Suche:sub project

Cemento Atlantico is the first recording project by the Italian DJ/producer Alessandro “ToffoloMuzik” Zoffoli, conceived between 2020 and 2021, in an orphaned silence from wandering and social sharing due to the lockdown in this Pandemic era. To be released on vinyl, CD and all digital platforms starting from July 29th, 2021 via Bronson Recordings, the album Rotte Interrotte was born from the need to translate the travel experiences of recent years into music: Morocco, Vietnam, Peru, Cambodia, Colombia, India, Guatemala, Myanmar. At the edge of the world. The sound that fills everyday life is often seen as a foregone background, in reality all its connotations can be explored and ordered to create a melody. Without a shadow of a doubt, the threshold of auditory attention rises by being sent, immersed in cultures and countries other than your own. Among those coordinates, Cemento Atlantico has kidnapped fragments, samples and field recordings from nature, history, road and sacred places. Emotions engraved in the mind with occasional recording means, subsequently manipulated through electronics and rhythmic construction creating a truly unique and contemporary sound and of cultural melting-pot. Zoffoli has written and produced the record (then mastered by Giovanni Versari), also taking care of its artwork. Cemento Atlantico’s logo is made up of the initials “C” and “A”: “The letter ‘A’ indicates the first Ocean I crossed, the Atlantic one, while the letter” C “- represented by a crescent Moon, with no political or religious reference – symbolizes rebirth, the growth of a project or the advent of a new life in many ancient and modern cultures“. Trip hop, dubstep and chillout are intertwined with world music and ethnic elements, as if the starting point was Bristol, rather than Cesenatico, and the arrival point was all to be soundtracked, all to be explored. Following the first extract Umm Bulgares, the new singles taken from the album are Beat ’em Bang, Amazonienne, Blade Runner Zero and El congreso de los Fantasmas. More than an album, Rotte Interrotte is a casket of stories set in time with your eyes closed, in the deep belief that through sound you can imagine the world without seeing it.

As the tides change and the majesty of the moon once more begins to illuminate our forgotten domain, the hotly-tipped Incus has made the jump to hyperspace and determined that now is the time to unleash his neoteric creation into the macrocosm of music. At the behest of the sonic social masters, "INC.AUDIO" will be deemed a passion project, but in reality it will rip the very fabric of what it means to have a personal creative outlet, curtailing boundaries and expectations alike. Based on the creed of freedom of experimentation, the label will allow Incus and close friends within the industry to share their creative expressions within a familial and contemporary framework free from third-party limitation.

For now we start at the first chapter of the INC.AUDIO narrative, and the inaugural release which comes from the architect himself. His first solo EP contains 4 tracks conceived at home during lockdown, combining new sound design techniques developed through the mediums of trusty Korg Hardware and Ableton live. The end product is a consummate representation of the benefits of free time, reckless abandon and zero red tape.

Kicking off with "Design Your Mind", Incus draws on his longstanding influences collected via years of crate-digging and supporting underground idols in the UK and Ibiza. Shuffling percussion, jittering stabs and percolatin' chords wax and wane, submitting us to the will of its deep, minimal groove with a sultry sensibility. Next is "New Dog Old Tricks", the one with "that" bassline. No holding back from the get-go, the punching percussion is waylaid sporadically by erratic tones and steadied by placid, ambient chords. The charming breakdowns are peculiarized by a haunting saxophone sample, firmly establishing the clear-cut level of advancement and attention to detail achieved by the creator.

"Calm in the Chaos" steps back from straight-up grooving, inviting an equatorial temperature to come and play. Tantalising acid-inclined bass notes perforate the horizon, aiding the insistent percussion and creating a sunny, party-ready disposition infectious as they come. Feel like you're on a beach or in a rainforest? Snap. After the party we finish in the "Morning Haze". Alien-like frequencies and UFO bleepology steer the good ship Incus on this extra-terrestrial journey through the tech-house heavens to its final resting point. The seductive vocal cut adds a beautiful edge to the track, creating a minimal yet also expansive soundscape perfect for disembarkment. So, now you see what INC.AUDIO is all about, why wouldn't you stick around? Fight the bureaucracy and become who you need to be today, not tomorrow.

Demon Records is proud to reissue this album as part of the Gary Crowley’s Lost 80s project. This Classic LP
reissue is presented on 140g translucent green vinyl.
The Kane Gang’s 1985 debut album was originally released on Kitchenware Records, where their label-mates
included Prefab Sprout, Hurrah! and The Daintees. ‘The Bad And Lowdown World Of The Kane Gang’
reached #21 in the UK albums chart, and features 4 singles, including #12 charting ‘Closest Thing To Heaven’
and ‘Respect Yourself’ (#21).
Hailing from the North East, The Kane Gang consisted of vocalists Martin Brammer and Paul Woods, plus
multi-instrumentalist Dave Brewis. They made their recording album debut in 1985 with this, their poised,
stylish collection 'The Bad And Lowdown World Of The Kane Gang'.
“I am absolutely cock-a-hoop that it's being given a vinyl re-release under our GC Lost 80s umbrella because
it's an album that I return to regularly. Signed to the uber-cool Kitchenware label, they were an under-rated
band in my opinion whose distinctive sound saw them taking their cue from a raft of Soul Funk greats, and
you can clearly hear that love right across the album. Produced and crafted lovingly by Pete Wingfield and
featuring the likes of P. P. Arnold and Sam Brown on backing vocals, the album is chock-a-block with singles
including the impressive ‘Small Town Creed’ (chart placing No. 60), the sublime ‘Closest Thing To Heaven’
(No. 21), the moody ‘Gun Law’ (No. 53), as well as a delicious cover of the Staple Singers’ ‘Respect Yourself’
(No. 21). I love the entire album but there are also other songs that also stand out for me. The Chic guitar
driven joy of 'How Much Longer' and the dreamy, shimmering 'Crease In His Hat' being two cases in point.
The band would later go on to enjoy success on the American Black R&B chart (which must have thrilled
them personally to bits) and release an equally grand second album in 1987 in 'Miracle’.”

A Letter from TreeTops is the debut album from Pneumatic Tubes, the solo project of multi-instrumentalist Jesse Chandler. Grounded here in his own bucolic makings, Chandler opens his imagination to the world with this very personal and contemplative album. It’s a kind of American Kosmiche Music, a paean to the wild landscapes of the Adirondacks and Catskills of Upstate New York where he grew up. (TreeTops is the name of a summer camp, fondly remembered by several generations of the Chandler family.)

The album came to Chandler almost as an automatic transmission. Shortly after the death of his father, he holed up alone in the old family home with a few synths, a couple of vintage keyboards, percussion instruments and of course his beloved flutes and clarinets - the “pneumatic tubes” of his nom de plume. Channelling raw memory and landscape, Chandler laid down most of the material for this mystical and elegiac suite of music in just a few days. He later called on some talented friends to flesh out the final recordings; Paul Alexander on bass, Bill Campbell on drums, Marissa Nadler backing vocals and Robert Gomez on electric guitar.

The result is a series of beautifully faded musical photographs. Gentle melodies are propelled along by synth arpeggiators or laidback sidestick and felt beater drums. Chandler’s wind instruments are woven throughout like wild vines binding the elements together. Towards the end of the album an underlying note of melancholy swells into grief during the very moving Witch Water, which is subtly underpinned with Marissa Nadler’s haunting voice. The clouds soon clear, the mountains reappear, and the wheel of the year and of the generations turns again as A Letter from TreeTops signs off with the same lilting melody on which it began.

Originally hailing from Woodstock, New York and now living in Denton, Texas, Jesse Chandler is the keyboard and woodwinds player for the bands Midlake and Mercury Rev. His particular warmth as a composer and improviser is informed by a childhood ensconced in the mystical Catskill mountains, where he absorbed the area’s rich musical history and developed a fascination with keyboard and woodwind instruments.

A Letter from TreeTops is not his first appearance on Ghost Box, he also contributed organ and flute on the Soundcarriers’ incredible Entropicalia album.

Evocative liner notes are provided by Justin Hopper, author of Old Weird Albion and writer of the Ghost Box spoken word album Chanctonbury Rings. By happy coincidence Hopper also grew up in New York State and has his own deep connection to the landscapes there.

The beauty of the sound: clear, transparent, precise, a work of art - and
that includes both the actual recording, and the subsequent production -
something that was already an essential difference in clarinettist,
composer and sound researcher, Rolf Kühn's musical concept
The pieces were recorded on separate sound tracks, in a stereo technique that
lends a visual sense to the music. In fact, there is a cinematic feel as sounds
project on the mind's eye. For this special, sensual production, Kühn has gathered
his Berlin trio around him - his "working band" with Christian Lillinger (drums),
Ronny Graupe (guitar) and Johannes Fink (bass). Their previous studio
recordings have had a sense of freedom about them that has indicated the
direction in which these musicians are heading. Theirs is a concentrated,
compact play that has moved further and further away from the delineation
between notated and improvised music. Duo and group improvisations flow
across the interstices between the sketched-out musical islands. On 'Stereo' Rolf
Kühn goes even one step further; he condenses the compositions, providing
accurate and concise sound ideas. The sound of 'Stereo' is reminiscent of the
Blue Note aesthetics of the 1960s, when the stereo sound was something
outrageously new and greatly enhanced the tonal possibilities of the recordings.

The mysterious trio Pandilla LTD provide the first release on Ozy, a new sub-label run by Miguel Melo from Lisbon’s Carpet & Snares family. Never ones to tread the easiest path, Pandilla show off their full range of moods and tempos on this 4-tracker, opening with the jazzy and glitchy breaks of vignette ‘Beat Untitled’. This leads into ‘aWARe’, a downtempo epic of cinematic ambience and released tension that contrasts with the more dancefloor-ready cuts on the B. With its patient dubby tick-tock, ‘Mind Trick’ feels like a long-lost Basic Channel side-project, while the more extrovert ‘Trying To Go’ closes things in style with a shimmy and a shake.

Chilean producer Massiande returns with another record on Phonica's family of labels, with his new 'Through The Walls' EP landing on the deep house focused Karakul imprint this time round.

Since his well received 'Freedom EP' on Phonica White, Massiande has had a string of strong releases on Freerange, No Fuss and Midnight Riot, adding to an already formidable back-catalogue including 12's for Housewax and M>O>S.
'Through The Walls' may be his most accomplished project to date, with the level of production at a particular high, ranging from the crisp, punchy title track to the submerged Dub Techno of 'Dub At The Beach' and on to the melodic beauty of 'I Remember When I First Met You'.
He rounds the 12" off with 'New Life', another new classic sounding like a rediscovered anthem from yesteryear...

We can see this 12" lingering in record bags for quite some time!

Tape

Foam and Sand is the ambient soundscape and visual project of award-winning composer and conceptual artist, Robot Koch. Inspired by the composer’s daily habit of meditation, ideas for the project started to take shape during the lockdown of 2020, growing organically under the radar until Foam and Sand was officially announced in 2021. Using tape recordings of slowed-down pianos, modular synths, and other sonic sources, »Full Circle« is a collection of 16 warm and organic ambient tracks. The signature sound is created with loops that magnify the irregularities and imperfections of cassette recordings and that are then shaped by the artist into hazy meditative journeys. Through the process, the grainy subtleties of sound give way to vast and lush atmospheric soundscapes, making audible the complex interplay of micro and macro and highlighting the interconnectedness of these two spheres in life.

“I started meditating 7 years ago. It’s interesting that meditation and medicine have the same root syllable. Meditating before working on my music resets my brain and helps me access ideas that are layers deeper than my conscious mind. Foam and Sand started as a self-soothing project which I now share with the intention of providing healing and inspiration to others.” - Robot Koch

BIOHAZARD formed in Brooklyn in 1988 and soon after released their first demo. The band consisted of founding members Billy Graziadei (vocals, guitar), Bobby Hambel (lead guitar) and Evan Seinfeld (vocals, bass). After the release of their second demo in 1989, drummer Anthony Meo left the band and drummer Danny Schuler replaced him. BIOHAZARD released their combined the urban sounds of hard-core, metal and rap with scorching lyrics describing the forces at work in our modern urban lives. With an impressive career spanning over 20 years with 10 albums (on both indie and major labels), the band sold over 5 million records. In 1990, Biohazard signed a recording contract with Maze Records. The band's self-titled debut album was poorly promoted by the label and sold approximately 40,000 copies. The album's subject matter revolved around Brooklyn, gang-wars, drugs, and violence.

In 1992, Biohazard signed with Roadrunner Records and released Urban Discipline, which gave the band national and worldwide attention in both the heavy metal and hardcore communities. The video for the song "Punishment" became the most played video in the history of MTV's Headbanger's Ball, and the album sold over one million copies. The band also began opening for larger acts such as Pantera, Suicidal Tendencies, House of Pain, Fishbone, and The Cro-Mags. In 1993, the hardcore rap group Onyx brought on Billy Graziadei for an alternate "Bionyx" version of their hit single "Slam" with Biohazard as their backup band. This led to a collaboration on the title track of the Judgment Night soundtrack. The soundtrack would go on to sell over two million copies in the United States. Months later, the band left Roadrunner Records and signed with Warner Bros. Records Inc. who released their third studio LP, State of the World Address. The album was produced by Ed Stasium in Los Angeles and contained the single "How It Is" featuring Sen Dog of Cypress Hill, for which a video was also shot. During their 1994 tour, the band made an appearance on the second stage at the Monsters of Rock festival held at Castle Donington. State of the World Address went on to sell over one million copies, and Rolling Stone magazine selected the Biohazard logo as the best logo of the year.

This was the last Biohazard album with Bobby Hambel, who left due to differences with the rest of the band. The band recorded their fourth studio album, Mata Leao, as a three piece in 1996. It was produced with the help of Dave Jerden. For the 1996-97 Mata Leao Tour, former Helmet guitarist Rob Echeverria joined the band. The band also played on the Ozzfest mainstage alongside Ozzy Osbourne, Slayer, Danzig, Fear Factory, and Sepultura. While touring Europe in support of the Mata Leao album, the band recorded their Hamburg, Germany, show for their first live album, No Holds Barred (Live in Europe), which was released in 1997 through their former label, Roadrunner Records. The band signed to Mercury Records and released their fifth studio album, New World Disorder, in 1999, once again with Ed Stasium as a producer.

The relationship with Mercury Records soured quickly as the band felt betrayed and misunderstood by the label. They severed their ties with the label amidst the merger of Mercury Records, Island Records, Def Jam Records, and Polygram into the Universal Music Group. The following year, Biohazard signed two new record deals with SPV/Steamhammer in Europe and Sanctuary Records for the remainder of the world. Despite the new record deals, the band took some personal time in order to work on other projects. Graziadei and Schuler also collaborated in transforming the band's rehearsal Brooklyn studio into a digital recording studio, known as Rat Piss Studios and soon after changed the name to Underground Sound Studios. Re-investing into the band, Graziadei and Schuler honed their engineering and productions skills while recording and producing local acts and new Biohazard demos. The band then undertook the process of writing, recording, and producing their own music. Their studio work led to the band's sixth studio album, Uncivilization, released in September 2001.
The album featured several guest appearances by members of bands such as Agnostic Front, Hatebreed, Pantera, Slipknot, Sepultura, Cypress Hill, Skarhead, and Type O Negative. Shortly after the release of Uncivilization, guitarist Leo Curley left the band and was replaced by former Nucleus member Carmine Vincent, who had previously toured with Biohazard as part of their road crew. The band had to cancel scheduled European festival dates when Carmine Vincent underwent major surgery. The band did manage to find a temporary guitarist, Scott Roberts, formerly of the Cro-Mags and the Spudmonsters, in time to join the Eastpak Resistance Tour with Agnostic Front, Hatebreed, Discipline, Death Threat, Born From Pain and All Boro Kings. Biohazard completed their seventh studio album in seventeen days; Kill Or Be Killed was released in 2003. While touring North America with Kittie, Brand New Sin and Eighteen Visions, Biohazard announced that Roberts would remain as their permanent lead guitarist. The tour was curtailed when it was announced that Seinfeld had fallen ill. With more downtime due to Seinfeld's illness, Graziadei and Schuler collaborated to mix Life of Agony's live comeback album, River Runs Again: Live 2003. Once Seinfeld was healthy again, the band toured Japan and North America, headlining over bands such as Hatebreed, Agnostic Front, Throwdown, and Full Blown Chaos.

By the end of 2003, the band had begun recording its eighth studio album, Means To An End. The completed album was lost in a studio disaster, forcing the band to completely re-record the album, which was finally released in August 2005. In October 2004, Graziadei announced that Means To An End had been the final Biohazard album and that he would continue playing with his new band Suicide City as his main focus. One month later, on the Biohazard website, it was announced that there would in fact be a 2005 Biohazard tour. On December 15, 2005, Seinfeld and Graziadei participated in the Roadrunner United conglomerate event at the Nokia Theater in New York for an all-star event. The show opened with Biohazard's "Punishment," performed by Seinfeld, Graziadei, Sepultura's Andreas Kisser, former Fear Factory member Dino Cazares, and Slipknot's Joey Jordison. Graziadei and Schuler relocated their recording studio to South Amboy, New Jersey and renamed it Underground Sound Studios. The studio was renovated to include a live room with 20-foot (6.1 m) ceilings and 4,000 square feet (370 m2) of studio space. After Schuler's departure from the studio business, Graziadei relocated the studio to Los Angeles and changed the name to Firewater Studios. In January 2008, the classic lineup of Evan Seinfeld, Billy Graziadei, Danny Schuler and Bobby Hambel made the announcement that rehearsals had begun for a 2008 summer tour to commemorate the band's 20th anniversary. They toured Australia and New Zealand in April with Chimaira, Throwdown, Bloodsimple and headliners Korn to celebrate their newly declared reunion. The band also took part in Persistence Tour 2009, and announced at one of their shows that they were working on a new record. Biohazard brought in producer Toby Wright to work on the album and after several months at Graziadei's Firewater Studios in Los Angeles, the band completed their recording sessions. In June 2011, Biohazard announced that Evan Seinfeld had quit the band and Scott Roberts returned to replace Seinfeld for two UK dates but no decision regarding a permanent replacement was made. In January 2012, the band decided that Scott Roberts would remain with the band as a permanent member. The new album, Reborn In Defiance, was released worldwide, with the exception of North America, on January 20, 2012 through the Nuclear Blast label. In support of the album, Biohazard embarked on a short co-headlining tour of Europe with Suicidal Tendencies in the latter half of January 2012. After touring the world in support of Reborn in Defiance, the band entered the studio to work on a new release and after a falling out, Roberts departed the band.

Biohazard remains as it’s core founding members of Graziadei, Shuler and Hambel. Graziadei has since ventured off onto a solo career as BillyBio and teamed up with Cypress Hill frontman Sendog to start Powerflo. Both groups are working on their second releases due out late 2021 and early 2022.

The Nonesuch debut of Hurray for the Riff Raff (aka Alynda Segarra), LIFE ON EARTH, is a departure for the Bronx-born, New Orleans-based singer/songwriter. Its eleven new “nature punk” tracks on the theme of survival are music for a world in flux – songs about thriving, not just surviving, while disaster is happening. Hurray for the Riff Raff tours North America this spring, beginning March 19 in Atlanta and continuing through April 20 in Nashville, with stops in Austin, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York, among others. International tour dates will be announced shortly.

For her eighth full-length album, Segarra (they/she) drew inspiration from The Clash, Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Bad Bunny, and the author of Emergent Strategy, adrienne maree brown. Recorded during the pandemic, Life on Earth was produced by Brad Cook (Waxahatchee, Bon Iver, Kevin Morby).

Life on Earth’s first single, ‘RHODODENDRON’, is about “finding rebellion in plant life. Being called by the natural world and seeing the life that surrounds you in a way you never have. A mind expansion. A psychedelic trip. A spiritual breakthrough. Learning to adapt, and being open to the wisdom of your landscape. Being called to fix things in your own backyard, your own community,” says Segarra.

Of the ‘Rhododendron’ video, which was directed by New Orleans-based artist Lucia Honey, Segarra says: “It is really far out and fun. I got this bodysuit that just looks like the inside of the human body. It looks like you’re skinless. It’s in a scene where I’m playing to an audience of plants. Just really absurd, but I put that suit on and I was like man, this feels really good. It feels like, ‘This is who I am. Let’s just take the skin off.’

“It reminds me a little bit of Kids in the Hall,” they continue. “With this ‘Rhododendron’ shoot, something clicked in me where I was like, ‘All I have to do is be myself.’ I had been thinking that I had to be something bigger than myself. I felt like I was just never quite making the mark and then something clicked where I was like, ‘I just gotta be me. I could do that. I could show up and be me. And if people don’t like it, then I don’t know what to fucking tell them.’ It was like a brain shift of, ‘Oh, this can be fun. It doesn’t have to be suffering.’ With so many videos and photo shoots before, it really felt like suffering. I felt so uncomfortable being perceived. I didn’t know who I was.”

Honey adds: “We wanted to create something surreal, playful, and saturated that indulged heavily in the aesthetic of the early ‘90s. Alynda and I had many overlapping visual and philosophical references which sparked the initial collaboration. We wanted to make this video an homage to Gregg Araki’s Teenage Apocalypse trilogy but as a nature documentary crossover. I came across Araki’s work as a queer teenager, and he’s always been a big inspiration. Sex, blood, punk rock, camp, etc.

“We live in a moment where the future is bleaker and more unknown than ever, so there becomes a deep comfort in nostalgia and reliving the past. Through our talks, I realised Alynda’s new album touches on many of these same subjects, but perhaps in reverse; running from a past that is always haunting you. Shifting into a more refined self/identity through confronting one’s trauma and baggage. It was easy to reach collaborative synergy for this video project because we’re both interested in tackling similar issues.”

Alynda Segarra was born and raised in the Bronx, which they left at the age of seventeen, running away from everything and everyone they knew, hopping freight trains or hitchhiking across the country in the company of a band of street urchins. Segarra moved to New Orleans in 2007 and formed two bands: Dead Man’s Street Orchestra and Hurray for the Riff Raff. In 2015, Segarra decamped to Nashville, then to New York, to make her most recent album, 2016’s critically praised The Navigator, an ambitious and fully realized concept album that was her quest to reclaim her Puerto Rican identity. Segarra’s previous records as Hurray for the Riff Raff are Crossing the Rubicon (EP, 2007), It Don’t Mean I Don’t Love You (2008), Young Blood Blues (2010), Hurray for the Riff Raff (2011), Look Out Mama (2012), My Dearest Darkest Neighbor (2013), and Small Town Heroes (2014).

"The core of confusion and upheaval that drove some of the band's most fiery earlier work, however, is replaced by a more stabilized undercurrent, a mentality that's reflected in songs not afraid to try new things and honestly explore uncomfortable feelings. When combined with exciting production and songwriting choices, that mindset helps make Feels So Good // Feels So Bad one of the Shivas' best albums.” - AllMusic "Portland, Oregon-hailing psych-surf band The Shivas accomplish another time-traveling, reverb-ridden sound that refuses to get boring. Jared Molyneux’s guitar work knows when to be bright or bashful at the right times, breaking into guitar solos that possess a late-’60s groove… The Shivas seem to blissfully flourish” - Paste "a consistent treat for the ears” - The Vinyl District "Though the psych-tinged guitar riff that drives 'Feels So Bad' was written while The Shivas were still on the road, its lyrics didn’t fall into place until the band was well into lockdown, unsure of when they’d be able to return to their most imperative true love: Live shows... Accordingly, 'Feels So Bad' permeates with a sense of urgent desperation, building off a chugging prog-rock instrumental.” - Consequence (on “Feels So Bad”) "They hooked the audience with their throwback rock sounds. The guitar strums and rhythmic drum beats were layered atop smooth and hallucinogenic vocals. The eyes can tell the take at times and there was a sparkle there that said that the band members just love doing live performances." - California Rocker "This single layers on the fuzz but keeps it dreamy, with an especially sticky guitar riff sure to lodge itself in your brain with minimal effort." - Portland Monthly (on “If I Could Choose”) “'My Baby Don’t' translates the genuine vibrant joy


of the live experience into the studio, bringing the band’s ‘60s garage rock roots, sharp pop vocal harmonies, and fervent performances along for the ride." - Under The Radar "Perfectly straddling the line between a solid-head bopping track and an introspective deep cut, The Shivas’ 'Undone' is a rock & roll gem. The track sounds straight out of the late 60s and fits seamlessly in the Portland band’s electrifying catalog." - The Luna Collective "The first time I clicked play on this track, I knew it was a yes for me." - Ear To The Ground Music (on “If I Could Choose”) "The harmonies would make the “Happy Together” Turtles blush, but the unsettling guitar doesn’t shy away from the woollier implications of the ’60s." - Willamette Week (on “If I Could Choose”) "'Undone' is just the perfect song for the good days and the bad ones." - GlamGlare "another hit" - Austin Town Hall (on “Undone”) "one of the best forthcoming albums of the year" - Austin Town Hall RADIO: #3 Most Added @ NACC - 50 official adds BIO Every working musician has had their life turned upside down by Covid-19. For The Shivas, who had recently released a new LP and normally keep a rigorous touring schedule, it was a particularly screeching halt. “We were about to go to SXSW, the following weekend was Treefort in Boise, and then we were going to open for our friends’ band on tour in the US before going to Europe,” Jared Molyneux remembers. Then everything just stopped. They were faced with a dilemma. “It forced us to adapt or just quit,” Molyneux says. “The reality is that shows are our job.” In truth, live shows aren’t just The Shivas job: they are the band’s greatest love. Shivas shows are bombastic, explosive and thoroughly communal live rock and roll experiences where barriers between the performers and their audience seem to dissolve into the sweat and sound. The stage—or the basement, or the living room—that’s The Shivas’ true element. It’s their raison d’etre. It’s their religion. The band’s live urgency may have been born in 2006, when the band’s young members—who began booking West Coast tours while still in high school—waited without fanfare on sidewalks or in parking lots, before being rushed onstage for their sets at 21-and-up clubs. Maybe it developed a little later, as The Shivas blasted their way through Portland’s storied and unsanctioned mid-aughts house show scene. Whatever the origin of their famously kinetic live experience, it’s the show that keeps them coming back after over 1,000 performances spread over 25 countries in 15 years. In those 15 years, The Shivas have grown tight-knit as a group. Guitarist/singer Jared Molyneux, bassist Eric Shanafelt and drummer/singer Kristin Leonard have all been with the band since its earliest days; guitarist Jeff City, another high school friend, joined in 2017. Together they’ve learned to thread a seemingly impossible needle: They’ve honed and tightened their performances without sacrificing the element of surprise that makes each show special. And despite touring and recording for most of their lives, they speak about their project with humility, in the DIY vernacular of their Pacific Northwest upbringing. They talk up their own favorite bands, play all-ages shows as much as possible, and bring a sort of blue-collar humanism to the live performances they relish so much. “We just want to make people feel good,” Molyneux says. “We want them to forget they have to work tomorrow.” Kristin Leonard elaborates, “The live show is all about that feeling of catharsis—in ourselves and in everyone who comes out. We’re creating this safe space where we can all let go. Where we can exhale. And it feels really good when we are able to facilitate that.” So when Covid hit, the band knew it was time for transformation. After a settling realization that live music would be grounded for the foreseeable future, The Shivas booked significant studio time with Cameron Spies, who also produced the 2019 Dark Thoughts LP. They also transformed their lives: three of the band’s four members found work with a local nonprofit serving unhoused Portland residents. They became engaged in protests and fundraisers for social justice. They spent a whole summer actually living in Portland, settling into the city they had always called home, but that sometimes felt like a temporary stop between tours. “We got into a more community-minded headspace,” Leonard says. “And that did give us some purpose. It felt cool to see everybody come together to stick up for what they believe in. It feels like an incredibly formative last twelve months.” The album that emerged from this new moment finds The Shivas reborn as a band that seems seasoned and perfectly at home with itself. There is a calm, even a hopefulness, to Feels So Good // Feels So Bad that sounds new. The Shivas didn’t write or record the album with a particular theme in mind, but one seems to have emerged: where Dark Thoughts was about confronting your demons with fearless self-examination, much of Feels So Good // Feels So Bad is about what happens once you find that peace: how being honest with yourself changes your relationships and your priorities. “I do think it’s about acceptance,” Leonard says. “There’s a weird relaxation that comes with being at peace with things you can’t control or have regrets about.” Maybe that’s why the squealing, riff-laden break-up song opener, “Feels So Bad,” is such a shock to the system. But it’s more of an exorcism than a melodrama: more a song about not being able to do the thing you love (in


this case, playing live shows) than splitting with a partner. “It’s like part of you goes to sleep,” Leonard says. As bandmates who are also in a long-term relationship, Molyneux and Leonard know that their songs might be seen as glimpses into their personal lives, but their songwriting is rarely autobiography. Leonard compares their process to something more akin to screenwriting. “There’s bound to be some autobiographical material in there,” she says. “But the common denominator is the exploration of universal feelings: ones that everyone experiences or can relate to.” The goal is to use the music to drill down into something genuine and sincere, beyond genre or stylistic affectation. That’s where The Shivas have arrived. Whatever growth led the band to Feels So Good // Feels So Bad, plenty of their fascinations remain. They’re still turning love songs into psychedelic, transcendent epics. “Tell Me That You Love Me” subverts doo-wop extravagance and dabbles in Flamenco rhythms. “Rock Me Baby” is a bubblegum anthem soaked in so much reverb that we might just be hearing it from the stadium nosebleeds. “Sometimes” is almost impossibly huge, like a witchy outtake from the Brill Building era. Those songs feel like logical expansions from a band that has always excelled at a timeless sort of rock and roll that tinkers with and explodes elements from every era. But on the towering and mournful “You Wanna Be My Man,” a slow-burning six-minute shoegaze prayer for a higher sort of love, there is a level of emotional nuance that feels like something altogether revolutionary. It’s there again in the stripped-down vulnerability of the album-closing elegy “Please Don’t Go.” Yes, Feels So Good // Feels So Bad is an album about acceptance. Sometimes that acceptance feels enlightened and sometimes it feels like the end result of a lot of kicking and screaming. The Shivas have adapted in both of those ways. With new tours scheduled and a new album on the way, they’re still hoping--like all of us--for a new era of vibrant, cathartic live music. The lessons they learned from having their normal upended, though, have only helped them grow

Tape

The occult and folk music have been friends for a while. In the 21st century, hauntology and the resurface of some cult soundtracks from the 1970s and 1980s helped to create a new sense of folk, not associated with the typical acoustic feeling, but more relatable with library, krautrock/kosmische and industrial music. João Kyron and Tony Watts, long time collaborators since the late 1990s with their band Hipnótica, and more recently with Beautify Junkyards (Ghost Box) are well acquainted with this friendship. Hidden Horse is their new project as a duo and “Opala” their first release.

With eight tracks and almost thirty minutes, their first release explores dense and greyish urban utopias. The song titles explore ideas that mix sci-fi, horror, science, space and urban phobia, and the music Kyron and Watts create delivers, using electronics and drums with great relish. Their relationship as musicians, which spans more than two decades, can be felt in the way their music flows with a continuous dialogue.

“Opala” is always keen to take you to another dimension. It lives in its own twilight zone, where the obscure entangles the most obvious senses of reality. It sounds like Jacques Tati “Playtime” with a hauntology soundtrack: it kind of feels that this imaginary world is real, but it’s not. And it sucks you in to be a part of it and enjoy it: close your eyes and let yourself go while listening to “Levitação Magnética” or “Fantasmas do Planeta”. You will feel like a foreigner in a new city.

How can one explain the lasting popularity of the bass clarinet in musical circles from Vienna to Brussels? Perhaps because its frequency range articulates an alternative to conventions of popular music, where "bass" is reserved primarily for rhythmic impulses and the very foundation of the music. Viennese bass clarinetist Susanna Gartmayer's playing can by no means be reduced to just this, rather, it scutinizes the entire sound universe: she can do rhythm and drone, not to mention melody and noise, often all at once. Who would be a more fitting collaborator than Stefan Schneider, with his minimalist rhythms and subtle cosmic exploration?

Together, Schneider and Gartmayer form the project So Sner, which owes its existence to a concert in 2015 at the Approximation Festival in Düsseldorf. Gartmayer's bass clarinet polyphonies so impressed Schneider that he quickly suggested a collaboration. That same year, they began recording the album "Reime" in Kraftwerk's former Kling Klang studio, which in 2015 became workspace and concert venue simply called Elektro Müller. The second part was recorded in the summer of 2020 in Düsseldorf-Kaiserswerth at Stammhaus church, whose interior wood paneling facilitated organic acoustics.

Susanna Gartmayer has been active as a musician and composer in various realms between experimental rock music, improvisation and multimedia sound performance since the early 2000s, releasing the album "Smaller Sad" with Christof Kurzmann and "Black Burst Sound Generator" with Brigitta Bödenauer in 2020. In addition to his solo project Mapstation, Düsseldorf-based musician and producer Stefan Schneider has been pursuing new avenues of experimental music in the here and now for over 20 years, in numerous collaborations with Sofia Jernberg, Krautrock pioneer Hans-Joachim Roedelius, or visual artist Katharina Grosse among others.

So Sner's sound is equally oriented towards experiment and tradition, whose roots can be traced back to the UK of the early 80s: an era in which soul and synth, jazz and industrial, avant-garde and polyrhythm were blended with the help of intellectualism and punk attitude in such a way that manifold sketches of possible music emerged which are only being colorized today. Like So Sner - from the very first stomp to the very last drop.

Olaf Karnik, Cologne, October 2021

"Même Soleil" is the result of a dialog between the French photographer Gaël Bonnefon and the French musician Frédéric D. Oberland initiated by IIKKI, between December 2019 and June 2021.

Self-taught multi-instrumentalist & photographer, Frédéric D. Oberland finds himself at the crossroads of image and sound, favoring a synesthetic approach. He articulates different modes of narration, combining the raw character of the documentary form with the transfigured reality of myth and poetry, allowing him to question notions such as the sacred, the monstrous, the fraternity, while at the same time returning to the political news of the present. Attentive to the pulse of the body, his work is willingly itinerant, modulating between the ripples of dreams, watching the points of incandescence and the bursts of electricity that act as revelations of our presence in the world, here and now. He’s the co-founder of leading bands such as Oiseaux-Tempête, FOUDRE!, Le Réveil des Tropiques, FareWell Poetry and is co-curating the label NAHAL Recordings.

"Fueled by travels and their emanations, Frédéric D. Oberland’s music had to build new horizons this year, outlined by the curves of semi-modular synthesizers, the avalanches of effect pedals and the zigzagging paths of electric circuits. Même Soleil, his third solo album, manages to merge mystical visions of the unconscious and the absurdity of an apocalyptic present in a sensory whirlwind, operating an astonishing mutation with tones still unexplored in his previous releases. A visual as well as a musical journey that takes shape in a book and a record of the same title, Même Soleil is the result of a collaboration with the photographer Gaël Bonnefon. Seeking the tension between the blinding light of day and the glittering visions of saturated night skies, the two pieces in dialogue transcend reality to deliver their own truth, as bright as the first light of the sought-after morning." (Alice Butterlin)

Gaël Bonnefon graduated with highest honours from the Fine Arts School of Toulouse (Isdat) in 2008. He has exhibited at Villa Pérochon, at the Eté photographique in Lectoure, at the 104 in Paris during Jeune Création 2012, at Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie d’Arles and at PhotoEspaña, at the Abattoirs Museum in Toulouse in 2014, at the Château d’Eau Gallery in 2012 and 2019 and in the Vitrine of Frac Île-de-France in 2020. His work is part of the collections of Frac Midi-Pyrénées, Château d'Eau gallery, Kulturamt in Dusseldorf and Kiyosato Museum in Japan ; he participated in Temps Zero projects Berlin, Braga, Rome, Bucarest, Groningen and Thessaloniki. He has also been granted artist’s residencies in Germany, France and Israel. His first book Elegy for the Mundane was published by La Main Donne in 2019. He continues his intimate and dense journey and presents his second publishing, Même Soleil with photographic works from 2009 to 2021.

"At first brutal and declining, the substance of Gaël Bonnefon's photography is just like a gaze that fears being one day extinguished and that is always looking to be born again. In photography as in love, recoil and desire, tension and easement, repetition, wandering and rest, flight and pursuit. Here photography allows itself to be traversed by flashes of life, renewed forces, echoes of far-off kindnesses and lost joys. It sings silently, lover of a thousand faces from which the thread of a single and same image is born, followed without relent, from the snowy peaks of childhood to the lost worlds of the present." (Michaël Soyez)

Spread across 4-tracks, the producer offers fanciful instrumentation and production while conveying a narrative of preservation for mother nature.
The theme of Mother Land is inspired by one of Nohan’s main interests: nature. In response to ongoing climate change and global environmental degradation, he opted to craft a project that captured the planet's beauty - with a message of sustainability.

The EP is a faithful representation of Nohan the producer - packed with his love for the piano, ipnothic synths, and suspended ambient compositions. The project opens with the title track - kickstarting the subtle, yet palpable production rooted in tangible instrumentation. “The world’s on fire… It’s calling out for you and me” are the opening lines from the vocalist, reminding listeners that earth’s fate revolves around us.

“Heavenly Sing” presents a more upstart offering, with loose shakers and scintillating keys leading. This more tropical take provides optimism in sound, serving as prose for uplifting introspection in headphones as well as the ADID dancefloor. “The Sun in December” reflects its title - somber piano leads the way through a serene, melancholy soundscape. The EP also includes an ambient take on “Mother Land,” which strips its electronic backing in the intro to draw focus to the words and theme of the project.

Noahn makes a perfect fit with this emblematic imprint.

From his cult project “Chaser” in the 90’s with Lars Sandberg aka Funk D’void or releasing massive hit records under his own name and other aliases, globetrotting the world during years in consequence and securing residencies at places like Sub Club, The Arches, The Tunnel or Space Ibiza back in the days, Nigel Hayes has truly done it all and did it good but he seems to continue to do so, “Tribal Warfare” EP is just the proof of that.
We are really happy to welcome this essential UK producer to the label roster and we hope you enjoy this record as much as we did.

Stroboscopic Artefacts is proud to present the debut album of Malaysian born Bangkok based artist Wanton Witch.

Born in an isolated community of Borneo Island in 1993 Wanton Witch is a DJ and producer with a hyper-sensitive connection and approach to sound through performance. Coming of age in the relative isolation of island life, it wasn’t until relocating to Bangkok that she was able to access the different communities of musical genres that she would later travel between. With an early taste for trap and hip hop, she began working in the deconstructed club and techno scene where she found her musical voice, beginning her DJ career in 2018. Wanton is also a cofounder and original member of Queer underground creative collective ‘Non Non Non’ that has become a Bangkok nightlife staple.

Being an “outsider” musician and producer with no formal training, it was the fortuitous crossing of paths online that has sparked the creative collaboration between Wanton and label owner and creative director Lucy. Last year Stroboscopic Artefacts celebrated ten years established between experimental and dance floor spectres and this is the first record the label is releasing after one year break, marking the launch of a new chapter for the imprint. It is with releases like the eponymous debut album from Wanton Witch and the support given to emerging artists like her that the imprint continues to forge pathways within the industry.

Featuring 11 tracks, these recordings are the first body of work from the Bangkok producer, and include many different snapshots of electronic music genres from IDM and experimental to hardcore and rave, using caustic electronics to deconstruct traditional track conventions. This collection of cuts read more as a complete soundscape, like listening to a live set. The phrenetic jump from genre to genre, the mixing of diverse sound textures and landscapes reflect Wanton Witch’s own experience navigating a hostile world as a Queer trans woman in Malaysia. The intense energy with which each track is cut together reminds the listener of the nostalgia of mixtapes and a time in life when identity is being constructed.

Wanton Witch has created an album which feels like a reflection of the aggregation that already exists within musical internet sub-cultures and communities. A place where many diverse and contrasting sound palettes, textures, and structures can fit together to create a new different, Queer way of seeing the world.

Following up on Wanton’s LP, label head Lucy will also present an actual full length album named ‘Lucy Plays Wanton Witch’ featuring re-interpretations of the original material in a whole new body of work. This upcoming follow up release will not represent a mere remix edition, but a recreation from scratch and the rebirth of “one into another” so to say. Expect the quintessential Lucy treatment.

Composer, producer, multi-instrumentalist and co-founder of Black
Rebel Motorcycle Club, Robert Levon Been, announces his forthcoming
album, ‘Original Songs From The Card Counter’.

Levon Been composed several original songs as well as a majority of the
score for writer and director Paul Schrader’s new film, ‘The Card
Counter’, starring Oscar Isaac, Tiffany Haddish, Tye Sheridan, Willem
Dafoe and executive produced by Martin Scorsese.

“Ironically this entire project began by working the last scene of the film
first,” says Levon Been. “Paul had reached out asking if I would write an
original song for a very intimate final scene he had been struggling with.
As tempting as the concept was, I must admit that kind of composing is
also my biggest fear - to write directly to picture with such precision that
it takes over the narrative in a substantial way, which I knew Paul never
shies away from. It also turned me into a nervous wreck because I know
just how easy it is to quickly ruin a movie with merely a single lyric at the
wrong time. Thankfully for ‘Mercy Of Man’, I had S.G. Goodman there in
NY singing with me to help experiment with how to create a fairly
unconventional duet of sorts that is intended to evoke the emotions of
the two characters in that final scene.”

‘The Card Counter’ marks the fifth collaboration between Schrader and
Scorsese, who previously worked together on ‘Taxi Driver’, ‘Raging Bull’,
‘The Last Temptation of Christ’ and ‘Bringing Out the Dead’.

Robert Levon Been is a producer, composer, singer songwriter and
founding member of the band, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, with whom
he has released eight albums and toured the world with since 2001. With
a dedicated following across Europe, the US, Australia and Asia, their
record ‘Howl’ has ranked many top album lists.

In 2013, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club were featured in Dave Grohl’s
Grammy-winning documentary, ‘Sound City’. 2021 marks the 20th
anniversary of the release of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s self-titled
first album.

Robert is currently producing and writing for multiple projects, dividing
his time between Los Angeles and Vienna.

Gatefold LP, with initial copies featuring spot gloss on sleeve. (Once this
format has sold out, a standard gatefold sleeve edition - EPZTC001LPR
- will be made available.)

Master are an old school death metal band from
Chicago. Originally formed in 1983 as Death Strike
after the demise of the band War Cry, they were
heavily influenced by the rough brutal assaults of
Venom, Slayer and Motorhead.
 In 1985 vocalist / bassist and bandleader Paul
Speckmann renamed the band Master and obtained
a record deal with Combat Records. An album was
recorded but then shelved by the label (later to be
released as the ‘Unreleased 1985 Album’). The
band were then signed by German metal
powerhouse Nuclear Blast and the debut album
‘Master’ was finally released in 1990.
 Two more albums appeared on the label but Master
went on hiatus while Speckmann focused on several
other projects like Abomination and Krabathor (and
relocated to the Czech Republic). Since then Master
have been releasing new albums with various
different labels and embarking on several European
tours.
 This live release is a recording of the 2014 show
Master performed in Athens, released by Doc
Records on CD and double vinyl - a full show of
Paul and his crew with all the highlights from his
career.
 For fans of Obituary, Autopsy, Possessed, Vader,
Benediction, Massacre, Death, Bolt Thrower.

In an age of never-ending genre caveats, there’s something refreshing in a band simply referring to themselves as a rock band, plain and simple. Lonely Pirate Committee define themselves in such a way, and while their music encompasses a number of different strands and influences, they like the openness of that descriptor, the space it leaves for exploration and experimentation.

Moving through various iterations over the years, Lonely Pirate Committee remains in 2021 as the musical project of childhood friends Pearce Gronek and Fletcher Barton. Together, the pair has guided the band’s studio work, before bringing varying members to flesh out LPC’s high-volume and high-intensity live performances that juxtapose the more mellow and laid-back sound that mostly defines their recordings to date, save for the band’s occasional moments of skewed eccentricity.

Formed in Cleveland, the pair work both together and apart, splitting the band’s songwriting down the middle, working on their ideas at home before bringing them together under one defined vision. In early 2020 LPC released their second album, Everyday Ordinary, and it showcased a more refined version of the band than what had come before, the pair’s songwriting drifting into creative and hazy new textures across the album’s ten songs.

In early 2022, Lonely Pirate Committee release their first new work since those album sessions in the form of a brand new 7” single for Saddle Creek’s Document series. Formed of two new tracks, both recorded in late 2020, the release is led by “He Was in the Father”, a song which should be seen as a caricature of Middle-American suburbia; a white picket fence daydream through a shadowy lens. The track began simply as a sonic experiment but soon evolved into the full song we hear today – albeit one shaped by AI. “The track is partially written using AI music generation technology, in direct collaboration with the human composer,” the band explain.