Yoga - Megafauna

Debut release for the mind-bending duo of Sam Meringue (aka Explorers, James Ferraro’s 90210 etc) and Jason Pearl (Living Tapes). Yoga play a form of hallucinatory 21st century DIY ritual that filters metal bombast and black psychedelic atmospherics through hyperreal hypnagogic territories and Skaters-style luminal dreamtones. Parts of this almost sound like Lamborghini Crystal soundtracking some 1980s apocalyptic city-under-siege VHS, but it’s the metal backbone that transports it fully into its own universe, with flashing keyboards and buzzing electro-melodies generating a murky swamp-storm while somewhere in the distance the silhouettes of dinosaurs make a thunderous passage through the skies. Some tracks seem to be made up of a handful of simple sounds, a phased guitar, a keyboard loop, but the degree of F/X and the precise placement of the tones makes the whole deal sound miles deep, like Goblin’s soundtrack to Dario Argento’s Suspiria heard through torrential rain or black 1980s keyboard zones broadcast through ancient tannoy systems somewhere in space. Massively psychedelic and another thrilling step sideways for Meringue and co. Highly recommended. Buy it.

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Stellar OM Source - Rise in Planes LP

A powerful multidimensional analog stormcaster jams by none other than Christelle Gualdi, an underwater synth goddess. Released on Black Dirt 2009.

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Angus MacLise - Invasion of the Thunderbolt Pagoda

When Lou Reed ditched this shamanic man from the original lineup of VU, obviously he made a terrible mistake. After leaving the Velvet Underground for good, Angus traveled around between North Africa, India, Greece, the Middle East and finally finding his place in Nepal. A student of both La Monte Young and Aleister Crowley, he would begin to blend Tibetan mysticism with his music to create magical forms of transcendent sound through various drone techniques. If you try this album, then you will likely to find that the Skaters' music is the mammoth serenaded by this dinosaur music. You just can't describe this. Try it.

Angus MacLise - Invasion of the Thunderbolt Pagoda

Lilypad - Capacitor

Lilypad is 1/3 of the mighty Emeralds. This cassette offers washes of envelope filters and dreamy LFOs and other alien stuff your brain just couldn't handle. Perfect for self-hypnosis evening.

Lilypad - Capacitor

Sunburned Hand of the Man/Emeralds - What If God Was on the Subway?/Smoke This Now (Split)

This is one of the best split albums ever. You think you are hearing Skaters while its actually Sunburned and Emeralds is getting better and better with their unreal fogs of noises. Must check this out.

Sunburned/Emeralds - Split

Magik Markers - Gucci Rapidshare Download

"gucci rapidshare download is the magik markers at their most intense and subversive. ready to rock your ass with more than just guitar and drums, the markers are coming at you this time around with violins, manipulated dumpster-dived hip hop tapes, synths, joshua burkett on organ, ben chasny on acoustic guitar and all sorts of other fun. despite all of these other diverse elements, the old-style guitar/drum freak out "the clement, the concealing" is the single most shredding moment in the band's complete catalog. grab a six pack and enjoy." -threelobed

Magik Markers - Gucci Rapidshare Download

Gang Gang Dance - Saint Dymphna

The NY wyrd dance party gang did it again! this time with more psycho beats, dubstep injection, brain-melting electronic glitcheries and even a ghetto hip hop collaboration with MC Tinchy Strider! from a great expectations come great satisfaction. DANCE!

Gang Gang Dance - Saint Dymphna

Sun Araw - Boat Trip

Cameron Stallones, the co-pilot of the Long Beach Travellers "Magic Lantern" has come out with another stunning soundtrack to tropical rainforest psych party following the marvelous "The Phynx". This 2 tracks carbon-rusted noise gem is one of the best pick of the year.

Sun Araw - Boat Trip

Nisennenmondai - Neji/Tori

Nisennenmondai, a group that creates epic architectural masses of instrumental sound treading somewhere between Lightning Bolt’s noise and Neu!’s Krautrock. Himeno Sayaka, Zaikawa Yuri and Takada Masako met at a noise club while in university in 1999, but apart from a string of self-released EPs and various hand-pressed cassettes/CD-Rs, the group has not released a proper full-length, and has been difficult to source outside of Japan. Neji/Tori is a compilation of two previous EPs that serves as a good introduction to the band’s sound; the songs are stylistically similar enough that there’s no problem in sticking them alongside one another. Twisted kawaiiness.

Nisennenmondai - Neji/Tori

Koi Pond - Volcano

Koi Pond is a three piece from NYC made up of some generally awesome dudes. Erik Roper plays bass and is a legendary artist/illustrator who does work for numerous bands, labels and publications such as Arthur, Southern Lord etc. while also playing in other bands such as Under Satans Sun and Mattalama. Pete Vogal plays synth while also jamming in Bow Ribbons, and designs arwork for clothes, David Aron plays drums, is the perpetrator for Little Cakes Gallery, used to skateboard alot, makes rad visual artwork, and jams in USUN with Mark Borthwick and Hisham Bharoocha. Despite these dudes epic resumes, Koi Pond is epic all on its own. Volcano is all about cosmic grooves, deep often minimal, endless repetitions that slowly evolve into more psyched out blissed out trances. Roper and Arons tight rhythmic foundations create the perfect backdrop for Vogal's synth improvisations. This is a meditative listen that never gets old, it just keeps grooving on and on forever. Like Neu! covering Dark Magus in a Tibetan Monastery.

Koi Pond - Volcano part 1
Koi Pond - Volcano part 2

Popol Vuh - Das Hohelied Salomos

Popol Vuh emerged from the Krautrock movement and was the first German band to employ the Moog Synthesizer. Popol Vuh was founded by mastermind Florian Fricke in Munich in 1970 and are known as pioneers of electronic music as well as the predecessors of the 90's ambient and trance genre. The name and the book Popol Vuh stems from Incan mythology and is the memory of the evolution of humanity. The roots of all stairs to rainbow.

Popol Vuh - Das Hohelied Salomos

Religious Knives - The Door

New dope leak, enough said. A summer record for those dread days when the heat holds low and skin sticks to cheap car seats and old patio furniture. These six songs are brighter, sharper than anything that has come before, locking in tight on jugular rhythms. Grab this.

Religious Knives - The Door

Lanterns - Mad River

Hailing from Leeds, UK, Lanterns are Rhid Williams, Luke Vollar and Andreas Jonsson. Sonic vibrations of meandering drones resonating in eerie Taj Mahal Travellers-like mushrooms stuffed with chimes, ebowed strings, subtle electronics and other shimmering nightly meditation tools. The track begins with a repetitive but uncompromising drum rythm which occupies pretty much the whole 20 minutes. It starts slow and meditative, but soon various layers of guitar, feedback and violin (burried there somewhere) start to build more and more tension. Torwards the end it turns into a powerful splutter of guitar noise, feedback and fierce drum pounding. Do not wear your life vest.

Lanterns - Mad River

Boredoms - Seadrum/House of Sun

Honouring the goddess of sun, the Amaterasu, Boredoms (with Gang Gang Dance & Hisham Bharoocha) will conduct an 88 minutes colossal taiko war between 88 drummers TOMORROW in NY and LA, following the prior '77 BoaDrum' last year. To honour this holiest event, please load down this beautiful, rhythmic gallop of harmonic singing, freeform piano, chaotic harp and some of the most insane drumming you will ever hear in your life. My favorite Boredoms release. Tan tan tatatan!

Boredoms - Seadrum/House of Sun

Justice Yeldham

Just saw this guy last night at an art school in Jakarta. Fucking amazing!












Check him out here.

Photos by Moses Sihombing

James Ferraro - Alternative Soundtrack to: Scream in Blue Surf Video

If you are new to the non-toxic humidity of the jungle of The Skaters' music, you might want to try half of it. James Ferraro is the Yang of the joint, sometimes emerge from the darkness of your barn as Pacific Rat Temple Band, Lamborghini Crystal, and other satin smelling smoke entities. Mixing crocodile's eye balls with various kinds of hawaiian red lava honeydews, Alternative Soundtrack to: Scream in Blue Surf Video is a good starter for your foggy morning. Coolness.

James Ferraro - Alternative Soundtrack to: Scream in Blue Surf Video

Wet Hair - s/t

Raccoo-oo-oon's mastermind Shawn Reed is not satisfied with all the blasting electric tribal storm he summoned in his band, so he digs up another hole in his cave and discover Wet Hair. This is the first solo outing of Shawn as Wet Hair, recorded during late fall of 2007. Cult vibe organ drone, slowed down tape hiss percussion warble, and chanted vocal bathed in echo, plus extra siliconized army of delayed blood bath. Play it loud. Play it forever. And you'll be a silver fox in your next life.

Wet Hair - s/t

Kawabata Makoto - Hosanna Mantra

Inspired by Popol Vuh and originally released in a tiny pressing of 550 on vinyl from the inimitable Acid Mothers Temple frontman. Guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and leader of Acid Mothers Temple, Kawabata Makoto expresses all his mantric cosmical vocations and spins them into space sonorities! He took inspiration from the Popol Vuh album Hosianna Mantra during his visit to A Silent Place headquarters in late Winter 2006. A few days later, back in Japan, Makoto recorded the Hosanna Mantra album at the Acid Mothers Temple between March 12th and 13th using electric guitar, bouzouki, and sitar. The result is this new fantastic sound coming from the cosmos. A simple gem of crystalline beauty. Licensed from A Silent Place.

Kawabata Makoto - Hosanna Mantra

Sunburned Hand of the Man - Fire Escape

Fire Escape, was released by Smalltown Supersound on October 2, 2007. Produced by Kieran Hebden (Four Tet), and led these days by John Moloney, Sunburned Hand of the Man is not a band in the traditional sense, Sunburned is a collection of like minded artists and musicians gathered together for the purposes of group exploration and an undying search for the 'ecstatic truth'.

Kieran Hebden's relationship with Sunburned Hand of the Man began after Hebden read an article in The Wire that touted Sunburned Hand Of The Man as leaders of the "New Weird America". The story sent Hebden on a search of Sunburned records and he's been a fan of them ever since. Sunburned supported Four Tet for a two-week tour in the spring of 2004. A couple of years later in March 2006, Hebden asked the band if they would like him to record them in a London studio (the Exchange) with the idea that he would take the recordings and construct his vision of a Sunburned record. Fire Escape is that vision.

Both Sunburned Hand of the Man and Smalltown Supersound are fans of Boredoms and they asked the band's leader, Yamatsuka Eye, to create the artwork for Fire Escape. The artwork Eye created perfectly captures the band, the album and the sound.

This is practically one of my favorite albums of the century!

Sunburned - Fire Escape

Grouper - Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill

Portland's Liz Harris has once again made a stunning album, this third one is called 'Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill'. Here, we find her on fine form, presumably having drank from the same spring that carried neighbour and labelmate Peter Broderick across the pond earlier this month. This album trickles from the speakers like a kind of one-woman Campfire Songs, conjuring an alien spectrum where guitars and drones are just two points on the same trend. A must-hear.

Grouper - Dragging a Dead Deer..