Shine A Lantern Into The Evil Eye

I spoke about Dream Mine, the sixth EP from Philadelphia's Lantern that came out on Bathetic Records, about this time last year. It was one of those sleazy, seductive albums that comes along, seemingly out of nowhere, singes your nostril hairs, relaxes your rectum and separates your retinas, before burning away into the dark, dark night, with nary a glance, glare or leer back at the carnage.

Well the Philly trio are done with the short talk, the foreplay, the torture porn, whatever you want to call the past three years since their inception, and are prepping their debut LP Rock 'N' Roll Rorschach to come out through Sophomore Lounge next month, and 'Evil Eye' clearly outlays that all that came before was nothing. The fact alone that they got in Jeff Zeigler (he of Clockcleaner fame/infamy) tells you that the noise will be brought - but in a cleaner fashion, one where you can hear every decibel, every strand of your fibre just before it pops. A relentless, nihilistic power display, 'Evil Eye' is the kind of gate-crashing awe that can bring down kingdoms - or at the very least, see a spike in eardrum perforations. Expect to hear more about this release next month.

Pre-order the Rock 'N' Roll Rorschach 12" here.

Sharks At High Noon

I still cannot fathom that there is a Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. Goddamn. Thank fuck for HBO...

Then again, thank fuck for the band Shark Week, who continue to lace their garage roots with a heady line of absurdist hedonism. Then there is Santurce, their 7" recorded for Analog Editions Records. 'Go West' hits you, where the hit is infused with the woody goodness of yesteryear twang, a melancholy air that insists on lingering. 'Go West' is still imbued with Shark Week's seemingly effortless liquidity, effervescent gnarl and giddy gurning. Yet the Western edge offers something harder, more flint-edged, more robust than their other efforts, which bodes incredibly well for the future.

You can buy Santurce here.

Dancing Into, And Out Of, Difficult Situations

I've had a long day. A fifteen hour day yesterday leading into a 6am start today, followed by two exams, marking 35 Year 11 & 12 English short stories, had a drawn out issue get drawn out even further - and it's been raining all day. Admittedly Scout Niblett got me over the hump; Crushed Beaks got me smiling; and _ got me smashing beers. But in these twilight hours, I've somehow slid back into a melancholic smoulder. And I don't know why, but twee queer pop is the one thing that is attuned to this weird malaise, courtesy of one of Fortuna Pop!'s roster cards, New York's The Ballet. They released their latest LP of Stephen Merritt-skewing indie pop gems, I Blame Society, on Monday. I haven't heard it, but I've heard 'Difficult Situations' - and although I don't have a boyfriend, there is a lot here mirroring my worldview. Such is life...

Get Me Some Pi!

I stumbled over this Texan thrashy garage psych band a couple months ago, they're called π (pronounced Pi) and they have whipped out two EPs since September. The latest one came out in March, it's called Ubik, and it wails all over the place. Surely must be Hendrix heathens, lovers of the Leddest of the Zeppelins, Creedance creepoids, Black Sabbath worshippers...and are probably librarians. You can get their gear for the price of genital warts, if you knock on their trailer door - or for free, if you go here.

π - Unfortunate Son
π - The Fool

Showing The Tropes Of Crushed Beaks

Another track that has made it onto the long weekend playlist alongside yesterday's Spring King has been another UK band, Crushed Beaks, and their title track from their upcoming Tropes EP (out on ASL Recordds). I've spoken about these fuzzed out garage kids before, and if you can't get all shiny-happy-drunk on life on this, regardless of how shitty your day looks, then we are on different train lines to Hell. This is all about catchy hooks as it is about peeling paint off the walls - HPV for the ears. I'm loving where these guys are heading.

Emma's Scouts Don't Want No Scrubs

I wanted to save this until Friday and a Friday Cover Up, but Scout Niblett's album is too great to wait that long. It's Up To Emma came out a fortnight or so ago through Drag City, and it's bloody great. Dark, downbeat, even a little desperate - but this is why I love Scout, she's uncompromising. Even when she is endowing TLC's sisters-doing-it-themselves "classic" 'No Scrubs' with shadowy menace. It's a great rendition - the whole reason we started a covers post section in the first place - but there is so much strength elsewhere here - the dirge blues wrack of 'Gun', the lurking bruises within 'Can't Fool Me Now', the haunted 'My Man,' the coalescing closer 'What Can I Do'. Scout has always stripped bare her lyrics, offering both an insular and defiantly combative character, and the instrumentation is just as skeletal, even when joined by strings. And the presence, that voice - its earth-shattering in its understated power. Never mistake her as a PJ Harvey acolyte - It's Up To Emma is blazing proof that Scout Niblett is a burning power all her own.

You can buy It's Up To Emma here.

Scout Niblett - Gun
Scout Niblett - What Can I Do

Video Vacuum - Juan Wauters, Bed Rugs, Big Brave, Spring King

I just watched V/H/S 2. Breakdown - the surrounding story was better than the first V/H/S anthology wraparound; and each of the vignettes were really inventive with the use of "found footage" (mechanical eye and mounted bike helmet were both pretty great), yet the best by a million miles was the Indonesian cult story. Overall it's just a lot of fun - some great scares, but just a lot of fun. So let's get lo-fi and (potentially) get scared with these new tracks...

I showcased this track 'Sanity' from frontman of The Beets' Juan Wauters a little whiles ago. The vid for the song is bullshit crazy, with blunts, gimps, Juan doing psycho Z-grade wrestling against women (and Guapo!), a wonky American flag - and it's purely brilliant. "You know what country's ugly but they could have some very interesting ugly girls? England."



Some hazy rock pinned together by underwater synchronised swimming? Bed Rugs (hailing from Antwerp in Belgium) has you covered. This oscillating track 'Blinds' is off their just-released EP Rapids (out through Ample Play & Burger Records) - from this sound alone I'm intrigued to hear more.



I know even less about Montreal psych rockers Big Brave, seeing as this is all I've heard, but the simplicity and dirge held within has me very hopeful. The new song is titled 'There Is No Victory, Only Burning Flags and Fallen Men' - which I really, really like. More please.



And let's finish with this cut and paste slab of scuzzy silliness from Manchester's Spring King. I've meant to mention these guys for some time, but this dropped in the inbox over the weekend and has been played incessantly in the playlist ever since, so there is no excuse now. Spring King are probably certifiably insane, and I'm happy with that. They just supported Fair Ohs too, so the insanity is spreading.

NOW GET BACK TO WORK!

Aping Realities And Boosting Calcium

Seeing as I swung Washington way to delve wholesale into Royal Trux earlier today, why not linger amongst the new crowd? Another killer record of the year that has been a constant on Planet Masala but has (until now) missed these pages is Cruise Your Illusion (out on Fat Possum), the official debut longplayer by Olympia's Milk Music (their Beyond Living 12" is one of the best things I've heard in the last five years, FACT). Despite the ace play at the "classic" Guns n Roses double albums, the album riffs on plenty of influences straight off the bat - the instrumental intro 'Caged Dogs Run Wild' seems to inadvertently pay homage to the sadly departed Jason Molina; 'Illegal And Free' (and indeed any of lead guitarist and vocalist Alex Coxen's frayed leads) takes us into J Mascis territory; the buzz and hiss of the 90s seeps through the cracks and over the edge of everything. Yet there is an inimitable electricity that permeates this album, and indeed this band - they are alive, and are above and beyond any constraints, restrictions and cares. The carelessness that the noodling and Coxen's wails on 'New Lease On Love' permits is freedom personified. If you can't listen to this record and immediately feel younger and carefree in the most positive way possible, duly transformed by the amber gold of the music, then your heart ain't beating.

You can (and really should) grab Cruise Your Illusion here.

Milk Music - Illegal And Free
Milk Music - No, Nothing, My Shelter

Don't Take Naked Maja For Granted

Local dream sculptors Naked Maja took to Trainspotters on Saturday to launch their single 'Take' - the night was a resounding success. There is a bit of vested interest here - I had the band's Cedie Janson play the first Campfire Tales show at the End only two nights previously, and I helped write their presser. They have a longer release in the wings, which is mightily exciting, so rather than babble on with new terminology and hot air, Ill give you the "old" terminology and cold air that is the presser:

"Constantly evolving Brisbane five-piece Naked Maja represent the new sound of Brisbane’s burgeoning experimental pop scene. The release of their first single ‘Take’ shows the band broadening their horizons to the farther regions of ambiance and Krautrock. The music inhabits a netherworld of searching melodies and misshapen harmonies that embody a waking dream state. Their MO is to beguile, to seduce, yet to deny.

Disembodied vocals waver in and out of focus of a magnetic wall of sound, made up of ethereal guitars, synthesizers and propulsive motorik rhythms. Naked Maja draw inspiration from a cosmic sinewave that includes Stereolab, Slowdive and Eno as corresponding frequencies. Captured in the studio by local experimental producer and musician Michael Whitney of Nite Fields fame, the mesmeric ‘Take’ is the band’s most self-assured and exploratory work. It represents a sizable step forward for the five-piece and a promising indicator of what’s to come."

You can buy Take in cassette form (alongside two other original cuts and two remixes by Brisbane's aheadphonehome and Adelaide's Swimming) here. Naked Maja are travelling to Melbourne this Thursday to grace the Grace Darling with their presence, alongside the aforementioned Swimming as well as Sui Zhen, then stick around on Friday to join No Art (also launching a 7"), Infinite Void and Halt Ever at the Public Bar. Rad times in Melbournetown. They are playing Tassie too, not sure on the dates there though (sorry!)

Get Re-Run Over By Royalty

By the end of the week this little number by Washington's scuzz lords Royal Trux will once more be available to the public. Recorded in the lead-up to their hotly anticipated Euro tour in 1998 (following the critical acclaim for their LP Accelerator) the 3-Song EP was banged together in quick order (a fourth track, a cover of Dire Straits' 'Money For Nothing', was recorded as well but kept aside for a UK B-side release). The three songs run the gamut of Trux infamy - funky cold radness ('Deafer Than Blind'); wigging the fuck out ('The United States v One 1974 Cadillac El Dorado Sedan'); and the raucous balls-to-the-wall rock ('Run, Shaker Life'). It has everything in high-octane place - Jennifer Herrema's irresistible growl, Neil Hegarty's serrated guitar brilliance, whilst joined by David Pajo (Slint, Tortoise) on bass and the blistering Jon Theodore (Mars Volta, QOTSA) on drums...godDAMN! Such an electric band. And to think that the duo are back together (at least in a musical sense, releasing a new Black Bananas album early next year with two songs penned by the duo)! Maybe we will see something like this on our plates sooner than we ever thought possible...

3-Songs can be gleaned on pre-order through Drag City here.

Royal Trux - Deafer Than Blind

Caught Up In Floral Limbs

Let's finish off this dreary Queen's Birthday long weekend with more loquacious guitar pop courtesy of Nate Luce, better known as Flower Orgy. He's formed a configuration that includes his girl Anna and ex-Girls guitarist John Anderson, and the fruits of their labour can be heard on Our Song, a three track 7" put out on Fire Talk Records. Still laidback, still drug-buzzed, yet the garage fuzz has dissipated, and we have songs of honest beauty, albeit steeped in hazed bohemian slackerdom. Zone out.

You can buy Our Song here.

Glazed Haze On Our Black Vacation

I meant to get this out sooner, seeing as their first two shows (in Newcastle and Sydney) were this weekend. Better late than never I guess... Local woozy amblers Black Vacation have just released new single 'Glazed', and its a suitably excellent track that doles out nonchalance and whimsy in equal, chiming measures. Its the most concise, crystalline effort that the Ford brothers have slapped their name to thus far (Daniel and Matt are also in Kids Cryptic and Thigh Master), whilst the added gravitas of Helena Papageorg (Feathers) and Michaela Chin (Marl Carx) helps to anchor Black Vacation's sound somewhere between the Australian slacker pop revelation and the Stateside introspective fare that the likes of Beach Fossils and Wild Nothing delve in. Excellence par none.



Black Vacation travel down to Melbourne and the Gasometer on Friday July 5 (with support from SM faves Velcro as well as Legendary Hearts and Aktion Unit), before finalising their launch in their hometown (and a Sonic Masala Presents!) at Trainspotters on Sat July 13. Supports for that one will be Cobwebbs, Stress Waves and Dag.

Getting Cosy With Kinski

There is too much music in the world. I'm going to do some small (but hopefully relevant) posts over the next week about releases I'm sure you are all on top of, as I should have been, but they are too good to not mention seeing as they are amazing records.

Ill kick it off with one I was sent a few months ago, and kinda let slip until I saw Repo Man on TV a few weeks ago. I goddamn love that movie, I can tell you. The cover of the new Kinski record, Cosy Moments, is straight outta that movie. Now, Cosy Moments doesn't offer any straight up punk jams like Alex Cox's soundtrack (although 'Last Day On Earth' is close). But then again, Cosy Moments doesn't offer up classic Kinski either - gone are the ground-down post-rock stylings of yore. In its place we have a spaced-out grunge behemoth, Fu Manchu by way of Nirvana - the Seattle hangover kicking in two decades on. It might irk the purists (ARE THERE Kinski purists?), but this leaner, meaner Kinski is all right by me.

Grab Cosy Moments (through Kill Rock Stars) here - its a solid record all round.

Kinski - Long Term Exit Strategy
Kinski - Skim Milf

Libyan Hit Squad Get Round-Eyed

I got this crazy slice of punk skronk insanity from Genjing Records (the Chinese subsidiary for Maybe Mars Records) and Orlando, Florida's Ripping Records. Full Circle grabs a band from each locale - Round Eye from Shanghai, Libyan Hit Squad from Florida - and lets them go no holds barred at each other. The result is bullshit crazy, bullshit awesome. Black Flag's Greg Ginn chimes in! LHS keep things off-kilter, swinging between breakneck SST punk annihilation ('Blown Asshole'), Descendents sensibilities ('Rubber Shoes'), and the more harmonious ends of Fugazi ('Brave New World').

Round Eye (ANOTHER ex-pat band from China! sharing a leadman too) then offer a more dissonant edge, complete with melting brass, and in my opinion take things up a couple of notches. 'Kenting' even pins down some of that wonky Springsteen-aping rock that Titus Andronicus have made their bread and butter. 'I'm So Young' slips the mickey to a doo-wop number that would be cute if it weren't so slurred and devious; whilst the one-two punch closers 'Carne Seca' and 'Got Her Runnin'' energise and pulverise. Two bands I'd never heard of before joining forces to slay - intercontinental shitstirrers.

You can grab Full Circle here. It is very, very good - get on this quick smart.

Libyan Hit Squad - Blown Asshole
Libyan Hit Squad (ft Greg Ginn) - Full Circle 

Round Eye - Kenting
Round Eye - Carne Seca

PREMIERE - New Juffage Track 'Fate's Gone Away'

Back in 2011 I really got into Semicircle, a little album by Jeff T Smith AKA Juffage. Mixing the likes of Ratatat, Akron/Family and Animal Collective into his sounds, Juffage is a miasma of electrified wizardry, a solo maelstrom of organic devilry, a creative Loki who refuses to sit still, compromise or to stop having a good time.

This June Juffage has been releasing a series of live tracks from his recent European tour - and Sonic Masala is lucky enough to premiere one! New track 'Fate's Gone Away' was filmed at Rincon Pio Sound in Spain, and showcases Smith's multiple instrumentation changes and looping techniques to great effect. The track is intricate in itself, a math excursion through kaleidoscopic sonics, so to see Smith up there in his lonesome provides both awe and perplexity. So without further adieu, enjoy.



Here are the other two to have been released thus far this month also (both recorded in Lille, France).

Eloise's Winter (Tenzenmen Update #4)

I've been a big fan of mysterious Chinese shoegazers Dear Eloise, and the fairly prolific duo have another release at their disposal. The Winter Has Disappeared 7" is two tracks that glisten in the darkness, shimmer in the shifting sands, a beauteous mirage. There tends to be an ambiguity or distance put in place when bands travel down the shoegaze route, but Dear Eloise manage to sidestep that with 'Vanishing Winter' - not only immediate, but attractive and inviting. 'The Place In White Light' is the aftermath - stumbling forth, trying to grasp that wavering nirvana, falling into the dirt with empty hands, eyes and soul. The ying and yang, then.

You can buy The Winter Has Disappeared here in translucent green vinyl. As a side note, all throughout June you can go to the Tenzenmen website and make a bit of a comment on their page. And when you do, you get a 30% discount on all Tenzenmen releases through their Bandcamp! What a sweet deal. There are more releases I'll be insisting you jump on in the ensuing days too, so start cracking open your Dollarmite money banks...

Separating Planets Gives Me The Shits

Talk about grabbing my attention. If I see a band called Diarrhea Planet, as if I'm not going to give it a spin. The fecal Tennesseeans have a record coming out,  I'm Rich Beyond Your Wildest Dreams, and after hearing the single 'Separations' I'm excited to hear them out. They spray fuzzed-out rock with the kind of slacker abandon that Japandroids initially did on Post Nothing, yet this six-piece are still sequestered to the garages of down home. Plus they have four guitarists - FOUR! If they cannot turn a catchy as hell tune like 'Separations' up to the brown note whilst shattering every glass window, eardrum and sphincter in the vicinity, I would be mightily disappointed (yet also a little relieved...)

I'm Rich Beyond Your Wildest Dreams will be out through Infinity Cat in the upcoming months.

Diarrhea Planet - Separations

Campfire Tales w/ Tutts, Ceeds and Uncle Sonic

Last weekend was incredible for Sonic Masala Presents. It was the first time we have (officially) gone back to back with SM Presents... shows, plus the first time we had (officially) moved away from the hallowed ground of The Waiting Room - and it was a huge success! A sellout crowd came to see No Anchor smash out yet another stellar set, ably backed by the brutality of O and Vassals, and the proceeds went into funding NA's trip down to Sydney the following night. I would have booked a ticket with them (seeing as I was partially responsible for the windfall) but instead I handed over all the dough and moved on to Saturday night, where the first official SM curated Trainspotters night took place at The Grand Central Hotel. Dreamtime's first show since their triumphant return from playing the Austin Psych Fest was incredible, with Multiple Man killing it (despite, or maybe because of, Chris' disdain in proceedings ha) and Gazar Strips ripping apart the place with new songs. The venue was packed, easily the biggest SM show to date, so thanks to all who came.

But this week is still rollin', and I have one more surprise in store. This Thursday we travel back to West End, this time the intimate surrounds of The End on Vulture St, for what I'm tentatively calling Campfire Tales, a night of two solo artists doin their thang. It's Sonic Masala though, so it isn't straightforward. The first show is the EP launch for Andrew Tuttle (the artist formerly known as Anonymeye). He will be assisted in the wings by the dulcet tones of Naked Maja frontman Cedie Janson. I'm really looking forward to this one, and you should be too. It kicks off at 8.30 and is free entry, so come have a boutique beer and turn this 3-day weekend into 4.

A Communal Late Night At Gaza

I thought I would end on this piece of ambient brilliance tonight. I'm physically and mentally drained, and 'Nablus' from NY's Ajnabi (the song is one of two abstract reflections/meditations on the situation in Palestine crafted after spending a time volunteering in the West Bank) has me close to tears. I had a conversation only yesterday with James, the guitarist from Violent Soho, about those moments where music moves you in such a way, and that those moments don't appear as often as you get older, or wiser, or more cynical...I don't know. I still remember when I saw the emotion on display at the 2009 Glastonbury when Blur reformed. I didn't get it, that much invested emotion into one thing... But songs like 'Nablus' pulls me back. Ive been looking over the twinkling lights of Brisbane, this plugged into my cerebral vortex, and I started to remember all the moments when it DID mean something: dancing to Mogwai by the side of the road at 4.30am, the fog starting to lift, the sun starting to rear its weary head; listening to Sigur Ros as the sunset lit up Mt Cook in New Zealand in various pastel hues; Radiohead causing my breath to catch when 'Like Spinning Plates' staggered over an awestruck Melbourne crowd. The list kept spooling forth - listening to My Father My King for the first time, or Raveonettes' Whip It On ad nauseum one heady evening, or when Source Tags & Codes first came out...then there is the first time I heard The Who's 'The Seeker', or Led Zep's 'When The Levee Breaks'; Alex Maas sing 'The Sniper', or Dad playing Born In The USA. All of these things are me, they make me who I am. And at this very moment, at this core second within the miasma of infinite seconds, I am Ajnabi too.

Ajnabi - Nablus

Nobly Ruined

It's pretty bleeding obvious that I love me some drone. It started with Mogwai, and continued along that path until albums by the likes of (but nowhere near exclusive to) Barn Owl, Ensemble Economique, Expo 70 and Robedoor consistently circle within my head like sharks in the water. Lee Noble has been an artist that has slowly risen in stocks for me to the point that the simultaneous release of his Ruiner and (reissue of) No Becoming albums through Bathetic Records was something of an event on Planet Masala.

What draws you in isn't the noise, it's the patience that it takes to get to the end point that you know will end in heartbreak and catastrophe; a controlled tension eked out on a knife's edge, time being stalled or stretched without warning. Noble's disembodied vocals are another cipher, an out-of-body experience that refuses to be pinned down, yet irrevocably draws the focus from the sleights of hand that are at play. Ruiner can be glacial and fragmented, isolating yet entrancing - like most drone, it takes you somewhere, often with hundreds of others around you, yet you are cocooned to all but your own experience, your own cryogenic dreamstate.

Yet there is a baroque air to Ruiner, a playful redolence that casts off the oppressive chains and allows the blood to pump through the veins once more. Hard to believe, but Noble at times seems insistent that he is crafting pop - an alien, subterranean version, yet pop all the same. So whilst the icy stabs through your brain still exist, there are counterpoints (often running tangential or parallel to the more industrial moments) where it can either hurt or refresh; paralyse or revitalise. Above all else, Ruiner offers a bruised beauty too - like most experimental music, it plucks at your fraying emotions, forcing you to feel.

You can buy both Ruiner (cover above) and No Becoming (the excellent cover at the top of the post) here. 

Lee Noble - December ∞ 
Lee Noble - Demon Pond

When You Kill A Giant, Blood Pours Out (Tenzenmen Update #3)

I finished up a week's look at Metal Postcard Records recently. The founder Sean Hocking sees Shanghai duo Pairs as an incredible band (and so clearly do we), following every half-baked venture the duo head out on. So to close out the week we are (figuratively) travelling back to Shanghai (via another Shaun, he of Tenzenmen Records) to look at another ex-pat band that calls the Chinese city their home, Death To Giants.  Death To Giants are even harder to define, a true amalgam of genres seemingly at odds with each other - math rock, metal, and hardcore, to jazz, pop (with moments verging on the fey)... With no guitar, the duo use yelps, a trombone and an array of collaborations (including scoring muted films, traditional Mongolian folk music and a System Of A Down tribute band) to flesh out whatever whims they come up with. Its a heady, insane mixture of molasses to swallow, especially over the course of a full album. But with Blood Pours Out, the duo start to make sense - like naive art drawn by a limbless Charles Manson might. 'Anyone Can Learn To Count In Chinese' feels like Deerhoof distilled through a Blood Brothers woodchipper; 'Jared Leto' and 'Girth vs Length' are maniacal gems that rot your teeth and eviscerate your stomach. And to add to the obliterated fourth wall, there is an instrumental version of 'Anyone Can Learn To Count In Chinese' for free download so that you can make your own remixes, submit them to deathtogiants@gmail.com and the band will choose their favourites for a future release. Death-pop indeed.

You can buy Blood Pours Out here.

Death To Giants - Anyone Can Learn To Count In Chinese
Death To Giants - Girth vs Length

Fuck The Red Wing

And now for something completely different...

Hibou got me through the post-alcohol shakes, but now I need to ramp up so I don't go to sleep. And with Fuck Buttons, it'll never happen - not just because the noise the duo create is ear-splitting, but the only dreams the band conveys are that of the seventh level of industrial hell. The abrasive excellence of Fuck Buttons is poised to return with new LP Slow Focus out through ATP Recordings in July, something I cannot wait for. Their alien, confrontational soundscapes are often jawdroppingly incredible, awe-inspiring and just plain unfathomable - how can a noise assault this uncompromising, electronic and aggressive be this enthralling, hypnotic and seductive? Stockholm Syndrome perhaps? Whatever the secret is, I have always been held in thrall by Benjamin John Power and John Hung, and the abuse is set to continue on unabated, may my eardrums rest in peace.

You can pre-order Slow Focus in gold vinyl form here.

Off With Hibou In The Dunes

I'm a little seedy this morning, for a number of reasons. I missed out on a job opportunity that, whilst not the end of the world, is always a little gutting. Nevertheless, last night's Sonic Masala show (featuring No Anchor, O and Vassals) was a massive success, selling out and allowing me to pay the bands top dollar (with a little extra to help NA on their tour down the coast). I met up with Jon from Gazar Strips who is playing my next Sonic Masala show tonight (also featuring Dreamtime and Multiple Man), and we shot the shit about possible future collaborations (but mostly about shit). I got home at 2am, then up at 6am to get ready for work, which is where we meet now.

So I need something that will get me out of this messy headspace, and Hibou (I believe pronounced ee-boo, but that could be my addled brain at work) is doing the trick. The one time drummer for Craft Spells has been doing his reverb-heavy guitar pop for a little while now, and finally his Dunes EP is about to brighten up our lives. The beach theme fits well, as Hibou isn't far removed from Dustin Payseur AKA Beach Fossils. Silky gossamer guitars, disembodied vocals, and the crisp air of nostalgic, grainy Super 8 Puberty Blues.

Here is the first track of Dunes (which will be out June 13), 'Sunder', which you can grab now as a free download!



And because I feel like it, here are a couple other tracks Hibou has floating around - keep the good times rolling.