distorted, relentless D-beat drums buried in the mix, the vocals a harsh howl that just as often slips into a super strange strangled wail. Super simple, super stripped down, Repetitive and hypnotic, definitely for fans of Bone Awl, Ildjaarn, Ash Pool, Akitsa and the like.
BUT, there's plenty of weirdness going on too. Long stretches of buzzing black noise, some slower doomy tracks with warped, almost twangy guitars, over looping rhythms and growled vocals, plenty of droning alchemical guitar rituals, crumbling dirges, and hissed inhuman vocals. One of our favorite tracks is one that is just drums and vocals, the drums super processed and locked into a looped D-beat, pounding away, the vocals maniacal and hysterical, going from shriek to moan to mumble to scream, and sounding like some possessed muppet. WOW. But even with all that weirdness, the core of the record is stripped down raw primitive black metal, thrashing and pounding, which we totally love. The weirdness only makes it that much better.
Hail the Ancient Fisherman. Highly recommended. Vinyl only. VERY LIMITED.
Some metal records truly stand the test of time. Sounding as good now as they did when you first heard them. And rare is the record that sounds as good at 36 as it did at 16. But if you ask the metalheads around here, we all agree that Armored Saint's March Of The Saint is one of those records. Part of the same L.A. scene that produced W.A.S.P., Quiet Riot, Dokken, Malice, Ratt, and Motley Crue (Tommy Lee was almost a member of Armored Saint), Armored Saint were somehow a whole lot heavier, blending the thrashy sound of Metallica with the melody and songwriting of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal. Plus you got John Bush, who has to have one of the best metal voices EVER, not one of those soaring high eighties metal voices, instead a super raspy, melodic croon, that managed to be both rough and melodic at the same time. It was hard not to love the Anthrax records that featured Bush on lead vocals (well, okay, not that hard) but in Armored Saint everything just clicked. A lot of it of course had to do with the songs. Every one packed with hooks, killer leads, amazing riffs, kick ass drumming, unforgettable choruses, one of the best metal records of the eighties for sure. Not sure what else to say. This is one of the few records that we've been listening to for basically the last 20 years. In fact, all of us have it on our iPods as well, and every time it comes on, it's sort of an unspoken truth, that it gets turned up so we can all revel in the metal majesty of March Of The Saint.
As with all the Rock Candy reissues (including the Billy Squier reviewed elsewhere on this list), there are tons of liner notes, interviews with the original band members (who strangely talk mostly about how disappointed they were with the album), rare photos, and three bonus tracks, 24 track demo versions of "March Of The Saint", "Mutiny On The World" and "Seducer" (one of Lars Ulrich from Metallica's favorite songs!).
We love Thee Armpit. Don't get to type that nearly enough, but it's true, this NZ drone combo, the strangely named Armpit, is in fact one of our favorites, every record we've gotten our hands on has offered up a bounty of dark and drone-y delights, and this one is no different. Well, actually it is a bit, in that we've actually had these here for quite a while, they somehow found there way into a corner in the closet and were only unearthed now after maybe a year or more of slipping through the cracks. All that means is that there's a good chance these might be impossible to restock, and very well may be out of print, so if you're a fan of Thee Armpit, like us, then do yourself a favor and don't dawdle, cuz these will most likely disappear right quick.
But if you do manage to get your hands on one, you'll be in some serious lo-fi free drone soft noise heaven. These guys have been known to rock out Dead C style now and again, but this disc tends toward the more introspective, long washed out fuzzy drones, fractured bedroom folk, all strummed guitar and tape hiss, warbly music box drift, super spare folky drift, fractured tape experiments, all very murky and muddy and woozy and gauzy and dreamy and weirdly pretty. Armpit freaks (c'mon, you know that's you!) are gonna want this for sure. But anyone into the folkier Dead C stuff, the Finnish forest folk, and all the sort of bedroom lo-fi 4-track stuff will definitely dig this as well.
Again, CRAZY LIMITED, get one while you can...
This unfortunately monickered duo make up for the name, with a wild and woolly sound, raw and noisy but dreamy and soothing at the same time. Carrying on the tradition of 'classic' NZ noise ala the Dead C / Gate, TA take instruments, REAL instruments, and spread them over our ears in a thick and prickly, warm and sticky, pummellingly beautiful mess of sound. From thud rock dirge, to outer sound explorations, to almost-pop, to deconstructed rhythmic workouts, to shoe-gazey space rock, all filtered through that distinctly noisy NZ lo-fi aesthetic. Really really great. Two cd-r discs in a nice handpainted cover, with some truly strange comics inside.
We love Art Brut. Their first record, Bang Bang Rock & Roll was an awesome slab of Fall worship, complete with angular guitars, caffeinated grooves, and the singer's snarky ironic sung/spoken vocalizing, sounding like the hipster bastard child of Mark E. Smith. Their first hit from that record, "Formed A Band", took the piss out of plenty of bands, but was pretty self deprecating at the same time. The line "And yes, this is my singing voice, it's not irony, it's not rock & roll, we're just talking to the kids" pretty much says it all.
The second record was a bit of a let down, seemed a little milquetoast, a bit watered down, there were definitely some killer moments, but not nearly enough. Vs. Satan however finds the band kicking ass once again, the music is as always, total bouncy new wave pop, the guitars jagged and crunchy, the drums propulsive and frenetic, a sound that definitely falls in line with sonic compatriots like the Arctic Monkeys, Maximo Park and the like, but it's the vocals that really set this apart. Imagine The Fall (there's no way around mentioning the Fall with Art Brut) if they were in their twenties or very early thirties right now, and were raised on, well, The Fall among other groups, and sang about comic books and milkshakes and being accused of never growing up and girls and other bands and public transportation and not having a driver's license and other mundanities of modern life. Sounds stupid, and maybe it is, but it's also goofy and good fun, often clever, cheeky, snide, but just as often tossed off, but fuck it, these guys aren't trying to change the world, they're having a good time, making an awesome racket, and we're having a great time listening to it. Plus these songs are wicked catchy, just listen to the opening one two punch of "Alcoholics Unanimous" and "DC Comics And Chocolate Milkshakes" and see if you're not totally sold. Two of our favorite new wave pop jams of the year for sure.
We are so excited to see this incredible score to one of our all time favorite films finally issued on vinyl. Long unavailable in any format, the electronic scores that Eduard Artemiev created for Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky's fantastic and meditative seventies sci-fi films Solaris, Mirror and Stalker are some of the most incredibly moving and brooding soundtracks we have ever heard. So much so, that the movies would not have had such a deep emotional impact without them. This original 1972 Solaris score (not to be confused with the later eighties re-recording, also being reissued on another label) in particular is eerily contemplative, full of chilling electro-acoustic drones, romantic Bach organ fugues and dreamily ponderous passages wrought with field recordings, gongs, and ghostly choruses, that are both beautiful and terrifying in equal measure.
Solaris can be seen as the Eastern European counterpart to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, as both films are meditative existential ruminations on the metaphysical schism that divides human and alien understanding. Based on Stanislaw Lem's 1961 novel, the film centers on a space psychologist Kris Kelvin who is sent to investigate the mysteriously stalled progress of a space expedition sent from Earth to study the strange planet Solaris. When he arrives, he finds the three person crew oddly isolated from each other and the station in disarray. The mystery deepens when he awakens the following morning and sees his late wife (who killed herself years ago) asleep beside him. It seems that the planet Solaris is actually a sentient life-form that is using the passengers' past memories as a means of communicating with them. However, not understanding what consequences may come about when confronted with uncanny manifestations of painful memories from the past, the planet's attempt at making contact with the expedition causes the crew to become emotionally dysfunctional and self-destructive. In Tarkovsky's multi-layered narrative, no amount of space travel can separate us far enough from the past that continually haunts us.
In 17 movements, Artemiev's score is centered on Bach's "Choral Prelude for Organ in F Minor" as a recurring theme. The mix of classical and electro-acoustic music underlies the visual set design of the space station which also features oddly enough, reproductions of Old Master paintings, in particular the 16th century series "The Months" by Pieter Bruegel The Elder. The confluence of past and future motifs in the film as well as the score is startling effective allowing for an uneasy ruminative moodiness on the nature of time. The frigid electronic passages give voice to an oceanic planetary presence that is absolutely awe-inspiring beset in harrowing timbres that calm and intensify in subtle slow-moving waves. Only Tarkovsky can make windy wild meadows, foggy woods and tumultuous oceans feel so unfamiliar and freakishly alien. The second side opens up to more dreamier and stranger sonic passages, including a theme based on Kelvin's dead wife Hari that is beautifully haunting with a short choir interlude. From there, that leads into a snippet of Russian folk-song, and field recordings of birds, dogs, voices and gongs, with eventually both the Bach organ pieces and the cavernous electronics intermixing more and more intensely together with epic results.
Comes beautifully packaged with 3 variant covers featuring different film stills (sorry, we can't guarantee which one you will get!), and a full color booket of static shots from the film. Another win for the increasingly amazing Superior Viaduct label. Essential!
With a name like Artificial Brain, and a record title like Labyrinth Constellation, when coupled with the crazy seventies van / alien war / D&D / Frazetta style cover art, you knew this was gonna be some sort of epic metal, but we were even more pleased to discover it was in fact a twisted strain of complex sci-fi death metal, gnarled and blackened, obtuse and avant, sorta like Nocturnus crossed with Portal, the sound shifting constantly from blasting, thrashing metallic crush, to grinding, confusional psychedelic metallic chaos, to tranced out black-drone-buzz, intricate and proggy, and furiously mathy. This NY horde features dudes from technical death metal outfit Revocation and and pre-Castevet death-grind combo Biolich (who we LOVE but never managed to review anything by), and really in a way, the band math adds up perfectly to Artificial Brain, a dizzying onslaught of death metal murk, and blackened math metal, sci-fi grind, laced with all sorts of subtle sonic flourishes, cool swirls of shimmering harmonics here, lush layered almost shoegazey moments there, but all settled amidst a blurred and smeared soundscape of impossibly frantic blasts, roiling clouds of monstrous Deathspell style black-buzz churn and furiously fluctuating fields of lumbering stop/start math metal lurch. Fucking fantastic. WAY recommended for fans of Portal, Wold, Dodecahedron, Timeghoul, Gorguts, diSEMBOWELMENT, Abyssal, Cremation, Mitochondrian and other purveyors of twisted, outsider, avant death metal murk.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
A while back we reviewed a compilation of early REDACTED experimental music called REDACTED, that documented the lively scene there in the sixties and seventies, from playful goofy sound manipulation, to austere soundscapes, hand built instruments, vocal experimentations, freaked out avant rock and more. A pretty amazing document, that unfortunately seems to be unavailable lately.
Not long after we reviewed it, a REDACTED label contacted us with an entire album from one of the artists on the comp, by the name of ARTIST 02. To be totally honest, at the time we couldn't remember who was who and which tracks were ARTIST 02's, since by that time the comp had been gone for a while, but we figured that folks loved that comp so much that a whole record by ARTIST 02, regardless of which tracks were theirs would be amazing.
So we got the discs in and they looked amazing, gorgeous eight panel silkscreened sleeve, with totally confusing but eminently readable liner notes from REDACTED, and two front covers depending on which way you held it, since it compiled two different sets of pieces. We decided to listen to REDACTED first, two pieces, one from 1962, one from 1968. The first track begins with ARTIST 02 repeating a single word over and over. And over. And over. Well, weird. Skip to the end of the first track, still repeating that same word, over and over and over. Okay, we'll go to the second track. Hmmm. Same word. Over and over. Obviously being 'performed' live as you can hear throat clearing and seat shifting and foot shuffling. Wow. 13 minutes of the same word, repeated over and over in a deadpan monotone. Slowly shifting in pitch and inflection, but very, um. similar. But stick with us, after those tracks, which have now grown on us quite a bit, this becomes a super cool, super weird, and totally primitive turntablist / plunderphonic / mashup record. The majority of REDACTED, the pieces that make up the second half of the disc, is manipulated vinyl lps, 78's, 7"s, all tweaked and affected and fucked with. A series of smokey jazz records are slowed way down, pitch shifted up and down, up and down, warbling and wobbling, woozy and dizzyingly soothing, like listening to old jazz 78's through a funhouse mirror, melodies stumble clumsily into each other and pile one on top of another, jostling to return to some normal speed, some semblance of regular jazz, but continue to weave drunkenly, seasick and sleepy, drunken and druggy. Not all that different than stuff we've heard Kid Koala and other modern turntablists do which is pretty amazing. Then: a looped snippet of piano and a weary vocal singing "I'm Alabama bound" over and over, a seemingly endless loop, until the words stop making any sense and become nothing but strange melodic concepts, and then the voice riffs its way out of the loop, the effect similar to when a massive drone finally ends, there's that moment where the tension is finally relieved. Later: a record of thirties boogie woogie is scratched and skipped and looped and becomes a skittering, hypnotic, jumble of female vocals and jaunty horns, all sort of bouncing and hiccuping and skipping, creating strange rhythms and melodic fragments.
Probably the most compelling and amazing piece is "REDACTED", where multiple versions of "I've Got You Under My Skin" are played simultaneously, piled atop one another, seemingly at random, performed at different tempos, in different keys, sounding a bit like a random round, until all of the singers sing the word 'reality' at the same moment, and which point the song starts to loop and repeat and blur, becoming a confusing collage of multiple 'reality's. Literally.
The posthumous debut from (and, thus, swansong of) REDACTED's most cult black metal act, ARTIST 09. Despite their REDACTED, non-forested, non-wintry origins, ARTIST 09 was a band capable of destroying the best Scandinavia has to offer (as we witnessed upon two occasions, when ARTIST 09 had the honor of opening the REDACTED shows by Norweigans REDACTED and REDACTED, and proceeded to make both bands look like punk rockers in comparison! ARTIST 09 were so much more epic and intense). All this without any of the ignorant posturing or hackneyed corpsepaint of their peers.
Ghastly, anguished vocals and bloodchilling keyboards combine with dual trebly buzzsaw guitars and inhuman trance inducing drumming to create an atmosphere of utter grinding grimness. ARTIST 09 draws upon '90s black metal in the Norwegian tradition (especially the raw and primitive likes of Darkthrone, Burzum and Immortal) and then creates uniquely fucked song structures of epic length (20 minutes per, in some cases).
And, like the best music, ARTIST 09 also transcends genre. In some ways, REDACTED possesses elements that can be considered akin to the avant garde, experimental creations of the Swans, Skullflower, Steve Reich, or even Yoko Ono. Imagine an extensive, utterly mesmerizing Hermann Nitsch piece, composed for black metal band.
It's a suffocating soundscape of riffing and drone. Subterranean satanic art rock that equals metal. Nihilistic, depressive and never ending.
Featuring REDACTED formerly of REDACTED as well as drummer REDACTED from local death metallers REDACTED (R.I.P) and REDACTED. And of course, REDACTED of...well, REDACTED. (And REDACTED / REDACTED / REDACTED / REDACTED) REDACTED black metal maniac/death rocker extraordinaire. ARTIST 09 is largely the result of his devotion to black metal dementia.
We are not engaging in baseless hyperbole when we say: this should be crowned black metal album of the year. Any year. EVERY YEAR! FOREVER!!!! Seriously. Essential.
Don't know much about this record. But boy we sure do like it. And part of the reason is it is so indescribable. Seriously. Rarely is a record free enough from referents that we are forced to describe the sound alone instead of comparing it to this person and that band. Which while daunting, is also incredibly exciting. It even inspired a spirited discussion with my lady friend (who also loved this record) on how to explain/describe just what the hell is going on here musically. Asa-Chang is a self-taught tabla/bongo guru and in-demand session percussionist and this is his first proper solo record. And it's not at all the record you might expect from a famous tabla player. The tabla, and percussion in general is used quite sparingly, usually strangely entagled with processed vocals, creating fucked up rhythms and otherworldly harmonies. The first track features lots of mournful strings, soaring and swelling with staccato tabla perfectly in sync with spoken male and female vocals. Strangely hypnotic and totally alien sounding. The next track is sort of calypso, with horns and steel drums pecking out a lo-fi, murky melody, sounding a bit like Indian street musicians jamming with some Elephant 6 band. And it continues, careening wildly (stylistically) all over the place, but somehow remains totally cohesive and utterly compelling. They even do a cover of Brigitte Fontaine & Art Ensemble's "Comme A La Radio"! With harmonica and sitars and electronics and crazy tablas triggering whispery Japanese vocals over lovely strings. Unlikely sounds and deliberately angular melodies, super affected vocals ranging from robotic sped up female voices to distorted, pitched down male voices, often harmonising (sort of), occasional almost-indie rock riffs plucked out on an acoustic guitar, bells and chimes, shimmering drones, electronic bleeps and blips, and amazing percussion all gel perfectly into one of the weirdest coolest records we've heard in a long time.
In the wake of Jesu, and about a million other shoegazey bliss-metal combos, it's a little surprising that Asbsestoscape is the first band to take that blown out dreamy heaviness to an entirely new place. Well okay, maybe not entirely, but this, the debut cd-r by this mysterious one man band is actually quite refreshing, and a handful of folks we trust are proclaiming this their record of the year. And we can see why. In a nutshell, imagine sweeping post rock epics, merged with crumbling distorted blissed out metalgaze, but now lace the whole thing with skittery programmed rhythms, bursts of stuttery jungle, stretches of shuffling downtempo grooves, it's pretty fucking great. And the sound, deconstructed, can result in two different equations, one: a metal band, a slow, fuzzy dreamy metal band, mixing in cool jungle rhythms, or two: an electronic outfit, jungle or drum and bass or whatever, incorporating guitars and post rocky melodies. Either way, the results are sublime.
But this juxtaposition, while cool, is not enough to sustain an entire record. Thankfully, Asbestoscape has a deft hand with composition too, the tracks here are dark and minor key, grand and majestic, epic and super dramatic. Instrumental of course, but never boring, the textures and melodies and rhythms more than enough to keep it interesting. It's easy to hear bits of Jesu, Mono, Explosions In The Sky, Mogwai, Nadja, but those sounds get their own unique twist, the deal sealed by flurries of spastic drum splatter, or mechanical minimal almost industrial rhythmic crunch. There are long slow building epics, the jangly guitars, shot through with high end streaks, underpinned by thick swells of muted heaviness, all held together by crystalline frameworks of programmed skitter, there are huge chugging metallic riffs gradually blurred into shimmering squalls of blissy buzz, some gorgeous slow burning dirges, that almost sound like a slowed down, prettier Godflesh (doing it almost better than Jesu), simple glistening stretches of stripped down post rock, wreathed in prismatic guitar jangle and a deep droney low end that sounds almost like strings, there's even a track that sounds like a post rock-ed chunk of dubstep. But it all works, and while in lesser hands the programmed rhythms could sound forced and gimmicky, they don't here, not only do they manage to sound organic, they also become an integral part of the Asbestoscape sound.
The more we listen to this, the more we dig it. And thankfully, as Jesu moves more and more toward M83's eighties retro revival, albeit heavier (a move we're not at all opposed to, btw) it seems like Asbestoscape are here to fill that void, in addition to offering up a new take on the post rock / metal sound that should have fans of any of the above mentioned bands freaking out big time.
The return of East Coast USBM duo Ash Pool featuring Dominick Fernow of Prurient, which is what usually has people expecting something WAY noisier, along the lines of WOLD or Nekrasov or something, a sort of white noise infused with elements of blackness and buzz, but in fact the sound of Ash Pool is way more "poppy" than you might expect, aligning itself with the raw black energy of groups like Akitsa. Ash Pool definitely used to traffic in ultra raw, primitive BM, but on For Which He Plies The Lash, things seem to have taken a turn, with a more polished sound and some distinctly more accomplished songwriting, that includes some awesomely off kilter riffing, and lots of what the fuck weirdness.
Take the opening track "Holocaust Temple", which begins with a killer start/stop lurch, before exploding into full on manic buzz frenzy, but then there's some crooned clean vocals, that remind us of Borknagar, a weird juxtaposition for sure, but it works, it's just totally changes the vibe, as the music and the harsh vox are relentless and almost looped sounding, pounding away. The song shifts gears, and veers into a seriously poppy stretch, with some awesome guitar playing, and crazy catchy melodies, sounding a bit like In Flames gone black metal, and then suddenly, the song grinds to a halt, and they kick out this crazy folky / polka riff, and the songs becomes almost jaunty, the vocals even more maniacal, the bass bloopy and woozy, the whole song a sort of black waltz, before lurching into the home stretch with a blast of venomous black fury. Holy shit, so awesome, and so fucking weird.
And the rest of the record follows suit. "A Sacrifice Consumed By Fire" begins with a hysterical shriek before slipping into a warped doomy lumber, that eventually becomes more and more jagged, and furiously blastingly obtuse. "Big Bang Black Metal" is downright black 'n' roll, with a super rocking groove, and monstrous grunted vox, as well as a tripped out bridge, all Eastern sounding, with a weird temp change and spidery melody.
The whole record is one awesome musical mindfuck, equal parts troo grim heaviness, warped poppiness, sludge doom driven chug, and out there what the fuck, but all deftly woven into one seriously cohesive chunk of fucked up blackness.
And as if to just seal the deal, the record closes with quite the confusional two-fer, the downtuned shriek laden seasick creep of "Moon Rose Over Sobibor", slipping from doomic lumber, to stuttery chug and back again, before finishing off with the oddly titled "On The Rings Of Saturn Adam And Eve Conceive Cain" which is mostly a filthy slab of midtempo grimness, oh except for that one part where the song cuts out suddenly, leaving a weird, swirly sci-fi organ driven pound, which then underpins the next stretch of soaring majestic riffage, before the band finally leap back into the fray, finishing off with a stretch of frantic frenzied freaked out heaviness.
Fucking awesome stuff. And definitely not where we expected Ash Pool to head next, but these guys just keep getting better and better, and we're pretty sure For Which He Plies The Lash is probably gonna be a contender for black metal record of the year...
Finally! The first proper full length from these NY based, ultra sick, primitive black metal noise merchants. Everything we've heard so far we've dug like crazy, a single and a tape, each filthy and dripping with blown out black buzz and pounding punkish riffing. This full length is more of the same, and if anything ups the ante sonically.�
Meaner, heavier, thrashier, filthier, more raw and primitive and blown out, and like the other records, still poppy and weirdly catchy. This is most definitely black metal, but a crushing primitive D-beat style BM, following a similar sonic path as fellow black hordes Bone Awl, Ancestors, Akitsa, Malveillance and the like.�
Ash Pool is one part blacknoise outfit Prurient, so you knew there was gonna be noise, but the noise here is deftly harnessed into roiling black riffs and blasting beats, woozy, dizzying seasick blasts of relentless pound, furious and fierce, the production thick and blown out, in the red, crumbling distortion and murky reverb everywhere.�
But this isn't just the same song over and over, set the instruments to blast and let the record play out. No these songs are varied and bizarre, occasionally epic and dramatic, sometimes so fast and brutal it borders on pure noise, sometimes a Brainbombs style caveman pound, sometimes a weird minor key mathrock jam, always appropriately blown out and noisy, but now and then the songs veer into strange, creepy, almost pretty territory, a slow and loping doomic lurch, with minor key melodies that manage to be mournful and funereal but still jagged and buzzy. Winding melancholic lopes that just sort of meander and chug abstractly. But it's never long before the tracks splinter into jagged shards, with the song exploding into another stretch of raw toxic pummel, the�vocals doused in FX and convulsing wildly atop the relentless riffage. And every once in a while, the band lock into some crazy melodic groove, and for a brief moment you almost forget you're listening to some harsh and hateful black noise outfit.�
Hard to explain how great this stuff is, it all manages to be so visceral and intense, emotional and depressive, melodic with losing it's flesh-peeling edge, so sonically varied without losing it's focus, the slow songs are perfect bridges between the speaker shredding streaks of black brutality, but even when things are chaotic and on the verge of collapse, the songs still manage to be catchy and melodic and heavy as fuck.�
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We weren't at all familiar with this German dronelord / bliss-drift technician, but we got an email from him, describing himself as a "romantic drone musician", so really how could we resist? While we may have been skeptical and first, this really is some romantic dronemusic, longform sprawls of lush layered shimmer, deep resonant thrum, a slow-motion swirl of constantly shifting overtones, tracks laced with melancholy melodies, or underpinned by heaving slabs of rumbling low end, but everything smeared into something ethereal and gauzy and abstract. The track "9" alone is worth the price of admission, a haunting, heavenly, smouldering sonics, pocked with a repeating beacon like tone. Over the course of the track, that tone gradually sinks into the lush, lustrous surroundings, more and more layers being revealed, the sound getting ever richer, more majestic and dreamlike. Streaks of high end come swooping in, bleeding into the soft, gentle pulsations, the vibe somewhere between Sunroof! and Stars Of The Lid, or maybe Vibracathedral Orchestra covering Reich or Riley. At any point it seems like the sound has reached a saturation point, but then somehow, there are more melodies, more layers, and the sound is in constant flux, drifting easily from sun dappled raga drift to something more ominous, a deep rumbling thrum, and back again, it's dizzying and heady, like the best drone music, it seems to envelop not just your ears, but your whole body. There's a brief bit of hushed tranquility near the end, before the gorgeously cacophonous coda, that sounds orchestral, a psychedelic squall that sounds like a million Arvo Part pieces playing at once. Awesome! And that's just ONE song.
Elsewhere, the sound gets moody and cinematic, like a lost score to some classic noir, or dense and bombastic, sounding like a prettier, less in your face, Our Love Will Destroy The World, a strangely robotic bit of mesmeric churn, that also reminds us a bit of a heavier, dronier Pierre Bastien or Strotter Inst. And there is in fact some heaviness happening, some gut rumbling, rib cage rattling low end, that sounds like it's gonna destroy your speakers, often blossoming into wild swirls of static, but it's more than balanced by the sweet stretches of whispery drift, and gauzy glimmer. Some tracks drift into spacey psych folk territory, albeit way more abstract, while others devolve into murky churns, that sound like some lost post industrial drone-dirge experiment, and of course, all of those disparate elements are somehow fused into a strangely cohesive whole. Fantastic stuff, that definitely leaves us wanting more.
LIMITED TO JUST 50 COPIES!!! It's likely that when we run out we won't be able to get more. Each tape is unique, every one designed by a different artist.
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Another fucking drop dead record of gorgeous, hazy ambience from this UK mystery man. Droning and buzzing and humming with tinges of middle eastern flavor and No Neck Blues Band style free chaos. Fans of NNBB and Chalk/Coleclough should deinitely check this out.
aQ reviews are usually written with a collective voice, but for this one, I'm (Andee) gonna have to step out into the first person, cuz I have been waiting for this record for 25 years! Since I was 14 years old.
I had just discovered heavy metal, and not HEAVY metal, we're talking Ratt and Motley Crue and Rough Cutt and King Kobra and L.A. Guns and Great White and Poison, that sort of heavy metal, and I was living in San Diego, and every time one of those bands played, there would be a local opener called Assassin, who RULED. Who as far as my 14 year old ears could tell, should have been just as popular as any of those other bands. And they were poised for that sort of success, the word was spreading, they did some small tours, they were maybe the next big thing, but as with lots of bands, before anything could happen, the band called it a day. And that was it.
I eventually moved on, my musical tastes matured and changed, but I never stopped liking eighties metal or hard rock or glam metal, and I never forgot Assassin. Over the years, and DECADES, I tried to track down their only single, and could never find it. I must have owned it back in the day, but somehow it had gone missing. And with the onset of the internet, I figured that would make it easier to find, but alas no luck. I eventually found a compilation that featured one of the tracks from the 7", and I played it to death, but I had sort of given up on ever tracking it down. So I was telling someone about Assassin, and just randomly Googled them, and WHAT? found an actual reissue, not just the single, but a whole unreleased record, as well as a live show!! I ordered one months before it came out, and waited patiently, and it showed up finally, and I threw it on, and FUCK!!! It sounded just as rad as it did when I was 14. So I figured what the hell, I oughta share this with my aQ pals, I mean, c'mon, a record I've literally been looking for for more than half my life!! TWENTY FIVE YEARS!!
Allan worried we wouldn't sell any, but I trust you, faithful aQ-ers, don't be ashamed of your eighties glam rock guilty pleasures (if they are in fact guilty), and dig this lost gem from an era short on lost gems. If you dig any of that kind of stuff, Motley Crue, Black And Blue, Armored Saint, Keel, Stryper, Seduce, Alcatrazz, Coney Hatch, Raven, hell, Assassin even opened for Slayer and Grim Reaper and Anthrax, then dig this. Heavy and hooky, listen to the two sound samples, those are the two songs from the single, and they are the best songs here, even after 25 years, I find myself listening to those two tracks over and over and over. The vocals are high and soaring, but really unique, the drummer kicks ass and the guitar player is a total shredder, and like the best bands of the time, Assassin were essentially a pop band, the songs rule, killer choruses, memorable verses, even the bridges and leads stick in your head. "Treason" might just be one of the best metal jams of the eighties, and "All Your Love" is a close close second. But give some of the other tracks a try, "Backstabber" is bad ass, "Nuance Le Dancer" is a weirdly structured metallic groover, "Tower" is an epic majestic dirge, and "No Way" is classic eighties metal. The live stuff shreds too, but that's just a bonus. I would have happily paid $15 for the single, so as far as I'm concerned those 2 tracks are worth the price of admission alone, everything else just sweetens the deal!
Lots of photos and liner notes, and anyone out there sitting on a treasure trove of rad eighties metal in need of a loving home, by all means, get in touch!!! We now return you to the third person...
The second in the Astral Social Club mp3 reissue program. One disc, 9 cd-r's and close to 8 hours worth of blissed out shimmer, soft dreamy noisescapes and mutant alien discodrone, all jammed onto one little disc. So for those of you who missed out on any of the numbers 8 through 16 (heck we did too, we only reviewed 3 of those!), then this is a good way to get it ALL!
First, an Astral Social club primer would probably be useful:
For those who don't already know, Astral Social Club just so happens to be Mr. Neil Campbell, the mastermind behind the genius Vibracathedral Orchestra, who for years, has been spending his days off from VCO, recording disc after amazing disc of deliriously spaced out drone, blown out extended ragas, and seemingly endless slabs of hypnotic pulse and drift, and more recently a sort of fractured otherworldy dancemusic.
Okay then, odds are, most of you are probably gonna want this, but in case you need a quick description of some of the sonic joys to be found within, here goes:
Strange and murky, looped percussion, with bits of electronic glitch, sounding almost a little like some sort of twentieth century classical filtered through some primitive krautrock, glorious sparkling epic shimmering drones, Technicolor cascades of rich reverberant sounds and all manner of glimmering glittering ear candy, super minimal dark ambience, with drifting whale call melodies and deep rumbling swells, Sunroof!-y bit of high end raga sparkle, complete with the sounds of crickets and running water, sun dappled, dreamy looped guitar sheen, all wrapped up into one big glorious space drone whole, dense synthscapes, lots of hiss and whir, with buried rhythmic pulses, weird underwater bloops and burbles... all sounding very much like some white label Pop Ambient 12", thick corrosive washes of overblown distortion and buzzing droning ragas, thick slabs of feedback, grinding chunks of guitarbuzz, processed vocals, all wound up into a snarled dronepsych blowouts, tranquil smears of soft sound, high end streaks and tangled slivers of feedback all wound up into gorgeously shimmering upper register skreescapes, circular looped hypnotic longform dronemusic, blissy and droney and spaced out and druggy, transcendental slabs of glistening high, super minimal percussive flutter, swirling abstract FX-scapes, pounding almost house sounding bangers all uniquely cracked, effects-soaked, drug-infused and blissed out and more more more more.
Essential listening for fans of all things drone-y and blissed out, fans of Vibracathedral, Skullflower, Yellow Swans, the Skaters and folks looking for some truly twisted outsider dance trax to go with their ambient dronemusic.
packaged in a thick PVC plastic sleeve, in a plain white jacket with a paste on front cover image.
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You thought UK space drone freeks Vibracathedral Orchestra were prolific!? Well get a load of Neil Campbell, one of VCO's founding fathers, who split that scene a while back, only to whip up a new ensemble, well, ensemble is maybe not the right word, since Astral Social Club is just him, let's just call it an Astral Social Club then, even more spacey, abstract, and experimental than the 'Orchestra. Oh and outrageously prolific. An avalanche of cd-r's, every one of them a mind blower, difficult to keep up with, but well worth the effort...
This is one of two new releases, the other being vinyl only, both sort of two sides of the same sonic coin, although they definitely both have their own distinct vibe. Read about the lp elsewhere on this list, but the funny thing about the cd is, we could probably describe it in 4 words, and if you are anything like us, those 4 words would have you diving madly for the Add To Cart button.... So what does Neon Pibroch sound like? Well, at least the first track sounds just like *Spacemen 3 on Kompakt*!!! That's right. Imagine those endless loops of druggy effects, the subtle melodies stretched into gauzy soundscapes, super head nodding and hypnotic, but then imagine it with a strangely propulsive, almost techno beat, a relentless pulse, it's easy to imagine that endless spaced out groove pouring out of the sound system on some alien dancefloor. It's nearly twenty minutes long too, so that alone would be worth the price of admission. But hold up... there are two more tracks, and 40 more minutes of drifting beatless bliss to come...
The title track begins as a glistening ur-drone, all buzzing strings and keening high end, but part way through erupts into a white hot wall of coruscating grinding guitar buzz, super distorted and blown out, before drifting off again, leaving that burbling cosmic drift to fade gracefully out. The final track offers up more of the same, but if anything it's even more rich and thick and dense, it's the sort of sound that is almost visible, physical, it's like staring into the sun with your ears, makes you want to shade your eyes from the glorious sonic glare...
Can this man do no wrong? Guess not when it comes to transcendental sonic space drone... Absolutely essential listening for fans of such things, as is Super Grease, this record's vinyl analog...�
It's a weird thing, but we've always noticed that musicians, especially avant outsider musicians (and even then ESPECIALLY metal musicians) seemed inordinately fond of electronic music. Every time a band would come in the store, they would head straight for the electronic section and end up buying a bunch of weird techno or jungle or whatever.
Which then might make it less surprising that recently some of our favorite noise makers seem to be heading in that direction with their own music. Campbell Kneale's Birchville Cat Motel is gone, and in its place, Our Love Will Destroy The World, whose first record was indeed some bastardized dance music, a strange hybrid of blurred buzzy drone music, and thumping club jamz. Similarly, Neil Campbell, aka Astral Social Club has been peppering his recent record with similarly club worthy jamz, but again, those sounds still soaked in the same sort of blissed out psychedelic ambience that most people associate with his Astral Social Club.
For this latest full length, Campbell once again starts things off with a track that would almost sound more at home on Planet Mu than VHF. A skittery bloopfest, with a thick grinding synth bass line, and bloopy bleepy beats, but all wreathed in processed guitars and blurred soft focus buzz, which leads right into the second track, still electronic, but not actually danceable, it sounded more like a club jam on 45, the beats stumbling over one another, like a jumbled, almost hyper speed Pierre Bastien, a million little mechanical men, spewing a symphony of clicks and bleeps and loops, all wound around buried melodies and long thick streaks of hiss and fuzz.
We kept expecting things to switch gears, and for the sound to gradually bliss out into the more 'traditional' ASC sound, long form ur-drones more along the lines of Sunroof! or Skullflower, but most of us were hoping just the opposite, that maybe he'd push further, take ASC somewhere no band like that had really felt at home, the dancefloor, albeit, some strange seriously fucked up and drug addled ALIEN dancefloor. And so he has, for the most part. The first half of the record is indeed, all fractured beats, and warped loops, woozy tripped out grooves, effects swirling and whirling everywhere, the beats playful and not quite funky, stuttery skittery, and seriously fun. This is the kind of stuff that just might lure the perpetual wallflowers out onto that dancefloor.
BUT!!! Hidden between the opening salvo of beats and loops, and the closing outer space house jam, lurks some of the prettiest droned out ambience we've heard from ASC. Processed glitchery, smeared into grainy expanses of glistening blur and shimmery starburst, draped with delicate melodies, gradually growing into a glorious wall of warm fuzz, super thick grinding buzz, smoothed into hypnotic loops and pulsing soundscapes, a more caffeinated Tim Hecker, gauzy and washed out but propulsive and kinetic, glorious sun baked upper register blow outs, wrapped around crystalline acoustic guitars, all woven into a wheezing heaving whole, some sort of super abstract avant garde raga, and finally, a brief but fantastical tangle of crunch and buzz, off hiss and glitch, warped melodies and damaged arrangements, lo-fi tape hiss slithers beneath stuttering chopped up samples, again all blurred into something dreamlike and bleary eyed. WOW.
It all might seem a little schizophrenic, and it is, but it's also the best of both worlds, and the key being that the more beat oriented tracks, are still able to function like the more ambient drone based sounds, if you're laying in the dark, headphones strapped on, those beats might not induce you to shake your tail feathers, but they'll still be able to suck you under, to transport you to some crazed soundworld, to totally mesmerize and hypnotize, which makes the whole record either the weirdest most fucked up electronic dance record EVER, or quite possibly just the best Astral Social Club release so far. Maybe both...
Two new ones from Mr. Neil Campbell in the last few weeks, formerly a founding member of the mighty Vibracathedral Orchestra, now the main (and only?) man behind Astral Social Club, who continue on in a similar direction as VCO, taking sounds and weaving them into epic ur-drones and outerspace ragas, stretching and looping them into long form sonic chunks launched into the cosmos.
This lp only, two song killer, comes on gorgeous swirled milky blue vinyl, and fills up each side with a single blast of blissed out druggy drift. Side one begins with looped machine like rhythms, which frame a vast pool of liquid sound, cricket like chirps, chunks of fuzz distortion and swirling reverb, glistening bits of synthy sparkle, all building gradually into a manic chattering wall of cyclical fuzz and blur, culminating in a grinding jagged angular coda.
Side two begins with a brief swooshy, flanger flecked krautrocky jam, simple and propulsive, that slowly changes timbre and texture as the effects cycle through, the rhythms and song structure sinking beneath the ever increasing wash of FX, splintering into near tranquil ambience, another ASC slow building celestial wash, undulating swells of synths and electronics, gorgeous and massive and dreamy, sounds a bit like what we imagine it might sound like standing on some alien planet watching a new universe being born from the endless blackness of space. Intense and epic.
ATTENTION FINNISH MUSIC FREEKS. Record number two from this far out Finnish big band gypsy jazz ensemble. Our apologies to folks who were after the last record, Questral Places, which went out of print before we had a chance to get more in stock, but we've been bugging AQ pal Pentti, founder of the legendary Deep Turtle and head honcho of the Zerga label, to get us some copies of this newer release, 21st Century Drifting Episode. So we waited and waited, heard nothing for ages, and then one day, a big ol' box of these landed on our doorstep, and we're happy to report it's just as amazing as the other disc.
As we mentioned before, fans of Aavikko would do well to check these guys out, as they have a similar exotic flair, but instead of spy movies and Casios, they take their influence from gypsy folk music, big band jazz, and African music. In fact, if we had to describe this in a sentence, we might say Astro Can Caravan sound like a Finnish version of Ethiopiques 4, which is high praise indeed!
Sultry grooves, funky rhythms, lots and lots of horns, but also drums and synths, drums and percussion and spacey effects. The sound is a mysterious exotica, definitely reminiscent of the Ethiopian Grooves we love so much, but there's enough weird noodly synth and buzzing angular new wave elements to make this appeal to fans of Aavikko and other weird jazz groove whatthefuck. The band pepper their African style grooves with bursts of chaotic free jazz, slabs of buzzing synth abuse, but those moments are few and far between, instead, the band deftly cobble together their own unique sound, funky, and soulful, groovy and spiritual, wild and far out. Some tracks are rollicking and fiery, irresistible and the sort of thing that would send a dancefloor into an absolute frenzy. While others are dark and moody, slithery and slow burning.
If you dig any of the following: Coltrane, Sun Ra, Miles Davis, Fela Kuti, Taraf De Haidouks, Keukhot, Ethiopiques, Okros Ensemble, Aavikko, this band will completely kick your ass, or at least get it out of your seat and shaking.
Features a who's who of the Finnish Underground, including Pentti from Deep Turtle on guitar and mandolin. Produced, strangely enough, by Jussi Saivo of mysterious drone alchemists Tiermes. Packaged in a super striking digipak, and be forewarned, we did get a whole bunch of these, but once we run out it might take a little while to get more.
Oakland's doooooooooooooooooooomiest, Asunder, return with their second full-length album. Just back from a tour of Japan with none other than cultish doom-crust behemoth Corrupted, Asunder further cement their doom bonafides with Works Will Come Undone, which features just two tracks, one of 'em ("Rite Of Finality") almost a full-length itself at 50 minutes duration! The other track ("A Famine") isn't quite so long -- a mere 20 minutes. That's more than enough time for these guys and gal to squeeze in a few lugubrious riffs, even at the glacial pace with with they play their morose metallic funeral marches.
Asunder are all about atmosphere, allowing some really pretty and mellow parts into their crushingly heavy and depressed, slow-moving sound-world. The use of cello (played by Jackie Perez-Gratz, also of Amber Asylum) is one of Asunder's trademarks, and for giving an extra-mournful, classically elegant dimension to their doom it's hard to beat. The guitarists successfully venture to enter that sublime realm as well. Meanwhile the vocalist recalls the phlegmy throat of Forest Of Equilibrium era Cathedral frontman Lee Dorrian, mixing the rough with the smooth as it were...
For those unaware, we should also note the presence of former Weakling guitarist/vocalist John Gossard. What Weakling was to trance-inducingly epic Norwegian style black metal, Asunder is to trance-inducingly epic Finnish style doom metal!! Or maybe we should just say Oakland style, since this genre of doom has its roots all over, from Finland's Thergothon to Australia's Disembowelment and Long Island's Winter...
Oh, the misery! Vying with the likes of Moss and Marzuraan for the title of Sludge Lords of England, Atavist offer up their second full-length (hence the title), following a split with Nadja not long ago. But Atavist are a complex beast with a tortured soul that in some ways is really less about sludge than it is about sheer sadness, opting for beauty over brutality much of the time.
Drums echo. Acoustic guitars weep. And then the walls of doom-drone (droom?) riffage come closing in, crashing down. But although there's heaviness galore, with gruff vokills raging, the gentle side to Atavist is nakedly displayed here too. Tranquil, haunting, Atavist possess almost a campfire drone post rockishness that curdles Khanate-like when the heaviness is let loose. All seven tracks, together something of a continuous emotional breakdown, demonstrate definite extreme mood swings, all of 'em melancholy and majestic, some of 'em massively metal. Actually it's a six-part dirge, plus a bonus track at the end, appropriately enough a cover of "I Hate The Human Race" originally by Boston sludge merchants Grief.
For fans of both Mogwai and Asunder for sure. So good.
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THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We've all been keeping a watchful eye on Mr. Atom Heart lately. Watching bemusedly as his relocation to Chile prompted him to reinvent himself as Senor Coconut, and listening, as his techno turned to mambo, and his obsession with the indigenous music of his new home seeped into every facet of his music making. The first Senor Coconut record (out of print, it seems) was a glorious mix of Perez Prado style mambos and Squarepusherish drum programming. The Senor Coconut we listed on the last AQ list took a bizarre turn no one could have predicted, consisting of all Kraftwerk covers done Chilean style, all mambo and rhumba, barely a hint of his former Atom Heart remained. On "XXX", Atom hooks up with Chilean rapper Tea Time, for a wickedly clever record of X rated rapping (in Spanish of course) and convuluted hip hop, complete with plenty of turntablist trickery and hard disc scratching. And it's practically perfect; funny and catchy and smooth and super wicked. Tea Time's got a super smooth flow (sounding a bit like MC Solaar) and the music is just completely bizarre, lots of hiccuping loops, low end rumble, crazy scratching, and bizarre hard disc editing, making for probably one of our favorite (albeit quite odd) hip hop (Latin American glitch-rap?) records of the year, and it's easily the best Atom Heart...er...Senor Coconut record yet.
