News

The Sir Richard Bishop show is back in town, alive as ever with exotic action, plus a bit of everything but the kitchen sink! Oneiric Formulary is the sound of surprise - first Sir Rick being surprised, then us! Not simply by six-string acoustic rags 'n ragas, but departures as well into electric guitar, keyboard tricks, avant atmosphere, and even a reedy eastern knees-up! It's got mad variety, the kind you don't see much of anymore - an Ed Sullivan kind of evening out, with... (read more)

Washington, DC (home of the worst corruption ever known), wasn't always like this. In the early 1980s, it was home to the world's most vital, distinguished hardcore punk communities. With Minor Threat, Dischord Records and an ascetic straight-edge lifestyle that disdained booze, sex, and drugs, the city made a name for its loud, fast music and righteous progressive politics - a latter-day Camelot. 
 
Hailing from the unhip suburb of Ashton, Maryland, No Trend presented a sneering alternative to that sanctimonious ethos. Cynical, surreal,... (read more)

Bill Callahan loves the south - especially because there's so damn much of it! He lives in it in the US, but once he passes Southernmost Point Buoy, there's still so many amazing people and countries and continents even further south. The deepest dive of all would be Antarctica, but they lack the necessary clubs/recording studios/radio to attract such a musical man for very long. So Australia it is!

The latest whistle-stop on the Shepherd In a Sheepskin Vest tour that's (slow)rocked the nations... (read more)

Ben Chasny, now two decades into the journey that is Six Organs of Admittance, transmits a new single from the forthcoming Companion Rises. "The 101" acts as 6OOA's rocking travelogue (Hartford→Detroit→SF, then the 101 north) across the good old USA. Ben's brisk picked guitar 
invention sets the pace, as synth, electric guitar and digital percussion join to drive the travel displacement vibe and anticipation of home again to a feverish pitch.
 
Elisa Ambrogio's video for "The 101" rides a... (read more)

The early Espers music back in print and circulating freely around the world! It's been a dream for so long for so many - and we're almost there, folks! But before we get to the March reissue date, let's pause, review and listen to a tune.

Emerging in Philadelphia around 2004, the trio of Meg Baird, Greg Weeks and Brooke Sietinsons added a few guest performers for their debut album, crafting delicate-yet-full-toned arrangements strewn with classical and traditional music touches, acid leads and... (read more)

Masaki Batoh's solo career continues to rise up with his fifth solo album (and second in the last two years), Smile Jesus Loves YOU.

Following the mostly solitary activity of making 2019's Nowhere, Batoh has invited several guests to play with him for parts of Smile Jesus Loves YOU. Like family members, collaborators from The Silence and Ghost make guest appearances, including, for two songs, ex-Ghost and legendary percussionist Hiroyuki Usui (Fushitsusha). As long time listeners of Ghost and The Silence... (read more)

Scout Niblett has a way of sneaking up on you - be it with aggressive hot-box tunes or pensive, grung-noise dirges, she's a hunter and she will find you, the music listener - there's nothing you can do about it! Is it time to Calcinate? You betcha! Scout's just announced a string of burning European tour dates and we had to let you know, lest you remain frosted in the dark. The fun begins in May, so you've got time to save a little... (read more)

Hamerkop's brand-new LP debut Remote is a natural progression from the criminally-underrated Bachelorette catalog, seeking catharsis through the contextualizing of personal texts into lush songscapes, using the chill of synth-pop to mask the fallible human soul hidden behind it. Far away from her native New Zealand with a new life and family in America, Annabel Alpers strove to find elements of her old identity in new environs, building songs out of sonic scraps from remote places, as if she were sewing a blanket in which... (read more)

Bonnie "Prince" Billy is a man who is destined to sing a darkness for the rest of time - but not now. Not today. For I Made a Place, his first album of new songs since 2011, he is bringing the lightness to new and next-generations, as well as longtime friends and fans. It's a message we dearly need. With an all-Louisville band bringing the musical space for our 'Prince' to be as spare or as expansive as is his 'royal' need, Bonny draws inspiration... (read more)

Way back in the 1960's, Nashville's own Chris Gantry laid the foundation, together with a generation of fellow proto-outlaws, for what would become outlaw country, a movement that shifted the entire genre of country music nearly fifty years ago. In the 70s and 80s, Chris's iconoclastic streak took him on many trips out of the record industry, some of which lasted for years! Still, he never stopped performing, as a cursory listen to his white-hot chops on his ninth and newest album, Nashlantis, will... (read more)