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The sophomore effort from Gray/Smith refines their petroleum-based, hard-lullaby sound with a decidedly dusty precision. To call this pair's brand of country-rock détournement "cosmic" would be too breezy: L. Gray and Rob Smith prefer to stare into sunken depths, channeling their recondite affections for lay-by mauve zones and red-dirt guitar wanderings. Formed in the outer-edges of Kings and Richmond counties circa 2020, Gray/Smith is something of an East-Coast involution. L. Gray (guitar and vocals) and Rob Smith (drums, guitar and vocals) are both trusty veterans of "band's bands" like Pigeons (Soft Abuse), No-Neck Blues Band (Revenant, Locust), Rhyton (Thrill Jockey), and The Suntanama (Drag City), freewheeling groups known for mining from polyglot sources: rough-hewn folk and the spiritual avant-garde, bargain-bin hard rock and and collector's-choice psychedelia alike. On their first, self-released LP Gray/Smith, serendipitously recorded at Gary's Electric at the top of 2021, the pair trained their assured chops onto the great American song-form, honing a murky but tight approach that variously cribs "urban cowboy" and finger-picked primitivism. A string of cryptic appearances soon followed, including a short-lived residency at a now-shuttered vodka dive; a micro-tour with Coloradan songstress Josephine Foster; and a series of backyard and barroom gigs sharing stages with compatriots like Stella Kola, Blues Ambush, Samara Lubelski, and Wednesday Knudsen. Heels in the Aisle is the slipshod, burnt-out, mid-'70s unter-prog comedown to their debut's backwoods, bushy-tailed, early-'70s, country-rock meanderings_expect more unrestrained riffs, artful studio wizardry, and worn-down introspection. Joining the ranks of bloodshot-eyed, blues-rock medleys à la Canned Heat's "Parthenogenesis" and Grand Funk's "Into The Sun," "The SDSPS" is the nearly side-length opening cut, an expanded song-cycle condensing and riffing on the themes of their debut. "Help Me" ventriloquizes Pomona College outlaw Kris Kristofferson's slow-roaring ballad of libidinal woe. On the flip side, "Verrazano Tile" and the title track pay heed to lower bays of Staten Island, while their arrangement of the traditional Zimbabwean tune "Guabi Guabi" is a bright Dead/Feat-like jaunt with blissed-out wah-wah pay-off. "Gaslight Boulevard" is lean, mean, and eight-beers-in space rock, and the closing track "Kekule's Ring" is a slack-jawed, wistful crash back down to earth. All this, packaged in a luxe, expertly-printed sleeve photographed by downtown artist Lary 7 and designed by Eric Wrenn (Sophie's Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides).

A1 - Desire
Opening the EP in quietly epic fashion, Desire begins with a delightful beat pattern with adistinctive cymbal hit set over warm bass tones and whale song samples. A smooth, thoughtful bass melody is introduced which joyfully intersects with gorgeous piano keys while swirling strings and atmospheric vibes layer and recede like tides of the ocean, creating a truly unique journey of a track that will linger anywhere it may be heard.

A2 - Voidscaping
Instantly setting the scene with crisp, striking breaks, Voidscaping is an atmospheric treatfor the senses with serene throwback pads reminiscent of the halcyon days of Good Looking. Bringing the piece up to date for the Spatial era is the typically intricate blending of reflection and intrigue ASC conjures with his sampling and reverb work, effortlessly thickening the soundscape with memories old and new.

AA1 - Let Go
Opening with the vibrant sounds of twilight nature and metallic bongos, ASC sparinglydeploys a glorious choral vocal before the breaks take off with an energetic pattern drivenby constant, playful hi hats. As the track develops, questions are asked of the listener bythe curious atmosphere, gradually unraveling with strings, synths and trademark vocalusage, offering a new perspective with each listen.

AA2 - Meltdown
A darkly, anxious undertone floods the mix as Meltdown grips the listener from the first barwith skillfully sequenced minimal breaks, hi hats that whoosh in and out like evening crickets you can't quite track, and intense ambient padwork. A longing female vocal occasionally yearns over the various melodies which enter at will, discreetly developing the mood with purpose, unfurling a stream of aural consciousness from this incredible producer.
Words by Chris Hayes (Spatial / Red Mist)

A1 - Consensus Reality
JLM opens another stellar EP for Spatial with Consensus Reality, acheery, optimistic track which opens with lush keys, and filtered breaks. Soon we are treated to long synths brimming with optimism while melodies are formed from a slew of elements entangled in joyous harmony. This is a special track before we even mention the amazingly crisp apache breaks which are introduced and toyed with to the conclusion in JLM's inimitable style.

A2 - Salva Veritate
An eerie vibe immediately grips the listener for a remarkably intense atmospheric journey in the shape of Salva Veritate. Whooshing, reverberating synths punctuate a dense soundscape laced with tensionand intrigue. The hefty Hot Pants breaks drive the track perfectly with atuneful 808 rumbling below, as blippy sub-melodies and keys add further texture to the mix to complete an immensely memorable production from JLM.

AA1 - Hotspot
Mellow keys with a hint of jazz open Hotspot, as JLM adds further flex tohis repertoire in another impressively detailed journey through sumptuous atmospherics. The track quickly bursts into life in full flow with chunky breaks driven by juddering snares nestling over smooth 808 basslines andswathes of strings & pads that swoop across the mix to create a dreamy paradox of lively calm.

AA2 - Nova
A soothing way to close the EP as JLM opens Nova with long, relaxing synthwork before the delicate beat patterns begin with a symphony offiltered effects and soft notes punctuating the soundscape. Extended reverse cymbals and subtly used reverberating vocal samples add textureto proceedings as the cosmic breaks flow, as we have become accustomed to from JLM's exceptional output on Spatial.
Words by Chris Hayes (Spatial / Red Mist)

The 180g vinyl is available in two colors: Classic Black and a Limited Burgundy Edition, with the outer cover hand-colored and numbered (100 copies) by Moo Latte himself.

Mellomaniac, the seventh full-length album by Moo Latte, is different. These 28 compositions, written and recorded in 2021/22, were initially created for Moo's personal use, serving as a life soundtrack during many weeks and months spent away from home while touring with the band. Most of the tracks were recorded in hotel rooms and even backstage areas, fully embracing the lo-fi mindset and philsophy. Comparing to his previous works, this one holds a special significance and it's the most personal of them all.

What's Mellomaniac? The wordplay combines "melomania"—defined as an excessive and abnormal attraction to music—with the "mello" vibe that reflects both Moo Latte's personality and the nature of the music itself. The album leans toward a mellow sound, designed more for an intimate, individual listening experience where each spin of the record leads to new discoveries.

Why is this album different? Each of these pieces was created without any predetermined goal, which is why the tracklist is so eclectic—much like Moo Latte's palette of inspirations. These influences stretch back to when he was just four years old, singing in front of others for the first time or listening to his sister practice the violin. These early memories and instincts are blended with more deliberate musical choices, refined over two decades of music education. Each song is dedicated to a person, place, or situation that shaped him both as a musician and as an individual, reflecting the journey he has been on so far.

After six previous albums rooted in beat-making culture, this is the first one that is 95% drumless and free from sampling of any kind. Although the stories in these songs are told without words, Moo Latte incorporates his voice alongside a wide array of instruments, using it more expressively than ever before. The album's sonic quality is both raw and lush. The grit comes from the way it was recorded, using gear and microphones that, while not top-tier, were simply what was available. Everything was mixed in Moo Latte's bedroom and mastered on analog tape, resulting in a personal, intimate, and dynamic listening experience.

The 180g vinyl is available in two colors: Classic Black and a Limited Burgundy Edition, with the outer cover hand-colored and numbered (100 copies) by Moo Latte himself.

Mellomaniac, the seventh full-length album by Moo Latte, is different. These 28 compositions, written and recorded in 2021/22, were initially created for Moo's personal use, serving as a life soundtrack during many weeks and months spent away from home while touring with the band. Most of the tracks were recorded in hotel rooms and even backstage areas, fully embracing the lo-fi mindset and philsophy. Comparing to his previous works, this one holds a special significance and it's the most personal of them all.

What's Mellomaniac? The wordplay combines "melomania"—defined as an excessive and abnormal attraction to music—with the "mello" vibe that reflects both Moo Latte's personality and the nature of the music itself. The album leans toward a mellow sound, designed more for an intimate, individual listening experience where each spin of the record leads to new discoveries.

Why is this album different? Each of these pieces was created without any predetermined goal, which is why the tracklist is so eclectic—much like Moo Latte's palette of inspirations. These influences stretch back to when he was just four years old, singing in front of others for the first time or listening to his sister practice the violin. These early memories and instincts are blended with more deliberate musical choices, refined over two decades of music education. Each song is dedicated to a person, place, or situation that shaped him both as a musician and as an individual, reflecting the journey he has been on so far.

After six previous albums rooted in beat-making culture, this is the first one that is 95% drumless and free from sampling of any kind. Although the stories in these songs are told without words, Moo Latte incorporates his voice alongside a wide array of instruments, using it more expressively than ever before. The album's sonic quality is both raw and lush. The grit comes from the way it was recorded, using gear and microphones that, while not top-tier, were simply what was available. Everything was mixed in Moo Latte's bedroom and mastered on analog tape, resulting in a personal, intimate, and dynamic listening experience.

CECILIA is a nomadic soul. Like in an existentialist epic that traverses different ages on a phantom thread of love, spirituality, desire and rage. She inhabits different bodies, inserts herself in a whole array of different characters. Some are fictional, some are as real as the artists that inspired her, and whose influence appears in CHOEUR under the guise of tiny fragments, direct quotes, dedications and spectral presences. Cecilia channels the poetry of different lives that might have been her own or might have only existed in dreams, and does so within a collection of songs that twist the path of traditional French and Italian songwriting into the inmost recesses of electronic mysticism. The composition of CHOEUR took place mostly around January 2023, a pretty precarious time in the artist life, and happened in a spontaneous and ritualistic manner that could appear as somewhat odd in the realm of electronic music production. Birthing out of ego-free solo jams in hyphened states of consciousness and audience-less performances, these moments of do-or-die energy intake served to funnel the wilderness of her emotions into extremely tight arrangements, ultimately allowing a dramaturgy of fierce and beautiful songs into existence. Striving for the sublime, CECILIA trained her whole body for a paradoxical procedure of disconnection and reconnection. A crucial pin in Melissa Gagné’s system of 7-year creative cycles, CHOEUR marks her debut on Haunter Record as much as the first step towards the possibility of a new artistic identity. A labour of love if there ever was one. CHOEUR is made of Awe, Chants and Ravishment, of Pain until Vision. CHOEUR prays Earth, Water, Stars, Sea. CHOEUR feels Spirits, Lightning, Thunder, Dawn, Dusk, Blood, Flowers. CHOEUR invokes a Return, to Grace. CHOEUR loves Mud and longs to Play. CHOEUR lives in a Dream created by a Dream. CHOEUR lives in a Body created by Love. CHOEUR is about a broken heart, open and ecstatic, about the beauty and the sadness that all is not what could be, about wandering and wondering why were the stars made so beautiful?

Maelstrom returns to Central Processing Unit for the fourth time, and it's the one born Joan-Mael Péneau's lengthiest drop on the Sheffield label yet. The French artist has been a mainstay in the European electro game since the 2000s, and Malestrom brings that experience to bear on new LP The FM Tapes. He goes about this album with the assurance of a seasoned pro, combining his mastery of electro production techniques with a trademark guile to craft an expertly-paced eleven-track affair.

The first section of The FM Tapes sets out the album's stall with style and aplomb - listeners are in store for a rich feast of off-kilter machine-funk which will feature no shortage of intriguing detours. On opener 'Ondes Courtes' the mix throbs with all manner of strange electronic gristle: a distorted bass hum rattles the monitors; wisps of distortion float across the mix; eerily pretty keys wax and wane before giving way to a radar pulse.

'Ondes Courtes' is an ominous slouch of a scene-setter, and it lines things up perfectly for following cut 'Alt50ser' to lock in. This track's churning, gurgling mid-tempo rattle brings to mind the wacky insistence of Modeselektor. Maelstrom repeats the slow-fast one-two again directly afterwards - 'La Vie Sociale Des', a strange nugget that sounds like an early Eski instrumental stripped for parts and blasted into the cosmos, is an ideal prelude to the twitchy space-funk of 'My Digitone'.

Maelstrom's staying power in the electro world comes, in no small part, from his ability to apply his delightfully idiosyncratic choices to some of the genre's staple production tropes. On The FM Tapes, he marks himself out once more as a pleasingly unorthodox talent by taking tracks in unexpected directions to produce surprising - and often rather moving - results.

There are multiple cuts here which channel the more cerebral end of Richard D. James' AFX/Analord output: 'My Digitone' may be a quicksilver techno-electro number, but there's still something cinematic about the synth treatment here which softens the edges; 'Suede's minor-key oscillations bring other CPU veterans like Cygnus and Bochum Welt into view; 'Res 06', one of two Fasme collaborations on the record, is full of pathos even as the beat programming bangs and whirrs throughout.

While there's a deep emotional undercurrent to The FM Tapes, though, Maelstrom's commitment to bringing the thrills surfaces time and again. If 'Res 06' had Maelstrom and Fasme getting wistful, the album's other Fasme link-up 'Trempo' is one of the hardest club joints here, a piece of old-school Detroit energy replete with some great cascading drum production. Indeed, 'Trempo' comes in the middle of a run towards the album's end where Maelstrom takes the handbrake off - there's a wild-eyed sense of fun to 'The Operator' and 'Upside Down DX7' which has one thinking of the zany cut-and-thrust of KiNK's best work.

Maelstrom's latest drop for Sheffield's Central Processing Unit label is an album of leftfield electro numbers that bring both pounding beats and poignant production.

RIYL: KiNK, Modeselektor, Cygnus, Bochum Welt, AFX

Clan Caimán, led by composer Emilio Haro, is a group from Argentina, but their timeless, organic music transcends nationality. “Pica-Pau” (woodpecker), their third album, is their most abstract and minimal to date, but this is not a cold abstraction nor an austere minimalism; the music here, with its focus on rhythm and texture, is warm and hypnotic, seeming to have existed forever despite the fact that it was recorded in 2023-24. As on their previous albums, all with EM Records, the music is driven by the kalimabafon, Haro’s self-made tuned percussion instrument. The kalimbafon’s patterns weave through waves of reverb-drenched lap steel and guitar, as bass undertow and sans-cymbal percussion allow the music to flow music inexorably forward, like a broad, timeless river. The compositions here have a feeling of being immersed in deep night, surrounded by life, away from the enclosed isolation of the urban environment. As with previous albums, the compositions are instrumental, the exception being the final song, a vocal version of the opening track, sung in a language invented by Haro.

In April 2023, there was released the first part of the Fluxus edition called Stolen Symphony. The year has come and gone and there is the second part of the Fluxus edition called Keep Together. At the centre of both parts of this edition was a broken piano, acquired by the Opening Performance Orchestra for the purpose of making live and studio recordings. During this time other new works for this broken piano were written by diverse Fluxus and non-Fluxus composers. In the spring of 2022, the Opening Performance Orchestra and broken piano participated in an event hosted by Mieko Shiomi. This was a new version of her early work Spatial Poem, documentation of which was presented at the 2022 Aichi Triennale in Tokyo. At present, broken piano lies in the open air in Prague and is subject to gradual decay.

These both parts of this edition contain 73 new and old pieces, live and studio recordings, finished pieces and scores to be performed, solos and pieces for ensemble, using classical and special instruments from 33 Fluxus artists, which have been played by 10 soloists and 4 ensembles. There are new essays and articles from 15 writers on the theme Fluxus, original photos and other documentation in the booklets.

Continuing his fruitful relationship with Discrepant after the third volume of his ongoing Organic Music Tape Series on Sucata Tapes, Tiago Sousa returns with two longform pieces for organ with 'A Thousand Strings'. A self-explanatory title in itself, 'A Thousand Strings' drifts fluidly into a celestial realm of cascading melodies and cycling patterns that never feel forced or strict throughout its two hypnotic tracks. Pulsating with life and ecstatic abandon.

Taking cues from the tradition of American minimalists like Steve Reich and, particularly, Terry Riley, the Portuguese composer's work flows with a life of his own, that, while acknowledging those influences, transcends them into his own signature. On the A side, 'A Thousand Strings' goes seamlessly from intertwining crepuscular harmonies to ascending keyboard runs in the manner of 'Persian Surgery Dervishes' finishing with a coda of rhythmic marimba-like pulses. On the flipside, 'The Things Passed' creates this maze-like tapestry of melodies that seem to drift apart only to converge back again into its internal process before setting on sustained tones infused with a sense of longing. For all things passed. For what is yet to come.

France-based, prog-rock power trio LIZZARD are out to reclaim the creative, collaborative energy that has fueled them for over a decade. On `Mesh', the band's fifth full length album, LIZZARD capture the energetic, lightning-in-a-bottle optimism of the late `90s post-punk/art-rock scene and reinvigorate it as something empowering, inspiring and simmering with potential. Recorded by the band in the abandoned factory they use as their creative base and produced again by now long-time friend and collaborator Peter Junge, `Mesh' is LIZZARD unleashing the raw, spontaneous might of their pent up live sound through the production precision of their studio experience. As such, themes of duality and control, whether it's regaining it or letting it go, run right through the album. Resounding with Elwell's inimitable, thundering drums and a barrage of colossal riffs, `Black Sheep' explores the dichotomy of body and mind, of black and white, that we all wrestle with on a daily basis whilst the mellow polyrhythms and plaintive melodies of `Mad Hatters' ask pressing questions of the people who are supposedly in charge of society. Epic album closer `The Beholder' captures the reinvigorated LIZZARD at their bracing best; bittersweet guitar refrains are bolstered by Will Knox's signature driving basslines and crashing half-time grooves as frontman Ricou considers the great cycle of life from his own perspective. Testament to the band's formidable compositional prowess, `The Beholder' ends as it starts, a closed loop. With only Ricou's playful, pithy refrain of "What goes around, comes around" left ringing in our ears, LIZZARD masterfully frame `Mesh' as both a poignant conclusion to the last chapter and as a bright new beginning.

Oxblood & Gold Vinyl. Light In The Attic präsentiert in Zusammenarbeit mit Laurie Anderson und dem Lou Reed Archive die erste offizielle Anthologie von Lou Reeds Arbeiten für Pickwick Records 1964-1965. "Why Don't You Smile Now: Lou Reed At Pickwick Records 1964-65"enthält Raritäten, Kultklassiker (The Primitives' "The Ostrich") und bisher unveröffentlichtes Material (The Beachnuts' "Sad, Lonely Orphan Boy") und ist eine Zusammenstellung von Popsongs aus Reeds Feder, die er Mitte der 60er Jahre als angestellter Songwriter für das längst untergegangene Label Pickwick Records schrieb. Die Zusammenstellung ist der neueste Teil der Lou Reed Archive Serie und folgt auf Lou Reeds "Words & Music, May 1965" (2022) und die Wiederveröffentlichung von "Hudson River Wind Meditations" (2023). Als eine der originellsten und innovativsten Persönlichkeiten der Musikgeschichte erlangte Reed (1942-2013) zunächst als Mitbegründer und Frontmann der einflussreichen Band Velvet Underground Anerkennung. Im Laufe seiner fünf Jahrzehnte währenden Karriere brachte der zweifache Rock & Roll Hall of Famer seine einzigartige Vision in eine eklektische Bandbreite musikalischer Unternehmungen ein, darunter epochale Alben wie "Transformer" (1972) und wild experimentelle Werke wie der avantgardistische Noise-Klassiker "Metal Machine Music" (1975). Doch bevor er sich als Sänger, Songschreiber, Musiker und Dichter etablierte, begann Reed als interner Songschreiber (und gelegentlicher Session-Gitarrist/Sänger) bei Pickwick Records, einem Label, das sich auf Sound-ähnliche Aufnahmen spezialisierte, die die großen Pop-Hits der damaligen Zeit nachahmten. Von Garage-Rock und Girl-Group-Pop bis hin zu Blue-Eyed-Soul und Teenie-Idol-Balladen bietet Reeds Schaffen für Pickwick einen faszinierenden frühen Einblick in sein sich ständig weiterentwickelndes und wahrhaft grenzenloses künstlerisches Schaffen, das vom GRAMMYr-nominierten Mastering-Ingenieur John Baldwin restauriert und remastered wurde. Sowohl die 2xLP- als auch die CD-Editionen enthalten ausführliche Booklets mit ungesehenen Fotos, Linernotes von Richie Unterberger (renommierter Musikjournalist und Autor von "White Light/White Heat: The Velvet Underground day-by-day") und ein Essay von Lenny Kaye (dem legendären Gitarristen, Mitbegründer der Patti Smith Group, Autor, Produzent und Kurator der bahnbrechenden Garage-Rock-Anthologie "Nuggets"). Die Doppel-LP-Verpackung wurde von dem mehrfach mit dem GRAMMYr ausgezeichneten Künstler Masaki Koike gestaltet. Eine spezielle farbige Vinyl-Edition wird auf "Oxblood"-Wachs (A/B-Seite) und "Gold"-Wachs (C/D-Seite) gepresst.

Light In The Attic präsentiert in Zusammenarbeit mit Laurie Anderson und dem Lou Reed Archive die erste offizielle Anthologie von Lou Reeds Arbeiten für Pickwick Records 1964-1965. "Why Don't You Smile Now: Lou Reed At Pickwick Records 1964-65"enthält Raritäten, Kultklassiker (The Primitives' "The Ostrich") und bisher unveröffentlichtes Material (The Beachnuts' "Sad, Lonely Orphan Boy") und ist eine Zusammenstellung von Popsongs aus Reeds Feder, die er Mitte der 60er Jahre als angestellter Songwriter für das längst untergegangene Label Pickwick Records schrieb. Die Zusammenstellung ist der neueste Teil der Lou Reed Archive Serie und folgt auf Lou Reeds "Words & Music, May 1965" (2022) und die Wiederveröffentlichung von "Hudson River Wind Meditations" (2023). Als eine der originellsten und innovativsten Persönlichkeiten der Musikgeschichte erlangte Reed (1942-2013) zunächst als Mitbegründer und Frontmann der einflussreichen Band Velvet Underground Anerkennung. Im Laufe seiner fünf Jahrzehnte währenden Karriere brachte der zweifache Rock & Roll Hall of Famer seine einzigartige Vision in eine eklektische Bandbreite musikalischer Unternehmungen ein, darunter epochale Alben wie "Transformer" (1972) und wild experimentelle Werke wie der avantgardistische Noise-Klassiker "Metal Machine Music" (1975). Doch bevor er sich als Sänger, Songschreiber, Musiker und Dichter etablierte, begann Reed als interner Songschreiber (und gelegentlicher Session-Gitarrist/Sänger) bei Pickwick Records, einem Label, das sich auf Sound-ähnliche Aufnahmen spezialisierte, die die großen Pop-Hits der damaligen Zeit nachahmten. Von Garage-Rock und Girl-Group-Pop bis hin zu Blue-Eyed-Soul und Teenie-Idol-Balladen bietet Reeds Schaffen für Pickwick einen faszinierenden frühen Einblick in sein sich ständig weiterentwickelndes und wahrhaft grenzenloses künstlerisches Schaffen, das vom GRAMMYr-nominierten Mastering-Ingenieur John Baldwin restauriert und remastered wurde. Sowohl die 2xLP- als auch die CD-Editionen enthalten ausführliche Booklets mit ungesehenen Fotos, Linernotes von Richie Unterberger (renommierter Musikjournalist und Autor von "White Light/White Heat: The Velvet Underground day-by-day") und ein Essay von Lenny Kaye (dem legendären Gitarristen, Mitbegründer der Patti Smith Group, Autor, Produzent und Kurator der bahnbrechenden Garage-Rock-Anthologie "Nuggets"). Die Doppel-LP-Verpackung wurde von dem mehrfach mit dem GRAMMYr ausgezeichneten Künstler Masaki Koike gestaltet.

France-based, prog-rock power trio LIZZARD are out to reclaim the creative, collaborative energy that has fueled them for over a decade. On `Mesh', the band's fifth full length album, LIZZARD capture the energetic, lightning-in-a-bottle optimism of the late `90s post-punk/art-rock scene and reinvigorate it as something empowering, inspiring and simmering with potential. Recorded by the band in the abandoned factory they use as their creative base and produced again by now long-time friend and collaborator Peter Junge, `Mesh' is LIZZARD unleashing the raw, spontaneous might of their pent up live sound through the production precision of their studio experience. As such, themes of duality and control, whether it's regaining it or letting it go, run right through the album. Resounding with Elwell's inimitable, thundering drums and a barrage of colossal riffs, `Black Sheep' explores the dichotomy of body and mind, of black and white, that we all wrestle with on a daily basis whilst the mellow polyrhythms and plaintive melodies of `Mad Hatters' ask pressing questions of the people who are supposedly in charge of society. Epic album closer `The Beholder' captures the reinvigorated LIZZARD at their bracing best; bittersweet guitar refrains are bolstered by Will Knox's signature driving basslines and crashing half-time grooves as frontman Ricou considers the great cycle of life from his own perspective. Testament to the band's formidable compositional prowess, `The Beholder' ends as it starts, a closed loop. With only Ricou's playful, pithy refrain of "What goes around, comes around" left ringing in our ears, LIZZARD masterfully frame `Mesh' as both a poignant conclusion to the last chapter and as a bright new beginning.

Global superstar Ed Sheeran will release the ‘‘+-=÷× (TOUR COLLECTION)’ on 27th September on CD and Bright Blue 2LP. Sheeran made the announcement last night (Sunday 8th September 2024) after enthralling fans on the closing leg of his 2024 Mathematics World Tour in Cyprus.

‘+-=÷× (TOUR COLLECTION)’ brings together some of Ed Sheeran’s biggest songs to date from his decade-spanning mathematical album era. It will be available on CD, 2xLP (Bright Blue vinyl), Download and streaming partners. The physical formats will include access to exclusive voice notes from Sheeran. A brand new selection of related merchandise will also be available.

Ed Sheeran is an era-defining artist who has sold nearly 200 million records across the globe. After starting his record-breaking Mathematics Tour in Dublin back in 2022, Sheeran has taken his blockbuster show all over the globe with an astonishing total of 133 performances under his belt so far. With one more show this month in Rio De Janeiro, Sheeran has announced another run of European shows for 2025 which will form part of the final leg of his Mathematics tour, all while continuing to break records and make history.

‘+-=÷× (TOUR COLLECTION)’ features 22 tracks including the tracks ‘Shape Of You’, ‘Perfect’ ‘Thinking Out Loud’, ‘Photograph’, ‘Shivers’ and ‘Bad Habits’. The song ‘Afterglow’ appears on vinyl for the very first time. The tracklisting includes 9 UK Number 1 singles with 11 tracks that have been streamed in excess of 1 Billion times on Spotify.

Global superstar Ed Sheeran will release the ‘‘+-=÷× (TOUR COLLECTION)’ on 27th September on CD and Bright Blue 2LP. Sheeran made the announcement last night (Sunday 8th September 2024) after enthralling fans on the closing leg of his 2024 Mathematics World Tour in Cyprus.

‘+-=÷× (TOUR COLLECTION)’ brings together some of Ed Sheeran’s biggest songs to date from his decade-spanning mathematical album era. It will be available on CD, 2xLP (Bright Blue vinyl), Download and streaming partners. The physical formats will include access to exclusive voice notes from Sheeran. A brand new selection of related merchandise will also be available.

Ed Sheeran is an era-defining artist who has sold nearly 200 million records across the globe. After starting his record-breaking Mathematics Tour in Dublin back in 2022, Sheeran has taken his blockbuster show all over the globe with an astonishing total of 133 performances under his belt so far. With one more show this month in Rio De Janeiro, Sheeran has announced another run of European shows for 2025 which will form part of the final leg of his Mathematics tour, all while continuing to break records and make history.

‘+-=÷× (TOUR COLLECTION)’ features 22 tracks including the tracks ‘Shape Of You’, ‘Perfect’ ‘Thinking Out Loud’, ‘Photograph’, ‘Shivers’ and ‘Bad Habits’. The song ‘Afterglow’ appears on vinyl for the very first time. The tracklisting includes 9 UK Number 1 singles with 11 tracks that have been streamed in excess of 1 Billion times on Spotify.

Cultivated Electronics Ltd's ''For The Floor'' series features split EPs available on vinyl (only) with Electro tracks aimed strictly at the dance floor, bringing together CE regulars alongside new artists. Previous instalments have presented tracks by DeFeKT, Rico Casazza, Tripeo, Cycloplex, Steve Allman and Alex Jann. Volume 4 now delivers 2 new tracks apiece by Ben Pest and Maelstrom. Bristol's Ben Pest has established notoriety as an exponent of jacking live hardware-based techno and electro with numerous releases on labels including Asking For Trouble, I Love Acid, No Static / Automatic, Orson Records, Don't and more. Here he delivers heavy bass, vocal distortions and tough beats on ''Who Would Have Thought I'd Be'' and the accompanying ''26 Hybrid''. Maelstrom has a history of aliases and side projects, illegal raves thrown in warehouses, fields and basements, but he came into his own under his Maelstrom moniker, releasing music on the likes of RAAR (the label he co- founded with Louisahhh), Cultivated Electronics, Central Processing Unit, Mechatronica, Private Persons and Discos Atonicos.

RAVING PITYLESS A-CLASS FLAVOR


SUPA BLOOD MOON STYLE !

DREAMLESS VEIL make their debut with the new album, Every Limb of the Flood. The band, featuring members of INTER ARMA, ARTIFICIAL BRAIN, and PSYCROPTIC manifest terrifying Blackened Extreme Metal and offer one of the year's most haunting releases. Every Limb of the Flood is a concept album. Through tracks such as "A Generation of Eyes", "Saturnism", and "Cyanide Mine" Vocalist Mike Paparo and co. task the listener to consider what it would be like for an individual to fully disappear. DREAMLESS VEIL delves into this murk through 8 tracks - dramatic swells, melodic crescendos, and abrasive blast-beat poundings make way to more introspective moments ultimately resulting in pure horror. Paparo explores the concept of corporeal disintegration with pained shrieks and disembodied bellows, resulting in one of the most unchained performances of his storied career. Lyrics for the record show, but don't tell. DREAMLESS VEIL's concept alludes to misery leading to grotesquery - The opener "Dim Golden Rave" throws the listener into an ambiguous time and place: "Grief, spiritless, collapses against the filth-ridden street". The second track, "A Generation of Eyes" follows this narrative by invoking Neil Young, quoting him to the extent of "rust never sleeps." What ensues is a grief so powerful it decomposes from within. The end result manifests in the album closer "Dreamless" - the body is now fully discarded, hinting at a possible enlightenment through a horrible, gruesome process. Sonically, Every Limb of the Flood is a caustic, corrosive journey. Critically acclaimed drummer David Haley flexes some of his most creative drum work to date, dragging the listener through wild tempo changes, breakneck speeds that come to sudden halts, while guitarist Dan Gargiulo (ARTIFICIAL BRAIN) interweaves disorienting guitar madness. Recorded by Brett Bamberger (REVOCATION) Every Limb of the Flood was mixed by Gargiulo and mastered by Colin Marston (Gorguts, Krallice, and more.)

DJ Stingray 313's INDUSTRY 4.0 EP is a sonic exploration into modern manufacturing concepts and the impact on humanity.
Moods and titles across the EP cover artificial intelligence (LARGE LANGUGE MODEL), the internet, and robotics (MULTI FUNCTIONAL ROBOTICS and SENSOR DATA) – all set to his signature high-energy, industrial, cyborg-style productions.
Together, the tracks on INDUSTRY 4.0 work as a striking and current introspective of humanity’s uncertain evolution, moving as fast as the technology it creates.

Permanent Parts is the second album released by visual artist Katharina Grosse (synthesizer) and musician Stefan Schneider (synthesizer; So Sner, To Rococo Rot). Grosse and Schneider were joined at Galerie Max Hetzler on 29 April 2023, performing as part of the Spectrum without Traces exhibition, by three artists who all generally work within improvised music – Carina Khorkhordina (trumpet), Tintin Patrone (trombone and electronics), and Billy Roisz (noise generator, piezo and mini cymbal). Permanent Parts is an extraordinary set of recordings that inhabits multiple zones at once: within its thirty-five minutes, we can hear the interactions of non-idiomatic collective music making, and the electronic glimmers of electro-acoustics, while, at the same time, the music remains untethered to genre.

This capacity to work within liminal zones makes perfect sense when thinking about both Grosse’s and Schneider’s prior work, whether the energetic diffusions and spatial explorations of Grosse’s artistic practice, or the slippery texturology of Schneider’s recent work with electronics. Khorkhordina, Patrone and Roisz all find their own ways into this dynamic, too, and Permanent Parts feels like an equal exchange of presence and contribution; there are no hierarchies here. This might explain the music’s curious sense of development, where several elements are allowed to exist alongside each other, not in direct contact but in a mode that’s somewhere between carefree layering and unconscious juxtaposition. The musicians are listening, but not just with their ears – their skin, their bodies are hearing, too.

When talking about Permanent Parts, Schneider is careful to place it within contexts that are specific, to some degree, but which allow for difference to blossom. “Although it was recorded live, it somehow was not meant to be a documentation of a live event in the first place. The five piece line up that appears on the record had met for the first time only a few hours before the concert took place.” While it might take a leap of faith for all parties to walk together, and so willingly, into a place of such freedom, of such risk, there is clear sympathy here between the musicians, and a shared appreciation of the immediacies of the situation.

It also throws some of our preconceptions about this music out of the window. “The record does not feel like a document of a performance as the music was not pre-composed and there was no reference,” Schneider continues. “Perhaps it was not even an improvisation?” For Grosse, her musical relationship with Schneider similarly shakes free from expectation: “My sound does not exist without Stefan’s. It is neither written down nor is it improvised. It is instantaneous.” When thinking about the five-piece exploration on Permanent Parts and asked to expand on what each musician brings to the table, she continues, “We all love the thrill of an unknown encounter and we seem to have a need for building connections through the thicket of our voices.”

There’s a curious phrase on the back cover of the album, before the artists are listed: “Wir sind eine Batterie / We are a battery.” This sums up the spirit of Permanent Parts. Schneider recalls that Grosse said this phrase to the musicians at the start of the performance. Grosse explains further, “The figure of the battery referred to our placement in the space building out a small circle facing one another from where the sound could spill into the impressive volume of the gallery.” The battery as an arrangement of similar devices; but I also think of charge, and the conversion of chemical energy, and of fortification. It’s a poetic metaphor that sums up much of the febrile pleasure of the music contained on these Permanent Parts.

– Jon Dale, Melbourne

The unconscious and unknown must be really nice places. In any case, if you take the second album of Menelaos Tomasides under his given name as travelogue. A trip into dreamlike territory, yet concrete enough, a journey without target yet looking forward and looking back into familiar places, „dreamhike“ both continues and departs from the style Menelaos has found earlier, in “When the Moon Comes Through”, or his more conceptual-intentional “31 Minuten” works. As the album title - which roughly translates to “dream hiking” but also hints on “walkabout” and “songlines” – suggests, we are rambling between the real and the imaginary. From the bucolic border triangle of Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands to the buzzing streets of the capital of Cyprus, where Menelaos has lived for many years, the tracks are about real places, about real experiences and emotions yet interwoven with a dreamlike fabric. Something that is just not tangible, yet substantial and palpable. Something concrete that manifests in the genuine and special sound design of this records - basically all of Menelaos’ works - his really special treatment of dynamics and loudness. It is one of the very few records where the established language of music making, specifically Techno, House, Dub, and early 2000’ Electronica, the clicks, thumps and plops from an earlier age of electronic music, transmogrify into slow movements of something new. Something that is gentle and truly personal, looking inwards. There are four-to-the-floor beats, there is wobbly bass, and dubby chords, even sublimated clarion calls. There is an immense energy in these tracks, the sheer materiality of low frequencies of a massive sound system manifested in a tiny room. Yet it is without any aggression, stripped bare of sonic pressure. It is quiet music no matter how high you turn up the volume. A rare treat, that requires exceptional skills and exceptional restraint and control on the technical side of music making. Probably it is a result of Menelaos specific combination of instinctual, intuitive approach to making music, which meets a genuine love for sound in seemingly endless loops of refinement that can lead to such a result as „dreamhike“. The elegant floating balance of control and playful experimentation manifests for example in a track that continues the ongoing collaboration with seasoned Cologne improviser Achim Fink on bass trumpet. Not only in this respect, the album can be described as a product of openness. It comes from a lot of taking in the world, of travel, of places and people met, of friendship and conversation (not necessarily with words). The deep trip of “dreamhike” further manifests Menelaos as one of the truly independent voices of electronic Cologne and beyond. Somewhat alike in character and attitude probably to what late Pete Namlook has established for Frankfurt with his label Fax +49-69/450464 (though ultimately warmer and much less uncanny) Menelaos has found his very own sound and vision. Music that answers to no one but speaks to everyone. Uncompromising yet gentle to the core: kind sounds from a kind spirit, arguably the most extraordinary and valuable quality music can have these days.

Suicide Squeeze is thrilled to deliver a reissue of Interloper, the 2020 album from Holy Wave. Interloper sees Holy Wave adding new layers to their lush and mesmerizing songwriting style. Written about the duality between life at home and life on the road, it sees the band expanding on its most esoteric and thought-provoking themes. "I'm Not Living in the Past Anymore" is a mantra about breaking the cycle of the mundane, and "Escapism" is a dream-like meditation. "Interloper" serves as the centerpiece for this self-expanding record, asking, what happens when the world beneath your feet changes so much that you feel like a stranger in your own shoes? The band turns inward to blissed-out moments on album opener "Schmetterling," the saccharine haze of "R&B," and the freak-out catharsis of live favorite "Buddhist Pete." With Interloper Holy Wave weaves together a contemplative tapestry that can serve as a road map for the diffident, a soundtrack to self-realization, or simply an invitation to escape.

Permanent Parts is the second album released by visual artist Katharina Grosse (synthesizer) and musician Stefan Schneider (synthesizer; So Sner, To Rococo Rot, Mapstation). Grosse and Schneider were joined at Galerie Max Hetzler on 29 April 2023, performing as part of the Spectrum without Traces exhibition, by three artists who all generally work within improvised music - Carina Khorkhordina (trumpet), Tintin Patrone (trombone and electronics), and Billy Roisz (noise generator, piezo and mini cymbal). Permanent Parts is an extraordinary set of recordings that inhabits multiple zones at once: within its thirty-five minutes, we can hear the interactions of non-idiomatic collective music making, and the electronic glimmers of electro-acoustics, while, at the same time, the music remains untethered to genre.

"There was a bird Matthew Ehler had seen in his backyard before, but he’d never really stopped to look at it.

A red-headed woodpecker, a strange-looking bird. After years of more self-destructive escapes from everyone’s respective demons and traumas, Ehler started to embrace the stillness of birdwatching. “It was something to occupy my mind,” he explains. His new hobby wouldn’t just lend Cliffdiver’s sophomore album its title, but signal a spiritual overhaul rippling through the band.

The origins of Cliffdiver go all the way back to 2017. By 2021, the line-up had settled into Ehler on guitar, Joey Duffy and Briana Wright on vocals, Gilbert Erickson on guitar, Tyler Rogers on bass, Eliot Cooper on drums, and Dony Nickels on sax. All of them veterans of Tulsa’s vibrant and interconnected music scene, they kicked up steam fast — over a host of EPs, singles, and their debut album, Exercise Your Demons , they went from DIY shows to selling out Tulsa’s famed Cain’s Ballroom.

Still, Birdwatching feels like the work of a whole different band: an album specifically grappling with abandoning cyclical behaviors and addictions that no longer serve you. It’s pop-punk maturing into grown-ass adult travails. Birdwatching is a very real take on life: Things get better, but they also get worse again, and better again, and worse again, and nobody will ever have it all figured out. In each snapshot, Cliffdiver offers a companion for those ups and downs.

Produced by Brett Romnes (Hot Mulligan, Mom Jeans, Dogleg)

“Cliffdiver is a set of splayed ribs, a whole lot of heart, and someone you can turn to when the lights refuse to turn on” —NPR Music"

Mermaid Chunky. It's all in a name, sometimes. The danceable, costumed, curiosity rich duo of artists Freya Tate and Moina Moin are as imaginative as they profess. Or, to get more to the point, as we all need them to be. Freya and Moina are two visual artists and musicians from Stroud and South London, places where they importantly found communities (Stroud's SVA and the capital's Total Refreshment Centre) of like minded people just as willing to chase down an idea to its possibly illogical conclusion. And it is in the collective and the idea of participation that Mermaid Chunky really clicks. This is a party, a collective dance, made all the better with more: people, ideas, layers, kick drums, recorders, saxophones, frogs. To wit, the album's first track and first single, "Céilí," named after a traditional Scottish or Irish social gathering and dance, which builds from a simple recorder line into a swelling, warm burst of major chord dance music. Goosebumps or check your pulse. Further down the rabbit hole, "Chaperone" is almost boardwalk electro, like Fischerspooner on a ferris wheel; "Frogsporn" and "Nature Girl" are mucky, trippy dirges filled with stalactites of synth and squelch; "Tiny Gymnast" is a kaleidoscopic waltz into the night. Hold onto your seats, ladies and gentlemen. You might be wondering how we, DFA Records, all the way over in cynical Brooklyn, entered the picture. There was a day a few years ago, sun shining in full Springtime splendor, when James heard something while waiting for a coffee down the street from the office. It sounded simple yet deceptively complex: a dance track, but one where the one - that anchoring first beat in a measure - could be heard a thousand different ways. Frustrated and interested, he Shazamd the song, playing at the shop from an episode of Zakia's Questing show on NTS, and brought it back to the office, where we all listened to it about fifty times. (The song was "Friends," from Mermaid Chunky's VEST EP, released in 2020. It led to an invitation to open for LCD at Brixton Academy in 2022. Mermaid Chunky has also played live alongside The Comet Is Coming, Alabastair Deplume, Snapped Ankles, and many others.) Thus began our search for Mermaid Chunky. A quest it has been and a quest it will always be.

Dark Entries returns to Mexico with Back Up Dos: Mexican Tecno Pop 1982-1989. Following 2021’s Back Up compilation, Back Up Dos delivers 10 more tracks of synth-pop and New Beat, 7 of which have never before appeared on vinyl. From mutant drum machine beats to irresistible synthesizer hooks, fans of the fringes of the 80s will find songs to stir their cold, dark hearts. But Back Up Dos does more than mine retro kitsch; it documents the development of a rich DIY music scene that is still underexplored. As affordable samplers and digital synths spread throughout the decade, post-punk and new wave gave way to more aggressive EBM and cyberpunk sounds. The scene also developed in opposition to the political climate of the times: the rise of the drug cartels and a reactionary turn in national politics. Using home recording techniques, these bands took cues from the electronic wizardry of the Human League and Wax Trax Records while reflecting the vibrant and chaotic Mexican cultural landscape of the era. On Back Up Dos, impeccable pop anthems from Casino Shanghai and Los Agentes Secretos sit alongside gnarled obscurities from Ford Proco and María Bonita, showcasing a decade of sly deviance and enthusiastic experimentation. This album comes housed in an 80s-inflected neon sleeve designed by Gwenael Rattke and includes a 12-page booklet with photographs, lyrics, and notes. Back Up Dos compiles synthetic music produced in Mexico at the crossroads from Tecno Pop to Post-Industrial, nourished by culture shock and stories of dystopian worlds.

Alice Taylor was a popular session singer who sang background vocals for several local Philly groups including The Delfonics during the height of the Philly Soul boom of the early to mid-1970’s.

In 1974 Alice under the auspice of producer Emanuel ‘Manny’ Campbell Jr and fellow Philadelphian musician/composer Charles R. Bowen entered the famed Sound Room Studios in Upper Dardy PA, to record a session of her own. This session yielded two songs. The more commercial pop soul orientated “(I’m In Love With A) Rock ‘n’ Roll Singin’ Superstar”. A song which took influences from other popular songs of the time that mentioned one’s love for Rock ‘n’ Roll singers and taking road trips to L.A (Los Angeles) in an attempt to cash in. Although the elongated song title may at first be a tad off-putting the recording showcases Alice’s vocal talents to the full and in itself is a very good record. The second song “Sounds Ridiculous” is based around the theme of a girl falling in love with a guy who spends most of his time daydreaming rather than getting a regular 9-5 job. An excellent record that should find favour with 70’s/crossover soul fans alike.



Manny Campbell Jr used some of Philadelphia’s finest musicians on Alice’s session, notably session drummer Earl Young, reputedly the first exponent of the hi-hat cymbal a style of drumming used extensively throughout the disco period. Young had honed his skills during the 1960’s with his band The Volcanos, recording sessions for the Arctic and Harthon Record Labels. The Volcanos later became The Moods before morphing into The Trammps who Young recorded on his Golden Fleece Label with the group recording several further disco hits for Buddah Records prior to their worldwide hit “Disco Inferno” for Atlantic Records. Young’s strumming can be found on many other Philadelphia International, Sal Soul and MFSB recordings. The string and horn arrangements on the session were provided by another MFSB (Mother Father Sister Brother) pool of musician’s member, Don Renaldo.



“I’m In Love With A) Rock ’n’ Roll Superstar/Sounds Ridiculous” came out in November of 1975 as an initial pressing run of 500 copies for promotional use which sadly were not of the best quality with some background noise being present in the introduction on both sides of the single, a possible detrimental factor in the release gaining any significant airplay. It’s was the second and final release on Emandolynn Music’s short lived, Stage-Art label. The first release being another of Manny Campbell’s acts The Nu-Rons & Co “Disco Hustle/Can’t Do Enough Girl” (Stage-Art 1001). Sadly, Alice Taylor passed away sometime during the 1980’s. Soul Junction through its ongoing relationship with Emandolynn Music have taken the opportunity to license these now very sort after Alice Taylor songs, which have been remastered to remove the aforementioned sound problems present on the original release. Which are now presented to you as a 3 track EP which also includes a previously unissued alternative mix of “(I’m In Love With A) Rock ’n’ Roll Singin’ Superstar, a recent master tape discovery.

Lovers of Italo disco music will consider Cyber People as one of the most important acts in its scene. The Space-synth sound Cyber people brought in the mid 80’s, was highlighted by their 1985 ‘Void Vision’ release, which became a hit both in Europe, as well as in South America. On top of that, Cyber People paved the road for acts like Koto, Laserdance and Hipnosis, just to name a few. Cyber People were disbanded though in 1988, but left behind a series of most important Italo Disco records.

Now, build on the ashes of the former and legendary ‘Memory Records label from Parma – Italy, Memix International is pleased to announce its return, and the return of Cyber People. In its original form, headed again by the Maestro Giorgio “Theo” Spagna himself, as leader of the pack, with a tribute to Anfrando Maiola, the founding father of Mamory Records’ most important act, Koto, who left us in 2023.

As a tribute, Anfrando’s “Dragon’s Legend” get’s a complete new overhaul by Cyber People, respecting its original structure, concept and spirit, bringing it however into the 21st century.

Besides the almost 8-and-a-half-minute tribute of Dragon’s legend on the MEM-side, on the MIX-side you will find the DJ friendly ‘DJ DUB’, bringing you the compact essential of ‘Dragon’s Legend’ for any up-to-date Italian Disco set. (And if you want to call it Italo Disco, that’s perfectly fine with us too!)

With this release, Memix International continues where it’s predecessor stopped in 1989. Paves the road into a new era, and pays with this rerelease it’s respect to Anfrando Maiola and his Koto releases , such with full support from his heir.

With this release Memix International also brings a tribute to Alessandro Porta, the great Italian designer and visual artist, whose heirs were as kind to participate also, and made one of Alessandro’s drawings available for the sleeve of this unique release. It was Porta who was, on many occasions, responsible for the characteristic artwork of various Koto releases and, all together it will for sure make this release a well sought item which comes in a strictly limited edition of 500 units, so distributed on a ‘first to come, first to serve’ basis. Expected release and shipment: end of September/begin of October 2024.

Jade Hairpins waste no time fulfilling their second album's titular demand. From its harmony-drenched opening note to its baroque-anthemic conclusion, Get Me the Good Stuff is positively loaded with musical ideas, an absurdist buffet of sound and aesthetic that comes with one hell of a floorshow as the Hairpins stack those ideas higher and higher, almost daring them to crash to the floor. Instead, those elements - punksploitation, power pop, baggy, funk, and Italo disco are just some touchstones - are not only held aloft, they defy gravity and convention. These pyrotechnics are, in true Jade Hairpins fashion, something of a sleight of hand. While the music swaggers and gallops, Get Me the Good Stuff grapples with anxiety and self-doubt, obfuscating pain and alienation with sparkling wit and some straight-up ravers. Get Me the Good Stuff opens with one of those, "Let It Be Me," in which Jonah Falco shouts lyrics about being alone with one's shortcomings against guitars, synths, and harmonized vocals that are on the verge of closing in. The song is just over 90 seconds long, hitting with the gnarled-barb ferocity of punk and the gleeful insanity of theatrical art rock. It is, in other words, overwhelming. Or it would be if Jade Hairpins - Jonah Falco and Mike Haliechuk - weren't remarkably nimble in their ability to bring unity to sounds by placing them in competition against each other. When those sounds are adjacent, like the glam and disco that saturate "Drifting Superstition," the thrill of those universes colliding in the heat of an absolutely filthy clavichord line turns its lyrics, about the habit of solving personal problems by ignoring them, into a winner's anthem on the order of Bowie or Hot Chocolate. Get Me the Good Stuff arcs towards unequivocal joy as Falco, Jade Hairpins' primary lyricist, breaks these cycles and attempts to run away with his dreams. The arc is roughly analogous to how the album came to fruition. Four years removed from Harmony Avenue, an album of material that proved too strong to be contained within the narrative universe of Fucked Up's Dose Your Dreams, Jade Hairpins have gelled as a live act - with Tamsin M. Leach and Jack Goldstein centering them on stage - and planted their flag in the UK punk scene in which Falco has embedded himself. Working out new material live, Falco noticed that crowds were digging into his unfinished lyrics, and the album tightened around the anxieties of being in the spotlight, of being worthy of attention. At times, those songs are eager to please, like the album's title track in which a winking self-deprecation rubs up against the self-congratulatory bombast of Freddie Mercury, Falco simultaneously turning heads as a shooting star and a burning car. Elsewhere, as in "Better Here Than in Love," Jade Hairpins pitch themselves towards creating gorgeous soundscapes that exist nowhere else, channeling postpunk through the glimmering haze of '80s Japanese electronic music. Theatrical and personal, absurd and true-to-life, playful and serious, Get Me the Good Stuff is album of tremendous personal and artistic growth that signposts towards dozens of potential futures to come. It's not only worth the attention, it continuously rewards it.

Jade Hairpins waste no time fulfilling their second album's titular demand. From its harmony-drenched opening note to its baroque-anthemic conclusion, Get Me the Good Stuff is positively loaded with musical ideas, an absurdist buffet of sound and aesthetic that comes with one hell of a floorshow as the Hairpins stack those ideas higher and higher, almost daring them to crash to the floor. Instead, those elements_punksploitation, power pop, baggy, funk, and Italo disco are just some touchstones_are not only held aloft, they defy gravity and convention. These pyrotechnics are, in true Jade Hairpins fashion, something of a sleight of hand. While the music swaggers and gallops, Get Me the Good Stuff grapples with anxiety and self-doubt, obfuscating pain and alienation with sparkling wit and some straight-up ravers. Get Me the Good Stuff opens with one of those, "Let It Be Me," in which Jonah Falco shouts lyrics about being alone with one's shortcomings against guitars, synths, and harmonized vocals that are on the verge of closing in. The song is just over 90 seconds long, hitting with the gnarled-barb ferocity of punk and the gleeful insanity of theatrical art rock. It is, in other words, overwhelming. Or it would be if Jade Hairpins_Jonah Falco and Mike Haliechuk_weren't remarkably nimble in their ability to bring unity to sounds by placing them in competition against each other. When those sounds are adjacent, like the glam and disco that saturate "Drifting Superstition," the thrill of those universes colliding in the heat of an absolutely filthy clavichord line turns its lyrics, about the habit of solving personal problems by ignoring them, into a winner's anthem on the order of Bowie or Hot Chocolate. Get Me the Good Stuff arcs towards unequivocal joy as Falco, Jade Hairpins' primary lyricist, breaks these cycles and attempts to run away with his dreams. The arc is roughly analogous to how the album came to fruition. Four years removed from Harmony Avenue, an album of material that proved too strong to be contained within the narrative universe of Fucked Up's Dose Your Dreams, Jade Hairpins have gelled as a live act_with Tamsin M. Leach and Jack Goldstein centering them on stage_and planted their flag in the UK punk scene in which Falco has embedded himself. Working out new material live, Falco noticed that crowds were digging into his unfinished lyrics, and the album tightened around the anxieties of being in the spotlight, of being worthy of attention. At times, those songs are eager to please, like the album's title track in which a winking self-deprecation rubs up against the self-congratulatory bombast of Freddie Mercury, Falco simultaneously turning heads as a shooting star and a burning car. Elsewhere, as in "Better Here Than in Love," Jade Hairpins pitch themselves towards creating gorgeous soundscapes that exist nowhere else, channeling postpunk through the glimmering haze of '80s Japanese electronic music. Theatrical and personal, absurd and true-to-life, playful and serious, Get Me the Good Stuff is album of tremendous personal and artistic growth that signposts towards dozens of potential futures to come. It's not only worth the attention, it continuously rewards it.

Formed in 1995 in the small Swedish city of Mariestad by key players from Sweden's legendary hardcore scene, Wolfbrigade (known as Wolfpack until 1999) remain among Scandinavia's most respected, influential and reliable purveyors of real-world brute-force hullabaloo. On this eleventh album, the niftiest skills honed to a fine edge over 30 years are dispatched with greater style and intensity than ever.

The Heads’ Simon Price returns to his kandodo project with 'theendisinpsych'; "primitive pieces of psychedelic tuneage+years of wasted time=43 minutes of headphone bliss." It's the follow up to the 2019 collaboration with Wayne Maskell and Hugo Morgan, Kandodo 3 – K3, but this time back in solo-mode. He is now relocated in Northumbria, and has recorded the album himself in his home studio, drawing on his wide collection of music/instruments and the rural environment for inspiration. The new album fizzes and crackles with a verve that will activate the “turn on, tune in, drop out” sense in all listeners… Simon explained the album in a focused/out of focus track by track way… is this Price’s paean to his obsession with Bowie? chamba7 - octave mandolin through fuzz, tambo beat, in praise of Bowie compilations. chamba is malawian weed theendisinpsych - bought a reel to reel tape off ebay in 2005, ('Bowie radio interview tape, USA, 1970, 3 minutes?') then bought a machine to play it on in 2015. Heard the words and laid them onto a fuzzy break bed. Thought it all too relevant to today, prophetic David from his 'hippy' days (not a prophet or a stone age man) fuzzy oceans - played on 1 string spamjo, bouncing echo over 70's drum machine, 'we've fucked the oceans' freefalling - rolling cello and hissing cymbals with vocoder dreams comes with african/stationtostation artwork stylings for the sleeve..pre-apocalypse blues (and pinks), the world isn't going a good way a sumptuous 4 course sonic supper, tuck in.

JOYCE ist das neue Projekt von Jimmy Watkins (ex-Future Of The Left) mit einer Reihe Musikerfreunde, darunter Phil Thornalley (The Cure), Joe Hicklin (BIG SPECIAL), Gwenllian Anthony (Adwaith) und Paul Broome (Fauxchisels). Ihr Debütalbum wurde von Thom Edward (God Damn) bei KK's Steel Mill produziert, dem Studio des Judas Priest-Gitarristen Kenneth 'K.K.' Downing Jr. VOYCE ist ein wahres Soundkaleidoskop mit schnellen Indie-Pop-Krachern, Hits mit herrlich ausgelassenem Noise-Rock und nachdenklichen Spoken Word-Momenten. Ltd. Auflage auf "Luna Yellow" Deluxe Eco Mix Vinyl. 10% der Einnahmen gehen an die Wohltätigkeitsorganisation Prostate Cymru.

- "Rejoice at the power of Joyce with Voyce!" - Craig Charles, BBC 6 Music
- "X-Posure Hot One" – John Kennedy, Radio X

Yon Loader is a New Zealand recording project developed over distance and led by James Stuteley (Carb on Carb). Made in numerous sessions in various locations, the project weaves together many elements and talents of Aotearoa indie rock. Stuteley composed the core of the songs before fleshing them out with help from a cast of rotating collaborators and key engineer and producer Harry Lilley. These collaborators (including members of Recitals, Welcomer, For Everest, Model Home, Fouler, First Move, and Bad Friend) build Stuteley’s straightforward, candid compositions into an album of weighty, intricate rock songs with melancholic, diaristic emo-punk energy. Interweaving guitar and cello draws on the epic without going into excess. Slipping between thoughtful guitar passages and poignant interludes to expansive uplifting blowouts of repeated vocals and waves of cymbals, Yon Loader's debut album draws you in and holds you tightly.

The brand new album "Pacific Voyage" by Nautilus from Tokyo is a breezy summertime soundtrack which combines sunny Yacht Rock with a touch of cool 80s City Pop.

The Japanese Jazzfusion trio reinterpretates stone cold classics from this era in their typical signature way of playing.

Songs like the heavy sampled "What You Won't Do For Love" by Bobby Caldwell and Toto's "Georgy Porgy" get a completely new coat of paint and fresh interpretation translated into now and tomorrow.
Followed by a who's who of tracks from Donald Fagen, Michael McDonald, Shuggie Otis, Nohelani Cypriano and Toshiki Kadomatsu to name a few.
Guest appearances on this album are from UK soul singer John Turrell (Smoove & Turrell), German rap legend Toni-L (Advanced Chemistry with Torch) and Japanese soul singer Ryuto Kasahara who worked with Grooveman Spot and DJ Mitsu The Beats so far.

Enjoy this pacific voyage.

Following their acclaimed debut album from 2022 on Alien Transistor Records, What Are People For? now release their first 7" single from the upcoming album, with a dark ambient R’n’B banger "Criminals" on the A-side, telling tales of snoozing criminals and tantalising promises of "Someday we will all be rich".

The already legendary B-Side features a charming smokefilled-bubblegum Spanish & English cover of the Cypress Hill song "Illusions", together with The Notwist, which they developed whilst on tour together last year. Obviously, a product of the recent legalisation of marijuana in Germany: Ich liebe dich Marianne.

Unequal cycles in search of synchronous experiences: On his new album »Pounding«, Frank Bretschneider tells of distance, convergence and congruence in a continuous, ever-changing flow of events. What is often regarded as an unquestionable dogma in club music (for which Bretschneider has provided significant impetus since the 1990s) – the groove – appears precarious, unstable, and in motion. Pulse and accent are volatile encounters and have to be found again and again for short, delightful moments. Music becomes a constant process of negotiation.

In search of new sound spaces, Bretschneider has recently worked a lot with modular synthesizers, both solo (for example on »abtasten_halten«, 2020) and in collaborations, including the project Beispiel together with Jan Jelinek. »Pounding« was created using similar means – conceived in 2020 for the Pochen Biennale in Chemnitz, subsequently developed further and recorded in March and April 2023 on a sample-based modular system. And in fact, Bretschneider is once again exemplarily scanning his own sound material, such as dub effects that listen to themselves disintegrate; but also the human voice, or more precisely: the stuttering of fragments of speech, far in the distance but omnipresent, like a mysterious narration. Aesthetically, the eleven pieces form part of a series of works with a focus on percussion. Bretschneider has already perfected this approach with albums like »Rhythm« (2007) and has been shifting the perspective ever since, for ever new results.

Shifting is the basic principle of »Pounding«. Bretschneider combines elements that are in different aggregate states, changing their relationship to each other and thus ensuring the complex overall movement. He lets one to two-bar loops run against each other and through small manipulations, develops a network of rhythms that creates a hypnotic state in the counterplay of repetition and mutation, between clearly recognizable meter and disorientation. There are comparable approaches in aleatoric music. Bretschneider combines them with sounds and patterns that are reminiscent of step sequencer logic and at the same time go far beyond it. The result is relational techno. Never obvious, always restless and exciting.

Le mythique groupe français Indochine a gratifié ses fans le 14 juin dernier d'un nouveau titre, «Le chant des cygnes» qui ne cesse de progresser dans les airplays suisses et français. Indochine nous donne rendez-vous le 7 septembre prochain pour découvrir en intégralité leur nouvel album intitulé «Babel Babel», mixé par Mark «Spike» Stent et illustré par une pochette signée David LaChapelle.