★Not Not Fun Records
Radian lines
Wet Hair heads Shawn Reed and Ryan Garbes have been jamming sideways strains of long-lensed electricity music for years now, but their trajectories as visual artists arc back even farther. So after a small infinity of J-cards and zines and LP sleeves…
From Our Mouths A Perpetual Light
Given that this band are called Barn Owl, and have that righteous mythical beast scrawled on their album sleeve, I think it's pretty clear what direction this LP is going to take. Tranced-out psych studies are the order of the day, and wielding an ar…
The Outside Room
RESTOCK: Natalie Weyes Blood (originally Weyes Bluhd) has existed in the grime-ghost fringe-music catacombs since at least 2006, though originally it was in more of a crouched/hieroglyphic FX pedals style, culminating in a European tour with Axolo…
Vibrant New Age
Sadly (for us left coasters), in November Ms Leyna Noel aka Psychic Reality decamped from SF to NYC, but before packing up her every worldly possession and road-tripping trans-America she eked out a sliver of precious time to hole up in the studio wi…
936
Sometimes it feels so simple: two of our favorite people in one of our favorite bands release one of our favorite records of all time. 2009’s Imaginary Falcons was its own genius slushpile of tape-hissy drift-dub haze anthems, no question, but 936 ta…
Bored Fortress
"Iowa City silver apple-pickers Wet Hair pitter-patter into yet another picture-perfect futurist synth-pop raga, 'Blessed.' Yes you are. On the flip, kindred midwestern matrimony team Peaking Lights hotbox a basement of black ark basslines and waterl…
Ghost with chains
Long-running Twin Cities horsepower trio Daughters Of The Sun have been subtly chugging out their faded-tattoo spirit-in-the-sky psych exhaust for at least half a decade now but we didn’t catch the drift till March ’09, when we got to witness a packe…
…On Sea-Faring Isolation
"A casual interweb cruiser could be forgiven for confusing Dolphins Into The Future the “band” (aka the one-man tape-loop blue-age ambient project executed by Belgian Cetacean Nation ambassador Lieven Martens) with Dolphins Into The Future the book (…
So Unreal
Episode two in season one of the LA Vampires Collab Chronicles finds her joining forces with elusive alien discotech-head Matrix Metals of the nomadic Outer Limits Recordings cabal. Blurry ornate cassette-loop architectures groove and grind under…
Make It Real
Wait, this is the new Pocahaunted album cover? Gone may be the days of cassette cases featuring creepy collages and hand-dyed bags with feathers attached, but this is something else entirely. I mean, there’s a parrot with blue Ray-Bans, a giant dol…
Concussion Summer
'Concussion Summer' on Not Not Fun is by a merry band of travelers called Social Junk. I've never had concussion but I was hoping to this summer, sadly there's been no decent weather for me to go out tree climbing or trying to get myself set upon …
Split
Finely dressed in a full-colour Maya Miller sleeve, this split release from Ex Cocaine and Yellow Swans captures two wildly differing bands on great form. Ex-Cocaine is the collaboration between guitarist and vocalist Brian Ramirez and percussioni…
Heavy Deeds
Sun Araw - and the Not Not Fun label in general for that matter - are becoming ever more essential with each release. Heavy Deeds is the latest dubbed-out, tropical psych missive from this far-out collective, featuring an increasingly mature approach…
Pacific Drift
Way too much is made these days of looking back, memory, social network fantasias. What a bummer, cause reality s a bad experience and 2012 is on deck; we deserve whatever we get. Evolve or erode, dudes. LA visigoths Robedoor slip into another sinkho…
Foxy Baby
Surely this can only be the work of the ultra mysterious Sam Meringue (Matrix Metals, Flashback Repository, Explorers) etc. I believe at one point this guy was actually suspected to be James Ferraro which isn't difficult to believe as their work h…
LA Vampires & Zola Jesus
Easily one of the releases of the year so far, finally available on limited edition vinyl* Ghostly goings on from gothic psych queen Zola Jesus and kindred spirit LA Vampires (the current guise of Amanda Brown from Pocahaunted), who collaborate ac…
New Age Outlaws
New York City, 2069. A new form of crime has evolved. Only one hard-as-nails ex-cop has what it takes to get to the bottom of their plot and stop the new age outlaws from finding the alien artifact and destroying earth as we know it." Back in Marc…
Psychical
An all-out stunner from Brian Pyles aka California's Starving Weirdos, joining in on NNF's current soundtrack-y agenda with an incredible solo album. 'Psychical' is about as heavy as they come, for synthesized dreams of dark African dread and bloo…
Threshold
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, bands to solo projects, it’s all the same arc. And here it is, the final RIP action by star-crossed Not Not Fun institution Pocahaunted and the only recorded document of the final triforce-vocal line-up featuring Leyna N…
Prophecy Of The Black Widow
Restocked, last copies around...Seeping out of the American underground on the always engrossing NNF label, Matt Hill presents his sophomore Umberto album. It follows on from the Giallo soundtrack style he brilliantly aped on 'From The Grave...' d…