Y'all ever listen to a piece of music and think: I don't know WTF this is, but it's unscrewing my brain in the best possible way. Scott Walker's The Drift, Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" (no, really!) and Boredoms' live show at the 9:30 Club — these experiences tapped into the unknown in ways I could not articulate then, only absorb through over-sensory osmosis. 

Charlie Valentine, who records as No Home, has now done this to me twice. First on 2020's Fucking Hell, and now on Young Professional. They make industrial spiritually-punk-without-sounding-punk bedroom-pop music that haunts with an uncomfortably close intimacy. Synths belch with droning absurdity, drum machines clatter, shitty amp guitar riffing makes raw black metal bands sound like wimps, wobbly four-on-the-floor beats swim in rain puddles — this is music set off its axis in order to wake up the senses. On Young Professional, Valentine is our Virgil through the hell of capitalism, their voice howling, moaning and mumbling in keys that only seem to exist in their void.  —Lars Gotrich

P.S.: This will be the last regular newsletter of the year before Best Music of 2022 mania kicks into high gear at my day job. But do expect my own personal year-end lists at some point, and maybe a Christmas playlist, Viking-style.

P.P.S.: Oh, hey, it happens to be Bandcamp Friday! And there's a new Viking's Choice playlist of songs featured on Bandcamp right below!

Mixtape: Viking's Emerald

Stream via BNDCMPR. Tracklist below: 

No Home, "Emerald Green Mirror"
Joe Rainey, "can key"
The Insomniac Collective, "Next Life"
BRAHJA, "Watermelanchola"
Zulu, "Fakin' Tha Funk (You Get Did)"
Fire-Toolz (feat. Lipticism), "Race For Titles"
Kali Malone, "Does Spring Hide Its Joy v2.3"
Silica Gel, "Prisms of Knowing"
Malena Stefano, "Elixir"
Thrawsunblat, "Tomorrow's Thundering"
Six Organs of Admittance, "Bar-Nasha"
Shizuka, "白​い​命"
gladie, "Heaven, Someday"
Man… or Astro-Man?, "Signal Intrusions"
snow ellet, "Playing Dead"
Nuha Ruby Ha, "Self Portraiture"
Carl Stone, "Sagasin"
stargaze, "Recollection Pause #3"
Tallah, "Stomping Grounds"
Memorrhage, "Memory Leak"
Cruel Diagonals, "Disobedience"
Mickey Diamond & Big Ghost Ltd., "The Invisible Man"
Boris, "howling moon, melting sun"
The Psychotic Monks, "Post-Post-"
TIMPANA, "Zayanqu"
Glyders, "High Time"
Brethren Hogg, "Invisibility"
Repetition, "Escape"
Dummy, "Hallogallo (Live)"
White Heaven, "Snow"