Khold - Hundre Ar Gammal

Taake - Taake

Capricorns - River Bear Your Bones

Enslaved - Vertebrae

Gojira - The Way Of All Flesh

Cattle Decapitation - The Harvest Floor

Bahimiron - Southern Nihilizm

Jacaszek - Treny

Polish composer Michal Jacaszek creates an electro-acoustic sound using live strings (violin and cello) and wordless female vocals manipulated through his laptop. Jacaszek adds in and takes out layer after layer of samples and noise from bass tones played backwards to tape hiss and electronic clicks and blips. Modern classical, electronica or experimental, whatever you want to call it; the end result is pretty fucking deep and I can’t stop coming back to it.

Alps - III

S.F.'s Alps take you on a meditative psychedelic journey you do not want to end. The album starts out with a repetitive Steve Reich like chiming and adds in swooping guitar distortion with Eastern influences. Psychedelia permeates the whole album and is often held in place with a simplistic repeated bass line and a krautrock locked groove as a backbone. Each track is pretty epic whether it's a more acoustic jam song, or a psychedelic noise freak-out. Features member(s) of Tarentel but expect a more focused and bright sound.

Jessica Lea Mayfield - With Blasphemy So Heartfelt

I first heard Jessica Lea Mayfield when I went to see Lucero at Bottom of the Hill a few months back. Her dark country folk songs were good enough for me to look her up online when I got home. It was shocking to find out she was just 18 years old because there’s certainly an old soul singing these heartbroken songs. She’s going through those emotionally tough teenage years but with wisdom beyond her years. Fellow Ohioan Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys held production duties and joined in on guitar on a few tracks.

Pig Heart Transplant - Nature b/w Nurture

In a genre where collaborations are few and far between, it's great to see a new approach. Pig Heart Transplant is Jon Kortland’s (Iron Lung, Gob) new-ish project where he teams up with a different grouping of members from bands such as Spazz, Lords of Light, Walls, Unpersons, Brain Oil, Lana Dagales, Artimus Pyle, Blue Sabbath Black Cheer for each track/release. On this two-song 7" Kortland et al. bulldoze through the muck at a slow, repetitive rate. This is dark, heavy, and absolutely frightening music. In other words, it's awesome. PHT's releases are very limited but new releases come out every few months.

Menahan Street Band - Make the Road by Walking

A fun album of authentic sounding soul music mixed with Afro-Latin rhythms and jazz stylings very much like Mulatu Astatke's recordings on Ethiopiques Vol 4. Coming from members of Antibalas and the Dap-Kings, you know it is done right.