dyvnzmbr

I'm a bit late to this, but one of my absolute favourite music blogs out there, DAYVAN ZOMBEAR, has started up a Kickstarter to fund DZ TAPES, the record label that's soon-to-be-a-thing. I can't tell you how much great, great stuff I've gotten from that page; it's an absolute goldmine of everything falling under the umbrella of "Experimental", from noise to pyschedelia to lo-fi pop with a whole lot of made-up genres that sound like exactly the sort of thing you want to hear. So with your contributions, DZ TAPES is going to be releasing original up-and-coming artists (oh god, "up and coming", did I really...) which, if the rest of the blog is any measure of taste, will all be fantastic.

Don't think I'd ask you to donate for nothing, though. For your donation of $8[US]/$10[CAN/MEX]/$12[THERE ARE OTHER PLACES?], you'll get a tape (and MP3s) full of ~exclusive~ tracks by a bunch of artists that fall into the (vast) DYVNZMBR vibe, including some big[ger] hitters like Foxes in Fiction, Sleep In, and Chris Rehm (who recently put out a killer record called Worries, etc which I have yet to write about and yes, I do hate myself for being so slow on it). The real cool part is that your donation also buys a tape for one of the contributing artists, so they have something to cherish/sell/show off for their efforts. And you're helping launch what's sure to be an incredible label. Win/win/win.

PUT YOUR MONEY HERE

you know it's b-a-d when I have to visit my own blog to remember my formatting

Vit - -
[black metal, sludge, doom]


Yeah, doom-laden blacksludge. It's the sort of record you have to slowly peel and grind off your skin after listening to it - it will do everything in its power to suffocate, bruise, drown, and otherwise oppress you and if you're the kind of cat who's still around after reading that genre checklist and soaking in that beautifully bleak cover art then you're the ideal to candidate to be locked up in that shack yourself (look closer & don't come back until you see it). Luckily, Vit are a part of the movement in black metal that has, sadly, only really come around recently, wherein a) outside influences are a-okay, and b) "oppressive" and "bruising" don't mean triple-digit BPM all the way through (wait, is that a-okay? Am I being untrue? Can black metal be "a-okay"?). The draw here, and what makes this album infinitely more engaging, is the use of dynamics. The slow passages, the clean passages, the ambient passages - once the riff does kick in, it's a hundred times more brutal after being teased at for minutes at a time. Likewise, there's a huge doom influence, making this a fairly plodding record throughout (plodding as a positive thing, natch) meaning that when the tempo is dialed up it's all the more electrifying. Really, I can't remember the last time "sort of fast" was this thrilling, but it just speaks to the expert sense of pacing from start to finish. Thrilling in a "I wish I was dead" sort of way.

Download/listen/stream.

Buy from Music Ruins Lives (ltd. to 100)

Sleeping Heart

Giles Corey - "Sleeping Heart"
[goth-folk]

Giles Corey- Sleeping Heart from Justin Donais on Vimeo.

Easily one of my most anticipated albums of the year is the upcoming full-length by Giles Corey - aka one half of Have a Nice Life - which has been a long time coming, having demos kicking around the internet since basically HANL came out as totally a thing. Totally downer doom-country that, while not explicitly about being crushed to death, is nonetheless thematically heavy and oppressive with the music ranging from stripped-down voice-and-guitar suicide notes to surprisingly lush ghostly full-band Americana. Pre-orders should be going live soon, and of course the packaging is going to be phenomenal and include some lengthy, vague/threatening "book" that is sure to end lives.

MUSIC IS GREAT

Hi everyone, hi
Hi
Hey
Yeah
OK
Last month+ has been nonstop reading reading reading with some writing writing writing. Obviously not one of those writings was here but academia called, y'know. Thousands of words later, countless hours in my study, and I think I'm back in action, and I think this time I might mean it. Maybe. Hm.

Thanks to everyone who has continued to send me stuff over the last few weeks/months - sorry to everyone who has continued to send me stuff over the last few weeks/months. I'll get around to it. Really. Feel free to resend it, and feel free to totally call me out in the subject line -- I deserve it.

YPA 2.0
STARTS
HERE
(soon)
(I still have exams ok sorry)
(and like, a job)
(patience)

luv,
Calvin/YPA

guys

I dunno, guys. Music is kinda lame.

help me out, guys

Caddywhompus - "Age of Wild Spirits" (single)
[experimental pop, post-everything, proto-somethingelse]

Yeah, with a name like that, you know you're getting in to something good. "Experimental pop" is way too vague, I know, but that's really what it is. It's an entirely manic single: impossible to follow but curiously hook-laden thanks to the vocals. It's a total blast to actual hear something that you can't predict, from the drone-swell build-up to the spazzy bursts of blastbeats and all sorts of off-kilter mathy riffing recklessly thrown about when it's not a flattening wall of sound. The sort of song that begs to be immediately re-listened to even if you didn't like it because you'll want to try (and fail) to understand the thing. But, I mean, you won't not like it, that's impossible, sorry.

Now there is where you help me and help yourselves: if you click that link below and download the single, and do it 7498 more times (or tell your friends of whatever, this thing just needs to hit 7500 downloads total), the new Caddywhompus EP gets released right then and there instead of in May. I, for one, can't wait that long for more of whatever this is, so download it and get all your bros to do the same.

DOWNLOAD.

Kurdaitcha

Mamaleek - Kurdaitcha

[black metal, experimental]
Alright, quick one today, basically to tell you to go listen to this. Yeah, yeah, it's tagged "black metal", but only because "post-black metal" would be silly. But this really is beyond what you think of as black metal; absolutely recklessly creative. I could say a million more things about this but I don't feel all that qualified having only listened to it once. What I can say in absolute confidence is that there are exciting things happening in black metal once again, and it's all coming from an anonymous bedroom in San Francisco. Grim, huh? (Ok, maye not all of it, because the new Gnaw Their Tongues is fantastically out there for the genre, too). The whole thing is available as a "pay what you want" download or as a high-quality, limited to 150 vinyl record.

Download | Donate | Buy




Also, here's why I haven't been keeping up:

bear with me

untitled

Planning for Burial - (Untitled EP)
[doomgaze, black metal, post-rock]

It's a bit unnerving when one single band - or, for that matter, one single musician - can so deftly capture and combine all my favourite things about music at once. Planning For Burial has done that twice already in two decidedly different ways: once with the sprawling, heart-wrenching filthy post-gaze (whatever) Leaving and then again on the, relatively-speaking, clean-cut slowcore on the split with Lonesummer. The new single here - originally intended as a 7" which sadly never came into fruition - is self-described as a meeting of these sounds, but more than that, it's a perfection two. Opener "I Hope You Will Pick Me Out" is even more grim, ferocious and blissed out all at once than anything on Leaving, and "Annick" was basically born to break hearts, sounding like an even more low-key Low with guitar solos ripped straight from late-era Talk Talk (yeah, I know, right, could things get better?). This is probably going to start slipping into slack-jawed fanboyism (if it hasn't already), but really, check it out. No one is forging sounds as sublimely as this.

Download/stream/buy.
(Physical CD limited to 60 copies w/ exclusive extra-long alternate take of Leaving's soul-crushing eponymous closer.)

musikdramen

Wahlheim - Songs That Are Not Part of Ambitious Musikdramen
[pop, emo, home-recording]


Mid-fi mid-90's emo-pop with morbid goth sensibilities & irresistible melodies so you know you've already clicked that link. This is the first/only release by Wahlheim, a two-song digital 7" which might sound silly in theory but it's a 14mb download so divide that by sides A/B (i.e., 2) then go and collect the grey matter dripping out of your ears when you've realized what that means. It's shamelessly catchy and fairly upbeat but it's presented with such a killer aesthetic that you won't have a problem checking it out. Besides, Wahlheim sounds grim as fuck, so you know these infectious plague-bearing choruses are in good hands.

Download.

Also available: this picture of a bluejay

blackout

Expo '70 - Blackout
[psychedelic, drone, space rock, noise]

Download/stream/buy here.

Two half-hour blissed-out excursions into whatever cosmic voids Expo '70 tore open in Ithaca and Manhattan (tracks 1 and 2, respectively). It's Expo '70 doing what Expo '70 do, have done, and will continue to do indefinitely at an alarming rate, made extra alarming by how good it is. Recorded live, allegedly "on less sleep than you can imagine", the duo takes things to the more weightless side of their sound with impossibly huge, dense celestial drones that refuse to be anchored by the comparatively timid drum machine. Two sprawling pieces of improvisation and neo-psych meanderings prove the band to be at the top of whatever game it is they're playing, if for some reason their expansive and curiously/appropriately highly-rated discography hasn't tipped you off yet. Stream it for free above or throw $8 out for a limited (200) CDr.

fast reverse

Orange Blossom Flyover - Fast Reverse
[shoegaze]

Download/stream.

Short & sweet nine-minute EP of beat-driven shoegaze. It's an interesting take on the style, pushing the surprisingly lively beats to the front but it works, especially in the closer "Vicarious Rooms of Gold" where the guitars and vocals feel more rhythmic, too; those shoes are tapping. The whole EP is really just driven - it has a sense of momentum that, elsewhere in this genre, gets lost in the cavernous reverb and swirling modulation. It's about as focused as you can get while still feeling a million miles away.

Also worth checking out is the Fresh Horrors from Hades "EP", which is just the 7-minute "So By Your Spells": a gorgeous, hazy backwards-looking free-fall. The complete opposite of the above EP but absolutely worth a listen.

Minajah

True Womanhood - "Minajah"
[Moombahton]

REEL TOO REAL by truewomanhood

Sublimely catchy new one from post-indie forerunners True Womanhood. This is part of their immensely cool "Reel Too Real" series which is cool for reasons other than the dense punning I mean, look, all the songs are recorded on this. Did you see ? Yeah, this synth-heavy stuttering grove was done through that monstrosity and, I am explicitly told, not through Ableton. I don't have a strong grasp of how electronic music is made & performed, really, but I have the inkling that Ableton makes it easy and this was not and that's good: reverb-drenched analog anti-technology fun-times dance tune. Bear with me when I say it's not "obvious" dance music aside from the rave synths (Moombahton synths?); no grating 4/4 drum machine beatdown, just organic & beat-driven & incidentally danceable.

whatever, dude

Tree Hopping - The Beat Band
[tropical lo-fi]
Recommended if you like: dancing in an exotic tin can telephone

Stream it.
Download.

Back to school back to work it's January oh man c'mon. Tree Hopping, though: we have Tree Hopping, thank god. The Beat Band is ferociously energetic and, despite being apparently composed mostly of loops and samples, is a coherent little package. It's a brisk half-hour but really, anything longer would've been exhausting because this LP is relentless, chock-full of funky rhythm and wooping and sloppy guitar and shimmery keyboards; really, all in all, an album put out in entirely the wrong season 'cause it's summer in a .zip. Or maybe this is entirely timely - rays of tropical post-punk shining through yr S.A.D. Yeah there's tons of "no-fi bedroom pop" or whatever making the rounds right now, but Tree Hopping has flavour rather than the drab dourness that is most of the contemporaries. Fun fun fun and really a feel-good record throughout; every bit as colourful as the album cover. If the first two tracks don't hook you then winter has claimed your soul and you need this more than you know.

viddy well, little brother

People still make music videos. Did you know? I was surprised, really; thought that it was a bit of an anachronism in an age when people can't be bothered to look at an album cover, never mind commit themselves to a video. But they're happening, and they land in my inbox from time to time, and it's the holidays, and I'm still behind, so let's both take it easy then, right?

Mickey Brown - Soul Glo promo

Mickey Mickey Rourke- "Glo" from A.P. Fischer on Vimeo.

I can barely keep up with the emails I get, so I've fallen really behind on Mickey Mickey Rourke's manic release schedule (here as Mickey Brown, collaborating with Lester Brown). Which is really lame on my part, because his material is some of my favourite in "the genre", whatever it is. Droney, noisy, ambient, electronic, whatever. Y'know, that Oneohtrix Point Never / Emeralds / whatever psychedelic swath of sound. Fantastic stuff.

Listen to all of "Soul Glo".

Keith Canisuis - Inner blue, outer red

Keith Canisius - Inner blue, outer red from Keith Canisius on Vimeo

Speaking of psychedelic mess, good lord - I feel like should be dancing to this track but I'm afraid of my brain leaking out. So just sit tight at let this vaguely catchy, maybe danceable, wash over your ears/eyes. Very cool, lush electronic beats and synths practically drowned in delay and reverb. Almost like Panda Bear, only I promise you it's not nearly as boring.

More tracks/more albums and some of them are even free

Pregnant - Wiff of Father

Pregnant - Wiff of Father from Cinema Caldera on Vimeo

Very slick, even professional-looking video: the kind of which you might have actually seen on TV in an era gone by. Story-telling intercut with "performance" footage & what-have-you. Incredibly tight song, too, with hypnotically minimal guitar work and enthralling repetition that really hits its stride when the vocals come in. Lots of layers all barely fitting together, as maximal as minimal can get. I'm also super late on this one, so, like, is this guy popular yet? He should be. I'll definitely be writing more about this.

Hear more/buy more.

Hear Hums - Cerebellum/Woo

Cerebellum/Woo - Hear Hums from Hear Hums on Vimeo

Young Pilot Astray: getting to you two months late or within the day. No compromise. I guess Hear Hum lucked out, emailing me the same day I planned on updating. Or, rather, I guess I lucked out that such a fantastic band emailed me. I hate to equate bands with other bands other than for the sake of "check this out if you like x" (what no I didn't already do it in this exact post what are you talking about no), but I am obligated, personally, to carry this one out: this is the band I wanted Animal Collective to be. This is what they hinted at on Feels, this is the sort of sound they fleetingly held dear, and that is what really breaks my heart about that band is that they were so close to being something really cool. Instead, bless 'em, we have Hear Hum, who don't exactly reference that per se (ok ok Avey Tare comparisons will be made in the vocals, ok ok that's it, sorry), but have the same essence if I may be a complete jerk-off and use a word like that. It's a huge sound, it's an organic sound, it's full of discovery and wonder and bombast and between the introduction and the climax is all fits so remarkably naturally. Incredible. Definitely going to post their LP here ASAP.

pretend nothing happened oh wait it didn't

Planning For Burial/Lonesummer - Split

[black metal/doomgaze/whatever]

Recommended if you like: the colour black, emotions [negative]



Preview for Planning For Burial Lonesummer Split by Planning For Burial

OR stream/download/buy the whole thing here.

If you're anything like me - and I daresay any casual readers here are - then genre-blending (done correctly) is something that probably tickles you in a way. Mount Eerie's Wind's Poem, for instance, was my favourite album last year thanks in no small part to its sublime and entirely natural fusion of black metal and Elverum's trademark timid folk. Now if we could just get John Darnielle to drop a hyperliterate death metal opus, we can officially be done with music. But until then, I guess, the search goes on.

Planning For Burial should be familiar as the project that released one of my other favourites from last year, Leaving, which melted together some of my favourite things in the world (post-rock, shoegaze, doom, black metal) into a lurching beast of a record. He's back, with no-fi necromancer Lonesummer, who plays bedroom black metal with a big helping of sad on top, and together they've put out a fucking downer of a record which, of course, I implore you to buy.

The Lonesummer half is possibly my favourite Lonesummer material to date, opening with the absolutely punishing )ironic old-timey radio samples aside) "Joy is a Burden" and sort of pulls off a black metal/noise fusion that I really thought Wold were going to do after all this "herp derp My Bloody Valentine meets black metal" bullshit I read but no no no this is much better, don't let the Wold comparison scare you off; this is what I wish Wold were like. Elsewhere, "I Wish I Could Delete Last Night" is the poppiest black metal track this year and will make a really neat song for your Myspace profile. And yeah, "Your Eyes Always Shake Me" is nothing like either of those either - essentially the ballad of his batch - and yeah, yeah, and yeah. This is black metal loves black metal as much as it loves telling it to go fuck itself.

The flip side is the first new Planning for Burial material in too long and dials back the kitchen sink approach of Leaving into a more focused set of tracks, which is refreshing because it really makes this EP feel separate from the rest of his canon so far, as an EP should. Glacially paced, morbid and brooding and dense fog music that downplays the (comparative) bombast of the full-length. "Sleeping in Separate Rooms" is an entirely gorgeous daydream, all blurred and half-speed, and "If I Knew What to Say" eventually collects itself into a surreal, lush synth-heavy slowcore rumination.

Also worth mentioning is that Thom - Mr. Burial himself - put this split out on his Music Ruins Lives label, which is ideologically my best friend-turned-record company and has already put out a few really worthwhile releases (including a Have a Nice Life cassette and a full-length by blackened genre-mockers Airs), so pay attention and don't miss anything.

MUSIC RUINS LIVES

Yeah, we're doin' this

Oh man, what a month, man. And man, you would not believe the amount of things to which I had to attend. But, man, we're back, and thank you cats for keeping the submissions rolling in & I gotta say, the readership is on the small side but "quality of quantity" all the way because I haven't disliked a single thing I've been sent so far. I guess I'm not on the "master list" that gets a line every time a band drops an album, but instead I seem to get things on a case-by-case basis; people send things in after having read the blog & getting a feel for what I'll dig. & I dig it, cats, I dig it. So if you're in Cygnets, Mickey Mickey Rourke, Planning for Burial, Lonesummer, Bikini, Pre-compass, Dongles, Aura, The Slaves, or wow I am behind but I haven't forgotten.

True Womanhood - "Night Prowlers"

[dream pop, sort of]
Recommended if you like: reverb, beats, bass; all of the above but not in dance music



Download "Night Prowlers

nite prowlers by truewomanhood

If I can just quote the email I got from the band: "The song is almost entirely made up of samples we made by clanging pieces of metal around in a mile-long sewer tunnel + bass guitar, 808 drumz, and vocals- all run through a severely malfunctioning tape delay."... are you not already enthralled, allured, excited? This track really straddles the line between "totally bangin' good-time" and "dark experimental whatever", especially in the opening where the sewer-pipe Cthulhu beckons against ominous drones and drum machine clapdowns (of course). Then the whole thing eventually swells into throbbing basswork and that promised 808, which is I guess danceable but there's just so much going on all around the core here that it's hard to really tell what you're supposed to do. Well, to start, go download the track above & give it a couple listens, try to figure it out & grab the Last Rites 7" coming out soon.

TRUE WOMANHOOD

Hey folks, still here. Sorry if you've emailed me regarding wanting to be posted: it's actually super cool that I can't keep up with it. That sounds sarcastic, I admit, but I'm being serious. I'm now at the point where, if this pace keeps up, I'll be able to run this blog solely on artist submissions. So keep 'em coming. I've got a lot on the backburner right now, so if you've emailed me in the last couple weeks then just hang tight, it will be coming!

In the meantime, been five kinds of obsessed with this jam, so dig on it while I take care of life.

skinnypricks

High in One Eye - Skinnypricks
[noise rock, hardcore]
Recommended if you like: Lightning Bolt (but they feel too tame for you), Jesus Lizard (but they're not noisy enough for you)




















Download/stream here.

Less than 10 minutes of spontaneous, lo-fi aggression, apparently written and recorded in the space of two hours. This either is completely your thing or it is not at all, but it's free and less than ten minutes long, so make it your thing. It's surprisingly good for something more or less unplanned; there's a lot of really cool ideas going on. Especially in the drum-heavy assault and battery of "Tease" (best vocals on the EP?) or downright doom-laden "Jack-of-all-trades". Which eventually segues into 80's thrashy black metal worship before devolving into Daughters-esque dissonant riffing. But really, you saw that coming. Absolutely primal.

High in One Eye bandcamp page
(also includes another EP and a single up for free)

Neil Milton - Elements

[modern classical, ambient]

Recommended if you like: aching beautiful modern composition; elegant piano work; An Accidental Memory in the Case of Death by Eluvium

Neil Milton - elements (2mf012dd) by beneathusthewaves

Download "Air (or, The Dragonfly)”

Neil Milton is relaunching his label, Too Many Fireworks, with a personal EP dubbed Elements - devoting a track to each of the four elements and its finale to “Aether”- and talk about making a comeback: fans of Eluvium and early A Silver Mt Zion material should take note, because this is minimalist modern classical at its finest.

A brisk eighteen minutes divided into five tracks is ideal: enough time for thematic development and listener engagement without becoming rote like so much “ambient” music can. I'm not entirely sure if music this lovely can really command attention; I'd say it politely requests it and you'd have to be inhuman to say “no”. In any case, it never becomes background music, as each of the tracks does bring an idea to the table, like the fluttery “Air” or the appropriately weighty, tectonic “Earth”. Hands down the best part of the release is its subtle adherence to theme: “Air” doesn't begin with sampled wooshing and “Water” is entirely devoid of prefab waterfall recordings. Instead, a track like “Fire” excites with its vibrant strings and “Aether” is minimal, spacey and gorgeous. You're forgiven for your preconceptions, though, because such a broad and general subject matter could be handled entirely tactlessly. Thankfully (mercifully) Milton handled the concept wisely and colours his compositions with the concept instead of forcing them to fit it.

The whole thing streams for free right there, a few inches up, so you have no excuse to not already be listening to it. For your listening convenience, you can also download an MP3 of the first track. And if you're the type to do so, please support both Neil and his revived label. At the very least check out the stream: this is truly sincere and majestic music.

Buy the EP

Too Many Fireworks
Neil Milton