Cubist Dance, Hag Blues, Heavy Shoegaze
Emmanuelle Parrenin's new album features German producer Detlef Weinrich, Gilbert Cohen, saxophonist Quentin Rollet and Ghédalia Tazartès. I mind my grits....
Bummer Jangle, Gnawan Blues, Reckless Hardcore
Let me know if y'all with me, y'all By way of the late, great MF DOOM, welcome to Viking's Choice. (I'm still a mess about this… DOOM's music means the world...
In 2020, I cried, I sought other worlds...
The view from our remote solace out in West Virginia. Grief has a way of making obstacles out of the things you love. I’m still spinning that idea around in...
In 2020, I raged, I sunk into soft sounds...
As much as I missed people and missed touch... as much as I quietly and not-so-quietly raged, as much as anxiety rendered me hopeless, as much as the too-big...
A Dark Noel, Anarcho-Christian Black Metal, Portal-Opening Techno
We strung lights to Loretta Lynn, then watched the Christmas tree glow to A Dark Noël. When Projekt Records released Excelsis: A Dark Noël in 1995, the...
Viking's Choice Guide To Bandcamp Friday (December Edition)
Y'all, it's the last Bandcamp Friday of 2020, when the platform waives its revenue fees so that artists and labels keep that extra 10-12% cash. While y'all...
When Karen Peris Sings, "Are You All Right?" 😢
Karen Peris on The Innocence Mission’s ‘Glow’ tour in 1995. In bedrooms and on highways, these were my coping mechanisms with grief. 2020 is not over, yet,...
Black Metal Misandry, Iranian Dub, Cello Shred
Some newsletters I read: Constellations: Marissa Lorusso's tender lists of loves, loss and memory put me in a reflective mood every Tuesday morning, just as...
Viking's Choice Podcast: Gnarly Rae Jepsen
For me, the Halloween cover band is hallowed ground. In them, the true colors of your favorite artists, your friends, the cool kids you see at shows but dare...
Russian Mosh & Gloom, Spanish Psych, Brazilian Black Metal
In 2020, I fell down the rabbit hole of Russian Bandcamp.It started innocently, as one does, with a throwback ’90s vegan straight-edge metalcore band. Turns...
Airbending Autumn
The foliage moved like murmuration.Sitting with a cup of oolong tea, looking up at a mountain with autumn colors, I witnessed a patch of yellow’d trees move...
Viking's Choice Guide To Bandcamp Friday (October Edition)
I swear when this whole thing started that it was called Bandcamp Day, then at some point, the collective unconscious (aka Twitter) decided it’s Bandcamp...
Pipe Organ Drone, Lava Lamp Jazz, Serene Hardcore
20 years later, I still listen to When the World Sings more than Kid A. Fine China’s debut album is one of those under-heard, underrated and under-loved gems...
Loudness Is Next To Godliness
I was born partially deaf.Folks are always surprised to hear this, considering my love for music and that I’ve made writing and producing stories about music...
Lifelines Out Of A Bored, Teenage Suburbia
As a teenager in the Atlanta suburbs, the mail was my way into punk. Occasionally, Media Play or Turtle Music would carry CDs from Polyvinyl and Victory...
Viking's Choice Guide To Bandcamp Day (September Edition)
I didn’t write a Viking’s Choice Guide to Bandcamp Day for August, though my wallet says otherwise. Let’s keep this short: on the first Friday of every month...
The Night Pylon Returned (And WUOG Shut Down)
Pylon is one of my favorite bands of all time, discovered while watching a VHS copy of documentary Athens, Ga.: Inside/Out at Wuxtry Records in the summer of...
Tunisian Nu-Metal, Swedish Freak-Folk, Chaos Pop
Has a bass line ever broken your heart?I had to get out of the house. Took the car out to a brewery an hour away just to pick up a case of nerdy beers,...
Void-Cracking Metal, Kenyan Grindcore, Russian Hardcore
The boys are back in town. Krallice inspires intense reaction. Not just from metal gatekeepers pounding on keyboards — does anyone actually care about them...
When The Microphones Became Mount Eerie
“Universe, I know you.”The Microphones’ Mount Eerie was released in 2003, smack dab in the middle of my college years — you know, when everyone’s an...