Altered Zones

Altered Zones contributors Yours Truly announced their new label, Love Letters Ink. The young label's first release, a reworking of the K.R.I.T. WuzHere mixtape with Grillade called The Wuz Here Sessions, is coming at you on wax and will be available digitally too. Keep your eyes peeled for LLI's second release, a Nite Jewel single, due in March.

BIG KRIT & Grillade "The Wuz Here Sessions" Sampler by yourstrulysf

Pre-order the 12" and opt for the limited edition package including 2 handwritten letters from BIG K.R.I.T. and Grillade, hand-crafted artwork by YT, and a donation to therootsofmusic.com, a program dedicated to "Saving the youth of New Orleans through Music and Mentorship via Yours Truly's bandcamp

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