reviews

It’s official! New Jersey native Ducktails has made this summer’s soundtrack. This might be the culmination of a point in time in music history, of the so-called “lo-fi tropical psych-drone” sound.

Our new fave producer after his Fader Mix with close companion Bullion, UK beatmaker Paul White has just released his debut LP “The Strange Dreams of Paul White” which marryies everything we love from prog rock to BBC samples, with quirky beats and Brit humour.

The Young 12 string guitar master James Blackshaw takes on piano in another enchanting album of five songs spanning 50 minutes. The piano pieces are cool, yet we still prefer him fingerpicking his guitar.

Great split sampler by Italy’s Africantape Records and Chicago’s Sickroom Records with lots of quirky math-rock, noise rock and other kinds of experimental rock from Them, Roaring Twenties, Bear Claw and Three Second Kiss who are currently supporting Shellac and more..

Finally, some decent instrumental rock that doesn’t go the way of creating bland, hypersentimental electronically enhanced post-rock. We were truly bored out of our asses with that stuff and it was starting to feel like that time when everyone in your highschool was trying to become a poet.

For fans of Hannu Karjalainan, 2009 has been an aural bliss. First his giant EP “Harhailua” which clocks 31 minutes, then Hintergarten his second full-length, and what can we say, they’re both special releases. Hannu conjures intricate landscapes, not unlike the geographical landscapes of Finland, and fills them with sonic representations of human memories.

Strong contender for the best album of the year In the Country’s “Whiteout” is transcendal music at its best. Norwegian trios third album on Rune Grammofon is a one-of-a-kind mixture of contemporary jazz (or post-jazz) progressive music and classical composition.

Songs about characters “swimming in a raindrop, living in a thimble” or talking about mid-album crises and asking questions like “like what time is it, why are we here, why are you here?” are just the type of tacky juvenile fun we like.