Evan Connolly The Pagans Fight Back (Evan Connolly)

Jam sessions and 17 tracks? Does it foretell us about something bourgeoisiely suspicious actually? Fortunately it does not reach the longitude of 2 hours or more, The Pagans Fight Back does not keep moving into the annoying sessions of predictable sonic patterns and boring cadences. Short improvisation sessions played up on electrified guitars and dynamic bass, vertically downward stomping drums and shimmering hi-hats bring forth a joyous synergy, reminiscent of CAN`s interplays between Michael Karoli and Holger Czukay or the doings by Burrito and Replicast as well. In fact, Evan Connolly (previously known as J2M2 and consisting of James, Mike, Matt, and Jason) might be the best model of jam sessions via joking speech interludes or instant experimental upturns (weird electronic music and sound effects) juxtaposed on music. The kind of stripped-down approach which makes up an interesting workout. Indeed, the quartet was inspired by the group Novels, when they recorded their Novels EP without previously writing any music or lyrics. So they decided to do the same thing in their friend's room, having recorded for 49 minutes and 15 seconds, and edited it down to 17 tracks within 32 minutes. Altogether, by wrapping up the album they have had lots of good time so will you get it as well.

Listen to it here

9.3

MMOSS i (Bandcamp)

This Bostonian quartet sounds as if the late period Beatles meets the 60`s (British) psychedelia and folk-ish outsprings, and even Inspiral Carpets-alike baggy-infused grooves and Spacemen 3/early Spiritualized-esque roughly fluttering long chords at times. The 18 trippy paths on dusty keyboards (Hammond and Farfisa organs), spaced-out flutes and horns, doo wop-ish backdrops, a bit mutated yet suggestive vocal lines and whimsical rhythms and some irregular instruments like shruti box, dulcimer and cellos or just the unusual approach of the drums in the embodiment of shamanic vibe bounce sets are stretched out to be formed up into astonishing universes. Sometimes it will be "forgotten" to keep moving on drone-ish mode. Full of great harmonies and catchy turns, having found out its magnificent balance between the kind of hippy prog and experimental touch, between the tendencies of going toward the past and nowadays.

Listen to it here

9.7

[Artists] ✝ DE△D VIRGIN ✝

✝ DE△D VIRGIN ✝/Bandcamp
Lastfm

Bosques de mi Mente Otoño (Clinical Archives/CRLM Office)

The Spanish artist Bosques de mi Mente (translated as Forests of my mind) is being one of those one-man projects having got huge response under Clinical Archives, CRLM Office, and Jamendo. Since 2007, as a "home artist" therein, he has released 5 albums to date. His music is spotted mainly upon the piano-based modern classic backbone, fringed at times by strong found sound and post-rock influences.

Otoño is a record with the longitude of more than 100 minutes of 27 tracks relied entirely upon live improvisations, recorded during 6 days of the fall of 2010. Aside the silence as impossible conversation (as it was sung by Malcolm Mooney of CAN by-and-by) there are intimate yet affective, mainly minor piano chords, spoken word snippets and wide-range samples (from baby babbles and adult people clashes to elderly individuals` memories), musique concrete-drenched flickers and some violins by Sergio Trujillo, all in all filling in your listening times with the restraint sense and playing up the sparse environment over you, thereby offering a sole realm for thinking of your thoughts and planning your future deeds. Of course, some more radical turns and dodges are up here to be driven into huge impact (Berceuse Macabre) All is rolling on in a silent and minimal way, indeed. It might not be Bosques` best notch but a very solid one nevertheless.

Listen to it here

8.8

[Old but important] Delta Waves Under Clouds Over Ground (Earth Monkey Productions)

In the 90`s Burnt Hair Records was cited as one of the most eminent labels in the Michigan-area and the main locomotive kind of to have pushed forward an experimental blend of spaced-out/ambient and drone rock sound along the Detroit underground scene. Indeed, they made out some influences for the future days of experimental rock. For instance, the clients of Larry Hoffman`s label were Windy & Carl, Auburn Lull, and Mahogany among others. The imprint finished off its existence with Delta Waves` release the DELTA WAVES dream in real time (2002). By embarked on in the mid of 90`s Delta Waves is being a band dictated by Greg Naumann, having seen lots changes of line-ups around him. Notwithstanding having been recruited later by other labels (Supple; Clairecords etc) as well Delta Waves seems to be genuinely related to Burnt Hair Records by its ideological perspective and fluctuations, though.

Under Clouds Over Ground, one of my all-time favorite dream pop/shoegaze issues, consists of 4 tracks released under the Earth Monkey Productions in 2005. The then-time line-up by Naumann, Anton Abramov, Ryan Anderson, and Jason Taylor did play up a lot of mesmerizing moments-monumentums, reminiscent by their darkwave-shoegaze crosslined approach of the likes of Lycia (at times Naumann`s murmuring vocal manner has got managed to approximate pretty close to Mike Van Portfleet`s fluids, the second time to circle around Neil Halstead`s emotive timbre). In any cases, this is not an example of such a band at all having somehow imitated the celebrities of the genre, instead diving into vague yet vastly exciting minutiae of sonic alchemy, being touched by minimalism, ambient, hypnotic, hiss-drenched drone, darkwave, shoegaze. All in all, it is used to be a dream-filled transcendence. Let`s repeat it once again just concerning on those otherworldly orchestrations and your heart will be lost for sure.

Listen to it here

Pinkle House Plants (Aaahh)

Let`s still continue with some handsome sounds from Chicago (the previous time was dedicated to the (post-)psychedelic experimentalism-drenched ensemble Crouching_World) this time it is focused upon the singer-songwriter Bryn Martin aka Pinkle`s follow-up to the Invertible (2009, self-released/Jamendo) and shitloads of albums previously released on Jamendo. Beside it he is used to upload and show up his works in progress and a bunch of completed songs on his home page.

By studying himself in Lausanne, Switzerland, Europe the 13-track album House Plants is released under the German-based label Aaahh Records, obviously not incidentally though, as Martin`s music is getting really close to the mid-European indietronic/folktronic tradition. The restraint acoustic guitar/ukulele loops are mingled together with his soulful, half-filtered vocals and mostly sublime electronica (using legendary electric/electronic keyboards like the Mini Moog synth and the Farfisa organ among the vast array of acoustic instruments), sometimes letting come forth some abrupt sonority as well, by this way, reminding of Beck (Alibi). In general, it can be resumed up to be more album-oriented music.

In conclusion, by supposing him as a kind of simple (not simplistic at all, though) and gentle musician as a person on his own, in any cases, his music is really worth to get a try to letting you to be thrown away from disturbingly surrounding accidental noise over to the middle of grass and flowers.

Listen to it here

8.9

[Artists] Wyrm

Wyrm/Bandcamp
Lastfm