Album Review: John Carpenter – Lost Themes
John Carpenter colored at least two generations’ dreams in burnt fall hues. Faded browns, oranges, yellows, and reds, topped with gray, overcast skies bled into our psyche and made us re-imagine Halloween in a whole new way. In a way where the fear we felt walking down the sidewalk in our Darth Vader costume holding a …
Meet: A Talk With Jakob Skott
Way 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 Causa Sui guitarist Jonas …
Album Review: Viet Cong – Viet Cong
“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 is. With every …
Album Review : Language of Shapes :: Mother Mountain
Language of Shapes inhabit a musical world all their own. Not that they don’t allow certain musical influences to seep into that world and show themselves now and then, but for the most part LoS score their wonderful little universe all their own. Their self-titled debut from 2012 showed a band brimming and bursting with …
Feature: New Music For The New Year – Albums To Look Forward To In 2015
I know, I know. This should be my favorite albums of 2014, not albums I’m looking forward to in 2015. As much as I love the favorite lists, and as satisfying as it is once I’m done with making my own and sharing it with the world, I have to admit it’s quite a daunting …
Artist Spotlight: Medicine’s Brad Laner
As I sit and listen to Medicine’s newest record Home Everywhere I’m astounded by the fact that they’re still largely seen as an underground band. If I asked the first four people I see if they know who the band Medicine is they would all likely say they have no idea who they are. Sure, …
Album Review : My Drunken Haze – My Drunken Haze
One listen to Athens, Greece quintet My Drunken Haze and their self-titled debut, you can tell they’ve done their homework. Their sound is colored with hues found on a late-60s psychedelic color wheel. They veer more on the side of pop than rock, but that’s not to say a fuzz pedal isn’t engaged here and …
Album Review: Medicine – Home Everywhere
I’ve been listening to Medicine’s new album Home Everywhere for three days straight and I’m still finding new nuggets of aural beauty every time I hit play. Brad Laner, Beth Thompson, and Jim Goodall don’t make cut and dry kind of albums. They make albums that beg for repeated listens. Much like the films of …
Meet: Nightmares and Dreamscapes – The Dark, Musical World of The Night Terrors
Once in a while you come across some musical treasure that not only shakes you up a bit, but it evokes serious emotion. It lulls you into a trance and simultaneously curdles the blood running through your veins. Deep in the cold, desolate Midwest winter of 2014 I was introduced to the musical world of …
Album Review: Thurston Moore – The Best Day
So if we were keeping score(which I am), then Kim Gordon was whipping Thurston Moore in regards to the quality of post-breakup records. Her Body/Head album from last year was miles ahead of Moore’s mediocre Chelsea Light Moving album that came out last year as well. She made an album that was just as much …