By now you guys have probably read dmat’s review for the new Lack The Low album, God-Carrier (and if you haven’t you really ought to go do that…right now yeah?). And while Mathias’ review pushed my own precarious dib aside like an uncle’s least favourite, annoying nephew…his review really hits the nail on the head. Kind of like Lack The Low’s God-Carrier. Anyhow… I got to chatting to the mastermind behind the tunes, multi-instrumentalist and Melbourne-based pop mastermind, Kat Hunter.
How do you think your music should be described. Baroque? Avant Garde? Pop? Pop-adjacent? What is Kat Hunter’s go-to style?
I think it’s pretty hard to describe even for me! I normally say avant-pop, but honestly the music just makes itself, and the classification comes later.
In regards to the album imagery? Are you bending over backwards to please a select few, or is there a deeper meaning to the arched back-ism, dark palette and the pillar which carries the weight of one (or many)?
The picture on the cover was taken by photographer Jeff Andersen Jr. When we were getting together to discuss my music and figure out ways of conveying it in photography, he came up with the idea of making some photos in the style of a Caravaggio painting. It was totally all Jeff’s idea and his ability to pull it off, but that’s where a lot of the ideas around dark shading and posture came from.
God-Carrier is relatively short. Do you think about length when composing? Did you have…
I haven’t had what I’d consider a true nightmare in at least a decade. I still have the occasional dream where something happens that makes me upset – perhaps I forget something important, or my car breaks down on the way to a big meeting – but the sort of haunting images that used to cross my mind when I was younger have entirely dissipated. No more shadowy figures standing at the foot of my bed, no more quiet laughter coming from downstairs, no more sitting straight up in bed after some kind of malformed, upright animal charges me in my own bedroom. Generally speaking, most people outgrow those kinds of fears – monsters and ghosts are replaced by adult stressors, and your dreams grow with you by reflecting those concerns.
“That Cannot Be Dreamed” is the closest I’ve come to experiencing that sort of terror again. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an exhilarating terror – but still quite spooky. I’m admittedly not the most well-versed in Blut aus Nord’s expansive discography, or even black metal for that matter, but I’ve heard enough of them both to know “That Cannot Be Dreamed” is exceptional. It evokes the sort of hellish imagery that other bands strive for with twice the effort and half the affect – resulting in an eerily powerful blend of avant-garde metal and industrialized dissonance. Despite the visceral, primitive fear that the song invites, it also manages to be majestic, beautiful, and meditative –…
At the outset of Weezer’s career, The Blue Album and Pinkerton established them as one of the greatest new rock acts of their time. However, a run of six LPs from 2001-2010 saw their reputation tarnished by music that was occasionally good enough, but all too often disappointing. After a decade of mixed results, it seemed that Weezer had adopted a new identity – not one that wanted to please their loyal fanbase, but rather one that used meme-worthy album art and was obsessed with fame.
On the heels of 2014’s Everything Will Be Alright in the End and 2016’s The White Album, it seemed like Weezer had finally reclaimed control of their destiny. However, as with history, Weezer seems to repeat itself. Just as those two albums rekindled Weezer’s magic, we once again found/find ourselves mired in another excessive run of mediocrity. Pacific Daydream, The Black Album, and Van Weezer were all pretty bad, while The Teal Album gets a bit of a pass because it was a gimmicky covers album. OK Human has really been the band’s only post-2016 saving grace, and even that record – while quite beautiful at times – didn’t quite capture the full essence of Weezer. It was like Weezer does the Beach Boys (not that I’m complaining personally), sans any of the grittier punk/rock elements to keep them grounded.
So where does that leave us in 2022? Well, Weezer is embarking upon an ambitious…
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of March 18th of 2022. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: March 18th, 2022 –
Aeviterne: The Ailing Facade
Genre: Death Metal Label: Profound Lore
Aktarum: Trollvengers
Genre: Folk Metal Label: Art Gates
Agathodaimon: The Seven
Genre: Black Metal Label: Napalm
Babeheaven: Sink Into Me
Genre: Trip Hop / Soul Label: Self released
Black Fucking Cancer: Procreate Inverse
Genre: Black Metal / Death Metal Label: Sentient Ruin
Are you a member of Sputnik? Are you also a musician? Drop a message here for a chance to get your name out there to the community!
BACKGROUND
Artist Bio: Methadone Skies is an independent psychedelic rock group from Timisoara, Romania. Active since 2009, the instrumental quartet has released 5 full length records so far. Each LP shares its own musical direction, often leaning into stoner, post-rock and doom metal territories. There were never any boundaries set, so each affair is the sum of various influences and constant sonic exploration. Retrofuture Caveman is the latest album, released in May 2021. The LP mainly blends post-rock with stoner alongside doom metal touches. It is perhaps one of the most calibrated and cohesive efforts so far. Although we are not a heavy touring band, we managed to play over 100 gigs in our country and Central-Eastern Europe over the past decade. We shared the stage with multiple bands in the genre such as Yawning Man, Samsara Blues Experiment, Motorpsycho, My Sleeping Karma, Stoned Jesus, Acid Mothers Temple, Toner Low, Stonebride, 1000MODS and Zaum among others.
Genres: Stoner Rock/Psychedelic/Progressive
Band Lineup: Alexandru Wehry (guitar), Raul Stanciu (guitar, E-Bow), Mihai Guta (bass), Flavius Retea (drums, percussion, keyboards)
Hello and welcome back to our ongoing sexification of Staff past and present and hopefully present-and-future by way of deep-diving casual-reading power-lifting interview posi-sharking antics: Sputnik’s very own Meet the Spartans. Steel yourself as impossible questions are posed and the Staffers you wish you’d had the courage or attention span to acknowledge surpass your wildest expectations.
Today we speak to a mav, a gonz, a true salt, a vagrant wordsmith. He will scratch your back, make you hungry, cook you dinner, steal all your houseplants, and win a big rusty bronze prize for it because he is just that good. He has never been sober. He will never drop the ball. He has the flow; everything is flowing. Is he a true disciple of Heraclitus, or the Dionysian we’ve all dreamed we could be? Don’t ask him – he don’t fuckin know! What do we know?
Yes this isMiloRuggles!
Milo.
J-Johnny? Is that you?
Hi.
Where are we? Can you loosen these straps on my wrists?
You tell me. This is an interview. You have the answers. Give them to me. But first, Sowing gave me a stop-and-search warrant: I’m going to need to see your three most recent jams and last meal itinerary before we can go any further.
You’ve caught me at a hell of a time. I might even seem cool! Check these out:
Depending on where you are in the world, Happy Mar10 Day (woohoo!) or Happy 311 Day.
Thanks very much to those participating in the 2022 application cycle, submitting new genre tag proposals, and providing feedback on site changes you’d like to see implemented.
Some of your proposals (e.g., “what if we had a nice shiny fire engine”) are unfortunately not in the budget (and this will come to bite us when the servers finally go out in a blaze of glory), but others were well-received when passed along to the one person who can make magic happen.
This entry will start with 2022 promotions, followed by a discussion of the community’s submissions for proposed genre tags (along with confirming that new genres will be added at a date TBD; current projections are late Q2), and then concluding with reviewing some of the consistent themes in your feature proposals.
My sincere thanks once more to all users for their participation in the community survey.
Part I: New Hires
First: congrats are in order to dmathias52, JesperL, Kompys2000, and Sunnyvale as the newest staff contingent, and a welcome to fogza and normaloctagon as new contributors, along with a “Welcome back!” to anat as well as ian b, who exercised their right to a grace application. Any former writer who stepped away because work/school/IRL responsibilities took precedence but would like to…
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of March 11, 2022. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: March 11, 2022 –
Alex Cameron: Oxy Music
Genre:Indie-Pop/Rock
Label: Secretly Canadian
Angelmaker: Sanctum
Genre: Death Metal/Metalcore
Label: Angelmaker
Blazemth: The Return Of Lucifer
Genre: Black Metal
Label: Xtreem Music
Bodega (US-NY): Broken Equipment
Genre: Indie-Rock/Punk
Label: What’s Your Rupture?
The Boo Radleys: Keep on with Falling
Genre: Britpop/Shoegaze
Label: Boostr
Bryan Adams: So Happy It Hurts
Genre: Pop/Rock
Label: BMG
Cailleach Calling: Dreams Of Fragmentation
Genre: Black Metal
Label: Debemur Morti P
Chemicide: Common Sense
Genre: Thrash
Label: PRC Music
Cryptivore: Celestial Extinction
Genre: Death Metal/Grind
Label: Bitter Loss
The Districts: Great American Painting
Genre: Indie-Rock/Folk Punk
Label: Fat Possum
Drug Church: Hygiene
Genre: Punk/Post-Hardcore
Label: Pure Noise
I caught up with Sputnikmusic staff member Brett Tharp (Gameofmetal) about blending black metal with spaghetti western, Dark Watcher’s 2 EPs, collaborating with Allelic, and more.
Give us the story behind Dark Watcher. How and when did the project start? What obstacles were encountered? At what point did you know it was definitely something you wanted to pursue?
Dark Watcher came about sometime around the beginning of 2019. I was living in Arkansas and going to college. Music had been on the wayside for a while, it had been difficult to continue practicing regularly within a schedule that busy and my creative focus had been turning towards writing in recent years, still doing some reviews and testing the waters on a few short stories. As silly as it sounds, the renewed interest in music coincided with the release of the game Red Dead Redemption 2, which had a really fantastic and often unorthodox score. I think one day I…
Welcome to sputnikmusic’s (first ever?) roundtable interview, featuring the contributors! The goal is to create an opportunity to illuminate some of the current contributing team, like how it goes with the staffers in the ongoing Staff Wars series: questions and answers in a cozy interview. But there is a twist: we ask and answer the questions by all of us! We hope you’ll enjoy it.
List of participants (alphabetical order): dedex, dmathias52, Evok, garas, JesperL, Kompys2000, Koris, linguist2011, neekafat, Sunnyvale, tyman128, YoYoMancuso
[Because this roundtable spanned several months, some responses have been edited for clarity.]
Question 1, via garas: Who the hell are you, and what is your spirit animal?
garas: I’m the resident grumpy Hungarian who doesn’t care about just riffs and ambiance (or cats and craft beers) — I’d say it’s the perfect match to my biologist career. It’s darker than you think! [Carpathian Forest starts playing in the background] Also, my spirit animal would be:
garas’ face every morning
dedex: I’m a Franco-Belgian idiot who likes way too many genres to properly focus on one. I’m a data analyst, so I spend my days looking at stuff and listening to music — dope! My spirit animal is France’s national emblem: the rooster (also called ‘the cock’), ’cause it’s the only animal that can sing with both feet deep in…
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of March 4th of 2022. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: March 4th, 2022 –
As I May: Karu
Genre: Metalcore Label: Uprising
Band of Horses: Things Are Great
Genre: Folk Label: BMG
Belmont: Aftermath
Genre: Pop Punk Label: Pure Noise
Crowbar: Zero and Below
Genre: Sludge Label: MNRK Heavy
Daigo Hanada: Satori
Genre: Ambient Label: Moderna
The Defaced: Charlatans
Genre: Death Metal Label: ViciSolum Productions
Deserted Fear: Doomsday
Genre: Death Metal Label: Century Media
Dolly Parton: Run, Rose, Run
Genre: Country Label: Butterfly
Fueled By Fire: Past...Present...No Future Pt. 2 [EP]
I caught up with Sputnikmusic staff member Dewinged about how his band O’Summer Vacation formed and what touring is like right now, all before receiving some very important nuggets of De-wisdom.
Tell us a little bit about how o’summer vacation formed. Is there a story behind the band name? When did you join the group, and what sparked your interest in making noise/math punk?
o’summer vacation goes way back to that time in 2009 when our band’s dear leader mikiiiiii didn’t have money for a guitar, so he bought a cheap bass instead and started jamming with a couple of friends. He was a big fan of the Touch and Go label bands and early 00s math rock by then. For some reason, probably just laziness, the band never got a guitar player, so they started playing gigs as a trio of bass, drums and vocals. I’ve heard the…
“Why doesn’t it get better with time?”, a forlorn Regina Spektor asks God. The two are sitting down at a bar across from a corner deli, beers in hand. You might not have taken God for the drinking type, but it was actually his idea. After encountering her while she was walking home one night, he suggests that the two grab a beer and relax a bit. That’s about where God’s portion of the dialogue ends, however; he strikes up this fun idea, and then leaves Regina alone with her thoughts. “Let the ones who want it bad get all the things that make them better”, she wishes. Then, as if talking to a wall: “Let the ones who don’t care feel a thrill.” You can sense the desperation in her voice growing with each verse. On the other side of the table, an expressionless face stares onward, refusing to respond. “And I just want to ride, but this whole world — it makes me carsick” Regina continues, at this point probably aware that God has completely tuned her out. “I’m becoming all alone again…stay” she pleads. As the camera pans out, Spektor indeed finds herself completely alone again. By the end of the song, the dialogue is reversed: this time it’s Spektor seeking God out, asking him to join her for a beer while singing “It’s awful late…I know you’re here.” No response is given, and he never shows.…
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of February 25th of 2022. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: February 25th, 2022 –
Abraham: Débris De Mondes Perdus
Genre: Post Metal, Progressive, Sludge Label: Pelagic Records
Allegaeon: Damnum
Genre: Melodic Death Metal Label: Metal Blade Records
Avril Lavigne: Love Sux
Genre: Pop Punk Label: Warner
Bad Omens: The Death of Peace of Mind
Genre: Rock, Metalcore Label: Sumerian Records
BAMBARA: Love on My Mind
Genre: Alternative, Pop, Noise Label: WHARF CAT RECORDS
Basia Bulat: The Garden
Genre: Alternative, Folk Label: Secret City Records Inc
Blood Incantation: Timewave Zero
Genre: Ambient (This Release) Label: Century Media
I caught up with Scott Krasman to discuss his ambient project Kannatama, and his debut LP “Hell Debris”.
You’ve been involved in a number of projects, from Dropped Flyer (Trip Hop) and Consumer Death Proposal (Hardcore/Thrash) now to Kannatama (Ambient). What is it like moving between genres with such widely varying aesthetics, and what ultimately led you to your most current project, Kannatama? Do you see one genre as more “you”, are you still searching for your preferred style, or are you just a musician who enjoys dabbling in as many musical landscapes as possible?
I’ve been officially making music since 2011, when Dropped Flyer grew from the influences of DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing. Those EPs were largely created using Audacity and some simple reversing/editing techniques – looking back now, a lot of it comes off as unpolished but ambitious. Some of the tracks on Lowlife are a glimpse into what Kannatama eventually became, especially the opening…
