Music Review: Psychic TV, “Alien Be-In” Remix EP

Published on January 16th, 2015 in: Culture Shock, Current Faves, Music, Music Reviews, Retrovirus, Reviews |

By Ben Van D

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For many, Acid House is inextricably linked to a place and time—the dim, sometimes garish, and impossibly vibrant rave culture of the early ’90s. It harkens back to an intoxicated era of manic excess, quasi-spiritual tribe mentality, and devastatingly harsh comedowns. If you missed it, imagine Cirque de Soliel performing in 1960s revival costumes in an underground parking lot at twice the BPM through a set of broken speakers.

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Music Review: Zola Jesus, TAIGA

Published on October 10th, 2014 in: Current Faves, Feminism, Music, Music Reviews, Reviews |

By Ben van D

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If Frozen were a greasepaint opera, a Brechtian musical set in a hinterland abyss, and directed by Robert Wilson, it would bear a passable resemblance to TAIGA. “Let It Go” would fit in surprisingly well with the themes of self-reinvention and severance from the tethers of the past running through Zola Jesus’s (Nika Danilova) latest offering. Even the winter woodland setting from which the album draws its name is a parallel. None of these are to TAIGA‘s detriment, however. This is markedly a pop album, more so by far than any of Danilova’s offerings to date, and any passing likeness to Disney’s ubiquitous pop monster hit is a feather in its cap.

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Music Review: SW/MM/NG, Feel Not Bad

Published on September 5th, 2014 in: Current Faves, Music, Music Reviews, Reviews |

By Ben van D

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Hillary Clinton giving birth to a fully-grown and wailing Brian Wilson in the passenger seat of a bulletproof deuce coup might seem unlikely. Perhaps no more likely than bleached California coast pop sprouting up from the heart of land-locked Arkansas. However unlikely, somehow Fayetteville’s SW/MM/NG make it seem natural with their debut offering Feel Not Bad.

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