Circle documentary screening 2/9/09

Hey local folks, especially those of you into the Finnish freakiness! We're inviting you to attend a special, FREE pre-release screening of a NEW CIRCLE DVD!!

On Monday February 9th 2009, please join us at the Knockout on Mission Street for an exclusive West Coast pre-release party and screening of an arty new sort-of-documentary film entitled Saturnus Reality (60 min, Finnish dialogue, English subtitles), directed by Esko Lönnberg, featuring live performances (musical and otherwise) by our favorite Finnish prog-psych-spacerock band of weirdos, Circle! With popcorn, krautrock, and cheap beers!

Aquarius is co-sponsoring this screening with the No Quarter label (who will be releasing the film on dvd on March 10th), in conjunction with Klaus To The Edge on WestAddRadio 93.7FM SF and PROJEKTOR Party.

More info on the movie, from Circle's website:

Saturnus Reality (2007) is the Finnegan’s Wake of Finnish rock documentaries, and a fabulous cul-de-sac in a stream of consciousness. The film’s subject is Circle, the prolific Finnish experimentalists hailing from Pori, but it is a self-ironic vicious circle of a film that focuses on the curious world of the band and its musicians, shot on a home video camera. Jussi Lehtisalo, Mika Rättö, Janne Westerlund, Tomi Leppänen and Tuomas Laurila appear in the film as if they were acting out themselves.

The film is nominally centred on the recording sessions of Miljard, one of the latest albums by this extremely productive band, whose output includes 28 albums in 16 years. Starting out as a traditional rock documentary, the film soon runs loose on various sidetracks: to the depths of a forest, onto a frozen lake, into the darkness of night. The band’s primeval music becomes the soundtrack for magic rites performed in nature. The musicians meet the mysterious Oracle of the Reed Sea, a strange meteorite has landed in a snowy landscape, and so forth. What matters in Circle’s fantastic world is totality of vision, while details are treated somewhat generously. The new genre the band has coined, NWOFHM (The New Wave of Finnish Heavy Metal), may just as well mean fragile atonal piano improvisation or catatonic one-note walls of sound. Inspired by the ritualistic films of Stan Brakhage and Kenneth Anger, the film moves to the beat of double and triple exposures, the atmosphere balancing in the timeless opening between childish horseplay and reckless pathos. Enthusiastic live commentary can be heard beside the camera by the director/cinematographer, Pori’s multi-talented craftsman of the psychedelic, Esko Lönnberg. His earlier works include the splendid concert film with Doktor Kettu (also from Pori), shot through a distorting lens.

- Mika Taanila

The screening will start at 11pm and AQ's Allan, AC and Black Fjord will DJ kraut, prog and heavy psych before and after.

At The Knockout - 3223 Mission Street at Valencia. 10pm - 2am, screening starts at 11pm. FREE!

What'll they think of next?

You've probably already checked out the link to this Van Halen Asteroids game. It seems to be making the rounds of the internets. Pretty amusing, a least for a little while...

On a related subject, today we happened to be wondering, how is it possible that we've had a copy of the cd reissue of the Spanish-language version of David Lee Roth's "Eat 'Em And Smile" aka "Sonrisa Salvaje" in our store for nearly a year now and no one has purchased it yet??

Look it up on our website to hear sound samples of the hit "Rosa Yanqui" and DLR's cover of "La Calle del Tabaco"... then go ahead, "add to cart".

Top tens time

Just a reminder, we're still accepting customer top 10 (or 12, or 20...) lists of your favorite releases of 2008, which we'll compile and post on our website in February. The deadline for submitting 'em is next Friday, 1/6/09. Please email your lists to store@aquariusrecords.org if you haven't already. And don't forget to include your name! We'll pick two entries at random to receive $25 aQuarius gift certificates.

The best-of-2008 picks by the aQ staff can be found here, on our list #308 (though we'll probably post 'em to a separate page eventually).

Did you know...

That Sepultura's newest record, "A-Lex", is a concept album based on A Clockwork Orange?
Should we order some?

Whoops, correction.

In our review of the Pom Pom cd on list #310, we said it was a collection of tracks selected from their prior vinyl-only releases. Well, we were wrong about that, it's actually a cd version of their 2x12" entitled 32. Sorry, didn't mean to mislead. And either way, it's a great cd if you like that minimal, Kompakt-style techno stuff.

New Arrivals list #310

Our exciting new list can be found here, featuring these Records Of The Week:

Blank Dogs "The Fields" (Woodsist) cd ep/lp $11.98/$14.98
A new wavey, lo-fi gothy gloom pop genius one man band we're all diggin'.
Swervedriver "Raise" (Second Motion / High-Speed Soul) cd $16.98
Swervedriver "Mezcal Head" (Second Motion / High-Speed Soul) cd $16.98
Two crucial reissues of early '90s heavy shoegazing rock action by these old faves!

New Arrivals list #309

Happy New Year! Our first list of 2009 is now up on the site here and possibly in your email inbox too.

Records Of This Week are:
Stars Of The Lid "Music For Nitrous Oxide" (Sedimental) cd $14.98
One of the great bands that got the whole "drone" thing rolling back in the '90s, before, y'know, your best friend and your little sister had their own drone bands. This is their wonderful debut record of slo-mo ambient bliss from '95, finally at last reissued!
The Telescopes "Singles Compilation 1989-1991" (Mind Expansion) cd $15.98
A new disc collecting all the singles A's and B's circa 1989-'91 by British heavy psych shoegazing garage rock outfit The Telescopes. Essential stuff for everybody who freaked out over those Loop reissues we made Records Of The Week so recently!! If you're gonna get just one Telescopes disc, this would be it.

SXSWXAQXWFMU

We're pleased to announce that at this year's South By Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas, we'll be co-sponsoring a big ol' showcase gig with our good friends at New York/New Jersey's WFMU, one of the best independent (or otherwise) radio stations in the whole world!

So, if you're gonna be at SXSW (or now plan to attend 'cause you don't want to miss this show!), mark your calendars, our thing is scheduled for Friday, March 20th. Who's playing? Well, we're holding off on telling you about that until a few more bands are confirmed, but we'll provide further details soon, we promise. It'll be an interesting lineup full of AQ faves...

And hey - if you're a kindly AQ customer who happens to live in Austin, and possibly could help Allan and Andee out with either a place to stay and/or cheap bicycle(s) we could buy or borrow, please email us! Thanks!

2 upcoming AQ-staff-related happenin's

ART:

I Wanted Every Day To Last Forever

short films by Irwin Swirnoff (2003-present)

film installation at Right Window @ ATA
992 Valencia / 21st
Jan. 11th - 31st
opening reception Sunday Jan. 11th 5-8

ATA screening Sunday Jan. 25th 8pm
opening musical guest: Mira Cook
www.myspace.com/miracook

MUSIC:

Coconut
Aero-mic'd
Elm

Hemlock Tavern
Thurs. Jan. 15th 9pm
1131 Polk Street

That's our Irwin's art show/film screening (from which the above still is taken). And the music show at the Hemlock features two AQ staffers, Scott (from The Alps) playing in Aero-mic'd, and Jon (from Barn Owl) doing his solo thing Elm. Obviously, neither are to be missed!

"One of the all time worst days in music history"

Ron Asheton, guitarist for the Stooges, has passed away.
Our friend Drew, aka Drewcifer, a big Stooges/Asheton fan, emailed to let us know.

Apparently Asheton, 60, died of a heart attack on New Year's Day or New Year's Eve, and his body was just discovered today in his Ann Arbor home.

Sad. R.I.P., Ron.

Drewcifer went on to say: "Ugh. Just found out the Grateful Dead are going to get back together and start touring again. That and Asheton's death makes this one of the all time worst days in music history."

A couple more new arrivals of note

We got two things in since the last list that we thought you might want to know about now. Though, they'll be on our next list (#309) too of course. Two new items from two bands for which we know many AQ customers are fiends. Boris and Circle!

From Boris, or actually Boris with Michio Kurihara (of White Heaven, Ghost, et. al.) who last appeared with Boris on their "Rainbow" disc, we have a new cd on Japan's Pedal label entitled "Cloud Chamber". It's $21.00. And quite excellent!

From Circle, we now have the 12" vinyl edition of their 2006 Latitudes release, "Tyrant". A double lp - one of them a picture disc - to be exact. Limited of course, 1000 copies. Just $17.98.