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2024 Release, The Airborne Toxic Event returns with their 7th studio album and their first since the critically acclaimed 2020Hollywood Park, the companion album to lead singer Mikel Jollett's New York Times bestselling memoir Hollywood Park.

BASIC is a mind-meld between Chris Forsyth, his frequent running partner (and formidable6-string thinker) Nick Millevoi, and Mikel Patrick Avery (Natural Information Society)."This Is BASIC", their debut album, is a complex and entrancing instrumental LP recastingforgotten scraps of guitar history into a moving mosaic of strings, skins and electronics.Taking inspiration (and their name) from the 1984 Robert Quine/Fred Maher album ("Basic"),Forsyth and Millevoi got together for a run of low-key jam sessions using an Alesis drummachine for rhythm tracks and forging a collaborative language from angular polyrhythms,pulsing baritone-guitar lines, and shimmering chorus-pedal washes (another stylistic nod,this time to the glistening post-punk of the Durutti Column and numerous 4AD bands).Avery was soon enlisted on drum kit_a setup that quickly morphed into a single drum,bell, and a bespoke electronics rig of his own creation. The trio quickly flowered into animprovisational swirl of disorienting electronics, hypnotic throb, and dense flanged-guitarharmonics: three unique voices spinning a complex conversation of textures and rhythms.

Lukas de Clerck brings us the ancient greek instrument, the aulos, of which his new interpretation of long form expression is coaxed forth on this tremendous recording.Lukas de Clerck explores a niche of archaeological research in music; the aulos is a historical Greek instrument that Lukas analyzed and reinterpreted by a luthier in modern times_navigating this impression as an artwork or living sculptural object, as there is an absence of historical partitions or written information about how to recreate technique on the instrument. Lukas de Clerck has interpreted information from the rare archaeological resources and visual art of the classical Greek period to recreate both playing technique and possible sound timbres with the instrument. With his contemporary approach to drone, post-minimalist music, and contemporary folk, we find a deeply satisfying and compelling, even playful set of songs, timbral exercises and compositions.An important document of new music meets contemporary archaemusicological research via Stephen O'Malley of SUNN O)))'s label Ideologic Organ._The telescopic aulos is speculative: might it have existed? It takes on features from the historical aulos, a double-reed instrument of which we know how it looked but little about what music was played on it or how it would have really sounded. It's an instrument without the limitations of canon or manual, providing creative freedom and awakening curiosity.The new instrument featured on this album is ancient and futuristic at once. The aulos has no tone holes; instead, each of the two tubes consists of three parts that can slide into each other. In this sense, the metal pipes bear a certain resemblance to the principle of a trombone. However, since both hands are already in use to hold both tubes, the sliding has to be done by way of gravity and the help of a «phorbeia», a leather mask which helps keep the reeds in place. The aulos's material is metal (instead of wood), which gives it a certain electronic allure and intensity, as well...

MJ Lenderman is a songwriter born and raised inAsheville, North Carolina. The anatomy of an MJrecord might go something like this: warped pedalsteels and skuzzed out guitar; crackin" a cold onewith some buds; a voice reminiscent of the high lonesome warble of a choirboy. Songs snake theirway from a lo-fi home recording to somethingglossier made withn longtime friends at Asheville"sDrop of Sun studios, but the recording settingdoesn"t seem to matter much - at its core, aLenderman song rings true.Manning Fireworks is a remarkable developmentin MJ Lenderman"s story as an incredibly incisivesinger-songwriter, whose propensity for humoralways points to some uneasy, disorienting darkness.The punchlines are still here, as are the rusted-wireguitar solos that have made Lenderman a favoritefor indie rock fans looking for an ernerging guitarhero. There"s a new sincerity, too, as LendermanIets listeners clearly see the world through hiswarped lens.

Lutalo's highly visceral folk goes electric on The Academy,the Vermont multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and producer'sdebut LP. Recorded in January 2024 at the storiedSonic Ranch and self-produced along with Jake Aron (SnailMail, Protomartyr, L'Rain), The Academy feels like watchingthe best underground film you've seen in years; establishingLutalo as a singular voice of this generation of indie rock.Lutalo describes The Academy as their "first chapter" - atime capsule of the lessons they've learned in their20-something years of life. "This record is exactly that: a`record' of my early life," they say of their debut album, outvia Winspear. "The experiences, thoughts and feelings I washolding at those times and am currently processing. To me,this is the first big stamp of my existence I'm sharing."While Lutalo's 2022 EP Once Now, Then Again introducedthem as a lo-fi acoustic guitar wunderkind, The Academy isbigger and bolder without compromising Lutalo's invitingsense of emotional intimacy, inspired by alt-rock veteranslike Thom Yorke and Rob Crow as well as electronic greatslike Aphex Twin and Bowery Electric. The Academy'sgrander arrangements are heard in the biting adrenalinerush of "Ocean Swallows Him Whole," or the anti-war jangleof album closer "The Bed." Their lyrics are often deeplyintuitive, flowing as a stream of consciousness, albeit withweighty meanings. With their unique baritone and finessefor lyrical world building, Lutalo cuts to the bone-while onlyjust beginning to reveal the depth of their artistry and vision.

Since May 2017, the band founded by Texan Chase Wilborn and Frankfurt's Julian Lapp has been gracing the stages that define the rock world. Their perfect blend of melodicstadium rock and alternative music has been steadily winning over a growing fanbase.Their first demo EP, All You Ever Needed, attracted a lot of attention. The debut album Headed South was internationally released on April 29, 2022, via RockAttack Records and received excellent reviews. In 2023, LOSING GRAVITY covered a lot of highway miles, touring Germany with MOLLY HATCHET, supporting well-known acts such as KISSIN DYNAMITE, THUNDERMOTHER, THE SWEET, and BONFIRE, and headlining a substantial number of shows.Spring 2024 was dedicated entirely to songwriting and recording their second album!Once again, they headed to Basement Studios in Hesse with Markus Teske, where the new album AL...

Pekka Laine and The Enchanted's second album out on Svart Records in September

"In a dream I heard music with a strange bubbling sound. People were dancing to it in a surreal, cavernous space. What is this, I asked. One of the dancers stopped and answered. It's an underwater disco. In the morning, I grabbed my guitar and tried to recall what I had heard. Those foggy fragments became Malibu Beach”.

Helsinki 4th of June 2024, Pekka Laine

For Pekka Laine, the twang of an electric guitar is not a warm blanket of nostalgia. Instead, the echoing sound usually associated with surf and retro instrumentals is a ticket to the imaginary.

On this sonic journey, Laine is joined by The Enchanted, his powerhouse live band that has taken both festival and club stages by storm. Pekka Laine and his trusty space-age guitar take the listener to a place where a futuristic and humid disco sound, perfect with obese beats and robotic vocals, reigns supreme. Trippy vocoder vocals and Moog wizardry are provided by Antti Vuorenmaa, the synth sensei associated with several leading Finnish indie bands and a trusted member of the extended Enchanted family.

Pekka Laine's second album Pekka Laine & The Enchanted in Slumberland will be released on 27th of September 2024 digitally, CD and in three different vinyl versions: on a classic black vinyl, wonderful transparent green vinyl and limited edition of 100 white/green/orange marble vinyls hand-crafted by Pekka Laine himself at the Helsingin Levypuristamo. The limited edition is available only on the Svart Records online store.

WE ARE WINTER'S BLUE AND RADIANT CHILDREN (WAWBARC) is the new quartet of Mat Ball(BIG|BRAVE), Efrim Manuel Menuck (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Thee Silver Mt. Zion),and Jonathan Downs and Patch (both Ada). On "NO MORE APOCALYPSE FATHER" they presentsix modal lullabies drenched in seared distortion, slathered across striding electronic pulses.Ball and Menuck began creating music in and for the bleakest moments of Montréal winters:"We're honoring that idea of winter, when you come inside and your house is warm, a placethat only exists because of how cold it is outside," says Menuck. They later recruited Downsand Patch to flesh out their initial ideas. Menuck met them in 2015 when recording Ada'sfinal album at Montréal's Hotel2Tango _ where they reconvened to make this record."NO MORE APOCALYPSE FATHER" is an album about witnessing bleakness from a place ofsafety. Carrying newfound descriptive depth, thanks to the quartet's open-ended songsfreeing him from writing in meter, Menuck likens his lyrics to photorealism. On opener `Ratsand Roses' he sings of an unnamed city struck by an unknown cataclysm, but the details arelocal: specifically, his neighbors inadvertently poisoning birds when tackling a rat infestation.It's backed by blown out synths and guitars reaching a soaring crescendo. "Seeing thingsfrom a distance and not being able to intervene happens a lot on the record," Menuckexplains. "If you're a feeling and thinking person, that's just part of the human condition.We watch horror unfolding from afar, unable to do anything concrete to change it."A powerless witness, able to describe but not intervene. `Dangling Blanket From A Balcony(White Phosphorous)' references Michael Jackson holding his child over a hotel balcony in2002_the bizarre media spectacle still lodged in Menuck's psyche. This and the album'sclosing track also elegize white phosphorous, a technology of war designed to light upbattlefields but capable of inflicting horrific burns on those it touches...

Belarusian post-punk / synth pop group Molchat Doma have always exuded the kind of brutalist aesthetic of the architecture that adorns their album art. It's cold, gray, imposing, industrial_and yet there are human hearts beating within those foundations. In the wake of their breakthrough success in 2020, the trio endured a polarity of experiences, from the nadir of an uprooted life and forced relocation away from their native Minsk to the apex of headlining massive shows across the world. It was in this headspace that the band settled into their new home of Los Angeles to finish writing their fourth album Belaya Polosa, a testament to change in difficult times, a love letter to the digital pulse of the `90s, and a technicolor reinvention of the band's somber dancefloor anthems.From the opening synth swell and drum machine throb of "Ty Zhe Ne Znaesh' Kto Ya," to the goth / post-punk austerity of "Son", to the swirling electronic textures mixed with reverb-drenched guitar flourishes, expansive space, and yearning vocals of title track "Belaya Polosa" - that suggests Depeche Mode at their most reflective or The Cure at their most downtrodden - to the sultry and seductive "Chernye Cvety"_ a track reminiscent of Duran Duran's early `90s output in its fusion of dreamy guitars and authoritative mechanized beats _ and the interwoven layers of instrumentation, soaring chorus, and melodic sophistication of "Ya Tak Ustal", it's clear that Molchat Doma are operating on another level.Molchat Doma gained following with earlier albums that sound like third-generation bootlegs of banned recordings from the Eastern Bloc made after a few key entries in the Factory Records catalog were smuggled in from the West. Belaya Polosa propels them into a new direction while retaining their cold minimalist delivery they're known for. The basement grime and dirty tape-head sound of their previous work are now making space for digital luster and shimmering production values.And while Molchat Doma's broadened aural spectrum adds a syne...

Belarusian post-punk / synth pop group Molchat Doma have always exuded the kind of brutalist aesthetic of the architecture that adorns their album art. It's cold, gray, imposing, industrial_and yet there are human hearts beating within those foundations. In the wake of their breakthrough success in 2020, the trio endured a polarity of experiences, from the nadir of an uprooted life and forced relocation away from their native Minsk to the apex of headlining massive shows across the world. It was in this headspace that the band settled into their new home of Los Angeles to finish writing their fourth album Belaya Polosa, a testament to change in difficult times, a love letter to the digital pulse of the `90s, and a technicolor reinvention of the band's somber dancefloor anthems.From the opening synth swell and drum machine throb of "Ty Zhe Ne Znaesh' Kto Ya," to the goth / post-punk austerity of "Son", to the swirling electronic textures mixed with reverb-drenched guitar flourishes, expansive space, and yearning vocals of title track "Belaya Polosa" - that suggests Depeche Mode at their most reflective or The Cure at their most downtrodden - to the sultry and seductive "Chernye Cvety"_ a track reminiscent of Duran Duran's early `90s output in its fusion of dreamy guitars and authoritative mechanized beats _ and the interwoven layers of instrumentation, soaring chorus, and melodic sophistication of "Ya Tak Ustal", it's clear that Molchat Doma are operating on another level.Molchat Doma gained following with earlier albums that sound like third-generation bootlegs of banned recordings from the Eastern Bloc made after a few key entries in the Factory Records catalog were smuggled in from the West. Belaya Polosa propels them into a new direction while retaining their cold minimalist delivery they're known for. The basement grime and dirty tape-head sound of their previous work are now making space for digital luster and shimmering production values.And while Molchat Doma's broadened aural spectrum adds a syne...

"Sometimes you have to take sides"! That's what you call a statement. It doesn't hurt that `Sides' bursts in with a hypnotic, swirling guitar riff that could have come from Kevin Shields (Ischia is clearly a My Bloody Valentine fan, which is not the easiest thing for a guitarist to do). The krautroc...

Formed in Bristol, 4-piece LICE have become one of UK experimental rock"s most inventive and ambitious outliers. Their second album Third Time At The Beach - a three-part epic exploring our struggle to better understand the world around us - arrives via AD 93. Darting between minimalism, rock, techno and more, it sends us hurtling us through time and space: featuring a cast of astronauts, cavemen and dinosaurs.

Svart Records proudly present the vinyl reissue of Grave Pleasures’ modern classic album Motherblood

There are still those rare bands out there in the world that have a unique ability to combine macabre, mystifying rock with a more pop-oriented flare, a la early Bowie or early The Cure. Grave Pleasures are such a band that is equally suited for playing on a stadium stage, or in some Lynchian nightmare. It’s that duality and electrifying contradiction that makes their music so exhilarating.

Lead guitarist Juho Vanhanen (Oranssi Pazuzu) steps up to write the majority of the songs together with British-born outcast Mat McNerney (Hexvessel, ex- Beastmilk/DHG/Code). His screaming telecaster and unique interplay of discord and harmony has become a trademark of the band’s sound. Together with guitarist Aleksi Kiiskilä (ex - Kohu 63), their strings shimmer, hammer and howl out a web of sound which is distinctly Grave Pleasures. Fleshed out by the hypnotic signature rhythms of Valtteri Arino (ex- Beastmilk) on bass and Rainer Tuomikanto frenetically pounding the funeral drums (Ajattara, ex- Shining Swe), this group of well-established punks have started to reach up to their zenith on their sordid testament Motherblood.

Motherblood was recorded at Orgone Studios in the UK with Jaime Gomez Arellano (Ghost, Ulver, Paradise Lost) in March 2017 and originally released by Century Media on the same year. The studio was suitably situated on the site of an old WW2 coding bunker and brought with it the isolation of the bleak British countryside. The setting helped give the album an intense and smiling urgency that picks up where 80s UK bands such as Magazine, The Wire and Echo And The Bunnymen left off, but never stopping long enough to look back too much into the past. Featuring guest vocals from David Tibet from Current 93, the band sets the tone for their inspirations, from the esoteric underground of England’s hidden reverse to Manchester’s sound of misery. With their own metallic raw tone clashed with pop hooks, Motherblood is a furiously passionate and contemporary record, which re-defines post-punk as a “war-cry for the eternally doomed.”

They have been described as "A post-punk wet dream," or perhaps more honestly as "bat-shit lunatics," and their music is in a funereal world of its own. Motherblood is a truly danceable, pop-feast of raw, banging pleasure – in all its primitive, gothic tribalism. Dance-floor death rock that brings with it an uncanny sense of inspired song craft that made Bowie’s Berlin era sound so fresh and revolutionary, Killing Joke’s tribal anthems so desperately ominous and dark throbbing melancholy of Depeche Mode’s atmospheric pop so damn sexy. Just about every part of this record bleeds menace, or emanates nuclear fumes. It’s unsafe territory which in turn makes it thrilling, sexy and most dangerously of all, catchy.

Yon Loader is a New Zealand recording project developed over distance and led by James Stuteley (Carb on Carb). Made in numerous sessions in various locations, the project weaves together many elements and talents of Aotearoa indie rock. Stuteley composed the core of the songs before fleshing them out with help from a cast of rotating collaborators and key engineer and producer Harry Lilley. These collaborators (including members of Recitals, Welcomer, For Everest, Model Home, Fouler, First Move, and Bad Friend) build Stuteley’s straightforward, candid compositions into an album of weighty, intricate rock songs with melancholic, diaristic emo-punk energy. Interweaving guitar and cello draws on the epic without going into excess. Slipping between thoughtful guitar passages and poignant interludes to expansive uplifting blowouts of repeated vocals and waves of cymbals, Yon Loader's debut album draws you in and holds you tightly.

Mind Lines,. the second record from Silver Scrolls, is the follow-up to 2020’s Music for Walks. Dave Brylawski (Polvo, Idyll Swords) and Brian Quast (Polvo, the BQ’s) once again team up with producer and de facto third Scroll Greg Elkins, to make an album that plants you firmly in your rock feelings. All of them. Classic rock, psych rock, indie rock, post rock, pre rock. Rock as hell.

Mind Lines. Follow them. Inspiration, spotted in the wild, lured out of dusty record bins and chased down scum alleys and garden paths, sounds stalked and collected, wrestled and arranged, until everything is in its proper place and the final LP is as it should be. Or shouldn’t be. Nine minute and seventeen second radio hits. Indie rock drum solos. Whatever. Whatever dumped from the butterfly net of their collective unconscious. Whatever stumbled through the door of their open minds. Whatever works.

At this point in their collective music careers, the Scrolls are free to emulate, ignore, or destroy convention, as they see fit. Dave and Brian have seen enough, the Mind Lines have been drawn, traced... The songs are as classic as they are brand new. Yesterday chasing tomorrow. Noon is the verse, midnight the chorus. and right now is the bridge. The Scrolls chug deep from the fountain of spooky tooth, shooting sparks through their teeth. Let’s go.

On Mind Lines, the Silver Scrolls are still walking, shredding, open to whatever comes next. The music came down from the mountain. Please stay a while.