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lack Marble Vinyl! High Vis were formed in 2016 from the ashes of some of the UK's best hardcore bands. Gild-toothed frontman Graham Sayle's anguished lyrics about life in working class Britain were familiar to fans of Tremors' full-throttle thrash, but alongside his former bandmate Edward `Ski' Harper and veterans of Dirty Money, DiE and The Smear, High Vis sought to transform that energy and intensity into something entirely new.Like scene-mates Chubby and the Gang did by pulling in unlikely source material from classic doo-wop or Micromoon have by combining everything from psychedelia and metal into their high potency mix, High Vis' 2019 debut album, No Sense No Feeling showed the band were never going to be constrained by any sense of genre rules or regulations. Its claustrophobic rattle bore traces of Joy Division, Bauhaus, Crisis, The Cure and Gang Of Four lurking in the shadows. 2020's synth-driven EP, Society Exists, was further evidence of the band's restless creative MO.High Vis' second album Blending sees them open their viewfinder wider than ever before.

Alongside longstanding favourites such as Fugazi and Echo and The Bunnymen; Ride and even Flock Of Seagulls were shared reference points as the band worked on the album together.From the anthemic sweep of opener "Talk For Hours", through the title track's psychedelic swirl and "Fever Dream"'s baggy groove, it sees High Vis' sound blossoming into something with an unlimited richness. The hazy drift of "Shame" or the melodic jangle of "Trauma Bonds" may take them until uncharted waters, but they still have all the power and bite that made No Sense No Feeling so remarkable.Lyrically, the album represents another leap forward too. Talking frankly about poverty, class politics, and the challenges of everyday life, Sayle's lyrics have always addressed the downtrodden and discarded communities across Britain slipping below the waterline. This time around, Sayle's lost not of that social consciousness, but he's looked at himself and his own emotional landscape, and in the process created something that feels more universal, that reaches a hand-out to people and ultimately gives a message of hope."To me, the lyrics are less selfish," reflects Sayle. "In the past, I couldn't see past whatever was going on with me.

It's about accepting things and being open to conversations and learning to talk to people rather than just thinking that we're all doomed."The song "Talk for Hours" is a prime example of that. Born out of an afternoon meeting up with an old group of mates "repeating the same thing and not actually learning anything about each other" it offers to actually break the cycle and to listen and speak frankly about shared feelings and experiences. "Trauma Bonds", meanwhile, traces the broken lines of those living in lost communities, but ultimately realises that despite our shared scars, there's still hope to move on to a better future."The message of the album is you're not who you're told you are," Sayle summarises. "You're not your class background. Whatever it is, you're not that. Don't resign yourself to thinking you can't be this and you can't be that."It's a vitally important message right now, and one that could be the motto for not only Blending, but for High Vis themselves.

Beautiful, soulful jazz record by Jimetta Rose and The Voices of Creation, a Los Angeles-based community choir, a mainstay of the local scene. Highly recommended!!

The Voices of Creation are a community-based choir led by vocalist, songwriter, arranger, producer and mainstay of the Los Angeles scene Jimetta Rose. Made up of a multigenerational group of mainly non-professional singers backed by some of the city’s finest musicians,their music marries hip strains of gospel with layers of jazz, soul and funk. While aspects of their music might recall Kamasi Washington, The Staple Singers or Sly Stone, Jimetta’s unique vision has resulted in new spiritually-charged forms of music whose whole-hearted embrace of love, joy and peace act as sonic healing balms for the soul.

For Jimetta - whose resume includes collaborations with Miguel Atwood Ferguson, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Sa-Ra Creative Partners, Angel Bat Dawid, Shafiq Husayn, MED and Blu - the very act of creation was part of a healing process: “I was very low at the time and I wrote most of the songs going through hardship. But I found comfort in the songs and a way to adjust my mindset to where things got better. So I thought ‘if this music works for me, maybe it will work for other people’ I believe that every person has their own voice and their own note and that we can use our voices to heal ourselves. That’s the intention behind creating the project.”

After putting out a call on social media for people interested in joining her choir she was met with a sea of replies. Members were chosen in less-than conventional fashion: “I recruited people based on their interest in healing themselves and others, not necessarily on their musical experience or being seasoned performers” she says. Among those accepted into the ever-evolving collective, which was begun initially as a community choir, were the likes of Sly Stone’s daughter Novena Carmel, better known as a radio DJ for KCRW’s flagship breakfast show. Jimetta’s upbringing in the Pentecostal church, where she was a youth choir director, fed into her otherwise intuitive teachings of her songs and arrangements to the inexperienced members with help from the group’s seasoned organ player/co-musical director Jack Maeby.

Produced by Mario Caldato Jr. (Beastie Boys, Seu Jorge) and his wife Samantha Caldato the results show the incredible sense of togetherness and communal spirit that the group had built up over time in the rehearsal sessions. The six tracks of their debut album, a mixture of originals and rearranged covers, are performed in a wide-eyed mix of styles that reflect Jimetta’s vision for borderless music: “It’s new black classical music,” she explains. “It’s all the hodgepodge of being an African American but also with creativity and vision for the future. It has a taste of what is to come and what we can do. What we have gone through and who we are now.”

The group’s propensity for warm and buoyant sonics finds representation on album opener Let The Sunshine In, a sparkling rework of the Sons and Daughters of Lite’s deep jazz classic. Their version finds the group’s dynamic group harmonies offset with Allakoi Peete’s nimble afro-percussive touches and plenty of soul- drenched keys courtesy of pianist Quran Shaheed and organ player Jack Maeby. A similarly uplifting take on Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s choral jazz classic Spirits Up Above follows, with Maeby’s groove-laden organ lines inspiring some gorgeous group harmonies as well as prime solo turns from the likes of Kellye Hawkins, Zavier Wise, Tamara Blue, and Khalila Gardner.

Another Sons and Daughters of Lite cover follows as Jimetta leads the choir in the groove-drenched ode to self-affirmation Operation Feed Yourself. Written as a series of mantras for everyday living, the Jimetta-penned composition How Good It Is harnesses the full transformative power of music to generate a stirring and joyful ode to positivity - it’s chanted declarations bringing out some of the group’s most deeply-felt and affecting vocal performances over some superlative piano and organ accompaniment with a surprise feature vocal from Novena Carmel.

Jimetta’s talent for re-imagining songs in her own light is highlighted in Answer The Call, her vivid re-telling of Funkadelic’s Cosmic Slop: “When I listened to the original song, the Mom in the story was really going through it. I thought of how I could turn this into a song that can encompass the glorification of all mothers and I thought of the Egyptian cosmic goddess Nut. To that mother we’re all the seeds planted in the garden. Answering the call in your life is literally that. Finding out exactly what you’re here for through your heart.”

The album finishes with the standout original gospel number Ain’t Life Grand. Over swaying organs and clapped percussion Jimetta’s lyrical mantras serve to emphasise the good feelings that come to those with a grateful heart. Good feeling is an apt descriptor for the mood of the album as a whole. Its shining positivity provides a welcome ray of light in an increasingly dark world. “It’s a shortcut if you will to the better feelings” Jimetta says. “The hope that we need to keep pressing forward. We are saturated and inundated with images of chaos and destruction, death and hatred. There’s so much we can witness. So, I want to make sure that there is a representation sonically of the other parts that are still there to witness so that we can continue to build those things. So that the systems we support actually reflect what we want to experience. So it’s like: “Don’t give up and Let The Sunshine Into You” and then find out what your purpose is and answer the call.”

In the movement itself, music makes us aware of the passing of time, always tracking toward itself like a clock. An album is an experience of sound; it can make us believe something imaginary - as if a flute can play itself. The recording becomes any interpretation of motion we want it to be.

Everyone in Water was written and performed by KV Hopper and Elizabeth LoPiccolo. KV is a musician and product designer living in Portland, OR. Elizabeth is a musician, film photographer, and performer living in Brooklyn, New York.

Everyone in Water began with modular synthesis at Portland’s Synth Library in the Fall of 2019. The Synth Library is a collectively run arts organization that supports the education and experimentation of diverse artist communities. Arranging sequencers, generators and filters resonated and inspired new exploration. Sounds evolved over a year as KV shared synth tapestries with Elizabeth in Brooklyn. Voice and flute melodies started to weave in and lyrical themes centered around the sense of place.

Walking & Working is about a ritual of returning home. Household Gloves is about a desire to share a home with someone you know but doesn’t know you. Moving Plants Again is about your home in favor of all living things.

Alternative Hip Hop Artist Rebel ACA Channels his Pain in "Migraine" ft. Spragga Benz, Rodney P

LONDON - The word "migraine" can make you twinge, especially if you experience the pounding head, vertigo, and tinnitus associated with migraines. Imagine if you put all those feelings into music - that is what Rebel ACA did with his latest single, "Migraine."

Rebel ACA's new single flows through his twenty-year journey of advising on international tax by day and rapping and producing by night. Perhaps, the ACA stands for his accounting qualification.

Dropping in April, there will be two versions, an original version and a DJ Phantasy Remix of "Migraine" on streaming platforms. Depending on the version, "Migraine" is a musical representation of a severe headache. The drum and bass mix features a funky, constant drone throughout the track, while the original version is a funk-latent hip-hop song.

"I suffer very badly from migraines every week," said Rebel ACA. "To me, it was logical to write a song about migraines. The lyrics talk about what it feels like by using synthesizers to bring out the feeling of a migraine."

Joining Rebel ACA on the single is Spragga Benz and Rodney P. The duo shares their thoughts on using marijuana to cure a migraine. While Rebel ACA acknowledges he is not a medical doctor, studies have shown that smoking weed can reduce migraine pain.

"We talk about smoking weed to fight the migraine," he said. "The lyrics revolve around what it feels like to have one in your head. Doctors have told me that migraines are caused by triggers like alcohol and getting f*cked up. Then you get a migraine and now you get more f*cked up on pills or weed to feel better." This revolving cycle spirals throughout the single.

Born and raised in the UK, Rebel ACA experienced London's musical melting pot from birth. Hailing from northwest London, he was exposed to the rich Caribbean influence and massive underground music scene.

From squat parties to illegal raves, London's music was all mashed up, and Rebel ACA soaked up every genre and cultural influence. As a result, he is a successful singer/songwriter/producer who fuses hip hop, reggae, and indie sounds to create his unique style.

"Where I come from, the UK hip hop is like the 90s hip hop in America," he stated. "There is a hip hop scene that talks about poetry. I'm trying to keep it real with my lyrics and talk about things that are important other than guns, money, and bitches."

Rebel ACA's music is versatile but uniquely his own by utilizing numerous live instruments and coming in hard with a big boom-bap sound. The Rebel ACA sound is born by adding a funk influence on his tracks aligned with funky bass. On "Migraine," he uses some vintage 70s French influence vibes to give the single a flavor of its own. There is nothing out there like "Migraine."

Rebel ACA records under Buttercuts Records, a company he owns and operates. The London-based production company has been "bashing out buttery beats" since 2000. Buttercuts Records is the go-to place for releasing hip hop, reggae, breaks, funk, soul, and folk records with a tongue-in-cheek attitude and marketing that surpasses witty wordplay.

As "Migraine" gains international attention, it is easy to understand how Rebel ACA combines old and new hip hop with effortless flows and brilliant lyrics. Maybe the world is ready for an international tax advisor who drops bars and vibes out to some wicked rhymes.

Make sure to stay connected to Rebel ACA on all platforms for new music, videos, and social posts.

a A1. DJ PHANTASY VOCAL MIXfeat. Rebel ACA
b A2. DJ PHANTASY DUB MIXfeat. Rebel ACA
[c] A3. DJ PHANTASY INSTRUMENTAL MIX [feat. Rebel ACA]
[d] B1. OLD KOOL F U NKY MIX [feat. Rebel ACA]
[e] B2. OLD KOOL F U NKY INSTRUMENTAL [feat. Rebel ACA]
[feat. Rebel ACA]

After Joao Selva, Dowdelin, The Bongo Hop, Underdog Records continue their exploration of the Black Atlantic with IREKE.Ecstatic brass, 70’s keyboards, elastic guitars, round bass and world percussion: from this sonic heritage, Ireke makes a unique fusion, enhanced by the audacious contribution of his dub science, and a few electronic touches

IREKE

Ireke? Sugar cane in Yoruba. Like her, the duo loves tropical climates and intoxicating rhythms, quick to liberate the bodies gathered on a dancefloor. Afrobeat urgency, funk suppleness, dub alchemy, highlife jubilation: with Tropikadelic, Ireke summons the heritage of the masters and the audacity of machines to give life to new sonic territories. At the crossroads. For the love of groove.

From the West, with their ears to the Black Atlantic, Julien Gervaix and Damien Tes- son are both children of the collective and of improvisation, playgrounds for these complete multi-instrumentalists.

The first one puts his talents of arranger-saxophonist at the service of the Nantes collective Soulshine and of numerous formations - in turn funk or rhythm’n blues - where swinging is the rule.This is notably the case of the afrobeat group Walko, in which Julien Gervaix had the honour of sharing the stage and the studio for several years with Kiala Nzavotunga, guitarist extraordinaire for Fela Kuti and Egypt 80. Meanwhile, Damien Tesson was being trained as a dubmaster-guitarist-arranger at the reggae roots school with the digital option of the Vendée collective Shi Fu Mi Temple.This initiation led Damien Tesson to join, among others, the Nantes-based group BIBA (Bingy Band) and then to collaborate with Jideh High Elements, a key figure on the international dub scene, Roberto Sanchez and the team of his Lone Ark Studio, as well as Sana Bob, a famous reggae singer from Burkina Faso.And then, life being well done, the paths of Julien Gervaix and Damien Tesson ended up crossing within the jazz-funk combo Playtime, before meeting again in the Vendée a few years later.

With an obvious tropism for Afro-Latin grooves, tropical colours, electronic tricks and furious swaying, the two musicians create Ireke like a glass of well arranged rum. Here’s to us, here’s to you! As if guided by the spirit of the plant, Ireke toasts the immense richness of these danceable rhythms, true generators of life, connection and energy.

Like Legba, the Yoruba orisha of intersections and crossroads, Ireke thrives in the between worlds.Aware of the lineage of goldsmiths who preceded them, Ireke

knows his classics and humbly draws inspiration for Tropikadelic from the musical genius of Pat Thomas, Poly-rythmo Orchestra, King Tubby,Tony Allen, Fela Kuti, Maître Gazonga, Ernesto Djédjé or the Vikings of Guadeloupe. Ecstatic brass, 70’s keyboards, elastic guitars, round bass and world percussion: from this sonic heritage, Ireke makes a unique fusion, enhanced by the audacious contribution of his dub science, and a few electronic touches patiently flushed out in the studio - which the duo considers as an instrument in its own right.

Finally, to give voice to his compositions, on Tropikadelic, Ireke calls upon an army of serious enthusiasts, each member of which has come up with his or her own lyrics. Thus, alongside Ireke, we find the groove griot Pat Kalla (“Femme qui Danse”,“Love Is Jokin”), the Franco-Laotian reggaeman Amatah Keo (“Man Bo Diak”), the Vendée- based Agnès Hélène (“Petit à Petit”,“Oh Ma Chérie”) and Charly Sanga (“Bas Les Masques”,“Oh Ma Chérie”), the Burkinabè lion Sana Bob (“Métissage”) as well as the Nantes soulman Jy Cooly (“Kinkeliba”).

For the duo, music is above all a collective practice, an active liberation, a rhythmic approach to letting go, a source of communicative joy... In short, groove is the weap- on! And Ireke knows how to use it.

Toronto-based retro-soul artist Claire Davis shares her journey of self-worth and love on her debut album "Get it Right", out April 21st 2023, via LRK Records. This lively 10-track analog soul LP was recorded to an 8-track tape machine by engineer Braden Sauder in a converted garage- studio in Toronto, owned by the renowned instrumental jazz/hip-hop group, BADBADNOTGOOD. Featuring some of the city's top-flight musicians in the R&B/Soul scene, the album was laid down live-off-the-floor in one week during the winter of 2022. Davis shares, "My heart really lies in live performance so I wanted to recreate that experience as much as possible for this record by having the musicians all record together to tape. I feel like I personally thrive under the limitations that tape gives you; it offers the opportunity to
capture a vibe of a performance more so than chasing perfection. Knowing that my favourite soul records were recorded this way gives me an even deeper appreciation for the skill and talent involved in this process." "Get it Right" is a record born out of the faith that there's better things on the other side of fear.
Whether that's breaking toxic cycles or being truly honest about what is and isn't working in life. The first song written for the record was the title-track of the album which began as a jam between Davis on guitar, producer Scott McCannell on bass, and drummer Chino deVilla. "The lyrics were inspired by my relationship with my partner and the intention that we both have to work on healing ourselves in order to make our partnership work. I'd like to think that it's a love
song with a strong sense of maturity and understanding to it. And the whole record was really shaped around that idea of my relationships and experiences stemming from my own sense ofself-love add my desire to live and create from an authentic place."

The songs on the album feature co-writes from Scott McCannell, Kyla Charter, and Toronto production house Safe Spaceship Music, in addition to horn and background vocal arrangements by composer La-Nai Gabriel. Musicians include Heather Crawford on guitar,
Scott McCannell on bass, Adrian Hogan on keys, Chino de Villa on drums, Juan Carlos Medrano on percussion, Aphrose, Tegan Michelle Gordon and Chynna Lewis on background vocals, and horn section The Northern Soul Horns.

"Get it Right" follows up Davis' most recent 7" vinyl release of "Long Gone"/ "Times Have Changed" and most recent single release "Intuition" on LRK Records Huey Morgan played "Times Have Changed" on " The Huey Show " on BBC Radio Six
Tune of the week on David Bishops Street Sounds radio.
Karen Gabay played "Intuition" taken from the album on "The People" BBC Manchester

More in tune now with the rhythm of the sun and moon, Xylouris White (Dirty Jim White and George Xylouris) speak to each other across great distances with the intuition and fellowship that can only be found over years in each other"s company. With fewer distractions, appreciative of the freedom to play with new sounds and spaces, they carve The Forest In Me from unbelievably thin air. Once you set the needle down on the record and hear for yourself, the intimacies and impressionism, abstraction and unfiltered emotion found in The Forest In Me, you may wonder what was the mood of the room in which this music came to be. George, Jim and long-time producer (and secret third member) Guy Picciotto share their thoughts: Guy Picciotto: "In late 2019, we had begun taking steps to working on new material. In a haphazard fashion, Jim and I started tracking drums in my basement, cutting them up into shapes with no set landing in mind. Some of it we sent to Giorgos in Crete - he responded with his lyra and his lute. Without intention we had initiated a process that would soon become more ruthlessly mandated by the world events that separated and isolated us to three corners of the globe in the following year." Giorgos Xylouris: "While we were recording, I noticed that the music had a certain solitude about it, both from the title and from inside. That led us to find more music from within that we had not yet discovered." Jim White: "The idea emerged, naturally nourished and nourishing a record with none of our usual angles and themes, no verbal language, no angst nor sudden dynamics, a more subtle structure. And we found The Forest In Me." The first revelation from The Forest In Me is "Latin White", in which Jim"s jaunty pattern sets the stage for George"s Cretan lyra and lute figurations, giving this short dance piece the feel of a welcome hoedown around the campfire, warding off the encroaching darkness of an emptied world. The repetitions, gathered to induce joy, have a glassy-eyed mechanical drive to them; their dervish-istic seeking betrays any suggestion of balm.

‘’Ace Todmorden label makes a significant discovery on its own doorstep: a superb cache of ‘loner folk’ songs recorded in the early-70s by Hebden Bridge’s answer to Nick Drake’’ UNCUT PLAYLIST

"This is music that can confidently hold its own with pioneers such as Davey Graham, Michael Chapman, Bert Jansch and Jackson C Frank, as influenced by jazz, blues and steel guitar as any of the old songbook classics from ancient Albion.” Benjamin Myers
"Defiantly Northern and out of this world" Folk Radio

Anti-counter culture loner folk from a teenage attic in the heart of rural Northern hippiedom.
Today the valley town of Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire is world-renowned as something of a bohemian backwater. It wasn’t like this back in the late 1960s and the early 1970s, when a disparate selection of radicals, drop-outs, heads, musicians, artists and writers started to be attracted to the Calder Valley. Local lad and future poet laureate Ted Hughes called the area “the fouled nest of industrialisation”.
Over time, those seeds of radicalism and collectivism ensured Hebden Bridge evolved into a place where people could be themselves and all shades of individual oddness not only tolerated but actively encouraged. But back at the turn of the dreary 1970s it remained a monochrome world defined by its unforgiving surrounding landscapes, where the old gritstone over-dwellings were stained with soot and rain lashed down for weeks.
It was here that Trevor Beales, who was born in 1953, grew up, and from where he drew musical and lyrical inspiration.
Perhaps it was this dual nationality heritage, unusual in the valley’s largely white working class population at the time, that gave the teenager Trevor Beale’s music an outsider’s perspective. The discovery of Bob Dylan, Django Reinhardt, The Byrds and James Taylor at a young age, lead to him picking up a guitar at the age of ten, and he was soon writing his own originals and performing them at local (though often remote) folk clubs and pubs.
Recorded in the attic of the family home at Ivy Bank in Charlestown on the verdant wooded slopes at the edge of Hebden Bridge between 1971 and 1974, these early recordings are collected here for the first time and mark Trevor Beales long-overdue solo debut.
In these songs is a suffer-no-fools sense of realism that is defiantly Northern, yet also expresses a worldliness that belies Beales’ young years, whilst also showcasing an inherent storyteller’s ear for narrative. Here is a postcard from the past at that crucial musical period of transition, when the idealistic exponents of the 1960s emerged into an austere new decade that was to be shaped by strikes, rising unemployment and economic upheaval.
Two aspects of this music make it remarkable: Beales’ natural ability showcases a sophisticated guitar-picking style that was leagues ahead of many of his (older, more recognised) contemporaries. This is music that can confidently hold its own with pioneers such as Davey Graham, Michael Chapman, Dave Evans, Bert Jansch and Jackson C Frank, as influenced by jazz, blues and steel guitar as any of the old songbook classics from ancient Albion.
Secondly, his lyrics are a far cry from either the naïve bedroom scribblings of a teenager who has barely left his upland home, nor do they fall foul of the type of lazy cliches and sub-Tolkien imagery that was still in abundance in the early 1970s. Most remarkably the earliest songs here were laid down less than a year after he left school (an unearthed report written by his headteacher on July 3rd 1970 noted he had “a considerable ability and interest in music”, though his education ended abruptly when he simply walked out of a science lesson one sunny day while at sixth form, never to return).
Trevor’s music is grounded in reality – his reality. ‘Then I’ll Take You Home’, for example, considers the Guru Marajai, who encouraged his acolytes to give over their worldly possessions, yet who drove a Rolls Royce and lived like a playboy. Unsurprisingly, this latest in a long line of spiritual charlatans found several followers in Hebden Bridge, and Beales casts a disdainful eye over the growing popularity for such false prophets.
With its ancient narratives and propensity for myth-making, folk has certainly produced it’s fair share of cult figures who have enjoyed rediscovery or career resurgence and with this debut compilation of home recordings, rescued from cassette tapes, Trevor Beales might just be the latest addition. Certainly he was the real deal.
Crucially, Beales' music is never jaded or cynical, but instead possesses a poet’s ear, a strong sense of self and some sound critical faculties. And much of it recorded at an age when he could neither vote nor order a pint of heavy.
Trevor Beales died suddenly and unexpectedly on March 29th 1987, aged 33. He left behind Christine and their young child Lydia.

Eric D. Johnson rarely lingers at one location too long. As a kid growing up in the Midwest, Johnson's family moved around a lot, but it wasn't until he became a touring musician years later that motion became a central part of his identity. That transient lifestyle stoked an enduring reverence for the world he watched pass by through a van window. A sense of place is a unifying theme he's revisited with Fruit Bats throughout its many lives. From the project's origins in the late '90s as a vehicle for Johnson's lo-fi tinkering to the more sonically ambitious work of recent years, Fruit Bats has often showcased love songs where people and locations meld into one. It's a loose song structure that navigates what he calls "the geography of the heart." "The songs exist in a world that you can sort of travel from one to another," says Johnson. "There are roads and rivers between these songs." Those pathways extend straight through the newest Fruit Bats album, aptly titled A River Running to Your Heart . Self-produced by Johnson_a first for Fruit Bats_with Jeremy Harris at Panoramic House just north of San Francisco, it's Fruit Bats' tenth full-length release and one that finds the project in the middle of a creative resurgence. After two decades of making music, hard-earned emotional maturity has seeped into Johnson's songs, resulting in a more complex sound that's connected with audiences like no other previous version of Fruit Bats. A River Running to Your Heart represents the fullest realization of that creative vision to date. It's a sonically diverse effort that largely explores the importance of what it means to be home, both physically and spiritually. And while that might seem like a peculiar focus for an artist who's constantly in motion, for Fruit Bats, home can take many forms_from the obvious to the obscure. Lead single "Rushin' River Valley" is a self-propelled love song written about Johnson's wife that clings to the borrowed imagery of the place where she grew up in northern California. Then, there's the gentle and unfussy acoustic ballad "We Used to Live Here," which looks back to a time of youthful promise and cheap rent. But the wistful "It All Comes Back" is perhaps the most stunning and surprising track on the album, Johnson's production skills on full display. Built upon intricate layers of synths, keyboards, and guitars, it's a pitch-perfect blend of tone and lyricism that taps into our shared apprehensions and hopes for a post-pandemic life. "We lost some time / But we can make it back / Let's take it easy on ourselves, okay?" sings a world-weary but ultimately reassuring Johnson in the song's opening lines. It's the kind of performance that makes you hope Fruit Bats stays in this one place, at least for a little while longer.

BLUE & BONE VINYL

Eric D. Johnson rarely lingers at one location too long. As a kid growing up in the Midwest, Johnson's family moved around a lot, but it wasn't until he became a touring musician years later that motion became a central part of his identity. That transient lifestyle stoked an enduring reverence for the world he watched pass by through a van window. A sense of place is a unifying theme he's revisited with Fruit Bats throughout its many lives. From the project's origins in the late '90s as a vehicle for Johnson's lo-fi tinkering to the more sonically ambitious work of recent years, Fruit Bats has often showcased love songs where people and locations meld into one. It's a loose song structure that navigates what he calls "the geography of the heart." "The songs exist in a world that you can sort of travel from one to another," says Johnson. "There are roads and rivers between these songs." Those pathways extend straight through the newest Fruit Bats album, aptly titled A River Running to Your Heart . Self-produced by Johnson_a first for Fruit Bats_with Jeremy Harris at Panoramic House just north of San Francisco, it's Fruit Bats' tenth full-length release and one that finds the project in the middle of a creative resurgence. After two decades of making music, hard-earned emotional maturity has seeped into Johnson's songs, resulting in a more complex sound that's connected with audiences like no other previous version of Fruit Bats. A River Running to Your Heart represents the fullest realization of that creative vision to date. It's a sonically diverse effort that largely explores the importance of what it means to be home, both physically and spiritually. And while that might seem like a peculiar focus for an artist who's constantly in motion, for Fruit Bats, home can take many forms_from the obvious to the obscure. Lead single "Rushin' River Valley" is a self-propelled love song written about Johnson's wife that clings to the borrowed imagery of the place where she grew up in northern California. Then, there's the gentle and unfussy acoustic ballad "We Used to Live Here," which looks back to a time of youthful promise and cheap rent. But the wistful "It All Comes Back" is perhaps the most stunning and surprising track on the album, Johnson's production skills on full display. Built upon intricate layers of synths, keyboards, and guitars, it's a pitch-perfect blend of tone and lyricism that taps into our shared apprehensions and hopes for a post-pandemic life. "We lost some time / But we can make it back / Let's take it easy on ourselves, okay?" sings a world-weary but ultimately reassuring Johnson in the song's opening lines. It's the kind of performance that makes you hope Fruit Bats stays in this one place, at least for a little while longer.

“Shambly Television Personalities/Swell Maps style earworm indie rock.” Brooklyn Vegan

“RIPPER! Melbourne’s TERRY return to complete a hat trick of three albums in three years (TERRYilogy?) that leaves the piss streak that is the rest of indie pop in 2018 dribbling down its own leg in the dust.” 8/10 CLASH

Call me Terry! It’s been a hot minute since we last heard from Terry, what’s he been up to? Five years on from their last album, ‘I’m Terry’, the Australian post-punk quartet proudly present their new record, ‘Call Me Terry’, for release on April 14th 2023.
Terry is made up of pairs Amy Hill & Al Montfort, and Xanthe Waite & Zephyr Pavey who started playing together for the fun of it in 2016. Seven years, four albums and three EP’s later, Terry is ready to pick up the phone again. Over the past few years Terry have kept themselves busy - but not only with Terry things. On top of numerous releases with alternating side projects (Constant Mongrel, The UV Race, Primo!, Sleeper & Snake, Chateau, Rocky, the list goes on… ) members of Terry have moved interstate, undertaken studies, had children and started new fields of work.
Terry began sharing the demos for ‘Call Me Terry’ online with each other in 2020 - as we all did - before getting together in 2021 at their trusty rehearsal space to record the beds. Overdubs were completed at Terry’s homes over the following year. Lyrically, in true Terry fashion, the record wastes no time in scrutinising Australia’s corrupt, colonial history. They sing it loud and sprawl it across the jacket of this record, highlighting the greed, privilege and entitlement of white, wealthy “Australia” which they won’t stand a second for.
Musically, ‘Call Me Terry’ still has the classic Terry sound; the four vocals singing as one gang, sharp guitars and quirky, burbling synths, the rolling bass and drums, all amidst their clever, dancey pop songs. Since day dot it’s been hard to reference a band that really sounds like Terry, which is always amazing. Truly a sound of their own!
But the sugar on top here may just be some of their finest horn, string and piano performances to date - all of which never feel crowded, cluttered or over-involved. More just excellent, necessary melodies. Rest assured Al still gives his famed Fuzz Factory a workout - and throws his tremolo into the pedal chain. It goes off. Tremolo is the order of the day for Amy and Xanthe too who also embrace the wobble, whilst Zephyr keeps the pulse of their politico-pop anchored.
Terry isn’t afraid to call the shots and Terry isn’t afraid to point the finger. Listen to what Terry has to say.

Red Vinyl

“Shambly Television Personalities/Swell Maps style earworm indie rock.” Brooklyn Vegan

“RIPPER! Melbourne’s TERRY return to complete a hat trick of three albums in three years (TERRYilogy?) that leaves the piss streak that is the rest of indie pop in 2018 dribbling down its own leg in the dust.” 8/10 CLASH

Call me Terry! It’s been a hot minute since we last heard from Terry, what’s he been up to? Five years on from their last album, ‘I’m Terry’, the Australian post-punk quartet proudly present their new record, ‘Call Me Terry’, for release on April 14th 2023.
Terry is made up of pairs Amy Hill & Al Montfort, and Xanthe Waite & Zephyr Pavey who started playing together for the fun of it in 2016. Seven years, four albums and three EP’s later, Terry is ready to pick up the phone again. Over the past few years Terry have kept themselves busy - but not only with Terry things. On top of numerous releases with alternating side projects (Constant Mongrel, The UV Race, Primo!, Sleeper & Snake, Chateau, Rocky, the list goes on… ) members of Terry have moved interstate, undertaken studies, had children and started new fields of work.
Terry began sharing the demos for ‘Call Me Terry’ online with each other in 2020 - as we all did - before getting together in 2021 at their trusty rehearsal space to record the beds. Overdubs were completed at Terry’s homes over the following year. Lyrically, in true Terry fashion, the record wastes no time in scrutinising Australia’s corrupt, colonial history. They sing it loud and sprawl it across the jacket of this record, highlighting the greed, privilege and entitlement of white, wealthy “Australia” which they won’t stand a second for.
Musically, ‘Call Me Terry’ still has the classic Terry sound; the four vocals singing as one gang, sharp guitars and quirky, burbling synths, the rolling bass and drums, all amidst their clever, dancey pop songs. Since day dot it’s been hard to reference a band that really sounds like Terry, which is always amazing. Truly a sound of their own!
But the sugar on top here may just be some of their finest horn, string and piano performances to date - all of which never feel crowded, cluttered or over-involved. More just excellent, necessary melodies. Rest assured Al still gives his famed Fuzz Factory a workout - and throws his tremolo into the pedal chain. It goes off. Tremolo is the order of the day for Amy and Xanthe too who also embrace the wobble, whilst Zephyr keeps the pulse of their politico-pop anchored.
Terry isn’t afraid to call the shots and Terry isn’t afraid to point the finger. Listen to what Terry has to say.

"Shut Him Down” was the third song written by Michael Leonhart & Elvis Costello during the 2020 quarantine. The first two, “Radio Is Everything” and "Newspaper Pane”—both of which were produced by Leonhart —appeared on Elvis’ 2020 solo album, Hey Clockface.
Michael and Elvis first met in 2007 at the Molde Festival in Norway, where Costello and the late Allen Toussaint shared a double bill with Steely Dan, with whom Leonhart has played since ’96. The two kept in touch over the ensuing years, including joining forces in 2015 for an Elvis Costello & The Imposters/Steely Dan tour. Early on in the quarantine, Leonhart sent Costello some instrumental music in need of lyrics. Costello states “Michael sent this music to me from New York at the perfect time.” After finishing the first two songs, Leonhart asked Costello to sing over an original heavy Afrobeat song he had been recording with his Michael Leonhart Orchestra during lockdown. Costello crafted lyrics that exist at the crossroads of political commentary and existential contemplation. Leonhart then asked NY rapper, JSWISS to write a verse building off Elvis’ lyrics and the drums grooves of Nick Movshon and Homer Steinweiss. Antibalas guitarist Luke O'Malley then came on board to write and record additional guitar parts.

Side A ends with a fiery bass clarinet solo from Chris Potter, while side B features an extended tenor sax solo from acclaimed saxophonist Joshua Redman.

"Shut Him Down" was first released in March 2022 on The Michael Leonhart Orchestra album, The Norymn Suites (Sunnyside Records) and now becomes available as a limited edition 7” b/w instrumental through Mighty Eye Records in partnership with Fat Beats.

ElCamino, hailing from Buffalo, New York, had a huge 2022 with the release of his Bethlehem EP with Chase Fetti as well as two solo albums, Let There Be Light and ElCamino 3. ElCamino officially signed to Benny The Butcher’s Black Soprano Family imprint in 2022 and was featured on several acclaimed #BSF releases including “80 Bills,” “We Here” and “Saint Maurice” and the B$F album Long Live DJ Shay. Other collaborations with the likes of 38 Spesh, A$AP Ant, Curren$y, Harry Fraud, Jay Worthy and Keisha Plum have proven ElCamino to be one of the hardest-working artists in the game. His notable performance alongside Wiz Khalifa on “Back to Shore” off of the 38 Spesh and Harry Fraud Beyond Belief album was an easy fan-favorite. Here You Go is another high quality release featuring 9 new tracks with ElCamino standing alone and showcasing his supreme lyrical talent. Pressed On Splatter Colored Vinyl! Limited To 500 Copies Worldwide!

On Labyrinth, Heather Woods Broderick serves as our reflective host, subverting expectations of conventional songcraft with impressionistic language and quietly relentless explorations of the human experience that's at once light and dark, more circular and less linear. "Many of us yearn for stillness and peace, as an escape from the movement all around us," she explains when asked about the themes of the album. "Yet movement is perpetual, happening all the time on some level. It's as wild as the wind, yet eternally predictable in its inevitability. It is linear in part, but infinite in its circuitry. Our lives just punctuate it." Broderick began crafting Labyrinth in March 2020, when most forms of move- ment were brought to a screeching halt. The Maine-born, Los Angeles-based songwriter _ who, in addition to her work as a solo musician, built a life playing and touring with acts such as Sharon Van Etten, Beth Orton, Damien Jurado, and Efterklang _ was suddenly forced off the road for the first time in her career. She used this disruption as an opportunity to pare down her creation process and construct the scaffolding for Labyrinth in her apartment. Employing only the most crucial tools at her disposal, Broderick found herself opening different artistic doors as she focused on sharpening her recording skills, capturing the majority of the album on her own before finishing the remainder with co-producer D. James Goodwin. For all of Broderick's sage lyricism and vocal authority, Labyrinth never provides the listener with any easy answers. If the image of the labyrinth represents the enormity of modern life and the difficulty of navigating it, Heather Woods Broder- ick provides a guide to its endless kinetic wonders _ of being present, aware, and connected despite its disconnects. She describes the texture of its walls, its indifferent rhythms, and the inherent poeticism of feeling lost amid the dead-ends and unexpected turns. At this point in our history, perhaps that's all we need to keep moving.

Grey Vinyl

On Labyrinth, Heather Woods Broderick serves as our reflective host, subverting expectations of conventional songcraft with impressionistic language and quietly relentless explorations of the human experience that's at once light and dark, more circular and less linear. "Many of us yearn for stillness and peace, as an escape from the movement all around us," she explains when asked about the themes of the album. "Yet movement is perpetual, happening all the time on some level. It's as wild as the wind, yet eternally predictable in its inevitability. It is linear in part, but infinite in its circuitry. Our lives just punctuate it." Broderick began crafting Labyrinth in March 2020, when most forms of move- ment were brought to a screeching halt. The Maine-born, Los Angeles-based songwriter _ who, in addition to her work as a solo musician, built a life playing and touring with acts such as Sharon Van Etten, Beth Orton, Damien Jurado, and Efterklang _ was suddenly forced off the road for the first time in her career. She used this disruption as an opportunity to pare down her creation process and construct the scaffolding for Labyrinth in her apartment. Employing only the most crucial tools at her disposal, Broderick found herself opening different artistic doors as she focused on sharpening her recording skills, capturing the majority of the album on her own before finishing the remainder with co-producer D. James Goodwin. For all of Broderick's sage lyricism and vocal authority, Labyrinth never provides the listener with any easy answers. If the image of the labyrinth represents the enormity of modern life and the difficulty of navigating it, Heather Woods Broder- ick provides a guide to its endless kinetic wonders _ of being present, aware, and connected despite its disconnects. She describes the texture of its walls, its indifferent rhythms, and the inherent poeticism of feeling lost amid the dead-ends and unexpected turns. At this point in our history, perhaps that's all we need to keep moving.

If Es’ debut album for Upset the Rhythm explored the “tension between intent and interpretation”, the London group’s 2023 EP, ‘Fantasy’, constructs a coda for resistance against the distorted gaze. A four-track contact-high anxiety amid fact and facsimile, the new release attempts to define a sound that still resonates in an increasingly confused public theatre, where cerebral dreams manifest in corrupt fascination.
Echoing the legendary Pylon or the later, disco-inspired releases from PIL, tracks like ‘Emergency’ and ‘Unreal’ blend the band’s established disjunctive style of gothic restlessness with brighter, poppy, and danceable tones. These stylistically unwind in transition with the increasingly claustrophobic pieces like ‘Too Late’ and ‘Swallowed Whole’, syncopating a parallel design of the frantic and the fashionable.
Paired with a lyrical intricacy which emits a desire to break the fetish of false representation, ‘Fantasy’ reminds us that worthy punk records, like any manifesto of neurotic suspicion, balance testimonial, speculative-fiction, and social critique. Indebted to the past but pointed sharply to the future, Es deconstruct our modern wreckage of personhood and self-deceit, granting a sense of solidarity inside alienation. Inside ‘Fantasy’ we visualize our own estrangement, and it is only when this mirror fades that we find the tools to fight back.

Like many debut solo albums from musicians in bands, Jared Mattson’s Peanut didn’t originally come from a need to break away. As a composer for the Mattson 2, Jared Mattson was working up a batch of new songs through the winter of 2019-2020, looking ahead to the next album he and brother Jonathan Mattson, the blitzkrieging drummer, would record. As the pandemic hit stateside, Jared holed up in his home studio and kept developing the new music. And during that process it became increasingly clear to them that this wasn’t shaping up to be the next Mattson 2 album. This was a Mattson 1 album.

Jared had been absorbing the guitar work on records by reggae stalwarts Aswad and Burning Spear, and also the Police’s Andy Summer and the ways he gives songs space. And Jared wanted a prominent bass sound, too, where the guitar itself sometimes settles into the passenger seat so that the bass can drive. Lyrically, the album taps into our rattled world, where anxiety, loss, violence, and regret are sometimes pierced by the promise of love. The time spent working on the album was a profoundly introspective time as he reflected on past relationships while living through and writing during the pandemic, he also never lost sight of this truth about himself: Life is great with music.

One of the album’s standout highlights is “Burn Down Babylon,” which is propelled by the bass’s funk-you-say groove. You don’t often encounter many pop songs with so blunt an opening line as, “I got punched in the face last night by a neo-Nazi,”—a true experience that was delivered many years ago in a bar brawl in Carlsbad, California. But to hear the music that goes along with this tale manages a vibe that is less melee and more backyard jubilee.

When “Please Come Here,” with an intro that slinks along like a Cadillac on a Sunday morning drive, kicks in, it’s typical of the album’s melodic pop flourishes, but the twist here is that the vocals are in Japanese (The Mattson 2 have toured Japan 20 times and covered many Japanese pop songs on 2018’s Vaults of Eternity: Japan). Ween’s “She Wanted to Leave” is the lone cover, but the way Jared reimagines the song makes it fits seamlessly within the album’s sonic template. The song’s inclusion was also a personal way to honor one of Jared’s best friends, who died from cancer two years ago. The two had always bonded over the song and marveled at its inherent beauty. Ultimately, Mattson’s solo debut unfolds like a string of fascinating clouds: These are not songs in a hurry; they shift around as they float by, and, most notably, they carry their unique kind of electric charge.

"This is a melancholy, broody, moody and fun project to get lost in” – CLASH
★★★★★ “Few bands are brave enough to try something this ambitious, even fewer have the talent to pull it off” - UPSET
Accompanied by an awe-inspiring film that immerses viewers in 180 degrees of virtual reality, the brand new album finds the band reinvigorated once again, delivering a serene salvo of songs that defy the heavy weight of adulthood, faith and self-redemption through sounds unlike anything they have made before. Following their previous 2021 LP, The Million Masks of God - an acclaimed collection that cried for help as it explored a man’s encounter with the angel of death - The Valley of Vision puts forth a collective, cathartic expression of gratitude that is brought to life in both the songwriting of frontman Andy Hull, and the cinematic story directed by Isaac Deitz.

Writing for the record began with a chance occurrence in the summer of 2021. Hull was looking through his suitcase for his lyric notebook, but instead found a 1975 book of Puritan prayers called The Valley of Vision, which his mom had gifted to him the previous Christmas. The title became a mantra that helped inspire the idyllic yet otherworldly energy that permeates throughout the album and film. An evolution from its predominantly guitar-driven past, the band almost completely abandons the instruments it is used to, and instead plays with primitive yet powerful piano leads and shimmering atmospheres, backed by sub-synth frequencies of bassist Andy Prince and shapeshifting sounds of drummer Tim Very.
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Released in the UK in January 1967 by Decca Records and February by London Records in the US – Between The Buttons was the Stones’ fifth British and seventh US studio album. Released as the follow-up to Aftermath, this album marked a high point in the band’s career, continuing their ventures into psychedelia and baroque pop balladry, it is among the band’s most musically eclectic works. Brian Jones sidelined his guitar on much of the album, instead playing a wide variety of other instruments including organ, marimba, vibraphone, and kazoo. Piano contributions came from two session players: former Rolling Stones member Ian Stewart and frequent contributor and studio legend Jack Nitzsche. It was the last album produced by Andrew Loog Oldham, the band’s manager and producer of all of their albums to this point.

The album has one of the most striking sleeves of the period, featuring a classic Gered Mankowitz image on the cover. The photo shoot took place at 5:30 in the morning following an all-night recording session at Olympic Studios. Using a home-made camera filter constructed of black card, glass and Vaseline, Mankowitz created the effect of the Stones dissolving into their surroundings – according to Mankowitz… ""to capture the ethereal, druggy feel of the time; that feeling at the end of the night when dawn was breaking and they’d been up all night making music, stoned.”

The songs continued Aftermath’s lyrics of acute social observation and savage insight, their earlier raw, rootsy power enhanced by other influences of the period – notably The Beatles, The Kinks, and again Dylan. It is one of their strongest, most varied LPs, with many great songs that remain unknown to all but Stones devotees.
The inventive arrangements and innovative instrumentation on brooding near-classics like All Sold Out, My Obsession and Yesterday’s Papers brought a new dimension to the music. She Smiled Sweetly shows their hidden romantic side at its best, Connection is one of the record’s few pieces of more conventional driving rock and album closer Something Happened To Me Yesterday includes Keith’s first solo vocal.

The US version includes contemporaneous hits – the two songs that gave the group a double-sided number one in early 1967: the shameless and controversial Let’s Spend The Night Together and the beautiful, melancholy Ruby Tuesday.