Atlas Engine is a band whose material ranges from lush laid-back elaborated-arranged art-pop not totally unlike Alan Parsons Project if Alan Parsons project was cooler (sorry Alan Parsons Project but you don’t need to be cool anyway!) to driving motorik rock perfect for your next excursion driving the Autobahn (here’s a great motorik playlist to check out if you got 41 or 42 hours to spare, you’re welcome!)

Officially released today, “As You Are” is the second advance single by Atlas Engine (the first being “Modern Mind”) taken from an upcoming “suite of EPs” to which the average punter on the street may reply “what’s an EP?” and “what’s a suite?” But you, dear Deli reader, are far from being average—and whether you have the attention span to process a suite of EPs or not, you can most certainly appreciate the emotional resonance and the fine Swiss craftsmanship of a song like “As You Are” (note: the band are not Swiss but no doubt consume plenty of cheese and chocolate in Brooklyn so it’s close enough). But no doubt when the song eventually appears on When the Compass Resets Part I (Favorite Friends Records) it will be all the more fulfilling in that context. 

Speaking of the band’s coordinates and identity (btw you can hear all their previous singles on the comp above) up until the past year Atlas Engine was one of those deals like Nine Inch Nails where it’s really just a single guy (in this case, Nick LaFalce) and whoever he surrounds himself with on a given record or tour but minus the rivalries with Courtney Love and Marilyn Manson. But that’s all recently changed. In 2020 Nick did something pretty much the opposite of most bands I’m guessing and human beings in general in terms of retreating into near isolation and just barely managing to feed and clothe ourselves (and not always the latter) but instead he used the time to solidify a stable, permanent membership for Atlas Engine in the middle of a pandemic with said bandmates being Meredith Lampe (vocals/keys), Patrick Cochrane (Bass/vocals), Brendan McGuckin (drums), and Jeff Fettig (guitar/synth) who now also participate in the songwriting process. And yes Nick has made us all look bad in the process and should be terribly ashamed of himself, but we’ll let it slide for now because these new songs are solid and we may wanna ask for VIP passes at Atlas Engine’s next live show.

So let’s now turn to “As You Are” since it’s the new one. The song fades in with an electronic wind chime kind of sound and then moments later over a relaxed, rippling drumbeat there’s an ascending piano chord pattern/bass line with a sustained layer of electronic ambience before Mr. LaFalce’s stately yet etherial vocals enter. Up through this point “As You Are” sounds a bit like Wilco being fronted by Damon Albarn, and in the opening lines he slowly declaims that “the wretched hour / we’ve been waiting for / has come.” So wait, things are about to get more wretched compared to the past year (!) or maybe he’s referring to the past year so let’s table the discussion for now and move on.

And then right after the line “mouth is open wide / sharpening the knife” the band goes into a Grandaddy-like section (others might say “Radiohead section” but I’m sticking with Granddaddy) with cascading synths and a warm enveloping halo of sound—and this is where the the song really gets me—plus four overdubbed voices floating above it all like a rapturous choir of Brian Wilsons singing in falsetto, and I can almost imagine this part of the song being an actual Beach Boys song from their post-Pet Sounds Smiley Smile/Wild Honey artsy period. Then for a moment everything drops out and LaFalce drops a George Harrison-ism or maybe more like an Oasis-like pronouncement to “become as you are” and this is making me realize there’s a certain Britpop vibe to the song overall under the heading of indie pop power ballads that rock out at the end.

Speaking of rocking out, after the cycle described above repeats one more time with some new textures and lyrics thrown in, “As You Are” suddenly and briefly transforms into thumping half-tempo time with a pulsating tremolo guitar complete with grungy distortion overlay and a small dash of space rock synth until one last swooning harmony-laden chorus comes in that builds to a fairly epic climax before dissolving into a final few seconds of twinkling ambience which takes the whole thing full circle. So as you can see listeners are taken on a cinematic sonic journey in the space of just over four minutes which is handy since you can boil an egg to the song no problem that is if you like a soft yolk. Also adventurous and ambitious is the song’s lyrical theme which according to Nick is about “technology’s effect on one’s understanding of themselves” which honestly I’m not sure what he’s on about because I compose these blog posts on an old Radio Shack word processor.

And speaking of ambition, one last thing that bears pointing out is the larger concept underlying “As You Are”, "Modern Mind" and the band’s other soon-to-be-released material is this whole suite-of-EPs idea mentioned earlier–more specifically, a collection of four EPs to be released throughout 2021 that will taken together comprise a set of conceptually-related chapters as part of a larger overriding work that will then be released as an album of its own once the pieces are in place. And hell we at the Deli heartily co-sign this Russian Nesting Dolls approach to record releasing because even King Crimson or Yes or Rush never came up with this particular concept in the Concept Album Sciences and we support innovation in all its many forms. (Jason Lee)

On Friday there was a message in my inbox from Body Musick which is not to be confused with Body Magick which is an annual festival of sacred sexuality held in Tampa Bay, Florida, whereas Body Musick is a record label based in Envigado, Colombia (near Medellín) specializing in “dungeon electronics & vehicles for the soul.” And while that description’s maybe not as provocative as a sex conference it’s still pretty close if you’re into stuff like EBM, coldwave, darkwave, industrial wave, and other waves yet to be invented. And likewise the label is international in scope having just put out the debut LP by Oakland-based Amusement Machine who by her own account is “always in the red” but I don’t think that’s a sex thing (the Emulator EP below is what first got Body Musick’s attention and indeed it’s an eerie and enveloping tour de downtempo force).

Anyways the label is run by a man named Filmmaker and if you don’t know who that is you should probably check out his video for “Melting Plastic on Frail Skin” below because it’s a sick track and an equally sick video complete with fetish jungle gym and leather-bound chain play and not just one but two adorable snakes. Filmmaker is one of these people who always seems to have more projects going than your average person can keep up with but for one I’d recommend his Kontinent collab with Sad Mafioso from last month if case you’re short of time.

The aforementioned email goes on to say how Columbia is facing “tough times” lately meaning the nationwide protests and strikes provoked by a proposed regressive tax “reform” and which has continued on in a broader fight against malfeasance and poverty and inequality with attendant draconian crackdowns that have left dozens dead plus hundreds injured and disappeared. In other words it’s an especially dark time which is saying something by current standards. The email closes with a modest, direct appeal: “if you’re looking to help during this chaotic situation, this independent label will honestly thank you.”

The past year has certainly driven home just how vulnerable the systems and infrastructures are that shape our everyday lives–some of them clearly and desperately in need of change long before COVID hit–and furthermore just how extra-vulnerable musicians and music venues and electronic musicians in particular are to the ongoing state of collective crisis. But at the same time the resulting trauma has make many of us extra-reliant on music in order to cope, all the while many musicians are simply trying to survive as such. One takeaway being that we all need to be extra-conscious (these days especially) of paying musicians for services rendered when possible. And Body Magick even as a young label renders some serious services when it comes putting out some of the most absorbing and transporting electronic music I’ve encountered lately. Plus they just added four new records to their discography over the weekend.

The first is a full-length release by Panama Papers—a group comprised of Invalid User and GAËL who together founded Piladoras Tapes which is another Colombian electronic label this one based in Bogotá—and it’s called John Doe’s Manifesto. Consistent with their name the music on the album moves with relentless mechanized menace, not unlike the menace of unrestrained and unregulated flows of global capital (call it “trickle-up economics”!) as revealed in the actual Panama Papers. Both sound-wise and concept-wise this would be perfect music for a sequel to They Live if John Carpenter didn’t already score all his own films.

Next up is Fragmentos by LA-based producer Machino. Opening track “California Evil” acts a mood-setting overture for an album (or extra-long EP?) “full of ruthless industrial wave footwork with thick phantasmagorical ambiences” to the point it’ll probably break the needle on your seismometer if you actually live in Cali because everyone there owns one I hope. And then there’s the Transmutative Discipline EP by Black Dahlia comprised of “two banging Darkwave tracks” from the “Australian EBM queen” plus “two remixes by label founder Filmmaker.”

And finally there’s Manipulations which is where we started, the debut full-length by Amusement Machine that’s “loaded with classy coldwave techno and dungeon-esque minimal synth” that essentially takes the downtempo sound of the debut EP and blows it up to widescreen sonic proportions with a resulting vibe that’s like speeding down a deserted back highway at 3 in the morning where you completely forget where you’re even going and just become one with road and it’s hard to tell if you’re totally wired or pleasantly wrung out or both at the same time somehow (note to reader: your loyal blogger is probably projecting here because the last time I drove I got a speeding ticket in Staten Island). And with tracks like “Empathy” and “Healing” you should take a cue from their titles and head over to Body Musick’s Bandcamp and you know what to do from there. (Jason Lee)

Elektra Monet isn’t just another Juilliard-trained viola and violin player from Texas who performs the occasional DJ set at Burning Man because yes she is one of those but one who also creates original electronically generated pieces combining 4AD/This Mortal Coil style avant/ambient floatiness with modern glitch beats and the kind of wraithlike female vocals favored by the likes of David Lynch and Serge Gainsbourg among other inspirations and influences.

You can listen to her latest full-length release titled Angels of Sweat from late 2020 below if you doubt me (recommended tracks: “Love is a Diamond Lie,” “In A State,” “Trash Humper,” “1995”) or better yet the new album-teasing EP released just today called Transience on which Ms. Monet steers her ship into more Tangerine Dreamy waters. And there’s truly some transience happening on Transience what with the brighter, sharper synth timbres and mind-melding arpeggiations that may possibly have some of us fantasizing about riding a real train with Tom Cruise or Rebecca De Mornay or both or is that just me.

The one caveat that may exist for some fans is the lack of vocals on the three tracks because of Elektra’s especially spectral voice but then again singing may have somewhat broken the “Late Night Tales” spell cast so perfectly by the EP. And anyway you can check out some recent vocalizing by Elektra on two tracks where she’s featured as lead vocalist on Jeremy Bastard’s Everyone Is History, There Is No Memory from earlier this year, reviewed on the DELI blog not long ago, where she adapts the crystalline hushed high-register school of female vocalizing and stirs a little grit into the mix.

And hey wouldn’t you know it, Elektra and Jeremy are labelmates on Somewherecold Records based out of Shelbyville, Kentucky, and while he’s clearly no Dyna Girl they do make seem to make a good musical team, especially since they both record for a label specializing in all thing slowcore, gothic, shoegazy, darkwavey, post-rocky, and ambient-but-not-New-Agey. (Jason Lee)

ALT TITLE: "Dream-pop Girls"

Way back in 2020, the Phantom Handshakes put out a song called “Aisha (Vs the Dirty Tongues)” which just from the title alone sounds like it should be a rock opera. And it’s not just the title because the song’s dramatic, moody music is likewise suited to the stage and would likely appeal to the youth of today since they don’t yet have a rock opera to call their own. Anyway I’d say the time has finally come for a shoegaze/dream pop takeover of Broadway and the West End.

The newest release by the Phantom Handshakes entitled No More Summer Songs could be the album to break the impasse and tap the potential for a dream pop rock opera if somebody could just find the next Mr. Lin-Manuel Miranda and get him or her to write a staged adaptation. I mean just listen to “Cricket Songs” and it’s inner monologue describing the protagonist’s heightened sense of perception in the midst of a summer heatwave complete with bedroom dancing and sweaty sheets and overemotive mothers and drifting off to the sound of chirping crickets. It’s pretty evocative stuff and so is the video above.

The album’s opening track “I Worried” would make a perfect overture with its ghostly echoes looking back at past misspent summers (that’s my take on it anyway) which would serve as a perfect framing device for the musical, and then the next song “No Better Plan” would be the crossover crowd-pleaser with its wordless catchy yet slightly taunting “Nya Na Na” refrain which should translate well to foreign markets.

The song captures a doomed-yet-determined forlornness but with a sunny/boppy melody and beat (sidenote: the aforementioned hit song from Hamilton also has a “Na Na Na” refrain) with lyrics about “building sandcastles despite the wind” which is essentially what King George does in Hamilton. 

P.S. I’ll gratefully accept a producer co-credit and a modest percentage of the gross box office if this idea comes to fruition. But if it turns out to be the next Moose Murders just remember you didn’t hear any of this from me.

The Planes are a power-indie-pop power trio who’ve mastered their own distinctive brand of pop-rock-craft as illustrated by their new album-teasing single called “Decoder Ring.” Check out the exclusive Deli-made video for the single below because you gotta pass the time somehow until Eternity on its Edge comes out on June 11.

If you’ve ever seen the holiday perennial A Christmas Story (directed by the same guy who directed the seminal slasher movie Black Christmas) then you’ve heard of secret decoder rings. Made famous in the 1940s and ‘50s by Ovaltine as prizes given away in packages of the sweetened and vitamin-enriched milk powder product, decoder rings could be used to unscramble coded messages broadcast on the Ovaltine-sponsored Captain Midnight program in which the show’s titular aviator war hero battled villains like ruthless criminal mastermind Ivan Shark, his sadistic partner-in-crime and daughter Fury Shark, and the Nazi ne’er-do-well Baron von Karp.

But I digress. "Decoder Ring" is a fitting title for a Planes song given how good the band are at writing and arranging sugary pop hooks but enriched with indie rock nutrients like guitar jangle, grungy distortion, and psychedelic flange–all joined to a narrative about being “down in the dungeon and out in the sea” (just like Captain Midnight!) with an appeal to “look at me / I can’t be seen / without a decoder ring” (just like the show’s Ovaltine-hawking host!) which is enough to make you wonder if "The Planes" is really just a cover story for this trio of fighter-pilot Nazi-hunting super spies. Or maybe not. Maybe instead they’re taken inspiration from Keith Moon and the Who in hawking sugary milk-based treats to kids.

Tune in next week to learn the thrilling answers to these and other questions!  (Jason Lee)

There’s some songs that get you right there and I mean there. And while everybody has a different emotional G-spot it’s recommend you check out the Deli music video premiere below [editor’s note: first premiered on our IG account] because if the song alone doesn’t get you there then the visuals plus the music might. The video is comprised of equal-parts sweet and melancholic home movies of and by our featured artist spanning from his childhood to the near-present, a montage of grainy footage from Greece, Korea, and NYC that forms a fascinating family tree even if you aren’t directly related to Ilithios and I’m guessing most of you aren’t even though you’re reading this.

The lyrics and visuals of “Way of the Future” play off the strange liminal state we’ve all been trapped in for the past year-plus and still not knowing what’s coming next (or not coming next) and thus the opening lyrical query: “When all this passes / will you still be around?” And if it sounds a little heavy well yeah but the music that carries these ruminations to your ears floats by gently and generously even when it’s being acknowledged that “I know you haven’t seen me in a while / I know I’m not your favorite one no more." But the sentiment is delivered in such a way that it doesn’t sting and everything seems pretty chill except that by the end of the bridge Ilithios is imploring us to “take apart this fortress with one touch" in a not-so-chill fashion which again captures a certain hazy blend of longing, contentment, and perhaps an overdue reckoning.

The press notes for "Way of the Future" compare its sound to Perfume Genius, Twin Shadow, Father John Misty, Beach House, and Arthur Russell (Arthur Russell!) among others which is true enough but I’m also getting a certain late ‘90s/early 00’s REM vibe—not a super heralded period for the band but if you go and listen to New Adventures in Hi-Fi, Up and Reveal you’ll find that these are some seriously vibey albums and that they’ve aged well. And speaking of vibes don’t stop there because Ilithios has recently hosted some cool locally-sourced shows–including an outdoor showcase around a month ago with Slalomville, Sean Spada, Space Sluts, The Planes, Ana Becker, Shadow Moster, and Kissed By An Animal (viewable in its entirety above) that’s chock full of vibes of the good kind and who couldn’t use some of those. (Jason Lee)

This band of West Philly-ites used to be called Sports back in their Gambier, Ohio days perhaps in homage to the classic Huey Lewis and the News album—the one that had Patrick Bateman so excitedly touting its merits to his investment banker pal and rival right before hacking him to bits—but changed their name to Remember Sports (RS) most likely because they were too often mistaken for a Huey Lewis tribute band. Which actually isn’t too far off in a certain sense because RS also knows how to write a good catchy earworm hook when so inclined, a fact I can attest to because the album-opening “Pinky Ring” has been stuck in my head for about a week now and may necessitate playing “I Want A New Drug” on repeat here soon just to dislodge it for a little while.

On their fourth full-length release, Like A Stone, the band have really come into their own commercially and artistically. The record features a clear, crisp sound that gives the songs a sheen of consummate professionalism while also serving as a personal statement about the band itself. And yes I’m quoting Bret Easton Ellis via Mary Harron but hey our favorite ax murderer’s words are relevant here because Like A Stone is exquisitely executed and produced (production credit belonging to Carlos Hernandez and Julian Fader, the latter name being almost too appropriate) featuring the band’s always strong songwriting fleshed out with arrangements that move through multiple peaks and valleys and discordant bits and mellow bits and various sonic stalagmites and stalactites like with the occasional appearance of steel guitar or banjo or circuit-bent electronics thrown into the mix. 

Still even with all these compelling musical details there’s a case to be made that the most striking instrument is the voice of lead singer and songwriter Carmen Perry. If you happen to be a classic country music buff, you may have heard the oft-cited quote from countrypolitan record producer and songwriter Billy Sherrill describing the “little teardrop” he heard in Tammy Wynette’s voice when she walked into his office as a complete unknown and then of course went on to become a genre-spanning legend. And that little teardrop was a big part of what made her voice so distinctive—all the little breaks and flutters and shifts in register and dynamics perfectly suiting the heartbreak at the heart of her best known and best loved songs. 

Well it turns out Perry also has a little teardrop in her voice, or maybe more like a medium sized teardrop at least, which likewise suits the heartbreak and romantic longing and emotional resiliance at the core of Like A Stone—from the peppy but bittersweet 39-second reverie over a “Coffee Machine” to the slow-burning-nearly-seven-minutes-long appeal to an errant lover to express their hidden feelings “Out Loud.” Another recurring and closely related theme is the nature of memory itself and the passage of time with lines about “archiv[ing] the past with some shit that won’t last you a lifetime” (“Materialistic”) and “taking in the scenery from the corners of your mind” (“Sentimentality”) and “just sit[ting] here till the clock runs out” (“Clock”) and “my eggs flow[ing] right out of me like clockwork every month” (“Eggs”) which all makes the Remember in Remember Sports suddenly all the more relevant.

But don’t be put off if this all sounds a little bit on the heavy side because the music and vocalizing on this album have an energy and warmth that balances out the darker sentiments and you can see how the band brings it live above. Plus did I mention in the video to “Pinky Ring” above you get to see Carmen Perry pelted with eggs while wearing big plastic goggles and there’s also a part toward the end where the viewer is instructed to put on 3-D glasses (that is, if you have a pair laying around) and in fact it does look like the end part is legit in 3-D so clearly this band know how to have some fun? And since I did just mention it, it’s probably time to take my leave now because I have to go return some videotapes. (Jason Lee)

band photo credit: Sonia Kiran

“Slipshod, down by evening

I needle cabarets

I cannot quit the feeling

I dressed up anyway–“

"Needle” is a word rife with many different meanings. A needle used to be required to hear pre-recorded music and maybe it still is if you’re a vinyl junkie. You also need one to sew a sweater or scarf and other warm and fuzzy things. But "to needle" someone means to bug the hell out of them in a very un-warm and fuzzy fashion. Intravenous needles are used to save lives. But they’re also synonymous with drug addition and deadly ODs. And when you’re on "pins and needles” you’re not sure whether to anticipate or to dread a future event. 

“Needle” is also the first song on Jeremy Bastard’s Everyone Is History, There Is No Memory, his first full LP as the featured performer and producer. The album is full of warm analogue synths tones but mixed with a coldwave sensibility, and the overall sound is by turns murky and sleek or sometimes both at once. And who knows if we’re talking about good needles or bad ones in a song like this, but either way much of music has a pins and needles quality to it in a way that reminds me of the Tech Noir scene in the first Terminator movie.

For one thing there’s the death disco vibe of "Needle" that sounds just right for an 80s club with a chain link fence around a neon-saturated dance floor. But there’s also something about the sound design like in how the soundtrack gets all echoey and distant sounding just as the scene above transitions to slo-mo visuals. And then the music transitions from diegetic to non-diegetic sound, but so gradually and seamlessly you could miss it if you’re immersed in the action too much but it alters your perceptions either way.

Jeremy Bastard’s music does this same thing too with overlapping layers of sound that alters your perceptions. Like when waves of echo seems to coalesce and follow their own rhythmic logic independent of the rest of the song. Or when a sound is pushed into the red far enough that you can get lost in its ruptured, distorted interiors. Overall there’s a clear focus on being diffuse on the record (Official Paradox of the Day) but just don’t get it twisted because this isn’t an experimental noise project. It’s still a dance record but one that threads the needle with sonic experimentation. 

Take for instance the first of the two tracks featuring Electra Monet on vocals, whose singing could be described as Nico-esque or if you prefer Jane Birkin-esque. Normally if you’ve got a voice like this to work with you’d expect the producer to make that voice sound as angelic and ethereal and "pure" as possible. Ms. Monet’s singing on “Shadow Boxing” is all these things except pure (and all the better for it) because the production highlights the grit and grain of her voice (including, most unusually, the sibilance of echoing "Sssss" sounds) and of the instrumental sounds from the pounding drums to the insistent keyboard ostinato to the John McGeoch like guitar outro. These are dreampop angels with dirty faces.

But then next the third track "Love is a Mistake" (featuring Disolve) would be a perfect fit for John Hughes’ never realized sequel to Pretty in Pink because it’s a hooky indie-electro-pop song with romantically tragic overtones that would be perfect for the scene where Duckie drives up to the class reunion blasting the song on his car’s cassette player still bitter at how he didn’t get Molly Ringwald in the end (sidebar: the ending of Pretty in Pink was changed because Duckie wasn’t considered Molly-worthy enough by test audiences). 

And Jeremy Bastard could play the DJ at the reunion prom because that’s something he does too. And on Everyone Is History he holds onto that DJ-minded curatorial mindset by featuring a different singer/lyricist/collaborator on every other track or two, and according to Jeremy himself it was the motivating spark behind the entire project. Exiled to Florida for much of the past year, Jeremy turned to producing and long-distance collaborations as a way to maintain creative momentum and human contact. And in the process he may have found his future musical lane, or one of them, because this one-on-one approach apparently suits his creative muse, at least judging by other recent releases in this format (see below) and bonus non-album tracks from the album’s various collaborators that keep popping up as b-sides to its singles like needles in a haystack. (Jason Lee)

Jesus” is the name of the new song by Native Sun and not unlike its namesake it’s got a certain hippie-freak vibe, and if Jesus Christ Superstar wasn’t already a thing it’d need to be after this song because it makes me wanna put on a flowing white robe and sing my heart out to the hills of Galilee, helped along by the song’s assurance that "it’s ok to lose your mind."

And did I mention it’s over six minutes long–at least in its unedited form, the video version above is slightly foreshortened–and it’s got sections. Like how after an opening minute-and-a-half that’s chock full of rousing guitar fanfare and lighter-waving vocals “Jesus” transforms into more of a glam number (actually it all kind of is) but more of a glam ballad and one that wouldn’t sound out of place on the Velvet Goldmine soundtrack. And then before long we get a dueling guitar solo and another big chorus and then another tag team guitar section that takes up the whole last couple minutes up to the (not) ending complete with fake fadeout a la “Helter Skelter” before returning in even more frantic form but with a fadeout that sticks this time.

So yeah we’ve got a song here that makes even Jesus going to Hell sound cool. And maybe it would be cool because him and the Devil could hold a peace summit or at least just talk things out. But what’s more alarming is how there’s a reoccuring theme here, given that Native Sun’s last single was called “Government Shutdown” and it made that subject sound really cool too, but in more of a punk rock kinda way. So I’m not saying we should call the CIA or anything but maybe keep an eye on these guys is all I’m saying because there’s clearly a subversive element at work. (Jason Lee)

Blatantly disregarding the double-live principle of rock school on their fourth full-length, Spirit of the Beehive instead take the listener on a dark ride. The record is called Entertainment, Death and with its cover image of faceless funhouse patrons being beckoned into the mouth of madness of an amusement ride’s entryway, a mouth belonging to a cartoonish but menacing red-eyed devil, we’re given a hint of what’s to come inside–a carnival ride full of herky-jerky twists and turns. 

Entertainment, Death moves restlessly between ambient floating-in-space “tunnel of love” passages like heard in the song above and whiplash passages as illustrated below, similar to when the midway ride’s bumper car rolls over a relay switch illuminating a skeleton or some other scary creature leaping out of a casket and lunging straight at you, accompanied by a loud cackling laugh and a spray of hissing steam. 

Despite the seeming stream-of-consciousness of much of Entertainment, Death the album is organized around a conceit that makes thematic sense out of its through-composed structure. Album opener “Entertainment” begins in medias res and ushers the listener through a sonic birth canal of rumbling drones, squealing test tones, scuttling percussion and intense ethereal whooshing. But relative calm then descends with a loping rhythm and chirping birds and a pastoral folk song melody with harmonized vocals informing us that “I woke up when I heard the blow / heading east towards KSMO” a calm that’s broken only slightly by the entrance of glitching synths and a warped string section. 

Guitarist/vocalist Zack Schwartz and bassist/vocalist Rivka Ravede have explained elsewhere that while on tour for 2018’s Hypnic Jerks they suffered a tire blowout in route to a gig in Kansas City, Missouri (a tour that had them opening for the band Ride no less) which led to them imagining a scenario where they perished in the aftermath of a car accident and where their new album would be conceived as a series of fleeting thoughts and musical fragments and distant memories triggered in the split-second leading up to their imminent death occurring on the last track fittingly called “Death.”

More than just an inner space travelogue the record also serves as a reckoning of sorts for lives spent creating and consuming “content” (a.k.a. entertainment) with the Beehive crew expressing some ambivalence and admitting “I regret some choices I’ve made / entertainment only remains / while I keep descending / who will decipher the pain from the lie?” and between the bookmark tracks of “Entertainment” and “Death” the album delves into a sonic and lyrical purgatory for the rest of its running time, descending into Hell for the penultimate multi-part “I Suck The Devil’s Cock,” a song that doesn’t so much advocate demonic fellatio as it advocates demonic fellatio used as a metaphor for the Faustian bargain of selling one’s soul for rock ‘n’ roll or of serving the servants by serving new content to the modern-day deity of the Internet server.

Just in case you’re not finding it easy, one good way to get on the wavelength of Entertainment, Death is to read up on what the Buddhists call “bardo”–intermediate, indeterminate state of non-being (based in becoming vs. being) like the twilight state between wakefulness and sleep (a.k.a. hypnagogia) or the cosmic void between life and death or between death and rebirth. Spirit of the Beehive cross the dharmata bardo or “luminous void” described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead with Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle as represented by the record’s shifting tempos, warped pitches, flanged timbres and vacillations between chaos and stillness where “enough is never enough” and where the “remember[ed] promise of a future” is replaced by an eternal present. 

Both the quotes directly above are taken from “There’s Nothing You Can’t Do” which transforms a cheap ad slogan into an aspirational mantra and a luminous void (“Property of Void Industries”) and for almost two minutes it comes on like a song you’d hear at a sexy alien discotheque–with a slinky groove wedded to a strangely alluring detuned trumpet and wispy vocals that declare the merits of a “heavy hand, middle class / chemical in a bag / all I want; love me all the time” before lifting off into s hook at 1’13 that’s sublime enough for one to overlook the quiet desperation of lyrics like “Could it all be in my head?” and “I made my bed, I’ll lie in it”–a song that just about any other band would leave untouched and promote as their radio-ready new single. But instead SotB drown their potential hit song in the bathtub toward its end, submerging it under waves of feedback and distortion and paranoid-sounding screaming that promises “I’ll be your friend” over and over again but which I usually hear as asking “Are you afraid?”

And so with Entertainment, Death the Philly-based three piece (reduced from five on their last LP; Zach and Rivka are joined here by multi-instrumentalist Corey Wichlin) Spirit of the Beehive have assembled fragments of their musical past–ranging from early shoegaze and noise-based music to sample-based collage and dreamy indie rock and electronic experimentation–into a cut-and-pasted musical journey that combines the aforementioned elements with other influences (e.g., vaporwave) resulting in a manifesto for the end times that beckons you to enter the void and to buy their band t-shirts and art works. (Jason Lee)

Air Devi is both a band and a person which is like a PJ Harvey kind of deal. And also like PJ Harvey, she’s got some serious musical and songwriting chops. Air Devi, the person, is alternatiely know as Devi Majeske and she’s a violinist, sitarist, guitarist, bass guitarist, keyboardist, and a fairly recent U. Penn grad who writes cool songs that come across pretty laid back at first but then get under your skin and into your heart and head. Like on the recent single “Mosquitos in the Backyard,” a song that floats by like a big marshmallow cloud and with images of “wash lines swaying” and “lush perfume hanging” to match. Except when you dig a little deeper it’s not all strawberries and cream because the song appears to either be about contracting malaria and/or it’s a pretty brutal take down of a pest and narcissist with lines like “you’ll feed on anything that breathes / you never loved anything." Another clever touch is how the choruses sound a little bit like a buzzing mosquito with the chopped-up guitar chords and circling bass line on the high strings so there’s much to comtemplate here.

Air Devi draws from diverse musical roots ranging from first-wave punk to Bollywood soundtracks to bedroom singer-songwriter pop to folkie psychedelia but there’s one recurring motif to my ears in how she/they often combine a blissed out vibe in the music and vocals with lyrics that are a series of sharply observed slices-of-life and streams-of-consciousness–pulling from disperate stands of thought and stands of identity and even from different languages with code-switching into French and Gujarati on a handful of songs. 

The latter Indo-language is heard on “Move Without Place," a song that rotates gracefully between styles—the Gujarati comes at the end of a sequence that moves first from ambient indie pop to a syncopated baggy beat with a Bollywood-like vocal melody and then Air Devi wondering aloud “Am I colonizable? Capitalizable?” when everything suddenly stops for a split-second and a bell chimes and then it goes into what sounds like traditional Hindustani music complete with dholak drumming, which is simlilar to a tabla but double-headed, and electric guitar and entrancing ornamented singing but then it all unwinds down to a single repeated guitar note and then back to the syncopated beat with the amibient indie pop backing and back around again. The restless musical arrangement perfectly captures the theme of the song to "move without place [and] make my own space" even if one’s skin and the whole world itself is "splintered" and "sensitive."

It’s all equally visceral and heady stuff–a dialectic that can be applied to much of Air Devi’s music in my humble opinion. But you can make up your own mind by listening to the two aforementioned singles and then 2020’s Swanning About EP above ("No Clearances" is a particuarly lovely statement of purpose). And if you need more you can check out earlier singles like "Standoffish" and "Alchemist" and the stripped-down DIY of 2018’s Chicken Nuggies & Rosé EP with some of its contents later rearranged in full-band form on Swanning such as "My Landlord Is An Asshole!" and who can really argue with a sentiment like that. And then, if that’s not enough, you can dig into Air Devi’s Soundcloud page and find even earlier works like the anti-Putin diss track "Kremlin Bop" that doubles as a Ramones-like sing-a-long with the title perhaps even being an homage to said band. 

But hey let’s not fixate on the past because cheap nostalgia is so 2020. And plus it’ll be even more interesting to see and hear what Air Devi does next. (Jason Lee)

Queen Mob are a two-piece from Psychedelphia, who as individuals go by the names Beth and Colin, and if they placed a band personals ad it’d probably read something like “freak-folk-shoegaze-vaporwave band seeks absolutely no one because we don’t collaborate and we don’t cooperate.” 

Over the past year Queen Mob have released one album and one EP (Easy, Liger and Against A Pale Background) and three singles (“Comeback,” “Sidecar,” and “Pop Sickle”) the last of which I’m declaring to be the best runaway-carousel/broken-calliope music I’ve heard since MGMT’s “Lady Dada’s Nightmare”. 

In their recorded work to date the band have already demonstrated impressive range by alternately sounding like an inebriated Beck, an inebriated Swervedriver, and an inebriated Jandek (so, just, Jandek). Or maybe instead of inebriated they’re just experimental. It’s not really our business how they get to that place. 

Beth herself describes the single above as “haunted dystopian electronic music” and that strikes me as pretty accurate for their lastest music. So hop on to the merry-go-round and hold to your horse pole becuase Queen Mob will take you on a ride. (Jason Lee)