I wasn't really sure if Steelism was the sort of group this site should be concerned with when I saw that their LP "615 to Fame" was coming out. I saw it at Louisiana Music Factory and thought "what the hey". Glad I did, it's a pretty great album. Obviously there's a good helping of steel guitar, but they definitely also carry pretty heavy surf influences, with flashes of jazz, country, spy, and there's a surprising amount of fuzz too. It's clever and diverse stuff.

So hot off the heels of that, they have a limited edition 7" coming out tomorrow Turbo Time Records. You can preview one of the tracks below or order it.

Based on this and the Speedball Jr 7"s that came out in 2014, there must be some sort of discount going on at a record pressing plant for doing 2 different 7"s. Nobody's complaining though! Russian weirdo surfers The Messer Chups have kicked off 2014 with two 7"s named Jokermobile and Church of Reverb

These Chilean folk definitely don't sound like every other band. While the prominent saxophone may be historically common, it's always a little surprising to hear in modern groups. More surprising is the sitar and the Street Fighter "HADOUKEN". But more importantly, their tone is much different, sometimes definitely not always sticking to the major chords, sometimes sounding a little atonal (I'm assuming intentionally).

Plain ol' Peanut-butter-n-Jelly surf instros with an upbeat vibe from Argentina. I found all six tracks enjoyable, and the drummer seems especially eager. Give 'em a quick listen!

Khruangbin have released 3 EPs this year, two of which were teetering on the edge of surf/rock & roll -- and I decided they were over the edge. This one I think is far enough in our camp, and I think they all deserve a listen if you want to hear something different. They're a little surfy, a little jazzy, dreamy, some krautrock in there...

This one is all (mostly obscure) covers and a little more tight than their other EPs. I'll just go ahead and post them all below

Surfin' Fariseos hail from Chile and love to make a racket. They've got 10 loud and fast instumentals here including 3 covers -- though currently missing an album cover. I think that's a mistake, but sometimes it's nice to listen to something without an album cover telling you how to listen to it. Just me telling you it's pretty raucous. And available for however much you want to pay.

Once I only knew about maybe three Mexican surf bands (Lost Acapulco, Telekrimen, Twin Tones). I always thought it seemed a bit low considering the great things I've heard about the crowds at Mexican surf shows. Bandcamp seemed to open the floodgates, and among other groups, Dr. Tritón came out. This EP is a handful of dark and moody instrumentals to match the album cover. My favorite is probably Pistolera Lady Mamacita

As we head on into December, naturally it's fun to corral all the releases of the past year and do a little retrospective. Which means culling together what's been released. That's what this is. The amount that I have published here is 71 LPs, 44 EPs, and 4 reissues. And it's probably missing a LOT of stuff; I almost forgot to include The Madeira's Sonic Cataclysm so if that slips through, who else knows what did.

So I could use your help! If you know that something's missing, leave a comment and I'll update it.

If you haven't heard Spindrift before, you better get on it. They've made some absolutely killer Spaghetti Western records and put on an excellent live show. They're not always instrumental, but usually they are, and the one preview we've got here appears to be as well. This appears to be a few extras from their soundtrack to Ghost of the West (which I haven't heard yet!), looks like only three tracks. More than anything, I'm excited to see this on Burger Records, a light-hearted punk label that I always thought could use a surf group.

Evil Waves hail from Valpraiso Indiana playin' trashy, dark lo-fi instros. They're saying that Vol 2 is following shortly behind in early 2015. Give it a listen!