zakè : Orchestral Tape Studies II

I’m always enthralled by the work of zakè. The ambient/new age composer has spent the last several years building a catalog of forward-thinking, thoughtful, and intellectual albums. Records that accumulate beautifully orchestrated sound collages and sonic realms that put you, the listener, in a state of contemplative and meditative bliss. Using electronics to create both […]

Extreme : Six

If you weren’t an awkward headbanging teen in the late 80s then you wouldn’t understand. To be a fan of hair metal was to suffer through a cavalcade of lousy dime a dozen rock bands. Most, you’d hear about once and then they’d disappear in a haze of White Rain. It was a constant process […]

Lightning Dust : Nostalgia Killer

Lightning Dust started as the electronic/pop side project of Black Mountain members Amber Webber and Joshua Wells, but after 2016s IV, Webber and Wells left the Canadian psych/prog behemoth permanently so they could concentrate on other things, including Lightning Dust. The band released the excellent and more Gothic-tinged Spectre in 2019, the same year that […]

Hawksmoor : Telepathic Heights

James McKeown’s electronic music project Hawksmoor goes deep. McKeown’s sound is dense, heady, and pulls from the best that the early German electronic scene had to offer. Combining the warmth of analog via Moogs, Modular synthesis, guitar, and bass with a rhythmic backbone that feels more implied through mood, Hawksmoor makes the kind of music […]

Queens of the Stone Age : In Times New Roman

Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme has had a pretty rough decade or more. Starting clear back in the early 2010s with a surgery that nearly killed him, then working his way into a very ugly and public battle with ex-wife Brody Dalle of the Distillers. Add in the death of friend and […]

Horned Relic Self : Column Of Shadow

The latest to rise from the crypt over at Library Of The Occult is a curious one. A drone-heavy, haunted Berlin School affair from a project called Horned Relic Self. Not much information about who’s responsible for these haunted sound excursions, but when it’s this good you can forgive a few details missing. Column Of […]

Rupert Lally : Multitudes

Swiss-based, UK-born composer Rupert Lally seems to be able to do anything. Now an established author, Lally has been putting out thoughtful and engaging electronic music for some time. I personally discovered him with his releases via the great UK electronic label Spun Out Of Control. Albums like The Prospect, Where The Dark Speaks, Maniac’s […]

Protomartyr : Formal Growth In The Desert

Detroit’s Protomartyr have been leading the way in the modern post-punk movement, starting with their debut album, 2012s No Passion All Technique. Each album improved and evolved the sound, which consisted of jagged guitars, a solid rhythm section, and lead singer Joe Casey’s poetic lyricism delivered in the voice of a soothsayer booming society’s doomed […]

Foo Fighters : But Here We Are

Dave Grohl is one of those people you wish you were friends with. Someone you’d love to hang out with and talk about music, movies, favorite drummers, or whatever. He’s just got something about him that says ‘I’m genuine”. There’s also the fact he was in Nirvana, then tragedy hit and Nirvana was no more. […]

Ben Folds : What Matters Most

Ben Folds Five were one of those bands that you either loved or loathed. There really wasn’t an “ehh, they’re not bad” category. They hit at just the right time for me. Their cabaret-meets-punk rock-meets-power pop mash up made the 90s bearable, eliciting something close to earnestness in a sea of indifference.That is, in-between songs […]