Altered Zones

Andy Bones of Woven Bones says:
All hail the West Coast and it's rock-solid good vibes. Needless to say, our trip out West this summer was amazing. From getting to play with awesome new bands like Tennis and Woodsman in Denver, to playing with all our old homies down the Coast, the trip was a non-stop blast and the shows were better than we could have imagined. The real unexpected treat of the whole tour happened to be at our LA show at Spaceland. Michael from Part Time Punks curated the show and assured me the opener was gonna blow me away.

Nick Hessler and his band Catwalk from Oxnard, CA were are all barely of age to enter the club, but played tunes as articulate and efficient as anyone else these days, perhaps even better and more sincere in my book. Early Creation Records shoe-gazing jangle, Rough Trade-worthy punky reggae breakdowns, and melodies reminiscent of The Cure-- delivered with Morrissey's swoon-- won our unfaltering attention. They were all so young I couldn't help but get a vibe that reminded me of a teenage band imitating The Cure in the "Boy's Don't Cry" video I'd seen a million times in middle school. These kids are the real deal and we love them.

MP3: Catwalk: "Please Don't Break Me"

PIXELHORSE says:
Originally known as Nue Day Express (uh...!), the '70s funk/R&B/disco group Crown Heights Affair renamed themselves after a neighborhood in their native Brooklyn. Crown Heights Affair meshed together catchy choruses, twisty-tied sax breaks, fiery flugelhorns, and starbursting synths that gave Sly and the Fam something to step to. Their biggest hit, "Dreaming a Dream", reached #1 on the US Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart in 1975, overshadowing other gems from their catalog like "You Can't Bend My Super Rod" and "The Rock Is Hot." Though somehow unable to earn celestial acclaim in the US, this particular diamond, "Galaxy of Love," did manage to climb the UK's Top 40 in 1978.

MP3: Crown Heights Affair: "Galaxy of Love" (1978)

PIXELHORSE is a Brooklyn-based music blog with contributors in Burlington, Austin, and Los Angeles.

Foxy Digitalis says:
I'm gonna admit upfront that I've become a bit of a fanboy of Frank Ouellette's Hobo Cult label and his project, Hobo Cubes. But the reality is that Ouellette is truly onto something, and "Abandoned Ship" encapsulates all the things I love about what he's doing. Faint nostalgic melodies get buried under piles of noise and varying sonic detritus while simple, plodding beats keep everything flowing forward. Guitars and synths battle it out for supremacy but the dizzying interplay between the two gives the track added depth. Everything flashes by in slow motion until you're drowning in a suffocating aural haze. It's uncomfortable and beautiful. Surface hooks will draw you in, certainly, but it's the endless blurry textures that bring "Abandoned Ships" home.

MP3: Hobo Cubes: "Abandoned Ship"

from the Hobo Cubes/Aradia split, available now on Hobo Cult

Oklahoma-based Foxy Digitalis has been a cornerstone of experimental music coverage on the web since 2003, and is updated weekly with features, reviews, and podcasts.

Pinglewood says:
Runners, as you might expect, are an athletic band. They combine loose-limbed, whipcrack drumming, whacked-out Korg melodies, and a keen ear for the absurd. They are a supergroup of sorts, comprising members of Leeds' bands like Chops and Cowtown. "Stay Frosty" is their first recorded song. Its title is Marine Corps slang, a request for icy vigilance, but it sounds like peak-time house party krautrock: Harmonia after a two litre bottle of cheap cider. Be sure to check out their Monthly Marathon mixtapes which feature tracks from podium prospects like Actress, Mahjongg, and James Ferraro.

MP3: Runners: "Stay Frosty"

The world's oldest music blog, Pinglewood is written by 67-year-old Londoner Scott Wright, who can still occasionally walk unaided.

Feel My Bicep says:
"The Music Got Me" is a track that was big in Chicago in the early 80s when disco-hate was the flavour of the month. A proto-house classic with one of the finest synth lines ever made, it almost makes you want to feel the music, squiggling like jazz whilst floating in space. They used to play with two copies of the record, re-editing it live, stretching the murky bassline and those legendary up-mixed spitting hi-hats. The track is said to have originally been created by producer Boyd Jarvis for vocal auditions on the New York soul/R&B station WBLS, through which he discovered its singer, Timmy Regisford. This was also a fundamental track in shaping the Paradise Garage sound and the sound we pay homage to on our blog.

MP3: Visual: "The Music Got Me" (1983)

Feel My Bicep is run by a UK-based DJ duo called Bicep who also produce disco and house. The blog is an outlet for quality underrated music in our eyes whatever genre or age it may be.