Finally, a band that recognizes and appreciates the weird and enigmatic world of exotica records. Grassy Sound is a project lead by Nick Millevoi and Ron Stabinksy of the Meat Puppets that resuscitates life back into the LPs you’ll find in the dollar section of your local record store. Elements of cheap-o surf rock, budget bin ’60s exotica and jazzy mid-century film scores are all fused together and given a post-rock makeover. If you could imagine Dick Dale tunes or laidback Bernard Hermann soundtracks being infected by red-hot shredding and sketchy carnival Hammond C-3 organ work, then y ..read more

With the help of Jerry David DeCicca in the producer’s chair, Ralph E. White has returned with a new record of surreal folk-inspired music on Worried Songs called It’s More in My Body Than in My Mind. White is a wonderfully eccentric and sadly underestimated southwestern American artist that has been operating within the tangled weeds that exist between the worlds of psychedelic rock, folk and avant-garde music for over 30 years. Apart from his own solo work, White has been in bands like Bad Liver and Precious Blood and has worked with everyone from Jandek to Jack Rose and Michael Hurley (just ..read more

A murky world beyond your strangest dreams awaits you in Million Brazilians’ Urban Fossickated Octave.  Formed from the roots of bands like Smegma, Big Blood and Cerberus Shoals, this lineup of MB is absolutely fierce. Throughout the length of the record, they tear through swamps of distorted tape loops, cursed drones and the torched remains of jazz. To say that their sonic concoctions are otherworldly would be a dramatic understatement. A major strength of this record is its organically loose form. The music here is so free-flowing, it nearly feels as though it lacks shape ent ..read more

Guerssen Records are reissuing some of the most daring, unusual and straight up mindblowing obscure records of all time. They’re doing an especially excellent job recently, so here’s a quick rundown of some of my favorite of the label’s recent batch of releases: Thomas Hamilton – Pieces For Kohn Sometimes, there is nothing more fascinating to listen to than early electronic music. Often amorphous, cosmic and daringly freeform, recordings of this quasi-genre often push the very boundaries of what can be considered as ‘music.’ Yet even with these inaccessible qualities, records like Tom Hamilto ..read more

Growing up reading the sacred pages of The Ptolemaic Terrascope, I was trained early on to jump whenever a release by the Charalambides or either of Tom or Christina Carter appears. This instinct was certainly the correct one to have for their latest record, Tom and Christina Carter. Across four vinyl sides, the Carters weave a haunting spell of mostly just moody, smoky guitar and free-form vocalizations that together create an eerie and haunting vibe that transfixes the listener from start to finish. While the combination of mainly guitar and vocals may feel a bit simplistic, the Carters mak ..read more

Here’s a review I wrote back in the fall for Anna Von Hausswollf’s The Miraculous, via Elmore Magazine.  ..read more

The Primal Barber Trio BARBERBarberbarbr Deserted Village (2014) Every now and then, a record just drops out of the blue and sucker-punches you, leaving you sitting on the floor in a daze, trying to figure out what had just happened. BARBERBarberbarbr by The Primal Barber Trio is possibly the best example of this kind of record. Every single sound heard within the entirety of the EP’s 20 minutes is somehow uttered acapella by the mouths of Gavin Prior, Stuart Geelon and Aonghus McEvoy. Living up to the name of the group, it is certainly primal. Reaching somewhere between the wi ..read more