Fire Talk Vinyl, CD & Tape 59 Items

‘Crispy Crunchy Nothing’ puts to rest any notion Madeline Link had about finding the end. Burnout, dead-end jobs, bike theft, stress dreams, heartbreak — Packs move forward through them all one line, one lick, one beat at a time, equal parts Alex G’s whimsy and Helvetia’s thunderous dynamics. Sticking together songs written in Toronto, Ottawa and Mexico City (while Madeline completed a papier-mâché residency), Crispy Crunchy Nothing revisits the fuzzy alt-rock of 2021 debut Take the Cake and adds some folksy twang to the mix for an album that explores the tension between independence and isolation, between living life to the fullest and feeling like you’re wasting your time. Influenced by country-tinged contemporaries like Renee Reed and Angel Olsen and Madeline’s lockdown-era listening sessions with her dad, of albums by Hank Locklin and Hank Williams. Crispy Crunchy Nothing is heavy, and Madeline makes little effort to hide the depths of her feelings. But after the rain, flowers peek up from the soil. “Laughing Till I Cry,” a reject from a commercial, recalls fond memories of spending time with her sister: “Sometimes, I feel like life is on my side.” And “Always Be a Kid,” jangling and swaying with the Nashville guitar in the foreground, keeps her chasing those smaller Matryoshka dolls, looking for companionship but settling for herself in the meantime. “So now, I feel alive,” she repeats, over and over again. And by the end, it sounds like she’s starting to believe it.

Deep in View is the debut album from former Ought members Tim Darcy (vocals, guitar) and Ben Stidworthy (bass) alongside Evan Cartwright (drums). Titled after philosopher Alan Watts' anthology of the same name, the record is built on a foundation of elegant guitar grooves and knotty rhythms, offering commentary on modern life and technology through curious lyrical vignettes, where quotidian objects and scenes are never just as they seem. Deep In View is equally a product of introspective songwriting as it is a consideration of the abstract landmarks of an increasingly media-mediated society. It also presents the most concise and melodic songs Darcy and Stidworthy have written to date.. The album sounds streamlined and intentional, as the rhythms of the punchy and exuberant guitar parts, urgent basslines, and unexpected drum patterns all tangle with each other in an elegant dance. At the center of all these elements is Darcy, whose characteristically wry voice shifts from detached to decisive to distressed, throughout the album's course. Both enigmatically dense in meaning but precisely intricate in sound, Deep in View is an album that sparks novel interpretations with every listen, like an art object that takes on new shape with each angle from which you hold it.

“Do you still believe it?” John Ross asks that question after journeying through the wreckage. The genesis of Dulling The Horns goes back to late 2022, when Ross began workshopping new material during soundcheck on the ILYSM tour. Last summer, Wild Pink decamped to western Massachusetts to reunite with engineer Justin Pizzoferrato. Ross decided to record Dulling The Horns live in the room, in an effort to capture Wild Pink’s onstage style — rawer, grainier. Gone are the glimmering atmospherics and studio affectations of recent Wild Pink outings. Instead, Ross’ voice is haggard against the humid distortion coating every song. “I wanted to make economical songs,” Ross explains. “Music that is very much at its core three or four people rocking.” If before, Wild Pink took notes from Springsteen and Petty, they’ve now entered their Crazy Horse era. On Dulling The Horns, you can hear him rediscovering the fire in real time. Tropes discarded along the roadside, songs pulled from the formative DNA of rock music, all filtered through years of messy fog. “There is no answer to these problems,” Ross says, having eventually yielded. But as far Dulling The Horns is concerned, there’s at least one path forward: Burn it all away, and keep moving. The album was mixed by Alex Farrar in Asheville NC, mastered by Greg Obis in Chicago, IL and is out in October on Fire Talk.

into a pretty room — lots of hands’ debut on Fire Talk Records — exists in the tear-stained early mornings of adolescence, just as the sun makes its first appearance over the horizon and thoughts of the night before begin to subside. A collage of reworked demos, freewheeling session standouts, and swatches of instrumental electronics, into a pretty room offers a touching rumination of grief and loss, growing up and letting go.

Billy Woodhouse and Elliot Dryden, the core duo behind lots of hands, first connected in a Newcastle school music program at age 16. Following years of cultivating a dedicated fanbase across 3 self-released records, into a pretty room marks the duo’s first truly collaborative effort, with Dryden often trekking the vast northern English countryside to write and record in Woodhouse’s bedroom studio. Between pints of beer and rounds of Fortnite, the two slowly chipped away at into a pretty room.

Newly relocated from Leeds to their current base of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, lots of hands is anchored by the duo’s friendship, which emanates across the album’s 14 tracks.

“I want nothing more than to be a loner,” Emily Kempf sings early on Flower of Devotion, the new album by Chicago trio Dehd. It’s a startling admission coming from a songwriter who, just a year ago on Dehd’s critically acclaimed Water, wrote eloquently about the joys and pains — more than anything, the necessity — of love, compassion, and companionship. But then, “admission” isn’t really the right word here, given the stridency of Kempf’s tone. “Loner” is a declaration. The record ups the ante on Dehd’s sound & filters in just enough polish to bring out the shining and melancholy undertones in Jason Balla and Emily Kempf’s songwriting, even as it captures them at their most strident. Balla’s guitar lines at times flirt with ticklish cosmic country, while at others they reflect the dark marble sounds of Broadcast. Kempf, meanwhile, establishes herself as a singer of incredible expressive range, pinching into a high lonesome wail, letting loose a chirping “ooh!,” pushing her voice below its breaking point and letting it swing down there. When she and Balla bounce descending counter-melodies off one another over McGrady’s one-two thumps, or skitter off over a programmed drum pad, they sound like The B-52s shaking off heartache.

“Do you still believe it?” John Ross asks that question after journeying through the wreckage. The genesis of Dulling The Horns goes back to late 2022, when Ross began workshopping new material during soundcheck on the ILYSM tour. Last summer, Wild Pink decamped to western Massachusetts to reunite with engineer Justin Pizzoferrato. Ross decided to record Dulling The Horns live in the room, in an effort to capture Wild Pink’s onstage style — rawer, grainier. Gone are the glimmering atmospherics and studio affectations of recent Wild Pink outings. Instead, Ross’ voice is haggard against the humid distortion coating every song. “I wanted to make economical songs,” Ross explains. “Music that is very much at its core three or four people rocking.” If before, Wild Pink took notes from Springsteen and Petty, they’ve now entered their Crazy Horse era. On Dulling The Horns, you can hear him rediscovering the fire in real time. Tropes discarded along the roadside, songs pulled from the formative DNA of rock music, all filtered through years of messy fog. “There is no answer to these problems,” Ross says, having eventually yielded. But as far Dulling The Horns is concerned, there’s at least one path forward: Burn it all away, and keep moving. The album was mixed by Alex Farrar in Asheville NC, mastered by Greg Obis in Chicago, IL and is out in October on Fire Talk.

There are one million ways to approach love, one million ways to experience love, one million ways in which love shapes both the course of our lives and how we choose to navigate that course. On her second album, Bnny’s Jessica Viscius looks love square in its many eyes and describes, with self-awareness and humor, not only what she sees, but what it makes her feel. Deep romantic love, breathy lust, generous self-love—and their opposites, self-loathing, resentment, disappointment—all make appearances. Like a sheet being draped over a clothesline, channeling Mazzy Star and mimicking the soft, gauzy, fresh feeling of realizing you’re able to begin it all again with a new person. Recorded in Asheville at Drop of Sun and produced by Viscius alongside Alex Farrar (Wednesday, Indigo De Souza, Snail Mail), One Million Love Songs is Bnny’s revelatory second album.

On Pure Music, Strange Ranger’s new album out on Fire Talk, the band indulges an obsession with Loveless, but they infiltrate any comparison to shoegaze with overtures to disco, house, and experimental pop. The Talk Talk inspired pean to isolation “Way Out” features a moody saxophone, while “She’s On Fire” is only a rock song until just after the midway point, when the drums throb, the snare skitters then snaps, and suddenly, you’re in a sweaty pit of swaying bodies dancing as dual vocals harmonize, “I would have thought the rhythm of the club might lead me somewhere. Pure Music embodies that manic state through interstitial interludes laced with YouTube samples that connect each track to the next so as to submerge the listener in its world, one that rewards catharsis. The alienated might gaze through panes of glass eternally, without breaching the gap between the self and the destabilizing chaos of the world beyond. Riding the train across the East River in the early morning, one witnesses thousands of individual stories, each contained within a glowing square of light, and it's a comfort to know that soon, those strangers will emerge from their solitude to rejoin the city. “Music makes us transcend the feeling of being alienated from or trapped by the world,” the band says. “I want the experience of listening to Pure Music to be euphoric.” Recorded by the band, mixed by Al Carlson and mastered by Joe LaPorta.

into a pretty room — lots of hands’ debut on Fire Talk Records — exists in the tear-stained early mornings of adolescence, just as the sun makes its first appearance over the horizon and thoughts of the night before begin to subside. A collage of reworked demos, freewheeling session standouts, and swatches of instrumental electronics, into a pretty room offers a touching rumination of grief and loss, growing up and letting go.

Billy Woodhouse and Elliot Dryden, the core duo behind lots of hands, first connected in a Newcastle school music program at age 16. Following years of cultivating a dedicated fanbase across 3 self-released records, into a pretty room marks the duo’s first truly collaborative effort, with Dryden often trekking the vast northern English countryside to write and record in Woodhouse’s bedroom studio. Between pints of beer and rounds of Fortnite, the two slowly chipped away at into a pretty room.

Newly relocated from Leeds to their current base of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, lots of hands is anchored by the duo’s friendship, which emanates across the album’s 14 tracks.

‘words from a wishing well’ is the debut record from Shower Curtain, the New York quartet fronted by Brazilian-American artist Victoria Winter (vocals/guitar), alongside Ethan Williams (guitar/vocals), Sean Terrell (drums), and Cody Hudgins (bass). Self-produced by Winter and Williams, words from a wishing well sketches early adulthood experiences in swirling layers of guitars. Winter wrote its tracks across her first few years of living in New York City, and they exist within a conversation between one’s own intuition and that of the universe. Channeling the sludgy distortion of 90s shoegaze and grunge, words from a wishing well establishes Shower Curtain as a standout in the city’s latest crop of bands.

‘Crispy Crunchy Nothing’ puts to rest any notion Madeline Link had about finding the end. Burnout, dead-end jobs, bike theft, stress dreams, heartbreak — Packs move forward through them all one line, one lick, one beat at a time, equal parts Alex G’s whimsy and Helvetia’s thunderous dynamics. Sticking together songs written in Toronto, Ottawa and Mexico City (while Madeline completed a papier-mâché residency), Crispy Crunchy Nothing revisits the fuzzy alt-rock of 2021 debut Take the Cake and adds some folksy twang to the mix for an album that explores the tension between independence and isolation, between living life to the fullest and feeling like you’re wasting your time. Influenced by country-tinged contemporaries like Renee Reed and Angel Olsen and Madeline’s lockdown-era listening sessions with her dad, of albums by Hank Locklin and Hank Williams. Crispy Crunchy Nothing is heavy, and Madeline makes little effort to hide the depths of her feelings. But after the rain, flowers peek up from the soil. “Laughing Till I Cry,” a reject from a commercial, recalls fond memories of spending time with her sister: “Sometimes, I feel like life is on my side.” And “Always Be a Kid,” jangling and swaying with the Nashville guitar in the foreground, keeps her chasing those smaller Matryoshka dolls, looking for companionship but settling for herself in the meantime. “So now, I feel alive,” she repeats, over and over again. And by the end, it sounds like she’s starting to believe it.

‘Crispy Crunchy Nothing’ puts to rest any notion Madeline Link had about finding the end. Burnout, dead-end jobs, bike theft, stress dreams, heartbreak — Packs move forward through them all one line, one lick, one beat at a time, equal parts Alex G’s whimsy and Helvetia’s thunderous dynamics. Sticking together songs written in Toronto, Ottawa and Mexico City (while Madeline completed a papier-mâché residency), Crispy Crunchy Nothing revisits the fuzzy alt-rock of 2021 debut Take the Cake and adds some folksy twang to the mix for an album that explores the tension between independence and isolation, between living life to the fullest and feeling like you’re wasting your time. Influenced by country-tinged contemporaries like Renee Reed and Angel Olsen and Madeline’s lockdown-era listening sessions with her dad, of albums by Hank Locklin and Hank Williams. Crispy Crunchy Nothing is heavy, and Madeline makes little effort to hide the depths of her feelings. But after the rain, flowers peek up from the soil. “Laughing Till I Cry,” a reject from a commercial, recalls fond memories of spending time with her sister: “Sometimes, I feel like life is on my side.” And “Always Be a Kid,” jangling and swaying with the Nashville guitar in the foreground, keeps her chasing those smaller Matryoshka dolls, looking for companionship but settling for herself in the meantime. “So now, I feel alive,” she repeats, over and over again. And by the end, it sounds like she’s starting to believe it.

"Leaving,’ the sophomore album from Fran, finds the band at a crossroads of loss and possibility, forged through Maria Jacobsen’s preoccupation with the climate crisis as well as newfound contemplation of the intertwined nature of theology and religion. There’s an overarching spirit of home that overlays these heavy themes, however, and both gently intentional and evocative, her deliberate musings convey a type of music that feels tactile to the touch. On “Leaving” Jacobson’s sharply wry anecdotes feel astutely impactful, with effortless melodic guitar and string arrangements creating a heartrending backdrop that showcases Fran as another force to watch in the constantly evolving Chicago music scene. Angular, precise and filled with melodic entanglement, this spirited culmination of modern indie folk songwriting, strings and electric guitars highlight the potential release and joy of Jacobsen’s apt storytelling."

Throughout the last decade, Strange Ranger have been crafting seamless indie music that feels both already classic and precisely of its time. From ‘Daymoon's strains of the Microphones by way of the Pacific Northwest-era indie scene to the dark elation and Cure-reminiscent stylings of ‘Remembering the Rockets’ they’ve become one of the rare standouts of a crop of bands that have managed to grow up with us. More than just a stopgap along that progression, the new mixtape entitled No Light In Heaven holds some of the band’s most experimental and ambitious work yet. Stitched together through a series of sessions at both a house in rural NY and Strange Ranger’s home studios in both Philadelphia and NYC (where Eiger and Woodman moved in 2021], the mixtape possesses something both abstract and astute; the product of a band in transition and a group of people making something effortlessly transcendental out of their new surroundings. Heralded as “unpredictable and expansive, a thrilling document of a band with an ever-changing muse,” with “songs that are packed with hooks and an abundance of feeling” (Stereogum). This outpouring of evocative emotion makes the band’s more traditional song structures read like a new breed of pop music in its purest form. From “Needing You”’s effervescent euphoria to string-laden album closer “It’s You,” the record seamlessly fuses together a multitude of genres, where the industrial punch of “In Hell” sits alongside the chopped up vocals and melodic keys of “Get Right Up to the Mic.” "No Light in Heaven" marks the beginning of a bold new era for the band & the groups first release with Fire Talk.

Throughout the last decade, Strange Ranger have been crafting seamless indie music that feels both already classic and precisely of its time. From ‘Daymoon's strains of the Microphones by way of the Pacific Northwest-era indie scene to the dark elation and Cure-reminiscent stylings of ‘Remembering the Rockets’ they’ve become one of the rare standouts of a crop of bands that have managed to grow up with us. More than just a stopgap along that progression, the new mixtape entitled No Light In Heaven holds some of the band’s most experimental and ambitious work yet. Stitched together through a series of sessions at both a house in rural NY and Strange Ranger’s home studios in both Philadelphia and NYC (where Eiger and Woodman moved in 2021], the mixtape possesses something both abstract and astute; the product of a band in transition and a group of people making something effortlessly transcendental out of their new surroundings. Heralded as “unpredictable and expansive, a thrilling document of a band with an ever-changing muse,” with “songs that are packed with hooks and an abundance of feeling” (Stereogum). This outpouring of evocative emotion makes the band’s more traditional song structures read like a new breed of pop music in its purest form. From “Needing You”’s effervescent euphoria to string-laden album closer “It’s You,” the record seamlessly fuses together a multitude of genres, where the industrial punch of “In Hell” sits alongside the chopped up vocals and melodic keys of “Get Right Up to the Mic.” "No Light in Heaven" marks the beginning of a bold new era for the band & the groups first release with Fire Talk.

Pocket Fantasy, the sophomore album from Mamalarky is an instant-classic sunny-day record, imaginative and introspective, an enveloping listen of skyhigh hooks and keyboards that soar with joyful abandon. Its twelve kaleidoscopic tracks shapeshift aesthetically and thematically, through ideas about death and impermanence; love and gratitude; nature and technology; humor and hope. Heralded by Billboard, Nylon, The Fader and more, the new album expands on the unique sound of their self-titled debut which Pitchfork called “tenderly tangled indie rock”. On Pocket Fantasy some of the band’s purest pop tendencies collide with more warped and weird strains of quirky psych. It’s a treasure trove of playful grooves and zigzag riffs, a phenomenal album from a young group poised to carve their own place in the bins of your favorite record store.

Pocket Fantasy, the sophomore album from Mamalarky is an instant-classic sunny-day record, imaginative and introspective, an enveloping listen of skyhigh hooks and keyboards that soar with joyful abandon. Its twelve kaleidoscopic tracks shapeshift aesthetically and thematically, through ideas about death and impermanence; love and gratitude; nature and technology; humor and hope. Heralded by Billboard, Nylon, The Fader and more, the new album expands on the unique sound of their self-titled debut which Pitchfork called “tenderly tangled indie rock”. On Pocket Fantasy some of the band’s purest pop tendencies collide with more warped and weird strains of quirky psych. It’s a treasure trove of playful grooves and zigzag riffs, a phenomenal album from a young group poised to carve their own place in the bins of your favorite record store.

"Black Hole" is the debut studio album from The Spookfish. Dan Goldberg began performing as The Spookfish in 2007 when he moved to Brooklyn, NY from his home in Central New Jersey. Over the next several years Dan trekked around the globe living, recording and writing songs in far off places like Busan, South Korea, China, Berlin Germany, Russia and Portland Oregon. The project was an attempt to document dreams, subconscious melodies, and moments of strong intuition through sound as a personal journal. Upon arriving back in NYC in 2013 Dan began hosting shows in the Hudson Valley of New York State that involve a group of people hiking a mountain together and stopping at different landmarks (the peak, streams, the ruins of an old estate, etc...) to watch musicians perform. He has led 30 of these hikes between then and now eventually catching the eye of The New York Times which brought on a series of unfortunate turns, but that's another story. In January of 2017 Fire Talk re-issued a vast collection of material from Dan's journeys while embarking on a new endeavor. The Spookfish's debut studio album entitled "Black Hole" out April 21st on Fire Talk. Think John Fahey meets Black Moth Super Rainbow meets The Microphones.

"Sticky", the sophomore LP from Boston power poppers Halfsour shreds melodic with a sort of slacker prome swagger. While sonically diverse in tempo, dynamics, and arrangement, Sticky shows a Halfsour with previously unseen focus. Thematially, consistency is key, focused on the mundane with moments of frustration, annoyance, and loss scatterd throughtout. The guitars are huge, the bass lines groovy and drums powering the propeller. Fitting right into the contemproary North Eastern Indie canon alongside the likes of Pile (tour mates), Speedy Ortiz, Swearin', Krill & many more. Self recorded (tracked in part in an old crumbling barn in New Hampshire), mixed by Justin Pizzoferrator at Sonelabe and mastered by Jonathan Wyner at M-Works.

Gold Dime is a calling to relentless grit — jolting listeners awake before turning meditative under a hypnotic drone. Raw but composed, GoldDime alternates between an aggression and intimacy, both so sincere, you can’t turn away. It’s transfixing. Live, Andrya Ambro anchors Gold Dime on drums and lead vocals. Every beat is a beckoning to actively listen; and her confident voice no less a beckoning. Performing live as a trio since 2014, opening for the likes of Lower Dens, U.S. Girls and Xiu Xiu, Gold Dime is at last ready to release their hard-won debut album, Nerves, on Fire Talk Records. Gold Dime is the vision of Andrya Ambro. Ambro is best known as one half of the noise rock duo Talk Normal, who released two critically acclaimed albums, Sugarland and Sunshine, and shared the stage with the likes of Sonic Youth, Wire, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Zola Jesus. The dissolution of Talk Normal marked a shift in Ambro’s writing process. Going forward as Gold Dime, her compositions now veer towards an exploratory sound that is distinctly her own. Her drumming is rhythmically-centered, a reflection of driving West African beats crossed with a blunt industrial throbbing, which serve to both underscore and retreat from Classically- influenced orchestrations. Bass lines dance. Guitar riffs in rare tunings purposefully stray from typical rock n’ roll conventions. Their urgent squalls gracefully enter and exit, allowing for a permeable tension throughout each of these tracks. Ambro’s lead vocals are forceful but can seamlessly alter to a deadpan counterweight-- a prominent feature to Gold Dime’s cover of the British spoken-word artist Anne Clark’s “All We Have To Be Thankful For.” And for all of the Gold Dime’s musical density and elaborate noise, the magic that ensues when Ambro’s thunderous vocal style is often foiled by Adam Markiewicz’s (The Dreebs, PC Worship) falsetto voice is palpable. Her lyrics are frequently confrontational (“Quota," "4 Hours”). But they also speak to the ch

' EP' is the new EP from Manchester-based trio Mandy, Indiana available December 10th on Fire Talk. With the string of singles released over the last year and a half garnering attention from Clash, Fader, the Quietus, Under the Radar & more (Loud & Quiet calls the music 'pressurised, disorientated, battered, occasionally beautiful, often gruelling, and really good'), the band is back with their debut '' EP', which encompasses aa new track alongside reimaginations of prior singles from techno auteur Daniel Avery as well as downtown New York club kids Club Eat (who Office Magazine cites as 'keeping the spirit of hedonism alive'). Achored by a barrage of drums and Caulfield's tenacious vocals in French, the music presents an unyielding example of the best of what the band, primed for their return to thrilling live sets, can deliver.

The Sublime Sculpture of Being Alive,' the new album from Los Angeles-based Media Jeweler, is a three-dimensional reckoning with the contradictions of life in all its manic altitudes and claustrophobia. Recorded over three chaotic weeks in Omaha, the band's elaborate sonic infrastructures carry the same sense of studied experimentation as Palm, Guerrilla Toss or Deerhoof, rollicking across an energetic spectrum that parlay the band's post-punk roots, jazz rhythms and art punk choruses into something greater than the sum of its parts. The most fully-fleshed release yet, a myriad of musical collaborators were enlisted uniting a finely-tuned sense of adventurousness that roves between the personal and political to frame an acute portrait of modern day societal revelation. 'The Sublime Sculpture of Being Alive' is out on Fire Talk (Dehd, Deeper, Mamalarky).

Dhed's 'Flower of Devotion' was one of the most critically-heralded releases of the year, named Best New Music by Pitchfork who called the record 'an effortless, elegantly rumpled strain of indie rock', a triaumphant statement crowinging Dehd one of the most exciting voices in Indie today. 'Flower of Devotion Remixed' sees Dehd surrounded by a myriad of close collaborators (Lala Lala, Protomartyr, Freak Heat Waves, and more) and points a shining spotlight on the Chicago music scene the band still calls home, staying true to the trio's earnest melodies while creating an amorphous blend of experimentations in mutated beats and danceable hooks that feels like a personal mixtape for the friends that know them best.

‘The Sublime Sculpture of Being Alive,’ the new album from Los Angeles-based Media Jeweler, is a three-dimensional reckoning with the contradictions of life in all its manic altitudes and claustrophobia. Recorded over three chaotic weeks in Omaha, the band’s elaborate sonic infrastructures carry the same sense of studied experimentation as Palm, Guerrilla Toss or Deerhoof, rollicking across an energetic spectrum that parlay the band’s post-punk roots, jazz rhythms and art punk choruses into something greater than the sum of its parts. The most fully-fleshed release yet, a myriad of musical collaborators were enlisted uniting a finely-tuned sense of adventurousness that roves between the personal and political to frame an acute portrait of modern day societal revelation. ‘The Sublime Sculpture of Being Alive’ is out on Fire Talk (Dehd, Deeper, Mamalarky).

Toronto's Packs make music that's like leafing through a diary entry of a time without visible movement, a subtle beauty that appears only when paying close attention. The band's debut is a collection of songs that marry the loose but incisive jangle of early Pavement with the barbed sweetness of Sebadoh and the wide-eyed wonder of the first Shins LP. Written in two different settings, between the city limits of Toronto where Link was living in 2019, and the Ottawa suburbs where she was quarantined with her parents in the spring 2020, both remain complementary emblems of self-reflection and wry observation of the mundanity of daily life. "Take the Cake" is out on Fire Talk (Dehd, Deeper, Mamalarky) on July 9th 2021.

Spirit Tamer' is the debut album from Mia Joy available on limited edition Bright Pink and Classic Black vinyl and compact disc on Fire Talk. A member of the Chicago Children's Choir at a young age, the record sees Joy's dual backgrounds in music and poetry evolve into a juxtaposition between soaring emotional synthpop and introspective devotional harmonies. Past press has referred to Mia's music as 'warm, ethereal, endlessly layered, and beautifully expanding'. Filled with heady atmospherics and vulnerability that abounds through the shapeshifting sonic palette, fans of Ana Roxanne or Hand Habits will find much to love in this painstakingly crafted, endearingly intimate universe.

Spirit Tamer' is the debut album from Mia Joy available on limited edition Bright Pink and Classic Black vinyl and compact disc on Fire Talk. A member of the Chicago Children's Choir at a young age, the record sees Joy's dual backgrounds in music and poetry evolve into a juxtaposition between soaring emotional synthpop and introspective devotional harmonies. Past press has referred to Mia's music as 'warm, ethereal, endlessly layered, and beautifully expanding'. Filled with heady atmospherics and vulnerability that abounds through the shapeshifting sonic palette, fans of Ana Roxanne or Hand Habits will find much to love in this painstakingly crafted, endearingly intimate universe.

Toronto’s Packs make music that’s like leafing through a diary entry of a time without visible movement, a subtle beauty that appears only when paying close attention. A series of intriguing, lo-fi singles trickled out on Bandcamp, and on the strength of these demos alone the band began sharing stages with artists such as Odetta Hartman. Less a band that is a product of the internet than one whose quiet and acute observations make them impossible to be ignored, the quartet led by Madeline Link has carved out a growing space past the Canadian country lines where their initial demos were born. Written in two different settings, between the city limits of Toronto where Link was living in 2019, and the Ottawa suburbs where she was quarantined with her parents in the spring 2020, both remain complementary emblems of self-reflection and wry observation of the mundanity of daily life.

“The album is a meeting of old and new,” says Link. “Old songs from a year ago where I'm having really horrifyingly awful days at work, getting doored while biking in Toronto and flying into the middle of the street, or going on dates with guys who I'm either instantly in love with, or who end up creeping me out a bit. Those songs are more packed with that feeling of hurtling-through-time-and-space-at-breakneck-speed, manic energy. The newer songs are infused with a foggier, slower-paced disillusionment, and deal with the strangeness of a reality morphing before my eyes every day. I still try to be optimistic obviously, but these songs are really glorified coping mechanisms.”

Initially a solo songwriting project of Link’s that she pursued between gigs as a set dresser for commercials, the band blossomed into a four piece, composed of Shane Hooper (drums), Noah O’Neil (bass), and Dexter Nash (lead guitar). Anchored by Link’s voice, which brings such an easy charm to her songs that it’s easy to miss her keen ear for acrobatic vocal lines, together they turn Link’s melodically adventurous and introspective songs into the purest and brightest kind of indie rock. The band’s debut is a collection of songs that marry the loose but incisive jangle of early Pavement with the barbed sweetness of Sebadoh and the wide-eyed wonder of the first Shins LP. It will be released in partnership with buzzy Brooklyn label Fire Talk (Dehd, Deeper, Mamalarky), and Toronto mainstays Royal Mountain (Alvvays, Wild Pink, Mac Demarco).

It’s an enchanting record with a transportive quality. The songs communicate Link’s perspective acutely, with details that stand out in their specificity yet feel naturally at ease with melody and a loose charm that make the album feel timeless, like one that could have emerged from any of a number of “golden ages of indie rock.” Packs’ songs have a way of creeping up on you, and showing new depth with each listen. Be it a subtle harmony, a zig-zagging melodic turn, or Link’s lyrics, which wring a commandeering poetry out of every-day building-blocks as she navigates the growing pains that linger beyond adolescence — finding your bearings after a breakup, feeling directionless, processing loss. “My guts are wrapped in clingfilm / my guts are wrapped up tight / and if you’re going to put me in your backpack I will putrefy” goes a particularly arresting lyric on “Clingfilm,” articulately describing in Link’s own incisive language the alienating experience of dating after a break-up Each razor-sharp nugget of wry wisdom depicts its own scene of sonic touchstones: on the dreamy “U Can Wish All You Want,” she sings about moving in with her sister and struggling to adjust to living in the city around a neatly subverted butterfly metaphor, where on “Two Hands” she poignantly describes the eeriness of walking around the neighborhood she grew up in after the world has changed around it, while in the same turn referencing the Simpsons.

Recently completing an artist residency in Mexico, Link’s aptitude and enthusiasm for a myriad of multidisciplinary subjects all trickles back to her overarching approach towards the subject matter she ruminates on in her songs. “While in Mexico, I constructed paper maché objects and documented myself destroying them. I also wrote and presented PowerPoint presentations juxtaposing the most disparate chain of research/ideas together to activate that part of your brain that’s constantly trying to make logical connections where there are none.” Call it world-building on a miniature scale: a more apt way to describe it would be a careful collaging, making sense of catastrophic loss and tiny signposts that point to something greater than the sum of its parts.

Throughout the chaos of everyday life, it’s impossible not to feel charmed by Link’s innate understanding of the little things that make the universe tick, and her sonic accompaniments make the simple task of getting from point A to B a journey that lends a little more spring to your step. Most daydreams feel less realistic; in Packs’ world the two are just what you make it. As society begins to open back up, Take the Cake is a reminder that sometimes a little gentle introspection is all we really need to get by.

Mamalarky spent two years working on their self-titled debut album (out via Fire Talk on November 20th). Raw and cerebral, the LP looks to a range of influences from their collective musical nerdiness. ''We might have a vocal melody that sounds like the lead steel guitar from Santo & Johnny, played over production that aims to be noisy and weird like Deerhoof or Sheer Mag, all the while steeped in the greats like Stevie Wonder or The Four Seasons,' explains Livvy. The album itself was cobbled together in a mix of DIY ways: home recordings with Livvyâ''s roommate Joey Oaxaca (White Reaper, Mo Dotti), singles with Daniel McNeill (White Denim) and a â''final wrapping-upâ' with engineer Jim Vollentine (Spoon, Skating Polly). The result is an album thatâ''s as musically fun and explorative as it is catchy and sweet. Or as Mamalarky puts it â''We want to provide an experience that's

Mamalarky spent two years working on their self-titled debut album (out via Fire Talk on November 20th). Raw and cerebral, the LP looks to a range of influences from their collective musical nerdiness. ''We might have a vocal melody that sounds like the lead steel guitar from Santo & Johnny, played over production that aims to be noisy and weird like Deerhoof or Sheer Mag, all the while steeped in the greats like Stevie Wonder or The Four Seasons,' explains Livvy. The album itself was cobbled together in a mix of DIY ways: home recordings with Livvy’s roommate Joey Oaxaca (White Reaper, Mo Dotti), singles with Daniel McNeill (White Denim) and a “final wrapping-up” with engineer Jim Vollentine (Spoon, Skating Polly). The result is an album that’s as musically fun and explorative as it is catchy and sweet. Or as Mamalarky puts it “We want to provide an experience that's

Pure X is the last band, has always been the last band. Not that there won’t be future acts, more that Pure X understands that all this pageantry, this civilization is wrapping up. It burned hot and bright like thermite used to bust a safe open, but now is the age of radiating waves, each one buckles the foundation more than the last. Rare Ecstasy 2009-2019 is a collection of recordings and rarities that span the more than a decade career of the Austin underground legends. Referred to by Pitchfork as the “druggy, wall-of-sound escapism that put them on the map”. These 12 tracks embody the Pure X sound, breaking it down and offering up a raw emotive portrait that cycle the Band’s expansive output. A must have addition to the collection of any Pure X fan.

Pure X is the last band, has always been the last band. Not that there won’t be future acts, more that Pure X understands that all this pageantry, this civilization is wrapping up. It burned hot and bright like thermite used to bust a safe open, but now is the age of radiating waves, each one buckles the foundation more than the last.

Recorded live in single takes in the Texas hill country by Danny Reisch (Shearwater), this is their clearest, most focused work to date. The rhythm section is locked in--a night train through the desert. There is more singing, the weary wisdom of the lyrics ringing like Tibetan bowls. In 38 minutes, Pure X weave a culmination, all the delays and distortion, the grinding mortar of touring, the low-tide pulling them out from a cult band, to a legacy band, it’s here, understood and forgiven.

The album’s cover (designed by long time collaborator Christopher Royal King) depicts a coffin necklace set against a wide open blue sky. It’s as if we carry our mortality like a pendant on a chain. Learning to own up and accept ourselves through self reflection. It would be understandable to express such forbidden fatalism in a brittle, harsh nihilism, the stark echo of a stone rattling down an endless well. But on this album, their fourth and first in six years, there is a pre-dawn kindness. It may be funereal, but it is a Viking pyre ablaze in the middle of a river, one of those moments when the water seems to pause and reflect the clouds blooming like smoke from an invisible glass pipe.

Sometimes we can only come to know ourselves best when we let others in. Such can certainly be said of NYC multi-instrumentalist and artist Andrya Ambro, and her band Gold Dime, on the eve of their second full-length My House. See, she's played these instruments and crafted these songs her entire life, having honed her decisive sit/stand style of transfixing drumming and provocative singing to a degree of perfectionism. Coming from her previous, highly acclaimed noisy rock duo Talk Normal, Gold Dime's first release, 2017's Nerves, was the first time Ambro has had no one to answer to but herself. My House sees a new, more collective effort being made, with Ian Douglas-Moore on bass and John Bohannon (Ancient Ocean || J.R. Bohannon) on guitar. And it very much shows. Walking a tightrope between unapologetic art rock and disarming intimacy, she integrates triumphant doubled guitars whose distorted fuzz winks at the mayhem of Les Rallizes Denudes, deep floor toms that quick pivot to galvanizing beats on a bed of dead spinning cymbals, to sometimes spoken, sometimes sung Laurie Anderson-esque words that uplift into a many voiced choir. And the warm bass lines, well they would make Holger Czukay from CAN very proud.

My House, according to Ambro, is intended to be something of a gruff father's declaration at dinner, fist slamming on the table, but rather than the stubborn, undying manners that would come with 'living under my roof,' she only demands that everything be done with the same degree of tireless dedication and authenticity. 'I want every beat to be played with intention. 'Cause why play if you don't mean it?' Every moment of this album acts as just that'a demand to own something, whether it be self or art or place in this world. We have no choice but to listen, to respect it. This is her house... well Gold Dime's house.

Produced by Andrya Ambro recorded and mixed by Ernie Indradat, mastered by Sarah Register with artwork and layout by Eric Copeland.

Listening to Weeping Icon’s debut album is to enter a dim catacomb of psychical catharsis. Urgent yet calculated riffs rip through a thunderous pummel of percussion, an anomalous blend of punk and psychedelic drumming carries the songs with an atmosphere of organized chaos.. Lyrically they are both serious and sarcastic, trading off vocalists to confront issues central to a generation, dosing listeners with a controlled sense of horror and humor like flavors in a dish.The band’s debut record “Weeping Icon” is a collection of 7 songs that archive the metamorphosis into heavier and more provocative territories. In keeping with their live performance, a sequence of dystopian sound interludes complete the album, serving as guided meditations between the candid subversive fury of the main tracks. Recorded and mixed by Uniform's Ben Greenberg and mastered by Jonathan Schenke in New York City.

Debut LP from Santa Ana, CA based Media Jeweler. “$99 R/T Hawaii” aims to capture the relentless restlessness of being alive on the increasingly weird and overstimulating planet. It was recorded and mixed in a casual and realty quite nice three-day session during the dawn of spring at Machines with Magnets by Seth Manchester and Keith Souza (Battles, Lighting Bolt, etc.)

Solo recording project of Drew M. Gibson (Baby Birds Don't Drink Milk). Blendng gorgeous, oozy meloncolic pop melody & bursts of harsh noise into the most emotive soundscapes.