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 #13 - Not Not Unlucky

Well, the year is flying by isnt it! April Fools has come and gone, and we are already up to the thirteenth installment of our celebration of the musical battler otherwise known as Hits From The Box. Many say there is so much luck involved in the music biz, and its true. But I think that luck is relative. So either these are the luckiest six bands to ever grace the Hits From The Box page, or they have made their own luck, or this moment wont even cause a ripple in the pool of time. Whatever it may be, I dont really give a shit - music lives!

You wouldnt expect to see many surfers wandering the street of Helsinki, surfboards in one hand, smoked salmon in the other - and you probably wont. You will find these guys though. Big Wave Riders endeavour to sculpt fresh music with edgy garage/punk the ultimate goal. They are as yet unsigned, but an EP is on the way. (NB - I initially wrote "Surf's up!" at the end of this then scrapped it to save face. Then I wrote this. Glutton for punishment...)

Big Wave Riders -Skate Or Die

The guys who make up Minnesota's Phantom Vibration are fresh out of school, yet that doesnt mean that their sound - an amalgam of chamber and dream pop - is in any way perfunctory or immature. In fact the instrumentation at play - organ, guitar, drums, fiddle, and celeste, all crafting layered songs that take time to build with an ephemeral climax - shows a real nuance for music appreciation. With influences spanning the decades of folk and avant pop, from Nico to Fleet Foxes, you can see that Phantom Vibration are striving for something a little left of centre. Kids is their debut EP, and is the first in a triptych of concept EPs - the other two are set to be out by July. Not to rest on their laurels, an LP is then set for a July/August release. Exciting times indeed!

Phantom Vibration - Gilded

I almost passed over Cutting Shapes, an indie trio from Wellington, New Zealand, as their literal moniker evoked a sub-par disco rock pastiche that would lack verve or vision. And whilst they do aim to get the audience moving and 'cutting shapes', the sound evoked from the songs that constitute their latest EP entitled ▲ (nice) is much more comfortable channeling earlier Holy Fuck and Foals. Ive always found that technical noodling and dancing have made strange yet attractive bedfellows, and Cutting Shapes intend to make this one night stand an encounter to last the test of time - or at least until the beer taps are drained dry.

Cutting Shapes - Trees

The Violet May are a Sheffield, UK act who have been making ripples for a while now due to their debut single release Brighter Or Better back in May last year. This could be for a number of reasons. Could be that the Guardian hyped the shit out of them for no apparent reason when they were basically unheard of last year. Could be that every UK hack under the sun has attempted to shine the sun up their arses, culminating in their headlinging some NME event. Could be that the lead singer, Chris McClure, is the guy smoking on the front of the Arctic Monkeys' iconic debut album Whatever You Say I Am, That's What Im Not, or that he is the brother of that other McClure from Reverend & The Makers. Or it could be that they are actually a pretty electrifying band. Id have to say - just bypass all the hype and possible detractors, as they have a new single to put out, What You Say, and it has enough to get it out of the gates and down the runway of its own making...maybe.

The Violet May - What You Say

The name 'Smile' is neither ironic nor literal, but figurative. Use your imagination and take that image you have of a smile to symbolize something else entirely, knock yourself out, whatever. Smile are a rock band from Reading in the UK, and with such a proximity to the perennially awesome rock festival there and having been indoctrinated on the likes of Nirvana and The Jesus Lizard, it was only a matter of time before music proved to be their escape pod. Closer, the band’s debut EP, shall be self-released on April 11th. The track on display is uniformly snotty and slacker-ly, but there's enthusiasm that helps to propel these guys along. They have been playing the London traps of late, with their next show being at the Monarch on Thursday 7th. If you like them - and you should - go check em out.

Smile - Closer

There's this south Wales four-piece called Saturday's Kids that caught my attention as I was fumbling through the myriad releases the other night. Influenced by the likes of Sonic Youth, Fugazi, Mission Of Burma and ...Trails Of Dead, I was immediately bi-curious (and by that I meant I was curious to find out if they were any good and if they were shit in equal measures. At least I think. Maybe Im bi-confused...) Anyway, Saturday's Kids is a 10" EP due out on April 7 through Art For Blind, Time As Colour and Bombed Out. Whilst they may have started out as a pretty much no frills punk band blaring out 2 minute punk songs, these five songs are edging into more experimental ground and opt for more distorted layers, tense build ups, and sometimes pensive sounds. And for you r information, the early Trail Of Dead comment is pretty much warranted.

Saturday's Kids - I Am A Runner
Saturday's Kids - The Old Comedians

Happy Sunday!