During the early ‘10s I went through a phase of listening to a lot of tech-metal, but there was one band in particular that really apprehended my intrigue. That band was Cyclamen, masterminded by one man, Hayato Imanishi. What impressed me back then and even more to this day, is that he lives his life on pushing boundaries for both himself and the music he makes; for a guy that can shred on the guitar with ferocious virtuosity, it’s somewhat refreshing to hear him humbly talk about always improving. Between 2010 and 2015, Cyclamen became a driving force in the scene, with extensive touring and steadfast recorded output – all managed solely by Hayato while he organised events for bands like Dillinger Escape Plan in Japan. However, after Amida’s release in 2018, things got steadily quieter. This year Hayato announced that he was going to sell the ownership of all his works, including the much-revered Cyclamen tracks that have been released over the years.
After reading the post with a small amount of shock, I reached out for an interview, not just to get a better understanding of why he was selling the rights to his labours, but just on where the band is at this point, and where Hayato intends to go artistically moving forward. After kindly accepting, I caught up with him while he was back in Japan helping his sister, to talk about the music industry’s business model, getting a buzz from complete…
Greetings, and welcome back to Sputnik’s semi-famous “SputStaff Top 10” series, in which – and get this – our site’s staff members pick their favorite 10 somethings! In this case, we had Mastodon in our crosshairs, a natural progression from June’s feature on Taylor Swift. If you are brave enough for infallible truths, then dare to proceed below to witness the top 10 Mastodon songs of all time — but be sure to also stop by the honorable mentions section to see what barely missed the cut! If you’re new to Mastodon and are just looking to get your feet wet, you might scroll all the way to the bottom of this feature to locate our Spotify playlist, where you can find the ten best Mastodon tracks all in one place for your convenient consumption. Hold onto your hats, here we go!
Of all the bands I love, Artificial Brain is the one that has taken me the longest to wrap my head around. As someone who prefers the more freewheeling skronkfests of avant-garde death metal, Artificial Brain’s steadier, more nuanced approach to the genre was lost on me. Yet it always felt like I was missing something obvious with the band, like a lost puzzle piece smothered between couch cushions. When premier single “Celestial Cyst” dropped, I had an epiphany: Artificial Brain are playing at a scale far beyond human comprehension. The band’s music feels like depicting galactic warfare, but there’s no glory found in the destruction. Its view is a top-down perspective, where fiery explosions appear as minor blips, and all that’s left to do is pray for the loss of life both corporeal and mechanical.
Examining their album covers gives clues to how their world building manifests sonically. Labyrinth Constellation’s grimy robotic skirmish on floating rocks is a perfect representation of Artificial Brain’s hectic yet laser-focused songwriting; it’s as fully realized a debut as you can find. Infrared Horizon depicts the aftermath with a robot cradling the decapitated friend of the same model, foreshadowing the black metal influence creeping forward. For their newest record, depicted with a rusted spider mech covered in moss, the production has gotten a lot murkier and muddier than previous outings. While it might not have the same frayed electrical…
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of July 29th, 2022. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
All discussion prompts submitted by the user nightbringer.
So far this year, we have implemented a handful of new, different ideas of our website’s staff blog — while some have predictably flamed out, others have endured and seem primed for a bright future. About four months ago, I surveyed our collective userbase for additional concepts, and this latest one came to us from nightbringer, who suggested all seven of the below discussion topics. We organized a small committee of writers (granitenotebook, JesperL, JohnnyoftheWell, and myself) to answer as we saw fit. In this first installment of what will hopefully be many, we observe the nature of music critique: from “what makes a classic” to how album art influences our perception of the music we hear. If you have questions you’d like to submit for future Sputnik Roundtable installments, please submit them here. Thanks, and we hope you enjoy the article!
(1) What are music reviews for?
Sowing: A music review is really just a persuasive argument. Yes, we critique the art based upon its objective merits as well as its subjective implications, but there’s a reason we don’t merely assign it a number and move on. The objective is to sell that opinion to the consumer and convince them that your take is the correct one. Why else would someone be reading – or thanks to YouTube – watching a music review? Outside…
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of July 22nd, 2022. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: July 22, 2022 –
Anthony Green and The High and Driving Band: boom.done
Genre: Indie Folk Label: Born Losers
Beach Bunny: Emotional Creature
Genre: Indie Pop Label: Mom+Pop
Ben Harper: Bloodline Manteinance
Genre: Soul / Blues Label: Chrysalis
Domestic Terminal: All The Stories Left To Tell
Genre: Indie Rock / Emo Label: Dishonest
Elysia: Numinous
Genre: Black Metal Label: Self released
Em Beihold: Egg in the Backseat [EP]
Genre: Singer Songwriter Label: Moon Projects
Gabbie Hanna: Trauma Queen
Genre: Singer Songwriter / Alternative Label: Self released
Hatriot: The Vale Of Shadows
Genre: Thrash Metal Label: Massacre
Imperial Triumphant: Spirit of Ecstasy
Genre: Death Metal / Jazz / Avant Garde / Black Metal Label: Century Media
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of July 15th, 2022. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: July 15, 2022 –
…And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead: XI: Bleed Here Now
Genre: Alt Rock Label: Dine Alone
Antigama: Whiteout
Genre: Grindcore Label: Selfmadegod
Ashenspire: Hostile Architecture
Genre: Black Metal / Progressive Metal Label: Aural Music
Beabadoobee: Beatopia
Genre: Indie Pop / Singer Songwriter Label: Dirty Hit
Belief: Belief
Genre: Electronic Label: Lex
Behold! The Monolith: From The Fathomless Deep
Genre: Doom / Sludge Label: Ripple
Birth: Born
Genre: Progressive Rock Label: Bad Omen
Black Midi: Hellfire
Genre: Noise Rock / Post Punk / Progressive Rock Label: Rough Trade
Metallica Store Written By: Matt Taylor
Foreword by James Hetfield – Afterword by Ray Burton
Released: August 16, 2016
276 pages
Publisher: Insight Editions
Metallica’s tell-all about the Master Of Puppets album and subsequent tour is presented with the same meticulous attention to detail and professionalism as every other project they’ve put their mind to…. except that Lulu album…
——————————————————————————————
Introduction:
You already know it’s coming, but…. … your mind keeps hoping somehow it doesn’t.
Metallica: Back to the Front starts with a date — September 27, 1986 — and a nuanced description of a Swedish countryside. It talks about how a car traveling those roads can feel detached from time and space… and then it focuses in on Metallica’s tour bus traveling the same roads. It’s at this point that almost any reader will know what’s coming. It kind of hit me like a shock when I realized they were opening with one of the most tragic events in Metallica’s history, but I prepared myself for the inevitable. The thing is, it didn’t come. Matt Taylor and Metallica don’t use Cliff Burton’s death to simply provide a shocking way to open the book. Instead, the subsequent series of events are presented almost like a movie. There are beautifully detailed descriptions of the countryside, the tour bus, and its occupants. Funny stories and observations…
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of July 8th, 2022. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: July 8, 2022 –
Altars: Ascetic Reflection
Gender: Black Metal / Death Metal / Dissodeath Label: Everlasting Spew
Apollo Brown: This Must Be The Place
Gender: Hip Hop Label: Mello Music Group
Ardours: Anatomy of a Moment
Gender: Alt Metal Label: Frontiers
Bad Breeding: Human Capital
Gender: Punk / Noise Rock Label: One Little Independent
Welcome to the second installment of our 2022 quarterly playlist! Feel free to jam the playlist below while reading what our writers had to say about each selection. Tell us what your favorites are in the comments, as well as any new artists you may have discovered here — or, alternatively, tell us what we missed! Thanks for reading/listening.
Unsurprisingly, the eponymous third chapter from Long Island’s singular dissonant machine stands as one of the finest death metal albums to come out in the first half of 2022. The first single, “Celestial Cyst”, with its dense psychedelic(ish) slow-paced section, is not only Artificial Brain‘s most iconic moment, but also epitomizes its unforeseen emotional weight. –TheNotrap
Asian Glow – “Look Close, Nose the Reflection” Stalled Flutes, means
The biggest and bestest track on Asian Glow’s tangled knockout of a new album might just be the most impressive thing to come out of the whole of 5th wave emo. It is momentous; it is ambitious, perhaps a little too much so; it is maudlin yet you can almost dance to it; it has best bits and they don’t last forever. It’s
There was never an intense desire for The Moon is a Dead World to finally have a sequel. In the realm of screamo or screamo-adjacent music, one-offs are par for the course, with the genre littered with classics delivered by groups that endured for a handful of years at best. These titans gradually generate their own mythology, and they transform into stories told ‘round the campfire by weathered stalwarts—tales of triumph we must strive to recreate. Of all those predecessors, however, it can be reasonably asserted that Moon was the most irreplicable of them all. The scene at large didn’t dare to take a stab at it; observing the trajectory of Gospel’s associated music influences reveals how few, if any, tried to capitalize off their work. It was equal parts the daunting critical reception, the eclectic grab-bag of genres, and the stunning musicianship required to tie it all together. It’s not likely for that drumming performance to reappear, nor is it probable for progressive rock sensibilities and keyboards to reunite in a category seemingly adverse to them.
Who else to perform Gospel again than, well, Gospel themselves? From the obscurity they once disappeared to, they decided to return in what could be the most shocking comeback witnessed in the industry. It’s impressive not only for the absurd waiting period between releases, but also due to its quality; The…
The city of Columbus has changed much over the past decade. Ohio’s reputation as ‘that lame Midwestern state’ certainly persists, but it’d be hard to figure that when observing the growth of the state’s capital; it’s undergoing one of the highest growth rates of all Midwestern metropoles. It’s no longer simply a domain for the Buckeye faithful (and the broken, battered Blue Jackets fans), but a combination of diverse people arriving from all corners of the United States. It’s a change that can be observed in the heightened enrollment rates of The Ohio State University. It can be felt in the explosive crowds filling the stands of the novel Lower.com stadium. It can be witnessed in the outdoor Shakespeare shows and the sprawling Arts Festival. Most importantly, for us at least, it can be heard in the bustling live music scene.
As a consequence of Columbus’ rise to prominence, its music market has considerably increased. Beyond the multitude of stadiums and theaters that can serve as concert venues, there are a plethora of smaller locales with their own personality and show miscellany. A trip to north downtown’s King of Clubs might feature the legends of melodic death metal Dark Tranquillity, a brutal combo of Thy Art is Murder and After the Burial, or an amateur wrestling display. KEMBA Live can provide The Shins, Wiz Khalifa, or Meshuggah. For something off the beaten path, The Rambling House exhibits bluegrass jam sessions, jazz and stand-up comedy. Regardless of…
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of July 1st, 2022. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: July 1st, 2022 –
Black Cilice: Esoteric Atavism
Genre: Raw Black Metal Label: Iron Bonehead Productions
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of June 24th, 2022. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: June 24, 2022 –
Alestorm: Seventh Rum of a Seventh Rum
Genre: Heavy Metal Label: Napalm
Alexisonfire: Otherness
Genre: Post Hardcore Label: Dine Alone
Axioma: Sepsis
Genre: Black Metal / Death Metal Label: Translation Loss
Belphegor: The Devils
Genre: Black Metal / Death Metal Label: Nuclear Blast
The Brian Jonestown Massacre: Fire Doesn’t Grow on Trees
Genre: Psychedelic Rock Label: A Recordings
Caamp: Lavender Days
Genre: Indie Folk Label: Mom + Pop
Candy: Heaven Is Here
Genre: Hardcore / Punk Label: Relapse
Chaotian: Effigies of Obsolescence
Genre: Death Metal Label: Dark Descent
Coheed and Cambria: Vaxis II: A Window Of The Waking Mind
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of June 17th, 2022. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: June 17, 2022 –
Alanis Morissette: The Storm Before The Calm
Genre: Singer Songwriter / Meditation Label: Sony Music
Alice Merton: S.I.D.E.S.
Genre: Indie Pop Label: Mom + Pop
Ataraxy: The Last Mirror
Genre: Death Metal Label: Dark Descent
Bartees Strange: Farm To Table
Genre: Indie Rock / Singer Songwriter Label: 4AD
Chaos Magic: Emerge
Genre: Symphonic Metal Label: Frontiers
Civil War: Invaders
Genre: Power Metal Label: Napalm
Consecration: Cinis
Genre: Death Metal / Doom Label: Redefining Darkness
Denouncement Pyre: Forever Burning
Genre: Black Metal / Death Metal Label: Agonia
Destroy Rebuild Until God Shows: Destroy Rebuild
Genre: Post Hardcore Label: Equal Vision / Velocity
Esoctrilihum: Consecration Of The Spiritüs Flesh
Genre: Black Metal / Death Metal Label: I, Voidhanger
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