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Ballad of the Blog

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There’s nothing here, and it’s like I’ve tumbled into an invisible thicket. I call this blog danger, loosely defined as an inescapable aura of demise in the face of consistency. Can I bring a date to the relaunch? Because that’s what I’m promising—a blog anew, updated and worthy of apprehensive glances. I could go into where I’ve been, but my explanation isn’t worth your time. It’ll come off as moan moan moan been so busy my eyes are a mess fatigue is the mind-killer and so on and on and on. Let’s assume (please) that I’m trying for real this time. Mocking is appropriate if it doesn’t work out.

I hate saying that I’m adopting a different tone and narrative strategy, but here we are. I’ve been thinking so much about writing these past several months. Tomes have been composed in my head, endless scrolls like ones pouring out of Kerouac’s typewriter, scotch-taped thoughts and brain flowers. Cut-ups, nonsense, and language experiments. That’s what I’ve always wanted to do, this fascination with wooooords and how they woooooork. I guess I’ve been held back by the imagined you, the reader, when the blog should exist more as my exercise (and exorcism).

It’s funny because I can point to all the different phases 8sided.blog has gone through in content and style following each of my random disappearances. This was once a music news blog, then a hot-takes-on-music-news blog, then a little more review-y, a little more interview-y, and occasionally link-bloggy. I never know exactly what the blog should be, which is both the best excuse for slacking and a technique for success. If I leave my space undefined, then where’s the measure of failure? There’s also laziness in the haziness, especially with all the previously alluded-to moan-moan stuff going on. But the key, I think, is to leave this without a purpose or goal and trudge forward valiantly, imagined reader be damned.

Man, I need this blog. I need to make this blog. Writing here, no matter how pretentiously and haphazardly, makes me feel like a special human being. And blogs these days are a kind of resistance—a thumbed nose at the tech brahs and the corporate interests and the sequential swiping up and discarding of beloved online journalism. I’ve had it with that shit. Staying quiet is no longer an option when I could be brusquely blogging on this here ‘indie web.’ Hoist the flag; I’m sailing the high seas.

What’s different? I’m thinking of adding some color and a bit more artsy-ness to the look of this thing. Some playfulness. There will be a lot more music—reviews, interviews, and whatnot in that signature pretentious and haphazard style. I’d like to get more personal about what I’m doing on this Earth, though I rarely leave my tiny patch of it anymore. In that regard, the challenge is to add fire to the unexciting. That’s where those language experiments fit in. And there will be links, and comments on links, and perhaps a word or two(thousand) on the links that give me heart palpitations.

That’s it. Let’s get this show on the road. Relaunch engaged, and hopefully (ha) I’ll be back tomorrow.

FELT

Ballad of the Blog

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Perhaps you’ve noticed that this blog is alive once more, after a long and mysterious absence. My newsletter came to a skidding halt about seven months ago, and the blog’s been eerily silent. The only place you could openly find me all this time was Twitter, which is simply embarrassing.

I wrote about this on Twitter last August with an optimistic tone that, in retrospect, was perhaps jumping the gun a little. Expanding on that thread, I’ll say that I was (and am) exhausted — just like many of you. As COVID-times dragged on and on and on and the vicious news cycle dragged on and on and on, the ennui gathered into mountains. There was nothing I wanted to write about. Nothing in my head, nothing inspiring, nothing exciting to document in the early morning hours. Even my journal, updated almost daily for years, went dark.

Luckily my professional life doesn’t rely on writing, so I had the luxury to stop and wait. Nevertheless, I knew that I was hardly alone in this stifled feeling. And, heeding the advice of those talented enough to write through this malaise, I knew the best strategy was to not stress out about my lack of motivation. The recommended move was actually to lean into it — do other things, find new hobbies, read lots of books, and occupy the brain with something other than the fact that the creative plumbing’s sprung a bad leak.

So, that’s what I did. I shifted focus to my spunky music label, 8D Industries. I learned to make tasty and fiery hot sauces (which became a gateway drug to vegan cooking). I got actively involved with marketing Caroline’s growing Kitten School channel. I spent a lot more time with family as I successfully and safely moved mom to a house next door during a pandemic. And I started getting involved in freelance podcast production.

Several months ago, I was hired to edit and co-produce Andrew Loog Oldham’s Sounds and Vision podcast, and the experience has been a delight. If you don’t know, Andrew is the original manager and producer for The Rolling Stones — as just one of his too-many-to-list-here historical music adventures — and he’s got stories for days. Check out the podcast if you’re even a little curious. It’s a lot of fun. I’d recommend the Elliot Easton (guitarist with The Cars) episode for a starter as it’s got lots of juicy behind-the-music-industry tales.

Meanwhile, the writing bug has finally returned over the last couple of months (along with the music bug, but that’s another story). As arbitrary as ‘the new year’ is as a signifier, it’s still a useful prompt to refresh. And that’s what I plan to do. On the immediate agenda: make some changes to the blog (currently in progress!), start blogging regularly again, and then, once firmly in the saddle, relaunch the newsletter. Voilà. Easier said than done, right? But I’m excited nonetheless, and that’s an accomplishment in and of itself.

I’ll finish this deep gaze into my navel with a few notes about the newsletter. 

First off, I’m retiring Ringo Dreams of Lawn Care. I consider Ringo its own series (in the television sense) and a moment-in-time capsule. I’ll call the relaunched newsletter something else (tbd). It’ll have a different format, but I’ll cover the same genre of topics. 

Also, the newsletter won’t be on Substack. I’m exploring a combination of Sendy and Newsletter Glue to host the newsletter on this site. This change potentially sets up a roadblock of discouragement as it’s complicated (oh jeez I’ve got to figure out what a VPS server is). But I want to learn newsletter self-hosting partly as a self-challenge and also to be able to teach others how it’s done. 

If you’re a Ringo subscriber your subscription will automatically transfer to the new entity once I’m ready to roll. You don’t have to do anything, unless you’d like to unsubscribe, which you can do at any time (including now if you’d like). If you’re not subscribed, go ahead and use the Substack sign-up form found in the sidebar of this site. I’ll add your address for the new incarnation of the newsletter upon launch.

❋-❋-❋-❋-❋-❋-❋-❋

Another personal update: I released a song at midnight on January 1.

Grottoes is a long-imagined project, revealed as I finally step away from Q-Burns Abstract Message. Yes, the AUDIOTOTEMPOLE EP was always meant as a closing of the door. And Grottoes predates “Touchtones (1997),” the earliest reference on that EP. I tried and failed to start a band called Grotto in the early ’90s after the dissolution of my much-beloved (by us and some others) band Tick Tick Tock. There are too many other bands called Grotto nowadays, so Grottoes it is. It looks mightier written as text that way, so win-win.

The quiet first appearance of Grottoes was a remix for Brighton’s The Self-Help Group and the song “Temple OS” (a fine song in its own right, btw). That one was recorded in mid-2021, during my supposed creative lag, and is the last time I worked on something musical. I hoped this would spark other Grottoes tunes to serve as accompanying tracks for something called “Straw Belle.”

“Straw Belle” isn’t new. I started recording it maybe three or four years ago, and it’s a song that I revisited and tweaked periodically. I settled on a final version at some point in late 2019. I feel it’s one of the best things I’ve recorded. And I held it tight — only about four people have heard “Straw Belle” before today — under the assumption that I’d record a few more songs like it and release an EP. As you probably guessed, that never happened.

After encouragement during a catch-up phone chat with my friend Jeff (the bass player in even earlier attempts at bands), I realized that “Straw Belle” would never see the light of day if I attached it to the loose promise of ‘other songs like it.’ So I decided it should finally come out on its own, and, as this revelation came at the end of 2021, New Year’s Day seemed like a novel release date.

For your consideration, here’s “Straw Belle” by Grottoes. Artwork by Matthew Naquin. Secret assistance from The Imprisoned Wizard. Sounds like group homes, wavering spaces, pangs of crunch, tones from belief, e-bow symphonies. I hope you like it. Please tell the others if you do.

Addendum: The Orlando Weekly‘s Bao Le-Huu wrote about my musical shift to Grottoes and scared a few headline skimmers by declaring me dead.

Ballad of the Blog: Phase 3 or 4

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I’m thinking a lot about my responsibilities as a digital citizen and how I can better contribute to the ‘indie web.’ There are steps I want to take to lessen — and perhaps remove — my participation in ad-supported social media. Ideally, my internet output will happen through this blog, my newsletter, and — for direct engagement — email. A longer post is forthcoming about why I’ve come to this point, but tl;dr: I’ve had it with Facebook and its ilk.

One upside is that I’ll post here more often. 8sided.blog has been quieter than usual, mainly due to growing pains with the demands of the weekly deadline of the newsletter. I don’t think I’ve had a writing deadline since college, so that’s proved challenging. I also set myself up by mostly posting more extended essays on the blog. That set up an expectation for myself that anything that goes here should be meaty — a multi-paragraph screed on a newsworthy topic. That’s held me off when I don’t have anything lengthy to say. It’s time to drop those reservations.

I’m an avid reader of other personal blogs out there in the ‘indie web.’ One of my favorites is Warren Ellis’s, which he claims to use mostly to post status updates and catalog his music and movie purchases. He peppers short posts that are sometimes just a photo of the sky (’timestamp‘) with longer musings about his world and process. The blog is entertaining and serves as the backbone for Ellis’s weekly newsletter, Orbital Operations. Every time I read it, I think, “I’d like to do something like this.”

Of course, I’m not Warren Ellis (there can only be one! … oh wait), and I’m not going to embarrass myself through imitation. But his approach gives me a lot of ideas. I’ve always wanted a more personal flavor to this blog and some fun posts outside of essays on ‘music’s place in the 21st century.’ And, as I begin my exodus from social media, I’ll want to use this space to check in with the world. It’s my home base, after all — the hub of my digital world. So if you’re a regular reader or have this planted in your RSS reader, then, first off: thank you. And secondly: get ready for an increase in blogging action.

One goal is to regularly post my version of a daily ‘status update,’ compiling what’s on my mind alongside things I’m encountering with my eyes and ears. If you’re a fan of the meatier stuff, that will still happen on the regular. Stay tuned for phase 3 (or is it 4?) of this blog.

 

The Ballad of the Blog

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Writer Alan Jacobs has some strong words for those of us still using social media:

The decision to be on Twitter (or Facebook, etc.) is not simply a personal choice. It has run-on effects for you but also for others. When you use the big social media platforms you contribute to their power and influence, and you deplete the energy and value of the open web. You make things worse for everyone. I truly believe that. Which is why I’m so obnoxiously repetitive on this point.

Jacobs’ attitude is in line with my previous thoughts on intention and the depersonalization of ‘newsfeed culture.’ The reality of supporting a corporate behemoth that’s up to no good is also something I struggle with. I’ve picked up my Twitter usage over the past few months, not decreased it, telling myself it’s a useful tool for networking. And I’m still paying for Facebook ads on my label releases. I feel like a little part of me dies every time I send a dollar to Facebook.

It’s remarkable that — though admittedly part of a tiny minority — we’re all asking these questions at the same time. And this is a conversation we need to have, whether supporting artists outside of Spotify or finding promotional and networking avenues that don’t involve Facebook. I’m not the only one to plant a flag in these issues. But I’d like the blog to talk more about how we wrestle with the tension between the independent creative community and the corporate interests propped up as gatekeepers. Music’s place in the 21st century, indeed.

And the Heart Grows Fonder

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My eyes are a mess. You probably already know this. Funny thing: I’ve only been admitted to a hospital once — at the age of 12, I stabbed my leg with a knife while building a tree fort on Christmas Eve — and still have all my organs. That includes my tonsils, my appendix, and even my wisdom teeth. I often joke that I’ll probably get hit with everything all at once, as if my maladies have been biding their time. I couldn’t have predicted that it would all go to my eyes.

I’ve always had an outrageous astigmatism, but in my late 30s, the condition graduated to outright keratoconus. Then there’s this double vision, requiring expensive prism lenses on the glasses I wear in addition to the keratoconus correcting contacts. And now I’m dealing with fucking Fuchs’ Dystrophy. I’ve noticed a haze in my right eye that I first chalked up to foggy contacts. But, of course, I live in the armpit of humid central Florida, where fogged-out lenses are a way of life. But then the haze — now resembling a light gauze — became noticeable without my contacts. This state of affairs also made driving impossible at night, as oncoming cars’ headlights made the gauze in my eye burst into an unattractive light show. 

Thanks to a superb new optometrist, the Fuchs’ was identified. She referred me to a specialist who explained the condition would get much worse in no time at all. The two options were a cornea transplant — sorry, nope, for reasons I won’t go into — or a new procedure that involved scraping the Fuchs’ out of my eyeball. Yikes, but okay, sure.

I had this procedure about a month ago. It went smoothly. Supposedly the surgery is just like a cataract removal (if that’s a helpful frame of reference) — I was awake, somewhat sedated, and didn’t feel a thing. It looked like I was watching a stationary version of the light tunnel at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey as the doctor performed the surgery. 

For the first couple of weeks, my eye felt like an eyelash got trapped on the surface. An awful feeling, especially as this was an eyelash that wouldn’t budge. And half those days, the feeling was accompanied by a faucet of tears. I went through multiple boxes of tissue. I couldn’t read, I couldn’t watch movies, and I could barely look at anything for long.

Now all that is thankfully over, though looking through my right eye is like peering through the bottom of a drinking glass. This fuzziness should fade to normal eyesight in several weeks. And I have to drip exotic eye drops ordered from Japan into my socket four times a day. The drops have something to do with stem cell growth. Unfortunately, they’re expensive and only available in Japan as the procedure performed on me is so new. So I had to order a pack of these eye drop bottles months in advance.

It’s a slow process, and it’s slowing me down. I’m constantly fighting off frustration as I fall behind on projects and work. These past months have felt like a deep pit, from hurricanes creating a wake of chaos to my bout with COVID that turned into weeks and weeks of godawful exhaustion, and then this eye biz. There’s so much I want to do (like post all the time on this blog!), but I feel captured in the sticky web of inconvenience. 

I’m finally prying myself loose. I’m still way behind on my work stuff (and please accept my heartfelt apologies if you’re someone I work with), but for the first time in ages, I’m experiencing motivation. More than anything, I want to write and ramp up my creative output. It’s as if the period of incapacitation has made the heart grow fonder. So I’ve devised plans and goals for this blog that are inspiring. I’ll detail them in an upcoming Ballad of the Blog post.

These months have also been a learning experience and a lesson in not beating oneself up. I’ve had lots of practice with self-blame during these challenges, and I’ve come out the other side more accepting and less debilitated. Anne Helen Petersen had a similar epiphany in today’s Culture Study newsletter, which I highly recommend you read. Ann imagines what her weekend would be like if she had completed all of her work tasks: 

The work would’ve been done. But I’ve already tried that whittled-down version of a life, and it’s not a life at all. It’s a burnout trap, a suffocation, a flattening of self. Sure, I’d have completed all the work, done all the tasks, finished all the laundry. But to what end? And to what future? The next weekend would come, and I’d feel some semblance of control, which I may or may not have been able to carry over into the week. But achieving control is not the same as achieving happiness.

As I advised someone on Mastodon going through a post-COVID struggle similar to mine: “Don’t mentally punish yourself for not being able to get everything done that you think you need to while feeling [exhausted]. I was doing that constantly, and I’m sure it made things worse.” If I gain extra wisdom and a new spark to create that I continue to cultivate, the turmoil of the last several months will have been worthwhile. As a wise person said, “When life hands you Godzilla, build Mechagodzilla.”

The Tonearm — Music Pitches

If you’d like to cover anything listed below, please shoot an email to michael@thetonearm.com

Please don’t share any of the (listen) links.

The release dates give an idea of when we would like to publish a story on a release, but they’re a guide, not a rule. We can still cover a release or artist if the date has passed.

Akasha System – Heliocene (100% Silk, Sep 5)

Eco-Futuristic Electronica

Heliocene ushers in a fresh chapter in the Akashic record, recasting the project’s precision synergy of cellular melody, pitter patter pads, spiral-tribalist dub, and eco-futurist swing for a new solar age. The album’s eight songs were recorded across 2023 and 2024, inspired by explorations of the many secret sanctuaries hidden in Florida’s sunblind paradise: singing towers, ancient grottoes, emerald lagoons. From vortex house (“Purity Vector,” “Sun Particle”) to mirage electronica (“Haunted Planet,” “Soma Totem”) to drum circle comedown (“Terraform Dream”), the sides flow, glow, and gleam, dialed in but dreaming out, tracing radiant waves of the eternal now.

(listen)

Chimehours – Underneath the Earth (Cold Spring – Oct 16)

Dark Folk / Gothy Melodrama

RIYL: Dead Can Dance, Cocteau Twins, Sigur Ros, etc. || Inspired by ethereal minimalism, retro cinema and folk narratives, Chimehours craft a sonic palette reflecting on the pressures of modern life and the desire for reconnection with the natural world. Written and produced between Derbyshire, London and Margate, the album incorporates drones, drums, gritty guitars merging with woodwind, strings and voice textures that resist clear linearity. The result is a balanced blend of naturalism, tonal clarity, and experimental sonic tension. “We started to get bigger and bolder in our approach, and it was fun and mysterious and compulsive to bring it all together (as though other forces were at work…),” shares the duo.

(listen)

Chris Casey – Buried Out Back EP (Alamo Records – Aug 22)

Rap Collides With Indie Rock in Savannah

Chris Casey is a 20 year old artist hailing from Savannah, Georgia. Combining the sounds of alternative rock and hip hop, Chris finds influences on a range of Tyler, The Creator to Weezer, and brings a vibrant sound to it all. His biggest success came earlier this year with his song “Cow Killers”, as it highlights the experience of growing up in the south as a black youth in a tongue in cheek manner. How common is it for a rapper to be compared to Rivers Cuomo? What about Beck? Bradley Nowell? Buried Out Back is not only the newest project from flourishing alternative/hip hop artist Chris Casey, but it’s also a showcase of passion and genre-blending. This year, Chris has been consistently adding to the budding indie rock-rap subgenre. 

(listen – “Bodies” + “Play Dead” + “Head In The Dirt“)

СОЮЗ (SOYUZ) – KROK (Mr. Bongo – Oct 24)

Jazzy Lounge Pop / Global Folk Fusion

“Krok” means “step” in Belarusian – and for Alex Chumak and his band this word comes with a lot of meaning. It’s the title and theme that run throughout COЮ3 (SOYUZ)’s fourth album, reflecting the journeys the band has navigated in recent years, having moved to Warsaw due to political unrest in their homeland of Belarus and the outbreak of war in Ukraine. Embracing the uncertainty became both the inspiration and main lyrical theme for Alex Chumak, SOYUZ’ composer and arranger, who also decided to go a step further and change the language in which he writes songs from Russian, which is used as lingua franca in many post-Soviet countries, to his native Belarusian. The result is nine songs about dreams and outer space, ordinary miracles, things very close and very distant at the same time. Though primarily recorded in Brazil, KROK is not a Brazilian or MPB album. It blends the band’s Eastern European roots with jazz, folk and global influences. The genre of the music is hardly identifiable: there are folk ballads and jazz-driven pop compositions covered in lush and often dissonant string and woodwind arrangements where each note is placed with care and meaning behind it.

(listen)

Dylan Henner – Star Dream FM (Phantom Limb – Oct 17)

Nostalgitronica / Memory-Laced Ambient

Marking his first proper full-length release since 2022’s You Always Will Be on AD 93, Dylan Henner introduces this deeply considered, choral-laced work of experimental ambient music. The backdrop to Star Dream FM represents a tactile canvas on which the record’s true meaning is painted. It is, through Henner’s now-characteristic employment of ambient-textured synthesis, marimba, digital choir, and processed voice, a study of late adolescence and the experience of being seventeen. The result of this examination is a collection of meticulously constructed human-not-human compositions built from Henner’s mesmeric brand of desolate beauty. His immersive, storytelling range is broad, spanning from serene to cerebral, from powerful to uncanny. Henner references ambient and experimental music, chamber composition, the human voice, sound design, and field recordings, and wraps everything in the myth of his imaginary radio station Star Dream FM.

(listen)

Eric Angelo Bessel – Mirror at Night (Lore City Music – Oct 31)

Ambient Mycology / Ethereal Minimalism from the PNW

Mirror at Night is the second solo album from Portland, Oregon audio + visual artist Eric Angelo Bessel. Composed of twelve instrumental songs, the album paints an ambient landscape of dispersed artificial clouds and bioluminescent waters. Bessel imagines the nostalgic sounds of the Mellotron and the early aughts multitimbrality of Alesis synths. Mirror at Night is composed of twelve vignettes glimpsing the in-between realm; the past, present, and future merging into a still, obsidian surface. “File under: Ambient, Drone, Ethereal, Instrumental, Post-rock, Psychedelic”

(listen)

Hainbach & Simon Spiess – We Collide, We Shatter, We Grow (Mystery Circles – Sep 5)

Water Tank Ambient / Meditative Experimental

Hainbach: “There is a third contributor to this record, but it’s not a human, it’s a space. In one of the stranger live sessions I’ve ever had, I broadcast music from my studio to an abandoned water tank on the outskirts of Colorado. … A few weeks later, as I sent Simon’s live saxophone performance into the tank, he became the voice that had been missing on the record. We Collide, We Shatter, We Grow is an album that embraces both accident and experience. It’s about the random encounters that shape our lives, enrich them, and help us grow as artists and as humans. Abstract pings and drones flirt with wafts of jazz, as electricity and breath float through cosmic emptiness. Yet, there’s a sense of gravity that keeps it emotionally grounded, even in its freest moments of improvisation.”

(listen)

Jason Rigby – Mayhem (Endectomorph Music – Aug 22)

Improvised Sax + Drum Jazz / Studio-as-Instrument Vibes

After nearly a decade away from recording as a leader, saxophonist Jason Rigby returns with a groundbreaking duo album featuring renowned drummer Mark Guiliana. Mayhem showcases Jason Rigby’s evolution through its incorporation of sounds and instruments Rigby had never explored in his recordings before—synthesizers, keyboards, electronic processing, and more—creating both a sonic and emotional shift that represents a new chapter in his musical journey. Recorded at Pete Min’s treasure trove studio Lucy’s Meat Market in Los Angeles, the album emerged through what Rigby describes as an “effortless” creative process. While he brought a handful of compositions—some more fleshed out than others—the album came together organically with significant creative input from both Guiliana and engineer Pete Min. The duo made full use of Lucy’s Meat Market’s unique collection of instruments: a celeste, Moog bass and synths, a treated miniature piano, a beautiful grand piano, a pump organ, and a variety of vintage electronic signal processors. They also drew from Guiliana’s extensive percussion collection, including gongs and cymbals. Roughly half of the tracks are based on composed material Rigby brought into the studio, while the other half emerged through improvisation, layering, and collaborative construction during the recording process.

(listen)

Jorge Espinal – Bombos y Cencerros (Buh Records – Aug 29)

Experimental Guitar / Improvisational Music

After more than a decade of touring, collaborations, and sonic explorations, Peruvian guitarist and improviser Jorge Espinal presents Bombos y cencerros, his first solo album, released through Buh Records. Based in Buenos Aires since 2007, Espinal has been part of projects such as Ricarda Cometa and Calato, where he developed a musical approach in which body and instrument function as a single rhythmic unit. The idea for the album took shape after a 16-date European tour in 2023. Back in Buenos Aires, Espinal entered Estudio Belcebú to record, in a single session, a series of pieces that condense years of practice. Here we hear him playing, all at once: prepared electric guitar, bass drum, cowbell, pedals, and laptop. He triggers samples, builds loops, freezes sounds. The guitar becomes a source of rhythm rather than harmony.

(listen)

Kara-Lis Coverdale – A Series of Actions in a Sphere of Forever (Smalltown Supersound – Sep 12)

Solo Piano / Expressive Nocturnes

Kara-Lis Coverdale returns to Smalltown Supersound with her fourth full-length album, A Series of Actions in a Sphere of Forever, a collection of nine pieces, dedicated to solo piano. The album’s nine pieces are in a way classic nocturnes (i.e. inspired by night), but also evoke tangential, abstract associations: an animation of melodic webs; moving through a thick substance; sound objects in space. Written and recorded during winter in a small rural studio in Ontario, they also reflect Coverdale’s retreat from maximal sound and a return to acoustic fundamentals. The piano’s natural resonance guides the structure of the works, with Coverdale applying subtle electronic processing only to lightly blur the edges of melody and blend harmonics. Additionally, audible breaths underscore the album’s connection to the body’s inherent rhythms and multiple sonorities: the piano’s timbre and natural harmonics, as well as its effect in creating an elusive state of semi-consciousness. A Series of Actions in a Sphere of Forever is slow and focuses as much on the decay of piano melody as on its attack. In Coverdale’s own words: “This album is an exploration of harmony in space, music as an antithesis to silence. A silence that does not exist.”

(listen)

Land Of Echo – Almost Music (Wah Wah 45s – Aug 15)

Mutant Disco / End-Of-Summer Vibes

Almost Music, the debut album from Land of Echo, is a deeply personal celebration of return — to the city, to community, and to sound. Released via Wah Wah 45s, this record marks a heartfelt re-entry into a post-pandemic and politically confused world, with music shaped by reflection, hope, and the timeless pulse of the dancefloor. Blending altered disco, downtempo soul, and experimental electronics, Almost Music invites listeners into an emotive soundscape where every beat and bassline carries weight. It’s a sonic journey through shared struggles and future-facing optimism. At the heart of Land of Echo is Rob Mac, producer and longtime figure in UK underground music. From running the legendary Scratch hip-hop nights in the ’90s to releasing under aliases like Speeka (on Wah Wah 45s), Gum Drop, An Explore, and Jumbonics, Rob returns here to the soulful edges of dance music — armed with vintage gear, fresh vision, and a deep connection to his collaborators. Lucy Wilkins, violinist and synth explorer, brings cinematic sweep and subtle textures to the record. Known for her work with Massive Attack, Radiohead and Roxy Music, Lucy is Rob’s most consistent creative partner. Her contribution is both foundational and exploratory.

(listen)

Living Hour – Internal Drone Infinity (Keeled Scales/Paper Bag Records – Oct 17)

Noisey Pop / Shoegaze-Adjacent Indie

Winnipeg indie rock heavyweights Living Hour are back with their fourth full-length album, Internal Drone Infinity… Known for their lush fusion of dream-pop and shoegaze, the band continues to evolve, merging folk-inflected slowcore, fuzzy indie-pop, and hazy noise-rock into a sound that’s both expansive and emotionally piercing … full of icy, melodic vocals, grainy textures, twangy warmth, screeching distortion, and immersive percussion. Drawing inspiration from Yo La Tengo, Magnolia Electric Co., The Weakerthans, Feeble Little Horse, Yuck, and DIIV, the album explores the cyclical process of observation, documentation, and projection. Living Hour offer a raw, commanding expansion of their dreamy sound—a bold step into new territory that gives voice to the quiet strength and simmering rage of the overlooked.

(listen)

Mappe Of – Afterglades (Paper Bag Records – Sep 19)

Electronic Avant-Pop

A sweeping experimental sci-fi-folk album, Afterglades is a meditation on the end of the world—and what it means to face it alongside the people you love. Blue and orange hues permeate the aesthetic, along with decaying archways, antiquated technology, and overgrown greenhouses. Lost transmissions echo across desolate landscapes. Remains of the digital world distort the fabric of reality. Still, there are glimmers of light, ethereal beings floating above the earth. There is still hope left in the world at the end. From classically inspired, masterfully performed intricate guitar arrangements to hauntingly beautiful melodies and vocal textures to lush epic soundscapes, Mappe Of (aka Tom Meikle) is an artist unafraid to annihilate any musical boundaries and chart his own course.

(listen)

Marc-Antoine Barbier – Musée Des Espèces (Not Not Fun – Oct 3)

Electro-Acoustic Ecology / Canadian Kankyō Ongaku

The ‘soundscape ecologies’ of Montreal composer Marc-Antoine Barbier first emerged from late-night home studio improvisations triangulating Jon Hassel, Bernie Krause, and sleep deprivation. Gradually a palette congealed – granular tapestries of modal electronics woven with percussion, sax, flute, and DX7. The result is a low-lit patchwork of dream and delirium, fractal ambient and fifth-world freefall: Musée Des Espèces [‘Museum of Species’]. Barbier’s background in new wave world-building and synth-patch sculpting fuses here to full effect. The songs are alternately soothing and serpentine, swaying with smoke, rhythm, color, and ceremony. It’s album-as-environment, a harmony of spheres and vertical terrain, swiftly tilting through a tunnel of sky, sea, and circuitry. “I wanted to create something between chaos and harmony – a naturalistic dialogue.”

(listen)

Mason Lindahl – Joshua / Same Day Walking (Mt. Brings Death – Sep 24)

Solo Guitar w/ Atmospheric Might / Post-Flamenco

A solo guitar double album where flamenco virtuosity meets the dusky ambience of Fennesz’s Endless Summer. Crazy good chops, visionary application. Though packaged together, Joshua and Same Day Walking chart distinct worlds. Recorded in northern California and produced by Robby Moncrieff (Dirty Projectors, Zach Hill), Joshua is woolier and warmer, evoking haze, humidity, and overgrown Spanish moss. Meanwhile, Same Day Walking — recorded in Iceland and produced by Moncrieff alongside two-time GRAMMY-winning composer / sound designer Sam Slater (Joker, Chernobyl) — is, appropriate for its icier climes, windswept and beholden to the vast emptiness of harsh landscapes. As a pair, they provide a thorough portrait of Lindahl’s singular and versatile playing.

(listen)

Names on Tapes – We Weren’t Programmed For This (No Input – Oct 3)

Post-Electronica / Decay Beats / Techno-Adjacent

Names On Tapes is the collaboration between Neil Kleiner — electronic composer and jazz musician (Dark Captain Light Captain, Lo Recordings; Four Tet & Steve Reid collaborator, Soul Jazz Records) — and Stacey Hine — avant-garde guitarist (The Sailplanes, Mihai Cucos Trio). Together, they explore the fragile spaces where machines fail, loops decay, and memory falters. The result is an album of drone, glitch, and post-rock electronics that feels both calmly disorienting and quietly defiant. Drawing on influences from William Basinski’s Disintegration Loops, Warp-era experimentalism, and early Tortoise, We Weren’t Programmed For This unfolds in movements of half-erased melodies and broken signals, stitched together with ghostly precision. The album’s title reflects its emotional core: alienation, memory, and rage in an era where humans and technology blur into “emotional cyborgs,” using machines to process grief, longing, and joy.

(listen)

Oleksandr Kolosii – Crossed Sounds (Oct 2)

Straight Ahead Jazz / Bebop + Hard Bop

Denmark-based Polish jazz saxophonist Oleksandr Kolosii has a style of playing that pays tribute to legendary bebop and hard bop players like Charlie Parker, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Stitt and John Coltrane. He currently combines this with continuous inspiration from a wide array of world music. Oleksandr has worked and performed with Alex Sipiagin, Donald Edwards, Doug Weiss, Matt Penman, JK Kim, Kenneth Dahl Knudsen, Anders (AC) Christiansen, Anders Mogensen, Carl Winther to name a more than a few.The fusion of world rhythms, classical music and straight-ahead jazz makes his music recognizable on the jazz scene today. Oleksandr new album “Crossed Sounds” features Alex Sipiagin on trumpet, Lorenz Kellhuber on piano, Makar Novikov on double bass, and Donald Edwards on drums. 

(listen)

Pulse Emitter – Tide Pools (Hausu Mountain – Sep 26)

Caffeine Electronica / Syncopated Synth Fusionistia

Portland based producer / synthesist Daryl Groetsch composes music under the moniker Pulse Emitter. Channeling his love and mastery of styles ranging from new age to Berlin school kosmische to drone to progressive electronic music to noise akin to junk floating through deep space, Groetsch crafts emotionally resonant synth pieces teeming with diverse melodic architectures and textural details. The album teems with rapid-fire arpeggios and labyrinthine melodies as Groetsch lays out intricate webs of shifting chords and changes tempos between passages, laying out a series of distinct environments that we watch unfold from the shoreline. Though it rarely breaks into any legible drum beats, relying on the percussive tones of his synthesizers alone to sketch out his ornate rhythms, the album channels the forward motion of IDM and prog rock as much as the harmonies and irregular time signatures found in jazz fusion, translating ideas from these traditions into the frameworks of purely electronic synth fantasias.

(listen)

Rand – Teer (Rand Music – Aug 15)

Ominous Experimental / Techno Drone

In their latest release, ‘Teer’ (english: tar), rand unveil two uncompromising extended tracks, ‘Teer I – fluid’ and ‘Teer II – rolled’, which were recorded live in one take … a collaborative project with Jan Gerdes, a renowned concert pianist in Germany, particularly known for his interpretations of contemporary music. “Together, we explore the possibilities of combining acoustic and electronic sound worlds. However, on the new Teer EP, Jan leaves the traditional piano sound behind, so we remain unpredictable.”

(listen)

Roméo Poirier – Off The Record (Faitiche – Oct 10)

Audio Collage / Sound Art / Experimental Hijinks

The new album by French collagist Roméo Poirier, is an amusing romp through the discarded history of recording studios. It contains fourteen miniatures based on accidental recordings of studio talk, revealing things that were never meant for the public: we hear instructions from studio staff, scraps of talk between musicians, or just microphones being adjusted, as well as false notes, false starts: everyone stops. Start again: 1, 2, 3, 4! Off the Record combines more than a thousand found sounds from studio archives into complex miniatures. The audio content of these outtakes is twisted, stretched, cut, reassembled, slowed down and accelerated. Voices cut into a microgroove, from a very old recording, intertwine with digital voices gleaned from YouTube. All of them in dialogue, engaging the listener with the impression of being part of a new music group.

(listen)

Rutger Zuydervelt – The Wonder Of It All (self-released – Sep 9)

Longform Electronica / Score for Choreography

Music for a performance by Daniel Linehan-Hiatus. “Choreographer Daniel Linehan’s The Wonder Of It All radiates joy and togetherness. From cerebral to wildly energetic, the piece feels like a ritual that slowly transforms into a euphoric dance party. Creating the music for this was a joy. It brought me back to the nineties, when I was discovering electronic (dance) music. That feeling of wonder and discovery seemed an apt comparative to the sense of awe that Daniel and the dancers convey in The Wonder Of It All. Hopefully without sounding too vain, this score feels like quite an achievement for me, also because it’s so different from ‘my usual sound’ (if there is one). The slow 15 minute build-up might not surprise, but what happens after feels novel within my discography, and might charm fans of Plaid or James Holden.”

(listen)

SOHN – Albadas (Dawn Songs) (adaptpivotmove – Oct 10)

Expressive Electronics / Expansive Ambient

With the release of three critically acclaimed albums for heralded UK label 4AD, British producer & composer SOHN‘s transcendent and intricate productions married analog warmth with modern minimalism, creating a powerful sentimental honesty that runs through even his most electronically driven compositions. Hailing originally from London, his musical journey has seen him call Vienna and Los Angeles home, before settling in the forested region of  Garraf, Spain. lbadas (Dawn Songs) signals a quiet shift in SOHN’s creative process, exploring emotion through sound alone rather than through lyrics. The upcoming album is a quiet, contemplative work that foregrounds melody, mood, and texture. It’s music created in the first moments of the early light, at times contemplative, patient and optimistic, at others foreboding and ominous. It encapsulates the potential of a new day and the many roads it may present.

(listen)

Spaceface – Lunar Manor (Mothland – Aug 22)

Skewed Indie Pop / Sun-Bathed Psychedelia

Spaceface — the groovy neo-psychedelic dream pop project led by Jake Ingalls (formerly of The Flaming Lips) and Eric Martin — has evolved into a dynamic four-piece with the addition of Marina Aguerre (Teal Pop) on bass and Garet Powell (Double Wish) on drums. The groovy bunch harness the transcendent pulse of the spacetime continuum into catchy songs that whirl and twirl, bend and stretch, attract and propel. Spaceface turned to producer and multi-instrumentalist, Taylor Johnson, as well as fellow LA based southern transplant, Dent May, finally immortalizing their third opus. This collection of beautiful musical oddities, ranging from moody indie ballads to modern disco anthems is scheduled for release via Montréal boutique imprint Mothland. RIYL: MGMT, Broadcast, Pond, Deerhunter, The Flaming Lips, ELO, Pearl & the Oysters etc.

(listen – “Be Here Forever” + “Everything is Money” + “Bittersweet Symphony“)

Steiger – Mowglowski’s First Take (Oct 17)

Electronic-Infused Jazz / Jaunty Jams

Steiger seek to explore unfamiliar territory with a strong emphasis on sound exploration and pinpoint the organic and timeless music of Latin Playboys, the punkiness and playfulness of Deerhoof, the lyricism of Ruben Gonzalez, the mystical Jon Hassell, and Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru as influences. One of the more idiosyncratic bands on the thriving Belgian jazz and improv scene, pianist Gilles Vandecaveye-Pinoy (Peenoise, PJDS, Uma Chine), bassist Kobe Boon (mòs Ensemble, The Milk Factory, Kreis) and drummer Simon Raman (Ivy Falls, Uma Chine, mòs Ensemble) continue to explore the outer margins of jazz and dive into other universes including post-classical, electronic, free improvisation and minimalism. ‘Mowglowski’s First Take’ is the next step in Steiger’s fascinating evolution as the trio continue its path of renewal, enterprise, and the search for the unpredictable.

(listen)

Steve Hauschildt – Aeropsia (Simul Records – Oct 10)

Kosmische Electronica / Melodic, Flowing Ambient

Steve Hauschildt returns after six years with his new album Aeropsia. After a transcontinental relocation from the U.S. to Tbilisi, Georgia, the electronic composer emerges from a personal and global transformation to explore themes of perceptual distortion, disconnection, and renewal. In the years since his last solo release, Hauschildt’s world has been marked by relocation and a growing sense of global turbulence. These experiences became the raw material for a work that navigates institutional haze and uncertainty itself. The result is music that employs decay as method, structure as entropy, and mutation as expression. While Aeropsia remains subjective in its vision, Hauschildt invited two previous collaborators to expand the album’s gravitational pull. Cellist Lia Kohl, who previously performed on Nonlin, returns and brings a textural warmth to select tracks, while guitarist Michael Vallera threads spectral harmonics into the mix. The album’s electronic foundation and its tactile elements meet in a state of luminous suspension to navigate the shifting physical and psychological terrain.

(listen)

Sturle Dagsland – Dreams and Conjurations (Deathbomb Arc – Oct 10)

Dramatic Art Pop / Norwegian Avant-Folk

RIYL: Kate Bush and similar dramatic art pop. || Sturle Dagsland is a highly acclaimed genre-bending artist from Norway. Together with his brother Sjur they have toured extensively at festivals all across the world, from Shanghai to New York, Greenland and all the way to the Source of the Nile in Africa. The two brothers conjure an expressive ever-changing soundscape with a distinctive sonic palette and an uncompromising whirlwind of sound. Dominated by Sturle’s astonishing voice their sound evolves from the ethereal and beautiful to wild and abrasive in a matter of seconds. Expect the unexpected and lean into a musical odyssey that conjures sounds of the netherworlds and intertwines old primordial knowledge with avant-garde pop music, screaming metal, folk music and immersive electronic soundscapes; From the beautiful and haunting ambient landscapes of “Windharp,” the Norwegian folk dance inspired track “Hallingen,”the self-collected ghost stories which inspired “Kwaidan,” the genuine joyfulness of “Whispering Forest, Echoing Mountains” and “The Ritual”- a song inspired by a raw shamanistic ritual that Sturle once found himself engaged in.

(listen: “Whispering Forest, Echoing Mountains” + “Galdring”)

Ted Hearne (with The Crossing) – FARMING (Deathbomb Arc – Oct 17)

Complex Hyperpopisms / Radioactive Choral Mutations

RIYL: SOPHIE, Meredith Monk, Oneohtrix Point Never, Anohni, etc. || Against an uncanny soundworld fraught with neck-breaking shifts and stylistic contradictions, Hearne tackles the long-tail impact of settler colonialism, agricultural degradation, big tech utopianism, corporate religiosity, and the abstraction of community. The album’s unholy marriage of ersatz Americana, digitally altered choral arrangements, and hyperpop’s synapse-frying maximalism inverts technology’s smoothing impulses in favor of an unwieldy, knotty expression of modern ennui and alienation. Throughout FARMING, every soulful element of human performance — a beautiful vocal phrase, a touching harmony — is threatened to be enveloped by the sinister application of technological processing, conjuring this aural trip into the Uncanny Valley.

(listen)

U – ARCHENFIELD (Lex Records – Oct 10)

Hauntological Collage / Ambient Folklore

To construct this record U mined a wealth of recorded material relevant to the area in Herefordshire known as Archenfield. With a nod to traditional music, he takes samples from these records and creates beautifully atmospheric sound pieces that are often mixed with painstakingly researched snippets from film, TV, YouTube and found home recordings to create a stirring reflection on local history and broader themes of how we interact, or even fail to interact, with English folklore today. There’s a hauntological aspect to these tracks too – firstly in how the disembodied instruments seem to yearn for physicality having long shed the corporeal presence of the human creating the sounds.

(listen + “Black Vaughan” video)

Verses GT – Verses GT (LUCKYME® – Sep 12)

Breakstep Electronic Soul / Burial-ish

Verses GT— the duo of Jacques Greene + Nosaj Thing— announce their self-titled debut album. Verses GT is the project, the group, the album, the live show, and the moving image—an all encompassing banner for a new collaborative world. There’s a hazy, meditative weight to Verses GT, not in an overtly emotional way, but as the result of intention and purpose. The album is coupled with an understated confidence to strip things back and cause a slow down in our everyday—an internal and external move that exists if we want it to. The intrinsic duality of Verses GT means the album also surges with the energy of empathetic, connected body-music. The album includes features from Kučka, George Riley, and TYSON and a collaborative art-working team of photographer-director Xavier Tera, creative director-writer Terence Teh, and artist-designer Erin D. Garcia. Together, they have created a project that is a globally-spanning, call-and-response mantra.

(listen — “Unknown” + “Your Light (ft. George Riley)“)

8sided About

To Here Knows When

Hello! I’m Michael Donaldson, and I’m the curious fellow behind 8sided.blog. This blog has been running in various forms (and URLs) since 2015, with a few inexplicable long breaks.

The standard social media bio is a series of nouns often preceded by descriptors. Mine is no different. Presently, I’m identifying myself across the web like so: blogging proselytizer, music industry exile, sonic swashbuckler, sunrise watcher. Beyond that summary, other personal obsessions include the history of cinema, hot sauces, the sound of tape delays, vegan cooking, travel or simply dreaming of it, the studio as an instrument, lake life, solarpunk and imagined futures, these damn cats, and collecting more books than I’ll ever read.

Terry Matthew of 5 Magazine did a profile on me a while back that I like, going deep into my history in music and my attitudes on the industry. It’s a good MDonaldson primer.

Another fun profile that’s more recent is this one in the Orlando Weekly written by long-time confidant Daniel Fuller. If you’d enjoy a time warp, Daniel also wrote about me way back in 1997.1The date on the article says ‘1998’ but it’s wrong.

I live in Orlando, Florida. Many years ago, I ended up in this city in a misguided attempt at film school and lacked the means or will to escape. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. Despite some questionable life choices and Florida’s ever-sinking status (in more ways than one), I’ve made an interesting, fulfilling, and generally happy life here.

As for this spot on the web, 8sided.blog is my pet project, my pride and joy, my journal of personal interests, and my digital thinking cap. It keeps me sane. If you want to add a dose of sanity to your life, I suggest starting a blog filled with your obsessions and ramblings. Here’s how.

A quick bit of housekeeping: 8sided.blog remains ad-free and I rarely use affiliate links (I’ll let you know when I do). This site and the newsletter (on hiatus) run solely on grit, a love of writing, an insatiable curiosity, interactions with my readers, and money out of my pocket. If you’d like to help out with the latter — any amount is appreciated — you can buy me a vegan chalupa.

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• Blog Archive
• My Projects
• Contact Me
• Submitting Music for Review
• Social Media
• Colophon + Tools
• About That Avatar
• /now

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Projects

My adult life consists of metaphorically throwing things against walls to see what sticks. It’s kind of my profession. Because of this, I’ve found myself involved in a long series of projects. Here’s a list of those, present and past, in a descending timeline.

• Your Podcast Friend

I am a producer and editor of podcast audio. I am currently working on Spotlight On…, a nifty podcast featuring amicable host Lawrence Peryer having sharp conversations with musicians, artists, authors, innovators, and other interesting music people with a story to tell. Previous I worked on  Sounds + Vision, the podcast of ex-Rolling Stones manager/producer Andrew Loog Oldham, which may or may not return someday (fingers crossed). This line of work has been a ton of fun as I’m (finally) able to use my background in audio production in a commercial space. And managing a podcast is not that different than managing a label or artist. I’m always happy to work with podcasts, especially in the talking-about-culture niche. Here’s more detail on my podcast work and how to get in touch if you need help with your show.

• The Email Newsletter

Shortly before the pandemic, I started a newsletter. It was curiously titled Ringo Dreams of Lawn Care. Launching a newsletter was one of the best decisions I made, as pumping out a newsletter every one or two weeks was a necessary discipline as lockdown took hold. It helped me feel the weeks. I kept it going at a steady clip from February 2020 to April 2021 and built a respectably numbered and delightfully engaged subscriber community. There was even an article written about the newsletter. Then that second (or third?) pandemic wave set in, followed by the ennui or malaise or whatever you’d like to call it. You probably felt it, too. I couldn’t do much of anything, so I stopped the newsletter. I put out one last ‘episode’ of Ringo Dreams of Lawn Care on January 1, 2022, and announced I was canceling the show. But! I love email newsletters, and I love newsletter readers even more, so I’m now planning the next ‘series.’ I swear, its launch is right around the corner.

• 8D Industries

After Eighth Dimension Records and EIGHT-TRACKS I swore I wouldn’t start another label. However, the goblin-energy of Al Pacino had other ideas. Some fantastic music landed in my lap, all looking for a home, and I felt like I was the best one to make this happen. Thus 8D Industries was born in 2018, catering mainly to my taste for music that sits in the center of the post-punk/ambient/shoegaze/kosmiche Venn diagram. The release schedule may seem slow, but I’m waiting to put out music that I love, and I’ve been lucky so far. The current label roster consists of San Mateo, More Ghost Than Man, Ralph Kinsella, Gemini Revolution, Monta At Odds, and my Grottoes project. This is the most focused I’ve ever been on a label project, and I’m excited to see how it all grows and where it goes.

• 8DSync

I’m fortunate that a wise person told me about the importance of music publishing early in my music career. So, in the mid-90s, Eighth Dimension started a publishing company, and I learned to self-publish my own music. These moves paid off once Q-Burns Abstract Message music started getting licensed for things like Sex and the City, and Eighth Dimension label artists began getting placements in iconic shows like The Wire and Six Feet Under. This action inspired me to eventually shift my focus from the label to music publishing, rights management, and sync licensing. So, around 2010, I officially started 8DSync, and music publishing has been my main game since. Like 8D Industries, I’m only bringing on artists and writers whose music I love and believe in, though the genre range is much broader than the label’s. This field is where I genuinely feel like I can call myself an “expert.”

• Q-Burns Abstract Message

Where to start? I decided I never wanted to be a band member again, so I started a solo production project in 1994 called “Q-Burn” (a pun on the old radio term ‘cue burn‘). After getting mixed up with the famed turntablist Q-Bert and a lofty idea that “there is no Q-Burns … this is an imaginary band!” I changed the name to Q-Burns Abstract Message. Unfortunately, people kept on confusing the name with Q-Bert (including, once, DJ Shadow). My first records were on a small but beloved San Francisco imprint called Mephisto Records and the Hardkiss offshoot label Sunburn. Then I was signed to Astralwerks for a few fun years and returned to Eighth Dimension. After a couple of decades of spurts and sputters (and way too many remixes), I released the AUDIOTOTEMPOLE EP in 2019. As far as I know, that’s the final release under the Q-BAM moniker. After that, I’ve released on song as Grottoes, and it’s a creamier, sparser, less beat-concerned, and somewhat ominous thing.

• 8DPromo

When the economy took a turn for the worse in 2008, I needed to figure out how to pay the bills. So I started 8DPromo, utilizing my experience promoting and publicizing music releases as a label manager. The company did excellent work and still does excellent work. In 2016 I handed the reins over to Jon Lemmon (owner/manager of Viva Recordings), and he continues to provide a valuable service to a wide range of labels and artists.

• Eighth Dimension Records and EIGHT-TRACKS

Eighth Dimension Records started as a collective of Orlando electronic music artists looking to support each other and combine forces to raise our profiles as a group. It worked! Running the label (alongside my partner Gerard Mitchell) was like going to music business university. Everything I’ve done since stems from the experience. Meanwhile, EIGHT-TRACKS was a side-label I started in the mid-00s with house music producer Atnarko. We had big dreams (and, in retrospect, a lousy logo — sorry, Stephen), but interest waned as the music biz got tough. Though the releases still haunt the streaming platforms, both labels are no longer in operation.

• Bad Mood Records

Here’s where I was cursed with the idea that I should only ever work for myself. Sometime between Lollapaloozas one and two, I opened Bad Mood Records, a record store in downtown Orlando. You can read about it here. It had some decent success, and I still run into people who remind me how much they loved the shop. But then the city of Orlando started a street construction project literally on the store’s doorstep that was supposed to last three months. Instead, it ended up lasting three years, and the store feebly eked it out for two of those. But, as they say, everything happens for a reason …

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Talk To Me

I’d enjoy hearing from you. Feel free to reach out here: michael@8sided.com

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Sending Music To Me For Review

Yes, I will accept your music for a potential review or short feature on the blog. My tastes are broad but there is a thread that ties together the things I like. Check out the ‘music recommendations’ tag to get an idea of what I’m into.

I try to give everything a chance that’s sent my way. However, there are certain triggers that will make me less inclined to listen. If your email is obviously copy-and-pasted, blasted out to a seemingly random set of bloggers, I’ll likely delete it on the spot. Same if I am BCC’ed (or, worse, CC’ed) in your email. And heaven forbid you attach MP3s or other large files to your message. Those are immediately zapped out of existence.

Likewise, there are things you can do to ensure I’ll give your music a try. For one thing, I like it when it’s evident that you’ve read the blog and understand the sounds and styles that I review. I also prefer to review music that is or will be available on Bandcamp. Though that’s not a deal-breaker, I tend to only post Bandcamp players to accompany my reviews. And it’s a good idea to send me a Bandcamp download code for your release. That way I can post an excerpt of the review in the ‘Supported by’ section of your Bandcamp release page.

Though you are welcome to send releases to me prior to the release date, I post my reviews once the music is available to the public (and a Bandcamp player is live and embeddable). I also don’t necessarily review new music (I’m often behind on my listening anyway) so it’s okay if your release isn’t the freshest.

There’s no way I can review everything I’m sent. And sometimes I’m so backed up I may not reply to your email for weeks. Please don’t take it personally.

Got it? You can send me music here.

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Social Media

Regular readers of the blog know I have an increasingly complicated relationship with social media (don’t we all). I’m trying my best not to add value to platforms owned by companies that I disagree with ethically. I wrote about this struggle here. And more recently here.

That said, I will use the corporate social media sites, but solely through remote posting and only posting updates about the blog and my projects. The goal is not to have to visit those blasted sites at all but still exploit their reach to bring people to this site. I’ll post using Publer (the best tool for this IMO — and, yes, that’s an affiliate link), and said posts would be about new things on the blog, with links sending folks here, hopefully decreasing their time spent on social media just a tad. One does what one can.

If you’d like to get social with yours truly, Mastodon is my primary mode of transportation. Come on in, the water’s fine. Don’t believe anyone who tells you it’s complicated or weird. Find me here, and feel free to reach out if you need any pointers. Ernie Smith’s excellent ‘pop-up’ series about Mastodon is a great start if you’d like to learn more, too.

Want to ease yourself out of social media and algorithm-guided content? You should use an RSS reader!

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Colophon + Tools

This section is for those of you who enjoy peeking into workspaces, lists of creators’ tools, and ‘what’s in my bag’ type stuff. (Guilty as charged.)

8sided.blog is proudly built on WordPress using a heavily tweaked Modern Studio Pro theme, part of the Genesis Framework. Unfortunately, that theme, and the framework, haven’t been updated in ages, so I’m hoping I don’t have to change it all anytime soon as WordPress gets fancier with all the block magic.

I write and organize in Obsidian. If I’m feeling a more focused writing experience, I’ll open the document from Obsidian into Typora. I’m also a longtime paid user of Grammarly, and I honestly feel this tool has improved my writing. I finally get what passive voice is all about.2I am a little creeped out by all the AI stuff they’re adding tbh. I process my blog images in Pixelmator Pro, which helps me maintain that zine-like photocopy look. I listen to wordless + beatless music when I write, and if I’m not spacing out to one of my Bandcamp purchases then I’m shuffling this huge ambient playlist on Apple Music that I put together.

For research and sourcing things to write about, I have a large but tightly curated mess of RSS feeds I subscribe to. Inoreader is my RSS reader of choice. I also save, highlight, and annotate articles in Readwise. If I’m doing additional research, I use Kagi as my search engine. Anything interesting goes into my Obsidian vault or I’ll try it out on Mastodon.

I’m on an M1 Mac Mini and looking at stuff on a gigantic Asus monitor. It’s almost too big — I never use the sides of the screen except for getting Zoom windows out of the way. I type noisily on a Keychron K8 mechanical keyboard. I’ve got a pair of nice-sounding Mackie CR4 speakers on my desk. I also have a couple of Alesis Monitor One studio monitors on shelves above the desk (powered by the matching Alesis RA-100 amp) for when I’m doing audio work or if I want the day’s music to be a bit more immersive. I’ve had these Alesis speakers for many years — they’re the same ones I used to mix Feng Shui. There’s a Logitech C930e webcam for Zoom calls and such on a flexible boom attached to one of the speaker shelves.

Other items on the desk are a Nu Board dry erase notebook, a Miroco Light Therapy Lamp for those dreary days or extra Zoom lighting, and a deck of Oblique Strategies cards. I have a Focusrite Scarlet Solo for sending audio to the Alesis speakers, connecting a microphone when podcasting, or plugging in a guitar when music-making. I also have a vintage Electro-Harmonix LPB 2ube next to the Scarlet for those guitar moments. Oh, and that desk is a Fully Jarvis Bamboo Standing Desk — just wonderful.

When I’m not standing, I’m sitting on a QOR360 Ariel active chair. I love it, but it took a while to get used to sitting on it. In the first couple of weeks, I had a few aches — it makes you use some muscles you don’t use in a standard chair. I recommend the chair, but if you get one, take the instruction manual’s advice and only sit in it for a few hours a day at first to warm up. Don’t be a dope like me and go all-in immediately, leading to a few sleepless, achy nights.

For privacy, I use Private Internet Access VPN. I’m using Arc as my main browser with uBlock Origin and Dark Reader extensions. I’m also a decade-long fan of 1Password.

I’ll wrap this up with some other tools I can’t live without:

What’s With that Avatar?

It’s from a photo that some of the members of GusGus took of me in Los Angeles. We were play-acting an imaginary Wim Wenders movie and, in this scene, I was demanding my driver hit the road. This shot ended up getting used by Astralwerks as my press photo. It’s still my favorite Q-BAM photo and, despite my suspicion of nostalgia, it gives me all the feels.

Anchor Drop: Add Music To Your Spotify Shows

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I’m usually critical of Spotify, as I was yesterday, but I’m also happy to give credit when it’s due. Utilizing the company’s 2019 purchase of Anchor and its podcast-creation tools, Spotify now allows users to create podcast-like audio programs around the streaming music available on the platform. I say “podcast-like” because these aren’t what we know as podcasts — these aren’t stand-alone shows that play outside of the Spotify ecosystem, nor can one talk over the music or only include music snippets. The new feature, accessible through the Anchor app, allows users to insert their own audio content — assumed, in most cases, to be spoken commentary or conversations — within their shows (i.e., playlists). In other words, you can create a ‘podcast-like’ playlist that contains your song selections with the sound of you chatting about the songs in-between. These playlists are published to Spotify as a ‘show.’

I’ve spoken about the frustrating issues with licensing music for podcasts before. Those problems persist for podcasts, but Spotify’s work-around is a smart option for those who don’t mind their content getting locked to the platform. The pre-existing music licenses already in place with Spotify apply since users are merely adding music to ‘playlists.’ Technically and legally, it’s nothing new for the platform.

This tool opens up many possibilities for music-oriented programs such as Song Exploder-style dissections or celebrity ‘desert island disc’ spotlights. Anchor’s feature has launched with some interesting examples of it in action, such as this program on murder ballads and The Ringer-associated 60 Songs That Explain The ’90s. 

Of course, artists will have no control over where their songs appear, so thick skins are necessary for the inevitable ‘These Songs Suck’ shows. Spotify may also have to deal with commentary of its platform, as I’d like to see the tool used to highlight and explain ‘fake artists‘ and other efforts by labels and production studios that exploit the streamer for quick bucks. 

Here’s a Twitter thread where Anchor co-founder Michael Mignano announces and describes the new tool: 

🔗→ Introducing a brand new way to create in Anchor, with all the music you love
🔗→ Spotify Now Lets You Add Music Tracks to Podcast Shows

Shine a Light

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First off, as previously mentioned, today is ‘Bandcamp Friday’ — the platform is waiving its cut of revenue with 100% going to the artists. Here are some suggestions where you can throw your support today:

  • Pitchfork’s list of labels and artists directing Bandcamp revenue to Black Lives Matter organizations [LINK]
  • A list of black artists, producers, and black-owned labels on Bandcamp [LINK]
  • Resident Advisor’s list compiling both, with an emphasis on electronic music [LINK]
  • If you’re into ambient music, here’s a Reddit thread listing ambient artists of color that could use your support (h/t Terry Grant) [LINK]

Like most of you, I was feeling dispirited and down yesterday. The constant barrage of evidence that this country is falling apart weighs heavily. And the gray skies and rain weren’t helping. I had an interview scheduled in the early afternoon and didn’t know if I was up for it. I was looking for some good news, and anything would do.

Unexpectedly, Warren Ellis provided that bright spot with a shout out on his blog, perhaps in response to my shout-out to his blog on Tuesday. It’s a nice boost to get mentioned under the ‘Isles of Blogging’ tag. I’m proud to inhabit my little beach-side hut.

One thing I learned: Ellis has a lot of readers. There are a lot of new eyes peering at this speck on the web (hello), and I picked up a healthy amount of newsletter subscribers. Shining a light on a fellow toiling soul is one of the best parts of operating in an independent space, whether you’re a band or a novelist or a painter or a blogger. It’s a lovely feeling when you’re the recipient.

I mentioned Ellis’s newsletter — Orbital Operations — only a couple of days ago. It’s something I look forward to each Sunday. One of its regular highlights is the heartfelt words of encouragement closing each email, a needed end-of-week reminder that things eventually will be cool. I’ll shine a little light back by urging you to subscribe.

My interview was with Lawrence Peryer for the Spot Lyte On podcast. I talked about growing up in Central Louisiana, the challenges of finding underground music there, the historical threads of influence that connects musical artists, utopian streaming models, Kraftwerk (of course), and lots of other things. It was freewheeling and fun. Though I think we intended to include music industry shop-talk, there was very little of that. The podcast hits the pod-ways next week. I’ll give you a preview by linking to a record from 1981 that comes up at the end of the discussion: the mind-blowing “Outside Broadcast.”

Side-note: I enjoy gabbing on podcasts. If you’re interested in having me gab on yours then please get in touch.

I also mentioned a podcast interview with Derek Sivers. It’s an episode of Yo Podcast — an uplifting listen that will give your brain a break from the world-on-fire for an hour. Specifically, I mentioned and clumsily explained this part where Derek answers the question: Hendrix or Bowie?

Jimi Hendrix is like Charles Darwin. Darwin, he presents “The Origin of Species” to the world and it blows everybody’s mind. But now the theory of evolution is common knowledge, so to read the book, “The Origin of Species” now, is not so impressive. So Hendrix presents the “Star-Spangled Banner,” full of feedback and more sounds from a guitar than anyone had heard before, and it blows everybody’s mind. But now, every kid in the guitar store can do the same thing. So to hear the original, is not so impressive. I think it’s kind of the same with Stravinsky and the “Rite of Spring,” it’s actually kind of unfair that they’re revolutionary contribution is diminished with time.

But David Bowie is like Josephine Baker, exotic and desirable in their time, and exotic and desirable now. And same thing with Claude Debussy’s music. Like, David Bowie, Josephine Baker, and Claude Debussy, all of them stood outside of the culture. Their art didn’t infiltrate the culture and culture didn’t assimilate or adopt it. And so time doesn’t diminish their allure.

The podcast audio and the transcription are on Derek’s site.

Once again, dawn brings a bluish-gray over Lake Holden this morning = [LINK]

#Worktones: Loscil, M. Sage, Dytomite Starlite Band of Ghana

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Here’s a trio of excellent musical selections that have been permeating the home office this past week. It’s the latest installment in a series that I’m calling #Worktones.

Before knowing the photographic inspiration behind Equivalents, I mentally described the sound of the album as ’the hum of weightlessness.’ I wasn’t too far off. Those photos are a series of black and white pictures of clouds, captured and decontextualized by artist Alfred Stieglitz in the mid-to-late ‘20s. Some consider this work the first intentionally abstract photo-art statement. Here Loscil (the Vancouver-based musician Scott Morgan) deploys processed piano in sonic washes and layers that can recall an imaginative session of cloud-watching. Many only see uniform clouds in the sky — an everyday occurrence — while the lucky ones stop to pick out distinctive shapes, implications, and gentle reminders. Equivalents welcomes a similar exercise, rewarding the deep listener with soothing impressions of an atmospheric terrain.

Catch a Blessing is an adventurous album, in that it has the feeling of exploring unworn paths and venturing down overgrown trails. The album begins with the lively “Avondale Primer Gray,” hinting at randomness and an embrace of the ‘happy accident.’ But as things in nature experience emergence, the ensuing tracks, though sonically unconnected, appear to gather into themes that are just out of grasp. M. Sage, the artist behind this work, assists the experience with field recordings — such as the nostalgic fireworks of “Polish Triangle” — and guest musicians providing beautiful and exotic strings to “Window Unit + Three Flat.” But it’s the short but moving “Michigan Turquoise” that stands out, a lonely ballad complete with a looped guitar strum, seabird calls, and a mournful crooner transported by magic from a distant time.

It’s not all strange ambient music playing at the workspace. Some days (Monday mornings?) require an uplift, music that’s got some get-up-and-go. And I don’t know about you, but I can’t work alongside songs with words, especially when I’m writing. But there’s an exception for languages I don’t understand, especially when rhythmically sung in mesh with the instrumentation. This reissue of a rare 1982 album from Africa’s mysterious Dytomite Starlite Band of Ghana fits the bill. I say ‘mysterious’ as BBE, the reissuing label, doesn’t have much information on those involved. The songs are wonderful and instantly improve the mood and feature more than a few tight synthesizer riffs. I love listening to this stuff. I’m presently reading Rosewater, a terrific novel set in future Nigeria, so there’s some geographical synergy in my media consumption. FYI: BBE is quickly reissuing decades-old albums from the extensive back catalog of Nigerian label Tabansi Records and this is one of many in that series. The titles I’ve heard so far are consistently worth your time.

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