Paying Homage to Hendrix via HazeHound’s Macrodose

Info on HazeHound is thin on the ground. Other than a bandcamp account no online presence can be found; but don’t let that stop Macrodose being an album of monumental proportions.

Beyond short opener ‘Hell is real’—a track feeling very much lifted from a 60’s sci-fi movie—title track ‘Macrodose’ shifts the album into its overall groove: an utterly mind blowing amalgamation of Jimi Hendrix, Black Sabbath, Clutch and Radio Moscow. Continue reading

Etran de L’Aïr: The Desert Blues Brothers

To mark the commencement of a 2023 US Summer tour, Etran de L’Aïr—which translates to the Stars of the Aïr—have released two live tracks recorded in Seattle earlier in the year; available for digital download, they’re also NYP (name your price, which includes free if you need it to be).

Seattle is a long way—seven-thousand miles thereabouts—from Etran de L’Aïr’s hometown of Agadez, Niger; a city located in the Sahara desert and the country’s fifth largest.

Etran de L’Aïr’s sound is generally described as desert blues. It’s a genre description in much part originating from the epithet desert rock already being taken in the West by a bunch of stoners who liked recording while out of their trees while out in the deserts of the States—some groovy tunes coming from their endeavours, it should be said—while the sound coming from Africa has a vibe and undercurrent distinctive to musicians in the region. Continue reading