Sex Magick Wizards : Your Bliss My Joy

I first heard Norway’s Sex Magick Wizards back in the spring of 2019 when guitarist Viktor Bomstad reached out to me asking if I’d check out his band’s album Eroto Comotose Lucidity. Improvisational, psychededlic, heady, free-form, and progressive were words that came to mind when I first heard these cats. Jazzy grooves, saxophone freakouts with […]

Filth & Majesty : Who Killed Friday Night

I like intricately-layered prog metal as much as the next Peart-worshipping rock and roll poindexter. I was a sadsack teenage outcast reading Vonnegut and Philip K Dick while getting lost in albums like 2112, The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, and Helloween’s Keeper Of The Seven Keys Part I and II. But before I started […]

A Place To Bury Strangers : Hologram

A Place To Bury Strangers have the distinct honor of being named the loudest band in New York. I think that’s an understatement as they could easily be the loudest band in the universe if Mogwai were to go acoustic. Either way, if you throw on any one of APTBS five studio albums you’d quickly […]

Ty Segall : Harmonizer

Ty Segall is a hard artist to keep up with. Just as you’re memorizing track orders on the newest album he’s already released a new one, either under his own name or with any one of his many side projects/collaborations. I’m not complaining(okay, maybe I am), but it’s as if he can’t stop and soak […]

WAtch Sparkle Teeth Perform “Slack” Live

If you’ve been hanging around here for a bit then you probably know the name Sparkle Teeth. And Dan Kinnaley. I’ve been talking this guy up for a bit now. Dan makes music as Sparkle Teeth. It’s a solo project he really locked into last year during the pandemic(you know, the one we’re still dealing […]

Transatlantic Chill : The Hazy Significance of Billow Observatory

Day three of our jaunt back in time, and the many significant conversations had at Complex Distractions. This week is a “best of” of sorts connected to the amazing record label El Paraiso Records. We revisited talks with drummer/synth wizard/graphic design guru Jakob Skott back in 2014, and yesterday was a chat with Rasmus Rasmussen […]

Vlimmer Returns With New Album Nebenkörper, Out September 24th; Listen To Single “I.P.A.”

Alexander Donat has built a sonic library of brooding darkwave and post-punk over the course of a few years now. Listening to his albums you’re brought into a chilling and urgent world that locks into territory fans of Bauhaus, early Cure, and Killing Joke find much to love in. Donat is so good at making […]

Sounds of the Universe : A Conversation With Astral TV

Today we jump into the Wayback Machine and head to September 15th, 2017, when I had a nice chat with Rasmus Rasmussen and Keith Canisius. Rasmussen is the keyboardist for psych rock titans Causa Sui, as well as recording under the name Aerosol. Keith Canisius releases under his own name, and most recently as Shortwave […]

Music From Way Out: The Interstellar Psych Of Jakob Skott

So for this short 4-day week I’m taking a bit of a break. That doesn’t mean I’m leaving you all high and dry, no sir. Instead, I’m re-posting some some of my favorite interviews of Complex Distractions past. Many of you weren’t around the first couple years I was doing this writing thing, and I’ve […]

Labor Of Love

The true meaning of Labor Day weekend has nothing to do with not laboring because you do that crap all week long. No, laboring doing something you love is perfectly fine. Why? Because I say so, that’s why. For me, I started a Labor Day weekend tradition many Labor Days ago. Maybe in 2014 or […]