by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)

Welcome to FUZZY MEADOWS, our weekly recap of this week's new music. We're sharing our favorite releases of the week in the form of albums, singles, and music videos along with the "further listening" section of new and notable releases from around the web. It's generally written in the early hours of the morning and semi-unedited... but full of love and heart. The list is in alphabetical order and we sincerely recommend checking out all the music we've included. There's a lot of great new music being released. Support the bands you love. Spread the word and buy some new music.

*Disclaimer: We are making a conscious effort not to include any artist in our countdown on back-to-back weeks in order to diversify the feature, so be sure to check the "further listening" as well because it's often of top-notch quality too.

DISCO DOOM | “Rogue Wave”

It can often feel silly to really harp on a band’s “tone,” but I’ll be damned if Disco Doom don’t have the best damn guitar sound of the last twenty years. Since 2002’s rrkr, the band’s carefully constructed sonic designs and majestic analog recordings have felt like an alien comfort, something both familiar and expansive. Following the perfection of Dream Electric, the band took to subverting expectation and taking sharp unexpected turns, incorporating further out genre experimentation with noise, drone, and ambient textures seeping their way in. They brought it all together on 2014’s Numerals, but have been relatively quiet since. After eight long years, the quartet led by Anita Rufer and Gabriele De Mario make their welcome return with Mt. Surreal, a brilliant new album that hits with both immediacy and a healthy amount of surrealism. “Rogue Wave” is the record’s earworm lead single, a song that opens with staccato stabs and end swallowed in rich harmonic textures. It’s infinitely repeatable, floating us to a better reality with every listen.

KAL MARKS | “My Name Is Hell”

With Kal Marks’ newly expanded line-up it’s become evident that while retaining the long running Boston band’s sludge and noise rock tendencies, they’re also branching out in ways previously unexplored, not necessarily changing the formula, but fine tuning it. With Christina Puerto’s second guitar in the mix (a first for Kal Marks), the band are open to exploring things like guitar harmonies and a blend of heavy and melodic in new ways, pulling away from the constant thud toward more intricate carnage. Make no mistakes, this is still very much the harsh world of Kal Marks’ not so sunny disposition, but there’s more nuance than ever throughout My Name Is Hell, out August 5th. The album’s title track is a shining example of that new dexterity, with a stumbling sort of swagger and a penchant for building guitar chaos. It’s downright catchy but it still rips, the best of both worlds.

MUSHFOOT | “Stay On It”

New York’s Mushfoot - comprised of Greg Albert (The Rainbows, Spite FUXXX, Celestial Shore), Katie Vogel (Relatives), and Ian Davis (Relatives), formed remotely, trading files and ideas back and forth, building upon each other’s sound and vision. What began as demos eventually became Time Before Land, the band’s full length debut album, out September 30th via Moone Records (Helvetia, Caustics, Tashi Dorji). The album is a brilliant mix of gorgeous yet haunting dissonance, fuzzy manipulated psych, and warped cosmic pop - an ever shifting galaxy of unpredictability wrapped in a false sense of familiarity. “Stay On It,” presents Mushfoot as both serene and dense, with the pulse of electronic sludge crawling over simplistic rhythms. The distortion lays itself out like a thick blanket covering all in sight, but there’s a gentle hum to its would-be-menace, a dark but comforting effect. Vogel’s warm vocals may have a lot to do with that, with a sweet melody deeply engrained in the shadows and layers, but the song’s sense of aural dread is really offset by dreamy discordance and a supernatural groove.

SPACEMOTH | “Round In Loops”

Spacemoth, the solo project of Bay Area producer Maryam Qudus, is set to release their debut album, No Past No Future this coming Friday, July 22nd via Wax Nine (Melkbelly, Johanna Warren). The singles leading up to the record’s release have been great, exploring the same lounge-tinged space-age world previously explored by bands like Broadcast, Stereolab, and Electrelane. “Round In Loops,” the last single before the release is another stunner of retro-futuristic synths and tightly composed drums, with a slick sense of repetition and melodies both bent and dreamy. Much like the title, this ones cycles back on itself with a krauty groove that has us transfixed until it bursts out in the hook. Everything is neatly in it’s place but Qudus always keeps the composition moving, trailing a string of distortion across the beat, coloring the song in fluorescents.

YOUR OLD DROOG | “The Return of Sasquatch”

We’ve discussed the fact that Your Old Droog probably releases music too fast for his own good (just when you’re really sinking into one record, the next arrives), but despite that, he’s always delivering at a consistent quality, with punchline bars that deserve listens on repeat. Following the release of Yod Stewart at the start of summer, Droog is back again with new single “The Return of Sasquatch,” produced by none other than Madlib. A pairing of two of the undergrounds sharpest minds, Madlib delivers a dark and menacing beat that opens with the sound of a cartoon running in place before sounding like the entrance theme of some treacherous villain. YOD does what he does best over it, bridging together a relentless flood of hard-nosed punchlines and braggadocios MCing. If you don’t get exactly what he’s punching at line by line, just listen again, as Droog isn’t waiting for the canned laughter.

Further Listening: