quête:close getting closer

If your new EP has already been getting dropped by top dogs like Upsammy, Batu, Call Super, Ben Ufo and Bruce, you know it's a winner. And that's exactly what Lurka's first release on his brand new Make Your On Meaning label is - four tracks of red hot and brilliantly weird minimal. 'Powers' is razor-sharp hi-hats cutting up a scintillatingly smooth and militant tech house groove. 'Re Speak' has jumbled percussion and more wonky rhythms while 'String' layers up toms, tin pot hits, clattering sound effects and an undulating liquid baseline into something super seductive. The closer 'Mystick Crystal' is the busiest of the lot with its densely layered sound fx and samples underpinned by minimal funk.

Clear Vinyl

Originally released in 2020 on cassette and digitally. more eaze is the nom de plume of Austin, TX mainstay m.maurice, a roving experimentalist who’s explored an astoundingly diverse range of sounds, from drone and computer music to avant-pop and beyond. claire rousay is a San Antonio, TX-based percussionist/composer/sound artist who uses physical objects and their potential sounds as a way to explore queerness, human physicality, and self perception. Together—through a suite of deeply personal aural collages—two of Texas’ most vital and vibrant sonic searchers beg the eternal question: If I Don't Let Myself Be Happy Now Then When?

Although only their debut album together, If I Don’t Let Myself… reveals a profound and fruitful relationship between m and claire. But the symphonic symbiosis goes even deeper still. Outside of musical breakthroughs, the pair helped each other conquer intensely personal changes, with m and claire transitioning and coming out as non-binary and trans, respectively.

As m explains, “to me this record is very much about this process of becoming—trying to reach something and getting there but sometimes not being quite where you want to be but at least getting closer. It’s about feeling alternately empowered and insecure socially as you transition and trying to cope with these conflicting emotions.”

Musically, the album showcases startlingly sincere sets of serrated but sedative situational music. A-side epic Drunk is a sprawling but taut rove of aural duality. Passages of exquisite elegance subtly clash with shimmering shards of sound. Pre-op is a poised and pensive piece of solemn reflection, harrowingly honest and delivered with clarity and composure, while Post-op closes out the set in a wholly uplifting and optimistic flair.

If I Don't Let Myself Be Happy Now Then When? is ultimately about coping during the respective transitioning phase in both of their lives, obliquely blissful and fraught with freedom.

From their new millennium rise to MTV superstardom through pop-punk’s modern resurgence that has introduced their iconic, multi-platinum sound to new audiences around the world, SIMPLE PLAN have been an indelible part of pop culture for more than two decades because they’ve never lost sight of what got them there in the first place: their fans.It’s this same sense of mutual respect that’s fully on display on “The Antidote,” the first single from their sixth studio album, HARDER THAN IT LOOKS., their first new music since 2016’s Taking One For The Team, and the most authentically Simple Plan album since 2004’s Still Not Getting Any. Free agents for the first time in their storied career, the band kept their circle tight during the recording process, enlisting longtime songwriting partners like We The Kings’ Travis Clark and producers Brian Howes and Jason Van Poederooyen (who worked on the band’s 2011’s album Get Your Heart On!) and Zakk Cervini (blink-182, Good Charlotte). From the skyscraping choruses of “Congratulations” and “Ruin My Life” (ft. Sum 41’s Deryck Whibley) to the unflinching poignancy of the album-closing “Two,” which instantly ranks alongside “Perfect” and “Untitled (How Could This Happen To Me?)” as one of the band’s best closers ever, HARDER THAN IT LOOKS certainly respects Simple Plan’s storied career – and the same spirit that helped the band sell 10 million albums worldwide – without being overtly reverent. The album-opening “Wake Me Up (When This Nightmare’s Over)” is a cathartic rush of familiarity and freshness – not to mention a bit lyrically prescient, as the COVID-19 pandemic hit shortly after the band wrapped the album. (“We certainly didn’t set out to write a pandemic album,” Bouvier says with a laugh. “It’s funny how some of the songs might seem like that, though.”) There are even spiritual successors to early material, like the glass-half-full skate-punk-leaning “Best Day Of My Life,” quite a 180 for a band who put a song called “The Worst Day Ever” on their genre-defining, Platinum-selling 2002 debut No Pads, No Helmets...Just Balls. But you won’t find an ounce of fat on the 10-song album, no obvious plays to recapture the radio waves they claimed in the early aughts with smash hits like “I’d Do Anything,” “I’m Just A Kid” and “Addicted.”

Alexandra Sauser-Monnig and Amelia Meath have been yodeling together for upwards of fifteen years – in the backseat of a Prius while on their first cross-country tour, on back porches and backstages. It’s what led them to Fruit, their debut release as The A’s – a joyous ten-song collection spanning genre and decades, with interpretations of traditionals, lullabies, and an original song, it weaves between the weird and the wonderful. “Why I’m Grieving,” originally recorded by the DeZurik Sisters, was the inspiration for the A’s existence. The A’s reach into the past to hold hands with the DeZurik Sisters, two farm girls from rural Minnesota who taught themselves to yodel amongst all their animals, in a continuing celebration of the tradition of folk eccentricity and whimsy. The A’s played their first show together in 2013 after Sauser-Monnig first moved to North Carolina, where Meath had been living at the time, but it wasn’t until summer 2021 that they thought seriously about making Fruit. They decamped to Sylvan Esso’s Chapel Hill studio, Betty’s, for two weeks in the midst of a balmy and blooming Carolinian summer. They rehearsed during the day, deconstructing yodeling parts phonetically and staring absurdly into each other’s eyes as they practiced tongue twisting harmonies - and recorded in the nighttime, candles lit, a flickering glow against the windows framing the violet twilight outside. “There was a lot of giggling during the session,” Sauser-Monnig explains. “At one point I was getting a tangle out of my hair and was like, oh, my God, that sounds really cool – the sound of my hands in my hair. And then I thought, what if we recorded hair for a percussion track? And then it just sort of snowballed.” Across the record, the A’s employ a bizarre-o ghost orchestra of strange noises that are percussive and melodic. The credits include nylon shorts, string (singular), hair, shoes, ice chunk, gravel, frog sample, and shoelace, among other unexpected makeshift instrumentation. The backing band is built out by a more traditional group of players: saxophone from Sam Gendel on “Copper Kettle,” backing vocals from Jenn Wasner (Flock of Dimes, Wye Oak) on “When I Die,” string arrangements from Gabriel Kahane on “He Needs Me,” and more. Fruit is made up simply of songs the A’s love to sing – there are lullabies and love songs; “He Needs Me,” written by Harry Nilsson and first released by Shelley Duvall in the 1980 Popeye film; traditional ballads like “Swing and Turn Jubilee,” “Copper Kettle” and closer “Buckeye Jim,” a multiplying song about frogs and nature. The sole original track to appear on the album is the penultimate “When I Die,” written by Meath. It contains both wishes and instructions for the celebration of her death, a low synth bubbling beneath Sauser-Monnig and Meath’s voices. It’s a collection of ten seemingly incongruous songs, but with the throughline of Sauser-Monnig and Meath’s vocals and sense of humor working in tandem, they fit together into a cosmic yodeling-folk masterpiece. Fruit feels like blowing the dust off a precious artifact of decades past, but also winking and modern. Sauser-Monnig sums up their ethos on the project succinctly: “If it doesn’t make you cackle or cry, it doesn’t belong.”

Bobby Oroza follows up his newly released Get On The Otherside album with another must have 45. The A side is one of the mid tempo stand outs, "My Place, My Time" where Bobby humbly pours his heart out about his own difficulties and how he made up his mind to get passed them. Like a lot of the other tunes on this album there is a message of encouragement and an invitation to a new perspective Bobby has found at this stage in his life. Cold Diamond & Mink's backing track has the perfect tone to carry the message and the whole tune comes out somehow tough, sweet, encouraging, and introspective all at once. The B side "Through These Tears" is a heavy duty ballad sure to become a staple in the slowie sets. As usual for Bobby he does it up in his own way, with his own tone, and it stands out from his peers. Although it has all the makings of a classic B side ballad, a closer listen finds Bobby again with a message of getting past the trouble and coming out on the otherside of it all.

Surfacing from ethereal and dreamier planes, UK shoegaze and
dreampop act GRAYWAVE are one of the latest additions to the Church
Road Records roster
Following on from their 2021 debut EP proper, Planetary Shift, GRAYWAVE is set
to release their second extended play, Rebirth, on June 24.Formed in Birmingham,
UK in 2019 as a solo venture and creative outlet for Jess Webberley, GRAYWAVE
has already amassed a steady stream of singles and qualitative short form
releases - drip feeding fans a highly ambitious and modern take on dreampop and
shoegaze’s storied sonic spectrum. Returning in 2022, Rebirth is the most
revealing and entrancing look into GRAYWAVE’s evolution as an artist. Trading in
some of the lo- fi tendencies of her earlier output, Rebirth sees Webberley
embrace darker soundscapes and sonic weight across the release’s five
tracks.GRAYWAVE’s latest effort is a confident seizing of identity and assured
meeting point for the project’s initial potential and newfound blossoming. Opener,
Build, and Rebirth’s title track rattle with rhythmic unease and confrontation, as
Webberley’s voice drifts between somnolent hypnosis and arresting command.
Elsewhere, Closer and Exoplanet effortlessly tie together 90s influence in the vein
of Cocteau Twins and Drop Nineteens with a modern touch similar to US
contemporaries Citizen.Following their recent union with Church Road Records,
2022 will see GRAYWAVE continue to shine across the UK live circuit. Having
already sold out hometown shows, as well as getting through to the latter stages
of the Isle of Wight Festival’s ongoing musical showcase that offers a spot on the
festival’s New Blood stage, and performing with UK hardcore upstarts Cruelty.
Living up to its name, Rebirth is already proving to be a fruitful time of growth for
Webberley and GRAYWAVE’s creative self- actualisation - offering fans new and
old the most conceptually realised iteration of the project’s limitless avenues of
artistic promise yet.

Limited Edition 180g Vinyl LP! All-Analogue Mastering by Kevin Gray!
Pressed at RTI!

This mid-period masterwork from jazz piano's most uncommon voice finds Monk and his quartet (Charlie Rouse on tenor, Ben Riley on drums and Larry Gales on bass) exploring every texture, tone and melodic turn of seven expansive tracks. This group was subtle, mature and confident, easily supporting Monk's more idiosyncratic side-tracks (check out the solo on "Locomotive" or the restless exposition on "Japanese Folk Song") while allowing listeners freedom to move through or contemplate all the sublime subtexts Monk conjures from the endless well of his inspiration.

This emphasis on laid back and mature presentation aided the recording as well. These master tapes sound amazing and getting them to disc was a pure pleasure. Subtle changes in atmosphere, tone and melody fill the space between the speakers, a wide soundstage and expansive dynamics the gift of music indelibly played. This is one sonic powerhouse for the ages.

Available for the first time on 180-gram 2-LP with the full performances of the original tracks and including two bonus tracks, this new Impex release gets you closer to Monk's genius than ever before. Kevin Gray and Robert Pincus used analogue master tapes and minimal processing to great effect, while original session and jacket images were culled to create the deluxe gatefold jacket. Add in the sound-of-silence pressings from RTI and you have a can't miss jazz disc ready to delight and inspire every time it spins on your turntable. Impex has pulled out all the stops on this mesmerizing Monk classic. All you have to do is get one and enjoy before they're all gone.

Trauma Collective go out all guns blazing with a fierce offering by ascendant Italian producer Sciahriar Tavakoli aka Sciahri (Sublunar Records/Unknot). The Trauma EP is at once an obviously loyal tribute to the imprint platforming him, while being a visceral soundtrack to the gradual setting in of early morning lights. Wasting no time in exercising his sonic assault, opening cut "Hypnotism" will affect you much like its name suggests on this punishing, splintered- beat body basher, before pummelling you into submission on the strobed-out warehouse techno epic "Plastic Rain". He then ventures into the more abrasive shades of texture and gradient on the experimentally minded "Ava" until getting off-the-grid once more with a descent even deeper into the void, on the knackered closer "Dead Waves".

With ‘Love on My Mind’ - the six-song mini-album, mixed by Claudius
Mittendorfer (Tennis, Parquet Courts, Johnny Marr) - Bambara condense all the energy and darkness that have made them so compelling and rearrange it into something defiantly new.

Opening track, ‘Slither in the Rain’, all hissing high-hat and spectral
synthlines, is a true statement of intent. It’s minimal and atmospheric,
foregrounding Bateh’s raw vocals as he introduces one of ‘Love on My Mind’s main characters years after the events of the album are over, a lonely man who throws bottles at airplanes and dances a two-step in the pattern of a figure-8. While Bateh has always been adept at character sketches, tracks like ‘Slither’ introduce a newfound vulnerability that runs true through the entire album and cause the songs to hit on a more human level.

Similarly, ‘Point And Shoot’ - in which each stanza describes the louche, lawless scenes of “rooftop girls / standing shoulder-to-shoulder, naked figures with their hips / cocked,” busted up jaws, and couches full of burnholes captured by the snapshots of ‘Love on My Mind’s female lead - displays an autobiographical intimacy that is not as apparent in Bambara’s previous releases. This tenderness is echoed on ‘Birds’, a rare love song (from which the EP’s title is derived), and album closer ‘Little Wars’, a gripping finale of loneliness and isolation.

But while these songs may display a softer side of Bambara, it’s important to note that they haven’t lost the thrill of what attracted so many people to them in the first place. ‘Mythic Love’ (featuring vocals from Bria Salmena), with its driving bassline and ricocheting guitar lines, brings to mind past rave-ups like ‘Serafina’ and ‘Sunbleached Skulls’ but obliterates them in the process, while ‘Feelin’ Like A Funeral’ - a dangerously oscillating tale of a city knifing - is probably the most thrillingly anthemic song the band have ever recorded.

Taken together, ‘Love on My Mind’ amounts to another massive step forward for Bambara - the boldest thing they’ve ever done - and the sound of yet another breakthrough.
“Engrossing, dark and irresistible… an adventurous group, who just keep getting better all the time.” - CLASH
“Never anything less than captivating.” - Upset
“What Athens, Georgia bunch Bambara do, they do very well… the trio’s commitment to the dark side is never in question.” - DIY
“Bambara are ice cold and sharp as a knife’s edge.” - Loud & Quiet
“Brooklyn based doom-mongers delight… the trio go further than most in their quest to rattle.” - Q (4/5)
For fans of Daughters, Protomartyr, IDLES, King Krule, Ice Age.

Nonesuch Records releases Ghost Song, the label debut of singer/songwriter Cécile McLorin Salvant. Ghost Song features a diverse mix of seven originals and five interpretations on the themes of ghosts, nostalgia, and yearning. Salvant says, “It’s unlike anything I’ve done before – it’s getting closer to reflecting my personality as an eclectic curator. I’m embracing my weirdness!” Cécile McLorin Salvant plays at Cadogan Hall on November 16 as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival, four shows at SFJAZZ in February, and two nights featuring the music of Ghost Song at Jazz at Lincoln Center in May. Salvant says of the title track, out now, “What if the love has gone, the love has left you and you have the emotions around that, and you’re still going through them, still engaging with the ghost of that love?” She continues, “Some songs are so painful to come out but this one came out pretty quickly. I’ve had some loss the last couple of years: my grandmother, the drummer in my band Lawrence Leathers.”



Ghost Song opens and ends with a sean-nós (traditional Irish unaccompanied vocal style) performance by Salvant, recorded in a church. On track one, she transitions into Kate Bush’s 1978 classic ‘Wuthering Heights’. Salvant says of the song, “Wuthering Heights is a book that really struck me to my core as I was making this album, during the pandemic. And the best interpretation of the novel is Kate Bush’s song.” She continues, “It’s the most classic ghost story. I decided I wanted to do an album called Ghost Song, and I knew that one had to be on it. Then I had the idea to mix it in with the sean-nós ‘Cúirt Bhaile Nua’, which binds it to the traditional ‘Unquiet Grave’, the last track on the album. The ghost is not haunting me; now I am haunting the ghost. They parallel each other so well and they’re such different time periods. I wanted the album to be a circle, with the sean-nós reference at the beginning and at the end. So it is the first track but it’s also the last track and it’s also the middle track, which is how I listen to music, walking around my neighborhood, on a plane, travelling somewhere, putting stuff on repeat.” “All the songs on the album kind of mirror each other. I tried to create this strange symmetry. So as you go in from both ends, the songs are sort of matched together,” Salvant says. “‘I Lost my Mind’ is the center of the Russian doll. I wrote that in the middle of the pandemic. There were nights when I wanted to just scream. It was this deeper part of me saying, ‘It’s OK if this sounds completely crazy, OK to just go with the completely crazy thing and not worry if people think you have lost your mind for doing it.’



“The bands also mirror each other from top to bottom. In terms of the instrumentation, everything,” Salvant explains. “That’s why the songs are there in that relationship: they match each other, they’re like fraternal twins, or one is the evil twin of the other. I, as the living, am visited by the ghost, and then I go visit the ghost in turn. I am haunting the ghost and annoying the ghost, which is saying, ‘Get out of here and go live.’” Of the sonic variety on Ghost Song, Salvant says, “Texture is a big part of how I sing, having multiple textures in one song. It’s almost a compulsion. I can’t allow myself to stay in one texture. The instrumentation creates that but the recording process as well. It’s something I like, even when I’m eating. You want the creamy and chewy and crunchy at the same time. Warm and cold.”



Cécile McLorin Salvant, a 2020 MacArthur Fellow and three-time Grammy Award winner, is a singer and composer bringing historical perspective, a renewed sense of drama, and an enlightened musical understanding to both jazz standards and her own original compositions. Classically trained, steeped in jazz, blues, and folk, and drawing from musical theater and vaudeville, Salvant embraces a wide-ranging repertoire that broadens the possibilities for live performance. Salvant’s performances range from spare duets for voice and piano to instrumental trios to orchestral ensembles. Her unreleased work Ogresse is an ambitious long-form song cycle based on oral fairy tales from the nineteenth century that explores the nature of freedom and desire in a racialized, patriarchal world. Salvant studied at the Université Pierre Mendès-France. She has performed at national and international venues and festivals such as the Newport Jazz Festival, the Monterey Jazz Festival, the Village Vanguard, and the Kennedy Center. Salvant is also a visual artist.

Grey Vinyl

Polymorphism Records continue their intercultural and cross-genre work with their third release E Source. Female vocals return to the label with four original tracks by Russian artist Sestrica, who brings in her characteristic emotional narrative. A remix by Konx Om Pax and
a rework by Antwood make up the crew boarding on a galactic grey/silver vinyl.

PM003 takes off with electro-to-techno beats fuelled by a mild, wrapping acid melody in Today We Meet, where the uplifting countdown to launch can be felt. Sentimental Value gets
us deeper into the spatial trip. Darker samples and a heavier bassline give extra gravity to the anthem of the journey across sonic galaxies. Floating to slow, surrounding sounds and loops we land on a calmer planet called Intention. Its tidal sensation is created by an
orchestral combination of meditative vocals and other layers of composition. New Era enters an orbit of elegant syncopation within a rotating reverb stardust. Ancestral beeps subtly acknowledge legacy to be taken forward to the next odyssey.

Musician and graphical artist Konx Om Pax from Glasgow beautifully introduces nostalgia to New Era with playful breaks and scratches, getting us back to our roots in this excursion visiting alien territoires. Sestrica’s vocals from her original track are drawn into the remix as
echoing words rendering a mysterious aura, travelling through a deep trance of diverse yet harmonic rhythms and effects. A journey within a journey.

Canadian producer Antwood’s rework of side A jumps into an epic vortex of more experimental, unexpected sounds. The album-closer builds up towards absolute chaos, to then create a vacuum to emptiness. A supermassive (tribute to black holes intended) drop
leads to the last minutes of the EP: up tempo cyber-influenced sounds that bring us to a bright futuristic landscape ironically far from a dystopian prophecy.

Purely coincidental fact: the last track of PM002’s originals being Crisis Apparition and its homologue in PM003 New Era, hope seems to be peeking through current times to send an accidental message with this first series of the label.

Mind the overuse of Space metaphors; in this year 2021 where humans are going farther and further in exploring new places out there, it is a tribute and celebration to discover new musical journeys like this out here, on Earth.

Environmental sustainability and social justice are core values of Polymorphism Records. Following their strong interest in contributing to a good cause, shown from the early days, all Bandcamp digital sales are donated to projects such as Team Trees or The Ocean Cleanup.meet f B3 E Source side A (Antwood rework)

Empty surrounds all of me. It’s a poignant line from the third album by Blackwater Holylight that encapsulates the search for self when suddenly everything has changed. There’s a theme of processing vast personal trauma throughout Silence/Motion that eloquently — both lyrically and musically — and simultaneously embodies the crushing emptiness, sorrow, strength and rebuilding of recovering from personal devastation.

“There was so much grief both in the world and interpersonally during the process of creating Silence/Motion,” says vocalist/bassist Allison “Sunny” Faris. “The four of us gave one another more space to be ourselves, to experiment with each other’s ideas and to be gentle with one another more than we ever have before. So, we knew this tenderness would manifest in extremely honest arrangements, and I think that you can hear that throughout the record.”

Curiously, considering the dark times in which it was created, this is the band’s most melodic and catchy music so far. Blackwater Holylight, as the name suggests, is all about contrasts: It’s a fluid convergence of sound that’s heavy, psychedelic, melodic, terrifying and beautiful all at once. And, Silence/Motion finds the band honing those contrasts, letting ideas and moods fully develop from song to song, rather than filling every song with a full range of their capabilities. It allows the band to go fully prog-rock here, and simply stay hushed and intimate there. There’s a new confidence to the band in how seamlessly they wield their stylistic amalgam.

“Writing this album was extraordinarily difficult emotionally, however it did come to fruition fairly quickly,” Faris says. “In the past, the theme of vulnerability has always been a big player and it definitely showed up full force while writing this album.”

Blackwater Holylight recorded the album as a four piece: Faris on vocals and guitar (on “Silence/Motion”, “MDIII”, “Around You” and “Every Corner”) and bass for the remainder, Sarah McKenna on synths, Mikayla Mayhew on guitar (and bass when Faris plays guitar) and drummer Eliese Dorsay. New second guitarist Erika Osterhout will perform the songs with them live. For Silence/Motion the band chose to work with a producer for the first time, bringing in A.L.N. (of Mizmor, Hell) to produce, along with recording engineer Dylan White — who also helmed their previous album Veils of Winter (2019) — at Odessa Recording Studio in Portland, OR. Guest vocals on album opener “Delusional” are by Bryan Funck (Thou.) Mike Paparo (Inter Arma) and A.LN. (Mizmor, Hell) lend guest vocals to album closer “Every Corner.”

Silence/Motion opens softly with interwoven folky single note guitars over an ominous sounding drone for the first minute, akin to moments from Pink Floyd’s Echoes. Suddenly an irresistibly head-nodding, groovy droptuned riff kicks in with the drums and it’s a full on blackened rocker with soaring synths and Funck’s witchy whispers over the top. “Who The Hell,” the track quoted above, takes proceedings into a Krautrock direction, centered around McKenna’s arpeggiated synth loop and Dorsay’s tom-tom triplets, while 16-note guitar strums add tension as Faris wearily sings, “So tell me who the hell would want to live this way — so afraid/ To feel this void, to dwell in it… I can’t describe this pain I wear/ It suffocates and you left it here.” It’s an incredibly powerful 6 minutes. The title track delivers the 1-2-3 punch of the album’s brilliant opening trilogy. It starts with lightly plucked acoustic guitar, plaintive piano chords and Faris’ voice gliding so softly it sounds more like a Mellotron. The song builds slowly toward crescendo, led by a swinging tom pattern, that abruptly switches back to a heavier version of the opening melody.“Silence/Motion” is about digesting and healing from sexual assault. As Faris explains, “It is an ode to the juxtaposition of feeling paralyzingly blank and and like your entire life is moving through you simultaneously.” Elsewhere, Black Metal guitars collide with dreamlike melodies. “Around You” brandishes a hopeful, hummable synth melody and shimmering shoegaze guitars like throwing down a gauntlet. In the end, it becomes undeniably clear just how completely into their own Blackwater Holylight has come.

“The analogy is that with our first record (Blackwater Holylight, 2018) we were getting into to the car and buckling up,” Faris says. “The second (Veils of Winter, 2019) we were turning the car on, and with this third we have kicked into drive toward our destination. Our destination is a bit mysterious and has the ability to change from day to day, but we’re on our way.”

Empty surrounds all of me. It’s a poignant line from the third album by Blackwater Holylight that encapsulates the search for self when suddenly everything has changed. There’s a theme of processing vast personal trauma throughout Silence/Motion that eloquently — both lyrically and musically — and simultaneously embodies the crushing emptiness, sorrow, strength and rebuilding of recovering from personal devastation.

“There was so much grief both in the world and interpersonally during the process of creating Silence/Motion,” says vocalist/bassist Allison “Sunny” Faris. “The four of us gave one another more space to be ourselves, to experiment with each other’s ideas and to be gentle with one another more than we ever have before. So, we knew this tenderness would manifest in extremely honest arrangements, and I think that you can hear that throughout the record.”

Curiously, considering the dark times in which it was created, this is the band’s most melodic and catchy music so far. Blackwater Holylight, as the name suggests, is all about contrasts: It’s a fluid convergence of sound that’s heavy, psychedelic, melodic, terrifying and beautiful all at once. And, Silence/Motion finds the band honing those contrasts, letting ideas and moods fully develop from song to song, rather than filling every song with a full range of their capabilities. It allows the band to go fully prog-rock here, and simply stay hushed and intimate there. There’s a new confidence to the band in how seamlessly they wield their stylistic amalgam.

“Writing this album was extraordinarily difficult emotionally, however it did come to fruition fairly quickly,” Faris says. “In the past, the theme of vulnerability has always been a big player and it definitely showed up full force while writing this album.”

Blackwater Holylight recorded the album as a four piece: Faris on vocals and guitar (on “Silence/Motion”, “MDIII”, “Around You” and “Every Corner”) and bass for the remainder, Sarah McKenna on synths, Mikayla Mayhew on guitar (and bass when Faris plays guitar) and drummer Eliese Dorsay. New second guitarist Erika Osterhout will perform the songs with them live. For Silence/Motion the band chose to work with a producer for the first time, bringing in A.L.N. (of Mizmor, Hell) to produce, along with recording engineer Dylan White — who also helmed their previous album Veils of Winter (2019) — at Odessa Recording Studio in Portland, OR. Guest vocals on album opener “Delusional” are by Bryan Funck (Thou.) Mike Paparo (Inter Arma) and A.LN. (Mizmor, Hell) lend guest vocals to album closer “Every Corner.”

Silence/Motion opens softly with interwoven folky single note guitars over an ominous sounding drone for the first minute, akin to moments from Pink Floyd’s Echoes. Suddenly an irresistibly head-nodding, groovy droptuned riff kicks in with the drums and it’s a full on blackened rocker with soaring synths and Funck’s witchy whispers over the top. “Who The Hell,” the track quoted above, takes proceedings into a Krautrock direction, centered around McKenna’s arpeggiated synth loop and Dorsay’s tom-tom triplets, while 16-note guitar strums add tension as Faris wearily sings, “So tell me who the hell would want to live this way — so afraid/ To feel this void, to dwell in it… I can’t describe this pain I wear/ It suffocates and you left it here.” It’s an incredibly powerful 6 minutes. The title track delivers the 1-2-3 punch of the album’s brilliant opening trilogy. It starts with lightly plucked acoustic guitar, plaintive piano chords and Faris’ voice gliding so softly it sounds more like a Mellotron. The song builds slowly toward crescendo, led by a swinging tom pattern, that abruptly switches back to a heavier version of the opening melody.“Silence/Motion” is about digesting and healing from sexual assault. As Faris explains, “It is an ode to the juxtaposition of feeling paralyzingly blank and and like your entire life is moving through you simultaneously.” Elsewhere, Black Metal guitars collide with dreamlike melodies. “Around You” brandishes a hopeful, hummable synth melody and shimmering shoegaze guitars like throwing down a gauntlet. In the end, it becomes undeniably clear just how completely into their own Blackwater Holylight has come.

“The analogy is that with our first record (Blackwater Holylight, 2018) we were getting into to the car and buckling up,” Faris says. “The second (Veils of Winter, 2019) we were turning the car on, and with this third we have kicked into drive toward our destination. Our destination is a bit mysterious and has the ability to change from day to day, but we’re on our way.”

Ultimately, Can't Swim feel that Change of Plans is "the most Can't Swim record yet." LoPorto says, "All of our endeavours as a band have led us to make what I think is the most honest and transparent album in our discography. We spent way less time recording what we thought we should be writing and put down whatever came naturally. The recording process was certainly the easiest to date as well — we knew what we wanted going into it. I'm constantly writing songs and some of the tracks on Change of Plans have been in the demo stage for almost four years now so it feels great to finally have them all together on one release." Change of Plans was produced, mixed, and mastered by Will Putney (A Day to Remember, Every Time I Die, Body Count, Knocked Loose) of Graphic Nature Audio and is the culmination of everything Can't Swim have been building and exploring over the last six years, combining their signature visceral lyricism and cathartic rock sound with influences ranging from the worlds of folk to EDM. One could say it's a little bit of everything all rolled into one, and in a way, that's true. When life is more unpredictable than ever, Can't Swim are striking the perfect balance of hope and realism by writing songs that embrace the chaos of life. They want to find and harness a vibe that makes living a bit easier for everyone, and with each release, they're getting closer to that goal.

The Altered Hours have just announced details of their second full length album ‘Convertible’. The Irish group have just signed with Pizza Pizza Records and the 8 track album is set for release in May 2021. Following on from some successful headline tours across Europe supporting their debut album & some blistering EP’s along the way, the group found themselves looking for the next step in their ever- evolving journey. Having previously recorded in Anton Newcombe’s Berlin studio for their debut singles & ending up in the infamous Funkhaus studios to lay down what would become their debut album ‘In Heat Not Sorry ’, the band decided once again to



change the approach & take their new songs back to the privacy of their own studio space on the outskirts of Cork City. The new LP ‘Convertible’ is the result of countless late night/early morning sessions that took place over the past 2 years. Choosing to self produce and engineer this record was a conscious choice as the band felt an urge to take what they had learned on the road & in various studios previously, and condense all of this energy back into the boiling pot of their own rehearsal space.

The group have been a part of some exciting movements since the beginning and their path has been an organic one. They quickly became known in their hometown for taking over an ex-government building in the heart of Cork city, turning into a studio and creating a hub for the scene that surrounded them. The years that follow shine a light on the relentless energy of this group and unwavering love for playing shows anywhere & everywhere. Having been invited to perform at Liverpool Psych Fest numerous times, supporting the Brian Jonestown Massacre, selling out venues, churches & clubs, playing rip-roaring DIY shows in friends’ basements, getting joined by members of Spacemen 3 on stage and more recently, being invited by fellow Irish rockers Fontaines D.C to join them on their 2019 European tour playing sold out shows in venues like The Bataclan, Paris & Paradiso, Amsterdam. It’s been a wild ride for The Altered Hours so far & their music keeps evolving & growing as the experiences build. This is a group with the spirit of music deeply ingrained in them and a passion for making rock music something that you can believe in.

Their second full length album ‘Convertible’ is a window into the band’s idiosyncratic tendencies, a closer look into how their writing & sound continuously moves forwards while somehow remaining rooted in their own unique world all at once. The Altered Hours seem born to be an underground affair, something that they wear with pride and this album is a wonderful culmination of their DIY upbringing, their unfiltered rock ‘n’ roll spirit along with a confident stride into personal songwriting.

The anticipation is there in Elizabeth Stokes’ solo guitar riff under the opening lines of “I’m Not Getting Excited”: a frenetic, driving force daring a packed Auckland Town Hall to do exactly the opposite of what the track title suggests.

As the opener of The Beths’ Auckland, New Zealand, 2020 expands to include the full band, the crowd screeches and bellows. It’s a collective exhalation, in one of the few countries where live music is still possible.

The album title, and film of the same name, deliberately include the date and location, lead guitarist Jonathan Pearce says. “That’s the sensational part of what we actually did.” In a mid-pandemic world, playing to a heaving, enraptured home crowd feels miraculous.

In March 2020, everything seemed on track for another huge year for The Beths. Home after an 18-month northern hemisphere tour, they had just finished recording sophomore album Jump Rope Gazers and were primed for more extensive touring. But within days, New Zealand’s lockdown split the band between three separate houses. All touring was cancelled.

“It was existentially bad,” Stokes says. As well as worrying about economic survival, they lost something crucial to the band’s identity: live performance. “It's a huge part of how we see ourselves... What does it mean, if we can't play live?”

The band found an outlet through live-streaming, returning to the do-it-yourself mentality of their early days to connect with a global audience. The album and film have their genesis in that urge to share the now-rare experience of a live show, as widely as possible.

The fuzzy-round-the-edges live-streams pointed the way aesthetically. Native birds, wonkily crafted by the band from tissue paper and wire, festoon the venue’s cavernous ceiling while house plants soften and disguise the imposing pipes of an organ. The presence of the film crew isn’t disguised: much of the camerawork is handheld; full of fast zooms and pans.

With much of the material still fresh, the band was less focused on re-invention than playing “a good, fast rock show”, Pearce says. The tempo is up on crowd favourites “Whatever” and “Future Me Hates Me” (released as a live single on its third anniversary) as both band and audience feed off the mutual energy in the room.

Certain songs have taken on special resonance post-Covid. Pearce has found “Out Of Sight”, a tender rumination on long-distance relationships, hits particularly hard with live audiences.

Album closer “River Run” visibly brings Stokes to tears as a mix of achievement and relief kicks in. “You can finally relax at that point … You play the last note, breathe out a sigh and look up - and you’re in a giant room full of people happy and smiling.”

Produced by Benny Yurco (Michael Nau, Grace Potter & the Nocturnals), mixed by Dan Molad (Lucius, Emily King) and recorded live at Little Jamaica Recordings in Burlington, VT, Liz Cooper’s highly anticipated sophomore album Hot Sass marks multiple departures—from her nine-year home of Nashville, from her band addendum of the Stampede, and from the genre-based expectations she’s accumulated throughout her career. With these twelve new songs, Cooper comes into her own—both musically and as a person—embracing a newfound sense of independence, honesty, maturity and creativity. In addition to Cooper and Yurco, Hot Sass also features Cooper’s longtime bandmates and collaborators Joe Bisirri (bass), Ryan Usher (drums, percussion) and Michael Libramento (guitar, synthesizer). Reflecting on the album, Cooper shares, “It’s me learning about what kind of woman I am and it’s not pretty all the time…I’m still processing these songs. Still reflecting. And I think that’s the thing—Hot Sass is just a stamp in time of what was happening in my life. I just want to continue making art that displays myself, the moments, and the people around me.” The new record follows Cooper’s 2018 full-length debut album, Window Flowers, which was released to widespread critical acclaim. Of the album, NPR Music praised, “a gorgeously arranged and performed bouquet of psychedelia-tinged folk-rock,” while Rolling Stone hailed, “Cooper pushes her strand of folk rock deep into psychedelic territory by merging her idiosyncratic vocal style with swirling, droning guitar effects and lacerating solos that feel dusted with otherworldly magic,” and Paste declared, “If we’re lucky, we are going to hear a lot more artists in the future like Liz Cooper.” Originally from Baltimore and now based in Brooklyn, Cooper has continued to tour consistently since her debut, performing alongside artists such as Dr. Dog, Shakey Graves, Bermuda Triangle, Lord Huron and Phosphorescent as well as special festival performances at Austin City Limits, Newport Folk Festival, BottleRock Music Festival, Lockn’ and more.

The new school meets the old school. Riding those crystal-clear waves off the back of their standout EP for WOLF Music, New Zealand duo Manuel Darquart double down with this 10-inch remix package containing a classic reworking from the master of dream house, Don Carlos and a sleazed up street soul workout from themselves.

No introduction is needed when you see Don Carlos’ name in the mix. A legend of the Italian dream house movement that has influenced so much of what we’ve heard since, not least the productions of the Manuel Darquart guys. A dream (house) matchup some might say.

Step one, Carlos sprinkles his magic on ‘Keep It DXy’ switching up the drum programming and adding those Balearic flurries that add a considered dose of dreaminess to whatever he touches, think summery sweeping strings and echoing synth stabs.

On the flip the Manuel D guys go full sleaze, weak at the knees for their ‘Sleazy Sunday Mix’. Imagine a street soul, Balearic lovechild and you’re on the right track. Start suppin’ a margarita and you’re getting closer. Sun-lounger on the sand, Adriatic in front of you, last night’s euphoria still a buzz in the brain and you’ve hit the spot.

Gidge - the Swedish duo consisting of Ludvig Stolterman and Jonatan Nilsson - return with their new album “New Light” on November 6th. Marking their 5th release on Atomnation, this LP can be seen as their second full-length album to date, following up 2014’s mythical “Autumn Bells” LP. Their discography furthermore includes short-film “Lulin” (in collaboration with Lampray), mini-album “LNLNN”, and debut EP “For Seoul”.

Ryan Lee West aka Rival Consoles announces details of his highly anticipated new album Articulation, released on Erased Tapes on 31 July 2020.
‘Articulation’, the lead track and album centrepiece, links the record back to the analogue fluidity and colour of 2016’s Night Melody. The division of varying time signatures, intertwined with a complex structure of notes, creates an expression of a moving structure and conjures a dreamy motorik energy. Ryan Lee West explains, "The title track is about articulation and playfulness with shape and time. Its structure is very machine-like, but I was really interested in how melody and sense of story could develop out of this, and it became an exploration of mathematical structures - patterns and shapes having a conversation. I love that something on paper can appear rigid and calculated, but then take on new meaning based on the context that surrounds it, or how it changes over time."
Articulation (which follows 2018’s Persona) was conceived with a very visual way of thinking, unusual for the London musician and producer. During the writing process Ryan drew structures, shapes and patterns by hand to try and find new ways of thinking about music, giving himself a way to problem-solve away from the computer. The album title references a piece by the avant-garde contemporary composer Györgi Ligeti, though not for its music, but for the non-traditional graphic score that accompanied it.
“I find electronic music is often battling to say something with integrity because technology and production can easily get in the way. I think the goal of a lot of electronic composers is to find a balance between the vision of the idea and the power of possibilities on the computer. With a pen and paper sketch you can compose and rethink ideas without technology getting in the way, so for me it acts as a very helpful tool to refresh the process.” - Ryan Lee West
The idea of using analogue drawings and tools to bolster digital creations can be heard in the structure of the pieces that make up Articulation from the broody techno opener ‘Vibrations on a String’ all the way to the album’s boundless closer ‘Sudden Awareness of Now’. While the anthemic rise and fall of ‘Still Here’ and the beatless ambient meditation ‘Melodica’ evoke a certain nostalgia, ‘Forwardism’ achieves the very opposite by burying its melody within the fast-paced rhythm of its pulsating synths.
Rising out of birdsong heard from his studio window, ‘Sudden Awareness of Now’ has a particular urgency about it and seems to perfectly capture a longing for escape. Built around a simple and repetitive melodic theme, expanding and retracting over the course of its seven-minute odyssey, Lee West explains; “I like the fact that if you say something over and over again in music, then over time it can become something else, something reflective.”
Since the release of Persona, Ryan Lee West has taken his captivating live A/V set to all corners of the world. Last seen live on stage with 17 players of the London Contemporary Orchestra for a sold-out orchestral performance at Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall in January 2020.
Meanwhile Lee West has kept busy. After contributing an exclusive track titled ‘Them Is Us’ to Adult Swim’s coveted Singles series, he recently shared the beautifully textured solo piano piece Winter’s Lament on this year’s Piano Day. He has also been in high demand as a composer, scoring Charlie Brooker’s much talked about Black Mirror episode Striking Vipers, composing original music for Secret Cinema presents Stranger Things as well as renowned choreographer Alexander’s Whitley’s groundbreaking new work Overflow which was set to premiere at London’s Sadler’s Wells Theatre this spring.
Articulation will be available worldwide on 31 July, with live activities to be announced as soon as the situation allows safe event planning