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Album of the Day: Ulcerate, “Shrines of Paralysis”
When you’re in a band with a deep catalog, it can be hard to escape the long shadow of your own history. New Zealand trio Ulcerate set a ground-shattering precedent with 2009’s Everything Is Fire and...
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Monica LaPlante Funnels Fear, Darkness, and Phil Spector Into Shadowy Garage...
Garage rock can be a beginning, middle, and end for many who make it, but Monica LaPlante—a 25-year-old singer-songwriter and guitarist—isn’t interested in cookie-cutter revisionism. Her 2013 debut,...
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Deantoni Parks: Musicians Are Athletes, Too
The list of athletes who have tried their hand in music, whether as serious musicians or novelty acts, is long. Shaquille O’Neal, Bernie Williams, Bronson Arroyo, the ‘85 Chicago Bears—all of them...
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Hi Bias: Notable Cassette Releases on Bandcamp, December 2016
Welcome to Hi Bias, a monthly column that highlights recent cassette releases on Bandcamp. In each installment, we explore the ideas behind each tape by speaking with the artists who made them. Rather...
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Noel Meek Brings the Far-Flung World to Life
Whether he’s listening to music in his back yard in Wellington, New Zealand or getting to know the Indonesian noise scene up close and personal, experimental artist Noel Meek‘s curiosities have taken...
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Album of the Day: Various, “Jeremy Underground presents Beauty”
Jeremy Underground has slowly made his name as one of the top “crate diggers” in the world of dance music, owing largely to his obsessive knowledge of obscure American and British house —you can hear...
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The Trancelike Guitar Improvisations of East of the Valley Blues
Toronto musician Kevin Cahill has already amassed a dedicated following on the strength of his two cassette labels, Power Moves Label and Power Moves Library. The former focuses on pro dubbed...
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Mysterious Composer Eleh Blends Drone and Otherworldly Sounds to Haunting Effect
Graphics from Eleh’s Circle Four: 100 Gongs for Arieto. Eleh‘s music could be described as a meditative moan. For the last decade, he’s crafted compositions that are long, slow and contemplative, often...
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The Undisputed Queen of the Berlin Underground: Shambhu Leroux
It’s a Thursday night at Wild at Heart, in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district, and the area in front of the stage is so packed you can’t move in any direction without dodging lit cigarettes. Then, without...
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The Dark Visions and Technical Prowess of Statiqbloom’s Fade Kainer
Producer and multi-instrumentalist Fade Kainer is a mainstay in Brooklyn’s heavy/dark music scene; you might know him from doom merchants Batillus, the death-drones of Inswarm, the beautiful...
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Album of the Day: Zoos of Berlin, “Instant Evening”
It’s been three years since we last heard from the Krautrock-influenced Detroit collective Zoos of Berlin. The founding duo of songwriters Trevor Naud and Daniel I. Clark could’ve wallowed in misery...
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On “Leavings,” Tay Sean Takes a Voyage Through Inner Space
Tay Sean. Photo by Carlos Cruz. “Will my soul live on if I’m brain dead?” asks Tay Sean on “Dawn Chorus,” a sepulchral vision of death from his debut album, Leavings. The Seattle musician, producer and...
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Horsebeach Updates the Singular Melancholy of Manchester
Pick apart the celebrated scenes stemming from Manchester, England, and you’ll find a certain darkness lurking beneath all of them. Some of the touchpoints are obvious: the dystopian gloom of Joy...
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Terminal Consumption: The Best of the Year in Punk and Hardcore
Artwork by Valentina Montagna. In this special year-end installment of Terminal Consumption, our usually-monthly reviews column focused on the margins of punk and hardcore, Sam Lefebvre reflects on the...
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Story of a Song: Them Are Us Too, “Angelene”
Cash Askew from Them Are Us Too. Photo by Kristin Cofer. “Why won’t you speak to me, love?” This is the simple question that drives “Angelene,” the devastating swan song from California dream-pop duo...
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Album of the Day: Romare, “Love Songs: Part Two”
If the satirical quip “everyone’s a DJ” is true, then it also stands to reason that it’s just a matter of time before everyone’s an EDM producer too. Though a career in nightlife, like any other...
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2016: The Year in Stats
Artwork by Valentina Montagna. Last year, we rounded up some of the more interesting, unusual stats from the world of Bandcamp for a single end-of-the-year post. The results were so interesting, and we...
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Azymuth’s “Fênix” Rises
Jazz-funk trio Azymuth rose—already aflame—from the fluorescent ashes of the countercultural, kaleidoscopic world of Tropicalismo (or tropicalia). Since the early ‘70s, the Rio de Janeiro natives have...
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Exploring the Vastness of Space With Mysterious Black Metal Duo Mesarthim
Though their music seems to take place in the vacuum of space, Australian black metal duo Mesarthim aren’t fans of dead air. Instead, their songs rely on the collision of unrelated textures—blurry,...
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Miles Mosley Runs the Voodoo Down
Miles Mosley. Photo by Aaron Haxton. Kamasi Washington’s three-LP masterpiece The Epic was the biggest story in jazz in 2015, but his barnstorming live shows, which brought the artists’ collective...
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