Moon Phantoms - S/T (2009)

Moon Phantoms is a collaboration between the bands Bardo Pond and Suishou No Fune from Japan. This record came about as most of these collaboration records do by two bands doing a tour together, hitting it off and deciding it would be fun to record a session together. Here's a review I'm stealing from Aquarius Records who always seem to sum up the mood of an album perfectly in just a few sentences:

"Deep in the forest ethno-drones, drenched in buzz and shimmer. Sitar, guitar, cumbas and all sorts of percussion create exquisite layers psych drone Nirvana that will transport you to another dimension. Strangely peaceful, the music we hear in our heads when we lay in grass at night staring at the stars."

This vinyl only release was limited to 500 copies.

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Hovercraft - Experiment Below (1998)

Hovercraft and Magnog (see below) both formed out of the break-up of a band called Space Helmet which I've never heard and never had any recorded material that I'm aware of.  The guitar player of Hovercraft and the drummer of Magnog are brothers apparently.  Hovercraft are much in the same vein as Magnog but not quite as lush. They are generally more chaotic than Magnog and became more well known (for better or worse) because of their association with Eddie Vedder.  Eddie was married to bassist Beth Liebling (AKA Sadie 7) and played drums on their first single under the pseudonym Jerome230.  So the band would tour with Pearl Jam and were exposed to a huge crowd that normally wouldn't even consider the band.  I personally think the Vedder connection really taints the work of this great experimental improv band.  I say this only because they really have no real similarities to Pearl Jam musically and got grouped into a scene they never belonged to in the first place.  So if you're a fan of space-rock of the Pacific Northwest (Jessamine, Kinski, Subarachnoid Space etc.) this album is what I would consider a classic.

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Magnog - Magnog (1996)

Since I've been posting a lot of space rock/psychedelic/drone/krautrock/improv or whatever you want to call it lately I figured I'd post a couple more and get it out of my system then try to move on to something else for a while.  Seattle's Magnog only put out this one proper studio album (although there was a compilation of home recordings later released in a collection called More Weather) that was released on Kranky Records.  It's mostly instrumental with the exception of one song and was produced by Jessamine's Andy Brown.  It's just a really great album to zone out to.

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Juneau - Juneau (1998)

I honestly don't know much about this band. It's something I picked up years ago and kind of forgot about. A song from this album recently came up on my Ipod shuffle and liked what I heard and decided to give this album another listen to. It's droney space-rock in the vein of Bardo Pond or Paik and it's not bad for a band that nobody's ever heard of.  Nobody I know anyways. The only info I could find on Juneau was that Marc Orleans of Sunburned Hand Of The Man was in the band.

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Six Finger Satellite - Weapon (1993), Machine Cuisine (1994) & Massive Cocaine Attack (1996) (By Request)

This comes as sort of a late "request fulfillment" from a while back.  I didn't come across these EP's myself until recently thanks to a great blog called Expressway To My Skull which everyone should check out.  Weapon and Machine Cuisine were what was requested but I'm also including the cassette that was a companion piece to Machine Cuisine and the Massive Cocaine Attack single. 

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Jessamine - The Long Arm Of Coincidence (1996)

The first two songs are fantastic and the rest of the album is OK.  One of Kranky Records first bands.

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