CRYSTALLINE ROSES

Crystalline Roses is a solo project of Tony from Mudlark and SQRM, two bands you know about if you're in Western Massachusetts and two bands you should probably know about if you're from anywhere else.

The Crystalline Roses project has really been getting to me lately after first hearing it on a three-way split with Justin Pigott and Peter Bonneman last summer. Saw him play a quiet set in George's basement to cap off a show once and it was beautiful. It's devastating how well these recordings suit a frigid Western Mass winter. "Dante" lopes along about as fast as I could imagine moving when the windchill is -13°. "Calling Upon the Wind" refers to these gusts, a faint falsetto recalling some lonely Phil Elverum shit.





Crystalline Roses - Dante

Crystalline Roses - Calling Upon the Wind





Head over to I Could Die Tomorrow and download the split HERE. Pigott's and Bonneman's sections are great too, as is the uplifting Crystalline Roses cover of Charles Manson's "Home Is Where You're Happy."

I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT TAKES

More ice-cold jams from how to dress well & cokc dokc. You might remember them as the dudes releasing five 3" CDRs over a few months I mentioned a while back. All the music is still available for soundcloud stream and download from their blog and will eventually be compiled into a box set of sorts and released by Cryptic Carousel with all five discs and a book of art.

The new CDR is called Like in the Night How the Heart Becomes the Truth, which would be a mouthful but by now I'm used to saying/typing out "how to dress well & cokc dokc." This edition stays true to the sonic themes explored in the previous three, blurring the line between R&B Shai bombast and cavernous black metal textures, which makes sense seeing as the guys fancy "listening to gucci and gorgoroth and taking handfuls of pills." Don't believe me? Peep their year-end list.





how to dress well & cokc dokc - closer

how to dress well & cokc dokc - i don't know what it takes

PEACED TOGETHER

Truman Peyote's kickin it on a little tour with Whitehaus brethren Many Mansions in celebration of their upcoming Peaced Together split 12". The two acts will be rolling through Brooklyn for New Year's Eve, back up to Northampton for a show at George Myers' house on the 4th and will make their way out to Chicago over the rest of January week two.

You may remember "Sidewalk Sludging (Airbud)" from TP's WMUA live set or maybe you heard it somewhere else. Here's "Numbjob," another track from the record that I've been diggin a bit harder. Check it out, then check all the dudes at a show in your area (dates up on Myspace) then buy the 12" when it comes out.





Truman Peyote - Numbjob

THE GIRL FROM KOLN IS GONE

Chris D'eon a.k.a. D'EON been gettin his slink on up over in Montreal. Dude's ÆON tape just dropped on Numbers Station. Chris sent me the first half of the tape, five airy tracks of "house / r&b / pop / psych," as the label puts it. ÆON is the follow up to wa al-'asr, another one of D'EON's tapes Numbers Station dropped earlier this year.

The side's closing track, "The Girl From Koln Is Gone," is probably my favorite cos it gets the most funky. I'm not big into the whole house pulse but sometimes it reminds me of Selected Ambient Works Volume 1 which is probably a very naïve reference point but whatever. Shit sounds like a failed night at some awful club. Going home and coming down would be a good idea, but the drinks are cheap and everyone looks good. Everyone looks so good you been feelin fresher by the hour. Besides, you've learned this one before - that girl from Koln always comes back.





D'EON - The Girl From Koln Is Gone





Head on over to Numbers Station to grab a couple more downloads and to BUY the tape.

MUTANT FEVER

So I've been on all this rad Luke Perry shit after digging dANA, another of his projects which Rose Quartz introduced me to last summer. dANA is the duo of Luke Perry and CH-Rom, whose solo stuff I've just started to listen to thanks to the advent of the SKYMALL.

The album up over there is Call Me Rom, a vibrant assortment of mutant rhythms spawned from squirting all the flavorcolors into your Slush Puppie at once in unison. The following psychedelic brainfreeze is welcomed, much like when Bart slurped the all-syrup Squishee. Shit slows down. Other shit speeds up. Everything stutters, but you get used to it quick. And it's awesome.





CH-Rom - Deep Dimension Video 2


CH-Rom - Teenage Cop


CH-Rom - Mutant Fever





Dig? Then head over to the SKYMALL and grab the whole thing.