Buscar:be wave

Laurel Premo's latest solo work presents original and traditional music
voiced on finger-style electric guitar and lap steel
Perhaps by its most honest classification "roots guitar," the sonic vocabulary of
'Golden Loam' is informed by guitar's antecedents in American traditions - fiddle
and banjo, the rhythms, melody and intonation therein, as well as that music's
relationship to movement. Glowing, droning, tugging, scraping, revolving, Premo
bears renewed electric dirt, the golden loam layered by centuries of folk.
Following 'The Iron Trios' (2019), Premo's sophomore release builds on the dark
roots world she arranged, with seeking, untethered delivery and a masterful use
of space, on a dynamic wave of warm, gritty sustain. Laurel's vocals on two
pieces "Hop High" and "I Am A Pilgrim" are traditional calls beaconing the guitar's
response, and fold in timberly like additional instrumental lines sustaining the
drone. 'Golden Loam' was self produced and recorded during the pandemic
lockdown of summer/fall 2020. The majority of the record is solo performance,
but two featured collaborators are woven in to this embodied rhythmic collection.
Percussive dancer Nic Gareiss (Michigan) appears on tracks 5 & 9, and bones
player Eric Breton (Quebec) on track 3. Laurel Premo is a Michigan-based artist
who has been writing, arranging music and touring since 2009 with vocal and
instrumental roots acts. She is internationally known from her duo Red Tail Ring.

Rare Italo disco pop project Galvanica gets a beautiful re-issue! This is what the label writes about the release; "Galvanica, a voice with unusual qualities, refined, balanced, also high-pitched, sensual, embellished by an orgasmic inspiration with fluid and spaced solo's in hypnotic rhythms that often change scenery. 'Nightlights in Japan': an extraordinary piece of pure and profound creativity where each version seems to have been built apart and where the West meets the East. A splendid interpreter for a truly stunning piece, as fresh and far-sighted as the day it was recorded in Calenzano at Studio Emme by Marzio Benelli with the Yamaha DX7 synth and Linn 9000 drum sequencer that are at the base of the piece, made and re-interpreted in the four original versions, all sung in the Eastern Asian pentatonic scale. 'Nightlights in Japan' was also written by Massimiliano Orfei, at the time collaborator in the advertising projects from label Smash One Music of Pino Toma, the producer who drew new inspiration to venture into the record market which in 1987 became every day more difficult and this song was considered out of fashion, even if each version of this song was expertly arranged by the talented Giorgio Costantini. We've clarified as to whom Galvanica's velopendulus belongs, in order to be able to rightly consider this artist as a contributive voice of disco music, despite being part of the "second wave" of the Italo-Disco scene, has strongly contributed to it as Otero, Belen Thomas, Angelby and previously with the disco-project Plustwo creating 'Melody' (which after 40 years gets a new extraordinary success with over 134 million plays on TikTok and around 18 million streaming). However, it's clear as day that the gorgeous artist behind Galvanica was Antonella Bianchi and that Giorgio Costantini was not only her producer and composer - as in 1985 for 'I Know', a sweet synth-pop ballad sung with her stage name 'Angel', but above all her ... 'guardian angel'. For many artists using a stage name is a custom. The absolute record of pseudonyms as a true equalizer of identity is held by Stendhal having used 350 throughout his career. This multifaceted artist who, until now has never used so many 'a.k.a.', in a wonderful game of musical mirrors, has represented an opportunity to challenge the market, a trait of non-acceptance of the role that the discography attributes to certain artists. So also Galvanica was an invitation to reflect, with a pinch of provocation, a behavior that Antonella Bianchi has in the DNA of her family. Ultimately, Best Record is not at all worried about the modernization that surrounds it, sure that 'Nightlights in Japan' will be one of the most coveted vinyl reissues in the second half of 2022.

“24” is Minuit Machine’s 4th LP. Electronic masterpiece, subtle mix of dark wave, techno and electropop, “24” is both surprising and seductive. Authentic, emotional and powerful, “24” is a real immersion into Minuit machine’s dark, dystopian and futuristic world. Through this LP, Hélène and Amandine are facing all obstacles and disappointments life brings on their way. Each track is a self-affirmation, a rallying cry and an urge to live. The instrumental part is clearly marked and contributes to create the band’s unique sound. The strong beats are a call to dance while the synths, stabbing and emotional, will definitely move you. Finally, the deep basses give the tracks an “EBM” touch. Vocal lines are more pop, with less reverb. They are meant to obsess and stay in your head all day long. They were thought of as a 90's dance music chorus, but with feelings. As usual, the lyrics are very personal and describe several states of mind. Since their creation, Hélène and Amandine kept on reinventing themselves in order to translate their inner questioning and emotions into music. From this point of view, “24” could be Minuit Machine’s most accomplished work since each track sounds like a confession.

Beatservice Records are thrilled to present the hotly-anticipated third album from Oslo-based production maestro, Third Attempt. 'The Novel Sound' follows on from the widely acclaimed 'Beats From The Quarantine' album released in April 2021, and further compliments the young artist's deserved reputation as one of the dance underground's most exciting talents to emerge in recent years.

Third Attempt (aka Torje Fagertun Spilde) has been dazzling us with his far-reaching music since arriving in the Beatservice fold with 'Shoreline' back in 2018, and since then his ever-evolving repertoire has continued to serve up immaculate sonic surprises. The fast-rising 23-year old artist has wasted no time making his indelible mark, displaying a frenetic work rate alongside an impeccable ear for constructing compelling leftfield grooves.

'The Novel Sound' opens with the rolling deviance of 'Freak Out', where a dusty string sample makes way for vocal samples, scratches, and searing sirens permeating a bass-heavy groove, setting the tone magnificently for the music that's primed to unfold. Next, we arrive in the mid-tempo chug of 'Age Of Steam'. Evolving over a crisp, club-ready rhythm, heavy funk guitars, dancing keys and distant vocal stabs cascade over driving bass before soaring strings herald the arrival of a slick breakdown section. The icing on the cake arrives as bubbling acid joins sensational horn motifs, breaking down once again for a starry-eyed beatless passage that leaves us yearning for a reprise.

'My Girl' features amorous vocal samples hovering over an irresistible disco beat, with alluring rhythm guitars and dreamy e-piano chords setting the scene for rousing horns to blast off into blissful summer skies. Before we've found time to catch our breath, 'Nu Funk' arrives with snappy hip hop samples scratched over tight beats and a delectable bass guitar hook. The groove pauses for dubbed-out space delays to echo into the night before a singing lead guitar joins the rhythm elements to burst back into life, with flute motifs, elegant strings, and otherworldly sweeps elegantly meandering across the panorama.

Set over a groove that arrives like a cool summer breeze, 'Sunbeam Symphony' drifts over soul-soothing chords, weighted bass and slick, rolling beats. Hypnotic keys guide us into position as the drums build energy and the bass notes power us forward. Third Attempt's dextrous keyboard solo dazzles momentarily before subsiding for a dub-infused break, with spaced-out vocal chops and rising sweeps building tension before the groove resumes and the virtuoso solo once again majestically soars. Maintaining the sun-kissed meditations, 'Definite' effortlessly floats through waves of thick bass, funk guitar chops and elegantly fused samples, with seductive chords, hypnotic horns and laser-tight drums combining to create a near overpowering dream state.

The heavy trip-hop rhythms of 'Nightfall' enrapture the listener as rich chords discreetly beckon, with cascading congas, mysterious melodies and exotic refrains building before the glorious lead vocal appears like a hyper-luminous flash of light. The chords disappear into the nothingness, before the carefully selected sample of 'Working Man' drifts in to fill the empty space. Smokey drums soon arrive, joined by weighted bass, foggy chords and an enigmatic whistle lead, fusing to conjure a half-lit world lifted from the pages of an evocative film noir novel.

The enlivening tablas, glitchy effects and saucer-eyed sweeps of 'Greed' hide subliminal messages casting a knowing eye over the consumer-driven society and self-help culture that pervade our society, before we arrive at the album's charmed finale. 'Last Winter Of My Childhood' yet again manages to transport the listener into a gently hallucinatory realm, with drowsy bass notes, tripped out pads and emotive strings building to a profound and rush-inducing crescendo.

'The Novel Sound' once again sees Third Attempt dextrously merging expansive musical aesthetics that fuse trip-hop, funk, soul and disco to deliver a sound that – although endowed with vintage sensibilities – feels proudly up to date. Continuing his breathtaking development in dazzling style, the album feels destined to echo over blissed-out sunsets, back-room excursions and twilight skies for many years to come.

2022 limited edition of this Japanese no wave gem from 1982. With extended liner notes and interviews with band members about the recordings of the album, as well as unpublished photographs from 1981 by Jibiki Yuichi.

The Japanese punk rock movement known as Tokyo Rockers began in the summer of 1978. It incubated an independent music culture as well as a host of fascinating, individualistic musicians. One of the more striking units was the male-female duo Maria 023. NON played bass for them, and it was here that she first attracted attention. However, Maria 023 was short-lived, and NON would not reappear until the following year, August 1979, on stage at the legendary concert event "Drive to 80s". Her unbilled performance at the event consisted of several songs for solo bass and vocals, and her combination of intensity and a distinctly female emotionality made a striking impression. In the months that followed, NON continued to play solo and she became a pivotal presence among the female rockers on the scene at the time.

Finally she shifted from solo to group performance, and formed NON BAND. After several member changes, the line-up stabilized into a unique trio with Kinosuke Yamagishi on violin and clarinet, and Mitsuru Tamagaki on drums. It was with this line-up that the group reached a musical peak. At the same time, the Japanese punk and new wave rock scene was moving in a new direction, as a second generation of artists appeared and mushrooming independent labels began to play an increasingly important role. I myself started a label called Telegraph Records in 1981 and worked hard on record releases and building a distribution network.

Since starting the label, I had wanted to release a record by NON BAND. There were many vicissitudes before it could happen, but in February 1982 NON BAND's first album was released as a 10-inch LP on Telegraph Records, the label's fifth release. In the early Japanese indies scene, if a release sold 1000 copies it was counted as a significant success. The NON BAND album went through several repressing and sold 2000 copies. The album was a hit and the band's critical reception and popularity suddenly took off.

The shows that followed the release of the album were given a boost by the addition of two female rockers, the guitarist Kummy and keyboard player Mitsuwa. The group was reaching a real musical peak and everyone expected more great developments, but just six months after the release of the album the group would grind to a halt. Members quit the band one after another, and with no possible replacements to be found, NON herself faded away from the scene.

NON BAND's career in the early Japanese indies scene was thus short-lived. But their sole album was reissued twice on CD, and remained popular with listeners. However, the group's history was to have a second chapter.

NON ended up returning to her hometown, snowy Hirosaki in the far northern prefecture Aomori. There she raised two children and took over the running of the family business, an arts supplies store. Her thoughts turned once again towards music, and in 1999 she took up her bass again and began to sing. She invited two fabulous musicians, Keiji Haino and Tatsuya Yoshida, to Hirosaki, and performed together with them as well as solo. This marked the beginning of a new phase for her, and she played live in Tokyo and released a solo album, "ie". She got back in touch with Yamagishi and Tamagaki and reformed NON BAND. They added Emi Sasaki on accordion and began to play a handful of gigs each year, bringing a mature depth to their undiminished power and dazzling a new generation of fans. In 2012 the group released an album of recent live performances entitled " NON BAND Liven' 2009-2012". I released the album on the newly reanimated Telegraph Records.

NON still lives in the north, in Hirosaki. The city is famous for its summer Neputa festival. The first track on this album, "Duncan Dancin'" is almost a theme song for NON BAND, but its rhythm is taken from the ohayashi music that is performed in this festival, as large floats and troupes of dancers wind their way through the streets. The title refers to the legendary dancer, Isadora Duncan. The image perfectly represents NON herself: Isadora Duncan dancing to the earthy rhythms bubbling up out of the north land.

Nov 9, 2016 Jibiky Yuichi (Telegraph Factory)

In order to achieve a meticulous sound quality the reissue version is cut on 12" vinyl instead of the original 10" format. The original cover artwork has been reproduced and there are liner notes by Jibiky Yuichi with unpublished photos of NON BAND.

6 face-melting gurners for the 21st Century’s, wilted and jilted generation.

Glasgow’s Lady Neptune follows her New Gorbals Gabber cassette E.P. with her debut vinyl release NOZ. Over the course of 23 bloody fisted minutes, Lady Neptune’s – aka Moema Meade - hyper destructed take on Gabber and Happy Hardcore breaks down the genre tropes before rebuilding them as a new pop music. If 2020’s New Gorbals Gabber showed an artist building their own language from fragments of different genres, 2022’s NOZ goes harder into the cyberpunk-ass future and takes no prisoners. Recorded and mixed at Glasgow’s legendary Green Door Studios and mastered by Rashad Becker, here Lady Neptune evolves into a monster.

With the classic weapons of Dutch Gabber – distorted 909 kick drums, bursts of noise and world-eating Rave-O- Matic hoovering synth riffs, Lady Neptune’s 6 tracks constantly threaten to careen off the speaker into the sweatiest, most gibbering, messy corners of the club. The two years since her debut has seen Meade destroying festival dancefloors, training for the full assault that is NOZ. Live performances have seen foam guns, tequila-pistols, neon stage dancers and a full, maxed-out orgy of fast-as-hell BPM, rave music burning up the cones. The experience reaps rewards from the outset on recorded form here. APOCOLYPS begins with monstrous vocals and the all-consuming kick, pulled back and taut for launch. The arsenal builds; warbling synths and high-pitched synth-strings before dropping into Bald Terror-sized hoovers and stuttering 4/4s. It quickly bleeds into MASTERER, with a looped, pitched up vocal intersecting with the synth riff. The aesthetics might be Happy Hardcore but the dynamic feels like a synthetic, evil Nu Metal-influenced Industrial music. Constantly evolving and twisting with its own natural drama, the drop at 2:15 is pure ecstatic release. fusing Meade’s inclination for pop hooks with the first out-and-out 180BPM (ish, who’s counting?) anthemic melter of the E.P., TELL ME has THE big catchy chorus, used sparingly and sung by Meade with angelic devilishness, coming at you in waves of XTC. It’s a repeater.

It’s then massive fists in the air for the ruthless Side B opener WIT. In the Welsh-Brazilian artist’s adopted home of Glasgow it translates directly as WHAT!? Itt makes sense. g. Sharp, weaponised, rhythmic punishment abounds before OH responds. Pitched up vocals and another mid-frequency synth hook wipes the slate clean. Like the best Gabber, the tension and release dynamic is used to full effect by Meade, with the thunderous low end kick -expertly tweaked in the mastering by Rashad Becker – slipping into the ghostly cavern. Industrialized 4/4 and noise-snares propel onwards to be utterly squashed by that bloody synth, stinging and horribly brilliant. Proving her genius for a ridiculous A-N-T-H-E-M, TIME 2 MAKE U FEEL GOOD closes the 23 minutes of ragged, drugged glory with a festival-slamming chorus built from the wreckage. It’s a song that does that thing we all know and love but can’t put our finger on. Sad, happy, tragedy, ecstasy, joy, horror...There’s big, minor chord changes (yes there’s some CHORDS on this slammer), the kick is submerged in layers of pads and Meade’s actual secret weapon: her vocal and knack for writing a chorus line. In the listener’s mind it’s over before it’s begun, a track destined for the big rewind.

NOZ is a breathless, E-number riddled eternal ecstasy.

A meeting of the minds between two Israeli DJs and producers. Adam Ten & Mita Gami release a combined two-tracker in September on Crosstown Rebels, dipping into dark and hypnotising waters while maintaining a club-cut aesthetic.

The pair pen a slow-burning chugger on the title track, merging tones of tech house, progressive house and techno. A high-pitched vocal weave’s throughout, in tandem with a distorted synthline and oddball sound FX—one for a wavey dancefloor. On the flip, Night Shift glistens with emotion as tribal-tinged percussion collides with long, drawn-out piano notes. A cosmic creation that blurs the line between melancholia and warmth.

Adam Ten is a Tel Aviv-born producer and resident DJ of institutional club The Block, located in his home city. Ten is a key artist on the Israeli scene, recognised for his all-night sets that blend a myriad of moods in electronic music. He’s played worldwide, spanning stints in Miami, Cape Town and Mykonos, amongst several other regions, and he’s channelled his compelling sound on labels like Diynamic, Multinotes, Disco Halal and Selador. As a co-founder of the event series TERRA, Ten curates some of the finest nature-orientated parties in Israel. Mita Gami hails from Tel Aviv. A multi-instrumentalist from a young age, he goes beyond the trope of entertainer. Instead, Gami invites his audience into immersive and almost trippy journeys during his performances via a hybrid set-up and enticing energy on-stage. Releases on REALM Records and Diynamic display his metaphysical approach. Beyond producing, Gami co-runs the label Blue Shadow Records and the Sunrise Kingdom area in Midburn Festival, based in the Negev Desert in Israel.

Repress expected. Date TBA

By 1980 when this was originally released Pharoah Sanders was solidly entrenched with his own voice on tenor. The passing of John Coltrane and Sanders's fruitful years of playing with the prolific saxophone genius resulted with an unmistakable influence on his sound and explorations of the instrument. Beginning with "Greetings to Idris" the structure of the music is one that follows tradition yet opens up for the musicians to improvise within the arrangements. "Greetings to Idris" is in reference to the featured drummer Idris Muhammad who also played with Coltrane during his late period. Naturally Sanders is featured as the main instrument and his horn can be bold and demanding of your full attention. Always interested in other instruments from other cultures, much like Trane, he incorporates the Japanese instrument the koto, a beautifully harmonic stringed instrument to counter his soft rich blowing on tenor with only wind chimes and a harmonium for a delicious peaceful bit of music on "Kazuko"(Peace Child) that has the qualities of a meditative offering. Most of the music, eight tracks, is composed and arranged by Sanders and demonstrates his leadership. There is one John Coltrane composition entitled "After The Rain" that gets the Tranesque treatment by Sanders that makes it hard for even the most discerning listener to distinguish between the original version and Sanders impression. It is a bluesy duet featuring only sax and piano and leaves you wanting to hear it over and over again because of it's simple and haunting melodies. Another song that Coltrane recorded entitled "Easy To Remember" has a gentle swing to it built around a classic quartet (drums, bass, piano, sax) like that employed by Coltrane that results in a superb standard. Sanders incorporates the use of another "foreign" instrument to jazz by working in a tabla and sitar on "Soledad " that takes center stage before Sanders joins in on the music. The result is a thing of genius as the East and West merge and interface for composition that is peaceful. Sanders music on this LP fluctuates between the tranquil sounds of his mellow horn to the outer limits where he left off with the explorations of Trane's late period. What separates this LP from others is that it is a group playing under his leadership where he gives all others close to equal billing. The uptempo, "You've Got To Have freedom" is one such song where Sanders gets out there on some of his solos but works within the group structure as the other musicians, most notably Eddie Henderson on flugelhorn, bring the music back home. There is a chorus sung much of the time throughout where the the proclamation "Ya gotta have peace and love, ya gotta have freedom" is presented in Manhattan Transfer style but with much more soul. The use of vocalists is done again on the track entitled "Think About The One." The chorus features vocalese specialist Bobby McFerrin. This LP shows the different sides of Pharoah Sanders, a man always willing to explore the music, explore his soul and share it with you. The closing track "Bedria" is a mellow exploration of the various ranges of the tenor. It is a ten minute song that displays all the grace of his being, a gentle giant who can manipulate the horn to do extraordinary things, reverberating out and back in undulating waves of harmonic bliss. Sanders on this LP is next to perfect. One of his best recording from his post Impulse career. It belongs in your jazz collection right next to John Coltrane.

Formed in 2018, Brooklyn’s Gustaf have built a kind of buzz that feels like it comes from a different era. The art punk 5 piece rapidly established a reputation and early excitement about their danceable, ESG-inspired post punk expanded outside of their city with remarkable effect despite having released no recorded music and barely having an online presence. As a result of their magnetic live show the band found unlikely early champions, catching the attention of luminaries like Beck – who had the band open for him at a secret loft party he played around the release of his latest album – the New York no wave legend James Chance, and shared stages with buzzing indie acts like Omni, Tropical Fuck Storm, Dehd and Bodega, while word of mouth led to sell out shows when they played their first LA headline dates in late 2019. They finally released recorded music in the form of their debut 7 inch at the end of 2020, which only furthered the growth of their reputation, earning them comparisons to acts like Television, The Talking Heads, The B-52s and LCD Soundsystem. Now, the band release their debut LP, the magnificently titled Audio Drag For Ego Slobs, on Toronto’s Royal Mountain Records (Wild Pink, Alvvays, Mac DeMarco).

Einstürzende Neubauten producer Boris Wilsdorf, Karl O’Connor aka Regis and MY DISCO's Liam Andrews assemble as EROS, bottling no-wave/industrial lightning with a tight set of pulverized, widescreen torched-songs that rasp, grate and throb somewhere between This Heat, The Cure, Cabaret Voltaire, Alva Noto x Pan Sonic.

An industrial fantasy of flesh and steel, ‘A Southern Code’ is the stunning continuation of the trio’s work at Wilsdorf’s pivotal Anderesbaustelle studio on Regis’ watershed album, ‘Hidden In This Is The Light That You Miss’. Rejoined by another key muse, Anni Hogan, and Einstürzende Neubauten’s Jochen Arbeit, they effectively galvanised a new band, EROS, during long days and nights in the studio across 2020 and into 2021. The sound they make is fiercely lean, shaped by Wilsdorf’s manacled mixing and anchored in the frankly sexy as f#ck swerve of Regis vocals and his snake-hipped rhythm section.

The first songs issued from those sessions form a lustrous new high point of contemporary industrial and dance music, one porous to Kurdish dabke as much as archetypal goth, pulsing with a metallic bloodlust and spatialized by Wilsdorf’s genre-forming tekkerz in a way that seriously rewards with proper amplification. Judged on its immediate merits, it’s the sort of record that could have feasibly come out at any point between the ‘80s and now, but closer inspection reveals a discreet framework of sculpted subbass and sleekly rolling traction that betrays the modernity of minimalist D&B physics and up-to-the-second sound design that places ‘A Southern Code’ in a timeless echelon.

Registering the venomous drums and over-the-shoulder whispers of its title track, plus the incendiary middle eastern horns of ‘The Crawling Man’ - a real parallel dimension take on The Cure’s ‘The Top’ - to the post-apocalyptic lounge lizard styles of ‘In This Place’, and the unheimlich creep to ‘Nature Unborn (From Sun to Sun)’, the band’s first album plants a vital stake in the ground for industrial musick at the crest of a new decade.

2022 marks the 25th anniversary of Suction Records, the Toronto-based electro/IDM label founded in 1997 by two emerging producers, Lowfish (aka Gregory De Rocher) and Solvent (aka Jason Amm), the latter still overseeing the label to this day. The label’s inaugural release was a split Lowfish/Solvent 12”, marking both artists’ debut vinyl appearance.

Gregory and Jason had known each other since high-school, but a deeper friendship was forged during their university years, after Gregory introduced Jason to early Rephlex releases by Aphex Twin and µ-Ziq. Gregory had been making electronic music in his bedroom for more than a decade, but it was those Rephlex releases that ignited Jason’s passion to do the same. After several years of obsessive gear buying, music making, and playing tracks for each other, Lowfish and Solvent had hit their stride, and their demos even attracted the interest of legendary early IDM labels labels Skam (for Lowfish), and Isophlux (for Solvent). But things were slow-moving in those days — letters, faxes, phone calls… nothing was panning out. So that’s when they decided to start their own label, and put out 300 copies of this 12”, suction001.

The label was heavily inspired by contemporary artists like AFX, Autechre, and Panasonic, but on suction001, those influences collided with their ‘80s synth-pop and industrial roots to create something unique. 25 years later, it still sounds fresh, and like nothing else out there. On suction001, 808 drum machines are run through distortion and breakbeats are chopped and mangled, contrasting with melodic OMD-style leads and catchy synth-pop basslines — a sound the label would refer to as ‘distortion pedal new wave.’

Over the past 25 years, Suction’s sound has morphed and evolved, but in recent years has shifted back to it’s original Rephlex-inspired roots. That makes 2022 the perfect year to revisit this wild, 1997 debut, now reissued in a new, expanded edition for it’s 25th anniversary. The reissue adds 2 bonus tracks — a 1999 remix by Detroit electro-punk duo ADULT., along with a previously-unreleased version of Lowfish’s A1 cut, and also features new and improved artwork, including an insert with full label discography.

Limited to 500 copies, and comes with a Bandcamp download card.

Wellington, New Zealand four-piece Hans Pucket writes nervy but effortlessly danceable rock songs about feeling bad. Their second full-length album, No Drama, which is out November 4th via Carpark Records, gleefully captures the all-too-common twenty-something anxieties of talking too much and then being unable to find the right words to say. When frontman Oliver Devlin sings, “I’m surfing a constant wave of alarm” on the title track, it’s a compass for the other nine tracks. This is inviting and relatable music for people who, despite their best efforts, feel uncomfortable about themselves, the state of the world, and their place in it.

Both lyrically and sonically, No Drama is a departure for Hans Pucket from their 2018 debut Eczema. “I realized I didn’t want to write any more real heartbreak songs,” says Oliver Devlin. “We were and still are a live band. We're still trying to make music that’s catchy and people can dance to, but also really interesting to us: songs about growing up and finding how you exist in the world.” Songs like “My Brain Is a Vacant Space” with its blistering guitars and ebullient hooks hone in on the feeling that you have nothing to offer while “Bankrupt,” a fuzzed-out punk track, boasts lines like “I don’t know if I’ll always feel like / I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

Recorded with the band’s good friend and former tour mate Jonathan Pearce of The Beths at his Auckland studio, No Drama is full of big leaps, immaculate arrangements, and a ton of immediate grooves. “We were very ambitious when we first started recording this,” says bassist Callum Devlin. “Intentionally we left heaps of space in the track so we could add strings and horns. Because we were very measured and quite deliberate with the parts we had. It was a really fun process filling in the gaps.”

No Drama came together over several years and during its creation, the band added multi-instrumentalist Callum Passels, who provided all the horn arrangements on the LP. With Pearce producing, his other Beths bandmates like Benjamin Sinclair added string arrangements while singer Elizabeth Stokes provided backing vocals.

Overall it’s a remarkably eclectic record where the smooth pop of a track like “Kiss the Moon” can coexist perfectly with the Abbey Road freakout of “Some Good News.” “We didn’t want to be afraid of our 15-year-old self's influences,” says Oliver Devlin.” We really wanted to make an album that teenage us would just be amazed by.”

The result is Hans Pucket’s most sparkling and confident collection yet. While it’s danceable and fun, it’s also a thoughtful exploration of anxiety, a call for empathy in a turbulent time, and a relatable reminder that it’s hard to figure things out.

Tape

Wellington, New Zealand four-piece Hans Pucket writes nervy but effortlessly danceable rock songs about feeling bad. Their second full-length album, No Drama, which is out November 4th via Carpark Records, gleefully captures the all-too-common twenty-something anxieties of talking too much and then being unable to find the right words to say. When frontman Oliver Devlin sings, “I’m surfing a constant wave of alarm” on the title track, it’s a compass for the other nine tracks. This is inviting and relatable music for people who, despite their best efforts, feel uncomfortable about themselves, the state of the world, and their place in it.

Both lyrically and sonically, No Drama is a departure for Hans Pucket from their 2018 debut Eczema. “I realized I didn’t want to write any more real heartbreak songs,” says Oliver Devlin. “We were and still are a live band. We're still trying to make music that’s catchy and people can dance to, but also really interesting to us: songs about growing up and finding how you exist in the world.” Songs like “My Brain Is a Vacant Space” with its blistering guitars and ebullient hooks hone in on the feeling that you have nothing to offer while “Bankrupt,” a fuzzed-out punk track, boasts lines like “I don’t know if I’ll always feel like / I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

Recorded with the band’s good friend and former tour mate Jonathan Pearce of The Beths at his Auckland studio, No Drama is full of big leaps, immaculate arrangements, and a ton of immediate grooves. “We were very ambitious when we first started recording this,” says bassist Callum Devlin. “Intentionally we left heaps of space in the track so we could add strings and horns. Because we were very measured and quite deliberate with the parts we had. It was a really fun process filling in the gaps.”

No Drama came together over several years and during its creation, the band added multi-instrumentalist Callum Passels, who provided all the horn arrangements on the LP. With Pearce producing, his other Beths bandmates like Benjamin Sinclair added string arrangements while singer Elizabeth Stokes provided backing vocals.

Overall it’s a remarkably eclectic record where the smooth pop of a track like “Kiss the Moon” can coexist perfectly with the Abbey Road freakout of “Some Good News.” “We didn’t want to be afraid of our 15-year-old self's influences,” says Oliver Devlin.” We really wanted to make an album that teenage us would just be amazed by.”

The result is Hans Pucket’s most sparkling and confident collection yet. While it’s danceable and fun, it’s also a thoughtful exploration of anxiety, a call for empathy in a turbulent time, and a relatable reminder that it’s hard to figure things out.

50th Anniversary Reissue! With the original gatefold layout plus all lyrics, new liner notes plus an interview with vocalist Harri Saksala. The album has been remastered for vinyl by Finland's premier progressive rock specialist Pauli Saastamoinen at Finnvox. Kalevala and especially their debut album People No Names is a prime example of a record that should've been big, sold only a handful and only later on was reappraised as the masterful progressive rock epic that it is. Originally released 50 years ago on Finnlevy, then one of the largest labels in Finland, and not marketed at all, there were not more than 500 copies of the album pressed. When people finally realised the quality of the music on this piece of wax, prices for original copies on the second hand market went blasting through the roof and eventually into four figures. Kalevala's story began at the turn of the new decade in 1970, and they played Cream-style hard rock with a power trio lineup. The band's founding member Remu Aaltonen was kicked out the following year, and a renewed lineup immersed themselves in progressive rock. People No Names was released in 1972, and eventually Finnlevy had no idea what to do with this kind of difficult new youth music. This 50th Anniversary reissue is put together with the approval of original vocalist Harri Saksala The album is remastered for vinyl by Pauli Saastamoinen at Finnvox.

Futurismo are proud to present a deluxe remastered vinyl package of the classic 1980 album: Red Exposure by the uncompromising Chrome.

Arguably considered the San Francisco bands greatest work, Red Exposure, the fourth album to feature core members Damon Edge

and Helios Creed, was the definitive version of Chrome’s idiosyncratic approach to sound: a projected vision of near future dystopia via an undefinable guise of experimental space rock and punk-tinged alien soundscapes. Here, the band simultaneously draw from the otherworldly noises of their past records, whilst pushing their synthesizers forward into, albeit oblique, pop song structures.


Edge’s vocals are structured more like an instrument than a voice, lyrics painting images of humanities future on the edge of total destruction. As Creed’s guitar work multilayersit’s way into a completely different aural spectrum, beautiful yet violent, slashing against rhythmic pulsations, loops and experimentations, to create a sound that even today feels beyond the here and now. This distillation of the bands repertoire seemed to envision a deconstruction of rock ‘n’ roll, aimed to break past the shell of cliché that it would of course eventually come to inhabit. Which is why despite it’s age Red Exposure remains a record that still sounds like the sonic product of a far off civilisation, making this disk of new wave nihilism vital for fans of Space rock, Krautrock, Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire and Suicide.

The deluxe remastered version of this out of print 1980 LP is presented here in ltd edition coloured vinyl. It comes packaged in a chromed mirrorboard sleeve, contains a large screen printed poster printed with neon ink featuring unseen photographs of the band, and a bonus track.

Tape

Subterranean hip hop group Grand Mantis is a collaborative effort by lyricist/Producer Yikes The Zero, vocal baritone Osevere, DJ Skipmode, and guitarist Thaddeus Cole-Pepper. Dark distorted psychedelic strings, turntable wizardry, and sinister flows woven by two very distinct wordsmiths. The debut album "Fangs" lies somewhere in between a vivid hypnotic soundscape and a loud rebellious unapologetic warning of things to come.

repress

Levon Vincent returns with his fourth full-length studio album Silent Cities a striking departure from his previous records. This, his first release experimenting with the cassette format, Silent Cities is a kind of mixtape through more private moods and personal pitches (literally given Levon’s non-standard tunings).

While Levon has always pro
duced dance floor jams with the intention of raising people’s heart rates, Silent Cities began with 72 bpm: his average resting heart rate, and the concept of tuning the music he was making to his own body rather than increasing anything. This brought the tempos down to 72 bpm or even half of that, at 36bpm. Programming the record during the empty cityscape of Berlin lockdowns, this is the first time Levon’s created an album for the home stereo or for headphone listening whilst navigating through a city. A mixtape specialist in his youth; he was always wanted to play with the cassette format. The results are sure to delight any listener, with the ever-present ambient, krautrock, shoegaze, hip-hop and electro influences coming to the foreground on this work.

“I was expanding further along the lines of a surprise favourite from my previous LP, a song called She Likes To Wave To Passing Boats which was not a 4 on-the-floor piece to play in clubs but a more impressionistic piece of music that I wrote to expound some emotions one day” says Levon. “It was a song written using just intonation. I really love how warm the pure 4ths sound, so when working on the new LP Silent Cities I decided to use my own tunings”.

Historically, the use of just intonation has meant that such instruments could sound "in tune" in one key but at the expense of more dissonance in the other keys. None of the songs on Silent Cities use standard Western equal temperament, Levon created his own scale designs coupled with the ancient ratios found in just intonation.

Born in Houston in 1975, Levon’s life changed dramatically when his parents moved their family to New York in 1981, uprooted from what he knew, the shock, the change from Houston to New York at 6 years old, is referred to constantly in Levon’s Musical output over the years. Levon's family moved houses in and around NYC from 1981 -2010, never more than a mile or two from the WTC. He lived on the Lower East Side during his teenage years and early 20s. This time period and this locale are also a big theme recurrent in his music as he tries to convey how the "downtown" lifestyle and culture-melding affected him so much at a tender age. He cut his teeth working in record shops around lower Manhattan, and while working at the Halcyon Record shop in Brooklyn he (alongside DJ Jus-Ed) was instrumental in creating the wave that came to be known as the "NYC House Renaissance" circa 2010. During the Y2K years he studied 20th C post-minimalism at Purchase college of New York under James McElwaine (who tangentially produced Man Parrish’s Self-Titled proto-hip-hop debt LP). Levon was fortunate to study theory with avant-garde composer Dary John Mizelle and orchestration under conductor Joel Thome. He undertook masterclasses with Philip Glass and also served as intern for John Kilgore, engineer for Steve Reich, where he was present for notable mix sessions such as “Violin Phase.”

Post-minimalism clearly remains an influence not to mention the early sampler stars of 80s freestyle and synth pop. Mixing such far-reaching influences is something Levon executes tremendously well. The first track Everlasting Joy moves at a head nodding 96 BPM tempo, reflecting formative influences like Paul Hardcastle’s Rainforest or Art Of Noise’s Moments in Love. “Those types of songs were a big eye opener for me as a youth, because it was where I realised songs in popular culture didn’t have to be kept to just 3 minutes, and they didn’t require vocals either. So, Everlasting Joy is a song with that intention, one that might be radio-friendly, despite the long arrangement and without vocals. You could say it was inspired by 107.5 in NY because that was a station I listened to a lot in the 1980’s.”

The majority of demos on Silent Cities were recorded before Covid-19 hit the world - when Levon had found a studio space outside of home in his adopted city of Berlin. It was a career first - working on music outside the bedroom. This riding the train or bicycling ‘going to work’ in Berlin opened up a new mood in his music, using the time back and forth to be inspired - commuting as an NYC transplant who still feels as a tourist in Berlin, with a pair of headphones, looking out the window on the train, or stopping on bridges and parking his bike to enjoy Berlin's skyline and horizon. Then, the pandemic struck and “work” came to a halt. Levon had recorded so much material during that year in the studio out of house it seemed like an inflection point for him to lighten the burden of the possessions he was carrying.

“People close to me have watched me give away synths and hardware regularly and I have given away my record collection every few years for my whole life. As a struggling artist in my 20s who had worked in record stores that whole time, I learned that moving constantly with 12k records just wasn't the way to live. So, in light of the pandemic, I set up a shop online, and sold all my music equipment. I also created a separate shop for all my sneakers and clothes. Easy come, Easy go. This provided me with a slow drip type of income that carried me quite well through the pandemic and it allowed me to focus on my own art and music. Getting rid of all my possessions felt like a weight being lifted from my shoulders and I was able to stay the course and remain committed to the music. I needed a further 2 years to mix and arrange the LP. If it weren’t for the pandemic, I would not been able to make this type of LP, so in light of everything, I was able to turn a depressing time in to something lasting and musically very positive.”

You can hear how his approach to a cassette release retains the "Medium is the Message." ethos. Silent Cities is a spooling, warm piece about life memories and embodiment.

For over two decades Bjørke has cut his own path, as a solo artist and enthusiastic collaborator. Bjørke’s Copenhagen home may be one of Europe’s great cultural hubs, and he’s certainly added a paragraph or two to that story, but his music is distinctly international. Even a cursory listen exposes an impressive, ever-evolving career. However, few expected him to initiate the collaborative ambient / neo-classical project Kasper Bjørke Quartet. In 2018 The Fifty Eleven Project was released on Kompakt Records, a deeply personal record that musically documents Bjørkes encounter with, and triumph over, cancer. The album topped many critics' lists, and was included among The Guardian’s Best Contemporary Albums of the year.

Mother, which will be released on October 28th, represents a quantum leap forward. Literally, when you consider the terrestrial shifts that informed it. Six compositions explore what the evolution of our planet sounds like. While Holst may have gotten there first, Mother singularly focuses on the orb where we reside, from its formation, to its likely conclusion. Other artists have tackled song cycles that parallel a day, a year, or even a lifetime. Mother spans a timeframe from 4.5 billion years ago up to humankind’s impending demise. It hints at how that may be sooner than we think, as well as the earth’s resilience, and the promise of another chapter.

Additional gravity comes courtesy of evocative choir arrangements - - and marimba recorded at the Copenhagen Opera House. “Formation” condenses 20 million years of runaway accretion into 20 minutes. It is sublimely padded by feature artist Sofie Birch’s gentle synths. “Abiogenesis” intimates a different type of emergence: the first life to inhabit our nascent planet. The entire cosmos is condensed into the layered vocals of Philip|Schneider. Birch returns on “Miocene,” which signals the divergence of proto-humans from primates not with foreboding, but rather cascaded notes and swells adumbrating a pure and curious being, revealing nothing of what the Catch-22 of knowledge will bring. That’s addressed in the diptych of “Anthropocene” and “Tipping Points,” respectively marking the dawn and foreshadowing the probable downfall of homosapians, through wondrous advancements and their climate damaging byproducts. It’s tempting to think the album’s finale, “Requiem,” implies only a dark conclusion, owing to its sparkling verrillon’s coronach, and the return of Philip|Schneider’s empyrean vocals, but its juxtaposition with revolving, enigmatic piano chords infers the earth will enter its next act.

Mother is a staggering achievement, encouraging contemplative thought. The album is released October 28th on Kompakt Records, both digitally and on limited edition double vinyl. The atwork is designed by multidisciplinary artist Trevor Jackson.

Seit mehr als zwei Jahrzehnten folgt Kasper Bjørke seinem ganz eigenen Weg, sowohl als Solokünstler als auch als umtriebiger Kollaborateur, während er gleichzeitig das Beste aus Techno, Pop, Elektro, New Wave, House, Ambient, Italo und klassischer Disco aufgreift und in seinen Produktionen zusammenfügt. Bjørke’s Heimat Kopenhagen gilt als eines der großen kulturellen Zentren Europas, und die Stadt hat dieser Geschichte sicherlich den einen oder anderen Absatz hinzugefügt, aber Kasper’s Musik ist eindeutig international. Schon ein flüchtiges Hineinhören gibt den Blick frei auf eine beeindruckende, sich ständig weiterentwickelnde Karriere. Nur wenige hätten jedoch erwartet, dass dieser Werdegang 2018 in der Gründung eines neoklassischen Quartetts gipfeln würde. In diesem Jahr wurde “The Fifty Eleven Project” auf KOMPAKT veröffentlicht. Ein sehr persönliches Album, das musikalisch dokumentierte, wie Bjørke seinen Kampf gegen den Krebs gewonnen hatte. Es wurde unter anderem in die Liste der besten zeitgenössischen Klassik-Alben des Jahres von The Guardian aufgenommen.

“Mother”, das am 28. Oktober erscheint, ist ein Quantensprung für das Kasper Bjørke Quartett. Im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes, wenn man die tektonischen Bewegungen bedenkt, die dem Album zugrunde liegen. Sechs Kompositionen erforschen, wie sich die Evolution unseres Planeten anhört. Gustav Holst (englischer Komponist, dessen bekanntestes Werk die Orchestersuite “Die Planeten” darstellt; Anm. des Übersetzers) war vielleicht zuerst da, aber “Mother” konzentriert sich ausschließlich auf die Erdkugel, auf der wir uns befinden, von ihrer Entstehung bis zu ihrem wahrscheinlichen Ende. Andere Künstler haben sich mit Songzyklen beschäftigt, die einen Tag, ein Jahr oder sogar ein ganzes Leben abdecken. “Mother” umfasst etwa 4,5 Milliarden Jahre, vom Anfang aller Zeit bis zum bevorstehenden Untergang der Menschheit. Das Werk deutet an, dass dies schneller geschehen könnte, als wir alle denken, aber auch die Widerstandsfähigkeit der Erde und das Versprechen auf ein neues Kapitel.

Für zusätzliche Erdanziehung sorgen stimmungsvolle Chor Arrangements und eine Marimba-Sektion, die im Kopenhagener Opernhaus aufgenommen wurde. "Formation" verdichtet 20 Millionen Jahre unkontrollierter Akkumulation in 20 Minuten, subtil untermalt von den sanften Klängen der Ambient-Künstlerin Sofie Birch. "Abiogenesis" beschreibt das erste Leben, das entsteht und unseren Planeten besiedelt. Der gesamte Kosmos verdichtet sich hier in den vielschichtigen Vocals von Philip|Schneider. Birch taucht erneut im Track "Miocene" auf, in dem das evolutionäre Streben des Proto-Menschen weg vom Primaten noch keine böse Vorahnung enthält, sondern mit kaskadenartigen Sounds und langsam anschwellenden Klängen musikalisch vom reinen und neugierigen Wesen des Menschen erzählt, in dem noch nichts von der Zwickmühle zum Vorschein kommt, in die ihn sein Wissen bringen wird.

Das wird im Diptychon "Anthropocene" und "Tipping Points" thematisiert, die den Anfang vom Ende, den Beginn des wahrscheinlichen Untergangs des Homo sapiens durch die Folgen des Fortschritts und seiner klimaschädlichen Nebenprodukte vorhersagen. Es ist naheliegend zu denken, dass das Finale des Albums, "Requiem", nur das düstere Ende von allem darstellt. Doch as funkelnde Glockenspiel und Philip|Schneiders eindringlicher Gesang in Gegenüberstellung mit sich windenden und erratischen Klavierakkorden deuten an, dass die Geschichte der Erde ein neues Kapitel aufschlagen wird.

Mother ist eine beeindruckende Performance, die zum Nachdenken anregt.

Ringleaders in new Rock N Roll Massive Wagons have announced their
new album 'Triggered' out on Earache Records
Having grown from beloved local heroes (becoming the first ever Lancashire
band to achieve a UK Top 40 album with their UK #16 album 'Full Nelson' in 2018)
to national treasures within the New Wave of Rock'n'Roll, Massive Wagons have
crafted an all new album of heavy duty rock'n'roll that stays true to the band's
influences whilst also pushing past the boundaries of what fans have
experienced on previous albums. Adding twists of tough punk and twinkles of
yacht rock, whilst keeping frontman Barry "Baz" Mills' iconic lyricism and the
band's electrifying no-nonsense rock recipe, the album proffers tracks which will
prove to be huge anthems in the live arena.
Baz explains how 'Triggered' stands out compared to the band's previous albums:
"I think this album is a lot more British sounding. I think we've managed to bring
our sound more up-to-date, it sounds fresh and exciting. It has much more of a
punk vibe about it, that being said, it’s still full of everything we love about guitar
music."
He continues:"There are some very angry, passionate songs in there. We all dug
really deep writing this one, some of them were a real labour of love. I think we
truly have made our best album yet. I know that's a cliché, but our other albums
felt like they had a foot in the previous one somehow, be it leftover songs, a
certain sound or style... But I think this one stands alone as a unique sounding
Wagons album."

Time and duration are core themes in the work of both William Basinski and Janek Schaefer, and this long-distance collaboration took a suitably long gestation of eight years from start to finish. In that time, our collective perception of time has at times become disorienting. " . . . on reflection " remodels that instability as an exquisite work of art - one that is unmoored by time or space. Limitation breeds creativity, revealed as an expression of minimalism and close focus. Deploying a delicate piano passage from their collective archive, Basinski and Schaefer weave and reweave in numerous ways, forging an iridescent flurry of flickering melodies. The sounds of various birds heard from late night windows on tour can occasionally be heard throughout, ricocheting off mirrored facades, reflecting on themselves as they continually reshape their own environments with song. " . . . on reflection " looks backwards, a bustling revelry of positive emotions heard through the aging mirrors of memory. It is a celebratory meditation where sound shimmers through time like the light of the sea's waves glistening as it folds and unfolds upon itself. Created 2014-2022 between L.A. & London. Mixed at Narnia, Walton-on-Thames. For Harold Budd.

Melody Tomb is the first album in a new collaboration between Tokyo artist Teruyuki Kurihara and London drone pop band The Leaf Library. The nine tracks here have in common a metallic hum and a minimal, austere kind of beauty that recalls Teru's work on his 2020 Frozen Dust album (Mille Plateaux). Machine tones mix with static, noise and warm drones, whilst in other places the lineage of classic mangled Warp hardware is visible. In March 2020 The Leaf Library sent their friend Teru a batch of synth drones to play with in the hope a new collaboration would be born. "From the first time we heard Teru's music we knew we wanted to make something with him," say the band. "It has been such a pleasure seeing him take our minimal synth parts and turn them into something really strange and beautiful." The track Kite Beach was the first to arrive, featuring on The Leaf Library-curated Object Ten compilation on Objects Forever in 2021, with the rest of the album slowly appearing over the last year. The artists hope to continue the collaboration with another album in the near future.

For fans of: Autechre, Biosphere, Ben Frost

Discover the wonders of Brazilian music from 60s, 70s & 80s. A wave of modernity invades the country and Soul, Funk & Disco influences merge with traditional genres such as Bossa Nova, Samba or Batucada. This union led to a colorful and cheerful groove symbolizing the transformation of Brazil.

Library Music: Volume One is a sixteen track double LP collecting the North London drone pop band’s 7” singles, one-offs and compilation tracks spanning the first 14 years of the group’s existence. It includes synth pop, indie fuzz and moody motorik workouts, alongside pastoral folk sketches, dubby electronics and the occasional drone experiment. More immediate than their stretched out and slow-burning recent album tracks, the music here is taken from limited vinyl releases, album bonus tracks and music for compilations on labels as diverse as Bezirk Tapes, Second Language, Modern Aviation, and Concrete Tapes as well as the band’s current home, Where It’s At Is Where You Are. The compilation is a happily cohesive document of an inventive band that rarely stand still for long. The band says, “We wanted to gather all our early, scattered work before we move on to our next album, to remind ourselves (and others) of some of the poppier and less characteristic things we’ve done. We’ve always felt a lot more relaxed and freer making one off things for people – it’s a chance to try things that might otherwise be daunting on a full record”. Always a prolific group this is by no means an exhaustive collection, the title giving a clue to how much more they have left to share. “We have been introduced to loads of bands that we love initially through non-album compilations – Broadcast, The Chills, Stereolab, Piano Magic, Flying Saucer Attack amongst others – we wanted to add our own to that (admittedly slightly daunting) lineage.” The Leaf Library are formed around the core group of singer Kate Gibson, former Saloon and Singing Adams guitarist Matt Ashton, guitarist SJ Nelson, drummer Lewis Young and bass player Gareth Jones. They have released three studio albums (Daylight Versions, About Minerals and The World Is A Bell) as well a number of electronic and experimental albums and EPs, remix compilations and long form tracks. They have also released five Monument CDRs; an on-going series of experimental solo and side projects on their Objects Forever imprint. The band have collaborated with musicians as diverse as Alasdair MacLean of The Clientele, singer Ed Dowie, noise group Far Rainbow and string collective Iskra Strings, and have provided music for a number of exhibitions, films and performances. A collaborative album with Japanese artist Teruyuki Kurihara is due in late 2022 on the Mille Plateaux label. Tracklisting: 01 Agnes In The Square 02 Goodbye Four Walls 03 City In Reverse 04 Walking Backwards 05 Soundings 06 Diagram Loop 07 The Greater Good 08 Losing Places (ISAN Remix) 09 A Stone In Water 10 Architect Of The Moon 11 Tired Ghost 12 The Still Point 13 Wave Of Translation 14 Badminton House 15 Tranquility Bass 16 A Gap In The Trees

Red vinyl LP. Lars Finberg, confirmed genius guy and poet laureate of sunken 21st century Rock, acts as manager in perpetuity of THE INTELLIGENCE, primary vehicle for his prolific creative swirl and a project that has taken on new shapes across myriad trials and shifts. The project began in his Seattle bedroom – a lad and his Tascam cassette 8 track – with the classic Boredom & Terror and has now landed in his Los Angeles studio apartment – an urchin and his Tascam digital 12 track – with Lil’ Peril, a new album that finds Finberg 1000% back at the controls. Over the course of 11 albums (!), The Intelligence has established a backbone that boogies through revolutions, allowing each jam-crammed dispatch to feel and sound admirably unique. The angular sharp shocks heard in earlier years have steadily evolved into the ballooning grooves heard on more recent releases (including Finberg’s recent solo work). Lil’ Peril is a dreamy gamble that captures this current bubbling penchant in The Intelligence’s inaugural homemade mode. With inspirational templates as far-flung as LES PAUL, THE SPECIALS, LEE PERRY and MARY FORD, Lil’ Peril pulls off the absurd shift “from ‘No-Wave SANTANA’ to ‘SCREAMERS recorded by JON BRION’”. Playing shoulder parrot to studio engineers has no doubt informed Finberg’s approach to home recording, specifically in how much further he can go without wincing budget-minded eyes staring him down. This is immediately sensed on the opener “Maudlin Agency,” which begins with canned minimal bleep and closes with a full recreation of the “Brass Monkey” hook. These surprise-attack conclusions are a running current throughout the Lil’ Peril’s program and demonstrates that the main lesson Finberg has learned in The Intelligence is to never reel it in. Centerpiece banger “My Work Here Is Dumb” ranks among the finest Intelligence moments existent and an apex in Finberg’s songcraft, boasting a bonkers arrangement and a thematic gnaw that is both brutal and playful. The collection closes with the epic “Soundguys,” a suite cut-up that fuses CAN and STEELY DAN into one of the most dastardly tunes available for consumption in the plague age. As Finberg himself states, “They may say this is ‘lo-fi’, but I say it’s ‘no-CGI’”. “The band disintegrated, so it devolved back to the core idea: if I do every aspect, it’s indestructible.” 20 years on and Finberg has finally let everyone know what The Intelligence actually means! All those wily experiments and warm flubs have come back full circle and the shit’s pure goddamn gold. Proof positive that there is always some sort of cute trouble, farcical tragedy and Lil’ Peril at play with The Intelligence. - Mitch Cardwell, 2022. Tracklisting: 01 Maudlin Agency 02 70's 03 Keyed Beamers 04 Purification 05 My Work Here Is Dumb 06 Lil Peril 07 Frog Prints In Preset City 08 Portfolio Woes 09 Soundguys

Leatherette are, by their own description, “five shy guys who sometimes get off the stage and punch people,” a quintet whose car-crash of jagged noise, twisted love and dark, anguished melody has delivered a remarkable – and eminently combustible – debut album. The group are based in Bologna, but all hail from different towns in Italy. These five young men – singer/guitarist Michele, bassist Marco, drummer Francesco, guitarist Andrea and saxophonist Jacopo – are united by a profound need to make music, to express themselves naturally and honestly. The group bonded over wildly differing influences – everything from midwestern emo gods American Football, to Berlin-era Bowie, to James Chance & The Contortions, to rap and electronic music – to create a dense, passionate, articulate sound of their own. You can file them near fiery post-punk kindreds like Shame and Squid, or unhinged 90s noisers like Unwound or Hoover, or squalling No Wavers like James Chance, but the truth is there are few bands like Leatherette that walk this Earth. Their first full-length, Fiesta follows an EP, Mixed Waste, recorded during lockdown. The songs on Fiesta precede the Covid era, though the group spent the pandemic rewriting and overhauling their maiden batch of songs at leisure. The result is an astonishing and remarkable debut: poetic, caterwauling, broken and beautiful. The album title is “a reference to the bullfights in Pamplona,” the group say. It’s no empty metaphor. “Bullfight is a strange ritual,” they elaborate. “And we’re against bullfights, but they’re fascinating in an iconographic way. And also metaphorically, violence flows on both sides, but in a feastful way. It’s similar to a concert, really – you’re expressing violent things, in a physical way. And people react to that, which is wonderful, which is fantastic.”

SANG FROID was born in Nantes during the winter of 2019. The band comprises two members of REGARDE LES HOMMES TOMBER and one member of THE VEIL. Passionate about genres like New Wave, Cold Wave and Goth Rock, the trio wished to sound like a tribute to these 70s and 80s scenes. The result is a 4 song EP to be released on the 7th of October through Black God Records. Walking alone at night, heavy hearted, in an oversized city with bleak architecture, is the kind of impression left when listening to SANG FROID's songs. Inspired by bands like Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, Sisters Of Mercy or Depeche Mode the music is drifting in a cold and grey universe, at times sundered by a raging will to live. Mastered by Xort at Drudenhaus Studio. Tracklisting 1. Heavy Sleep Heavy Heart 2. Psalms Of The Great Void 3. Oversee And Kill 4. Death Came To Me

For Fans Of Garage Punk, Power Pop, Cheap Trick, Dollyrots, Suzi Moon, Pretenders, Blondie, The Muffs, 5.6.7.8’s. One part pop, one part poison, all “poolside glitter punk,” Hayley and the Crushers offer up a tsunami of bad girl power. Anointed “the naked embodiment of power pop punk” by New Wave icon Josie Cotton (who signed the band to her Kitten Robot Records in 2021), Modern Adult Kicks is their most ambitious and self-possessed album to date. Produced by legendary LA punk producer and ex-Screamer Paul Roessler (TSOL, Josie Cotton, Richie Ramone), the album conjures up the electricity of first-car freedom, the woes of suburban isolation and the lurid pleasures of Y2K chat rooms all wrapped in the warm glow of a late-night infomercial. While the content is no doubt “adult,” there’s no shortage of kicks to be had. The California-to-Detroit transplants have injected even the most bummer of subjects (addiction, heartbreak) with a potent venom of caffeine and heart. Sure, BUST Magazine once likened the band to a bag of Sour Patch Kids, but this new album reveals fresh depths of flavor. Crafted in a post-Covid world, Modern Adult Kicks is exactly what it advertises to be: a more put-together, wiser “big sister” to the band’s sunny 2020 release, Vintage Millennial. Like finally being old enough to party with the babysitter, Kicks is a shining example of how growing up can actually rule. In the Crushers’ world, growing jaded isn’t an option and there’s never a good reason to stop dancing. Tracks 1 Taboo 2 Cul de Sac 3 She Drives 4 Broken Window 5 I Fall 6 Click and 7 Act Now 8 Lost Cause 9 California 10 Sober 11 No Substitutes 12 Overexposed

Dark-folk songwriter Chantal Acda and beyond drums-percussion musician extraordinaire. Eric Thielemans propose a new score for Koyaanisqatsi, re-actualising the incredibly beautiful, raw, rhythmic and touching images of this 80’s cinematographic masterpiece. Slow deep electric waves, lonely synths in sonic desert landscapes, rhythmic pulses, transporting drums and bells, and deeply longing sounds and voices make up the audible fundamentals of this imagined, neo shamanic, ritualistic music to accompany the Earth as it keeps on supporting our post human frenetics even today. This release contains a selection of the musical material scored for a live performance together with the screening of the movie. The live performance premiered on Film Festival Gent and Vooruit in the fall of 2022. Tracklisting LP SIDE A 1 Koyaanisqatsi Part I / 23'36 SIDE B 2 Koyaanisqatsi Part II / 13'00 3 Koyaanisqatsi Part III / 10'48

After a 2 year hiatus, Madam X's KAIZEN imprint comes back full force, with an upgraded aesthetic and brand new wave of leftfield, off-kilter club music. KZN009 sees one of Manchester's most exciting up & coming producers, Cartridge, mark his debut with a fierce 2 tracker, loaded with soundsystem pressure and gully 130 artillery in the Banada EP. Melodic Grime, moody Dubstep, and sub-heavy textures sprinkle this wobby release, designed for dark rooms, splintered basements and heavy soundsystems. With an impressive back catalogue on Deep Dark & Dangerous, Albion Collective & one half of Regents alongside Manchester kingpin Strategy (Broke'n'£nglish), Cartridge is no stranger to the UK's burgeoning bass music scene.

On the A side, we have Banada, a melodic eastern-flavoured instrumental, with elements of Grime and Dubstep carrying the tune to its arpeggiated crescendo.

A singing voice and raspy melody build the tension before a heavily distorted switch up catches you off guard, leading you further down a Dubstep rabbit hole, and into a world of shady and sinister drops, sitting perfectly alongside the label's strictly hoods-up, heads-down tip.

Teaming up with KAIZEN heavyweight and local scene hero Biome on the B-Side, Ricky Rosé has proved a firm favourite for those peak-time, no-holds-barred, bass-in-your-face, power hour moments. Relentless in its metallic bassline and thumping 808 drums, this explosive club tool comes with a solid side-serving of gunfingers and screwfaces.

Magazine is glad to announce the album Waves 3 by Curd Duca, 
 the third and last part of the trilogy Waves: Austrian electronic composer Curd Duca is widely known for his 1990es series of critically acclaimed easy listening 1-5 (Normal) and elevator 1-3 (Mille Plateaux).

After a long break from the studio, Duca has issued part 1 of the Waves series in late 2020 on Magazine. This was in fact his first album in 20 years. The Waves recordings pick up the thread of his 90s work and open up a new chapter. Again, everything is shifting constantly and all tracks are quite different (soft, rough, melodic, abstract ... ), but complement each other in a surprisingly coherent way to form an idiosyncratic universe.

While other experimental artists can sound as if they're attempting to lift lead weights over their heads, Duca is content flicking feathers into their faces. After his impressive 1990s/00s run on Normal and Mille Plateaux, Curd Duca had disappeared for 20 years before emerging from the aether last year.

The albums of the new "Waves" Trilogy represent a flawless examination of sound and texture. The Vienna-based producer still straddles high and low culture, but approaches his sonics with a more historically aware ear. So plain and resonant gong recordings are placed next to pop music loops and DSP-fractured cut-ups, and icy electronic jams nudge up against cassette warped instrumental sketches.

Waves 3 is a continuation and culmination of the series. In the final chapter, we’re drawn in with church bells on dome, but quickly transported to another era entirely with the crackly bläser and absurd zither, a tongue-in-cheek plunderphonic experiment assembled from zither samples. Duca follows this evocative run of tracks with a machine-gun blast of experimental sound, from the percussive 500 GRM to the ferric ASMR birdsong of ziegenmelker.

This is Duca at his most uncompromising, grabbing central European culture and dragging it through his array of processes. Playing the album from beginning to end opens up a weightless cut-and-paste mixtape, stitched together with expert foresight and a knowing wink to camera.

Like the best psychedelic experiences, memories are triggered and turned inside-out, and knowledge is allowed to blossom. Curd Duca has been refining his process for three decades now, and few artists have quite the same ability to challenge, provoke, and inspire.

Trauma and tragedy transfer from one generation to the next. As difficult as it may be, we still possess the power to break the cycle and start anew. Fit For A King ponder the pain of these cycles and the possibility to end them on their seventh full-length offering, The Hell We Create Solid State. The Texas quintet—Ryan Kirby [vocals], Bobby Lynge [guitar], Daniel Gailey [guitar], Ryan “Tuck” O’Leary [bass], and Trey Celaya [drums]—explore this ebb and flow with a deft, yet delicate balance of sharp metallic intensity and soaring melodic energy. Drawing on real-life experiences, the band members collectively rallied around Ryan and his family as they endured seemingly unending turbulence… “The album is a reflection of the events that happened throughout the pandemic,” recalls Ryan. “In short, my wife and I adopted children and had to homeschool them. She almost died from a stroke. The Hell We Create is by far the deepest and most personal record we’ve ever written.” “Falling Through the Sky" represents the mental struggles I had dealt with during the pandemic, and how little my upbringing prepared me to deal with it. Between adopting two children, my wife having constant health issues, and me losing almost 70% of my income, I was an absolute wreck. I thought my religious upbringing and faith would be enough to help me when adversity struck, but when the tidal wave came, I struggled immensely. So many think just having faith is enough to pull you through anything life throws at you, but the reality is, it makes a lot of us complacent in our personal growth.

Asylums have been quietly building an impressive back catalogue of albums since the release of their debut ‘Killer Brain Waves’ in 2016. With three full studio albums and a stand-alone single behind them, Asylums are back on October 14th with their fourth album ‘Signs Of Life’ - their first since the release of 2020’s Steve Albini recorded 3rd album ‘Genetic Cabaret’.

Recorded at the legendary Rockfield Studios with genre-bending ‘Manic Street Preachers’ producer Dave Eringa in the driving seat, ‘Signs Of Life’ is a record that evolves the Asylums' sound once again while still staying true to their musical and lyrical DNA.


Asylums ‘Signs Of Life’ draws inspiration from a spectrum of human emotions and examines how they intersected with technology during the accelerated change of the last few years. As well as dialling their manic rock sound up to 10 this record also draws from the likes of R.E.M., The Magnetic Fields and The Beatles who all arguably made some of their best work during a live hiatus.

Essential listening for fans of Fallujah, Insomnium, Lorna Shore and Alcestis- Traversing the realms of a genre that has been rehashed and redesigned many times, The Dark Alamorte' confronts black metal's conventional soundscape by weaving in their own brand of ambience and death metal. An ethereal avalanche that will consume you as the ghostly melodies carry the listener into a wave of dissonant bliss. Accompanied with unrelenting drums and devastating vocals, The Dark Alamorte' will leave you in what feels like a haunting memory.

From their new millennium rise to MTV superstardom through pop-punk’s modern resurgence that has introduced their iconic, multi-platinum sound to new audiences around the world, SIMPLE PLAN have been an indelible part of pop culture for more than two decades because they’ve never lost sight of what got them there in the first place: their fans.It’s this same sense of mutual respect that’s fully on display on “The Antidote,” the first single from their sixth studio album, HARDER THAN IT LOOKS., their first new music since 2016’s Taking One For The Team, and the most authentically Simple Plan album since 2004’s Still Not Getting Any. Free agents for the first time in their storied career, the band kept their circle tight during the recording process, enlisting longtime songwriting partners like We The Kings’ Travis Clark and producers Brian Howes and Jason Van Poederooyen (who worked on the band’s 2011’s album Get Your Heart On!) and Zakk Cervini (blink-182, Good Charlotte). From the skyscraping choruses of “Congratulations” and “Ruin My Life” (ft. Sum 41’s Deryck Whibley) to the unflinching poignancy of the album-closing “Two,” which instantly ranks alongside “Perfect” and “Untitled (How Could This Happen To Me?)” as one of the band’s best closers ever, HARDER THAN IT LOOKS certainly respects Simple Plan’s storied career – and the same spirit that helped the band sell 10 million albums worldwide – without being overtly reverent. The album-opening “Wake Me Up (When This Nightmare’s Over)” is a cathartic rush of familiarity and freshness – not to mention a bit lyrically prescient, as the COVID-19 pandemic hit shortly after the band wrapped the album. (“We certainly didn’t set out to write a pandemic album,” Bouvier says with a laugh. “It’s funny how some of the songs might seem like that, though.”) There are even spiritual successors to early material, like the glass-half-full skate-punk-leaning “Best Day Of My Life,” quite a 180 for a band who put a song called “The Worst Day Ever” on their genre-defining, Platinum-selling 2002 debut No Pads, No Helmets...Just Balls. But you won’t find an ounce of fat on the 10-song album, no obvious plays to recapture the radio waves they claimed in the early aughts with smash hits like “I’d Do Anything,” “I’m Just A Kid” and “Addicted.”

A Breath of Fresh Air is the triumphant, inspiring new album from Bread of Kaliwild, a longtime staple of the underground rap scene who continues to grow and shine as an emcee. And while he certainly made waves with the release of his solo debut, Daily Bread in 2019, Bread is on another level with the ten tracks on this project. It’s all part of his plan to capture the sound he loves and holds so dearly, all while pushing himself as a lyricist.

Specifically, the L.A. rap staple calls out “What Love Is” as one of his favorite lyrical moments, and it’s easy to see why when you hear it. During the third verse, he shows love to his children in a creative and heartfelt way like only he can. “What Love Is” is also one of several collaborations between Bread and living producer legend Nottz, one of the emcee’s go-to producers. The two linked for Daily Bread and kept creating magic for their tracks together on this record. Whether it’s on the politically charged “Eye 4 Eye” or on the moving Guru tribute “Nice Like That” (feat. Big Shug), Bread and Nottz are a force.

The Kaliwild rapper’s ear for production doesn’t stop there, either. His two other collaborators—beatsmiths Noah Ayala and Therealasethic—provide a wealth of warm, head-nodding instrumentals for Bread and his guests. Just listen to “Godz Return,” a funky West Coast banger produced by Ayala that also features Planet Asia. Or head to the Bay Area on “Feels So Good,” which boasts Therealasethic’s shimmering production and guest vocals from Keak da Sneak, URG7, and Gemini.

There’s so much to love about A Breath of Fresh Air, though the most remarkable aspect may just be Bread’s passion.

a 1 Let Us Begin (Intro) feat. DJ Romes

After the legendary French Ethno-industrial band Vox Populi! vanished into obscurity in the early 1990ees, some, like bass player, Francis Manne aka Francis Laffont aka Kosa Nostra aka Kosa aka Fr6, expanded in their their new artistic adventures. Alone or with others, he followed his multi-disciplinary sonic visions that he already displayed on the label Vox Man records, that he founded with Vox Populi! member Axel Kyrou in 1982. Together they released the famed "Audiologie" compilations, an audio fanzine featuring a contemporary outlook on the experimental electronic, and improvisational avant-garde music scene of the time. Particularly the two "Alterntative Funk: la Folie Distinguée" compilations turned into today’s collectors’ items for fans of bizarre electronic music.

Now Notte Brigante brings “Kosa and Friends 1987/97“, twelve unreleased recordings that display Francis Manne’s ongoing musical creation after the break-up of Vox Populi!. Minimal Synth, post punk, field recordings, psychedelic, cold wave, and weird proto funk are welcome thoughtful listeners into an eccentric world of pop and poetry, of experiment and groove. As the visual part was always equally important as the music for him, the cover links to Manne’s graphic work, which has also often been featured on many Vox Populi!, Bain Total, or Vox Man Records. A venturesome collection that documents an unexplored universe of a visionary French avant-garde musician and his vivid peer group.

JARV IS... have written & performed the original soundtrack for the critically acclaimed BBC TV series "This is Going to Hurt" based on Adam Kay"s award-winning international multi-million selling memoir of the same name. The soundtrack was recorded at Narcissus Studios, London by Drew Dungate-Smith during various sessions throughout 2021. Most of the performances are live takes featuring the entire band - often recorded whilst they watched the playback of key sequences from the series. Each episode features at least one song with lyrics by Cocker, who had access to the scripts (adapted by Adam Kay from his own book) from an early stage in the production process. JARV IS... is a band comprising Jarvis Cocker, Serafina Steer, Emma Smith, Andrew McKinney, Adam Betts & Jason Buckle. The soundtrack consists of a mixture of songs & instrumental pieces, with Cocker & Steer being the main composers. Cocker is quoted as saying "It"s our love song to the NHS".

Reissue of the breakthrough sophomore album by the rising Belarussian post-punk/synthpop band // The second LP by Belarussian trio Molchat Doma, Etazhi, meaning "Floors", was first released in 2018 on Berlin-based Detriti Records. It became a viral hit, garnering over one million views on YouTube and becoming a legitimate phenomenon on Bandcamp. The band may fly under the radar in their native Belarus, but they've reached huge audiences across Europe and beyond. Six separate vinyl pressings of the album have sold out in quick succession, and Sacred Bones Records is now thrilled to bring the record back in print for good. Molchat Doma (translated as "Houses Are Silent"), founded in 2017 in Minsk, Belarus, stands at the intersection of post-punk, new-wave and synth-pop. Dark yet danceable, and with a heavy dose of goth ethos, their music is reminiscent of the masters that predate them, but make no mistake: Molchat Doma creates a sound and meaning that is immediately recognizable as all their own. The band is comprised of Egor Shkutko, who sings the Russian lyrics in his deep monotone, Roman Komogortsev on guitar, synths, and drum machine, and Pavel Kozlov on bass and synths. RiYL: Depeche Mode, New Order, Drab Majesty, Black Marble