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Original pioneers of rare groove, PUSH, make a welcome return with an existing and exciting album. Originally released in 2004, now 20 years later it’s still alive and kicking. “Push People” is a cross pollenation of classic underground rare groove and contemporary feel good funk n' soul in the shape of heartfelt songs and incredible instrumental pieces. PUSH emerged from the underground London club scene in 1987, where they were at the heart of a community that thrived on JB inspired Funk, Blaxploitation soundtracks and raw soul-jazz. Push toured Europe and Japan and were regulars onstage at Gilles Peterson's legendary Dingwalls’ Talking Loud & Saying Something sessions. They have worked with the likes of Style Council's Paul Weller and Mick Talbot and have long provided the soulful foundation for the regular European tours of US divas like Candi Staton and Marlena Shaw. The triumvirate of key band members Crispin Taylor (drums), Ernie McKone (bass) and Mark Vandergucht (guitar) also doubled up as the rhythm section for the innovative Galliano – a conscious and wayward band that sold in excess of 800, 000 albums. PUSH are one of the mainstays of the Eighties Rare Groove and Acid Jazz scene alongside Brand New Heavies, Young Disciples and Soul II Soul. PUSH is on a mission, bringing a breath of fresh air and a wealth of musical experience into a very popular scene for people that "Feel the Funk!"

A bit more than half a decade on from his widely acclaimed debut Vanishing Points from 2018, Swiss guitarist, composer, and improv musician Manuel Troller releases his new record Halcyon Future. A rhythmically dense and ambiguous, yet joyful ride for unstable times, a plea for warmth and hopeful resistance.

Troller’s mode of incorporating, zooming in, and expanding on small elements from improvised sessions creates a multilayered work of driving rhythms and abstract, vibrating textures. Opening with Halcyon Future I’s distinctive open pulse, this first piece guides us through subtle harmonic shifts that are almost unrecognizable as they take place over extended time, overlapping and creating a sense of ambiguity until the piece reaches an almost optimistic level with Mario Hänni’s unexpected introduction of driving acoustic drums. Relentlessly and with increasing excitement, heavy electronic 80s bass drums and an armada of layered hi-hats push them on, leading to the all-incorporating melodic finale.

The two long pieces Halcyon Future I and Halcyon Future II focus on forward momentum. In between them stands DNA, a purposely directionless contemplation on emotion as such. It is raw, naked, and confrontational, with a tender and subtly changing chord progression creating intimacy and proximity, abstraction and warmth, like a beautifully vibrant hologram for the listener to walk around in.

The B-side with its 20-minute Halcyon Future II features playful futuristic guitars, enhancing and challenging the stereo image that Troller is already well-known for. As it’s given time to develop and take root, the ever-varying guitar interactions densify and the staccato patterns jump out of the speakers with joy, creating excitement and building momentum. Compared to Side A, things turn to a slightly more complex rhythmical, melodic, and harmonic feel here. There are easy references, such as Manuel Göttsching’s E2-E4 or Pat Metheny performing Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint, but Troller goes a different and very much more concrete way. Although the piece has been recorded in various places and through a long process of overdubbing, there is an astonishingly strong live feel to it, from beginning to the end, from the slow rise to the full spectrum and the almost krautrock-like finale. Improvisers Hans Koch on soprano saxophone and Michael Flury on heavily fuzzed trombone join in, while Troller and Mario Hänni on many guitars, bass, drum machines, and acoustic drums provide a joyous driving entity, not giving up until it all breaks down again. There is overkill and brute force, though never without depth and a vision of future.

In the musical scope of Halcyon Future, there is no need for an absolute definition of things. A continuously changing interpretation of repetitive and variable elements fading in and out of focus tells a story of an excited sense of acceptance. Feelings of transcendence stem from Troller’s layering of constantly shifting rhythmic structures with unforeseen improvised harmonic changes. Drum machine parts overlayed with acoustic drums shift between musical modes, anchoring the album on the verge of a jazz-influenced, motorik, post-ECM balearic plateau. Abstract textural elements gently swirl around and behind all that is rhythm, providing a submissive counterpoint. As with much of Troller’s work, Halcyon Future is an album that unfolds slowly, revealing more of its richness, detail, and subtle beauty at each listen.

Halcyon Future is a joint release by three:four records and meakusma.

Yes, *that* Al Hirt record. Featuring the godlike "Harlem Hendoo", looped unforgettably by De La Soul for the legendary Buhloone Mind State cut, "Ego Trippin' (Part Two)"!

Al Hirt's infamous Soul In The Horn is inextricably tangled up in crate-digger lore. Originally released in 1967, the album has been in heavy, heavy demand for over 30 years, entirely down to the majestic soul-jazz fire of "Harlem Hendoo". And it's a song so good, so vital, so timeless, that it will always tower above everything else in its proximity. This one track alone is worth the price of admission - even if the cost of entry were $100 or even $1000.

However, it would be an error to dismiss this record as merely a one tracker, loaded as it is with dope samples for adventurous beat makers. Certainly the funkiest Al Hirt record, it definitely lives up to the "soul" in the title. Thanks to composer Paul Griffin and arranger Teacho Wiltshire, Hirt got uncharacteristically free and groovy throughout. It comes on more like an obscure KPM library funk record than the easy listening Al was notorious for.

A Louisiana trumpeter and band leader who made Allen Toussaint’s “Java” famous, Al Hirt was also known for TV themes, Dixieland, Swing and being a minority owner of the New Orleans Saints. Unlike every other Al Hirt record - and despite most "diggers" claiming otherwise - this here gem is genuinely hard to come across "in the wild". Normally, you can't give Al Hirt records away, except this particular one, which raises pulses in the crate digging community to life-threatening levels. For every owner claiming to have found their copy for a dollar, there's scores more claiming to have *never* unearthed one in the field. So, paradoxically, you can consider this the most tricky-to-pull "thrift store record", ever. This is why we're finally making it available for everyone, not just those with endless hours to spend scouring the global goodwills!

Soul In The Horn represented an expressive detour into authentic soul-jazz for Al Hirt. Throughout, we're struck by a fierce, fiery energy that's otherwise absent from his typically easy listening work. Without question, the slinky, magical "Harlem Hendoo" is the standout, here. It's also the reason why the record is so scarce and commands awe among crate diggers, sounding like something from an obscure and deeply revered spiritual jazz record. As is often the case, the true genius of the song is tricky to do justice to; it's like a minor miracle of songwriting and performance that simply swooned down from the heavens on the back of horns, bells and harpsichord. It's one of the sweetest musical compositions ever recorded inside a studio - it's only failing is that it's just too short. Sampled brilliantly by De La Soul, it has also been used by The Roots for "Stay Cool" and Nightmares On Wax for "Damn".

The rest of the record makes for a mighty fine listen. From the opening cover of Booker T. & The MG's "Honey Pot", to the propulsive, ultra-funky "Mess Around", it's nothing but a good time. Given its title, the elegant stepper "Calypsoul" sounds exactly as you'd hope whilst the melancholic, wistful "Long Gone" hurts so good. Truly, this is just dying to be looped up, Al's muted playing capturing a soulful longing only horns can often achieve. The bluesy, slo-mo swing of "Sweetlips" oscillates between cool disaffection and swelling pride whilst the graceful, low-key funky "Girl" closes out the A-Side in the fine style. Ushering in the B-Side, the brief but brilliant strut of "Love Ya' Baby" shines brightly before the skipping funky-jazz of true highlight "Sunday-Goin' To Meetin' Time" demands both your attention and your dancing shoes. The mellifluous piano-funk of bass and horn-drenched "Snap Back" serves as the sumptuous prelude to "Harlem Hendoo"'s main character energy before the irrepressible, upbeat R&B of "Ludwig" closes out this quite remarkable album. An album deserving of a place in every serious record collection.

The audio for Soul In The Horn has been carefully remastered by Be With regular Simon Francis, ensuring it sounds better than ever. Cicely Balston's expert skills have made sure nothing is lost in the cut whilst the records have been pressed to the highest possible standard at Record Industry in Holland. The original sleeve has been restored here at Be With HQ as the finishing touch to this long overdue re-issue. This is after-hours music. Let it speak for itself. Listen. Listen to the soul in Al Hirt's horn.

" The solo venture is expansive and easy on the ears. It's so serene yet expressive of big terrain and huge vistas of emotional landscapes of sound. He works off his own scale. Everything flows outwards. Effortlessly." - Irish Times Experimentation in early electronic music in the Sahara from the singular Mamman Sani. Dreamy organs and droning melodies reinterpret ancient folk tradition into a sublime fantastical soundscape. Never before released recordings from the very beginning - unreleased tracks from his first album, recordings of a short-lived trio, and a cover of an American folk ballad.

Die in Edinburgh ansässige fünfköpfige Band rEDOLENT veröffentlicht ihr Debüt über das aufstrebende schottische Label und Kreativzentrum Post Electric (Heimat von Hamish Hawk, Humor, Iona Zajac, Voka Gentle). "Dinny Geet", eine akribische Mischung aus eckigem Pop, Elektronik und eigenwilligen Melodien, bietet auf zehn eleganten, durchdachten Tracks harte Realität und freudige Flucht. Obwohl rEDOLENT so unterschiedliche Einflüsse wie Mount Kimble, King Krule, Animal Collective, Brockhampton, LCD Soundsystem, Madvillain, Tom Vek, Clairo, CAN und Talking Heads zitieren, gehen sie zweifellos ihren eigenen Weg und kreieren einen eigenen maßgeschneiderten Sound.

Die in Edinburgh ansässige fünfköpfige Band rEDOLENT veröffentlicht ihr Debüt über das aufstrebende schottische Label und Kreativzentrum Post Electric (Heimat von Hamish Hawk, Humor, Iona Zajac, Voka Gentle). "Dinny Geet", eine akribische Mischung aus eckigem Pop, Elektronik und eigenwilligen Melodien, bietet auf zehn eleganten, durchdachten Tracks harte Realität und freudige Flucht. Obwohl rEDOLENT so unterschiedliche Einflüsse wie Mount Kimble, King Krule, Animal Collective, Brockhampton, LCD Soundsystem, Madvillain, Tom Vek, Clairo, CAN und Talking Heads zitieren, gehen sie zweifellos ihren eigenen Weg und kreieren einen eigenen maßgeschneiderten Sound.

Winston Hytwr is a co-release presented by K and Perennial. Born in Columbus, Ohio in March 1993, Winston Hightower is a prolific home recording artist with an expansive discography that crawls across space and genre. A staple in the Midwestern punk/DIY scene, his first work under the eponymous moniker was a self-released tape in January 2015. Since then, he has put out over 100 songs on tape, online and on video. The music defies easy categorization, and instead breezes through a landscape of synths that effortlessly blend pop, rock, rap and jazz. In doing so, Hightower continues to build a cohesive, ever-morphing experiment in pushing the boundaries of underground guitar music, all with his signature wit and charm. This body of work is almost entirely written and recorded alone in his room, causing many to refer to him as `the Black R Stevie Moore,' a fitting epithet as his influences likewise include modern "lo-fi" progenitors such as Guided by Voices and Vivian Girls. Hightower has released much of his own work and more on his tape label, the FAH-Q Catalog, which boasts over 12 releases He has also collaborated with numerous other Ohio legends such as members of Times New Viking, Slant 6, and Ron House. Both mysterious and effervescent, Winston shape shifts into roles that have also included pro skater (UNITY, Adidas) and touring hardcore guitarist/bassist (most recently with the groups Minority Threat and Twompsax). With such an extensive pedigree, and having toured ceaselessly since he was a teenager, it's shocking that Winston Hightower is largely unknown outside of the Midwest. K records is thus thrilled to be putting out his first ever record, "Winston Hytwr" KLP292/PRNL50 which will cull songs from his previous and impossible to find releases. Remixed by Capt. Tripps Ballsington and Remastered by Amy Dragon. This release continues the rich tradition of DIY bands crafting instant pop hits entirely on their own terms, which has long been the hallmark of the International Pop Underground. 1000 vinyl copies.

Thou has always been a force of raw energy and unapologetic dissent, defying easy categorization and challenging listeners to confront the complexities of existence. Though often lumped in with New Orleans sludge bands like Eyehategod and Crowbar, Thou transcends genre boundaries, drawing inspiration from a diverse array of influences spanning from `90s proto-grunge icons like Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and Soundgarden (all of whom they've covered extensively) to the raw intensity of obscure `90s DIY hardcore punk found on labels like Ebullition, Vermiform, and Crimethinc. Their latest record Umbilical, Thou's first full-length release of original music since their 2018 Sacred Bones debut Magus, is their firmest nod to the latter - a record filled with mosh-ready riffs, heavy breakdowns and scathing vocals. The band's aesthetic and political impulses have always been punk and like anyone embroiled in the subculture Thou have been exploring what it means to exist within and without a rigid morality. That exploration takes thematic center on Umbilical and their self-assessment is as harsh as that of the world around them.

Thou has always been a force of raw energy and unapologetic dissent, defying easy categorization and challenging listeners to confront the complexities of existence. Though often lumped in with New Orleans sludge bands like Eyehategod and Crowbar, Thou transcends genre boundaries, drawing inspiration from a diverse array of influences spanning from `90s proto-grunge icons like Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and Soundgarden (all of whom they've covered extensively) to the raw intensity of obscure `90s DIY hardcore punk found on labels like Ebullition, Vermiform, and Crimethinc. Their latest record Umbilical, Thou's first full-length release of original music since their 2018 Sacred Bones debut Magus, is their firmest nod to the latter - a record filled with mosh-ready riffs, heavy breakdowns and scathing vocals. The band's aesthetic and political impulses have always been punk and like anyone embroiled in the subculture Thou have been exploring what it means to exist within and without a rigid morality. That exploration takes thematic center on Umbilical and their self-assessment is as harsh as that of the world around them.

‘EVERYTHING IS HERE’ is a journey through space and time, inspired by the more rarefied aspects of prog rock and the wistful side of psychedelia.


Fusing these influences with the accessibility of French electronic and the groove of R&B and disco, this album depicts the sweet dizziness of contemplation. Nostalgic, yet determined and modern in it’s genre blending, the first album of Kartell truly reveals what’s been underlining in his previous EP.

Taking influences in the space and dream pop aesthetic, the musical approach of the album embraces the 60’s and 70’s fascination for outer space, exotic locations, technologies and science fiction which was on the edge of becoming reality.

Nebulous textures and otherworldly sounds characteristic of space rock are infused throughout the record, while keeping a focus on making catchy songs, leaning on a minor-key groove and a pop yearning. It’s also a challenge and an artistic proposition to gather a wide range of genres to tell a story. Densely produced and cinematic, the album draws a truly living landscape where live bass, drums and guitars hold the line, evolving around hazy effects and synthesizer layers.

10 Year Anniversary Gatefold 2LP 10 year anniversary gatefold 2LP edition of Cult of Luna's take on Fritz Lang's Metropolis film, Vertikal. "Somewhere Along The Highway" and "Eternal Kingdom" were inspired by the landscape of Västerbotten, the county we are from. We realised that there was only one way to go for us: to the city, into the future. Making a droney John Carpenter-esque album would be too easy and we've never been about taking the simple route. I was studying film at the time and had been floored by the aesthetic of German expressionism. This resonated perfectly with Erik Olofsson, who had just got into Italian futurism. This was a real challenge. We put in a lot of effort to realize our vision of the stale, artificial city in all aspects of what an album is. The way we played guitar (only down strokes), the production, artwork and band photos, everything was done with the vision as a guide. "Vertikal" is the album where we had the most precise vision of what we wanted to do and worked hardest to transform it from an idea into reality. A lot of things happened during the years between "Eternal Kingdom" and "Vertikal" and I could continue writing for ages but this will do for now. Ten years have passed since its release and what felt like a rebirth of the band, the band that is still ongoing with new goals and missions. It's a full circle kind of thing. At the time we had no label and now we are releasing it on our very own. Life is strange. Johannes Persson - Umeå December 2022

A holy grail for fans of French boogie, early hip hop, Arabic funk and Balearic bops,"Ettika" has been seriously sought after since Vidal Benjamin found it in the 1€ bin back in 2006. Teasing the ears of the underground via Vidal's 'Balearic Nightmare' mix for Noncollective, copies of the original were soon snapped up completely, and the later adopters were sated by a Blackdisco edit from Alexis Le-Tan (himself gifted Vidal's second copy), which is now also rare as hen's teeth. The fervour for the track is easy to understand. Underpinned by an endlessly buoyant bass groove, chanted female vocals dart out the speakers like a post- modern mantra while synth vamps flare in stuttering stereo.

Middle-Eastern motifs add an air of mystery, but this truly belongs in a dance floor utopia. That the track was the product of a 'back-to-work' scheme aimed at unemployed immigrant youth in Rouen only adds to the appeal. Led by teacher Bernard Guégan, a quartet of students delivered lyrics in French and Arabic inspired by their rejection letters, serving a little social commentary and a lot of funk. If you're mad on Ahmed Fakroun and Shams Dinn, or even those folks in the Bush of Ghosts, then this is a must have for you.

Archeology isn't just about excavation, there should be interpretation too, and in this case it comes from Italian duo Hear & Now and Leeds' The Veteran Delinquents. The former furnish the 12" with two radical takes, the dreamy downtempo stroll of their French Remix - all unhurried percussion, Gilmour-riffing and coastal élan - and the peaktime pump of their Arab Remix, which transports the original vocal into a land of desert new beat and Balearic trance with a little space left for some frazzled fretwork. If you've followed their work with Claremont you know the quality on show.

The Veteran Delinquents, the collaborative vehicle of Leeds stalwarts Craig Christon and Tim Hutton, condense a lifetime of club experiences into their remix, establishing the infectious groove of the original before subverting with chugging bass and winking acid, all augmented with their own slick synth work. The original was an all time classic at Craig's Joe's Bakery nights way back when, and this new interpretation is both respectful and revolutionary.

Strawberry Wind, produced by Richard Swift (Nathaniel Rateliff and The Night Sweats, Foxygen, The Shins) not only delivers on a promise to create an honest album for kids and parents but it represents what Baylin calls the “beautiful divide,” of juggling family life with her creative life, a difficult task by any measure. “The divide in me is easy to feel because I invest 100% of myself into my family and often the creative gets put to the side,” she explained, “so when I decided to begin writing for this album it just poured out of me.” Now singer / songwriter Jessie Baylin shares that creative outpouring on her debut children’s album, ‘Strawberry Wind’. Throughout the album, Baylin doesn’t hold back on telling it like it is. Weaving through lyrical themes of dream life, supermoons and summertime vibes are some gentle doses of reality. “I don’t want to lie to my kids. Life is hard sometimes and you need to find a way to deal with it... there will always be things in life you can’t control. But, you can dream of a better world and make your own refuge,” says Baylin, who is mom to 4-year-old Violet and is expecting her second child with her husband. Baylin, who’s released four critically-acclaimed albums over the years, says the seed was planted for this album after recording a cover of Harry Nilsson’s He Needs Me from the kids’ film Popeye. “The song has a childlike sense, but the message is very deep. It’s magical, it’s dark, and it hit all the right notes. I wanted to do an album that feels like that” she says. “Since becoming a mother, I found myself being around the house a lot and I started gravitating to these wonderful albums I remembered from my own childhood - The Beatles, Harry Nilsson’s The Point!, John Lennon, Roger Miller’s Robin Hood and Carole King’s Really Rosie." The magic of those iconic 1970s records she mentions is that they’re all grounded in solid songwriting and were never dumbed down for the audience. “Those records felt very honest and that was my mission here. I also wanted it to feel magical and remind people of the child inside of all of us that is filled with a sense of wonder and pure joy and hope.”

“It’s just too easy to make a standard dance track,” Aphex Twin said of his mindset back in 1992. “You’ve got to put a bit of thought into it to get something a bit different.”

‘Didgeridoo’ was released on the Belgian R&S Records label in 1992, and originally peaked at #55 in the UK singles chart in May of that year. Over the last 32 years the track has become one of the essential Aphex Twin tracks in a gargantuan catalogue that continues to amaze and inspire.

“I wanted to have some tracks to play to finish the raves I used to play in Cornwall, to really kill everybody off so they couldn’t dance,” Richard D James, AKA Aphex, told Select magazine back in the 90s. “Digeridoo came out of that.”

Released as a 4 track EP that also included early Aphex productions (now classics) including the industrial, acidic clang of ‘Flap Head’ and hyperbolic futurism of ‘Isopropanol’, the release cemented a relationship with the R&S label that went on to release the ‘Xylem Tube’ EP and the pivotal album ‘Selected Ambient Works 85-92’ in the same year. The label’s owner & A&R Renaat Vandepapeliere reflected “When I first heard Aphex Twin’s music I said, ‘This is it!’, and everybody else said, ‘You’re crazy!’ …a lot of the hardcore R&S fans dropped us. To them it wasn’t music.”

‘Didgeridoo’ (Expanded Edition) is the first time the EP has been re-issued with extra material. Whilst digging in his DAT archive (allegedly stored in an airtight military ammo box), Richard James revisited the recordings, encoding them through a Nakamichi CR7e cassette deck, using the customised deck with vari-speed to encode at speeds “felt right at the time”. Alongside these CR7e versions, the original mixes have been remastered by Beau Thomas at Ten Eight Seven Mastering, offering a dilated insight into one of electronic music’s most endearing releases.

‘Digeridoo’ (Expanded Edition) by Aphex Twin is available on R&S Records from 31st May 2024.

Auch im deutschsprachigen Raum spätestens seit dem massiven ESC-Hit "Calm After The Storm" (mit The Common Linnets) vor exakt 10 Jahren eine feste Größe, verbindet die niederländische Singer-Songwriterin Ilse DeLange ihre Country-Wurzeln fürs neue Kapitel mit einer massiven Dosis zeitgenössischem Pop und druckvollem Rock , um zwischendurch auch Eighties-, Indie- und Electro-Elemente aufblitzen zu lassen.

2024 Repress!

Limited 10 year anniversary repress. In May 2014, Icelandic producer Yagya released his fifth album, Sleepygirls, across three slabs of vinyl on Dutch label Delsin. It's a deep, spacious and dubbed out affair that stays locked at a pleasingly sedentary tempo throughout. Since 2002 the definitive member of the Thule Musik collective has been crafting lush electronic albums under his Yagya alias and always manages to find pure bliss and beauty and his simple, nature inspired soundscapes. "I wanted to create an album that's atmospheric, repetitive, and easy to listen to over and over again," says the man himself. "Something that works well in the background (e.g. when concentrating on work), as well as up close in a big sound system. I also wanted to learn how to make my music sound better than before, since I'm a huge sound-nerd, so that was a part of the goal for me personally." The album is a fine fusion of tropes from Yagya's earlier albums, features jazz instrumentalists that improvise beautiful melodies over monotonic, almost drone-like, techno beats and also uses live recordings of Japanese vocals, saxophone and guitar to counter the repetitiveness of the rhythms. Right from the rolling bliss of the opener, you're suspended in a womb like pillow of sound that is soft, warm and serenely beautiful. As tracks roll on, the pace stays the same but themes vary from upright and summery to more elongated and insular. This is natural, organic dub that is a delight and a pleasure to listen to. The vinyl versions of each track have been specially mixed with random LFOs, sonic quirks and unique fingerprints making them the subtly different to the CD version, but overall this is a brain soothing and mind melting album that can soundtrack lazy days, long summer afternoons and warm winter evenings in equal style.

In one sense, it's easy for artists-songwriters, specifically-to express their feelings in their work. After all, that's what the lyrics are for! But it's much harder to convey emotional energy in how you play, slash at the guitar, and the structure of the music itself. That's precisely why Girl and Girl's Sub Pop debut, Call A Doctor, feels like such a vital, electrifying shock to the senses. Not since the early work of Car Seat Headrest or Conor Oberst's widescreen emotional brutality as Bright Eyes has indie rock managed to come across as this intimate and grandiose, as the Australian quartet led by Kai James lay a lifetime's worth of woes-mental health, the human race's planned obsolescence if you've been living on this cursed rock you know what we're getting at-across a canvas of indie rock that feels both timeless and in-the-moment. An audacious and aggressively tuneful blast of a record, Call A Doctor is an unforgettable first bow from Girl and Girl, whose origins lie in James and guitarist Jayden Williams jamming in his mother's garage in the afternoon after school. One afternoon, James' Aunty Liss headed down to their practice space after walking her dog and asked if she could sit in on drums. "It sounded really great," James recalls. "We begged her to stay, and she said, 'I'll stay until you find another drummer.' We wore her down, and she eventually became a permanent member." After bassist Fraser Bell joined to round things out, Girl and Girl hit the road and began to make a name for themselves beyond the Australian bush, eventually signing to Sub Pop off the strength of word of mouth. Call A Doctor came together quickly soon after, largely recorded in marathon sessions in a two-story industrial complex over the course of two weeks. "That added to the intensity of the album," James says about the frenzied creative process overseen by producer Burke Reid. "I can hear the stress in the record, which is good because that's what it's about-being tense, tied up, and in your own head." Call A Doctor's eleven songs-spanning sweeping guitar epics and wry acoustic shuffles to spiky punk maneuvers and the type of raw, adoringly unvarnished indie-pop associated with legendary PacNW label K Records-are literally plucked from James' personal history, as he reworked older recordings with newer lyrics reflecting his past struggles as well as new anxieties that emerged prior to the album's recording. "I've struggled with mental health for a lot of my life," he explains, "and I went through a particularly difficult patch when we were making the album; the band had started to get some attention, and I felt an enormous amount of pressure to live up to it." "This record is about an individual who's too far in their head, trying to get out," James continues while discussing Call A Doctor's overall outlook-specifically the snapshot it offers of its creator. But even though this record deals with uneasy topics we all know well from within ourselves, it's important to emphasize how teeming with life Girl and Girl's music is. There's a brazen, bold sense of humor to this stuff, an undeniable brightness to the darkness that makes it impossible not to be drawn in as a listener. Feeling down never sounded so goddamn good.

Deluxe 180g vinyl. Art Edition LP includes set of six 12”x12” art cards.



The follow-up to Kee Avil's acclaimed 2022 debut Crease: "A stunning debut" (The Quietus); "A whiplash style of uninhibited exploration" (The Wire); "Kee Avil's debut is a force" (Foxy Digitalis); "A work of Frankensteinian wonder" (Electronic Sound); "A tightly coiled, finely wrought vision of avant-pop" (Exclaim); "A debut of fiendish creativity" (Bandcamp Album Of The Day / Albums Of The Year) Kee Avil's music is both adventurous and intimate, intellectually challenging and emotionally resonant. The Montréal guitarist and producer's 2022 debut LP Crease garnered plaudits from outlets like The Wire, The Quietus, Mojo and Foxy Digitalis, picking up a Canadian Juno Award nomination and Bandcamp Album Of The Day and Albums Of The Year along the way. Its intricate construction, unnerving atmospheres, and knife-edge take on avant-pop prompted comparisons to early PJ Harvey, This Heat, and Gazelle Twin. A remix EP with work by claire rousay, Ami Dang, Cecile Believe, and Pelada brought collaborative perspectives to four Crease tracks, offering new pathways within those songs. With Spine, Kee Avil strips back her heavily textured compositions, opening up a much rawer sound. She calls it folk… and while traditionalists might scoff, this is urgent music that reflects the precarity of modern life, as well as the jarring mixture of electronic and real-world interactions that have become the fabric of our day-to-day experiences. There's a hypnotic post-punk somnambulance to it all, using the repetition and fracturing of melodic phrases interwoven with delicate electronics to create curious and persistent hooks. While not a concept album, themes of time's passage, remembrance, and decay crop up across multiple tracks. Each track intentionally only has four elements - guitar, electronics, and two other instruments, with Kee's voice and guitar pushed to the front. Within this minimalist framework, the juxtaposition of beauty and discomfort that is key to the Kee Avil sound stands out in skin-prickling relief. "We're shaped by many versions of ourselves," says Avil. "I was looking back at these versions of myself and what could have been, what didn't end up being and what did end up being, and going back like that through time. Seeing the future, the past." Spine was written in Kee Avil's home studio after a lapse in writing while touring Crease and working on other projects. She is a well-known and respected member of the Montréal experimental scene, and formerly ran Concrete Sound Studio with Zach Scholes, who continues to work with her as a producer on Spine. Compared to the three years that went into making her debut, Spine emerged in a matter of months - a process that may also be a factor in its intensity and sharpness: "This record was much harder, like it was really discovering everything from scratch." In her desire to not simply replicate or extend the sound of Crease, she felt she had to rip up the rule book, write in a different way, and pare back songs against her usual instincts. Sometimes, when we work against our ingrained habits, we get to the core of who we really are. Spine is an exercise in that process. Without over-intellectualizing or being didactic, it hits immediately and emotionally, especially if you are a person who has spent much time in the process of self-examination. Kee's voice hisses, whispers, and chants; her guitar bends and rings; electronics skitter and crackle; violin creaks like a door in the wind. There is something so evocative about the atmospheres she creates that it's easy to overlay one's own feelings onto her work, but to do that wholly would be to overlook one of the most important things about Spine: Kee Avil's clear and thoughtful vision. This isn't just the next step forward in her artistic trajectory; it's a stunner of a record that stands on its own, a bracing and thrilling listen that has much to reveal about the contradictions inherent in being human. - jj skolnik