Goat - World Music

Goat - World Music 

Goat are a collective who hail from a small and very remote village called Korpilombolo in deepest darkest Sweden. Legend has it that for centuries, the inhabitants of the village of Korpilombolo were dedicated to the worship and practices of Voodoo. 

This strange and seemingly unlikely activity was apparently introduced into the area after a travelling witch doctor and a handful of her disciples were led to Korpilombolo by following a cipher hidden within their most sacred of ancient scriptures. 

Mars Red Sky - Mars Red Sky

Mars Red Sky - Mars Red Sky 

Mars Red Sky is a French psychedelic rock band formed in 2007 in Bordeaux, France.

The band stoke the fire of a voodoo mass with their 70’s old school riffs and their psychedelic groove.

Julien Pras, well known for the pop magnificence of his studio session with Calc, was secretly dreaming ofBlack Sabbath and Led Zeppelin and was also sharing these musical fantasies with drummer Benoit Busser and noisy bass player Jimmy Kinast. The three of them make a melodic stoner music using heavy reverbs. Julien Pras’s airy voice mixed with the sound of fuzzy electric guitar gives an aerial dimension to their rolling rhythm. 

Alcian Blue - Slow Colorless Stare

Alcian Blue - Slow Colorless Stare

Washington, DC-based Alcian Blue, whose early limited-edition EPs drew favorable comparisons to the likes of My Bloody Valentine and Jesus and Mary Chain, had been around for almost five years, recording records in their basement and developing an underground fan base both locally and globally. The sudden departure of their drummer left them wondering what the future held for DC’s loudest rock band. It was right at this time that vocalist/guitarist Jake Reid and his then girlfriend (now wife) Kim started writing a batch of new songs with heavy drum machine beats and walls of synths and guitars. Blending the neo-shoegaze influences from their past releases with the haunting landscapes of early ‘80s icons like Joy Division/New Order, The Cure, and prime time Depeche Mode, the new sound showcased on Alcian Blue presents a fresh perspective and groundwork for exploration.

Click hear to listen to: Alcian Blue - Touch

Duster - Stratosphere

Duster - Stratosphere

 Duster is a lo-fi slowcore band which first consisted of Clay Parton and Dove Amber. Jason Albertini joined the band when the recording of Stratosphere was almost complete. Most of the bands’ material, including the Stratosphere (1998), 1975 (1999) and Contemporary Movement (2000), have been released on Up Records.

Codeine - The White Birch

Codeine - The White Birch

American indie rock band formed in New York in 1989 by members Stephen Immerwahr (vocal, bass), Chris Brokaw (drums) and John Engle (guitar). Codeine pioneered the slowcore and sadcore subgenres of indie rock, but with a more experimental attitude than other bands in the genre, such as Low, Idaho and Red House Painters. The band’s original tone, marked by slow tempos, Immerwahr’s nasal and apathetic vocals, and Engle’s ringing Telecaster, did not evolve much during their career

Salems Pot 

Salem’s Pot is extremely heavy doom metal, with an occult atmosphere.Sweden

Monolord

Sweden
Psychedelic Doom Metal

Formed in 2013, this band is made up of Swedish rockers Thomas Jäger, Esben Willems, and Mika Häkki. Both Jäger and Willems were in the Swedish boogie rock band Marulk and started Monolord as a side project as a way to play some more heavier tunes, they quickly added Häkki (from The Don Darlings, ex Rotten Sound) and realized that they had something very special between the 3 of them. Monolord became very real very quickly and recording commenced in early 2013. Thomas Jäger had not sung in a band before this one, but you would never know it by the sound of it. Having met EasyRider Records head hauncho Daniel Hall over instagram in May of 2013 when the record was ready to listen to, EasyRider was one of the first that it was sent to and picked up the band immediately after hearing the finished album that will come out worldwide on April 1st 2014, this first offering is of pure hellfire of unrestrained heavy doom that has the ability to shatter windows and put people into an induced coma. The album titled, Empress Rising, has all of the flavors of an iconic doom record and follows in the footsteps of Sleep Holy Mountain, Pallbearer “Sorrow and Extinction”, Electric Wizard “Witchcult Today” with melodic vocals and harmonies that are super psychedelic and easy to sing along with.

Sons Of Huns 

In a city like Portland, Oregon, where there are quite literally hundreds of people 

playing heavy music – and playing it well, at that – it takes a bold, tightly-honed 

punch to the crowd’s ears in order to stand out. Formed in the winter of 2009 and
armed with a full stack of Orange cabs, a lifetime of experience and enough classical
training to out-riff any band that dares stand in their SG-wielding path, Sons of Huns
have consistently blown crowds away. Peter Hughes (guitar), Shoki Tanabe (bass)
and Ryan Northrop (drums) have headlined shows in anywhere from tiny bars to
the main stages of Portland’s biggest music festivals, and had the honor of opening
for the likes of Red Fang, Andrew W.K., Danava and even the world’s most metal
comedian, Brian Posehn. 

A pick of my 3 Riding Easy Records favorites.

The Grand Eternal and the Sermon on the Mount

The subconscious is a collection of infinite doorways connected with streams and corridors, paths that lead to nowhere but everywhere, all tangled together in a colossus soup of "fantasy" and reality, the difference being that our subconscious is connected to every living creature and plant on this planet as well as far beyond this world we live in, we come from out beyond the stars, the only place carbon and other such materials can be created are in the incredible pressures created when a star is born, or at its death connecting all living things to its initial birth within a star.

Everything we see, hear, smell, taste, imagine and create are the only guidelines we have to understand our own "conscious" mind, our own personal ethics and understanding of morality are on the surface of our conscious being but to understand the subconscious, you have to look beyond what natural order insist we believe.

example: If you were raised in a country where it is socially and culturally accepted to murder and enslave other beings, be they human plant or animal your conscious mind, your personal moral compass tells you it is absolutely fine to commit such acts, you were raised and lead to understand that "this is for the greater good" and this changes the hands on your "conscious" moral compass, and is justification to commit such acts. But to understand this, you have to understand survival, and that personal gain not for the benefit of every living being (greed) is not survival, it is vanity, and vanity will ruin your mind, which then leads to boredom and boredom leads to destruction, destruction of the mind body and "soul". Killing predatorily is very much a part of survival, so long as we only take what we need to survive, if our consciousness is threated, and we take action to counter the threat, this is also survival, and survival has no negative effect on our "Subconscious" moral compass, a compass shared between every living carbon based life form. your soul is what i believe to be your subconscious, and with that in mind, think about the day to day choices you make, and the drive behind those choices, what is pushing you to commit to your routines, or in turn break from those routines, is it driven by your conscious moral compass, or your subconscious morality, as a human, a living creature, who has committed crimes, treated people un fairly and taken more than I have needed to better and improve my social standing in life, i have felt and understand the difference between my subconscious and conscious moral code, i have in the past convinced myself that my wrong doings are justified by society, and the murmurs felt in my stomach are not warning signs from our subconscious, but a curiosity induced by fear of change, i now know that this is not true and that even if society and culture tells me its ok to do these things my subconscious, my connection to everything, is actually telling me, "this is wrong" i imagine over time we have diluted our body’s enough to be able to either ignore or supress this feeling, and the truest most powerful form of this feeling is guilt, a subconscious understand that we are doing wrong.

Now before this starts to sound like some idealistic hippie philosophy, I’d like to go into a substance called N,N-Dimethyltryptamine , a psychedelic compound used throughout  the ages by a number of different religious and none religious groups, also as a recreational substance within western society, and is used to bridge the gap between consciousness and subconscious , meaning this is almost the key to visit your own subconscious within your own mind. In the altered state of consciousness you experience whilst taking DMT you are exposed to a number of changes, you are no longer apart of this world we have created but yet feel a part of something so much bigger, you can reach out your hands and all you can see is this kaleidoscopic world you are now connected to, when you sleep, a small dose of DMT is realised into your mind, this induces dreams, your consciousness is still awake, and it is like looking into the window of your subconscious, without being fully integrated  with it, and your subconscious knows every little detail about you and your life, the mistakes you have made, the good you have done for others and the real drive behind your actions, and this for some people can be very scary, this is why

We don’t always understand the terrors we find in our nightmares, because it is our subconscious causing them, not or conscious mind. This is why it is very important we try to understand our dreams a lot more than we do. In the eyes of others you could be the perfect human, you do things for others, you are not greedy, your care and love the people around you and commit selfless acts, but what is the drive behind all this? maybe that drive is to gain enough power and respect that you are raised to a position of power, a social standing above other men and women, and then with this new found power, you become vain, maybe not in your conscious mind yet, you start to develop  greed, and you start to dictate to others your methods and stories of success and this dilutes your moral ethics, your now working to your own rules and codes, and not the grand eternal code  that is stitched within our subconscious. You have to understand this is not the case for every (deemed by society) successful man or women but is only an example of what can and will happen. And in that case there is no excuse for stupidity or ignorance, we all carry this clock, this code of right, wrong  and survival.

You won’t have been told about this in school science labs, or from watching your TV, or your parents and family, because it is hidden and ignored by the powers that try control our conscious mind. when you die DMT is released into your brain as with all living things, any living thing that dies, realises DMT, it is the perfect indication of life, and when your exposed to DMT you lose any understanding of time, time is no longer a rule, time is no longer anything, whilst taking a dosage of 0.05 of a gram of DMT 5 minutes can seem like a whole day within your subconscious, but you don’t know how long a day is, and have nothing to compare to, the only reason you feel this, is because your consciousness is still making you aware of time, a rule only important on our conscious earth, but you die, and death is the end of consciousness, time is no more, the amounts of DMT released  are almost chaotic in comparison to recreational use an everlasting eternal trip of the subconscious, effected tremendously by the choices you made in your conscious mind. The Grand Eternal, choices you made in life will haunt you for eternity in your last trip, a trip that has no concept of time and is very honest your true personality will be exposed and this will either cause you to punish yourself, or exist in peace in an interstellar world where anything and everything is possible, so long as you learn to control your subconscious.

Daniel Brown  

Have a Nice Life

This will be a review on the band's latest release The Unnatural World but with a predecessor so poignant and sealed in my heart and I'm sure in the hearts of their fan base I am itching to present the band's harrowing début that stands as a superlative monolith within the genre.

Deathconsciousness (2008)

"A Quick One Before the Eternal Devours Connecticut" seduces me into a slumber within my waking life, a sense of mysterious comfort and beauty that unravels into ominous tones that prick my heart. A minimal introduction that in no way prepares you for the next 78 minutes you are about to endure. Hold on to that light you've been gifted by this ethereal ambience, you may need it.
A clean bass line dances the listener into the next track and is present throughout the song like the world is tumbling slowly in the background but whatever who even cares.
The vocals keep that sultry heavy trance that has been pervading from the start, a maddening repetitive monologue following that faint rumbling bass "we kill everyone with arrowheads, arrowheads, arrowheads, arrowheads. Arrowheads, arrowheads, arrowheads, arrowheads, arrowheads" ad nauseam.
Thus begins this tenderly crafted vision of apocalyptic hopelessness and uncertainty executed by a character that stays in tune with their failure to connect with the world even in a time of its collapse. 
Each track is not without its spectral accompaniment whispering, rumbling and at times howling beside lonesome vocal melody, numbed riffing or scattered echoing drums. A intelligently executed depiction of the impending unknown. 
The ubiquitously raw production adds the sort of fragility to this release that is evocative of lo-fi black metal, transforming simple guitar progressions into a chilling smog of atmosphere.
Occasionally there is a drop in atmosphere, a brief calm before the storm depicting that numb human constant, that evolutionary mechanism to cope with the trauma around us.
"There is No Food" breaks the album up wonderfully from sporadic hysteria to an unnerving dread. The muffled vocals, subtle background suffering of nameless survivors and ringing in your ears assures you that this swelling dark ambience isn't a break for the listener from this relentless turmoil but a new dark chapter.
With a flourish of quasi industrial, post punk, up tempo chord progression on the inaptly named "Waiting for Black Metal Records to Come in the Mail" we are the dancing dead.
This theme follows the album to a close before breaking into clean guitar and vocals which inevitably are seized by thunderous drums and all consuming reverb and before succumbing completely, before communication loses itself in this sea of noise the vocals gasp among wailing harmonies "we wish we were dead" and after hanging for so long we are granted the end with absolute deathconsciousness style, aching notes plucking and crying out into an overwhelming static to an unnerving close.

The Unnatural World (2014)

Anyone who has encountered or has been swept up in the hype around the bands initial release will be aware of the pressure involved in following such an object of attachment. I eagerly awaited a new release by after the announcement and the date began to loom ever closer I started to wonder if I would need to prepare myself for disappointment.

To listen to the records back to back (although I respect them as individual pieces of art) Unnatural World's introductory track Guggenheim Wax Museum is a rewarding release from the previous work's closing track Earthmover, perhaps I'd been insecurely clinging to the first like lovers growing apart and as such had to accept it's place in my heart but now I need room to grow.
This release is far from a disappointment and elements from past works satisfyingly compliment the fresh atmosphere on this latest album. It begins dark and dreamy, an intoxicating miasma moving slowly and surely It's easy listening but still possesses that stirring edge.
Defenestration Song, a reworked demo released on the band's 'Voids' cassette breaks from the build up of poisonous fog created by the introduction  

Sun Kil Moon

Benji

Benji is the sixth studio album by American indie folk act Sun Kil Moon, released on 11 February 2014 on Caldo Verde Records. Self-produced by primary recording artist Mark Kozelek (of Red House Painters), the album shares its name with the 1974 film Benji, and was recorded between March and August 2013 at Hyde Street Studios in San Francisco, the album features contributions from Owen Ashworth, Jen Wood, Will Oldham, and Sonic Youth's Steve Shelley.

Now, enough with the formalities. If you are at all acquainted with the Red House Painters or Sun Kil Moon’s earlier albums you may have some idea what you’re in for here and you will. A bit but not really. Mike Kozelek is back with a kind of vengeance one is reluctant to exact and inevitably exchanges it with an intimate conversation over drinks and that’s exactly what this album is, over an hour long exchange of a weight being unburdened onto the listener. Endearingly masculine, tender and organic painting vast American landscapes I will never see with my own eyes. An hour of barefaced meandering honesty with the poetic prowess of Charles Bukowski, the breaks in the rhyming scheme seem both charmingly unpractised and cleverly crafted.

The countless recollection of events both personal and internationally known, from a second cousin’s funeral to the Anders Breivik shootings place the listener right in moment, you can smell the air, you can taste the green tea lingering, savoury in your mouth and you can recall the televised reports but the hysteria is numb. This is nostalgia made absolute accompanied by eerie harmonised guitar leads and close to spoken word, gravelly vocals, not your nostalgia, perhaps not even his nostalgia but our nostalgia.
This album explores a time line of the individual's human existence and experience from childhood memories of friends and family to very matter fact sexual encounters and ultimately (and often!) death. An unassuming yet powerful reflection on one’s own mortality. 

Sacred Bones Records

Sacred Bones Records

Sacred Bones Records was born in Brooklyn, New York in early 2007, with the intention of bringing our friends’ music to light, as well as unearthing music lost to time. Our main focus is on vinyl, but our releases are also available in compact disc and digital formats.  We are deeply fortunate to have a co-operative of gifted artists working with us whose talents span a multitude of mediums, including film making, print making, graphic designing, emailing, and panicking. We put as much energy and care into the presentation of our records as each band does to their own music.  We look forward to continuing to release albums by artists who we truly believe in both sonically and spiritually.

Friction 1991

Friction 

a Chicago-based group of emo rockers. Starting with a sound that was firmly based in the Dischord post-hardcore movement, the bandmembers wrote songs that reflected their Jawbox/Jawbreaker obsessions, but with a melodic twist that they slowly develop throughout the disc. "Cassyflies" is the first track to recognize this shift in direction, but as the album goes on, they manage to develop a friendlier, less tense approach. This helps immensely, as their dynamic grows twice as large and the album begins to bounce back and forth between the tense feel of their early work and the later poppy punk balance they managed to create. They move back and forth between these styles effortlessly, revealing increasingly impressive skills as the recordings go by. Covers of Jawbreaker, the Misfits, and the Arrowsare interesting but uneventful, while their original material goes from being fairly good to really great as the album progresses. There are a few lulls on the second disc as they venture a little too far toward post-punk experimentation and repeat several songs from the first disc, but for the most part this is a great collection that documents an emo band growing into its own skin.

Allmusic.com

honeyslide - honeyslide ep

honeyslide - honeyslide ep

London / Garage / Grunge / Space Rock / Shoegaze 

New Critical Heights signings Honeyslide are set to release the follow up to their sold-out debut cassette the Honeyslide EP with a double A side 10” featuring two lead tracks “Drippin’” and “Deep Architecture”, plus two further tracks “Sugar Routine” and “Untitled #240”. Swathed in reverb, bathed in noise and drowned in dreamy vocals, Honeyslide blend the experimental with the melodic to provide thrillingly provocative sounds

Lastfm.com

Loop - Fade Out

Loop - Fade Out 

Blues / Hard Rock / Psychedelic / London 

Ride Into The Sun - S/T

Ride Into The Sun - S/T 

Psychdelia / Psychdelic / Shoegaze / Adelaide 

BandCamp

Slow-burning psychedelic shoegaze-rock, painting a soundscape that takes you on a trip from droning guitar, to blissful noise all at once. There’s a cohesive cinematic feel here that pulls everything together. This is a band rich in character: in both the sounds they weave and in the authentic stage presence they project.

Bandcamp

Lowercase - Kill The Lights

Lowercase - Kill The Lights

San Fransico / Garage / Amphetamine Reptile / Punk In My Vitamins 

Lowercase was a band from San Francisco, via Palm Desert. The group’s primary two members, drummer Brian Girgus and guitarist Imaad Wasif, formed the band in Palm Desert, Calfornia before making the migration to San Francisco.

The duo, which employed several different bassists during its existence, wandered a wavery road between quirky, melodic indie rock a la Built To Spill, darker and more dangerous sounding minor chord fare, and twisted, noisy freakout sessions. 

The group released three full-length albums: All Destructive Urges Seem So Protect (1996) and Kill the Lights (1997) on Minneapolis-based Amphetamine Reptile and Going-Away Present (1999) on Unwound’s Punk in My Vitamins label, as well as many seven inches and various appearances on compilation. That latter album provided the source material for this remix of “Floodlit,” featured in Skyscraper Magazine’s Technology remix compilation. 

Lowercase

Slint - Spiderland

Slint - Spiderland 

Math / Post Rock / Touch And Go / Louisville 

Slint is an American rock band consisting of Brian McMahan (guitar and vocals), David Pajo (guitar), Britt Walford (drums and vocals), Todd Brashear (bass on Spiderland), and Ethan Buckler (bass on Tweez). They formed in Louisville, Kentucky, United States, in 1986 and disbanded following the recording of their second album, Spiderland, in 1990.

Wiki

Swans - Swans Are Dead

No Wave / Young God / Experimental / Post Rock / Post Punk / New York / Gira

Swans is a band from New York City, New York, United States, active from 1982 to 1997, reformed in 2010, led by singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Michael Gira.

Marginally associated with the no wave scene at first, their original sound was slow and extremely heavy, with live performances that were often so brutal and physical that in a number of instances certain audience members were made ill, police were called and venues were shut down. This early physical sound is possibly best heard on the live album Public Castration Is a Good Idea. 

Lastfm.com