(Daniel Barkasi returns today with the second of his monthly NCS columns devoted to spreading the word about musical obscurities. What you’ll find below are reviews and streams of 8 records released from around the globe in January.)

To begin, thank you to all who read the first edition of this monthly column. I’m glad folks seemed to enjoy the musical expeditions of my often wacky brain. May you discover something to your liking that’ll (hopefully) give you plenty of enjoyment and respite from the madness of the everyday hustle.

This edition covers records that were released in January, which is how we’ll be covering things month-to-month. This time, we have a cornucopia of flavors to indulge; from atmospheric, epic, and relaxing, to the downright filthy. True that the first month of the calendar is typically a relatively slow month in terms of memorable releases, but this year has started off quite favorably. Plenty of under the surface delights to tear into, so let us begin faster than Jerry Seinfeld’s supposed claim of being quite fleet of foot. We choose to run! Continue reading »