Deth P. Sun

What? I've never posted work by Deth P. Sun before?

James Gulliver Hancock

Helm - Impossible Symmetry

This is the first I've listened to Helm, but it won't be the last.  Releasing an album last year on Kye and this year on Pan, Luke Younger (Helm) has positioned himself on the two best experimental record labels anywhere.  After listening to Impossible Symmetry, it's easy to see why.  Heavy, scathing drones and found sounds, muddled up and regurgitated.  Think Amateur Doubles painted a few shades darker. 

Cowboy Henk by kama & seele

Ferris Plock

Seo Kim

Chris Rehm - (i found an) Elephant Ring (and gave it to you)

If Phil Elverum were still young, and a Microphone, and were he actually Sean McCann, he would be Chris Rehm.  And Chris Rehm is himself, so that's unnecessary; anyway, (i found an) Elephant Ring (and gave it to you) is everything dream pop was working towards, but could never, not quite, or at least that's what I'd hoped Benoit Pioulard might've pulled off (but didn't), then Rehm came along, and's been making the records I've always wanted to listen to.  Pure gorgeousness.  And belonging much higher than where I placed it, on this list.
   

Wolfgang strutz. Wolfgang sings Hymns.

I won't lie, I feel somewhat obligated to post this album of forest-baked gospel music.  It's like theme music for FG.  Happily, however, it's quite lovely, lightly experimental, toy-ish, enchanting, and indicative of weird-folk luminaries like Vashti Bunyan, or Joanna and Devandra circa 2004.  All good things.  It flies by rather quickly, though.  Fortunately she has another record--a companion of sorts--that she released in February.  And both freely downloadable.  Good stuff.  Great.

Susie Reiss

First Dog to Visit the Center of the Earth - Corecore

First Dog (to Visit the Center of the Earth) finished Corecore late last year and--Cinderella--it was released this year by Debacle Records.  So congrats First Dog and congrats Debacle, because Corecore is phenomenal.  First Dog (aka Jack Rodriguez) has been pretty prolific since starting FDVCE and has produced a lot of amazing music, but for my money Corecore is his finest achievement.  The album is incredibly imaginative and weird and everything that is great and lacking in most beat-driven electronic music.  It stands shoulder to shoulder with genre gods like Matmos and Mouse on Mars at their best.  An album I'll most certainly be mentioning again come list-making time.

Tom Gauld's "Some Advice on How to Cope in These Tough Times"

Stolen from The Guardian, Tom Gauld's contribution to "A cartoonist's worldview."  Follow the link to see additional contributions from Kate Beaton and Luke Pearson, among others.

Arcing - Doubt

I've tried never to be possessive of bands that I like, but back when Erin and I were only dating, I got Tiny Hawks' miniature masterpiece, Fingers Become Bridges, and, while listening to it for the first time in the car, driving between my house and hers, swore her to secrecy.  No one could know about this band besides us.  Oh, high school: the ridiculous things we think and say (though I'm pretty sure I was graduated by time this happened).  Anyways, after putting down the Tiny Hawks moniker, the duo is back, and with two additional members to boot, renamed Arcing.  And Doubt, they're debut 12" is out now on Corleone.  And it's for the everyone:

THUNDERPAW by Jen Lee

Holy Stuff!  This is insane.  Jen Lee's only a couple pages in, but rest assured, THUNDERPAW stands to be epic.  Certainly this is the future of webcomics, at least for those not easily afflicted by seizures.  Start here.  And more images after the jump.

Black Pus - Pus Mortem

Even if my mind isn't playing tricks on me and the new Black Pus album is sparser and laxer than any I can remember, you can still only describe Chippendale's solo project as murky, wild, loud, pummeling, and fast.  Pus Mortem is a Black Pus album, after all.  Oh, and if you haven't hear already, Chippendale unearthed two twenty minute (or thereabouts) slabs of yesteryear Lightning Bolt, here and here.  For those looking to retire their ears earlier rather than later.

Brett Amory

Misato Suzuki

The Slaves - Spirits of the Sun

Forest Gospel would like to apologize to The Slaves, it being legally required that all reviewers mentioning their new album, Spirits of the Sun, mention the following: Grouper, My Bloody Valentine, Sunn 0))), etcetera.  Must be frustrating.
 

HYMNS: Ween - "Roses Are Free"

Ween - "Roses Are Free"
(from Chocolate and Cheese, Elektra, 1994)

"Roses Are Free" is the kind of song, it's so catchy that if you wake up with it in your head in the morning, which you will, you'll start out on your commute to work already singing it, only to find that it didn't sync onto your iPod, so you'll scroll through the hundreds of artists that did successfully sync, and then you'll start to recognize a weird dissatisfied feeling in your stomach as you read the names of your favorite bands, and realize, absurdly, that you would rather give up -- now that it's there, in your head -- and walk the ten minutes to the train, and then ride the train for another thirty-five, all without playing any music at all. Just your headphones in, fogging out the city noise a bit, so that you can better hear the little recordplayer we all have in our brains play this song on repeat. The thought of other music becomes impossible. The bright keys, the dwarfish voices. Tinsel and pumpkins. The way the chorus winds itself up. The guitar solo, the fuzzy, perfect thing. 

That's just it. I think this is a perfect song. Capital-P Perfect. Which is weird, because it sounds like maybe what you'd get if you mixed a chorus of elves singing a Christmas jingle, a Van Halen concert, a trashy amusement park carousel ride and 450milligrams of mescaline sulfate. Ween is one of the most perplexing bands in the history of pop music, and "Roses Are Free" may be their ultimate achievement. 

I do not know what this song is about, but I am convinced that it is pure evil. That it is doing twisted, gloriously debauched things to my brain. 

MP3: Ween - "Roses Are Free"

Travis Gray's Animal Ghosts

 Travis Gray's Animal Ghosts coloring book must be seen to be fully appreciated.  At 2.25" X 2.5" it's incredibly small, yet marvelously well-made.  And the genius of a white crayon for coloring ghosts on white paper...  Images after the jump.  This and other awesome (small) books at his webstore.

Car Seat Headrest - Monomania

As was with the first two Car Seat Headrest records, the more I listen to Monomania the more impressed I am with it.  On the face of it, Will Toledo's solo project is pretty standard, if roughly hewn, indie rock.  Which is as nondescript as I can be.  If I'm being unreliable, I'd compare it to, say, Sunset Rubdown, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.  (You understand my laziness.) Bottom line is that Monomania rises above, is more than the status quo (much more), and is worth many repeated listens.  Year-ender, for sure.  So listen:
    

Alex Tedesco - Pretty Lies

(Self released, 2012)

This review has been a long time coming.  And it's significant, in that it marks a change for Forest Gospel.  I plan no longer to provide reviews (or what I have previously passed off as reviews) for the music I post here.  Otherwise, I think, I would just never get around to posting anything (case in point: the last three months).  Just the way it is these days.  And anyways, if I'm posting it, that means it's recommended.  Just like everything else on here--make sense?

This, however, this record by Alex Tedesco, has been like a sledge hammer to the head.  One of the most anticipated albums of the year for me, absolutely (proof).  And while it certainly delivers, it also certainly messed me up (which is synonymous with delivering, obviously).  Tedesco has evolved from his debut, Future Strains (skronky, wild-eyed noise pop), into something that is heavier, darker, prettier, and much more complex.  Like the middleground between David Thomas Broughton and late-era Scott Walker,  Pretty Lies is rough-edged, drugged, carnal, and looking for blood (+, +, +, +).  Its audacious, really.  And listening to it has turned me upside-down.  If the internet age is really something that you can say and have it mean anything at all, know that Pretty Lies is not an album meant for the internet age.  Pretty Lies is an album meant to be digested, meant to swim between the ears, meant to haunt and haunt and haunt, meant to confuse and torment, anger and then elate, and, in the end, unqualifiedly injure (it is only a record, after all).  In the simplest terms its just some outsider pop album with a dump truck's worth of ambition and a baritone croon.  Give it some time, change your life.

K-Fai Steele

Mattias Adolfsson

Lorenzo Papace / Ödland

Brilliant video directed by Lorenzo Papace for a pleasant song ("Østersøen") by his band, Ödland.

Kike Besada

King Mini