Posts Tagged ‘Aquarius Records’

Album of the day: Black Boned Angel – The Witch Must Be Killed (vinyl)

Posted on Monday, March 8th, 2010

Black Boned Angel - The Witch Must Be Killed

Praise for Black Boned Angel’s The Witch Must Be Killed from San Francisco’s Aquarius Records: Latest slab of sprawling outsider minimal ambient sludge doom drone from this (now) duo, fronted by none other than Campbell Kneale, he of Birchville Cat Motel and Our Love Will Destroy The World, but as most of you probably already know, BBA is a whole ‘nother beast. A snarling, slow motion, glacial, tarpit, black crawling beast. A sparse, yet still dense assemblage of massive riffing, the riffs themselves doused in crumbling distortion and left to just decay before our ears, only to have another crunching chord wash over us, not so much riffs as long arrangements of massive notes and chords.  A forward momentum of nearly nil, these guys create some serious ultra doom, that rivals groups like Moss for sheer sonic weight.

The Witch Must Be Killed is a two sided two parter. The first side begins with a long stretch of near silence, hushed ambient drift, before the band really kick in with a Neurosis-at-16rpm dirge, and calling it a dirge is being generous. It’s so slow, it’s almost like a soundscape assembled from bits of riff, and occasional crashing drum pound, but the result is intoxicating, gorgeously hazy and blown out and weirdly epic, especially with the addition of a whole other layer of sound, what could be distant waiting vox, or another high end guitar, or some sort of noisemaker, but what that extra layer does is add some serious pathos, tension, what would otherwise be a metallic creep, becomes something totally emotional and intense, like a metal Godspeed crossed with an even more minimal Corrupted, but WAY spaced out, cosmic and otherworldly, more in line with something like Jesu or Nadja, but way heavier, and WAY more metal.

Repetitive, hypnotic, mesmerizing, nearly endless, a sprawling primordial metallic ooze, that envelops and consumes, sucking the listener into a black vortex of minimal metallic sound, the song itself developing slowly, nearly imperceptibly, for it is an actual sound, not just a hodge podge of sounds.
A song that fills up nearly two sides, until about halfway through side two, when the band slip into their own sort of Filsofem, a blurred wash of buzz and rumble, of swirling hiss, of smeared effects and black ambience, laced with a haunting melody, played over and over, way off in the distance, partially obscured by the murk, while beneath it strange voices surface and swirl, the guitars smolder and burn, totally gorgeous and weirdly dreamy and otherworldy, as the record dissolves into an extended outro as bleary eared and buzzy as the best Birchville jam, just rendered via big amps and loud blackened guitars. Awesome.

LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!

Tags: album of the day, Aquarius Records, Black Boned Angel, Campbell Kneale, Conspiracy Records, drone, The Witch Must Be Killed
Posted in Album of the Day, Roadburn Recommended | 3 Comments »

Album of the day: Saint Vitus – Die Healing (vinyl reissue)

Posted on Saturday, March 6th, 2010

Praise for Saint Vitus‘ Die Healing from San Francisco’s Aquarius Records:  Doom. Vinyl. Die Healing. Need we go on?? Doom metal fans, probably all you need to know is that this album by LA godfathers of doom Saint Vitus, never before on vinyl, and long out of print on cd, ...read more

Album of the day: Dwarr – Animals

Posted on Thursday, March 4th, 2010

Praise for Dwarr’s Animals from San Francisco’s Aquarius Records: Eccentric outsider doom metal from the ’80s, from waaaaaay down underground. Now hold up, if the words “doom” or “metal” make you think, not for me, think again (maybe). This isn’t like any metal you’ve ever heard, really. More like spaced ...read more

Album of the day: Bardo Pond – Bufo Alvarius

Posted on Saturday, February 27th, 2010

Praise for Bardo Pond’s Bufo Alvarius from San Francisco’s Aquarius Records: One of our favorite records from this Philly drone / drug / psych ensemble, available again on lp, this time with a bonus track, and a cd version bundled with the lp…
Bufo Alvarius, originally released in 1995, was Bardo ...read more

Album of the day: Aidan Baker – Liminoid / Lifeforms

Posted on Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

Praise for Aidan Baker’s Liminoid / Lifeforms from San Francisco’s Aquarius Records:  The latest from the always impressive, and always prolific Aidan Baker, who creates thick wall of sound doomgaze in the duo Nadja, and much more personal, hushed drone music under his own name, but more and more has ...read more

Album of the day: Loop – Fade Out (reissue)

Posted on Friday, February 12th, 2010

Praise for Loop’s Fade Out from San Francisco’s Aquarius Records:  When people think of spaced out, drone-y drug rock, Spacemen 3 seem to get all the love, which is of course fair, Spacemen 3 totally rule, their music is magical, especially for some of us who will probably only ever ...read more

Album of the day: Agitation Free – Malesch

Posted on Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

Praise from San Francisco’s Aquarius Records for Agitation Free’s Malesch: for those unfamiliar with Agitation Free, here’s the deal… They got their start as a hippie commune band, with ties to Guru Guru, Tangerine Dream, and Amon Duul. Their debut, Malesch (Arabic for “it doesn’t matter, take it easy”), is ...read more

Album of the day: Harmonia – Deluxe

Posted on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

Praise for Harmonia’s Deluxe from San Francisco’s Aquarius Records: A while 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 ...read more

Album of the day: Loop – A Gilded Eternity

Posted on Saturday, January 30th, 2010

Praise for Loop’s A Gilded Eternity reissue from San Francisco’s Aquarius Records: Contemporaries of legendary drug rockers Spacemen 3, Loop took the same sonic influences but rocked a little harder, opting out of the extended soporific drifts the defined the Spacemen, (although they were perfectly capable of blissing out with ...read more

Album of the day: Circle – Tulikoira (Reissue)

Posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

Praise for Circle’s Tulikoira from San Francisco’s Aquarius Records:  This 2005 Circle album, out of print for a bit, is now newly reissued on CD, this time its jewel case wrapped in a spiffy slipcase, featuring some cool new artwork (and a “no posers” symbol)!
NWOFHM. That’s what it says on ...read more