TUMBLEWEED DEALER: “DARK GREEN”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Nov 202025
 

(Our site has had a long and warm relationship with the Canadian musician Seb Painchaud, whose year-end lists have always provided eclectic cornucopias of music for all of us to investigate. His band Tumbleweed Dealer released a fascinating new album way back in February of this year, an album that really needed the unusual voice of Vizzah Harri to express a review of it — which at last he has managed to do. It was worth the wait.)

Sometimes if we don’t carefully watch our daily intake of the ‘terribles’ online, it can seem a bit too much Everything Everywhere All At Once (warning, flashing images). It is good to keep oneself updated if any online life or profile exists because outside of our daily intake of horror, two pretty big leaks of personal data happened over the space of about 8 months. The Internet Archive (NPR link) was one, and on Saturday June 21st this one got confirmed too. It’s an AP link, not an attempt to hack you.

You won’t exactly need a machete to hack your way into the shadowy thickets of marshy vegetation when imagining the source material; but Tumbleweed Dealer’s album Dark Green pays tribute to one of the greatest pieces of fiction stemming from the 20th century, Swamp Thing.

Now that I’ve primed your frame of reference with the perils of the internet and mentioned horror at least once, well, Alan Moore is known amongst other things as having been the mind behind the resurgence of said comic book back in 1987. It is available to borrow or buy on the internet archives (it is probably safe by now) and Moore’s introduction to The Saga of the Swamp Thing has some passages that are worth sharing here for still being applicable in today’s climate, and also regarding the record being discussed: Continue reading »

How the fuck is it already mid-2025 when 2020 was just a few months ago? Yeah I slept on some shit last year, I was going through some stuff, what`s your fucking excuse for listening to the same 5 albums over and over again? YES, it`s all the title including this sentence. Haven`t you picked up on my way naming these articles yet?

 Album Reviews, LISTMANIA 2024  No Responses »
May 152025
 

(“Eclectic.” There’s that word again, the one we almost always use in sharing year-end lists from Tumbleweed Dealer‘s Seb Painchaud. We already did present Seb’s 2024 YE list during our LISTMANIA series for last year, but it turns out he overlooked a few — 16 of them, to be precise.)

How the fuck is it already mid-2025 when 2020 was just a few months ago? Yeah I slept on some shit last year, I was going through some stuff, what`s your fucking excuse for listening to the same 5 albums over and over again? YES, it’s all the title including this sentence. Haven’t you picked up on my way naming these articles yet?

So, are we really doing this again? I swore I was done with these lists as no one seems to read ‘em but god damn it, I kept discovering amazing 2024 albums I wish I had included and I made a playlist of ‘em on spotify and it’s just there, mocking me with its smugness, shoving my face into the failure that is not reporting these albums to you, the people not reading these lists.

On we go… Continue reading »

FINITE BUT SACCHARINE — GLASS BEAMS, VAELRAVYN, JEAN MARAIS, SKALLABRAK, TUMBLEWEED DEALER, DAX RIGGS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Dec 182024
 

(Our South Africa-born but Vietnam-resident NCS contributor Vizzah Harri decided to wade into a batch of seriously ear-worming music that generally isn’t as harsh on the ears as much of what we, and he, typically traffic in. We hope you’ll still enjoy what he presents here, as well as the enthusiastic presentation.)

If you follow this page diligently and try keeping up with each post and release, you’ll have more diotic islands of dreams at your disposal than the hours you delude yourself of having woken. Here are 6 new(ish) offerings of divergent persuasions.

I’ve got an authentically fiendish cornucopia of un-listened content in my meta saved folder as well as other bits I haven’t gotten even a second’s worth of ear-time towards because for a long time the only solace I had was the receding sound of foam expanding in the acoustic meatus neighboring my eardrums. Earplugs to drown out the near-constant barrage of construction, horns from flower delivery drivers, and the steel factory next door that works odd hours of the night. I moved recently though, and plugging in the external hard drive full of ‘golden oldies’ has really helped. As well as an insane YouTube wormhole researching a highly acclaimed album from them retrogressive prog ‘upstarts’ of death that I’m yet to finish writing. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2024: A YEAR-END LIST FROM SEB PAINCHAUD (TUMBLEWEED DEALER)

 LISTMANIA 2024  10 Responses »
Dec 172024
 

(Montréal -based Seb Painchaud‘s unusually varied year-end lists have always been a popular highlight of our YE LISTMANIA series, and the one below for 2024 won’t be an exception. But unlike other years, when we’ve voiced a futile hope that his band Tumbleweed Dealer would come out with a new album in the New Year, this time they really will do it!)

Another year, another list! And what a god damn year it was. Wasn’t sure it’d make it to the end at times. But here we are.

I`ve greatly modified my listening habits, trying to be less obsessive compulsive about NEEDING to listen to every new release out there. Sometimes it’s okay to throw on a Slayer record you’ve heard a thousand times when you’re stuck in traffic.

I still managed to discover some gems amongst the revisiting of classics this year, and here they are: Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2023: A POSTSCRIPT FROM SEB PAINCHAUD (TUMBLEWEED DEALER)

 LISTMANIA 2023  No Responses »
Apr 262024
 

(As we have for a long stretch of years, we again included in our 2023 Listmania series an eclectic year-end list of records selected by Seb Painchaud from the Montréal band Tumbleweed Dealer. You can see it here. But turns out the list was incomplete… and so it continues today with a dozen more recommendations.)

Here we are yet again. Some of these I missed, some of these I kept off the AOTY list for brevity, and honestly one of these I just kinda forgot to put on when I wrote up the list.

Let’s keep this short I’ve got a teams meeting in 8 minutes. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2023: A YEAR-END LIST FROM SEB PAINCHAUD (TUMBLEWEED DEALER)

 LISTMANIA 2023  No Responses »
Dec 222023
 

(Seb Painchaud, the main man behind the Montréal band Tumbleweed Dealer, has very expansive and eclectic musical tastes, which is one reason why for eight years in a row we’ve asked him to share a year-end list with us. This one, as usual, goes in all sorts of different directions.)

2023 was a year that had music. Here is some of it.

“Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick?” – Ashton Kutcher (Or at least some guy that looks like him) Continue reading »

TOP ALBUMS I DIDN’T HAVE TIME TO GET AROUND TO BEFORE THE YEAR ENDED CAUSE I’M A BUSY PERSON AND GOT THINGS TO DO, FUCK OFF, WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO ABOUT IT – YES, THE WHOLE THING IS THE TITLE, INCLUDING THIS SENTENCE CONFIRMING THAT THE WHOLE THING IS THE TITLE.

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Mar 162023
 

(Tumbleweed Dealer‘s main man Seb Painchaud usually visits us once a year to share his eclectic year-end list, but he’s back now because turns out that list wasn’t complete. Buckle up for a wild ride.)

Wouldn’t be fair to me to call this one SHIT I SLEPT ON ‘cause I was honest about the fact I wasn’t done going through all my 2022 releases on my phone when I made my AOTY list (here), which seems like only a few days ago, but that’s just how time works now I guess.

Let’s keep blurbs short and the music flowing, I got tons of 2023 shit to get back to, and I feel my not-so-unique blend of outdated TV references, vulgar imagery, and constant swearing are wearing thin. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2022: A YEAR-END LIST FROM SEB PAINCHAUD (TUMBLEWEED DEALER)

 LISTMANIA 2022  1 Response »
Jan 022023
 

(Seb Painchaud, the main man behind the Montréal band Tumbleweed Dealer, has very expansive and eclectic musical tastes, which is one reason why for seven years in a row we’ve asked him to share a year-end list with us. This one, as usual, goes in all sorts of different directions. And if it hadn’t been for a malfunctioning NCS spam filter we would have shared it with you a lot sooner than now.)

Feels like these lists are getting closer and closer apart…

Around the beginning of October, I realized I had hundreds of 2022 releases I had not gotten around to listening to yet, and compiled a playlist. It was over 200 hours long. It was quite disheartening. I’ve listened to that playlist exclusively since, adding a bunch of releases every week to it, barely making a dent in it. As I write this at the beginning of December, it’s down to 110 hours. To be honest, my list has not changed much since I started that process. So here is a list that is “lived in” with no last-minute infatuations, no scouring of other people’s lists, just the albums I spent the last twelve months with.

Expect a “Shit I slept on” list a few months into 2023, but for now, this sums up my year… Continue reading »

ANOTHER YEAR-END LIST FROM SEB PAINCHAUD (TUMBLEWEED DEALER)

 LISTMANIA 2021  3 Responses »
May 042022
 


photo by Catherine B Photografie

(We’re into May 2022, so what the hell are we doing with a continuation of our LISTMANIA 2021 series? Well, it’s because Seb Painchaud, the main man behind the Montréal band Tumbleweed Dealer, didn’t really exhaust his 2021 recommendations with the year-end list he gave us last December (here). In this supplemental list he proves again that he has very expansive and eclectic musical tastes, un-confined by the boundaries of metal.)

As prophesied in my year=end list, I have returned with a whole list of shit I slept on last year. Now, that title might perfectly describe how I completely missed out on some of these albums until it was too late, but in other cases my relationship to them isn’t always of the ‘feces I laid dormant on’ variety. I like making this second list because it lets me name-drop some albums I really enjoyed but left off the yearly rundown for various reasons. I feel an AOTY candidate requires a deeper connection than just pure enjoyment with the listener. But then again, that might just be me being a fucking music snob. So some of these might just be simpler/more to the point/honestly in some cases better than the stuff on the aforementioned previous list.

So here is a list of 2021 releases I feel you should check out if you haven’t already… Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2021: A YEAR-END LIST FROM SEB PAINCHAUD (TUMBLEWEED DEALER)

 LISTMANIA 2021  No Responses »
Dec 232021
 


photo by Catherine B Photografie

 

(Seb Painchaud, the main man behind the Montréal band Tumbleweed Dealer, has very expansive and eclectic musical tastes, which is one reason why for six years in a row we’ve asked him to share a year-end list with us. This one, as usual, goes in all sorts of different directions.)

So, 2021 huh? At least it wasn’t ‘2020 part 2, this time it’s personal’. The theme of the year has to be ‘cautious optimism’ as things slowly creep back to something we can consider adjacent enough to what we used to call normal for us to become complacent once again. Shows are slowly starting back-up, I can eat at my favorite Pho place again, looks like we might just be on the other end of this shitstorm and we may even get a few months before the next one starts (omicron, nuclear warfare, global warming, the fall of capitalism, murder hornets 2: The Return, all bets are open on what will hit next!)

All in all, a much better year than the previous one, musically and personally. I’m turning in my list earlier than usual this year, for once having a list of 20 potential albums that I all feel comfortable including. I will still be scouring everyone else’s list for a potential entry in a ‘Shit I Slept On’ compilation early next year, but until then, hope you discover something new in here! Continue reading »

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