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When we can no longer move forward or look outward, some reflect and seek truth in themselves – some sharing, through the language of music, what might be impossible to say through words.

Amidst the budding tempest of 2020, Jeremiah Carter, hailing originally from Tennessee, found himself embroiled in a near suffocating air of uncertainty and anxious tension, mainly brought upon by the first spikes in a soon-to-be worldwide pandemic.

Only having recently relocated to the bustling city of New York, an unprecedented series of events took shape over the following months, isolating and dismaying the citizens around the globe in the process. It was during this time that Jeremiah turned his attention to music, discharging the emotional turmoil surrounding him, into a substantial wealth of newly composed work.

Beginning with the album »Rejoice«, which was completed in the wake of 2020 and released on A Sunken Mall that same year, two more albums took shape in a quasi-self-induced creative tremor, one that soon materialized a wealth of work, forming a triptych of three unique albums, produced within the span of only 6 months.

Finally, presented here is the second stage of the final triptych; »Speak, You Also«, dedicated to Paul Celan and giving us further insight into the heart of a beloved southerner, who amidst being tangled in the mesh of crisis, passion and communication, gave rise to a momentous yet equally timeless neoclassical body of work.

Acid Jazz Group Label Countdown Records is proud to present 'Shake A Tail Feather' - a Vinyl/CD collection from Fast Eddie, one of the early '80s most exhilarating live groups, and a favourite of the Rhythm and Soul powered Mod scene of 1980s. Initially called 'The Investigators', Fast Eddie emerged from Billericay in the wake of Thames Delta Blues pioneers, Dr. Feelgood. Having gained a following playing the raw R&B of the Pub Rock circuit, the band diversified their sound to incorporate classic soul repertoire, alongside their own material, which is documented throughout this collection.

Significantly, the group was also managed and produced by a certain young Eddie Piller - our founder - in his first foray as a music Mogul. Consequently, this collection marks an important document in the formation of Well Suspect Records, Countdown Records and the wider Acid Jazz Story. The LP contains a sharp selection of 16 tracks from their recordings, while the CD and digital version extends this with 4 extra tracks. Their storming versions of 'Shake A Tail Feather' and 'Out Of Sight', show their love of classic club soul, while 'Help Me' and 'My Babe' prove that they could play the blues with plenty of rhythm and feeling.

For Fans Of… Dr. John, Allen Toussaint, The Faces, Joe Cocker, Leon Russell, Buddy Miles, The Meters, Father John Misty. "I just wanted to be honest about everything, from my musical influences to my story," muses Neal Francis. After years of dishonest living - consumed by drugs, alcohol, and addiction - such sincerity is jarring from the 30-year-old Chicago-based musician. Liberated from a self-destructive past and born anew in sobriety, Francis has captured an inspired collection of songs steeped in New Orleans rhythms, Chicago blues, and early 70s rock n' roll. There is a deep connection between Francis's childhood - his obsession with boogie woogie piano, his father's gift of a dusty Dr. John LP - and the songs he's created. The result is an astonishing collection of material without parallel in the contemporary funk and soul scene. The influences are unmistakable: the vocal stylings of Allen Toussaint and Leon Russell; the second line rhythms of The Meters and Dr. John; the barroom rock 'n' roll of The Rolling Stones; the gospel soul of Billy Preston; the roots music of The Band. Francis pays tribute to the masters but has his own story to tell: "It's the life I've lived so far." After playing his first live show in November 2018, Francis was signed by veteran agents Joshua Knight and Phil Egenthal of Paradigm Talent Agency. 2019 brought a North American tour supporting Australian band The Cat Empire as well as radio play on KEXP, KCRW's The Morning Becomes Eclectic, and BBC Radio 6. Francis and his four-piece band performed at festivals such as Summer Camp and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and shared the stage with The Meters and Lee Fields & The Expressions. Francis continues to tour relentlessly to promote his own music. "I'm doing this to fulfill a drive within myself, but also to pay tribute to the gifts I've been given. And it comes from a place of immense gratitude. I've been given so much in my life, especially in the last two years, that this feels like a bonus." Also Available From Neal Francis: These Are The Days 7”.

Coming 40 years after he first started performing in bands in his native North West of England, Butterfly Mind is the most surprising release yet from Tim Bowness. From the short, sharp shocks of Always The Stranger and Only A Fool to the long-form ambition of the sensuous Dark Nevada Dream, the cinematic Electro-Ballroom of Glitter Fades and the dystopian paranoia of Say Your Goodbyes Parts 1 and 2, Butterfly Mind delivers a thrilling fusion of Art Rock invention, Post-Punk energy and epic soulful ballads. Tim’s seventh solo album features the stellar rhythm section of Richard Jupp (in his first major session since leaving Elbow) and Nick Beggs alongside a spectacular guest list including Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull), Dave Formula (Magazine), Peter Hammill (Van Der Graaf Generator), Martha Goddard (The Hushtones), Gregory Spawton (Big Big Train), Mark Tranmer (The Montgolfier Brothers / GNAC), Saro Cosentino (Franco Battiato), Italian Jazz musician Nicola Alesini, US singer Devon Dunaway (Ganga), Stephen W Tayler (Kate Bush) and, marking his first studio work with Tim for nearly three decades, former No-Man violinist Ben Coleman. Produced by Tim Bowness and Brian Hulse (Plenty), the album was mixed and mastered by Steven Wilson. Available as Limited 2CD Edition (featuring alternate mixes and bonus material), and a Limited 180g LP + CD edition featuring special die-cut artwork by Carl Glover. Also available as Digital Album.

Jacob Long’s third Earthen Sea outing for Kranky, Ghost Poems, further refines his fragile, fractured palette into fluttering arrhythmias of dust, percussion, and yearning.
Composed during the first wave of lockdowns in New York, the pieces took shape patiently from samples of piano, texture, and domestic sounds (sink splashing, room tone, clinking objects), filtered through live FX to imbue them with an intuitive, immaterial feel. Wisps of melody splinter, shimmer, and refract, like light on water; pulses accrue and dissipate, as if mapping shifting sands. Throughout, there’s a sense of matter made animate, of absences felt.
Long cites notions of “the studio as a dub instrument” and the melancholy of “7th chords on a fake Rhodes patch” as central elements in his process, transforming raw materials into rare thresholds of symbiosis and hypnosis. This is music for night skies in hollowed out cities, for views across rivers towards unknown shores: restless, placeless, and profound.
track listing:1. Shiny Nowhere 2. Stolen Time 3. Felt Absence 4. Oblique Ruins 5. Snowy Water 6. Rough Air 7. Slate Horizon 8. Ochre Sky 9. Fossil Painting 10. Deep Sky
press quotes for previous album Grass and Trees:
“Jacob Long’s vaporous, lo-fi ambient tracks feel like snapshots of stillness made of moving parts.” Pitchfork
“As light as a warm breeze on skin, Earthen Sea’s latest album for Kranky showcases Jacob Long’s natural sensitivity for low-key, enchanting electronic sound craft.” Boomkat
“It’s exciting to hear such a significant change in his sound without sacrificing a personal touch and sonic character.” Igloo

Johnny was born in 1934 in Memphis, the city where Rock’n'Roll began. A career in boxing
seemed most likely tfor the Burnette brothers before meeting Burlison, who’d graduated from
High School two years before Elvis Presley. Burlison had backed Blues giant Howlin’ Wolf on
radio appearances and worked at Crown Electrics with Dorsey, with Elvis later becoming a
workmate. They had also taken to rehearsing in the basement of one of the apartment blocks
in Lauderdale Court. With the apartment above rented by the Presley family, who had not long
arrived from Tupelo. Legend has it that, Elvis would slip downstairs and sit quietly in a corner,
listening to them rehearse. And it was after seeing Elvis on television in January 1956, that
sent the Rock'n’Roll Trio to New York where their appearances on Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour
saw them sign to the Coral Label. The three-time talent show winners immediately set about
recording a repertoire based equally on R&B and Country & Western material. The Rockabilly
they cut for Coral, some 25 tracks, was later described by genre expert Bill Millar as 'unrivalled
for unsubtle power and wild intensity’. Joe Turner’s Honey Hush, and the self-penned Tear It
Up have been constantly recycled by acts. The originals are included in this LP along with
other material such as Rock Therapy, Lonesome Train and Touch me

I’m Jimmy Reed underlined the very raw nature of the recordings, yet it immediately showed
why his music was embraced so much by others as the songs offered more melody and variety
than other Blues players. Ain't That Lovin' You Baby has fine melodic hooks that could easily
be transcribed into rocking versions, while Boogie In The Dark set the template for so many
groups in the sixties. The slower tracks like You Got Me Crying and Little Rain provided useful
contrasts, while Honest I Do gives added meaning to the phrase 'stripped down'. Jimmy Reed
was easily the most commercially successful Bluesman in America during the 1950s, and as
such his material was readily available to be plundered by artists wanting to enrich their live
repertoire. This reached its height during the UK Beat boom when virtually every working group
included his songs in their sets. The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, Them and The Animals all
covered his songs liberally during the first half of the sixties. In his homeland, The Grateful
Dead, The Steve Miller Band, Johnny Winter, Wishbone Ash and, bizarrely, even Bill Cosby
followed suit!

7A Records announces the release of Dolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart’s original studio and live albums. In the mid-1970s promoters were trying to reunite the Monkees, but with Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork unavailable, it was suggested that Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones team up with Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart to tour as ‘The Golden Great Hits Of The Monkees Show - ‘The Guys Who Wrote ‘Em & The Guys Who Sang ‘Em’’. The group signed a deal with Capitol Records to record a self-titled studio album of new material. They later released a live album from their tour of Japan. Both albums have been unavailable and out of print for many years. 7A Records have tracked down the original master tapes, that were presumed missing for at least 27 years, and remastered both albums for this release. Available as deluxe 2CD and 2LP sets, the CD version will include a big 40 page colour booklet featuring extensive liner notes and previously unseen photos. The 2LP version comes in a gatefold sleeve and is pressed on special 180g Green, Black and Yellow Quad Vinyl.

Within Melbourne's cinematic soul scene sit the The Pro-Teens. Helmed by prolific drummer Hudson Whitlock (Karate Boogaloo, Surprise Chef), this breakaway studio project involves an interchangeable collective of incognito instrumentalists playing under outlandish pseudonyms such as 'Dead Honest' Dean Amazing and Libby Clique-Baite.

This release presents two iconic MF DOOM tracks reinterpreted by The Pro-Teens. It follows breakout album Snooch Dodd & The Pro-Teens - I Flip My Life Every Time I Fly (College Of Knowledge/Mr Bongo), which received BBC 6 Music's Album Of The Day. This is the second 7" single of The Pro-Teens' MF DOOM tribute material, following 2021's Peachfuzz b/w One Beer, taken from forthcoming full-length album tribute to MF DOOM.

Support from BBC6 Music, NTS, KCRW Morning Becomes Eclectic, Worldwide FM.

This series highlights gems from Contemporary's extraordinary catalogue and features artists who both defined and expanded the sound of West Coast jazz.

Guitarist Barney Kessel, drummer Shelly Manne, bassist Red Mitchell, and the supremely soulful Hampton Hawes, one of jazz's most appealing yet unsun pianists, fill out the quartet scorecard of the 1958 release Four!. Although much later in his career Hawes experimented with electronic keyboards and fusion music, at heart he was a bebopper, as this session makes abundantly clear.

With material like Charlie Parker's "Yardbird Suite," his own "Up Blues," and Red Mitchell's "Bow Jest" (on which Mitchell plays his first recorded bowed solo), Hawes is at a creative peak here. Kessel, who played on the date, paid tribute to Hawes' "inexhaustible ideas on the blues…no one else in modern jazz plays the blues better." And nobody could tie a rhythm section together better than Shelly Manne, the fourth party in this boundingly energetic Four!

Finnish Death Doom spearhead Kuolemanlaakso, starring vocalist Mikko Kotamäki, are about to release their first album in eight years. The new album Kuusumu was produced by V. Santura, who also took responsibility for producing the band’s previous records. In addition to his studio works, Santura is known as the guitarist of Triptykon and Dark Fortress. Kuusumu is the band’s fourth full-length album, and it will be out in 2022 via Svart Records. “The recording pause got unnecessarily long, but there’s no rush in doom. It was great to get back to work with the folks and catch up with some good friends as well. Kuusumu’s keyboards were played by Aleksi Munter (Swallow the Sun, Insomnium, Ghost Brigade) and Lotta Ruutiainen (Luna Kills) performed female vocals on the album. In my opinion we took many steps forward on Kuusumu”, guitarist-songwriter Laakso says. Kuusumu's texts are loosely based on the sudden global cooling that began in 535, leading to a 10-year winter, loss of crops, mass deaths of cattle and other animals, and famine. Climate change was most likely caused by massive volcanic eruptions, the fog of which darkened the sun for one and a half years, causing intolerable cold. Moreover, the plague pandemic that began in the Byzantine Empire in 541 swept across Europe, killing tens of millions of people during the climate crisis. “Our previous releases are autumn albums, so this time we decided to make a winter album. I came across the literature about those catastrophic events by chance, and got thoroughly inspired - especially by contemporary stories. It wasn’t long until the album material was there already. It’s spine-chilling to think that deadly climate change and a pandemic also raged 1,500 years ago when medicine, information flow and living conditions were in their infancy. There was no knowledge about electricity, for example. People imagined that the gods are angry and the darkness is eternal. One way or another, the power of nature should still not be underestimated,” says the band's artistic director Laakso. On Kuusumu, Kuolemanlaakso stretch their artistic boundaries even further. The album contains the familiar slow heaviness, but also more epic, faster and more polished material. The first single Katkeruuden malja, featuring Lotta Ruutiainen, represents the catchier and lighter side of the album. “Katkeruuden malja draws its inspiration from grief and misery. Musically it trips almost in the landscapes of Tribulation, but with longing, Kalevala-infused and, in my opinion, very Finnish melodies. Regarding singing, Kotamäki introduces new winds, and Lotta's parts really top it all off. The music video is like a visual extension of the cover art and the album’s lyrical themes, ” Laakso comments. The previous Kuolemanlaakso record Tulijoutsen (2014), reached the 10th place on Finland's official album list and was selected as one of the best records of the year on Soundi, Rumba, Kaaoszine and Imperiumi, among others.

Das 1995er Album von Trouble liefert eine ordentliche Portion Stoner Metal!

Uns gefällt, was Trouble mit diesem Album, "Plastic Green Head", gemacht haben. Die Musik klingt zwar nicht ganz so wie die völlig doomigen, erdrückenden Riffs auf dem früheren Material, aber was Trouble hier machen, klingt alles andere als nicht authentisch. Um nicht in die Irre zu gehen: Es klingt definitiv immer noch nach Trouble, aber sie scheinen einen entspannteren Stoner-Metal-Ansatz gewählt zu haben; sie opfern die düsteren Atmosphären für beschwingtere Stimmungen.

Die ersten paar Tracks sind absolut fantastische Angebote von Vintage Trouble. Das verspielte, thrashige Riff des Titeltracks, das das Album er- öffnet, ist ein großartiger Einstieg in die Musik.

Das spielerische, thrashige Riff des Titeltracks, das das Album eröffnet, ist ein großartiger Einstieg in die Musik, und Eric Wagners markanter Gesang klingt kraftvoll darüber. "Plastic Green Head", "The Eye" und "Flowers" sind allesamt das, was man was man von Trouble erwarten würde, riesige, aufgewühlte Riffs, 80 bpm Drumbeats, Eric Wagners nasale und doch kraftvolle Stimme. Sie sind einfach, sie sind eingängig, und sie sind einfach nur gut. "The Porpoise Song" ist eine Coverversion eines Songs von The Monkees, und seltsamerweise ist sie sehr gut. Eine große Wand aus Gitarrenlärm und Eric singt mit einer weniger nasalen und melodischeren Stimme. "Opium Eater" klingt, als könnte es ein Alice in ChainsSong sein.

Auf diesem Album gibt es jede Menge Sabbath-Verehrung, aber auch ein eher beschwingtes Hardrock-Gefühl. Wir würden sogar sagen, dass sich ein wenig Grunge in ihren Sound eingeschlichen hat. Sound eingeschlichen hat (um fair zu sein, ist es wahrscheinlich umgekehrt, der Trouble-Einfluss hat sich in den Grunge eingeschlichen). Wenn du nach einer schönen Dosis Stoner Metal suchst, wirst du genau das hier finden. Es gibt jede
Menge einprägsame Riffs, die für einen hohen Wiederspielwert sorgen, und obwohl man nicht so viel Doom findet, wie man es vielleicht von
Trouble erwarten würde, ist er dennoch vorhanden, wenn man danach sucht.

Es war eine aufregende 40-jährige Reise für Voivod , dem Quartett aus Jonquière, Quebec, das im Laufe der Jahre allen Widrigkeiten getrotzt, sich Tragödien gestellt und ihren Bandsound, im Vergleich zu viel anderen, stets weiterentwickelt hat, was sie zu vielen Ehrungen und
Auszeichnungen führte. Das Voivod -Album "The Wake" aus dem Jahr 2018 brachte der Band einen Juno Award als Heavy-Metal-Album des Jahres ein, während Away im Vorjahr den Visionary Award bei den Progressive Music Awards in London erhalten hatte.

Die in diesem Set enthaltene Musik beweist, dass Voivod Pioniere des Sounds waren, da ihre eigene Musik raffinierter und experimenteller wurde. Auf den drei enthaltenen Alben (Rrröööaarrr, Killing Technology & Dimension Hatröss) hört man die Entwicklung des
typischen Voivod Sounds. In den fünf Jahren vom 1984er "War And Pain"-Debüt bis zum 1989er "Nothingface" schmiedeten Voivod einen trotzigen Progressive-Metal-Sound, den sie mit späteren Alben ausbauten und damit bis heute zu den aufregendsten Metal-Bands zählen. "Forgotten In Space" feiert insbesondere Voivods Noise Records Diskographie und ist die ultimative Sammlung ihrer aufgenommenen Werke, welche zusätzlich seltenes und bisher unveröffentlichtes Material enthält.

We like what Trouble have done with this album, “Plastic Green Head”. The music sounds fairly dissimilar to the completely doom-laden, crushing riffs present on the earlier material, but what Trouble do here sounds every bit authentic. Not to mislead you, this definitely still sounds like Trouble, but they seem to have adopted a more laidback, stoner metal approach; sacrificing sinister atmospheres for more upbeat ones. The first few tracks are completely awesome offerings of vintage Trouble. The playful, thrashy riff of the title track, which opens the album, is a great introduction to the music at hand and Eric Wagner’s distinctive vocals sound powerful overtop. “Plastic Green Head,” “The Eye,” “Flowers,” these are all what you would expect from Trouble, huge churning riffs, 80 bpm drumbeats, Eric Wagners nasal yet powerful voice. They are simple, they are catchy, and they are just plain good. “The Porpoise Song” is a cover of a song by The Monkees, and strangely enough it’s very good. Big wall of guitar noise, and Eric singing in a less nasal and more melodic voice. “Opium Eater” sounds like it could easily be an Alice in Chains song. On this album there is silly plenty of Sabbath worship, but also more of an upbeat, hard rock feel. We would even say that a little grunge has crept into their sound (to be fair, it’s probably the other way around, Trouble influence crept into grunge.) If you’re looking for a nice dose of stoner metal, you’ll find just that right here. There’s plenty of memorable riffs which provide good replay value, and although you won’t find as much doom as you might expect from Trouble, it’s still there if you look for it.

It’s been an exhilarating 40-year ride for Voivod, the Jonquière, Quebec quartet that has, over the years, defied the odds, faced tragedy head on and also seen the band rise above many of the contemporaries to a point where the band’s intricate progressively fuelled heavy metal sound also brings with it honours and awards. The 2018 Voivod album, ‘The Wake’, won the band a Juno Award for Heavy Metal Album of The Year, while the previous year Away had picked up the Visionary Award at that year’s Progressive Music Awards in London.

The music contained in this set proves that Voivod were very much pioneers of the sound, as their own music became more refined and experimental. You can hear the development of the band’s sound over the three albums contained here (Rrröööaarrr, Killing Technology & Dimension Hatröss). In the five year span from 1984’s ‘War And Pain’ debut to 1989’s ‘Nothingface’, Voivod forged a defiant progressive metal sound that they would expand upon with later albums and ensure that they are one of the most exhilarating metal bands in existence today. ‘Forgotten In Space’ is a deluxe celebration of Voivod’s, Noise Records discography and is the definitive collection of their recorded work plus rare and previously unreleased material.



Includes :

- Includes following 5 Albums:

Rrrröööaaarrr
Killing Technology
Dimension Hatröss
Dimension Hatröss – The Demos
No Speed Limit Weekend ‘86

- Chaosmongers - DVD (Containing a mini documentary plus a previously unseen concert from 1987 and an audio recording of the legendary WWIII show from 1985.)

- 12” x 12”, 40 page book of photography, and brand new interviews with founding member Michel ‘Away’ Langevin. Contains a vast array of previously unseen photos from the era.

- ‘Körgull’ f¬igurine USB drive containing MP3

Repressed , please note price increase! Would Like To Pose A Question is one of the first previously-unreleased funk and soul albums issued by Now-Again, and it still sounds amazing today. Well, it would have to: it's the brainchild of bandleader/drummer/singer/songwriter Lester Abrams (the L.A. in L.A. Carnival). Abrams helped create hit singles like "Minute by Minute" and “What A Fool Believes” for the Doobie Brothers and played with artists such as B.B. King, Stevie Wonder, Peabo Bryson, Manfred Mann, Quincy Jones and many more. Before all that - in early 70s while still in Omaha - he brought a multi-racial band into the Pacific Avenue studio to cut an album's worth of material. Only one single - "Color" b/w "Blink Man" - was ever issued, and this album sat on master tapes in Abrams' closet. That is until Now-Again’s Eothen Alapatt intervened in the early 2000s and Would You Like To Pose A Question was at last given a proper full length release.

Recorded under a loft bed in the guest bedroom of his Nashville home, Michael Ruth aka Rich Ruth’s “I Survived, It’s Over” starts in a humble space. And while many contemporary music projects are produced in such an environment, “I Survived, It’s Over” sets itself apart in its transformative properties as well as its transparency. What we have here is honest sound exploration, session musician-level instrumentation, and a true love for nature run through the fingers of a dude who can channel some acute and undeniable magic. This music goes deep. "I conceived much of this record amidst the quiet and tumult of 2020 in my neighborhood that had recently been ravaged by a tornado," Ruth recalls, "I spent most of my days working on these pieces between bicycle rides - watching the beautiful Tennessee ecosystem flourish in Shelby Park, listening to Keith Jarrett’s The Koln Concert and John Coltrane’s Ascension." Underneath the swell of the strings and the shredding of the guitars, this record has hard working, rustbelt, drum-heavy roots all over it (which makes sense as Ruth hails from outside of Toledo, the album was mixed by John McEntire from Chicago band Tortoise). Many of the flutes, saxophones, pedal steel, and other instruments were recorded remotely because we live in the future, but this only adds to the collage of sampled and sample-able material that Rich Ruth has to offer. The organic relationships between the artist and other musicians on the album is evident even in the compilation style sampling that needs to occur in putting such a project together. "Working on this music is a daily meditation," says Ruth. "I constantly experiment with sound until it reflects the way I am feeling and attempt to sculpt something meaningful from it. Through years of being a touring musician, it is a constant inspiration and privilege to collaborate with the individuals that graced this record with their voices." And those relationships pay off, because “I Survived, It’s Over” is a sonic meal. It’s rich (no pun intended) with massive instrumentation that’s usually reserved for more symphonic delights. But at the same time it’s simple and leaves space to breathe–space you didn’t know you needed. In his own words; "I Survived, It’s Over is a meditation on healing, confronting trauma, surrendering, and finding peace. I wanted to encapsulate the tranquility and disarray found within this process." Ruth’s heart and the peace that his presence produces is all over this album. And despite his midwestern humility and willingness to brush off any praise, he’s put together something really special that carries its own weight. It's the kind of record that only comes around every once in a while and it's worthy of all the head-bobs, acclaim, and celebratory potlucks that Mike and the gang have coming their way. “I Survived, It’s Over” is a record you should buy for your friend, your foe, and yourself. It’ll sit perfectly on your shelf between Alice Coltrane and Hiroshi Yoshimura.

For Fan Of: Journey, Rainbow, Kansas, Fates Warning, Armored Saint, Van Halen, Scorpions, Arch/Matheos, Warlord, Jethro Tull When Mark Zonder, famed former Fates Warning and Warlord drummer, started working on material in early 2020 he had a very clear vision for the band he wanted to put together. “I wanted to have a very accessible band that would appeal to the masses and would lead to the ability to tour larger venues. I knew from myself and the others that I would recruit, it would have some sophisticated music parts but the big hook was the main priority.” The result was A-Z, reuniting him with Fates Warning vocalist Ray Alder, Warlord/Steve Vai/Ring of Fire bassist Philip Bynoe, guitarist Joop Wolters and keyboardist Vivien Lalu, the combination of these players stirring up a very specific kind of magic that could not be replicated. The goal was always the same: shorter songs and getting right to the chorus, no twelve-minute songs, and everyone found it easy working to this remit. With everything else coming together nicely, finding the right singer was the hardest aspect of the whole process.

Age of Apocalypse materialize at a shadowy crossroads between metal, grunge and hardcore. The Hudson Valley, NY quintet—Dylan Kaplowitz vocals, Jack Xiques [guitar], Terry Orlando [guitar], Joe Shannon [bass], and Will Kamerman [drums]—steep anthems of darkness, depression, and loss into a disarmingly infectious and downright inimitable hybrid of their own. After receiving acclaim from Stereogum, CVLT NATION, No Echo, and more, the group present a fascinating and fiery vision on their sophomore full-length and debut for Closed Casket Activities, Grim Wisdom. Initially formed during 2018 after Jack and Dylan previously played in another project. Inspired by an unholy alliance of All Out War, Alice In Chains, Type O Negative, and Life Of Agony, they unveiled The Way in 2020. 2021 saw them team up with “Pain of Truth” for a four-song split. In its wake, Stereogum hailed Age of Apocalypse’s “furious thrashers with big, melodically howled lead vocals and crushing breakdowns.” Throughout 2021, they recorded Grim Wisdom with producer Taylor Young of The Pit Recording Studio. Drums were tracked GCR Studios in Buffalo, NY, followed by the band working out of Jack's studio in Western Massachusetts, while Taylor produced remotely from California and later mixed the release. Mastering handled by Brad Boatright of Audiosiege and original artwork created by Dillon Perino.

Lasse Marhaug is one of those characters that operates at the nexus of so much stuff that’s important to us here - working as a producer (over the last couple of years alone he’s helped shape albums by Jenny Hval, Kelly Lee Owens, Okkyung Lee, Hillary Woods etc etc), a mastering engineer (far too many releases to mention), a prolific sleeve designer (likewise), publisher (his occasional Personal Best magazine is still going strong) and, perhaps most importantly - a recording artist in his own right. ‘Context’ is his most substantial release in years - a crushing assembly of bone-dry/darkside drone/machine malfunctions that’s bursting with a visceral, throbbing, mass of feeling. If yr into anything on the spectrum from Mika Vainio to Grouper to Kevin Drumm or Deathprod - this one’s as good as it gets

Over almost three decades of activity, Marhaug has carved out notoriety as a solo performer, a prolific collaborator (working with everyone from Sunn O))) to Jim O'Rourke) and as a busy producer, who's notched up credits on some of the most striking-sounding albums of the last few years. This new album was created as a swan song for the infamous Oslo studio that he's inhabited for 17 years, prior to his move back to the Arctic Circle where he originally came from. Recorded over a 14-month period and painstakingly edited from hours upon hours of material, it might just be the most impressive, moving record we’ve heard from him so far.

The interplay between piercing softness and deafening noise is the key to "Context", displaying a philosophy Marhaug has been exploring for years. Few other artists are able to balance chaos and harmony with such ease; Marhaug does it without grandstanding, it's music that sounds as simultaneously beautiful and as daunting as the Arctic landscape he's returning to. At any moment a sound can be alluring or treacherous, like the frozen sun reflecting on a snowy mountaintop. Marhaug's deftness with rhythm and bass emerges on 'Context 3', as he pairs Vainio-esque low-end pulses with crumpled noise and widescreen tones; as disquieting music-box chimes absorbed into the blasted soundscape on 'Context 5', while we're thrust into the freezing cold on 'Context 6', subjected to punctuating gusts of white noise and trapped string loops.

Trust it’s a rare and near-mythical beast, conjuring vast, treacherous soundscapes illuminated with pangs of sentiment that naturally weave strands of his non-musical practice in their psychosensual lustre and gritty attrition. As he steps into a new phase of his career, we're left with a concluding chapter that stands as a summation and open-ended post-credits reveal.