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Bandcamp Friday Roundup - October 2023

WJLP - Cocktails for One

Bandcamp may have changed hands again recently, but it looks like they're still giving up their portion of sales on the first Friday of every month, so "all" of your money goes to the artists (so long as you count Paypal as an artist). And as semi-usual, I'll draw some focus to recent surf releases worth a look. October is always a big month for surf releases , but that hasn't started yet, so this is mostly un-spooky. I also didn't get a chance to do one of these last month, so it's reaching back a little further.

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Amphibian Man - Path

Amphibian Man -Path

Back in 2016 Amphibian Man came out of nowhere with eight fantastic, high-energy releases in the span of about a year and a half. Things have changed a lot since then. The one-man project turned into a band, played shows, released a few more albums that were more of an instrumental skate/post/punk sound. And of course being from Ukraine there's there's the aspect of having your homeland invaded from Russia, a topic that I don't think I can begin to wrap my head around.

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The Ventures - New Space and The Ventures in general I guess

The Ventures - New Space

Music reviews typically are here to answer one question: Is it any good? I operate by a "if you don't have anything nice to say..." rule so my answer is always either "yes" or I avoid answering. However, a new Ventures record is under heavier scrutiny, and will likely face nastier questions like, "Are these actually The Ventures?" and "Should I even care?" After all, this is their first LP in 24 years, and the lineup contains zero original members.

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Bandcamp Friday Roundup: August 2023

The Strings Aflame, Totali Catastrofica

Oh no. It's another Bandcamp Friday and I still have so much stuff to write about Surfguitar101 Festival. But there have also been so many releases I want to talk about! So as usual, I'm going to challenge myself to be as brief as possible while still saying something substantive. Buy these records!

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My own Madeira favorites vs Archipelago

Archipelago: The Best of the Madeira

The new surf label House of Tabu is releasing Archipelago: The Great Hits of the Madeira. Normally I wouldn't review a greatest hits album. There are certainly plenty of new releases that I'm not reviewing that are more worthy than talking about songs I already know. But I thought it would be a fun exercise to approach this differently: how about I make my own greatest hits and see how it matches up?

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Bandcamp Juneteenth Roundup

The next Bandcamp Friday is in August and I've come to rely on these to push myself to do quick reviews of recently released surf music. In the meantime,  by donating their share to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, a worthy cause for trying to buy more music on that day.

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Thomas Lauderdale meets The Pilgrims

Thomas Lauderdale meets The Pilgrims

The Dream of the 90s is alive, sometimes even in Portland. And this being surf music, that 90's dream is of the 60's I guess. The Bomboras are back, Pollo Del Mar is back, Bradipos IV is possibly more active now than in the 90's, I'm getting ready to see The Volcanos at SG101, we've even been promised Langhorns. Satan's Pilgrims are perhaps the least surprising, leaving at least one album in each decade since and having been on a bit of a streak in the past five years. However, this project was a dream of the 90's that has finally found light today.

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The Desolate Coast - Without a Planet

The Desolate Coast - Without a Planet

The Desolate Coast entered the surf scene as a new project of Eric Cranfield of Seattle's , and that legacy echoed into the new band. Though Desolate Coast were certainly different, there were similarities in their guitar sound, their grasp of mood, and appreciation of misty pacific northwestern landscapes and grayscale-plus-pink displayed on album covers.

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The Obsidians - Notre Histoire

The Obsidians - Notre Histoire

After feeding myself a pretty ample helping of Bomboras while writing , it was pretty nice to jump from such a high energy level to one that could compete! The Obsidians aren't exactly high profile: No label, simple album art, basic online presence, I believe they don't have members from previous surf bands, and I don't see them mentioned in many festival lineups.

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