Los Angeles based Kevin Skyler has been making science exploration music as [PHYSICS] since 2011. Only Forever is Skyler’s second full length, a follow-up to the 2013’s Spectramorphic Iridescense. It explores the similar polished retro-fi sound of its Constellation Tatsu batch neighbor, Memory Drain by Opaline, but while that cassette was a classic synth worship in a nostalgic, “born in the wrong times” way, Only Forever is a wide-eyed lysergic trip, an expedition into the deep jungles of the mind with the help of the newest communication equipment. Serious early OPN vibes, seriously digging it. Highly recommended!

Germany’s Jealousy Mountain Duo is what Minutemen meant by “jamming econo” if they got rid of any attempts to form an actual song, just transforming their creativity and skills into tight deconstruction of high energy rock - just like JMD do. Continuing the spastic mechanics of their previous two LP’s, those Germans channel their inborn technical precision into carefully constructed and meticulously executed labyrinths of sound, true drums vs. guitar chess championship. Non-euclidean math rock. Recommended!

Another winner tape from Constellation Tatsu: Memory Drain by Opaline, a solo vehicle of Hunter P. Thompson is a classic look through the magnifying glass at the world of classic synthesizers presented as a series of glowing, retro-futuristic vistas that bear some resemblance to Steve Hauschildt as both seem to share the same nostalgic vibe and the abdundant use of liquefied sequence-based rhythms. Fans of Panabrite, Le Révélateur and, of course, the whole lot of Emeralds-based catalog should be delighted.

I’d say there’s no better way to boost your credentials in the beginning of your career than being praised by a living legend of the scene. Such is the case with Black Spirituals, a dynamic duo of Zachary Watkins and Marshall Trammell, who got some mad props from none other than Pauline Oliveros herself, who called them “two of the brightest musical minds of today”. And if this healthy slab of noisy free improv a'la Supersilent and Mrs. Oliveros’ urges to “Get this recording right away!” don’t kick your butt to appreciate this trip, then you’re probably not cut for this stuff. Recommended anyway!

Whoa, are you trying to tell me that this great cassette by the Oakland based guitarist Raphi Gottesman has been released in a run of ONLY 20 copies!? Apparentely, the Swedish label Fluere Tapes loves them some small numbers. Thanfully, it’s still available on the label’s Bandcamp as one of those numerous albums you can discard for being yet another noisy drone cassette (yeah, as f anyone still cared about hazy noise drone - what is this, 2010 or something!?), but which turns out to be an amazing set of post-rocky vistas with a sombre, slowcore edge never falling too far away from its ambient beginnings. Kinda like early Tarentel with a more lo-fi edge that fell in love with some simple guitar effects. Still, amazing. Highly atmospheric, higly recommended!

Somehow the German title and liner notes of the new EP by the Warsaw no wave unit HUN makes the music of the trio even harder and almost doom-like, the effect enhanced by the naked concrete walls on the cover. It’s abrasive and semi-improvised homage to the New York scavengers, who expressed their angst through tortured riffs and dissonant funeral marches. Die Verschnitte explores the dynamics between sludgy motorik and explosions of frantic noise over the course of its adventurous 18 minutes. Available on CDR from SQRT.

Sabrina Ratté is known as the creator of vingate, dusted psychedelic computer animations and the main collaborator of the Canadian musician Roger Tellier-Craig, who makes mind-expanding Kosmische Musik under the moniker Le Révélateur. On this cassette, released on the UK based label WHERE TO NOW? Roger sticks to his own name, presenting the music composed specifically for some of Sabrina Ratté’s far out digital vistas. The videos which have been soundtracked by Mr. Revelateur can be watched on this website. Highly recommended, both the sounds and the visuals!

If you haven’t read it yet, check out my interview with Roger Tellier-Craig from 2014, where he talks about his inspirations, methods and his work with Sabrina Ratté.

Taking a moniker that would immediately rouse associations with the more avant-garde spectrum of various African music groups (not to mention that the Bandcamp page of the project states its origin as “Algeria”), Louis Johnstone’s Wanda Group project makes sure is as detached, both on the visual and the musical level, as possible from the human factor. In other words, just like Wanda Groups’s album artworks feature nondescript collages of caverns, stones and rocks formed into completely random and imagined passageways into the bowels of the Earth, the music is equally murky and unexplored, drowned in hiss and dark, mysterious ambience, sometimes letting a sudden moan of a hissing drone or a minimal, thumping rhythm. But these seem more like a residue than an intentional sign of human intervention. Chance reigns. Dive into the miasma. Highly recommended!

The Roman numeral in the title of the new album by Lee Boyd’s solo vehicle Cloudsound brings to mind another album with a Roman numeral by a certain New Zealand guitar wizard who also relied on soothing, ambient influenced string vistas: Roy Montgomery. Just like his albums, the sounds of Cloudsound rely on musical impressionism, to paint a certain feeling, place of time through a “moon gaze” meditation, but Soundcloud seems to be going for shorter pieces, becoming sonic equivalents of grainy snapshots taken with an old analog camera instead of lengthy, single-take scenes a'la Tarr or Tarkovsky played by Montgomery 20 years before. It’s a lovely little album, even it’s the one of the “blink and it’s over” variety. Recommended!

For the more ambient-oriented bliss by Cloudsound, make sure to check out “Spirit of Love as Infinite Life”, an equally blissful enterprise!

Guessing by the sounds on this album and the cover, the Greek band's Drunken Haze idea of alcohol inebration is getting drunk just enough to feel positively tipsy without ever losing control, yet still getting frivolous enough to expose a bit of the body and do some alluring poses. This is is the kind of band that has some underground indie smash hit potential but stays relatelively obscure until one day WHAMMO! some popular unfunny fuck like PewDiePie uses it in one of their movies and it gets elevated into Internet stardom with ADHD infested kiddos blasting it on repeat for one day and forgetting it the next day, while the hipsters foam at their mouths and spill their craft beer on the floor in protest. Oops, I’m talking about myself again. In all seriousness though, My Drunken Haze is a lovely fresh wave of 60’s influenced psych pop sound with some Technicolor haze on top of it. Damn, I’d take those tie-dye kids over PC Music any day. Or I’m just getting old. Recommended!

Although originally composed and played at the 10th anniversary of The Bunker, a New York based club event series and a record label, The Periodic Table by the duo Reagenz was not released on vinyl until late November 2014, when it was presented to the world as a staggering triple vinyl. But The Periodic Table is also an another anniversary: it marks 20 years of Reagenz as a duo, released 20 years after their debut album, Reagenz. The newest offering, recorded with the same equipment as their debut, is a testament to the endless possibilities of classic synthesizers and assorted electronic hardware and an amazing, ambient-infused trip through hypnotic house music. This is what Gas might sound if the ever-present fog surrounding his music would clear out for once. Recommended!

Now here’s something for the winter blues (shut up, Aussies). Coming from the north of Europe, Henrik Stelzer channels the radiating warmth of the imagined tropics in a series of lo-fi drone hypnoses as Fluorescent Heights. As expected, the new cassette, Relaxing in the New World, released on Beer on the Rug, continues with the sprawling, stoner tropical drones that seem to go on forever - as they should be. A great medicine for all sorts of depression, anxiety, or sobriety. A musical drug, to be administered through your ears. If you’re a fan of Dolphins Into the Future, this is a no brainer. And if you’re finished with this and don’t feel “zoned in” enough, continue your trip with Hakobune’s Sinking Stars.

The Tacoma, WA based Sun Eater trio seem to speicalize in small offertings of badass stoner psychedelia, and with their new release they simple step up their own game with the fuzzed-out lo-fi piece “Wild Arum”, which is all a brain-bending psychedelic rock music should be: trippy, enveloping and maze-like, with its endess guitar solos and a great bassline. The “flipside” offers an interesting take on Angelo Badalamenti’s “Twin Peaks” theme with the usage of electric guitar, bass guitar and drums. 

Some mighty intruging, semi-improvised instrumental rock music from the Polish band LOTTO. The cover might suggest some arid, stripped-back moods and it’s true. Ask the Dust doesn’t adhere to simple categorizations, it jumps between the atmospheric, slow-paced experimental jazz rock a'la The Necks to moments of high energy unhinged free improvisation and droning deconstructions of post-rock reduced to single licks of guitars or the residues of guitar feedback hanging in mid-air like particles of dust on a hot summer day. Buy the LP from Lado ABC if you dig.

The Republic of Karelia might be known to the fans of underground music as the hub of some magical psychedelic folk acts, taking cues from both traditional Russian music and the rich folk heritage of Finland, resulting in the Full of Nothing label which catalogued and documented all the woodland creatures from the thriving local scene. So you can imagine how surprised I was when I heard this healthy slab of rhythmic hypnosis from a label that got me used to light-hearted nature meditations. The blurb on the label page says: “«Being» must be the best slab of techno ever produced in Karelia”. And I think it’s absolutely true. Imagine Daft Punk’s “Revolution 909” stretched forever and you might get an approximation of Suokas’ sound. Highly recommended!