“intertwined etymologies of spirit and breath” from RVNG Intl.'s Ka Baird.

French artist Laetitia Sadier, best known as a founder and lead vocalist of indie pop groups Stereolab and Monade , began releasing music as a solo artist with 2010’s The Trip, a tragic dream pop odyssey that drew upon experiences of grief. She followed this effort up with the intimate, yet politically charged albums Silencio in 2012 and Something Shines in 2014.

Dublin musician and former JJ72 bassist Hilary Woods returned to music after over a decade of hiatus in 2014 with melodic and airy keyboard-based songs inspired by the cinematic works of auteurs like Wong Kar-Wai and Chris Marker. Expanding on these ideas and incorporating more atmospheric electronic sounds, her full-length solo debut Colt arrived on Sacred Bones in 2018, followed by 2020’s Birthmarks.

Brooklyn-born and based experimentalist and multi-instrumentalist Taja Cheek, aka L’Rain’s, 2021 album Fatigue demands introspection from ready ears with an array of keyboards, synths, and hauntingly delicate vocals while blending the sounds of gospel, jazz, and neo-soul to create a genre entirely her own. Cheek has dipped her toes in every corner of the arts, through her work at some of the most prestigious art institutions in NYC and collaborations with the likes of Naama Tsabar and Kevin Beasley.

Today we’re looking at DAIS Records, whose roster of emerging and influential artists include AURAGRAPH, Cold Gawd, and Body of Light.

More than four decades ago, "one of the strangest and most shocking martial arts movies ever witnessed" (DVD Talk) drove 42nd Street audiences into a stunned frenzy. Newly restored by Severin Films, the legendary kung fu oddity The Crippled Masters is now streaming. When a crime boss chops off the arms of a peasant (Sung-Chuan Shen, born with Thalidomide Syndrome) and acid-dissolves the limbs of a henchman (Chao-Ming Kang, born with deformed legs), the two men train to combine themselves into one unstoppable fighting machine!

Welcome to Night Flight’s DAIS Records Video Profile, highlighting the New York and Los Angeles based label featuring artists such as Cold Showers, Merzbow and Space Afrika.

Tonight’s video profile shines a light on Brooklyn’s Sacred Bones Records, and artists such as SQÜRL and Xmal Deutschland.

CMON, which stands for Confusing Mix of Nations, is a pop duo born out of the ashes of Brooklyn indie rock group Regal Degal. Shifting the focus towards more danceable tracks, the duo carried the atmospherics from their previous project into CMON, only now incorporating more elements of disco and pop into their recordings.

Greg Turkington’s fictional persona Neil Hamburger, a misanthropic, anti-comedian was introduced to the world in 1992 on the album Great Phone Calls Featuring Neil Hamburger, a self-deprecating assault on the expectations that had developed in stand-up.

Frank Dimino is best known for being the frontman of notoriously loud glam rock creation, Angel, who was discovered (similarly to Van Halen) by KISS bass player Gene Simmons. Angel released five studio and one live album in the second half of the 70’s. After the band’s demise, Frank went on to work with UFO’s Paul Raymond and other endeavors that showcased his sky cracking pipes. Like his close pal, Oz Fox, Frank relocated to Sin City almost 20 years ago. The 73-year-old Boston born singer released his debut solo LP, Old Habits Die Hard, in 2015 and is always welcome to resurrect Angel when fans and concert promoters come calling. We bonded years ago in the produce aisle of Trader Joe’s. “Hey Frank, I guess we’re neighbors.” I smiled. “I saw Angel open for Blue Oyster Cult and Be Bop Deluxe at the LA Forum in 1979. The lasers messed me up for days.”

In this hand-drawn short, a bird-like creature is drawn into an astral dimension rife with violence, vice, and vehicular homicide, rendered on black in electric lime greens and acid yellows. Animator James Duesing writes, "'Tugging the Worm' is an animation which is made up of 3500 drawings... the completed piece took approximately four years and a lot of Prismacolors to complete."

Lust For Youth is a synth pop duo currently composed of Swedish and Danish producers Hannes Norrvide and Malthe Fischer. As a solo act Norrvide’s Lust For Youth was largely dark and lonely minimalist synth that verged on harsh noise, but with the expansion of the lineup the group’s releases on Sacred Bones are more associated with the catchy songs about heartbreak, most notably channeling elements of New Order and Pet Shop Boys.

Ty Segall has made filthy, distorted rock n roll for much of his prolific career. His 2024 album Three Bells takes us into “a land nearly beyond song,” pushing his songwriting and sound further than ever before.

Imaginative visual art and music from Calgary, Alberta Sub Pop artist Chad Van Gaalen. Featuring "Monster" and more.

Singer Cory Hanson returns with 2023’s Western Cum, which combines conventional country with an eclectic mix of prog, balladry and nu-hardcore.

X RAY POP are the French synth-pop duo that began as part of the no wave art group Bocal 5 in 1981. Referring to their sound as “minimum naive new wave” their songs feature rich textures on concise but relentless arrangements with playful lyrics and a general tongue-in-cheek of humor that’s as catchy as it is eccentric.

Kiwi oddball Connan Hosford, better known as Connan Mockasin, made a name for himself in the New Zealand psych scene in the early 2000s playing in a group called Connan & the Mockasins, known for their trippy, bluesy and whimsical indie pop. His most recent album, Jassbusters, arrived in 2018 on Mexican Summer accompanied by his absurdist film Bostyn ‘n Dobsyn.

Alasdair Roberts is a Scottish folk musician based in Glasgow who has released a number of albums under his name as well as the stage moniker, Appendix Out. Roberts is also noted for his frequent collaborations with other musicians, writers and filmmakers.

For the tenth volume of RVNG's FRKWYS series, composer, percussionist and sound designer David Van Tieghem alongside ten younger artists from across the avant spectrum become a bulletin of Fits & Starts. Directed by Jordan Kinle

Cheerful West Coast punk rock trio Flat Worms are known for combining garage punk sensibilities and energy with indie rocker wit. Will Ivy recruited bassist Tim Hellman, formerly of Thee Oh Sees, and Babies drummer Justin Sullivan for their debut 7 inch “Red Hot Sand” before following it up a year later with a positively received self titled full-length.

Danish punk stalwarts Iceage formed as a group in 2008, fronted by Ellias Bender Rønnefelt with guitarist Johan Suurballe Wieth, Jakob Tvilling Pless on bass and drummer Dan Kjær Nielsen. Known for their abrasive but ever developing sound, their most recent record Seek Shelter arrived in May of 2021, their fifth full-length and first for Mexican summer. Recorded over a 12 day period in a run down studio in Lisbon, Seek Shelter features production by Peter Kember, aka Sonic Boom, and incorporates a gospel choir, seemingly signaling the group’s slide away from the nihilism of it’s earlier records in favor of resigned but comforting melodies.

LA-based noise pop duo No Age brought the ethos of early punk and hardcore music into the 21st-century with their stripped down DIY style that taped together their spare drum and guitar riffs with passionate vocals and a few playful samples. Their origins playing energetic live shows at all-ages venues around Los Angeles would lay the groundwork for the band’s future output for the next 15 years.

Folk artist Meg Baird comes from a long family tradition of Appalachian folk roots, her great-great uncle was folk-singer and regional historian Isaac Garfield Greer. Her solo work features soft, airy vocals that float above otherworldly folk arrangements and her band Espers draws upon the baroque pop/chamber folk sound of the late 1960s, creating an intoxicating psychedelic sound.

Executive Slacks was spawned in Philadelphia by three restless art students in the early 1980s. Starting out with performance art in subways, they soon took their angst-ridden act to galleries and nightclubs. Dripping in nihilism, Executive Slacks' unique brew of primitive electronics, harsh guitars and aggressive vocals inspired many bands like Ministry, Front 242 and Skinny Puppy.

“Take Off” to Chicago-based independent label Drag City featuring music videos from Bill Callahan, Ty and Denée Segall, Circuit des Yeux and Smog.

Formed by singer and guitarist Ryan Rousseau, Jay Reatard and Alicja Trout in 2000, Destruction Unit are a psychedelic punk band based out of Phoenix known for their tumultuous sound featuring distorted, fuzzy-guitars, loud vocals and aggressive drums.

Zsela is a singer-songwriter whose 2024 debut album is a raw, versatile record from an exciting young artist.

Zola Jesus is the alter ego of Nika Roza Danilova, known for her expressive and powerful voice and dark, atmospheric music. Her latest album Arkhon unleashes her “submerged, stalled pain.”

What world, REALLY are Matt Sweeney and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy from? A place of all-music, knowing no borders, no morals other than natural tribal lines to be violated in the name of love and light, for all together.

The Holydrug Couple, the duo of Ives Sepúlveda and Manuel Parra, began playing together in 2008 and emerged from the Santiago psychedelic rock scene in 2011 with their LP Awe, attracting the attention and support of Sacred Bones. The group’s pop influences and vocally driven songwriting continued to blossom on their 2013 beachy, dreamlike release Nocutary. After touring extensively over the years that followed, the group returned in 2015 with Moonlust, a record heavily indebted to French film music from the 70’s and 80s. Their most recent full-length, Hyper Super Mega, arrived in 2018.

“Take Off” to independent label Dais Records featuring music videos from Death Bells, SPICE, Choir Boy, and Death of Lovers.

Sic Alps was a San Francisco-based lofi garage rock band started by Matt Hartman and Mike Donnovan, who met on tour with their previous bands in the 90s. The group drew as equally from noise pop as they did from art rock luminaries the Velvet Underground.

Slowcore pioneers Low on Sub Pop Records. Featuring music from 2018's "Double Negative" and more.

Born on the island of Crete and raised in Athens, Platonos was one of the pioneers in the Greek electronic music scene of the 1980s, and remains active today.

San Francisco psych rock band Moon Duo, composed of Ripley Johnson and Sanae Yamada began playing and recording together in 2009, making their Sacred Bones debut with the EP Killing Time that year. The pair have continued touring, recording, exploring “all things Magick and supernatural” while incorporating new sounds and elements to their music, the 2019 album Stars Are the Light brought in sonic aspects from disco, madchester and 90s rave music while dialing back their use of the guitars mechanical rhythms.

Sub Pop's Father John Misty, the alter-ego of multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Josh Tillman. Featuring the 25-minute album trailer for 2017's "Pure Comedy."

The ‘intuitive gesture’ of action painting in drum form from Greg Fox.

Axis: Sova began as the experimental psych-rock solo project of Chicago artist Brett Sova, who wrote and recorded much of the bands early output before settling on a full lineup. Since 2018 the band has consisted of Sova with Tim Kaiser on guitar and Jeremy Freeze on bass.

Flore Laurentienne is the vessel of Quebec-based composer, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Mathieu David Gagnon. The classically trained musician incorporates elements of post-minimalism, early progressive rock, and the compositional art of fugue into his work.

In 2020 Kentucky-based singer-songwriter Emma Ruth Rundle, known for her brand of dark and expressive post-rock, teamed up with Louisiana metal band Thou for one of the most interesting collaborative projects of the year. May Our Chambers Be Full, released on Sacred Bones, channelling Rundle’s brooding lyrics and Thou’s atmospheric sludge into a record that showcases the DIY versatility of both parties.

“Take Off” to Chicago-based independent label Drag City featuring music videos from Joanna Newsom, Palace, Silver Jews and White Fence.

Legendary singer-songwriter Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s new album Keeping Secrets will Destroy You is for keeping people together, and for listening together.

Night Flight Plus and Mute present a special Night Flight Video Profile dedicated to the "revered countercultural musician" (The Guardian) and enduringly influential artist, Mark Stewart. Across an illustrious career that began with post-punk icons The Pop Group and evolved into a prolific solo output, Stewart produced a seminal body of work that frequently stood at the bleeding edge of genre innovation and social upheaval, while inspiring the likes of Nick Cave, Nine Inch Nails, and more. Stewart's ninth solo album, The Fateful Symmetry, was released by Mute in July 2025. Completed shortly before his passing in 2023, the record captures "the fearless creative energy that defined his entire career," the label says. For this special episode, the Night Flight team worked closely with Mute to highlight a collection of crucial materials from Stewart's nearly five-decade career, including a never-before-seen live performance from Mark in 2022.

Up-and-coming duo Sharpie Smile brings sugary synth pop!

Over time, through his vast collection of pure and cinematic ambient hymns, Tor Lundvall has steadily established himself as one of ambient music’s most familiar faces.

When punk first broke in the UK in 1976, music journalist John Ingham was on hand to document the rupture and the rowdiness. Fascinated by the music, fashion, and intrinsic iconoclasm of a little-known outfit called the Sex Pistols, Ingham conducted the band’s first interview, partied with its members, and even bailed Sid Vicious out of jail. Ingham also documented the group's early evolution at legendary gigs shared with other pioneering punk bands including The Damned, The Clash, The Buzzcocks, and more. Spirit of 76: London Punk Eyewitness is the revelatory collection of Ingham’s photography and fly-on-the-spray-painted-wall reporting of the punk movement from its most raucous, bewildering beginnings. Containing the only color photos from British punk’s first wave alongside Ingham’s inimitable prose, this volume constitutes a rare from-the-floor report on the UK punk explosion from one of its original participants.

SRSQ is the moniker of Oakland singer and musician Kennedy Ashlyn, who has steadily honed her songcraft to create a “music of tumult and triumph.” Her 2022 LP “Ever Crashing” is an “aching, reverent” dream-pop creation.

Michael Angelo Nigro is a Kansas City multi-instrumentalist who recorded his first album in 1977, the self-titled Michael Angelo. Recorded during his off hours at his job as a session man at Liberty Recording, the original release was only 500 copies. In 2015, Anthology Recordings remastered and re-released the album and produced a short documentary about the artist, now streaming on Night Flight.

After releasing a variety of offerings with friends under the nebulous Palace moniker and his own name, Will Oldham began his prolific streak of recording and performing his brand of Americana under the pseudonym Bonnie “Prince” Billy in the late 90s. His songs feature haunting lyrics over instrumentals that draw from numerous American musical traditions.

Texas-born musician and actor Caleb Landry Jones makes psychedelic music that “reaches into the cosmic realm of imagination.”

Dope Body are a Baltimore area post-punk noise rock group. Their Drag City debut, Natural History, a reference to the venue that first hosted the group for a one-off, meshed the band’s myriad sonic influences into an intense 35 minute experience. After briefly breaking up in 2016, the band reformed in 2019, culminating in two full length releases in 2020.

Australian superduo Mess Esque create warm, open-hearted indie soundscapes, combining abstract vocals and looping guitars.

Dean Hurley is a sound and music supervisor who has worked with Daivd Lynch and Zola Jesus. Gloria de Oliveira is a multidisciplinary visual artist and musician who has composed for the theater and for London Fashion week. Their collaboration Oceans of Time combines impressionistic synths, shimmering guitars, and ethereal sonics in a beautiful dream-pop synthesis.

Settle into Tonstartssbandht’s music and let it rock heavy from all sides. The music melds with the personal, tangible nature of the city climate, telling a stunning tale. Discovered on the road and distilled at home, the music conveys experience and subtlety, scars exposed to carry the chronicle. The music, the music, the fucking music.

From Nursery to Misery were three teenagers who grew up together on the same street in Basildon Essex. Formed in 1987, the band was comprised of vocalists (and identical twins) Gina and Tina Fear, along with keyboard player and producer Lee Stevens.

Tonight we profile the Sub Pop roster, including music videos from Tunde Adebimpe and Pissed Jeans.

“The best songs in the world come from a feeling” says the artist known as Ilian, whose life and career is documented in this short film created by Mexican Summer's Anthology records for the their reissue of artist's long lost 70’s album, Love Me Crazy.

Blanck Mass uses fast paced beats, clipped vocal samples and mesmerising synths to create music that is emotionally and sonically intense. Dumb Flesh, his first album with Sacred Bones, saw Power’s incorporate more danceable beats around the chopped-up vocals and drones which were built upon in subsequent releases like 2017’s political World Eater and 2019’s melodic Animated Violence Mild.

Phil Soussan, proper birthname Philip Raphael Soussan was born June 23. 1961 in London, England. A successful veteran bass guitarist, songwriter and producer, his resume boasts tours and tracks with Last in Line, the Vince Neil Band, Big Noize and most famously for slapping the fat stings during Ozzy Osbourne’s historic 1986 Ultimate Sin campaign. He co-authored the hit single, “Shot in the Dark.” I’ve always found him to be immensely intelligent and well-spoken, like a couple other not so mad Englishmen whose company I long enjoyed, Bruce Dickinson and Lemmy Kilmister.

Xeno & Oaklander is an American electronic group from Brooklyn regarded as a key act in the coldwave and minimal electronic revival of the 21st century. The duo combine crisp analog synths with poetic lyrics to weave dark synth-pop soundscapes that are ultimately greater than the sum of their parts.

Let’s return to Drag City, whose roster includes Natural Information Society & Bitchin Bajas, Geologist & Doug Shaw, Faun Fables and Jim White.

Born in 1954 in Versailles, France, Philippe Krootchey was a musician, DJ, radio and television host at the forefront of the gay liberation movement in France.

Former geotechnical engineer Lucrecia Dalt's experimental compositions.

Generative tools and software-based sonics from duo Visible Cloaks.

“Anti-hero, artist, and Pandrogenist.” Genesis P-Orridge was an icon of experimentation.

Cursive’s core trio of Tim Kasher, Matt Maginn, and Ted Stevens formed in 1995 and has since developed into one of the most consistent and ambitious bands in post-hardcore. Their latest album Devourer, the first for stalwart indie label Run for Cover, explores new territory within their iconic sound and features a suite of horror-themed music videos including the one for “Bloodbather” directed by Chelsea Stardust and starring Stranger Things’ Shannon Purser and Westworld’s Aurora Perrineau.

Rimarimba is the brainchild of Robert Cox, a British self-taught classical guitarist. His music is built on synth loops, interesting electronic sonorities, melodic counterpoint and humor.

Australian indie rockers Girl and Girl make their Sub Pop debut with tuneful and grandiose songs about the struggles of mental health in the modern world.

In early 1980s Finland, Belaboris were in their own peculiar, undefinable no-woman’s-land between the Finnish Futu and Gothic scenes.

Today Night Flight covers independent record label Mexican Summer, including videos from L’Rain, Sessa and Photay.

“Take Off” to Chicago-based independent label Drag City featuring music videos from Bill Callahan, Ty and Denée Segall, Circuit des Yeux and Smog.

Mega Bog is an experimental pop ensemble led by Erin Elizabeth Birgy. For the past ten years, Birgy and her evolving community of collaborators have been crafting poetic, musical odes to the pain and glory of human existence. Mega Bog’s seventh album, End of Everything arrives on Mexican Summer in 2023 and has bolder hooks and more dancefloor energy than she’d ever dared before.

Legendarily loud post-punks METZ take a more atmospheric approach on their new record Up On Gravity Hill, still bursting eardrums, but with a new emotional resonance and nuance.

Producer on The Ramones and Suicide’s debut albums during the downtown NY zeitgeist of the late 1970.

Jackie Lynn, the fictional, long-haul trucking, drug dealing stage persona of Circuit des Yeux’sHaley Fohr, developed as a way to compartmentalize Fohr’s introspective, avant-folk sound from the more playful fusion of country and synth pop on releases like Jackie Lynn and Jacqueline.

The son of a truck stop preacher, raised and home-schooled in a “super religious family” (his own words), the acoustic guitarist and soundscape composer from Amarillo, Texas, first record for Mexican Summer arrived in 2021.

In 2016, Mexican Summer's sister label Anthology reissued two essential live albums from Träd, Gräs och Stenar (Tr-ad Grass Ah-k Sta-Nar), a 70s underground Swedish psych rock export, whose records have been hidden gems for collectors worldwide. To commemorate the reissues, Anthology Recordings produced a short, two-part documentary revealing rare interviews with surviving members of the band, presented together here on Night Flight.

Bill Callahan's new album YTI⅃AƎЯ arrives via Drag City on October 14th, '22. Night Flight's official video profile now includes the visual for lead single Coyotes, a so-called "lyric video" with a dark twist. After years of releasing acclaimed lofi folk-rock albums under the name Smog, Bill Callahan has been recording and releasing music under his own name since 2007. This critically-acclaimed work has mixed his largely acoustic sound with elements of gospel, soul and pop.

Oliver Coates is a British cellist, composer and producer who has played with Thom Yorke and appeared on scores for Paul Thomas Anderson. His 2020 album skins n slime sees him leading “an impassioned performance of strings through viscous, synthetic modulation.”

Borghesia is an electronic music group from Slovenia formed in 1982. Borghesia is one of the most successful bands from former Yugoslavia known for turning sexual freedom into an important political issue by creating the New Slovenian Art scene.

Chicago-baed electronic / dark industrial duo HIDE on Dais Records.

Wand’s Cory Hanson rides into the high desert on a glossy melody through lustrous mists of instrumentation: acoustic, wah-electric and steel guitars, acoustic and electric drums. Pale Horse Rider explores myths and truths of a country on the way down, viewed through a deep-focus lens trained on the city from the deserts on the east; a terminus of unoccupied residential parks and streets fading into craggy footpaths to nowhere, where our passage is seen as diligent, ephemeral and grotesque by turns, forgiven and made beautiful again by the sound. Directed by The Coconut Brothers Liquid Light Projections by The Mad Alchemist Liquid Light Show Music & Sound FX by Dr. Coconut Filmed by Casey Hanson, Asal Shahindoust, Dr. Coconut and Keith Ballard Live Sound Engineered by Zac Hernandez

The current band of the Stereolab frontwoman, Laetitia Sadier Source Ensemble incorporates some of Sadier’s longest and closest collaborators, Emmanuel Mario, Nina Savary and Xavi Munoz.

Altres are an electronic band from Dundee, Scotland originally formed in 1983. With influences ranging from Faust to Philip Glass, Altres’s unique brand of instrumental, improvised electronic music was all recorded live, with no overdubs.

Nuke Watch is an amorphous entity emanating out of Bog 65, Beat Detective’s former headquarters. Its 2020 album Countdown is a “rippling, multi-sensory experience that warms, beguiles, puzzles, tickles and eases the listener,” developed in the improvisational and exploratory aura of the studio.

SRSQ (pronounced seer-skew), is a synesthesia of sound and feeling taking cues from the delicate miasma of Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine, and Dead Can Dance.

Formed in New Brunswick, NJ in 2005, Screaming Females is Marissa Paternoster, Mike Abbate, and Jarrett Dougherty, known for a hearty mix of indie, alt, punk and stoner-rock. Their latest album, Desire Pathway, is bright and full, capturing the band at a time when nothing was certain other than their abiding desire to make music together.