Every day we hear about people doing shit like this and we love to see it and it fills us with joy and momentarily restores our faith in humanity, but at the same time we hate that people HAVE to do shit like this, which once again makes us wonder if the world wouldn’t be better off getting hit with another dinosaur-extinction-level asteroid.
I guess this is just the world we live in now. Happy Thanksgiving Eve, y’all.
Hey there! I’ve got two (completely unrelated) things to bring to your attention today, both of which might interest you if you live in or around the Pittsburgh area, and one of which might still interest you if you are in any of several other areas throughout the eastern or central United States.
First up:
Join the American Birding Association for a fun weekend of birding in and around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania!
On Sat. morning, Sept. 20, we will bird together at Hartwood Acres Park where we will explore the trails around the estate buildings, meadows, and mature woodland areas. In the afternoon, we head over to Beechwood Farms Nature Reserve for two presentations, one by Brian Shema and the other by Nick Stahlman, hosted by the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania. In the evening, come down into the city and join us at East End Brewing for a little urban birding and socializing over pizza and local drinks on their outdoor patio.
On Sun. morning, Sept. 21, we will visit Frick Park, one of the area’s top birding locations, to look for fall migrants. Later we will gather at the Frick Environmental Center for a fun presentation by Mike Fialkovich, president of the Three Rivers Birding Club.
All bird walks, talks, and workshops are free and open to the public (with cash bar/food during the evening social), but registration is mandatory. The ABA’s bird-friendly SongBird Coffee will be served before and after each bird walk and presentation.
We are grateful for the support of Vortex Optics, who are providing a variety of excellent Vortex binoculars for participants to use during our field trips. There are limited binoculars available for loan, and we will distribute them on a first come first served basis, so sharing might be needed and appreciated.
Don’t miss out on this fantastic opportunity to connect with fellow bird enthusiasts and enhance your birding skills. Sign up now and join us for an unforgettable weekend!
All of the locations listed here are local hotspots for bird activity — especially Frick which has been buzzing with reports of migrating warblers and flycatchers over the past few weeks. As stated above, all of this weekend’s events are FREE, you just have to sign up here. I’ve been looking forward to this ever since the ABA first announced it early this year, and I hope to run into some friendly faces over the two-day gathering!
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and next:
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.
Upon the release of Plethora in 2016 — their first full-length and second release altogether — Lyonese band Michel Anoia claimed it would “leave serious marks all over your body, including some brain damage, with their unforgiving brutal power and all-around freaky nature.” Five short years later they released their second and final full-length Nervures. Today we’re going to listen to both. Might want to buckle up for this one.
Happy New Year! As promised, we’re finally starting to dive into some new releases that are coming out. Today I also wanted to catch up on a slightly older release that I missed writing about the first time around, because — well, because 2020. Time to get fuzzy…
Hello out there, readers! Today our mission is to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly grab our headphones and listen to some cosmic death metal and cosmic black metal!
It’s been about three and a half years since the last time we checked in on these Danes, shall we see what they’ve been up to lately?
Good afternoon and Happy Monday, readers. Just one quick question: do you — in the words of Ol’ Dirty Bastard on his groundbreaking 1995 album Return to the 36 Chambers — “like it raw“?
If so, I’ve got two brand-new releases that just may be right up your alley, both of which came out on Bandcamp just a few days ago, and both of which represent black metal of the RAW variety…
Good afternoon, friends! I’m going to start today with a brief bit of explanation/clarification: the band we’ll be discussing and listening to is one who’ve never been featured on this website before. Long-time readers with unnaturally exceptional memories may note that approximately five years ago I wrote about a split record, half of which was attributed to a band called Soothsayer, who were primarily of the neocrust persuasion (with some blackened and ambient-doom influences thrown in). That band was from Pittsburgh — roughly 30 miles from where I lived.
Well later that same year, I happened to hear about an upcoming release from a band called Soothsayer, essentially an ambient-doom group (with some blackened and crusty influences thrown in). This “other” Soothsayer resides approximately 3300 miles further away in Cork, but their material was equally successful at catching my attention and interest. Unfortunately, I never managed to find a chance to write about it — until now, on the eve of “Irish Soothsayer” releasing their debut full-length.
So okay, here we are. Exactly fifty-one weeks into mandated quarantine working from home, and truly starting to lose my mind from cabin fever. Looking forward to my wife coming home from work each day with stories of interaction with other human beings, since I’ve all but forgotten what that feels like.
2020 was — well, probably better to not even bring that up at all. You get it. So as a result, I found myself taking nearly two full months into 2021 just catching up on stuff I hadn’t gotten around to listening to, just to get my Top 20 list finalized. Managed to get that online about a week ago. So naturally, now I’ve begun the daunting task of working my way through 2021 releases that I’ve missed so far.
Which brings us back to the original purpose of me writing these words and you reading them: letting you know about something you may wish to cram into your ear-holes. In particular, today I’ve got a split release for you, fresh off the presses of Sleeping Village Records, the relatively new label run by the fine folks who brought you Sleeping Village Reviews.
Don’t forget that this is supposed to be a two-way street: I write words about music that I’ve enjoyed listening to, you folks read those words and listen to that music, and then you can leave a comment about how much you also enjoyed listening to it! For the sake of my sanity! Thanks for stopping by!
Valley of Steel 