Buscar:crush sounds

PRAISE THE PLAGUE formulate the introduction to the dark, grim soundscape of their third album themselves by saying: "The gate is passed, upon us is a bleak, raging sea. Tidal waves crushing ashore, out of desperation evolves anger and frustration. Time, as a construct, imprisons its architects. "Suffocating In The Current Of Time" takes us from a dark and devouring realm, to staring the devourer into its cold, dead eyes. Lead by fierce and unforgiving melodies, we are marching into our own decay. Lead by the pounding of drums we indulge ourselves in the cloak of false promises." The quintet from the German capital Berlin has been around since 2017. After the debut "Antagonist" and their first album for LIFEFORCE RECORDS, "The Obsidian Gate" (2021), "Suffocating In The Current Of Time" showcases a further intensification of the band's dense and intense black metal. PRAISE THE PLAGUE are modern representatives of their guild and not purists. There are also ominous echoes of doom and sludge as well as atmospheric post-metal. It is no coincidence that the Berliners' third album remains instrumental for longer passages. This increases the impact of the furious tempo sections with their nagged vocals. "Suffocating In The Current Of Time" is full of emotion. Not all of them are purely negative and depressing. Nevertheless, PRAISE THE PLAGUE's playing will be perceived above all as oppressive and hopeless. Given their band name, who can blame them? The musicians pursue relentless catharsis.

SLIFT's ILION is a towering work of rock music, a steamrolling record that starts at the highest peak and never lets up. If that sounds overwhelming, trust that this Toulouse trio have you in good hands. Their third full-length feels massive and oceanic, merging the furious intensity of metal and the wigged-out guitar heroics of psych rock with post-rock's epic sense of scale. ILION is the kind of music where you listen to it and think to yourself, "This came from only three people?" It sure did, and SLIFT's utter ferocity is way more than a tempest in a teacup. It reaches outwards for miles and creates new zeniths within unforeseen horizons of rock. SLIFT is made up of brothers Jean and Remí Fossat, and Canek Flores, who first met the brothers Fossat at school. After the band formed in 2016, they quickly made their 2017 debut EP, Space Is the Key, which merged stoner rock's heaviness with the sugar-rush qualities of garage rock. From there, things only got weirder: The trio experimented with faster tempos and bongos(!) on the following year's full-length La Planeté Inexploreé, and in 2019, their KEXP session recorded at the Trans Musicales festival in Rennes became a viral sensation, racking up more than 1.4 million YouTube views. UMMON from 2020 represented SLIFT's pivot towards the celestially crushing confines of psych-metal, marked by Remí's rolling basslines and Flores's relentless skin-pounding. But nothing in their catalog could prepare you for ILION, a huge and melodically dense record that at once recalls Godspeed! You Black Emperor's perpetually uplifting surge, the passionate burn of post-hardcore legends _And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, Led Zep's psychotic blues-rock mysticism, and the psychedelic swirl of Swedish greats Goat.

SLIFT's ILION is a towering work of rock music, a steamrolling record that starts at the highest peak and never lets up. If that sounds overwhelming, trust that this Toulouse trio have you in good hands. Their third full-length feels massive and oceanic, merging the furious intensity of metal and the wigged-out guitar heroics of psych rock with post-rock's epic sense of scale. ILION is the kind of music where you listen to it and think to yourself, "This came from only three people?" It sure did, and SLIFT's utter ferocity is way more than a tempest in a teacup. It reaches outwards for miles and creates new zeniths within unforeseen horizons of rock. SLIFT is made up of brothers Jean and Remí Fossat, and Canek Flores, who first met the brothers Fossat at school. After the band formed in 2016, they quickly made their 2017 debut EP, Space Is the Key, which merged stoner rock's heaviness with the sugar-rush qualities of garage rock. From there, things only got weirder: The trio experimented with faster tempos and bongos(!) on the following year's full-length La Planeté Inexploreé, and in 2019, their KEXP session recorded at the Trans Musicales festival in Rennes became a viral sensation, racking up more than 1.4 million YouTube views. UMMON from 2020 represented SLIFT's pivot towards the celestially crushing confines of psych-metal, marked by Remí's rolling basslines and Flores's relentless skin-pounding. But nothing in their catalog could prepare you for ILION, a huge and melodically dense record that at once recalls Godspeed! You Black Emperor's perpetually uplifting surge, the passionate burn of post-hardcore legends _And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, Led Zep's psychotic blues-rock mysticism, and the psychedelic swirl of Swedish greats Goat.

Serene, invoking imagery of darkness, sweeping soundscapes tear and twist at
the emotions. The latest album by THE ANSWER LIES IN THE BLACK VOID is a
work of magical beauty. The duo, a collaboration of Martina Horvath from avantgarde metal project Thy Catafalque and Jason Kohnen from Celestial Season,
The Lovecraft Sextet, Bong- Ra, ex- The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble, have
followed up on their 2021 debut "Forlorn" with a haunting sophomore release that
is of exceptionally high quality.
The prevalent element here is doom, but there is so much more buried deep
within the dark vaults of this compelling record. The opening song "Ataraxia" is a
deep, richly layered song, with Horvath demonstrating her stunning vocals over
the complex creativity of Kohnen, the multi- instrumentalist who takes
responsibility for everything instrument- driven here. There are crushing riffs,
harrowing passages which send shivers down the spine, and all the time the
atmosphere builds. Tendrils of darkness curl around the throat on "To Kill The
Father", with Horvath's shimmering vocals duelling with the echoing lead guitar
work.

Known for his viral video series Sexta dos Crias, Ramon Sucesso is a virtuosic DJ who crushes, reimagines, and rearranges songs to such a degree that the original tracks become virtually unrecognisable. He has turned his controller into a particle accelerator, creating firework-like bursts of classic funk carioca samples, his own productions, mainstream tracks, nonsense TikTok sound bites, and tons of his trademark beat bolha. All contained within an unparalleled, mischievously non-linear rhythmic flow.

‘Ramon’s social network profiles are as outrageously unpredictable as his mixes. He posts interactive emoji games, bountiful fast-food feasts with his family, comments about the Flamengo football team, and videos of him playing FIFA. He has a prolifically restless mind, constantly riffing and improvising; he does whatever it takes to get by, to navigate the reality of life in Brazil and overcome the daunting challenges of the music industry.

‘Sexta dos Crias is the culmination of Ramon’s DJ work. A LP that embodies the newest in funk carioca, a faithful transposition of the bailes to vinyl. Ramon has unpretentiously ushered in a new age of experimentation for the genre – making a daring and unprecedented foray into a territory where extreme and radical sounds abound.’

Atomçk are back! Expanded to a quartet, here is more of their uniquely eccentric and offbeat brand of grindcore for thee end-tymes. Another head crusher of cacophonous chaos, all furiously catchy riffs and inhumanly shrill, stuck-ape vocals with pinpoint drums that border on the chaotic. "Newly expanded to a quartet, Towering Failures is undoubtedly the band’s heaviest and most sonically flattening release to date, boasting a gigantic tone that sounds downright apocalyptic on slower numbers. For the most part though, this album races past at lightspeed, but manages to convey a host of different moods and textures in amongst its frantic delivery. Atomçk have been getting better and better with each subsequent album, but this is surely their most powerful and definitive record to date, and one of the most inventive and memorable grindcore records of the year thus far." - The Quietus "Like a budgie with a whistle" – Ninehertz

With Scream If You Don’t Exist, Richie Culver metamorphoses from outsider musician to underground fixture, feeling his way from the fringes towards a growing community of musicians that have gravitated towards his singular sound world. Building upon the stark catharsis of his previous dispatches, on his sophomore album the artist draws from grimdark drone, industrial noise, experimental hip-hop and UK rave to map out a space for himself, caught between genre and discipline. While on his debut, I Was Born By The Sea, Culver took a last glimpse back at his grey, salt-flecked past while struggling towards somewhere brighter, here, he documents the process of finding fresh waters, parsing through the complexity of inhabiting a more open and optimistic place while contending with the weight of his resolve, staring hard won self-acceptance in the face. The album’s title speaks to this creative and emotional work, serving both as the foundational paradox from which the artist’s new discordant sound emerges and as a call to action, a defiant cry in the face of existential angst.

Part of this process involves visiting familiar territory with renewed focus. Macabre opener ‘Hottest Day Of The Year’ signals an unpleasant memory with crow caw, queasy, gas leak ambience and dental drill whir as Culver recalls a life lived in nihilism: “Everything is just something that happened / Reductionism, muscles spasms, a mother’s first contraction.” Yet, on Scream If You Don’t Exist, Culver’s irresistible formula for ragged machine poetry is shot through with palpable urgency. No longer listless and despairing, he finds new intricacies for these compositions, tracing a stark interplay between crushing bass excavations and penetrating vocal clarity, a contrast picked out in the delicate threads of rhythmic pulse suggesting themselves in the blunt pressure and skittering creep of ‘Weakness’, on which Culver offers up vulnerability as a tentative solution to self-described emotional constipation: “Please do / Do take my kindness for weakness / For I am weak / And that is ok.” The amniotic soundscape of ‘YOLO (then u die)’ gives way to depth charge drone and unnerving machinic improvisations, like a noise show heard from deep in the Mariana trench, while on ‘Underground Flower’ the low-end fog lifts to reveal a brighter, colder scene. “Love me for who I could be / Not who I am,” he pleads, tending gently to his own tenacious bud.

Scream If You Don’t Exist gives us a glimpse of this flower in bloom. On the album’s cursed self-help tape title track stuttering loops of off-kilter keys and childlike repetition make light of the very real risk of disappearing all-together, a nervous breakdown rendered as a malfunctioning nursery rhyme. Paranoiac anthem ‘Say 4 Sure’ introduces bit-crushed boom-bap stomp, as though hammered out on a water-logged Game Boy, swarms of loose-wire noise sparking up against guttural grunts and ragged exhalations, while ‘On The Top’ enacts a seance for the hardcore spirit, with loops of rave piano and hiccuping vocal chops pirouetting through knackered samples, air raid sirens and the ghostly crash of breakbeat cymbals. As though in response to the solitary nature of much of his musical exploration, this time, the artist invites other voices into the world of Scream If You Don’t Exist. On ‘Swollen’, the unflinching, brimstone prophecy of Billy Woods sounds clear through an expanse of spirallic bass, preaching the same frayed gospel as Culver when he issues the quietly devastating contemporary diagnosis: “Computer broke but it still works for now / That’s the best you can say for most of us anyhow,” while another fearless correspondent from the fringes, Moor Mother, brings earthbound heft to the ambient drift and obliterating barrage of ‘Restaurants,’ teasing out meaning with elongated intonation and pitch-shifted intensity.

It’s during the album’s most meditative moments that we might recognise this space Culver has found for himself for what it really is. ‘OMG They’re Gone’ follows a chopped and slowed monologue from Culver’s wife, who works as a death doula, reflecting on her own experiences with grief and the reality of living within a culture both terrified and ignorant of the process. Floating over glistening ebb, etherised croons and luminous chimes, her words stand as a prescient reminder of the power of ephemerality. Just as Culver flourishes in imperfection, here we can find enormous strength in transcience. But it’s with ‘Just Jump In,’ which unfurls like a buoyant counterpart to the sparkling oil rigs of ‘I was born by the sea’, that Culver illuminates the hopeful waters we realise we’ve been making our steady way towards. “I know now / That you loved me,” he admits, a revelation a lifetime in the making. Through the rawest reflection Culver has found a way forward, driven by an optimism drawn from a resolve to be better, to love and be loved, an admission to weakness and the discovery of a new kind of strength. “Don’t test the water,” he reassures us and himself, “just jump in.”

Scream If You Don’t Exist will be released in November 2023 by Participant, on limited edition vinyl, and digital download . The release will be accompanied by a series of films directed by Mau Morgo, Josiane M.H Pozi, William Markarian-Martin, Simon Bus, and Bruxism.

M Parent's penchant for texture is laid bare on this searing and arresting new EP for Zement. It opens with 'Gravel Pit' which sounds like an audio diary from a car-wrecking plant. Twisted metal, fizzing battery acid, and crushed glass all feature over a distorted baseline and broken rhythm. Those same scuzzy sounds define the rest of the EP from the acid-laced 'Ideal Future' to the coruscated funk of 'Acid Thirst' via the caustic intensity of closer Climb These Walls'. An impressively unique offering that very much has its own singularly sound palette.

Jo Quail presents two three-song cycles in the form of a limited EP,
‘Invocation’ and ‘Supplication’. The acclaimed, award-winning
composer and cellist composed the two pieces with the artists Maria
Franz (Heilung) and Lorenzo Esposito Fornasariin mind and
theirbreath-takingvoices are a key element on the respective EP’s.
Franz taking the centre stage on ‘Invocation’ and Fornasari on
‘Supplication’. Dare to take on Quail’s wild, boundless soundscapes,
enriched by two of the most powerful voices in contemporary music.
The physical edition comes as a deluxe Orange Crush w/ black marble
and Sea Blue w/ Black marble 12” vinyl editions, gathered in a slipcase with varnish and matt effect.

Weighing in with more of the deadly payloads that make systems weep, Alan Johnson return to Sneaker Social Club to finish what they started on 2022’s The Stillness EP.
Gareth and Tom’s sharp instinct for the fundamentals of crushing half-step pressure remain undiminished on this latest EP. Their sound palette reaches across contrasting strands of music culture, and every bar is teeming with micro details of sound design which give the tracks a living, breathing quality.

Ten Year Tonnage splits the EP open in whipcrack snares, DMZ flutes and a thick bed of sub, constantly shifting and teasing roots drops before opening up the mids and letting the low end snarl.

The chord hook on ‘Shapeshifter’ nudges towards some bold rave shapes, but there’s restraint and poise in the way the sounds get deployed. The Johnson way is one of suffocating space and uneasy tension, which obviously creates the best kind of dancefloor drama. As ‘Muay Size’ ably demonstrates, the likely lads are happy to pare a tune back to a skeletal framework and keep dancers waiting. When the pay-off comes, it’s not what you might expect, and that’s precisely why their sound is fresher than yours.

‘People Of The World’ goes even further out as it staggers and stumbles through skewed jazz samples and snatches of drums being thrown across the room. For all the splaying angles, there’s still a rock solid weight to the tune which proves Alan Johnson are more than comfortable taking things out to a weird fringe without losing their swagger.

Unnion takes off with its first EP featuring a compilation of four spanish artists with different styles and a unique common thread, living up to the platform's name.
The album kicks off with Tadeo's offering, titled "The Second Part", where we can immediately hear the artist's personal touch: a lot of funk, solid sounds, and attention-grabbing elements that go straight to the dance floor.
The second track comes from Unkle Fon, titled "Eltzegor." It's a soaring journey towards a climax filled with synthetic sounds and hypnotic developments that create a unique sense of motion.
Moving on to the third track, we have the contribution of Not A Headliner, titled "Cricket Circus." It features an atonal sensation accompanied by a groovy rhythm in which the interplay of sounds transcends the norm.
Closing the album is Irazu's proposal, titled "Quietly," which presents itself as a singular, monolithic, and raw option, overwhelming like a locomotive and ready to crush any obstacle that dares to stand in its way."

Year of The Knife have announced their new album, No Love Lost, due out October 27th from Pure Noise Records. The album finds Year of The Knife at their most sonically honed with nine lean and vicious songs that clock in at a blistering 20 minutes. Recorded by Kurt Ballou (Nails, The Armed, Code Orange), No Love Lost sounds truly massive, a crushing amalgam of hardcore and death metal influences that demands your attention and stays with you long after its concise runtime. To mark the album's announcement, Year of The Knife have shared two new singles, the 86 second "Wish" and 48 second "Last Laugh," highlighting both the economy of songwriting and the level aggression found on No Love Lost. Both tracks also include guest vocals from some of heavy music's greatest, with the former featuring Devin Swank of Sanguisugabogg and the latter featuring Dylan Walker of Full of Hell. In late June, Year of The Knife were involved in a car accident while on tour. All four members endured serious injuries, especially vocalist Madison Watkins, who suffered many broken bones and a traumatic brain injury. No Love Lost sounds even more urgent and defiant in light of the band's recent circumstances, and profits from the album's sales will be going directly to the members' ongoing recovery efforts.

The debut album from Netherlands based producer The Night Service Commute.

He has crafted a wonderful blend of cinematic jazz with crushed beats, funk, soul and hip hop for this project.

Nearly fifteen years of touring with peripheral regional projects (Mixtapes, Ogikubo Station, The Homeless Gospel Choir, Direct Hit!, The Mimes, Boys) has kept her tethered to both the road and to sounds that were not always her own.The solo endeavor marks the beginning of an autonomous output for her vision, harkening to sounds that are distinct to Ohio's brand of humble experimentation, roots aesthetics and pop-centric reliability.

The dual forces of shadow and light, despair and hope, frustration and catharsis are at play in the music of Cupid & Psyche, the Los Angeles-based indie rock duo of Michael Vidal and Juan Velasquez. First gaining recognition in the late aughts as members of the punk band Abe Vigoda, whose 2010 album Crush was named one of the "Best 50 Albums of the 2010s" by Pitchfork, the two have reunited as collaborators for the first time in a decade. Cathartic jam sessions would birth the emotionally resonant songs that appear on their debut album, Romantic Music. Though they pull from a wide array of `80s and `90s influences, Cupid & Psyche bring together these disparate moods and genres through their own esoteric lens on Romantic Music_making for a singular sound that at once feels familiar and alluringly hypnotic. Listeners will detect the gloom of post-punk and goth, the haziness of dream-pop and shoegaze, the bittersweet guitar melodies of second-wave emo, and the manic electronic rhythms of trip-hop and big beat. The immersive soundscapes on Romantic Music are sometimes agitated and driving, while other times ethereal and transcendent. This duality matches the album's lyrics of looking for a divine escape from the grim realities of existence, as well as the darkest parts of one's psyche. "The thesis of the album is trying to transcend the limits of life and the struggle therein," Vidal says. "There's a lot of lyrics about feeling trapped or frustrated, and then trying to find a way out. There's a lot of times I sing of hope and grasping towards love. But maybe in trying to escape, you take the wrong door, be it substance abuse or other vices." Now as Cupid & Psyche, Vidal and Velasquez return to a friendship that creatively feels like home_except this time, with more experience, self-knowledge, and less pressure to make anything other than the music that emerges naturally. The LP's title Romantic Music is tongue-in-cheek, since there are no love songs proper on the project, and the phrase itself can imply a kind of light listening. But it befits that deep bond that the members have, as friends who understand and empathize with each other's worst, so they're capable of bringing out each other's best.

Atrocity Machine is the latest full-length album from the Vermont-based doom metal band, Body Void. The album, which was released on October 13, 2023, features six tracks of heavy, crushing, and atmospheric soundscapes that delve into themes of environmental collapse, societal decay, and the darker aspects of the human psyche. Atrocity Machine marks a further evolution of Body Void's sound, incorporating more complex song structures and a greater emphasis on dynamics. The album's lyrics are also particularly poignant, tackling issues such as climate change, social inequality, and the devastating consequences of industrialization.

A.R. Kive collates the three most astonishing works from that most miraculous of duos - A.R. Kane - comprising the ‘Up Home’ EP from 1988 that signified the band’s dawning realisation of their own powers and possibilities, their legendary debut LP ‘sixty nine’ (1988) and its kaleidoscopic, prophetic double-LP follow up ‘i’ (1989).

In founder-member Rudy Tambala’s new remastering, the music on these pivotal transmissions from the birth of dream pop, have been reinvigorated and re-infused with a new power, a new depth and intimacy, a new height and immensity. Vivid, timeless and yet always timely whenever they’re recalled, these records still force any listener to realise that despite the habits of retrospective myth-making and the
safe neutering effects of ‘genre’, thirty years have in no way dimmed how resistant and dissident to critical habits of categorisation A.R. Kane always were. Never quite ‘avant-pop’ or ‘shoegaze’ or ‘post-rock’ or any of those sobriquets designed to file and categorise, A.R. Kive is a reminder that those genres had to be coined, had to be invented precisely to contain the astonishing sound of A.R. Kane, because
previous formulations couldn’t come close to their sui generis sound and suggestiveness. This is music that pointed towards futures which a whole generation of artists and sonic explorers would map out. Now beautifully repackaged, remastered and fleshed out with extensive sleeve notes and accompanying materials, ‘A.R. Kive’ reveals that 35 years on it’s still a struggle to defuse the revolutionary and inspirational possibility of A.R. Kane’s music.

A.R. Kane were formed in 1986 by Rudy Tambala and Alex Ayuli, two second-generation immigrants who grew up together in Stratford, East London. From the off the pair were outsiders in the culturally mixed (cockney/Irish/West Indian/Asian) milieu of the East End, with Alex and Rudy’s folks first generation immigrants from Nigeria and Malawi, respectively. The two of them quickly developed and fostered an innate and near-telepathic mutual understanding forged in musical, literary and artistic exploration. Like a lot of second-generation immigrants, they were ferocious autodidacts in all kinds of areas, especially around music and literature. Diving deep into the music of afro-futurist luminaries such as Sun Ra, Miles Davis, Lee Perry and
Hendrix, as well as devouring the explorations of lysergic noise and feedback from contemporaries like Sonic Youth and Butthole Surfers, they also thoroughly immersed themselves in the alternate literary realities of sci-fi and ancient history (the fascination with the arcane that gave the band their name), all to feed their voracious cultural thirsts and intellectual curiosity.

It was seeing the Cocteau Twins performing on Channel 4 show the Tube that spurred A.R. Kane into being - “They had no drummer. They used tapes and technology and Liz Fraser looked completely otherworldly with those big eyes. And the noise coming out of Robin’s guitar! That was the ‘Fuck! We could do that! We could express ourselves like that!’ moment”, recalls Tambala - and through a mix of
confidence, chutzpah, ad hoc almost-mythical live shows and sheer innocent will the duo debuted with the astonishing ‘When You’re Sad’ single for One Little Indian in 1986. Immediately dubbed a ‘black Jesus & Mary Chain’ by a press unsure of WHERE to put a black band clearly immersed in feedback and noise, what was immediately apparent for listeners was just how much more was going on here - a
tapping of dub’s stealth and guile, a resonant umbilicus back to fusion and jazz, the music less a conjuration of past highs than a re-summoning of lost spirits.
The run of singles and EPs that followed picked up increasingly rapt reviews in the press, but it was the ‘Up Home EP’ released in 1988 on their new home, Rough Trade that really suggested something immense was about to break. Simon Reynolds noted the EP was: Their most concentrated slab of iridescent awesomeness and a true pinnacle of an era that abounded with astounding landmarks of guitar-reinvention, A.R. Kane at their most elixir-like.

If anything, the remastered ‘Up Home’ that forms the first part of ‘A.R. Kive’ is even more dazzling, even more startling than it was when it first emerged, and listening now you again wonder not just about how many bands christened ‘shoegaze’ tried to emulate it, but how all of them fell so far short of its lambent, pellucid wonder. This remains intrinsically experimental music but with none of the frowning orthodoxy those words imply. A.R. Kane, thanks to that second generation auto-didacticism were always supremely aware about the interstices of music and magic, but at the same time gloriously free in the way they explored that connection within their own sound, fascinated always with the creation of ‘perfect mistakes’ and the possibilities inherent in informed play.

‘sixty nine’ the group’s debut LP that emerged in 1988 had
critics and listeners struggling to fit language around A.R. Kane’s sound. As a title it was telling - the year of ‘Bitches Brew’, the year of ‘In A Silent Way’, the erotic möbius between two lovers - and as originally coined by the band themselves, ‘dream pop’ (before it became a free-floating signifier of vague import) was entirely apposite for the music A.R. Kane were making. Crafted in a dark small basement studio in which Tambala recalls the duo had “complete freedom - We wanted to go as far out as we could, and in doing so we discovered the point where it stops being music”. There was an irresistibly dreamy, somnambulant, sensual and almost surreal flow to ‘sixty nine’s sound, but also real darkness/dankness, the ruptures of the primordial and the reverberations of the subconscious, within the grooves of remarkable songs like ‘Dizzy’ and ‘Crazy Blue’. Alex’s plangent vocals floated and surged amidst exquisite peals of refracted feedback but crucially there was BASS here, lugubrious and funky and full of dread, sonic pleasure and sonic disturbance crushed together to make music with a center so deep it felt subcutaneous, music constructed from both the accidental and the deliberate, generous enough to dance with both serendipity and chaos. ‘sixty nine’ remains - especially in this remastered iteration - ravishing, revolutionary.

The final part of this ‘A.R. Kive’ contains 1989’s astonishing double-LP ‘i’ which followed up on ‘sixty nine’s promise and saw the duo fully unleash their experimental pop sensibilities over 26 tracks, plunging the A.R. Kane sound into a dazzlingly kaleidoscopic vision of pop experiment and play. Suffused with new digital technologies and combining searingly sweet and danceable pop with perhaps the duo’s strangest and boundary-pushing compositions, the album did exactly what a great double-set should do - indulge the artists sprawling pursuit of their own imaginations but always with a concision and an ear for those moments where pop both transcends and toys with the listeners expectations. Jason Ankeny has noted that “In retrospect, ‘i’ now seems like a crystal ball prophesying virtually every major musical development of the 1990s; from the shimmering techno of ‘A Love from Outer Space’ to the liquid dub of ‘What’s All This Then?’, from the alien drone-pop of ‘Conundrum’ to the sinister shoegazer miasma of ‘Supervixens’ — it’s all here, an underground road map for countless bands to follow.” Perhaps the most overwhelmingly all-encompassing transmission from A.R. Kane, ‘i’ bookended a three year period in which the duo had made some of the most prophetic and revelatory music of the entire decade.

After ‘i’ the duo’s output became more sporadic with Tambala and Ayuli moving in different directions both geographically and musically, with only 1994’s ‘New Clear Child’ a crystalline re-fraction of future and past echoes of jazz, folk and soul, before the duo went their separate ways. Since then, A.R. Kane’s music has endured, not thanks to the usual sepia’d false memories that seem to maintain interest in so much of the musical past, but because those who hear A.R. Kane music and are changed irrevocably, have to share that universe which A.R. Kane opened up, with anyone else who will listen. Far more than other lauded documents of the late 80s it still sounds astonishingly fresh, astonishingly livid and vivid and necessary and NOW.

'Festering Grotesqueries' is a musical statement crafted and executed by
four individuals who are completely sold out to heavy fucking metal -
Firmly rooted in the sounds of classic Death Metal and Grindcore,
'Festering Grotesqueries' is all at once cacophonous and catchy,
merciless and memorable, an album that is as brutal as it is fun
Avoiding genre stereotypes that would relegate them to the dustbins occupied by
countless imitators of the oldschool, Dripping Decay have combined speed and
technique with groove and swagger to create a dynamic exhibition of crushing
and unforgettable tracks: 14 'Festering Grotesqueries' in all

'Festering Grotesqueries' is a musical statement crafted and executed by
four individuals who are completely sold out to heavy fucking metal -
Firmly rooted in the sounds of classic Death Metal and Grindcore,
'Festering Grotesqueries' is all at once cacophonous and catchy,
merciless and memorable, an album that is as brutal as it is fun
Avoiding genre stereotypes that would relegate them to the dustbins occupied by
countless imitators of the oldschool, Dripping Decay have combined speed and
technique with groove and swagger to create a dynamic exhibition of crushing
and unforgettable tracks: 14 'Festering Grotesqueries' in all

On January 28, 2022, Lady Wray released her Piece Of Me album. A deeply personal record that takes on the good and the bad in life from deception and abuse to the joys of motherhood and triumph. The accolades the album has received in the year it has been out speak volumes. Performing on The Stephen Colbert Show, selling out multiple US tours, cleaning up in the best of 2022 lists, and then crushing an NPR Tiny Desk on the 1 year anniversary of the album.

Piece Of Me continues to find its way to new ears and has already proved itself a timeless classic. So where do you go from here? When Ghostface Killah reaches out and says he wants to do a remix of the title track you do that. The A side, "Piece Of Me" (Remix) features Ironman himself who puts down a verse about a relationship that ran its course but no one is sure they did the right thing in. Ghostface sounds right at home over the gully Leon Michels produced track and takes the already rock solid tune to another level. Then what do you do for a B side.... You call The Chocolate Boy Wonder, Pete Rock and get him to remix "Joy & Pain". Pete takes one of the stand out tunes on the album and gives it an entirely different energy with thundering drums and a bassline that shake the windows in the car.

Acclaimed producer, songwriter, and vocalist Shafiq Husayn has been a vital force on the Los Angeles music scene for decades. A member of trendsetting trio Sa-Ra Creative Partners, Shafiq has produced tracks for a staggering spectrum of talent, including Erykah Badu, Ty Dolla $ign, Pharoahe Monch, Robert Glasper, Ice T, Bilal, Jurassic 5, and many more. Over the last few years, the Grammy winner has also become the leader of The Dove Society, an expansive L.A. musical collective. Now, Shafiq Husayn and The Dove Society are debuting the new album So Gold, an eclectic masterpiece emerging from sessions Shafiq describes as “pure love, magic, inspiration!” A worthy follow-up to Shafiq’s acclaimed 2018 opus The Loop, the album features contributions from Anderson .Paak, Syd (of The Internet), Peyton, Thurz, Jimetta Rose, Speed Walton, and many more. Bursting with the kinetic energy of vibrant creative collaboration, the album synthesizes disparate styles into a cohesive tapestry of lush cosmic soul. “It’s new age everything and above,” Shafiq explains. “Focused and direct in the songwriting and production, but still adventurous and refreshing.

Fredfades is finally ready with his second album as a solo artist. The producer and DJ and has remained active as a musician ever since his debut single in 2008. Since he released his debut solo album 'Warmth' six years ago he's ben diving into a bunch of different genres and cross-ing musical landscapes such as ambient, hip-hop and house, which has led to releases and productions across labels like his own Mutual Inten-tions imprint, as well as bigger labels like Stones Throw, Fresh Selects and Jakarta Records. This sonic voyage has resulted in ‘Caviar’ - an album that tells the story of a producer who's ready to let go of his youthful love and indulge himself to electronic music.

Fredfades name is more often seen on foreign club posters than back home in Norway. This has colored the musical expression of the Oslo-born multi-artist, and on ‘Caviar’ he is gathering inspiration from every corner of the world where he has traveled. You can clearly hear the inspi-rations from the sounds of Rome, Manchester, South-Africa, Detroit, New York, Berlin, Paris and the Balearic ocean, which are all well repre-sented throughout the album's eight tracks. If you close your eyes and put your ears close to the speakers you will hear loons, running water, African percussion instruments, roaring saxophones, bit-crushed samples, moaning women, TB 303’s, bottom-heavy basslines and recordings of whales communicating at the bottom of the ocean. Everything seamlessly put together for Fredfades’ own sonic world view. The album features a bunch of talented friends of Fred, such as Telephones or the vocalists MoRuf and Kristian Hamilton.

Despite being known as more of a progressive and edgy DJ that haunts down a lot of indie and private press electronic music, Fredfades has cultivated a more elegant and controversial output in his own music. His progressions often consist of dwelling jazz chords from electric pianos or mellow sub-filtered synth patches that creates space where he can unleash rowdy basslines, rhythm sections and leads just as confident and captivating as the man himself. On the jazzy ‘Tenerife 1994’ you can hear a tribute to one of Fred’s greatest heroes in music: Pharoah Sanders, while on ‘My Heart Is On The Edge’ and ‘Summer of Love’ the energy and euphoria is boiling over and directs your mind towards the summer raves which Fredfades is known to throw down in Oslo.

On the LP covers backside Fredfades is posing with a Korg Wavestation in front of the block where he grew up in the suburbs outside Oslo, while the front cover is showing an airbrushed illustration of Caviar from sturgeon - ‘From block to Beluga’. The black vinyl contains magic grooves created by an electronic musical convertite, with the power to transport the listener from a perpetual winter to the 90s warm dance floors and the 'Second Summer of Love’.

I was lucky enough to release Godflesh 'Love is a dog from Hell' on my old label Pathological many moons ago. I was equally lucky to drop JK Flesh 'In Your Pit' on my new label PRESSURE three years ago, and then follow that up with the G36 vs JK Flesh sound clash 'Disintegration Dubs' last year. Justin has consistently handed me pure audio gold, and actually gifted me some of my favourite releases from him full stop, in an incredible career of riches which he has tirelessly. produced since Napalm Death til today. So again, I’m now totally psyched to drop 'Sewer Bait' on my label PRESSURE. The sixth album from JK Flesh, this album is a Slo-mo, Slo-fi, Sewer tech journey into utter gutter level filth. Overdriven, corroded, corrupted and absolutely blasted, it contains so many essential elements of clubland low life, but yet manages to remain beautifully original whilst pushing all levels deep into the red until it hurts in the best possible way. Anyone hooked on Andy Stott's dirtiest works, Porter Ricks deepest explorations or Techno Animal's speaker punishing grooves will find addictive nourishment within these relentlessly distorted heavyweight grooves.... Not so much hard as completely f-ckin brutal, the master stroke from Justin Broadrick however, is takin his raw materials and feeding them militantly into the dub chamber. This is like a wholesale destruction of Techno, 4/4 for people too wasted and strung out to give a f-ck about dancefloors, yet compelling enough and magnetic enough to completely insist upon fully body hypnotism in an undersized room with an oversized rig. The album's title track sounds like Drum & Bass don Digital or the peak of the Metalheadz label dragged down into hell for the ultimate bad rave trip, whilst 'Crawler' could be Killing Joke, jammin with Regis and his aggro allies from Birmingham Techno's underappreciated discography, deep in a warehouse warzone. You don’t have to dig techno to dig this dirt, you just have to enjoy having your head taken off and your body physically punished. If Jeff Mills output had been chopped, screwed and then painfully, slowly crushed, it may resemble the monolithic, psychedelic, crawl of 'Sewer Bait'.” – Kevin Martin

Future Jazzers, notorious experimentalists and outfield eccentrics stumble onto the dancefloor. In the 90s. In the UK.

From an electronic music perspective, the period 1992 to 1996 in the UK that this compilation celebrates, was one of dizzying sonic diversification.

It was also a particularly turbulent time in the UK, not only politically and economically, but also culturally too. Economic catastrophe in ‘92 was followed by widespread poverty, a cost of living crisis and countless political scandals. Meanwhile, John Major’s Tory government pandered to its political base via unpleasant, authoritarian legislation that seemingly sought to crush rave culture, alternative lifestyles, and traveller communities. The UK was not so much a ‘Happy Land’ – to quote the name of this compilation – as an angry and divided one. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Throughout, the music created by producers based across these Isles remained uniquely British, speeding up a process begun in the late 1980s through the emergence of street soul, bleep & bass and breakbeat hardcore – musical styles whose roots in multicultural inner-city communities made them distinctly different from the Black American sounds that had inspired their creators. It was here, rather than in the indie pubs of Camden, that real musical revolutions were taking place.

This deep diving selection brings together some truly adventurous and original electronic music from this period, much of it very hard to find. Major label outings connect with white label oddities with ease. Perhaps it could even be argued that many of these unearthed gems fit more easily into DJ sets in 2023 than they ever did at the time. The off-kilter swing of Richard D James’ obscure and highly sought after Strider B outing, ‘Bradley’s Robot’ is joined by further rare cuts from Cabaret Voltaire and the Black Dog, and artists as diverse as Ultramarine, Herbert, Fretless AZM, and Radioactive Lamb, amongst others.

This collection has been lovingly selected, compiled and mastered for maximum sonic playback. This very special release boasts sublime pastoral themed artwork, as well as informative and passionate liner notes by celebrated music scribe Matt Anniss (‘Join The Future’).

Limited edition run of 500 copies - pressed on transparent blue vinyl

Following a CD-only release in Japan in 2021, legendary downtempo producer Calm finally releases his “Before” album on vinyl and digital courtesy of Hell Yeah. The 10-track record is a slow-burning Balearic beauty.

Calm aka Kiyotaka Fukagawa has never been to the White Isle, but he sure knows how to capture its musical essence. He has done so over a long and storied career that has taken in 17 albums and some 35 EPs on many labels including this one over the last 20-plus years. His unique blend of ambient, jazz and leftfield was last showcased on this label in 2018 with his By Your Side album, and now he does it again with another timeless and escapist offering.

The record was written, arranged, mixed and produced by Calm, but with gorgeous musical embellishments, trumpets, flutes, saxophones, violins, bass and keys played by friends and guests like Shiba, Sinsuke Fujieda, Fumiko Takeshita, Tomokazu Sugimoto, Yuichiro Kato and Toshitaka Shibata. Tracks from it have already had support from Cosmo Coleen Murphy on Worldwide FM, while Phil Mison says it is "100% reminiscent of an old Café Del Mar or José Padilla record." He is not wrong.

As soon as the opening chords of 'Beauty on Earth' wash over you there is no escaping the naturalistic charm and beauty of this record. 'Long Summer Dream' layers mystic wind sounds and gentle percussive patterns into suspensory bliss, 'Blue in Void' is a plaintive moment of sombre sax and pensive piano, then 'Liminal Moment' awakens the soul with its gorgeous flute lines and looping arps.

There is perfect horizontal sunset house on 'I Love You,' 'Feel It' picks up the pace with seductive saxophone motifs and psychedelic synth loops and 'Before Sunrise Blue' is crushing downtempo melancholia. 'Kunpoo' reawakens you with leggy bass and expansive synths that reach for the heavens, while 'Freedom Sunset' is an epic 10-minute journey out to sea. Lastly, 'Let's Make Harmony' is super slow motion jazz-funk that swells the heart. Before is a superb album that is well-deserving of this double vinyl pressing and is sure to become a Balearic classic.

DJ Support:

Phil Mison, Colleen Cosmo Murphy, Chris Coco, Buena Onda Crew

It seems fitting that a trilogy of albums celebrating nature should conclude some eight years after its second chapter. Manchester-via-Todmorden based instrumental trio Plank’s first two LPs – 2012’s kosmiche-inspired Animalism and 2014’s more expansive and structurally disruptive follow-up Hivemind – enjoyed relatively quick gestation periods. However, Plank are firm believers in letting nature run its course, and so it is that their third LP Future of the Sea arrives early in 2023. “I always knew I wanted to make three albums inspired by nature” says Plank main-man David Rowe (synths / guitar). “Future of the Sea is another exploration into odd time signatures and traditional rock instruments alongside synths and electronics.”

“Future of the Sea is a celebration of the power and majesty of our oceans and how humankind has been destroying them through industrial scale fishing and global warming” says Rowe. “Rachel Carson put it more eloquently in her book The Sea Around Us: ‘It is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist; the threat is rather to life itself.’” A post apocalyptic underwater city scape adorns the cover in an illustration by Jake Blanchard, whose work you'll also see on Richard Dawson's latest album 'The Ruby Cord'.
The synthetic nature of Plank’s sprawling rock odysseys feel at their most pronounced on Future of the Sea which leans to the band’s love of Pink Floyd era Meddle, Camel, film score composers like John Carpenter and Vangelis, 70s experimentalists Harmonia, 1980s King Crimson and 90s post-rock adjacent group Tortoise. In polyrhythmic dexterity if not heaviness, Plank also take some influence from Meshuggah, and it’s in their movement between the 16 minute final album track’s sections that it feels most prominent. They swerve from crunching stoner rock jams to more ambient spatial explorations, crescendoing progressive peaks, 80s synth pop and finally a crushing riff-laden finale.

"Web of Lies / Death Won’t Even Satisfy is the vinyl debut from this hardcore band from New Jersey, and it is a full-bore scorcher. Ammo plays ferocious US-style hardcore with a lunging, unhinged style that reminds me of groups like early Agnostic Front, Void, and Eye for an Eye-era Corrosion of Conformity… not so much in style, but in the way Ammo sounds like they’re maniacs who might materialize out of your home speakers in order to slash your throat. It’s a rare enough feat to capture this sort of wild energy on tape, but Ammo fuses this crazy energy with memorable songwriting, with tracks like “Black Site,” “Slam Slam Slam,” and “Ethnostate” hitting even harder because they’re so damn catchy. Sounding fast and crazy is Ammo’s forte, but their secret weapon is their ability to play at mid tempo, like on the crushing NYHC-style mosh part in “Known Unknown” and the singalong during the breakdown to the epic “All You Do (Is Want Me to Die).” I love music that expands hardcore’s boundaries, but Ammo isn’t that… they distill hardcore its essence, their sound ground down to the sharpness of a knife’s edge. This is not a record to sleep on."

Not a great deal is known about this talented artist having released only 4 albums in a recording career that started in 1993. Raised in a musical family by piano playing parents he began learning the instrument at an early age, later concentrating on the saxophone, but became a multi-instrumentalist by the time was signed to Verve Records, playing most forms of keyboards, synths, vibes, as well as sax and flute. He moved to Florida, from his native New York, shortly after graduating from studying music at university in New Jersey, and played in local rock bands whilst developing his love for jazz, and was working on a demo to try and get a record deal. 
 
Disaster struck when he was involved in a serious boating accident in which both hands were badly crushed and he was unable to play an instrument for many months, during which time he developed a skill for singing and composing. Turning adversity into opportunity is the best way to describe the outcome.
 
So why is a soul label interested in releasing some of his material? Both tracks selected, "One" and "Sweeter", are released on vinyl for the first time and come from his third album, "Lights On", released on his own label Eaak Records following a break of 7 years which was devoted to raising his children. The sounds are undeniably late night make-out music, lush, sophisticated and sensuous. 
 
The majority of plaudits for his work previously came from the world of contemporary jazz and, dare I say it, smooth jazz, and was largely ignored by the soul magazines and radio stations. His captivating falsetto vocal style, reflects his influences by Curtis Mayfield, Smokey Robinson and Marvin Gaye. All his material is self-penned and the albums were co-produced with drummer Guy Eckstine. There is an underlying 70’s feel to the contemporary arrangements and his work is clearly deserving of greater recognition.

Steve Hobbs (Solar Radio, Totally Wired Radio)soul

After his latest ‘Youth EP’ that experimented with spacious vocal chops and whimsical soundscapes, Nocow returns with a relentless flurry of blows on the heavily computerized ‘Magnit EP’ released on npm. Featuring gloriously broken melodies and hard-hitting rhythm, Nocow explores the darker, more formulaic side to his sound. Brooding acid-infused synths shimmer across the four tracks, morphing between moods as the EP progresses. ‘Magnit S’ kicks off the EP with scattered bass hits, driving dark techno arpeggios, and a hint of footwork-esque percussion. The intense atmosphere is a relatively new direction for Nocow, straying from his more meticulous, introverted beats prior. ‘Kali’ incorporates warbled synth with a more subdued rhythm, playing with a modular sound and distant echoes of robotic vocals. This fragmented track is more akin to his 2018 sound of the Voda/Vozduh/Zemlya trilogy as the kinetics of sound play a strongly defined role in the overall sonics. ‘Sputnik’ commences with a blistering arpeggio of bit-crushed synth and chimes. The rocket-propelled pacing creates a frantic, yet ultimately controlled piece, worthy of a place in a club 300 years from now. Yet, after the frenzy comes the calm. The closing track ‘Extasy’ grinds the EP to a kaleidoscopic halt. Vocoder passages drift across the dense soundscape as Nocow transports you to an other-world, filled with spacey percussion. This closer is a well-deserved return to solid ground, following the perpetual trio of dark, yet utterly compelling techno pieces. Once again, Nocow exhibits his multi-faceted approach to electronic music that truly sets him apart.

After 2021's Mistakes Were Made broke the band's silence after 25 years
of being away, Too Much Joy return with even more rebellious power-pop
for smart people on 'All These Fucking Feelings'
Best known for early 90's MTV minor hits That's a Lie and Crush Story , the 5-
piece is viciously smart and makes you laugh and think while simultaneously
pumping your fists and stomping your feet to achieve the long-standing vision of
Randy Newman fronting the Clash .

The Others (Lustmord Deconstructed) is a celebration of the fearless attitude of being different and the expression of unique ideas which have never existed before. Over 13 years after the release of O T H E R , Pelagic Records has gathered 16 bands and solo artists to record their own unique takes on tracks from the Other-sessions. The result is an album that is more than a compilation, and more than the sum of its parts; covering a wide range of musical niches and directions, but sharing the same underlying mood and vibe defined by Lustmord's timeless soundscapes: from the ambient solo performances provided by IHSAHN, ENSLAVED or JONAS RENKSE to the subdued voice of ZOLA JESUS woven into Lustmord's sombre fabric to the industrial carnage that is GODFLESH's version of `Ashen'. LUSTMORD is the artistic moniker of Brian Williams. Born in North Wales, he started his musical career in 1980 and soon became a pioneer in the early industrial music scene in the UK. He was a former member of SPK during arguably their most crucial era, and went on to work with THROBBING GRISTLE members Chris & Cosey as well as appearing on early albums by CURRENT 93, NURSE WITH WOUND and others. After relocating to Los Angeles in 1993, Williams worked on dozens of motion picture soundtracks including The Crow, Underworld and Paul Schrader's First Reformed. Additionally he created several video game soundtracks, television scores and solo albums, as well as collaborating with artists as varied as THE MELVINS, CLOCK DVA, JARBOE, John Balance of COIL, Paul Haslinger (TANGERINE DREAM), PUSCIFER, Wes Borland and more, including Grammy Award-winners TOOL on their much acclaimed effort Fear Inoculum. To this day, Lustmord is actively recording and releasing music, his latest release being the collaborative album Alter with Karin Park of A°RABROT, and he is considered to be the founding father of the dark ambient music genre. The original O T H E R was released by independent record label Hydra Head Records, founded by ISIS frontman Aaron Turner and former home of bands such as CONVERGE, PELICAN, JESU, SUN O))) or BORIS. As one journalist put it at the time, O T H E R is a "grim example of a consummate artist who is working frmly within the parameters that he has laid out for himself over the years." This album shows Lustmord at his most characteristic, and the icy, ominous guitar playing of Jones, Turner and Ozborne resonates perfectly within the deep soundscapes that make up this frightening yet inspiring journey. What demonstrates the profound influence of Lustmord on this contemporary music underground showcased here is that artists from disparate ends of the sonic spectrum all feel inspired to explore the essence of his idiosyncratic sounds within their own realm: experimental electronica icons ULVER excel on a stunning, hazy rendition of `Godeater', while Japanese post-rock act MONO deliver a crushing version of `Er Eb Os', and THE OCEAN take us on a cathartically heavy mindtrip back to our `Primal State of Being'. In the end, each of these 16 artists delivers an interpretation that pays the deepest respect to this pivotal artist, while also standing out as a new track of its own.

As on Under A Burning Eclipse, between each song on Sacred Rites & Black Magick is an intricately positioned interlude building the ambiance and steering the thematic intensity of the album. Beginning with echoing, clean dual acoustic guitars, introductory interlude “Hymns Of The Slumbering Race” begins the procession of grand ascension and hair raising riffage to come. “Internal Fulmination Of The Grand Deceivers” flashes STORMRULER’s brand of Imperial Black Metal Warfare, shining with heavy bass and blastbeats before cascading into icy atmosphere topped by smoke-cloaked vocals. Entrancing guitars match an ebb and flow of carefully paced interludes and merciless, speeding fury, showcasing standout leads and a blazing solo. Similar epic songwriting, lush lyricism and skillful dynamics can be witnessed on tracks such as the brooding “Entranced Within The Moon Presence”, intricate “In The Shaded Vlasian Forest” and introspective, glistening “Along The Appian Way”. “To Bear The Twin Faces Of The Dragon” stages some of the most menacing sonic escapades and memorable leads of the 20-track offering, combining chants of sorcery with searing screams and waves of crushing melody, while tracks such as “Upon Frozen Shores” weave a sonic tale of occult doom atop triumphant soundscapes, breakneck rhythms and ghostly melodic passages. Standout title offering “Sacred Rites & Black Magick” sets the supreme lyrical and musical mood of the album itself, depicting just how deftly STORMRULER conjure lucid black metal as they inject energetic, unforgettable grooves and riffs into their scorching delivery – succeeding in convincing even the newest of genre converts.

Surprise Chef’s music is based on evoking mood; their vivid arrangements utilize time and space to build soundscapes that invite the listener into their world. The quintet’s distinct sound pulls from 70s film scores, the funkier side of jazz, and the samples that form the foundation of hip hop. They push the boundaries of instrumental soul and funk with their own approach honed by countless hours in the studio, studying the masters, and perhaps most importantly, the “tyranny of distance” that dictates a unique perspective to their music. Hailing from just outside of Melbourne, Australia their first two albums, All News Is Good News and Daylight Savings amassed a die-hard fanbase and brought their sound from their home studio to every corner of the globe. The band is now signed to Big Crown Records, joining a lineage of contemporary and classic sounds that have influenced Surprise Chef’s music since their formation in 2017. Surprise Chef is Lachlan Stuckey on guitar, Jethro Curtin on keys, Carl Lindeberg on bass, Andrew Congues on drums, and Hudson Whitlock—the latest member who does it all from percussion to composing to producing. Their self proclaimed "moody shades of instrumental jazz-funk" have a bit of everything: punchy drums, infectious keys, rhythm guitar you might hear on a Studio One record, and flute lines that could be from a Blue Note session. But when you step back and take in the entirety of their sound and approach, you'll hear and see a group greater than the sum of its parts. In many ways Surprise Chef embodies the idiom "the benefits of limits." They were limited in that there weren't many people making or talking about instrumental jazz/soul/funk in Southeast Australia, let alone putting out records. This left them to develop their sound and approach in a kind of creative isolation where a small circle of friends and like-minded musicians fed off each other. "Being in Australia, being so far away, we only get glimpses and glances of this music’s origins," Stuckey says. "But hearing a label like Big Crown was one of the first times we realized you could make fresh, new soul music that wasn't super retro or just nostalgic." This approach is on full display throughout their new album Education & Recreation. Tracks like “Velodrome” pair chunky drums with an earworm synth line that has all the making of something you would find on an Ultimate Breaks & Beats compilation while numbers like “Iconoclasts” show their knack for tasteful use of space. From the crushing intro of “Suburban Breeze” to the floaty mellow bop of “Spring’s Theme” Surprise Chef has weaved together an album that takes you through peaks and valleys of emotion and provides a vivid soundtrack that will pull you deeper into your imagination. There is a beauty in the vast space for interpretation of instrumental music and they are adding a modern classic to the canon with this new album. Turn on the record and enjoy the ride, wherever it may take you.

'Body Riddle', ein Highlight des frühen Clark-Katalogs, von Produzenten wie Arca, Rustie und Hudson Mohawke als massgeblicher Einfluß bezeichnet, wurde unter persönlicher Betreuung von Clark neu für mehr Dynamik remastered und erscheint erstmals wieder seit 16 Jahren.

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BIO: Chris Clark arbeitet seit 20 Jahren mit Musik und Ton. Schon in jungen Jahren wurde er von Warp Records gesignt und veröffentlichte bis dato 13 Alben und eine Vielzahl an EPs und Singles. Sein jüngstes Studioalbum 'Playground In A Lake' für das Klassik-Label Deutsche Grammophon verschmolz sein Markenzeichen, die elektronische Musik, mit den Streichertönen des Cellisten Oliver Coates, der Geigerin Rakhi Singh und des Budapest Art Orchestra.

Nach seiner ersten Filmmusik für die Sky/Canal+ TV-Serie 'The Last Panthers' schrieb Clark die Scores zu 'Rellik' (BBC1/HBO) und das Drama 'Kiri' (Channel 4/Hulu). Kürzlich lieferte er die Filmmusik für Apple TV+ 'Lisey's Story', basierend auf Stephen Kings gleichnamigem Roman, sowie für 'Daniel Isn't Real', einem psychologischen Horrorfilm von Spectre Vision, der Produktionsfirma des Nicolas Cage-Kultfilms 'Mandy'. Dieser OST wurde ebenfalls von der Deutschen Grammophon veröffentlicht.

Chris arbeitete mit der Choreografin Melanie Lane zusammen und vertonte 12 zeitgenössische Tanzprojekte, darunter die Aufführung ihres Soloprojekts 'Tilted Fawn' im Sydney Opera House und zuletzt 'Personal Effigies', das im März 2018 mit dem Kier Choreographic Prize ausgezeichnet wurde, sowie 'WOOF' für die renommierte Sydney Dance Company.

Chris' umfangreiches Verzeichnis an Remixen für Künstler wie Thom Yorke, Massive Attack, Depeche Mode, Max Richter, Battles und Nils Frahm wurde 2013 als Doppelalbum 'Feast / Beast' veröffentlicht.

'What's always set Clark apart is his eclecticism, dynamism, and flair for the dramatic... His tracks don't drop as much as they slip or swerve... He'll end a techno album with eight minutes of beatless, sky-cracking ecstasy and it will make sense. He's allergic to the idea of standard sounds and presets. And unlike many of his more insular peers, Clark can be open to sentimentality — not schmaltz — as much as a belief in humanness and all its inexact wonder. In electronic music's never-ending battle between man and machine, he's seeking a third way.' - Pitchfork

Svart Records to release new album by rising stars of eclectic heavy rock, Messa on the 11th of March 2022. Messa’s rising trajectory hits the stratosphere on their immense new album “Close”. Soaring up out of the Italian Doom Rock underground in 2014, Messa have been rapidly garnering a frenzied throng of devotees, in thrall to their monumental and broad-ranging sound craft. Releasing two widely celebrated cult records, the latest of which “Feast For Water” in 2018 was a critical breakthrough success, with Rolling Stone calling the whole album “captivating, wringing maximum drama out of its savvy stylistic clash,” Messa have had everyone on tenterhooks, waiting for what was next. New album “Close” draws us further into Messa’s spellbinding textures and immersive dynamics. Described as “Stevie Nicks fronting Black Sabbath,” singer Sara’s colossal voice omnipotently carries the listener on an emotional rollercoaster ride where the sonic cauldron of Iommi guitars gives way to Arabian oudh and progressive solos in a masterful style-clash that well befits Messa’s incendiary reputation. The hushed Fender Rhodes piano intro on opener “Suspended,” picks up where Messa left off on their previous album “Feast For Water” but then collapses gloriously into Jazz guitar and widescreen impassioned crushing riffs, lighting our way for the odyssey ahead. The scene is set magnificently for the journey that “Close” expertly takes the listener on, with Messa’s obvious care and passion for the album as a pilgrimage of sonic experience. Heavyweight tracks like “If You Want Her To Be Taken” or “0=2” are modern Doom Rock classics that expertly upgrade and leave the genre reeling in their wake. “Pilgrim” and “Orphalese” are woven with tapestries of Mediterranean sounds where oudh and eastern chord phrasings expand Messa’s cinematic palette with a panache that is all their own. Atmospheric and grandiose belters like “Rubedo” and “Dark Horse” build into an almost limitless climax of discord and harmony where blast beats and saxophones descend into a thrilling cacophony that’s a masterclass in artful cutting edge Doom. Referencing bands like Dead Can Dance, Swans and Om, Messa have created an album where song, experience and atmosphere are focused into a crystalline modus where high art flawlessly embraces good old fashioned riff-worship. Transcending the occult and noir-tinted atmospheres of their past works, “Close” confidently weaves Messa’s multifarious influences into a singular breath-taking sound that leaves the listener enthralled. Perfection or something extremely close, Messa’s “Close” is not just a Metal record, but it’s definitely one of the best things to break out of the confines of Metal in a long time.

4 LP set is for Indies only until further notice. Unravelled: 1981–2002 shines a loving light on lo-fi pioneers Tall Dwarfs, the prized New Zealand duo of Chris Knox and Alec Bathgate. The collection, available as a 4-LP or 2-CD box set, compiles songs from Tall Dwarfs' two decades of recordings. The vinyl edition includes a 20-page collector's booklet of photos, comics, posters, and other ephemera. The songs on Unravelled: 1981–2002 were curated by Alec Bathgate, who also designed the box set packaging; Chris Knox suffered a debilitating stroke in 2009 just as they had started work on a new album. The collection captures the different sides of the Tall Dwarfs in 55 songs. Though the band was an excuse for two good friends who lived in different cities to get together, drink beer, watch shitty old movies, and do some recording and drawing, Tall Dwarfs created music unlike anyone else. Capturing the initial excitement of creation and taking pride in what they did, Knox and Bathgate showed a whole generation of musicians what could be done at home on a 4-track and what magic could be made if you mixed pop melodies and hooks galore with homemade sounds. After a failed flirtation with success in their previous band Toy Love, Knox and Bathgate formed Tall Dwarfs in 1981, opting to record themselves on a 4-track reel-to-reel. New Zealand’s AudioCulture wrote of the duo’s project: “Early live performances were a ramshackle work in progress. Knox described them in an interview with American magazine Forced Exposure as ‘two minutes of song followed by five minutes of fucking around,’ and they dismayed many Toy Love fans—but the pair had no interest in a career spent in pubs cranking out ‘Pull Down the Shades.’” Tall Dwarfs was meant to be a one-off, but after the founding of their New Zealand label Flying Nun, they continued to record music for the next 21 years, releasing seven EPs and six albums. Their process was spontaneous, with songs being recorded as they were written. Typically, Bathgate would work up something on guitar while Knox provided vocals, lyrics, and tape loops. Then they added any sounds that seemed necessary to finish a song, using whatever was lying around: pans, chairs, baby rattles. Though Tall Dwarfs could be weird, they were never too experimental; Knox and Bathgate both loved melody too much (“Beatlesque” appeared more often than any other adjective in their reviews).

Very limited vinyl pressing, 500 copies in a full colour single outer sleeve and full colour printed lyric inner sleeve, housing a 2-colour blue and yellow cosmic swirl vinyl. Full download included as well. Blacklab are back. The self-proclaimed ‘Doom witch duo from Osaka’ are set to drop their 3rd album ‘In A Bizarre Dream’ this summer. Their debut ‘Under the Strawberry Moon 2.0’ saw them taking Sabbath inspired doom, mashing it with a Japanese sensibility and a fuzzed-up groove. It certainly caused a stir, but only hinted at their potential. Album two ‘Abyss’ added to the mix. A Stooges like squalor to the riffs, dollops of lo-fi hardcore punk and loose riffing, pointing the way towards a signature sound. So what of the ‘difficult’ third album? Not so difficult at all it seems. ‘In A Bizarre Dream’ ups the ante considerably, to let rip and define what Blacklab are about. The combined talents of Jun Morino on production and Wayne Adams (Big Lad, Green Lung, Pet Brick, John, Cold In Berlin) on the mix have conspired to produce a towering beast of a record. A real step forward for the ‘Doom Witch Duo’. The drums have a humungous ‘Fugazi’ like welly, and the guitars are a boiling maelstrom of fuzz dense riffola and warped psychedelics, with added synth. Yuko’s throat shredding snarls are as mean as a pissed off Satan, and melodious, often within the same song. This is doom meets hardcore punk, hooky melodies, and killer riffs, all cranked up to the max. Japan has always had a special take on ‘noise’ and ‘heavy’ and with ‘In A Bizarre Dream’ Blacklab add their own spin to that tradition. Gone is the lo-fi approach, here is Blacklab in full effect. ‘Cold Rain’ and ‘Abyss Woods’ (debuted at their storming set at London’s Desert Fest and appearing here in its full version) are two nuggets of epic fuzz heavy doom with added screamo and a neat and canny grasp of melody at its core. Very much a Blacklab trademark. ‘Dark Clouds’ is D-beat fuelled hardcore, fierce and ferocious, with Chia’s rolling thunder drumming underpinning the distorted guitar. It’s pretty exhilarating stuff that shifts the mood perfectly. ‘Evil I’ is just that, a riff as evil as it gets, morphing into a chugging punk wig out. Then followed by ‘Evil II’ a breather, almost mellow, melancholy, with layers of dark overdrive threatening to explode beneath a sweet yet menacing vocal. Then, the mid-point of the album drops a real surprise. Yuko has said before that the band’s name is a combination of her two favourite bands, Black Sabbath and Stereolab. Odd bedfellows to be sure, but if you want to know what that combination might sound like ... here it is. ‘Crows, Sparrows and Cats’ actually features Laetitia Sadier of Stereolab, no less, providing the lead vocal, adding a layer of cool over Blacklab’s Hawkwind meets krautrock sludge. It’s a stoner groove with pop at its heart ...Sludge Pop even, a surprising gem amongst the maelstrom of sound around it. The skewed, sludgecore of ‘Lost’ with its push-pull riffs and rolling thunder drumming, signals that it’s back to business as usual. And after the brief atmospheric instrumental interlude that gives the album its title, comes ‘Monochrome Rainbow’ a huge beast of a track so simple, yet so seductive, from its filtered bass intro to its massive ebb and flow groove and stomping ending. The vocals are all mystery and melody, and the music is kind of a Groundhogs meets Goatsnake ten-ton fuzz-fest, with a singalong, wave your arms in the air chorus. The new Japanese Doom-blues, and what could be the album’s defining moment. ‘In A Bizarre Dream’ closes with ‘Collapse’ verging on noise rock, complete with throat shredding vocals and a crushing wall of guitars, that switch from a stoner groove to full on punk assault, teetering on mayhem before finally ending with the sound of Yuko switching off her fuzz pedal. Perfect. Blacklab have negotiated that ‘difficult’ third album with aplomb and have created a sound that, despite their many influences, is all their own.

A previously unreleased project of Henning Christiansen, monumental in scope, traversing years, countries and now, formats. The Henning Christiansen Archive is proud to finally present one of the crown jewels of the archive, the masterpiece ‘Penthesilea’ as a 2LP and 5CD set. Both limited to 300 copies. Pentheseila is one of the most ambitious works in the entire Henning Christiansen oeuvre. A large-scale work from the mid eighties based on the play of the same name by Heinrich von Kleist (1808). Both Henning and his widow, Ursula Reuter Christiansen, were enthusiastic about Kleist’s text, both making works around the themes within this portent text. Henning Christiansen first developed a work around this text for the Rosenfest festival performed in Berlin in 1984. Rosenfest was curated by René Block and featured a variety of composers presenting works in response to Kleist’s work including Robert Ashley, “Blue” Gene Tyranny etc. Henning formulated a composition utilising tape, field recordings, voice, soprano, and violoncello alongside the home made instruments of Werner Durand. The live presentation was then expanded upon and first performed two years later at Teatro Olímpico, Rome on the 8th November 1986 as directed by Carlo Quartucci. The two releases presented here include a 2 x vinyl LP of the Rosenfest recordings in 1984 and a 5CD set sharing the four and a half hour backing track prepared for the Teatro Olímpico performance in Rome in 1986. Together these two releases make up a substantial overview of one of the most significant works in the entire Christiansen canon. THE REALITY IS A GHOST IN MY MIND (LP1) is a work that unfolds patiently with a mix of field recordings; wind, bird song and the sound of snow being crushed underfoot all unite in a foreboding atmosphere. IN PENTHESILEAS HÖHLE (LP2) features electronic treatments to the original field recordings found on THE REALITY IS A GHOST IN MY MIND, a representation of psychological reorientation perhaps? A deep ground tone (or ROOT as Henning calls it) leads the listener through a variety of realistic and unrealistic environments. As Henning says in his essay reprinted on the back sleeve: “Then comes a section where the field recordings of the sea, the storm, birds, cars and other things, are built together so that the realism of these sounds become unreal. For example the cars drive into the sea and the birds are singing within the storm. When you hear footsteps in the show, it’s Kleist sneaking past Deutsche Schauspielhaus. When you hear a deep, human sleeping noise, it’s Achilles sleeping. When you hear hammering it’s the weapon smith working. When you hear a stone being thrown it means the unanswered question: “Who threw the first stone?” These recordings lead to the finale where Carla Tatò’s haunted vocals into her singing mournfully along with Jan Tilman Schade’s violoncello and tuba, then a chainsaw appears. Presented in a deluxe di-cut sleeve with writings by Ursula Reuter Christiansen and Henning Christiansen and adorned with an artwork, Penthesilea by Ursula Reuter Christiansen, 1983.

Very limited vinyl pressing, 500 copies in a full colour single outer sleeve and full colour printed lyric inner sleeve, housing black and white smoke effect vinyl. Two albums in and London’s Grave Lines, purveyors of ‘heavy gloom’ have already carved a unique niche in the myriad spheres of heavy music. Their first album ‘Welcome To Nothing’ set the tone for their distinct take on doom metal, which was broadened even further with album two ‘Fed Into The Nihilist Engine’. An epic feast of hard ‘n’ heavy riffs coupled with brooding sadness interspersed with thoughtful transcendent moments of introspection. Never a band to rely solely on trotting out those ‘doom metal’ tropes, the band began to weave in gothic and experimental elements into their music, to delve deeper into the dark shadows of the psyche. Now with their third album ‘Communion’ Grave Lines continue their exploration into the ugliness of the human condition, at the same time becoming a band that truly defies any pigeonhole. Continuing to hone and evolve their collective vision and aided by the masterful production of Andy Hawkins at The Nave Studios, 'Communion' sees Grave Lines creep further into the various corners of their sound. In a nutshell ‘Communion’ is a violent descent of bile-soaked intensity spiralling between filth laden swagger, and fragile mournful lament. The album delves into the internal aloneness of existence and the failings of the human connection. Owing as much to Bauhaus and Killing Joke as it does to Black Sabbath or Neurosis, there are moments of gut wrenching doomed up heaviness and bellowing noise rock, contrasting with ambient gothic passages and a thoughtful melancholy, to a create a powerful new chapter in their ceaseless journey through the gloom. The seven tracks act as distinctly separate representations of the album, each individually mirroring the remoteness of human consciousness. Opening track 'Gordian' doesn't waste any time, a burst of feedback kicks you straight into a filthy low slung punked up stomp before the band switch mood to drop off into a doom abyss, singer Jake raging at the void. 'Argyraphaga' continues the pummelling groove, gradually descending into nihilistic sludge. In direct contrast the sprawling atmosphere of 'Lyceanid' travels through the darkness. Jake’s vocals harnessing the spirits of Scott Walker and Mark Lanegan in equal measure. The rest of the band (on top form throughout) focus the dynamics over eleven enthralling minutes, as the song builds and builds to a towering crescendo before finishing with a plaintive acoustic coda. This is pure Grave Lines’. An immersive blend of darkness and light. 'Tachinid' is a violent palette cleanser, harsh industrial synths astride a hateful droning spoken word sermon. 'Carcini' is soaring melancholic doom, with the band at their most melodic whilst still able to crush the listener. Broodsac, with its circular riffs, is all gothic post punk noise rock meets fuzz fat riffs, and album closer ‘Sinensis’ offers a final delicate, melancholy moment of calm before launching into an industrial charged grind into oblivion. Grave Lines’ fusion of elements makes them one of the most powerful and mesmerising bands inhabiting the heavy music world at the moment, and with ‘Communion’ they have crafted an album that encapsulates their distinctive dynamic perfectly. ‘COMMUNION’ will be released in deluxe black and white smoke effect vinyl, housed in a full colour single sleeve with download included, CD and all digital platforms

We like what Trouble have done with this album, “Plastic Green Head”. The music sounds fairly dissimilar to the completely doom-laden, crushing riffs present on the earlier material, but what Trouble do here sounds every bit authentic. Not to mislead you, this definitely still sounds like Trouble, but they seem to have adopted a more laidback, stoner metal approach; sacrificing sinister atmospheres for more upbeat ones. The first few tracks are completely awesome offerings of vintage Trouble. The playful, thrashy riff of the title track, which opens the album, is a great introduction to the music at hand and Eric Wagner’s distinctive vocals sound powerful overtop. “Plastic Green Head,” “The Eye,” “Flowers,” these are all what you would expect from Trouble, huge churning riffs, 80 bpm drumbeats, Eric Wagners nasal yet powerful voice. They are simple, they are catchy, and they are just plain good. “The Porpoise Song” is a cover of a song by The Monkees, and strangely enough it’s very good. Big wall of guitar noise, and Eric singing in a less nasal and more melodic voice. “Opium Eater” sounds like it could easily be an Alice in Chains song. On this album there is silly plenty of Sabbath worship, but also more of an upbeat, hard rock feel. We would even say that a little grunge has crept into their sound (to be fair, it’s probably the other way around, Trouble influence crept into grunge.) If you’re looking for a nice dose of stoner metal, you’ll find just that right here. There’s plenty of memorable riffs which provide good replay value, and although you won’t find as much doom as you might expect from Trouble, it’s still there if you look for it.