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With its delicate instrumentation and haunting harmonies, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's "Willow, Pine and Oak" showcases his ability to transport listeners to a realm of introspection and contemplation. Like lullaby and nursery rhyme, Will imparts the song in patient, bite-size thoughts and allows his lyrical prowess to shine brightly, as he weaves intricate emotions and meaning into the fabric of his words. The deft strings (expertly performed by Sara Callaway and Elisabeth Fuchsia) and intimate guitar contribute to the song's ethereal quality, enhancing its dreamlike... (read more)

The curtain rings down on 2023, with the proverbial “Opus You Didn’t Know You Were Waiting For” — a new musical from Erik Paparozzi and Gregg Turkington — Neil Hamburger Presents: Seasonal Depression Suite, out November 17th!

Over the past two decades, Turkington’s conception of the rotten existence of “America’s Funnyman” Neil Hamburger has evolved in unexpected ways. On 2019’s Still Dwelling project, Turkington first collaborated with arranger/producer Erik Paparozzi, whose sensibilities aligned perfectly with Turkington’s own musical obsessions. Seasonal Depression Suite is... (read more)

Papa M construct pieces that unfold like a narrative, painting vivid images and emotions through sound textures alone. Whether you're dropping the needle on a record or trekking to see him live, Pajo infuses his compositions with bursts of rhythmic drive and dynamic shifts in an unprecedented manner.

Speaking of live, it feels like ages since we've had the opportunity to witness Papa M in action! For many of us, that opportunity remains in the indeterminable future, but for the heads in Australia,... (read more)

Ticker-tape and soot cascade through the air as Michael Donovan's parade rolls on down the road, this time in collab with The Mighty Flashlight (aka Mike Fellows). On this latest long player, Mike ‘n Mighty lead us into a stereo maze of sweet and hot noise, soaked in the purifying waters of rock and passed through a variety of sonic sieves, making a jolly hallucinatory racket, at that!

At least it did on the first single, the carnival of sound "Planet Metley"! For the... (read more)

Moments of eternity: the first plucks at the strings, a bass note cementing the drift into place a little more than a minute in. The organ drones, iterating unlivable ancient history, a chiming note of the church. Guitar strings, climbing that stairway to heaven. Gossamer-light when viewed from a distance; up close, the gears grind with a visceral physicality.

With BCMC, Cooper Crain (Bitchin Bajas, CAVE) and Bill MacKay unite to create Foreign Smokes: provocalogues, equal parts avant-garde... (read more)

Could it be? Is he risen? The late master re-materializes before us, in the form of something resembling the Oracle of Delphi or Clown Prince at Olympus. Recorded circa 1995/1996, mostly in John Fahey’s room at a Salem, Oregon boarding-house, the performances on Proofs and Refutations prefigure the ornery turn of the page that marked Fahey’s final years, drawing another enigmatic rabbit from his seemingly bottomless musical hat, making delightfully confounding demands upon your listening (and thinking) ear.

Mounting a thundering dialectic... (read more)

P.G. Six's latest offering, Murmurs & Whispers, features lots of what you simply love about P.G. Six: songs sung from the heart and played with mostly acoustic instrumentation, intricate finger-picking patterns and expansive, spacious arrangements. As he has done over the past two decades, Pat blends influences from traditional music and psychedelic rock in new ways unique to him on Murmurs & Whispers. It is a contemplative, immersive listening experience.

The third single from Murmurs & Whispers is "I Don't Want to Be... (read more)

Last year's YTI⅃AƎЯ is this year's YTI⅃AƎЯ. The album came out ten months ago and we now have our first video. A video that feels like it gestated that long, that it needed to gestate that long to become what it is. There's a lifetime portrayed in this video. In the same way that the song plays with only a few images, the video matches that minimalism -- suspended in a pleasant and rich purgatory.

Bill Callahan deals out a character portrait of the... (read more)

Lost in time yet always in season, here’s a blast of that ol’ perennial, the punk rock, representative of the swiftly changing times around Bailey’s Crossroads, just outside Washington, D.C., in the early 80s. Skam recorded this stuff in ’82–’83, then broke up, leaving these songs to be released . . . maybe never? Or more preferably, now, to race into the bloodstream of jaded, faded today with all the vigor and rigor of Skam’s eternal youth.

Though they didn’t release any records... (read more)

Finally! Vinylly! The Prison break of our dreams at long last. Freedom is the goal for Rockaway Beach’s very own state-of-mind jam band. Everybody’s got their point of view, and one slamming riff at a time unites all of them: five guys, four vocals, three guitars together outrageously, melding a craft that runs on it’s own rock and roll synergy, and lots of it. Sure, it goes too far! How the hell else you gonna get Upstate?

Prison embrace a loose, free-flowing... (read more)