what are SteamGifters listening lately?

Armin van Buuren vs Vini Vici feat. Hilight Tribe - Great Spirit (Extended Mix)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo4pmauhugo

L.A. Guns - Over the Edge

The sun has been out a bit around here and what better soundtrack for it than innocent psychedelic pop? This first band, Triptides, has been a really pleasant discovery in that genre for me. Perfect three-minute pop melodies full of sunshine dust. The feeling is that of opening a box of delicious chocolates. You try one and it is really good, but alas! soon it is finished. Still, by now you have tried the next one and, amazingly, it is even better. And so on. That is how this album works. Instead of fantasising about gianduja I should point out that there are lots of Triptides albums and everything of theirs I have heard so far has been excellent. The spirit of the Byrds transposed to today although there are obvious technical differences (guitars (fewer), keyboards (present), vocal harmonies (fewer)...)

Triptides - Visitors

Another generally sunny band is Stereolab and this is my favourite album of theirs by some distance. This is a sixties-like world of technicolor, marshmallows and obligatory beehive hairstyles for ladies: so far, so tangential to Triptides, However this band presents more of a chai-latte-with-extra-maple-syrup hipster vision which is captivating when it works, but reduces to empty, smug and nauseatingly "ironic" posturing when it doesn't - and there are Stereolab albums which, in my opinion, do fail in this way. Even so the group were outstanding at their best. The twin female voices may seem harmlessly cute but become portentous when needed (e.g. "Three Longers Later"), and the kind of hypnotic repetitive "motorik" beat resurrected from Krautrock was really quite fresh at the time: if you feel there are lots of band sounding like this that probably means most of them picked up the sound from these guys! (Regret: I would have posted some Can a long time ago, but that record company is clearly really aggressive about not letting their best stuff onto Youtube.)

Stereolab - Mars Audiac Quintet

Meanwhile, not everyone is trvely grimdark in Norway. As far as I can make out, Pajjama are two Norwegian guys and they are making a great job of using the chiptune toolbox to compose sort-of prog rock compositions. I would call them "suites" rather than "pieces" but the effect is still excellent. Add mid-eighties pastiche videos and end up with a great and truly creative result.

Pajjama - Starch

For added unearthliness, there are funky passages as well. "Pachinko Devil" is only one movement of the "Jane Papaya" suite, but it is too endearing not to reference.

Pajjama - Pachinko Devil

Recently been loving the FMA:Brotherhood soundtrack. Chemistry is an amazing song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AtgSiMH9GI

P4D"s opening
didn't like the game but I'd be lying if I say the OP isn't amazing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3jw89oIjmQ

This was / is an excellent doom metal band. It is pretty recognisable in a crowded genre because

1) the guitars sound phenomenal - like some huge car that burns at least thrice as much fuel as anyone could possibly call reasonable;
2) they've got clean female vocals on top of that.

Nice. Play it loud.

The River - Drawing Down The Sun

VNV Nation - When is the Future?

A folk group from Portugal. This is not pure folk but what rock arrangements there are have been applied very carefully and in the best possible taste. I would say the result is about 85% folk and 15% rock. Nice melodies and lovely production quality. Eclectic too - while the expected guitar and violin backbone is there, I am not sure if bagpipes and didgeridoo are traditionally Portuguese instruments, for instance. (A quick google later: apparently bagpipes probably are, they're clearly a much more international instrument than I thought). Bits of the album recall Eastern European gypsy music as well. As for me, my heart was stolen by the intense bit in the opening piece, which I did not see coming at all. Pleasant and sunny.

At-Tambur - st

Glorious metal/prog hybrid from Iceland. I find all of Sólstafir's output worthwhile but I do prefer this classic to their more recent albums.

Sólstafir - Masterpiece of Bitterness

Beautiful neo-krautrock album. Very laid-back for something this heavily psychedelic.

Electric Moon - Stardust Rituals

This is an Italian late 90s oddity: a record masquerading as wholesome songs for children. But it soon turns out the happy tree has deadly, poisonous spikes, the friendly sun's rays get through the depleted ozone layer with cancerogenic strength, and different cute nursery characters die over the course of the album as the psychotic quality of the lyrics becomes puzzlingly apparent. This corruption is mirrored in the musical language, which adjoins industrial elements for that sinister touch. A highly bizarre and therefore interesting release which was clearly written and recorded to answer some deeply felt need, hopefully it had the aimed-for cathartic effect! I wonder if this record makes more sense to Italian speakers.

Musica Per Bambini - Nascondino Coll'Assassino

Oh dear, the thread has gone comatose. I hope this isn't my fault in some way. Any first aiders around?

Anyway, my sound-dish for today was prepared by Craig Williamson from NZ. In the late nineties, he played bass in one of the earlier stoner rock bands, Datura, who had a healthy heavy psych orientation. Their second album in particular contains a few belters, "Reaching out" for instance.

Datura - Visions for the Celestial

Since Datura's dissolution, Craig has been multi-instrumenting and recording solo albums under the project name Lamp Of The Universe. Whilst the hippie is very strong on these, they also display outstanding musicianship and excellent production values - in fact, this is the one lone fighter heavy psych project I know of which (in my mind) passes without difficulties in both those areas. The genre of Lamp Of The Universe is close to what was once called "raga rock": space rock with a significant Indian influence, with a strong use of sitars in particular. There are a number of Krautrock bands starting from a similar point (Kalacakra for instance) but I prefer LOTU because the approach is in general less ambient and the tendency to just noodle on in weed-induced bliss for 20 minutes at a time is much less present. Especially given the number of albums LOTU have put out, there's a huge lot of musical talent to investigate for just this one guy!

Lamp Of The Universe - Transcendence

big iron

best song ever

Another very strong black metal album. Three long tracks that go places, plus one ambient track recorded on a $400 Casio (probably), so a bit like a Burzum album except $300 more were spent on the keyboard. Then again, I understand those ambient numbers are "a thing" now -- dungeon synth -- I know Summoning and Mortiis have been around for a long time so this particular rare flower took some time to bloom.

But I like the three main tracks a lot. Black metal does pathos really well! On this album at least the first and third songs at some point throw up really simple riffs that bring up very strong images if you paint along with the music, for instance forest-crushing coast redwood trees that sharply contrast against a backdrop of moving clouds and, figuratively, cry out every wanderer's death with all the weight of their mighty branches. Like most black metal, this isn't particularly joyful; on the other hand, it isn't particularly grim either. Interestingly I was reminded of Ultha then found that they share a guitar player with Sun Worship. However I would say Sun Worship are a "smoother" experience than Ultha, less dark as well. The band name doesn't lie after all.

Sun Worship - Elder Giants

Some more nice psychedelia, this time with low hippie rating. Rather, this is drone-out music not unlike the first Bowery Electric album. A lot of lovely bass lines, in particular. It seems that people actually file it under jazz, not sure I see that but jazz does seem to be understood in a wider sense these days.

Bardo Land - EP

quapital

Recently started watching The Completionist and came across these songs. Listened to them and now addicted to both of these songs
I'm The Boss
Angel

Some Deathrock/Darkfolk bands from yesterday:
Frank the Baptist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQcQsLJihnk
Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbKmeTyqRQo

A Perfect Circle - So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish