I was recently having an offline conversation with someone who asked me who “my” idols are; like, yeah, I have this site and I promote pretty much everything that comes my way, even if it’s obvious that I’m personally not that enthused about it, but who am I really in the bag for?

At this very moment, nobody’s exciting me more than Hauptharmonie, and they just gave two great reasons why.

“Kidnapper Blues” had a nice moment in the sun here before, but now it’s out in terrifyingly bleak music video form!

If I have to sell somebody else’s soul to make jazzcore a legitimately big-time thing, I’ll sell all of your souls.

But they’re not done!

Somehow, in an industry where being prolific comes with the territory, Hauptharmonie is laughing at everybody else’s release schedules by taking all of two months between their very cool double EP bleich/Abenddaemmerung and … their second full album:

Give that a few listens. Some of the songs are recycled/re-released, and some are nice-but-unexceptional-in-sample-form pop jazz numbers, but there’s everything in here from the ska-core of “Old Gaffer’s Confession” to the proto R&B of “Alice in Abyss” to … I mean, holy Christmas, “BUDDY” is as swingin’ a blues joint skanker as I’ve heard in a context that wasn’t dripping with irony (looking in your direction, Postmodern Jukebox) in a long-ass time.

July 12. May the gods help us all.