New Music Releases – December 2018

Taking a peek at all the interesting new music released in December. Compiled via MarcissistNR, account run by Marc Masters.

Sloth

Getting Ready for Christmas

Label: Opal Tapes
Release Date: December 25
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]”Getting Ready for Christmas” is a darkly comic collection of losercore in the vein of some of Twisted Village releases (Luxurious Bags, Major Stars) or maybe Sentridoh but charged with a painful pathos of loneliness and destitution and a dense heaviness. Released approximately in 1996 (Dom can’t be sure exactly) these first four “Untitled” tracks are met on the flip with a pure wall, representative of Sloth’s current output. A flipped switch and erasing of everything that precedes it. [/perfectpullquote]

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Rangers

Europe on TV

Label:  Not Not Fun
Release Date: December 7
Reading: Tiny Mix Tapes
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Nearly a decade after their original assembly, two crucial early volumes of Texan ranger Joe Knight’s voyaging kaleidoscope kitchen sink-psych have been dusted off and dressed up for a new generation of suburban tourists. Europe On TV collects the entirety of both 2009 outings on freeform Pittsburgh imprint As Above So Below, totaling 110 twisted minutes of miasmic guitar heroics, sci-fi city surf, face-melt glam, no-fi jangle, art rock squall, and nebulous new wave, pocked with 4-track feedback bramble and cathode-blasted voices. [/perfectpullquote]

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The Bevis Frond

We’re Your Friends, Man

Label: Fire Records
Release Date: December 7
Reading: The Progressive Aspect | KXSF | Mondo Sonoro | Written in Music
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Docking alongside the Mothership Frond, with its insignia emblazoned with the legend ‘We’re Your Friends, Man’, you can hear a smattering of Hendrixonian guitar wafting through the cavernous recess of this vessel. You can hear a Love-like strum, a melancholy verse/chorus; you can hear proper songs with uplifting guitar salvos releasing the pressure on the thinking man’s pontifications on growing old, putting things in order and the sense of wonder of how we all got here… so much vinyl, so little time. [/perfectpullquote]

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Scott Hirsch

Lost Time Behind the Moon

Label: Scissor Tail Records
Release Date: December 7

Reading: Sungenre | Amnesia | The Fat Angel Sings

[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] On the follow-up to his lauded album, Blue Rider Songs, Hirsch starts out strong tapping into a sunset country mix of mellow strums, buttery pedal steel and the tight-laced punch of horns. This time around Hirsch has enlisted members of Wilco alongside Edward Sharpe and M. Ward’s touring players and the results sound as well-oiled as that lineup would suggest.

Raven Sings the Blues [/perfectpullquote]

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Small Life Form

Christmas Tones

Label: Silber Records
Release Date: December 14
Reading: Forestpunk
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Glockenspiels & reverb sounds like it would be some kind of new age release, but somehow Small Life Form makes it sound aggressive & menacing, just like Christmas.[/perfectpullquote]

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VHS Midnight Style

Cure for Pharma

Label: Aurawire
Release Date: December 21
Reading: Sunbleach
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Continuing with VHS’s unique style of dreamy beats influenced by the likes of 90’s rave and trip-hop music, Cure for Pharma shows a departure from their more ambient works and into a new ethereal experience that is sure to impress listeners. [/perfectpullquote]