When he’s not laying down epic cosmic rock guitar riffs with Comacozer, Rick Burke, otherwise known as Tropical Sludge, makes mind-altering psychedelic instrumental music that blends Eastern elements with rock sounds and even a bit of New Age styling on his newest record Astral Mind.
Starting with “Dreaming Shaman,” the album uses sitar and synths to elevate you off the ground right away. “Tranquility” blends ambient forest sounds with the sitar and tabla to the point where you start to think, “This would make a really good make-out record.”
Burke uses simple, repetitive guitar notes on “Flowers” to put you into a nice trance. I seem to hear native Aboriginal Australian instruments in “Witchcraft,” which wouldn’t surprise me at all since Burke is from Oz. Burke’s use of sampled dialogue on the track (and others) that’s sometimes difficult to decipher is a neat effect, making you wonder what’s being discussed but not worrying about it at the same time. The voices become other natural sounds emerging from and blending into the musical land / sky / sea / space-scape he’s created.
“Digital Hippy” is appropriately hazy and groovy (listen carefully for that 70s funk bass). “Zen Tribe” practically pulls up next to you on a hand-poled river boat and offers you the opportunity to glide across the water and forget everything on shore that was weighing on you. “Hypnotising the Serpent” takes us further down the river and then across the sky instead of over the waterfall.
This album might indeed take your mind to the astral plane. It’s worth the trip.
Apart from having a cool name and album cover, Los Angeles psych-rockers Tombstones in Their Eyes, have crafted a great album of psych-rock and shoe gaze – Asylum Harbour that’s as cool as both their name and its cover.
“In Your Eyes” opens the album with rumbling bass tones and vocals from John Treanor about his willingness to win the admiration of a distant lover that sound like they’re coming from across the harbor in the album’s title. “Sweet As Pie” is about appeasing a lover to make a relationship easier (“You’re sweet as pie when you get your way.”), with Courtney Davies joining Treanor on vocals. The feel of the track reminds me of some of Failure‘s work.
The guitar fuzz on “Mirror” (which I think is about self-blame for screwing up a good thing) is grade-A. Joel Wasko‘s bass on “I Like to Feel Good” takes the album into doom territory, with the rest of the band (especially Stephen Striegel on drums) plunging into the abyss with him. “I’m Not Like That” has Treanor trying to convince a lover he’s not as bad as he seems while acknowledging his faults.
That being said, Treanor admits “I don’t wanna be the one to change.” on “Gimme Some Pain,” an acoustic cut that would easily fit on an Alice in Chains record. “By My Side” has Treanor calling for his lover to join him in good times and bad, and possibly in another dimension considering the sound of the track. Treanor has to face tough truths on “The Sky Is Blue” (“The sky is blue, and I’m nothing to you.”), and the crunch of the guitars on it only hammers the point home more for him.
“Set Me Free” has Treanor asking to escape a self-built prison of doubt, and the wall of guitars behind him might help his escape plan. The album ends with Treanor still looking for love (“It would be nice if you looked at me. It would be nice if you cared.”), but probably not finding it soon…even though the track is the most upbeat on the album. He ‘s hasn’t given up all hope.
The album’s title refers to a nautical term for a place to wait out a storm. Treanor and the rest of Tombstones in Their Eyes have sought safety in music and each other while the world thunders around them. We can all relate to that at the end of 2024, can’t we?
Confronting their respective influences and breaking down musical genre boundaries, french prog’ band Liquid Bear, explores themes such as addiction, the search for meaning, and the passage of time. The quartet delivers a raw yet enchanting rock sound, featuring bold compositions enhanced by remarkable instrumental mastery. With a discography that mixes grunge, stoner rock, progressive, and psychedelic rock, the four musicians offer an experience that is both visceral and cerebral. Liquid Bear released their first EP, Unwind, at the end of 2018, followed by their second, Heavy Grounds, in March 2021. Alongside their music, the band has developed an increasingly sophisticated visual identity, exemplified by the animated video for Billions of Crabs, and Closer to an End.
Liquid Bear’s debut album, Second Life, will be released on February 7, 2025, as an independent production, with the title track dropping today, accompanied by a lyrics video : https://youtu.be/LVsLG1x2ZTQ.
Second Life, the first single and title track of their upcoming album, showcases their unique vision of rock that is both original and modern. This introspective track delves into retracing one’s choices and imagining what could have been different if another path had been taken. With its stormy riff combining a fretless guitarand Hammond organ, Second Life captivates the listener. The powerful track is paired with a psychedelic visual journey through a being in a state of constant reconstruction, where every particle dances and resonates with the music.
“Second Life” explores various aspects of the construction of our individuality and the influences of our social environment. After two EPs and two singles in which the quartet sculpted their modern Progressive Rock sound, this album stands as the cornerstone of what defines Liquid Bear’s signature sound.
The album emphasizes experimentation and sonic renewal, particularly through the unique approach of the fretless guitar. It features the band’s signature elements: Hammond organ, vocal harmonies, compelling riffs, and guitar solos, enhanced by the addition of drum machines and analog synthesizers.
“Refuge/Resist is like the film (Night of the Living Dead) itself.” – explains Clair Hamard. ‘Alternating long, uncertain pauses with both dramatic and physical tension. Just like the scene in the movie that presents characters at complete odds with each other building up a precarious shelter threatened by the zombies amassing outside, the harmonic construction of this track is constantly challenged by an imminent dissonant attack.’
With every moment of calmness, supported by repetitive drone-sounds, Sleepbomb deliver the symbiosis of etherial vocal harmonies and agressive riffing. While the absence of any real resolution at the end of the track heralds the future failure of the plan hatched by the characters, unable to cooperate.
According to bassist, Tim Gotch, “Refuse/Resist” reflects the dichotomy of the film “as a whole.” “It begins as a refuge for Barbara, who enters the seemingly deserted house while fleeing from the zombie. She quickly discovers that the house is less of a refuge than she thought, exacerbated by the abrupt arrival of Ben. Ben quickly proves himself to not be a threat as he dispatches multiple zombies.”
Subtitled Excerpts from their score for George Romero’s 1968 ‘Night of the Living Dead‘ and based on their full length score for the film, The Sleeping Dead is an epic serving of filmic doom. Starting with the drum parts fully synchronized with the cinematic imagery, during the recording process each track was pared down to the essential character of each scene from the most influential zombie film of them all. ‘Unlike ‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’, we knew that the final product would not be a fully synchronized score due to rights issues and the large amount of dialogue in the film.’ states Gotch. ‘This meant that we were able to edit down some of the longer sections into a “song” format and really focus on the feel of the scenes for The Sleeping Dead record itself rather than retaining the full length of tracks just for timing requirements.’
Recorded, mixed and mastered at Earhammer Studios by Greg Wilkinson (High on Fire, Autopsy), The Sleeping Dead shows Sleepbomb in a heavy, focused mood.
Pre-order The Sleeping Dead coming out this January 24 via Koolarrow/Consouling Soundshere. Or on Bandcamp here.
Like any other marathon, the three-quarter mark is when it really starts to hit you. The same can be said of Levitation Austin, as Day Three is when the festival starts culling the weak and you begin to hear people saying things like, “I tapped out at one a.m.,” “He wanted me to go to another show last night, but I just couldn’t,” and “Austin is kickin’ my ass today.”
It’s also when you start having weird synchronous moments with people you’ve seen at the festival. My girlfriend and I have seen the same woman at all but two of the shows we’ve attended so far. She’s come all this way from England to express her love for a festival cameraman. He’s married, by the way, and this woman’s friend isn’t happy that he’s been dismissive of her. There’s also “blond guy,” who looks and dresses like a character from an early 1990s video game and I think has been on some kind of illegal drug for three days, “Asian guy with a splint on his right index finger,” and “Guy with the big King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard patch on his jacket.”
We started Day Three with some friends and great BBQ (as one does in Austin at least once where you’re here) at a place called KG BBQ that mixes Texas BBQ with Egyptian flavors. It’s great. We then headed to Hotel Vegas for the “Levitation Lounge,” where no one bothered to check out RSVP tickets, and we had free drinks while listening to a DJ set by Death Valley Girls.
Death Valley Girls dropping science.
I was wearing my “Death Valley Girls Official Fan Club” shirt and was spotted by Bonnie Bloomgarden, the leader of DVG. She remembered me as the guy who keeps his phone set on black and white and, in a moment of joy for me, from this blog. They’d opened for Osees the previous night there and I told her I was excited to hear their new “Earth, Wind & Fire-sized line-up” later that night at Parish.
My DVG shirt proved to be popular. I had more comments on it than any other shirt I’ve worn all weekend. At least four people pointed at me and said, “Great shirt,” and then told me how they’d seen their Hotel Vegas set the previous evening and were amazed by it.
The surprisingly tall Dry Cleaning walked in not long after my lovely conversation with Ms. Bloomgarden. I thanked them for their set at the Far Out Lounge the previous night, and they told me how much they love playing in Austin. They were all delightful people and played a fun DJ set of their own that dropped in some classic Sade and Wham! tracks.
Dry Cleaning towering over the decks.
We wanted to stay for the Black Angels DJ set, but it was Day Three and we needed a disco nap. It turned out to be the right call because Austin got slammed with rain for about an hour and we would’ve been soaked on the walk back to our pad.
We came back to Hotel Vegas to first see local shredders Grocery Bag take the stage, and they played a wild set of fierce garage rock. Be sure to look them up.
Paper, plastic, or power?
After that was night number three of Osees’ four-night residency at Hotel Vegas. They ripped into it straight out of the gate (as always) and immediately floored by girlfriend, who was seeing them for the first time. She was amazed by their manic energy and how “they just go for it.” They threw in some punk ragers with a couple psych-rock cuts, showing how they can change shape faster than a D&D doppelgänger.
We then walked six blocks along 6th Street, maneuvering around stumbling drunks and people still in Halloween costumes lining up to cram into a small club spinning overplayed dance tracks from the early 2000s, to get to Parish and see DVG perform their heart-lifting yet spooky set of psychedelia. It was strange at first to see them with no guitars (apart from Sammy Westervelt on bass), replacing them with saxophone. “They sound like a spooky version of Morphine,” I thought. My girlfriend loved them and empowerment and spiritual healing messages they convey in their lyrics.
We headed to the Parish’s small lounge after the set and another guy pointed out my DVG shirt. It turned out he and his friend were at KG BBQ and noticed my shirt there. They’d seen DVG’s Hotel Vegas set and fell in love with them. One of them, Shafiq, got my “spooky Morphine” reference, and they were both from Chicago and frequented a lot of the same bar. The other, Imran, had been at the same Slift and Meatbodies show I attended at Reggie’s Music Joint weeks earlier. We all bonded over Gen X bands and chai.
Wine Lips, whom Shafiq had seen before (“First tickets I bought.”) and described as “The Toronto Osees,” came out and just went nuts. That might be the best way I can describe their set of crazy garage-psych. It was damn impressive. They barely let you take a breath.
Wine Lips drunk with shredding.
We stopped at a shawarma food truck on the way back, where I was again complimented on my DVG shirt, and then got back in time to settle down with my overflowing chicken and falafel wrap and watch the opening scenes of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. You can’t wrap up a festival day much better than that.
It’s time to enjoy my favorite weekend of the year with another return to Levitation Austin. The weather on Day One was perfect for both the festival and Halloween. Downtown was packed to the gills with people in and out of costume, but the majority of the crowds were in the spooky spirit (For the record, my girlfriend and I were dressed as Shaggy and Velma.).
Up first was a stop at Stubb’s to catch Mdou Moctar and The Black Angels. We missed The Strange Lot‘s set, and caught part of Boogarins‘, but managed to get about halfway to the stage for Mr. Moctar and his band (who came out wearing wigs and fake beards).
The sound mix was a bit off during Moctar’s set at first, making his vocals a bit tough to hear, but they eventually smoothed out and the band had a great time. The crowd was roaring by the end of their set, and Moctar’s drummer was on fire.
The Black Angels are a new favorite band of my girlfriend, so we moved up closer to get her the best experience possible. They were performing the entire Phosphene Dream album as the first set, which is a favorite of mine since they were touring that album when I first saw them live in 2011.
They played a full second set, including many songs I’d never heard live until then (and I’ve seen them at least a dozen times by now). Lead guitarist Christian Bland did a lot of wild pedal effects during both sets, and their new bass player and keyboardist is sharp.
We snagged some mediocre falafel at a food truck after that and then heading over to Empire to see A Place to Bury Strangers. They were playing the inside stage, and it had been so long since I’d been at a show there that I’d forgotten how small the inside space is. “It’s going to be so loud in here,” I told my girlfriend, who was also seeing them for the first time.
After a great catch-up conversation with frontman / guitar and pedal whiz Oliver Ackermann, the band (all dressed as vampires) came out and, as predicted, flattened the place. Ackermann smashed one guitar and broke two strings on it by the second song (“We’ve Come So Far”). The stage was flooded with fake fog during “Ocean,” and Ackermann and Sandra and John Fedowitz emerged from it like, well, vampires, as their bulldozer of sound rolled over us.
A mosh pit broke out at one point, making my short girlfriend uneasy. I got her away from it while APTBS brought out their rolling synth-drum machine-cacophony maker into the crowd and Sandra and John Fedowitz played their respective drum and bass around it while Ackermann melted brains with weird sounds and weirder vocals. They returned to the stage where Ackermann decapitated a piñata with a guitar and they ended the night with enough feedback to make my girlfriend say, “I need a neck adjustment after that.”
It was a good start to the festival. Up next, several post-punk and rock bands at a place that has no parking and a late-night mini-rave.
It was the second of two sold-out shows for Osees in what’s become an annual autumn tradition at Chicago’s Thalia Hall. The crowd was buzzing at the outset, and everyone knew a good, wild time was coming.
The party started with Iguana Death Cult, all the way from The Netherlands. I hadn’t heard of them until this night, and at first wasn’t sure what to make of them. Were they punk, funk, post-punk, post-funk, post-psych, pre-psych? I’m still not sure if I know, but I do know that they were a lot of fun, the songs were wild, and each one was better than the last.
The crowd was behind them all the way, and had a fun mosh pit going by the end of their set. I chatted with their lead singer, Jeron Reek, after the show, and he told me they’d played South by Southwest twice, and other clubs and events across the U.S. a few times, “but this was the best.”
Osees came out to a happy crowd and soon got underway with a no-frills, no muss, no fuss set of wild garage-psych that began with “I Come from the Mountain” and barely let up to give the mosh pit time to catch a breath.
No backdrop, no projections…just simple lights and heavy shredding.
As always, the band had enough energy to power a Formula 1 race car through 500 laps with double drummers Paul Quattrone and Dan Rincon leading the charge. “A Foul Form,” “Toe Cutter – Thumb Buster,” and “Animated Violence” had the front half of the crowd in a wild frenzy.
Lead singer and guitarist John Dwyer announced “Tidal Wave” as “an old one,” but everyone reacted like it was a brand new gift. He introduced “The Dream” as “Here’s a new one that nobody likes,” and the crowd proceeded to go bonkers.
“Warm Slime” was a great addition, and the night ended with two long psychedelic tracks, “C” and “Minotaur.” I love Osees’ longer psych-rock cuts, so I was digging it. I must, as always, give mention to Tom Dolas on keyboards and Tim Hellman on bass, who always keep the whole band grounded. Dolas is like a magician in the background putting in tones and sounds that would make the songs feel weird without them, and Hellman is one of the sturdiest bass workhorses in all rock music. That guy is solid all the time and never stumbles.
Both bands will be performing at Levitation Music Festival, with Osees doing a four-night residency at Hotel Vegas no less. Don’t miss either of them.
The first time I saw Slift was at the Levitation Music Festivalin 2022. It was the last show of their U.S. tour, in a small venue, and they held back nothing. It was as if they blasted every drop of rocket fuel they had.
Now I was seeing them in an even smaller venue and with Meatbodies, no less, opening for them.
I’d been keen on seeing Meatbodies since I heard their newest album, Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom. Their live sets are as good as the record – trippy, heavy, and loud. It was a solid set, and the sold-out crowd loved it. The sound quality of their set was top-notch, too.
Slift was in full cosmic-psych mode to the point where they were selling posters at their merch table featuring schematics of the spaceship seen in the videos for their newest album, Ilion.
One thing you need to know about seeing Slift live is that every song sounds like a finale. They pack so much power and energy into their songs that you keep thinking, “It’s going to be tough to match that one,” and then they do it – every time.
They played a wall-shaking set of new and older material that had the whole place buzzing. The galactic nature of their lyrics and sound, and the near relentlessness of it almost becomes an out-of-body experience.
Don’t miss either of these bands. They’re touring all over the place, and will both be at Levitation Music Festival soon.
Keep your mind open.
[Don’t forget to subscribe before you go!]
[Thanks to Kate at Stereo Sanctity, Frank and Bekah at SubPop, and Slift for the press pass!]
The brief bio on Haute-de-France’s Goodbye Meteor‘s Bandcamp page lists their sound as “immersive and solar post-rock” that’s created for “opening the way for harmony between humans and nature.”
I’m glad they included this, because I was unsure of how to describe their newest album, We Could Have Been Radiant. I knew it wasn’t quite shoegaze, ambient, or psychedelic. It was somehow all three, and yet none of those.
The theme of the album is humanity’s search for something more, and often being disappointed when we find “it” because we realize we had “it” all along here in the present moment.
Opening with “This Is Not Here,” the quartet unleashes soaring guitar sounds that would be appropriate for hang gliding through a mountain range. It awakens you and reminds you that what you think is important right now is probably not that at all. “No Signal” implies the worst nightmare of many in this age of internet addiction and dependence, but the snappy drums and expansive guitar sounds makes you think having no cellphone or computer for a while would be the greatest thing you’ve experienced in a long time.
“Destructuration” builds from a drift through space to flying through a heavy meteor shower by the end. “What Are We Here For?” is the longest track on the album, clocking in just over twelve minutes, and it uses the time to make you sit back and think on things as it creates a sound around you that brings to mind images of spotting a far shore after days lost at sea or the sun finally breaking over the horizon after a seemingly endless night in the dark.
The title track is full of power and also subtlety. It shifts your perspective rather than blow your mind. The album ends with “Phosphenes,” a short track to uplift you on a high note as you consider what’s happening right here and right now.
Did I mention this album (apart from the final track) is instrumental? It’s good stuff, and best heard as one continuous experience. Check it out if you want to change how things appear.
Not to get all “Gen X is cool” on you, but do you remember when cereal boxes used to include phonograph records in or on the box? Seriously, this was a thing. You could get a flexi-disc record in a box of Count Chocula that featured cereal mascots at the disco or even score a Jackson 5 record from a box of Alpha-Bits.
I don’t know if Oliver Ackermann (vocals, guitar, synths), John Fedowitz (bass, vocals, synths), and Sandra Fedowitz (drums, vocals, synths) were listening to a flexi-disc copy of Bobby Sherman songs found in a box of Honey-Comb when they got the idea for their latest album, Synthesizer, but it reminded me of these flexi-discs because the packaging is a musical instrument.
Yes, you can buy a vinyl copy of the record with a cover that includes dials, wires, and other bits of gear that can be used (with soldering tools and other simple devices) to turn the album cover in to a synthesizer. No joke.
When I heard they’d done this, I first thought, “That is the coolest idea I’ve heard all year,” and then thought, “Yeah, this is perfect for them.”
It’s perfect because APTBS are always pushing the envelope and finding new ways to immerse you in sound. Beyond the wild feat of having an album cover that doubles as a musical instrument, Synthesizer is also a really good record that blasts you into an altered state.
Opening track “Disgust,” for example, blares at you right out of the gate, and Ackermann has said that it’s a half-joke “to turn people off from listening to the record.” Only the daring will venture on after the opening salvo. Only the daring will be rewarded with this track about the pleasure and pitfalls of lust, let alone the rest of the album. The guitars on “Don’t Be Sorry” are like stabs in a giallo film.
The synth bass of “Fear of Transformation” will get the industrial fans to pay attention as Ackermann sings about overcoming fear as it sometimes overwhelms us through the simplest things. Mrs. Fedowitz’s live drums mix well with electronic thumps, creating a near-panic – which is what the trio wanted us to feel all along. The haunting “Join the Crowd” is like a slow slide into a shadowy world that always seems to be on the edge of your vision as Ackermann wonders when people stopped caring about each other (“And is it me? Am I the only one here who even cares? Now I know why. You never had a choice or care.”).
“Bad Idea” has Mr. Fedowitz (whose “bad idea” for something to work on that day in the studio became the sone) considering a reconnection, even though it might cause him to end up flat on his face in the street. Ackermann’s guitar sounds like an angry beetle skittering around in a tin can at one point and like a miter saw in others, while Mr. Fedowitz’s bass line grumbles like a paranoid android.
Romance is a not-so-hidden theme on Synthesizer, and it’s great to hear Ackermann and the Fedowitzs embracing it. “You Got Me” is upbeat and reminds me of some early Cure tracks in that it mixes gothic tones so well with lyrics like “In a world where the universe is crashing down and there’s no hope, I feel ok. You question life, but there’s one thing you’ll never have to ask me. You got me.”
“It’s Too Much” is a fascinating mixed of warped sounds and more lyrics about being overcome with good emotions you haven’t felt in a long while (“I go out, but didn’t know you’d be there, and all this time I thought I was fine, but now I’m high.”). Mr. Fedowitz gives Peter Hook a run for his money on “Plastic Furniture.” I mean, come on, his bass riff on this is insane.
“Have You Ever Been in Love?” is a wild one, with Mrs. Fedowitz crushing her drum kit and adding spooky yet lovely backing vocals and cries throughout it – helping Ackermann express his anguish over a breakup (“Knife in heart. I want to die, seeing you pass me by.”). The closing track, “Comfort Never Comes,” might end up being a new synth-psych classic as it builds with gorgeous notes, Wall of Voodoo-like guitar chords, A Flock of Seagulls-like synth flourishes, and hypnotic rhythms. Ackermann acknowledges his faults in a relationship that’s beyond repair and that he wishes he could amend things (“You and I are in pieces. You could lift me like a stone…You and I are in pieces. I could lift you like a rose.”).
I can’t recommend this album enough to you. I’m sure it’s an absolute sonic wall coming at you on vinyl, but I encourage you to give it a deep headphone / earbud listen. Like any synthesizer played well, it changes the feel of everything around you and within you.
