Sun Dagger - Invisible World (2016)

Another instrumental album, this time from a place a bit more familiar to me. That is to say I have been there several times at least; New Haven, Connecticut. However, if you allow the songs to do their work you'll end up somewhere else completely. Quite psychedelic and pull influence from stoner and space rock Sun Dagger has managed to make remarkably engaging as well as surprisingly unique soundscapes. I've heard a good deal of epic instrumental tracks over the years of writing this blog and having many friends inclined to much such music, but I can't really summon a memory of one that sounds very close to Sun Dagger. There's so many strains of music interwoven it is boggling. At times I feel like I was hearing a funk tune, then it'll be spacey post-rock then to something new, yet all of this done with seamlessly transitioning sounds. Invisible World appears to be a collection of songs recorded at different times over that past few years and are improvised. Making cohesion of this album all the more impressive.

To be had here:
Sun Dagger - Invisible World

EP Grab Bag vol. 108

Another Grab Bag, I told you I had a lot of submissions to get through. Here is a pretty stellar collection of mostly returning bands. Always good to check in and hear the new stuff.

To be had here:

Unqualified Nurse - Put It On The Line (2015)

A new EP from Derby's intensely low fidelity rockers, Unqualified Nurse. The tracks are extremely short, something I've come to expect from them having shared their prior EPs and their full-length, Let Snarl. Likewise the highly blown out reverb and break-neck pace of the hollering vocals remain. Whenever I start listening to Unqualified Nurse I imagine having bitten off more lo-fi than I can chew, but it takes but one song for me to be fully hypnotized by the noisy bliss.

Ed Feels - Toast (2015)

A melancholic Virginian making fuzzy, lo-fi bedroom recordings that have qualities of emo, folk and indie pop. The songs have an unpolished, lo-fi charm that is endearing yet also unsettling in the haunting eeriness it captures. Beautifully done, I don't think I would have tried to shine it up either, great as it is. Very much recommended for those that enjoyed Joplin Rice, Tim Cushing, C. M. Slenko or the myriad of other folksy bedroom artists featured lately. This EP was released by the small NYC-based label, House Pet Records.

Goivinho - Segundo Nome (2016)

A returning Brazilian musician, formerly released music under the moniker Fogo Amigo, but now going by Giovinho. Whatever name he wants to go by is fine by me, just so long as he keeps making top notch compositions. Moreover, Segundo Nome is one of those rare time I get to write about space rock on Spacerockmoutain. All instrumental and full of bizarre electronic effects and beats these tracks live up to the otherwordliness of the genre.

Les Princes du Rock - La Tendresse (2015)

About a year ago I posted an album by the French garage rockers, the aptly named Les Princes du Rock. They're back with a fresh EP of psychedelic garage. No point is beating around the bush, I thought this was is a remarkable feat of rock and roll. Exactly the sort of fast, loud and righteous garage I've come to anticipate from France. I believe some of the very best of the genre I've heard in the last several years come from that country, and this is EP re-affirms that notion.

Nigel & The Dropout - Folderal (2015)

When I wrote of Nigel & The Dropout's previous album, Tumultuous, I mentioned how I only came to know of them from one of them firmly giving me a card with the band's name and the link to their bandcamp on it. It seems it worked so throughly they turned me into a devoted enough fan that I looked into if they had a new album out. Guess how pleasantly surprised I was to see that indeed they've got one out and furthermore that it is pretty damn sweet.

So in case you didn't hear their previous album, which I still highly recommend you check out, Nigel & The Dropout are a duo from Detroit that make electronic dance rock. So while I am the first to admit I truly prefer never to dance ever, not my preferred form expression (not shocking for a man who finds time to write a music blog), but I can tell this shit would be something to move around to. However, this isn't the case for every song. You see, the album has a considerable range. Tracks like "Gestalt" and "I am a Trampoline" are dance rock for sure, but the songs "Blood Brain Barrier" and "Pulled Over, Pulled Under" are far more ethereal to the point of becoming space rock-like. Still others fall outside this binary, being more droning and experimental. I can't decide which of them I enjoy the most, and regardless of which you fancy best I am sure you'll like Folderal.

To be had here:
Nigel & The Dropout -  Folderal

Jura - None of This Was Ever Real (2015)

So I am a bit of a shitty friend. My pal Frank (aka Frankomyalgia) gave me this album to hear as soon as him and the other lads in Jura finished their years long mastering process. Then I put in the queue without special treatment. No reason why other than absentmindedness. However, I'll say that my personal fondness of Frank 'n' Beans aside, this album deserves to have been kicked up up in the line. Shit's fucking tight, professional-ass-tight. So with my apologies, Frankadoodle-do, I final am delivering my write-up.

None of This Was Ever Real is a largely instrumental and entirely enthralling album. The songs have a shimmery quality to them, along with a mild shoegaze droning in the background that lays an excellent bed of sound to build on. At the few moments when vocals appear, they are subtle, echoey and don't step on the music in any way. Rather the blend seamlessly into the tapestry. Moreover, there are no spoken word audio sample interludes, which can be used well but are often over-employed as the expense of good songcraft. It not only sounds Jura like the took their time meticulously picking over the audio of these tracks, I know they took their sweet time putting it out. A labor of love in every note and it is audible. Most impressive, Frankincense.

Finally, until most bands I write-up, I have gotten to see Jura play live. I haven't a clue if they're going anywhere to play any shows, once again I am not a great friend and should have asked Sprained Frankle about this.

To be had here:
Jura - None of This Was Ever Real

Brother Low Elephant Grass - Alien Anarchy (2015)

I've been thinking about places lately. Places I'd like to live, places my friends tell me they're planning to move to, places I'll only get to see via photography. As I'm pondering all these locations there's a large oversight. I'm only looking at Earth, and if it is all fantasy in the end why not throw in outer space to the pondering? At least, this is what Brother Low Elephant Grass inserted into my mind as I heard their very weird music.

Alien Anarchy isn't simply a creative title. Rather it particularly describes the sound of the album. It truly contains an incredibly far out avant-garde sound, full of prog-like guitar, an massive amount of effects and a very competent composition of all these multifaceted parts into enjoyable songs. The experimental nature of this album is what prodded my brain out of considering various exotic locales and straight into the limits of what science fiction has to offer. In a quite brief time period at that. What I'm trying to say is, this album is transportive. It'll take you to some legit cosmonaut nightmares if you want. That said, the tracks "Monk" and "Reality Clashes With The Content Of My Mind" are some spectacular lo-fi tunes that I'm ever so eager for everyone to hear.

To be had here:

Brother Low Elephant Grass - Alien Anarchy

Fogo Amigo - Tudo o que você sempre quis ouvir, mas nunca te disseram (2015)

Here's a band that I haven't thought about for a minute or two, and not because the music wasn't fine, but because I last posted them in the 26th volume of the Grab Bag series back in 2012. Back then I thoroughly enjoyed Fogo Amigo's music and was having an excellent time reading depressing novels and drinking cheap beer while hearing them. Cut to 2015 and I am again enjoying this Brazilian post-rock with sad literature and only marginally more expensive beer. As they say, history repeats itself.

So even the Latin American post-rockers have the tendency to come up with wordy titles to albums and songs. Tudo o que você sempre quis ouvir, mas nunca te disseram translates as "Everything you always wanted to hear, but never told you." Fits right in there with titles like Ceux Qui Inventent N'ont Jamais Vécu by Fly Pan Am and Giant Surface Music Falling to Earth like Jewels from the Sky by Yume Bitsu. And yet, Fogo Amigo doesn't make post-rock like those North American acts, in fact it isn't even tagged but they aren't fooling me. I will grant them that this album more psychedelic and could be called space rock just as easily. But really, is there much of a difference? Moving past the semantics argument I've been having with myself years now, there's no denying the absolute talent that Fogo Amigo possesses. Of whatever subgenre of experimental music you wanna call it, this has gotta be the most immediately fascinating albums we've got sent in of this sort. I've been playing at work to universal praise from the coworkers and it is just the thing of staying relatively engaged and productive two beers deep, or losing track of time if there's other substances you prefer. 

To be had here:
Fogo Amigo - Tudo o que você sempre quis ouvir, mas nunca te disseram 

Viaticum - KOSMIKROCK (2014)

Viaticum have blended a sonic menagerie of genres together for KOSMIKROCK, both the name of the album they've released and a self-suited descriptor of their style. The band freely and unabashedly incorporate from psychedelic, stoner, post-rock and space rock while not being very clearly any of these. This, I believe, being exactly what they were aiming for. However, I do believe that the listener's biased preference may lead the to affiliate the album with whatever they like most, or possibly have the opposite effect for more hardline listeners then myself. Personally, I found myself recalling guitar-heavy post-rock bands like Kinski and Lebanon for much the instrumental sections, which occupy a significant percentage of the playtime. In the less common periods with vocals, they are sung like a 70s psychedelic odyssey. Like he's telling us a tale with emotional turmoil and perhaps even some epic fantasy. And with tracks that are long, several going over eleven minutes, there's pleanty of time to marinate in the 'kosmic' sounds. The curiously named "shittle-12 hates people" stood out as a fine example of their creative and multi-genre fusing, a good place to start off for the nonlinear listener. Certainly, there's nowhere that's very far from awesome guitar, psychedelic interludes and an absolute full sound of many instruments playing simultaneously.

Based in Winterthur, Switzerland a city in the north of the country and only some 19 miles from Zürich, Viaticum was a very well timed submission. For Switzerland is where the municipality for the next Scenes of a City post is located. So look forward to even more Swiss music which they prove as capable of producing as cheese, chocolate, secretive banking and elite boarding schools.

To be had here:
Viaticum - KOSMIKROCK

Jura - Jura (2014)

I heard about Jura from a member of Jura. He is actually a coworker of mine at my new job, in fact he's the man whose position I assuming upon his upcoming departure. Just so happens he plays in a post-rock outfit based in metro Detroit, so I couldn't help be find myself rather curious about what they sound like especially as I have been listening to a bit more post-rock and shoegaze music, recalling my fondness for those etheral songs from Montreal's numerous Silver Mt. Zion connected bands.

As listeners for the more experimental genres, especially the often subtle post-rock and ambient tunes available, will recognize the key to a good album is sustaining a heady, intangible mood throughout. It's very easy to approach such music passively, in fact that is the first instinct. To soak in the sound. However, lately I have found it incredibly rewarding to set other tasks aside, to merely listen and imagine with the music with nothing more than a single can of beer or a hot cup of coffee in my system. This is how taking in Jura's self-titled album went from me pretending to read a novel while listening to sitting, eyes shut in a wooden chair, and not worrying about a thing. The album is indeed subtle, with few flourishes and those that appear aren't long or loud, instead the songs are markedly sparse at times, floating along with echoey lyrics and shimmering cymbals. The tracks entitled "Kalamazoo," "Lullabye," and "As a fool, I will follow you" all held me in complete captivation, even more so with some of their extended playtimes. Now, I cannot promise everyone will get this tranquility for hearing Jura, but as with much competently done post-rock, ambient or what have you it has the potential for a dispositioned person to thoroughly enjoy it in a calmness unparalleled in other modern music.

To be had here:
Jura - Jura

The Drone Accelerator - The Drone Accelerator (2014)

As a preface to where I am as I listened to this album I'm gonna say I've been having less than ideal conditions concerning my health this week, as I seemingly reacted to something in the water that runs through the rusty old pipes of the bookstore and have had a fucked up tongue days. This means meals are hard to eat and slowly the pain is working its way to my left ear and it is making me have even more socialistic-tinged rants at my boss than I usually do. This has certainly made everyone involved grumpy, possibly me less so than the others around me if I'm honest. Yet the slow crawl toward full convalesce has made me something of a homebody as I eat soft things and take ineffective pills. So to make the best of it as I'm a bit too drowsy to read but too restless to sleep I've been playing video games, or really a video game as I only have a little laptop with enough space for one game. But fuck the music they come up with those, I'm lousy with submitted soundtracks for living out a digital fantasy to.

The Drone Accelerator was by far the very best of these makeshift soundtracks, so much so that I would forget that the video game didn't have improvisational psychedelic free jazz as background music, although the experience has made me question the wisdom of not having this be the case more often. This is seriously some very cool music, and I know this is hard to not make sound pretentious as it is has already involved the term 'free jazz' yet this might lead one to believe there isn't fucking awesome, meandering guitar for prolonged periods. Rest assured it has that shit in spades and it is beautiful thing. It so very much blends that ideas of Pink Floyd space rock with free form experimentation and unhinged jazz ethos that transitions along a spectrum like a crazy asshole on a slide whistle. All right, it is a bit pretentious, but in the most adorable and enjoyable way. I sincerely found this album to be really good, especially the guitar playing that reminded me of a slowed down version of the amazing sounds of Kanoi. Moreover, the whole album does what a good drone, noise or improv album is supposed to achieve, which to stop worrying so much about where all the time is going and sink into the sounds. By the time this album was over I wasn't so bitter about the fact that drinking water was a painful event (a little bitter, I am whining still) and was happy my aching ear could still hear.

This is the debut album by the band as I guess it was recorded in Peru, which is kinda cool and makes me very jealous if they went there to record and aren't there for another reason. It's released by the very solid Tucson, AZ label Sky Lantern Records, but be warned this label has an M.O. that's to sell the cassettes for a reasonable price ($6 in this case) with the digital download accompanying it, but if you want just the digital version it is marked up to the absurd price of $1000. So if you wanna own it I suggest you buy one while they got them, otherwise you'll need to visit the bandcamp page to get your fix.

To be had here:

The Drone Accelerator - The Drone Accelerator

Kanoi - Miles Away From Home: Live At Arnbach (2014)

I am pretty fucking excited to share this album. Firstly, it was recorded live in the town of Osttirol, Austria. Secondly, found this album to be notable, and not just because it is a live recording, which is a relatively rare thing for this blog. Because while the live recording does give it an atmosphere that makes one wish to be at the venue, it also strips the whole album of a polished feel and makes it more lo-fi and visceral. I cannot stress enough that you just keep listening despite the sorta slow start, it really does grow into a genuine pleasure to hear the ambient soundscapes evolve into shoegaze tracks with twisty psychedelic guitar parts. I can't stress it enough, this guitar playing is like a slow motion rocket to the moon. Also the German banter between tracks has a charm that has sparked the strongest sense of wanderlust in me. It is sorta like reading the part of a novel by Hermann Hesse where the character realizes they need to pick their shit up and move. What I mean is that the tracks are epic. Sonic journey's in their own right that provide a sense of movement despite the physical passiveness of listening. The whole album is really fucking awesome and I cannot stop listening to it. 

To be had here:
Kanoi - Miles Away From Home: Live At Arnbach

Lunarmare - Lunarmare (2013)

Here's is Greece's space program, at least it sounds that way. Lunarmare's self-titled release is an extraterrestrial concept album, and if David Bowie taught regarding concept albums, little tops outer space. If have read passed my puns, I'm happy to share with you that although I was eager to make those puns they are not why I posted this album. It is a genuinely intense and well conceived effort by these gentlemen to melt together the awesome industry, mystery and drama of the space race into a collection of songs that can run from heavily distorted, guitar drone laced rock to atmospheric ambient (or perhaps un-atmospheric is a better choice). They can take you on a voyage for sure, as several tracks are in the seven minute range, which I always find useful when trying to lose myself in songs of this sort. It is most certainly a jam band but one that does remind me of Silver Bullets, Wooden Shjips and any number of Godspeed You! Black Emperor related bands (Fly Pan Am,  Silver Mt. Zion, Set Fire to Flames) at their better executed moments.

To be had here:
Lunarmare - Lunarmare (2013)

Space Mountain - Ferry Lane (2013)

How could we pass up reviewing a record from a band called SPACE MOUNTAIN? This Connecticut band’s name says it all and fits comfortably on the ledge of a rock mountain reaching towards the stars. I am getting a noteworthy early-90s indie vibe from these lovely lads on their first release. There is a love for the lo-fi and the jangly riffs that dominated college radio stations 20 years ago. Best of all, the record never takes itself too serious, allowing the group to let it all hang out and enjoy some sloppy jamming. Just listen to the standout track “There U Are” to get a sense of what I mean with its mumbled, half-drunken vocal delivery and whistle-backed harmony. This stuff should make you want to pull out your 4-track and Pavement records and pound away to your heart’s content. 

Get it here:

Space Mountain - Ferry Lane (2013)

EP Grab Bag vol. 31

I have been catching up with the extensive backlog that built up over the course of last month. Here are some standouts. 

Stolen Girls – Unlimited Prizes (2013)

If loud and nosey garage rock is what bleeds through your veins, then the new set from the Stolen Girls may as well be a necessary transfusion. This is loud, maxed out, hook heavy garage rock for anyone who knows that the best music is that done live with amble amounts of explosives. “It’s Dead” is my favorite track, but I can’t help but love any song titled “Fuck Morrissey (with a knife).”

Waylon Thornton and the Heavy Hands – Enter the Coven (2013)

Florida must have a vibrant garage rock scene at the moment based on the number of submissions I get from the state. The one thing that can kill a vampire is an alligator (shsssshh, don’t tell anyone else), so I don’t plan to go there anytime soon. Thankfully bands like this release their music online so I don’t need to (and for fuck’s sake, why would you want to go to Florida either?). “Telepath” stands out as the track to represent this EP, with its eerie layered vocals and meandering synth line.

Sean Proper – Canal Machinery (2013)

Separating himself from the pack of drone musicians, Sean Proper plays a 12 string and arranges music that better sits next to Sir Richard Bishop’s recent catalogue. The licks are stuff many metal heads work on as they develop their stuff, but Proper finds a way to make this stuff interesting and engrossing. The film soundtrack to your life waking up in the desert from a significant LSD binge.

Monstereo – Spacesuits, On!

Now this is spacerock. Hailing from frozen Norway comes this explosive act with blasts of noise and dueling vocals, this group plays well to the “music better be bigger than Jesus if I am going to give a shit” crowd. This is big, aggressive, and plentiful music for those who crave such things.

HenrySpenncer - Saturn (2012)

Parisian psychedelic space-cowboy HenrySpenncer is back at it, and about to drop a new record on French label Bookmaker Records. At the heart of Spenncer’s work is morose drones, but what separates him from an overly large field of musicians is his staple guitar compositions. His tracks are deeply grounded by this playing that takes equal parts from Pink Floyd and reverb soaked country hooks, which takes his music out of the “drones as atmosphere” into full fledged arrangements. He has put out a number of releases in the past, but this upcoming release is the first to be professionally recorded (at Holy Mountain Studio in London to boot), and worth looking out for when it drops this coming winter.

Get it here:

Henry Spenncer - Discography 

Painted Faces - Tangleweird (2012) & New Jams (2012)

It seems that mail that isn't a bill or junk is rather hard to come by, and in my neighborhood even harder to insure it'll be there at all if it doesn't fit in my tiny mailbox. Yet the best scenario is to find a package containing cassettes tapes, and I've been lucky enough to have this happen for the second time this month, this time with three tapes. From the Brooklyn-based label Cookies N' Creme Records there were two tapes of experimental music by Painted Faces and one by Michael Amason and DENSITY (which I'll go into more detail about in the next Grab Bag).

As mentioned Painted Faces (really the solo project of a dude called David Drucker) makes experimental music, of a pretty fantastical and outlandish sort. I listened to Tangleweird first so I'll start with noting the intense use of noise and disordering feeling it lays on like mole sauce on a wet burrito. Dissonance is the game and they've got a cacophonous strategy. In contrast, New Jams seems much more subtle; coming closer to ambient for long stretches than any part of Tangleweird. In fact a whole range of experimental music appears, from slow droning to avant-garde art-rock complete with guitar riffs and crazy vocals. I've found the variety and the uniqueness to be quite endearing, especially if repeated listening is undertaken. Thanks for the tapes, keep on freaking me out just a bit and see a promising future for us all. Final note, each of these is $3 to  download via bandcamp, but obviously streamable and like 90% of the tracks are downloadable for free individually.

To be had here:

Tangleweird

New Jams

Spiral - Mind Trip in A Minor (2012)

This is the second time appearing on Spacerockmountain for this New Mexican psychedelic/progressive rock band, Spiral. Like the previous albums, The Traveler and The Capital in Ruins, this release is a highly cinematic and epic effort, sometimes reaching close to macabre (just look at that creepy album art). Heavily effected vocals, building instrumentation and shifting melodies make it hard to not pay attention while it's playing. Does as fine a job as the other stuff they've sent into me for all the same reasons, so I do recommend it to any and all that enjoyed their other work or other albums I've tagged at progressive. They're only selling it on their bandcamp page without streaming but gave me permission to share it via another file service for readers, so take advantage of that and throw them the $3 if wanna help them out.

To be had here:
Spiral - Mind Trip in A Minor