Wonderful breezy pop very much in the vein of Belle And Sebastian that also reveals a moodier side. Dare we say that this 6-song ep by Chicago sextet The 1900s almost makes for a better B&S follow-up to Dear Catastrophe Waitress than The Life Pursuit! Yes, we do. Much like those Scots' last few lush albums, The 1900s' Plume Delivery comes fully decked out with organs, harpsichord, violin, keyboards, horns. Of course, that alone wouldn't mean much if the bountiful instrumental palette wasn't put to good use, but it certainly is. The 1900s incorporate it all seamlessly into such lovely melodies and glorious arrangements. But the super dreaminess comes from the vocal department, Caroline Donovan and Jeanine O'Toole's voices alternately remind us of Isobel Campbell and Laetitia Sadier, while mainman Edward Anderson's voice can easily be compared to Belle And Sebastian's Stuart Murdoch. If you dig the sounds of the abovementioned bands as well as The Delgados, Call And Response, Young & Sexy and Mates Of State, you might also take a shine to The 1900s. A super delight from start to finish!
Throughout their beloved mockumentary movies Spinal Tap, Waiting For Guffman, Best In Show and now A Mighty Wind, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and co. have done a smashing job faithfully replicating musical styles right down to the most miniscule detail. You might even say that quite often it puts the 'real' thing to shame. Pssst... if you've yet to see AMW which focuses on three very different fictitious embodiments of folk music - the squaresville upstart New Main Street Singers, veteran trio The Folksmen and beloved duo Mitch & Mickey - what are you waiting for?! Perhaps one of their most astute skills is in knowing when to apply humor (either subtle or over-the-top) and when to play things totally straight. They locate just the right moment to give your funny bone a wallop or tug gently at your heartstrings. The latter is so fully realized in Mitch & Mickey's bittersweet duet "A Kiss At The End Of The Rainbow". Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara's voices ring so clear and true as the former sweethearts. Sigh! Of course, this is a must-have for those of you who've seen (and re-seen) the movie and/or the fabulous live production that came to the Warfield recently.
We ran out of the special Record Store Day limited tote bag version of the AMF reissues, but we just got the last remaining copies of the vinyl reissues (sans tote bag) direct from the band. Both lps are again sadly out of print. But while they last, we have a handful of the nice priced 4lp set which includes both Flemish Altruism and Inindependence... Here's our review of both when we listed this back around Record Store Day...
In the most recent issue of Entertainment Weekly (!), our very own Andee was asked about what Record Store Day Releases we were most excited about. He mentioned a bunch, but the two they actually included in the magazine, were the utterly hilarious music nerd classic Rock, Rot And Rule (now sadly out of print), and these two vinyl reissues, from recently reunited / reactivated nineties post/math/noise rock combo A Minor Forest, which as many of you know, is in fact Andee's band! He was kind of joking, and a bit embarrassed when THAT was one of the ones they picked to print, but really, we WERE pretty excited. These two records have been out of print on vinyl for a decade, and have been remastered, now come with digital downloads, and one has all new artwork! But instead of making Andee further toot his own horn, we figured we'd try to be more objective, and let some other folks weigh in. A couple reviews from the past, and a couple from the present. So when we first reviewed these back in the day, for AMF's debut, Flemish Altruism, we asked beloved aQ-pal Douglas Mosurak to say a few words about that record, here's that original review from years and years ago:
"October 22, 1996: Bay Area rock trio A Minor Forest stop indie rock dead. Their new double LP on Thrill Jockey is so incredible, and subsequently so complete, that no other records of its kind need to be produced anymore. Lesser bands of their stripe are currently being petitioned to break up immediately to save embarrassment. And while some people will miss, like, June of 44 or the Archers of Loaf for a little while, with the proper exposure to Flemish Altruism, they'll forget all about it. AMF manage to piece together everything good about every post-Big Black and every post-Heroin outfit into a seamless, epic sound; fairly dense, deeply emotional and thoroughly human. They have the sense of humor required to lift it off, too. Some of their songs prefer to hide in the corner; some lunge for your throat. Their style is such that their original ideas fill in with ones borrowed from their rich lineage in such a manner that pays tribute without disrespect. It's a thoroughly engaging sound that I'd rank up there with the Bitch Magnet discography, with the Bastro LPs, with the Gore records, with the cream of the Gravity crop, even with the Shellac album. Best rock record of 1996, and currently outweighing all proposed rock concepts until the close of the millennium. Buy two. Wow."
Then, the follow up Inindependence was reviewed thusly by us upon its original release (when aQ reviews were still concise and impossibly brief):
"Simply put, this may be the last bastion of rock on Thrill Jockey, before they devolve into a purely electronic/jazz label. Sure we may be boasting a little, because A Minor Forest is our very own Andee Connors' band. But this truly is a great record of delicate math rock instrumentations executed with violent precision!"
So here were are 15+ years later, and both records, now reissued and available as a swank 4lp / tote bag set, in honor of the just passed 2014 iteration of Record Store Day, are ripe for reassessment, a new listen to some old sounds, with fresh ears, a bit of distance, and years of subsequent music making in their wake. So, here's what the illustrious Pitchfork site had to say this week about both AMF records:
According to legend, the A Minor Forest song "Bill's Mom Likes to Fuck" - a high point of the post-rock group's 1996 debut album, Flemish Altruism - was swiped from an inside joke that had circulated for years among the punk kids of Rapid City, South Dakota. A Minor Forest wasn't from Rapid City; they hailed from far-off San Francisco. But the band toured extensively throughout the country during its 90s-spanning existence, playing many of the same DIY venues that hosted the burgeoning post-hardcore and emo bands of that decade. If there's one thing that brings people together, it's cruel humor - and A Minor Forest, brooding and abrasive as well as downright delicate, knew a good joke when they heard it.
Flemish Altruism was reissued on vinyl for this year's Record Store Day, alongside A Minor Forest's other studio album, 1998's Inindependence. The rollout has been humble one, and it can't help but be compared to Slint's deservedly lavish Spiderland box set this month. Slint blazed trails with its dour, eerie ominousness; A Minor Forest, on the other hand, neither innovated nor intimidated. That doesn't make Flemish Altruism any less tense. The shadow of Slint - as well of Slint's slower, icier cousin, Codeine - loom large over A Minor Forest's distended syllables and dangling chords. The group had been honing that sound on singles and EPs since 1994, but Flemish Altruism tracks like "...But the Pants Stay On" and "Jacking Off George Lucas" groped for a new vocabulary out of the fragments laying around after post-rock's early-'90s Big Bang. What resulted was pidgin Slint-but in that process of restructuring, A Minor Forest came damn close to inventing post-post-rock, where the subgenre's self-seriousness was wrestled with until it laughed, gasped, and collapsed.
Steve Albini and Bob Weston produced Flemish Altruism, and the nerve-tightening cello they'd previously captured on Nirvana's In Utero feels almost deliberately evoked on the album's most arresting song, "Perform the Critical Straw Transfer". Singer/guitarist Erik Hoversten opens it with a deadpan punch line: "Guess you really lucked out�" he begins, his numb voice trailing off as bassist John Trevor Benson screams bestially yet faintly in the background, "�on this one." Sarcasm never sounded so black. Beneath them, cellist Dominique Davison saws with quiet strength, as if mocking and apologizing at the same time. The screaming gets pushed to the fore on thoroughly non-dainty "Dainty Jack and His Amazing Technicolor Cloth Jacket", an erratic spasm of dissonance that shows an affinity for San Diego screamo (A Minor Forest had previously recorded with Matt Anderson of Heroin), only broken up here and there with squibs of pinpoint jazziness. The balance is struck almost perfectly on "Bill's Mom Likes to Fuck", a 10-minute noise-cycle of mood swings, red herrings, and curdled blood.
The wiseass, scattershot racket of Flemish Altruism settles into a more predictable groove onInindependence. Concise and controlled by comparison, A Minor Forest's second and final album (not including their 1999 singles-and-EPs collection, ...So, Were They in Some Sort of Fight?) drags more algebra into the rhythm and more calculation into the off-kilter melody. It wouldn't be fair to say the band had begun to take itself either more or less seriously - but the music is more serious, and even the song titles are less crass. If "Erik's Budding Romance" is to be taken at face value, that relationship flip-flopped randomly and often between coy, candlelit dinners and table-flipping eruptions of lust. Drummer Andee Connors, an unsung hero of his instrument and era, is in top form, coaxing every shade of texture, dynamic, and emotion out of the kit. There are honest, unabashed hooks on the deliciously brief (that is, under four minutes) centerpiece, "�It's Salmon!!!", as well as in "Michael Anthony", which skips a sweet melody across a minefield of disjointed changes and chords. At the same time, the album's 18-minute monster "The Smell of Hot" never fully jells; as A Minor Forest's recording career drew to a halt, patience-testing jams occupied one extreme of their spectrum, while a hint of pleasing pop teased at the other.
A Minor Forest's legacy is not a towering one. Most notably, Hoversten went on to play with Pinback, where he was able to indulge his love of angular melody much more avidly. The band never seemed to want to make bold statements, and it always punctured whatever atmosphere it crafted with wiry self-deprecation and perverse wit. When A Minor Forest reunited in 2013 after a 15-year hiatus, Hoversten said in a radio interview, "[This reunion is] sort of like, take an outfit you wore 15 years ago, then put it on today. Clearly you liked it at one point, but it's not exactly the outfit you would have chosen today. That being said, it's not like I'm being asked to put on a clown suit." Despite their crank titles and in-jokes, A Minor Forest was never a funny band. But they had fun, and that fun seeped into their music. And that makes Flemish Altruism and Inindependence two of the most endlessly rewarding albums of the 90s post-rock boom, if never the most monolithic.
And finally, here's a review of both Flemish Altruism and Inindependence from the always awesome Pop Matters:
The bare truth behind two classic albums from the 1990s.
I remember it clearly: the road was a hazy sequence of distant glares kept together by a dense, hazy lull immersed in the purest of mists. My friend, the proud owner of the CD, was holding the music artifact with one hand, while the other occasionally found its way up and down the wheel, now on this side; now on the other. I never knew how both hands also managed to offer such an accurate interpretation of the drumming, but his abilities ceased to amaze me when my side of the car hit a guardrail that seemed to have popped out from nowhere. My friend carefully placed the CD case in the glove compartment and met me outside the vehicle, where we assessed the damage. "That drumming! Oh boy, that drumming!", was all he had to say.
Not much has happened in the 16 years that followed that day. My friend got married, paid his way to a divorce and when we meet, I drive, so he can be Andee Connors and I can take good care of our lives. In the real world, the influence of a band like A Minor Forest - a scruffy bunch of lads from San Francisco - still echoes on both sides of the Atlantic. Inheritors of the legacy initiated by bands like Slint, Bastro, Gastr Del Sol and Shellac, A Minor Forest's name appears, rightly or wrongly, almost invariably as part of the American post-rock scene, as if their own legacy could not be singled out and stand on its own two feet. But while most people blame them, together with a whole bunch of Midwestern acts loosely located in the "Corn Belt", for the explosion of the math-rock plague, the impact this short-lived ensemble has had on indie rock is probably still far from being recognised.
Their two classic albums, Flemish Altruism and Inindependence, reissued on vinyl by Thrill Jockey for Record Store Day on 19 April, are both presented with an array of previously unpublished pictures in a special four-LP set that includes download cards. However, what matters the most is that these albums, which have been out of print for a decade, have been remastered from the original tapes. The sensuality of the naked, raw sound that was the core of that scene (and I hereby use this term in the artistic, rather than in the geographic sense) is therefore faithfully represented in all its purity and ingenuity. "The Dutch Fist", "So Jesus Was At the Last Supper" and "...But the Pants Stay On" are some of the finest representations imaginable of noise as the most spontaneous by-product of the deconstruction of rock grammar. This primary necessity regulated by tradition - Erik Hoversten (guitars and vocals) and John Trevor Benson (bass) had both studied music at Berkeley - found its champions in Steve Albini (who else?) and Bob Weston (he too of Shellac fame), whose uncompromised affection for stripped-down sounds and total lack of artificiality constituted the perfect match for the band.
Flemish Altruism is the result of this formula, and tunes like "Jacking Off George Lucas" or "Ed Is 50" betray an improvisational approach which heavily relies on the dichotomy between the extreme unpredictability of noise and the discipline usually behind melodic patterns. The almost mandatory (at least back then) tour of most of the US would lead, two years later, to the recording of Inindependence: an album that followed the path traced by its predecessor, perpetuating the angularity and eclecticism that would make A Minor Forest easily recognizable years after their dissolution.
Flemish Altruism and Inindependence are the band's only full-lengths and it could not be otherwise. Although a collection of much of their out of print material, plus a couple of new tracks made it onto the Were They in Some Sort of Fight? CD on My Pal God Records in 1999, these two albums vouch for an incredibly inspired band which disbanded once they realized that the traditional rock instrumentation was starting to restrict their enormous potential and creativity. Does this awareness affect these two records? Not at all. A Minor Forest didn't live long enough to see their craft surpass their inspiration, and for this reason their legacy is definitely safer now than it was 20 years ago!
As mentioned above, both Flemish Altruism and Inindependence have been remastered, both include digital downloads, and are housed in swank full color gatefold jackets, Flemish Altruism has all new artwork!!
In the most recent issue of Entertainment Weekly (!), our very own Andee was asked about what Record Store Day Releases we were most excited about. He mentioned a bunch, but the two they actually included in the magazine, were the utterly hilarious music nerd classic Rock, Rot And Rule, which you'll find reviewed elsewhere on this week's list, and these two vinyl reissues, from recently reunited / reactivated nineties post/math/noise rock combo A Minor Forest, which as many of you know, is in fact Andee's band! He was kind of joking, and a bit embarrassed when THAT was one of the ones they picked to print, but really, we WERE pretty excited. These two records have been out of print on vinyl for a decade, and have been remastered, now come with digital downloads, and one has all new artwork! But instead of making Andee further toot his own horn, we figured we'd try to be more objective, and let some other folks weigh in. A couple reviews from the past, and a couple from the present. So when we first reviewed these back in the day, for AMF's debut, Flemish Altruism, we asked beloved aQ-pal Douglas Mosurak to say a few words about that record, here's that original review from years and years ago:
"October 22, 1996: Bay Area rock trio A Minor Forest stop indie rock dead. Their new double LP on Thrill Jockey is so incredible, and subsequently so complete, that no other records of its kind need to be produced anymore. Lesser bands of their stripe are currently being petitioned to break up immediately to save embarrassment. And while some people will miss, like, June of 44 or the Archers of Loaf for a little while, with the proper exposure to Flemish Altruism, they'll forget all about it. AMF manage to piece together everything good about every post-Big Black and every post-Heroin outfit into a seamless, epic sound; fairly dense, deeply emotional and thoroughly human. They have the sense of humor required to lift it off, too. Some of their songs prefer to hide in the corner; some lunge for your throat. Their style is such that their original ideas fill in with ones borrowed from their rich lineage in such a manner that pays tribute without disrespect. It's a thoroughly engaging sound that I'd rank up there with the Bitch Magnet discography, with the Bastro LPs, with the Gore records, with the cream of the Gravity crop, even with the Shellac album. Best rock record of 1996, and currently outweighing all proposed rock concepts until the close of the millennium. Buy two. Wow."
Then, the follow up Inindependence was reviewed thusly by us upon its original release (when aQ reviews were still concise and impossibly brief):
"Simply put, this may be the last bastion of rock on Thrill Jockey, before they devolve into a purely electronic/jazz label. Sure we may be boasting a little, because A Minor Forest is our very own Andee Connors' band. But this truly is a great record of delicate math rock instrumentations executed with violent precision!"
So here were are 15+ years later, and both records, now reissued and available as a swank 4lp / tote bag set, in honor of the just passed 2014 iteration of Record Store Day, are ripe for reassessment, a new listen to some old sounds, with fresh ears, a bit of distance, and years of subsequent music making in their wake. So, here's what the illustrious Pitchfork site had to say this week about both AMF records:
According to legend, the A Minor Forest song "Bill's Mom Likes to Fuck" - a high point of the post-rock group's 1996 debut album, Flemish Altruism - was swiped from an inside joke that had circulated for years among the punk kids of Rapid City, South Dakota. A Minor Forest wasn't from Rapid City; they hailed from far-off San Francisco. But the band toured extensively throughout the country during its 90s-spanning existence, playing many of the same DIY venues that hosted the burgeoning post-hardcore and emo bands of that decade. If there's one thing that brings people together, it's cruel humor - and A Minor Forest, brooding and abrasive as well as downright delicate, knew a good joke when they heard it.
Flemish Altruism was reissued on vinyl for this year's Record Store Day, alongside A Minor Forest's other studio album, 1998's Inindependence. The rollout has been humble one, and it can't help but be compared to Slint's deservedly lavish Spiderland box set this month. Slint blazed trails with its dour, eerie ominousness; A Minor Forest, on the other hand, neither innovated nor intimidated. That doesn't make Flemish Altruism any less tense. The shadow of Slint - as well of Slint's slower, icier cousin, Codeine - loom large over A Minor Forest's distended syllables and dangling chords. The group had been honing that sound on singles and EPs since 1994, but Flemish Altruism tracks like "...But the Pants Stay On" and "Jacking Off George Lucas" groped for a new vocabulary out of the fragments laying around after post-rock's early-'90s Big Bang. What resulted was pidgin Slint-but in that process of restructuring, A Minor Forest came damn close to inventing post-post-rock, where the subgenre's self-seriousness was wrestled with until it laughed, gasped, and collapsed.
Steve Albini and Bob Weston produced Flemish Altruism, and the nerve-tightening cello they'd previously captured on Nirvana's In Utero feels almost deliberately evoked on the album's most arresting song, "Perform the Critical Straw Transfer". Singer/guitarist Erik Hoversten opens it with a deadpan punch line: "Guess you really lucked out�" he begins, his numb voice trailing off as bassist John Trevor Benson screams bestially yet faintly in the background, "�on this one." Sarcasm never sounded so black. Beneath them, cellist Dominique Davison saws with quiet strength, as if mocking and apologizing at the same time. The screaming gets pushed to the fore on thoroughly non-dainty "Dainty Jack and His Amazing Technicolor Cloth Jacket", an erratic spasm of dissonance that shows an affinity for San Diego screamo (A Minor Forest had previously recorded with Matt Anderson of Heroin), only broken up here and there with squibs of pinpoint jazziness. The balance is struck almost perfectly on "Bill's Mom Likes to Fuck", a 10-minute noise-cycle of mood swings, red herrings, and curdled blood.
The wiseass, scattershot racket of Flemish Altruism settles into a more predictable groove onInindependence. Concise and controlled by comparison, A Minor Forest's second and final album (not including their 1999 singles-and-EPs collection, ...So, Were They in Some Sort of Fight?) drags more algebra into the rhythm and more calculation into the off-kilter melody. It wouldn't be fair to say the band had begun to take itself either more or less seriously - but the music is more serious, and even the song titles are less crass. If "Erik's Budding Romance" is to be taken at face value, that relationship flip-flopped randomly and often between coy, candlelit dinners and table-flipping eruptions of lust. Drummer Andee Connors, an unsung hero of his instrument and era, is in top form, coaxing every shade of texture, dynamic, and emotion out of the kit. There are honest, unabashed hooks on the deliciously brief (that is, under four minutes) centerpiece, "�It's Salmon!!!", as well as in "Michael Anthony", which skips a sweet melody across a minefield of disjointed changes and chords. At the same time, the album's 18-minute monster "The Smell of Hot" never fully jells; as A Minor Forest's recording career drew to a halt, patience-testing jams occupied one extreme of their spectrum, while a hint of pleasing pop teased at the other.
A Minor Forest's legacy is not a towering one. Most notably, Hoversten went on to play with Pinback, where he was able to indulge his love of angular melody much more avidly. The band never seemed to want to make bold statements, and it always punctured whatever atmosphere it crafted with wiry self-deprecation and perverse wit. When A Minor Forest reunited in 2013 after a 15-year hiatus, Hoversten said in a radio interview, "[This reunion is] sort of like, take an outfit you wore 15 years ago, then put it on today. Clearly you liked it at one point, but it's not exactly the outfit you would have chosen today. That being said, it's not like I'm being asked to put on a clown suit." Despite their crank titles and in-jokes, A Minor Forest was never a funny band. But they had fun, and that fun seeped into their music. And that makes Flemish Altruism and Inindependence two of the most endlessly rewarding albums of the 90s post-rock boom, if never the most monolithic.
And finally, here's a review of both Flemish Altruism and Inindependence from the always awesome Pop Matters:
The bare truth behind two classic albums from the 1990s.
I remember it clearly: the road was a hazy sequence of distant glares kept together by a dense, hazy lull immersed in the purest of mists. My friend, the proud owner of the CD, was holding the music artifact with one hand, while the other occasionally found its way up and down the wheel, now on this side; now on the other. I never knew how both hands also managed to offer such an accurate interpretation of the drumming, but his abilities ceased to amaze me when my side of the car hit a guardrail that seemed to have popped out from nowhere. My friend carefully placed the CD case in the glove compartment and met me outside the vehicle, where we assessed the damage. "That drumming! Oh boy, that drumming!", was all he had to say.
Not much has happened in the 16 years that followed that day. My friend got married, paid his way to a divorce and when we meet, I drive, so he can be Andee Connors and I can take good care of our lives. In the real world, the influence of a band like A Minor Forest - a scruffy bunch of lads from San Francisco - still echoes on both sides of the Atlantic. Inheritors of the legacy initiated by bands like Slint, Bastro, Gastr Del Sol and Shellac, A Minor Forest's name appears, rightly or wrongly, almost invariably as part of the American post-rock scene, as if their own legacy could not be singled out and stand on its own two feet. But while most people blame them, together with a whole bunch of Midwestern acts loosely located in the "Corn Belt", for the explosion of the math-rock plague, the impact this short-lived ensemble has had on indie rock is probably still far from being recognised.
Their two classic albums, Flemish Altruism and Inindependence, reissued on vinyl by Thrill Jockey for Record Store Day on 19 April, are both presented with an array of previously unpublished pictures in a special four-LP set that includes download cards. However, what matters the most is that these albums, which have been out of print for a decade, have been remastered from the original tapes. The sensuality of the naked, raw sound that was the core of that scene (and I hereby use this term in the artistic, rather than in the geographic sense) is therefore faithfully represented in all its purity and ingenuity. "The Dutch Fist", "So Jesus Was At the Last Supper" and "...But the Pants Stay On" are some of the finest representations imaginable of noise as the most spontaneous by-product of the deconstruction of rock grammar. This primary necessity regulated by tradition - Erik Hoversten (guitars and vocals) and John Trevor Benson (bass) had both studied music at Berkeley - found its champions in Steve Albini (who else?) and Bob Weston (he too of Shellac fame), whose uncompromised affection for stripped-down sounds and total lack of artificiality constituted the perfect match for the band.
Flemish Altruism is the result of this formula, and tunes like "Jacking Off George Lucas" or "Ed Is 50" betray an improvisational approach which heavily relies on the dichotomy between the extreme unpredictability of noise and the discipline usually behind melodic patterns. The almost mandatory (at least back then) tour of most of the US would lead, two years later, to the recording of Inindependence: an album that followed the path traced by its predecessor, perpetuating the angularity and eclecticism that would make A Minor Forest easily recognizable years after their dissolution.
Flemish Altruism and Inindependence are the band's only full-lengths and it could not be otherwise. Although a collection of much of their out of print material, plus a couple of new tracks made it onto the Were They in Some Sort of Fight? CD on My Pal God Records in 1999, these two albums vouch for an incredibly inspired band which disbanded once they realized that the traditional rock instrumentation was starting to restrict their enormous potential and creativity. Does this awareness affect these two records? Not at all. A Minor Forest didn't live long enough to see their craft surpass their inspiration, and for this reason their legacy is definitely safer now than it was 20 years ago!
As mentioned above, both Flemish Altruism and Inindependence have been remastered, both include digital downloads, and are housed in swank full color gatefold jackets, Flemish Altruism has all new artwork, and while they last, available ONLY at aQ (or from the band on their upcoming tour, which begins a few days after this week's list!), both records are bundled together (4lps!), for a special low price, and housed in a silkscreened tote bag, with a killer new AMF logo by none other than Christoph Szpadjel, the Lord Of The Logos!
A whole lot has changed since we first laid our ears on this glorious slab of cinematic Finnish casiocore way back in the twentieth century. At the time Derek, the debut full length from these Finnish freaks, was released, it was just about the weirdest and coolest thing we'd ever heard. And the last few years haven't changed that one bit! What has changed is the fact that now, the whole world, at least the underground music world, have their eyes squarely on Finland's fertile music scene. Eating up anything and everything, and it's all amazing! Circle, Kemialliset Ystavat, Avarus, Anaksimandros, Paavoharju and on and on and on. But before all these bands (except for Circle) Aavikko were busy creating impossibly catchy, Eastern tinged synthesizer scores for imaginary Westerns, or Bollywood movies, or whatever crazy Finnish movie could handle being accompanied by this maniacal music. Think of it this way, the fictional filmscores of Godspeed You Black Emperor or Barry Adamson are meant to be played at 33 rpm, to capture all of the scope, space, and time of their bleak sonic imagery, right? Well supposing that is indeed true, then Aavikko's utterly absurd and gloriously frolicsome music is some alternative universe version of those filmscores meant for 33, but played at 45. Or heck, 78!! Manic twin casios wiggle out catchy tunes that could easily have sprung from the mad mind of Martin Denny, had he been composing for 60's spy thrillers. Tomi Leppanen (Aavikko's human metronome, and currently the drummer for Circle AND Pharoah Overlord) propels the casio madness with pseudo disco syncopations and hyper-active breakbeats, while second hand synths weave surprisingly lush noir soundscapes, equal parts moody cocktaily jazz, propulsive spy thriller soundtrack muzak, spastic mechanical sounding krautrock and pretty much every musical stop in between. The surprising thing is that every song, no matter what strange twist or direction it takes, is wildly fun, unbearably catchy and weird as fuck. Full of hooks and unlikely sounds, funky grooves and hauntingly playful circus music, this record is one of the greatest warm and fuzzy, feel good, psychedelic groove lounge freakout records EVER! Aavikko's original label Bad Vugum coined the term maniacal monkey jazz for Aavikko, and we're not sure we could come up with anything better!
We can't tell you how psyched we are to have this back in stock. This is one of THE essential Finnish records, definitely one of our top five Finnish records EVER. This reissue is so long overdue as Derek has been out of print practically for freaking EVER! 7 or 8 years! Until now! Plus, this reissue includes two bonus tracks from the also long (and still!) out of print Aavikko cd ep. And who can argue with MORE Aavikko?!?!
Fuck. That's always a great way to start any decent review here at Aquarius. Fuck Yeah! That's even better, and certainly more appropriate for a disc we've been lusting after for so long. Aavikko is one of those elusive bands that we never seem to be able to keep in stock long enough to escape becoming a mere legend and a fading memory. The problem seems to reside in a lifetime of poor distribution and lackluster label attention. But now Aquarius has secured a direct pipeline to the band in the hopes of rectifying this shortage. Aavikko, for those who've yet to experience their magic, are easily the reigning kings of "electronic instrumental rock" (their own genre?). Hailing from Finland -- that in and of itself should be a clue -- Aavikko have honed a lo-fi electro-punk sound that's oft imitated, but never equaled. Using only cheap electric organs (most notably the Yamaha PSS Home Organ), drums and archaic analog recording technology, Aavikko compose Slavic disco, garage surf punk with rumba beats and insanely catchy pop tunes that bring to mind soundtracks to 8-bit videogames of yesteryear. History Of Muysic is an impressive collection of both no longer available Aavikko classics and unreleased tracks dating back to the group's inception in 1995. The latter includes their first rehearsal demo, outtakes from the Derek! ep sessions and their theme for the Kumman Kaa TV series (which has become one of the most popular ring tones in Finland!), among others. In the long lost and now out of print category, we're most excited by the inclusion of the eight tracks from the first, self-titled Aavikko 7". These are a veritable holy grail of primitive electronic rock and expose imitators for the slick hi-fi hucksters they really are. Probably recorded direct to cassette, you can even hear the tape drag and occasional drop outs. Fellow lovers of Bjorn Olsson will be excited by this and all analog anomalies indelibly pitted into the digital realm. All under three minutes in length, the tracks on the eponymous debut are tight and gritty pop ditties, completely trimmed of fat: the words 'overproduced' and 'Avvikko' will never be found in the same sentence but for this one. Also included on this anthology is the entire Oriental Baby CD, their collaboration with Mono Pause "Of Stomping Men", an unreleased live recording off of the beloved WFMU in NJ, their contribution to the Team Yamaha compilation and last, but in no way least, their most recent single, for the first time on CD, the amazing Eye of the Leopard with Kabar. Really folks, do yourself a favor...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The Finnish Casio-pop band we so adore from their two discs on the Bad Vugum label return with this six-song ep (that we've finally tracked down import copies of). Consider this cd for your next party of circus freaks. With "Oriental Baby" as the soundtrack, it's guaranteed to go on into the very wee hours. A feverishly demented Denny-esque boogie session with no end. The neighbours downstairs will reduce their broom handle to sawdust as they pound away at their ceiling. Definitely music to put a gleeful yet puzzled grin on your face. Featuring occasional Circle percussionist Tomi Leppanen. Wonderfully disturbingly fun.
Oh happy day, another issue of Chris Ware's always-amazing publication is here! This time, the final installment of the Jimmy Corrigan, Smartest Kid On Earth saga: sad, funny, and exquisitely rendered of course.
Two exclusive tracks from this increasingly popular electro duo. "Run Run Crying" might sound familiar if you saw their fabulous live set recently. Simply one their best tracks to date. The b-side is a new version of the first Adult. track from 1997, "Modern Romantic". Limited to 1000 hand numbered copies with a fold out 14"x14" poster featuring, as always, the stunning photographic
Detroit electro superstars offer one new track, "Don't You Stop". Three remixes follow, based on that old kids' game of "Telephone Operator" or "Pass It On" or "Chinese Whispers" or whatever you called it when you were young -- basically the original Adult. track was passed to Solvent, who reworked it and passed their results to Phoenecia, who worked their magic and passed those
Strap on your electro pants, baby. 'Cause Adult. (don't forget that punctuation) are here. Witness the awesome android power of this Detroit duo - one half of which is Mr. Adam Miller, formerly of the mighty electro-kings known as LeCar. If you were a fan of
Beginning softly with some very retro dreamy balladry, this album then shifts into a bit of country guitar pickin' and on to perkier numbers, but the lovely high female vocal harmonies continue throughout. Very, very pretty swirling melodies from this pop sextet. Actually, these songs would have been very much at home on the Sarah record label or early SpinArt. Lovely.
Hurrah! The much anticipated third album from our favorite world-weary pop angels has arrived! Very '60s Brill Building girl group style production but with less naive, sugarcoated lyrical sentiments. Sooooo sssplendid! Beautifully recorded, with layer upon layer of beautiful melodies and instrumentation. This band really does just get better and better. Their recordings have the hugeness and details reminiscent of Phil Spector or Joe Meek. And the use of reverb is flawless. The soft echoey lovely vocals just melt my heart and the songs are so individually rad that they stand on their own and apart from each other. This record is softer and sadder in some ways, perhaps their darkest work to date. Less poppy or optimistic than previous songs I've heard. I really can't take it off my stereo at home. Absolutely, totally and completely recommended!!!
Hurrah! The beloved Aislers Set return with this 3-song 12". It contains two versions of the title song (sung in English and Spanish) as well as "I'm So Glad To See You Go". Super splendid pop once again from Amy, Wyatt, Yoshi, and Alicia. Slinky'n'jangly guitar, low-key organ, a vibrant horn section and the always welcome vocal pairing of Amy's unmistakable sweet, drowsy lilt and Wyatt's gentle, boyish charm. Sooo good. And this is just a little hint of what's to come in their third full length due in February - certainly cause for celebration. Can't wait!
This is the debut album from the highly anticipated new project from Amy of Henry's Dress/Go Sailor, Alicia of Poundsign, Wyatt Trackstar, and Yoshi of Scenic Vermont. And what a debut it is! There's certainly no shortage of fine songsmiths in this SF combo, and the resulting pop chemistry is pretty darn magical. Soft, pretty and a bit droll, but with ample bounce and feist when required. Superb indie pop gems that are not to be missed... really! You need this now... or bear the wrath of Sadie!
Local popsters Aislers Set finally return with their second, super anticipated full length. Unabashed mod-pop fans of the Postcard Records/Belle&Sebastian/Zombies variety, the Aislers' first album Terrible Things Happen has been a steady bestseller at AQ ever since it came out 2 years ago. Look for the same to happen with The Last Match -- it's that toothsomely good and that insanely catchy. Warm, jangly with honest to goodness real songs. Belle and Sebastian are rumored to be big fans, and coincidentally enough, when we play this in the store some folks mistake the Aislers Set for B&S when Wyatt, not Amy, is singing.
Awesome! You can always count on Sundazed to do retrospective compilations right! Here's a super comprehensive collection of Davie Allan's music. You might already be unknowingly familiar with him 'cuz he did countless songs for numerous '60s biker b-movie soundtracks. Some of them even treat you to a rumbling motorcycle intro. His fantastic guitar sound comes tearing outta your speakers with a fierce energy. Who can resist "Blue's Theme"? You can almost smell the gas fumes and feel the bad guys closin' in behind ya. Most of the tracks are pretty straightforward surf garage instrumentals, but there are a few that are more abstract and trippy (such as the piano-laced "The Ghost Story" that brings the first disc to a close) as well as one with vocals too (the woozy "Glory Stompers" on the second disc). Forty badass tracks in all! Killer!
Wow! This is on fire! While Tony Allen will always be best known for being the amazing drummer in Fela Kuti's band, he is responsible for some totally great and inspired body moving music of his own. This collection collects four of his best albums onto two discs for a nonstop offering of Afro-Beat perfection! These records, which all originally came out in the 1970's, share a very similar sound and spirit to the work that Fela Kuti was doing when Allen was in his band. So it makes a lot of sense that three of them were produced by Fela. Long, stretched out passages filled with the kind of grooves that work their way right into your body and soul. While there is certainly nothing wrong with being known as the drummer in Fela's legendary group as well as more recently a member of the Damon Albern led supergroup The Good, The Bad & The Queen, we think this release could help make it plain to those who don't know already, that Tony Allen is a legend in his own right! Every time we play this in the store immediately people start asking what we're listening to moving their bodies up and down and all around. Highly recommended!
The absolute hardest albums to write about are those we hold in the highest esteem and though we have an aversion to the general notion of a "desert island selection", this Amon Duul II disc is one of those albums that we could see as an definite inclusion on
Thank god (or Satan) that this record is as good as it is, because of all the trouble we had to go through to get it! We became aware of British black metal act Anaal Nathrakh from first seeing ads for this album in Terrorizer magazine (the UK's metal version of The Wire), then Terrorizer named it record of the month, and then one of the top 40 records of 2001! Yet no metal distributors in the United States had ever even heard of Anaal Nathrakh. Not even the band themselves could help us out, and the one distributor that did offer the album only had TEN COPIES. Our tiny little store wanted at least twice that many.
But, many frustrating conversations and unproductive emails later, we finally have The Codex Necro in stock and are happy to report that it is as heavy, as weird and as completely cool as we had hoped. The formula is still blasting black metal mayhem, but A.N. up the intensity a notch as well as mixing in all sorts of fucked weirdness: bizarre ambient electronic soundscapes, creepy cloying melodies buried in the mix, strangely hypnotic vocal chants, light speed fuzzed out blast beats, found sound interludes, and totally processed and INSANE vocals, from growling guttural bowel-shaking grunts to maniacal high pitched, electronically fucked-with shrieks. Plus the riffs are ultra catchy, and the guitars are so distorted and recorded so hot, it feels like demonic claws are being scraped across your ear drums. Take the raw, "necro" sounds of Nordic black metal pioneers Darkthrone and give them the bombastic force of the best-produced, over-the-top Cradle of Filth stuff, and you're thinking Anaal Nathrakh. When they say necro, they mean it. And they say it a lot. Like in the liner notes: "Anaal Nathrak plays Fucking Necro Exclusively!...Fuck Everything".
To commemorate the 25th anniversary of this inimitable New York avant garde artist's landmark album, the fine folks at the Nonesuch label have remastered and reissued it... and it sounds as mysterious and beautiful as it did the first time around! The unforgettable eight minute long single "O Superman" made a surprise showing at number 2 on the U.K. pop charts back in 1981, and the album from which it came left its own indelible mark on many of us here.
The music and spoken word pieces that comprise the album were actually drawn from Anderson's expansive eight hour long performance art stage production United States Live (which was performed over the course of two evenings). Drawing on disparate elements and themes, commentaries and critiques about life in America, Anderson's Big Science is at once bold, imaginative and artful. Dryly humorous and chillingly bleak. Starkly minimal and deeply moving. Playful and cerebral. Thoughtful and thought provoking. Challenging and engaging.
Keep in mind, the short audio samples here really don't do the whole work justice. This album should be experienced in one complete distraction-free listening session. One of Cup's all time favorite albums, she recommends you stop what you are doing right now. Big Science beckons.
Oh yes, and we should mention that this special edition includes the haunting "O Superman" music video and a (unnecessary in our opinion) bonus track "Walk The Dog".
Cult cinema buffs might recall The Films Of Kenneth Anger: Volume One and Volume Two, a pair of dvds that we carried a couple of years ago. They were amazing and highly coveted documents of the filmmaker's works, not only because his films had been so elusive (and when they were found the prints and VHS dubs had seen better days), but also because Fantoma did such a beautiful job with the presentation (dvd digipak with slipcover and 48-page booklet). Feel free to check out our reviews for them if you want to "read and weep". Sadly their lifespan was fleeting, and those dvds are both now out of print. However, all is not lost because Fantoma has just released a new double dvd set to take their place. It compiles Anger's Magik Lantern Cycle... or in other words, his films circa 1947 through 1981: Fireworks, Puce Moment, Rabbit's Moon (both the 1950 and 1979 versions), Eaux D'Artifice, Inauguration Of The Pleasure Dome, Scorpio Rising, Kustom Kar Kommandos, Invocation Of My Demon Brother, and Lucifer Rising. Plus the extras include the Rabbit's Moon outtakes that were included on Volume One, and Anger's 2002 film about Aleister Crowley's art among other goodies. While you don't get the deluxe packaging of its predecessors, you do get all of the restored films in one spot at a nicer price!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Such a momentous occasion! Renegade American filmmaker and (oc)cult figure Kenneth Anger's early works have finally been released on dvd! Fans and disciples, you need squint through fuzzy faded VHS and 16mm copies no more. The five shorts were meticulously restored by the UCLA Film Archive, and the dvd features crisp, high definition transfers. Anger's films haven't looked this vivid in decades. Stunning! Works include Anger's debut Fireworks (a sailor fantasy / nightmare gay cinema classic from 1947); Puce Moment (a 1949 short which exudes the absolutely giddy glamour of early Hollywood); Rabbit Moon (a mesmerizing black and white dream from 1950) - the original 16-minute long version could easily be imagined as an alternate-universe mime scene from Marcel Carne's 1945 cinematic masterpiece Children Of Paradise; the mystical garden stroll of Eaux D'Artifice (1953); and last but not least Inauguration Of The Pleasure Dome (dripping with garish colors and bizarre bacchanalia, this film from 1954 was Anger's filmic launch point into the rites and mysticism of Aleister Crowley).
The dvd extras include extensive, frank commentary by Anger and rare outtakes from Rabbit's Moon. Indeed, Anger has long been known to go in and tweak his films years after their 'completion' -- changing music, re-editing scenes, adding, subtracting. Ardent, eagle-eyed fans will probably notice a few such cases on this dvd. And if that's not enough for you, there's also a big 48-page book filled with rare photos, stills, storyboard sketches, and an introduction penned by Martin Scorsese.
As varied as they can be, Kenneth Anger's films are pretty unmistakable. This Volume Two dvd set is just as stunning as its predecessor. The restorations are immaculate, the soundtrack vibrant. Details pop out that we were never able to distinguish on our old grainy vhs dubs. From the seemingly random assemblage of the Technicolor hued magickal aesthetics as seen in 1969's Invocation Of My Demon Brother (which incorporated pieces of an aborted version of his film Lucifer Rising as well as footage of a staged ritual deeply inspired by Anger's hero Aleister Crowley and featuring a cameo by Anton LaVey and a Moog synth soundtrack by Mick Jagger) to the pastel powder puffed homoerotic hotrod dream of 1965's Kustom Kar Kommandos to the bikers'n'black leather homoerotic motorcycle club dream of 1964's Scorpio Rising (shot like a documentary, it captures the period's dark visceral energies, the cultural and consciousness explosion, the social rebellion -- arguably the beginnings of protopunk); from the fiery Egyptian golden luminescence of 1981's Lucifer Rising (complete with soundtrack composed and recorded by Bobby Beausoliel in his prison cell) to the 1979 version of Rabbit Moon with its unexpectedly well-suited rock song soundtrack (an earlier version appeared on Vol.1)... Really, what's not to drool over? Through Anger's gaze objects, symbols, songs and people are fetishized to an intoxicating state. Even to those without an interest in avantgarde film, a schooling in esoteric knowledge, or an affinity with fringe communities, the images are nothing short of spellbinding, especially taking into consideration the time period in which they were made. The lone disappointment we found was in Anger's commentaries which come across as surprisingly uninspired, often vague and less than informative. Best to let the films speak for themselves -- a delicious visual feast!
Hey, have the ever-evolving Animal Collective gone all rock'n'roll or what?! The first song on their new album damn near jumps into "Ballroom Blitz" territory. Okay, maybe not quite, but get a load of that feisty drumbeat! Hmmm, art-folk goes glam? Actually the first few songs also brought to mind the rollicking off-kilter pop sounds of Canadian combos Arcade Fire or Hidden Cameras and perhaps a bit of the psych-trippiness of Flaming Lips too. This indeed seems like their most accessible, rousingly pop excursion to date. Later in the album, things settle down briefly into more familiar ephemeral swirls on the song "Bees", but the band soon returns to downright rousing choruses a la Polyphonic Spree taking the good feelings straight through to the closing number "Turn Into Something". If you're already an Animal Collective fan, you won't wanna miss this! If you dig any/all of the bands mentioned above, you just might dig Feels too. We sure do!
What the hell happened here? The Anniversary has poised themselves as the heir apparents to the emo / power pop throne now occupied by labelmates the Get Up Kids, yet with their second album "Your Majesty," these kids from Lawrence, Kansas suddenly think they're Noel and Liam, constructing a bombastic album of baroque pop with lots of harmonizing choruses, extended guitar solos, dramatic piano chords, and distant nods to The Pixies and Supertramp. This record was a real slow burner. In the beginning we all hated it, wondering what happened to our emo pop anniversaries, but the more we listen, the more we began to understand. I began catching Jim or Cup listening to it when they thought no one was the wiser. And Windy is pretty much playing it nonstop in her car: http://aquariusrecords.org/windyscar.html. So now, we give it a thumbs up. The only bummer is the one guy singer who whispers in a earnest croon and ends up sounding lame. Outside of that, they're probably the best Brit pop band America has. A few painfully public inter-band squabbles and loads of coke and the sky's the limit!
The title track of this ep scared the pickles out of me. And the video will do the same. Must hear. Must see. Richard D. James, you rule.
The mad-scientist of electronica - Richard D James aka Aphex Twin - released I Care Because You Do in 1995; and now in 2012, that classic electronica album gets a 2lp reissue by way of the 1972 label, who also recently reissued Aphex's Selected Ambient Works Vol. Two on triple lp.
This album's single "Ventolin" stood as one of the more cantankerous tracks that RDJ had recorded to date. A harsh, tinnitus-inducing squeal permeates the sequencing of clunky rhythms and dum-dum melodies of that single thumbing its noise at everybody who took the whole Intelligent Dance Music thing way too seriously. At the time, the track was a blatant provocation, and after all these years, it still sticks out as a grotesque distortion, with the album moving somewhat like a palindrome around that track - progressing up to that nasty piece of electronics from more stately and subdued tracks before reversing course. One of the tracks that brackets "Ventolin" is the majestic "Icct Hedral" which spirals around an orchestration worked out by Phillip Glass for Aphex Twin, with James girding the cauldron of repetitive woodwinds and strings with his trademarked crunching breakbeats and phase-shifting parametric filter sweeps. The sweaty acid-breakcore track "Come On, You Slags!" is the other bookend to "Ventolin" with more introspective abstractions pooling on either side with plenty of counterpointing rhythmic complexities tossed in for good measure. It was on this record that the Aphex sense of humor - with its broad spectrum from the strange to the village idiot - first came into its own as a unique facet to Aphex Twin's vocabulary. So much of this work still sounds amazing after all these years, and it's also great to see this on vinyl again finally, too! (Even moreso since it seems the cd version has gone out of print.)
One of our favorite pop bands collects early releases, b-sides and sundry out-of-print gems, plus one new song. You may have seen this recently available as expensive Japanese import.
An amazing compendium of facts (and some fantasy?) pertaining to the surprisingly under-documented '70s self proclaimed Aquarian tribe The Source Family and their freeflowing psychedelic jam branch Ya Ho Wha 13!
For years our awareness of this group was limited to the obscure recordings of the band (including the extraordinary giant box set God And Hair), and a smattering of vague and sensationalist 'cult' rumors. The members' secret oath and a marked absence of controversy, calamity and crime no doubt kept this group underwraps and off the pages of tabloids. Our fascination grew tenfold a couple of years ago thanks to the compelling dvd documentary "Yahowha 13: Re-visiting Father And The Source Family". It recounts the history of the movement founded by Father Yod (aka Ya Ho Wha, born Jim Baker) through interviews with original members and archive footage. Definitely recommended viewing. Fortunately for those whose interest has been piqued, we now also have this book. Isis Aquarian was one of Father Yod's fourteen 'women' or 'spiritual wives' and the group's appointed record keeper. Hence she was integral to the inner workings of the Source Family and has compiled an enormous archive of photographs, writings, and memorabilia. Her wealth of and deep connection to this knowledge makes for an immensely intimate and informative document. Lively and entertaining too, among other things, the book details living a utopic life in a mansion in the Hollywood Hills and a subsequent move to Hawaii, observing Father's integrated teachings of ancient philosophies and religions (strongly influenced by Yogi Bhajan and the writings of Manly P. Hall), practicing daily pre-dawn meditations and rituals, and eating a strictly vegetarian diet. In fact, the Source Family ran one of the very first and most wildly successful vegetarian / raw health food restaurants which was located on the Sunset Strip (recipes and photos from the restaurant are included!). Nowadays yoga has been mainstreamed into another physical fitness trend -- a glorified stretching if you will, the ancient spiritual teachings lost to the masses -- and terms like 'guru' and 'visionary' are bandied about with abandon, but back in the late '60s and early '70s there was a West Coast consciousness explosion goin' on, and these people lived it!
The bonus cd is a daunting experience unto itself featuring not only a mindblowing Ya Ho Wha 13 live performance at Beverly Hills High in 1974 (obviously not the most pristine recording quality nor anything resembling trained musicianship -- this is a sensory overloaded moment captured in time of opened channels and the cathartic power of music), but also fascinating radio interview segments, enlightening Father Yod lecture snippets, and Source Family chants! Anyone curious about Ya Ho Wha is gonna want the book, we'd think, and this bonus disc pretty much makes it essential, with its several tracks of unreleased Ya Ho Wha jams, freaky stuff to be found nowhere on the infamous God & Hair 13 cd box set...
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 : ----*
This is the kind of exuberant, indie pop, composed mishmash formerly only found spouting most gushingly from the likes of the Elephant 6 Collective. In the last couple of years younger upstarts have blossomed, predominantly from Canada, such as Hidden Cameras, P:Ano, Arcade Fire et al. It's music that's certainly got its roots in indie pop characterised by a vocal combination of yelped group sing-a-long, melodramatic male crooning and kiddie-style sing-song, playfully peculiar instrumentation, and drawing from a broad array of divergent inspirations (as far as band influences go, Flaming Lips and Olivia Tremor Control immediately come to mind). Disregard the country mentioned in their name, Architecture In Helsinki are from Australia and they jump gleefully from ramshackle hand clappers to sweet hopscotch sockhoppers to funky groovy finger snappers and back again. Listening to In Case We Die is sorta like playin' a game of hide and seek one sunshine-y afternoon in the park with a bunch of your buddies (which just happens to include the girl or boy you've had a secret crush on) -- running, tumbling and spinning around like there's no tomorrow. You think you've got 'em and right when you do they duck out of view only to pop up elsewhere else just outta reach. This album bubbles over with the goodest of giddy good feelings.
Aaah, how I've yearned for the magic of the Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet. Y'know the fab Torontonian trio behind the insanely catchy theme song to Kids In The Hall? Not to mention their three amazing albums in the early '90s that melded the raw sounds of surf and punk music with a truly absurd wit.
But wait, what's this I hear? Holy dewy drops of spring! This sounds remarkably like those Shadowy folks. Well, particularly that unmistakable, slinky yet blistering guitar of Mr. Brian Connelly. He's back with a new trio. A masterful guitarist with a wicked sense of humor, his sly quirks come through in each of these nineteen (!) songs. By the way, you might've also experienced his fine guitar stylings live and on record with AQ fave Ms Neko Case. Jumping genres with tireless finesse and flourish at the mere flick of guitar pick - campy tiki cocktail lounge, fiery rockabilly rave-ups, slowly smouldering western twang - Atomic 7 is where the good times are.
This will undoubtably make for a great holiday party album without all those darn season-specific lyrics. Super festive. Recommended.
Now released domestically!...When we first heard the Badly Drawn Boy, we couldn't believe our ears. Who was this guy? He was like a Britpop Beck; sort of Beck-like voice, twisted pop sensibilities, beautifully Sentridoh-style home recording, and songs that kill. Well, we still don't exactly know who he is, except for the fact that he's the Mercury Prize winner, but at least now there's more than two impossible to find eps. Surprisingly, for his first full length, BDB has abandoned the lo-fi bedroom sound, and lots of his Beck-isms and created a lush, hyper-produced pop masterpiece. Somewhere between Elliott Smith, Radiohead, and Beck. Right off the bat, the first song is a spare arrangement for strings and oboes and cornets. In fact the whole record is dotted with swelling string parts, horns, accordions, bleeps and bloops and super creative production. This is a weird and beautiful (albeit commercial, compared to his earlier recordings and remixes) record, definitely for fans of Beck, Elliott Smith, Radiohead, Quasi, Built to Spill, etc. Imagine Beck or Elliott Smith, if they grew up in England, listening to Radiohead and Oasis, and cut their teeth doing remixes for a who's who of British pop/dance groups, and put a record out on MoWax. It's kind of like that, but not exactly. But it *is* totally great.
Here's another release of exceptional quality and artistry from the Kning Disk label, who have previous brought us fine disks from the disparate likes of James Blackshaw, Jerry Johansson, Steffen Basho-Junghans, Wolf Eyes, Giuseppe Ielasi & Nicola Ratti...
Subtly trippy and strangely entrancing, Balroynigress is an art-folk trio melting in the Swedish sun. We were immediately drawn to main man Erik Joer's withered, slightly druggy male vocals that alternately call to mind early Bowie and Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse. His and female vocalist Elvire Soyez's hushed voices wander tremulously amid the somber, bent and broken melodies woven from acoustic guitars, synths, melodica and piano... occasionally getting their boots stuck in the slushy sludge of the gently growling bass. Despite the album's title which to us suggests fizzy cosmopolitan festivities, the ten songs that comprise this Shampoo And Champagne potion are neither bubbly nor urbane. Ungrounded and seemingly far from city lights, they flow freely between the concrete and the intangible, the conscious and the subconscious, conjuring both the deepest of longings and glimmering hallucinations. We like! May also intrigue the fans of Devendra Banhart or Andrew Douglas Rothbard.
Don't dill-dally though! This is a very limited handmade pressing of 900!
An uncommonly sumptuous array of releases was just presented to us courtesy of the young music label Dynamophone. They've only been around since mid-2006, but already have a bountiful catalog of releases, and many more on the way. We think your ears will welcome them with a warm embrace. Particularly if you've been recently enjoying the aquatic drone releases on the Mystery Sea label, you might wish to check out the seemingly likeminded, but more melodically inclined Dynamophone artists. Really, the label is a treasure trove of shimmering and dewy listening delights. Delve in immediately (also see: Disinterested, Halou, Po, Pornopop, A Lily, Curium, and R/R Coseboom)!
This is the label's new release from Balustrade Ensemble, a group which features Grant Miller (also of the very different Mandible Chatter), singer/songwriter/pianist Liam Singer, and Scott Solter (whose worked with the likes of Singer, Mountain Goats, Spoon and Tarentel). Their intricate (mostly) acoustic (mostly) instrumentals are artfully woven from familiar instruments piano, guitar, cello, and pedal steel, and the less common mellotron, orchestron, claviola, and celeste. Each one seems to glimmer out through Victorian lace curtains yellowed and slightly threadbare from age, through shatters of antique crystal goblets dappled with droplets of deep red, through a flaking, clouded gilt mirror, through deep sea greens and azures. Very cinematic, in fact, the Dynamophone folks beat us to the punch at raising the darkly whimsical filmmakers the Brothers Quay as a point of reference. Very recommended.
We sure are suckers for unconventional music making. Be it accidental (ice melting, applause, junkyards, metal rusting, fire burning) or environmental (elephants, sled dogs, cats purring, FROGS!, bats) and most especially the mysterious or unexplained (the sounds of the dead, breaking through the radio waves, haunting shortwave spy transmissions). Then there is a whole other realm of unconventional music making: the mad scientist. Why form a band, when you can construct robots and machines to play all the instruments? Why actually play the piano, or the guitar, or the drums, when you can construct an elaborate set of pulleys and levers and gears and axles that will play them for you? Why be happy with a turntable that plays records with only one stylus when you can make music with a turntable equipped with multiple needles? We can only assume Pierre Bastien asked these same questions, and the answer he came up with is Pop. Forty five minutes of simple, repetitive, hypnotic and mesmerizing machine driven minimal krautrock. That's right, krautrock is what this sounds like.
In lesser hands a room full of self playing instruments would most likely result in a sterile series of sound events, but Bastien has a deft hand and a keen ear, and breathes life into his automatons, delicate contraptions that each contribute a unique element to a song, not just spitting out sounds -- strange gadgets that play simple chords on a keyboard, an apparatus to beat out simple insistent rhythms, all manner of haunting minor key plinkety plonk, crisp windup toy clickety clacks and disgruntled grinding large machinery groans and whines, some strange warped turntablizations, wearily wheezing woodwinds, all woven into spare stretches of minimally propulsive ambience. Sounds a bit like an army of tiny wind up toys assembled in an automated sonic ballet, an inhuman menagerie making music more human that it seems possible. The vibe is very fuzzy and washed out, droney and dolorous, smeary and sepia-toned, definite shades of Philip Jeck and Tim Hecker, with plenty of creak and crackle surrounding the minimal melodies and subtle rhythmic pulses within each song. It's easy to become obsessed with the method behind the music, and the amount of obviously painstaking preparation that went into creating these machines. And why not?! It's absolutely mind boggling to be sure, but even beyond the mere construction of these music making mechanisms, imagine figuring out how to get these 'things' to make these sounds, and THEN somehow to compose music this lovely and captivating. Seems impossible. Surely, Pop is too perfect to be accidental, too beautiful to be pure luck, too musical to be anything other than the work of a brilliant mad sonic scientist. Or better yet, and possibly more likely, imagine Bastien is nothing if not lucky, a man who somehow stumbled upon a secret world of machines, in some mysterious forgotten warehouse, in some dark overlooked part of town, an insulated little world populated by these devices, not a living breathing creature in sight, just shelves full of strange little contraptions, all running endlessly and self controlled, creating this beautiful music as if that's what they were designed to do, and he was just the first to stumble upon this place, these things, and was able to capture these mysterious sounds before one night, that building and those things were nowhere to be found. Sounds farfetched, maybe a little silly, but it's the sort of romantic story that befits music this warm and beautiful and mysterious, whether it was ultimately the work of a man, or the just the serendipitous sounds of a room full of machines.
Wow, do not miss The Jessamine County Book Of The Living. Matt Bauer's third full length is another deeply moving intimate work. Once again, he's gathered many of his musical friends around him for this lush bluegrass-y embrace. His nimble banjo picking and fine piano playing are now accompanied by strings, woodwinds, brass and more. Wonderful. The string quartet was recorded here in SF, the vocals of Garrett Pierce in Davis, and the rest of the production took place in Brooklyn and Lexington. And by "the rest", in part we mean some gorgeous female vocals from the likes of Jolie Holland and Mariee Sioux. Bauer's hushed voice is mournful yet comforting, and is perfectly complemented by the ladies' luminous delivery. Perhaps the album's crowning jewel is the fourth track "Blacklight Horses", a solemnly lovely Bauer and Holland duet. Just might move you to tears... actually many of Bauer's songs have that effect. Needless to say, this album is heartily recommended. Definitely for fans of Ms Holland, M. Ward and Iron & Wine.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Well, alright!!! To complete the list of Beat Happening newly re-issued LPs here's the absolutely wonderful 'Black Candy'. Jump up and down on your bed with glee to the sounds of "TV Girl" and "Knick Knack". This is the real deal bub! Lo-fi pop at it's best. Let's all raise our cups of cocoa in salute to the punker than punk Calvin, Bret and Heather.
Kinda lost hope of ever seeing this special box set after the bazillionth time a new release date came and went. But holy hopscotch, here it is! "The final word on Beat Happening!" or so the sticker on the front proclaims. Was it really worth the wait? Well, for devoted fans of Calvin, Heather and Bret after all these years, who couldn't resist the appeal of a box set from their fearless K Punk faves all nicely compact and neatly designed? I'm sure that goes without saying, but for the rest, let's see...
Music-wise, you get all five albums (heck, these should already be a part of any self-respecting Beat Happening fan's library!) all uniformly presented in digipaks: the primal beat and often atonal singing of the self-titled debut and Jamboree, the more sing-song pretty Black Candy and Dreamy and the final You Turn Me On (produced in part by former Young Marble Giant Stuart Moxham). As well, you're also treated to a disc titled "Music To Climb The Apple Tree By" packed full of all the non-album previously released bells and whistles (which once again I have to say, any true blue B.H. devotee should already own!), that means all of their 7"s, compilation tracks and the 12" EP they did with the Screaming Trees. Other stuff? An exclusive cd/cd-rom collecting together music from the B.H./Vaselines split cassette and assorted early videos (including ones for "Hot Chocolate Boy" and "Pine Box Derby" as well as live footage of "Black Candy" on Olympia tv, "Cake Walk" from the International Pop Underground Convention '91 and "Cry For A Shadow" at a record store in Memphis). And for your reading enjoyment, queen of the Olympia/K Punk scene Ms Lois Maffeo has assembled a concise 92-page book filled with B.H. archives, personal recollections, grainy photos, interviews, etc. So is this the final word from the beloved Oly trio who were an immeasurable inspiration to indie kids everywhere and a d.i.y. force to be reckoned with back in the day? Who truly knows for sure? But it is without question the most comprehensive and lovingly assembled Beat Happening retrospective you'll ever find... and yes, it was worth the wait!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Lofi pop, deadpan vocals and super catchy melodies... ah, Beat Happening. And this reissue is quite possibly their best album (well, maybe next to 'Black Candy'). With such wonderful raw pop moments as "Fortune Cookie Prize", "Hot Chocolate Boy", "Nancy Sin", "Collide", "Cry For A Shadow", "Red Head Walking", "Me Untamed", "Revolution Come And Gone"... oh, that's almost the entire album! Relive the joyful, sweet early K days with Calvin, Heather and Bret. If you missed out back in '91, consider this your second chance at punker than punk-ness Oly-style 'cause this LP (along with 'You Turn Me On' and 'Jamboree') has been re-issued by K Records in preparation for the big Beat Happening cd boxset due out later this summer.
Now (again?) on cd! Jamboree is a wonderfully primal and totally punk pop album originally released by Rough Trade in '88 on which Heather, Bret, and Calvin are helped out by two Screaming Trees and a Steve Fisk. This record is the home of one of the prettiest dreamy lo-fi pop songs ever: Indian Summer (later covered by such mellow popsters as Dean Wareham and his band Luna) and paved the way for many young rough-around-the-edges and wet-behind-the-ears K Records combos to come.
Channelling the early strains of Joy Division, Wire, and maybe a bit of Cabaret Voltaire and PiL are these two men. Nick Forte (ex-Rorschach!) and Rossano Totino churn the moody new wave machine into the next dimension. And they do it so well. Cool, varied and effected vocals stream through the synth-laden landscape. Fans of the above-mentioned bands as well as New Order and anyone who freaked out at the recent super-smooth Antarctica cd need this. A very very cool album with some very very cool cover art. Oh yes, and did I mention very very recommended.
When we first heard a track from this album a few months ago, our immediate reaction was A) wow, we really had better find a way to get it for the store and B) if and when we do, it'll probably have to be a Record Of The Week. And that was just from hearing ONE song. Fortunately, we did manage to get some of these imports, and the rest of the record only confirmed and amplified our first impression. Record Of The Week it is! (Actually, some of us here, like Andee, were already Bebey fans from way back, but for others of us, gosh, what an introduction...)
As you know, we've certainly seen a bunch of great groovy African reissues lately (in fact, there's a couple others elsewhere on this week's list). But this collection of the late Cameroonian composer & writer Francis Bebey's music is rather unique, to say the least. And it's got something in common with another cool item we're reviewing this week, the vintage "electronic soul" compilation Personal Space. As the title indicates, the focus here is on the especially electronic side of his discography, from the era when multi-instrumentalist Bebey experimented with the latest gear - tape recorders, keyboards, drum machines - to record his own music at home in Paris, making for delightfully dancey, avant-garde Afropop.
The track we had heard was the first one here, "New Track", an over 8 minute long number that starts off with tinkling thumb piano before blaring synth stabs, burbling keys, and ticking drum machine rhythms kick in... pretty soon, the song has become dense with loops and layers, repeating vocals about bananas and potatoes and politics creating a kind of cheerfully confusing mantra. It's as fresh and charming and mesmeric and groovy today as it was when Bebey recorded it in back in '82.
Though this would pretty much be worth it just for that memorable song alone, the rest of this 14-track collection is full of further futuristic Afrofunk highlights. Meaning, more blurting synthesized horns, head bopping basslines, thumping electronic beats augmented by hand percussion, and laidback vocals - some spoken, some sung, in various languages (Duala, French and English). Bebey's talent on classical guitar is also evident. It's quite an amazing mix altogether; 'makossa' music from Cameroon meets "Blow Your Head" style Moog outbursts (as on the woozy instrumental track "Super Jingle", with its skronky synth shiver set amidst hypnotic percussive pulsations). Sometimes the mood gets emotive in other ways, Bebey bringing the beats down and singing sadly in a soft, ragged voice... Here we will go out on a limb, and make a wild hypothetical rock crit "cross between this and that" equation, of Konono No.1 + Arthur Russell, whattya think?
Basically, this is as cool as anything you could imagine something called "African Electronic Music 1975-1982" might possibly sound like! And maybe even cooler than that.
Packaged with liner notes in both English and French.
DOOM HISTORY HERE FOLKS! And not just that, it's a fantastic album. Ok, you know something is up when almost EVERYONE here at AQ absolutely loves a doom metal album. Not just the regular metal heads (Andee, Allan, Jason, Lauren) but also Jim and Cup too. Indeed, Cup's two cents for this review is this: "fucking awesome!"
So what's all the fuss about Bedemon? Well some of you may be familiar with the band Pentagram from Maryland, who have about a 30+ year history, going on 40 in fact. Well Bedemon are essentially an obscure but very worthwhile footnote to Pentagram's history, being the "solo" recording project of original '70s Pentagram guitarist Randy Palmer, the majority of this recorded circa 1973-74 with a few tracks from a 1979 Bedemon session as well. They never played out, or even released any records. Bedemon were more of a practice room, basement-recording project that involved Palmer and friends, including the other members of Pentagram, most significantly the uniquely talented vocalist Bobby Liebling who sings on all of these cuts. It was just a way for Palmer to get his own songwriting down on tape, stuff that wasn't recorded by Pentagram. It's totally in the same vein as Pentagram though, if anything MORE dark and doomy than Pentagram's '70s output. Very heavy, and heavily Black Sabbath influenced, also with echoes of Blue Cheer, Randy Holden's Population II, and Iggy & The Stooges (the track "Time Bomb" is very Stoogey, in a way similiar to Pentagram's "Last Days Here"). And for '73, this is definitely about as heavy as it gets, Sabbath and Pentagram themselves excepted. There's so many great tracks on here, each one more sorrowful and wrought with doomful emotion than the next, all of 'em throbbing and (awesomely) distorted. Yes, the quality of these rehearsal tape recordings is downright grungey and murky, but in our opinion that isn't a distraction nor a detraction. In fact, it only makes this better, totally capturing that spirit and raw energy of jamming in the garage for your own enjoyment. And it also sounds doomier that way too. Hands down, Randy Palmer wrote some of the best Pentagram songs, and many of these are just as good. Some of his riffs absolutely lay to waste those of his contemporaries. Just imagine if Palmer had decided to promote his doom skills rather than keep them for the most part to himself. Holy shit. At least we have this, one of the best "lost" albums ever uncovered in the realm of heavy, underground music.
Sadly, Palmer died in a tragic car accident just a few years ago, so the official release of this material at long last is also something of a tribute to his memory. Some of this stuff has been bootlegged before, but this legit release has been done with the blessings of Randy's survivors and the input of the other Bedemon musicans. There's even a Wes Benscoter cover painting based on Palmer's own hand-sketched ideas, as well as lots of photos, a Bedemon history written by Palmer before he was killed, and some very fascinating, detailed, and heartfelt liner notes from fellow Bedemon/Pentagram bandmate Geof O'Keefe.
Essential to all true fans of Pentagram, and also to anyone into heavy '70s Sabbathy psychedelic garagey proto-metal!!
