(Ash International) cd 15.98

SWEAT LODGE Talismana (Ripple) cd 14.98
Not to be confused with a few other Sweat Lodges out there (we reviewed a tape by a screamo punk band called Sweat Lodge a few years back), this Sweat Lodge is a heavy psych stoner rock band outta Austin, Texas, and they are AWESOME. Seriously, all the stoner rock digging peeps here at AQ immediately fell in love at first listen, they're that good. Actually we meant to list it a few weeks ago, but our supplier was out of stock - now we've got cds (the vinyl version is still MIA, unfortunately) and are not only listing it, but making it Record Of The Week, just 'cause everybody here (not just the stoner rock digging peeps) has been digging it so much and we're still spinning it a LOT.
There's a big Black Sabbath influence evident here, you know, jamming grooves, powerful riffage, and Ozzy-ish (but not too Ozzy-ish) vocals... Sure, lots of bands play that game these days, but these guys are winners. Just super solid, with catchy songs, a dark and trippy vibe, and maybe most crucially, those vocals - the guy is good! Also the sound and mix is just right, clean but not too polished or produced, just a very satisfying, listenable sound, heavy but accessible and melodic. Along with the Sabbath, what we're hearing reminds us of the likes of Uncle Acid, Freedom Hawk, (fellow Austinites) Fogg, maybe even some Golden Void, and other heavy, rockin' faves so if you're into stuff like that, do yourself a favor and check out Sweat Lodge!!!
Weirdly, this band started out as a three piece, of just bass, drums, and vocals - no guitar! They performed and even put out a 7" and demo tape with that lineup, and that stuff WAS cool (lotsa heavy fuzz bass and those killer vocals, yeah why not?) but really they made the right decision recently to expand the band to its current five-piece format, as documented on this debut full-length, bringing in not just one but two guitarists for not just a fuller, even heavier sound but a lot more interesting psychedelic interplay and texture. Sabbath with twin guitars, nice idea. Just listen. Everybody we've played it for so far has gotten hooked!
MPEG Stream: "Bed Of Ashes"
MPEG Stream: "Slow Burn"
MPEG Stream: "Black Horizon"

BASINSKI, WILLIAM Cascade (2062) cd 13.98
The Deluge and Cascade are two variations on the same set of tape loops constructed by William Basinski, with the former being released on vinyl and the latter on compact disc. Piano and orchestral recordings are the source material embedded onto those tapes, which Basinski colors with the muddled patina of a fictionalized antiquity. It's same deliciously haunted atmosphere that has captured our imaginations ever since he released the seminal Disintegration Loops nearly fifteen years ago. We'd love to believe that he stumbled up a pile of quarter-inch tape from some closet in a forgotten school who had a music program sometime in the '50s and '60s, whose students were only instructed on playing the most elegiac of funeral dirges on the piano. Or at least that's what Basinski's antiquated sounds allude to.
Cascade is a single 40 minute piece (coupled with a download of a live variation recorded at the Issue Project Room) that slows the pace on the frenzied loops that were introduced on The Deluge. It's a softer, more contemplative, dreamier variation, all the while keeping true to his woozy melancholia traced with delay, echo, reverb, and drone. So fucking what if we've already heard Basinski present this same technique on every preceding recording, it remains always unnervingly beautiful and spellbinding!
MPEG Stream: "Cascade"

BLACK WING ...Is Doomed (The Flenser) lp 17.98
We've long been huge fans of experimental, outsider, bedroom, black metal outfit Have A Nice Life, so much so, that at one point, Andee was gonna release one of their records on tUMULt. Since then, the world has seemingly caught up, and caught on to the twisted genius of Dan Barrett's Have A Nice Life, and in the process, have also begun to discover the various other projects Barrett somehow finds time to mastermind.
One of which, this record right here, might be our favorite so far. Not entirely removed sonically from Have A Nice Life, but at the same time something completely different. Apparently inspired by a recent illness, and the surrounding machines that barraged Barrett with various beeps and bleeps and tones, Black Wing is not even remotely metal, although it is dark, an it's not difficult to draw a line back to Have A Nice Life, but essentially, Black Wing traffics in a sort of gloomy electro pop, a downer darkwave that seems to be equal parts post punk, and new wave, but filtered through Barrett's cracked sonic aesthetic.
The resulting record is a moody collection of droned out, minor key jams, built from cascades of sequenced synths, and primitive drum programming, all wrapped in a blurry, psychedelic song fug, and all in service of plaintive, echo-drenched vox, drifting way down in the mix. But don't get the idea that this is some straight up bummer rock, just check out "Luther", which sort of lopes and lumbers, until a second synth comes in and unfurls a gloriously melodic, and nearly sun dappled sounding melody, reminding us of a happier Cure, and when the vocals build into a lush chorale, this could almost be some outsider indie rock.
The whole record is rife with those sorts of sonic surprises, the eighties production, the booming reverberant drums, the tones and drones, the buzz and shimmer that seems to underpin all the tracks, and the vocals, lilting, plaintive, a little bid sad boy indie sounding, but that's kind of what makes Black Wing so cool. It's indie pop doused in industrial crunch, a little bit burnished and blackened, but a crazy catchy melody, or sweetly swoonsome vocal hook is never far away, and really almost every track eventually blossoms into something impossibly pretty. "Black Wing" sounds like a home brewed, lo-fi, industrial-wave Postal Service, while "My Body Betrayed Me" sound like it could be some weird eighties reissue on Medical Records.
While there are a few moments of twisted heaviness, the rest of the record plays out way more like some lost eighties synth pop record, albeit with extra fuzz and grit, especially the last track, which has an almost dance-y vibe, but one that is balanced by the strange harmony group vox, and a dense swirl of softly psychedelic noise. So good!
Includes a download code as well.
MPEG Stream: "My Body Betrayed Me"
MPEG Stream: "Unemployed"

BOOGEY MAN, THE (TIM KROG & ED CHRISTIANO) OST (One Way Static) lp 37.00
And now One Way Static brings us a vinyl version of this killer (literally) soundtrack...
A classic slasher from the eighties, The Boogeyman is crazy even by the standards of other classic B-movie horror flicks. The plot is confusing to say the least, childhood trauma, a young girl and her brother, a murdered mother, killed while having sex, a mute child grown up to be a knife hoarding mute, living with the seemingly well adjusted sister, terrifying reflections in mirrors, eventually painted black, a priest impaled by multiple blades, possession, levitation. It's actually a pretty fun movie, but it is NUTS.
The soundtrack is a doozy though, the classic sort of Carpenter style creep fest of the time, actually quite reminiscent of what might be THEE greatest horror score EVER (and one that has inexplicably not been reissued yet), Phantasm!
Composer Tim Krog offers up ominous sprawls of squiggly synths, dense swaths of kosmische creepiness, twisted sound effects, some Halloween like melodic themes, moody organs, dark drones and moody ambience, for a batshit movie, the score is actually pretty fantastic, lovely and terrifying in equal measure, swirling atmospherics laced with cool backwards psychedelia, stately minimal melancholia, some far out WTF electronics, and a main melodic refrain that after a couple listens could definitely join the horror score pantheon of classics like Friday The 13th, Halloween and again, Phantasm.
MPEG Stream: "The Boogey Man"
MPEG Stream: "Explosion At The Well"
MPEG Stream: "Gloom"

CARTER TUTTI VOID f(x) (Industrial) lp 30.00
That's Nik Void of Factory Floor once again joining the esteemed duo of Cosey Fanny Tutti and Chris Carter, proving that their first collaboration was not just a flippant one-off romp betwixt likeminded technicians; and hopefully, f(x) will be just one of many albums produced by this meeting of minds. As we experienced on the outstanding album of rebooted Chris & Cosey material, Carter Tutti has been exceptionally good as of late; and the insertion of Void into the mix changes that not one bit. If anything the pop quotient from the Carter Tutti productions has been distilled into faint melodies swimming amongst a chemical amalgam of hyper-processed / semi-aqueous sounds that are all suspended upon the girders of an almighty cybernetic whump generated with teethclenched tension. The rhythms begin and end with a chest-rattling pulse that is omnidirectionally nowhere and everywhere - the beat of an underground nightclub whose entrance cannot be found... the hollow-body vibrations from a multitude of car stereos straining at the urgency of those Gas albums from nearly 20 years ago... the chrome-plated precision of perfectly tuned machines purring at 126 bpm. Vocals and guitars from both Void and Cosey lock into place within these rhythms, albeit throughly processed, abstracted, haunted, and disembodied. The amount of details that pop into focus is startlingly dense for an album so overtly minimal, yet the trio effortlessly corral all of the component parts into one hell of a great electronic album.
MPEG Stream: "f (2.2)"
MPEG Stream: "f (2.3)"
MPEG Stream: "f (2.7)"

CHALK, ANDREW & TOM SCOTT Calluna (Skire) lp 21.00
With Calluna, we are granted another sonic blessing from the beloved impressionist Andrew Chalk. Calluna is the second album that Chalk has produced with likeminded minimalist Tom Scott. The two recorded this shortly after their first live presentation in 2014, marking one of the few live performances that Chalk has made over the years. As on many of the recent Chalk productions and on the previous Chalk / Scott collaboration, Calluna is a tempered album of solitary tones dripping with radiant ambience and somnolent elegance. The piano (which still seems to be the responsibility of Scott) drifts from note to note, with a daydreaming wandering that will only occasionally snap into a recursive melody. Most all of the time, these notes are fleeting echoes and fragments, with Chalk responding to these fragments through his own production tricks of eerie dronemusik magic, flares of guitar harmonics, and the occasional deep thrum of a bass guitar that gives the proceedings a feel much closer to Bohren & Der Club Of Gore. To listen to Calluna is to stare at the starlight reflected in garden pools whose surfaces are rippled by a quiet nocturnal wind. Limited to a mere 300 copies; and cut at 45rpm!
MPEG Stream: "Colonnades"
MPEG Stream: "Caprice"
MPEG Stream: "Scirocco Sunset"

CRYPT VAPOR Tombe Della Citta (Heavy Chains Records & Tapes) cd 10.98
BACK IN STOCK! A restock on this Record Of The Week from back in July finally just arrived via the slow boat from Tasmania. Here's the review again if you missed it:
Terror from Tasmania!! (Or perhaps from Italy, depending on what you wish to believe). The mysterious Crypt Vapor is the latest and one of the greatest, we think, in the realm of the New Wave Of Horror Soundtrack Sounding Stuff or whatever we ought to call it (there's gotta be a better name for this phenomenon, but we can't think of one right now). You know, underground musicians making Goblin and John Carpenter inspired, instrumental "imaginary soundtracks" that sound like they come from obscure '80s witchcult slasher flicks and badly-dubbed sci-fi suspense films. We're thinking of such VHS-loving artists as Umberto, The Night Terrors, Nightsatan, Zombi, Zombie Zombie, and of course John Carpenter himself, whose Lost Themes album on Sacred Bones we also made a Record Of The Week recently. If you loved that, you'll love this, though rather than an actual band recording, Crypt Vapor are very much a DIY, lo-fi deal, probably just one guy alone in a bedroom, basement (or crypt) with a 4-track and some secondhand electronic gear. Almost comes across like sinister "skwee" music at times.
A portion of this compact disc was originally released as cassette tape put out not long ago by the same outfit that now brings us this cd version, the cult Tasmanian metal label Heavy Chains Records And Tapes run by the front man for aQ-fave eccentric doomsters The Wizar'd (although, this is NOT metal, more like electronic music). In addition to including that prior (and already out of print on tape) Erotik Maniac ep, this disc features the brand new six-track Tombe Della Citta ep, and an additional three tracks from an earlier tape called Panic Night, for 17 tracks in all of Crypt Vapor's exceedingly spooky synth ditties, full of creepy drones and thudding heartbeat bass lines; urgent reverbed-out rhythms and eerie atmosphere. Plus a dose of almost-psychedelic synth soloing let loose here and there. Very effective, all of it, really pretty much exactly what we want from this sort of thing. Reminds us of what felt when we heard the very first Umberto cd-r, just YEAH, this perfectly captures that '80s synth-laden, hypnotically groovy, sinister soundtrack vibe. Crypt Vapor's style is simple and to the point, doing nothing unnecessary or unwanted. The synths are so raw and fuzzed out; the melodies eerie and earwormy. Ideal for listening to on a night drive through the wrong side of town, or waiting for the train on a desolate subway platform. If you dare.
Each moment of music on here, even the most danceable, sounds like it could be the last thing you'll ever hear - as your life is suddenly ended by the thrust of a knife in the back, or a blade across the throat. STAB! SNIP! Or, fade any track out, and it's a slow death, strangulation by black-gloved hands, or suffocation in the vacuum of space as the airlock is emptied... Anybody making a retro giallo horror movie or low-budget sci-fi thriller ought to sign up Crypt Vapor for the soundtrack, and seriously, some specialty label like Death Waltz or One Way Static should get on this, stat, and put out a fancy vinyl version for all the horror soundtrack obsessed LP collectors!
MPEG Stream: "Tombe Della Citta"
MPEG Stream: "Subway Crawler"
MPEG Stream: "Theme From Ritual (Panic Night version)"

DARK BUDDHA RISING Inversum (Neurot) cd 14.98
Not sure what most devout Buddhists would think of this band, but we suppose if they're into heavy psychedelic Finnish space sludge drone trips, they'd like it! And the name Dark Buddha Rising isn't that bad of a shorthand description of the band's sound, really, in a way. There's definitely an ominous ceremonial vibe here, with trance-inducing ritualistic percussion and mumbling monkish chant amidst the slabular riff repetition. Is Yoga Doom a genre yet? These guys could teach a class in that for sure, heck they'd be at the top of that zoned-out heap, alongside aQ faves Nibiriu, whom this music reminds us of a lot. Speaking of esoteric Italian psychonauts, this reminds us of UFOmammut as well, and it's no surprise that DBR too has landed on the Neurot label for this release, following a sprawling double cd/triple lp set on Svart in 2013 and several rare, limited, uber underground vinyl-only sets (and a cd-r or two) before that.
With just two long tracks, "Eso" and "Exo", each at least a vinyl side in length (were this on vinyl), you know this Dark Buddha takes some time to rise, that's what it's all about, that process, that practice, that spaciousness, an exploration of the whole calmness/crushingness spectrum.
The first of the two tracks is a slow, slow build from vaporous drone on into eons of tumbling tribal rhythm and throbbing riff stumble accompanied by occasional, worshipful chants and screams of supplication - and more drone, waves and waves of it. The second similarly starts off quiet and blissful but gets into the action (of scaling the holy headbanging mountain) with less preamble, powering up the morose megaton throbulation earlier on, with some jazzy drumming around the edges (shades of Bohren), getting more massive and mesmeric as it goes, eventually approaching the lift off potential of the late, great Tarantula Hawk, with riff detonations on the SUNNO)))-scale. Earthshaking sonic ritual in other words, and our only disappointment is that after about 24 minutes, this sweaty yoga mat magic carpet ride to the dark side of the sun ends rather more abruptly than what we expected (endlessness???).
MPEG Stream: "Eso"
MPEG Stream: "Exo"

DRINKS Hermits On Holiday (Birth) lp 15.98
As much as we dig White Fence, this might be our favorite recording yet by that band's Tim Presley, as he teams up here with an unknown-to-us Welsh musician named Cate Le Bon. The result of their collaboration is sheer post-punk perfection.
Taking turns on vocals, the interplay between Tim and Cate through these minimal and infectious songs works so well. There is not a wasted note or wasted second on this record. Think of the best parts of Young Marble Giants and Deerhoof coming together, and you might start to get a sense of the vibrant sounds that Drinks create. Angular, punchy, and stripped down sounds that ring with an immediacy that is so damn refreshing.
We're also reminded of a long and super underrated record that came out a decade ago, that was the only recording by a band named Klang who featured an ex-member of Elastica. If you ever heard that record, No Sound Is Heard, you know the greatness it contained and we were so stoked to finally hear a brand new record that taps into that same sound, and likewise channels early Rough Trade output in all its brilliant post-punk glory. Recommended, though maybe we don't even need to tell you that, as these Drinks have been flying out the door...
MPEG Stream: "Focus On the Street"
MPEG Stream: "Hermits On Holiday"
MPEG Stream: "Time Between"

GOAT It's Time for Fun (Sub Pop) 7" 5.98
Goat Goat Goat! Yay, Goat. If anyone reading this isn't already a fan of Swedish Afro-Voodoo-psych-groove sensations Goat, we'd be sorta shocked. Seriously, who doesn't love Goat? And thus, who needs to know much more than that Sub Pop have a new Goat 7" out, and we've got it, and you need it??
The tightly percussion driven A-side "It's Time For Fun" still sounds very Goat-y for sure, the vocals are the usual distinctive Goat wail, but it's just a bit different - maybe it's what we think is a drum-machine in the mix, or the staccato keyboard melody that rides the groove out steady to the end. The aptly-titled flip, "Relax", is an instrumental, all sunny and organ-groovy, which kinda makes of think of Mammane Sani. And again there's what sounds like a drum machine, organically incorporated into the interwoven rhythmic texture. Figure they've been digging on some Francis Bebey? Sweet stuff, all around, on this single.
Includes mp3 download code.
MPEG Stream: "It's Time For Fun"

GOLDEN VOID Berkana (Thrill Jockey) lp 17.98
Well, you know we're fans of this band!! We hosted a fun party here last week for the release of this new album (their 2nd) and in 201X we made their self-titled debut a Record Of The Week - this one really coulda been too, as Golden Void make Records Of This Or Any Other Week, really, as far as we're concerned. We've been in love with them ever since their first single came out on Valley King. Just, y'know, dang good stuff if you like heavy rock and psych music. If'n you don't know, Golden Void is a Bay Area band featuring members of both stellar psych squads Assemble Head In Sunburst Sound and Earthless, in particular showcasing the considerable talents of guitarist/vocalist Isaiah Mitchell, who takes the endless jamming / soloing style of his instrumental power trio Earthless and, without taming his searing solos entirely, puts 'em to use in a much more, let's say 'catchy song oriented', classic rock (that you somehow never heard before) format.
The magic is maintained on this sophomore outing, Golden Void again shining forth with their brand of mellow heaviness, very 'Cali', with vibes for miles, hooky and hypnotic, swinging and stonery, their loping grooves laced with achingly incandescent guitar soloing from Mr. Mitchell - though the rest of the band are no slouches either and keep up their end too amidst his astral-travellin' guitar forays. Lots of dreamy melody is the order of the day, the laid-back vocals a big part of the appeal, Isaiah's singing blending nicely with the backing vocals provided by keyboardist Camilla. They also riff it up quite heavily when they wanna, the band not lacking in power.
When we saw 'em play The Chapel here on Valencia Street last weekend, the day after the party, they had an old school liquid light show behind 'em, and they were perfect for it. Especially on numbers like (from this record) the super spaced out and mesmeric "Astral Plane", that one having a bit of Sufficiently Breathless era Captain Beyondness to it, we'd say. But the thing is, even though they were giving off that San Francisco ballroom, psychedelic '60s vibe, with the light show and all, and you could suppose the feel of something like Hendrix doing "All Along The Watchtower" sorta sums up where Golden Void are coming from, at the same time they're not throwback hippies, and this doesn't really seem like a retro affair, you know it's modern, it's got a different energy. Cool that they can make that work, sounding both so classic and current. Peeps into old Queens Of The Stone Age should check 'em out, also fans of Woods albums like Bend Beyond, if you haven't already. And of course anyone into classic old heavy psych rock with songs you that'll get stuck in your head, too!
So, once again, a winner. Golden Void rule. Wish we could party with them all the time, and whenever we spin their records, we feel like we are!
FYI, regarding the lp version, while they last we have a batch on some special colored vinyl that Thrill Jockey was nice enough to let us have.
MPEG Stream: "Burbank's Dream"
MPEG Stream: "Silent Season"
MPEG Stream: "Astral Plane"

HEAT DUST s/t (The Flenser) lp 15.98
Local label The Flenser may have started out as a straight up metal label, but lately, it seems metal has taken a back seat to all sorts of other weird sounds, and we have to say, even as metalheads, we're digging it. Elsewhere on this week's list you'll find the electro gloom pop side project of Have A Nice Life, and recently we've dug the druggy psych folk of Boduf Songs, the twisted avant cabaret of Father Murphy, the crumbling shoegaze of King Woman and now this, the debut from New Orleans post punks Heat Dust. And it's a doozy. A murky sprawl of gloomy, reverby howl and pound, all bellowed dramatic vox, slithery low slung bass, and chiming angular guitar. Plenty of riffy crunch too, at times just as heavy on the punk as the post, with a heaping dose of dark swagger energy, swirling and psychedelic, the sort of stuff that should definitely appeal to fans of Iceage, Holograms, Interpol, Savages, Cold Cave, His Electro Blue Voice, Cold Showers, Beast Milk and all that (post punk) jazz. But unlike most modern bands of this ilk, Heat Dust do more than ape the sound, they're actually pretty bad ass songwriters too, all the songs here kinda crazy catchy. We didn't really notice at first, since this is just a sound we love, but the more we listened, the more we found ourselves humming along, returning to songs we wanted to hear again, and realizing that even sans the post punk trappings, these are just goddamn great songs. Needless to say, WAY recommended for folks into this kind of thing, and for folks who aren't, this might just change your mind.
Includes a download code.
MPEG Stream: "Nothing Left To Lose"
MPEG Stream: "Seeking A Praxis"
MPEG Stream: "Something For Nothing"

HILLS Frid (Rocket) cd 17.98
Ah, Hills! We looooooove Hills. Rhymes with pills. Not to be confused with White Hills, whom we also love, most folks would be into both. This is plain ol' Hills from planet Sweden, doing timeless, kraut-channelling hypno-rock bliss, cyclic and psychedelic, totally in the ancestral tradition of their fellow countrymen / like minded souls from the '60s and '70s in the Parson Sound / International Harvester / Harvester / Trad Gras Och Stenar collective (also aQ faves, of course). What is it with Sweden, anyway? Good grief, both Hills and the mighty Goat aren't just on the same label Rocket Recordings, they're from the same town. Maybe they should have the water supply there analyzed. Anyway, yay, these particular master mantric jammers from Sweden now offer up their 3rd album (4th if you count the live lp on Cardinal Fuzz), and it's thankfully more of what we dig about them - deeply droned, trance-inducing excursions into higher mind states, filled with fuzz & wah, Scandinavian folk motifs, floatational flute flutter, ecstatic chant-like vocals, spacey fx, and endless krauty grooves. Tracks like "National Drone" or the ten-minute "Och Solen Sankte Sig Rod" just send you far into some fantastical ceremonial '70s zone, where you want to be. "Milarepa" is heavy-duty Parson Sound worship, "Anukthal Is Here" channels krautrock tribe Siloah, and then, like, on previous album Master Sleeps, the record ends with an especially ceremonial sounding track, the Lizard King meets Om chant, "Death Will Find A Way"... Altogether beautiful thing, heavy in a "heavy, maaaan" sort of way, once again for fans of their forefathers in TGOS et. al., also White Hills of course, Wooden Shjips definitely too, certainly their buddies Goat (throw on some Goat after this, it segues quite well), Circle at their hippiest, and the like... yeah!!
FYI, vinyl still upcoming.
MPEG Stream: "National Drone"
MPEG Stream: "Anukthal Is Here"
MPEG Stream: "Milarepa"

ISHRAQIYUN (SECRET CHIEFS 3) Perichoresis (Web Of Mimicry) lp 17.98
NOW ON VINYL! Here's what we wrote about the cd version when it came out last year:
Not strictly a Secret Chiefs record, Ishraqiyun is the Chiefs' "neo-Pythagorean electro-folk" side project, which essentially consists of the non-rock based music the band routinely perform live, in non-Western tunings, and on non-Western instruments. But they're not played entirely straight, with most of the tracks sounding a bit like Master Musicians Of Jajouka by way of Don Caballero, with lots of bowed buzzing strings, tabla-like percussion, Eastern rhythms, a serious world music / international folk vibe, but then wedded to wild mathed out drumming, and swoon some cinematic strings, the arrangements intricate and the sound exotic, some mutant strain of math-prog-world music maybe?
Ishraqiyun for this debut recording is made up of various Secret Chiefs past and present, including Eyvind Kang and Ches Smith, and of course led by former Mr. Bungle weirdo and SC head honcho Trey Spruance. All the songs are exclusive to this record, although many have been performed live over the years, and anyone who's seen SC live, will definitely recognize some of the tracks here, and recorded they're just as mesmerizing and hypnotic, sprawling world-folk grooves, lush and layered and psychedelic, the sound like some alien Sublime Frequencies release. The title track is apparently the first recorded composition to feature Spruance's "evolving system of musical ideas patterned upon the specific geometrical relationships found in certain polyhedra and the tessellating patterns from which they are derived" Phew! And while maybe understanding what the heck that means might give you an insight into the mad musical genius at work here, it's not a requirement to dig these sounds. Not at all. And while most of the record is as described above, buzzing strings and will percussion, often wound around fierce propulsive proggy drumming, some tracks, like "Base Phive Futur Cossacks" mixes in some of the band's avant garde tendencies, some moments harkening back to the WTF? days of Mr. Bungle, others the band's obsession with John Carpenter style soundtrackiness, with sounds cutting in and out, swirls of mutated samples, thick buzzing synths, weird blurts of baroque pop, all draped over a woozy world music framework, and what at first sounds chaotic and on the verge of collapse, quickly becomes one of the record's highlights. And while the next two tracks (including the epic 16+ minute title track) dial back the weirdness, and deliver more whirling dervish folk prog and brooding hypnotic world music psychedelia, the final track gives us one final taste of that weird international synth-prog space-psych exotica, this time with even more synthy swirl, wild splatters of piano, blown out, distorto psychedelic guitar buzz, plenty of studio fuckery, wild edits (and if not edits, some impossibly dexterous playing), all in a swirling sonic tangle that has to be some of the most seriously dizzyingly next level, psychedelic, avant prog, faux world music we've ever heard!
MPEG Stream: "The 15"
MPEG Stream: "Base Phive Futur Cossacks"
MPEG Stream: "Aptarshi"

J.C. SATAN s/t (Animal Factory / Born Bad) lp 21.00
More evilized, primitive, garage rock crunch from these satanic (?) weirdos, and while this new one still has much in common with the other records, it's at once simultaneously more raw and primitive, but also kinda more proggy. In fact, opener, "Satan II" almost sounds like a metallic, heavy garage version of prop-pop masters The Cardiacs. Albeit with plenty of spooky drones, spacey synths, and creepy atmospherics. But honestly, this is about as heavy and intense and brutal as 'garage rock' gets. A little bit surprised they haven't done a record for Castle Face, cuz it's the sort of sound that would definitely appeal to the Ty Segall / Thee Oh Sees / Mikal Cronin set. But it's not all pummeling crunch and howling bash and pound, although most of the songs feature some of that. They're also pretty goddamn good at whipping up hook heavy distorted pop, and wrapping it in almost Hawkwind-y psychedelic swirl. It's a strange concoction, and as you can tell from the review so far, pretty tough to accurately describe, but if some super poppy, ultra heavy, FX drenched, proggy and metallic, occultic, new wavey, distorto-garage sounds right up your alley, not only will this hit the spot, but J.C. Satan might be the only outfit even remotely capable of whipping up this sort of damaged, genius racket. Their best record so far by a long shot (which is saying a lot, considering how much we log pretty much everything they put out) and the sort of shit anyone into ANY of the other garage rock happening now should be flipping the fuck out over!
MPEG Stream: "I Could Have Died"
MPEG Stream: "Dialog With Mars"

KNIZAK, MILAN Broken Music (Multhipla / Sub Rosa) lp 17.98
We had a cd reissue of this years and years ago, that's long out of print, but now here's a nice vinyl reissue of this pioneering 'turntablist' experiment from the '60s...
The Czech artist Milan Knizak began his art career without much success, getting himself thrown out of Pedagogic Uni Prague, Preliminary Art School Prague, and Art Academy Prague in quick succession. But during the mid '60s, Knizak affiliated himself with Fluxus and began experimenting with turntables, tape recorders, and the surfaces of vinyl in order to make a 'broken music,' predating the damaged turntable 'n' vinyl experiments of Christian Marclay by almost two decades! Originally he would just slow down and speed up his records to change to quality of the intrinsic music. But by 1965, he started to scratch the records, punch holes in them, sticking tape to the surfaces, dumping paint over whole record, burning them, literally cutting the records apart and gluing them back together. These would then be played on his turntable, and inevitably destroy the needle and often wreck the turntable itself! The collages that Knizak arrived at are nerve-wracking clattering works in which snippets of the original would emerge amidst erratic skips and asynchronous warbling. Certainly for those adventurous fans of Philip Jeck, "Metal Machine Music," and Marclay.

LYKEN, MARK & EMMA DOVE Mirror Lands [Standard Version] (Time Released Sound) cd 15.98
Another aQ New Arrivals List, and another Time Released Sound offering! It's kind of crazy that TRS are now on their 55th release! And even more amazing, is the level of quality they've sustained since day one, both in the music, and the elaborate packaging. It's been nearly impossible to keep up with their relentless release schedule, and to collect all the releases, but it remains pretty fun to try.
Mirror Lands is the first we've heard from the Scottish duo of Mark Lyken and Emma Dove, and we weren't sure what to expect, considering the opening track is what sounds like a field recording of a construction site. Voices, the clank of metal on metal, engines revving, and no music whatsoever. But then on the second track, it's all delicate piano, subtly processed into shimmery contrails of sound, a haunting chamber music, very cinematic, hushed and ethereal, quite beautiful for sure, and very subtle, headphones definitely recommended. And right when we thought we had the sound pinned down, in swoops something completely different, the piano twisted and mangled, stretched and smeared, into a fractured field of glitches, and wound around still more field recordings, a twisted sonic menagerie, that gradually works its way back around to the pretty piano from the beginning of the track.
The rest of Mirror Lands offers variations on those themes, tending toward the lowercase, the whispery, the crystalline, piano being the main vehicle, but just as often as the notes are allowed to drift and shimmer, they're muted and mumbled, blurred and broken, there are more stretches of seemingly unadulterated field recordings, and of course, moments where those elements bleed beautifully into one another. There's the occasional near-noise crescendo, and the once-in-a-while electronic skitter, but for the most part, it's a darkly delicate landscape of haunted melodies, and lush, atmospheric sound design, a minimal soundworld that evokes all of the mysterious that lay beyond, and within.
Like all Time Released Sound releases, there are two versions, a deluxe and a standard. This time, the over the top deluxe version is limited to just 65 copies, and is housed in a vintage reel-to-reel tape box, double banded with two Japanese style obis, and is covered with vintage prints of the Scottish Highlands, antique maps, pages from 100 year old travel books and more. Also includes hand printed and stamped inserts as well as a link to a private viewing of a Mirror Lands film! There's also a standard version, only slightly less limited (only 100 made).
MPEG Stream: "Fishing For Rigs Part I"
MPEG Stream: "Hills Strewn With Ribbons"
MPEG Stream: "Douglas"

MAGISTER TEMPLI Into Duat (Cruz Del Sur) cd 16.98
Sound the trumpets! Man the gates!! For it is the thunderous return of Norway's heaviest epic metal titans Magister Templi. And what a welcome return it is! It's been two years now since their debut full length Lucifer Leviathan Logos, which was a serious favorite amongst aQ's sword-flailing heavy metal brethren, and those two years have done nothing to dull the steel of The Templi's theatrical doom-tinged heaviness. Not unlike the previous record, Into Duat is a dizzying slab of stop/start, meticulously structured heaviness - the frantic pacing, off kilter riffing and labyrinthine song writing recalling Mercyful Fate, while the hints of doominess bring to mind early Trouble, Cirith Ungol and Candlemass. But make no mistake, this is no low energy affair! As heavy and earthshaking as Magister Templi can be, they mostly keep the pace uptempo, perfect for rabid fist pumping, feral headbanging and manic air guitaring. But there's also a certain regal majesty to their music - a sort of world weary drama, not unlike Dio-era Black Sabbath even. This is thanks in a large part to Abraxas' vocals which are a forceful, commanding bellow. Deep in register, but rich and kingly - every word sounding like a spell being desperately cast over the havoc of clashing steel! Needless to say, any and all fans of traditional metal who remain uninitiated need to check these guys out pronto, and if you already have... then we can only say that Into Duat will not disappoint!
MPEG Stream: "Osiris"
MPEG Stream: "Slaying Apophis"

MAHONEY, DANIEL Sunblind Almost Motorcrash (Spork) book + cassette 19.98
Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but this takes it to a whole new level. And believe us, we're greatly moved and hugely flattered. Aquarius pal and customer Daniel Mahoney was so inspired by the aQ reviews he'd been reading on our New Arrivals list for years, that he decided to try his hand at writing some reviews himself. But instead of just reviewing actual records, he made up the albums, and made up the artists too, and reviewed them as if they were real. Which on its own would be pretty amazing already. And the reviews themselves are great, with hints of the inimitable aQ style, some hyperbole, some creative word usage, insane enthusiasm, and an obvious love for the music being written about (even though it didn't exist). Though he takes things to something of a more literary, poetic extreme than we would probably ever do, which makes sense since this is really a creative writing project rather than actual music reviewing after all.
But after finishing all the 'reviews', he decided he wanted to hear what those bands actually sounded like. So he hit up a bunch of music makers to record as those imaginary bands, presumably in the style the reviews describe. Pretty ambitious, and kinda ridiculous, and ridiculously cool. Thus, the tape that accompanies the book features bands like Caverns (actually Lorelle Meets The Obsolete), Muebles Pasados De Moda (actually Terence Hannum from Locrian), Abaddon (actually Dag Rosenqvist of Jasper TX), Hemlighter (actually Reykjavictim), Tolt (actually Yan Jun) and even more, including bands portrayed by Aidan Baker of Nadja and Marcus Fjellstrom!!!
Holy cow! Even on its own, the book, is a fun, great, fascinating read, the reviews are definitely meant for of all you music nerds (like us), who almost like reading reviews sometimes more than actually hearing the records reviewed. But like they did with Mahoney, those reviews would probably have you itching to actually check out all the bands, which you now can! The music is all over the map: jumbled spoken word collages, churning, distorted metalgze doom, hazy tripped out psychedelic shimmer, angular, echo drenched post punk, brutal blacknoize industrial, loping, distorto dance down-tempo crunch, hushed, prismatic ambience, lilting, ramshackle junkyard folk, intense, sine wave avant minimalism and sun dappled, lo-fi, reverb-pop jangle.
All in all, pretty goddamn great. The book is beautiful too, a lovingly printed edition, and the tape includes a download as well. All we can say, is while we love what we do, and are grateful we get to listen to and write about music, the fact that what we do inspired THIS, only makes us feel that much luckier.
MPEG Stream: CAVERNS "When The Train Left The Station"
MPEG Stream: HEMLIGHTER "Buzzgem Hummer"
MPEG Stream: TOLT "Music For A Computer Chassis"

MAUTHAUSEN ORCHESTRA First Essay: Sexual Depravity And Pleasant Atrocities (Urashima) 4cd 55.00
Before we delve into this boxset, we are reminded of an absurd experiment that took place here at Aquarius some years ago, when one of our staff reviewed each and every album in the Merzbox - the 50 cd anthology that was just a tiny fraction of the back catalog of the almighty Merzbow. And yes, all of the reviewing and listening was done here at Aquarius. The review became a stream of consciousness ramble that only tangentially related to the the noise found within, perhaps reflecting the teetering sanity of that particular staff member. So here we embark on the review for the first in reissue campaign into the back catalog of the horrifying noise productions from the legendary Italian power electronics project Mauthausen Orchestra (aka Pierpaolo Zoppo). Unlike what Extreme did for the Merzbox, Urashima has divided this body of Mauthausen Orchestra work into 3 sets of archival material, all of which had been collected into a 12 cassette boxset entitled the Gravitational Arch Of Sex. Or at least that's what the lurkers of the noise underground have claimed.
We can say that the First Essay does contain four of those cassettes - 2nd Movement (1983), Bloodyminded (1984), Anal Perversions (1985), and Host Sodomy (1986). 2nd Movement is a blackened hallucination of lo-fi synth noise, art brut primitivism, and overblown tape hiss into a hellish void of gaping existential alienation. Zoppo's propositions of desolation and despair mirror those of Maurizio Bianchi's cancerous work from the same time period. Bloodyminded's longform communions with abject sicktones and black noise rumble, bellow, and moan as a thoroughly nightmarish industrial soundtrack. It should also be noted that this was the origin for the name of Mark Solotroff's power electronics outfit after abandoning Intrinsic Action. Speaking of the aforementioned Merzbow, Anal Perversions shares more than a few of the timbres and metal-junk abrasiveness that Akita-san produced during those early days, though Zoppo seems to be still using all tape, synth, and feedback with no actual found metal in his arsenal. It's still a grim affair of thoroughly prolapsed noise that immediately descends into cauldron of tumult and discord, endlessly churning and boiling in its decay and malaise. Host Sodomy continues along this path of moral destitution and sonic devastation situated along an intertwining pair of noise-streams of phased distortion, volcanic abrasions, and prolonged thermal detonations. Damn brutal, these four discs. Limited stock, too.
MPEG Stream: "Anal Perversions 1"
MPEG Stream: "Bloodyminded 1"
MPEG Stream: "Host Sodomy 2"

MB (MAURIZIO BIANCHI) CMRS / OPEA (Urashima) 2lp 36.00
Urashima offers forth a luxurious reissue of one of the rarest cassettes in the Maurizio Bianchi catalogue. CMRS / OPEA was realised back in October 1980, marking his early experiments with a Korg MS20, the synthesizer that would get worked into his arsenal of "cacophonelectronics" in the development of his signature, cancerous noise. This was before Bianchi had released the infamous Leibstandarte SS MB albums for Come Organisation, and when he was feverishly recording his own noise de-compositions and distributing them to a handful of friends and colleagues. Many of these early tapes eventually were reissued via Vinyl On Demand, documenting these early cassette editions. CMRS / OPEA was among those self-released cassettes from Bianchi, but the recordings had seemingly been lost to history until Bianchi's longtime friend Vittore Baroni had uncovered one of the seven or eight copies that Bianchi had duplicated back in the day. Now sprawling over two slabs of vinyl, his is the germination of Bianchi's hostile electronic sequencing and black hole nihilism that would later get fleshed out on Symphony For A Genocide. Bianchi's investigations and experiments with the tools at hand are still raw and untrained in many ways, but he still manages to push his electronics, his turntables, his effects, his tape decks towards his own damning vision of an existential self-immolation. Limited to 199 copies, we must note.
MPEG Stream: "Cmrs Part 2"
MPEG Stream: "Opea Part 1"

MYRKUR M (Relapse) cd 15.98
Much hullabaloo has been made over Myrkur, this one woman project from Denmark, and it seems most of that hubub tends to focus on the fact that she performs that most sacred of musical forms (black metal of course) but has the gall to do so after previously playing in a... *gasp*... indie rock band!!! Personally we could care less if she used to be in The Wiggles, because when a record is this glorious, expansive, raw and beautiful nothing else much matters. M is the debut full length from Myrkur and incorporates in equal parts classic Norwegian black metal (the album is in fact produced by Ulver's Garm and there are definitely more than a few hints of their seminal Bergtatt album here), ambient, Cocteau Twins style ethereal vocal drift, new age (some of this seriously sounds like black metal Enya, and we mean that in the best way possible - Euronymoco Flow anyone??), Scandinavian folk, and epic naturistic harshness a la Wolves In The Throne Room. The songs themselves are barely even songs, more like ideas drifting in and out of consciousness, often fading out into a blissfully warm abstract soundscape. The affect is enveloping and largely dreamlike, like some sort of melancholy lost message sent across time from a once-mighty civilization, now in its crumbling death throes. A singular gorgeous vision and highly recommended for all those who don't mind their black metal lush, melancholic and a bit pretty.
MPEG Stream: "Skogen Skulle Do"
MPEG Stream: "Haevnen"
MPEG Stream: "Onde Born"

SAVANT (K. LEIMER) Artificial Dance (RVNG) lp 22.00
Savant is an apt name for a band that is not actually a band, but a project with many blind contributors and collaborators playing unfamiliar instruments with minimally open instruction, recorded remotely without prior knowledge of how their parts would be used, and passing tapes amongst eachother, years before the practice of electronic musicians sending eachother Logic files over the internet became common. What binded the project together was the alchemic vision and studio wizardry of reclusive Seattle ambient auteur, Kerry (K.) Leimer, who released Savant's lone record, The Neo Realist (At Risk) in 1983. RVNG's Artificial Dance reissue ccollects that record with their debut 12" and a grip of compilation and unreleased tracks.
You may remember our earlier review of the RVNG's anthology of Leimer's lesser known ambient works, A Period of Review (1975-1983), which displayed an outsider affinity with the generative and open compositional tape works of Cage, Stockhausen and Eno. Leimer's Savant project at first glance may seem like a devout following into the Fourth World tape experimentation and global intrigue of Possible Musics and My Life In The Bush of Ghosts, or David Byrne's soundtrack for Twyla Tharp's dance piece, The Catherine Wheel, but its construction is much stranger and obtuse. Employing a move towards rhythm and texture in transportive and evolving phases, the way these cobbled bits of varying studio perfomance are pieced together so seamlessly to create their own visionary world is its own extraordinary accomplishment. One that connects to the methodical ethnographical productions of Wally Badarou, Finis Africae and Haruomi Hosono and clears a path to later developments of digidub and trip hop a decade later. We can't emphasize enough how good this sounds right now. Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Using Words"
MPEG Stream: "Knowledge and Action"
MPEG Stream: "Stationary Dance"
MPEG Stream: "Sensible Music"
MPEG Stream: "Fault Index"

SIGNOR BEN EDICK THE MOOR El Negro (Deathbomb Arc) cd 9.98
We usually don't pay too much attention to the tags on Bandcamp. After all, bands can make tags that say ANYthing. And often it's the artist's perhaps not entirely objective assessment of their own music. "Psychedelic, black metal, ego-trap, drunk-wave, psych folk." Sure, that's something we'd want to hear (okay, maybe we wouldn't), but it doesn't and couldn't exist. But occasionally, the tags do speak to us, and give some insight into an artist, and even more occasionally, they NAIL it. Los Angeles MC Signor Benedick The Moor (who's also a member of weirdo hip hop outfit True Neutral Crew) has only two descriptors: 'experimental prog rap' and 'krautrap', and really, how could we not wanna check it out after reading that? And holy shit, that's actually what it sounds like. Not only is SBtM a killer MC with a super unique flow, the music is crazy, definitely proggy, all over the map, strings, and martial drums, what sounds like epic soundtrack music, alongside super distorted, grimy beats, and distorted metal guitars, wild synth squiggles wound around pizzicato strings and booming tympani, one track sounds like Surfing With The Alien, another sounds like primitive, outsider sci-fi-hop, and another is a wild barrage of video game music. The production is in constant flux, as are the arrangements, it's a seriously wild ride, but one that's super ambitious and is the kind of forward thinking hip hop that should be as big as Drake or Kanye. It's way more fucked up and experimental for sure, but considering how weird much of mainstream hip hop has gotten, the time just may be right for Signor Benedick The Moor to sneak into the spotlight. Here's hoping.
SUPER LIMITED!!! These are likely the last copies there are, and for sure the last copies we can get!
MPEG Stream: "The Tragic Tale Of Bisen Francisco (In Media Res)"
MPEG Stream: "Existential Humanitarianism As A Fashion Choice"

THEOLOGIAN Pain Of The Saints (Malignant Records) 2cd 13.98
The profane and blasphemous agenda of Lee M. Barlow (the principle agent behind Theologian, working with a few willing supplicants) looks backwards at the dual histories of metal and industrial culture. Yup, it is commonplace to find vehement opposition to Christian doctrine in the reversal the symbols as sigils of a black magic. Yet, this opposition is rarely a full-frontal denial of God as the blank void of atheism has no place for the transcendent and the spiritual, both of which manifest proudly in this rich and diverse iconoclasm. Aesthetically speaking, we suppose this could be trace even further back to Carl Orff, whose work has become the de facto audio signifier for all things Satanic; and probably further before Nietzsche, Lautremonte, and Baudelaire to the charisma of heretics, ignoble witches, and self-designated messiahs. So in a polemic for the will to power and the deification of the self, it's not all that much about what's said, but how it's said. And the aesthetics of Theologian speak mightily through blunt force, wielded as a relentless production of blackened synths and grim industrial drone. Pain Of The Saints conjures a sonic turbulence that is almost wholly drumless, which stands as a departure from much of the other Theologian albums which rely on heavy Teutonic beats to propel the vitriol and wailing. It's nonetheless an exhausting and exasperating journey, blasting through one miasma after another of aggressive amalgams of guitars, synths, and voice, two whole discs worth!
MPEG Stream: "Without Trust, Your Love Is Meaningless"
MPEG Stream: "Of Foulness And Faithfulness"
MPEG Stream: "Their Gelded And Rapacious Hearts"

UNCLE ACID & THE DEADBEATS The Night Creeper (Rise Above) cd 14.98
Clear the foggy cobblestone streets! Curfew is in effect! The streets are no longer safe. For around every shadowy corner and in every lonely lamplit alley may lurk... The Night Creeper!!! And accompanying this dark spectre is none other than Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats. That's right, crawling once more from the pale artificial B-movie light comes the return of everyone's favorite occult stoner garage popsters. The Night Creeper actually marks album number four for these psychedelic psycho-derelicts (although album number one seems nigh unattainable and has yet to be reissued, c'mon guys), and once again it slinks and oozes with a palpable lo-fi Hammer Horror dread, even when its wealth of catchy hooks seem ready to strike from nowhere, like a glistening blade hidden in a Victorian aristocrat's overcoat! Many of the same hallmarks of Uncle Acid's sound are here in full force: Roky Erickson, Manson-esque subliminal imagery, swinging Sixties pop, and of course Black Sabbath (whom the band recently fulfilled what we can only assume to be a lifelong dream in opening for). Also we note the Sabbath influence here seems to come from the sounds of their mid-'70s Sabotage era rather than the very early daze.
But compared to 2013's Mind Control, The Night Creeper seems perhaps a bit more concise - less conceptual, doomy and atmospheric - more straight forward and groovy. In a sense a bit closer to their modern classic, Blood Lust! Not to say there aren't some moments of quiet moody gloom, most notably the instrumental "Yellow Moon" and the gentle morphine-swing of 8 minute album closer (the very appropriately titled) "Slow Death". Not to mention the acoustic secret bonus track "Black Motorcade". Another highly enjoyable notch on the cellblock wall for these drug devil deviants!!
PS also on vinyl, we're just waiting for more...
MPEG Stream: "Waiting For Blood"
MPEG Stream: "Murder Nights"
MPEG Stream: "The Night Creeper"

WAND 1000 Days (Drag City) lp 17.98
Normally we'd scoff at a band releasing three albums in almost the span of a single year, but goddamn if we can't get enough of prolific, psychedelic, noise-pop, garage rockers Wand. And this new one manages to be pretty different than the other two. At least at the outset, sounding like some trippy, folky, psychedelic baroque pop, all sixties lilting jangle, Kinks like vox, but also barraged by weird squiggly FX and some seriously metallic guitar buzz, the second half somehow fusing, dirgey riffage with that paisley poppiness. But it works, and is pretty great. As is the rest of the record, which continues on in that fashion, shedding much of the lysergic freakery and blown out weirdness of the other records, in favor of folky, glammy pop. In fact, on "Broken Sun", the band unfurl a lush expanse of proggy, pompy pop, that explodes into some surprisingly far out (and weirdly dramatic), glam heaviness, replete with some wild guitar shred, and more thick guitar buzz. In a way, 1000 Days mirrors fellow garage rocker Ty Segall's sonic trajectory, this sounding like Wand's poppiest and glammiest record yet, but unlike Segall, it seems Wand have dragged some of their fucked up freaky past along with them, and it makes for a pretty wicked concoction. Sixties psych pop meets heavy glam rock stomp, meets distorto garage, meets freaky folkiness (that at times reminds us a little of the Frogs, which is about the highest compliment we can give!), which all adds up to a record of the year contender for sure. And maybe the record that will finally get Wand the sort of love their pals Segall and Cronin and Dwyer have been enjoying lately!
MPEG Stream: "Grave Robber"
MPEG Stream: "Lower Order"
MPEG Stream: "Sleepy Dog"

WIRE, THE #380 October 2015 magazine 9.98
As usual, a lot of good stuff in this issue of the UK (and world's) premiere magazine of 'new music'... For starters, a special batch of features pertaining to the late great Sun Ra and his legacy, with Hieroglyphic Being, Marshall Allen, Gilles Peterson and more. Then, also this issue: Storm Bugs, Christina Vantzou, Heatsick, Ernest Berk, and Randall Dunn from the Master Musicians Of Bukkake (doing the 'Invisible Jukebox' thing). Plus lots more, including tons of tons of informative reviews of course.

ZOVIET FRANCE & FOSSIL AEROSOL MINING PROJECT Flexible Pooling (Alt.Vinyl) flexidisc 7" 18.98
In 2014, we were blessed with a few copies of the first collaboration between the like-minded alchemists :zoviet*france: and the Fossil Aerosol Mining Projects, which came to us as a double lp, housed in a beefy slab of metal. Those few copies did not take long disappear, and we certainly expect that same fate to fall upon this outing as well. Flexible Pooling is intended to be the material antipode to the heft and durability of that first, with this 7" being a mere flexidisc and housed in a thin paper sleeve, with various printed ephemera gracing the package as well. There's two tracks found on the flexidisc and a download track, making the entire program an honest 30 minutes in length. It's a radioactive blizzard of tape machined errata, countervailed with subcutaneous drones and slippery layers of bedraggled, haptic noise compressed and / or exhumed from the vaults of some deep sea science station collecting data on thermal vents at the ocean floor before it was abandoned. The two entities organically sift through their material, sending various flutters, glissandos, snippets of unknowable dialogue, and electrical malfunctions into accreted and aggregated chorales of raw hypnogogia. Beautiful and eerie, Flexible Pooling represents a perfectly realized sound between two already exceptional authors of the sublime drift. Extremely limited.