If you're familiar with Sun Araw's trippy gems, you'll be certainly thrilled with Cameron Stallones' side-project, Sohni Chambers. Featuring solely Stallones on the Galaxie 8180 organ and his live collaborator Nick Malkin on the 5-piece drum-kit, Sohni Chambers is like a primitive, guitar-less side of Stalonnes' main venture in which all that sun-kissed psychedelia returns to its most raw, embryonic state. If you think of Sun Araw as the moment when you're laid semi-unconscious on the floor with your mind spinning in another dimension because you were hit in the head (which is more or less how I feel when I listen to it), then Sohni Chambers is the moment before that, when you're knocked-out but not yet seeing stars.
Yaw-Mah-Ha was recorded in Los Angeles last May and is now available through Goaty Tapes. According to Altered Zones, its song titles were named after the time of the day they were actually recorded. But while our friends gave you 2:47pm, we set our watches to 3:18pm.
"I think this EP is kind of like falling asleep with the TV on... everything just seeps in. At some point you've gotta detox it out of your system to stay mentally fresh". That's how Gaurav from CVLTS introduced me his new EP, Black Hole, Hi Five, out today on Atelier Ciseaux. After listening to it, I cannot find better words to describe it. I highly recommend you to embark on this mind dazzling trip. Black Hole, Hi Five comes in a beautifully crafted and extremely limited (30 copies) edition of home-painted black tapes including a vintage, religious-themed picture postcard (some of them handwritten -- how cool is that?). Back off, one's mine.
In case you're a little tired of chillwave candies, here's some bloody uncooked meat for you. Telephone Callers are a garage punk combo from Michigan and they just put out a compilation of recordings on Fixture Records that is one of the most schizophrenic, chaotic and cool things I've heard recently. Volumes I & II is a double-cassette, 36-song freak out where burning guitars jostle and collide with eerie keyboards and possessed drums while someone is babbling something that only vaguely resembles english. It's like everyone is too drunk to play and just about to collapse on the floor. And yet, somehow it works -- or maybe it doesn't work and that's the charm of it. Get this handmade, hardcover book, jacket-style box with the mp3s included here.
One year after their debut cassette, Beach at the Top of the Mountain, Campfire are back for some more weird and improvised music that appeals to the most inner parts of your brain. Recorded both live and home, Camphires is a C32 available for purchase on Ace Of Tapes. I like the hypnotic description provided by the label: "This is a fade town. The sun is always going over the mountain and coming back around the other side. It's slow-going and short and yet a lot of ground is covered. Zones come in and out. You get lost and find yourself miles from where you were just laying... light just broke into the cave you were cautiously exploring... and now you're floating... above the ocean. Where is the ground? I don't know." Pssst, wake up!
Here it is, at last, Ghost Animal's debut cassette, Summer Time in Heaven, which is also the first physical release of Summer Time in Hell (i remotely suspect there is a connection here), the micro-label run by Mat Cothran from Coma Cinema, in collaboration with Orchid Tapes. We recently sat down (well, not literally) with Michael Avishay from the californian duo for a very nice Q&A and besides describing their sound as "dark, gloomy, ginsoaked bedroom pop dying to get out of the summer" and citing influences such as Jesus & The Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine, he also gave us a very interesting and personal insight about the making of this album. You can first download the record for free here and then buy it over there.
Some people like to wear Misfits t-shirts. Some people like to do Misfits covers. Some people like to name their musical projects after Misfits songs. Dan Svizeny, who is also a member of Nude Beach, is at least part of this last category of people. Cough Cool is his solo moniker and it's all about fuzzed out, post-depressive bedroom-pop intimacy with a shoegaze touch. Epic Dreams compiles some old unreleased stuff and follows the much buzzed-about Slow Fuck digital EP. Get it here.
Jean Sebastian Audet from Calgary, Canada is one busy young guy. He is part of the lo-fi rock duo Faux Fur (they have a nice split with Ghost Animal on Scoth Tapes), instrumental hip-hop project Zouk Fuck and the man behind the micro-label Yew Nork and this very cool blog. Friends is his debut solo effort under the nickname Wealth Plant. It's 16 minutes of simple guitar riffs haunted by a lot of noisy reverberation, almost imperceptible echoing vocals and some other low-end samples. Ah, the beautiful weirdness of youth.
If you've ever wondered how outer space sounds like, your curiosity ends here. It seems that some dudes in Ohio, US discovered that the void that exists between stars and planets is a place full of low density particles of garage rock and psychedelic radiation. Luckily they were able to record these sonic waves and put it on a 30-minute tape under the name Outer Spacist that you can now buy on Dub Ditch Picnic.
It's not all about Teen Daze today on Wonder Beard Tapes. You can finally start pre-ordering Mikey Sander's (also known as Blackbird Blackbird and formerly known as Bye Bye Blackbird) debut LP Summer Heart on cassette edition. His two previous free EPs (Rarities and Modern Desbelief), videos, covers and remixes are literally in every single blog out there, so I guess you've probably heard this glowing dreamwave somewhere, somehow before. If you're interested order it as soon as possible as edition is limited to 100 copies and tapes will probably fly like two tiny little black birds.
"It’s a chillwave, glo-fi, dance, electronic, soul, sample-heavy, reverb-drenched record. This record was meant to be something that brought positivity to the listener. This is a record that is meant to encourage love, relationship, and at the same time, it’s just a dance record. Either way, it’s meant to put a smile on your face, and is to be enjoyed with summer vibes in mind", says Vancouver's Teen Daze about his debut EP 'Four More Years', released some time ago via Arcade Sound on traditional formats and now available for pre-order through Wonder Beard Tapes on cassette edition. Summer is not over yet.
The always attentive guys at Weird Canada just informed about this debut C4 (yes, it's that much long) from Toronto art punkers Induced Labour. Don't get scared by the fiendish vocals, this is good, stomach-punching punk rock, though maybe not advisable for breakfast. You can download it for free here and/or order it directly by e-mail through the band's website.
The Band In Heaven / Weird Wives Split Cassette (Worker Bee Records, 2010)
The Band In Heaven was the first band featured on our Fresh Blood series. A few months later, here they are again, debuting our brand new department devoted to the cassette culture. This split with Weird Wives -- the side project of 3 out of 5 members of the Pitchfork-blessed band Surfer Blood -- is their first official release and it's going to be available for purchase online later this week on Workerbee Records. Release is limited to 100 copies, so try to get your hands on it as soon as possible. In the meantime you can listen to these 4 killer songs on the label's bandcamp.
Tracklist:
A.1) The Band In Heaven - Summer Bummer
A.2) The Band In Heaven - Suicide Pact
B.1) Weird Wives - Head Bugs
B.2) Weird Wives - Wet Blanket
