Suche:head pressure

John Calvin Abney rises again from the Oklahoman prairies with his latest album Transparent Towns. The ten songs focus on how we remember, and ultimately accept, though he is not always certain the memories we carry adequately mark the moments that make us. "This record is wrapped around the passage of time, whether or not we can trust the memories that we swear on, how we forgive ourselves and others as seasons turn, and how we define what is important as we roll the boulder back up the hill," Abney says of Transparent Towns. "We build these routines and live our stories, we rely on our histories and our memories - spoken and recorded. Now, we're relying on copies of copies, memories of memories, all packed like sardines into our phones, and we're losing the ability to tell our own stories. I have to constantly remind myself, as well as redefine what matters at the end of a day." Transparent Towns is the seventh studio album for Abney, and his first since 2022's Tourist, which he crafted after spending the pandemic as an itinerant writer. In contrast Abney penned most of the album's 10 tracks during a period of introspection and convalescence while recovering from vocal cord surgery in 2023. The time to himself - "I didn't sing for nearly a year, and after surgery, I couldn't talk for a month, and couldn't sing for over three months," he says, left him contemplating how to trace his experiences in the silence. The album's title track is Abney's take on the inaccessible past, witnessing loss and grief through the years, damning the "days we let go left unsaid", and accepting the uncontrollable circumstances we are sometimes placed in. "The troubles and the joys exist vibrantly in your memory, but you're wondering if you remember correctly," Abney remarks. "I've sometimes had this sort of confusion between memory and dreams - you crafted this ideal in your head of how things were or might be, in order to soften the blow of a harsher reality." The places we inhabit dictate how our memories form, and for Abney, there is one place to which he is constantly drawn: Oklahoma. Although he was born in the biggest little city in America, Reno, Nevada, he grew up learning guitar and piano in Tulsa, playing bars and DIY spaces from Norman to Stillwater. His affinity for the land that raised him is evident in the production of Transparent Towns. Abney self-produced the record, tracking most of it at Cardinal Song outside of Oklahoma City, with Michael Trepagnier handling mixing and engineering. The band was comprised mostly of Sooner State musicians too, along with Lydia Loveless and John Moreland contributing harmony vocals. His signature vulnerable voice and lyrical handiwork comes through in each of the songs, along with his penchant for alternative pop melodies set against colorful chords and subtle soundscapes. Having toured for years backing up artists like Moreland, Wild Child, Ben Kweller, and S.G. Goodman, Abney embraces a lead role again, as he presses forward with the loving lament and defiant joy throughout Transparent Towns, calling us to leave behind the pressures we place on our ourselves and recognize that just because there is an ending, it doesn't mean it's the end.

3XL boss and scene hyper-connector Special Guest DJ (aka uon, shy, Caveman LSD) lands on their own label with a debut album of hazed ambient noise and aquatic club anarchitextures, with a patented, heady style bent into new shapes.

For nigh on a decade, Berlin-based American producer, label boss, promoter and DJ Shy has operated at the centre of a scene that's still not fully defined. Their mythical DJ sets, where you're likely to hear precision-tweaked dubstep, dreampop, decelerated rap and dubwise ambient blended into vapour; gives some sense of the vibes at play, and a comb thru their spiderweb of a catalog - as Caveman LSD or uon, as part of Ghostride the Drift, Hoodie, crimeboys, virtualdemonlaxative and Cypher, or as the figurehead of 3XL, Experiences Ltd, xpq? and bblisss labels - further blurs that gist.

They've been caught in the crossfire of Big Ambient, sure, but there's always been something scrappier, sexier and more present going on under the hood. Shy and his network of associates - Huerco, Ulla, Perila, Ben Bondy, Naemi/Exael, Ponteac Streator and Arad Acid, among others - have asserted the interrelatedness of their discrete approaches. So-called "ambient" music doesn't exist in a vacuum, it un-focuses elements that undergird so many more corporeal sounds, and for Shy, their music reflects the druggy, DIY, genre-agnostic ethos of a trans-Atlantic neo-punk underground that exists in some liminal zone between the club, the bedsit and the basement.

Concerned with themes of “anger, sensuality, and dreaming”, the 40 minute roil of ‘Our Fantasy Complex’ frames Special Guest DJ at their most unapologetically oblique and illusive, expanding and contracting between whorls of shoegazing dynamics and extended portions of quasi-speed D&B x dub tech smeared on the mind’s-eye, with a vivid sense of bruised lushness that’s perfused all shy’s work thus far.

Joined by kindred collaborators Ben Bondy, Arad Acid and mu tate, and suspended in agitated bliss by Rashad Becker’s lucid mastering, the results feel out some of 2025’s most considered and distinctive within an amorphous zone that’s become a world unto itself. Ambient music’s fluffier signifiers are swapped out for a sort of sublime tension that, like the sound’s original ‘90s explosion, can be heard to reflect states of altered consciousness - both individual and collective.

Shy's layered, undulating productions are more like the chewed remnants of a thousand mixtapes cooked into a stream-of-consciousness hex. Save for the glistening, zoomed-out parting piece ‘Dream’, it all mostly avoids pretty melodies in favour of a spatio-textural sensuality that wraps us up, sometimes uncomfortably intimately, in shy’s thoughts. That oneiric closer is one of three gritty palate cleansers that swirl around its peaks, where elements of Reese-bass are suspended, writhing below looming atmospheric pressure in ‘How Long Can I Burn?’, emerging charred and flecked with rattled percussion on ‘Yoro (pt I & II)’, as though K-holing thru a blazing summer’s day.

In step with Perila’s notably darker turn of events on her ‘Omnis Festinatio Ex parts Diaboli Est’, album, or the unexpected ferocity of recent Space Afrika live shows, it’s not hard to hear a darkside gravitational pull on this one, where ambient music is no longer just a balm for troubled souls, but also suggestive of humanity’s most frightful odours.

Representing the spirit of the underground in Dubai, Shadi Megallaa is a multifaceted music lover whose unwavering passion for music permeates throughout all of his endeavours. A pioneer of Dubai’s electronic music culture, Shadi’s roots lie with the foundations of modern day electronica: all shades of house, techno and beyond. His commitment to preserving and evolving the culture is inherent in his record shop, The Flip Side, which has been intrinsic to the growth and development of music culture in Dubai. As a DJ and producer he draws on a multitude of experience, diverse taste and a refined ear that has instilled the ability to craft compelling productions. On Spirits Of The Deep we find Shadi exploring the deeper side of electronic music, creating layers of vibration designed to immerse the listener in layers of positive vibration.

As prescribed by Shadi himself, we start the traditional way, with Side B (the info side), where ‘Microgravity’ transports us into the cosmos. Soothing sonics envelop a taut low end with crisp percussion and swathes of pad work cultivating an interstellar atmosphere. Subtly shifting layers keep you locked into a groove, as the track maintains its energetic pulse. The synth lines increase with intensity midway through, adding more potency. Across almost nine minutes Shadi takes us on an excursion beyond the stars…

This is followed by ‘G-Dub’, a smooth jazz-inflected piece full of soul nourishing goodness. Intuitive drum programming with a groove-laced low end form the propulsive backbone of this track. The dreamlike melodic elements are almost transcendent in their illuminating impact. With all of its elements combined, ‘G-Dub’ is a glorious foray into the depths of true deep house. Shadi keeps things interesting throughout, adding and subtracting layers to complement the pace. Those hi-hats and intermittent cymbal crashes are especially impactful. A delight.

On the flip we have ‘Pressure’, where Shadi’s UK breaks influence comes through. A characterful vocal sample features throughout the intro before we enter a world of unusual sounds. The beats are, once again, impeccably executed, accompanied by a dubby bassline and an ever-evolving cacophony of squelchy sounds and chirps. Running at just over 9 ½ minutes, ‘Pressure’ sees Shadi flexing his creative muscles with a heady, expansive composition that invites us on a deep musical trip.

Finally, ‘The Poet’ closes out the EP on an emotive tip. The track is dedicated to the Palestinian poet and activist Refaat Alareer, who was killed during an airstrike on Gaza in December 2023. It utilises Refaat’s powerful poem If I Must Die, with the spinetingling words taking centre stage, as Shadi’s beats, bass and bright pads provide the backdrop. A piano-led melody appears in the latter part of the track, amplifying its emotionally-charged atmosphere. A wonderfully imagined homage to a martyr for peace. As the samples state, Let it bring hope…

After a massive 2024 that included the release of their second album Vol. 2 and a U.S. tour, Naarm/Melbourne punks Split System are back with new 7" On the Edge/On the Loose.The feeling of stress and anxiety permeates through both tracks. The opener is the sleazy, hardcore-infused On the Edge, featuring a pounding rhythm that mirrors the pressure of day-to-day life and the inevitable breakdown that awaits.Next, the sub-two-minute On the Loose delivers a catchy, high-energy garage-punk thumper about moving through life feeling like you've got a gun to your head. The band will return to Europe mid-year 2025, including a spot at the Best Kept Secret Festival in the Netherlands.

KZN005 sees Silas & Snare return to the Kaizen fold with the three-track 'Pressure' EP. Lead track 'Pressure' is a continuation of Kaizen's recognisably weighty bass-inspired sound, carried by hefty kicks and screwed synths after a lengthy cosmic build-up. A downtempo influence runs through 'Dreamscape', the floaty synths countered with skittering drums, while EP closer 'Whistle Blower' is packed with industrial percussion and creepy bleeps made for those heads-down, screw-face moments on the dancefloor. This EP comes three years after Silas & Snare's Kaizen debut, 'Biometric'. Gear up and get ready for some 'Pressure'!

Rene Wise returns to Dustin Zahn's Enemy Records with a massive follow up to 2022's label debut, Jungle House. On "Deprivation," the Moving Pressure artist delivers 4 undeniable, heads-down Techno grooves in his signature style.

Minimalism is the theme on the A-side. Anxiety and Insomnia are both stripped down and tripped out. Both hold steady in arrangement, allowing for the smallest details to shine through. Each track is topped off with Rene's otherworldly synth washes and FX splashes atop of steady unwavering grooves.

A slight departure from his usual grooves, the B-side drifts off into uncharted territory while keeping in line with the moodiness of the A side. Sakar focuses on a pulsating tension-building synth line in constantflux. Meanwhile, staccato basslines and percussive splashes merge to form the record's funkiest moment on Cutting Thick.

The hypnagogic haze of purling, refractive dub is strong on Sleepdial’s debut for West Mineral, introducing a crafty new name to the scene after a teasing preview on that Peak Oil x NWAQ radio show, delivering a heavy-lidded dose of tattered ambient dub inversions.

Sleepdial chases a frayed thread of thought thru the fractal echo chambers of ‘RV Lights’, only their 2nd full-length under this alias, and first on vinyl. The 9-part album is optimised for getting smudged on sunny daze with its pursuit of elusive dub sprites that connote subaquatic or vaporous etheric themes in their elemental diffusions and world-building ecologies.

In equilibrium of ambient and dub-as-method, they tenderly tease the senses with a fine grasp of deferred gratification, oscillating abstract spatial navigations and ephemeral moments of heart-in-mouth euphoria. Where sometimes this stuff can err to a pleasant mess, the dub ballast here anchors proceedings in a rugged groove that really pushes the right buttons and elevates the whole thing in its own air.

Blessed with a compelling sensuality, tracks follow a course from the compressed contrails of ‘Purview’ to the helical shapes of ‘Dovetailing’ and thru beautifully pill-bellied sensations on ‘Icarus Rising’, into ruggeder, insectoid dub in ‘Blue August’ to short circuit agitated and soothing feels. That fractured sort of duality manifests at its most anxious yet enchanted in the unpicked strings and astral scree of ‘Lightplay’, and in the title and feel of ‘Lean Angst’, gently keeping heads on toes into the swirling pressure system of album sign-off ‘Airtank’.

Spectral Bounce’s fifth instalment comes courtesy of L.A.’s rave archivist and dancefloor operative Dreams, A.K.A. Jesse Pimenta. Throughout his decade-long career the California native has inspected, dissected and concocted all manner of dance musics, leaving his mark with drops on Apron Records, Pinkman, BANK NYC and his own imprint Dance Data. On SPEC05 — Dangerous When Wet — he hijacks the synapses with 4 accomplished productions, plotting a high BPM course through manifold styles using the raw aesthetic that characterises his output.

“Losing Control” is a frenetic dancefloor invitation, immediately locking into a pacing groove. Beneath wild hand drums, Dreams plays with an insistent 303 bassline alternating between rasping buzz and oily squelch, while stern vocals are layered on top of breaks that have been processed to a viscerally satisfying end.

Taking things from delirious dance circle to underwater biosphere, the EP’s eponymous track explores a submerged 1980s Miami. Weighty & enveloping, “Dangerous When Wet” is pure aquatic pop-n-lock — hydraulic electro for a drowned world. Ocean floor caustics are transmuted into auditory form: arpeggios bubble up; drones shimmer mystically; hi-hats hiss like air from an open valve. Amongst the sonar bleeps, a barrage of pummeling low-end is sure to give subwoofers a workout.

“XTC Messenger” delivers an infectious paranoid dispatch, astutely balancing the sensual with the deranged. A slow-mo dial tone unfolds languidly, running counter to nervously twitching high frequencies. Its punchy percussion is tuned for maximum dopamine release; the track’s abrupt vocal chops and mechanical kick-snare pulsation evoke the leather jackets and jagged edges of 1980s industrial discotheque.

“Pressure Points” closes the EP on a heady and mesmerising polymetric trip. The parting track is a lithe yet spacious number, propelled by a rattling break. Here Dreams follows from track 2, creating an immersive environment in which sounds tightly twist and twirl. Shifting oscillators call out like tiny creatures as the bass throbs and wriggles further into your brain, long after the needle hits the runout groove.

Claire Chicha aka Spill Tab is feeling more free than ever before. The LA-based, French-Korean songwriter and producer,has spent the past five years as spill tab honing a sound that is as raw-edged as it is refined, channelling low-slung guitar-strumming confessionals as well as the earworming melodic hooks of anthemic pop to produce a heady and distinctive mix.

Following the 2019 release of her intimate and infectious debut single “Decompose”, Spill Tab has evolved her spill tab project through three EPs: 2020’s synth-pop influenced Oatmilk, 2021’s playful, uptempo Bonnie, featuring Gus Dapperton and Tommy Genesis, and 2023’s co-produced, sonically-intricate Klepto, which gleefully meanders from the Hiatus Kaiyote-influenced jazz freakouts of “CRÈME BRÛLÉE!” to the guitar-chugging thump of “Splinter”. Live, meanwhile, Spill Tab has been tapped for her explosively energetic presence to open the North American leg of popstar Sabrina Carpenter’s tour, as well as touring through Australia with alt-rock trio Wallows.
With “PINK LEMONADE”, opening single from her forthcoming debut album “ANGIE” , spill tab’s freewheeling sound finds its fullest expression, harnessing this onstage experience and recorded experimentation with her bass-weight and pitched-up vocals. Here we find Chicha only ever chasing that “weird thing”, fizzing with an infectious enthusiasm and intricate musicianship. “The best songs come from writing the main idea in a day, as it’s so instinctual,” she says, such as “PINK LEMONADE” recorded “from a clip taken out of a 40-minute jam that we then chopped and spliced”.
Born to her French Algerian composer father and Korean pianist mother, Claire Chicha spent her early childhood in the mixing room of her parents’ LA post-production studio, bringing coffees to artists as they tracked scores for exciting new projects. “I hung out in that studio all the time until I was around 10 years old, absorbing jazz music my dad was into and classical music that my mom loved,” Chicha says. “My mom had a big hand in making me an adventurous kid, always trying new things from piano to harp and violin, forever soaking up new sounds.”

At 12, Chicha’s life was uprooted as she relocated to Thailand to live with her mother’s family following the collapse of her parents’ business after the 2008 recession. What followed was an unstable and formative few years of early teenagedom, navigating new cultures and life changes. In Thailand, Chicha began learning guitar to cover the Paramore and Green Day tracks she had grown to love while also becoming immersed in Thai traditional music. After a year, she moved once more to live with her aunt in Paris and there she was introduced to the classic sound of Serge Gainsbourg and Édith Piaf before ultimately returning to LA following the untimely death of her father.

“I had to become a real people person to fit in everywhere I was moving, and it immersed me into so many different styles of music,” she says. “I went from listening to the nasal singing of Thai traditional music at muay thai fights in Bangkok, to emotive classic French songs. It definitely informed the need to experiment with my sound as I became more interested in making music.”

At high school in LA, Chicha joined one of the country’s foremost show choirs and realised a natural aptitude for stagecraft and performance as she sang medleys in competitions throughout the US. Going on to study Music Business at NYU, Chicha found a love for the alternative soul and singer-songwriting of the likes of Moses Sumney and Bon Iver, as well as developing her own sound while spending summers interning as an A&R at Atlantic Records and being exposed to the gamut of New York’s live music scene.

“I was going to so many shows as an A&R intern and seeing just how much a lot of music sounded alike,” she says. “It made me realise I wanted my music to feel different, to cut through the noise but still make something that felt honest to me.”

Beginning to independently release tracks, Soill Tab gradually built a loyal fanbase with the release of wistful early numbers “Calvaire” and “Cotton Candy” and soon found herself signed to a major label. Yet, as her career progressed through the COVID pandemic the demands of a corporate major began to conflict with her own searching style. “My last two EPs were under contract and it felt like I was always chasing the carrot,” she says, “I felt a certain pressure to put out tracks quickly and find that ‘hit’. It wasn’t the right environment to truly make what I wanted.”

Ultimately parting ways with her label, Chicha began work on a new album, exploring new sounds and ideas with her LA-based community of collaborators like producer David Marinelli, Solomonophonic, Wyatt and Austin and John DeBold, without expectation. “It became this beautiful experience of only following ideas that I really believed in and exploring all the musical avenues I hadn’t before,” she says. “I’ve never been more excited about songs and I’ve never felt like a project is more mine.”

Writing and recording while touring with Sabrina Carpenter and Wallows, Chicha road-tested her new tracks to see what might land best with an audience who had likely never heard her music before. “You have to win people’s hearts as an opener and you can see what resonates and what doesn’t,” she says. “I would watch people fall in love or not and it’s usually always the song you’re having the most fun with that does the best. That’s what I put on the record.”

« Angie », Spill’s Tab debut album is relased on because Music and expected for May 16th release.

As one of the most prolific and influential producers of the last thirty years, The Hacker’s imprint on electronic music already spans genres, eras and scene revolutions. And still, there’s more. In spirited collaboration with friend and fellow French journeyman Endrik Schroeder, the first release from The Hacker & Endrik Schroeder Project eschews EBM excess or gritty electro. Instead, two introductory tracks slip into the continuum of evergreen underground techno, influenced in equal part by the digital soul of Detroit, and the futurist experimentations of Sheffield.

Quickly escalating from a classic beat to a hoover-rave ascent determined to fill the vacuum of any warehouse, ‘Puissance’ is an unapologetic anthem that doubles as an elegant and impactful introduction to the Hacker & Schroeder partnership. Hypnotising dancers with ever-more forceful acid oscillations, the pair masterfully stave off the pressure with a wide-eyed organ riff, played live and direct from rave heaven.

‘The Voyagers’ contrasts with a cosmic groove, certain to satisfy heads-down bleep purists, while dedicating time and space for the charisma and quirks of this machine-led dance to shine through, including emotional pads and whispering voices, par excellence.

Ltd edition sky blue vinyl, inc download.

Up In Her Room are delighted to bring you the latest offering from US psych heads White Shape, in conjunction with US label Little Cloud Records!

Hailing from Rockford Illinois, White Shape are a reverb-soaked experimental heavy psychedelic rock band that are able to create sublime ethereal soundscapes. Previous releases include the widely renowned 2019’s ‘Perfect Dark’ where the band deliver a heady and physical ride of tidal proportions. Whether you want cerebral psychedelic, body moving rhythm, or hard-hitting riffs White Shape caters to your every need. The record is an anthem to their collective vision, spreading out to showcase the various talents and specialties of each band member.

With the departure of two of the founding members through covid, Josh Weidman and Alyssa Hall set the sails once again to the wind and from the tumult of those incomparable times, they brought into existence their latest album, “Through the Lupine”. It is decidedly White Shape, with its brooding atmospheres, Hall’s iconic vocals that float and expand until they fill every physical space, and the classic narrative architecture that invites you to enter the music and with it create your own inner worlds. You can hear these in every track, and particularly in “Draped Urns.” 

But as it has been said, no one came through those times unscathed, untouched. Within the quintessential White Shape sound there is something else, something new. It can be heard in the previously releases 1st single from the album “Knives Down”; a shift in the barometric pressure, a sea change both profound and subtle. It’s a defiance, a refusal to go quietly into that good night, but with undercurrents of something else, something not yet found in the band’s prior work. Is it optimism? Hope? Or simply the resignation to create for the sake of creating. 

The true value of Through the Lupine is that it provides the listener with the space to craft their own interpretation. For the White Shape fan, there is everything you love and want. There’s just more, and it’s different, evolved. For the initiate, there is the beginning. The introduction to the next understanding of what it means to experience music. Long live White Shape!

Berlin-based French-Irish multimedia artist Zoe Mc Pherson levels up on their third full-length "Pitch Blender", mangling years of experience DJing and performing live into a tight set of cybernetic soundsystem experiments that flicker between the rave and the art space.

Cast your mind back to February 2020 for a moment, when Mc Pherson released their last album "States of Fugue". The world seemed less tangled somehow, and yet Mc Pherson's precision-engineered fusion of exploratory sound design and visceral club pressure seemed to hint at a cataclysmic event none of us were really expecting. Only a few weeks after its release the world changed forever, and the majority of us were grounded - forced to consider our lives and the movement (or lack thereof) surrounding us. The philosophy of this extended time period is welded into the bones of "Pitch Blender", Mc Pherson's supple third album. They have learned plenty in the last two years, and infuse all of that anxiety and spiky emotionality into a spread of tracks that sound as powerful in headphones as they do over a well-tweaked soundsystem, soldering vocals, environmental recordings and instrumental flourishes to unpredictably pneumatic, cybernetic beats.

Anyone that's caught one of Mc Pherson's energetic live performances over the last few months will have an idea of what "Pitch Blender" is made of. They're an artist who's somehow able to match the raw energy of post-punk and no-wave music with the brain-altering potential of the best experimental club tracks, vocalizing an incongruous post-lockdown reality over beats that sound as if they're in a permanent state of flux. 'On Fire' splutters to life in a frenetic patter of drums that blur into oddly soothing hoover sounds, snaking lysergically towards a drop that's teased constantly, and never comes. We're forced to wait until 'The Spark' for that, fighting through choppy, pitch-mangled guitar and rolling beats until a gruesome kick drum forces its way through the psilocybin mists and heaving Bristol-inspired bass clonks. Backed up with just the inverted traces of recognizable breaks, this vigorous pulse lies at the heart of "Pitch Blender", the driving force that powers Mc Pherson's sound even when it's only hinted at.

'Blender' is the moment where Mc Pherson show their full hand, using crackling sound effects, ghost vocals and uneven rhythms to build a textural landscape that's so evocative you can almost taste it. Squealing modular synth effects sound like gameshow buzzers being triggered in another dimension and propel the track forward - it's club music, just about, but Mc Pherson's motivation is world-building, and their world is colorful, abstract, and dizzyingly surreal. "Obsolete user," their voice echoes over driving airlock kicks. But they take a swift left turn with 'Lamella', reducing the kinetic club rhythms to a longing simmer and letting loose with powerful vocals, intoning with robotic, gender-fluxed intensity. On 'Wait', New York City's clacking crosswalk signal - already an effective club track on its own - is transformed into a reminder to slow down, juxtaposed with booming sub-heavy kicks, acidic synths and effervescent percussion that rattles in time with the vibrations. It's foley rave, built for pure psychedelic intensity to blur the line between real life and sonic fiction.

One of the album's most galvanic tracks, 'Power Dynamics' curves a double-time rhythm around breathless HQ sound design squiggles until it hits a polyrhythmic crescendo, striking a queasy balance between rave hedonism and ritualistic hand drum energy. It all builds towards eerie closing track 'Outside' that acts as an important wind down, spotlighting Mc Pherson's ability to operate outside of the rhythmic spectrum, using cinematic scrapes and flickering neon synths to create music that's tense but never terrifying. The track feels like the end credits of a particularly bewildering movie - something between the cyberpunk dystopia of "Ghost in the Shell" and the vivid, sky-scraping beauty of "Koyaanisqatsi". Mc Pherson has managed something special with "Pitch Blender": mashing together genres with rare focus, and sharpening their engineering skills to a fine point, they've concocted an antidote to contemporary malaise - a wakeup call that's begging us to loosen our limbs and move.

Zuul supplies pressure control’s debut release, Routine Machine.

Following releases on Exarde and White Scar, the Laik label-head’s signature sound takes a menacing turn. In a departure from his usual output he delivers a grizzly 5 tracker filled with EBM, New Beat and Wave affined floor-fillers; all fraught with tension, straight out of the Kirkstall strip.

Fitting for peak-time, warm-ups and rub-downs, the EP is filled with snarling, left-of-centre bombs. All reminiscent of the golden-era sound forged in Frankfurt and Ghent circa 88-91, with new-school stylings for the modern day working disk-jockey.

Constructed exclusively for dark and discerning dance floors.

You can run, but you can’t hide.

Credits:
All music by Ollie Burgess
Pressing and distribution by by One Eye Witness
Design by Al Robertson
Mastering by Marco Pellegrino
Words by Josh Bayat

Big new release by Peter Van Hoesen! Continuing his exploration of intricate techno systems, their effect and direct perimeter of action, Peter van Hoesen turns in his newest four-track piece, ‘Prime Directive’: a fascinating dive into the artist’s shape-shifting headspace and inner creative chaos.

Fuelled on a furnace-hot mix of abstract-leaning immersion and hi-octane rhythmic thrust, ‘Prime Directive’ looks at contemporary techno from the angle of experimentation and intuitive abandon. The result comes in the form of four distinct movements, each carving out their own logic and associated behaviour out an endless pool of potentialities. Here comes chaology unfolding in all its unadulterated, visceral glory.

‘Definition by Absence’ breaks the trip in to the sound of a faux-random symphony: its train-like swing and fiery bass seesaw coalesce through an elliptic fluttering of sorts, iterative and not, patterns moving in and out of synchronicity as van Hoesen applies more or less pressure on both ends. All in gusty in-your-face-ness, ‘Variables Edit 1’ whirls and swirls like an ominous vengeance of nature; Its puncturing kicks and whistling menace set against stellar winds and rabid machinery on the prowl for its next victim.

An even more unsettling piece of disjointedly arrhythmic, anti-club music for the dance floor, ‘Prime Directive’ will have you zoning out like a bad dream, flush with metronome-faced monsters and molten clocks hanging from dead trees. ‘Morphology’ could be PVH’s attempt at giving his concepts a carnal carcass to hold onto. Here, rhythm becomes somewhat less erratic, offering his 360-degree vision more melodic surface and actual room for dispersion. One to keep the boundaries pushed and status-quo challenged, this is techno at its most entrancingly bold and fearless.

*This new four-track epic from Peter van Hoesen comes draped in a fine piece of artwork courtesy of Atact, and pressed according to our standards in 180g audiophile quality so you get to experience the Belgian master's chiselled sound design in all its glory.

Kneading dough is tricky – you should know how it’s supposed to feel. If you try too hard you could make it worse. It’s a beautiful practice – creation with a gentle touch, to work at something so it can be left alone. “If it’s too drawn out it’s awful. It’s easy to give too much.” Dance in the mirror. Contemplate your veiny hands. Who do they remind you of?

You begin by mixing flour and water. “What happens when your people die? Why’d they move the rock to the other side of Ulster Park?” Eliza Niemi asks two seemingly unrelated questions in a rising melody with guitar accompaniment, like fingers playing spider up to the nape of your neck. Gentle pressure. Strands of gluten form to bind the mix. A new question lingers in the binding. When she admits “but I don’t know how to tell if I’m feeling it or not,” that question surfaces through the text. It is reiterated throughout the album. When I’m working with dough I think the same thing to myself.

On Progress Bakery, her second album as a solo artist, Eliza knows to leave some questions alone – to let juxtaposition and tension be the proof. It doesn’t have to be hard. The feelings and revelations they provoke rise in the heat. The smell is sweet. Crispy on the outside and soft all the way through. She playfully slip-slides through words and sounds and images, delighting in surprise, skimming ideas like stones cast across clear water, touching down briefly with uncommon grace.

The question provoked between those opening lines resurfaces in the strands between songs – “Do U FM” is fully formed and beautifully layered, while “Novelist Sad Face” is a short, acapella rendering of gentle curiosity. What is holding these ideas together? Some songs demand more, seem to carry a whole load – eventually the skipping stone will halt to sink and resume its idle duty – while others drift in and out of focus, the way thoughts and dreams become interwoven before the mind is sunk into true sleep.

Music and words don’t always have to interact. Where she decides to keep them apart gives a new contour to where and how she puts them together. The kind of thing you’re supposed to take for granted with songs and their singers comes alive in Eliza’s hands – the little miracle of mixing, kneading, stretching, and stopping.

So often on Progress Bakery, Eliza teases out truth and meaning by asking questions. “Do I wanna be crying?” “Do you want me good or do you want me bad?” “Do I need an eye test?” “I’m writing songs in my head while you’re going over stuff with me — is that cruel??” In “Pocky” Eliza ends with a question that feels to me like the actual biography, succinct and revealing:

I don’t wanna be made to see
I just wanna ask “what’s that?”

Grace that ought to be rare, but in its care and precision is offered humbly, with great generosity, and without announcing itself. Eliza’s simple, miraculous music is given further form and shape by a group of collaborators – invaluable guest musicians Jeremy Ray, Evan Cartwright, Steven McPhail, Kenny Boothby, Ed Squires, Carolina Chauffe, Dorothea Paas, Louie Short, and Avalon Tassonyi. Together with Louie Short, who recorded, mixed, and produced the album along with Jeremy Ray and Lukas Cheung, Eliza has cultivated a richness in sound and texture that prods and provokes the ticklish ear. Barely audible guitar tinkering, a brief lo-fi field recording of trumpets, the harmonic clicking of a looped synthesizer, a flourish of reeds, a child’s conversation, each uncanny sound perfectly placed, rippling out under a soft breeze.

Lay in bed alone at night and ask aloud to the stillness,

“What were you doing at the Albuquerque Airport?
What were you doing there??”

And hear your question answered by a dream of swelling, undulating cellos. Try to grasp at the melody and structure. It’s not an answer (if there could be one), but it moves deeper, closer to the weird layer of fleeting moments and disconnected images, barely perceptible at its core. Wait for the dream reel to click into place.

Eliza took me for a ride in Nicole (her beloved Dodge Grand Caravan) and told me she’d been thinking of the album as an embodiment of transition – and I think every transition, known or unknown, carries the weight of new meaning, skittering off the surface tension of life as you know it, creating ripples, sometimes bouncing off and sometimes breaking through. There is a trick you can use to tell if a dough is glutinous enough. You’re supposed to stretch it out as thin as you can without breaking it and hold it up to the light. If you can see through, even if it renders the world murky and uncertain, you should leave it alone. I love this trick. It’s one that Eliza seems to know intuitively: work gently and ask questions and don’t always expect answers, and when you can, take a glimpse at something new, and then leave.

Kneading dough is tricky – you should know how it’s supposed to feel. If you try too hard you could make it worse. It’s a beautiful practice – creation with a gentle touch, to work at something so it can be left alone. “If it’s too drawn out it’s awful. It’s easy to give too much.” Dance in the mirror. Contemplate your veiny hands. Who do they remind you of?

You begin by mixing flour and water. “What happens when your people die? Why’d they move the rock to the other side of Ulster Park?” Eliza Niemi asks two seemingly unrelated questions in a rising melody with guitar accompaniment, like fingers playing spider up to the nape of your neck. Gentle pressure. Strands of gluten form to bind the mix. A new question lingers in the binding. When she admits “but I don’t know how to tell if I’m feeling it or not,” that question surfaces through the text. It is reiterated throughout the album. When I’m working with dough I think the same thing to myself.

On Progress Bakery, her second album as a solo artist, Eliza knows to leave some questions alone – to let juxtaposition and tension be the proof. It doesn’t have to be hard. The feelings and revelations they provoke rise in the heat. The smell is sweet. Crispy on the outside and soft all the way through. She playfully slip-slides through words and sounds and images, delighting in surprise, skimming ideas like stones cast across clear water, touching down briefly with uncommon grace.

The question provoked between those opening lines resurfaces in the strands between songs – “Do U FM” is fully formed and beautifully layered, while “Novelist Sad Face” is a short, acapella rendering of gentle curiosity. What is holding these ideas together? Some songs demand more, seem to carry a whole load – eventually the skipping stone will halt to sink and resume its idle duty – while others drift in and out of focus, the way thoughts and dreams become interwoven before the mind is sunk into true sleep.

Music and words don’t always have to interact. Where she decides to keep them apart gives a new contour to where and how she puts them together. The kind of thing you’re supposed to take for granted with songs and their singers comes alive in Eliza’s hands – the little miracle of mixing, kneading, stretching, and stopping.

So often on Progress Bakery, Eliza teases out truth and meaning by asking questions. “Do I wanna be crying?” “Do you want me good or do you want me bad?” “Do I need an eye test?” “I’m writing songs in my head while you’re going over stuff with me — is that cruel??” In “Pocky” Eliza ends with a question that feels to me like the actual biography, succinct and revealing:

I don’t wanna be made to see
I just wanna ask “what’s that?”

Grace that ought to be rare, but in its care and precision is offered humbly, with great generosity, and without announcing itself. Eliza’s simple, miraculous music is given further form and shape by a group of collaborators – invaluable guest musicians Jeremy Ray, Evan Cartwright, Steven McPhail, Kenny Boothby, Ed Squires, Carolina Chauffe, Dorothea Paas, Louie Short, and Avalon Tassonyi. Together with Louie Short, who recorded, mixed, and produced the album along with Jeremy Ray and Lukas Cheung, Eliza has cultivated a richness in sound and texture that prods and provokes the ticklish ear. Barely audible guitar tinkering, a brief lo-fi field recording of trumpets, the harmonic clicking of a looped synthesizer, a flourish of reeds, a child’s conversation, each uncanny sound perfectly placed, rippling out under a soft breeze.

Lay in bed alone at night and ask aloud to the stillness,

“What were you doing at the Albuquerque Airport?
What were you doing there??”

And hear your question answered by a dream of swelling, undulating cellos. Try to grasp at the melody and structure. It’s not an answer (if there could be one), but it moves deeper, closer to the weird layer of fleeting moments and disconnected images, barely perceptible at its core. Wait for the dream reel to click into place.

Eliza took me for a ride in Nicole (her beloved Dodge Grand Caravan) and told me she’d been thinking of the album as an embodiment of transition – and I think every transition, known or unknown, carries the weight of new meaning, skittering off the surface tension of life as you know it, creating ripples, sometimes bouncing off and sometimes breaking through. There is a trick you can use to tell if a dough is glutinous enough. You’re supposed to stretch it out as thin as you can without breaking it and hold it up to the light. If you can see through, even if it renders the world murky and uncertain, you should leave it alone. I love this trick. It’s one that Eliza seems to know intuitively: work gently and ask questions and don’t always expect answers, and when you can, take a glimpse at something new, and then leave.

Tappa Zukie is not only one of Jamaica’s greatest DJ’s, is also a much respected producer and arranger. Looking back through his master tapes we have found a lost release that due to being a worldwide recording artist and the pressures that this carries, it has stayed on his musical shelf and been passed over... until now.

When rhythm was King way back in the 1970’s, the predominant feature of the final mix down would in most cases be the drums and bass. Bringing drums and bass to the fore, the other instruments that create the tunes mood would take a back seat in the mix. With such fine musicians in the horn sections as Vin Gordon, Deadly ‘Headley’ Bennett and the unstoppable Tommy McCook, it sometimes felt, their services if nothing else were slightly underused.

So one way of rectifying this situation was one that Tappa himself instigated, putting a release together by picking some of his favourite productions that carried classic horn lines alongside those tightly recorded rhythms. Pushing those horn lines up in the mix and so making a feature of some of those touches that although added some colour to the original cut, laid back in the mix to the more Sound System friendly drum and bass cut.

When looking at the music with this approach, some of the other influences that were also in Tappa’s mind can be noticed more. Maybe it’s a Jazzier / Bluesy feel shining through. A strange thing happens that almost takes the song down the avenue of a soundtrack album. An unreleased film score to accompany an unreleased film.

So sit back and enjoy a lost release that time and place did not find time to see the light of day. As the opening track testifies and in the immortal words of Mr Tappa Zukie himself.. “Your Musical Daddy is back... Horns Up !!!!”

Kneading dough is tricky – you should know how it’s supposed to feel. If you try too hard you could make it worse. It’s a beautiful practice – creation with a gentle touch, to work at something so it can be left alone. “If it’s too drawn out it’s awful. It’s easy to give too much.” Dance in the mirror. Contemplate your veiny hands. Who do they remind you of?

You begin by mixing flour and water. “What happens when your people die? Why’d they move the rock to the other side of Ulster Park?” Eliza Niemi asks two seemingly unrelated questions in a rising melody with guitar accompaniment, like fingers playing spider up to the nape of your neck. Gentle pressure. Strands of gluten form to bind the mix. A new question lingers in the binding. When she admits “but I don’t know how to tell if I’m feeling it or not,” that question surfaces through the text. It is reiterated throughout the album. When I’m working with dough I think the same thing to myself.

On Progress Bakery, her second album as a solo artist, Eliza knows to leave some questions alone – to let juxtaposition and tension be the proof. It doesn’t have to be hard. The feelings and revelations they provoke rise in the heat. The smell is sweet. Crispy on the outside and soft all the way through. She playfully slip-slides through words and sounds and images, delighting in surprise, skimming ideas like stones cast across clear water, touching down briefly with uncommon grace.

The question provoked between those opening lines resurfaces in the strands between songs – “Do U FM” is fully formed and beautifully layered, while “Novelist Sad Face” is a short, acapella rendering of gentle curiosity. What is holding these ideas together? Some songs demand more, seem to carry a whole load – eventually the skipping stone will halt to sink and resume its idle duty – while others drift in and out of focus, the way thoughts and dreams become interwoven before the mind is sunk into true sleep.

Music and words don’t always have to interact. Where she decides to keep them apart gives a new contour to where and how she puts them together. The kind of thing you’re supposed to take for granted with songs and their singers comes alive in Eliza’s hands – the little miracle of mixing, kneading, stretching, and stopping.

So often on Progress Bakery, Eliza teases out truth and meaning by asking questions. “Do I wanna be crying?” “Do you want me good or do you want me bad?” “Do I need an eye test?” “I’m writing songs in my head while you’re going over stuff with me — is that cruel??” In “Pocky” Eliza ends with a question that feels to me like the actual biography, succinct and revealing:

I don’t wanna be made to see
I just wanna ask “what’s that?”

Grace that ought to be rare, but in its care and precision is offered humbly, with great generosity, and without announcing itself. Eliza’s simple, miraculous music is given further form and shape by a group of collaborators – invaluable guest musicians Jeremy Ray, Evan Cartwright, Steven McPhail, Kenny Boothby, Ed Squires, Carolina Chauffe, Dorothea Paas, Louie Short, and Avalon Tassonyi. Together with Louie Short, who recorded, mixed, and produced the album along with Jeremy Ray and Lukas Cheung, Eliza has cultivated a richness in sound and texture that prods and provokes the ticklish ear. Barely audible guitar tinkering, a brief lo-fi field recording of trumpets, the harmonic clicking of a looped synthesizer, a flourish of reeds, a child’s conversation, each uncanny sound perfectly placed, rippling out under a soft breeze.

Lay in bed alone at night and ask aloud to the stillness,

“What were you doing at the Albuquerque Airport?
What were you doing there??”

And hear your question answered by a dream of swelling, undulating cellos. Try to grasp at the melody and structure. It’s not an answer (if there could be one), but it moves deeper, closer to the weird layer of fleeting moments and disconnected images, barely perceptible at its core. Wait for the dream reel to click into place.

Eliza took me for a ride in Nicole (her beloved Dodge Grand Caravan) and told me she’d been thinking of the album as an embodiment of transition – and I think every transition, known or unknown, carries the weight of new meaning, skittering off the surface tension of life as you know it, creating ripples, sometimes bouncing off and sometimes breaking through. There is a trick you can use to tell if a dough is glutinous enough. You’re supposed to stretch it out as thin as you can without breaking it and hold it up to the light. If you can see through, even if it renders the world murky and uncertain, you should leave it alone. I love this trick. It’s one that Eliza seems to know intuitively: work gently and ask questions and don’t always expect answers, and when you can, take a glimpse at something new, and then leave.

Watkins Group returns to Frequency Consortium for its second release, pushing further into the murky depths of dubbed-out desolation. Dubh Dubs (Dark Dubs) takes its name literally—seven tracks of cavernous low-end pressure, submerged echoes, and spectral atmospheres, drawing inspiration from the voids between worlds, the unseen corners of deep space, and the eerie stillness of unknown places.

Where Beanntan a’ Bhròin charted a course through the bleak grandeur of the Highlands, Dubh Dubs plunges headfirst into the abyss, embracing the weight of isolation and the slow decay of time. Watkins Group crafts a sound that feels at once infinite and suffocating—pulsing, restrained, and heavy with the dread of something just beyond reach. Tape-warped textures and submerged percussive mutations unfold in glacial movements, calling to mind the nocturnal dub abstractions of Porter Ricks, the blackened ambience of Thomas Köner, and the sub-heavy spirals of Rhythm & Sound at their most ghostly.

A study in tension and negative space, Dubh Dubs marks another compelling entry in the Frequency Consortium catalog—an offering for those drawn to the darker recesses of sound, where every echo leads deeper into the unknown.

In loving memory of my brother and kindred spirit - Marcus Rafferty

The Bait label headed up by Beatrice M looks to Conzi for a fresh new 12" that builds on the label's superb early momentum. It delves deep into timeless 140 bpm sounds with opener 'AU2' layering up the percussion over fathom-deep beats and aquatic dub pads. It's a heady one for late night rolling and 'Drakar' then brings more bright melodies but similar icy beats and organic perc. An N:in remix of 'AU2' makes things more skittish and kinetic and broken, then and Ambit remix sets down with low-end pressure. These are fresh sounds that bring new direction to classic dubstep.

*press Release From David Katz*

The Hardest Working Reggae Band In Southern England, Dubheart Is On A Mission To Spread Messages Of Peace, Love, Unity And Resistance Through A Heady Stew Of Contemporary Roots Reggae, Delivered On Live Instruments With A Hefty Dose Of Dub In The Mix. Cool Under Pressure, Their Latest Offering, Is The Band's Most Compelling Set To Date, A 'showcase'-style Album Where Every Vocal Track Is Followed By Its Dub Counterpart, And The Vital Contribution Of The Brassica Horns—from Rising London Ska Band Chainska Brassica—is Another Intriguing Element That Makes This Album Tougher Than The Rest.

Drawing On The Foundations Laid By Jamaican Stalwarts Such As Burning Spear, Dennis Brown And Culture, Dub Pioneers Like Scientist And Jah Shaka, Plus Newer Vanguards Such As Tarrus Riley, Grounation And Conscious Sounds, Dubheart Has Crafted A Distinctly Appealing Style That Is Very Much Their Own, Based On The Organic Presentation Of Their Musical Vision. Indeed, This Fully Self-contained Five-piece Is Firmly Engrained In The Neo-roots Movement Of The Present, With A Sound That Faces Ever Forwards.

The South Coast-based Band Was First Formed Back In 1999, And Slowly Built A Following Through Their Intense Live Performances, Which Always Harnessed A Live Dub Element. Their First Ep, the Solid Foundation Rhythm,' Issued On Their Own Karnatone Label In 2011 And Featuring Dub Mixes By Russ D Of The Disciples, Became A Regular Part Of Jah Shaka's Live Playlists. It Was Followed By The 7' 45, we Chant,' Featuring The Band's Charismatic Bristol-based Lead Singer, Tenja (who Originally Hails From France), The Track Becoming An Underground Anthem In Japan (via Rob Smith, Aka Rsd). Dubheart's First Album, Mental Slavery, Was Released In 2013, A Momentous Year That Also Saw The Band Win The European Reggae Contest Staged By Rototom Sunsplash, Leading To A European Tour With Festival Appearances At Summerjam (germany), Reggae Sun Ska (france), Overjam (slovenia), Sudoweste (portugal), United Islands (czech Republic) And The Sardinia Reggae Festival, As Well As Rototom In Spain. Then, In 2015, Karnatone Issued The Dub Companion To Mental Slavery, Mixed Down In A Heavy Dubwise Fashion By Drummer Gavin Sant, Otherwise Known As Fullness, The Band Was Then Invited To Participate In The Bbc Television Show, The Uk's Best Part-time Band, Leading To Their Ep Of Cover Tunes, 2016's full Time Pressure,' Again With Dub Versions From Fullness. part Of The Band's Appeal Lies In Its Tightness As A Recording And Performing Unit, When You See Them Live, You Understand That This Band Of Brothers Is On A Higher Mission, United In Their Wish To Use Music As A Means Of Upliftment. And That Sentiment Is Entirely Evident On Cool Under Pressure. The Melodic Bass Grooves Of Mark Shepherd Act As The Perfect Buffer To The Furious Rolls And Expressive Drum Patterns Of Fullness, David 'daddy U' Mountjoy Adds Scintillating Melodies On Keyboards, Including Some Delightful Wurlitzer Lines, And Richard Ramsey's Guitar Licks Tend Towards The Understated, Aside From The Occasional Solo Pyrotechnics, As Heard Here On rocky Road.' And On Songs Like can't Wait,' watcha Gonna Do' And The Title Track, The Brassica Horns Add Further Melodic Depth Through Fanfares Of Treble Brass Texture. with The Rhythms Laid Entirely Through Live Recording Sessions Cut At Fullness' Home Studio In Bournemouth (with Horn And Wurlitzer Overdubs Done Elsewhere), Cool Under Pressure Reveals Dubheart As A Band On The Rise, Heading For Unstoppable Heights.

The Dub Deconstructions On The Disc Allow The Listener To Hear The Exceptional Quality Of Their Playing, Emphasizing Each Member's Individual Talent, While The Lyrics Tackle Subjects We Can All Relate To, With watcha Gonna Do' Addressing Social Inequalities, can't Wait' Alluding To The Refugee Crisis, rocky Road' Imploring Everyone To Hold Strong In Trying Times, And rise Up' Calling For Direct Action Against The Unjust System That Rules Our Lands. Overall, The Outstanding Title Track cool Under Pressure' Really Sums Up The Band's Ethos: The System May Burden Us With The Stresses Of Censure And Control, But Our Obligation Is To Stay True To Ourselves And Resist. And The Music Can Help Us To Achieve This.

The War On Drugs, "one of the premier live bands of their generation" (Pitchfork), announce Live Drugs Again, via Super High Quality Records and Transgressive / Canvasback. In support of Live Drugs Again, the band will kick off their Zen Diagram North American co-headline tour with The National, with support from Lucius, on September 12th. Recorded on tour between February 2022 through December 2023 in America, UK, Europe and Australia, Live Drugs Again follows 2020's Live Drugs and represents The War On Drugs at their ragged, righteous best. Bandleader Adam Granduciel comments, "Live Drugs Again chronicles the evolution of these songs from the studio to stages all over the world; documenting our continued growth as a live band. This series ensures that these versions, and some of our favorite moments on stage, will live on." As Consequence so accurately hailed, "it's hard to imagine a musical experience that's more enveloping and uplifting." This is hearing a band at its peak.

A next salvo of big people dubwise out of the ITAL COUNSELOR stable comes on this, the label’s first foray into the 7” format.

This relick of the legendary Black Brothers 1970s dub plate is perfectly crafted for dropping at the deepest of sound system sessions or right on your home hi-fi for some front room skanking. This is in no small part due to the pedigree of artists who contributed to its creation.

Hughie Izachaar first started in the reggae business as part of obscure UK band, Black Brothers, during the heady days of the late 70s and early 80s. Only known to have recorded two legendary dub plates, the band never committed their music to plastic. A multi-instrumentalist versed in the art of playing the melodica and guitar as well as singing, Izachaar went on to join the band, The Original Rockers, with whom he recorded the underground classic, “Mountain Rock.” Into the 90s and through the 2000s he has been heard across a number of 7”, 10”s, 12”s, and LPs on labels such as Reggae on Top, Jah Warrior, Inner Sanctuary, and King Earthquake.

On this release, he is reunited with the equally esteemed Jah Warrior who was responsible for Hughie’s high water mark showcase, “Can’t Take the Pressure” in 1998. Jah Warrior’s usual hard and strident steppers vibrations are in attendance here.

Uniquely, this 7” represents the first time Hughie and Jah Warrior have been combined with the third ingredient in this musical stew. Another long-time music industry journey man, Gil “Tuff Scout” Cang, augments the sound with additional production and remixing. A veteran of Studio One, Riz Records, and Tuff Scout, not to mention innumerable soul, acid jazz, and pop productions, Gil adds that “little way different” touch that has become a defining character of ITAL COUNSELOR productions.

As the saying goes: If you don’t know, get to know. Neither your ears, your skanking feet, or your soul will be disappointed!

Caroline Says' haunting new album, The Lucky One, is a poignant exploration of how the ghosts of past relationships linger, sometimes holding more sway over our hearts and minds than our current connections. We revisit these ghosts through evocative landscapes of our memories - hometown bars, road trips, and late-night swims. Through a series of fractured and persistent memories these songs capture the bittersweet realization that the past, though imperfect, can sometimes be a more comforting and meaningful companion than the present. Opening track, "The Lucky One," confronts death's role in shaping our memories head-on, as it ponders the way death freezes a person in time, forcing us to confront the complexities of grief and its lasting impact on our relationship with the one we lost. Other tracks delve into the complexities of relationships that naturally grow apart as life takes us in different directions. For example, "Faded and Golden" reflects on the bittersweet nature of reunions with old friends, where the idealized memories of youth can clash with the realities of the present. Then, "Actors" takes this a step further, acknowledging the influence of perception and desire in friendships, and the idea that in many ways "all friendships are imaginary friendships," as it confronts the disappointment of inauthentic connections, and the facades we sometimes put on in relationships. "Roses" began when Caroline was looking through her grandma's collection of commemorative Kentucky Derby glasses, each one etched with the name of a winner. The song delves into the story of "Sunday Silence," the horse that won the year Caroline was born. Researching the horse's journey from near-Triple Crown glory to retirement in Japan sparked a metaphor - a pressured being (the horse) desperately trying to please but ultimately disappointing. The owners eventually selling the horse becomes a relatable symbol of unmet expectations, and the sting of falling short despite our best efforts. Album closer, "Something Good," revisits Caroline's Alabama childhood. Lost on a recent trip to Birmingham, unable to find the familiar path to a riverside hangout, the experience becomes a powerful metaphor; we can't always retrace the paths in our memories, but those memories, however unreliable, continue to shape us. In the end, The Lucky One celebrates this enduring power, acknowledging how past relationships and experiences, even those lost to the haze of time, continue to inform the stories we tell ourselves, and the way we navigate the present.

From Cape Town to Cairo, and now to fans, stages and screens around the world, PJ Morton shares his newest album, fully made in the motherland. Cape Town to Cairo is a collection of songs that he created in 30 days throughout 4 countries in Africa — South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana and Egypt. Described as the best trip of his life, this transformative journey began as just the seed of an idea last fall, but instantly grew into his most sonically-sprawling and immediately-inspired record to date. With no music, lyrics or preconceptions, he stepped foot onto the continent with two thoughts: a wild dream to write and record his next LP in less than a month, and a mission to immerse himself in as many different cultures, stories and communities as he could.

Surrounded by featured collaborators like Fireboy DML, Mádé Kuti, Asa, Ndabo Zulu, and Soweto Spiritual Singers, as well as additional producers including P.Priime and The Cavemen., his own live band and local musicians, PJ Morton used music as his common language. Always his greatest way of communicating, he expressed his feelings and experiences of Africa through songs he and others were forming together on the spot, side-by-side in different studios, cities and towns for the very first time. None of the tracks were written before he arrived or after he left, and the arrangements showcase both the countries’ native genres as well as the innate, stylistic instincts that have made Morton a 5x GRAMMY-winner and 20x GRAMMY-nominee, whether it be his soul, R&B and gospel roots, or the pop prowess he has further honed as a member of Maroon 5.

“When you’ve been in music as long as I have, you’re constantly looking for inspiration,” says PJ Morton. “And you’re looking for the things that made you want to do it in the first place. I’ve made albums every type of way you can think, so I wanted to try something I hadn’t done before. As a Black American who had never been to South or West Africa, I knew there was something there waiting for me. So I put a little pressure on myself to make a full record in a month, but I also said, ‘If I’m gonna go to Africa, I want to see Africa.’ We made music, but we also formed connections. We made new friends, and this is just the start.”

ESSENCE adds, "This trip is not just a physical move, it's a spiritual return…The soul of Africa pulses through every note he plays and every word he sings,” and VIBE adds that “the multi-faceted artist is fully embracing a new phase in his life.” Cape Town to Cairo marks PJ Morton’s first album since 2022’s Watch The Sun, which featured collaborations with Stevie Wonder, Nas, JoJo, Wale, Jill Scott, Alex Isley and more. Since then, Morton has become the first Black composer to write an original song for a Disney attraction, having just finished making the music for Tiana's Bayou Adventure, opening on June 28th, 2024 at Disney World and Fall 2024 at Disneyland. He also won his latest GRAMMY earlier this year, worked with Samara Joy on “Why I’m Here” for Regina King’s Netflix film Shirley, and landed a cover of his song “Don’t Let Go” as the soundtrack to Apple’s iPhone 15 commercial.

PJ Morton recently returned from headlining his debut shows in Asia, New Zealand and Australia, and announced an extensive Cape Town to Cairo Tour for North America summer and fall 2024. Following iconic performances at New Orleans Jazz Fest, The Kennedy Center, Roots Picnic and Newport Jazz Fest, Morton will embark on a run of more than 25 dates across the country, including New York City’s Beacon Theatre, Chicago’s Chicago Theatre, Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, Los Angeles’ The Wiltern, and dozens of others.

On the heels of his headline tour and Maroon 5’s Las Vegas residency, PJ Morton will publish a life-spanning new book titled Saturday Night, Sunday Morning. The memoir sees him recounting and reflecting upon a trailblazing path that continues to defy expectations and straddle the tensions of music and faith, race and culture, expression and identity. As the son of two pastors and gospel artists, Morton grew up grounded by the sound of the Church, but soon found himself drawn to R&B, pop and soul, writing songs that the industry, his family and community struggled to understand. In the face of mounting pressure, rejection and constant miscategorization, he committed himself to a steadfast path of independence: making music on his own terms, launching his own record label, joining one of the biggest bands in the world while staying true to his New Orleans roots. The risks he took paid off, and through his transformation from preacher's kid to the busiest man in showbiz – performing everywhere from his local congregation to the Super Bowl, collaborating with everyone from his father to Stevie Wonder, Erykah Badu, Jon Batiste and Lil Wayne – he hopes to encourage readers and listeners to overcome obstacles as they seek their dreams.

Aesthetically, Ed Schrader’s Music Beat hates to tread water. At the same time, the Baltimore-based two-piece of vocalist Ed Schrader and bassist Devlin Rice won’t force their songs to fit a preconceived style. “The next album’s always gotta be different from the last one. We’re different people from record to record. So, writing authentically to ourselves will always bring our work to a place that we haven’t been to yet,” Rice said. Schrader added, “We’re terrified of turning into AC/DC. We never want to be married to one scene or time or sound. We want to be the Boba Fett of bands! Constantly altering the way in which we make records has been pretty key in that process.”
For Orchestra Hits, the band’s latest, that alteration was welcoming longtime musical comrade Dylan Going into the fold as a co-writer and co-producer. A songwriter in his own right, a guitar sideman for ESMB on their last two tours, and a collaborator with Rice in the noise riffage band Mandate, Going had both a unique vision and an intimate familiarity with the ESMB vibe.
“Dylan came to every show we’ve ever played in New York—no matter how weird it was,” Schrader said. “He’d be standing there ready to move an amp or feed us barbecued cactus after the gig and toss on some Golden Girls so we could decompress. It felt like family as soon as we began working, but I honestly had no idea how damn good he was at tossing out these hooks.”
According to Schrader, the songs “just poured out of us” over the course of a highly caffeinated three-day weekend in a tiny room in Devlin’s house while his cat, Sandy Goose, screamed continually. “It was like three kids hiding from the world to get into some lovely mischief,” they said. The lack of external pressure in the process gives Orchestra Hits an almost paradoxical vibe. For all of the album’s layers, that mix live and sequenced instruments, it never loses the raw energy of a small handful of friends in the same room plugging in, cranking up, and playing until they pass out.
Lyrically, the album finds Schrader, now 45, meditating on experiences in their youth to make sense of the present moment. “We are not into the garden,” Schrader wails on the relentless “Roman Candle,” a song about the sad debacle of Woodstock ’99, and a direct response to Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock,” a utopian ode to hippie idealism. A 19-year-old Schrader, having snuck into Woodstock ’99 through a hole in the fence, was there the night members of the crowd used candles intended for a vigil for victims of the Columbine High School massacre to set fires all over the grounds. Even before the fires, Schrader remembered feeling disconnected from the music, the nostalgic cash grab, and the meatheads in the crowd. After watching a press tower collapse, they boarded a random shuttle bus and were dropped off near a Denny’s. “It was a far cry from the Garden of Eden,” Schrader said. “That experience defined what I didn’t want to be a part of, and yet America is more like Woodstock ’99 than ever.”
With percolating synthesizer arpeggios, and climbing bass grooves, “IDKS” is the album’s dance-floor slapper. “’IDKS’ is a funny one,” Schrader said. “We already had a pretty satisfying suite of songs when Dylan was packing up to head back to New York, but he missed the train because of a freak snowstorm. Realizing he’d be stuck in town another day, he says to me, ‘Here’s this other weird thing I have.’ It was ‘IDKS.’ The hooks were so good I felt like Homer Simpson at a free donut convention. I just dove right in, and we cranked that baby out in like 20 minutes.”
Lyrically, “IDKS” is a letter from the true self to public-facing self. “It’s an angry song,” Schrader said. “Because the public-facing self is always looking for an easy escape, but it forces the true self into a cage. I honestly thought my lyrics were corny and was about to change them, but Dylan was digging it just the way it was. So that’s what you hear.”
With the soaring “Daylight Commander,” the band went against all of their musty-basement-bred instincts. “I went full High School Musical with the vocals,” Schrader said. “At first it felt almost embarrassing, but I remember reading somewhere that Bowie recommended always floating a little bit above your comfort zone, and that’s what we did here.” The song is part exercise in absurdity and part pop Trojan horse. “If ever we had a ‘Shiny Happy People’ moment, I guess this is it,” Schrader said.

Coming out on September 6th on Sharptone Records, Sundiver is Boston Manor’s fifth album and one that represents a glimmering dawn for the Blackpool five-piece. Grown from a seedbed of optimism and sobriety, the LP celebrates new beginnings, second chances and rebirth. With two members recently stepping into fatherhood, hope is baked into every note. “Datura came out of these really dark few years over the hangover of the pandemic,” Henry reflects. “I'd been struggling a lot with drinking and not taking care of myself and bad mental health and stuff. We wanted Sundiver to be the next morning of the following day.” He explains that it feels good this time round to write through the lens of positivity. “The themes began to emerge, of rebirth, spring, dawn, sunshine and then other elements just started to fit into that.” It was during the making of Sundiver that Henry found out he was going to be a dad. This album is a significant one for the band. Originally coming out of the emo and pop punk scene, they’ve explored sonics and genres throughout their career, taken risks and achieved more than they could ever had dreamed of. They’ve grown up as Boston Manor – their lives and the world changing around them. They’re now taking stock, at a crossroads of the band they were and the band they could be.
While writing the album, they revisited the bands that shaped them in the late 90s and early 00s. “I was listening to the music I loved when I was a teenager and I just thought, why don't we make music like our favourite bands?”, guitarist Mike Cuniff remembers with a smile. “So we brought our interests to the table that way. Y2K kind of vibe. There are elements of Deftones, there are elements of Portishead in there, some Garbage, The Cardigans.” He laughs and adds NSYNC to the list of inspirations. From this cocktail of classics comes a dynamic and ambitious record, rich with depth, groove and more hooks than Peter Pan’s nightmares. Lyrics that foxtrot from parallel universes to personal growth, vivid dreamscapes to raw grief. Individually they’re single strokes full of meaning and magic. Together they’re a landscape.
Container (out Feb 15th) is the first single and it’s them at their best – impassioned and infectious. “This song is about the stagnancy of life creeping up on you & how that can bring about change.,” Henry explains, citing Ocean Song by US band Daughters as an inspiration.

The concept of the butterfly effect is present on Sundiver – how small actions can lead to big changes. This is no clearer than on their second single, Sliding Doors (out April 5th). It has the golden sound of late 90s Lollapalooza rock – think Smashing Pumpkins - rebooted with crisp 2024 production and a potent heaviness. In the lyrics Henry wonders, what if?, pondering on what could be. The idea that there are infinite versions of you whose lives splinter off in different directions at every decision you make. That there’s another you out there somewhere right now reading this sentence, and another me writing it. “So much is down to chance and circumstance,” Henry says. “You might catch that train and your life totally changes. Or you might miss it and things stay the way they are.”
Heat Me Up (out May 30th) is defiant and victorious, the audio equivalent of quitting your shit job and driving into the hot summer sun with a head full of dreams. “The lyrics are about love and gratitude,” Henry shares. “Another theme on the record is just appreciating what you have. It’s about not taking for granted the things that you've been afforded.”
There was some natural magic in the creation of Sundiver. They worked with their usual producer, Larry Hibbitt, and engineer, Alex O’Donovan, but instead of recording in London again they ended up in the green pastures of Welwyn Garden City. “Because Larry lives out in the countryside now, it was a way different environment and way different experience recording this time,” Mike remembers. “That contributed a lot to the brighter sound of the record.” The daily barbecues they had during their recording sessions imbued the process with harmony – five old friends spending quality time together and making quality music.
However, the album is by no means one-note. Birthing this new world they’ve created wasn’t without it’s pain, and that can be heard in the heavier moments on Sundiver. What Is Taken Will Never Be Lost is the most-stripped back on the album, a slow rock number seasoned with the downtempo Portishead influence. The heartfelt lyrics are Henry’s way of processing the loss of his grandfather, who died in a hospice last year(?). “It was just fucking horrible. It was always cold when I went there and they were always trying to get rid of me. The song title, What Was Taken Can Ever Be Lost, is the idea of his memory fading at the time because of dementia.” Henry goes onto explain that shoeboxes of photographs, diaries and a legacy is what he’s left behind. “He lived a really rich life and it has really impacted me and my father. His legacy is etched into the fabric of history in a very small way.” This song continues the connection between his grandfather and the band, as his painted face is emblazoned on the cover of the very first Boston Manor EP, Driftwood. As well as emotionally heavy themes, there’s heaviness in the music of Sundiver too. The closing song, Oil In My Blood, descends into an intense shoegaze outro with Debbie Gough from Heriot screaming hellfire. It’s in moments like this that the band show us aggression and fury can be as much a part of positive change as quiet introspection. The last lyrics of the song, “It resets and starts again,” leaves us in contemplation as the final chord rings out.
Touring the US, Europe and Japan over the years makes for an impressive CV, but if you know anything about Boston Manor you’ll know that they’re all about their hometown. Their choice to work with Blackpool-based photographer Nick Barkworth is testament to that. They’ve been working with him since the pandemic. “He captures Blackpool in a light that really reflects the weirdness and quirkiness of the town,” Henry says.” He's got a really good way of presenting that.” For the Sundiver cover, Nick photographed a 30ft tall abstract glass sculpture made by the local artist John Ditchfield. A striking and bewitching monolith that’s familiar to them but unusual to most people. “It has such kind of a gravity and power to it,” Henry describes the sculpture which stands in a field just outside of the seaside town. “It reminds me of either an explosion or a star or a supernova. To me it represents new life, power and radiance.” Boston Manor have got a knack for that - connecting the otherworldly and the everyday, the stars and the streets.
They’re a band known for using their music to make bigger statements about society. This time round they’re harnessing the uplifting power of music, and the communion it creates, as an antidote to the daily doom and isolation. “It seems like absolute chaos out there at the moment,” Henry says. “You’ve got Gaza and Israel, you've got Russia, you've got the fact that 40% of the world is going to have an election this year and increasingly most governments are leaning very far to the Right. The internet is dividing everybody, people are getting poorer and more desperate. It's really, really scary.” They considered trying to tackle the weight of it all in their music. “We could’ve written Welcome to the Neighbourhood on steroids, where it's just absolute darkness and misery”. He’s referring to their 2018 concept album that deals with class, inequality and the bleaker side of Blackpool. “But I think it's really important to write something that people can be immersed in and find some sort of solace in. Somewhere they can escape to from the modern day pressures and everything that’s going on. We’re all in this together.”

The mercurial talent that is SW. back in the building with a new album, and if it weren’t already apparent, OYSTER45 goes some way to assert his place in the pantheon of pioneering producers. In fact, nobody can question his position right at the vanguard of forward-facing dancefloor dynamics.

myDEFINITION part II catches the SUED co-founder as vital as ever. Keeping it on that dusty, low-key flex that has long been his trademark, it harnesses ingenuity to conjure some of the most intriguing gear you’re likely to hear from a limited studio setup. Gone are the hi-tek jazz and ambient flourishes of the near-mythical ‘Untiled’ album, opting, instead, for pure dancefloor headiness. Precision-tooled breakbeats, opulent IDM cybernetics, tuff bleep n’ bass and late nite electro across 10 distinct trax.

Side quests into more abstract realms are fleeting. Dappled melodies evoke warmth in hues of pink and orange but any ambient-dub ephemera quickly dissipates into the peripheries in favour of club-ready pressure. The spectre of mid-‘90s dance music looms large but the SW. blueprint, with its captivating free-form approach, spins those vintage tropes into a distinct sound unto itself. Masterful, cinematic and hallucinatory.

Often drawing comparisons with B12’s seminal brand of ambient techno, SW. will surely be a stylistic reference point in his own right for years to come. Such is the indelible influence he has cast on contemporary electronic music.

It’s time to embark on the next chapter of extra-terrestrial worldbuilding - the second instalment of Seismic Records is here. Stepping in is sonic explorer Pyramid of Knowledge a.k.a. K.O.P 32. Based in Seoul but born and raised in France, the Beyond The Bridge label head is blending his Tekno roots with an introspective approach to music, carving out a trademark sound led by pensive rhythms and psychedelic atmospheres. With fierce precision and spellbinding force - you’re invited to explore the unknown depths of your psyche as you enter the state of ‘Fusion’. In all its ominous grace, the journey takes off with ‘CFU’. A kaleidoscope-esque acid ritual is guided by subtle yet uptempo kicks, lifting us into the first phase of the cleansing. Followed by ‘Xer’, where an ancient chant introduces the next dimension of consciousness-expansion. The progression of energy tells us that the higher powers have bigger plans for us - a phase that is entered on the B-side. ‘TV’ surges in tempo and raises blood pressure with an annihilating paradox of the calm and the chaotic. For those who managed to withstand all phases of the occult test, reconciliation is near as ‘Yrots’ strikes down with a mind-warping drum workout for the body and soul. Enter the heart of a psychedelic odyssey and swirl into the labyrinthine pathways of your ego as you enter the Fusion by K.O.P. 32.

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.”

Far from the sound of collapsing under pressure, Call A Doctor finds James and Co. stepping up with their entire collective chest. This is a record that’s so out-and-out alive that you nearly feel like you’re in the same room with Girl and Girl as you listen to it; lead single “Hello” practically bursts through the speakers, amplified by Aunty Liss’ unbelievable stickhandling duties. “‘Hello’ is all about romanticizing your own misery. Letting those deep, dark, dirty thoughts take over. Understanding that even if you could pull yourself out, you wouldn’t because the constant stress and worry is far too familiar and comfortable.”

“Mother” pogos on a spiky groove that’s reminiscent of the geographically close New Zealanders who make up the legendary Flying Nun label, while “Oh Boy” draws from the Shins’ own jangly sound, injected with James’ wonderfully nervy vocals. Then there’s Call A Doctor’s sorta-centerpiece “Maple Jean and the Anthropocene,” a five-minute epic offering a new perspective on climate change and the notion of what it means, in a personal sense, to suffer: “I live in the bushland, and I was driving home one night and hit and killed a wallaby with my car,” James recalls while discussing the song’s lyrical inspiration. “My first thought was, ‘What is the universe trying to tell me?’ No remorse, no guilt, just total self-centeredness. Which was like, Woah, you fucking psychopath! This wallaby wasn’t put on this earth to send you a message. That’s what the song is about, our egocentric species - thinking you’re the main character and that everything that happens is somehow about you.”

“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.

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.

Two talents with careers spanning varying eras, yet artists positioned at the heart of Italy’s current house landscape, Alex Neri and Mennie are adding to their rich solo discographies with a series of selected works in partnership with one another. Tuscany’s Neri, co-owner of the iconic nightlife institution Tenax and label boss at Wildflower Records, stands as one of the legendary Italian names from the past 30 years, holding residencies at the likes of Pikes in Ibiza while releasing a long list of classic records since the early 90s under numerous aliases, including Kamasutra alongside Marco Baroni. A familiar name to FUSE fans, having released material via sister imprints LOCUS and INFUSE, Mennie has seen his career flourish of late, regularly touring Europe’s key venues while also holding a residency at the legendary Tenax. Here, the two build on their recent joint studio projects with a debut on FUSE for the third edition of the label’s collaborative X Series, unveiling a quartet of impactful house cuts in heavy rotation for label head honcho Siragusa.

Taking a deep dive amongst swirling synths and cosmic interludes, ‘Reality’ opens proceedings with a trippy and punchy lead cut as the duo introduce slick groove-laden drum arrangements to get things moving, while ‘Find Me’ keeps the pressure on with bumping low-ends, shuffling hats and a menacing yet captivating bass groove sure to keep dancers moving in lockstep. On the b-side, ‘Rockets’ brings luminous melodies amongst breaks-influenced percussion for a playful and dynamic production, before ‘Watch Me’ rounds things out with another all-action affair as acid-dipped and kinetically charged closer made for big moments.

The early-mid "80s had their share of insane combos -- The Birthday Party, Black Flag and Minor Threat had the raw power to melt your mind in seconds. SWANS, Einsturzende Neubauten and Big Black created enough overwhelming sonic pressure their sounds might actually flatten you. And Sonic Youth displayed such a dizzyingly unpredictable mix of art, pop culture and violence you"d sometimes leave their shows drooling. The Buttholes shared elements with all of these groups, but added an insane psychedelic edge and a propensity for bizarre spectacle. This evolution continued on "Rembrandt Pussyhorse," which featured a set of tunes for which the Buttholes" rock-based form destruction was mixed with experimental, tape-mangling passages of many flavors. Haynes was handling all audible vocals by this point, and his mastery of post-tongue dynamism was finally in full flight. Meanwhile, their live shows became legendary examples of excess and derangement, and their music just kept getting louder and stranger and more savage. It was the diametric opposite of the hardcore scene from which it had emerged, which was heading in ever more codified and stylistically conservative directions.

After nearly 14 years The Hope Conspiracy have emerged from their bunker to a reality entangled by this unwavering truth. Since their last release (True Nihilist, 2009) members have been active in a multitude of bands; All Pigs Must Die, Hesitation Wounds, Lies, Paint It Black, Spiral Heads, Ways Away and more. Efforts in the above may have kept them musically sharp, but it was the pressures and stresses
of our present day dystopia that awoke The Hope Conspiracy. Serving as the catalyst for some of the most vicious songs they have ever created in their legendary career. Four song EP by The Hope Conspiracy, engineered by Kurt Ballou and Zach Weeks at God City Studios

Footballhead is a Chicago-based alternative rock band headed by singer/ songwriter Ryan Nolen - At its heart, the band is a vessel to toil forward through internal and external insecurity It also serves the unrelenting spirit of new- millennium Midwestern youth, with MTV and skatepark dreams in the core of their memories. By blending pop structures with alt and emo sounds, Footballhead channels the frantic, dramatic, and anthemic to map the pressure points of existence. It's outcast music, revitalized in search of a modern, blissful awakening. Nolen was a skate kid from the western Chicago suburbs; the one who only kicked it with older neighborhood kids. The punkish attitude of late-90s and earlyaughts alt- rock galvanized Nolen, from the infectiously fun music down to the fashion.

A teenage relocation to Palm Springs, CA coincided with Nolen inundating himself with all the music he could: Warped Tour, 411 videos, Limewire, and the like. The Footballhead ethos comes from this comfort zone of pop impulses and raucous energy, carried by a DIY spirit that grants Nolen the autonomy to facilitate honesty and reflection. Joined by Adam Siska, snow ellet, Liam Burns, and Robbie Kuntz, Footballhead crafts supercharged rock songs like brief, open secrets. However weathered one is from their struggles and mistakes, this music offers unbridled fun as a reprieve, and salves for the shaken. These are your old friends inviting you in to commiserate, elevate, and believe.

For decades, any sound system worth their salt headed to the dub cutters to get a piece of the “Late Night Blues” riddim. Acetate after acetate of the riddim rumbled through speakers from Brixton to the Bronx, making it a certified sound system classic. Now, Pressure Sounds comes with four exclusive cuts of the Late Night Blues rhythm. The first 2 cuts combine Diggory Kenrick’s always-in-demand flute with the legendary Matic Horns on Side A. The flipside takes the riddim into deep, dubbed-out territory with two dangerous cuts, one laden with dreamy chimes, the other snatches of vocal.
A welcome addition to the Late Night cult!