Try to imagine a many colored quilt patched with The La’s, and maybe even Paisley Underground faves, The Long Ryders.
At first sight—or rather first sound—*i am Love* may appear to be another band in a long line of indie rock groups like Arcade Fire or Fun., but upon listening to them, you’ll quickly realize something isn’t quite right.
On Ova Nova, this Philadelphia quartet’s distinctive blend of light pop, improvisational jazz/R&B, and angular art-rock feels more hypnotic, fluid, and melodic.
Out of print almost immediately after it was released, Crayon’s sole full-length, one of Sebadoh founder Lou Barlow’s top ten albums of 1994, finally receives its first reissue – on vinyl, no less.
Philadelphia, PA’s explosive Split/Red finally deliver their debut EP containing six caustic songs that live up to the title in every sense.
Fifteen years into their heady brand of sonic mind expansion, New Hope, PA’s Birdie Num Num and the Spirit Squad, the brainchild of vocalist/guitarist Joe Ujj, drops their sixth album like a flaming pile of space junk.
Before he became known as a composer of microtonal electric guitar symphonies, Glenn Branca released several no wave/art rock records that pointed directly to his later work.
Better known as Fantasic Planet in the US, 1973’s French/Czech Cannes award-winning La Planète Sauvage was a masterpiece of psychedelic animation that still resonates today.
On their fourth LP, this decade-old, left-of-center Portland, OR trio sounds less deliberately daft than on past releases. But So Sweet still exhibits enough eccentricities to entice MMS enthusiasts.
Formed in 1972 and finished by late 1975 without releasing an album, Electric Eels (aka “electric eels” in reference to poet e.e. cummings) gave Cleveland, OH the much unwanted slap in the face it deserved.
Having performed together live a few times, guitarist Fred Frith (Henry Cow, Massacre, Naked City) and saxophonist John Butcher (Anemone, The Apophonics, Thermal) entered a studio in 2009 and recorded ten tracks with no overdubs.
After nine years of relative silence, Screaming Headless Torsos, the prog-funk vehicle for virtuoso guitarist, David Fiuczinski, deliver their first studio album with new vocalist, Freedom Bremner.
NYC songstress and Mpress label head Sage follows her exquisite 2012 tenth LP Haunted By You with an even more accomplished, immaculately-crafted eleventh.
West Yorkshire, UK folk experimentalist, Sophie Cooper, delivers her breathtaking third full-length under her own name, cementing her status as the Northern English princess of psychedelia.
An an intimate, honest album, drawing on a unique and complex life.
In a truly bizarre meeting of the Eastern Asian underground, Beijing, China’s Cat AIDS and Osaka, Japan’s Go Tsushima get together for a mind-boggling split cassette release.
A whole year after its initial release as book and CD, Throwing Muses’ epic ninth studio album finally sees a proper vinyl release.
The Workers are primarily a vehicle for New York singer/songwriter Dan Greenwald, and the group has just released a new EP entitled Totem. For the relative heaviness of the EP’s cover artwork, there’s a certain wistful and outsider feel to the songs here.
For his umpteenth release, the creepy, crawly surf master of The Barbarellatones, Robbie Quine, delivers a toned-down, darker version of his vision that still retains all the dry, silly humor we’ve come to know and love.
Nate Paladino is a solo artist from Orange County. Like an American Richard Hawley, Paladino projects himself as a rockabilly artist for the modern age,
Triumphantly returning after their 1992 demise, Coventry, UK’s The Primitives deliver their first full-length of original songs in twenty-two years.
Thirty-four years after initially released, the lone non-cassette LP by experimental industrialist, Philip Johnson, finally receives its first proper reissue.
With Brooklyn’s venue Death By Audio having just closed, many that have found a home in the borough’s D.I.Y. scene are wondering what’s next. While Gowanus’ EndAnd may not wholly be the answer, they certainly provide a visceral breath of fresh air and a sense of relief.
A dozen or so years into her solo career, Los Angeles singer/songwriter, Arrica Rose, continues her musical journey with an album that focuses on the duality of the vinyl format while retaining a solidarity in sequential listening.
Bristol’s post-punk pioneers, The Pop Group, continue their mission of revitalization with a collection of non-album singles, live tracks and previously unreleased songs and takes recorded throughout their career.
Seminal UK post-punk band, The Pop Group, ushers in a series of reissues with a re-release of their 1980 final statement.
York, PA hardcore trio, Police State, offer a smashing debut built on the sonic chaos of crusty thrash punk.
Known for creating dark, atmospheric, at times brutal, soundscapes inspired by writer H.P. Lovecraft, Bobby Yagodich, leader of York, PA’s The Owls Are Not What They Seem, expands his sound with guest performers to create an aurally enthralling fourth full-length.
Returning for their fourth release, the ever-present Thurston Moore and Sunburned Hand of the Man drummer, John Moloney, continue their improvised sonic explorations into ear-splitting black metal intensity under the moniker of Caught on Tape.
Magic Castles hits my sonic sweet spot. Just one listen to the gorgeous “Dragonfly” with its majestic flourishes of guitar and you’ll be bought and sold.
Sydney, Australia’s Michael Cullen is back with his new solo album, True Believer. A post-punk veteran since the 80’s, True Believer finds Cullen growing and channeling more of Nick Cave than the Ian Curtis of his earlier work.
Montreal’s First You Get The Sugar have all the makings to be the next indie darlings. On their new Foreign Lands EP, they show off a stylish, polished brand of pop, injected with a dark and stormy undercurrent.
Perhaps best known as Vashti Bunyan’s guitarist, Glasgow’s Gareth Dickson offers a collection of live solo recordings that effectively uses environment as an accompanying instrument.
Playing without a bassist, this Seattle trio’s deliberately-paced, dark-tinted music skirts the boundaries of ‘90s alterna-rock, ‘80s new wave, and ‘70s funk/prog/disco.
The River is a challenging, rewarding album, leaning more toward prog’s less experimental, song-based 1980s phase, while De Angelis’s soul-searching, solemn words are pensive and ambiguous, and open to interpretation.
Join The Car Crash Set is a beautiful, loving glimpse of a band finally garnering the acknowledgement it deserves, handled with extreme care and detail.
Tenor saxophonist, Matt Nelson (tUnE-yArDs, Battle Trance), delivers a solo debut that explores sonic textures ranging from melodicism to outright noise.
Brooklyn-via-Atlanta-via-Pennsylvania married folk duo, Mark Rogers (The Loom, Myssouri) and Mary Byrne (Hot Young Priest), delivers an intimate debut that is deceptively dark beneath the acoustic lyricism.
Deepfieldview is the musical vision of Danny Lackey, the founder of the When the Sun Hits musical blog. Danny passed away of cancer in 2013, leaving his project unfinished. Producer Charlie Nieland and his wife Nancy Nieland (Her Vanished Grace), Danny’s wife Barbie Lackey, Eric Matthews (Cardinal), Anna Bouchard (Drowner), and Joey Levenson (SPC-ECO) all contributed to this project and brought it to completion.
On her tenth album, LA singer-songwriter, Mia Doi Todd, explores her love of nature with covers of her favorite Brazilian songs sung in their native Portuguese.
California’s Cold Blue Water is a blues rock band in the term’s truest essence. The band sound like Led Zeppelin stripped down to their purest blues element, or Jimi Hendrix in the blues-ier direction he was surely headed for.
After the hiatus announcement of Sonic Youth in 2011, the underwhelming Chelsea Light Moving LP in 2013, and a mild solo career, Thurston Moore reappears with the best solo record of his career entitled The Best Day.
On his new album, Descending, Federico Parra seems to approach music just as much from an intellectual standpoint as an emotional one.
Hailing from the bustling music scene in Brighton, UK, Slum of Legs finally deliver a debut single that shows a penchant for melodicism beside a sneering, aggressive taunt.
Returning to the duo of Timothy and Prydwyn that dominated 1998’s A Silver Thread to Weave the Seasons, Red Lion, PA’s Stone Breath continue their haunting minstrel folk journey of nineteen years.
There are a million, bazillion bands influenced by the discography of Nirvana, but few ever add something new and different to the mix, which is exactly what The Oxford Coma does; a band influenced by grunge that isn’t grunge at all.
“My Time (Taking)” is like reveling inside someone’s beautiful dream where Liz Fraser has a starring role
Shortly after an excellent 7”, The Luxembourg Signal, i.e., the UK/LA dreamgaze supergroup comprised of members of Aberdeen, Fonda and Trembling Blue Stars, deliver their debut masterpiece of fluid melodies, spacey drones and dark mystery.
Seattle’s RxGF have come a long way in a brief four years of existence. Since their beginnings in 2010, the band, driven by John Morgan Reilly, has evolved from their first guitar-heavy recordings to slowly sneaking in synths more and more until their present form on their third album.
