It’s been a busy three years since Disappears, Chicago’s most efficient noise rock band, issued its first proper LP with Kranky. Keeping with the group’s M.O. of releasing a record a year while continuously touring, even picking up and leaving behind spare Sonic Youth members along…
“Mind Field” is the debut single from Tallahassee band Smooth Church, mixing intricately crafted baroque pop with funk and a touch of existential paranoia. The song is teeming with little arrangement and production touches — a tambourine flourish here, an extra counterpoint melody there — that…
Brett Yale, one of the gentle-peeps hard at work behind the velvet curtain at Friends Records and lately a contributor to Impose Magazine, recently started a new recurring feature for the Imposition called Baltimore Tape Club. He describes it as “sitting cross-legged with a Walkman in a semi-circle,…
Behold, the epitome of the tried and true idiom “keep it simple.” Dirty Pillows, an upstart 7″ and tape label based simultaneously in Minneapolis, MN and Savannah, GA, just dropped Philly riffers Harsh Vibes‘ ripping new track “Jam Forever.” While the eccentric young…
I’ve sort of come to expect that every seven or eight months, FAVORS will release another (free) EP of amazing songs that I can immediately devour like a pack of bubblegum. His latest digestible installment, Tulips EP, does not disappoint — David Mohr is joined by Evan Bailey on guitar, and…
The cognitive significance of any label that can effectively curate a diverse and engaging catalog within a particular genre framework is enormous; they become touchstones for how nostalgia evolves over time and engines of change, simply by virtue of releasing works that effectively illustrate the nuance…
Dubby, abstract techno isn’t a new thing. Chain Reaction and the Basic Channel crew peddled spacious beats, anonymous low-ends and airy production trademarked by genre greats like Porter Ricks, Vladislav Delay, and Monolake throughout the mid 90′s. As Gas, Wolfgang Voigt produced darkly…
Chicago’s Drag City started an imprint with Ty Segall this year called GOD? Records, and they’ve since coordinated three releases; a reissue of White Fence’s debut LP and another from Trin Tran, though their most recent offering is Scraper‘s awesome self-titled 7″, released…
Pleasence Records once again demonstrates their unflagging devotion to exploring the furthest reaches of the sonic landscape with the impending release of this undeniably epic 12-inch split between Montreal’s Hobo Cubes and TAIWAN, who hail from Edmonton, Alberta. I’ve been following Francesco…
Oregon based producer Cestladore gives us an amazing remake of the soul-classic Brenton Woods’ “Gimme Little Sign,” a stand out track featured on the STYLSS: Suicide Pact Six mixtape. Released by Portland imprint STYLSS with a tape edition forthcoming on Purr Tapes, I was pleasantly surprised…
From Turbo Recordings‘ stable of contemporary artists permuting old-school techno comes the ‘Clock’ EP from Bristolian JoeFarr. Here the gambit involves juicy, distorted beats, and wiry synthesizers: picture the grisly title-track, wherein a deep, oppressive voice barks out some depraved…
One Inch Badge is a label operating out of Brighton, UK. Their roster is extensive and diverse, ranging from angsty, spitting noise rock, to skittering techno. What initially attracted me to their new label sampler, which is currently streaming on the label’s SoundCloud, was the placename; it’s…
Originally released on eccentric Baltimore boutique imprint Catsup Plate in 2008, Mountains Mountains Mountains is the aural equivalent of a band at a crossroads. Koen Holtkamp and Brendon Anderegg’s third LP as Mountains quietly surfaced as a new direction for the duo, who’d cut their…
The fresh and funny American duo Chaz & Alex dropped their first LP via Splash Tapes a few days ago with a propper #SPF420 release party. The 11 track album was presented live after an amazing virtual DJ set performed by the duo, which elaborately satirized the increasingly ambiguous pop culture…
All female production collective Net Elite’s first compilation was released today; I confess, I’ve been anticipating it for a while, and the result doesn’t disappoint. After listening through compilation a few times, I felt that each song left something totally different printed in…
It’s been a quiet 2013 for Andy Petr, the Brooklyn producer whose last release was 2012’s Obsession EP. While that release, as well as the previous Rapper Turned Singer EP, emphasized frantic, sample-heavy dance songs, the self-released “Waiting For An Old Friend” takes the form of a subtle…
If you are already familiar with German psychedelic warriors Datashock, than you know that this band doesn’t exactly do “small.” It’s all-the-way-out-to-space or nothing every time. So it should come as no surprise that a new 25-minute cassette release collecting four outtakes from their…
When I was starting to get somewhere with my first label, I was also in the course of deciding to spend my more or less productive undergraduate years as a Religious Studies major; a gratifying decision, it turns out, comparative religions being a little more interesting and expressive of individuals…
It’s been a while since I last tuned into Sich Mang; whom I originally discovered via an amazing split release with The-Drum at the start of 2012 (remember 2012?) Now the duo is readying their new full-length for Rainbow Body, titled BLWNTOUT. “Horrible Bosses”, an intense-yet-playful…
As the first international artist to release on Austin’s Holodeck label, Montreal’s Marie Davidson makes quite the first impression on her self-titled EP. From the spindly keys of opener “Ma vie sans toi,” to the melancholic vocals of “Esthetique privee,” Davidson has crafted an icy, beautiful,…
