April has been the longest year of the year. And it’s not quite over, but that’s okay. So much has happened – and so much of it seems like it happened ages ago, even though it was maybe only 10 days. Notably, Altar Eagle (the duo of my partner, Eden Hemming, and myself) made its live return for the first time since 2010. I think it might be my favorite performance I’ve ever done. The first Stupid Dreams Listening Circle is happening this weekend (if you are in Tulsa, sign up!). And maybe most exciting, we’re going to the Ren Faire next month, and I really, really hope I buy a sword.
ALSO! The latest edition of Field Studies is out on The Jewel Garden featuring julien demoulin, Open Casket Sound System, MAbH, and RL Huber. It’s a doozy. A new album from Akira Film Script is out tomorrow as well, so plenty of goodies for your Bandcamp Friday cart. Thank you, always, for the support. There are a lot of things happening on the label in the coming months – new bits from Nina Dante & I, Mass Ornament, Altar Eagle, The North Sea… more!? It’s a beautiful time to subscribe.
Lastly, if you are looking for someone to mix or master your record, let’s talk.
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blurness TODAYJAVU (air tone)
I’ve been listening to TODAYJAVU for a while, completely absorbed by this collection of sounds and unable to find the right words to describe it. I’m not sure I’ve got the words now, either, but this music is too good to just absorb. That’s the right word, though: absorb. The frog choruses and temple bells and synths and feedback and enchanting vocalizations all bleed into my system through alien osmosis. blurness is Barbara Nerness, and this is my first introduction to her work. Field recordings are used in inventive ways, like a sonic proof of life situated within synthetic, hyperrealistic dreamscapes, and sometimes, some moments feel accidental, almost broken. But in that is a staunch vulnerability that makes me feel connected to this work in a surprising, profound way. Guitar laments with soft edges, buoyed by Nerness’s lovely, sung melodies, are so spacious and warm. Her literal heartbeat sits in the middle of TODAYJAVU with chimes and hollow resonances swirling around it, a beautiful microcosm of the album in a small breath. This is a whole, new, dimensional world, and the clearest self-portrait of an artist I’ve seen or heard in ages. One of my favorite things from 2026 so far, easily. The biggest possible recommendation.
Goal Weight Keep Telling Yourself That (Relative Pitch)
Goal Weight is the duo of Jennifer Gersten and Maggie Cox on violin and bass, respectively, and Keep Telling Yourself That is their debut. On some level, this is what the inside of my brain sounds like. Plucked strings zigzag through simple, tactile cadences, and beneath the surface, a growl begins, getting louder and fading away before the clattering spectacle returns with exponential force. Pizzicato and other string noises make an appearance. Odd object preparations pull new sounds from Gersten’s violin, and globbed on abrasiveness is a feature throughout. I’m here for all of it. I love the texture and feel Cox’s use of gut strings adds, too, giving this music a different dimension because of it. Gersten and Cox move back and forth, pulling the tether taut when a particular passage calls for control, before spindling off back into this minimalist sonic jungle. Other times, it’s like being in an adjacent room listening to these two instruments, feeling each other out. Simple melodies sway in something almost resembling agreement, but there are tiny margins where chaos breathes throughout Keep Telling Yourself That, and the most magical parts are when they poke their head above the surface. Woozy runs pitch between disorienting and intoxicating, though maybe those are two ends of the same feeling. Great stuff.
Matt Lowery Vessel (Mystery Circles)
Each of these 17 missives is a refreshing exhalation. Microscopic toneworlds that sparkle with emotion and depth in all their tactile details. Aqueous and pointillist in equal measures, carried by a pulsing river, Vessel takes us into realms both familiar and unknown. It’s synthetic and still alluring, still tender. Sometimes there’s a ringing, reversed, and cut into blurred memories, sitting right next to tape-addled chords, trying to breathe underwater. Maybe it’s the last vestiges of sunlight cast into sonic form, or maybe it’s just a quick glance out a rain-soaked window. Lowery captures these small moments in all their glory. Woozy and gleaming, tired and quiet, with Vessel, everything makes sense and fits into worlds with faded color and cracked edges. Even though each of these pieces is under three minutes (well, the last track isn’t – but 16 or 17!), there’s a generosity embedded in this work. Little stories are packed into the margins, which makes me want to keep listening over and over to unearth them. This is some of the most memorable sound design work I’ve heard all year. Wonderful.
Sleeping Beast s/t (Musical Eschatology)
Sleeping Beast is a trio out of Texas, and their self-titled debut is something else. Danny Kamins spills his sax into winding shapes like a circuitous sonic limbic system. Jazz stingers and metallic whimsy get deconstructed until they become a sprawling, living organism capable of breathing fire and still holding us gently. Bombast mixed with restraint pours from Lisa Cameron’s playing, and Sleeping Beast is a good reminder of her incredible skill and range. The whole time, Thomas Helton’s bass holds everything up, a guttural, writhing foundation that freely bounces while staying stuck to the ground, playing with an intentional momentum wrapped in a hollow tone. Still, there are quiet moments of breathwork tic-tac-toe that accent the aural bluster. Deep wares get pulled from ancient ruins, creating billowing toneworlds that eschew sharp edges for something more inviting. Three improvisors moving in unison, taking turns driving the train. Free music fused with cold fire. Damn, this one is scratching an itch. Big recommendation.
Lester St. Louis The End Site (Dinzu Artefacts)
The End Site begins with an emergence, like crawling out of some blackened pit to discover an obliterated landscape. An eerie cadence and sharp, metallic resonances greet us with zero fanfare. St. Louis conjures drones with serrated edges, blanketed by distorted auras that form charred, screwed frequencies, building a caustic sonic environment. Sputtering electronics send poisoned missives into the ether, clocking the moments where feedback bleeds into the foreground and slow, subtle movements punctuated by frenetic bursts. If I were being swallowed by some sort of biological machinery, I imagine it might sound something like The End Site. Cello compositions from the furthest reaches of the nether. Something like that. It’s alright if this is the end.
Katya Shirshkova | Yurii Kuznetsov Résiste! | Paysages fragmentés (Wabi Sabi)
A split between Katya Shirshkova and Yurii Kuznetsov, Résiste! | Paysages fragmentés is radical and whimsical in somewhat equal measures, traversing different ground in the same strange zone. Shirshkova’s voice is the central element of her work, and on “Résiste!” the ghosts of our ancestors push us forward, reminding us they’re still here, distorted and filtered into something ageless, something crawling through time. Gossamer fuzz and dark, ethereal drones become hauntings that eventually dissolve. It’s utterly enchanting, unexpectedly so. Kuznetsov’s side is darker and more textural, environmental sounds moving between the familiar and alien as though they’re shapeshifting based on our own perception in the moment. It starts at a distance before becoming an immersive soundscape. Jangling chimes. Howling resonance. Tactile music. Another winner from one of my favorite labels in the world.
Zyggurat Sphere to Sphere (Old Technology)
A real dream ripper. Zyggurat bends the space-time continuum, blending sonic layers into a resonant, congealed soundworld. Or something. Live drums underpin everything on Sphere to Sphere, a sort of dancing scaffolding riding sublime undulations and progressive cadences. Arpeggios spin off into space on a levitating sea of saw waves, grinding basslines distilling globbed-up frequencies into silver matter. I can’t entirely reconcile the shifting futurist frameworks that feel totally ancient here. It’s as though Zyggurat unearthed archaic musical forms that were so far beyond their own time, they still tell sonic prophecies. Wonder glows in the breathing chord progressions and tonebanks, sequences telling us the secrets of the universe in harmonic codes. Angular Urgency underpins a lot of Sphere to Sphere, but it’s not anxious or hurried. This is living music, created from something so pure we feel it in our bones. Crucial listening here. Get ready to dream.
City of Dawn Silent Portrait (Past Inside The Present)
On Silent Portrait, City of Dawn conjures apprehensive laments for a tired place that exists inside all of us. Expansive sonic landscapes sing for something in the distance, something that feels huge and inviting, while drones become elegies stretched into oblivion. It feels like floating, pulled down by an emotional gravity. Grayscale washes find color in unexpected ranges, hiss and harmony trading places across these two long, immersive compositions. Sometimes Silent Portrait seems endless, and I mean that as a good thing, as though we’re stuck in some story with no ending, left unwritten. Not quite still, just rotating in slow motion. A beautiful space.
Daryl Groetsch Fathoms (Self-Released)
Anytime a musician I admire mentions Rachel Carson’s work (The Sea Around Us, in this case, I’m assuming since Groetsch mentions 1951) in the description of an album, they’ve got my attention. Fathoms, the latest from Daryl Groetsch (aka Pulse Emitter, who also had an amazing album out on Hausu Mountain last year), is an immersive set of slow-moving, glassine synthesizer explorations. It is music that is massive as tonal progressions rise and fall, swirling like a pristine aqueous force. Patterns blur into ghost melodies, and it pairs restraint with expansiveness throughout. Each of the four pieces on Fathoms is self-contained, and the album is like diving into different seas. They’re all distinct yet interconnected, an effect heightened by his use of different scales on each piece. Groetsch’s use of water field recordings in places adds further complexity. So, so beautiful.
Fumerolles Rained-Out Predictions (isohyet)
Rained-Out Predictions is a collection of pieces Fumerolles composed for live events over three years, and I’m impressed at how cohesive it works as an album. Gleaming arpeggios made of synth tones and crystals sit alongside percussion deconstructed into a digital junkyard that still spits out odd-shaped rhythms, and somehow it all coheres into bouncy music steeped in whimsy and fading neon hues. There are unexpected moments everywhere, lively melodies and shifting cadences pulling the listener into fully immersive soundworlds. This is exactly what I want in synth-based work. Fumerolles calls these “useless soundtracks,” and I think that’s one of my favorite approaches to writing music I’ve heard in a while. Whatever they are, they’re fun and interesting and simply fucking great.
Three Quick Recs:
Kelby Clark Continuum (The Crystal Cabinet)
This doesn’t sound like any old banjo record. Love the different techniques Clark applies to the instrument – gives it a whole different sonic fingerprint and has me entranced.
Till Hillbrecht & Zimoun Warp Shaw (Room 40)
Massive walls of sonic excess, accentuated with small, textural details, give this music a lived-in, primordial quality. Bass synths for days.
Stuart Bowditch Constable Stereophonic Vol. 1 (Courier)
Raw (beautiful!) field recordings from locations of paintings by John Constable. I realize this isn’t much of a review, but I want to shout out this wonderful project.
