Oneohtrix Point Never

Daniel Lopatin rounds up all the pieces of his free floating synth trilogy into one package that washes over the listener in waves of euphoria, paranoia and displaced humanism. The three individually released albums that make up the set (Betrayed in the Ocatagon, Zones Without People and Russian Mind) follow the tale of an Astronaut stranded on an Earth-like planet filled with inhabitants that spend their lives connected to and dependent on machines but remain convinced they aren't cyborgs. The trilogy ends with the astronaut composing a score from his death bed looking out into a grove of artificial trees. As much as this concept might sound like the basis of a Philip K. Dick novel, the music matches the underlying feelings of alienation, technological crutch and loss of humanity perfectly. Lopatin's analog syth epic captures a time and place in music techonology that sounded at once familiar in structure and completely otherworldly in execution. With each tonal buzz and fizzle of tube the sounds transport listeners further and further into the terraformed realities of Oneohtrix Point Never's universe. Rifts captures the journey in one seamless package. If you missed any part of this journey previously, then this release is indispensable.

Download:
[MP3] Oneohtrix Point Never - Hyperdawn
[MP3] Oneohtrix Point Never - Terminator Lake

Support the artist. Buy it: HERE.

Excepter //// Live

Excepter live and Excepter on record are usually two very different animals. Whereas the band has expanded into some heavy beat driven territory with the needle in the groove, on stage the band often turn things into a quasi-religious experience of drones, wails and chants that both feed off the room and ignore the audience entirely. They've evolved from early days in which I witnessed large portions of sets shouted from the interior of a cardboard box to large scale visuals and multiple member setups. The beats still find their way into the live sets but they seethe with the enchanted atmosphere of the moment, they subvert themselves to the whim of the greasy subconscious only to bump and writhe from the heart of drone. Abandon Ship has released a set from La Sala Rossa that proves just this, it is seance, it is ritual and it is epileptic dance. It is Excepter in their full bloom.

Download:
[MP3] Excepter - Creeping Around
[MP3] Excepter - Stars in a Jar

Support the artist. Buy it: HERE.

In other Excepter news, if you haven't checked out the FRKWYS/RVNG 12" featuring a remixes of the band by Throbbing Gristle members Carter Tutti (Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti) and JG Thirlwell the accompaying videos for the tracks are below. Pick up the 12" HERE.

Pygmy Shrews

It seems that when major publications try to sum up that ole "Brooklyn Sound" it comes out as NPR-friendly indie rock with an intellectual slant (I'm looking in your direction NY Mag) but that seems to leave out the brutish reality of noise, skronk, psych and old fashoined rock that lies alive in basements and lofts all over the borough. Pygmy Shrews have risen from the ashes and currently smoldering pyres of this verdant underground, sharing ex/current members with Drunkdriver, Zs, The Fugue, Cutter, etc. and brought with them the spirit of hardcore, noise and unrelenting restlessness. They are a well needed shot in the arm, a slap in the face and a kick to the chest all in one; and much like their brethren in Drunkdriver they seem to be toughening the muscle of Brooklyn for attack. Melody, structure and wit are all enviable characteristics in song but sometimes none is more enviable than sweat-inducing, frayed and flung catharsis. Pygmy Shrews have plenty in tow and you'd be wise to spend a night slung in their open arms. The Egyptian is out now on Wantage.

Download:
[MP3] Pygmy Shrews - Shame Canal
[MP3] Pygmy Shrews - Please Brain Drugs

Support the artist. Buy it: HERE.

	Fraction - Moon Blood Fraction have long been compared to The Doors and with some of their fatalist lyricism, L.A. Roots and vocalist Jim Beach's Morrison-esque howl its not hard to see the connections. However Fraction supplanted Morrison's hedonistic
approach with a religiously based, almost end-times type of approach that certainly set them apart. Regardless of any shadow the band certainly served up its fair share of fuzz-laden, emotional rock that seemed poised to outlast many of their contemporaries at the time. But at the fates would have it, distribution problems and a lack of funds (only 200 copies of the original were ever made) would prove to be their undoing. A well worn tale of 70's rock injustice but it seems that time has proved to be well on Fraction's side. Several reissues have sprung up in official and non-official form from Rock-A-Way, Phoenix, Radioactive, Angelus and most recently Mexican Summer will tackle a limited vinyl 2xLP+10" reissue soon. A classic excellently resurrected from the hands of time. Download: [MP3] Fraction - Sanc-Divided Support the artist. Buy it: HERE

Topaz Rags

Finally a full length emerges from the dark recesses of Topaz Rags whose ranks count among them Britt from Robedoor and Amanda from Pocahaunted. Cloaked in pre-dawn exhaustion and heavy with unpredictable chemical interactions, Capricorn Born Again is the soundtrack to the after after party deep in some forgotten L.A. grotto. No celebrity faces here, no disco warriors, crisp-suited lotharios; just the kind of inexhaustible night creatures that feed on the wooden smell of bar fixtures and the lamp greased glow of marathon substance infusions. 4 am smoke clouds never mean giving up, just a rallying moment to collect in the calm ether before figuring out what happens when that sun comes up. Topaz Rags provide the perfect soundtrack to this after-hours purgatory, this respite from the cruelties and brutish reality of morning.

Download:
[MP3] Topaz Rags - Sightings
[MP3] Topaz Rags - Wear You Thin

Support the artist. Buy it: HERE.

Zombi / Titan's Steve Moore brings the sci-fi synth to his usual palette of horror movie instrumentals and twisted doom. Two perfect sides of epic space synth!

	Steve Moore – Fever Dream b/w 30,000 Feet Deep 10" Moore dives into these instrumentals with as much an ear for prog as for 70's planetarium exploration tapes. Though he stops just short of making listeners feel trapped in a 3rd grade field trip and goes straight
for the psych angle on deep space analog synth. Both tracks creep through dark expanses of time and dust, opening the skull and letting in enough atmosphere to ignite the hallucinogenic receptors of the brain and flip through contorted memories of laser light shows, Blade Runner and Nova documentaries. Vangelis via Omni, not a bad place to land if you ask me. Download: [MP3] Steve Moore - Fever Dream Support the artist. Buy it HERE

Soror Dolorosa

As with the Tom Fazzini record, French cold-wave creatures Soror Dolorosa could teach the current crop of would be dark synth wizards a thing or two about how to properly evoke everlasting despair. Rooted in a metal past but working firmly off the 80's post-punk/cold-wave/darkwave axis; the band matches insistent, twisting riffs with crisp snare snap pulsing underneath a dour-eyed croon that would make Ian Curtis himself sit up and take notice (let's hope not though, that'd be creepy). Severance chugs like an engine of desperation, cranking clouds of grey smoke over an uncaring countryside. So choked with rain, and industrial isolation that its hard to believe this is coming out of the borders of France rather than the English alleyways. Definitely a release that's slipped under the rug this year, and I myself am sad that I'm only getting around to it now. Don't sleep any longer.

Download:
[MP3] soror Dolorosa - Beau Suicide
[MP3] Soror Dolorosa - Thousand Clouds

Support the artist. Buy it: HERE.

Watching: Tough Knuckles

A few weeks ago relative newcomers, Tough Knuckles snagged the opening spot before Girls and Real Estate at NYC's Bowery Ballroom. Not a shabby gig to pull for your debut, eh? Well it seems to only get better for Calvin Lecompte and crew from there with one album already out (Greek Jazz) and another slated on the way from Captured Tracks with production help thrown in from Ducktails' Matt Mondanile. Tough Kuckles fits in quite nicely with the the lo-fi ramble of Cap Tracks/Woodsist players about town and their boombox pop will likely have a good home amongst the fray and fizzle. Keep your eyes out for them in 2010.

Listen:



More Info: HERE.

Black To Comm

It's a good year to be climbing down the precipice of haunted electronics. Between Leyland Kirby's massive masterpiece and Marc Richter's latest offering under the Black To Comm moniker all is well in the darkened and foreboding spaces of the world... or at least as well as they can be considering the spectral circumstances. Alphabet 1968 throbs with creeping intensity and a grainy veneer of displaced nostalgia that feels more like scrambling to hold on to what's left than looking back fondly at memories. Paranoia creeps into the edges of Richter's recordings, takes hold of the lovely melodies that shimmer under the surface and twists them until their familiarity seems as creepy as it does calm. Nursery piano tinkles turn to eerie reminders of childhood lost. Elsewhere the bluster of backgrounds obfuscates string melodies until they become more entangling than beguiling. As the album progresses the disturbances grow from an inkling to a maelstrom of din and drone until blackness outlasts the light and the listener is absorbed. A wonderfully unsettling album by an unsettled pioneer.

Download:
[MP3] Black To Comm - Rauschen
[MP3] Black To Comm - Void

Support the artist. Buy it: HERE.

	Tom Fazzini - Neck To Neck Released 25 years prior to the current crop of lo-fi, cold wave post-punkers; Tom Fazzini could teach these young punks a thing or three about industrial synth exploration. This album, which was recorded after Fazzini spent a maddening
time as a London Postal Carrier, is full of dark paranoia and cracked lunacy that feels like its on the edge of a breakdown. One minute the demons are wriggling their way out of the woodwork and the next you realize that Fazzini is just toying with listeners. According to Fazzini himself he made the album with the idea that he would have a short life and his desperation to make something substantial comes across on every minute of Neck To Neck. Fazzini would go on to make another solo album before joining A Small Good Thing but this dark classic stands as a primer that many of today's sinister synth crowd could use as a handbook. Download: [MP3] Tom Fazzini - Fioriora [MP3] Tom Fazzini - Smokescreen Support the artist. Buy it: HERE or HERE

The Electric Bunnies

After a few 7"s on Die Stasi, Florida's Dying and Columbus Discount, the band with the cuddliest name in garage finally brings forth a full length album. Though flinging out the term garage may be pigeon holing the band all wrong, as Through The Magical Door is such a thundering, fuzz pooling tangle of psychedelic sizzle and subtle pop overtones that it would make Bill Doss and Will Cullen Hart proud. Winding its way from song to song the album shimmers with feedback and constantly dodges down rabbit holes of dark pop weirdness, then explodes with bombasts of garage fuzz before picking up a nice strum of paisley pop that'll make that album title seem applicable. Sound uneven? Yeah on paper it might seem like the band can't make up its mind but the way the tapestry of fizz is sewn together seems to make perfect sense out of so many disparate pieces. One thing's for certain though, whatever cutesy indie pop inflections are creeping into your head from the Bunnies' moniker, throw them right out that magical door right now.

Download:
[MP3] The Electric Bunnies - Psychic Lemonade
[MP3] The Electric Bunnies - A Snowman on the First Day of Spring

Support the artist. Buy it: HERE.

Well there's been no lack of admiration for Bethany Cosentino's Best Coast but after finally getting a chance to witness the live incarnation at CMJ and nab a few of those 7"s we thought we'd weigh in as well.

	Best Coast – Sun Was High (So Was I) 7" The A side drags pop through enough sand to create sungazed bliss for the masses. On the flip "So Gone" pulls out a few 90's grunge moves, all bangs in the eyes with the fuzz taking center stage. The
real gem here though seems to be the subtle sweetness of B-Side "That's the Way Boys Are" which steps back the lo-fi just a bit and let's Bethany's voice ring through in fine form. It seems she's moving away from the crust of fuzz on a few newer tracks and this early indication of her girl-group pining makes it clear why. Download: [MP3] Best Coast - That's the Way Boys Are Support the artist. Buy it HERE
	Best Coast - Make You Mine 7" Her second single follows quite a few of the same roads as the debut, burying wide-eyed pop under a small mountain of fuzz and sun-tanned distortion. Four tracks of beach breeze bliss that'll scare away clouds for a perfect day on the
California shores. Something about Best Coast seems so fitted for the West Coast that I almost feel wrong listening to it on the NY streets, especially in these grey and cold months. The title tracks the keeper here with sway inducing rhythms backing up Cosentino's sweet croon the whole way. Add in that new single on Black Iris that's popped up everywhere lately and you've got a good day of sitting at your record player dreaming of July. Download: [MP3] Best Coast - Make You Mine Support the artist. Buy it HERE

Dan Melchior's Broke Revue

If there are truly lost classics in this day and age, Dan Melchior's O, Clouds Unfold is certainly among them. Recorded in 2004 and plagued by woes following its completion, the last record that Dan recorded with his band Broke Revue has been well worth the wait. Full of as much melody as it is Melchior's biting wit, the record mixes a cross section of soul horns, garage bombast, fuzztone howls, country picking and pop hooks that seem to jut out from nowhere only to grab hold of the jugular and make it dance. The record flips like split personalities, at once dark and sinister with a curled lip and biting tongue but the sneer soon turns to a smile as the entertainer in Melchior is unveiled in a puff of smoke and a blast of brass. Even the introduction of throbbing electronics seem to fit the ferocious tones that are on display and the timelessness of the songs keep them from sounding the least bit dated four years later. It's Melchior's masterpiece and it almost didn't see the light of day, but lucky for us it has.

Download:
[MP3] Dan Melchior's Broke Revue - (A Girl Called) Saccharine
[MP3] Dan Melchior's Broke Revue - Flashlight Eyes

Support the artist. Buy it: HERE

Shits and Giggles

Finally there exists a release that might be worthy of that hypnagogic pop term being volleyed around by journalists of late and it goes by the name Shits and Giggles. The Dream Warrior himself, Ariel Pink has teamed up with those mischief makers Vas Deferens Organisation (purveyors of the esteemed Mutant Sounds Blog) to create a psychosomatic muddle of sound environments, shape-shifted hallucinations and pop fallout that works like the disorienting backdrop to David Lynch's lunch hour. The record blends together in a haze of sensory deprived spasms and culturally overloaded invocations with bits of dialog taking a slice through mariachi brunches and cocktail lounge hookups. It’s a trip well worth taking as long as you're ready for the ride. Even diehard Haunted Graffiti fans may want to strap on an extra seat belt for Trick or Treat.

Download:
[MP3] Shits and Giggles - More Valium On The Mellotron
[MP3] Shits and Giggles - Zykatronics

Support the artist. Buy it: HERE

The Sandwitches

Received a copy of The Sandwitches How To Make Ambient Sadcake in the mail last week and its been spinning on the turntable ever since. It's a hard nugget to crack, with those sweet girl group overtones and harmonies one minute then the slow burn of gothic folk the next. Their approach is eclectic in style but somehow ends up feeling like one big picture once you back up just a few feet. The dissolution of the American dream from the Shagri-Las to Box Car folk, dust bowl Americana to smoldering 70's arena ballad femme fatales; its all here and nothing is spared The Sandwitches delicate touch. In a blur of straw and taffeta the band works their way through an album's worth of free swinging and tight woven pop that leaves a cool shiver down your spine, assuring you something special just wafted through your life. Definitely one not a one off listen, it takes a while to peel back the layers of Ambient Sadcake but once you reach the golden center its all worth it.

Download:
[MP3] The Sandwitches - Fire
[MP3] The Sandwitches - The Revisionist

Support the artist. Buy it: HERE.

	Peter Walker - Rainy Day Raga Somehow slipping through the cracks of celebrated 60's stringmen, Peter Walker has come back into the light most notably via the efforts of Tompkins Square Records. Unlike Kotke and Fahey, Walker's technique owed more to
the flamenco stylesof Spain and eastern modes of India than blues based fingerpicking. His modal style turned out to be the perfect fit for Timothy Leary's acid experiments at Millbrook and he became the resident music director for the estate. He only recorded two albums during the 60's but both would influence many artists of the current psych-folk revival (his influence on Ben Chasney becomes pretty evident after one listen). Prior to recording Rainy Day Raga he studied with both Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan and their influence would prove invaluable to his emerging style. The album is calm and pastoral but with a droning harmonic style that makes it easy to see why Leary was attracted to Walker's music and knowledge of Eastern tones. Following his second album Walker would bow out of the scene for a while and study up on his love of Flamenco, forming theories about its emergence in Spain through the importation of workers from India and Pakistan. Walker is now enjoying a resurgence in influence through releases on Tompkins Square and continues to write. This however, still stands as one of his greatest masterpieces. Download: [MP3] Peter Walker - Bianca [MP3] Peter Walker - Rainy Day Raga Support the artist. Buy it: HERE

Real Estate - Live on the Radio

Real Estate's debut album has been popping up in shops and as the singles and early performances alluded to, it's a beautifully soft-edged ball of nostalgia and yearning. The band has struck out on tour with kindred spirits in mellow pop, Girls and the two packed NYC's Bowery Ballroom last week in fine fashion. The band brought with them a nice slab of merch table goodness in the form of a live radio session that features many old faces from their S/T album plus a couple of new tracks that make the purchase well worth your while to source out. All songs are given a (mostly) acoustic makeover highlighting Martin Courtney's bare, emotional lyrics outside of the ebb and flow of their usual bed of rosy reverb. Songs like "Fake Blues" and "Black Lake" seem to hit home even harder when the feel good quality of the production is stepped back a notch. Its still smacks of their positive energy but the sadness underneath becomes a bit more apparent. The band's definitely found their footing live, so if they're rolling through your town be sure to catch 'em and grab one of these limited 12s while you're at it.

Download:
[MP3] Real Estate - Black Lake (live)
[MP3] Real Eatate - Basement (live)

Support the artist. Buy it: HERE.

Not that its been entirely quiet on the Olympia front lately but things just got a whole lot more interesting with the release of Christmas' debut 7".

	Christmas – Winter 7" Three scathing cuts of dance-starved post-punk from the West Coast channeled through the strangled guitars and off-kilter wails of Christmas. Drop in a strange veneer of icy surf and the vibes radiating off of this single are pretty
irresistible. The A-Side's a delightfully crash and smash nihilistic dance party stopper. On the flip, the band throws a noisy scrap of flayed brains freakout alongside the detached cool of "Castle". While the whole gem comes off leaving you feeling like Christmas might just know something you don't, everything about the band makes you want to get to know just exactly what that might be. Download: [MP3] Christmas - Winter Support the artist. Buy it HERE

Elm

Finally a wider (sort of) release from Jon Porras' Elm rises from the ranks of Digitalis. Porras is more commonly known as one half of the great, dark beast that is Barn Owl, and up until now Elm served as a sparser version of their barren psych incantations. Nemcatacoa finds itself more in line with Barn Owl's recent recordings and even more so with their live sound, but seems also to hold itself rightly as its own step into the abyss. Strangely spiritual without ever getting lost in the misplaced mysticism that can befall many drone-psych albums, Porras creates textural landscapes of dust and space from from choked, dry tones of feedback and then lays his devastatingly reserved guitar stirrings over the top. Porras' sound becomes so entangled in the tones of night that it seems possible his eyes have never seen the sun rise or set, merely existing between the wisps of breath and shroud of moonlight his recordings evoke. Porras weaves a wealth of instrumentation (guitar, trumpet, organ, harmonium) into a single vision of savage desperation, touching very close to the scorched Western dust odes that Earth achieved on Hex. Elm's first real masterpiece is a fierce call into the open arms of nothingness and its unsettling reply.

Download:
[MP3] Elm - Nemcatacoa
[MP3] Elm - Sacrament At Dusk

Support the artist. Buy it: HERE.

Wooden Veil

The music of Wooden Veil is at once chaotically ritualistic and curiously precious. From all indications it would seem that the Berlin-based collective have gone to great lengths to reach this dichotomy. Maintaining the project as a way to create a unique world that only Wooden Veil inhabits, the group's performances bring together symbols, clothing and rituals that are to be regarded a part of this world. Borne out of half-remembered traditions and etched in the fringes of culture, the music seems tribal through the eyes of a post-catastrophic modern man. Pieces of a once great culture slip in but it seems that much of their sound inhabits a forced forgetfulness, both innocently and ferociously using the remnants of instrumentation to create a new life in music. Among the pound of drums, the scorch of drones and the wail of frightened voices some beautiful moments emerge; alive but tenuously testing to see if, how and why that's possible.

Download:
[MP3] Wooden Veil - Red Sky
[MP3] Wooden Veil - Wooden People

Support the artist. Buy it: HERE.

King Khan & BBQ Show

The King and Mark Sultan have been a formidable pair over the years and when the duo is keyed into the sweaty serpent of soul soaked rock n' roll they divine the true spirit of 60's frat rock shot through the cocked tube fuzz of every scrappy garage band from The Sonics through The Shadows of Knight. Now its that 60's frat rock streak that can sometimes get them into trouble, because while past classics like "Fishfight" can pair riffs with toungue-in-cheek humor, occasionally the boys take it far enough that the rhythm shakin' just doesn't line up with the yuks. Still plenty of boot scrapin', foot stompin' going on here with Invisible Girl but where "Animal Party" has some nice sway, the kitsch gets the better of the song. "Tastebuds" gets to be too juvenile to square itself with what starts out as a pretty fiery bit of riffin' and a few other songs just seem to be playing the formula from KK & BBQ book. Yeah yeah, I know seriousness was never the pair's strong suit but movin' my feet is, and it seems there are moments when my feet just get lost on this one. Still the band is a live behemoth (just behind KK and his Shrines who melt speaker wire like so much butter) and they know their way around the garage enough that I'm not about to start schoolin' the teachers but every once in a while the pudding just isn't as consistent.

Download:
[MP3] King Khan & BBQ - I'll Be Loving You
[MP3] King Khan & BBQ - Anala

Support the artist. Buy it: HERE.

	Witthuser & Westrupp - Trips und Traume Though related to the emerging Krautrock and Komische music circles, Bernd Witthüser and Walter Westrupp played a sort of psych-folk that might feel more familiar to followers of the
Language of Stone or Gnomonsong labels of late. Cosmically inclined and certainly progressive for their time, but ultimately more rooted in reality than what their compatriots in Ash Ra Temple would soon birth. Several songs break the nine minute mark, with tendencies towards the loose jam spectrum but nowhere near the mind bending promised by that cover illustration. Still, the duo's restraint from edging into effect laden freakouts and their ability to languish in dark overtones make for a great combination. The sparse aura and loose folk mannerisms allow the album to have psychedelic space, a between the strings type of feeling that was often lost in the dense sonic explorations of many musicians at the time. Their lengthier pieces never seem to plod, rather they're allowed to mull through space, wrapping themselves in waves of time and sound. A strangely wound 60's folk album that's tied up in neither British antiquarianism nor American roots. It's distinctly German without feeling indebted to what was to become Krautrock. Download: [MP3] Witthuser & Westrupp - Illusion I [MP3] Witthuser & Westrupp - Trippo Nova Support the artist. Buy it: HERE

Flight

Mississippi's one man fuzz grenade, Flight follows his Sweet Rot 7" with four tracks of distortion drenched anthemic rock straight from the garage. Every song is a tightly wound, fist pumping slice of perfectly stained garage-punk, wrapped in fuzz and effects but never leaning on them as a crutch. However its Flight's urge to roll down the crusted drainpipe that makes each new track rolling out of the Mississippi mud so much fun. Pop the needle down and throw your concern for your speakers out the window because its way to much fun to pump these trashbin guitars and blown-cone cardboard drums as loud as possible. Sinister, caustic and completely addicting, can't wait to get my copy of that HoZac Hookup Klub 7" in the mail.

Download:
[MP3] Flight- My Business

Support the artist. Buy it: HERE.