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The treasured Japanese soft rock album produced by Haruomi Hosono is finally reissued in analog LP format! The only album "Aiiro no Kisetsu" (The Season of The Color of Love) (original release date: July 1975) by the group "Kaze Chorus Dan" (Wind Chorus Group) from the Yamaha Popular Song Contest is reissued on analog vinyl. Haruomi Hosono participated fully as producer, lyricist, composer, arranger, and player. The beautiful chorus work of mixed voices, the tight performance by the Tin Pan Alley family, and the Western taste and groove that is like A&M are the best kept soft-rock treasures.

"Graveyard Club Music" Moku. Selected and edited two self-produced EPs, and announced the first nationally distributed album "MokuROKU / MokuROKU 2". The four-piece band "Moku" sings pure Japanese lyrics that are strongly influenced by folk music over a gloomy dance beat that makes ghosts dance. The dub elements, which are as deep as the roots in the ground, seem to take them in a completely different direction from the artists who came before them, while still retaining the dim but tasteful psychedelics of Shintaro Sakamoto and Kikagakumoyo.

Cats and mice seem to be real enemies in real life – one is chased and eaten by the other. With „Cat & Mauss“ (Maus is the German word for mouse), love is involved. Romana Lezaic and Torsten Mauss met 4 years ago, got married immediately and started their musical project during the disruptive time of the lockdown. In the meantime, they have found their sound: somewhere between old western movies, a David Lynch soundtrack, analog rhythm machines and psychedelic songwriting, their debut album „Tales from the desert, tales from the sea“ has now been created, which will be released digital and on vinyl in May 2024 on the German label _less records from Düsseldorf. On February 2, 2024, the two will release their first single and their video „Sinking deeper“, followed by a series of concerts in Germany and Denmark. Torsten G. Mauss, born in New York, has already released four solo albums under his solo project TG Mauss and previously had the electro-pop band „Tonetraeger“ together with Oscar winning composer Volker Bertelmann (Hauschka) and played and toured as a part of drummer Thomas Klein ́s Sølyst. (of the Düsseldorf avant-garde band Kreidler). Romana Lezaic-Mauss is a Croatian singer living in Germany. She started singing and dancing traditional Croatian „Folklore“ as a child. Now with her own music she sings in English and learns and plays Tabla and Theremin

Across the last 15 years, Ryan Gustafson of The Dead Tongueshas emerged as one of modern folk's most distinct voices. Asidiosyncratic and spectral as the songs have sometimes been,Gustafson has always tied his visions and verses to the kinds ofhooks you tuck away like talismans, pulled out in case ofemergency. Dust, Unsung Passage, Desert: The Dead Tongues'albums remain some of the more compelling and curious worksin their field on this side of a century. The latest edition to TheDead Tongues' catalog, the song-centric and magnetic Body ofLight and the discursive and wonderfully elliptical I Am a Cloud,is 16 complete tunes split across interweaving and disparatealbums.The albums feature performances by Jenn Wasner (Wye Oak,Bon Iver), Mat Davidson (Twain), Matt Douglas (The MountainGoats), Joe Westerlund (Califone, Megafaun), Jeff Ratner (Bingand Ruth), and more. Gustafson wanted to dedicate the studiotime to not just recording songs but also making somethingnew, with new improvisations.The two albums, released digitally as distinct standalonereleases, join together in the physical format as a beautiful,deluxe, double album. The 2LP package features a meticulouslyembossed cover, and gorgeous custom inner-sleeves for eachalbum.

More Water! More Damage! The second proper LP by this Texan juggernaut is even more biggerer than the first, a head-drowning pair of new 'reels' (every Water Damage tracks generally take up a reel of tape, hence the 'reel ____' song titles) that makes you feel like you’re swimming in a sun-drenched river of sound. Two drummers, two bassists, and tons of vibrating strings are once again a recipe for massive rocking-drone fires.

Two Songs has two songs, and they’re kind of the yin/yang of Water Damage: one toned very low, growling and roaring, groaning over a beat, while the other hums high, troubling the treble clef and ringing like a bunch of church bells that don’t want to be in church. They’re more alike than different though, divining momentum from repetition, flying forward by staying in place, climbing a mountain that they’re building as they go.

Enough ink has already been spilled about the previous-band pedigrees of the players in this hurtling collective, and by this point, the past seems way less relevant than the present when it comes to Water Damage’s present-pounding sound. These people know what they’re doing, sure. You don’t need a resume in front of you to figure that out. It’s there in every second of this gigantic, eternal music—in all the strings being bowed, the skins being slammed, the rumbles being rumbled.

You might notice that this time around, Water Damage haven’t just given their tracks reel numbers. They're also called 'Fuck This' and 'Fuck That.' I take that as instructional. Whatever you’re doing, whatever you’re fretting about, whatever someone’s trying to use to occupy your attention so you’ll buy something or vote for something or ignore something: Fuck This. Fuck That. Listen to Water Damage."—Marc Masters

The debut longplayer from Washington, DC-based Ekko Astral is a complex mesh of bubblegum noise punk and no-wave art rock that holds an elastic space for the knotty, tangled horrors of living in the imperial core. Their songs thrash with intense, necessary defiance against codified gender-based violence, their distortion and sibilance a direct response to the dangers outside our front doors.

pink balloons opener “head empty blues” specifically bites back against the terrors of the normative male gaze that dominates so much of American culture. Over a post-punk passage that plays call and response with a wall of harsh noise, frontwoman Jael Holzman belts playfully morbid details of the head-exploding anxieties that haunt her daily: “is it bon eye-ver or bon iver? / i don’t care / i’ve got stalkers outside / not going out tonight / gonna sit and take pics / in my underwear.”

Ultimately, Ekko Astral are here to uplift, a mission exemplified by the frenetic and bewitching pre-release singles “baethoven” and “devorah,” cornerstones of pink balloons in both style and theme. The former serves as a reminder to keep your larger than life personality in a world that wants to downsize you, where the latter proclaims urgent solidarity with missing and murdered people. Such crucial messages of upliftment are the foundation of pink balloons, and, by extension Ekko Astral, whose thrashing debut leaves no stone of solidarity unturned.