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Father John Misty is the nom-de-plume of Josh Tillman, who
has been recording and releasing solo albums under his own
name since 2003 and who recently left Seattle’s Fleet Foxes
after playing drums with them from 2008-2011.
When discussing Father John Misty, Tillman paraphrases Philip
Roth: “‘It’s all of me and none of me, if you can’t see that, you
won’t get it.’”
‘Fear Fun’, Father John Misty’s album from 2012 and now
available again through Sub Pop, began gestating during what
Tillman describes as an “immobilizing period of depression” in
his former Seattle home, when he had lost interest in
songwriting and wound up finding his voice by writing a novel.
After breaking from Seattle and settling in a spider-infested
Laurel Canyon treehouse, Tillman spent months demoing
songs, eventually liberating himself from his creative impasse.
With the help of LA producer/songwriter/pal Jonathan Wilson, a
wealth of talented musicians kicking around LA and producer
Phil Ek (who everyone knows has worked with Built to Spill,
Modest Mouse, Band of Horses, Fleet Foxes), ‘Fear Fun’
blossomed into a fully-formed expression of Tillman’s
unrestrained vision.
‘Fear Fun’ consists of such disparate elements as Waylon
Jennings, Harry Nilsson, Arthur Russell, All Things Must Pass
and Physical Graffiti, often within the same song. Tillman’s
voice has never been better and often sounds like Roy Orbison
at his most joyous, while the music maintains a dark,
mysterious yet playful, almost Dionysian quality.
Lyrically, his absurdist fever dreams of pain and pleasure elicit,
in equal measures, the blunt descriptive power of Bukowski or
Brautigan, the hedonist-philosophy of Oscar Wilde and the
dried-out wit of Loudon Wainwright III.
6-panel digipack CD. Gatefold LP.

Father John Misty is the nom-de-plume of Josh Tillman, who
has been recording and releasing solo albums under his own
name since 2003 and who recently left Seattle’s Fleet Foxes
after playing drums with them from 2008-2011.
When discussing Father John Misty, Tillman paraphrases Philip
Roth: “‘It’s all of me and none of me, if you can’t see that, you
won’t get it.’”
‘Fear Fun’, Father John Misty’s album from 2012 and now
available again through Sub Pop, began gestating during what
Tillman describes as an “immobilizing period of depression” in
his former Seattle home, when he had lost interest in
songwriting and wound up finding his voice by writing a novel.
After breaking from Seattle and settling in a spider-infested
Laurel Canyon treehouse, Tillman spent months demoing
songs, eventually liberating himself from his creative impasse.
With the help of LA producer/songwriter/pal Jonathan Wilson, a
wealth of talented musicians kicking around LA and producer
Phil Ek (who everyone knows has worked with Built to Spill,
Modest Mouse, Band of Horses, Fleet Foxes), ‘Fear Fun’
blossomed into a fully-formed expression of Tillman’s
unrestrained vision.
‘Fear Fun’ consists of such disparate elements as Waylon
Jennings, Harry Nilsson, Arthur Russell, All Things Must Pass
and Physical Graffiti, often within the same song. Tillman’s
voice has never been better and often sounds like Roy Orbison
at his most joyous, while the music maintains a dark,
mysterious yet playful, almost Dionysian quality.
Lyrically, his absurdist fever dreams of pain and pleasure elicit,
in equal measures, the blunt descriptive power of Bukowski or
Brautigan, the hedonist-philosophy of Oscar Wilde and the
dried-out wit of Loudon Wainwright III.
6-panel digipack CD. Gatefold LP.

The Pet Parade,” the title track to Fruit Bats’ newest album, might be a surprising opening track for longtime fans of Eric D. Johnson’s beloved indie folk-rock project. The six-and-a-half-minute tone poem smolders and drones over just two chords, inspired by the strange and silly community events that he saw growing up outside of Chicago, in La Grange, Illinois, in which people dressed up and showed off their pets. Decades later, The Pet Parade emerges in troubled times, living within what Johnson refers to as the beauty and absurdity of existence. While many of the songs on The Pet Parade were actually written before the pandemic, it’s impossible to disassociate the record from the times. As an example, producer Josh Kaufman (Bob Weir, The National, and Bonny Light Horseman, in which he plays with Johnson and Anaïs Mitchell) was brought in for his deep emotional touch and bandleading abilities. However, Johnson, Kaufman, and the other musicians on The Pet Parade drummers Joe Russo and Matt Barrick (The Walkmen, Fleet Foxes), singer-songwriter Johanna Samuels, pianist Thomas Bartlett (Nico Muhly, Sufjan Stevens), and fiddler Jim Becker (Califone, Iron & Wine) were forced to self-record their parts in bedrooms and home studios across America. Still, says Johnson, “The songs have enough intimacy that it doesn’t sound like it was made a million miles away.” Such tension and turmoil also impacted the lyrics of The Pet Parade. While “Cub Pilot” and “Here For Now, For You” began as more traditional love songs from a personal “I” to a specific “you” Johnson quickly realized that these songs needed to comfort broader audiences, changing the words to a more inclusive “we” and “us.” So too in “The Balcony,” a song ostensibly about a particular space in his grandmother’s apartment, but one that evolved into a metaphor on patience. At times upbeat and reassuring (“Eagles Below Us”) and at times quietly contemplative (“On the Avalon Stairs”), The Pet Parade marks a milestone for Johnson, who celebrates 20 years of Fruit Bats in 2021. In some ways still a cult band, in other ways a time-tested act, Fruit Bats has consistently earned enough small victories to carve out a career in a notoriously fickle scene. And Johnson himself who has played in The Shins, composed film scores, gone solo and returned back to the moniker that started it all, and most recently, earned two GRAMMY® nominations with Bonny Light Horseman doesn’t take this long route of life’s pet parade for granted. “I’m still really excited to make records,” he says. “Lucky and happy and maybe happier that things went slower for me. I’m savoring it a lot more.

For a band that resists repeating itself, picking up lessons from a decade prior is the strange route Cloud Nothings took to create their most fully-realized album. Their new record, The Shadow I Remember, marks eleven years of touring, a return to early songwriting practices, and revisiting the studio where they first recorded together.

In a way not previously captured, this album expertly combines the group’s pummeling, aggressive approach with singer-songwriter Dylan Baldi’s extraordinary talent for perfect pop. To document this newly realized maturity, the group returned to producer Steve Albini and his Electrical Audio studios in Chicago, where the band famously destroyed its initial reputation as a bedroom solo project with the release of 2012 album Attack on Memory.

Another throwback was Baldi’s return to constant songwriting à la the early solo days, which led to the nearly 30 demos that became the 11 songs on The Shadow I Remember. Instead of sticking to a tried-but-true formula, his songwriting stretched out while digging deeper into his melodic talents. “I felt like I was locked in a character,” Baldi says of becoming a reliable supplier of heavy, hook-filled rock songs. “I felt like I was playing a role and not myself. I really didn’t like that role.” More frequent writing led to the freedom in form heard on The Shadow I Remember. What he can’t do alone is get loud and play noisily, which is exactly what happened when the entire band— bassist TJ Duke, guitarist Chris Brown, and drummer Jayson Gerycz—convened.

The band had more fun in the studio than they’ve had in years, playing in their signature, pulverizing way, while also trying new things. The absurdly catchy “Nothing Without You” includes a first for the band: Macie Stewart of Ohmme contributes guest vocals. Elsewhere, celebrated electronic composer Brett Naucke adds subtle synthesizer parts.

The songs are kept trim, mostly around the three-minute mark, while being gleefully overstuffed. Almost every musical part turns into at least two parts, with guitar and drums opening up and the bass switching gears. “That’s the goal—I want the three-minute song to be an epic,” Baldi says. “That’s the short version of the long-ass jam.”

Lyrically, Baldi delivers an aching exploration of tortured existence, punishing self-doubt, and the familiar pangs of oppressive mystery. “Am I something?” Baldi screams on the song of the same name. “Does anybody living out there really need me?” It’s a heartbreaking admission of existential confusion, delivered hoarsely, with an instantly relatable melody.

“Is this the end/ of the life I've known?” he asks on lead single and album opener “Oslo.” “Am I older now/ or am I just another age?” Despite the questioning lyrics, the band plays with more assurance and joy than ever before. The Shadow I Remember announces Cloud Nothings’ second decade and it sounds like a new beginning.

For a band that resists repeating itself, picking up lessons from a decade prior is the strange route Cloud Nothings took to create their most fully-realized album. Their new record, The Shadow I Remember, marks eleven years of touring, a return to early songwriting practices, and revisiting the studio where they first recorded together.

In a way not previously captured, this album expertly combines the group’s pummeling, aggressive approach with singer-songwriter Dylan Baldi’s extraordinary talent for perfect pop. To document this newly realized maturity, the group returned to producer Steve Albini and his Electrical Audio studios in Chicago, where the band famously destroyed its initial reputation as a bedroom solo project with the release of 2012 album Attack on Memory.

Another throwback was Baldi’s return to constant songwriting à la the early solo days, which led to the nearly 30 demos that became the 11 songs on The Shadow I Remember. Instead of sticking to a tried-but-true formula, his songwriting stretched out while digging deeper into his melodic talents. “I felt like I was locked in a character,” Baldi says of becoming a reliable supplier of heavy, hook-filled rock songs. “I felt like I was playing a role and not myself. I really didn’t like that role.” More frequent writing led to the freedom in form heard on The Shadow I Remember. What he can’t do alone is get loud and play noisily, which is exactly what happened when the entire band— bassist TJ Duke, guitarist Chris Brown, and drummer Jayson Gerycz—convened.

The band had more fun in the studio than they’ve had in years, playing in their signature, pulverizing way, while also trying new things. The absurdly catchy “Nothing Without You” includes a first for the band: Macie Stewart of Ohmme contributes guest vocals. Elsewhere, celebrated electronic composer Brett Naucke adds subtle synthesizer parts.

The songs are kept trim, mostly around the three-minute mark, while being gleefully overstuffed. Almost every musical part turns into at least two parts, with guitar and drums opening up and the bass switching gears. “That’s the goal—I want the three-minute song to be an epic,” Baldi says. “That’s the short version of the long-ass jam.”

Lyrically, Baldi delivers an aching exploration of tortured existence, punishing self-doubt, and the familiar pangs of oppressive mystery. “Am I something?” Baldi screams on the song of the same name. “Does anybody living out there really need me?” It’s a heartbreaking admission of existential confusion, delivered hoarsely, with an instantly relatable melody.

“Is this the end/ of the life I've known?” he asks on lead single and album opener “Oslo.” “Am I older now/ or am I just another age?” Despite the questioning lyrics, the band plays with more assurance and joy than ever before. The Shadow I Remember announces Cloud Nothings’ second decade and it sounds like a new beginning.

The music of porn movies of the 70s became the fad of diggers and Brigitte Lahaie an absolute icon of these years marked by sexual liberation. In 2020, feminist filmmaker Olympe de G. is embarking on the production of an inclusive and ethical

post-porn feature. Brigitte Lahaie, 64, activist for the right to die with dignity, plays the main role, driven by her deep desire to free the bodies and sexualities of women of her age. This film is certainly one of the most beautiful porn movies of the icon Brigitte Lahaie.

The soundtrack of the film is entrusted to Jb Hanak. A figure in the musical underground, this hyperactive has been multiplying projects for more than 20 years. With the group dDamage he formed with his brother Fred, he explored the frontiers of Hip Hop, IDM and electro. With Cobra, a punk rock group to be taken to the 14th degree, they crossed the lands of the absurd. At the end of 2020, he will release an album with actor Pierre Richard. At the same time, he exhibits his plastic works in art galleries ... hyperactive we have said.

Back by popular demand, Memorials of Distinction is rereleasing Porridge Radio's shed-recorded debut album on a limited pressing of 1000 clear vinyl and CD. This comes after a year in which Porridge Radio's Every Bad, their first on Secretly Canadian, led to top reviews in Pitchfork, The Guardian, NME, The Times, The Quietus, Clash, Uncut, Q, The Independent, LOBF, DIY, Stereogum, Paste, Vice, amongst others, and then being shortlisted as one of the Hyundai Mercury Prize's 12 Albums of 2020. Porridge Radio started as Dana Margolin’s bedroom project, but grew to a Brighton-based band who, on this debut, inelegantly knotted together tender melodic pop songs with vicious and furious emotional outpour. After a series of home-recorded solo demos and the growing legend of their live shows on the UK DIY scene, they originally released this lofi debut full band LP in 2016. The album documents struggles with life, love and boredom - spelt out with sticky fingers by five idiot savants. RP&OF's lyrics, title and artwork, as well as the group's name, brings to mind a certain scrapbook absurdism at the core of Porridge Radio's earlier work. Faced with the dark abyss of existence, Margolin and co. scrape together some value from the nonsensical and the pointless, and then cling to it, giggling, for dear life.

With 2017’s ‘Planetary Prince’, pianist/composer Cameron Graves established himself as a visionary creative force emerging from the Los Angeles genre-defying collective The West Coast Get Down.
With his sophomore album ‘Seven’, Graves further expands on his otherworldly inspirations, alongside guitarist Colin Cook, bassist Max Gerl, drummer Mike Mitchell and special guest Kamasi Washington.
Upon an initial listen, the juggernaut metal force and hardcore precision of ‘Seven’ can knock you back. After all, Graves grew up in metal-rich Los Angeles, headbanging to Living Colour as a kid and, after immersing himself in jazz and classical studies for years, he reignited his love for hard rock through records by Pantera, Slipknot and his most profound metal influence, Swedish titans Meshuggah.
But a closer listen to ‘Seven’ reveals a myriad of other influences at work. “Los Angeles is a melting pot of everything,” Graves points out. His father, Carl Graves, was a great soul singer, and you can hear his imprint along with the likes of Marvin Gaye and Otis Redding, on “Eternal Paradise,” which marks the younger Graves’ vocal debut.
Throughout the album, the generation of 1970s jazz-rock fusion pioneers is a source of inspiration. “Our mission is to continue that legacy of advanced music that was started by bands like Mahavishnu Orchestra, Weather Report and Return to Forever,” Graves says. “That was instilled in us by the masters. Stanley Clarke, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock - these guys sat with us and told us, ‘Look, man, you’ve got to carry this on.’
“Cameron Graves is a musical genius. He has an innovative approach to the piano that is completely unique.” - Kamasi Washington
“In all aspects of his being, Graves embodies intense seeking and absurd skill.”
- LA Weekly

Ethno-alternative lo-fi absurdism from the mind of London based multi-instrumentalist & Primordial Soup member, Samuel Huxley. Expect everything from Hindu ceremonial music to dark lounge, post-punk & avant-garde, to Kabuki theatre score & world electronica, any number of which can be found within a single track.

The Romance of Baba Loco is the union of wisdom & madness, eastern mysticism & western folly, absurdism to catch you with yer pantaloons down… Bang bang smash to perennial illumination. Cling clang for funk monkeys. The bejewelled vistas beyond, nihilism be gone… The donkey was not ill-tempered after many blows, on the ass, from the stick. He smiled like a gentleman, and kept on clip cloppin’ towards the promised land…

The Romance of Baba Loco is the latest iteration of a recording project by Samuel Huxley that originally made ambient soundscapes for psychotropics (Paradise Dose). In 2017 Samuel was curating infamous venue and scene of a multitude of glories & horrors, The Five Bells in New Cross, SE London. One of his first acts to play was Primordial Soup, at that time a 3 piece absurdist art rock band. They quickly became friends & began performing semi-improv shows as a 5 piece, and later went on to form Primordial Soup Collective who’s main focus was esoteric experimental theatre & film, and rare multidisciplinary exhibitions.

This changing focus of Soup away from sound provoked Samuel to channel his musical compulsions in to his solo project which had by then ventured far away from ambient soundscapes to shrieking Indian and Moroccan oboes over African & Indian tribal rhythms, with the desire to create the raw lo-fi atmospheres of street music. Gradually guitar styles of South East Asia & Latin America were introduced, leading to backing track solo performances & outrageous live improv freakouts with Craig Deporto (ex-Flamingods) & Luke Bell (Ex-Wild Birds of Britain).

Finally two days before the glorious pandemic lock down, Samuel signed to Faith & Industry, which birthed new moniker “The Romance of Baba Loco” and 3 months worth of ceaseless creation. From the Hindu Ceremonial music of the Shehnai & Nadaswaram to post-punk, absurdism & experimental art, The Romance of Baba Loco finally united two seemingly dissonant sides of his personality in a manner he had not previously achieved. The old material was cast off, and these peculiar fruits of imprisonment, can be found on his first release, “Cling Clang For Funk Monkeys”.

The Begotten is the brainchild of Jürgen De Blonde (Köhn/de portables) and Brecht Ameel (Razen), who initially performed a number of shows and released a CS under the moniker 'Kohier' - gleefully referencing the absurdity of Belgian tax systems and institutions.

On their debut LP "Temidden Laaghangende Wolken" they are joined by percussionist and improv-veteran Dirk Wachtelaer (Pablo's Eye/Vanishing Pictures), who locked with De Blonde and Ameel's post-reality continuum during a recording session at Les Ateliers Claus in Brussels. In this new trio format, The Begotten weaves a stripped-down set of after-hours, trancey observations on keys, baritone guitar and drums. Neon-lit bars are named Le Kheops or 60 Moons, streets are soaked in sheets of rain, people are staring at tax sheets and comets pass by unnoticed. Dub with tears; "Temidden Laaghangende Wolken" is the perfect backdrop of a strongly medicated game of Manillen during a 'Derrick' rerun.

Switch is the tenth studio album by Dutch rock band Golden Earring, released in 1975 as the follow-up of the band’s international breakthrough album Moontan. Switch actually marked a switch for Golden Earring, as it was more influenced by funk and prog than any of the band’s previous or subsequent releases. Lead single “Kill Me (Ce Soir)” perfectly demonstrates how Golden Earring experimented with a new sound. This reissue comes with a 4 page insert. Switch is available as a limited edition of 1500 individually numbered copies on transparent blue vinyl.

In 1990 Neil Hannon started recording and releasing under the name The Divine Comedy. Thirty years and twelve great albums later, Hannon is rightly adjudged one of the finest singer songwriters of his generation. To celebrate, Divine Comedy Records are updating and reissuing the band’s catalogue.

‘Foreverland’ - a record about “meeting your soulmate and living happily ever after... and then what comes after happily ever after” - was first released in 2016. Mojo described it as “Funny, learned and
poignant by turns,” while Uncut said it was “sumptuous, orchestral pop laced with lyrical absurdity.”

The album includes singles ‘Catherine The Great’ ‘How Can You Leave Me On My Own’ and ‘To The Rescue’.

The updated LP edition consists of the original album, packaged with a digital download code for the album plus bonus tracks of demos and alternate versions lovingly curated by Neil Hannon, much of which have never been heard before.

The LP is pressed on heavyweight black vinyl in a gatefold sleeve accompanied with photos, credits and extensive liner notes written by Neil, covering the context and inspiration behind the album and
its songs.

A ‘satire about satire’, WASTELAND is a wild Burroughsian adventure melding science-fiction, absurdism and magical realism, calling fora revolution against the reductive ‘good versus evil’ narratives of popular satirical music. Arguing that through experimenting with the form of the song lyric (our most widely disseminated form of creative writing) we can build more nuanced popular discourse around the implicit forms of bias that ail us, WASTELAND presents complex characters changing their minds–along with their bodies and places in spacetime. Set in an unearthly liminal space populated by shape-shifters, time-travellers, talking genitalia and ectoplasmic spectres, the prose text evolves as the characters do: warping into cut-ups, soliloquies and even plays.Created over two years, the album draws from LICE’s rise in ‘the punk world’ (sharing stages with IDLES, The Fall, Squid, Fat White Family, Girl Band etc.) and eventual disillusionment with the limits of its prevailing ideas.

WASTELAND is a concept album structured as an experimental short story, taking cues from Brian Catling, William Burroughs and Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Its core argument is that, through reworking the prevailing forms of satirical song lyrics, we can build more nuanced popular discourse around the implicit forms of bias that ail us–the song lyric being the most widely disseminated and commonly ‘engaged with’ form of creative writing there is. In this allegory for crises in society and art (from commodification to ideological state apparatuses), the moral, physical and temporal transformations of its characters are paired with the text’s transformation: breaking from prose into cut-ups, soliloquies and even plays. In the wild, liminal space of the Wasteland, this story

Let’s go out! A suggestion that might sound like an absurdity in current times, but feels like the true promise of Bella Boo’s debut EP on Running Back. The Studio Barnhus affiliate refines and elevates her bright, genial and dissenting take on deep house into something greater than its parts.
What was supposed to be an album with features and collaborations was turned into an introspective solo-practice by Covid-19 and subsequently into this rich 8-track-EP. A writer’s block and the pitfalls of the aforementioned deep house genre were overcome with the help of Axel Boman’s knowledge of football philosophy and a 140bpm tempo advice. So, everything fell in its right place.
„Let’s Go Out“ is like the gateway into a wonderful coherent musical universe and an entertaining listening experience. Imaginative and sparkling, tender-hearted as well as bouncing when it needs to be. Bella’s EP is as much of a tribute to the UK scene that inspired her over the years as it’s entirely her own and distinctive thing. Like a perfect mixtape, it ebbs and flows, and once you reached its finish, it makes you want to start again – or to go out.


Short version: Bella Boo’s bright and genial debut EP on Running Back. Eight tender-hearted, imaginative and bouncing tracks that are as much of a tribute to the UK Scene that inspired her over the years, as they are the gateway into a wonderful coherent musical universe that is Bella’s own entirely.

Previously Unreleased material recorded in 1979 at Allen Toussaint's legendary Sea-Saint Recording Studio in New Orleans, LA.

Freaky With You is a Six-and-a-half minute Psychedelic Disco Funk excursion taking you on a wild mojo trip with a four on the floor backbeat and extended conga breakdown peppered with some New Orleans Voodoo that reaches for the Bondye Celestial Heavens.

On the B-Side, Welcome To My World is a Modern Soul Steppers masterpiece. A version was also recorded by Joe Chopper for the Lanor Records label.

James Dumaine remembers the studio session well. After having oral surgery that morning, a grotesque, theatre of the absurd incident followed causing him to bleed onto the microphone as he was singing. That combined with the miscommunication with the audio engineer to watch the volume levels on his new synthesizer: The Engineer decided not to take heed to the warning… Half way into the recording all the band could see from the other side of the glass were heads frantically rushing to the mixing board. The synthesizer levels had caused the monitors in the control room to blow up. Superior Elevation wasn't invited back to record at Sea-Saint. 40 years later, with all that chaos, hoodoo and gris-gris enveloped into the magnetic tape, it magically survived the catastrophic 2005 floods during Hurricane Katrina and ended up in the hands of Mike Nishita along with many other Reel to Reel Tapes of Allen Toussaints' masters of The Meters albums he produced and recorded. It's available now, preserved with Family Groove Records.

New 5 track digital release from Sumgii for Swamp 81 sublabel, 81. Mastered at TenEightSeven

The specially designed game and accompanying music video pertains to the overall theme of the EP, which shows an absurd society obsessed with social media descending into a dystopian world. It is a paranoid graphic vision, set in Brussels, Strapontin’s hometown, that puts you in control of a role playing game as you march round the city collecting social points with scant regard for others.

Besides being a dancer, performer and on-and-off “Madame pipi”, French-born, Brussels-based Strapontin is also a DJ and producer who mixes up slow and rough techno with thrilling soundtracks and groove driven disco. He has released on Nein and I’m Single amongst others and marks this 10th Hard Fist release in fine style.

Opening up the EP is ‘Nervous Days’, a gallivanting techno-disco groove with rugged loops and jumbled percussion that sounds like a rampage through a cityscape, as per the video. Then comes ‘But The Nice One!’, a stomping and rough and ready ride on lumpy drums and bass that is dark but playful. The quality continues on ‘Miss Mickey the Dumbs’, with some brilliantly heavy and reverberating drums making you jerk your body while sci-fi effects float and drift about up top.

Blindetonation label regular and esteemed modern disco man Thomass Jackson remixes ‘But The Nice One!’ In his capable hands it becomes a melon twisting workout with spangled synth lines, psyched-out synths and percolating drums that are finished with a vulnerable and eerie vocal. Last of all is a Damon Jee remix of ‘Miss Mickey the Dumbs’, His music can be heard on the underground’s most sought-after labels including Roam, Hafendisko, Suara and Sincopat to name just a few. His version is a more direct affair, with searching laser synths and a hypnotic space-techno vibe that carries you off to the stars at increasingly high speeds.

This is a fittingly brilliant EP from the vital Strapontin on ever-excellent Hard Fist.

When Yiğit Bülbül knocked on our door and put his debut album on the table, Fever took our hearts in a storm. The Turkish born, London based musician and producer knows how to craft his own contemporary avant-garde pop projections with a rich musical heritage shining through from the 1980s and 90s. His style erupts into silly, absurd moments of synth blurps, percussive extravaganza and psyched horns, It’s always colourful and trippy, but in a light way. It’s exactly what we want to release in a year of distress. The album is framed by two contemplative tracks, which are reminiscent of Holger Czukay’s oeuvre. The saxophone in the opening track "The Heath" undulates like an introvert leading voice in a meditation. The long and meticulously crafted ambient outro "Txalaparta" features a spoken word sample by the Basque folk musician Txomin Artola from 1978. The four tracks at the heart of the album are beat driven, percussion-heavy, loaded with synths and random horn samples. "Alo?" sounds like Snakefinger tries to get on a Skype call with Serge Gainsbourg. "Cacti All Over My Head" could well be a Ween instrumental with long arching synth lines over a slowed down bossa nova beat. Fever is a frivolous album which bursts with exalted charm and guest musicians. This is not another greetings-from-the-lockdown album, but with the obvious reference in the title it’s almost a tongue-in-cheek name about creative obsessions of our times. It's the debut album by the multi-instrumentalist Y Bülbül who has learned his trade working with various interesting artists and bands in London in the past 10 years. He is also a passionate crate digger and DJ. His own radio show is unerringly titled "Bülbül's Gemüsement Park", which airs on Netil Radio, a community broadcasting station in Hackney. Bonus fact, Bülbül is the Turkish name for a brown-eared passerine bird, one that's into singing.

In the horror genre, sequels are perfunctory. As the insufferable film bro Randy explains in Scream 2, "There are certain rules that one must abide by in order to create a successful sequel. Number one: the body count is always bigger. Number two: the death scenes are always much more elaborate-more blood, more gore. Carnage candy. And number three: never, ever, under any circumstances, assume the killer is dead." Last Halloween, Los Angeles experimental rap mainstays Clipping ended their three-year silence with the horrorcore-inspired album There Existed an Addiction to Blood. This October, rapper Daveed Diggs, and producers Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson return with an even higher body count, more elaborate kills, and monsters that just won't stay dead. Visions of Bodies Being Burned is less a sequel than it is the second half of a planned diptych. It turns out, Clipping took to the thematic material of horrorcore like vampires to grave soil. Before the release of There Existed an Addiction to Blood, Clipping and Sub Pop Records divided the material up into two albums, designed to be released only months apart. However, a global pandemic and multiple cancelled tours pushed the release of the project's "part two" until the following Halloween season. Visions of Bodies Being Burned contains sixteen more scary stories disguised as rap songs, incorporating as much influence from Ernest Dickerson, Clive Barker, and Shirley Jackson as it does from Three 6 Mafia, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, and Brotha Lynch Hung. Clipping's angular, shattered interpretations of existing musical styles are always deferential, driven by fandom for the object of study rather than disdain for it. Clipping reimagine horrorcore-the purposely absurdist hip-hop subgenre that flourished in the 1990s-the way Jordan Peele does horror cinema: by twisting beloved tropes to make explicit their own radical politics of monstrosity, fear, and the uncanny. The album features a host of collaborators: Inglewood's Cam & China, fellow noise-rap pioneers Ho99o9, Tortoise guitar genius Jeff Parker, and experimental LA drummer Ted Byrnes. The final track, "Secret Piece," is a performance of a Yoko Ono text score from 1953 that instructs the players to "Decide on one note that you want to play/Play it with the following accompaniment: the woods from 5am to 8am in summer," and features nearly all of the musicians who appeared on both albums. Since their last album, Daveed Diggs-the group's Tony and Grammy Award-winning rapper-has starred in the TNT science fiction series, Snowpiercer, voiced a character in Pixar's Soul, and portrayed Frederick Douglass in Showtime's The Good Lord Bird. Writer Rivers Solomon's novella based on Clipping's Hugo-nominated song "The Deep" has been nominated for the Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Awards, and won the Lambda Literary Award for best LGBTQ SF/Fantasy/Horror novel. Clipping's song "Chapter 319"-a tribute to George Floyd (AKA Big Floyd) the former DJ-Screw affiliated rapper who was murdered by police officers in May of 2020-was released on Bandcamp on June 19th and raised over $20,000 for racial justice charities. A clip of the song also became a popular meme on TikTok, generating over 50,000 videos in which teenagers rapped the song's lyrics ("Donald Trump is a white supremacist, full stop_") directly into the frowning faces of their conservative parents. The band also contributed a Skinny Puppy-esque rework of J-Kwon's "Tipsy" to Save Stereogum: An '00s Covers Comp.

In the horror genre, sequels are perfunctory. As the insufferable film bro Randy explains in Scream 2, "There are certain rules that one must abide by in order to create a successful sequel. Number one: the body count is always bigger. Number two: the death scenes are always much more elaborate-more blood, more gore. Carnage candy. And number three: never, ever, under any circumstances, assume the killer is dead." Last Halloween, Los Angeles experimental rap mainstays Clipping ended their three-year silence with the horrorcore-inspired album There Existed an Addiction to Blood. This October, rapper Daveed Diggs, and producers Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson return with an even higher body count, more elaborate kills, and monsters that just won't stay dead. Visions of Bodies Being Burned is less a sequel than it is the second half of a planned diptych. It turns out, Clipping took to the thematic material of horrorcore like vampires to grave soil. Before the release of There Existed an Addiction to Blood, Clipping and Sub Pop Records divided the material up into two albums, designed to be released only months apart. However, a global pandemic and multiple cancelled tours pushed the release of the project's "part two" until the following Halloween season. Visions of Bodies Being Burned contains sixteen more scary stories disguised as rap songs, incorporating as much influence from Ernest Dickerson, Clive Barker, and Shirley Jackson as it does from Three 6 Mafia, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, and Brotha Lynch Hung. Clipping's angular, shattered interpretations of existing musical styles are always deferential, driven by fandom for the object of study rather than disdain for it. Clipping reimagine horrorcore-the purposely absurdist hip-hop subgenre that flourished in the 1990s-the way Jordan Peele does horror cinema: by twisting beloved tropes to make explicit their own radical politics of monstrosity, fear, and the uncanny. The album features a host of collaborators: Inglewood's Cam & China, fellow noise-rap pioneers Ho99o9, Tortoise guitar genius Jeff Parker, and experimental LA drummer Ted Byrnes. The final track, "Secret Piece," is a performance of a Yoko Ono text score from 1953 that instructs the players to "Decide on one note that you want to play/Play it with the following accompaniment: the woods from 5am to 8am in summer," and features nearly all of the musicians who appeared on both albums. Since their last album, Daveed Diggs-the group's Tony and Grammy Award-winning rapper-has starred in the TNT science fiction series, Snowpiercer, voiced a character in Pixar's Soul, and portrayed Frederick Douglass in Showtime's The Good Lord Bird. Writer Rivers Solomon's novella based on Clipping's Hugo-nominated song "The Deep" has been nominated for the Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Awards, and won the Lambda Literary Award for best LGBTQ SF/Fantasy/Horror novel. Clipping's song "Chapter 319"-a tribute to George Floyd (AKA Big Floyd) the former DJ-Screw affiliated rapper who was murdered by police officers in May of 2020-was released on Bandcamp on June 19th and raised over $20,000 for racial justice charities. A clip of the song also became a popular meme on TikTok, generating over 50,000 videos in which teenagers rapped the song's lyrics ("Donald Trump is a white supremacist, full stop_") directly into the frowning faces of their conservative parents. The band also contributed a Skinny Puppy-esque rework of J-Kwon's "Tipsy" to Save Stereogum: An '00s Covers Comp.

Repress!

Summer's in the air, and with impeccable timing, Bawrut returns with his fourth EP for Ransom Note Records! From ‘Ciquita’ to ‘Rumba’ to ‘Three Sounds’, the Madrid-based producer has been providing DJs with off-kilter dance floor ammunition for years now, amassing a dedicated following in the process. Out 13th September on 12” and digital, the Pronto Arpeggio EP is arguably his biggest and best collection to date. It’s certainly his silliest, kicking things off with a frankly absurd title track. Clocking in at almost 11 minutes, ‘Pronto Arpeggio’ is a prog techno labyrinth of fakeouts, tempo switches, thwacking kickdrums, and huge synths like if Giorgio Moroder did the music for Tomorrow’s World . So yeah, not your average mid-set toilet break tool (although if you want to use it for that, we won’t judge you). ‘Shooreee’ is classic Bawrut with a psychedelic twist, like spiking your own Negroni with mescaline. This sweaty, slow-burn acid weapon bides its time before erupting into a potent payoff. ‘Atchu’ carves its way through laser bleeps and dub FX, built around an unforgettable vocal sample that’ll be lodged in your skull for months whether you like it or not.

When it came to the remixes, we thought it was only right to enlist some of Bawrut’s biggest supporters. KiNK chisels ‘Pronto Arpeggio’ into a vlean slab of high-velocity machine funk, while Ruf Dug teases out the gentler side of ‘Shooreee’, resulting in a melodic track that feels tailor- made made for Mediterranean sunsets.

Bawrut absolutely ruled the festivals in 2018 with ‘More Cowbell’ and we’re expecting more of the same this year as he continues to go from strength to strength. Forza!

Avant-garde percussionist, singer, self-taught trumpet player, composer and author,
Edmony Krater, since the late 1970s has been a go to reference for French Caribbean music and all things Gwakasonné.

This Guadelopean great had been somewhat quiet since the mid 80s, however in 2019, after the recording of a live show for Cult Berlin club night, African Acid Is The Future that received a release via The Vinyl Factory, his light was relit.

Prior to this, in 2015, along with Diggers Digest, Paris based Heavenly Sweetness reissued the highly sought after 1988 album, ‘Ti Jan Pou Velo’ and Edmony began to stir up rumours of new material coming.

2018 saw his first foray into new recordings, Heavenly Sweetness released ‘An Ka Sonjé’, a record garnishing praise from Pan African Music, and he now readies his second for the label with, ‘J’ai Traversé La Mer’ (I’ve Crossed The Sea)

Like the hundreds of thousands before him, Edmony Krater also crossed the sea. Pulled from Africa, caught up in the violent and absurd logic of triangular trade. Slaves were forced to America, the Caribbean and Europe, where many descendants have since become famous writers, poets, leaders, athletes and of course, musicians.

Industrial, speed, banging and absultly crazy !
Xylocaine in its best style is back in town thanks to TNI !
4 big tunes 1 short ultra speedcore killer...

Amnesia Scanner announces Tearless, the Berlin-based duo’s second LP. As Amnesia Scanner founders, Ville Haimala and Martti Kalliala watch their icy home country of Finland thaw, the staggering scale of political recalibration and the worldwide climate crisis to come blows open old norms. This album reflects what it feels to experience Earth at a time when collapse is emerging as the prevailing narrative.


The musical scope of the record is expansive, with guest vocalists—the Peruvian artist Lalita and the Brazillian DJ/producer LYZZA—descending into a vast uncanny valley of sound. Tearless follows the 2014 AS Live [][] mixtape, 2015 audio play Angels Rig Hook, two EP’s for Young Turks, and their 2018 debut album, Another Life (PAN).



“There’s a looming sense of radical change,” they note, connecting the present to a fin de siecle horror and curiosity regarding what new world is being ushered in. Someone called Tearless a “breakup album with the planet.” To which Amnesia Scanner responds, on the LP’s closing track: “Youwill be fine, if we can help you lose your mind.”


With the crossfader on Tearless sitting closer to pop than abstraction, so too does the audience for this record widen in scope. Listening through: Opener “AS Enter” sets a sombre tone until the fucking riffs of the second track(the titular, Lalita-helmed “Tearless”) make clear there’s plenty of roaring to come. A feature from metalcore band Code Orange on “AS Flat” follows, along with “AS Trouble” (feat. Oracle, the third, machinic ghost-member of Amnesia Scanner) and together they hit as black-metal-gaze dirges. At the album’s midpoint, Lalita returns for the beautiful, operatic breakdown of “AS Acá” (released as a single in 2019), before “Call of the Center” guides listeners through three club ready tracks—the grain-processed dembow of “AS Too Late” and “AS Going” with LYZZA, and then the ambientheadbanger “AS Labyrinth.” Closing “Tearless” is the sadboy grunge of “AS U Will Be Fine” with a clear statement of intent: doom, despair, insanity, absurdity, it’s all natural, all cathartic, and all OK. Refuse like the ‘90s and party like the ‘20s—if that seems senseless, you are doing it right.

Ten incredible albums culled from the deepest, weirdest coop of record enthusiasts ever gathered under one banner. We’ve spared no expense packaging these, pairing the idea of the Art of Compilation with living and breathing art, creating little fortune cookies baked in a factory of forgotten dreams. Video games, pyramids, trading cards, matchbooks, mazes, lottery tickets, film canisters, yearbooks, and various other exercises in design absurdity.

The lost yearbook from Louis Wayne Moody High’s graduating class of 1967, chronicling the peaks and valleys of teenage angst, lost loves, and life after summer vacation. Fourteen moody melodies of surf kings, guitar Bettys, talent show psychers, and pre-S.D.S. soft- poppers. Walls of jangly guitars, maudlin organs, and melancholy harmonies deliver the bummer to ring in the summer.

»KAMILHAN; il y a péril en la demeure« is the conclusion of a 5-part cycle of works by artist Grischa Lichtenberger which was initiated with the album »LA DEMEURE; il y a péril en la demeure« in 2015 and continued with the triple EP release »Spielraum, Allgegenwart, Strahlung« in 2016. In addition to the concept of „demeure“, ones residence as a symbol for the joy and artistic possibilities one can find in isolation, Lichtenberger places a further emphasis on the expression of the voice, represented by the word „Kamilhan“. „Kamilhan“ is a non-existent word, an expression that Ernst Bloch once mentioned in an anecdote about his childhood. Fascinated by its sound but without knowing its meaning, it remained vivid in his memory in its purely „material“ form. Lichtenberger also refers to this childish perception of language. Words that we do not know, but repeat in our thoughts until they become insignificant. Lyrics in a foreign language that we do not understand and still sing along and imitate. With computer-generated voices, Lichtenberger tries to reproduce these experiences. In his tracks we hear syllables and phrases that are similar to words and that seem familiar to us, but whose meaning remains a secret. As on the previous album, the tracks on »KAMILHAN« are constantly torn apart and reassembled. Borrowings from hip-hop and even pop are unmistakable, desired, and yet delusive. Rhythms that are repeatedly broken in order to re-organize themselves into new temporal patterns. Melodies that are pierced by precisely these intricate rhythms. Voices that lack any empathy due to their artificiality. Lichtenberger himself describes these tracks as „crooked ballads“, which, by deliberately following classic pop song structures, try to sell us the absurd as the normal, and in turn smuggle some hope of recognition into the absurd. »KAMILHAN; il y a péril en la demeure« will be released on May 08, 2020 on CD and as a limited double vinyl edition including a handmade and signed silkscreen print.

French superstar, D.ko Label bossman and all-round bemasked mystery Mézigue brings the heat on this special release for skylax records. His style is uncommon & raw, mézigue is doing mézigue style, take it or leave it. If you're listening carfeully to his music you can imagine a dream mix between the absurd poetry of the pixies crossed with the craziness of Mr Oizo.This is one of the weirdest release we have ever signed and we are so proud of, unusual & unique. Mézigue is here to stay.

Greg Hates Car Culture was Venetian Snares' first ever vinyl release. Long out of print, it came out in 1999, as the third release on Minneapolis label History Of The Future. Aaron Funk's hallmarks were there from the start. His absurdist sense of humour, the razor sharp edits and his use of odd time-signatures. There is a rawness here, not often captured on later records, where you can imagine Aaron playing live in front of a room full of young breakcore fanatics. Indeed most of the tracks here were recorded live, tweaking his effects and EQ on the fly, to DAT from his Amiga. The album opens with "Personal Discourse", recorded in 1997, which samples Aaron calling into a Dominatrix live on community cable TV, while "Fuck A Stranger In The Ass" samples from the film The Big Lebowski. The track "Aqap" has a different sound to the others having been recorded later, in 1998, on Aaron's first PC.

We have also added three hitherto unreleased 1997 tracks to this reissue. Two of them "Eating America.." and "Punk Kids" appeared on Venetian Snares rare self-released 1998 cassette Spells and the long sought after "Milk" was only passed around by his friends.

Greg Hates Car Culture lets you hear the raw energy of a musician at the birth of his sound.

There Existed An Addiction To Blood" ist das insgesamt vierte Album von Clipping und ihr drittes für Sub Pop. Es ist der Nachfolger des von Kritikern und Publikum gleichermaßen gefeiertes Album ,Splendor And Misery" aus dem Jahr 2016. ,There Existed An Addiction To Blood" enthält die Singles ,Nothing Is Safe", ,Blood Of The Fang" und ,La Mala Ordina" (Feat. Benny The Butcher, Elcamino, The Rita), die von Clipping produziert, von Steve Kaplan gemischt und von Dave Cooley bei Elysium Masters in Los Angeles gemastert wurden. Das Album enthält auch Gastbeiträge von Ed Balloon, La Chat, Counterfeit Madison und Pedestrian Deposit. ,There Existed An Addiction To Blood" ist Clippings Interpretation eines neuen Rap-Splitter-Genres unter Zuhilfenahme ihrer einzigartigen Lupe. Clipping wenden sich auf dem neuen Werk intensiv dem Horrorcore zu, eines bewusst absurden und kreativ bedeutsamen Subgenres, das Mitte der 90er Jahre blühte. Einige der bemerkenswertesten Pioniere hießen Brotha Lynch Hung und Gravediggaz, aber es umfasst auch bahnbrechende Werke der Geto Boys, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony und die nahezu vollständigen Veröffentlichungen des klassischen ,Memphis cassette tape rap". Der wahrscheinlich subversivste und experimentellste Rap hat sich oft als ,Alternative" zu konventionellen Sounds präsentiert, aber Clipping verzerren das Ganze respektvoll in neue Konstellationen. ,There Existed An Addiction To Blood" absorbiert die hyper-gewaltigen Horror-Symboliken der Murder Dog-Ära, stellt sie aber in einem neuen Licht dar: immer noch dunkel getönt und düster, aber in einem seltsameren und lebendigeren Farbton. Wenn der traditionelle Horrorcore mit ,Blacula", dem populären Blaxploitationsfilm-Klassiker aus den frühen 70er Jahren, verwandt war, so ist das neue Output von Clipping analog zu ,Ganja & Hess", dem blutrünstigen Kultklassiker von 1973, der als unbesungenes Wahrzeichen des schwarzen Independent-Kinos gilt, dessen Score von Sam Waymon, Clipping als Inspiration zum Titel des Albums diente und auch Samples auf dem Track ,Blood Of The Fang" lieferte.ENG The science-fiction visionary Octavia Butler once declared that "there is nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns." The aphorism could apply to any art form where the basic contours are fixed, but the appetite for innovation remains infinite. Enter Clipping, flash fiction genre masters in a hip-hop world firmly rooted in memoir. If first person confessionals historically reign, the mid-city Los Angeles trio of rapper Daveed Diggs and producers William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes have spent the last half-decade terraforming their own patch of soil, replete with conceptual labyrinths and industrial chaos. They have conjured a mutant emanation of the future, built at odd angles atop the hallowed foundation of the past. Their third album for Sub Pop, There Existed an Addiction to Blood, finds them interpreting another rap splinter sect through their singular lens. This is Clipping's transmutation of horrorcore, a purposefully absurdist sub-genre that flourished in the mid-90s. If some of its most notable pioneers included Brotha Lynch Hung and Gravediggaz, it also encompasses seminal works from the Geto Boys, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, and the near-entirety of classic Memphis cassette tape rap. The most subversive and experimental rap has often presented itself as an "alternative" to conventional sounds, but Clipping respectfully warp them into new constellations. There Existed an Addiction to Blood absorbs the hyper-violent horror tropes of the Murder Dog era, but re-imagines them in a new light: still darkly-tinted and somber, but in a weirder and more vivid hue. The album contains interludes with hissing recordings of demonic invasions, and guest appearances from Griselda Gang's Benny the Butcher and Hypnotize Minds horror queen La Chat. Other tracks feature contributions from noise music legends The Rita and Pedestrian Deposit. It all ends with "Piano Burning," a performance of a piece written by the avant-garde composer Annea Lockwood. Yes, it is the sound of a piano burning. There Existed an Addiction to Blood fits neatly into the broader scope of the band's career, which has seen them expand from insular experimentalists into globally recognized artists. Since the release of their first album in 2013, Diggs has won a Tony and a Grammy (both for his acting/rapping work as Thomas Jefferson and Marquis de Lafayette in Hamilton), as well as co-written and starred in 2018's critically hailed Blindspotting, while Snipes and Hutson have scored numerous films and television shows. Clipping's last album, the 2016 afro-futurist dystopian space opus Splendor & Misery was recently named one of Pitchfork's Best Industrial Albums of All-Time. Commissioned for an episode of This American Life, their 2017 single "The Deep" became the inspiration for a novel of the same name, written by Rivers Solomon and published by Saga Press. But their latest masterwork embodies what the band had been building towards - a work that finds them without peer. This is experimental hip-hop built to bang in a post-apocalyptic club bursting with radiation. It's horrorcore that soaks up past blood and replants it into a different organism, undead but dangerously alive. It is a new sun, blindingly bright and built to burn your retinas.

Temple is proud to present its 6th record to date, this time from Richard Wenger (R Weng) as Richard Lamb.
Drawing loosely on industrial, dub, and early Moog music, Automatic Tango is the result of a three-year experiment in minimal synth maximalism.
Often sentimental, mildly uncomfortable, and bordering on absurd, Automatic Tango will you have asking, who is Richard Lamb, and why is he so greasy?

Free Love, the artists formerly known as Happy Meals return to Optimo Music with ‘Extreme Dance Anthems’ a phantasmic mini album from their hearts to yours.

They say – “We recorded EXTREME DANCE ANTHEMS in our recently moved studio, ‘Full Ashram Celestial Garden’ which is now situated in a building that holds both a church below us and a sex club next door. Most of the tracks were formed from late-night sessions that we started to kind of ritualistically hold inspired from a particular thought or idea that we later cut down and did a live mixdown of. The music is about physicality and the metaphysical – it is about a recontextualisation of the ineffable as a centre point of existence which in turn influences how we engage with everything around us. A celebration of the unquantifiable, unspeakable, indivisible EXPERIENCE as the throne from which all ideas are derived. Even though the world is fucked- we are here.

On the face of it – I realise that this description might just seem like apolitical hippy bullshit but fuck that – as a deliberate result of the modern political landscape, our societies’ individual and collective disengagement with the metaphysical has led us to treat other humans, animals and our environment like resourceful statistics rather than something that actually holds any inherent value. An Inner Revolution of the foundations of our reality in a way that reintroduces the essence of existence, and not merely its describable derivatives, into the conversation of how we should live our lives INFORMS our perception of the world in a way that demands us to ACT. The record is about a kind of gradual awakening between the two of us – a reconnection with the magic around us.

The ineffable is not without moments of illumination- mostly in the form of immediate absurdity: ONE DAY WE WILL ALL BE DEAD BUT HERE WE ARE ALIVE INSTEAD.

The record is called EXTREME DANCE ANTHEMS because it made us both laugh”.

Repetentes 2008 is 26 year old Brazilian multi instrumentalist, session super star, Globo Television soap opera jingle up-and-comer, 40% Foda label boss and Botafogo FR football hooligan Gabriel Guerra. Known affectionately as Guerrinha amongst his friends, Guerrinha - or as he’s referred to officially - Gabriel, turns in Superconscious Records’ 13th edition. After his absurd debut LP on Future Times and his more recent outings on his own 40% Foda and PAN records, Guerrinha keeps things relatively straight up with 4 absurdly fast but not furious club friendly tracks.

The English-Irish electronic/dance duo Moloko released their first album Do You Like My Tight Sweater? in 1995.

It’s one of their most experimental records, before moving on to a more mainstream approach. Roisin Murphy is carrying the album with her versatile vocals, both in range and style, while Mark Brydon created the breakbeats, sound effects and groovy disco lines.
This is electronica at its best, danceable and funky.

The album includes their hits ““Fun for Me” and “Dominoid”, besides fan favourites like “Day for Night” and “Where Is the What If the What Is in Why?”. They never slow down in their exiting music and absurd lyrics, but that’s exactly what makes this record unforgettable.

Pure joy to be danced on all night.

Do You Like My Tight Sweater? is available as a limited edition of 3000 numbered copies on turquoise vinyl.

birthportal presents its second release featuring tracks from Mr. Stiff.
Look deep into your chonchousness, textures and intricate rhythms coalesce within the essential realms of possibility. As imminent rigidness prevails over the mass psyche, those who understand to meld with the motion of experience reciprocate the most invariably. As we proceed we discover austere, perhaps absurdist, levels of techno funk and minimal jamage.

Techno, House, Minimal

“Ta Da” is the debut full length from J. McFarlane Reality Guest, the collective name for the trio headed by the eponymous McFarlane. As a member of the group Twerps, McFarlane has traversed guitar-centric, melodic pop music for some years while honing a highly unique, personal musical language. Ta Da is the first recorded unveiling of McFarlane’s affecting, oblique songwriting panache. Originally released in her native Australia on Hobbies Galore, Ta Da will be released worldwide by Night School in June 2019.

Wheezing into view with a troubled reed instrument set against a s of whoozy synth lines, Human Tissue Act is a foggy curtain the listener is invited to peel back. The dissonant notes are left to dance entwined, with clarinet heralding a Harry Partch-esque mallet percussion interlude. It’s a mood. With no resolution in sight, an audience dragged closer into uncertainty is suddenly drenched with the light of inter-weaving wah wah synth and saxophone. I Am A Toy introduces us to McFarlane’s vocal, an effortless and matter-of-fact, accented statement that quietly takes the reins. While McFarlane’s previous work in Twerps might reference 80s UK and antipodean guitar pop, Ta Da showcases a different influences immersed in psychedelic music and synths. It’s a brilliant, deft concoction swimming in Young Marble Giants-type minimalism washed with bare pop and harmony similar to Kevin Ayers making sense of a Melbourne suburb full of faces half-recognised in the blanching sun.

What Has He Bought begins with a Casio-keyboard rhythm pattern, palm-muted guitars and immaculately enunciated vocal give way to a burnt melodica part that elevates the spirits. Simple patterns repeated, like a well-tempered pop song that does what it needs to do and no more, build into the sound of summer leaking orange juice. They’re moments of joy, layered on top of each other like a melting cake. Do You Like What I’m Sayin’ recalls Marine Girls covering a classic ‘66 Garage nugget, organ lines fighting funk with guitar chords played just behind the percussion. “In a talking world, meanings are the same. Words want to hold on to the people they contain. Do you like what I’m sayin’?” We’re in a Beckett play perhaps, obtuse absurdities rendered pretty. Alien Ceremony is a heart-melter, given a melancholic timbre by bowed double bass it’s a tragi-comic piece that almost reeks of Robert Wyatt at his mid-whimsical twisting a fugue completely out of shape. Beneath the layers of harmony and twinkling instrumentation you sense there’s a genuine sadness somewhere even if it remains veiled.

Through out Ta Da, McFarlane plays with counterpoint and contrast to sometimes delirious effect. On Your Torturer, a simple, upbeat chord progression is hard panned, underpinning a flute solo which seems out of place, hence making it completely in place on this warmly surreal album. My Enemy is a slowly swinging eulogy to a failed relationship punctuated by analogue synth burbles, with our protagonist simply asking, in the aftermath, “can we be nice?” Here McFarlane’s vocal is straight forward, lyrically conversational but still not completely in focus, a surreal kitchen sink drama filtered through a dream where everything is in the wrong place. It’s a fine precursor to Heartburn, which similarly borrows BBC Radiophonic Workshop-style noise synths and the use of space to carve up the simple “You Will Make My Heart Burn” line. At this point, the listener has been in such close proximity to McFarlane’s show, the reality guest in a performance where they’re the sole audience member, that when Where Are You My Love rises on the horizon as a sleepy, psychedelic send off it’s uplifting. The vocal drifts away into the sunset, simple and direct. It leaves the listener slightly confused, perhaps, but grateful for the gentle surprise.

What kind of band would choose a double vinyl, gatefold LP for their first release The Hare and Hoofe. Their eponymous first release consists of two discs. Disc One rounds up their 'hits' so far - 2018's smash hit White Blindness, the space gregorian
chant that is Voyager, and the pastoral tale of Appledore Fayre. The second consists of their rock opera, The Terror of Melton. Time-travelling scientists. Giant laser-eyed robots. A rock opera to end all rock operas...

Pitched somewhere between The Who, The Stooges, ELO, Sparks, Pink Floyd, Voivod, Pete Townshend, Brainiac, Bowie and Judas Priest, The Terror of Melton is a headspinning,
ambitious journey. In turns stomping, tear-jerking, full-on rocking and dreamlike, it will transport you. Prog Magazine's Dom Lawson described it as 'absurdly entertaining and deliciously weird... An unmissable trip for fans of the fuzzy and farout'.
2018 saw the band recording a BBC6Music Marc Riley session before even releasing a physical record. In addition, they've had plays on Stuart Maconie's Freak Zone. The band have also gained a monstrously good live reputation, playing an instantly
legendary set at Hastings' Beatwave festival, as well as headlining Tannerfest, Pitch Fest, playing with Focus and The Fierce and The Dead, and the John Snow Society's annual celebration of the eminent epidemiologist.
Some describe them as 'educational psych', others prefer 'polytechnic beat', still more as 'a seventies garage band'. There's certainly primeval drums, fuzz bass, lashings of guitar and synth noises from another planet.
Formed from a gang of friends from Folkestone, Hoofe members have played in groups including The Heliocentrics, The Priscillas, Ye Nuns, Jail Cell Recipes, The Frank Sidebottom Oh Blimey Big Band, Chalet and Hyperglo.

Blossoming From The Depths Of Saint-etienne, Worst Records Is Proud To Present The Second Release Of Its Catalogue. Jacques Satre Delivers With « Anatole Trance » A Radical Hallucinogenic Journey Through Warped Horizons Of The Mind. This Long Time Member Of The Positive Education Crew Sets Up A Curious Yet Fascinating Mixture Of Bassdriven Downtempo Techno, Free Range Acidalia And Fierce Sense Of Absurd Humor. The Three Tracks Evolve Slowly, Building Up Between Litanies For Wrecked Concrete Samples And Colourful Enchantment. This Ambivalence Results In Dancefloor Burning Tunes That Could Also Be The Soundtrack For Mesmerizing Off-time Afterhours. A Concentrate Of Local Wizardry That Unveils Once Again Hollow Zones Of The Sound Of Saint-etienne.

Ever since hearing Pete Tong announce 'Chica Wappa' as his Essential New Tune back in 2004, we've been following the bold Alex Smoke on his musical journey.

Coming from Glasgow, we've shared a lot of common influences - both from within and outside of the city and we have Alex to thank for introducing and strengthening our love for the likes of Villalobos, Rhythm & Sound, Carl Craig and Actress, amongst others. Although he was a familiar face on the 'minimal' scene, he always operated on his own terms and that's a throughline we've admired throughout his career. Not only is he comfortable releasing techno on Soma and R&S, he's produced for ballet, films and even the NHS.

Over the years, Alex has played at a few seminal parties for us; alongside the likes of Oni Ayhun, James Holden, Helena Hauff and Veronica Vasicka. So we were delighted to be approached by him to work on a record together and it's been really exciting to hear it evolve over time. It would be arrogant to compare it to Thom Yorke's - The Eraser, but it certainly occupies a similar world in our mind. To still be producing innovative and inspiring albums 15 years into a career is no mean feat in this age and it's a great honour to welcome such a musical hero on to the label.

As with the last Auntie Flo album, we're also lining up a very special remix package with a swarm of our favourite producers of the moment and we can't wait to share them with you too over the course of the year.