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For their sophomore effort/Drag City debut, the enigmatic duo of Kamikaze Palm Tree (Dylan Hadley / Cole Berliner), slide elegantly into it, their tunes a harmony of ambiguity and nostalgia, cross-talking in the high register and rounded with thick bottom - a dancing clash of cognition and dissonance.

In their few years of life, they found themselves over two EPs and a live set (all on Bandcamp), exploring everything they loved, all at once, before landing a direct hit, with their album debut,... (read more)

Anthony Moore’s contribution to the post-punk/pre-wave sound of London in 1979 – abrasive truth to power made into chart fodder, frosted with production sparkle and draped in strings of keyboard theory–is all over Flying Doesn’t Help, a lovely collision of art, pop and punk from the megacenter of all things in the rock and roll era. Originally released on Moore’s own QUANGO imprint, this environment proved ideal for Anthony's process: make records by exploring, or as he put it, tapping the “deep connection between minimalism,... (read more)

The man in the tree with the guitar? He’s gonna sing! But the sun shining through the branches — are those rays yellow or hazy gray? When again are you not going to feel this way? Pulling at the scratchy wool threads of an old sweater, Ty Segall extracts melodic fibers to braid each strand anew. What emerges then weaves together chimes of freedom and rows of desolation - it lights up all of our senses (including the all-important equilibrium-centric 6th and 7th senses) with... (read more)

Mess Esque, the Australian duo of Mick Turner (Dirty Three) and Helen Franzmann (McKisko), got off to a fast start in 2021 with two quietly electrifying albums: Dream #12 and their self-titled debut for Drag City. That electricity sparks from Mick’s aquatic guitar moods meeting with Helen's vocals and dream imagery, causing nights, tides and empty landscapes to simmer with raw passion. You feel like being moved in a deep and fulfilling way? Then Mess Esque is for you, and no... (read more)

Time passes slowly - until it don't! For instance: the year it's been since the release of Nathan Bowles and Bill MacKay debut album. It's only now that they're set to take their musical keys to the kingdom on tour, for all subjects to hear - but really, what's 'only now'? The end of a long time, or a short one? Fortunately, it's no matter: if you ain't already, slip Keys into any little eyelet you find in your day, and prepare to unlock a lovely... (read more)

The UK pop charts in 1979 breathlessly reported on the changing spectrum serenading a new generation, made of equal parts aging hippie and prog delicacies alongside new ascendant sounds: rough-hewn pub and punk rock, dub reggae, disco, ska, among Stiff and Krautrock.

Flying Doesn’t Help presented Slapp Happy's Anthony Moore in a spiky art-punk reinvention - a cult masterpiece to be joined several decades later by the revelation of 1976's lost-then-found OUT. At the time however, Flying Doesn't Help was Anthony only known contribution to the... (read more)

“Hello, Hi”! Welcome in, to a new room to play the styles and feels that lie under Ty Segall’s fingers, easing fresh air into acoustic space with an assortment of love songs flowering in righteous unconsciousness. Plaintive and wistful, unafraid. Like rain washing away yesterday, “Hello, Hi” pushes open the door, inviting you to pass through all the old shades and degrees of hot and cold. Dark paths turn off abruptly into absurd darkness, then wind back through the broken rocks, ecstatic again.... (read more)

Veteran noisemakers (and good pals!) Dean Spunt (No Age) & John Wiese (Sissy Spacek) debut as collaborators on The Echoing Shell, a fantastic conception in contemporary musique concrète. John Wiese’s stunning reassemblage of Dean Spunt’s drumming noise, is abstraction, sure - but only implied abstraction; drawing from the rumble and crash of the traps, finding dimensions of hiss and crunch beyond the sounds of a traditional drumkit.

Utilizing a variety of techniques, Wiese's commitment to working through the process of editing and tape-manipulation... (read more)

Nah. Nah! How can it be two years since Jackie Lynn's Jacqueline album? If so, let's celebrate the wild ebb and flow of the our timestream, while we simultaneously raise a glass to the anniversary of Jackie's very real milestone in musical evolution!
And what then's a celebration without gifts? A song for each year!

April 2020: Jacqueline plunges into the glittering American darkness headfirst, driving and dancing through new identities, dreams and realities. Jackie Lynn, electric in their natural state – electrique, even -... (read more)

We are commemorating the 20th year anniversary of the passing of John Henry Timmis IV aka J.T. IV (b. Sept 21, 1961, d. April 1 2002). John was a street-smart rock rebel whose whole design was to shock, woo, and fabricate. Living amid the public health crises, economic problems, and wars of the 1980s—much like we are experiencing today—John’s self-reflection, vulnerability, and primal scream converged in a short yet highly ambitious glimmer of time. His music and films were unflinchingly political, and as... (read more)