Suche:wound

11th (2014) studio album from legendary Bay Area thrashers – the first to feature returning vocalist Steve “Zetro” Souza.
Also features a guest appearance from original guitarist Kirk Hammett on ‘Salt The Wound’.

COUGH return with their first album in over five years. Produced by Electric Wizard’s Jus Oborn and recorded by Oborn and Windhand’s Garrett Morris, Still They Pray is the kind of monolithic cosmic doom that will take the listener to the heights of despair and the bottom of the abyss. With Still They Pray, COUGH summon psychedelic feedback-driven melodies just to deconstruct them to their core. This is easily COUGH at their most focused: pessimistic riffs and tortured grooves collide in melodic agony alongside a hallucinogenic blend of harsh and clean incantations, crushing and cathartic yet utterly mesmerizing. Step through the gates of madness and stare into the void. FFO Windhand, Electric Wizard, Pallbearer, Sleep, YOB, Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats

Limited Transparent Blue vinyl. “Pop” is a tag that’s been assigned to Minus the Bear throughout their career. It’s been used to set a distinction between the unique brand of complex indie rock they introduced on their first EP, and the more angular and aggravated sounds of their previous bands Botch, Kill Sadie, and Sharks Keep Moving. It’s also a tag that was thrown around frequently in the wake of their streamlined fourth album, OMNI. And it’s a descriptor that immediately comes to mind within the first few seconds of their classic second formal EP, They Make Beer Commercials Like This. Beer Commercials is the evolutionary step between Minus The Bear’s first two landmark albums, Highly Refined Pirates and Menos El Oso. Opening track “Fine + 2 Points” remains one of the band’s strongest opening tracks in their discography, charging out of the gates with a syncopated stomp that comes across as a more agitated take on Kylie Minogue’s “Can’t Get You Outta My Head.” If Minus The Bear were looking to make pop music without any of its major-scale bubblegum trappings, they nailed it here. The band follows it with “Let’s Play Clowns” and “Dog Park”—nods to Highly Refined Pirates’ formula of frenetic clean guitar work, bombastic choruses, and Jake Snider’s lyrics of detached romantic nostalgia. These tracks may represent Minus the Bear’s original trademark version of pop but on songs like “I’m Totally Not Down With Rob’s Alien,” the band eschews its restless energy for atmosphere and dynamics, creating a sound that’s inspired more than a handful of contemporary melodic post-rock bands. By the time the band belts out “Pony Up!” the listener has watched the three-year sonic transition between Minus the Bear’s first two full-lengths transpire within under half an hour, with their earlier math rock predilections yielding to the tightly wound club-banging pedalboard trickery that defined their sophomore album. Even if Beer Commercials doesn’t fit within your definition of pop music, the unorthodox energetic charm of this relatively low-profile release serves as an exciting reminder of why Minus the Bear became one of the most important and influential indie rock bands of the new century

Transparent yellow vinyl. Als Casey 2019 ihre Auflösung bekannt gaben, fühlte es sich wie ein verfrühtes Ende an. Mit ihren beiden Alben "Love Is Not Enough" (2016) und "Where I Go When I Am Sleeping" (2018) hatte sich der walisische Fünfer in nur wenigen Jahren als eine der aufregendsten Bands der britischen Alternative-Szene etabliert. Etwa vier Jahre später kehrt die Band nun zurück; nicht nur vor ausverkauftem Haus bei ihrem ersten Auftritt, sondern auch mit neuer Musik in der Hand. Hört man sich die neuen Songs an, wird klar, dass sich die Band weder um die Integrität ihrer neuen kreativen Vision noch um ihre emotionale Beteiligung daran sorgen muss. Die neue Musik ist der Inbegriff von Casey, offene Herzen, die von derselben Art von Schmerz und Trauma triefen, die die Band von Anfang an auszeichneten. Denn Casey-Songs geben nicht nur die Gefühle wieder, die sie inspirieren - sie verkörpern sie. Daran hat sich nichts geändert. Jetzt - frisch von ihrer äußerst erfolgreichen ersten US-Headline-Tour zurück und ihrer neuesten Single 'Puncture Wounds to Heaven' im Gepäck - hat die Band Tourdaten in Großbritannien, den USA und Europa für Anfang '24 angekündigt, zusammen mit der lang erwarteten Nachricht über ihr mit Spannung erwartetes viertes Album. How To Disappear" erscheint am 12. Januar 2024 via Hassle Records.

For fans of Mountain, Grand Funk Railroad, and Dr. Hook! Kelakos is a seventies rock band with roots in Boston and Upstate New York, known for fusing powerful rock rhythms and guitar leads with strong vocals, catchy songwriting, and rich, varied production. Now forty-four years after their first album, Gone Are the Days, Kelakos returns stronger than ever with a new 12-song album release, Hurtling Towards Extinction. The band consists of its namesake George Kelakos Haberstroh on vocals/guitar, Mark Sisson on rhythm guitar, Linc Bloomfield holding down the bass, who after Kelakos wound up in a high lever career in Washington, and rounded out by Carl Canedy who went to play with The Rods and produce albums by Anthrax, Overkill, Blue Cheer, Exciter, etc… Hurtling Towards Extinction consists of 12 new songs with highlights such as “Livin on the Planet Love” and“Smoke and Mirrors”, while making sure there is something for everyone on this release.

After releasing his seventh - arguably best and most popular album - The Odd Shower, The Bitter Springs' singer / songwriter Simon Rivers reinvented himself as Poor Performer, whose own debut, Like Yer Wounds Too, followed the same winning formula, widened somewhat by the inclusion of songs with a greater fragile beauty and introspection . . . though rarely without a degree of self-effacing humour and a rather stylish wit. Decades of self-releasing compact disc-only albums from the far southwestern suburbs of London, with scant regard for promotion or the normal machinations of showbiz - touring, for instance - did little to spread the word about Rivers' unique and prestigious talents. A conversational singer with a delightfully warm and convivial stone, Rivers' sense of the absurd and willingness to portray aspects of life generally unrecognised by pop music, one supposes it's not entirely unfair to have expect Top of The Pops to come calling. Yet the relative absence of cult of Simon Rivers fans is somewhat perplexing, for his lyrics, ideas and tunes all do merit it. There's little affectation in the sense of stage persona, but heaps of personality and intriguing, occasional perverse idea. It's hard to listen to anything he's down without a degree of sheer enjoyment. It's real, without affectation. The very real bumps heads with the slightly mental, just like in life! So what does this new guise - Oldfield Youth Club - have to offer? It's partially a revival of Rivers' first 'real' band, Last Party, and it displays hallmarks of that band's youthful energy. There's a bit of teen glam in Good News I'm Afraid and (Theme From Oldfield Youth Club, even while lead track We're The OYC and When Bob Grant Ruled The World add a dollop of an energetic ruefulness to the mix. A Kind Of Loving In A Loveless Town is an immediate classic, a song one could hear dozens of times before really reaching the core of its magic and majesty. Lest this sound like the work of a solo artist, it does feel like a band - a rather clever one, in fact. Including members Kim Rivers and Neil Palmer (both from Last Party), as well as trumpeter / vocalist Alison Targett, Oldfield Youth Club is a band with an obvious musical kinship. There's a connection to the literal style of Vic Godard's Subway Sect (and members have been shared between both acts) or early Go-Betweens . . . there's an alchemical sensibility shared by all three acts wherein their words and tunes inform each other in a deceptively casual but arresting manner. It's hard not to love, a rare work that earns immediate affection and just grows better from there.

Flying Wig is an album of recurrent dualities; a can of paradoxes, a box of worms. The redwood and pine-surrounded cabin studio where Banhart was “constantly listening to The Grateful Dead” somehow birthed something slick, modernist, city pop-adjacent and Eno-esque. Banhart's eleventh record, it's the actualisation of a “precious friendship” with the acclaimed solo artist, multi-instrumentalist, producer and Mexican Summer stable-mate Cate Le Bon — a coming together prophesied by the mirror-image titles of their early solo albums (Banhart’s 2002 Oh Me Oh My to Le Bon’s 2009 Me Oh My) and a tenderness built on crude haircuts (“we finally met, soon after she was cutting my hair with a fork and that was that”) and home-made tattoos — but never previously translated into the recording studio. “It’s about transmuting despair into gratitude, wounds into forgiveness, and grief into praise,” - the product of a ritualistic creative practice that melts down and re-casts as it mulls, the stuff of sadness beautified as it changes shape — culminating in a record that “sounds like getting a very melancholic massage, or weeping, but in a really nice outfit… if I’m going to cry, I wanna do it in my best dress.”

‘Rituals’ is the new album of spiralling drone & ambient formations by Italian artist Danilo Betti aka April Clocks (Union Editions / Mixed Up); a new work of sublime disorientation by the Rimini-based outlier, arising from a period of reinvigorated artistic practice.

Emerging just over a year after the project’s second album ‘It Takes Time’, ‘Rituals’ heads deeper into spheres of consuming, hypnagogic haze, coursing through nine coalescent compositions of amorphous yet absorbing electronics.

Where ‘It Takes Time’ represented an autodidactic interpretation of Betti’s formative influences – namely shoegaze & proto-ambient - ‘Rituals’ is an enigmatic proposition, the product of subconscious resonances, a mysterious sound world that finds traces of evanescent beauty and uncanny captivation in sustained tones, cavernous oscillations, and aesthetic imperfections, like the notes of subtle surface noise embedded within many of these productions.

Attesting to the value of Betti’s background as an industrious solo artist, making music away from prevailing sites of activity, ‘Rituals’ consolidates the inspirations and hallmarks of the April Clocks project into an acute reflection of Betti’s vision, one that feels completely his own.

In the buried somnolent splendour of the opener ‘Hypersleep’, through the sound art rustle and time-stretched cycles of ‘A Cure’, into the stroboscopic magnitude of ‘Ceremony’ and the haunting string loops of ‘Coward’, Betti captures compelling impressions drawn from a submerged perspective; a deluge of smokescreens and crosscurrents from the other side.

Bearing the influence of subliminal states, ‘Rituals’ is nevertheless lucid and arresting. There are sumptuous holding patterns of ambient evaporation that stream into vast maelstroms of sound (‘Displaced Euphoria’), enervated organ themes that distil sensations of stasis and dissociation (‘Wound’), as well as psychedelic movements in wide tracts of negative space (‘No Time, No Land’). From here, the acoustic glitch of ‘Disappearer’ and the stratospheric slipstreams of ‘Mirror Being’ bring the album to an astonishingly dramatic conclusion.

Throughout such moments of reverie and tension, ‘Rituals’ makes for a hypnotic listening experience. It’s an album that signals a pronounced sense of development for the April Clocks project, from past vestiges of physicality to present degrees of heightened abstraction and ethereality, from the Warp-influenced rhythms and frameworks of ‘It Takes Time’ to the wide- ranging, experimental sounds that unfold here.

Encompassing forms of decomposition and otherworldly futurism, decay and sublimation, distortion and lustre, this is unique, cerebral music that reaches inward and ascends outward, drifting elsewhere, according to its own coordinates.

Recorded and Mixed at Tower of Disintegration, 2022.
Mastered by Miles Whittaker.

Temple, Bassey, MacLaine and now, Hurt; in a world of Shirleys, the name Sophia Ruby Katz has chosen for her music is perhaps prophetic as it captures her stunningly emotive vocal approach. And whilst Shirley Hurt might be the perfect nom de plume for the creative Toronto-based artist, it’s her self-titled debut album which positions her as protagonist of her own universe.

Traversing sonic landscapes, Shirley Hurt’s vocals ebb and flow like lyrical Ley lines tracking the contours of her own well-travelled map. By the age of 18, Hurt had travelled extensively, having lived in upwards of 20 different apartments and houses, as a result never really feeling “at home” anywhere. At this age was when Hurt found herself in New York, dipping her toes into various scenes and musical realms. The first and only place she ever felt at home, and a partial home-base for her, she travelled between Toronto and New York until the age of 26.When the project she was working on in New York reached a dead-end she returned West, moving in with musicians Harrison Forman (Hieronymus Harry, Zones) and Patrick Lefler (Roy, Possum). Being surrounded by their improvising at all hours, a new approach emerged. “Harrison is a virtuosic guitar player, and I hadn't picked up a guitar in any serious way since I was 16,” she says, “by osmosis I started playing again for fun.” Without agenda, the process grew organically from there.

Hurt and Forman decided to travel across the US and Canada in a trailer for half a year, with the entire album written in the final months of their trip. Hurt had been writing loose ideas here and there but felt blocked creatively. When the pair reached Berkley, they wound up house-sitting for a tuned-in friend who recommended she pray, in a very direct way, to remove the block. “I took her advice and to my surprise it worked. The album was conceptualized and finished within a couple of months.” Shapeshifting in tone and phrasing, Hurt’s music alchemizes the furthest corners of experimental indie folk, pop, and country into a singular sound with elegant unpredictability.

Whilst Shirley Hurt’s lyrical and structural ideas may have emerged on the road, the album was self-produced and recorded at Joseph Shabason (The War on Drugs)’s Aytche studio in Toronto’s West End. It was engineered by Nathan Vanderwielen and Chris Shannon (Bart), and Hurt enlisted collaborators Jason Bhattacharya, Nick Dourado, Patrick Lefler, and Harrison Forman to hone her vision. “I wasn’t sure what was going to happen with the songs until we returned to Toronto,” she recalls. “Joseph and I had been talking about working together after sending across some demos and Jason happened to recommend his studio at the exact same time, so everything came together naturally at that point.”

Whilst her most recent adventures may have seen Shirley Hurt bound for Texas as an official SXSW artist (hand-picked by Gorilla Vs Bear to perform at their own showcase), she currently resides in her native Canada, more specifically rural Ontario, close to friends and family, and is already working on her second album. The ties to lineage are interwoven in the fabric of the music. Hurt’s mother, artist Leala Hewak, instilled a lust for life and innate value of creativity in her from a young age as she explored the role of gallery owner, vintage jewellery show host, mid-century modern furniture expert, real estate agent, painter. Hurt’s father, a civil litigation lawyer and new-wave obsessed music lover with an extensive vinyl collection, introduced Hurt to a wide-range of artists at a young age such as Nina Hagen, Laurie Anderson, Tom Tom Club, and endless others.

In her video for ‘Problem Child’ Hurt’s grandmother walks her through a generationally revered pie-making process. One would be tempted to hear this, and other songs, as autobiographical. Yet, Hurt’s lyrics are rarely pulled from her relationships or personal history––at least not consciously. Rather, they arise from somewhere less tangible or defined. “Lyrics tend to come to me when I am doing non-musical things - washing dishes, brushing my dogs, walking to the grocery store. I have a lot of voice memos on my phone and half-filled notebooks and when I hear something, I have to stop what I'm doing to get the idea down. Usually it’s bits and pieces. It's rare a full song comes to me in one go, but it's great when they do, and those are often my favourites.”

Carving out a space of her own in an all-encompassing universe, Shirley Hurt is the introduction to a long artistic story, and if the journey so far is anything to go by, it will be stippled with evermore unpredictable chapters.

5TH ANNIVERSARY

Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus formed boygenius after booking a tour together but the trio had subconsciously been in the works for longer than that. Through a series of tours and performances together and chance encounters that led to friendships - including Bridgers' and Dacus' first in-person meeting backstage at a Philadelphia festival, greenroom hangouts that felt instantly comfortable and compatible, a couple of long email chains and even a secret handshake between Baker and Dacus - the lyrically and musically arresting singer-songwriters and kindred spirits got to know each other on their own terms.

Die-cut sleeve. In the fall of 2013 Bry Webb was putting the finishing touches on his second album Free Will. Released on May 20th 2014, Bry, with his newly assembled band The Providers, spent the following few years traversing North America playing clubs, festivals and storied stages such as Toronto’s Massey Hall. Nothing new for an artist who had spent the aughts in a constant state of motion with Constantines, a band who on average had performed one of every three nights on a stage somewhere in the world. In fact, running in parallel to Bry’s solo touring schedule was a reunion with his former Constantines’ bandmates to once again present their incendiary live show and celebrate the 11th anniversary reissue of the band’s Shine A Light. It is what happened as the decade wound down that seemed out of character for an artist who had spent close to 20 years immersed in the studio and on the stage: the music stopped altogether. Bry explains his feelings at that time, “I lost the musical plot about 5 years ago and stopped playing music entirely, sold instruments and recording equipment, and committed myself to the idea that I was absolutely done”. Webb dedicated himself to his ongoing work in community radio, months turned to years and musical life seemed to be all but gone from view. Now in an unexpected turnaround 10 years on from the recording of his last studio album, there is not only a return to the stage for Bry but also a new record. Primarily composed in a season of upheaval, Run With Me contains some of Bry’s rawest sentiments. Fresh and painfully present there is an immediacy one can hear as emotional walls collapse in real time. Bry explains the context of the album’s creation: “In early 2023 my personal life exploded. In the process of dealing with that, I started writing music again and started recording at home. Advised that I needed to figure out how to ask for, and accept, help from other people, I sent early recordings of songs to friends from twenty-five years of music making - many folks I hadn’t connected with in years - and asked if they’d contribute anything to the songs. People came through in ways that overwhelmed me to the point that I cried when I wrote out the list of players for the liner notes. I felt incredibly cared for. From Andy Magoffin, who recorded the first Constantines album in 1999, to members of the Cons, to my nieces Addy and Ella playing drums, and a doppler recording of my daughter’s heartbeat, the record is a document of my creative life, and the people who made it possible to make music again.” If the cover of Run With Me looks familiar, it is with full intent. The album’s technicolor marbling and die cut text serve to signal the inclusion of the album in a trilogy started with Bry’s first record Provider. Just as that album starts with the track Asa, this new one introduces itself with the instrumental Webb. The trilogy is now completed with his daughter's first, middle and last names represented as the first tracks on each of the three albums. While the LP’s package signals its place in the collection, and tracks such as Older Than The Dirt and What I Do revisit their predecessor’s familiar sonic starkness, Run With Me is the outlier of the trio. A number of new tracks forego the quietude of Provider and Free Will, clearly recalling the rallying rhythms of Constantines’ anthems. Thunder Bay (instrumental backing courtesy of The Harbourcoats circa 2009), with its insistent kick drum and wall of electrics, support one of Webb’s most indelible melodies, and the not so subtly psychedelic Modern Mind reveal an expansion of Webb’s palette. Perhaps the furthest afield is the contextual centerpiece of the album, Goodbye, where we not only hear a joyful voice that lay dormant for years, but hear it reclaim its power. Backed by Constantines’ Will Kidman, Doug MacGregor and Dallas Wehrle, Bry belts out “I’m through with all the rage, now watch the light pour out of me.” As with all of Bry’s work, Run With Me’s lyrics take their time to settle in. Songs of self-examination, reconfigured love ballads, and songs for those who work to help others. Songs of singing abound. It’s there in Older Than The Dirt’s second verse: "Logic to the last intention, logic in the way we kept holding on forever, singing as the floor- was swept”, ten thousand birds sing a warning song in Thunder Bay and again in Goodbye’s telling of a cathartic return to one’s true self with its celebration of those “Who sing - sing all joy - all joy of language, in a single word”. Joining Bry in singing Run With Me’s songs of “death, transition and hope,” are kindred spirits Jennifer Castle, Julie Doiron, Daniel Romano and Steph Yates. All of these singers elevate the album’s healing sentiments and help express the album’s central plea; a prayer of sorts wrapped in the traditional Scottish Gaelic melody of She Is Here’s second verse: “Let the sun rise in the morning and any witness bring. Let all the blooming cosmos teach us to sing”.

'Elephantasia' is a glorious folk opus from 1972, long lost and attaining a legendary reputation for its candour and creativity, from the late Bangor-born singer/songwriter Dave Evans. Finally, the LP sees the light of day again via Earth Recordings, it is a true gem from the vaults of British folk history. For fans of Nick Drake, Bill Fay and Davy Graham - with a touch of Michael Chapman, Bert Jansch and Fahey for good measure. Dave Evans' story is like a Pinter play; he sailed the seas in the merchant navy, was taught guitar in a brief interlude by the "mythical" Morocco John, wound up sharing a room with Steve Tilston in 1963 when they attended Loughborough Art College and ran the local folk club, while learning to make stringed instruments, the art of wine making and ceramics. Over the next year, Dave got a domestic 2-track reel-to-reel tape recorder and experimented with its two speeds to produce the tracks 'Elephantasia' and 'Lady Portia'. He pulled in members of local prog band Squidd, including latter day Hawkwind member Steve Swindells on keyboards, John Merritt on bass and Rodney Matthews on drums, who also designed the 'Elephantasia' album cover, and went on to become a renowned fantasy artist. 'Elephantasia' the album was originally released in 1972, fully exposing Dave's finger picking style, lilting vocal and his dalliance with the tape manipulation. It sold around 2000 copies and over the years became a talked about rarity, deemed too progressive for folk, too folk for the new prog heads. In best plot-thickening style, Dave tried two more releases and then disappeared. The scant sleeve notes recounted the songs' creation, featuring tales of experimentation in sound inspired by elephants, old memories recounted with all of the unpleasant bits edited out, storylines for escapists, the residents of St Agnes Park, broken beauty queens and a fat feline. It's an eclectic but beautifully fluent narrative from a finger picking maestro with a warm and engaging vocal style that wowed Peel and Whispering Bob back in the day. Dave Evans sadly died in April 2021. Earth Recordings is proud to reissue 'Elephantasia' for the first time in over 50 years, in collaboration with his estate and original Village Thing producer Ian A. Anderson. "Cult status guaranteed." Uncut. Classic Black Vinyl, DL card. CD Digisleeve.

“More than anything, I wanted to make an album that was generous, that was useful,” says Ben Folds. “I want you to finish this record with something you didn’t have when you started.” Indeed, Folds’ masterful new collection, What Matters Most, isn’t so much a statement as it is an offering, an open hand reaching out to all those wounded and bewildered by a world that seems to make less and less sense every day. Recorded in East Nashville with co-producer Joe Pisapia, the album marks Folds’ first new studio release in eight years, and it’s a bold, timely, cinematic work, one that examines the tragic and the absurd in equal measure as it reckons with hope and despair, gratitude and loss, identity and perspective. The songs are bittersweet here, hilarious at times, but often laced with a quiet sense of longing and dread: a text message goes unanswered; an old classmate descends into the dark depths of internet conspiracies; a relationship unravels in the middle of a lake. And yet, taken as a whole, the result is an undeniably joyful record that refuses to succumb to the weight of the world around it, an ecstatic reminder of all the beauty and promise hiding in plain sight for anyone willing (and present enough) to recognize their moments as they arrive.

Good Lovelies' first performance as a trio was on December 15th, 2006 - it was a collection of originals and Christmas material, and Toronto-based Caroline Brooks, Kerri Ough and Susan Passmore had no sense yet of the long career that lay ahead. To honour the anniversary of their debut performance, Good Lovelies continued presenting Christmas-themed shows, and what started as a single performance became an annual holiday tour. With a growing catalogue of seasonal material, in 2009 the band decided it was time they made a record. The unusual heat of that May had an interesting effect on the project, and as the band got into the spirit, they wound up with the 12-song collection "Under The Mistletoe" - which includes classics like Santa Baby, Silent Night and Blue Christmas, to swingers like Mele Kalikimaka and Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree, as well as three originals written by Good Lovelies. "Under The Mistletoe" remains one of Good Lovelies most popular titles to date, and now, fourteen years after its initial release, fans are being treated to a fresh pressing on limited edition red vinyl. The release comes just in time for Good Lovelies annual holiday tour which has become a Christmas tradition for thousands of fans at home in Canada.

Since their formation in 1977 Mark Perry’s group Alternative TV have moved far away from their more direct punk rock beginnings into all manner of other areas of music that have sometimes themselves drawn from improvisation, free jazz, industrial and electronic music. On Direct Action, Alternative TV’s first studio album since Opposing Forces in 2015, we are presented with six instrumental tracks which steadily rip apart all expectations as they shed all allusions to rock music in favour of the kinda sonic mutilations that once helped 1979’s classic (and Nurse With Wound list endorsed) Vibing Up the Senile Man (Part One) stumble into weird and wonderful shapes. Direct Action marries guttural electronics to sounds most artists would consign to the bin and through Perry’s long perfected mastery of pulling together disparate strands to create something entirely alchemical and invigorating delivers a unique stamp to the ATV story. With the help of longtime collaborator Dave Morgan alongside the input of Gareth Matthews, Ruth Tidmarsh and Cos Chapman, abstract patterns of dishevelled sound rub alongside occasional percussion, disembodied plasma guitar strums and even what seems like an oboe groaning in a murky corner. Similar to its distant cousin of Vibing…, everything adds up to a whole that’s demanding yet completely rewarding as every listen prises open the dark scab of contemporary malaise to reveal something fresh. The front cover’s homage to an incredible album by a pioneering electronic group we are not going to name should in itself point to the unpredictable nature of the music here. If you are savvy enough to get that reference, then you’re on the right path to understanding where Direct Action resides. Easy listening this ain’t. Limited to 600

Auf R o n i a s zweitem Album 'string along' fordert sie uns auf, ihr in ihr minimalistisches Pop-Universum zu folgen
Nach dem Vorgänger 'waltz' in (hereinspaziert!) ist 'string along' eine erneute Aufforderung von R o n i a an ihre Hörer: Folgt mir! Melancholische Melodien beschreiben darauf filigrane Emotionen in einem reduzierten Klangbild, häufiger Überlagerung mehrerer Stimmen oder auch Melodien mit vielfältigen Tasten-, Saiten- und Blasinstrumenten, die alle von der One-Woman-Band R o n i a selbst gesiet werden.

Neues Konzept-Album der einzigen "Winterdoom"-Band Deutschlands! Die Würzburger, die ursprünglich 2014 als Nebenprojekt der einzigartigen Instrumentalband OMEGA MASSIF gegründet worden waren, ballern uns einen fiesen und massiven dunklen Brocken um die Ohren: Black- und Postmetal vermischen sich mit Sludge, Ambient und Post-Punk auf hohem Niveau, ich wäre tatsächlich überrascht, wenn die Band nicht beim Roadburn 2024 aufschlagen würde, da gehört sie nämlich hin. Grundsätzlich melancholisch und episch, unterlegt von maschinenhaftem Stakkato-Drumming, düster, kalt und wütend. Für die 6 schleppend-schleifenden Songs muss man sich Zeit nehmen, das ausgezeichnete Songwriting entfaltet sich Schicht für Schicht zu einem Albtraum-Szenario, das stetig zu lauern scheint, angriffslustig geduckt und im Schatten. Der Kontrast zwischen sanft-melodischen E-Bow Leads und Klargesang bzw. auch Sprechgesang auf der einen Seite zu präzise drückendem Riffing, Sprachsamples und viehischem Gegrowle auf der anderen Seite verstärkt nur noch das Unwohlsein beim Hören. Insgesamt merkt man den Songs deutlich an, wieviel Mühe darin steckt, es gibt sehr viele Details zu entdecken und zu den Texten, also der Story bin ich noch gar nicht vorgedrungen: Inhaltlich orientiert sich die Platte am Romanzyklus "His Dark Materials" von Philip Pullman, was den Eindruck eines Soundtracks durch den Einsatz von Sprechtexten bzw -samples (teils englisch, teils deutsch) noch verstärkt.

Yellow / black marbled vinyl. The Sensitives is a rough-haired mixed race dog of punk, rock'n'roll, SKA and folk! It's been touring around Europe, playing over 300 shows, spreading its musical wild oat resulting in a solid fanbase of people who, to their knockout punk, raises their middle finger to racism and sexism. The band have always kept the energy on a constant high, jumping between different styles and switching between the two singers Martin and Paulina, driven by the never resting Magnus behind the drums! The new album, Patch It Up and Go! is no different! The frustration from no touring during the pandemic and the emotional shock from a year of heavy touring as soon as the restrictions were lifted resulted in a worn out and damaged band coming home to lick their wounds. But they did what they've always done, turned their experiences and battles into songs, patched themselves up to go for it again! The result is the new album, Patch It Up and Go! and it covers topics like sex, mental health, animal rights and the importance of celebrating the good times we have while we have them! All of that in a high tempo with a positive vibe and high intensity, Patch It Up and Go! is the most personal and probably the best album from The Sensitives so far! Feet will be moving, hips will be shaking and throats will be singing!

We know you're not supposed to because it's often said to be a cheap marketing gimmick but frankly, we love a good anonymous new producer to get wondering about.

And here we have just that in the form of Skat who we're told is "heavily influenced by East End Edits and Digwah Ltd" and opens a new series with a one-sided 12".

'Skat 01' is a worthy tech cut with minimal drums loops and brushed metal surfaces all wound up into a tight groove and overlaid with some rudely vocal raps. It's the sort of tune that brings a unique character to any set and is sure to get the crowd demanding its ID.

200 Stab Wounds is a death metal band from Cleveland, Ohio. They formed in 2019. Their lyrical themes include death and decay. They released their debut EP Piles of Festering Decomposition in 2020. On Nov. 12, 2021, they released their first album, Slave to the Scalpel through Maggot Stomp. 200SW played the 2022 Psycho Vegas Festival. They are currently signed to Metal Blade Records and re-release STTS on 11/3/24.

Since founding Swedish synthpop duo KITE in 2008, singer Nicklas Stenemo and keyboardist Christian Hutchinson Berg's brooding fusion of cinematic electronics and anthemic pop has steadily elevated into a spectacle of passion, atmosphere, and communion. Their double-A vinyl single for Dais Records, "Don't take the light away" / "Remember Me" captures KITE at their most urgent, thrilling and apocalyptic. "Don't take the light away" is a song about "the war between energies," with singer Stenemo's wounded croon leading a rising tide of stabbing strings, pulsing percussion, and looming bass orchestrated by keyboardist Hutchinson Berg, surging to a mass-chanted chorus both desperate and triumphant. Like the best of KITE's music, "Don't take the light away" and "Remember me" fuse theater and catharsis into anthems of universal yearning, born of "the struggle to keep a flickering candle lit in a very dark space."

Since founding Swedish synthpop duo KITE in 2008, singer Nicklas Stenemo and keyboardist Christian Hutchinson Berg's brooding fusion of cinematic electronics and anthemic pop has steadily elevated into a spectacle of passion, atmosphere, and communion. Their double-A vinyl single for Dais Records, "Don't take the light away" / "Remember Me" captures KITE at their most urgent, thrilling and apocalyptic. "Don't take the light away" is a song about "the war between energies," with singer Stenemo's wounded croon leading a rising tide of stabbing strings, pulsing percussion, and looming bass orchestrated by keyboardist Hutchinson Berg, surging to a mass-chanted chorus both desperate and triumphant. Like the best of KITE's music, "Don't take the light away" and "Remember me" fuse theater and catharsis into anthems of universal yearning, born of "the struggle to keep a flickering candle lit in a very dark space."

There will always be another peak to summit and boundary to break. END stretch their second full-length offering, The Sin of Human Frailty, beyond its very limits with a fierce commitment to unwavering unpredictability and uncompromising intensity. The New Jersey quintet counts producer and guitarist Will Putney, vocalist Brendan Murphy, guitarist Gregory Thomas, bassist Jay Pepito, and drummer Matt Guglielmo among its ranks. These musicians deliver a concentrated barrage like no other on, The Sin of Human Frailty Closed Casket Activities.

END initially materialized during 2017. The group’s From the Unforgiving Arms of God EP spawned the fan favorite “Necessary Death,” and lead to a signing with label Closed Casket Activities. Highlighted by “Covet Not” and “Absence,” the band bulldozed the senses with their 2020 full-length debut, Splinters From an Ever-Changing Face. Brooklyn Vegan hailed “Pariah” as “an absolutely filthy dose of modern metalcore,” and Kerrang went as far as to describe their Debut LP as, “catharsis fed through a distortion pedal and shaped into a dense, destructive wrecking ball” Perhaps, Invisible Oranges put it best, “These gentlemen have come together to summon a fury seldom heard on any album from the realms of hardcore, grind, and black metal…”

Our upcoming album, titled "Helichrysum," delves deep into the human experience, exploring the wounds we carry and the transformative power that lies within us. It serves as a culmination of the countless creative and personal choices we have made, leading us to a place of greater harmony within ourselves, with each other, and with our collective intentions. Musically speaking, the new album is a testament to our commitment to delivering a sonic experience that is unapologetically raw, adventurous, heavy, groovy and psychedelic. The choice to name the album after the Helichrysum plant, holds a significance as the plant symbolizes endurance, healing, immortality, and the power to overcome adversity, which mirror many of the themes throughout the record."

Olive green vinyl, limited to 500 copies. "Our upcoming album, titled "Helichrysum," delves deep into the human experience, exploring the wounds we carry and the transformative power that lies within us. It serves as a culmination of the countless creative and personal choices we have made, leading us to a place of greater harmony within ourselves, with each other, and with our collective intentions. Musically speaking, the new album is a testament to our commitment to delivering a sonic experience that is unapologetically raw, adventurous, heavy, groovy and psychedelic. The choice to name the album after the Helichrysum plant, holds a significance as the plant symbolizes endurance, healing, immortality, and the power to overcome adversity, which mirror many of the themes throughout the record."

Transparent yellow vinyl. Als Casey 2019 ihre Auflösung bekannt gaben, fühlte es sich wie ein verfrühtes Ende an. Mit ihren beiden Alben "Love Is Not Enough" (2016) und "Where I Go When I Am Sleeping" (2018) hatte sich der walisische Fünfer in nur wenigen Jahren als eine der aufregendsten Bands der britischen Alternative-Szene etabliert. Etwa vier Jahre später kehrt die Band nun zurück; nicht nur vor ausverkauftem Haus bei ihrem ersten Auftritt, sondern auch mit neuer Musik in der Hand. Hört man sich die neuen Songs an, wird klar, dass sich die Band weder um die Integrität ihrer neuen kreativen Vision noch um ihre emotionale Beteiligung daran sorgen muss. Die neue Musik ist der Inbegriff von Casey, offene Herzen, die von derselben Art von Schmerz und Trauma triefen, die die Band von Anfang an auszeichneten. Denn Casey-Songs geben nicht nur die Gefühle wieder, die sie inspirieren - sie verkörpern sie. Daran hat sich nichts geändert. Jetzt - frisch von ihrer äußerst erfolgreichen ersten US-Headline-Tour zurück und ihrer neuesten Single 'Puncture Wounds to Heaven' im Gepäck - hat die Band Tourdaten in Großbritannien, den USA und Europa für Anfang '24 angekündigt, zusammen mit der lang erwarteten Nachricht über ihr mit Spannung erwartetes viertes Album. How To Disappear" erscheint am 12. Januar 2024 via Hassle Records.

Transparent yellow vinyl. Als Casey 2019 ihre Auflösung bekannt gaben, fühlte es sich wie ein verfrühtes Ende an. Mit ihren beiden Alben "Love Is Not Enough" (2016) und "Where I Go When I Am Sleeping" (2018) hatte sich der walisische Fünfer in nur wenigen Jahren als eine der aufregendsten Bands der britischen Alternative-Szene etabliert. Etwa vier Jahre später kehrt die Band nun zurück; nicht nur vor ausverkauftem Haus bei ihrem ersten Auftritt, sondern auch mit neuer Musik in der Hand. Hört man sich die neuen Songs an, wird klar, dass sich die Band weder um die Integrität ihrer neuen kreativen Vision noch um ihre emotionale Beteiligung daran sorgen muss. Die neue Musik ist der Inbegriff von Casey, offene Herzen, die von derselben Art von Schmerz und Trauma triefen, die die Band von Anfang an auszeichneten. Denn Casey-Songs geben nicht nur die Gefühle wieder, die sie inspirieren - sie verkörpern sie. Daran hat sich nichts geändert. Jetzt - frisch von ihrer äußerst erfolgreichen ersten US-Headline-Tour zurück und ihrer neuesten Single 'Puncture Wounds to Heaven' im Gepäck - hat die Band Tourdaten in Großbritannien, den USA und Europa für Anfang '24 angekündigt, zusammen mit der lang erwarteten Nachricht über ihr mit Spannung erwartetes viertes Album. How To Disappear" erscheint am 12. Januar 2024 via Hassle Records.

2023 VINYL REPRESS.

IN HER OWN WORDS...

Ruins was made in Aljezur, Portugal in 2011 on a residency set up by Galeria Zé dos Bois. I recorded everything there except the last song, which I did at mother's house in 2004. Iʼm still surprised by what I wound up with.

It was the first time Iʼd sat still for a few years; processed a lot of political anger and
emotional garbage. Recorded pretty simply, with a portable 4-track ,Sony stereo mic and an upright piano. When I wasnʼt recording songs I was hiking several miles to the beach. The path wound through the ruins of several old estates and a small village.

The album is a document. A nod to that daily walk. Failed structures. Living in the remains of love. I left the songs the way they came (microwave beep from when power went out after a storm); I hope that the album bears some resemblance to the place that I was in.

Der prägende Sound von Martin Rev, der vor allem im Zusammenspiel mit seinem langjährigen musikalischen Partner Alan Vega und der gemeinsamen Band Suicide in seiner Radikalität und Einzigartigkeit zu einem Einfluss für mehrere Generationen von Musikern werden sollte, findet seinen Ursprung insbesondere in der essentiellen Energie des Rock"n"Rolls, der Rev als Teenager prägte und so etwas wie die musikalische Entsprechung der urbanen Atmosphäre seiner Heimatstadt New York war. Nachdem Rev zunächst im Free Jazz und freier Musik nach neuen musikalischen Ausdrucksformen suchte, entwickelte er rasch eine Faszination für die elektronische Klangerzeugung, die es ihm ermöglichte, völlig alleine und autark zu arbeiten. Er experimentierte mit einfachstem Equipment, kombinierte verschiedene Geräte und Effekte und übersetzte so die Wurzeln des Rock"n"Rolls in einen neuen, bisher ungehörten elektrisierenden Sound, der sowohl der Beginn von Suicide als auch einer spannenden Solo-Karriere sein sollte. Die vorliegende Sammlung "The Sum of Our Wounds" umfasst verschiedenste Aufnahmen, die zwischen 1973 und 1985 entstanden. Dabei ist die Zusammenstellung weitaus mehr als nur eine Kollektion von Demos und Outtakes; vielmehr hat man das Gefühl, ein in sich geschlossenes Album zu hören und sich selbst Kompositionen, die einem bereits bekannt sind, gänzlich neu zu erschließen. Die Kassettenstücke besitzen in ihrer spröden Brüchigkeit eine große Sensibilität, eben wie eine Sammlung von Verwundungen.

Have you heard of the Nurse With Wound List? If you are a fan of creative-experimental-unlikely music, certainly. You would therefore be aware that amongst the recommendations that Steven Stapleton slipped into the first album of his group Nurse With Wound, were to be found a few restless frogs: Jef Gilson, Luc Ferrari, Jacques Thollot, Urban Sax, Horde Catalytique and last but not least Jean-Jacques Birgé and Francis Gorgé. Stapleton admired their album Défense de. The two Frenchmen just had to conceive of a fabulous precursor to the channel tunnel (check out the inside of the record, you’ll see) to enable Stapleton to come to France in 1980. The Englishman was looking for contributions to a compilation to be released on his United Dairies label that he had created with John Fothergill, and he naturally called on Birgé and Gorgé, who were then playing with Bernard Vitet in ‘Un drame musical instantané’.

It was a done deal and the compilation would be named In Fractured Silence. Alongside Nurse With Wound and Un drame musical instantané, could be heard Hélène Sage (whom Birgé introduced to Stapleton) and Sema, a project from the experimental British musician Robert Haigh who had participated in key records in the Nurse With Wound discography, such as Homotopy to Marie and Spiral Insana.

The curtain is raised and it is Un drame musical instantané who start the ball rolling. Mystery abounds; synthesisers lurk, percussion clatters and the sounds (creaks, whistles, vocal insertions...) fire in all directions. For the piano, it’s a debacle, the Drame won, Hélène Sage can take over. Heading up a quintette including Gorgé and Vitet, she creates a cushioned chamber music with strings and many silences.

On the B side, it’s the other side of the channel. Sema’s piano first off, which dares everything, even melody, before spilling out its darkest ideas in a raucous requiem. Finally, Stapleton appears, delving into his collection of female voices to devote himself to an iconoclastic transformation and concoct a song which collapses under the assault like Marianne at Agincourt. After having listened to In Fractured Silence, you will simply have to choose sides.

Have you heard of the Nurse With Wound List? If you are a fan of creative-experimental-unlikely music, certainly. You would therefore be aware that amongst the recommendations that Steven Stapleton slipped into the first album of his group Nurse With Wound, were to be found a few restless frogs: Jef Gilson, Luc Ferrari, Jacques Thollot, Urban Sax, Horde Catalytique and last but not least Jean-Jacques Birgé and Francis Gorgé. Stapleton admired their album Défense de. The two Frenchmen just had to conceive of a fabulous precursor to the channel tunnel (check out the inside of the record, you’ll see) to enable Stapleton to come to France in 1980. The Englishman was looking for contributions to a compilation to be released on his United Dairies label that he had created with John Fothergill, and he naturally called on Birgé and Gorgé, who were then playing with Bernard Vitet in ‘Un drame musical instantané’.

It was a done deal and the compilation would be named In Fractured Silence. Alongside Nurse With Wound and Un drame musical instantané, could be heard Hélène Sage (whom Birgé introduced to Stapleton) and Sema, a project from the experimental British musician Robert Haigh who had participated in key records in the Nurse With Wound discography, such as Homotopy to Marie and Spiral Insana.

The curtain is raised and it is Un drame musical instantané who start the ball rolling. Mystery abounds; synthesisers lurk, percussion clatters and the sounds (creaks, whistles, vocal insertions...) fire in all directions. For the piano, it’s a debacle, the Drame won, Hélène Sage can take over. Heading up a quintette including Gorgé and Vitet, she creates a cushioned chamber music with strings and many silences.

On the B side, it’s the other side of the channel. Sema’s piano first off, which dares everything, even melody, before spilling out its darkest ideas in a raucous requiem. Finally, Stapleton appears, delving into his collection of female voices to devote himself to an iconoclastic transformation and concoct a song which collapses under the assault like Marianne at Agincourt. After having listened to In Fractured Silence, you will simply have to choose sides.

"Destroyer" sees the core trio fostering their sound by continuing to migrate towards the sonic realms that capture the fine equilibrium allying the somber, austere, the vigorous, and vibrant. A striking singular vision of abyssal maritime desolation expressed by carving sonic territory that seamlessly blends elements of French coldwave, European post-punk, and first wave shoegaze.

Ever since their debut EP "A Life Of None" (2017), followed by their widely celebrated "Black Sand" EP (2018), FEARING have been procuring a constant flow of commendable releases.Through vigorous touring and live endeavors (having toured alongside the likes of Gatecreeper, She Wants Revenge, Soft Kill, 200 Stab Wounds, Choir Boy, Narrow Head, and Death Bells, along with playing notable festivals as Substance, Home Sick, and Out From The Shadows), ever since the release of "Shadow", FEARING have fastened themselves as one of the apex artists in today's post-punk current.

Anticipated follow- up to the band's debut LP "Shadow" which was one of the most acclaimed post-punk/darkwave albums of 2020. "Destroyer" likewise will be recognized as one of the most important albums within said genre of this year.

Prior to the release of "Destroyer", FEARING's touring/ live experiences include tours with bands such as Gatecreeper, She Wants Revenge, Soft Kill, 200 Stab Wounds, Choir Boy, Narrow Head and Death Bells. They have also played such festivals as Substance, Home Sick, and Out From The Shadows. Expect more notable touring in support of "Destroyer".

"Destroyer" sees the core trio fostering their sound by continuing to migrate towards the sonic realms that capture the fine equilibrium allying the somber, austere, the vigorous, and vibrant. A striking singular vision of abyssal maritime desolation expressed by carving sonic territory that seamlessly blends elements of French coldwave, European post-punk, and first wave shoegaze.

Ever since their debut EP "A Life Of None" (2017), followed by their widely celebrated "Black Sand" EP (2018), FEARING have been procuring a constant flow of commendable releases.Through vigorous touring and live endeavors (having toured alongside the likes of Gatecreeper, She Wants Revenge, Soft Kill, 200 Stab Wounds, Choir Boy, Narrow Head, and Death Bells, along with playing notable festivals as Substance, Home Sick, and Out From The Shadows), ever since the release of "Shadow", FEARING have fastened themselves as one of the apex artists in today's post-punk current.

Anticipated follow- up to the band's debut LP "Shadow" which was one of the most acclaimed post-punk/darkwave albums of 2020. "Destroyer" likewise will be recognized as one of the most important albums within said genre of this year.

Prior to the release of "Destroyer", FEARING's touring/ live experiences include tours with bands such as Gatecreeper, She Wants Revenge, Soft Kill, 200 Stab Wounds, Choir Boy, Narrow Head and Death Bells. They have also played such festivals as Substance, Home Sick, and Out From The Shadows. Expect more notable touring in support of "Destroyer".

Originally released on white vinyl for Record Store Day 2021, this much sought after soundtrack is now available on a limited run of Transparent Red Vinyl.
2020 saw the release of the critically acclaimed “Audrey”, a documentary film taking an intimate look at Audrey Hepburn’s life with access to never-before-seen footage from her family’s personal collection and produced by the multi award-winning team behind “McQueen” and “Churchill”.
The soundtrack was composed by Alex Somers, an American composer and producer who has written and collaborated on soundtracks including “We Bought A Zoo”, “How To Train Your Dragon Trilogy”, “Aloha”, “The Circle”, “Captain Fantastic”, “Shia LaBeouf's Honey Boy” and Taylor Swift's Netflix original documentary “Miss Americana”. His work was first noticed in 2009 with Riceboy Sleeps, his ambient album collaboration with partner Jónsi (Sigur Rós). Following “Riceboy Sleeps”, Alex co-produced Jónsi’s 2010 debut solo album “Go”. He then opened his own recording studio in Reykjavík where he co-produced and mixed Sigur Rós’ 2013 album “Valtari”, and continued to collaborate with artists Jónsi, Julianna Barwick, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Gyða Valtýsdóttir, Damien Rice, Amiina, Sin Fang, Briana Marela.

For this new project, Rakoon is moving towards a warm, fully-fledged electro sound. "The Ones We Love" is an ode to those we love, to those we have loved, to the way encounters, sublime moments but also wounds, shape us.

The EP opens with the electronic ballad 'Carry Me', whose intoxicating synths remind us of those who have accompanied us, with whom we have moved forward and overcome trials. It's a nostalgic escape, with a vocal sample adding a touch of melancholy. As usual with Rakoon, hope is never far away on the danceable 'Moving Strangers', an energetic, enigmatic track where glitchy vocals intertwine with unstructured synths to give us that feeling of osmosis that arises in a crowd, when you share powerful moments with strangers. We continue the artist's electronic journey with "Always", whose analogue synths contrast with the depth of the vocals, revealing something unchanging in this journey. The radiant 'Memories' brings 'The Ones We Love' to a fitting close, in a hit built like a guitar-driven song, but made for the dancefloor. It's a track as unforgettable as the memories of the shared moments that make us who we are today.

On this universally intimate EP, the French producer conveys his feelings, but also his optimism. It's all about Rakoon and the emotions you feel when you listen to him: the desire to move forward together, to dance together bound by a transcendent force. An introspective journey full of honesty that we want to share, carried by its inspiring and intoxicating melodies. A journey of hopes and encounters that we want to continue to travel with him.

Owners Club call themselves a "pub rock four piece" - but they are so much more than that. There's a through line in their taut, visceral guitar sound going from British greats like Roxy Music and Marc Bolan, through The Buzzcocks and The Jam before taking a detour off to NYC and nodding towards The Strokes and The Walkmen. The Dorking-based four piece are a blistering live act, with songs that range from singing about the long discontinued Double Diamond beer to vampires, the occult and an England that feels like a distant memory.

This EP will be the band's debut release on vinyl. Recorded at Small Pond Studios in Brighton in April this year, and produced and mixed by Matt Gleeson of WELLY fame, it presents three songs that brilliantly demonstrate what a ferocious, tightly-wound sound this Dorking four-piece can produce.

The lead single will be Double Diamond - a song that came about after a chance purchase of a Double Diamond-branded ashtray from a car boot sale by Dorking train station. The song is a romantic and messy vision of the life the ashtray’s lived, the pub it came from, the punters who left their fag ends in it and the messy nights and bar fights it’s witnessed. With sprawling synths, punchy guitar lines and tongue-in-cheek lyrics, the song is an anti-advertisement for a drink which no longer exists, as well as a look through rose-tinted beer googles at what Britain's night life - for better or (almost certainly) for worse - was once like. As the advert used to state: you know where you are with Double Diamond. It works wonders.

Greece’s ecstatic ritual singer, pianist, and ambient composer Maroulita de Kol announces her debut album Anásana, a record of deeply traditional Hellenic ceremonial cultures interwoven with contemporary experimental colour.

Athens-raised, Berlin-based Maroulita de Kol creates music formed from the ancient, pre-Christian rites and practices of Greece, newly re-presented through a contemporary lens. A former student of classical piano and voice, an unbreakable bond with her homeland


yielded an extensive and ongoing dive into the mythologies, arts and storytelling of ancestral Greece. These studies eventually guided her to the debut solo works that make up Anásana.

The instrumentation and themes of Anásana borrow both from the ancient ecstatic ritual of historical Greece and meditative electronic ambient music. Flowing lines of deeply learned piano technique clothe traditional Hellenic folksong. And while its imagery was unmistakably born in Greece, its tones are inflected by de Kol’s time in Berlin and her immersion in its electronic and experimental scenes. “My music is an act of freedom and beauty,” she explains. “Hymns that aim for the restoration of Women's faith; they can heal the collective wound of the feminine.”

Ltd Edition!

Crash und Automation demonstrieren Mullers Beherrschung strenger, industrieller Klangwelten. Muller geht jedoch noch einen Schritt weiter, indem er Club-Elemente wie Nu-Disco-Tendenzen und Vocal-Samples einführt. Auf diese Weise greift er das Thema Körper und Maschine auf, das auch in den visuellen Inhalten der Filme behandelt wird. Crash ist eine Hommage an David Cronenbergs gleichnamigen Film von 1996. Sowohl Ashley als auch Cronenberg erforschen die Erotik von Autounfällen, ein Fetisch, der sowohl mechanisch als auch blutig wirkt. Diese gewalttätige Gegenüberstellung ist die eigentliche Inspiration für Muller. Body and Machine" aus Crash ist eine pulsierende Synthie-Hymne, die sowohl synthetische Echos als auch verspielte Highlights enthält. "Perverse Technology" ist eine groovige und disharmonische Nummer, während "Sharing a Smoke" eine düstere Strenge hat, man kann fast sehen, wie die Hände über Ledersitze gleiten, Glasscherben auf verschwitzte Körper prallen und Küsse mit offenem Mund im Scheinwerferlicht.

»This River Only Brings Poison« was released in 2002 as the sixth full-length album of Chris Hooson’s Dakota Suite project. This first-ever vinyl edition of the record includes four bonus pieces and makes it possible for fans to re-evaluate one of the most crucial Dakota Suite albums in the project’s vast discography while also providing new listeners with an entry point into its intricate musical cosmos. With contributions by artists as diverse as steel guitarist Bruce Kaphan and drummer Tim Mooney from American Music Club, Derald Daugherty, and Laura and Chris Donohue as well as long-time collaborators such as David Buxton, Colin Dunkley or Ed Collins, »This River Only Brings Poison« turned out as a sonically rich and stylistically versatile as it is emotionally multi-layered.

»Writing music for me has always been a cathartic exercise,« explains Hooson. While the instrumental pieces generally serve to express a raw sense of his internal struggles, his vocal-led songs communicate them more directly. »Those are the words I cannot say openly. It’s not that I cannot voice them in a conversation, it’s just that they only seem half-formed and not ›true‹ unless they are located within a song,« he says. What makes Dakota Suite unique is that throughout the project’s history, the music and lyrics have always had a single addressee: Hooson’s wife Johanna, whose photographs were used for the album artwork and who is featured on clarinet on »sand fools the shoreline.«

»The title of the record was something that I had said when Johanna and I first met to make her see that the journey she was considering taking would be full of love, but also come at a cost,« explains Hooson. »The songs were written at a time when I was really struggling to think I could be the person that she deserved.« In the end however, »This River Only Brings Poison« marked a turning point in Hooson’s oeuvre after highly productive time with Dakota Suite: it would take another five years until he returned with a new album. »The reason for that was that I needed to accept that she had made her choice to be with me and that was a big thing for me to get my head around,« he says.

Hooson’s highly personal approach to writing songs also has an impact on the ways in which he works with his collaborators when recording them. »The people with whom I play really need to understand how I perceive the world to be able to play what I need,« he says. »My instructions would always be things like, ›This is what the song means to me, this is what I am trying to communicate to Johanna when she hears it, so your cello, for example, needs to sound like you have noticed that the cloud is covering the sun, and the weight of the air on your skin is heavier and it has unsettled you.‹«

For this particular record, he reached out to Mooney and Kaphan as an admirer of their group American Music Club. Expecting to be rejected, he instead found himself on a flight to San Francisco together with multi-instrumentalist Buxton shortly thereafter, about to make what he today calls one of his most cherished recording experiences. After the four musicians finished the basic tracks, overdubs were added in Hooson and Buxton’s respective houses as well as Daugherty’s home studio while Hooson was visiting his old friend in Nashville.

Hooson emphasises that revisiting his older releases can be complicated. »I feel intense feelings, as every record is a diary of who I was in that period and what I was feeling. That is why having to play the songs live is always like having PTSD: I need to re-experience the event that caused me to write the song, and I do not enjoy that.« He remains, however, proud of »This River Only Brings Poison,« pointing especially to the opener »the lepers companion« as what might perhaps be his favourite song of his. »But overall I just hope that Johanna feels it spoke to her,« he says, adding that the two do not discuss his records. »For me it's enough that she is listening to the things I mean to communicate to her.«