Straight Street
Traveling To Aquarius Records By Wayback Machine
Am I too late for the 4:30 auto-gyro?
Unless you follow me on Bluesky you are probably unaware of a recent project about which I’ve started posting. Fed up with my inability to discover new music I have decided it might be more rewarding to look backwards instead of keeping up with current events. Major music publications have never, ever been a good source for new sounds. Radio has been useless since middle school. Indie publications, blogs, and ‘zines are shadows of their former selves. Without friends’ word of mouth, I would be lost in the wilderness.
In the heyday of Swan Fungus I had multiple sources for unearthing music. If I wanted to look to the past, blogs like Mutant Sounds or Prof Stoned provided a lot of useful information. New Albums Releases helped if I knew what I was looking for or sorted by genres I liked. But from 2005 until 2016, no single source provided better information on current releases with a shockingly high “hit” rate than the Aquarius Records mail-order list. Everything from Aluk Todolo to The Conet Project to Z-Trip (and Radar) that was featured — sometimes repeatedly — on my Sunday Mix Tapes started with my reading about it on the AQ New Arrivals list.
Almost all of the old New Arrivals lists are still avaialble thanks to the Wayback Machine. So far I’ve read through 27 or 28 of them and only 2 were not accessible. And what I’ve decided to do is, I’m listening to every album [I can find] I have never heard before. It’s that simple. So, for example, when I opened New Arrivals #13 I had to listen to Old Paint by Freakwater (a band I’ve always ignored for some reason), 2 Ft. Flame, God Is My Co-Pilot, and Stimmung by Dent. I’m skipping most 7”s, EPs, and compilations unless the comps sound insanely cool. Depending on how many albums I haven’t heard before I can get through a couple lists a day while at work. And so far I’ve made some really cool discoveries. At least they’re cool to me.
I’m keeping track of them on this Bluesky thread, but every few months I’ll post an update for those of you who don’t want to be updated in real time. And at some point there will be mix tapes for paid subscribers comprised of essential tunes. For now — if you don’t feel like clicking on that link I just gave you — here are some of my early happy discoveries:
Math - Rubber Musique (Milk Of Burgundy, 1995) - The description from New Arrivals #2 (06/20/95) reads, “only 500 made, only 100 go to retail stores. a combination of weird percussion, homemade instruments, and challenging ‘songs’ make this 2nd record from math an interesting start to *my* day.” Personally I think it sounds like The Residents formed a klezmer band. Or if you played a game of "dizzy bat" and after 100 spins someone immediately steered you into a recording studio. The whole thing is available to stream on YouTube.
Slava Ranko - Arctic Hysteria (Adolescent, 1981) - As far as I can tell this was Windy’s first ever Record Of The Week. It appears in the same list (#3) as the above Math record. The description is a quote from Slava, “I do not want to play music which sounds as if it comes from familiar instruments, music which is based on chord patterns, or music which fits nicely within any particular stereotyped tradition… What I want is the terrifying, the menacing, the cruel, the chaotic, the darkly exciting, the ecstatic, the irrational — music that resounds between the cells and in the intergalactic voids…” As far as I can tell it has never been reissued. You can hear the whole thing on YouTube.
Virgo Rising - San Dimas (Shrimper, 1995) - On July 23rd, 1995 New Arrivals #8 had but one sentence to describe this cassette, and it had nothing to do with the music. “we think this is dennis, guitarist for refrigerator, a.k.a. mr shrimper.” It’s total acid-damaged lo-fi bedroom recording folk by, yes, Dennis Callaci (Refrigerator) and Gary Held (DUH, Phantom 309). Most excellent. Someone started a Virgo Rising discography at some point. San Dimas can be heard in its entirety on YouTube.
Mandible Chatter - Grace (Manifold, 1995) - The Record Of The Week this week (January 20th, 1996) was Asian Dub Foundation’s Facts And Fictions. You probably have heard it before because, well, if you lived through the 90s you probably heard “Rebel Warrior” A LOT. Can you remember exactly where or when? If you’re me, probably not. MTV? A movie or TV show? It was definitely out there. Anyway, Mandible Chatter was way further down the list without as much as a single word used to describe the contents of Grace. If I had written it up as a New Arrival I would have said, “Guitar duo from SF plays fantastic psych/ambient/new age.” Mandible Chatter is, shockingly, on Apple Music.
Scanner - Sulphur (Sub Rosa, 1995) - New Arrivals #23 (same as Mandible Chatter) also introduced me to Scanner, aka Robin Rimbaud. “from the liner notes: ‘The Scanner series of recordings features the intercepted conversations of unsuspecting talkers, edited into minimalist musical settings as if they were instruments.’ recorded live in London…” Somehow it’s been remastered and is currently available on Apple Music.
Pork Queen - Strang (Scratch, 1995) - The most recent discovery I’ve made is from New Arrivals #24 (January 27, 1996). Windy writes, “Justice plays machines & wants you to know he did not succumb to overdubs. The music's introverted. Sly. Thick n gooey. (sorry -- this is about as articulate as i can be tonight.)” My description would be that it sounds like night ocean drones (see: mysterysea.net) made by Clickers from The Last Of Us. Don’t believe me? Listen on Apple Music.
Stay tuned for the next installment in this series, which I’ll post when I amass more excited finds.