Suche:la rock

Kiwi Jr. are a phenomenal rock and / or punk and / or indie rock (whichever you like more) band from Canada, made up of Jeremy Gaudet (mic, guitar), Brohan Moore (drums), Mike Walker (bass) and Brian Murphy (guitar). ‘Cooler Returns’ is their second album and their first for Sub Pop.
Despite being a snapshot of the pandemic-infused beginnings of this decade, ‘Cooler Returns’ is truly a whole lot of fun. For fans of indie pop from down under and things that are smart / exuberant / catchy all at once.
‘Cooler Returns’ was produced by Kiwi Jr., mixed and engineered by Graham Walsh (METZ, Bully) in Toronto and mastered by Phillip Shaw Bova at Bova Labs in Ottawa, Ontario.

It’s incredibly easy to get a remix wrong — as the back catalogues of far too many major labels, whose slapdash commissioning of the latest hot remixer half-guarantees an unsympathetic mangling of the song, can attest. At their best, remixes can make you look at an artist as though positioned from a different angle or using a different camera; sometimes hearing a song in a different context gives it a completely new meaning. “So you take a piece of a vocal…blah” says master remixer David Morales. “That’s a remix? That represents the artist? That doesn’t represent the artist, it represents you.” In the hands of the insensitive a remix is like chucking a song into the washing machine for a 100 extra spins.

In the hands of a master, things are a little more complex. Heavenly was all but founded on the art of the remix; our departed friend Andrew Weatherall remixed the first ever release, and the label has built up an immense catalogue in the intervening years that demonstrates all that is good about the art form.

Assembled on this compilation are twelve sterling examples of the remix, from Hanspeter Lindstrøm’s reading of Doves’ ‘Jetstream’, which turns their glistening pop into Lieutenant Pigeon meets Italo-disco (in a good way), to Andy Votel’s gentle folk-funk version of Halo Maud’s délicieuse ‘Des Bras’. We delve deep into the vaults for Saint Etienne’s ‘Filthy’, Monkey Mafia turning it into a rump-shaking groove perfectly suited to Q-Tee’s rap, while more recently, Flying Mojito Bros, purveyors of Tex-Mex house groove, reimagine Katy J. Pearson as a lonesome Lone Star lover.

Though not purposely themed, beyond being judiciously chosen as the catalogue’s finest gems, there’s a tiny hint of psychedelia about this set that is hard to ignore. Firstly, there are the acid contributions from Gabe Gurnsey, who knows his way around a coruscating bassline, and from Graham Massey, whose impeccable credentials in 808 State are brought to bear on ‘Valleys’, by young turks Working Men’s Club (acid house being modern psychedelia, whether the rock press approves or not).

Jono Ma, meanwhile, flips Night Beats’ amazing ‘Sunday Mourning’ into ‘Warm Leatherette’ on benzos, creating a disorienting glimpse of a dystopian Sunday that most definitely doesn’t include a genteel read of the papers and a nice cup of tea. On the other side of the miasma is Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve’s redemptive re-interpretation of M. Craft’s ‘Chemical Trails’, which, alongside Boy Azooga’s ‘Face Behind Her Cigarette’ (Mikey Young remix), Gwenno’s ‘Chwlydro’ (R. Seiliog remix) and and Katy J. Pearson’s ‘Take Back The Radio’ (Flying Mojito Bros Refrito Dub), is issued on vinyl for the very first time.


This dozen tracks — each one curated, remixed and delivered with love (and a teensy bit of impertinence) — is just a glimpse into the catalogue of one the UK’s finest indie labels.

In the alternative reality in which I’d prefer to exist, this what Top of the Pops might sound like; or, at the very least, the jukebox in the Korova Milk Bar. Pop disruption at its best.

Pioneering rock 'n' roll singer-songwriter Dion delivers yet another power
collection of timeless blues with Stomping Ground
This is the follow up to his universally acclaimed 2020 Keeping The Blues Alive
Records debut, Blues With Friends. Dion has yet again enlisted the music world's
most iconic and talented stars to bring his blues to life. Peter Frampton, Eric
Clapton, Keb' Mo', Joe Bonamassa, Patti Scialfa & Bruce Springsteen, and more
join Dion on this year's most heartfelt release! 1. Take It Back Feat. Joe
Bonamassa.

Rare and highly sought after in its original format, Os Brazoes self-titled album was originally released on RGE Discos in 1969. It is a psychedelic masterpiece that fuses samba, r'n'b and rock 'n' roll influences using fuzz guitars, synths, percussion, lush vocals and effects.

Os Brazoes formed in Rio de Janeiro in the late 1960's. They backed Gal Costa during her Tropicalia period, yet apparently never recorded in the studio with her. Miguel de Deus, the bands front man, recorded the highly sought after 'Black Soul Brothers' LP in 1977, which became an important record in the 'Black Rio' movement. Mr Bongo released the title track from that LP, on the 'Brazilian Beats: Brooklyn' compilation in 2006 and recently as part of their Brazil 45's re-issue series.

'Os Brazoes' features covers of Gilberto Gil's 'Pega a Voga, Cabeludo' and Jorge Ben and Toquinho's 'Carolina, Carol Bela'


The Mr Bongo LP reissue is manufactured in Japan, presented in a super high quality card sleeve with replica original artwork. The CD is presented in a 4-page digi-pack.

As current lead vocalist and co-songwriter of the hugely successful modern progressive metal band HAKEN, ROSS JENNINGS needs no introduction in some circles, having released 1 ep, 1 Live album and 6 full length studio albums of consistently high quality with the band, HAKEN have been climbing that mountain with grace and gusto, albeit on the fringe of mainstream rock and metal. In 2019 HAKEN won ‘Best UK Artist’ at the annual PROG awards, with their latest release ‘Virus’ reaching #2 in the UK rock charts and entering the US Billboard Hot 100 at #52.

On the back of this release ROSS JENNINGS set out to write, record and self-produce his debut solo effort ‘A SHADOW OF MY FUTURE SELF’ with an ambition to become a new household name and keep mainstream classic rock alive and well.

The Lauded Krautrocking, Global Groove Ensemble’s First Album On Maverick Producer Madlib’s Label. The late Christian Burchard, who founded the Embryo ensemble in 1969, loved the slogan Auf Auf, German for Up, Up, or Keep On Going. Anyone with anything more than a passing interest in the German Krautock scene of the 1970s and 1980s knows that Burchard followed that intent, all around the world, tirelessly seeking out new sounds and inspirations and creating a catalog of music unlike most anything else the world has ever heard. Madlib has often said Embryo is his favorite rock band. Of course the hip-hop-producer-with-the-deepest-musical-knowledge knows Embryo is more than just a rock band – but, for the purposes of these notes, let’s keep it simple. When Marja Burchard, Christan’s daughter, who grew up with Embryo and toured with them for years, took the reins of the ensemble after Christian’s death in 2018, she started recording what would become this album, over the course of two years, finishing it in the throes of the Covid pandemic in 2020. She approached Madlib and Egon, who had, years back, visited and jammed with Christian Burchard, and Embryo musicians Uve Mullrich, Roman Bunka and Jan Weissenfeldt, in a Bavarian wine cellar, with the idea to issue Auf Auf on Madlib Invazion. The reply was a resounding, definitive “yes.” So here is Marja’s take on the Embryo ethos, continuing with her father’s intrepid style, and leading the band in her own style. Auf Auf ranges from the deep, free-form jazz of “Alphorn Prayer” to modal music from Afghanistan on “Baran” to psychedelic-tinged jazz-rock of the title track Joining Marja are those like Embryo veterans Bunka, on oud and guitar, and Karl Hector and the Malcouns/Whitefield Brothers/Poets of Rhythm producer and guitarist Jan Weissenfeldt and others, including important players on the global scene from Afghanistan and Morocco

2003 Jahr erschien das elfte Studioalbum von Killing Joke und das erste nach einer Pause von sieben Jahren.
Ihr selbstbetiteltes Debütalbum war zu diesem Zeitpunkt 23 Jahre alt. Zehn Alben später benannten sie
ihr neues Produkt nun erneut nach sich selbst: „Killing Joke 2003“. Ein Name so simpel, dass er besonders
laut daherkommt. Die Drums wurden damals von Foo Fighters-Frontmann Dave Grohl eingespielt. Der
ursprüngliche Plan war es gewesen, die drei Lieblingsdrummer der Band auf dem Album zu vereinen: John
Dolmayan von System of a Down, Danny Carey von Tool und eben Dave Grohl. Letzterer beanspruchte
kurzerhand „das ganze Ding“ für sich, nachdem er die Songs gehört hatte und bestand darauf, unbezahlt
zu arbeiten. Ihr Werk wurde 2005 im Rock Hard Buch zu einem der 500 größten Rock- und Metalalben
aller Zeiten gekührt. Weitere zwei Jahrzehnte später, nach 40 Jahren Bandgeschichte erscheint „Killing
Joke 2003“ jetzt in einer Neuauflage.

"In Vivo" is the result of the photographic work of Klavdij Sluban at the Fleury-Mérogis Young Offender Institution (France) from 1995 to 2016 Beds in addition to his work from Izalco prison, located in El Salvador, from 2008 [visiting rooms] connected to the music of Gareth Davis.

Gareth Davis is an artist, composer and musician living in Amsterdam. He plays clarinet(s), the result of a somewhat impulsive purchase whilst window shopping in Covent Garden, London, around ten years before the turn of the century. The serendipitous location of a rather wonderful (and equally important, rather cheap) second hand record shop less than 10m from the bus stop required for seven years of schooling, combined with delivering newspapers on a daily basis, lead to a somewhat eclectic, dusty and generally unclassified taste in music.

The result. Activity covering sonic art and contemporary classical music through rock, improvisation and noise with collaborations that have included the premiering of new written pieces by composers such as Bernhard Lang, Peter Ablinger, Toshio Hosokawa and Jonathan Harvey, soloist with orchestras including the SWR Symphonieorchester, Warsaw Philharmonic and Orquesta de la Comunidad de Madrid, performances with groups and performers ranging from the Neue Vocalsolisten and Arditti Quartet through to improvisers Elliott Sharp and Frances Marie Uitti, electronic artists Robin Rimbaud and Merzbow and multimedia work with artists including Christian Marclay and Peter Greenaway.

"In Vivo" is his second solo release after to have recorded a bunch of collaborative albums with artists such as Scanner, Machinefabriek, Steven R. Smith, Kleefstra Brothers, Frances-Marie Uitti, Merzbow, Adain Baker, Duane Pitre and more...

Klavdij Sluban, winner of the European Publishers Award for Photography 2009, of the Leica Prize (2004) and of the Niépce Prize (2000), main French prize in photography, is a French photographer of Slovenian origin born in Paris in 1963.

He develops a rigorous and coherent body of work, nourished by literature, never inspired by immediate and sensational current affairs, making him one of the most interesting photographers of his generation. The Balkans, the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea, the Caribbean, Central America, Russia, China and the Antarctic (first artistic mission in the Kerguelen islands) can be read as many successive steps of an in-depth study of a patient proximity to the encountered real.

His images have been shown in such leading institutions as the Metropolitan Museum of Photography of Tokyo, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, the Rencontres d’Arles, the Museum of Photography in Helsinki, the Fine Arts Museum in Canton, the Musée Beaubourg, the Museum of Texas Tech University. His many books include East to East (published simultaneously by Actes Sud, Dewi Lewis, Petliti, Braus, Apeiron & Lunwerg with a text by Erri de Luca), Entre Parenthèses, (Photo Poche, Actes Sud), Transverses, (Maison Européenne de la Photographie) and Balkans -Transit, with a text by François Maspero (Seuil). Since 1995, Sluban has been photographing teenagers in jails. In each prison he organizes workshops with the young offenders to share his passion. First originated in France, in the prison of Fleury-Mérogis with support of Henri Cartier-Bresson during 7 years, as well as Marc Riboud and William Klein punctually. This commitment was pursued in the disciplinary camps of Eastern Europe –Serbia, Slovenia, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldavia, Latvia – and in the disciplinary centres of Moscow and St Petersburg as well as in Ireland. From 2007 to 2012, Sluban has been working in Central America with imprisoned youngsters belonging to maras (gangs) in Guatemala and Salvador. In 2015, he started photographing imprisoned teenagers in Brazil. In 2013, the musée Niépce showed a retrospective of K.Sluban’s work, After Darkness, 1995-2012. In 2015/16, he was awarded the Villa Kujoyama Residence in Kyoto, Japan. K.Sluban is member of national and international jurys, such as prix Niépce, prix de la Jeune Photographie de Niort, prix Leica, All About Photo…

Triumph breeds confidence, and with confidence comes an expansion of ambition, a focus of ability, an emboldening of audacity. De-Loused In The Comatorium had risked everything Omar and Cedric possessed on the wildest of gambits, the most impossible of dreams: making sense of the riot of influences ricocheting about Omar’s head, and memorialising their departed friend Julio Venegas through Cedric’s magical realist roman-a-clef. It Clouds Hill shouldn’t have worked. But it did, and with that fiendish tightrope act successfully accomplished, the duo stretched the wire even further and higher, over a figurative fiery pit peopled with lions, crocodiles, piranha and other sharp-toothed beasts not yet known to man. Because how do you make great art without taking great risks? Frances The Mute was no De-Loused Part Two. For one thing, the band’s configuration had changed, in the most painful way. Shortly before the release of De- Loused, sound manipulator and founder member Jeremy Michael Ward passed away, a wound Omar says the group never recovered from. But even though his inspired fucking- with-the-sonic-parameters is absent from Frances The Mute, his spirit and influence can still be determined, the album’s concept derived from a diary Ward had encountered in his day-job in repossession. “Jeremy picked up lots of interesting stuff when he was a repo man,” remembers Cedric. “Weird things, including this diary, He let us read it a bunch of times. It was by a guy who’d been adopted and was searching to find his real parents. It was very surreal, it didn’t make much sense – the guy might’ve been schizophrenic – but it was very inspiring. It felt like how certain music helps you escape your boring every-day life. The names and scenes in the diary directly inspired these songs.” Some of the tracks pre-dated De-Loused, having their origins in early demos Omar recorded at the duo’s Long Beach home Anikulapo, songs such as The Widow and Miranda The Ghost Just Isn’t Holy Anymore. Cedric had heard these jams in their embryonic state and began working in his mind on what he could bring to them. “I was attracted to The Widow like you would be to a lover, right?” Cedric remembers. “I sang over it with Omar while we were touring De-Loused in Australia on the Big Day Out, like, ‘Okay, I’ve got something for this.’” A potent ballad, laden with emotional crescendos and evoking the epic drama of Ennio Morricone – an effect aided by an elegiac trumpet part performed by Flea – The Widow would become The Mars Volta’s first song to chart on the Billboard Top 100, capturing the album’s potent sorrow and widescreen sprawl in miniature. Indeed, the lush sound of the album, the depth of detail and breadth of instrumentation, belies its grungy roots. Having tasted the luxury of Rick Rubin’s mansion, Omar veered in the opposite direction when recording Frances, cutting the album in what he describes as “a shithole... Basically a warehouse with one little air conditioner on its last legs, awful wiring and a console you couldn’t rely on. We were there night and day – I would literally lock engineer Jon DeBaun in there. He slept on a mattress in the vocal booth.” A considerably more complex and ambitious album than its predecessor – four of its five tracks lasted over ten minutes in length, with its closing epic Cassandra Gemini spanning over half an hour – Frances The Mute wasn’t recorded “live” by an ensemble, but with the individual musicians coming into the “shithole” and recording the parts Omar had scripted for them separately. “They had to have absolute trust in me,” Omar remembers, “Like actors trust their director.” In addition to the core band – now fleshed out with incoming bassist Juan Alderete, and Omar’s brother Marcel on keyboards and percussion – the album featured guitar solos from John Frusciante, saxophone and flute by future member Adrian Terrazas-Gonzales, a full string section, and piano played by Omar’s hero, salsa legend Larry Harlow. “It was a childhood dream come true,” Omar says. “We recorded with him in my hometown in Puerto Rico, and my father flew in to watch the session. Larry was a perfect gentleman, and a very lively spirit.” The album’s fevered intensity infected even the staid string section, Cedric remembers. “When they performed the part on Cassandra Gemini, ’25 wives in the lake tonight’, one of the guys in the orchestra played so hard he broke his bow, this real old, antique bow. And you could see his ‘classical’ side come out – like, ‘I broke this playing a fuckin’ rock song??’ He was pissed off. But I was like, ‘Fuck yeah, man, that’s on the record! You’ve got to realise things like that are cool.’” The album also features field recordings of “the coqui of Puerto Rico” during the opening minutes of Miranda That Ghost Just Isn’t Holy Anymore. “We took a page out of the Grateful Dead’s book there,” laughs Cedric. “They recorded air. We recorded fuckin’ frogs in Puerto Rico.”

The wonderful world of Louis Armstrong All Stars are the cream of the crop of curr
ent New Orleans musicians, paying tribute to the musician who started it all in the Crescent City. The album is comprised of new arrangements and recordings of music assosciated with Louis, featuring a previously unknown Louis Armstrong and the All Stars track, and a touching spoken word private recording made by Louis made near the end of his life. Produced by Wycliffe Jordan, Jackie Harris, and Nicholas Payton, with a rotating cast of key New Orleans players including guest features from Wynton Marsalis, Common, and more. This is the LP release.

Butterbandz returns with another absolute BANGER of an EP ‘King Heroin’. This is his second EP on the 7 Days Entertainment imprint and he is serving up some DOPE tracks. From start to finish you’ll be sure to find a groove you’ll enjoy. ‘Prometheus’ starts off the EP with an energetic techno track. It’s got a punchy synth over a sub bass with dreamy synth chords and some rockin’ drum programming. The second track ‘Get Down’ is simple yet effective. It’s got that Detroit feel that we all love and enjoy. Not really structured, kind of just flowing. The drums are knocking and the hi- hats are keeping up that energy. It’s a got a rough rugged bass paired with a synth that carries feelings of deep rage and clarity. Tying it all together is the vocal sample. For the title track ‘King Heroin’ Butterbandz teams with his older brother Generation Next to create this gem. It’s got some deep emotion but it will make you move nonetheless. Excellent high energy drum programming, distance reverbed synth pad, catchy piano pattern, in your face lead synth, and a off putting sub bass. These two artists make a dynamic duo. Lastly is ‘OD Soundtrack’ tying together a hard hitting EP with a little laid back tune to take you to a higher more peaceful place. The synth pad carries that smooth calm sound and then the kick is in your face out the gate. It’s got some airy flutes and grooving lead synth. This EP is going to be a staple in the growing legend of Butterbandz.

Scuba begins a new project with London vocalist and producer DOMiNii, who makes his debut with ‘Diivorce’.

Paul Rose (aka Scuba) has long since explored cross-genre sounds, blending disparate elements and mining nostalgia to create cool moods and moments of pure escapism. Over four critically acclaimed albums and mix CDs for DJ Kicks, fabric, and Ostgut Ton, he’s established himself as one of the industry’s most respected artists and tastemakers. He’s continued to evade musical pigeonholing over the course of his career, never hesitating to challenge himself with new creative endeavours. The fresh sonic direction expressed on ‘Diivorce’ is one he’s been developing since 2018, when he took an indefinite break from the full-time DJ circuit.

‘Diivorce’ is a collaboration with debut artist DOMiNii, a vocalist and producer who takes influence from the likes of Wang Chung, David Newman, Arthur Russell, and The Blue Nile. Although he appeared uncredited with backing vocals on Scuba’s ‘Forgive Me’, which initially came out last summer, ‘Diivorce’ marks his first official release.

Covering areas as varied as power pop, indietronica, exuberant house, and classic rock, the project seemingly touches as many points as it can think of, something Rose acknowledged in a recent interview where he stated that “we made so many tracks, with no real set direction, so with this record I just wanted to pick a limited number that kind of showed where we’d been. We are working on something now that I’d call a ‘proper album’, which I think will come out in 2022, Diivorce is something I see as a documentation of a period of time.”

The project includes illustrations by French artist Virginie Kypriotis who tells the story of ‘Diivorce’ through the eyes of DOMiNii, detailing a world of abandonment and separation against a backdrop of a faded paradise. Rose was first acquainted with Kypriotis’ work through her iconic illustration ‘A Night at Berghain’, which was later used by the club as their official flyer artwork in December 2017.

The vinyl edition of ‘Diivorce’ includes previously unreleased (and vinyl-exclusive) track ‘Tricks’, and is packaged in a limited edition, numbered, screen-printed sleeve.

Aeon Station’s ‘Observatory’ is an epic statement more
than a decade in the making, with miles of timeless
melodies and the kind of overpowering songwriting
that will reaffirm your belief in life itself.
 Band leader Kevin Whelan co-founded and was a key
songwriter for New Jersey indie-rock legends The
Wrens. The Wrens’ landmark 2003 album, ‘The
Meadowlands’, received a 9.5 Pitchfork review and
made Pitchfork’s Albums Of The Year list. Since that
album, fans and press have been eagerly awaiting
new material from The Wrens members.
 Whelan’s scope of musical vision on ‘Observatory’ is
wide open and free with possibilities - at once recalling
the reflective wisdom of Bruce Springsteen, Broken
Social Scene’s huge anthemic burn, and the Wrens’
own pulsing-with-life take on rock music. Above all,
this is music not only for dreamers but for those who
realize and appreciate the enormity of every moment.
“It’s about never letting go about those dreams and
your passion,” he states. “The album starts from a
place of realizing that everything is temporary, what we
love eventually changes or leaves us, and regardless
we continue to search and find our way back home.”
 If you’ve ever caught air in your lungs or felt your heart
beating in your chest, there’s no doubt that you’ll find
some level of connection with ‘Observatory’’s openhearted, instantly classic-sounding rock.
 LP pressed on cloudy blue vinyl.

Bria is an intimate and incisive labour of love from multi-instrumentalists Bria Salmena
and Duncan Hay Jennings. Catapulted by a deep sense of dread and confusion in the
depths of 2020, Salmena decided to forgo writing her own music. “I wanted to listen for
what might reflect my life back to me,” she says, “six tracks that could be my mirror.” The
result is a pointillistic knockout of a release that weaves a landscape both luscious and a
little rogue; showing us exactly what good songs can do.
 Bria’s internal turbulence seemed to mirror last year’s external instability. When Jennings
and back-up singer Jaime McCuaig moved to The Outside Inn, a hobby farm in Hockley
Hills, Ontario, Bria soon joined. The farm’s living-room-turned-studio proved an ideal
setting for the long-time friends to compile a record of handpicked country covers. They
went searching for songs that could speak to our everyday loneliness, outside and in.
‘Cuntry Covers’ houses it all: well-worn favourites and lesser-known gems.
 The record opens with ‘Green Rocky Road’, as performed by Greenwich Village legend
Karen Dalton. Jennings’ twangy guitar carries Bria’s original inflection and richly textured
vocals, complete with dreamy overlay. ‘Dreaming My Dreams With You’, a rendition of the
Waylon Jennings hit, is followed by John Cale’s ‘Buffalo Ballet’, a lyrical journey through
Abilene, Texas, the endpoint of the Chisholm Trail.
 Engineered and mixed by Duncan Hay Jennings, each song brings desire and sexuality
front and centre, with all the swagger you’d expect – and more. Bria hopes the record will
be understood as a small contribution to the subversion of a genre with deep patriarchal
roots. Mistress Mary’s ‘I Don’t Wanna Love Ya Now’, from the 1969 album ‘Housewife’,
served as the original inspiration. “It was the first song Duncan and I worked on,” Bria
notes. “It definitely set the tone for the other tracks we picked.”
 Bria’s voice - described as wavering between “sultry and howitzer” - shines on ‘Fruits Of
My Labour’, written and performed by country great, Lucinda Williams. The Walker
Brothers’ ‘The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore’ is a harmonic (and hypnotic) standout. A
musical explorer who moves fluidly between styles, Bria doesn’t consider herself a
country artist: “I feel as though I’m a visitor here, paying respect to a style that has
informed a part of my musical identity. Country music, as much as any other art form,
should be an arena for representation, expression and provocation. I have a ton of
reverence for artists who came before me and challenged the primarily whiteheterosexual status quo.”
 Salmena and Jennings have toured for years as members of Toronto four-piece FRIGS,
whose 2018 debut ‘Basic Behaviour’ was long-listed for the Polaris Music Prize. Making a
mark in diverse genres from country to punk, both play as permanent members of Orville
Peck’s band.
 ‘Cuntry Covers’ was recorded on the territories of the Anishnaabe, the Haudenosaunee,
the Wendat and the Mississaugas of the Credit. The release also features contributions
from FRIGS drummer Kris Bowering and vocals by Ali Jennings.
 LP pressed on opaque breeze blue vinyl.

Bria is an intimate and incisive labour of love from multi-instrumentalists Bria Salmena
and Duncan Hay Jennings. Catapulted by a deep sense of dread and confusion in the
depths of 2020, Salmena decided to forgo writing her own music. “I wanted to listen for
what might reflect my life back to me,” she says, “six tracks that could be my mirror.” The
result is a pointillistic knockout of a release that weaves a landscape both luscious and a
little rogue; showing us exactly what good songs can do.
 Bria’s internal turbulence seemed to mirror last year’s external instability. When Jennings
and back-up singer Jaime McCuaig moved to The Outside Inn, a hobby farm in Hockley
Hills, Ontario, Bria soon joined. The farm’s living-room-turned-studio proved an ideal
setting for the long-time friends to compile a record of handpicked country covers. They
went searching for songs that could speak to our everyday loneliness, outside and in.
‘Cuntry Covers’ houses it all: well-worn favourites and lesser-known gems.
 The record opens with ‘Green Rocky Road’, as performed by Greenwich Village legend
Karen Dalton. Jennings’ twangy guitar carries Bria’s original inflection and richly textured
vocals, complete with dreamy overlay. ‘Dreaming My Dreams With You’, a rendition of the
Waylon Jennings hit, is followed by John Cale’s ‘Buffalo Ballet’, a lyrical journey through
Abilene, Texas, the endpoint of the Chisholm Trail.
 Engineered and mixed by Duncan Hay Jennings, each song brings desire and sexuality
front and centre, with all the swagger you’d expect – and more. Bria hopes the record will
be understood as a small contribution to the subversion of a genre with deep patriarchal
roots. Mistress Mary’s ‘I Don’t Wanna Love Ya Now’, from the 1969 album ‘Housewife’,
served as the original inspiration. “It was the first song Duncan and I worked on,” Bria
notes. “It definitely set the tone for the other tracks we picked.”
 Bria’s voice - described as wavering between “sultry and howitzer” - shines on ‘Fruits Of
My Labour’, written and performed by country great, Lucinda Williams. The Walker
Brothers’ ‘The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore’ is a harmonic (and hypnotic) standout. A
musical explorer who moves fluidly between styles, Bria doesn’t consider herself a
country artist: “I feel as though I’m a visitor here, paying respect to a style that has
informed a part of my musical identity. Country music, as much as any other art form,
should be an arena for representation, expression and provocation. I have a ton of
reverence for artists who came before me and challenged the primarily whiteheterosexual status quo.”
 Salmena and Jennings have toured for years as members of Toronto four-piece FRIGS,
whose 2018 debut ‘Basic Behaviour’ was long-listed for the Polaris Music Prize. Making a
mark in diverse genres from country to punk, both play as permanent members of Orville
Peck’s band.
 ‘Cuntry Covers’ was recorded on the territories of the Anishnaabe, the Haudenosaunee,
the Wendat and the Mississaugas of the Credit. The release also features contributions
from FRIGS drummer Kris Bowering and vocals by Ali Jennings.
 LP pressed on opaque breeze blue vinyl.

 In 2011, Toronto’s Fucked Up delivered an album
that chafed the edges of punk rock’s conceptual
boundaries - a set of songs that splayed freely into
unexpected instrumentation, psychedelic drift, and
situationist philosophy. Its ambition was limitless
and its run time opulent. Which is to say, they
made a concept album.
 Matador Records celebrate the 10th Anniversary of
Fucked Up’s titanic 78-minute early ‘10s
masterpiece, ‘David Comes to Life’, with a special
edition double LP reissue on lightbulb-yellow vinyl.
 ‘David Comes to Life’ is a story of lost love, global
meltdown, depression, bombs, guilt and madness.
Or is it? A modern-day morality tale set amid the
dour backdrop of a British industrial town in the
late ’70s, it’s a four-part play that follows the dark
moods and inner psyche of the titular hero. At the
same time, the reliability of the narrator gets called
into question. The tables are turned, responsibility
shifts, and the story goes meta. Of course, you
could always ignore the backstory and just listen to
a fiercely imaginative double album of blistering,
melodic rock ‘n’ roll shot through with all manner of
psychic weirdness.

 The seven-headed Aussie rock beast King Gizzard & The Lizard
Wizard return with a new vinyl edition of ‘Fishing For Fishies’,
perhaps their most perfectly-realised album to date.
 The Eco Edition has been pressed on Eco-Mix vinyl and is housed
in a brown paper bag after previous pressings quickly sold out.
 Released on the band’s own Flightless Records, here is a world
where the organic meets the automated; where the rustic meets
the robotic. Where the past and future collide in the beautiful
present.
 ‘Fishing For Fishies’ is a blues-infused blast of sonic boogie that
struts and shimmies through several moods and terrains. From the
soft shuffle Outback country of the opening title track through the
sunny easy listening of ‘The Bird Song’ (think a lysergically-soaked
Laurel Canyon circa 1973) and on through the party funk of
‘Plastic Boogie’ (which somehow summons the spirit of Stevie
Wonder’s ‘Innervisions’) the road-trucking, Doors-like highway
rock of ‘The Cruel Millennial’ and ‘Real’s Not Real’ - what
Carpenters might have sounded like had they existed entirely on
vegemite and weed - it’s a dizzying, dazzling display which
addresses a number of pertinent environmental issues along the
way.
 “We tried to make a blues record,” says frontman Stu Mackenzie.
“A blues-boogie-shuffle-kinda-thing, but the songs kept fighting it -
or maybe it was us fighting them. Ultimately though we let the
songs guide us this time; we let them have their own personalities
and forge their own path. Paths of light, paths of darkness. This is
a collection of songs that went on wild journeys of transformation.”
 Quiet though it was on the record front, 2018 was hardly a year of
rest for King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. In almost perpetual
motion, the band continued their unstoppable rise as their
juggernaut of a live show grew and grew and grew, with a mindblowing headline slot at Green Man Festival, a massive sold-out
US tour in the summer which saw them play their biggest venues
to date, a brain-frying sold out Brixton Academy show, two gigs in
Russia and Istanbul where they played in front of over 15,000
people and putting on the fourth edition of their annual Gizzfest in
Melbourne amongst the highlights.