Khruangbin have released 3 EPs this year, two of which were teetering on the edge of surf/rock & roll -- and I decided they were over the edge. This one I think is far enough in our camp, and I think they all deserve a listen if you want to hear something different. They're a little surfy, a little jazzy, dreamy, some krautrock in there...

This one is all (mostly obscure) covers and a little more tight than their other EPs. I'll just go ahead and post them all belowRead more

Once I only knew about maybe three Mexican surf bands (Lost Acapulco, Telekrimen, Twin Tones). I always thought it seemed a bit low considering the great things I've heard about the crowds at Mexican surf shows. Bandcamp seemed to open the floodgates, and among other groups, Dr. Tritón came out. This EP is a handful of dark and moody instrumentals to match the album cover. My favorite is probably Pistolera Lady MamacitaRead more

If you haven't heard Spindrift before, you better get on it. They've made some absolutely killer Spaghetti Western records and put on an excellent live show. They're not always instrumental, but usually they are, and the one preview we've got here appears to be as well. This appears to be a few extras from their soundtrack to Ghost of the West (which I haven't heard yet!), looks like only three tracks. More than anything, I'm excited to see this on Burger Records, a light-hearted punk label...Read more

Tuareg have an interesting thing going. Two guitarists in Middle Eastern garb (from Spain), no other bandmates, with both their album covers depicting them surfing on a wave of feces. That may not be 100% clear on this one, but it is on their previous album cover, where the brown wave comes straight fromthe toilet. It's unique, I'm pretty sure of that, and I don't think anybody's going to steal it. As you might expect, this isn't supposed to be relaxing, it's meant to be loud!Read more

While Brazil has no shortage of great surf groups, if you asked me to name the first that comes to mind, it would probably be the Dead Rocks. They've been around for about 10 years now and put out some great albums, my favorites being International Brazillian Surfs and One Million Dollar Surf Band. They're relentless promoters and have made their music easy to obtain across the world. And most importantly, who can forget those sharp outfits. After a brief Spaghetti Western stint on their...Read more

Coffin Haze refer to themselves as blackabilly deathsurf. I like it. This one's kind muddy recording-wise, I'm guessing it was live, but it's indeed dark, fast and very well played. For now it's streaming and purchaseable on bandcamp, and there's a cassette version on the way. That's about everything I can find on these guys based on their facebook page.Read more

Huaraches were nice to enough to send me a preview copy on this one so it's been played on the show and in my car for a few weeks now. Despite the fun, summery baseball album art, I get a pretty dark, ominous and dangerous vibe on this one. Perhaps it's not the music: I did first listen to it on the way back from a haunted house, the luchadore mask-wearing figure on the cover kinda freaks me out, and I've had a fear of getting hit in the face with a baseball since I watched it happen to a...Read more

Surf has a long and great history with sci-fi and with it comes a flirtation with the mysterious sci-fi instrument the Theremin: the magical instrument meant to be heard, not touched. While others use it sparingly, WaveSauce is the only surf group I've heard that COMMITS to this device's otherworldly moans (though Messer Chups comes close (they collaborated with Leon Theremin's granddaughter!)).Read more

Here's a nice little one-man project out of Spain with a good mix of mood and tempo. I ran his thoughts about his music through Google Translate and there was one part that I really liked despite Google's obvious mistakes:Read more