Altered Zones

In the last several years, there's been an explosion of small-scale DIY music. Altered Zones is a team of 14 music blogs dedicated to exploring these emerging musical worlds, traversing genres from psych and drone to electronic and underground pop. Our mission is to highlight the most notable and adventurous new artists, and to serve as a focal point for the flood of creativity coming from deep within the music underground.

To launch the site, we've each chosen one favorite track, cassette, and album. from the first half of this year. Over the past two days, we've covered tracks and cassettes, and today, we feature albums. Our regular posting schedule begins Monday. We hope you enjoy reading and listening.

Welcome to Altered Zones.

Memoryhouse: The Years EP

Delicious Scopitone says:
In all our internet meandering, endlessly seeking those rare extra-terrestrial sounds born of hearts and minds weighed down by unique talent, one band in particular confirmed this year that all the effort is worthwhile. Whenever we're ready to throw in the towel and convince ourselves that all our time spent trawling is utterly pointless, we remind ourselves of the sumptuous beauty of Memoryhouse. First hearing Deniese Nouvion's bewitching voice on the Guelph, Ontario band's transversal, heavenly dream-pop demos felt like reason for marvellous new hope. Receiving the fully-realised Years EP was more a case of consecration.

MP3: Memoryhouse: Lately (Deuxieme)

The Years EP is available for free download at Arcade Sounds Ltd.

Teen Daze - Four More Years EP

The Road Goes Ever On says:
The eight songs featured on Teen Daze’s debut album, Four More Years, are a neon wash of samples and synths. In "Shine On You Crazy White Cap," the line "let's drive to the coastline tonight" glistens against heavy bass, beckoning to the tide and warmer places. The entire album exudes this warmth, making it an ideal collection of songs for today and the rest of the summer. With a delicate mixture of hazy synthetic effects and more traditional instruments, Four More Years is a debut that proves Teen Daze's ear for balance and positions him as an artist whose creations leave you wanting to hear more and more.

MP3: Teen Daze: Shine On, You Crazy White Cap

Four More Years is out soon on vinyl on Arcade Sound Ltd.

Skeletal System: Skeletal System EP

20 Jazz Funk Greats says:
It's strange to think of something arriving, without warning, quite as perfectly formed as this. No label involvement, no svengali. A 5-track EP sitting there, for the world to download, perfectly judged artwork and all.

"Dialogue" is the hook, sounding like Galaxie 500 reformed and signed to Hyperdub. The other delights on the self-titled EP reveal themselves more slowly, like a cold fog engulfing the wharfs of the band's San Francisco home. Primitive cold-wave tendrils arch their way through the mournful post-punk guitar and dream-pop vocals, giving them an electronic base from which to launch evocations of post-millennial dub and echoing house.

MP3: Skeletal System: Dialogue

Skeletal Systems is available for

free download on Bandcamp

The Samps: The Samps EP

Transparent says:
We've been lost deep in the grid-locked, sweltering partyscapes of The Samps' eponymous debut EP for a good moment now, and escape does not seem imminent, so densely packed are its six tracks of warped porno-funk and red-light retro-futurist boogie. Promoting the same white suit, top-down, purple haze AM fantasy as buddy Ariel Pink, Cole Neill and co. have put a magnet to the circuits of main-room house, techno, and disco and come up with a fried, haywire hijacking of modern dance music full of sleazy promise, woozy groove and, most vitally, illicitly good fun.

MP3: The Samps: FXNC

The Samps is out now on Mexican Summer

Big K.R.I.T.: K.R.I.T. Wuz Here

Yours Truly says:
What sets Big K.R.I.T. apart from every other emcee breathing on a beat? Maybe it’s those home-cooked canvases-- born in his bedroom in Meridian, Mississippi-- brimming with soulful samples, live instrumentation, and patience beyond his 23 years. Maybe it’s his voice, slow and low, drenched in drawl, refreshing as a glass of sweet tea. Maybe it’s his honesty; the kind that comes from feeling completely at home in one’s skin; the kind that lets him write about his grandma, his contradictions, faith, relationships and fears without a filter. This unfiltered integrity-- the courage to be truly transparent-- is actually wildly experimental for a genre that expects masks. K.R.I.T. Wuz Here succeeds at setting a new precedent for southern rappers to do something truly innovative: be themselves.

MP3: Big K.R.I.T.: Country Shit

K.R.I.T. Wuz Here is available for free download on DJBooth.net

Lindstrom & Christabelle: Real Life Is No Cool

Friendship Bracelet says:
I didn't really get into Lindstrom until last year, when, after constant recommendations from a friend, it finally clicked for me. His recent work with Prins Thomas is fantastic, but it’s the sugary disco of Real Life Is No Cool that I find myself revisiting time and time again, hanging on every sultry vocal that spills from Christabelle's lips. As the title suggests, this album is made for escape from grim day-to-day sexualised hyper-reality to a place where fashion is luxurious and the drinks are straight.

MP3: Lindstrom & Christabelle: Lovesick

Real Life Is No Cool is out now on Smalltown Supersound

Pocahaunted: Make It Real

Get Off the Coast says:
Over the last year I've become a huge fan of Pocahaunted's music. Their weirdo vibes, woven into beautiful tribal-sounding journeys, never fail to entrance me, and Make It Real is no exception. The addition of several new members on the album results in countless warped dimensions, with the band at times slipping into fractured planes of existence. The entire album is a desert space odyssey, fueled by hallucinogens and filled with dark magics that stir your spirits into a frenzied beat.

MP3: Pocahaunted: Make It Real

Make It Real is out now on Not Not Fun

Nice Face: Immer Etwas

Raven Sings the Blues says:
It’s hard not to love a band bestowed with one of life’s greatest insults as a name. I’ve been following Nice Face since some early Sacred Bones singles piqued my interest with their decomposed garage covers and tar-lunged originals. Then Immer Etwas came along and shredded everything Ian Magee had previously laid to tape. From slow-crawl, motorik-beat-laden creepers to explosive fuzz-punk, Nice Face cover a lot of territory on Immer Etwas, avoiding the sound rut that can sometimes plague lo-fi’s current crop. The addition of seasick keys and spiraling guitar effects, paired with some true hooks buried under the evil veneer, lift the album to classic status.

MP3: Nice Face: I Want Your Damage

Immer Etwas is out now on Sacred Bones

White Fence: White Fence

Weekly Tape Deck says:
While best recognized for his work as the frontman for Darker My Love (and as the background singer for The Strange Boys), it’s Tim Presley’s solo exploits that have been keeping our phono needles busy. His debut under the moniker White Fence is absolute ramshackle-scatterbrain-chaos, revealing an equal affinity for the acid-soaked psychedelia of Syd-era Floyd and the noise-caked post-punk of The Fall (see Reformation Post TLC). Even while traversing a wide variety of moods and personalities, this kaleidoscopic LP is masterfully complete, and an understated portrait of the savvy genius behind it.

MP3: White Fence: I'll Follow You

White Fence is out now on Make a Mess

Herbcraft: Herbcraft Discovers the Biter Water of Agartha

Chocolate Bobka says:
The vibration of life, a quiet rumination buried deep beneath tectonic plates, is 7.8 beats per second. It's inaudible to most, though some sense it in the knees. Much like this vibration, the fractal textures of Herbcraft Discovers the Bitter Water of Agartha are not easily heard by all. But those willing to drift in and explore Herbcraft’s glowing world are rewarded with rustic ragas and melodic noise dirges, proving him to be a real being in nature. They cull the Earth’s roots, creating a dense spectrum more akin to the ancient landscapes of Arcadia than the pointless architecture of the 21st century.

MP3: Herbcraft: Road to Agartha

Herbcraft Discovers the Bitter Water of Agartha is out now on Hello Sunshine, and available at Woodsist (limited to 500)

Rangers: Suburban Tours

Gorilla vs. Bear says:
Suburban Tours, the stellar debut LP from former TX resident Joe Knight (aka Rangers), immediately struck a chord for me, given that the record essentially plays out like a hazy sonic projection of youth spent in the endless DFW suburban sprawl that Knight and I both called home as kids in the '80s. Knight's "elevator psyche" evokes an affecting, very real nostalgia for childhood moments, all faded grade-school film-strips and late night bike excursions through cookie-cutter 'hoods, at once comforting and kind of sad.

MP3: Rangers: Bel Air

Suburban Tours is out now on Olde English Spelling Bee

Sun Araw: On Patrol

Visitation Rites says:
According to Sun Araw’s website, On Patrol is an “application of the philosophies of Heavy Deeds,” a process of moving from thought into action. And as hard it is to ascribe thought to sound-- let alone practical advice on how to live the good life-- Sun Araw’s latest full-length will add a swagger to the step of anyone who has ever wandered our concrete jungles without a destination. Each beat is a new step forward, each scorched guitar line and flyaway word a reminder that that you have to see the street lamps and sign posts in double and triple before you can understand why they’re there. On Patrol elevates the aesthetics of dub to a creed, and delay is the new Hallelujah.

MP3: Sun Araw: Ma Holo

On Patrol is out now on Not Not Fun (limited to 500)

James Ferraro: Feed Me

Rose Quartz says:
Since we caught Ferraro's homemade VHS camcorder movies of Hollywood Boulevard in May-- featuring gross TV dinners, stop-motion skulls, and MTV punks-- he's been ripping it with muzak way more schizoid than even before, riding new transient and alien frequencies. These shorter pop experiments are distinct and nightmarish (but also super fun) responses to our mainstream culture, mirroring its repetitions in delightfully gunk-filled FM absurdism. There are plenty of SNES and cartoon memories slotted in trebly loops, but those weird nostalgias flash by faster than ever here, as though there were never time to remember them properly in the first place.

MP3: James Ferraro: Feed Me (Excerpt)

Feed Me is out now on CD-R via MuscleWorks, and available at Olde English Spelling Bee

In the last several years, there's been an explosion of small-scale DIY music. Altered Zones is a team of 14 music blogs dedicated to exploring these emerging musical worlds, traversing genres from psych and drone to electronic and underground pop. Our mission is to highlight the most notable and adventurous new artists, and to serve as a focal point for the flood of creativity coming from deep within the music underground.

To launch the site, we've each chosen one favorite track, cassette, and album from the first half of this year. Yesterday, we opened with tracks. Today, we cover cassettes, and albums will run on Friday. Our regular posting schedule begins Monday. We hope you enjoy reading and listening.

Welcome to Altered Zones.

No UFO's: Soft Coast

20 Jazz Funk Greats says:
No UFO's Soft Coast first found its way to us back in April, cut up and edited together as snippets. Assembled into an album by May, it became a longer-form but equally channel-hopping glide through Chris and Cosey’s early-electronic loops, cosmic Legeti drifts, and Jamie Principal arpeggios-- and that’s in the space of about five minutes. The influences here are sewn together in the best possible tradition of mix tapes; you appreciate the connections as they’re replayed in a joyous, nebulous drift. This is music by one person trying to come to terms with his influences by making something frankly beautiful.

We also dig the Juan Atkins reference.

MP3: No UFOs: 00/00/2010

Soft Coast is out now on Nice Up Int'l and available at Mimaroglu

Grimes: Geidi Primes

Gorilla vs. Bear says:
With her debut cassette release, Montreal's Grimes has created a beautifully hypnotic and eerily inviting soundscape by drawing from such disparate genres as dubstep, wobbly lo-fi bedroom disco, and more straightforward '80s pop (see "Rosa"), all filtered through a strange, vaseline-smeared kaleidoscopic lens. Spooky coos and strangely familiar, half-realized melodies drift in and out from a distantly twinkling ether, as the tape plays out like a bent, no-budget dream collaboration between Kate Bush, Nite Jewel, and Paavoharju, as produced by the low-end theorists at Hyperdub.

MP3: Grimes: Rosa

Geidi Primes is sold out on Arbutus

Various Artists: Dark as Night

Weekly Tape Deck says:
Dark as Night is a mind-bending four-way split that Bathetic Records has now twice released upon the world. Each side of the cassette takes you on an ephemeral vision quest of magical proportions. Though the two tracks submitted by each band (oOoOO, SLEEP ∞ OVER, Terminal Twilight, S U R V I V E) run the gamut of soundscapes from haunted to angelic, they all blend into one ethereal sound. Reactions may range from nodding your head in enjoyment to a meeting with your spirit animal.

MP3: Terminal Twilight: The Fire of Love (Fire Mix)

MP3: oOoOO: NoShore

Dark as Night is sold out on Bathetic Records

Wild Safari / Cough Cool

Yours Truly says:
Although song titles like "History of Savannah" and "Flower Reading" exude a sense of late spring warmth, you can almost see your breath around this split cassette from Wild Safari and Cough Cool. There's lava burning at its core, though, like blood pumping faster in an attempt to fend off the bitter cold.  These tracks simmer beneath their surfaces, slowly building but never boiling over. Despite the cold it brings, this split cassette still keeps you warm enough to make it through any winter.

MP3: Wild Safari: History of Savannah

Wild Safari / Cough Cool split is out now on Leftist Nautical Antiques

Campfires: Burning Rivers, TV Flickers, Drifting Off to Bed

Visitation Rites says:
Stamped out before the three-minute mark, the songs on Campfires' debut cassette seem tailor-made to our impatient ears, so accustomed to clicking from one mp3 or YouTube video to the next.  As we chase fleeting moments of musical gratification, we Y-Generation listeners may actually be using the web to actively construct our own musical narratives. Campfires' Jeff Walls seems to anticipate this, minting eight fuzzed-out musical moments that pack a strong melodic punch and then stringing them together into a yarn of his own: "The songs all occur in one evening in a place that is [...] a lot like my hometown in southwestern Michigan." Walls' concept is foolproof: rather than click on to the next artist, we await the next plot twist.

MP3: Campfires: Tired Old Sun

Burning Rivers, TV Flickers, Drifting Off to Bed is nearly sold out on Leftist Nautical Antiques

Active Child: Sun Rooms

The Road Goes Ever On says:
Between the sparkling beauty of “Wilderness” and the pounding drums and resounding vocals of “When Your Love is Safe,” Active Child has a knack for dreamy hooks. The six tracks on his Sun Rooms cassette may at first seem slightly stiff, but they always reach out a soft, warm hand in the end, lifting you up and taking you home. Something about Pat Grossi’s ethereal voice atop all those mysteriously airy synths makes this a great tape to pop in when you’re driving into a brilliant sunset on a quiet, Sunday evening.

MP3: Active Child: When Your Love Is Safe

Sun Rooms is sold out on Mirror Universe

His Clancyness: Always Mist

Transparent says:
His Clancyness is Jonathan Clancy of Bologna, Italy via Ottawa, Canada. Always Mist, his first full-length release, is a tender, clean, and consoling collection of snug little dream-pop blankets to ball up in, marked by gliding harmonies into which Clancy injects his rich, wistful sigh. These are not songs that demand a great deal of insight. In fact, there's no need for understanding at all; the simple arrangements and heartbreak hooks bypass the nerd-centres, burrowing straight through the chest only to manifest themselves two minutes or so later as lumps in the throat and knots in the stomach.

MP3: His Clancyness: Ottawa Backfired Soon

Always Mist is out now on Mirror Universe (limited to 100)

Coma Cinema: Stoned Alone

Delicious Scopitone says:
Coma Cinema is the solo project of Mat Cothran of Columbia, South Carolina. Without a doubt, one of the most engaging personalities we've had the pleasure of coming across this year, Cothran's singular enthusiasm and sincerity radiates through every last note of Stoned Alone, his debut release. Falling somewhere between the writhing axe-work psychosis of Lou Barlow and the disarmingly delicate intensity of James Mercer of the Shins, songs like "Sucker Punch" or "Come On Apathy" are magnetic and moving to the point of being cleansing.

MP3: Coma Cinema: Come On Apathy

Stoned Alone is out now on Arcade Sounds Ltd and available for free download at comacinema.org

Dylan Ettinger: New Age Outlaws

Raven Sings the Blues says:
Syrupy synth projects seem to be falling down two avenues of late: either they douse themselves in the frosted pink nostalgia of 80s ski weekends and infomercial bed music, or take the scholarly high road to analog experimentation. But Dylan Ettinger is an outlier. He’s certainly not running down the Day-Glo path of banana-clipped past-gazing, but he might not possess the pedigree to hang with Analog Masters just yet. Instead, he’s captured the latter’s sense of wonder and applied it to a loose concept album of gritty crime drama and darkened noir corners. Definitely my favorite on the small spools this year.

MP3: Dylan Ettinger: Rico's Pawn Shop

New Age Outlaws is out now at Not Not Fun (limited to 500)

Tracey Trance: The Fountain

Chocolate Bobka says:
Slugs, beetles and worms mill about the surface of the Earth. Often the beetles will roam in a circular pattern, occasionally bumping into a termite or a fire ant as if bug life were a game of miniature bumper cars. The music of Tracey Trance-- and especially The Fountain-- combs the uneventful ether for these types of collisions. Cascading like a waterfall over endless cliffs, Tracey hits buttons and melodies that a trained musician could never replicate. Instead, his outer-worldly melodies seem more natural, as if sparked by collaboration between a plastic woodwind acolyte and a manic Geppetto with a knack for the squeeze box.

MP3: Tracey Trance: Fountain 1

The Fountain is out now on Night People

Twins / Luke Perry: Guts

Rose Quartz says:
For all the Peace Agers mining 90210 nostalgia, these two East Coasters add the most electro zest to that hyperreal televised romanticism. Twins and Luke Perry's brand of day-glo is about as close to a VHS Supersoaker commercial as it gets; "bodacious" is about right for this ultra "Californian"-sounding sample-heavy pop, highlighted by trebly guitar wailage that sounds perfect on tape via your worst boombox. These bouncy hits may be scratchy and lo-fi, but they still fit great alongside hazy electro acts like Blondes and schizoids like The Samps.

MP3: Twins / Luke Perry: Malibu Body Crew

Guts split is out now on Peace Age

Dem Hunger: Caveman Smack

Friendship Bracelet says:
I've been nothing short of addicted to the work of Dem Hunger since first coming across his free download Heavy Spinach in the first half of last year. His first physical release, Caveman Smack, has only further intensified my obsession-- a sonic patchwork of spaced-out dub, beats that snap as heavy as any other on the planet, and eerie, mind-frying vinyl samples. Scenes skip as you try to keep up, but keeping up simply isn't an option. Time flies and you're left stunned.

MP3: Dem Hunger: DEM5master

Caveman Smack is out now on Leaving Records

Clive Tanaka y su orquesta: Jet Set Siempre No. 1

Get Off the Coast says:
Jet Set Siempre No. 1 has two personalities: Side A is labeled "For Dance" and Side B as "For Romance." From the opening notes of the A-side, you're immediately caught in a groove that entraps you until the tape is tightly wound around its second spool. While the B-side retains the rhythm, its added sense of enchantment ensures your moves connect with the eyes you're trying to attract. With Jet Set Siempre No. 1, Clive Tanaka y su orquesta have created one of the best electronic jammers I've heard in a long time. The only downside is that I'll probably wear out the cassette before summer ends.

MP3: Clive Tanaka y su orquesta: I Want You (So Bad)

Jet Set Siempre No. 1 is available now at clivetanaka.jp

Cruisin': What Is Quality?/Cruising in the Year F-Zero

Don't Die Wondering says:
Cruisin' is the latest analogue adventure from the ever-quirky Peace Age conglomerate, designated to be meekly laid down as a sacrifice before the volatile drug gods. What Is Quality? brings together the collective talents of Twins (Matt Weiner), Luke Perry (Ryan Howe), CH-ROM (Charlie Lanning), E-Tip (Elise Tippins) and Alex500 (Alex Morrison), which I imagine translates into a sweaty room centered around a heap of dusty electronics which are then subjected to forms of torture the manufacturer would not approve of. The resulting 20 minutes feel like a car ride through the changing scenery of one’s psyche, peering passively out the backseat window to find sights alternately pastoral, menacing, strange, and lovely, and sometimes just focusing on your own reflection peering passively back.

MP3: Cruisin': Default Magic

What Is Quality? is out now on Peace Age