Buscar:jagged edge

Kucera & Delayed Sentence Present the Analog Rhythms EP

Scrap & Delete continues its trajectory as a home for uncompromising techno with the Analog Rhythms EP. A collaborative release from Kucera and Delayed Sentence that merges their respective strengths into a tightly honed four-tracker of futuristic machine music.



Opening cut "Analog Rhythms" sets the tone with raw propulsion and hypnotic focus. Anchored by a driving low end and jagged synth pulses, it balances grit with surgical control. A track built for long blends and warehouse immersion.

"Between Networks" dials into a more kinetic space. Its interlaced groove patterns, off-axis drum programming and haunting vocal grooves create a feeling of constant shift, evoking unstable connections and digital interference while maintaining absolute floor impact.

On "Synthax," the duo lean into sci-fi atmospheres. Bleeding-edge textures swirl through a thickly percussive dancefloor orientated framework, creating a dark yet spacious momentum that's equal parts cerebral and physical.

Closing cut "Twisted Ankl3" is the EP's most unhinged moment. A wonky workout full of broken signal bursts and twitchy rhythmic grooves. It's a subtly evolving sequenced post-industrial DJ tool, leaving dancers disoriented and locked in.

With Analog Rhythms EP, Kucera and Delayed Sentence showcase a shared vision rooted in sonic discipline, hardware fluency, and unrelenting energy. This is high-functioning techno at its most distilled. A perfect fit for Scrap & Delete's refined catalogue.

Modeight steps into 2025 with a thrilling entry from Vedana, the Leeds-born, New Zealand-based artist making waves in the underground scene. With a career shaped by years behind the decks and a newfound passion for production, Vedana distills his rich clubbing heritage into four cutting-edge tracks on Epiphany EP. The journey begins on A1 with "Epiphany". This groove-heavy minimal house piece is powered by rolling basslines and jagged modular sequences that ignite the dancefloor. Perfectly tuned for pre-parties and equally ready to take over peak-time sets, it's a versatile cut that balances tension and release in all the right places. Next up is A2's "Flawless Victory". As the name suggests, this track hits with triumphant energy. A massive beat locks in with deep, dynamic basslines, building a sense of pressure that commands attention. Add in trippy atmospheres and enveloping textures, and you've got a dancefloor weapon primed to elevate the vibe. Flipping to the B-side, "Onomatopoeia" lives up to its playful title. Short, synthetic stabs cut sharply across the soundstage, synchronized with a hypnotic groove that feels both meticulous and spontaneous. It's a standout piece, rich in personality and brimming with rhythmically charged creativity. Closing the record is B2's "Present in the Culture". An absolute heavyweight of a track, it delivers a mix of atmospheric swells and plucky, tactile sounds that pull listeners deep into a trippy sonic journey. With its driving force and immersive vibe, it's a fitting finale to a stellar EP.

‘Nothing Iz Sacred’ is a statement, a collection of tracks that resist the pull of the fleeting, throwaway nature of today’s music scene. In an age where everything is often stripped down, consumed, and discarded, this 8-track LP stands as both a nudge and a reminder—a poke at the culture that surrounds it - it isn’t here to blend quietly into the background, nor to satisfy the urge for quick hits and shallow thrills.

Each track on the LP is woven with the sounds and textures Workforce has become known for, yet there’s a rawness here—a willingness to push boundaries, to blur the edges of genre and style. The LP is a blend of the familiar and the experimental, where thoughtful moments meet jagged beats, and where soulful undertones collide with darker layers. It’s a space that resists easy categorization, daring listeners to explore without expectation, to find meaning in the spaces between the sounds. This isn’t a record designed for the disposable playlists of tomorrow; it’s for those who know that music can mean more, and who understand that it is meant to live with us, to grow, and to shape the communities around it. This record isn’t about the chase for the next hit or the endless scroll; it’s for the ones who value artistry, who find culture in the smallest details, who want something real to hold onto.

‘Nothing Iz Sacred’ is brought to life with the voices and musicality of some incredible collaborators. Tyler Daley’s unmistakable warmth, Bobbie Johnson’s sharp lyricism, Tamara Blessa’s haunting soul, Leroy Horns’ textured brass, and Ed Zuccollo’s nuanced piano work all carve their own paths through the record. Together, they amplify the album's heartbeat, adding layers of richness and depth.

Ten years after his first full-length effort ‘Man Is Deaf’ landed him firmly in the runnings for DJ Mag’s album of the year, prodigal son Michael Anthony Wright AKA Brassica returns to Civil Music with a deeply accomplished, painstakingly whittled LP of hydraulic electro slickness, rich synthscapes, and hooky, peak-time tearjerkers for the most discerning front-left lifers. ‘Tribeless Gathering’ is a barnstorming testament to Brassica’s stylistic and timbral deftness, touching down in the elusive epicentre of the club/home listening venn diagram with ease.

From the elastic, neon acid pointillism of opener ‘Hop Kweng’ to the mardy, miasmic plod of closing chugger ‘Changa Hill’, Brassica seamlessly segues between avenues of influence, his notoriously omnivorous musical knowledge roadmapping each turn. Raised on a diet of everything from early rave standards to metal, and schooled in avant garde sonics as a student of sound design at LCC, Brassica does a peerless job of sublimating his countless influences into a record of refined, heterogeneous, and most crucially, catchy, club moods.

Less spartan than his more recent oeuvre on Feel My Bicep, and less baroque than his technicolour experiments in postmodern synth pop with vocalist Stuart Warwick, Tribeless Gathering represents Brassica’s triumphant return to the main room, replete with rushy hooks primed for the planet’s finest soundsystems, and passages of heads-down tension bound to draw listeners right to the edge of their seats. Overall it is a concise and refined testament to Wright’s command of spectral sonics and effortless ability to pressurise a dancefloor. It is no surprise that he has also worked as a prolific mastering engineer, tuning music from a plethora of dance disciplines for maximum club impact. This work extends to his own projects (including this one), cementing them as rare expressions of complete artistry from studio to turntable.

As we delve deeper into the record, we are ushered through a series of accomplished and varied club moods, each channelling a unique cocktail of influences, but retaining a warm, ebullient analogue sensibility unique to Brassica’s work. This playful scope of influence calls to mind James T Cotton or Machinedrum’s experiments in dance music form, but Wright manages it all under one roof, wrangling everything from sashaying wub-laden two step to snarling Dillinja-esque FM damage into something inherently his.

Choice cut ‘Change Yourself’ layers an almost Cerrone-like piano refrain over radiant surges of saturated bass, dubby, strobing chords and a jagged, driving break, building to a jaw-clenching apex of dancefloor elation, while the rude, playful half-step of ‘Elevation’ breaks down the vintage speed garage formula into linear fragments, utilising a tight palette of resonant bass slugs, infectious synth leads and Papua New Guinea-style vocal strobes. The aptly named ‘Hold Tight’ fuses heart-in-mouth UK ‘ardkore pads with glissando acid disturbance and surgical snare fills in a formula which recalls the ethereal grit of Nubian Mindz’ 00s experiments in big-smoke break science, while the questing melodic arcs and arpeggiated squarewaves of ‘Pinball Marinara’ could easily have soundtracked an 80s sci-fi epic, beset with sparkling, bare-bones drum programming and hazy beds of sub sediment.

With ‘Tribeless Gathering’, Brassica both irreverently fuses and pays homage to the many unique and weird permutations of UK dance music. The short lived gathering of junglists, ravers and house hotsteppas of a similar name may have long since dissipated, along with the tribes themselves, but across these 11 tracks, he lays a blueprint for a new sound of togetherness.

Heavyweight psychedelic improvisers EarthBall are back with their third and most monstrous record to date: ‘Outside Over There’, released on Upset The Rhythm (Nov 7th). Born from the haunted basements of Nanaimo, Canada, the quintet thrives on spontaneity, shaping improvisation into jagged hallucinations and ecstatic eruptions.
Recorded live-off-the-floor in 2024 in Jeremy, Izzy, and Kellen’s basement, and mixed by drummer John Brennan, ‘Outside Over There’ is an album that feels both summoned and inevitable. Each track lands with uncanny purpose, as if uncovered rather than written.
The opener, 100%, features a cameo from comedian and English icon Stewart Lee, who lent his blessing for the band to use a fragment of his stand-up. The album was mastered by John Dieterich (Deerhoof), with liner text contributed by longtime comrade John Olson (Wolf Eyes). Olson describes the album in his unmistakable style:
“This eight-track odyssey unfolds like a dreamscape, where whispered incantations brush against the shadowy fringes of the cosmos, and wild, Cézanne-inspired rock anthems erupt like geysers of color in the midst of a western warm and wet rain storm… culminating in the sprawling eleven minute masterpiece, ‘And The Music Shall Untune The Sky,’ aptly dubbed the Earth Crusher. A creation so utterly deconstructed and intertwined with the pulse of nature itself that if AI was called upon to conceive ‘Outside Over There’ anew, it would just spit back, “F.U. in Tree Font”. An enchanting invitation for even the flat-earthers to join the circle, if only just a little.”
EarthBall’s trajectory has been relentless. Their 2024 album ‘It’s Yours’ was praised by The Quietus as “fully aggressive and fully life-affirming,” and by The Wire as "a boisterous mind-melting album”. The band’s live double set LP ‘Actual Earth Music Vol. 1 & 2’ (2025) captured blistering performances: a performance opening for Wolf Eyes at the Fox Cabaret, and a Café OTO improvised throw-down featuring Chris Corsano and Steve Beresford. These releases on their own confirm them as one of Canada’s most vital experimental exports, not to mention the impressive self-released discography on their Bandcamp. The band’s reach has stretched far beyond their west coast roots with a UK tour May 2024, plus this past June, EarthBall closed Montreal’s Suoni Per Il Popolo Festival alongside Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Raven Chacon. This November they will perform at Le Guess Who? Festival in Utrecht, with a European tour to follow (tour dates below). Outside of EarthBall, each member carries their own torch. Jeremy Van Wyck, founding member of the legendary Shearing Pinx, has toured extensively, released over 100 records, and has been a vital force in the Vancouver and West Coast underground for the past 25 years. He and Isabel Ford (Izzy) play together not only in EarthBall, but also in Psychedelic Dirt, Shearing Pinx, Behaviours, and Crotch.
John Brennan collaborates widely, including recently with Endlings (Raven Chacon and John Dieterich), Evichen (Victoria Shen), Francesco Fonassi, Plan Your Future (with Greg Saunier of Deerhoof), Brennan/Corsano duo and Physics with John Dieterich. Kellen Maclaughlin performs with KVMP and Ora Corgan, while saxophonist Liam Murphy is a west coast staple, playing with the best across Vancouver Island and the mainland. On three of the tracks of ‘Outside Over There’, the band is joined by their comrade Justin Patterson, who also plays with Brennan in the duo Modale. This cross-pollination fuels EarthBall’s sound - a collective improvisation, psychically overdriven, and grinding into bloom.
Outside Over There’ is more than an album though, it is a ritual, a gathering of sound at the forest’s edge; where feedback, saxophone screams, and ecstatic vocals dissolve the boundary between chaos and clarity. EarthBall invite you into their circle, to share in the joyful terror of spontaneous creation. ‘Outside Over There’ will be released on November 7th through Upset The Rhythm digitally and as a limited blue-in-black vinyl LP.

White Vinyl

The fringes of the desert have a way of changing a man, but the high-altitude chill of the Sierras will strip him down to his soul.

Following the gritty, neon-soaked introduction of his debut, Red Leather returns with his sophomore studio album, TAHOE. If his first record was a desperate sprint through the dark alleys of the soul, TAHOE is the cold morning after—a cinematic, sweeping exploration of isolation, clarity, and the jagged edges of recovery.

Named after the alpine lake that serves as both a sanctuary and a graveyard for secrets, the album navigates the duality of the landscape.

The songwriting dives deep into the "blue" period of his life—tackling themes of sobriety, the weight of sudden fame, and the ghosts of past versions of himself. It is an album about the silence that follows the storm, and the realization that the higher you climb, the thinner the air becomes.

Heavyweight psychedelic improvisers EarthBall are back with their third and most monstrous record to date: ‘Outside Over There’, released on Upset The Rhythm (Nov 7th). Born from the haunted basements of Nanaimo, Canada, the quintet thrives on spontaneity, shaping improvisation into jagged hallucinations and ecstatic eruptions.
Recorded live-off-the-floor in 2024 in Jeremy, Izzy, and Kellen’s basement, and mixed by drummer John Brennan, ‘Outside Over There’ is an album that feels both summoned and inevitable. Each track lands with uncanny purpose, as if uncovered rather than written.
The opener, 100%, features a cameo from comedian and English icon Stewart Lee, who lent his blessing for the band to use a fragment of his stand-up. The album was mastered by John Dieterich (Deerhoof), with liner text contributed by longtime comrade John Olson (Wolf Eyes). Olson describes the album in his unmistakable style:
“This eight-track odyssey unfolds like a dreamscape, where whispered incantations brush against the shadowy fringes of the cosmos, and wild, Cézanne-inspired rock anthems erupt like geysers of color in the midst of a western warm and wet rain storm… culminating in the sprawling eleven minute masterpiece, ‘And The Music Shall Untune The Sky,’ aptly dubbed the Earth Crusher. A creation so utterly deconstructed and intertwined with the pulse of nature itself that if AI was called upon to conceive ‘Outside Over There’ anew, it would just spit back, “F.U. in Tree Font”. An enchanting invitation for even the flat-earthers to join the circle, if only just a little.”
EarthBall’s trajectory has been relentless. Their 2024 album ‘It’s Yours’ was praised by The Quietus as “fully aggressive and fully life-affirming,” and by The Wire as "a boisterous mind-melting album”. The band’s live double set LP ‘Actual Earth Music Vol. 1 & 2’ (2025) captured blistering performances: a performance opening for Wolf Eyes at the Fox Cabaret, and a Café OTO improvised throw-down featuring Chris Corsano and Steve Beresford. These releases on their own confirm them as one of Canada’s most vital experimental exports, not to mention the impressive self-released discography on their Bandcamp. The band’s reach has stretched far beyond their west coast roots with a UK tour May 2024, plus this past June, EarthBall closed Montreal’s Suoni Per Il Popolo Festival alongside Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Raven Chacon. This November they will perform at Le Guess Who? Festival in Utrecht, with a European tour to follow (tour dates below). Outside of EarthBall, each member carries their own torch. Jeremy Van Wyck, founding member of the legendary Shearing Pinx, has toured extensively, released over 100 records, and has been a vital force in the Vancouver and West Coast underground for the past 25 years. He and Isabel Ford (Izzy) play together not only in EarthBall, but also in Psychedelic Dirt, Shearing Pinx, Behaviours, and Crotch.
John Brennan collaborates widely, including recently with Endlings (Raven Chacon and John Dieterich), Evichen (Victoria Shen), Francesco Fonassi, Plan Your Future (with Greg Saunier of Deerhoof), Brennan/Corsano duo and Physics with John Dieterich. Kellen Maclaughlin performs with KVMP and Ora Corgan, while saxophonist Liam Murphy is a west coast staple, playing with the best across Vancouver Island and the mainland. On three of the tracks of ‘Outside Over There’, the band is joined by their comrade Justin Patterson, who also plays with Brennan in the duo Modale. This cross-pollination fuels EarthBall’s sound - a collective improvisation, psychically overdriven, and grinding into bloom.
Outside Over There’ is more than an album though, it is a ritual, a gathering of sound at the forest’s edge; where feedback, saxophone screams, and ecstatic vocals dissolve the boundary between chaos and clarity. EarthBall invite you into their circle, to share in the joyful terror of spontaneous creation. ‘Outside Over There’ will be released on November 7th through Upset The Rhythm digitally and as a limited blue-in-black vinyl LP.

LP, Opaque Pink Vinyl, w/ download card

Mexico City’s Sunset Images emerge with their most daring and immersive work to date, Oscilador, arriving January 23 on Dedstrange. Known for pushing the boundaries of noise rock and psychedelic experimentation, the band plunges deeper into their raw, unrelenting sound—crafting an album that thrives in chaos, distortion, and hypnotic repetition.
Oscilador captures Sunset Images at a new creative peak: jagged guitars dissolve into swirling feedback, fractured rhythms pulse like machinery on the brink, and vocals echo through layers of reverb as if channeled from another dimension. The record balances intensity and atmosphere, offering both catharsis and transcendence. It’s a sonic free fall that feels at once destructive and redemptive—like watching a city crumble only to find strange beauty in the ruins.
The album title reflects the band’s fascination with constant motion and instability, the oscillations of sound and life itself. Across the record, Sunset Images embrace the extremes: minimal passages expand into walls of noise, meditative drones are shattered by bursts of primal energy, and every song teeters on the edge of collapse. This restless spirit makes Oscilador not just a collection of songs, but a visceral experience—one that mirrors the tension and electricity of Mexico City’s underground scene.
Joining forces with Dedstrange, Sunset Images step onto a global stage while staying true to their uncompromising vision. For fans of A Place To Bury Strangers, Sonic Youth, or My Bloody Valentine, Oscilador delivers the thrill of pure immersion—music that doesn’t just demand to be heard, but to be felt in the chest, the bones, and the subconscious.
With Oscilador, Sunset Images invite listeners to lose themselves in noise, distortion, and dissonance—and to find clarity within the chaos.

Jagged City unveils their debut instrumental EP, `There Are More of Us, Always`, a bold collection that moves between spacious, melodic guitar passages and raucous, swelling climbs. With heartfelt, melodious songwriting, a diverse range of eclectic touches buried within, and eruptions of dense, layered sound, this record delivers wonderfully balanced compositions through raw and personal production. The project began as a cross-continental art experiment between Jake Woodruff (Defeater) and Carlos Torres (former touring member of Explosions In The Sky). What started as a simple exchange of ideas quickly found real shape through collaborative composition and thoughtful arrangement. Early sessions with David Haik helped refine the songs' structures and drum frameworks, setting the groundwork for what would become Jagged City's striking debut. "We wrote with pure instinct, just tried to add something new to a genre that we love. As we traded ideas, we took some left turns and incorporated elements that may be unexpected." (Woodruff) The result feels immediate, deviously rough at the edges, and charged with a punk-minded intensity that keeps the momentum taut and the sound intimate. RIYL Mogwai, Do Make Say Think, Godspeed, Mono, Defeater, Explosions In The Sky

Jagged City unveils their debut instrumental EP, `There Are More of Us, Always`, a bold collection that moves between spacious, melodic guitar passages and raucous, swelling climbs. With heartfelt, melodious songwriting, a diverse range of eclectic touches buried within, and eruptions of dense, layered sound, this record delivers wonderfully balanced compositions through raw and personal production. The project began as a cross-continental art experiment between Jake Woodruff (Defeater) and Carlos Torres (former touring member of Explosions In The Sky). What started as a simple exchange of ideas quickly found real shape through collaborative composition and thoughtful arrangement. Early sessions with David Haik helped refine the songs' structures and drum frameworks, setting the groundwork for what would become Jagged City's striking debut. "We wrote with pure instinct, just tried to add something new to a genre that we love. As we traded ideas, we took some left turns and incorporated elements that may be unexpected." (Woodruff) The result feels immediate, deviously rough at the edges, and charged with a punk-minded intensity that keeps the momentum taut and the sound intimate. RIYL Mogwai, Do Make Say Think, Godspeed, Mono, Defeater, Explosions In The Sky

Swimming Paul’s music has always lived in the push-and-pull between euphoria and melancholy; the rare kind of electronic music that can make you cry while your body keeps moving.



On Smiling Through the Pain 2 (out October 24 via Headroom Records), the French-born, London-based producer doubles down on that emotional duality, delivering an album that feels as much like a diary as it does a DJ set.

Over the course of 15 tracks, Paul stitches together late-night catharsis, suburban nostalgia, and the jagged tenderness of early adulthood. The record is sequenced like an unbroken night out: the giddy anticipation, the sudden moments of reflection, the quiet comedown as the sun edges in. It’s an album that refuses to treat joy and sadness as opposites, they coexist here, often in the same chord progression.



“I don’t want to escape the feelings, I want to bring them with me” Paul says. “If you can’t stop thinking about something, you might as well dance with it.”

That philosophy runs through the singles: the emotional release of Holly (with Junior Simba), the aching nostalgia of Different Time, the hypnotic haze of Hard 2 Sleep, and the house-driven Drinking to Get Drunk, a bittersweet ode to nights spent outrunning your own thoughts. Elsewhere, Liza M1 folds heartbreak into an almost triumphant piano hook, while Shine a Light urges listeners to take risks and live without hesitation—as if youth’s boldness could be bottled.



Since debuting in 2023, Swimming Paul has quietly built an empire on emotional resonance: 150 million streams across platforms, 1.9 million monthly listeners on Spotify and more than 50 editorial placements (including Dance Party, Crying on the Dancefloor, Electronic Rising….), 10,000+ radio spins worldwide, and sold-out tours across Europe and North America. His sound has earned co-signs from BBC Radio 1, Triple J, KCRW, Sirius XM and a wave of DJs who value melody as much as momentum.

But Smiling Through the Pain 2 isn’t chasing charts, it’s chasing connections. Paul’s global fanbase, nurtured through a lively Discord community and nights on the road, has become a two-way conversation, with fans’ stories feeding back into the music’s emotional core.
This autumn, Paul takes the album to stages that match its ambition, from London to a string of US club dates, festivals and intimate pop ups designed for shared release.



Smiling Through the Pain 2 is an invitation to feel everything at once. To sweat through the sadness. To let your guard down under strobe lights. To realise that the best nights out don’t make you forget; they help you remember.

Heavyweight psychedelic improvisers EarthBall are back with their third and most monstrous record to date: ‘Outside Over There’, released on Upset The Rhythm (Nov 7th). Born from the haunted basements of Nanaimo, Canada, the quintet thrives on spontaneity, shaping improvisation into jagged hallucinations and ecstatic eruptions.
Recorded live-off-the-floor in 2024 in Jeremy, Izzy, and Kellen’s basement, and mixed by drummer John Brennan, ‘Outside Over There’ is an album that feels both summoned and inevitable. Each track lands with uncanny purpose, as if uncovered rather than written.
The opener, 100%, features a cameo from comedian and English icon Stewart Lee, who lent his blessing for the band to use a fragment of his stand-up. The album was mastered by John Dieterich (Deerhoof), with liner text contributed by longtime comrade John Olson (Wolf Eyes). Olson describes the album in his unmistakable style:
“This eight-track odyssey unfolds like a dreamscape, where whispered incantations brush against the shadowy fringes of the cosmos, and wild, Cézanne-inspired rock anthems erupt like geysers of color in the midst of a western warm and wet rain storm… culminating in the sprawling eleven minute masterpiece, ‘And The Music Shall Untune The Sky,’ aptly dubbed the Earth Crusher. A creation so utterly deconstructed and intertwined with the pulse of nature itself that if AI was called upon to conceive ‘Outside Over There’ anew, it would just spit back, “F.U. in Tree Font”. An enchanting invitation for even the flat-earthers to join the circle, if only just a little.”
EarthBall’s trajectory has been relentless. Their 2024 album ‘It’s Yours’ was praised by The Quietus as “fully aggressive and fully life-affirming,” and by The Wire as "a boisterous mind-melting album”. The band’s live double set LP ‘Actual Earth Music Vol. 1 & 2’ (2025) captured blistering performances: a performance opening for Wolf Eyes at the Fox Cabaret, and a Café OTO improvised throw-down featuring Chris Corsano and Steve Beresford. These releases on their own confirm them as one of Canada’s most vital experimental exports, not to mention the impressive self-released discography on their Bandcamp. The band’s reach has stretched far beyond their west coast roots with a UK tour May 2024, plus this past June, EarthBall closed Montreal’s Suoni Per Il Popolo Festival alongside Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Raven Chacon. This November they will perform at Le Guess Who? Festival in Utrecht, with a European tour to follow (tour dates below). Outside of EarthBall, each member carries their own torch. Jeremy Van Wyck, founding member of the legendary Shearing Pinx, has toured extensively, released over 100 records, and has been a vital force in the Vancouver and West Coast underground for the past 25 years. He and Isabel Ford (Izzy) play together not only in EarthBall, but also in Psychedelic Dirt, Shearing Pinx, Behaviours, and Crotch.
John Brennan collaborates widely, including recently with Endlings (Raven Chacon and John Dieterich), Evichen (Victoria Shen), Francesco Fonassi, Plan Your Future (with Greg Saunier of Deerhoof), Brennan/Corsano duo and Physics with John Dieterich. Kellen Maclaughlin performs with KVMP and Ora Corgan, while saxophonist Liam Murphy is a west coast staple, playing with the best across Vancouver Island and the mainland. On three of the tracks of ‘Outside Over There’, the band is joined by their comrade Justin Patterson, who also plays with Brennan in the duo Modale. This cross-pollination fuels EarthBall’s sound - a collective improvisation, psychically overdriven, and grinding into bloom.
Outside Over There’ is more than an album though, it is a ritual, a gathering of sound at the forest’s edge; where feedback, saxophone screams, and ecstatic vocals dissolve the boundary between chaos and clarity. EarthBall invite you into their circle, to share in the joyful terror of spontaneous creation. ‘Outside Over There’ will be released on November 7th through Upset The Rhythm digitally and as a limited blue-in-black vinyl LP.

Finding Ways is a new project from Sebastian Rochford (Polar Bear).

Sebastian Rochford is a singular force in British music, an extraordinary drummer, composer, and producer. His work with theiconic group Polar Bear helped redefine the boundaries of jazz and earned multiple Mercury Prize nominations. With a careerspanning collaborations with Patti Smith, Damon Albarn, Brian Eno, Adele and Grace Jones, and his 2023 ECM duo album A ShortDiary with Kit Downes, an album written for his father described as a “ quiet masterpiece” , Rochford has carved out a uniquespace in contemporary music.Finding Ways, his new major project, marks a bold new chapter for Seb Rochford. The first album focuses on the guitar, featuringamong others, the dynamic lineup of Tara Cunningham, David Preston, Adrian Utley (Portishead), and Simon Tong(The Verve,Gorillaz), exploring various combinations and layering up to three guitars at once. The result is a striking blend of jaggedexperimental grooves and raw emotional depth, with an unaffected, pedal-less sound that evokes a timeless, exploratory edge.Rochford’s music, as ever, defies categorisation—a sound that feels alive, fractured, and profoundly human, and all mixed by thesingular talent and master of sound, Tchad Blake.The title Finding Ways refers to a frame of mind he chose to adopt after multiple significant life events happening in a smallamount of time. "It’s about finding ways to keep ourselves moving forward and buoyant, transforming life’s challenges intosomething meaningful, also in a practical, everyday type of way.In Finding Ways, it’s direct, energetic music that refuses to be boxed in, a reflection of Seb Rochford's trailblazing spirit. For fansof his previous work and newcomers alike, this album is a testament to his ongoing quest to find emotional truth in sound.

Double album for 2025's Peur Bleue production, bringing oldschool Tribe and Acid ... Many first timers on vinyl supported by beloved artists since years....

Photo of the shop by Livia Saavedra, and visuals By Vstee FDB

Mastering by Jo.IND and cut by Simon Davey.
Pressed at Records Industry.

Acclaimed British artist Leon Vynehall presents is highly anticipated third album, In Daytona Yellow, via Ooze INC. Marking the next stage in the Ivor Novello-nominated producer and DJ’s evolving sound, In Daytona Yellow showcases Vynehall’s experimentations with fringe electronics, pop, and R&B, and his growing confidence through collaboration and live vocals. Across 10 hypnotically off-kilter tracks, we hear Vynehall at his most deft and diaristic.

Over the past 13 years, Vynehall has built a formidable reputation through his genre-defying artistry. From his early days as a leftfield house producer releasing on labels like Aus Music, Running Back, 3024, and Rush Hour, to his critically acclaimed debut album Nothing Is Still (2018) and the boundary-pushing Rare, Forever (2021), he has continually redefined his creative limits. While Rare, Forever was a bold step away from dance music—melding post-punk textures with experimental electronics—In Daytona Yellow pushes these experiments into a more traditional songwriting framework, inspired by both contemporary and 80s avant-pop.

In Daytona Yellow is set to be a career-defining release, cementing Leon Vynehall as one of electronic music’s most innovative and thought-provoking artists, part of a vanguard expanding the ambition of electronic music.

Unmistakable are the sonic experiments of Spanish alchemist ORBE; with this fresh release on Token. ORBE's iconically viscous textures and impactful percussion weasel their way into 'Ascender' for a deeper release on Kr!z's label. Thick, brooding atmospheres drive these tracks into stories of pursuit and escape throughout its four tracks.

A slick, pulsating low end in 'Flashback' stands out as a first impression for an imposing EP. Electric leads zip by for maximum psychosis; he's known for his uncompromising dissonance and drive. A staple of the Spanish scene, ORBE bites down hard on deep and hypnotic techno to resonate through concrete warehouses. This jagged edge to club music continues through 'W9Y' - a more drum-forward cut with noisy transitions and breathable synthwork. Sharper stabs occupy this space as opposed to the track's predecessor and tension is maintained with a lingering pad in the background. A meditative conclusion for the A side, ORBE quickly shifts his attention in the titletrack 'Ascender'. Emphasizing tone and tune on the kick, the lead comes with confrontation. Rolling through shifting hats, the producer brings boiling tension through minimal arrangement and the weight of his sound design - a skillset only the most seasoned artists can claim. To close things out, 'Break Nation' does just that - cutting off the traditional four/four rhythm and instead presenting itself as a bass stepper. With ORBE's classic unison packed synths, this dweller presents a whole other perspective on 'Ascender'. A hybrid of influences and yet still destined for the techno dancefloor, this breath of fresh air serves as deep dive into the subconscious for an eyes-closed experience.

Nu-hardcore quintet, Bodyweb, are the sound of someone’s nervous system on the verge of breakdown—hyperactive, tormented and unflinchingly vulnerable. Born out of the Leeds hardcore scene, they’re a shape-shifting alloy of jagged emotion and precision chaos. What began as late-night jams between Louis Hardy (Higher Power, Big Cheese, Fate) and Ben Jones (Pest Control) eventually mutated into train_wreck_simulation, a debut EP filled with frantic breakdowns and nu-metal swag that felt like the soundtrack to a digital exorcism. The final piece of the puzzle came from Hardy’s estranged childhood friend, pq. His twisted samples and synthetic textures are haunted and disturbed, injecting cyberpunk soul into hardcore flesh. Contorting through several iterations in the following years, the band absorbed Luke Thompson (Stiff Meds) on drums, filmmaker Tom Hobson on guitar and Naomi Macleod (Empire State Bastard) on bass, and laid down their first collective offering. deadwired is due out on Flatspot Records later this year. Bodyweb's second EP is a violent thesis on connection and pain that sends Hardy’s unfiltered vocals through heaven and hell. Four overstimulating tracks run a gamut of styles and influences from Slipknot to Björk, constantly lane-switching between dizzying heaviness, ambient soundscapes and brain-burrowing hooks. Entirely self-produced, deadwired upgrades the sonic formula laid down on the last record and raises the question: what else could exist in Bodyweb’s twisted roadmap? Nothing seems impossible. What seems important, however, is retaining the rawness in a style that can often turn sterile. “We still wanted it to sound very human. It had to be well produced but not cold and lifeless.” shares Hardy. “We didn’t use a click track. All guitars were real amps with microphones. We tried to make everything as real and raw as possible, we recorded using all the same gear we use when playing live too to really capture the energy of how it feels when we jam together." ‘Deadwired’ is a snapshot of violent implosion. Four ADHD-fuelled transmissions from the edge of spiritual collapse. It drags metallic hardcore through glitched-out ambience to confront ego death, generational trauma, and the violence of being alive. On stage, Bodyweb don’t just perform, they purge. Raucous live electronics meld with digitally contorted guitars. Breakbeats meet breakdowns—no backing track in sight. Bodyweb enable a collective catharsis. Mosh, dance, dive, scream, heal. A physical therapy session screamed into the void.

Editrix is a Massachusetts-rooted trio known for their wild, gnarly take on experimental rock. Blending jagged guitar riffs, unpredictable rhythms, and bursts of cartoonish eccentricity, the band creates a sound that's both chaotic and compelling. Composed of singer and guitarist Wendy Eisenberg, drummer Josh Daniel, and bassist Steve Cameron, Editrix thrives on musical risk-taking, often veering into noise-rock territory with a playful edge. On their latest release, The Big E, Editrix unleashes their fangs, resulting in a demonic wall of scuzz. But for as intense as Editrix sounds, the act is convivial and easygoing _ ingrained in deep friendships and speedy, yet jovial recording sessions. Editrix's most pummeling moments seem to be founded on a heartfelt connection, adding emotional resonance to their most feral noise. In the three years since their second LP Editrix II, Eisenberg, Daniel, and Cameron have thrived in individual states of motion _ in and away from music. New York City-based Eisenberg is an accomplished solo artist in the avant-garde realm, receiving recent acclaim for their album Viewfinder (released by American Dreams in 2024). They are also a prolific collaborator, performing in a handful of projects alongside the likes of romantic partner more eaze, Bill Orcutt, David Grubbs, and others. Cameron relocated from Massachusetts to New York City around the same time Editrix II came out, taking a slight step away from music to return to school. Daniel is the only member of Editrix left living in Massachusetts, and performs with the eclectic bands Landowner, Hot Dirt, and The Leafies. Due to Editrix being scattered, the band's new album, The Big E, found them toying with a fresh process. Editrix was quick to write off the idea of collaborating remotely, as the act relishes the warmth of happy accidents that only happen in person. The Big E sparked with Eisenberg, Daniel, and Cameron compiling a list of albums they each admire to establish a self-professed "vibe" up front. King Crimson, My Disco, and Horse Lords were a few key touchstones that shine through, their grounded grooviness balancing erraticism. Eisenberg also found themself infatuated with `70s outlaw country and Van Dyke Parks production. The Big E is titled after a comedic bit between band members, sharing its name with a prominent regional fair in Western Massachusetts, although the title-track aptly features massive E chords. When held up alongside Editrix II _ which found the act toying with Finnish death metal and harsh noise _ The Big E feels settled in its skin. Editrix recorded The Big E with legendary tech death producer Colin Marston (Krallice, Behold_, Dysrhythmia) at his soon-to-be-shuttered studio in Queens. Though these tracks sound toiled over and technical, they are very spontaneous. The majority of The Big E was captured live, with a handful of overdubs added after the fact and came to life over the course of four focused, but rewarding days. Eisenberg uses zen words like "meditative" and "evocative" to describe Editrix's methods, but the end result is crunchy, intricate, and impressively baffling. Easygoing as the band's operation may be, The Big E is a strong jump forward for Editrix inching them towards the center of the avant-rock constellation.

After two decades, the indietronic veteran returns with a powerful sonic reflection on today’s sociopolitical climate and a poignant reminder of music’s enduring ability to heal, unite, and inspire. Blending experimental electronics with krautrock sensibilities, the album thrives on spontaneity, collaboration, and the beauty of ‘happy accidents’.

While many of Nitrada’s sonic trademarks remain — intricate, rickety beats; enigmatic field recordings; and gut-punching string melodies — EVERYTHING THAT IS NOT COUNTED WILL BE LOST marks a shift in approach. Experimenting with different constellations of musical machines, Christophe Stoll, the mind behind Nitrada, recorded hours of improvisations (some shared on his Instagram). These sketches became the raw material for more elaborate, carefully structured arrangements.

True to his collaborative spirit, Stoll brought in like-minded artists to shape the final album: Jan Sturm (aka STURM) lends his touch to the shimmering FRAGMENTS OF LIGHT. The euphoric dystopian WE DANCE IN THE CHAOS features Landobe (Marco Heinle) and Patrick Siegfried Zimmer on vocals. Luca di Mira (of Giardini di Mirò fame) contributes synths, cello, and delicate textures to some tracks, while Johannes Schardt’s guitar work brings a visceral, post-rock edge to NO HYMN FOR NOBODY and IL ROMANTICISMO DELL’APOCALISSE, nodding to Stoll’s roots in punk and indie.

“The goal is to take listeners on a journey through different timbres and sonic landscapes — a collage of diverse ideas and inspirations,” says Stoll about his album which effortlessly juxtaposes experimental ambient soundscapes, heavy jagged guitars, and minimal techno pulses, making them feel as though they’ve always belonged together. Because, in the end, they do – all part of the shared vocabulary of our universal language: MUSIC.

Spectral Bounce’s fifth instalment comes courtesy of L.A.’s rave archivist and dancefloor operative Dreams, A.K.A. Jesse Pimenta. Throughout his decade-long career the California native has inspected, dissected and concocted all manner of dance musics, leaving his mark with drops on Apron Records, Pinkman, BANK NYC and his own imprint Dance Data. On SPEC05 — Dangerous When Wet — he hijacks the synapses with 4 accomplished productions, plotting a high BPM course through manifold styles using the raw aesthetic that characterises his output.

“Losing Control” is a frenetic dancefloor invitation, immediately locking into a pacing groove. Beneath wild hand drums, Dreams plays with an insistent 303 bassline alternating between rasping buzz and oily squelch, while stern vocals are layered on top of breaks that have been processed to a viscerally satisfying end.

Taking things from delirious dance circle to underwater biosphere, the EP’s eponymous track explores a submerged 1980s Miami. Weighty & enveloping, “Dangerous When Wet” is pure aquatic pop-n-lock — hydraulic electro for a drowned world. Ocean floor caustics are transmuted into auditory form: arpeggios bubble up; drones shimmer mystically; hi-hats hiss like air from an open valve. Amongst the sonar bleeps, a barrage of pummeling low-end is sure to give subwoofers a workout.

“XTC Messenger” delivers an infectious paranoid dispatch, astutely balancing the sensual with the deranged. A slow-mo dial tone unfolds languidly, running counter to nervously twitching high frequencies. Its punchy percussion is tuned for maximum dopamine release; the track’s abrupt vocal chops and mechanical kick-snare pulsation evoke the leather jackets and jagged edges of 1980s industrial discotheque.

“Pressure Points” closes the EP on a heady and mesmerising polymetric trip. The parting track is a lithe yet spacious number, propelled by a rattling break. Here Dreams follows from track 2, creating an immersive environment in which sounds tightly twist and twirl. Shifting oscillators call out like tiny creatures as the bass throbs and wriggles further into your brain, long after the needle hits the runout groove.

Growing up is painful, brutal, and sometimes beautiful _ something Brooklyn-based indie-rock band Bedridden knows all too well. The band's name is even a nod to that ineffable period between childhood and the jagged edges of the real world. "When I was 21, I kind of lost my home," says frontman/guitarist Jack Riley. "I was couch-surfing. I was having a hard time.The next iteration in the band's maturation, then, is their debut, LP Moths Strapped To Eachother's Backs, 10 fuzzed-out (and sometimes gnarly) ruminations on dating, drugs, and survival out April 11 on Julia's War. The title came from a mysterious missive Riley received on astrology app Co-Star. "Last year I was way too reliant on other people _ my partner at the time, my friends," he says. "I was strapped to them in a weird way _ and flying in circles. This album is about that time."The current incarnation of Bedridden encompasses a patchwork of styles, influences, and friends Riley accumulated over the years. A Chicago native who first started making music at age five on a thrift-store guitar emblazoned with Kurt Cobain's name, Riley moved to New Orleans for college where he dabbled in punk before falling in love with shoegaze. There, he launched the first version of Bedridden. Sebastian Duzian (bass) _ a jazz musician and Pasadena native _ linked up with Riley in NOLA along with his bandmate, drummer Nick Pedroza. Pedroza, from Claremont, grew up on rock, metal, and jazz, honing his style after joining the band. Wesley Wolffe _ a guitarist fed on a steady diet of New Wave and `90s alt _ rounded out the crew just a few months back. Bedridden's previous lineup released their first EP, Amateur Heartthrob, in 2023 _ a noise-washed blend of shoegaze, DIY, and indie that Riley says is a "coming-of-age EP _ these formative stories about not having a bed, dating, being kind of a jackass. I was making fun of myself a lot." That release caught the attention of Douglas Dulgarian from Philly Label Julia's War (and TAGABOW), who signed them for Moths."Some of these songs have been around for years," says Riley, adding that they were recorded last February at Studio G Brooklyn; the album was produced by Aron Kobayashi Ritch (Momma). "As opposed to Amateur Heartthrob, we attempted to blend more clean guitars into a driving sound to capture more clarity _ one that also sounds live_ and raw," Riley says. That rawness thrums through the record, which kicks off with the thrashed "Gummy," about an incident when Riley had to gently fend off a co-worker's unwanted advances while both drunk and high on an MDMA gummy. And then there's mournful rager "Etch," which sees Riley daydreaming about beating up a meddler in his personal life _ in the minor key.The annihilating "Chainsaw" revs in next, a lightning-fast Lemonheads-inspired track that recalls Riley moving in with new roommates who were unnaturally obsessed with purchasing a lamp. "For some reason that pissed me off," he laughs; that rage is evident in the album cover, which shows said power tool demolishing a lampshade. Heavy-shredding "Heaven's Leg" showcases the band's affinity for `90s mainstays like Smashing Pumpkins while telling the tale of a gig at a local church. "The lyrics are about a pastor I had met that had lost his leg," Riley says. "The church had signs about not cussing and I had a feeling that neither of us had anything to talk about without potentially offending the other."The band's not afraid to get confrontational, though, on the anger-fueled, drum-heavy "Philadelphia, Get Me Through," which deals with a dead-end relationship and the mistaken assumption that getting drunk in the titular city would be a balm against the pain. And the nasty, brutist, and short hardcore-adjacent "MainStage"? "It's about being disrespected at a show on New Year's and how I lashed out," Riley says. "I then began to take it out on other people, which was a quality that I despise."Things get contemplative and mournful from here on out _ the emo-edged "Snare" is about bringing flowers to a hospital room where you're not welcome, while the Smiths-inspired "Uno" wrestles with self-loathing. "I guess the big finale of that song was my response to dealing with this recurring experience of feeling like I wasn't good enough by getting really into whippets," Riley says. Nu-metal bop "Bonehead," then, recalls an embarrassing dinner that turned into an argument _ the name applies both to that incident and the delicious simplicity of the guitar parts.After all that turmoil and pain, the band caps everything off with their eyes to the future on the jangle-pop "Ring Size." "All my friends are getting married _ do I follow in their footsteps? Or is it all a waste of time?" Riley says of the song. "At the end, through it all, I guess that's what I've been trying to figure out _ how to grow up, how to move on. I'm trying to navigate things as an adult and I'm not very good at it. But this is just the first record. This is just the beginning."And, hey, at least now he has a bed.

Recorded quickly between John Cale producing Patti Smith's Horses and his going out on an Italian tour, Helen of Troy became Cale's third and final studio album for Island Records - This re-issue faithfully replicates the original 1975 Island Records UK release and is pressed onto high quality 180g vinyl. Helen Of Troy is a raw, fascinating listen. The title track with its horns and spoken word is one of Cale's best: after the sweet bubblegum of "China Sea", the album gets increasingly stripped down the acoustic guitar and piano of "Cable Hogue" and the punkish cover of The Modern Lovers' "Pablo Picasso" have long been favourites on the album. "Leaving It All Up To You" in which Cale becomes increasingly disturbed garnered controversy at the time and was actually removed from later pressings of the album because of its references to the Manson murders. Cale never lost his ability to shock. Taking its title from the opening line of Johnny Cash's "I Walk The Line", "I Keep A Close Watch", a track Cale would record again several years later, with its Robert Kirby-arranged strings and horns, is the closest Cale has veered toward a power ballad. It is a work of great beauty among all the jagged edges of Helen Of Troy.

Obscure Formats is a sonic strike of moving body electronics. This modern metal machine music is directed, goaded and prodded into reaction by Robert Galbraith, Component Recordings founder and one half (with of the monster modular outfit that is Snowbeasts. Under the Obscure Formats moniker, he forges a tight, earthbound sound from synths, modular racks and drum machines to pound a path through your ears right into your mind. Tracks like pound and pulse with unrelenting beats, percussion and arpeggiating pulses. Within each Obscure Formats track is a harsh soundscape of angles, jagged edges and eerie drones. Obscure Formats - Agitations consists of 4 tracks of alluring body music with special remixes by AXKAN & Years of Denial.
Written + Produced by: Robert Galbraith Except Haunted & Blood Moon - Robert Galbraith & Elizabeth Virosa

‘Empires into Sand’ is the first album of new material from Normil Hawaiians in 40 years. The group first refined their sound during the early 80s, hitting on a pastoral experimentalism that drew on ambient drone, motorik impulse and post-punk pep.
‘Empires into Sand’ came together in the familiar manner of their original three albums, with improvisation and nuance informing the blueprint of the tracks. It was with the official release of this last record ‘Return of the Ranters’ (originally recorded in 1984/85, but then unconsciously shelved) in 2015 by Upset The Rhythm that led to the group reconnecting with the intention of playing music together again. Normil Hawaiians played a launch show for that ‘lost album’ and followed that up with more concerts, including an appearance at Supernormal, a residency at the Edinburgh Festival, gigs at Cafe OTO. They were even chosen by Richard Dawson to perform with him in London.
Throughout this time, Normil Hawaiians revisited their original songs for live performance. However for a group always so interested in evolving their sound, it came as no surprise that they shirked at the idea of a faithful retread. The band pushed their songs into new inventive dimensions, still progressive at core, but now imbued with a cosmic uncanny. A cinematic approach that was always quietly present has come to the fore. The quaint weirdness of folk song, the humanity of communal practice and the group’s ecological mindedness have all found a place in Normil Hawaiians’ current sound world.
When Normil Hawaiians write and record music they prefer to gather in a remote location and live together for a while, such is their communal ethos. Being far-flung across the UK, the Family Hawaii (numbering seven key members) decided to encamp to Tayinloan, a small village on the west coast of the Kintyre peninsula in Scotland. They set up their own studio in an isolated, windswept house overlooking the sea and started the tape rolling. Noel Blanden from the band explains the process neatly: “we set up and began playing, slowly and patiently, allowing the music to take its own shape based on where we were staying and our ongoing friendship. We recorded for days, capturing everything. A lot of new and rich ideas began to emerge”.
Normil Hawaiians took their time to develop these threads at their own pace, allowing songs to mutate and settle over months. Simon Marchant deftly produced and recorded the album whilst also performing in the band, this marked the first time the band had total control of their own sound. The last few years has seen the band reconvene in Herne Bay, Faversham, London and Leith to record new parts, constantly responding to the changing form of these quietly spectral songs of defiance.
‘Empires into Sand’ incorporates samples from old rehearsals and live music into the new finished pieces, this is in continuum with their previous records. Snippets of sound from the static of short wave radio and satellite transmissions also embellish the work. In fact the whole album is stitched together with interludes, creating an acutely immersive 45 minutes. ‘Exiles’ opens the album amid swirling atmospheres, synth flights and recordings of Vilnis Egle (father of Zinta Egle from the band) retelling his experience of fleeing his home in Latvia during Soviet occupation in 1942. George Bikandy also features on this track talking about his flight from Syria in 2014. ‘Ghosts of Ballochroy’ is a winding river of a song featuring a lively discourse in Scots courtesy of Rodney Relax. There’s a commitment to truth telling present across this hopeful album populated with angels, incoming tides, long shadows and the rose-washed sun. “From our broken windscreen, we feel the breeze” soars Guy Smith triumphantly over the driving beat of ‘Waterfalls : Bedford 330’. ‘Big City Sky’ flutters and sparkles with rapid synth runs, tape-looped drums and Jimmy Miller’s commanding vocal. With ‘In The Stone’ Zinta’s melody is deliberately jagged and blunt, exaggerated by octave-layered vocals and interjections from Guy.
This is thought-provoking, boundary-bothering music. Honest in intent, a solidarity of vision. The album’s title is derived from a poem by band member Mark Tyler, who sadly passed away during the recording process and the transience of life is felt heavily throughout. Noel best coins the group’s wish for the album: “we wanted to create an album that acknowledges our history and also reflects who we are today. We remained true to ourselves and we wanted to make something beautiful without removing the edges.” ‘Empires into Sand’ certainly does that, it’s an echo from the past, an echo from the future.

The central theme of Steady is perseverance. Each track is based on a personal story or a fleeting encounter with people these past few years, from close friends to total strangers, either at home or on night shift commutes. People navigating their own hardships, almost giving up but always struggling through. More broadly, it’s about multiplicity, and contradiction. These central figures displaying hope and determination within a city of development and neglect, uniformity and chaos - an unfiltered representation of a city with all its jagged edges, darkness, and shards of light. It's broken and disheveled, but never not beautiful, just like the people in it. Musically, Steady continues where Bleach (debut album) left off - a sonic language of glitch, decaying tape and analogue distortion through which hints of RnB and soulful ballads bleed through. With a greater emphasis on beats, albeit lopsided on pitch-shifted tape loops, Steady feels more self-assured, more confident, more recognisable. At the same time, it's never stable or predictable - choruses break down early, harmonies bend into beating microtones, tracks emerge before others have finished. The symphonic scope of Bleach is still retained in Steady though. This is music of motivic development, of micro and macro form, of meticulous refining. The work of two classically trained composers, the album's chaos is heavily considered and carefully shaped. Hours of improvisation sessions have since been painstakingly refined into ten distilled tracks, owing to Steady's three year gestation.

The King of New York reigns with this collection from his two hit-packed LPs. Including everything from megahits “Hypnotize,” “Big Poppa,” and “Juicy” to fan favourites “Ten Crack Commandments,” “Notorious Thugs,” and “Nasty Girl,” Notorious B.I.G.’s Greatest Hits reminds you how The Notorious B.I.G. became the king!

Born of a thousand nights lost in a surrender to stillness and contemplation, In The Air is Anna St. Louis’ second full length album and her most considered work yet. St. Louis’ debut If Only There Was a River seemed to emerge fully formed out of the recesses of her mind; a gritty, mesmerizing affair, filled with jagged edges and ghostly apparitions. The type of record that announces a new voice; one haunted by what has come before.

But this time, St. Louis is no longer concerned with what could have been and sets her sights to exploring what could be. It’s an outlook on the world that was formed when her immediate one was small. The intervening years since her last album found St. Louis in a small one-bedroom cabin in the middle of the woods of upstate New York with a new love and time to think of what she wanted to express with her music. For weeks on end, the only trips she took were to and from her job as the front desk clerk at a nearby hotel. The previous years she had spent on tour and performing constantly in the venues of Los Angeles felt like they had occurred in another lifetime.

“It really compelled me to surrender to the unknown,” she says. And in this surrender, she found liberation. St. Louis is more self-assured, open-hearted and ready to say what she wants. St. Louis describes the writing period as one of a slow harvest; a fertile time but one that required a newfound patience. Instead of documenting her first thoughts, she spent more time with each song, going deeper with the themes and ideas she wanted to express.

This slower approach also guided the sonic textures of the album. Working with producer Jarvis Taveniere (Purple Mountains, Woods) in two extended recording sessions in Los Angeles in 2021, St. Louis used the studio in a previously unexplored way, opening up her songs to more experimentation featuring brighter tones and a more orchestral sound to accompany her new perspective. To that end, she was aided by a cast of friends and collaborators including Jess Williamson, Kacey Johansing, Oliver Hill (Kevin Morby, Vagabon) on strings, Alex Fischel (Spoon) on piano, Josh Adams on drums (Bedouine, Tim Heidecker) and Keven Lareau (Cut Worms, Hand Habits).

In the Air has the sound of a joyous consideration of the present moment; a quiet morning revealing a new snowfall outside, steam coming from the kettle, just before it whistles, St. Louis with her guitar, staring out the window, with a few free hours before work. She’s reflecting on the scene in front of her, imagining the times yet to come. You can hear it; she’s a long way from the noisy bars of Los Angeles, the rigors of the road. As she intones in “Rest”: “You spend your whole life believing in the chase. And then you realize that being somewhere doesn’t matter like it used to.” She doesn’t need a river to carry her anymore ... She’s in the air.

Coherence is overrated. Especially if keeping things hazy, and not smoothing away all the rough edges, and allowing all the seeming contradictions to find their own unique harmony with each other in their own time can result in the heady magic of Lock Eyes & Collide, the second EP from South London-based quintet Moreish Idols. Across these four tracks, Moreish Idols deal in tangles of hyper-melodic guitar, sleepy-eyed murmurs glowing with unassuming poetry, blossoms of wise saxophone, rhythms that pulse and purr to their own inarguable logic. You could spend days trying to define what exactly it is they are doing over these fifteen or so minutes, but you’d be wiser to just lose yourself within Lock Eyes & Collide’s laser-guided twists and turns.

Pulling into focus. They passed tracks from initial collaborative song-writing sessions along to Dan Carey, who signed Moreish Idols to his Speedy Wunderground label and produced their first release on the label, the Float EP, in the summer of 2022 (they’d released a pair of self-released 7”s before lockdown). Restless, jerky, jagged and rhythmically centred, many of Float’s energetic pleasures bore the influence of their earlier flirtation of post-punk, but the ruminative When The River Runs Dry spelled deeper treasures lay within, while the erratic, wonderful Speedboat spoke to Moreish Idols’ essential gift for mystery. Lock Eyes & Collide is something else altogether, though – a looser constellation of ideas, a clearer hint of the group’s future.

The elements that compose the EP – swooning tremolo guitars, prickly melodic riddles, erudite saxophone improvs, loose and flexible rhythms – make perfect sense together, on vinyl if not on paper, sounding like Watery, Domestic-era Pavement one second and some bucolic Canterbury Scene prog the next, but always, always like Moreish Idols most of all.

The future that is undefined is limitless. If Lock Eyes & Collide captures Moreish Idols’ present, what do they see in their future? “If we’d just made Float II for our second EP, people would be, ‘Oh, they’re the band that does that,” says Tom. “I’m so glad we’ve made this weird alter-ego of our first EP; now we feel we can do whatever we want.”

Following in the footsteps of "Mind Palace" and "Lost Spirits", respectively issued in 2018 and 2021, Hidden Empire return to Stil vor Talent with their eagerly anticipated third studio full-length, "Momentum". Going the same route that came to define their sound throughout the years, Branko Novakovic and Niklas Schäfers cook a savvy mix of deep electroid flavours and prog techno magnitude which flourishes in the long-playing format. Orbiting the frontier between proper no-nonsense, floor-focussed effectiveness and a trademark exploratory take on electronics, Hidden Empire here delivers one of their most accomplished slices to date, which not only spans the largest span of their many-faceted influences, from tribal anchorage to hypermodern escapology, but breathes a truly epic wind into it.

Draped in luscious, silken envelopes and easternmost ambiences, "Dawn" gets the ball rolling on a mystique-imbued note, halfway meditation-friendly material and square-shouldered club busting wares. Moving into Afro-infused house grounds, "Modesty" finds Branko and Niklas heading for the deeper end of the spectrum, as they pull out a clinically precise blender of rattling percussions, opaque incantations, lush synth swashes and verbed-out machine talk, tailored for nightly boogie rituals in the forest. "Avalanche" opts for a more brooding, deadlier approach. Cutting its path away from prying eyes, this one finds Hidden Empire pulling the stealth weaponry to absolute hypnotic effect - perfect for serious in-between peak time business with its thick, thriller-like tension, mist-shrouded atmosphere and surgical focus. Featuring Felix Raphael on vocals, "Who We Are", is a pop-influenced chugger that perhaps best defines Hidden Empire's ambivalent style, both hi-NRG and innervated with a melancholy that infuses down to the bass and most functional elements. Geared up for big-room traction with its seesawing synths and clinical drumwork, Raphael's moving timbre does more than offer a sensible counterpoint to the track's overall sturdy backbone, it takes it to a whole other dimension completely.

"Repeat The Good" ft. Wolfson balances out a fast-ticking groove with those subtle melodic lines Hidden Empire champion to astounding vibrancy, offering a particularly satisfying glimpse into their vortical imaginarium, whereas "Last Call" has us journeying to straight out Moroder-esque territories, flush with the aptly configured palette of fuzzy space disco bass, fast-paced Italo churn and vocodized talk for good measure. All in breaks and chopped-up euphoria, "Vivid" runs the hoodoo down in muscular fashion and with impressive levels of energy throughout, all set at cranking up the heat one notch further, while "Rebel" provides us with the kind of rough-around-the-edges EBM horsepower and neon-clad synth engineering that'll get the basement in a state of alert. Encompassing all of the pair's idiosyncratic merger of styles - from pop-laced Italo to spaced-out techno wares, through jagged motorik and heavily mecched-out jacking house, "Alright" shows off Hidden Empire's wide arsenal of pyrotechnics under the most compelling of lights. A more openly jagged and quirky weapon that hatches into a full-fledged solar number around the half, "Momentum" roars up the club's highway at full throttle, proving a formidable asset when it comes to plunging dancers into a state of weird, left-of-centre euphoria.

A stroboscopic eclipse is predicted as "Dark Sun" enters the room, deploying its obscure wingspan over the ravers, not quite a bad omen as it lets more light in with every bar, its brittle piano lines and heart-wrenching vocals cutting a path into the crowd's pulsating hearts. Graceful as Hidden Empire's music can be, a moment of utter exhilarating beauty. "Savasana" wraps up the voyage with a pure slab of cyphered 4x4 seduction, as an ASMR-like voice guides us across the soul-questioning haze that blankets our pathway onto a luminous finale. A piece of elusive nature, clearly designed for the club and yet telling a tale of off-piste initiation through twelve fascinating movements, "Momentum" will undoubtedly etch on the listeners' mind as one of the German pair's most strikingly powerful emanations.

Download:
1. Hidden Empire - Dawn Interlude
2. Hidden Empire - Modesty
3. Hidden Empire - Avalanche
4. Hidden Empire & Felix Raphael - Who We Are
5. Hidden Empire & Wolfson - Repeat the Good
6. Hidden Empire - Last Call
7. Hidden Empire - Vivid
8. Hidden Empire - Rebel
9. Hidden Empire - Alright
10. Hidden Empire - Momentum
11. Hidden Empire - Dark Sun
12. Hidden Empire - Savasana
13. Hidden Empire & Felix Raphael - Who We Are (Instrumental)

Tape

The 6th album from the Ohio band finds them adding a member and polishing the jagged edges off their lo-fi pop anthems ever so slightly, letting the album's twelve tracks dance and shimmer like sun glinting off the waters of the Scioto river, perfectly capturing the undeniably midwestern attitude of melancholic joy. For fans of: Sebadoh, Guided By Voices, Car Seat Headrest, The Men, Mike Krol, The Replacements, The Stevens.

The 6th album from the Ohio band finds them adding a member and polishing the jagged edges off their lo-fi pop anthems ever so slightly, letting the album's twelve tracks dance and shimmer like sun glinting off the waters of the Scioto river, perfectly capturing the undeniably midwestern attitude of melancholic joy. For fans of: Sebadoh, Guided By Voices, Car Seat Headrest, The Men, Mike Krol, The Replacements, The Stevens.

Kouslin returns to Livity Sound with a second collection of slippery club tracks after the 2020 Vision E.P. With an emphasis on head-twisting sound design and a detailed line in percussive programming, the London-based producer continues to reach into intriguing new areas without forsaking soundsystem-ready physicality.

The tracks which make up the Patterns E.P. stemmed from a period of personal experimentation, where Kouslin returned to making music for its therapeutic benefits rather than a fixed purpose. The loops and sketches he returned to and expanded upon for this EP bristle with originality at every turn.

There is a continued exploration of dancehall rhythms on ‘King’, while ‘Five Four’ toys with time signatures for a jagged, fast-paced abstraction of techno. ‘Why Don’t You Don’t’ is harder to pin down thanks to its knotty beat and mutant synthesis, and ‘Michael’ flips the script further with an unexpected swerve into pearlescent melodic lead lines – the perfect demonstration of the honest and instinctive approach Kouslin took when making these tracks.

Livity Sound is a label set up by Peverelist in 2011 as a vehicle for a raw and exploratory strain of UK techno, rooted in the heritage of UK dance music and sound system culture. It has since become one of the UK's foremost protagonists for cutting edge underground electronic music.

Seabuckthorn is the alias used by Andy Cartwright for his solo works. Cartwright uses finger picking & bowing techniques combined with various open tunings to form a mixture of approaches, often with layered accompaniments. Generally the songs lean towards to the experimental genre, whilst on the edge of the ambient and folk.

Having grown up in Oxfordshire, Cartwright studied sound engineering in Cornwall and then lived in the cities of London, Paris & Bristol working as a broadcast wireman. He now resides in the French Southern Alps making music.

Cartwright has been actively touring internationally for several years performing in festivals and events throughout Europe.

Various songs have been featured in documentaries, film and contemporary dance. His works has been released since 2009 on labels such as Dead Pilot Records, Bookmaker Records, Lost Tribe Sound, Eilean Rec., IIKKI and Fluid Audio. "Of No Such Place" is his 13th solo releases.

It’s almost four years since their last opus - two years since the most-recent run
of live shows. Now, Bitchin Bajas return from whatever kind of rare ether they
occupy when they’re at home, bearing the riches of the whole cosmos in their
hands. And strictly OG as well - on cassette only.
 ‘Switched On Ra’ is the outcome of a typical Bajas exercise: pouring some out
for the pioneers that came before (as they’ve done with Bitchitronics and their
participation in the annual Chicago performance of ‘In C’ over the years). It’s a
nice way to get a flow - they play a little of themselves, then some for the
pioneers, then a little more for the band. Before long, they’re playing with the
inspirations twined, as they can only come from within.
 For ‘Switched On Ra’, this meant a deep delve into the song-book of one of their
soul-predecessors, Sun Ra, whose music is literally written in the Bajas DNA.
Digging into this music sounded wild on paper: the drone synth group taking on
the Arkestra harmonies and Ra’s loose grooves? The trick was to get that sense
of rhythm to translate across the spectrum from Ra to Bajas, in a way that
worked for them both.
 Their rearrangements of the tunes went good - up and down the EQ band, they
were finding the round sounds and jagged edges that brought Ra’s music into
their own thing. Then at the last minute, there was another twist - why not pay
tribute to the Queen herself, and think of the arrangements with a Wendy Carlos
vibe? A little side homage? After all, ‘Switched on Bach’ was visionary, bringing
analogue synths from the outside all the way into the mainstream in the late 60s -
and this take on Ra is meant to take him to new ears everywhere.
 Sun Ra of course was his own kind of original keyboard visionary, using electric
keyboards in the late 40s and 50s to fill a role in jazz that had traditionally been
played on acoustic piano only. Once he’d done so, he took his writing in
directions inspired by the electricity, places no one had thought to go before
then.
 Bitchin Bajas have been content to dominate in a microtonal world, usually
without a single chord to be found anywhere. But here, they step up righteously,
their vibe triangulated as they bring Ra’s music forward with some Wendy C
style, making an unexpected space for all to thrive. There’s a real feeling of joy
as these collected signals bounce off the tape and through the speakers into
your space.
 To get this unique colloid exactly right, Bitchin Bajas used nineteen different
keyboards. They abstained from deploying their arsenal of reed and woodwind
instruments: everything had to be on the keys. This meant Yamahas, Rolands,
Korgs, Casios, a MicroMoog and of course their trusty Ace Tone organ. They
even broke out the Crumar DS-2, to have some of Ra’s chosen tone in the mix.
Then Jayve Montgomery added an EWI as a solo voice on a few tunes, just to
get some air-blown signal (and a natural shout out to EWI master Marshall Allen)
in there, after all. It felt like somewhere in the universe, Ra was decreeing it.

Limited to 750 copies.
Pressed on Blue Vinyl.
Includes postcard and poster.
Formed in post-Postcard Glasgow as Popgun, Kevin McDermott (vocals/ guitar), Davie McCormick (drums), and Ross Drummond (bass/vocals) were joined by Roddy Johnson (guitar/vocals). In 1983, they changed their name to The Suede Crocodiles and released ‘Stop the Rain’ on the NoStrings label.
Single of the Week in both NME and Melody Maker, this jagged-edged, spiky pop-punk single caught the ear of many. The Suede Crocodiles went on to tour the UK with Nick Heyward.
The band split before releasing their second single, ‘Paint Yourself A Rainbow’ with songwriter and lead vocalist Kevin McDermott going on to form the Kevin McDermott Orchestra and having a successful solo career.

VINTAGE CROP serve to serve again. Over the last four years the Geelong group have become a burgeoning force in the Australian punk scene. Their burly, brusque yet supple songs have evolved from the garage rock of 2017’s ‘TV Organs’ album into the post-punk panic attack of last year’s ‘Company Man’ EP. Now they’ve sculpted their sound further, the barrage now offset with robust songwriting, their full-pelt bounce tempered with flailing guitar lines and sardonic commentary. Bringing to mind Wire tackling tracks from early 7”s by The Yummy Fur, it’s an inspired approach, both striking and effortlessly mirthful. Vintage Crop still dish-up plenty of commanding stomp, their lyrics remain as keen-eyed as ever, but now they’re unafraid to mess with the tempo and drive their point home.
‘Serve To Serve Again’ is Vintage Crop’s third full-length album. It was recorded by Mikey Young after a year of playing solid shows, including tours in Europe and the UK alongside Louder Than Death and URSA and some of the band’s biggest shows to date in Australia with Amyl & The Sniffers, R.M.F.C. and The Stroppies. This allowed Vintage Crop to nail the songs live before committing them to tape, pulling and pushing ideas, stretching them into new-found territories. ‘First In Line’ races off the blocks with its sawtooth riff and splintered beat, all jagged edges and ragged vocals. Quickly follow a pair of totemic bruisers in the guise of ‘The Ladder’ and ‘The North’, both brimming with a nigh anthemic quality, confident in their faculty to rouse the rabble. ‘Jack’s Casino’ is a lurching romp about gambling, ‘Streetview’ is similarly propellent, only choosing to meander and divert itself with cryptic trips around the neighbourhood: “He only moved to that side of town because the postcode is worth it’s weight in gold”.
There’s no better poised nod to frustration than ‘Gridlock’ - “the hustle and bustle of inner-city traffic is driving me nuts because the radios on static”. Guitar lines entwine and wriggle wildly free from the song’s pouncing rhythm and potent vocal, making for the most vigorous of rackets. ‘Just My Luck’ prowls with a shared thrumming verve, whilst ‘Everyday Heroes’ closes out the album with measured flair. Skewed and fervent, rangy at times yet always assured in its intent ‘Serve To Serve Again’ is long-legged leap for Vintage Crop into the delirious now. These songs strive to make sense of futility, they criticise the chain of command, question privilege and most importantly make us want more from life. Now all we have to do is turn up the volume!

The next drop on Livity Sound is the first collaboration from long-time label mainstays Hodge and Simo Cell. True to the styles the artists have individually marked out since first appearing on Livity Sound circa 2014-15, LIVITY050 presents fiercely imaginative, upfront club music across a spectrum of tempos.

The supple, fluid approach to electronic music the two producers are separately known for feeds into a cohesive partnership, whether they’re turning their hand to dancehall-inspired, sub-100BPM heavy hitters or jagged, technicolour half-step tapestries.

Livity Sound is a label set up by Peverelist in 2011 as a vehicle for a raw and exploratory strain of UK techno, rooted in the heritage of UK dance music and sound system culture. It has since become one of the UK's foremost protagonists for cutting edge underground electronic music.

‘Expressions of Interest’ is the debut album from Melbourne/Naarm post-punk group screensaver.

Sonically, the 10 track album is rich and detailed, and pays homage to its era of inspiration (late 70s-mid 80s post-punk and new wave) with gripping vocals, dissonant guitar, melodic basslines, washes of synths and motorik drumming. Engineered by Julian Cue alongside band member Chris Stephenson and recorded over multiple studio sessions between 2020-2021

The album opens with the ominously titled ‘Body Parts’, an immediately arresting song that showcases the bands penchant for blending classic post-punk elements, leaning into a sound somewhere between the Banshees and Protomartyr.

Maynard doubles down on these themes in the frenetic second track, ‘No Movement’. Guttural organ tones swim under overdriven guitar, jagged and intense. Additional textures and sound effects are used percussively to embellish the dynamics, creating a feverish atmosphere with some Martin Hannett like flourishes.

The album takes a surprising turn into electronic driven krautrock on track three with 'Buy, Sell, Trade' - a rollicking piece of danceable ephemera, dominated by swirling synth sounds and punctuated with electronics reminiscent of Sparks/Moroder collaborations. Chris Stephenson's masterful guitar work begins with Greg Sage-esque determination before a crescendo into a lush Frippertronics outro.

'MEDS' transports us back to the foundation established on 'Body Parts', a gothy piece, full of tribal toms and dirge-y synths. Industrial punk rock nearly swallowed whole by the keys in the middle and slowly building back to complimentary guitar and vocal hooks.

It's from this point in the album that the band let's their other influences rise to the surface, as they explore touches of EDM on 'Static State' - a brutal, death-disco style track, Krystal Maynard's lead synth and gloomy vocal complimenting the pounding drums and dub-esque bass line culminating in a track worthy of the dancefloor.


Opening side two we have 'Skin', beginning with a solid and simple backbeat, James Beck’s post-punk percussion provides a steady and minimal framework for the rest of the band to colour in with great depth and detail. Giles Fielke’s bass guitar wobbles brilliantly leading the verse melody, whilst Chris Stephenson’s guitar drives the chorus that folds neatly in on itself.

In ‘Attention Economy’, Krystal Maynard is flexible with her lyrical style, and knows how and when to lend her voice to the greater backdrop of the composition. ‘Attention Economy’ has an almost Kraftwerkian structure - repetitious, but engaging with its constant tom driven beat, lush synth lines and minimal bass tones.

Just when you thought things had slowed down, screensaver ramp things right back up again with ‘Overnight Low’ - a no holds barred thumper. Giles Fielke underpins the hard-edged sound with his bassline, keeping things smooth and tight. It brings to mind a hybrid of PiL’s ‘Annalisa’ and Wire’s ‘Two People In a Room.’

Before you can catch your breath, we have ‘Regular Hours’ - another industrial track, and perhaps the sister song to ‘Static State’ heard earlier on side one. Seething electronic drum samples cut through an abyss of growling synths, Giles Fielke hanging up the bass temporarily to accompany Krystal Maynard on synth duties.

The album closes with the fittingly titled ‘Soft Landing’, literally bringing the listener back down...softly. The song is heavy on atmos, and resembles the aesthetics previously encountered on ‘Attention Economy’ a few tracks earlier.

‘Expressions of Interest” was recorded at various locations across Melbourne, with a handful of songs being captured before the start of the Covid pandemic in January 2020. With the recording timeline being drastically altered, the band shifted focus to work on what would become their first single ‘Strange Anxiety’, throughout the first months of the Melbourne 2020 lockdown.

‘Little Eden’ glows with vintage McCartney-esque couplets before rolling out a chiming signature riff on ‘As I Lay Down To Die’ and adopting Jimi-like phrasing on ‘And Away We Go’.

A psychedelically-hewn panoramic take on brutalism Britain punctuated with pure pop melodies and beautifully-observed English melancholy.

This is an album that rekindles your love of music – from the harmonies that are oh-so Teenage Fanclub and Lemonheads, to the grunge and awe of Dinosaur Jr.
There’s perspective and retrospective tale-spinning where we wait “for the wonderful world to come” (©‘Start Burning’), an imaginary future soundtracked by the spirit of Arthur Lee, brought into focus with witty wordplay on songs that are littered with spine tingling guitar breaks.
A brand new album from national treasures The Bevis Frond.

“A cult favourite.” Pitchfork

Just what you want from “the E17 psych guru.” MOJO

“Harking back to the liberating songcraft of The Beatles, but with a jagged edge.” Classic Rock

“Still mixing pop, punk and psych to giddy effect.” The Guardian

Moonlit Train’ is the debut album from up-and-coming singer-songwriter/ MC Tiawa(pronounced tea-ah-wa) aka Brightonian Tia-Awa Blackhorse.
Meandering between neo-soul, hip-hop and jazz ‘Moonlit Train’ is a conceptual record that journeys through relationships, heartache, and healing. Produced by collaborator and multi-instrumentalist Jack-Chi aka Jack Kingslake -a Bristolveteran who cut his teeth as a producer in the city - the album sets the stage for a new chapter in Tiawa’s career on hometown label Tru Thoughts.
Fusing soulful vocals with the jagged edge of a rap-styled flow, Tiawa lays the foundation for her timeless yet graceful sound and lyrical maturity that confutes her youth. Themes of healing are at the core of Tiawa’s creative output, while simultaneously exploring her Portuguese heritage.
In the artists’ words: “Each song on the album is an emotion. I hope it helps to heal people in serious situations and make them feel better when they listen.
“Saudade” is the introduction to ‘Moonlit Train’ and opens with a Portuguese poem that translates to ‘don’t be sad now, I’m going to play a song for you.”
Described by the artsdesk as “pure trip-hop”, Tiawa has been championed by the likes of legendary DJ David Rodigan (BBC Radio 1Xtra), broadcaster royalty Cerys Matthews (BBC 6Music), and underground purveyors Off Licence Magazine.’ - Previous support Youth (Killing Joke), David Rodigan (BBC 1Xtra), Cerys Matthews (BBC 6Music), Off License Magazine. - Featured on WheelUP’s single “Take Me Higher” and the album “Good Love”.