Miss Grit assures us “Nothing’s Wrong” on their new single.

Photo Credit: Hoseon Sohn

Miss Grit — the New York-based, Korean-American musician Margaret Sohn (they/she) — will release their debut album, Follow The Cyborg, February 24th via Mute. Leading into the release, Miss Grit has released a string of stunning singles, and today they reveal a new track, “Nothing’s Wrong.” There is a profound tenderness resonating throughout “Nothing’s Wrong.” A tone of lament seeps from Sohn’s vocals, as they sing “Nothing’s Wrong // And so I can’t feel, can’t hear, can’t figure out how to make things right // I’ll never know // Why I was built without a throat // So I can never stomach growth // Or see outside this world I know.” The song’s instrumentation is rich and immersive, with melancholy guitar and piano, ticking drums, and illustrious strings.

 
Listen to Miss Grit’s “Nothing’s Wrong”
 

Across Follow the Cyborg, Miss Grit pursues the path of a non-human machine, as it moves from its helpless origin to awareness and liberation. Miss Grit’s impetus to conceive an album about the life of a cyborg stems from their own connection to this way of existing. As a mixed-race, non-binary artist, Sohn has always rejected the limits of identity thrust upon them by the outside world, in favor of embracing a more fluid and complex understanding of the self. In their exploration of the life of a cyborg, they subtly and overtly refer to films, including Her, Ex Machina, and Ghost in the Shell, as well as essays by Jia Tolentino (from Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion) and Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto.

At times gentle and sparse, at others volatile and explosive, Follow the Cyborg occupies a sonic world of electronic experimentation and stirring electric guitars. It was recorded mostly in solitude in Sohn’s home studio, with the exception of a few guest collaborators joining: Stella Mozgawa of WarpaintAron Kobayashi Ritch of Momma, and Pearla.

“Nothing’s Wrong” is the follow-up to the “clearly anthemic” (FADER) “Lain (Phone Clone),” the “beguiling and elastic” (Stereogum) “Like You,” and the title track. Following the release of Follow The Cyborg, Miss Grit will play a pair of album release shows in New York and Los Angeles. Following, she’ll head down to SXSW (more details to come). Tickets for the release shows are on sale now.

 
Watch the “Follow the Cyborg” Video
 
Watch the “Like You” Lyric Video
 
Watch the “Lain (Phone Clone)” Video
 
Pre-order Follow the Cyborg

Keep your mind open.

[There’s nothing wrong with subscribing.]

[Thanks to Jaycee at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Das Beat have the “Last Laugh” with their new single.

Photo credit: Joel Ivan Thomas

Berlin-based duo Das Beat, made up of Agor of Blue Hawaii & German actress Eddie Rabenberg, are today sharing their new single “Last Laugh“, which is out now via Arbutus Records. T

Speaking about the track, the band said “Who laughs last does not necessarily laugh the best. There’s always more to any situation than meets the eye and it’s hard to see it from any one perspective. The song plays with German sayings and inspires one to just let go and have fun.”

Listen to “Last Laugh” on Youtube here: https://youtu.be/9uu7eg9xTx4
Listen via other streaming services here:https://found.ee/583sb

Blending sounds of New Wave, Dark Disco, Indie, & Dance, their sound is unified by the vocals of Eddie Rabenberger, sung and belted in both German and English. Amidst the spirited lyrics lies a strong dancey pulse, pinning down the duo’s dreamy atmospherics, guitars and percussion.

The duo is half-Canadian and half-German. Dj Kirby (Blue Hawaii), moved to Berlin from Montreal in 2018. Eddie is a theatre actor originally from a small town in southern Germany. Together they find an alluring symbiosis – like Giorgio Moroder meets Nico, or Gina X Performance finds The Prodigy.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Frankie at Stereo Sanctity.]

Rewind Review: Esquivel – Cabaret Mañana (1995)

Cabaret Mañana is an excellent collection of the space-age composer, maestro, bandleader, musician, and arranger, Juan Garcia Esquivel, who was so cool that he could just go by his last name like Karloff, Lugosi, Bowie, Kubrick, Hitchcock, and Morricone.

The compilation covers tracks from 1958 to 1967 and begins with “Mini Skirt,” which was only released in Mexico and Puerto Rico until this album was released in 1995. It’s a fun track about one of Esquivel’s favorite subjects, women, complete with wolf whistle’s and sexy piano riffs.

“Johnson Rag” blends big brass sections with singers singing “Zu-zu-zu” again and again. Esquivel was known as mixing traditional sounds with plenty of outsider stuff like nonsense lyrics just for the sound of them or putting Chinese bells in Latin music. His arrangement of Cole Porter‘s “Night and Day” sounds like it could be a Bond film theme at one point, and then bachelor pad music in the next. “El Cable” is so happy that it could probably banish rainclouds if you played it loud enough.

“Harlem Nocturne” also sounds like an action film theme, and Esquivel did write a lot of music for action TV shows (Miami Vice, The Six Million Dollar Man, and The A-Team among them). “Mucha Muchacha” is one of two tracks on the compilation, the other being “Estrellita,” that are from his Latin-Esque album. Esquivel was so committed to capturing stereo sound on that album that he divided his orchestra in half and had them play simultaneously in separate studios while he and another conductor worked together via closed-circuit television.

Yeah, that was the kind of work ethic he had.

“Time on My Hands” reminds me of some of Ennio Morricone‘s work with its ticking clock setting a constant beat while a slightly sorrowful trumpet plays in another room. “Malagueña” transports you to an exotic desert land on another planet. His take on “Sentimental Journey” is a blast and loaded with his trademarks of space-pop sound, flirting whistles, and those lovely ladies singing “zu-zu-zu.”

The percussion on “Limehouse Blues” is delightfully weird, especially when you mix it with Tiki bar guitar riffs and synths that sound like they’re drunk on margaritas. “April in Portugal” shows off Esquivel’s piano skills. “Question Mark (Que Vas a Hacer)” sounds like the opening theme of a 1960s European sex comedy. His version of “It Had to Be You” is bawdy and beautiful, suitable for night clubs and strip clubs.

“Yeyo” is snappy and a bit bratty (in a fun way). “Lullaby of Birdland” practically struts its sexy stuff down the boulevard on a hot summer day. “Flower Girl from Bordeaux” is full of bold trumpet work, jazz lounge piano, and exotic vocal sounds that create a luscious cocktail.

It’s a fun, lovely compilation from one of the best composers of the 1960s and should be heard by many.

Keep your mind open.

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Rewind Review: Ram Dass & Kriece – Cosmix (2008)

What do you get when you mix lectures on Zen, the cosmos, the soul, the Tao, and the journey of the self with wicked bass and beats? If you’re lucky, you get something as cool as Cosmix by philosopher Ram Dass and Australian DJ Kriece.

The album has parts of Dass’ lectures under Kriece’s beats, and neither overwhelms the other. They perfectly blend to promote each other. “Mystic Poetry” has Dass talk about embracing cosmic love while Kriece puts down snappy, toe-tappy beats behind him. “Thousands of thoughts go by, like clouds in the sky,” Dass says on “Thoughts” – a great track about non-attachment to the things that keep us from experiencing the present.

“Mantra” is downright groovy, mixing Dass’ chants and Kriece’s dance beats in perfect unison. This will be stuck in your head for hours, and that’s a good thing. “Stuck” has Dass discussing how he moved away from psychotropic drugs and into deep meditation.

“Breath Inside the Breath” brings the beats to the forefront. “The soul is unique. It has its unique karma,” Dass tells us at the beginning of the beautiful “Dream Dance.” Kriece’s synths shimmer as Dass explains how the soul can liberate itself from attachments through various incarnations. It’s heavy stuff, but heavenly stuff.

“Do you hear that?” Dass asks as rain drops and thunder rolls ahead of Kriece’s synth beats. “That’s peace.” Dass asks us to find peace in the sounds (and silence) around us, and Kriece’s beats (and the spaces between them) nudge us toward it. On “Spacesuit for Earth,” Dass’ words of “When you take an incarnation, it’s like getting into a space suit…” begin the track and soon he’s talking about why we feel separate from each other, from the world around us, and the universe, and Kriece’s hypnotizing synths are soon taking us beyond that universe and Dass is telling us that we’ve been crammed into “a conceptual model since birth…From your point of view, it’s the only reality most of the time.”

“Desire” is both a lecture on the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism and an ambient house track. The closer, “Additya Hridayam,” mixes what sounds like ambient crowd noise from a bus station with Dass’ echoing chants and mantras. It reminds us to slow down in the chaos of our daily lives, to step back from the rush to chasing a buck or get to the magical “golden goodie” (as Dass’ contemporary Alan Watts described it) that we think will make us happy.

It’s a neat album that mixes drum and bass and Zen, Taoist, and Hindu philosophy. What’s not to like?

Keep your mind open. This album will help in that regard.

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Miss Grit releases “Lain (Phone Clone”) ahead of “Follow the Cyborg” album due February 24, 2023.

Photo Credit: Hoseon Sohn

Miss Grit — the New York-based, Korean-American musician Margaret Sohn (they/she) — presents “Lain (Phone Clone),” the new single/video from their forthcoming self-produced debut albumFollow the Cyborg, out February 24th on Mute. On “Lain (Phone Clone),” Sohn balances vast pop elements, cinematic atmospherics and textures with blasts of squealing guitar. Inspired by Serial Experiments LainYasuyuki Ueda’s anime about a girl whose online self attempts to drag her physical self away from reality, “Lain (Phone Clone)” presents a chilling moment when Sohn sings,“I don’t want to see everything anymore.” They comment, “I feel like the divide between my inner and outer self can grow so big sometimes that it feels like I’m being eclipsed by this big cringey monster. I wanted to write this to mock the monster and remind myself I’m not powerless against it.”
 

Watch Miss Grit’s “Lain (Phone Clone)” Video

 
Across Follow the Cyborg, Miss Grit pursues the path of a non-human machine, as it moves from its helpless origin to awareness and liberation. At times gentle and sparse, at others volatile and explosive, Follow the Cyborg occupies a sonic world of electronic experimentation and stirring electric guitars. It was recorded mostly in solitude in Sohn’s home studio, with the exception of a few guest collaborators joining: Stella Mozgawa of WarpaintAron Kobayashi Ritch of Momma, and Pearla.
 
Miss Grit’s impetus to conceive an album about the life of a cyborg stems from their own connection to this way of existing. As a mixed-race, non-binary artist, Sohn has always rejected the limits of identity thrust upon them by the outside world, instead favoring an embrace of a more fluid and complex understanding of the self. Hailed by Rolling Stone as an “inventive, incisive singer-songwriter,” their process is introspective, their vision precise. In Follow the Cyborg, Sohn subtly and overtly refer to films, including HerEx Machina, and Ghost in the Shell, plus essays by Jia Tolentino (from Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion) and Donna Horroway’s A Cyborg Manifesto.
 
“Lain (Phone Clone)” follows the “beguiling and elastic” (Stereogum) single “Like You,” with its precise, slowly building electric guitars and bold basslines performed by Zoltan Sindhu, as well as the title-track “Follow the Cyborg,” praised by Pitchfork for its “adrenaline high” and “electronic dissonance.”
 

Watch the “Follow the Cyborg” Video
 
Watch the “Like You” Lyric Video
 
Pre-order Follow the Cyborg
 

Miss Grit will perform a pair of album release shows in New York and Los Angeles, with more dates to follow. Tickets are on sale now.

 
Miss Grit Tour Dates
Wed. Feb. 22 – New York, NY @ Baby’s All Right
Fri. Feb. 24 – Los Angeles, CA @ Moroccan Lounge

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Jessica at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Fever Ray gives us some “Kandy” on their new single.

Fever Ray and Olof Dreijer on the “Kandy” set, photo credit – Nina Andersson

Fever Ray’s Radical Romantics, out March 10th (digital/CD) and April 28th (US vinyl) onMute, is one of the most highly-anticipated albums of 2023. Today, they continue their enthralling return with “Kandy,” a new single/video which follows “What They Call Us” and “Carbon Dioxide,” “an explosive single about love and sex in a moment of climate apocalypse” (Pitchfork). The song was co-produced and co-written by Fever Ray’s Karin Dreijer and their brother and fellow member of The KnifeOlof Dreijer. This is one of the four Radical Romantics tracks Olof co-produced and co-wrote, marking the first time the siblings have produced and written music together in eight years.
 
Olof comments on “Kandy,” “I tried to tune in as much as possible into Fever Ray vibes and tried many different styles, or clothes as I usually say when I talk about different music production suggestions. But in the end we took out the same synthesizer, the SH101, used for The Knife track, ‘The Captain,’ and it just worked!”
 
The accompanying video, directed by long-time collaborator Martin Falck, re-unites Karin and Olof on stage in a homage to the now iconic video for The Knife’s “Pass This On” directed by Johan Renck.

Watch Fever Ray’s “Kandy” Video

Radical Romantics, the first new Fever Ray album since 2017’s Plunge, “carefully explores well-trod themes of love and sex but through Dreijer’s uniquely esoteric lens” (them). To be precise, Dreijer presents their struggle with the myth of love.
 
Fever Ray first started on Radical Romantics in fall 2019; working in the Stockholm studios built with Olof, who eventually joined in on working on the album. Other co-producers and performers include the power duo of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (Nine Inch Nails), experimental artist and producer Vessel, Portuguese DJ and producer NídiaJohannes Berglund, and Peder Mannerfelt and Pär Grindvik’s technicolor dance project Aasthma.
 
This spring, Fever Ray will embark on their first tour since 2018, the There’s No Place I’d Rather Be Tour. As Stereogum stated, “Karin Dreijer likes to stage ambitious, slightly baffling spectacles, so this should definitely be something to see.”  A full list of European and North American dates can be found below. New shows have been added in Washington, D.C. and Pasadena as part of Just Like Heaven. Additionally, CHRISTEENEhas been added as support on all other US dates. Tickets are on sale now here.
 

Watch “What They Call Us” Video
Watch “Carbon Dioxide” Visualizer
Pre-order Radical Romantics
 
Fever Ray Tour Dates (new dates in bold)
Thu. Mar. 23 – Oslo, NE @ Sentrum Scene
Sat. Mar. 24 – Copenhagen, DK @ VEGA
Sun. Mar. 25 – Gothenburg, SE @ GBG Film Studios
Mon. Mar. 27 – Riga, LV @ Hanzas Perons
Tue. Mar. 28 – Tallinn, EE @ Noblessner Foundry
Thu. Mar. 30 – Warsaw, PL @ World Wide Warsaw Festival
Sat. Apr. 1 – Amsterdam, NLE @ Melkweg
Mon. Apr. 3 – Brussels, BE @ Cirque Royal
Tue. Apr. 4 – Cologne, DE @ E-Werk
Thur. Apr. 6 – Luxembourg City, LU @ Den Atelier
Fri. Apr. 7 – The Hague, NE @ Rewire Festival
Mon. May 1 – Washington, DC @ The Anthem ^
Wed. May 3 – New York, NY @ Terminal 5 *
Fri. May 5 – Boston, MA @ Roadrunner *
Sun. May 7 – Chicago, IL @ The Salt Shed *
Wed. May 10 – Oakland, CA @ Fox Theater *
Sat. May 13 – Pasadena, CA @ Just Like Heaven
Fri. June 30 – Werchter, BE @ Rock Werchter
Sat. Aug. 19 – London, UK @ Field Day
Sat. Aug. 26 – Paris, FR @ Rock En Seine
 
^ = with 100 gecs & Machine Girl
* = with CHRISTEENE

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Jessica at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Review: Worg – Il Piano di Medea EP

If you were a DJ on the street and handing out “free will donation” CDs of your latest EP, and you told me, “It’s a deep house rendition of the tale of Jason and the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece.” I would tell you to stop right there, hand you some money, and take the CD.

Such is the case with Worg‘s excellent EP, Il Piano di Medea. Medea is one of the key figures in the Greek myth who helps Jason reclaim the throne taken from him by his half-brother, Pelias, while Jason and his companions quested for the Golden Fleece.

The opening track, “Oracolo,” gets things off to a brooding, dark house start with rumbling bass that serves as a portent of dangerous (and, let’s admit it, sweaty and sexy) things to come. The second track is the Neel Remix of “Oracolo,” which speeds up the mantra-like beats and puts a bit of a snake’s hiss distortion to the background.

“Il Vello del Oro” (“The Golden Fleece”) is as shimmering as its namesake and pulls you in with its promise of glory, light, and transcendence – transmitted through echoing beats and deep synth-bass. I love how it’s the longest track on the EP and has time to hypnotize you and shine.

The beats on “Eryx” hit harder and sharper, like dangerous reefs under the surface of the water as you sail back from a long journey with untold riches. The bass throbs like a pulsating jellyfish.

This is the fifth in a series of deep house EPs based on Greek mythology from Lykos Records. I need to seek out the others. I’m in for a treat if they’re all this good.

Keep your mind open.

[Thanks to Pull Proxy.]

Snow Ghosts put a “Curse” on us with their new single.

Photo credit: Steve Gullick

Today Snow Ghosts return with their fourth album, ‘The Fell’, due for release on February 24th through Houndstooth.

‘The Fell’ sees the trio of Hannah Cartwright (Augustus Ghost, Masakichi), Ross Tones (Throwing Snow) and Oli Knowles (The Keep, Sex Swing) return with a collection of old folk songs that were never written – an album that conjures images of animals and ancient tales experienced within a future landscape. Ancestral marks imprint the endless terrain of ‘The Fell’ and their songlines still sing.

Today they share the album’s first single and accompanying visual, entitled Curse – a violent storm of wrath; a song that explores the folklore of shapeshifting women and highlights historic misogyny that still exists.

Vocalist Hannah Cartwright comments: “Curse reflects the folkloric trope of witch to hare metamorphosis. It is the furious revenge of the hunted hare, exacted upon her tormentor.”

“Curse” on YouTube:https://youtu.be/lFEhbD_H8a0
Other ‘The Fell’ links:https://hth.lnk.to/thefell

A seed of an idea was planted in 2015 during a conversation between vocalist Hannah Cartwright and fellow founder Ross Tones about his home in Weardale. The trio, completed by Oli Knowles, have had three releases since that time, giving the album time to slowly grow its roots deep into their creative subconscious. 

“The concept of The Fell as a living thing was there from the beginning” explains Ross. “That imagery provided the overarching environment” Hannah continues, “which then left us encompassed by human, floral, faunal, mythological, folkloric and magical elements to explore as and when we approached each piece. It was a chance to completely immerse ourselves in another world, its history and perception through other inhabitants.”

The Fell is also a liminal or ‘thin’ place. Bog land preserves organic remains, like time capsules, a quality that made it a special place to prehistoric people. These relics serve as starting points for new stories and songs. Folk tales talk of the metamorphosis of animals into people and back again which talks to a deep rooted ambiguity of where people begin and the land ends.

“The moorland fell looks beautiful, wild and desolate.” Ross continues. “From certain places you can look in all directions and see no obvious signs of humanity. Yet it’s a completely man made landscape. We used it as a multilayered metaphor, containing stories of the interaction between humans and nature which express themselves in folklore.” 

The arrangement too is multilayered in its approach. 2019’s colossal ‘A Quiet Ritual’ contained a score for a full orchestra and the ancient Carnyx. ‘The Fell’s’ instrumental arsenal consists of esraj, dulcimer, daf and bodhrán drums, violin, guitars, and a variety of synthesisers. Whilst equally vast, immersive and other-worldly, these tools are used to create intimate, personal stories. Sharing a mutual influence of the shadowy elements of folklore and the heavier side of experimental noise, a disparate array of reference points and this extensive collection of instruments combines to form Snow Ghosts’ bewitching and often intoxicating sound. 

On ‘The Fell’, they return for a captivating new album where ancient folk motifs intermingle with dark electronics, violins and primordial imagery to create an album of vast contrasts – heavy, yet flowing; electronic yet organic; modern yet steeped in nature and history.

‘The Fell’ will be released on February 24th via Houndstooth. Pre-order/pre-save links here

‘The Fell’ track list:
1. Given
2. Hearths
3. Filaments
4. Curse – Visualiser
5. Buried
6. Hawthorn
7. Avine
8. Prophecies
9. Home
10. Magpie
11. Vixen
12. Taken

Links:
http://www.snowghosts.net
https://www.facebook.com/SnowGhosts
https://twitter.com/Snow_Ghosts
https://www.instagram.com/snowghostsband/?hl=en

Keep your mind open.

[Don’t forget to subscribe before you go.]

[Thanks to Kate at Stereo Sanctity.]

Mandy, Indiana return with a new single – “Injury Detail.”

Photo Credit: Harry Steel

Today, Manchester, UK-based band Mandy, Indiana return with new single, “Injury Detail,” via Fire Talk Records, their first new music since the release of 2021’s acclaimed ‘…’ EP. Mandy, Indiana – Valentine Caulfield (vocals/lyrics), Scott Fair (guitar/production), Simon Catling (synth) and Alex Macdougall (drums) – meld experimental noise and dance music, from drum machine snaps and pulsing bass to white noise and lo-fi scuff.  Produced by Fair and Robin Stewart of Giant Swan, “Injury Detail” is a dramatic reintroduction, opening with a grand organ before morphing into a thumping dance track fit for a warehouse rave. “‘Injury Detail’ was inspired by the idea of being trapped in a liminal space, with the guitars creating a seemingly limitless and undefined landscape. The vocals act as a guide to possible salvation, or perhaps something of a more sinister intent,” explains Caulfield. The accompanying video was directed by Thomas Harrington Rawle

Watch the Video for Mandy, Indiana’s “Injury Detail”

Formed out of the fertile Manchester independent scene, Mandy, Indiana generate a sound that is at once chaotic and precision engineered – abrasive beats and gnarled guitars sit in thickets of distortion around Caulfield’s commanding vocals sung in her native language, French. Their songs, which incorporate found samples and field recordings, are recorded in a variety of spaces, from rehearsal rooms and home studios to cavernous industrial mills and shopping malls. Mandy, Indiana’s first recordings emerged around 2019, culminating in their debut, 2021’s ‘…’ EP,  which featured a heavy-hitting remix from Daniel Avery. Its single, “Bottle Episode,” was named a Best Song of 2021 by Pitchfork, who recognized the “perverse playfulness” of Caufield’s grim lyrics, and Paste, who hailed it “an exhilarating darkness for the bold to brave.” The EP also led to Stereogum naming Mandy, Indiana a Best New Band of 2021. Since then, they’ve become a live favorite in the UK, supporting the likes of Squid, IDLES, Gilla Band, Wet Leg, and SCALPING, along with  festival appearances at Pitchfork ParisEnd of the Road, and more. The band will be making their US debut at SXSW 2023 as part of the official lineup. “Injury Detail” is a taste of more music to come from Mandy, Indiana this year. 

Listen to “Injury Detail”

Mandy, Indiana Tour Dates
Fri. Feb. 3 – Manchester, UK @ Yes
Sat. Feb. 4 – Birkenhead, UK @ Future Yard
Sun. Feb. 5 – Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club
Fri. March 10 – Sun. March 19 – Austin, TX @ SXSW

Keep your mind open.

[Get all the details on music news and reviews by subscribing.]

[Thanks to Ahmad at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Top 20 albums of 2022: #’s 5 – 1

Here we are at the top five albums I reviewed in 2022. It was a great year for music, and these are what stood out for me among all the good stuff out there.

#5: Jacques Greene – Fantasy

As I’ve mentioned before, 2022 was a great year for electronic music, and this EP from Jacques Greene topped my list of that kind of music. It mixes house, drum and bass, ambient, and a bit of synth wave into a luscious brew.

#4: The Staples Jr. Singers – When Do We Get Paid

This reissue of classic gospel funk tracks by The Staples Jr. Singers is stunning. The amount of groove and friskiness in these songs is almost overwhelming. The instrumentation and harmonizing are outstanding, and there’s enough soul for two churches.

#3: Yard Act – The Overload

This is the best post-punk album I heard all year. Everything on it is razor sharp: the wit, the guitar angles, the grooves, the drum sounds, and the slightly snarled tongue-in-cheek vocals.

#2: The Black Angels – Wilderness of Mirrors

The Black Angels‘ new album was a great return for them. It explores the stress of modern times through walls of distorted guitars, reverb-laden vocals, powerful drums, and mind-warping sound. The Black Angels have yet to put out a bad record, but this one somehow set the bar even higher for psych-bands to follow.

#1: A Place to Bury Strangers – See Through You

A Place to Bury Strangers came back with a new lineup and some of Oliver Ackermann‘s most revealing lyrics about the end of friendships, loneliness, grief, over-reliance on technology, and the overall anxiety everyone’s been feeling since 2019. Ackermann put it all out there and walloped us with more honesty and distortion that you can almost stand.

Let’s look forward to a great 2023!

Keep your mind open.

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