Review: Rare DM – Attention

It’s no surprise that Rare DM (Erin Hoagg) titled her new, entirely self-produced and recorded album Attention. The whole thing demands your attention, and your pulse.

Opening track “Compliment” hits all the right beats and gets your pulse elevated for what’s to come. You’ll need the energy for all the dancing, and Rare DM’s often breathy vocal delivery is as seductive as the beat. “The Ring” throbs in your head and your hips, and, yes, it’s about the Japanese horror film Ringu and the wicked ghost in it who slays people via VHS tape. Rare DM loves blends of music and visuals, technology and humanity, sex and science fiction. It’s a perfect fit.

“Honey” has a drifting, floating, tactile sound that sounds like a cool darkwave track you haven’t heard in years. The question on Rare DM’s mind at the beginning of “Mean Girled” is “We’re not even fuckin’, but am I worried about you?” She’s trying to figure out a weird relationship dynamic and if it’s worth taking to another level or if she should just walk away.

“Butterfly Historian” is drenched in muted bass and sultry sweat. “325” might be the best love song about a vehicle since Queen‘s “I’m in Love with My Car.” Speaking of vehicles, the next track is “LA Traffic,” in which Rare DM laments (over drum and bass beats) over being stuck in it while friends wait for her at the club. “Lil DM” has her wishing for at least a night free of phone calls and e-mails.

“Skater Hits Me Harder” has Rare DM looking back on an adolescent crush through the lenses of adulthood and time. “Significant Other” is an instrumental banger. “Do you like me better, now that I’m like you?” Hoagg asks on the near-industrial “Feel Nothing.” She’s come to realize that she doesn’t need what her lover is selling. The album ends with the lush “Landed,” showcasing Hoagg’s misty voice and sunlight-through-the-fog synths (most of which, by the way, are vintage gear she’s collected from all over NYC).

Pay attention to this album. You’ll notice something different every time.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Andi at Terrorbird Media.]

Top 25 albums of 2021 – 2025: #’s 5 – 1

Here we are. The top five albums I reviewed in the last five years. I revised this list of all twenty-five records several times. It wasn’t easy to get here, but here we go.

#5: The Black Angels – Wilderness of Mirrors (2022)

This was a great return for my favorite band. The Black Angels came back in 2022 with anger about the past and hope for the future. It was a psychedelic, heavy reflection on the current times, what came before, and what was looming.

#4: Shame – Drunk Tank Pink (2021)

The album’s name refers to a color that’s often painted in jail cells to calm rowdy people. This post-punk album blends rowdy rage with punk riffs and cutting lyrics about how bonkers the world was back then…and still is.

#3: Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs – Land of Sleeper (2023)

Good heavens, this thing is massive. Pigsx7 unleashed an album that was designed to shake us out of our doldrums and also explore the weird world of dreams and how they merge with reality. It rocketed into my “best of” list for 2023 upon my first listen, and their tour for this was solid.

#2: A Place to Bury Strangers – Synthesizer (2024)

Speaking of albums that landed in my “best of” lists for a particular year and then never moved out of it, how could I not include an album by APTBS that, no joke, you can turn into an actual synthesizer. The album cover is a circuit board. You can create music with this thing. Plus, the whole album shreds. It’s a stunning work that I think only they could imagine and then execute so well.

#1: Matthew Halsall – An Ever Changing View (2023)

I almost didn’t hear this album or discover Halsall’s work. It got buried in a big stack of unread e-mails and press releases and I didn’t open the file until late fall of 2023, not long before I was about to make my “Best of 2023” list. Lo and behold, it was the most beautiful album I’d heard all year. “Ambient jazz” doesn’t describe it well enough. It’s an album that instantly changes the atmosphere around you for the better.

There you have it. Up next, my top twenty-five concerts of the last five years…which was more difficult to determine than this list.

Keep your mind open.

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Félicia Atkinson creates new score for a classic French horror film.

Félicia Atkinson by Bartolomé Sanson

Today, renowned French musician and artist Félicia Atkinson announces new album SANS VISAGE, a reimagined score for Georges Franju’s cult 1960 horror classic Les yeux sans visage (Eyes Without a Face), out June 26 via Viernulvier Records. The news arrives alongside lead preview “Les Yeux II” and follows her recently released collaborative album with Christina Vantzou, Reflections Vol. 3: Water Poems, via RVNG Intl., as well as her acclaimed solo releases Promenades and Space as an Instrument on Shelter Press.

Atkinson first saw Les yeux sans visage when she was a teenager, around the turn of the century. The film made an impact for its iconic imagery and the way Franju draws on the aesthetics of early filmmaking, from its score that relies on stylistic markers typical of the 1940s or 50s to the decision to shoot in black and white. Even four decades after its first release, it was clear that this was a work that stood outside of the cultural moment that birthed it, speaking through time in ways that were uncanny, but profound.

A quarter-century later, Atkinson was approached by the Belgian cultural center VIERNULVIER to create a new score for Les yeux sans visage for its celebrated Videodroom series, which has seen artists like claire rousay, Mabe Fratti, Lee Renaldo, and many more create new original scores for cult classics and genre cinema. Atkinson’s music, with its sublime meditations on space and proximity, its elusive sense of narrative development, mirrors the pacing and mystery at the heart of horror filmmaking. There is a shadow at the heart of her soundtrack to Les yeux sans visage, an ever-shifting wisp and an insinuation of encroaching transfiguration. Echoing a climactic moment in the film, the music obliquely points to “the Beyond,” an impossible place of discovery and revelation.

Atkinson envisioned her music as something akin to the air moving throughout and beyond the many cages that appear in the film, unconstrained by the bars and with undefined borders. Those cages hold the victims of a madman surgeon, determined to graft a new face onto his daughter, the protagonist Christiane Génessier, who lost hers in a car accident while he was behind the wheel. Atkinson was reminded of her predecessors at the pioneering French studio the GRM, who approached sound in a less sinister, but similarly surgical manner, and took inspiration from their playful approach to cerebral soundmaking for the electroacoustic topography into which the piano is embedded. As such, Atkinson’s reactions to the larger themes and the minute-by-minute happenings onscreen are both audible simultaneously.

A film about a man who destroys the lives of young women marked by their beauty and similarity to his daughter in a shame-fueled rage has clear, continuous cultural resonance. “Through the music, I decided to bring back their empowerment despite what they endure,” says Atkinson. “This is why the record is also dedicated to Gisèle Pelicot, whose trial happened while I was in the process of composing the music and kept thinking of her strength and her decision to share her trial in order to reverse the shame.”

This recorded version of the soundtrack is a 34-minute synthesis of the full 90-minute score, presented on LP along with an essay by writer-musician Claire Cronin and drawings by Momo Gordon, together forming a complex reflection on the film’s themes. If these sounds move as if the bars of cages are no barrier, they also intimate the freedom and power of those held behind them. Rather than simply mirroring the fear and confinement shown onscreen, Atkinson offers an elusive escape, a beacon for the characters, and the listener, to follow as they reckon with the narrative and move through it.

Listen to “Les Yeux II” above and stay tuned for more from Félicia Atkinson ahead of the full release of SANS VISAGE on June 26 via Viernulvier Records.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Cody at Terrorbird Media.]

Top 25 albums of 2021 – 2025: #’s 10 – 6

We’ve reach the top ten albums I reviewed in the last five years. It gets more difficult to make these lists as the numbers grow smaller, but here goes.

#10: Yard Act – The Overload (2022)

These post-punkers seemed to come out of nowhere and hit us with multiple sharp singles from their debut. The whole album was witty, biting, and wicked.

#9: King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard – PostDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation (2023)

Part-thrash metal, part-environmental activism record, all great. The title and cover image alone let you know you’re in for a wild time, and King Gizz pull no punches on it.

#8: DITZ – Never Exhale (2025)

A whole post-punk album about tension – a topic that post-punk does very well, as do these Brits. The cover image conveys the sense of the record and, like the music, puts you on edge and keeps you there.

#7: Aaron Frazer – Introducing… (2021)

Stepping out from his main gig with Durand Jones and The Indications, Frazer dropped one of the best soul records of recent memory and probably got a thousand date offers just from the first couple tracks.

#6: Gum / Kenny Ambrose-Smith – Ill Times (2024)

This dynamic Australian duo created a cool, electro / dance-rock record that tackled grief and uncertainty. It made you want another one from them right away. I still do.

Who made the top five? Come back tomorrow. It was a tough call, but I made it.

Keep your mind open.

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Cornelius unveils long-awaited new music with “Yumenemi.”

Photo credit: Hideaki Hamada

Today, Cornelius returns with his first new music in years, opening a long-awaited new chapter on Eat Your Own Ears Recordings. His new single, a cover of “Yumenemi,” was originally released in 1989 by one of Japan’s most iconic singer-songwriters, Yosui Inoue, and remains a cult Balearic classic.

Reimagined through Cornelius’s singular lens, the track marries his signature collage-like production, intricate rhythmic detail and soft-focus electronics with a lilting tropicalia inflection, for a swirling, heady track befitting of it’s title, which roughly translates to “dreaming”.

Watch the video for “Yumenemi” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sqPMEL21PE
Other streaming links:https://cornelius.lnk.to/yumenemi

The new track arrives following a recent resurgence of interest in his work, including a viral TikTok moment and a nod from Rosalía, who featured “Typewrite Lesson”, originally a b-side from Cornelius’s iconic 1997 album ‘Fantasma’, in her Met Gala–themed Vogue playlist of all-time favourites.

Cornelius is the musical project of Japanese multi-instrumentalist Keigo Oyamada, who began his career in his teens and launched the Cornelius name in the early 1990s after his band Flipper’s Guitar. The project takes its name from Planet of the Apes.

He broke internationally with 1997’s Fantasma, a genre-blurring album of cut-and-paste production that drew comparisons to Beck and The Beastie Boys and was released worldwide by Matador Records. Often dubbed a “modern-day Brian Wilson,” Oyamada became a sought-after producer and remixer, a “musician’s musician”, collaborating with artists including Blur, Beck, Sean Ono Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Plastic Ono Band, Haruomi Hosono, James Brown and many others.

With 2002’s Point, Cornelius shifted toward intricate loops of organic sound sources, from water droplets to vocoder-heavy reinterpretations, pushing his meticulous sound design further on 2007’s Sensuous. His live shows are renowned for precision-synced visuals, custom lighting, and immersive, band-led performances that treat the stage as a fully integrated audio-visual system.

The companion release Sensurround + B Sides was nominated for Best Surround Sound Album at the 2009 Grammy Awards.

“Yumenemi” marks the start of a long-awaited new body of work, set to unfold over the coming months.

Cornelius links:
https://www.corneliusjapan.com/
https://www.instagram.com/corneliusofficial/
https://www.facebook.com/corneliusofficial
https://x.com/corneliusjapan
https://www.eatyourownears.com/releases
https://eatyourownearsrecordings.bandcamp.com/

Keep your mind open.

[Don’t forget to subscribe!]

[Thanks to Kate at Stereo Sanctity.]

WSND DJ set list: Manic Monday – May 24, 2026

Thanks to everyone who tuned in for my latest all-80s music show on WSND. Here’s the set list in case you missed it:

  1. My Bloody Valentine – Feed Me with Your Kiss (1988)
  2. Alphaville – Jet Set (1985)
  3. Delta 5 – Make Up (1981)
  4. Foreigner – Urgent (12” maxi single version) (1981)
  5. Nu Shooz – I Can’t Wait (1986)
  6. The Steve Miller Band – Abracadabra (1982) (request)
  7. Yarbrough & Peoples – Don’t Stop the Music (1980)
  8. Elton John – Sacrifice (1989)
  9. Dead Can Dance – The Host of Seraphm (1988) (request)
  10. Art of Noise – The Chameleon’s Dish (1986)
  11. Gen X – Dancing with Myself (1980) (request)
  12. The Psychedelic Furs – We Love You (1980)
  13. AC/DC – For Those About to Rock (live) (1985)
  14. Dolly Parton – But You Know I Love You (1980)
  15. Madonna – Holiday (full version) (1983)
  16. Joan Jett & The Blackhearts – I Wanna Be Your Dog (1988) (request)
  17. Soul II Soul – Keep on Movin’ (1989)
  18. Laid Back – White Horse (1983)
  19. Culture Club – Miss Me Blind (1983)
  20. Yarbrough & Peoples – Don’t Waste Your Time (1984)
  21. Tony Carey – A Fine Day (1984)
  22. The Alan Parsons Project – Don’t Answer Me (1984)
  23. Shannon – Give Me Tonight (1984)
  24. Rockwell – Obscene Phone Caller (1984)
  25. INXS – Original Sin (1983)
  26. The Pointer Sisters – Automatic (1984)
  27. Thompson Twins – Doctor! Doctor! (1984)
  28. Michael Jackson – Thriller (12” maxi single version) (1983)
  29. Men at Work – Overkill (1983)
  30. Jane’s Addiction – Had a Dad (1988)
  31. Bad Company – This Love (alternate version) (1986)
  32. The Smithereens – Listen to Me Girl (1986)
  33. Cabaret Voltaire – I Want You (7” mix) (1985)
  34. Big Audio Dynamite – A Party (1985)
  35. Journey – Stone in Love (1981)
  36. Cyndi Lauper – Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1983)
  37. Yaz – Don’t Go (1982) (request)
  38. David Bowie – Let’s Dance (12” remix) (1983)
  39. Europe – The Final Countdown (1986)
  40. Indeep – Last Night a DJ Saved My Life (1982)
  41. Ennio Morricone – The Thing theme (1982)
  42. Hell Night radio spot (1981)
  43. Gerhard Heinz – Im Strandcafe (1981)
  44. Revenge of the Dead radio spot (1983)
  45. Bob James – Angela / Taxi theme (1978)
  46. The Fixx – Saved By Zero (1983)
  47. U2 – I Will Follow (1980)
  48. Kraftwerk – Computer Love (1981) (request)
  49. Janet Jackson – Nasty (1986)
  50. Bananarama – Venus (1986)
  51. Oingo Boingo – Elevator Man (1987)
  52. Pet Shop Boys – West End Girls (1984)
  53. Phil Collins – In the Air Tonight (12” extended version) (1981)
  54. Naked Eyes – Always Something There to Remind Me (1983)
  55. Tears for Fears – Everybody Wants to Rule the World (1985)
  56. Young MC – Bust a Move (1989)
  57. Howard Jones – Things Can Only Get Better (1985)
  58. Falco – Der Kommissar (1981)
  59. Wang Chung – Dance Hall Days (1982)
  60. Meiko Nakahara – Fantasy (1982)
  61. The Police – Every Breath You Take (1983)

Come back next week for more 80s madness!

Keep your mind open.

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Rewind Review: St. Germain – Boulevard (1995)

Widely regarded as one of the breakthrough albums of French house music, let alone one of the classic 1990s house music albums, St. Germain (AKA Ludovic Navarre) premiered on the scene with Boulevard and stunned everybody.

The opening track, “Deep in It,” clocks in over seven minutes and drops killer vibraphone beats from Miguel “Punta” Rios on top of snappy electro-beats to get you deep into the sexy Parisian nightclub at 2am. That track is practically a warmup for “Thank U Mum (4 Everything You Did),” which is over twelve minutes of sizzling percussion and smoky bass and sounds like it samples Lightnin’ Hopkins vocals to make the track even groovier.

“Street Scene (4 Shazz)” has great flute work from Malik throughout it that elevates the 15-plus minutes into a great jam. “Easy to Remember” has a great trumpet line throughout it from Pascal Ohsé. Édouard Labor‘s saxophone takes the lead on “Sentimental Mood” and pairs with Alexandre Destrez‘s poppy piano quite well.

“This is what we call easy listening, underground house music,” someone says on “What’s New?” before the floor-filling dance beat drops. “Dub Experience” is a laid back change of pace from the house beats that have propelled the album through the first six tracks, and the closer, “Forget It” is something you’ll remember thanks to its wicked beats and sensuous grooves.

It’s a classic album that still sounds like it could’ve been released yesterday and set the time for Tourist, which is one of the greatest make-out albums of all time.

Keep your mind open.

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WSND DJ set list: Nocturne – May 24, 2026

Thanks for all the ears that tuned into my latest Nocturne show on WSND. Here’s this week’s eclectic set list:

  1. The Heavy – Intro
  2. Nude – All We Want
  3. The Big Miz – The Feeling
  4. Lampshade – Moonjam
  5. Automatic – Black Box
  6. Ladytron – The Island
  7. Ash Walker – The Dagon’s Cashmere Jumper
  8. The Black Angels – Manipulation (live)
  9. Björk – Army of Me (live)
  10. Frogs radio ad
  11. Bauhaus – Party of the First Part
  12. Bootblacks – For You (Lois)
  13. Public Image Ltd. – Careering
  14. Dick Dale – Third Stone from the Sun
  15. Priests – 68 Screen
  16. The Duke Spirit – Take a Look Around
  17. Faith No More – Get Out
  18. Battle Beyond the Stars radio ad
  19. True Widow – F.W.T.S.: L.T.M.
  20. Ride into the Sun – New Sunday
  21. Ohmme – Sturgeon Moon
  22. Ennio Morricone – Un Esercito di Cinque Uomini
  23. L7 – Must Have More
  24. Heaven’s Gateway Drugs – Highway Hypnosis
  25. Tinariwen – Imidiwan Afrik Temdam
  26. Pastor Champion – To Be Used By You
  27. John Coltrane – My Shining Hour
  28. Dean Martin – All in a Night’s Work

Tune in next week for more weird mixes!

Keep your mind open.

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WSND DJ set list: Deep Dive of Tina Turner

Thanks to all who tuned in for my Deep Dive tribute to Tina Turner on WSND. It was a fun salute to the Queen of Rock and Roll. Here’s the set list:

  1. Tina Turner – What’s Love Got to Do with It
  2. Big Mama Thornton – I Smell a Rat
  3. Etta James – Something’s Got a Hold on Me
  4. Ray Charles – I Can’t Stop Loving You
  5. Sam Cooke – Nothing Can Change This Love
  6. Mahalia Jackson – Trouble of the World
  7. Ike Turner & His Kings of Rhythm – Rocket 88
  8. B.B. King – You Know I Love You
  9. Ike Turner, Carlson Oliver, and Little Ann – Boxtop
  10. Ike & Tina Turner – A Fool in Love
  11. Ike & Tina Turner – It’s Gonna Work Out Fine (live)
  12. Ike & Tina Turner – Poor Fool
  13. Tina Turner – You’ve Got Too Many Ties That Bind
  14. The Impressions – See the Real Me
  15. Ike & Tina Turner – Please, Please, Please (live)
  16. Ike & Tina Turner – Tight Pants (High Heel Sneakers) (live)
  17. Ike & Tina Turner – Tell Her I’m Not Home
  18. Ike & Tina Turner – River Deep, Mountain High
  19. Ike & Tina Turner – Tell Her I’m Not Home
  20. Otis Redding – I’ve Been Loving You Too Long
  21. Ike & Tina Turner – The Hunter
  22. Albert Collins – Don’t Lose Your Cool
  23. Ike & Tina Turner – Take You Higher (live)
  24. Ike & Tina Turner – Proud Mary
  25. Nina Simone – Funkier Than a Mosquito’s Tweeter (live)
  26. Ike & Tina Turner – Black Coffee
  27. Ike & Tina Turner – Nutbush City Limits (live)
  28. Ike & Tina Turner – Take My Hand, Precious Lord
  29. Tina Turner – Help Me Make It Through the Night
  30. Tommy TV spot
  31. Tina Turner – Acid Queen
  32. Tina Turner – Disco Inferno (live)
  33. Alec Constandinos – Romeo and Juliet
  34. Tina Turner – Love Explosion
  35. Heaven 17 – Penthouse and Pavement
  36. British Electric Foundation & Tina Turner – Ball of Confusion
  37. Spider – Better Be Good to Me
  38. Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome radio spot
  39. Tina Turner – One of the Living
  40. Tina Turner – Goldeneye
  41. Tina Turner – When the Heartache Is Over

Be sure to tune in May 31, 2026 for another Deep Dive!

Keep your mind open.

[Don’t forget to subscribe.]

Dead Pioneers team up with The Interrupters to tell us we’re “Never Alone.”

Photo credits: Derek Bremner

Dead Pioneers, the Indigenous fronted band from Denver, are back with another transmission from their forthcoming album Wagon Burner, due for release June 26th via Hassle Records.

Titled “Never Alone,” the new single features a vocal collaboration with Aimee Interrupter, vocalist for Californian ska-punk sensations, The Interrupters.“I wish I could express how proud we are about this collaboration, as well as how grateful we are to The Interrupters in their willingness to work with us on this one,” declares frontman Gregg Deal. “In all honesty, this has been in the works in conversation and execution for several years and can’t wait to share the very personal backstory on this.“The very real and palatable feeling of not belonging and finding solace through music, community and found family is something so many of us can understand on multiple levels. I’m a fan of The Interrupters, but also know through their music and first-hand how genuine they are in their mutual feeling and understanding of what this music does. ‘Never Alone’ is a homage to that familiar feeling of finding purpose in one’s self. Finding it through accessible means like music, community and the shared experiences associated with it. To share this with The Interrupters, Aimee, Kevin, Justin and Jesse is a dream. These are four fantastic people that don’t just understand these ideas, but stand by it in their love and compassion for the very human feelings of needing to find your place in the world. We’re super proud to share space with them as family.”

“Never Alone” is a life-affirming, rousing, air punching celebration of community and friendship, with Aimee’s vocals adding a deliciously addictive melodic hook to the song’s stomping groove.

“To hear Aimee’s voice in the chorus is overwhelming, to be sure,” says Gregg. “Besides the fact that she has a powerhouse of a voice, I hear the sound of a six-year friendship with Aimee and the Bivona boys with my own family, that predates Dead Pioneers. I am so grateful to this friendship, especially watching Aimee and my oldest kid Sage become close. When we say ‘Never Alone’, we mean it, knowing that the band, The Interrupters, are friends, hell, family, that truly believe these things along with us. I’m beyond grateful to share this with them, if not outwardly overwhelmed and emotional by it. What an incredible full circle moment.”

Keep your mind open.

[You’re never alone if you subscribe!]

[Thanks to Dan from Discipline PR.]