In a time where so many bands do little to tweak their influences, Andy Human & The Reptoids do what all great bands do: They take the past, hint at the future, and turn it all into the NOW. With punk energy, a new wave sense of economy, and the tap of power pop, these guys fold in Roxy Music, Devo (both the art and the pop sides), early Eno, and Pere Ubu, while making sounds that are very much their own. Raven Sings the Blues has called Andy Human's Freeze album “...a wobble of weird that makes the candy coating delightfully astringent...digesting Devo and Gary Numan through a faded VHS glam punk hangover and knocking the results crisply out of stacked speakers.”

Andy Human & The Reptoids’ debut contains eleven songs, each one a sonic worm that will burrow into your brain and turn you into a Reptoid-humming zombie. Play side one forever, that’s okay, when it is worn out, you have side two to obsess over. Or keep flipping the thing over until you get carpel tunnel syndrome. Whatever you do, you will listen to this. This isn’t a record that gets lost in the stacks. It is one you wear out.


Andy Human is Andy Jordan. You know him from the Cuts, Time Flys, Buzzer, and LENZ (also Razz, Brain Glaze, and Factrix). He is one of the best Bay Area rock & roll song-writers around and an ace on guitar and keyboards.

The Reptoids are Cripe Jergensen, Beast Man, and Ra Diehl. They’ve been doing time in Drunk Horse, Sir Lord Von Raven, Girls, and LAND. Throw them in a bowl and stir them around and you’ve got a couple dozen records out of them, countless festival and SXSW appearences, and too many tours and shows to count.


Andy Human & the Reptoids play some of the freshest & smartest rock & roll being made today and this record is proof of it.

The appeal of Power is the spontaneous brilliance of live Australian hard rock music. The heat from relentless live performance in the greasy confines of the inner city pub was strong in the 70’s circuit, and the debut LPs of many of Australia’s greatest bands are the testimony of many late nights twitching and sweating it out.
Troglodyte rock music and inner city Melbourne have always made sense. Every week there have been bands playing fast and loose. Last year, Power was this band, and immediately earned comparison to Melbourne’s Coloured Balls, sharing that edge of menace in their affection for boogie rock and the same air of familiarity with aforementioned greasy confines.
2014 was the year Power stepped up, and hosted their own weekly residency in this city, kicking through backyard parties and seemingly hundreds of Tote shows with the collection of songs they recorded at the right moment and turned into this LP.
The result has the savage drive of their live sound, the bolts tightened to threadbare, and is carried by that supreme confidence and determination any band gets when they know what they are doing and can relax and let the songs happen when they need to, and when the songs need it, they know when to kick it hard. This kind of confidence is intoxicating to exalt in. Living in the age of power.
The sound is raw but full, the band recorded the songs live with minimal overdubs, and the songs continually disintegrate into white heat guitar noise before slamming back into manic amphetamine lockstep. In 8 songs, they traverse an entire history of hard rock, electric glitter boogie, thug glam, raw power punk. Strong character. Definite purpose. Something you just can not control.

This is one more proof that jazz, and blues for that matter, turned to be a universal language. Roots Magic is an Italian quartet, and yes, they play the Blues. A sort of Avant-Garde Blues, to be more exact. The group consists of Alberto Popolla – clarinets, Errico Defabritiis – alto sax, Gianfranco Tedeschi – double bass and Fabrizio Spera – drums, plus guest Luca Venitucci – organ. Two of the tracks of this album are from members of the band but the main content is formed by covers. Some come from the Delta Blues repertoire (Blind Willie Johnson, Charley Patton) and are submitted to unusual arrangements, and others were composed by distinguished Free Jazz. musicians like Julius Hemphill, Phil Cohran, John Carter, Sun Ra and Olu Dara, and Roots Magic squeeze the blues out of it. The concept is marvelous and the results are magnificent. A multiple picture including open form ballads, Afro-funk numbers and highly energetic free-jazz. Maybe only non-African-Americans could manipulate the tradition like this, but it does sound American. Thank God we live in a global village and history isn’t something to keep stored at a museum.

Present-day San Francisco is beautiful city but it is also a hyper-active, tech-grinding rat race. Every day 24/7 the money chase is on, the rats hustling for tiny morsels of cheese, praying for the day when a big hunk o’ chedder falls from the sky. If you’ve lived in the city for a good while and are some creative type or working joe or jane, you can be overwhelmed by it all. LIFE STINKS’s second album, You’ll Never Make It is a perfect portrait of that mindframe.

Feelings of anger, self-doubt, and vindictiveness are weaved though a sonic template that shifts from a Flipper/Fang arms-a-swingin groove like the title track to stand out Velvet poppers (anchor), Stooge-oid stomping (Sliding Down A Wire), and outright demented thuds (I’m A Weed). And then just when you are ready to take out a few windows, Life Stinks slyly slides in a gentle number which reminds you that the band is as complete as the emotional pallette we all possess.

You’ll Never Make it is a great follow up to Life Stinks’ 2013 debut, which was called Album of the Year by some yucks at Maximum RocknRoll and earned high praise at Raven Sings the Blues, It’s Psychedelic Baby, Terminal Boredom, and other places. Life their first album, You’ll Never Make It is produced by Kelley Stoltz and Mikey Young (Total Control / Eddy Current Suppression Ring).

If ever a jazz group defied labeling, it is Mostly Other People Do the Killing (MOPDtK). With their self-titled debut (Hot Cup Records, 2004), the group had demonstrated a wildly engrossing pastiche encompassing influences as diverse as Ornette Coleman and traditional New Orleans swing. MOPDtK was founded by bassist Moppa Elliott and trumpeter Peter Evans who met in the late 90s as students of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio. When the two relocated to New York, saxophonist Jon Irabagon and drummer Kevin Shea, an eleventh-hour replacement at their first quartet performance, joined to form the long-running quartet. Mauch Chunk represents the first recording in more than ten years, where the core group has modified their personnel.

With the recent departure of Evans, the group interplay is altered, if not the methodology; still ranging from bop to free improvisation with the occasional reference to chamber jazz, and veering from structure to free form. Pianist Ron Stabinsky, now the fourth member of the quartet, is not new to MOPDtK, having performed with the group live in 2013 and expanded the group to a quintet for the very cool Blue (Hot Cup Records, 2014). Stabinsky's fit with MOPDtK would not be obvious from the note-for-note recreation of Miles Davis' ground-breaking Kind Of Blue (Columbia, 1959) as the album is completely atypical of MOPDtK's output. Mauch Chunk, however, makes it clear that Stabinsky's contribution is not only refreshing but also an anchoring element as the band matures.

Stabinsky jumps right to the front, quickly joined by Irabagon on the Henry Threadgill dedicated "Mauch Chunk is Jim Thorpe" and the piano/saxophone combination imparts a far different accent compared to past dynamics of Irabagon and Evans. What has clearly not changed is the quartet's penchant for effectively mixing passages of engagement with those of cooperation and the addition of a chord instrument enhances both. "West Bolivar" is a bossa nova-themed dance on the third rail with Shea pushing Stabinsky and Irabagon in and out of harm's way. The off-kilter rhythmic structure of the Dave Holland inspired "Obelisk" features some explosive soloing from Irabagon matched by Stabinsky's inventive—if more structured—contribution. More consistently melodic is "Niagra," a subdued waltz for the late saxophonist Will Connell whose club of the same name was the first live venue for MOPDtK.

Hard bop and blues dominate "Herminie" while "Townville" utilizes three distinct melodies linked by free improvisations. The Latin R&B flavor of "Mehoopany" features classy and soulful solos from Stabinsky and Irabagon; Shea interrupts the mood with a hectic snare performance before the piece returns to its central theme. The odd title is, like almost all of Elliott's compositions, taken from the name of a Pennsylvania town. Mauch Chunk itself is the state's former name for the town that—as explained by the extended title track—is now Jim Thorpe, PA.

As the wider recognition of MOPDtK builds, it's appropriate to point out that Elliott has become a leading composer of complex scores with the kind of high-wire flexibility needed to maneuver between structure and improvisation. The new quartet, as with the Evans era group, can sound like a large ensemble or an intimate club act as they seamlessly move from lyrical expression to the sound of an exploding junkyard. After more than ten years, Mostly Other People Do the Killing sounds better than ever; reinvigorated, mischievous and perhaps more willing to take a deep breath in the midst of these multifaceted works.

Unashamedly brash, loud and loaded with the humour you’ve come to expect along with their trademark chainsaw buzz guitars. Yes, it’s the Cosmic Psychos back with their ninth album ‘Cum the Raw Prawn’. Following two years after the great doco on them, it’s what you’d want from them, the same but different, new but old. Fresh aural produce – from a farm in rural Victoria straight to you. It’s a deadset winner from start to finish!

Have a beer and put the album on! The first song on the album, and first single off it, is ‘Better, Not Bitter’ will burrow into your brain and stay for an age. Not my fave on the album but its guitars and Knights’ repeated slight drone of the chorus “IT’S FUCKIN’ BULLSHIT MAAAATE” rides the mid-paced tune perfectly so to be catchy by its near hypnotic ability. And I’m sure it’ll make it a winner at Psychos gigs, in the car etc., and parties in Australia and beyond! The clip for it is Class A scary a la the movie Wolf Creek.

You’ll find yourself dragged along for the ride, willingly or not, as the mix is just right on ‘… Raw Prawn’ of good rock, jokes, good tales, bitterness (‘Better, Not Bitter’, ‘Didn’t Wanna Love Me’) and talking rubbish with a touch of serious (‘Come and Get Some’). Don’t forget an essential Cosmic Psychos element of drinking, here in the guise of ‘Pint Girl’. Knight hands over the vocal duties on a few tracks with McKenna in his catchy ditty of jerks on ‘Fuckwit City’, and beers in ‘Pint Girl’, and drummer Dean Muller gives us a tale of a shady character in the driving ‘Cotton Mouth’.

It’s hard to pick a real fave on here as so many are standouts. ‘Ack Ack’ would be one by a good head with its slow building guitars, preceded by sounds of rain and loading a rifle, that doesn’t bust into a crescendo and hitting its speed till halfway through the five minute track. Title track ‘Chum The Raw Prawn’ and ‘Cotton Mouth’ would be others.

The sound on ‘Cum the Raw Prawn’ is crisp; the sound is perfect capturing all the nuances, and it doesn’t take itself too seriously which I think is part of its magnetic attraction. This is evidenced by its laid back great rock rhythm throughout and laughing heard here and there, with jokey outro’s to several tunes. They’re having a good time making it transcends to you in turn enjoying it too. Not bad for an album made down on the farm by the guys you can trust. ‘Come and Get Some’!

La Vida Es Un Mus reaches it's 100th release with the debut album from New York's DAWN OF HUMANS, opening a door into an unexplored world below the Brooklyn sewers. 'Slurping at the Cosmos Spine' is a chaotic, creepy and unhinged album that takes the mutant sound of UNITED MUTATION and mixes it with the basic, hypnotic and relentless rhythms of THE RONDOS / Early EX. It actually sounds like a RUDIMENTARY PENI 7" played at the wrong speed. This is music for freaks that is wild and abandoned in parts and then locked in and claustrophobic in others. While DAWN OF HUMANS is surely a band to experience live due to their ever changing stage performance 'Slurping at the Cosmos Spine' manages to shine the psychotic genious-ness of the band thru the grooves of this record.

This is one of those albums that radiates a mysterious beauty. There’s nothing straight-forward about Rame. Guitarist Giovanni Francesca cloaks gorgeous melodies within harmonies that waver and bend and fade, and wraps it all up with obscure cadences that keep the ear guessing just enough to pull the listener up close. It’s one of those albums that makes sense after its been revealed, from moment to moment, in a perpetual state of guessing.

With its electronics & effects, and an instrumentation that accompanies a drums & bass duo with a violinist, trombonist, and Francesca’s electric guitar, there’s some lines of comparability to be drawn between this album and Bill Frisell’s Nonesuch Records output. But those lines speak as much to the spirit of invention as they do the sonic qualities of the two musicians’ respective sounds, and it’s why the sense of familiarity is a subtle comfort when encountering this album.

“Gocce” and “Novela” is all about the slow, sweet exhalation of melody. It’s a quality common to most of this album, and the former bolsters it with a rising intensity, whereas the latter possesses the disposition of a bedtime story. “Nuda” brings the noise, but slowly, one step after the other. Conversely, “Neve” gets the pulse rate up with a chipper tempo and solos that ride the crests of motion. The acoustic guitar of “Tuba” is a lovely light-and-shadow contrast with the soaring passages from trombone. It’s effect is no less gripping when violin is guitar’s dance partner on “Rom.”

“Lite” has an appealing saunter, occasionally broken by a burst of melodic ferocity, whereas with “Greta,” the melody is whistled out like a song. The quintet’s playful side comes out strong on “Sentinelle,” and on album finale “Atollo,” the quintet makes time to reveal all the different facets that drive this terribly compelling recording.

Rame is one of the most stunning albums to be released in 2015.

First new Black Time LP surfaces in seven years (first new record overall since a 12” EP on Wrench circa 2010), and while it’s foolish to make generalizations of “whoa that was a while ago” – time passes differently for everyone, and once you realize this, it’s no longer of editorial interest – the breather in between this one might have done Lemmy Caution and his London coterie better than anyone might’ve expected. It’s a Black Time record so it is of course choked with noise, particularly in the front (the opening track of each of their records aims to do permanent damage to less careful listeners, and here, that title track sounds like they’ve thrown the tape into a cement mixer by the end), but as Aerial Gobs Of Love opens up, expectations begin to wander, for the best. Line-drive, between-the-eyes stompers like “More Pricks Than Kicks” and “No Expectations” cross the Mersey from a Childish rave-up to a Sudden/Head post-punk stomper, but at the album’s midpoint, the tension cables snap loose, and we’re treated to flat, gray dub beatings (“Tarzan Vs. IBM”), a slowed-down reworking of “Pricks” in “The Winged Serpent,” deliriously hanging off its crumbling edge, and in some minor miracle, a six-minute assailment of emotions and time-wasters in “Flakes,” celebrating both a British snowfall and, presumably, the agony of getting past one’s own past. Some purists will inevitably court these experiments as laziness, but Black Time has shown us enough of their hand in the past, and don’t slack off on their attitude across these branchings out, that these changes are as welcome as they are inevitable, at points sawing the past away back to Cabaret Voltaire’s early experiments, and in others achieving the spiritual connection I’d always thought might take place between this band and Comet Gain. Feck and co. attack through melancholy, and achieve self-reflection through a dreamer’s journal; Black Time would rather complain openly about the hazards and disappointments in their lives before obliterating them with feedback loops and tape scuzz, but both are achieving the desired results on their own paths. Staying true to oneself over time is hard for many, unfathomable to others as needs and landscapes change. We can’t all be expected to sit in the same place, looking at the wreckage behind us. On Aerial Gobs Of Love, Black Time carries the weight for us listeners for a good 30 minutes or so, and in doing so make their finest album to date.

The Coneheads are incredibly easy to pin down yet simultaneously impossible to grasp. By titling their album L.P.1. aka “14 Year Old High School PC-Fascist Hype Lords Rip Off Devo for the Sake of Extorting $$$ From Helpless Impressionable Midwestern Internet Peoplepunks L.P.”, The Coneheads are completely aware that they can be simply written off as Devo impersonators. They know the joke of the music industry, yet they do not joke around. Well, not in the conventional “ha ha” sense.

Like a movie that practically gives away its plot in its title (think, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford), The Coneheads debut album tells you exactly what to expect. This IS a bunch of young brats that sound like Devo. And while there is something refreshing about being so unapologetic with their influences, it is not quite the full story. The Coneheads play harder, faster, louder, and somehow more alien than Devo, with this 15 song album equating to roughly 18 minutes in length. Each track is a relentless barrage of muffled fuzz riffs, nasally vocals, and surprisingly tuneful songwriting. The 47 second opener Out Of Conetrol is the perfect jump start to any (really weird) day with a snotty yell and an arrestingly punctual assertion of facts: “Out of my conetrol, can’t think straight, freaked out, no mind, no time”. Hack Hack Variation 2 could almost function as a palatable pop hit in 1980 with its precise synthesiser bloopings, Big City Baby sports a surprisingly on-point anti-establishment message, I Used To Be A Cheesepuff revels in its throwaway spirit, and a blistering cover of Talking Heads’ Psycho Killer serves the same purpose to The Coneheads as I Can’t Get No (Satisfaction) did to Devo: a complete and brilliant re-imagining. Whereas David Byrne was nervous and borderline psychotic, The Coneheads are robotically monotonal in their delivery (much to their benefit). And if you STILL weren’t clear of The Coneheads’ intentions, just listen to the final and perhaps most commercial-sounding track Way Things Am, in which the line “I like the way things am” is repeated ad nauseam over a killer guitar workout. The Coneheads really are a “must hear them to believe them” kind of band, and even after hearing them, it is difficult to decide on whether or not it is right to believe them.

While musically, The Coneheads sound like they should most probably belong to the late 1970s New York punk scene, conceptually, they are perfectly at home in 2015. With tongues jammed squarely into their cheeks, The Coneheads set fire to our modern critical love and appreciation of the past, with a brazen disregard for manners, all the while still managing to pull off a catchy pop album. Whether or not this trick can be pulled more than once remains to be seen, but until then: Kudos Coneheads! By making something sound so repellent, you have made one of the most magnetising (in a good way) albums of the year.

Fifth album (and second of 2015) by Austin's Spray Paint. This album was recorded in the middle of a tour by modern madman Chris Woodhouse. They cited Rhys Chatham, Sonic Youth, This Heat, Brainbombs, Jesus Lizard, and The Fall when we asked them who they were ripping off this go-around.

'Digital Control and Man's Obsolescence' is the debut album from New York's L.O.T.I.O.N. Following two demo cassettes that in no way represented the intensity of their live show, L.O.T.I.O.N have finally recorded as a full band. If you've never seen the band, they described themselves as NITZER EBB meets G.I.S.M. but on this LP the sound influences go beyond adding METAL URBAIN, early SPK and THE PRODIGY as influences. Lotion's aesthetic and lyrics are beyond mundane bringing to the forefront the insane world we live in and dealing militantly with the absolute paranoia control of our pre programmed existence.

You making a Spotify "best of 15" playlist so that we can sample little bits?

I first heard Shawn David McMillen on the third volume of Tompkins Square’s excellent Imaginational Anthem series, a group of compilations that pair “American Primitive” guitar architects of the ‘60s and ‘70s (John Fahey, Robbie Basho, Sandy Bull) with current progenitors. Looking back on the series now, it’s an astounding showcase of several solo guitarists who later emerged in the electric/band format — Steve Gunn, William Tyler, Chris Forsyth, and Cian Nugent, among others. McMillen’s new album On The Clock With JJ & Mitch (12XU) should follow suit, and perhaps give the Austin guitarist the audience he deserves, or at least ensure he’s stocked with plenty of high-grade.

McMillen has been toiling in the shadows since 1999, when he recorded his first collaborative effort with Charalambides’ Tom Carter. Since then he’s built an eclectic catalog that includes wonderfully bent guitar soli outings like 2005’s Catfish and 2010’s Dead Friends, twisted noise collabs with the Starving Weirdos, and a release with heavy Texas-fried psych band Rubble (which included the Butthole Surfers’ King Coffey). McMillen’s new album is his first since 2010, and continues the rotating supporting cast with a rhythm section of fellow Austinites J.J. Ruiz (Trustees, Naw Dude) and Mitch Fraizer (Sweet Talk, Church Shoes). Named for the extremely tight timeframe in which it all came together, On The Clock With JJ & Mitch was produced in such haphazard fashion that it’s remarkable it even reached its final destination — the band didn’t even have instruments when they left to record in New York, let alone a studio booked. But from the mouth of babes comes casual lo-fi brilliance, and the resulting spew has been in heavy rotation at my house.

The story goes that the McMillen and friends had four gigs booked over two weeks in NYC and opted to spend their downtime in a recording studio. How they’d planned to play live shows without instruments is unclear. After swinging and missing on every viable recording option and running out of time, they deigned to rent a studio space by the hour and record themselves on a laptop, with Grey Daturas’ Rob Mayson manning the Protools. Or as McMillen says in the press release, “We drove Rob totally nuts and almost killed him.” The bare-bones atmosphere gives the album the feel of a live recording, with the murky, scuzzy overtones that make Royal Trux and Sic Alps so irresistible. The opening track, “Lost Contact,” is two minutes of wayward guitar-skronk and hazy vocal harmonies that comes across a little like Twin Infinitives on Valium. Things get straight-up campfire boogie on the next song, “Hole in the Ground,” followed by the heavy-tude’d blues-punk ripper “Hunting,” itself the perfect regressive soundtrack for booze and bad decisions.

Despite the visceral kicks, don’t confuse this with a punk record — there is a sophistication and heady expansiveness to On The Clock With JJ & Mitch that’s born from the Weir-Garcia mold. Apparently, Yusef Lateef and Thai stick were both major players in the album’s creative process, and songs like “Passport Photo” that’d be right at home with the Dead in Egypt 1978. The warm easy-living vibes on “A Raven” (with a video by Lexington’s Ma Turner) recalls the Latin Playboys’ “Forever Nightshade Mary” as much as anything I’ve heard, which is a wonderful thing. Over the rest of the record the Velvets, Skip Spence, Fugs, and early Meat Puppets also get tossed in the slow cooker, and the whole thing falls off the bone when it’s done. “Two Sparrows” closes the album with the type of full-throttle psych-guitar heroics that’d make Michio Kurihara proud.

Since its release, the band has already experienced some turnover with Ruiz switching to bass and drummer Matt Hammer (Strange Boys/OBN IIIs) taking over percussive duties. That means we may never experience this exact line-up in a live setting, but any rhythm section on the clock with McMillen is bound to be a corker. I just hope he doesn’t wait five years for the follow-up. What is he, Stone Roses?

I have now listened to a lot of these, and I really like that Andy Human record.

We are very happy and proud to release Time is A Mountain´s new album ll. A beautiful hand-numbered and limited 180 g LP, coloured outer and inner sleeve and with CD included. Release date is 23/10 2015 and pre-orders will be up soon so keep your eyes and ears out…

This bass-drums-keyboards trio is a joyous monster, a vibrating force of creativity and passion. Concisting of Tomas Hallonsten on keyboards- the master of warmth, a magician of black and white keys and one of Sweden’s most distinctive musicians- Johan Berthling on bass- the master of stability, the mountain in a ricefield- and Andreas Werliin on drums- the master of groove and the voice of the wild and free ocean- Time Is a Mountain take us on an essential journey from the brown earth into the clear sky, a playful folklore tale hummed by wizards.

With their self-titeld debut album released in 2013 the trio quickly became a praised name, selling out vinyl editions and placing themself on MOJO ́s Best Album of The Year-List. With the bandmembers also playing in other various groups such as Tape, Wildbirds & Peacedrums, Fire!, Mariam The Believer and Tonbruket, this is the musical place were they bind it all together, the ground with the space, the past with the future and the nordic melancoly with the bright joy of playing music together.