The Strange Case Of Patrick Xavier, Stuart Hamm, And Me

I’d say it was spring of 1990. I was a full-fledged guitar dork by then – practicing in my basement space dad built for me – in lieu of underage drinking, toking, dating, athletics, or any of the other malarky teens in R-Rated comedies were doing in the 80s. It wasn’t that I was a […]

Blake Mills : Jelly Road

Blake Mills could have gone the route of a world famous pop producer. As a producer he’s worked with Alabama Shakes, Fiona Apple, Perfume Genius, Sky Ferreira, and Marcus Mumford. And as a session musician he’s played with Bob Dylan, Weezer, Conor Oberst, Pink, Dixie Chicks, and Lana Del Rey to name just a few. […]

London Odense Ensemble : Live At Jaiyede Jazz Festival

When you’re as tight, forward-thinking, and exploratory as London Odense Ensemble it’s hard not to keep striking while the iron’s hot. The five-piece fusion/cosmic jazz collective is made up of Danish musicians Jonas Munk(guitar), Martin Rude(bass), and Jakob Skøtt(drums); as well as London-based Tamar Osborn(saxophone, winds) and Al MacSween(keyboards). A fruitful recording session back in […]

zakè and City of Dawn : Ash

There’s a kind of musical alchemy when Zach Frizzell (zakè) and Damien Duque (City Of Dawn) come together. I first heard these two back in 2020 as Dawn Chorus and the Infallible Sea(along with Marc Ertel.) Their Azure Vista Records debut Liberamente was a breath of fresh air; blankets of sonic warmth and sublime tones […]

Dream Division Returns With Cosmic New Album ‘Lumarian’, Out 8/4 ; Listen To “Odyssey ft Jorja Chalmers”

Tom McDowell has kept himself pretty busy since the summer of 2020 with the launch of his label Library of the Occult. The first release for his synth-heavy record label was his own Dream Division’s The Devil Rides Out, a musical interpretation of Dennis Wheatley’s occult classic novel. That album opened the door to three […]

Jonas Munk Returns With The Gorgeous ‘Dawn Layer’ ; New Full-Length On The Horizon

When it comes to ambient electronic music, I have to say I’m not an expert. I’d never say I’m some ambient historian with charts and graphs and crates of Windham Hill and private press releases in my vinyl dungeon, where I go to unplug from the harsh reality of 21st century livin’. No, but I […]

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 […]