Write up for "All Hail Yeah" on Tabs Out Podcast:

"Alex Homan is a psychedelic bodhisattva with an ear for dense arrangement. Freak folk for the spiritually ascendant, “All Hail Yeah” invites listeners in and assimilates them into the all-seeing oneness at the center of the mind, the galactic manifestation of eternity through sound. That’s a fancy way of saying that Homan’s work as Plake 64 and the Hexagrams is far out, man. At times utilizing acoustic guitar and a soothing, multitracked vocal delivery, at others tapping the primal sound sources available within the bowels of various synthesizers (I’m assuming), Homan embraces the – dare I repeat it – unpredictability of his creative whims and crafts a variety of earthy yet mystical zones. By the time he’s ascending “The Mountain” (and then descending it) by tape’s end, he’s fully encapsulated every impulse of his into a single sprawling trek, a fitting and fantastic end to “All Hail Yeah.” Maybe you can hoof it up that magical mountain yourself, get a little inner peace while you’re at it." - Ryan Masteller (write up for \\NULL|Z0NE// )

SAGA DAWA

"Alex Homan comes at it this time around from beyond the shimmering double vision of harmonic transcendence. Not surprisingly, Saga Dawa a Tibetan month of the lunar calendar, the “month of merits,” which celebrates the birth of the Buddha. This Plake tape does a little bit of celebrating if you ask me – whether Buddha or otherwise, Homan is at the forefront of celebrating life and people through music. He usually drops a little note on his j-cards, and this one says, “May all beings benefit by any and all virtues.” I like the way this guy thinks. Saga Dawa thus comes across as a prayer to the cosmos, filtering experimental Animal Collective–style jams with Beach Boys-y melodicism, an essentially redundant descriptor as “Animal Collective–style jams” kind of implies that. It’s all there, the campfire guitar and violin, the off-kilter psilocybin-informed rhythm, the chaotic post-production swirling around the songs’ core. It shifts from lo-fi to reg.-fi with ease, even popping into hi-fi once in a while (“Floating Island” anyone?). But the charm is in Homan’s utterly restless experimentalism – there’s no way this tape (or his work in general) should sound so disparate yet so obviously be made by the same person. Homan sings to you in such a companionable way, but he doesn’t think you’re stupid – he knows you can handle what he’s got cooking. Which is another thing this tape has going for it, which makes it so approachable – its communality. You just want to sit around it with other people and listen to it all the way through. It doesn’t repeat itself – Alex Homan is too full of ideas to let a tape of his do something like that. It’s thrillingly all over the place, and you’ll never find yourself in the midst of a dull moment. In fact, you’ll probably want to go through it a second time right away because you’ll miss a lot the first time, trust me. Endless Easter eggs await." -Ryan, Cassette Gods

DAWN OF THE JAWNS throwback double cassette

"Mail days here at Tabs Out West Coast HQ are always a strange affair. On top of the usual suspects (select tapes from select labels) arriving in suspect packaging, there’s always a litany of freeform free-for-alls. And on the downtime of an elongated pseudo-winter vacation, there is an opportunity to employ radical heuristics and find which of those latter tapes tickles my fancy the most. Blind bag days are a vicious treat when you know you’re on a hot streak. Although I somehow always end up back in the primordial womb of indie rock; maybe that’s just unavoidable to return to my safest roots. Anyways, Dawn of the Jawns (Vols. 1 & 2) arrived in crude plastic cases with even cruder, more rudimentary Jcard and liner notes (naturally printed on printer paper). Yet, forgoing the aesthetic presentation I took a leap of faith. Homan’s recordings are retrospective, with both volumes covering his “antisocial experiments” circa 2007-2009 in Philadelphia. He writes candidly and reflectively of these recordings aimless, pained attempts at straddling a line between noise and music. Most of the college recorded tunes lean towards a certain Baltimore four-piece in their halcyon era. And while I imagine Homan did “collect all the animals” at some point or another, there’s a bonafide level of trance emanating. More often than not, Homan’s raw musicality (lo-fi recordings of guitar with reverb and effects) entices and acts as a damn sturdy window to a time that feels unarchived and lost to layers of code. Spectacularly, it radiates and glows. The first tape is genuinely an indie rock tape at heart. Underneath the acoustics and limitations, Homan’s trusty guitar and gaggle of effects are a jukebox of myspace melodies, reflecting song structures that you may have half memorized and will likely fit like a glove. It’s eminently warm and freeing, which Volume 2 often uproots. Slabs of Homan making attempts at beguiling noise a la Danse Manatee are found in and around the tape (alongside the occasional spoken word excerpt or campfire melody). Yet, Homan’s recollections and curation do find a pathway to a semblance of where his projects will err towards. All I know is that there’s no way this tape had to be as listenable and fascinating as it looked, yet here I am, clearly in a sort of trance over the whole state of affairs. Keep it like a secret. Edition of 6 available at the Alex Homan bandcamp page." - Matty McPherson, Tabs Out Cassette Podcast

REST
DELAWARE DAN + MATT NORMAN / INSANE ANGEL comedy Split
ENDLESS GUITAR MEDITATIONS (split with Mare)