what are SteamGifters listening lately?

Contemplative and atmospheric album from Sweden. I would call it metallic post-rock rather than post-metal which I guess would rather refer to bands in the Omega Cult Of Neurotic Isis vein. I like the strings - probably accounts for the "neoclassical" in the Youtube description.

Sagor Som Leder Mot Slutet — II

Reminds me a bit of this classic perhaps?

Long Distance Calling - Avoid The Light

Japanese shoegaze is my favourite shoegaze, Two perfect pop chocolates with the requisite washes of reverb.

Float Down The Liffey? An Irish jig band, surely.
Seventeen Years Old And Berlin Wall? Um.

Float down the Liffey - Vista
Seventeen Years Old And Berlin Wall - 六月 (rokugatsu / June)

After Mahmoud Ahmed (exhibit 1, exhibit 2), this is another outrageously funky singer from 1970s Ethiopia.

Ayalew Mesfin - Hasabe (My Worries)

Been listening to Celeste lately
Liked 3 of her songs : Strange, Father's Son, and Daydreaming.

She's best at singing lullaby..

King Iso - Apparent Absence - OFFICIAL AUDIO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6Uqqbbr8FY

Psychedelic metal madness sextet #6 --

My personal album of the year. Most festival psych bands have a sub-Hawkwind quality but this is super-Hawkwind, easily moving several light years per second through Zeuhl held territory into an unexplored region of the galaxy also populated by beings such as Helios Creed. Plus I like the band name a lot.

Waste of Space Orchestra - Syntheosis

Band video clip for one of the tracks, which adds to the experience with some nice oil suspension / Rorschach visuals:

Waste of Space Orchestra - Wake Up The Possessor

This is a collaboration between Oranssi Pazuzu, who do have something of a Hawkwind metal sound

Oranssi Pazuzu - Värähtelijä

and the more drone / trance doom oriented Dark Buddha Rising

Dark Buddha Rising - Abyssolute Transfinite

Further collaborations between the two include

Atomikylä - Keräily

and the more conventional

Abyssion - Luonnon Harmonia ja Vihreä Liekki

A lot to investigate if you enjoy any of this.

Adorable girly pop-punk-garage. Rated five fluffy kitties out of five.

Peach Kelli Pop - Gentle Leader

Arctic Monkeys - R U Mine? - FaithNDrums Drum Cover
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ-_C628zAM

Early 1970s South Korean psychedelic folk rock. Partly with chamber orchestra / string arrangements that have a strong late 60s feel (think first Genesis album). Enchanting voice that conjures up depths of feeling beyond the deceptive simplicity of the music, and a great album for lovers of what is unusual from a non-SE Asian point of view. Also valuable to archaeologically interested Kpop fans - are the faster songs, e.g. "Wind", ancestors of your favourite genre?

Kim Jung Mi - Now

Daddy Yankee Nicky Jam Muevelo ~

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90YQDT7LWxs&list=RD90YQDT7LWxs&start_radio=1

Majorette By Beach House, as well as some of their other tracks
Majorette
Levitation

They're so... I'm really not sure.
But they're very cathartic to listen to, with their nostalgically sad, bittersweet feelings. I feel like I'm letting some deeper, more buried emotions and anxieties of mine out listening to them. Just little bits.

RIP Genesis P-Orridge, the original dodgy post-punk brat. GPO's original band, Throbbing Gristle, are now seen as pioneers of the industrial genre and effortlessly smashed all boundaries of taste and propriety in their late 70s heyday. This album is pleasant:

Throbbing Gristle - 20 Jazz Funk Greats

(The corpse added to the cover photo on the rear cover, see img, is a nice touch as well.)
TG also spawned both notable act Chris and Cosey and the formidable Coil. GPO, meanwhile, followed up with Psychic TV / PTV, whose "acid house" excursion "Towards Thee Infinite Beat" I've always had a weakness for (although I remember Peter Christopherson, his ex-TG bandmate then running Coil, dismissed this album at the time by saying "[GPO] tried and died"):

Psychic TV - Towards Thee Infinite Beat

But Psychic TV were another eclectic outfit so what you think about this particular album is no indication of what you may think about any other output of theirs. And that is perhaps the nicest thing to say about GPO's work, some of it may have been DOA and some of it more generally iffy (e.g. the "ironic" cult Temple Ov Psychick Youth) but GPO would already have moved on at release, always trying other and new things as their true artist personality compelled them to do.

View attached image.

The screams of my victims ^^

I'm not into listening to music in a language which I don't understand, but after listening to Me!Me!Me! I got addicted to TeddyLoid and found a few more tracks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExgmZXYUh6M&list=PLdwvGzfo03yWsDAeLx0ckJnNooY7bbEzF&index=4

And from there I found a duo that I really like. Despite not actively looking xD
Charisma.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4o0MVVktwY&list=PLdwvGzfo03yWsDAeLx0ckJnNooY7bbEzF&index=12
It's still not what I regularly listen to, but it's what has caught my attention right now.

Something more mellow for these interesting times.

I have mentioned some classic Anatolian rock before. Here are two current Turkish groups I have since found who make music in a similar vein but today.

Derya Yildirim is an excellent female singer. This album with Grup Şimşek offers a splicing of the moods and tonalities of Anatolian rock with the bubbly technicolor atmosphere of Stereolab. Both soothing and interesting.

Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek - Kar Yağar

The sound of Altin Gün is closer to the 70s classics, to the point where a cover version of Erkin Köray's "Cemalin" is part of this album. Although I am not particularly crazy about that version, I find the album's remaining and, as far as I know, original compositions excellent. As with the Grup Şimşek album, everything has been gently modernised to meet current sensibilities while keeping the wonderful Anatolian rock genre alive in the 'twenties of this new century.

Altın Gün ‎– On

Wiseblood - Stumbo

Another 80s NZ jangle pop classic:

The Bats - The Law Of Things

Yakuza 0 soundtrack has some epic beats! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg1DxItA8pE

The MinnMax podcast! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiUhKqsBH-Is2VeC2sykEfg/featured

Minnie Riperton - Loving You

More summer music to lift the spirits. Shibusashirazu Orchestra: a Japanese free jazz big band. But the jazz on offer here is very listenable, unlike a lot of what is labelled free jazz. The beats are straight and in the foreground of events, which has got to be a rock influence. From my perspective this is very rhythmic, trance-inducing music and the experience of listening to it is somewhat like listening to the Can, Faust or Magma type of 70s avant prog rock.

The Orchestra's performance is very visual as well and so it is a good thing we have got ourselves a concert video here. Dancers turn quasi-naked, paint themselves white and affix CDs to their noses. Others prefer zombie getup, or dress up like cosplayers while signalling with their two huge bananas (no euphemisms here). Musicians take turns to solo, and get pleasingly into their playing. The big band has a conductor, who seems to spend most of his time sitting on his chair and smoking. And when the hipster looking trumpet guy in the front finally starts his solo, it actually turns out to be a theremin one. There is also a massive flying dragon stage prop, the look of which somewhat reminds me of the "Lucifer" in Descent Freespace. Lots of things going on and a good time for everyone.

Shibusashirazu Orchestra - Live at Prato, Italy, 2016 - part 1 part 2

That still leaves the peak of summer bands. My Japanese is worthless but I am sure the word "natsumen" does not exist in the language. So this band's name would actually mean natsu-men, or Summer Men. This is their second album and follows up their first "Endless Summer Record". The titles of four of its six tracks contain either of the words "summer" or "August". A subtle pattern is emerging.

Indeed this is very summery music! The only band association I personally am able to make is with the Shibusashirazu Orchestra above; this could be seen as a sibling in a smaller band format. Although there is formally more rock in here: Natsumen should probably be filed under jazz rock, little as they have in common with, say, Spyro Gyra or Pat Metheny. As with the SSO, this is at the same time very avant-garde and surprisingly catchy and listenable. It also duplicates another of SSO's characteristics, often seen with Japanese underground bands: on the one hand the music has a very "out there", chaotic-artistic quality but, on the other hand, all musicians are highly skilled on the technical level, and the ensemble is sufficiently tight to record all their releases live. Finally, Natsumen's sound is highly bright and pleasant, as the summer association would lead one to expect.

Natsumen - Never Wear Out Your Summer Xxx !!!

Natsumen are the follow-up band to Boat, whose final album "Roro" gave a preview of the Natsumen approach tackled from the post-rock angle:

Boat - Roro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDV_BeAZIUM