Fumio Miyashita - Earth (1983)

Hypnotic, psychedelic new age sounds from Japanese new age pioneer Fumio Miyashita (of Far Out/Far East Family Band.) With its simple, pulsing rhythms, watery bass lines and fuzzy, space-out guitar leads, Earth often sounds closer to krautrock, or even Floydian space rock, than to new age. Note: this rip of the CD reissue was missing "Wave from East", so as you will surely hear, that track is sourced from a vinyl rip.

Track listing:

1. Creation

2. Dawn

3. Good Morning

4. Sun Beams

5. Earth Motion

6. Wave from East

7. Love from Motion

8. Touch

9. Dusk

10. Arion's Theme

11. Light for You [bonus]

Parallel world

Similar sounds:

Ariel Kalma - Interfrequence (1975)

Double Fantasy - Universal Avenue (1987)

How to Dress Well - Just Once (2011)

Still my favorite How to Dress Well record. The Just Once EP strips away the harshly lo-fi textures, beats, and samples, leaving behind just Krell's emotive vocals awash in the stately melancholy of a string quartet.

Track listing:

1. Suicide Dream 1 (Orchestral Version)

2. Suicide Dream 2 (Orchestral Version)

3. Suicide Dream 3 (Orchestral Version)

4. Decisions (Orchestral Version)

What would it mean to live a life that wasn't like this?

If you like this, listen to:

Beacon - No Body (2012) + For Now (2012)

James Ferraro - Cold (2013)

The Aluminum Group - Plano (1998)

Breezy, understated, lushly-produced indie pop from a Chicagoan brother-brother duo. Elements of bachelor pad music, jazzy lounge, and yacht rock abound, making for music that's extremely easy on the ears, but holds up quite well to closer listening. Think The Divine Comedy, but instead of aggressively hetero, gay. I wonder if anyone has ever written about this band without using the word "sophisticated."

Track listing:

1. Chocolates

2. Angel on a Trampoline

3. A Boy in Love

4. Sugar & Promises

5. The Mattachine Society

6. Sunday Morning

7. 9 Months Later

8. Sad Gay Life

9. Steam

10. Star Wish

11. Photograph

12. Storytime

Am I bringing you down when I'm bringing you candy?

Similar listening:

The Magnetic Fields - The Wayward Bus (1992)

Komeda - Pop På Svenska (1993)

Floatpoint - Beam Error (1995)

Related:

Download - Furnace (1995)

Phil Western - The Escapist (1998)

Atmospheric, psychedelic, trance-leaning tunes for late-night hypnotism. Floatpoint was a one-off collaboration between Phil Western and Romanian musician Dan Handrabur, and I really wish they'd recorded more music together because it's a pretty magical combo. Also, Western passed away back in 2019 and I had intended to post Worlds End in his honor but it looks like I never got around to it, so I'll take this opportunity to say: Rest in power, Phil. And fuck fentanyl.

Track listing:

1. LKO

2. Namlossah

3. Beam Error

4. Trypt

5. Luna

6. Landhip

7. Ilmabahujailkt

8. Phall

9. Coom

10. Maze

This wasn't supposed to be your life

Also listen to:

Ambient Temple of Imagination - Mystery School (1994)

Not Breathing - Time Music of Quazars (1995)

Purple Ivy Shadows - No More the Trees Than the Stars (1997)

Laid-back, country-and-psych-tinged indie rock from Providence, RI (thanks for the correction.) No Less the Trees Than the Stars has soundtracked a few late-night friend-bubble porch-hangs here at Opium Hum HQ, and it always hits just right.

Track listing:

1. Pawtucket

2. Feeble

3. Rebuilding the Ancestral Statue

4. Until I Saw the Fish

5. Blue Mtn.

6. Roadwise Blood

7. Sustance

8. She Wouldn't Have It

9. Stairs

10. Dancefloor's Shiny Under Junky

11. No Health

12. A Space Is Needed

God is an American

You might also enjoy:

Meat Puppets - Forbidden Places (1991)

Mojave 3 - Ask Me Tomorrow (1995)

Miriodor - Miriodor (1988)

I'm back! Had this post locked and ready to post while I was away, but vacation life took over and I temporarily forgot about the internet. Excellent sophomore album by these Canadian RIO purveyors. Disjointed, queasy, but propulsive instrumentals played on unsettlingly synthetic keyboards and decidedly un-synthetic saxophones and percussion. I'm including the bonus tracks because the first vinyl press of this record is the only version that doesn't include them so to me they feel like part of the proper album.

Track listing:

1. Regards / Regards

2. Spirale / Spiral

3. March Funèbre / Funeral March

4. Valence / Valence

5. Piège / Trap

6. Suspicion / Suspicion

7. Insomnie Prèmonitoire / Premonitory Insomnia

8. Réseau / Network

9. En Attendant Rémi / Waiting for Remi

10. Pleine Lune / Full Moon

11. Suspicion / Suspicion

12. Oriflamme / Oriflamme

13. Convoi Nocturne / Nocturnal Procession

14. Moyen Âge / Middle Ages

Langage de lézard

If you like this, you're a nerd, and you should also listen to:

Maneige - Les Porches (1975)

Art Zoyd - Berlin (1987)

The Clientele - The Violet Hour (2003)

Heavenly English indie pop/rock. Chiming guitars, shuffling drums, and dreamy, whispery vocals, all awash in reverb. I know that we're all paying attention to 5 things at once, and this band's super easy to just vibe to, but I highly recommend actually giving this record the close listen that it deserves; like, read along to the lyrics and everything. Here, you don't even have to Google them.

(Re: previous post: I deleted it, so anyone who commented on it obviously won’t be getting a direct response. Definitely makes me think that I should always do at least a little research about bands before I post about them — I usually do, but sometimes I just stumble across a record, get super stoked about it, and post it without knowing anything about the artist. My bad. Thanks to everyone for letting me know. I’m drunk and on vacation, so I’m gonna leave it at that for now, but might want to share more thoughts when I’m in a better position to do so.)

Track listing:

1. The Violet Hour

2. Voices in the Mall

3. When You and I Were Young

4. Missing

5. Jamaican Rum Rhumba

6. House on Fire

7. Everybody's Gone

8. Porcelain

9. Haunted Melody

10. Prelude

11. Lamplight

12. The House Always Wins

13. Policeman Getting Lost

You're so tired that you believe in everything

Listen to these, too:

The Orchids - Unholy Soul (1991)

Luna - The Days of Our Nights (1999)

The Holydrug Couple - Awe (2011)

Hazy Chilean neo-psych. Fuzzed-out, jammy guitar reveries dotted with the occasional sleepy vocal. Demands to be listened to in the sun, and by the time you read this, I hope to be on a beach doing just that.

Track listing:

1. Ancient Land

2. Mountaintop

3. Long Rain

4. Now Revisited

5. We're Gonna Die

6. Flow

7. Clouds

Baby, I'm going away

If you like this, listen to:

Hash Jar Tempo - Well Oiled (1997)

Blues Control - Local Flavor (2009)

Total Abuse - Mutt (2010)

Previously on OPIUM HUM:

Total Abuse - Prison Sweat (2011)

Gnarly-ass hardcore with strong noise rock leanings that sometimes completely take over. One of my first posts on here was this band's next LP, and I have no idea why I went with that one, as I have always been way more into Mutt. Time to right yesterday's wrongs.

Track listing:

1. Eunuch

2. Buried

3. Caligula

4. Discipline

5. Secret Passage I

6. 14 Years Old

7. Fluid Exchange

8. Pure

9. Flashing

10. Mutt

11. Secret Passage II

The same mistake since birth

Also listen to:

Creeps on Candy - Wonders of Giardia (1999)

Organized Sports - I'm So Proud of Him (2011)

Bríi - Sem Propósito (2021)

Trance-inducing Brazilian black metal. Two sprawling, psychedelic compositions merging the seemingly disparate worlds of krautrock/Berlin school synth and atmospheric black metal. It should come as a surprise to absolutely no one that this is one of my favorite records of the year so far, but honestly, I went into it expecting atmospheric black metal broken up by synth-y interludes, and was elated to hear an actually complete and seamless fusion. Free/name your price via bandcamp.

Two tracks, titled "A" and "B"

Revelations of darkness

You should also hear:

Velvet Cacoon - Northsuite (2005)

Trist - Hin-fort (2007)

Thee More Shallows - More Deep Cuts (2004)

Related:

Shackleton - Discography (1999-?)

Sweet, sad, but sharp, ornate-in-a-homemade-sort-of-way, lo-fi-ish indie rock. If you click the link above, you'll see that I knew practically nothing about the band Shackleton at the time, and my post doubled as an attempt to gather some intel. Well, thanks to one commenter, I found out that it was a project of an SF musician named Dee Kessler, and that he had another band called Thee More Shallows. Someone else jumped in to recommend their first record, which I do love, but having had a long time to percolate on it, I feel that More Deep Cuts has the edge ever so slightly. That being said, literally everything I've heard from Dee Kessler has really exemplified this blog's credo of "this record should be way more popular." 

Track listing:

1. Post-Present

2. Pre-Present

3. Freshman Thesis

4. - int -

5. Ave Gracve

6. Cold Dis

7. Cloisterphobia

8. 2 AM

9. - int -

10. Walk of Shame

11. Ask Me About Jon Stross

12. House Break

Take a plane, return home

To the place you first saw her

From the sky it's off-white

Little hills like bags of cocaine

If you like this, you should listen to:

Gastr del Sol - Camofleur (1998)

Piano Magic - The Troubled Sleep of Piano Magic (2003)

Super Cat - Boops! (1986)

Digital dancehall from an Afro-Jamaican deejay with an effortlessly smooth, unrelenting flow. It's been hot and sweaty as hell here in Portland, OR, so here's some hot and sweaty music to match.

Track listing:

1. "Pops"

2. Move Up

3. What a Ride

4. Terminator

5. Charity

6. Boops

7. Vine Yard Party

8. D.J. Daddy

9. Jamaica Jamaica

10. How Cat Go America

Love got a hold

You should also hear:

Big Youth - Screaming Target (1972)

U-Roy - Dread in a Babylon (1975)

Variable Unit - Handbook for the Apocalypse (2003)

Future jazz/hip-hop fusion for weirdos and freaks trying to survive in a world that's hell-bent on ending itself. The kind of truly excellent, utterly obscure album that makes me even more suspect of the inexplicably popular titans of our pop/hip-hop landscape.

(If anyone has a higher quality rip of this, please post a link in the comments.)

Track listing:

1. Towers Open Fire

2. Handbook for the Apocalypse

3. War Again

4. Not One of Us, All of Us!

5. I Am on a Journey to My Soul, But the Police Just Pulled Me Over

6. We Are at War

7. Hologram Network

8. Shake the Cosmic Dice

9. Gas and Violence

10. Walking with My Son

11. Transcending Terror

12. Killing Time

13. Beyond Babylon

Books and bullets don't go crazy

Men and trigger fingers do

You might also enjoy:

Justin Warfield - My Field Trip to Planet 9 (1993)

The Hive - Working with Sound (1997)