Last month, No Joy announced a new EP entitled Big Life, Big Leaf (out August 21st via Hand Drawn Dracula). The EP is the follow up to the widely beloved 5th LP from Jasamine White-Gluz long-running project, 2025’s Bugland, which like the new EP was co-produced by the heralded Chicago experimental artist Fire-Toolz. That album earned a Best New Music designation from Pitchfork, who called it “a perfect album for our current shoecraze…Bugland is full of more textures, more ambiance, more chunky ’90s guitar. It crushes like a giant box of Gushers,” with further praise coming fromBandcamp,FADER, Stereogum, BrooklynVegan, AV Club, Hearing Things, FLOOD, and Exclaim. and wasalso recently nominated for the Polaris Prize.
The new EP was announced with its title track, which was co-written with Japanese Breakfast and Sky Ferreira producer Jorge Elbrecht. Today, No Joy are sharing a second single from the EP called “Barking At The Sun.” that blends dreamy shoegaze with ferocious blast beats and scratching from DJ Diego Juarez..
White-Gluz says of the track:
This song is driving through empty corn fields with the windows down on the first warm days of spring. During the last solar eclipse, I drove my car to the fields and watched the sun disappear and reappear, feeling like it was both the beginning and the end of the world.
This was the first song Angel & I worked on after Bugland. The song grew out of a very old demo where I played around with Drop C guitar tunings. With this opening guitar riff, I collaged bits and pieces of other demos together to make a patchwork of a song. Angel then took that into her world and made it more technicolor.
Today we’re excited to announce the 50th anniversary celebration of Mort Garson’s beloved cult classic Mother Earth’s Plantasia, with Sacred Bones presenting the first-ever authorised eco-friendly reissue of the highly sought-after record. Originally released in 1976, the record was created for the listening attention of house plants and was one of the first ever to use a Moog. It’s available digitally now with the anniversary edition set for physical release on Sept 4th.
To coincide with the anniversary Sacred Bones have also announced two very special Plantasia events in Chicago and Kingston, NY.
The long-running celebration of ambient and electronic music returns at Garfield Park Conservatory in Chicago on September 10th and 11th, taking place over two beautiful days at the end of summer across the entire conservatory nature campus, including a new expanded outdoor stage. Brought to you by Sacred Bones, Empty Bottle Presents and Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance, this year’s event features Helado Negro & Reyna Tropical, james k, Makaya McCraven, Flore Laurentine, and many more unmissable acts.
At Seed Song Farm in Kingston, NY on September 19th and 20th Sacred Bones will celebrate for a weekend of music, botanical arts and crafts, workshops, a curated market, plant sales, alongside performances by Gigi Masin, SPELLLING, Mary Lattimore, Green-House, Alabaster DePlume and more. This event is on sale now, grab your ticket while they last.
Julliard-educated and active as a session player in the post-war era, Mort Garson wrote lounge hits, scored the 1969 moon-landing and plush arrangements for Doris Day, and garlanded weeping countrypolitan strings around Glen Campbell’s By the Time I Get to Phoenix.
In the mid-1970s, a force of nature swept across the continental United States, cutting across all strata of race and class, rooting in our minds, our homes, our culture. It wasn’t The Exorcist, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, or even bell-bottoms, but instead a book called The Secret Life of Plants. The work of occultist/former OSS agent Peter Tompkins and former CIA agent/dowsing enthusiast Christopher Bird, the book shot up the bestseller charts and spread like kudzu across the landscape, becoming a phenomenon.
Seemingly overnight, the indoor plant business was in full bloom and photosynthetic eukaryotes of every genus were hanging off walls, lording over bookshelves, and basking on sunny window ledges. The science behind Secret Life was specious: plants can hear our prayers, they’re lie detectors, they’re telepathic, able to predict natural disasters and receive signals from distant galaxies. But that didn’t stop millions from buying and nurturing their new plants.
Perhaps the craziest claim of the book was that plants also dug music. And whether you purchased a snake plant, asparagus fern, peace lily, or what have you from Mother Earth on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles (or bought a Simmons mattress from Sears), you also took home Plantasia, an album recorded especially for them. Subtitled “warm earth music for plants…and the people that love them,” it was full of bucolic, charming, stoner-friendly, decidedly unscientific tunes enacted on the new-fangled device called the Moog.
Plants date back from the dawn of time, but apparently they loved the Moog, never mind that the synthesizer had been on the market for just a few years. Most of all, the plants loved the ditties made by composer Mort Garson. Few characters in early electronic music can be both fearless pioneers and cheesy trend-chasers, but Garson embraced both extremes, and has been unheralded as a result.
The album gained an enormous cult following decades after its release. Sacred Bones’ 2019 reissue helped introduce Plantasia to a wider global audience, sparking a remarkable second life for Garson’s unlikely masterpiece. What was once a strange artifact of 1970s plant-mania has become a beloved evergreen, rediscovered and re-embraced by a new generation of listeners and flourishing far beyond its original moment.
Now, 50 years after its original release, Mother Earth’s Plantasia marks a major anniversary moment. To honor Mother Earth, Sacred Bones is releasing the first authorised eco-friendly reissue of Plantasia, pressed on 100% recycled eco-green vinyl and printed on 100% recycled paper. It is housed in a 100% recycled jacket, wrapped in bio-based shrinkwrap, and includes the original Mother Earth’s Indoor Plant Care Booklet alongside a digital download presented on a real seed-paper card.
Half a century on, Plantasia continues to resonate – an enduring reminder of Mort Garson’s ability to make the synthetic feel strangely alive and the whimsical feel oddly profound.
What if you made something for absolutely nobody? This is the question Fling ii asked before making their newest album, 3. They, like all of us, were exhausted by every click, view, and preference being commodified and resold to us and the world at large. Could they make an album that offered nothing to anyone? What could an album that, according to the press release I received, was inspired by “the vastness of parking lots, the prismatic strangeness of online advertisements for walking tai chi, and the passive performance of a basket of fruit sitting in a gas station” have to offer the band or anyone else?
As it turns out, a pretty cool record of krautrock / no wave electronica that borders on New Age music and vaporwave. Opening track “lau” pops and bubbles like the sound of a robot’s Zen alarm clock. “inke” drifts like a leaf on a stream that has no particular place to go and no timeline to get anywhere.
“bant” sounds like the opening to a weird VHS home course on meditation or computer science. “beem” takes on a slight country twang with its guitar tones but doesn’t lose the motorik beats or 32-bit synths. The electric piano takes the lead on “ilia,” creating a sound like an android’s morning commute radio station broadcast.
The album ends with “mago,” a trippy electro / krautrock cut that stretches to nearly sixteen minutes and takes you out of your current headspace and into some sort of forest that you’d find in the world of Tron.
This album immediately intrigues you and is the kind of record that will reveal something different every time you hear it…or maybe it won’t. After all, it was made to present you with nothing in particular. Again, from the press release, the band even states the album was “made especially for us and not for you, with all the gear we could get our paws on.” and that it “…stands as a quiet argument for surprise, accident, and the possibility of making something simply because it felt worth making.”
That’s accurate. Not everything has to be catered to your likes. Discovery, and being able to sit content with a discovery instead of seeking instant pleasure from the “next thing” is a lost passion. 3 proves this in every track.
Keep your mind open.
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How to describe Wheelchair Sports Camp? Are they a rap group? A punk band? A dance-rock band? A performance art duo? All of the above? I think that might be the answer, and their new album, Oh Imperfecta, is a wild ride of fuzzy beats, squeaky bars, and goofy jokes.
“Make It Make Sense” (guest starring Jello Biafra) is a plea for some kind of understanding from lead singer Kalyn Rose Heffernan in these weird times of 2026 across grungy beats from Greggy and guest guitar from Radio Pete. “You can’t make me want to change,” Heffernan proclaims on “Eat Meat!”- a song about going through the motions while the world is burning down around us. “Yess I’m a Mess” spins things around with a slow-jam groove and warped dream-psych guitars while Heffernan drops slick rhymes. I mean, it even has a horn section and organ riffs in it.
“They wanna lock me in a closet, wanna lock me in a box,” Heffernan growls on “Slumber Party.” She’s here to takedown people upset over her sexuality, gender, and / or health and those profiting off a system that’s destroying most of us. “Keep Scrolling” is a spoken word riff on social media making us dread each other.
“Denim” is a wonky, wooly experimental rap track. It’s almost acid jazz at some points, and guest-rapper RAREBYR$ provides extra sizzle with her verse. “Bring Some Room” is a quiet warm-up for “Dead” – another Biafra-team-up punk rager that will have the mosh pit bouncing whenever they play it.
“On Hold” is one of three tracks featuring Junia-T as a guest. It and the second one, “Summer in the City,” are trip hop slow burners. The third, “No Stopping No Standing,” is bigger, with heavier drum beats, angrier vocals (“If you can’t hang, get the fuck out of the way.”), and groaning, almost moaning synths.
I must note that the album is sprinkled with little interludes that are snippets of phone conversations between Heffernan and her mother, the funniest of which might be her pretty much ordering Heffernan to have grandchildren, and that Heffernan and her girlfriend’s cats don’t count.
It’s an odd record, but endlessly fascinating. There’s nothing really to “get” about it, which is kind of the point. It also hides a lot of talent under its queer-rock / glam-rap / wheelchair-punk hood. Don’t miss that. You’ll go from laughing with Heffernan and Greggy to thinking, “Whoa…There’s something deeper here.”
Hailing from Austin, Texas, Almost Heaven (Stefan Barazza – production and vocals, Jaelyn Valero – drums) have come to party on their debut EP, Raw Cranium, and they want you to join them. After all, one of their messages is “Dance or die.”
Starting with “Power Music (Electrik Revival),” the EP embraces its krautrock / Berlin-industrial / and dance punk love as Barazza sings about an “organutan spilling zombie juice all over the stage” and the perils and pleasures technology can bring. It will have you jumping right away. “Oscilation” starts off with crowd cheers, brings in fuzzy guitars and synths, and vocals that might belong to Valero or to Barazza. It’s difficult to guess because they could be altered with vocal effects. It works well either way to create an uplifting Justice-like dance track.
“Fever Trying to Blow” is a standout with Barazza asking anyone who wants to dance to the front because he wants to “let loose” after a long week at work. “I deserve this,” he says. We all do. Valero’s beats on this are downright wicked while Barazza’s synths and vocals skitter around the room like water thrown onto a hot frying pan.
“Wherever you are, come away from the TV and come to the dance floor,” Barazza implores on “Commotion,” a song that fully intends to cause such a thing. The wild beats of “Hypnoxia” echo around you while the synth-bass elevates your pulse and Valero’s post-punk beats make you twitch.
The EP ends with the lovely “Baby Teeth” – a song that borders on MGMT electro-house and synthwave. “Make sure it’s tough, so they never know your weakness,” Barazza suggests. It builds to a big, bright payoff that will have you bouncing with new breath.
Like any good EP, Raw Cranium leaves you wanting more. You’re a bit exhausted from all this dancing, but you’re ready for more. Dance or die, after all.
Bollywood music gets a lot of attention, but do you know about Lollywood (Lahore + Hollywood) music? Life Is Dance!, another excellent collection of obscure music from outside the U.S. by Finders Keepers Records, seeks to expand your knowledge of music from Pakistani films in the 1970s.
Most of the songs on this collection are by Altaf Hassain Tafo (leader of a group of family musicians), Nazir Ali, Kamal Ahmed, and M. Ashraf, and nearly all the tracks feature the stunning and prolific Nahid Akhtar on lead vocals. Life Is Dance! practically is an Akhtar album.
Her voice (along with vocals by Mehdi Hassan and A. Nayyar and weird male backup vocalist chants and shouts) get in your brain and under your skin on the crazy “Zambo Zambo” (from the bizarre spy movie Jasoos from 1977). The song combines electronic percussion and hand percussion from Tafo and psychedelic bits that might freak you out. The compilation’s title track (from the 1976 film Society Girl) is next with Ali mixing happy accordion with sci-fi synths, bold horns, and trippy guitar as Akhtar and guest vocalist Mehnaz sing / purr / roar throughout it.
Ashraf’s first track on the album is “Dear I Love You” from the 1975 film Zanjeer. It’s a groovy one with accordion somehow blending with (at the time) state-of-the-art synthesizers and slick bass lines. Ahmed finally goes the party (with Mehnaz on lead vocals this time) with 1976’s “Aage Bhi” (from the film Blackmail). It’s one of the grandest songs on the record with big horn arrangements and thrilling hand percussion.
Tafo and Akhtar return for “Shalo Sa Bharka,” another track from Jasoos. It feels darker and grittier than the first, which is not a put-down by any means. Then, the duo flip you on your head with 1979’s “Naughty Boy” (from the film Adawat), in which Akhtar scolds a lover for having naughty thoughts…which might be the same ones she’s having. Sohali Rana‘s lone contribution to the album is the instrumental oddity “Cobra Sway” from the 1970 film Khyber Mail.
Ashraf and Akhtar return for “Sheeshy Ki Botal” (from 1975’s Surat Aur Seerat), which features a nifty saxophone mixed with guitars that sound like they were plugged in after being buried in an ash pit for about three weeks. Abdul Hameed steps in for one track with Akhtar, the sexy and fun “Catch Me If You Can,” one of a few in which Akhtar throws in English verses and phrases now and then to grab your attention. The horn section on it is a lot of fun, and I’m surprised it hasn’t been resurrected into a modern film soundtrack instead of just languishing on the 1978 soundtrack to Dil Ke Daag. Akhtar’s playful vocals on “Too Ne Pyar Se Dekha” (from 1976’s Shabana) are delightful, as is Ashraf’s blend of classical instruments and hand percussion. It makes you want to dance around the room.
Another track from the two of them follows, “O My Love,” from 1977’s Shama-E-Mohabbat. It’s a grand, lush tune with some of Akhtar’s loveliest vocals on the compilation. She teams back up with Tafo on “Wey Titly Non Par” (from 1978’s Cheeta Chalbaz). Tafo hands the mic to Jehan and Cheeku on 1975’s “Dil Be-Qara Mangda Ae Pyar” (from Nawab Zada). The mix of tinny guitar, rapid tabla beats, and jaunty accordion is bizarre and fun.
Ahmed comes back for two more songs, the first being “Don’t Drink” (another from Blackmail) with Akhtar opening the song with her breathy request of “Oh…Don’t be silly.” You’re under her spell right away. The second is “Jawani Meri Bijli” (from 1976’s Warrant) with Jehan belting out powerful vocals over sizzling hand percussion beats and groovy synth bass.
Finally, from 1976’s Society Girl, we have Ali teaming up with Akhtar and Mehnaz for a song that you’ll put on your holiday playlists from now on – “Happy Chrismis.” You have to hear it to believe it. You’ll love it.
You’ll love this whole thing, really. It’s full of gems.
