The latest single from a band whose music is both dreamy and crushing. Eyewash’s 2023 debut EP featured gauzy swirls and metallic chugs alike, and “Bound” finds the quintet pushing its sound even further in both directions. The track’s heavy parts hit like battering rams, as the guitars sink down into churning sludge and the vocals transition from melodic to yowled; “Do you want to feel the things I feel?” goes one anguished refrain. Later on, though, the storm quiets, the drums slow down, arpeggios arc like rainbows through a prism, and vocals drift soothingly through a reverb sea. A punishin ..read more

A few words about a few local tracks that hit the spot this week ### Luwidakid – Too Playa Luwi and guest Freddo Filial daydream over a Julio-produced instrumental that sounds like it could be playing in a Grand Theft Auto cabana. More from Luwidakid Follow on Instagram ### Calvin Stanley – Functional Amnesia A driving techno track that coalesces into being like a pulsing cloud of space dust forming a planet. Digital chirps and gut-churning drones abound. More from Calvin Stanley Follow on Instagram ### Hideous Tenant – Songs for Decomposition Otherworldly analog synth pieces, the type of st ..read more

Chains of Desire creates abrasive synth music that seems to disintegrate as it plays. Centralia is a town in Northeastern PA in which a coal fire burns permanently underground. Its buildings have been condemned, its ZIP code discontinued. Five people still live in Centralia despite extended eviction efforts by state and local government bodies. Stubbornness is one of humanity’s great motivators. “Centralia,” a mid-album track from Chains of Desire’s recently released Youth & Industry, is the kind of thing that these five remaining residents would throw on at a dance party held atop the smo ..read more

Frequent collaborators team up for the Two Guns EP. It’s fitting that a track named after a Swissvale corner bar would open with the sounds of muddled chatter and music strains warped as if filtered through a haze of heavy smoke. When the instrumental kicks in properly it’s with the sampled smolder of a lounge lizard saxophone complemented by hissing cymbals and a molasses slow drumbeat. BOSSY and JVGGY trade tells of illicit luxury, rapping about eighths snuck onto flights, shoes filled with island sand, and Aaliyah-soundtracked romance. The rhymes are succinct, relying on delivery, atmospher ..read more

Today’s exercise features an interaction between a parking attendant and a person whose hobby is asking to speak to the manager. RESTRICT FIREPLACE POST CHEW Don’t restrict my movement. Don’t do it. Don’t tell me that I can’t park here. I can park here if I want to park here. And what was that tone? Was that a threatening tone that I detected? You can shake your head all you want, but it sounded threatening to me. “Don’t even think about parking here”? What happens if I do think about it? What if I’m thinking about it right now? What would you do? You’re much larger than me, much brawnier, and ..read more

The experimental multimedia duo conjures a dark billow of sound. A screeching clamor introduces “INTIMATE FIGURES”–a chorus of faceless augurs foretelling a storm. Then on cue the piece rises up and blots out the sun in an all-encompassing cloud. Its eight and a half minutes whirr by like pages in a thumbed flip book, each containing a darkly rendered segment of grainy drone. The rotoric pulse that underpins the eerie melodic shifts suggests a helicopter hovering above an unfolding apocalypse of which only faint outlines are visible. It’s a powerful and sometimes intimidating experience that a ..read more

A few words about a few local tracks that hit the spot this week ### Bala Rise and the Uprising – You Made Us Too A tribute to Bala Rise’s late father, previously recorded as a rousing rock track, now reimagined in the vein of the scorching thrash metal that Rise’s father loved. More from Bala Rise and the Uprising Follow on Instagram and Facebook Artwork by Bala Rise ### levi – time Donny Levi Donovan (formerly of Hearken) finds a new voice and belts it out over chugging riffs, eerie synths, and epic slo-mo drums. More from levi Follow on Instagram Artwork by Cliff Fields ### Tom Hill – Dea ..read more

Digital tinkerer FLOOR BABA unveils a collection of B-sides from 2022’s PREHISTORY. You’re walking on a sunbaked sidewalk when suddenly you see a black line snaking across the concrete up ahead. Upon approach you realize that it’s a column of ants marching in a pointilist rivulet. You always thought ants went about their business quietly. Think again. These ants’ movements are generating sound. The hyperactive stagger of each ant’s stride gives off a blip of melody; the blips combine to form a blanket of sound that strobes the muggy air. You arrive at the ant column and step across. The second ..read more

A yearning new single out on Darling Recordings. Not every person would watch a video of a Winnebago salesman profanely botching ad copy and find themselves inspired to pen an achingly poetic musical still-life, but that’s what separates Merce Lemon from the rest of us YouTube-scourers. A minute in to the video in question, salesman Jack Rebney, fresh off an impressive string of “fuck”s and “shit”s, sits exasperated in the driver’s seat of an RV and asks his coworker, Tony, “Will you do me a kindness?” The kindness that Jack desires is for Tony to leave him alone, but Merce repurposes the line ..read more

A few words about a few local tracks that hit the spot this week ### Low Life Drifters – Ghost Train A moonshine Molotov cocktail lobbed from a graffitied railway car as it chugs past a barn decorated with a cross. More from Low Life Drifters Follow on Instagram and Facebook Artwork by Vince Ray ### Hozay Bandz x King Chop – Too Late 2 Apologize Hozay and Chop take a classic mid-2000s hook and furiously flip it from a heartbroken sob to a cold-eyed threat. More from Hozay Bandz and follow on Instagram More from King Chop and follow on Instagram Video by ANTI ### Hajile – Aromatherapy Sounds ..read more