Here we are in 2020, exploding like a dream. All keeping busy in new ways and old. Like Magik Markers - as they make new music, they're processing  the mysteries of growing up and being older (memories of the future from your youth) and today's numbed nation, rubbing upon sacred roots and art-noise jamming their way into nonlinear song sense. As it can only be, the music of 2020 (duh, their new album!) is raw and beautiful all at once. So, here we are in the murky and... (read more)

Sun Araw and Cameron Stallones' ever expanding universe absorbed the cosmic energies of Jon Leland and Marc Riordan with Rock Sutra, which was recorded live to midi--the first Sun Araw record (or maybe first EVER?!?) of it's kind! As was hoped, new purity in musical transcendence is tapped in the process, and is offered in the spirit was made: that of generosity and adventure.

With its bright, hypnotic loop "Arrambe" is all about that feeling you get when you zoom in far enough: a granularity... (read more)

Knowing that all good things must come to an end, Bill's penultimate single "Ry Cooder" leaves a lasting impression. Stop-start licks melt into vaudevillian relief as Bill unpacks and reassembles Ry's history with deadly dry affect, guaranteeing to break up your late-night guitar jam, no matter how deep!

A knee-slapping roundhouse of a tribute to America's own polymath guitar legend-in-his-own-time, "Ry Cooder" leaves one to wonder what sort of fandom is being indulged here. One thing to be certain of, however, is Callahan's ability as a songwriter and wordsmith... (read more)

Music is a healing force in our universe.

With Compassion, Lama Lobsang Palden and Jim Becker have collaborated on an immersive environment, built from ritual Tibetan healing chants and percussion, dubbed and edited to transcend a traditional field recorded encounter. Compassion is a layered soundtrack of experience, to help you relax your mind.
 

Waves are crashing all over the world, just as they crash in "Tara," the 2nd single from Compassion,... (read more)

This town ain't big enough for the.....all the lovers of the new Bill Callahan record!? They're definitely gonna need more than the one horse, that's for sure. With new songs every week from the new album in his saddlebags, Bill's the fastest gun in the west these days.

 

With "Cowboy", Callahan seems to be implying that the only new cowboys anymore are the ones watching old cowboys on the late, late show. Legend and lore calcify into concrete while... (read more)

Crack a Light! Dope Body's back on the line with their first album since 2015, rife with the gnarly, bisected body attacks that typified their great records and shows on the other side of the teens. A decade plus from the audacity of 20 Pound Brick, their debut cassette, and four years since calling it quits, Dope Body are suddenly liver than we thought they'd ever be again. 

Maybe they just needed a bit of time off, with some pre-contagion social distancing... (read more)

For the past month, we suddenly love Monday. The best part of waking up is a new Bill Callahan song. This week, you can listen to the new song AND take it to a new (caffeinated) level with a "Breakfast" blast for your mug.

In celebration of Gold Record, we've partnered up with coffee roasters Four Letter Word to present a special coffee for your "Breakfast" enjoyment. It's a single origin from Colombia produced by Guillermo Rojas, with a nicely complex profile: much like... (read more)

On October 2, 2008, on tour, in Seattle, with Silver Jews, in between songs, David Berman addressed the crowd:

“This is our 86th show! You know, I'll tell ya.... I have some pretty jaded musician friends, who've heard me say this kind of thing before, and asked ‘Why are you always counting your shows? Nobody cares about that!’ And I was like, ‘Oh gee, I don’t know... maybe because they’re important?  Because they actually mean something to me?’"

... (read more)

2020! Now it can be told: the charade of a world without new Magik Markers records (six-plus years!) has finally ended. In these times of contagion fables and hacky blockbuster n95 disaster imagery IRL, Markers emerge again like three Lazarus from their three individual firmaments, just in the nick of the end of time.

What Magik Markers do best is listening, and as John Shaw, Pete Nolan and Elisa Ambrogio worked with the tunes, they heard something taking shape. Less a style than... (read more)

In the years of this new century (AY2K) guitarist Tashi Dorji has stood out in the field of improvised music with an incisive way of playing in and out of moments, tremendous conviction alongside the mercurial touch needed to ride the changing wind. Tashi's debut for Drag City is the work of a seasoned player, delving fearlessly forward and finding new places in the present moment with every stroke and pick. Stateless is about more than just playing your way into somewhere. This is music... (read more)