Articles

Death is weird for me to begin with. I'm constantly reminding myself of the feelings I held after the last friend of mine killed himself. I was dismissive of any other explanation besides it being his fucking fault. I hurt from every fucking angle. When people talked about the best parts about him, I almost fucking Matrix dodged that shit in an attempt to forget about the things that made him so important to me. I wanted to forget what I loved about him just to shut down the memory of him that hit me first every time I thought about him. I wanted what hurt me the most about the general topic of suicide to hurt less than the specific memory of the one friend of mine I never imagined would do it. I wanted the ability to say or think his name and it not fucking hurt. I just wanted to...

I dig inspiration. Most of the music I like feels like a beam of astral light shone down into the brain piece of the artist and art falls forth unto the world and into my considerably waxy ears (I'm trying to ween myself from q-tips) like a gift of a massage chair from Brookstone. A couple of weeks ago, I reviewed Graves33's instrumental record, Smoke Filled Rooms. One of the things, besides the hazed out production, was that the record was open for anybody who bought the release to use, albeit nonexclusively. When I say 'use', I mean on the soundtrack of your indie flick, as a beat for your bedroom mixtape, or to bring down the house at your cousin Rachel's wedding!  Enter Sammy Warm Hands. Also previously covered on SYFFAL for his cerebral and forward-thinking raps, Sammy...

Rob Sonic confuses the balls off me. Because Roberto Sonic is poetically wriggleschmelting e'ethang the majority of the time, I have a hard time imagining this dude doing regular day to day tasks because of how insane this muthafucker manhandles the English language. It's like, how would you imagine Shakespeare wiping his ass? What would Shel Silverstein doing his taxes be like? And now... I can't help but ask the question: HOW WOULD ROB SONIC ORDER A BURRITO? Oh Rob Sonic (sigh), I love everything about him ('cept his personality, what a dick that guy is). So here be the new single "Not For Nothing", which features Breeze Brewin of the Juggaknots, over production by my BFF Edison, and if you've never listened to Rob Sonic fully clothed, the only opportunity you have with this jam, is...

The best is ignoring your SYFFAL music submissions for four full months only to have 922 unread music submission emails and the fourth one you open has you fucking nodding like you were supposed to do so at the exact time you did so, so you did so to do so when you did so to fucking nod that head like yeaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Whoever the fuck this Palemen shit is? I WANT TO LIVE INSIDE OF ITS MOTHERBOARD, BROTHERBOARD. The fresh apple sampletinis this motherfucker be shakins over his taut gnartender shoulder just the right amount of times before servins is just fucking disgusting. The genre of electronic instrumental is either an excuse to space out or an invitation to concentrate, but I've never had one start playing in my headphones that immediately begs me to wiggle my toes and fingers and...

In case you didn't know Afie Jurvanen is Bahamas and Bahamas is Afie. Coincedentally, that is the name of his new album that is coming out on 8-19. Wait. Wait. Back the Fuck up? Did I just say Bahamas is releasing a new album???? Holy shit. I did! This all came as a pleasent surprise to me when I came across Afie's new track 'All The Time' yesterday. While listening, a pleasent calm came over me and thoughts of his previously released album 'Barchords' came rushing back into my memories. I loved this album so hard back then; it was one of my favorites of 2011 and I can confidentally say 'All The Time' picks up where Barchords left off. This track is the condensation dripping off your cold glass of lemonade being drank on your front porch swang.

As our self-imposed cycle would dictate, it's time for us to unveil each of our favorite tracks for the second quarter of 2014. And bro. Is it just us or was there enough quality tracks this quarter to fill a Whale's vagina? Find the minilogs of the SYFFAL staff member(s) you mesh with the most, click play, kick off your Sperry's, and let this shit invade your ears. We pretty much have something for everyone unless you are into line dancing and Jesus. And remember, share what you like. Not for us....for the artists. Keep the good music alive.

Shut up. I know we are two weeks late for the unveiling of our 'Best of Q2' lists, but we have been going through big changes here are Syffal: we had to transition the site to another server and our fearless leader, Tammy Baker, has gone into retirement....until he realizes he misses us too much and comes back. BUT right now he is enjoying short walks on his lunch break to prevent the inflammation in his hips from acting up. The rest of the staff are all well and good though: Joel gave the Governor of Illinois a stink palm on behalf of the Bee-keepers lobby. Brando has been hugging trees in Yosemite and trying to attract Black Tailed Deer to his anus with peanut butter. Del is Delling, hence why his list iis missing. Johnny is enjoying the 'Summer Of Johnny' and wakes up with Summer...

The first time I hit play on Seaside from Duke Evers, I assumed I was hearing yet another incarnation of some adorably/annoyingly folky Monsters & Men meets the Lumineers clones that have plagued our email inboxes since PR reps thought they were going to break the "next" M&M or Lumineeeez bro. While it isn't as constant as it was a few years ago, holy Fuck balls on a ball of Fuck that is holy, EVERY REP THOUGHT THEIR VERSION OF THE SAME DAMN THING WAS BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE'S VERSION OF THE SAME DAMN THING. Duke Evers might have fooled me into thinking I was hearing a band cling to that kitsch that isn't just starting to bother me, it's starting to fucking infuriate me, but dude? DUDE. AM I DRUNK OR IS THIS BALLS ASS AWESOME?!?!?!?!?! Pretty sure I'm sober as I've ever...