UNSOUND OTTAWA

    Pallbearer Industry, - consisting of Pat Farrell (Guitar, Vocals), Leigh Newton (Bass, Keys, Vocals), & Jeff Dowdall (Drums, Percussion, Synths) - a recent addition to the Ottawa Psych scene, state on their debut album Astral Pollution's Bandcamp page; “Astral Pollution is the direct result of isolation within the pandemic world. Transmissions sent from one studio to another giving way to instinctive musical mutations” . Quite to the point, Astral Pollution has an air of instinctive improvisation. The record is a 45 minute auditory collage of psychedelia, drone and grime; with each of the ten songs presenting distinctively different sonic scenes, bound together by a common flavor of dissonance.      The album’s first and eponymous track; “ Astral Pollution ”, is a suitably jarring bookend to the collection. Most immediately, the band’s industrial influences bleed through the lonely synth drone which opens the song: a restless, distorted guitar beg...

 Bigfoot Coroners are an Ottawa duo playing improvised psych music, a noisy, hypnotic, ominous brand of it that I think would appeal to fans of more free-form, offbeat Neurosis tracks. Although as a newcomer to the sound and style, I am not best placed to judge, but I am pleased to jump in to new musical experiences when I get the chance. "Tunnels" is their latest release on Bandcamp ( available here ) and the first of theirs that I've sat down to listen to with intent. Jeff (drums, percussion) and Trevor (guitar, synth, bass) manage to create a haunting, dizzying atmosphere on this 2-track release. "Don't feed the worms" is a caustic, meandering piece, hypnotic in the sense that you lose track of time and structure, whereas "If the dust won't settle" is disorienting, throbbing with a more obvious but no less jarring rhythmic component, that makes strong and effective use of echoes or delayed audio lines. While they haven't had the chance...