Heavy-hearted in the Midwest since 2011
In these tumultuous times I find music is the saving grace. A place to get lost in and a place to heal those psychic wounds. Of course it’s a temporary reprieve, but in these caustic days even a temporary locale to let your guard down is welcome. I’m finding that electronic music has been my […]
Read More Baldocaster/Traveler CS : Exodus/Solare Split EPThe musical world of Salvatore Mercatante is a mysterious and darkly brooding one. Working in the world minimalist synth, ambient, and Giallo, Mercatante locks into emotions and visceral experience when he composes. His work puts me in mind of Maine, another synth maestro that goes for feel and the musical journey over aping what’s come […]
Read More Salvatore Mercatante : The Foundations Of Eternal SinHeinrich Dressel is the German composer alter ego of Italian musician Valerio Lombardozzi. Lombardozzi records under many aliases, but with Dressel he’s all about old school “creature feature” film scores. On his first release with the excellent Spun Out Of Control, Lombardozzi gives us Heinrich Dressel’s Shapeshifting, a nod of the (severed)head to monster movies, […]
Read More Heinrich Dressel : ShapeshiftingThe collaboration between Danish musicians Martin Rude and Jakob Skøtt has proven to be most fruitful. The mixture of Rude’s open guitar tunings and double bass with Skøtt’s fluid drumming and ethereal synths and electronics gave their debut LP The Discipline of Assent an epic, galactic jazz western feel. A soundtrack to some retro-futuristic Leone film […]
Read More Martin Rude & Jakob Skøtt Duo : The Dichotomy Of ControlThe only birthdays that matter are for children and dogs. Birthdays for adults just seem like obligations. Obligations for you to accept that you’re a year older, and obligations for those around you to acknowledge that year milestone by saying “Happy birthday, you old so n so!”. Or even worse at work where the obligation, […]
Read More Birthdays are for children and dogsIt’s been a stellar year for Dream Division’s Tom McDowell. Not only has he released two new Dream Division albums, he started his own record label this past July called Library of the Occult. Releasing The Devil Rides Out on his own label, followed by Beyond The Mirror’s Image on Burning Witches Records, he also […]
Read More Dream Division : Death Walks On NitrateAlice In Chains’ Facelift was unlike any album I’d heard when I first put it in my ears of December 1990. They were a Seattle band, but they were not like Soundgarden, Mother Love Bone, Screaming Trees, or Mudhoney. They were darker and much more metal than their Pacific Northwest peers. With Jerry Cantrell’s guitar […]
Read More “Lost inside my sick head”…If ever there was a year that gave so many so little to be thankful for, it’s 2020. Illness, deaths, job losses, isolated from family and friends, and the entire election cycle of poisoned rhetoric and flat-out lies has made this a year I think we’d all like to just flush like the giant turd […]
Read More ThankfulThe show that makes up the new live set Live In Maui by The Jimi Hendrix Experience was recorded a mere two months before Jimi Hendrix’ death in September of 1970. On July 30th, 1970 Jimi and his second iteration of his Experience, which consisted of drummer Mitch Mitchell and bassist Billy Cox, flew to […]
Read More The Jimi Hendrix Experience : Live In MauiThere’s a few things that always make me feel better when I’m under the weather; watching horror movies, Chinese food, raspberry jello, and new records. I’ve covered all of them over the course of this two week stint at the Hotel Covid. Today is a special day for new records, as last night my good […]
Read More The Gentle Hum Of Anxiety : Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ ‘The Social Network’ S/T