Athena, Holding Your Hair, Whispering In Your Ear

For me a few are enough, one is enough, none is enough. This is not for the many, but for you. We are audience enough for each other.

In short: an experimental hardcore album with a lot of really killer hooks.

The longer version: In the early aughts I spent a lot of time listening to hardcore/emo and I really dug it. In retrospect, some of it was really dumb, but there was always a kind of "prog" edge to it that I enjoyed, but that never felt fully realized. Coheed put out concept albums based on a story cycle, but the music was pretty samey. Thrice flirted with weird time signatures and concept albums, but weren't willing to give up the hooks to make any really weird music.

By contrast, Glow On is a real fucking weird hardcore album. The music is constantly shifting: from hardcore, to psychedelic rock, to shoegaze, to indie pop, to god knows what. A song might start sounding like a dead ringer for a 90's era AFI track, suddenly tip over into Beach Boys-style multi-part harmonies, before landing in a pile of weird synths.

And it all gels too; this album is catchy as fuck. Give it a spin if you like rock music at all. If you're an old hardcore/emo head, run don't walk to pick it up.

I love this album, because it is pure, corny, knuckle-dragging Goth club music. It's high energy darkwave without a hint of pretension or ambition. This is music scientifically engineered to turn off your brain and get you out on the floor doing martial arts in slow motion or "pulling the evil taffy". I mean, if the band name and album name didn't communicate what you're dealing with, here's a sampling of the track titles:

• In the Dark You Die
• Forever Suffer
• Avoid Everyone, and, my personal fave
• Nyctophilia

If you ever went to a Goth club and had a good time, check this album out. It will give you feelings. If you think Goth club music is (unpleasantly) ridiculous, give this one a pass.

A sentence I wasn't sure I'd ever say: I'm amazed at how much I enjoy this album of experimental organ music. Anna Von Hausswolf is an avant-garde organist and electronic musician who came to my attention after getting thrown out of a cathedral show for being a "Satanist." It has a vibe somewhere between Jarboe and late 80's Dead Can Dance, which is excellent.

I'll confess that, at first, I didn't quite "get it," but the album really, really grew on me. Now I can't stop listening to it.

After spending a decade or so in indie rock band Quilt, this is her first solo album, and what a debut! Impressive 80's-inspired electro pop with surehanded dips into psychedelia and synth-pop weirdness. Dense, danceable, and pleasantly playful, really a treat for lovers of dance music or 80's sounds.

This album is delightfully bizarre. The music is pretty standard post punk revival stuff, albeit with solid composition and a tight rhythm section. The thing that really sets the album apart are Florence Cleopatra Shaw's "lyrics" delivered in a stream-of-consciousness monotone. Substantively, the lyrics are hilarious, but there's also something compelling about the pairing of her lackadaisical, meandering "narration" (as Pitchfork called it) with the propulsive, careening orchestration.

The overall impression is engrossing but in a faintly silly way, like watching someone ride a galloping horse while struggling to stay awake. "Do everything, and feel nothing" indeed!

Taut, propulsive death rock, with top notch song writing and solid production. Nothing too innovative, but a really grade A genre exercise. Again, if Goth's not your bag, this won't convert you, but if you like Goth rock at all this is a little slice of heaven.

Piano and voice-driven electronic music that is haunting, crystalline, but surprisingly melodic. It reminds me forcefully of early Marissa Nadler, or maybe Grouper at her most conventionally musical. Music for rainy daydreams.

Synthy art-rock with a deeply funky vibe (think The Alan Parsons Project mashed up with Prince). Lots of interesting composition, and the songs are infectious.

John Dwyer has been making music I enjoy for more than a decade, although it seems like it's always a different genre. As Thee Oh Sees, I enjoyed his overflowing garage rock and punk, and followed along as he wandered further into psychedelia and experimental music. I also enjoyed his turn to prog/fusion with Bent Arcana. And now I'm enjoying his turn into experimental jazz on Witch Egg.

The album is a little wooly, to be sure, but Dwyer always seems to find his way back from the edge. I've probably listened to it two dozen times by now. If you enjoy prog or Jazz fusion, it's definitely worth your time.

Jazzy, catchy, instrumental funk with a distinctly psychedelic flavor. Parts of it almost border on "Crime Jazz," but in an exciting, high energy sort of way--more like the score for a car chase in an unreleased Shaft film, than the sting for a plot twist on Perry Mason. Lots to love here.