Pond Scum

The schizophrenic psych-metal band King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have released the third and fourth volumes of their excellent Demos series, and they're also encouraging their fans to bootleg the set. The 26-song collection is available now on Bandcamp and spans the group's short but nonetheless prolific career, including outtakes from their most recent LP, Omnium Gatherum.

Ryley Walker currently resides in New York City. But his latest LP is a Chicago record in spirit. The masterful Course In Fable, the songwriter’s fifth solo effort, draws from the deep well of that city’s fertile 1990s scene, when bands like Tortoise, The Sea and Cake and Gastr del Sol were reshaping the underground, mixing and matching indie rock, jazz, prog and beyond.

Say ʻalgaeʼ and most people think of pond scum. What they donʼt know is that without algae, none of us would exist.

"No organisms are more important to life as we know it than algae. In Slime, Ruth Kassinger gives this under-appreciated group its due." —Elizabeth Kolbert