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.

Zola Jesus is the decade-long solo project of Nika Roza Danilova, featuring dark, haunting lyrics and mesmerizing and ever changing electronic production. Danilova’s earliest output was characterized by noisy, lofi percussion and synths paired with her airy, ascendant vocal. She would quickly begin moving away from this sound, instead opting to create her own interpretations of pop music, progressively experimenting with cleaner production and working with artists like M83 and Prefuse 73. A longtime friend of Sacred Bones, her most recent release for the label, Okovi, arrived in 2017.

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.

Formed in 2003, Brooklyn based indie band Crystal Stilts has cultivated a myriad of influences over the last decade and half playing and recording together. In 2011 they made their Sacred Bones debut with the EP Radiant Door, following it up with the soul and folk influenced album Nature Noir in 2013.

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.”

Today we’re covering DAIS Records, who focuses on artists “new and old,” including SPICE and Stephen Mallinder.

Dinosaur Jr. frontman's project for Sub Pop records. Featuring music from 2018's "Elastic Days" and more.

In a time rife with alienation, Magic Touch, the latest album by the ubiquitous and mysterious Jack Name to be released on Mexican Summer, offers the comfort of contact. With a body of work that ranges from the catchy to the cacophonous, Name has earned the reputation of a musician who’s difficult to define and has been a fixture in the Los Angeles underground for over a decade.

Father John Misty, the alter ego of songwriter Josh Tillman, embarks on his sixth album with a more rock-influenced edge.

Nebulous and with an ever-changing roster of collaborators, Palace, was an anti-folk folk rock project. As the musical debut of influential Louisville singer/songwriter Will Oldham, the “group’s” inconsistent name scheme reflects the constant ebb and flow of collaborators in Oldham’s life.

The late Portland, Oregon composer Ernest Hood is known for his landmark 1975 album Neighborhoods, which combines field recordings with Hood’s synthesizer and zither playing.

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

“Take Off” to independent label Dais Records featuring music videos from Space Africa, Choir Boy, Xeno & Oakland and Death Bells.

Natalie Mering's orchestral folk project, signed to Sub Pop records. Songs from 2019's Titanic Rising.

Former geotechnical engineer Lucrecia Dalt's experimental compositions.

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.

Welcome to the video profile for Brooklyn-based independent record label Sacred Bones, whose roster of artists includes John Carpenter, Hillary Woods and Constant Smiles.

Warped tape loops, aging VHS home-movie samples, and processed vocals tinged with harmonic specters from Body of Light on Dais Records.

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.

Tempers is a New York based synth-pop duo whose rigorous electronic production is paired with instinctual, unleashed vocals. The pair released their debut album Services on the cult German imprint Aufnahme + Wiedergabe and quickly became staples in both European and American synth-pop scenes.

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.

Drawing inspiration from the fingerplucking, East-meets-West guitar solos of the 60s and 70s psychedelic folk scene, Six Organs of Admittance was the primary project of NorCal guitarist Ben Chansy. Combining new folk and drone music with Eastern bells and chimes, Six Organs of Admittance began releasing music on Drag City in 2006.

Evan Shornstein, known as Photay, has a talent for melody, but rhythm is at the heart of everything he does. He’s been playing the drums since elementary school, and the name Photay actually stems from an eye- opening trip to Guinea with his drum teachers. As a producer, he combines digital and analog, blurring the lines between “real” and electronic instrumentation.

Japanese pop band CHAI have continually redefined what it means to be “cute” with their defiantly feminist sound.

Today we’re looking at independent record label Sacred Bones, including music videos from Lust for Youth, Lathe of Heaven and Khanate.

“There’s a strange romanticism to going a little bit crazy and playing the piano to yourself and singing into the night." Singer/songwriter Cate Le Bon began her career collaborating with fellow Welsh musicians Gruff Rhys and Richard James before releasing her first EP, the Welsh language Looking in the Eyes of a Borrowed Horse in 2008. In 2019 Cate Le Bon signed with Mexican Summer for her fifth album, Reward, released to critical acclaim. Here's the video for "Home To You."

Alan Vega, visual artist and frontman of punk pioneer duo Suicide, passed away in 2016 after a 50 year career in art and music. In addition to his musical output, Vega’s sculpture work gave him a notorious reputation in the New York art world, later opening a 24-hour gallery space that would go on to serve as an early venue for bands like the New York Dolls, Television and Blondie.

Sonically dense and inspired by art rockers like Scott Walker and Robert Wyatt, The Fresh & Only’s guitarist Wymond Miles’ solo output is decidedly somber and draped in layers of reverb. In 2012 Miles’ released his first pieces of material including his debut album Under The Pale Moon, returning the following year with the similarly psychedelic, Cut Yourself Free. After a brief hiatus, he returned to the studio with a new creative direction, recording 2016’s Call by Night, drawing influences from gospel and country.

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.

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.

Man Man’s charismatic frontman Honus Honus felt a renewed sense of creative purpose on 2024’s Carrot on Strings, with clever and sharp new songs.

John Carpenter, the American director, producer and screenwriter has made a name for himself as a master of horror and science fiction with film scores just as memorable, and haunting as the violence they accompany. Directing and composing over a dozen features, Carpenter, along with his son Cody and his godson Daniel Davies, teamed up with Sacred Bones to release his debut studio album Lost Themes in 2015 and then the sequential Lost Themes II in 2016. Following the success of these albums, as well as a series of rerecordings of his most iconic cinematic themes, Carpenter and family returned in 2021 with Lost Themes III: Alive after death.

Taos-based artist Diatom Deli, or Delisa Paloma-Sisk, is an experimental multi-instrumentalist and vocalist whose work is driven by ethereal sonic experimentation that comprises hypnotic loops, bright samples, and subtle melodies. Her third album, Time~Lapse Nature, is a transportive continuation of the blooming sincerity that characterizes Deli’s musical inclinations.

Los Angeles’s Geneva Jacuzzi has been combining high art and avant-pop since her 2010 debut Lamaze. Her third album, Triple Fire, came out in August of 2024.

Liverpool-based artist Dialect, or Andrew PM Hunt, explores unusual source synthesis, electro-acoustic arrangements, and sound found in foreign environments.

Australian Singer/Songwriter Indigo Sparke was born into a musical family and knew from a young age she wanted to perform. After teaching herself guitar, Indigo began establishing herself in the Sydney-music scene with quiet but commanding folk music, releasing her debut EP Night Bloom in 2016. Over the next few years Sparke would continue to build her profile in the contemporary folk world. Her first full-length album Echo arrived in 2021 on Sacred Bones.

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

Pennsylvania post-hardcore band Pissed Jeans on Sub Pop Records. Featuring Lydia Lunch produced "The Bar Is Low" and more.

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!

Steve Gunn and David Moore’s Let the Moon Be a Planet, their 2023 collaboration, is a volume of improvisatory exchanges between classical guitar and piano, and a “meeting place where two artists become acquainted through instrumental dialogue.” Gunn, whose recordings represent milestones of contemporary guitar-guided material, and Moore, acclaimed for his minimalist ensemble music as the leader of Bing & Ruth, both set out on a nomadic songwriting venture without an intended destination. Here’s the video for “Over the Dune.”

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.

Welcome back to our profile of indie label Drag City, featuring Ty Segall, Whitney Johnston & Lia Kohl, Geologist & Doug Shaw and Prison. Here’s “Buildings,” from prolific psych-rock legend Ty Segall.

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.

Tonight we profile indie label Drag City, with artists like Glyders, Sir Richard Bishop, Bill MacKay & Ryley Walker, Jim White, and Jill Fraser.

Kate NV is the multifaceted solo persona of Moscow-based artist Kate Shilonosova. Her third album with RVNG Intl, WOW, offers listeners a prismatic shift in perspective and scale, a parallel dimension in which the mundane becomes funny, familiar and altogether sensational.

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.

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

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.

Dylan Moon is a Los Angeles musician who debuted in 2019 with Only the Blues. His second full-length, Option Explore, is a collection of clever, colorful songs filtered through frequencies, timbres, and dreams discovered and discarded while its maker shifts from one sub-genre to the next.

Pioneering synthesist Pauline Anna Strom was inspired by “the metals of the earth, the easy flow of the human voice, hypnotically stretched out states of consciousness, mysterious vampire legends, modern violence and desolateness.” Her last album, Angel Tears in Sunlight, is an assemblage of music that reflects the expansiveness and minutiae of imagined realms while embracing the kaleidoscopic echoes of our distant epochs.

Composer Tashi Wada's “ancient and futuristic" compositions with his father.

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. bass and piano. 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

Eiko Ishibashi’s blend of jazz, funk and even noise gives her work a singular voice

Sixties psych, Shoegaze, and ’90s indie come together in the music of folk-pop artist Dylan Moon.

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.

“Take Off” to Seattle-based independent label Sub Pop featuring music videos from Chai, Mudhoney, clipping., and Ya Tseen.

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.

Bézier is the moniker of all-live-analog electronic wizard Robert Yang from San Francisco. Yang’s studio set up includes a variety of vintage Roland and Korg synthesizers as well as the Italo Disco favorite LinnDrum.

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.

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.”

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.

Los Angeles, CA-based Electro-punk act on Dais Records.

Black Marble, Chris Stewart’s 80s influenced synth-pop group, began releasing music in 2012 with the EP The Weight Against the Door and later the gloomy full length A Different Arrangement. This moody atmosphere, created by an arsenal of analog synths, would later give way to lighter and warmer sounds on Stewart’s successive releases, including 2019’s Bigger Than Life and 2021’s Fast Idol, both on Sacred Bones.

"Syrupy, space-case dance music” from electronic duo Blondes.

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

Brisbane garage rock band Slug Guts exploded onto the australian punk scene with the first album Down on the Meat, recorded and released only months after they started playing together in 2009. The band returned in 2011 on Sacred Bones with the full-length Howlin’ Gang, self-described as “menacingly desperate, ugly, and malnourished” this ethos would carry the band into their final LP, Playin’ in Time With the Deadbeat. Recorded in a year in which many of the band's members experienced significant personal turmoil, the group finally called it quits in 2013.

“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.

Soft-focus sounds from painter and an ambient composer Tor Lundvall on Dais Records.

Prolific artist Ty Segall rose to prominence with his own brand of psych-influenced garage rock in the late 2000s. His near nonstop output over the last decade spans multiple bands, collaborations and solo records, weaving a variety of sonic influences into each of his projects.

Today’s video profile covers Brooklyn-based record label Sacred bones, featuring Mort Garson, Sextile and Maria BC.

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.

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

Dark analog dance songs for the post-modern era.

Haunting folk noise and cinematic textures from experimental producer Michael Anderson.

The garage rock trio of Timmy Vulgar, Blake Hill and Jeff Fournier better known as Timmy’s Organism started as an experimental solo project for the group’s frontman that quickly twisted and morphed into a full-fledged punk band. Their first full-length, Rise of the Green Gorilla, arrived on Sacred Bones in 2010 followed by the 2012 album Raw Sewage Roq.

Damon McMahon started his solo musical project Amen Dunes in 2006, recording atmospheric, lo-fi psych-folk alone in the Catskills before moving to Beijing and further honing this dark sound and recording occasionally. These would become his debut Sacred Bones EP Murder Dull Mind.

An Evolutionary Music (Original Recordings: 1972 - 1979) compiles unreleased recordings from the archives of multiversal artist Ariel Kalma. Concerned as much with musicality as spiritual facility, Kalma’s work vibrates aside fellow travelers along the great rainbow in curved air of the 1970s avant-garde. Directed by Matthew McGuigan

RVNG Intl’s 2019 release "Becoming Peter Ivers" collects 25 songs transferred from a survey of over 500 reels and cassettes along with an incredible amount of unseen photos and ephemera.

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.

Tonight we take off to Sub Pop, one of the most legendary names in alternative music, with songs by Bully, J. Mascis, and Washed Out.

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.

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.

The 1982 sword-and-sorcery adventure film co-written and directed by cult director Albert Pyun arrives on Night Flight Plus! Meet Talon, a daring mercenary who conquers castles and dungeons alike with his lethal three-bladed sword. But when Talon becomes the prince of a kingdom controlled by an evil sorcerer, he is thrust into the wildest fight of his life. Can Talon rescue the beautiful princess and slay the warlock!?

Molchat Doma (translated as “Houses Are Silent”), was founded in 2017 in Minsk, Belarus, with a dark yet danceable sound that stands at the intersection of post-punk, new-wave and synth-pop. Their second LP Etazhi (meaning “Floors”) became a global phenomenon, leading Sacred Bones to sign the band in early 2020.

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 a collection of demos and early studio recordings earned her a dedicated audience, songwriter Jessica Pratt moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles and recorded her first intentional album in her bedroom. That album, On Your Own Love Again (released by Night Flight indie label partner Drag City in 2015), would bring her around the world many times, leading many to fall under the spell of Jessica Pratt the performer, the songwriter, the singer with the heavy-lidded voice that feels alien and familiar at the same time. Quiet Signs, the artist’s debut record for Mexican Summer, finds Pratt's songwriting and accompanying guitar work refined -- more distinct and direct.

Actor, screenwriter and artist Karen Black cemented a place for herself in the New Hollywood movement of the 60s and 70s with starring turns in films like Easy Rider (1969) and Five Easy Pieces (1970). During an acting career that spans 5 decades and over 200 credits, Black began writing and recording music with notable producers Bones Howe and Elliot Mazer. Decades later under the oversight of Cass McCombs, her work has been restored from the original tapes for release on Mexican Summer’s Anthology Records label.

Don Giovanni is an independent record label from New Brunswick, New Jersey whose catalog includes The Homeless Gospel Choir, Laura Stevenson and Rodeo Boys.

Magik Markers member Elisa Ambrogio released her pop-influenced solo debut The Immoralist on Drag City in 2014. The album paired her soft and distant vocals with pop arrangements, all imparted with the rough textures of her noise rock roots.

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.

Red Axes are the Tel Aviv-based electronic duo of Dori Sadovnik and Niv Arzi whose sound is heavily influenced by the music of post-punk and new wave bands from the 80s.

Michele Mercure is an electronic artist who has made music for film, television, dance and theater. Her “arresting dream-music” demonstrates a “transportive attitude within and beyond the limited sound recording medium.”

Emmy-winning director Stephen Hopkins navigates this harrowing journey of four suburban men into the nightmarish neighborhood of Chicago's crime-infested underworld. When four young men take a wrong turn, they witness a murder. Now, the killers cannot let them live... With a powerhouse cast including Young Guns' Emilio Estevez, Oscar winner Cuba Gooding, Jr., a maniacal Denis Leary, and Blade's Stephen Dorff, this edge-of-your-seat thriller takes viewers on a life and death road-trip into terror.