Posted in Whathaveyou on August 19th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Heralding last Fall’s full-length, Mother, Give Your Children Sanity (review here), UK weirdopsych troupe Codex Serafini are set to embark on a round of mainland Euro tour dates starting Sept. 2 in Hamburg. They’ll mostly be in Germany and France, which is often how it goes, but are also set to make forays into Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia and the Czech Republic, and so are covering a good amount of ground in a two-week stretch. You’ll note a couple days off between Berlin and Barberaz, France. I wouldn’t be surprised if, in addition to the drive, there’s something up the band’s collective robe-sleeve for that time. I guess we’ll see.
The PR wire offered the following:
Codex Serafini are proud to announce a European tour to promote their second album Mother, Give Your Children Sanity; released physically via Riot Season Records and Echodelic Records November 2025. This release finds them blending the future psych rock of Boris, Goat, and King Gizzard with the avant-garde, art rock of The Mars Volta and Ex Eye to create something more focused and forward thinking than anything they have produced before. The album was recorded and produced by Wayne Adams (Big Lad/Petbrick) at Bear Bites Horse Studio (Green Lung/Petbrick/JAAW).
“This album grew from our shared, deep connection we have to one another and reflects both the power of nature and the struggles we all experience as human beings on this planet. We are grateful to have made it with people we love and respect, and we’re excited to finally share it with everyone out there.” – Codex Serafini
CODEX SERAFINI – Europe September 2026: 2nd Hamburg, Germany @ Hafenklang 3rd Berlin, Germany @ Neue Zukunft 7th Barberaz, France @ Le Brin de Zinc 8th Luzern, Switzerland @ Gewerbehalle 9th Bologna, Italy @ freakout club 10th Ilirska Bistrica, Slovenia @ MKNŽ 11th Prague, Czech Republic @ klubFAMU 12th Leipzig, Germany @ Kulturlounge 13th Hanover, Germany @ nordstadtbraut 14th Bochum, Germany @ BASTION 15th Paris, France @ Le Klub 16th Rouen, France @ le 3 pieces
Posted in Reviews on August 14th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Well, I have just about a full week’s worth of news to catch up on, so we must be coming down to the end of the Quarterly Review. “Planets align. A king is born. Dodge Swinger.” Etc.
It’s been real, though. Again, I didn’t go one day without putting something in my notes for end-of-year list time, and that includes today as well. If you’ve come along for the ride on these 50 release, thank you. I hope you’ve found something new to listen to, or at least had your opinions of what you’ve already heard confirmed, which always feels good on some level. I will say it’s been a pleasure to dig into this stuff, and I don’t know who slates these things — that’s a joke, I do; there’s nobody else here; sometimes I feel like I need to say that even after 17 years because I’m both insecure and irrelevant — but they did alright on this one because at no point in this process was I like, “omg what is mah life,” and it’s always a relief to not get there.
Bottom line, as always, thanks for reading. I’ll be back with another of these in October, probably.
Quarterly Review #41-50:
Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol, The Disappearing Man
Word on the street — by that I mean their Linktree — is that Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol release their new single “Ca$h Grab” Aug. 18. That’s also the title-track of their next full-length, reportedly, but the low-string charmer Austin trio have been eeking out singles since Spring, and the resultant three-songer, The Disappearing Man, is a welcome keep-momentum interim outing for those who’ve been chasing the dragon of 2024’s Big Dumb Riffs (review here) and need something new for their reels-addled attention spans. All three tracks — “The Disappearing Man,” “Bough Down” and “Peaches” — are two minutes long but each gives a different look between the sneer of “Peaches,” the post-grunge heavy rock of “Bough Down” and the harder-hitting pummeling fuckery of the title cut. Is it a holdover? Yeah, probably. Will it even exist when the album comes out and likely features the same tracks? I don’t know. But it’s here now and the songs rule, so maybe get it while it’s there to get got and worry about the rest later, hmm?
The rock is by no means gone from Tidal Wave‘s sound on Volume Tree, but a shift has taken place as well since 2023’s The Lord Knows (review here) such that the first half of the new record seems to draw more from classic heavy metal than desert rock. On “The Orb,” “Hangman,” “Earth” and “Temple of Humanity,” that finds the Swedish foursome more in league with Dio-era Sabbath or Johan Langquist-fronted Candlemass, which is a compliment to vocalist Alexander “Sunkan” Sundqvist. The back half of the album, with “Sideburns,” “Shapeshifter,” “Manuscript 512” and “Skitliv,” complicates the narrative in the yachty experiment of the closer and the penultimate cut drawing the two sides together, but “Sideburns” and “Shapeshifter” have desert-style push, and the latter reminds particularly of late-1900s outfits like The Awesome Machine in its crunch and buzz. Either way they go, the songs hit their marks, so mark it a win for the complexity.
With six songs likewise furious and welcome, Richmond, Virginia’s Thunderchief are only right to name their latest EP after ways they might possibly kill you. The charred heavy thrash-doom of from the two-piece of guitarist/screamer Rik Surly and drum-pummeler Erik Larson does not shy away from the caustic, and whether it’s a roll like “Entrance of the Devil” or the gallop-over-your-head “Chintzy,” or the concluding noisefest in “Slurpee,” to which nine of the EP’s 23 minutes are dedicated, their penchant for aural slaughter shows itself in Surly‘s unflinching rasp, in Larson‘s corresponding pounding — looking at you, “Malaise” — and in the disaffected shove of “Lie Nation,” the band packing a full album’s worth of aggression into the abbreviated runtime. This is Thunderchief‘s wheelhouse, and hardly their first excursion into listener-abuse, but as impressive as the raw sustained ferocity is — not that the world doesn’t provide constant reasons to stay angry — it’s the fact that the material holds together and bears the weight they put to it that makes their approach so lethal. That’s on full and punishing display here.
A multinational collaboration between Peruvian psychheads Chino Burga and Pepe Abad (both veterans of La Ira de Dios) and Scott “Dr. Space” Heller (Øresund Space Collective and adjacent projects), Umma resonate psychedelic meditation across their four-song debut, Kosmovisionen, with layers of intersecting guitar drones, percussion, and synth. “Monts” sets the stage for the unfolding free/freak jazz of “Procesio,” and while “Aeparatio” feels grounded by comparison, its float of guitar remains transcendant ahead of the finale “Ogon,” which is a dream of experimentalist tone and cymbal wash. I don’t know how much of a band Umma are going to be, sending files back and forth between Peru and Portugal, but they tap into something spiritual here in just 35 minutes, and Kosmovisionen sounds more like the beginning of a broader exploration rather than a one-off collab. They create so much space, it’d be a shame if they didn’t grow and flesh out their arrangements accordingly.
Intended as a 7″ complement to the DHU Records vinyl pressing of Rifle‘s 2025 album, Beyond Paranoia, this two-songer plays out for 11 minutes across “Incarnation” and “Twisted Death,” vibing like rote jams with mellow vocals overtop like Endless Boogie or something like that, with an unpredictable edge and underlying tension. Apparently there were lineup issues? I’m not sure on the story, but the resultant vibe is off-kilter in a fascinating way — it’s not necessarily holding back the songs, I mean — and the low-key chaos they capture in the recordings, with mad swirls of guitar behind the mostly-whisper vocals, builds on what the album was doing in pieces like “Beyond Paranoia” and “Gipsy Spell” while feeling less tethered to a classic-heavy/vintage songwriting methodology. That may be indicative of a future direction, or these may just be leftovers from the album sessions, I don’t know, but it’s weird and dug in and sounds like it doesn’t care in the slightest how you classify it.
This year has brought new productivity from Boston experimentalists Brass Hearse, who’ve released three singles in 2026 in addition to this 17-track/51-minute ambient film soundtrack; their first new offerings in six years. The penultimate “Destroyer of the Breach” runs nearly nine minutes, but most of Can’t Get No — titled after the movie — is made up of shorter pieces one to three minutes long, with drones and guitar, keys and various washes of tone, some cogent progressions, some purposefully not, evoking a feeling of loneliness and foreboding. Presumably the title is a Rolling Stones reference — “Drifting Through the Void” might build on the song in question as well, though I might be imagining it — and I haven’t seen the movie, but from what I read it’s shorter than the soundtrack, so yes, that would be emblematic of the new creative delve on the part of the Boston band. On its own, the album makes for a meditative, atmospheric listen but don’t take that to mean Brass Hearse lack dynamic or are doing the same thing all the time. They just happen to be really effective in conjuring a world.
Tucked away in the northeast of Sweden, the Umeå-based three-piece Svindel strike an immediately classic impression on their Ripple-issued debut album, Drömfeber, channeling boogie rock’s sense of motion and, in the title-track and elsewhere, calling to mind psychedelic reach without actually veering too far from the underlying structures of their material. Somebody’s playing organ on opener “Jupiterbarn,” and I’d swear I hear keyboards elsewhere too, but none among guitarist/vocalist Jan Lindblad, bassist Daniel Forsberg and drummer/backing vocalist Johannes Braf is credited with the contribution, so maybe I’m the one in a fever dream. In any case, as “Tunga Ögon” hints toward blues and “Ta Mig Tillbaka Till Världen Nu” embarks in the direction of pastoralia, the stylistic book hardly seems closed in terms of how Svindel might progress, but the fact that they are able to cover this swath without sacrificing cohesive songwriting makes their debut impressive even for someone like me who speaks not a lick of Swedish.
The abrasive sludge excoriation of Dirtmother Live makes a fitting companion-piece for the Fayetteville, Arkansas, local-legend/cryptid outfit’s 19-years-later 2025 self-titled debut (review here), presenting five songs across a rasping, willfully confrontational half-hour set captured from the board at the American Legion Hall in their hometown in true punker fashion, and let’s say probably mixed thereafter. In this material — most of which comes from the record; “Reversal” seems to be “Reverse Cowgirl” under a different name and “Cult of Suzie Everett” does not appear on the studio LP — the nodding fuzz and the impact-density of their low end comes though in full-punch glory, stage banter is preserved, and “Trucker” is even nastier in its bite than it already was, which should be read as a high compliment to the achievement. If you don’t come out of this wanting to start a sludge band, consult a physician.
Italy’s Hijss return after 2024’s Stuck on Common Ground (review here) with a self-titled eight-song/39-minute LP that’s an even deeper dive into krautisms and cosmic heavy rock, volatile in “Vicious Cycle” and “Parasite,” daring to soothe before they walk into the wash of “S.W.A.N.” and getting full-on electro-dance-mode in the penultimate “Fatal Attraction” before the moody distortion swell of “Outro” rounds out. Opener and longest track (immediate points) “Drain of Thoughts” establishes precedent in the motorik-roll-turned-heavy-shove progression, but the ultimate product of the album is that Hijss have gotten weirder and more individualized in the last two years, they’re ready to tour with labelmates Giöbia like yesterday, and the experimentalism in bringing together acoustics and synthesized textures of “Underwater” and the throb/fuzz banger “Dopamine” present a fresher take than I’ve yet seen the band credited for honing.
Deley Sound System is the techno alter-ego of Budapesti psychedelic improvisationalist Deley, and if you’re feeling particularly adventurous, their earlier-2026 live recording Unsync 001 captures them bringing their spontaneity-fueled creative process to a style of music that, considering it’s programmed, is often classified as more staid. Psychedelia persists across genre here as the band weave together samples and different layers to carve an affect that’s all the more immersive and hypnotic not in spite of the steady beat that might underpin a track like “Sun 001” or the 18-minute “BBM 001” but rather because of it. The dub techno and synthesizer aspects, playing off influences from jams and generally more guitar-led (or -inclusive at all, for that matter) fare, are fascinating academically, but it’s satisfying as well to hear a band so willing to step beyond their comfort zone and a crucial reminder that the boundaries of creativity are far more imaginary than the sitar sounds on “Sun 002” and that the most dangerous thing to any status quo is a mind brave enough to look beyond it as these minds do here.
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 3rd, 2026 by JJ Koczan
If you take a look at the cover art below for Astral Construct‘s upcoming third album, The Exoplanetary Diversions, and the scroll a little further down to the bottom of this post, you’ll see that the cover for the Colorado-based heavy space rock solo-project’s 2024 single “Three Moons” is a portion of the left side of the painting that will adorn the LP. Of course, we live in a universe of infinite possibility and I could always always alwaysbe wrong, but that would seem to be a sign that band-denizen Drew Patricks will be including the song on the album as well.
The prog-leaning outfit has signed with esteemed purveyor Echodelick Records to release The Exoplanetary Diversions this Fall, complete with a sans-vocals take on Nirvana‘s “Heart Shaped Box,” which is sure to be a good time given the likely reinterpretation taking place. The band’s Traveling to a Higher Consciousness (review here) came out in 2023, followed by the standalone release for “Three Moons,” so it would seem the new record has been in the works for a while.
Exact release date is still TBA, but the signing announcement below came through the PR wire for the interim:
Instrumental, Progressive Space Rocker, Astral Construct, has signed with Echodelick Records in preparation for the release of the third studio album, The Exoplanetary Diversions. The Colorado Springs solo project and Echodelick Records have slated late Fall of 2026 to unleash the newest chapter in the cosmic voyages of The Traveler.
Astral Construct conjures aural journeys that carry the listener to distant places of their own imagination. Albums are meant to be consumed whole like the golden days of records when people were free of the distractions of technology and the skip button. The first album, Tales of Cosmic Journeys, introduced the listener to the solitary traveler through songs such as “Dust of a Thousand Cosmic Clouds” and “Hand Against the Solar Winds”.
Astral Construct’s second album, Traveling a Higher Consciousness, continued the explorations with transportive devices such as “Heart of the Nebula” and “Interstellar”. With each release, Astral Construct further expands the sonic palette, much like widening the lens to see more of the galaxy. This experience is the creation of multi-instrumentalist (guitar, bass, keys), Drew Patricks who found his inspiration in space travel and the psychology of solitude which is distinctly different from loneliness.
With The Exoplanetary Diversions, Astral Construct delves deeper into these themes with ferocity while simultaneously providing melodic passages that evoke a variety of emotional responses. The album continues to examine instrumental storytelling as well as drawing deeply upon the heavy influences that brought this music forward.
The album also includes a first for Astral Construct, an instrumental cover of the classic ’90s song, Heart Shaped Box, delivered from distant galaxies. This decidedly Astral Construct spin on the Nirvana classic, transports the listener to celestial spaces, transcending the confines of this world.
Shout it from the hilltops: Tranquonauts are a real band. Are they a supergroup? I somehow doubt they’d use that word, which implies egotism and a kind of coked-up indulgence, but there’s no arguing with the lineup or the pedigree of the band’s members, from Melbourne, Australia’s Seedy Jeezus — guitarist/vocalist/sampler Lex Waterreus, bassist Paul Crick and drummer Mark Sibson; gentlemen all — at the core of the project, to Isaiah Mitchell of Cali epic-psych (mostly-)instrumentalists Earthless and Port Orchard, Washington’s Tony Reed, of Mos Generator, Big Scenic Nowhere, Constance Tomb, and others.
The latter party came aboard for 2 (review here), which was released in 2024, and now aligned to Kozmik Artifactz for release in Europe with Blown Music once again handling Australia and Echodelick Records holding down North American distribution, Tranquonauts reveal what they’ve apparently been building toward in the decade since their self-titled debut (review here) with the four-song collection, III. And the message of band-dom could hardly be clearer or more efficiently delivered on a record that’s still so spaced in terms of atmosphere, or that derives such clear pleasure in blending craft and expanse.
A sample at the beginning of opener “All Rise” (8:31) sets up a thread that runs through most of the release, and if you’d immediately go to the end of closer “S() Sigurnova” (9:38) to see if there’s one there to bookend, yes, there is. Assembled and I think in some cases — the line about “Tranquonauts are powering down” comes to mind — spoken by Waterreus, the samples are given a classic sci-fi feel, a grainy sound and discussion of rockets and post-WWII pulp-film vibes. They bring a sense of aesthetic to the proceedings and provide a backdrop uniting the material, but neither are they overused. After about a minute, “All Rise” launches into its central riff, and that it even has one feels declarative of their purpose.
I wouldn’t call it crunchy or crushing, but it’s more tense in its structure and insistent in a way that the fluidity of the band’s prior jams on prior records weren’t trying to be. Reed takes the lead vocal in the verse that ensues, but the structure begins to loosen as they push into the solo, and around 3:05, they land in a Mellotron-topped slowdown that becomes the point from which the jam takes off. Solos are shredded, I think Waterreus takes vocals for something of a verse, but the tempo has mellowed and the effect is more hypnotic and the listener is drawn in. There’s little chance of coming back from where they go, and they don’t, but a sample ties the end of “All Rise” to the beginning, and sets up the cover of UFO‘s “Space Child” (8:39) just the same.
Mitchell takes over on vocals, with acoustic and electric guitars backing and a subdued flow that meshes well with the jam the band just left behind, as well as the one on which they’re about to embark. Crick‘s bassline and Sibson‘s drums are probably never going to get the marquee position in the band with the three guitarist/vocalists on board, but they are nonetheless the glue keeping the songs together and righteous on their own. “Space Child” puts its jam in the middle, sounding part-improv, which one wouldn’t necessarily expect on a cover, but even before the halfway mark, the exploratory feel is paramount. The difference is that where “All Rise” didn’t come back around, “Space Child” does, gradually returning to ‘ground’ (relatively speaking) with intertwining shred and a stop before the last verse rounds out.
That’s the end of side A, and though “Space Child” didn’t actually have any samples in it, the one at the end of “All Rise” and another at the start of “Broken Star” (7:34) gives a sense of continuity just the same. The song comes in with rhythm and lead guitar before Waterreus‘ classic-soul verse unfolds, carrying to right about at 3:45, where finger-snap marks the beginning of the next outbound cosmic foray; a quiet build that wants nothing for payoff but is going to take its time getting there, which is ultimately to the strength of the song as a whole. It might be a plotted progression, but the solo(s) over top feel vibrant and spontaneous just the same, and as it fades out, “Broken Star” transitions directly, mid-sampled-rumble, to the aforementioned finale/longest track, “”S() Sigurnova.”
A reference in the title to Sigur Ros coincides with the stated inspiration for the song, and the early, pre-verse float the band conjure is indeed a departure from, say, a UFO cover. Mellotron, still plenty of guitar around and softer vocals from Waterreus let “S() Sigurnova” flow, covering new ground without feeling out of place, with samples laced through between vocal lines before they gradually embark on their journey, Sibson crashing in at 3:43 accompanied by a twisting lead line on guitar (there’s also a solo happening) as the bed for the last dive into the liquefied far-out. As with “All Rise,” they make it clear that once they go, they’ll remain gone, and that’s how it happens, but they’re dynamic in that, bringing “S() Sigurnova” to a multi-guitar crescendo at around 8:45 before it starts to come apart and that last sample steps in to give a sense of completion to the LP.
It’s not that either of the two previous Tranquonauts albums were lacking cohesion, but if you listened to the first and then the second, a sense of refinement was working its way into their sound, and that continues on III. I still don’t know to what it will lead, if they’ll ever be the kind of band who write ‘straightforward’ material, but the balance they strike between off-the-cuff sonic adventuring and structure is evolving, has evolved to be what it is here. Tranquonauts will likely always be a side-project for those involved, owing to geographic spread almost as much as everyone else’s other commitments, but more than they had yet, III demonstrates a creative progression that is their own, separate and distinct from the members’ other groups. In other words, they sound like a real band more than they have to this point, and from here, they feel like they could go anywhere.
Tranquonauts, “All Rise” live at Freak Valley Festival 2026
I don’t know who had the idea first, but pairing Øresund Space Collective and Psychedelic Source Records for a split LP makes an awful lot of sense, sound-wise and in terms of methodologies. Both outfits are improvisational, with Øresund Space Collective rooted in Denmark but also drawing contributors living in Portugal, Sweden and elsewhere depending on who is involved when, and Psychedelic Source Records is based in Hungary with its own rotating cast of players such that, even on this split, the three different jams offered each feature a different lineup. Both groups are wildly prolific. To wit, Øresund Space Collective had three releases out in May 2026 (this was one of them) and the Psychedelic Source Records discography celebrated its 100th release in June. You can do your best to keep up with either of them, but they’re going to outpace you, especially if you’re trying to write reviews as you go.
On side A is Øresund Space Collective‘s “Zephyr in Orbit,” recorded late in 2024 in Stockholm, Sweden. A 21-minute exploration, it features familiar cast members Mattias Olsson on drums, guitarist Jonathan Segel, bassist Jiri Jon Hjorth, Billy “Love” Forsberg (also of Siena Root) on mini-Moog and the Mellotron that is the first thing you hear and swells near the finish, and of course, Dr. Space himself on Moog, something called a ‘thunderdrum’ and the somewhat vague spoken callout later in the piece. At the start, as noted, it’s the Mellotron and the drums sorting themselves out, and that’s not something one always hears from Øresund Space Collective, who are often more concerned with where they’re headed than where they’re standing, in terms of presentation. As to that destination, it’s the cosmos inside your own head, of course. After about a minute, they’re already grooving, synth lines sending gentle lasers into the unknown as the guitar meows awake, the noise of the wah sounding harsher but not unwelcome over the Mellotron. A bit of chaos is good for the universe.
Olsson and Segel seem keyed in on each other in that early going, but there’s more happening than just the guitar and drums, and the guitar temporarily drops out after about four minutes to noodle its way back in over a faster beat, the Mellotron doing ‘figaro figaro’ for a second there as the group seem to hold together for the purpose of finding their flow. Tom hits, guitar, keys and bass get their footing and proceed through a solo-drenched stretch, building in tempo and gradually answering the progression on drums, but the run becomes something proggier and punchier, jazzy but thoroughly spaced. As they cross the midpoint, the movement continues to find nuance, some quick stops in the drums adding flair to what by then is a confident unfolding. The band are there for it. The guitar aligns, forward in the mix but not egregiously so, but the drums change after about 12 minutes to signal a mellowing, and the affect is about as close to dub as I’ve heard Øresund Space Collective get.
This soothe-out continues for a bit but the bop is still there, and the guitar and drums find each other again in the cosmic fray and at 14:45, they elicit a nod, conspiratorial with some kind of synth or other, and as the Mellotron joins back in, the build is underway with a payoff soon enough to follow over the next few minutes, which is also where Heller drops the spoken word, beginning with the declarative, “Here we are, here in Stockholm.” They are dug in, duh, and it gets noisier after 18 minutes when the roll smoothes, but there’s more howl, more Mellotron, and still more exploring to do — remember, they don’t know when they pick up instruments just what’s going to happen, so there’s no reason to think just because it was the 16th jam they did that session (yes, really) that it couldn’t keep going. But they’re in a clear comedown, and “Zephyr in Orbit” doesn’t quite come all the way apart, but sounds like it was on its way to doing so when the edit happened.
On Psychedelic Source Records‘ side, the Páty-based jammers/label/whathaveyou lay out two nine-minute cuts in “Wortex Mama” and “Sonic Alchemy” with the six-minute “Road to Cornezuelos” closing out. It feels important and representative that across the three songs, not only are the lineups different as noted above, there’s no single player that features on all three tracks. Bence Ambrus, who runs the label end as far as I can tell and is the organizing principle behind many of the jams that get recorded/released, is on guitar for “Sonic Alchemy” and “Road to Cornezuelos,” and Nikosz Tasos plays drums on “Wortex Mama” and “Sonic Alchemy,” so they’re not entirely without continuity in terms of personnel, but it’s never been about who’s there so much as where the music can go at any given point. The unhurried manner in which “Wortex Mama” is laid out isn’t as noisy or synth-heavy as what Øresund Space Collective got up to on “Zephyr in Orbit,” but Krisztina Benus‘ keys provide a connection just the same around the cool-toned swirl of Iván Eln‘s guitar.
“Wortex Mama” is a single procession, but not necessarily just one part or one riff. Gergely Szabó‘s bass is locked in with the drums even into the last minute as the keys lead the way out, and “Sonic Alchemy” picks up directly from the quick ending with a sunrise in Ambrus‘ guitar. A trio with Tasos on drums as noted, Ambrus and Róbert Kránitz‘s bass, “Sonic Alchemy” is the only piece on the 46-minute split without keyboard, but it taps into the aural-ethereal just the same. It becomes more percussive, as it moves toward its second half, but has a character and spaciousness that’s distinct from what surrounds, though with the backing swirl of effects maybe or maybe not on a loop, it’s not like they’re not also spacing out. There are intermittent bursts, but the mood is contemplative and exploratory in kind, and in its last minute, “Sonic Alchemy” sends out a line of guitar like it’s a probe charting uncovered ground.
That, of course, leads directly into “Road to Cornezuelos,” which is immediately more active in Gergely Okos‘ drums, giving a sense of motion to Ambrus‘ guitar solo without it actually being a shove, however much it might feel like one after the hypnotic “Sonic Alchemy” and “Wortex Mama.” The last inclusion on the LP brings Deni Omeragic to bass and Miklós Kerner on keys, and introduces a bit of crash to punctuate the guitar that’s in the forward position. Does that make it kin to “Zephyr in Orbit?” Probably, but given the cohesion of process between two improv outfits, I’m not inclined to split hairs in terms of style. Psychedelic Source Records are less synthy — collab with Dr. Space coming soon? — than Øresund Space Collective, but they’re both on Team Mind Expansion just the same.
“Road to Cornezuelos” flows and feels a bit more volatile for the uptick in tempo, heading toward a shove of a crescendo before its time is done, marking the end of its push with a slowdown that sounds like it included head signals during the making, losing none of its ultimate impact for being three minutes shorter than the two pieces prior. In the end, each side represents the similarities of concept and purpose between the two bands while at the same time highlighting the ways in which the personalities of the two groups (and more when one considers the rotation of players on side B) vary and complement each other. There’s absolutely no reason this couldn’t become a series despite everything else Øresund Space Collective and Psychedelic Source Records might do in a given year, but even if it’s a one-time thing, as a fan of both outfits, it’s a journey happily undertaken.
Øresund Space Collective & Psychedelic Source Records, Split LP (2026)
The Dharma Chain will release their second album, Some Kind of Pure State, on June 5. With mood, ambience and melody as priorities, the Berlin-based, Australia-rooted four-piece are working with an international consortium of labels for the eight-song offering: Spinda Records, Le Cèpe Records and Clostridium Records in Europe, Dirty Filthy Records in the UK and EchodelickRecords in the US.
It doesn’t take long to hear what this statistically significant number of imprints have heard (wait until you scroll down and see all the links at the bottom of the post; it’s ridiculous), as “Inside a New,” “Into the Night” and “Borderline” at the start of the album find a place between ’90s alternative, late-’70s post-punk and proto-New Wave, and psychedelic outreach. “Into the Night” is krauty while “Borderline” takes off on a twisty, lead-guitar-and-atmospheric-vocals-topped excursion, revealing that the minor-key meditative guitar line of “Inside a New” was no fluke, but rather a thread woven throughout Some Kind of Pure State‘s 40-minute run.
And I suppose the central question one might ask approaching the record is what kind of pure state we’re talking about. Both helpfully and not, I don’t think it’s a single thing so much as an overarching affect of the whole. That is to say, for the name it’s been given and the vividly declarative statement being made by the music, Some Kind of Pure State might just as well have been self-titled. The thing is what it has been made to be, is what I’m telling you.
You might not believe that as “Borderline” airy-prog-rocks itself into the moodier, trip-hop-informed rollout of “Love’s Confusion,” but the movement back and forth and conversation between ideas is part of the appeal. As they follow-up their 2022 debut, Nowhere — which as I read it was put together during the process of moving from Australia to Germany? jeez, that sounds exhausting — The Dharma Chain present a fleshed-out vision of their sound, which on-paper has a lot in common with heavygaze but is more fervent and alt-rocking in its movement, as side B leadoff “Red Red Red Red Red” with a low-key, might-be-goth shuffle across its five minutes.
It’s dug in, and dynamic, and ‘pure’ in the title in no way means stagnant or just-one-thing. Given the vibes wrought throughout, one might get a sense of cold in the music, but the varied, often-dual vocals countermand this along with touches like the fuzz at the end of “Into the Night” or the mellow intertwining of voices early as “Cross Over” enacts its four-minute build, pointedly hypnotic into the standalone-vocal finish and giving over to silence so the immediately-tense bass-led rhythm of the penultimate “Minor Prayer” presents a due contrast.
Ahead of closer “How Far,” “Minor Prayer” feels placed to highlight its crescendo, which is more spacious than that of “Borderline” but kin to it just the same, whereas, the finale and longest inclusion at 6:56, “How Far” leaves on a note of departure (see what I did there?), pushing the guitar lower in the mix to let piano lead the progression. As they hit into the middle of the piece, the piano is joined dramatically by weighted tones and crash, but like the bassline holding through “Minor Prayer,” “How Far” doesn’t lose sight of its own purpose just because they get to the heavy part.
In chemistry, purity is defined as having the same chemical composition throughout. The Dharma Chain aren’t only doing one thing, trying to only do one thing, or saying that they are. Instead the message seems to be one of totality. It is the whole work defining itself, rather than any individual part of it, and the work in turn defines the group as themselves.
It’s too early to stream the whole record, but the video below for “Inside a New” has some interpretive dance in the park, and that’s got to count for something. More PR wire background follows.
Please enjoy:
The Dharma Chain, “Inside a New” video premiere
“Inside A New” is the second single from The Dharma Chain’s second album ‘Some Kind Of Pure State’ released by Spinda Records (ES), in collaboration with Le Cèpe Records (FR), Clostridium Records (DE), Echodelick Records (US) and Dirty Filthy Records (UK), set to be released June, 5, 2026.
Music by Aidan Stewart, Amanda McGrath, Ben Rompotis and Giulia Piras Recorded and produced by Jonathan Dreyfus at Stare Crazy, Funkhaus Berlin Mixed by Ben Rompotis Mastered by Carl Saff at Saff Mastering, Chicago, USA
Video by Maria Sécio Dance performance by Harrison McClary
In 2026, The Dharma Chain partnered with Spinda Records, in collaboration with Le Cèpe Records (FR), Clostridium Records (DE), Echodelick Records (UK) and Dirty Filthy Rec(UK), for their second full-length album, ‘Some Kind Of Pure State’, set to be released June 5th, 2026. Recorded at Funkhaus Berlin and produced by Jonathan Dreyfus, the album captures a band shaped by movement finally coming to rest —more grounded, focused, and refining their identity without losing the rawness that defined their beginnings. ‘Some Kind of Pure State’ is about the clarity that follows chaos; a document of transformation shaped by the quiet disorientation of change. The album weaves together themes of love in its many forms, addiction, political currents, and the search for meaning in the everyday. These ideas emerge as reflections rather than declarations, born from the turbulence and tenderness of life in flux.
After relocating to Berlin, the band released their debut album ’Nowhere’ (2022) via Anomic Records (DE). Recorded between an abandoned church in Australia’s Gold Coast Hinterland and an East Berlin basement studio, the album received international radio support across more than 50 stations, including Radio Eins (DE), Amazing Radio (UK/USA), Triple R (AU) and Radio 3 (ES). In 2025, the band released the standalone single “See Through” via Spinda Records (ES), which later on was remixed by Berlin-based DJ and producer Mike Midnight, ahead of their second full-length album.
In 2026, The Dharma Chain will appear at Desertfest Berlin, Fuzz Club Festival, Brighton Psych Fest and Manchester Psych Fest, alongside extensive touring across France, the UK, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland and Germany.
Posted in Whathaveyou on April 24th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
To drill down the unlikelihood of a third Tranquonauts record, first you still need to get over that of the first one a decade ago (review here), and the second one that followed in 2024 (review here), and if we’re honest I’m still kind of surprised. The collaboration between Isaiah Mitchell of Earthless, Australian heavy blues rockers Seedy Jeezus, and Tony Reed of Mos Generator (now also Pentagram) have never sounded more distinctly like a band than they do on the four songs of III, or 3 — I’m not sure which is preferred — with opener “All Rise” giving heavy prog presence across a stately, plotted course. Clearly they’ve moved beyond the jams.
The UFO cover “Space Child” resolves with a bit of funk-boogie as though it didn’t spend much of its time in a partly-acoustic ’70s contemplation, while “Broken Star” has a slower, gruffer unfolding but more shred at the finish, and though the apparent Sigur Ros homage “S() Sigurnova” is duly atmospheric, it also has movement at its center. There’s more persona in the 34 minutes of III than anything Tranquonauts have yet produced, and it doesn’t feel like a coincidence that this record will coincide with their first live appearances, happening in Europe with the first test run at Freak Valley 2026.
The PR wire brought copious narrative for background:
TRANQUONAUTS ANNOUNCE NEW ALBUM III
A boundary-dissolving new chapter from the Australian–American psychedelic supergroup
Following growing international acclaim for their exploratory second album II, Tranquonauts return with their most ambitious statement yet: III, a sweeping new work that continues the deep musical dialogue between members of Australian psychedelic rock torchbearers Seedy Jeezus, Isaiah Mitchell (of Earthless), and guitarist/producer Tony Reed (Mos Generator, Big Scenic Nowhere, Stone Axe).
Set for release in 2026, III expands the Tranquonauts universe even further – part cosmic transmission, part heavy improvisational ritual, part fearless compositional experiment. A JOURNEY CONTINUES
Since its inception, Tranquonauts has existed as a creative outpost for ideas too expansive, too strange, or too genre-fluid for the members’ main bands. It is a place where progressive rock, motorik groove, deep psychedelia, cosmic jazz, ambient drift and volcanic heaviness can coexist.
Their previous album, II, earned cult status among adventurous listeners for a structure as audacious as it was immersive: two side-long pieces, with side one often described as pure progressive rock in its most transportive form, while side two unfolded as a kraut-orgy of massive proportions – a hypnotic, ecstatic surge of repetition, propulsion and sonic overload.
Critically and artistically, II established Tranquonauts as far more than a side project. It revealed a group exploring music they may never have had the opportunity to write or release in their other bands – yet music that unmistakably captures the essence of what they all deeply love.
ENTER III
On III, that spirit continues – bolder, stranger and more expansive.
The new album contains four expansive 9 -10 minute compositions, each revealing a different facet of the group’s boundary-pushing vision:
‘All Rise’ A crushing descent into heavy riffage, balancing volcanic weight with exploratory improvisation
‘Broken Star’ A surprising turn toward traditional rock/pop songcraft, where melody and classic songwriting instincts meet psychedelic colour
‘S() Sigurnova’ An Icelandic post-rock inspired piece, unfolding in slow-burning crescendos, glacial textures and widescreen emotional atmosphere
‘Space Child’ A radical reinterpretation of Space Child, the 1970s classic by UFO – transformed through the Tranquonauts prism into a cosmic voyage all its own
While rooted in the exploratory energy of II, the new record pushes further into dynamic contrast, deeper collective interplay, and a broader emotional and sonic range. The result is perhaps the most stylistically adventurous Tranquonauts release yet, moving effortlessly from crushing heaviness to melodic classicism, from meditative post-rock drift to outer-space reinterpretation.
Where II opened portals, III steps through them.
A MEETING OF DISTINCT VOICES
The chemistry at the core of Tranquonauts remains singular.
Seedy Jeezus bring the restless experimentalism and psychedelic intensity that has defined their celebrated body of work.
Isaiah Mitchell, revered for his transcendent lead work in Earthless, contributes his unmistakable melodic fire and improvisational reach.
Tony Reed, one of underground heavy psych’s most respected architects, brings production depth, compositional sophistication and sonic daring that help shape the project’s wide-screen vision.
Together, they create something none would make alone.
NOT A SIDE PROJECT – A COSMIC COLLABORATION
What began as an exploratory collaboration has evolved into a fully realized creative force.
Tranquonauts is not about escaping their primary bands, but expanding beyond them.
It is a shared laboratory where krautrock hypnosis, progressive complexity, heavy psych improvisation and cosmic curiosity are allowed full expression.
And with III, that mission reaches a new peak.
RELEASE FORMATS
III will be released in: Deluxe vinyl editions Limited coloured pressings CD and digital formats
Special collector bundles to be announced
Further details- including track listing, artwork and live appearances—will be revealed soon.
FIRST LIVE APPEARANCE
The announcement arrives as anticipation builds for Tranquonauts’ first-ever live performance at Freak Valley Festival, June 5–7 in Germany – the band’s debut live performance and a landmark moment for a project previously known only through its recordings.
Appearing alongside some of the most revered names in psychedelic and heavy underground music, the performance will mark the first time audiences can experience the Tranquonauts’ expansive sonic vision on stage, with material from III expected to feature prominently.
For followers of deep psychedelic exploration, progressive adventure and fearless musical risk, this is not simply a new record.
Posted in Reviews on November 20th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
It’s all over now, I’ve got momentum on my side. This is day four of the Quarterly Review. The first three days have been nothing but a pleasure on my end, putting them together, and with just today and tomorrow left, I’m feeling pretty good about the entire endeavor. I’m not sure yet if this will be the end of the year as regards QRs, but if it is, it’s a good one to go out on.
And basically to make that determination, I need to look at next month’s schedule and see what’s coming when, when I’ll do things like the year-end poll and my own big end-of-year post. No idea on any of that yet, but I’ll get there. Getting this done in relatively smooth fashion is a help. Thanks for reading and I hope it’s been a good one for you as well.
Quarterly Review #31-40:
Psychedelic Source Records, The Initiation Outlaws
Set to release through Echodelick in the US and Weird Beard Records in the UK, in addition to Psychedelic Source Records‘ own distribution, The Initiation Outlaws brings eight pieces and a full 98-minute double-LP’s worth of cosmic improvised jamming, with a cast of regulars from the Hungarian collective — Bence Ambrus, Máté Varga, Róbert Kránitz, Krisztina Benus, Gergely Szabó — taking part in collaborative exploration with Go Kurosawa of Kikagaku Moyo, who goes from drums to bass to guitar as the release progresses, sliding right into the amorphous methodology of Psychedelic Source Records while distinguishing the heavier push in “Three Golds Reward II” or the snare work on “The King of Magic Colts and Wands I” earlier. Trance-inducing as ever, these captured moments are gorgeously fluid and immersive, active enough in parts like “The King of Magic Colts and Wands II” to defy mellowpsych-improv expectation, but abiding just the same. If you’re not there yet, it’s time to start thinking of Psychedelic Source among Europe’s finest purveyors of heavy psychedelia.
The forlorn folkishness in the midsection of “Waves Become the Sky” bring to mind an extrapolation of emotive doom from the likes of Warning, but that’s understandable with Aerial Ruin and Bell Witch renewing their collaboration for Stygian Bough Vol. II, following on from a first volume (review here) in 2020. The album takes place over four extended tracks from the rolling density of the aforementioned opener through the minimalist-till-it-isn’t “King of the Wood” and the longform folk-death-doom of “From Dominion Let Them Bleed” and the melancholy triumph of heft wrought in 19-minute finale “The Told and the Leadened,” which dwells in spaces empty and full and remains conscious enough to end with tense noise and drumming. This is artistry on its own wavelength, working in its own time, and patient to a point of extremity. But they do it to offer comfort, make no mistake. There’s consolation in these songs, in addition to all the mourning.
Unrepentantly cosmic Italian outfit Giöbia are like a fresh coat of antimatter for space rock. The four-piece obviously hunkered down in their secret lab after 2023’s Acid Disorder (review here) and worked hard to refine their chemical compositions, such that “Voodoo Experience” nods grounded even as its synth and guitars surge beyond the thermosphere. The results show everywhere throughout X-ÆON in their outsider cohesion of classic and neo-space rocks, heavy psychedelia and oddball synthscaping, whether you’re doing the sensory thing with the dream-jam “1976” or embroiled in the four-part side B concept piece, “La Mort de la Terre,” which draws a cinematic curtain for life as we know it in “Dans la Nuit Éternelle,” a wordless epilogue that feels half a world removed from the stomp-and-verse of “The Death of the Crows,” but of course, that’s the whole idea.
The included acoustic guitar, organ and FM-radio classic rock vibes in the eight-and-a-half-minute closing title-track aren’t a coincidence. They’re part of a stated intention the band had in taking on more of a traditional sound, coming down from some of the harder-hitting doom of 2020’s Acid Communion and working in more of a ’70s-inspired style. That manifests to varying degrees throughout, as leadoff “Electric Execution” feels like it’s working in the vein of “Neon Knights” or “Turn Up the Night” in Dio Sabbathian raucousness (I know that was 1980-81, don’t @ me), and while “Lucifer Rising” has a weighted march, it’s more Scorpions than Sleep, and “Goin’ to Texas” brings in the organ to emphasize the Southern geography of the album’s centerpiece. It’s a striking turn but they pull it off for sure. “Muchachos Muchachin'” has mid-’70s charm to spare, and “Bone Boys Ride Out” seems to bridge the more modern attack of Bone Church-prior with who they are today. Not every progression plays out like you think it will, and if this is the band Bone Church have wanted to be all along, they sound accordingly right to have made the redirect.
The ‘soft scream’ vocals give Js Donny‘s Death Folk an immediate sense of extremity, but it’s a quiet extremity. The French solo artist — who also plays bass in adventurous Marseilles sludgers Donna Candy — released an EP with a full lineup in 2023, but this six-song/33-minute offering is more intimate. Js Donny dwells in the quiet, creepy spaces the songs create, the vocal gurgle giving shades of otherworldliness and malevolence alike. It’s called Death Folk, but especially with the electrified/distorted wash that takes hold in “Not Like That” and again at the outset of closer “Black Heart” — a biting tone, like harsher blackgaze — I can’t help but wonder if Js Donny isn’t working in a kind of post-death-metallic framing. There are no drums, which is a fair trade for what’s gained in grim ambience, but even without, the album is clear in manifesting both sides of its title, and while Js Donny isn’t the only one laying claim to death-folk as a style, how it happens here sure feels like an act of genre creation.
In some distant future, when the history is written of our idiotic, persistently awful time, no one will ever say, “and the right-thinking people of the day had no choice but to seek refuge in avant garde cybergrind,” and that’s why history is bullshit. Skeletal Blasphemy is the third album from Nuclear Dudes and second of 2025 behind September’s Truth Paste (review here) — keep ’em coming — and is the solo-project’s most vicious and realized offering to-date. Spearhead Jon Weisnewski (Sandrider, ex-Akimbo) brings powerviolent catharsis on “Victory Pants,” the title-track and assorted others, working in collaboration with guest drummer Coady Willis (High on Fire, Big Business, Melvins), and whether it’s the punker push in “Bad Body” or the slow, undulations of the closing “The Octopus” and the burgeoning thread of progressive melody throughout these songs, it’s exactly the sort of self-bludgeoning that being alive right now requires. Album of the year? Fuck you, fuck the year, and fuck capitalism.
With an instrumentalist foot in progressive, horn-inclusive jazz, heavy psychedelic fluidity and a resonant warmth of tone alongside a will to meander, Kronstad 23 feel tailor-made for El Paraiso Records, run by members of Denmark’s Causa Sui. Sommermørket is the Norwegian outfit’s debut album and without sounding consumed by its own ambition to do so, it organically nestles the band in a stylistic niche that allows for the explorations in “Caesar” and “Astralreiser,” the latter of which will seem barely there in its early going at low volumes, to exist along the daring-toward-dancey opener “Dølgsmål” and building a kind of dreamy tension between the guitar and drums on “Trosten,” with none of it feeling out of place. They’ll invariably get comparisons to Kanaan, but the foundation is different and the delivery gentler, with “Helgen” finding its way on drum rolls and key/guitar drift into a classic-prog horn section in a payoff that’s somewhat understated until you look back across the five and a half minutes and see how far you’ve come. I can’t wait to hear how they grow.
“Love of Driving” is the debut single from newcomer New Jersey-based krautrock-minded two-piece Rolls the River. The band brings together Dan Kirwan of Pyre Fyre on bass, guitar and vocals, and Victor Marinelli on guitar, synth, drums and vocals for a sub-five-minute cosmic reachout, obviously schooled in where it’s coming from — that is to say, one doesn’t krautrock by accident; it is a form to adopt and refine — but still feeling like an initial exploration of both style and composition. Fading in on an initial keyboardy drone, the guitar and drums come in together and the neospace shuffle is mellow as layers are added, guitar, keys, but the sense of movement brought to “Love of Driving” is enough to explain the title, whatever you might think of the Garden State’s highway system. Rather than get caught up in jughandles, though, Rolls the River harness tonal presence and linear development and still find room to include voice as part of the atmosphere. Formative, and an encouraging start.
Belgium’s Psychonaut may yet teach progressive metal a lesson or two. The post-metal three-piece reach what sure feels in “Endless Currents” like a new level of expression and craft, and while at 11 songs and 60 minutes, World Maker isn’t a minor undertaking — one could easily argue making a world takes time — the utter consumption achieved in “All in Time,” which I won’t spoil any further, the blissful wash of “…Everything Else is Just the Weather” are not to be missed, and worth whatever minor investment of attention span might be required. Exciting as the intermittent metallic surges are, “Endless Erosion” caps in a quiet place, and the atmospherics across the first two and a half minutes of “Origins,” just as one example, help to bring a feeling of place (of ‘world’) to the procession. It is a vivid place Psychonaut have made, and there are listeners for whom the melodies of World Maker will be transcendental.
Following an apparent 2024 EP called Anachronist that is below because this debut album isn’t streaming yet that I can find, The Sea Between Stars — a suitably romantic framing of what you might otherwise call ‘the void’ — brings a progressive take to classic-style doom rock. The Oregonian five-piece roll out a genuine feeling of dynamic across the album’s 10 tracks, from the proto-metal shove of “Knightrider” at the outset to the later rush and wail of “Sky Sized Heart,” to the doom-epic ballad reach of “Bridge of Irreconcilable Sorrow” to the acoustic turn in the last movement of “The Words We Don’t Speak” and variable but unifyingly soulful vocal arrangements throughout, up to the minimal voice-and-piano closer “Ghost Notes” or the duet in the crescendo of “Still Breathing.” Ambition set in balance with organic production and songwriting. I don’t know when The Sea Between Stars is coming out, if it’s now-ish, early 2026 or what, but if you want to take this as an early heads up, do.
