Decoder Magazine & Crash Symbols

Along with the new year came a radical change to one of my favorite blogs, Get Off The Coast. Due to it no longer being just the work of Jheri, Get Off The Coast morphed into Secret Decoder to better represent the sprawling music obsessed collective it had become. Along with the name/site change came the even better news that Secret Decoder would also exist as a physical, magazine supplement filled with deeper, richer articles about all the bands and record labels that Secret Decoder/Get Off The Coast had been digging up and rapid blogging about for years. Secret Decoder is currently producing its first issue, and has set up a Kickstarter page to help with the funding. I need not say how worth while and deserving this project is, and every dollar helps. Speaking of, any dollar donated to the project gets one a digital copy of Decoders' first mixtape (streamable below), which also serves as the perfect sampler for what's to the come/be covered within the first issue.
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Speaking of Secret Decoder related works, the blog's label Crash Symbols is still in full force, cranking out cassette and digital releases at a rate that rivals their blog updates. That rate in fact makes it very easy for fellow bloggers to occasionally miss a release or two from the label. Thankfully though I caught hold of the label's release of Noah Wall's debut cassette Hèloïse. Hèloïse is an incredibly warm record, filled with sprawling synths that submerge the listener in a mental, crystal clear sea with the sun always over head.  Noah Wall could have easily created a simple chillwave record, but his music is smarter than that, taking light dashes from tropica and darkwave (in sound and structure accordingly), it's more reminiscent of Broken Social Scene's more ambient and free form pop than normal electronica. Lightly stunning, beautiful music.



Links:

Support Decoder Magazine here, on their Kickstarter page
Noah Wall's Website/Bandcamp
Buy the Hèloïse cassette here, from Crash Symbols