I’ve always been attracted to soundscapes: worlds built out of voices, keyboards, and feedback that balance between detached and alien, as well as emotional and personal. Candy Claws, from Fort Collins, CO, delivers a distinctive brand of organic and atmospheric soundscapes. Warm Forest...

I’ve been a procrastinator most of my life. My mom knows it. I know it. You know it. But I truly have been working on the Best of 2009 podcast, hopefully recording it tonight or definitely over the weekend. In the meantime, check out my SK Best of records over to the right in the...

To be truthful, I rely on the RIYL picks to do a lot of the work for me. I could go on and on about a band, but if you know your shit like most of you do — and know the bands I use as similar recommendations — than really there’s no reason to read this. And today’s post...

I’m glad that advanced album PR seems to have shifted almost entirely to the digital realm. Sure, I still get the occasional CD or 7″ sent over, but the majority of correspondence has clearly moved toward email. It makes discovery that much easier, when all a prospective writer or...

I used to loathe hippies. Not really for any particular reason; it was just part of the code lived by the young indie/punk rocker. No hippies. Sure, the reverence to shitty bands like Phish and the exaggerated use of patchouli always irked me, but god damn if those hippies weren’t...

Today’s post starts a busy week for scissorkick before a short holiday break. Wednesday will mark the introduction of our very first ScissorCast which is basically a pre-recorded hour-long radio show that can be downloaded to the portable media player of your choice. We don’t play...

October 17th marks the release date of new Ghostly artist Christopher Willets’ Surf Boundaries. A beautiful piece of post-shoegazer guitar and electronics, it represents a narcotic blend of melodic, ambient drone and pastoral, at times, uplifting playing and programming. Glitchy yet...

I’m not sure what prompted me to pick up Swervedriver’s classic Raise back in high school, but ever since then I’ve had a real soft spot for swirling, shoegazing guitar rock. Add some solid melodic direction underneath the wall of sound and you end up with some of the all...