Terry Gross "Soft Opening"

Country: USA
Genre(s): Psychedelic
Label: Thrill Jockey
Format: vinyl, digital
Release date: January 29, 2021
Tracklist

1. Space Voyage Mission (19:21) 

2. Worm Gear (13:31) 

3. Specificity (Or What Have You) (5:54) 

Total Time 38:46

Line-up
Phil Manley (Trans Am) - guitar, vocals

Donny Newenhouse - bass, vocals

Phil Becker - drums

Description/Reviews:

...the LP brings together three songs that work off impulses from heavy psychedelic expanse à la Earthless to sunnier West Coast skate vibes and an underlying touch of noise rock gone melodic that only adds to the energy and chemistry to rampantly on display.

Read the full review at theobelisk.net

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Bandcamp

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Sumac "Love In Shadow"

Country: USA/Canada
Genre(s): Post Metal, Sludge, Doom
Label: Thrill Jockey
Format: CD, digital, vinyl
Release date: September 21, 2018
Tracklist: 
1). The Task
2). Attis’ Blade
3). Arcing Silver
4). Ecstasy of Unbecoming

Line-up: 
Aaron Turner (Isis, Old Man Gloom, Mamiffer) - guitars, vocals
Nick Yacyshyn (Baptist) - drums
Brian Cook (Russian Circles, Botch, These Arms Are Snakes) - bass

Description/Reviews: 

This is a dense and initially daunting record. Comprised of four mind-boggling complex tracks, ranging from the relatively brisk twelve minutes of “Arcing Silver” to the massive opening statement of “The Task” which slowly unfurls over twenty-two hypnotic minutes, “Love In Shadow” is not an easy ride but hugely rewarding.

Read the full review by Charlie Butler at thesludgelord.blogspot.com

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Tortoise "The Catastrophist"

Country: USA
Genre(s): Electronica, Post Rock, Experimental
Label: Thrill Jockey Records
Format: CD, vinyl, digital
Release date: January 22, 2016
Tracklist: 
1. The Catastrophist (3:52)
2. Ox Duke (4:49)
3. Rock On (3:13)
4. Gopher Island (1:13)
5. Shake Hands With Danger (4:10)
6. The Clearing Fills (4:22)
7. Gesceap (7:37)
8. Hot Coffee (3:53)
9. Yonder Blue (3:18)
10. Tesseract (3:54)
11. At Odds With Logic (3:15)
12. The Mystery Won't Reveal Itself (To You) [Bonus Track] (4:01)

Total time 47:37
Line-up: 
Dan Bitney
John Herndon
Doug McCombs
John McEntire
Jeff Parker
   With
Todd Rittmann: vocals (3)
Georgia Hubley: vocals (9)

Description/Reviews: 

While the Chicago-based instrumental quintet has nodded to dub, rock, jazz, electronica and minimalism throughout its revered and influential six-album discography, the resulting sounds have always been distinctly, even stubbornly, their own.
This fact remains true on The Catastrophist, Tortoise’s first studio album in nearly seven years. It’s an album where moody, synth-swept jams like the opening title track cozy up next to hypnotic, bass-and-beat missives like “Shake Hands With Danger,” a downright strange cover of David Essex’s 1973 radio smash, “Rock On,” sung by U.S. Maple/Dead Rider’s Todd Rittmann, and the bittersweet, honest-to-goodness soul ballad “Yonder Blue,” sung by Yo La Tengo’s Georgia Hubley. Throughout, the songs transcend expectations as often as they delight the eardrums.
The album’s debut single “Gesceap” embodies the transformation of the original suite commissions, as it morphs from two gently intersecting synth lines into a pounding, frenzied full-band finish.
As ever, Tortoise has conjured sounds on The Catastrophist that aren’t being purveyed anywhere else in music today. There’s a deeply intuitive interplay between the group members that comes only from two decades of experimentation, revision and improvisation. And at a time when our brains are constantly bombarded by myriad distractions, The Catastrophist reminds us that there’s something much greater out there. All we have to do is listen.

Media/Samples 
Gesceap

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Dommengang "Everybody's Boogie"

Country: USA
Genre(s): Blues, Psychedelic
Label: Thrill Jockey
Format: CD, vinyl, digital
Release date: May 19, 2015
Tracklist: 

1. Everybody's Boogie 05:19
2. Hats Off To Magic 03:23
3. Slow Hat 00:30
4. Her Blues 06:03
5. Wild In The Street Blues 02:19
6. Extra Slim Boogie 04:00
7. Burning Off The Years 03:32
8. Have Luck Will Travel 01:00
9. CC 03:40
10. Lost My Way 06:26

Line-up: 
Sig Wilson
Brian Markham
Adam Bulgasem

Description/Reviews: 

Dommengang’s music is expansive and driving. While the trio’s affection for electric blues and proto-punk bombast is clear, their music abandons traditional song structures and replaces their recognizable tropes with progressive frameworks. The band’s debut, Everybody’s Boogie pivots between gloriously inventive riffs and fuzzed-out experimentation, a combination so potent that the listener hardly notices that they rarely sing. 

 Also read the review by Rob Taylor at soundblab.com

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White Hills "Walks For Motorists"

Country: USA
Genre(s): Psychedelic, Electronica
Label:  Thrill Jockey
Format: CD, digital, vinyl
Release date: April 7, 2015 (CD, digital),  late April/early May, 2015 (Vinyl)
Tracklist: 
01. No Will
02. £SD or USB
03. Wanderlust
04. Lead the Way
05. I, Nomad
06. We Are What You Are
07. Automated City
08. Life Is Upon You
09. Walks For Motorists
10. May You Be the Sun (bonus track)

Line-up: 
Dave W.
Ego Sensation

Description/Reviews: 

...White Hills embrace electro-synth-rock in a manner that they have only hinted at on previous releases.
OK let’s all be clear on one point here. White Hills have not, for a long while, been so firmly welded to the Hawkwind hard-drive as some commentators would have you believe and have long since charted more sonically adventurous time and space. Even so, the extent to which Dave W and Ego Sensation have delivered this their most diverse offering in terms of both style and substance to date is quite astonishing. Sure their sound is still as anchored in simple and effective repetition as it ever was but their approach seems fresher, more focussed and more challenging. It’s difficult to imagine producer Wrench, with his synth-pop credentials not having some influence over this direction of travel.

 Read the full review by Ian Fraser at terrascope.co.uk

Media/Samples 
Trailer

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Eternal Tapestry "Wild Strawberries"

Country: USA
Genre(s): Krautrock, Psychedelic
Label: Thrill Jockey
Format: CD, vinyl, digital
Release date: February 24, 2015
Tracklist: 
01. Mountain Primrose (04:59)
02. Wild Strawberries (15:24)
03. Enchanters Nightshade (16:08)
04. Woodland Anemone (01:59)
05. Maidenhair Spleenwort (08:41)
06. Lace Fern (10:23)
07. Pale-Green Sedge (05:53)
08. White Adders Tongue (15:36)

Line-up: 
Nick Bindeman
Jed Bindeman
Krag Likins
Warren Lee
Cat Hoch

Description/Reviews: 

Committing to Wild Strawberries is a daunting undertaking; unlike its namesake, the rather more concise Ingmar Bergman film of the same name, this is a place where sprawl begets sprawl, coming in just shy of 90 minutes in length. It's cosmic music with an earthy tone, slowly ricocheting between the stars and the ground, recalling similarly minded souls such as Acid Mothers Temple, Spacemen 3, Popol Vuh, and Guru Guru. Wild Strawberries has distinct parts, becoming looser and more rock-focused at the beginning, with deeper experimentation in its back half. The transition from the jammy title track, built on a twinkly organ drone pricked with guitar solos, to the closing "White Adder's Tongue"—all bare husks of sound, slowly uncoiling drones, and a purposefully dysfunctional loop that envelopes half of its 15-minute duration—highlights the band's breadth.

 Read the full review by Nick Neyland at pitchfork.com

Media/Samples 
Mountain Primrose

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Wooden Shjips "Back To Land"

Country: USA
Sub Genre: Psychedelic
Label: Thrill Jockey
Release date: November 12, 2013
Tracklist: 
01. Back to Land
02. Ruins
03. Ghouls
04. These Shadows
05. In the Roses
06. Other Stars
07. Servants
08. Everybody Knows

Line-up: 
Ripley Johnson - guitars, vocals
Dusty Jermier - bass
Nash Whalen - drums
Omar Ahsanuddin - keyboards

Description/Reviews: 

Wooden Shjips’ rise to prominence from the psychedelic underground to the rock and roll overground has been a steady sojourn. With each consecutive release, the band has found new ways of transforming heady psychedelic rock into minimalist masterpieces, bridging the gap between the woozy freeness of Les Rallizes Denudes and Crazy Horse and the tightly wound simplicity of Suicide and the Velvet Underground. Back To Land, the quartet’s follow-up to West, is the first Wooden Shjips record to be conceived outside of San Francisco. Ripley Johnson and Omar Ahsanuddin moved to Oregon, where the lush climates became a major influence on the songwriting. The band’s scope expanded to include more earthy, grounded tones, such as the acoustic guitar, without abandoning their modernist psych core.
There is an increased brightness to many of the songs on Back To Land, an easiness with which the band has flirted with in the past but never fully realized until now. The nervy urgency of West has evolved into an assured confidence, from the alliterative, interlocking guitar and organ groove of “Ruins” to the languidly compelling guitar solos of “Servants.” The addition of the acoustic guitar to the band’s textural palate is coupled here with some of the most melodically direct songs the band has written.
Still, there are still plenty of signature Shjips songs, with distorted riffs, modal keys, and a steady, crisp drum sound unfolding intensely while the elongated melodic guitar lines drift in and out of the foreground. On Back to Land this energy is captured in clear detail, designed as an immersive experience rather than a passive blasting. 

Media/Samples 
Trailer

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White Hills "So You Are. So You'll Be"

Country: USA
Sub Genre: Psychedelic
Label:  Thrill Jockey
Release date: August 20, 2013
Tracklist: 
1. InWords (0:24)
2. In Your Room (5:49)
3. The Internal Monologue (5:30)
4. So You Are. So You'll Be (7:27)
5. OutWords (0:54)
6. Forever In Space (Enlightened) (7:54)
7. Rare Upon the Earth (7:23)
8. Circulating (1:40)
9. Mist (Winter) (6:51)


Line-up: 

Dave W / Guitars, Synthesizer, Vocals
Ego Sensation / Bass, Synthesizer, Vocals
Nick Name / Drums

Description/Reviews: 

After the deconditioning and deprogramming blast of electronic noise which is ‘InWords,’ the album opens properly with the call to arms, ‘In Your Room’ – a skyscraper razing slab of Mudhoney strength mantra metal, which bids you abandon all doubt and fear so you can start your quest into inner space. For tuned in, turned on heads there is ‘The Internal Monologue’, an ecstatic shivering sliver of celestial acidic drone followed by the post-Hawkwind, post Loop transmission of ‘So You Are… So You’ll Be’. There is more computerised deprogramming via ‘OutWords’ before White Hills command that you cower before the altar of the Stoogian proto-riff, the holy Ur-riff, the mind warping, silver machine-tooled hyper riff, that is ‘Forever In Space (Enlightened)’. But after this cataclysmic shock, there is barely time to process what just happened before you are lowered into the howling lysergic swamp rock of ‘Rare Upon The Earth’ with only the echoing synthesized landscape of ‘Circulating’ offering some respite. The album builds effortlessly to the sumptuous ‘MIST (Winter)’ which features a John Carpenter synth line engine inserted into glistening La Dusseldorf chassis, forming some kind of god-like chariot.  Read the full review by John Doran at thrilljockey.com

Media/Samples 
In Your Room

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Barn Owl "V"

Country: USA
Sub Genre: Psychedelic
Label: Thrill Jockey
Release Date: April 16, 2013
Tracklist: 
1. Void Redux (6:22)
2. The Long Shadow (5:37)
3. Against The Night (4:04)
4. Blood Echo (5:24)
5. Pacific Isolation (2:41)
6. The Opulent Decline (17:32)

Line-up: 
Jon Porras - guitars, keyboards, synths
Evan Caminiti - guitars, keyboards, synths

Description/Reviews: 

Barn Owl has always specialized in devotional darkness, pushing desert rock into previously unexplored, murky territories. V marks a shift in approach for the duo of Jon Porras and Evan Caminiti. The pair augmented their arsenal of guitars and effects with an array of electronics, vastly expanding the album’s sounds and textures. Special attention was given to implied rhythms nestled within dense slow building environments, giving album a rhythmic presence, albeit one that is buried beneath intricate layers. Theirs is a ghostly rhythm, almost beyond reach.
For years, the duo experimented with the idea of doom dub and in some ways have finally realized that vision. In addition to dub, V is informed by musique concrete, library music, and minimal techno. The opener “Void Redux” begins with a spectral synthesizer coming in and out of focus, tracing a skeletal melodic line that is gradually enveloped by deep bass tones and flecks of static hiss. As the song progresses, the band creates a subtle rhythmic interplay between a drum machine and the decay of a delayed guitar, harkening back to the Black Ark. A significant evolution in the way Barn Owl construct their music is exemplified by the track "The Opulent Decline”. Originally a 30-minute improvisation, the final, 17-minute track was composed though editing and augmentation. Throughout the album the timbres and textures of each piece are constantly mutating, fluctuating with an anxious restlessness. For example, on the track “The Long Shadow,” the guitars chime forebodingly before melting into a blur of organ. Porras explains, “It was our goal to harness the fluidity and unpredictability of improvisation within considered arrangements. Special care was taken to convey the ever-changing flow through each piece, a continually shifting set of colors and textures and atmospheres." Stasis is not an option. (Thrill Jockey)

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Void Redux

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Golden Void "Golden Void"

Country: USA
Sub Genre: Psychedelic, Hard Rock
Label: Thrill Jockey Records
Release date: November 13, 2012
Tracklist: 
01. Art of Invading
02. Virtue
03. Jetsun Dolma
04. Badlands
05. Shady Grove
06. The Curve
07. Atlantis

Line-up: 
Isaiah Mitchell: guitar/vocals
Aaron Morgan: bass
Justin Pinkerton: drums
Camilla Saufly-Mitchell: organ

Description/Reviews: 

Take good old Black Sabbath, remove Tony Iommi's most crunching heavy riffs and add some melodic flower power psychedelic rock to the mix. Then you get this album. This band is from San Fransisco and those influences can be heard too. The sound is a good retro sound and not particular dirty. It is pretty light and so is the music. The emphasis is on the balance between heavy,  psychedelic and melodic. (Torodd Fuglesteg, thesoundoffightingcats.blogspot.co.uk)

Media/Samples 
The Curve
Virtue

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