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 : ----*
Bad Brains were (are?) arguably the greatest hardcore band of all time, and this collection of killer footage from three consecutive nights of shows way back in 1982 definitively demonstrate what a powerhouse they were. 1982 was indeed a good year for H.R. and the boys for sure, and by the looks of the crowd bounding all over the stage -at times it's hard pick out the actual band members -- they can do no wrong.
The dreads may still short at this stage, and yes, there are a few Rasta soliloquies here and there, but for the most part, the mosh level stays high. Frontman H.R. is always in command, staking out his little portion of the stage, and while axeman Dr. Know is still developing his craft, even back then, he was already blowing minds. And it sure is pretty weird to see the bald white kids skanking around to the stony-Jah riddums... But that's part of what made Bad Brains so bad ass. It's a very racially diverse crowd and everyone seems to be there to mosh or skank and not to fight or fuck shit up. Which is pretty cool.
The footage itself has a wonderful quality to it, especially for the era, the audio is good and it seems as though the video was compiled using the best songs from each of the three nights at CBGB. You can't go wrong with this, and we'd be hard pressed not to recommend this as CRUCIAL to your '80s hardcore video archive.
Some of us here whose proclivities gravitate towards rare psych and folk have been bemoaning the recent flurry of "buried treasures" and "lost classics". It seems a day does not go by without a new release or re-issue of a forgotten or recently discovered artist rescued from obscurity passing before our attentive eyes and drooling mouths. Sometimes the "lost classic" status is not always deserved (not everything made in the sixties and seventies that didn't receive any attention is noteworthy, somethings are better off staying buried or lost), but it's sure keeping the reissue labels and revisionist musicologists busy as they map out an ever-growing expanse of the spheres of influence on music today. It's hard to keep up and also pay equal attention to all the great music that is being made right now. This makes us very happy on the one hand that amazing music continues to be discovered but it also drives us crazy us to see our paychecks quickly dwindling every week. Why just in the past month, we've seen re-issues from Bridget St. John, Kay Hoffman, John Jacob Niles, Kaleidoscope and Fairfield Parlour (all pretty amazing!) among others. And now on our plate are these previously unreleased home recordings of German underground folk singer, Sibylle Baier. We must admit when we first heard this, we suspected fraud. These recordings sound almost too contemporary to have been made in the early seventies. But after doing a little research, we found out this is no fraud. These intimate recordings fully deserve their "buried treasure" status, for whatever that's worth at this point. Baier, only previously known for a song on an early Wim Wenders film soundtrack, recorded these songs in her home from 1970-73 after a "spirit-renewing" trip through the Swiss Alps. She has the warm Sunday jam and tea voice reminiscent of Vashti Bunyan, but with the more spare guitar compositions and melancholy vocal delivery of someone like Chan Marshall. In fact, we sort of wish the new Cat Power or Beth Orton records were this good! Like Bunyan, Baier shunned what could have been a successful career in order to raise a family and it's because of her son, Robby, that these recordings are being heard at all. But unlike Bunyan, these songs don't derive from a back to nature hippie-folk aesthetic, but rather they come from a more delicate fragility where life's beauty and despair are interwoven with the tiny details of daily life. Beautiful! Totally recommended for seventies folk enthusiasts as well as fans of contemporary singer/song-writers.
"In fact, as usual, when Robbie spoke to me, I didn't understand what in the world he was talking about" -- from John Fahey's liner notes to this new 72-minute compilation of Robbie Basho recordings from three of his albums (The Falconer's Arm I, The
Bashovia is composed of "Orientalist" raga-folk-guitar improv with some of the man's unique vocalizations on a few of the tracks -- but most are instrumental, darkly gorgeous and inspired examples of six-string and 12-string manipulation. Moreso than Fahey and other contemporaries, though, there's a super intense, almost scary, impassioned element to Basho's playing. There's also a lot of surface noise to be heard on some of these tracks (almost like he's playing next to a campfire), and we're not sure if that's 'cause the master tapes were lost and this cd was mastered from scratchy old copies of the original records (which seems odd, especially since this is billed as "remastered") or if the noise was intentionally included by Basho to make his songs sound like the came from old 78s...either way, it sounds cool!
Wow. This is one ridiculous record. Solo 6 & 12 steel string guitar and singing by '60s acoustic guitar hero Robbie Basho (plus a little South Indian Log Drum accompaniment by Ramnad V. Raghavan). This record (a reissue of Basho's 1972 Vanguard debut) might have been almost passable (for solo proto-nu-age guitar in the usual mode of Basho and his contemporaries Fahey and Kottke) had Robbie not opened his mouth to moan pseudo-Native American vocal stylings (with similarly themed lyrics that may have been quite sincere but come across as very silly). It's only a surprise that the Mad Deadly Worldwide Communist Gangster Computer God label (of "Celebrities At Their Worst" fame) didn't get around to re-issuing this themselves. Indeed, although the absurd, wavering vocals might ruin one's enjoyment of Basho's fine guitar playing, they also really do make this a hilarious listen. Connoisseurs of the weird/kitsch should check this out, it's like a cross between "Ein Wigwam" and a Fahey album. For fans of the Sun City Girls, Yahowah, Telly Savalas, and other absurdities. Allan finds this record to be quite enjoyable on those grounds, and once you're done laughing, you'll see that some of it is quite beautiful and Tim Buckley-esque as well. "I am the voice of thu-u-und-rrrrr" etc. Reissued in a nice mini-LP style sleeve.
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!!
This is a vinyl reissue of a rare-ass 1975 private press LP from Baltimore that anyone who digs, say, Michael Yonkers should perk up their ears at. It's that sort of outsider psych obscurity. Guitarist/vocalist George Brigman, a teenager at the time we're pretty sure, was definitely into such underground (back then) influences as The Stooges and the Velvet Underground. This record consists of fierce, fuzz-fueled punk rockers, lo-fi blues, and VU-inspired melancholia -- a downer vibe typified by such songs as "It's Misery", "Worrying", and "I'm Married Too". There's more of the latter so don't get the idea that this is Raw Power part II or anything. But the Stooges moments, like the killer title track, ARE super Stoogey. So imagine an unholy, amateur, low-budget blend of Iggy, Lou Reed, and some Nick Drake too. Sounds good don't it? It is pretty great. Very soon a cd reissue on the Bona Fide label should also be arriving in our shop, but for the vinyl-enabled among you, Anopheles has the goods right now, on clear vinyl, mastered from the original tapes.
Another gem from Spain's psychedelic past! We've been getting some very interesting reissues of Spanish stuff lately (Agamenon, Tapiman, Eduardo Bort, Smash, The Spanish Trip comp, etc.) and this Brincos disc is one to add to that list. From 1970, this is psych-pop with a bit of a prog bent, especially on the album's ambitious lead-off / title track, "Mundo Demonio Carne", which clocks in at over twelve minutes long and is a real psych odyssey. Fuzzed out rockin' morphs into gentle folky melodicism and back into dramatic prog soundscapery. Worth it almost for this track alone, though happily the rest of the album is equally excellent and eclectic, from blues rock workouts to handclapping pop to fake raga ("Kama-Sutra"). There's lots of groove, and lots of lush, infectious melodies -- the kind that make you hit 'play' over and over again.
Some comparisons we could make, which may only make sense to those well versed in the pop/prog/psych obscurities of the era: Los Dug Dug's meets The Millenium? Aphrodites Child + Os Mutantes + Kak?? Well, if you know who some/all of those bands are you're probably the sort of person who would enjoy Brincos -- though that's not to say that if you've never heard of any of 'em you wouldn't like Brincos. Far from it. This is some appealing stuff that anyone with an ear for colorful, poppy psychedelia should dig...
This import from Spain is World Devil Body's offical reissue version and includes both Spanish and English language versions of many of the album's tracks.
Some of the AQ shoppin' stoner rock contingent ought to remember Buffalo, an honest to gosh band of Austrialian proto-metal pioneers from the early '70s. We used to stock a 2-fer-1 disc (can't get it anymore, dang) that collected their more Monster Magnet than Monster Magnet ever wuz albums Volcanic Rock ('73) and Want You For Your Body ('74). Missing that disc as we do, we were happy to find a few copies of this, a cd reissue of their prematurely tired-of-living debut from 1972. Dead Forever (nice title, they had a knack for that) was originally released on Vertigo, and at the time Buffalo were probably tipped as an Aussie version of Vertigo best sellers Black Sabbath. Close, no cigar, but what they're smoking has its charms anyhoo. This album's a graveyard of grinding dirgey yeah-yeah-yeah rockers, the kind that demand (as the back cover literally does) you to "play this LOUD". You've got to 'cause this band's lurching riffs and electric psychedelic blues bashings need all the help they can get since producers back then didn't yet know exactly what real metal required. True, this has a few quiet, balladic numbers on it (not bad ones either) but will be 'specially valued for trudging lead-foot boogie blooze proto-DOOM like you get with the album-closing title track coffin-nail-hammerer. For folks who also dig the similarly lost and wasted, stoned guitars and wailing vocals of such acts as Captain Beyond, Randy Holden, Juan de la Cruz, Toad, Leafhound, and Sir Lord Baltimore.
We LOVE this band. You should love this band. How can you not, that is if you're lookin' for some proto-metal, psychedelic stoner '70s rawk action?? Buffalo is 100 percent the Real Deal. These Aussie rockers were basically what Monster Magnet (and all the other bands in the modern "stoner rock" scene) would have liked to be, doing it first and best back in the day. Once upon a time, we used to stock a 2-on-1 reissue of Buffalo's Volcanic Rock and Want You For Your Body albums (from '73 and '74, respectively) but that's been out of print for ages now. So we're super thrilled that the Aztec label from Down Under has brought Buffalo back into circulation, as part of a '70s reissue campaign featuring a bunch of other Aussie acts we're eager to check out, like Coloured Balls (reviews pending). Both of these Buffalo discs are authentically heavy '70s cock-rock from the band we've judged to be Australia's answer to, if not Black Sabbath, at least Grand Funk... no, better n' heavier than that. Sir Lord Baltimore, for sure. Did we say cock-rock? Hell, there's even a penis on the cover of Volcanic Rock! The lyrics are of the sort that amusingly confuse being sexist with being sexy (a la Spinal Tap), as in Want You's lead off track "I'm A Skirt Lifter, Not A Shirt Raiser", and they're delivered with much gusto and backed by some powerful guitar riffing that blows those stoner rock bands of today out of the (bong)water.
Volcanic Rock is unstoppable, definitely an aptly titled album. Music for rolling Mad Max style on the highways across the Australian outback. Bonus tracks include the single versions of crucial cuts "Sunrise (Come My Way)" and "Shylock". Want You For You Body is equally awesome, and features the powerful "Dune Messiah". Killer vocals on that one and you can't get much more '70s than a song about Frank Herbert's popular sci-fi classic, short of writing songs about Tolkien! Bonus tracks include a live version of "United Nations". And the fact that you can't get both albums on one disc anymore is made up for by the presence of the aforementioned bonus tracks on each cd, digital remastering, thick booklets, and generally nice presentation in digipacks.
So if you're a patron of our "proto-metal" section, into Blue Cheer and Bang and Leaf Hound and the like, you've gotta get Buffalo!!! Same deal if you're a fan of Kyuss, Monster Magnet, Heavy Rocks style Boris, etc... Highly recommended.
[Also available, is the Aztec reish of Buffalo's debut Dead Forever, which we'll list next time!]
This beloved 1970 folk album is back on its original format... VINYL LP! Plus this reissue comes with a bonus 7"! Hurrah!
Here's what we said about the cd version:
We're pretty damn excited that this album is now available again. Inspiration for this turn of events must certainly have something to do with Ms Bunyan turning up on Devendra Banhart's recordings recently. Without a doubt Vashti Bunyan has played a big influence on the young Banhart's song writing, and fans of Devendra should definitely take note. This record is so incredibly charming! Having been expelled from a London art school in 1964 for not narrowing her field of studies to either music or painting, Vashti Bunyan took to singing her songs on the streets of London. She eventually left the city, hitching up a cart and horse to journey across the countryside, heading for the remote Outer Hebrides islands. It wasn't long before fans tracked her down to record an album. The album was released in 1970 and disappeared in relative obscurity -- only later being sought out fanatically by record collectors. Featuring accompaniment by such notables as Robin Williamson (fiddle, mandolin, Irish Harp) of The Incredible String Band and Simon Nicol (banjo) of Fairport Convention, Robert Kirby (string and recorder arrangements) who played with Nick Drake, Vashti Bunyan's music is an exquisitely delicate folk music with melodies reminiscent of hornpipes and shanties. Her clear voice is so full of innocence, and she sings so earnestly about her horse and the countryside full of hayfields and waiting for love and the simple rewards, like nice tea, that await after a long day's journey. It's so beautiful, it makes me want to dress in peasant garb (like Vashti on the cover) and forget all about the 21st century.
An absolutely timeless ageless folk music beauty!
If you fell in love with Ms Bunyan's Just Another Day album from 1970 (reissued recently on cd and lp!) as we did, you've probably been tingling with anticipation over the news that over three decades later she'd returned to the recording studio. Really, it's almost as though she never left. It's almost spooky! We caught a brief, but oh-so-pleasing glimpse of the present-day Vashti when she did an unexpected collaboration with Animal Collective earlier this year (the resulting recordings were released as a cdep titled "Prospect Hummer"). Now we get a full album's worth of her wonderfulness and she's joined by some youngsters named Joanna and Devendra. Recommended!
We don't know how they do it. Black magic presumably. If you thought that Sweden's Witchcraft were eerily able to conjure the spirit of early '70s proto-metal doom rock a la Black Sabbath and Pentagram (which they are) and you want MORE (of course you do), well, you're in luck. We've discovered that Witchcraft have some friends, another Swedish band called Burning Saviours who ALSO possess this arcane ability, incredibly enough! You've gotta hear 'em. Burning Saviours are pretty much dead ringers for Witchcraft, which means that they are equally inspired by Pentagram (heck, they're named after a Pentagram song, "Burning Saviour"), Sabbath, Witchfinder General and all sorts of decades-past, metal-prog-psych heaviness. Their songs have got all the bellbottomed basslines, laidback soloing, gentle folky melodies, Ozzy-sincere vocals, and doomful riffs needed to make for an authentic-sounding escape to that mystic, misty, downer domain that we (and bands like Burning Saviours and Witchcraft) like to imagine the '70s to be...long-haired lads worshipping pagan gods with guitars and amplifiers and flutes -- yes, flutes, much to Andee's approval (Andee's been taking flute lessons for a few months now, in a bit do become even MORE prog, and he knows how to play four whole notes already!). Burning Saviours wield flute with aplomb on two tracks, "Spread Your Wings" and "Trees And Stones", which will doubtless garner 'em comparisions to Jethro Tull, although we doubt they go in for the one-legged flute pose, and besides there were lots of other '70s heavy psych/prog acts that utilized the flute -- Murphy Blend, Gravy Train, Clear Blue Sky, Mammut, Los Dug Dugs, Out Of Focus, McChurch Soundroom, Nosferatu, Alrune Rod, Culpeper's Orchard and plenty more obscure acts who were probably more inspirational to Burning Saviours, not that we're knocking Tull. And let's not forget that Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath was known to set aside his guitar and pick up the flute upon occasion -- once, famously, in concert when we was so stoned that he spent, like, two minutes with his eyes closed, holding the flute nowhere near his lips, while blowing directly into the microphone as bandmates Ozzy, Bill and Geezer looked on and tried to restrain their mirth. Or so the story goes. ANYWAY, our point is sort of that if any of those bands mean anything to you, and/or you also dig Black Sabbath, then this should be right up your alley! We only wish this album was longer than the relatively lean 34 minutes that it is. But if you've been lovin' Witchcraft's recent Firewood, you'll be happy to have this -- indeed, it might even be BETTER than Witchcraft. We're not sure yet. And that by itself is about as high a recommendation as we can give!!
Christine 23 Onna is a collaborative effort between Fusao Toda and Maso Yamazaki, better known as Masonna. While the presence of one of Japan's most frightening noisicians should be enough the scare away all of the too-hip-and-too-stoned kids who only care about 'rare grooves,' Christine 23 Onna's "Shiny Chrystal Planet" is actually a pretty damn funky record. Yeah, it's noisy, but in a swirling, synth-overload, super psychedelic way, not like Masonna's usual electronic scream-skree. And really uptempo breakbeats set the rhythmic backbone for some awesome trance-rock much like the latest grooves from their countrymen the Boredoms (a la "Super Are" and "Vision Creation Newsun)". The phase shifting fuzz guitar and cosmic space dusted synthesizers get jammy, but fortunately never too wanky. Those of you familiar with the '60s spy thrillers of Jerry Van Rooyen may recognize one of his tempestous songs covered by Christine 23 Onna (we think we do, anyways, although it's not credited as such...). Wild, spacey groov-adelia. All around great stuff! Amazing cover art recreating Ash Ra Temple's "New Age Of Earth"!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
German electronic music pioneers Moebius and Roedelius live on their first ever US tour.
Cluster's Second album continues where Cluster '71 left off. Produced and engineered by Conny Plank, who, as on Cluster's debut, acts as a third member. More pulsating and serpentine than before with broader hints at melody, Cluster II still retains the concrete textures and industrial tenacity of their debut yet lacks the characteristically rhythmic propulsion that has marked their subsequent output. Feels right in line with the kraut-y sonic forays of early Ash Ra Tempel and Cosmic Jokers.
This long awaited reissue of Cluster's stellar 1976 recording, Sowiesoso (So Not So So) sees Roedelius and Moebius at their most collaborative and creative. Recorded after moving to the tiny village of Forst from West Berlin, the progressive evolution of Cluster's solely improvised sound from free-form cavernous synth-scapes to percolating motorik pop had already been documented on their Zuckerzeit album from 1975. On Sowiesoso, that sound gets even more refined, with Moebius's machinist currents of whirs and klangs jutting up against Roedelius's serene Eastern pastoralism, resulting in a haunting mix of pensive ambient beauty that matches the idyllic countryside pictured on the front cover.
So Recommended!
At last, this wonderful wonderful album is back in print on cd! Water gets a big AQ thank you for reissuing one of our favorite Krautrock, or heck, just plain ol' records ever, the first of two collaborations between art rock / "ambient" music pioneer n' generally acknowledged genius Brian Eno and Krautrock electronics legends Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius aka Cluster! You know that's got to be good, and it is, paving the way for the likes of Aphex Twin so many years later. This self-titled disc (the one with the microphone stand silhouetted against a blue sky on the cover) dates originally from 1977. Water also just reissued the other Eno/Moebius/Roedelius album, 1978's After The Heat, which comes equally recommended (see our review elsewhere this list). On this one, they're joined by guests including Asmus Tietchens and Can's Holger Czukay, and construct warm, organic instrumentals utilizing both acoustic instruments and analog synths. This is soft and mellow and melodic but at the same time these songs are no push-overs, however gentle. To be honest, I (Allan) had never heard *anything* quite like Cluster before these got reissued on cd the last time that happened, on the Gyroscope label back in the mid '90s, but I very quickly fell in love with 'em (these Water reissues are much nicer, by the way, with liner notes and photos in the cd booklets -- the Gyroscope editions didn't even have booklets!). The discs with Eno are good starting places to get into the extensive Cluster and Cluster-related discography, and certainly they're Cluster's best-sellers... but anything with Moebius and/or Roedelius involved is worth hearing, we'd say. These new reissues haven't been accorded the fanfare of the Neu! discs on Astralwerks or the recent Can remasters, but we'd rate them just as highly.
Ok, we don't know what sort of time warp technology they've developed over there in Sweden, but it does the job. I mean, if the US Navy ever wants to find out just what happened with that aircraft carrier or whatever from the 1940s (y'know, they made a movie about it, The Final Countdown or The Philadelphia Experiment wasn't it?), we'd say don't bother asking Michael J. Fox, get somebody over in Sweden to explain. They obviously have the time travel thing figured out. And best of all, they use it to make more rock and roll bands like in the good ol' days of acid rock and psychedelia!! Bands like Witchcraft and Elope and Dungen, who sound more 1970 than 2006. We've mentioned them all before, and if you know 'em and love 'em, well here's *another* group of Swedes that we think fans of those bands should check out. Dead Man! Long hair, bright harmonies, folky melodies, acoustic strum, heavy riffs, trippy vibes... even a 14-minute long experimental prog finale. Yep, definite time warp. Like Witchcraft and those others, they never betray their modernity. No anachronistic hints of '90s stoner rock or alternative rock or metal or anything. Really, though it -says- this debut full-length was recorded in 2005, it's like no rock music past, say, 1974 seems to have ever entered their ears.
Despite being called Dead Man this isn't particularly a dark album... just heavy psych in the old style. Some tracks are hard rockers, others spaced out and Floydian, even a little bit on the rustic Grateful Dead side of things... A couple of the guys in the band sing (in English), one of 'em with a wavering trill in his voice that reminds us a bit of Roger Chapman from Family, whereas the other singer has a stronger Swedish accent giving more of that Dungen flavor. The Norwegian '70s heavy psych act November could be one definite influence on these guys.
Again, although we do suspect the use of time-travel technology, we're also aware that Dead Man's guitarist used to play drums in Norrsken, Magnus Pellander's band before he formed Witchcraft. I guess he stole a page from Magnus' spellbook, temporal magic chapter. Meanwhile, two of the other members were in Swedish bands called The Strollers and The Roadrunners -- never heard them but boy those names are EXACTLY what the sort of '60s garage/beat bands that would have evolved into a band like Dead Man would have been called -- had this all really transpired 35 years ago like it sounds. Sure, not a lot of points for originality, but plenty for verisimilitude. We say, right on, Dead Man!
Whoa...what a great find this is! Being a big fan of early seventies/heavy folk rock and of course the Incredible String band (who Dr. Strangely Strange most resembles upon first listen), we just can't get enough of this strangely strange record! There's the surrealistic multi-instrumentalism similar to that of ISB (and whimsy not unlike Bonzo Dog Band) but Dr. SS offers something moodier, too. With layered acoustic and electric guitar and lots of harmonized vocals, some songs sound almost like the Velvet Underground's Loaded record (which, incidentally, came out the same year). And with a young Gary Moore (who went onto Thin Lizzy fame) there's lots of solid guitar soloing going on. A nice bonus is the elaborate die-cut packaging made to look like the original LP artwork. Very recommended!
YES! Sweden's Elope are back. One of our favorite discoveries of 2004, their No Name Album was Beatlesly (or Wingsy), Neil Youngish, sorta stonery, and maybe a little Stonesy, authentically retro '70s classic rock sounding, utterly entrancing, mostly mellow pure POP genius! So we're excited to hear their new one, 3WD (three wheel drive?? somebody clue us in... maybe now we understand why their first album was more or less untitled). And additionally excited to learn that this is only the first of two new Elope albums due out this year, this one supposedly being the more rockin' one, with another cd coming this fall entitled 9 Distilled Dreams that will focus on mellower, slower, quieter material.
So how's 3WD? Well we couldn't be happier. It is on the uptempo side -- they even break out a boogie now and then -- but still has the wonderfully laidback vibe we loved about their debut. And their abilities in the pop songsmithery department haven't diminished at all. Elope's honeyed vocals and harmonies help give a gentle glow to the hard-rocking energy on display. Reference points, '60s/'70s retro and otherwise ('cause they sound modern too): The Pretty Things, Pink Floyd, Redd Kross (but not soo nyahh nyahh nyahh), and maybe even a little bit Elliott Smith if he had been more rockinger... And definitely If you like Dungen (especially the poppier side to their psych-pop equation) you should definitely be aware of their talented countrymen Elope.
Totally recommended, and now we're impatiently awaiting the next one!!
We've always wondered why Entrance never got the appreciation they seemed to so fully deserve. But we're thinking might just get set straight with Prayer of Death. Where past releases displayed totally gifted guitar player Guy Blakeslee in a fucked up drugged out modern blues context, Prayer Of Death demonstrates a new urgency and pretty much an entirely new sound. With an over the top (in a great way!) delivery, including an amplified electric orchestra, a paranoid disposition, and death on his mind, Blakeslee has made his most intense and rocking record to date. Maybe it was his move from Baltimore to LA but his flamboyant nature has totally come to the surface and we couldn't be happier. He still plays amazing raga-like guitar, and his sound is still a wander in haunted woods but now he's got ROCK on his radar, all throughout Prayer Of Death. Imagine Sandy Bull joining Queen and you start to get an idea of the fucked up beauty that is this record. You get the feeling something really monumental must have occurred in Blakeslee's life, because these are the sounds of someone with a newfound spirit, not taking anything for granted, making the most out of every note and channeling all the energy, emotion and life into every song he can. We've ALL been digging this record like crazy. So fucking good!
Entrance is the solo project of 21 year old Guy Blakeslee, who has also played bass for Baltimore's Convocation Of... Though this stuff is not much like that band's proggy post-punk, that's presumably why he landed on the same record label as that band. Also maybe 'cause he's performed with Will Oldham and Cat Power, and done a split 7" with Papa M... Anyway, Entrance could be better compared to Guy's friend and touring partner, the wonderful Devendra Banhart (you've all got his album, we know!). Playing solo with just an acoustic guitar and his voice, and maybe a tambourine or somesuch, Guy sounds a bit like Syd Barrett and looks a bit like Marc Bolan. As he proved here not long ago when he played an instore with Devendra, Guy can project his music quite well with no help from amplifiers or microphones! This disc is much in the same spirit as that instore. Rambling lovely string tangle, dramatic late-night laments, violent strumming, and vocal outpourings building on the folk-rock vibes of mystic fellows of decades past. The disc features mostly originals (apparently never played the same way twice, thanks to Entrance's loose, in-the-moment aesthetic and reliance on enthusiasm rather than training technique-wise) but also some suitable covers by blues/folk forebears Skip James ("I'm So Glad") and Bob Dylan ("Tommy Thumb's Summertime Blues"). Basically, Entrance is somewhere between the eccentric folk troubadour vibe of pal Devendra Banhart and the more aggro attitude of the White Stripes' damaged, stomping garage rock n' roll... if you can imagine them in the person of one fuzzy haired guy with an acoustic guitar, which is a stretch. At any rate both are historically minded and inspired, if you know what I mean, making for some timeless music that's immediately understandable.
We listed a different reissue of this great rare acid-folk album about a year ago... well guess what, now it's been retitled "Hatched" and reissued -again-, this time with seven bonus tracks instead of just two. And it looks better too. The bonus tracks include two non-album cuts from the band's lone single (which were on the previous edition) and five more live tracks from a newly-unearthed 1971 radio session! So, if you already have this on cd you can determine if you need this new version or not, but if you don't already have it, this is the one to get, obviously! Here's what we had to say about it before:
For those of you into acid folk from the early '70, we have another terrific find with FRESH MAGGOTS. This teenage British duo's only record, not surprisingly deemed a failure upon its release with such an unappealling name (though of course we think it's cool), came out in 1971. Which, as you may know, some here say could be one of the BEST years for this -or any- genre. Influenced by the likes of Deep Purple, Zeppelin, and Pentangle, Fresh Maggots really don't sound as rock as the above outfits (partly due to lacking drums) but bring more to mind Forest, Tractor, or Tyrannosaurus Rex. There's lots of acoustic guitar folkiness here blended with fuzzed out fits of electric guitar. And there's a little tin whistle playing and triangle chiming going on, too! Melodic, pastoral, hearty, and highly recommended. This reissue, which the Fresh Maggots themselves had a hand in, includes extensive liner notes, and two [no, make that seven, now!] bonus tracks.
Garadama is a hitherto unknown to us, super heavy metallic rock trio from Japan, making their debut on Osaka's Alchemy label (home to albums by Hijo Kaidan, Merzbow, Masonna, Angel 'In Heavy Syrup among others). They're not unlike a more modern-sounding version
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Spooky '70s Italian prog rockers Goblin are known for their soundtracks to many famous Dario Argento horror films. Here's one of the best, newly reissued on lp. Deep red indeed. Includes the tracks "Death Dies", "Mad Puppet", and "School At Night" among others.
Sam Gopal was an Indian tabla player, making the scene in Swinging Sixties London. His 1969 Escalator album is pretty obscure, but a classic as far as we're concerned. Sam's percussion of course does a lot to set it apart from the paisley pack (not that Eastern sounds weren't unheard of back then), but it's really vocalist/guitarist Ian "Lemmy" Willis (yes, Lemmy Kilmister from Motorhead) who really shines here. The young Lemmy conjures up some incredibly liquid, languid dark psych on tracks like "The Dark Lord" and "You're Alone Now". Reminds us a bit of Twink's Think Pink album, or even T2. So starkly beautiful. Mellow, melodic, mystical. Not heavy in a loud way (nothing like Motorhead that's for sure!!), but "heavy" nonetheless if you know what we mean. Some of the songs definitely do rock out, but still remain somehow muted and moody. It's gorgeous stuff, the downer, down-tempo mood spoiled only a bit by covers of "Back Door Man" and "Season Of The Witch" (the later with R&B-ish female backing vocals). Aside from those, though, supposedly all the songs on here were written by Lemmy in one night, up on speed! Wow. Jeez, is Lemmy the best or what? Hendrix roadie, onetime Hawklord, metal icon...and sinister psych singer-songwriter too! This nice digipack reissue, including two tracks from the group's lone single as a bonus, comes very much recommended.
We were intrigued the moment we saw a copy of this reissued early '70s Eastern-influenced tranquil psych gem. The back cover displays dark and mysteries photos of the five men in The Habibiya. All clad in turbans and sporting long beards. We could almost hear the mystique before we pushed play. When we did finally listen we were steadily reeled into their raga like hypnotic sounds, influenced heavily by the music of Sufi Muslims from Morocco, where they visited on what was apparently an extremely moving trip for them in 1971. In fact we had no idea at first that The Habibiyya weren't from somewhere in the East, as the music we were hearing sounded so effortless and true. We later learned that they were in fact from London and featured ex-members of Mighty Baby (kind of the UK equivalent of The Grateful Dead). But where the Mighty Baby stuff we heard was cool and jammy it never really transported us like this recording does. It's music to close your eyes to, as the rich sounds sweep you away, aiming for the sky as its deep hitting core glows with an undeniable spiritual force. While most bands of the era had their backstage area filled with booze and groupies, The Habibiyya mostly just had books with them backstage like the I Ching and texts from mystic minds like G.I. Gurdjieff and Aleister Crowley.
Using zither, piano, banjo, oboe, koto, shakuhachis and an adaptation of classical Moroccan Andalusi singing they were able to create a sound that felt both ancient and timeless. We can all agree that what usually happens when Western musicians try to tap into an eastern sound and feeling, is that the sound can fall miserably short, sounding tepid and watered down, but there are those special rare occasions, when regardless of origin or location, musicians can tap into a special spirit and make sounds that transcend place and time. The Habibiyya did just that!
A few lists ago we raved about the reissue of Harmonia's first album Musik Von Harmonia and now Lilith has thankfully reissued Harmonia's follow-up release from 1975, Deluxe. Although we loved Harmonia's first album, Deluxe is, dare we say, even better!! Made up of Michael Rother from Neu! and Moebius and Rodelius from Cluster, on Deluxe they are joined on a few songs by Mani Neumeier from Guru Guru, making the line up on this record a kosmiche supergroup of epic proportions! While the first record was tipped in the balance towards the Cluster side of things in terms of sound and the improvised process in which it was made, Deluxe has more of a Neu! feel as the tracks are more composed and song oriented, and for the first time contain vocal elements. Plus the motorik grooves are more rocking, with a real drum kit used more often than the drum machines creating a pulsating drive on par with Neu! 75, recorded that same year. But that's not to say Deluxe doesn't have its Cluster moments, as the two final tracks bring us down into some beautiful pastoral territory with the sounds of a stream with ducks and frogs near the Cluster studio in Forst can be heard amongst the warm and percolating analog synths. This is beautifully packaged tri-fold digipak with liner notes by Asmus Tietchens, who still owns some of Cluster's original analog equipment, and lots of photos including the awesome back cover of the trio lounging by the river in an obvious nod to Neil Young's On the Beach. Absolutely Essential!!!!!!!!
All right! One of our favorite album covers and probably the best kosmiche supergroup ever finally see the light of day once again. Called the "world's most important rock group" by Brian Eno, Harmonia consisted of Neu founder, Michael Rother and Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius of Cluster. Michel Rother, after contributing to Cluster's breakthrough record, Zuckerzeit, which heralded a new direction in sound from their earlier dark and cavernous analog synthscapes to a more pastorally melodic and motorik driven percussive vibe, decided to take a breather from Neu. He moved into Cluster's newly built studio in the German countryside where they began collaborating on a more combined sound. While each member still continued to focus on their own main projects Harmonia was never considered a sideline affair, recording two stellar albums plus a series of recordings with Brian Eno that didn't see the light of day until twenty years later.
Connecting the aesthetics of Pop and Minimalism, the first Harmonia album is a product of their source bands but with a fresh twist on the motorik ideal. Less clinical than Kraftwerk, less funky than Can, each member's multi-instrumentalist abilities are employed in a variety of approaches at once playful and murky, steady and mechanical, using electronic beats, distorted rhythms, warm keyboard shimmers, drifting piano, and gliding electric guitars. Its no wonder Brian Eno was a fan. Fans of Boards of Canada, Susumu Yokota and electronica-heads of all types should check this out too. They even coined the term "hausmusik"! Totally Recommended!!
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Wow! Long-lost (or neglected) tapes starring electronic krautrock luminaries Moebius and Roedelius (of Cluster) and Michael Rother (of Neu!), and Brian Eno!
Ever had a bad trip? And no, not just an "oh I'm freaking out man" sort of trip, we're talking the sort of trip that sticks with you forever. The first time, the worst time, the best worst time, sex, death, injury, mayhem and misery, well our very own Scott Hewicker and his partner Cliff Hengst have been collecting tales of these bad trips from a who's who of artists and musicians, friends and family, even AQ employees and have finally compiled them all into one volume, this here gorgeous hardcover book entitled Good Times: Bad Trips, and not only packed with stories, but with all sorts of original and found artwork to accompany these far our freaked out tales of drugs and debauchery.�
The contributors include�Devendra Banhart, local luminary John Dwyer, our very own Irwin Swirnoff and our very own Lauren Robertson,�Martin Schmidt and Drew Daniel from Matmos, John Koch from Troll, Ezra Feinberg�from Citay,�Alexis Georgopoulos from Arp,�Wayne Smith from Aero-Mic'd,�Nathan Burazer from Tussle, Jack Hanley (of Jack Hanley Galleries) as well as�loads of artists and writers like Chris Johanson, Shaun O'Dell, Keegan McHargue, Leslie Shows, Kevin Killian, Dodie Bellamy... the list goes on and on and on.�
The thing is, it almost doesn't matter who wrote which story, so much so that the credits are tucked away, way in the back of the book, so the stories are just that, stories, removed from their authors, not overly writerly, instead conversational, like hanging out drinking and telling tales, where most bad trip stories actually get told. And these are some seriously demented stories. Some are super funny, some are really intense and brutal, some are so ridiculous they sound made up, others are more mundane, but resonate as experiences most of us have shared. It's an amazing read. A killer collection of short stories, all of them fascinating, tales of�stolen jet skis,�yellow food banquets,�secret upper crust sex societies,�deflowered virgins,�brain loops, dead body mannequins, emergency room freakouts, smoking out with Lee Scratch Perry, football player rapists, midnight calls to Mom, industrial strength lasers, heart murmurs, talking crows, living nude books, grey music, naked hippies, sex with surrealists, skin rashes, mouths full of dough, Cher costumes, stolen Harry Potters, boom box kicking, fake pistols, guitar masturbating, mother meltdowns, Tesla coils and so so so much more.�
Gorgeously designed and laid out, plus the book is jam packed with eye popping art,�paintings, drawings, collages, photographs and ephemera, all suitably warped and trippy, beautiful and bizarre, collected, found or created by Hewicker and Hengst. And all housed in a super swank, full color 136 page hard cover book. Each one signed by the artists!! Absolutely recommended. And a limited run of only 1000 copies, so buy now or be prepared to sell a kidney or take out a second mortgage on your house to pick one up on eBay later...
We've been sitting on this one for a couple weeks 'cause we wanted to be sure it got everyone's full attention.�On the surface�this may appear to be just another comedy dvd, but�it's considerably more than that. It's a�potent posthumous release and historical document of, for lack of better words, 'highlights' of the mighty Bill Hicks' career as a stand-up comedian.�
Arguably, the bulk of the current crop of incisively insightful comedians are reduced to mere fluff when held up to the unforgiving fire of Hicks (who passed away in 1994 at the age of 32)... and they fuckin' know it! Many (David Cross, Patton Oswalt, Dave Attell to name a few) bow their heads in deep reverence to the memory of this seriously groundbreaking individual, and others would do well to do the same. Much of their material comes directly from the provocative seeds this man sowed. Much of his material comes across as fresh and as relevant as it did over a decade ago. When you hear him speak of President Bush, it's startling to realize he's speaking of Bush 41 not Bush 43. He blazed his own trail in much the same unrestrained and unrelenting tradition as Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce or�George Carlin. Not always funny nor entertaining per se, and not always giving the audience what they want... that wasn't the point. He had things to say. He raised�and skewered topics -- often scathing and remarkably direct -- that other people (comedian or otherwise) would cower away from. Don't be mistaken though, when Hicks deemed it time to be 'funny', he laid to waste all in his presence. The title says it all. It's impossible and completely inaccurate to simply peg this man solely as a comedian. It can truly be said that he was one of the best in each category.
With the increased prominence of indie comedians -- particularly stand-up and sketch on television (Mr. Show, Insomniac, etc) -- over the past half decade, the time is more than ripe for this dvd which contains three of his 1991 performances (in Chicago, Montreal and London which for years have only been circulating in grainy vhs copies) plus a documentary. His diehard cult following has certainly grown over the years, but now with this dvd and the aforementioned individuals' giving props to him in their interviews, Hicks will hopefully receive the attention and respect long overdue.
This dvd includes one of�Hicks' most moving and insightful segments --�his�imagined editorial comment�for a news broadcast: "Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves... Here's Tom with the weather."
Fucking brilliant. Seriously. Not to be missed!
New age. Pretty much the ultimate diss when you want to put down someone's musical taste. Or harsh on some band, or record. Tough to think of a more purely musical putdown. Sellout? Maybe. Poser? Definitely, but not necessarily musical. But New Age. Oof. Moms and Grandmas listen to new age. Yanni ferchrissakes! And with all the ambient music we love so much here at AQ, we're extra conscious of negative New Age connotations, cuz it's always a fine line between shimmery droney dreaminess and whooshy New Age schmaltz. But c'mon, trust us, trust the folks at EM Records, and take our word that if you're only ever gonna buy one unabashed actual New Age album (and Andee hasn't already forced you to get some George Winston or Kitaro), then this should absolutely be the one.
Iasos was born in Greece and moved to America when he was 4, began playing piano at 8, then flute at 10. In the late sixties, he began to hear a 'new' music in his head and moved to California to try and realize this "heavenly music". And finally in 1975, he did it! Iasos 'invented' new age music with the release of 1975's Inter-Dimensional Music Through IASOS, which has now been reissued by the fine folks at EM, and has stood the test of time pretty darn well.
It's all here, tinkling piano, swooshing synthesizers, running water sounds, bird calls, maudlin melodies, fluttering flutes, crickets chirping, lots of nature sounds, thunderstorms, strange sound effects, gentle keening drones, whirling sonic washes and sweet swirls of soft focus sound. Even the song titles: "The Bubble Massage", "Rainbow Canyon", "Crystal Petals", "Clouds Prayer", Libra Sunrise." Yep, this is definitely New Age, there's no two ways about it, but if you can look past that 'stigma', this record is actually quite beautiful. And mysterious. And delicately lovely. It has lots of elements that plenty of AQ faves share, strange production, lots of fuzzy airy drones, plenty of insect sounds, bird calls, all wrapped into sweet expanses of dreamy sound. In fact if we listed this as some super limited cd-r on some upstart microlabel in Tasmania, and it had some murky forest photo on the cover, we'd sell tons, and no one would be the wiser. It's easy to forget that the modern crop of drifting ambient experimentalists owe quite a bit to new age pioneers. And let's not forget about all the pretty cool bands who either WERE new age, became new age, or incorporated elements of new age into their sound: Popol Vuh, Ashra, Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Deuter, Jean-Michel Jarre, and Vangelis.
But Inter-Dimensional Music, regardless of pedigree, or genre classification, is just a dang good record. A little cheesy in places maybe but so what, hasn't stopped us from listening to this practically every day!!
Like all EM releases, the packaging is amazing. But the Iasos has a truly striking cover, even by the already impossibly high EM Records standards. Metallic gold embossed printing on glossy white paper. the cover image a man's torso, emerging from a cloud, arm upraised holding a flute, which is being struck by lightning. Some of you may recognize the image as it was stolen for a record cover many years back by Canadian noiserock guitarmy Superconductor. And of course there's also gold and white obi, as well as a massive booklet full of liner notes (all in Japanese, sorry) and loads of photos. As with all EM releases, SO RECOMMENDED!!!!
Disc one, "5000 Spirits Or The Layers Of The Onion", dates from 1967 -- it's their second album, featuring only the core duo of Robin Williamson and Mike Heron -- and was the first solid fulfillment of their Brit folk + Middle Eastern + Indian raga equation, as they added the ouds an' sitars to their original Anglo-American folk interpretations with some wonderfully moody results. Their 1968 follow-up, "The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter", is one of the ISB's best-regarded efforts, taking the sound of "5000 Spirits" to more free-form extremes. Dolly Collins (sister of Shirley) helps out on this one.
Here is the DVD release of "Be Glad For The Song Has No Ending", the film about the Incredible String Band. Hugely influential (the Stones tried to sign them, they played Woodstock, Van Morrison covered them), the band played a psychedelic folk music that
Here's one of those albums that we KNEW we'd make Record Of The Week - IF ever it was reissued. And now it has been! Here's a fully legit reish of this cult '70s hard rock rarity, a record by one of those bands who seem simultaneously to be both testosterone-tanked young men and wizened ol' wise wizards. Yeah, a Record Of The Week easy, on account of it not only being an old fave of some of us here, but something that immediately caught on with the AQ staffers who hadn't heard it before, this reissue getting played in the store quite steadily (and loudly!) since it arrived. Let's listen in, as Jerusalem's vocalist belts it out, in an emotive yowl a bit like Robert Plant but with Ozzy Osbourne's paranoid feelings: "Hey girl, will you never learn? Who d'you think you're fooling with your lyin' and your cryin'? You'll only be happy the day you see me dyin'!" But then, in more of a normal speaking voice, we get the casual aside: "Oh yeah, that's the way it happens sometimes. Ha."
Right on, brilliant. That's from "Frustration", the first of nine fantastic tracks on the one and only album by this English band, recorded in 1971, released in '72 on Deram/Decca, produced by Deep Purple's Ian Gillan. Why Jerusalem didn't get big is a mystery, though the liner notes give some clues as to why they disbanded. Heck they're even fairly unknown (or a well-kept secret) among connoisseurs of '70s heavy psych and hard rock, with this being its first ever official, non-bootleg reissue on compact disc. Now, there's lots of great obscure heavy rock rarities from the early '70s. We've raved about reissues of many of them (Dust, Leaf Hound, Toad, Bang, T2, etc.). But as far as unheralded proto-metal goes, this belongs pretty much at the top of that longhaired, bellbottomed heap, as essential as any of 'em anyway. Pentagram, Bedemon, Blues Creation, Budgie, Night Sun, you name it.
Allan here first heard Jerusalem a few years back when a friend who shares his taste for proto-metal passed along a cd-r copy of this otherwise unavailable album (thanks, Glenn!). Killer stuff indeed, damn it was good. One of the heaviest things from the era he'd ever heard, Jerusalem took it to an extreme that most of their peers didn't approach. With elements of both biggies Sabbath and Zeppelin, but more frenzied and frantic on one hand, more plodding and suicidal on the other.
Crashing, fuzzed out guitars. Energetic hectic riffage. Doomy, thudding blues. Wicked stinging, sliding soloing. Punkish attitude (competitive with contemporaries Crushed Butler). The vocals often hoarse, on the verge of screaming, or gone over that edge. Yeah, pretty heavy for '72! This is rough, raw, proto headbanging mania mixed with mystical, melodic proggy interludes, of course we love it. Plus it's got a genuine dark, occult, despairing vibe, with poetic lyrics about madness, murder and death... And you can't get much more "downer rock genocidal" sounding than the truly, uh, primitive bludgeon what might be the heaviest track here, "Primitive Man".
Pretty darn metal when it comes down to it, forget the "proto". In their own way though, Jerusalem sounding halfway betwixt '60s garage rock and '80s New Wave Of British Heavy Metal... which on balance puts them a bit ahead of their time. In fact, since what's old is new again, this actually sounds like if could have been made now, not because it sounds modern (it doesn't) but because it's so line with certain stonery retro-stylings popular today, particularly in Sweden. In other words, if you like Witchcraft, you'll love Jerusalem!! We always thought that of all the obscure '70s bands that are their forebears, Witchcraft sound most like Jerusalem (well, next to Pentagram). Remember what we said in all caps about Witchcraft's debut? "PERHAPS THEE BEST '70s INSPIRED DOOM ALBUM EVER!" Well the same would go for this, except that it's the real deal, which makes it even better.
Anyway, to return to our story, after Allan got that cd-r dub, he knew he had to find a proper cd. There HAD to be one, this was too good not to have been reissued, right? But, after looking and looking, no luck. Then, one day, Allan came to work at Aquarius and lo and behold what did he hear, but Jerusalem blaring from the store stereo! No, it wasn't this reissue. This was still a few years ago. Turns out, Andee had found a used copy of a bootleg cd someplace, and had bought it simply 'cause he thought the cover looked cool (he's like that), without knowing anything about the band. Life is so unfair, thought Allan. But he was able to eventually guilt Andee into giving him the cd for a birthday present (thanks, Andee! You can have that one back now). Later on, we discovered a Japanese reissue that may or may not have been a boot but in any event was way too expensive and hard to get, nothing we could easily stock and sell for a reasonable price. But NOW, we happily are able to share Jerusalem with you thanks to this nicely done reissue on the Rockadrome label's Vintage imprint! Yeah!
In addition to the nine songs from the original LP, this cd comes with five bonus tracks, including non-album single "Kamakazi Moth". The thick booklet is filled with lengthy liner notes, complete lyrics, vintage photos, all that good stuff you want in a reissue. Once more, yeah!
Though we sadly haven't been able to get copies of the first Kaleidoscope album on cd of late (the one entitled Tangerine Dream, not to be confused with the krautrock band of that name), we are very happy to now have copies of this perfectly twee UK psych pop combo's recently reissued second album, 1969's Faintly Blowing! And it comes in a nice digipack with six bonus tracks! Now if only we had some tea and crumpets we'd be all supercalifragilistic. Ahem.
Kaleidoscope were one of the best unsung post-Peppers British psych-pop acts. This one carries on from their first (a solid AQ fave) with more of the same delightful dreamy oh-so-melodic and lysergically lyricized pop psyke, some of the best ever in our humble opinion. Orchestrated, emotive, shoulda-been-hits abound, along with some way-out psychedelic experimentation. The Kaleidoscope story continued into the proggy '70s with a name change to Fairfield Parlour but Faintly Blowing was really their last colourful hurrah of dainty dandy '60s poppiness.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Restocks of the first two Kraftwerk records, the ones with traffic-cone covers. Both are electronic masterpieces, melodic Krautrock classics, and while far more challenging than the popular later Kraftwerk albums, all the more lovely.
YESS!!! Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod! Those are direct quotes from Allan the day he discovered, totally out of the blue, that this album had been reissued on cd by the Japanese label EM Records (same folks who put out the Symphony of the Birds reish reviewed elsewhere this list). Kerry and Andee were both in the office that day and can attest that Allan just about jumped out of his skin, his voice positively yelping with excitement. And now we're ALL going ohmigod, ohmigod too since the box from Japan that Allan ordered arrived and Moolah is among us.
Ok, so what the heck is Moolah?? Well we're talking a super-obscure psychedelic/experimental Holy Grail album here. Allan only knew about it 'cause he'd heard some of it on a cd-r burn that our pal Loren Chasse had gotten from Jan Anderzen of Finland's Kemialliset Ystavat. Totally weird, damaged, krautrocky cosmic psych with electronic drones, haunting classical piano, and fucked up rhythms! According to Anderzen, it was an ultra rare LP from the '70s by a band called Moolah, entitled Woe Ye Demons Possessed. Wow. Allan found it hard to believe that was really true, and that it wasn't just something recorded by some genius Finnish forest freak friend of Anderzen's directly for the cd-r. But some diligent research revealed that the mysterious Moolah was indeed a band from New York who released an album on what was probably their own label, Druidstone (!), in 1974. But it was still pretty much unknown and almost utterly unobtainable. It didn't seem to have ever been reissued. And even our most '70s knowledgable psych-rock reissue supplier in Sweden hadn't heard of it at all. But we never lost hope. And now, thanks to the extremely strange and cool Japanese label EM Records, here at last we present to you Moolah on cd! We're still left in the dark about a lot of the details of this mysterious record's history (EM's sales info is mostly in Japanese) but from the album cover notes reproduced in the cd package we can tell you that the men behind Moolah were a duo named Walter Burns and Maurice Roberson, who recorded this, "their paranormal concertwork ...a cosmic rock relaxation creation" at a "secret studio in New York's Greenwich Village". There's also some amazing pagan poetry on the sleeve, here's a few lines: "Licking BLOOD Drinking TEARS Sacrificing LOVE on the Altar of Tomorrow Eating FRUITS of Stolen Vineyards With Withered Young Mouthes That Sing The OLD SONGS WHICH WERE FORBID".
And the music is as amazing as what Allan remembered. Dreamy, beautiful ambience -and- disturbingly chaotic, claustrophobic sounds. Shimmery, murky, distorted, primitive... is it even rock music? For the day, about as far out as you could get. Indeed, ahead of its time. Such tracks as "Crystal Waters", "Terror Is Real" and "The Hatd Hit" are lo-fi jams full of dubby echo effects, indistinct voices intoning New Age ideas, crazy backwards percussion, and insectoid squiggles of electronics. And we think we heard a purring cat in there too. The question is: did the Moolah duo simply inhabit their own, messed-up, mystical little world (which seems likely, judging by those sleeve notes of theirs), or had these guys heard records by early Kraftwerk, Amon Duul, Kluster, and Neu!? We wonder. But either way, the krautrock scene's freakiest had nothing on Moolah. File with such rare, eccentric, outsider psych artifacts as the Cromagnon's Orgasm, Yahowha 13's Penetration, and Comus' First Utterance. What a find. If you like weird, lost, lovely, maybe a bit frightening music THIS IS FOR YOU.
For a country whose entire population is only half that of San Francisco, Iceland has an exceptionally prolific arts community. One could easily look to the big Icelandic names in pop music (i.e. Bjork and Sigur Ros); but there's also slightly lesser known (but even more adventurous) music from the likes of Johann Johannson, Apparat Organ Quartet, and the entire output of the Kitchen Motors institution. But our personal favorite from Iceland remains Stilluppsteypa, whose dada drunkenness and black humor has developed arctic undercurrents to their increasingly bleak drone-based work. On Drykkjuvisur Ohljodanna, the Stilluppsteypa duo of Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson and Helgi Thorsson have hooked up once again with the Swedish sound artist BJ Nilsen, perhaps best known for his triumphant elemental drone work as Hazard released through Touch. Sigmarsson sums up the communal idea behind this album as a "love for drones, Scandinavia, and alcohol." Of course, he then proceeds to type a polysyllabic onomatopoetic bunch of drunken text that makes our extend-o-spelling of doom seem trite by comparison.
The previous collaboration Vikinga Brennivin was an homage to the Icelandic firewater of the same name; yet it held a clarity and singlemindedness rarely attributed to alcoholic excess. Drykkjuvisur Ohljodanna has that same contradictory dualism of conceptually relating to being fucked up without totally losing a grip on reality. Or perhaps these three Scandinavians have gotten so loaded that they drifted into a parallel universe of liquid physics and amorphous gravity. Needless to say, Drykkjuvisur Ohljodanna is another masterful album of alchemical drone, that's even darker and more morose than its predecessor. Sonar pulses and crackles of wood break up the jet-black atmospheres of frozen electronic drones, resonant frequencies, and hallucinatory echoes rippling way out on the outer regions of the event horizon for this sonic black hole. At times falling close to the constant spiralling of Nurse With Wound's Salt Marie Celeste, and times recalling the best isolationism of Thomas Koner, and yet at others surpassing the blackened ambience of Nordvargr. Somber, magnificent, and exquisitely constructed!
Anyone into the magical vibe of late '60s/early '70s British psych folk must get this, the absolutely lovely solo debut from multi-instrumentalist and Tower Recordings founding member Pat Gulber. Together with percussionist/producer Tim Barnes, he's taken
