News

Listening back to this year's Gold Record, is a sentimental journey; once again, one hears the intuitive coming together forming richly behind Bill Callahan's titanic voice. Across the stereo spectrum, the gentle conversation of Bill and Matt’s guitars, the subtle percussion of bass and drums, striking notes both decorous and discordant, like the naturally occurring sound meant to accompany and express lives lived everywhere.
 

A fitting addition to Bill's encompassing vision of our lives together and apart... (read more)

It's a holiday miracle! While exhuming the dDeath vaults, the band came across an incredible gift: a full, concert length video documentation of their 2014 performance in Paris, France. Over an hour long, the performance (captured by Oleo Films TVM-Cineplume for avec la participation de France Televisions) is like having a personalized, one of kind live show beamed directly to the screen of your choice! A concert you can go to without changing out of your pajamas, can you imagine that?

Bobby Hackney writes:
... (read more)

The bestial duo of the Superwolves: Matt Sweeney and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy reveal a video for “Make Worry For Me,” directed by Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe and filmed at A Cell in The Smile, Freeman and Lowe’s architectonic sculpture.

Freeman and Lowe are renowned for immersive architectural exhibits that explore a subverted dystopian reality. Their installations have shown internationally for over a decade. A Cell in The Smile is a 5,000 square foot bunker that sits 27 feet underground in an undisclosed location... (read more)

Seven years and a handful of lifetimes ago, New Bums came out of nowhere with their debut album, Voices In a Rented Room – a record the New York Times described as “feeling like it’s falling apart.” New Bums took this as a compliment, and thus emboldened, they toured relentlessly in support of the release: criss-crossing the USA in the spring of 2014, with a European run that summer. Then, silence descended, as the Bums withdrew to the place from which they’d mysteriously emerged -... (read more)

“I’ve been driving through the darkness…through the smoke and fire on the ground”

Lingering at the remains of a campfire before dawn, with the politics of the personal burnt into ash, running his stick through what’s left, Wand singer/guitarist Cory Hanson is reflecting on moments of stepping further into himself, finding the ultimate big sky country on the inside of his skull. It’s a combination of songs and sounds that journey through bleak and broken territory and places of sweet, lush remove and it adds... (read more)

An apparition you can’t explain is cutting through the viscous mist in your brain. The contents of your pockets are suddenly unfamiliar. That sound again -

This year of super wolf moon brought A Visitation and the message, “You’ll Get Eaten, Too.” Now, in the earthly chaos of total celestial blackout, one body containing two galaxies is once more among us...

This is no miscount – this is the bestial duo, the two headed dawg, the Superwolves:  Matt Sweeney... (read more)

Nearly eight months into our collective isolation without a real gig in sight, what're ya gonna do? Dope Body have taken the relentless planning and prepping out of the equation in favor of a straight dopamine shot to the hypothalamus, in the form of the new video for "Known Unknown" depicting the communal energy of live Dope Body - shelter in place be damned!
 

The catharsis-inducing Crack A Light album closer gets a video treatment (courtesy of Dope collaborator Theo... (read more)

Just when you thought every loner folk genius had been outed/discovered, hyped, and pontificated about, a new/old challenger lurks in the murky depths of time...and Maine. Sure, you have your Skip Spences, Dave Bixbys, Stone Harbours, and Perry Leopolds already, but have you heard the lonesome sound of Bill Stone?

Well, don't feel too uncool, hardly anyone has--unless you lived in rural Maine in the early 70s and grabbed his barely-ever seen LP in the day. Titled simply Stone, Bill's mysterious album... (read more)

Stateless is an improvised guitar music record that's about more than just playing your way into somewhere new. It invites we the people to perceive the hair-raising truth: these are free pieces in more ways than one. Tashi's playing opens doors through which we can view the helplessness, confusion, rage and resolve of immigrant life in America today.
 

"Now, Part I" is guitar in space, orbiting our planet - the laser is not pointed outward, but back towards... (read more)

Round two from the dust-strewn cassettes in ye old Sic Alps archives, this time drawn from the latter stages of their comet-like trajectory. Sketches for material that landed on Napa Asylum, Sic Alps, the "She's on Top" EP, and assorted singles is all included here. The enigmatic smile through which the Alps songs are crooned, that key - levity - is oft swapped for brevity here, in the name of getting the thoughts down.  
 

But even... (read more)