Author Archives: John Lithium

Unwed Sailor – High Remembrance (Current Taste Music)

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Formed in the late 90s, Tulsa’s Unwed Sailor embrace a unique form of bass-led, instrumental pop with post-rock dynamics that glide between white-knuckled heaviness and breezy melodicism. Since returning from a decade-long pause in 2019, a prolific spree of creative exploration and genre blending has yielded their finest work to date, including Mute The Charm (2023), Underwater Over There (2024), and Cruel Entertainment (2025).

To craft their eleventh album, High Remembrance, founding member Johnathon Ford brought a series of home-recorded drafts, demos, and hooks to the studio, where they came to life with long-time collaborators Matt Putman (drums) and David Swatzell (guitar) guided by themes of nostalgia and the bittersweet comforts of memory. Across the album’s eight tracks, there are shades of peak era alt-rock grit, late 70s AM radio swagger, and rapturous New Wave abandon, among other touchstones that defy easy categorization.

“Truest Sentence” opens with vinyl crackle and a tremolo chime that summons an effortless groove full of layered guitars, complex percussion, and Ford’s distinctive bass guitar buzz, as catchy and head-noddingly punchy as ever. Lead single, “West Coast Prism”, pairs an indelible melodic hook with upbeat drums and a jangly arrangement that transforms into a driving, technicolor refrain. True to its title, the song evokes white light splitting into a spectrum, as spacious synths and soft backing vocals create an aura of melancholic bliss; Ford fittingly cites “a deep fondness for the ocean, surfing, redwoods, and rocky coastline of Oregon” as the spiritual backdrop for its environment.

Inspired by the ways that memories create personal identity, “Don’t Let Go” could be a lost alternative radio earworm with its taut pacing, crunchy tone, and woozy guitars, while its deceptively simple rhythm section and glitchy electronics root it firmly in the present. “Cinnamon” forefronts beautifully arranged acoustic guitar countermelodies, along with layers of subtle detail, choral vocals, and relaxed, upper-neck bass guitar strums. According to Ford, the song is “a tribute to the 70s and 80s country music that soundtracked family trips to the desert when I was a kid,” with Townes Van Zandt’s “Pancho and Lefty” as a particularly meaningful anchor point.

At this point in Unwed Sailor’s storied career, Ford finds some of his strongest inspiration in reflecting on where the project began, while perpetually pushing it forward with new ideas, arrangements, and genre infusions. “It’s become about holding onto the things you love the most,” he notes, “including yourself.” His chord-driven bass playing remains the common thread through the band’s records, lending a familiar gravitas and warmth to every new collection.

The second side of High Remembrance commences with “Punk Broke”, an homage to the band’s Seattle origins – and David Markey’s famed documentary, 1991: The Year Punk Broke – where whammy-bar wobble, palm muted picking, and shimmering synth stabs lead into an anthemic guitar solo that descends over a field of crisscrossing melodies. With its twang, reverb, and cumulus clouds of slow-attack keys, “Gingerman” evokes a nighttime desert drive with the cobalt fade of the day behind a jagged silhouette of distant mountains, while the sonic contrasts and layered mix of “Three Jewels” offer up the album’s most rewarding headphone listen.

Title track, “High Remembrance”, showcases Unwed Sailor’s ability to employ a relatively simple arrangement to create a memorable, widescreen finale and embody the tone of the album as a whole. Written back during the band’s hiatus in the 2010s, the song feels like a familiar forest trail seen during all four seasons at once, and as it closes with a long fade, we are left in the blurry, liminal space of memory, absorbing the last few moments of a reverie before returning to reality.

℗ + © 2026 Current Taste
Written, Performed & Recorded by Unwed Sailor (Johnathon Ford, Matthew Putman, David Swatzell, Patrick McGill)
Produced by Unwed Sailor and Kendal Osborne
All songs mixed by Kendal Osborne & Johnathon Ford
Mastered by Mat Leffler-Schulman
Assistant Engineer – Tristan Wright
—-
Engineered by
Matthew Putman at Electric Nebraska in Ft. Smith, AR
Kendal Osborne at Closet Studios in Bixby, OK
Johnathon Ford at Current Taste in Tulsa, OK
—-
Artwork/Design/Layout/Text/Font by Gary Prendergast
Published by Current Taste Music (BMI) / Mute the Charm Music (ASCAP)

Aspetuck – Immersion (A Strangely Isolated Place)

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Aspetuck has been steadily carving out a name for himself through releases on Never Late and Oslated, garnering a respected following for his DJ mixes and festival performances. Aspetuck’s latest record, Immersion, was sequenced and curated from dozens of ideas spanning a transformative few years in Griff’s life. The album is less a snapshot in time and more of a memory bank – flashes of fatherhood, loss, modular rabbit holes, late-night studio sessions, and long walks by the Hudson River with his daughter.

The emotional undertow of the album is immediate. Opener, Hit Me With Your Pet Shark, is one of the earliest compositions in the collection, created just months after the loss of Griff’s brother and during the sleepless swirl of new parenthood. Built around a single sound from Spectrasonics Omnisphere, found while rediscovering his brother’s studio gear, the track sets the tone: restrained yet searching, personal without becoming precious.

From there, The Printing Press captures the raw energy of a live jam in Griff’s upstate New York basement, running through a 1980s Tascam mixer like a lo-fi assembly line of synths, pads, and drum machines. REI, named after a spontaneous family mission to find a pink water bottle, encapsulates his knack for imprinting daily minutiae into sound. And title track Immersion- once known simply as “Tuesday 303 Jam”- emerges from a dinner break and a blender, distilling modular sketches and distorted drums into a powerful, slow-motion march.

Under, Under The Tree hits hardest. Built around a grainy iPhone voice memo of Griff’s daughter singing by the Hudson. And closing the album is Bobik, a collaborative studio session with Moon Patrol channeling the playful chaos of a close friendship and modular exploration. Named after a joke about their golden retriever and filled with alien textures from Griff’s beloved EMU XL7 gifted years ago by his late brother, it’s a fitting send-off to an album that straddles celebration and mourning with grace.

The artwork comes courtesy of Peter Skwiot Smith, whose textured analog/digital aesthetic resonated immediately with Griff’s original vision. Peter’s treatment draws on Griff’s personal photography and leans into motion, blur, and the layered nature of memory, echoing the album’s sonic tone without overexplaining it.

Mastered by Sven Weisemann, Immersion is available on blue smoke colored 12” and digital

Written and produced by Griff Fulton
Mastered by Sven Weisemann
Artwork by Peter Skwiot Smith
Cat: ASIPV055

Leaving Lost – Technicolor Nightmare (Self-Released)

Posted by John Lithium on

recorded for rpm 2026 http://www.rpmchallenge.com

a long winter
a collection of assorted memories
an unmooring
the possibility of change

guitar, korg volca drum, arturia microfreak, a tiny red book from 1805 (reviewing another, older book), a lot of pedals, and far too many instrument cables

written, performed, mixed etc by jaq dunham
special thanks to stacey robarge ❤

Stevia Sphere – Parallel Universes Of The Spherical Kind (Self-Released)

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♫This album is part of the Stevia Sphere: Rainbow series – Downtempo/chillout albums, each with a different theme, color and sound.

♫Theme: Space

♫Color: Blue

♫Main influences: Minimal techno, synth pop, kosmische musik

•Music & 3D render by me.
•Image editing by Hysteric Pixie Nightmare Girl
nightmaregirl.bandcamp.com

•Music software: Renoise, Sunvox, Audacity
•Music gear: Eurorack Synth, Visionkey-2 Toy Keyboard, Yamaha PSR-E383 Keyboard, Behringer Model D, Behringer XM8500 Microphone
•Image software: Blender, GIMP, Adobe Lightroom

Dan DiPiero – Cry Babies (Self-Released)

Posted by John Lithium on

cry baby pod (dandipiero.substack.com/podcast) is a show about popular music and the people who study it.

After making some bump music for the first season, I decided to try making something more coherent for future episodes.

I’m still not great at ableton but I learned a lot doing this one. The two tribute tracks involved attempts to reproduce music that inspired me as a means of learning the software better.

Proceeds from this album will go to support the emergency relief fund for Hampshire College, and then later something else. More details about the music and the work it supports can be found here: dandipiero.substack.com/p/cry-babies and here: www.zeffy.com/en-US/donation-form/hampshire-college-workers-emergency-relief-fund

❤ ❤

remst8 – Coalescence (Bluesanct)

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FROM THE PRESS RELEASE:

A mild-mannered engineer by day, Michael Carlson is an experimental computer musician who focuses on drone ambient music and field recording; revolving around tracker programs since the early ’90s, informed and inspired by the eclectic styles of music he listens to. The results sometimes hold the listener in stasis, other times guiding the listener through undefined vistas, always with the intent to reward patience.

‘Coalescence’ is the culmination of several years of exploration, experimentation, and revision. Clocking in at just over 4 hours, it also marks the most ambitious remst8 effort to date. Carlson first composed and assembled the music in quadraphonic using a tracker program. He then re-mixed those tracks in stereo for digital distribution, then re-mixed them again in Dolby Atmos™ for this limited edition USB cassette. Finally, Carlson re-mixed select tracks in 5.1 surround-sound for music videos.

Each format serves its own purpose, and each presents the same journey in its own distinct way.

This long-form journey embodies themes of stasis, dissociation, and ultimately resolution. The listener is cast adrift, held aloft, and immersed in sonic environments that reflect nature and the unnatural. The journey ends as it begins, encouraging the listener to repeat the cycle.

_

After finishing my live set to close the 2017 Electro-Music Festival in Indianapolis, IN, I was surprised to find Mkl Anderson (Drekka) standing in front of me, expressing interest and appreciation for my music. I had been a fan of his work for a couple years, so it was a pleasant shock that he would approach me.

In that conversation, he suggested I make a long-form piece for his Bluesanct label; something that could be looped endlessly. If I recall correctly, he framed the request as “I want to play it on repeat so I can zone out for hours”.

We have collaborated on a handful of releases since then, sharing field recordings and source materials for the other to build on, re-work, or re-purpose. And Mkl would gently remind me of his original request for the much longer piece.

Several diversions and a pandemic later, I finally pulled all the pieces together into Coalescence. The result represents several years of learning and growth as an artist and as a producer, and I’m proud to finally share it.

  • Michael Carlson (remst8), December 2025

_
credits
released May 22, 2026

Bluesanct (INRI099, 22 MAY 2026)

  • FLASH DRIVE CASSETTE = ltd to 50 copies
  • DIGITAL = unlimited

_

remst8 “Coalescence”

01 – Buoy v1.33 . 02 – Halcyon v1.32 . 03 – Gravitation v1.47 . 04 – Respite v1.44
05 – Modulator v1.53 . 06 – Unmoor v1.23 . 07 – Pensive v1.67 . 08 – Return v1.24

Total run time: 4:07:48

Includes:
Stereo continuous mix in MP3 and FLAC, individual tracks in Dolby Atmos™ MP4, and select music videos in 5.1 Surround Sound

Serving suggestion:
Play the continuous mix or gapless tracks on repeat while wearing comfortable headphones.

Bluesanct
INRI099

Eden Grey – Timewarp (Triplicate Records)

Posted by John Lithium on

AVAILABLE ON CD & VINYL
elasticstage.com/triplicate/releases/timewarp-album

TIMEWARP ZIP-UP HOODIE
triplicaterecords.com/products/unisex-heavy-blend-zip-hoodie

EDEN GREY’S SYNTH SAMPLE PACK INCLUDED WITH EVERY DOWNLOAD

Modular synth expert and creative force behind the CV-Freqs modular community Eden Grey returns to Triplicate Records with her fourth release entitled “Timewarp”. 10 certified bangers. Cool & slick with classic electronic grit.

__________

INTERVIEW
__________

George Ernst (Triplicate Records): It’s been a while, so I’ll simply ask, how are you and what have you been up to?

Dr. Chelsea Bruno (Eden Grey): Been pretty good, thanks.. working on a lot of projects, the CV FREQS events, teaching, writing articles, modular synth workshops and composing. I released my last album in August of 2025 called “In the Forest of Fangorn” with EC Underground. I’ve also been working on my doll project quite a bit, making and showing my handmade dolls, and some of them have found new homes. I love the doll project because it is another place where I find peace in their stillness and silence, where I find a different kind of sound meditation in exploring sounds I create with my modular synth.

GE: How did the Nomadic collaborations come about? They’re excellent! I hope you two can work together again!

CB: Nomadic is an old friend who played one of the first electro shows I ever booked, and he resurfaced again in my sphere after more than a decade. I suggested he should send some drums, which he did with a few synth sounds mixed in and I just spent a lot of time adding to them and making a nice arrangement for both of the tracks that he is featured on. It gives another personality to my work to collab, to see what comes out, collabs often work out really nicely, so I am sure we will be working together again.

GE: Seeing Space in the Finite is a real trippy and heavy title. Can you talk about what that sentence entails to you, and the broader musical themes of Timewarp?

CB: This track I made with the intention for it to represent a Boards of Canada style beat. I made the beat very much inspired by their tracks and then I wanted it to sound like the other synth themes were also familiar too. Coincidentally they have resurfaced this year, when I made this track in the holiday season to also give it some of that nostalgic feel. Space is forever, and what is finite, is not forever. Phosphorescent also reminds me of my early inspiration from Boards of Canada. I am interested in the ways we experience time differently as individuals in our environments. It is a somewhat mysterious concept.

GE: Do you think an elephant would stand and politely sway their trunk to Timewarp? I reckon they would.

CB: Yes, I do think, and a manatee would swim with it underwater too…

GE: Night Tripper is one of my favorite things I’ve heard you make, or heard in general in fact. Can you talk about that one and the effort that went into making it? I’m being selfish I realize but whatever, I like this song a lot and I wanna hear more about it!

CB: I’m so glad you like it.. yes, it is a special song, its evolution, I like the way it changes but keeps you in the same space. Also, sometimes, oftentimes I stay up late at night working on music to get the vibe I am after. And then it has a whole new type of magic when you hear it during the day. To me, it has an equal mixture of dark and light. 

Written & Produced by Dr. Chelsea Bruno
Mastered by Michael Southard
Artwork by Ned Rush

Skeleton – Skeleton (20 Buck Spin)

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Ripping forth like a dagger from the flesh of Austin, Texas comes the self-titled debut LP from the lone star state’s new wreckers of civilization Skeleton. Having plied their black market trade for several years in grime infested underground dungeons and sub-basements, 20 Buck Spin was called forth to issue Skeleton’s first LP, a cataclysmic expansion of the band’s unhallowed vision venturing well beyond its earlier borders.

Though some might be prone to lazily apply simplistic genre tags to Skeleton’s style, the reality is far more sweeping as the debut LP immediately reveals an excessively sharp metallic-charged juggernaut of severe force and high plains mayhem. War-like hymns for the soldiers of a scorched apocalypse to come, from which a bleak alternate future will emerge.

The 11 tracks comprising ‘Skeleton’ signal the black dawn of a new breed, and when the final somber strains of ‘Catacombs’ close out the album, an eerie sense of the end as the beginning lingers like a morbid premonition…

Setting – Setting (Thrill Jockey Records)

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The North Carolina Piedmont-based trio of Setting bring together their substantial collective skills as musicians and their collaborative, explorative mindsets from groups such as Mind Over Mirrors, Califone, Black Twig Pickers, Pelt, Peeesseye, Sylvan Esso, and Jake Xerxes Fussell to bear in their inventive and rich improvisations. Multi-instrumentalists Jaime Fennelly, Nathan Bowles and Joe Westerlund subvert expectations while creating a sense of ease and wonderment. Their intricate interplay of synthesizers, cassette loops, banjo, keyboards, electronics, zithers, and a litany of percussive instruments form a tactile amalgam of celestial transcendence and terrestrial rhythm, a loamy pulse fluidly guiding every minute fluctuation in feel. Dedicated improvisers with years working together, the band has developed their own idiosyncratic vernacular and sense of flow. Setting’s self-titled album is a definitive statement of their improvisational acumen meeting compositional rigor, a robust wellspring of hypnagogic grooves and mosaiced textures.

Setting harnesses the euphoria of communal creation. “This is one of the most joyous albums I’ve made with other musicians. It felt like we were all in the slipstream,” notes Fennelly. Bowles adds: “Making this is maybe the easiest thing in my life; it’s not struggle music. This collaboration feels like it’s just coming out of the air, like it’s breathing.” Built on long exploratory sessions, the trio developed their own syntax and an ability to shift in new directions with finer and finer grains of detail. The pieces of Setting use that shared understanding of each other as players and the electric spontaneity of improvisation as a framework for more elaborate, impactful compositions in the studio. Westerlund elaborates, “When you keep playing together show after show, things take a different shape. The elements can be subtler and more specific, and there are more references of past performances and past discoveries to draw from.”

Fennelly’s synth programming acts as a guiding light, bending pieces into dynamic arcs and imbuing them with swirling hues, while rhythmic push-and-pull between Westerlund and Bowles lends an elasticity to each track’s warp and weft. Their working methods have found a kindred traveler in Adam McDaniel from Asheville’s Drop of Sun Studios, whose engineering and production work forms an indispensable piece of the album’s dynamism and luminescent fidelity. “Heard a Bubble” fittingly froths up from ostinatos that increasingly layer with minutely evolving patterns, evoking a tender kosmiche over Saharan-style rhythms. Syncopated grooves dance across the stereo spectrum on “Gum Bump” before synthesizers erupt into heaps of magma. The floating drone of “What Kind of Fish is a Turtle” offers a minimalist respite before the steady, lyrical “Ribbon of Moss” wraps itself in a dusky haze. The ensemble’s powerful use of momentum reaches its zenith with the freight train “Derring-do,” as piano zither and banjo apply tension to ever-ratcheting drums and flares of warped chordal organ. Across the five pieces, the trio make deft use of their seemingly infinite palettes to mold landscapes that appear familiar at first glance before glowing with vibrant new colors as the whole picture sets in.

The eponymous album from Setting is the product of three intuitive players and deep listeners, artists who use those skills to create transformative music. The trio shirk any broader categorizations, as their unique dynamic pieces are alight with arrangements urgent and smoldering, patient and emotive.

All tracks composed, improvised, and performed by Setting:
Nathan Bowles – Keyboards, Banjos, Tapes, Percussion
Jaime Fennelly – Synthesizers
Joe Westerlund – Drums, Percussion, Metallophones, Zither

Produced by Setting & Adam McDaniel. Engineered and mixed by Adam M. At Drop of Sun Studios, Asheville, NC, January – March 2025. Mastered & cut by Josh Bonati. Artwork & Layout by Timothy Breen / Field of Grass. Thanks & Love to Brittany, Katie, Corrie, Adam, Emily & DoS crew. Published by Ponderous Djinn (ASCAP); Aqui The Bushwick (ASCAP) administered by Domino Publishing; Squinting Sparrow (BMI) administered by Rough Trade Publishing.

℗ 2026 Thrill Jockey Records © 2026 Setting