Umberto : Black Bile

Musician/composer Matt Hill, aka Umberto, started out releasing albums that felt like imagined soundtracks to horror and sci fi films. Pulling heavily from 70s Italian horror films you’d catch late night after everyone went to bed, his early albums had everything from Italio Disco, Giallo melodrama, and synth-heavy sci fi sounds. His moniker was taken […]

White Hills : Beyond This Fiction

At this point the New York psych rock duo White Hills have become an institution. Muti-instrumentalists Dave W and Ego Sensation have for the better part of 20 years now been consistently writing, recording, and releasing rock and roll records that bring everything from psych, noise, industrial, garage, and Krautrock into their sound. This duo […]

Lotus : Synthbuljong

The European jazz/psych quartet Lotus’ debut release Synthbuljong is a force to be reckoned with. The band – which consists of percussionist Olaf Olsen (Fra Det Onde, Needlepoint), Chris Holm (Orions Belte, Sondre Lerches band), alto saxophonist Signe Emmeluth, and experimental electric guitarist Karl Bjorå – are not making your grandpa’s jazz music(unless grandpa was […]

Uniform : American Standard

Uniform is not for the weak of heart. Their music is a mixture of power drill guitars, industrial drums, and pained, shrieking vocals. Imagine bands like Godflesh, Ministry, and early NIN injected with Bane’s “Venom” and they roided out into an ominous extreme metal rage. That might be the tip of the iceberg for the […]

Juicer : Retire The Fences

Once in a while I come across an album that hits me hard with a quiet, melancholy simplicity. It locks into gorgeous pop sensibilities while never being too sweet and sunny for its own good. Bands like Wild Nothing, DIIV, Shy Boys, and Beach Fossils to name a few lock into sounds of old and […]

Marc Moulin’s ‘Sam’ Suffy’

I first came across Belgian musician and journalist Marc Moulin back in 2014. I was visiting Neat Neat Neat Records in late April 2014 with my wife. We were there to pick up the LCD Soundsystem box set The Long Goodbye(a RSD 2014 release.) He still had a copy from the big day a week […]

The Smashing Pumpkins : Aghori Mhori Mei

There was a time when The Smashing Pumpkins were a revered, loved, slightly misunderstood but ultimately great band. Gish, Siamese Dream, and Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness were all monumental albums. Gish was the psychedelic little brother to the giants Siamese and Mellon Collie. Siamese laid the groundwork for Big Muff guitar fuzz that […]

Osees : SORCS 80

John Dwyer is a guy seemingly never at rest. His band Osees(or Oh Sees, Thee Oh Sees, The Oh Sees, The Ohsees, or OCS depending on which way the wind blows) are a revolving door of garage, noise, psych, electro rock and occasionally whiffs of prog and metal that never stays in just one lane(hence […]

“Mr. Clean”

Other names tend to pop up when you think of jazz trumpeters. Of course Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Kenny Dorham, and Louis Armstrong come to mind, as does Chet Baker and Lee Morgan. But there’s one cat that was born in Indianapolis, IN that for my money is one of the most underrated jazz trumpeters […]

J.R.C.G. : Grim Iconic…(Sadistic Mantra)

Justin R. Cruz Gallego, aka Tacoma-based musician known as J.R.C.G. defies a tag to any sort of genre. Listening to his Sub Pop debut Grim Iconic…(Sadistic Mantra) you’re hit in the chest with serious rhythmic and groove intentions. He locks into his Latin roots and lays down some seriously heady percussive trips, but on top […]