Search "overall" 165 Items

Who am I? This is the essential question that PENCEY SLOE explore on their sophomore full-length "Neglect". The Parisian dreamgaze rockers have dedicated their entire new album to the theme of identity. While founding-member, singer, and guitarist Diane Pellotieri is the main songwriter for PENCEY SLOE, her collaboration with new drummer and percussionist Clément Hateau has overall been much closer than with the previous line-up of the band. The result of this joining of musical forces is a more mature and complex sound. Although the French continue on their path of cinematic soundscapes and beautiful psychedelic colours, their occasional drifting into darker spheres and the perfect balance between Diane's vocals and meandering guitar textures create a sonic world of their own design. While the guest-contribution of ALCEST frontman Neige on 'The Run .I' is a welcome nod to the friendship that their compatriots have exerted on PENCEY SLOE, the inclusion of Justin K. Broadrick from among others GODFLESH and JESU is a more subtle pointer to an inspirational musician for the duo. PENCEY SLOE were conceived in the French capital of Paris in 2017. The name was in part inspired by J. D. Salinger's famous "The Catcher in the Rye". In the same year as the band's inception, a 5-track eponymous EP was self-released in 2017 and their acclaimed debut album "Don’t Believe, Watch Out" appeared in 2019. With "Neglect", PENCEY SLOE embark on a dream-like journey into the dangerous waters of identity. Who we are, who we want to be, and as who we want to appear to others might not be the same. Diane Pellotieri's voice offers musical guidance, driven by subtle drumming, and carried by a stream of guitars. Hoist the anchor, rig the sails, and listen diligently.

(Cold Wave/PostPunk) SUIR is a duo based in Cologne, which started in the beginning of 2017 when Denis Wanic (guitar and vocals) and Lucia Seiß (synths, guitar and bass) joined forces for their band project. In a constant play of guitars and synthesizers, supported by minimalist and electronic drum rhythms and melancholic lyrics, SUIR produces reverberated shoegaze and cinematic, atmospheric music defined by dense and complex sound walls.This rich, velvety sound constantly shifts between post punk, dark shoegaze, heavy dark wave, and psych, but due to their own sound creations, none of these genres can be unambiguously attributed. The music combines heavily influences by contemporary bands like Bleib Modern, The Underground Youth, The KVB, The Brian Jonestown Massacre or shoegaze pioneers like My Bloody Valentine and The Jesus and Mary Chain.Their live performance is expanded by a visual program which is strongly influenced by the origin of the two from the fields of art history and philosophy and builds a filigree and gloomy overall concept. SUIR has toured from eastern to western Europe, performing as main or support acts for artists like Motorama, Lebanon Hanover, Esben and the Witch, The Underground Youth and The KVB, and appeared at major festivals that include Wave-Gotik-Treffen (WGT), NCN-Festival and Owls 'n' Bats Festival. The duo released two full albums, "Ater" and "Soma" with Black Verb Records and Manic Depression Records (Vinyl, CD, Tape). 2021 they created "Studio Session", a live session recording in SUIR's discography, which was released April 1st by Wave Tension Records (Vinyl, CD, Tape). Currently they are in the middle of the writing process for their third album.

»Hallway Waverider« is Mikko Singh’s second album for Morr Music under his Haleiwa moniker. Blending the washed-out aesthetics of dream pop with a lo-fi take on modern psychedelia, it is a fuzzy record in more than one sense. The ten songs see the multi-instrumentalist explore the sonic idiosyncrasies of analogue recording equipment while also expressing a self-assured statement by a musician who has carved out a niche for himself and feels perfectly at home in it. “This record is like me telling my teenage self that I am OK,” says Singh. “Back then, I was recording my song ideas on cassette players but held the belief that music should be recorded in an expensive studio with expensive gear in order to be real.” As it turns out however, Singh had been right from the start, having come full circle as an established artist some twenty years later.

After exploring the affordances of vintage equipment for 2019’s »Cloud Formations« LP, Singh worked with a Tascam 244 4-track cassette recorder and Tascam 388 8-track reel-to-reel recorder to transform the sounds of his vintage synthesizers, bass, the occasional guitar part, and drums supplied by Svante Karlsson for »Hallway Waverider«. By experimenting extensively with the machines’ unique sonic qualities and constantly reworking the pieces in regards to their sound signature over the course of two years, Singh has found the perfect equilibrium of electronic music and lo-fi aesthetics while navigating with ease through styles like driving surf rock, gritty garage punk and ethereal dream pop. On his new record, he seamlessly integrates these influences into anthemic yet soothing songs.

The title of the album refers to Singh’s halcyon days as a teenager spent listening to punk music and—in wintertime—skateboarding in his own bedroom. The lyrics refer to surfing as a nod to both his own experiences with riding the waves and the music genre that has provided him with inspiration throughout his career as a prolific recording artist with three solo albums under his belt. However, surfing primarily serves as a metaphor for something bigger. “It’s about things in life that are important to me; things that make me feel good and soothe the mind,” he explains. It comes as no surprise then that »Hallway Waverider« is also dedicated to a key figure in his life. “The album is an ode to my mother who passed away in 2015,” says the artist. “She made it possible for me to have a good childhood and to be able to do what I love.”

This sense of closure and being at peace with himself is also expressed in lyrics like "A sea stroll. Going slower. Feeling featherlight,” expressing a calm that perfectly mirrors the music’s steady grooves and welcoming overall feeling. Starting with the upbeat »River Park/ Sleeping Pill«; to the almost ambient, synthesizer-heavy »A Bottomless Pit«; or short, punk-inspired and bassline-driven outbursts like »Watered Down« or »Halulu Lake«; to the blissful title track that closes the album, Singh opens up a whole panorama of different moods across a broad variety of musical styles. They are connected by that rare thing: a unique musical vision expressed by an instantly recognisable sonic signature.

Odd Men Out are something of a garage-psych international super-group, with members originally hailing from Italy, Spain and the UK. Lois (drums) and Alessandro (guitar, organ, vocals) had already been playing together in legendary freakbeat trio The Embrooks since '96, while bassman Bruno had served time with moody-psych-turned-spiky-British-Beat exponents The Liquorice Experiment and Looking Glass Alice. The untried 'x' factor in this equation is frontman, guitarist, songwriter Nicolino whose love of moody 12-string folk rock and florid psychedelia shapes the overall sound of the band. Late in 2019, the quartet gathered at North Down Sound Studios in south east Kent to record the material presented here. Tracked predominantly live with a bare minimum of overdubs, this is classic 60s-inspired garage-psych, with elements of The Lemon Drops, Basement Wall and The Baroques to name but a few, yet the four never let their influences get in the way of producing quality original material.

Wellington, New Zealand four-piece Hans Pucket writes nervy but effortlessly danceable rock songs about feeling bad. Their second full-length album, No Drama, which is out via Carpark Records, gleefully captures the all-too-common twenty-something anxieties of talking too much and then being unable to find the right words to say. When frontman Oliver Devlin sings, “I’m surfing a constant wave of alarm” on the title track, it’s a compass for the other nine tracks. This is inviting and relatable music for people who, despite their best efforts, feel uncomfortable about themselves, the state of the world, and their place in it.

Both lyrically and sonically, No Drama is a departure for Hans Pucket from their 2018 debut Eczema. “I realized I didn’t want to write any more real heartbreak songs,” says Oliver Devlin. “We were and still are a live band. We're still trying to make music that’s catchy and people can dance to, but also really interesting to us: songs about growing up and finding how you exist in the world.” Songs like “My Brain Is a Vacant Space” with its blistering guitars and ebullient hooks hone in on the feeling that you have nothing to offer while “Bankrupt,” a fuzzed-out punk track, boasts lines like “I don’t know if I’ll always feel like / I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

Recorded with the band’s good friend and former tour mate Jonathan Pearce of The Beths at his Auckland studio, No Drama is full of big leaps, immaculate arrangements, and a ton of immediate grooves. “We were very ambitious when we first started recording this,” says bassist Callum Devlin. “Intentionally we left heaps of space in the track so we could add strings and horns. Because we were very measured and quite deliberate with the parts we had. It was a really fun process filling in the gaps.”

No Drama came together over several years and during its creation, the band added multi-instrumentalist Callum Passels, who provided all the horn arrangements on the LP. With Pearce producing, his other Beths bandmates like Benjamin Sinclair added string arrangements while singer Elizabeth Stokes provided backing vocals.

Overall it’s a remarkably eclectic record where the smooth pop of a track like “Kiss the Moon” can coexist perfectly with the Abbey Road freakout of “Some Good News.” “We didn’t want to be afraid of our 15-year-old self's influences,” says Oliver Devlin.” We really wanted to make an album that teenage us would just be amazed by.”

The result is Hans Pucket’s most sparkling and confident collection yet. While it’s danceable and fun, it’s also a thoughtful exploration of anxiety, a call for empathy in a turbulent time, and a relatable reminder that it’s hard to figure things out.

Marked by resilience, maturity, and the optimistic joy of a creative resurgence, Pat Green’s Miles and Miles of You is the work of an icon reclaiming ground only he himself could have ceded. Ten fresh tracks feel like the spiritual exhale of a celebrated troubadour, taking fans on a journey to the other side of turmoil… and to a place where the old ways feel new again.

Credited as one of Texas country’s modern-era founding fathers, Green has traveled many roads in the 25 years since his debut album, Dancehall Dreamer. A Grammy nominated singer-songwriter with a restless creative spirit, his career has gone beyond the bounds of a “country star” to include the work of a painter, sculptor, philanthropist, family man and more. But one constant has remained – his vision.

Green’s 14th album overall, Miles and Miles of You is also his first in nearly seven years – since his inspiration-first writing style means he won’t force a song into existence. But that philosophy also makes it possible for a whole album to arrive in a dam-burst of expression, and Green now calls Miles and Miles of You an “effortless” project.

“It was just so smooth and natural,” he says. “I write the song when it comes, and it was like ‘Man, we’re on a roll.’”

Recorded outside Austin with producer Dwight Baker (Bob Schneider, Josh Abbott Band), more of that story is revealed with each track, as Green and his band mirrored the loose vibe of the songwriting with country balladry, dancehall energy, soul-baring reflection and at times, a swampy blues strut. “The older you get, you just have more to think about,” he says. “So that’s

what this record is – a guy with more to think about, coming through a hard time and into something as fun and beautiful as creation. I’m just gonna take the ball and run with it.”

Limited edition on colored vinyl.

We've always done things our own way and without any outside pressure,” says Paul Isherwood of The Soundcarriers. “Making music like this keeps things fresh, you always lose something and gain something as you go along but I think of it as just another chapter.”

There have been many chapters in the life of the band to date and each one is defined by the singular approach and style of the group. Since forming in 2007 the band - comprised of Isherwood, Adam Cann, Dorian Conway and Leonore Wheatley - have released three albums that position them as a distinct and unique force in British music. Eschewing fads and trends that come and go, they have instead focused on honing their own sonic world that glides between woozy psychedelia, immersive grooves, subtle pop and rich, enveloping soundscapes. They’ve consistently moved at their own pace and on their own terms and on their fourth album, Wilds, they return after seven years since their last. “The sessions started in a cottage in the wilds so there's a literal meaning,” Isherwood says of the title. “But figuratively we've pretty much been in the wild for the last few years as far as a lot of people are concerned.”

The recording was staggered over a few different locations, from cottages to primary schools, before finishing in an art gallery. “The beauty of recording in non-studio studios is you have the time for the unexpected to happen,” says Isherwood. “Which is really what keeps you coming back for more.” As a result of the timeframe of the album, it’s one that has changed and grown a lot over the years. “The record has been through a lot of stages,” says Isherwood. “It's almost been circular. We started off wanting to do an album of more shorter, concise tracks and then sort of sidestepped into some more spacey ambient ideas so in a way the album is kind of a synthesis of the two phases, overall carrying on with many of the themes and influences of the first three but with a more focused approach.”

The opening ‘Waves’ leaps out the gate with an infectious hook kissed by a touch of French pop before leaping into a devilishly catchy chorus and into a mini prog-like flute breakdown. It sets the tone for an album that is rich in adventure and unpredictability that manages to balance experimentation with accessibility. ‘At The Time’ is almost unrelenting in its grinding charge, managing to create a groove that cracks and pulses at the same time, ‘Wilds’ is a gorgeously floating piece of music that skips along with strutting bass as Wheatley’s vocals merge melody with texture magically. The closing ‘Happens Too Soon gently stirs to life with an almost pastoral folk air to it, as it slowly builds into swirling psych pop rich in texture before reaching a rousing crescendo. “I feel this album sums up a lot of our influences,” says Isherwood. “There’s a strong folk influence in the sense of the actual songwriting but musically we wanted to create songs that were like those rare oddities you find on a bizarre charity shop record. A collection of "one offs" capturing a moment rather than trying to make a hit song.”

This sense of it being an album of unique songs is clearly apparent throughout but it also maintains a natural flow and cohesion. This is something that stems from the band’s approach to songwriting for the record. “A lot of the tracks started with a feel or groove,” says Isherwood. “Then building it into a more concise arranged piece. We were conscious that we didn't want the recording to sound too over-polished so although a lot of the tracks were quite painstaking in how they evolved we wanted the actual recording to be quite raw and not be reliant on cutting things up or overly editing things. We wanted it to sound natural rather than perfect.”

A Notwist concert is a Notwist concert is a Notwist concert. The band around the core trio of Cico Beck and the Acher brothers Markus and Micha usually takes its studio recordings as a mere starting point for their live performances, considering them to be possibilities that need to be explored further. This is especially true for »Vertigo Days - Live from Alien Research Center,« a live record made under unusual circumstances. The band members rearranged songs from their ambitious 2021 album »Vertigo Days« in their studio in Weilheim to record and film a special performance. The songs took on a new life, becoming more psychedelic and intense when rearranged into a spontaneous, Krautrock-esque collage.

»Vertigo Days« was meant to transcend the conventional notion of a band as well as the creative and geographic boundaries inscribed into that concept. And even though life had other plans, this is precisely what the album did when it was released to both commercial success and critical acclaim in early 2021. Contributions by Tenniscoats singer Saya, Angel Bat Dawid, Ben LaMar Gay, Juana Molina, among others, as well as new member Theresa Loibl on bass clarinet, harmonium, and keyboard, expanded the band’s sonic palette, stylistic range, and even lyrical focus through the addition of different instruments, artistic approaches, and languages.

All of that was missing when the band retreated to their studio—dubbed Alien Research Center in response to, and in spite of, a nearby church called Christian Outreach Center—to further explore the possibilities of the source material. The band members considered this a challenge rather than an insurmountable problem and not only accepted, but fully embraced it. Trying to work as little as possible with the computers and samples—Saya’s voice on »Ship« being a notable exception—the band rearranged six tracks from »Vertigo Days« and a piece from the »One of Those Days« film soundtrack in order to allow themselves to improvise more freely, especially thanks to Loibl, who takes on a key role during these 45 minutes.

The intro sets the tone for what’s to come, contrasting loose jazz drumming with curious synthesizer rhythms in an abstract rendition of the first sounds that greeted the listeners on »Vertigo Days«. While the next four tracks—»Into Love / Stars«, »Exit Strategy To Myself«, »Where You Find Me« and »Ship«—follow the chronology of the album, they use the originals as a blank slate for further experimentation. The first track morphs into a feverish long-form jam that draws on the underlying groove to shift the dynamics from and leave behind the song structure of the studio version. It’s an exemplary piece in a recording that sees each individual musician leaving their mark on the overall sound, all while being perfectly attuned to what everyone else is doing around them. This continues up until the record’s triumphant finale, a whirring rendition of »Loose Ends.«

»Vertigo Days - Live from Alien Research Center« is at once a snapshot of a certain moment in the band’s history and the quintessential Notwist live record: a unique performance that both explores the untapped potential of the »Vertigo Days« studio recordings while also serving as an inspiration for upcoming live shows.

As with the studio album, the artwork for »Vertigo Days - Live from Alien Research Center« features photographs by Japanese artist Lieko Shiga, taken in the '00s.

Debt Rag, adult punk from olympia, wa~"no!" to settling on previous, riding laurels, what not. but the punk bonafides ARE in order: [members of Grass Widow, Preening, gSp].and SO-Max Nordile, Lillian Maring. Marissa Magic collaboration so easily fruitful and satisfying it had to be reanimated with geographic convenience in mind. revisioning composition, against nostalgia. successful? who knows, but it does bring joy!quality remains incidental, imaginary, rear viewed.themes - bodies, geological scale, infinite hillsthemes - anti-work, work, ecosystems"it looks good off paper"surfing disillusionment, meditations on the day-to-day. minimalist accretion - pointillist, not angular. an organic reduction of layers. and the pleasure of beaking the rind. parameter revamp! try the unfamiliar new thing! see the breaking glass in the underpass, etc. to honor accident: no toad left unstirred, no knowledge necessary, a whole novel everything.cooperatively generative, minus guitar. horns horning toodle doots, keyboard twinkles and splats/ bass calm thuds and dead ring/ collision sounds squeezed from a floor tom and cymbal and cowbell, unison drone, getting sloopy, keys still in the door. overall a thing to listen to and ponder.

Fire and brimstone from Icelandic Black Metal band Altari, as their volcanic new album Kröflueldar erupts via Svart Records on 14.04.23. Named after a series of eruptions that happened at Krafla in Iceland in 1975, Kröflueldar represents the constant threat of ash that Altari’s music lives under. Kröflueldar was a 9 year series of eruptions, and since the album took almost 9 years to create, Altari felt that it was a fitting title for their scalding and ferocious music.

Fans of Craft, Deathspell Omega, Blut Aus Nord and the more well known Icelandic Black Metal bands like Misþyrming and Sinmara will revel in digging into Kröflueldar’s rotten soil, but there is something far more experimental and avant-garde to be reaped within the whirlwind of sound that Altari produces. With their foundations of sound in the classic eras of early Judas Priest, songs like Leðurblo?kufjandinn call to mind the discordant soundclash of bands like Voivod, Virus and even Sonic Youth in the interplay of melody and disharmony. The bewildering, but utterly charming frenzy of taking the raw sound of metal to the limits breaks through from Altari’s literal geological location in a landscape in constant upheaval. Guitarist and Vocalist Ó.Þ.Guðjónsson notes that; “bands such as Blue Öyster Cult, Interpol, Killing Joke were a big inspiration for us as well for the use of clean guitars as the sound for leads. I expressed a desire to find some balance between the overdriven rhythm and melodic yet clean leads. These bands helped us find that.”

It is through these uncommon and almost blasphemous influences that Altari proves to be a rare gem in the much vaulted Icelandic Black Metal crown, giving Kröflueldar the dna of a band that feels they have so much potential and fervor brewing up in their molten kiln. Tracks like Sy?rulu?ður with the vocals of Gyða Margrét are as delicate and subtle, cloaked in smoky atmosphere, as they are dark and brooding, giving hints of bands like This Mortal Coil and Cocteau Twins.

When Guðjónsson states that the intention was an “overall desire for us to get away from the sound that has been a gateway for others here in the scene” they imbued Kröflueldar with a beguiling essence that’s hard to pin down, but magnetically unique. The co-production work of Stephen Lockhart, a staple of the Icelandic Black Metal scene and sound, is of quality but something very different from his signature work, born from what Guðjónsson describes as a need for a “new sonic approach,” Kröflueldar’s sonic eruptions, from the low earthy rumblings to the cacophonic and epic high notes, feels thoroughly worked but raw enough to be unsettling in the new ground it uncovers. Svart Records head honcho Tomi Pulkki expands on the reasons behind his new signing, saying that; “I found their approach refreshingly idiosyncratic in the way it mixes cleaner sounds with distortion. Altari brings something new to Black Metal and that is a rare thing these days”.

Adorned with the psychedelic album cover by guitarist K.R.Guðmundsson, which evokes the storms that come when a volcano erupts, Kröflueldar is a worthy song of praise to the wild and destructive threat of nature unleashed.

Fire and brimstone from Icelandic Black Metal band Altari, as their volcanic new album Kröflueldar erupts via Svart Records on 14.04.23. Named after a series of eruptions that happened at Krafla in Iceland in 1975, Kröflueldar represents the constant threat of ash that Altari’s music lives under. Kröflueldar was a 9 year series of eruptions, and since the album took almost 9 years to create, Altari felt that it was a fitting title for their scalding and ferocious music.

Fans of Craft, Deathspell Omega, Blut Aus Nord and the more well known Icelandic Black Metal bands like Misþyrming and Sinmara will revel in digging into Kröflueldar’s rotten soil, but there is something far more experimental and avant-garde to be reaped within the whirlwind of sound that Altari produces. With their foundations of sound in the classic eras of early Judas Priest, songs like Leðurblo?kufjandinn call to mind the discordant soundclash of bands like Voivod, Virus and even Sonic Youth in the interplay of melody and disharmony. The bewildering, but utterly charming frenzy of taking the raw sound of metal to the limits breaks through from Altari’s literal geological location in a landscape in constant upheaval. Guitarist and Vocalist Ó.Þ.Guðjónsson notes that; “bands such as Blue Öyster Cult, Interpol, Killing Joke were a big inspiration for us as well for the use of clean guitars as the sound for leads. I expressed a desire to find some balance between the overdriven rhythm and melodic yet clean leads. These bands helped us find that.”

It is through these uncommon and almost blasphemous influences that Altari proves to be a rare gem in the much vaulted Icelandic Black Metal crown, giving Kröflueldar the dna of a band that feels they have so much potential and fervor brewing up in their molten kiln. Tracks like Sy?rulu?ður with the vocals of Gyða Margrét are as delicate and subtle, cloaked in smoky atmosphere, as they are dark and brooding, giving hints of bands like This Mortal Coil and Cocteau Twins.

When Guðjónsson states that the intention was an “overall desire for us to get away from the sound that has been a gateway for others here in the scene” they imbued Kröflueldar with a beguiling essence that’s hard to pin down, but magnetically unique. The co-production work of Stephen Lockhart, a staple of the Icelandic Black Metal scene and sound, is of quality but something very different from his signature work, born from what Guðjónsson describes as a need for a “new sonic approach,” Kröflueldar’s sonic eruptions, from the low earthy rumblings to the cacophonic and epic high notes, feels thoroughly worked but raw enough to be unsettling in the new ground it uncovers. Svart Records head honcho Tomi Pulkki expands on the reasons behind his new signing, saying that; “I found their approach refreshingly idiosyncratic in the way it mixes cleaner sounds with distortion. Altari brings something new to Black Metal and that is a rare thing these days”.

Adorned with the psychedelic album cover by guitarist K.R.Guðmundsson, which evokes the storms that come when a volcano erupts, Kröflueldar is a worthy song of praise to the wild and destructive threat of nature unleashed.

“Late in 2021, Slow Season announced they’d become Westing, and that Ben McLeod (also of Nashville’s All Them Witches) was now in the four-piece on lead guitar alongside guitarist, vocalist and keyboardist Daniel Story Rice, bassist Hayden Doyel and drummer / recording engineer Cody Tarbell. Their new LP (fourth overall for Riding Easy), Future, is not coincidentally titled. “Says Rice, ‘We wanted to hit the reset button on some things and so we included a new band name to that list. Fresh start, for the psychological effect of it. We first met Ben in 2014 opening for All Them Witches in San Diego, and we did that again in 2016 and he and Cody corresponded about tape machines, music production, and other similar nerd stuff. We started swapping a few ideas early in 2021 and then flew him out for four days in August 2021. We got Future mostly down in that short span and did some remote stuff for overdubs, but nothing major. Obviously, our creative processes jelled pretty well to allow for such an efficiently productive session.’ “So the story of Westing, and of Future, is about change, but the music makes itself so immediately familiar, it’s so welcoming, that it hardly matters. For about ten years, the Visalia, California, outfit wandered the earth representing a new generational interpretation of classic heavy rock. The tones, warm. The melodies, sweet. The boogie, infectious. They went to ground after supporting their 2016 self-titled third album, and clearly it was time for something different. “Is Future the future? Hell, we should be so lucky. What Westing manifest in these songs is schooled in the rock of yore and theirs purely, and in that, Future looks forward with the benefit of the lessons learned across three prior full-lengths (and the accompanying tours) while offering the kind of freshness that comes with a debut. No, they’re not the same kids who released Mountains in 2014, and the tradeoff is being able to convey maturity, evolving creativity and stage-born dynamic on Future without sacrificing the spirit and passion that has underscored their work all along.” – JJ Koczan

Fans of the innovations and originality that sprang from the L.A. underground of the late 1970s and ’80s often ask, “What’s Paul B. Cutler been up to?” A vital participant in the Los Angeles music scene of that period as bandleader, songwriter, musician and producer, Cutler’s work—in particular his guitar playing—with The Consumers, 45 Grave, Vox Pop and The Dream Syndicate is still admired by fans and an influence on anyone interested in that period and the styles that developed from it. In 2014, “Ryan Adams contacted me and wanted to form a band. He loved 45 Grave, he wanted to do some goth / punk, whatever you want to call it. That’s right up my alley. He’s amazingly talented and inspiring to work with. We did that for a while, and I wrote a bunch of songs.” Enthused about his new material, Cutler continued recording songs with just his signature electric guitar style and vocals. As this was developing, another vet of the early L.A. scene—Brad Laner of Medicine and Savage Republic—got in touch with Cutler. Soon Laner was mixing, co-producing, playing keyboards as well as adding the rhythm section. The overall process took some time, with songwriting beginning in 2014. When reflecting on the music that comprises Les Fleurs, “To me, and it does not sound like it, but because of the philosophy I had while producing it, it’s punk. I come from the original punk, before it was a genre. Before it was a ‘sound.’ When I got to LA in 1977 there were about twenty, maybe thirty bands and they all sounded very different. The Screamers, The Deadbeats, so many different takes on what music could be. There was no chance for commercial success so we all just did what we wanted. I never stopped. So philosophically I consider this punk rock, made in its original spirit although nobody would recognize it as such. I am a punk to this day.” So that, dear reader, is the basic story. Now it’s up to you to see what you recognize in Paul B. Cutler’s Les Fleurs.

"During’s self-titled debut is a pipe bomb of originality, set to detonate and shake the foundation of the tired post-punk sounds of today when it hits via Chunklet on ______. And while some more obvious influences show across the ten track LP—like Devo, Sonic Youth and Gang of Four—its strength lies in some of it’s wilder ideas and influences, creating a wholly new approach as yet unseen in the otherwise very tired genre of post-punk. 'I've always been super influenced by post punk stuff. The Fall is definitely up there, as well as Wire and the Urinals, even the Gizmos,' says Fisher emphatically. 'The coolest thing about recording this LP was we didn't know what we were gonna end up with, it just sort of came out the way it came out. So while those influences are there because that's where we come from, none of it is totally clear because it’s jumbled up with so many of our other ideas.' Starting with a dizzying and frantic base, During's sound can best be classified using the hyper-cerebral approach of Devo, garnished with touches of their more frenetic speedfreak acolytes Minneapolis’ Uranium Club. It’s from there that things drift into territories unseen, with a cold vocal delivery not unlike Mark E Smith, a quirky and free-spirited approach like the Cardiacs, atonal riffing that recalls Sonic Youth, and a mildly funk-focused bed to tether down the madness a la A Certain Ratio or the Contortions. All that comes baked in with the care in songwriting found in the Wipers and nods to favorites like the Adaptors, Urinals and even This Heat. During's debut is boundary-pushing with limitless potential, visionary ideas and a sound that is ten steps ahead of the current legions trying to recreate The Fall and Joy Division. Despite all of the serious references and the nods to dizzying originality, During are quick to point out that this is a fun record at the end of the day. 'I'm not really capable of consciously making fun music but I feel like this record is fun, and much more than I knew I was capable of,' chuckles Cory Plump in response to the overall feel of the record. 'It’s just sort of upbeat—that may be the testament to the people in the band or it could just be because I’ve never done anything like this musically before, so I really extended myself in a way that I like.' Grab some headphones and crack open a coldie down by the beach to create the optimal experience for one of the most mind-bending and brilliant records of the year and in recent memory. A record like this doesn’t come around too often, but maybe a listen or two will conjure a few of your own ideas."—Fred Passaro, Creem Magazine

Influential Los Angeles-based doom metal group Saint Vitus was formed in 1979, with Black Sabbath and Black Flag noteworthy references. Seventh album COD, from 1992, made former Count Raven frontman Christian Lindersson lead vocalist, the guitars now texturally layered, and the drums bathed in heavy reverb, hearkening older styles of metal. Overall, it’s a testament to underachieves and burnouts everywhere, directly addressing their fans as the ‘Children of Doom’ of the title. This is an underrated album for all discerning doom metal lovers, and unmissable for those who seek a fuller understanding of St Vitus’ progression.

Uwanosora's alias unit, "Uwanosora'67", will finally release the "Portrait in Rock'n'Roll" series on LP! The two titles will be released simultaneously on August 23rd this summer from Kissing Fish Records!! The album "Portrait in Rock'n'Roll (2015)" was produced completely independently and distributed only at a limited number of stores. The style of Uwanosora's first album "Uwanosora" (2014), which was based on 70's pop music, has changed drastically, and now includes the essence of popular music such as Phil Spector, the Beach Boys, and the Niagara Sound, creating the Wall of Sound of the 10's. The overall sound is fresh, and this is the last work produced by vocalist Megumi Iemoto and guitarist and composers Hirohide Kadoya during their student days.

Since forming in 2004, Ohio rock band Smug Brothers have enjoyed a relaxed, almost nonchalant, approach to writing and recording, with most albums being minor Big Bangs - instant and electric. New LP In the Book of Bad Ideas, on the other hand, was a struggle against entropy - the disorder caused by plagues and departing personnel.

Singer, guitarist, and songwriter Kyle Melton wrote the majority of the tunes in "bunker fashion" during the miserable pandemic summer of 2020, then slowly started recording them with bassist Kyle Sowash, lead guitarist Scott Tribble, and drummer/Smug Brothers co-pilot Don Thrasher in 2021. That November, his contributions partially completed, Tribble decamped the band due to a new job and new demands. The exit was amicable, yet left the group in a lead guitar lurch. Melton had little choice but to enter the ring and play solos on some songs.

"That was both fun and frustrating," Melton admits. "Other than a handful of tracks over 15 years, I've not really done much lead playing with Smug Brothers. When Scott left, I was initially like 'Great. What now?' It took me a few weeks to psyche myself up to just go for it."

Finally, belatedly, both In the Book of Bad Ideas and its sister EP Emerald Lemonade were finished in the spring of 2022. And against the odds, the two-year slog produced pleasantly surprising results. On In the Book of Bad Ideas, the band's typical, semi-60s sound - boasting biting leads and breakneck jangles - is now fully integrated with synthesizers and crafted with a cool gloss, anachronistically creating the first Smug Brothers album of the early 80s. While all songs pop with Pac-Man vibrancy, tracks such as "Helium Drag" and "Enceladus Lexicon" could be lost classics by The Cars.

As Melton reveals, "I'm not sure it was a conscious move, honestly. We've been expanding our sonic palette significantly since [2017 LP] Disco Maroon; Scott had a lot to do with that push, especially with his keyboards. I just kept running with those moves. I was thinking more in terms of a 'slicker' sound on the tracks, adding more polish and really trying to get a better overall production."

Clearly the perseverance paid off. But album highlight "What Starts Out as Fun" begs an obvious question. "Yes, it's all still fun," Melton says with a laugh. "It's just more work now. We're really pushing ourselves, exploring new approaches. We are already working on new material, so we will just keep going forward and make it up as we go. Hopefully, In the Book of Bad Ideas gets a favorable reception that can give us a good headwind into the future."

180g 2LP 45rpm

Analogue Productions (Atlantic 75 Series)

Celebrating the 75th Anniversary of Atlantic Records!

First Genesis album to feature drummer/vocalist Phil Collins!

180-gram 45 RPM double LP

Mastered directly from the original master tape by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering

Pressed at Quality Record Pressings

Tip-on old style gatefold double pocket jackets with film lamination by Stoughton Printing

Genesis' album Nursery Cryme, released in November 1971, marked a significant moment in the band's evolution and showcased the burgeoning talents of their new drummer and vocalist, Phil Collins, plus guitarist Steve Hackett.

Nursery Cryme saw the band take a more aggressive direction of some songs, with substantially improved drumming. The opening piece, "The Musical Box" combined the band's trademark mix of twelve-string guitars with harsh electric guitars and keyboards. The song, a macabre fairy story set in Victorian Britain, became the inspiration for the album cover, and went on to be a live favorite.

This album played a pivotal role in establishing the band's progressive rock sound and laid the foundation for their future success.

Although Peter Gabriel remained the band's primary vocalist, Collins' distinctive voice began to shine through on tracks like "For Absent Friends" and "Harlequin." Collins' vocals added a new dimension to the band's sound, blending seamlessly with Gabriel's, and hinting at the vocal prowess that would later define his solo career. His emotive and versatile singing style contributed to the album's overall charm.

Nursery Cryme is regarded as a crucial stepping stone in Genesis' discography, and with time, became recognized as a progressive rock classic. The album received acclaim for its adventurous and intricate compositions, combining elements of folk, rock, and classical music. Genesis' signature storytelling lyrics, often filled with surreal and whimsical imagery, captivated listeners and added depth to the music.

Critics praised the band's musicianship, with particular attention to the intricate guitar work of Steve Hackett and the melodic basslines of Mike Rutherford.

All the hallmarks of a top-notch Analogue Productions reissue are here for you to savor: Mastered directly from the original master tape by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering and cut at 45 RPM. Pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Quality Record Pressings, and housed in tip-on old style gatefold double pocket jackets with film lamination by Stoughton Printing.

It is hard to know how many times the mythology and mystery of Goat’s backstory can be written about, but new release ‘Medicine’ does away with any need to dwell on the past, returning with a more introspective, slightly mellower psych-folk sound that remains recognisably them.

There is a consistently restrained, warm feel across the whole work, and the band suggest that the overall theme of the album is about “the impermanence of life in different ways: sickness, relationships, love, death and how our time is finite”.

At times the album’s sound has nods to classic Swedish 70s psych/prog/folk acts such as Arbete & Fritid, Charlie & Esdor and Träd, Gräs & Stenar. ‘Vakna’ takes on this influence, progressing across nearly six minutes of swaying, warping guitar solos, without ever breaking out into chaos.

The ‘Medicine’ of the title may refer to a number of salves, or the value of relationships and love: “For our families, friends, society, this could be done through the use of psychedelics, through meditation, through learning from other people, staying curious and never settling for a ‘solid’ identity”.

Flute is foregrounded throughout, threading across several tracks from the opener ‘Impermanence And Death’. It duets elegantly with keening synth lines through the beautiful ‘You’ll Be Alright’, and leads the melody of the closing track ‘Tripping In The Graveyard’. ‘tsod’, with its backdrop of sitar and acoustic guitar, has an indelible vocal melody that could be a lost George Harrison recording.

The title of the full album version of first single, ‘I Became The Unemployment Office’, comes from an expression for someone taking advantage of you. The joyous, echo-laden groove of penultimate track ‘Join The Resistance’ bursts into life and continues to build to a moment of release with a huge Sabbath-esque riff.

Whatever your dosage, and regardless of your remedy, it is now time to take your medicine.

Formed in 2001, the psychedelic rock trio Circus Devils features vocalist Robert Pollard, backed by brothers Todd Tobias and Tim Tobias.

In their first album in six years, and their fifteenth overall, Circus Devils is back with Squeeze The Needle, a funhouse romp full of rock and roll swagger and childlike glee. The pounding psychedelia of the single “The Owl Presents…” harkens back to The Doors. Mixed into the twenty-track song collage are heavy rock thumpers (“Street Toughs,” “Mama’s Got A Brand New Snake”), cryptic interludes (“Age Of Transfusion”), and pretty acoustic pieces (“Difficult Dreamer,” “The Joke is Over”).

Erik Nervous (aka Erik Hart to his folks) has produced at least an EP a year since 2015, releasing his music on a long list of American indies, such as Warm Ratio, Total Punk, Neck Chop, Lumpy, and Digital Regress. There was a short break for the Covid-19 pandemic, but even then, Erik hooked up with two friends, as the Beta Blockers. Erik also happens to be one of the top punk recording engineers in the Midwest and has been playing synth in the Spits since 2021. Immaturity marks the return of Erik Nervous as a solo artist. The thirty-nine minute long playing rock album will be co-released by FatCat (uk) and Feel It (us) on November 3, 2023. Most of Immaturity was written, as it was recorded, in the basement of Erik’s rural North Eastern Indiana home—the same house he’s lived all his life. The title of the record reflects Erik’s refusal to grow up. Song subjects range from anxiety to astral projection. A big fan of fellow self-taught “outsider” artists, and the DIY ethic, Erik’s sonic armoury contains yellowed plastic Casiotones, Yamaha Portasounds, and a smiling cat-shaped Meowsic keyboard, all purchased from yard sales, Goodwills, and misspelled eBay auctions. These, and a Tyco toy guitar all add to the album’s nostalgic retreat back into a treasured childhood, and its overall irresistible, enthusiasm-packed, perhaps tongue-in-cheek, joyful punch. However, don’t let the self-depreciating playfulness fool you. Erik is totally schooled, and has serious chops.

Titled Dawn of the Axe, Cruel Force's long-awaited new album is, in many ways, a new chapter for the band. As presaged by that short-length, Dawn of the Axe harkens to dustier, more archaic times - ones where subgenre delineations weren't so strict and all was mostly Heavy Metal. For sure, Cruel Force can still thrash with the best of them - regular thrash, "blackthrash," whatever - but their sound carries a strong old-style speed metal edge reminiscent of '80s Kreator, Iron Angel, and Germany's Deathrow, sharp as an axe and just as lethal. And while the blackened elements of the first two albums have been dialed back some here, the overall speed of Lp#3 is, in fact, faster. But as Dawn of the Axe slices onward, it soon becomes apparent that that the quartet are subtly integrating a more rarefied field of influences, with the mysticism of '70s Rainbow and especially Scorpions most prominent as well as the blue-collar thrust of early US metal - again, all before the development of speed metal or thrash. Thus, the nine songs comprising the 39-minute album exude a wider variety of moods and dynamics, and also sees Cruel Force exploring their more epic side, with three of those songs topping six minutes. No matter the mood or dynamic, though, energy bristles from every second of Dawn of the Axe - riff, rhythm, lead, vocal, Everything - and with the slightly-more-atmospheric recording style (or a more "mysterious" production, perhaps), it all gels together to create the band's strongest and most complete statement to date. No matter how you (axe)slice it, there's no wimping out whatsoever! It's rare for a band to be away a full decade and then come back with their best work, but such is the case with Cruel Force and Dawn of the Axe. There's some strange magick brewing in the Devil's Dungeon, and they've crossed the Styx to bring you that Power Surge!

This record is massive and amazing. Nowhere To Go But Up is Guided By Voices’ third album of 2023 (and thirty-ninth overall) and is a sprawling, wild adventure. With virtually no choruses and just two repeated lyrics in forty minutes, GBV is audacious and unafraid.

One of the most fully realized works that Guided By Voices has created, Nowhere To Go But Up showcases an expert rock band at the top of their game. The band is on a roll and unstoppable. Following their monumental 40th Anniversary Celebration in Dayton, Ohio, GBV begins their fifth decade with a bang!

Univers Zero's new album (since 10 years) follows the lineage of 'Phosphorescent Dreams', originally released only on CD in Japan in 2014, and reissued as an LP on the Sub Rosa label in 2019. Lueur is the fruit of two years' work and reflection, the foundations of which were laid by Daniel Denis (keyboards, drums, percussion...), then enriched by the contributions of Nicolas Dechêne (guitars), Kurt Budé (clarinet / bass clarinet) and Nicolas Denis (bass, percussion, vocals), all three present on Phosphorescent Dreams.

With this reduced line-up, Lueur offers a dense journey, rooted in the balance between power and calm, raging and serene sound. A balance, too, between complex arrangements and more contemplative moments. While this album continues the avant-rock tradition of Univers Zero, it also features some very short pieces, more electronic, tribal and haunting sounds, and voice work that is new to the U.Z. universe. Between tradition and subtle evolution, Lueur is a major new contribution to the discography of this band, which will be celebrating its fiftieth anniversary in 2024.

Univers Zero represents one of the longest-living bands in Belgium. It was established in 1974. Drummer Daniel Denis had the brilliant idea to gather together a team of professionals sharing the same taste for music. The band has adopted an instrumental progressive style. Over the last couple of decades, the band has also implemented a series of influences from chamber music - most commonly, chamber music from the 20th century. Even if the line-up changes a lot over the years, the overall sound of UZ remained fairly consistent.

Since 2011, Mike"s been a Drag City stalwart, first with Sic Alps, then as a solo and with The Peacers - but Mike "The Mighty Flashlight" Fellows has been a behind-the-scenes figure at Drag City since the early early days, playing live and on record with Royal Trux, Silver Jews and Will Oldham. Mike D"s music, in all phases, takes the form of a next-phase roots-pop: soaked in the traditional waters of rock and roll and passed through a variety of after-punk sonic sieves, highlighted with DIY and lo-fi values, and making a jolly hallucinatory racket, at that! He prefers a particular density of obtuse angles colliding sweet and hot noise, an arrangement he has perfected over all his Sic Alps/solo/The Peacers years; his innate understanding of the mechanics of a pop song wends purposefully through the junk-strewn landscape, sharing secrets with cipher in hand. Playing in this cracked kingdom of sound/garden of verse, Mighty Flashlight alternately accents and balances Mike"s eccentricities with his playing and knob-spinning - and with the Flashlight shining bright upon him, Donovan"s serpentine path becomes ever so much more elastic, heightened from line to line, change to change, its motility creating different shapes in our ears. Mighty"s own kind of stereo imagining informs Donovan"s smoky subterranea with additional depth of field, while still allowing all the wayward details within the arrangement to diverge as one. Mike and Mighty wind it all together: art punk utterance and top 40 radio junk of yore, the primitivity that formed recorded music in its youth, honkytonk romanticism, liminal chamber-folk and ever-present disassociated psychedelia, transformed via self-medication into a gleeful, extramusical ennui while giving the listener impetus to sing along with Mike"s patented unlikely combos of melody and lyric.

Clay Pipe Music is thrilled to announce The Beacons by Vic Mars - the enigmatic producers third LP for the label. Since 2019s Inner Roads and Outer Paths his music has found a new audience having been used as the soundtrack to the game I am Dead by British interactive studio Hollow Ponds.

While his previous two albums were inspired by the pastoral landscapes of Herefordshire, The Beacons, embarks on a journey westward into Wales, inviting listeners into the rugged terrain of the Brecon Beacons and the Black Mountains. Using a darker more ominous sonic palette, and pushing the sound of the Moog synthesizer to the fore, The Beacons captures the feel of mountains silhouetted against dramatic skies, craggy summits and the overall grandeur of the landscape and its rich folklore.

The Dangerous Summer reimagined version of "Come Along" is the secod installment of a series of re-worked, remixed, alternate versions of the band's recent discography. Media support on Alternative Press, Rock Sound, Kerrang!, SiriusXM, BBC Radio 1, MTV & more. Cross platform digital marketing strategy to drive traffic to the track from social media, $3k overall budget. Marquee campaign starting on release week. 7,65M+ Listeners, 99,4M+ Streams, 78,8k+ Followers to date.

With Trouble Fête, Guilhöm reinvents himself with an uncompromising album that expands his musical horizons and makes a mockery of style. Twelve compositions nourished by numerous influences from pop, hip-hop, folk, rock, jazz, film music and world music. Six tracks in French or English, and six instrumental pieces give free rein to the emotions conveyed by the rich arrangements and numerous instruments: double bass, cello, guitars, pianos and keyboards, brass, electronic sequences, etc.It's a real voyage in sound, a journey through a rich, polymorphous universe, sometimes melancholic, but with a real overall coherence. A beautiful discovery.

Bob Balch here. In November of 2022 I went out to Joshua Tree for a day of jamming with the guys in Yawning Man with the intention of calling it “Yawning Balch.” No riffs were planned. We just plugged in and played. The only discussion beforehand was that Gary Arce and I wanted to mess with tons of guitar pedals. I knew that while we were jamming it sounded great, but it wasn’t until I got home and listened to it all that I realized we had something special. It’s hard to believe that we jammed for five hours and got two full length LPs and then some out of it. Every player killed it on these recordings and I’m beyond grateful to have my name involved with this legendary band. Fingers crossed they invite me back out annually for more jam sessions. I hope you enjoy these jams and please use responsibly. Side ONE A Moment Expanded (A Form Constant) ‘This is sort of a parallel piece to “Dreaming with Eyes Open” from Volume One. This is another totally improvised jam like the other songs. Although, I took this one back home and changed my guitar tones a little using different delays and reverbs. The overall piece of music remained the same though.’ Side TWO Flesh Of The Gods ‘This was actually the first song we tracked during the session. Just getting a feel for how we all played together as a band. I think it turned out awesome considering that. The main melody came quick and like the other tunes this one surfaced easily.’ Psychic Aloha 'This tune is the only song on the album that features any synth. For that reason there is a lot of different synth sounds as the song progresses. I overdubbed the synth parts after the fact but the other instrumentation remained untouched from the original jam.'

Bob Balch here. In November of 2022 I went out to Joshua Tree for a day of jamming with the guys in Yawning Man with the intention of calling it “Yawning Balch.” No riffs were planned. We just plugged in and played. The only discussion beforehand was that Gary Arce and I wanted to mess with tons of guitar pedals. I knew that while we were jamming it sounded great, but it wasn’t until I got home and listened to it all that I realized we had something special. It’s hard to believe that we jammed for five hours and got two full length LPs and then some out of it. Every player killed it on these recordings and I’m beyond grateful to have my name involved with this legendary band. Fingers crossed they invite me back out annually for more jam sessions. I hope you enjoy these jams and please use responsibly. Side ONE A Moment Expanded (A Form Constant) ‘This is sort of a parallel piece to “Dreaming with Eyes Open” from Volume One. This is another totally improvised jam like the other songs. Although, I took this one back home and changed my guitar tones a little using different delays and reverbs. The overall piece of music remained the same though.’ Side TWO Flesh Of The Gods ‘This was actually the first song we tracked during the session. Just getting a feel for how we all played together as a band. I think it turned out awesome considering that. The main melody came quick and like the other tunes this one surfaced easily.’ Psychic Aloha 'This tune is the only song on the album that features any synth. For that reason there is a lot of different synth sounds as the song progresses. I overdubbed the synth parts after the fact but the other instrumentation remained untouched from the original jam.'

Bob Balch here. In November of 2022 I went out to Joshua Tree for a day of jamming with the guys in Yawning Man with the intention of calling it “Yawning Balch.” No riffs were planned. We just plugged in and played. The only discussion beforehand was that Gary Arce and I wanted to mess with tons of guitar pedals. I knew that while we were jamming it sounded great, but it wasn’t until I got home and listened to it all that I realized we had something special. It’s hard to believe that we jammed for five hours and got two full length LPs and then some out of it. Every player killed it on these recordings and I’m beyond grateful to have my name involved with this legendary band. Fingers crossed they invite me back out annually for more jam sessions. I hope you enjoy these jams and please use responsibly. Side ONE A Moment Expanded (A Form Constant) ‘This is sort of a parallel piece to “Dreaming with Eyes Open” from Volume One. This is another totally improvised jam like the other songs. Although, I took this one back home and changed my guitar tones a little using different delays and reverbs. The overall piece of music remained the same though.’ Side TWO Flesh Of The Gods ‘This was actually the first song we tracked during the session. Just getting a feel for how we all played together as a band. I think it turned out awesome considering that. The main melody came quick and like the other tunes this one surfaced easily.’ Psychic Aloha 'This tune is the only song on the album that features any synth. For that reason there is a lot of different synth sounds as the song progresses. I overdubbed the synth parts after the fact but the other instrumentation remained untouched from the original jam.'

The second DOMINATION CAMPAIGN picks up where their debut left off - in fact, the writing and recording for A Storm of steel was largely complete by the time 2021's Onward To Glory was released. The brainchild of Psycroptic vocalist, Jason Peppiatt, DOMINATION CAMPAIGN are back and flying the flag for Tasmanian death metal once again.Having enlisted Psycroptic bandmate Joe Haley for Onward To Glory, the winning formula was retained when work began on A Storm of Steel. Jason laid down vocals, bassand guitar tracks, whilst Joe took care of drums, recording, mixing and mastering. Whilst they've not strayed too far from the core death metal sensibilities of their first ride out, AStorm of steel is a more melodic affair featuring guitar harmonies (and even a guitar solo), whilst simultaneously being heavier overall.Lyrically the album is inspired by tales of war, but unlike other bombastic war-themed albums out there, DOMINATION CAMPAIGN don't seek to glorify battle. Instead they depict the atrocities experienced - both on a grand scale and the more personal, intimate terror of conflict. The artwork by Jason continues this theme, bringing a visual element to the dirty, gritty reality of life in the trenches.Uniting old school death metal values with modern production, DOMINATION CAMPAIGN have crafted an eight-track heavy metal odyssey that follows in the footsteps of the likes of Bolt Thrower, Sinister and Deicide. With more than two decades of experience under their belts, DOMINATION CAMPAIGN have refined the art of bringing fetid tales to life in the great tradition of death metal.

Ten short sharp blasts of ultra-frenetic, intense and to-the-point American hardcore punk in the vein of Negative FX, Agnostic Front, The Abused and Deathwish. They sure don’t waste time with any unessentials. What they have done is take a little more time with My God… since the previous tapes and 7” to expand on their sound and enrich the overall listening experience. A couple of these triumphant new epics are more than one minute in length so consider this their step up to Long Play maturity. Crawl Space has emerged from the basement and stepped into the daylight ready to stomp your ears out. This MLP is downright nasty.

Following on from last year’s acclaimed Vrindavan 1982 by rudra veena master Z.M. Dagar, Black Truffle is thrilled to present a pair of archival releases from the Dagar Brothers, among the most revered 20th century exponents of the ancient North Indian dhrupad tradition. The vocal duo of Moinuddin and Aminuddin Dagar (sometimes referred to as the ‘senior’ Dagar Brothers to distinguish them from their younger siblings, Zahiruddin and Faiyazuddin Dagar), belonged to the nineteenth generation of a family of musicians in which dhrupad tradition has been kept alive through patrilinear transmission, each generation undergoing a rigorous education of many years’ duration that can include singing up to twelve hours each day.

Famed for the meditative purity of their approach to dhrupad, the Dagar Brothers helped to keep the tradition alive in the years after Indian independence in 1947, when the royal courts that had traditionally patronised dhrupad musicians were abolished. Many Western listeners were first introduced to dhrupad by the Dagar Brothers’ tour of Europe in 1964-65 and their LP in UNESCO’s ‘Musical Anthology of the Orient’ collection, both organised by pioneering musicologist and scholar of Indian culture Alain Daniélou. Documents from this tour are especially precious, as Moinuddin Dagar passed away in 1966. Berlin 1964 – The Lost Studio Recording (released alongside Bt115, a newly discovered concert recording from the same trip) presents two unheard side-long performances in crystalline fidelity, recorded at the International Institute for Comparative Studies and Documentation in Berlin headed by Alain Daniélou. These stunning recordings were consigned to the archive because, as Peter Pannke explains in his liner notes, which recount his meeting with Danielou many years after these recordings were made, the tape ran out during ‘Raga Jaijaivanti’, which terminates abruptly soon after the entry of the pakhawaj. Accompanied only by Moinuddin’s wife Saiyur on tanpura and Raja Chatrapati Singh on pakhawaj (a large double-headed drum), the brothers present stunning performances of the severe, serious midnight ‘Raga Malkauns’, set to a ten beat cycle once the pakhawaj enters, and the complex early evening ‘Raga Jaijaivanti’, set to a fourteen beat cycle in its rhythmic section. True to the traditional dhrupad structure, both performances are dominated by the long free-floating alap section, where the notes of the raga are gradually introduced, slowly climbing in pitch and intensity as the two singers trade improvisations that display a stunning range of vocal tones and remarkable subtlety in mictrotonal nuance. The performance of ‘Raga Malkauns’ is divided roughly in half, with the pakhawaj and unison singing entering around thirteen minutes through; Raja Chatrapati Singh’s performance is particularly striking in its endlessly inventive metrical nuance within the overall crescendo and acceleration. On ‘Raga Jaijaivanti’, the alap lasts almost twenty minutes, with Singh joining only for a few minutes of sparse pakhawaj hits before the tape cuts off, the absence of the more active concluding section serving only to magnify the mystical calm the Dagar Brothers establish in this setting of a 16th century love poem. Illustrated with a striking full colour concert photograph, Berlin 1964 – The Lost Studio Recording is accompanied by extensive liner notes by Peter Pannke celebrating musicologist Alain Daniélou, whose study, documentation and promotion of dhrupad was so important for spreading awareness of this great musical tradition, ready to be discovered anew in this stunning recording from two of its master exponents.

Firefriend Rcknrll ‘São Paulo is one of the largest, filthiest, and most violent cities of the world. And this is the music we make here’. Captured live at the No. 74 in São Paulo – brace yourself for a one way trip to the heart of darkness. Rcknrll is an transcendental psychedelic sonic assault, a lightning storm of guitar haze and drugged-out wailing. Mainlining an elegantly wasted take on two-chord avant garage rock that makes direct reference to Plastic Inevitable era Velvet Underground, where Yury Hermuche devotional fuzz layerd on top of Julie and Caca primal throbbing rythm - you will feel the effect as time and space start creasing and folding in at the edges. The overall music created at this venue on this night is so intense and claustrophobic that, at times it will pin you back into your seat – such is the physicality of Firefriends music. This is not just another live album - this is a mission statement. With a taste for hallucinogens and the drone Rcknrll is completely unyielding, it offers no concessions to listeners, demanding they embrace the distortion - . Do yourself a favour. Turn the music on, the lights off, and let yourself go.

Bay area textural pop group Torrey delve deep into a translucent dreamworld on their self-titled sophomore album. Bending classic shoegaze, rainy day indie rock sounds, and 90s alt rock flair into more intricate forms, the band uses these guitar-forward songs to shapeshift between gentle drifting and noisy breakthroughs. The overall effect is blissful, but never losing sight of the sturdy tunes underneath the fuzz. Some touchstones might include Lush, Drop Nineteens, Cocteau Twins and The Breeders, but Torrey have a deft grasp of their craft and a forward-thinking studio approach that places them very much in the NOW. Singles like No Matter How, Bounce and Moving are pure 2024 and place Torrey firmly alongside like-minded groups like Seablite, Winter and Alvvays who are enlivening a similar set of inspirations.

More than 10 years ago, Vincent Dupas, Jean-Baptiste Geoffroy and Jérôme Vassereau created Binidu in parallel with their respective bands, Fordamage and Pneu, then very singular and of the most joyful french rock music. Their collaboration is a trek that started from green and sunny pastures to sink over time into mountains surrounded by storms. Binidu holds nothing back in composition, always ready to reinvent himself with each new album.

After "Yes", the first fresh and luminous one released in 2013, the second "Nouvel Ancient" in 2018, more adventurous and kind of lost in an apocalyptic world, the trio returns today just as adventurous but more in a peaceful way with "// ", a creation mostly focused on his appetite for the acoustics and electronics combination. A long-distance running music, which, from the top of the ridge lines, looks at the world with lucidity, embracing the entire landscape, valleys, towns, all the way to the sea.

It is their label, Kythibong, which, on the occasion of the festivities around his twentieth birthday, brings Binidu out of his brief hiatus. 2022 therefore sees the trio reunite and begin to compose a new repertoire with a strong desire to play at a low volume and thus be able to perform in a wide variety of locations. They then broached the composition of the third album changing their instrumentarium. The drums are now reduced to a split snare drum and a hi-hat, the modular synthesizers take an important place in the composition, Jérôme and Vincent play on small amps, the latter exchanges his electric guitar for an acoustic Parlor, and the sound of the voice is now devoid of any effect.

Over the course of rehearsals, Binidu starts to imagine “//” as an overall piece with five linked long compositions. Thirty-five minutes of music, alternating very acoustic phases and other electronic ones, creating supernatural spaces, moments of reflection, some pop, hypnotic and/or rhythmic bursts.

While the idea of an album being born of finding peace with oneself is nothing new, in Micah Dailey’s hands it’s a beautifully symbolic harmonizing of past and present. Beginning with an instrumental opening, Flower Festival’s latest album Age offers up an invitation to tilt your ears between jittery analog texture and elegantly fluid drumbeats. But it’s the inward-looking songwriting that makes the best case for Flower Festival’s relatability from his professions of self-hatred to an overall detachment from common culture. Flower Festival’s third full-length album was written at two significantly different times in Micah Dailey’s life, taking music recorded over 8 years ago, revisited and finished with lyrics written today. Much of the album’s influence came from a newfound peace and appreciation for his upbringing. Having grown up in the Middle East, Micah moved back to Arizona in 2011 where an internal tug-of-war rooted in guilt and inadequacies made for some significantly self-deprecating songwriting, as you might imagine being that his album at the time was entitled “Cry Baby”. The push and pull of this mindset made Flower Festival’s album full of artistic parallels that marry the new and the old, without forcing the two. Becoming a father and husband, Micah’s way of living-room-recording had to be adjusted as well, getting to a point of contentment that there might never be a moment of complete quiet, but embracing that there may be faint samples of kids playing or guests chatting. Having created an album in a way that both embraced and let go of significant restraints, a reconciliation derived from Flower Festival’s examination of his artistic ego. Thankfully, Flower Festival’s way of creating art lent itself to a freedom found only when the external and internal pressures of making music “the right way” have all but gone- and from it came an album that was worth waiting for. Mixed and mastered (along with contributions) by the incredible John Dieterich (of Deerhoof), and features other collaborations with Nicholas Krgovich, Qais Essar, Lonna Kelley (Giant Sand) and Michael Krassner (of Califone and Boxhead Ensemble).

Quantum´s upcoming album, "Down the Mountainside", contains eight very elaborate and intense compositions, spanning 45 minutes of music that shimmers in acoustic soundscapes one minute to explode into spastic grooves in the next. The lyrical themes deal with humans alter egos - or masks - that people in our society rely on in order to get by with their everyday lives, and how these affect them psychologically and eventually lead them towards a breaking point. There is also commentary on how this behavior affects the general attitude in the society we live in. Overall, with "Down the Mountainside", Quantum has created a timeless progressive rock album, which feels both fresh and innovative, which will appeal to old prog diggers as well as listeners of the more modern school.
The album features guitar solos from the brilliant Richard Henshall and Tom MacLean from the band Haken.

Quantum are a progressive rock band formed by Bass player and singer Anton Ericsson, drummer Olof Simander and Guitarist Fredrik Reinholdsen back in 2016 and has since been playing in various line-ups live around Stockholm and Uppsala - with Anton being the constant member and songwriter. Current members are Anton Ericsson, drummer Marcus Lundberg, and guitarists Samuel Walfridsson and Kalle Segerborg. The Music is characterized by a sound that blends music from genres across the spectrum - Prog rock, metal, late romantic era classical music and Jazz all collide - but somehow remains coherent and very captivating.

2020 saw the release of the EP The Next Breath of Air…, featuring some of their favorite tracks to play live, which did give them a small but loyal following across the globe.

Quantum´s upcoming album, "Down the Mountainside", contains eight very elaborate and intense compositions, spanning 45 minutes of music that shimmers in acoustic soundscapes one minute to explode into spastic grooves in the next. The lyrical themes deal with humans alter egos - or masks - that people in our society rely on in order to get by with their everyday lives, and how these affect them psychologically and eventually lead them towards a breaking point. There is also commentary on how this behavior affects the general attitude in the society we live in. Overall, with "Down the Mountainside", Quantum has created a timeless progressive rock album, which feels both fresh and innovative, which will appeal to old prog diggers as well as listeners of the more modern school.
The album features guitar solos from the brilliant Richard Henshall and Tom MacLean from the band Haken.

Quantum are a progressive rock band formed by Bass player and singer Anton Ericsson, drummer Olof Simander and Guitarist Fredrik Reinholdsen back in 2016 and has since been playing in various line-ups live around Stockholm and Uppsala - with Anton being the constant member and songwriter. Current members are Anton Ericsson, drummer Marcus Lundberg, and guitarists Samuel Walfridsson and Kalle Segerborg. The Music is characterized by a sound that blends music from genres across the spectrum - Prog rock, metal, late romantic era classical music and Jazz all collide - but somehow remains coherent and very captivating.

2020 saw the release of the EP The Next Breath of Air…, featuring some of their favorite tracks to play live, which did give them a small but loyal following across the globe.

If you want to go to Jena, you first have to pass through this intimidating, massive wall of eleven-storey prefabricated buildings in Jena-Lobeda. And SNOW TRAIL from the same city provide the perfect soundtrack for sleepwalking through these or other concrete deserts at night with "Abandoned Capsule".On their debut album for It's Eleven Records, the rhythm drives the shadows forward with stoic composure, while the echoing guitar and pulsating bass meander through the darkness in melodic arcs. The vocals convey a subliminal aggression that manifests itself in occasional outbursts, but a brittle, flowing grace retains the upper hand overall. The trio acts minimalistically and...

Very dope.

With this EP an attempt is made at documenting the vibrant action happening during the late 1970s and early 1980s in the Pioneer Valley area of Western Massachusetts, US. The story is richer than the snapshot we present here, and a more detailed account is to be found in the accompanying book that can be purchased separately.

The Five Colleges in Hampshire County congregated a vast student population that inevitably interacted with the towns in the area. Bars, music and record stores, live music and a lot of experimentation and free thinking. Hampshire College, especially, promoted new approaches to teaching, subjects that might be considered radical by some even today, although a more favourable context would now surely exist for openly debating such topics as American Indians, Kayak Design, Black Oral Tradition, Food Management, etc. And the music? The immediate "punk effect" motivated the creation of numerous bands, many short lived, others evolving into New Wave / Power Pop territory, eventually crossing into Post-Punk experimentation. What is captured in "Noho EP" is a more electronic disposition, favoured by the existence of EMS gear and other equipment at Hampshire College and University of Massachusetts. We chose to focus on a group of musicians who, for a time, played together in different combinations under the loose umbrella of the Tekno Tunes label and the structure around it.

These musicians come from very different backgrounds and the nucleus portrayed here consisted of Christopher Vine, Elliott Sharp, James Whittemore and Nicholas Brown.

Of the several line-up changes The Scientific Americans went through, it was actually only the duo of Chris Vine and Jim Whittemore who recorded "Among Bodge Watt". Never before released, it is a companion piece to their track "El Salvador" available on the 1981 Roir tape-album "Load & Go!". The Sci Ams were founders of the Tekno Tunes label and also created the Tekno Tours "concert promotion agency", under which name they exposed local audiences to bands such as The Stranglers, The Slits, Pylon, Pere Ubu, The Psychedelic Furs, The Bush Tetras, Steel Pulse, etc. Their own sound kept progressing but at its best there's a solid dub undercurrent, pretty obvious in "Among Bodge Watt".

Human Error was born out of a collective jam by Chris Vine, Elliott Sharp, Jim Whittemore and Nick Brown. Elliott Sharp had moved to Northampton in August of 1978 and naturally became involved in the local music scene, hooking up first with Whittemore at a hi-fi audio store where he worked at the time. Basement jams followed stimulating conversations, and other musicians joined the sessions. "Clandestinator" sounds gorgeously loose, an effortless groove coming from a quasi-dub set-up. Nothing here seems calculated, the music just flows, contagious and irregular as the handclaps in the mix.

The Higher Primates later evolved into a "proper" band but started as Nick Brown's solo project. The Primates only ever released a (now sought-after) 7" single in 1980 (on the Tekno Tunes label, precisely). Both tracks on "Noho EP" were recorded the following year and never released until now. "Auto Music in the Disco Dub Style" is self-explanatory, with a steady, mid-tempo Tr808 beat running through, supporting synth squelches, echoes and reverbs, a fat bassline, dissonant melodic lines and odd vocal snippets. Kind of a DJ tool when the concept was barely in place. The more uptempo "Teresa Variations" adds a Fender Jazz bass and Selmer sax to the electronics. It actually sounds more "Disco", even with the robotic, unintelligible vocals. On top of this, the vibe is sealed by the overall Radiophonic Workshop analogue strangeness applied to a dance beat.

In one sense, it's easy for artists-songwriters, specifically-to express their feelings in their work. After all, that's what the lyrics are for! But it's much harder to convey emotional energy in how you play, slash at the guitar, and the structure of the music itself. That's precisely why Girl and Girl's Sub Pop debut, Call A Doctor, feels like such a vital, electrifying shock to the senses. Not since the early work of Car Seat Headrest or Conor Oberst's widescreen emotional brutality as Bright Eyes has indie rock managed to come across as this intimate and grandiose, as the Australian quartet led by Kai James lay a lifetime's worth of woes-mental health, the human race's planned obsolescence if you've been living on this cursed rock you know what we're getting at-across a canvas of indie rock that feels both timeless and in-the-moment. An audacious and aggressively tuneful blast of a record, Call A Doctor is an unforgettable first bow from Girl and Girl, whose origins lie in James and guitarist Jayden Williams jamming in his mother's garage in the afternoon after school. One afternoon, James' Aunty Liss headed down to their practice space after walking her dog and asked if she could sit in on drums. "It sounded really great," James recalls. "We begged her to stay, and she said, 'I'll stay until you find another drummer.' We wore her down, and she eventually became a permanent member." After bassist Fraser Bell joined to round things out, Girl and Girl hit the road and began to make a name for themselves beyond the Australian bush, eventually signing to Sub Pop off the strength of word of mouth. Call A Doctor came together quickly soon after, largely recorded in marathon sessions in a two-story industrial complex over the course of two weeks. "That added to the intensity of the album," James says about the frenzied creative process overseen by producer Burke Reid. "I can hear the stress in the record, which is good because that's what it's about-being tense, tied up, and in your own head." Call A Doctor's eleven songs-spanning sweeping guitar epics and wry acoustic shuffles to spiky punk maneuvers and the type of raw, adoringly unvarnished indie-pop associated with legendary PacNW label K Records-are literally plucked from James' personal history, as he reworked older recordings with newer lyrics reflecting his past struggles as well as new anxieties that emerged prior to the album's recording. "I've struggled with mental health for a lot of my life," he explains, "and I went through a particularly difficult patch when we were making the album; the band had started to get some attention, and I felt an enormous amount of pressure to live up to it." "This record is about an individual who's too far in their head, trying to get out," James continues while discussing Call A Doctor's overall outlook-specifically the snapshot it offers of its creator. But even though this record deals with uneasy topics we all know well from within ourselves, it's important to emphasize how teeming with life Girl and Girl's music is. There's a brazen, bold sense of humor to this stuff, an undeniable brightness to the darkness that makes it impossible not to be drawn in as a listener. Feeling down never sounded so goddamn good.

“All this I do for glory” is a reasoning and exploration of the machinations of ambition and legacy, an examination of the concepts of afterlife, and the first half of a doomed love story in the model of the greek tragedies. As a narra- tive, it exists temporally somewhere between 2015’s “Never were the way she was” (with Sarah Neufeld) and the 1st volume of the NHW Trilogy.

With this, his first solo outing since 2013’s “To See More Light”, Colin Stetson ventures into territory both familiar and strange. Here still, is the dogmatically stripped down approach to performance and capture (all songs recorded live with no overdubs or loops) but there is an immediacy to the album that belies a more invasive and thorough miking of the various instruments being utilized and a seeming influence drawn from the early nineties electronica of artists like Aphex Twin and Autechre, evident in the more pointed role played by the instruments’ many percus- sive elements.

There are ancestries, motivic and timbral, woven through these six songs that plainly anchor them within the shared universe of his Trilogy, though the overall experience is one of extreme intimacy, the sounds and imagery more tangible and immersive than previous offerings. The brief and brutal “In the clinches” recalls (or presages) echoes of songs like “Judges”, though now feeling like one has fallen down the bell of Stetson’s ancient bass sax- ophone itself. “Spindrift”, crystalline and serene, calls to mind the ambient works of Aphex Twin, while “Between Water and Wind” with it’s “Immigrant Song” swagger, relentlessly carves it’s way into the bedrock here, paving the way with an increasing focus on the minute and the minimal, with a deepened sense of patience shared by most of the album’s six tracks.

Engineered and mixed by Stetson himself, this album represents a decidedly independent approach across the entire creative process and finds him at the top of his game, both as a composer and instrumentalist as well as a producer.

Upchuck are experiencing a moment. The Atlanta punk collective just came off multiple tour runs with their good friend Faye Webster. Their Ty Segall-produced second album Bite The Hand That Feeds, with all its buzzsaw guitars and high-speed rippers and headbanging sludge, arrived in October. Later this year, they’ll make appearances at multiple festivals including Coachella. In the midst of relentlessly barreling ahead, the band and their label Famous Class are taking a beat to revisit how they got here. After working with Segall on Bite the Hand That Feeds, the band floated the notion that they wished they could hear what their collaborator could do with the songs on their 2022 debut album Sense Yourself. Holed up in his studio over Christmas with Covid and nothing else to do, Ty Segall began toying with Sense Yourself, sifting through folders of unlabeled stems to find the best guitar parts, emboldening the drum sound, and bringing greater clarity to KT’s vocals, all while bolstering the urgency of the band’s overall attack. With Segall’s new mix, Upchuck’s intense and righteous debut now impossibly overflows with even more fuzz and fury. In Segall, they found a kindred spirit whose studio approach made sense for just how hard they wanted this music to hit. “When we first went to record with Ty for Bite the Hand That Feeds, Mikey and I walked into the guitar room and Ty said, ‘Don’t touch the EQs.’ We looked at the amp and everything was on 10 except the master volume,” Hoff said. Previously, the band had been encouraged to capture the unvarnished sound of the studio. They’d toured with Segall’s band Fuzz, so everybody had the same goal while recording together: Capture the electricity of their intense live set.

Recorded over the course of 1993-1994 in the band’s own "Acre" home studio, the Templars' debut full length, The Return Of Jacques De Molay, introduced the lo-fi DIY sound that would serve as the band's sonic signature over the coming decades. This decision was as pragmatic as it was artistic: the band having endured the loss of their previous master recordings to a failing studio/record label only a year prior. Determined to never again find themselves in that position, the Templars opted for self-recording, and the rest, as they say, is history. The Return Of Jacques De Molay has gone on to influence and inspire generations of Punk & Oi! bands worldwide. While the Templars debut album is held up as one of the the crown jewels of the band's discography, The Return Of Jacques De Molay, is something of a white whale among the fans of this very vinyl-orientated band. Outside of a few limited German pressings, The Return Of Jacques De Molay had previously only been available widely on CD—until now. TKO is proud to present the 30th Anniversary "Grandmaster" edition of The Return Of Jacques De Molay. Featuring painstakingly remastered audio, completely reworked packaging and the overall attention to detail that you've come to expect from TKO / Templecombe reissue collaborations, we can say without hesitation that this new versions presents The Return Of Jacques De Molay as it always should have been. Of course, the Templars lasting legacy arose from more than just the charm of their recordings. The Return Of Jacques De Molay crystalized the songwriting style established on the band's earlier EPs—A sound rooted in Oi! tradition, but unafraid to explore beyond that genre’s boundaries. Oi!’s familiar pro-labor / anti-bullshit approach is on full display, but songs like “The Sixties Are Over” show a willingness to go outside the lines with acoustic guitar and shockingly tuneful songwriting that few of their peers ever matched. Paired with the album's signature fuzz guitars, warmly saturated drums, and deft, melodic basslines, it’s clear why The Return Of Jacques De Molay continues to resonate after the last 30 years.

2024 marks the 40th anniversary of Bruce Springsteen's 'Born In The U.S.A.' Although it would become his biggest selling album with seven top 1 0 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, Luther Dickinson of North Mississippi Allstars says "any of those songs could be played with acoustic guitar alone and still be great." Taking this idea as its premise, 'Dead Man's Town: A Tribute to Born in the U.S.A' strips the album's twelve indelible originals to the core, with contributions from Jason Isbell & Amanda Shires, Low, Nicole Atkins, Justin Townes Earle, Blitzen Trapper, Joe Pug, Trampled by Turtles, and more. Rolling Stone premiered Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires' Dave Cobb-produced cover of "Born I n The U.S.A," saying these artists are "reimagining 'Born in the U.S.A. with a reduced approach more influenced by that of the acoustic, "Nebraska."

Isbell says of his cover, ""Born In The U.S.A." is one of my favorites because so many people have seemingly misunderstood the lyrical content and the song's overall tone. When you listen to the demo, the dark, minor key arrangement makes it clear that this is not strictly a song of celebration. We wanted to stay true to that version." Amanda Shires adds, "I love that the song paints a picture of struggle in the face of the American dream, and the irony in the chorus is delivered with such force that it nearly transcends irony altogether."

Asher White’s third album in two years (and fifteenth overall), Home Constellation Study is less a refinement of last year’s sly, quaint New Excellent Woman, and more an explosion of it. Her meticulous chamber pop has given way to resplendent swells of horns and squeals of noise, throbbing bass and queasy orchestral loops. The cover, painted by White, frames a burst of flowers against a dark blue abyss, mimicking the music: over-frenzied sambas, bleary slacker rock, hushed ambient meditations, and surprisingly slick disco, White mines her personal minutiae for tokens of political decay, alienation, and religious rapture.

The past year has found the prolific Providence-based singer-songwriter ascending through her city’s fertile experimental rock scene alongside the breakout synth-punk act babybaby_explores and her labelmates Or Best Offer. Live, White’s band plays riotous, unpredictable noise rock that nods to their city’s storied DIY scene; on Home Constellation Study, mid-album highlights like “Downstate Prairie” and “Hymn” nod to Providence’s bands of yore with their blistering sheets of feedback and pummeling drums, placing White, improbably, within the lineage of local heroes Les Savy Fav or the broken pop dispatches of Black Pus.

At its core, however, Home Constellation Study is the product of studied, monastic auteurism. Like New Excellent Woman, it was arranged, performed, recorded and mixed by White alone in her basement studio in Providence. “Happy Birthday” is an earnest psalm, a paean of devotion and remorse to God a la Beverly Glenn-Copeland that drifts along with Panda Bear haziness. White’s concept of “toxic femininity” undergoes further investigation on “Good Luck!” and “Runes,” both with Elliott Smith-like chord changes and the barbs of cynical romantics like Aimee Mann. Asher White’s vision has never been so expansive and unpredictable.

In the past 7 years Guppy has evolved from their In the Garage EP origins, releasing 2 albums - In Heat and their most recent album Big Man Says Slappydoo. Joined in the last 2 years by their newest member Kabir Kumar (Sun Kin) on lead guitar and backing vocals, the band has expanded their musicality, moving beyond their garage punk origins into the realms of power pop, disco, country, and surf rock. With this latest evolution of Guppy comes their most ambitious record yet Something is Happening… Guppy again teamed up with Slappydoo producer Sarah Tudzin (Illuminati Hotties / boygenius) for their third album ‘Something is Happening…,’ recorded at Elliott Smith’s old studio New Monkey in Van Nuys. The songs on this album are Guppy’s most collaborative e ort yet made up of equal contributions from all four members. The result is a sonic hero’s journey venturing from ambient wistfulness, to post punk irreverence, to sincere indie crooning, to playful garage rock, and returning back again to the beginning, but this time you’re changed. The themes of Something is Happening speak to a feeling of overall hopelessness born from the realization that the system is not here to protect us and an accompanying emergence of hope as we invest in and lean on our communities. Guppy rejects nihilism, relishes in absurdism, and ultimately agrees with poet Khalil Gibran that “the deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain”. The album is made up of observations about absurd speci cs that either want to kill us or celebrate us and sometimes Guppy can’t di erentiate between the two: “Why does it smell like scrambled eggs when I’m driving on the freeway? What’s the di erence between love and hate when I feel it in my body?”

Coke Bottle Green vinyl.Who were the first punks? Do The Damned have more of a shout than The Sex Pistols? The Stooges or Ramones? Gregg Deal, the acclaimed visual and performance artist behind his new project Dead Pioneers, is making a claim that Indigenous Americans were the first real punks.Deal suggests that the overarching theme of the album is "an introduction to the band itself". Created with a DIY disposition and the "love of a scene that saves lives", they reel off a roll call of marginalised groups and protected characteristics: "Indigenous rights, Black rights, Brown rights, Asian rights, Gay rights, Trans rights, Workers rights and beyond_". This is central to their identity and focus, saying that "with a North American Indigenous person as the vocalist, being unapologetically upfront on the social, political and cultural side of things doesn't seem necessary, but paramount to the overall tone of the band."This self-titled debut, coming in at a lithe 22 minutes with only one of the twelve tracks exceeding three minutes, is almost over before it begins, but covers a huge amount of ground in that time. Blistering opener 'Tired' sets out their stall; as with the whole album, it is passionate, but never preaching. Capitalised 'Political Music' can be hard to land without coming across as hectoring or earnest, but Deal's literary, humorous lyrics effortlessly cut through complex issues of marginalisation and colonialism.

Presenting 3+5, the long-awaited eighth album from Tokyo-based noise-rockers Melt-Banana on their own A-Zap label!

The album showcases the duo’s visionary musical approach and extraordinary abilities as performers: Yasuko Onuki’s giddy, hyperactive vocalizing and Ichiro Agata’s glitchy, cyberpunk guitar, delivered at dizzying speed, bathed in aggressive electronic sounds. Their aesthetic approach is exultantly experimental, fusing diverse genres imbued with chaotic energy. As on their previous works, the music on 3+5 is unpredictable, always filled with surprises and excitement.

3+5 synthesizes elements of a variety of extreme musics, hyper-pop, classic punk, vintage metal, and noise. It partakes of Japanese culture overall, especially the subcultures of gaming, anime and underground music.

Melt-Banana seek to offer possibilities to musicians who won’t start a band if they can’t find a drummer, young women afraid to express themselves in their own unfiltered and unique voices, bedroom musicians and egg punks seeking to blend electronic noise with live instrumentation. 3+5 provides a fresh experience and perhaps inspiration for all.

While Melt-Banana hasn’t explicitly explained the meaning behind the album’s title, 3+5, prime numbers symbolize mathematical integrity and independence, which could represent the band’s uniqueness and freedom. Why “3+5” and not “1 + 7”? One is left to ponder.

The perturbance between two macabre Death/Doom masters is now unified as one on this gloriously funereal “The Sempiternal Wound” split release. From the unsettling but grandoise track opener of JADE to the rotten mid-paced deathbeat of SANCTUARIUM on the split EP closer, “The Sempiternal Wound” speaks of the impeccable cycle of Life and Death; while inevitable and serves as a stark reminder of the pain throughout the lifespan of mankind. Total nihilism is evident here with both JADE and SANCTUARIUM also clearly sharpening their crafts even further; displaying an almost cinematic vibe on their pummeling sections transitioning to slow, crawling passages. With JADE side recorded and mixed by Javi Félez at Moontower Studios and SANCTUARIUM side recorded and mixed by Marc ‘Nercohelm’ at Necrohelm Studios and overall mastering at Moontower Studios (Deströyer 666, Ataraxy, Teitanblood, etc), cover artwork by Macedonian artist Mors Ultima Ratio Art (Sarvekas, SkyThala, Code, etc). Tape edition to be released under Iron Fortress Records. JADE:1. Third Creation2. Cascade3. Essential Formulas For Life Transition SANCTUARIUM:4. Recomposition Of Carbonized Corpses5. Malodorous Osteophagy In Acrimony

Prepare to be captivated by the sheer brilliance of Believer's masterpiece, 'Sanity Obscure,' as Bombworks Records unveils a striking reissue on Blood Red Splatter vinyl. This exclusive edition, limited to just 300 copies, stands as a coveted treasure for dedicated aficionados of technical thrash metal. Immerse yourself in the epic sonic tapestry of Believer, officially licensed and presented with a meticulously crafted 12x12 full-color lyrics and picture insert, all enclosed within a deluxe package. Derived from the original 1990 release on R.E.X. Records and Roadrunner Records, this reissue mirrors the essence of the album but takes the experience to new heights with the allure of Blood Red Splatter vinyl. The album cover exudes sophistication, featuring exclusive information and images that add to it's overall allure. Believer, the unparalleled maestros of technical thrash, pioneered the realms of thrash orchestral and symphonic metal, leaving an indelible mark on the metal landscape. Their influence has resonated across stages in the USA and Europe alongside giants such as Bolt Thrower and Sacrifice. Teaming up with Cynic and Pestilence, Believer played a pivotal role in Roadrunner Records' progressive metal/thrash campaign, 'The Breed Beyond.' 'Sanity Obscure' transcends the boundaries of a mere album; it is a journey into the soul of metal itself. Witness Believer's artistic prowess as they intricately cover U2's 'Like A Song,' transforming it into a sonic masterpiece that defies genre limitations. The reissue further features an anti-pollution anthem titled 'Nonpoint,' a testament to Believer's socio-conscious artistry and the inspiration behind the name of another acclaimed band, Nonpoint. Believer's 'Sanity Obscure' isn't just an album; it is an unstoppable force, a cultural artifact, and a sonic testament to the limitless potential of metal. This Blood Red Splatter vinyl edition is a rare and illustrious gem, destined to be the centerpiece in the collections of devoted metal enthusiasts. Don't miss the chance to own this extraordinary piece of metal history - seize it now before this limited treasure becomes a relic of the past! The vinyl is remastered by Rob Colwell at Bombworks Sound.

Neon pink vinyl, limited to 500 copies. Who were the first punks? Do The Damned have more of a shout than The Sex Pistols? The Stooges or Ramones? Gregg Deal, the acclaimed visual and performance artist behind his new project Dead Pioneers, is making a claim that Indigenous Americans were the first real punks.Deal suggests that the overarching theme of the album is "an introduction to the band itself". Created with a DIY disposition and the "love of a scene that saves lives", they reel off a roll call of marginalised groups and protected characteristics: "Indigenous rights, Black rights, Brown rights, Asian rights, Gay rights, Trans rights, Workers rights and beyond_". This is central to their identity and focus, saying that "with a North American Indigenous person as the vocalist, being unapologetically upfront on the social, political and cultural side of things doesn't seem necessary, but paramount to the overall tone of the band."This self-titled debut, coming in at a lithe 22 minutes with only one of the twelve tracks exceeding three minutes, is almost over before it begins, but covers a huge amount of ground in that time. Blistering opener 'Tired' sets out their stall; as with the whole album, it is passionate, but never preaching. Capitalised 'Political Music' can be hard to land without coming across as hectoring or earnest, but Deal's literary, humorous lyrics effortlessly cut through complex issues of marginalisation and colonialism.

The first full-length release from Cleveland’s Disintegration brings their intricate circuitry of nocturnal synthwave and noise-saturated post-punk to a new plateau. Sharper, leaner, and more involved than the material on their first EP, Shiver in a Weak Light is a huge step forward in terms of production, atmosphere, and overall construction, with singer/synthesist Haley Himiko turning in stellar vocal performances, guitarist/vocalist Noah Anthony and bassist Christopher Brown moving in lockstep, and new drummer David MacCluskie adding clatter and thump to the gridded framework the band architects and then dismantles on every song. The album roves between shadowy dream sequences and slow-motion shatter, drawing a dark and futuristic sound that’s sometimes familiar, sometimes confounding, but always captivating.

Listening closely to the web of sounds on “In Your Diary” reveals a series of unlikely turns and transitions; like the brittle guitar line that arrives out of nowhere to lace up a propulsive chorus, the nearly subliminal hits of percussion that move throughout the stereo field, and a song structure that jumps between its parts in unexpected ways, always landing on a new hook. “Hideaway” connects its fragmented sections in a perfect balance of dissonant chaos and shout-along melodies. Live bass and guitar parts are processed until they sound more like alien synth programming, with choppy rhythms bouncing like sequenced ones and zeroes. Each repeated listen to Shiver in a Weak Light unlocks a new room of sounds and ideas that may have gone unnoticed the time before. It’s an album that beckons the listener to trek ever deeper into its network of neon hallways and interconnected underground tunnels, exploring a world where it’s always night and time moves differently.

Gatefold white vinyl LP!A rock'n'roll sensation from the word go, Danish-Brazilian The Courettes are back with their fourth and best album to date: "The Soul Of_ The Fabulous Courettes". And this time, they're bigger, wider and deeper than ever before as they add more to the blistering ramalama that's seen them cause pandemonium across the venues, festivals and airwaves of the UK, Europe, USA and Japan. Hitting the sweet spot that straddles garage rock, girl groups, doo-wop harmonies, heartache and all points in between, here The Courettes build on the momentum of predecessor 'Back In Mono' with a collection of songs that opens up their sonic scope while confronting dark, emotional matter to reveal 'The Soul Of The Fabulous Courettes'."We didn't want to do Back In Mono 2'," stresses drummer Martin Couri.Having evolved with each album release, "The Soul Of_ The Fabulous Courettes" draws inspiration from many of the duo's numerous idols that have only previously been hinted at."We wanted to show our love of the Spector Wall Of Sound and Motown," reveals Flavia. "It was a clear mission and we've absolutely nailed it."From the glorious opening beats and stabbing fuzz honks of 'You Woo Me' to the closing emotional tugs of 'For Your Love' via 'SHAKE!''s fuzzed-up urgency and 'California''s celebratory warmth, The Courettes have broadened their sound with an increased musical instrumentation and overall sophistication that's evident in both their sound and songwriting. And crucially, they've achieved this without sacrificing any of the rock'n'roll grit that's been scraped from Flavia's guitar strings and Martin's battered and pummelled drums. And aiding them in their quest for sonic perfection are a few guest musicians and back-room wizards playing some very specific roles.While the music has opened up to include acoustic and 12-string guitars, bass, E-bows, castanets and timpani, so have the kind of emotions that might not ordinarily be associated with The Courettes.The Soul Of_ The Fabulous...

A rock'n'roll sensation from the word go, Danish-Brazilian The Courettes are back with their fourth and best album to date: "The Soul Of_ The Fabulous Courettes". And this time, they're bigger, wider and deeper than ever before as they add more to the blistering ramalama that's seen them cause pandemonium across the venues, festivals and airwaves of the UK, Europe, USA and Japan. Hitting the sweet spot that straddles garage rock, girl groups, doo-wop harmonies, heartache and all points in between, here The Courettes build on the momentum of predecessor 'Back In Mono' with a collection of songs that opens up their sonic scope while confronting dark, emotional matter to reveal 'The Soul Of The Fabulous Courettes'."We didn't want to do Back In Mono 2'," stresses drummer Martin Couri.Having evolved with each album release, "The Soul Of_ The Fabulous Courettes" draws inspiration from many of the duo's numerous idols that have only previously been hinted at."We wanted to show our love of the Spector Wall Of Sound and Motown," reveals Flavia. "It was a clear mission and we've absolutely nailed it."From the glorious opening beats and stabbing fuzz honks of 'You Woo Me' to the closing emotional tugs of 'For Your Love' via 'SHAKE!''s fuzzed-up urgency and 'California''s celebratory warmth, The Courettes have broadened their sound with an increased musical instrumentation and overall sophistication that's evident in both their sound and songwriting. And crucially, they've achieved this without sacrificing any of the rock'n'roll grit that's been scraped from Flavia's guitar strings and Martin's battered and pummelled drums. And aiding them in their quest for sonic perfection are a few guest musicians and back-room wizards playing some very specific roles.While the music has opened up to include acoustic and 12-string guitars, bass, E-bows, castanets and timpani, so have the kind of emotions that might not ordinarily be associated with The Courettes.The Soul Of_ The Fabulous Courettes is an album aime...

Trees Speak are releasing their new album TimeFold worldwide on 15 Nov 24 on Soul Jazz Records.

Trees Speak return with TimeFold, their sixth release on Soul Jazz Records, further expanding their ever-evolving sonic universe. This new album builds on their signature blend of hypnotic krautrock rhythms, post-punk angularity, and experimental soundscapes while venturing into new terrain by blending influences from avant-garde electronics to ceremonial sound forms.

On TimeFold, Trees Speak (comprised of the Tucson-based duo Damian Diaz and Daniel Martin Diaz) push their musical boundaries from expansive, intergalactic landscapes to eerie, imagined 1970s Italian and French sci-fi horror film scores. The album seamlessly weaves John Carpenter-esque synthesizer motifs with ambient sound sculptures, conjuring immersive worlds that are both cinematic and otherworldly.

The album also incorporates the duo’s deep-rooted influences, which span across electronic pioneers like Jean-Michel Jarre (Oxygene), Tangerine Dream, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Drawing on the revolutionary techniques of Musique Concrète, TimeFold features experimental track splicing, looping, and collage work that harkens back to the golden age of avant-garde music. At times, the album channels the ceremonial tones and hypnotic rhythms reminiscent of early 1970s krautrock, fusing these sounds with organic instrumentation like dulcimers, adding an earthy, drone-like ritual quality to the experimental electronic framework.

A new element in this release is the inclusion of spoken word by Ashley Christine Edwards, which lends the album a haunting, apocalyptic edge. Her contributions evoke a tone reminiscent of the 1970s avant-garde scene, recalling literary and conceptual artists like Ruth White. The spoken words create a sensory experience akin to ceremonial chants, adding to the atmospheric intensity of the album. These vocal elements tie into the overall theme of TimeFold, which continues Trees Speak’s exploration of futuristic technologies and the communication of nature, with the evocative concept of trees and plants acting as organic hard drives storing data and knowledge.

Drawing further influence from Italian and French horror cinema, Trees Speak explore cinematic tension throughout TimeFold, creating a layered listening experience. The record transports the listener from the haunting, desolate beauty of Southwestern desert vast landscapes to an auditory space that melds early electronic experimentation with the contemporary urgency of conceptual art.

Since their debut Ohms in 2020, Trees Speak’s prolific output on Soul Jazz Records has continually redefined genre boundaries. TimeFold solidifies their position as visionaries in experimental music, offering an album that is as much a meditation on future technologies as it is a tribute to the avant-garde traditions that have come before.

Trees Speak are releasing their new album TimeFold worldwide on 15 Nov 24 on Soul Jazz Records.

Trees Speak return with TimeFold, their sixth release on Soul Jazz Records, further expanding their ever-evolving sonic universe. This new album builds on their signature blend of hypnotic krautrock rhythms, post-punk angularity, and experimental soundscapes while venturing into new terrain by blending influences from avant-garde electronics to ceremonial sound forms.

On TimeFold, Trees Speak (comprised of the Tucson-based duo Damian Diaz and Daniel Martin Diaz) push their musical boundaries from expansive, intergalactic landscapes to eerie, imagined 1970s Italian and French sci-fi horror film scores. The album seamlessly weaves John Carpenter-esque synthesizer motifs with ambient sound sculptures, conjuring immersive worlds that are both cinematic and otherworldly.

The album also incorporates the duo’s deep-rooted influences, which span across electronic pioneers like Jean-Michel Jarre (Oxygene), Tangerine Dream, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Drawing on the revolutionary techniques of Musique Concrète, TimeFold features experimental track splicing, looping, and collage work that harkens back to the golden age of avant-garde music. At times, the album channels the ceremonial tones and hypnotic rhythms reminiscent of early 1970s krautrock, fusing these sounds with organic instrumentation like dulcimers, adding an earthy, drone-like ritual quality to the experimental electronic framework.

A new element in this release is the inclusion of spoken word by Ashley Christine Edwards, which lends the album a haunting, apocalyptic edge. Her contributions evoke a tone reminiscent of the 1970s avant-garde scene, recalling literary and conceptual artists like Ruth White. The spoken words create a sensory experience akin to ceremonial chants, adding to the atmospheric intensity of the album. These vocal elements tie into the overall theme of TimeFold, which continues Trees Speak’s exploration of futuristic technologies and the communication of nature, with the evocative concept of trees and plants acting as organic hard drives storing data and knowledge.

Drawing further influence from Italian and French horror cinema, Trees Speak explore cinematic tension throughout TimeFold, creating a layered listening experience. The record transports the listener from the haunting, desolate beauty of Southwestern desert vast landscapes to an auditory space that melds early electronic experimentation with the contemporary urgency of conceptual art.

Since their debut Ohms in 2020, Trees Speak’s prolific output on Soul Jazz Records has continually redefined genre boundaries. TimeFold solidifies their position as visionaries in experimental music, offering an album that is as much a meditation on future technologies as it is a tribute to the avant-garde traditions that have come before.

Brisbane indie-punk quartet Semantics make their return with I Feel It All At Once - their much-anticipated sophomore album.

Representing a bright new chapter for the group, I Feel It All At Once builds on a diverse range of sonic influences; crushing riffs, soaring melodies and introspective, open songwriting coming together in producing Semantics’ most cohesive and definitive work to date.

Written and produced by Semantics in Brisbane, I Feel It All At Once has a strong foundation of artistic chemistry and understanding at its core. Led by songwriter and frontman Callum Robinson, Semantics’ new work has the imprint of all band members included. Overall, the album is a project that serves as a love letter to their relationship as musicians, their perseverance as a group, and more importantly, it is a project that looks ahead to fresh horizons for them as a unit.

Across its eleven tracks, I Feel It All At Once encapsulates a broad emotional spectrum; snapshots of life’s experiences, journeying themes of grief, love, yearning and ultimately, acceptance. Semantics are a band who have proven in the past that they are unafraid to explore darker themes and subject matter but even then, they displayed a talent for doing it in a way that felt healthy and cathartic.

Here, we see a band who has navigated the ups and downs of the last few years of life, relationships and growth, emerging from it tighter than ever. Musically, the vision for their future has never felt more positive.

arottenbit is an electronic music project born in 2008 by Alessandro 'Otto' Galli (FOH Sound Engineer for Messa, Deafheaven, Pallbearer, Truckfighters, Bongzilla, Fuoco Fatuo).Playing solo with a 1989 NINTENDO GAME BOY or accompanied by hardcore punk drummer Guido Montanarini (PARADISE LOST, IMPLORE, THE SECRET), he soon found himself opening for some of his favorite bands like MELVINS, ATARI TEENAGE RIOT, THE BODY, MELT BANANA, AUTHOR & PUNISHER, FULL OF HELL and performing at major international festivals like ROADBURN 2022, HELLFEST 2022."You Don't Know What Chiptune Is" is a bold exploration of the chiptune genre, pushing the boundaries of 8-bit music with an experimental and innovative approach. Each track on the album is a unique specimen, meticulously crafted to showcase the versatility and depth of chiptune sounds.The album is characterized by its inventive use of 8-bit sound chips, evoking the essence of vintage gaming consoles like Game Boy. arottenbit skillfully manipulates these sounds to create a wide range of textures and atmospheres. The lo-fi, raw quality of the 8-bit era is preserved, while contemporary production techniques enhance the overall listening experience.