Bell Witch : Mirror Reaper

Bell Witch’s Mirror Reaper is an album that takes some time opening up and getting inside. It’s a dense affair that feels very much like a meditation on grief and mourning. It’s a record that takes patience in order to get through, as it’s one 84-minute track. If that last sentence scares you, then Mirror […]

I bet your 7″ lathe cut can’t do this….

I thought I’d seen everything. From UFOs landing in Midwest cornfields and their extraterrestrial pilots revealing to me the meaning of existence thru an old Lite Brite, to talking coyotes that revealed to me the meaning of existence thru an old Milton Bradley Simon game, to a monkey that could make Toaster Strudels for a […]

Causa Sui : Vibraciones Doradas

When I think of Denmark’s Causa Sui I think of vast open spaces. I think of widescreen grooves and vacuum tubes a-glow with the orange of humming fuzz. This four-piece have made it their mission to not be pigeonholed by any one genre or mindset. They explore the dark corners of Sabbath-ian dirges to the […]

Carlton Melton : Hidden Lights

Whenever you drop the needle on a Carlton Melton album you can almost always expect to be taken on a journey. Their albums are these sonic doorways into alternate realities that are sometimes serene and sometimes gritty. The musical world of Carlton Melton is an often gauzy trip into hazy synths, swaths of guitar, and […]

Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile : Lotta Sea Lice

Maybe you were like me(or maybe you weren’t) that when you heard Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile were making a collaborative album together it just seemed like the perfect match. There’s a care-free quality about both of them that a coming together of these two seemed like the right thing. The essential thing, even. I’ve […]

Tangerine Dream : Quantum Gate

It’s not very often that a band can continue on after the heart of that band passes on. There’s just something that goes when the center of a musical universe supernovas into the next existential plane. It seemed that when Edgar Froese passed on in early 2015 his constant musical project for the last 45 […]

Eno & Shields’ “Only Once Away My Son”

A couple of weeks ago when it was announced that Kevin Shields had finally finished the long anticipated vinyl remastering of My Bloody Valentine’s Isn’t Anything and the masterpiece that is Loveless I of course couldn’t get to Paypal quick enough to preorder these beauties. They will be shipping in January of 2018. In the […]

John Carpenter : Anthology: Movie Themes 1974-1998

I believe we’ve entered the John Carpenter renaissance. Five years ago the man was on the bitter end of a film career that had seen better days. To those in the know the man was and is a filmmaking icon. His subtle nuances, patient tension building, exquisite camera work, and of course his film scoring […]

Mogwai : Every Country’s Sun

I had a rough first start with Mogwai. My initial introduction to Mogwai was the Curiosa Festival back in 2004. I thought I was going to be decimated in the spot I stood in the pavilion of the World Music Theater by the sheer volume that emanated from the stage. It was a kind of […]

Primus : The Desaturating Seven

When Primus put out their musical tribute to the Gene Wilder classic Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the aptly-titled Primus & The Chocolate Factory with the Fungi Orchestra back in 2014, everything about the Bay area prog/funk/freak trio seemed to make perfect sense. Les Claypool, the elastic bass genius and singer for the band has […]