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The first thing that strikes you about ‘Stray’, Bambara’s fourth - and
greatest - album to date, will be its pulverizing soundscape. By turns,
vast, atmospheric, cool, broiling and, at times - on stand out tracks
like ‘Sing Me To The Street’ and ‘Serafina’ - simply overwhelming.

However, ‘Stray’ is not merely another, better entry in a catalogue
full of darkly thrilling, blistering experimental rock-via-punk. Rather,
early on in its conception the band made the decision to experiment
with new compositions and song structures. The resulting addition of backing vocals from Drew Citron (Public Practice) and Anina IvoryBlock (Palberta) create a hauntingly beautiful contrast to Bateh’s
drunken baritone on tracks like ‘Sing Me To The Street’, ‘Death
Croons’ and ‘Stay Cruel’, while the Dick Dale-inspired guitar riffs on
‘Serafina’ and ‘Heat Lightning’ and the call-and-response choruses
throughout the album showcase Bambara’s ability to write songs that
immediately demand repeat listens.

These are just a few of the changes that reveal this album to be the
monumental step forward that it is. Here Bambara finally sound like
they’ve locked into what they were always destined to achieve, and
the effect is nothing short of electrifying.

Bambara - twin brothers Reid and Blaze Bateh, singer/guitarist and
drummer respectively and bassist William Brookshire - have been
evolving their midnight-black noise into something more subtle and
expansive ever since the release of their 2013 debut ‘Dreamviolence’.
That process greatly accelerated on 2018’s ‘Shadow On Everything’,
their first for New York’s Wharf Cat Records and a huge stride
forward for the band both lyrically and sonically.

“Beautifully dynamic nightmare” - NPR.

“One of my favourite things I finally saw for the first time at South By
this year” - Steve Lamacq.

“Very few artists these days make rock and roll as threatening as
Bambara” - Loud And Quiet.

“An abrasive, awesome ripper” - Treble.

Self-titled debut from Boniface, the brainchild and primary creative outlet for Canada’s Micah Visser. Boniface is a catalogue of Micah and their band’s most formative coming-of-age experiences, each moment captured in diary-like detail and set against a magnificently sprawling
backdrop. Throughout the album, Micah reflects on falling in
love and facing heartbreak whilst struggling with identity, never
failing to find an ineffable beauty within all the pain.

The record was recorded between Winnipeg and London by
Boniface themselves and producer Neil Comber (Charli XCX,
Glass Animals, M.I.A).

Digital deluxe format features the non-album single and live
favourite ‘Phantom Limbs’ and all of the B-sides to date, at
times reflecting a more intimate portrait of this most special
album. Also included is their stripped down cover of Chromatics
‘The Page’ and the single mixes for ‘Keeping Up’ and new single
‘Oh My God’.

UK shows will follow an extensive run of touring that has seen
Boniface share stages with the likes of Foals, Let’s Eat
Grandma, Circa Waves, White Lies and Blaenavon.

Press - Reviews & features in NME (Best Tracks), Sunday Times Culture (Hottest Tracks), Dork, DIY.

Radio - Radio 1 Annie Mac New Names, Jack Saunders, Phil Taggart,
6Music Tom Robinson, Radio X playlist.

Online - NME, DIY, Best Fit, Wonderland, Clash, Dork, Notion, The
Independent, The Times.

Tourdates - May 23 Neighbourhood Weekender Warrington, 24 This Is
Tomorrow Newcastle, 27 Omeara London.

*** BONUS TRACKS THEREFORE ***

Self-titled debut from Boniface, the brainchild and primary creative outlet for Canada’s Micah Visser. Boniface is a catalogue of Micah and their band’s most formative coming-of-age experiences, each moment captured in diary-like detail and set against a magnificently sprawling
backdrop. Throughout the album, Micah reflects on falling in
love and facing heartbreak whilst struggling with identity, never
failing to find an ineffable beauty within all the pain.

The record was recorded between Winnipeg and London by
Boniface themselves and producer Neil Comber (Charli XCX,
Glass Animals, M.I.A).

Digital deluxe format features the non-album single and live
favourite ‘Phantom Limbs’ and all of the B-sides to date, at
times reflecting a more intimate portrait of this most special
album. Also included is their stripped down cover of Chromatics
‘The Page’ and the single mixes for ‘Keeping Up’ and new single
‘Oh My God’.

UK shows will follow an extensive run of touring that has seen
Boniface share stages with the likes of Foals, Let’s Eat
Grandma, Circa Waves, White Lies and Blaenavon.

Press - Reviews & features in NME (Best Tracks), Sunday Times Culture (Hottest Tracks), Dork, DIY.

Radio - Radio 1 Annie Mac New Names, Jack Saunders, Phil Taggart,
6Music Tom Robinson, Radio X playlist.

Online - NME, DIY, Best Fit, Wonderland, Clash, Dork, Notion, The
Independent, The Times.

Tourdates - May 23 Neighbourhood Weekender Warrington, 24 This Is
Tomorrow Newcastle, 27 Omeara London.

A need for experimentation, exploring new sounds and new ways of
making music - the inspiration driving Mute’s newest signing HAAi,
the Australian-born London-based DJ who continues an incredible
couple of years by announcing her first EP on the prestigious label.

Inspired by a chance trip to Berghain, HAAi started DJing by digging
into a wealth of music on the psychedelic spectrum from around the
globe. Her Coconut Beats parties in Dalston led to shows on Rinse FM
and Worldwide FM and eventually to a prestigious residency at the
London club Phonox where Throssell played Saturday nights for two
years. As her residency came to end, BBC Radio 1 broadcast her
Essential Mix which went on to win the accolade of the Best Essential
Mix Of The Year, alumni of which include Helena Hauff, Caribou,
Nicolas Jaar and Ben Klock. HAAi was then granted a monthly Radio
1 slot, which continues into 2020.

Over the last year, HAAi has won over crowds at renowned events
such as Sonar Festival and Glastonbury, been responsible for an
incredibly memorable Boiler Room and found an ever-increasing
fanbase internationally.

The new release, ‘Systems Up, Windows Down’, feels like an
evolution from the previous releases on her own label. With a more
mature, dancefloor focused sound, full of heavy basslines, breaks
and crisp percussive electronics, she has experimented more and
pushed the boundaries of her production.

The opening track includes the revving of her stepdad’s 60's Mustang
engine on ‘It's Something We Can All Learn From’ she uses an almost
forgotten artefact from a trip to Marrakech and ‘CHONKIBOI’ is
grounded in an earwormy ritualistic vocal.

‘6666’ was initially composed for the Genesis stage at Glastonbury
and has since grown to be a monster of a tune, adding a tougher
element to the EP. The closing track is a ten-minute burner which
has been garnering love over the summer festivals.

‘Systems Up, Windows Down’ will be released on neon orange
coloured vinyl in a spined sleeve printed on reverse board ahead of
shows in the UK, Turkey, India and Australia.

Tourdates - January 25 HAAi Curates Motion Bristol, February 1 Bullingdon Club Oxford.

Following remix work for Björk and Zola Jesus, productions for
serpentwithfeet and her debut album on Tri-Angle, American
experimental musician and producer Katie Gately moves to
Houndstooth for her sophomore album ‘Loom’, dedicated to her
mother, who passed away in 2018. “My mother’s voice is in this
record, her picture’s in the sleevenotes. This record is for her,” says
Katie.

To solidify the enormity of a loss like this, Gately has added the
seismic rumble and aural grit of real earthquake recordings in her
productions - alongside her signature adventurous sound design and
earwormy melodies - to signify how grief like this is like the shifting
of the earth. “I felt like my world was being shaken,” says Katie. “I
was losing the person who created me, and it seemed an appropriate
time to sample earthquakes.”

As well as earthquake sounds, ‘Loom’ includes more samples, chosen
for their associative power - peacocks screaming, pill bottles shaking,
a coffin closing, wolves howling, a shovel digging, a paper shredder,
stone grinding and heavily processed audio from her parents’
wedding.

Where her debut album ‘Color’ (2016) deployed fractured rhythms,
fierce licks, bold samples and her signature paintbox pop hooks,
‘Loom’ reveals crepuscular textures. Her voice is more forward in the
mix, often densely layered in choral laments above a coarse
foundation of hard and brittle sound design, the latter of which is
rooted in her film school training.

In the summer of 2019 Katie was part of the Mary Anne Hobbs
curated Queens Of The Underground Festival in Manchester
alongside Houndstooth musician Aisha Devi.

Press - Reviews in Mojo (4* & lead review in Electronic column), Electronic Sound, Uncut, Loud & Quiet, Q, NARC, The Wire, DJ. Features in Aesthetica, London in Stereo, The Wire (plus track on covermount CD The Wire Tapper).

Online - Targeted Facebook & Google campaigns. News & features on
fabric blog & across artist’s, fabric & Houndstooth’s social networks.

Further Marketing - Posters displayed in fabric nightclub (averages approx 6000 visitors per week)

Following on from their ‘Induction Party’ EP, Mush are circulating their own sonic mythology, blurring the lines between abstract surrealism,
existentialism and social commentary. Like its predecessor, ‘3D Routine’ is a sensory overload of clattering, hooky guitar work. However, this time space emerges between the onslaughts and, in this respite, room is found for new emotional depth. More expansive than ever before, ‘3D Routine’ manages to maintain the rawness of a classic debut but it’s experimentation and variety portray a band unlikely to rest on their ‘guitar band’ chops.

Songwriter Dan Hyndman explains the genesis of the band as being “fairly boiler plate,” a combination of friends old and new converging in Leeds postuni to form a band predominantly united in their mutual affection for the Pavement back catalogue. Finally settling on a line-up of Nick Grant (bass), Tyson (guitar) and Phil Porter (drums) the band’s progression has taken them far beyond this original vision.

Having garnered local attention in the early days for their unhinged and often calamitous live shows in Leeds, it was the unlikely radio hit ‘Alternative Facts’ (clocking in at an uncompromising ten minutes) that brought the Mush to the attention of a wider audience. The song, one of the last releases for the legendary Too Pure Singles Club, saw early support from Marc Riley and others on BBC 6Music with them playing multiple sessions and the follow up single, ‘Gig Economy’, hopping onto the 6Music playlist.

Roaming further afield from their hometown, Mush spent the first half of 2019 heading out around the UK, earning a reputation for their intense live performances, supporting the likes of Girl Band, The Lovely Eggs, Yak, Shame and Stereolab, as well as releasing the ‘Induction Party’ EP to great acclaim. At the tail end of summer of 2019 Mush headed to Leeds’ Green Mount Studio and, with Andy Savours (Dream Wife, Our Girl, My Bloody Valentine) manning the mixing desk, their debut album, ‘3D Routine’ was born.

The way in which the album brazenly moves from polished 3 minute punk tracks to avant-garde spoken word to sardonic-political funk, whilst sounding like the same band is testament to an uncompromisingly unrefined ethic and compounds the jarring nature of Mush. Together, the songs form a unified, abrasive, emotive, frenetic and entirely beguiling concoction of sound and opinion, a fast-moving snapshot of current times, relatable, politically minded and incredibly personal. Music for those who want their guitars loud
and weird and their political commentary a little less ‘on the nose’.

LTD. TRANSPARENT BLUE VINYL

Porridge Radio grew out of Dana Margolin's bedroom, where she started making music in private. Living in the seaside town of Brighton, she recorded songs and slowly started playing them at open mic nights to rooms of old men who stared at her quietly as she screamed in their faces. Though she eventually grew out of them, for Margolin these open mic nights unlocked a love of performing and songwriting, as well as a new way to express herself. She decided to form a band through which to channel it all, and be noisier while she was at it - so Porridge Radio was born. Inspired by interpersonal relationships, her environment - in particular the sea - and her growing friendships with her new bandmates (bassist Maddie Ryall, keyboardist Georgie Stott, and drummer Sam Yardley) Margolin's distinctive, indie-pop-butmake-it-existentialist style soon started to crystallise. Quickly, the band self-released a load of demos and a garden-shed-recorded collection on Memorials of Distinction, while tireless touring cemented their firm reputation as one of UK DIY's most beloved and compelling live bands. The band's sound - bright pop-rock instrumentation blended with Margolin's tender, open-ended lyrics - has developed and refined. Now, they are taking that development a step further, as they put out their label debut, Every Bad.

Rejoicer is a Tel Aviv-based musician making cosmic jazz-tinged electronica. 'Rejoicer' has collaborated with Mndsgn, Georgia Anne Muldrow and Dudley Perkins, as well as being a member of the band Buttering Trio and running the Raw Tapes label.

Several tracks on ‘Spiritual Sleaze’ include vocals, with featured guests including iogi, KerenDun, Nitai Hershkovits, Jenny Penkin and Sam Wilkes. Key tracks from the album have had videos made by visual collaborator Jengo, who will also tour with Rejoicer to perform their live A/V show in 2020.

Rejoicer cites Sun Ra, Aphex Twin, Steve Reich, Dabrye, Eric Satie, Wu Tang Clan and Scientist among his musical inspirations. For fans of Kiefer, Mndsgn, Teebs, Flying Lotus, BADBADNOTGOOD, Thundercat, Shigeto.

Press - Reviews & features in 405, RA, Faze, Clash, Mojo, Electronic Sound, Stamp The Wax, Mixmag, Faze, Musikexpress, Jazz News, Tsugi. / Online - 6 Music, Worldwide FM, NTS, Radio Nova, ByteFM, EGO FM, Triple J, Double J.

If there’s one thing for certain, it’s that 'The Wonder Years' put their entire souls into each body of work they release. Nearly three years ago, some of their most popular songs like ‘There, There’ and
‘Don’t Let Me Cave In’ were taken to crushing new heights on the first edition of the groundbreaking Philly band’s first acoustic EP, ‘Burst & Decay’. They were only just getting started.

Produced and engineered by Ace Enders (The Early November), ‘Burst & Decay (Volume II)’ truly takes this stripped-back The Wonder Years experience to an entirely new level.

The new release features stunning string arrangements from Little Kruta String Quartet and guest vocals on ‘We Look Like Lightning’ from Alex Maniak of the band Shortly.

Bombay Bicycle Club are very pleased to announce details of their fifth album set for release in January 2020.
 
“Everything Else Has Gone Wrong” will be released on the 17th January through Caroline International/Island Records. It is the eagerly anticipated follow-up to the British band’s acclaimed number 1 charting, Mercury Music Prize nominated fourth album, ‘So Long, See You Tomorrow’ released back in 2014.
 
The new album was largely recorded out in the US alongside Grammy Award winning producer John Congleton (St. Vincent/Sharon Van Etten/War on Drugs). It features the band’s euphoric new single, “Eat, Sleep, Wake (Nothing But You)”. The video was directed by Louis Bhose, the band’s old touring keyboardist who has quickly become the go-to director for countless artists in recent years (Michael Kiwanuka & Tom Misch, Lewis Capaldi, The Big Moon, Loyle Carner). It was shot out in Ukraine.
 
Speaking of the record’s title, vocalist/guitarist Jack Steadman explains: “This is an album for anyone who’s ever turned to music in a time of need.  It’s about the solace one can get from listening to music or playing music.  For me personally it's about the frustration of not being able to express myself to others, of leaving conversations feeling dissatisfied and misunderstood. Music’s the way I’m able to truly express myself”.

Bombay Bicycle Club have continued to grow, develop and evolve since the release of their debut album, “I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose”, back in 2009 when they signalled their arrival as young teenagers. Rarely in recent years has there been a British guitar band who have the craft and ability to avoid categorisation whilst uniting hundreds of thousands of fans across the globe. With an innate ear for melody and invention, the four-piece are a very welcome return to the fold just as British guitar music makes a timely renaissance.
 
To coincide with the new album’s announcement, Bombay Bicycle Club are also excited to share a thirteen date UK and Ireland headline tour which immediately follows its release.

'IMB12001' shipping to You in a designed Uni Cover with a Sticker of the Label "The Inbeciles" on it!

This is the music for our times; our darkening times. The Imbeciles are making the soundtrack for the world we really live in, which is set to become increasingly angry, unhappy, unfair, and messed up. “The world is slowly imploding.” That’s the warning from The Imbeciles, and the message behind its first album. The idea of what to do emerged like a surprise attack.

“I don’t even know where it came from… it ambushed us,” says Butch Dante, of the band’s forthcoming self-titled debut album. “To us it looks like mankind will endgame itself in this millennium, and probably within the next 100 or 200 years. The Imbeciles as harbingers of that fall. We’re pointing out that the world is imploding, for many reasons — environmental, political, technological, and ultimately because human beings themselves forgot how to be humane, how to be kind.”

“Saying we are political would infer that we have some faith in the political system. We don’t. Or that we have answers, a solution to prevent this coming slow apocalypse. But we don’t. We are sitting at the side of an innocent-looking pool saying: hey, you’re drowning but you don’t even know it. And we’re giving you some music to listen to as you go down.”

Inspired by the likes of Wire, Devo, Gang Of Four, but utterly unique, a new form of avant-garde art punk, against greed and mendacity. The band’s forthcoming album was recorded deep down at Sonic Ranch on the Texas/Mexico border. All analogue, in seven days. Produced by Calvin Voltz.

Latest single “D.I.E.” is “a lament for the end of the world. With references to global endgames. They’re grim. All self-inflicted. The chorus is epic when played live. It’s incredibly passionate. People really get into it.” And now it’s been remixed.

Red Rack'em's take on is wonderfully curveball as one might expect; homing in on one unique part of the vocal and making it the fullcrum, from which his psychedelic, deep-house, hardcore jazzathon is then able to blossom and unravel before your very eyes. Atmospheric, experimental and hooky too - clever business from the Bergerac boss.

Next up we have the amazing Oliver Ho and his Broken English Club. Here we witness a more flagrant and faithful use of stems, and through layering both the band's parts, and instruments of his own design - he transforms 'D.I.E.' into a towering slab of dark and raw, industrial EBM.

Heralded by both mainstream and indie press on it's release as an instant British classic, this seminal album rocketed from the underground to five-star acclaim right across the board.

A tense yet energetic journey through the highs and lows of living in the British counterculture of the time, it effortlessly mixed the old and the new, rock and roll and electronica, the past and the future- and brought this eclectic sound to a global fanbase. Now available as a 15th Anniversary Remastered Edition.

Redefining an 80's Generation od disillusioned youth caused by Britain's Insane ability to rid itself of the Poverty and turmoil of the era, The Smiths were the neointellectual Person's answer to the dullness surrounding them. As is so often the case, the sum of The Smiths parts was always less than the whole, the group's influence on modern rock music incalculable, their unique sound echoing through the strains of countless indie success stories and untold hopefuls alike. The Smiths provided a guitar-based alternative to the Synth-Pop Sounds of so many other early 80's UK Bands, paving the way for the 90's Brit-Pop explosion, and The Smiths' distinct LP's are still studied by millions of sensitive types all over the World.
In this Chapter of our 'The Many Faces' Series, we will explore The Smiths' unparalleled repertoire and a fantastic early live performance of the band. With Stellar Artwork and remastered sound, 'The Smiths' are the most recent addition to our 'The Many Faces' Collection in Vinyl.

Tim Ayre is a composer, singer and songwriter based in Melbourne, Australia.

Although the project is in his debut, Tim Ayre is not quite the novice. Half of the duet Tim & Jean praised by Triple J radio, Ayre is now ready to pursue the adventure solo.

Influenced by the Beach Boys, the Beatles, the Flaming Lips, Steve Wonder or Daft Punk, he gathers all these references and encapsulates in his compositions. From his room to the studio, Tim Ayre crafts on his own luxurious dream pop blending guitar, drums, bass and synth that he all master. The result is a colourful yet nostalgic sound that borrows the authenticity of yesterday and turns it into a modern and vintage aesthetic.

After the success of 'LAXX', 'Not Like It Should Be' and 'Nothing', Tim Ayre reveals two more songs in his debut EP : Barcelona and Find You. 'Barcelona' will be accompanied by a video clip, and 'Find You' was Triple J's Unearthed NIDA winner in 2017.

Delicate, polished, and oh so catchy, Tim Ayre’s debut EP is released on Kitsuné Musique.

The Flying Luttenbachers’ “Imminent Death” is the second release by the seminal cult band since its reincarnation in 2017.

“Imminent Death” is very different in many ways from the previous Luttenbachers releases, but then again, you could consistenly say that about most of them. The group has always followed the direction set by its leader 'Weasel Walter' and reflects his desire to create music of a determinately less common quantity in any given era.

'The Flying Luttenbachers' have always been staunchly committed to making artistic statments which defy current trends and seek the expression of personal truth, mania and iconoclasm.
This offering is a record, Mr. Walter has pondered and thought about making for 30 years - finally, here it is, and it is quite a cathartic exorcism. ... Hope, you enjoy.

An active member of the Barcelona scene and frequent John Talabot collaborator, Arnau Obiols debuts his Velmondo project with his first release for Hivern. In 'Moon Gazing' he draws inspiration from early forms of electronic music in the 70's, whether it's dub, krautrock, industrial, ambient or post-punk, to conjure enigmatic atmospheres through raw and primitive sounds. A multi-instrumentalist and music designer who has played in countless bands, his approach to electronic music production has always been unorthodox. These five tracks were created by experimenting with "analog synths, guitars, many pedals and many acoustic instruments" in his studio at Bellaterra, a suburb located in the outskirts of Barcelona. The 12" comes housed in a sleeve by Barcelona-based designer Marc Mir.

This is the 2nd single release from L'Épée, from the seminal album “Diabolique”. This 3 track single contains an exclusive track to the release “Shiny Shiny” & the artwork is by Frank Kozik.
The band are Emmaunelle Seigner (Ultra Orange & Emmanuelle), Anton Newcombe (The Brian Jonestown Massacre) & Lionel & Marie Liminana (The Liminanas).

Statues is the fourth and final studio album by English-Irish electronic music duo Moloko, first released in 2003. The whole album is set up around the different stages of a romantic relationship, and how things can fall apart. This fresh album charted all over Europe, and eventually went on to become their most popular record.

Roisin’s voice and the fine handling of the album’s instrumentation sets Moloko apart from many other dance duos. The best part of the amazing love between them is coming to an end, making this the ultimate final by the duo.

Available as a limited edition of 3000 numbered copies on blue marbled (solid blue & white mixed) coloured vinyl. The package includes an insert.


• 180 GRAM AUDIOPHILE VINYL / INSERT
• FOURTH RELEASE OF THE MUSIC ON VINYL MOLOKO SERIES
• LIMITED EDITION OF 3000 NUMBERED COPIES ON BLUE MARBLED
(SOLID BLUE & WHITE MIXED) COLOURED VINYL.

The debut single from 'The House Of Love' is reissued on 7” for
the very first time and contains all three tracks, that were also on the Original as 12”. Although a newly recorded version of 'Shine On' was released in 1990 and became a massive hit, this is the first time that the original version has appeared in this format.

Limited Dark Blue Vinyl 2xLP. The synth-pop project Laumė (rhymes with Pflaum) will deliver the aptly-titled new LP, Waterbirth, by way of Carpark Records, finally sharing her most lyrically complex and musically infectious body of work to date.

The New Zealand-born songwriter and former Yumi Zouma frontwoman and co-founder, Kim Pflaum, worked with French producer Rude Jude to craft a 13-track LP that broadens the scope of Laumė. The irresistibly vibrant and funky sounds of each instrumental are inspired by visionary pop artists like Sade, Kate Bush, and Grimes, but sit in stark contrast with the ideas explored in Pflaum’s writing.

“Spells (Oedipusi)” finds Pflaum knocking the antagonist down a notch, and doing so in style overtop a punching kick drum and groovy synths. Since releasing her debut EP, Bad Humors, under the moniker MADEIRA, Pflaum has renamed the project, had a stint in London, and spent the past three years working to better understand the complexity of the world around her. Her travels and new experiences shaped both the content and construction of her songwriting and recordings, giving way to this expansive new full length.

Between 2016 and 2019, Pflaum wrote and recorded new material for Waterbirth everywhere she had the space to–from Okie Dokie studio in Auckland, to flats around London, to even a train across Poland. “I began to question human nature and who we are.” Pflaum recalls. “We’re so complex and we have these dark sides to us—I’m equally reflecting on myself at the same time” as heard of “Darkside.” Each of her new tracks began to form like Russian dolls, filled with layers of meanings that are not easy to spot at first glance. Pflaum explains “Although at one level it might sound like I’m singing about a certain thing, I’m usually singing about something else altogether on another level.”

In late 2017, Pflaum traveled to eastern Europe, where her grandfather fled Poland during WWII, in an effort to learn more about her family roots firsthand, and examine the deeper parts of her psyche. ” Pflaum became more interested in lineage and the cycle of life, and the concept of birth and rebirth unified the new songs she was writing. “When I was a young child I drowned, so in a way the album is a reflection on getting another chance,” explains Pflaum, “The album is actually dedicated, in part, to the two people who rescued me from the water, as I’ve never been able to thank them.” Throughout the record Pflaum is constantly balancing the power of nature and the fragility of humanity, capturing the existential tension between both in songs like “Villains” and “Klara.” Slowly as Pflaum and Rude Jude worked together, each song they crafted would reinforce the record’s sonic and lyrical duality. Rude Jude’s production is reminiscent of the pop golden age of the ’70s and ’80s, but Pflaum’s writing and intentions make the album feel undeniably current.

“In January 2019 I found myself stuck in a Chicago hotel room during the ‘Polar Vortex’. I was performing there with my duo Radnor & Lee over a few nights when temperatures dropped, leaving me unable to do much outside my hotel room for 4 days. “Chicago is a city that holds a special history for me, and I found myself spending a good chunk of time staring out my hotel window, reflecting on my first trip there in 1993 to record my debut solo album ‘Grandpaw Would’ at Idful Studios with Brad Wood. But more than the details of that trip, I was struck by how vividly memories started flooding back to me of being a 15 year old mega fan of music, and in particular, indie rock. I LIVED for the records that I loved and the bands who made them. I’m not sure you are ever a fan of bands the way you can be as a teenager. It’s pretty sacred. “I started re-listening to some of my favorite songs from that period in that hotel room, by the Beat Happening, Pavement, Fugazi, The Breeders, Guided by Voices. It struck me as crazy that these songs and the feelings that accompanied them were now over 25 years old. It started seeming odd to me that for some reason, indie rock hasn’t been canonized the same way ‘60s and ‘70s rock has. After all, Dinosaur Jr were my Led Zeppelin, Sonic Youth were my Grateful Dead and Built to Spill were my Steve Miller Band. These were my classics! “I always travel with my portable studio gear, and I immediately sat down and started learning and recording a collection of my favorite songs. I spent my 4 days of the 2019 Polar Vortex creating the blueprint for what would become ‘Quarter Century Classix’. When I got home to LA, I invited mY friends Julianna Barwick, William Tyler and Mary Lattimore to my home studio to add their magic to my recordings as I knew they grew up in reverence of the same records I did. These three genius musicians became the ‘band’ who you can hear framing these covers and I am eternally grateful for their talent and generosity. Later, Maria Taylor, Mike Watt, Petra Haden and Joey Waronker all showed up to play too. “To some people these songs are just footnotes in pop culture history. But to me, they are the essence my own personal history. I wanted to make this record a tribute to these bands, to these songs, and to the irreversible way music can touch and transform the life of young person. I hope you enjoy ‘Quarter Century Classix’.” - Ben Lee

LP pressed on blue and pink split vinyl.

On first glance, the line-up on ‘Shame Engine / Blood Pleasure’, the seventh studio album from Chicago’s Health&Beauty, might indicate a passing of the torch. The recording features a large cast of musicians from the outfit’s past and its present helping the band’s founder and sole constant Brian J Sulpizio achieve his idiosyncratic vision - a sound and ethos he’s been kicking around, retooling and finessing for more than 15 years, a few years after moving to Chicago from his native Defiance, Ohio in 2000. From song to song the band’s sound encapsulates detail-rich pop songs, extended jamming inspired by Chicago’s free jazz legacy and devastatingly potent country-folk tunes. Sulpizio has never been hung up on genre but his imagination and musicianship has allowed him to bring far-flung
ideas to beautiful fruition. “They explore the tricksy time signatures and artful insouciance of Deerhoof or Tortoise with aplomb.” -
Mojo: “The passive loveliness of Brian J. Sulpizio's voice ..., his melodies call to mind the soft dreaminess of Sufjan Stevens” - The Sunday Times. LP includes digital download code.

After a three year absence, Kasper Bjørke returns to hfn music with a sublime new double EP entitled
“Nothing Gold Can Stay”. Having followed a deeply personal ambient music path that last year led to
the release of “Kasper Bjørke Quartet: The Fifty Eleven Project” on Kompakt Records, (named 5th
Best Contemporary Album 2018 in The Guardian), Kasper has found his way back to producing some
of his signature leftfield danceable beats, which “the past decade has seen Bjørke steadily rising amongst the ranks of artful, eclectic electronic producers…” (XLR8R).The Double EP “Nothing Gold Can Stay” explores both the analogue and organic side of his production work on Side A - while Side B reflects on sounds that he would play today, in one of his nightclub DJ sets. Side A contains four collaborations with four friends from LA, New York and Copenhagen. “Water” feat. Toby Ernest, the slow mo opener to the EP, revives the partnership with Toby that was last seen on 2014’s After Forever album (on the single “Rush”). Toby also provides the vocals on the cover version of Alessi Brothers’ 1975 classic “Seabird” - a track that came about through Kasper’s friendship and musical synergy with DJ and vinyl digger Christian d’Or, who is lead crooning while Toby delivers his signature falsetto. The “Seabird” cover adds a distinct contemporary feeling to the original version while staying true and respectful to the delivery and mood of the songs core. The 2nd half of the release, Side B, is directly aimed at the floor. Having stepped away from releasing club jams for a few years, Kasper is clearly enjoying getting back to the business of making people move. Side B of Nothing Gold Can Stay is both a testament to Kasper’s versatility as a producer and an all-out dancefloor assault, made with precision and sensitivity.

In the fall of 1978, after working with a series of bands, New York-based musician and composer NickWest became interested in experimenting with minimalism, collaborating with guitarist and songwriter Ramona Jan and Lyn Byrd. They decided to play pure pop but to substitute a primitive electronic beatbox for a human drummer. The result was Comateens, becoming one of the first groups to discard the traditional sounds and line-ups used by everyone else in New York City’s downtown music scene of
the late 1970s. In 1980 Nick’s brother Oliver joined them as guitarist, and after going on to release three major label albums (Comateens, Pictures On A String, and Deal With It), and with some
successful tours and dance-club hits behind them, the band split up following the terribly untimely death of Oliver in June 1987.
However in 1988 Virgin Records issued another LP entitled West & Byrd, recorded by Nick and Lyn as a duo, and in 1991 released a retrospective compilation called ‘One By One: Best Of Comateens’, now a rare and much sought-after record among collectors of new wave music. Acclaimed by Etienne Daho, the band has made a name for itself with the singles “Late Night City“, “Get Off My Case“ and “Don't Come Back“.

180G PINK VINYL

Australia's U-Bahn came stomping into 2019 with a collage of glam-pop and new wave. Describing their music as 'nostalgia for futures that never came to pass; suburban boredom and sexual dystopias', the Melbourne 5-piece will thrill and baffle audiences alike with their debut LP, teeming with futurist art-punk.

Originating from singer Lachlan Kenny's bedroom recordings, a chance meeting between him and Zoe Monk over the purchase of a vintage drum machine, followed by the recruitment of Leland Buckle, Jordan Oakley and Mitch Campleman, the band quickly honed their live show before taking their ideas to the stages of the Melbourne DIY circuit. Kenny was eager to set down their ideas on vinyl; crafting a suite of self-recorded and mixed songs that's charm lies in their lo-fi production values, as Kenny relates: 'I think that that naive, ill-informed recording process ultimately aided in giving the record its character.'

There's a distinct agenda that the band identify with, something clearly audible in their music. From Beta Boyz' satirical jabs at toxic masculine culture, to the tale of cat-calling told in Scantly Clad, the band lyrics deftly weave between surreal flights of fancy and serious social critique. In their own words, Right Swipe's Tinder tale “pens a tongue in cheek narrative detailing the deceptive exploits of your everyday ‘f**k boy”, while Damp Sheets “encourages sexual exploration - but for god sakes, rubber up and protect yourself from the dreaded ‘southern lice'”, as Kenny characterises the track. Bubblegum centrepiece Right Swipe is draped in reverb, analogue synths and off-beats - while their clear penchant for melody and memorable hooks shines through the bizarro aesthetics. Its addictive chorus shows the band can leave you humming despite their abstract thinking; the synths and bass swirl around Kenny’s ironic/serious lyrics, 'baby you can't resist the manipulation'.

From their heavily aestheticized stage-show, to the joyously unsettling homages to Kubrick evident in the Beta Boyz music video - U-Bahn want you to know. “We take things very seriously, inside music and in the world at large. However, we don’t want surrealism, or Marxism, to get in the way of the audience’s experience. We won’t limit our creative outpourings by labelling ourselves as anything other than neurotic music-nerds. Let the audience come to their own conclusions.”

The band approaches song writing like children at play; open to anything, delighted with results that seem weird or amusing. Kenny explains, 'The intention has always been to make music with no categories or creative barriers, drawing from the concept of 'Organised Sound' rather than any Rock & Roll ethos.' This methodology, along with their clear love for outsider art, Devo and R. Stevie Moore – the aristocratic glamour of Brain Eno combined with the icy robotics of Kraftwerk; the wild ride of genres and ideas that define U-Bahn’s style is steeped in a heritage of music’s strange and unforgettable mavericks.

With the creation of their follow-up album already under way, festival appearances and tours on the horizon, as well as an audience buzzing with anticipation for what will come next from the band, U-Bahn are poised on the brink of taking their tales of the eccentric and the marvellous to the stages of the world.

LIMITED COKE BOTTLE GREEN VINYL.

The debut album from Erin Anne, Tough Love is an unruly yet elegant collage of all the elements that make up her musical vocabulary: wildly shredded riffs and lo-fi acoustic ramblings, punk-rock energy and folky austerity, new-wave whimsy and high-flown pop theatrics. With a narrative voice at turns thoughtful and rebellious, confrontational and shy, the L.A.-based singer/songwriter presents a body of work that bravely documents the slow and strange process of becoming yourself.

Co-produced with Alex Rogers (Family Hahas, Tambourines), Tough Love offers a potent introduction to Erin’s kaleidoscopic musicality and infinitely unpredictable guitar work. In bringing the album to life, the two collaborators drew from an earlier version of Tough Love self-released by Erin in early 2019, re-recording each song with live drums and Rogers’s lavish collection of analog synths. With Erin playing every instrument except drums, Tough Love bears an expansive sonic palette wholly suited to its emotional thrust—a state of mind she encapsulates as “standing in the doorway between presents you’ve grown out of and futures you’re afraid you’re too small for, and using music as the catalyst to take those steps into the unknown.”
 
An album charged with restless intensity, Tough Love reaches a glorious peak on its title track, a song initially informed by Erin’s experience in earning her Ph.D. in musicology at UCLA. “Being a woman in academia can be exhausting,” says Erin. “‘Tough Love’ started when I came from a day at seminar when I was trying to make a very simple point and couldn’t get a word out—I was incredibly frustrated, and tried to write a vaguely ’80s, “9 to 5”-style song that would feel good to Jazzercise to.” But as the track took shape, “Tough Love” eventually morphed into a massive anthem, a thrillingly cathartic refusal to let her voice go unheard.

On the track “Bedroom Track (Carrie),” Erin transforms sentences lifted from Carrie Brownstein’s 2015 memoir Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl to deliver a “personal manifesto about wanting things—a very specifically female/queer kind of wanting.” The album’s hypnotic centerpiece, “Gaslighter,” which explores the confusion of abuse, is simultaneously jarring, mesmerizing, and oddly transcendent.

During her undergrad studies at Bowdoin College, Erin experienced a life-changing revelation upon viewing the Kathleen Hanna documentary The Punk Singer for a course on gender, sexuality, and popular music. “I grew up in New Jersey where everybody played lacrosse and I had very limited access to anything remotely queer, which meant I’d never heard of riot grrrl before,” she says. Not long afterward, Erin formed a riot grrrl band named the Navel Gazers, and began performing her own material for the first time. After graduating from Bowdoin, Erin moved to Portland, Maine, where she started a solo project called REGI RKT (a nod to a zine-making, feminist, street-hockey-playing character from the Nickelodeon cartoon “Rocket Power”), then put out an EP titled Vulnrubble in 2017. Her first release under her own name, the original version of Tough Love arrived in June 2019, and soon landed her a deal with Carpark Records.

In releasing her newly reimagined take on Tough Love, in all its frenetic grandeur, Erin hopes that the album might leave her audience with a sense of wholeness similar to what she found in its creation—an adventure she describes as “a journey to becoming a more comfortable self.”

I remember the first time I read W.E.B. DuBois eclectic masterpiece The Souls of Black Folk. The way in which this Weberian scholar flowed from personal account to prose to sociological analysis to music and even political intervention has had a lasting impact on my own work as a cultural anthropologist. It made me understand that as scholars we must use different means in order to give expression to the totality of the lived experience: There is only so much in an academic text.

The experience of alienation has always been at the heart of my scholarly and artistic practice. I have used academic writing, lecturing, theatre performance and electronic improvisation to understand and represent it as a theoretical concept, postcolonial condition and lived experience. I believe, some issues need to be told like a story, some analyzed in most abstract terms and others need to be sung like a gospel. The medium changes the message.

In this sense, I guess, I’m a singing cultural anthropologist.

For some time now I have been engaged in the use of dystopian themes and sounds to paint a sonic picture of structural racism and whiteness of our present. But recently I have grown weary of this Ballardian idea of Future Now and the resulting phantasmagorian aesthetics myself and others have been invested in. The widespread availability of Digital Audio Workstations, sequencers, loopers and delay pedals has lead us into a futuristic cul de sac best described by Mark Fisher as the very absence of future.

Likewise, I am most skeptical of the “naturalist” countermovement, the return of folk. Especially in Germany, I am convinced there is no such thing as an innocent or progressive folk musical expression as it is always connected to the idea of the homeland (“Heimat”) which in turn produces the colony. It seems to me, the current zeitgeist is stuck between a “museum of a dystopian future” and a “museum of an idealized past”, but I wanted to sing about the present.

So, I involuntarily returned to pop music in its two-folded meaning of something popular and addressing not an essentialist notion of “Volk” or its woke cousin “communities”, but society as a whole.

I entered the studio just with a few lo-fi sounding melodies and rhythms from my circuit bent CASIO synthesizer. I had no clue what the finished product would sound like. But as soon as Markus started drumming, in a way strangely reminding me of CAN’s Ethnographic Forgery Series, my uptight sounds were suddenly embedded within a warmer global sound spectrum. The alien at home and abroad and the strange overlapped: We were seeing one and the same sound differently but were gently held together by Tobias’ producing.

Making music is about building coalitions. It’s about suggesting an articulation of styles, sounds and people, that hasn’t materialized, yet, but may help us in the current crisis: I wanted Amon Düül II to send their drug induced archangel thunderbird to rescue the refugees, that had tried to escape the police by climbing up a tree in Munich in 2016. I wanted Sun Ra to taunt far-right protesters in Chemnitz in 2018. And I wanted to mourn the loss of a former kebab shop cum discotheque that served as proof that there is such a thing as a minoritarian universalism.

SCHLAND IS THE PLACE FOR ME is a pop album featuring songs of alienation, not only as a tragic experience, but as a pop-cultural promise. Maybe Bill Callahan sung it best, “I am Star Wars today, I am no longer English grey”. I want those who suffer from alienation to stand in alliance with those who seek alienation, and vice-versa. A coalition, that tolerates the possibility that we are moved by the same groove for contrary reasons.

Fehler Kuti
Munich, Autumn 2019

Music by Julian Warner, Markus Acher & Tobias Siegert
Saxophone on RINDERMARKT by Franz Brunner
Trombone on RINDERMARKT and IL by Matthias Götz
Recorded and mixed by Tobias Siegert in Munich.
SONTAGSFAVORIT mixed by Dario Albiez in Dusseldorf.
Mastered by Duphonic in Augsburg.
Artwork by Atelier Grande, Munich.

Pynch are Spencer Enock (vox / guitar / synth), James Rees (guitar), Julianna Hopkins (drums) and Jimmy Folan (bass).

Based in London – the band who hail from various places including Birmingham, France and Ireland, met Enock (who comes from Ramsgate) in London while all studying music. Pynch originally started life as a set of demos written and recorded by Enock in his parents Ramsgate basement taking inspiration from indie stalwarts like LCD Soundsystem, The War On Drugs, The Strokes and Beach Fossils to name a few.

Speedy label boss Dan Carey came across the band when they sent an email containing three demos over to Speedy HQ – the first of which was ‘Disco Lights’. ‘I try and listen to everything we get sent,’ says Carey, ‘which is hard because we get sent a LOT. This came through as I woke up early one morning in a hotel in Berlin where I’d been recording with an artist. ‘Disco Lights’ stood out immediately – and seemed so different to anything we’d done before. I called Pierre (Hall, Speedy co-runner) saying we had to do it, and emailed the band straight away. I loved its pop sensibility – but the demo was really lo-fi. I kept imagining this bigger, more widescreen version of it. In my head I wanted it to be almost like TOY covering ‘Everywhere’ by Fleetwood Mac.’

The resulting cut puts Carey’s vision into fruition. An immediate sun-drenched pop song with nods to Tame Impala and MGMT whilst maintaining that lo-fi Captured Tracks-esque feel, the production gets bigger and bigger as the track progresses culminating in dreamy synth layers being added and a killer solo to boot.

Of the recording process the band says - 'Hands down the best recording experience we've ever had. It was so much fun working with Dan. He was genuinely excited about the song and had so many creative ideas on how to bring it to life. Everything took shape really quickly and we were blown away by how everything was sounding.' 

The B-side ‘Orla Carey’s Pynch Your Lights Out Dub’ is a dub remix done by none other than the producers 14-year old daughter (having previously mixed tracks for Scottibrains, Goat Girl and Girl Ray) proving the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

The band have also acquired an unexpected fan – in that of Libertines frontman Pete Doherty, who invited them to play a few dates with The Libertines. Of the unlikely relationship Enock says, ‘It’s quite funny really. My parents live near Margate and about two years ago my dad bought an ice cream van to use during the summer and struck up a friendship with Pete. He then played him a few of our songs and Pete quite liked them and let us open for them at the Kentish Town Forum. It was super cool of him.’

Another essential Speedy disco-very. Pynch yourself. It’s real.

aken from the movie ‘Le Bel Été’, written and directed by Pierre Creton, ‘One Blood Circle’ is the main theme of the soundrack and features French pop legend Etienne Daho. The B-side features a cover by The Limiñanas of the all-time French classic ‘Non Non Rien N’a Changé’ from Les Poppys.

Lionel Limiñana about writing this soundtrack:
"We met Pierre during the Shadow People tour, he came to the concert and wrote to us asking for music for his film "Le Bel Été". Pierre sent me the script. I thought I didn't have time to work because of the tour but I took a three-day break to give it a try. I wrote a theme and then two, three...... I had a work base and I was able to continue at the hotel or in the band's van, which explains why the music is very electronic. I invited Ivan Telefunken, Pascal Comelade's Catalan guitarist, to play on some melodies. When we arrived in St Malo for La Route du Rock festival we met Etienne Daho with whom we had wanted to work for a long time. We played the script to Etienne and the demo of "One Blood Circle", the main theme of " Le Bel Été". Etienne worked on the text and quickly returned to the studio in Paris to record his voice and choirs. The O.S.T. was done."

Vanishing Twin is songwriter, singer and multi-instrumentalist Cathy Lucas, drummer Valentina Magaletti, bassist Susumu Mukai, synth/guitar player Phil MFU and visual artist/film maker Elliott Arndt on flute and percussion; and on this album they have made their first artistic statement for the ages.

Some of its great power comes from liberation. The album was produced by Lucas in a number of non-standard, non-studio settings. 'KRK (At Home In Strange Places)' summons up the spirit of Sun Ra's Lanquidity and Broadcast And The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio was simply recorded on an iPhone during a live set which crackled with psychic connectivity on the Croatian island of Krk.
The magical Morricone-esque lounge of 'You Are Not an Island', the blissed-out Jean-Claude Vannier style arrangement of 'Invisible World' and burbling sci fi funk ode to a 1972 cult French animation, 'Plane`te Sauvage', were all recorded in nighttime sessions in an abandoned mill in Sudbury. The only two outsiders to work on the recording were '6th member' and engineer Syd Kemp and trusted friend Malcolm Catto, band leader of the spiritual jazz/future funk outfit The Heliocentrics, who mixed seven of the tracks (with Lucas taking care of the other three).

Vanishing Twin formed in 2015 - their first LP, Choose Your Own Adventure, which came out on Soundway in 2016; followed by the darker, more abstract, mostly instrumental Dream By Numbers EP in 2017. The band explored their more experimental tendencies on the Magic And Machines tape released by Blank Editions in 2018, an improvised session recorded in the dead of night, offering a glimpse into their practice of deep listening, near band telepathy, and ritually improvised sound making. These sessions formed the basis of The Age Of Immunology.

Vanishing Twin is songwriter, singer and multi-instrumentalist Cathy Lucas, drummer Valentina Magaletti, bassist Susumu Mukai, synth/guitar player Phil MFU and visual artist/film maker Elliott Arndt on flute and percussion; and on this album they have made their first artistic statement for the ages.

Some of its great power comes from liberation. The album was produced by Lucas in a number of non-standard, non-studio settings. 'KRK (At Home In Strange Places)' summons up the spirit of Sun Ra's Lanquidity and Broadcast And The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio was simply recorded on an iPhone during a live set which crackled with psychic connectivity on the Croatian island of Krk.
The magical Morricone-esque lounge of 'You Are Not an Island', the blissed-out Jean-Claude Vannier style arrangement of 'Invisible World' and burbling sci fi funk ode to a 1972 cult French animation, 'Plane`te Sauvage', were all recorded in nighttime sessions in an abandoned mill in Sudbury. The only two outsiders to work on the recording were '6th member' and engineer Syd Kemp and trusted friend Malcolm Catto, band leader of the spiritual jazz/future funk outfit The Heliocentrics, who mixed seven of the tracks (with Lucas taking care of the other three).

Vanishing Twin formed in 2015 - their first LP, Choose Your Own Adventure, which came out on Soundway in 2016; followed by the darker, more abstract, mostly instrumental Dream By Numbers EP in 2017. The band explored their more experimental tendencies on the Magic And Machines tape released by Blank Editions in 2018, an improvised session recorded in the dead of night, offering a glimpse into their practice of deep listening, near band telepathy, and ritually improvised sound making. These sessions formed the basis of The Age Of Immunology.

Limited 10" Orange transparent vinyl . “Templeman's songs max on melody ... he has to be one to watch closely” - The Sunday Times Culture. Third EP from 16 year-old Bedfordshire newcomer Alfie Templeman. Live Supporting Sundara Karma and various festivals. Radio Radio 1, 6Music Spotify - Cover of Spotify Fresh Finds playlist & Lo-Fi Indie Press • 2019 Tips in NME 100, Vogue UK, i-D, Observer, DIY, LOBF

Formed in 1977, Fischer-Z’s early catalogue fits snuggly alongside output from XTC, Talking Heads, Wire and Mission Of Burma - their 1979 debut, ‘Word Salad’, remains a cult classic, 1980’s ‘Going Deaf For A Living’ boasted the hit single ‘So Long’ and live favourites such as ‘Limbo’ and ‘Room Service’, whilst their beloved and best known third album, ‘Red Skies Over Paradise’ (1981), brims with classic tracks like ‘In England’, ‘Berlin’ and ‘Marliese’. The band’s 42-year
career spans 20 albums, over 3,000 concerts worldwide and album sales in excess of two million. Singer/frontman John Watts, the heart and soul of the ever-evolving Fischer-Z, remains as pointedly literate,
prolific, political and defiant and in 2019 Fischer-Z is still very much alive and kicking. “I believe movement is life,” Watts shares. “I want to always keep moving and growing. After all, you’re only as good as your latest stuff, and that’s what keeps me going. This is not an oldies band! I’m an artist in words and music, and I consider it a massive privilege to be still writing songs and performing these live. I feel like I am doing my best stuff as I get older, and I still have the energy
and that is fantastic.”The band are consistently rewriting their history with new music. ‘Swimming In Thunderstorms’ is an album of now in song and spirit, with beefy, dreamy and poppy guitars, celestial atmospherics and arty and imaginative touches.

»Ema by the Sea« is Joseph Carvell’s debut album under his Pink Shabab moniker. It is the first and long overdue solo record by one of the most trusted bassists in the world of adventurous pop and rock music. When he is not playing with Marker Starling, the former Batsch member can be heard on upright and double bass on a slew of Baby Dee albums like her 2012 collaboration LP with Little Annie or Laetitia Sadier’s »Find Me Finding You« amongst others. When Carvell is not busy as an active member of the cumbia band Malphino and the Moondog tribute I’m This I’m That or playing improvised jazz with various friends, he writes Pink Shabab songs at night. With »Ema by the Sea,« he presents his idiosyncratic approach to subtle disco music for the first time. These nine songs sound as heartbroken as they are uplifting.

»Ema by the Sea« was written in a South London bedroom, but recorded in Southern France. After hearing Carvell perform live as Pink Shabab, Emmanuel Mario, whose album »L'infini, L'Univers Et Les Mondes« under his Astrobal moniker has been released earlier this year on the Berlin-based Karaoke Kalk, invited the British songwriter into his home studio. It is easy to see - or rather: hear - why the two hit it off immediately: drawing on funk, soul, new wave, jazz and dance music, Carvell’s songs meander as effortlessly through different musical worlds as Mario’s own productions. Groovy and laid-back, danceable and intimate, the minimalist structures of Carvell’s songwriting open up a lot of space and make room for plenty of surprises along the way.

Carvell builds his songs around his instrument of choice, the bass. From the driving opener »If Only I Could Hold You One More Time« to the disco and funk influenced »Let Me Explain,« »Tried to Tell You« or »Last of the Boys« and the sombre rhythms of the final song »You Can’t Go Back,« his cunning playing seamlessly oscillates between different styles. In combination with his almost coy singing style and the juxtaposition of an airtight drum programming with colourful synthesizer melodies, »Ema by the Sea« thus provides a wide-ranging palette of moods - spooky, lively, cosmic, romantic, you name it. Where in one moment pensive sentimentality prevails, the next song will call you to the dancefloor. Although of course enjoyed as a whole, »Ema by the Sea« offers both: melancholy and exuberant bliss.

From the same studio that brought us 48 Chairs (Gerry & The Holograms), The Fall and The Blue Orchids, while following the bona-fide bloodline between Danny And The Dressmakers, Toolshed and 808 State, the “difficult second album” by Biting Tongues (released on a minuscule cassette run by The Buzzcocks’ vanity label) has since become a near mythical artefact of Mancunian DIY. Cementing the path between the Absurd label’s kitchen sink synth assaults and Factory’s 99 informed downtown aspirations, Biting Tongues’ bass-driven, pounding-sounding, schizo-skronking, squat-pop put the emergence of punk-funk under a blinding interrogation bulb then hid round the corner evading secret police. Pouring three letter words like ESG, DAF, PIL and ACR into Ken Hollings Scrabble bag would result in a unique form of wordy dictaphone agit-rap and closed-circuit commentary to Graham Massey’s overqualified punk ensemble, laying foundations of future Manc activity using uncertified sand and gravel tactics, only to be safety checked every 38 years, or thereabout. Live It, the lost Biting Tongues album, still breathes.

Including what the original members of this pioneering post-punk platoon unanimously consider their greatest work, Biting Tongues seldom-heard, second roll of the dice was presented to The Buzzcock’s own label New Hormones to coincide with full-length DIY debuts by Ludus, Dislocation Dance and a distinct tightening of pursestrings. Recorded on half-price studio time (in the midst of a multi-track repair session) and duped on to compact cassettes to keep pressing costs down, the album Live It even entirely bypassed the non-existent art-department before landing in the hands of a small readership of peculiar- punk die-hards, instantly slipping into obscurity, evading official band future discographies and reaching an imaginary status in the history of unchartered Manc-manufactured messthetics. Now available, on vinyl, with two sleeve variations and extensive notes from Graham Massey and Ken Hollings, Live It is a welcome misplaced release and an essential addition to Finders Keepers’ Cache Cache catalogue. Biting Tongues make wise heads!

French DJ / producer / singer Jean Tonique is poised to announce his brand new 7-track album with the arrival of 'sunny side up' due this October and will pre-empt its release with an end of summer pop gem 'too bad'. Having released his acclaimed debut album 'Well Mannered Frivolity' last year, described by DJ Magazine as 'slickly produced' and 'irresistible', Tonique returns older and wiser with 'sunny side up', focusing on raw, organic song-writing while still maintaining his affinity for French touch, house, 70s funk and hip-hop.
Jean Tonique's previous two EP's released on Yuksek's Partyfine label, set the benchmark for his imitable club sounds and remixes for Lana Del Rey, Outkast, The Kooks and more propelled him to the world stage. 2019 looks set to take Jean Tonique even further into the stratosphere.

London based five-piece HMLTD have announced the upcoming release of their long-awaited debut album, West of Eden, due for release on 7th February 2020. The expansive, labyrinthine debut has been several years in the making, a daring collection of songs created to incite conversation about proposed new visions of masculinity, the decadence of western capitalism and the violence of insecurity and repression. Across its 15 tracks, the band’s artistic vision is realised in full technicolour.

All Music Written & Recorded by David Drucker at The Skinny Apartment in Ridgewood, Queens, 2017
Featuring Mike Green (Mezzanine Swimmers) on guitars on "I Took Too Much Acid in 7th Grade," Cop Funeral on
electronics on "Seafood Special," Chris “Mr Transylvania” Shields on background vocals on "Massachusetts Is a Magical
Place," Eva “Nighttime” Goodman on violin & backing vocals on "The Ridgewood Ripper"
Painted Faces is the long (strange/trip) running voyage of weirdo David Drucker, began in Florida in 2009 and decamped
to NYC in 2011. It has sometimes been a loose band in the past with a revolving lineup of outsiders and interlopers
(known as The Freak Band), but is usually a solo endeavor, and the bulk of the recordings have been done as such. PF
has always been a home recording solo project, one-man-band style heavy on psychOdelic/outsider
folk/noise/experimental vibes. He started self releasing CD-Rs in the early days and quickly jumped to tapes on a variety
of labels including Already Dead, Lava Church, J&C, Null Zone, Tall Tapes. A "legendary" CD compilation on Gulcher
Records and an LP from Already Dead and Almost Halloween Time in Italy brings us to the here and now. Tales from the
Skinny Apartment is somewhere around the 20th or so Painted Faces release...he has long lost count.
Drucker runs/curates gigs (and records at) the Skinny Apartment, his dwelling place in Ridgewood Queens,
which some folks have called the "realest DIY zone in NYC." He also rips in Dead River Company, Big Hiatus, Shecky,
Canyon River Blues and countless other unknown subterranean improv zoner outfits. "Ripping" involves keeping it
freaky and weird and ripping sets wherever/whenever, i.e. always being down to perform whether in a kitchen or a
packed ballroom....no diva bullshit, just plugging in (or going sans electricity) and playing...always giving it your
all...Ridgewood Rippers are the crew of artists that populate Ridgewood and the loose "scene" around the Skinny
Apartment...much of it is in jest, a self-inflated mythology of nonsense which is pervasive in all rock and roll "scene"
histories. As a student of rock/pop history, Drucker is fascinated by the loose associations that connect folks from
various zones together...i.e. Miles Davis and The Grateful Dead...it's all the same though, the labels and genre
distinctions are completely arbitrary. We're all in this together, now more than ever...to be a "ripper" is simply to
"rip"...no nonsense!
Painted Faces has toured all over the USA and Canada numerous times, spreading the ripper gospels, and is
gearing up for their second European tour. He is known for falling apart on "stage," with performances heavy on humor,
horror, stoned digressions, and cathartic bouts of therapy, part performance art/part standup comedy, eradicating the
lines between performer, performance, and audience one show at a time