Quiet Evenings + Xiphiidae + Afterlife + Shingles + Hobo Cubes + JLK + Sundrips

Grant and Rachel Evans, the LaGrange, GA, married couple behind ambient duo Quiet Evenings and fastidiously curated microlabel Hooker Vision, are both instigators of the current cassette-culture groundswell and beneficiaries of its exposure. Working alone as Nova Scotian Arms, Grant is a prolific, intuitive guitar-drone magnate; Rachel’s airy solo releases as Motion Sickness of Time Travel have poised her for a Grouper-style breakthrough. As heard on their new vinyl debut LP, Intrepid Trips, Quiet Evenings is a marriage of equals, Rachel’s gentle coo floating weightless against an amniotic sway of guitars and synths. The work of Xiphiidae—hyperactive Gainesville, FL, musician and Housecraft label mainman Jeffry Astin—can offer soothing guitar fillips, aquatic ambiences or mystery noises, and often all of the above. His deep tapeography is daunting, but plunge in anywhere: Few sonic explorers are as reliably surprising or consistently impressive.