Afterlives -- A Ticking Clock I Couldn't Stop

(Sorry I've been sketchy at updating lately. Busy week.)
Afterlives is the musical project of Will Barrett, and a new force on the Enemies List Home Recordings roster. Barrett compiled this release entirely in a home studio, leading it to be called a pinnacle of "outsider art". Full of emotion, reverb, fuzz, and effects pedals, this release is also a pretty good example of modern shoegaze. Similar to the Philip James release I posted, this album has poppy sounding vocals covered with thick layers of instruments and effects. Songs like 'Ever The Optimist' and 'Sunderban Tigers' are prime examples of this formula.

EDIT: Will just wrote on my last.fm page thanking me for the kind words, and as a result, I feel that I need to include this link to buy the album. I definitely recommend it, Enemies List is one of the best labels out there right now, and there's only 72 copies of the album left in stock. And we all know the only good edition of an album is the first edition.

Philip James -- Hazy Helicopter Fuck

This is the very first album I am posting on here that was sent to me directly by an artist who wanted their album on here (expect the second one, an album by Kill & Eat, to be posted within the next two days). I'm really excited to post this, because the album is a diverse mixture of a lot of good stuff. Some tracks, such as 'Hazy, An Icicle Filled for Millions', push the boundaries of my sanity. I was listening to the song with headphones on in my dark bedroom last night, and it scared me. I feel like it's the kind of music that should be played when you visit a really creepy carnival in your nightmares. Other tracks such as 'Aint So Bad' step onto trails blazed by bands such as Afterlives. 'Helicopter Pilot' even invokes faint strains of Strawberry Jam-era Animal Collective. A large wall of noise is permeated by pop-influenced, smooth, repetitive vocals and becomes the standout track on the album. While some noise groups try and mash their vocals into the noise they produce, James sets it apart. These poppier tracks, when combined with the more ambient or noise tracks, create an album that sounds like the lineup of Enemies List Home Recordings thrown into a blender. All in all, this is a solid experimental noise album by a young artist who will (hopefully) continue making strong material.
MySpace
last.fm

Psychedelic Horseshit -- Magic Flowers Droned

Really cool local band playing fuzzed-out, noisy shitgaze.
From the BenCo Presents website:
"I never thought I would find the courage to disgrace a complete scene of music, but shitgaze really is abysmal. Another of these silhouettes of shite is ‘Psychedelic Horseshit’, I mean seriously which member of the band was drunk when that name was conjured up. ‘New Wave Hippies’ sounds like a toddler playing with something that has thousands of buttons. The guitars are scratchy, and deliberately out of tune. It’s almost as if this band has gone out of its way to completely undermine every musical convention every proposed. This band is either a load of idiots on speed who suddenly thought they could play music while tripping, and sounds like a very massive pile of utter drunken shit, or it’s just some very clever chimpanzee’s who’ve evolved and suddenly realise they ‘might’ be able to play some music. In one song, ‘Bad Vibrations’ the vocalist literally says over and over again ‘ahhoooowaaaooo oooo oooo oooooooo’. I’ve actually given up on summing up this utterly pointless way of life. I would rather shave all of the hair off on my body and commit myself to a life of celibacy and become a neo-Nazi. My flat mate has put this review out of its misery and very kindly summed up this entire music scene in two words, ‘utter bollocks’."
Matt Whitehurst's (Psychedelic Horseshit member) take on shitgaze, lo-fi, Wavves, Vivian Girls, No Age, Times New Viking, and Matador Records.