“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.

“Take Off” to Seattle-based independent label Sub Pop featuring music videos from Orville Peck, Shannon Lay, Father John Misty and Lael Neale.

Initially getting its start as a noisy and abrasive solo project in the basement of Philadelphia guitarist Mike Polizze, before expanding into a power trio, Purling Hiss made their name in the sceen playing alongside acts like the War on Drugs.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Toronto-bred, 3-piece noise punk band METZ. Featuring "Pure Auto" and more.

Spice shares the authoritative drive of Jawbreaker, J Church, and Fugazi, but set in their own world of unrest.

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

The Soft Moon is the project by American singer-songwriter Luis Vasquez. 2022’s Exister is a powerful, vulnerably therapeutic post-punk masterpiece.

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.

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.

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.

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

The first thing you notice about Weyes Blood’s third record for Mexican Summer, Front Row Seat to Earth, is its closeness. The music is immediate and warm with an intimate feeling. Active in underground music since 2006, Natalie Mering [MER-RING], the being behind Weyes Blood, sings sublimely. There is a faded California beauty to Merin’s music and a gentle honesty that recalls the finest folk music made on the West Coast of the ‘70s.

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

Drab Majesty, the project of Deb DeMure, blends New Wave and early 4AD sound into a “hypnotic and futuristic originality.”

Founded in 2010 by Robert Alfons and Maya Postepski, the group uses ethereal synth pop tones mixed over surging industrial beats. With the release of their first album TRST in 2012, the duo went their separate ways and Alfons continued to record and tour under the name. As a solo project Alfons began incorporating more elements of acid house and techno into his next release Joyland in 2014, which debuted to massive critical and commercial success.

Suzy Poling's latest record uses sounds and samples collected from the Vintage Synthesizer Museum in Oakland, CA.

Vår, formerly known as War, was a lofi post-punk act from Copenhagen. The group drew influences from darkwave and goth groups of the early 80s with blown-out, lo-fi recording techniques associated with the early 2010s. Vår’s Sacred Bones, No One Dances Quite Like My Brothers, arrived in 2013 and the group disbanded the following year.

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.

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

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

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.

Veteran folk artist Devendra Banhart teams up with Mexican Summer labelmate Cate le Bon for spare new direction on Flying Wig, his eleventh album.

Norwegian singer/songwriter, producer and novelist, Jenny Hval, made her solo debut in 2006 as Rockettothesky with the dreamy, folk-pop album To Sing You Apple Trees. Hval began releasing music with Sacred Bones under her own name with 2015’s experimental, art pop/spoken word album Apocalypse, Girl, influenced by Norwegian jazz singers of the 1960s and her upbringing in Norway’s Southwestern Bible Belt.

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.

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

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

Art rock outfit of multi-instrumentalist Graeme Jefferies.

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.

“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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

Arp is Brooklyn-based electronic producer and composer Alexis Georgopolous’ ambient solo project, first unveiled in 2006. While Georgopolous’ early work as Arp is largely defined by minimalist soundscapes made on synthesizers, each consecutive release remains untethered from the former, with later works exploring Glam, art pop and field recordings. The fifth Arp album, Zebra, arrived in 2018 and features elements of jazz and traditional folk music paired with Alexis’ signature ambient stylings.

Danish rock band Marching Church began as a side project of solo musical experiments for Elias Bender Rønnenfelt of Iceage. After the success of the band’s debut album on Sacred Bones, This World is Not Enough Rønnenfelt brought in Iceage bandmate Johan Weith and trumpeter Jakob Emil Lamdahl.

Purple Mountains, the last project of late Silver Jews singer David Berman, released after a decade of absence from the music industry and a month prior to his tragic passing, was a clever, occasionally somber tribute to the country-rock traditions that had guided much of Berman’s career.

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

Cellist Oliver Coates's "ambient braindance" compositions.

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.

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

Legendary Japanese heavy rock group Boris “continue their musical creation and destruction” with 2022’s W, their first release with Sacred Bones.

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.

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

For Iron & Wine’s seventh record, Light Verse, songwriter Sam Beam takes a more playful turn with songs borne out of joy and lightness.

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

Seattle based avant garde and experimental musician K. Leimer.

Fernando Perdomo born Fernando Jose Perdomo on August 17, 1980, is an American musician and producer. He is best known as one of the guitarists in the acclaimed music documentary, Echo in the Canyon, where he backed up Jakob Dylan, Fiona Apple, Beck. Nora Jones, Regina Spektor, Brian Wilson and Cat Power. He is currently a member of The Dave Kerzner Band, the highly regarded progressive rock ensemble that performs annually on the sold-out Cruise to the Edge. It was aboard a floating city in the middle of the Caribbean where I first encountered Fernando. He was laying down some mind-blowing riffs on the windy outdoor pool stage. I approached him after the set wearing a rare Kate Bush “Cloudbusting” shirt. “That’s the best Kate tee I’ve ever seen!” he shouted. “You and I are gonna be friends.” The session here was conducted in his cabin on the 2025 CTTE where he lent his formidable chops to three different groups.

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

Night Flight presents a special 30 minute video documentary profiling Cabaret Voltaire, who original host Pat Prescott describes as “England’s most provocative experimental band.” This seminal 1984 Video Profile features interviews with members Steven Mallinder and Richard H. Kirk, as well as exclusive edits of the Sheffield band's enigmatic music videos.