Heavy-hearted in the Midwest since 2011
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 […]
Read More Sounds of the Universe : A Conversation With Astral TVSo 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 […]
Read More Music From Way Out: The Interstellar Psych Of Jakob SkottThe 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 […]
Read More Labor Of LoveBurial Grid’s Adam Michael Kozak has put together a pretty amazing new album called Shores of Quiddity. It’s a record that came together over the course of 2020, a year filled with both social and personal strife for Kozak. His work has always been a balancing act between light and dark, with a heavy lean […]
Read More Burial Grid’s “4am Knows My Secrets” Is Subtle Melancholy With Anxiety Just Under the SurfaceHere’s another ‘Long Story Short’ post. This is where I compress a handful of reviews into one post. Why? Well because there’s too much good music and not enough clones of myself to write expansive reviews for each release. So I’m dropping a paragraph each about some albums I think you should put in your […]
Read More Long Story Short : Video Age, Sermons By The Devil, Andy Fosberry, and PharagonesiaThe newest release from synth pioneer Lisa Bella Donna sees her paying tribute to another pioneer, Bob Moog. Lisa Bella Donna pays tribute by making an album of exquisite sonic tastes; a record created with the Moog at the heart of it. Moogmentum is a sonic journey that only requires an open mind and open […]
Read More Lisa Bella Donna : MoogmentumEver since their debut album Roads To Judah, Deafheaven have been on a steady incline. Each record outdid the previous in scope, musicality, and artistic depth. Their sound was loud, abrasive, and aggressive, but also extremely melodic and at times melancholy. “Blackgaze” , combining black metal and shoegaze, may be a trite tag but it […]
Read More Deafheaven : Infinite GraniteHey there, I know it’s Saturday and the weekend so you’ve got plenty of stuff going on. But do me a favor and take 3 1/2 minutes out of your day and watch the new video from Sankofa called “Dali Rolex”. He’s been hyping this for a while and it finally dropped. It was worth […]
Read More Stop What You’re Doing And Watch Sankofa’s “Dali Rolex”The latest trip dropping from the UK electronic label Waxing Crescent Records is a two-part collaboration between New York’s Salvatore Mercatante and the UK project Veins Full Of Static called Machine Memories. These two prolific artists split album sides for long form, existential floats into the ether. Ambient in spirit, but each artist approaches their […]
Read More Salvatore Mercatante & Veins Full Of Static : Machine MemoriesLibrary of the Occult returns to the fold of forward-thinking psychedelic/horror/giallo music on September 3rd with the latest from The Psychic Circle called Seven Colours Of The Psychic Circle. Tom McDowell’s side/band project dives into Argento/Bava/Fulci territory with a 7-track LP that locks tight(like a gloved hand around a throat) into both Giallo sensibility while […]
Read More The Psychic Circle Returns With ‘Seven Colours Of The Psychic Circle’, Out September 3rd; Listen To “Colore Della Morte”