reviews of contemporary underground psych, drone, sound art, and electronic/experimental music from the fringes
The Bug vs. Ghost Dubs, “Implosion” (Pressure, 2025)
The Bug’s Machine collection was one of my favorite albums of 2024 by a landslide, as it felt like Kevin Martin’s culminating and defining masterwork as far as his industrial-damaged […]
Kali Malone & Drew McDowall, “Magnetism” (Ideologic Organ, 2025)
This synth-centric debut collaboration between two longtime friends was recorded over the course of a single day in McDowell’s home studio back in 2022. Normally, a one-off recording session that […]
Läuten der Seele, “Unterhaltungen mit Larven und Überresten” (World of Echo, 2025)
This latest opus from Bavarian hauntological supernova Christian Schoppik is a bit of a departure from his excellent “Water” trilogy in a couple of significant ways. The big one is […]
Nurse With Wound/Diarmuid MacDiarmada “Lung Oysters” (United Dairies/Arcana Hibernia, 2025)
In recent years, the most compelling Nurse With Wound albums tend to be collaborations with other artists and this latest opus reaffirms that trend in impressively decisive fashion. Unsurprisingly, Irish […]
The Humble Bee, “Morning Music” (Cotton Goods (2010)/Dauw (2025)
Newly remastered and reissued for the first time ever, Morning Music was the second handmade release from Craig Tattersall’s solo tape music project. Notably, Tattersall had already been involved in […]
Skullflower, “Draconis” (Cold Spring, 2014)
It is hardly newsworthy to report that a Skullflower album is a blackened, face-melting fusillade of gnarled guitar noise or that it sounds like shoegaze turned occult and murderous, but […]
Roméo Poirier, “Off The Record” (Faitiche, 2025)
This fourth solo album from the reliably fascinating French collage artist is billed as “an amusing romp through the discarded history of recording studios.” That claim probably wildly oversells this […]
The Shadow Ring, “Hold Onto I.D.” (Siltbreeze (1997) / Blank Forms (2025))
Newly reissued, this singular 1998 album is billed as arguably being The Shadow Ring’s best-known and most accessible album, but there are a couple of important caveats to that claim. […]