Buscar:state

Deluxe 180gram vinyl edition comes in a foil-embossed and die-cut cardstock jacket with printed inner sleeve and additional 12x12 art cards featuring the collages of Maciek Szczerbowski. All the art interacts with the die-cut jacket framing. Edition of 300. Rooted in a distinct and immediately identifiable sound_with the cello of Rebecca Foon (Saltland, Set Fire To Flames, Thee Silver Mt Zion) and the marimba of ex-Godspeed You! Black Emperor percussionist Bruce Cawdron at its core_Esmerine has long embroidered emotive chamber works using threads of post-classical, post-rock, Minimalism, neo-Baroque, jazz, pop and a wide array of folk traditions. Multi-instrumentalist Brian Sanderson, who joined the group in 2012, has furthered Esmerine's melodic and ethnomusicological sensibility ever since, expanding the ensemble's palette as its third core member with guitars, ngoni, ekonting, hulusi, brass horns of all sorts, and more. Since 2003, six stately and filmic instrumental albums have inscribed compositional landscapes through epigrammatic miniatures, longform multi-movement chronicles, and all manner of evocative musical prosody between. Marked by an inimitably turbid yet tempered pastoralism, alternately lit by dappled dawn and disquieted dusk, Esmerine's musical narratives balance asceticism and romanticism, melancholy and hope, stillness and wanderlust. Esmerine now shares Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More, its seventh full-length album and first in five years. The band surprise-dropped the full album digitally on 06 May 2022, with the CD and Deluxe 180gram LP editions hitting stores on official release date 26 August 2022. Following an acclaimed run of mid-career records on Constellation through the 2010s_the last three of which have all been finalists or winners of Juno Awards for Instrumental Album of the Year and/or Album Packaging of the Year_Esmerine began working on new music at decade's end. Under the auspices of a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts, and a summer 2019 residency at Le Château de Monthelon (an artist commune in France where the band has cherished long-standing spiritual, creative, and personal connections), compositional seeds were planted_and then pandemic rooted everyone in place. In between lockdown waves, at the respective rural Québec homesteads of Cawdron and Foon, longtime co-producer Jace Lasek (The Bernard Lakes) began capturing the band in various stripped-down configurations with spartan remote equipment. More fulsome arrangement and overdub sessions at Foon's converted barn during the summer of 2021 brought the album to full fruition_where a notable increase in the use of acoustic piano also poured forth, with just about every band member having a go. The record also signals the definitive integration of bassist Philippe Charbonneau_having joined Esmerine as a touring member pre-pandemic, he plays throughout the album on upright and electric bass, with turns on piano and synth, as well as sound design contributions via tape echo and other processing. Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More grapples with the existential tensions between atmosphere and airlessness, seclusion and claustrophobia, forbearance and coalescence. In many ways it is one of Esmerine's most restrained records. Only a few passages are driven by full percussion. There is palpably less Sturm and Drang or overt crescendos compared to its recent predecessors. The new album roils with a different sort of dynamic intensity, where instrumental densities ebb and flow within an overtonal centre, melding into each other with gauzy timbral warmth, sometimes tracing fleeting tendrils outwards, but always rotating around a saturnine gravitational force. Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More is like a dark forest lit by a closely-orbiting opalescent planet; it could be the alternate score to Von Trier's Melancholia or Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

Im heutigen Progressive Rock scheint es, als gäbe es jede Woche eine neue Supergroup. Aber lange bevor das die Norm wurde, und bevor Musiker regelmäßig in mehr als einer Band involviert waren, gab es Liquid Tension Experiment. 1997 vereinten Mike Portnoy (Transatlantic, Sons of Apollo), John Petrucci (Dream Theater), Jordan Rudess (Dream Theater) und Tony Levin (King Crimson, Peter Gabriel) ihre Kräfte und erschufen Liquid Tension Experiment. Das Quartett veröffentlichte 1998 ihr legendäres, selbst-betiteltes Debütalbum und 1999 dann direkt das beeindruckende Nachfolgeralbum 'LTE2'. Dabei kreierten sie einen dynamischen, wilden und erfinderischen Sound, der bis heute einmalig ist. Die unglaubliche Kreativität dieses Kollektivs führte dazu, dass Petrucci und Portnoy Rudess einluden, Dream Theater beizutreten, was das Ende dieses Seitenprojekts bedeuten sollte. 22 Jahre lang passierte nichts, obwohl kaum eine Reunion gefragter war als diese. Doch wenn die Welt sich im Lockdown befindet und sich die Kalender dieser vier Ausmahmemusiker unerwarteterweise als leer erwiesen, ist das Undenkbare passiert... LTE3.Die acht Songs auf LTE3 sind ein Mix aus vier vollständig komponierten Tracks, zwei Duetten, einem spontanen Jam und einem akribisch arrangierten Cover. 'Wir haben vier Songs komponiert. Wir realisierten, dass es das Gleiche war wie bei den ersten beiden Alben.', erklärt Portnoy. Jordan Rudess stimmt zu, 'Es fühlt sich wie eine Fortsetzung an. So als hätten wir LTE2 aufgenommen und wären eine Woche später wiedergekommen, um LTE3 zu machen. Ich weiß, es ist unglaublich, aber die Zeit verging wie im Flug und die Chemie ist genau die gleiche. Es war damals großartig und das ist es auch heute.' Petrucci kommentiert: 'Wer hätte gedacht, dass eine Gruppe Typen in unserem Alter so spielen würden? Es ist unerbittlich. Es ist definitiv ein Statement, du weißt, wir sind zurück. Es ist wie immer, wenn du 'play' drückst, walzt es dich nieder.

FIRST PRESSING ON WHITE VINYL*Regenerator is the fifth full-length from the Rochester, New York-based trio King Buffalo.

Written and recorded by the band with mixing and engineering by guitarist/vocalist Sean McVay and mastering by Bernie Matthews, the seven-song outing is the third in King Buffalo’s stated ‘pandemic trilogy,’ following 2021’s The Burden of Restlessness and
Acheron.

Both of those albums – like 2018’s Longing to Be the Mountain, 2016’s
debut, Orion, and the various EPs and other offerings they’ve made over the last eight years – made bold declarations about who King Buffalo are as a band, and Regenerator is no different. As McVay, bassist/synthesist Dan Reynolds and drummer Scott Donaldson continue to explore the outer reaches of modern psychedelic
music, melding progressive rhythms, drifting atmospheres and
accompanying surges of electricity, this new collection only further establishes them as one of the brightest lights shining in underground rock today.
As the third of three, Regenerator inherently ties together the previous two LPs, and as the band unfold the leadoff title-track across nine and halfminutes, it becomes clear just how truly they have marked out their own sonic presence.

The later melodic highlight “Mammoth” – with McVay’s most confident vocal performance yet – shimmers with hope that somehow doesn’t come across as desperate; on “Hours”, the group engages classic space rock, and the closing “Firmament” acts as a summary
for all three albums, marking the final installment of this trilogy as the
essential cornerstone of King Buffalo's work to date.

Regenerator is available on 180.gr white vinyl (including download) and CD.

The Maghreban has been making Dance music and related genres under various names since the mid 90s, spanning Jungle, Hip Hop, Rave, House and Techno; on labels like Versatile, Black Acre, Eglo Records, R&S Records and his own Zoot Records.

This is his second full length LP under this project and is a refinement on his first. He has worked with the jazz saxophonist Idris Rahman to craft something more cohesive perhaps and more rooted in Jazz and Techno as well as Eastern music. There are also vocal collaborations with Nah Eeto, Omar and Abdullah Miniawy.

Airplay from Benji B, Gilles Peterson and Tom Ravenscroft on BBC Radio. DJ and Radio Support from Ben UFO, Nina Kraviz, Mosca, Otik, Eclair Fifi, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaur, Martyn Bootyspoon, Appleblim, Krikor, Photonz, Gramrcy, and many more.

Favourable reviews so far in Uncut & DJ Magazine: "His most expansive statement so far..Innovative and Irresistable", Reveiws to come in Mixmag, The Wire and other publications.

When Rey Sapienz was eight years old, the Democratic Republic of Congo was plunged into the Second Congo War. The conflict last five years and was the bloodiest since World War II, leaving an indelible mark on East Africa and creating mass displacement and loss of life. But Sapienz endured, cutting his teeth as a young rapper at twelve, first performing to celebrate Congo's independence day. When he finished school, he headed to nearby Kampala to hone his craft and collaborate with local producers. But civil war broke out back home and he was forced to extend his stay in Uganda. Since then, Sapienz has established himself as a force to be reckoned with, co-founding the Hakuna Kulala label, teaching his Ableton Live skills to Kampala's young producers and releasing two acclaimed EPs. For his debut album, Sapienz embarks on an ambitious project that travels beyond the avant beatscapes of his early material. Alongside traditional percussionist, vocalist and dancer Papalas Palata and rapper Fresh Doggis, he has formed The Congo Techno Ensemble, utilizing their skills and experience to offer a statement that speaks to the past, present and future of the DRC. On "Eza Makambo", the trio channel rich musical traditions and historic tension, evolving electronic and traditional forms into boundless sci-fi mutations. The track breaks open the stories all three artists accumulated in the DRC, augmenting radioactive techno-dancehall beats with radical, open-hearted words and rhymes. "Eza Makambo" is a heady cocktail of stylistic futurism and harsh reality that could be compared with Zizou Bikaye's seminal "Noir et Blanc or Danis Mpunga & Paul K.'s genre-breaking electronic experiments. But marked by the DRC's recent scars, it's a critical work that stands painfully alone.

Brain Feelings is the debut EP from South London band moa moa. With glitchy synths, pulsing drums and catchy choruses, moa moa are proving that pop can be weird and accessible at the same time; the perfect psychedelic soundtrack to the comfortable tedium of life.

2021 saw moa moa ramp up the excitement around them with a pair of exquisite singles including the kaleidoscopic pop of ‘Drive’ – which features on forthcoming EP ‘Brain Feelings’ – and their Speedy Wunderground single ‘Coltan Candy’ which came out to rapturous acclaim from 6 Music’s Steve Lamacq, Huw Stephens, Don Letts, and Shaun Keaveny, and publications including NME, DIY, Paste Magazine, and Brooklyn Vegan.

The band’s debut EP ‘Brain Feelings’ explores states of emotional suppression and emotional unintelligence. James says, “I often feel that, when balancing every aspect of my life, I don’t have time left to process and express my emotions. The feelings just get stuck in my brain, making me feel insular, disconnected and less able to participate in the world.

CHARLES MINGUS (1922 – 1979)

At the end of the Fifties, hard bop was something else looking for a way out. The inexorable cycle of avant-garde trends needed renewal. These were years when both sides of the Atlantic saw wide-reaching deconstruction in philosophy, painting and music. Everything that seemed to belong to a healthy, normal, established order was seen with the most scrupulous scepticism.

In the history of art, successive pivotal years have always had an artificial aspect while at the same time they have revealed the state of an art that would define a new aesthetic. 1913… 1922 … 1959 … The Shape of Jazz to Come, Kind of Blue, Time Out, Ah Um … When creative minds decoded the structures of an art that was current, it was time to discover new ones. Charles Mingus was one of those who deconstructed, a creator and inventor who marked out a path for the other artists to come.

For Oleg Azelitskiy, known as DJ Slon, the nineties and the first half of the aughts were an era of "firsts". First squat parties on the banks of the Obvodny Canal and more legitimate ones at Tunnel, first proper techno club in Russia. First DJ sets, first vinyl records in his collection, first radio shows at Port FM. He is a true veteran of the Russian techno movement, who carried his love for the genre through three decades and inspired more than one generation of musicians. Album Nr. 1 is the first edition of his music on vinyl. It comprises the music that Azelitskiy made during 1995 - 2005, except for the track My 40th Vesna, produced in 2010.

Azelitskiy's love for techno was born out of contradictions. Thanks to the Soviet synth band Zodiac and the French pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre, he had loved electronic music since his childhood. When he grew up, he got into the dark, introspective pieces by Einsturzende Neubauten and Bauhaus. Not only does the wide-ranging palette on Album Nr. 1 reflect its creator's taste, it echoes the changing times of the Russian nineties. It was the time when confrontations with criminals were inseparable from the parties and get-togethers bustling with local artists.

His affection for various genres led to many monikers and projects, all represented here on Album Nr. 1. He recorded most of his music as DJ Slon. Then there was a project Zhutkiy Lazer (Scary Laser), where Azelitskiy made music that was more experimental but still techno-oriented, with the occasional help of his friend Aleksey Gaponenko (Lazer became a proper solo project of DJ Slon in 1999). There are also tracks under the aliases Mass Fatality, which combined techno and synth-pop, and Razrushiteli Mozgovych Uliev (Brain Hive' Destroyers), with its more direct tight techno tracks.

The music of DJ Slon sounds fresher and more alive on Album Nr. 1 than ever before.
Noticeably, this record, first and foremost, is dance music. As a voice on one of the album tracks boldly states, we came to dance.

Sometimes a band grows so exponentially from one record to the next, it’s almost jarring. Hell Fire has already established themselves as the preeminent masters of a new hybrid breed of Bay Area thrash and NWOBHM in just a few short years, but their fourth album Reckoning is the type of ascendance that truly sets a band apart.

Reckoning is their Master of Puppets, their Number of The Beast, their Defenders Of The Faith. From the very first notes of the album opening title track, you can feel a vital new energy and inspiration to their music. To say Hell Fire used the recent global downtime to dig within and fully refine their sound would be an understatement. It truly is a reckoning.

“This album is every aspect of our band amplified to its maximum potential,” says singer/guitarist Jake Nunn. “This is the record we've always wanted to make, and it feels like we're just getting started,” guitarist Tony Campos adds. “We wanted to push ourselves musically and capture some of our frustrations, anger, loneliness, and rage over being locked inside and dealing with life during a global pandemic in the days when no one really knew how to navigate,” says drummer Mike Smith.

With no touring on the horizon in 2020, the band hunkered down and recorded nearly a full album in preproduction home demos. “I set up a little studio in my garage to record guitar, bass, and vocal tracks,” Campos says. “While Mike bought an electronic drum set and we demoed every song so we were more prepared going into the studio.” Each of them found themselves practicing more on their own and ironing out every last detail and nuance before finally being able to once again play in a room together.

The band’s heightened professionalism also brings in guest bassist Matt Freeman (of Rancid and Operation Ivy fame) on the album after original bassist Herman Bandala departed the band amicably during the initial writing process. New bassist Kai Sun joined Hell Fire in Fall 2021. Reckoning was recorded and mixed at Atomic Studios in Oakland, CA with Chris Dugan.

The title track kicks things off with a slight nod to the layered melodies of acoustic and harmonized guitars of Metallica’s “Battery” before the band rips into its signature galloping guitar picks, soaring harmonies and blistering rhythms. It’s an anthem and a gauntlet thrown down with Nunn’s shimmering screams and guttural howls while dueling guitar solos and Smith’s relentless double bass drum shuffle bring home the point that Hell Fire is born anew. “Medieval Cowboys” hearkens to the epic attack of Iron Maiden’s Powerslave with glistening melodies and complexly interwoven musical shifts that showcase exactly how tight and precise the band has become. “Addicted To Violence” is blistering thrash and “Thrill Of The Chase” soars with rich harmonies while both songs lyrically reflect hard truths the band faced in isolation. The lush acoustic based ballad “A Dying Moon” shows the band effortlessly stretching out in new directions. “It Ends Tonight” is an epic anthem served as a mission statement to the band’s return wherein arpeggiated riffs, squealing pinch harmonics, group chant vocals and Smith’s octopus-armed beats will have legions raising their fists in the air in salute.

“It’s somehow the heaviest and most melodic work we’ve done, and I’m proud of the discipline it took,” Nunn says. “It’s a wild thing.”

BLACK VINYL REPRESS

ITS 25 YEARS Since the first Heads album was released.. .so.. for 2021..Rooster has decided to get the album back in print on vinyl.. but changing the artwork. With some silver foiling and bordering, the single sleeve has been boosted to a sweet gatefold, Rooster also got the Radio 1 sessions from the time remastered, and re-cut along with the huge b-side to their Television 7” “Jellystoned Park”.
So there you have it, a double vinyl silver jubilee reissue of a fantastic debut album!

From the original reissue sales notes:
“The Heads had self-released a couple of 7"', and then Cargo Uk's inhouse label Headhunter UK got to release a further 7", and then the Debut album in 1996. Amidst a world suffocating in Britpop smarm, the Heads cut a timely swathe with their unkempt rock psychedelique. The album contained 10 tracks of guitar driven, amp destroying rock, with cues taken straight from the US underground, Stooges, MC5, Mudhoney, Pussy Galore, early Monster Magnet too but with a disitinctly British stamp, some of the drone and fuzz from Loop / Spacemen 3, some of the attitude of the Fall, Pink Fairies and Walking Seeds and overlaid with the spaced rock of early Hawkwind. It was obvious that the four members of the Heads were music obsessives. The debut album was recorded at Foel studios (owned by Dave Anderson from Hawkwind) and engineered by Corin Dingley, it was mastered by John Dent at LOUD.”


We’ve asked for some new appraisal of the Heads for the Silver Jubilee edition from good friends....

Stewart Lee February 2021
“The Halley's Comet victory orbits of historic heavy artefacts from Detroit, like The Stooges or The MC5, leave grateful onlookers aghast. But, hidden away in Bristol, The Heads are still with us now, our homegrown acid-garage godfathers, an ongoing thirty-two year old concern with a back catalogue arguably more consistent than the super-dense psyche-rock groups that inspired them. The Heads arrived fully formed and have spent three decades becoming more like themselves, a musical black hole that sucks in all surrounding matter. I love The Heads “

Phil Alexander February 2021
“The Heads make music for freaks in the know. If you were there in 1996, you’ll know just what that means…

Back then, they were gloriously out of step with the pop-cheese of the time and geezerly lumpiness of Britpop. Theirs was an altogether different take on music – a take inspired by the glorious burn-out of the ‘60s, the sonic overdrive of the ‘70s and the axis of joy created by the combination of excess volume and repetition.

We could name-check some inspirations and kindred spirits: The Stooges, Hawkwind, Floyd, Loop, Sabbath, Amon Düül II, Spacemen 3, Walking Seeds, Mudhoney, Monster Magnet among them... But in all honesty, The Heads have always existed in a world of their own, surfacing as and when the mood takes them, before returning to their subterranean rehearsal room to jam their way through yet more mind-altering riffs and mood-altering rhythms.

Relaxing With The Heads is their first defining statement. It is also possibly their most straight-forward release, the sound of a band attempting to find structure in their playing rather than abandoning themselves to their wildest impulses. That would come later…

And yet, 25 years on, this album blasts forth like few records from that time, its slacker charm welded to super-fuzzed riffs that propel its 10 tracks ever onwards. Righteous is probably the only word for it…”

Standout favorites of RidingEasy Records’ Brown Acid compilation series, White Lightning’s stellar discography of rare and under-appreciated heavy psych, proto-metal rock gets a vital revival for new generations to learn how swinging, swaggering and often blazingly fast rock’n’roll is done.White Lightning was formed in Minneapolis, MN in 1968 by guitarist Tom “Zippy” Caplan and bassist Woody Woodrich after leaving garage psych band The Litter (themselves popular standouts from the Nuggets and Pebbles series of garage rock rarities.) Originally a power trio, the band later expanded to a 5-piece in 1969 while shortening its name to Lightning. The quintet’s brilliant and rare 1970 self-titled album on Pickwick International’s P.I.P. imprint provides 6 of the 10 tracks on Thunderbolts of Fuzz.The original White Lightning trio only released one 45-rpm single “Of Paupers and Poets” during their existence (on local Hexagon label in 1968, later reissued by major label ATCO Records in 1969.) A long out-of-print posthumous album released in 1995 gathered unreleased recordings, 3 of which are found here. This rounds out this collection of recorded highlights from the band’s rocky history.
Taking their name from a particularly potent type of LSD, White Lightning laid out from the start that it was not cute and cuddly 70s rock. In fact, the band’s aggressive tempos are like punk rock way before punk. However, their dirty blues groove and musical prowess shows the band was more than unrefined ne’er-do-wells, they had true versatility.
Drummer/lead vocalist Mick Stanhope later relinquished his drum throne to take center stage as lead singer of the expanded lineup. Throughout its initial 1968-1974 run, the band had 10 different lineups, with Caplan, Woodrich and Stanhope the most consistent members — though the band points out that no one member has played in all 11 incarnations of the group. For more facts and information visit thelitter-lightning.
Album opener “Prelude to Opus IV” is a wailing rocker with blazing double-kick drum, sizzling melodic riffs and Jim Dandy howls jam packed into an epic 4 minutes that serves enough testament to the band’s greatness, nothing more need be heard or said. However, the would-be hits keep coming as the Led Zeppelin meets Black Oak Arkansas thwack of “Hideaway” and “Born Too Rich” come screaming out of the speakers. “When A Man Could Be Free” shows the band could also reign in the fury, at least a little bit, for a warm Southern rock style ballad. “Borrowed and Blue” echoes the stately poetry of Electric Ladyland-era Hendrix with a dash of The Who’s rollicking psychedelia. “1930” is, quite simply, insane. Searing twin guitars with incredible fuzz-drenched tone, a warm and buzzing bass line bounce atop drummer Bernie Pershey’s unrelenting bass drum triplets while Stanhope ravages his lungs with soulful abandon. The album closes with the aptly titled “Before My Time” a barnstorming boogie rock instrumental the proves the band vanished long before receiving their due.

Sought-after Brazilian classic originally released in 1974, "Molhado De Suor" is the first solo effort by Alceu Valença, mixing traditional northeastern Brazilian music and rhythms with folk rock and psychedelia. Aided by Lula Cortes and Geraldo Azevedo, Valença's rich vocals combine with driving guitar work, moody arrangements and unusual trips. Reissued again after years unavailable. DESCRIPTION In the early '70s tropicalia was going strong, a challenge to both the music establishment and the state. Música Popular Brasileira (or MPB) was firmly established. Up in the northeastern corner of Brazil, centered in Recife, was another exciting strain of Brazilian culture called Udigrudi. "Molhado De Suor" is the first solo effort by Alceu Valença, mixing traditional northeastern Brazilian music and rhythms with folk rock and psychedelia. Aided by Lula Cortes and Geraldo Azevedo, Valença's rich vocals combine with driving guitar work, moody arrangements and unusual trips, successfully integrating the sounds of his native region, Pernambuco. Valença followed its release with many albums, the latest from this year, each one establishing him more.

Christopher 'Lav' Landin is a master of ambient sounds but it's been a while since we heard from him after 2017's collab with Purl on A Strangely Isolated Place. A New Landscape is a fresh album on Past Inside The Present that comes on limited and transparent orange vinyl. Contained within are a beguiling bunch of tunes with soul stirring pads, gently propulsive rhythms and gorgeous sound designs that call to mind various different references from deepest space to a warm spring day. It is an accomplished album design for mental escape.

Back in stock !

Canadian songwriter and producer Jeremy Haywood-Smith needed an escape from his state of mourning when he began working on Slingshot, his most recent LP as JayWood. After the loss of his mother in 2019, and a global standstill with multiple social crises throughout 2020, Haywood-Smith yearned for some forward momentum. "The idea of looking back to go forward became a really big thing for me _ hence the title, Slingshot." Feeling disconnected from his past and ancestry after the death of a parent, Haywood-Smith made a conscious effort to better understand his identity and unique Black experience living in the predominantly white province of Manitoba. Merging fantasy scenarios, personal anecdotes, and infectious pop and dance instrumentals, Slingshot is a self-portrait of JayWood at his surface and his depths. Musically, Slingshot reaches into sounds and styles Haywood-Smith has continued to explore throughout his catalog. "I think I made a really big deal to not pigeonhole myself," he explains. "Whatever is inspiring me at one point will work it's way into whatever I'm creating." Slingshot is an amalgamation of Haywood-Smith's many musical sensibilities, achieved with help from a crew of talented peers. Haywood-Smith wrote and performed a bulk of the track's instrumentations, but the LP has notable appearances from Canadian contemporaries Ami Cheon (on "Just Sayin") and Mckinley Dixon (on "Shine.") The album's penultimate track, "Thank You," was co-produced with Jacob Portrait of Unknown Mortal Orchestra. The song brings JayWood's sound full circle, offering something reminiscent of Haywood-Smith's earliest recordings, while flaunting that "The best is yet to come."

Eleventh album from the Juno-nominated Burlington, ON post-hardcore and emo band that has sold 1.2M+ albums worldwide. Produced by Sam Guaiana The Devil Wears Prada, Between You & Me, Like Pacific. The lead single “It’s Over” streamed upon release on NME [“return to emo roots coupled with a post-hardcore edge…intense melodies”]. Further praise from HM Magazine, Loudwire, Rock Sound. Eight of Silverstein’s albums have charted in the United States, including A Beautiful Place to Drown [2020, #5 Billboard “Hard Rock Albums” “#7 “Alternative Albums”], which was nominated for “Rock Album of the Year” at the Juno Awards]. They’ve toured with Good Charlotte, Blessthefall, August Burns Red, Silent Planet, Four Year Strong. They toured the United States and Canada this autumn with support from The Plot in You and Can’t Swim, and they’ll be back on the road in the United States this spring with The Devil Wears Prada. Released independently via Australia's leading heavy music label UNFD.

Eleventh album from the Juno-nominated Burlington, ON post-hardcore and emo band that has sold 1.2M+ albums worldwide. Produced by Sam Guaiana The Devil Wears Prada, Between You & Me, Like Pacific. The lead single “It’s Over” streamed upon release on NME “return to emo roots coupled with a post-hardcore edge…intense melodies”. Further praise from HM Magazine, Loudwire, Rock Sound. Eight of Silverstein’s albums have charted in the United States, including A Beautiful Place to Drown [2020, #5 Billboard “Hard Rock Albums” “#7 “Alternative Albums”], which was nominated for “Rock Album of the Year” at the Juno Awards]. They’ve toured with Good Charlotte, Blessthefall, August Burns Red, Silent Planet, Four Year Strong. They toured the United States and Canada this autumn with support from The Plot in You and Can’t Swim, and they’ll be back on the road in the United States this spring with The Devil Wears Prada. Released independently via Australia's leading heavy music label UNFD.

This release will have you dancing and crying at the same time. On his debut album, Paris-based producer and founder of the "raw poetry" aesthetic Loyce Demellier - AKA DJ Physical - takes us on a fast-paced journey through techno, electro, breaks and more. Whilst the music's indisputable home is the club, Physical teases out moments of playfulness and sentimentality amongst hard-hitting electronics.

"Silver Lake" LP resides on the colder, more industrial side of Demellier's sonic spectrum, following on from his latest release on London imprint 10 PILLS MATE which saw him depart from the more lofi quality of his previous releases in favour of a raw, club-focused sound. On the A-side, Demellier situates the release within the context of old warehouse raves, with euphoric acid melodies and a 140BPM propulsion ("Uranium"): and high-pitched synth stabs that ascend from darkness ("Gold Mines").

The B-side maintains the pace, but this time it's about electro and breaks. On "Overshoot", reverberating cymbals add another layer of depth to Amen break interludes whilst "Lawbreaker" harnesses a cheekier tone, offering respite from the previous tracks' venom. This air of playfulness sticks around on "Lunatic State" helped by MPC drum claps and a ludic electro melody, before fellow Parisian Ika Sile steps up for "Early Sprinter" and "Bootybounce": the former offering a slicker take on acid techno and the latter: rave music at its absolute with piano stabs and sleazy vocal chops. Silver Lake LP drops 22nd July 2022 via Lost Palms

White Vinyl

The 25th release on Auxiliary is a remix 12" by ASC. Featuring four remixes of the EP of the same name, released in 2014, Return Of The Emissary Remixes is an inventive and creative re-imagining of the original tracks.

Inverse Ratio is transformed into a more uptempo Grey Area affair, while Fenris gets a heavier workout on its remix. Flipside sees a sparser approach to Zoning, while Night Clouds notches up the intensity somewhat. A statement of intent from Auxiliary and ASC.

On High Flying Man, the third LP by Matt Berry’s pseudo-eponymous project The Berries, loss and desire take center stage. Berry delves deep into 21st century malaise, crafting densely layered songs which project an unshakable yearning for deliverance from the world’s shortcomings. Each track extends an outstretched palm towards universal connection, blending a complex of mix of pop hooks, rock swagger, and psychedelia into dejected populist anthems. Faced with the perils of an isolating world, High Flying Man reignites the tradition of great American songwriting, speaking in the voice of the longing masses. At heart, Berry demands more life, rejecting both arty cynicism and nostalgic escapism.

Berry cut his teeth at a young age playing in the bands Happy Diving (Topshelf Records) and Big Bite (Pop Wig), and has since regularly served as a touring member for bands like Angel Dust and Dark Tea. His early work with Happy Diving and Big Bite solidified his position as an upcoming star in the world of fuzzed-out indie rock, earning him tours and opening slots with the likes of Turnstile, Dinosaur Jr., Nothing, The Swirlies, and The Coathangers. With The Berries, however, Berry turns the Big Muffs down (although not off), creating sonic space to stretch his wings as a burgeoning pop songwriter. The psychedelic-surrealist textures of his earlier output are not gone, per say, but rather find themselves folded into more expansive, rock-oriented arrangements, becoming accoutrements as opposed to the driving force of each song itself.

High Flying Man follows The Berries’ previous releases, 2018’s Start All Over Again and 2019’s Berryland. While longtime listeners will undoubtedly recognize Berry’s disaffected drawl and melodic sensibility, High Flying Man’s complex arrangements and expansive sonic landscape place it well apart from its predecessors. Berry enlisted live band members Danny Paul (drums), Emma Danner (backing vocals), and Lance Umble (bass) during the recording of High Flying Man, as well as the mixing talents of Rob Schnapf (Elliott Smith, Beck, Guided by Voices), breaking from the self-produced home recording ethos of the previous Berries LPs. The collaborative nature of High Flying Man’s recording process is reflected in the quality of each song’s arrangement. Freed from the pressure of being individually responsible for every detail committed to tape, Berry was able to focus his attention more fully on the creative demands of constructing a dynamic and cohesive record. High Flying Man pivots away from any sort of obvious nod to Americana tropes, baggy British attitude, or Neil Young-esque riffing, leaning head on into a lush, idiosyncratic grandeur.

Each track evokes the irreverent and flashy style of a songwriting voice finding itself for the first time. Berry’s guitar heroics extend towards new heights, channeling the simple pop mastery of Lindsay Buckingham (“Prime”) and the wicked emotion of a 21st century “November Rain” (“High Flying Man”). Unusual stylistic juxtapositions give certain songs an almost timeless quality: Bert Jansch-esque crooning finds its counterpoint in sweeping, distortion-soaked riffs (“A Drop of Rain”), the primitive rhythms of Amon Duul are given an arena-sized, Britpop facelift (“Life’s Blood”). On High Flying Man, however, the ballad reigns supreme. “Down That Road Again” drips with sentimentality, powered by soft, undeniable pop melodies and pared-down chord progressions. Album-centerpiece “Eagle Eye” teeters between pure grace and extreme sorrow, unfolding into a massive, immediately memorable tide of melancholic beauty.

Lyrically, High Flying Man is both simple and direct. Although often bitter about the state of the world, Berry has no overtly political axe to grind. In some instances, he takes jabs at the moral laziness of aging millennials, expressing his yearning for a return to vitality and conviction (“Prime”). In other instances, Berry turns his criticism inwards, examining his longing for a better life and his repeated tendency to self-sabotage (“Down That Road Again”). These two poles balance each other out, creating a thematic tenor which is more so self-implicating and empathetic than critical. If anyone is to blame, it is the world we have been saddled with, not the people left to pick up its pieces. Although often personal, Berry’s words evoke a universal experience of continued belief in the face of loss. “High Flying Man” chronicles the growing distance between Berry and an old friend who has been shipwrecked by the weight of trauma, evoking the sorrow of trying to love someone who is no longer able to keep up with reality. Even the most somber passages of “Eagle Eye” (“long before I become aware of it, my friend/it’s 6 AM and I’m gonna die”) find their redemption in a burning devotion towards something worth living for (“If there’s one thing I can depend on/it’s my old friend/my shining light/my eagle eye”).

With High Flying Man, Matt Berry embraces undying love in the face of isolation. Daring to want more life becomes a spiritual rallying cry against a world that has failed to make life either meaningful or beautiful. At their core, these songs are not about revolution, but they are about the faith that gives something like revolution a purpose in the first place.

Progressive Rock Band SiX BY SiX release their self-titled debut album featuring members of Saga, The Greg Kihn Band & Saxon. On more than 45 minutes of prog-influenced heavy rock Robert Berry (vocals), Ian Crichton (Guitar) and Nigel Glockler deliver a very strong musical statement. The signature guitar sound of Saga-Guitarist Ian Crichton provides the final touch to an all-around harmonic longplayer. “SiX BY SiX” will be available as Ltd. CD Digipak, Gatefold LP+CD and on all digital platforms.