quête:defiant

The Guardian wrote “the Canadian songwriter has one of the all-time great singing voices in popular music, an intensely romantic Chet Baker-ish instrument that seems to float with piercing direction, like a paper aeroplane thrown hard through mist.” With Uncut describing his songcraft “as delicate and lovely as a rare orchid” and Record Collector praising the album’s “sublime alien balladry” such are the accolades that have accrued throughout Chenaux’s unique and consummately uncompromising solo music for well over a decade now. Delights Of My Life opens a new chapter for the singer/guitarist and formally introduces the Eric Chenaux Trio, with Toronto-based musicians Ryan Driver on Wurlitzer organ and Phillipe Melanson on electronic percussion. Driver is a longtime collaborator, appearing on several of Chenaux’s solo albums (even embedded into the very title of the 2010 masterpiece Warm Weather With Ryan Driver). Melanson has a long list of involvements that include Bernice, Joseph Shabason, and U.S Girls, and a recent release with his Impossible Burger project on Chenaux’s own experimental label Rat-drifting, but this marks the first fulsome involvement between the two as players on a recording. In many ways Delights Of My Life also picks up right where Chenaux’s previous album left off, in its subversions of a classic, timeless jazz-inflected balladry, while the interplay of the trio formation indeed unfurls many new delights. Recording together at Chenaux’s spartan home studio in rural France, Driver’s harmonically warped organ and Melanson’s electroacoustic sampling and percussion hold time in newfound ways. Where previously Chenaux relied on a freeze/sustain pedal and minimalist rhythmic triggers to generate both pulse and chordal foundations, Melanson now paints timekeeping with expressive and intricate colourations, through live deployments of fluid sampled percussion (including orchestral timbres like timpani, kettle drums, and woodblock) that blur the boundaries between acoustic and electronic. Driver also ramps up his role in the song arrangements (prefigured in his support playing on Say Laura), teasing out chords and melodic filigree on Wurlitzer that percolate more prominently with Chenaux’s signature fried guitar solos and succulent singing. Both trio members add dulcet backing vocals, most notably on the 10-minute tour-de-force of fuzzed and ring-modulated swing “This Ain’t Life” that opens the record. All seven songs on the album groove and sway, simmer and sparkle, like nothing in the inestimable Chenaux discography to date. Chenaux’s tunes have the uncanny ability to sound like jazz standards; songs you feel you’ve heard before, though certainly never quite like this. Yet these are of course all originals, compositionally and interpretively, bent through an inimitable avant/out-music lens. Delights Of My Life conveys warm familiarity, shot through with the exuberantly experimental subversion and playful, even mischievous, iconoclasm that continues to mark Chenaux as defiantly, virtuosically, and genially one-of-kind

Trailblazing a new wave of House hero, from the heart of Techno-dominated, Berlin - LOVEFOXY here delivers a dynamite 3 tracker for NYC's Nervous.

Opening up proceedings, with a defiant, smile-inducing, soliloquy - is ˙Sluthouse˙; a track that truly wears the artist's roots on its sleeve. With it being a pure celebration of heyday, US House music at its material core; whilst at the surface - a proud embrace of that inimitable Berlin attitude, atmosphere and desire to always be pushing things forward.

With its stripped back garb and distinct sense of purpose - ˙Freakfest˙ is pure club-born fire... its booming kicks, skating rides and racing hats delivering an invigorating sense of urgency that's hard to resist.

Summed up beautifully by her latest bio - LOVEFOXY's sound is often epitomised by its 'warm punch'; something that EP closer ˙Buisness First˙ showcases brilliantly. It's muted stabs, reverberating chords and hazy strings providing an almost palatial level of warmth; whilst the resonant bass, galloping kicks and incisive snares pack an almighty, sucker-punch.

Following the release of Eric Chenaux's last album Say Laura (2022), The Guardian wrote "the Canadian songwriter has one of the all-time great singing voices in popular music, an intensely romantic Chet Baker-ish instrument that seems to float with piercing direction, like a paper aeroplane thrown hard through mist." With Uncut describing his songcraft "as delicate and lovely as a rare orchid" and Record Collector praising the album's "sublime alien balladry" such are the accolades that have accrued throughout Chenaux's unique and consummately uncompromising solo music for well over a decade now. Delights Of My Life opens a new chapter for the singer/guitarist and formally introduces the Eric Chenaux Trio, with Toronto-based musicians Ryan Driver on Wurlitzer organ and Phillipe Melanson on electronic percussion. Driver is a longtime collaborator, appearing on several of Chenaux's solo albums (even embedded into the very title of the 2010 masterpiece Warm Weather With Ryan Driver). Melanson has a long list of involvements that include Bernice, Joseph Shabason, and U.S Girls, and a recent release with his Impossible Burger project on Chenaux's own experimental label Rat-drifting, but this marks the first fulsome involvement between the two as players on a recording. In many ways Delights Of My Life also picks up right where Chenaux's previous album left off, in its subversions of a classic, timeless jazz-inflected balladry, while the interplay of the trio formation indeed unfurls many new delights. Recording together at Chenaux's spartan home studio in rural France, Driver's harmonically warped organ and Melanson's electroacoustic sampling and percussion hold time in newfound ways. Where previously Chenaux relied on a freeze/sustain pedal and minimalist rhythmic triggers to generate both pulse and chordal foundations, Melanson now paints timekeeping with expressive and intricate colourations, through live deployments of fluid sampled percussion (including orchestral timbres like timpani, kettle drums, and woodblock) that blur the boundaries between acoustic and electronic. Driver also ramps up his role in the song arrangements (prefigured in his support playing on Say Laura), teasing out chords and melodic filigree on Wurlitzer that percolate more prominently with Chenaux's signature fried guitar solos and succulent singing. Both trio members add dulcet backing vocals, most notably on the 10-minute tour-de-force of fuzzed and ring-modulated swing "This Ain't Life" that opens the record. All seven songs on the album groove and sway, simmer and sparkle, like nothing in the inestimable Chenaux discography to date. Chenaux's tunes have the uncanny ability to sound like jazz standards; songs you feel you've heard before, though certainly never quite like this. Yet these are of course all originals, compositionally and interpretively, bent through an inimitable avant/out-music lens. Delights Of My Life conveys warm familiarity, shot through with the exuberantly experimental subversion and playful, even mischievous, iconoclasm that continues to mark Chenaux as defiantly, virtuosically, and genially one-of-kind.

COBRA THE IMPALER is now a well-oiled killing machine, ready to take on anything that comes on its path. Taking strong cues from the New Wave of American Heavy Metal, COBRA THE IMPALER forges together larger-than-life grooves and spirited guitar leads with enchanting clean vocal harmonies and razor-sharp screams. Effortlessly flowing from breakneck riffs to tasteful melodic breaks, the band makes strong use of stylistic elements from groove, thrash, and classic heavy metal. Like many legendary metal acts from the 90s, COBRA THE IMPALER marries brute force with meticulous attention to detail, amounting to an unstoppable advance and an enticing experience diverse in punishment. 'Karma Collision' is an exercise in empowerment as well as a show of subtle restraint. Defiant to the end, COBRA THE IMPALER deliver a blatantly guitar-powered album full of huge riffs and equally huge choruses that instantly nestle themselves in your mind. Proving themselves as masters of melody as well as destruction, COBRA THE IMPALER hits hard while forcing an inescapable headlock, delivering salvation to those who worship, but certain punishment for those who dare to stray. For fans of Mastodon, Gojira, Baroness, Megadeth

"After an acclaimed run of performances at the National Theatre in 2018, Hadestown returned to London in February 2024 for its long-awaited West End premiere at the Lyric Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue.

This Grammy award winning recording represents the Broadway show in its entirety. It features vocal performances by Reeve Carney (Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark); Tony nominees Eva Noblezada (Miss Saigon), Patrick Page (Spring Awakening), and Amber Gray (Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812); and Tony winner André De Shields (The Wiz).

Following two intertwining love stories - that of young dreamers Orpheus and Eurydice, and that of King Hades and his wife Persephone - Hadestown, the 8x Tony-winning musical (including Best Score and Best Musical) by celebrated singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell, invites audiences on a hell-raising journey to the underworld and back.

Mitchell's beguiling melodies and innovative director and Tony Award nominee Rachel Chavkin's poetic imagination pit industry against nature, doubt against faith, and fear against love.

Performed by a vibrant ensemble of actors, dancers, and singers, Hadestown delivers a deeply resonant and defiantly hopeful theatrical experience. This album was produced by Grammy® winner David Lai (the 2009 West Side Story Cast Album) alongside Todd Sickafoose and Anaïs Mitchell, who also collaborated on Mitchell’s celebrated modern folk album Young Man in America. This is a new 2LP version in standard packaging making it cheaper than previous deluxe versions. 2 x 140g discs in a gatefold sleeve"

Live recording of the final show of SANAM's debut European 2023 tour at London's home for experiemntal music, Cafe Oto.

Beirut's SANAM burst on the scene in 2023 with their debut album Aykathani Malakon, chosen by The Guardian as one of their 5-star albums from 2023: "Aykathani Malakon thoroughly embodies their originating influences, whipping up kosmische, post-punk, psych rock, free jazz and Levantine folklore into an alchemical tour de force delivered with a defiant, DIY disposition".

Under difficult conditions, the band took to the road for a European tour in November 2023 with the final show at Café Oto. From their incendiary European debut earlier that month at LeGuessWho then rapturous, sold out shows in Switzerland, Belgium, Germany and the UK, spirits for the Cafe Oto gig were high and it was destined to be a tour highlight. 'Live at Café Oto' captures the intensity of the shows, a ritual where improvised rock, free jazz and noise underscored an exorcism of traditional Egyptian song and Arabic poetry.

Drummer Pascal Semerdjian adds: "On this tour, I felt the album evolve from being a set of improvised tracks captured spontaneously, into ripe solid songs. Playing these shows back-to-back, our chemistry kept growing, we got closer, and our live sets, at least to me, were an embodiment of this evolution. In a way, this was the real birth of the band"

Vocalist Sandy Chamoun: "We started the tour with a great push at LeGuessWho, and we kept this energy throughout the whole tour. Every gig felt like I was playing the songs for the first time, providing a new and fresh experience for me. We finished the tour with an emotionally intense gig at Cafe Oto, a dream venue. The audience was incredible, as if we had known each other for a long time and the energy was intense and intimate at the same time; it felt like we were in a small circle of fire together, both us and the audience."

"There was definitely magic in the air for our show at cafe oto - an iconic, humble and warm venue and the last show of the tour – it felt like everything was in the right place. It was my favourite show by far, specially that we were also comfortably able to talk about Palestine, the atrocity we have to live with and can't ignore." Pascal Semerdjian

Ponyland are a psychedelic punk, force of nature, a multi-limbed monster of scuzzed-out riffs and thunderous ritualistic grooves. Combining the grinding onslaught of Lightning Bolt, the ecstatic spectacle of Sun Ra and the irreverent spirit of System of a Down, this unhinged, masked menagerie have to be seen to be believed. Intoxicating rhythms meet hook driven waves of riffage, with ecstatic energy that will make your legs rattle uncontrollably.

Following on from their debut album Mora Mora, this new full length LP HARE BRAINS sees Ponyland embrace a new edge to their visionary sound world. Keeping the trademark, pulverising double drum kit engine and fuzz-drenched psychedelic soundscapes, the band have supercharged their songwriting with focused riff-based hooks and driving punk-edged vigour. Prominent female vocals channel Bikini Kill and Warpaint, whilst gritty, melted electronics flow around a classic thrashing guitar sound. Hare Brains is a celebration of dysfunction, a call to arms against human apathy, a psychotropic odyssey of eroded power structures, post-apocalyptic landscapes and mutant pigeons.

The anarchic pagan ecology of Ponyland’s vision grabs the listener and catapults them into a visceral NOW, full of defiant life, movement, and human connection.

One of the longest-serving and most consistently intriguing artists within the fold of Phantasy, U returns to the label with another two-track trip of sonic mystery and erratic magic, ‘Parade/Watchers’.

Presented on limited-pressing 12” vinyl with a sleeve riso printed by U with London's Error Press.

With the texture and earthy promise of a psychedelic mulch, ‘Parade’ presents a glorious timelapse of acid-inflected minimalism. Unfolding defiantly at nearly fifteen minutes, U’s driving but subtle composition transports from guttural, electronic uncertainty to a wide-eyed denouement in one illusionary transition.

With inverse effect but no less power, ‘Watchers’ unexpectedly drops listeners into a rough wash of digital hardcore, spinning it’s initial warehouse chords into a collage of decay and regrowth, a nephilim-scaled journey and arguably U’s most ambitious production to date.

"Three albums in three years indicates a serious work ethic, for their new album Name Your Sorrow they stuck to a strict schedule. They showed up every day from 9-5, in a windowless Dublin room to just play, swap instruments and experiment. From there, they decamped to a rural retreat in County Clare along the Atlantic coastline of Ireland, to immerse themselves further.“ The palpable shift in sound and tone is possibly the result of working with a new producer, Collin Pastore from Nashville, who has produced boygenius, Lucy Dacus and Illuminati Hotties. UK tour in June. ""Pillow Queens make the kind of noise that tends to flourish live, roared back by the faithful: burnished heartland euphoria, defiant lyricism bolstered by ragged harmonies, lashings of pride, and an unabashed love of crescendos."" - Ptichfork
""A joyful, raucous celebration of queer love""’ – The Guardian"

When Bob Vylan won the first MOBO award for Best Alternative Music Act in 2022, the punk-grime duo took to the stage and used the platform to speak about how they managed to achieve the impossible as independent artists in a genre-defying space. “We released an album this year that we produced entirely, mixed entirely, recorded entirely, all from my bedroom…so everybody that’s here, bigging up Atlantic and bigging up Warner, fuck that, us man did it ourselves”.

It was an acceptance speech that rattled the room and built anticipation for their next projects.

Humble as the Sun, the forthcoming album from Bob Vylan continues with much of the rage and urgency that they have come to be known and loved for, but this latest project shows that they are now stronger and wiser, bolstered by the wins and learnings that they have fought hard for along the way. The resulting tracklist aims to leave the listener feeling power alongside their anger, and brings a fresh and compelling blend of punk, rock, grime and rap together in an experimental way.

Following on from the last album, Bob Vylan Presents the Price of Life, the message woven throughout Humble as the Sun remains dark in places but is high-energy, defiant and unapologetic in its critique of a broken social and political system that so many have fallen victim to, but feel powerless against.

This album is for the underdogs, the ones who come out swinging and those who refuse to be defeated in the face of injustice, and aims to remind listeners that anger is a fire that can be harnessed and put to use. The album creation started from a conversation with the sun, which is, after all, a big ball of fire that sustains life.

From masculinity to myths about the G Spot, the themes and topics explored on Humble As The Sun make for an often humorously empowering celebration of the peoples ability to endure, overcome and bring about change.

The lyricism on this album is even more layered than their previous projects, still darkly humorous, anti-establishment and unforgiving but at times pauses to deliver much-needed words of afrmation to listeners, “You are loved. You are not alone. You are going through hell but keep going.” Bobby assures the listener, ofering an antidote to the state of the world, aiming to give some power and agency to those who hear it. At a time when so little trust or faith exists between the people and the powers that be, Bob Vylan ofers out a hand in the despondent darkness that has overwhelmed so many in the shadow of a burning planet. They guides the listener to a place where they can see some light and feel empowered to do something, to fight back, to continue pushing forwards despite the challenges faced along the way.

Mixing all of the best quintessentially British - and Jamaican - musical elements from punk to drum and bass, grime and rock, Bob Vylan creates a sound that reflects the state of the nation, at once voicing the frustrations that normal people have, while also highlighting one’s ability to persevere, overcome hardship and to change.

Second studio album from this Doom metal supergroup! Steeped in purest old school metal and the dirtiest doom. Featuring members of Impaled Nazarene, Nifelheim, Electric Wizard and Mystifier.
Heavy metal has a long history and profound connection with devilry, deviance and the dark side. The ignominious return of Friends Of Hell can only strengthen that bond.Are you ready to feel the flames?


The long-awaited follow-up to Friends Of Hell’s demonically thrilling debut, God Damned You To Hell is a scorched earth campaign against all that is holy. Even more defiantly old school and obnoxious than its predecessor, its primitive barrage of horrified heaviness owes a ghoulish debt to the greats of heavy metal and doom, while summoning some abominable demons of its own.

Now joined by Hellbutcher (Nifelheim) on vocals and bassist Beelzeebubth (Mystifier), Friends Of Hell are ready to take this rotting world into even lower depths of hell than previously imagined

"Memories Of Love" is the fourth full length album by soul singer & songwriter Myles Sanko following the acclaimed "Born In Black & White" (2013), "Forever Dreaming" (2014) and "Just Being Me" (2016). In ten stylishly recorded and arranged new songs "Memories Of Love" Myles Sanko captures the uplifting spirit from his numerous outstanding stage performances on the European jazz festival & club circuit of the last few years and transforms them into a stunning collection of modern soul music.

"This album is my most personal album yet", says Myles Sanko. "Each song is a memory of love, a story of love, good or bad, happy or sad. Love is not always as we picture it in fairy tales but a work in progress for as long as we choose to love. Over the years I have written love songs and most of them have some reality in them but also a lot of fiction. Maybe this was because I wasn't truly ready to share that part of me in a way that I am defiantly more comfortable doing now. I'd say becoming a father has changed my outlook and made me a little more brave and accepting of myself". One of the main reasons for the positive balance in sound and spirit of "Memories Of Love" are the musicians. Myles Sanko recorded the album together with the same band he was touring with over the last eight years. He produced it himself and co-wrote most music with long time bandmate Tom O'Grady (Resolution 88).

Reissue! Poets of Rhythm founding members first crucial piece of the funk spectrum recorded as The Whitefield Brothers. A wear-your heart-on-your-sleeve, hypnotic, defiantly psychedelic funk album that is as modern as it is grounded in the great musical traditions from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Featuring members of the Dap Kings, El Michels Affair and Poets of Rhythm. “The Whitefield Brothers In The Raw remains as potent in 2022 as the day it dropped twenty years ago. Originally released in 2002, and later reissued via Now-Again, the LP’s panglobal brew of ragged psychedelic funk dripped different, defying easy markers of genre, era, and locality...live breakbeat drums and tribal chants...anchor the set’s twelve tracks. Hypnotic and humid, come for the polyrhythms, stay for the swirling dub adjacent blasts of trumpet.” - Aquarium Drunkard

Miles Davis' A Tribute to Jack Johnson is the best jazz-rock record ever made. Equally inspired by the leader's desire to assemble the "greatest rock and roll band you have ever heard,” his adoration of Johnson, and Black Power politics, Davis created a hard-hitting set that surges with excitement, intensity, majesty, and power. Bridging the electric fusion he'd pursued on earlier efforts with a funkier, dirtier rhythmic approach, Davis zeroes in on concepts of spontaneity, freedom, and identity seldom achieved in the studio — and just as infrequently accepted by the mainstream.

Sourced from the original analog master tapes, pressed on MoFi SuperVinyl, and housed in a Stoughton jacket, Mobile Fidelity's 180g LP reissue brings it all to fore with startling realism. Benefitting from SuperVinyl’s nearly inaudible noise floor, superb groove definition, and clean, ultra-quiet surfaces, this 180g LP showcases everything — from the bold tonality of the headliner's white-hot trumpet solos to the decay of crashing cymbals, carry of wiry guitar notes, and echoes of the studio — in reference fashion.

Bristling with exuberance, Davis' high-register passages explode with authority and commanding presence. Around him, a barrage of urgent backbeats, knifing riffs, and supple bass lines emerge amidst black backgrounds. One of the most prominent differences long-time fans will notice is how much more aggressive, immediate, and vibrant the music sounds, with those aspects central to the composer's original desires.

Utilizing wah-wah and distortion, the go-to instrumentalist of the performances— guitarist John McLaughlin — attacks with a nasty edge, slashing style, and vicious streak that allows A Tribute to Jack Johnson< cross the until-then-impenetrable divide between rock and jazz. Davis puts both feet in the former camp and erases any gap. The stories of the record’s creation are nearly as legendary as the sounds within: Two sessions, multiple jams, different sets of musicians (several uncredited), and near-miraculous production perfectionism that made it all appear cohesive.

The least-well-known masterpiece of Davis' career, the 1971 record — seamlessly assembled and spliced together by producer Teo Macero — was a victim of limited record-label promotion. Audiences also didn’t immediately know what to make of its original cover art — faithfully replicated here. In addition, the powers that be at Columbia Records were directing the public’s attention to Miles at Fillmore, a completely different kind of album guided by two keyboardists. A Tribute to Jack Johnson practically lives in a different universe, one from the future. To many listeners who did manage to hear it — among them critic/musician Robert Quine, Stooges leader Iggy Pop, and renowned critic Robert Christgau — it surpassed everything that came before.

Indeed, Davis treated it as a personal manifesto: An opportunity to salute the Black championship boxer admired for his threatening image to the establishment and impeccable taste in clothes, cars, women and music. Davis explains in the liner notes his affinity for Johnson — a stance mirrored by the defiant music, which hits with a prize fighter's force and reflects the graceful elegance with which a pugilist navigates the ring — and closes the album with a Johnson quote read by Brock Peters.

Inspired not only by Johnson but by Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone, Davis changed his approach and his band. He surrounds himself with a cadre of musicians in their 20s and, in the case of bassist Michael Henderson, a 19-year-old fresh from touring with Stevie Wonder. Henderson gives Davis what he requested: boogie-based grooves that don’t lose shape or direction. Soprano saxophonist Steve Grossman, drummer Billy Cobham, and organist Herbie Hancock adhere to a similar aesthetic that prizes brazenness, innovation, and energy.

In that vein, during a portion of “Yesternow,” Davis segues into a separate performance (which became known in its entirety as “Willie Nelson”) played by guitarists McLaughlin and Sonny Sharrock, bass clarinetist Bernie Maupin, keyboardist Chick Corea, bassist Dave Holland, and drummer Jack DeJohnette. Dig it!

Talking with jazz scholar Bill Milkowski — who himself noted how McLaughlin’s unrestrained style, decibel-forward volumes, and rapid-fire power chords engendered himself to the rock crowd at the same time that his harmonics and syncopation still definitely made him a jazz player — guitarist Henry Kaiser summed up part of the appeal of A Tribute to Jack Johnson as well as anyone, saying: “It’s a jazz record that way way more open than other jazz records at the time, but still not free jazz. McLaughlin’s rhythm guitar playing on ‘Right Off’ — the use of different chords in a rock shuffle than what anybody had used before — was revolutionary.”

And to think that’s just one aspect of a record that contains multitudes. “Never let them forget it.” Indeed.

Back in print on vinyl! Deerhoof debuts their new guitarist John Dieterich and achieves widespread critical acclaim for the first time. 2002's Reveille is a defiant expression of artistic rebirth, spilling over with madcap exuberance, apocalyptic imagery, newfound technical confidence belying their no-budget DIY recording methods, and jarring stylistic about-faces in which no two songs sound alike. The contrast of Satomi's ever-catchy, ever-charming melodiousness with John and Greg's noisy, cinematic bombast still has the power to thrill and tickle and upset, more than 20 years after its initial release. Includes reimagined cover art with the faint morning glow the band had always envisioned, pressed on clear sun-colored vinyl. Complete lyrics included for the first time, written by Satomi on the center labels.

Recommended If You Like: OOIOO, Blonde Redhead, Guerilla Toss, Rolling Stones, Liars, Marnie Stern, Yoko Ono, Battles. Clear Sun Vinyl. Reissue of Deerhoof’s 2002 album Reveille. First Deerhoof album with guitarist John Dieterich. Back in print on vinyl! Deerhoof debuts their new guitarist John Dieterich and achieves widespread critical acclaim for the first time. 2002’s Reveille is a defiant expression of artistic rebirth, spilling over with madcap exuberance, apocalyptic imagery, newfound technical confidence belying their no-budget DIY recording methods, and jarring stylistic about-faces in which no two songs sound alike. The contrast of Satomi’s ever-catchy, ever-charming melodiousness with John and Greg’s noisy, cinematic bombast still has the power to thrill and tickle and upset, more than 20 years after its initial release. Includes reimagined cover art with the faint morning glow the band had always envisioned, pressed on clear sun-colored vinyl. Complete lyrics included for the first time, written by Satomi on the center labels.

Burn Out - the latest release from Mini Trees - is a defiantly euphoric EP with the sonic and emotional bandwidth of a full-length record packed neatly into five new songs from Los Angeles-based songwriter Lexi Vega. Inspired by a relentless touring schedule that followed the release of her 2021 debut album Always In Motion, the songs of Burn Out confront questions of identity, exhaustion, and how to navigate creating art in an industry fixated on commodifying it.
A month away from music sparked Vega’s creativity and inspired her to return with long-time friend and producer Jon Joseph. Together they determined to push the limits of Mini Trees’ “bedroom pop” description, opening the door to a number of new

collaborators - keys from Zac Rae (Death Cab for Cutie, Lana Del Rey), arrangements from James McAllister (Sufjan Stevens, Taylor Swift), and even bass from longtime family friend Jimmy Johnson (James Taylor, Phil Collins). These songs shimmer in production, even as they’re saturated with the pervasive sense of fractured identity, disillusionment, and otherness that has shaped much of Vega’s sense of self. The overwhelming weight of these disparate identities is reflected in the EP’s cover art - a bed cluttered with clothes she’s chosen not to wear, familial heirlooms and mementos strewn at her feet.

Acclaimed Japan “minyo footwork” duo WaqWaq Kingdom - aka Shigeru Ishihara (DJ Scotch Egg / Seefeel) and Kiki Hitomi (ex-King Midas Sound) - return with feverishly joyous new album Hot Pot Totto, a bubbling hot pot of dance music that responds to ecological anxiety.

“Two words are conjoined: hot pot and ottotto,” vocalist Kiki Hitomi tells us. “Ottotto is the Japanese equivalent of “oops”, or said when someone nearly falls over but manages to get their balance back: “it was dangerous but now we are safe!” Combined with the heady brew of their musical styles (“like a psychedelic Nabe hot pot: melting traditional Japanese Minyo with Jamaican dancehall, footwork, dub, techno, tribal polyrhythms and Super Nintendo soundtracks”), producer Shige Ishihara’s time in East Africa working with local musicians, and the dayglo hallucinogen of the duo’s visual aesthetic, WaqWaq Kingdom’s thumping, thrilling, irresistible third release is a unique ride.



Thematically - despite its ostensibly celebratory impact - Hot Pot Totto addresses the world’s grave ecological state. “Now our earth is on the way to catastrophe, as global warming becomes a serious problem through humanity’s fault. We are on the edge,” Hitomi writes. “We need to get back on the right track.” The ottotto of the album title refers to this experience - the need to get back on track. However, this is not lamenting music: it is fiercely defiant, full of colour and rapture, maintaining an optimism that we can.



Opening single “Hakke Yoi” ties treated voice, a floor-shaking beat, and a dizzying, transforming colour palette to a heart-quickening BPM. The track is named after the traditional cry of a sumo wrestling match, shouted by the referee to maintain tempo, commonly translated as “put some spirit into it!” The lyrics refer to humanity’s sacrifice of our planet for our own material gains. Later, key track “Buri Buri” features Ugandan experimental dance producer Catu Diosis and centres around the lyric “Turn disaster to our advantage / good fortune and happiness will come to those who smile,” offering not regret but encouragement and empowerment with its neon alien sonics and relentless vibrancy.



Kiki Hitomi was formerly a member of Ninja Tune / Hyperdub’s King Midas Sound (along with The Bug and Roger Robinson), and co-founded iconic Japanese dubstep-noise duo Dokkebi Q. She is also a celebrated illustrator and designer, having created artwork for countless record sleeves (including this one) and brands. Shigeru Ishihara - aka DJ Scotch Egg - has been orbiting the dance music galaxy for over a decade, releasing radiantly unpredictable solo records through Lightning Bolt’s Load Records, as a member of Warp Records’ legendary Seefeel, and performing with both projects across the world. He recently undertook a residency at the Nyege Nyege Villa in Uganda, working with Phantom Limb alumnus MC Yallah. More recently, Ishihara has been releasing music under the guise of Scotch Rolex, collaborating with the likes of Shackleton, Swordman Kitala, Lord Spikeheart and more.



Hot Pot Totto is WaqWaq Kingdom’s third release for Phantom Limb, following the rapturously received album Essaka Hoisa in 2019 and follow-up EP Dokkoisho in 2020. The band recently performed at the label’s sold out 5th anniversary event in London, setting an ecstatic venue alight with energy.








f B1 Buri Buri feat. Catu Diosis

The brand new EP "Wellental" by Extrawelt on Traum is herewith reveled to the fans. Their new 3 track vinyl 12" gives a nod to the mayhem and urgency of techno all finely tuned. Straightforward in its brilliance and simplicity, yet carefully measured with a maturity that speaks the language of Extrawelt´s minimalism.

We attest: a unique techno track for the dance-floor on the a side, a trippy track on b1 and a very musical one as B2.

What happens within these 3 tracks is nothing short of alchemy, traversing all sorts of grounds without ever losing the plot. It’s due to the duo’s keen grasp of sound design—they always exchange ideas, on an expansive set of hardware, so no matter what tunnel they’re traveling down head-first, the sounds are always pristine, filled with unexpected details.

The EP opens with the title track "Wellental" which translates as "wave trough". Wave trough valley refers in particular to the points of maximum negative deflection in a traveling wave. In contrast, the points of maximum positive deflection are called wave crests. Musically this converts in a way that, although the title track "Wellental" has a lot of forceful steady forward motion and zig zag sequences cutting into it, it also has that "hanging time" feeling that adds unpredictability and tension to the track. You can defiantly sense that Detroit theme in a post Detroit interpretation here.

The flip-side starts with "Unter Wasser" which is illustrated by urgent uptempo beats that can push it on the dance floor and dreamy, surreal soundscapes on the other hand that account for that great under water feel. The track sounds a bit like the "Deep End" film soundtrack from CAN in that respect.

The B2 track is called "Samtstrand" and there is a reason for this since the track is very gentle and brushes over a surface with velvet hands but in contrast to that, the Extrawelt beats are kicking out the jams here! So this song has a twin drive going!

"He’ll always be a man of his people, but Jamie Webster’s message has cut through hearts all over the land since the folk troubadour’s debut album ‘We Get By’ in 2020. The songwriting may have evolved from those defiant early days on the acoustic guitar, but the hard-hitting storytelling that made his name remains as he continues to give a voice to the masses through towering anthems to hold close through uncertain times.
Though born from frustration and adversity, Webster's music has always managed to encapsulate a sense of unity and togetherness through tough times. Take the breakthrough single ‘Weekend In Paradise’ which distills a living for the weekend ideology of the working classes. An anthem just about everyone working nine to five can relate to, the flagship single speaks volumes of the journey so far as it surpasses 20 million streams on Spotify alone. His second album ‘Moments’ charted in the Official UK Album Chart #3, Indie Chart #2, Official Vinyl Chart #2, Scottish Album Chart #2. The scale of public support for the songs of singular, life-as-he-sees-it-singing, aspirational indie voice of Jamie Webster looks set to reach new heights as he announces the release of his third album, 10 For The People, on Fri 2 February 2024 with Modern Sky UK. While working confidently towards his third Top Ten album chart finish early next year, Webster’s Pied Piper-pull is set to draw a previously unimaginable 40,000 fans to one place as he also announces a HUGE outdoor headline show at Sefton Park, Liverpool on Fri 12 July 2024. "

"He’ll always be a man of his people, but Jamie Webster’s message has cut through hearts all over the land since the folk troubadour’s debut album ‘We Get By’ in 2020. The songwriting may have evolved from those defiant early days on the acoustic guitar, but the hard-hitting storytelling that made his name remains as he continues to give a voice to the masses through towering anthems to hold close through uncertain times.
Though born from frustration and adversity, Webster's music has always managed to encapsulate a sense of unity and togetherness through tough times. Take the breakthrough single ‘Weekend In Paradise’ which distills a living for the weekend ideology of the working classes. An anthem just about everyone working nine to five can relate to, the flagship single speaks volumes of the journey so far as it surpasses 20 million streams on Spotify alone. His second album ‘Moments’ charted in the Official UK Album Chart #3, Indie Chart #2, Official Vinyl Chart #2, Scottish Album Chart #2. The scale of public support for the songs of singular, life-as-he-sees-it-singing, aspirational indie voice of Jamie Webster looks set to reach new heights as he announces the release of his third album, 10 For The People, on Fri 2 February 2024 with Modern Sky UK. While working confidently towards his third Top Ten album chart finish early next year, Webster’s Pied Piper-pull is set to draw a previously unimaginable 40,000 fans to one place as he also announces a HUGE outdoor headline show at Sefton Park, Liverpool on Fri 12 July 2024. "

What I can say about TORRES is I think the music comes from a convicted place. Not convicted meaning a person is narrowly and foolishly committed to an ideal, or unshakably convinced of themselves, or a zealot, or stubborn. I mean dedicated, I mean: If TORRES' music gets weird, gets brainy, gets funny, gets defiant, provokes, deliberately scandalizes, employs the crass to undermine the austere, courts lofty philosophical truth-it's all done with the conviction of an artist with the (essential) belief in the worth of their task. I think you can hear it in the songs, someone reaching, leaning over the boundary between known and not, probing the almighty. After a decade and six studio albums and however many one-offs and tours and articles read and conversations had, the parts of this pursuit I've been able to observe are all marked by a dedication to creation that treats the act-ongoing-with as much preciousness as the evidence of the act that is left in a record. The modes of being are different: heartbroken, broke, furious (right- and unrighteously), awestruck by love, compelled by desire. sometimes resigned to death, sometimes fascinated by and reverent of the future. Sometimes viscerally present, other times suspended in heady awareness, poised on a fulcrum of observation and participation in the phenomenon that aliveness is. The tools are the same: instruments that growl and shriek and moan, a lyrical voice shouting, swooning, chuckling, snarling as the moment commands. TORRES' music-making is conducted in a melodic vocabulary unique to itself-methods, equipment, circumstances shifting around the impulse to affirm the self within the world, to make art that bears all these little artifacts of the divine and of the real and show it to people and know it is valuable. I think that's what Mackenzie's music does. And I think it's just incredibly good music to listen to. -Julien Baker TORRES is the pseudonym of Mackenzie Scott. She was born January 23, 1991, and lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her wife Jenna, stepson Silas, and puppy Sylvia. She has been releasing albums and performing as TORRES since 2013. What an enormous room is TORRES' sixth studio album (her third with Merge). It was recorded in September and October 2022 at Stadium Heights Sound in Durham, North Carolina. It was engineered by Ryan Pickett, produced by Mackenzie Scott and Sarah Jaffe, mixed by TJ Allen in Bristol, UK, and mastered by Heba Kadry in NYC. The album contains 10 songs. Mackenzie wrote all of them. Sarah played bass guitar, synths, drums, organ, and piano. Mackenzie sang vocals, played guitar, bass, synths, organ, piano, and programmed drums. Additional synth bass, tambourine, and shakers were played by TJ Allen.

What I can say about TORRES is I think the music comes from a convicted place. Not convicted meaning a person is narrowly and foolishly committed to an ideal, or unshakably convinced of themselves, or a zealot, or stubborn. I mean dedicated, I mean: If TORRES' music gets weird, gets brainy, gets funny, gets defiant, provokes, deliberately scandalizes, employs the crass to undermine the austere, courts lofty philosophical truth-it's all done with the conviction of an artist with the (essential) belief in the worth of their task. I think you can hear it in the songs, someone reaching, leaning over the boundary between known and not, probing the almighty. After a decade and six studio albums and however many one-offs and tours and articles read and conversations had, the parts of this pursuit I've been able to observe are all marked by a dedication to creation that treats the act-ongoing-with as much preciousness as the evidence of the act that is left in a record. The modes of being are different: heartbroken, broke, furious (right- and unrighteously), awestruck by love, compelled by desire. sometimes resigned to death, sometimes fascinated by and reverent of the future. Sometimes viscerally present, other times suspended in heady awareness, poised on a fulcrum of observation and participation in the phenomenon that aliveness is. The tools are the same: instruments that growl and shriek and moan, a lyrical voice shouting, swooning, chuckling, snarling as the moment commands. TORRES' music-making is conducted in a melodic vocabulary unique to itself-methods, equipment, circumstances shifting around the impulse to affirm the self within the world, to make art that bears all these little artifacts of the divine and of the real and show it to people and know it is valuable. I think that's what Mackenzie's music does. And I think it's just incredibly good music to listen to. -Julien Baker TORRES is the pseudonym of Mackenzie Scott. She was born January 23, 1991, and lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her wife Jenna, stepson Silas, and puppy Sylvia. She has been releasing albums and performing as TORRES since 2013. What an enormous room is TORRES' sixth studio album (her third with Merge). It was recorded in September and October 2022 at Stadium Heights Sound in Durham, North Carolina. It was engineered by Ryan Pickett, produced by Mackenzie Scott and Sarah Jaffe, mixed by TJ Allen in Bristol, UK, and mastered by Heba Kadry in NYC. The album contains 10 songs. Mackenzie wrote all of them. Sarah played bass guitar, synths, drums, organ, and piano. Mackenzie sang vocals, played guitar, bass, synths, organ, piano, and programmed drums. Additional synth bass, tambourine, and shakers were played by TJ Allen.

Analogical Force is kicking off 2024 with a stellar "all things Electronix" album from well known producer Vertical67 (who also runs the Vortex Traks label)! It's hard not to have heard of Thomas Pahl in the electro underwater depths after multiple appearances over the course of more than a decade and under a ton of aliases. With the illuminating title of 'Changes', Thomas gets rid of corsets and presents an entrancing voyage into post-euphoria, displaying a radiant and emotive side which the artist's new discordant sound emerges. A defiant cry in the face of existential angst. Navigating between breaks, dreamy melodies and reflective landscapes 'Changes' could be defined as a deep introspective journey into the machines. Cop while u can.

Ever wondered what a Brian Wilson solo album
from 1969 would sound like?
Look no further. (No A.I. needed...)
Exquisitely arranged by ex-Animal Vic Briggs and
featuring several Wrecking Crew musicians who
also played on Pet Sounds, MARK ERIC’s A
Midsummer’s Day Dream is a unique blend of
Beach Boys/Four Freshmen sensibilities coupled
with wistful, lush surf psychedelia.
Defiantly soft, the 1969 LP captured the tail end
of L.A.’s pop innocence perfectly, just as it
slipped into infinity. First time on vinyl since its
original release.
Coming this summer! Our 2002 & 2009 CD reissues
of A Midsummer’s Day Dream caught the soft pop
collector’s world entirely off guard: Very few
were aware of the LP’s existence, and the
reaction was united: A masterpiece was
unleashed and a new generation of daydreamers
was born! The result was glowing reviews in MOJO
and UNCUT, a Japanese edition, as well as soaring
prices for the original long out-of-print vinyl
pressing. The full-colour gatefold jacket includes
EXCLUSIVE, rare photos, and UPDATED and
EXPANDED liner notes that feature the
participation of Mark Eric himself. Reissue
produced, annotated, and designed by STEVE
STANLEY.

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.

"Galt MacDermot (1928-2018) was an award-winning Canadian-American composer, pianist, writer of classical music and theatrical pieces. MacDermot also composed music for several film soundtracks (like the 1970 blaxploitation film `Cotton Comes To Harlem') and released several exceptional jazz and funk albums on his own label Kilmarnock Records. He is best known for his work on the Grammy winning 1967 musical Hair (which also produced several number-one singles like "Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In") and Two Gentlemen of Verona (1971) for which he won a Tony Award. In 2009 Galt MacDermot was inducted into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame and in 2010 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1979, MacDermot formed the New Pulse Jazz Band, which performed and recorded his original music. Galt MacDermot's music is extremely popular with collectors of jazz and funk. Working with jazz and soul musicians such as Bernard Purdie and Idris Muhammad, MacDermot created pieces that used African rhythms (he made the study of African music his speciality). In recent decades, his work has become popular with hip-hop musicians including Busta Rhymes, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Gang Starr, Action Bronson, Public Enemy, MF Doom, Madlib, J Dilla, Obie Trice, Naughty By Nature, Run DMC and Digable Planets_the list is endless. The album "Ghetto Suite" was written in 1970 and released in 1972 and is considered one of the most ground-breaking records ever issued on Galt MacDermot's Killmarnock label and consists out of a selection of songs and poems by Harlem/Bronx school children, set to Galt's music, and sung by vocalist Angela Ortega. Given That Galt's handling the music, you can bet that there's plenty of nicely executed funky touches - supported by rolling bass-work, snapping drums, and organ virtuosity. But the real charm of these groovy tunes comes from the lyrics, which have a simple and to the point way of dealing with issues of racism, poverty and other issues of the time. The story telling is surprisingly gripping even after all these years. The whole album creates an extremely personal direct sensitivity to the environment of Ghetto kids_telling us with defiantly honest intensity what it was like to be young and black, the drugs and the deaths, the topic of incarceration_or simply the fact of being battered by the frustration of Ghetto existence. Ghetto Suite is way more than an entertainment record, it has been used by teachers and counsellors to inspire and motivate the muted voices of the black inner cities_ documenting both their anguish and their triumphs. Tidal Waves Music now proudly presents the FIRST EVER vinyl reissue of this exceptional conceptual album (originally released in 1972 and a highly sought-after pricey collectable ever since) This unique record now comes as a deluxe 180g vinyl edition (strictly limited to 1000 copies) with obi strip and features the original artwork and extensive sleeve notes.

Brontez Purnell has been making music since the ‘90s. The Southern-raised, Oakland-based American musician and writer has centered his queerness and Blackness in projects Gravy Train!!! and Younger Lovers as well as in his award-winning books ‘100 Boyfriends’ and ‘Since I Laid My Burden Down’. He is also a dancer, film maker and choreographer.
CRYSTAL CLEAR VINYL.
Hot on the heels of recent 7” singles for Sub Pop, PPM and his first solo electronic record ‘No Jack Swing’ (Dark Entries / Papi Juice), Brontez returns in DIY-punk band formation for a new album entitled ‘Confirmed Bachelor’, out Sept 15th on Upset The Rhythm. These twelve songs presented are of the no-time-wasted variety. Fuzzed-out pop songs, hotly delivered from the heart, often sassy, sometimes sappy, always snappy! Brontez’s band includes the multifaceted talents of Vice Cooler (who also produced and mixed the album), Sean Teves (of Younger Lovers) on drums, Kevin Preston (Prima Donna, Green Day) on guitar, Aaron Minton (Prima Donna) on piano and saxophone, and Laena Myers-Ionita on violin. The album was recorded in Los Angeles at The VCR earlier this year.
‘Bachelors Theme’ opens ‘Confirmed Bachelor’ and sets the scene perfectly with the heady, rush along swoon “That's when I heard the doctor singing to me, "Son; you got all those boys in love, I wish I knew what you were saying to them. Their storming castles are coming for you!” It’s a tour de force of bop and bravado. This is what the album does so well, it sweeps you off your feet first, making its lyrical disclosures all the more affecting.
‘Rude Life’ begins in lilting, measured contemplation. “You're the rudest boy I know, and I've a real rude life” confesses Brontez as the violin laces through his vocal. This is all shook up at the halfway mark though when the adrenaline kicks in and the drums pummel. ‘Sky Opens Up’ similarly dials up the tumbling, careening clamour and energy buzz. ‘Hellish Banger’ is more of slow dance meets grunge reverie. The album also boasts an amazing spiraling auto-tuned cover of The Amps ‘Bragging Party’. ‘No Cigarettes / Stay Monkey’ is pulse-grabbing rally of unadorned declarations split into two fleeting sketches.
‘Hey Boy’ and ‘Boy With Butterfly Wings’ are more reflective in intent, both yearning and unapologetically poetic. In fact the little details observed in the lyrics across the whole album are quietly elegiac; winter nights, electric bills, ticking clocks and many allusions to hauntings only lending pathos to the love-drunk / lovelorn axis of the record. ‘Confirmed Bachelor’ is a hot wonder, upbeat, witty and ever-lively only with a forlorn core, a resolute focus and defiant honesty. It’s a rare triumph, a record you can dance your Friday night away to, whilst the songs’ subtly work on your emotions from the inside out.
of it all. Jagged riffs, bubblegum bounce and Brontez’s vocal effortlessly racing to dizzying effect.

Traversing the everyday in 2023, the need for ritual catharsis only grows stronger. The need to lose oneself in a force bigger than ourselves, and to venture into inner space the better to sculpt armour for the battles outside. Luckily this is the job of Bonnacons of Doom, aural soothsayers and progenitors of Trans Pennine hypnotic music. ‘Signs’ - their second album for Rocket Recordings - marks both a portent of things to come, and a roadmap of the psychic pathways to survival. This masked troupe, subsumed to mystery and amassed from across the North of England, have stepped up their mission accordingly. Building on the intimidating intensity of their self-titled 2018 debut, this series of fiercely charged mantras and premonitory transmissions is possessed of a new level of communal intensity. The band’s choice of weapons- the monomaniacal intensity of the riff, the liberating binary spirit of electronics and the incantatory vocals of ceremonial leader Kate Smith - here coalesce into a metaphysical force which stands defiant of easy categorisation. Within these otherworldly manifestations lurks solace in a place where the transcendent power of heavy amplification, cosmically aligned sonic explorations and strange forces darker and more unknowable can coalesce to cathartic and redeeming effect. ‘Signs’ marks out a supernatural landscape where ancient and modern, earthly and alien congregate in the eternal now, whilst Bonnacons Of Doom transcend era to light a path for the future

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.

Bell Curve's new EP Obelisk for Berlin's SSPB provides a daring evolution of her soundworld, channeling the bristling intensity of her previous work into a more expansive headspace. Alongside six mesmerising new tracks from Bell Curve, the EP features a remix from Hessle Audio rising star Toumba. Obelisk compiles Bell Curve's most compelling and enthralling work to date. Reveling in dazzling repetition and delicate sonic nuance, it is a cathartic and defiant statement in an industry that increasingly demands hollow immediacy and caters to short attention spans - an homage to struggles and affirmation of strength and self-belief, while equally offering euphoric escape for those willing to spend time inside its mystic whorl. Club sonics are here plucked from their original contexts and expanded outwards - icy rave stabs on "Staircase" ascending into the heavens or the astral breaks and springy bass of "Hope It Gets Better".

Subtle shifts in tone and texture guide the listener through the trip, reverb tails slowly extending into lysergic drift or rippling grain and feedback rising from pulsing bass tones. Jordanian producer Toumba amps up the tempo on his remix of "Staircase" while maintaining the original's emotional core, bolstering the track's dextrous rhythms with distinctive Levantine timbres. Obelisk captures a constant push and pull between emotional states - from anxiety and melancholy to joy and euphoria, working through turmoil to find transcendence.

Tracks like "Dance Skeleton Dance" particularly invoke this duality, drawing catharsis from darker sonics, reconfiguring bass pressure and anxious percussion into a humid dancehall stepper. "Without U" contains emotional struggle as part of the very circumstances of its making - written while working through heartbreak, its delicate repetitions and searching tone reflecting the process of reconnecting with oneself. Title track "Obelisk" forms the emotional core of the EP, coalescing from weightless vapors into dramatic synthesizer motifs, evoking euphoric memories of complete immersion on the dancefloor and our ability to find ecstatic experience even in the contemporary hellscape.

Very limited stock available on these. Picture Disc Vinyl Packaging: 2xLP zoetrope (animated) picture discs, 24x36 foldout poster in custom silkscreen PVC gatefold sleeve + download card. On their fifth album, Infinite Granite, Deafheaven are no longer toying with the juxtaposition of pitting metallic abrasion against swirling grandeur. Quite the opposite: Infinite Granite is a bold and brave leap forward, a gorgeous and invigorating album brimming with style and splendor. In the context of their catalog, it takes on a whole other layer of defiant beauty. Across Infinite Granite, vocalist George Clarke showcases a startling vocal range; falsettos, whispers, multi-part harmonies, and other adventurous vocal treatments, with his trademark black metal-inspired howls mostly absent. Guitarists Kerry McCoy and Shiv Mehra expand their sonic palette to include synth textures using them to enrich their astral guitar work rather than outright replace it. Drummer Daniel Tracy has always been a force to reckon with behind the kit, but where he used to floor audiences with his speed and stamina, he’s now free to broaden his approach and lay down authoritative drum patterns that together with bassist Christopher Johnson’s punchy bass lines anchor the band’s lofty arrangements. The refinement of their sound was further encouraged by producer Justin Meldal-Johnsen, who lent a pop ear to the record. Jack Shirley, who helped produce every previous Deafheaven album, remained on board to engineer the album along with additional engineering and mixing from nine-time Grammy Award winner Darrell Thorp. Ultimately, Infinite Granite is Deafheaven’s most goosebump-inducing album to date. Highlights: Follow up to 2018’s grammy nominated album Ordinary Corrupt Human Love and first full-length release with Sargent House. Deafheaven named ‘Artist of the Decade’ by Vice, along with albums featured in ‘Best of 2010s’ lists on Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Metacritic, AV Club and many more. Three previous albums Sunbather, New Bermuda and Ordinary Corrupt Human Love have received incredible praise from press and named ‘Best New Music’ by Pitchfork. Deafheaven have scanned over 160k albums and streamed over 30 million tracks in the US alone.

Fiddlehead's third album Death is Nothing to Us is a defiant, new chapter for the band. Since 2014, the Boston-based group have been honing their unique sound, bringing together the energy of hardcore, the anthemic melodies of `90s alternative, and the unbridled passion of Revolution Summer era emo. Their previous albums, 2018's Springtime and Blind and 2021's Between The Richness, dealt heavily with grief from different perspectives, and now their latest feels like a de facto culmination, drawing together many of the catalog's through-lines sonically and lyrically. The band again teamed with producer Chris Teti for their third record, and his punchy production captures Fiddlehead's live energy while showcasing the massive guitars and undeniable catchiness that makes their music so immensely satisfying. The album's concise 27 minutes sound like a natural extension of all of the band's strengths, but is glued together by vocalist Pat Flynn's singular tuneful roar. Flynn, since his time as the vocalist of Have Heart and now as Fiddlehead's frontman, has earned a reputation as one of hardcore's most thoughtful lyricists. He interweaves his ruminations on life, death, and all the joy and tragedy in between with references to Roman philosopher Lucretius; the author Jean Améry; other musicians like Bad Brains, Alex G, or Wire, and even references to the band's own back catalog. The humanity across Death Is Nothing To Us is palpable in every note. It's the kind of art that observes pain with real honesty rather than prescribing a solution for it-and in doing so, inadvertently offers some sense of hopefulness. The album finds Fiddlehead so deeply delving into the pain, confusion, nuances, and contradictions of sadness-so willingly wrapping their arms around a concept as existentially baffling as death itself-that they've created an album that is truly life-affirming. Death is Nothing to Us exemplifies so much of what makes Fiddlehead a special band: taking these heady, unanswerable questions and wrestling with them in a very earthbound way, all wrapped up in the urgent power of a three minute punk song.

Chain Of Flowers return with their lofty and long-simmering sophomore full-length, rich with reckonings, reverb, and redemption: Never Ending Space. Despite some of the songs dating back a few years, the record first began materialising in earnest during the pandemic, by which point most of the band had relocated from Cardiff to London.

Reunited and rejuvenated, they picked up where they left off, booking two multi-day sessions at Hackney hub Total Refreshment Centre with producer Jonah Falco. In this time they successfully channelled their kinetic chemistry into 10 full-blooded anthems of torn dreams, poetic delirium, and “hope stretched too far.” Musically, Never Ending Space skews notably more maximal than the group’s previous work, fleshed out with trumpets, saxophone, synth, percussion boxes, and spoken word. (Smith jokingly calls them The Chain Of Flowers Orchestra).

Yet the songs still swing and soar with a charged heart, ripe with hooks, drama and ragged melody. Opener “Fire (In The Heart Of Hearts)” stirs to life on a tide of wiry guitar and defiant horns, facing down the embers of love that still glow in the wake of pain: “Peace came tumbling like a shower of bricks / The mind twists slowly till everything fits.”

A tense energy ripples throughout – from the nocturnal rush of “Serving Purpose” and “Amphetamine Luck” to the bruised battle cries of “Torcalon” and “Old Human Material.” Outliers like “Praying Hands, Turtle Doves” hint at proggy possible futures, while instrumental vignette “Anomia” offers an intriguing glimpse at a lesser heard facet of the band: swaying, shadowy, subdued. The album’s title track is also its closing cut, a stomping, sparkling ode to “the wrong side of the night, where time goes to die.” Smith describes the scene: “Everyone’s talking, screaming, trauma bonding, but no one’s listening. Broken dialogue. Shouting over each other. You want to switch off, but everyone’s too fucked.” The guitars spiral and slide towards the oblivion of dawn, the chance to crash and do it all again.

Chain Of Flowers return with their lofty and long-simmering sophomore full-length, rich with reckonings, reverb, and redemption: Never Ending Space. Despite some of the songs dating back a few years, the record first began materialising in earnest during the pandemic, by which point most of the band had relocated from Cardiff to London.

Reunited and rejuvenated, they picked up where they left off, booking two multi-day sessions at Hackney hub Total Refreshment Centre with producer Jonah Falco. In this time they successfully channelled their kinetic chemistry into 10 full-blooded anthems of torn dreams, poetic delirium, and “hope stretched too far.” Musically, Never Ending Space skews notably more maximal than the group’s previous work, fleshed out with trumpets, saxophone, synth, percussion boxes, and spoken word. (Smith jokingly calls them The Chain Of Flowers Orchestra).

Yet the songs still swing and soar with a charged heart, ripe with hooks, drama and ragged melody. Opener “Fire (In The Heart Of Hearts)” stirs to life on a tide of wiry guitar and defiant horns, facing down the embers of love that still glow in the wake of pain: “Peace came tumbling like a shower of bricks / The mind twists slowly till everything fits.”

A tense energy ripples throughout – from the nocturnal rush of “Serving Purpose” and “Amphetamine Luck” to the bruised battle cries of “Torcalon” and “Old Human Material.” Outliers like “Praying Hands, Turtle Doves” hint at proggy possible futures, while instrumental vignette “Anomia” offers an intriguing glimpse at a lesser heard facet of the band: swaying, shadowy, subdued. The album’s title track is also its closing cut, a stomping, sparkling ode to “the wrong side of the night, where time goes to die.” Smith describes the scene: “Everyone’s talking, screaming, trauma bonding, but no one’s listening. Broken dialogue. Shouting over each other. You want to switch off, but everyone’s too fucked.” The guitars spiral and slide towards the oblivion of dawn, the chance to crash and do it all again.

Swami John Reis celebrates his 100th year in rock ’n’ roll with a brand new band and record! “Ride The Wild Night” is neither completely similar nor dissimilar to his previous bands (Hot Snakes, Night Marchers, The Sultans, Rocket From The Crypt, Drive Like Jehu, etc).

Yet the sound is immediately familiar and assuring (like an old friend you lost touch with that comes back into your life only to ask to borrow money).

The music is an amalgam of ’60s folk-punk, ’70s punk-punk and pre-Vietnam War rock ’n’ roll, filtered through the Reis’ unregistered, trademark sensibilities. “I wanted to celebrate some of my favorite rock n roll in its transitional periods. Flaming Groovies, Paul Revere and the Raiders, The Kinks, The Saints and others created some of the most exciting recordings while also connecting the musical past to its future. That really appeals to me”.

Although titled a “solo” record it is predominantly in name only. The record is built on stentorian bedrock of savage drumming by J. Sinclair K. of Hot Snakes and the pounding acoustic piano of Joe Guevara. Also adding their expertise to the mix is Chris Prescott (Pinback) Gar Wood (Hot Snakes), Glen Galloway (Truman’s Water), Jacob Turnbloom (Mrs. Magician) and Jordan Clark (PLOSIVS). With this backing, Swami John Reis finalizes it with his throaty basso and weaponizes the files with roaring electric guitars, rapid acoustic guitar strum and bass.

Hear his defiant, croak-howl in what might be his most autobiographical work yet. “All of these stories are real. They just might not be completely true.” Reis adds, ”The words come from what I overhear through my fence, what I see across the street, pictures I see in my head, experiences that I can’t forget or am grateful to remember.” If there is a loose theme throughout the record he offers, “Musically and lyrically there is a motivation to surrender to a restless and impulsive spirit that can only be satisfied by breaking things. Creating rubble for better or worse. “

Music critics and fans alike have long referred to Reis’s signature voice as “The Velvet Yawn” and never has that description been more apt. “Ride The Wild Night” was recorded by Reis at City Of Refuge (Night Marchers, Black Lips, The Spits) and mixed by Ben Moore (Hot Snakes, Diamanda Galas) at Singing Serpent.

If 2021’s “Sometimes I Might Be Introvert” catapulted Simz into the big leagues, crashing into the top 5 of the albums charts, collecting Mercury Music Prize, Mobo, Ivor Novello and Brit Award wins and earning her the biggest live audiences yet in the UK and Europe yet, “NO THANK YOU” is yet another delicious left field turn for 29-year old Simbiatu Ajikawo.

Sleek, succinct and utterly propulsive, it’s Simz’ defiantly punk rock, two fingered salute to conformity and fame, and all the expectations and restrictions that come with. Recorded with her regular collaborator Inflo, this is Simz at her most free, daring and spontaneous.

After the demise of Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Lydia Lunch launched her solo career with Queen Of Siam, arguably her greatest LP. In true No Wave style, the album is a mishmash of irritants, but her palette is far broader here, lurching from slow dirges, excessive feminist exhortations, and raucous personal purges to a touch of disco and lounge music exoticism, as conjured by Voidoids/Lou Reed guitarist Robert Quine, Contortions bassist Jack Ruby, and John Cale’s drummer, Douglas Browne. Spirited, surprisingly broad and defiantly dissonant, Queen Of Siam’s dense layers were designed to provoke and inflame; listen closely to fully decode.

A pivotal record for contemporary times; bright, free, adamant, optimistic. Brain Worms is RVG's fullest, most pristine album yet. All throughout Brain Worms, it's apparent that this is a band in very fine form. Album opener 'Common Ground' sets the tone for what's to come; a shiny, thrilling, punch of an album, with all the beloved RVG hallmarks. Vager's voice is unfiltered and commanding as ever when delivering her clever, not-quite-ironic lyrics. Here, though, those lyrics feel so much less resigned to yearning, and so much more defiant and joyous. 'Tambourine' is the only Covid song Vager wrote when "trying not to write Covid songs", and it's a painfully honest portrait of grieving mid-isolation. 'Brain Worms' tells the all-too-familiar story of a person falling down the internet rabbit hole and finding comfort in conspiracies. 'Nothing Really Changes' is a keys-heavy new wave-ish thing, while closer 'Tropic of Cancer' sparkles with Vager's self-assured new manifesto: I know what I'm like, and I know how I get. If you think I'm strange, you ain't seen nothin' yet. Bloxham, Nolte, and Wallace are flawlessly adept in bringing Vager's songwriting to life. Recorded in London at Snap Studios with James Trevascus (Nick Cave & Warren Ellis, PJ Harvey), all ten tracks surge with lush sounds and clear intentions and the magic of an acoustic guitar once owned by Kate Bush, given to her by Tears for Fears (who, legend has it, wrote 'Everybody Wants to Rule the World' on it). Between the four bandmates lead singer and guitarist Vager, guitarist Reuben Bloxham, drummer Marc Nolte and bassist Isabele Wallace this is the most confident they've ever felt in RVG. They've moved past their influences, pushed themselves, and tried new things. And they have made a record they can, by all accounts, call their best. "Brain Worms feels like the antithesis to what a post-pandemic record could easily be. For a band who were already writing music about being reclusive "we were depressed and not going outside on our first two albums" the enforced isolation and time to think gave Vager space to write about anything she wanted. And, it turned out, she was ready to write about acceptance. "If we could only make one more album, it would be this one," says Vager. "Easily one of the most vital bands on the Aussie scene today" Rolling Stone "A calling card for outsiders... dynamic and vital post-punk" The Guardian

Lime green (yellowish?) vinyl LP Finnish noise rock duo NYOS deliver a clairvoyant Celebration of the present, written at a time when that present was shimmering just like the feathers of the cover art courtesy of animal photographer Zac Herr. Combining the danceable grooves of Battles with Sonic Youth - infused noise bursts and the yearning electric melodies of And So I Watch You From Afar, Celebration is a defiantly joyful, loud, and festive affair. A promising cure for the drudgery of the times we live in. Recorded by Brooke in his own Tonehaven Recording Studio, Celebration is the latest testament to the undeniable synergy these musicians have built over the past seven years. With the material largely written before the advent of corona, Celebration is a reflection of life before lockdown, filled to the brim with infectious grooves and glaring melodies. "We tried for something upbeat this time to contrast the times," explains Tom Brooke about the recording process, which in turn did take place during pandemic life. "We always love it when people can move to our music, so a big focus for the record was to embrace the dance vibe and go for it." This collection of eight colourful, jarring tracks is rife with small nods to dance music throughout the world. Take a song like "Light" with its complex syncopated drum pattern that recalls the Amen Break so typical for drum and bass music, but listen closely and the song reveals an off-beat skank that flips over into experimental reggae territory. Similarly, a track like "Tucano" recalls the experimental IDM of Bristol-based producer Vessel, while "Gold Vulcan" offsets a gnarly gyrating guitar riff with Latin- American and oriental melodies. The attention to detail on Celebration is phenomenal. The album contains some of the band's most layered compositions to date, but it is also the first NYOS record to feature improvised live recordings, the aptly named "First Take" as well as the celestial "Cloudberry". These musical sketches show two musicians at the apex of their connectedness. Every time that one of them appears to be taking a somewhat questionable turn, you'll find yourself carefully and respectfully readjusting your own interpretation of the song's intention - and what NYOS are all about.