SWAPTIONS!
Ok, so tropical-sounding afro-centric jazz might not be everyone's cup of tea, I get it. Here are two other albums that were on my shortlist that I highly recommend:
Cosmic Pilgrimage: The Klyfta Tapes 1972 - 1975
Stream it/Buy it here:
Chris Schlarb is a California-based composer, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist... he's quite talented and does a lot of jazzy and folk-style albums, either as a solo artist or with his collective Psychic Temple. He did the soundtrack to one of my favorite indie games, Dropsy, back in 2015 and more recently teamed up once again with Dropsy creator Jay Tholen to contribute music for another critically acclaimed game, Hypnospace Outlaw:
There is a
Hypnospace Outlaw soundtrack available for pre-order right now but this is a bit different. In the game, you can find numerous fan pages for a fictitious "cosmic music" Scandanavian jazz-rock band named Klyfta. In actuality, it's Psychic Temple just having fun and indulging in some epic instrumental prog rock.
This album, available only on Schlarb's Bandcamp as far as I can tell, pretends to be a compilation of recovered recordings from the band in the 1970s. Even if you're not familiar with Hypnospace Outlaw or the Klyfta mythos, this album stands on its own as an epic soundscape journey.
Portugal. The Man - In The Mountain In The Cloud
This was my "mainstream" pick in case Jneiro, Klyfta, and
[band redacted as a possible future AOTM artist years down the road] all fell through and for a hot minute, it looked like that was exactly what was going to happen. But as I soon found plenty of sites still carrying Jneiro and then saw its Bandcamp get restocked (it was down to 3 copies left at one point) I felt confident about sticking with my original plan.
Having said that, I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with PTM. They've been around as an indie rock band for over 15 years now but only really hit it big commercially with their last album Woodstock, featuring the song Feel It Still.
Woodstock is... alright. But it's definitely a far cry from what this band is capable of putting together and I'd argue that this album, In the Mountain In the Cloud, is the best introduction to the band. Fantastic rock songs with a leftist bent if you're looking for politics in your music, the album just got reissued a few months ago so copies of it should be easy to come by (and I think its original 2011 pressing is still fairly affordable as well). Let me know if you need help finding links to buy it, but it shouldn't be hard to find I would think.
), I have very much enjoyed these clues - they took me down some great roads, and in most cases the answer was right in front of me the whole time but somehow kept overlooking it! I suspected I would have a facepalm moment when the answer was revealed, and I definitely did. Well played!
www.faroutrecordings.com
www.rushhour.nl
store.hmv.com
www.oldies.com
www.barnesandnoble.com
towerrecords.com
www.deepdiscount.com
www.popmarket.com
www.merchbar.com
victrola.com
www.bullmoose.com
www.ziarecords.com
