I first met Mattesque at Bíó Paradís, a movie theater in Reykjavik, Iceland, which admittedly is an odd place for an American and a Canadian to connect. Odder still is that we (and our wives) had a weird relationship-not-a-relationship that stretched back a number of years thanks to Iceland Airwaves and the four of us […]
Month: July 2025
“Bound For Hell: On The Sunset Strip” Boxset (2022)
Hair metal… glam metal… butt rock… call it what you will, but I loved it in the 80s, and I still love it today. In 1983 I made yet another in a series of cross-country moves with my parents, experiencing the pure, unadulterated culture shock of going from Alaska to South Carolina. Another new city. […]
Stilluppsteypa – “Schokolino Choco Loco” (2025)
Somehow the news of Stilluppsteypa’s new album slipped past me until I was alerted by my friend Gestur. I have a number of their early singles, as well as their most recent albums Stilluppsteypa (2004) and Beach Jolanda (2018), plus a number of releases by member and visual artist Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson, many of which […]
Chaucerian Myth – “The Book Of Margery Kempe” Box Set (2017 / 2024)
There is a strong DIY ethic in the dungeon synth (DS) community. Given that basically no one has achieved anything even remotely resembling mainstream success with their DS projects, this is in part a necessity. There are a number of specialty labels, but perhaps only one or two big enough to constitute being someone’s full-time […]
Amor Fati – “Body W/O Organs” (1985)
This was a rabbit hole I didn’t expect to spin off into when I work up this morning, a hole involving French philosophers, psychotherapy, capital, schizophrenia, Nietzsche, and music. Oh, and some gory photos from medical textbooks. The through line here, as near as I can tell, is as follows. Philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix […]