Rick Hromadka: Are You Magical?

Rick Hromadka, lead singer and guitarist with Los Angeles based neo-psychedelic band Maple Mars, goes out on his own with two sunny side up songs. The love song Are You Magical? could have been recorded in the late 60s, using a hybrid of the sound of the Lovin' Spoonful and Donovan.

The acoustic B-side My Son is about becoming a father at a moment that he thought that it might never happen to him, carefully sidestepping the cheesy clichés that ballads about that particular subject matter tend to have. Even the whistling is on point. Recommended if you like Yorick van Norden and Nick Frater.

Kalamata: Zenosyne

German psychedelic stoner rock trio Kalamata contemplate the passing of time on their new concept album Zenosyne, with five seamlessly linked longform instrumental tracks. A bit of vulnerability has entered their music. On their previous records it was all about wall-to-wall heavy-handed riffs, but on this one they have allowed the light to come in and give listeners the change to make up their own stories as they are transported by the transcendent post-rock.

Zenosyne means being overwhelmed by the sense that time keeps going faster. They don't want to be stuck in the past however. The band went through line-up changes, something that captured by the more reflective passages, but as a whole they want to go forward. Grief for what is being lost forever is a pain in the ass and getting to grips with loss might take quite some time. But as the five track name spell: "there is no coming back".

Tiberius: "Troubadour" on CD

Bostonian indie rock band Tiberius have sold all the cassettes of their Troubadour album, so a belated release on CD is in order: "As the title of the album clearly suggests, this is a collection of storytelling songs, soul-searching autobiographical musings with an universal appeal. Going out there and show the world one's uncertainties requites quite a bit of nerve."

Words about music (840): Alanis Morissette

I'll be writing records until I'm dead, whether people like it or not! I can't not write; if I don't, then I get really depressed. I'll keep going, I promise!

Alanis Morissette

Phish and The 74% Rule: The Shape Phish Comes Back To

Kevin Spence listened to a lot of Phish concerts and came up with the fact that jams tend to peak around 74% mark, which is not surprising as such, but there is a big difference that makes the Vermont quartet rather special:

Phish jams peak three-quarters of the way through. So do the same songs played straight, and so do most rock songs. The structure is familiar. What's not is how they get there.