Axe Crazy

Guitar heroics have been a key part of rock music since Chuck Berry first touched the instrument, but heavy metal took fretboard pyrotechnics to the extreme. Ritchie Blackmore built bombastic melodies out of the raw material of classical and folk for Deep Purple and Rainbow. Nancy Wilson reached deep into her soul for Heart. Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing sharpened dual guitar harmonies to a buzzsaw’s edge with Judas Priest. One Mr. Edward Van Halen blew up and rebuilt the entire concept of the guitar solo.

Even as punk rock and its descendants rebelled against guitar wank, the trend continued in metal through the ’80s, from the gnarliest underground thrashers to the hairiest poodle bands. Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine and Marty Friedman, The Runaways’ Lita Ford, Katherine Thomas (aka The Great Kat), and Yngwie J. Malmsteen—just to name a few—refined and defined what sounds could be generated with six strings and an amplifier. Even as nu metal stripped the genre of everything appealing in the ’90s, Scandinavian death metal maestros like Alexi Laiho (Children Of Bodom), Michael Amott (Carcass/Arch Enemy), and the Björler brothers (At the Gates/The Haunted) defended the faith until all the backwards baseball caps were burned. Metalcore acts like Shadows Fall and God Forbid (and games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band) helped bring the thrill of the power chord back to prominence in the new millennium, and so-called “hipster metal” groups like The Sword made it briefly cool again.

There have always been retro-minded metal warriors, but recently there’s been another surge in bands that live by the sword and die by the guitar. It’s not just an American thing; you can find men and women from Chile to Poland burning through guitar picks. The shred mentality has survived (and thrived) because nothing else delivers pure energy and empowerment quite like it.

We’ve handpicked some of the finest practitioners of old-school metal that celebrate the least humble of instruments: the electric guitar. The playing may be flashy, but these bands won’t be flashes in the pan.

Axe Crazy

These Polish powerhouses took their name (and a lot of their sound) from an obscure single by a new wave of British heavy metal (aka NWOBHM) act called Jaguar, and judging by their diction, it’s very possible they learned English from Jaguar as well. While Ride on the Night doesn’t have a guitar on the cover, it does have a muscle car, which is basically the automotive equivalent of a Gibson Flying V—even if it makes for a rough ride at times, the sheer power and speed under the hood thrills. Also, the muscle car has a laser gun on it. Axe Crazy’s raw enthusiasm allows them to blast that beam right into your pleasure center.

Bewitcher

Mixed and mastered by Toxic Holocaust’s Joel Grind, loyal to the Motorhead/Venom “everything louder than everything else” philosophy, and sporting song titles like “Speed ‘Til You Bleed” and “Black Speed Delirium,” Bewitcher’s primitive presentation make them seem like like an odd inclusion on this list until you realize their secret: They’re a smart band pretending to be a dumb band. The gravelly vocals and D-beaten rhythms work as vehicles to hide how seamlessly the guitarist, who goes by the name Unholy Weaver of Shadows & Incantations, weaves his intricate playing into the caveman thrash.

Hëiligen

Latin America has long been a hotbed of metallic activity, and while many high profile exports have come from Brazil (see: Sepultura, Angra, Sarcófago), there’s reason to look farther south. Hëiligen hail from Chile, and while they probably owe Iron Maiden some royalties, they at least draw from the Brits’ lesser-copied, proggier post-millennial side. They aren’t quite at that level yet, but who is? You can’t argue with songs about battle and metal delivered directly into the hesher’s Gibson depicted on the cover by Zeus himself.

Hitten

Their logo makes their name look like “Kitten,” but these Spanish longhairs pack some seriously sharp claws. State Of Shock sounds like it was recorded through the muffler of Axe Crazy’s beater. Still, the primitive production can’t obscure their fancy fretwork. The controlled chaos always seems on the verge of short-circuiting, but Hitten do an admirable job of riding the lightning. Hopefully electrifying songs like “Wrong Side of Heaven” will earn them enough attention to get into a proper studio next time.

Iron Spell

Iron Spell balance on that precarious edge between ambition and ability, but by aiming just outside the outer reaches of their talent, they achieve a sense of energy and danger. Will they reach the heights of metal Valhalla? Or will they crash like Icarus after his tanning session? It’s all part of the fun! Still, on tracks like the Thin Lizzy-style instrumental exercise “Under the Iron Spell,” these Chileans make a strong argument for renting them out a pair of wings.

Lady Beast

Lady Beast do have a lady in the band, although she seems to be human. Heavily inspired by Iron Maiden and Sinergy (a power metal-oriented side project of guitar god Alexi Laiho), these Pennsylvanians like their guitar tone clean and their metal triumphant. As one might expect from an EP called Metal Immortal, their subject matter revolves around the awesomeness of heavy metal and the same feeling vis-à-vis dragons. The anachronistic approach allows the guitar harmonies to really shine. Presumably the ’80s ended somewhere, but that somewhere ain’t here.

Satan’s Hallow

Coursing with an urgency that recalls the NWOBHM movement, Satan’s Hallow blast out of the Windy City like a full-blown tornado. Von Jugel and Steve “Lethal” Beaudette’s whirlwind of guitars propel Mandy Martillo’s forceful delivery, sweeping everything before them in its wake. That breathless energy, combined with a masterful grasp of metal fundamentals, keeps the excitement racing at a fever pitch. Their debut shows that traditional doesn’t mean boring. They’ve arrived at the top of their game, up there with other recent luminaries like Christian Mistress, Tower, and Castle.

Seax

Speed Metal Mania has guitar front and center—literally, in the case of the cover and figuratively, in the pyrotechnic display that opens the title track. These masters of disaster from Massachusetts subscribe to the Teutonic thrash school of thought: riff after riff after riff, played as fast as possible until the song ends or someone’s fingers fall off, punctuated with the occasional shriek. Thankfully, they don’t sacrifice precision for speed. Just because the radiation zombie on the album art doesn’t know how to hold the guitar doesn’t mean that’s the case with the actual members of the band.

Sleazer

Weirdly not as sleazy as one would expect from a band that has “sleaze” in its name, this Italian battalion seems more interested in chasing (literal) dragons than they do in chasing tail. A darkness reminiscent of Savatage underlies the fun, giving seemingly silly tunes unexpected depth, an ’80s hallmark too many current bands miss. Vocalist Andrea Vecchiotti competes with dual guitarists Edoardo Artibani and Clemente Cattalani to see who can do crazier things with their instrument of choice. The listener wins.

Stalker

Stalker cast a shadow over the beautiful shires of their New Zealand home with their three-song demo. Despite their seemingly straightforward attack, they recall prime Slayer in their ability to not only crank out killer riffs at hyperspeed, but in making the transitions feel both surprising and organic at the same time. Sometimes it takes incredible complexity to execute the most primal thrash.

Stereo Nasty

The cover model may be hiding a wicked knife behind her back, but Irish group Stereo Nasty don’t hide their wicked riffs. Taking cues from the bad boys of hair metal like WASP and (early) Twisted Sister, Stereo Nasty wield a sharper edge than many of their peers by going for grit instead of glitter. That’s represented in the songwriting as well, the solos aiming more for the streets than the stars. Still, they know when to let loose—and when they do, the knives come out.

Substratum

Reveling in the toxic waste that produced classic mutant metal bands like Manilla Road and Cirith Ungol, Substratum bring a sense of style to a raw and ugly genre (although Cirith covered Bach’s “Toccata in D minor,” so there’s certainly precedent for the tasteful classical intro to “Curse of the Soothsayer Part I: The Beggar’s Toll”). Though not as flamboyant as some of the other bands on this list, guitarists Jonny Haynes and Max Nazaryan still carry Amy Lee Carlson’s voice up the fortress parapets to slay the frog-thing warlord.

—Jeff Treppel

Photo by Nevin Domer.

Ask any Chinese indie band formed in the last decade about their influences, odds are they’ll mention P.K.14. Originally from Nanjing, P.K.14 set root in Beijing in 2001, at a time when its underground rock scene was strictly defined by punk and metal bands. Drawing influence from ’80s post-punk, and artistic energy from vocalist Yang Haisong’s poetic lyricism and passionate delivery, P.K.14 founded a new tributary of art rock in Beijing that continues to influence bands today. (Check out Bandcamp Daily’s profile of the band here.)

In 2007, Haisong was approached by Zhang Shou Wang, singer of Beijing noise rock band Carsick Cars, who asked if he’d be interested in producing the band’s debut album. Haisong had been curious about the production process, and often peppered longtime P.K.14 producer Henrik Oja with questions during recording sessions. He agreed.

Ten years later, Haisong estimates he’s produced or engineered between 60 and 70 albums—mostly debuts for young Chinese bands who seek him out from all over the country. Many of these albums have been for Maybe Mars, a label that Haisong helped found and currently runs. He also worked with China’s biggest indie label, Modern Sky, on a 10-album series called House Party focusing specifically on producing debuts for new bands. Haisong says that this has been his driving force as a producer: providing that crucial first step for young artists that don’t yet know the ropes of the industry.

“That’s the best time to record them, to push them to go to the next step,” he says from the Maybe Mars courtyard office near Beijing’s city center. He’d grouped a string of meetings there for the afternoon. For the rest of the week he’ll hunker down in Psychic Kong, his studio located underneath a suburban parking garage, where he was in the middle of recording the debut album for Lonely Leary, his latest signee. “New bands don’t grow up by themselves. You have to push them.”

Haisong says his production work falls into two categories: bands that find him, and bands that he takes a special interest in pushing. In the latter category are Hiperson, a band from Chengdu that Haisong first encountered when they opened for P.K.14 on tour, and whose vocalist Chen Sijiang is described by fans as “the female Yang Haisong.” Another is FAZI, a four-piece post-punk band from Xi’an, with whom Haisong recently completed part of a 42-city China tour, scheduling impromptu recording sessions along the way. Bands that seek him out—like the duo Alpine Decline, who moved from Los Angeles to Beijing in part to work with him—also end up a fundamental part of Haisong’s program. For last year’s Life’s A Gasp, the third album Haisong produced for Alpine Decline, he joined the band on bass.

We asked Haisong to list the top albums from his prodigious catalogue, and to talk about how they shaped his path as a producer and mentor, how he absorbs bands into his DNA, and how he puts his into theirs.

Carsick Cars, Carsick Cars

This was the first album I produced. It was pretty exciting and tiring. I worked with an engineer, so sometimes the conversations were a bit chaotic. That experience made me think that I should be both engineer and producer, so that I can control things and talk to the band directly. We spent 15 days in the studio. It was winter, so it was very cold and dark. The funniest part was that we almost lost all of the data files for the recording session. When we’d almost finished, the engineer said, ‘Oh, I think the computer is broken.’ We had to find a company in [Beijing tech hub] Zhongguancun to get all the data out and keep going. That was dangerous! Anyway, this album is really good, the lyrics are really good. I love it a lot.

Ourself Beside Me, Ourself Beside Me

The next album I produced was the debut for Ourself Beside Me. At the time I’d just come back from Sweden after recording [P.K.14’s] City Weather Sailing. The band’s leader Yang Fan said they wanted to record their new album, and asked me if I’d be interested in producing them. I had some new ideas from the P.K.14 recording, and I thought I could use them for Ourself Beside Me. Actually, I used the same kick as the P.K.14 album. We found a very big studio called Guoan Juyuan, a military recording studio. I wanted to record a very big room sound for them.

Dear Eloise, The Words That Were Burnt

Dear Eloise is the project of me and my wife, Sun Xia. Our first recording is from the end of 2008. We bought some recording equipment and did most of it in a practice room, and added the vocals in our dining room. One of the best parts about this project is that it increased my songwriting and recording skills. It’s like a test to gain recording experience. I play all the instruments. We can do anything we want, all the noise we want, all the feedback we want. It’s very free and fun. I use this experience to help other bands.

Birdstriking, Birdstriking

I opened my own recording studio, Psychic Kong, six years ago. It started as P.K.14’s rehearsal room. The first album I recorded there was Birdstriking’s debut. Maybe Mars asked me to produce it but they had a very low budget, only enough for one or two days in a studio. I had the home recording equipment already for Dear Eloise, so I said why not do it in Psychic Kong? We could take as much time as we need. I’d just started, so it was very simple. The room sound was not very good. Now Psychic Kong is pretty good. I still charge really low for indie bands, but I put most of my money into the studio’s audio equipment. It’s still small, but the sound is much better now. Now it’s like a real studio.

The Fallacy, Painkiller

The Fallacy is one of the bands I chose for Modern Sky’s House Party series. They have a very strong energy on stage. For Chinese rock the singer’s style is pretty unique. They’re a post-punk band, but pretty different for China. They sound a bit like The Birthday Party. Very strong, very sharp. They’re from Xinxiang, a small town, but they have a lot of passion to play shows and keep going. I like to see bands that have this kind of passion towards the music. It’s not like, “I play music because it’s easy to get famous,” or something. It’s like, “I have to do this. I live in a small town, I have nothing to do, but I love this so I have to do it.” I love to see this kind of thing.

FAZI, The Root of Innocence

FAZI from Xi’an are the same way. Their scene is small, nobody cares about them. They have nobody to support them except five friends or something. But they keep going, with passion and energy. The idea to record them while they were on tour came while I was producing their second album. One night after recording we were eating dinner, and we started talking about the next album, even though this one wasn’t finished yet. I wanted to do something uncontrolled. They were planning a tour anyway, so we came up with the idea to find five cities along the way and record two songs in each. They knew it was going to be very tiring, but they agreed to it. In Xiamen we recorded in a live house, in Dalian we recorded in a library on their day off. We wanted different room sounds, different feelings. They carried all the recording equipment in their tour van so that we could do it.

The Yours, Teenagarten

I have two different ways to produce bands. One is I choose the band. Another way is bands come to me. The Yours from Hong Kong was the second one, their manager sent me an email saying they wanted to work with me. I knew them because they’d opened for P.K.14 in Hong Kong, but their style was really shoegaze, not my thing. But they sent me the demo, and it was pretty different, like Sonic Youth. So I said yes. If a band asks me to be a producer, it doesn’t matter whether or not I like the music, I just do the engineering, and I try my best to do that well, to make the band happy. But if I choose a band, I have to be more involved in the band’s music, and more involved in their sound. I start to think about what kind of sound they want. Eventually I signed The Yours and we released this album on Maybe Mars.

Hiperson, No Need For Another History

The first time I heard Hiperson was when they opened for P.K.14 in Chengdu. They’d just started. Their lyrics are really good, that’s very important for me. The lyrics are in Mandarin and very poetic. The vocalist, Chen Sijiang, her voice is unique, it’s very different from other singers. The music is danceable, in terms of the rhythm, the groove. They also have a very strong passion towards music. Other 20-somethings mainly play video games or go clubbing or something. Hiperson has a very strong focus on music, and think about music all the time. I’d just re-joined Maybe Mars after I saw them, in 2014. They’d wanted to focus on new bands, and the first band that came to mind for me was Hiperson. They’re a new generation, all born after 1990.

Alpine Decline, Life’s A Gasp

The first time I met them was in L.A., when P.K.14 played a show in Highland Park. After the show, [band member] Pauline [Mu] came to me and asked a lot of questions about the Beijing music scene. A year later, in 2011, she and [her husband and bandmate] Jonathan [Zeitlin] came to Beijing for their honeymoon. We met here and talked a lot. Then the next year they sent me an email saying they planned to move to Beijing to find a job and stay here, to play music. They asked me if I could produce for them, and I said, ‘Of course.’ I recorded three albums for them while they lived here. Night of the Long Knives we recorded in a big practice room on an eight-track reel to reel, they had a mania for tape recorders. Go Big Shadow City we recorded in [now defunct live music venue] XP. They’re just guitar and drums, and for me as a rock singer and rock listener, it was a little bit weird. So for their latest album, Life’s A Gasp, Jonathan asked me if I could add bass. I’m not a bass player normally, but it was interesting for me to do that. So I played bass on the recording, and also for the live tour when they released Life’s A Gasp.

P.K.14, 1984

Like all of P.K.14’s albums, 1984 was produced by Henrik Oja, but it was engineered by Steve Albini in his Electrical Audio studio. I couldn’t learn much from him technically, since his studio is all analog, he recorded on a 24-track reel-to-reel. Even his editing style is different, he uses scissors. It’s not on a computer. But I have to say that I learned an attitude about engineering from that session. He always said, ‘It’s your music, it’s not my music.’ Sometimes he came off as cold, not very involved in the music—he was just recording and looking at Facebook or something. But if we had any questions about the equipment, about the sound, any aspect of the recording, he loved to answer them.

So I guess I learned this kind of attitude, this philosophy of recording. It’s not my music. The band wrote all these songs for two or three years, and then I listen for 10 minutes—how can I say, ‘It’s not good. You have to change this, you have to change that.’ It’s not fair. I respect the bands. I’d rather let the band make the decision about what the music should be. If they have a question or if they’re confused, of course I’d love to give them my suggestions on the song, the sound, the arrangement, everything. I love to help them. But if they don’t ask me, I will not say anything. It’s their music. I learned from Steve Albini’s studio.

—Josh Feola

Illustration by Paul Grelet

Every month, The Merch Table brings you the best and most bonkers merchandise you can find on Bandcamp. We commend bands and labels that get a little creative and think outside the tote bag. Whether it’s a fashion accessory, a piece of art, or something entirely unique, The Merch Table showcases inventive, original—and, occasionally, downright strange—stuff that you might want to get your hands on. But, sorry: the ukulele is sold out.

You can’t spell merch table without m-e-t-a-l, and we thought it was high time to dedicate an entire month of merch findings to the genre. Gothic fonts, images of death, destruction, and gore, and monochromatic color schemes are just a few of the elements that make up the very distinct metal aesthetic. And hey, it’s even made it to the mainstream thanks to the talents of Mark Riddick. Here are the darkest merch items on Bandcamp.

Vektor Nasa T-Shirt

Metal AND space? Yes, please.

LEVIATHAN Metal Pin

This intricate metal work is hand done with expert care, the same care that goes into the band’s punishing sound. Leviathan also have intense long sleeves with artwork by Tim Lehi.

PRIMAL RITE Sweatpants

Why leave the house when you can listen to metal all day in these brutally comfy sweats?

Wormrot Snapback

Wormrot have pacified a sinister political slogan into something worth supporting!

Napalm Death Long Sleeve

We could have made this list entirely out of “longsleeves” but decided to go with a straight up classic. A Napalm Death top emblazoned with pure metal graphics, there’s not much more to say than that.

Death T-Shirt

Pay homage to Chuck Schuldiner’s memory by celebrating the legacy of Death with this fine cotton garment.

Funeral Horse Patch

“Listen to Metal, Stay High, Drink Beer.” Wise words for the wicked.

—Ally-Jane Grossan

Have awesome merch to share? Let us know: merchtable@bandcamp.com

In this installment of Terminal Consumption, our monthly reviews column focused on the margins of punk and hardcore, Sam Lefebvre considers Kaleidoscope’s lovely hostility and Anxiety’s anticipated sophomore release, plus new releases by Leisure World, Marbled Eye, and Mutual Jerk.

Kaleidoscope, Volume 3 CS/12” [D4MT Labs/Feel It]

Shiva Addanki’s visual art often involves streaks and splotches of black ink, textured by crude reproduction, which is a good accompaniment to the trippy-yet-mean music of his band, Kaleidoscope. The New York trio, which Addanki leads on guitar, is workmanlike and consistent: they’ve issued several lengthy cassettes since 2015, mostly self-released, all of which boast an unfussy, production line title-scheme (Volume One, Volume Two, Vol. 2 No. 2, etc.). The members play in other bands, live together in Brooklyn, and record in the basement. And the recordings, fraught with errant noise, reliably convey menace and amorphous sounds alike—call it “thuggish psych.”

It’s become common lately for punk and hardcore groups to invoke psychedelia, perhaps finding it a good catchall—now that “post-punk” elicits groans—for newfound formal ambition or electronic predilections. Volume 3 is full of generous echo and burbling flourishes, which sometimes overtake the riffs, evoking the 13th Floor Elevators’ electric jug by way of Chrome’s proto-industrial clank. But the group’s strength is still careening wildness; what produces the most disorienting effect is that, like so much rousing punk, the players probe the threshold of order without splintering apart.

A frantic, galloping rhythm, on “Cloud Control” gives way to a trudging mid-tempo passage where the vocalist’s halting, marble-mouthed syllables sound wonderfully hostile. And the fragments of forbidding guitar that begin “Simulator” typify Addanki’s moodily dynamic playing, which veers between frenetic riffing and frosty melodies, not unlike the style of Link Wray. This tension—between an apparent wish to muddle the music, and players too feisty for that to really occur—charges the whole of Kaleidoscope’s expanding catalogue.

Anxiety, Wild Life 7” [La Vida Es Un Mus]

Glasgow foursome Anxiety emerged on their eponymous 2016 debut with a clutch of raspy paeans to debasement, writhing around a spiritual bottom with fittingly dramatic songwriting. The wretched vocals go to extreme measures in order to articulate torment. Refreshingly, Anxiety‘s nervy, livewire bass playing carries melodies like a lead instrument amid the guitar’s enveloping, cantankerous dissonance.

Wild Life, Anxiety’s latest release, retains just the pulp of that staggering debut, yet inspires a similarly pleasing mix of fearful reverence. (Fans will notice the glaring similarity between the riff and rhythm of Anxiety’s “Fool in the Shower” and Wild Life’s well-titled “Lizard Lads Under a Rock.”) The four songs, which run less than eight minutes, feel less festering and more feral. There’s none of Anxiety’s lightless, tension-building passages, just gusts of queasy guitar and spat-glass vocals—a potent concentrate of sickly bile.

Mutual Jerk, Mutual Jerk 7” [State Laughter]

On “He’s Harmless,” the opener to Mutual Jerk’s eponymous debut, the Atlanta foursome’s vocalist facetiously enumerates common defenses of abusers in music scenes: “You’re honestly the first person I’ve ever known who’s had a problem with him;” “His bands are so sick;” “He’s always been the biggest sweetheart, just generally awkward;” and on it goes for four and a half minutes. The innocuous language belies the insidiousness of the tactics: gaslighting, callousness, equivocation. Atop a mid-tempo beat and needling guitar, Mutual Jerk present the lines without comment, save the evidently exhausted recitation of the vocalist—who palpably wishes each phrase wasn’t so familiar.

Leisure World, Paper-Thin Community 7” [Deranged]

Leisure World’s muscular riffs and yowling vocals often garner comparisons to Pissed Jeans, who are similarly interested in hardcore’s heaving breakdowns and little of the style’s speedy frivolities. But Leisure World, named for the retirement community that houses one band member’s grandmother, offer more definition: gummy, elastic riffs underpinned by emphatic, well-recorded drums lend their four-song debut plenty of gumption. Leisure World are from Orange County, where bands aren’t quick to specify their hometown. It’s reportedly a boring place; asked about other local groups in one recent interview, Leisure World’s Erik Varho said, “If anyone knows any other good bands in Orange County please tell me.”

Marbled Eye, EP II 7” [Digital Regress/Melters]

The mannered post-punk of Oakland outfit Marbled Eye involves dueling guitar leads and crisp backbeats, plus a flat vocal effect that tilts toward melody with detectable reluctance. It’s a familiar, conservative sound, but it accommodates Marbled Eye’s thoughtful subtleties on EP II: the stuttering drum break on “Former,” the vocal hook on “Dirt,” and the fluid, melodic mélange of guitar interplay all throughout (though especially on “Objects”). EP II follows a quality, eponymous tape debut last year from the foursome, whose members also play in bands including Meat Market and Unity.

—Sam Lefebvre

Vincent Ahehehinnou pitched up in Nigeria with something to prove. It was 1978 and he’d been ousted from popular Benin band the Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou at the height of their powers, ending his decade-long association with the group because he challenged the way business was run.

But in a union made in Afrobeat heaven, Ahehehinnou connected with Ignace de Souza at Decca Studios in Lagos, who agreed to serve as his arranger for several unrecorded songs. The result of the pair’s alliance is Best Woman, a funky mix of infectious guitar licks, soulful vocals, and brisk Afrobeat rhythms that added another ripple to the city’s creative surge. Originally released in 1978 on Hasbunalau Records (the same year Ahehehinnou left Orchestre Poly-Rythmo), this long-time rarity finally sees a reissue and master on Analog Africa.

With each of the four tracks going over the eight-minute mark, Ahehehinnou’s arrangements have room to stretch their legs. Take opener “Best Woman,” a smoothly-moving number underpinned by a mid-tempo flow of chipped guitar chords, cooly rapped percussion and plenty of sizzling brass. The band effortlessly slot into the interlocking grooves as Ahehehinnou shuffles between a tuneful harmony with a female singer and a more pleading, spoken-word style vocal. As an affectionate ode to his beau, it works nicely.

The sharp wah-wah guitars and driving rhythm section of “Maimouna Cherie” could have scored a groovy ’70s crime film with amorous horns and Ahehehinnou’s tuneful vocals that soften the edges. With its slinky melody and emotive male-female vocal harmonies, yearning ballad “Vi Deka” almost resembles an old Southeast Asian pop song. “Wa Do Verité Ton Noumi,” meanwhile, offers more offbeat rhythms and twangy guitar plucks that add up to slow-paced psychedelic wig-out.

Best Woman, now pulled from an obscure crack in history, offers modern listeners a swerve back in time to a city that shook to the sound of a hot horn section.

—Dean Van Nguyen

Photo by Isabell N Wedin.

Sondre Lerche has been pegged a guitar-pop artist since his 2001 debut Faces Down. But his newest album, Pleasure, employs electronic elements liberally—particularly on opening track “Soft Feelings,” which leans heavily on beats reminiscent of New Order. That’s fitting; Lerche’s own tastes have increasingly skewed toward the electronic and, specifically, ambient scenes. It’s a fascination that he traces back to his work soundtracking the 2014 film, The Sleepwalker. 

“I’ve just had this appetite the last few years for a lot of ambient-type music,” the Norwegian singer/songwriter explains. “There’s lots of room for your own presence. Maybe as a contrast to a lot of songwriting that I make that has a certain structure and detail to its composition, I hunger now for music that’s different—that I can exist in and live in while I’m in it. I see it as a room that doesn’t end. There’s nothing that confines you. I really enjoy being inside that music…There’s a lot of good bands and artists that do things that are somehow spiritually related to what I do. But I don’t necessarily need to hear that all the time. I’m in it. I’m making my own twist on it.”

For his entry into Bandcamp’s ongoing Big Ups series, Lerche unpacked his love of soundscapes with five picks from that range from ambient jazz to ambient techno—all music that he praises as having a “very wide horizon.”

Diggs Duke

This is something I discovered a couple of weeks ago. My drummer Dave played it backstage while we were on tour in Norway. This guy, he’s incredible. He’s got a lot of other records—some of them that are more jazz and avant-garde jazz. Some that are straight up R&B pop. He sings and plays like a motherfucker. But the one that hit me at this moment in time was the album that just came out. His improvisations over jazz standards. I love when people twist the harmonic context and warp it and switch gears. I thought it was so beautiful and so creative. It’s like ambient music because I can just be in it. Sometimes you catch what the original composition is, but it’s always vague enough that you can be in it without following a structure or melody.

The Caretaker 

I’ve been listening to him for six or seven years. He just put out a new record last fall that’s part of the same project, but also the beginning of what’s going to be their final project. It’s going to come in six installations. The concept is to mirror memories and their disintegration from the first onset of Alzheimer’s to the final end of memory. The way I see where it’s heading is starting in relative focus, and then the focus will implode and turn on itself. I was listening to it with my girlfriend and she asked, ‘This is the old record, right?’ I was trying to A/B it to see if maybe he had put something from the old one on the new one just to fuck with my conception of memory. But it was the new one. It somehow had that feeling like it has been with you forever. He really manages to tap into our conception of memory.

Masayoshi Fujita & Jan Jelinek

This was one of my favorite records of the last year. It’s not the world that I operate in. I don’t have to pretend to know what’s what. I can go completely by instinct. I like feeling like a tourist or like a visitor. I gave it a shot and I immediately loved being in it. I love vibraphone. I love the way they use that. And the variations of textures in existence in this record. Harmonically it’s very pretty and beautiful. It’s got a lot going for it. It’s the ultimate anticipation record. I’ve started to realize that Bandcamp is the place for this kind of music. I’m like a kid going into a candy shop—I don’t know all the brands. I’m just sampling everything.

Tim Hecker

Ravedeath, 1972 was one of the first records from the ambient world that I really felt at home with and fascinated with. I really liked that record. That song ‘The Piano Drop’ was a gateway drug to this ambient world. It opened the door to a lot of this kind of music for me, back in 2012, I think it was. That was probably also when I was working on The Sleepwalker soundtrack. That stimulated me to seek out new sounds and influences. I saw Tim Hecker in concert two weeks ago and it was absolutely amazing. It was like an aural head massage.

The Field

I heard this record a year ago. I had been getting sort of into techno, and music that you could dance to but was really minimalist. That, for me, is a whole new world. I heard about The Field, which someone described as ambient techno. I thought that was like, ‘Wow, whatever that is, that’s what I need to hear.’ Techno can seem so hard and harsh in a sense. Someone mentioned The Field was like shoegaze techno. That immediately made me really curious, this ambient with a beat. It took me some time to get into because it was new to me but I really grew to love it. Last year I ran a half marathon—this year I’m running the New York Marathon—and this is the kind of music I bring out when I’m running. It’s really cool to have these big horizons to run in and still have a beat. The sense of repetition and freedom in this music, I love it. That song ‘Arpeggiated Love’ is my favorite. I play that a million times. That’s my memory from the half-marathon. I wish that song could have lasted the entire hour and forty-five minutes I ran.

—Laura Studarus 

Welcome to Seven Essential Releases, our weekly roundup of the best music on Bandcamp. Each week, we’ll recommend six new albums, plus pick an older LP from the stacks that you may have missed.

Drew McDowall, Unnatural Channel

Rhythm has always been key to Drew McDowall’s music, from his best-known work with Coil through all his other projects, and this, his second solo record, finds him truly honing that focus. Though other modular synthesizer dreamers often find themselves propelled by the instrument’s ability to create ambience, from the gooey and nauseating to the downright heavenly, McDowall creates serpentine, metallic beats that slither carefully through the darkness. There’s considerable power and control to these tracks—each moves forward with the slightest, subtlest changes to the waveforms at play, yet there’s a bluntness to their sound that wouldn’t be lost on the right kind of dancefloor. Meticulous and spellbinding and yes—a little bit terrifying, in the best way.

—Jes Skolnik

The Heliocentrics, A World of Masks

When music critics don’t know how to describe certain art, they say it defies genre. It’s “shape-shifting” and “ethereal,” things like that. I wouldn’t be mad if I saw the Heliocentrics described that way, though: For the past 11 years, the UK crew has worked with a wide swath of collaborators—everyone from veteran jazz musician Lloyd Miller, to legendary film director Melvin Van Peebles. On A World of Masks, the band’s fourth album, the Heliocentrics opt for a weighty sound that drifts into psych-rock terrain. It’s free-formed and improvised, music that just is.

—Marcus J. Moore

Julia Julian, In Group/Out Group

With sophisticated arrangements and pretty melodies augmented by baroque instruments such as glockenspiels and horns, Oberlin, Ohio group Julia Julian’s “In Group/Out Group” lands somewhere between middle period Belle and Sebastian and Sufjan Steven’s pastoral pop with a collegiate twist. “Forget about the loneliness and go dance over Hemingway,” baritone-voiced guitarist Max Ripps croons over creeping keys on “Off the Hook,” just one of many clever lines he offers up over the record’s six tracks. While it was originally self-released by the group in February, “In Group/Out Group” has been given a well-deserved physical release this week by experimental (and consistently excellent) D.C. label DZ Tapes. This is not lo-fi music—one marvels at how clean and professional the band sounds throughout— but a few moments of charming amateurism (such as the band calling out ending cues to each other) are audible beneath the ear candy, making Julia Julian’s achievement all the more adorable, not to mention remarkable. Don’t miss the melancholy “Scurf,” which boasts a moody melody that will stick in your ears for days.

—Mariana Timony

Moonchild, Voyager

Voyager, the third album from L.A.’s Moonchild, goes back to the golden era of R&B, when there were clearer distinctions between it, pop and hip-hop. Moonchild splits the difference between soul and jazz, resulting in nocturnal blends that recall KING and Hiatus Kaiyote. Adding strings and a harpist to the mix, Voyager feels lush and robust, the sound of a band fully comfortable in its lane.

—Marcus J. Moore

Norska, Too Many Winters

The Oregon outfit Norska pull off a tricky combination, combining the 400-ton riffs of doom metal with genuine, anthemic sensibilities. It’s all sketched out in the soaring album-opener “Samhain”; riffs avalanche aggressively downward, but the gang vocals go up and up and up, sounding like a small army singing at the top of their lungs to ward off the apocalypse-in-progress. They maintain that tension throughout the entirety to Too Many Winters. There are nods toward hardcore (“Eostre”), woozy psychedelia (the incredibly-titled “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things”), and even post-rock (“Wave of Regrets”). But the band is at their best when they’re pairing death-choir vocals with guitars that land as slow and heavy as medicine balls. Too Many Winters, like YOB and Zoroaster before them, know that triumphant melodies cannot dampen true metal’s might.

—J. Edward Keyes

Xylitol, …Is Toxic to Pigs??

There’s real exuberance to Olympia’s Xylitol, who play rampaging pogo-punk anthems for delightfully unmannered resistance. “Goblin Gallop,” with its refrain of “We’re goblins wearing lipstick/ We’re waiting for the suits/ We’re goblins wearing lipstick/ Gonna mangle all the boots” certainly feels eternally relevant for yours truly (and any others with a complex relationship with femininity and a lifelong opposition to state control). Throughout …Is Toxic to Pigs??, they skewer neoliberal complicity (and complacency)—including the larger music industry’s willingness to attempt to capture outsiders like themselves for social capital, on my personal favorite track, “(I Don’t Wanna Be) Punished”—over powerhouse percussion and buzzsaw guitars. Their vocalist has full-force delivery with a perfect razor’s edge to it. Get with the goblins or get stomped.

—Jes Skolnik

Back Catalogue:

Otoboke Beaver, Love is Short

—Ally-Jane Grossan

Rev Rev Rev

Given the recent reunions of Ride, Slowdive, Lush, Telescopes, and Swervedriver, collective interest in shoegaze appears to be approaching another peak. For the uninitiated: “shoegazers” were the mostly-English (or, in the case of Jesus and Mary Chain, Scottish) bands that emerged in the late ’80s and who paired wall-of-sound guitars with whispery, sweet pop vocals. The genre tag was initially a dis invented by the British music press—during performances, the musicians spent as much time looking at their sea of guitar pedals as they did the crowd.

As exciting as it is for fans of ’90s shoegaze and dreampop to have the opportunity to see and hear new music from the originators of the scene, the idea that shoegaze died in 1996 with the arrival of Britpop is a fallacy. Even though most of the bands from the original movement had broken up, their music lived on and was embraced in the ’00s by a batch of so-called “new-gaze” bands: Autolux, Loveliescrushing, Asobi Seksu, Serena-Maneesh, and others.

Even if the genre’s pioneers weren’t getting back together, there would still be plenty of great shoegaze records emerging from the underground. With advances in digital technology, which have made creating otherworldly effects easier than ever, a new breed of dreampoppers have surfaced over the past half-decade. While some reach back to My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive, others have incorporated elements of EDM, krautrock, post-rock, and indie rock to create their effect-laden songs.

Here are 10 of the most exciting groups in modern shoegaze.

Kindling (Easthampton, Massachusetts)

After recording his last album with politically-conscious punk band Ampere, drummer Andy Skelly joined his band mate Stephen Pierce in the side project Kindling, which also features the diaphanous vocals of Gretchen Williams. The group debuted in 2014 with the jangly, concise EP Spare Room, which sounded like something from the C86-era of twee-pop. However, the band’s next three EPs and their 2016 full-length, Everywhere Else, brought them much closer to their current voice—a hybrid of Slowdive’s gossamer male/female vocals, Swervedriver’s infectious, sky-soaring road trip rock, and Medicine’s feedback-saturated noise-pop experiments. In February, Kindling plugged in a few more effect pedals for No Generation, and expanded their horizons even further, while retaining their kinetic core sound. The prolific outfit’s latest offering is a split EP with Halifax, Nova Scotia’s The Kestrels, which was released in April. While Kindling have evolved into crackling, fiery shoegazers, Kelly and Pierce haven’t lost their socially-aware spirit, which explains their 2015 single “Hate the Police.” “I think we, as a band are political people and see our place as somewhere that is inherently colored by what is going on,” Williams told WHRB, Harvard’s radio station. If that’s the case, expect even more turbulent songs in the days to come.

Rev Rev Rev (Modena, Italy)

Modena, Italy is a region cherished for its aged balsamic vinegar; its indie shoegaze scene, not so much. Yet one of Europe’s finest ’gazer bands of the last decade, Rev Rev Rev, emerged from the heart of that city. With an arsenal of homemade stomp boxes and traditional recording gear, the members spent much of their time writing modern psychedelic tunes and experimenting with unconventional styles of recording. The band made waves throughout the shoegaze underground with its chaotic, effect-laden self-titled debut in 2013. Not three years later, they returned with the far-superior Des Fleurs Magiques Bourdonnaient, which capitalizes on the turmoil of the band’s debut and combines it with more coherent melodies and far better arrangements. Perhaps Rev Rev Rev’s greatest asset is their ability to balance euphony and dissonance; no matter how distorted, whooshy and warbly the showers of guitar become, they’re always balanced by hum-along hooks. “We feel part of the shoegaze, dream pop scene around the world,” band member Laura Iacuzio told music blog When The Sun Hits. “It may be because the country we live in is marginal in pop-rock music. But, we feel also, a lot of psychedelia, and some space rock, noise, post-punk.”

Dead Horse One (Valence, France)

From a commune in southeastern France, something weird, innovative, and probably somewhat illicit is going on. The region is ground zero for Dead Horse One, a band that formed in 2011 playing music that blended overdriven guitars with psychedelic overtones, quickly attracting the attention of some major players. Creation Records pioneer Joe Foster sang Dead Horse One’s praises after they released the first of three 2012 EPs. A couple of years later, Ride frontman Mark Gardener produced their wistful, imagistic debut full-length Without Love We Perish. The band’s followup, this year’s Season of Mist was produced by Fleeting Joys’ John Loring, and ups the ante with louder compositions, more radical sound excursions, and better vocal harmonies. Clearly influenced by My Bloody Valentine, Dead Horse One also inject elements of Swervedriver, and, of course, Ride into their swirly concoctions. Despite the obvious reference points, they retain cred by using familiar sounds to create otherworldly sonic vistas that speak volumes—whether you’re in France or Florida. “I think music is a universal language,” Olivier Debard told the music site Last Day Deaf. “[It] speaks to the heart, the sensations, people’s feelings.”

The Stargazer Lilies (Pennsylvania)

The husband and wife team of John Cep and Kim Field started playing in the disco/shoegaze band Soundpool in 2005, but Field wasn’t feeling the groove, so the couple bailed to work on their own group, The Stargazer Lilies, which forsakes dance beats in favor of subtle percussion, shimmering, undulating guitars, and Field’s ethereal vocals. The group’s second album, 2016’s Door to the Sun, is awash in dizzying effects, yet it’s consistently melodic, sounding like a cross between My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, and mesmeric ’60s psychedelia (think: Pink Floyd and The Byrds.) “I think being called shoegaze has more to do with how our music comes across to people than our actual influences,” Cep has said in an interview on Medium. “It’s true we love Slowdive and MBV, but we don’t sit around listening to those bands all the time.”

Crescendo (Los Angeles)

Enamored with both shoegazers of the ’90s and new wave revivalists from the ’00s, Crescendo are perhaps best described as a cross between Lush and The Strokes. Their second album, 2016’s Unless, is shimmery and upbeat, yet it’s also somewhat soporific, driven by the subtle push-pull of jabbing guitars and chiming riffs atop a bed of insistent, electronic drums, galactic keyboards and understated male/female vocals. “Being labeled ‘dreamgaze’ has been consistent,” frontman Gregory Cole told the music blog When the Sun Hits. “However, based on the beats per minute in our songs, including the drum parts, we certainly make it a goal to inspire listeners to dance and disappear from reality via space travel.” While Crescendo continue to generate a buzz in the indie community, members Olive Kimoto and Jess Rojas split their time between the group and their electronic-based project Unbloom.

Tears Run Rings (Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles)

The members of Tears Run Rings started writing old-school shoegaze songs in the mid ’90s as part of the band The Autocollants. When the group broke up in 1999, the members scattered to Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, effectively ending their partnership for a while. Years later, they decided to make music together by trading digital files—and Tears Run Rings was born. In 2006, they released the hazy EP A Question and an Answer, proving geographical distance didn’t soften their impact. Four years later, they released their full-length debut Distance, and seven years after that, they’ve reemerged with In Surges, a sweeping, iridescent swirl of effect-laden guitars, sleepy male/female vocal harmonies and spacious arrangements that pay homage to Slowdive, Pale Saints, and early Moose. In February, the band released the In Surges Remix EP, which includes tracks deconstruction by Airiel, Pinkshinyultrablast, and Friendly Scientist (Pale Saints’ Ian Masters). Currently, Tears Run Rings are dabbling with new material for their next release. Only, it’s not just distance that’s delaying their progress. “Babies definitely slow down the musical process,” vocalist and bassist Laura Watling told music site Somewherecold. “But I’m sure the joy, frustration, and humor they bring will also translate into our future music.”

Nothing (San Francisco)

Ironically, Nothing’s delicate, flowing rhythms and evocative arrangements belie lives of violence and misfortune. While in the hardcore band Horror Show, frontman Domenic Palermo got into a knife fight with a rival hardcore crew and spent two years in prison for aggravated assault and attempted murder. Then, a year after Nothing released their full-length debut Guilty of Everything, Palermo’s skull was fractured and he received broken vertebrae when he was attacked after a show in Oakland. As if that wasn’t enough, his estranged father died. Finally, to emphasize that nothing can be easy for this noise-inflected dreampop quartet, the band wound up on a label financed by Martin Shkreli, the Turing Pharmaceutical CEO who infamously inflated the price of  AIDS medicine Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 a pill. When the news broke, Nothing immediately severed the relationship and were picked up again by Relapse, which put out Guilty of Everything. The group’s music seethes with rage, but it’s internalized, bubbling underneath the weary, wonderful hooks that dominate the album. “The plan has always been to express what I’m feeling,” Palermo told the site Noisefull. “During the ‘Vertigo Flowers’ recording [a track driven by tuneful vocal harmonies and undulating, disorienting guitars] I was puking into a trash can between takes because I was suffering from a severe case of vertigo along with paranoia and depression from the injuries I sustained two weeks prior.” If you’re in the crowd, you might want to gaze at a distance—not just because of Palermo and Bassett’s dodgy backgrounds—but because these S.F. miscreants have a reputation for turning it up to 11.

LSD And the Search for God (San Francisco)

Riding the blazing comet tail of My Bloody Valentine into a radiant black hole, LSD and the Search for God have captured the jaded vibe of Brian Jonestown Massacre and ramped it up with layered, whooshing guitars, reverb-soaked melodies, deep, droning bass lines and drum beats that range from lethargic to frantic. The band’s output reflects their sometimes sluggish sound. After releasing their promising self-titled EP in 2007 it took LSD and the Search for God another decade to cobble together the five-song Heaven is a Place EP, which features all of the radioactive splendor of their debut, but with more distinct separation between instruments. A full-length debut should arrive any decade now.

Soda Lilies (Austin, Texas)

Like Flying Saucer Attack, this lo-fi garage band combine the effect-laden, undulations of shoegaze kingpins My Bloody Valentine with a loose, unhinged approach to achieve a sound they’ve labeled “alternative slackergaze.” It’s a valid description. Picture Slanted and Enchanted-era Pavement jamming with the first Lilys lineup. The band’s 2016 release Love Cemetery Tapes is far from pristine, but the imperfections only make the music more surreal. And how can you knock a band that’s weird enough to write a song called “The Bees in my Stomach are Dead and Getting Used to It”? Frontman Ryan Elmore explained his aesthetic to the site Somewherecold: “While living in Arizona over 10 years ago, I’d forget to bring in my records after a night of drinking and listening to music [on my porch]. They’d bake out there in the sun and warp and get dusty and scratchy so when you’d play them they’d shift pitch and warble and crackle and skip. That is the sound I am trying to convey through Soda Lilies.”

Kestrels (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

The self-titled third studio album by muscular shoegazers Kestrels was probably pretty great even before the band handed it over to veteran alt-rock producer Brad Wood (Smashing Pumpkins, Liz Phair, Sunny Day Real Estate) for mixing. Who knows how much Wood’s contribution affected the record’s tone but at the very least, his credentials reflect the respect the indie band is netting for its vivid, widescreen sound. Kestrels, which was released in 2016, is flush with layered, effect-laden guitars, rhythms that build and recede, and melodic vocals that reflect the band’s ’80s and ’90s faves (Smashing Pumpkins, My Bloody Valentine, Teenage Fanclub, early Boo Radleys). Yet Kestrels are no throwbacks; they use the tools of their influences to create modern rock that’s sonically warped, but not too far structurally removed from Foo Fighters or Silversun Pickups. Most recently, Kestrels contributed a pair of tracks to a split release with Kindling simply called Kindling/Kestrels, which came out in April and features a convincing cover of MBV’s “Thorn.” “Ultimately, you want to feel something when you listen to records, and the shoegaze influence adds a mixture of ambiguity and texture that I find crucial to writing and presenting music,” frontman Chad Peck told Vice music site Noisey. “It doesn’t offer easy answers and that’s a quality I admire.”

—Jon Wiederhorn

Photo by Marilena Delli.

A delicate, hypnotic voice opens White African Power, the first album by Tanzania Albinism Collective, setting the tone for a record built equally on raw vocals, and lyrics that speak candidly of personal tragedy. “The world is hard, and I’m feeling defeated,” singer Christina Wagulu laments in Swahili. “Hatred, jealousy, and other emotions damage my heart / Disease weighs me down like defeat.”

The album’s 23 short songs create an atmosphere intimacy—as if the listener were eavesdropping on a gathering of friends. Far away from those who have shunned and persecuted them, the musicians are unguarded; they sing about the adversity they’ve faced without wallowing in self-pity. Their music is visceral, cathartic, and deeply personal.

Life has not been easy for these musicians, all of whom were born with albinism, a genetic condition that robs the skin, eyes, and hair of pigment. In rural Tanzania—like much of Sub-Saharan Africa—albinism is often seen as a curse that carries with it dehumanizing myths and dangerous superstitions. Some believe albino body parts are good luck charms, able to cure diseases and bless those who own them; the birth of an albino child is considered a bad omen that will bring poverty and disease to a community. Because of the health challenges they face, as well as the discrimination and structural violence to which they are subjected, albino people some of the most vulnerable in Africa.

“The project in Tanzania was one that we were interested in because of the horrible persecution,” says the record’s producer Ian Brennan, who also helmed Tinariwen’s 2012 Grammy-winning album Tassili, and the Grammy-nominated Zomba Prison Project’s I Have No Everything Here.

The album began to take shape in 2016, when Brennan traveled to Ukerewe, the largest island in Lake Victoria. Life is different for albino people here than it is in the rest of the country. Local lore holds that families used to abandon their albino children on Ukerewe, and that others who fought to survive on the mainland followed and found refuge. Over 80 albino people now live on the island, and there has never been a violent attack or murder. But while violence is rare, discrimination is still omnipresent.

“When I proposed and married my wife, her family did not accept me,” says Riziki Julius, who sings on the album. “They said that I was just a ‘pig,’ and could not be a husband to their daughter. I was happy my wife decided to stick by me. She still gets criticized by relatives and friends for marrying a person with albinism.”

When Brennan arrived on the island with his wife, the photographer and filmmaker Marilena Delli, he was shocked by the extent to which the albino community had been ostracized. In partnership with Tanzania-based NGO Standing Voice, Brennan and Delli put out a call for volunteers to participate in a music project. Eighteen people responded, and only one of them had played music before. “What we didn’t know is that they were also discouraged—or even forbidden—from singing and dancing in church, the one place that has traditionally offered sanctuary to oppressed communities,” Brennan says. Initially, the members of Tanzania Albinism Collective were too afraid to pick up instruments or sing. “There was such a lack of confidence—almost a total shut down of creativity,” Brennan claims.

To combat this, Brennan handed out instruments and encouraged the volunteers to take them home, on condition that they try and compose a song each night. With each new effort, their songs improved and slowly, themes of loneliness and alienation began to emerge in their writing. The lyrics are written in Swahili—Tanzania’s official language—as well as Kikirewe and Jeeta, two dialects which have been discouraged and repressed since unification in 1964.

For the first time, members of the collective were able to tell their stories through music. “The project showed us we could do things we never thought possible,” Julius says. “I love music. I enjoy the opportunity to express myself through singing.”
Brennan was less concerned with the band’s lack of formal music training than he was with their lack of confidence. “It’s a very Western idea that input equals output. It’s wrong to assume that in order to be a good musician, ‘I have to listen to this person and that person, or I have to be taught,’” he explains. “Good musicians are good because music comes from inside of them.”

Although they only began singing and playing instruments during the making of this record, the members of Tanzania Albinism Collective have produced an album that is utterly unique, one that lays bare the lives and souls of people the outside world would otherwise know little about. Throughout, the vocals are raw and sometimes fragile, but they’re also powerful and defiant. “I don’t think you can listen to the vocals on this record and draw similarities with any other singers,” Brennan says. “They just sound like individuals expressing themselves in a way that has not been influenced by capitalism.”

From its inception, the purpose of the project has been to raise awareness about the plight of albino people in Africa. During our conversation, it becomes obvious that Brennan is insistent that projects like this one not be mistaken for exotic trinkets—oddities to be viewed through Western lenses. He talks at length about the musical underrepresentation of certain world regions, and how this reflects society’s greater inequities. “I hope that people can begin to embrace artistry and original voices for what they are, regardless of what language they are singing in and of where they come from,” he says.

The album is already starting to accomplish those goals. In July, five members of Tanzania Albinism Collective are due to travel to the U.K. to perform at WOMAD, a festival which celebrates music, dance, and art from all over the world. WOMAD will be the first time any of them will have performed on stage, boarded an airplane, or left Tanzania.

On “Happiness,” the album’s final song, volunteer group member Thereza sings, “Here we are on the stage / Tanzania Albinism Collective members/ Far across the ocean / We are shaken by the waves.” In the context of the upcoming WOMAD trip, it feels both prophetic and cautionary: the promise of things to come sitting side by side with the harsh reality of the present.

—Megan Iacobini de Fazio

Photo by Frances Marshall.

Though he first picked up the violin in the context of Irish traditional music, and undertook classical music studies at Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, Darragh Morgan has long specialized in “new music.” It’s a vague term that encompasses 20th and 21st century music for orchestral and chamber instruments, but can also incorporate virtually anything else.

Over the years, Morgan has become a well-known figure in Europe’s new music community. In addition to his work as both a solo artist and a guest with various ensembles, he’s also a member of the Fidelio Trio with pianist Mary Dullea (to whom he’s married) and cellist Adi Tal. He’s recorded works by Philip Glass, Morton Feldman, Toru Takemitsu, Arnold Schoenberg, Maurice Ravel, Camille Saint-Saëns, Michael Nyman, and many contemporary Irish composers.

Morgan’s latest album, For Violin and Electronics, is exactly what it says on the cover: six pieces, all by living composers, on which his instrument either converses with, floats in and around, or battles with electronic soundscapes that can be quite beautiful, or abstract and harsh, sometimes shifting from one to the other at a moment’s notice. “All the tracks have a fully notated, often virtuosic, live violin part which I had to approach learning just as I would Beethoven’s Violin Concerto,” Morgan says.

But each composer has taken a different approach to the electronic element of the work. In the cases of Jonty Harrison and Ricardo Climent, the composers of “Some of Its Parts” and “Koorean Air” respectively, the use of tapes requires Morgan to coordinate perfectly or fall out of sync. “Some of Its Parts” features scraping, rumbling, and percussive sounds, like someone rolling fist-sized iron balls around inside a piano as it’s wheeled back and forth across the stereo field. “Koorean Air,” by contrast, is all high-pitched squeals, chitters, and zooms, with Morgan’s violin offering horror-movie scribbles and scrapes.

For the pieces by Paul Wilson (“Trapped in Ice,” which opens the album) and Simon Emmerson (“Stringscape”), Morgan explains that “the software they use, including MaxMSP patches, means the electronics part in some ways follows the live violin line and reacts to it with a range of effects like granular processing.” “Stringscape” draws the listener in slowly, making echoes and atmosphere as important as the actual sounds.

Scott Wilson’s “Flame” falls somewhere between fixed and interactive; his computer part has both live/real time processing as well as pre-recorded material reacting to the violin. Jonathan Nangle’s “Where Distant City Lights Flicker on Half-Frozen Ponds,” the last and shortest piece on the album, employs what Morgan calls “a very effective idea of resonators subtly building up and reacting to the natural harmonics of violin sonorities, often manipulated by harmonics and open strings.”

“I never handle any of the electronics,” Morgan says, “just my 19th century Giuseppe Rocca violin and the often very complicated—but ultimately incredibly rewarding—live violin parts these composers have written for me.” Those parts, in some cases, necessitated what instrumentalists call “extended techniques”—using both violin and bow in unorthodox ways—which required new methods of notation, that future performers would be able to decode.

All six pieces on For Violin and Electronics were composed expressly for Morgan; it’s a project he’s been working on for over a decade. He’s performed all these pieces at various new music festivals around the globe prior to recording them. “Trapped in Ice” was the first piece recorded, in 2010, and the most recent, “Where Distant City Lights,” was tracked in 2015, but Morgan premiered “Flame” in performance in 2005. When the recordings were complete, he approached Nick Roth, owner of Diatribe Records, about a release.

“Generally we do tend to work closely with a record from its very early stages. But this method of working is also not completely unheard of either,” says Roth. He’s extremely pleased about the project, and what it represents. “I think this recording affords a panoramic overview of the current state of play of new repertoire for violin and electronics,” he says. “The different composers’ approaches provide a comprehensive examination of the possibilities for contemporary electroacoustic composition, especially when developed in such a close working relationship between leading composers and an extremely gifted performer like Darragh.”

Roth calls out Harrison’s “Some of Its Parts” as a personal highlight: “I love the integration of the instrument into the industrial vocabulary of the soundscape and particularly enjoy the composer’s mastery of panning techniques. I have something of a predilection for panning in the studio and will always make sure that I spend time just working on finding the right spacing in a mix. Harrison’s mastery of panning is really stunning…even listening on a laptop, the effect is really powerful.”

Morgan describes himself as “proudly Irish” and makes an effort to draw attention to new music from Ireland, of which there is a surprising amount. “Most living Irish composers have worked either with my piano trio Fidelio Trio or with my duo partnership with Mary Dullea,” he says, “and it’s an engagement we feel is very important to retain. Particularly as cultural ambassadors of Irish new music outside Ireland, getting the music performances and recordings/broadcasts abroad is what the music should be all about—giving it international exposure. In the last 15 to 20 years, there has been a huge upsurge in the amount of new music activities, both compositionally and through concerts, in Ireland.”

Roth concurs, saying, “Although not many people know it, Ireland actually has an extremely strong new and contemporary music scene, with many really talented composers and performers working across a range of diverse musical terrain. Of course, traditional Irish music is known across the world, but recently I think people are beginning to become interested in more alternative sounds from the island too. Darragh Morgan is one of Ireland’s foremost violinists and an important ambassador for the country—as one of its leading exponents of contemporary music, his links to the wider European scene are very important in building bridges and fostering conversations and collaborations across borders.”

For Violin and Electronics is exactly the kind of startling, thought-provoking album that can draw in listeners unfamiliar with classical music, old or new, but open to adventurous sounds. While each piece is unique, both in terms of tonalities and mood, the album as a whole is an unearthly experience, and presents an entirely new side of Morgan when compared with his work in the Fidelio Trio, or in duo with Dullea. He may not have the field of violin and electronics entirely to himself, but he’s carved out a significant patch of territory with this release.

—Phil Freeman

Ester Mae Smith, Angela Taylor, and Della Daniels grew up together in the segregated town of Como, Mississippi, in the 1950s. In the half-century since, the three have remained best friends and Como residents, regularly singing together at their childhood church, Mt. Moriah. It has only been in the past decade, as the trio has entered later age, that they have solidified their friendship into a musical ensemble—the Como Mamas.

After a chance encounter with Daptone Records producer Michael Reilly, the Como Mamas recorded their 2013 debut, Get an Understanding, at Mt. Moriah; its 13 tracks were comprised solely of their voices. Offsetting gruff and gritty howls with sweeter tones, the album was rich in both texture and melody.

Move Upstairs, their follow-up, is immediately distinct from its predecessor: it features a full band. But instead of diluting the trio’s magnetic voices, the arrangements, recorded live in the studio by Daptone Records’ “family band,” give the songs momentum and energy. While the band’s contributions are at times minimal—like the sparse percussion on “Glory Glory Hallelujah”—they can also pivot on a dime, delivering a walloping proto-blues romp. Lead single “Out of the Wilderness” swings like a long-lost Otis Redding track, and the title track features an infectious call and response.

Thematically, the album is grounded, fully, in the culture of the church. As Daniels recently explained, “In Como, church is it,” and these songs, all of which are interpretations of old traditionals and spirituals, focus on themes of redemption, gratitude and the glory of a higher power. Yet it’s hard to approach these sentiments solely through the lens of religion; the Como Mamas lived through segregation in a largely impoverished town, and have seen tough times become, at least on surface level, less so. As Smith explained recently, she’s “infinitely grateful to God for giving her the resources to raise two kids who never had to pick cotton, wear clothes made from old flour sacks, or go hungry in lean times” like she did. The Como Mamas’ music is both celebratory and redemptive.

—Max Savage Levenson

Pride in one’s local music scene is something that unites fans of all genres and all backgrounds. Any time a band who is important to you gains national attention, it feels special.

Kenoma is one of those bands for me. As a teenager in the suburbs of Dayton, Ohio, I saw the band almost every time they played, until I went away to college. Now, more than a decade later, they’re finally releasing a debut album. It makes me feel as if I’ve just stepped out of a sweaty basement show, clutching the LP I picked up from the merch table. That Kenoma record now sits alongside gloriously cheesy Euro power metal, introspective post-black metal, and battlefield-ready melodic death metal as one of this month’s best releases.

[View the Best Metal on Bandcamp Archives]

Kenoma, The Tides Will Prevail

Great debut albums usually seem to come out of nowhere, but Dayton’s Kenoma have worked on The Tides Will Prevail for 11 years. The atmospheric instrumental metal quintet has been workshopping these songs in the dives and DIY spaces of southwest Ohio since just after the dissolution of Rune, the underrated, eclectic death/doom band three of their members played in. But Kenoma is only a distant cousin of Rune’s barely controlled chaos. The songs on The Tides Will Prevail are methodical in both composition and execution. Where the shared DNA between the two bands is the most apparent is in the pure emotional weight of the songs. One of several album highlights is the towering “1913,” a song previously released for a 2006 split with Mouth of the Architect, but expanded and re-recorded for this full-length. It’s an epic elegy commemorating the flood that devastated Dayton in the titular year, but the major-key passages of its back half suggest the sense of community that devastation inspired. In that way, “1913” encapsulates the meaning of Kenoma. This is sludge metal that sounds the way the Midwest feels—in all its bleakness, and all its beauty.

Loss, Horizonless

Outside of the work of My Dying Bride, funeral doom rarely sounds this light on its feet. Nashville’s Loss can plod and mope with the best of them, but there’s a thrilling dynamism to Horizonless that sets them apart from their peers and makes this album feel much shorter than its 64-minute runtime. A popular bit of Loss trivia is that they gave Pallbearer frontman Brett Campbell a guest vocal spot on Despond before his own band’s debut album was even recorded. That anecdote does a pretty good job of getting at the heart of what makes them special. Each song on Horizonless makes melody at least as important as atmosphere. 

Pyramaze, Contingent

To the extent that they’re known at all outside of entrenched power metal circles, Pyramaze are most famous for being the band that revived exiled Iced Earth singer Matt Barlow’s career on 2008’s Immortal. That ended up being the only release Barlow recorded with the Danish band, but they’ve soldiered on, and the science fiction concept album Contingent is their finest hour yet. Sci-fi has returned to metal in a big way over the course of the last few years, but where the cosmic death metal of bands like Artificial Brain and Blood Incantation summons the horror of Alien, Contingent sounds more like Guardians of the Galaxy. Terje Harøy’s buoyant vocal hooks (“Headed for outer space / Saving the human race from dying / At least we keep trying”) and the Rainbow-like keyboard/guitar interplay are undeniably fun, despite the post-apocalyptic lyrics. That’s not the result of tone-deafness on Pyramaze’s part; this style of music is supposed to be fun, and the reason Contingent is the best power metal album of the year so far is because it’s such a blast.

God Dethroned, The World Ablaze  

Following the recent breakups of Bolt Thrower and Hail of Bullets, the soldiers of God Dethroned are now death metal’s foremost documentarians of the horrors of war. The World Ablaze is the Dutch band’s third consecutive concept album about World War I, and it sees them wading even farther into Gothenburgian melodic death metal waters. That proclivity for big melodies also makes The World Ablaze the catchiest God Dethroned album to date. That the band achieved that without sacrificing any heaviness is a tricky feat that has crushed countless lesser acts. 

Sarcasm, Within the Sphere of Ethereal Minds

Sarcasm were principal players in the first wave of Swedish death metal that launched bands like Entombed and Dismember in the early ’90s. But unlike their more famous brethren, they never recorded a proper album during their initial run. Last year’s reunion yielded Burial Dimensions, a debut LP 26 years into their career. The ripping Within the Sphere of Ethereal Minds shows that the strength of their first outing wasn’t a fluke. The eight-minute “A Black Veil for Earth” is the kind of death metal epic that would make lesser bands sound ham-fisted, but Sarcasm knock it out of the park. Stately acoustic guitar weaves in and out of snaking Peaceville Three-like melodic doom riffs, while frontman Heval Bozarslan summons fire with his demonic low vocals. Sarcasm are making dead-serious death metal right now. We’re all lucky to bear witness.

Dream Tröll, The Knight of Rebellion

It can be hard, with a band like Dream Tröll, to figure out how much you’re supposed to be laughing. That name, that umlaut, that album cover; it’s all pretty goofy stuff. The riffs on The Knight of Rebellion are worthy of serious consideration, though. Iron Maiden and Judas Priest are the key points of reference for the Leeds band’s debut album, and those were both bands who knew how to pair schlock with blazing guitar work. Dream Tröll have the tools to someday grow into that comparison. For now, they’re playing loose, fun heavy metal that sounds great played loud, and there will never be enough bands doing that. Turn it up.

A Pregnant Light, Devotion Unlaced

Damian Master has emerged as one of the most prolific one-man black metal projects in the world over the past few years, and unlike the legions of lo-fi Burzum-worshippers, his work as A Pregnant Light has seen him hone a singular voice. The Devotion Unlaced EP is another pure distillation of the fiercely personal, post-punk inflected black metal Master has perfected. Opener “Defenseless Receiver” takes an obscure bit of the NFL rulebook and builds a gorgeous swirl of impressionistic riffs around it, channeling Joy Division and early Alcest. At its best, A Pregnant Light pushes up against genre borders, and while this EP is slightly more orthodox than certain corners of the discography, it’s most interesting when it subverts black metal’s formula. Mark another victory on Master’s ledger.

The Ruins of Beverast, Exuvia

No one sounds quite like The Ruins of Beverast. We’re now five full-lengths into the discography of Alexander von Meilenwald’s one-man project, and he keeps taking thrilling left turns. There’s plenty of black metal at the core of Exuvia, but von Meilenwald’s approach to composition is spiritually closer to psychedelia than to anything grim. Despite its controlled insanity, the more immediate effect of the record is a meditative one, and each song creates a bizarre kind of trance state. More color and sonic oddness reveals itself on repeat listens, but it doesn’t take much work to figure out that this is another great work by a one-of-a-kind creator who loves to keep us guessing.

—Brad Sanders

Illustration by George Greaves

For many obsessive fans who grew up in the pre-Internet era, a passion for music was sparked in the dingy basements and dark booths of college radio stations. Despite sound boards that are decades out of date and rapidly-changing tastes, that tradition has endured. The best college stations remain dedicated to delivering music that falls outside the purview of Billboard-charting mainstream radio.

If anything, the shifting climate has caused student station managers and music directors to work harder at keeping their stations relevant. And with good reason: at the radio station, they find comrades with whom they can trade mixtapes and stay up late into the night raving about life-changing B-sides. Bandcamp speaks from personal experience: even if our first shows were at 4am on Tuesday nights, they were the best two hours of our entire week.

In this feature called Better Know a College Radio Station, we spotlight the programmers, music directors, and general managers who make sure the “On-Air” light never burns out. This month, we chat with the staff at West Virginia University’s U-92: Media Director Jackson Montgomery (DJ Montbummery); Music Director Nick Koban-Hogue (DJ Kobes); Program Director Emmi McIntyre (DJ Emmi or Lance Jr., from the great Courtney Barnett song); General Manager Matt Fouty; Marketing Director David Kessler; and Hip-Hop Director/DJ Daniel Robbins.

Tell us about the history of your station. When did you start broadcasting? 

Fouty: U-92 has been on the air since 1982. Our signal can be heard within a 60-mile radius of Morgantown. We also stream online at our website and our app, meaning we can be heard anywhere around the world (with an Internet connection, of course). We are the best source of new music, giveaways, University sports coverage, and news that’s happening both around campus and in the Morgantown area. We’re found at 91.7FM, running on 2600 watts of power.

What are the most popular shows?  

Koban-Hogue: No Remorse is the longest running show on our airwaves, and runs from 10pm to midnight every Wednesday and Friday. This show has a curated library of the best in new metal that was made by our metal director, but the format is not enforced, and No Remorse DJs are encouraged to take liberties with the show and make a setlist that they enjoy. Metal is possibly the most diverse genre of music, and the tastes of the No Remorse DJs reflects that. From thrash to death to black, all types of metal are represented on No Remorse as long as it’s heavy.

Kessler: Urban Diner is our CMJ Award-winning program that features hip-hop and rap. This show runs from 10pm to midnight every Tuesday and Thursday.

Robbins: The greatest thing about Urban Diner to me is that all of the DJs have very specific taste in hip-hop, and have the freedom to play whatever. This allows us to cover everything in a diverse genre of music, and it keeps the show fresh. It also personalizes the show, because every DJ does the show their own way.

What’s playing on the air Tuesday at 4:30am?

Koban-Hogue: Most midnight to 6am shifts at the station are reserved for rookies. We operate 24 hours a day with live DJs, so some seniority comes into play when deciding who has the cushy noon to 3pm shifts, and who has to ‘wake up at 2am for a 3 to 6am’ shift. The graveyard shifts have been a rite of passage at U-92 for as long as anyone can remember. They’re a great opportunity for a DJ to learn the ropes of operating the board while on the air, with slightly less stress. These DJs are expected to follow rotation formatting 100% of the time, but a certain ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy applies to shifts during the wee hours of the night. My policy as music director is that as long as it is legal and I don’t hear complaints, then I don’t have to complain.

How do first-time DJs get trained at WWVU? Any sage wisdom you offer first-timers?

Koban-Hogue: Our DJs are put through 12 hours of training with a veteran DJ who shows them the ropes, and then they have to do a three-hour board op session on their own during the day before they’re allowed to have their own shifts. Sage wisdom is a hard thing to pin down, as all of the DJs and trainers do things differently. Personally, I tell people that planning too far ahead makes a shift sound stale. I encourage every DJ to not know what they’re going to be playing 10 minutes from now. Having the ability to feel out the current song and pick based on the feeling the monitors are giving allows shifts to be more fluid and feel more authentic. Some DJs are uncomfortable not having all three hours planned out before they come in, and that’s all right, too. One piece of advice I give to all DJs is to never play a song that they hate. Once you start feeling ‘forced’ to play music, it becomes less fun to DJ—it becomes a chore. We don’t want workers here at the moose, we want passionate DJs who see their shift as an opportunity.

McIntyre: The wisdom I offer is that you should always have fun. If you don’t like the music in rotation, complain about it. If you love it, praise it. We give you the tools to be a good DJ, news, or sports broadcaster. Now, go make the most out of it.

Fouty: The DJing style at the station is different from a lot of current college and commercial radio stations. We pride ourselves on mixing together music and production from multiple sources. We utilize a local digital music player known as MegaSeg. Many stations use this to fully automate their station, but we use it as a tool to play production, as well as our massive music library, which is becoming digitized. We also use CDs as a primary form of music delivery because that gives us the flexibility to cue up and explore music for mixing with whatever is currently playing. Same with the turntables—we still have those metal platters that play what matters! We still have a massive vinyl collection that we use for older selections and specialty shows. We also have a system that allows us to utilize online content from Bandcamp and one-off requests that might not be available to us in the physical form.

We take all these sources, along with a program log, or script, where the DJs have to hit certain points on the clock that’s laid out for every hour of programming throughout each day. What all of this does is set every person who DJs at U-92 apart from other current-day DJs, and makes them more flexible and versatile when faced with a high-pressure situation where you have to simultaneously pay attention to multiple things—sometimes while even speaking live, on air.

Montgomery: Don’t fucking play ‘Buddy Holly’ by Weezer, or you’re spending 24 hours in the hole in the ceiling above the CD closet.

What are some local bands in heavy rotation at the moment?

Montgomery: False Pterodactyl are one of our absolute favorite local acts. Two-piece lo-fi grooviness. They’re playing in a new project right now that’s sort of a local supergroup, with the producer of our live local music show and a few other folks. It’s called Golden Horseshoe.

Then there’s Captain Catfeesh. The band started with their frontman Colby White playing solo acoustic sets and gradually grew into a full-on punk band. They’ve got this sort of backwoods weirdo vibe that reminds me a lot of bands like the Melvins or Tad, and they sing about awesome local legends like the Mothman and Sasquatch and UFOs.

McIntyre: The Furr was formed in Motown a few years ago. I believe they are currently separated after the drummer and another member moved away. These guys were one of my favorite local bands to see live, because it was weird and just really high energy. They played a lot of punk venues and always gave it everything. Great group. Authentic as hell. When they first started recording stuff, their frontman Eli used to call in and request it all the time. Once they had a full-length in our rotation, he called in and I told him he didn’t have to do that anymore—we love it, and we’re automatically gonna play it. I think he still calls every now and then. He let me play with his theremin after a show once and that was really cool.

Koban-Hogue: What’s Missing? are U-92’s own pop-punk darlings. These guys started here at WVU in Morgantown. They’re heavily inspired by Rozwell Kid and old-school emo bands. The lead guitarist for this band used to be our program director as well, and their bass player was a DJ for a bit.

What will you miss most about working at the radio station after you graduate? What are your plans after graduation, and do they involve music? 

Montgomery: I’m definitely going to miss the people I’ve worked with the most. They were my family all throughout college. I seriously would have dropped out if it wasn’t for the station. I’m trying to find a job in town for the next year, then I’m applying to grad school. I plan to keep recording my own stuff and mixing for other people, as well as writing freelance. When I eventually get to a big city I’m going to join IATSE as a sound tech and try to work for a promotion company as well. I’d love to have my own studio and venue space one day.

McIntyre: I am going to miss the people and the music. I’ll miss being able to head into the station in the middle of the day and talk to my friends about their favorite songs in rotation, or what cool things are happening around town. U-92 has a such a family culture. I’ve been at the station for four years, and the whole time I knew I had people looking out for me. It made college the best years of my life. After graduation, I’ll be studying abroad in Europe for some of the summer, then heading back to Morgantown and hopefully finding a job. I’d like to work for a radio station locally or work on building my own business.

—Ally-Jane Grossan

Welcome to Hi Bias, a monthly column highlighting recent cassette releases on Bandcamp, and exploring the ideas behind them with the artists who made them. Rather than making sweeping generalizations about the “cassette comeback,” we prefer here simply to cover releases that may escape others’ radar due to their limited, cassette-focused availability.

Sophie Cooper & Julian Bradley, The Blow Volume 3 (Front & Follow)

For the tape series The Blow, Manchester, U.K. label Front & Follow asks two artists to work together in whatever manner they’d like. They can contribute music separately, collaborate on portions, or fully partner on every sound. For Volume 3, British musicians Sophie Cooper and Julian Bradley chose the latter path—eventually. “Initially we thought about having a mixture of solo and duo pieces,” says Cooper. “But the album [became] fully collaborative, even though we don’t both play consistently all the way through.”

“My original thought was that we should force our individual sounds together, just lay them on top of each other,” adds Bradley. “Pretty much, from the first song we finished, it was obvious that there were so many more options than that.”

Those options emerged as Cooper and Bradley traded sounds back and forth via file-sharing sites. They each added and revised intuitively, without much discussion on what to do next. “We never knew who would have the song with them when it was considered finished,” explains Bradley. “But it was obvious, I think, to both of us when they were done.” The process gave them the time to create freely—as Bradley says, “you can work on [this] at two in the morning if you can’t sleep”—and the confidence to experiment. “Julian takes the songs in directions I just wouldn’t think up myself,” Cooper says. “I can just have ideas and send them to Julian, who completes them for me. It’s made me more willing to try something [new] out now.”

The result on The Blow Volume 3 is a fascinating mix ranging from sparse, meditative song-craft to abstract textures. Using a variety of tools—including voice, guitar, keyboards, field recordings, and glockenspiel—Cooper and Bradley create atmospheres in which some elements are recognizable and others are mysterious. “I have always liked the idea of making it hard to say what instrument or source is being used, disguising things and having a few parts of a song sound like they’re coming from another room,” says Bradley. “There’s never a need to fill everything, leaving space for some barely audible things, or nothing, to go on.”

The pair’s process led to unique concoctions that neither might have conceived of separately. For the slowly-evolving “Nowhere From The Water To Go,” Bradley sent Cooper “just tones and a short loop or two,” plus some words. Cooper returned a nine-minute song featuring evocative guitar and stirring vocals, and Bradley then created a middle section by, as he puts it, “deliberately using sounds that I wouldn’t normally use.” A similar situation arose in the dense “Wish Me to Forget You”—Cooper uploaded an old synth piece to Dropbox, and Bradley sang words from a postcard Cooper found in a market.

One of the most fascinating tracks on The Blow Volume 3, “The Mirror,” presents a web of overlapping words, none of which were actually uttered by either Cooper or Bradley. “I bought a 1960s small reel-to-reel player at a second hand market, and the tape had a recorded letter from a woman to her brother,” Bradley explains. “The recording chronicles the woman and her husband taking a day trip around Yorkshire in search of a mirror to put in their house. They search all day, travel many miles, and don’t get one.”

The experiments on The Blow Volume 3 work because Cooper and Bradley have each been doing this kind of thing a while. Cooper started playing at age 11, when she discovered trombone. “I was super young when I knew music was ‘the thing,’” she says. “I’d spend hours playing keyboards, trombone, and guitar in my bedroom but I know my mum found it a bit of a nightmare to live with.” She’s since worked as a music teacher while releasing solo and collaborative works.

Bradley was also attracted to music early. He got a second-hand guitar at age nine, teaching himself to turn an old Sony tape player into a distortion unit. He’s since participated in a number of experimental groups, most notably founding Vibracathedral Orchestra with fellow traveler Neil Campbell. “There was no conscious decision to devoting time to playing music, it’s just something I’ve found myself doing and enjoying,” he says. “I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to play with so many amazing people over the years.”

Bradley’s partnership with Cooper actually started before they were approached by Front & Follow, and their project now has a name—The Slowest Lift—as well as a debut LP due later this year on VHF. “Playing with Sophie is very easy and very good, we’ve barely had to talk about it,” he enthuses. “She absolutely has this fearless way, there’s nothing off-limits.” Adds Cooper: “Julian once told me that the music he makes comes from a place of love and friendship, and I feel very similarly about my music. I feel like The Slowest Lift is somewhere we can create some kind of unspoken, amazing vision together. Cosmic encounters! See you on the astral plane.”

Kate Carr, The Story Surrounds Us (The Helen Scarsdale Agency)

Many artists combine field recordings with instrumental sounds, but few incorporate the two so thoroughly and purposefully as Kate Carr. “I look in my work to present a highly subjective experience of time and place,” she says. “To inhabit or to revisit these moments where, for a period of time, place and sound come together in a very emotionally powerful way…for me, what works in doing that is to mix field recordings with instrumentation.”

On Carr’s new tape, The Story Surrounds Us, she melds her sources into full aural environments that can feel abstract, but are grounded in concrete reality. See matter-of-fact song titles like “Wind Turbine Recorded in Vase, Velez Blanco, Spain” and “Water Lapping at Ice on Melting Lake, Ólafsfjörður, Iceland.” Carr considers the tape the third installment in a trilogy—following 2014’s Fabulations and 2016’s It Was a Time of Laboured Metaphors—all of which were made since she left her home country of Australia, eventually landing in England.

“I think of them all as addressing the shifting moods of travel, of leaving home, the sense of excitement, fatigue, wonder and unease, the specificities of being an outsider, the wonder of the new, and the inevitable confusions and misunderstandings of being in unfamiliar places and cultures,” she explains. “For me, The Story Surrounds Us closes this chapter of my life. It is probably the saddest of the three releases, the most wistful… It is perhaps about a search to reconnect and settle in a place, the need for a home.”

The title of The Story Surrounds Us reflects Carr’s notions that “personal narratives envelop us all,” and that sound plays a vital part of these ongoing, ever-changing stories. You can hear that idea in the way her pieces build and change, with tangible sounds—heavy footsteps, creaking doors, running water—folding into larger moods. For Carr, it’s all about creating sonic stories that reflect our multi-layered experience of reality.

“This sense of the stories we consciously and unconsciously tell ourselves about events in our lives is a very interesting practice,” she says. “In some cases I see these stories, especially the ones we create stemming from quite traumatic or upsetting events, as a scaffolding, a loose construction which somehow can take you somewhere new, and that often times the process of building this story is incredibly important to achieving a sense of renewal and healing.”

“Sometimes I think people build these narratives in words, in music, with mixtapes or poems or whatever else,” she continues. “I like to do it in sound…because sound lets me revisit and re-inhabit somehow these important moments, and in doing this it provides the means to move from them to somewhere new.”

Carr’s own musical story began when she was what she calls “a fairly casual DJ” who dreamed of making her own music. “I never really found either the time or a had a sense of what sort of music I would like to make until I did a Masters in Cultural Studies and discovered Oval and Ikeda,” she recalls. “For me it came together in thinking about glitch, the sounds of failure, and this idea of using what usually isn’t used which I slowly brought into my field recording work. I often draw on material most field recordists do not like, such a music in public places, crappy phone recordings, the sound of my own body moving around, and things like [that].”

Carr’s music has continually widened, and, according to her, is “all about the environment I am in when I am making it, and that making these works is my way of engaging with place.” Her current environment, London, registers on just one track on The Story Surrounds Us, “1001 (Missed Connections),” which uses recordings of a firecracker outside her bedroom window. But Carr plans to turn her focus towards her neighborhood, Brixton, on future releases, and already has specific ideas for what to capture. “This area has an incredibly rich sonic environment, one of my favorite aspects of which is these amazing bass heavy bicycle stereo systems which sometimes race down the alley way behind my house,” she says. “They will be a big feature on these next pieces if I can get some good recordings of them.”

Yves Malone, Boneblack (Tymbal Tapes)

The synth-driven sound of Yves Malone evokes the one-man horror film scores of legendary director John Carpenter. That’s territory that many synth artists have explored over the past decade, but Malone’s take on this sound might be the closest to actually feeling like a soundtrack. The four pieces on his new tape Boneblack each run about 10 minutes, and resemble miniature films with plot twists, action sequences, and clear shifts in pace and mood. Isolated sections dazzle with insistent pulse and waves of synth ambience, but Boneblack is most compelling when taken as a whole. As its invisible images scroll by, you end up somewhere very far away from where you started.

Kieran Daly / Sam Sfirri, Derrison (Marginal Frequency)

Florida’s Kieran Daly and South Carolina’s Sam Sfirri have collaborated for over 10 years, but Derrison is their first official release as a duo. They’ve chosen a bold mode for a debut: guitar and piano improvisations based on classic jazz numbers by Miles Davis, Lennie Tristano, Carla Bley, Lee Konitz, and more. Though the repertoire is widely varied and the pair responds in many different ways, Derrison overall is calm and reverent, suggesting the players fully feel the weight of the material they’re confronting. The result is both exploratory and grounded, particularly during two endlessly-inventive takes on Bley’s 2013 piece “Vashkar,” which could make an album by themselves.

Khaki Blazer, Didn’t Have to Cut (Hausu Mountain)

It’s hard to make music unpredictable without sounding totally random, but Ohio’s Patrick Modugno is an expert at it. Surprise is the foundation of his work as Khaki Blazer, in which he chops up samples, synths, drum machine beats, and all manner of audio debris, blending it into something in between music, cartoons, and sound effects. His approach, with its absurd juxtapositions and jarring tonal shifts, has an inherent sense of humor. But Didn’t Have to Cut also feels reflective and even melancholy. Some of Modugno’s sequences evoke a glitched-out film noir, like foggy black and white memories scrambled into a digital stream of consciousness.

—Marc Masters

“I’ve never been very good at playing what I’m supposed to play,” jazz trumpeter Jaimie Branch says in a mini-documentary about her debut album, Fly or Die. “I can only do what I feel at that moment… I found that creative music, improvising, free jazz, there’s a lot more room to be yourself.” It doesn’t take long to feel the artistic fluidity of Branch’s new LP, which unfolds in a coherent suite of free-flowing composition. While it’s easy to call this album avant-garde or psychedelic due to its spectral mood, it’s really that Fly or Die is a remarkably focused effort that’s rooted in jazz while pulling in hip-hop, folk, and ambient work.

Branch arrives at her debut having spent her formative years in the Chicago music scene, where she played with noise-rock group Musket and experimental jazz trio Rupert, among many other outfits. Now living in Brooklyn’s Red Hook community, Fly or Die finds Branch at the helm of her own quartet, which features Chad Taylor on drums, Jason Ajemian on bass, and Tomeka Reid on cello. Though Fly or Die is technically a solo album, each musician plays a vital role in the album’s meditative aura. Songs like “leaves of glass” and “waltzer” rumble along slowly, emitting Eno-like vibes as they progress. “Theme nothing,” the record’s centerpiece, exudes a strong Latin jazz melody centered on Branch’s sporadic horn wails and Taylor’s percussive groove.

These tracks work well by themselves, but they’re smaller parts of the album’s big picture, where each song blends into the next for a seamless listen. Fly or Die is meant to be played front to back, and sounds best through headphones or in intimate spaces on moderate volume. This is soothing music for the weary mind, a moving testament to the power of free will and the beauty of artistic liberty. After years of buffering everyone else’s visions, it’s great to see Branch bringing her own to light.

—Marcus J. Moore

Illustration by Clay Hickson

It’s a globetrotting edition of Best of Bandcamp Jazz. This month’s column features stopovers in Iceland, Barcelona, the Twin Cities, Paris, London, Lebanon, New Jersey, the Canary Islands, and many, many more. These are essential albums you’ll want in your collection, no matter where you call home.

Diego Barber, One Minute Later

It’s fascinating to hear the evolution of Diego Barber’s fusion of classical and jazz. Strictly trained in the former, the guitarist gradually adapted his approach to make a welcome home for jazz improvisation. Following a move from the Canary Islands to NYC, the synthesis between those two forms has settled into a natural unison. Over time, Barber has incorporated other genres into his music, with one notable example being his jazz/classical/electronica recording 411 with laptop wizard Hugo Cipres. On his latest, Barber and his classical guitar return to a more organic sound, with help from bassist Ben Williams, drummer Eric Harland, and percussionist Alejandro Coello. But that doesn’t mean Barber has settled into a single sound. Opening track “Jacaranda” modulates rhythm patterns to replicate the patter of electronic dance music. The mesmerizing effect of Barber’s classical guitar increases when the quartet dives into jazz, while Coello’s use of marimba, kalimba, tympani, vibraphone, tam-tam, gongs, and crotales amps up the personality, making something that’s already different stand out even further in a crowded field.

Nicole Mitchell, Mandorla Awakening II: Emerging Worlds

It’s astounding how many compelling works have resulted from flautist Nicole Mitchell’s vision—particularly with her Black Earth Ensemble. Her latest is a fascinating entry in the Afrofuturist field, built around the idea of two people traveling between two worlds, each with opposing societal, technological, environmental, and political structures to contend. The performance is no less fascinating than the context. It’s a kaleidoscopic of avant-garde chaos, comforting melodic washes, and rhythmic dialogs that are as poetic as the album’s spoken word sections. Mitchell’s music is often profound and stunning, and the afterimage it leaves long after the last note has sounded is what drives the listener to hit the play button over and over again.

Jaimie Branch, Fly or Die

In describing Fly or Die, it’s probably best to simply begin with the players. This outstanding new release features trumpeter Jaimie Branch, cellist Tomeka Reid, bassist Jason Ajemian, drummer Chad Taylor, with guests guitarist Matt Schneider and cornetists Ben Lamar Gay and Josh Berman. All of them are musicians who are directly shaping the sound of Chicago’s experimental scene, though still filed under jazz. What’s especially remarkable about Fly or Die is how these musicians, each of whom possess an immensely singular form of personal expression, came together to do something that borders on the anthemic. Sure, tracks like “the storm” shake free of structure, and “…meanwhile” is a folk song tossed off a roof, its melody growing thinner as the song accelerates. But the album is signified by the series of “theme” tracks (“theme 001,” “theme Nothing”) and “waltzer,” where the musicians coalesce into a sharp melodic focus and a fluid rhythmic chatter that borders on catchiness. Eventually, everything disperses, and the cycle begins all over again. This is wildly expressive and unconventional music, but don’t be surprised if you find yourself humming one of the tracks under your breath and tapping your foot along to the rhythm.

UnderPool Collective, UnderPool 5

Barcelona’s UnderPool is a music label, a recording studio, and a musicians’ community center. It’s where musicians come together for various collaborations, often as a way to help build their composition and improvisation skills. Consequently, they have formed something of a collective, and record as such, and thus the UnderPool series was born. This isn’t the fifth release on the label—they’ve released many more than that since they began four years ago—but it’s the fifth album where each member of the collective submits their own, new composition. If their composition is selected for performance, they’re enlisted to perform on the next group recording. On this fifth installment, saxophonist Gorka Benítez, pianist Roger Mas, bassist Martín Leiton, and drummer Ramon Prats offer up a series of modern jazz tunes with embraceable melodies and breezy tempos. Some tracks echo an old-school sound and manage to get in some swing, while others tether themselves to the modern era and its unpredictable directions of melodic development, while still others find a middle ground between the two and infuse it with regional music forms.

Jason Kao Hwang, Sing House

The breadth of influences that composer Jason Kao Hwang is able to call upon, and his willingness to leave wide open spaces within compositions for improvising, strikes the perfect balance between meticulous planning and breathless spontaneity. His newest, Sing House, falls in line with past experiments. “No Such Thing” provides ample, immediate evidence of that push-and-pull, with its turbulent bursts of avant-garde dissonance suddenly settling into joyful expressions of the blues. “Dream Walk” is a panoramic view of a host of musical forms, never fully adopting a single one, always sounding on the verge of phasing into another altogether. “When What Could” takes the opposite approach, allowing jazz forms to manifest with a charged immediacy, while leaving the transitions between each expression a bit fuzzy. It’s this kind of daring that makes a Hwang album so thrilling—that sense of sharp intelligence and creative courage. On his newest, the violinist-violist is joined by drummer Andrew Drury, bassist Ken Filiano, pianist Chris Forbes, and trombonist Steve Swell.

Innocent When You Dream, Dirt in the Ground

This is Aaron Shragge’s second take on the Tom Waits songbook, and this sophomore release is no less intriguing than the original. The use of a shakuhachi, a Japanese end-blown flute, to mirror Waits’s high pitch on “Dirt in the Ground” is an inspired decision, as is the thick blues—bordering on Motown funk—for their rendition of “Down in the Hole” and the pedal steel of Joe Grass goes a long way to building the thick melancholy of “Ol’ 55.” Tenor saxophonist Jonathan Lindhorst and guitarist Ryan Butler honor the original version of “Hang On St. Christopher” by painting the melody on thick, while the boisterous groove of drummer Nico Dann and bassist Dan Fortin honors the spirit of Frank’s Wild Years in its entirety. Previous knowledge of the Tom Waits songbook is not required to enjoy this recording, but for those who are addicted to his deep melancholy, heartbreaking optimism and wry sense of humor, this will be a special treat.

Masaa, Outspoken

The pairing of the Lebanese vocals of Rabih Lahoud and the European straight-ahead jazz of trumpeter Marcus Rust, pianist Clemens Christian Pötzsch, and drummer Demian Kappenstein is one of the more thrilling combinations in jazz. With each successive recording, Lahoud finds new and exciting ways to seat his alluring lyricism. This time around, he adds French, German, and English to the mix. And, conversely, the trumpet-piano-drums trio has grown quite adept at mirroring and contrasting Lahoud’s poetry with giant swells of intensity and sudden descents into a gentle melodicism. Their 2014 release Afkar was one of the best things to come out that year. Their new release Outspoken may well earn similar honors in 2017.

Baldvin Snær Hlynsson, Renewal

Here’s a nice example of the kind of jazz emerging from the Icelandic scene. This release from pianist Baldvin Snær Hlynsson displays a canny mix of atmospheric Nordic jazz and NYC small combo jazz. On Renewal, the ratio between the two influences weighs heavier to the ambient side of things, with thick, slow pours of melody and tempos that take their time getting to their final destination. However, a track like “L.A. Strollin’” kicks up the blues while speaking in a rhythm that’s got some personality. Joining the pianist are Ari Bragi Kárason on flugelhorn, Valdi Kolli on double bass, Bjarni Már Ingólfsson on electric guitar, and Einar Scheving on drums.

Zacc Harris, American Reverie

On American Reverie, the trio of guitarist Zacc Harris, bassist Matt Peterson, and drummer Lars-Erik Larson reach into the American songbook and pull out tunes that stir nostalgia. In the spirit of Bill Frisell’s landmark jazz-folk crossover recording Nashville, Harris reinterprets classic folk and bluegrass songs through a jazz lens. Some of the obvious choices for this kind of album are present: songs by Willie Nelson, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, and Bob Dylan all make the cut. A happy surprise is when the trio takes a spin with the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby,” and an inspired adaptation of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”

Misha Mullov-Abbado, Cross-Platform Interchange

Composer and bassist Misha Mullov-Abbado came out strong on his 2015 debut New Ansonia, but as much promise as it held, it couldn’t have prepared anyone for the stunning accomplishment of Cross-Platform Interchange. The expanse of sounds Mullov-Abbado brings to bear is impressive on its own merits, but the way he is able to make the album cohere is a remarkable feat of its own. Two saxophonists and a trumpeter offer up plenty of melodic diversions and welcome harmonic reprieves. The addition of a percussionist to the mix adds personality to what was already a pretty strong dialog between bass, drums, and piano. Opening track “Shanti Bell” offers immediate evidence that Mullov-Abbado is a no less accomplished a bassist than he is a composer. An album highlight is the Ellingtonian “Pure 100 Percent Nunnery,” with its thick blues, traditional jazz, and thrilling passages of deconstruction and reformation. The lovely chamber music influence on “Waves” provides an island of tranquility before the raucous swing of “Gromit’s Grand Outing” kicks up the pace.

—Dave Sumner

Charlie Curtis-Beard. Illustration by Gabriel Alcala.

Each month, we bring you the best new soul music on Bandcamp. Here, Skullkid and brandon* usher you into the summer, and Mel Alston Jr. and Emilee Strong remind us that we all catch romantic feelings (and eventually you have to sing about them). If these new releases are any indication, it’s time to shed the doldrums of winter and bask gleefully in the sun.

Mel Alston Jr., Mel Alston Jr.

Mel Alston Jr. likes living in the clouds. “I don’t know if the sun rises or sun sets without you,” he croons on “The Day After Forever”: “You got me thinking that God wrote the heavens about you.” Who could mad at that? Alston Jr. recalls the best of 1970s Philly soul, like Teddy Pendergrass and The Delfonics. With songs like “Dream” and “Come Back,” Alston Jr. emits an old-school vibe that feels remarkably current.

Skullkid, Sleepless EP

If you like beats with your daily meditation, Skullkid is the zen master you need. The artist serves six tracks of smooth instrumentation, and with track names like “walking,” “hoodie weather,” and “snow,” you’d think they were created in wintertime New York, not Atlanta, Georgia. Even if you’re not trying to free your chi, the EP is ideal for downtime with your significant other, when you just wanna chill without the turn up.

Charlie Curtis-Beard, DONEish

You know that weird, mellow roughness you get from an Odd Future track, and then Frank Ocean comes in? You’re listening to a beautiful ballad and a perfectly synthesized beat, but the lyrics take the song to an entirely different direction? That’s what DONEish is like. The Chicago native might be thought of as a rapper, but his beats and emotions are all soul. He can go from Kanye-rough to nearly Slick Rick-mellow, like on the song “Comfortable,” which emotes on the beauty of finding that person with whom you can just be. Still in his early 20s, his youth is canonized on “Peter Pan,” the album’s final track, where it’s clear he likes to party. All good, though, as many of us have been there.

Diggs Duke, Suckas, Hoes & Self-Control

With a title like Suckas, Hoes & Self-Control, you wouldn’t expect delicate, synthesized soul, but that’s exactly what you get from Diggs Duke’s latest EP. Running less than 10 minutes, Duke doesn’t stick around too long, but the quick runtime isn’t surprising if you’ve followed him to this point. On “Seduction of a Whore,” Duke sweet-talks his way into an illicit affair, calling it a risk he’s prepared to take. “If you’re worried ‘bout what to do, just let me lead the way,” he sings. “Pay close attention until the lecture’s through, this is 1-O-1.” The final track, “Continence,” is a funk-inspired instrumental: billowing saxophones and gentle wah-wahs echo throughout, bringing the record to a soft landing. It’s unclear when Duke will return, but when he does, he’ll likely make an impact.

brandon*, Daydreaming

Brandon* makes music suited for long drives on the PCH and beachside vacations. Daydreaming is a mostly instrumental album from an artist who “resides in an unknown tropical location,” according to his website, echoing the influence of bossa nova kings Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto. “Lulabye,” the album’s closer, is perfect for watching the sun dip below the clouds at the end of day, no matter if you’re watching it from your ocean view or your office window.

Don Bryant, Don’t Give Up On Love

Singer/songwriter Don Bryant spent his career penning hits for artists like Solomon Burke, Etta James, and, as luck would have it, the classic “I Can’t Stand The Rain” with singer Ann Peebles, who would eventually become his wife. Now, at 74, Bryant has come back strong in front of the microphone, with the soul of a young man and the mind of someone who knows better. On “One Ain’t Enough,” he warns against the peril of maintaining too many romantic entanglements: “One ain’t enough, and two’s too many,” he sings wryly. He gets just as deep on the ballad “First You Cry”—in hearing it, you can almost see him singing the track on one knee in front of scores of fainting women. That’s old school, kids.

Emilee South, Motel

Emilee South might have roots in Australia, but the longing on her EP makes you think Patsy Cline walked into the room. She likes to keep it retro in a doo-wop/early rock ‘n’ roll kinda way, resulting in fun tracks like “My Baby (Don’t Return My Calls)” and the electric-twanged “Howl.” Like similar singers of that era, South has the power to make you feel like you’re right there with her. Music truly is the universal language.

Moonchild, Voyager

There’s a gentility to the voice of Amber Navran that, when blended with the woodwind and keyboard skills of her bandmates Andris Mattson and Max Bryk, you think you’re listening to early ’90s R&B, when a group like SWV ruled the airwaves. From convincing a lover that she’s right for him (“Cure”), to pondering where it all went wrong (“Think Back”), Moonchild runs the gambit of love and romance, emitting a calm resonance through it all. Let Voyager simmer in the background and gently pull you in.

—Erin Williams

“‘Deep funk’ was really just a name I came up with for my club night,” remembers Keb Darge, a DJ and devoted 45s collector. “The rare groove scene had played funk, but I wanted to get it across to the possible customers that we were digging much deeper than had been done in the past.” Though he might today view his off-the-cuff subgenre designation as arbitrary, he remains inextricably tied to it. Not only did he begin the famed Legendary Deep Funk night in 1994, moving it to Madame Jojo’s in London’s Soho district a year later, but, perhaps more impressively, he kept its bizarro flame lit for 20-plus years (later with the help of DJ Snowboy).

In the same vein as England’s northern soul movement of the late ’60s and ’70s, deep funk was forged from stacks of obscure 45s by little-known black American artists and long-gone, one-off labels (many of which were private press). Darge thought some of the nastier funk heat could be found on the flip side of a rare soul record, the side that back then wasn’t being paid much mind. “Because of my time in the northern soul scene, I could tell what a genuinely rare record was and what an ‘I’ve not seen it before, but it’s not really rare’ record was,” he says.

Whatever relic Darge spun during the Legendary Deep Funk heyday, chances were decent it represented the only living evidence of an artist or band’s existence. The more cryptic the record, the more exclusive value it had (as long as the music was worth a damn). Even more likely was that those who played on the cut had zero clue it was filling a dancefloor across the Atlantic, decades after it failed to make a ripple in the States.

Last year’s Keb Darge Presents the Best of Legendary Deep Funk, on the Barely Breaking Even (BBE) label, is a showcase of Darge’s expertise on those rarities, and evidence of his booth prowess. Celebrating BBE’s 20th anniversary, his greatest hits double-LP—with edits by aficionados Kenny Dope and Ian Wright—is seated on the dancier side of the funk aisle from the get-go. King Tutt’s 1979 cut “You’ve Got Me Hung Up” features a twangy, stuttering bass along with sharp, glitzy horns (and plenty of bar chimes) that together urge a hard late ’70s lean into disco. Other tracks like Soul Drifter’s “Funky Brother” or its followup, Zebra’s “Simple Song” (both later reissued by archival label Jazzman Records), are a harder style of funk, complemented by slithering guitar and raw rhythms that shove a track along rather than simply conduct it through. There’s more strut than glide.

“When I do a compilation, I just play it through in my head as if it was a DJ set,” Darge explains. “It has to flow, and like my Deep Funk nights, I finish with a few more soulful tunes. The comps also tended to be made up of whatever the current big tunes at the club were that year.”

“Deep funk pulls no punches—the heavier the better,” asserts Gerald “Jazzman” Short, a contemporary of Darge’s and the aforementioned Jazzman Records’ head honcho. “Loud pressing, syncopated drums, brash horns, fat deep bassline, nasty guitar, passionate screaming vocal, and a ton of energy slammed into two or three minutes.”

Short knows how to go about unearthing deep funk gems, too—he earns a living doing it. His label has catalogued an impressive string of reissued singles and rarities collections, the latter of which in the 2000s came to resemble a hodgepodge map of funk across America. In little under a decade the imprint released Texas Funk (2002), Midwest Funk (2003), Florida Funk (2006), and Carolina Funk (2008). A few were eventually licensed for U.S. distribution to Stones Throw subsidiary Now-Again Records, which works its own angle in the rarities game, having released a jam like 2004’s Cold Heat: Heavy Funk Rarities 1968-1974 Vol. 1.

The art of compiling such a collection can be precarious and time-consuming. During a 2006 lecture with DJ Benji B, Short explained that because so many deep funk artists recede back into everyday life soon after their records don’t hit, they might be tedious to track down—made more difficult by the fact that there’s little to nothing on the Internet to hint at their whereabouts. With its collections, Jazzman was regularly on the hook to conduct its own original research, often with the assistance of producer and collector Malcolm Catto. That consisted of repeated trips to the States, meeting with each artist individually, hearing the story behind the track, getting the OK to include it on a comp, and essentially writing a mini essay for each track.

Short contends that the research is a crucial element. Not only is it worth being respectful to the nitty-gritty details—since the history recorded is likely to act as the track’s touchstone—but also to the artists themselves, who get squared away for royalties while obtaining a semblance of notoriety they never imagined possible. The model for compiling a rarities collection becomes an episodic treasure hunt in its own right, one that’s easier to understand when talking to Darge and Short about their practices for digging out long-lost deep funk 45s via specialty dealers and record stores.

Both emphatically state that the first rule of thumb is to be methodical and to go through everything. Darge prefers the comfort of the specialty dealer: “Now, musty boxes tend to have hundreds of sets of fingerprints on them.” He contends that while 25 years ago he might have been able to stumble upon an untouched single, today the cost of a trip to America “would far outweigh the one or two records I would most probably not find in the old dollar-each bin.”

Of course, getting to the gold before the rush is key. Darge says he tended to ignore big labels because unrecognizable independents could offer him something obscure—as well as the opportunity to be the only one DJing it for a time being. “I built up a great knowledge of shit records and could flip through mountains of records quite quickly. I found this out when I took a well-known DJ mate digging once. After about 40 shelves I had one record to listen to. He had about 40 records to listen to after one shelf.”

Darge calls himself “silly” for sharing the details of the spots he hit in the States, not knowing that his tastes would change and he’d eventually want to circle back for another go-round. Short, on the other hand: “I’ll tell you which town I’ve visited and that’s about it. If you’re trying to get records for your collection or to sell, it makes no sense at all to reveal your sources—unless you do a source-swap deal.”

His dogged approach of digging through the muck informs his research mentality. Though “boutique digging,” as he calls it, can be of benefit—paying premium price for a stocked, organized store—he says he’ll spend hours or days “looking through things even if they’re coated in crap.” He goes on, “What I don’t like is a rundown store, mess everywhere, the guy hasn’t a clue about what to recommend, but he still wants top Popsike dollar on everything regardless of condition. That’s a drag, and happens way too often.”

Jazzman’s “We Dig Deeper” motto is no front. The months spent tracking down an artist to the backwoods of Florida is quite a different process than happening upon an unsigned opening act at Bush Hall in London. It takes time because it’s worth the time—which Short sees through to the sequencing of a rarities collection, deep funk or otherwise. “I’ve spent as much as eight weeks driving home from work everyday, listening to the same album with a different sequence, until I finally decide on one I’m happy with. That’s about 40 listens to the same album.”

Quantic Presents the World’s Rarest Funk 45s, a two-volume affair from 2006-07, may have ultimately been sequenced by musician and producer Will Holland, aka Quantic, but its compilation and liner-note color booklets were all Short and Catto. The records were worth the effort. With its crunchy yet debonair guitar, in-the-pocket bass, and wilding out Hammond organ, “Hot Funky and Sweaty” by the Soul Lifters represents a quintessential deep funk deep cut, while Vern Blair Debate’s hypnotic “Ooh Ah Ee” breezes along thanks to a whirling guitar riff and pirouetting bass line pushed low in the mix. Both tracks are mostly chill instrumentals that sound like products of impromptu, serendipitous jam sessions, but Gene Anderson’s awesome two-minute “The Loneliest One” screeches with a raving James Brown-like despair. Though remastered from their original master tapes, the singles have grind and grit to their sound, no doubt caked on from decades out in the wild.

Jazzman and BBE are two of the more prominent archival imprints to rep deep funk specifically in their rarities collections, but they are far from the only scuttling through funk’s brittle back catalogue. Another that cannot be overlooked is the prolific Chicago-based Numero Group, which deserves a strong nod for growing more adventurous with each “various artists” release. Having long trumpeted their Eccentric Soul series, using it as a foundation off which to experiment, the label—just earlier this year having joined Bandcamp—has released the blessed Good God! Born Again Funk, the too-suave Purple Snow: Forecasting the Minneapolis Sound, and Ultra High Frequencies: The Chicago Party, a comp that summons the hypercolored glitz and futuristic glam of the 1982 Saturday night dance-party TV show. Each is impeccably researched and packaged with flair, resembling an art project that’s been composed to reconstruct an era of funk rather than just an era of funk tracks. Perhaps not deep funk by its narrow definition, each collection accomplishes what Short believes to be the genre’s ultimate purpose: “It sends shivers down your spine and makes your body move.”

—Kevin Warwick

Photo by Arvid Sjoo.

In 2015, Sweden’s Åsa Söderqvist was nervous about what people would think of her music. She uploaded her self-titled solo debut EP (under the potentially off-putting moniker ShitKid) to the internet, and forgot about it for months. In that time, she racked up a lot of listens, particularly for her song “Oh Please Be A Cocky Cool Kid,” a two-minute, drum-machine-driven, stream-of-conscious pop-punk song.

The song’s positive reception gave Söderqvist the confidence to reach out to Stockholm-based PNKSLM, a grass-roots label putting out music from the stranger side of Sweden’s new music scene. The label remixed and released her EP in 2016, and followed with a second one this year. Now, PNKSLM will release ShitKid’s debut full-length LP, Fish, which we’re premiering today. Not much has changed in Söderqvist’s music since that first EP. Her music is still a blended puree of punk rock, alt-country, and pissed-off pop, set to caffeinated drum machines. Its songs are overwhelmingly fun—liberating, and confident in their own strangeness.

Given Söderqvist’s limited experience as a musician prior to starting ShitKid—she played three shows with two different bands—there is also an innocence to her music, a sense of self-discovery emanating from the songs that make Fish an irresistible listen. It sports a cover that looks like a Lynchian take on old-timey country album, but has a title, Fish, that no actual country singer would use. We spoke with Söderqvist about her eccentric, infectious sound.

Listen to Fish in full exclusively at Bandcamp Daily:

Your EPs are short blasts of oddball fun. How did you approach your full-length?

I did the exact same thing. A lot of the songs on the album were made for the EP, but I didn’t like them. I fixed them up a little afterward, in GarageBand. I’d maybe use the verse that I already had recorded, and redo the refrain, rearranging it a little. Of course, there are some new songs as well. I wanted to make a full-length, so I just scrambled all the stuff together. The first and last songs are kind of similar. Two are about the tropics. And two are just rock. They kind of follow in that order. I used the same instruments for all of them, they still have the same sound, I think. Same drum machine. Everything.

Do you feel like your songs come together during the editing process?

Most of the songs come together kind of at once. ‘Cocky Cool Kid’ was made in one night. ‘Never Seen a Girl,’ the first song on the album, was done in one live recording. Some songs are super quick. Others, I process a little. I put effects on them, I change the volumes. I send them to my friend, Simon Skeleton, and he mixes the finished ones. He’s added some bass and weird noises. It makes it a little more spacey—fat sounding. Mostly, I improvise the singing. So, if something made me angry that day, maybe I sing about that. It’s easier to write about things that make you angry.

How do you think you fit in with the bands on PNKSLM, and the “weird music” movement happening in Sweden?

I don’t think most of it is weird, actually—I think I’m probably the weirdest [artist] in Sweden right now. It’s just rock, I don’t think it’s super weird. I wrote to PNKSLM ’cause I didn’t know of any other labels. Now, we’re really good friends.

I read that, as a kid, you were extremely shy. Your music has this odd confidence. Did you find that making music was a way for you to become less shy?

The main thing I’ve been shy about has been music. I was really anxious when we had our first gig with ShitKid. I had, like, three other gigs before. But it’s all been going really well. I just kind of let go while writing the music; I never want to record songs when somebody’s home, ’cause I hate people hearing when I’m recording something from scratch. I was living alone when I recorded all of these, so I could just sit and do whatever. I guess I am confident in other things than music. When I put the EP up on the internet, I totally ignored it for four months—the whole summer—because it was a huge thing for me to even put it up there. I knew that if I got one thing out, maybe it would be easier in the future [to release more]. That worked well. After four months of ignoring it, I sent it to PNKSLM. Two days after that, another record company called.

Why’d you name the album Fish?

I sing ‘fish’ in two of the songs. ‘Fish’ is a really great word. I’m scared of fishes, because they really wanted to eat the skin off my feet when I was in Asia. They were big as arms. They were fat, and they wanted to eat your dead skin. People were putting their feet in there to get some spa treatment. I thought it was scary. I have really tickly feet. So—not for me.

What about the cover art? I think it’s great.

I really love it. I wanted it to look like an old LP. I explained that to my friend Moa Romanova, who has taken almost all my press photos, and has made all the other cover art, and she made the perfect thing. I guess it’s very country. That’s what I listen to, so I see mostly those kind of album covers.

‘Cocky Cool Kid’ was the first one of your songs to get people’s attention. Is that song about you wishing you were part of the cool crowd?

No. It was just about a cute guy I saw at a club. I guess it’s mostly a joke. Like, the part of it where I would be, ‘Ah, be with me’—I guess that wouldn’t happen. Sometimes you feel, ‘Oh, you can do whatever to me ’cause you’re so beautiful. And I’ll still want you.’ That’s it.

You studied music a little bit in school, is that right?

I had an acoustic guitar, but it wasn’t very fun. Also, I was just starting to party, so I skipped a lot of school, especially my music classes. It was better going to the math lessons than the music lessons—it looked better. I mostly started that school ’cause I wanted to move away from home, and that was 40 minutes away. That was the reason I wasn’t excited to dig into music and become really good at guitar: I wanted to move away from home, then I wanted to skip school.

You had a punk band before ShitKid?

Yes. We had this punk band for one year, then the guitarist got pregnant, so we had to quit. We had one gig, which was good for my confidence, I think. I was really nervous for that one. I had two gigs with my first band before that when I was 15. Like, four or five people in the crowd, you know? Just a small gig. And then ShitKid.

Was there a reason why, after being in a number of bands you decided to start a solo project?

It’s much easier to record by myself, because people aren’t very enthusiastic. People skipped rehearsal because of headaches and stuff. It’s very hard having a band, unless everybody is very enthusiastic about it. That’s why most bands are either one person or two. It’s really hard to put everything together.

What else influences you besides punk and country?

I listen to a lot of pop—like, radio pop. I’ve always been listening to a lot of Britney Spears and Pink and Christina Aguilera. I think that has inspired my singing a lot.

Do you see yourself one day making more mainstream pop music?

I don’t know. There was a guy asking me if I could sing on one of his songs, which was more mainstream pop, and I’m not sure if I would do it. If I like the person who made the music, then maybe. I really like almost everything, so I guess it could happen. But I don’t know. I mainly like rock. I want to play rock and make rock.

—Aaron Carnes

It’s taken the better part of two decades to bring U.K. songwriter Jane Weaver into the limelight. Though much of her work as a solo artist has been critically regarded, it wasn’t until 2014’s The Silver Globe that the public took broader notice. The Silver Globe and its followup—The Amber Light, a mini-album that arrived as a thematic companion just six months after—significantly altered the graph of Weaver’s career. Through these projects, Weaver delved deep into wildly adventurous and equally inviting prog-pop. The work represented a sensational creative breakthrough that continues to animate and propel Weaver’s activity.

Where she loped from star to star on The Silver Globe, the new song cycle on Modern Kosmology appears more rooted and determinate, like a report or interrogation to map the astral explorations of her two prior releases. While the motorik rhythms and multi-tracked vocals are sure to kick up cosmetic references such as Stereolab, there’s an intimate aesthetic sub-layer that hearkens back to Weaver’s earliest recordings in the mid-’90s with her first group, Kill Laura. Recollections of His Name Is Alive’s transcendental folk modes and Sparklehorse’s scrappy studio alchemy are evident, and would have certainly been in the orbit of a young Mancunian listener circa 1995.
Buried toward the end of Modern Kosmology is a piece entitled “Valley,” a stirring confession of Weaver’s realization of mortality and human frailty. Verses extend like a time-lapse camera’s view of a landscape undergoing seasons and ages of change. Weaver attempts to capture a single, eternal frame within that expanse. It’s a poetic and satisfying reassurance that we all stab at immortality with the same rate of success.

—Joseph Darling