Based in the North Holland province of the Netherlands, the trio University Challenged tap into a rich instrumental vein on Oh Temple!, a double set available January 29 through the record label Hive Mind. Blending the expansiveness of kosmische with passages of almost post-rock psychedelia, the guitar’s shimmer and bass’ fuzz mingles with the electronics’ unfurling vines, pulsing patterns, and staticky bursts throughout, as the set’s eight selections bring familiar environments a consistent aura of the unexpected. It’s a delightful ride that’s additionally striking in its assuredness as a debut recording.
University Challenged deliver compositions that tend to stretch out for a while, but the outfit’s bio is a rather tidy affair. The members are multi-instrumentalist Ajay Saggar (credited with guitar, bass, piano, electronica and field recordings), bassist Oli Heffernan (who also plays synth), and guitarist Kohhei Matsuda.
They came together in 2019 with performances following soon thereafter, events notable for including the group’s self-made films as a visual backdrop, with a different video accompanying every track from the album via Bandcamp. The studio recording of Oh Temple! came to fruition last summer in Holland, with Saggar producing and mixing as Heffernan mastered it in England.
Some readers may have noticed the lack of drums in the band’s instrumental scheme, an absence that is undeniably felt through the progression of these pieces, though as repetitive motifs are a frequent element in the equation, University Challenged can still sometimes suggest a foray into expansionist rock that nicely offsets their kosmische ambiance.
Canton, OH | Hoover grad achieves longtime dream of opening a record shop: Josh Harris has vivid memories of his dad playing Alice Cooper and Deep Purple records for him when he was 5 or 6. “I couldn’t get enough of it,” he said. Later, as a teenager at Hoover High School, his future goal was clear-cut: “I had no intention but to be a rock star.” Harris, now 39, never became a rock star, although he did play in a few area bands and still records music in his basement. But last June he achieved his longtime goal of opening a record shop, Dr. Frankenstein’s House of Wax, where he sells albums, used and new, by a who’s who of rock ‘n’ rollers. “This is something I wanted to do for the last three or four years,” Harris said. His machinist job at a shop in Stow had slowed to a crawl due to COVID-19 — “I was pushing a broom eight hours a day,” he said — so he decided to 
Quebec, CA | A new vinyl press in Quebec: Vinyl is popular! In the United States, in 2020, sales of 33 rpm’s even exceeded those of good old compact discs. Imagine! If this is not yet the case in Quebec, the craze is indeed there. Until recently, to get their precious retro-looking albums pressed, local artists had to do business with companies located in the United States, Europe or even Toronto and Prince Edward Island. Good news, our musicians can now have their vinyls pressed in Quebec City, in the Saint-Roch district, at the Société des Loisirs located on Dorchester Street. We bought a lot of vinyl outside Quebec City because we couldn’t necessarily find a record store that looked like us. We started to think about creating a new place in Quebec and quickly took on the idea of a café, says Olivier. Jean-François Bilodeau, Olivier Bresse and Audrey Lapointe are lovers of music and their neighborhood. With the SDL, the three investors wanted to create 
Peoria, IL | Open for Business: Peoria record store owner pushes back health blackouts, pandemic to spin the songs: At the age of 73, Craig Moore has always been surrounded by the sounds of music. His father bought him his first kindergarten record player. “It was magical, you know. What came out of those records was just amazing. And anyway, he stuck, “he said. The gift sparked Moore’s passion for playing music. He joined a rock and roll band in the 1960s. But it was where Moore went during this time that brought to light another of his passions. Moore said, “Any band I’ve been in – if we were going to a town, the first place I went was the record store. I would find the record store and go. It was then that the wheels began to turn for Moore. In 1984, he opened his own record store on Main Street in Peoria. In 1998, it expanded to University Street, calling the store Younger Than Yesterday. “I thought it would be cool to be that kind of cranky guy behind the counter who knows all about [records]. You know and maybe I’ll put up with you and 
Winston-Salem, NC | Alan “Phred” Rainey, owner of Earshot Music store in Winston-Salem, has died: After Alan “Phred” Rainey become the owner of the Earshot Music store in Winston-Salem, he reaffirmed his commitment to his customers and the music they cherished, a business associate and a relative say. “He (Rainey) loved his customers,” said Jane Buck of Winston-Salem, who as an independent contractor did marketing and bookkeeping for the music store. “He loved the community, and he loved his music. He loved bringing all of that together.” Rainey was a fixture in the city, Buck said. “He could find anything that people were looking for,” Buck said. “He connected people to the music that they were looking for. He was a special guy.” Phred Rainey, 56, died Tuesday after a long battle with leukemia, said his brother, Mark Rainey of Greensboro. “One of the things that touched me were how many people who were influenced by him,” Mark Rainey said. “Everybody said he was so kind. He had very strong passion for music, and 
Bloomington, IN | Bloomington music store Tracks sees rise in vinyl sales during pandemic: Vinyl record sales were already rising, with last year being their 15th straight year of growth. But with the pandemic, 
Watertown, MA | Wanna Hear It Records fills the emo void in Watertown: Roughly 15 minutes after opening on a Sunday afternoon, Wanna Hear It Records already has a line of eager audiophiles waiting outside. In the month since the Watertown record shop has opened, owner Joey Cahill says lines on the weekends are common, as customers patiently await their turn to pursue the intimate store’s selection of punk, hardcore, hip-hop, and indie music. But above all, they’re showing up to purchase emo albums. “After every weekend, it looks like it’s half-filled,” Cahill says of the indie/emo section of the store. “It gets picked over so much that we actually had to condense it a little, because it looked so empty. I place orders every day, and it seems like half of the stuff is to replenish [what’s been sold].” Cahill, who moved to Massachusetts four-and-a-half years ago, launched Wanna Hear It with over 20 years’ experience in the music business as the owner and founder of 6131 Records. Raised in California, Cahill says he’s visited music shops across the country, but has often seen 
NEW RELEASE PICKS: M. Caye Castagnetto, Leap Second (Castle Face) The Peruvian-born Castagnetto has lived in Lima, London and Twentynine Palms, CA, a reality that’s reflected in the uncategorizable nature of their debut album. That is, unless the category is “beautifully unusual.” Well, one could call it psychedelic folk, for there are vibes both druggy and uh, folky, but with the distinction that the combo doesn’t really conform to the recognizable psych-folk standard. Indeed, there are stretches that aren’t folk-inclined at all. They’re just spectacularly fucked (e.g. “Slippery Snakes”), which underscores how Leap Second doesn’t conform at any norms.
Palberta, Palberta5000 (Wharf Cat) New Yorkers Ani Ivry-Block, Lily Konigsberg, and Nina Ryser, who together comprise Palberta, have been at it for a while now, kicking into gear around 2013 to be specific, with Palberta5000 their fifth full-length by my count (I’m not including the live cassette or the split LP with No One and the Somebodies, Chips for Dinner). As the band acknowledges, they burst forth from a love of punk, and with their angular art edges they regularly brought to mind UK post-punk (think Rough Trade) and NYC dance punk (OG style, a la ESG and Liquid Liquid).
REISSUE/ARCHIVAL PICK: The Gordons, S/T & “Future Shock” (1972) Formed in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1980, The Gordons have long been lumped into their home country’s storied Flying Nun saga, though there are a couple of distinctions to be made. The first is that the trio’s debut EP (from ’80) and eponymous LP (from the following year) were initially self-released, not landing on Flying Nun until their reissue in ’88 in connection with the formation of Nelsh Bailter Space, which after a shortening of the name and a few personnel changes (including an exiting Hamish Kilgour of The Clean) ended up featuring the original lineup of The Gordons—that is, Alister Parker (guitar, bass), John Halvorsen (bass, guitar), and Brent McLachlan (drums, percussion).
