“In 1985,” Visions host Al Bandiero says, “British rockers have held the #1 slot on the American charts for more than 8 months." With a mix of music videos, interview, and artist bios, this episode of Visions features 80s British musicians like Annie Lennox, Sade, New Order, and The Cure.

"Boy isn't heavy metal a lot of fun!" says Mr. Bill at the start of Night FLight's special "Take Off" to Heavy Metal Comedy, (before an untimely death by anvil.) And Mr. Bill is right: Heavy Metal is a reliably comedic genre, intentional or not. This episode kicks off with Alcatrazz's "God Blessed," a satire of MTV that doomed its chances of airplay on that channel, (but of course got play on Night Flight), Keel's "Right to Rock", Accept's kaleidoscopic video for "Midnight Mover," Japanese rockers Loudness and Ireland's Mama's Boys.

Ryuichi Sakamoto's passing in 2023 has left an enormous void in the world of music, film, and beyond. Here at NF HQ, we were comforted by bittersweet arrival of a tape from the archives that includes Sakamoto's Man Ray inspired video for “Risky,” which features the inimitable croon of Iggy Pop. This "New Sounds" episode also highlights songs from ex-Go-Go's band House of Schock, The Smithereens, Pop Will Eat Itself, and more. Stick around for a New Filmmakers Showcase featuring a musical saga about a small-time hustler called Honky Tonk Bud (Scott Laster, 1986) the urban folk legend.

"You can have my husband, but please don't mess with my man!" In tonight's Night Flight original episode from 1983, we treated to a vivid (and mostly unseen) performance from Chicago Blues legend Koko Taylor. Raucous and raw, the Memphis-born Taylor and her band take the audience through a medley of blue standards and hits, including the 1964 energizing anthem: "Wang Dang Doodle". Pure Night Flight! Stick around for the episode's B-Side, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard's version of Townes Van Zandt's "Pancho and Lefty," where Townes himself makes an appearance in the music video.

This Night Flight original episode from our 1983 season is rife with deep cuts and nostalgic video gems from a lost era. The highlight is of course, Nameneko Punk Rock Kittens which features cats in punk outfits on cat-sized diorama sets (known as Perlorian cats in the US) created by photographer and artist Satoru Tsuda. These feline punkers join the ranks of other zoological video oddities like Dog Police and Fish Heads that were seared into the dazed minds of teenagers up way past their bedtime in the '80s.

"TV 2000's a different kind of video show: We've got everything!" The 1985 music series and Night Flight sister show hosted by John Kassir (voice of the Cryptkeeper) and Joe Gallo includes a top ten countdown, home movies, artist conversations with Night Flight & Radio 1990 resident interviewer Lisa Robinson, and some fantastic sweepstakes (sorry, entry is now closed!). Tonight's show, dubbed Episode 1 in the library, features videos from Duran Duran, Til Tuesday, Lisa Robinson on location with model Jerry Hall and a sizzling video Hot Pick of the Week. Commercials included!

TV 2000 is Night Flight's spin on the top ten countdown format from 1985, hosted by comedian John Kassir & Joie Gallo. In Episode 2 of TV 2000, Bryan Adams takes us to heaven, the Eurythmics ask: "Would I lie to you?" and Lisa Robinson goes on location with Boy George and Marilyn at the "hottest new club in New York," Palladium! Commercials are included.

This '90s syndication episode of Night Flight is dedicated exclusively to duets featuring a match made in art-pop heaven: Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush, KLF and Tammy Wynette's idiosyncratic country/dance-pop hybrid of pedal steel guitar & drum machines "Justified & Ancient," UB40 & Chrissie Hynde, and finally, Cher hits on Butthead in "I Got You Babe," the mega-crossover event of music television history we all needed. It's a bonafide hit-parade and a perfect specimen of our unique "Take Off" format, indeed.

It’s an “International Bazaar” on Night Flight tonight! This new arrival from the archives, taken from our 1985 Anniversary Special, finds Cabaret Voltaire sharing the Peter Care-directed classic video “Sensoria,” (inspired by the film 1979 black-comedy Wise Blood), Scotland's loyal song Jesse Rae and German experimentalists Einstürzende Neubauten contrasting perfectly against the Italian pop of Righeria in “No Tengo Dinero.”

Chicago’s Deeper brings danceable grooves and bigger hooks to their post-punk sound on Careful!, their latest album for Sub Pop.

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.

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.

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.

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!?

Former geotechnical engineer Lucrecia Dalt's experimental compositions.

Roxy Petrucci, born Roxanne Dora Petrucci, arrived on Planet Rock March 17, 1962, in the iron fisted Michigan village of Rochester. Rox and her sister, Maxine, formed Madame X in the mid 80s but she is best known as the highly respected drummer of the all-female glam metal outfit, Vixen. As the last original member standing – and Godmother of the group – she continues to hit kit harder than most of her male counterparts. We go back to 1989 when I green lip the first Vixen feature for Rip. Puts her heart into every kick and fill.

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.

Moscow natives Dima Pantyushin and Sasha Lipsky create a musical landscape that bounces between the terrestrial and divine in an “immaculate synth-pop ecosystem” on their debut album Peshekhod.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“Take Off” to Seattle-based independent label Sub Pop featuring music videos from Father John Misty, Tad, The Jesus and Mary Chain and more.

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

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

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.

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.

Lucrecia Dalt, a former geotechnical engineer, crafts experimental compositions with contemporary electronic sounds, traditional South American rhythms and evocative lyrics. Her latest album, ¡Ay!, channels innate sensory echoes of growing up in Colombia.

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

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.

Experimental hip hop group Shabazz Palaces makes a foray into “final-days funk” on Exotic Birds of Prey, an unsettling exploration of the coldest and darkest edges of their sound.

Wand is a metal-influenced psych rock band based in Los Angeles, California. Formed in 2013 by Cory Hanson, the group’s early releases feature hints of sludge and heavy metal, later giving way to more melodic synths. A lineup expansion in 2016 brought an improvised, jam-style to the band’s songwriting which coincided with a transition towards a more expansive, classic rock sound.

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

Masaki Batoh, founding member of Japanese experimental rock band Ghost, struck out on his own after closing the door on Ghost’s 30 year tenure in the psychedelic and progressive scenes. His more recent projects include his psychedelic 5-piece the Silence and his more spiritual solo output, such as Nowhere, and Smile Jesus Loves You!, released on Drag City.

The Sub Pop music of Riot Grrrl veterans Sleater-Kinney. Featuring "Jumpers" and more.

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

Suzanne Doucet got her start as a successful pop-star in Germany before moving to the US and embarking on her new-age career, releasing over 40 records in the states.

Today we’re covering eclectic Brooklyn-based record label Sacred Bones, featuring videos from Constant Smiles, Follakzoid and Hillary Woods.

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

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.

Resuscitating The '80s Underground. Inspired by the DIY nature of the 80s underground, Dark Entries founder Josh Cheon launched the label in 2009 to release out of print and unreleased underground music as well as contemporary bands, with a mission to preserve sound quality and respecting the aesthetics of its artists. With over 100 releases under our belt from Severed Heads, Crash Course In Science, Patrick Cowley to the Dark Entries Editions series focusing on hard to find Italo Disco and Synthpop 12”s. And yes, Josh took the name from Bauhaus's first 7″release,

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.

Xymox, later known as Clan of Xymox, was founded in the Netherlands, in 1983 by Ronny Moorings (Vocals, Guitars, Synthesizers) and Anka Wolbert (Vocals, Bass). In 2014, Dark Entries reissued the band's pre-4AD EP, Subsequent Pleasures, a unique fusion of lush psychedelia and dark, angular atmospherics.

Ski Patrol were a band formed in 1979 in the Brixton area in response to the darkwave and post-punk bands that were gaining popularity in England at the time.

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

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

A potent blend of nostalgia-laced romantic pop from Choir Boy on Dais Records.

Built to Spill’s frontman Doug Martsch recruited a new Brazilian backing band for Built to Spill’s latest record, When The Wind Forgets Your Name.

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.

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.

Patrick Cowley was an innovative American disco producer and composer originating from Buffalo, NY. Best known for his production on Sylvester’s explosive hit “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” as well as his own chart topping dance tracks.

Silver Jews was an American rock band formed in Hoboken by David Berman and Pavement members Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich. Inspired by the conceptual art at the Whitney Museum where Berman worked as a security guard, they would record their earliest tracks on the answering machines of friends.

Noise-rock group Uniform pull from a range of discordant influences including industrial, thrash metal and power electronics. Their debut album, Perfect World, released in 2015 pushed this minimalist setup to its limit, followed later that year by the EP Ghosthouse which appeared on Sacred Bones. On their sophomore effort, Wake In Fright, the group focused on sampling and programming sounds of violence from movies and field recordings, including using gunshots and explosions as percussion. In 2020 the group released their first album with drummer Mike Sharp, Shame.

Geneva Jacuzzi is well known for her uncompromisingly obtuse synth-driven pop and one-of-a-kind performance art that is comprised of one time only spectacles and installations. Her works have been presented in famous art institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art, MOCA, The Broad Museum, Vooruit, Kampnagel, and numerous other venues across the globe. Her videos and live performances depict the shattering of self into a variety of personas, all played by Jacuzzi. Introducing Geneva Jacuzzi's Lamaze Video Special. From Geneva Jacuzzi herself: "Ever see a video materialize into human flesh? Its not a pretty picture. It takes time and money and 12 epic music music videos simultaneously broadcasting life into the first non-dimensional humanoid born in "video-vitro" Set in a Bozzio Bizaro Video Laboratory, Geneva Jacuzzi (a chronic procrastinator/still in video form) was late to the flesh party. Trapped inside a TV screen, she does her best to host the video special while her newly materialized body struggles to come to life. Watch the drama unfold around 12 surreal and colorful music videos from the album "Lamaze"." It's Frankenstien meets Cronenberg meets MTV in the Future Past. And the music is really cool too. Enjoy.

Sub Pop-signed Bully from "Take Off" to Indie Labels. Featuring "Guess There," and more.

The Los Angeles-based quartet Allah-Las came together in 2008 while its members were working at Amoeba records. Allah-Las eventually found their way to Mexican Summer for the release of Calico Review in 2016, cultivating an array of global influences. These disparate and collected sounds would come together on the band’s fourth full-length, Lahs, an ode to the band's traveling lifestyle, released on Mexican Summer in 2019.

Horse Lords is Owen Gardner, Andrew Bernstein, Max Eilbacher, and Sam Haberman, an instrumental quartet formed in 2010. Its music is defined by repetition and complexity, “humanized with exploration and passion.”

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.

Oz Fox, born Richard Alfonso Martinez on June 18, 1961, is a founding member and lead guitarist of the Christian metal band Stryper. He was recruited by childhood pals, Robert and Michael Sweet, in 1983. He has recorded and toured with the band – through breakups and brain surgery – for forty years. Our friendship has grown since the pandemic when we began meeting monthly for brunch at his beloved Cracker Barrel. Oz is partial to pancakes with sliced apples. He brings his own special Canadian maple syrup.

Georgia-based Robert Lester Folsom released his first studio album, Music and Dreams, in 1978. Although it did receive some local attention on its initial release, the record had limited pressings and Folsom was unable to complete a follow-up album during that time. Here’s the Anthology Records documentary about the artist, created to accompany the label’s reissues projecs.

Born and raised in Bucharest, Romania, Borusiade aka Miruna Boruzescu started DJing in 2002 as one of the very few female DJs in the city’s emerging alternative clubbing scene.

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.

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.”

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.

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.”

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.”

Born to a family of fiddlers in Texas, film actor Caleb Landry Jones was instead drawn to the psychedelia of Syd Barrett’s solo work. Throughout his acting career he remained steadfast in his commitment to recording music, amassing hundreds of demos out of his family barn. Director, musician and Sacred Bones collaborator Jim Jarmusch heard these demos and suggested Jones approach the label, culminating in the release of his debut album The Mother Stone in 2020.

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.

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