Visual Sound: August 2025

Written By Mike Greenblatt
Pan American & Kramer
“Lamenting The Colours Of Melting Ice”
Ambient music is at best an acquired taste. It’s music meant for the background. To scent the room. Pan American & Kramer, though, have upped its potential as a genre by crafting subliminal exercises in creative ambiance. Kramer is the Bergen County composer-musician-producer-filmmaker who also happens to be the label head of Shimmy Disc Records. He’s put out records by Pussy Galore and Urge Overkill, among others, and now lives in North Carolina. Mark Nelson is Pan American, a producer-composer-guitarist from Illinois. Together, on their latest, they lament the colors of melting ice.
Royal Blush
“Go”
Just last month, we covered Jersey City’s Royal Blush’s “Ice Age” and promised to revisit their alt-rock hard-pop indie grunge-lite. Promise kept.
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James Dealy
“Try My Luck”
Long Beach Island down the shore is known for its lighthouse, restaurants, beach and easy-goin’ lifestyle. Soon it will be known as the hometown of one James Dealy, an extremely talented singer-songwriter whose “Try My Luck” has been getting radio airplay…in Ireland. With the E Street Band’s Garry Tallent on bass, and publications in Great Britain and the U.S. taking notice, he’s straight-out Americana, sincere, earnest, melodic and lyrically profound. This one’s from his Nashville Sessions with guitarist Roscoe Ambel of Steve Earle’s band, longtime Asbury Juke Jeff Kazee on keyboards and Singer Supreme Layonne Holmes.
Almondmilkhunni
“New Jerzey”
She came out of Camden County all spit and vinegar. Her Star Baby EP on Hall of Fame Records won’t be out until Halloween but her homage to her home state is already out (and tattooed on her skin). It’s a doozy, fulfilling the promise of her 2023 Enjoy The Ride debut. Now based in Los Angeles, Almondmilkhunni—real name: Brandy Schwechler—straddles the space between girl-next-door innocence and nightlife decadence. There’s no telling how far this former stripper can go. “This is a song about being infatuated with a bad girl from New Jersey,” she says, adding “many of the qualities describing her in the lyrics describe myself as well.
Steve Forbert
“Purple Toyota”
Longtime Asbury Park resident—and alt-folk legend—Steve Forbert has a new video out and, just like every one of his past videos, we love it.
Mike Greenblatt

MIKE GREENBLATT has been writing for Goldmine magazine and New Jersey's Aquarian Weekly for more than 35 years. His writing subjects fill the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

He's interviewed Joe Cocker, Graham Nash, David Crosby, Carlos Santana, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Johnny Cash, and members of The Rolling Stones and The Beatles. He was 18 when he attended Woodstock in 1969.

In addition to writing about music, Greenblatt has worked on publicity campaigns for The Animals, Pat Benatar, Johnny Winter, Tommy James and Richard Branson, among others. He is currently the editor of The Jersey Sound.

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Visual Sound: July 2025