The wonderful Colorado outfit Moon Tides that we had featured a while back with their first-ever single To Be returns with their second song - Swimming is yet another nice and easy summer tune that makes us long for those lush endless nights on the beach we can barely remember, and yes indeed we've used those words several times before but seriously, this music demands auch a description and we just won't stop until we've grown tired of listening, and we don't see how this could ever happen. Sweat Lodge Guru is gonna put out Moon Tides' debut cassette soon, and man we're just happy that they do.
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Completely devastated right now by this latest forlorn lullaby by Pensacola, Florida shoegaze devotee Jeremy Mullins aka Optimist Park, another fragile beauty to remind us of the finiteness of all things worth saving - "what was I to do?", Mullins asks humbly before the song bursts into a sea of noise and tears that eventually collapses, leaving only the distant hints of a fading heartbeat, but we cannot help him here, we never could, we can barely help ourselves. Spring has arrived today, by the way.
Optimist Park - The Clouds and the MountainRead more →
The friendly folks over at Minneapolis, Minnesota's Moon Glyph have sent over the latest raw gem on their delicious roster, the House of Mighty cassette by Chicago outfit Deep Earth - or, rather the Deep Earth Soundsystem Consciousness Network, "a rotating hub of ideas based on electronic synthesis, rhythmic maneuvering, and minimal excursions".
Running over the course of thirty minutes, the four track cassette House of Mighty is a thorough incursion into the realms of analog synth soundscaping, heavily drifting and dense pieces relying on pumping drums and basslines along with terrific walls of guitar noise, developing an irresistible maelstrom of psychedelic sounds as exemplified in the shortest yet also most unsettling track Speak My Language below.
Order the C30 tape over here.
Deep Earth - Speak My LanguageRead more →
North Mississippi Cats Purring affiliates Dead Gaze return with some wonderfully lush and spring-inducing psych-pop on a brand new 7 inch, out now via the raddest French labels under the sun, Atelier Ciseaux and La Station Radar. Somewhere Else, the single's a-side, is a subtly off-kilter piece of guitar glory, with a gently melancholic tone evoking images of lazy, sundrenched days in the deep old south.
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A few weeks back, we wrote about the Circa Limited Edition CD Series by New South Wales imprint Preservation. The series has just seen its fourth installment, and to our delight it's the first full-length CD release by LaGrange, Georgia husband/wife duo Quiet Evenings, consisting of Rachel aka Motion Sickness Of Time Travel and Grant Evans aka Nova Scotian Arms.
The title track of Transcending Spheres is a slow-burning piece of ambient drones and noise, with deep yet reduced layers of synth patterns and guitars leading to another contemplating experience in sonic drifting that we've come to love so much in recent underground psychedelia. Listen to the track below and get lost in the perfectly ethereal (and very erotic) visualization by Rachel Evans.
You can order Transcending Sphereshere. Again limited to 300.
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Apparently, some people don't have those things we call "links". They don't talk that much about themselves, either. They just send over their music. Take as an example some dude named Tom from Hereford, England, who records music under the moniker Apostles that he likes to call "icy art-psych". We don't know what "icy art-psych" might be, but man are we blown away by these tunes. No further words needed.
(Photo by Ktinka)
Apostles - GlacialApostles - Wasting AwayRead more →
The highly prolific Chicago synth wizard Elon Katz of White Car must've had a particularly busy time lately. Not enough that he's dropped two cassettes via Catholic Tapes, The Pylori Program under his own name and Ooze as Streetwalker, the project he pursues together with Beau Wanzer (read about it here) - now, he has additionally teamed up with Berkeley, California's Gryphon Myers to come up as Aguirre.
The duo's debut effort New Sects, out now via our beloved Burlington, Vermont imprint NNA Tapes, is a 54-minute exploration into the depths of electronic music, "equal parts swirling and chaotic synth debris, 90’s style IDM throwback, and hard-hitting electro pulse dance action", according to the label. We're not entirely sure which category closing track Layphi belongs to, but over almost six minutes the slow-burning piece unfolds a wide range of synth-induced chirps and tweets over a subdued bassline, restrained electronic percussion and a melody made up of spacey synth patterns and chimes that give the tune a wonderfully tense, almost cinematic feel, leaving the listener waiting for the villain to finally appear on the scene.
Get the tape over here.
Aguirre - LayphiRead more →
After Rites Wild Theme and Ill Health, here's another dark beauty by Adelaide, South Australia's Stacey Wilson aka Rites Wild from her self-titled EP, released on cassette and available now via mail ordering.
EP opening track Thieves is driven by gloomy organs and subtle drum machine loops to give appropriate room for Wilson's eerie, reverb-drenched vocals, all in all a very reduced, almost cautious song that nonetheless may serve as an excellent introduction into the sonic otherworld of Rites Wild.
(Photo)
Rites Wild - ThievesRead more →
Completely devastated right now by this latest forlorn lullaby by Pensacola, Florida shoegaze devotee Jeremy Mullins aka Optimist Park, another fragile beauty to remind us of the finiteness of all things worth saving - "what was I to do?", Mullins asks humbly before the song bursts into a sea of noise and tears that eventually collapses, leaving only the distant hints of a fading heartbeat, but we cannot help him here, we never could, we can barely help ourselves. Spring has arrived today, by the way.
Optimist Park - The Clouds and the Mountain
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