September 6, 2025 at 11:33 am | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Jetski: The Radiant Radish
After years of doing album reviews for AllMusic and WCBN, I’ve become so used to doing highly descriptive album reviews, and I wish I was better at doing the sort of unhinged reviews that a site like Tiny Mixtapes would do, where it barely even seems to reference the album it’s supposed to be reviewing. That writing style would be way more appropriate for an album like
this, which completely throws a cream pie in the face of logic and hoses it down with Faygo. Basically, this is hyperactive glitchcore which somehow manages to have a jazz-inspired sense of rhythm, while fitting in with the pop culture overload absurdity of much of the Hausu Mountain catalogue. Apparently this album was crafted from thousands of samples taken from royalty free sound libraries and public domain films, all triggered live using a touch responsive sampling app and a network of iPads and iPhones. There’s dialogue snippets from grainy old black and white instructional films, along with lots of very clean and professionally recorded instruments twisted and broken apart, constantly interrupted by out-of-context moments. While there’s always several things going off at once, the mix is actually clean and spacious enough that you can hear everything, making it obvious how much care was put into making this thing sound exactly the way it does. Final track “Gumshoe” indulges in cartoon sound effects, but dumps them into an ambient lounge jazz nightmare rather than a gofy mock theme song. Much of this album is a barrage of extreme juxtapositions between the discordant and the comfortable/familiar, and at least for this brain-scrambled listener, it plugs right into the circuit, and it’s fun as hell.
August 24, 2025 at 1:44 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
v/a: Submerge Sessions Volume 1
This newly released comp from the Submerge/UR family spotlights newer artists from the Detroit scene, along with a few more established names who have been releasing music for a while. Most of these tracks are more abstract electro and techno, there aren’t many conventional club bangers here. Some tracks proceed into gradual elevation, like the opener by Indira Edwards, and others inhabit a deep, specific space in the mind, like the skeletal electro beats and detached atmospheric sounds of Sugar’s “Machine State No. 12”. Huey Mnemonic has one of the more driving, muscular beats on here, and Shawescape Renegade blasts off into the outer quadrants. There’s also a bonkers track by Mechanatura, aptly titled “Sineshredder”, which sounds like a robot being thrown into a spiralling wormhole. Last time I went to Submerge I found a cd-r by this artist consisting of a single 80-minute track in the Little Free Library outside the building. Kamau Baaqi has another one of the more experimental tracks here (though it’s much slower), and I didn’t even realize until now that this is the same artist who used to record as Darling Farah, and that he was from Detroit. Tenko is another name to watch, his track is more sublime and breakbeat-driven, perfect for afternoon cruising while still surging with machine funk. Earther’s “Digi Dust” is a hazy downtempo comedown with fast, intricately flickering blips and more relaxed, atmospheric pads.
July 18, 2025 at 1:02 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Jonathon Crompton: Cantata No. 1: An Island Seen and Felt
Australian expat Jonathon Crompton composed this three-movement suite as both a reflection and celebration of his homeland, as he felt homesick and recalled memories from his childhood. The pieces are performed in a modern version of the cantata form, with narrative lyrics and imagery as well as spiritual connotations. The arrangements primarily consist of strings and soprano operatic vocals, though the electric guitar on the first movement is quite jazzy. Crompton’s own alto saxophone playing is wistful and delicate, but most of the emotional weight is carried by the string quartet, who swell up like rushing waves, particularly on the second movement. The third and final movement seems to be the most nostalgic, aching deeply for the beaches, the plains, the woods, the sunsets, the landscapes of home.
July 17, 2025 at 8:18 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Three-Layer Cake: Sounds the Color of Grounds LP
Three-Layer Cake brings together legendary Minutemen bassist Mike Watt as well as percussionist Mike Pride and guitarist/banjoist Brandon Seabrook, both of whom, like Watt, have been in too many bands to list. Watt’s bass tone and close-miked narratives (on the first track of each side, and “The Lonely Sail”) are unmistakable, but these songs generally exist in a free-flowing improv realm instead of anything overtly resembling punk. Some of it is mesmerizingly trippy, like the echoed drumming and slashing riffs of “The Hasta Cloth”. Other tracks have nice, ambling grooves, and feel casual but not really jammy. “Tchotchkes” is a warped reggae exotica tune with marimbas, which somehow works. “Lickspittle Spatter” is the album’s most drum-heavy eruption, making it sound like something’s cooking, like the title suggests.
May 5, 2025 at 8:24 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Celestaphone & Dealers of God: Cult Subterranea
Celestaphone’s previous album,
Paper Cut From the Obit, was such a complex, reality-questioning work that I’m still processing it two years later — all I can say for sure is that it’s bonkers and fun as hell.
Cult Subterranea is shorter and has less songs on it, so it doesn’t feel quite as sprawling, but it still feels like it’s being beamed down from another plane of awareness. It’s less jazz-funk and avant-prog than the previous album and a bit closer to post-punk, though ultimately it’s a singular form of galaxy brain art-rap. It’s also self-described as “antigospel”, which is most immediately evident with songs like “Drake Passage” (opening line: “‘Christian progressive’, that’s just an oxymoron”). The album is dedicated to Harry Horse, the creator of an obscure ’90s PC game called
Drowned God: Conspiracy of the Ages, which proposed that human history was a lie and aliens aided humanity’s development and evolution. I assume that some of the album’s lyrics relate these themes to the current state of the world. There’s also a lot of bars which eloquently describe how moronic and useless most rappers are. The Bandcamp description states “This is entertainment NOT an affidavit”, so maybe it’s best to not to overthink this and just enjoy the ride, but it would be a disservice to say that it’s not that deep, because it clearly is. Anyway, the song with Blu and Quelle Chris sounds a bit more down-to-earth, even if it’s about a UFO abduction, and “Chaenodraco” is a dystopian fanfare at the cyberpunk Outback Steakhouse.
April 20, 2025 at 8:45 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Wetdogg: pssssssp… LP
I saw this artist live years ago and all but forgot about her, but I remember she was the best act on the bill that night.
Here’s an LP out on a new-ish Detroit label which also put out an MGUN record. The music on this record is intimate bedroom electronics, reminding me of what Unicorn Hard-On used to do, or TALsounds. Lyrics are usually short and simple (“hold me close, don’t you know, you’re the one I want the most”), and the tracks are curious, minimal synth grooves. They don’t explode into neon colors but they have a unique sparkle and shimmer to them. “y can’t we b friends” is a sort of barroom conflict with an incredibly beautiful electropop melody. The second side is a bit more techno-ish, and “dream last night” is a really beautiful, woozy dub-soul track. “signal” is also pretty, if less memorable. “wetdoggs beat” is a playful little tune repeating a sample of the project’s name.
April 13, 2025 at 6:24 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Longmont Potion Castle: Alive in ’25
The new LPC doesn’t dip into political talk like the last one (I’m still cracking up over Reince Priebus and Wayne Freebus), but it contains a lot of flat-out absurdity and deception. He argues with an Australian dude at 3AM about a breadstick, and tries to collect unused drugs from people who claim not to use drugs but get extremely riled up and paranoid about the subject. He keeps insisting that a yellow-ish tomato-like fruit is called a permission, and asks record stores for albums by Brush (the Canadian band with a high-voiced singer who had a hit with “Huckleberry Finn”) and Toolbox (they have 15-minute songs and their singer’s name is Elmo). “Harps of Eternity” applies LPC’s love of jargon to Ren Faire subjects, and elsewhere he tells a guy with aquariums that fish can have a plankton spasm, otherwise known on the street as a leech belch. Also, he put contact mics in grandfather clocks and got them to play a wild version of “Won’t You Let Me Take You on a Sea Cruise”. Also, this one includes a 70-minute phone interview with a pair of writers from Amsterdam, recorded during the pandemic, and LPC wasn’t quite sure if he was going to be able to keep putting out albums, but obviously he has anyway. And there’s also mention about an Adult Swim show falling through because they wanted to use voice actors for legal reasons, and other things that indicate that how mainstream media doesn’t really see eye to eye with what LPC does. So any opportunity to gain some insight into his process is always fascinating.
April 1, 2025 at 10:47 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
lunch: Dinner
I’m going to make a confession here. I never saw this band live, even though their guitarist was co-music director with me at WCBN for basically the entire time this band existed. Furthermore, I didn’t even check out any of their music during that time. Listening to
their album now, more than half a year after it was released and the band broke up, I just feel shameful, because this astonishingly good. Instrumental math-rock with tons of volume and complexity, saying an entire band’s worth with just guitar and drums, not unlike Hella. “Rat Surgery in a Sedan” is an all-at-once brain-shocker that attacks in a nice way. “Hex.Dritalin (For Kyle at the American Legion)” is a longer one which starts with some sharp frequencies, and trails off into more emo guitar melodies. “The Idea of Tamara Tamara” feels like a bit of a rest, then “Oh, You Just Missed It” builds and gets increasingly agitated, with minimalist guitar riffs and battering drums, though they both switch between intensity levels. “xkeyscore kidney” is a slowly-building 13-minute epic which requires patience, but reaches a massive conclusion.
December 15, 2024 at 1:11 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Razorlegs: Daragada LP
Noise-rock duo Razorlegs make a racket with an arsenal of guitars, drums, oscillators, keyboards, and other things that make loud sounds. The first side of
this LP focuses on shorter bursts of ideas, with most tracks lasting a minute or two before conking out. Starting with the feedback-rattled onslaught of “Parsifal”, these tracks are densely packed, chaotic barriers of energy. “Irrevo Storm” is partially filled with sounds playing backwards along with dinky-sounding toy instruments. The slower, less noisy “The Rhino” also has some more intimate, handheld objects being played, as well as more of a bass groove. “Ding Dongin'” is the album’s first longer track, and after starting out hobbling and struggling to keep it together, the oscillators and rhythm section manage to reach some sort of union and it all rockets forward together. “Belmondo Cane” is more of a steady rhythm and acid rock guitar solo covered in smoldering distortion. The second side of the record, apart from a short interlude, is just two lengthy jams, with “KG Maggot” being a manic yet focused wreck which stops abruptly at 11 minutes, and the shaker-accompanied “Public Image Mutilated” being shaggy, jittery, and still loosely danceable.
November 3, 2024 at 1:26 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Windy & Carl: Heavy Early & The Creation Of Venus
Currently available at the group’s live shows and on
Bandcamp, the new Windy & Carl album consists of two tracks, nearly an hour each, which have been in the making for years. “Heavy Early” has a Smiths-inspired jangly guitar riff looped endlessly, with subtle atmospheric details underneath. It also feels like there’s some imperfections or cracks in the loop at times, almost making it seem like it’s being played live the whole time. Or maybe my ears are just tricking me. I listen to this a lot while going to sleep, so it’s a very in-and-out-of-consciousness piece of music for me. Anyway, this is truly beautiful and addicting and I could easily have this on repeat forever and never get bored of it. “The Creation of Venus” is a complete opposite mood. It’s more keyboard driven, with some soft guitar shading, and it has kind of a cold glow to it, but it also feels like it progresses a bit more than the other piece. The opening section is more active, with Alice Coltrane-inspired playing, then it goes still after 20 minutes or so. This cleans the slate a bit, and at just the right moment, shimmering vocals hit, as well as distant hissing noises and a resonating guitar line, before it all ends with keyboard glow.
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The Answer Is In The Beat 