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Drawing the night in around his private, unnerving vigil, Ellis Swan returns to Quindi Records with an album of cracked beauty and haunted balladry. The Chicago-based singer-songwriter debuted on the label last year with a collaborative project called Dead Bandit, a vividly produced instrumental set in thrall to the badlands and a laconic, languid Americana.

Under his own name, Swan records intimate, poetic songs in a stark fashion, so fragile they might disintegrate in between your fingers were you to pick them up. He draws the microphone close to pick up every whisper and drags the music through layer upon layer of tape fuzz, leaving room for atmospheric impressions which loom out of the walls like the ghosts of past misdeeds. These pieces play on the natural distortion and delirium which occurs at the farthest end of the night - the hour before dawn might hope to break the veil of darkness.

Swan's is a hauntological sound, but like the late Israeli rockabilly icon Charlie Megira his process strikes a spooked tone past revivalism and out of time or place. The only anchor which places Swan anywhere is the subtle presence of Katherine Swan providing lyrics to '3am' and lyrics and backing vocals to 'It Could Be Worse'.

The impression cast is of one man and his guitar, but there are other textures tucked into the music - the muffled murmur of a drum machine or a low frequency organ hum, some desolate piano, other treated percussive impulses which might well have been the work of incidental sprites while the four-track was rolling.

There are fuller cuts like 'Evening Sun' and the title track '3am' which play with structural dynamics and creep out of the shadows a touch, while passages of plaintive, instrumental unease such as the hypnotic, mantra-like 'Chinatown' protract the space between songs. 'Swing' lolls between moments of bottomless silence and a discernible, rickety funk, and 'Puppeteers Tears' teases out a buried drama. But primarily, it's the light touch of 'Horses Bones' and tin can tenderness of 'She's My Sweet Summer Storm' which spell out the spellbinding character of 3am; a singular creation fusing the best qualities of folk, blues and Americana with a fearlessly experimental sound palette.

E.L.I. lands on MRT shores and pollutes them with all sort of filth. The label second last instalment takes us to Britain and it is one of the most aggressive so far. The distorted screams, the ultra darkness, the violent atmosphere it creates is tinted in black and white by the stroboscopic lights of underground clubs. A perfect mixture of relentless basslines and straightforward rhythmic patterns for the dancers with no cause, with no hope for tomorrow. Places made famous by death and disaster.

In My Memory is a tribute to the 8 years that Nur Jaber lived in Berlin. A city of chaos, darkness and beauty all at the same time. As always, Jaber releases an EP that highlights vocals and collaborations with artists that coincidentally come into her life at a perfect timing. B1 is a collaboration with a German rapper that she met after one of her gigs in Leipzig; On the dancefloor at sunrise, she heard him rapping and instantly knew this was the next creation. After sending him the text she wrote during the pandemic (tired of all the rules, regulations & lack of dancing) he made some adjustments "Energie & Liebe" was created. A2 "In My Memory" brings power where you can feel Jaber's double personality of light and dark fighting each other brilliantly, which is also represented in her DJ sets. B1 is a banging remix from the one and only O.B.I. whose tracks are found in almost every one of her sets. Ending the EP on a melancholic & hopeful note, B2 introduces "Dance Dance (with the morning light)" with featured vocals from the artist herself. "I kept waking up singing these words, after a dream of us dancing under the moonlight in a big rave somewhere by the mountains." says Nur.

Dark Green Vinyl

UK producer Dennis Huddleston goes by the artist name of 36. He is a much-loved producer with a fine back catalogue which is investigated here with The Box, a new collection of his earliest and perhaps most admired works. They were all written between 2005 and 2012 and are drawn from albums such as 2009's Hypersona, 2010's Hollow and 2012's Lithea. The bumper six vinyl collection also features a bonus album, Orphans, of all new and previously unreleased tracks. There is a real depth of range and emotion to these tracks so it is no wonder the artist says they are some of the most personally cherished works he has written.

Blood Money is etched. It"s scratched out in bold, dark lines, with marimba, trumpet, and bass clarinet and contains some songs of Tom Waits" most memorable melodies. The songs are declarative, sardonic, unforgiving, musical dispatches, from the bottom of the heap. "Blood Money is flesh and bone, earthbound," said Waits. "The songs are rooted in reality: jealousy, rage, the human meat wheel...They are more car?nal. I like a beautiful song that tells you terrible things. We all like bad news out of a pretty mouth. I like songs to sound as though they"ve been aging in a barrel and distressed."

Limited edition picture disc in full colour printed sleeve

Covered In Stars featuring members of Luna, Spacemen 3, Slowdive, Spectrum, Add N To (X), The Vacant Lots, Spiritualized, Slipstream and more.

This is a wonderfully colourful, beautiful fun and powerfully transcendent album by Fuxa, Featuring driving drum machines, gritty fuzz bitten guitars on The Sun Is Shining and Mary, 80's neon midnight post-punk disco grooves on Shadazz and perfectly blissed out floating in space vibes (Help Me Please and Cluster Fuxa). The synths shimmer and elevate, guitars attack and sparkle and the vocals deliver dark romanticism which evoke often David Cronenberg inspired fantasies such as photographs of car crashes, crushes on perfect strangers and unknown futures. 
 - Simon Scott (Slowdive)


Fuxa returns in 2022 with a new album  'Covered In Stars'
 
Eight new songs and several years in the making, of what can best be described as a full on sonic explosion. Mixing space-rock elements, krautrock rhythms, punchy beats and swirling electronic sweeps and beeps that would make for a perfect soundtrack for any warp speed travelling cosmonauts with phasers set to fun!!
 
For the past 25 years Fuxa front man Randall Nieman has no doubt been on a cosmic journey in sound and space. from his early beginnings a part of Detroit locals Windy and Carl as a guitarist/synth player, running and releasing close to 100 releases on his own label Mind Expansion, to later joining Sonic Boom's (Spacemen 3) group Spectrum for close to a decade. Performing the songs that Spacemen taught him touring across North America and Europe as well as recording and releasing several releases with Sonic under the Spectrum moniker. 
Randall has since worked with and released numerous amounts of material with the likes of Martin Rev (Suicide), The Telescopes and Dean and Britta (Luna) to name a few.
 
It is no surprise that Randall would once again build this new album with friends that he became close to over the years musically and there's certainly no shortage of indie royalty star power on this album
 
Produced by Randall Nieman, Richard Formby and Stefan Persson.
Mastered by Simon Scott (Slowdive)
This album features guest appearances from Britta Phillips and Dean Wareham (Luna), Ann Shenton (Add N to (X)), Mark Refoy and Jonny Mattock (Spiritualized, Slipstream), Roger Brogan (Spectrum/Dean Wareham), Jared Artaud (Vacant Lots) and more! Each adding an unmistakable and timeless element that Fuxa's core members have created. 
It would be hard not to notice the sheer aesthetic glory of this release as once again Randall has chosen the amazing James Marsh (most would remember him as the phenomenal artist responsible for all the Talk Talk albums over the years. His artwork is not only featured on the jacket but on both sides of the limited edition picture disc vinyl.
Covered in stars is a celebration of 25 years of music and friendships made along the way. 

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Fuxa! 

 The Orielles have created their first genuinely
contemporary record - an experimental double
album self-produced in collaboration with producer
Joel Anthony Patchett (King Krule, Tim Burgess).
 In doing so, The Orielles have utilised holistic jazz
practices, oblique 21st Century electronica,
experimental 1960s tape loop methods,
otherworldly Auto-Tuned vocal sounds, the downer
dub of Burial, Sonic Youth’s focus on improvisation
and feedback, and Brian Eno’s legendary Oblique
Strategy cards.

Perpetual Doom proudly presents the new album from Earl Vallie: Ghost Approaches. Brandishing a new moniker and a reenergized spirit, Vallie teams up with producer and drummer Greg Saunier of Deerhoof to deliver a collection of boldly weird and defiantly life-affirming songs. Earl Vallie cordially invites you on a journey into the depths of the working-class artist, the neon-sludge pit where workaday drudgery mixes with outsized desires and jumbotron dreams. Ghost Approaches is a cry of resilience, what opener “Ready to Die” calls a “blood-curdled promise to set things right.” That song kicks off the record with a Springsteen-esque howl, with charging guitars and an echoing wail. It’s an appropriate sentiment for a record that begun with Vallie’s move from Joshua Tree to LA and the pandemic-borne worry that music might be behind him. But just like the burst of synths that lifts the dancefloor love affair of “Hollow Skies,” Ghost Approaches ascends with a new, bolder sound. Together with Saunier, whose drumming gives the album a gritty pulse, Vallie adds new heft to his desert-lean tunes until even the album’s darkest moments (“Reap the Seeds of Love”) exhibit a bioluminescent glow. But behind it all is Vallie’s unmistakable voice. Ghost Approaches features a remarkable range of musical contributions, from the chilling sax at the end of “My Babys Broomstick” to background vocals of Val Glenn on “Hollow Skies” and Heidi Alexander on the doo-wop inflected “Prom.” “My only goal,” Earl says, “is to uplift people with sounds and melodies that are undeniably relatable and healing for all.” It may be a ghost approaching—but it’s a good one.

Nachdem CHARLOTTE WESSELS 2021 mit ihrer elektrisierenden Song-Sammlung Tales From Six Feet Under den Grundstein für ihre vielversprechende Solo-Karriere gelegt hat, veröffentlicht die ehemalige DELAIN-Frontfrau und Songwriterin nun den Nachfolger,
Tales From Six Feet Under Vol II, der am 7. Oktober 2022 über Napalm Records erscheinen wird.

Wie bereits auf dem Erstwerk wurden alle Instrumente von Wessels selbst eingespielt oder programmiert und in Eigenregie in ihrem eigenen Six Feet Under Studio produziert. Unterstützt wurde sie dabei von ihrer loyalen Patreon-Community. Über diese Plattform veröffentlicht Wessels jeden Monat einen neuen Song und Tales From Six Feet Under Vol II ist eine Sammlung aus den Releases des letzten Jahres. Wessels Stil reicht dabei von melancholischem Alternative Pop bis hin zu synthielastigem Rock und verbindet atmosphärische Elemente mit härteren Klängen, wobei sie Genregrenzen mit Leichtigkeit überschreitet.

Dieser vielschichtige Reichtum an Songs beweist Wessels außergewöhnliche Fähigkeit, aufrichtige Gefühle und wahre Emotionen durch ihre Kunst auszudrücken und verschiedene Stile auf eindrucksvolle Weise miteinander zu kombinieren. Tales From Six Feet Under Vol. II ist ein Zauber seinesgleichen und zur
selben Zeit der Vorbote für alle weiteren Projekte von CHARLOTTE WESSELS. Hauptzielgruppe: Delain, Kamelot, Dark Sarah, Within Temptation, Epica, Allisa White-Gluz

Due to COVID-19, the French avant-garde band Magma was unable to perform live, so they decided to dive into the studio to create new material. This resulted in a brand new album titled Kãrtëhl, a collective album such as they have not made in a long time. The band reformed in 2020 and added new musicians to the lineup, which created opportunities for new innovative compositions. After the rather dark 2019 Zëss, this new work Kãrtëhl features bright and resolutely optimistic collective new work, the result of an “Operation Kartëhl”.

The 2LP Kãrtëhl includes 6 new tracks and an additional 2 bonus tracks, which are demos from Christian Vander’s personal collection, recorded at home in 1978. Housed in a gatefold sleeve, this 2LP-set features an etch on Side D.

The Posies released their third studio album Frosting On The Beater back in 1993. It featured a darker sound than their prior work, partly due to the production style of Don Fleming, who previously worked with Sonic Youth and Screaming Trees amongst others. The album spawned three singles, “Dream All Day”, “Solar Sister” and “Definite Door”.

Frosting On The Beater is available as a 2LP and includes an insert.

THE RETALIATORS MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK is the high-octane original soundtrack from the award-winning horror-thriller THE RETALIATORS. It includes special appearances from some of the biggest names in rock music such as Five Finger Death Punch, Tommy Lee, Papa Roach, The Hu, Ice Nine Kills, Escape The Fate and more, both on screen and on the original soundtrack. The album is available on a limited collectors edition 180gm red & black splatter vinyl pressing housed in a gatefold sleeve with exclusive movie stills, a 24x36 movie poster collectable, blood spattered o-card and including a digital download. It is also available on digipak CD and cassette formats.

Bezbog is a duo formed in 2013 by David Machado and Dora Vieira. Since their first release in 2014, the self-titled Bezbog EP, they have been exploring both acoustic and electronic instruments to create music that lives somewhere in between genres, styles, doctrines and musical cultures. Alongside many underground venues throughout Portugal and Spain, they have shown their work in festivals such as No Noise, Milhões de Festa, Out.Fest, and TESLA at the Castile and León Museum of Contemporary Art, and other places such as the Serralves Museum in Porto and MK Gallery in the UK.

Their latest long play takes its name from the solar deity of the slavic pantheon, Dazhbog - the god that gives, and its idea flows into the concept of this record, through the themes of life, light and darkness, birth and rebirth, and the idea of the omnipresent cycle. We can find cycles in nature, music and life itself can be thought of as a cycle, from the micro to the macro scale.

As they seek to embed their music with these ideas, in a way, their music becomes new sacred music, the music of modern pagan rituals. While Bezbog’s music seeks to replicate the meaning of what that music was, an escape from the profane and a connection to the sacred plane, in form it reconstructs it in light of the duo’s influences, from the obvious portuguese and pagan folklore, chamber and sacred music, to the darkness of doom and heavy metal, the structured improvisations of north-american jazz and psycho-acoustic hallucinations and the hash transients of electronic music.

Dazhbog, while a passenger of the same train of thought as their previous studio work, comes in a different direction from it. Chernobog consists of two short and heavy tracks, painstakingly crafted during several months, while their latest studio effort is a long suite of 8 tracks, composed and recorded live throughout 2020, that form a light and bright record where the duo embedded most of their influences. The album will come out on vinyl in late March, in time for the pagan celebration of Spring and Fertility.

Inspired by space travel, arts and mental health, the primary aspiration of Kolibri Space Shuttle (KSS) is to offer ravers a trip full of emotions. Beyond the raw and hypnotic beats, Kolibri Space Shuttle EP delivers extraordinary atmospheres, superb sound design and highly driven grooves through 5 unique journeys. 5 tracks to make you travel and sweat. Side A is dark, strong and hypnotic whilst side B is driven, melodic and sometimes emotional, “featuring a cover of the incredible track ‘Rej’ by Âme”. Welcome aboard the Kolibri Space Shuttle – you’re in for a special journey. PETRU The Corsican techno artist and producer PETRU is a creative, charismatic and energetic Live performer. From the Kolibri Space Shuttle he observes and cruises through constellations that he translates into sonic experiences. His passion for storytelling drives him to experiment with various sub-genres of techno developed through NSTNKT, Kolibri, Grounded and Tribute series. PETRU’s music is oscillating between hypnotic and dark beats, melodic and beautiful journeys, from impactful techno rollers to experimental soundscapes – occasionally paying homage to his major sources of inspiration.

Death. Sex. Doomed Romance. These three simple phrases define the sound and thematic presence of Panic Priest. The musical project of singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Jack Armondo (of “dark pop” outfit My Gold Mask), Panic Priest is centered around Armondoʼs deep, crooning vocals while weaving together dreamy guitars and synths. For fans of New Order, Tears for Fears, The Sisters of Mercy, and Clan of Xymox.

Panic Priestʼs long awaited sophomore effort Second Seduction is a significant sonic expansion on the projectʼs signature sound (which was first unveiled by way of the debut self-titled offering in 2018). Co-produced and engineered by Brian Fox (Wingtips, Ganser), the new album intertwines classic genres such as darkwave, post-punk and goth while a richly layered modern synth-pop sensibility elevates the album to something larger than simple nostalgic recreation. Performed and composed almost entirely by Armondo (with key contributions by Twin Tribes, Vincent Segretario of Wingtips and Gretta Rochelle of My Gold Mask), Second Seduction is simultaneously personal yet fantastical. A cathartic account of Armondoʼs real life experiences, stemming from personal heartbreak, life as a non-monogamous individual and even current political anxieties, be prepared to once again be tempted and lured into the world of Panic Priest. Midnight Mannequin Records is proud to present this deluxe reissue of Second Seduction, pressed on limited edition “Kiss Me Dead” ghost white (frosted clear) 140 gram vinyl. Includes OBI strip and insert with lyrics and liner notes.

Black & White Splatter Vinyl

To celebrate the 30 year anniversary of Shakespears Sister’s seminal album ‘Hormonally Yours’,London Records have announced special edition releases across multiple formats.
A double platinum and top 3 UK album ‘Hormonally Yours’ secured Siobhan Fahey and Marcella Detroit a place in British pop history, spawning the single Stay - which spent a staggering eight consecutive weeks at the top of the UK charts - and winning the duo an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contemporary Song Collection.
‘Hormonally Yours’ also features singles ‘Goodbye Cruel World’ and ‘I Don’t Care’, tackles friendships gone wrong on ‘My Sixteenth Apology’, powerful, dangerous attraction on ‘Emotional Thing’ and documents a friend’s coming out on ‘Are We In Love Yet?’ Fan favourite ‘The Trouble With Andre’, the full-throttle glam-blues of ‘Cat Woman and glorious finale ‘Hello (Turn Your Radio On) is the album’s glorious finale: an exhalation; a glorious, earth-shuddering moment that recalls the epic melancholy of David Bowie’s ‘Five Years’ and The Beatles’ ‘A Day In The Life’.
Shakespears Sisters second LP, Hormonally Yours, provided the perfect encapsulation of Shakespears Sister’s musical ying and yang; a deftly delivered balance of pop melody with a spikey alternative darkness