You know, I guess maybe it was Roadburn that put me on to all-lowercase atmospheric heavies healthyliving, as the band played their first show ever at the rightly venerated Dutch festival; a singular honor for an underground act of any stripe. And you know what else, that shit would be the first line in my bio too. Pretty much forever.

And when it came to the record — that being their debut, Songs of Abundance, Psalms of Grief (review here) — I dug it a lot. It’ll be on my year-end debuts list, I look forward to the next one, on and on. Listening to it again as I write this, I’m glad to be revisiting it, though that makes it sound like it’s been forever and it only came out a few months ago. Weird living in an utterly saturated market in which somehow nobody makes any money.

This isn’t the longest UK tour you’ve ever seen, but they’re going from Glasgow to London the next night, so respect for the seven and a half hours in the car that day, though if I was tour managing we’d cut out of Glasgow asap after the show and start the drive south, stop somewhere cheap but not too creeper if possible for the night and pick up in the morning. Actually, if I look at the four shows, it’s kind of a wild routing, starting in the southwest UK on the inland coast, heading north for successive nights in Manchester and Glasgow and then swinging all the way down to London the last night, further south than was Newport, if not by much, but considerably further east. It’s not even close to the craziest shit I’ve ever seen, but neither would I call it easy.

The PR wire brought details, links, dates, all sorts of fun stuff:

healthyliving announce UK tour w/ Dawnwalker

Following on from their debut live performance at Roadburn in Tilburg this year and recent set at the inaugural edition of Core. in Glasgow, doomy noise/post-rock act healthyliving will embark on a co-headlining UK tour alongside post-metal band Dawnwalker in December.

healthyliving, the transnational collective across Scotland, Spain, and Germany, released their debut album, Songs of Abundance, Psalms of Grief, in April of this year, garnering significant critical acclaim. Joining them on tour is London-based Dawnwalker, lauded for their unique blend of prog and post-metal. Dawnwalker is currently on tour supporting their 2022 album, House of Sands, their darkest and most human to date. Together, the bands offer up a series of nights of unique heavy and emotive music with handpicked supports for each show.

healthyliving + Dawnwalker December UK Tour:
07 Dec – Le Pub – Newport (w/ Goat Major)
08 Dec – Retro Bar – Manchester (w/ Deathbloom)
09 Dec – The Flying Duck – Glasgow (w/ Cwfen)
10 Dec – The Black Heart – London (w/ Codex Serafini)

Tickets: https://www.wegottickets.com/DWHLTour

healthyliving is the project of long-time collaborators and friends Scott McLean (Ashenspire, Falloch), Stefan Pötzsch and Amaya López-C (Maud the moth). Having worked on various musical projects together for years, their artistic and personal connection coalesced organically and fuelled a small transnational collective across Scotland, Spain and Germany. healthyliving emerges to honour this natural connection; something which is reflected in the simplicity, rawness and immediateness of their approach to songwriting. Artistically, the band draws from the beauty and horror of the mundane to create a kaleidoscopic and evocative musical world that commutes across genre borders.

Stream Songs of Abundance, Psalms of Grief on your preferred digital media AT THIS LOCATION: https://linktr.ee/healthylivingband

ORDER Songs of Abundance, Psalms of Grief on vinyl, CD, or Digital on BANDCAMP: https://healthylivingband.bandcamp.com/album/songs-of-abundance-psalms-of-grief

healthyliving is:
Amaya López Carromero – Vocals
Scott McLean – Guitars, Bass, Synth
Stefan Pötzsch – Drums
Andrés Ramos — bass (live)

https://www.facebook.com/healthylivingband
https://www.instagram.com/healthylivingband/
https://healthylivingband.bandcamp.com/

Healthyliving, Songs of Abundance, Psalms of Grief (2023)

If you’re reading this post — first, thanks — and second, it’s probably because at some point last year, you caught onto Chat Pile‘s God’s Country (review here) and its everything-is-fucked-no-one-knows-what-to-do-except-people-who-don’t-care-oh-look-more-cancer-and-mass-shootings-what-could-be-more-American-than-that sensibility, post-apathy chest-tunneling and hardcore-born willingness to ask “what the fuck?” in however many words. Fair enough. That record — which already has a follow-up in the band’s 2023 split with Nerver (review here) — played out like the shape of you-wish artpunk to come, and its disaffection was widely hailed along with aural ideologies both innovative and primitive. Shit was raw, in other words, and well received.

Chat Pile went to Europe earlier this year to treat Roadburn to an exclusive show, and I have to think they’ll be back on the continent in 2024, though I’ll readily admit I’ve got no insight into their plans. With the momentum of hype around God’s Country, I would imagine they’ve been fielding offers from various sides. You’ll note a couple of these dates on the West Coast are slated to happen supporting heavy prog forerunners Baroness, and as counterintuitive a pairing as that is, it could definitely work, Baroness so refined in their thinky-thinky metal and Chat Pile sounding like they’re trying to beat their own songs with a wrench. Shit, book that tour now.

From social media or wherever:

CHAT PILE – WEST COAST TOUR ANNOUNCEMENT!

Been a long time in the making, but it’s finally here!

Agriculture and Nightosphere will join us for select dates and we also have the honor of opening for Baroness on a couple shows in the midwest.

Tickets go on sale this Friday.

11/2 – Denver, CO – Bluebird Theatre !
11/3 – Salt Lake City, UT – Urban Lounge !
11/5 – Seattle, WA – The Crocodile !
11/6 – Portland, OR – Star Theater !
11/8 – San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall !
11/9 – Los Angeles, CA – Substance Festival
11/10 – Phoenix, AZ – Rebel Lounge !
11/12 – Colorado Springs, CO – Vultures
11/14 – Minneapolis, MN – First Avenue ?
11/15 – Chicago, IL – Vic Theater ?
11/17 – Iowa City, IA – Gabe’s Oasis &
11/18 – Columbia, MO – Rose Music Hall &

! w/ Agriculture
? w/ Baroness
& w/ Nightosphere

Incredible poster by Garrett Young

https://www.facebook.com/chatpileband
https://www.instagram.com/chatpileband/
https://chatpile.bandcamp.com/
https://linktr.ee/chatpileband

https://www.facebook.com/theflenser/
https://www.instagram.com/theflenser/
https://nowflensing.com/

Chat Pile, God’s Country

After calling off a trip to Europe this month to play alongside Tee Pee labelmates Danava, long-running New York classic heavy proggers Mirror Queen, Sons of Kreisor, Coverers of Captain Beyond, etc., etc. — they are a band with many titles — will return to the road at the end of October. They’ve got a week-long Midwestern tour assembled, and they’ll be joined by Black Moon Cult for it. They go supporting 2022’s Inviolate (review here), which grooved with laid back ’70s heft in a way that was not vintage but definitely picking and choosing its influences and leaving out a few of the crappier decades. You know what I’m talking about.

Before they go, Mirror Queen are set to provide hometown representation at The Kingsland in Brooklyn supporting Freedom Hawk on Sept. 3, which, uh, is this weekend because apparently that’s where we are on the calendar. Last time I saw them was 2019 at the Saint Vitus Bar (review here) with Nebula, Sasquatch and Geezer, and they’re no strangers to picking up the support slot on an out-of-towner-type gig, when they’re not the out of towners themselves, so I expect that’ll be a good time. That was one of the last shows I saw before the pandemic hit. I don’t regret going to it.

The band put the dates up on social media, which is I guess what you do with tour dates. We all are subject to the mercies of the algorithm. In any case, they’ll be at the following wheres and whens:

MIRROR QUEEN – Fall Tour

Hitting the High-ways and byways with Black Moon Cult this fall!
https://www.facebook.com/PsychedelicBlackMoonCult

10.29 Howard’s Club Bowling Green OH
10.30 Buzzbin Akron OH
10.31 Dead City/Halo Live Sandusky OH
11.01 Black Circle Brewing Indianapolis IN
11.02 Livewire Lounge Chicago IL
11.03 McAlpine Meadery Beach City OH
11.04 The Mothership Mansfield OH

Mirror Queen is Kenny Kreisor (guitar/vocals), Jeremy O’Brien (drums), James Corallo (bass/backing vocals) and Morgan McDaniel (guitar).

https://www.facebook.com/mirrorqueennyc/
https://mirror-queen.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/teepeerecords/
https://twitter.com/teepeerecords
https://instagram.com/teepeerecords/
https://teepeerecords.bandcamp.com/
http://teepeerecords.com/

Mirror Queen, “Inviolate”

On the cusp of marking their 20th anniversary as a band in 2024, the Belfast-based gravitational force known as Slomatics offer Strontium Fields as their seventh album. Issued as their third LP for Black Bow Records behind 2019’s Canyons (review here) and 2017’s Future Echo Returns (review here), produced as ever by Rocky O’Reilly at Start Together Studio — O’Reilly plays on it as well, I think — and as Strontium Fields boasts mastering by James Plotkin, the returning trio lineup of guitarists David Majury and Chris Couzens and drummer/vocalist/synthesist Marty Harvey (also War Iron), epic gatefold artwork (by Ryan Lesser in this case), and tectonically chugging riffs meeting with grandiose sci-fi keyboard, there’s plenty in the eight-song/36-minute full-length to make familiar listeners feel in-the-know. Opener “Wooden Satellites” sets a course through tumult and tone, the Northern Irish three-piece beginning at a semi-slog through downer-chug riffing laced as it moves into the first verse with theremin-esque sounds, soon enough establishing the chorus that coincides; some mention of a Red Queen along the way adds a sense of story, but I haven’t seen a lyric sheet so can’t necessarily speak to it.

But strontium — chemical symbol Sr, number 38 on the periodic table — is an alkaline earth metal abundant in the planet’s crust, is used to turn fireworks and flares red, sometimes to make stuff glow in the dark, and is radioactive in its man-made isotopes. One imagines a field of it would be a striking and apocalyptic image, which is suitable to Slomatics‘ general aesthetic. They are cybernetic dystopia’s favorite riffers. And as much as Strontium Fields celebrates that, it also finds Slomatics trying new ideas in sound even from what they were doing in 2022 on their split with Sweden’s Domkraft, Ascend/Descend (review here). This is most emphasized across the span in Harvey‘s vocals, which have never engaged in more complex melodicism or soared quite as they do here. There’s some layering, maybe a guest spot, in “Wooden Satellites,” but as Strontium Fields plays through side A in “I, Neanderthal,” “Time Capture” and “Like a Kind of Minotaur” — which, sure enough, is; the band have always had a knack for titling songs seemingly in answer to the riffs on which they’re based — and across side B headed toward the finale in “With Dark Future,” its component tracks also interact in new ways.

To wit, “I, Neanderthal” taps into Metallica‘s “Sad But True” in its intro with more open drums before building into its push-forward verse, more uptempo than the opener but still midtempo by most standards. Harvey, his voice compressed, has a shout like Lee Dorrian on some of the later Cathedral fare, but as the chorus spreads wide to offset some of the tension amassed in the verse and bridge, the belted-out melody returns. At 3:10, the guitars cut out and piano comes in where the riff had been to round out a four minutes that feels much bigger ahead of the synthy start of “Time Capture,” which is at the core of what Slomatics are bringing to Strontium Fields atmospherically. Feeling like a pandemic-era contemplation, it removes the weighted wall of distortion that typifies their approach, and instead puts a keyboard or effects drone at the forefront with Harvey‘s duly mournful vocal overtop, verse harmonies echoing “Wooden Satellites” in a sidestep context like futurist ambient pop. At none of its opportunities to ‘get heavy’ does it do so.

I know that sounds funny, but considering who Slomatics are and who they’ve become over their seven records together, it means something. There is guitar that comes in later (unless it’s more keys), at around 4:30 to add to the last verse, but while Slomatics have had atmospheric breaks, usually contrasted by the arrival of some particularly crushing progression, the focus on melody throughout Strontium Fields and the way they execute “Time Capture” come across as genuinely new, which is something to appreciate for a band approaching 20 years since their start and who are now past a decade in their current configuration. Where otherwise “Time Capture” might explode in a skullcleaver of a riff, Strontium Fields leaves it to “Like a Kind of Minotaur” to fill that role, which it does in immediate crush and a classic Slomatics nod and a general gone-to-ground vibe. It changes at the halfway point and opens a bit with some wah guitar, but that “ough” at 3:03 is fully earned as they ride the chug to the end of side A and, on linear/digital formats, make another smooth turn into the quiet beginning of “Voidians.”

And for at least the better part of its first two minutes, “Voidians” works a bit like “Time Capture” in its quieter, mood-minded reach. But when the opportunity presents itself at 1:55 into the total 6:32 (it’s the longest inclusion but not by a ton over “Time Capture” or “With Dark Futures”), “Voidians” does get heavy, cycling through a louder chorus before dropping out to loop through the verse again. Its second chorus gives over to kick-driven lumber, and Slomatics chug into synth-laced oblivion to end, but the affect of the intro to “Voidians” and the whole of “Time Capture” is resonant throughout, and the wistful balladry and shimmering strum of the 2:37 “Zodiac Arts Lab” go even further, with a vocal/guitar melody that reminds in part of INXS‘ “Never Tear Us Apart” perhaps as delivered by Tau and the Drones of Praise, a second guitar entering with lead lines around the central rhythm. It’s the shortest cut, and the boldest in many ways, including in its lack of drums, which if vinyl symmetry follows means that the subsequent, penultimate “ARCS” is going to destroy.

It does. Slowly. Barely there in its creeper guitar outset, it lurches forth on undulations of doomer distortion as a backdrop for a clear verse almost seeming to continue the style of “Zodiac Arts Lab,” but in a decidedly more tectonic form, and while “Time Capture,” “Voidians,” and “Zodiac Arts Lab” show Slomatics working in new methods, “ARCS” internalizes that, pairs it with their long-established tonal heft and offers something that is emotional and evocative as an end product. And even if these are elements/ideas that Slomatics have presented on record before, they’re doing so here in new ways and as “ARCS” drops out, surges again, peaks heavy and caps with the drums fading as they’re soon to again on “With Dark Futures,” Strontium Fields underscores the multifaceted take Slomatics have developed over the last decade-plus. The closer arrives crashing in big, unfolds itself over its intro. Verses peppered with whispers seem to speak directly to the audience (or the self): “You are awake/You are alive/Breathe/Just breathe,” they advise.

There are twists in the plot of the final chapter here as well, as “With Dark Futures” stops and feedbacks as if to say “here we go around again” before resuming its planetary stomp, incorporating the synth, which only makes it sound huger. Harvey returns for last verses, and they cap with a due crescendo before the aforementioned percussive fadeout, but even in having less outright tension in the early verses, “With Dark Futures” finds Slomatics exploring, details like whispers at the end of some of the verse lines, or the way they carry into the finish assuring the point is conveyed, which it is beyond a doubt. With their modus steady beneath them, Slomatics feel somewhat freer to explore upward, looking at the sky aurally and maybe finding a bit of escapism in that. What Strontium Fields will mean for them as they move forward, I can’t say, but in both its expected and unexpected aspects, it offers a heaping dose of the vitality so much a part of their process and a deeper look at their dynamic than they’ve ever before given. That these songs are very, very heavy shouldn’t be taken for granted, and that they’re more than just that is a thing to be appreciated.

Slomatics, Strontium Fields (2023)

Slomatics on Facebook

Slomatics on Instagram

Slomatics on Bandcamp

Black Bow Records BigCartel store

Black Bow Records on Bandcamp

Black Bow Records on Facebook

Life takes you strange places. I’m reporting live from a bench at what I grew up calling Hershey Park — it’s now known as “Hersheypark,” if current signage is to be believed — in not-much-else-here Hershey, Pennsylvania. My wife and kid are and have been for long enough for me to set up the entire back end of this post, maybe 25 minutes or so, waiting on line for a rollercoaster called The Comet. Park opened at 11 and is slammed.

We’re here, my little family unit, because it’s the end of summer. The Patient Mrs. starts a new semester teaching this week, The Pecan goes to school for full-day kindergarten Sept. 5, so this is pretty much it for summer. Why we’re here instead of something not two and a half hours from where we live is because about 25 minutes from here, at 2PM, we’re meeting with a dog breeder to see about maybe buying a three-month-old puppy. It’s a shichon, small, doesn’t shed much or make a lot of noise. A non-dog, by some standards. Fine. If it doesn’t immediately bite my kid, we’ll probably get it. This has emotional baggage for me — shocking, I know — but it’s time to get this kid a dog, so even if it’s not this one, we’ll keep looking.

What does any of this have to do with Ripplefest Germany 2023 announcing lineups for Cologne — Köln in German — and Berlin?

Just about nothing, actually, but it’s why I’m distracted from giving you the usual spiel: “here’s a cool fest I’ll never get to see but maybe you will and we can both daydream so here you go,” so at least that’s a connection. And please don’t take my inability to focus as somehow detracting from the work Max Röbel has done in assembling lineups both representative and forward thinking from Ripple and -adjacent acts. If you need more proof of his noble mission to shake heavy rock genre norms, go check out the new Plainride. Also, good for Crystal Spiders doing a bit of travel.

These reportedly are not the only acts that will be announced for these events, but it’s a start. Here’s what the PR wire has to say about it:

RIPPLEFEST GERMANY announces first names for 2023 edition in Berlin and Cologne this fall; tickets on sale now!

The international RIPPLEFEST festival series, organized by renowned California independent label Ripple Music, returns to Germany this fall with two unmissable events! Ripplefest Berlin and Ripplefest Cologne promise a musical experience of the highest caliber for fans of Stoner, Doom, and Heavy Psychedelic Rock.

Ripple Music, a label known for its specialization in heavy rock sounds, aims to promote emerging talents from the international heavy rock underground and bring together fans and bands from all over the globe. Dubbing their own festival series “Ripplefest”, the record label has been organizing showcase events for years, in cities such as Austin, San Francisco, London, Nantes, Stockholm, Cologne and Berlin.

The organizer of both Ripplefests is Max Röbel, frontman of Cologne’s heavy rock band Plainride and Head of A&R Europe for Ripple Music. About curating the festival, he says: “Creating a platform for music beyond the mainstream and being able to showcase it with such international lineups is a matter dear to my heart. These festivals are meant to be both a meeting place and a stepping stone for our acts, which is why I am particularly excited that with Kabbalah, Crystal Spiders, and Daevar, we once more have three bands with exceptionally strong frontwomen, on this year’s lineup.”

RIPPLEFEST BERLIN 2023
November 25th at Roadrunner’s Paradise
Buy tickets (20€): https://ripplefest.de/berlin.html
Facebook event: https://facebook.com/events/s/ripplefest-berlin-2023/987568972444269/

❱ CANNABINEROS (DE) Stoner rock
❱ KABBALAH (SP) Occult rock
❱ CRYSTAL SPIDERS (USA) Doom rock
❱ APPALOOZA (FR) Heavy tribal rock

RIPPLEFEST COLOGNE 2023
December 2nd at Club Volta
Buy tickets (20€): https://ripplefest.de/berlin.html
Facebook event: https://facebook.com/events/s/ripplefest-cologne-2023/1301970177360757/

❱ MOTHER’S CAKE (DE) Stoner rock
❱ KABBALAH (SP) Occult rock
❱ FIRE DOWN BELOW (BE) Stoner rock
❱ CRYSTAL SPIDERS (USA) Doom rock
❱ APPALOOZA (FR) Heavy tribal rock
❱ CANNABINEROS (DE) Stoner rock
❱ DAEVAR (DE) Stoner doom

https://www.facebook.com/theripplemusic/
https://www.instagram.com/ripplemusic/
https://ripplemusic.bandcamp.com/
http://www.ripple-music.com/

Mother’s Cake, Studio Live Session (2022)

Conan have made known their intention to issue a series of an untold number of limited 7″ singles over the next however many months. Yeah, details are pretty light, but it caught my eye because, well, in part because the Algorithm puts every social media post the band makes in front of my face because I usually respond to them (Jon Davis‘s got covid; get well soon, mate), but also because the included DIY hashtags would seem to indicate they’re not coming out through Napalm Records.

The UK-based obliterators put out five releases through Napalm, including one live album and last year’s Evidence of Immortality (review here), with its foray into atmospheric complexity complementing all their signature plunder. Now. I don’t know that theirs was or wasn’t a five-album deal. I don’t know that Conan‘s next album won’t come with a Napalm logo on the back. I don’t know anything. I don’t even know whether these singles will be out through Davis‘ Black Bow Records, or just punk-style, no label at all.

But I know they’re covering undervalued crunch rockers Fudge Tunnel on the first one — because it says it, right down there — and I know that Conan are slated to appear at Desertfest New York next month ahead of starting a previously announced European tour in October with Lord Dying, so that’s not nothing. As to the timing on these tracks, I’ve no idea, but with bassist Chris Fielding handling the recording as ever, the process feels pretty streamlined.

Here’s their post:

7” COLLECTOR SERIES…… We are launching a series of 7” singles. Our first, featuring both new & original material and also a cover of Hate Song by @fudge_tunnel is currently being mixed and mastered by @chrisfielding_musicproduction – and will be made available for pre order soon. These will be available through our bandcamp, so keep an eye open for news in the coming days. #cavemanbattledoom #diyrelease #diyordie #fudgetunnel

CONAN European tour w/ LORD DYING
11/10/2023 CZ Brno Fleda
12/10/2023 AT Linz Kapu
13/10/2023 CH Düdingen Bad Bonn
14/10/2023 CH Martigny Les Caves du Manoir
15/10/2023 IT Bologna Freakout Club
16/10/2023 SL Ljubljana Orto Bar
17/10/2023 HU Budapest Dürer Kert
18/10/2023 AT Vienna Arena
19/10/2023 PL Poznan Pod Minoga
20/10/2023 DE Dresden Chemiefabrik
21/10/2023 DK Copenhagen Råhuset (Only Lord Dying)
22/10/2023 NO Oslo Revolver
23/10/2023 SW Gothenburg The Abyss
25/10/2023 DE Hamburg Bahnhof Pauli
26/10/2023 DE Berlin Reset
27/10/2023 DE Hannover Cafe Glocksee
28/10/2023 NL Maastricht Samhain Festival
29/10/2023 BE Ghent Chinastraat
30/10/2023 DE Leipzig UT Connewitz
31/10/2023 DE Wiesbaden Schlachthof
01/11/2023 FR Dijon Les Tanneries
02/11/2023 SP Barcelona Salamandra
03/11/2023 SP Vitoria Jimmy Jazz
04/11/2023 FR Toulouse Connexion Live
05/11/2023 FR Colmar Le Grillen
06/11/2023 DE Munich Feierwerk

CONAN is:
Jon Davis – Guitar, Vocals
Chris Fielding – Bass
Johnny King – Drums

http://www.hailconan.com/
https://www.facebook.com/hailconan/
https://www.instagram.com/hailconan/
https://conan-conan.bandcamp.com/

Conan, Evidence of Immortality (2022)

Hometown experimentalists Aiming for Enrike are the latest addition to Høstsabbat 2023, and serve as another example of the Oslo-based festival branching out to include new sounds and ideas. I wasn’t familiar with the two-piece, so checked out this year’s Empty Airports and found it to be an enticing blend of keyboard exploration, manipulated drums, an intensity of purpose that feels inherited from krautrock more than the audio itself, though “Square Machine” did get up to some noise after reminding of the Scarface soundtrack earlier on, which I’d totally believe is on purpose.

Aiming for Enrike aren’t the first electronica-minded outfit to be confirmed for Høstsabbat, which also announced LLNN-offshoot John Cxnnor way back in Spring, but Simen Følstad Nilsen and Tobias Ørnes Andersen bring an avant dance sensibility to the proceedings that wasn’t there before. Growth! Forward progression! Entanglements of aesthetic! These are the things.

From social media:

HØSTSABBAT 2023 – AIMING FOR ENRIKE

It’s the day of the Sabbath – normally not our announcement day.

Suitable as it is nevertheless, as our band for today is far from the «normal» Høstsabbat band, if there ever was one.

We have been waiting for this announcement for quite some time, as they enchanted thousands of people at Øyafestivalen a couple of weeks ago, but now, the time is here:

Aiming For Enrike has been a force of nature in our domestic music scene for years and years, and their journey has been nothing less than spectacular.

Evolving from a chaotic and noisy two piece, pouring out aggressive and complex metal and hardcore riffs.

They are now a full blown two-piece handling stadium-sized stages with pounding, energetic and challenging club beats, accompanied by signature interstellar soundscapes and rhythms. Totally captivating, always mind blowing, never boring.

We are beyond stoked to present Aiming For Enrike at Høstsabbat 2023

TICKETS
https://bit.ly/HS-festivalticket23

SPOTIFY PLAYLIST
https://spoti.fi/3tkuMZl

NEWSLETTER
https://bit.ly/HostsabbatNews

https://www.facebook.com/hostsabbat/
https://www.instagram.com/hostsabbat/
http://hostsabbat.no/

Aiming for Enrike, Empty Airports (2023)

Høstsabbat Spotify Playlist

Well, now I know that Bydgoszcz is the eighth largest city in Poland. Never stop learning, kids.

Gdańsk-based jammy psych mischief makers The Howling Eye are going on tour in their native Poland and making stops as well in Germany and the Czech Republic. The band offered their third album earlier this year in the loose-grooving List Do Borykan (review here), and I’d have to imagine their live show doesn’t go too far from the album at least in terms of general approach. That is, I don’t think The Howling Eye are releasing a record of exploratory psych and then getting on stage and reciting the material note for note. Too adventurous a band, and for a bonus, they don’t take themselves too seriously. Warning: Actual fun may occur.

I didn’t need the excuse to post the dates, but you’ll note The Howling Eye sharing the stage with the likes of Tet, Mythic Sunship, Abanamat, The Device, Taxi Caveman, Mares of Thrace and TarLung, among others. I don’t see anything listed outright as a festival — and most of the Fall tours in Europe I’ve posted about have been fest runs — but I’m not 100 percent on that since, as noted, I’m still just learning about different cities in The Howling Eye‘s home country, which I know for sure I wouldn’t mind visiting one of these years.

From social media:

THE HOWLING EYE – TOUR ANNOUNCEMENT

We’re going on tour! Space Dwellers Tour will bring our riff-transmitted mystic visions to 15 cities in 3 countries. Many thanks to Interstellar Smoke Records and Galactic SmokeHouse for helping us pull this off, and to Maciek Szukała for the artwork. Facebook events coming soon…

Meanwhile:
6.10 – Toruń – KoŃcÓwa + Tet, Lovecraft
7.10 – Bydgoszcz – Estrada stagebar + Lovecraft, The Device
8.10 – Gdańsk – Wydział Remontowy + Mythic Sunship, Tet
10.10 – Hamburg – Bar 227 + Verstärker
12.10 – Kiel – Siebeneck & Triangel + TBA
13.10 – Szczecin – Krzywy Gryf + aleph א, Power Plant
14.10 – Elbląg – Mjazzga + ELBONG
15.10 – Warszawa – Hydrozagadka + Atom Juice
19.10 – Berlin – RESET + Abanamat
20.10 – Poznań – PAN GAR + Abanamat, Szacunek
22.10 – Wrocław – Liverpool + Abanamat, Noise River
26.10 – Kraków – Warsztat + Taxi Caveman, Niewyspani
27.10 – Tarnowskie Góry – Beczka + Taxi Caveman, Astral Nomad
28.10 – Ostrava – Rock Hill + TBA
29.10 – Praha – Modrá Vopice + MARES OF THRACE, TarLung

https://www.facebook.com/thehowlingeye
https://www.instagram.com/thehowlingeye/
https://thehowlingeye.bandcamp.com/
https://linktr.ee/TheHowlingEye

https://www.facebook.com/Interstellar-Smoke-Records-101687381255396/
https://www.instagram.com/interstellar.smoke.label/
https://interstellarsmokerecords.bigcartel.com/
https://linktr.ee/ISR666

https://www.facebook.com/GalacticSmokeHouse
https://www.instagram.com/galacticsmokehouse/
https://galacticsmokehouse.bigcartel.com/
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The Howling Eye, List Do Borykan (2023)