Indierock | Alternative Tape 450 Items

Joe Sutkowski (Dirt Buyer)'s new album is a documentation of making it to the other side. Sutkowski grew up in New Jersey, and although he lives in Brooklyn now, he remains " an emo kid at heart ," garnering inspiration from bands like My Chemical Romance and Muse, the latter of whose theatrical, dramatic performances inspired the band's own vocal-forward, soaring takes. Initially working together as a duo while Sutkowski and Ruben Radlauer (Model/Actriz) were at school in Berklee, the band's self-titled 2019 debut album was recorded on an IPhone in their practice room on just drums and guitar, and the quietly striking, nuanced stylings earned them accolades far beyond the " fake record label " the two made up to originally release their music. The band's new album, Dirt Buyer II , was recorded in February 2020, and represents a foray into heavier material that marks a deeper shift for the band. Now working as a trio, Sutkowski is flanked by Tristan Allen on bass and Mike Costa on drums, a fellow Berklee grad who cut his teeth playing in bands across Boston including past collaborations with Sutkowski. Half-recorded while the band was on tour with Surf Curse, the record finds Sutkowski reaching out for places, people and beliefs to ground him. Throughout the album he attempts to wrap his head around the idea of fate and how you can brush up against other people and then leave them behind. The songs themselves play with this concept of light and dark intertwined. Oscillating between urgency and cathartic release and more stripped-back elegies, Sutkowski faces the reality that while the people he'd rather forget can still live on through music, he is able to move on at the same time. Half-recorded in his mother and uncle's upstate house where he turned the living room into a studio, he contemplates the beauty and disaster around him - all refracted through visceral visual imagery of how the physical earth meets the unknown to converge in something greater than ourselves. " This is all a living chronicle of all I want to do, which is feel good and be happy ," he admits. " I'm a completely different person now - a better version of myself ." Processing the past, Sutkowksi has emerged with newfound belief, fully intact and with a new path forward to the future.

Die japanische Band Chai verzauberte die Welt 2017 mit ihrem Debütalbum Pink, einer Sammlung von Songs, die ihren einzigartigen, verspielten Pop vorstellten. Das enthusiastisch-feministische Nachfolgealbum Punk wurde von der Musikpresse und anderen Künstlern hoch gelobt. Das führte zu Wink, das Chai per Remote-Zoom-Sessions aufnahmen - eine Einschränkung, die sich als Stärke erwies, da Mana (Leadgesang und Tasten), Kana (Gitarre), Yuna (Schlagzeug) und Yuuki (Bass und Texte) mit Künstler*innen im Ausland zusammenarbeiten konnten, um ein Werk zu schaffen, das in ihrer internationalen Gemeinschaft Katharsis fand. Im Gegensatz zu Wink kehren Chai auf ihrem neuen, selbstbetitelten Album zu ihren Wurzeln zurück und lassen sich von ihrem japanischen Erbe und der Musik, mit der sie aufgewachsen sind, inspirieren. "Alles, was sich in den Texten widerspiegelt, drückt unsere Erfahrungen als japanische Frauen aus", sagt Mana. Chais Ethos ist das der Inklusion, und die erste Ssingle "We The Female!" - die live aufgenommen wurde, um die krawalligen Auftritte der Band zu würdigen - lädt die Zuhörer zu dieser Mission ein. Während ihrer Tourneen nach der Pandemie, bei denen sie vor riesigen Menschenmengen in Städten wie Santiago, Buenos Aires und Sao Paulo auftraten, wurde Chai klar, dass sie sich ein globales Publikum erschlossen hatten. Chai schrieben das neue Album unterwegs und fanden zwischen den Auftritten im Stones Throw Studio in L.A., in der Ometusco Sound Machine in Mexico City und in der Grand Street in New York Zeit für die Aufnahmen. Als sie erkannten, dass ihre befreiende, ermächtigende Botschaft auch für Menschen außerhalb Japans gilt, überlegten Chai, welche Facetten ihrer Erziehung beim Publikum außerhalb ihres Heimatlandes Anklang finden könnten. Auf Chai schöpft die Band direkt aus dem City-Pop, einem in Tokio entstandenen Sound, der in den 70er und 80er Jahren populär war. City-Pop war eine japanische Interpretation westlicher Lounge-Musik, die Anleihen bei Jazz, Boogie, Funk und Yacht-Rock machte, um einen Sound zu kreieren, der sich zwischen zwei Kulturen bewegte. Während der City-Pop in letzter Zeit über TikTok und YouTube ein US-Publikum gefunden hat, sind Chai mit diesem Genre aufgewachsen. Für die Produktion griffen sie auf ihren früheren Mitarbeiter Ryu Takahashi zurück, der ihre Vorliebe für City Pop, Eurobeat und die Melodien von J-Pop-Künstlern wie Maria Takeuchi teilte. "Sie wollten sich mit ihrer japanischen Identität auseinandersetzen, nicht im traditionellen Sinne, sondern auf diese gefilterte westliche Art", sagt Takahashi. Die Arbeit in gut ausgestatteten Studios ermöglichte es ihnen, mit einer Ästhetik zu experimentieren, die auf einem Chai-Album noch nicht zu hören war.

Vs. Evil is a supervillain-themed concept album centering around the Marvel and DC universes. Ookla the Mok combine their signature comedy music abilities with the emotional narratives behind these fictional characters in a way that we think works super well. While tracks like "Doctor Octopus" and "Kang the Conqueror" are among some of Ookla's most overtly silly works of music that poke fun at the comics they love, other tracks like "Suprema Lex" and "Amora Adores Thor" bring out Ookla's passion for the stories that inspire them. To top it all off, the album artwork is done by DC Comics artist Art Baltazar.

Sometimes, Mitski says, it feels like life would be easier without hope, or a soul, or love. But when she closes her eyes and thinks about what's truly hers, what can't be repossessed or demolished, she sees love. "The best thing I ever did in my life was to love people," Mitski says. "I wish I could leave behind all the love I have, after I die, so that I can shine all this goodness, all this good love that I've created onto other people." She hopes her newest album, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, will continue to shine that love long after she's gone. Listening to it, that's precisely how it feels: like a love that's haunting the land. "This is my most American album," Mitski says about her seventh record, and the music feels like a profound act of witnessing this country, in all of its private sorrows and painful contradictions. In this album, which is sonically Mitski's most expansive, epic, and wise, the songs seem to be introducing wounds and then actively healing them. Here, love is time- traveling to bless our tender days, like the light from a distant star. The album is full of the ache of the grown- up, seemingly mundane heartbreaks and joys that are often unsung but feel enormous. It's a tiny epic. From the bottom of a glass, to a driveway slushy with memory and snow, to a freight train barreling through the Midwest, and all the way to the moon, it feels like everything, and everyone, is crying out, screaming in pain, arching towards love. Love is that inhospitable land, beckoning us and then rejecting us. To love this place _ this earth, this America, this body _ takes active work. It might be impossible. The best things are.

This listing is for a cassette copy of Big Sonic Chill by Sparkler on a blue & green glitter cassette.

Sparkler is a four-piece shoegaze band from San Diego, CA. Drawing influences from the 90's shoegaze movement and harnessing sounds that span from growling distortion to massive swirling textures, Sparkler gives classic shoegaze a new line on life with a modern twist of all natural lemon and lime flavors. The songs cut through the modern take on shoegaze and dig back into the roots where it all began.

Cashier is a band from Lafayette, LA that plays a washed out, fuzzy blend of shoegaze & indie rock. This two song cassette captures a unique ebb and flow between sonic intensity and harrowing urgency with melancholic flare and a DIY attitude.

Born in 1967 and former Wrestling Rock'n'Roll One Man Band Activist Lightning Beat-Man (1992-1999) turned into a Primitive Rock'n'Roll Blues Preacher in the Millenium Change and released countless recordings on several labels. 2017 he had a hand full of songs to record this album, the idea was to record it with several musicians and not showing them the songs, they went to the studio and Reverend Beat-Man played the songs on the guitar one time, then they had 2 takes for recording without rehearsal to keep it fresh. Anyway the idea was Free Style and so is that whole Album, the result was a mix of Blues Trash, New Wave Folk and Dark No Wave Garage Punk and Rock'n'Roll. He selected the NEW WAVE from musicians he loved the most at the momentNICOLE IZOBEL GARCIA is From Los Angeles with Mexian roots, a singer that has the gift to connect her voice direct with your heart, she plays an unorthodox organ and plays part of drums and percussion like the devil itself. With her, Reverend Beat-Man plays the most shows as a duet.MARIO BATKOVIC is a classical and kraut avantgarde accordionist. He creates film and game music and has a one man band himself he's a total genius (prodused by Geoff Barrow of Portishead).JULIAN SARTORIUS another Bern original, he's probably one of europs or even worlds most extraordinary drummers these days, he is one of the few drummers that can play his drums as an instrument not just as a machine, he plays a lot of free jazzand improvisation (sophie hunger, colin vallon trio, manuel troller, hans koch, bruno spoerri etc). RESLI BURRI is a legendary Bern musician who has a jam-band together with Mario and Beat-Man - he is a multi instrumentalist who plays in the Dead Brothers, Patent Ochsner , and is a film and circus music writer.

Queer tweemo from the pop fringe of Little Rock, Arkansas's thriving '90s DIY scene. Paper Airplanes, Paper Hearts gathers Everyone Asked About You's complete recorded works, including the Let's Be Enemies LP and their two and a half 7"s released between 1997-2000. Remastered from the original DATs for maximum nostalgic crunch, this deluxe 2xLP is housed in a gatefold tip on sleeve and includes a 20-page book crammed with flyers, photos, lyrics, and an extensive essay on this crucial missing link between midwest emo and the Moog synthesizer.

You can't get Deeper if you're standing still. That's intentional, says the Chicago quartet's Nic Gohl. "Does it feel good when you're listening to this song? Does your body want to move with it?" These are the questions he asked himself as he and bandmates Shiraz Bhatti, Drew McBride, and Kevin Fairbairn were writing and recording Careful!, their third record and Sub Pop debut. "I wanted these to be interesting songs, but in a way where a two-year-old would vibe out to it," Gohl adds. "It's pop music, basically." That "basically" qualifier is working pretty hard, as fans of 2020's Auto-Pain might suppose. On Careful!, they're not reimagining their sound so much as testing its limits. If you want to, you can hear echoes of David Bowie's Low in the snapping rhythm and gray-sky synths of "Tele," but you can also hear a bit of Auto-Pain in the nailed-in, stippling lines being spit out by Bhatti's drum programming and McBride's synthesizer. "Fame" seems to stumble together and nearly fall apart, the dialed-up noise making the beat feel maniacal and a little invincible, the whole thing a series of short, snipped, autonomous gestures that are by now Deeper's trademark. "Build a Bridge" pushes in the opposite direction, using a prickly guitar line to launch into big, smeary art-pop, its emotional palette clear, well-defined, and easy to latch onto. On "Sub," Gohl sings above and below the melody like Ian McCulloch, bellowing and wondering and ruminating and rounding into swaggering confidence that the band rises to meet. It's festival headliner music that still feels like it was written in a garage. That fraternal interdependence is near the center of Deeper's music. The musical and lyrical devotion to mutuality makes this restlessly curious, stylistically broad album feels like the most coherent portrait of who Deeper is. Or, as McBride ultimately frames it, "Careful! is about looking out for one another."

For Lutalo, creating music is an act of hope in and of itself. Throughout their meticulously crafted folk, rock, and soul, on which theysing and play all the instruments, the Twin Cities-raised,Vermont-based musician embeds golden lines of poetry thatinspire curiosity about the world and empathy for everyone searching for a way through it.After releasing their 2022 debut EP,Once Now, Then Again, Lutaloemerged as a rising talent in the indie world, catching the attentionof Fleet Foxes' Robin Pecknold and Big Thief's Adrianne Lenker,who invited the young musician on tour. Following a vinyl releasewith that breakthrough project, they are releasing its companionEP,AGAIN, on August 25 via Winspear.On the ambitiousAGAIN, a collection of kinetic indie rock tracks,Lutalo makes bold critiques of systemic oppression, capitalism,and the digital attention economy. Though these topics are heady,their writing always sits at an accessible place of personalintrospection. Like on the arresting single "Push Back Baby," whosefuzzy electric guitar lines twist and unfurl in intricate patterns,Lutalo paints a complex portrait of our current reality that's "rootedin the greed or narcissism of capitalists," they explain. "I'm analyzingthose systems and patterns, and also asking, `Can we continue tonot perpetuate this?' Because it's hurt a lot of people historically. I'mjust asking people to question it."Through their music, but also through their lifestyle that's alternative to America's economic and political systems, Lutalo askslisteners to imagine new possibilities. "I want to help people ques-tion the way they're living," they say, "so we can create a betterreality for us to exist in together."

On Domino, Diners has replaced their gentle pop sound with a more bombastic rock and roll approach while maintaining their upbeat positive world view. Diners teamed up with power pop prince Mo Troper and Grammy nominated engineer Jack Shirley to deliver her best record yet.

British garage rock revivalist's 1986 album for Stiff Records' 54321 Countdown affiliate. The Prisoners got their start in the same Medway River delta area of Britain as Billy Childish's Pop Rivets. After the band's demise singer/guitarist/songwriter Graham Day went on to join Childish's Thee Mighty Caesars & eventually formed the Prime Movers, organist James 'Jamie' Taylor went on to form the James Taylor Quartet.

Madeline Johnston and Angel Diaz became close friends in 2020, regarding each other as a lifeline when things were difficult in their personal lives. This friendship was born from music but quickly became so much more than that. The two met in person in 2021, when Diaz came for a recording residency at Johnston’s studio in New Mexico. It was during this session that they wrote and recorded Orbweaving, in the heat of summer in the arid Chihuahuan Desert.

Orbweaving combines the best parts of Midwife’s “heaven metal” and Vyva Melinkolya’s sentimental, classic shoegaze in a way that distinctively elevates both artists. The record explores themes of hopelessness, calling on a higher power, being alone, and the sublime horror of the natural world. Orbweaving seeks to thematically and sonically create a web like structure—a gauze of sorrow and visceral connective thread.

At night, Diaz and Johnston went herping (a term used by herpetologists to describe looking for snakes and amphibians) along the empty roads near Las Cruces. The asphalt retains heat from the day, and the snakes absorb the warmth by writhing across the pavement.

They found rattlesnakes, roadkill, and orb-weaver spiders.

ere it is! Volume 5 of the "Tapes Not Dead" series!!!! I'm super excited about how this years came out! I think it's one of the best yet! 21 awesome songs from bands and artists of today that release their music on cassette personally curated by yours truly.. Charlie Tapes. One of our main objectives as a store/label has always been to introduce new music in hopes you find something you really like. Tapes Not Dead is our mixtape to you!

Volume 5 also includes the ongoing Tapehead City comic series about a cassette who becomes a monster and befriends a girl named Keeks.



200 limited edition yellow copies were made using Fox Rtm911 which is one of the best performing tapes currently being manufactured.

The third album of the Italian hardcore band known all over the world! The fury of thrash metal combined with punk attitude is the right combination to define this album: it will crush your skull like a ton of bricks whilst embarking on an assault to your eardrums! A true masterpiece of the 80s to own in your collection.

In the early days of Covid, Chris (Dirt Cult Records, Low Culture, Macho Boys) would mask up every night and take a long walk to keep his sanity. One evening, the week before the murder of George Floyd, he popped in his headphones and put on a Killed by Death comp while he grappled with how the virus had changed his life and the lives of those around him, while so many people refused to accept the slightest inconvenience to keep their neighbors safe. When he returned home, he went down to the basement and stayed up until four in the morning writing and recording the songs on this cassette. Consider this a time capsule of the early days of the pandemic, showcasing the mundane weirdness of those early days of the pandemic, filled with grocery deliveries and clips of right-wingers claiming victimhood because they can’t get their haircut or order dine-in – all to a snotty punk soundtrack for fans of Circle Jerks, Crucifucks, Dead Kennedys, et al.

Community building is maybe the most punk thing all of. Recent Halifax to Ottawa transplant Matty Grace (Cluttered, Century Egg, Future Girls) wasted no time in recruiting Ottawa punk mainstays Anthony Cardozo (Precious Failures, The Flying Hellfish) and “Ska” Jeff (Doxx, Dogma, Zooman) to bring Crisis Party to life. Blending influences from the Wipers to Wire and the Marked Men with the ethics instilled by those that came before them. Crisis Party is here to let you know it’s ok to struggle. Life is suffering. Let’s Party!

- Reissue of the breakthrough sophomore album by the rising Belarussian post-punk/synthpop band//The second LP by Belarussian trio Molchat Doma, Etazhi, meaning "Floors", was first released in 2018 on Berlin-based Detriti Records. It became a viral hit, garnering over one million views on YouTube and becoming a legitimate phenomenon on Bandcamp. The band may fly under the radar in their native Belarus, but they've reached huge audiences across Europe and beyond. Six separate vinyl pressings of the album have sold out in quick succession, and Sacred Bones Records is now thrilled to bring the record back in print for good. Molchat Doma (translated as "Houses Are Silent"), founded in 2017 in Minsk, Belarus, stands at the intersection of post-punk, new-wave and synth-pop. Dark yet danceable, and with a heavy dose of goth ethos, their music is reminiscent of the masters that predate them, but make no mistake: Molchat Doma creates a sound and meaning that is immediately recognizable as all their own. The band is comprised of Egor Shkutko, who sings the Russian lyrics in his deep monotone, Roman Komogortsev on guitar, synths, and drum machine, and Pavel Kozlov on bass and synths.RiYL: Depeche Mode, New Order, Drab Majesty, Black Marble

The 'Baptismal' project started out when Kramer invited me to collaborate with him on a project, and Itend to think in terms of what the listeners are open to hearing these days. In my mind was a recordingthat let the listeners leave the busy mind generated by mainstream media, so I came up with the idea ofa baptism, immersive kind of LP in which the listener would Become totally present with the music. Isuggested to Kramer the title 'Baptismal', and that the tracks would be called 'Gedunk', a comicalreference to the idea of being immersed in water, my own baptism as a child in the Christian faith, theBaptist church. I started by sending Kramer several tracks of Zither-centric music in the length ofindividual LP sides. Kramer would complement the tracks with plush drones and return it to me. Then wewould discuss. Soon we had enough material to move toward completing the album. I performed withpiano keyboard, ZITHER and voice. We collaborated entirely by sending audio files back and forth viaonline transfer. We haven't had physical contact at all during the project, but it went smoothly with someminor suggestions to help us to shape up our navigation til we finally arrived. The album cover wassuggested by Kramer, which I think is very appropriate. The project started in 2022. Mark Kramer, an oldyoung friend. We connected in New York City when he was here in the 80s.-Laraaji, Jan. 2023I met Laraaji by chance in NYC's Central Park one fine summer day in 1985. I'd been thinking about thewisdom vs. the futility of starting my own record company a lot in those days, and as I walked throughone of the parks many tunnels, I heard what I'd recognized to be Laraaji's 'Day of Radiance' playing onwhat i'd assumed to be someone's beatbox. I thought to myself, "How nice it is to be alive in NYC in 1985on a day like this in Central Park and knowing that someone loves this wondrous LP from Eno's ObscureRecords label as much as I do."But when I emerged from the tunnel I saw not a beatbo...

The garage-y psychedelic outsider pop band Being Dead shines bright with their distinctly right-brain songcraft, mischievous humor, and implausibly great vocal harmonies. As they've graduated from curiosity to cult favorites, we've yet to encounter a single person who dislikes Being Dead. Recorded at Radio Milk, producer Jim Vollentine (White Denim, Trail of Dead, Spoon) spit-shines Being Dead's sound without diminishing their weirdo-best-friend vibes. Their penchant for idiosyncratic lyricism and musical unpredictability shines throughout the album as the duo moves between everything from garage rock and pop to Laurel Canyon-style folk.

A white ship sailing in a sea of blackness, Codeine's swan song arrived in 1994 amid grunge's ascension to alt radio's godhead status. John Engle's guitar alternates between crystalline and sludge, and Stephen Immerwhar's distorted bass floats on top of punishing drums from newcomer Doug Scharin (Rex, June of 44), resulting in nine perfect meditations on the loneliness and uncertainty of early adulthood. "Codeine's unyielding numbness creates its own kind of warmth _ the feeling of cold water running for so long that it suddenly feels hot." _ Spin