Aquariana
(Drag City) Used LP $14.00
Aquariana’s album was started in the early 1970s, during The Source Family’s move from their base in Los Angeles to Hawaii. Forty years later, one can finally hear her questing passion and soulful devotion, with all but one song performed solo on the piano. Her lyrics sing of the spirit with pure visions, but are all directed to the source through the focus of her true love: Yahowa.
For The Whole World To See
(Drag City) Used LP $12.00
Classic proto-punk from 1970s Detroit, released in 2009. Raw with little polish, the record showcases the organic power relationships within the trio of brothers.
Further
(Drag City) Used LP $22.00
“Evocative instrumental miniatures, folky near-songs, and extended spatial explorations from the mid-90s. Fingerpicked acoustic guitar amid the white-noise din and the bass-y pulse of analog noisemakers floating in and out evoke the spaciness of early ’70s synth music.”
Chorus
(Drag City) Used LP $18.00
1995 collection of singles, B-sides, and a Peel Session. Precise layering of the rumbling distortion and simple melody.
Upgrade And Afterlife
(Drag City) Used 2xLP $65.00
“Random havoc-wreaking noise seeps through song surfaces. ‘Our Exquisite Replica of Eternity’, a perfect piece of film music, communicates paranoia, suspense, and terror — an ominous drift fractured by shards of electronic feedback, breaking through and breaking down like static between alien stations before closing with mournful trumpets. Meanwhile, Jim O’Rourke’s performance of John Fahey’s ‘Dry Bones in the Valley’ ends the album with pure fresh air, resolving every awkward moment offered up in the preceding 37 minutes. Joined by Tony Conrad, the pair embark on an exploration of the violinist’s micro-tonal drones that follow the album into the sunset.” From 1996
38:38
(Drag City) Used LP $10.00
Spaced basement rarity from late ’70s Detroit that stretches soft-psych into the realm of synth-struck loner folk. Includes bonus track from a later seven-inch.
Laugh Out Lord
(Drag City) Used CD $6.00
The funniest unfunny man in America recorded live at various hotels with laugh-tracks dubbed in. Jokes about religion and terrorism fall flat and the crowd turns on our hero like a pack of drunken wolves.
Earth Junk
(Drag City) Used CD $3.00
“If you figured on an electric country-pop hoedown for small ensemble (featuring circus organ), as minimal and repetitive as all rock’n’roll, you’re getting somewhere. Recorded in Austin in the late winter of early 2008, Earth Junk is a ramble in the dappled sunlight of the American southwest, twisted metallic folk-art in the ever-changing breeze, an offering to all nations.” Punched barcode, sticker on jewelbox
Spermarket
(Drag City) Used LP $30.00 (Out-of-stock)
Legendary no-fi band from Tampere, Finland, who crank up mostly acoustic guitar, bass, drums and screaming vocals (Olli Pauke’s surreal, perverse lyrics about pornography, Elvis, Donald Duck, wooden recorders — included here translated into English). Raw and primitive, on the verge of falling to pieces at all times.
Nig-Heist
(Drag City) Used LP $10.00 (Out-of-stock)
“Musically, they run the gamut of sleaze rock encompassing such classic ’70s subgenres as solo-heavy guitar wank, uptempo dirty chord driving, goodtime Southern rock, slow sick blooze, big dumb Aussie-style pub rock, romantic jazz rock and sexy slap-bass funk” notes our most excellent friend Mark Prindle regarding the 2011 reissue of this 1984 showstopper. “Regardless of the ‘parodic’ nature of the project, most of the songs are catchy as hell!”
Perfect Sound Forever
(Drag City) Used 10-inch $50.00
The bridge too near connecting their early scruffy singles to the more accomplished indie-rock obscurantism of Slanted & Enchanted. From 1990
Royal Trux
(Drag City) Used CD $10.00
1993 reissue of this strangely visceral debut, originally self-released on vinyl (Royal 1988). Started as a rumor, or more likely a threat, Neil Haggerty and Jennifer Herema were C-sectioned from the belly of NYC-cum-DC scum punks Pussy Galore in 1986 and followed their inclination to explore their own musical identity, a fusion of busted licks and synth abstraction.
JJ Got Live RaTX
(Drag City) Used CD $6.00
In which the denim’n’leather metal queen exorcises every last vestige of her former band’s avant-rock influence and enjoys the 1988 she never got to experience the first time around. Jennifer Herrema’s gruff, three-cartons-a-day voice sounds more ballsy than anything at the heavily spandexed Headbanger’s Ball (leave it to a woman to correct such a deficiency). JJ Got Live RaTX unashamedly revels in authentically ’80s details: the slowly swelling synth intro to “You Should Shut Up” that sounds like Giorgio Moroder’s intro theme to Scarface; the squealing lead fills on “Are You a Boy or Are You Girl” that fly by like orange globulars on expert level Guitar Hero; the crunchy-riffed break in the middle of “Virginia Creeper” lifted straight from Scorpions’ “No One Like You”; the brief Eliminator-style techno-boogie denouement to “Mr. Wall.” From 2008
A Long Way Around To A Shortcut
(Drag City) Used 2xLP $6.00 (Out-of-stock)
The bright, surging sound of ye olde rock’n’roll radio (and the garages that tuned in), heard through air darkened with specks of nameless obstruction. Originally issued as a CD in 2008, this reissue collects songs from singles, EPs, compilations and one previously unreleased track.
Unhistories
(Drag City) Used LP $8.00
You’re locked in a room with no doors, but many voices and rhythms. Robert A.A. Lowe, Todd Rittmann and Ben and Adam Vida. These are familiar names, but they play unfamiliar sounds on this dreamy maze of a record. Footing can be found, but not for long.
’Neath The Puke Tree
(Drag City) Used LP $10.00
Five lone-tastic songs of loose, lovely and sexually-charged good times including a re-working of Sewn To The Sky’s “A Jar of Sound” and a self-cover of “I Was a Stranger” from Red Apple Falls.
Dongs Of Sevotion
(Drag City) Used LP $14.00 (Out-of-stock)
Ten adult contemporary songs of love-taking, heart-breaking and dream-making popterfuge via anthemic power ballads, saucy tangos, and gentle waltzes.
Knock Knock
(Drag City) Used LP $10.00 (Out-of-stock)
A ten-song bummer in super hi-fidelity sound. Perfect mood music for your next romantic late night date with a twelve pack or a gun.
Red Apple Falls
(Drag City) Used LP $10.00 (Out-of-stock)
Spacious, acoustic ballads from 1997 with flourishes of piano, horns, drum machines, and pedal steel, appropriating the best of rustic folk, lyrical rock, and traditional country. Brooding singer / multi-instrumentalist Bill Callahan, who can create beauty out of melancholy on par with Leonard Cohen, Nick Drake, Lou Reed, Red House Painters, and East River Pipe, frames his stark songwriting inside stately arrangements. The songs ooze color.
Still Standing in the Same Garden
(Drag City) Used LP (one-sided) $7.00
Acid-guitar-driven heavy psych from 1992. B-side is etched
Magnificence in the Memory
(Drag City) LP $15.00 (Out-of-stock)
Nine tracks that freak out, whisper funk, scream, stomp, and storm with abandon, always on the first and only take take. The capacity of their riffs and grooves to mimic German prog bands of the same era, psychedelic rock bands of several years previous or the as-yet-uncreated avant sounds from the indie rock movement a decade away is evidence of their connection to the source of human inspiration itself.