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“I hope you die by my side, the two of us at the exact same time, I hope we die not long from now, the two of us at the exact same time”
By the time Molly Nilsson released History, she had already established a fledgling cult status built on homemade YouTube videos and home-burnt Cdrs. Writing from a distance, it’s clear that History is the first classic album in her canon and arguably a classic of the 21st Century underground music panorama.While the methodology on History hadn’t changed from Nilsson’s previous 3 albums – it was recorded solo at The Lighthouse, Nilsson’s home studio based on a Berlin crossroads – on this record the songwriting reached a new peak and the emotional scythe cut deeper. Here, Nilsson managed to combine a cosmic, outward looking perspective with an intimate knowledge of the human condition and its place in these turbulent times. In truth, no other songwriter has excavated the modern psyche so clearly and perfectly.
The tracklist to Nilsson’s fourth album reads as an early greatest hits for Molly Nilsson followers and also serves as the perfect entry point to a whole world the artist has been building for the last 10 years. In Real Life crystalises the millenial obsession with relationships built online, with a generation paying for the baby boomer’s excesses with their anxiety towards the harshness of every day life. It’s a call to arms for a generation who fell in love on Skype. On I Hope You Die, one of Molly Nilsson’s most iconic songs, the songwriter flips the song title into a tale of doomed romance, a relationship based on discommunications and the thrill of the other. It’s also one of the most heartfelt songs full of pathos written by anyone, an ode to obsession. Doomed romance, life lived on the flipside of day and the role of the outsider in society are themes that crop up through-out History. On
Bottles Of Tomorrow, the narrator is sweeping up, in love with the night and examining the remains a society leaves behind.
On City Of Atlantis, Nilsson veers from the plaintive balladry she had begun to make her name with, embracing trance-like synth and dance music details to create an unlikely anthem using the mythological city as a means to comment on the patriarchal rendering of history by power. With by now trademark panache, she turns complicated subject matter into a glorious song that transforms into an ecstatic pop moment.
Hotel Home, another Nilsson classic, paints loneliness not as a debilitating anxiety, but as a powerful to that propels the artist forward through her travels. It’s a song that hints at an endearing self-awareness also; the writer is never at home, living life on the road, content that “the world will find me when the time is ripe.”
There’s never been a greater time.

Up first is the original version of title-track ‘We Need Space’, a merging of winding bass grooves, skippy percussion, modulating, bubbling synths ebbing and flowing amongst one another while a hypnotic, spoken word vocal winds within the groove throughout.

An instrumental version follows next, as the name would
suggest, pulling back the vocal elements for a more robust, drum driven feel.

‘Separation’ then opens the flip-side with a more frenzied feel via and amalgamation of vacillating synth flutters, dubbed out percussion and bumpy low-slung drums which all dynamically evolve and retract throughout. ‘The Feeling’ then completes the EP, diving back into deeper realms with murky atmospherics, vocal chants and
gritty stabs at its core, underpinned by a bouncy stab led bass groove and crisp, crunchy drums.

2023 Repress

Reiko Kudo first debuted on the Tokyo underground music scene in 1980 with NOISE, a duo which apart from herself under her then maiden name Reiko Omura on voice, guitar and trumpet featured Tori Kudo on organ. Their only album TENNO (1980 on Engel) is probably one of the most outstanding and uncompromising records of all time.

Like other pioneering female producers from Japan such as NON (of NON BAND), PHEW and HACO, who had all begun their startling careers in the early days of the japanese Punk era, Reiko Kudo can surely be regarded as one of the most unique, uncategorisable and daring voices in the entire field of electronic and experimental music ever.

RICE FIELD SLOWLY RIPING IN THE NIGHT was REIKO KUDO's second album under her own name. It features TORI KUDO (MAHER SHALAL HASH BAZ) and SAYA and TAKASHI UENO (TENNISCOATS) on various instruments. The recordings took place in 2000 at Reiko' s and Tori's house in the rural surroundings of Shikoku island.

All recorded music on this album sounds like it originates in a parallel dimension where time and key signatures simply don't exist, Some might describe this as outsider music, but this doesn't really begin to do justice to the quality of the tracks, there is nothing accidental or forced here, this is simply music created in a very different way. Yet again REIKO KUDO had conceived of something utterly beautiful.

"After producing the album "Souvenir de mauve" with Maher Shalal Hash Baz which we released on our label Majikick, the idea came to us, to release Reiko Kudo's work. For Reiko's work, we brought our recording equipment from Tokyo to Shikoku and recorded the entire album at her house.

The piano was positioned in a room with a high ceiling. We would set up our small recording equipment in the room and started to record. The basic tracks were recorded without any rehearsal and just a few overdubs were added on top of it. To have a distant sound on the recording, Tori played trumpet in the next room. The choir was standing outside the house, singing "Enya-totto, enya-totto" through the open window. It was early spring, I remember that it was still a bit cold and the members of the choir were freezing outside.

Reiko plays only at certain times of the day, so that we were able to complete only two or three recordings a day. Therefore we had plenty of free time. We went to a hot spring, to a cafe, or we tried pottery on a spinning wheel at Tori's workshop. It was a very rewarding time.

When this album was finished, we brought it to her to listen to. She said happily "I think this is the best work I have ever done." We felt that all our efforts were richly rewarded. Secretly, we thought the same, so we are delighted that this album will be re-issued." - Saya and Ueno (Tenniscoats), Tokyo 2018

Originally released on Majikick Records, Japan, 2000 Restauration and mastering by Detlef Funder at Paraschall Mastering, Düsseldorf. Vinylcut at Calyx, Berlin Translation by Miki Yui and Claus Laufenburg. Many thanks to Reiko Kudo, Tori Kudo, Saya and Takashi Ueno, Satoru Higashiseto.

The last twelve months have been a whirlwind for Henry Counsell and Louis Curran, the men who make up Joy (Anonymous). Having established themselves during the Covid-19 era by playing impromptu meet-ups on London’s South Bank, they have graduated to bigger venues, travelled to far-flung locales and recorded their second album, Cult Classics, while maintaining the spontaneous energy and irrepressible joy that made their name. Their music revels in the euphoria of being alive and all the feelings, good or bad, that come with it. It invites us into a community, draws us close and promises the night of our lives.

Recorded over the course of a year, the blueprint for Cult Classics was laid down over a two-week span at Imogen Heap’s Round House in east London. Joy (Anonymous) invited friends old and new to visit - they’d record live instruments in jam sessions upstairs and then retreat to a second room to flip and loop and generally mess with the sounds, moulding them into sizzling dance tracks. “Loads of people were coming up to me like ‘I thought this was going to be a dance record?’” Louis says, remembering the quietly beautiful music they’d be recording. “I’d be like, don’t worry about that, just keep playing.” He’d send it back to people later and they’d be floored - “That was my bit and you’ve made it... jungle!”

It was an organic and creatively fulfilling approach, one that didn’t allow any of the music to get stale or stagnate. As they built the tracks from the sounds they’d collected, Joy (Anonymous) would weave the new songs into their famously improvised live sets, testing them, refining them, taking note of the audiences’ reactions. In a year punctuated by a lot of travel, they’d also incorporate the voices of people they met along the way - “Beazley’s Poem”, which opens the record, features the words of a man who was working security at a Fred Again show at New York’s Terminal Five. “He was basically doing the opposite of his job and being a hype man, climbing on the fence and ramping up the crowd - we ended up hanging out with him - like, who’s this legend?” Louis explains. “He just speaks really amazingly about his life, all these amazing thoughts and opinions - he started jumping on the mic when we were playing, preaching these amazing messages to the crowd, like that we all need to be nicer to each other. The first time we played the record in its entirety, he introduced us and that’s the recording we’ve used.”

Joy (Anonymous) remain dedicated to the spirit of spontaneity. They shut a street down with a surprise waterside party in New York. On a trip to Copenhagen they played an impromptu set in a cafe, which turned into a house party and a night-long good time. In Lithuania, they ended up playing in a decommissioned prison. It’s harder, perhaps, to keep that spirit alive now that they are operating more within the confines of the music industry but they will keep lugging their kit to wherever the party calls for as long as they can. “I think if we lose that, we’ve kind of lost what makes us us,” Henry says.

Bursting with multi-genre reference points and disparate influences, Cult Classics is very much a dance album. The samples we made ourselves or we took from music that is quite different to dance music, but we definitely wanted to shout out a lot of the dance influences that we love,” Henry says. They listened to a lot of Daft Punk and Basement Jaxx as well as The Prodigy (“more rage stuff”), taking songwriting tips from their dance forebears, but also recording bits that felt more like jazz and motown (see: A Place I Belong and the lovely album closer, You’re In Or You’re Out). Emir Taha’s gentle classical guitar runs like a thread throughout Cult Classics, washing into the undertones of the record, tying it all together.

The album follows the beat of a night out, from frenetic, sweaty movement to the gentler winding down as the dawn breaks. At times it is euphoric, celebratory and pure, whirling fun, at others it seeks the joy in the darker emotions that life throws our way. 404 is designed to encapsulate everything about the Joy (Anonymous) journey so far. Skittering beats and ghostly vocals give way to vibrating house chords: sirens blare as we approach a dubstep drop. It’s dramatic and wild, ratcheting up, seeming to settle then hitting you with an intense and frantic breakdown before the ghostly vocal returns to lull us back into the world. It has the feel of a hungry cat playing with a mouse, toying with it before letting it get away.

What sounds like someone playing the spoons on playful, housey How We End Up Here is actually Louis’ restless habit of clicking his rings on everything, one of a myriad of calling cards and easter eggs that day one fans will recognise. They rework Miley Cyrus and Swae Lee’s Party Up The Street into a French-electro-inspired future classic, adding a note of melancholy to a tune that you can imagine hearing blaring from every car on a summer drive. The lyrics on Cult Classic are generally reassuring, inspirational, originally drawn from Henry in stream-of-consciousness freestyles. You’re fine the way you are, they seem to say - the repeated “No need to try” of A Place I Belong, the assurance that “It’s in me all the time” on In Me All The Time. Even the summery but regretful Did You Wrong hints at the growth that is possible from less than ideal behaviour. For Joy (Anonymous), joy isn’t about just being “happy” all the time - it’s about relishing every element of your being.

The name ‘Joy (Anonymous)’ is taken from the work Henry did with Alcoholics Anonymous groups: it is a way to build a community around sharing joy. Their impromptu live sets are known as ‘meetings’; they encourage fans to share moments of joy to their website. They care deeply about the scene they’ve come up in and are determined not to leave it behind. Every show is another chance to reach out and connect with people who love to come together and revel in music as loud as it can go.

Support slots for Fred Again and The Streets, wild B2Bs with Fred and Skrillex, and a set at Four Tet’s Finsbury Park all-dayer this summer have given the duo the opportunity to live out childhood dreams and introduced their infectious live shows to new audiences at huge venues.

With an album as assured and joyful as Cult Classics on the horizon (and a killer collab with The Blessed Madonna coming up), they’re only going to reach higher heights. But the essence of Joy (Anonymous) remains on the South Bank. Between shows at Ally Pally in September, they dragged their camping chairs and gear back down to the banks of the Thames: and it just felt right.

Denovali presents Spark and Earth, the ninth full length album from NYC-based composer and performer Mario Diaz de Leon. Celebrated for his electroacoustic chamber music, Spark and Earth is the first of Diaz de Leon’s solo albums to foreground his performance as a metal guitarist, alongside a vividly textured electronic ensemble of terse synth stabs, woodwind and vocal timbres, floor rattling synth bass, and propulsive kick drums. Songs such as Cruces, Templo, Kepha, and Elemental evoke rave-metal anthems, foregrounding a vibrant alchemy of thrash guitars with percussive synths. Aqua, Breath of God, and Carnelian seamlessly weave lead and chiming guitar lines with meticulously charted electronics and hammered dulcimer timbres. Carnelian charts the alluring flow of a single melodic line through the instruments of the ensemble, while the haunting analog synth interplay of Mirror Spirit recalls the vivid electroacoustic works of previous releases. Over nine songs and 30 minutes, Spark and Earth is an alchemical journey through Diaz de Leon’s electronic chamber metal.

Since 2009, Diaz de Leon has released four recordings of his collaborations with chamber ensembles (International Contemporary Ensemble, Talea, TAK), while from 2012-2016 he produced three solo electronic albums under the project name Oneirogen. With the two-song album Heart Thread (2022), he began releasing electronic works under his own name. His music has been celebrated over the last decade for its “hallucinatory intensity” (NEW YORK TIMES), “snarling exuberance” (PITCHFORK), and “remarkable textures and vivid atmosphere” (NEW YORKER MAGAZINE). As collaborator, he is guitarist and vocalist in the extreme metal duo Luminous Vault (Profound Lore Records), and performs synth and drum machine in Bloodmist, an electroacoustic improvisation trio with Jeremiah Cymerman and Toby Driver. In 2023, he collaborated with Eartheater and members of Krallice in a performance of songs from her album Trinity. Since 2019, he has taught at Stevens Institute of Technology as Assistant Professor of Music and Technology.

Here's the thing about ill peach: this band exists because they are too weird to not exist. The seed of ill peach was first planted in the recording studios of New York City where Pat Morrissey and Jess Corazza were working together as professional songwriters, collaborating with artists like Icona Pop, SZA, Weezer, Pharrell, Big Freedia, and others. Then came the day they were offered their own publishing deal. Cool, right? Well, about that: "Everyone kept saying, 'The stuff that you're writing is slightly too left-of-center-weirdo stuff," remembers Morrissey. "Why don't you start your own project?" Thus ill peach, a pop band with a punk streak and a taste for both the rotten and the sweet, with an approach to making music that goes something like: "Do you want to pick up a guitar and do you want to be on this water jug and we'll record it on the iPhone and create some weird drum pattern?" Following a series of well-received EPs on their own Pop Can Records (a record label and artist collective Morrissey and close collaborator Jesse Schuster run with friends), a digital single for Hardly Art's 15th anniversary series, and some colorful music videos that crystallized the band's visual aesthetic along with their sound, ill peach's "weirdo stuff" comes to fruition on first full-length THIS IS NOT AN EXIT: a collection of anthemic songs built out of bright pop and gritty experimental elements (Morrissey names the sculptural use of distortion on the final albums by Low as an inspiration), punctuated with hooky choruses ready to be screamed along to in the safety of your own bedroom or with a bunch of friends at one of ill peach's intense live shows. If ill peach first blossomed in New York, it took quarantine in Los Angeles for the project to ripen. The end of the world turned out to be what ill peach needed to get real with themselves. "It helped us creatively to zone in and removed us from the industry side of things to where we could just be like: this is our new identity, let's jump with both feet." THIS IS NOT AN EXIT's title is a reflection of something Corazza realized during a period of personal and familial crises "I kept walking into buildings and I'd try to exit somewhere and the sign would be like, 'This is not an exit,'" she says. "It just felt like a metaphor for a hopeful thing-don't give up yet." This combination of hope and anxiety is all over THIS IS NOT AN EXIT, reflected in a sonic palette (Alternative! Electronica! Indie! Radio pop! Coldplay!) as eclectic as it is unpretentious. Ultimately, THIS IS NOT AN EXIT is a record about healing, a process often spoken about in New Age-y terms but one that in reality can be really confusing and, yes, weird. But it is the beautiful strangeness of being alive that ill peach capture so well on THIS IS NOT AN EXIT.

25 Jahre nach ihrem ersten 12" Release "Night over Manaus" präsentieren Boozoo Bajou ihr 5. Studioalbum. Die Nürnberger Downbeat Funkster haben 12 Tracks parat, die am 3.11.2023 auf ihrem eigenen Label Pilotton unter dem Namen "Finistère" veröffentlicht werden. Das Doppel-Vinyl zeigt neben der digitalen Veröffentlichung die Rückkehr von Boozoo Bajou zu ihren Wurzeln, die sie 2001 mit ihrem zeitlosen Debütalbum "Satta" manifestierten. Als reines Downtempo-Album schafft es "Finistère", all diese Elemente und Einflüsse zu einem warm klingenden Hörerlebnis zu verschmelzen.

CARNAL TOMB aus Deutschlands ebenso chaotischer wie pulsierender Hauptstadt Berlin liefern mit "Embalmed in Decay" ihr sehnsüchtig erwartetes drittes Album ab, das den Geist des Old School Death Metal perfekt kanalisiert. Kürzere Tracks, rasante Blastbeats und charakteristische Doom-Passagen ergeben eine zeitgemäße Version des klassischen Death Metal. "Embalmed in Decay" zementiert den Status der Deutschen als einer der heißesten jungen Acts dieses brutalen Genres. CARNAL TOMB haben sich unter anderem von den Werken H.P. Lovecrafts inspirieren lassen, aber auch von Gore- und Zombiefilmen wie Amando de Ossorios Klassiker "Tombs of the Blind Dead" aus dem Jahr 1972, sowie speziellen italienischen Begräbnisstätten namens "Putridairum", in denen die Leichen der Verstorbenen in offenen Kammern bis auf die Knochen verrotteten. Auch das morbide Cover-Artwork des Künstlers Skaðvaldur wurde von diesen Themen beeinflusst. CARNAL TOMB wurden im Jahr 2014 in Berlin gegründet. Ein unstillbarer Hunger nach Old School Death Metal hatte alle Bandmitglieder infiziert. Neben einer bemerkenswerten Fülle von Demo-Aufnahmen, EPs, Split- und Single-Veröffentlichungen brachten vor allem die beiden Alben "Rotten Remains" (2016) und "Abhorrent Veneration" (2019) der Band einen exzellenten Ruf unter Todesmetallern rund um den Globus ein. Mit dem blutrünstigen Death Metal Horror von "Embalmed in Decay" rufen CARNAL TOMB sogar die Toten aus ihren Gräbern und lassen ihre entfesselten Monstersongs auf eine nichtsahnende Welt los.

CARNAL TOMB aus Deutschlands ebenso chaotischer wie pulsierender Hauptstadt Berlin liefern mit "Embalmed in Decay" ihr sehnsüchtig erwartetes drittes Album ab, das den Geist des Old School Death Metal perfekt kanalisiert. Kürzere Tracks, rasante Blastbeats und charakteristische Doom-Passagen ergeben eine zeitgemäße Version des klassischen Death Metal. "Embalmed in Decay" zementiert den Status der Deutschen als einer der heißesten jungen Acts dieses brutalen Genres. CARNAL TOMB haben sich unter anderem von den Werken H.P. Lovecrafts inspirieren lassen, aber auch von Gore- und Zombiefilmen wie Amando de Ossorios Klassiker "Tombs of the Blind Dead" aus dem Jahr 1972, sowie speziellen italienischen Begräbnisstätten namens "Putridairum", in denen die Leichen der Verstorbenen in offenen Kammern bis auf die Knochen verrotteten. Auch das morbide Cover-Artwork des Künstlers Skaðvaldur wurde von diesen Themen beeinflusst. CARNAL TOMB wurden im Jahr 2014 in Berlin gegründet. Ein unstillbarer Hunger nach Old School Death Metal hatte alle Bandmitglieder infiziert. Neben einer bemerkenswerten Fülle von Demo-Aufnahmen, EPs, Split- und Single-Veröffentlichungen brachten vor allem die beiden Alben "Rotten Remains" (2016) und "Abhorrent Veneration" (2019) der Band einen exzellenten Ruf unter Todesmetallern rund um den Globus ein. Mit dem blutrünstigen Death Metal Horror von "Embalmed in Decay" rufen CARNAL TOMB sogar die Toten aus ihren Gräbern und lassen ihre entfesselten Monstersongs auf eine nichtsahnende Welt los.

Crisix war vielleicht gezwungen, ihren Namen zu ändern, weil er zu sehr an ein klassisches Videospiel erinnerte. Aber die spanische Band hat nie eine Identitätskrise durchgemacht. Still Rising...Never Rest" wird ihrem langjährigen Ruf für mitreißenden Thrash Metal gerecht. Machen Sie sich darauf gefasst, dass Sie noch mehr mitreißende Riffs und Ganggesänge über Evil Dead und Dragon Ball Z ins Gesicht bekommen. Das ist kein Thrash, das ist Ultra Thrash! Neuaufnahme ihres 2013er 2. Albums "Rise...Then Rest"

Bringing together Johannesburg’s two saxophone titans for a supergroup recording project was a
visionary move by Jo’Burg Records in 1976. Following the success of Makhalemele’s debut The
Peacemaker and Mankunku’s long-awaited sophomore release Alex Express, which both appeared in
1975, the bar had been set very high. Enamoured by their jazz contemporaries, the session was
concocted by members of an exciting new South African rock group called Rabbit, who formed a
backing group consisting of guitarist Trevor Rabin, bassist Ronnie Robot and drummer Neil Cloud
alongside jazz pianist Tete Mbambisa. Recorded at the state-of-the-art Satbel Music Recording
Studios, the inspired performances of this diverse cast of young South African artists at the height of
their powers was captured with exquisite fidelity. Packaged as The Bull and the Lion, the album title
references Mankunku’s signature composition “Yakhal’ Inkomo” (which means “the bellow of the
bull”) and Makhalemele’s stage name “Ratau” (meaning "lion"). The pairing of Mankunku and
Makhalemele stands with Moeketsi/Matshikisa and Pillay/Coetzee as one of the epic collaborations of
South African jazz in the 1970s.

Collignon is a three-piece band with Yves Lennertz on guitar (and bass), Gino Bombrini on drums (and percussion) and Jori Collignon on the keyboards (and taking care of the production). The three friends have been making music together for some time, collaborating in different groups and settings, Jori and Gino as part of the band SKIP&DIE, Gino as a producer for Yves’ former group, YĪN YĪN.

After a decade of touring the world, Jori settled in the quiet and dusty village of Lagoinha, Portugal, where he built a studio complete with a guesthouse, a small piece of land, and a few chickens. From here, Jori worked with a global range of artists from La Reunion, Colombia, Argentina, Mozambique, Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guiné-Bissau, and beyond. All these experiences led to the creation of his first album, suitably named ‘Lagoinha’.

Shortly after its release, Gino and Jori jumped on the tourbus again, and later, Yves joined them to complete the band. They initially started developing new material live on stage, allowing for improvisation and exploration. After finalizing these new songs in the studio, the result is an explosive and high-energy mix of sounds that has surprised audiences all over Europe during the past summer.

Ndox Electrique results from the collaboration between François R. Cambuzat, Gianna Greco (also known for their work with Ifriqiyya Electrique), and the n'doëp community in Senegal. The project originated from the duo's quest to trace the origins of North African rituals, which led them to the Lebu community in Cap-Vert, an isolated region at Africa's westernmost point.

The album seamlessly blends the duo's electronically-infused avant-rock with the intense, ritualistic vocal chants and rhythmic percussion of the n'doëp community. It serves as a captivating bridge between these two musical worlds, capturing the essence of this cross-cultural collaboration.

The text also highlights the challenges of merging Western rock and experimental influences with the sensibilities of their Senegalese collaborators, ultimately resulting in a unique and powerful musical experience. "Ndox Electrique" transcends cultural boundaries, immersing listeners in the enchanting sounds and mystical narratives of Western Africa.

The latest album release by acclaimed Norwegian band Erlend Apneseth Trio is made in collaboration with renowned experimental composer and vocalist Maja Ratkje. Their impromptu concert together in 2022 was a glorious kick-off for a five-day festival and was luckily put on tape. After reworking and reimagining the recorded material with their steady collaborator Jorgen Træen, the result is a refreshing take on improvisations-turned-compositions. Featuring innovative soundscapes with archival material and an engaging transitory state. Listening to the album is akin to being on a voyage of discovery, in and out of the dream state. From the very beginning, the listener is met by ancient voices on tape, surrounded by distorted and dispersed sounds. Like stars on a moonless night, the sounds fall in and out of perceptibility, most twinkling, some falling. You suddenly wake up on a speeding train. As it enters a tunnel, ghostly voices sing a lullaby. The music gradually unfolds from mesmerizing melancholia to a ritualistic blowout. The music always takes the route of the unexpected and reaches momentums which shows why this is one of Norway's most unique constellations. Orbiting sounds gather around and assemble themselves into scenes, forming uncanny rooms collectively dreamed up by the artists. The album's first track Tre Vegar follows an enthralling pathway layered with field recordings and intensified by noise, suddenly plunging into a delightful stream of chords fleeting in mid-air. The variety of sounds that make up this glorious and aptly named 'Collage' is astounding. Elemental sounds range from the howling wind and soft-bright ringing of sheep-bells to the timeless trickling of a small stream of water. Strings of many timbres soar over animated croaks and quacks, assembling into a swampy symphony. The well-balanced diversity of acoustic and electric sounds has become the band's trademark. It is ever-present, complementing and creating new improvisatory trails to follow. Erlend Apneseth: Hardanger fiddle Stephan Meidell: baritone acoustic guitar, live sampling, modular synth Oyvind Hegg-Lunde: acoustic & electronic drums, percussion, timpani Maja S. K. Ratkje: voice, electronics

Cold War Kids have announced their 10th studio album, Cold War Kids, that will arrive on November 3 via AWAL. The band’s singer and songwriter Nathan Willett describes: " This is our self titled record . Everybody gets one . This felt like the right time because the sound of this record is the sound that makes Cold War kids unlike any other . I’m so proud of these songs. They took a long time to come together . The longing and struggle and joy I wanted to express are personal to me and i am so excited to share it with our fans who have come with us on the journey.”
The epic tale of Cold War Kids has long been informed by deeply personal songcraft, enthusiastic experimentation, and an avowed commitment towards forward motion. The band continues their ascent, becoming one of the biggest rock bands of their generation amassing more than half a billion streams, consistently churning out alternative radio hits, selling out tours and headlining festivals worldwide.
Over the course of nine studio albums and numerous EPs, Cold War Kids have become a major part of the modern musical landscape, with “First,” their Platinum-scanned 2015 single, named as the Most Played track at Alternative radio outlets nationwide over the last decade. As well as 600+ million career streams, 2.2 million singles sold, and over 600,000 albums sold. The band’s current lineup – Nathan Willett (vocals, piano, guitar), Matt Maust (bass guitar), David Quon (guitar, backing vocals), Matthew Schwartz (keyboards, backing vocals, guitar, percussion), and Joe Plummer (drums, percussion) – coalesced in 2016 and have since maintained a dynamic presence in both the studio and on stages around the world.

»What is Dance?« contains two pieces originally conceived in 2017 for a performance/sound installation of the same name at Meinblau Projektraum (Berlin), as part of the series singuhr_projekte. Drawing inspiration from the works of American sound artist Joe Jones and his »Music Machines«, Robert Lippok (Ornament und Verbrechen, To Rococo Rot) arranged various sound objects (pieces of wood, cymbals, rotating plastic film), that were played mechanically. The sound piece—designed for a 4-channel system and condensed into a loop, that clocked in at around 20 minute—is his interpretation of three dances from the opera »The Fairy Queen« by Baroque composer Henry Purcell.

From this source material, Robert Lippok has now extracted and rearranged two pieces for »What is Dance?.« The result is music of its own right: Dense, but permeable drones are central, but complemented by harmoniously matching and gently pulsating sounds.

During the peak of Australia's post-punk scene, Melbourne's The Wreckery captivated with their darkly atmospheric rock, combining swamp blues, noir-jazz, and deadpan rock. Fast forward 35 years, and "Fake is Forever" resurrects The Wreckery's signature sound, featuring Charles Todd's baritone sax, Hugo Race's poignant lyrics, and Clayton-Jones' angular guitars. With Nick Barker and Frank Trobbiani providing a solid rhythm, this iconic band delivers an album that ranges from sarcastic and provocative tracks like "Smack Me Down" to romantic melodrama in "The Devil in You," all with a quieter yet equally menacing and intoxicating presence compared to their '80s brashness.

First release via Agricultural Audio, label of acclaimed producer Ben Hillier. Agricultural Audio is the name of the South Downs studio, and now also a record label, of the producer Ben Hillier (Blur, Elbow, Depeche Mode, Nadine Shah). The debut release from Hillier’s new label, launched this month in partnership with The Orchard, will, fittingly, be a project of Hillier’s own. The first time he has stepped out from behind the producer’s desk for an artist project in his own right, Storm Franklin sees Hillier join up with the Howling Bells front woman and solo artist, Juanita Stein. Hush Now is a tantalising introduction to Hillier and Stein’s work together, the first single from a Storm Franklin album that will be released later this year.

Back in print - on white vinyl - for the first time since 2003, ‘The New Romance’ by Pretty Girls Make Graves, is the latest instalment of Matador’s ongoing catalogue series Revisionist History.  Pretty Girls Make Graves formed in Seattle in 2001, fused together out of the still glowing embers of nearly a dozen important groups. Andrea Zollo and Derek Fudesco had played together in Death Wish Kids and Area 51 along with Dann Gallucci, with whom Derek formed Murder City Devils. Shortly before the Murder City Devils called it quits, he and Andrea started Pretty Girls Make Graves with J. Clark (who was in Kill Sadie and Sharks Keep Moving) and Nick Dewitt and Nathan Thelen (both in Bee Hive Vaults).  Brilliantly produced by Phil Ek (Modest Mouse, Built To Spill, Les Savy Fav), ‘The New Romance’ magnifies Pretty Girls Make Graves’ songcraft and technical prowess while letting some air into their songs and keeping things in crisp focus. Every song on ‘The New Romance’ is an anthem, yet without traditional verses and choruses. Tension builds and shifts without conventional release, as moments of glassy beauty and rousing aggression trade sides.  White vinyl LP.

Österreichs Crossover-Legenden KONTRUST melden sich zurück!

Die österreichischen Crossover-Legenden KONTRUST melden sich nach neun langen Jahren endlich mit ihrem mit Spannung erwarteten, neuen Studioalbum zurück. madworld erscheint am 3. November 2023 via Napalm Records. Auf dem Nachfolger des 2014 veröffentlichten Explositive stellen KONTRUST die beiden Neuzugänge, Sängerin Julia Ivanova und Schlagzeuger Joey Sebald, zum ersten Mal auf Platte vor.

Beide präsentierten bereits 2022 ihr energiegeladenes Live-Potenzial auf den Hauptbühnen einiger der größten europäischen Festivals - wie dem Graspop Metal Meeting, Hellfest Open Air, Barcelona Rockfest oder Resurrection Fest. Sängerin Julia hat sich zudem bereits durch ihren Auftritt bei der ukrainischen TV-Show ”X-Factor” einen Namen gemacht und zeigt jetzt ihr beeindruckendes Talent auf den insgesamt 11 Tracks der neuen Scheibe.

KONTRUST gehören zweifelsohne zu den ausgefallensten und aufregendsten Acts der Szene. Die Band begeistert Fans und Kritiker gleichermaßen durch ein unnachahmliches Gespür, verschiedene Genres wie Reggae, Pop und Dance mit schweren Hardrock-Riffs zu fusionieren. Gepaart mit ihrer ganz eigenen Art, die Wurzeln ihrer Heimat klanglich und visuell zu repräsentieren, liefern KONTRUST ein einzigartiges aufregendes Gesamtpaket. Mit ihrem neuen Album madworld beweisen KONTRUST, dass sie voller Überraschungen stecken und bereit sind, alles bisher Erreichte zu toppen!