Weirdo Rippers #18

Irrespective of style and substance, as it always is, the new music landscape is littered with so much music that it’s difficult to know where to start. Sometimes it’s easier to escape back into the past, and while new music is always the priority, the older purveyors are still very much in mind and in play.

The last couple of months afforded the opportunity to talk to two exponents who have delivered some of the most vital sounds in the punk pantheon: Roger Clark Miller, once as leader of Mission of Burma and Robert Poss of the equally revered Band Of Susans.

Since both acts have disbanded over the years, the pair have gone on to forge their own paths, creating beautifully unique sounds in the wider kingdom of experimentalism. Both have fascinating stories, which (if time persists) you can read all about here and here.

It’s these moments that underline how back catalogues can be the ultimate refuge, and no matter how many new submissions flood the inbox or Bandcamp notifications pop up on the phone, there’s never any harm in reacquainting with the past. It’s a crucial pastime, in many ways. An opportunity for inspiration and recalibration in a bid to move forward in the constant pursuit that is the present.

Which is where we land in our eighteenth edition of Weirdo Rippers. One that comprises of a swathe of new artists to these pages, while also underpinned by several mainstays that have been essential to this feature over the years.

MXLX Interview: “I am the brush, not the painter”

Elijah Jamal Asani: ,,, as long as i long to memorise your sky ,,,
AKP Recordings

Elijah Jamal Asani, is the first of several artists within this latest WR edition to take environmental-based composition to beautiful corners of the world.

Having spent time in the Grand Canyon, the sounds that make up ,,, as long as i long to memorise your sky ,,, (commas and all!) are sewn together with Asani’s lightly brushed piano lines and equally faint field recordings of water falls and echoes that subtly reveal themselves from deep in the mix.

There’s probably no other record out there like ,,, as long as i long to memorise your sky ,,, – it’s almost like a dream within a dream, and with one-of-a-kind recording techniques breeds a one-of-kind type of record, pulling psychedelia to the most radical places.

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James Blackshaw: Unraveling In Your Hands
Amish Records

Following his pivot a decade ago on Summoning Suns, the James Blackshaw album where he actually sang (the results, beautiful), the Hastings-based 12-string guitarist retreats to the similar habitats on the long-awaited Unraveling In Your Hands.

Whether or not Blackshaw is a certified Weirdo Ripper disciple matters little. Unraveling In Your Hands, a beautiful foil for many of the releases in this latest edition, with three spellbinding compositions that are among the pinnacle of primitive guitar music from these shores.

Like Haress, Blackshaw manages to capture an earthy locality with his music. With the subtle ring, hum, and brush across the strings, somehow he carves out his own voice to the point where you know a James Blackshaw piece when you hear it. And with Unraveling In Your Hands, it’s some of the best work the guitarist has gifted us.

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Exploding Skull: Coyote

The Colour of Madness: Sundowning
Cruel Nature Records

The Colour of Madness is the brainchild of Canterbury producer, Jacob Brant, who on his latest voyage, Sundowning, joins the pantheon of post-ambient undergrounders that are taking experimentalism to new exciting places.

Following a similar lineage to fellow U.K. experimentalist Poppy H (more on him in a bit), under the The Colour of Madness moniker, Brant cross-pollinates field recordings with glacial guitars to create subtly majestic electro acoustic compositions.

Sundowning is all about mood and texture, and the more time spent with these recordings, the more they sink into the deepest parts of the mind. Brant’s techniques illuminate the mundane realities of life, and through the end product of these compositions, the producer somehow makes the movement of the trivial everyday seem hauntingly beautiful.

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Earth Sounds Now: Convergence
Other People

Earth Sounds Now is the collective consisting of multi-disciplinary artists, Stefan Christoff, Asher Gamedze, Büşra Kayıkçı, Kaie Kellough and music producer, Nicolás Jaar.

From composition (Gamedze) to the written word (Kellough), and everything in between (Christoff, Kayıkçı and Jaar), the five-piece’s range is vast: the evidence, their debut collaboration, Convergence. Consisting of eight collage-based pieces, there’s everything from nature-inspired field recordings to free-jazz freakouts one would associate via the wonderful lens of International Anthem.

It makes for a canvass of wild imagination. Ideas that are completely open-sourced, and the more one spends in the company Convergence, the more one realises that it’s the embodiment of experimentalism.

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Empty House: Oriental Land
Self-released

Not a year goes by where the north west vibe master, Fred Laird, isn’t immersed in the land of new music, and 2025 sees the artist returning with his latest smattering of sonic fairy dust in Oriental Land.

Under his Empty House moniker, you never know what Laird is going to cook up. Always adding new ingredients to his flavoursome broth, Oriental Land sees the producer slamming dub against left-field kraut-rock, forming something purely kaleidoscopic.

It’s the product of broken dreams and random thoughts stitched together to form a patchwork of unique shapes and colours. It’s almost post-psychedelia, and while Laird exists to constantly shift the needle, on Oriental Land, it’s no surprise that he does it again. 

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Tavare: Too Small To Be So High

Fletina: Environments & Mechanisms
Mahorka

Scottish experimentalist, Fletina, has explored the darker edges of sound design, melding brooding sonics with the kind of grainy landscapes indicative of her locale.

On her latest, Environments & Mechanisms, Fletina dips into a similar sound world to Liverpool’s Hell on Hearth, but while the dungeon wave maestro takes collage sound to brutal frontiers, there’s something less evasive about Fletina’s findings. It’s almost like you’re gently guided to the abyss instead of being hurled in it.

It’s indicative of the artist’s body of work, which continues to flourish, and alongside the likes of the above-noted HoH and Poppy H, she is becoming yet another vital pillar in the U.K.’s underground.

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Fragile X: Curves and Calculus
Bricolage

Glasgow label, Bricolage, has a rather accurate mission statement: under the underground. It’s as much striking as it is true. A stable that homes some of the most gnarly voices in IDM and experimentalism, Fragile X is another, who releases their latest cut, Curves and Calculus.

Inspired by a long-term obsession with fractals and their never ending possibilities, this is IDM that twists and turns, blurring the lines between the fringes of the dance floor and the centre of it.

Snaking through different portals and pathways with cadence and poise, Curves and Calculus is the product of a producer taking their time to really refine their art, underlining that patience really is a virtue.

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Charbel Haber, Nicolás Jaar and Sary Moussa: Crashing waves dance to the rhythm set by the broadcast journalist revealing the tragedies of the day
Ruptured Records

In the second of two releases in this Weirdo Rippers edition to feature American-based Chilean experimentalist, Nicolás Jaar, this time he teams up with Lebanese artist Charbel Haber (guitar, electronics) and Sary Moussa (live sound processing) for what will be the longest title across the experimental sound world this year in Crashing waves dance to the rhythm set by the broadcast journalist revealing the tragedies of the day.

With Moussa adopting real-time feeds from Haber and Jaar, the trio combine fractured, electro-acoustic minimalism for art house films. Haber – a Lebanese music veteran most notably as the founder for Scrambled Eggs, his searching guitars work alongside Jaar’s clarinet meanderings that slowly seep into the pores.

Crashing waves… bristles with a raw intensity. A friction that bubbles underneath the mix and threatens to unravel everything. It’s indicative of the times in which these recordings were conceived: in Beirut during Israel’s recent bombardment on the city.

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Sun 13’s Albums Quarterly #18

Hell on Hearth: One Hundred and Forty Eight
Self-released

This feature wouldn’t really be the same without a Hell on Hearth release, and the Liverpool dungeon wave master continues to find new ways to put the scares into his audience with One Hundred and Forty Eight.

It’s Sean Wárs like we’ve never him before. Hell on Hearth all chimes, gongs and mallets, creating a combative response to the stifling heat that currently envelopes the city.

There’s still a bit of staple Hell at play (…(c)), however for the most part, One Hundred and Forty Eight is arguably the mongrel offspring in the project’s canon; a slow-motion collision between dungeon wave and psychedelia, and I for one hope there’s more of it in the months and years ahead.

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Hiram: Solarium Songs
Self-released

Both under the Earth Speaks and Hiram monikers, Minneapolis experimentalist, Matthew Himes, has been at the forefront of environmental sound design in 2025.

Following Earth Speak’s At Gold Beach and Hiram’s Green Green Earth, under the latter moniker, the artist returns with Solarium Songs. An ode to the summer solstice, with raga echoes and soft drones, adding new scents and elements to Hiram’s otherworldly creations.

Developed in preparation for a live solo performance at the Wonder Valley Experimental Festival in Twentynine Palms, California, Solarium Songs continues the Hiram experience: one that is borderless and soothing in equal measure, and ss far as environmental experimentalism, few capture the serenity that Hiram does on his recordings.

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Farah Kaddour & Marwan Tohme: Ghazel
Ruptured Records

It’s been quite the year for Farah Kaddour and Marwan Tohme. Both of Lebanese collective, SANAM, who recently signed to Canadian touchstones Constellation Records for their forthcoming full-length release, both have always been busy elsewhere, too (Kaddour with TILT; Tohme as a part of Postcards who recently released their excellent LP, Ripe).

Here the pair combine for Ghazel. Explorations inspired by their native Lebanon, Kaddour and Tohme meld together stringed meanderings with brooding electronica, encapsulating the body of work under the Ruptured Records stable.

Ghazel strays to the earthier side of avant-garde. Pure improvisation immersed in locality, and given the fluid nature of the Lebanese underground scene, expect to hear more from this duo in time.

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Label Watch: Longform Editions

Kuma: It Depends Which Wolf You Feed
Façade Electronics

Under the Kuma moniker, Bristol-born, Vancouver-based James Graham has endlessly shape-shifted. Each release, a polar opposite from its predecessor, and It Depends Which Wolf You Feed doesn’t buck the trend.

Kuma’s compositions are like building cities then tearing them down to start again. On It Depends Which Wolf You Feed, the producer melds grainy ambient composition with IDM, resulting in something tailored for a film score.

It’s exploration in every sense, and Kuma’s main purpose in creation is to always look forward in bid to cover new ground. And on It Depends Which Wolf You Feed, unsurprisingly, he does it again.

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Nicholas Langley: One Square Centimetre Of Light
Cruel Nature Records

Tucked away in the shadows that have been his natural habitat, it’s been a while since we’ve heard from Nicholas Langley.

On One Square Centimetre Of Light, the producer creates the kind of ideas that align with the release’s cover art. The rolling hills (which I assume to be somewhere in Wales), an escape route that leads to a timeless world.

And Langley provides the sounds to match, in something that combines wandering ambience with inflections of devotional composition. There are a lot of layers to peel back on One Square Centimetre Of Light, but it’s never a hardship. Somehow, Langley makes it effortless, which is what his sound world is all about.

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Rafael Anton Irisarri Interview: “There’s always something trying to break through”

Abul Mogard: Quiet Pieces
Soft Echoes

At last year’s Le Guess Who? festival, Abul Mogard’s performance alongside Rafael Anton Irisarri was one of the best representations of guitar-based ambient composition I’ve seen in a live environment.

Mogard’s latest solo full-length, Quiet Pieces, captures some of the intensity from that set, but it’s not ear-piecing. Mogard, carefully orchestrating a seamless undulating wall of sound that guides you through a range of emotions.

As its title suggests, Quiet Pieces is an album for solitude. It’s Mogard’s job to be in complete control, and in these peaceful milieus, he takes over with the kind of all-consuming release that underlines the notion of sonic catharsis.

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Moe Moussa / Poppy H: Displaced Heart
Fort Evil Fruit

British producer Poppy H is seemingly immune from creative failure, this time returning alongside Palestinian poet, Moe Moussa, for the harrowing collaboration, Displaced Heart.

Through these stirring, spoken word passages, Moussa recounts his lived experience of the genocide in Gaza, and with Poppy H creating the kind of sound beds that match the urgency of these subjects, it’s a collaboration that flourishes. In the case of Poppy H, the producer covers new ground here, trading in the grainy cinematic textures of his solo works for something immediate and larger.

Nothing more needs to be said other than the proceeds from Displaced Heart will go to charities supporting Palestinians affected by the ongoing atrocities.

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Willow Skye-Biggs: Elsewhere
Inner Islands

Oscillating between her role as a filmmaker and musician, with over 40 releases under her belt, Willow Skye-Biggs may have just released the best of them with Elsewhere.

Having produced music under the moniker of Sabriel’s Orb and the avant-pop guise of Ava Lux, Elsewhere sees the Salt Lake City artist under her own name. Her latest, a series of swelling drones and showering melodies in what is a sonic wave that hits with emotional force.

I can’t remember ambient music sounding so cathartic since the days of Stars of the Lid, however Skye-Biggs manages to capture some of that energy on Elsewhere, channeling it through portals that radiate and lead to a place where the possibilities are infinite. It’s a beautiful release, and one of the finest in the pantheon of ambient-based composition this year.

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Deep Fade: Oblivion Spell

Traverse: It’s Broken
Somewherecold Records

Matthew Richter (autodealer) and Somewherecold Records founder Jason Lamoreaux (also the brains behind The Corrupting Sea) return for their third full-length release as Traverse with It’s Broken.

Inspired by the crumbling U.S. health system, on It’s Broken the pair delve deep into vortex of a concept completely broken by power and greed from those at the very top of the food chain. Sonically, this is a maze, falling in the orbits of everything from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ array of film scores, to the undergirded drones mastered by the Bowery Electric. It’s all here on this voyage of dystopia.

While It’s Broken is about the U.S. health system, it’s almost as relatable to our very own NHS – an equally ailing force despite perhaps the greatest concept in the history of any health service across the world; its lack of resources and neglect from the highest powers remains frightening, and if a Labour government can’t fix it, quite frankly, who can?

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Universal Affirmation Ensemble: Unconditional Propositions
Katuktu Collective

To be honest, this could have featured in our next AQ edition, but life’s too short and one shouldn’t wait for sounds that belong at the top.

Which is where Universal Affirmation Ensemble sits, or more specifically, their debut LP, Unconditional Propositions. The brainchild of Canada-based drummer, Justin Devries, the artist drafts in a slew of guests including bowed guitarist C. Diab, flautist Anh Phung, and guitarist Cole Schmidt, and the results are excellent.

Here Devries takes post-rock beyond the conventional four-piece motif, smashing together avant-garde and ’60s psychedelia that takes instrumental music to exciting places. If Do Make Say Think and Tortoise every got in a room together with Jim White, then this may have been the direct result.

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Simon Whitehead: Dualis – The Dark Stream
East Cape Calling

Little known movement artist, Simon Whitehead, returns with his latest and first this year for New Zealand label, East Cape Calling, in Dualis – The Dark Stream.

Inspired by the Dulais River in Wales (which translates to “black, or dark stream” in English), the Boncath-based experimentalist employs a Fender Stratocaster to capture the surface movement through the river’s body as the interference effects the sounds via guitar strings.

Whilst environmental-based composition has become more prominent through capturing field recordings via phone or microphone, few have employed Whitehead’s technique, which results in unique metallic drones that vibrate with a similar sound to the prepared guitar. However on Dualis – The Dark Stream, he manages to conjure up something earthier and deep in emotional resonance.

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The Texas Tapes: An Interview with Kenneth James Gibson

Worriedaboutsatan: Subtle Manoeuvers
This Is It Forever

Gavin Miller has spent an existence carving out new pockets of sound in the fields of electronica, and following the excellent The Future Can Wait, he returns once again in 2025 with Subtle Manoeuvers.

The Bradford producer takes things down a notch here, entering the kind of blissed-out sound collages that Purelink has been refining during this decade. Unintrusive dreamscapes where soft ambers and reds slowly drift around your head.

On the back of Subtle Manoeuvers, it confirms that 2025 is yet another strong year for Miller’s Worriedaboutsatan project, adding yet more new dimensions to its world. One that radiates with a light that reaches every corner.

Released on August 8 – pre-oder here.

Xeeland: Master Builders
God Unknown Records

Last year God Unknown Records founder Jason Stoll (also of KLAMP, JAAW, etc. etc.) unveiled his Xeeland project with his debut album, Water. A beautiful series of Kranky-inspired drones and dreamscapes.

He makes it a short turnaround with Master Builders (almost released 12 months to the day, in fact). Stoll finds himself in a more inquisitive mood here, melting krautrock into the drone and psychedelia that at times sounds like Marty Rev and Alan Vega trading sounds in some green room comedown after a Suicide set.

Like Actress deconstructing the principles of IDM, on Master Builders, Stoll does something similar with ambient music. Like the guy at 3am going into the liquor store and tearing down the shelf of shiraz and merlot, in many ways, that’s what this is.

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Previous Weirdo Rippers features:

#17
#16
#15
#14
#13
#12
#11
#10
#9
#8
#7
#6
#5
#4
#3
#2
#1