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Eric Angelo Bessel’s Textural Ambient “Pathways” is an Illuminated Journey Through Dark Spaces

Eric Angelo Bessel, photo courtesy the artist

For the single “Pathways,” Eric Angelo Bessel offers different setting of inspiration than perhaps the most cosmic outer reaches of his previous album Mirror at Night (2025). The lead track from the forthcoming Illusion of an Inland Ocean is paired with a music video of a scene from the near deep ocean with air bubbles and swimming sea creatures drifting by and embodying the motes of harmonic tone and shifting drones conveying both distance and a tactile intimacy of mood. If you’ve ever taken the time to sit in bodies of water and listened you’ll become aware of a different dynamic of existence and a new level of sensory experience which is part of the reason for how sensory deprivation tanks affect various people and their headspace and state of consciousness. The title “Pathways” suggests a journey into another place and another frame of mind but with a calm spirit and sense of being guided by intuition and trust in larger forces beyond standard human cognition. Its sounds shimmer and phase and coax the listener into the next realm Bessel has to offer on the rest of the album. Fans of Brian Eno’s Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks (1983) will be mesmerized by the forthcoming album Illusion of an Inland Ocean out on October 30, 2026 for digital download, streaming and double LP. Watch the video for “Pathways” on YouTube and follow Eric Angelo Bessel at the links provided.

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Osmunda Music’s New Age Ambient Pop Single “Truth and Light” is Vibrantly and Uplifting

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The vocals on Osmunda Music’s “Truth and Light” feels fully integrated into the layers of ethereal yet vibrant sound from synth and percussion like a New Age equivalent of what Brian Eno did on The Ship (2016). The tones have a distinctly physical and uplifting presence while able to convey a sense of luminous drift. There is just a touch of processing on Rebecca Trujillo Vest’s voice that serves to bring it into alignment with the enigmatic yet warm quality of the instrumentation. It’s a song about how everything and everyone is a part of the energy of the universe and at its core that energy can be a form of information storage as a perceptible manifestation of the essential frequencies that make up reality as we know it. It’s a heady song in terms of the subject matter yet incredibly accessible like every day life. Fans of Alice Coltrane may appreciate the mood and tenor of the song. Listen to “Truth and Light” on YouTube and follow Osmunda Music at the links below. The new Osmunda Music EP Wrapped in Warmth is out now.

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The Wheel Workers Hope Beyond Hope For a Future For the Human Race Post-Authoritarian Takeover on Psychedelic Prog Pop Single “One More Thing To Say”

The Wheel Workers, photo by Chad Fontenot

“One More Thing To Say” is the title track to The Wheel Workers’ forthcoming album. Originally written in 2006 with the album essentially unfinished when the band broke up for awhile. But 20 years later with reworked and re-recorded songs it turns out the themes of authoritarianism are unfortunately even more relevant now with fascism ascendant globally. The song with its layers of atmosphere and melody around a solid rhythm and expert pacing is somehow reminiscent of a psychedelic pop band of the 90s coupled with King Crimson circa “Elephant Talk” or Hawkwind in the period represented by the album Quark, Strangeness and Charm. Spectral bell tones drift through as a melody while guitars sketch textures and Steven Higginboth sings about a world being dismantled by power mad political leaders who seem to be guided by nothing but ego and self-dealing but feigning vision except that execution of which is chaos and destruction. Higginbotham’s equally introspective and passionate vocals are reminiscent of Peter Gabriel in moments adding to the art rock feel of the song. But it is a song for the current moment sounding both on edge and clinging to the faintest of hope to navigate perilous times. The music video is part animated and collage stop motion depicting Ruben Ramires traversing the troubled earth and witnessing war erupting and perhaps the final conflict that ends everything. Surely a legitimate concern when a certain American president is talking about using nuclear weapons and the leader of a nation formerly part of the most powerful “communist” nation on earth is hinting and the same. We can only hope none of that comes to pass and that more humane heads prevail. Though the song has a touch of menace and urgency it also suggests that being aware and taking action with a little luck might get us through to better times. Watch the video for “One More Thing To Say” on YouTube and follow The Wheel Workers at the links provided.

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Anonymous Seattle Supergroup PUNKTUALS Delivers the Darkly Humorous Garage Punk Single “Death Of The Party”

PUNKTUALS is an anonymous punk band from Seattle comprised of veterans of the Emerald City’s rock scene but adopting stage names for this project. Its second album Hourly Rage is out October 9, 2026 via Friendo Records but lead single “Death Of The Party” you can see for yourself right now. It’s definitely more in the vein of melodic garage punk the type that the Pacific Northwest is perhaps best known for meaning solid hooks, an anthemic energy that makes it easy to get caught up in its momentum. The song appears to be a send up of party culture and in moments its sentiments are reminiscent of songs like “Six Pack” and “Drinking and Driving” by Black Flag. In that it is honest about the down side of partying all the time and being constantly drunk and behaving shabbily toward people and generally making an obnoxious fool of oneself as “the life of the party.” Yet it’s not a preachy downer and the anonymity of the band in the music video adds a touch of mystery to music that is usually very lacking in mystique. The title of the song brings to mind the Missing Foundation logo and of course the title of the 1982 debut album by Talk Talk rendered in a more darkly humorous wording. Watch the video for “Death Of The Party” on YouTube and follow PUNKTUALS at the links below.

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Jupe Jupe’s “Down With the Setting Sun” Leans Into the Cathartic Potential of Melancholic Melodies to Get Through Dark Times

Jupe Jupe’s new single “Down With the Setting Sun” and its music video looks like it was conceived and shot in the space where the band brings ideas to solidify from feelings and sentiments into the kind of mood the band has excelled at up to now. In the video we see scenes from the Stardate Records studio with engineer Jack Knight on camera juxtaposed with footage from the air and from nature often in black and white to convey a stark sense of wonder and isolation. The song is melancholic but with a touch of emotional urgency fitting themes of the ways in which people can accidentally hurt each other in a relationship in times of elevated tension and a yearning to keep connection even though that hurt seems to weigh heavily in moments. The song doesn’t offer solutions but expresses a complex sentiment with musical elegance. Sure the post-punk style and its lonely piano figure is reminiscent of later period The Sound but not many bands do and The Sound is a group that too wrote songs about feelings that are more nuanced and deep with an ear for how leaning into melancholy can help you get through the darker times. Watch the video for “Down With the Setting Sun” on YouTube and follow Seattle’s Jupe Jupe at the links provided.

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The Body and Cel Genesis Alchemize an Urgent Industrial Doom on “Candy Crush”

The Body and Cel Genesis, photo by Chris Danko

In its tradition of unique collaborations, experimental heavy duo The Body teams up with Oakland’s Cel Genesis for Whole Wide World (out November 13, 2026 via Thrill Jockey). Lead track “Candy Crush” doesn’t sound like an alternative soundtrack to the video game so much as a haunted, menacing environment of texture, pointillist simmering sounds in the dark with The Body’s Chip King’s high pitched, alien wail in the beginning before the song engages into a sustained eruption of industrial beats and seething distortion through which King and Cal Genesis’ Pauline Poreroso with her feral and urgent vocals seem to call and response through torrents of sound and into a period of the song that sounds like an evacuation alarm pulses. It comes off like an especially intense and heavy digital hardcore song that fans of Realicide and Machine Girl would appreciate if not already great appreciators of how The Body seems to be able to adapt their sonic imagination to every one of its many collaborative albums and songs. The true fusion of classic The Body’s industrialized doom and a more electronic aesthetic one saw not so long ago in their album with Dis Fig (Orchards of a Futile Heaven, 2024) but this is as inspired as that and a challenge to The Body to expand into territory is hadn’t been previously in working with Cel Genesis. Listen to “Candy Crush” on Spotify and follow The Body on Instagram.

Fumiro Kaneko’s Retro New Age Single “who is behind me” is Like Upbeat Theme Music For a Thriller Montage

Fumiro Kaneko evokes the sounds of late 80s New Age music on “who is behind me.” But with an update on the rhythms with low key trap beats providing some texture and solidity to the bright layers of electronics. Percussive crystalline tones carry the main ascending melody alongside some electronic flute. It could sound like some kind of corporate instructional video music except the title suggests a different interpretation like upbeat music to contrast with a sense of menace and surveillance in a thriller. It has the pacing of a montage scene in which the protagonist notices they’re being followed by someone but not sure who that is or what their intentions might be so a path is pursued to give time to pick up any identifying details before realizing maybe it was a coincidence and not a nefarious encounter. But the contrast between the title and the light and playful mood of the music and its almost retro New Age aesthetic lends it a complex emotional resonance one doesn’t often encounter. Listen to “who is behind me” on Spotify and follow Fumiro Kaneko on Instagram.

Badjokes’ Fusion of UK Garage and IDM on “I Know U” Pulls You in With Melancholic Urgency

With “I Know U” Badjokes blends of classic UK garage melody and fast-paced rhythms, chopped and processed vocals and a dark, moody atmospheric elements. The combined sounds with distorted bass that flares out of the central flow and warping drones lend the song a sense of melancholic urgency and the energy to pull oneself out of a low point of mood. The diversity of the rhythmic arrangements may remind a keen listener of early IDM like those early Future Sound of London tracks and late 90s trance. Or more recent artists like the first couple of Disclosure records or Dirty Vegas but with a more frenetic and complex beat structure. Whatever touchstones seem apt the song is immediately captivating, ends at just the right time and all but demands a re-listen. Check out the song for yourself on Spotify and follow Badjokes at the links below.

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A Very Special Episode Captures the Moment of Clarity After Fulfilling One’s Desires on Fuzz Punk Single “Too Cool”

A Very Special Episode, photo courtesy the artists

“Too Cool” by A Very Special Episode begins with a lightly distorted bass line and hushed vocals and a sense of menace but at the same time reminiscent of Wet Leg in its playfulness. Once the song gets off the ground with every element in direct motion it’s like a wall of sound of singular irresistible hook. All appropriate for a song that seems to be about fulfillment of desires, the heated anticipation of that next connection and the comedown and moments spent reflecting on the significance of it all. Fans of obvious touchstones like the aforementioned as well as fuzzed out psychedelic rock bands like Death Valley Girls will appreciate the band’s edge paired with uplifting melodies. Listen to “Too Cool” on Spotify and follow A Very Special Episode at the links below. The group’s EP AVSE released July 31, 2026.

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Nice Boat Delivers a Short and Acerbic Dismissal on Minimal Fuzz Punk Single “SICK”

“SICK” is a song that shouldn’t work. Yet Nice Boat finds a way. Electronic clap sounds for percussion with some programmed cymbals later in, minimal fuzzed out bass carrying the dynamic rhythm and vocals that have enough reverb to quaver a tiny bit so that the lo-fi aesthetic works and the lyrics “the sicker you get the better I feel” delivered with a bit of a sneer is reminiscent of the attitude of Deborah Iyall on her old band Romeo Void’s stone classic “Never Say Never.” Just enough emotive inflection to a dismissive casualness that is playful and hilariously devastating if you’re on the delivery end of the put down. This song is like punk done stripped of stylistic cliches and returned to an accessibility that is immediate. It would have been a good fit for 2000s K Records or Kill Rock Stars. Listen to “SICK” on Spotify and follow Nice Boat at the links provided. The album I DON’T HAVE THE BANDWIDTH is out 9/26/26 via Slouch Records.