The Black Crowes : Happiness Bastards

Sibling rivalry in rock bands is a long-standing tradition in the pantheon of rock and roll. The Kinks, The Jesus Mary Chain, Beach Boys, The Breeders and Oasis are just a few examples where siblings in a band had issues with each other from time to time. Something about that sibling rivalry, it would either […]

Ariel Kalma, Jeremiah Chiu, and Marta Sofia Honer : The Closest Thing To Silence

The best instrumental music takes you out of what you perceive to be your world and opens doors to new ones. It brings the curtain down on reality so that you can expand your mental and emotional horizons. Instrumental music doesn’t need words to guide you somewhere, as the composition built from instruments is the […]

zakè : B⁴+3

The latest from ambient sound wizard Zach Frizzell, aka zakè, is the enigmatic and widescreen effort B⁴+3. Originally known as B⁴, a 2023 Zakè Drone Recordings release that was a musical companion to art prints created by Frizzell, zakè felt that he wasn’t yet finished with this record. In fact, in describing that feeling he […]

Ivan The Tolerable Trio : Infinite Peace

Oli Heffernan, aka Ivan The Tolerable, isn’t one to chill and take some down time. He’s a musician on a mission, and that mission is to dive into the deep end of the pool and see how far down he can go. Dig deep and explore. His music is a crossroads of heady jams, psychedelic […]

Idles : Tangk

Idles started out as this punk/pub hybrid of a band. You could hear the sound they were heading towards on their first two records, Brutalism(2017) and Joy as an Act of Resistance(2018), but the Bristol band were still finding themselves. It wasn’t until Ultra Mono(2020) that the post-punk stomp and singer Joe Talbot’s barking militant […]

The Hologram People : Isola Dei Morti Viventi

I first came across The Hologram People via their excellent long player Village of the Snake God. That Library of the Occult release was nothing short of brilliant; LSD-laced music freakouts that combined 70s funk, acid folk, and just the right amount of psychedelia to get you wondering what reality you’re currently existing in. There […]

36 : Reality Engine

Dennis Huddleston, aka electronic artist 36, makes electronic music in the grand tradition of trailblazers like Edgar Froese, Klaus Schulze, and Jean-Michel Jarre. And what I mean by that is 36 works on grand scales, building crystalline sound worlds where one gets lost for a bit. Where some ambient feels like slow motion cloud formation […]

Long Story Short(Ambient Edition) : Slow Dancing Society/Billow Observatory/zakè/Chihei Hatakeyama, Hakobune, From Overseas, zake

2024. So how’s the new year been treating you? Already one month down, just eleven more to go and we’ll be looking at 2025. But hey, let’s not rush it. It’s going to go by fast enough as it is. Let’s talk about some soothing, heady sounds that might help you through it all, shall […]

Ty Segall : Three Bells

Ty Segall has covered a lot of musical ground over the last 15 years since he emerged from the California garage rock scene. The guy doesn’t seem to ever take a break; whether it’s solo albums, collaborations, or even soundtracks Segall doesn’t rest. You’d think he’d start repeating himself at some point but that’s not […]

The Smile : Wall Of Eyes

The Smile emerged in 2022 six years after the last full-length Radiohead album A Moon Shaped Pool. Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, and drummer Tom Skinner got together to make pared down rock and roll, with Yorke and Greenwood switching back and forth between bass, guitar , and electronics. The result was the excellent A Light […]