what are SteamGifters listening lately?

ratatat - Loud Pipes

Gah damn, this track! So catchy

Another excellent psych/shoegaze album in the extremely stoned mould of the first Bowery Electric album. To me there are at least two instant classics on here, "Maybe Someday" and "Down in the Dirt", with the remainder of the album not following far behind.

Tombstones in Their Eyes - Maybe Someday

The best Ukrainian pop-rock band.

THE HARDKISS - Гора

The Lennon Sisters - You Belong To Me
The song is Superb

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EeiXFCca8Y

Beach House - 'Master of None'

Beautiful melancholy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB_2CUj3y6Y

Stream of an Umphrey's McGee show from 2017 :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwcsfs_JNdo&feature=emb_title

Dream Theater - The Root of all Evil

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgAc7ekYmVA

(Garagey) psych rock band from Hanoi, Vietnam. On that (expected language barrier) basis I was prepared to disregard lines such as "Love frequency, heart attack...I don't wanna reack...but I gotta reack..." but it looks like the band is manned by three Euro-Ozzie expats so I have to say those are some grim lyrics. Still more tolerable than Deafheaven's, I guess! Still, the music is nice even though there is unfortunately no SE Asian tinge to it, what we have is some homespun psychedelia with a sometimes angsty post-punk atmosphere. Nicely honest and unpretentious, and the longer tracks do get pretty trippy as well.

Red Eyed Rabbit - Darkness And A Dream

A beautiful new (mild) black metal album, showing all of Mother Russia's deep soul. All the songs are carefully composed while remaining easy to grasp. The lead guitar riffing is lovely and varied. I feel the drums sound artificial although they apparently aren't so that may be an issue if you are allergic to drum machines. Or maybe they only seem artificial to me. Anyway, a great album otherwise I think. Let's all mantle the rising sun with our karsted hearts!

Malist - To Mantle The Rising Sun

Still one of my all time favorites. Easy on the ears. Perfect for when you want a slow day
https://youtu.be/9zEl-FQLI4A

"Numidia forges influences from Middle Eastern / North African Blues and blends these calming tribal elements with Folk and 70's Psychedelic and Progressive Rock."

What is interesting is that, even without any music theory understanding, it is possible to place this music's influences in North Africa rather than the Arab peninsula, even without taking into account the occasional straight African sounding element such as the choral singing on "Azawad". Like a world music sibling of (Waters) Pink Floyd at times. Well produced, tasteful and unusual. What's not to like?

Numidia - Numidia

Last weeks I am listening for example this:

The HU (great metal/folk music from Mongolia):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD1gDSao1eA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM8dCGIm6yc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJZfEh3EciU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwr4SPK1_TY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4xZUr0BEfE

And more subtle and gently old but good Tori Amos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWmETxWM0h0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqOVyq0Dfyc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaAI3jI7uCc

Other folk ones:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9NIBZfVBW4&list=RDMMs9NIBZfVBW4&start_radio=1

Only two of Loreena McKennit (but there are plenty good music from her):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-NwHsFkRtM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxTpvA-pUG0

Other old one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCYaALgW80c

Other:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kIrRooQwuk

Here's the kind of artist who will have inspired Numidia (above) . Mdou Moctar is a Tuareg guitar player from Niger and his sound conveys a nice "desert blues" vibe.

Mdou Moctar - Ilana (The Creator)

I just noticed Dave Greenfield, the Stranglers keyboard player, died of a Corona infection last week. The Stranglers have always had a special status to me since my parents thoughtfully bought me their first album when it had just been released and I was finishing playschool:

The Stranglers - Rattus Norvegicus

To be fair, they probably hadn't gone through the lyrics before buying it, this just happened to be a chart album in 1977. I am not sure which theory out of tabula rasa and predeterminism to prefer: was that guy who loves $your_most_despised_band brought up to love it, was he somehow (religiously, teleologically or otherwise) destined to love it, or is the truth somewhere in between? Whatever, I don't think this was the worst album to start my musical journey with. The Stranglers were the one punk band that actually played music instead of making sonic statements. The particular and immediately recognisable atmosphere of their albums was particularly due to the bass and keyboard playing. While I have since found out that bass player JJ Burnel seems to (have been?) a bit of a violent twat, his bass has always added so much to the Stranglers' music, almost sounding like a lead instrument at times. In fact my only reference point for this type of bass treatment have been the almighty Magma with players such as Jannik Top or Guy Delacroix on bass. Then there was Dave Greenfield's organ (and later keyboards). Instead of making it their mission to demolish the decadent dinosaurs of prog rock the way the rest of punk did in 1977, The Stranglers gleefully reused some of prog's stylistic devices and the keyboard generally (or even the fact of its presence) was the most obvious aspect of this on their debut album. (Check out, however, "Down In The Sewer", which was divided into four parts, a downright nod to some of prog rock's most glaring excesses.) In that sense, The Stranglers were post-punk even though present right at the start of the great punk wave.

Here's a slightly later (1979) album of theirs which is just as good as the first one, in fact you have to move to pretty recent efforts before any real drop in quality becomes obvious. But that may just be my individual opinion since I was auto-conditioned from playschool to like the band. ;-)

The Stranglers - The Raven

RIP Dave Greenfield.

(edit: removed incorrect link to FF XIV.)

I'm on a little Placebo-tripp at the moment.
So right now I'm listening to "passive aggressive"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFl0Ufo2jwk

Wilco last album, far better than two previous ones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hyUXXnyTE8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3lH-uaCHuc

Dream a little dream of me - Mamas & Papas

I heard this in season 2 of Dead to Me and was blown away by how beautiful it was

Excellent heavy psych rock from a band involving former members of the great post-metal band Minsk. Personally I do not hear any particular King Crimson connection and I guess they may just have liked the phrase along with its musical connotations. However, finding this on Youtube seems impossible given the strong presence of Mr Fripp's capers so I am putting up a Bandcamp link just this once.

Lark's Tongue - Narrow