The Angelic Process was a dark ambient band from Macon, Georgia, formed by married musicians going under the pseudonyms of K. Angylus and M. Dragonfly. The band was initially formed in 1999, but remained largely unknown until the 2006 repressing of Coma Waering. Kris was the primary songwriter who fervently recorded to create a respectable discography for the band. Unfortunately, he was involved in a car crash in 2007, which severely injured his hand. When it became clear that he could no longer play music professionally in any fashion, he reportedly took his own life. However, the band’s legacy lives on through it’s devoted cult following. Being that there are five releases here, I encourage you to start with Weighing Souls With Sand as a jumping off point. This band plays music incredibly loudly and it’s easy to draw comparisons with bands such as Have a Nice Life and Nadja. Enjoy.

…And Your Blood Is Full Of Honey (2006)

Coma Waering (2006)

Sigh EP (2006)

We All Die Laughing (2006)

Weighing Souls With Sand (2007)

Myspace/Buy

- James

2009 was an eventful music year for me. I stayed away from a lot of bands picking up buzz in the indie scene while finding myself having a love affair with radio rap. I delved into the annals of history and rekindled feelings for some old bands I had forgotten about and some old bands I never really listened to. I feel like a lot of people on here won’t be huge fans of my list, but, quite frankly, I don’t really care. You’re just not having as much fun as I am.

Albums:

1. The Appleseed Cast – Sagarmatha
2. My Heart to Joy – Seasons In Verse
3. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone – Vs Children
4. iji – In Celebration
5. La Dispute – Somewhere At The Bottom of the River Between Vega and Altair
6. Bill Callahan – Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle
7. Matt and Kim – Grand
8. Trophy Scars – Bad Luck
9. Comadre – A Wolf Ticket
10. Annabel – Each and Everyone
11. Math the Band – Don’t Worry
12. Pianos Become the Teeth – Old Pride
13. Weezer – Raditude
14. The Rural Alberta Advantage – Hometowns
15. Native – Wrestling Moves
16. Wolves in the Throne Room – Black Cascade
17. Jay-Z – The Blueprint 3
18. SUNBEARS! – Dream Happy Dreams
19. Underdogs of Nipomo – The Lynx
20. Empire! Empire! (I Was A Lonely Estate) – What It Takes to Move Forward

EPs:

1. Snowing – Fuck Your Emotional Bullshit
2. His Hideous Heart – Only the Earth Can Make A Tree
3. Mexican Kids at Home – Recycled Songs for a Happy Environment
4. Everyone Everywhere – A Lot of Weird People Standing Around
5. Quebec Vs Winnipeg – Self-Titled

A ton of these albums are available directly from the bands, which I highly recommend doing. Remember that I would love to hear you opinions on this list through Facebook, last.fm, email, or the comments on this post!

-McKenna

I say this every year, but there was so much good music this year. It took me a while to narrow down my choices and I’m still probably going to interchange a few of them before the end of the year. There were a ton of albums that I’m sure would have made my list, but I just didn’t listen to them enough/had burned out on them/heard too late in the game. A few that I’m sure could be on my list are the Pyramids/Nadja album, Mulatu Astake & The Heliocentrics, Ganglians and White Rainbow. Anyway, here are my favorite albums:

1. Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport
2. Nosaj Thing – Drift
3. Tim Hecker – An Imaginary Country
4. Woods – Songs of Shame
5. Pissed Jeans – King of Jeans
6. Sunn O))) – Monoliths & Dimensions
7. The Modern Electric – The Modern Electric
8. Cloud Nothings – Turning On
9. Emeralds – Emeralds
10. Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca
11. Oneida – Rated O
12. Animal Collective – MPP
13. Tinariwen – Imidiwan
14. The Flaming Lips – Embryonic
15. Master Musicians of Bukkake – Totem One
16. The Strange Boys – And Girls Club
17. Dan Deacon – Bromst
18. Wooden Shjips – Dos
19. The Antlers – Hospice
20. Arms & Sleepers – Matador

And my favorite EPS:

1. Neon Tongues – Big Kids
2. Hudson Mohawke – Polyfolk Dance
3. Burial & Four Tet – Moth/Wolf
4. Cold Cave – Edsel and Ruby
5. His Hideous Heart – Only The Earth Can Make A Tree

2009 was certainly a great year for music. We saw some incredible sophomore releases and stunning breakout artists enter the mix. Being that this is the first time I have ever made a year end list, I tried to keep it as true to my listening patterns and musical perspective as possible. The two Max’s are working on getting their end of the year lists together and Lewis is posting his over on Be Bop Kids.

Needless to say, but any of these would make a great Christmas gift for the music lover in you life. Most of these titles can be found at Insound.

LP’s

1. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart- S/T
2. Dan Deacon – Bromst
3. Atlas Sound – Logos
4. Bibio – Ambivalence Avenue
5. Jeffrey Lewis and The Junkyard – ‘Em Are I
6. Karen O and The Kids – Where The Wild Things Are OST
7. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
8. Girls – Album
9. Japandroids – Post-Nothing
10. Black Moth Super Rainbow – Eating Us
11. The Antlers – Hospice
12. Bat For Lashes – Two Suns
13. Emeralds – Emeralds
14. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest
15. Noah And The Whale – The First Days Of Spring
16. Woods – Songs Of Shame
17. Passion Pit – Manners
18. Cloud Nothings – Turning On
19. Annabel – Each and Everyone
20. The xx – xx

EP’s

1. His Hideous Heart – Only The Earth Can Make A Tree
2. Bon Iver – Blood Bank
3. Deerhunter –Rainwater Cassette Exchange
4. Bibio – Ovals & Emeralds
5. Washed Out – Life Of Leisure EP

- James

Toe is certainly among the most interesting modern instrumental bands around. The japanese act has been putting out solid material since the early 2000’s, but this is their first release in over three years.  The thing I like so much about this band is the lush arrangements they seamlessly tie together and the abstract percussion around every turn. This is the kind of music you can listen to for hours on end, just trying to isolate melodies in your mind in a foolish attempt to deconstruct the ornate patterns laid before you. Not to mention, it’s making for a perfect soundtrack to my last minute cramming for tomorrow’s finals.

Myspace

Buy

- James

Our first artist submission was from the Elkhart, Indiana band inbirdseye. Just a few days ago, I got an email from their guitarist asking me to let people know they have a new 7 song ep coming out soon called Speak Easy. It’s easy to see that these guys have grown quite a bit since quietly releasing their 3 song ep earlier this year, so you definitely want to be on the lookout for this ep when it comes out. As of now, there is no concrete release date, but that shouldn’t stop you from checking out two great songs off of the album!

Moral Crusaders

Sorry, Deric

Myspace

- James

Ben Frost is a 28 year old experimental musician from Australia pushing the boundaries of ambient and drone music. Mixing those two genres with hints of noise, black metal and minimalism, Frost has created a dynamic sound which leaps from glitchy electronic drones to earth-shattering walls of guitar noise. Boomkat has described this album as “the future of electronic music” and Wire Magazine has compared him to Steve Reich, Phillip Glass and Michael Gira (of Swans) all in one sentence. Moments on this album are reminiscent of the aforementioned artists as well as Tim Hecker, Fennesz and Have A Nice Life.

MySpace

Buy

-Max

You can also check out some photos from the show here.

Hailing from Vancouver, another one of my favourite discoveries from 2009. It’s always nice when bands send you their music, and for that I think them.

To all new bands eager  to play perfect garage pop tunes, this must surely be the benchmark.

To be released on 14th of December on Bachelor, here’s two of the four songs.

Check their Myspace for west coast dates early next year, and stay tuned for a split with Fungi Girls.

Link

-Lewis

Matt Scheuermann keeps himself quite busy. When he isn’t organizing D.I.T. Fest or playing in The Sidekicks or No Target Audience, he is most likely playing a house show with an acoustic guitar under the alias American War. If you’re a Cleveland/Kent music fan with even the weakest ties to the D.I.Y. scene, it’s likely you have seen him play in a living room. I know I must have seen him at least 6 or 7 times. Anyway, this is his first complete album as a solo artist, which he just had a release show for. He previously released a split with his friend Andy Cook of Ghost Town Trio. Both of these albums are offered to fans free of charge, which is al the more reason you should consider sending the guy a buck or two.

Myspace

Donate

- James

Making me proud to be from Cleveland, Cloud Nothings are rapidly becoming one of my new favorite bands. The new band from Dylan Baldi and Adam Upp of Neon Tongues, Cloud Nothings proves that these guys are behind the absolute best music coming from Cleveland. Last night I was fortunate enough to see their first live show, here in New York at the Market Hotel with Woods and Real Estate, where they gave Woods, an excellent live act, a run for their money. Any minute now I’ll be heading out to see them play at Shea Stadium with Coasting. This is pure lo-fi pop gold. This is already one of my favorite albums of this year after only a few plays and they’re my most-anticipated act of 2010 by far. Thanks to Jeff over at The Noise Is for getting this up, he knows what’s up.

MySpace

Buy

-Max

If you’ve seen the lineup for 2010’s ATP New York you were probably in the middle of cumming buckets at that lineup (Sleep?!?! Holy fucking shit yes!) when you said “what the fuck?” about The Scientists. The Scientists were an obscure, yet highly influential garage rock band coming from Australia in the late 70s. Hugely influential to grunge acts like Mudhoney (also playing ATP NY) and alternative rock groups like The Pixies, The Scientists were the Australian version of The Velvet Underground, with few people hearing them but those who did were majorly influenced. This is just some loud, raw rock and roll in the vein of Iggy & The Stooges (ALSO playing ATP NY!).

MySpace

Note: I could not find a link to buy, if anyone knows one, let me know! Thanks!

-Max

If anyone in Columbus needs a ride to the Raein show on December 6th at Tower 2012 in Cleveland, email or Facebook me and let me know! I’m going up, but I would rather not do it alone and it would be nice to have some conversation buddies. I will be leaving from Columbus, Ohio that day, so if you’re going to be in that area, just let me know and we’ll probably be able to work something out for the price of a little bit of gas money!

-McKenna

FACT: Monster trucks are cooler than almost everything else combined, even if they are awful for the planet.

HYPOTHESES: Every monster truck ever combined must be the epitome of cool.

Because both of the above points are so, any band called Everymonstertruckever! must be awesome.

By the above logic, I got this album from the totally awesome blog The Muzack which is one of my favorites and one which you should totally check out. Fast, catchy-as-hell pop-punk in the vein of pretty much everything coming out of Pennsylvania these days. Think of a baby between Snowing, Yo Man Go!, Street Smart Cyclist, and a little bit of The Max Levine Ensemble, and that’s pretty much these guys. I can’t really for you to feel this way, but this album should make you want to bang yer head, stomp yer feet, and get a few bruises while dancing (which will be the title of the first album I release whenever I learn how to play an instrument or when any Columbus people who read this join me in a quest to give Philadelphia rock a run for its money). Anyway, get this and rock out. It’s only 13 minutes and a 12MB file, what have you got to lose?

MySpace

Buy

-McKenna

(Sorry for how bad the art is. These guys are a small band. I’m also not sure if the correct spelling of their name is Everymonstertruckever! or Every Monster Truck Ever. Their MySpace says the second, but most everything else has the first spelling. Do as you wish.)

As you may have already noticed, we have a new writer here on Shock Mountain. Lewis is a student in the UK who splits his time between Leeds and Manchester. He previously ran No-Name, an amazing blog that quickly became a personal favorite of mine. He is currently blogging full time over at Be Bop Kids, but has offered his services to us and will be posting a few times a week from now on.

- James

Here’s two brilliant 7″ from Brooklyn based Florida.

Both put out by Shdwply Records

Florida are hard to pigeonhole, to me they sound a little like Haunted Graffiti. Check their Myspace.

Icarus 7″

Haunted House 7″

BUY

Myspace

- Lewis

My friend Josh recommended this to me a few weeks ago. Two bros from Massachusetts playing ambient post-rock with a glitch/trip-hop influence. Fans of This Will Destroy You, Boards of Canada, Portishead and Lymbyc Systym will eat this up. Forming in 2006, these guys have already opened for bands like Asobi Seksu, The Books and two aforementioned artists, This Will Destroy You and Lymbyc Systym. This is shaping up to rank highly on my year-end favorites list.

MySpace

Buy

-Max

In my time away, which has consisted of late-night essays, Nintendo 64, marijuana and Mario Kart, I’ve been stumbling across some kickass jams. Having become obsessed with Sleigh Bells (get it from our friend Brian here!), I’ve been dying for more of those noisy, dirty, huge-as-fuck beats. Hence, Chaos Royale! Led by Luke Chaos, Chaos Royale is one giant mess of genres: dancehall, hip-hop, dubstep, noise-rock, death metal and crunk. I’m pretty sure that having an orgy while both Nine Inch Nails and Lil’ John played in a shitty club would sound somewhere along the lines of this . If you want to party harder than Andrew W.K. while keeping all noise intact, look no further. Fans of Sleigh Bells and Kap Bambino will be in love.

MySpace

Donate

-Max

I really do apologize for not posting much lately at all. Like James said, I’ve been busy with school. Hopefully, this will make it up to you.

I just got the physical 7″ of this in the mail today, and I personally haven’t even had a chance to listen to it yet. It’s really high on my priorities list, I just didn’t want to put off doing things with this blog any longer. Anyway, this split features one new track from both bands.

The Saddest Landscape plays a brand of pure modern emo, in the vein of Suis La Lune or Her Breath on Glass. I don’t have nearly as much experience with The Saddest Landscape as I should and I fully intend on rectifying that as soon as possible.

I have much more experience with New Jersey-based post-hardcore group Trophy Scars, however. I first got into them with their release of Alphabet. Alphabets., but soon found their earlier catalog, especially Hospital Music for the Aesthetics of Language, to be more favorable. Anyway, I highly recommend checking more of their stuff out. Their song on this split moves in a more orchestral direction in the vein of their latest album, Bad Luck.

In summary, even though I haven’t listened to this as of this posting, I would be posting it in the first place if I didn’t have full faith in it being an awesome recording.

The Saddest Landscape MySpace

Trophy Scars MySpace

Buy

-McKenna

Hi everyone,
I’m new to Shock Mountain and to WordPress.

Second LP from Nana Grizol, and my favourite. To be released in January 2010 on Oranage Twin Records.

There is definitely something in the water in Athens, and it would seem their front man Theo Hilton has fallen in the well. Boasting past members of Neutral Milk Hotel you know this is not going to suck.

Some songs sound remotely like James Mercer singing over a Bright Eyes Lifted or The Story tune, and I would even say the lyrics are not too dissimilar from a Oberst scrapbook, but don’t let that put you off…it did me for a few weeks and I wholeheartedly regret it.

Myspace

You can pre order the new LP here

- Lewis

I know that most of you are college kids, so you can understand how straining the last month of classes is. I’m sure that both the Max’s are going through the same thing. I personally don’t have the time or energy to stay on top of new music and instead of giving you folks a bunch of re-posts from other blogs, we’re going to put Shock Mountain on the back burner for the next couple of weeks. We’ll still post some stuff, but it’s going to be sparse. Rest assured that when we return, we will be back with a vengeance.

- James

P.S. Sordo is back?!

Saltwater

Old Pride

Earlier today, I was notified by a friend on last.fm that Pianos Become The Teeth might be playing a show in Columbus in January. I quickly made my way to their MySpace page where my highest hopes were sort of confirmed. While nothing has been finalized yet, I am incredibly excited for this show, especially since there is a rumored Max Levine Ensemble show planned in Columbus for a few days later.

Pianos Become The Teeth is a band from Maryland who recently signed to Topshelf Records (My Heart To Joy, Defeater). They’re an emo band who tint their sound with a lot of ambiance and beautiful soundscapes, not unlike Suis La Lune or Raein. While comparing a band to Raein might set the bar a little high, I think the energy the two bands put out are comparable. Since I’m seeing both bands live within a few weeks of each other, it’ll be interesting to see how the sounds and energy of both bands translate to live performances. Although both albums are full of excellent songs, one major standout is “Houses We Die In” off of Saltwater. The vocals sound so emotionally strained, mixed in with the mid-tempo, post-rock influenced music, that you can’t help but feel some kind of emotion. As I stated before, I’m incredibly excited to see this band live if their show does happen, and if it doesn’t happen in Columbus, I’ll probably travel to see it.

MySpace

Buy

-McKenna

Dear Shock Mountain, I apologize for not posting a lot this week, but my week has been kind of crazy. It’s not like many of you are probably missing your pop punk fix anyway, so whatever. That’ll return soon.

Anyway, the Rock and Metal Forum on Sputnik Music recently voted (overwhelmingly) this album to be the best album of the last decade. While I may not agree with that completely, this is definitely one of the best metal albums of the past decade. Quick, hard-hitting, mathy metal/punk/rock is fused with really non-metal song structures and produces a sound that is 50% ferocious and 50% beautiful. The raw power that Converge throws out on this album is something that gets matched very rarely by contemporary bands. Even if you’re not a big fan of metal or harder music in general, I recommend at least giving this album a shot. I first got it when I wasn’t too into harder music, and I loved it just as much then as I do now.

MySpace

Buy

-McKenna

I’m considering adding one of you readers as a contributor to our blog. Being a contributor here would mean that you are expected to maintain a somewhat frequent posting style (2-5 posts a week). We’re looking for someone who has something to offer to our blog that we currently don’t have. If you would like to be considered, simply shoot me an email or comment below with a sample of your writing and a link to your last.fm if possible.

- James

Since 2007, Cameron Stallones has been crafting elaborate psychedelic drone compositions under the pseudonym Sun Araw. His music is often described as having it’s own essence or aura. Truly, this is an artist who’s work emotes a sense of spirituality and tranquility. It took me far too long to get into this and I’m kicking myself for it now. Located here is everything he has put out to date with the exception of Geneva Hits, which hasn’t yet surface online.

The Phynx (2007)

Boat Trip (2008)

Beach Head (2008)

Predator Vision Split LP (2009)

Leaves Like These (2009)

Heavy Deeds (2009)

In Orbit (2009)

Myspace

Buy his stuff from Not Not Fun

- James