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Preston duo White Flowers announce new album, Dreams For Somebody Else - due for release 1st May 2026 via The state51 Conspiracy.
White Flowers, the long-running collaboration between Joey Cobb and Katie Drew, exists within what they call “the realm” – a shared creative space, wherein time, rather than being a restrictive force, is fluid and boundless, and music exists as an endless conversation with their past and present selves. Adopting what the band describe as a “sketchbook” approach to writing, White Flowers is the product of a decade’s worth of recordings - snippets nestled away on hard drives, only to truly make sense years later.
On Dreams For Somebody Else, the band expand upon the dark-hued dream pop of their debut, channeling the catharsis of dance music via repetitive structures and “sad, euphoric sounds”. Working alongside LCD Soundsystem and Hot Chip’s Al Doyle on production, the album maps out a mosaic of soaring choruses that swirl around imposing arrays of synths, guitars, and percussion.
Through this new lens, the band explore themes of isolation, dissociation and identity - drawing inspiration from Annie Ernaux’s The Years. “Whilst recording the songs for ‘Dreams For Somebody Else’, we really connected with the concept of Annie Ernaux’s book, ‘The Years’ - a ‘collective autobiography’ pieced together from mismatched fragments from her past, conjuring the effect that she’s merely an observer of her own life. This concept merges into the White Flowers world, where time, rather than being restrictive, is fluid and boundless, with our music existing as an endless conversation with versions of ourselves at different stages of our lives.”
“The album has that same feeling of disassociating from your own life, because you’re just blending into everyone else”, the band explains. “There’s a sadness there, because it’s as if you’re looking back on things that happened to you, and they feel like they don’t belong to you anymore”. It’s the dull ache of nostalgia intertwined with a sense of wonder at what could lie ahead - the hopeful optimism and endless loss that defines the human experience. “It’s this idea of identity not being a fixed thing, but something that’s always changing. It’s a fluid thing, similar to time. Things aren’t really fixed, but rather in a constant state of change. It’s important to remember that we’re all going through that.”

Wasteland is a record that is unafraid to plunge into the darkness of the modern world and embrace the weirder, edgier and more unnerving moments that come from doing so. It is an album that captures all the enormity of life from the micro to the macro, zooming in on the personal as well reflecting on broader societal issues.

“Wasteland is about the idea of a place once known or familiar that is now broken down and unrecognisable,” says Ghedi. “It’s about exploring the process of watching someone’s surroundings and environment collapse.” And within that you have a lot going on. “It also explores death, personal loss, grief, mental health and how the natural world provides solace and meaning for that loss and how these worlds blur into one another.”
Ghedi has always been an artist that in many ways perfectly encompasses folk music in its purest form but he is also someone that frequently pushes the boundaries of that label and no more so is that apparent than on this record. As like previous albums, such as 2018’s A Hymn for Ancient Land and 2021’s In the Furrows of Common Place, Ghedi uses traditional folk songs as a means to explore contemporary issues via modern and experimentally-leaning music. “With the traditional material on this album I wanted to find songs with content that resonated with me,” says Ghedi. “But also that were based roughly around the north of England.” This is a central underlying theme to the album for Ghedi. The feelings of loss, erosion, and degradation are often most pronounced in working class communities and this was something he wanted to weave in. “It was important to voice and choose material that represented or expressed issues that correlated with things going on around me.”

However, as remarkable as some of the traditional material is, some of the most arresting work on the album is Ghedi’s entirely original compositions. Lead single ‘Wasteland’ is a stunning piece of work that while rooted in an environment being corrupted and broken – “there’s violence on these hills” Ghedi sorrowfully sings, before claiming this is no longer somewhere that can be called home – it is also a stirringly beautiful composition that soars and glides as it opens up, as sweeping strings swoop and in and out of Ghedi’s twangy electric guitar.

The decision to incorporate more fuller sounds, such as electric guitar and huge drums, results in a notable shift and evolution in tone for Ghedi. “The lyrical content needed something more band-driven and loud to deliver them,” he explains. “Incorporating the electric guitar in my songwriting was also a big part of opening the sound up, using drop tunings pushed me to use my voice in a wider range, which forced me to use falsetto a lot which I haven’t previously done before. That then opened the sound up and gave me creative ideas for bigger arrangements and to sonically really push things.”

What Ghedi has done in creating his masterpiece is construct a remarkable space where deeply intimate and personal feelings coexist with reflections on environment, place and society, while also interweaving historical context via traditional songs. Wasteland is as much of a world to explore and exist in as much as it is an album, with Ghedi carving out his distinctly unique sonic language and voice to explore that singular environment.

Wasteland is a record that is unafraid to plunge into the darkness of the modern world and embrace the weirder, edgier and more unnerving moments that come from doing so. It is an album that captures all the enormity of life from the micro to the macro, zooming in on the personal as well reflecting on broader societal issues.

“Wasteland is about the idea of a place once known or familiar that is now broken down and unrecognisable,” says Ghedi. “It’s about exploring the process of watching someone’s surroundings and environment collapse.” And within that you have a lot going on. “It also explores death, personal loss, grief, mental health and how the natural world provides solace and meaning for that loss and how these worlds blur into one another.”
Ghedi has always been an artist that in many ways perfectly encompasses folk music in its purest form but he is also someone that frequently pushes the boundaries of that label and no more so is that apparent than on this record. As like previous albums, such as 2018’s A Hymn for Ancient Land and 2021’s In the Furrows of Common Place, Ghedi uses traditional folk songs as a means to explore contemporary issues via modern and experimentally-leaning music. “With the traditional material on this album I wanted to find songs with content that resonated with me,” says Ghedi. “But also that were based roughly around the north of England.” This is a central underlying theme to the album for Ghedi. The feelings of loss, erosion, and degradation are often most pronounced in working class communities and this was something he wanted to weave in. “It was important to voice and choose material that represented or expressed issues that correlated with things going on around me.”

However, as remarkable as some of the traditional material is, some of the most arresting work on the album is Ghedi’s entirely original compositions. Lead single ‘Wasteland’ is a stunning piece of work that while rooted in an environment being corrupted and broken – “there’s violence on these hills” Ghedi sorrowfully sings, before claiming this is no longer somewhere that can be called home – it is also a stirringly beautiful composition that soars and glides as it opens up, as sweeping strings swoop and in and out of Ghedi’s twangy electric guitar.

The decision to incorporate more fuller sounds, such as electric guitar and huge drums, results in a notable shift and evolution in tone for Ghedi. “The lyrical content needed something more band-driven and loud to deliver them,” he explains. “Incorporating the electric guitar in my songwriting was also a big part of opening the sound up, using drop tunings pushed me to use my voice in a wider range, which forced me to use falsetto a lot which I haven’t previously done before. That then opened the sound up and gave me creative ideas for bigger arrangements and to sonically really push things.”

What Ghedi has done in creating his masterpiece is construct a remarkable space where deeply intimate and personal feelings coexist with reflections on environment, place and society, while also interweaving historical context via traditional songs. Wasteland is as much of a world to explore and exist in as much as it is an album, with Ghedi carving out his distinctly unique sonic language and voice to explore that singular environment.

Iconic Atlanta quintet SEVENDUST is back with its 15th studio album, ONE, set for release on May 1, 2026 via Napalm Records. The upcoming full-length LP forges ten simultaneously lean and gut-punching tracks out of gargantuan riffs, seismic grooves, and signature soul-stirring hooks, once again produced by Michael “Elvis” Baskette (Alter Bridge, Falling In Reverse, Mammoth). The group, comprised of Lajon Witherspoon (vocals), Clint Lowery (lead guitar, backing vocals), John Connolly (lead guitar, backing vocals), Vince Hornsby (bass), and Morgan Rose (drums), busts down the door with the first single “Is This The Real You”. Its swaggering fretwork alternately wallops and gallops in lockstep with a pummeling rhythm anchored by thunderous drums. The riff rolls and seethes, and the vocals swing from guttural growls into the embrace of a jazz-y chantable chorus.

A hummable lead ties the bridge together. Echoes of a tensely picked single-note set the tone for “Threshold.” Lajon’s delicate delivery gives way to a contentious distortion-boosted refrain. Then, there’s “Unbreakable,” which has all the makings of a clarion call for the collective and a future live staple. Strains of soft piano slip into the undertow of a towering hook punctuated by a promise, “We were meant to be unbreakable… even when we’re at our lowest lows. And if it gets too cold, I’ll never let you go.” The title track succinctly sums up the record as a whole. Bellowing out of a maelstrom of roaring distortion, Lajon’s voice reaches heavenly heights. For over three decades, SEVENDUST have made countless fans feel a part of something special. The group’s community isn’t passive. Members of the “7D Army” make a very active commitment to being part of this family – as evinced by sold-out shows worldwide and innumerable tattoos of the band’s logo and lyrics. Since 1994, the band has quietly built a legacy without parallel, encompassing sales of nearly eight million albums, a GRAMMY® Award nomination for “Best Metal Performance,” three Top 15 entries on the Billboard 200, hundreds of millions of streams, and the fierce loyalty of millions of listeners in every corner of the globe.

With multiple bass players (at one point eight of them) and an array of rubber masks that give both children and adults sleepless nights, somehow, against all the odds, Evil Blizzard are set to release their fifth studio album of nightmare inducing noise and visuals. Titled, the new album sees Evil Blizzard pushing the boundaries further afield from their early sound of 'multiple bass psych', seeing elements of dub, krautrock and goth to provide a much more Post Punk vibe than previous work. Reference points were 'Metal Box', 'Ritual De Lo Habitual', Can and Discharge (whose singer JJ joins the band on the track 'Wake The Dead In Bedlam') as well as the omnipresent Hawkwind, Stooges and Sabbath vibes. By far the band's most stylistically varied and challenging album and yet their most cohesive body of work since their critically acclaimed second album 'Everybody Come To Church'. As well as their trademark 'multi bass onslaught', this album sees sequencing, sampling and even the use of string instruments made from bone.

Recorded between September and November 2025 at Rock Hard Studios, Blackpool, improvised sessions were edited down into more 'song' structures, then reworked into the final pieces. "Recording this was the hardest work we've done," claims Filthydirty. "Previously, we'd just turn up, turn up louder, press record and sieve through the debris and call it 'an album'. On this album we only had two, maybe three tracks that were finished when we went in, and the rest were worked out in reverse; ploughing through improvisations and jams and seeing what actually had any bones or gristle to work with. “Consequently, we had the time and focus to reappraise what we'd done in the past, highlight what we'd done right and realise where perhaps self-indulgence or lack of focus were overlooked instead of time or budget restraints, he continues. “The result is an album that reflects all our record collections. Lyrically it's been impossible to not absorb the chaos and anger transmitting on every news channel recently, and while we'd never write specifically about a certain issue or matter, the shitshow that is the 2020's definitely made its mark or our thinking.

“Arde” is the creative peak of the Madrid-based experimental collective: 14 cinematic, hypnotic, and emotionally devastating songs that masterfully blend post-rock atmospheres, alt-folk introspection, traditional Spanish elements, and complex, often cathartic arrangements.
The album's UK connection is through Stuart David (Looper, Belle & Sebastian), who championed the band to Sub Pop, leading to their international breakthrough. On Metacritic, it holds a 77/100 score based on 6 reviews, with AllMusic praising its "spectacular balance of beauty and tension”. CMJ New Music Monthly highlighted it as "one of the brightest artistic lights in the diverse Iberian indie-pop scene".
Pitchfork awarded it a 9.3/10 in 2001—the highest score for any Spanish artist to date—describing it as “nothing short of elemental in its beauty”. The album also succeeded in France (PopLane, 2001), with strong coverage in Les Inrockuptibles, Magic!, Le Monde, and Libération. Migala shared stages with key acts like Smog (Bill Callahan), Mark Kozelek (Red House Painters), The Magnetic Fields, Damon & Naomi, and served as Will Oldham’s (Bonnie “Prince” Billy/Palace) backing band during his Spanish tour in 1998.
This new edition has been painstakingly remastered from the original Cubase projects (summer/fall 2000). Every track was exported individually and given a fresh, zero-compromise mastering. The result is a significantly clearer, more open, defined, and powerful sound — especially in the rhythmic foundation — while fully preserving the warm, organic lo-fi character of the original. An absolute must-have for indie, post-rock, alt-folk, and collector sections — a genuine classic that belongs in every serious record store and deserves rediscovery.

Masterful composer- improviser DoYeon Kim is an unparalleled practitioner of the Korean gayageum (a silk-string zither), and is also in possession of a purposeful vocal intensity. This is her debut album as a bandleader, featuring fellow master musicians Tyshawn Sorey (drums), Mat Maneri (viola), Henry Fraser (bass). Armed with an unlikely traditional instrument, flanked by three extraordinary improvisers, radiating a brash, acoustic strategy that simultaneously invokes folk universalism and a No Wave battle- stance, the Brooklyn- based virtuoso will drop a volcanic sonic statement with grand humanist goals on May 1. Kim mingles Korean lullabies, fervent interactions between drums and strings, and pure instrumental expressions of musical self. At times, she sounds like she can halt armies. Wellspring is a call for society to come together.

How the Seoul, South Korea- born 34- year- old came to be the centuries- old zither's leading (only?) practitioner of contemporary improvised music, reflects an expansive embrace of her own culture, her place in modern society, and her ascending recognition of music's liberatory power. DoYeon Kim 's teachers at Seoul National University recognized that her roving musical mind - less interested in ancient repertoire than in speaking to the modern world - needed challenges. America beckoned, with the New England Conservatory offering a non- ethnomusicological pathway via its Contemporary Improvisation department. It set off a process of analysing, absorbing, digesting, and, most of all, listening. Under the guidance of NEC instructor and legendary guitarist Joe Morris, in came the methodologies of Ornette, Braxton and Derek Bailey, to name a few.

He's worked as an artist, producer, songwriter, and scorer for the past decade, "winning a MOBO (for his work on Bashy's Being Poor Is Expensive)", as well as being nominated for GRAMMY, Juno, and Ivor Novello Awards, along the way. Recently, Runkus felt a deeper calling towards the world of visual art, which has lead to working with Bahamian artist Tavares Strachan, whose multi- disciplinary output has earned him a MacArthur Genius Prize. With the new album, SUPERNOVA, which includes guest appearances by Sean Paul and Peter Tosh, they have reignited a seamless collaboration of music and art, following in the footsteps of pairings like The Velvet Underground & Andy Warhol, Kanye West & Virgil Abloh, and (closer to Runkus's home country of Jamaica) Bob Marley & Neville Garrick. Roots reggae, thumping bass, dancehall energy, and deep lyricism merge together to tell a story of life and death, the sheep and the wolf, the version of you that has to die for the next one to be born, all elements of SUPERNOVA

Fay Fife is frontwoman of the legendary punk bands The Rezillos / The Revillos, and has been a pioneer in Scottish music for decades. The Countess of Fife is Fay's current project.

Stick To Your Guns hold a mirror up to society’s ills without blurring its ugliness. In an attempt to unapologetically trumpet real change, the Southern California quintet—Jesse Barnett vocals,Andrew Rose bass,Adam Galindo[drums], Chris Rawson [guitar], and Josh James [guitar]—never shy away from speaking or screaming unpopular truths from the purest place. Founded in2003, Stick To Your Guns have always written and performed with a sense of urgency, their socially conscious message hitting as hard as their signature hybrid of hardcore, punk, and metal. Over the course of their career, they’ve amassed over 50 million total streams, performed on four continents, and shared stages with the likes of Parkway Drive, Architects, and Every Time I Die. Most recently, Alternative Press praised 2017’s True View as “the result of a long time spent on self-reflection and realization.” The band’s latest release ‘Invisible Rain’ incorporates two new songs that remain quintessentially Stick To Your Guns while incorporating fresh elements. The band’s relentless pursuit of a better world and their critique of societal injustices continues to drive their music and message. In 2024, Stick To Your Guns signed with SharpTone Records, marking a new chapter in their storied career. This partnership promises to bring their potent blend of activism and music to an even broader audience, amplifying their call for change and social justice.

“The music on this record is a reflection of journeys and travel. The real world kind and the metaphorical ones as well. Having experienced the arrival of my children, the decline and departure of my parents, and the many years of venturing out and returning home in my own life, travel feels like the perfect tropology to consider the mysteries we inhabit. Travel and its impressions, rituals, superstitions—the possibilities and risk-all open up onto the landscape of our biggest questions, fear and wonder.

“Two songs established the spine of this music. Songs I’ve always loved, it seems even before I’d heard them. The first one, and the source of the title is ‘You Belong to Me’ by Jo Stafford. Colonial overtones unmissable to our modern ears aside, it’s also a beautiful mid century romance—and an ode to the threat of a shrinking world. The song represents the loneliness and the mystery of being alone and left behind. The singer is not asking their loved one to shut down horizons, merely reminding them to return when the traveling is done. To set aside The Silver Plane of transition, change and the in-between for the intimacy of solid earth.

“The second song is ‘Promised Land’ by Chuck Berry. Also about a journey and another one that moves easily between allegory and narrative. The singer is on the move across segregated America trying to get to the promised land of California. The song is both a tall tale that evokes Mark Twain, and an American epic that can keep good company with Herman Melville. When the hero finally makes it to California, his first instinct is to call home and reassure the Old World that he’s safely arrived in the new one.

“The songs on Fly the Ocean in a Silver Plane were recorded at home over the last couple years. I played electric guitar, rubber bridge acoustic guitar, Ableton Live and an Electron Digitone synth. My friend Mallory Linnehan aka Chelsea Bridge contributed beautiful violin and vocals to a couple of the songs. We recorded those performances on a summer afternoon in Chicago at the Not Not space with the windows open.

“The cover is a photo of my mom—one I never saw when she was alive. With the headscarf and that excited, nervous expression, she looks about to embark on a journey. Ready, finally, to cross the tarmac and board the Silver Plane. “Wishing safe travels to all.” — Mark N / Pan•American



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[b] a2 | DEATH CLEANING [listen]

Are U Mad At Me marks a huge, cowboy boot-wearing step for the Brooklyn-based songwriter. Fields proves that genre is as fluid as sexuality, as the album saunters across country, pop, disco, grunge, and classical with ease. Across 12 tracks, Fields traverses bangers like power pop lead single “Party Girl” and two-stepping second single “Hands Off The Hat” (co-written with Grammy award-winning songwriter Melody Walker) all the way to tragic ballads like “Apalachicola to Tallahassee” (co-written with Karen Pittelman of Karen & The Sorrows) and the closing “Uncle Charlie’s.” He makes light of gender-neutral bathrooms marked with unicorns instead of stick figures in the guitar-driven “Pronoun Meltdown” and calls out a husband cheating on his wife with another man in the tragicomic ballad of “You Should Tell Your Wife.”

Are U Mad At Me arrives at a pivotal time in the roots music scene and the world at large. Fields, who is now rapidly becoming one of New York City’s queer country leaders — through his East Village residency at Lucinda Williams’ new honky tonk and dive bar and through his musical mentorship work through The Recording Academy — has been working tirelessly for this moment for more than a decade. Performing under this moniker since 2013, Fields has released three LPs and two EPs. He’s recorded on queer country pioneers Lavender Country’s 2022 reunion album, Blackberry Rose, and served as the band’s touring pianist. Additionally, his 2023 protest song duet with Mya Byrne, “Burn This Statehouse Down,” made it onto NPR music critic Ann Powers’ list of favorite songs of the year.

Certain paths necessitate and call for one singular long sequence in order to arrive at a fully formed conversation or reasoning. Nothing seems to broadcast it more clearly than the trajectory Brussels based Italo-Vietnamese artist Nguyễn Zen Mỹ embarked on during the last decade as Radio Hito.

After a string of highly cherished and sought out tape releases, Radio Hito’s new album ‘L’uso e gli attributi del cuore’, co-released by Maple Death & Meakusma, unfolds with devastating
clarity, a profound balance of depth, minimalism and emotional grounding. A ten-sequence song cycle for voice and MIDI soundfonts adapted from the 2021 book by French poet Claude
Royet-Journoud.

Written and recorded between January 2023 and August 2025, the cycle evolved through nearly 80 live performances from Galicia to Kazakhstan before arriving at its recorded form. Set to an Italian libretto adapted from Royet-Journoud’s text ‘L'usage et les attributs du cœur’ (POL, 2021), the work revisits the tradition of the 19th-century Lied — art song built on existing poetry— transposed into a radically economical contemporary setting: voice and Casio CTK workstations.

"I was interested by this incompleteness CRJ mentions - by the ‘suspension’ of meaning questioning readability and intelligibility. I ‘resisted’ to CRJ’s texts since I met him and got to know his work. … It seems to me that when playing the songs, I submit an object to be completed by the audience."

Radio Hito’s distinctive approach to setting poetry to music — spare arrangements, strophic repetition, and a voice suspended between recital, fm transmission and canzone — creates a language of its own, reaching new heights on ‘L’uso e gli attributi del cuore’, songs that are formally rigorous, emotionally restrained, and shaped by the discipline of sustained live performance, interlocking into a coherent cycle.

Rather than illustrating the poem, Radio Hito approaches it as a space of suspension. Royet-Journoud described poetry as a “profession of ignorance” where meaning remains incomplete; these songs extend that trembling state, allowing repetition, digital timbre, and restraint to hold the text open.

Often misread as minimal synth or romantic chanson, Radio Hito’s practice is rooted instead in the lineage of the art song and song cycle: open structures, close attention to language, and a live performance economy that pushes the voice at the heart of the stage. The choice of accessible keyboard workstations — light, portable, and embedded in contemporary popular culture — replaces the historical piano.

Radio Hito creates fantastical, mirage-like songs, intimate yet elusive. Her music is forlorn chanson for the digital age; bringing her haunting and beautiful vocalisations into conversation with MIDI soundfonts and humble-yet-deep casio compositions. Music that strides for simplicity, yet lands miraculously within an entire new universe, a uniqueness achieved from like-minded spirits such as Ghedalia Tazartès, Savina Yannatou & Lena Platonos, Dorothy Carter, cycles that trickle down into estuaries.

“Radio Hito's set is superb. Sitting on the altar steps with a synth, her fabulously expressive vocals colour sparse, pensive compositions.” The Wire

Call it soulful dream pop, proto-trip hop or downtempo jazz - "Tender Rain" is the follow-up LP to the successful "This Is" album and continues to deliver Ghia's unmistakable sonic magic. On this release, the band shares a selection of previously unreleased vocal songs alongside instrumental pieces, all carried by their trademark chilled and almost meditative atmosphere. Most of the recordings date from the early 1990s, while early demo versions of "New Love" and "Teardrops in Your Eyes" may reach back as far as the late 1980s.

The album opens with the title track "Tender Rain," where smooth vocal jazz harmonies merge effortlessly with soulful pop elements. The track originally appeared only on CD in 1993 on the small Mikado label run by renowned German guitarist Ulli Bögershausen. The band recalls that the piece was first pre-recorded using MIDI equipment and a Tascam 16-track recorder before being completed in the studio with drums by legendary drummer Mickie Stickdorn (Carsten Bohn's Bandstand, Cyklus, Elephant, Lake), percussion by Corinna Ludzuweit, and the final touch-Lisa Ohm's remarkable vocals.

At the time, Mikado was also looking for instrumental material for radio and synchronization use. They selected the track "Tropfstein" for a sampler CD and requested more pieces. In response, "und recken ihre schlanken Glieder" (roughly translated as "and stretching their slender limbs") was composed especially for the project, as Frank Simon remembers. Both tracks appeared on the now rare Mikado sampler CD under the alias z. Zt., short for "zur Zeit" ("at present" or "these days").

Several further pieces in a similar vein were created during this period, including the previously unissued "Auf unserm grünen Sofa," "Reise bei Nacht," and "Was ich Dir noch sagen wollte." These tracks are beautifully crafted downtempo pieces featuring smooth, jazzy piano lines combined with touches of ambient and New Age aesthetics. "Auf unserm grünen Sofa" stands out in particular and will likely resonate with all downtempo enthusiasts. Lutz Boberg recalls that many of these recordings were captured during a single afternoon in the studio, fueled by spontaneous ideas and creative momentum.

On tracks such as "Teardrops in Your Eyes," "New Love," and the haunting Dark Spirits Mix of Ghia's song "What's Your Voodoo?", singer Lisa Ohm delivers soulful pop performances with her clear and captivating voice. "Change Your Sex," the third track previously featured on the Mikado sampler, leans more toward late-1980s funk and was aimed at radio and DJs at the time. Its subject matter was relatively daring for the period, telling the story of someone contemplating a change of sex "to get rid of the troubles."

Together with "This Is" and "Curacao Blue", "Tender Rain" forms another essential chapter in the rediscovery of the band's work. More than thirty years after their creation, these recordings still sound strikingly fresh, reflecting a unique style that in many ways anticipated the rise of trip-hop in the early to mid-1990s.

Sergeant ventures deeper into the chaos, occasionally emerging with something dangerously close to catchiness.

Symbols further explores the technique the band calls “dj-shadow-in-reverse”. Instead of digging for samples, they dig through themselves. Things are cut apart and glued back together: kraut drums, plunderphonics fragments, dance floor killers and dub chambers. This time, the wreckage has rhythm and the rhythm has an opinion. Ferre sings through the songs like he’s looking for an exit and having a great time not finding it. Somewhere in there, a flute appears: it sounds slightly worried about the bassline. But the band is more in charge of its plot than ever before. Sergeant finds bliss in losing it over and over again.

"K8A a.k.a. Kaethe Hostetter is a New York–based violinist. composer, and bandleader, whose work grew out of eleven years living and collaborating in Ethiopia. As a founding member of Debo Band and QWANQWA, Hostetter has been performing Ethiopian music for over two decades, and her solo debut, Woradj Alle, builds on this legacy by reimagining Ethiopian songs through live-looped violin and electronics.
"The album unfolds as a hypnotic, ritual-like performance that expands the instrument into an immersive sonic landscape, that refracts Ethiopian classics through dub, psych rock, and avant improvisation. It is not fusion, but transmission - music that blurs memory, place, and time.
"This collection of musical vignettes is based on my time in Ethiopia, the place I called home for 11 years", Kaethe explains. "The phrase 'Woradj Alle' is one of the first colloquial expressions I learned upon arriving in Addis Ababa, used on public transportation, simply meaning 'let me off right around here'. In choosing this name, I invite you to join me on the rickety minibus journey through my time in Ethiopia, and step off 'the bus' into scenarios, atmospheres, and soundscapes that describe moments I experienced, people I met, and other lasting impressions, striking and mundane."

Enough pop princesses! Vanja Sky is the real deal—a blues-rock gunslinger with a fiery voice and a striking new album full of modern classics. The Croatian-born guitarist first made waves during the Blues Caravan 2018 with her acclaimed debut album Bad Penny, praised by critics as a powerful entry that revitalized the scene. Inspired by legends like Rory Gallagher, Albert King, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, Sky left her hometown of Buzet and her job as a pastry chef to immerse herself in the music scene of Zagreb. Despite the challenges of coming from a region rarely noticed by the music industry, her talent quickly gained attention. Supported by Thomas Ruf of Ruf Records, she broke through with Bad Penny and impressed audiences alongside Mike Zito and Bernard Allison on the Blues Caravan tour.

Namastrange and Pletnev debut on Earth Dog with the transatlantic tek of Desire Machine. Four supple rollers featuring a remix from label co-founder Jek.
Based separately in San Francisco and Barcelona, Namastrange and Pletnev collaborate sans studio to instead combine ideas virtually from afar. It’s a remarkable union in this respect; a fully-formed sound where heritage, influence and realities all collide to form an inimitable club-ready racket with Namastrange’s vocals sprinkled in to the mix. Sonically, this finds solace with Jek and djfix’s burgeoning tek stable of Earth Dog.
Desire Machine zones in from the parallel; its pulsating bassline grounding the evolving rhythm amidst Namastrange’s hypnotic mantra. Jek’s refix tramlines the shuffling groove to a psy-chotic break, with added dub delirium and prog attitude. Ego Collapse on the flip finds minimal solitude, gliding a dastard squelch with a sass’d up step. Splitting then gets it together for curtain call, a subversive pump with flirtatious persuasion that rides a phat tek bounce towards the finale.