It feels like we just did this — but the goodly folks at Food Desert Recordings are at it yet again.
Released TODAY, Know Justice, Know Peace is a brand new compilation benefitting National Bail Out.
Good afternoon, Dear Reader.
I’d like to share another fundraising musical compilation with you today, one that supports a cause very near and dear to me as an avid birder. (FWIW, earlier today I hit a fun milestone, since the beautiful song of a Warbling Vireo drew me outside to spot my 100th different species of 2024!) …
Canadian label Polar Seas dropped this collection of gorgeous ambient works earlier this month, with any proceeds collected benefiting the BirdSafe.ca / FLAP Canada.
Y’all. It’s been a minute. What’s shakin’?
Our favorite Maryland-based non-profit charity record label recently dropped the latest in their series of benefit compilations, and I wanted to make sure you hadn’t missed out on this one.
Primarily consisting of dungeon synth and other closely-related (mostly) instrumental, (almost exclusively) synth-based sounds, Free Me from This Dungeon is on sale now with proceeds supporting the Safelight organization.
From label owner Barlovv:
As of September 1st 2023, the Moose is one. This whole thing started as a bit of a shitpost in the Noob Heavy Discord and now I’m looking at a release a week until next fucking summer. To say that I’m surprised would be an understatement and I also find myself unable to think of it as a stupid joke as it continues to morph into a real thing. At the time of writing, the Moose has reached:
Bandcamp – 48,705 plays, 650 fans
Spotify – 16,000 Streams
Twitter – 687 followers
Bluesky – 443 followers
Mastodon – 132 followers
Instagram – 746 followers
Youtube – 24 subscribers
Discord – 96 members
Newsletter – 262 subscribersAll of this across 41 releases both full releases of new albums, and physical re-releases of older ones. While I’ve not made anyone (including myself) rich, the response to the music has been tremendous. I am immensely proud of the catalogue we have collected here and stand proud behind every single one. I believe that our variety of genre and the stunning, limitless talent you all possess has helped to build one of the strongest overall catalogues out there right now.
I am truly stunned that I’m writing this to mark the one-year anniversary of Syrup Moose Records. A year marked with ups, downs, and no fucking Nazis. I won’t get too introspective here, because if you’re following me on all the sosch meeds, you’ll probably have had your fill of that.
It’s worth saying right off the bat here that it is BANDCAMP FRIDAY, which means 100% of the money you spend goes straight to the label, and in turn, half of that goes to the artists directly. Also, every single digital album on the label is, currently, Name Your Price. Today only.
After a lengthy break due to… well, you know… the Ohio Doomed and Stoned Fest returns next weekend! This time it will be at Westside Bowl in Youngstown — so you can go rent some ugly shoes and enjoy some ugly riffs for two whole days.
The line-up includes several great bands we’ve discussed on this website in the past: Michigan’s Bog Wizard, Massachusetts’ Problem with Dragons, West Virginia’s Horseburner, and Ohio’s own Brujas del Sol and Rebreather. Plus a bunch more mainstays of the local and regional scenes, many of whom I can personally attest put on a fantastic show. An almost ludicrous total of 39 bands altogether.
Welp, the terrible folks in positions of power across these United States (and all around the world) are still at it. Seems like every day we wake up to worse and worse news about increasingly-emboldened lawmakers coming up with more and more devious plots to take away people’s rights, especially LBGTQ+ people, and ESPECIALLY trans people.
It’s hard not to feel frustrated and helpless in the face of so much shittiness and — if we’re being honest — outright maliciousness and malevolence. But for what it’s worth, there are at least some good people out there trying to be helpful. People like Trans Lifeline, “run by and for trans people” to provide needed support for the community.
Also people like Food Desert Recordings, “supporting charities that uplift and empower maligned communities.” Today the digital label officially launches its third fundraising compilation, a gargantuan 27-track effort ranging from traditional heavy metal to post-metal, avant-garde black metal to dark ambient, harsh noise to trap metal. The artists, which include members of the trans community and allies, have donated tracks which in many cases are exclusive non-album singles or alternate versions you won’t find anywhere else. And all proceeds go to Trans Lifeline, which according to the label have totaled nearly $700 so far just from pre-orders.
[[ Update 22 December 2023: if you’ve previously purchased and downloaded this compilation, please note that it has been altered. Unfortunately it has recently come to light that one of the contributing artists has been engaging in creepy, stalkery behaviors in their interactions with several people online. Therefore, this individual’s track has been jettisoned and replaced, as a statement that such actions are not to be tolerated. ]]
Hey! As we continue inching ever-closer to the conclusion of yet another calendar year, let’s continue talking about some of the great music that has come out in 2022.
Today I’ve got two albums to share: one that was just a recent discovery for me, that I somehow missed when it came out over the summer but which has been getting SO much attention lately as all my writing peers have started publishing their own year-end lists, and then one that just came out this month, and based on that timing I’m afraid it may have inadvertently missed catching many other people’s attention.
Here we go…
Hello everybody…
Remember a few months back when I told you about Food Desert Recordings, the label who, since forming earlier in the year, has now put out a pair of charitable compilations?
Well anyway, today I’d like to make sure you’re also acquainted with another label that just opened up over the past few months. This one started out when an individual from British Columbia, who happens to hang around a few of the same Discord servers I sometimes frequent, was tossing around the idea of creating an explicitly anti-fascist, anti-sketch, and anti-capitalist cooperative (since unfortunately, way too many of them turn out to be far in the opposite direction). He joked that the name would have to be the most stereotypically Canadian thing anyone could think of, and came up with Syrup Moose.
The record label’s online bio clearly specify that it had just started out as a joke — which is absolutely true — but within weeks the collective found itself with an ever-growing roster and quite an unfunnily busy slate of upcoming releases, including cassette versions of each, as well as unique (and highly collectible) tarot card designs exclusively painted and printed for each new release.
Out of that already-extensive-and-rapidly-expanding catalog, I’ve selected one of the first as well as one of the most recent, to share with you this afternoon. The fact that both of these artists happen to be based in Pittsburgh is purely a coincidence — honestly!
Hello out there! We’re back from the holiday weekend and slowly starting to emerge from the mini ice age into which we had been plunged for the past several days.
And suddenly we find ourselves swiftly approaching the end of another calendar year. Many other writers and other websites are busily publishing their year-end lists; most of the larger outlets who also have print editions have had their lists out since last month if not earlier. Here in the Valley that window stays open until the last day of the year, as always, and the year-end list will be posted in the appropriate spot on the first of January.
But given that it is nearly the end of 2022 and everyone is in just a reflective mood, let’s take a look back at a couple of releases from much earlier this year which we inadvertently hadn’t gotten around to covering yet…
Hello — and Merry Christmas Eve Eve, to those who celebrate.
What a nasty, ugly day this has turned out to be: snow, rapidly plummeting temperatures, and huge wind gusts that very nearly sent our trash cans careening down into the river. Again. That is, we lost one of them to the river during a windstorm a couple years ago; this time both of them did go flying after they were emptied this morning, but I was able to rescue one from the edge of the embankment, while the other has managed to wedge itself between two trees halfway down the hillside, just out of reach of any of the long-handled implements I have readily available so I’m hoping it will stay in place long enough for me to figure out a way to retrieve it.
Anyway, enough about that, let’s listen to some nasty, ugly music befitting such a nasty, ugly day!
Valley of Steel 