lost in a sea of sound

The last release from Crush Grove Records was the Michigan based group Towner. Lost in a Sea of Sound had the pleasure of listening and putting some words together here. The newest edition in the Crush Grove Records catalog spotlights one member of Towner, the drummer Alex Molica. His project Seattle Stomp, takes the energetic batten and runs away with it. Eight tracks of incredibly well written, sung and played genre crushing tunes. Maudlin Madness is a sonic sleeper, ready to capture all those giving it a listen.

Alex Molica blazes through these selections, throwing melodies like ninja stars. These are punk songs, rock songs, pop songs, and blues, there is no real group his creativity resides in. The first track "Anxious Thoughts" has the power and energy of Hamell On Trial, this giving way to "January", almost a early Echo and the Bunnymen rhythm. One more comparison is for "Denver Song" and "Power Jam Situation" sending thoughts to an early …

The years have generously poured through time, sounds have been lost and found again. With each excavation of these sonic waves, we find a most desired fermentation surrounding them. Share My Chaise is the newest release from the GALTTA label, and like everything before, filled with smooth delivered wisdom. David Lackner and Billy G. Robinson finding accord and adding finely honed patience and experience to a base of sounds most of us easily identify with.

Share My Chaise flows with ease throughout the composition, melodies ironing out wrinkles and elevating sound threads. Some tracks like "Lost Without Your Love" and "Trust" transport listeners back to the 70's, to a place where vibrant funk has been baked away, leaving the smooth glaze of expert craftsmen. "VHS II" and "Low" pulling from the experimental future, samples across an ethereal backdrop of FM radio on late night drives. Rhythms finding various speeds on cruise control settings, …

Channelers finding pace again with the timelessness of nature. Countless sunrises, rain storms and interactions within evolving ecosystems, these sounds are burned into their surroundings. This music exist without the constructs of man, these sounds are etched in the stone and earth they heed from. Currents of water forming grooves in the earth, Channelers mirroring this infinite erosion in the consciousness. Ancient rhythms of cyclic paths, part of the DNA we all carry with us.

The Depth of Rest comes a little more than a year after Channelers previous cassette Entrance to the Next. The direction has changed from last time. Instead of a gateway stepping through to conscious limits, these four tracks focus on the world around us. Field recordings inside the forest canopy, churned with keyboards, Irish low whistle, and hammer dulcimer. A confluence of spiritual cairns on the path to musical tranquility. Channelers in cadence with acoustic flow and radiant variance, a sonic picture of a…

Two artists splitting sides on an Anti-Everything release. Somnoroase Păsărele turning the sonic kaleidoscope, an electronic multi dimensional bask in sublime energy. Aural radiation emulsifying the listening space, a slow burning imprint of a landscape still unknown. Romanian artist Gili Mocanu teeters on the impossible, both emitting an array of complex creativity and absorbing all thoughts from those who listen through. This composition titled CLAR flows with heavy undercurrents, while the sonic surface swirls in eddies and rippling turbulence. Like the delta at the river mouth, the six pieces within CLAR carry the same melodic attributes welling from the source.

WOMBA discharges ordered cacophonous resonance on the second side. Another twenty minute drive through whispering voices and warbled field recordings. Russian based Tikhon S. Kubov unveils his distinct ability to transfer inner conscious thought patterns to an audible parade. Ornate floats passing by with marching bands sp…

Swirling speech, patterns in slow moving spirals, or even more simple, the arching motion of a pendulum. Sometimes the tones are heavy and commanding, then reversing to be fun and whimsical. Don't be deceived, the underlying purpose is to draw you in. Changing the way thoughts flow without questions or most importantly without reasons, is the subliminal beast Body Image Corporation unleashes.  It is all fun until you realize everyone else looks different, and this needs to be rectified.

These sounds are corrupted. Voices funneled through machines, disguising who they really are. Like listening to informants upheave truths from the piles of sticks our culture calls foundations. Lurking behind these confessions are sounds just as telling and frayed. Music that melts away to drone, noises finding patterns to make rhythms. This entire compilation simulates motion of a spinning top in it's final seconds of standing upright. Our thoughts are pulled in, wondering how long the beauti…

Rhythms pouring done like sheets of rain in the chaotic gale. The winds subside and air clears revealing pulsating life all around. Death By Misadventure begins to permeate thoughts, subduing all fixations of daily operating patterns. A sonic overlay causing the foot to tap for some complete spasms of the nerves for others. Mrs Dink continues the osmotic reprogramming. Deft diversity in consistent cadence, clear sonic images flickering in the saturated menagerie of sounds. 

Mrs Dink is the project of Meagan Johnson, a fluent artists on both sides of music, her own creations as well as curating the creations of others on her label Degenerate Trifecta. Death By Misadventure contains a massive amount of sounds. Techno pulled from the past, new circuitry and tubing connected, then infused with wisdom and creativity. A listening tension follows through each track. Sounds like bottles of nitroglycerin, tucked in straw and housed in crates on the wagon. Death By Misadventure seems to be on …