Of course when life demanded that I take some time away from the site over the last several months to focus on other priorities, we were totally inundated with stellar releases. So here’s a roundup of the best, most essential albums and singles we’ve received in the RCU inbox and on my doorstep since the early spring.

Bart- Some Kind of Way (Idée Fixe Records)

For their third LP, this jack-of-all-trades Toronto-based group churned out an amalgamation of disparate styles that somehow flows together exceedingly well. Swiveling from surreal soul to cubist rock and feverish jazz-funk fusion, Bart shows off just how versatile and undeniably fun they can really be on record.

Shem – III (Clostridium Records)

This is some dark, heavily atmospheric modern-day kosmische musik straight from Stuttgart, Germany, and it’s a fine example of the continued tradition of hard, progressive space rock. With fierce drones, sprawling synths and juggernaut drums, Shem’s third effort is a Hawkwindian approach to post rock that we all could use.

Joseph Allred – What Strange Flowers (Feeding Tube Records)

Joseph Allred takes a detour away from their more folk-based sounds on this recent Feeding Tube release, and instead opts for a more dreamlike soundscape approach. Aided by the likes of the Powers/Rolin Duo, the Magic Tuber Stringband and Patrick Shiroishi, Allred paints lush and otherworldly floods of heavily textured and evocative sounds that sit defiantly outside of any genre label. If Alice Coltrane, Matt LaJoie and Keith Jarrett’s Hymns of the Spheres get constant spins in your home, don’t pass this album by.

UAY – Planetas (Half Shell Records)

Swirling psychedelic rock set to a shuffling funk beat and Tropicália rhythms? Yes please! Any fan of Kikagaku Moyo, Os Mutantes and early Bootsy Collins would surely find a great deal to love here. UAY is one of the finest examples of modern Mexican acid rock, and this record is perhaps the most compelling proof of that yet.

Dorotheo – Nada Escrito (Half Shell Records)

Also originally from Mexico and brought to our ears by the good folks at Half Shell Records, Dorotheo’s latest album is filled with sexy acid-tinted grooves hardened by monster fuzz riffs. This is like if Khruangbin, Föllakzoid and The Black Angels became a jammed together during an ayahuasca journey. It will hypnotize you, move you and make you get off your ass and dance…all at the same time.

Jordan Perry – What Do You See Every Day? (Feeding Tube Records)

This is perhaps Jordan Perry’s most dynamic and progressive release yet. Utilizing field recordings, fragmentary guitar solos and moody concertinas, the Virginia-dwelling experimental artist wanders deep into minimalist avant-jazz and Pauline Oliveros-like elemental compositions. With Diane Cluck and Ned Oldham in toe, this just might be Perry’s masterpiece.

Duncan Park – Traveler’s Peace (Aural Canyon Records)

The already prolific Duncan Park returned with this fascinating audio vérité sound collage-style document of what might be a day in the life of the South African musician. You drop into candid conversations, spiritual guitar meditations and scraps and drafts of various musical ideas. You get the feeling that Park wandered around with a tape recorder and started taping whenever he heard something interesting, like a little sonic journal. How much more personal can an album get?

Bobby Lee – Endless Skyways (Tompkins Square Records)

This might be the most fully cosmic and psychedelic of the astral cowboy records that we’ve been heard recently. The music is less song-oriented than say, Jeffrey Silverstein’s records, but instead focused more so on vivid earthy zones that conjure images of wide open skies and lone desert highways. This is the kind of record you listen to when you microdose and hike into a valley full of hot sun, saguaros and agave plants.

Greta Ruth – Cuseo Hands

Greta Ruth’s latest single is a bittersweet baroque folk piece that chills you to the bone with its intensely personal, poetic lyrics. Featuring gentle, delicate acoustic fingerpicking, a quivering layer of sympathetic cellos and soothing, nightingale-like harmony vocals, this track is a stirring recording that sticks in your mind long after hearing it. If you dig this track, just wait until you hear Ruth’s upcoming full-length LP!

Lee Baggett – All Star Day (Perpetual Doom Records)

Lee Baggett kicks back with a chilled spiritually-infused stoner country track that’s perfect for the long shadows and burning heat of these late summer days. With Baggett’s nasally vocal twang being supported by a gospel-like choir, this song sounds like if 90’s Dylan sang over a New Morning-era outtake. Throw this one on the next time you need to feel cool while under the blinding sun.

Cazayoux – s/t (Ramble Records)

The psych-funk Afro-Latin grooves are strong with this multi-international Austin, TX band. Fans of Fela Kuti, Ghost Funk Orchestra and JJ Whitefield will recognize the brilliance. of this incredible self-titled album. If you’re planning. on hosting a cosmic dance party, then make sure this album stays in heavy rotation.

Blind Dead Timmy –Subtropical Daddy: The Story of Blind Dead Timmy (Perpetual Doom Records)

Japan’s Blind Dead Timmy (AKA Tetsutarou Kimura) summons dusty back roads and dried out riverbanks with his solo blues fingerpicking and slide guitar work here. Recorded in a single night on the eve of the artist’s 40th birthday, these songs often ache with a palpable wistfulness that could only come from quiet introspective reflection. Those (like myself) who swear by Tompkins Square’s Imaginational Anthem guitar soli collections need this record in their collection.

Yes Selma – Mazes of the 13 Moons (Ramble Records)

Multi-instrumentalist and poet, Chad Matthew Beattie, layered several overdubs of hammered dulcimer to create these two suite-length soundscapes that border on the spiritual. The more recordings Beattie stacks together, the more polyrhythms and alien tones tend to stand out in full glory. These clattering, bell-like pieces bring to mind the works of the Powers/Rolin Duo and Laraaji, and much like those artists, they will certainly leave any listener feeling heavily entranced.

Quintelium – Moonwaves (Ephem Aural)

How about some Vegas electro-ambient music? Quintelium’s bouncy kosmische dance beats sits somewhere neatly between 70s German synth pioneers like Ashra and Cluster, and house music of the 90s. If glistening astral dreamscapes that throb and coast like a great floating amoeba are your thing, then this is the tape for you.

Waswas – Just Because You Wander in the Desert, it Does not Mean there is a Promised Land (Ramble Records)

Netherlands-based artist Alessandro Denti fills this album with gorgeously spacey instrumental guitar pieces that might share DNA with the rural peace of Daniel Hecht and the heady acoustic improvisations of Elkhorn. All fingerpicking and psych-jam rock heads take note!

Black Swan Triad – Maelstrom (Reverb Worship)

Folk horror vibes abound on this dark folk ambient/primal drone metal release. With chanting, beastial throat vocalizations and thunderous drones, this collection of epic tracks play like ancient rituals that make the animal within you awaken with hunger. Heilung fans will rejoice when they hear this one.

Cut Beetlez Quartet – Boom Free (Ramble Records)

Finnish hip-hop duo Cut Beetlez made a practice of sampling jazz records for their music, but here, with the help of Rodney Chapman, they pay perfect homage to the genre that they’ve built off from for so long. Armed with a turntable and actual instruments, the duo expanded into a quartet and dove head first into some deep post-bop zones. How this group flawlessly puffed new life into classic Charles Mingus or Lee Morgan-like grooves is beyond me, but this is an essential modern jazz record. No question.

Damon Locks & Rob Mazurek – New Future City Radio (International Anthem)

Speaking of jazz, Damon Locks and Rob Mazurek’s latest collaboration is a kaleidoscopic sound collage that pushes the boundaries of modern jazz, and it pushes them hard. Essentially arranged as one continuous mix tape, New Future City Radio is a beautifully zestful concept album about the future, community and transformation through the framing device of a pirate radio broadcast. DJ Spooky and Negativland walked so Locks and Mazurek could run.

Cerca – Ash-a-Sha

A stunningly gorgeous folk-based soundscape built out of a dazzling array of field recordings and wildly disparate instruments. From a psaltery to the viola, Cerca weaves in the warmest and most mystical of sounds into his surreal guitar-based dreamscapes. These are some thoroughly zen sounds for a deep, slow listen.

Tarotplane – WF 80 – 39​.​28​°​N 76​.​62​°​W (Woodford Halse Records)

This is one for the heads. A vast open sea of smooth synth beams and interstellar guitar await the listener on this futuristic kosmische zoner. The record continues the astral sonic journeys started by artists like Tangerine Dream, Manuel Göttsching and Bill Laswell. This is space music for the cosmically minded. Also be sure to preorder Tarotplane’s upcoming album, Murmuration, which will be released by NPM on 8/25.

Stay tuned for part 2!

-KH