Four of your picks, The Beginning, the same as…, Clock Strikes and Be the light, all come from the same 2013 album, Jinsei×Boku=, which is the record that really pushed them outside Japan. The Beginning was the theme for the 2012 live-action Rurouni Kenshin film, and Clock Strikes ended up in the Sega game Ryū ga Gotoku Ishin!.

This one was the opening theme for the second half of My Hero Academia’s third season, starting in July 2018, which is probably how a lot of people outside Japan first heard Lenny code fiction. They’re a four-piece from Shiga, and the single came out that August with two B-sides, Kage ni Naru and Wonder.

Worth knowing this was a big turn for him: Cabinet of Curiosities (2013) and Hypnophobia (2015) were sung baroque psych-pop records, so Somnium was his first album without vocals. Fading Cosmos followed in 2019 if you want more after this one.

For anyone new to the crew, Balming Tiger call themselves an “alternative K-pop group” and have been releasing since their first mixtape in 2018, with producers and video directors in the lineup alongside the rappers. Sexy Nukim, their 2022 single with RM of BTS, is probably the easiest way in before digging into the solo records.

Another good pick for tonight. Spooky started out as a 1967 saxophone instrumental by Mike Sharpe before Classics IV added lyrics and took it to No. 3 in the US in 1968, and Dusty’s gender-flipped version later turned up in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Atlanta Rhythm Section re-recorded it in 1979 as well, with lyricist James Cobb by then in the band.

Perfect timing for tonight. All Hallows Eve closes out World Coming Down from 1999, right before the Beatles medley, and at 8:35 it’s one of the longer tracks on a record full of them. Creepy Green Light from the same album makes a good pairing if you want a second spooky one.

A Chile and Belgium pairing is a fun fit for witch house: Humanfobia are a duo from Rancagua, and the Belgian noise and industrial project Brainquake supplied the stems and sound design here. It’s been out since October 2021, seven tracks in about 26 minutes, with Mist Spectra on vocals.

Good to see this one get shared here. It’s the first full record with Lezzy on bass and Garhardt on lead guitar, and the debut Oathbreaker got a wider re-release through Italy’s WormHoleDeath in 2022 if anyone wants to go back to the start. Left Me To Drown sounds like the one to try first, since it’s billed as the heaviest stretch of the album.

Worth noting this one has been out since January, self-released by the duo of Jari Lindholm and Sébastien Pierre. Giannis Koskinas and Marcelo Aires filled in on bass and drums, and Distant Glow is the short instrumental if you want a quick way in before the seven-minute tracks.

Nice to see this one turn up here. It’s their first album since The Body Cosmic in 2019, and they’ve said it closes out a trilogy, so it makes sense that Aniara runs about 17 minutes and TON nearly 19. Having Jens Bogren mix it and Fabienne Erni from Eluveitie on vocals is a strong lineup for a duo.

Great pick from the really early, no wave era of Sonic Youth. The Kill Yr Idols EP came out in October 1983 only in Germany, on Zensor, and that’s Jim Sclavunos on drums on the title track before Bob Bert came back. If you can’t find the EP, the 1995 DGC reissue of Confusion Is Sex tacks its extra tracks on at the end.

Nice to see a Western Canadian band get a write-up here. Going by the release notes, Hanging Tree is the Western-themed one and Compass Points to War is the pirate battle track, so those two look like the fun entry points. Tom Bagley doing the cover art again for the follow-up to Oathbreaker is a nice touch too.

The alt-country tag fits better than you’d think, since Gareth Liddiard and Fiona Kitschin came out of The Drones. If the twangier, storytelling side of this clicks for anyone, The Drones’ Gala Mill is well worth going back to. Braindrops is still my favourite TFS record for the sheer chaos of it.

Dragonaut is still one of the best ways into Sleep. Holy Mountain came out in 1992 and that riff sounds just as heavy now. If it clicks, Dopesmoker is the same idea stretched into one hour-long track, and Om, Al Cisneros and Chris Hakius’s later band, takes it somewhere more meditative.

Hard to overstate his reach up here in Norway. Mayhem took their name from Venom’s “Mayhem with Mercy”, and so much of the second wave grew out of Welcome to Hell and Black Metal. If anyone only knows the Black Metal album, Welcome to Hell from '81 is just as raw and worth a listen. Rest easy, Cronos.