#56: Wield to the Storm and Fly

Mike Polizze / Jonny Nash / Flying Saucer Attack / Doldrums

Hey Folks.

Welcome back to the Ambient Audiophile, the place where dollar bins are loved, treasured and thoughtfully explored.

I’m wondering what I wrote that was so offensive that we lost a paying member this week. Was I walking about 80s Dead too much again?!

A lot of great albums have been announced this week so we’re going to talk about a few of them I’m really psyched about. More on those in a minute…

Episode 174 of The Trailhead went off without a hitch this week and is now available to enjoy via Mixcloud.

This week’s show featured new works from New Mexican Stargazers, Cyrus Pireh, Golden Brown, 36 & zakè, Spellman and Marine Eyes. We also dipped back to the 80s for a jam from the great Richmond SST jamband Always August before launching into some live Gong and approaching infinity with Acid Mothers Temple.

Check the playlist below and listen to the show here.

The Trailhead 174

1. New Mexican Stargazers - Exemplary Panorama Nap - Thermal Narrative Report (NMG, 2025) 00:00

2. Cyrus Pireh - We Can't All Be Alive at the Same Time - Thank You, Guitar (Palilia,. 2025) 04:07

3. Kalle Tikas - Painted Storm - An Anthology of Contemporary Solo Guitar (Creative Class War, 2025) 09:35

4. Golden Brown - Beelzebufo - Whisker Fatigue (Eiderdown, 2025) 19:42

5. 36 & zakè - Blue New World 5 - Stasis Sounds For Long - Distance Space Travel III (PITP, 2025) 34:10

6. Marine Eyes - Searching - Quiet Circle (Self, 2025) 45:46

7. Djrum - Let Me - Under Tangled Silence (Houndstooth, 2025) 58:50

8. Matt "MV" Valentine - Let Down - Grateful (Child of Microtones, 2025) 1:06:09

9. Spellman - Re-Entry - Herbwise (Aural Canyon, 2025) 1:14:20

10. Always August - Sama Layuca - Geography (SST, 1988) 1:19:20

11. Gong - From The Isle Of Every Where To The End Of The Story Of Zero The Hero - Gong Est Mort (Tapioca, 1977) 1:27:05

12. The Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O - In ∞ - In O To ∞ (Important Records, 2010) 1:39:08

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I’ve been deep in a Flying Saucer Attack zone. Lately, many a night have been spent in near dark listening to David Pearce & Co. One big takeaway is the sort of poor application of the term “lo-fi” when it comes to FSA’s music. It’s accurate in that most of the music was made with a four tracks. But, also, there is a sense of scale and grandeur in every piece of music they made that certainly transcends the medium and this doesn’t really fit the typical low fidelity narrative. Yes, it’s fuzzy and noisy, but there is craft and placement always at play. So, hats off to the mixer.

This dive led me back to exploring the VHF catalog (as any FSA research always does), and landed me back on the late, great Doldrums. Featuring VHF CEO Bill Kellum with his brother Matt Kellum and the late Justin Chearno, Doldrums started in the mid-90s and finished business before the new millennium with a handful of albums to their name (which was stolen by some Montreal artist about 15 years ago, making SEO messy).

The only one I have in three dimensions is 1998’s Feng Shui (VHF) and so I’ve been spinning it a lot lately. The easiest and laziest description of the music here is “post-rock” and that’s fine. It is most certainly a psychedelic expression with electric and acoustic guitars and percussion. There’s a folky underpinning under much of the Feng Shui material as well as a more astral reaching. It’s a record that can come off as annoyingly experimental at first (once a groove forms, it’s abandoned) but the more spins you take the more layers you absorb and appreciate. It certainly comes across as Deadheads who had better record collections than most beating and strumming a primal path to a universal consciousness. You can buy the CD for 10 bucks from VHF, yet another reason to stop the bullshit and embrace the format that promised you perfect sound forever.

Doldrums also had a few releases put out by Kranky, so that got me thinking about Magnog. A band I didn’t know about back in the day but who I have come to really appreciate. Magnog were a trio from Washington state. They really only got one proper album out in their lifespan, 1996’s Magnog via Kranky, but the certainly left a smoking crater that continues to summon drone and psych heads. Wildly, they opened for Pearl Jam at some shows after the album but I’m having trouble finding which. I actually caught PJ in 1996 (my only time seeing them) and was floored by The Fastbacks who had opened the show.

The album is good but I’ve always gone back to More Weather, a 1997 compilation of Magnog material that was mostly home recorded. It’s a treasure trove of hazy and heavy psychedelia and murky ambiance. Fans of Bardo Pond take extra note.

Before leaving the 90s, I must mention having a real nice afternoon playing Neil Young/Crazy Horse’s 1996 album Broken Arrow on CD.

This was the first Neil album that felt like it was mine. I was a fan of the older stuff by the time Sleeps With Angels (Reprise,1994) came out, but I was not into that record’s single so I didn’t pick it up. I still can’t get into it, actually. And I don’t know why I just refuse to listen to the record with Pearl Jam. I just can’t.

But Broken Arrow had the great “Big Time” for a single and the album is a lot looser and jammier than that previously mentioned piece of crap. I wouldn’t love another album from Neil and the horse until decades later with Psychedelic Pill and I haven’t loved any since. But Broken Arrow is a true treasure that you should check out if you haven’t done so in a while. Look, all of Neil’s albums are fantastic sonically but this one is REALLY warm and fuzzy.

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Excited to report Amsterdam’s Jonny Nash will soon return with Once Was Ours Forever, a follow-up to one of the best records of 2023, Point of Entry.

The owner-operator of Melody as Truth Records as well as one-third of Gaussian Curve, Nash knows a thing or two about ambience and texture. But he’s also a wonderful singer and songwriter and the first released jams from the new LP confirms it is of a piece of the deeply wonderful Point of Entry. Nash accesses a place where John Martyn might have gone as an adopter of electronics and keyboards.

Built around a delicate acoustic guitar line and a featherlight synth, “Bright Belief” floats across the horizon like a Meddle-era Floyd tune. Album closer “Green Lane” is a stately instrumental that sounds as if it could’ve been a demo for Mark Hollis’ beloved self-titled album.

When I got the email about Mike Polizze’s forthcoming new album from Paradise of Bachelors I had one of those “where does the time go?” moments. It felt like just yesterday I was playing Long Lost Solace Find— Mike’s first solo LP—for the first time, marvelling in its catchiness and warmth. Not least of all because I was most familiar with Polizze’s old band, Birds of Maya, who made some of this century’s finest blown out psych rock in a Japanese/PSF style vein here in the USofA. Check their first LP on Holy Mountain if you don’t believe me.

But, no, that was almost 5 fucking years ago!

The label promises Around Sound—out 7/11 via PoB—is a “rainier and more pensive affair” than the last one but, weirdly, the first single is pretty damn anthemic or at least it starts that way. “Everybody I Know” comes out of the gate strutting with a great vocal hook before taking it down a notch and getting a little more moody. It’s damn pretty and comforting. I don’t make a lot of space for modern folk-rock on my shelf lately but Polizze may be the headwind to turn me around. Really looking forward to hearing more.