Spirit Untamed

Follow the Salmon Sisters as they celebrate the seasons through the food, traditions, and rituals of their Alaskan home. Lush photography, charming illustrations, 60 comforting recipes, and 35 traditions showcase and honor the untamed spirit, natural bounty, and seasonal rhythms of land and sea.

Blending the current trend for all things noisy with something altogether more 'composed' we end up with a curious concoction of Cliff Martinez and Wolf Eyes, stopping at planet Badalamenti for a strong cup of Joe ("black like midnight on a moonless night"). Frost's primary influence (and sound source…) for the album was Michael Gira's seminal noise-rock band Swans, an influence which bubbles majestically on the album's central piece, cunningly titled 'We Love You Michael Gira'. The track starts simply enough; shifting, moody synthesized tones sitting eerily next to shivering waves of guitar noise before both give way to the sort of glacial blip-work that would make Mika Vainio jealous, and then it hits you; chunks of percussive noise that enter the sound-field like a serial killer bursting into the family home, gritty and abrasive, raw and untamed. The Swans factor isn't lost in this track, it's something that needs to be played so loud that it almost hurts the eardrums for full, visceral effect and proves as if proof be needed that Ben Frost is a rare producer who really knows how to use the loud as it should be used.

End of Everything is the intrepid seventh album from Mega Bog, a nightmarish experimental pop ensemble led by Erin Elizabeth Birgy. In 2020, Birgy was surrounded by seemingly endless turmoil: mass death, a burning planet, and a personal reckoning when past traumas met fresh ones. Living in Los Angeles, against the backdrop of brilliantly horrifying forest fires, she questioned what perspective to use moving forward in such dumbfounded awe. Deciding to seize something tangible, she produced a record that spoke of surrender, of mourning, and support in the face of tumultuous self-reflection.