quête:truth is light

Toy Tonics going New Wave Disco with Baby’s Berserk’s self-titled debut album (to be released on 29 September).

There are many shades of funk in dance music. Berlin’s Toy Tonics label brings up artists that reflect many of these different aspects in dance music. Now the label comes up with a band! A band that is inspired by 1980ies New Wave as well as the Y2K Indie dance scene. Two guys and 2 girls from Amsterdam and Montreal called Baby’s Berserk.

Baby’s Berserk is about taking the freedom to be who you want to be, about being comfortable. Having played in all-girl punk bands since the age of 14, the bands singer Lieselot is an expert on female empowerment. “Dress like a girl and act like a boy,” is a catchphrase she lives up to every day and it clearly is a message that resonates with the band’s wild fans.

In the great tradition of Roxy Music, Throbbing Gristle and Malcolm McLaren, Baby’s Berserk is not just about the edgy music, but also about a very strong own visual style. They readily blend their sounds with underground fashion. What you see is what you get and seeing Baby’s Berserk is feeling right at home. Lieselot is a visionary when it comes to stage presence. Have you always wanted to see an electronic band with a punk attitude perform wearing a mix of haute couture and Flintstone-style rags? Look no further, it’s Baby’s Berserk.

Following on the critically acclaimed singles ‘What I Mean’ (2020) and ‘Toxic Kisses’ (2022), Baby Berserk’s highly anticipated self-titled full-length is now finally about to see the light on Berlin’s Toy Tonics records. Sonically designed for gritty rock venues as well as up-to-date edgy dance clubs, Mano’s lush compositions smoothly intertwine with the highly associative lyrics written by Puggy and Lieselot. Poets and literary addicts may think they’ve just discovered the rock & roll equivalents of Sylvia Plath, Kurt Vonnegut and Allen Ginsberg. To tell you the truth: their wild guess is pretty accurate as the works by these greats lie scattered around the Baby’s Berserk studio for inspiration.
The band was born in a laboratory back in 2019. Tired of being in bands with unruly and unpredictable humans, Mano Hollestelle set out to create a group of high precision robots to create the post-punk sound he had in mind. His outdated technology of floppy disks and cassette tapes worked well to program the androids, until one day a 90s rave mixtape was mistakenly entered into his computer. House music is a feeling and the punk bots instantly got hooked on it upon hearing it for the first time. They could never be reset to factory settings again. Mano worked tirelessly with his androids, currently known by their humanoid names of Lieselot Elzinga, Puggy Beales and Eva Wijnbergen, to fulfil his evil plan to make the rockers dance and the dancers rock. Baby’s Berserk is the fiendish extension of this plot. Beware, the band’s bass driven grooves and computerized beats have been known to cast a spell upon all within earshot.

So what do the songs on ‘Baby’s Berserk’ tell you? That it’s totally fine to have lots of fun in life! To have a boyfriend as an accessory (‘Accessories’), to get inspired by Sponge Bob (‘Dancing with the Fish’) and to blend your spirits with mixers whenever the hell you feel like it (‘Rum ‘n’ Kola’).

Baby’s Berserk member Puggy Beales on ‘Limousine’: “Decant the wine from my tip jar to yours. Soon we'll be on easy street, chauffeured home from the rat race each evening. Is it everything you'd hoped it would be?”

Check not only the debut album but also the forthcoming Remix EP with remixes by Each Other, Niklas Wandt, Sam Ruffillo, Kris Baha and Nicolini.

Morning Glory

Every twenty four hours is a chance to begin again and it is a renewed commitment to be involved in the cycle of nature - to play by rules set forth by something greater than ourselves that constantly resonates in the ears of those who are at peace. At the edge of each one of these beginnings, there is a brief moment that belongs to only "it". A special portion of time that directly connects to the circular motion of Space and Time. It is truth before reality. Realness before rationality. Self before consciousness.

We can feel it when we first see light and the recognize an indication that the new day has begun. It is honoring what makes all this possible.


Axis Expressionist Series.

A collection of vinyl and limited digital releases, curated by Millsart, an alias of Jeff Mills, of his most eclectic and transcendent compositions that derive from his Every Dog Has Its Day project as well as new unreleased works.

Vernacular creations that fall off from the "other side" of the Electronic Music tree, this project is designed for the experienced Techno music listener, and its goal is to reflect upon the pure artistry of the craft of storytelling. A realization between music and life.

Whereas "dancing" is the goal of Dance Music, the goal of this music is about "reflecting on the complexity and simplification of life". Soundtracks for people in their evolutionary process.

Its been five years since Belgium's WeMe Records lovingly selected the first ever collection of Heinrich Mueller's (Drexciya/Doppleffekt) best remixes/remodels for a new generation of listeners that won't have to pay collector prices to have them on vinyl. Volume 2 of False Vacuum is now with us and still has riches to choose from.

These 13 rare and hard to find tracks (3 of which make their vinyl debut) all deliver in different ways as he systematically reinvents each one.

Beginning with his raw and now classic remix of Ultradyne's 'Clones', the hard-edged dance-floor friendly 'Woman's Scent' by Cisco Ferreira (The Advent), the more laidback and futuristic sounding 'Bohrium 274' by Jauzas the Shining and Victoria Lukas, the slow and mysterious and first time on vinyl 'Somehow' by Rough Days For Diamond Trade, reinventing the darkest of dance-floors on 'Rytumtraks 0002' by Albert van Abbe, the moody masterpiece and first time on vinyl 'Now We Continue' by White Car, Duplex's 'Autoslug' sounding like its been rearranged inside a black-hole, a balancing act between the light and darkness on Fasenuova 'Cachito Turulo', an insistent rise and falling workout for As One's 'Where Did He Go and Why', a tightly wound and almost meditative 'The Truth' by The Exaltics, an angular stomping march of the robots 'Longwang' by 6D22, a jumpy fidgety groove for first time on vinyl 'Forty Eight Hours' by Yan Wagner and perhaps one of his most sublime pieces is kept for last with 'So Long For A Small Storm' by Dollska.

Repressed and note new dealer price. The members of Explosions in the Sky may just be four soft-spoken guys from Texas, but on Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever they simply tear everything apart. Combining influences from classic rock to metal to goth, the band creates instrumental soundscapes that can turn from all-out destruction to heartfelt, dreamy melodies in the blink of an eye. The result is similar to Mogwai and Godspeed a musical journey that leads listeners through the entire range of emotion without even needing words. "Greet Death" matches a crunchy Dinosaur Jr hook with warm Cure-esque bass grooves. "Moon Down" chimes and twists through ten minutes of calm night, leaving the listener with the feeling that something awesome is sure to happen. On "Have You Passed Through This Night?" one of the members of Explosions in the Sky ponders in a near-whispering Texas drawl the meaning of the world. What follows is like the climax of a tense, mind-blowing movie, driven by relentless guitars and a thundering Master of puppets Metallica drum march. "Poor Man's Memory" follows, offering some consolation in a sentimental melody. The album ends with the grand, 12-minute-long "With Tired Eyes, Tired Minds, Tired Souls, We Slept," a song that moves from Sonic Youth to Joy Division to Explosions in the Sky. Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever is nothing short of awe-inspiring and was one of the best records of 2001. A1 Greet Death A2 Yasmin The Light A3 The Moon Is Down B1 Have You Passed Through This Night? B2 A Poor Man's Memory B3 With Tired Eyes, Tired Minds, Tired Souls, We Slept

Picking up where Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever left off, The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place begins as a flickering twinkle that soon grows to a blinding light. This new sense of hope is the defining characteristic of this record, and ultimately the journey that their music takes us on.

Sababa 5, Tel Aviv’s funkiest export, upgrade their signature Middle Eastern psychedelic funk with the addition of Hoodna Orchestra’s dynamic brass section, another essential 45 from Batov Records’ Middle Eastern Groove series.

Labeled by the likes of Truth & Lies as a “serious contender in the world of instrumental funk”, Sababa 5 have created a modern sound, fusing funk, disco, and psychedelic rock with a wide range of Middle Eastern influences, culminating in last year’s acclaimed self-titled debut album, Named after their new studio address on the border of Jaffa and Tel Aviv, “Eilat 22” & “Elifelet 23” spring from the same sessions that delivered us the enormous ‘Funk #1 / Funk #2’ 45, as championed by the Nostalgia King, Skeme Richards, BBC Radio 6 Music host, Huey Morgan, and influential music portal, Music Is My Sanctuary.

Sababa 5’s tight-as-ever instrumental grooves are enriched by the bright bass sounds of The Hoodna Orchestra brass section, comprising Bar Ashkenazi on trumpet, Eylon Tushiner on tenor, and Elad Gelert on baritone saxophone. Hoodna are renown for their energetic take on Afrobeat, and have been touring and recording recently with Ethio jazz legend Mulatu Astatke, and here they supply a touch of JB’s meets Africa ‘70 energy.


On the flip “Eiffelet 23” grooves along like a Dap Kings funk nugget, except in this case there’s room for Eitan to improvise across the jam with a microtonal organ sound reminiscent of legendary Egyptian musician Magdi el- Husseini.
Due for full release on vinyl and digital on 2 June, “Eilat 22” & “Elifelet 23” open another page in Sababa 5’s rapidly diverse and ever-engaging discography, with two songs destined to head light up dancefloors over the coming months.

Zwei Generationen von Rock-Ikonen vereinen ihre Kräfte auf Face To Face, der spannenden kreativen Zusammenarbeit zwischen KT Tunstall und Suzi Quatro. Ein Album mit Original-Duetten, die von KT und Suzi geschrieben wurden. Das Duo behandelt Themen wie Liebe und Verlust, Angst und Triumph - alles wesentliche Aspekte ihrer Erfahrungen als bahnbrechende Frauen im Rock. Titel wie ”Shine a Light” und ”Truth Is My Weapon” zeigen den dynamischen Fluss, den Suzi und KT bei den gemeinsamen Aufnahmen in England entwickelt haben.

MIZMOR, is a one-man heavy music exploration that began in 2012 as a
way of dealing with the mental and spiritual anguish mastermind A L N
feels as a person
More specifically, the content behind the project is that of the existential - primal
and innate musings about cause, purpose, self, and god. It is the search for light
and truth, or the fact that there is none. It comes from an embittered, burned,
confused, and broken heart. It is the fight for survival when reason and
foundation has turned to nothingness. It is the crashing down of towers of
falsehood and the freedom that comes through a certain kind of grief. Ultimately,
MIZMOR is the manifestation of my long-felt depression, and neither have an end
in sight.
In A.L.N.'s own words behind the new MIZMOR album "Prosaic":
"The idea behind "Prosaic" was to make an intentionally less conceptual, more
slice- of- life record. I wanted to make an album that was less precious and
obsessed-over, more honest and real; less grandiose and more human. I found it
an interesting challenge to find the line between 'you can do better' and 'you're
beating a dead horse.' I tried to make my process more efficient and even fun at
times. I simply wanted to share, but if that meant exacting all-out perfectionism, I
wasn't going to make a record. Right now I'm interested in making less selfindulgent music. The themes are the absurdity/futility/purpose/meaning of work,
mindfulness/ consciousness/ living in the present moment/ shedding illusions,
depression/ acceptance/ contentment. This is the first MIZMOR album without
any content relating to god/atheism. You also won't hear any shrieks."

In the quiet surrounding the pandemic, Madeline Kenney made sonic sketches in the basement studio she shared with her then-partner. She arranged phrases that called her—the sharp knife of a synth cutting a path along a blooming arpeggio, drums stuttering firm and tight. Working this way, she amassed a collection of songs she had no particular aims for. Some formed her 2021 EP Summer Quarter, others languished.

But in 2022, Kenney’s partner left suddenly and without warning, plunging her into the solitary act of untangling what happened. In the wake of her ensuing depression, she revisited these songs and found in them something prescient. She’d already laid the foundation for A New Reality Mind.

That her relationship’s end came without warning is only half true, though. The warnings were in the feelings and fears that inspired Kenney’s critically-acclaimed third album, Sucker’s Lunch (2020), which was co-produced by Jenn Wasner (Flock of Dimes) and centered around the idea of flinging oneself freely into the seemingly-assured destruction of new love, come what may.

If sonically Sucker’s Lunch was letting yourself be pulled into the warm bath of a good story, A New Reality Mind reflects the harsh light of truth coming to break the spell. But as sobering as morning light can be, there’s brilliance to it, too. To see in the clarity of day is a gift. A revolution. Rather than reckoning with love lost, the songs on A New Reality Mind grapple with the self that chose to fall. “I guess I only needed to look twice / Reflected in my attitude, my constant compromise,” Kenney sings on “Red Emotion,” the musical landscape screeching and gasping around her observations of how she made herself small to keep the dream of love alive.

These notions of sight and vision pervade the record as Kenney stands before the infinity mirror of selves she’s been to preserve bonds in her life. On “I Drew a Line,” Kenney contends with the stories she’s told herself to keep plodding along, and the way those stories shape her perceived reality. She invokes John Berger’s Ways of Seeing—“Everything around the image is part of its meaning,” we hear him say. “Everything around it confirms and consolidates its meaning.” Here, Kenney isn’t interested in shaming herself for being carried away by the fantasies of the heart, but rather in investigating the unavoidably human propensity to do so. “I, like everyone else, am muddling through my most ordinary disaster of a life,” she acknowledges, a sentiment which reverberates through album opener “Plain Boring Disaster.” “I don’t need to start again,” she sings at the song’s close. “But I can change when it ends.” We may all be doomed to repetitive, ordinary heartbreaks, Kenney realizes, but at least we can cultivate a capacity to witness our missteps and build new realities for ourselves.

This is Kenney’s most expansive work, while also her most solitary. Produced and recorded alone in her basement, these songs are manifestations of what it feels like to be transformed by pain. Textures collide and collude; sonic ornaments emerge and dissipate capriciously; saxophones soar untamed, as on the 80s pop elegy to self-sacrifice, “Reality Mind”. These songs beg you to dance, then pull the rug out from under you once you’ve caught the beat, leaving you dizzy like the whiplash of love’s end.

But in the propulsive power of A New Reality Mind, there’s also acceptance, self-forgiveness, and a willingness to move forward into life, with all its ways of making a sucker of you. “That way of living, I’m over it,” Kenney declares of the habits that hold her back on “Superficial Conversation”. “I do not need to be reminded of what I did,” she assures, the song opening wide and beaming, like a smile expanding to taste a new breath of air.

Richard Pryor contained multitudes, each fully inhabited character funnier and more
insightful than the last, so it’s no wonder when he took the stage at The Comedy Store in
Hollywood in 1973, it’d be a full 15 minutes before he spoke to the adoring audience as
himself. No, he needed to start where he started, on the streetcorner, with all the wit,
wisdom, and general jackassery of Wino & Junkie. Throughout a set full of hard jokes and
detailed character sketches (including the men of the Saturday night police lineup in his
hometown of Preoria, Illinois—the first and riskiest stage he knew), the audience has the
chance to get caught up in the silliness so inherent to Pryor while never losing sight of the
issues America had yet to face (and hasn’t still). There are sex jokes that hit so hard the
women in the audience take an audible refractory period, drug advice that has you weighing
the relative trip-laden merits of dope and acid, and a call-and-response on sandwiches that
proves the irresistibility of zealous Black midwestern preachers; there’s a litany of celebrities
whose names and projects have blurred in Pryor’s mind, but whose faces and friendship so
clearly light him up; there’s even fighting advice (don’t fight Italians, their mothers get
involved, and try to avoid a paternal cowboy whuppin’, because no one wants to get hit with
a chair). And then you get hit with the hardest punch: Pryor reaching out from 50 years past
to make the truth plain. You never hear about civilians accidentally killing cops, so why is it
that cops are always “accidentally” killing Black men? As it turns out, 1973 and 2023 aren’t so
far apart that the legendary Richard Pryor can’t bridge the gap.

Multi-Award winning, hugely influential musician Feist returns with Multitudes, her sixth solo album and first since 2017’s Pleasure.

Multitudes was produced by Feist with longtime collaborators Robbie Lackritz (The Weather Station, Bahamas, Robbie Robertson) and Mocky (Jamie Lidell, Vulfpeck, Kelela). Blake Mills (Bob Dylan, Fiona Apple, Perfume Genius) and Joseph Lorge came in to mix, with Mills as a co-producer in the final stages.

Multitudes took shape soon after the birth of her daughter and sudden death of her father, a back-to-back convergence of life-altering events that left the Canadian singer/songwriter with “Nothing performative in me anymore.” As she cleansed her songwriting of any tendency to obscure unwanted truths, Feist slowly made her way toward a batch of songs rooted in a raw and potent realism which is touched with otherworldly beauty.

Largely written and workshopped during an intensely communal experimental show of the same name through 2021 and 2022, the songs on Multitudes developed in parallel with and were deeply influenced by the mutuality of the unconventional experience. The production, developed by Feist with legendary designer Rob Sinclair (David Byrne’s American Utopia, Peter Gabriel, Tame Impala) was formulated to bring people together as they re-emerged from lockdown while providing an outlet for connection between artist, art, and community.

New York painter and musician exploratory industrialist Tor Lundvall initially envisioned his 14th album, Beautiful Illusions, as an entirely instrumental affair, "inspired by memories of sitting in a church or cathedral watching the shifting sunlight through stained glass." Although he ultimately chose to wreath the majority of the tracks with hushed, poetic vocals, his original muse still resonates. These are certainly songs of shadowplay and vaulted skies, the quiet grandeur of dusk deepening on the horizon. Lundvall characterizes the lyrical subject matter, too, in ways both specific and surreal, exploring "the doubts, the anxieties and even the bleak fantasies the mind spirals into during moments of isolation, separation and distance." Tricks of the eye, mind, and ear, magnified by silence and the looming long winter. Shivering pulses and muted bass lines tread the twilight while icicle synths and wiry guitar map the melody until the voice enters, narrating oblique moods of essence and absence, tenderness and truth. Glimpses of dark humor flicker in the wordplay but the greater sonic landscape is one of falling leaves and failing light, small gestures rendered as revelation, cloaked in reverb and spatial fog. Lundvall's mastery of nuance and negative space continues to heighten, whispered brushstrokes of the invisible and the unsaid, what lies beneath and what lies beyond: "Behind the shields and false fronts is usually a sadness. The heartbreaking reflections of what might have been."

Multi-Award winning, hugely influential musician Feist returns with Multitudes, her sixth solo album and first since 2017’s Pleasure.

Multitudes was produced by Feist with longtime collaborators Robbie Lackritz (The Weather Station, Bahamas, Robbie Robertson) and Mocky (Jamie Lidell, Vulfpeck, Kelela). Blake Mills (Bob Dylan, Fiona Apple, Perfume Genius) and Joseph Lorge came in to mix, with Mills as a co-producer in the final stages.

Multitudes took shape soon after the birth of her daughter and sudden death of her father, a back-to-back convergence of life-altering events that left the Canadian singer/songwriter with “Nothing performative in me anymore.” As she cleansed her songwriting of any tendency to obscure unwanted truths, Feist slowly made her way toward a batch of songs rooted in a raw and potent realism which is touched with otherworldly beauty.

Largely written and workshopped during an intensely communal experimental show of the same name through 2021 and 2022, the songs on Multitudes developed in parallel with and were deeply influenced by the mutuality of the unconventional experience. The production, developed by Feist with legendary designer Rob Sinclair (David Byrne’s American Utopia, Peter Gabriel, Tame Impala) was formulated to bring people together as they re-emerged from lockdown while providing an outlet for connection between artist, art, and community.

‘Searching’ is a five track extended play exploring the polarities of ecstasy. This record is an acknowledgement and homage to the searcher within me. Searching for myself, searching for truth and purpose. Learning to navigate light and dark and the trivialities of life.

These sounds and ideas have guided and consumed me, equally. In an endless pursuit of being lost in time. Surrounded yet untouched by the chaos of life... but not at all separate from it. 'Searching for myself... I find a place there.' - Soul Wun

Dear Friends, it's 2023 and the future of Leftfield Bass, Trap, and Hybrid Grime is here... RATIONAL SOUL's debut EP, "SELF TITLED", is going to define a new era on the dance floor, reimagining 140 beats that typically are stereotyped into narrow catagories. "SELF TITLED" will become the worldwide definition of a style never heard before, sought after and inevitably copycatted by those inspired.

With no surprise, 2023 is set off to a paramount start for the German SATURATE! label, with an EP that “is the future of Leftfield Bass, Trap, and Hybrid Grime” and “it’s going to define a new era on the dance floor, reimagining 140 beats that typically are stereotyped into narrow categories.” The mastermind behind such a project, called SELF TITLED, is RATIONAL SOUL a Virginia-based, veteran electronic music producer. The EP is coming out in full on January 13, digitally and on vinyl, and it features six originals and four remixes. What sounds like a disorienting emptiness at the beginning, makes perfect sense when read as part of the overall narrative of the composition. “One moment you’re living happy-go-lucky, almost like it’s the script of a Disney movie, the next moment you’re questioning why you exist- how is it you’ve become a slave to the 9 to 5? Phone by your side as digital anti-anxiety medication, entertaining yourself with something nostalgic to remind yourself of better times…war against yourself, to reset your identity.” The fight against this subconscious condition was RATIONAL SOUL’s starting point while writing SELF TITLED. The artist’s attempt to light a lighter to ignite a spark in our consciousness and thus reveal the void in which we are immersed. “Wake up” he seems to want to tell us. Don’t be a pawn, be a player of your life. Let’s riot against this status quo and, quoting RATIONAL SOUL himself, “Let’s be gangsta and fuck shit up because we are mad at why our world is falling apart: twerk on a cop car with a fine cigar in your mouth type beat.” He then concludes by spilling one, big truth, “what better genre of music could describe these feelings than bass music?” How could we not agree?

Brigid O'Neill's new album The Truth & Other Stories, recorded at Skinny Elephant Studios in Nashville with Neilson Hubbard in the producer's chair, cannot help but be influenced by the times which informed it, 'very few people escaped being affected by the pandemic, writers included.

Somehow the experiences of it seeped through onto our work and I feel The Truth and Other Stories is no exception in that regard.'
That said, this is not specifically an album about Covid or the pandemic, 'I was fascinated by the concept of 'truth' and intrigued by the concept of everyone having a different version of their truth....a personal viewpoint, their own narrative, their own story. The title plays a bit with shades of meaning - a 'counter positioning' if you like. The 'other stories' may challenge the truth, but 'the truth'
retains that sense of the absolute. In the songs I hope to present the realities of different characters through short stories. As I moved through the pandemic however, different stories came to light and sometimes the focus would shift.

Ultimately though, I have been living with these stories and these characters for some time now.'
Neilson Hubbard as producer was an obvious choice for O'Neill. A growing relationship with Nashville had seen her writing, playing and developing relationships with the many truly great musicians available across Music City.

"Being in Nashville with a producer like Neilson who has such an intuitive feel for that music, and with access to musicians who simply live and breathe it, seemed like a good idea. I'd met Neilson a few times through our mutual friend and musician Ben Glover, and it was quickly clear we would get along and had a similar attitude to the music production process. When choosing a music
producer, listening to their catalogue of works is crucial, but so too I think is that 'gut feeling' and knowledge that you can connect. When I sent Neilson my music, I knew he 'got it' and I knew I was in safe hands." Recent years have seen Brigid O'Neill gaining a deserved reputation as one of Ireland's finest songwriters. Reviews of her critically acclaimed latest releases
have reaffirmed that the gifted artist is one of the most versatile, unique and fearless storytellers on the island. Her genre-spanning music appeals to multiple generations, effortlessly weaving elements of folk, country and jazz into relatable tales of happiness, heartbreak and the human condition.

»Love As Projection« is the new album by Frankie Rose, her fifth studio LP and second for Night School following the reissue of her interpretation of The Cure’s »Seventeen Seconds«. Frankie Rose has forged an enviable musical legacy, from playing with bands like Crystal Stilts and The Vivian Girls but on »Love As Projection« she takes a bold step into electronic pop production. A sumptuous recorded statement, it dances in ecstasy and broods on the tumult of the western world’s decay in equal proportion. At the heart of the album is glowing, confident songwriting, resplendent in hooks and choruses but still touched with an optimism undimmed.

After spending nearly two decades establishing herself across New York and Los Angeles independent music circles, Rose re-emerges after six years with a fresh form, aesthetic, and ethos. Celebrated over the years for her expansive approach to songwriting, lush atmospherics, and transcendent vocal melodies and harmonies, »Love As Projection« is a reintroduction of her established style through the lens of contemporary electronic pop. Recorded with producer Brandt Gassman and mixed with long-term collaborator Jorge Elbrecht this is the album Frankie Rose has been building up to her entire career.

More than a rebirth, a refinement, a resurgence, »Love As Projection« boasts a widescreen scope: a long- form project heavily considered for half of a decade, culminating in the most personal and accessible collection of art-pop that Frankie has ever written. When Rose aims for the pop jugular as in first lead track »Anything«, the result is unstoppable. A majestic pop song built for radio, it erupts into an irresistible chorus that marries classic epic 80s American pop with the cult effervescence of Strawberry Switchblade »It’s like a prom scene in a John Hughes movie. It’s a hopeful song about abandoning fear even if the world is quite literally on fire.. In the end, at least we have each other,« says Rose. »Sixteen Ways« further boasts a propulsive, massive chorus, though tempered by a cynicism built in global post-truth, global malaise. »It’s about getting your hopes up, but simultaneously making lists in your head about how it will never work out in your favour.«

The big anthems don’t let up there. On »DOA« some massive, rolling drums lathered in big mid-80s gated reverb dovetail with a syncopated baseline for the ages as Rose’s vocal sails effortlessly above. The effect isn’t unlike ethereal vocalists Clannad circa Howard’s Way or Enya jamming with Simple Minds in their stadium-conquering heyday. Rose tempers the adrenalin with heart-tugging bittersweet tones and there are plenty of them. »Sleeping Night And Day« takes its time with an off-the-cuff chorus, swirling around in harmony and chorus-bass. »Saltwater Girl« picks up the balladeering baton with another nod to album track-mode Switchblade, deep space opening up in the mid-tempo drum track and soupy, digital atmospherics. Album closer »Song For A Horse«, reimagines modern Pop production a-la-PC Music but shorn of the meta-atmosphere. Pianos, swelling synths, minor keys cut through with major. These moments, also seen in Feel Light offer ballast to the soaring pop choruses. Moments like these are big oceans of emotion to fall into before being led out by Rose into a bright new day.

»Love As Projection« is released in the USA by Slumberland.

ART MAKE LOVE sees the return of 30/70, the mothership of the internationally acclaimed collective. Their sound expanding far beyond its previous markers of Nu-Soul and Jazz, it is inspired heavily by Broken Beat complexity and their unique coming together of truly collaborative and eccentric songwriting. Real sense of light and dark in this — exploring the very edges of emotion and life, truth and fear, the depth of spirit and emotion.

ART MAKE LOVE is breaking down the walls between the music and the listener, it is bringing art back to the centre and inviting you in. It is looking directly into the darkness while celebrating life, expressing joy at the edges of all experience.

If naming is a form of claiming, of being claimed, how is one tethered to both the physical landscape that surrounds us, as well as our own internal emotional landscape_at times calm, at times turbulent, and ever changing? H.C. McEntire's new album Every Acre grapples with those themes_themes that encompass grief, loss, and links to land and loved ones. And naming_claiming land, claiming self, being claimed by ancestry and heritage_permeates the hauntingly beautiful landscape that is this poignant collection of songs. The songs straddle the line between music and poetry. In "New View," McEntire cites poets "Day, Ada, and Laux, Berry, and Olds"_fixtures in the world of writing, whose works are beacons of light over bleak horizons. The beginning of the song is backed by soft guitar plucks that fall on the downbeat and spangle like stars, and, throughout, guitar, bass, and drums swell together gently, mimicking ebbing and flowing tides under the moon. McEntire's voice (at once tender and fierce) intones the truth of both giving and taking, releasing and claiming: "Bend me, break me, split me right in two. Mend me, make me_I'll take more of you." Permeated by heartbeat-like drums, "Shadows" develops quiet ruminations on surrender and loss_reminiscing, moving on. This ponderous, dreamlike song asks the question of how "to make room." How does one make room, for self and for renewal and surrender, when it is so difficult to leave what you know behind? Playing with slivers of descending chromatics, along with the occasional downward-stepping bass, here McEntire yearns for home, and for nesting. Perhaps one of the more grief-stricken songs, "Rows of Clover" is a lamentation, one that touches on the loss of a "steadfast hound." The lone piano in the beginning of the song is rhythmically hymn-like. The stark verse arrangement gradually leads to a chorus that reads like a moody exhale, swollen with lush guitar strums and a Bill Withers-esque understated soul groove. But what stands out the most is an image of being "down on your knees, clawing at the garden"_the only explicit mention of a person in the song. "It ain't the easy kind of healing," sings McEntire, seemingly from further and further away as her voice echoes; and healing ta;kes time, time takes time_truths that linger painfully. "Dovetail" is a song that tells of various women. The song moves back and forth between solo piano and the addition of bass and drums under vocals. McEntire's gentle, trembling vibrato_harmonized in thirds in a celebratory manner_calls to mind a rejoicing psalm and shines through these images, leaving the listener cuttingly fraught with emotions_such as wonder, sadness, nostalgia_that can only arise with these juxtapositions. Gracious (and graceful) with its lilting melodies and lush harmonies, Every Acre ex - plores the acres of our physical and emotional homes. These songs are reaching for the kind of home that we all seek: one where we can rest and lay down (or tuck away) our burdens of loss. And maybe, moving through every acre of a world that often tries to tear our sense of identity and heritage down, McEntire sheds light on what it is to be human in this life_both stingy and gracious, both hurtful and kind.