Goya

Here's some sun-blasted, heavy riffed and smokey doom metal from Phoenix, Arizona's Goya.  "Satan's Fire" comes from the EP of the same name which you can get here.  Listen below.

Johnny Jewel - The Other Side of Midnight

I swear to God, Johnny Jewel is going to break my hard drive with this never ending slew of music he releases for free...and i love it.  The latest is the 30+ minute sonic meditation of "The Other Side of Midnight," a pretend film score for a pretend film that i now want to see.  That's the pretend film poster above.  Listen and download below, and i realize this guy is crazy busy with so much new music on the horizon, but somebody get Mr. Jewel scoring movies immediately.

Amen Dunes - Song to the Siren

Amen Dunes' "Love" LP has easily been one of my favorite records to come out this year, and apparently there was a whole lot of material that didn't make the cut.  Some of those songs are now being issued on an EP called "Cowboy Worship" coming out in January on Sacred Bones.  Check out the dusty and weary cover of This Mortal Coil's cover of Tim Buckley's "Song to the Siren."

Marie Davidson

Cold and silky chanteuse Marie Davidson has a new split 7" out with J.S. Aurelius on Neuromodulation.  Dig on the icy, minimal electronic textures of "L'Espoir Est Mon Sentiment Le Plus Noir" below.



And as a bonus, here's the Aurelius track, "Vaste Obscurite."  We've all just stepped into some dark, French surrealism.  Is that a thing?

Jason Lytle covers Dwight Yoakam

In the late 90's/early 2000's, i was a hopeless devotee of the synth-psych-folk-pop band Grandaddy.  They made magic over the course of a couple of EP's and albums before they began to repeat themselves and eventually dissolved.  But man, there was some good stuff in there.  Former lead singer/songwriter Jason Lytle has continued to make music and just released a live recording of a house show from earlier this year.  The performance includes some stripped and raw version of classic Grandaddy songs and this excellent cover of Dwight Yoakam's "A Thousand Miles from Nowhere."  Listen below and get the whole album here.

Glass Candy covers Herb Alpert

Amid a sea of unreleased tracks spewing forth from Johnny Jewel's Soundcloud page, an announcement of a new Chromatics record due in February, and rumors of new albums from both Jewel's Symmetry project and Glass Candy, his long running band with Ida No, the duo's cover of jazz-meister Herb Alpert's 1979 jam "Rise" just surfaced yesterday.  And it's fantastic.  Mellow and breezy electronics, a sexy, subdued beat, and oh those horns.  Listen and download below.

Timecop 1983

If you call yourself Timecop 1983, the odds are that sooner or later i will find you and listen to you.  And so, we have the warm and dreamy synth pop of The Netherlands' Timecop 1983.  Their album "Journeys" came out digitally in June, but just got a super limited cassette release which you can get here.  Listen to album opener "Dreams" featuring Dana Jean Phoenix on vocal duty below.

The Soft Moon - Black

The Soft Moon are back in March with new album "Deeper," courtesy of Captured Tracks.  Take a listen to  "Black" below, and fall beneath the screaming synths and industrial blasting beats laid under harsh and breathy whispered vocals and ominous visions of what is to come.

Nots

Nothing like some frantic, noisy punk rock from a bunch of girls from Memphis to kick start your day.  Take a listen to "Reactor" from the debut album by Nots, "We Are Nots," below and grab the album from the always excellent Goner Records.

Chromatics - These Streets Will Never Look the Same (Ruth Radelet version)

So long as Johnny Jewel keeps releasing these, i'll keep posting them.  Take a listen to and download the Ruth Radelet vocal version of Chromatics' "These Streets Will Never Look the Same" below.  I think i like it better than the "Kill for Love" album version.  The haunting, echoed vocals just work better for me than the vocoder.  What do you think?