Back catalogue: Post Rock/Experimental

Review: A collaborative EP between 2 Australian rock giants, this limited one-sided collectors disc comprises the 19 minutes long 'Satanic Slumber Party' split into three sections. 'The Chairman's Portrait' intro is a dark, heavily distorted spoken-word piece backed by dark rumbling guitars that explodes into the head-banging electronic banger 'Midnight in Sodom'. The angry lyrics are paired with awesome melodic guitar solos and chiptune noises, before shifting into noise rock territory. 'Hoof and Horn' takes up most of the runtime at a hefty 12 minutes, in which ambient drone begets experimental sound effects that are reminiscent of the liquid bass and synths favoured by producer SOPHIE. The track evolves into a demonic lullaby that wouldn't feel out of place in an episode of American Horror Story, and fans of 2 Mello's 'Atmospheric Horror Music Vol.1' will greatly appreciate this track. The EP is all-in-all a camp experience. An Avante-Garde, quintessentially fun blend of two incredible groups.

Review: The second solo releases from Edward Ka-Spel to appear on the Lumberton Trading Company label offers eight spectacularly original compositions from the outsider artist. These are tracks that bore their way into the heart and mind through startlingly personal moods and meanings. The atmosphere is often tense, and, when it's not, 'surreal' is the word that springs to mind - albeit more unusual hallucination than comical experiment. 'Platform 5' might be the best example of how unnerving things can get, the low, rumbling synth bassline underpinning spoken word, distant, almost inaudible harmonic refrain and eerie chorus. 'No Show Tomorrow' asks "what if they had a war and nobody showed up' to seemingly disconnected tones, notes and noises. 'They Seek Her Here' ups the tempo with a synth-wave-breaks trip through dystopian spaces.

Review: No prizes for guessing the kind of sonic avenues we're invited to explore here. Less obvious is the fact Kandodo is actually Simon Price, a name many psych lovers will recognise from British heavyweights The Heads - a group that have spent the last few decades bending minds to their will, or at least sound, and opening up third ears with far reaching cosmic tones. Here you can expect similar wormholes to open, but dark matter reigns supreme. Introverted to the point of collapsing in on itself, Theendisinpsyche feels sludgy, deep, heavy and all the things that make us look down and then inside ourselves. With the B-side taken up by 22-minute long epic, 'Swim Into The Sun', you should hopefully know just how intense and inescapable things get - which should only ever be taken as a strong recommendation from us.

Review: It has been two decades since we last heard a peep out of post-emo triplet Karate. Thankfully, the one thing that hasn't changed in that time is their deft songwriting abilities - striking a sumptuous balance between jazz-blues, unplugged pop-punk-grunge-garage, and some other bits in between. Folk this ain't, but it feels cut from a cloth that's stored close by, at least. Here we are, then, with Geoff Farina offering us ten new tracks with help from long-time partner on this project, Andy Hong. 35 minutes of beautiful songwriting, exceptional guitar work, and a mood that's somewhere between sombre, chilled out, and primed to explode, this might be one of the most re-listenable rock records we have had the pleasure of writing about in some time. In fact, it is.

Review: Formed in 2018, Dream House Quartet has been reshaping the boundaries between classical and contemporary music. The group consists of pianists Katia and Marielle Labeque, both renowned for their versatility across genres, along with Grammy-winning guitarist Bryce Dessner of The National and composer-producer David Chalmin on guitar. Their repertoire spans radical commissions and essential works from the past 50 years. After releasing their self-titled digital EP in 2023, the quartet now unveils their latest project, Sonic Wires, coinciding with a November 2024 tour. The album features pieces by Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Bryce Dessner, Sufjan Stevens and Anna Thorvaldsdottir.

Review: It feels like every couple of years a new reissue of Kikagaku Moyo's magical 2013 album Forest of Lost Children comes around, but we are not moaning. This group is "a musical union between five free spirits" or in less poetic terms, band founders Go Kurosawa (on drums and vocals) and Tomo Katsurada (on guitar and vocals) plus bass by and Akira also on guitar. Their sound is as unique as any, with psychedelic, folk, prog-rock, psychedelic-folk-mixed-with-prog-rock and more all collided into one another on an album that keeps you on your toes and guessing at what might come next even within each track, let alone across the whole album. If you're a new interested party this is a great primer for what the band is all about.

Review: Transporting us to a waking dream of Los Angeles, two enigmatic music makers from the City of (Fallen) Angels present a truly stunning journey into hazy half-memories, afternoon fantasies, borrowed recollections and thoughts of things yet to happen. In many ways, Salt & Sugar Look The Same feels incomplete; tracks, half-tracks, movements, bits and pieces feel like our minds often work. Was that what we think it was? Did this happen? According to the official release burb, these 18 brief but beautiful compositions combine finger-plucked guitar work, the lens flare of electronica, and warped samples to create a take on the American primitivism music movement. The result is something that transcends boundaries of sound, time and place, and exists in a world of its own creation.

Review: Opening on the grinding powerhouse of 'I', Kosmik Sun present three tracks of epic, cinematic heavy rock-metal which gives a nod to the likes of Mogwai and Explosions In the Sky. Albeit here things seem to have taken more of an influence from darker places, with each part of the triptych casting an eerie spell over the listener, transporting them to psychedelic, doom-laden otherworldly places. The side project of German aficionado Eugen Kohl, best known for the Crypt Witch project, Kosmik Sun also features members of Coven Spell and Devil Leaf, which, if nothing else, should let any newbies know exactly what they're in for. Steeped in deep stoner atmosphere, not to mention exceptional, gritty musicality, this is intensity for thinking people and it never lets up.

Review: Shoegaze is undergoing an unstoppable resurgence in the US, which is led by fans and in online spaces such as Reddit and labels are just trying to catch up. Whilst late 80s and early 90s trailblazers of the genre are having an unexpected growth spurt in popularity, there are newcomers in this new wave of American shoegaze bringing fresh energy. And Kraus is one of the most respected in the new wave, often spoken about in the same breath as My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields. After having moved from Dallas, Texas to study music at NYU in New York, Kraus would go on to remain in the city and hone his craft as in his one-man band. This album is Kraus having landed at his most nuanced work to-date, having mastered the careful balance between blissed out and blisteringly tight. There's a meticulousness to his craft that makes his saturated sonic images feel like each line in there is key to its beauty as a whole.

Review: Kreidler return to Bureau B and not without good reason. Their seventh outing on the highly respected label follows suit on previous exploits, exploring some outer limits of cosmic-leaning, guitar-led, electronically augmented stuff. Tracks that feel made for the hidden dancefloors of weird basements as much as the soundtracks to avant garde science fiction. And if that's too much of a stretch, let's just say 'mesmerising' and have done with it. Comparing and contrasting the warm bleeps and filtered hooks of 'Diver', for example, with 'Tanger Telex' and its strange, smoky brass trip into downtempo smoky heaven serves as a quick example of just how broad yet coherent Twists is. As does 'Arthmetique', a strange, patient thing of rhythmic licks and spoken word, when considered next to the fuzzy, dub-tech-meets-math rock of 'Mount Mason'.