- One Day as a Lion – Wild International
- Kyuss — Demon Cleaner
- The Future Sound of London — Slider
- The Dead Milkmen — The Thing That Only Eats Hippies
- Salt — Beauty
- Supreme Beings of Leisure — Never the Same
- Yoav — Club Thing
- Wino — Silver Lining
- Meshuggah — Entrapment
- Martha Wainwright – I Will Internalize
Awesome. I just downloaded the new Wino record this past week. That and Kyuss have me feeling like busting out all the stoner rock I have. Just feels like springtime music to me.
Yoav is an interesting artist. Born in Israel and raised in South Africa, he developed a unique way of playing guitar:
“It was summer solstice and I’d gone with my guitar and some mushrooms into Central Park. The plan was to zone out and lose myself in my playing. For some reason, I started banging out rhythms on my guitar and I got really into it. There was this school field trip of 7 or 8 year old kids walking by and they suddenly started dancing to what I was doing. I was playing these crazy drum ‘n’ bass rhythms and they were whirling around me like trance hippies. It was incredible. I felt like I was DJing with my guitar.”
Yoav had stumbled upon his new direction. “As a songwriter, the guitar limits you to strumming or picking. It’s very different if you can write something to a beat. I tried to translate dance music to guitar. I started pounding it, learning what I could do with it, using it as my decks. You can get an assortment of kick drums and snare drums by hitting it in different places or a synthy sound by playing with feedback. The more I did it, the more possibilities I found. It became all-consuming for me.”
Supreme Beings of Leisure are basically Morcheeba with slightly more world music influence. Not terribly original, but still enjoyable.
Two bands from Sweden, Salt and Meshuggah. One alt-rock, the other extreme metal.
I love Martha Wainwright’s voice. I’m torn as to whether I should start stalking her or Beth Orton first.