Covering all the Music You Didn't Know About Since '96

Cascading loops with dark soundscapes and Latin-influences and velvety melodies, “Pequenas Canciones de Amor” reminds me of something off of Acuarela Discos out of Spain. Inflected indie rock noodles throughout this stirring experimental album. Exploring a variety of styles, O Paradis deploys a king’s ransom worth of diverse instrumentation. But the one all encompassing common denominator is heady vocals and a knack for crafty a finely tuned song. There’s seventeen tracks here that bridge the gap between Euro-pop, indie-pop, electronica, experimental, and abstract. I love it. Thank you Tourette Records!

Interesting remix of the original tracks from Species of Fishes albums “Songs of a Dumb World” and “Trip Trap” were utilized throughout this rather lengthy 56 minute jaunt into experimental music land. Muslimgauze is known for their Arabic influences and brooding electronica with an interesting mixing technique. They shed some of that here with shimmering electronic stabs and manic looping techniques that have sometimes only percolated in the backdrop of past endeavors. I found this remix album to be fantastic and totally fascinating. Worth a deep dive for the adventuresome music listener for sure.

This almost seems like a throw-back, back-to-the-basics album for the Deftones. “White Diamonds” features druggy and sludgy guitar tones that shred with stoner rock ferocity amid Chino Moreno’s trademark out-of-this-world lyrical content delivered via screechy screams, fast spitting almost-raps, and softly sung spoken words. Still as atmospheric as their past releases, each tune seems to build off of one another delivering a true ‘album’ feel that the iTunes geeks won’t understand unless their playlist is the entire album beginning to end. Love the low-end bass tone on this album too; which is a great nod towards Chi who suffered a debilitating brain injury who sadly was absent but everyone is pulling for him to have a full recovery. I almost think that losing one of their brethren for this long-standing band is what helped craft such a fun, enlightening, and engaging album. “Rocket Skates” sounds like it was just lifted from a b-side from “Around the Fur” with its chunky guitar riffs that are perfectly fit for Mastodon fans. “White Diamonds” is at once dreamy and steamy with sultry vocals whispered and crooned by Chino and then counters all of that with caustic screams and yelps of dismay amid churning guitar distortion, weird sample atmospherics from their turntablist, and crisp rhythms and crashing cymbals. It’s not what I was prepared to hear from one of my favorite bands who I thought were on an unfortunate downswing and yet again proved me wrong. Love it.

Two tracks written as a non-song but one long-form poem that is both spoken word and sung lyrics by Chris Connelly and his varied assembly of guests, “How This Ends” is the soundtrack to doom and melancholy. Featuring contributors such as Sugar Bullet’s Izi Coonagh, Tania Bowers of Via  Tania fame, Bill Rieflin known for his diverse work with bands such as R.E.M., Ministry, and Swans, and David Levine, “How This Ends” is a stark soundscape devoid of true composition but glowing red with the pulse of improvisation and controlled chaos. There is more than just harsh white noise and penetrating terror; indeed there are sinewy lines of piano, synth pads, and underlying rhythms. But it all centers around the poem, a flowing free-verse of intrigue and a glimpse inside the melting pot of Connelly’s genius and showcases him as a Renaissance Man and artist. Perfect for the left-of-center crowd who strives to find a unique gem out there.

Trangendered artist famous for paintings for Psychic TV album releases and more recently for her self-released lo-fi albums, Val Denham collaborates with Black Sun Productions for this brooding and dank experimental electronic excursion. Beginning the album is a spoken word reading of Charles Dickens “A Tale of Two Cities” with a Coil-esque backdrop drone. No surprise on the Coil reference as Massimo and Pierce have their tight ties with Coil in the past. Sexual undertones perverse the soundtrack collapsing words into a separate entity that is both instrument and vision all at once. Industrialized rhythms dominate some of the tracks while the druggy green visions of “Absinthe” portend their influence with cooled keyboards and manipulated loops.

Young Livers evokes post-hardcore gritty dank guitars that drop bombs similar to seminal outfit Drive Like Jehu. “Of Misery and Toil” burns no bridges as they embark upon a steady diet of breakdowns, odd song structures, and tinkering with what we’ve all come to expect from post-indie rock outfits. Mid-range rhythms with some blasts of devastation that are few and far between remind me of a Far that doesn’t deploy a melodic singer (think Hot Water Music) and nods firmly in the direction of punk rock. Each song evokes an immediate attention span quadrant that scans the horizon looking for something better but comes up empty. I swear they are a few decades removed from the DC hardcore scene.

Astonishingly gripping dark ambient and noise that is filtered through brainy nuances of druggy soundscapes, Maurizio Bianchi’s latest on Tourette Records (I’ve never heard of a more fitting moniker for an experimental music record label). There’s a depth here yet an urgent sense of brevity that counterbalances each of the six tracks. Not to say that these are quick ballads of bright white noise; indeed the shortest is just a tad under 8 minutes in length. Instead each tune focuses on a sense of manic solitude wrapped in looping and manipulated electronic pulses and waves. Beautiful, sad, and emotional, “YNOHPMYS” will challenge everything you previously thought about experimental music living up to ‘symphony’ the backwards album title suggests.

Blue Line Highway – Almost Reel

Tremendous guitar artistry greets the ear from Richmond, Virginia’s quartet, Blue Line Highway’s newest disc, “Almost Reel” – a folk-rock mixture of Americana, Southern acoustic blues, and coffeehouse pop that gets your toes tapping and your head nodding in agreement and enjoyment.

McCabe & Mrs. Miller – Time For Leaving

The duo is comprised of Victor Krummenacher (Camper Van Beethoven) and Alison Faith Levy (The Sippy Cups, The Loud Family). Their debut “Time for Leaving” blends vocal duets with a stirred up branch off of the signature sounds of country, pop, blues, folk, and roots rock.

Libby Johnson – Perfect View

Libby does her best Aimee Mann impression without being an outright thief, stirring her own recipe for adult alternative pop and singer/songwriter with a perfect jazz backdrop.

Kristine Mills -  Bossanovafied

The untrained ear may not recognize bossa nova as anything different from contemporary or modern jazz but they’re missing the piano styles, samba-influenced rhythm guitar, and underlying percussion inspired from the Brazilian artform. Don’t miss out on what far too many Americans dismiss as “elevator music”, because talent like this transcends genres; Mills voice is divine.

The Villains – The Villains

The Villains are bland alt-rock and countrified pop pancake that’s burnt on both edges and would take an entire bottle of maple syrup to get through.

Lloyd’s Garage – From the Comfort of Your Home

Stripped down indie rock ‘n’ roll that wants hard to sound like something coming out from the late ‘60s and early ‘70s garage rock scene. They miss with an album that is a little too lo-fi and gritty for the loud punch sound that they really were striving for, not to mention they feature some of the worst distortion I’ve ever heard used intentionally on a guitar on several of the tracks. Bummer.

Lorus – Byzantine

Chicago’s Lorus is an instrumental amalgam of progressive rock, sludge, and metal. “Byzantine” picks up right where their last endeavor, “Deluge” left off. Progressive and dynamic music for drug-addled punks? Yes probably!

Exilium – A Black Vicious Path

Thrash metal from a duo in Italy that can’t sing or write a good riff to save their lives. Et tu brute!?

Fago Sepia – Aposiopese

French quartet Fago Sepia write energetic free-form progressive instrumental musical paragraphs that employ math-rock rhythms, avant-post rock nuance, and angular guitars. I like it.

EOTO – Fire the Lazers!!!

EOTO consists of an electronic-minded music duo that takes live drumming, vocals, keyboards, bass, and guitar, and then guides it through a labyrinth of effects and studio wizardry to create a sound that is part dubstep, house, and electro. Very intriguing and a great listen.

Featuring seven remixes of their “Filmezza” adventuresome album, Delicate Noise’s latest remix album casts its net wide across the globe in search of artists to re-rub their music. With young-and-upcoming electronic musical groups reaching far and wide from such places as France, Japan, Iceland, Canada, Italy, Spain, and the U.K., “Filmezza Remixes” has repaved the highways that the original concreted. Throughout the album there are elements of bleak and stripped down electro house, minimal soundtrack and psychedelic art, art-noise, atmospherics, and synthetic electro. Eclectic and essential.

Kadman sounds like a mellow Pearl Jam album at times; often melodic and meandering (in a good way), extremely lonely and trying to find its feet. “These Old Bones” shakes off stereotypes with a vocally-led drive, sparse rhythm, coffeehouse centric guitars, and intriguing lyrics. An intricate and incredible album to say the very least. Another perfect notch on the belt for Baltimore’s best indie label, The Beechfields.