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This album is about having to focus our collective energies on the small things around that we can control to find joy. A distraction from the the larger systemic problems that feel so overwhelming and are so very out of our collective hands... for now...” Love As Projection is the new album by Frankie Rose, her fifth studio LP and second for Night School following the reissue of her interpretation of The Cure’s Seventeen Seconds. Frankie Rose has forged an enviable musical legacy, from playing with bands like Crystal Stilts and The Vivian Girls but on Love As Projection she takes a bold step into electronic pop production. A sumptuous recorded statement, it dances in ecstasy and broods on the tumult of the western world’s decay in equal proportion. At the heart of the album is glowing, confident songwriting, resplendent in hooks and choruses but still touched with an optimism undimmed. After spending nearly two decades establishing herself across New York and Los Angeles independent music circles, Rose re-emerges after six years with a fresh form, aesthetic, and ethos. Celebrated over the years for her expansive approach to songwriting, lush atmospherics, and transcendent vocal melodies and harmonies, Love As Projection is a reintroduction of her established style through the lens of contemporary electronic pop. Recorded with producer Brandt Gassman and mixed with long-term collaborator Jorge Elbrecht this is the album Frankie Rose has been building up to her entire career. More than a rebirth, a refinement, a resurgence, Love As Projection boasts a widescreen scope: a long- form project heavily considered for half of a decade, culminating in the most personal and accessible collection of art-pop that Frankie has ever written. When Rose aims for the pop jugular as in first lead track Anything, the result is unstoppable. A majestic pop song built for radio, it erupts into an irresistible chorus that marries classic epic 80s American pop with the cult effervescence of Strawberry Switchblade “It’s like a prom scene in a John Hughes movie. It’s a hopeful song about abandoning fear even if the world is quite literally on fire.. In the end, at least we have each other,” says Rose. Sixteen Ways further boasts a propulsive, massive chorus, though tempered by a cynicism built in global post-truth, global malaise. “It’s about getting your hopes up, but simultaneously making lists in your head about how it will never work out in your favour.” The big anthems don’t let up there. On DOA some massive, rolling drums lathered in big mid-80s gated reverb dovetail with a syncopated baseline for the ages as Rose’s vocal sails effortlessly above. The effect isn’t unlike ethereal vocalists Clannad circa Howard’s Way or Enya jamming with Simple Minds in their stadium-conquering heyday. Rose tempers the adrenalin with heart-tugging bittersweet tones and there are plenty of them. Sleeping Night And Day takes its time with an off-the-cuff chorus, swirling around in harmony and chorus-bass. Saltwater Girl picks up the balladeering baton with another nod to album track-mode Switchblade, deep space opening up in the mid-tempo drum track and soupy, digital atmospherics. Album closer Song For A Horse, reimagines modern Pop production a-la-PC Music but shorn of the meta-atmosphere. Pianos, swelling synths, minor keys cut through with major. These moments, also seen in Feel Light offer ballast to the soaring pop choruses. Moments like these are big oceans of emotion to fall into before being led out by Rose into a bright new day.

After five years of radio silence Sweden's most accomplished cinematic post-rock ensemble EF return with a stunning comeback studio album which channels the band's raw emotion and aptitude for melancholia, capturing their signature sound in unprecedented clarity and richness. We Salute You, You and You! is the picture capturing a thousand words, like the first light of day falling on your face or the exuberant smile of a young lover_ it is the dance of eternity in the single moment: a warm "welcome back!" for long-time fans and a resounding "nice to meet you!" for those who yet have to get to know the great four-piece from Gothenburg.For over 20 years EF have been bridging the divide between the sublime and the fragile with magistral compositions characterised by moments of emotional catharsis and marked human frailty. Combining the indie rock mannerisms of EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY with the hardcore attitude of MOGWAI and the orchestral approach of GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR, EF capture the magic of post-rock around the turn of the millennium, when the genre was still young and freshly exciting.Their 2006 debut album Give Me Beauty_ Or Give Me Death! is an underrated post-rock classic that marked the start of a storied career with many seminal studio albums ahead of them. However after 15 years that fabled career seemed to come to an end as: after one last performance at Pelagic Fest in Berlin in 2018, the members of EF became quiet and little was heard of them since.Mastered by Magnus Lindberg, We Salute You, You and You! is a veritable celebration of the grandeur of post rock. From the giant ringing piano intro of album opener Moments of Momentum to the massive syncopated bass lines of Wolves, Obey! all the way to the enchantingly beautiful lone horn break on Apricity and the intricate union of horn section, strings and band in the climactic build-up of Chambers. Sprinkled throughout the record are countless instances of these little grand moments and gestures. EF have opened their treasur...

Throughout his career fronting Superchunk and Portastatic, Mac McCaughan has channeled more than his share of angst into a microphone, resulting in undeniable rock anthems. So how can a voice so familiar to others still seem foreign to its owner? On The Sound of Yourself, McCaughan's second release under his own name, he explores that question fully, shooting his voice through a prism and refracting it across these songs in new and rewarding ways. In January 2021, McCaughan found himself at his home studio in Chapel Hill North Carolina staring down a clean slate after wrapping a film score and several other music projects. His thought process was simple: "Each day is blurring into the next, so what are we doing today? How can I disrupt this? I think what resulted was a theme of subdued_ `joy' is the wrong word, but it's at least comforting if not propulsive to have something open-ended to work on every day without any kind of structure or deadline or rules." McCaughan leaned into allowing randomness and accidents to catalyze his compositions. Where a guitar riff might typically start a Superchunk song, an indistinguishable loop found on an old sampler dictates the mood on "Found Cricket," and simply opening up his studio to the woods outside channels Another Green World on "36 and Rain." Instrumentals make up nearly half of The Sound of Yourself, and are integral to the album's atmosphere. While the pop-oriented tracks hint at sounds explored on Non-Believers, McCaughan's recent scoring work and frequent excursions with synthesizers and sequencers (see: the Moogfestcommissioned Poms and his ambient project with Mary Lattimore) add a particularly crystalline spaciness akin to The Durutti Column and Bowie's Berlin trilogy. A sloping new wave bassline grounds the catchy "Circling Around" as McCaughan rejects rumination with cleverly cyclical lyrics and a few strategically placed "whoa"s. The warbled synthetic voices emanating from the Mellotron on "Sleep Donor" are already singing isolation blues well before McCaughan frets, "I hear a footstep in the hall when there should be no one there at all_" These could be the same ghostly sounds "softer than the light, under the door" he describes in "I Hear a Radio," a track on which Michael Benjamin Lerner (Telekinesis) and Annie Hayden (Spent) provide shimmering vocal harmonies. For a record titled The Sound of Yourself, the irony in having many contributions from friends is not lost on McCaughan: "I'm constantly inspired by the work of my peers. I feel lucky to be able to collaborate with them despite the distances between us. Sending off a song into the ether and having it returned greatly improved and in often surprising and moving ways was one of the most satisfying aspects of making this record." Additional guest appearances include Sabrina Ellis (A Giant Dog, Sweet Spirit), Mackenzie Scott of Torres, plus three moody saxophone tracks that Matt Douglas of the Mountain Goats offered McCaughan, layered on top of one another. Mary Lattimore introduces and concludes The Sound of Yourself with her singular harp playing. The bittersweet single "Dawn Bends" is bolstered not only by Superchunk drummer Jon Wurster but the esteemed trio of Yo La Tengo on bass, organ, guitar, and vocals. The album's title track asks, "Do you ever get used to the sound of yourself?" For an artist like Mac McCaughan, the answer lies in experimentation_testing his voice in a different light, deconstructing it, sometimes relegating it elsewhere or removing it altogether as the piece dictates. He knows that within the creative pursuit of an album as illuminating as The Sound of Yourself, familiarity reveals itself in the unknown.

+ Reissue Of Long Out Of Print Sophomore Album+ Lp Package Comes With A Double-Sided Insert + Dl Coupon+ First Pressing Limited To 1500 Copies Worldwide Onunite, Multiply, & Conquer Splatter Vinyl// You Often Hear People Talking About How A Certain Artist Saved Their Life. You Also Frequently Hear People Talk About How Certain Shows Can Be Borderline Spiritual Experiences. Sure, It Might Be Hyperbole, But Any Music Head Knows Those Experiences Are Very Real. And For Death Valley Girls, The Mortal Stakes And Transcendental Power Of Music Was At The Core Of Their Mission. The Band Quite Literally Began As A Haven For Vocalist/Guitarist/Keyboardist Bonnie Bloomgarden And Guitaristlarry Schemel As They Navigated Getting Clean From Hard Drugs. It Was A Kind Of Rebirth, An Outlet For A New Way Of Living. And With That Newfound Appreciation For Life Came A Thirst For Communal Celebration. Their Shows Took On A Mystical Fervor. They Were A Pure Manifestation Of All The Great Moments Of Rock N' Roll_the Adrenalized Swagger Of The Electric Pioneers, The Razor Edge Of Those Early Metal Masters, The Rough-Hewn Heft Of Rst-Generation Punk_with Any Hint Of Nihilism Swappedout For An Afrmation Of Life. Death Valley Girls' Sophomore Album Glow In The Dark (2016) Is A White-Hot Distillation Of Their Sound And Spirit_a Jittery And Jubilant Joyride Of Barnburner Guitar Riffage, Goosebump-Inducing Choral Hooks, Pounding Rhythms Provided By Drummer Laura "The Kid" Kelsey And Bassist Alana Amram, And An Overarching Aura Of Some Secret And Subversive Power. The Band Wastes No Time Detailing Their Strategies As They Crash Out Of The Gate With The Title Track. Bloomgarden And Auxiliary Vocalist Jessie Jones Issue The Song's Call To Arms_"Unite, Multiply, And Conquer"_as A Rallying Cry To Likeminded Souls. "Once You Realize That Money, Government, And This Whole System Is A Shitty Construct That Doesn't Work And Stands In The Way Of Our True Magical Innite Potential, We Start To Glow," Says Bloomgarden About Glow In The...

New album by the successful duo Steve Kilbey (The Church) and Martin Kennedy Interest and profile of Steve Kilbey has been raised considerably over the past year due to the church re-forming touring and issuing 2 new albums Steve’s solo albums are all getting a complete make over and the fan clubs are ablaze with rumours and gossips regarding forthcoming releases.

Reviews & Advertising in vive le rock record collector classic rock R2 The Big Takeover. Embark on a mesmerising journey with the third and culminating chapter of the highly acclaimed trilogy by Steve Kilbey and Martin Kennedy. Building on the success of Jupiter 13 (2021) and The Strange Life of Persephone Nimbus (2022), their latest epic, 'Premonition K,' unveils a sumptuous and organic

sonic landscape, delving into the dark and enigmatic realms that exist between the boundaries of life and death. This album, a testament to their musical synergy, encapsulates a darkly beautiful soundscape, drawing inspiration from diverse sources, ranging from the haunting tones of Roger Waters' Final Cut to the shadowy depths explored by early 1970s Black Sabbath. Steve Kilbey, best known as frontman of legendary Aussie post-prog rockers The Church, infuses each track with an emotional resonance and sense of mystery. Martin Kennedy co-pilots this sonic odyssey with Steve Kilbey, weaving an intricate musical bed for Kilbey's lyrical dreamings. Drawing from his twenty years of soundscaping with All India Radio, Kennedy adds layers of sonic complexity, at once warmly familiar and mysteriously strange, creating an immersive experience for the listener. Together, Kilbey and Kennedy invite you to break out the ouija board, turn off the lights, and immerse yourself in the mysteries of 'Premonition K'.

V is the fifth studio album released by the traditionally instrumental stoner rock band Karma to Burn in 2011. Heavy Psych Sounds is now reissuing this psychedelic gem in brand new coloured vinyls and digipak. With "Appalachian Incantation" marking a successfully reunion, ‘V’, containing eight tracks five instrumental -band’s well know formula- and three with vocals, puts another brick in the creative development on the part of the band. ‘47’,‘50’, ‘48’, ‘49’and ‘51’ are the five instrumentals . Heavy ball-breaking rock but also groovy songs which can easily get stuck in your head. Full of dirty and sludgy sounds, pretty technical but on the other hand delicious to the ear since they can be accessible to a wide audience. ’The Cynic’ and ‘Jimmy Dean’ are two of the three songs with vocals in this album. Vocals are by Daniel Davies from Year Long Disaster. Although ‘Karma To Burn’ is traditionally an instrumental stoner band, decided to include 3 non-instrumental songs in this album. Daniel’s vocals seem like they drive K2B songs on a higher level. A bit twisted vocals but so nicely fitted with these redundant tunes. (metal-temple.com).

Deep Purple Vinyl.10th Anniversary Golden Deluxe Edition of Princess Chelsea's debut album.Features include 180g Gold Colored Vinyl in a die cut gatefold sleeve with gold foil spine, lyrics and an A1 sized poster.Lil' Golden Book is the debut album by the New Zealand recording artist Princess Chelsea. It was released on 2 May 2011, through Lil' Chief Records. The album was produced by Jonathan Bree and Chelsea Nikkel and tells the tale of life growing up as a teenager and young adult in New Zeala...

With an insatiable enthusiasm, aNGR! presents its passionate compilation of the first two albums from the genderfuck mixed "big band" (3 women & 3 men) created around the ethereal voiced Jewlia Eisenberg (1970/2021) Charming Hostess, goddesses without gods! Introducing its fusion selection of 14 recordings—7 songs from each of the two albums {only released on CD} "Eat" (1998) & "Punch" (2005)—to new curious and furious ears, a N G R r ! flourishes in a salvatory and feminist action, with the most radical, vital, choral, diagonal, craving... brilliant revelries!

Ajo Sunshine (pronounced “Ahh-Ho”) is heralded by an alarming horn ensemble, stabbing with the dramatic urgency of a killer’s theme in a midnight movie. It’s a jarring but appropriate entry point for this brilliantly blasted listen, an array of exquisitely sharp edges punctuated by kaleidoscopic respites of throbbing warmth and surprising tenderness. J.R.C.G. (Justin R. Cruz Gallego)’s previous work with Seattle’s excellent Dreamdecay may foreground the broad strokes here, but he’s pushed things way outward in terms of his sonic palette. Abutting field recordings captured from rodeos off Ajo Way, a stretch of highway that leads one westward out of Tucson Arizona directly into the sun, both acoustic instruments and gleaming walls of synthetic noise are framed in dour and dissonant chord shapes, crackling with overdriven drum mics and seasick waves of distortion. It’s homage that plays out like a collage, a dream switching from station to station, a series of dedications broadcast on late night radio. All pin-hole size images from scenes never seen whole, strung together in but one version of complete, all making for a dazzling listen.

The seventh record by Godspeed You! Black Emperor will be released 22 September 2017 on Constellation.

‘Luciferian Towers‘ was recorded during the winter of 2016/2017 at Montreal’s Hotel2Tango, with Greg Norman once again engineering and co-producing (as he did on the band’s previous album ‘Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress‘).

The music on ‘Luciferian Towers‘ took shape over the past two years, amidst GYBE’s collaborative performances with the Holy Body Tattoo dance company’s monumental, and spurred by the commissioning of new compositions memorializing the 100th anniversary of the WWI Battle of Messines, which premiered at a live concert event on the site of the massacre at Heuvelland, Belgium this past June.

‘Luciferian Towers‘ is Godspeed’s third album since the group’s ‘reunion’ in 2011 and their second consecutive single LP-length record (following three double-album releases in 2000, 2002 and 2012).

this, this long-playing record, a thing we made in the midst of communal mess, raising dogs and children. eyes up and filled with dreadful joy – we aimed for wrong notes that explode, a quiet muttering amplified heavenward. we recorded it all in a burning motorboat.

(context as follows:)

1. UNDOING A LUCIFERIAN TOWERS – look at that fucking skyline! big lazy money writ in dull marble obelisks! imagine all those buildings much later on, hollowed out and stripped bare of wires and glass, listen- the wind is whistling through all 3,000 of its burning window-holes!

2. BOSSES HANG – labor, alienated from the wealth it creates, so that holy cow, most of us live precariously! kicking at it, but barely hanging on! also – the proud illuminations of our shortened lives! also – more of us than them! also – what we need now is shovels, wells, and barricades!

3. FAM / FAMINE – how they kill us = absentee landlord, burning high-rise. the loud panics of child-policemen and their exploding trigger-hands. with the dull edge of an arbitrary meritocracy. neglect, cancer maps, drone strike, famine. the forest is burning and soon they’ll hunt us like wolves.

4. ANTHEM FOR NO STATE – kanada, emptied of its minerals and dirty oil. emptied of its trees and water. a crippled thing, drowning in a puddle, covered in ants. the ocean doesn’t give a shit because it knows it’s dying too.

finally and in conclusion;
the “luciferian towers” L.P. was informed by the following grand demands:
+ an end to foreign invasions
+ an end to borders
+ the total dismantling of the prison-industrial complex
+ healthcare, housing, food and water acknowledged as an inalienable human right
+ the expert fuckers who broke this world never get to speak again

much love to all the other lost and wondering ones,
xoxoxox god’s pee / montréal / 4 juillet, 2017

PERSONNEL
Aidan Girt: Drums
David Bryant: Electric guitar, MG-One
Efrim Manuel Menuck: Electric guitar, organ, OP-1
Karl Lemieux: 16mm film projections
Mauro Pezzente: Electric bass
Michael Moya: Electric guitar
Sophie Trudeau: Violins, organ
Thierry Amar: Contrebasse, electric bass
Timothy Herzog: Drums

GUESTS ON TRACK ONE
Bonnie Kane (saxophone, flute, electronics)
Craig Pederson (trumpet)

Where L.A. Witch's self-titled album oozed with vibe and atmosphere, with the whole mix draped in reverb, sonically placing the band in some distant realm, broadcast across some unknown chasm of time, Play With Fire comes crashing out of the gate with a bold, brash, in-your-face rocker "Fire Starter." The authoritative opener is a deliberate mission statement. "Play With Fire is a suggestion to make things happen," says Sanchez. "Don't fear mistakes or the future. Take a chance. Say and do what you really feel, even if nobody agrees with your ideas. These are feelings that have stopped me in the past. I want to inspire others to be freethinkers even if it causes a little burn." And by that line of reasoning, "Fire Starter" becomes a call to action, an anthem against apathy. From there, the album segues into the similarly bodacious rocker "Motorcycle Boy"_a feisty love song inspired by classic cinema outlaws like Mickey Rourke, Marlon Brando, and Steve McQueen. At track three, we hear L.A. Witch expand into new territories as "Dark Horse" unfurls a mixture of dustbowl folk, psychedelic breakdowns, and fire-and-brimstone organ lines. And from there, the band only gets more adventurous. Play With Fire is a bold new journey that retains L.A. Witch's siren-song mystique, nostalgic spirit, and contemporary cool. Despite the stylistic breadth of the record, there is a unifying timbre across the album's nine tracks, as if the trio of young musicians is bound together as a collective of old souls tapping into the sounds of their previous youth.

Set sail with the third installment of Numero's ode to regional radio surveys. Broadcasting 44 minutes of uninterrupted yacht, easy-glide, AOR, and blue-eyed disco that'll rock your boat. These 13 selections are anchored in the deep blue waters of the American private press_a life preserver for any BBQ, birthday party, or bris. Let W3NG be the sonic wind at your back.

As part of PNKSLM’s 10 year anniversary series of special releases/represses - we're over the moon to finally present ShitKid - "Rejected Fish"! This is the previously unheard, studio version of the now legendary debut album "Fish".

ShitKid originally recorded "Fish" at MFG Studios here in Stockholm, with myself Luke Reilly on production duties. The week before it got sent of to the vinyl pressing plant though, Åsa had a bit of a panic that it "sounded too good for ShitKid" - and she ended up re-recording all the songs herself on garageband (mostly in her car) - and this super lo-fi take was the version that ended up getting released.

Obviously at the time ourselves, plus our PR and radio partners were a little shocked, but as always, Åsa made the right move (in ShitKid we trust) and the album went on to be the best selling PNKSLM vinyl, streamed millions, won awards, and made fans out of the likes of Iggy Pop and Billie Joe Armstrong. And almost the best part was how divisive the lo-fi recordings made the record - Fish received both the best and worst reviews we've ever had on the label!

It seems awhile ago, but it wasn"t - not in days and months... whatever time is. But in terms of phases - we"ve been in and out of all kinds of bags since last summer, right? There"s the us before we heard the rest that 2022 had to offer, and then there"s us today. And coming on seven months later, fresh as it still is, "Hello, Hi" is disappearing in the rearview, like everything else that"s going down the road.But July 2022, it was in the headlights, dead ahead. We weren"t there yet, we couldn"t know what it would mean, but we were excited to find out. And in L.A., with the release show at Teragram coming up, Ty and the Freedom Band were working and playing to get it together. There"d be a little acoustic set to open things up, which was something different, so a last minute show was drummed up, for Ty and Emmett to work it out in front of some people. And that kind of became the REAL record release show.Word went out afternoon of the 21st - free show tonight in Highland Park - YEAH! A crowd showed up that evening and crammed in among the vintage clothes to hear some music and share some times. And most of us missed it! But nobody missed it quite like your present scribe did - I went down, stopped in, said hi - my lady-friend bought a hat - and then we split, regretfully, a previous engagement to attend.What suckers we were! This show clearly ruled, just hearing the five songs included here. With the incredible feelings of the crowd and the spontaneous play in the songs we now know from the album almost miraculously captured to tape (by the capturer himself, Mike Kreibel) at FULL WARMTH, none of us can say we missed it at all anymore -- drop the needle and you"re there, at the launching of sounds that added to the evolution of the world we"ve been living in ever since!So that"s the story -- "Hello, Hi", goodbye

20th anniversary re-release with two bonus tracks. Initial pressing on opaque yellow vinyl! Hot Hot Heat's classic debut album, filled with smart, energetic, dance-punk hits, returns to vinyl with this fully remastered LP edition. AllMusic called the album "an addictive, densely packed pop gem that ranks among 2002's best albums," and Pitchfork agreed, including it on their list of the best albums of 2002. Following closely on the heels of their critically-acclaimed Knock Knock Knock EP, Make Up the Breakdown is Hot Hot Heat's first full-length, recorded with Jack Endino at Vancouver, BC's Mushroom Studios (with engineering help from Chris Walla of Death Cab for Cutie). Spin Magazine had this to say about Knock Knock Knock: "Some retro new wavers hang themselves on their own skinny ties. While their peers lip-sych to Cure 45s, these Canucks take subtler cues from early-'80s synth disco. It's not new-wave worship, it's the sound of punk teaching itself to dance." Make Up the Breakdown delivered on the promise hinted at on the EP. Hot Hot Heat (along with peers like Radio 4 and The Rapture) blended angular post-punk twitch with danceable pop, effectively (and finally) persuading white dopes on punk to get on the good foot in the early 2000s

Anita Clark’s new Motte album, Cold + Liquid, builds glacial atmospheres, frozen moods and isolated impressions. Portraying New Zealand through socio-geological sound, breathing in Christchurch cultures and locales, the album embodies an artistic simulation of the Kiwi environment. With this release, Clark aimed to make something colossal, and set about finding the right textures to add. A friend who works at Oamaru Freezing Works gave her field recordings of the temperature control room, a vast cold space of isolated machinery, where ice grows and dissolves in ever-evolving sculptures. Getting her hands on shortwave/longwave radios, she incorporated frequency sweeps. Another friend provided her with the mechanical drones underneath the deck of a cement cargo ship, as it lay docked in Lyttelton Harbor. Still more sources came from Sign of the Bellbird, an historic environmental site in South Christchurch, where Clark and Thomas Lambert recorded bellbirds, rolling boulders, snapping sticks, thrown dirt and the papery sound of the native harakeke plant. While violin dominates the first Motte album Strange Dreams (2017), Clark sought to expand instrumentation. She was gifted a handmade Pūrerehua puoro, a traditional Māori instrument that sounds similar to the whirling and hovering of a moth (which is “motte” in German). A reacquaintance to the guitar occurred after developing an alter-ego project entitled Sex Den, with sleazy noir-esque guitar riffs in response to a failed rumour from a local drug-addled dive bar. Guitar and synth allowed for a broader songwriting palette along with a sometimes Dadaist approach to lyric writing. These new tools accent the extreme ambiences of Cold + Liquid, while additional work was provided by Ben Woods on synth and bowed guitar. Listening to Cold + Liquid is a fulsome experience of articulated sound and specific place. Anita Clark dances around the shining candescence of her culture like a night insect, always seeking a better vantage point to the light.

Initial vinyl pressing on Blue Curacao Transparent Vinyl! As you can probably glean from the title, Bret McKenzie-whom you know from such modern musical treasures as comedy duo Flight of the Conchords, the Muppets movie reboots and other ace kid-film soundtracks, Lord of the Rings fan blogs, guest songs for The Simpsons, cycling around the streets in his native New Zealand, and more- has a new solo record coming out filled with songs that ARE NOT Comedy Songs! There. Doesn't that feel better? Sometimes it helps just to get it out in the open. So, yeah, Bret's a ridiculously funny dude, and you might even call him one of the best comedy songwriters in the biz. (In Bret's own words, there are fewer than a dozen people in the world writing comedy songs today, but who's counting?) He's had smash hits, he's won major awards, he's the better-dressed part of his duo...he's got a good thing going! So, what gives with this whole "songs without jokes" solo stuff, man? The Conchords landed McKenzie and Jemaine Clement a hit HBO TV show, a BBC Radio series, chart-topping records, world tours, a Best Comedy Album Grammy, and a 2018 "reunion" special. McKenzie transitioned to Hollywood, writing songs for 2011's The Muppets (winning a Best Original Song Oscar for "Man or Muppet"), 2014's Muppets Most Wanted, and films in the Pirates! and Dora canons. While he enjoyed and excelled at the work, he wondered where his songs might go if set free of all that plot-bound specificity. And so, while in Los Angeles a few years back, recording movie music with a crack assemblage of legendary session musicians, McKenzie started playing around with a tune or two he had written simply as songs-songs without any external direction, songs without plot-pushing concerns, songs without jokes. The results reveal McKenzie's talents on multiple instruments (he's a veteran of several non-comedy bands in New Zealand back in the day, most notably the reggae-based fusion group The Black Seeds), and his affinity for wry, literate artists like Harry Nilsson, Steely Dan, Randy Newman and Dire Straits. Written mostly during the quieter moments of 2019, with his life split between work in Los Angeles and his family in Wellington, the songs of Songs focus on themes of escape, the perpetual search for peace, and navigating a life being pulled in multiple directions at once. There are also simple meditations on driving through a city, and the weather. McKenzie was inspired by the path icons like Newman and Nilsson had paved, where a silly or playful number could be sandwiched directly between a song about heartbreak or an earnest redemption and a scathing satire or character commentary. He threw a bit of everything into the mix, recording ideas on his phone at home in New Zealand after the kids had gone to sleep. Back in LA, he fine-tuned the songs with his longtime producer and collaborator, Mickey Petralia, and longtime film collaborator Chris Caswell created charts for that same ensemble of session players with whom they'd recorded so many pieces for film. The majority of songs were then recorded at United Studio in Los Angeles in just a few takes. While the album may be free of traditional punch lines, it doesn't lack a sense of humor. It showcases a new stage of McKenzie's career, to be sure, but one that isn't so far removed from his past work and true artistic self. Like Jim Henson before him, who made a career of blending the silly with the sincere and the playful with the profound, McKenzie also aims to connect rainbows to the ridiculous.

180gLP in 350gsm jacket w/colour flood interior + 300gsm inner + 12"x24"poster + DL card.The new record by Eric Chenaux is his most immaculate and pristine. Say Laura perfectly incarnates the counter-intuitive interplay of instrument and voice that Chenaux has beenrevealing and revelling in throughout the past decade: his gently unhinged juxtaposition of resplendently smooth, seductively assured singing and puckish, frazzled, thoroughlydestabilized guitar could come from no other musician. The five wandering, wondering ballads on Say Laura bring Chenaux's semi-improvised but keenly intentional songwriting to its fullest, clearest, warmest and coolest articulation; uncompromising and generous, hyper-specific and loose, spartan and luxurious, elemental and ornate. Say Laura might as well be a jazz record_certainly as much as his previously acclaimedalbums Slowly Paradise and Skullsplitter tread that genre-adjacent territory_though it also features moments and melodies that come as close to pop flirtation as Chenaux is likely to get. But above all, Say Laura breathes like no other Chenaux album. Voice and guitar are inscribed with elemental clarity in a wondrously open, symbiotic sonic space. His pure tenor croon glides through a crisp, reverberant ether while his fried guitar careens dizzily and giddily, every gesture and timbre captured in unflinching detail by engineer Cyril Harrison. Chenaux has also made his most minimal, controlled, regulated and rhythmic record. Citing a spectrum of influences_Sun Ra, Jeanne Lee, Gang Starr, Charlie Parker, Betty Carter, EPMD and Thelonious Monk_Say Laura expands on a foot-pedal technique Chenaux has previously used here and there, taking things to a more programmatic level: beatscomposed on a Boss drum machine are used as noise gate triggers, slowed down and inserted into his guitar signal path to create tempered pulses. Opener "Hello, How? And Hey" immediately establishes these subtly heightened characteristics of elementalism, dualism and structure,...

Initial Lp Copies On Clear With Aluminium High Melt Vinyl!Follow-Up To Lala Lala's Acclaimed 2018 Sophomore Album, The Lamb, Which Pitchfork Called "A Major Leap Musically And An Unflinching Reflection On The Courage Of Rejecting Easy Comforts."Co-Produced By Lillie West Of Lala Lala And Yoni Wolf Of Why?. Features Contributions From Ben Gibbard (Death Cab For Cutie / The Postal Service), Nnamdi Ogbonnaya, Poet Kara Jackson, Ohmme, Adam Schatz Of Landlady, Sen Morimoto, Christian Lee Hutson, And Kaina Castillo."I Want Total Freedom, Total Possibility, Total Acceptance. I Want To Fall In Love With The Rock." That's How Lillie West Describes The Theme Of "Diver," The Song She Calls The Thesis Of Lala Lala's Third Record, I Want The Door To Open. The Rock In Question Is A Reference To Sisyphus, The Mythical Figure Doomed By The Gods To Forever Push A Boulder Up From The Depths Of Hell. To West, It Is The Perfect Metaphor For, In Her Words, "The Labor Of Living, Of Figuring Out Who You Are, What's Wrong With You, What's Right With You."Coming Off Of 2018's Acclaimed The Lamb, An Introspective Indie Rock Album Recorded Live With A Th...

Zooey Deschanel And Matt Ward, Aka She & Him, Are As Comfortable And Complementary A Musical Pair As Les Paul And Mary Ford. Matt And Zooey Make Music For An Eternal Springtime, When The Temperature Is Warm Enough To Go Riding With The Top (Or At Least The Windows) Rolled Down And The Radio Turned Up.They Were Paired Together By Director Martin Hynes To Perform The Richard And Linda Thompson Tune "When I Get To The Border" For His Film The Go-Getter Which Sparked The Idea For "Volume One".

Cub Scout Bowling Pins hop in the “Magic Taxi”, turn on the AM radio and time travel forty to forty-five years back in time. The project is mysteriously presented, but it’s a thinly-veiled alias of the ridiculously prolific and talented Guided By Voices. Minus the usual punk and prog influences, there are strong whiffs of bubble gum, psych and soft rock with sugary doses of ornate baroque pop. Long renowned scholars of rock, the Ohio players have occasionally worn their influences on their sleeves, but this time they seemingly have their jackets on inside out. Perhaps conceptually similar to how GBV went tongue-in-cheek “country” backing Cash Rivers & The Sinners in 2018, but Cub Scout Bowling Pins is a thousand times subtler, like an eccentric cousin of GBV with the craziness knob turned up by 10%. And while Cash Rivers discs trade hands among collectors on Discogs for hundreds of dollars, Cub Scout Bowling Pins’ debut 7-inch Heaven Beats Iowa was recently spotted for sale for no less than $10,000. On their debut long player, America’s newest hit-makers dip into retro-futuristic weirdness, side-by-side with whimsical sophistication and candy-coated technicolor complexity. In the flip-flop world of Summer 2021, transistor radios will vibrate with the sweet and hooky “We” and “Nova Mona” while “© 1-2-3” will “climb” the “charts”. “Ride My Earthmobile” spins like an even-more demented 13th Floor Elevators. Is that Jimmy Webb or Lee Hazlewood hidden behind the latest issue of “The Telegraph Hill Gazette”? “Schoolmaster Bones” chortles with a groovy pretzel logic, while “Space Invader” and “Magic Taxi” beckon with jangling guitars, shimmering strings, mellotrons and vintage synths. Following three critically-lauded GBV albums recorded in quarantine in 2020, is this a light-hearted detour, a midlife crisis or just good clean Pandemic fun? Cub Scout Bowling Pins beg the questions: exactly what drugs are they taking? And where can we get some? Clang Clang Ho!

Director David Lynch once said "I long for a kind of quiet where I can just drift and dream. I always say getting inspiration is like fishing. If you're quiet and sitting there and you have the right bait, you're going to catch a fish eventually. Ideas are sort of like that. You never know when they're going to hit you." Inspired by this quote in both name and spirit, Hollie Kenniff's The Quiet Drift is an ambient gallery of cloudlike synths, seraphic strings, echoing guitars, and other celestial textures guided to cohesion by Hollie's own wordless singing. Though the album certainly creates (and originates from) the kind of space where Lynch's proverbial "fish" can be caught, The Quiet Drift is a fitting title for Hollie's own history, both recent and distant. During the course of the album's creation, Hollie and her family moved cross-country from an island in Washington state, to an island in Maine before ultimately relocating to Canada. "As a child I visited Ontario year-round," she explains in her own words. She continues "More than any other landscape, I think the lake, rivers, and woods there left the most enduring impression on me. The landscape and pace of life of these places will always stay with me." But the reverberant spaces Hollie crafts need no physical headquarters. Instead of conjuring views of nature at the ground level, her sound more readily evokes a top-down perspective, with the distinct features of the land shrinking underfoot as the listener becomes untethered from geography altogether. The Quiet Drift belongs more to the liminal spaces between life and afterlife, memory and fantasy, landscape and dreamscape, than any mappable locale. Describing her formative years, Hollie says "As a dual US/Canadian citizen who spent my childhood in a rural town-- one that I haven't returned to in many years - I have a sense of not entirely belonging anywhere. When I was a teenager my close friends were male musicians, so I was also an outsider to the degree that they were wild and anarchic in a way that I wasn't. I was a quiet book reader and avid music listener who enjoyed being around a creative group. I was also a radio DJ for alternative and punk music throughout high school." In this light, The Quiet Drift attests that creativity is placeless, and calls into question the stereotype of artists as scene-centric city dwellers. Having come of age in the absence of metropolitan sensory overload, Hollie learned to spot the muse in nature, and within herself, instead of the echo chamber of a frenzied peer group. On The Quiet Drift Hollie Kenniff wholly escapes from such pop-culture feedback loops into transcendent, shimmering realms, and she brings the listener along with her. In this age in which we have all been called to reevaluate our relationship to indoor spaces, and seek refuge in the great outdoors, The Quiet Drift provides an apt soundtrack for such rebalancing.

The initial vinyl run Sp1408 is pressed on a clear w/gold, red, blue high melt! 2020 was a terrible year for gardening. It was terrible for peppers, it was terrible for tomatoes, it was terrible for the condition of the soul. But Chad VanGaalen somehow raised a garden all the same: carrots and sprouts and broccoli and a revivifying new album, all of them grown at home. He likes to eat directly off the plant, he says-"I get down on my knees and graze. It's nice to feel the vegetables in your face"-and the 13 songs on World's Most Stressed Out Gardener were harvested with just such a spirit: in their raw state, young and vegetal, at the very moment, they were made. What that means is that the Calgary songwriter's new album is a psychedelic bumper crop. A collection of tunes that does away with obsessiveness, the anxiety of perfectionism, in favor of freshness and immediacy - capturing the world as it was met while recording alone at home over a period of years. "Don't overthink it," VanGaalen told himself again and again, despite the push/pull love/hate of his relationship with songwriting. "I'm always trying to get outside of the song-but then I realize I love the song." This is a record that gleams with VanGaalen's musical signatures: found sound, reverb, polychromatic folk music that is by turns cartoonish and hyperphysical-like ultra magnified footage of a virus or a leaf. Apparently, the LP began life as a "pretty minimal" flute record. (There's only a vestige now, on "Flute Peace"-one of three instrumentals.) Later it became an electronic record "for a while" and finally, "right at the last second," it "turned into a pile of garbage." The good kind of garbage: glinting, useful, free. Music as compost-leaves, and branches ready to be re-ingested by the earth, turned into a flower. Throughout these 40 minutes, VanGaalen floats from mania to solace to oblivion, searching for zen in all the wrong places. "Turn up the radio / I think we're dead," he sings on "Nothing Is Strange"; or, on the inside-out rocker "Nightmare Scenario": "You're stressed out when you should be feeling very well." The singer's mental landscape is rotting and redemptive, beautiful in spite of itself-and his soundscapes reflect this fertile decay. He has been influenced by his instrumental work on TV scores (Dream Corp's third season began this fall), but still "nothing can really replace the human voice," he admits. Like Arthur Russell or Syd Barrett, it's VanGaalen's vocals that shine a path through the swampland-from the cello-lashed "Water Brother" to "Starlight"'s krautrock pipe-dream. These days, VanGaalen cherishes the privacy of the studio, the capacity to wander around, get distracted, and "move at the speed of life." Whereas once he would obsess over mic techniques, now he puts the microphone in the same place every time-trying to capture a song quickly, the idea at its heart. He'll act on his infatuations-for the flute, a squeaky clarinet, his basement's copper plumbing (remade into xylophones for "Samurai Sword")-and then he'll try to get out, "veering away from responsibility," before he overdoes his stay. In the end, it's like gardening. You have to live with your horrible decision-making; the weather's going to fuck you if it wants to; and if you plant a hundred heads of broccoli, "now you gotta eat a hundred heads of broccoli-or watch them go to seed." But mostly VanGaalen just tries to be a deer: "I remember seeing some deer come out in the Okanagan Valley once," he says, "watching them wait for a sunbeam to hit a perfect bunch of grapes-and then eating them right out of the sunbeam. I'd recommend that."

Summer 2020, and No Age are back out on the street! Effortlessly raw and extravagant in one practiced swoop, they set their live/bedroom internal clock and get out early into a glorious windtunnel of naked beats and sunbaked guitars, forming a wave from which they hang eleven tunes. A perfectly balanced set, ranging from their classic punk and indie to ever-evolving soundscapes, in maybe their most direct statement yet.A guitar/drums duo (Randall and drummer/vocalist Dean Spunt) with a penchant for self-recorded samples, No Age are mostly unconcerned with things like space or pause, and Goons Be Gone is gorgeously thick-- a hazy, delirious expanse that's both comforting and disorienting.Listening to Goons Be Gone, it's hard to comprehend how just two people can manage to make so much noise while still sounding so subdued and mysterious-- it's easier to imagine Randall and Spunt spewing these songs underwater, bursting forth from some colossal California quarry rather than a tiny, stuffy art space a few blocks from L.A.'s skid row. Ultimately, it's part of No Age's allure that Goons Be Gone is so difficult to figure out, that it manages to be so big while coming from a place so small: All you'll know for sure is that you want to listen longer. Maybe forever.

What happens when an abrasive rock trio trades guitars for synths, cranks up the beats and leans into the everyday anxieties of simply being a functioning human in the 21st century? The answer is Uneasy Laughter, the sensational second Sub Pop release from Los Angeles-based Moaning. Vocalist/guitarist Sean Solomon, bassist/keyboardist Pascal Stevenson and drummer Andrew MacKelvie have been friends and co-conspirators amid the fertile L.A. DIY scene for more than a decade. They are also immersed in other creative pursuits - Solomon is a noted illustrator, art director and animator, while Stevenson and MacKelvie have played or worked behind the boards with acts such as Cherry Glazerr, Sasami and Surf Curse. On Uneasy Laughter, they've tackled challenges both personal and universal the only way they know how: by talking about how they're feeling and channeling those emotions directly into their music. "We've known each other forever and we're really comfortable trying to express where we're at. A lot of bands aren't so close," says MacKelvie. Adds Solomon, who celebrated a year of sobriety during the Uneasy Laughter sessions, "Men are conditioned not to be vulnerable or admit they're wrong. But I wanted to talk openly about my feelings and mistakes I've made." Moaning's 2018's self-titled Sub Pop debut featured songs mostly written in practice or brought in already complete by individual band members. It garnered acclaim from Pitchfork, Stereogum and Los Angeles Times, who observed, "Moaning craft anxious music for an increasingly nervous local scene." But Uneasy Laughter is a collaborative breakthrough which significantly brightens Moaning's once claustrophobic sound, again abetted by producer/engineer Alex Newport (At The Drive-In, Bloc Party, Melvins). The trio points to first single "Ego," which features a costume-heavy video directed by Ambar Navarro, as an embodiment of this evolution. Solomon admits Uneasy Laughter could have gone in quite another direction had he not gotten sober and educated himself on such core subjects as gender and mental health. "I did a lot of reading in the tour van - authors like bell hooks, Mark Fisher, and Alain de Botton, all really inspired me. I don't want to be the person who influences young people to go get high and become cliche tragic artists," he says. "What I'd rather convey to people is that they're not alone in what they think and how they feel. 'Ego' specifically and the album overall is about those themes - letting go of your bullshit so you can help other people and be present." "We want to be part of a community," he adds. "I wrote online about being sober for a year, and I had kids from all over writing and asking for advice. One of them said, 'For the first time I can remember, I didn't drink last night.' I thought, for once, maybe we did something besides sell a record. That's a win. That's incredibly exciting."

180g Vinyl!Vic Chesnutt was one of the finest songsmiths we have ever known. His words knock us out, his voice is like no other, and the two combined can deliver lyrical phrases that echo in your brain for weeks, months, years.that you find yourself adding to your quotidian vocabulary of sardonic asides, devastating metaphors, witty rhymes. Words that are never clever for their own sake, but smart and substantive as all get out.

Here's the thing about ill peach: this band exists because they are too weird to not exist. The seed of ill peach was first planted in the recording studios of New York City where Pat Morrissey and Jess Corazza were working together as professional songwriters, collaborating with artists like Icona Pop, SZA, Weezer, Pharrell, Big Freedia, and others. Then came the day they were offered their own publishing deal. Cool, right? Well, about that: "Everyone kept saying, 'The stuff that you're writing is slightly too left-of-center-weirdo stuff," remembers Morrissey. "Why don't you start your own project?" Thus ill peach, a pop band with a punk streak and a taste for both the rotten and the sweet, with an approach to making music that goes something like: "Do you want to pick up a guitar and do you want to be on this water jug and we'll record it on the iPhone and create some weird drum pattern?" Following a series of well-received EPs on their own Pop Can Records (a record label and artist collective Morrissey and close collaborator Jesse Schuster run with friends), a digital single for Hardly Art's 15th anniversary series, and some colorful music videos that crystallized the band's visual aesthetic along with their sound, ill peach's "weirdo stuff" comes to fruition on first full-length This IS NOT AN Exit: a collection of anthemic songs built out of bright pop and gritty experimental elements (Morrissey names the sculptural use of distortion on the final albums by Low as an inspiration), punctuated with hooky choruses ready to be screamed along to in the safety of your own bedroom or with a bunch of friends at one of ill peach's intense live shows. If ill peach first blossomed in New York, it took quarantine in Los Angeles for the project to ripen. The end of the world turned out to be what ill peach needed to get real with themselves. "It helped us creatively to zone in and removed us from the [industry] side of things to where we could just be like: this is our new identity, let's jump with both feet." This IS NOT AN Exit's title is a reflection of something Corazza realized during a period of personal and familial crises "I kept walking into buildings and I'd try to exit somewhere and the sign would be like, 'This is not an exit,'" she says. "It just felt like a metaphor for a hopeful thing-don't give up yet." This combination of hope and anxiety is all over This IS NOT AN Exit, reflected in a sonic palette (Alternative! Electronica! Indie! Radio pop! Coldplay!) as eclectic as it is unpretentious. Ultimately, This IS NOT AN Exit is a record about healing, a process often spoken about in New Age-y terms but one that in reality can be really confusing and, yes, weird. But it is the beautiful strangeness of being alive that ill peach capture so well on This IS NOT AN Exit.

L.A. Shit is the new LP from the punch-throwing, shit-kicking country outfit GracieHorse fronted by Fat Creeps founder Gracie Jackson, featuring contributions from King Tuff, Emmett Kelley (Cairo Gang, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Ty Segall Band), and Bobbie Lovesong. GracieHorse weaves stories into her songs. On L.A. Shit, her first album with Wharl Cat, she takes us into the past half a decade of her life. We see her as a traveling nurse, living in big blue expanse of Wyoming, dancing with a man in a crisp white Stetson, eating chicken wings in a hazmat suit, commenting on how strange a place like Los Angeles can be, how loaded it is with wannabe cowboys and fast food restaurants. It's a record of immaculate country music, the kind of stuff you'd put on blast in your truck as you drive down empty stretches of highway. It's also a vulnerable record, full of lyrics about the intensity of being alive, all Old with a sense ol humor and self-awareness. A founding member of the grunge sun rock dream pop duo Fat Creeps in the early aughts, Gracie also released an album of "Bummer Jams' under GracieHorse in 2015 with Ghost Ramp. L.A. Shit marks Gracie's return to music after a several year hiatus. While taking time off between 2015 and 202O she kept busy with session work and singing live background vocals for Alex lzenberg, Meernaa, Color Green, Jonny Kosmo, Banny Grove, and The Lentils.In addition to being Gracie's own major artistic statement, L.A. Shit is a community efort. To make it, she enlisted countless friends in the Los Angeles Area, many of whom are touring and session musicians who were stuck at home during the pandemic. "I'm grateful," she says of the experience, "I'm proud that I get to show off my friends on this record." Indeed, L.A Shit is that kind of big family affair. Funny, heartbreaking, brutal - it's aS country as country can be.

L.A. Shit is the new LP from the punch-throwing, shit-kicking country outfit GracieHorse fronted by Fat Creeps founder Gracie Jackson, featuring contributions from King Tuff, Emmett Kelley (Cairo Gang, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Ty Segall Band), and Bobbie Lovesong. GracieHorse weaves stories into her songs. On L.A. Shit, her first album with Wharl Cat, she takes us into the past half a decade of her life. We see her as a traveling nurse, living in big blue expanse of Wyoming, dancing with a man in a crisp white Stetson, eating chicken wings in a hazmat suit, commenting on how strange a place like Los Angeles can be, how loaded it is with wannabe cowboys and fast food restaurants. It's a record of immaculate country music, the kind of stuff you'd put on blast in your truck as you drive down empty stretches of highway. It's also a vulnerable record, full of lyrics about the intensity of being alive, all Old with a sense ol humor and self-awareness. A founding member of the grunge sun rock dream pop duo Fat Creeps in the early aughts, Gracie also released an album of "Bummer Jams' under GracieHorse in 2015 with Ghost Ramp. L.A. Shit marks Gracie's return to music after a several year hiatus. While taking time off between 2015 and 202O she kept busy with session work and singing live background vocals for Alex lzenberg, Meernaa, Color Green, Jonny Kosmo, Banny Grove, and The Lentils.In addition to being Gracie's own major artistic statement, L.A. Shit is a community efort. To make it, she enlisted countless friends in the Los Angeles Area, many of whom are touring and session musicians who were stuck at home during the pandemic. "I'm grateful," she says of the experience, "I'm proud that I get to show off my friends on this record." Indeed, L.A Shit is that kind of big family affair. Funny, heartbreaking, brutal - it's aS country as country can be.

If your brain has a shortlist of bands that instantly evoke New Wave, Suburban Lawns deserve a slot right next to the likes of Devo, Talking Heads and the B-52’s. After putting out two singles on their own Suburban Industrial imprint, the Lawns signed to I.R.S. Records and released their debut LP in 1981. While the band gained cult status thanks in part to a Jonathan Demme-produced music video which aired on Saturday Night Live, their self-titled album would sadly be the five-piece’s only full-length statement. Suburban Lawns’ asymmetrical aesthetic is personified by co-vocalist SuTissue, whose mesmerizing stage persona was at once childlike and terrifying. Her unique style embodies the awkward/arty female singer of the Reagan era, while the group’s male vocals—courtesy of Frankie Ennui, Vex Billingsgate and John McBurney—maintain the satirical themes of Southern California’s postwar mirage of limitless sprawl. Suburban Lawns’ catchiness can be attributed to their drum-tight performance and taut songwriting. Listen to the vocal trade-offs on “Anything,” which could have easily come out on any purely Punk label from LA at the time, while Tissue’s deadpan delivery on “Janitor” glides into the best art-warble this side of Lene Lovich, broaching the possibility of nuclear annihilation with a murmured “Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom.” From aWest Coast scene dominated by 7-inch singles and EPs, the Suburban Lawns’ lone LP remains in a class with precious few. It’s not surprising that they found acceptance in the Hollywood punk scene, despite their Long Beach roots, and would influence other bands such as Minutemen. This is not a disc that will get parked in your collection hoping to get pulled once in a while; this is a record you will play.

Dedicated to the power of pop music, Sobs are Singapore’s premier indiepop propagandists. After releasing a breakout bedroom pop EP Catflap and a dream-jangle LP Telltale Signs that brought international embrace, Sobs now assemble a front-to-back indiepop behemoth – Air Guitar – after a much anticipated three-year wait.

A thirty-minute trip for the post-Internet consumer, Air Guitar calibrates inventive pop hooks for the indie rock lover, instantly accessible yet intricately arranged. The album draws a line through the history of pop stylistics from 80s new wave ("Last Resort") and 90s power-pop ("Burn Book") to 00s sk8er punk and radio pop ("Air Guitar"). Further informed by the cosmopolitan, culturally astute ethos of PC Music – Sobs connects the uptempo of Shibuya’s Advantage Lucy ("Lucked Out"), heart-on-sleeve indie rock of Bettie Serveert and Big Star ("World Implode"), with the eclecticism of New York’s Darla Records ("Friday Night") to define the pulse of indiepop then and now.

Clear Vinyl.They say there's always something special about the first time and this record is that first time for the Folk Implosion. The band left the acoustic guitars and fragmentary sketch modus operandi of their earlier cassette behind to focus on an eccentric version of home studio craft, held together by a few cheap microphones (including a Radio Shack PZM) and a Tascam cassette 4-track recorder sequestered under the eaves of a 3rd floor, Cambridge Massachusetts double-decker house apartment. Wood floors and Christmas lights were as much a part of the vibe as an Ampeg VT 40 guitar amp and a small chord organ. The duo would wait until the downstairs neighbor went to work in the morning and then would play until the tunes snapped like a high-pitched snare drum. The setup would close down just before the neighbor came home from work, keeping the peace long enough to see the project through to completion.Once tracked, the band snuck into Fort Apache studios with Tim O'Heir (producer of Sebadoh's `Bakesale' LP) early one morning, freeloading off the Sebadoh sessions that were set to get going that afternoon. Tim mixed the songs through a very hi-fi Neve board in a matter of hours with the Tascam sitting right on the giant board like a tugboat keeping time with an oil tanker. The duo hoped that the spirits of ancestors like The Troggs, Devo, Al Green, and The Bee Gees would be pleased with the scent of tribute that arose from the ashes of the pyre. Today, they are pleased to see the Slaps and the Sputniks on view again nearly 30 years later.

Since The Breakup Of The Legendary Underground Cult Duo Prince Rama, Former Frontwoman Taraka Has Thrown Herself Headlong Into The Dark Existential World Of Her "Inner Teenager," Merging Bastard Elements Of Outsider-Psych, Post-Edenic Grunge, Kaleidoscopic Punk And Post-Adolescent Angst To Create Her Debut Solo Album.A Departure From Prince Rama's Sparkly Dance-Pop Sound, Welcome To Paradise Lost Is A Primal, Electrifying, Dirty And Unapologetically Life-Affirming Celebration Of Ennui And Disillusion. Taraka's Disheveled Anthems Fuse A Combination Of Lo-Fi Opulence With Ecstatic Punk Ritual, Like The Vivid Visions Of The Disturbed Daughter Of Kate Bush And Johnny Rotten Who Drank Ayahuasca At The Gates Of Warped Tour '02.Welcome To Paradise Lost Was Conceived While Taraka (Pronounced Like Maraca) Was Living In Solitary Confinement In A Hot Texas Gallery With A Live Serpent In An Attempt To Return To A Pre-Internet Eden. She Was Without A Band, Without A Label, Without A Future, And Had Vowed Never To Make Music Again. Disenchanted With The World, She Sat In Her Trashed Simulated Garden Of Eden Smoking Mapacho And Listening To Old School Punk, Grunge, And Obscure Psych Records That Excited Her As A Teenager In A Small Redneck Town, Learning To Skateboard And Discovering Her First Power Chord.One Night She Picked Up An Electric Guitar And Hit Record. The Songs Started Pouring Out-- Pep Rallies For Total Failure, Hymns To Binary Code, Love Songs To Walls-- Most Recorded In One Take, Sometimes As She Was Channeling Them In Order To Capture That Primordial Electricity Of Creation, A Feeling Of "Making Out Under The Bleachers With Infinity." Her Pals Ryan Sciaino (Spank Rock, Prince Rama, Win Win) And Tim Koh (Gang Gang Dance, Conan Mockasin, Haunted Graffiti) Later Helped Flesh Them Out, Pimp Them Up, And Eventually Welcome To Paradise Lost Took Form Like The Intricate Layers Of A Fucked Up Bosch Painting, Or Collaged Jingles For A Lost 1970s Cult-Children's Tv Show That Split Off Via The Mandel...

Eels is one of those bands that have marked the history of rock forever! The leader of this mythical group, Mark Oliver Everett aka E, has been able to reinvent himself over the years without denying his origins.
Two years after the incredible success of The Deconstruction, Eels presents Earth to Dora,this fall's event album, to be released on E Works Records / [PIAS] on October 30th.
This new album takes us on a journey through sublime melodies that follow each other without ever looking alike, all on the unique and singular voice of its leader Mark Olivier Evrett. Oscillating between flamboyance and moderation, Earth To Dora is built around a touching optimism marked by the desire to erase for a moment the worries of everyday life, and it feels good!

Limited edition for Record Store Day 2017!

The heavy third offering from Nick Saloman bursts with 60s-psych and includes epic track "Tangerine Infringement Beak" clocking in at nearly 20 minutes, ‘Into The Cryptic Mist’ and ‘Lights Are Changing’ a song that went on to be covered by Mary Lou Lord.
A labor of love and fiercely independent, his prolific output has seen as many releases in as many years and an uncompromising vision under his own label Woronzow. Hailed as “a Hendrix devotee every bit as tough and contemporary as the serrated guitar chorales of Sonic Youth and Pixies” by Rolling Stone’s David Fricke, his immense psych-stoner-rock has seen him become a cult figure in his own right. The Bevis Frond’s legion of loyal fans includes Teenage Fanclub, Dinosaur Jr and Mary Lou Lord, who have all covered his music.

Finally, this album gets reissued on 12-inch white vinyl for Record Store Day 2017 alongside ‘Bevis Through The Looking Glass’ and ‘The Auntie Winnie Album’ as part of the band's 30th anniversary.

For Beginners: The Best of M. Ward is a collection for M. Ward fans of anyvintage. Gathering together 14 tracks from across his Merge Recordsdiscography, including the newly recorded song "Cry," For Beginners is botha primer and a mixtape of favorites sequenced in a way that gives them newlife.Beginning with "Chinese Translation" and "Poison Cup" from 2006's Post-War, For Beginners drops in on Ward as he expands his prowess in the studio.His singular cover of David Bowie's "Let's Dance," from 2003'sTransfiguration of Vincent, breaks out into the exuberant "Never HadNobody Like You" from 2009's Hold Time. Rather than the neat evolutionaryline suggested by a chronological arrangement, what holds For Beginnerstogether is Ward's impeccable skill as a songwriter, which remains in focusas his sound expands from low-fi home recordings to electric, radio-readystompers.Serendipitously timed for release during Merge Records' 35-year anniversary,this celebration of one of the label's most beloved artists includes "Cry"_his first new recording on Merge since 2018_a stripped-down cover of theGodley & Creme pop classic featuring Melbourne, Australia's Folk BitchTrio.M. Ward on "Cry":"Cry" was recorded in a Tasmanian modern art museum called MONA. I sat at theend of a long hallway a few feet away from Anselm Kiefer's sculpture of a 20-foot-highstack of lead books, and standing to my left and right around a single microphone wereMelbourne's Folk Bitch Trio; we rehearsed and recorded "Cry" in about 30 minutes. Apleasure to add this song to a collection of some of my favorite memories of music-makingduring the first decade of record-creating with my friends at Merge.The song is the perfect capstone for a collection of this nature, summing upmuch of Ward's power as a musician: the richness he's capable ofachieving in sparse recordings, his knack for collaboration, and his abilityto see through to the soul of a meticulously crafted pop song_as mucha means of looking forw...

“A glorious dirty little gem in Los Angeles finally rears its four heads again. Love Fiend have been slaying sine waves and bashing bongos boldly for a while now in the dusty dens of the unkempt underground. Good news for you, you can get an injection in your own home soon enough, you Fiend! Hooks for days, these young humans are now leaning fast forward into the reverse-future with Handle With Care out soon on OG In The Red Records. Perhaps they can join the upper echelons of Tik Tok barf famous good feelin’ peddlers like some of their label mates or perhaps they can just wear you out on the dance floor. One can dream anyhow. Either way this is gonna get stuck in your ear hole eyes, thank heavens. Deffo some neon drizzled ’80s synth punk highway tunes here. Just the right amount of this and just a bit of that in the roux to make you forget that we are teetering on the edge of………..for 30 minutes or so at least. Whew close one. Really all you need to get on. All hail the medicinal extra strength over these counter pop pills. For fans of Nick Lowe, The Cars, Gary Numan, Blondie, The Nerves. I could go on but why reveal everything in the trailer. Twist! Enjoy.” —John Peter Dwyer

Set sail with the third installment of Numero's ode to regional radio surveys. Broadcasting 44 minutes of uninterrupted yacht, easy-glide, AOR, and blue-eyed disco that'll rock your boat. These 13 selections are anchored in the deep blue waters of the American private press_a life preserver for any BBQ, birthday party, or bris. Let W3NG be the sonic wind at your back.

“... Rade is arrivals and departures in sheltered coves, faces marked by sea salt and dried by the sun. It’s waiting, caulking whenever needed, small repairs on deck, quick encounters, transistor radios. And then again, it’s badly folded, coffee-stained nautical charts, imaginary routes in a Mediterranean Sea sailed from cove to cove, finding protection from storms in harbors, bays and inlets…”

Rade is an unexpected arrival, like a beam of sunlight during the rainy season. Paolo Angeli’s latest discographical synthesis comes a year after his critically-acclaimed album Jar’a. If the latter was a contemplation inside the most ancestral Sardinia, with Rade, the Sardinian musician changes course, openly confronting the Mediterranean in a navigation that takes us to the mixed race atmosphere of Mare Nostrum ’s ports. The compositions come from utopic crossroads, dreamlike landscapes, sketched with a fountain pen, places sheltered from the storm’s fury, that recall illusions and mirage. The sea is magma that unites the latitudes of lands above sea level, music islands hanging between popular and contemporary, Balkan pulsations, middle-eastern arches, North African desert adagios, Rebetiko citations and memories of historical avant-gardes, flamenco reminiscences, dissonant phrasing, epic art-rock crescendo and patches of lyricism. The concept album sums up Paolo’s twenty-five years of life with his orchestra-guitar, pushed to the limit of its tonal and expressive potential. Paolo’s voice, however, is what weaves the narrative here. Nasal and with a Sardinian-Spanish flavor, relying on quatrains from 1700s and 1800s Sardinian poets from the regions of Gallura and Logudoro. The music in Rade emerges as a wreck stocked with memories, wrapped by a blinding light. The sea swell is a silver surface, the Sardinian singing blends and merges with sounds that evoke a secular prayer. Rade is aged must from the last century, that somebody forgot in a ship’s galley, leaving tannin marks on glasses, sinking into memories of ethereal visions, stiffened by the sea salt. The light of the Mediterranean Sea radiates into our houses with all the might of a Mediterranean avant-garde, passed on orally by a joyful Charon that imagines a sea that knows no boundaries, speaks a thousand languages for a brief moment and then throws them away. “... and timeless striped sweaters, once again renewing the ritual of listening to a record, the need for joy…” Enjoy Rade! The music in Rade emerges as a wreck stocked with memories, wrapped by a blinding light. The sea swell is a silver surface, the Sardinian singing blends and merges with sounds that evoke a secular prayer. Enjoy!

The Crystal Furs are a queer indie pop/rock band from Portland, OR. They write melodic, textured songs about anxiety, architecture, lesbians, and queer feels - loud music for quiet hearts. In Coastal Light is the band’s fifth album, following on from 2020 LP Beautiful and True, and hears them honing their blend of grungey riffs and 60s-girl-group vocals. As featured on: KEXP, WFMU, BBC Radio, Freeform Portland, KBOO Portland, Portland Radio Project, Chasing Infinity on WRUW, Get In Her Ears, Grrls Like Us “Had Portland’s (via Forth Worth) The Crystal Furs been around in the late 80s – early 90s there is a possibility they would have been signed to Sarah Records, home of OG jangle pop bands like The Field Mice and The Sea Urchins. Then again with their sunny, bright melodies, they might have found themselves riding the charts alongside The Bangles.” 50Thirdand3rd “It’s something of a well-worn expression, that adult life is about ‘finding oneself’, but it certainly seems for the Buchanans, and their band, that all of the changes in their life have enabled them to do just that. And what they’ve found are winning alt. indie-pop purveyors in the mould of Helen Love. Beautiful And True is an album whose title could not be clearer: it is what it says it is.” Get In Her Ears “Think of those jangly C86 tunes mixing genteel harmonies, spiraling keyboards, melodic guitar/ bass sounds and wistful vocals and you begin to get the drift here.” Into Creative “From the opening tones of the Farfisa organ on ‘Comeback Girls’ the lo-fi indie pop shines through, with jangly guitars, unassuming instrumental breaks and a naturalistic production that puts the Furs right there in the room with you.” Cambridge Music Review“Retro without being jaded, cute without being cliched what The Crystal Furs do so well – and demonstrate deeply on both tracks in this release – is as we’ve said pair light, sparkling and downright danceable melodies with dark-hearted lyrics emerging from shadowy inner worlds and harder lived experiences.” Popoptica

Bay Area singer-songwriter Sarah Bethe Nelson’s multiple albums of balladry and pop chart an emotional wave of the multifarious and sometimes tumultuous changes of the area’s landscape. Her latest is no exception. Enter Mental Picture, a collection of aftershock spectral tunes ghosting in the aura of the recent age, spinning out from the contradictions of Nelson’s steely reserve and melancholy fragility. If past efforts highlighted a certain zeal for the times, Mental Picture, while no less resolute in its approbation of the charms of this particular wasteland, definitely adds the haunt of eyes that have seen a grimness and dared to wink back at it. Think later Townes Van Zandt self-deprecation jolted through the afterglow of Stoned And Dethroned horizon-watching. What began as a way to stay sane in the early days of the pandemic when studios remained shuttered, the album was recorded in Nelson’s own Mission District living room with long-time creative partner Rusty Miller, as well as at the home of compatriot Doug Hilsinger—who both not only play on the album, but also claim co-producing, engineering and mixing roles—Mental Picture is an incredibly homegrown, early Smog-like affair. The vibes flit between tracks like opener “Five Lovin’ Days” and the later “Night Birds,” whose bare-bones gated, archaic stripped-down electro-acoustic production prefigures a post-apocalyptic cosmic country akin to Emmylou Harris strumming in a bomb shelter. Fuller tracks like “Better Off Dead” and ringer “I Can Just Leave” never shrug off the radioactive buzz, but coalesce into soulful stretches akin to Spiritualized through a ham radio. There’s a certain kismet to Nelson’s latest album releasing on fledgling San Francisco label Speakeasy Studios SF. Label chief Alicia Vanden Heuvel (Aislers Set, Magic Trick) is part of the very fabric of Nelson’s collective—she even lends her vocals to aforementioned “Night Birds,” birds of a feather, naturally. The feeling of homecoming here parallels the intimacy of Mental Picture and echoes the burnished survival instincts of the locals still standing and weaving tales together. But don’t get this wrong, there’s also a universality here that’s unchained by any particularities to a certain time and place. Everyone is in the Zone, after all.

We may be cursed to be in the midst a global pandemic, buffeted by all of its stresses and pain. But everyone knows that art provides succour, that music is the most reliable balm. And for many there is further significant comfort to be drawn from the knowledge that Paul Weller is in the midst of an unbelievably prolific purple patch. Paul Weller will not let us down when we need him most.

On May 14th, Paul Weller releases his 16th solo album since his self-titled debut in 1992, his fourth in as many years and his second in just under twelve months following June 2020’s magnificent, chart-topping On Sunset. It’s not hyperbole to state that this new album, titled Fat Pop (Volume 1), is among his most compelling collections, bar none, including all of his era-defining work in the 1970s and ‘80s with The Jam and The Style Council. It’s an absolute scorcher.

When lockdown was declared in March 2020, Paul Weller decided immediately that he wanted something to focus on, since it seemed unlikely he’d be able to tour On Sunset as planned that summer.

“I had lots of ideas stored up on my phone,” he explains down that same handset, speaking from outside his London home, “and at least this gave me an opportunity to develop them.” So he started to record songs on his own, doing just vocals, piano and guitar, then sending those sound files to his core band members such as drummer Ben Gordelier, Steve Cradock on guitar and various other instruments, and bassist Andy Crofts for them to add their parts. “It was a bit weird not being together, but at least it kept the wheels rolling. I’d have gone potty otherwise.”

The band reconvened at Weller’s Black Barn studio in Surrey during the summer when restrictions were lifted to finish the work, with several of the songs being cut live. By this stage, the shape of the album was clear to all. Weller wanted to deliver an album of singles, twelve short, distinct blasts, each strong enough that they could stand alone if so desired.

“That was a conscious decision,” he confirms. “I even thought about putting every song out as a single first then gathering them all on an album, but that wasn’t practical at the moment. They all have that strength and immediacy, I think, and they’re all short, three minutes or so maximum.”

Producer Jan ‘Stan’ Kybert was so taken with the concept that he half-jokingly suggested that the album be called Greatest Hits. “I quite liked the idea and every song does stand up as a single, I think,” chuckles Weller, “but no, we couldn’t do that really.”

Instead, he plumped for Fat Pop (Volume 1). “I thought we’d add Volume 1 to it just to keep my options open in the future for a second volume!” The title track, a tight, heavy blast of ultra-modern funk, is itself the conceptual key to the whole album. “It’s a celebration of music and what it’s given us all. No matter what situation you are in, and we’re in one now, music doesn’t let you down, does it?”

As ever, Weller’s sonic masterplan was to avoid whatever had recently preceded it. “After [2018’s] True Meanings I thought I wouldn’t have any acoustic guitars for a little while, so I’ve largely avoided those with On Sunset and with Fat Pop,” he says. “But more than anything I wanted something vibey, something we could play live.” He laughs ruefully at the irony of that. “God knows when that will be, bearing in mind where we are with the virus. But in the imaginary gig in my mind I can see us playing all of the songs on Fat Pop live, along with the songs from On Sunset, blending them with some of the old favourites too. What a great set that would be.”

Live is where he imagines On Sunset and Fat Pop (Volume 1) working in tandem, because they don’t act as companion piece albums otherwise. “On Sunset was quite lavish in places, whereas with this one I wanted to limit it in some ways, make the production less expansive.”

Beyond that desire to keep it frill-free and tight, sonically Fat Pop (Volume 1) is a diverse selection of sounds. No one style dominates. There’s the synth-heavy, future-wave strut of Cosmic Fringes, the stately balladeering of Still Glides The Stream, Testify’s moving-on-up soul, and the kind of dramatic three minute pop symphonies on Failed, True and Shades of Blue with which Paul Weller has hooked in generation after generation of devotee.

More than sonic plans, though, Weller set himself the same task as he does before any recording. “Whenever I make an album I’m always just trying to at least match what’s gone before because each time I think the bar’s been raised. If all goes to plan, sometimes I manage to go over that bar too.”

Sometimes he does, sometimes he really does.

Fat Pop (Volume 1), the story behind each song:

Cosmic Fringes

A dramatic entrance to Fat Pop (Volume 1). Cosmic Fringes pairs a minimal, pumping electro swing with a deadpan vocal that detonates an unspecified poseur and blowhard. “I’m a sleeping giant, waiting to awake/I stumble to the fridge/then back to bed”.

“It’s not about anyone in particular,” suggests Weller, “but I suppose it could be about a keyboard warrior, someone who is constantly brainstorming ideas but never gets around to doing them. Someone talking the talk, but never doing anything.”

“When I first did the demo it was quite punky, a bit like The Stooges. It doesn’t sound anything like that now because then I had the idea of stripping it all back to just the drums and bass, putting those synths on it. It’s got a bit of motoric feel to it and a little bit glam rock too, I think.”

True

A song with all the attributes of the greatest Paul Weller numbers: fire in its belly, questing lyrics, boss horns, flashes of guitar fury and a yearning melody you awake humming daily. It’s also a tremendous vocal, shared between Paul and Lia Metcalfe, the young Liverpudlian singer with The Mysterines.

“I really like her band and I really like her singing,” he says. “It makes a massive difference that we sang it live, in the same room. She’s got a really powerful voice and I wanted to write something for us to sing together, so I did. Then I just sent the phone demo to Lia and two weeks later we cut it. That was one of the last things we did for the album, in around September”.

Fat Pop

That brilliant, heavy bassline? “I did that. When we recorded it I was actually thinking about Cypress Hill, doing something that sounds like a DJ Muggs production. It’s got a bit of that. It’s my favourite song on the album, I think, about all the times music’s been there for me.”

Shades of Blue

A classic three-minute English pop kitchen sink drama, written by Paul Weller and his daughter Leah, who joins him on vocals. “Leah wrote the chorus for it and helped me finish it up. I wrote the verses. Reminds me of a suburban drama, a play.”

Glad Times

Sweeping, wistful, sparkling in shades of blue, Glad Times’ winning melancholia has been in the back of Weller’s mind for a while. “I wrote this with Tom (Doyle) and Ant (Brown). They usually send me a backing track and we work on it from there. It’s been around for a while, nearly made it onto On Sunset but didn’t quite fit. I really liked it, though, so I’m really glad it made it on to this album instead.”

Cobweb / Connections

Pastoral introspections, featuring a lovely acoustic solo by PW and a string score by Hannah Peel. “I think the song is saying that the more you can be yourself and be happy with yourself, the more you change into something better. It’s not just good for you, it’s good for everyone else as well. ‘Save yourself and save everyone around you too.’ It’s from observation but I suppose it’s about me too.”

Testify

Superfly strutting, cut live in the studio with Andy Fairweather Low adding distinctive vocals and Jacko Peake on fine flute and saxophone. When allowed out of the house, it’ll be a future live favourite.

“We had actually done it live two or three years ago,” says Weller, “but while I loved the groove I never really got a grip on the song. Then I did this charity gig in Guildford, one of the last things I’ve done probably, some Stax songs with Andy Fairweather Low. Our voices sound so good together and he’s such a lovely fellow, so I sent him the backing track. As soon as lockdown was lifted he came down to the studio for the afternoon. We cut it live and that was it.”

That Pleasure

In amongst those soulful strings there is some barely contained rage in Weller’s voice as he sings ‘Lose your hypocrisy.’ “I suppose it’s my reaction to the whole Black Lives Matter movement,” he explains. “You’re always on tender ground writing about that, but, regardless of my colour, any human being should be disturbed. You should be appalled and disgusted and shocked by those images of George Floyd being killed in the street. It has to stop. It’s a question for everyone.”

Failed

‘All the things I never get/and all the things I never meant/and all the things that make no fucking sense…I’ve failed.’

“Yes, I’m asking myself the question,” admits Weller, a man who has never been afraid of self-reflection in his songwriting. “It’s an angry song because I wrote it right after a massive row with my wife. But I like it. It’s honest. It’s not how I feel all the time, but it is how I feel some of the time. I’m just talking about me as a man. We all measure success in different ways.”

It’s also one of his favourite songs on the album, a stand-out.

Moving Canvas

A chunky, percussive groove, with the feel of Traffic but updated for the here-and-now.

“It’s going to be great live that one. I wrote it about Iggy Pop. I hope he likes it if he ever gets to hear it. It’s my tribute to him, even though it doesn’t sound anything like him. Aside from all the great records he’s made, as a performer he’s high art. It’s all about the Igster.”

In Better Times

A plaintive plea with some beautiful sax and guitar breaks. “Cold in your eyes, don’t you know you break my heart in two”.

“It’s me talking to a young person who is going through something, addiction or mental health pressure, or whatever, and just saying it’ll be alright. Just get through this bit and there’ll be better times to come, you’ll look back and you’ll see it differently.”

Still Glides The Stream

A stately collaboration between Weller and long-time guitar foil Steve Cradock.

“I had the chords and possibly the melody, which I sent to Cradock. And he sent me back a poem and I edited that, then we sent it back and forth by phone. Lockdown songwriting. I just liked the poem. In my mind, I was thinking about our road sweeper who’s a lovely fellow. I started thinking that there’s so many people in this country who form the infrastructure of it and without whom we’d be fucked. But they’re looked down upon, not really noticed. So I was imagining their story. I did find out that there’s a book of the same name (by Flora Thompson) and Cradock said he had seen it in a shop, so that’s where the title comes from. I just liked the poetry of it. Steve’s a very soulful fella.”

3 x 4 is a celebration of L.A.'s Paisley Underground scene of the mid-80s featuring four of the scene's most notorious bands each covering the songs of the others - four bands covering three songs each - "3 x 4" get it? The bands are The Bangles, The Three O'Clock, The Dream Syndicate and Rain Parade. These are brand new 2018 recordings.

Public Service Broadcasting today announce This New Noise, the newly remixed and remastered live recording of their acclaimed 2022 BBC Proms show at London’s Royal Albert Hall, released on 8 September 2023 via Test Card Recordings.

A celebration of the power of radio written in recognition of the centenary of the BBC, This New Noise saw the band joining forces with the 88 piece BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jules Buckley. A standout performance from 2022’s BBC Proms, it received 5*s in The Telegraph who called it “a resonant, timely and ultimately touching show”. Founder member J. Willgoose, Esq. remixed the concert from scratch, bringing out even more depth and texture from a multi-layered performance and showing it in a new light.

This New Noise is the second time Public Service Broadcasting have been commissioned for the BBC Proms. In 2019 the band performed an orchestral arrangement of their 2015 studio album The Race for Space with The Multi-Story Orchestra to mark the 50th anniversary of the first manned mission to the Moon.

In conjunction with the announcement, the band shares "Broadcasting House"

Public Service Broadcasting have been “teaching the lessons of the past through the music of the future” for more than a decade now. 2013’s debut album Inform - Educate - Entertain used archival samples from the British Film Institute as audio-portals to the Battle Of Britain, the summit of Everest and beyond. Two years later, The Race For Space used similar methods to laud the superpowers’ rivalry and heroism in orbit and on the Moon. An indie DIY phenomenon the album has remarkably since achieved gold disc status having sold over 100,000 copies in the UK alone. In 2017, joined by voices including Manic Street Preachers’ James Dean Bradfield, Every Valley was a moving exploration of community and memory via the rise and fall of the British coal industry.

Their most ambitious undertaking yet, Bright Magic brought the listener to Europe’s heart and de facto capital, the cultural and political metropolis that is the ‘Hauptstadt’ of the Federal Republic of Germany – Berlin. Released in late 2021, and debuting at No 2 in the UK album chart, the band’s fourth album was described by Electronic Sound as “their most ambitious, leftfield and majestic work to date, their glorious creative peak, their magnum opus”, DIY said “it flourished at its most calm and erupted at its most fervent” and Clash said it “cemented PSB's reputation as a vital act right at the top of their game”. The album also featured multiple BBC Radio 6 Music A-Listed singles, including “People, Let’s Dance” [ft. Eera] and “Blue Heaven” [ft. Andreya Casablanca].

Atomic Ritual is the Nebula 3rd full lenght released in 2003. Heavy Psych Sounds is proud to reissue this gem in brand new Colored Vinyl versions. “Stoner rock? Bonghit metal? Old school hard rock? Call it what ya want, but it is clear from the first 3 seconds of Nebula’s Atomic Ritual that these guys have been listening to a lot of Hawkwind! Droning, heavy, fuzzy and flat-out rockin’ as fuck, Nebula’s latest slab is more conceptual than their previous effort, but no less pulverizing. Produced by Master of Reality (and Queens of the Stone Age/Kyuss mentor) Chris Goss, Atomic Ritual is the bands most layered, bold work to date and finds them veering closer to the headfuck ethos of early Monster Magnet than the indie classic rock they ventured into on their Sub Pop effort. The title track and “Out Of Your Head” are just pure space rock, while “Carpe Diem,” “So It Goes” and “More” balance out the cosmic slop with some hooks and melody. None of this is gonna get the on the radio, but one gets the feeling they could care less. So be it. All in all, a pleasing way to melt your brain.” - Frank Meyer

To experience Justin R. Cruz Gallego's pulverizing Sub Pop debut is to get burned down to ashes and burst forth, born anew. Grim Iconic...(Sadistic Mantra), the Tacoma-based artist's second album, is driven by opposing forces: noisy abstractions and tightly structured beats, anguish and dissolution at the outside world and empowerment within, apathy and catharsis. Grim Iconic...(Sadistic Mantra) weds scouring electronics to hooky songs and Gallego's powerful drumming in a way that feels visceral and new. It's his most personal statement to date, at once playful and intent, driven and combustible, total fucking chaos mixed into glints of broken-glass beauty. Born in Tucson, Arizona, Gallego experienced culture shock as a child after relocating to the frigid climes of the Pacific Northwest. He found solace in the Seattle punk scene centered around Iron Lung Records and has since remained a fixture in the underground community. "I see this record as first and foremost a musical statement," Gallego says. "I grew up in punk and DIY subcultures, but before that I had Latin music playing in the background through my childhood and every phase of adolescence. It was surprisingly natural to incorporate. I realized I wanted to go deeper into these rhythms. I wanted to make a record that felt as experimental as much as it felt from the perspective of a Latino. When I got a glimmer of that possibility, it felt exciting." Lead single "Dogear" is a face-melting party starter that sounds like someone forced Talking Heads and Rudimentary Peni to share a practice space. "I wanted a song that felt playful in the way it attempted to be dissonant without taking itself too seriously," Gallego says. "Cholla Beat" is even more ambitious, an anthemic mix of WAR and Wire led by unruly synthesizers spiraling down a labyrinth of production. Gallego's influences for the album are vast, ranging from British documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis to electric Miles Davis to audio miscreants like Demdike Stare and Oneohtrix Point Never. But it's Gallego's assured sonic vision that resounds the loudest. And, while J.R.C.G. is a solo project, conceived and executed primarily in Gallego's home studio, he found strength in opening the project to others, starting with Seth Manchester as co-producer. Manchester's penchant for bone-rattling frequencies, as seen in his production work with The Body, Battles, and Mdou Moctar, made him a natural fit for Gallego. Together, they retained the intimacy of Gallego's home recordings while taking advantage of the hi-fi stylings of his Machines With Magnets Studio in Rhode Island. The closing song, "World i," offers a glimpse into the live experience of Grim Iconic...(Sadistic Mantra), with upwards of seven band members blasting off. The album features a fascinating mix of supporting players, many of whom cycle through J.R.C.G.'s live lineup: Morgan Henderson (The Blood Brothers, Fleet Foxes), Jason Clackley (Dreamdecay, The Exquisites), Jon Scheid (Dreamdecay, U Sco), Erica Miller (Casual Hex, Big Bite), Veronica Dye (Terminator) Phil Cleary (U Sco), and Alex Gaziano (Dreamdecay, Kidcrash, Science Amplification). Taken as a whole, G.I.S.M. is a whirlwind of sound, pummeling, and cleansing. It's a sweaty, thrilling aural adventure and, like a great basement show, it'll leave you breathless, exhausted, and wanting to repeat it all over again. As any good mantra should.