Repeated Viewing : The Beach House

A few college buddies are meandering along the coast of the North Sea after a night of pub hopping and general drunken fun. The beach leads these hungover friends to a dilapidated beach house, complete with “STAY OUT” signs, overgrown pool, and a general sense of unease as the sun slowly rises. The faint, newfound […]

Happy Valentine’s Day, Here’s a Re-Score To David Lynch’s ‘Eraserhead’

Whether you wanted it or not, electronic artist Cat Temper(aka Mike Langlie) has created a pretty epic re-scoring of David Lynch’s impressionistic terrorscape known as Eraserhead. The original score was a lot of industrial noise, hot air escaping pipes made of human bones, and general dread turned into harrowing hums and hisses(along with some Fats […]

LCD Soundsystem : Electric Lady Sessions

There’s two different versions of LCD Soundsystem. There’s the studio version, which is James Murphy going into a studio and working out his middle-aged anxiety with a bevy of instrumentation. That version has given us disco/punk/David Bowie-worshipping records like Sound of Silver, This Is Happening, and the post-retirement record American Dream. Then there’s the other […]

Cory Kilduff : When It All Gets To Be Too Much

Cory Kilduff works within longing and heartbreak on his Burning Witches Records debut When it All Gets to be Too Much. Pulling inspiration from the coming-of-age films Molly Ringwald made with John Hughes, as well as Paul Haslinger’s work in Halt and Catch Fire and Tangerine Dream’s score for Risky Business, Kilduff makes a nostalgic […]

Outsider Vibes: Alan Sinclair Talks Repeated Viewing, Video Nasties, and The Beach House

Alan Sinclair has been making synth-based sonic dread since 2009 under the name Repeated Viewing. The UK-based musician/composer creates moody records that look and feel like some lost soundtrack to a grimy, woozy exploitation flick your mom would never let you rent. Movies like Ms. 45, Nightmare, The Beyond, and Death Wish 2 would pair quite […]

Chicago Odense Ensemble : Self-Titled

Okay, so dig this scene: Two scrappy Danish musicians hop a plane destined for Chi-town in 2008. You know Chi-town; The Windy City, The City of the Big Shoulders,….Chicago, IL. These two musicians, guitarist Jonas Munk and drummer Jakob Skott of the Danish psych rock titans Causa Sui, were headed over for a gig supporting […]

Heavy-Hearted : Cory Kilduff and His Ode To Heartbreak

Musician and composer Cory Kilduff came into my world by way of Ridley Scott and Burning Witches Records. I first heard his music last year when his track “LV426” showed up on the BWR Record Store Day comp Communion. That track is part of a bigger project, one in which Kilduff re-scored Ridley Scott’s sci […]

Deerhunter : Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared?

Deerhunter have easily been one of the most polarizing rock bands in over a decade. Their albums were a mixture of post-punk vitriol and performance art, with the latter spilling into the live shows. Bradford Cox was a front man that dared an audience to come at him. You never knew if you’d see the […]

Billow Observatory : III: Chroma/Contour

It’s always a wondrous thing to step into a Billow Observatory record. The electronic duo of Jonas Munk(Causa Sui) and Jason Kolb(Auburn Lull) don’t make your typical ambient electronic. Theirs is more this crystalline sound that feels like stepping into uncharted territory, or stumbling into the fortress of solitude. They build immaculate walls of drone, […]

Random Grab : AC/DC ‘Powerage’

I’m starting a new series on Complex Distractions called ‘Random Grab’. It’s basically what the title suggests, I’m grabbing a random record out of the library and talking about it and its significance to me and my life. The collection is getting pretty big downstairs, so I’m trying to utilize what I have as opposed […]