Little Dreamers - Release The Kraken

It's the beginning of Spring, and it's getting ridiculous. I am writing more and more articles for various publications on top of putting on gigs, doing live reviews and my "day job" - and Sonic Masala is suffering a little as a consequence. My listening pile is overflowing - there is stuff here from May! So it's time for a bit of a cull. But before I do that, here are a bunch of tracks and releases from bands I've "discovered" over the past two and a half years that I think really deserve attention.


King Dude blew me away with his Gothic country-folk dirge on My Beloved Guest and Tonight's Special Death (out through the great Bathetic label). Since then the Seattle native has kept the ball rolling with another great LP entitled Love and a 7" release. He is showing no signs of slowing down either, with the imminent release of his next LP Burning Daylight on Dias in October. Really looking forward to this one, he is an underground cult figure of his own invention, and Im waiting for the exact moment when the penny drops and everyone realises how much of a genius he is.

King Dude - Jesus In The Courtyard


Sheffield nutbars Best Friends had a rad EP earlier this year called Throwing Up, and they have kept vomiting breakneck hits since. They put out a track with a grafittied (I think...) photo of Edward Furlong called 'If you think too much your brain will fall out', a single ('Surf Bitches') is coming out under the Too Pure Singles Club (an intiative that's seeing Aussie brats Step-Panther put out a 7" on too), and have a cassette split with Grazes in tow. You can listen to all and sundry below. A great little band, I think you'd agree. They are touring around the UK as we speak, popping into London's Old Blue Last this Friday. GET THERE!





Best Friends - If You Think Too Much Your Brain Will Fall Out


Brooklyn/San Fran collective Bad Bibles had a deliciously dark EP out in January, and have returned armed with 'Nearsighted'. Continuing with the tarot card imagery and post-punk skewered roiling and toiling, these guys sound like they are only just now finding their feet. This track is a big leap forward.

Bad Bibles - Nearsighted


Honey were throwing their shoegaze sounds around last year, and I quite liked it. Emphasis on the were, because they have just changed their name to The Early Morning Satellites. But they released an EP Fantasist before the changeover, and it's a doozie. Sonorous shoegaze, you had me at noisy and sexy as all hell.

Honey - Fantasist
Honey - Cape Canaveral


Mrs Magician brought out the There Is No God 7" (the titular track is SOOOOOO awesome!), which I really enjoyed - but their debut record and I didn't know about it??? The shame! Furthermore its out on the excellent Swami Records. Strange Heaven sees the San Diego band in fantastic form, so much better in less than 12 months, and the album has had to be repressed so people must be lapping it up, which is excellent news. Listen to it below, then pick it up here.

Mrs Magician - There Is No God




Minneapolis outfit Phantom Vibration had a great warbled pop EP in Kids back in 2011, followed it up with the great Growing Up and are now here with third extended player Aged. Ah, continuity, hey? You need to get it all and play it in chronological order. Love the last track in particular. Grab all three here.

Phantom Vibration - River Rock


Yeesh really blew me away with their Little Stabs At Happiness cassette, and here is the first taste of new material, verbose silly title and all. It's big emotive rawk with the requisite twist in the tail. I can't wait to hear what comes next.

Yeesh - Because Johnny Depp Always Wanted To Be A Rockstar, And Because I Always Wanted To Be Johnny Depp


I hammered on about the eclectic, electric brutality of LA's Wreck & Reference, and a little while back they upped the ante with No Youth. At times obtuse, at others bludgeoning, and with some spaciousness in between, the ten tracks on offer really are wrestling with demons the likes you nor I have ever witnessed, nor would want to. I'm not sure this is a record I could put on all the time, but when it clicks - prepare yourself for a industrial flaying.

Wreck & Reference - Nausea
Wreck & Reference - The Solstitial


Dogson, LA enigma Plant Magic Man's collection of recordings from 2008-2010, was an interesting exercise in tape-warped hypnagogic malaise. A plethora of releases later, and nothing much has changed on new EP Groo. Whoever this is, they keep as low a profile as possible, which adds to the mystique but also frustration. I want more damn you! Have at all of Plant Magic Man's releases here.

Plant Magic Man - I'm At War


Ann Arbor duo Dreampeter haven't had much new on the move (other than the Boneglow/Delusions split, which is basically Dreampeter in their solo guises) since they released 'Mason Jar' last year, but there is this deliciously warped track 'Bluebeard'. Makes me remember why I was enamoured with these dudes in the first place - hell, it's dedicated to Kurt Vonnegut! Good stuff indeed.

Dreampeter - Bluebeard


Now for some haunting folk from the UK, jah? The Skeleton Dead are a duo who I really connected with, especially after my hasty departure from the UK. At the end of my stay I was staying at my girlfriend's house, and her housemate was in love with cooking, hash and Mark Kozalek. Three great things to be in love with. I got to see Kozalek earlier this year, which was lovely, but back to the story. The Skeleton Dead's self titled LP came into my inbox at this time and slipped seamlessly into the fold. Recently they released Two Days In February, two tracks written and recorded in the winter just fled (well it was the beginning of the year for these guys), and hearing these tracks reminds me of those times. Cold, warm inside, drinking ale and smoking cigarettes in the snow, roast chicken and puppy dogs at the Coach & Horses, Bloody Mary's and cracked ice. Strange, eclectic memories, but they warm the cockles.

The Skeleton Dead - True To Our Name
The Skeleton Dead - Life Goes On


After writing about Glenn Branca I received an email from a man from the Republic of Macedonia. His self-recorded pieces were guitar explorations that examined sinuous form and abrasive noise under the moniker fydhws were exciting. Now as Sferi, he has released a concept sound collage based on the 8 planets of the solar system, and it is - sorry - otherworldly. Ranging from space ambient/rock to psychedelia and drone music, Sound Of The Spheres is actually very impressive - see Sferi's explanation of it all here - and is an album you should definitely delve into, preferably with expensive headphones on...

Sferi - Merkur


Back to Brooklyn to see what Life Size Maps are up to. The trio have just launched Excavate, a five track EP that also marks a new lineup for the poppy noiseniks. They play around with Gary Numan-esque structure and 8-bit shenanigans, whilst still holding precariously onto the shoegaze shtick they first burst out with. Its a growing bliss bomb of a release, and promises much more on the horizon.




Now this one is only a stop-gap, as Im sure Ill be mentioning more about this release as it comes to hand. Yet Cambridge, Massachusetts trio Night Fruit, who brought the graceful Dark Horse 7" last year, have a new release that is preceding an album, it's called 'Human Touch', and it's bloody great. The music speaks for itself. Stay tuned!!

Night Fruit - Human Touch


Here is another artist you will hear more of soon. Guilty Ghosts AKA Tristan O'Donnell brought a great release in his self-titled debut in 2010, excellently followed up by last year's VEILS, but if 'All Flesh Is Grass' is anything to go by, his next EP Tresspasser will easily surpass them. I love this track, and Im pretty sure you will too. You can pre-order the EP here.

Guilty Ghosts - All Flesh Is Grass


And finally we have Thor AKA Just Another Snake Cult from Iceland, whose freak pop tapestries often defy expectation and categorisation. He has just finished a new EP of minimal electronic / dream pop material called Birds Carried your Song Through The Night. It actually took me a bit to warm to, but when these tracks sink in, its impressive. You can grab the release in cassette form here. Worth every penny, especially when the title track kicks in.

Just Another Snake Cult - Birds Carried Your Song Through The Night

Phew! Fly my pretties, fly! Well, they grow up so fast don't they?

Hits From The Box #51 - Free Swearing Day

Today it is free dress day at work. Now for me that actually means something, as I dress as a quasi suit for most of the year, and it's the one day that I can just roll out of bed. The womenfolk at work however wear pretty much what they want anyway, so they laugh at my giddiness. Ah, inadequacies... ANYway, it reminds me of this thing my sister and I used to do. Whenever our parents weren't around, we'd yell out FREE SWEARING DAY and let go. It was the funniest thing ever. I never dropped the c-bomb - that was anathema to me up to about five years ago, but now it's my third most used word behind beer and diazapem - but everything else was fair play. Ah, innocence. How I fucking miss thee.


OK, so let's start the next half-century of Hits From The Box with Walk, a Los Angeles four-piece whose debut album Icebreaker (through Manzam Records), offers some great grooving tracks that maintain the pop hook mentality whilst ramping up the guitars. When they quieten down, it doesn't always gel, but on 'Caveman Game' in particular they really get things right.

Walk - Icebreaker
Walk - Caveman Game


Next we have Sheffield dude Stewart Green, who performs his electronic multi-instrumental shtick under the moniker Carnivals. Absences/Ino (Pts 1 & 2) is a single release that came out at the turn of the year, so it's been a long time coming, but Ive just warmed to the A-side more and more as I have started utilising my iPod once more (it's been dormant for months and months - don't ask...). It's ambient drone, nice piano line, distorted vocals, glitch heavy middle third then surprise jumped-up close offers five minutes of brave eclecticism. Green has shown in the past his adherence to strange mixtures of tempo and sound, and on these tracks he does some alchemical wonders.

Carnivals - Absences


III is the name of Minneapolis psychgazers Is/Is debut record (out last month on ___), and it's a real cracker. They play around with convention - on single 'Hate Smile' for example, the drums remain buried behind a chugging bluesy riff for the first section of the track - whilst frontwoman Sarah Rose's vocals are perfectly suited for this genre, really rich and gutsy. The whole album really surprised me - whilst a couple tracks commit the sin of repetition, there is a lot of breadth on a sound that sticks to the narrow terrain that True Widow were trampling last year, yet like that band Is/Is mine gold - which is an inimitably good thing.

Is/Is - Hate Smile
Is/Is - Sun Tsunami


Gulcher Records flung this record by Tim Carroll my way a little while ago, and it's a nice throwback on 50s/60s garage rock that actually sounds like the era rather than someone else's pastiche of it. Look Out! perfectly displays Carroll's punk roots (having played in The Gizmos and The Blue Chieftains in the 80s) entrenched in Nashville country aesthetics. It's no wonder that this is solid - this is Carroll's ninth album after all - yet on tracks like 'Talk To God' (which has some of that brilliantly sloppy Neil Young & Crazy Horse feel) it is all so effortless and genuine that it is a refreshing slab of sunlight to the ears. It swings from blues to country to other windswept climes (earning him comparisons to Tom Petty and Kurt Vile, the latter of which had his record Constant Hitmaker put out by Gulcher also), but above all Look Out! rocks.

Tim Carroll - Talk To God
Tim Carroll - One More Step


Jacob Turnbloom is the singer/songwriter for Mrs Magician, a band that I covered not too long ago (and if you haven't checked em out yet, go here and fix that promptly). Grizzly Records put out a massive chunk of Turnbloom's solo recordings on a cassette called Death Tape, all rough four-track lo-fi pipe dreams (think Elliot Smith jamming with Ben Gibbard after a bender where some dirty deeds were done dirt cheap). There are a couple scuzzy rockers, but most of it is contemplative experimental pop items, and there are some real jewels to be found here. You can buy Death Tape here - it's worth it.

Jacob Turnbloom - DJ Anarcho Fight Punx
Jacob Turnbloom - Everything Dies
Jacob Turnbloom - An Officer & A Gentleman


Finally we have alt-country rockers Slow Country, who offer another connection to Kurt Vile due to member Boyd Shropshire. His unresolved, spacey rock with Mascis-style vocals are offset by Chase King’s more earnest country-flecked fare. Their debut record, The Late Great Slow Country, weaves a tapestry of pastoral folk and country with an infusion of off-kilter rock, where the gamut from Modest Mouse to Giant Sand are covered. It makes for a laconic finish to today's proceedings. You can get the album through Wonderland Archives here.

Slow Country - Land I Love

Happy Wednesday!

A Grizzly Trick

Another post from San Diego - things are heating up (not sure why I've thrown in a NBA Jam reference, but I'm pretty scattered today...)

The guys at the cool little label Grizzly records flicked me over the new 7" from San Diego's Mrs Magician. The band had an incredible coup recently when they were set up as the support for the newly reformed Hot Snakes for their Stateside tour this month. To celebrate they have the Prescription Vision 7" for sale, a two-track slice of throwaway surf rock. Sweetening their 2012 is a two-month tour with CULTS, culminating in their upcoming debut Strange Heaven LP that's coming out on John Reis (Rocket From The Crypt/Hot Snakes)' own Swami Records in May. Heady times. The 7" doesn't miss a beat either, offering some 60s inflected fuzzy doo-wop that would be more at place at a summer beach party in a parallel world where Malibu Beach was an apocalyptic wasteland. Actually...that is pretty much what it is now. So they are right on the money then...

Grab the 7" from here.

Mrs Magician - Prescription Vision