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CD comes in a soft case, instead of the original crystal case. All booklets included.

Bendrix Littleton is the writing and recording project of Nashville-via-Dallas musician and producer Bennett Littlejohn. The self-aware, malaise-filled songs on his debut LP 'Deep Dark South' are imbued with the painful beauty of the modern American South, including themes of drug and alcohol abuse, and the dissolution of relationships. Bendrix wrote most of the album on a vintage Harmony H162 acoustic guitar that he found at a flea market in Kentucky and restrung with higher pitched strings (a 'Nashville tuning'). After running the tracks through a Tascam four track cassette recorder, which sped the songs up ever so slightly, Bendrix added layers of lap steel, dobro, and pedal steel. 'I tried to pair instruments that typically aren't used together--one's that I've shied away from after playing them with uninspired country music.' 'Deep Dark South' conjures the feeling of wonder one gets from looking up at the vast Southern night sky.

Limited edition of 350 only copies on cassette! Formed in 1984, Dinosaur Jr carved a singular path through the latter half of the 1980s, issuing three highly influential albums in the process before finding a home with Sire Records, who issued “Green Mind” in 1991 as the alternative American rock scene the band had long been part of exploded globally. Produced by a stripped down line-up of the group (in fact, J Mascis himself plays almost everything), the album and Sire’s international reach took Dinosaur Jr’s reputation to a new level, aided by the singles ‘The Wagon’ and ‘Whatever’s Cool With Me’, a non-album EP of new material and live recordings, all of which are included here alongside a previously unreleased live recording capturing the group at the Hollywood Palladium in June 1991. Critically lauded on release, “Green Mind” remains one of the band’s strongest collections, and a firm fan favourite.

A limited edition 7" single featuring "Soul Of Fire" (taken from their debut album) and an exclusive b-side "Rip Van Winkle" (early version). The group WITCH was born from a marriage of apparently contradictory influences. J Mascis of DINOSAUR JR. renown and his long time friend Dave Sweetapple were interested in forming a hard rock band. They found willingand able conspirators in Kyle Thomas and Asa Irons, members New England avant-folk outfit FEATHERS. On their eponymous debut album, this line-up mounts a mighty sonic tumult that harkens back to classic heavy metal sound of early 70_s outfits while still sounding modern in it's assault. The eponymous debut album from WITCH is scheduled for release on TeePee Records March 7th, 2006. WITCH recorded their debut album for Tee PeeRecords with engineer John Agnello, who had already recordedDINOSAUR JR., J MASCIS + THE FOG, EARLY MAN, SON VOLT and SCREAMING TREES to name a few.

The '21 album by Sky Mata (Yūtai Bijin), a prodigious bedroom folk S.S.W. from Sapporo, is now on LP!

The latest work by the Sapporo-based home recording project Sky Mata is now available in analog form. Each side consists of seven or eight songs on this nostalgic, cinematic, and stunning lo-fi avant-pop suite.

Sky Mata has been releasing works since the mid-2010s, and their self-titled EP under the name Ghostly Beauty, which was released in analog form in 2021, has also made a big splash. It is now available in analog form. The album has a unique sound that combines the romanticism of folk music from half a century ago with an inorganic, futuristic world. The improvisational and flowing performance that intersects jazz, lounge music, and exotic, and the unique vocal style that spins pop melodies in a humorous way are also filled with a mysterious charm. If I had to name an artist of the same era, I would cite Sam Gendel as a great masterpiece.

Monkey is the second single by The Rellies since releasing 'Isabella is Annoying/ Brainwaves' in 2020. Ryan, guitarist and dual singer and songwriter for the band describes the making of 'Monkey' during lockdown with his brother Riley. "During covid we got very bored. Originally, we wanted to get our Monkeys and run them over with our dad's car, but we settled for filming them falling down the stairs and writing a song about it. When the other members of band finally heard the song, they liked the Monkey and then we made a clip with our friends and some TV monkeys. Everyone sang 'I like the Monkey' and soon everyone liked the Monkey!" Helicopter is Ryan's sonic representation of "hunks of steel flying through the sky. I'm an aviation nerd." He doesn't disappoint. Helicopter's opening riff is catchy and travels. Ryan's vocal powers through the song and the background vocals from kid brother Riley kicks it up a notch as he improvises his way through the chorus begging for a ride. The Rellies ages range from 13-16 and developed at Kings Cross Conservatorium. The brothers began writing and recording at age 9 and 11 respectively and doing shows as The Rellies in 2018 with Jarlath Kiernan on drums. In 2021, the band replaced guitarist Aiden Burke with Lachlan Knight when Aiden decided rehearsal was too loud. Ryan: "We love the Beatles but lately we've got more of a punk energy in our songs. Also, Riley likes a lot of different stuff like Tyler the Creator... his lyrics are inspiring us to be creative with humour."

Limited edition of 350 only copies on cassette! Formed in 1984, Dinosaur Jr carved a singular path through the latter half of the 1980s and early 1990s, issuing a number of highly influential albums in the process before finding a home with Sire Records. “Where You Been”, their fifth record, emerged in 1993, at the height of enthusiasm for grunge and the alternative American rock scene the band had long been part of. Produced by a new line-up of the group (longtime drummer Murph and new bassist Mike Johnson completing the three-piece), the album became the band’s most successful up to that point, reaching #50 in the US (where it sold over a quarter of a million copies) and #10 in the UK album charts, and spawning the hit single ‘Start Choppin’. Released to unanimously positive reviews, and containing many tracks that would become staples and fan favourites, “Where You Been” continued Dinosaur Jr’s global ascent, being issued simultaneously across the US, Europe, Australasia, Asia and South America.

Since the band's inception in 1992, Built to Spill founder Doug Martsch intended his beloved band to be a collaborative project, an ever-evolving group of musicians making music and playing live together. "I wanted to switch the lineup for many reasons. Each time we finish a record I want the next one to sound totally different. It's fun to play with people who bring in new styles and ideas," says Martsch. "And it's nice to be in a band with people who aren't sick of me yet." Following several albums and EPs on Pacific Northwest independent labels, including the indie-rock classic, There's Nothing Wrong With Love, released on Sub Pop offshoot Up Records in 1994, Martsch signed with Warner Brothers from 1995 to 2016. He and his rotating cast of cohorts recorded six more great albums during that time - Perfect From Now On, Keep It Like a Secret, Ancient Melodies of the Future, You In Reverse, Untethered Moon, There Is No Enemy. There was also a live album, and a solo record, Now You Know. While the band's impeccable recorded catalog is the entry point, Built to Spill live is an essential force of its own: heavy, psychedelic, melodic, and visceral tunes blaring from amps that sound as if they're powered by Mack trucks. Now in 2022, Built to Spill returns with When the Wind Forgets Your Name, Martsch's unbelievably great new album (and his eighth full-length)... with a fresh new label. "I'm psyched: I've wanted to be on Sub Pop since I was a teenager. And I think I'm the first fifty year-old they've ever signed." (The rumors are true, we love quinquagenarians_) When the Wind Forgets Your Name continues expanding the Built to Spill universe in new and exciting ways. In 2018 Martsch's good fortune and keen intuition brought him together with Brazilian lo-fi punk artist and producer Le Almeida, and his long-time collaborator, Joao Casaes, both of the psychedelic jazz rock band, Orua. Martsch fell in love with their music the moment he heard it. So when he needed a new band for shows in Brazil, he asked them, and the partnership went so well Martsch, Almeida, and Casaes continued playing together throughout 2019, touring the US and Europe and ultimately recording the bass and drum tracks for When the Wind Forgets Your Name at Doug's rehearsal space in Boise. After Martsch tracked guitars and vocals, they group collaborated from afar to mix the album. What emerged is When the Wind Forgets Your Name, a complex and cohesive blend of the artists' distinct musical ideas. Alongside Built to Spill's poetic lyrics and themes, the experimentation and attention to detail produces an album full of unique, vivid, and timeless sounds, from guitar-driven rock odes to REM and Dinosaur Jr to bluesy '60s-style anthems to dub-reggae-inspired instrumentation. It may have taken us 30 years of obvious fandom and courtship, but on September 9, 2022, Sub Pop Records is unabashedly proud to finally release an excellent new album from Built to Spill: When the Wind Forgets Your Name. Sometimes persistence pays off.

Polytechnic Youth’s enforced, quickfire pre-Christmas release schedule continues apace here with the wonderful debut full length from Lone Bison. As many small labels are discovering just now, one of the only viable alternatives to the current nightmarish world of vinyl pressing, is wandering back into yesteryear and -armed with a call from the PY devotees to ‘just keep getting the music out’- turning to the previously scorned upon compact disc. With ticks alongside the ‘cramming more music onto it’, having it look cool and charging £9.99 tops, we present this fabulous first Lone Bison full length. An incredible 13 track, electronic project for Ramsgate UK based Nick Bonell. Inspired by a love for ‘70s German electronic music and the current golden age of synthesizer based film soundtracks, it’s key theme as Nick says is “Repetition. I just like to lose myself in interlocking arpeggios which transport me away from the stresses of the day job. The tunes came out of me moving increasingly away from guitar and towards using hardware synths like the Korg Ms20, and, having made music as part of a band or a duo- I fancied something solo this time. The album was recreated very quickly, often with single takes and carefully choosing times when the family and neighbours were out!” Hugely recommended to fans of Tangerine Dream / Klaus Schulze or Edgar Froeses’ solo work as well as Cluster and lots on (label favourite) Sky records’ output. Musically, the album is wonderful but the sleeve is pretty neat too; Nick adds “I will be forever grateful for the amazing linocut cover art by Ieuan Edwards aka The Black Gold Press. I originally asked if I could use an existing print, but he insisted on a bespoke piece and chiselled lino all night to turn around the print in 24 hours. Then Jules Bigg (one of the original team behind the launch of Ramsgate Music Hall) did the photography and graphic design, the man is a wizard. I am truly lucky to live in an area where, if you chuck a rock in the air, it will land on an artist or musician. I had pretty much given up on making original music, after the untimely death of my songwriting partner some years ago. However, living in an area where new venues have mushroomed and great gigs are so plentiful, has inspired me to dig out the synths and fx pedals again”. Released in a one time pressing only of 500 with insert cards carrying more of Ieuan and Jules’ work, the album is released by Polytechnic Youth in December.

Limited edition of 350 only copies on cassette! Formed in 1984, Dinosaur Jr carved a singular path through the latter half of the 1980s and first half of the 1990s, issuing a number of highly influential albums in the process. “Hand It Over”, their seventh record, appeared in the spring of 1997 following a lengthy absence, and would prove to be the band’s final album-length offering for a decade. Performed primarily by J Mascis, “Hand It Over” appeared at a time of declining international interest in American alternative rock, but nevertheless received widespread approval and appreciation amongst critics and reviewers. The album was accompanied, unusually, by an EP of non-album songs recorded for the Matt Dillon movie Grace Of My Heart and, later, a vinyl only ‘I’m Insane’ 7” single, all of which are collected here alongside a previously unreleased concert recording made in Stockholm and two tracks performed for ABC TV in Australia. Accompanied by in-depth sleevenotes from Mojo’s Keith Cameron (based on recent and exclusive interviews with J Mascis), this edition provides a final view of a band about to disappear from the limelight but still as engaging and powerful as ever.

Spirits Having Fun records are ones made from and for shows and spaces—arrangements rooted in a deeply collaborative process, that come to life through intuitive and locked-in live improvisation. Following their 2019 debut Auto-Portrait, Two finds the New York and Chicago based four-piece continuing to challenge ideas of what a rock band can be, pulling apart their musical experiences and reimagining them as kinetic compositions, equally studied but palpably organic.

Two is constructed around gut feelings and strong grooves, elastic rhythms and playful pacing. Its twelve songs expand, contract, and make sharp turns between melodies under singer-guitarist Katie McShane’s meditative lyrics. “Broken Cloud,” which was also released last year on a compilation in support of Chicago Community Jail Support, offers a glimpse into her reflections on the natural world: "A city grew out of the ground / to a mountain it's only a blur."

True to its name, the internal logic of the band is also just a lot of fun, built on trust and deep-rooted musical relationships. Before there was Spirits Having Fun, McShane, bassist Jesse Heasly, guitarist-vocalist Andrew Clinkman, and drummer Phil Sudderberg had performed together in various arrangements over the years. McShane, Heasly and Clinkman met in a specific corner of the Boston underground in 2013, a time when a scene had coalesced around students from local music conservatories frequently collaborating with punk bands and noise artists, exchanging ideas and warping musical worldviews. Heasly and Clinkman played together in Cowboy Band, making mutant, free jazz-inspired takes on old country tunes. When Clinkman moved to Chicago, Heasly and McShane played in experimental groups like EKP and Listening Woman; in Chicago, Clinkman met Sudderberg playing in projects like jazz scene fixture Ken Vandermark’s high-powered band Marker.

Spirits first came together as an attempt at a long-distance collaboration among friends in 2016, driven by the simple feeling of missing each other; they’d meet up for marathon weekends here and there to practice, playing small loops through dive bars and art spaces around the Midwest—just enough for McShane and Heasly to afford plane tickets back home. Being split between Chicago and New York forced the project into a deliberate pace. “We tried to take it slow and let it be what it was,” said McShane. That sense of patience unexpectedly prepared them for March of 2020, when their planned tours and the release of Two were indefinitely delayed.

Two was mostly recorded in the summer of 2019 with the help of omnipresent Chicago engineer Dave Vettraino and DPCD’s Alec Watson, whose contributions on organ, synths, and piano are laced throughout the record. The album reflects a synthesis of solitary and communal songwriting processes—each song drawing on fragments written by individuals, which McShane threaded together and shaped through her distinct compositional lens, making the songs whole before returning to them to the band to mature collectively. When composing, McShane writes first on the keyboard before adapting parts for guitars played by herself and Clinkman. Their dueling approaches to guitar are complementary: McShane, being a newer guitarist, brings a freshness to the project (“I'm just discovering the whole time,” she says) while Clinkman has been playing since childhood.

“There's a lot more collaboration on this record,” says Clinkman, “in terms of all of us letting stuff bloom a little bit more.” The record’s first single, “Hold The Phone” is a good example of this process—it started with a playful intro riff from Clinkman, a melody and bridge added by McShane, a wobbly outro groove added by Heasly, which Sudderberg brought to life. Another single, the dynamic “See a Sky,” written primarily by Heasly, underscores the rhythm section chemistry at play across the record, the song ebbing and flowing around Heasly and Sudderberg’s eclectic percussive palettes.

“Entropy Transfer Partners” is the only song on the record with lyrics by Clinkman, and the album’s most politically direct—a call for solidarity in the face of systemic failures, an acknowledgment of the shared material devastation caused by our country’s ongoing healthcare and housing crises: “These are not things we're experiencing individually. We struggle through them collectively. And we could actually declare, all of us, that it doesn't have to be this way, and fight and organize to ameliorate some of those conditions.” (“We won't work to create the shit you monetize, to run our lives,” they sing.)

From front to back, Two is an absorbing listen simply for its impressive range. But as the members explain themselves, the complexity of the record is about more than its intricate riffs, or how often they count out an odd time signature, but how they reject the notion of boxing the songs in, letting the melodies take on lives of their own. “Making music that feels alive is important to us,” says Clinkman. “Music feels most powerful to me when it deepens our sensation of feeling alive and connected to other humans. It’s so easy to feel worn down and isolated; that your life’s value is fixed to your productivity at your job, or the things that you have or don’t have. Making music that feels joyful and fun seems like one effective antidote to that feeling.”

Following recent super-deluxe editions and multi-format releases of classic Who albums – ‘My Generation’, ‘Tommy’ and ‘Quadrophenia’, and the success of ‘Live at Fillmore’, we follow with The Who Sell Out – this set shaping up to be the most superlative of all…!! Released in December 1967 – the album reflected a remarkable year in popular culture. As well as being forever immortalised as the moment when the counterculture and the ‘Love Generation’ went global, 1967 produced tremendous musical upheavals as “pop” metamorphosed to “rock”.

Originally planned by Pete Townshend and the band’s managers, as a loose concept album including jingles and commercials linking the songs styled as a Radio London broadcast – born out of necessity as the band’s managers wanted a new album and there weren’t enough songs.

The original plan was to sell advertising space on the album – Jaguar cars, Coca-Cola etc. The jingles pay tribute to the pirate radio stations and expose the myths of ‘pop-culture’ and mock consumer society – way ahead of their time…

The homage to pop-art is evident in both the advertising jingles and the iconic sleeve design – created by David King (art director at the Sunday Times) and Roger Law (who invented Spitting Image) producing four giant images for each band member – Odorono deodorant, Medac spot cream, Charles Atlas and Heinz baked beans (Roger apparently caught pneumonia from sitting in the cold beans for too long).

Photography by renowned portrait photographer David Montgomery (rare out-takes included)

The album is a bold depiction of the period in which it was made – the tail-end of the ‘swinging-60s’ meets pop-art mixed with psychedelia and straight-ahead pop craft. It’s glorious blend of classic powerful Who instrumentation, melodic harmonies, satirical lyrical imagery crystallised for what was only the group’s third album – the ambition and scope is unrivalled by the Who, or any others from that period.

Within the bold concept, were a batch of fabulous and diverse songs – I Can See for Miles (a Top Ten hit) is a Who classic, Rael, a Townshend ‘mini-opera’ with musical motifs that reappeared in Tommy and the psychedelic blast of Armenia City in the Sky and Relax are among the very best material of the 1960s.

One of the most extraordinary albums of any era – it’s The Who’s last ‘pop’ album. Two years later came Tommy – a double concept album about a deaf, dumb and blind kid…

“We were hoping to get free Jaguars. We got fifty tins of free Baked Beans”

Pete Townshend

Since the band's inception in 1992, Built to Spill founder Doug Martsch intended his beloved band to be a collaborative project, an ever-evolving group of musicians making music and playing live together. "I wanted to switch the lineup for many reasons. Each time we finish a record I want the next one to sound totally different. It's fun to play with people who bring in new styles and ideas," says Martsch. "And it's nice to be in a band with people who aren't sick of me yet." Following several albums and EPs on Pacific Northwest independent labels, including the indie-rock classic, There's Nothing Wrong With Love, released on Sub Pop offshoot Up Records in 1994, Martsch signed with Warner Brothers from 1995 to 2016. He and his rotating cast of cohorts recorded six more great albums during that time - Perfect From Now On, Keep It Like a Secret, Ancient Melodies of the Future, You In Reverse, Untethered Moon, There Is No Enemy. There was also a live album, and a solo record, Now You Know. While the band's impeccable recorded catalog is the entry point, Built to Spill live is an essential force of its own: heavy, psychedelic, melodic, and visceral tunes blaring from amps that sound as if they're powered by Mack trucks. Now in 2022, Built to Spill returns with When the Wind Forgets Your Name, Martsch's unbelievably great new album (and his eighth full-length)... with a fresh new label. "I'm psyched: I've wanted to be on Sub Pop since I was a teenager. And I think I'm the first fifty year-old they've ever signed." (The rumors are true, we love quinquagenarians_) When the Wind Forgets Your Name continues expanding the Built to Spill universe in new and exciting ways. In 2018 Martsch's good fortune and keen intuition brought him together with Brazilian lo-fi punk artist and producer Le Almeida, and his long-time collaborator, Joao Casaes, both of the psychedelic jazz rock band, Orua. Martsch fell in love with their music the moment he heard it. So when he needed a new band for shows in Brazil, he asked them, and the partnership went so well Martsch, Almeida, and Casaes continued playing together throughout 2019, touring the US and Europe and ultimately recording the bass and drum tracks for When the Wind Forgets Your Name at Doug's rehearsal space in Boise. After Martsch tracked guitars and vocals, they group collaborated from afar to mix the album. What emerged is When the Wind Forgets Your Name, a complex and cohesive blend of the artists' distinct musical ideas. Alongside Built to Spill's poetic lyrics and themes, the experimentation and attention to detail produces an album full of unique, vivid, and timeless sounds, from guitar-driven rock odes to REM and Dinosaur Jr to bluesy '60s-style anthems to dub-reggae-inspired instrumentation. It may have taken us 30 years of obvious fandom and courtship, but on September 9, 2022, Sub Pop Records is unabashedly proud to finally release an excellent new album from Built to Spill: When the Wind Forgets Your Name. Sometimes persistence pays off.

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

What Do We Do Now is the fifth solo studio LP recorded by J Mascis since 1996. This is obviously not a very aggressive release schedule, but when you figure in the live albums, guest spots, and records done with his various other bands (Dinosaur Jr., The Fog, Heavy Blanket, Witch, Sweet Apple, and so on), well, to paraphrase Lou Reed, "J's week beats your year." What Do We Do Now began to come together during the waning days of the Pandemic. Utilizing his own Bisquiteen Studio, J started working on writing a series of tunes on acoustic with a different dynamic than the stuff he creates for Dino. "When I'm writing for the band," he says, "I'm always trying to think of doing things Lou and Murph would fit into. For myself, I'm thinking more about what I can do with just an acoustic guitar, even for the leads. Of course, this time, I added full drums and electric leads, although the rhythm parts are still all acoustic. Usually, I try to do the solo stuff more simply so I can play it by myself, but I really wanted to add the drums. Once that started, everything else just fell into place. So it ended up sounding a lot more like a band record. I dunno why I did that exactly, but it's just what happened." Two guest musicians are playing this time out; Western Mass local Ken Mauri (of the B52s) plays piano on several tracks. Since J himself has some experience with keys, when asked why he needed a hired gun, he says, "Ken is great, and he plays all the keys. I tried playing some keyboards on the first Fog album, but I'm really only comfortable playing the white notes, so it's kind of limiting. [laughs] Nowadays, I could just turn the pitch on a mini Mellotron to play different sounds, but black keys just seem hard. For whatever reason, I just like banging on the white ones. Seems like it's harder to figure out how to stretch your fingers around the other ones." Mauri has no such qualms and plays all the keys very damn well. He sounds especially great on "I Can't Find You," where he is Jack Nitzsche to J's Neil Young, creating one of the album's loveliest tunes. The other guest musician, Matthew "Doc" Dunn, is also prominent on this track. Dunn's steel guitar manages to both widen and soften the musical edges of the music, giving it a full classicist profile. Dunn is an Ontario-based polymath who J met through Matt Valentine. After J played on Doc's great 2022 Sub Pop single, "Your Feel," he figured it was time for payback. Both Dunn and Mauri add beautifully to the songs here, helping to transform them from acoustic sketches into full-blown post-core power ballads. What Do We Do Now is the finest set of solo tunes J has yet penned, and the way they're presented is just about perfect. Asked if he would be touring to support the album, J says he'll be doing some weekend dates, but he probably won't be putting a band together. And I'm sure these songs will sound great solo and acoustic, but the arrangements on this album are truly great and put a cool, different spin on Mascis' instantly Recognizable approach to making music. So, what do we do now? Not sure. But apparently, what J does is to make one of his most killer records ever. Hats off to him. - Byron Coley

In your face guitar hooks, sing along choruses, and a penchant for writing 90's alt-rock anthems deeply rooted in Boston Garage Punk, Stars Like Ours deliver their eponymous self titled full length release. Stars Like Ours is a 3 piece, 90's influenced, driving rock band with pop sensibility from Boston, MA, who’s influences include: Sugar, The Amps, Superchunk, Dinosaur Jr., and The Breeders. The band consists of Michelle Paulhus (The Decals, The Marvels, The Real Kids, The Dents, and Andrea Gillis Band) on bass and lead vocals, Kristin Holliday (drago, The Blue Bloods, Full Body Anchor, and The Downhauls) on guitar and backing vocals and Rice Edmonston (Darkbuster, Big Wig, Senior Happy, Heidi, Linus, Full Body Anchor, Mill Pond Falls, and Abbie Barrett Band) on drums and backing vocals.

Naoise Roo (“Nee-Sha Roo”) is a musician from Dublin, Ireland. Lilith is her debut album, originally released in 2015 available for the first time worldwide. Often described as the Irish PJ Harvey or Kate Bush, Roo often draws inspiration from mythology in her music to explore complex conceptions of feminine power and identity. The album title itself is a direct homage to the ancient Hebrew and Biblical Lilith – Adam’s first wife and, depending upon the version of the tale referenced, also the first witch or woman of power who eschewed male dominance. The album’s breakout track “Whore” is an examination of female sexuality and power as threats to male society and mainstream religion. The lead track has been remixed by famed producer John Agnello (Dinosaur Jr, Waxahatchee) and will be released on March 8th, 2022 to commemorate International Women’s Day. Single cover by Irish photographer & filmmaker Bob Gallagher.

If you like Silkworm and Hum you're gonna love this record.Hey, this is Wiggins from Thousandaire. It is Tuesday, November 8, 2022. The high today in Atlanta will be 77° F, it was 81° yesterday and the day before. The weather isn't returning to how it was, and it's not going to get any better. None of this matters. Tom Bruno, Chad Leblanc, and I play music together because it's fun and keeps the despair at bay. We are really good at it because being really good at playing as a band is way more fun than sucking at it. We know how to make records, in fact, we just finished a new one with Damon Moon at Standard Electric recorders here in Atlanta. We're pretty proud of it in that it sounds the way we wanted it to be, and not any way we could guess it should be if we wanted a bajillion people to like it. So, it's nice that you're reading this you might like our music and you might like to see us play it, and we think you probably will, but the truth of the matter is we are doing this purely for our own entertainment. You get to come along because we can't see a good reason not to share. Everything else, like this bio, our barely-used Instagram account or Bandcamp page, or pictures of us not playing a show, none of that stuff matters to us, and it shouldn't matter to you. It's 81 degrees in November, ok?FFO: Silkworm, Dinosaur JR, Pinebender, Polvo, Hum

Whitney's Playland is the pandemic-era project of Inna Showalter and George Tarlson, longtime friends and veterans of the music scene (grandma’s Boyfriend, Blades OF JOY, Modern Charms). Having grown up in and around San Francisco and inspired by their experiences, their music is about the usual things in life: love and loss, sometimes with a wry and sardonic angle. The result is a dreamy pop landscape reminiscent of Yo La Tengo, Guided by Voices, the Sundays, and Dinosaur Jr. The band expanded into a four-piece in late 2022 with the addition of Evan Showalter and Paul Demartini.

When Porridge Radio's Dana Margolin, one of the most vital new voices in rock, began to consider the themes of her new album, three vivid words began to emerge: joy, fear and endlessness. The artwork of the band's third full-length, Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To The Sky, is a surreal image that evokes the ducks and dives, slippery slopes and existential angst of life in recent times. "To me, the feelings of joy, fear and endlesses coexist together," says Dana. "You're never just happy or unhappy." Following Every Bad's release in 2020, Margolin was quickly becoming regarded as one of the most magnetic band leaders around. But if Every Bad established Dana's bravery in laying herself bare, her band's third record takes that to anthemic new heights. While there are moments of guttural release, she also finds soft power on songs. "I used to think I had to be loud to be heard," she admits, "but now I'm definitely less afraid of being gentle." The band's first new single, `Back To The Radio', sets out their stall, a lurching call to arms that contrasts Dana's lyrics of panic and closing herself off. This song is just one of example in Wdbltts that explores something that has long been an important part of Porridge Radio's process: playfulness. "I think the album needed to have that balance," Dana explains. Balance: that's the word the album seems to be eternally striving for - joy, fear and endlessness in harmony but also self-acceptance. Dana is more aware of how she's creating a persona as her star continues to rise, and how she's singing personal songs that now belong to other people which gives her purpose. She says, "I wrote these songs for myself, but I think everyone wants to feel like what they're doing is useful in some way. I'm ready to embrace it all now, whatever happens."

After decades on the road and the never-ending hustle of life as an artist, Lou Barlow has tapped into a new confidence in the chaos. In 2021, the concept of balance feels particularly intimidating. Now more than ever, it's clear life isn't just leveling out a pair of responsibilities. Instead, we're chasing after a flock of different ideals with a butterfly net. On Barlow's new solo album, Reason to Live, he has come to an understanding of that swirl rather than trying to contain it. As a long-time indie legend, Barlow has found a life akin to a middle-class musician. In recent years, he's moved from Los Angeles back to Massachusetts, where he lives with his wife and three kids. And yet rather than settle into a comfortable malaise or yearn for the open road, Barlow's strengthened urgency finds a way to merge the two instincts. Reason to Live is shambolic and grand yet intimate and doting, warmly acoustic and crackling with grit. "I had been struggling for a way to connect both my home life and my recorded life, but this record is the first time I've integrated that," Barlow says. By folding the many facets of his life into one package, Reason to Live radiates with a renewed balance and calm. That comfort in complexity shines through even in the recording process, with select songs having origins in decades past and others written in the early stages of 2020. The multitude of whirring messages of Reason to Live are united by Barlow's roiling multilayered arrangements and the understanding that change is inevitable - and that it can bring you a new reason to live in the darkest times. "This album is me really opening up, and the album follows that through its many different themes," he says. "Some of my other work could be almost claustrophobic in its insistence on being all tied together but there's space for people to live inside these songs." After albums with Sebadoh, Dinosaur Jr., Folk Implosion, and under his own name, listeners may have felt they knew the construction of a Barlow song, even that they knew Barlow himself. "People have this vision of me as this heartbroken, depressed guy, but this record feels so true to who I am, to this rich life I now have full of people I love," he says. "The songs culminated over the last five years to show that music has returned to its central comforting role in my life. Now I'm home."

Sucker is an all girl 4 piece band, that combines a punk ethos of collaborative songwriting and in the red production with sadgirl shoegaze and ultra-cool aesthetics. This one's getting a lot of hype in local scene, with a huuuge sold out album release. This album was featured on landmark blog, August Town Hall, and also front paged Twice on the Bandcamp homepage (New & Noteable and Essential Releases). The 7" also includes a beautiful risographed insert. This one's for fans of Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, and early MBV

Groundbreaking bands typically don't function as stars hanging in the night sky for all to gaze upon. Rare talent functions more accurately like tectonic plates, mutating their surroundings deep underground by bulldozing the pre existing turf. These kinds of musicians who regenerate and evolve our world by forging new creative languages that future artists will liberally borrow from and build upon. Richmond, Virginia may seem like a surprising location for seismic catalysts, but Hard Copy now joins an elite list of RVA bands moving sound in unexpected and earth shaking directions. Destruction! Invention! Rebirth! Once upon a time there was Honor Role who deconstructed midwest hardcore and carved out a path for what eventually would become mathrock. Combining empathy wrapped in anger, a following generation would use this template to birth post-hardcore and a 2nd wave emotional music. A bit later came Labradford who were atmospheric scientists creating pulsating soundscapes bathed in drone. Their music was so devastatingly unique that Kranky willed themselves into existence to release their debut for which this historic label was built upon and continues to lead the way in experimental music. I can't help but to include Hard Copy among this kind of revelatory innovation. They are subtle shapeshifters of synth driven post-punk. At their core, we find unorthodox art rock for which Talking Heads and Pere Ubu belong, but it is stretched taut like taffy into trance-inducing, long form motorik musings. Singular vocals act as a secondary percussion. Bass lines double as a metronome heartbeat. Guitars zigzag inside a monochromatic prism. Linnear drums hammer the band's abstract narrative into a carefully crafted double-helix staircase spiraling up into ambitious avant-garde territory. Cantankerous poetry minus the Mancunian snarl of Mark E Smith behaves as a modern day deadbeat descendant making good. In short, making very very good. Riyl the kind of bands who have no interest in grabbing a spotlight and are more likely to kick out the bulb to avoid it completely."—Tracy Wilson (Courtesy Desk)

teen suicide's first & only proper album, `i will be my own hell because there is a devil inside my body', has been a sought after release for many collectors after it's ultra-limited vinyl release in 2012. Now, Run For Cover Records will be reissuing my own hell, with remastered audio, expanded artwork and 8 never-before-issued bonus tracks. Across the album's 10 songs, the band displays a knack for different sounds and styles. Intimate, keyboard driven tracks like `cop graveyard' and `grim reaper' sit beside more energetic full-band outings like `dead bird skeleton and `give me back to the sky', the latter even adding an evocative viola, piano and choral arrangement to it's chaotic center. It's to the band's credit that their more outré moments feel necessary, not distracting. What becomes clear upon listening to `my own hell' is that beneath the dreamy haze & noisy apathy of teen suicide's recordings exist ernest, extremely well-written pop songs that reflect and express the uncertainty and desperation of reality

Life is full of ups and downs. Sometimes you get up just to get down again. Sometimes you run just to feel the wind against your face, and sometimes you stand still to watch things crumble around you. Vancouver's Ladyhawk knows this. And they got up - way up - and entered a recording studio for a day-long session between tours in the first half of 2006. Perhaps they then soared too close to the sun, like moths drawn into the flame, only to fly again into the shadows, their wings singed. And then maybe, gathering their burned and broken instruments about them, they limped their way home, rearranging the pieces and sounds haphazardly, letting them all lay as they fell.The end result is the sound of four brothers breaking something down to create something new, reaching into the fire again. It is a shattering 6-song march called Fight For Anarchy, all unmuzzled and jawing out, nothing edited or expunged. And on it Ladyhawk show that, like Spoon, Dinosaur Jr. or Tom Waits, they have the ability to conjure growls, snarls, and storms of sound into musical lightning, never striking the same place twice.

This is a 24 track Vinyl compilation compiled by J Mascis (DINOSAUR JR) featuring all the recorded material from his first band DEEP WOUND. DEEP WOUND were a hardcore punk band from western Massachusetts formed in 1982 and J Mascis's first band. They released one self-titled EP in 1983. They are often noted as being, along with SIEGE, one of the early inspirations for Grindcore. Members were: J Mascis - drums, Lou Barlow - guitar, Scott Helland - bass guitar, Charlie Nakajima - Vocals.

Limited to 300 black copies. A few weeks ago, the first planetary defense test was successfully carried out: the Dart probe diverted the orbit of the asteroid Dimorphos. With this Nasa operation we know, once again, that when we humans play god we are unstoppable, that we are not going to become extinct like the dinosaurs as long as progress makes us move. However, while this space shock was brewing 11 million kilometers away, here, more specifically in Torelló (Barcelona), a disc was being created that is like the Trojan horse of asteroids. Sin has made a crater or is going to do so; we are talking about Meant to collide of Wud. The second album of the band arrives three years after the debut Okeanos (2019), three are also the nuclear components that currently form it (and not the five before) and, again, three are the letters with which the name of the band remains (wud), previously they were called Wood. It seems that many things have changed in three years and that's right, the group has grown while it has been reduced and this new album testifies to that. The eight songs concisely concentrate the soul of the project. Although what they continue to love is the structured edginess of math-rock, they want the work to have punk-rock and pop constantly on the horizon, which makes the computation more digestible for all kinds of ears that like sharp-guitars music. Behind the songs we find Marc Fernández, Aleix 'Jimmy' Vilarrasa and Rai Costa, three friends of Torelló who for the last, almost, two years have been carrying out the recording. A long and arduous process that has gone through different studios, such as Fontderola by Jordi Casadesús and Jordi Torrents, or Lluerna by Èric Fuentes, but above all it has been hatched in their rehearsal room where they themselves have persevered in the attack to record a good part of the instrumental. The trio's bizarre ideas have been grounded with millimeter precision, faithfully capturing the centennial hyperactivism that accompanies them wherever they go. On the one hand, the songs trot lively and directed with a hardcore soul and rounded pop, on the other, if we look a little, we notice how the details of each cut are infinite, that the structures could be applied to the Sagrada Familia, that, in definitely, there is a lot of hard work. That the process has been laborious is also noticeable in the guitarist's lyrics, words spat out with the impatience of someone who doesn't want to waste another minute in the loop of self-destructive thought. Meant to collide is a fight between the two opposite and complementary parts of oneself, and I say two to simplify. Between the adrenaline side that wants to end everything through romantic escape and the other, the one that wants to reconstruct the fragments of memory to heal from serenity. From this very personal dispute comes a more than possible collision which, deep down, is what makes the group's creative drive advance and, above all, what makes the feeling that the songs are alive because they are lived intensely. Are we talking about emotions? Yes, thank God, because there such of this on the album, all the time, even in the instrumental interludes. The dreamy piano of “Barnum’s Circus”, the spectral autotune of “Lost Stars” or the Queens-of-Stoneagian guitar solo of “Cul-de-Sac” are at the service of the emotional magma of the musicians. The influence of highly emotional groups such as Delta Sleep (the English band performed one of the most memorable concerts for the wud crew at Torelló’s Arundo Fest in 2018), Algernon Cadwallader or Faraquet is noticeable. Over the years we are discovering where exacerbated technological progress is leading us: that's right, to collapse. Meanwhile, but, this band warns us that they have already arrived there and that humanity can be taken in abundance from there, in fact, there is nothing more human than collapsing.

Something happened on No. The early EPs from Baltimore’s Tomato Flower were pretty, dreamy psychedelia. Warm to the touch, like looking up at the trees on a cloudless day. On No, the four-piece’s debut album, those trees, that cloudless sky, have become haunted, thorny, stormy. It takes Tomato Flower from buttoned-up, almost technically formalist psych pop to something more urgent, raw, emotionally immediate. No is messier, more expansive, and through all of its chaos, the band’s most rigorous artistic statement to date.

No is the band’s first effort made entirely in person, the first thing tracked in a studio instead of in a bedroom. It is a highly collaborative record written and recorded by everyone, partially made live. It is very much the byproduct of a band that has done some serious touring, following a coast-to-coast tour with Animal Collective in the summer of 2022.

Lead single “Destroyer,” has Jamison Murphy practically screaming over angular guitars, oscillating in a sonic space somewhere between the prettiness of Broadcast and the sludge of Jesus Lizard. It also presents an early entry point to one of No’s major conceptual underpinnings: that of the breakup between Murphy and fellow co-lead vocalist and guitarist Austyn Wohlers, which occurred during the composition of the album.

It wouldn’t be fair to just call No a break up album. It’s far more complicated with that. No is a record about negation: I will not do this, you cannot tell me what to do, we are not living in a utopia, don’t be delusional. No embraces a kind of brutal realism, a confrontation of life that only happens when you wizen up a little bit. All of it is a brutal delight, a departure from the past, a nod to a startling present.

Kate Bollinger's songs tend to linger well beyond their run times, filling the negative space of ordinary days with charming melodies and smart phrasings. She writes them at home in Richmond, Virginia, letting her subconscious lead, an open-ended process she likens to dreaming. From a chord progression appears a line, maybe a syllable will start to stick, enough to pursue, but she says sometimes the words don't feel likeher own, more like shapes that form in the mind's sky. Bollinger's musical universe is relaxed, tender, and unassuming; within lives a timeless sensibility, a songwriter's knack for noticing the little things and their counterpoints. Darkness and light, pain and pleasure, reality and escape. Her new EP, Look at it in the Light, her first project on Ghostly International, is collaborative; she shoots music videos with her friends and colors each of her folk-pop songs with musicians in her community. The title Look at it in the Light is a reference to the aspects of Bollinger's life that she knows need examining. For one, there's her persistent resistance to change _ she chooses to ignore it on the title track ("I try not to notice / I deny my fate"), as wiry strums sync with crisp drums. She surrenders to comfort on "Who Am I But Someone," a light and softly psychedelic number. "Yards / Gardens" finds Bollinger in full swing, skipping verses of uncertainty above a bright and nimble bassline and kick. Guitar riffs unravel across the bridge, trailing her lines like ellipses. The string-backed "Lady in the Darkest Hour" is the set's most luxuriant statement, recorded during a session at Matthew E. White's Spacebomb Studios with in-house arranger Trey Pollard (Natalie Prass, Helado Negro). Here her lines ring bittersweet yet reassuring, uplifted by swells of golden-hued instrumentation. From the hushed abstractions of "I Found Out" to the biting suspicions of closer "Connecting Dots," Kate Bollinger uses every inch of this dazzling EP to find her footing amidst the ever-present sways of life

Maybe it’s the endless pieces of soft, soothing music being described as ‘a soothing balm for the stresses of the pandemic age’, but don’t you sometimes find yourself wishing for a solid rock’n’roll record to cut to your core and send your fists soaring towards the sky? Okay, our moshpits may not extend much further than the faces in our living rooms right now, but goddamit, some of us really just want some punk rock to help us feel alive. Here’s where Needles//Pins’ mighty fourth album comes in. From the surging rush of opener ‘Woe Is Us’ (sounds relatable), via the organ-drenched scuffle of ‘Winnipeg ‘03’ right through to anthemic closer ‘The Tyranny Of Comforts’, this is a record that takes your emotional concerns and bundles them up into sweet little packets of raw-throated, chestswelling, moves-into-your-brain-and-never-leaves melody. They’re self-aware too; by referencing Cap’n Jazz’s ‘Little Leagues’ in the opening verse to ‘A Rather Strained Apologetic’, they lay bare that in a less complicated era you might have been tempted to call their take on punk ‘emo’. Hey, come back - OK, it’s not a Jade Tree special, but it’s got the same gravel throated delivery and honeyed approach to melody that Blake Schwarzenbach delivered on ‘24 Hour Revenge Therapy’. Needles//Pins are equally indebted to classic Canadian powerpop like The Pointed Sticks - hell, 1979’s essential ‘Vancouver Complication’ comp feels as much of a reference here as ‘Boxcar’. They know their history, they know their craft, and they know their shit. If you’ve not been keeping count, this all adds up to ‘plenty to love’. Of course you could just ignore everything I just wrote and listen for yourself. What you’ll find is a record that sounds simple on first listen, but offers more layers to peel back the more you listen. It’s comforting, it’s thrilling, it’s… well, it’s not a soothing balm, but it might just be what you need right now to pick you up off the floor and (as referenced on the aforementioned ‘Woe Is Us’) make you shake and shimmer. A future classic? Hell, why not?

'rootsy drone 'propelled by muscular hymns and steeped in a mystical if not downright metaphysical aura' circular, mutant-Southern-rock riffs and bleary distortion; at the same time, there's an almost pagan spiritualism at play' - Pitchfork

'combines the droning jams of Luna with the tender tension of Ought (and the squealing yawps of Meat Puppets frontman Curt Kirkwood) 'the grooves are absolutely transfixing" - Spin

While the members of Atlanta's Arbor Labor Union are involved in and influenced by the scene and ideology of DIY punk and hardcore, they are indebted to Cosmic Americana Music, Whitman-esque optimism and appreciation toward nature, and the working-class sympathies of Woody Guthrie. In their words, 'CCR meets The Minute Men.'
This is the follow up to Subpop's 2016 release 'I Hear You.' They have toured with have toured with Dinosaur Jr., Outer Spaces, Gnarwhal and The Gotobeds.

Kate Bollinger's songs tend to linger well beyond their run times, filling the negative space of ordinary days with charming melodies and smart phrasings. She writes them at home in Richmond, Virginia, letting her subconscious lead, an open-ended process she likens to dreaming. From a chord progression appears a line, maybe a syllable will start to stick, enough to pursue, but she says sometimes the words don't feel likeher own, more like shapes that form in the mind's sky. Bollinger's musical universe is relaxed, tender, and unassuming; within lives a timeless sensibility, a songwriter's knack for noticing the little things and their counterpoints. Darkness and light, pain and pleasure, reality and escape. Her new EP, Look at it in the Light, her first project on Ghostly International, is collaborative; she shoots music videos with her friends and colors each of her folk-pop songs with musicians in her community. The title Look at it in the Light is a reference to the aspects of Bollinger's life that she knows need examining. For one, there's her persistent resistance to change _ she chooses to ignore it on the title track ("I try not to notice / I deny my fate"), as wiry strums sync with crisp drums. She surrenders to comfort on "Who Am I But Someone," a light and softly psychedelic number. "Yards / Gardens" finds Bollinger in full swing, skipping verses of uncertainty above a bright and nimble bassline and kick. Guitar riffs unravel across the bridge, trailing her lines like ellipses. The string-backed "Lady in the Darkest Hour" is the set's most luxuriant statement, recorded during a session at Matthew E. White's Spacebomb Studios with in-house arranger Trey Pollard (Natalie Prass, Helado Negro). Here her lines ring bittersweet yet reassuring, uplifted by swells of golden-hued instrumentation. From the hushed abstractions of "I Found Out" to the biting suspicions of closer "Connecting Dots," Kate Bollinger uses every inch of this dazzling EP to find her footing amidst the ever-present sways of life

The mesmerizing debut LP by Nova Scotia’s Quilting on October 7, 2022. The album is a quietly stunning collection of pastoral ambience dotted with moments of tension that reflects the maritime environment in which it was created, inadvertently paying homage to the light and darkness of rural life.

Co-founded by Holy Fuck’s Brian Borcherdt, the quartet is comprised of a diverse and accomplished collection of musicians who came together when he moved back to his home province in 2019 after a lengthy stay in Toronto.

The shock of settling into a town of 600 people was softened almost immediately by a care package left on Borcherdt’s front porch. It included the curious juxtaposition of homemade preserves and a circuit-bent keyboard. His interest was piqued. As luck would have it, his new neighbour happened to be renowned folk guitarist Kim Barlow.

“Kim was in the process of organizing an improvisation series featuring over a dozen Nova Scotia-based musicians. The series struggled under lockdown restrictions, and on the second attempt only the four of us showed up.” Borcherdt recalls. “We didn't really know each other that well, were a bit shy and played very quietly. However, we really enjoyed how spacious our jam was.”

One week after their initial jam, Borcherdt was invited to perform a solo set at a Halifax-based experimental festival called Open Waters. He instead volunteered the same lineup: himself, Barlow, distinguished Isle Of Skye harpist (and Berklee professor) Mairi Chaimbeul, and Sahara Nasr, a noted songwriter and player of the rare Indian Sarangi. It wasn’t long before they began recording and soon realized a name was necessary to make the project official.

“When we get together to play music, it's our 'poker night'. That led us to think of other community or 'grown-up' gatherings, similar or antiquated... like barnraising bees, quilting bees.” Explains Borcherdt. “We were sort of quilting: four corners of fabric, texture, sewing threads, telling a story, all making one complete piece while drinking a few beers. We could've also called it ‘Therapy’.”

While providing a necessary distraction from early-COVID life, Quilting also offered a chance to improvise within a uniquely ambient soundspace. This was a welcome change for some of the members, including Borcherdt, who was used to creating music with decidedly more volume.

“Space is welcome. Writing in Quilting is a spontaneous and thoughtful process, very synesthetic and, of course, collaborative. I've only really gotten to explore space and silence with solo music.” He reflects. “With my other bands, even when spontaneous and improvised, the result is dense and cathartic, expressive through pulse and rhythm and volume. With Quilting we get to drift, no beats, no safety net. Every note counts. Yet rather than being stressed or scrutinized under a microscope we all have fun and daydream a bit.”

Sonics aside, Quilting has also given all four members the chance to experiment with the boundaries created by headquartering in a remote area not commonly associated with the avant-garde music community.

“Nova Scotia, unlike other provinces, has basically one city, one place where musicians congregate, play shows and hang out. Anything happening outside of Halifax can be considered an experiment, a test to see anything can get off the ground.” Borcherdt explains. “ In Toronto there's already an infrastructure, whether you play the same venues or build your own new thing- there's an audience, there are friends and like-minded individuals. It's healthier. Here we have to take what we get. But the good news is that it's kind of a blank slate.”

The LP, which features hand-calligraphed cover art from Upstate New York-based artist and musician Sarah Le Puerta, features five songs all recorded live off-the-floor in a single live performance. Moods range from reflective to unsettled, and even at its loudest parts a sense of intimacy persists.

“This album feels like a complete picture, a snapshot of one fun night.” He states. “That seems to me to be a perfect introduction. The listener gets to “attend” the concert, which is an amazing way to discover new music.”

On 23 February 2024 wildly creative free-form L.A. singer-songwriter and multi instrumentalist Laena Myers is set to release her highly anticipated debut solo album, ‘luv (Songs Of Yesterday)’. Released on Taxi Gauche Records, the 11-track collection is the first to feature the genre-spanning composer, in-demand session player/singer and classically trained violinist putting her own name to her recordings.

Formerly known as Laena Geronimo and L.M.I. / Laena Myers-Ionita, Laena is perhaps best known as lead singer, songwriter and guitarist of critically-acclaimed and internationally touring rockers Feels, but that is only the tip of the iceberg. She’s also known for her time as bassist for goth-punk band Numb.er as well as the Motown-inspired pop outfit The Like, and as the go-to-violinist for a myriad of artists from the L.A. music scene and beyond - contributing to released recordings by John Frusciante, Jhené Aiko, Ty Segall, Shannon Lay and The Allah Las to name a few.

Describing herself as “An awkward, shy kid who played in the Jr. Philharmonic Orchestra of California and wore headphones blasting NIN, The Velvet Underground and Sonic Youth all the time”, Laena cut her teeth in a busking band, performing purely improvised

material on street corners in Hollywood and spent the entirety of her young adulthood as a supporting player in countless L.A. bands - at times as many as five simultaneously, while working full time and sleeping in her car during lunch breaks.

Inspired as much by the soft weight of Hope Sandoval and Patsy Cline’s dramatic powers, Patti Smith’s poetic punk and Nico’s avant-garde musings as she is by contemporaries like Angel Olsen, Aldous Harding and Cate LeBon, her musical roots run deep. She is the daughter of American drummer Alan Myers (devo, Skyline Electric, Jean Paul Yamamoto) and Romanian singer/songwriter and visual artist Greta Ionita (Babooshka).

As a solo artist, Laena's punk background of guitar-based songwriting and swagger merges with her innovative classical/experimental roots and love for singing ballads, and this is shown throughout ‘luv (Songs Of Yesterday’), leading to a depth of emotion that cuts to the heart of even the most hardened, revealing a more tender side to her vocal and lyrical prowess over lush string arrangements.

The album’s opening track ‘luv’, with it’s only lyrics “When I say I’m in love you best believe I mean love L.U.V.” is a nod to The Shangri-Las and New York Dolls, and was used to evocatively soundtrack fashion brand CELINE’s Spring 2020 campaign. “Half the songs on the album are about relationships in which I thought I was in love - true love - but it turned out to be something else”, Laena explains, “so ‘luv (Songs of Yesterday)’ seemed a fitting title: sounded like love, looked like love, but it wasn’t real love.”

“The overarching theme of the album is strength in vulnerability” Laena explains, “it’s a collection of songs that were too personal and dreamy for Feels, songs of haunted love, melancholy and hope, selected and woven together with instrumental segues and field recordings into a whole experience.”

The record’s first single, ‘Give ‘Em Hell’, written six months after her father passed away, is about keeping the flame alive and having the courage to believe in yourself. “We were very close” she says. “One night before I got on stage he stopped me and said “Give ‘em hell, kid”, and this phrase has become a mantra to me, to not hold back and give it my ALL. Many of these songs come from heavy times”, she continues, “but there is always the glimmer of a brighter tomorrow. Reach out when you need to, move through the gears and you’ll come out the other side.”

The songs contained in ‘luv (Songs Of Yesterday)’ are picked from over the course of a decade, written purely from a place of honest expression and filled with texture, depth, and meaning. They were recorded between tours mostly in sweltering summer bedrooms by friend and co-producer Scott Cornish (Angel Olsen, Big Thief, No Age), and mixed during the pandemic. The album features Laena’s vocals, guitar, bass, and violin playing and huge-sounding, lush string arrangements supplemented with drums and percussion by Nick Murray (Cate Le Bon, White Fence, Thee Oh Sees), synths by Jeff Fribourg (Numb.er, Froth), lap steel by Cole Berliner (Kamikaze Palm Tree), and sax by Gabe Flores (Grave Flowers Bongo Band), as well as field recordings — birds singing at daybreak, footsteps and bells making their way into a cave, the wind on a peak in Angeles National Forest.

Limited Editon Lp Format With Extra Heavy Textured Jackets And Metallic Silver Ink. Lp Includes 12" Square Insert With Lyrics And Images Of The Artist, And Download. The Raw Inspiration For Vague Tidings Came From A 2006 Diy Tour Of The 49th State. It Was A Trip That Went Off The Beaten Path-Sometimes A Bit Too Far For Comfort. Now, Over A Decade Later, Listeners Find Joe O'connell Aka Elephant Micah Stationed At A Creaky Spinet Piano, Singing About The Alaskansky. Throughout, His Lyrics Take A New Angle On A Pet Theme: Human Encounters With The Natural World. Vague Tidings Places These Encounters In The American West And, At Times, In Its Sci-Fi Corollary, Outer Space. Its Imagery Draws From The Allure Of Alaska, The Idea Of Western Prosperity, And The Human Relationship To Wilderness More Broadly. Often, O'connell Sings About The Goal Of Capturing And Commodifying Nature. In Poeticsketches Of Resource Extraction Industries And Dark Sky Tourism, Frontier Lust Runs Amok. Pipelines Catch Fire And Stars Disappear, All To The Tune Of A Stark, Uncanny Americana.Vague Tidings Is A Sustained, Hallucinatory Rendering Of This Theme. In Style, Its Eight Songs Follow A Switchback Path Between Foggy Incantations And Mountain Anthems. Made With A Small Cohort Of Acoustic Instrumentalists, The Record Is Rough Hewn, But Easy On The Ears. To Put Vague Tidings Down On Tape, O'connell Assembled Some Of His Favorite Musicians In Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina Area, Where He's Lived Since2015: Libby Rodenbough (Mipso) Bows And Plucks A Detuned Fiddle, Matt Douglas (Mountain Goats) Breathes Life Into Various Woodwinds, And Matt O'connell (Lean Year) Sets The Pace On A Two-Piece Drum Set. Their Loose, Imaginative Playing Pushes Vague Tidings Beyond The Singer-Songwritergenre Into Something Richer In Texture. Ultimately, This Is Foreboding But Spacious Music, With Plenty Of Room For Reconsidering Life On Earth. R.I.Y.L. Jason Molina, Bonnie Prince Billy, Bill Callahan, Damien Jurado.

Just under a year after their acclaimed self-titled debut, dreampop duo deary release a brand new six-track EP – Aurelia – via Sonic Cathedral on November 1.

It includes the singles ‘The Moth’, ‘Selene’ and ‘The Drift’ and features Slowdive drummer Simon Scott playing on three songs. It will be available on three different vinyl variants, a CD with three bonus tracks and digitally.

It’s a stunning record, which displays a new-found maturity in terms of production as well as musically and lyrically. The band – singer Rebecca ‘Dottie’ Cockram and guitarist/producer Ben Easton – have had to grow up in public since the release of their debut single at the start of 2023, supporting legends such as Slowdive and Cranes and TikTok sensations like Wisp along the way.

An aurelian is a rare old term for a lepidopterist – someone who studies and collects moths – derived from the Latin aurelia, meaning chrysalis. The perfect title for an EP which is based around the theme of metamorphosis and change.

“It leans on the natural world, the human body, the earth and sky as well as human emotion,” says Ben of how the EP represents physical and metaphysical growth. “Change can be daunting but equally exciting, which is something we’ve come to learn.”

“While writing the EP, I found a letter I had written to myself when I was 22,” adds Dottie. “I was fresh out of university and had moved back in with my parents as Covid was in full force. I was uninspired and lost and reaching out to my future self for some hope. It was a physical representation of what can happen in a few years; how much can change and how you never know what’s coming next.

“I found it interesting that – at the age of 26 – here I was looking back to my younger self for hope or just some comfort in the fact that things will and do move on. It was important to me to bring both of these versions of myself into the new songs.”

“Personally, I had noticed a change in myself; a new level of social anxiety, a strange disassociation to things that once brought me joy as well as negative repetitions in my daily life,” reveals Ben. “I began the year sober which allowed me to finish the writing process as a letter of care to my own mental health. There are motifs throughout the EP – for example the riffs in ‘The Moth’ and ‘The Drift’ being reminiscent of each other – which are like musical reflections of these repeated cycles.”

It’s musically where the change deary have undergone is most obvious. ‘The Moth’ mixes howling guitars atop a strident breakbeat making it more Curve than Cocteaus; ‘Selene’ is a slow-building wall of noise; ‘The Drift’ combines a perfect pop melody with an incredible sense of urgency. These three singles are balanced by the brief but beautiful ‘Where You Are’ which leads into the Portishead-style trip-hop of ‘Dream Of Me’. The title track has been a staple of their live sets for about a year as ‘Can’t Sleep Tonight’, but its mix of The Cure circa Disintegration and Mezzanine Massive Attack has grown and evolved so much that they renamed it ‘Aurelia’ as the embodiment of the change they have been through.

“We’ve allowed deary to naturally grow over the past year, we didn’t want to force it to take a certain shape or sound,” explains Dottie of the duo’s slow and steady approach. “A lot of the last EP was written by sending ideas back and forth over WhatsApp, but this time we were able to sit in the same room and I think that really shows. We know each other a lot better now as we have experienced this journey together and that benefits the writing process as we are more open with each other and can be vulnerable.”

“Aurelia definitely feels a lot more collaborative, more personal and more fully realised than the first EP,” concludes Ben. “It feels like a real document of what has been a very important time in both of our lives. Ironically, the band has changed and matured even more since the recording, so we’re both excited to document the next stage.”

When Porridge Radio's Dana Margolin, one of the most vital new voices in rock, began to consider the themes of her new album, three vivid words began to emerge: joy, fear and endlessness. The artwork of the band's third full-length, Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To The Sky, is a surreal image that evokes the ducks and dives, slippery slopes and existential angst of life in recent times. "To me, the feelings of joy, fear and endlesses coexist together," says Dana. "You're never just happy or unhappy." Following Every Bad's release in 2020, Margolin was quickly becoming regarded as one of the most magnetic band leaders around. But if Every Bad established Dana's bravery in laying herself bare, her band's third record takes that to anthemic new heights. While there are moments of guttural release, she also finds soft power on songs. "I used to think I had to be loud to be heard," she admits, "but now I'm definitely less afraid of being gentle." The band's first new single, `Back To The Radio', sets out their stall, a lurching call to arms that contrasts Dana's lyrics of panic and closing herself off. This song is just one of example in Wdbltts that explores something that has long been an important part of Porridge Radio's process: playfulness. "I think the album needed to have that balance," Dana explains. Balance: that's the word the album seems to be eternally striving for - joy, fear and endlessness in harmony but also self-acceptance. Dana is more aware of how she's creating a persona as her star continues to rise, and how she's singing personal songs that now belong to other people which gives her purpose. She says, "I wrote these songs for myself, but I think everyone wants to feel like what they're doing is useful in some way. I'm ready to embrace it all now, whatever happens."

In the winter of 2017 I moved back to my hometown of Kansas City from Los Angeles. The move was sudden and unforeseen, just as I was tying a bow on the writing process for what would become my 2019 album, Oh My God. I bought a Four Track Tascam model 424 off of an old friend to help me get to the finish line, but much to my surprise and excitement, this new piece of equipment in my all-but-bare home didn't help complete one album but rather inspire another: Sundowner. The new collection of songs came quickly and effortlessly as I did my best not to resist or refine the songs, but instead let them take shape all on their own. As the songs kept coming I cleared out the crowded shed that was sitting dormant in my backyard and built a makeshift studio before adding drums, lead guitar and piano to complete the demos. Each day I would teach myself basic recording techniques, watching the channels illuminate and pulse as if the machine were breathing, and then emerge in the evenings as the sun was getting low: - around 5:30 in the winter, when the Kansan sunsets look icy and distant, like a pink ember inside of a display case, and 9 o'clock in the summer, when the sunsets are warm and abstract. Landing back home felt jarring juxtaposed with a life full of chaos and adventure with my band on the road. But at the very least, I was happy to have - for the first time in my adulthood - a place to close the door, with no temptations other than to work on music and reflect on what I had built since I left. It was a new form of isolation, one I had never explored or expected to experience. Not ready to let go of the hand of the California desert, I spent the winter decorating the best I knew how; with mementos from my previous home, cactus and aloe vera and covering the walls in pinewood - immediately earning my house it's nickname, The Little Los Angeles. In January 2019 I contacted my friend and producer Brad Cook to help recreate what I had made in my shed. We chose to work in Texas; we wanted to make sure the record was done far away from any coastline, and in the heart of America. Brad played bass and some keys on the album, but beyond that he encouraged and inspired me to play almost everything else. All lead guitar, proper drums (save the drums on "A Night At The Little Los Angeles"), mellotron and what I believe to be the albums secret weapon - a Wwii era collapsible and slightly out-of-tune pump organ - were performed by me. We did, however, bring in James Krivchenia towards the end of the session to fill out the percussion. It was an honor to work with him as he built maracas from pecans and played on the floor of the live room, adding flourish wherever he saw fit. On the last evening of the session, after everything had wrapped, we all climbed on top of an empty water tower on the property, giving us a view in all directions. To the North you could see an endless Texas, with long wisps of cirrus clouds above the desert floor, and to the South there was Mexico, the recent detention camps only a mile beyond, with large cumulus clouds hovering over, bringing us to an ominous pause. To the West, towards the setting sun, the two families of clouds merged, holding the last light of the day in purple and orange. Below, a freight train cut the landscape in half as it whistled in the distance. Almost as soon as the session wrapped, I was off and away on press trips and then proper tours for Oh My God, which came out in April that same year. Sundowner sat inside of a hard drive back at Sonic Ranch and did not see the light of day, until I found myself, as did the rest of the world, stuck inside their home and in quarantine in March 2020. My second year of touring for Oh My God was cancelled. Brad, Jerry and I worked from our respective homes, sending notes back and forth as we worked alone but together to mix the album, and suddenly, just like that, Sundowner was finished. Songs, like sunsets, are fleeting, and it's only due to a willingness and desire to catch them that you ever, if even only for a moment, grab a hold of one. When writing Sundowner, I was lucky to have had the Tascam 424 there to help capture both. Sundowner is my attempt to put the Middle American twilight -- it's beauty profound, though not always immediate -- into sound. It is a depiction of isolation. Of the past. Of an uncertain future. Of provisions. Of an omen. Of a dead deer. Of an icon. Of a Los Angeles themed hotel in rural Kansas. Of billowing campfires, a mermaid and a highway lined in rabbit fur. It is a depiction of the nervous feeling that comes with the sky's proud announcement that another day will be soon coming to a close as the pink light recedes and the street lamps and house lights suddenly click on. -- Kevin Morby, Kansas, 2020.

"How often at night, when the heavens are bright,With the lights from the glitterin' stars,Have I stood here amazed, and asked as I gazedIf their glory exceeds that of ours?"Sweet boy made a promise and tied it with a stringSweet boy can't afford a ring.winter returns but spring followsBlue cowboys just need to take a trip sometimesIs It Any Wonder?8 tracks 33RPMFrom the minds that brought you CCFX, "What Are YouWaiting For?", and Daisies "2" comes the7th release from the purveyors of the electronic paisleyunderground, "Great Big Sky"Originally self released on the prolific JGAP label,now widely available on wax throughperennial and k records.This release continues the rich tradition of DIY bands crafting instant pop hits entirely ontheir own terms, which has long been the hallmark of the Olympia Underground.Look for the video for singles "Is it Any Wonder?" And a show or two....Whateverhappens it is quite assuring that whatever these times may bring bands can still put outmusic as good as this LP.400 vinyl copies.

Picture the scene if you can. It’s Sunday evening at the Meakusma Festival, 2019. A small audience (in varying states of inebriation and recovery) sit patiently on the floor, drenched in soft sunlight. Fizzy Veins is set up to play - his guitar resting on his knees while he stares into his laptop with an expression displaying amusement and fear in equal measure. He tentatively speaks into the microphone. There’s a lot of reverb. I don’t think anybody has the slightest idea what he’s saying. I assume he’s delivering a joke, but it’s very hard to tell. People laugh. After yet more tweaks to his gear he starts to play some loose, bendy phrases on the guitar, and we are all gently vaporised up Mount Effervescent. Our benevolent guru sits at the peak, speaking in tongues to the freshly formed congregation. The beats start to roll out and the sun begins to set in the evening sky. Fizzy transitions and he continues his long distance narration from deep inside his own reverb. It sounds like he’s in another room. On another planet, more like.

Witnessing the show, as I did, left me wondering how he even manages to boot-up his computer.. let alone produce an album as brilliantly formed and coherent as this!

Yours sincerely, A. Fizzyfan

The 13th studio album from these indie rock legends, coproduced by Kurt Vile! Here is Sweep It Into Space, the fifth new studio album cut by Dinosaur Jr.. during the 13th year of their rebirth. Originally scheduled for issue in mid 2020, this record's temporal trajectory was thwarted by the coming of the Plague. But it would take more than a mere Plague to tamp down the exquisite fury of this trio when they are fully dialed-in. And Sweep It Into Space is a masterpiece of zoned dialing. Recorded, as usual, at Amherst's Biquiteen, the sessions for Sweep It Into Space began in the late Autumn of 2019, following a West Coast/ South East tour. The only extra musician used this time with Kurt Vile. Indeed, Sweep It Into Space is a very cool album. As is typical, Lou Barlow writes and sings two of the album's dozen tunes and Murph's pure-Flinstonian drumming drives the record like a go cart from Hell. Lou's songs here are as elegant as always. But there are very few moments where you wouldn't know you were hearing Dinosaur Jr. in blindfolded needle drop. They have a signature sound as sure as the Stooges or Sonic Youth or Discharge ever did. They continue to expand their personal universe with Sweep It Into Space, without ever losing their central core.

Sometime in 2006 or 2007, Jason Molina moved from the midwest to London. Separated from his bandmates and friends and never one for idleness, Molina explored his new home with fervor. Sometimes he'd head out on foot, often with no destination in mind. Other times, he'd pick a random tube stop and find his way back home. He'd pick up on arcane trivia about London's rich history, and if the historical factoids weren't available - or weren't quite to his liking - Molina was quite comfortable conjuring his own history. His adoration of The Great American Tall Tales like John Henry and Paul Bunyan's blue ox Babe stretched across the Atlantic, where he created his own personal Tall Tales. And when he learned of the London Wall's seven gates (itself a misconception), Molina went ahead and called it eight, carving out a gate just for himself. The eighth gate was Molina's way into London, a gate only passable in the mind. Fast forward to 2008, Molina set off on an experimental solo tour through Europe. While in Northern Italy, Molina claimed to have been bitten by a rare, poisonous spider. A debilitating bout of illness ensued. "I was in the hospital here in London," Molina wrote in a letter. "Saw six doctors and a Dr. House-type guy. They are all mystified by it, but I am allowed to be at home, where I am taking a dozen scary Hantavirus type pills a day that are all to supposedly help - but they make me feel like shit." There is no record of a single doctor visit, not any prescription record for these medications. It is entirely plausible there was no spider and that whatever was keeping him indoors during this time was entirely self-induced. While at home, he of course wrote songs. Molina also claimed that during this time, he fed several bright green parrots that would gather in his yard. While often associated with a greyscale sensibility, Molina was oft-clad in a Hawaiian shirt and had, at least in part, selected the name Songs: Ohia for his first project as a nod to Hawaii's 'Ohi'a lehua flower. Which is all to say, the tropical element the parakeets brought to those sick days delighted Molina. He made short, crude field recordings of them with his trusty four-track. Only once Molina was officially on the mend and re-exploring the streets of London would he learn that those parrots had their own fabled tale. Back in the 60s, Jimi Hendrix - in a moment of psychedelic clarity - released his pair of lime green ring-necked parakeets from their cage, setting them free into the London sky. Now, their decendents are spotted regularly around certain parts of the city. Or so we're told. Eight Gates is the last collection of solo studio recordings Molina made before he passed from complications related to alcoholism in 2013. Recorded in London around the time of the supposed spider bite and Jimi's supposed parakeets, some of the songs ("Whispered Away," "Thistle Blue") are fully-realized - dark, moody textures that call to mind his earlier work on The Lioness. Knowing what we know about those parakeets and their peppered presence on the recordings, one can't help but think of that colorful tree of birds on Talk Talk's classic Laughing Stock, certainly a spiritual guide for much of the set. Other songs ("She Says," "The Crossroads and The Emptiness") lay in a more unfinished states, acoustic takes that call to mind Molina's Let Me Go Let Me Go Let Me Go, and still tethered to Molina's humorous studio banter. You remember how young Molina was, and how weighty this art was for such a young man. On the closer, "The Crossroads and The Emptiness," Molina snaps at the engineer before tearing into a song in which he sings of his birthday (December 30), a palm reading and the great emptiness with which he always wrestled. It is a perfect closer and, in many ways, the eighth gate incarnate: mythical, passable only in the mind, built for himself and partway imaginary but shared, thankfully, with us.

Sometimes we can only come to know ourselves best when we let others in. Such can certainly be said of NYC multi-instrumentalist and artist Andrya Ambro, and her band Gold Dime, on the eve of their second full-length My House. See, she's played these instruments and crafted these songs her entire life, having honed her decisive sit/stand style of transfixing drumming and provocative singing to a degree of perfectionism. Coming from her previous, highly acclaimed noisy rock duo Talk Normal, Gold Dime's first release, 2017's Nerves, was the first time Ambro has had no one to answer to but herself. My House sees a new, more collective effort being made, with Ian Douglas-Moore on bass and John Bohannon (Ancient Ocean || J.R. Bohannon) on guitar. And it very much shows. Walking a tightrope between unapologetic art rock and disarming intimacy, she integrates triumphant doubled guitars whose distorted fuzz winks at the mayhem of Les Rallizes Denudes, deep floor toms that quick pivot to galvanizing beats on a bed of dead spinning cymbals, to sometimes spoken, sometimes sung Laurie Anderson-esque words that uplift into a many voiced choir. And the warm bass lines, well they would make Holger Czukay from CAN very proud.

My House, according to Ambro, is intended to be something of a gruff father's declaration at dinner, fist slamming on the table, but rather than the stubborn, undying manners that would come with 'living under my roof,' she only demands that everything be done with the same degree of tireless dedication and authenticity. 'I want every beat to be played with intention. 'Cause why play if you don't mean it?' Every moment of this album acts as just that'a demand to own something, whether it be self or art or place in this world. We have no choice but to listen, to respect it. This is her house... well Gold Dime's house.

Produced by Andrya Ambro recorded and mixed by Ernie Indradat, mastered by Sarah Register with artwork and layout by Eric Copeland.

Behind the Shadow Drops is the new solo endeavor from Takaakira 'Taka' Goto,
founding guitarist and composer of iconic Japanese experimental rock group,
MONO. Established in 2016, Behind the Shadow Drops combines Goto's disparate
but commensurate interests in many different forms of music, most notably
ambient, trip-hop, industrial minimalism, and modern classical. Recorded at Goto's
home studio and mixed with esteemed producer and percussionist, John McEntire
(Tortoise, The Sea and Cake, Yo La Tengo), H a r m o n i c merges Goto's
dynamic, moody compositions with McEntire's renowned drum programming and
percussive sensibilities. What begins as a passing resemblance to the more
melancholy work of Goto's ensemble, MONO, slowly mutates into something
otherworldly, submerging in a symphony of synths, drum machines, noise loops,
and mournful strings (courtesy of Los Angeles experimental cellist, Helen Money).
Resembling something like waves rippling in the ocean under a cloudy moonlit sky,
H a r m o n i c is as eerie as it is beautiful - a vast abyss punctuated by seemingly
endless glimmers of light.

Another remarkable new Dinosaur Jr. album from the bands original lineup

Sometime in 2006 or 2007, Jason Molina moved from the midwest to London. Separated from his bandmates and friends and never one for idleness, Molina explored his new home with fervor. Sometimes he'd head out on foot, often with no destination in mind. Other times, he'd pick a random tube stop and find his way back home. He'd pick up on arcane trivia about London's rich history, and if the historical factoids weren't available - or weren't quite to his liking - Molina was quite comfortable conjuring his own history. His adoration of The Great American Tall Tales like John Henry and Paul Bunyan's blue ox Babe stretched across the Atlantic, where he created his own personal Tall Tales. And when he learned of the London Wall's seven gates (itself a misconception), Molina went ahead and called it eight, carving out a gate just for himself. The eighth gate was Molina's way into London, a gate only passable in the mind. Fast forward to 2008, Molina set off on an experimental solo tour through Europe. While in Northern Italy, Molina claimed to have been bitten by a rare, poisonous spider. A debilitating bout of illness ensued. "I was in the hospital here in London," Molina wrote in a letter. "Saw six doctors and a Dr. House-type guy. They are all mystified by it, but I am allowed to be at home, where I am taking a dozen scary Hantavirus type pills a day that are all to supposedly help - but they make me feel like shit." There is no record of a single doctor visit, not any prescription record for these medications. It is entirely plausible there was no spider and that whatever was keeping him indoors during this time was entirely self-induced. While at home, he of course wrote songs. Molina also claimed that during this time, he fed several bright green parrots that would gather in his yard. While often associated with a greyscale sensibility, Molina was oft-clad in a Hawaiian shirt and had, at least in part, selected the name Songs: Ohia for his first project as a nod to Hawaii's 'Ohi'a lehua flower. Which is all to say, the tropical element the parakeets brought to those sick days delighted Molina. He made short, crude field recordings of them with his trusty four-track. Only once Molina was officially on the mend and re-exploring the streets of London would he learn that those parrots had their own fabled tale. Back in the 60s, Jimi Hendrix - in a moment of psychedelic clarity - released his pair of lime green ring-necked parakeets from their cage, setting them free into the London sky. Now, their decendents are spotted regularly around certain parts of the city. Or so we're told. Eight Gates is the last collection of solo studio recordings Molina made before he passed from complications related to alcoholism in 2013. Recorded in London around the time of the supposed spider bite and Jimi's supposed parakeets, some of the songs ("Whispered Away," "Thistle Blue") are fully-realized - dark, moody textures that call to mind his earlier work on The Lioness. Knowing what we know about those parakeets and their peppered presence on the recordings, one can't help but think of that colorful tree of birds on Talk Talk's classic Laughing Stock, certainly a spiritual guide for much of the set. Other songs ("She Says," "The Crossroads and The Emptiness") lay in a more unfinished states, acoustic takes that call to mind Molina's Let Me Go Let Me Go Let Me Go, and still tethered to Molina's humorous studio banter. You remember how young Molina was, and how weighty this art was for such a young man. On the closer, "The Crossroads and The Emptiness," Molina snaps at the engineer before tearing into a song in which he sings of his birthday (December 30), a palm reading and the great emptiness with which he always wrestled. It is a perfect closer and, in many ways, the eighth gate incarnate: mythical, passable only in the mind, built for himself and partway imaginary but shared, thankfully, with us.

A Haunted Tongue is the third album by Colossal Squid, the solo project of producer/virtuoso drummer Adam Betts (Goldie, Squarepusher, Melt Yourself Down, Jarvis Cocker). A Haunted Tongue moves things on one step further, letting the process and approach fade into the background, freeing Betts to balance a million inspirations (early 90s Warp, rave tapes, Nubian drumming, Indonesian gabba_) and filter them through an anything-goes punk aesthetic that results in a feeling of freedom that is both refreshing and rare. Betts has spoken of "a recurring dream of a stranger trying to get across an important message but not talking in any discernible language" that guided these recordings. This feels appropriate to the listener - the language of A Haunted Tongue isn't straightforward or easily classified but yet the message is clearly understood and embraced by the listener at a primal level. That message is one of hope - channelling the shared euphoria of communal musical experience and searching for an uncynical and personal expression of positive energy that can move people and resonate with them. "A while back we had a chat with JR Moores, he was doing a Bandcamp piece on the label. We mentioned we wished we did more rave-related releases. Within seconds we had the Johnny Broke album in our inbox. Johnny Broke is actually Wayne Adams. Wayne messaged and told us about Adam Betts (AKA Colossal Squid). And here we are, dealing with someone who drums for Squarepusher and Goldie. Both Chris and I have the biggest love for 90s rave music. For me (Joe) I'm listening to an alternative world that I was old enough for but missed out on. I knew the music but didn't have the knowledge to drive around the M25 looking for the fields. It's a history I don't quite have but feel like I do. It's like the Beatles: known all my life but no idea why. It's cut into our DNA. It was our punk rock but we missed it. This Colossal Squid album, no matter how many times I listen to it, brings something new every time. And it makes me...

Celebrating the 15th anniversary since its original release, Dinosaur Jr. is reissuing "Beyond" on limited edition colored vinyl with a special edition 7". With J Mascis on guitar & lead vocals, Lou Barlow on bass and vocals, and Murph on drums, the 2007 album was the first from original lineup Dinosaur Jr. since 1988's "Bug," kicking off a Dinosaur Jr. reunion which has lasted longer than the band's original run. "Less a theme park of the past and more of an actual trip there_ Beyond is nostalgic for everything but the band's own glory days. If anything, it's an exercise in making their entire twenty-year output sound contemporary again." - Zach Baron for Pitchfork "very existence of this new album is a surprise, but the real shock is that Beyond is a flat-out great record, a startling return to form for J Mascis as a guitarist and songwriter and Dinosaur Jr. as a band_ Beyond isn't merely a worthy album from a reunited band, it's simply a great record by any standard." - Stephen Thomas Erlewine for Allmusic Guide "There is something almost eerie about how exactly the Dinosaur Jr of 2007 sound like the Dinosaur Jr of 1988: on occasion, listening to Beyond feels discombobulating, like meeting an old school friend 20 years on_" - Alex Petridis for The Guardian

The 13th studio album from these indie rock legends, coproduced by Kurt Vile! Here is Sweep It Into Space, the fifth new studio album cut by Dinosaur Jr.. during the 13th year of their rebirth. Originally scheduled for issue in mid 2020, this record's temporal trajectory was thwarted by the coming of the Plague. But it would take more than a mere Plague to tamp down the exquisite fury of this trio when they are fully dialed-in. And Sweep It Into Space is a masterpiece of zoned dialing. Recorded, as usual, at Amherst's Biquiteen, the sessions for Sweep It Into Space began in the late Autumn of 2019, following a West Coast/ South East tour. The only extra musician used this time with Kurt Vile. Indeed, Sweep It Into Space is a very cool album. As is typical, Lou Barlow writes and sings two of the album's dozen tunes and Murph's pure-Flinstonian drumming drives the record like a go cart from Hell. Lou's songs here are as elegant as always. But there are very few moments where you wouldn't know you were hearing Dinosaur Jr. in blindfolded needle drop. They have a signature sound as sure as the Stooges or Sonic Youth or Discharge ever did. They continue to expand their personal universe with Sweep It Into Space, without ever losing their central core.

Readers of encyclopedic tomes are obviously familiar with exploding animals – there are numerous reports of torn-apart toads (even in Hamburg, Germany!), actual ants exploding altruistically – but humans that decide to jointly detonate, and with no harm done, that’s rare: Kobe’s own o'summer vacation are unique (and volatile) like that, and they’re back to light the fuse for the second time, presenting 13 more musical quarter sticks that have already blown up venues in Europe and Japan.

“Keep it lean, keep it mean,” they say, and that’s what this band loves to take to the extreme: breakneck concision and collective combustion meet freeform noise punk hazards on o'summer vacation's second (not quite) full-length – as the Kobe-based three-piece’s “Electronic Eye” is set to arrive on October 11, 2024. Following a bunch of trips to Berlin, Munich etc., the Japanese fire starters have found a new home with Alien Transistor, and it’s the perfect launch pad for their latest set of guitarless pyrotechnics. Going right for max q (maximum dynamic pressure), “Electronic Eye” is (unlike those Starships) actually supposed to explode right after lift-off ;)

Even though there have been some line-up changes since the group recorded its sophomore album, the energy caught by producer Shinji Masuko (dmbq, Boredoms) is still unmatched: a very physical and hard-knocking barrage of mosh-inducing madness that leaves you speechless + inevitably twitching towards the pit. Mastering was done by Masaki Oshima aka Watchman (Melt-Banana).

Opening with sizzling hi-hats and heavy ripples of breathless bass, singer Ami presents a non-sequitur kind of lullaby over the math rock-style interlocutions of “宿痾 (Shuku - A)” – which at 6+ minutes makes up more than a quarter of the album. A shapeshifting frenzy of voice (Ami), unbridled, pedal-powered bassline insanity (Mikkki, formerly Mikiiiii), and hot-blooded drums (Manu, meanwhile replaced by Karry), the album features mosh-inducing blows (previously released “Luna,” “Anti Christ 大体 Super Star”), 30-sec mini noise punk anthems (“竦(shou)”, “Days Go By Fast”), and continues to surf at breakneck pace up and down scales (“@ The”), which often feels like catharsis served with a hammer (“Ultra”). Whereas some tracks are bigger more song-y than others (“Song#2,” that full-throttle “Poodle”), “Vs I” is on time like Tierra Whack (exactly 60 seconds of pick-grinding action), and “Rage” indeed feels like Zack is about to join the party – only to see Ami wipe the floor with pure onomatopoetic fire. Finally, “Aloooooone” and “Humming” (that opening lilt!) are sure going to be live favorites, shifting up and down via hardcore speeds and various break-downs.

Quite hotheaded and terminating things on a high note, o'summer vacation point out that the quick-fire lyrics of their “songs have no meaning. It’s called onomatopoeia in English. Ami, our vocalist, does not like to communicate her thoughts through her music.” Although she considers her contribution “a part of the instrumentation,” they still have strong messages and concerns (unrest, discontent, willingness to shake, wake up, enliven anyone near the audible bomb crater): “That doesn’t mean we don’t have a point of view, but we choose to express ourselves through sound rather than words. Generally, but not exclusively, we are anti-racism, anti-war, gender-free, angry at the companies we work for and their bosses, etc., which are very common sentiments held by so-called rock bands.”

It’s only three ingredients, just like sonic gunpowder: bass, drums, voice – but they tend to explode a few bars into each new track. In a perfect world, there’d be giant colorful clouds of dust gracing the sky over each venue they descend upon.

Check out the first 18 or so seconds of "Can I Ride," the title trackon the first release by Polvo, the two-guitar juggernaut thatrepresented the other side of Chapel Hill indie rock (more on that ina moment). That two-note riff, and the guitar twang that follows,recalls the opening notes on another monster song: "The Sprawl," akey track on Sonic Youth's epochal Daydream Nation, an albumreleased in October 1988, less than two years before Polvo formed.This compilation's nine tunes_the first seven from the Can I Ridedouble 7-inch EP (1990), the last two from the "Vibracobra" b/w"The Drill" 7-inch (1991)_are not quite the sound of a torch beingpassed, but they were a sign that Sonic Youth's weird tunings, thehardcore punk and proto-indie rock on SST Records, and R.E.M.'shazy rock (three big influences on this era of Polvo) were changinglives.Even back then, the impossibly catchy roar from Merge's flagshipact Superchunk was known to outsiders as the sound of Chapel Hill.But Polvo was something different from the same region. While theband never cottoned to the "math rock" tag (and it's hard to disagreewith them), there is no question that there was a distinct "how canwe make guitar rock sound different from all the other guitar rock"vibe going on in the mid-Atlantic, from Richmond (math rock's truehome, don't @ me) to the North Carolina Triangle over to Louisvilleand down almost to Atlanta. (If the Mastodon dudes aren't downwith Polvo, I'll eat your shoe.)No, Polvo were their own brand of squall, not afraid of big hooks("Leaf "), odd tempos and textures ("Lull") and rolling thunder ("Totemic"), and answers to the musical question, "What if the Feeliesgrew up on Dinosaur Jr.?" ("Tread on Me").Indie rock? Not the 2019 kind. Math rock? Eh, not really. This wasthe sound of a new Southern rock, of a pre-internet g

i will be my own hell because there is a devil inside my bodyi will be my own hell because there is a devil inside my bodyi will be my own hell because there is a devil inside my bodyteen suicideRFC128LABEL: Run For Cover Recordsteen suicide's first & only proper album, `i will be my own hell because there is a devil inside my body', has been a sought after release for many collectors after it's ultra-limited vinyl release in 2012. Now, Run For Cover Records will be reissuing my own hell, with remastered audio, expanded artwork and 8 never-before-issued bonus tracks. Across the album's 10 songs, the band displays a knack for different sounds and styles. Intimate, keyboard driven tracks like `cop graveyard' and `grim reaper' sit beside more energetic full-band outings like `dead bird skeleton and `give me back to the sky', the latter even adding an evocative viola, piano and choral arrangement to it's chaotic center. It's to the band's credit that their more outré moments feel necessary, not distracting. What becomes clear upon listening to `my own hell' is that beneath the dreamy haze & noisy apathy of teen suicide's recordings exist ernest, extremely well-written pop songs that reflect and express the uncertainty and desperation of reality

When Porridge Radio's Dana Margolin, one of the most vital new voices in rock, began to consider the themes of her new album, three vivid words began to emerge: joy, fear and endlessness. The artwork of the band's third full-length, Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To The Sky, is a surreal image that evokes the ducks and dives, slippery slopes and existential angst of life in recent times. "To me, the feelings of joy, fear and endlesses coexist together," says Dana. "You're never just happy or unhappy." Following Every Bad's release in 2020, Margolin was quickly becoming regarded as one of the most magnetic band leaders around. But if Every Bad established Dana's bravery in laying herself bare, her band's third record takes that to anthemic new heights. While there are moments of guttural release, she also finds soft power on songs. "I used to think I had to be loud to be heard," she admits, "but now I'm definitely less afraid of being gentle." The band's first new single, `Back To The Radio', sets out their stall, a lurching call to arms that contrasts Dana's lyrics of panic and closing herself off. This song is just one of example in Wdbltts that explores something that has long been an important part of Porridge Radio's process: playfulness. "I think the album needed to have that balance," Dana explains. Balance: that's the word the album seems to be eternally striving for - joy, fear and endlessness in harmony but also self-acceptance. Dana is more aware of how she's creating a persona as her star continues to rise, and how she's singing personal songs that now belong to other people which gives her purpose. She says, "I wrote these songs for myself, but I think everyone wants to feel like what they're doing is useful in some way. I'm ready to embrace it all now, whatever happens."

Hailing from Bozeman, MT, Kitchen Dwellers embody the spirit and soul of their home with a sonic palette as expansive as Montana's vistas. The quartet _ Shawn Swain [Mandolin], Torrin Daniels [banjo], Joe Funk [upright bass], and Max Davies [acoustic guitar] _ twist bluegrass, folk, and rock through a kaleidoscope of homegrown stories, rich mythology, American west wanderlust, and psychedelic hues. After amassing 5 million-plus streams, selling out shows, and receiving critical acclaim, the group brings audiences back to Big Sky Country on their third full-length album, Wise River, working with Cory Wong of Vulfpeck as producer. In the end, Kitchen Dwellers share timeless American stories from the heart of one of its greatest treasures. "When you listen to Wise River, I hope you hear some of the original qualities that made us who we are, but you also recognize aspects that are new and adventurous," Max leaves off. "I hope you hear what it sounds like when the four of us are at home and have the space to create something together. This album is really how we sound as a band."

Marking their 20th year as a band, Maserati returns with their first new album in five years. Produced by the band and mixed by Grammy-winning producer, John Congleton (Explosions In The Sky, Swans, Angel Olsen), Enter The Mirror is Maserati's most compelling mélange of triumphant guitar hooks, abstract synth-pop, and Wax Trax-inspired noise anthems. The gated drums of Phil Collins and chorus-drenched guitars of INXS were prominent influences on Enter The Mirror, paired to magnificent effect with the increasingly dystopian lyrical themes (which, ironically, were also massive influences on popular music in the 1980s, and feel ever more relevant now). In addition to longtime members Coley Dennis, Matt Cherry, Chris McNeal, and Mike Albanese, Maserati are joined by friends and collaborators, Bill Berry (R.E.M.), Owen Lange, and Alfredo Lapuz Jr. Self-reflection and loss of control as both a positive and negative aspect of modern existence is at the heart of Enter The Mirror. It is Maserati's most efficient and cohesive album, and a monumental accomplishment for a band who have weathered many storms throughout their first two decades - and found the will to not just keep moving, but to move with style and chase.

"Too much so-called psych-punk or acid-punk or whatever boils down sonically to some efx added to a familiar punk/rock format. I’m sorry, but that doesn’t qualify to my ears. On the other hand, this SLUMP band from Richmond, Virginia, ranks high. Very high. (And so am I.) They’ve been around for about four years now, with the current lineup of WILL FENNESSEY (bass), TONY NOWOTARSKI (Moog/guitar), NICK YETKA (drums), and SUSPICIOUS SONNY (vocals/guitar). They self-released a single in 2016 that kinda reminds me of the NYC HC band Kaleidoscope, except there are prominent electronics. They also released an excellent split EP (with True Body) that found them expanding the songs into longer chunks that allow for more freedom to move.


And that brings us to their debut LP. Slump has retained the hardcore and sludge, but it would be hard to convince some people that this is punk-rock at all. (It is! And it isn’t!) Let’s mention Hawkwind. The UK space-rock group has become a template for riff-heavy acid-eaters over the past 40 years, and Slump is certainly in that line. It all opens with a riff that resembles the MC5’s “Black to Comm” and quickly descends/ascends into the dirty sky above beneath inside outside us all. Don’t expect an easy ride—this is gonna be a bumpy but very worthwhile trip. “No Utopia”? There’s a sane slogan for modern America. Whatever explicit message (?) may lie here is buried in volume and psychedelic mud. The hardcore urge beats the messenger to death again. I think that’s a good thing myself. Evolve, baby—evolve! Things ROCK on “(Do the) Sonic Sprawl”—conjures up visions of Philip K. Dick and 1980s Sonic Youth and some sorta (r)evolution (no Utopia!). “Throbbing Reverberation” is the shortest track and another rockin’ jam. The title gives a strong clue. Forward-thinking metal fans should dig this. Imagine Voivod with a LOT of noise in the mix.

'pinky pinky are the rising queens of l.a. garage rock' - i-D 'It's always exciting when young ones who are way cooler than you'll ever be make music that sounds polished and tight right out the gate' - THE FADERPinky Pinky have good gut instincts. During an era of limitless distractions, societal pressures and sonic trends, the three best friends are focused on being happy and blissfully on the outside of all that noise. You can hear that on their new music which follows two prior EPs & multiple tours straight out of High School which has earned them some early fans with some of Rock's biggest names (Dave Grohl to Brian Bell of Weezer to Albert Hammond Jr of The Strokes).As they gear up to release their debut album this summer, the first single is a patchwork quilt of garage rock and oddball indie with pop sensibilities via Producers Hanni El Khatib & Jonny Bell. It's rooted in classic bass, drums, guitar, but it's bolstered by the perspectives of a trio of LA youths writing about their everyday observations, anxieties and passions. As a result, it's unpretentious, raw and unpredictably zany.

Broken Social Scene is a Canadian indie rock band, a musical collective including as few as six and as many as nineteen members, formed by Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning. Most of its members play in various other groups and solo projects, mainly in the city of Toronto. These associated acts include Metric, Feist, Stars, Apostle of Hustle, Do Make Say Think, KC Accidental, Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton, Amy Millan, and Jason Collett.

The group's sound combines elements of all of its members' respective musical projects, and is occasionally considered baroque pop. It includes grand orchestrations featuring guitars, horns, woodwinds, and violins, unusual song structures, and an experimental, and sometimes chaotic production style from David Newfeld, who produced the second and third albums.

One reviewer said this about Lavender Daydreams: “Blissed out folk psycher in the vein of Tim Buckley or Dan Fogleberg but waaay more psyched out. Richard has certainly dropped a tab or three in his time. A really, really good album to mind-surf to, and also poppy enough that it would sound good coming out of a boombox in a field while you are throwing the frisbee and smoking some bohoofus.” And they were right—Richard did drop many a tab when writing and recording the album: "The songs ‘Lord and Master,’ ‘Here We Are,’ ‘Sunny Days,’ and several others were inspired by experiences I had on psychedelics. Lavender Daydreams comes from my meditation experiences. ‘Electra’ is about a girl I fell in love with while tripping... I realized my purpose in life I was always looking for was in experiencing the extraordinary perfection in front of me every moment and engaging it in play and fun… This is a common theme in my songs. Celebrating those everyday moments. ‘Falling Angels’ was written about crashing on acid. About when we have to squeeze back into our everyday self and the feeling of “Now that the doors of perception have been blown off their hinges what am I going to do about it.” And that slides right into ‘A Stranger’ where you begin reflecting on it. There you are, crashing, beer in hand, a stranger to yourself. ‘Soaring’ is inspired by lying on our back in the field by the Long Island Sound on spring afternoon tripping on ‘Windowpane’. Mike and I were staring up at the sky and the clouds turned into angels singing and it felt like we were soaring up there free. ‘Soaring’ was trying to capture the rapture.” Edition of 370 copies on black vinyl.

Available on super ltd edition pink vinyl with obi strip & download code. Only 300 copies pressed.

London based shoegaze three-piece Holy Springs are Neil Atkinson Jr, Maria Bellucci and Suzanne Sims. The band blend psychedelic influences with their love of lo-fi guitars and keyboards. In 2020 they self-released the cassette mini album 'Indoor Tapes'. Shortly after the incredible EP 'Camera' and, we are delighted to be releasing their debut full length E.A.T on ltd edition vinyl.

Debut albums can sometimes feel a bit disparate as bands fling all the songs they’ve been working on together with no real thought as to how they all hang together as an album. Not so with E.A.T. The effort and thought that has gone into writing a cohesive and well-structured album is evident on every note played. I particularly enjoyed the instrumental inter-ludes which play a pivotal role in neatly segueing between tracks. If this is the band just starting out imagine what their next album will sound like, and the one after that. I hope Holy Springs are ready, because this album is about to blow up.’ Static Sounds Club

Die schwedischen Death'n'Roll/Stoner-Rocker HAYSTACK um Gitarrist/Sänger Ulf Cederlund (ENTOMBED) melden sich mit ihrem neuen Studioalbum 'Doomsday Goes Away' zurück! No bullshit, no trends, honesty, in your face, older than ever, forever underdogs, anarchy and hope. Für Fans von Unsane, Melvins, No Means No, Hammerhead, Nirvana, Steel Pole Bath Tub, Dinosaur Jr, Wipers, Dead Moon, Killing Joke oder Joy Division.

Psychedelic Anxiety, as a mood, goes something like this: overwhelming, existential, vertigoic, arising when we stare into the void. This metaphysical unease also serves as the title for Brooklyn-based musician Frances Chang’s second album, and as a feeling it’s present throughout, charged by all things occultish. Recorded by Chang and engineer Andrea Schiavelli, featuring a cast of revered NYC DIY players, including Schiavelli (Eyes of Love) and Liza Winter (Birthing Hips), Psychedelic Anxiety relishes in the refining of aesthetic, in the electricity of improvisation, in balancing bleakness with humor. It embodies an idiosyncratic genre Chang calls slacker prog — offbeat, but brimming with spiritual and emotional resonance. The record infuses artifacts of the mundane with otherworldliness— even the love songs live more in the realm of fantasy (or horror) than the romantic. The psychic twin and mirror image of Chang’s 2022 debut full-length Support Your Local Nihilist, Psychedelic Anxiety by comparison is less urgent, leaving space for more nuance and storytelling. Together, these albums represent a new cycle of creativity for Chang, a reset to zero. “Eye Land,” captures Chang on a tour around the Irish and English countryside, in a moment of major life change. “Lying around your spare room,” she sings, “Sky is cloudy here in June.” Around her, guitar sputters and stops. Vocals branch off like vines on the side of an old house. It is a profoundly lovely song, a freaky miniature in the way that a Broadcast song is a freaky miniature. “Darkside” opens up with a particularly memorable narrative moment. “Last night I saw Parasite,” sings Chang, describing how she saw it alone, how regular life that week was acute, weird, intense. How she found comfort in resignation. After all: Psychedelic Anxiety is a serene, bizarre record full of alien sounds and big introspection.

J Mascis from Dinosaur Jr is back with his instrumental hard psych project Heavy Blanket! The debut LP was a mind blowing showcase of J's psychedelic guitar work and the follow up live album with Earthless' rhythm section as the backing band was the next step in Heavy Blanket's journey. Over the years since then J has been stashing away his heaviest riffs for this project, and this time around he brought in his Witch bandmates Dave Sweetapple and Graham Clise for an extra dose of heavy. Pressed on a limited edition purple vinyl

Artificial Countrysides is Athens, Ga - based Elf Power's 14th album and first for Yep Roc Records. The band expand their sound on this record to glorious effect, adding marimba, harpsichord, synth bass, distorted drum machine loops, and mellotron to their time tested mix of fuzz guitars, moog keyboards, pummeling drums, and layered acoustic guitars, achieving a satisfying and unique synthesis of traditional and futuristic sounds. Lyrically the album mirrors this approach by discussing the difficulties and advantages of dealing with modern life's digital and artificial landscape, balanced with the natural world. Elf Power formed in Athens, GA in 1994 and have released 14 albums, two eps, and a handful of singles, while touring North America, Europe, and Japan many times playing alongside acts like R.E.M., Flaming Lips, Dinosaur Jr., Neutral Milk Hotel, Guided by Voices, Arcade Fire and many more. Albums such as 1998's Dave Fridmann-produced "A Dream In Sound" and 2008's collaboration with the late folk rock icon Vic Chesnutt, "Dark Developments", have cemented the bands' reputation as the finest purveyors of modern melodic psychedelic folk rock around. The band became known as a member of the much heralded Elephant 6 Collective, which includes their friends and collaborators Neutral Milk Hotel, Apples in Stereo, Olivia Tremor Control, Of Montreal, and many more.