That explains why guest vocalist Justin Vernon ventures down paths both familiar (the harmonies that carry “And in Truth” to such great heights) and freakish (the guttural agony of “Brute,” which could double as a Pig Destroyer scratch track) on the trilogy’s third and final installment, To See More Light. Meanwhile, the record itself revolves around Stetson’s strictly analog — no overdubs, no loop pedals, nothing — approach to attacking his alto sax. In many ways, it’s not all that different from the devotion he had for a year-round sports regiment in high school.

“Wrestling encapsulates most of my physical discipline,” explains Stetson. “Ultimately, I had to quit the sport because it was so destructive — dropping 12 pounds in water weight before you go in and compete, then competing well [Laughs]. It was extreme, but it was one of the things that made me.”

Speaking of extremes, we asked Stetson to discuss some of his favorite metal songs down below. Sure enough, they’re all about as dizzying and dynamic as Stetson’s own records.

Metallica, “For Whom the Bell Tolls”

Why were you drawn to Metallica’s early records? Because they were thrash-y but still had a strong melodic sense to them?

Exactly. It’s such powerful music — angst-ridden, but educated. These are guys who did their homework, and are contextualizing what they learned in the world that they see. So you’ve got all of that youthful rage and aggression, but there’s also a nuance to it. And compositionally, I feel like a lot of that was coming from classical traditions in that it was very symphonic.

So you had this convergence of all these strains of music. Metallica was the first one to bring in a pop sense, in terms of how they delivered vocals. Not how the songs were structured though, because they were still doing things their own way. Because of the age I was and the background I had — largely in melodic music — I latched onto them. In my early teens, there was a lot of gaming with my shop friends, and so we would listen to those records. I remember Ride the Lightning was huge with my wrestling team when I was 12, too.

You used it to psyche you up then?

Oh god yeah. I still do that shit.

Before shows?

Yeah, it depends on what I feel I need before a show. Sometimes I need to be very peaceful and level out feelings, and other times I need to conjure up more of that aggression so that’s something that’s been with me since I was a kid. Like, I remember listening to Tool before I’d compete [in wrestling].

Why did you pick “For Whom the Bell Tolls”?

I was running the other day and listening to that record. When it got to that song, it was as if I was listening to the lyrics for the very first time. It was really crazy realizing that, thematically and image wise, there’s this whole thing in the new record with an eagle that’s basically the angel, or spectre, of death. It has these cracked eyes that prevent it from seeing in the light of day or the dark of night, so it can only hunt at the break of dawn or as the sun sets [Laughs].

There’s this death imagery with the main character in my narrative, and so “Who the Waves Are Roaring For” is really “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” There are a lot of weird parallels to the lyrics of that song, and I did not notice that until now. Which is always interesting to me — how things can be filtered through the creative process.

You mentioned gaming before. What kind of games are you talking about?

Oh, when I say “gaming,” I assume everyone knows I’m talking about role-playing games. This was back in the days of Dungeons & Dragons, before everything got complex. This was the mid-to-late-’80s [Laughs].

Were you hanging out with the jocks just so you wouldn’t get beat up for playing Dungeons & Dragons?

I was never a fighter, but I got bigger and more physically imposing by the time I was 11 or 12. It all happened kinda quickly, so no one fucked with me or my friends after that. I guess if you intimidate the jocks, they’ll leave you alone, no matter how many games you play.

Slayer, “Angel of Death”

So this song makes perfect sense now that you mentioned that storyline with the eagle.

Yep. They were working in broad, archetypal stuff too; they were all drinking from the same fountain.

Slayer was obviously a part of thrash’s Big Four, along with Metallica, but what sets them apart?

The scales are tipped towards the thrash, towards the speed and aggression. It’s, I don’t want to say “messier,” but the edges are definitely frayed and it’s more rooted in punk than rock. I don’t know; they’re extremely similar, yet completely different — worlds, in a way. Back then, and still now, I’ve always been driven and excited by songs with such an impassioned, aggressive delivery of something that’s so immaculately structured and precise. It’s riding the fine line between control and oblivion. I feel like that’s what bands like Slayer are all about.

Did you realize what “Angel of Death” was about Josef Mengele when you were a kid?

I’ve lived my life almost entirely oblivious to words. In music, especially. Not that I’m not a reader; I’ve always read a lot. But I’ve never really focused on the language aspect of music. It’s as if I’ve viewed the lyrics and vocals as shapes rather than delivering language and poetry.

That’s something that’s changed for me over the years. It’s one of the bigger shifts I’ve found as I’ve gotten older. At some point in the past five years, I found myself wondering, “When did I start listening to NPR a lot?” Because when I was in my 20s, I’d listen to music a lot in the car, but I wouldn’t sit and listen to the news or want to hear the language that they’re speaking. It made me wonder if my father experienced the same shift as he got older. Because I remember he always wanted to listen to some form of talk radio when I was a kid. And I kept thinking, “Why the fuck does he want to listen to more people talking?” I could never understand it. There must be something to how our brains intellectually relate to words as we get older. I don’t know if that makes sense, but they get brought into play more over time.

It makes sense; as people get older, they basically find peace in NPR or sitcoms. It’s all about having that sound of voices around. It’s comforting in a way.

Yes! Why is that?

Rainbow, “Man on the Silver Mountain”

So let’s talk Dio…

Oh man, I always wanted there to be a compilation of “castle rock” in the same way there used to be ones for things like ’80s rock ballads. Like there’d be Rush with all of those wizard voices…

And Zeppelin!

In a huge way, yeah. If we expanded what we are talking about here, Zeppelin was definitely a huge influence on me in high school. They just fit seamlessly into what I’d been listening to, particularly because of those elf and magic references.

But yeah, Dio — he was a big one for me.

So if you had to choose between hearing Black Sabbath with Dio or Ozzy, you’d choose Dio?

Oh, I don’t know if I’d do that! They’re two different beasts, and I’ve had much more exposure to the Ozzy Sabbath. I don’t know why that was, but Ozzy Sabbath…it fucking had Ozzy’s voice, in the same that Morrissey only has Morrissey’s voice. There’s something about the timbre, and the color of the vocal chords coming out of his mouth that shifts the space in a way. It’s so unique. I could never disparage Ozzy.

Why did you pick this Rainbow song in particular?

“Man on the Silver Mountain”? There’s some overlap in the imagery of [that song] and this record — something shining on top of this mountain, and we’re in search of it, trying to find our way up to that point. What’s up there is this fortress that’s old and made of mirrors. And there’s a man up there, so [laughs]…

Meshuggah, “Soul Burn”

Meshuggah was very much a “thinking man’s metal band” in the ’90s. Is that how you got into them — through how technical they are? Did Destroy Erase Improve blow your mind?

Blew my mind, yeah. And I came to them late. The mid ’90s was college for me, and I wasn’t doing an enormous amount of metal listening then. I was learning so much about so many different things in music school instead — things like European folk music, minimalist composers, jazz, funk, soul and R&B. It wasn’t a hiatus, but it was definitely a point where I wasn’t keeping up with what was popular in the world of rock.

But in ’99, or maybe it was 2000, a friend gave me that record and it rekindled my love for all of that. Now I listen to Meshuggah almost exclusively when I run. I find the way they write incredibly meditative. No matter how odd and intricate the forms are, everything is driving around that [drummer's] pulse.

Did you pick “Soul Burn” for any reason in particular?

“Soul Burn” is one of the ones I landed on when I was writing “Brute.” I gave it to Justin when he asked me, “Where in metal am I looking for inspiration?” He sent me a “Fuck, yeah” back.

Wolves in the Throne Room, “Dia Artio”

What elements of Wolves in the Throne Room’s music are you most attracted to — the black-metal elements, the ambient ones, or the more operatic?

The black metal thing is something I’ve only had a relationship with over the past few years. They’re one of the ones I gravitated toward immediately, probably because of all the elements you just touched upon. There’s something that’s so gorgeous about the way they write, almost this clichéd longing to all of the chord progressions. And there’s a multiplicity in the way they deliver the music. It’s not just one singular voice or style; it’s more symphonic, at least in terms of the sounds and structures they use. But overall, there’s a beauty to it that’s pretty undeniable.

What’s up with this song?

“Dia Artio” is one of their more ambient songs, with a slower pulse. I could recommend any song on this record, but I thought I’d pick this one to set it apart from the other songs on this list. There’s a real patience in this piece, like there is with Sunn O))) or something. Everything is able to breathe, which is something I tried to explore on this record with pieces like “To See More Light” and “Part of Me Apart From You.” There’s this stasis of forcibly slowed down progressions so you can wander through the minutiae.

Krallice, “The Clearing”

In some ways, Krallice is the total opposite of the Wolves track you picked; they’re both capable of really long songs, but Krallice is much more relentless about it.

I find that density very satisfying, the fact that so much can stimulate your mind within it. A lot of different layers are happening sonically. It is very relentless and exact, and it’s surgical, but it has this thick, dense atmosphere around it. They also juxtapose the super low bark-metal man with the Skeletor voice, which I like [laughs].

What do you get out of a newer band like Krallice that you maybe didn’t get out of Metallica when you were younger? Or do they both provide you with the same thing?

Well they’re doing what Metallica was doing then, now — forging new ground. You almost never hear something like that. Like, the first time I heard Liturgy, everything just stopped. A lot of the black metal bands I’m into are not traditional ones. There’s crossover elements to what they’re doing, and that’s what brought me to have such affection for it. There’s a parallel between what I wanted to do with my music and what they were doing with theirs that almost made me say ‘Eureka!’ the first time I heard it. Here’s what I’ve always wanted to do, and these guys are doing it already. It was inspiring, but it also made me buck up and get back into the game. There’s moments where I hit brick walls and wonder if I can push it much farther. But then, when I hear bands like this, I think I can push it much farther.

Don’t you feel like you’ve pushed things as far as they can go sometimes, especially since you perform in such a physical way, without pedals or overdubbing?

Well I haven’t reached a breaking point yet. That said, I went on vacation for a week in March, and when I got back, the chances of pulling off most of the music I’d normally play were absolutely nil. It goes away in a second — the endurance of face muscles, and the fluidity of the tendons in my hands and arms. When there’s a lack of discernible progress in something, I can get pretty sad, so you just have to turn it up. It’s not like you have to play more and more hours; you just have to push things further and further within those hours.

Liturgy, “Generation”

You already talked about Liturgy a bit. To someone who’s maybe not so familiar with them and Krallice, what are some main differences between the two?

That’s a good question. Shit. There’s something about the way Hunter [Hunt-Hendrix] sings that is melodic in a similar way as to how I used to relate to Metallica. Something about the color and timbre of his voice puts that Skeletor thing into a place that, for me at least, is filled with such longing and beauty. At the same time, there’s this churning, aggressive, Wagnerian density happening through all the guitars and drums. The key difference between any band and Liturgy is that they don’t have [drummer] Greg Fox in it — and now Liturgy doesn’t either, which is fucking tragic. But yeah, sometimes there’s these key combinations of players and personalities that are maybe fleeting, but when they combine, it’s something intangible that no one can replicate.

You’re someone who actually has a classical background, so when Hunter says he’s inspired by someone like, say, Steve Reich, can you actually hear that in the music?

[Laughs] I wouldn’t be surprised if he said that. So much of that is happening in music and art these days — this grand, obvious swipe back at the hyper-paced life we’re all living. Everything’s back to the earth and out of the city, a return to the contemplative and meditation. So you could find your way to Liturgy through something other than musical means.

Before you go, can you explain the notion of “ambient grindcore” that supposedly inspired one song on your album?

[Laughs] In all honesty, that was Ian over at Constellation [Records]. I won’t take credit for that one. But “Hunted” was my attempt at, after hearing Aesthetica specifically, dealing with things…I remember I wrote the song “The End of Your Suffering” because I was going to cover a song from Aesthetica but realized I wanted to do something that was more of a nod to that and went so much further. I did think about how blast beats and that density would relate to the bass, so basically it is taking those textures and that sentiment and slowing it down, filtering it through this other medium. I probably would have called it something a lot less awesome. But in the end, his description was apt [laughs].

Dance-punkers drop us back to the mid-'00s

Considering all the factors working against !!! over the past 15 years — major lineup changes, members who live on opposite coasts, the questionable expiration date of “dance punk” — you’d think they’d be a part-time prospect by now. But no, here they are, delivering a filler-free album that feels like a carefully-curated DJ set, including the disco inferno diatribes of “Get That Rhythm Right,” the convulsive funk of “Station (Meet Me At the)” and the locked grooves of “Fine Fine Fine,” which washes its chest-caving drum circle down with disembodied harmonies. And then there’s the peak house-party hooks of “Slyd,” a runaway single that raises the bar on the rest of the record by pairing flesh-and-blood beats and carefully constructed samples with the call-and-response choruses of Molly Schnick. A longtime friend of the band, Schnick used to play in the !!! side project Out Hud; if there’s any reason for them to reunite in the near future, it’s this floor-filler.

Now that the dance scene’s dominated by laptop-tethered EDM producers and the robot-rock of Daft Punk, it’s almost quaint to hear a record that drops us right back in the mid-’00s, a time dominated by club-ready bands like Bloc Party and LCD Soundsystem. Next thing you know, James Murphy will be hosting a “Losing My Edge” package tour, featuring long-lost pioneers like Liquid Liquid performing their prized 12-inches in full. We can only hope, right?

Whether he’s whipping up whirlpools of noise as Prurient or delving into the darkest corners of dance music as Vatican Shadow, Fernow has always followed that path — music as a purification process, only instead of the poison being drawn out of his productions, it’s harnessed in the form of distorted tape decks, chain-linked synths and rust-encrusted samples.

He’s not alone either; while house producers have been revisiting their rave cave roots as of late, underground techno has turned 50 shades of grey. Literally and figuratively, as melodies get maimed, tempos get turned on, and rhythms embrace the very notion of electronic body music.

In the following guide, eMusic breaks down 12 essential avant-dance albums that will flood your endorphin levels (or plunge you into a pit of despair) faster than a midnight screening of Spring Breakers. Think of it as EDM’s evil twin, music that makes you move without resorting to crowd-pleasing power chords or answering the question that seems to be on everyone’s minds these days: “Where’s the drop?”

And as a bonus, we’ve also included a secondary set of recommendations and a “Panic Room” collection of deviant downtempo tracks…

Revisiting the profoundly weird stomping grounds of his self-titled LP

After spending the tail end of 2011 pushing his idiosyncratic productions down two very different paths — the freakish experimental flourishes of Love What Happened Here and the manic emoting (complete with a Bonny Bear collab!) of Enough Thunder — James Blake revisits the profoundly weird stomping grounds of his self-titled debut on Overgrown. Free of Feist or Joni Mitchell covers, the only creative voice that’s tortured or tweaked this time around is Blake’s own, whether that means something as live and direct as “DLM” or the patience-rewarding returns of, well, everything else.

Like his last LP, Overgrown will sound like a beat head’s version of blue-eyed soul to most people, which sells Blake’s songwriting far too short. Thanks to his obsession with sound itself, the record doesn’t reveal itself unless you actually listen. Only then will you notice the dying embers and buzz-sawed sonar blips of “Our Love Comes Back,” the devastating build of “Retrograde,” or the catastrophic time changes of “Digital Lion,” a knob-twiddling duet with Brian Eno that’s got more in common with Kid A than Eno’s own recent run of selected ambient works.

He’s not the only guest that benefits from Blake’s restless imagination either; RZA also makes a highly unexpected appearance on “Take a Fall For Me,” rapping oh-so-softly about the rules of attraction and how he’d sure like to have a “candlelight dinner/ fish and chips, with the vinegar.” Taking all of Overgrown‘s left turns together, something that Blake told Pitchfork a few years back suddenly makes sense: Asked about critical comparisons to Jamie Lidell, the classically-trained singer said, “If you listen to some of Jamie Lidell’s stuff and hear the way he’s singing, it’s revivalist. Frankly, if that’s the comparison being made, I think some people need to get their hearing checked.” Amen.

Exorcising confessionals across 10 mildly creepy tracks

Everything you need to know about Autre Ne Veut’s new album is in the bleak video for its chilling lead-off single, “Counting.” In case you overlooked the line “I’m counting on the idea/ That you stay alive” the first time around, Arthur Ashin hammers its profoundly depressing point home with a clip that features a few forlorn Mykki Blanco verses and the last dying breaths of Ashin’s grandmother. Your typical love song this is not.

So while Anxiety features more than its fair share of Timbaland-vis-Timberlake tropes and unironic Top 40 nods, the shuffle and sheen of the singer/producer’s muscular studio mix can’t hide the confessionals that are exorcised across 10 mildly creepy tracks. It’s as if we were all invited to Ashin’s American Idol audition, only to watch in horror as he writhes around the floor to a rubberized Rihanna beat like a freshly-killed eel. And yet, as the last skittish sample scampers away, something truly special happens — the judges are into it, especially Nicki Minaj and Randy Jackson, who actually says, “You’re crazy dog…crazy catchy!” Believe it or not, Ashin’s bringing his baggage to Hollywood. Let’s just hope he doesn’t have a nervous breakdown in the middle of covering “Climax.”

The closest Mike Patton's been to a new Faith No More record

Of all the side projects and solo pursuits Mike Patton has indulged in over the past decade, Tomahawk’s fourth album is the closest he’s ever come to releasing another Faith No More record. Not espresso-huffing covers of Italian pop songs (Mondo Cane), or a sparring session with world-renowned turntablists (General Patton vs. The X-Ecutioners), or a faithful nod to Native American music (Tomahawk’s last album, Anonymous) — a Faith No More record. Meaning: 13 songs that are experimental and enjoyable. Or as guitarist Duane Denison recently told SPIN, “This is not [a] sausage party in the church basement…No, this is meant to be played in huge clubs with alcohol and drugs and dancing girls and all those good things.” Amen. Having bassist Trevor Dunn back at Patton’s side (see also: Mr. Bungle, Fantômas) certainly doesn’t hurt matters, especially when the Hulk-smash beats of Battles drummer John Stanier are in the cleanup hitter position. True to Denison’s promise, this record’s all about the riffs and meaty hooks, however, from the ghostly apparitions and full-bodied choruses of “Stone Letter” and “White Hats/Black Hats” to the knuckle-dragging dynamics of “Choke Neck” and “I.O.U.” If you think Patton lost the plot somewhere around WTF duets of Peeping Tom — Norah Jones, Kool Keith and Massive Attack on one album? Sure! — Oddfellows is the record where Patton redeems himself and reminds us what he’s always been: one hell of a frontman.

A no-brainer for those into the blurred lines between pop, psych, ambient and WTF music

As anyone who follows their beat head scene will tell you — including even casual fans of loop leaders like Flying Lotus and Madlib — L.A.’s had something in its bong water for a while now. And lurking on the very fringes of it all over the past couple years has been Leaving Records, the tape-dubbing imprint of producer Matthewdavid and art director Jesselisa Moretti. While they’re best known for a well-curated run of limited cassettes and CD-Rs (including a couple that were painstakingly packaged in hand-painted floppy disks), the label was also responsible for the original vinyl pressings of Julia Holter’s breakthrough album Tragedy.

They know their proverbial shit, in other words, which makes Dual Form a no-brainer if you’re even remotely into the warped, increasingly blurred lines between pop/psych/ambient/WTF music. The beginning of a no-doubt-beautiful relationship with Stones Throw, Dual Form is a carefully sequenced compilation that gathers previously unreleased cuts from a wide range of artists that have little in common beyond a tendency to leave your brain feeling like a pack of melted crayons. Some standouts, then: Holter shares a spellbound cover of Arthur Russell (“You & Me Both”), Sun Araw loses himself in a web of vaporized vocals and desecrated dub nods, and the appropriately named Run DMT drone on like a bath salt-snorting version of the Velvet Underground. And then there’s the many truly underground selections that feel like a survey of a world you’d otherwise not be privy to. A sampler on the right side of insane, really.

Three decades in, keeping it simple has proven its worth

If you’ve ever heard any Bad Religion songs, you’ve heard ‘em all. And that’s really saying something, considering they’ve been around for 16 records and three decades. Here’s the thing, though: Bad Religion’s basic formula — the breakneck tempos of hardcore, cut with call-and-response choruses, hummable melodies, and lots of “hey”s, “whoah”s and “oh”s — has stuck around since the Reagan administration because it works. Like most punk worth its weight in back patches, keeping it simple (stupid) has proven its worth with the L.A. vets time and time again. That said, the group’s latest has its standout selections, from the juvenile but jubilant “Fuck You” to the crowd-riling “My Head is Full of Ghosts.” Things even get slow and sensitive during “Hello Cruel World,” but that’s not what you’re here for, is it? You’re here to pretend it’s the main stage of the Warped Tour in the mid ’90s again. And that’s exactly how you’ll feel once yet another frantic Bad Religion record grinds to an abrupt halt.

A shining example of two Type B personalities meeting each other halfway

In case you were wondering, SSTUDIOS is not a long-overdue compilation of chillwave Phil Collins covers. Like a jazz improv label with customized synths and samplers in place of brass parts and brushed drums, the Software/Mexican Summer imprint is actually a duet-driven exploration of experimental and electronic music, as curated by Daniel Lopatin (Oneohtrix Point Never) and his part-time production partner Joel Ford (Airbird, Ford & Lopatin). And while that may sound as exciting as the purely academic pages of Wire magazine – the parts that make us feel like we’re back in a philosophy class about Lacan and David Lynch – Lopatin’s inaugural entry with Tim Hecker is seamless to the point of sounding like an entirely new entity. It’s a dizzying procession of extraterrestrial drone tones, wobbly radio waves, teeth-gnashing white noise and pure ambient moods that work better than Ambien ever did. A shining example of two Type B personalities meeting each other halfway, and arriving at something that’s greater than the sum of their parts.

What Mount Eerie‘s main member – and the onetime frontman of the Microphones – means to say is he doesn’t keep up with today’s music. While he’s fully aware of, say, Clams Casino because a friend (Nicholas Krgovich) wrote a slice of electro-soul over one of his shadow-boxed beats, Elverum doesn’t seek out new songs. Not when he’s got proven LPs like the ones below to keep him company, from the readymade indie rock of Eric’s Trip and Beat Happening to such left-field selections as Popol Vuh and Sunn O))). All of which can be heard rippling through his two highly recommended 2012 records, Clear Moon and Ocean Roar…

Jesu, “Friends Are Evil”

I don’t know what this is, but I like it. Hold on; let me turn it a little louder…Is this Harvey Milk – a band I’ve never listened to but I keep feeling like I should?

Well it’s from the same label, so you’re kinda on the right track. It’s Jesu, which is the main guy from Godflesh. I picked it because some of the vocals on Wind’s Poem remind me of him.

Yeah, I’ve never heard anything like this before – people making really dense, heavy music, but singing in a softer way over the top of it. Other than something like My Bloody Valentine, where the vocals are intentionally buried in distortion. I want to make black metal essentially, but I can’t scream…Recording heavy music is tricky for me because I can make it work instrumentally, but something about an instrumental song doesn’t feel quite as real.

Do you have a hard time finding the right balance between the way you sing and the music itself?

Yeah. With black metal, you usually can’t decipher the words, and that’s fine for them, but for me, there’s something I’m really trying to convey. And in order for them to be legible in the mix, you have to put the vocals high up where the intensity starts to suffer.

You must have gotten more confident with these last couple records, though.

I have, but for the most part, when the heavy parts come in, the singing stops. I originally wanted the new records to be more extreme – totally stop/start, where some songs are just singing and some are just music. Like a friend reminded me how in Medieval times, a bard would noodle on his lute for a while, then say a poem, then noodle on his lute some more. Music and words weren’t necessarily intertwined.

In your case, you want to shred, then do your poem?

Exactly.

Eric’s Trip, “New Love”

I can tell from the hiss that this is maybe Eric’s Trip.

You can recognize them simply by the hiss?

Yeah. It’s music that I’ve listened to a million times – so foundational in my mind. This is the first track on Forever Again.

Right.

I think that’s an amazing way to start a record – with a fade-up of rain, then this other sound that’s like scraps from a session tape, and then the song starts. They’re the best.

What do you love about them so much? Or is it hard to put into words, especially since you’ve played with some of them in the past?

Oh no, it’s not hard. I was a teenager when I first heard them. I had never heard anything like this before. I guess Sebadoh would have been in the same ballpark, but I hadn’t heard them yet either. And by this point, they were more of a rock band anyway, with their Sub Pop albums. But um, yeah; I don’t know. Starting an album like that – who would do that? It seems crazy, a mistake that’s so beautiful, mysterious and deep. I remember listening to that so intently as a teenager, like, “Is that a recording of rain? And then a car drives by? Where are they? What world is this?” It’s so rich, taking music so far beyond instruments, in a John Cage sort of way. It made me realize that sloppy homemade things could make up an amazing album.

So before them, you were more of a verse/chorus, verse/chorus sort of guy?

Yeah, or something like Nirvana’s Nevermind, for example – music, not a cassette recording where you can hear people talking in between songs. I stole the idea of starting a song with quiet hiss from this. [The Microphones] record Don’t Wake Me Up starts the same way because of this idea.

You ended up doing your Lost Wisdom album with some members of this band; when did you meet them?

When I was 19, my girlfriend and I drove across Canada because we were fans and wanted to go on a trip anyway. We went to their town and I was just so starstruck being in this random east Canadian town. We happened to see a show – not Eric’s Trip, because they’d broken up, but Elevator to Hell, the band some of them became. I guess I met Julie Doiron through going to her shows every time she came here, and I gradually got on the bills myself. I was an enthusiastic fan that became a friend.

You drove all the way across Canada to see them? That’s quite a drive.

Kinda. It was mostly just to go on a trip, but that was the place I fantasized about the most because I was so into this music.

Is that drive as barren as you’d imagine it being?

Yeah, in a really beautiful way. It was like going on tour, but with no shows.

Burzum, “Lost Wisdom”

[Recognizing the song within seconds] Burzum.

Yep.

Buzum is complicated [laughs]. He’s an asshole, you know? A horrible person – a racist, and I also don’t like that much of his music. I really liked his Belus album because it’s trippy and deep, but I don’t know…I heard about Norwegian black metal by reputation before I heard any of the music. Like most people did probably – hearing about the murders, and the church burnings. It painted this picture of music that was so over the top and evil, but actually hearing Burzum or Mayhem was underwhelming in its evilness.

Because it was so lo-fi and campy?

It’s just so trebly and thin, and the voices sound like whining teenagers rather than demons. It’s corny – a Halloween costume situation—but there’s something beautiful about the earnestness of living that costume. Occasionally with bands like Burzum, there’s true musical transcendence where it gets psychedelic from all the repetition. The thinness has grown on me, too. I understand the idea behind it.

You think there’s an actual reason for it instead of being a matter of having limited means?

I do. I heard Varg [Vikernes] talk about those early albums in an interview once, about how he wanted to use the shittiest possible amplifier – the tiniest practice amp. I think he called it the “crypts sound” or something. Not wanting to sound professional is interesting in an Eric’s Trip kind of way.

Didn’t you name one of your albums after this song?

Lost Wisdom? I didn’t name that record because of this song necessarily. I just thought, “Oh, well, that’s a cool name! I wonder which Burzum song it is? Oh well, I’m not even going to look it up.”

Beat Happening, “Tiger Trap”

So I assume you have a bit of a history with this song.

Yes. A very deep history.

Where shall we start then?

Well, I grew up in Anacortes, Washington, and a member of Beat Happening is also from around here – Bret [Lunsford], the guitar player. When I was a teenager, the one record store in town was owned by Bret. This would have been ’91/’92, when Nirvana was happening and Beat Happening was kinda winding down. We were just starstruck teenagers, seeing Bret in a record store. He opened our world to the idea of underground culture, of recording and making things yourself.

We were into Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains – all these hair bands, basically – and then Beat Happening, but we didn’t see a disparity there. It was just the music we liked. In hindsight, it’s kinda funny that we liked Alice in Chains almost as much as Beat Happening. But yeah, I didn’t like them equally for long. I grew in one direction.

And it didn’t involve Alice in Chains?

No. I saw them at the Seattle [Center] Coliseum and got the idea. Never got to see Beat Happening, though. I tried to book them a few times, but they were slippery.

It must have been an honor to be on K Records.

Totally. I got into that by being in a band with Bret. He invited me to play in [D+], so we got to record with Calvin [Johnson] in Olympia, which was very exciting.

Someone who’s 20 years old now might not know much about K’s importance or history. What’s the best way you could sum up its impact?

I guess I take it for granted that it’s a big deal historically. But that’s the thing about history – it slips away. To sum it up, K is the foundational punk label that redefined what punk is, from D.C. hardcore or whatever to some dude playing an acoustic guitar and bongos. Punk is the method, not the result.

Stereolab, “Brakhage”

This is Stereolab. You’ve got me pegged. This is from Dots and Loops right?

Yeah, it’s the opening track.

They’re one of my favorite bands too. They made me think differently about song structures, but [I was] mostly into the [records] before this. Emperor Tomato Ketchup really hit me. Dots and Loops is the beginning of their transition into lounge-y, math-y stuff. I still like it, although the glitchy sounds were always a little problematic for me because they immediately sound dated; like six months later, they’re completely out of fashion. Whereas an organ drone will always sound amazing.

Is that why you use it so much in your music?

It’s pretty useful.

Stereolab were always looked at as “record-collector rock” because they clearly referenced so many other artists. Did you discover other kinds of music through them?

I didn’t actually. I probably should have explored Neu! or Can, but I just kept hearing those names and never looked them up. On the other hand, I looked up lots of things Sonic Youth referenced, like Stockhausen or Glenn Branca. I got really into experimental music through them.

Popol Vuh, “Aguirre I Lacrima Di Rei”

This is Popol Vuh, off Aguirre, I think. I love them a lot. For the past 10 years or so, they’ve been the most inspiring band to me. When I start recording, I’m usually trying to do this. Not this song in particular – the hugeness. They have a lot of songs that are just jamming electrical guitar solos basically. I usually don’t like that kind of thing, but I like when they do it. My favorite stuff is their Herzog soundtracks, though.

Right; you’re fully aware of how corny some of their music sounds, and yet, the soundtracks are rather awesome.

They actually make me like the corny guitar stuff even more. Sometimes it’s the perfect thing to put on during a long drive – those 10-minute guitar solos. You should try them out the next time you’re driving through Montana.

Do they sound dated to you at all though?

I guess the blues solo guitar jams do, but this kind of thing doesn’t. Maybe if I listened to more ambient music, it would, but this is still new to me.

Did you struggle with what song of theirs you wanted to cover on Ocean Roar?
I didn’t start off wanting to cover one of their songs. I was just listening to ["Engel Der Luft"] and thought one of the melodies was so beautiful and would work well as a chord experiment in a black metal style.

Could you ever see doing an entire record of synth-y textures like this?

Definitely. It’s what’s most exciting to me lately, what I’ve listened to the most – music without singing. Even when I was young, I listened to music in this way, focusing on the atmosphere and vibe more than the words or story. I listen to so many soundtracks because of that.

You do photography on the side too. Couldn’t you fuse your visual work with instrumental songs someday?

Totally. That’s what I thought I was going to be when I grew up.

A filmmaker?

Yeah, I made a lot of movies, but then I got distracted by music. And I still am.

Sunn O))), “Bathory Erzsebet”

You can skip ahead about 10 minutes in this song if you want.

It seems like Sunn to me. Is that right?

Yep.

They’re awesome.

This is the infamous track where they locked Malefic from Xasthur in a coffin [to record the vocal].

From Black One? Yeah, this is the [record] that got me into them. [Laughs] They’re intense. My favorite concert ever was them.

Really? When was that?

It was in like 2008 in Seattle. It was at a rock club, probably one of their smaller shows. It was gross and super hot – just physically painful being there with all the metal dudes. But yeah, the achievement of taking all that noise into other senses…it’s similar to black metal in that, yeah, the robes and the aesthetic has got a lot of corniness to it, but it’s done so well. It’s so beautifully packaged, such a wonderful presentation.

Do you like Xasthur for the same reason – not for his shrieking so much as the tones he goes for?

Some of his stuff is pretty horrible, but the record Subliminal Genocide – which is almost cringe-y to say – is what I imagined black metal would sound like when I first read all of the tabloid-y stuff about murders and church burnings. It sounds suitably evil and so huge. I think he’s the best screamer too; [laughs] his shriek is really good. It’s so distorted coming right out of his mouth.

As if that’s how he speaks right?

Yeah. It’s like he has distortion on his throat. But with the record after Subliminal Genocide, he decided to record more drums, and it just sounds so thin, like he’s in your uncle’s practice space. It doesn’t fit with the music.

Wolves in the Throne Room, “Cleansing”

Is this Tim Hecker?

No, but that’s an interesting comparison.

Oh, gosh, what is this? It’s Wolves in the Throne Room!

Yeah, although I didn’t pick them because you’re into black metal. I picked them because I feel like you’re both heavily influenced by the environments you choose to surround yourselves with. It’s not just about nature, either; it’s something deeper than that.

We’re very much peers. We’re friends, and have played some shows together, although it’s been disappointing in that mostly their fans have come to the shows and they don’t seem to see the link. They’re like, “Oh, this guy isn’t metal. This guy’s just playing a guitar.” But I identify so much with the romantic picture they’re painting of this place. I’ve been trying to think of ways to do something with them that’d make it more obvious, because I really admire what they do and I think it’s mutual. We’ve talked about recording together but…

Do it!

Yeah, I hope so. Their production is usually more exacting than I’m capable of being. When I record bands, it’s usually pretty raw. I can’t send the Pro Tools files, you know? Like they have very calculated fades and everything…I’d love to cover them and bring out something in their aesthetic that’s kinda buried at times, in the lack of legibility to their words.

You mean bring out the deeper things they’re trying to say? Like their views on the environment?

Yes…I love them.

Why have you stayed in the Pacific Northwest for so long? Because it feels like home at this point?

It definitely feels like home. I could see living somewhere else as a novelty, but I’d talk about here a lot and it’d be annoying to everyone around me.

As vinegary and vicious as ever

It’s easy to be cynical about Crystal Castles, to reduce their blank stares and shit-eating sneers to a well-rehearsed caricature of rebellion and pre-apocalyptic rock ‘n’ roll: The Sex Pistols of the Steve Aoki set. But that’s selling their self-assured sound short. Decidedly DIY from the start, it’s as vinegary and vicious as ever on (III), a pressure-cooked LP that melds the mercurial mood swings of singer Alice Glass with Ethan Kath’s volcanic builds, lumbering bass lines, heat-seeking synths and shifty breakdowns that suck the listener into a black hole of absolute despair. That’s the thing about Crystal Castles – the more successful they get, the more miserable they seem to become. And not in a woe-is-me, we-sure-miss-playing-basement-shows sort of way either – their blog-born success ensured they never played basements in the first place. More like a deadly serious document of how far society has fallen, as hinted at in recurring lyrical themes of impurity and oppression, and hammered home by a record sleeve that reprints an award-winning photo of a Yemeni woman holding her tear gas-traumatized son at a street demonstration. Like the most genuine hardcore music of the Reagan era, (III) is a battle cry that can’t be contained, only this time it’s being presented through a web of whiplashed loops and barbed wire beats. Dance music for the end of days, then.

A dead-eyed journey down a rabbit hold that never seems to end

When Clinic first burst onto the midstream rock scene with Internal Wrangler and Walking with Thee sporting surgical masks, they looked like a bloodthirsty gang of Dr. Giggles understudies who’d formed a garage band. Now seven albums and nearly 15 years into a career that never quite caught fire here in the States, the main constant in Clinic’s sound is their love of melancholic melodicas and cobweb-encrusted organs. So while the Liverpool-based quartet still slip their surgical masks on every night, their trend-skirting brand of psych-pop revivalism got decidedly slower on their last LP (2010′s aptly-titled Bubblegum) and considerably looser this time around. Free Reign is just that – a dead-eyed journey down a rabbit hole that never seems to end. Which means that, yes, three of these songs actually pass the five-minute mark, and the rest of the record is just as richly woven with steam-pressed synths and Kraut-rock-y rhythms, as co-mixed by Daniel Lopatin (Oneohtrix Point Never). No wonder why its lead single (“Miss You”) has a video that looks like a late-’90s screen saver.

Finally giving fans what they've wanted all along

Well it’s about goddamn time. After years of padding his already-ridiculous resume – dude’s down with Bowie, Bono and Byrne, not to mention Robert Fripp, Cluster and Coldplay – with such experimental flourishes as a shambolic poetry slam (Drums Between the Bells) and “film manipulations” for Daníel Bjarnason and Ben Frost (Music For Solaris), Brian Eno has finally given his fans what they’ve wanted all along: Music For Airports! Part Deux. Or LUX for short, a misleading title since there’s nothing luxurious about his first proper solo LP since 2005′s Another Day on Earth. Instead, the album stretches four wide-span tracks over 76 minimal, slow-moving minutes, which makes sense when you consider they were originally written for an Italian art installation where a sound system randomly played sustained chords, phantom voices and the plink, plop and plunk of a disembodied piano depending on where you walked within the gallery space. Being trapped on the moon or inside the glass cage of a snow globe must feel, and sound, a lot like this.

An attic-clearing exercise of demos, remixes and covers

On paper, the nearly two hours of rarities and previously unreleased material on Temporal looks more like an attic-clearing exercise – the proverbial nail in the coffin of Isis’s 13-year career – than a must-listen. After all, an entire disc is devoted to demos, and the other one’s split between remixes, cover songs and collect-’em-all cuts like the ISIS side of a split EP with the Melvins and a tense acoustic rendition of “20 Minutes/40 Years.”

If only things were that simple. While the Boston-born band was often considered a less-complicated second coming of Neurosis, Temporal paints a different picture, hinting at the five very different voices that were vying for attention at every turn. Cover wise, “Streetcleaner” and “Hand of Doom” take us back to the group’s early days, when they saw nothing wrong with grinding through the industrial wastelands of Godflesh one minute and following the doom-y directives of Black Sabbath the next. Meanwhile, the Melvins/Lustmord remix of “Not In Rivers, But In Drops” and Thomas Dimuzio’s widescreen take on “Holy Tears” show what kind of creative wells Isis tapped in other acts.

And then there’re those demos. “Wills Dissolve” plows through a Panopticon track like a vinegary garage band; “Carry” and “False Light” move from mood-altering atmospherics to pure anguish, channeling everything from masochistic black-metal to bleak ambient music; and the 16 knot-tightening minutes of “Grey Divide” unfold in movements, a hint of what could have been. Or what’s yet to come.

An autumnal listen that's alive and full of welcome left turns

Remember when Grizzly Bear was Edward Droste’s solo project? Didn’t think so. And that’s okay; while the disconnect between Droste’s bedroom-pop beginnings and the band’s longtime status as a democracy – with Daniel Rossen at the helm half the time – has been a source of tension in the past, their third album as a full-fledged quartet is sleek and self-assured. Or as Droste admitted in a Pitchfork interview this past June, “As we get older, more confident and more mature, we’re becoming more comfortable with stepping on each other’s toes.”

That doesn’t mean that Shields is marred by muddled ideas and misdirected hostility. Thanks to several “songwriting retreats” in New York and Cape Cod, the effort is decidedly collaborative, an autumnal listen that feels alive and full of welcome left turns rather than heavy-lidded and hazy. The LP’s leadoff single (“Sleeping Ute”) is a perfect example of the group’s push-and-pull dynamics – a tidal wave of rippled rhythms, honeyed harmonies and burbling synths. The rest of the record is much more subtle yet no less effective, as Rossen’s rich melodies and spare riffs play a perfect counterpoint to Droste’s fragile, emotionally-charged confessionals. Repeat listens reveal the hours that went into every hook, too, whether the finish line is reached through windswept strings and woozy jazz (“What’s Wrong”) or one long walk on the beach, a slow build that seems to be on the verge of a total breakdown (“Sun In Your Eyes”). Grizzly Bear emerges unscathed, however, as ready to assume the mantle of Brooklyn’s most promising crossover band as they’ve ever been.

Psych-steeped greatness that brings hooks into focus

When Jeremy Earl left Brooklyn for the tiny upstate town where he grew up – Warwick, New York, a rural, rail-side area best known for its annual Applefest – a few years ago, his decision wasn’t surprising so much as long overdue. And not just because dude’s the founder of a ramshackle rock band called Woods and a lo-fi-leaning label that goes by the name Woodsist. Forestry nods aside, Earl has always seemed like a hippie who’s constantly lumped in with “hipsters” – a soft-spoken Neil Young fan who’d rather hang out with his cat, a considerable wooden owl collection, and a freshly packed bong than a poorly ventilated house full of cool kids.

More important, however, is his musical vision, which has long hinted at but lurked just below the level of psych-steeped greatness that’s achieved on Bend Beyond. Led by Earl’s lovelorn falsetto and loose, fiery riffs, Woods’ seventh album offsets its tales of frustration (lots of “it’s so fucking hard” talk) with red-blooded arrangements and a clean mix that brings the frontman’s hooks right into focus. It helps that the well-oiled quartet saved their jam-band tendencies for the stage and let their individual parts shine at the same time instead, from the rambunctious organ rolls and roaring guitar leads of “Find Them Empty” to the curve-hugging rhythm section of the title track. It’s inviting enough to make us big city folks briefly ponder our own move to Deliverance-town, USA Well – almost.

Another collection of revelatory rock 'n' roll

Yep, it’s another Oh Sees album; but hey, at least John Dwyer waited nearly a year before chasing the one-two punch of Castlemania and Carrion Crawler/The Dream with another collection of revelatory rock ‘n’ roll. Recorded with a handful of helpers (including engineer/drummer Chris Woodhouse, vocalist Brigid Dawson and sax player/Ty Segall sideman Mikal Cronin), Putrifiers II is really Dwyer’s show, a series of well-aged demos that were flipped into a much fuller sound. So while “Wax Face” rips and roars like Thee Oh Sees’ infamous live shows, most of the music on here reaches well beyond the garage rock realm that’s familiar to any fan of the band’s longtime label In the Red. Take the death-march drums, vaporized viola lines and “Heroin” drip of “So Nice,” for instance; it wouldn’t sound out of place on a John Cale record. Elsewhere, “Lupine Dominus” is the closest Dwyer’s ever come to a Can song, “Wicked Park” flutters and floats like a lukewarm lava lamp, and “Goodnight Baby” is a lullaby that reveals the heart beneath Dwyer’s chest tattoos. Looks like one of the underground’s most prolific songwriters proved the law of diminished returns wrong yet again, and sure enough, we hear he’s already working on another record…

What I didn’t realize is that Animal Collective shows are supposed to be mind-fucking affairs. They’re that way by design, thanks to the quartet’s unorthodox mindset and methods, which have barely budged over the past decade. Namely their insistence on calling any release with at least two marquee members an Animal Collective record – they’re a “Collective,” not a band…get it? – and their expectation-warping set lists, which often draw more selections from in-progress material than any of their crowd-pleasers.

In other words, Animal Collective is one of the iPod generation’s most pivotal acts, an ever-evolving mass of record collector references and DJ culture nods – everything from the severely stoned jam sessions of the Grateful Dead and the psychedelic folk of the Incredible String Band to the clean minimal lines of German techno and the note-mashing noise of Black Dice – that doesn’t sound like anything but Animal Collective.

For better or for worse, post-everything pop music doesn’t much ballsier, or more infinitely rewarding, than the following records…

Tapping into a broadcast from the great beyond

The word on the street is that Animal Collective’s ninth studio album – yes, ninth – is a red-blooded response to the sunshine and puppy dogs of Merriweather Post Pavilion. Which is true in regards to its approach (bashed instruments rather than stacked samples) and overall vibe (wild and wooly), but it’s not like the group’s core quartet is back to baking batches of incoherent noise rock. To understand where they’re coming from this time around, it helps to first cue up the podcasts that Animal Collective leaked in the weeks leading up to Centipede Hz‘s release; namely Geologist’s set, which is based on an elaborate mix he made for producer Ben Allen before Animal Collective hit the studio.

“We put together a list of songs that either encompassed the overall sound and vibe, or just had specific things we liked, such as drums sounds, or vocal effects,” Geologist wrote in his Mixcloud notes. “For the final show of AC Radio we thought it’d be cool to play this inspirational mix and the album back to back.”
Sure enough, Animal Collective’s leading loop surgeon offers more than a few clues about the background of what’s initially a very bewildering listen, from Barrett-era Pink Floyd and latter day Portishead to slivers of psych, rarified garage rock and manic world music. None of which are immediately apparent on the first or 50th spin. Instead, Centipede Hz unfolds like a series of scrambled radio transmissions, right down to the tortured transitions between each track. It’s as if the band’s tapping into a broadcast from the great beyond, with little regard for the amphitheater-ready hooks that made Merriweather Post Pavilion such a joy. Where that album’s leadoff single (“My Girls”) flooded the endorphin levels of anyone within earshot, this one is prefaced by the stuttering rhythms and ravenous “let, let, let, let, let, let GO!” choruses of “Today’s Supernatural.” Listen to any of these songs loud enough and you’ll be forced to step back a few feet; it’s that harsh and heavy, from the trash compactor intro of “Moonjock” to the skittish synths of “Wide Eyed,” the first song to feature lead vocals from the group’s guitarist, Deakin.

In conclusion, do not take the brown acid at your next Animal Collective show. Your synapses will thank you.

Not quite a pop star just yet, but getting there

At this point — 13 years, five albums, and several side projects into a preconception-skirting career as a producer/DJ/performer — it shouldn’t be surprising to find Matthew Dear fully embracing his inner Eno, Bowie and Byrne. And yet, longtime fans still shout “play ‘Dog Days’!” at some of his shows, as if they wish he’d stop trying to be a bandleader and return to his twisted techno roots behind the soft glow of a laptop and some MIDI triggers.

That’s not gonna happen. Beams is yet another step in Dear’s welcome evolution as a songwriter. Not a party-rocker. Not a floor-filler. A songwriter. And since he started off as more of a club crawler — a micro-house auteur, to use the short-lived, oh-so-2003 term — Dear isn’t quite a pop star just yet. He’s getting there, though, as proven by the unparalleled perfection of this album’s lead-off single, “Her Fantasy.” A career standout, it’s willfully wild and downright weird, from its Kenneth Anger-cribbing music video to its woozy rave whistle and incessant sampled chorus of “Pump it!/ Pump the bass!” The rest of the record follows suit with one decidedly strange detour after another, including the tortured nervous tics of “Earthforms,” the lava-like loops and minor-keyed downward spiral of “Shake Me,” and the deviant disco of “Up & Out.”

It takes at least 10 listens to sink in, and even then it’s a grower, but Dear’s released yet another record that’s completely removed from the rest of his catalog. Now all he needs to do is cut 10 tracks that are as tight as “Her Fantasy.” Then he’ll have a true classic on his hands.

A double album that may be his bravest yet

Whether he’s conjuring up a quiet storm with an acoustic guitar or sharing the asphyxiated psalms of “Sex, God, Sex,” Michael Gira has never been the subtle type. That’s especially the case with the second coming of Gira’s iconic post-punk band Swans, which obliterated the notion of a cash-grab reunion with a series of resoundingly LOUD shows, and 2010′s uniformly excellent, AARP-be-damned album My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky.
Now just two years away from turning 60, Gira has delivered a double album that may be his bravest release yet. Clearly the sound of someone who still doesn’t give a goddamn what you think, The Seer isn’t just a sprawling listen. It’s a record that just went off its meds, a striking, supremely challenging mix of manic melodies, endless experimentation, ritualistic drones and rigorous repetition.

Which is to say, it’s not for everyone. Aside from a couple palette cleansers (“The Daughter Brings the Water,” “The Wolf”) and a delicate duet with Karen O (“Song For a Warrior,” which recalls the Yeah Yeah Yeahs singer’s recent rock opera run), The Seer devotes most of its two-hour running time to destroying any semblance of sane songwriting. That goes for everything from the murderous chase scene that is “Mother of the World” to the way Alan and Mimi of Low chant “lunacy!” until the word really sinks in on the record’s opener. And then there’s the “A Piece of the Sky,” “Apostate” and the title track, a trio of EP-length epics that shift between showers of nihilistic noise, hypnotic vocals (including contributions from two key Gira collaborators, Akron/Family and former Swans member Jarboe), ominous orchestral parts, and unexplained phenomena (the “acoustic and synthetic” fire sounds of Ben Frost come to mind).

Amazing stuff — if you can make it to the other side without blowing your speakers.