In a recent interview with Colin Newman, the post-punk veteran went on to say that the most exciting and innovative part in the new music sphere is solely occupied by independent artists.
Not a truer word has been spoken, and while there has been a swathe of sound-a-like guitar-based acts charging the gatekeeper-less gates, experimentalism has never suffered the same problem. Even via the sheer volume of releases that many rightfully crumble under, quickly taking stock, and it’s astonishing just how many left-of-centre artists still manage to carve out and channel something so singular.
It’s the very reason that the Weirdo Rippers feature is my favourite on Sun 13, always throwing up surprises as new artists join the ever-growing number to feature in a piece that is now just shy of its twentieth edition.
This latest one, equally as difficult to pull together as the last, which is why it may not be the final one for 2025 – another mooted for the beginning of December before the final weeks are dominated with our End of Year features. This latest edition could have almost doubled what has been covered, and that’s not including those who have already been written about in isolation, including Bitchin Bajas, Immersion and Kieran Hebden + William Tyler.
It’s a wonderful problem to have, however it can wait until tomorrow, for it is time to shine a light on those releases that have led from the front over the past couple of months.
Drones, Songs and Fairy Dust: In Conversation with Robert Poss
Arthur King: Ned’s Mystery Music Machine Vol. 1
AKP Recordings
Los Angeles ensemble, Arthur King, has always chipped away in their own little enclave within the experimental landscape, and on Ned’s Mystery Music Machine Vol. 1, they find a new little pocket of space to immerse themselves in.
A single composition at just over 30 minutes, Arthur King look as further into the unknown as they ever have before, melting down the essence of raga and dub through lens of ambient-based composition. I’m not sure how they do it, but it feels worn all the way down to the groove, radiating and pulsating with a unique feeling.
For those not attuned to the world of Arthur King, this first volume of Ned’s Mystery Music Machine is an introduction that leads you closer to their promised land.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Demetrio Cecchitelli: ξ
MNEMOSYNE
Following last year’s Unity, experimental guitarist, Demetrio Cecchitelli, returns with ξ.
Quite the world away from its predecessor, ξ sees Cecchitelli carving out the kind of sculptures that are inspired by vast space. Think the desert but in a futuristic form. The filmic nature of his work remains, but it’s something that is more skeletal, likened to the earlier works of, say, Vincent Gallo.
Darkness has always been the through-line to Cecchitelli’s work, and while it’s presented in shorter bursts akin to a sample size of his canon, that’s not to say this isn’t a new chapter to it. And speaking of, the next one will be just as intriguing.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Euan Dalgarno: Unoying
Frosti
Thomas Ragsdale’s Frosti label is having a year, and Euan Dalgarno’s latest release, unoying, is yet another fine addition to it.
On unoying, the Scottish producer presents something that encompasses the label’s rich history. Electronica that pulsates with drama, diversity and a purity designed for club-sized sound systems, Dalgarno’s covers borderless ground across these nine compositions.
In the age where Bandcamp has made it possible for anyone to release their music within the click of a button, the focus has shifted somewhat from audiences now having a greater emphasis on labels rather than artists themselves. And for those unfamiliar with Frosti, Dalgarno’s unoying is the portal that leads to the core part of its story.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
DuChamp: The Wild Joy
Ramble Records
Berlin-based Italian artist DuChamp has delivered something pretty special with her latest release, The Wild Joy.
With the kind of devotional drone that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the earlier incarnations of Chicago touchstone label kranky, DuChamp is the conjurer of humid soundscapes that thaw out cold hearts.
There’s tension within these compositions, however DuChamp effortlessly rides it out. Instead of surging into the abyss, she looks up, ascending towards the light and eventually finding it with uplifting movements that glisten like jewels from a crown. Those who fell in love with last year’s Audjoins release, Light Breaks In, this album lands in the same orbit.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
The Dwarfs of East Agouza: Sasquatch Landslide
Constellation Records
Trying to make sense of The Dwarfs of East Agouza is like trying to unpick life’s complexities. Just don’t do it. Ride it out and see what shakes out.
This is what Alan Bishop (alto saxophone, acoustic guitar, vocals) Sam Shalabi electric guitar) and Maurice Louca (keyboards, beats, electronics) have been doing for years, and on their excellent long-awaited LP, Sasquatch Landslide, the trio scour just about every frontier imaginable.
Sasquatch Landslide is the soundtrack for the nomadic herdsmen. Languages from every corner of the globe, intertwining to the point where The Dwarfs of East Agouza engineer their own. Psychedelia is perhaps the most loaded term in the new music landscape, but here, Bishop and Co. hit just about every frequency of it.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Eiko Ishibashi and Jim O’Rourke: Pareidolia
Drag City
Japanese experimentalist, Eiko Ishibashi, adds yet another string to her bow, this time alongside experimental veteran, Jim O’Rourke who merge their minds for Pareidolia.
Earlier this year, Ishibashi continued to shine the light into new corners with her excellent lounge-inspired LP, Antigone, and alongside the Japan-based O’Rourke, the pair combine for the kind of deep-listening that sets off spit fires in your mind.
Pareidolia isn’t immediate by any stretch. More designed for secluded corners and headphones, if you’re in this headspace, the results become clear – final cut, Lia, like watching the sun peek over the horizon; so enchanting, it makes you want to play this album on a loop.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Eliot Krimsky: I Made My House
Moon Glyph
Better known as co-founder for Brooklyn-based outfit, Glass Ghost, Eliot Krimsky pivots on his latest solo work, I Made My House.
Written on the back of his father’s unexpected death in 2022, Krimsky carves out a series of emotional vistas that hit hard; the nexus of I Made My House, a series of cassette tape archives capturing conversations between Krimsky and his father that evokes a different kind of homespun warmth.
Fans of Sufjan Stevens’ more recent works will find something with this record. However, there’s more inventiveness here, as Krimsky’s minimal jazz-inflected recordings provide something that’s slightly off-kilter, making I Made My House a worthy addition to this latest Weirdo Rippers dispatch.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Kuma: Your Taped Up Heart
Frosti
The Bristol-born, Vancouver-based producer featured in our last Weirdo Rippers column, however following up with something as good as Your Taped Up Heart, well… it couldn’t be discarded.
This time Kuma arrives on Frosti (the second of the label’s releases in this latest edition), and just by looking at the beautiful artwork tells you how this album unfolds. Rather soundtrack-y and blissful, as pink noise drifts from the speakers, ultimately, it’s ambient techno for high altitudes.
Your Taped Up Heart captures these times. Not political, but as the current landscape fills anyone with any common decency with utter dread, Kuma aims to ease the burden with sounds that let you occupy a world that feels okay for one or two moments.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Braulio Lam: Blanco y Negro
Facade Electronics
Mexico label, Facade Electronics, have caught fire with Braulio Lam’s Blanco y Negro.
The Tijuana-born producer, guitarist, and photographer has delivered the kind of shadowy collages that move between the worlds of early Burial-inspired dubstep, the greyscale techno of Kompakt, and the cold hard floors where Vladislav Delay conceived his master works.
Crisply produced, Blanco y Negro is a dynamic listen whether it be with headphones or via ocean-size sound systems. Something that ceaselessly evolves, each listen brings its own new conclusions through hologram-like portals, and the end point is fascinating. Alongside Barker, Lam has delivered one of the year’s most accomplished electronic albums.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
The Lonely Bell: Time Beyond the Edges
Shady Ridge Records
Following the release of the innovative Katmandu LP earlier this year, Scottish-based experimentalist, Ali Murray, returns under The Lonely Bell guise with Time Beyond the Edges.
Featuring an all-star cast that includes vital underground voices, Karen Vogt, Joachim Spieth, Blanket Swimming and many more, Time Beyond the Edges is like a sound bath in the ocean. A one-stop shop of everything vital within the dark ambient, techno and minimalist enclave.
With each track featuring a different artist alongside Murray, she has taken the time to meticulously plot Time Beyond the Edges, and judging by the production alone, it’s been worth the wait. There isn’t a weak spot from front to back.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Lunt: A Half of You
Cruel Nature Records
Following his excellent 2022 release, Remember We Were Waiting for the Snow, French-born, Latvian-based composer, Žils Deless-Vēliņš, returns under the Lunt moniker for A Half of You.
While Remember We Were Waiting for the Snow was like a rolling dreamscape for the soundtrack to wanting to stay bed, A Half of You sees Deless-Vēliņš in more of an abstract frame of mind. These recordings, weaving in and out of consciousness, barely reaching the 20-minute mark in total.
A fragmented release that occupies a totally different space than its predecessor, there’s still something about A Half of You that makes you keep going back, which really is what the Lunt experience is all about.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Takashi Masubuchi / Fumi Endo / Yusuke Kawamura: Styx Tombed Visions
With his second release on Tombed Visions this year, Japanese experimental guitarist, Takashi Masubuchi, returns alongside trumpeter, Yusuke Kawamura, and pianist, Fumi Endo, for Styx.
Inspired by Greek mythology, Styx sees the trio flirt with the edges of the avant-garde. Spacious and dream-like, there’s a chamber music vibe to these six compositions, led by Masabuchi’s acoustic guitar which forms the sonic bedding for Kawamura’s trumpet that scratches and whines, and Endo’s sparse piano lines.
There’s a sullenness to these compositions, as the trio explores below the depths of jazz. It’s chamber music for solitude, with Masubuchi, Endo and Kawamura producing something that irons out the creases in your mind.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Burn Into Sleep ~ Dream Skills: I Carried You For Years And The Deers Are Still Hungry
Jef Mertens & Dirk Wachtelaer: Wonderful Brutalism
Many Chants Records / Ramble Records
Belgium DIY veterans Jef Mertens & Dirk Wachtelaer join forces for a wicked avant-garde freak-out on Wonderful Brutalism.
The sparring partners enter the ring for something that really is what it says on the tin. Wachtelaer’s drums are spiky and unpredictable, while Mertens’ taishogoto navigates around the chaos for a communication that is all frenzy and chaos.
Over the years, Mertens has plied his trade in many guises throughout the underground (his most prominent as a filmmaker), but alongside Wachtelaer, he’s just about outdone himself on Wonderful Brutalism. Something that maintains the catch-and-release tension accurate of these times.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Mondo Lava: Utero Dei
Hausu Mountain Records
Chicago label Hausu Mountain Records are one of the more forward-thinking labels out there in the land of independent music, and with a slew of releases at the backend of 2025, Mono Lava travels beyond anything they have released this year.
Comprising of James Ketchum and Leon Hu, on Utero Dei, the duo carve out the kind of glow-wave devotional psychscapes that have you reaching for the chemical refreshments. It’s sound with ebb and flow and beautiful colours. A psychedelic rush where the possibilities are endless.
Utero Dei takes you to the most exotic places, and as the nights pull in as the colder months approach, close your eyes and press play. It’s a holiday that will cost you less than a tenner.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Gvansta Narim: Happiness Is Found in the Soul’s Immortality
Cruel Nature Records
Gvansta Narim returns to Cruel Nature for her fifth release on the label, Happiness Is Found in the Soul’s Immortality.
It’s been a beautiful journey that the Tbilisbi-based sound artist takes us on, immersing herself in minimalism like never before. Piano-based compositions akin to tear drops falling through cracks in the sky, it’s the first time where Narim’s music feels fit for soundtracks.
In the world of sound art, few have covered the ground Narim has during this decade. From one release to the next, there’s a subtle expansiveness to her approach, and on Happiness Is Found in the Soul’s Immortality, she’s delivered her most heartfelt release yet.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
The Neshama Alma Band: Clearing Clouds of Confusion
Pax Recordings
The Neshama Alma Band is the San Francisco-based collaboration between composer, Ernesto Diaz-Infante and filmmaker / flutist, Marjorie Sturm. On Clearing Clouds of Confusion, the pair produce something that possesses the pathos of the conflict that inspired these pieces.
Two long-form pieces recorded separately (the first, on KALX 90.7FM University of California, Berkeley on January, 30, 2023; the second, on KXSF 102.FM San Francisco, California, on Frequency Uplift! in April of the same year), The Neshama Alma Band’s wandering metallic arrangements move beyond the ground they’ve covered in the past.
Particular Diaz-Infante, whose nimbleness on guitar is once again showcased here, and backed by Strum’s ghostly echoes on flute, these compositions are exactly why features like this exist.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Chloe Yu Nong Lin & P.M. Tummala: Levitation Stories
Monastral
Chicago-based duo Chloe Yu Nong Lin and P.M. Tummala combine for a different kind of catharsis on Levitation Stories.
A communication via two instruments from different Eastern traditions – Lin’s Chinese pipa; Tummala’s Indian harmonium – the pair conjure up borderless and meditative atmospheres. It’s deep listening but with a new dark edge, taking you to completely different places depending on your mood.
With these recordings having remained untouched for almost five years, it’s almost as if the time taken has given these track a totally new meaning and vitality. It’s the beauty of experimentalism, and with Levitation Stories, Lin and Tummala just about reach the core of it.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Lee Ranaldo: The System (Original Film Music)
Riva Media Records
Following his collaboration alongside Luggage’s Michael Vallera (one of the year’s finest releases in Early New York Silver), Lee Ranaldo returns in film score mode with The System (Original Film Music).
From the metallic guitar scraping of his most out-there adventures to warm drones, beautiful acoustic wanderings and organ-based deep-listening, in many ways it’s Ranaldo housing all of his ideas in experimentalism under one roof.
For those who wish to go down the rabbit hole of the Sonic Youth guitarist’s body of work, The System (Original Film Music) encompasses much of it.
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Sir Richard Bishop: Hillbilly Ragas
Drag City
…And now for the other half of Sun City Girls where Sir Richard Bishop can be seen and heard running for the hills on his latest endeavour, Hillbilly Ragas.
It’s back to basics for the experimental guitar veteran, who returns with the kind of shamanic acoustic freak-outs that blow the competition away. Despite minimal tools at his disposal, there are new ideas are ablaze, as Bishop’s lightning-fingered dexterity just about fries the fretboard. And your senses. These frantic wanderings, carefully plotty and birthed in solitude.
Which is exactly the state to consume Hillbilly Ragas. Its vitality, reaching every corner of the room as the master of acoustic mind-fuckery is back!
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
St James Infirmary: And the Moonbeams Kiss the Sea
Cruel Nature Records
With a slew of releases under the St James Infirmary guise, Ashington, Northumberland’s G.W. Lang returns with one of his most gorgeous.
And the Moonbeams Kiss the Sea could be considered the point where deep-listening and psychedelia intersect. Aural splendour that opens the world to new opportunities, it’s less like moonbeams and more like the sun; these humid drones, evoking the same feelings as the aforementioned DuChamp release, The Wild Joy.
In fact, listening to both releases back-to-back isn’t the wildest shout, as And the Moonbeams Kiss the Sea showcases St James Infirmary revelling in the long-form with something that is hypnotically captivating.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Talkdemonic: Very Cool Yesterday
Bathysphere Records
Brooklyn-based experimentalist, Kevin Timothy O’Connor, has been creating music under the Talkdemonic guise for over two decades now, and on Very Cool Yesterday, he’s alliance with Bathysphere Records fits like a glove.
While the experimentalist produces crisp compositions that lead to the fourth world, there’s an emotive backdrop to much of Very Cool Yesterday. A variety of layers indicative of an artist who has been refining their craft for years.
Very Cool Yesterday is expansive, but not in a high-wire drama type of way. There’s a delicacy here that slowly draws you in, and once the warm rush of Long Dream and Awake in the Dark washes over you, it confirms just what a lovely record this is.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Gayle Young and Robert Wheeler: From Grimsby to Milan
Farpoint Recordings
Unless Grimsby Town Football Club ever make the top flight of English football, I very much doubt the Lincolnshire town will ever be mentioned in the same breath as Milan again.
Having lived in the town for several years, the collaboration between Canadian composer Gayle Young and Pere Ubu synthesist, Robert Wheeler, instantly piqued the interested. The former’s microtonal zither communicating with the latter’s EML synthesizer for a musical language that morphs into some of the gnarliest shapes and sounds you’re likely to hear this year.
Like no-wave dabbling with minimalism, From Grimsby to Milan is full of unmoored gadget wrangling, and the results see Young and Wheeler concocting something akin to a Waxing Crescent Records compilation.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Previous Weirdo Rippers features:
5 replies on “Weirdo Rippers #19”
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