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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.

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.

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.

Meadow Green Vinyl.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.

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.

Most of the writing of Naima Bock's second album, Below A Massive Dark Land, was a solitary affair. It may not sound like it - it's made up of strong, purposeful arrangements with a huge host of musicians, filled with cradling space and warm light. This will also come as a surprise to anyone who has seen Naima perform in the time since the release of her 2022 debut Giant Palm, which was undoubtedly a communal experience. But there's power in the solitary, too. Giant Palm was arranged with collaborator Joel Burton, but going this one alone in search of something that was truly hers, Naima found she was capable of more. "After me and Joel stopped working together", she remembers, "it was an impossibility to even fathom doing arrangements myself but then I started learning violin and it was possible". Finding that she could go it alone was incredibly powerful for Naima: "I think I needed it, to be able to feel proud of something". Beyond the writing process, however, the record is not a stark, stripped back affair. Below_ still has the majesty that made Giant Palm so remarkable. Having tugged the first record down from the skies and spreading it across the earth, Naima finds a newfound vocal power and confidence born from hundreds of hours on stage, and the music sounds fuller, more tangible, and no less enveloping. This can be heard on the album's lead singles: "Kaley" feels fresh and surprising in its rug-pull choppiness but is distinctly Naima in its swinging, jubilant choruses. The accompanying "Further Away" takes a different tack, drawing you in with its simplicity. Finally, the hazy, luxurious beauty of "Feed My Release" draws on the sepia-toned traditions of The Roches, John Prine and Loudon Wainwright III and imbues them with the kind of stark confessional songwriting of Mount Eerie. These are ambitious, rich arrangements that reach deeper and darker lyrically than Giant Palm. Below a Massive Dark Land was predominantly produced by Jack Osborne (Bingo Fury) and Joe Jones, and recorded at The Crypt in north London, with additional production and arrangement by Oliver Hamilton (caroline, Shovel Dance Collective) and Naima herself. Six of the tracks on Below_ were mixed by Jason Agel, with the remainder done by Osborne and Jones. The album was mastered by Kevin Tuffy.

Allegra Krieger’s "Art of the Unseen Infinity Machine", her second full-length album with Double Double Whammy, is a collection of 12 songs that pick at the fragile membrane between life and death.

Krieger’s previous album, "I Keep My Feet on the Fragile Plane", hewed more closely to the domestic spaces of city and mind. Rolling Stone regarded the album as “ten songs of heady philosophical meanderings packed with emotional dynamite,” and likened her “finely phrased lyrics” to those of “Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, [and] David Berman.” Krieger’s existential meditations remain on "Art of the Unseen Infinity Machine", however her meandering melodies have taken on a stronger sense of direction. She narrates candidly and assertively; the full-band arrangements never overpower, only offer a robust platform on which Krieger’s voice reaches new heights.

The full band brings a heightened sense of drama to the album’s arrangements, which contrasts the quieter approach of Krieger’s previous LP. There are noisy interludes, jazz-inflected discursions, impactful stops and starts, and occasional spaces for Krieger to stretch out her impressive vocal range (most prominently at the dazzling climax of album stand out “Came”). In "Art of the Unseen Infinity Machine", Krieger invites us to a place where transfiguration is not only possible but actively happening. From this place, the beautiful and the banal and the terrible are all laid out before us. And Krieger asks us not to look away. Instead, she invites us to stare down the beautiful and terrible in the world, and to realize that sometimes the only way out is through.

Mermaid Chunky. It's all in a name, sometimes. The danceable, costumed, curiosity rich duo of artists Freya Tate and Moina Moin are as imaginative as they profess. Or, to get more to the point, as we all need them to be.Freya and Moina are two visual artists and musicians from Stroud and South London, places where they importantly found communities (Stroud's SVA and the capital's Total Refreshment Centre) of like minded people just as willing to chase down an idea to its possibly illogical conclusion. And it is in the collective and the idea of participation that Mermaid Chunky really clicks. This is a party, a collective dance, made all the better with more: people, ideas, layers, kick drums, recorders, saxophones, frogs.To wit, the album's first track and first single, "Céilí," named after a traditional Scottish or Irish social gathering and dance, which builds from a simple recorder line into a swelling, warm burst of major chord dance music. Goosebumps or check your pulse.Further down the rabbit hole, "Chaperone" is almost boardwalk electro, like Fischerspooner on a ferris wheel; "Frogsporn" and "Nature Girl" are mucky, trippy dirges filled with stalactites of synth and squelch; "Tiny Gymnast" is a kaleidoscopic waltz into the night. Hold onto your seats, ladies and gentlemen.You might be wondering how we, DFA Records, all the way over in cynical Brooklyn, entered the picture. There was a day a few years ago, sun shining in full Springtime splendor, when James heard something while waiting for a coffee down the street from the office. It sounded simple yet deceptively complex: a dance track, but one where the one - that anchoring first beat in a measure - could be heard a thousand different ways. Frustrated and interested, he Shazamd the song, playing at the shop from an episode of Zakia's Questing show on NTS, and brought it back to the office, where we all listened to it about fifty times. (The song was "Friends," from Mermaid Chunky's VEST EP, released in 2020. It led to an invitation to open fo...

Jade Hairpins waste no time fulfilling their second album's titular demand. From itsharmony-drenched opening note to its baroque-anthemic conclusion, Get Me the GoodStuff is positively loaded with musical ideas, an absurdist buffet of sound andaesthetic that comes with one hell of a floorshow as the Hairpins stack thoseideas higher and higher, almost daring them to crash to the floor. Instead, thoseelements_punksploitation, power pop, baggy, funk, and Italo disco are just sometouchstones_are not only held aloft, they defy gravity and convention.These pyrotechnics are, in true Jade Hairpins fashion, something of a sleight ofhand. While the music swaggers and gallops, Get Me the Good Stuff grapples withanxiety and self-doubt, obfuscating pain and alienation with sparkling wit and somestraight-up ravers. Get Me the Good Stuff opens with one of those, "Let It Be Me," inwhich Jonah Falco shouts lyrics about being alone with one's shortcomings againstguitars, synths, and harmonized vocals that are on the verge of closing in. The songis just over 90 seconds long, hitting with the gnarled-barb ferocity of punk and thegleeful insanity of theatrical art rock.It is, in other words, overwhelming. Or it would be if Jade Hairpins_Jonah Falcoand Mike Haliechuk_weren't remarkably nimble in their ability to bring unity tosounds by placing them in competition against each other. When those sounds areadjacent, like the glam and disco that saturate "Drifting Superstition," the thrill ofthose universes colliding in the heat of an absolutely filthy clavichord line turns itslyrics, about the habit of solving personal problems by ignoring them, into a winner'santhem on the order of Bowie or Hot Chocolate.Get Me the Good Stuff arcs towards unequivocal joy as Falco, Jade Hairpins' primarylyricist, breaks these cycles and attempts to run away with his dreams. The arc isroughly analogous to how the album came to fruition. Four years removed fromHarmony Avenue, an album of material that pr...

Fire Red Vinyl.As one would expect of any historic city, the houses in Decatur,GA are old, and while many have been renovated to suit theneeds of the 21st century family, the one Lunar Vacation callshome has not. The porch is quaint and crumbly, the roof leaks,and there is a single bathroom shared by the band's fivemembers who insist that this is not, actually, a bad thing. "I usedto be so protective of the songs when I gave them over to theband," lyricist/vocalist/guitarist Gep Repasky says. "There's somuch trust involved, but this house helped us grow as bestfriends, as musicians, as a band."That newfound sense of trust is apparent on EverythingMatters, Everything's Fire, whose title, taken from theconcluding track "You Shouldn't Be," is a thesis statement.While Lunar Vacation's last album, 2021's Inside Every Fig is aDead Wasp, happily bathed in the waters of indie pop, theirlatest effort is exploratory, a product of many hours sharedexperimenting in a living room together. Inspired by prolificshapeshifters like Yo La Tengo and Björk, Everything Matters,Everything's Fire adopts an ethos that every idea has thepotential to be a good one."Our last album was super produced, manicured," guitarist/vocalist Maggie Geeslin says. "This one's organic. Weembraced mistakes; it made the work even better." In otherwords: everything matters, everything's fire.

LIV Greene isn't running from herself anymore. She's pried herself open and let real longing, frustration, and love break free. Deep Feeler, her sophomore album, is a reckoning with reality, a vulnerable snapshot of hard-won self-acceptance. It's feminine, queer, and defiant. It also heralds the arrival of Greene as a powerful new voice who joins the songwriting tradition of Emmylou, Patty, Gillian, and Lucinda - in her own way. Greene self-produced and recorded Deep Feeler live to tape in Nashville's Woodland Sound Studios, with collaborator Matt Andrews (Gillian Welch & Dave Rawlings, O Brother Where Art Thou) and a dreamy band of friends including Sarah Jarosz, Dom Billett, Elise Leavy, and Christian Sedelmeyer. The resulting collection of beautiful melodies and folk-rooted storytelling is a bold achievement: a piece of art that matters culturally, musically, and personally.

Dale Crover - weltbekannter Schlagzeuger der Melvins, Nirvana und Redd Kross sowie Sänger und Gitarrist von Altamont - veröffentlicht sein drittes Solo-Album „Glossolalia“ am 13. September über Joyful Noise Recordings. Das von Crover und Toshi Kasai produzierte Werk strotzt nur so vor Nuggets-Garagenrock, Proto-Metal-Riffs und herrlich verschwommenem Psych-Pop. Einen Vorgeschmack auf das 11-Song-Album gibt es mit der heutigen Veröffentlichung von „Doug Yuletide“ . Der Track ist einer von zwei „Glossolalia“-Songs, bei denen Crover mit dem Gitarristen Dan Southwick zusammenarbeitet, seinem langjährigen Freund und Altamont-Bandkollegen. Aber Southwick ist nicht der einzige Freund, der auf Glossolalia zu hören ist: Kim Thayil von Soundgarden (Leadgitarre bei „I Quit“ und „Rings“), Ty Segall (Leadgitarre bei „Spoiled Daisies“ und „I Waited Forever“), Rob Crow von Pinback („Don't Worry About It“, „Rings“ und „I Waited Forever“) und Tom Waits' ungelenkes, in Zungen gesprochenes Intro beim Titelstück. „Glossolalia“ ist Crovers bisher fokussiertestes Statement als Solokünstler. In seiner Gesamtheit zeigt das neue Album, dass Crover, so wie die Melvins in ihrem vierten Jahrzehnt weiter wachsen und sich entwickeln, auch als Solokünstler neue Schritte unternimmt. Inmitten des inspirierten Geplappers von Waits, des glorreichen Schredderns von Segall und Thayil und vielem mehr, sticht vor allem die Robustheit von Crovers Vision hervor. Diese Platte zeigt, dass seine Gesamtästhetik genauso stark wie sein legendärer Schlagzeugdonner ist.

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...

Hole Erth, Chaz Bear's eighth full-length studio record as Toro y Moi, is the genre shapeshifter's most unexpected and bold move to date, with Bear diving headlong into rap-rock, Soundcloud rap and Y2K emo. The album blitzes anthemic pop-punk next to autotuned, melancholic rap - two genres that inform one another now more than ever before _ and packs in the most features ever on a Toro y Moi album. A sense of nostalgia sneaks its way into almost every Toro y Moi release, but angst is an emotion that Bear has never intentionally explored the way he does here. Tracks like "Tuesday'' channel a specific, yet forever-relatable sense of adolescent unease. A distorted guitar riff leads into a repeating chorus that conjures misunderstood teenagers singing aloud, maybe too loud, while riding bikes through American suburbs. This foreboding can also be heard on "HOV," though not without poking some fun with lines like "Romance is so cold / My advice? To bring a coat." Bear has the energy, but is acutely aware that his energy isn't forever. At a time when the internet is blending multiple genres into one at an increasingly rapid pace, Bear accomplishes the rare feat of keeping up with the contemporary alternative listener. Constantly changing, evolving and experimenting is the heart of Toro y Moi, and on Hole Erth Bear challenges but also reclaims himself, embracing the myriad sounds and eras that formed him, while crashing new worlds together.

"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...

On their seventh long player The Breaks - their second for Joyful Noise Recordings - Suuns are lost in limbo. For some artists, being caught in flux may result in songs that are either naive, out of touch or both, simply as a consequence of being cut off from human civilization. But for Suuns, a band who have grown more than comfortable in the oblique and the intermediate, it actually had the opposite effect. The Breaks marks the Montreal experimental rock outfit's most emotionally resonant and tonally rich collection of music to date. The trio of Ben Shemie, Joseph Yarmush and Liam O' Neill leans more zealously than ever into their pop instincts. Yet remarkably enough, with that same dauntless abandon, Suuns have mined a more extreme sonic palette this time around, one that stretches far beyond their core fundamentals as a band. The Breaks finds Shemie, O'Neill and Yarmush gleefully experimenting with loops, synths, samples and MIDI-instruments like a post-millennial Tangerine Dream messing with downtempo triphop beats. O' Neill took point in the producer's chair for The Breaks, arranging, structuring and editing many of Shemie and Yarmush's ideas from sporadic rehearsal sessions into Pro Tools, reimagining the songs over and over during a two-year time frame. Forged between countless plane rides, road trips, van tours and text threads, The Breaks became a product of endurance and a lot of trial-and-error. It's a record forged in tight fissions of freedom, where spells of whispered intimacy - like on the stunning ballad "Doreen" - are allowed to branch out into the vast glacial dreamscapes of the album's majestic title track. It captures Suuns at their most panoramic, curious and exuberant: a constant relay of being adrift and enlightened anew, geared up to eleven. And guess what: the wheels keep on spinning.

With her proper full-length debut, Songs FromA Thousand Frames Of Mind, Virginia-born,LA-based songwriter Kate Bollinger redefinesand refines her craft with intention. Inspired bypop, rock, and folk songs of the 1960s,Bollinger and her band _ includingcollaborators Jacob Grissom, Adam Brisbin,Matthew E. White, and Sam Evian _ favor theeclectic, melodic, and majestic, supportingintimate, stream-of-consciousness lyricismwith classic instrumentation. It's a collection ofpop songs, polished yet scrappy with anunderlying punk spirit, navigating life,relationships, and growing up. The releasefollows a run of singles since her 2022 recordon Ghostly International, lauded by the likes ofNPR and The Fader, contributions to friend'sprojects (Drugdealer, Paul Cherry), and tourswith Faye Webster, Liz Phair, DevendraBanhart, and others.

Cloudy Lavender Vinyl. with you in spirit, the fourth Balance and Composure LP, is an arresting,atmospheric collection of melodic post-punk and towering rock. Due out October4 on long-time collaborator and Grammy-nominated producer Will Yip'sMemory Music, it's the band's first LP in eight years, and a thrilling full-lengthcomeback after their four-year hiatus. It thunders and stirs, dipping betweenbeautiful, crystalline arrangements and punishing, earth-shaking climaxes;in between all, a gripping, near-physical tension crackles and growls andgrooves, waiting to rip open.It's an intensely self-reflective record for vocalist and guitarist Jon Simmons,an uprooting and examination of the supports on which a life is built.Preemptive grief, wrestling with god and faith, familial responsibility, familialmortality_these are the things Simmons was carrying while writing thismaterial. They're also things he was trying, for better and worse, to avoid_hence the record's title.with you in spirit feels like the work of songwriters reaching new heights, exploringnew depths. Sometimes, the record itself feels like a band grapplingwith its own avoidance, its own mortality, and deciding to face these thingsthe only way they know how. Balance and Composure are with us in spirit,yes, but in the flesh, too, for now.

Cloudy Baby Blue Vinyl.with you in spirit, the fourth Balance and Composure LP, is an arresting,atmospheric collection of melodic post-punk and towering rock. Due out October4 on long-time collaborator and Grammy-nominated producer Will Yip'sMemory Music, it's the band's first LP in eight years, and a thrilling full-lengthcomeback after their four-year hiatus. It thunders and stirs, dipping betweenbeautiful, crystalline arrangements and punishing, earth-shaking climaxes;in between all, a gripping, near-physical tension crackles and growls andgrooves, waiting to rip open.It's an intensely self-reflective record for vocalist and guitarist Jon Simmons,an uprooting and examination of the supports on which a life is built.Preemptive grief, wrestling with god and faith, familial responsibility, familialmortality_these are the things Simmons was carrying while writing thismaterial. They're also things he was trying, for better and worse, to avoid_hence the record's title.with you in spirit feels like the work of songwriters reaching new heights, exploringnew depths. Sometimes, the record itself feels like a band grapplingwith its own avoidance, its own mortality, and deciding to face these thingsthe only way they know how. Balance and Composure are with us in spirit,yes, but in the flesh, too, for now.

Debut standalone VHF album by the Elkhorn duo of Drew Gardner and Jesse Sheppard, a tight set of six studio recordings in a variety of moods and featuring a lot of new sound textures. Elkhorn’s prolific stream of releases since 2016 has highlighted their mastery of sprawling long-form, acoustic-driven hypno-jams, with an emphasis on live performance (including on their collaboration with Pelt’s Mike Gangloff on the Shackamaxon Concert album). The Red Valley is a more layered and composed-sounding set, with the duo overdubbing extensively on top of their own dual guitars. Leading off the LP, “Crystal Hummingbird” features one of their signature minor-modal vamps, with layers of fuzz bass, zither, and frame drum providing weight and psychedelic density. “Gray Salt Trail” continues the vibe, with thick fuzz vibraphone supplementing the cinematic palate, leading into the spare side-closer “Black Wind Of Kayenta,” where Sheppard plays electric 12-string and Gardner solos on acoustic guitar.

Side two starts with “Road to Chaco Canyon,” a brooding duet that builds momentum with Gardner’s insistent frame drum cadence, dropping down into the quiet string pool of “Inside Spider Rock” (featuring Fern Knight’s Jesse Sparhawk on gloriously swirling lever harp) and the graceful finale “Jackrabbit Hops.”

Hayden Thorpe hat sein drittes Soloalbum für den 27.September angekündigt. "Ness" ist inspiriert von Orford Ness in Suffolk, einem ehemaligen Militärstandort für die Entwicklung von Waffen während beider Weltkriege und des Kalten Krieges. Das 1993 vom National Trust erworbene und der Verwilderung überlassene Gebiet ist bis heute ein Ort des Paradoxen, des Geheimnisses und der ständigen Entwicklung. Thorpe's "Ness" ist eine Ode an Orford Ness, an den physischen Ort und an das Buch, das ihn inspiriert hat. Mit Wort und Bild haben der britische Bestseller-Autor Robert Macfarlane und Stanley Donwood darin einen kleinen modernen Mythos geschaffen. Teils Novelle, teils Prosagedicht, teils Mysterienspiel - in "Ness" vereinen sich ihre Fähigkeiten zu einer verblüffenden, beunruhigenden Wirkung und Thorpe erweckt die Lieder darin zum Leben.

JP’s historic restoration carpentry has continued to be a baseline for his relationship to music; the yin to his yang, the Burt to his Ernie, the Dolly to his Porter. It was through this concurrent line of work that he met another twice-initialed singer with a penchant for old Americana music, obscure film, and overly elaborate ethnic meal preparations: one JD McPherson. The two became fast friends and would eventually, through many twists, turns, false starts, and biblically-proportionate plagues, enter a modest studio in Nashville to record Harris’ latest album.

Over the course of nine months in 2023, they recorded a sometimes lush, sometimes sparse, and sometimes jarring country album of Harris’ originals, loudly and violently squelching any attempt to pigeon-hole a song into any subgenre of country music. Only albums by Lee Hazelwood and an obscure folk album Waylon Jennings made when his hair was still short were allowed to be mentioned in reference. Featuring the guest vocals of Erin Rae, The Watson Twins, Shovels & Rope, and producer JD McPherson himself, the record is equal parts satire, reflection, and apology to those that would listen.

In a musical landscape of period-correct reproduction, “outlaw” internet posturing, and flavor-of-the-month variants on country, “JP Harris Is A Trash Fire” burns bright as a dumpster in a Walmart parking lot on a moonless night; some will fear it, some will gravitate to its acrid warmth, and most will have no idea what to make of the situation. Harris has been steadily elbowing the definitive boundaries of “country music” wider with every album, both sonically and lyrically, and his latest piece of self described “Avant-Country” is no exception.

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.

The Deslondes are a five-piece group of dudes from New Orleans. The band splits up songwriting and lead vocal duties among its five members, continuing its democratic ethos and musical versatility. Multiple members have released solo recordings between their sophomore release, Hurry Home (2016) and their previous release Ways & Means (2022). Now, with their latest record, Roll It Out the band continues to build on their inventive take on New Orleans country and R&B. Roll It Out finds the band leaning on the country-folk of their debut along with the sometimes-psychedelic, electrified gospel-soul sound of their previous records The sound will continue to draw comparisons to the country-funkiness of The Band, Link Wray, and others but Roll It Out is the sound of a band that understands the history of American music, while embracing their own contemporary approach.

The Deslondes are a five-piece group of dudes from New Orleans. The band splits up songwriting and lead vocal duties among its five members, continuing its democratic ethos and musical versatility. Multiple members have released solo recordings between their sophomore release, Hurry Home (2016) and their previous release Ways & Means (2022). Now, with their latest record, Roll It Out the band continues to build on their inventive take on New Orleans country and R&B. Roll It Out finds the band leaning on the country-folk of their debut along with the sometimes-psychedelic, electrified gospel-soul sound of their previous records The sound will continue to draw comparisons to the country-funkiness of The Band, Link Wray, and others but Roll It Out is the sound of a band that understands the history of American music, while embracing their own contemporary approach.

Nick Lowe returns with Indoor Safari, his first studio album in over a decade. Backed on every track by Nick's trusted collaborators Los Straitjackets, Nick exhibits his razorsharp songwriting ability through a multitude of sonic environments. With his signature wit on display for grooving numbers like "Went to a Party" and "Don't Be Nice to Me," to the heartfelt sentiment on "Blue on Blue" and "Jet Pac Boomerang," and topped with Nick breathing new life into hidden gems of the '60s like "Raincoat in the River" and "A Quiet Place," Indoor Safari demonstrates how Nick Lowe continues to make his mark as a performer, songwriter and producer over a half-century after his start in the music industry. This First Edition pressing of Indoor Safari is pressed on bamboo color vinyl and is limited to 2,000 copies worldwide.

How would you define The Wild Feathers? Some may immediately check a box for Americana – and they wouldn’t be wrong. Others may lean on a version of rock: Country-rock, folk-rock, heartland rock. They’d all be right, too. Blues? A Southern flare? Occasional punk attitude? It’s all in there. Now, it’s time to hop on the bus and sing along.

The longtime Nashville band returns this year with Sirens, a new LP of road-worn, sharply-woven tales chronicling a life worth living, love worth holding and the hard-earned lessons found along the ride. To cut the follow-up to 2021 album Alvarado – the band’s debut on independent label New West Records – The Wild Feathers decamped from Music City, U.S.A., to Los Angeles for sessions with producer Shooter Jennings (known for his work with Brandi Carlile, Turnpike Troubadours and Tanya Tucker, among others) at Dave’s Room in North Hollywood.

Listen intently and without genre in mind. Because when the so-called Sirens make their sound on this new album, don’t worry about how to define it. Just enjoy the ride.