Yamantaka Eye - Cassette Acid Garage Punk Mix

Who is Yamantaka Eye? Only one of the most accomplised and talented musicians of our generation, in any genre. Boredoms talisman, solo artist extraordinaire. Check this out.

One of the main reasons why I adore eYe so much, his knowledge and talent spans across so many genres, it's kind of mind boggling, and the coolest thing about him is he tries to interplay the best parts of a certain genre with another. Here is a good example of that, he uses his electronic music/jockeying skills to put together a selection of really obscure garage rock tracks from the 60's that most of you have likely never heard of before (I certainly hadn't). It's not as much a compilation as it is a mixtape, it feels like one long, glorious 60 minute garage rock track where everything flows into each other seamlessly. It's brilliant, give it a shot.

cassette acid garage punk mix

Au Pairs - Playing with a Different Sex

Birmingham post punk band that was formed in 1979. Somehow they were mostly overlooked during their heyday. Playing With a Different Sex is definitely in my list of top 10 post punk albums, ever.

Feminist, leftist, funk-punk dance party with a strong dash of gender roles and sexual politics. Some of these songs are timeless, that jangly, jagged guitar is perfect and man, these are some of the grooviest basslines of all time. Sometimes, you just wanna dance, y'know?

equal, but different

Cocteau Twins - Heaven or Las Vegas

There is a time in your life when you want to recede, want to hide from the world, but still wish to view and vicariously participate with all the colour and exuberance of the night, the wonder of the unknown and the joy of the formidable. This kind of thing is what I like to call a romantic's paradox. I probably suffer from this more often than not. In any case, Heaven or Las Vegas works as a soundtrack to my mindscapes and provides me with the company of someone magical. What is certain is that there's a very fine line between the glitz, glamour and brightness of Las Vegas and the ethereal beauty of what you perceive as heaven. And somehow this album captures that moment so well. Are these the comforts of madness people speak of? Sure, whatever floats your boat.

i wear your ring

Pram - Museum of Imaginary Animals

You guys have read Alice in Wonderland right? When I was a kid, I used to wonder what a real-life wonderland would be like. Mysterious, winding paths to new uncharted terrain, my imagination creating the scenery around me. A sense of childlike wonder, the innocence of bravery and brevity, spending time in a world that feels like it is underwater, slow, deep, blue and caressing you at every passing moment. Keyboards that play off each other in arabesque and jazzy overtones, melodica, harmonica and theremins notwithstanding. Rosie Cuckston's voice is your guardian angel, just fucking listen to her. Your head fills with colours, your dreams are more tangible than the surface you're sitting on. Put simply, this is just one of the finest albums ever, and almost no one seems to be aware of Pram's existence.

For what it's worth, I've stopped following the rabbit with the clock a long, long time ago. Here, I'm home.

play of the waves

Pomegranates: Persian Pop, Funk, Folk and Psych of the 60s and 70s

Before the west and the CIA completely fucked Iran over and paved way for atrocious Islamic fundamentalism, it was a cultural mecca of the Middle East, ancient Persian culture imbued with an influx of educated, intellectual Iranis made it probably the most attractive place, at the time, in the Middle East. This gave rise to one of the coolest and most unique music scenes of the 20th century, hypnotic eastern raga based pop grooves blended with upcoming western styles of funk, pop and even a bit of disco! Calling this exciting would be an understatement.

helelyos

Sibylle Baier - Colour Green

Sibylle Baier is a German folk singer/theater actress who recorded the songs that comprise her seminal album during a road trip through Europe between 1970 and 1973, on a simple reel to reel recording tape. It was never released until 2006 when her son found the material and passed it on to J. Mascis (of Dinosaur Jr fame)

Quiet, peaceful, austere and contemplative. Sometimes, this kind of 'loner' female folk is exactly all I need.

i lose something in the hills

The Shangri-Las - Myrmidons of Melodrama

The Shangri-Las were a girl group active from 1963 to 1968. They had many chart hits with their perfectly melodramatic girl group songs of love, crushes and loss. This is the compilation of their best songs, the aptly titled 'Myrmidons of Melodrama'

I can't explain why I adore this so much. Maybe it's the perfectly realised pop songwriting. Maybe I'm a sucker for sad songs. Maybe it's Mary Weiss' voice. Maybe it's just hormonal. If you're going the melodramatic route, you can't go wrong here.

you can never go home anymore

Thinking Fellers Local Union 282 - Admonishing the Bishops

Thinking Fellers Local Union 282 were quite an amazing band during their heyday. They formed in San Francisco in 1986, combining lo-fi noise rock with various outsider elements to make their own brand of noisy pop music. This EP of theirs is just perfection.

somehow your hurricane, envelops me in misty rain

Talking Heads - Remain in Light

They need no introduction, neither does this album I suppose. Unique, extremely idiosyncratic new wave/art funk gods, Talking Heads formed in NYC in 1975, released at least 4 albums that are stone cold classics and for me, stand as amongst the top 5 or 6 bands America has ever produced.

A band at the peak of their powers. Unparalleled songwriting, Brian Eno on production duties. I don't normally generalise but it's probably safe to say that white people never got funkier than this. One of the best albums ever.

all i want, is to breathe

The Congos - Heart of the Congos

Seminal reggae vocal group The Congos have been around since the early 70's. They are best known for their masterwork 'Heart of the Congos', which was produced by none other than the legendary Lee 'Scratch' Perry.

Completely indispensable and genre defining work here, Lee Scratch Perry's production and use of space adds layer upon layer of intertwining material. Also, these are some of the best reggae tunes ever, these vocal harmonies were forged in the heavens I'm sure. The falsetto and tenor are in perfect harmony, the 'backup' singers constitute names such as The Heptones, Gregory Isaacs and the Meditations to name a few. Hymns for the uninitiated, songs of longing and praise for the wary, and uplifting beyond measure for anyone with functioning ears.

row, fisherman row

Big Star - Third/Sister Lovers

Big Star, not much to be said about Alex Chilton's Big Star. One of the most influential bands of all time, Big Star served as the prime vehicle for Alex Chilton's music, combining british invasion and american sensibilities and adding a dark, nihilistic sense of despondency to create a very singular brand of pop music, one that predicted oncoming alternative culture by at least a decade or so. Whether it was big, shiny choruses or dirge like balladry, Alex Chilton was a master of it all. This is my favourite album of theirs, Third/Sister Lovers.

A band on the brink of disintegration after commercial failure. A genius and troubled songwriter bares his soul for the world to see. This is the sound of fragility, as honestly as was humanly possible from a pop record in 1974, though it wasn't released for another 4 years due to internal issues. Watch in wonder as the world cracks and falls apart at your feet.

this sounds a bit like goodbye
in a way it is, i guess
as i leave your side
i've taken the air, 
take care, please
take care


you're a wasted face, you're a sad-eyed lie

Chico Buarque - Construção

Chico Buarque is a legend amongst men. He was born in 1944 in Brazil and was a leading figure in the MPB (musica popular brasileira, or brazilian popular music) movement and wrote a lot of stuff in opposition to the authoritarian regime that was present in Brazil at the time - he was jailed and subsequently exiled from Brazil in 1970, only returning after this album was made. His music features many influences, from western popular music to samba, choro, bossa nova, beat poetry and singer songwriter flourishes. He also worked as a playwright, a screenwriter, a novelist and a poet amongst other things. 

Let me take some time off and write to you guys, the grand total of 10 or 11 people that read this blog. It usually isn't easy writing objective reviews for records you like. What the heck does that even mean anyway? When you listen to something, it affects you subjectively. Trying to objectify said feeling as a stimulus/response situation calls upon describing things from an almost outsider point of view, and then I usually sound jumbled and incoherent, and at worst, scramble for the nearest thesaurus so I'm not repeating the same 4 adjectives in my arsenal over and over again.

So what does a good piece of art in the form of an album mean to me? I don't know. I can't quantify it. It captures certain moments in time and crystallises them as memories and feverish daydreams in my head. There are so many moments in music where for a couple of seconds or so, time just fucking stops. Music at this point transcends the limitations of its definition and goes on to more wonderful things. Let's call it magic.

Kind of an odd example that an album should be both immediately accessible yet at the same time distant, and a huge grower. I attribute most of the distance in this record to my incredibly poor understanding of Portuguese. What is he singing about? I'm not sure I can tell after a couple of listens. Does it matter? I'll get to explaining this in a bit. *

The album is hard because it offers us no hooks, no discernible standout choruses, no instrument that is so ahead of everything else in the mix that it can be separated and dissected. It only offers you a glimpse, which for an idealist like me, is drinking from the chalice of life itself. A world where everything coalesces, where unison of sound is more important than the distinction of it, and a moment where beauty steers your helm to wherever you wish to drive it. And it is an eerie, almost spectral kind of beauty hanging over the bookends of the songs like the best of your memories. They evoke the summery lit of bossa nova, the mellowness and lightheaded feeling of tropicalia, the giddiness of samba, the poetry of a man who has everything to lose and everything to live for, the feeling of a breeze, warm summer air, wine, food, literature, dancing all night. There is something inherently cool with Construcao, how it is arranged, how it's performed. These sounds, they're bustling with excitement and grandeur and yet diffusing within themselves, like a quiet withdrawal and an invoked memory that takes you away for a couple of moments. Frienship, solitude, panic, euphoria, love, despair. These are things we deal with daily, these are things that make us human. This is what Construcao attempts to signify, in my opinion. The human condition, the beauty of it.

So I suppose the grand sensation I am trying to elicit is pleasure. Good music gives us pleasure. Well, Construcao transcends that by just a little bit, it also gives you a peace of mind, when it finally settles in. And whilst the search for pleasure is endless and knows no bounds, I take great comfort in knowing that in my endless search for music that sounds good to my ears, I can always come home. It would not be a stretch to call this the greatest album of the 70's.

*I am not usually a lyrics person, in the sense that where good lyrics usually elevate a song and make it more relevant or visceral (and that's always a good thing); a song with bad lyrics don't necessarily detract from its quality, where I'm concerned. (After all, a lot of good music has really bad lyrics, but whatever, right?). But if you stumble upon this post and happen to be enjoying this album, I implore you to seek out the lyrics and their translations on google. To call Chico a poet is an understatement, the way he plays with words, the way he enunciates, just brilliance on every level imaginable.

deus lhe pague

New Order - Substance

New Order formed in 1980 after Ian Curtis' suicide which effectively ended Joy Division. Over the years, they would solidify themselves as one of the most successful and influential bands of all time, marrying their post punk beginnings with the upcoming synthpop and alternative dance cultures. This is their singles collection titled Substance; probably the best singles collection I have in my near exhaustive library.

Life affirming euphoric pop music. Just timeless by all means, has about 5 of the best songs of the 80's here.

it's never enough until your HEART STOPS BEATING

Agoria - Balance 016

Influenced by jazz and Detroit techno, Sébastien Devaud aka Agoria is one in a long line of artists to emerge from the French electronic scene. This is his mix, for the brilliant Balance series. 

Honey oozing out of my speakers in 4/4. Worth its weight in megabytes and then some. This is one of the very best mixes I have ever heard 


just as the sun went down  

William Basinski - Melancholia

William Basinski is a classically trained composer and ambient musician who rose to prominence with his documentation of disintegrating tape loops. Here's my favourite record of his, Melancholia.

take a walk with me, let me take you someplace. i don't know where, away from here is all i know. reach into my flesh, take what makes my heart loop and mind deteriorate and wear it like a mantle. symbolise your eternal longing with a nascent kiss, amidst torrential downpour, swallowed under city lights. take it all. take it away from me, even though your blood just blended with mine. take it all away because i love you, and i want to remember this, even though my memory is unreliable and words always fall short. let me put on this tape as i drift off to sleep, cursing the clarity of my memory. these twinkles. they lull me. and it's already yesterday. mementos are journeys.

melancholia

J Dilla - Donuts

J Dilla was a record producer and a legend in hip hop circles, and personally speaking, the god of the beat. He recorded this album, Donuts, on his deathbed, one of the most crippling diseases picking away at his life. Listening to this record with that in mind both makes this the most uplifting and depressing thought simultaneously, the latter because the world lost an irreplaceable talent and the former because the power to connect through music transcends everything else in this world, let alone that which my feeble prose attempts to grab at.

So Donuts, the greatest left-field hip hop album of all time, containing snippets of every human emotion distilled and condensed into 2 minute punches. As this was my late friend Michael's favourite record, I will do us the honor of letting him have the last word on it.

it's been a long time since 2006 when i heard this for the first time alongside the roots Game Theory - both of which quite frankly went over my head at the time. Donuts more noticeably since i guess i didn't really understand dilla at the time. although if you don't understand dilla i don't really see how the roots' offering would make much sense either considering that still has to be the most emotionally-charged post-dilla death record i've ever heard. i probably just listened to "here i come" over and over again and totally passed over "can't stop this" b/c of it'slength. YEAH MAN LOUD RAPS GAME THEORY WOO. talk about weird. anyway i guess it didn't finally hit me until.....a year later?? yeah that sounds right. ever get the feeling like you've walked into a funeral service for someone you don't know but you're invited anyway? that's probably what this record is like for a lot of people. you show up and everyone seems nice and you save face and "oh wow i bet he really was a nice guy" but at the end of the day you're just sort of cycling through manufactured sympathies and while death doesn't really make you happy you know that deep down there's no knot in your stomach. is that bad?? well no. my problem is that with Donuts people hear this (and only this) and as the only document by jay dee in their library i'm 100% certain that you can't fully appreciate this in the way that those more familiar with slum village/tribe/de la soul/common/etc's discographies are. i was thinking about this earlier and wanted to write a review but it was going to be far too vitriolic with me calling out bandwagon types* but that doesn't help anything and really music is love and something with this much love in its core doesn't need an arm of raised veins clutching a sword to keep all the demons away. true people will come in. light guides.


this album (i say that a lot THIS ALBUM) in one swoop has essentially nullified beat tapes for me ever since i "got it" and i dunno it's like why even listen to others. it's so robotic. HERE ARE BEATS I HAVE COMPRISED. listen 2 them. thanx u. nothing against dudes like madlib but it's not the same. well no Dil Cosby Suite was something special. yeah. if Donuts is a phoenix falling apart in a whirlwind of embers then that beat konducta suite is like the ashes flying across the countryside and blessing the children with eternal life. oh god HA. that's so over the top but iiiii don't care. theres a lot of might here. it's moving. i've never cried to this album but it makes me Emotional. you know. a few days ago i was out for a walk and Stop came up and uuugughgh. if there was one song i could choose that'd just go on forever~, then itd be that one. but instead it's less than two minutes. that SUCKS right? nah actually it's cool because it also reinforces a lot of things i feel strongly about. moments don't last forever; love is but one patch in life's grand tapestry - move on/love on. cool, eh? 1:39 of heartache and my god i feel that's just enough because human <3s are so small and delicate.

also gonna shoutout my main man Trains here because we share a favoutire part on this album: that stevie wonder sample that pops up on THE TWISTER is fucking holy. i remember the first time i noticed it: i was walking home from a friend's house after a night of drinking and it was late as hell. this was back when i had friends that actually lived in town so i took this shit for granted. so stevie shows up out of nowhere right before things go completely fucking bonkers and it takes my breath away. oddly enough at the time i didn't even recognize the singer so it was kind of strange. the placenemt is GREAT too: this heartfelt crooning right before WAM BAM PULL UP SELECTAH and it totally disarms you. like stevie wonder steals your bullet proof vest and i dunno afrika bambaataa shows up in a bong UFO and unloads a clip in your ribcage. and it's even better because EVERY SONG does this. christ. i bet people who say that this is lazy say shit like OH MY KID COULD DO THAT at pollock exhibits. yeesh.

but
what this album means 2 me:
well it's really hard to say. Donuts feels less like a beat tape or even track-by-track music every time i hear it. at this point i'm convinced the sequencing is sacrosanct not just in the sense of "this song sounds excellent and then the next one does" but rather that beats give birth toeachother and it evolves like a grand tapestry (there's that word again!) or bodysong or something that transcends Hip Hop altogether. not because It's Emotional or something but....i don't know. some things/a LOT of things are bigger than me. i have dreams where i sit on the edge of a mountain with the drop so wide that you'd think i was resting my ass on the lips of the universe. it terrifies me but i love this feeling. i don't believe in god and i haven't for a while but this sense that there's some colossal nothing - rather, SOMETHING - looming silently behind the sun and stars, yeah, that's good. rilke said that every angel is terrifying and i'd agree - that terror is fascinating, yes. but yeah, that feeling of awe, it's what permeates this album. that HOLY CRAP, WHAT HAVE I DISCOVERED. because you know music is a game. people swallow this shit so much and goddamn you fall into genre expectations so fucking hard that nothing surprises you anymore. everything is a science. five star records are just loud or something. boom AND bap. ok we're on the level yadda yadda. nobody wants to lay prostrate in worship of something they love anymore. everyone is too goddamned self aware or fronting or keeping up appearances. fuck that

*by this i basically mean those that listened to Donuts after it dropped, declared MASTERPIECE!!!!! best new music, and then moved on although probaly t thorwing this on everyonceingawhile. maybe they listen to flying lotus and like ABstract Hip Hoppelbnfsdjg and kelike that shit burns me. no you don't get it. get your history you douchebag. Ackt Like You Know.

review ends here------

A Letter To Someone Who Won't Read It:

i still get pretty depressed over the whole thing lately although i'm starting to force myself to get over it. it's been long enoughg now, i guess. all in all i feel stupid about how this panned out mainly since a) there was nothing there to begin with and b) i really was a fool. but that's me. i make a lot of mistakes. i wish we could've just talked about this though. like, just realize where we were, be honest, you know. i said a lot of mean things about you in random corners of the internet as an anonymous poster and i feel like a jerk and maybe you DO deserve to read that to see what a jerk i am. every time i make you out to be the villain but really i'm just a big child who's all too prepared to throw his heart wherever he thinks it should be. this was wrong and i was just thinking about me and not you. i'm sorry. maybe one day we can go down by the docks in oakville where thesres tons of seagull shit and flags and we can watch fat white people ride by on their overpriced boats doing Who Gives A Fuck and we can talk this all over together and maybe never see eachother again, if thats what youd like. dump my ghost in the water and we can get on with our lives. i miss you. i miss You.


~~~

i heard from an ex of mine today. she (see: Hush Sound review) sent me a message about the microphones on facebook and i dunno. i guess it meant that she was looking at my profiele?? who knwos i dnt know how facbook works anymore now that i'm single. but yeah it made me happy though. i guess i'm glad to know she doesn't hate me. like, fuck. that girl. she was such s sweeheart treally. i bet she'd really give me shit if she knew i drank thoguh. im not drunk now although i think the correct term is Robotripping(?). check ereoqidn for details. anyway she has every right to think i'm an asshole. i dumped her because the girl i dated before her came back into my life. yeah, see? nobody does that but...ugh, Bad People. even though thigns betwen us were obviously falling apartshe deserved better than that like christ man. that was the summer i listened to coldplay a lot and dreamed about her at my job stocking bed supplies. what a time. being a teenager sure is cool, eh? but yeah 'm glad she doesnt think i'm an ass. i worry too much about what other people think but sometimes SOMETIMES i do shit and deserve the consequences


don't be so judgemental

REVIEW PART-----

the other day i was out witha freind getting some food (last night actually) and when we pulled into park at this one joint, just before he turned the car off, i noticed the sample from the final track being played on the radio. y'know that "the kind of man you thought i'd be" part. it only lasted a few seconds since my friend just wanted to eat but i remember just sitting there for a second with a wide-eyed look on my face while i took it in. obviously this was just a coincidence but the whole incident gave me great pause and joy. this was THAT SONG. one feather from a wing of dreams that disappeared into the sky until a rainman/philosopher king godtype gripped its wax essence and made a tiny glowing universe that will only ever exist in our ears. and i'm thankful for it. really really am..    




RIP Michael Isard. 

Unwound - Leaves Turn Inside You

Unwound were an alternative act active from 1991-2002. They were more or less a unique singularity amongst their peers, utitlising angular guitar lines, complex drumming patterns and shifted toward more atmospheric production aesthetics for their masterpiece and swansong (one of the best swansongs of all time).

At this point, I have to mention that I was introduced to this album by a good friend called spiritof77, on RYM. His real name was Mike and he was a writer and a poet with very little parallel, even amongst professionals. He passed away earlier this week. This is his entry on 'Leaves Turn Inside You'.

the smell of ash-spewing 18-wheelers passing you in late fall when the branches sound like glass as you cross over them and your neighbourhood is so cold that you can hear the sewage beneath your feet slow to a crawl with the approach of december. dead animals keep from rotting like sarcophagi of hair and teeth littered around the city in a first wave of eternal greying. sickness creeps. sickness is that halo of cigarette smoke that always seems to appear from nameless mouths in red that never quite speak in your direction. you go home and drink because it's all you can do to keep your blood from idling and turning your whole body to stone. words and impermanent shit you say to people in an ambiguous tone to keep from really letting the heart out of your cage and wishing you weren't such a coward later. wheat and tulips slipping into decay because fewer things are more final than another year of your life. it's touching hands in an endless crowd and wondering when the last time it wasn't one more stranger. it's realizing that the greatest affliction isn't cancer or AIDS but rather loneliness. it's when a ghost disturbs the veins of a tree and the leaves turn inside you.      


Terminus

V/A - Night Slugs All Stars vol. 1

So what happens to us in a post-dubstep world that is reaching more and more towards self nurtured monotony and near dystopic states of indifference?

This isn't 1976. Turn up the volume, turn up the bass and fucking DANCE.

wut

OOIOO - Feather Float

OOIOO are a side project by Boredoms (best band ever?) femme fatale Yoshimi P-We. Their 2004 record 'Feather Float' is, well, one of the most colourful albums you're likely to hear. Cover art is fairly suggestive of this.

Just about as much fun you can have within the popular music sphere without losing your mind. Or whatever, lose your mind, who cares. Contains bits of Vision Creation Newsun, Neu! like trance pulses, rock experimentation that may make their peers embarassed, and repetition. and repetition. and repetition. and repetition. and repetition. and repetition.

be sure to loop

Big Blood & the Bleeding Hearts - s/t

in solitary darkness, in the companionship of drunken revelry, to cut through the delirium of last night's dreams, to lull oneself to sleep, to be sung as loudly as statutorily possible. these are songs for any occasion**

bleeding hearts

V/A - Cocoon Compilation J

Minimal techno that seems to have been made for the vast, vast depths of the ocean. Featuring most of europe's top techno gods, this compilation takes the german minimal sensibility and tops it up with a huge dose of hypnosis. Mesmerised, and reconciling.

disc 1
disc 2

Optionselect - I wish I was at Blawan

My buddy Gus occasionally makes mixes when he's not busy ballin' out of control. Here's a pretty sick one, if you're into the contemporary UK electronic scene you should dig this selection

http://soundcloud.com/optionselect/wish-i-was-at-blawan-mix

Peaking Lights - 936

Peaking Lights are a husband-wife duo who have been around since about 2007. Their new record, '936' is off the hook.

Really, a fucking brilliant amalgam of neo-psych, dub, krautrock and techno. Bliss turned up to 11. Definitely one of the best albums I've heard this year. Beautiful intoxication indeed.

amazing and wonderful

Lush - Split

Lush were a britpop/dream pop act that was active from 1988 to 1998. My favourite Lush era was their shoegazer era, their early EPs and their 1994 full length, Split.

Sweet, sweet, wistful dreampop full on yearning, longing and daydreaming. Berenyi/Anderson's vocal harmonies + beautiful melodies. Essential listening.

let me try to pull you free

Wipers - Youth of America

Wipers were undoubtedly one of the most influential bands for the American alt rock scene. Led by Greg Sage, they crafted what was essentially a mixture of hardcore punk's demolishing ferocity with prog rock's vernacular and a penchant for longer tunes. This is exemplified on 1981's 'Youth of America', which is just about one of the best albums ever.

Like injecting a raging bull with a barrel of coke. And then sitting on it. No other record would match this level of creativty and ferocity until Refused would release The Shape of Punk To Come, imo.

living in the jungle

Luomo - Vocalcity

Sasu Ripatti's one of the most prolific and varied electronic producers in the modern scene. He hails from Finland, and his deep house/tech house moniker is called Luomo. Here's his record from 2000, the lovely Vocalcity.

Heart and soul with a steady pulse. 'Tessio' is in particular one of the best things that has ever happened to music.

i guess you make me warm, when you do the hum

Boris - Pink

One of the best rock bands out there at the moment. Japanese act Boris have been around since 1992 and have explored nearly every facet of the noise rock and sludge aspect of the genre. This is one of my favourite album entries into the noise canon, and in fact you'd be hard pressed to find much music in the 00's that rocks as hard as this.

Pink light, from the mouth of infinity. Let your senses be destroyed. Also, title track lasts 4 minutes and 20 seconds. You know what I'm getting at.

afterburner

Bästard - Radiant, Discharged, Crossed Off

Radiant, Discharged, Crossed Off is a hidden gem when it comes to low key, fragmented, disjointed experimental rock music. Think This Heat but a bit less sinister, think Bark Psychosis for the industrial landscape. Lazy descriptors aside, this one is loaded with elegaic passages, subtle rhythms and just really cool riffage throughout, made from equal parts of chaos and silence. Enjoy, folks.

200 miles from Hanoi

Love - Forever Changes

Monumental psychedelic 60's west coast act Love, with Arthur Lee (who Jimi Hendrix worshipped) at the helm, released their best record 'Forever Changes' in 1967.

And when the streets are paved with gold
And if someone asks you, 
You can call my name. 
I hear you calling my name.

One of the best 60's psych records ever. The two opening tracks are pure gold, the rest of the record follows suit. R.I.P Arthur Lee.

alone again or?

Low - I Could Live in Hope

Legendary American slowcore act Low formed in Minnesota in 1993. Their debut, 'I could live in hope' marks the beginning of a wonderful journey of one of the greatest american bands in recent times.

Good with: wines, pills, depression, suicide, oncoming winter weather, lying down and staring at the ceiling. Understated, gentle and devastating beauty.

rope