Genre fans may find flashier or heavier albums this year, but there’s little doubt that Everlasting Instant will rank as one of 2015’s most beautiful, tasteful, and timeless progressive rock albums.
In an homage to the live double album movement of the ’70s, Sacramento, CA noisician, Bob Scott, aka Xome, celebrates over twenty-five years of deconstructing sound with an epic live collection compiling performances from the past decade.
With a sound influenced by hip hop but stylistically closer to folk, the band isn’t entirely dissimilar to early-era Beck.
Newcomers to and admirers of Jansch will be elated with_Live at the 12 Bar_. It’s a benevolent document of the man and the tremendous powers he possessed, even later in his career.
Bachman’s newest, River, is where all the labor he’s put into his work thus far, pays off and focalizes onto one singular piece of wax.
Upstate New York’s cryptic Black Dirt Oak team up with Brooklyn’s mysterious Jantar for a split release of shadowy, spiritual magic.
South Korean-based psychedelic folk ex-pats, Language of Shapes, fully realize their sound with an EP containing three re-recordings and one new track.
Influenced by neopsychedelica and shoegaze, their lo-fi sound is based less on actual definable instruments and traditional melodies or rhythms than textures, emotions, and sensations.
Bedroom Hong Kong hip-hop producer, Little Albert, drops an EP that shows just how far around the world the genre has reached.
Songs From Suicide Bridge is not just a record for collectors. It’s an album for anyone who’s put their heart and soul into something, to see it crash and burn.
Single Drops_ is a great introduction for any newcomer of Luca Bash’s music, and will only serve as an excuse to delve further into his discography.
By no means something to put on the background and forget, Own Your Ocean is an enthralling and beautiful sucker punch straight to the gut.
Carnation (Sub Pop 2015) finds Daughn Gibson walking boldly out of the swinging doors of the saloon and into the neon new wave of the city.The transition isn’t seamless, but the singer sounds confident and relaxed.
The sound is rawer and harder than before, and there’s less of a focus on soulful melodies here than just pure grooves.
Much like 2013’s Electric, Still gives Thompson new context and the freedom he needs to continue chasing the muse.
Mirage is a bold and admirable attempt at a modern rock opera, and for the most part it succeeds magnificently.
Magnetoception is Earth music. It doesn’t have a specific locale or grab from easily accessed niche genres. It is music that is living, persisting and actively developing: it’s also one of the best albums of 2015.
Beyond cementing the idea that a lone musician can craft wonderfully emotional, colorful, and resourceful art, Olive Skinned, Silver Tongued Sirens Sing Swan Songs further demonstrates that much of the most original and impactful music of today is being made under the radar, without the financial backing, mainstream publicity, or pop culture power of many severely inferior acts.
This EP is the story of a narrator who remains cautiously optimistic in spite of everything he has seen and been through.
Melbourne, Australia’s Pale Heads, comprised of members of Batpiss, The Nation Blue and former members of The Drones and Pairs, e.g., drummer Xiao Zhong aka Rhys, erupt with a noisy debut borne from Australian angst.
New York hardcore newcomers, CHUD, make their debut with a blistering eight-song EP that goes straight for the jugular with the confidence of a puma.
Twenty-seven years after its initial 1988 release on Virgin, the lone studio album by Last Exit, the free jazz supergroup comprised of guitarist Sonny Sharrock, saxophonist Peter Brötzmann, bassist/producer Bill Laswell and drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson, emerges from history to influence a new generation of improvisation enthusiasts.
“For those familiar with the band’s majestic debut, you will be extremely happy with the gorgeous layers of lush dream pop (the phenomenal “No Happy Day”) contained herein. Think Cocteau Twins and Slowdive for a start, but expect the band’s shimmering, original take on this heavily mined genre.
Baltimore-via-Chicago duo, Wume, expand further into the universe with a second release of hypnotic “kosmische musik.”
A London trio mine some of punk’s greatest heroes in this debut LP.
The Underground Railroad to Candyland is a gloriously democratic, technicolor chaos machine.
““Diamond Girl” is my favorite track on the EP, maybe because it reminds me of what Engineers would sound like from a post rock perspective. It is a tripped out masterpiece with all the cool fx you can imagine, shoegaze with a prog sheen to it.
Bassist Dana Schechter (Bee and Flower, Angels of Light) delivers a powerful debut full-length as Insect Ark, her one-woman experimental doom project.
“Wow, what a treat! A split EP from two of my favorite psych bands, timed for release with the change into full summer. The EP title is fitting, as are track names from “dawn” to “meadowsweet” to “sunshine in my head”. Everything is lowercase, from the band names to song titles, but the music is UPPERCASE with a bang!”
“England’s Presents for Sally is reassuringly great whenever they find the time to release music.”
Delaware’s Teen Men offer a debut that draws from ’80s atmospheres for inspiration.
“All that matters is the music, and rest assured that it’s wonderful. I look forward to hearing a lot more from this up and coming band.”
“But I already have this stuff,” you say. Guess again, Billy.
Indonesian psychedelic gods, Napolleon, deliver an astounding debut of heavy, effects-laden mind bending.
Former guitarist for Medway, UK’s The Dentists, Bob Collins, offers a debut solo album that owes as much to his psychedelic garage background as to power pop.
St. Louis, MO garage rockers, Bunnygrunt, return with another loud, fuzzy concoction hoping to shed the “twee” tag once and for all with Black Sabbath references and even forays into krautrock.
Four skater kids from Baltimore create a bunch of loud, dumb fun on their debut.
Originally released in 1982, the first “deep trance electronic album” by Texan minimalist composer, JD Emmanuel, gets a remastered reissue that includes two bonus tracks cut from the original LP.
Germany’s (and possibly the world’s) premiere electronic Medieval fantasy band, QNTAL, use Romantic literature to expand their scope on the group’s seventh full-length.
This Brooklyn quartet make loud garage rock for fans of breathing oxygen (and maybe a little nitrous).
The Shoe Birds, from Mississippi, offer an eight song debut born from the Southern experience.
Lyricist Stephen Kalinich (Beach Boys) and songwriter/producer Jon Tiven (Alex Chilton, The Jim Carroll Band, Frank Black) team up for their third album of psychedelic soul, continuing the partnership they began with 2012’s double album, Shortcuts to Infinity/Symptomology (MsMusic).
Former Prefects/Nightingales guitarist, Joe Crow, released his debut solo 7” on Cherry Red in 1981. Now expanded to five tracks and remastered, this reissue shows the Birmingham, UK musician coming into his own.
Originally released in 1978 on his own Oblique Records in London, the seminal synthpop debut by Thomas Leer (Act) finally sees an expanded remastered reissue including two bonus cuts.
Under his more common nom de plume, Time Moth Eye, dark folk minstrel Timothy (Stone Breath) delivers a massive work of music and art that fully displays the depth of his talent and passion for rebellion.
California psychedelic pop that hits the sweet spot from former Fling frontman Dustin Lovelis.
Tetra’s voice, like her music, is soulful and bluesy, a feat rare in a genre notorious for regularly being devoid of both.
The Chicago legend returns with his most accessible (and best) solo album yet.
