Sometimes the things you question the most in life are instead the things least worthy of consideration. Like, for instance, what have Mountain Goats fans done to deserve the forthcoming Spring tour-leg with Dead Rider? Delving into the state of people's karma and/or the vagaries of the luck of the draw....these are some not worth considering. Instead, it's more fruitful to consider how Dead Rider's show will be reanimated in the big rooms they'll be playing back East in April. That's a delicious... (read more)

Bill MacKay & Ryley Walker are out on the road, playing their way from town to town. "Stretching My Dollar In Plano" is a dusty, sonic evocation of the slow waltz across Texas, but the video? Plano's a very long way from LA, and it usually seem that most places are -that's why we have an inescapable Shangri-La-cum-Val-Halla-type of dream that we reflect upon when considering that faraway angel city. There's even a time that being in LA can seems as expansive as a dream... (read more)

As fall rises to its apex, and withers away, with Thankslessgiving, Bleak Friday, the Equinox and all that all that other shit on the 'risin, the lid on the sun bowl is rattling. Through a crack in the snow globe, natural energy is fixed to explode. Bajas Fresh is coming! The sonical light 'n lazering of Bitchin Bajas is come back to us again, as sure as seasons (gulp!...). Their latest epic comes three years after their S/T album broke open the barrier into new... (read more)

Circuit des Yeux's latest addition to an already stunning repertoire, Reaching For Indigo, is deep and austere, pulsating with life stemming from one intimate moment that fell down on January 22nd 2016. Now the moment that fell down in Haley Fohr's life a year-plus ago is giving us something to live for, today! With a sound vibration as universal as it is deeply personal, Reaching For Indigo is an album with a message of self-discovery. Conjuring a complete experience, Circuit des Yeux... (read more)

Cast into a moment of tumult and discovery, Pearls Before Swine contributed a uniquely earthy strain to the arc of sound that defined the time and place of the later 1960s, via exotic instruments, electronic oscillation or pure, simple intent as communicated by Tom Rapp's erudite, yet humane songs. There was proto-punk in the mix, rife with humor, aloft with the pastoral acoustics of the banjo; music of the people of the world, all in the service of  Rapp's visceral, unblinking lyrics.

YOU BETTER BELIEVE…THIS IS HOW IT IS

Hoy! It's just another brave new day in America, and wherever else - so don't start with that "How Did I Get Here?" stuff. Shit, how DIDN'T you? You made your choices, backed your horses, cast your ballots, chose whether or not to call the authorities, took the law into your own hands, occupied a moral free-zone with a capacity of one....and hey, on an entirely lighter note, you decided what music to listen... (read more)

Sapropelic Pycnic, Ka Baird's very fresh Drag City debut, harkens otherworldly sounds and brings them back down to earth. Evoking rhythms and chants of the tribes, Ka reaches down into the mud of time immemorial to present something that never goes out of style - a catharsis of soul and an expression of devotion that comes from within, touching the eternal.  "Metamorphoses" is a sharp and focused amalgamation of all sounds found on Sapropelic Pycnic-- synthesized elements with bursts of electrifying intensity. Directed... (read more)

Ty Segall reaches deep down into his deep bag of rocks and pulls out an uptempo dance number, an armload of guitars and a hardcore jam, urging us ultimately to jailbreak from the self-imposed thought prison we've all been raised in. No, tonight's not the night, do it now! Denée Segall's lead vocals hammer home "Meaning" with unbridled strength: "I see fear in freedom..." Is this what's holding us back? Ask yourself, man! Listen here:

It's 2017 (still? -ed.) and we've finally got what we've all been waiting for - a new piece of work from Mayo Thompson! No, Krayola-heads, it isn't a new record for year eagerly awaiting ears: it's actually time to get out your reading glasses and enjoy the debut tome from one of the most creative geniuses of the past 50 years!  In Art, Mystery, a disgraced former footballer, now export agent specializing in chrome, accepts an unusual commission from an odd... (read more)

Fresh off the release of Plum, an album deemed "psychedelia in the truest sense of the meaning - coltish, dark, invigorating and endlessly curious," (Uncut - hey, when did these guys become experts? - ed. ;)), Wand are currently deep in the heart of America's back roads and highways, bringing their unparalleled, empathetic rock to stages big and small.  The maturation of Wand from fuzz-warlords to progressively moody and dark song-writing powerhouses is striking - their heaviness unwavering, their urgency ever-present, yet somehow beyond... (read more)