Gary Higgins - Red Hash

Red Hash is a lo-fi psychedelic folk album by singer/songwriter Gary Higgins. The music found on this album sounds a lot like if Karl Blau and Six Organs of Admittance (Chasny cites Higgins as a huge influence) recorded an album together. Very few copies of the album were printed initially, as Higgins recorded the album knowing he was about to go to prison on drug charges. Because of the aformentioned Ben Chasny, however, Higgins is starting to enjoy some amount of acclaim.


DL

Haruomi Hosono - Tropical Dandy

Hawaiian music-obsessed Japanese pop artist creates an album chock full of some of the catchiest and best arranged/produced ditties around.

choochoo

Frank Ocean - nostalgia,ULTRA

Frank Ocean's the latest addition to the Odd Future fold. He sang on a couple of tracks on MellowHype's BlackenedWhite and now he's got out a new album full of chill ass electronic r&b jams fo FREE. The production on this album is top-notch and his voice is outstanding as well. Probably my favorite OFWGKTA release since Rolling Papers. Which I mean there's probably been like 3 releases since that but whatever. This is great.

heo

Terry Allen - Lubbock (On Everything)

More country for y'all since the other kuntry posts were hits (along with just about every other post of course). However, nearly 80 minutes long, this ain't your pawpaw's country album. Allen's songwriting and lyricism are unique to the genre. He channels a great deal of anger and witty cynicism into his lyrics while maintaining an artistic sophistication that honestly just isn't exactly typical of country music. Allen also pushes the genre's boundaries in regards to song structure. Many songs break the 5 minute mark, with one reaching 7:25, almost unheard of in a genre where a long ballad might be 4 minutes long. Other songs simply work as short vignettes, once again quite strange to a style where verse-chorus-verse-chorus is king. Lubbock (On Everything) is a lot to take in, but it's worth it.

git

The Flatlanders - More A Legend Than A Band

Overlooked country album by a band featuring two genre greats Joe Ely and Jimmie Dale Gilmore. Simple, straightforward plainsman tunes by some good ol boys who just wanted to play some no frills country. Great great stuff.

git

Troum & All Sides - Shutûn

Shutûn is a colossal 54-minute dark ambient track produced as a collaboration between dark ambient duo Troum and shoegaze/ambient guitarist Nina Kernicke (All Sides). I can't think of anything in the dark ambient subgenre that's better than this, to be honest. An epic that builds from ghostly vocal recordings to grand, sweeping movements laden with fuzzy guitar and synth pads to sinister, brooding passages that churn and grind like giant mechanical beasts or something like that.

darq

GuMMy†Be▲R! - Inauspicious

this is probably the best shit i've heard out of the whole hipster dance music (hdm) (aka witch house) trend. hard beats and lo-fi ambient electronics. OH MY GOD ITS LIKE WHAT IF SKY LIMOUSINE DUDE TEAMED UP WITH LIKE DALEK OR SOMETHING MAYBE THATS A BAD COMPARISON BUT MAN THATD BE OBSCURE

and i mean LOOK AT THAT ALBUM ART. IT LOOKS LIKE A POWERPOINT PROJECT. THATS LO-FI.

i listened to them before they got big

Rowland S. Howard - Teenage Snuff Film

Rowland S. Howard is most well-known for his spidery guitar work alongside Nick Cave in The Birthday Party, but he also released two solo albums before his death in 2009. This one, 2005's Teenage Snuff Film is painfully overlooked. Howard establishes suffocatingly grim atmospheres with his monotone, macabre voice and lyrics, but to me the best part here is his immaculate guitar work. Throughout this album, he creates massive tones, smooth atmospheric layering, and bleak walls of sound to craft a melancholic mood.

(and then...)

Hasil Adkins - Out to Hunch

Recently been fascinated with this one quite a bit. Released back in 1955, this album is so far ahead of its time it's ridiculous. Lo-fi cracked-out, psychotic rock tunes that sometimes veer into blues territory, and often veer into experimental noise-like territory. I can't even begin to imagine what I'd think if I head this record in 1955. Songs range from catchy and fun (She Said, Chicken Walk) to depressing (I'm Happy) to disturbing (No More Hot Dogs). Probably the most notable track here is "I Need Your Head." It's pretty much the first screwed song ever and undoubtedly one of the most evil, disturbing tracks I've come across, consisting of a slowed down recording of a murderer's rant over atonal no-waveish guitar.

this aint no rock n roll show