The Ego Ritual: The Ego Ritual EP

Lincoln trio The Ego Ritual keep the freak-psych rock flying on their self-titled debut EP, a multi-layered, TechniColor, time travel trip to the late Sixties. Swirling guitars, treated vocals razor-sharp cue drums to keep it all together leve the listener wanting more after enjoying a 20 minutes rollercoaster ride.

With nods to early Hawkwind, Love, and the often overlooked Pretty Things they give themselves a head start in the dreamy, good-natured retro niche. Recommended if you Like The Luck of Eden Hall and Elephant Stone.

Soft Machine: USA tour dates

British avant-jazz rock band Soft Machine will be on the road in the States to promote their Jidden Details album. The current line-up consists of John Etheridge (guitar), Theo Travis (flute, sax, Rhodes), Rou Babbington (bass) and John Marshall (drums).

Astralingua: "Space Blues" video

Denver, Colorado based space folk duo Astralingua have made a video for their latest single Space Blues, capturing "capture the loneliness and homesickness of the unnamed traveler as he stairs out of his window of his vessel". They used footage from the heyday of the space age to tell the story.

Words about music (483): Jan Akkerman

Blues has always been the most important ingredient for me, specially the passion and the drive to create something out of nothing. It’s this thing which you can’t calculate but when it falls into place and works for everyone then these are the moments ...freedom.

Jan Akkerman

Max Siedentopf moves Toto to Africa

One of the world's most annoying mainstream songs ever is turned into an art installation. Namibian-German artist Max Siedentopf loaded an MP3 player with Toto's Africa playing on a loop in the Namib desert. Imagine travelling through the sand dunes for days on end and stumbling upon this in stead of an oasis. The damn thing runs on solar batteries, so it's likely to keep playing for quite some time. Now, that is truly a Desert Island disc from Hell.

» maxsiedentopf.com