Charlie Megira's self-reflexive final album found him far from his Beth She'an Valley home and surrounded by a new cast of Hillbillies. After spending 15 years toying with goth, sound collage, grunge, and dark wave, Boom Chaka Boom Boom is a sprawling mix of plunking country blues, Black Lodge terror, ambient montages, 17th century Lutheran hymns, and noodling spaghetti western kitsch. Deck his soul with gladness.
"My Last Star" began as a dream that Greg Lee of Hepcat had the week before his death in March of 2024. Greg dreamed of a Slackers song. The Slackers have completed this song, and now the world can hear this truly one of a kind collaboration. In Greg's dream, an old neighbor picked him up in a classic car, turned on the stereo, and played a Slackers song that - at the time - did not exist on our plane of reality. It sounds like the stuff of myth, but the song was so crystal clear in the dream that when he awoke around 2 or 3 in the morning, he immediately wrote down the lyrics he had heard, still humming the tune. "I hadn't seen Greg so excited about a new song in a very long time," says Lee's longtime partner, Mandie Becker. "I found the lyrics when I was organizing his things. I knew he had a voice recording on his phone, too. I decided the best situation was to offer it to The Slackers so we could all hear the song on the stereo from Greg's dream." "I was floored when I received Greg's vocal demo with the lyrics and I vowed to finish the song and make the dream a reality," says Slackers saxophonist Dave Hillyard. "I took the vocal demo to The Slackers, Vic Ruggiero harmonized it, and we wrote music around the words. With this song we came full circle. Greg had given us a gift and we needed to give it back to his family, friends, and musical community. We are the medium for his message." The longer history behind this collaboration is a story of decades of friendship, collaboration, artistry, and mutual respect between LA's Hepcat and NYC's The Slackers, who although from opposite coasts, have both been leading lights and creative forces in the underground ska scene since the early 1990s. Both Hepcat and The Slackers concerned themselves with timeless songwriting that paid homage to the longstanding roots of the music. It is an extraordinary final work envisioned by a beloved and thoughtful musician of the highest caliber and completed by longtime friends and collaborators he knew from the moment of inspiration were the ones that would play it. It is literally a dream come true. "My Last Star" is available as a 12" UV Printed Vinyl Single from Pirates Press Records, with art by The Slackers' in-house artist Catt Gould. The 12" also includes instrumental and dub versions of the song. As a matter of fact, snippets of Greg's original vocal demo from his phone are subtly mixed in toward the end of the instrumental version, underscoring his posthumous presence on the record. Greg's songwriting royalties, as well as a portion of the proceeds from the sales of "My Last Star," will be passed on to his four daughters.
Philadelphia's THE WONDER YEARS are set to release Burst & Decay Vol. III on May 9 via Hopeless Records. This third installment of their stripped-back series introduces a new track, "Junebug," written by vocalist Dan Campbell about his younger son and produced by Steve Evetts (SAVES THE DAY, LIFETIME). On the record, Campbell's personal narrative continues with "Wyatt's Song (Your Name)," a piece crafted for his older son that employs the actual recording of Wyatt's in-utero heartbeat as its metronome. Closing the album, "Doors I Painted Shut" delivers cinematic intensity through vibrant vocals and production led by guitarist Nick Steinborn, signaling a confident exploration into new sonic territory. Burst & Decay Vol. III also features collaborative reinterpretations of signature tracks. On "Came Out Swinging," Joe Taylor of KNUCKLE PUCK lends dynamic vocals, while Zayna Youssef of SWEET PILL amplifies the raw vulnerability on "Oldest Daughter." Ryland Heagy of ORIGAMI ANGEL offers a tender performance on "I Don't Like Who I Was Then." Over a career spanning more than a decade, THE WONDER YEARS have toured extensively_sharing stages with MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE, PARAMORE, DESCENDANTS, THURSDAY, BLEACHERS, and others_and built a community through their own label and the annual Loneliest Place On Earth festival, which has showcased acts such as HOT MULLIGAN, ORIGAMI ANGEL, and LAURA STEVENSON. Their previous album, The Hum Goes On Forever, debuted at #3 on the US Alternative Album Chart and earned recognition from Paste Magazine as one of the best records of the 2020s, while the track "Year of The Vulture" was chosen as the theme for WWE NXT's Stand and Deliver event.
James Taylor has been writing/recording albums and touring for the past 43 years, starting with The Prisoners and then The James Taylor Quartet (JTQ) from 1986 onwards, to great acclaim. Taylor was the pioneering force that spear-headed the Acid Jazz movement in the 90's, which saw a renaissance in live music. He has also virtually single-handedly driven the rediscovery of the Hammond organ, his trademark keyboard. He has developed his composition and arrangement skills and with these has recorded over 20 library albums. The most recent of the library albums include the four tracks on this very EP, which feature Taylor's innovative horn arrangement skills, placing JB style horns over a funk groove, but in this case he had the novel idea of incorporating two guitars; one funky, one rocky. Sort of James Brown meets The Rolling Stones, and the result can be heard on this slab of vinyl. The current live line-up for The James Taylor Quartet is James Taylor (keyboards and orchestration), Mark Cox (guitar), Andrew McKinney (bass) and Pat Illingworth (drums).
Calling Mattheis a pillar of Nous'klaer Audio would be an understatement. Founded in 2013, the label was at the time solely created to put out Mattheis' Isms EP. Now, twelve years on, we present his latest album: Waiting for the Silhouette. The forty minute LP full of dreamy techno bliss explorations starts out, and is glued throughout, with ethereal modulating synths. Dreamscapes fuse into scattered drums and shifting patterns briefly usher in changing phases. It's in these moments when the unworldly contours take form and are built upon by other emerging elements. Waiting for the silhouette is a record about things coming to life, outlines that start to appear and shapes evoking memories that could as well be premonitions. Minimalism and maximalism become indistinguishable on this album, through the trip in between. Artwork by Frederic Dumoulin. The record is cut inside-out and comes with a downloadcard.
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Spanish Electronica, IDM, Electro all-rounder Annie Hall presents her first full EP for Delsin Records. After a sneaky under the radar contribution to an untitled white label series earlier, she hereby delivers four magnificent cuts of machine heavy electro melancholia to form her Practical Optimism EP. Broken beats with Detroit atmospheres strengthened by knife sharp lazer beams, bumpy drum programming and mesmerizing vocal use form the core of an excellent piece of work that represents both Hall and Delsin in optima forma.
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Zur Feier des 40. Jubiläums vom Album ”Listen Like Thieves” gibt es eine aufregende Neuauflage mit einem brandneuem Stereomix von den INXS-Produzenten Giles Martin und Paul Hicks.
Mediocampo (1984), Jaime Roos's fifth album concludes an unintentional trilogy that began with Aquello (1981) and continued with Siempre son las cuatro (1982). It is the bright side of the series, a groundbreaking album that has become a classic, perhaps the most prestigious and well-known work of his discography. The album's sound, aligned with international trends of the 1980s, made Mediocampo the gateway to Jaime Roos's universe for a younger audience approaching music through rock. Its proposal was unique and deeply Uruguayan, yet it incorporated elements that resonated with a public accustomed to Anglo-Saxon pop. The albums Aquello and Siempre son las cuatro, despite being very different works, share a focus on the Beatles-inspired pop song structure, stylistic diversity, and a search for popular roots. Mediocampo, the conclusion of this song-driven trilogy, is as daring and experimental as its predecessors but with much more direct and accessible communication, achieving an almost perfect distillation of his artistic vision. Today, many of its songs are an essential part of Montevideo's cultural soundtrack.
Eduardo Mateo & Fernando Cabrera come together to offer a cycle of live music, where both authors interpret their creations in a special way. They achieve remakes of songs that from this encounter become anthems of Uruguayan music such as "Por ejemplo", an essential piece of Uruguayan music of all times. Recorded live and released in 1987 in Montevideo, Uruguay. This album is the most professional record of the duo that Eduardo Mateo and Fernando Cabrera formed for a period of a few months. These two great composers, performers and arrangers from different generations, premiered with the duo several beautiful new songs, in addition to concocting together renewed versions of some of the classic tunes from each one's repertoire. It is an intimate and acoustic work. Fernando Cabrera's guitar appears many times backed by the tasty and peculiar percussion of Eduardo Mateo, and there are also grooves with precious arrangements of two guitars. The duo of Mateo and Cabrera was a milestone for the careers of both.
The Scream, Siouxsie & the Banshees' first album, was released late enough in the punk era to bear some claim as the first post-punk album, with only a minor traces of 'punk' (one lingering early song, "Carcass" comes to mind) and enough hints of what had come even earlier, Andy MacKay-like saxophone flourishes - to feel utterly new. Not to mention the effort producer Steve Lillywhite must have put into the album, his first fully-credited major label production. Siouxsie was clearly the focus of the band, with her unique vocal style and lyrics, but the real star, we've always known, was John McKay, who wrote most of the album's music (as well as singles like "Hong Kong Garden"), creating a wholly new guitar sound - harsh and brittle, yet melodically intoxicating . . . best articulated by a somewhat confounded Steve Albini years later ". . . only now people are trying to copy it, and even now nobody understands how that guitar player got all that pointless noise to stick together as songs". McKay's influence lives on; many of the most influential guitarists of the past four decades credit him as a major influence - Geordie from Killing Joke, Jim Reid of The Jesus And Mary Chain, U2's The Edge, Thurston Moore, Johnny Marr and even the two guitarists - The Cure's Robert Smith and Magazine's John McGeoch - who followed him in The Banshees. McKay's burgeoning status as the anti-guitar hero was halted when he and Banshees drummer Kenny Morris - at odds with Siouxsie and bassist Steve Severin - fled the band just after the start of a tour supporting the group's second album, Join Hands. It was a weekly music paper scandal, later the subject of a BBC documentary, and Siouxsie's vitriol working its way into the lyrics of a later Banshees b-side, "Drop Dead / Celebration". Aside from a solitary single on Marc Riley's In Tape label nearly a decade later, no music was heard from McKay again. So it comes as a major surprise to learn of a pile of excellent recordings made in the years just after he left The Banshees, unheard by all but a very few, some of which feature drummer Kenny Morris, plus Mick Allen from Rema Rema, Matthew Seligman of the Soft Boys and longer-term collaborator Graham Dowdall and John's wife Linda . . . the latter three of whom now all sadly deceased. Sixes And Sevens is an historic lost album. Brazenly genius and bearing fair claim as the lost treasure of the post-punk era, the album collects eleven studio tracks, carefully mastered from original tapes. It's a masterpiece which best speaks for itself.
Legendary shoegaze band Chapterhouse will share their first ever recordings on a new EP, White House Demos, released via Sonic Cathedral on May 9.The four tracks were laid down at The White House studio in Weston-super-Mare on January 15, 1989, when the band were only four gigs old. "They were the first songs we wrote as a band," says the band's singer and guitarist Stephen Patman. "At the time our live set consisted of Stooges and '60s garage-psych cover versions which we mixed with these original songs." The tracks weren't included on 2023's career-spanning Chronology boxset because they had been forgotten about - until the intervention of Slowdive guitarist Christian Savill. He and Patman worked together in an office in Reading as their respective bands were starting out and he says the demo remains "their best record"."When the boxset was released, Christian got in touch and reminded me of these demos and how much he loved them," says Stephen. "He was probably the first person I gave a cassette copy to. He still rehearses and records at The White House and was going in for a session the following week, so I asked if he could ask the owner/engineer Martin Nichols to check if he still had them in his archive. Thankfully he did." Of the four tracks that make up the EP, `Ecstasy' has appeared in various versions and permutations on Chapterhouse compilations over the years, but never in its full eight-minute glory; a much later version of `Guilt' was included on the band's 1991 debut album and shoegaze classic Whirlpool; a version of `Die Die Die' was also included with that album on a bonus 12", and remained part of the band's live set for a while. The stunning `See That Girl', however, has never been released before. With 36 years of distance, it sounds like something of a lost classic, and the White House Demos as a whole feel like a brief moment in time captured forever.
TV Smith's first solo album reissued from the master tapes for the very first time. The Artwork has been professionally restored and packaged in deluxe gatefold gatefold sleeve with in depth liner notes by long-time fan and author Dave Thompson. Comes as a red vinyl pressing! January 1983 saw TV SMITH reunited with ex Advert Tim Cross and David Bowie's ex-guitarist Tim Renwick to record "Channel 5" in Wickham studios in Croydon. 3 weeks later the album was completed and scheduled for a June release. "War Fever" was earmarked as the first single but at the time the country was fighting a General Election with the card of the Falklands war victory played by the ruling Conservative Party, and as a result the single vanished without trace.
D R E A M S I C L E marks the highly anticipated 4th studio album from Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Maren Morris, via Columbia Records. Featuring songs written by Morris with Julia Michaels and Tobias Jesso Jr, plus production by Jack Antonoff and Greg Kurstin, this album is a deeply personal exploration of transformation, resilience, and self-discovery. As Morris describes it, “D R E A M S I C L E takes place in the aftermath of loosening my grip on my personal and professional life. Sweeping through the pits of grief, but never staying too long, and finding the joy in knowing that at my core, I’m still who I am – and that’s pretty f-ing great..." TRanslucent Orange LP Vinyl & standard CD. Promo & marketing activity.
DMV-by-way-of-the-U.K. punk duo Teen Mortgage have announced their debut album, Devil Ultrasonic Dream, out May 9th on vinyl via Roadrunner Records.
Produced by the band alongside longtime collaborator Kenny Eaton, the album’s first single, “BOX,” is a two-minute sprint of seething defiance, packed with hooks and unrelenting energy.
The album’s title, Devil Ultrasonic Dream, leans into the 1980s-era satanic panic in rock and roll. “The Devil Ultrasonic Dream,” explains frontman James Guile, “is about realizing a fantasy that Christian fascists don’t understand or want you to have. The devil—Satan—has always been a symbol of counterculture.”
Originally from England, Guile had been toying with the Teen Mortgage project under various monikers for years, crafting a sound steeped in sociopolitical commentary and built for the mosh pit, heavily influenced by classic ’80s punk. After relocating to Maryland five years ago, he connected with drummer (and former nurse) Edward Barakauskas via a Craigslist ad. Since then, the duo have spent years building Teen Mortgage’s presence in the DMV scene. In between a global pandemic and Barakauskas serving as an ER frontline worker, they managed to drop an EP and a string of singles before signing to Roadrunner Records in 2024.
Teen Mortgage has earned support slots with a stacked list of artists, from Weezer, Smashing Pumpkins, OFF!, and Alkaline Trio and return to the UK in June to play Download Festival and support Weezer at their Halifax Piece Hall show.
Zur Feier des 40. Jubiläums vom Album ”Listen Like Thieves” gibt es eine aufregende Neuauflage mit einem brandneuem Stereomix von den INXS-Produzenten Giles Martin und Paul Hicks.
Spacey Jane are an Australian indie rock band formed in Fremantle in 2016. Following a year-long hiatus from live performances, Spacey Jane announced in January 2025 that their third studio album, If That Makes Sense, would be released in May. It was announced alongside the release of lead single "All the Noise". If That Makes Sense explores the difficulty and uncertainty that arises when articulating any feeling across the full spectrum of human emotion. Having total knowledge that nobody is able to truly comprehend the complexities that life has presented to you, but still trying to get the words out anyway. If That Makes Sense is an emotional flip book through time, a set of flashbacks and vignettes, an attempt to rearrange the disorder into something ordered. Where you are today is the result of all these fragments and experiences. -Caleb Harper
As spring teases the summer ahead and overall lightness returns, T3R016 delivers highly intense peak-time euphoria by Dutch-born and Berlin-based hardware phenomenon Nadia Struiwigh. Her masterful storytelling shines through two tracks consisting of hard-hitting, yet dynamic drum arrangements and melodious breaks.
The remixes by Andy Martin and UFO95 build on this drive whilst offering striking contrasts. Witness Andy convince listeners once again with expressive melodies and trippy sound design, while UFO95 flawlessly adds contemporary, raw and beepy energy to the release.
Four tracks that are truly primed for moments of pure motion will entirely make the winter disappear.
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When we last heard from Bay Area producer DEAD PERRY, he was riding high on the critical success of "The Art Of Re-Animation" album. That album was a re-imagining of legendary Hieroglyphics crew emcee Casual's work from his "Big Head Science" album.
However on the forthcoming "Acoustic Shadows" album, as the title implies things get a bit dark. As he relays "when I made (The Art Of Reanimation) with Cas, I wanted to cater to the specific sound that Hieroglyphics has, but put my spin on it without making it too dark (though there are a couple of dark gems sprinkled throughout). I knew that my next album was going to be a solo LP and I wanted it to be something special. Dark and grimy has always been my style of beat making so I wanted to showcase that with this record."
However, the title also has a double meaning to the producer. "The term Acoustic Shadows comes from a Civil War phenomenon that refers to a sonic blind spot. Due to geographical obstructions disrupting sound waves you could think you are a great distance from the battlefield while you could already be in it. It also refers to my style keeping to the shadows and out of the limelight, when I only appear in photos wearing a mask, it's not because I'm on that post MF Doom craze, it's because I came from graffiti and graffiti artists let their art be their only face to the public."
That style is showcased throughout the forthcoming album, including his choice of collaborators include Casual, Daniel Son, Estee Nack, Al Divino, Raz Fresco, Ill Bill, Goretex, Hus Kingpin, Crimeapple, Planet Asia, Da Flyy Hooligan, Izrell, P-Dirt, J-Spliff and cuts from DJ Eclipse. Concepts also lent itself to the grime including the John Carpenter-esque synth laden "Call Me Snake" track, which inadvertently inspired the emcees. As DEAD PERRY relates "I give the beats a place-holder title until the track is done so this one was 'Die Kurt Russ.' P-Dirt chose to create the concept off the beat title. Crafting that song was a fun experience." It also has a full circle moment as DEAD PERRY and Casual expand their "White Crown" single from their previous project on this release enlisting Planet Asia to drop an additional Afro-Centric verse.
When we last heard from Bay Area producer DEAD PERRY, he was riding high on the critical success of "The Art Of Re-Animation" album. That album was a re-imagining of legendary Hieroglyphics crew emcee Casual's work from his "Big Head Science" album.
However on the forthcoming "Acoustic Shadows" album, as the title implies things get a bit dark. As he relays "when I made (The Art Of Reanimation) with Cas, I wanted to cater to the specific sound that Hieroglyphics has, but put my spin on it without making it too dark (though there are a couple of dark gems sprinkled throughout). I knew that my next album was going to be a solo LP and I wanted it to be something special. Dark and grimy has always been my style of beat making so I wanted to showcase that with this record."
However, the title also has a double meaning to the producer. "The term Acoustic Shadows comes from a Civil War phenomenon that refers to a sonic blind spot. Due to geographical obstructions disrupting sound waves you could think you are a great distance from the battlefield while you could already be in it. It also refers to my style keeping to the shadows and out of the limelight, when I only appear in photos wearing a mask, it's not because I'm on that post MF Doom craze, it's because I came from graffiti and graffiti artists let their art be their only face to the public."
That style is showcased throughout the forthcoming album, including his choice of collaborators include Casual, Daniel Son, Estee Nack, Al Divino, Raz Fresco, Ill Bill, Goretex, Hus Kingpin, Crimeapple, Planet Asia, Da Flyy Hooligan, Izrell, P-Dirt, J-Spliff and cuts from DJ Eclipse. Concepts also lent itself to the grime including the John Carpenter-esque synth laden "Call Me Snake" track, which inadvertently inspired the emcees. As DEAD PERRY relates "I give the beats a place-holder title until the track is done so this one was 'Die Kurt Russ.' P-Dirt chose to create the concept off the beat title. Crafting that song was a fun experience." It also has a full circle moment as DEAD PERRY and Casual expand their "White Crown" single from their previous project on this release enlisting Planet Asia to drop an additional Afro-Centric verse.
When we last heard from Bay Area producer DEAD PERRY, he was riding high on the critical success of "The Art Of Re-Animation" album. That album was a re-imagining of legendary Hieroglyphics crew emcee Casual's work from his "Big Head Science" album.
However on the forthcoming "Acoustic Shadows" album, as the title implies things get a bit dark. As he relays "when I made (The Art Of Reanimation) with Cas, I wanted to cater to the specific sound that Hieroglyphics has, but put my spin on it without making it too dark (though there are a couple of dark gems sprinkled throughout). I knew that my next album was going to be a solo LP and I wanted it to be something special. Dark and grimy has always been my style of beat making so I wanted to showcase that with this record."
However, the title also has a double meaning to the producer. "The term Acoustic Shadows comes from a Civil War phenomenon that refers to a sonic blind spot. Due to geographical obstructions disrupting sound waves you could think you are a great distance from the battlefield while you could already be in it. It also refers to my style keeping to the shadows and out of the limelight, when I only appear in photos wearing a mask, it's not because I'm on that post MF Doom craze, it's because I came from graffiti and graffiti artists let their art be their only face to the public."
That style is showcased throughout the forthcoming album, including his choice of collaborators include Casual, Daniel Son, Estee Nack, Al Divino, Raz Fresco, Ill Bill, Goretex, Hus Kingpin, Crimeapple, Planet Asia, Da Flyy Hooligan, Izrell, P-Dirt, J-Spliff and cuts from DJ Eclipse. Concepts also lent itself to the grime including the John Carpenter-esque synth laden "Call Me Snake" track, which inadvertently inspired the emcees. As DEAD PERRY relates "I give the beats a place-holder title until the track is done so this one was 'Die Kurt Russ.' P-Dirt chose to create the concept off the beat title. Crafting that song was a fun experience." It also has a full circle moment as DEAD PERRY and Casual expand their "White Crown" single from their previous project on this release enlisting Planet Asia to drop an additional Afro-Centric verse.
Illusive Bristolian producer Claude Cooper returns with ‘Friendly Sounds Vol 1’; part psychedelic trip, part romping beat tape, part party. The album was inspired by the vinyl discoveries made from Cooper’s months of digging and cataloguing the bulging inventory of Bedminster’s Friendly Records record shop. Cooper fed these myriad captured sounds through the studio and then, blurring the lines between sampling and performance, arranged and embellished them with keyboards, drum machines, bass guitar and more, also co-opting BEAK> bassist Billy Fuller and esteemed composer Ben Salisbury to contribute.
With most of the tracks in and out within 90 seconds, the album is best enjoyed as a continuous course. Play side A, play the B, then flip it back and listen all over again. Stand out moments include tremulous cut ‘n’ paste jam ‘Jackie’, the moody string-laden ‘Rainbow Eternity’, funky sitar workout ‘Nerd Nork’, and atmospheric closer ‘Take Flight’. Sharing a similarly broad and experimental sound palette as the likes The Avalanches, Madlib, The Go Team, and Edan; ‘Friendly Sounds Vol 1’ is the soundtrack to a wild joyride down South Bristol’s North Street, foot on the gas, hand on the horn, LPs spilling from the boot.
Cooper’s irrepressible debut album ‘Myriad Sounds' (Jan ‘22) caught the attention of the UK's press and radio alike. Mojo's four star review described it as “Bristol’s beat scene backdrops late night jams”, Uncut enjoyed the "rugged psych-funk romp" and Louder than War declared "it’s vital and vibrant and exactly what we need to kick start the year”. Bonus round 'More Myriad Sounds' (Apr ‘23) added Brooklyn vocalist Brain Fog to the melange with a bounty of pyretic vocal performances. DJ Mag called it “A fierce, kaleidoscopic trip” while Bandcamp Daily said “This album of cross-genre influences is as likely to get it included in any number of best-of columns, with the theme of serious fun as their common element”. Called a "mysterious Bristol breaks scientist" by Lauren Laverne, BBC radio DJs including Cerys Matthews, Gideon Coe, Huw Stephens, Jamie Cullum, Stuart Maconie, and Tom Ravenscroft have rinsed Cooper’s tracks, with Huey Morgan inviting Cooper to contribute a Block Party Mix for his show.
‘Stay A While’, the first showing of Cooper’s new shop sampling stunners, was released on 7” in January ‘24. Lush string flourishes sliced with 6Ts girl-group vocals and rollicking piano chords resulted in a dreamy, end of night, lights up anthem in-the-making that The Arts Desk called “A horn-fired, beatsy, chop-around that recalls The Avalanches”. Releasing the album is Friendly Records, the best little record shop in Bristol and now a burgeoning record label. Opened by Tom Friend on North Street in 2016, it’s gone on to become a hub of the local musical community. As well as Claude Cooper, the label has released LPs by Alison Cotton, Floating World Pictures, Christian Madden & The Enemy Chorus, Nick Craft, as well as handling the War Child series of 7”s with BEAK>, Idles, J Dilla, PJ Harvey, Portishead, and Sleaford Mods + Hot Chip.
Claude Cooper will DJ at the one-day Friendly Festival on 10th May in aid of War Child, which will feature Sleaford Mods, Katy J Pearson, The 45s, Zalizo and DJ sets by Ishmael Ensemble, Heavenly Jukebox and Friendly Records DJs.
'Trá Pháidín are an Irish nine piece collective from Conamara, Galway, a wild coastal region of West Ireland where Gaeilge remains the first language. The group are currently lighting up Ireland's underground with their joyful noise, a unique and unpredictable blend of traditional Irish folk, post-rock, jazz, and Dadaist absurdity. The glorious album An 424 takes us on a psychogeographical journey along the 424 bus route which follows this remote stretch of coastline, introducing us to the landscapes and the characters who depend on the buses. Expect wild improvisational flights filled with brass, woodwinds, harp and fiddles alongside relentless grooves.
Here's what the band themselves have to say about the album:
Psychogeography is a funny aul term......the effect geography and landscape of a certain area has on the psychology, identity and nature of the local people...........I suppose
Notoriously, Conamara is famous place for psychogeoraphy due to the work of the great Tom Robinson. He walked every coastline in every area contemplating the geography, culture, history, Gaelic language, English language and folklore of the area while he was drawing it's best map with great depth and detail.
Right, so I've given context, a few buzzwords and some interesting names, now it's time for the absurd stuff....
"Bóthar Chois Fharraige" (the R336 and whatever anglicized name they call it) is well known by everyone in the South Conamara Gaeltacht (Gaeltacht is an area where Irish/Gaeilge is the dominant language, there aren't many because we were colonized by the British and our government doesn't care about its own language). The people of Conamara travel this road almost every day by car, by bike, on Peadar Óg's buses or of course, through the medium of the 424 (the bus service provided by Bus Éireann, Ireland's public-private bus company). From Bearna to Carna (maybe sometimes a detour in Casla going as far back as an Cheathrú Rua and/or Leitir Mealláin)
Every passenger is well versed of gorgeous views of the landscape that is on offer on this journey. Included are Cuan na Gaillimhe/Galway Bay, An Bhoirinn/the Burren, na hOileáin Árann/the Arann Islands,Aillte an Mhothair/the Cliffs of Moher, Portach Mhaigh Cuilinn/the bogs of Maigh Cuilinn, Bóthar Loch an Iolra/Eagle lake road, Cuan Casla/Casla Harbour, Cuan an Fhir Mhóir/Greatman's Bay, Cnoc Mordáin/Mordáin hill, Sléibhte Mhám Toirc/the Maamturk Mountains and Na Beanna Beola/the twelve pins. Passengers would also be well used the unique character of the bus. Depending on the day, you will get a unique perspective of the "complicated identity" of the Gaels as the bus travels from the Gaeltacht into anglophone Ireland, or maybe going the other way.
This is a topic you could write a PhD about (and maybe someone already has). But, if you are someone who grew up or lives in this region, you have a particular understanding at this stage of how complicated Gaelic psyche is and the kind of spectrum of identity along bóthar Choise Fharraige. With the landscape in mind, this bus journey is a great meditation of the various topics of life.
‘Bhfuil tionchar ag an mbus ar nádúr na ndaoine?
Nó an bhfuil tionchar ag na daoine ar nádúr an bhus?'
'Does the bus effect the nature of the people?
Or do the people affect the nature of the bus?'
Le gach dea-ghuí,
TP.
(translated from Gaeilge by Peadar-Tom Mercier)'
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The Scream, Siouxsie & the Banshees' first album, was released late enough in the punk era to bear some claim as the first post-punk album, with only a minor traces of 'punk' (one lingering early song, "Carcass" comes to mind) and enough hints of what had come even earlier, Andy MacKay-like saxophone flourishes - to feel utterly new. Not to mention the effort producer Steve Lillywhite must have put into the album, his first fully-credited major label production.
Siouxsie was clearly the focus of the band, with her unique vocal style and lyrics, but the real star, we've always known, was John McKay, who wrote most of the album's music (as well as singles like "Hong Kong Garden"), creating a wholly new guitar sound - harsh and brittle, yet melodically intoxicating . . . best articulated by a somewhat confounded Steve Albini years later ". . . only now people are trying to copy it, and even now nobody understands how that guitar player got all that pointless noise to stick together as songs". McKay's influence lives on; many of the most influential guitarists of the past four decades credit him as a major influence - Geordie from Killing Joke, Jim Reid of The Jesus And Mary Chain, U2's The Edge, Thurston Moore, Johnny Marr and even the two guitarists - The Cure's Robert Smith and Magazine's John McGeoch - who followed him in The Banshees.
McKay's burgeoning status as the anti-guitar hero was halted when he and Banshees drummer Kenny Morris - at odds with Siouxsie and bassist Steve Severin - fled the band just after the start of a tour supporting the group's second album, Join Hands. It was a weekly music paper scandal, later the subject of a BBC documentary, and Siouxsie's vitriol working its way into the lyrics of a later Banshees b-side, "Drop Dead / Celebration". Aside from a solitary single on Marc Riley's In Tape label nearly a decade later, no music was heard from McKay again. So it comes as a major surprise to learn of a pile of excellent recordings made in the years just after he left The Banshees, unheard by all but a very few, some of which feature drummer Kenny Morris, plus Mick Allen from Rema Rema, Matthew Seligman of the Soft Boys and longer-term collaborator Graham Dowdall and John's wife Linda . . . the latter three of whom now all sadly deceased.
Sixes And Sevens is an historic lost album. Brazenly genius and bearing fair claim as the lost treasure of the post-punk era, the album collects eleven studio tracks, carefully mastered from original tapes. It's a masterpiece which best speaks for itself. John McKay will be made available for a limited number of interviews . . . and yes, there are surprises in store.
The Catenary Wires are a group comprising Amelia Fletcher, Rob Pursey and Ian Button. Their critically acclaimed third album ‘Birling Gap’ was released in 2021. Since then, they have been focusing on their other bands, playing around the world with Heavenly (stars of the 90s indiepop scene) and Swansea Sound.
A couple of years ago, word reached Rob and Amelia that Brian had been spotted wearing a Heavenly t-shirt at one of his shows, and was a big fan of their music. Given that they, in turn, were fans of Brian’s poetry, introductions were made, friendships were formed, and ‘Sounds Made By Humans’ took shape.
The album isn’t a set of readings with musical backdrops: it’s a collection of songs, where words and music have become completely intertwined. There are verses, and there are choruses. There is no ‘riffing’, no improvisation. In many ways, Brian’s poems are already like pop songs: brief, direct, and witty; sometimes poignant, sometimes biting and political; but always economical, and always accessible.
Rob took thirteen of Brian’s poems and created melodies and arrangements, which are then played by a full band, with Ian Button on drums and Fay Hallam on keyboard. Sometimes the words of the poems are sung by Amelia or Rob. Sometimes they are spoken by Brian. Sometimes both these things happen at once. This is a pop record where the poetry and the music are equal partners: sounds made by humans in perfect artistic alignment.
Brian Bilston and The Catenary Wires will be performing at selected UK venues in November 2025.
The band signed to 6131 Records, who gave the group a budget of one thousand dollars to record their first full-length. Johnson, then 24, compiled songs he had composed over various years, including some dating to his teenage years. He viewed the debut as a greatest hits of sorts, a collection of his best work to date. The album was recorded in September 2010 at Earth Capital in Los Angeles with producer Alex Estrada. The group aimed to emulate the sound of Weezer's 1996 album Pinkerton, particularly the spacious way drums were tracked on that LP. Johnson requested Estrada distort his vocal tracks, due to personal pressure: "Maybe I was trying to cover my voice up a little bit because I was insecure," he admitted.
With an eccentric, poetic line in minimal rock, London bass & drums duo Most Things release their debut album Bigtime 23/05/25 on tastemaker label So Young Records. Marrying the compassionate observational wit of Richard Dawson with a sound somewhere between Minutemen and Television Personalities, the album’s ten songs explore family relationships, mental health and life in the city. The project of London-born bassist/vocalist Tom Phillips and New York-born drummer Malachy O’Neill, the pair met as students in London after being introduced by Phillips’ then housemate Sabrina Fuentes – singer in acclaimed punk band Pretty Sick. Bigtime is a London album. Chronicling Phillips’ experiences growing up in the city, as the only child to his single mother, it illustrates its shops, pubs and bustle with humour and warmth, but also considers its troubles: from violence to threadbare public services.
On ‘Animal’, Ash Fure appeals to “animal intelligence” by using sounds that are inherently physical and driven by perception, athleticism and interaction. Placing polycarbonate sheeting over an inverted subwoofer she built alongside her partner Xavi Aguirre and brother Adam, Fure isolates the physical impact of sound by focusing on psychoacoustic sub-bass pulses, semi-perceptible micro-rhythms and discomfiting white noise bursts, linking the process to her experiences in Berlin and Detroit’s techno dungeons where the sound has to adapt to the space it’s performed in. When she performed ‘Animal’ for the first time, Fure fabricated a “listening gym”, allowing the audience to interact in real-time by circuit training in response to the sound. The sweat is almost audible across the record, a run-on selection of rhythms, resonances and abstractions that sound like interlocking heartbeats on a series of treadmills. Her fascination with techno’s cavernous cathedrals is clear from the beginning, but Fure doesn’t worship at the altar: we’re hit with the feeling, not the aesthetic. The beats themselves, made from unstable vibrations and waterlogged, reverberating clicks, echo the brain’s unconscious reaction to repetition in a vast concrete box, the feeling you get when each percussive snag ricochets from every surface in the building. Coddling these whirring, criss-crossing polyrhythms with harsh, distorted low-end retches, Fure accurately recreates the energy and fatigue of the endless weekend sesh. We never once encounter techno in its expected shell, just its residue - the outline of humans figuring out their relationship with technology, architecture and each other. Fure’s use of dynamics is also deviously smart, marking out an overall rhythm that’s not tied to the strength of the sounds themselves, but just volume and physical impact. Often her most brutal sounds - ear-splitting squeals and overdriven mechanical whirrs - are reduced to an almost inaudible level, a bit like the bandy legged trip to the bathroom, or the escape to some dimly lit nook, the part of the night where you can still detect the sound on your skin without being battered by it. When the undulating rhythm returns in earnest, Fure masks acidic sequences in jet engine expulsions, still refusing to objectify anything that an AI model might be able to pick up on.
• Die wilden Death Metal-Crossover-Helden von BARK sind mit ihrem stärksten Album zurück
• »The Time Has Come« bringt BARKs unerbittliche Energie und rohe Kraft auf den Punkt und liefert einen unerbittlichen Ansturm von schweren Riffs, donnernden Drums und glühenden Hymnen
• Für Fans von Entombed, Cro, Mags, Dismember und Motörhead
Conflict formed in 1981 in Eltham, Southeast London, when frontman Colin Jerwood, inspired by early encounters with the Pistols 'Spunk' bootleg and following The Clash on tour, struck up a friendship with Crass and set about crafting a whole new kind of punk that totally upped the ante in terms anger and confrontation. Crass, the renowned anarchist punk collective, having got Conflict started by releasing their debut single 'The House That Man Bult' in 1982 on Crass Records, ended in 1984 as they had always intended. Now it was up to Conflict to pick up the baton and run with it. And they did, charging into the battle lines of authority.
The years that followed saw Conflict go from strength to strength, peaking on the 18th of April in 1987 at the London Brixton Academy for the 'Gathering of the 5,000' concert. A climax and explosion of rage and rebellion that inevitably ended up in a police provoked full-scale riot with police injuries, arrests, and with the band hopelessly in debt and banned from the majority of major London and UK venues.
Undeterred, Conflict continued into the 90s with their acclaimed 'Conclusion' album and remained a mainstay of the live punk circuit throughout. However, after more than two decades since the release of their (2003) 'There's No Power Without Control' album, the band are back with 'This Much Remains'. Featuring sixteen brand new Conflict creations, the album sees the band keeping one eye on their eventful past, and the other firmly on moving forward, both musically and politically. Animal Rights are still at the forefront of Conflict’s collective minds, giving a voice to the voiceless on songs such as 'A Mother's Milk' and 'Shut The Fuck Up', whilst their anger at world governments will never dissipate.
Also featuring an appearance by the late Benjamin Zephaniah on the track 'Cut The Crap', 'This Much Remains' is the sound of a band that continues to surprise and progress, decades after it first began. Conflict are Colin Jerwood - vocals; Fiona Friel - vocals; Gav King - guitars, melodica & Hammond; Fran Fearon - bass; Stoo Meadows - drums. With Benjamin Zephaniah - vocals on 'Cut The Crap'; Mitsuko Sonoda - voice on 'The Impossible Soul'.
"So the bad news is, in a fit of pique, I asked Chat GPT (nicely) to compose a one-sheet for the new Shit and Shine double album, Mannheim HBF. The even worse news (yes, even worse than resorting to such tactics) is that the resulting biography is halfway passable and on some levels, superior to the sort of thing being published by what’s left of our weekly coupon-shoppers. But for fuck’s sake my friends, Craig Clouse did not get to where he is today today by settling for halfway passable and neither should you. That Shit and Shine’s discography is vast and dizzying is already well established; what’s not nearly as established are these recordings being specifically dizzying. I don’t know if there’s anyone else in modern music as skilled in waltzing around the periphery of so many disparate idioms ('noise', being one of the least prominent this time around) and somehow, against all odds, tying ‘em together in the most intricate of knots. And who doesn’t love knots? We all have our favorite ways to experience music that’s all-engulfing, but whether your preferred method is thru a stadium sized sound system or ear buds affixed as you’ve leapt off the tallest building in Bastrop, TX (the Jerry Fay Wilhelm Center for the Performing Arts, since you asked), not for the first time, Shit and Shine is entirely appropriate in either instance, possibly every instance. There are moments where I think this is a club record. The Friars Club, however. Far be it from me to provide guidelines for how and when you take in Mannheim HBF. 'No interruptions', 'no distractions' are merely suggestions on the label’s part, though we cannot be held responsible for what happens if you ignore ‘em. Thank you."
The Oh Sees wasted no time in racing headlong into nightmarish battle with the mighty Orc, clawing even farther up the ghastly peak stormed so satisfyingly by their previous A Weird Exits. The band is in tour-greased, anvil-on-a-balance beam, gut-pleasingly heavy form, nimbly braining—with equal dashes of abandon and menace—on this fresh batch of bruisers and brooders, hypnotically stirred into to the cauldron of chaos you’ve come to expect. On Orc, fresh blood Paul Quattrone joins Dan Rincon to form a phalanx of interlocking double drums, alternately propelling and fleet-footing shifting ground to pinion John Dwyer’s cliff-face guitars to the boogie. Tim Hellman keeps it swinging like a battle-axe to the eyebrows. The tunes veer toward the violence of their live shows, with a few tasty swerves into other lanes: heavy to lush, groovy to stately. Throughout, it remains sinister in its swaggering skulk, manic in its fuzz-fried fugues. They hit all the sweet spots the heads foggily remember, and there’s plenty to sweat over if you just hopped into the sauna. More evil…more complex…more narcotic…more screech… more blare…more whisper…there’s even more Brigid. Less “Thee,” but more of everything else.
Composed of 10 new tracks and clocking in at 42 minutes, Pink Elephant is produced by Win Butler, Régine Chassagne and Daniel Lanois.
When experienced in its entirety, Pink Elephant invites the listener on a sonic odyssey – a quest for life – that exists within the perception of the individual, a meditation on both darkness and light, the beauty within. The layers of this condensed epic unfold to reveal new dimensions with each successive listen.
Composed of 10 new tracks and clocking in at 42 minutes, Pink Elephant is produced by Win Butler, Régine Chassagne and Daniel Lanois.
When experienced in its entirety, Pink Elephant invites the listener on a sonic odyssey – a quest for life – that exists within the perception of the individual, a meditation on both darkness and light, the beauty within. The layers of this condensed epic unfold to reveal new dimensions with each successive listen.
Composed of 10 new tracks and clocking in at 42 minutes, Pink Elephant is produced by Win Butler, Régine Chassagne and Daniel Lanois.
When experienced in its entirety, Pink Elephant invites the listener on a sonic odyssey – a quest for life – that exists within the perception of the individual, a meditation on both darkness and light, the beauty within. The layers of this condensed epic unfold to reveal new dimensions with each successive listen.
Composed of 10 new tracks and clocking in at 42 minutes, Pink Elephant is produced by Win Butler, Régine Chassagne and Daniel Lanois.
When experienced in its entirety, Pink Elephant invites the listener on a sonic odyssey – a quest for life – that exists within the perception of the individual, a meditation on both darkness and light, the beauty within. The layers of this condensed epic unfold to reveal new dimensions with each successive listen.
Donny Hathaway's first studio album Everything is Everything is a significant work in the realm of soul and R&B music, released in 1970. It marked an important point in Hathaway's career and showcased his exceptional talent as a singer, songwriter, and pianist.
The album was Hathaway's first release after being signed to Atlantic in 1969. Hathaway had already built a reputation early in his life, first as a gospel singer as a child under the name Donny Pitts. Raised in St. Louis, with religious influences, his grandmother Martha Crumwell was herself an accomplished gospel singer and guitarist. After dropping out of Howard University in 1967, Hathaway moved to Chicago, his birthplace, and started working on music for Curtis Mayfield's Curtom Records label where he was a songwriter, producer, arranger, composer, conductor and session player.
Everything Is Everything was produced by Hathaway and Ric Powell, who plays drums and percussion on the album; Hathaway wrote or co-wrote five of the album's nine songs. Hathaway had met Powell while at Howard University, as well as the future Impressions lead singer, Leroy Hutson, who jointly wrote the hit song that would eventually make it on the album, "The Ghetto."
The track was mostly an instrumental, except for Hathaway's vocal ad-libs and his singing of the chorus. Hathaway and Hutson composed another socially conscious song for the album, titled "Tryin' Times." Other songs were split between covers (Ray Charles's "I Believe to My Soul" and Nina Simone's "To Be Young, Gifted and Black"), spiritual affairs ("Thank You Master for My Soul") and love songs ("Je Vous Aime (I Love You)").
Released in July 1970, the album peaked at No. 73 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart and No. 33 on the Billboard R&B Albums chart.
This timeless classic is now reissued in the definitive deluxe 180-gram 45 RPM 2LP Analogue Productions (Atlantic 75 Series) format.
Die Progressive-Pioniere von Haken haben das Jahr 2024 damit verbracht, ihr jüngstes, hochgelobtes Studioalbum "Fauna" im Rahmen ihrer "An Evening With"-Tour rund um die Welt ausgiebig zu feiern. Die Band spielte zwei komplette Sets pro Abend und präsentierte "Fauna" in seiner Gesamtheit, bevor sie auf die Bühne zurückkehrte, um eine Auswahl der beliebtesten Songs aus ihrem Katalog zu spielen. Am 21. September 2024 spielte die Band im legendären Londoner O2 Forum, und die Dokumentation dieses besonderen Abends ist auf "Liveforms" zu finden. Die limitierte 3CD+Blu-ray-Edition fängt den Abend in voller Audio- und Videoqualität ein und enthält als Bonus bisher unveröffentlichtes Interviewmaterial mit der Band, die auf ihre glorreiche Karriere zurückblickt. Die 2LP-Edition im Klappcover enthält das komplette "Fauna"-Live-Set. Beide Formate enthalten ein atemberau-bendes Artwork von Dan Goldsworthy, der bereits das Cover von "Fauna" gestaltet hat.)
Das vierte Album der US-Amerikanischen Post-Hardcore-Supergroup aus Gitarrist Mark Engles (Dredg), Drummer Chris Robyn (Far) und Sänger & Gitarrist Ben Flanagan (The Trophy Fire).
Anfang 2024 zogen sich Black Map nach Südkalifornien zurück, um 'Hex' mit Saosin-Gitarrist Beau Burchell als Produzent aufzunehmen. Die Band verfolgte eine klare, kollektive Vision, die sich von der weitläufigen, ätherischen Natur von 'Melodoria' zu einem dringlicheren und direkteren Sound entwickelte.
Sänger/Bassist Ben Flanagan beschreibt 'Hex' als ein Werk mit einem starken „let's f*cking go“-Geist, während Gitarrist Mark Engles die Balance zwischen atmosphärischen Elementen und treibender Intensität hervorhebt. Das Album fängt den unverkennbaren Stil der Band ein, mit Marks markanter Gitarrenarbeit, die stets präsent ist, und einem erneuten Fokus auf Unmittelbarkeit und roher Energie.
Für Ben steht 'Hex' für die tiefgreifende Wirkung von Musik, die Trost und Verbindung bietet. Schlagzeuger Chris Robyn fügt hinzu, dass das Album einen unaufhaltsamen Schwung hat, der mit Kraft und Absicht nach vorne drängt. Verwurzelt in Themen wie persönlicher Kampf, Authentizität und Widerstandsfähigkeit, ist 'Hex' die bisher kraftvollste und eindringlichste Veröffentlichung von Black Map.
Revenge Techniques presents "The TAFKAMP Club Experience Volume 1" - a selection of trax carefully crafted for your dancefloor pleasure! Featured on this release are "Binnenweg 2" - a catchy and melancholic TAFKAMP-style anthem. On the flipside you will find (by popular demand) the highly anticipated "First Rush" track as well as a remix for "I LAF YOU", previously and originally released on Paling Trax but this time reworked by young producer promise Tomas Kunkel!
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