Pop & Rock Vinyl New Releases - News

Following their critically acclaimed collaboration with John Grant on last year’s Creep Show project, Wrangler announce their new album, ‘A Situation’, released via Bella Union. When Wrangler first formed they had a very simple modus operandi. The clue was in their name. Ben ‘Benge’ Edwards (The Maths), Stephen ‘Mal’ Mallinder (Cabaret Voltaire) and Phil Winter (Tuung) would get together with a very select kit list of careworn analogue synthesisers and vintage digital sequencers. Their task? To wrangle new music from the ancient equipment. These self-imposed restrictions helped produced two classic long players: ‘LA Spark’ (2014) and ‘White Glue’ (2016). However, the times have changed and so have Wrangler. The coming decade, which looks set to be dubbed the Terrible Twenties, may be the last time that bands actually get to release albums. Ecological collapse, climate crisis, food shortages and the disintegration of the fabric of society will mean that the slow devolution of the music industry isn’t even one of the main things that musicians (or anyone else) should be worrying about, so the trio have thrown everything into their third (but hopefully not their last) album. The result - ‘A Situation’ - is simultaneously their bleakest and funkiest release to date. This collection of warm, reverberant, amped up tracks, that land somewhere between future music, synth pop, industrial dance, classic techno and rigid electro, captures the ambiguities of the group perfectly. Just as they use the ageing outmoded equipment that other people once chose to throw away in order to make tomorrow’s music, they are the paranoid group who (just about) dare to hope that things still might turn out OK. They cast a doleful eye across the hellscape of 2019 and state, if the end is truly nigh, then it’s never been more important to celebrate the little time we have left. And if a revolution to save ourselves is possible then we’re all in need of a revolutionary party, with a revolutionary soundtrack to match.

Double LP pressed on 140g vinyl with digital download code.

“A vital new singer makes her debut…an emo-rap Dark Side Of The Moon …Modus Vivendi suggests Enya and Pink Floyd as much as Frank Ocean…the sound of a realist and fantasist sparring, it reflects an artist still coming into focus on her own thrilling terms.” – ROLLING STONE (4 stars)

December 13, 2019 – New York, NY - 070 Shake – the innovative, genre-defying artist who garnered huge buzz from Kanye West’s 2018 Wyoming sessions – today announces the official release date of her highly-anticipated debut album, MODUS VIVENDI, arriving January 17, 2020 via G.O.O.D. Music/Def Jam Recordings. Simultaneously, Shake releases a new track and video from the album, “Under The Moon,” produced by Dave Hamelin – with additional production, mixing & mastering by Mike Dean, and video directed by Lauren Dunn. She also has announced a world tour beginning in January. (Complete itinerary below.) The album cover was painted by artist Sam Spratt in a collaboration with 070 Shake.
“Under The Moon” follows “Morrow” and “Nice To Have,” which introduced fans to a new side of 070 Shake when they were released simultaneously as the first advance tracks from MODUS VIVENDI. “Morrow” found Shake taking everything she learned during the Wyoming Sessions and transferring it to an up-tempo record that was at once rowdy and ethereal. “Nice To Have” slowed things down as she reflected on a past lover.
MODUS VIVENDI opens the next phase of 070 Shake’s journey. The album brings her reflective style to the spotlight with boundary-pushing creativity and pure emotional honesty as her compass. “I just really go with how I feel in the moment, and then that’s where the writing comes from. It’s like an ongoing disperse of words when I feel something.” In a world obsessed with consumption, Shake is a much-needed breath of fresh air, more than ready to make her impact felt through music. “I want it to make a change in the world. The agenda is bigger than just music.”

Stone Temple Pilots embark upon a new sonic adventure with PERDIDA, the band’s first-ever acoustic album. It features 10 deeply personal songs that weave introspective lyrics together with unexpected instruments to take listeners on an emotional and musical journey through letting go and starting over.

PERDIDA, the band’s eighth studio album, features guitarist Dean DeLeo, bassist Robert DeLeo, drummer Eric Kretz and vocalist Jeff Gutt, who joined Stone Temple Pilots in 2017. The band produced the album and recorded the majority of it earlier this year at Kretz’s Bomb Shelter Studio.

“Fare Thee Well” – the first single and first track on the album – establishes the wistful tone on PERDIDA right away with its acoustic guitar introduction and opening line: “Fare thee well, so long/I hate to say goodbye to you.”

With their new song ‘All Things Go’ Mighty Oaks announce their third album, set for release in 2020. The first single of the new longplayer bridges the gap between their last acoustic EP and the new chapter in their band history. A history that the Berlin based indie-folk trio comprised of Ian Hooper (US), Claudio Donzelli (Italy) and Craig Saunders (UK) began over ten years ago in a living room in the German capital and that has lead to two records (2014: Howl, 2017: Dreamers), hundreds of gigs across the world, and shared stages with the likes of Kings of Leon, The Lumineers and Chvrches.

Le Butcherettes are known for their expressive nature and desire to defy rules. They stand apart from all of their peers, and it has continued to work to their advantage. They’ve toured with Jack White, At The Drive In, Deftones and more. Their music has been heard on HBO’s True Detective and was the theme for the 2015 World Series opener. DON’T BLEED is the band’s latest effort, and arguably their best. The EP was produced by Violeta Félix, and brings Le Butcherettes into an entirely new light. The band tapped into a new, more mainstream pop element, while still remaining true to themselves and their sound. These songs are sure to please fans, while simultaneously bringing appeal to new listeners.

Repress

Part homage, part prophecy: ‘Fire in the Jungle’ is the 8th studio album from Berlin-based DJ, producer and label owner Oliver Koletzki, released on 15 November 2019 by Stil vor Talent.

With sounds as diverse as the stamps collected in Koletzki’s passport over the past 18 months, ‘Fire in the Jungle’ is a statement in itself: complex, verdant, the product of years of growth.

From the arid desert tundra of Australia, to the lush turquoise beaches and sacred sites of Mexico, to the dusty Playa of Burning Man: these rich and varied landscapes, people, experiences have strongly influenced Koletzki in the production of this multifaceted masterpiece.

Musical maestro and storyteller Koletzki expertly weaves live instruments with a range of electronic music production techniques, with producers Sam Shure, Township Rebellion, Hidden Empire, Niko Schwind and Cioz taking listeners on an extraordinary aural peregrination of genres and styles.

Lyrical and vocal collaborations with Monolink, Aparde, Temple Haze and Lisa Who are layered with Koletzki’s signature sound, adding their unique influence to this distinctive 16-track album.

Running the gamut from full-power, bass-heavy dance floor anthems to slower, more sultry tracks, the dramaturgy of this album is matched only by the eclectic exotica and psychedelia of the jungle.

As the Amazonian jungle burns, this versatile and thought-provoking album raises important questions about what sustains us and asks us to reconsider the egoism and laziness of the human species.

CLASSIC 80's CATALOGUE / 180 GRAM VINYL : 2012 RHINO REMASTERED PRESSINGS!

Glass Beach’s debut album the first glass beach album is the first album from glass beach. That’s a good place to start, but the album’s plain & descriptive title does little to explain exactly what goes on in the hour-long adventure contained therein.

The first glass beach album was initially self-released by the band in Spring 2019, but it’s roots date back to as early as 2015 - songwriter & band leader j mclendon started demoing songs for the album when they first moved to Los Angeles & spent three years polishing those first demos into these songs with bassist Jonas Newhouse & drummer William White. On their Bandcamp page, the band describes their sound as the accumulation of jazz, new wave, synth music, and emo distorted through the lens of punk.

The songs that make up the first glass beach album are ambitious, theatrical and chaotic. Abandoning genre limitations makes glass beach’s talent for songwriting all the more apparent - mathy guitar leads, catchy drum grooves and the constant interplay of horns, synths, and even the intermittent theremin set the perfect scene for j’s stunning vocal performance, which can shift from a charming falsetto to the lead of a sing-a-long in an instant.

On February 7th, Saddle Creek will release the tenth installment of the Document series*, S. Raekwon’s Parts Towards Whole b/w A Crow’s Smile.

S. Raekwon was born out of the need to create something beautiful during a period that felt colorless and transitory. Finding himself alone in a new city following graduation, Steven Raekwon Reynolds embraced his new-found isolation, throwing himself into his music, the only goal to create something both personal and beautiful.

Indeed, even the name of the project holds a great weight, the use of Steven’s middle-name ‘Raekwon’ an attempt to reclaim a part of himself he had previously tried to hide. “I have named the project after my middle name, Raekwon,” Steven himself explains. “Growing up I suppressed this name. I hid it from my friends and those I met. Being biracial and raised by a white single mother, questions of identity consumed me as a child. They still do. And while much has changed since then, I will forever be shaped by those feelings and experiences. I want to make songs that are honest. Releasing them under my middle name seems to be the most honest thing I can do.”

Finding moments of clarity after passing through a personal storm, the first fruits of Steven’s labour arrive in early 2020, his debut work released as part of Saddle Creek’s burgeoning 7” Document series. It’s also, notably, the first music to be released by Saddle Creek that arrived via the label’s online demo submission page, a leap of faith from both which kick-started this journey. Offering a striking snapshot of S. Raekwon’s considered craft, the two songs here were recorded in his small studio apartment, where he wrote, recorded, produced, engineered, and mixed everything himself.

Making for a wholly thrilling introduction to the artist behind them, lead track ‘Parts Towards Whole’ blends Steven’s musical inspirations, which range from James Blake and Frank Ocean, to Grouper and Nicolas Jaar, to create a meditative reflection on sustaining a relationship; on “the beauty and doubt at the heart of that feeling,” as Steven himself puts it.

Literary influences are also present in Steven’s work, and he cites Milan Kundera’s surreal and intimate ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’ as a key influence on the 7”, while b-side ‘A Crow’s Smile’ was directly inspired by Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore, which he read at the recommendation of a friend in order to help combat a crippling bout of insomnia and anxiety, and which pertinently shaped the songs final form.

‘The Big Exercise’, the second album by Dutch band The Homesick - and their first for Sub Pop - finds the group keenly second-guessing their core chemistry as a live unit, imbuing their angular post-punk workouts with baroque elements such as piano, acoustic guitar, percussion and even clarinet.
“It’s the opposite of trying to translate recorded music to the stage,” guitarist Elias Elgersma comments. “We were already playing these songs live for quite some time, so for this album, we wanted to unlock the potential of these songs further in the studio.”
Opening track ‘What’s In Store’ was in part inspired by bassist Jaap Van der Velde’s unprompted deep dive into the world of national anthems, making his own attempt to conjure a similarly timeless melody. The song seamlessly bleeds into the chivalrous prance of ‘Children’s Day’ and the fragmented ‘Pawing’, righteously encouraging Erik Woudwijk’s nimble, cerebral drumming to become the band’s driving force. The headstrong wanderlust of ‘The Big Exercise’ is fitting, given The Homesick’s exodus as a small-town Dutch band ready to trot the world.
Contrary to the quest for belonging, roots and provenance found on their debut album ‘Youth Hunt’, the band’s creative trajectory is now dictated by a sense of otherness and imagination. The sharp contrasts are ever-present; the music’s new sonorous depth is underpinned by wry meditations on family ties, alternate realities and commonplace encounters.
As the band’s chief lyricists, Elgersma and Van der Velde deliberately keep each other in the dark, allowing the syntax of words and music to entangle in surprising - sometimes delightfully absurd - ways. ‘I Celebrate My Fantasy’, for example, summons a mirage of creeping pianos, sylvan clarinet flourishes and cartoonish sprawls with mock-paranoia, as Elgersma documents a macabre vision he had during a mild case of sleep paralysis.
The Homesick have made a record impregnated with impressions that still fit neatly under the pop umbrella. The album title’s nod to Scott Walker - “the big exercise” is a phrase pulled from a passage in Walker’s biography ‘Deep Shade of Blue’ - isn’t an aberration either: straddling pop sonority and the cacophonous fringes is something well worth aspiring.
LP in die-cut custom dust sleeve with digital download code.

Hamerkop is a pair of Baltimore-based sound nerds: Annabel Alpers, the composer, singer and instrumentalist formerly of New Zealand’s Bachelorette and; Adam Cooke, a Baltimorean drummer/audio engineer with credits that include Beach House, Wye Oak and Future Islands. Together, they have created a song-cycle that contrasts the often-mundane (yet often satisfying) everyday world with that of the idealized, longed-for fantasy, to find the spaces in between these things, the place where we all feel good about our existence. Hamerkop’s debut, ‘Remote’, started as an exploration of the sonic beauty in Alpers’ collection of field recordings from her homeland and travels around the world. Looped and sampled, they became a set of instrumental sounds of their own and when played live in a multiplespeaker, surround-sound experience, their effect was transporting. The finished album blends these expansive sounds in choral layers of synths and vocals, with a kaleidoscopic, almost psychedelic quality, all of it anchored by Cooke’s Kraut-minimal drumming.
‘Remote’ is a natural progression from the criminally-underrated Bachelorette catalogue - seeking catharsis through the contextualizing of personal texts into lush songscapes, using the chill of synth-pop to mask the fallible human soul hidden behind it. Far away from her native New Zealand with a new life and family in America, Annabel strove to find elements of her old identity in new environs, building songs out of sonic scraps from remote places, as if she were sewing a blanket in which to wrap them all. As she puts it, “Home for me is in two places, and it’s been causing a lot of creative tension because I wish I could be in both places at once.” The songs of ‘Remote’ find depth and dimension via a rich tapestry of voices, found sounds and classic pop melodies, as constant synapse triggering from unexpected angles and algorithms reveals, by chance and design, a magical inner life scored by birds and babies, church bells and bonfires. Genre-defying, yet familiar, Hamerkop translates the topography that stretches out between us into a musical language that celebrates our shared places.
The sound of Hamerkop is multi-layered, changing as it revolves. It’s
the sound made by two people but it could be all of us.

‘Mystic Familiar’, Dan Deacon’s new album, is the result of years of obsessive work, play and selfdiscovery. It’s at once his most emotionally open record and his most transcendent, 11 kaleidoscopic
tracks of majestic synth-pop that exceptionally expand his sound with unfettered imagination and newfound vulnerability. Since 2015’s ‘Gliss Riffer’, Deacon has branched out into an array of collaborative projects including film scores to Rat Film, HBO’s Well Groomed,
ESPN’s 30 for 30: Subject to Review; collaborating with the NYC Ballet’s resident choreographer Justin Peck, LAPhil and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

Squirrel Flower - the moniker of Ella O’Connor Williams - announces I Was Born Swimming, her debut album, out January 31st 2020 on Full Time Hobby, and presents the lead single, “Red Shoulder.” The album’s title was inspired by Williams’ birth on August 11th 1996 - the hottest day of the year - born still inside a translucent caul sac membrane, surrounded by amniotic fluid. Throughout the 12 songs, landscapes change and relationships shift. The album’s lyrics feel like effortless expressions of exactly the way it feels to change — abstract, sad and hopeful. Squirrel Flower’s music is ethereal and warm, gushing with emotional depth that the listener can step into like a warm bath. The band on I Was Born Swimming plays with delicate intention, keeping the arrangements natural and light. The album was tracked live, with few overdubs, at The Rare Book Room Studio in New York City with producer Gabe Wax (Adrienne Lenker, Palehound, Cass McCombs). The musicians were selected by Wax and folded themselves into the songs effortlessly. At the heart of the album lives Williams’ massive, haunted vibrating voice and melancholic, soulful guitar. The sounds expand and contract over diverse moods, cutting loose on the heavier riffs of “Red Shoulder.” “‘Red Shoulder’ is a song about destabilization and dissociation,” explains Williams. “Something soft and tender becomes warped and sinister, turning into sensory overload and confusion. How can something so lovely turn painful and claustrophobic? The song ends with a heavy and visceral guitar solo, attempting to reground what went awry." Williams comes from a deep-rooted musical family tree. Her grandparents were classical musicians who lived in the Gate Hill Co-op, an artistic cooperative from upstate New York that grew out of Black Mountain College. Ella’s father, Jesse Williams, spent most of his life as a touring jazz and blues performer and educator, and lends his bass playing to the album (listen for his smooth solo on “Headlights”). Growing up in a family of hard working musicians fostered a love of music and started Williams down her own musical path. As a child, Williams adopted the alter ego of Squirrel Flower. A couple years later, she began singing with the Boston Children’s Chorus while studying music theory and teaching herself to play the guitar.

Caroline Polachek has already lived an extraordinary life in music: her previous band Chairlift formed in 2006 whilst Caroline was still in art school; and in 2008 the band was thrust into the spotlight when "Bruises" was synched in an iPod commercial as the Brooklyn indie scene peaked as an international export. Caroline's idiosyncratic vocal style and synth textures quickly became their sonic trademark, and continued to evolve through their three critically acclaimed albums into a new, more modular kind of pop experimentation. Caroline expanded into production in 2013, landing her first credit writing and producing on Beyonce's grammy-nominated self-titled album. Restless while making Chairlift's third (and final) record "Moth", Caroline quietly fostered two side projects: baroque girl-group Ramona Lisa, and minimal synth project CEP. Moving fluidly through radically different genres, Caroline collaborated with dozens of artists (Blood Orange, SBTRKT, Charli XCX) ; sometimes writing, sometimes singing, sometimes directing videos, and sometimes all three. Chairlift disbanded in 2017 and Caroline feverishly began writing for her first solo project under her own name. For the first time, the DNA from these seemingly different projects fit together perfectly; the playfulness of Chairlift, the theatricality of Ramona Lisa, futuristic glimmerings of CEP, plus a new mastery of her voice and thick rolodex of keen collaborators. Fast forward two years spent manically between the studio and navigating a series of personal crossroads, and “Pang” marks the beginning of a new chapter. It is the most ambitious, hardcore and beautiful album of her career to date. With her signature 'organic autotune' and liquid lyricism finally center stage, the record positions her firmly as one of the most singular and captivating singers of a generation.

Field Music’s new release is ‘Making A New World’, a 19 track song cycle about the after-effects of the First World War. But this is not an album about war and it is not, in any traditional sense, an album about
remembrance. There are songs here about air traffic control and gender reassignment surgery. There are songs about Tiananmen Square and about ultrasound. There are even songs about Becontree Housing Estate and about sanitary towels.
The songs grew from a project for the Imperial War Museum and were first performed at their sites in Salford and London in January 2019. The starting point was an image from a 1919 publication on munitions by the US War Department, made using ‘sound ranging’, a technique that utilised an array of transducers to capture the vibrations of gunfire at the front. These vibrations were displayed on a graph, similar to a seismograph, where the distances between peaks on different lines could be used to pinpoint the location of enemy armaments. This particular image showed the minute leading up to 11am on 11th November 1918 and the minute immediately after. One minute of oppressive, juddering noise and one minute of nearsilence. “We imagined the lines from that image continuing across the next
hundred years,” says the band’s David Brewis, “and we looked for stories which tied back to specific events from the war or the immediate aftermath.” If the original intention might have been to create a mostly instrumental piece, this research forced and inspired a different approach. These were stories itching to be told.
The songs are in a kind of chronological order, starting with the end of the war itself; the uncertainty of heading home in a profoundly altered world (‘Coffee Or Wine’). Later we hear a song about the work of Dr Harold Gillies (the shimmering ballad, ‘A Change Of Heir’), whose pioneering work on skin grafts for injured servicemen led him, in the 1940s, to perform some of the very first gender reassignment surgeries. We see how the horrors of the war led to the Dada movement and how that artistic reaction was echoed in the extreme performance art of the 60s and 70s (the mathematical head-spin of
‘A Shot To The Arm). Then, in the funk stomp of ‘Money Is A Memory’, we picture an office worker in the German Treasury preparing documents for the final instalment on reparation debts - a payment made in 2010, 91 years after the Treaty of Versailles was signed. A defining, blood-spattered element of 20th Century history becomes a humdrum administrative task in a 21st Century bureaucracy.

LP format pressed on 180g transparent red vinyl in a gatefold sleeve with digital download code.

A year in the making, this album has been lovingly compiled by Castles in Space with the full co-operation Gary's brother, Steve Cook. All possible attention to detail has been taken in order to make this record a suitable and fitting tribute to Gary.

A limited and numbered edition on red, black and white splatter vinyl. The LP includes a beautiful fine art print featuring an oil portrait of Gary which has been signed and numbered by the artist, John Duffin for the first 150 copies. There is also an insert which replicates some of Gary's gig posters, rare photos and sleeve notes by Steve Cook, Martin Brocklebank and Colin Morrison.

“Certain loud guitar rock records serve as brain erasers, a form of shock therapy zapping through aural inputs and (to mix metaphors) cleaning the proverbial clock. Lightning Bolt is one such thing.” -
LA Times
Since their first moment it seems like they’ve been as electric as their name suggests. ‘Lightning Bolt’, their first album, captures that energy in a raw form. Famously lo-fi, this is the album that’s been
described as most feeling like being at one of their shows. It’s difficult to listen and not want to jump with the crowd it feels like must be huddled around the amp producing an incredible wave of noise, astonishingly coming from just two musicians. You can hear the threads of their later work; use of repetition, a sense of grinding and
building, noise melting to guitar solos. This album is loud and the riffs repeated become mesmerizing as they warp slowly thru the songs.
‘Lightning Bolt’ has not been available on vinyl since its original pressing of 740 in 1999. First time ever released as a double LP. LP1 is the original release, LP2 was recorded at the same time and has never been issued on vinyl. Packaged in a two-sided silkscreen wrap using
original designs by Brian Chippendale and printed by Crosshair.

Wildly acclaimed Brooklyn songwriter Joan As
Police Woman returns with her new album ‘Cover
Two’.
 This is Joan’s second album reinterpreting songs
by other artists and, once again, the choices are
unpredictable and intriguing.
 “A voice so wondrous and moving that it makes
everyone else’s seem ordinary and mundane” -
The Guardian
 “Beautiful” - Q
 “Joan As Police Woman is one of the 21st
Century’s best musicians” - The Economist
 Gatefold CD with fold out booklet. Red vinyl with
digital download card.

Honus Honus (aka Ryan Kattner) has devoted his
career to exploring the uncertainty between life’s
extremes, beauty and ugliness, order and chaos. The
songs on ‘Dream Hunting In The Valley Of The InBetween’, Man Man’s first album in over six years and
their Sub Pop debut, are as intimate, soulful and
timeless as they are audaciously inventive and daring,
resulting in his best Man Man album to date.
 The 17-track effort, featuring ‘Cloud Nein’, ‘Future
Peg’, ‘On the Mend’, ‘Sheela’ and ‘Animal Attraction’,
was produced by Cyrus Ghahremani, mixed by S.
Husky Höskulds (Norah Jones, Tom Waits, Mike
Patton, Solomon Burke, Bettye LaVette, Allen
Toussaint) and mastered by Dave Cooley (Blood
Orange, M83, DIIV, Paramore, Snail Mail, clipping).
 ‘Dream Hunting In The Valley Of The In-Between’ also
includes guest vocals from Steady Holiday’s Dre
Babinski on ‘Future Peg’ and ‘If Only’ and Rebecca
Black (singer of the viral pop hit ‘Friday’) on ‘On the
Mend’ and ‘Lonely Beuys’.
 The album follows the release of ‘Beached’ and
‘Witch’, Man Man’s contributions to Vol. 4 of the Sub
Pop Singles Club in 2019.
 CD in digipack with poster insert.
 Double LP in gatefold jacket with custom dust sleeves
and etching on side D and digital download coupon.
 Cassette in three-panel J-card in clear case

Otherworldly beat science from the currently vibrant
Washington DC underground.
The heavily processed MCing of NappyNappa weaves in and out
of the skewed electronics and stuttering percussion of Patrick
Cain.
Loosely affiliated with the Future Times crew and featuring
contributions from Dolo Percussion (aka Max D).
In the duo’s own words “a collaborative experiment in liberated
sound, vision, and performance,” Model Home orbit in their
own universe, with glimmers of light from distant galaxies
refracted in their sound.
Some moments are reminiscent of DJ Screw, MF Doom or a
mangled dub sound system cassette that’s been left in the sun
for too long, the grainy collage backing tracks closer to the sick
Midwest drones of Aaron Dilloway than any modern beatmakers
but this is implicitly its own thing.
The spirit of free improvisation pervades the tracks, a sound
evolving from two artistic sensibilities bouncing off each other
without a set plan and creating a third pathway to unknown
worlds.
‘One Year’ compiles tracks from 8 different self-released
mixtapes made during an intense initial 12 month period of
musical activity that birthed the project.
Approached with the same archival sensibility that Disciples has
brought to albums-that-never-were from Black Lodge, Bogdan
Raczynski and His Name As Alive but with the idea of creating a
framework to present an underground NOW sound. A
Jamaican-style ‘showcase’ album for these outliers from the
District of Columbia.
Although without sonic precedent it somehow makes a kind of
perverse sense that these sounds have emerged from the same
place that birthed Dischord Records and Trouble Funk.
LP in reverse board sleeve with full colour printed inner sleeve
and digital download card.

LP auf neongelbem Vinyl im Klapp-Cover. Die Lovely Eggs haben sich in den letzten zwei Jahren zurückgelehnt und zugesehen, wie sich England und der Rest des Planeten langsam selbst auffrisst. Und dabei ganz genau beobachtet. Ihr neues Album "I Am Moron" ist das Ergebnis ihrer Beobachtungen, eine unerbittliche Analyse einer modernen Kultur, die die Welt in die Knie zwingt. Die erste Single "This Decision" ist ein offener Angriff auf die Gier und die kopflose Konsumgeilheit und eine Verteidigung des schlichten Lebensstils, für den sie sich entschieden haben. Ein kraftvoller, harter Schlag gegen die Realität. Die Lovely Eggs haben sich nie davor gefürchtet, gegen den Strom zu schwimmen und jetzt haben sie eine Armee von Fans hinter sich. Willkommen in ihrer Welt. "I Am Moron" ist der Nachfolger ihres 2017er Albums "This Is Eggland. Auch das neue Album wurde von Dave Fridmann (The Flaming Lips, MGMT, Tame Impala) koproduziert und gemixt und setzt die Reise der Lovely Eggs durch Eggland ins Unbekannte fort. Sie sind zweifellos die echteste Band Großbritanniens, die in einer Welt agiert, in der wahre Authentizität schwer zu finden ist. "I Am Moron" wurde von der Band selbst in Lancaster ("The Twin Peaks of Northern England") in den Räumen der Lancaster Musicians Co-op aufgenommen. Die Heavyness von "This Is Eggland" wird auf "I Am Moron" fortgesetzt. Das Album bringt mehr Tiefe in ihren Sound durch eine Mischung aus heftigem Psych-Pop und einer Prise Seltsamkeit.

For their first album in 5 years, Zelienople turns on the current time with a record of low key decaying songs wrapped in hypnotic, driving rhythms.

The Chicago based trio is back with a stunner of an underground pop album. Their most reverb heavy bombast is gone in favour of pure earth bound intimate tunes that feel like they summon the spirit of the late Mark Hollis. Shrouded tribal percussion and rippling vocals are at the forefront, while looped atmospheres echo in the distance.

Since the release of their last album, vocalist Matt Christensen has been known for pouring his soul out in countless bandcamp releases of singer/songwriter, experimental and ambient offerings. It's hard to keep up with him, but one can't but to admire the dedication and extremely high quality of it all. Mike Weis on the other hand is less prolific, but has become a focused student of Korean Shaman and Buddhist music, often performing in zen based percussive rituals when he's not involved in side projects of improvisational music. Brian Harding is perhaps the most anonymous of the three, yet he is the steady, grounding element on bass that keeps them as one. Together, they create a beautifully realised own voice that feels especially close on their new album. Hold You Up is like a slow walk through a withering world, though one with a sense of refuge. This is music with heart - navigating darkness through light.

‘Making A Door Less Open’, the new album from Car Seat Headrest
and the first set of brand-new songs since 2016’s ‘Teens Of Denial’.
 The album will be available on vinyl and CD featuring distinct
tracklists and mixes for each format.
 Created over the course of four years, ‘Making A Door Less Open’ is
the result of a fruitful ‘collaboration’ between Car Seat Headrest (led
by Will Toledo) and 1 Trait Danger, a CSH electronic side project
consisting of drummer Andrew Katz and Toledo’s alternative persona,
‘Trait’. To realize this, the band recorded the album twice: once live
with guitars, drums and bass and once in a MIDI environment using
purely synthesized sounds. During the mixing process, the two
approaches were gradually combined using elements of each, with
additional overdubs.
 In this way, ‘Making A Door Less Open’ sees Toledo embarking on
new and imaginative roads to songwriting and recording, placing
emphasis on the individual songs, each with its own “special energy,”
rather than attempting to draw a coherent storyteller narrative
through the album as he has in the past, resulting in his most
dynamic and open-ended work to date.
 Comprised of Will Toledo, Andrew Katz (drums), Ethan Ives (guitar)
and Seth Dalby (bass), Car Seat Headrest have either released eleven
or three albums to date, depending on the way you look at it. A
prolific songwriter, Toledo took his moniker from making early
recordings in the private environment of his family’s car, releasing a
dozen self-recorded and produced albums online and building a tightknit following.
 Toledo has since gone from an empty five-seater to selling out tours
and filling festival main stages. 2015’s ‘Teens Of Style’ was a
collection of songs from his early years. The band’s proper Matador
debut, ‘Teens Of Denial’, followed in 2016 and catapulted them to
overnight commercial success and widespread critical acclaim, as well
as highlighting Toledo as a prodigious lyricist. 2018’s ‘Twin Fantasy’,
an epic re-imagination of an album originally released in 2011,
demonstrated newfound scale, depth and ambition.

Two-time Mercury Prize nominee Ghostpoet (aka Obaro
Ejimiwe) follows up 2017’s acclaimed 'Dark Days +
Canapés’ with a record which couldn’t feel more prescient - a
dystopian snapshot of the universal unease and anxiety we feel
as we enter into this new decade (in lockdown mode!), an
uncertain future distilled across these 10 vital tracks.
 The first single ‘Concrete Pony’ is the perfect entry point to the
record - bluesy, gritty and foreboding and accompanied by an
incredible video, with its distinctly Lynchian feel, surreal and
beautifully cinematic.
 Written, arranged and produced by Ghostpoet, the album
incorporates a myriad of sounds and styles anchored by the altrock sonics of his last two records and a nod to the likes of
Massive Attack who he provided guest vocals for a couple of
years ago. It also features guest vocals from an eclectic mix of
artists; Art School Girlfriend, Skinny Girl Diet’s Delilah
Holiday, SaraSara and Katie Dove Dixon.
 The artwork is a stunning recreation of the famous gothic
painting ‘The Nightmare’ by Fuseli with Obaro as the stricken
woman.

Coloured Vinyl

Kürzlich noch im Vorprogramm von Kolleginnen wie Charli XCX und Marina unterwegs, legt die Kanadierin Allie X im Februar mit "Cape God" ihr neues Album vor. Zuvor gab es bereits einige Singleauskopplungen - zuletzt im November. Die Single „Regulars“, die auch am Radio Erfolge feiern konnte, basiert auf persönlichen Erfahrungen und umkreist die Frage, was es bedeutet, ein/e Außenseiter*in zu sein. Auch wenn Allie X mit „Regulars“ die nächste Phase ihrer Karriere einläutet, knüpft die Sängerin und Songwriterin damit ganz klar an zuletzt veröffentlichte Tracks wie „Fresh Laundry“ oder auch „Rings A Bell“ an, die mit ähnlich aufrichtig-abgründigen Texten daherkamen.

'A Winged Victory For The Sullen' is the first installment of the new collaboration between Stars Of The Lid member Adam Wiltzie and L.A. composer Dustin O'Halloran. The duo agreed to leave the comfort zone of their home studios and develop the recordings with the help of large acoustic spaces, hunting down a selection of 9ft grand pianos that had the ability to deliver extreme sonic low end.

Other traditional instrumentation was used including string quartet, French horn, and bassoon, but always juxtaposed is the sound of drifting guitar washed melodies. The recordings began with one late night session in the famed Grunewald Church in Berlin on a 1950's imperial B?sendorfer piano and strings were added in the historic East Berlin DDR radio studios along the River Spree. One last session on a handmade Fazioli piano in a private studio on the Northern cusp of Italy, before the final mixes took place in a 17th century villa near Ferrara with the assistance of Francesco Donadello. All songs were then processed completely analogue straight to magnetic tape.

Their secret to harvesting new melodic structures from the thin air of existence was for the duo to push themselves to dangerous territory, realising that clear thinking at the wrong moment could stifle the compositions. The final result is seven landscapes of harmonic ingemination. In 'Requiem For The Static King Part One' ? created in memory of the untimely passing of Mark Linkous ? they have taken the age-old idea of a string quartet and then shot it out of a cannon to reveal exquisite new levels of sonic bliss.

Of the 13 minute track 'Symphony Path?tique', Wiltzie says 'after almost 20 years of struggling to create interesting ambient drone music, I feel like I have finally figured out what I am doing'. Notable guest musicians include Icelandic cellist Hildur Gudnadottir, as well as Erased Tapes label comrade Peter Broderick on violin. A Winged Victory For The Sullen is not a side project ? it is the future of the late night record you have always dreamed of. A Major release for Forte, Non exportable.

F.S.Blumm enters Andi Otto's studio with a whole palette of strings and a mission to create quirky, peaceful soundscapes. The artists intertwine acoustic and electric guitars, harps, electric bass, psaltery and cello in eleven electronica compositions ranging from neo-classical gravity ("Entangleland") to spaced-out dub jams ("Active Fault Map"). "Yukiyama" evolves in multilayered patterns braided over warm tape-noise. "Kilani" reminds of Rabih Abou Khalil's ECM recordings, with its oriental scale and a beat that counts to seven. The tunes shine most when silence takes over, when the sounds find space to unfold and decay. Far from being trivial ambient lullabies, these compositions burst with detail: Bells rattle, a kalimba resonates, and vintage synths induce their voltage into the acoustic framework. Andi Otto and F.S.Blumm have been musical collaborators in the studio as well as on stages between Berlin and Tokyo for more than a decade now, the heyday being their previous duo album "The Bird And White Noise" in 2014. On "Entangleland", Andi Otto contributes the cello, harp and synth recordings and takes care of the mixing. Compared to his recent releases on Multi Culti or Shika Shika, these tracks are less dancefloor oriented. The calm of this album is a flourishing environment for Otto to pluck the acoustic cello which we usually hear in a more processed way in his solo works. F.S.Blumm contributes guitar and bass recordings as well as saturated percussion echoes from his self-made spiral box. Blumm is famous for his acoustic solo productions since his early outings on Morr Music or Tomlab. He has also appeared on Pingipung a few times, for example with his album "Up Up And Astray" or as a Lee 'Scratch' Perry collaborator with the "Quasi Dub Development" project. He recorded three duo albums together with Nils Frahm and is a member of the mighty "Jeff Özdemir & Friends" collective in Berlin. "Entangleland" sees the two artists weave together a mass of acoustic motifs, synthetic melodies, riddims and improv jams where the magic emerges from the sum of the parts. "It's not about accompanying a cello theme with the guitar or vice versa," Andi Otto says. "Entangling sound means letting go of hierarchies, that no one is first. Our studio is not a control room, it's a place of imagination where we take things apart and make things whole."

Ltd. 1000 W/W One Green & One Blue Vinyl.

In the latest of a series of albums that have mirrored the exceptional story of the band itself, Cornershop return with a new album ‘England Is A Garden’ on March 6th 2020 on Ample Play Records. It is an album that strides in an upbeat fashion, to deliver a full listening experience, bringing songs of experience, empire, protest and humour, steeped in the way only Tjinder Singh would come with.

Listen to a first taste of the album now, ‘No Rock: Save In Roll’, that is to say that there is not one without the other, that rock, for all its focus on death is the saviour of life.

The anvil here is music itself, and a celebration of Tjinder’s birth place - The Black Country, which also gave birth to heavy metal that has gone on to influence the world to dirty rock, whether the streets are lined with pylons or palm trees, the Black Country has allowed us to see things differently.

So the sound here goes back to Englands’ Midlands with two thumbs up to the feeling of hearing heavy metal from the back of a stage, as we all ride on and await the female backing vocals of our song to come in.

Ltd. 1000 W/W One Green & One Blue Vinyl.

In the latest of a series of albums that have mirrored the exceptional story of the band itself, Cornershop return with a new album ‘England Is A Garden’ on March 6th 2020 on Ample Play Records. It is an album that strides in an upbeat fashion, to deliver a full listening experience, bringing songs of experience, empire, protest and humour, steeped in the way only Tjinder Singh would come with.

Listen to a first taste of the album now, ‘No Rock: Save In Roll’, that is to say that there is not one without the other, that rock, for all its focus on death is the saviour of life.

The anvil here is music itself, and a celebration of Tjinder’s birth place - The Black Country, which also gave birth to heavy metal that has gone on to influence the world to dirty rock, whether the streets are lined with pylons or palm trees, the Black Country has allowed us to see things differently.

So the sound here goes back to Englands’ Midlands with two thumbs up to the feeling of hearing heavy metal from the back of a stage, as we all ride on and await the female backing vocals of our song to come in.

Fuzz has abandonment issues. Abandoning expectation. Abandoning
reservation, consummation, resignation and trite dictation.
Instinct is all there is when it comes to the divination of
harsh salvation. Segall, Moothart and Ubovich are exploring
all the blank-ations of what will be, or has always been, Fuzz II.
Tried and true methods mixed with tongue-twisting, teeth-shattering,
seizure-inducing stabs at the norm. Who knows... maybe
that's wrong. Maybe it's all done. Played out. Maybe it's not for
want of new but for lack of old. But probably not. Bathe in the
heat wave that is Fuzz, and regret nothing in the time freeze. Necessity
is the mother of creation; and devolution stakes its claim
in the past as it continues to bind itself to the future.
San Francisco, Los Angeles, heaven, hell, lunar fields, subterranean
hallucinations, traffic jams, sleepless days, hazy nights,
recollection or blind reflection. It is all there and so should be
you. 2015 and 2016 will bring a new surge of slime, fuzz and
otherwise bittersweet concoctions of earthly lettering. It will be
heavy, chaotically controlled, softly serpentine and blindingly
barbaric. To translate the auditory from ethereal to saliva-
soaked semantics is to shatter a promise as it's made. In the
meantime, Ty, Charles and Chad walk on. It is what it is. Just
like everything else. And if you don't know, now you know.
This message brought to you by In The Red Educational
Services... as it was before and is it will be again.

"Headland" is a collective of Australian musicians that
compose, record and perform soundtrack music for surf films in
various forms. The group leader is Murray Paterson, an old
surfer himself, who in between wrangling two red-headed boys,
finds time here and there to record bits and pieces of guitarbased
music. Mostly he heads to Nashuaville where his longtime
colleague from a previous life in arts education, Les Dorahy,
has set up a small recording studio in the old Booyong General
Store, situated in the Byron Bay Hinterland. Whenever friends
visit their part of the world, they drop past and join in.

Most of the music remains instrumental but this new album is a collection of songs. One of Murray’s comrades from his days with Tex Perkins and The Dark Horses is Joel Silbersher. Joel has been a longtime Headland collaborator–playing bass and guitar–but while recording material for the new album, vocal melodies kept finding
their way into Murray’s instrumentals. Soon there seemed enough of a coherent lyrical theme to build an album around.

There’s a song about installing a dishwasher. There’s one about
a soccer ball filled with blood, and one from the point of view of a
lizard. The topic of love among the elderly gets a look in, and
there’s a drone called Face in the Sky, which is about a face in
the sky.

There is some nice instrumentation touches here too with cello
(Tahiti Jones), pedal steel (Danny Widdicombe), double bass
(Melissa ‘Curly’ Hunt), violin/melotron (Amanda Brown – GO BETWEENS), percussion (Luke Peacock) and organ (Whitey White) fleshingout the core band of Paterson, Silbersher, accordionist Les
Dorahy and drummer Brock Fitzgerald.

During the recordings, a good friend of the band, Australian rock legend Spencer P. Jones sadly departed. One of his melodies and lyric was dovetailed to a Paterson instrumental and Ode to Death Trip became an emotional tribute to mark his passing. A couple of other covers appear on the album. There is a surprising, acoustic rendition of Motörhead’s Deaf Forever and a version of John Sebastian’s Darlin’ Be Home Soon. This last is a relic from 2007 when following a hard drive meltdown at Nashuaville, the only remaining recording of a late night jam was an unedited headphone mix. It seems though, it was impossible to exclude this from the collection.

There’s still enough of the spacious Australian land- and seascapes to satisfy fans of the previous Headland albums (sound/track 2013, Cosy 2015, True Flowers from this Painted World 2017), journeys through a sonic architecture centred around the motion of the ocean and it’s meeting with the coastline. But a narrative of loss and longing sits on the surface here: Silbersher’s voicing is an emotive thread that breaches at all the right times.

There are references to the likes of Alex Chilton, Nick Drake and Daniel Lanois but Christian Pyle (Prawn & Spanner Studio) brings a sensitivity to the mix so that any references float rather than reveal themselves in bold relief. What Rough Beast marks the development of an ensemble and documents a sense of meaning embedded
with the tone of place. File under Salty.

Here Lies Man took the music world by storm in 2017 with their self-titled debut positing the intriguing hypothesis: What if Black Sabbath played Afrobeat

Rough Trade named Here Lies Man in their prestigious Top 10 Albums of 2017. BBC 6 & Classic Rock Magazine deemed it among the year's best, as well as countless other press outlets singing its praises.

This June, the L.A. band comprised of Antibalas members quickly follow their auspicious debut with the even more thoroughly realized album You Will Know Nothing. Its 11 tracks expand upon the band's exploration of heavy riff-based rock and psych within the ancient rhythmic formula of the clave.

We're very conscious of how the rhythms service the riffs,' explains founder and vocalist/guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Marcos Garcia (who also plays guitar in Antibalas) of the band's sound. Tony Iommi's (Black Sabbath) innovation was to make the riff the organizing principle of a song. We are taking that same approach but employing a different organizing principle: For Iommi it was the blues, for us it comes directly from Africa.'

Sonically, on You Will Know Nothing the dynamic range is thicker, crisper and more powerful. It glistens as much as it blasts. The songs are even catchier, more anthemic, and the production reflects that of a band truly come into its own. Lyrically, it's an equally more conceptualized effort that reflects upon states of being and consciousness — a driving force that carries throughout the words and moods of all of the band's releases, interconnected to their trancelike music. Here Lies Man have honed their sound and their focus, and soon, you will truly know Nothing.

We wanted to go deeper with the sonic experience,' says Garcia. Even though it sounds more hi-fi than the first record, it was important that it didn't sound too polished.'

While You Will Know Nothing certainly maintains its gritty grooves, there's an interesting conceptual mathematics to the entire proceedings. There are interludes between each song that are 2/3 to 3/4 of the tempo of the previous song,' Garcia says. The reason it breaks down to 2 over 3 or 3 over 4 is that everything in the music rhythmically corresponds to a set of mathematical algorithms known as the clave. The clave is an ancient organizing rhythmic principle developed in Africa.'

We dove deep into the texture of the music, beyond the groove and the riff,' says HLM cofounder and drummer Geoff Mann (former Antibalas drummer and son of jazz musician Herbie Mann.) Although something might sound like one instrument, there are subtle layers shifting through. It's definitely a headphone album.'

Garcia and Mann recorded the album much like they did the debut, at their own L.A. studio on a Tascam 388 8-track tape machine. Congas were later recorded by percussionists Richard Panta and Reinaldo DeJesus. Then, Garcia went to NY to record interludes with former Antibalas keyboardist Victor Axelrod. Mixing took the most time in order to find the proper sonic space for each layer of musical detail, with first album engineer Jeremy Page mixing the drums and the band tackling the remainder while also juggling a hectic touring schedule.

Here Lies Man has already spent much of early 2018 on tour, with dates supporting Antibalas and Fu Manchu as well as a headlining trek through the EU & UK. Many summer festival dates and headline tours await later in the year as Here Lies Man continues its infectious charge onward.

*** BACK IN ON GOLD COLOURED VINYL***

What if Black Sabbath played Afrobeat? In short, that’s the underlying vibe to the self-titled debut by Here Lies Man. The L.A. based quintet is founded and conceptualized by Marcos Garcia of Antibalas, bringing his erudite experience of West African rhythms and music to the more riff-based foundations of heavy rock. The results are an incredibly catchy and refreshing twist on classic forms, without sounding forced and trite like some sort of mash-up attempt. Here Lies Man merges and expands musical traditions organically, utilizing the talents of drummer Geoff Mann (son of jazz musician Herbie Mann) and a host of skilled musicians to make Garcia’s vision a reality.

“The repetitive guitar figures that happen in Afrobeat music are
very close to heavy rock guitar riffs,” Garcia explains. “ This music is based on the clave. It’s the musical algorithm that the rhythms revolve around. It's what gives it integrity and provides the basis for the musical conversation that's happening. I knew I wanted it to be psychedelic and heavy, and I wanted to be expanding on a musical tradition rather than pretending to be creating something new.”


And that expansion is the brilliant, hazy, psychedelic, hook-laden 8-song masterwork Here Lies Man, available on LP, CD and download on April 7th, 2017 via RidingEasy Records. (Written by Dave Clifford).

JON SPENCER, THE BLUES EXPLOSION MAN who put the BELLBOTTOMS on BABY DRIVER! The Top Cat who spread the
Secret Sauce in BOSS HOG! The Rockabilly Right-Hook from Heavyweight Outlaws HEAVY TRASH! The Swank-Fucking Master of PUSSY GALORE!

Jon Spencer is back! Often imitated, never duplicated, the original NYC underground-rock legend returns from the wilderness with twelve red-hot hits, each more powerful than the last!

This is Garage Punk for Now People! A wizard’s brew of rhythm & blues and subversive dance grooves, weaponized with sci-fi skronk and industrial attitude, calibrated for the Revolution, a Molotov cocktail of sound guaranteed to destroy any post-modern hangover!

Pulsing with energy, clanging with excitement, and dripping with radioactive soul and raw emotion, Jon Spencer opens up his heart like never before, exploring man’s modern condition with caustic guitars and outerworld crooning, asking and answering the musical question, “Is it possible to torch the cut-throat world of fake news and pre-fab, plastic-coated teen rebellion with the power of rock’n’roll?”

THE ANSWER IS YES! SPENCER SINGS THE HITS!

This is the truth serum America has been craving, the beginning of a rock’n’roll rebellion that takes no prisoners and puts the squares on ice!

Recorded and mixed with Bill Skibbe at the Key Club in Benton Harbor, MI. Featuring the talents of Sam Coomes (Quasi, Heatmeiser) and M. Sord (M. Sord). On tour in the Europe in Autumn 2018!

Los Angeles has often been described as a dream factory'--both a mecca where dreamers converge to pursue long-held aspirations, and a topography of hallucinogenic contradictions: enchanting tangerine sunsets diffused by smog, crystal-clutching spiritualists mingling with deep-pocketed narcissists, rows of scenic palms competing with garish billboards for commuters' attention. It was against this backdrop that the four members of La Luz--singer/guitarist Shana Cleveland, drummer Marian Li Pino, keyboardist Alice Sandahl, and bassist Lena Simon—conceived of Floating Features, the band's third studio album. For this, their most ambitious release yet, La Luz consulted landscapes both physical and psychological. References to dreams abound on Floating Features. Loose Teeth' catalyzes nightmare fuel into a propulsive, intentionally-disorienting collision of honeyed harmonies and Takeshi Terauchi-esque jet-streams of distorted surf guitar. Mean Dream' unsurprisingly mines dreamstate imagery, and the lyrics and melody for Walking Into the Sun' actually came to Cleveland During a particularly-vivid night of deep sleep. Looming over the album's Coterie of surreal figures (gargantuan cicadas, a monstrous Creature,' The Sun King, aliens, the titular Lonely Dozer') is the magnificent Greed Machine,' a skulking, insatiable engine of consumption-NathanaelWest's business of dreams' fearsomely manifested. Only La Luz could conjure up Floating Features' Leone-on-LSD vibes, and the album finds the L.A. band at the height of their powers--golden rebels in a golden dream.

On December 7th Erased Tapes present 'Fallen Trees' - the new album by singular talent and literal force of nature Lubomyr Melnyk - known as 'the prophet of the piano' due to his lifelong devotion to his instrument.

The album release coincides with Melnyk's 70th birthday, but despite the autumnal hint in its title, there's little suggestion of him slowing down. Having received critical acclaim and coheadlining the prestigious Royal Festival Hall as part of the Erased Tapes 10th anniversary celebrations, after many years his audience is now both global and growing. The composer is finally gaining a momentum in his career that matches the vibrant, highly active energy of his playing.

Cascades of notes, canyons and rivers of sound: there's something about his music that channels the natural world at its most awe-inspiring. In 'Fallen Trees' the connection with the environment continues, taking its cue from a long rail journey Melnyk made through Europe. Glancing out of the window as the train passed through a dark forest, he was struck by the sight of trees that had recently been felled. 'They were glorious,' he says. 'Even though they'd been killed, they weren't dead. There was something sorrowful there, but also hopeful.' That sense of sadness touched by optimism infuses the album, too: rarely has Melnyk made music so shot through with melancholy and regret, but which sounds so rapt, even radiant.

Drawing comparisons with Steve Reich and the post-rock group Godspeed You, Black Emperor!, Pitchfork praised his 2015 album 'Rivers And Streams' for it's 'sustained concentration and ecstatic energy'. That energy is present in 'Fallen Trees' too, but at points the tone is quieter, the mood darker and more wistful. At points elsewhere on the album, despite being rooted in the wonders of the natural world, there's a kaleidoscopic quality in the fractal flurry of notes and the broad spectrum of colour they summon.

Critics have detected the influence of Ravi Shankar and other Indian styles in Melnyk's music, along with the insistent, repetitive textures of minimalist pioneers such as Steve Reich and Philip Glass. Melnyk himself cites his debt to the American composer Terry Riley, particularly the legendary 1964 work 'In C', which he says 'opened the world for me'. But he adds that if you listen carefully, you'll also be able to hear the lilting contours of traditional Ukrainian folk music.

Hey there, human kids,
lift your face out of the feed trough and pluck that feculence from your ears. Hark! A sonar blip from beneath the pile of bodies. Boop, blip ughhh…. People churning like a boiling swamp. Man, this din is nauseating.

The screen flickers for the first time this year with a transmission from two months in the future: “the internet has deemed guitar music dead and you are free to do whatever the fuck you like ….long live the new flesh!”

This album is Soundcloud hip-hop reversed, a far flung nemesis of contemporary country and flaccid algorithmic pop-barf. No songs about money or love are floating in the ether. Just memories, echoes, foggy blurs Blip-blop goes the scope Heavy funk Dystopia-punk canons Lonnnnng jams Bloated solos dribbling down your caved-in chest.

Human cattle like a beef avalanche, right on your burned out face hole. Spider legs fuzz crawling in your brain. Lots of curse words for your mom. You’ve gotten the over-population blues, so let’s have some art for art’s sake. What else are you gonna do?
Stare at the sky? Please…

50 carbon copies of you look back at you as you walk the streets. Take a breath, you’re going to need it. Take drugs, you’re going to need those just to stand in line at the air and water reclamation center soon enough. There’s no fruit, buddy. You’re at the bleak-peak. They will squeeze you till you’re all squeezed out.

For fans of fried prog burn out, squished old-school drool, double drums, lead weight bass, wizard keys (now with poison), old-ass guitar and horrible words with daft meanings.

If you don’t like it then don’t listen, bub. Back to the comments section with you! Easy Over and out - John Dwyer.

*** VINYL REPRESSED AND IN STOCK ***

In a city full of brilliant people with dead-end jobs and dampened by bitter-cold winters, playing music offers a cheap outlet. Protomartyr’s taut, austere rock was incubated in a freezing Detroit warehouse littered with beer cans and cigarette butts and warmed, feebly,by space heaters. Short songs made for short practices, and the band learned quickly not to waste time. Despite the cold, Protomartyr emerged with a sound that is idiosyncratic but relatable, hooky but off-kilter.

Protomartyr’s economical rock elicits comparisons to possible antecedents like Pere Ubu or The Fall as well as local contemporaries like Frustrations or Tyvek (whose frontman Kevin Boyer played bass in an early iteration of Protomartyr). Singer Joe Casey’s dry declarative snarl serves as a reliable anchor, granting his bandmates — guitarist Greg Ahee, drummer Alex Leonard and bassist Scott Davidson — the opportunity to explore textures and reinforce the rhythm section. This is never more apparent than on the band’s sophomore LP and Hardly Art debut, Under Color of Official Right. Where 2012’s No Passion All Technique favored comparatively straightforward punk structures, Under Color takes a more exploratory approach. “Tarpeian Rock” places punk vitriol against a minimalist backing and “Scum, Rise!” casts shadows with guitars that alternately chime and clang.

The cheap outlet, crafted by cold hands in a poorly insulated practice space has, perhaps unwittingly, become a model of Motor City efficiency. And, more than that, it’s produced a stunner of a sophomore album.

*** VINYL REPRESSED AND INSTOCK ***

This October marks the release of The Agent Intellect, Protomartyrs third and finest work to date. Named after an ancient philosophical questioning of how the mind operates in relation to the self, it’s an elegant and often devastating display of all that makes Protomartyr so vital and singularly visceral an outfit. Over the course of several months, Greg Ahee waded through more than a hundred song fragments until he reached the bottomless melodies of “I Forgive You” and “Clandestine Time”, the inky depths of “Pontiac ’87” and titanic churn of “Why Does It Shake?” Lyrically, Casey is at his most confident and haunting. He humanizes evil on “The Devil in His Youth,” and, amid the charred pop of “Dope Cloud,” he reassures us that nothing—not God, not money—can or will prevent our minds from unraveling until we finally fade away. We are no one and nothing, he claims, without our thoughts. It’s a theme that echoes through the entirety of the record, but never as beautifully as it does on “Ellen.” Named after his mother and written from the perspective of his late father, it’s as romantic a song as you’re likely to hear this or any year, Casey promising to wait for her on the other side, with the memories she’s lost safely in hand.

We all know the type: prolific bands that commit every loose thought, stray idea and 90-second song fragment to tape. Bands that pay no attention to little inconveniences like "release cycles" or "self-editing," and instead decide that quantity equals quality, creating a discography more labyrinthine, imposing and-ultimately-exhausting than the cast of creatures in a sci-fi novel.

Here is why none of that applies to THEE OH SEES. Because each of the dozen-plus albums they've released since 2004 possesses a distinct personality and represents a different point along the path of JOHN DWYER's slow transformation from auteur of woozy, bare-bones four-track psychedelia to goggle-eyed garage rock marauder backed at long last by a band that both shares and stokes his singular vision. Because drop a needle on any record and-to their great credit-it takes several songs before you're convinced it's Thee Oh Sees.

The seasick hundred-bottles-of-rum shanty "What the Driven Drink," from 2007's delirious Sucks Blood exists in a different galaxy than the rollercoastering "Chem-Farmer" from last year's Carrion Crawler/The Dream; the doomy doo-wop of "Blood on the Deck" hardly seems like the product of the same band that delivered the yelping "Ruby Go Home" in 2009. And the band that made last year's engrossing Putrifiers II seems like a distant cousin to the one delivering Floating Coffin-arguably the most varied and textured Oh Sees record to date. Chalk some of the group's cunning chameleonic ability to Dwyer's fifteen-year resume.

The driving force behind such beloved and sonically disparate bands as Coachwhips and Pink and Brown, Dwyer's increased fidelity to Thee Oh Sees and only Thee Oh Sees is evidence of a newfound sense of purpose and focus. Where once Dwyer used to funnel his divergent artistic ideas through a host of different channels, lately he's been finding ways to make all of those impulses function within the framework of Thee Oh Sees-who have in turn grown closer and tighter and sharper with each eye-popping, jaw-dropping live show.

That sense of unity is palpable throughout Floating Coffin, the next chapter in the story of Thee Oh Sees, the one where they fix their fury against the onrushing night. It's another blistering demonstration of Thee Oh Sees greatest trick: they're the only prolific band who doesn't put out records often enough.

A gnarlier, heavier side of band with some juicy synth smoochie action joining the party ? Packaged with drawings by Matt Brinkman and cover photo by John Dwyer.