John Carpenter is a master of thrills. The legendary filmmaker and composer unnerves and titillates by fusing sight and sound—how the light catches a blade or outlines a breast, for instance, and the way heartbeat rhythms drive his bare synths. Because Carpenter’s horror and sci-fi movies establish a visual and emotional vocabulary for his music, […]
Tag: Sacred Bones Records
Posted inMusic
Minsk postpunks Molchat Doma transform gloom into resilience on Monument
Like many Americans, I was awestruck by images of the historic Belarusian protests against President Alexander Lukashenko (“Europe’s last dictator”) that exploded after the country’s August elections. But reports of police brutality from Belarus—and the growing chorus of international academics and reporters warning that Americans could soon find themselves in a similar spot—added sinister, unsettling […]
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Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou join forces on the style-crossing May Our Chambers Be Full
Sacred Bones has been the label home for some of the most hallowed collaborations in heavy music, such as the Body and Uniform’s enduring alliance and the soul-stirring Marissa Nadler and Stephen Brodsky duo outing Droneflower. Baton Rouge upstarts Thou and singer-songwriter Emma Ruth Rundle become the latest artists in that tradition with the sludgy […]
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Noise-rock masters Uniform get even bigger, better, and darker on Shame
I’ve spent a lot of Reader ink gushing about Uniform and the previous projects of their members. With the release of their new fourth full-length, Shame, the band’s sonic assault continues—and so does my adoration. Formed in 2014 as a wildly abrasive industrial-noise-rock-drone duo of vocalist Michael Berdan (formerly of unreal noisecore trio Drunkdriver) and […]
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Moon Duo take psych rock to the disco on Stars Are the Light
Guitarist Ripley Johnson (also of Wooden Shjips) and keyboardist Sanae Yamada have been churning out fuzzy psychedelic reverb and shimmer on Sacred Bones Records for close to a decade as Moon Duo. The San Francisco group’s 2011 debut, Mazes, is heavy, head-nodding stoner rock with more sheen than you’d expect from the genre. But on […]
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In Rotation: Exit Ghost guitarist Michael Golas on Amen Dunes’ embrace of collapse
Current musical obsessions of Exit Ghost guitarist Michael Golas and artist Elena Ailes
Posted inBlogs
Still More Weekend Music
A dizzying weekend of great local concerts includes two very different shows: jazz pianist Dan Tepfer at Pianoforte and postgoth chanteuse Zola Jesus at the Bottle.