Heavy-hearted in the Midwest since 2011
So the last two days I’ve been immersed in some seriously heady sounds. News came through the wire(you know, that elusive wire that contains information you really want to be privy to) that Jonas Munk, he of Manual and Causa Sui fame, would be releasing his second solo record on his own label El Paraiso […]
Read More El Paraiso Records and ‘Absorb, Fabric, Cascade’I’ve never really been much into live albums. For some reason they just don’t do much for me. They never seem to truly capture the magic of that moment. You know the moment I’m referring to. It’s that moment when you’re in a sweaty room or overcrowded theater and as sweat is dripping down your […]
Read More Dr. Dog : Live At A Flamingo HotelListening to Alex Calder’s Strange Dreams I had the strongest feeling of deja vu I’ve ever had. It was as if I’d heard the album before. Hell, it was as if I’d written about it in fact. But how could that be? How could I have written a review for an album I’d never heard […]
Read More Alex Calder : Strange DreamsSo back in the summer of 2014 I got on this Tangerine Dream kick. I mean, I’d owned a couple records of theirs since back in 2009, but I wasn’t really a fan until this past summer. My local record shop had pulled in this huge haul of used vinyl and amongst the giant catch […]
Read More Edgar Froese: A Eulogy of SortsWay back in July of 2014 I was lucky enough to sit down and pick the brain of Causa Sui drummer and sound wizard Jakob Skott about his excellent albums Doppler and Amor Fati, as well as his work with Causa Sui. We also discussed running his own record label, El Paraiso Records, along with […]
Read More “Something Unimagined” : Jakob Skott Talks Taurus Rising and Future Horizons“Newspaper Spoons” opens like a distant canon firing into the abyss. An overblown kick drum beats like a death knell before Matt Flegel sings “Writhing violence essentially without distortion, Wired silent, vanishing into the boredom”. It’s a hell of a way to open a debut album, but that’s just the kind of album Viet Cong […]
Read More Viet Cong : Viet CongToday was the first official day of my week off. Well, yesterday I was off as well but that was a company-wide holiday. I’m on my time now. Why am I off? My wife is gone all week for work-related stuff so I decided I’d stay home, get the kids off to school, enjoy some […]
Read More January SabbaticalI was a timid 15 year old kid. I didn’t seek out the spotlight, even though I’d been playing guitar for three years by the summer of 1989. I was the introverted guitar player. I was inclined to stay in my practice room my dad had built for me in the basement for the majority […]
Read More Out Of The Silent Midwest : King’s X Reissues, Summer Recollections, and the Fine Art of Friendship“Sequential Circuits” is really the best way Noah Lennox could bring us into the world of his newest musical hallucination called Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper. With its percolating synths, fluid gurgles, and Lennox’ own angelic harmonies floating above the song like paisley-colored clouds the song is a perfect mix of both Panda Bear’s […]
Read More Panda Bear :: Panda Bear Meets the Grim ReaperAfter a pretty casual Saturday filled with Netflix bingeing, spinning tunes, and recording tracks in the studio; and even enjoying a nice stout or two in the evening I heard that phrase that kills a buzz quicker than anything: “I puked.” Yes, my son who I’ve dubbed “my little puker” thoughtfully made it to the […]
Read More Whatever Gets You Through The Night