News

"Fifths Twice" is the second single taken from Rafael Toral’s Spectral Evolution. This new excerpt from the forthcoming album exemplifies the beautifully crafted chord treatments of the entire project, sourcing jazz’s traditional harmony with guitar and expansive electronics. Modulating twice through all the pitches in this circle with Toral’s advanced treatments of guitar and electronics produces an organic flow of near-classical majesty, paced glacially and imbued with granular ambiance.

In Rafael's words " "Fifths Twice" is... (read more)

Returned to us from early 90s Japan are the holy sounds of Ghost, with the long-awaited reissue of their first three releases: Ghost (s/t), Second Time Around, and Temple Stone are back on vinyl this February, twenty-five years since they were last in print.

These first three Ghost titles were originally released by P.S.F. on CD in 1990, 1992 and 1994, respectively, radiating enigma and energy in palpable waves with their original sound. After the acclaim that greeted Drag City’s 1996... (read more)

Today marks the return of The High Llamas - the longstanding musical project of acclaimed songwriter/producer/arranger Sean O’Hagan - who have announced their 11th studio album, Hey Panda, for a March 29th, 2024 release via Drag City. In conjunction, the group has released the title-track single, along with a video from director Simon Russell.

Discussing the “Hey Panda” single, O’Hagan notes, "I spent lock down and recovery as a TikTok fan of a Panda bear who ate giant carrots every day. It made... (read more)

There’s a time and a season for everything, they tell us – and now we find ourselves at the end of the Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You season. No, the new album won’t go away – and the Bonnie ‘Prince’ will continue to tour – but the cycle of release, the unboxing as it were, is drawing to a close. Fittingly, it goes out with a mighty soar: an epic reading of the title song to the album – a song, by-the-by that, for royal... (read more)

From the subterranean depths of sonic artistry come two encompassing new vinyl releases from our favorite curator of abstract/concrete/ambient/and beyond sound, Streamline.

Icelandic artist/musician Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson is known for his work with Stilluppsteypa, numerous solo albums and collaborations with other artists, such as Swedish composer BJ Nilsen. With Into The Second Half, he takes the listener into a mysterious, yet calming sound world, where carefully composed textures weave hypnotically in and out of each other, as subtle and varied... (read more)

Today, Laetitia Sadier - co-founder and singer for the legendary band Stereolab - arrives with her new album Rooting For Love on February 23rd via Drag City, her first since 2016’s Find Me Finding You. Alongside the album’s announcement, Sadier shares the video for lead single “Une Autre Attente” and announces 2024 North American tour dates. Tickets will go on sale on Friday, November 17 at 10AM local time.

Over the course of her career, spanning three-plus decades, Laetitia Sadier... (read more)

After a two-decade interlude, Jim O’Rourke’s Moikai imprint returns with Spectral Evolution, a major new work by Rafael Toral.  Undoubtedly Toral’s most sophisticated work to date, Spectral Evolution brings together seemingly incompatible threads from his entire career into a powerful new synthesis, both wildly experimental and emotionally affecting.

Making his name in the mid-1990s with influential guitar drone platters like Sound Mind Sound Body and Wave Field, Toral has never been one to rest on his laurels. In the... (read more)

Ty Segall returns with his most ambitious, elastic set of songs to date, Three Bells, to be released January 26th via Drag City. Following 2022’s acoustic introspection opus, “Hello, Hi,” Three Bells is a deeper, wilder journey to the center of the self, with Ty using his musical vocabulary with ever-increasing sophistication. In conjunction with today’s announcement, Ty unveils the new single/video, “My Room.” 

Three Bells is an obsessive quest for expression. With much of the album being played by Ty in... (read more)

As Winter starts to bite, gather yourselves around the warm glow of a ‘Bajas’ live experience, a dream-magic conjured from analogue synthesizers, wind instruments and vintage drum machines. Like a balm, the trio of Cooper Crain, Rob Frye, and Daniel Quinlivan create soothingly physical drones, zones and tones that captivate the ears and stimulate the mind's synapses. In other words, a gateway high, without any of the hangups!

Don't miss out on this transformative experience as Bitchin Bajas grace Europe this month -... (read more)

nehan is a Japanese free improvisation & avant-garde rock quintet formed in August 2022 by multi-instrumentalist Masaki Batoh. The role of improvisation has been key to all the musical projects of Batoh. In 2010, as Batoh was winding down the activity of his long-standing “heavy chamber folk” group, Ghost, he became involved in the design of a machine to generate sonic data based on brain waves. An acupuncturist as well as a musician by trade, his interest was spurred by the rhythms of... (read more)