quête:green day

Formed by Monster Magnet’s John McBain and Soundgarden’s Matt Cameron & Ben Shepherd in 1993 during some downtime from their day jobs and side project Hater (who released a self-titled album in 1993), Wellwater Conspiracy set about immersing themselves in the dayglo world of sixties psychedelia, channelling the vibrations of Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd and the 13th Floor Elevators to produce the garage lo-fi-lysergic assault on the senses that is their debut album ‘Declaration of Conformity’. Originally issued on Mudhoney’s Steve Turners Super Electro label in 1997, the album was met with critical acclaim upon its release, and Rolling Stone magazine said, “Declaration’s tinny, fuzzed-out sonics decidedly evoke the Summer of Love.” God Unknown Records are proud to be welcoming the album back into print and on all digital platforms, and this coming September 22nd will see the release of a remastered vinyl pressing with extra tracks and new artwork taking influence from Blue Note Records’ fabled artwork. From start to finish, ‘Declaration Of Conformity’ is a loving homage to the true beginnings of psychedelic rock, long before the music got harder and heavier. Songs like ‘Green Undertow’ and ‘Sleeveless’ hark back to the time when The Beatles were spinning the world on its axis with ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, Syd Barrett was the piper at the gates of dawn and Roky Erickson was introducing the world to his Texan psychedelic sounds. Wellwater Conspiracy’s music exists at that moment when pop music started to fracture and go far further out. It was still pop music, but the edges were starting to blur and the sounds were starting to fracture. This is where ‘Declaration of Conformity’ sits; at the dawn of one of the biggest cultural shifts in musical history. The Bandcamp link will also feature two bonus download-only tracks, a cover of ‘Akka Ragga’ by Shocking Blue and ‘Late Night’ by Syd Barrett. Both tracks feature Josh Homme on guitar and bass. Tracklisting A1 Sleeveless A2 You Do You A3 Trowerchord A4 Green Undertow A5 I Love You Every Day Sandy A6 Nati Bati Yi A7 Far Side Of Your Moon B1 The Ending B2 Space Travel In The Blink Of An Eye B3 6-6-5-4-3-2-1 B4 Shel Talmy B5 Lucy Leave B6 Declaration Of Conformity B7 Palomar Observatory

The Backstreet Boys with a deluxe version of their first ever holiday album “A Very Backstreet Christmas”! It features 15 tracks including classics like “I’ll Be Home For Christmas”, “Last Christmas”, “Silent Night” and new future holiday mainstays like “Christmas In New York,” “Together,” and “Happy Days.”

This deluxe special edition is pressed on emerald green vinyl and includes two bonus tracks: “Feliz Navidad” and “Christmas Time Again”.

The Backstreet Boys with a deluxe version of their first ever holiday album “A Very Backstreet Christmas”! It features 15 tracks including classics like “I’ll Be Home For Christmas”, “Last Christmas”, “Silent Night” and new future holiday mainstays like “Christmas In New York,” “Together,” and “Happy Days.”

This deluxe special edition is pressed on emerald green vinyl and includes two bonus tracks: “Feliz Navidad” and “Christmas Time Again”.

In 1964 Dave Davies of the Kinks singlehandedly made rock history when he sliced his little green Elpico amp speaker with a razor blade. Little did he know he was creating the 1st heavy metal guitar tone and riff in rock n roll, which he played on his band The Kinks' worldwide hit 'You Really Got Me.' Nearly fifty years after influencing generations of guitarists Dave continues to rock and tour. His 2013 return to the U.S. to support the album I Will Be Me was a triumph both creatively and spiritually as he found new inspiration for his soon to be follow up album, the highly acclaimed, Rippin Up Time. Released in 2014, Dave embarked on yet another U.S. tour to support it. He was joined by Jonathan Lea on guitar, Tom Currier on bass and keyboards and legendary drummer Dennis Diken of the Smithereens. The tour swept through venues in Milwaukee, Chicago, New Jersey, NYC and many more. Jim Sclavunos played drums for one gig in Bethlehem, PA. On every date Dave Davies and band played a highly charged set of solo album favorites, Kinks classics and new tracks. At the City Winery NYC on November 24 and 25, 2014 Dave and band put on an amazing concert to an audience of new and longtime Kinks fans, music industry stars and legends. They delivered two exhilarating nights of performances that rocked and ripped up the city's nightlife.

Indonesian trio Grrrl Gang builds on their considerable worldwide buzz with Spunky!, their full-length debut album. Released on 22 September 2023 by Green Island Music in partnership with exclusive licensees Kill Rock Stars (United States), Trapped Animal Records (United Kingdom) and Big Romantic Records (Japan and Taiwan), the album is preceded by its title track and first single dropped on May 30, featured from the same title of the album, 'Spunky!' Spunky! arrives following some major life changes for Angeeta Sentana (vocals, guitar), Akbar Rumandung (bass, vocals), and Edo Alventa (guitar, vocals), including a switch in locale from Yogyakarta, the city where they formed the band while still in college. “This is Grrrl Gang’s first release after we graduated and got day jobs that made us have to move to Jakarta, which is undeniably 180 degrees compared to Jogja,” says Rumandung. “But moving to Jakarta enabled us to work with Lafa on Spunky! from start to finish.” The song itself essentially describes Sentana's experience during a manic episode. “I feel like I’m on top of the world, untouchable. I do things without thinking, always chasing after that feeling of instant gratification. I feel extra confident in myself to a point of grandiose thinking and that I could do anything,” Sentana explains. That would be Lafa Pratomo, the in-demand producer brought in to help shape the ten tracks that make up Spunky! With a resume that includes the likes of the chanteuse Danilla and legendary singer-songwriter Iwan Fals, Pratomo might not seem the obvious choice to take the Grrrl Gang producer’s chair. But according to Rumandung, “In terms of production, this was something new for us by working with someone outside of Grrrl Gang’s comfort zone.” Indeed, Pratomo considerably beefs up Grrrl Gang’s sound particularly Alventa’s guitar tones, Rumandung’s rumbling bass, and touring drummer Muhammad Faiz Abdurrahman’s muscular beats while preserving the band’s signature raucous energy, catchy melodies, and Sentana’s attitude-filled, equal-parts-honey-and-vinegar vocals. The music video for Spunky! premieres on the Grrrl Gang YouTube channel on the same day as the release of the song. The video, directed by Bathroom Girls, is part of a continuous movie, with Spunky! being the second chapter. It tells the story of an introverted girl who goes to a house party to validate herself among her peers. Despite facing challenges to her self-esteem, she manages to overcome her discomfort to survive the night. During the party, she watches Grrrl Gang perform Spunky! and is mesmerized by the confident performance of Angee, the lead singer. The girl imagines herself as Angee, a confident and cool person that she will never be. Hailing from the cultural city of Yogyakarta, Indonesia, Grrrl Gang is a rising force in the independent music scene with their infectious melodies, anthemic songs, and electrifying live performances. The power trio, composed of Angee Sentana on guitar and vocals, Akbar Rumandung on bass, and Edo Alventa on guitar, has been making waves in the Southeast Asian music scene since their formation in 2016. Grrrl Gang's music is a celebration of their collective roots and a testament to the power of pop music to connect people across cultures and borders. Their lyrics touch on themes such as feminism, mental health, and relationships with a raw honesty that speaks to a generation of young listeners. With their infectious energy, socially conscious lyrics, and unique sound, Grrrl Gang is poised to take the global music scene by storm and become a voice for a new generation

"I imagine myself playing these songs in a small club that is slowly burning," says A. Savage of his second solo record, Several Songs about Fire. After more than a decade in New York, the co-frontman of Parquet Courts has left the city, marking his exit with a masterpiece of maturity and a worthy corollary to his first solo venture, 2017"s Thawing Dawn. "Fire is something you have to escape from. This album is a burning building, and these songs are things I"d leave behind to save myself." Produced by John Parish on a 1" 16-track in just ten days in Bristol and studded by the support of Cate Le Bon and Jack Cooper (Modern Nature, Ultimate Painting) as well as saxophonist Euan Hinshelwood (Cate Le Bon), drummer Dylan Hadley (Kamikaze Palm Tree, White Fence), and violinist Magdalena McLean (Caroline), Savage"s outsize gifts as a lyricist and observer - a quality Parish calls "an emotional openness guarded by a laconic wit" - shine. Worrying questions of wealth and poverty, self and other, Savage displays the poet"s gift of knowing when to narrate and when to vanish, leaving the listener to their own emotional privacy rather than instructing them how to feel. The end result is tantamount to psychic odyssey, with "Elvis in the Army" placing us in a subterranean venue where the livid, ratifying cymbal raises the room"s blood pressure and "Mountain Time", evoking an austere waltz playing in a desolate house, returning those listening to life. Influenced by Sybille Baier and Townes Van Zandt, Savage joins a canon of songwriters constantly dilating aperture and perspective. In rendering the signage of laundromats and threats of debt collectors as glistering and totemic as the scope of mountains, rivers, seas, and skies, Savage finds hopes and curses in equal measure.

"I imagine myself playing these songs in a small club that is slowly burning," says A. Savage of his second solo record, Several Songs about Fire. After more than a decade in New York, the co-frontman of Parquet Courts has left the city, marking his exit with a masterpiece of maturity and a worthy corollary to his first solo venture, 2017"s Thawing Dawn. "Fire is something you have to escape from. This album is a burning building, and these songs are things I"d leave behind to save myself." Produced by John Parish on a 1" 16-track in just ten days in Bristol and studded by the support of Cate Le Bon and Jack Cooper (Modern Nature, Ultimate Painting) as well as saxophonist Euan Hinshelwood (Cate Le Bon), drummer Dylan Hadley (Kamikaze Palm Tree, White Fence), and violinist Magdalena McLean (Caroline), Savage"s outsize gifts as a lyricist and observer - a quality Parish calls "an emotional openness guarded by a laconic wit" - shine. Worrying questions of wealth and poverty, self and other, Savage displays the poet"s gift of knowing when to narrate and when to vanish, leaving the listener to their own emotional privacy rather than instructing them how to feel. The end result is tantamount to psychic odyssey, with "Elvis in the Army" placing us in a subterranean venue where the livid, ratifying cymbal raises the room"s blood pressure and "Mountain Time", evoking an austere waltz playing in a desolate house, returning those listening to life. Influenced by Sybille Baier and Townes Van Zandt, Savage joins a canon of songwriters constantly dilating aperture and perspective. In rendering the signage of laundromats and threats of debt collectors as glistering and totemic as the scope of mountains, rivers, seas, and skies, Savage finds hopes and curses in equal measure.

Limited Edition Tape Cassette documenting "World Gym" live at "Årsta Folkets Hus" on September
2nd, 2022.
Re-experience the magic. Booklet includes documenting pictures. Tape is see-through, glow green.

The most potent memories I have of music are from my early childhood listening to the oldie's station, riding in the back of my Pops' 1975 Cadillac Seville to work alongside him moving plants in Sacramento at the now long gone Capitol Nursery during white hot summer afternoons, and then the drives back home in the purple twilights and oily blue-oranged nights. I'm talkin' The Temptations, War, Earth Wind and Fire, Al Green, Sly and the Family Stone, The Delfonics, Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan...soul music. I loved the melodrama of it all. The world outside refracted and transmuted through the crackling speakers past Pops' thumping thumb and my tiny whirring mind and left whatever road behind us fundamentally changed in our wake. Through the years other sounds too left its imprint well before I picked up a guitar. Rap, Punk, hardcore, dub, R&B--and a little later in middle school, blues, folk and country. But those early Cadillac memories always remained the bedrock. With folk and blues music, I fell in love with the immediacy of it and found the acoustic guitar economical for all the solitary roaming of my early 20's. All the while I knew that one day, when I had something I felt like I could add, I wanted to incorporate the sound of those early Cadillac memories. But only after I felt established as a songwriter in its most simple form, banging on a wooden guitar and yodeling up some melody did I feel comfortable exploring other sounds and only recently did I find the time and space to do that. The pandemic trapped all the world in their rooms. While recording my last record in the height of it and at the behest of my friend and You, Yeah, You producer Brad Cook and his friend Justin Vernon, I bought my first keyboard. A Roland Juno DS. I started tinkering on it throughout the past couple of years and as I became more stationary started writing songs on different instruments that I accumulated. Layering sounds on garageband in my apartment writing bass and horn parts, making drum loops, adding synth... I became pretty obsessive with the endless possibilities it brought and got quicker and quicker at making songs that way. It was just so fun and limitless.

The most potent memories I have of music are from my early childhood listening to the oldie's station, riding in the back of my Pops' 1975 Cadillac Seville to work alongside him moving plants in Sacramento at the now long gone Capitol Nursery during white hot summer afternoons, and then the drives back home in the purple twilights and oily blue-oranged nights. I'm talkin' The Temptations, War, Earth Wind and Fire, Al Green, Sly and the Family Stone, The Delfonics, Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan...soul music. I loved the melodrama of it all. The world outside refracted and transmuted through the crackling speakers past Pops' thumping thumb and my tiny whirring mind and left whatever road behind us fundamentally changed in our wake. Through the years other sounds too left its imprint well before I picked up a guitar. Rap, Punk, hardcore, dub, R&B--and a little later in middle school, blues, folk and country. But those early Cadillac memories always remained the bedrock. With folk and blues music, I fell in love with the immediacy of it and found the acoustic guitar economical for all the solitary roaming of my early 20's. All the while I knew that one day, when I had something I felt like I could add, I wanted to incorporate the sound of those early Cadillac memories. But only after I felt established as a songwriter in its most simple form, banging on a wooden guitar and yodeling up some melody did I feel comfortable exploring other sounds and only recently did I find the time and space to do that. The pandemic trapped all the world in their rooms. While recording my last record in the height of it and at the behest of my friend and You, Yeah, You producer Brad Cook and his friend Justin Vernon, I bought my first keyboard. A Roland Juno DS. I started tinkering on it throughout the past couple of years and as I became more stationary started writing songs on different instruments that I accumulated. Layering sounds on garageband in my apartment writing bass and horn parts, making drum loops, adding synth... I became pretty obsessive with the endless possibilities it brought and got quicker and quicker at making songs that way. It was just so fun and limitless.

Like a well-wrought character in a Hollywood movie, 'Standards from
Film', guitarist Mike Moreno's fourth Criss Cross album, exists atop a
solid, cogent back story
Recorded in December 2021, when the world and New York City - Houston-born
Moreno's home for more than two decades - were no longer on COVID lockdown,
it documents the leader's exhaustive investigations into the provenance of ten
iconic standards that, as he puts it, "are the summer jazz workshop tunes" - they
say you have to learn these songs if you want to be a jazz musician. You learn
them very young or in the beginning days of your journey into this music.
The album was recorded December 22, 2021 at the Samurai Hotel Recording
Studio in NY. Recording engineer Mike Marciano also did the editing, mixing and
mastering at Systems Two in NY

In The Skies (1979) is the second solo album by British Blues Rock inventor Peter Green, who was the founder of Fleetwood Mac and a member from 1967-70. In The Skies was released almost a decade after his first solo stint The End Of The Game (1970).

Accompanying Green on this album were several experienced session musicians, including Snowy White, who went on to work with Pink Floyd before joining Thin Lizzy. White contributed some of the lead guitar work on the album. Also present was Green's colleague and friend from his earliest bands, Peter Bardens, and Robin Trower drummer Reg Isidore.

Five of the nine songs are instrumentals, continuing a longtime Green tradition. It's a solid and welcome return by a guitarist who in his prime rivaled Eric Clapton.

2023 Repress

Since Jesper Munk's debut album in 2013 the German singer-songwriter has made a name for himself as multi-instrumentalist , "in the paths of Jack White and Dan Auerbach," as the Rolling Stone Magazine puts it, playing music that ranges from Blues and Soul to heartfelt Pop and indulging Jazz, all this with a very unique, post-Punk
edge. His new album Taped Heart Sounds offers an evolution of Munk's sound: warm, gentle and soft vibes that go deep. "If there is a way to give you a hug in form of an album, this is how I'd attempt to do so," says Munk.

Recorded in an offbeat band room in Berlin with The Cassette Heads, the album brings together classics reaching from Blues to Rock'n Roll. Twelve songs of legendary artists who have influenced and inspired Munk since his early days, including Tom Waits, JJ Cale, Etta James, Hank Williams, Willie Dixon, Jacques Brel, and Mocky.
The entire album was recorded with a Tascam Portastudio 8-Track Cassette Recorder which brought an original and authentic sound to each song: "The technical limitations immediately liberated all other aspects of the recording," Munk says. "It shows how much of making music is just listening and without a screen to catch your eye, you really have no choice but to do so." All Songs face realness and live from these volatile moments that reveal vulnerability and musical generosity. The outcome of this analogue experiment is a very personal album, both inspiring and consoling.
Taped Heart Sounds courageously opens with Donnie & Joe Emerson's Baby; a song so iconic that it actually cannot be enhanced. However, Munk's interpretation stands out and has a presence that gives the song a life of its own - made for walking. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, All the World Is Green, I'd Rather Go Blind, Head in the Clouds - what follows is a journey through Blues and Soul that is so vital and "now" that End of the Line may be the final track but certainly not the end of the story.
The album wouldn't be what it is without collaboration and partnership. Munk's special thanks go to his fans who helped to crowd-fund the recording. "On top of having had a real fun learning experience it all felt like a community project with real support from friends, the Cassette Heads, incredibly inspiring guests, and from Miles Deico, a wonderfully open and able engineer," so Munk about the making of the album.
Taped Heart Sounds is Jesper Munk's 4th album, following acclaimed debut album For in My Way it Lies (2013), CLAIM (2016), and Favourite Stranger (2018). Released via Billbrook Records, Hamburg-based Distributor Wordandsound's new label, the album is available for pre-order now - for purchase on vinyl and CD. The first single 'Baby' is going to be released on November 19, 2021.

The latest EP from Drab Majesty marks the start of a stirring new chapter in the band's majestic legacy. Written during a 2021 retreat to the remote coastal Oregon town of Yachats, Deb Demure leaned into the neo- psychedelic resonance of a uniquely bowl - shaped 12 -string Ovation acoustic/electric guitar. After early morning hikes in the rain, Deb would record ambient guitar experiments the rest of the day, tapping into "flow states," letting the sound lead the way. These sessions were then refined or recreated, and later elevated further with key collaborations by Rachel Goswell (Slowdive), Justin Meldal Johnson (Beck, M83, Air), and Ben Greenberg (Uniform, Circular Ruin Studio). An Object In Motion is true to its title, capturing the chrysalis moment of an artist evolving, reborn and untet hered, silhouetted against an open horizon. "Cape Perpetua" kicks off the collection's divergent palette: sparkling acoustic fingerpicking refracted through delay, equal parts raga and reverie. Melodies and moods congeal and dissipate, at the threshold of rustic American primitivism, brooding neo-folk, and pastoral melancholia. "The Skin And The Glove" deploys jangle to different effect baggy, soaring, grey skied kaleidoscopic pop in the spirit of Stone Roses, Primal Scream, and The Glove. Rachel Goswell lends her iconic freefall voice to The Cure - esque ballad, "Vanity," infusing poetic gravity to the doomed refrain: "If the valve breaks / then the earth quakes / and history finds a way / to put you in your place." "Yield To Force", the closing track of the EP, may be the most anomalous offering of the set. A 15 minute instrumental odyssey of cyclical strings, ominous slide guitar, and simmering synthesizer, the piece sways and spirals like a long zoom into distant storm clouds. Demure finesses the guitar with a restless but regal grandeur, unfolding a panorama of peaks, shadows, and plateaus. It's music both intuitive and prophetic, tracing the slow swing of pendulums across an endless plain. Taken as a whole, An Object In Motion presents a showcase of potential futures from Drab's evolving domain, their sound poised to bloom at the precipice of transformation.

Lost in time yet always in season, here’s a blast of that old perennial, the punk rock, representative of the swiftly changing times around Bailey’s Crossroads, just outside Washington DC, in the early 80s. Skam recorded this stuff in 1982-1983, then broke up, leaving these songs to be released… maybe never? Or more preferably, now, to race into the bloodstream of jaded, faded today with all the vigour and rigour of Skam’s eternal youth.

Though they didn’t release any records during their three years of existence, it’d be wrong to call Skam ‘never-was’ - in addition to these recordings, there’s a trail of flyers for shows with Scream, No Trend, United Mutations and Media Disease, as well as the memories of the student alumni from Bishop O’Connell High, class of ‘83 or so.

The conglomeration of scenes around the greater DC area at that time produced a variety of bands, but the prevailing recollection of the era is of the incendiary hardcore punk and subsequent straight edge values of the Dischord bands. The band that became Skam was a world apart; they were posited for the first time by 8th graders Vince Forcier and Jack Anderson at a Jackson Browne concert, and their initial rehearsals in their parents’ basement were highlighted by covers of Beatles, Stones, Who and Led Zeppelin songs. Bad covers.

It wasn’t until they’d been playing a bit that they discovered The Ramones, and it was then that the die was cast and pedal pressed to the metal for another frantic couple of years.

The Skam recordings from 1982 have an undeniably Clash-like countenance that sets them definitively apart from the ‘First Four’ of Dischord - in some ways, prefiguring the pop-punk sound of Green Day at the dawn of the 1990s instead - but subsequent recordings found them quickly evolving - or devolving - into a personal mastery of savage riffs and tempos, as well as post-punk conceptions.

But even as they were verging into this new territory, their three years together had frayed their alliance and they soon broke up. Jack joined No Trend, Vince played in Racer X and then Second Wind. And life went on. However, the rediscovered Skam tapes make for an incredible addendum to the more well-known music of that incredible time and place

Named after the fictional character created by James Thurber-- popularized by Ben Stiller in 2013's The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty--Hayes has always channeled his thoughts and emotions through that character, rather than write about himself directly. "I really related to the character of Walter Mitty," says Hayes. "He's known for daydreaming too much and being lost in his head, which has been accurate to the Walter in my songs.

But really it's all just a cover up because back in those days we were still on family computers and I didn't want anybody to see songs by Dustin Hayes on iTunes." The band released a number of EPs and albums before going on something of a hiatus in 2015. But the creative itch was something Hayes couldn't stop scratching, and in 2016 he reformed the band as Walter Etc., the idea being to allow members to come and go as they please, weaving in and out
of records as life and schedules allowed.

Now, though, Walter Etc. have returned with When The Band Breaks Up Again, a new album made by the original three members with a very telling title. "The three of us got into music together via Green Day and more '90s pop-punk and skate punk stuff," explains Hayes.

”Show” ist ein Live-Album der britischen Alternative-Rock-Band ”The Cure” aus dem Jahr 1993. Es wurde während der erfolgreichen Wish-Tour 1992 an zwei Abenden im Palace of Auburn Hills, Auburn Hills, Michigan live aufgenommen und enthält 18 Singles wie ”Pictures of You”, ”Lullaby”, ”Just Like Heaven”, ”The Walk”, ”Let’s Go To Bed”, ”Friday I’m In Love” und ”Inbetween Days”.

Erstmals Remastered von Robert Smith und Miles Showell in den Abbey Road Studios, London, ab dem 08.09.2023 als 2LP verfügbar

”Show” ist ein Live-Album der britischen Alternative-Rock-Band ”The Cure” aus dem Jahr 1993. Es wurde während der erfolgreichen Wish-Tour 1992 an zwei Abenden im Palace of Auburn Hills, Auburn Hills, Michigan live aufgenommen und enthält 18 Singles wie ”Pictures of You”, ”Lullaby”, ”Just Like Heaven”, ”The Walk”, ”Let’s Go To Bed”, ”Friday I’m In Love” und ”Inbetween Days”.

Erstmals Remastered von Robert Smith und Miles Showell in den Abbey Road Studios, London, ab dem 08.09.2023 als 2LP verfügbar

Home to legends, not just in Jazz but music itself, Ronnie Scott's in Soho London has been the home to innumerable world class performances but none more so than Peter Green.

A backdrop normally shared for jazz artists was transformed into the raucous good time for Blues fans from all over to witness Peter Green two years into his comeback.

This recording features tracks that range from Fleetwood Mac classics & Blues originals all with Peter Green's inimitable flair. Tracks such as 'Albatross', 'Black Magic Woman', Rattlesnake Shake', 'The Green Manalishi' & 'The Supernatural' as well as versions of Travelling Riverside Blues' & 'Steady Rollin' Man'.

This edition, originally released on 2CD & now available on vinyl, comes as a welcome return for many fans that might have missed out on the first edition of its release. A highly limited 20,000 numbered copies of the 'Soho Sessions' package, which sold out immediate on its release.

Now this new edition on black double LP allows for you to experience the wondrous energy from that night time & time again.

Antifreeze Green Vinyl. Black Market Brass is proud to present Hox, due out on Colemine Records on September 8, 2023. Their third LP is a new take on afrobeat that combines traditional grooves with heavy, hypnotic, sci-fi sounds that reflect the band's myriad of influences as record collectors across genres. "We didn't leave the traditional afro-beat sound behind, but we did allow ourselves to pull from different places with less hesitation." Shared saxophonist Cole Pulice. Like their previous albums, the 9-piece band recorded Hox live to tape. "The sound and aesthetic of the analog recording process is important for this kind of music," Pulice explained. "We're looking to capture lightning in a bottle." With that, the album features several sections of heavily processed synthesizers, harsh glitches, fuzzed out guitars, and a burning percussion section that pays homage to the traditional drumming cultures of Nigeria and Ghana. The performances are dynamic and confident. The grooves are infectious and hypnotic. BMB has pushed further into musical experimentalism, but at the end of the day, they're still making dance music. Krautrock, free-jazz, doom metal - the inspirations for Hox stem from all kinds of musical backgrounds, but the sound is far from scattered. It's a polished, innovative record that's sure to exceed expectations and keep the listener engaged from start to finish.

Antifreeze Green Vinyl. Black Market Brass is proud to present Hox, due out on Colemine Records on September 8, 2023. Their third LP is a new take on afrobeat that combines traditional grooves with heavy, hypnotic, sci-fi sounds that reflect the band's myriad of influences as record collectors across genres. "We didn't leave the traditional afro-beat sound behind, but we did allow ourselves to pull from different places with less hesitation." Shared saxophonist Cole Pulice. Like their previous albums, the 9-piece band recorded Hox live to tape. "The sound and aesthetic of the analog recording process is important for this kind of music," Pulice explained. "We're looking to capture lightning in a bottle." With that, the album features several sections of heavily processed synthesizers, harsh glitches, fuzzed out guitars, and a burning percussion section that pays homage to the traditional drumming cultures of Nigeria and Ghana. The performances are dynamic and confident. The grooves are infectious and hypnotic. BMB has pushed further into musical experimentalism, but at the end of the day, they're still making dance music. Krautrock, free-jazz, doom metal - the inspirations for Hox stem from all kinds of musical backgrounds, but the sound is far from scattered. It's a polished, innovative record that's sure to exceed expectations and keep the listener engaged from start to finish.

Indies Only LP is opaque green vinyl. Both LPs come with a download. The moment the needle drops on Bite, the new A Giant Dog record, one’s conception of what an A Giant Dog record sounds like bends like space and time around a starship running at lightspeed. The biggest point of departure is that Bite is a concept album, concerning characters who find themselves moving in and out of a virtual reality called Avalonia. A Giant Dog’s first album of original songs since 2017’s Toy, Bite finds the band Sabrina Ellis, Andrew Cashen, Danny Blanchard, Graham Low, and Andy Bauer at their peak as musicians, challenging themselves with more complex arrangements and subject matter that forced them out of their heads and into those of the characters who occupy this supposed paradise. “We had to find ourselves within, or project ourselves into, the principal characters. We developed them, got to know their minds, emotions, and motivations, and then expressed those in nine songs,” Ellis explains. Themes of addiction, gender fluidity, living ethically in a capitalist society, physical autonomy, avarice, grief, and consent bubble beneath the promised happiness of Avalonia. This is evident in songs like “Different Than,” where Ellis sings, “My body can’t explain the things my mind don’t comprehend” as if societal gender pressure is squeezing its protagonist out of their skin. The songs on Bite are full of bombast, at turns calling to mind the spacefaring operatic rock of Electric Light Orchestra and the high drama of an Ennio Morricone film score. The album’s narrative sweep is epic in scope, its characters facing impossible odds and certain doom, existing as comfortably with the sci-fi grandiosity of Thin Lizzy’s Jailbreak as it does with the high fantasy of Dio and Iron Maiden. Appropriately, A Giant Dog came to this narrative armed to the teeth with new ideas, unleashing synthesizers and string sections to create what Ellis describes as orchestral, symphonic, futuristic punk. To achieve this, they left their home turf of Austin, Texas, for La Cuve Studio, just outside of Angers, France. Living in the French countryside, A Giant Dog laid down their vision of the future against a decidedly pastoral backdrop. On walks from Angers to La Cuve, Ellis says that they “would see many things, and also nothing at all. Swans on the river. Romani people living in little trailers, with a side hut built for their dog. A juggler on a unicycle—not fucking with you.” “We thought we wouldn’t be allowed back in France after this trip, to be honest,” they continued. “Five loud, stomping, clapping, rowdy Americans who ran through the streets of Angers for three weeks in November 2022.” The experience capped two years of planning and writing, fleshing out the universe of Avalonia beyond the bounds of most concept albums. The resulting nine songs do not merely occupy this space: They’ve lived in it, and they want out.

Der Soundtrack zu Star Trek: Picard Staffel 3 in limtierter Auflage als Doppel-LP auf Sky Blue w. White Burst Vinyl mit Gatefold-Hülle und Inserts

Die Vertonung des Spiels durch den preisgekrönten britischen Komponisten Stephen Barton (Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Titanfall, 12 Monkeys, Apex: Legends) und dem deutschen Emmy-Gewinner Frederik Wiedmann (All Hail King Julien, Green Lantern: The Animated Series, Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, Son of Batman, Justice League: Thron von Atlantis und Justice League: Gods and Monsters) Barton verfügt über einen umfangreichen Erfahrungsschatz als Produzent, Dirigent, Musikarrangeur und Programmierer bei der Komposition von Musik für verschiedene Videospiele. Er gilt auch als Experte für das aufstrebende Gebiet der räumlichen und immersiven Audiotechnik. Wiedmann war ein wichtiger Bestandteil des DC-Filmuniversums, beginnend mit seiner Arbeit an Green Lantern - The Animated Series, der seine Arbeit an Green Lantern folgte (für die er zwei aufeinanderfolgende Annie-Nominierungen erhielt). Dies führte zu großartigen DC-Projekten wie Justice League - The Flashpoint Paradox, Son of Batman, Justice League - Throne of Atlantis, Justice League - Gods and Monsters.

2023 Repress Blue Vinyl

- Eagerly anticipated follow up to 2014 debut - number 7 in Mojo's best albums of the year.
- LP jacket is gloss laminate with front & back folds on the outside.The back panel is uncoated/matt varnish - 300 gsm card and 180g vinyl. Digital Download included.
- EU tour coming in April with Summer festivals later in 2017.

Sometimes it can take years to find your calling. Not so, for wanderer Julie Byrne, whose power of lyrical expression and melodic nous seems inborn. But often, what comes naturally demonstrates against speed. Julie's second album Not Even Happiness has taken time to evolve, but as it spans recollections of bustling roadside diners, the stars over the high desert, the aching weariness of change, the wildflowers on the coast of California and the irresolvable mysteries of love. Her new album archives a vivid world that would've otherwise been lost to the road and in doing so, Byrne exhibits her extraordinarily innate musicality.

In fact, some of the album's songs took two years of fine tuning to get where they needed to be. And if you were to ask her why the follow up to 2014's Rooms With Walls And Windows has taken so long, you'd only be greeted with a bemused smile as though it's the strangest question she's ever been asked, Writing comes from a natural process of change and growth. It took me up to this point to have the capacity to express my experience of the time in my life that these songs came from.'

Having counted Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Northampton, Massachusetts, Chicago, Illinois, Seattle, New Orleans as her home in recent years. For now, Julie has settled in New York City where she moonlights as a seasonal urban park ranger in Manhattan. Whether witnessing the Pacific Northwest for the first time ('Melting Grid'), the morning sky in Colorado after staying up through the night at a house party in the mountains of Boulder ('Natural Blue'), recording the passage of freight trains on the outskirts of Buffalo, New York ('Interlude'), or a journey fragrant with rose water, reading Frank O'Hara aloud from the passengers seat during a drive through the desert of Utah into the rainforest of Washington State ('All The Land Glimmered Beneath'), Not Even Happiness is Julie's beguilingly ode to the fringes of life.

Self-taught on the guitar after picking it up when her father became ill and could no longer play the instrument himself, Julie readily admits she can't read music and doesn't even listen to it all that much - the first vinyl she owned was indeed, her own. Recorded with producer Eric Littmann (Phantom Posse), Julie laid down the new album in her childhood home in western New York state and offers an altogether bigger picture to its predecessor through a wider, yet subtle, exploration of instruments and atmospherics, Not Even Happiness reveals an artist who has grown in confidence over time.

Byrne's debut album was released back in January 2014 on Chicago based DIY label Orindal after initially being as two separate cassettes releases. Rooms With Walls and Windows went onto become a true modern-day word of mouth success story (it would have to be for an artist who shuns all forms of social media) and ended the year being voted number 7 in Mojo magazine's best albums of the year, with the Huffington Post calling it "2014's Great American Album". A collection of hushed intimate front porch psych-folk songs, that unknowingly recalled the greats, but felt very much for our time. It saw her travel to Europe over two summers playing the Green Man festival and End Of The Road, as well as lesser trodden tour paths around Europe.

Julie Byrne will take the songs from Not Even Happiness (the first release on a new record label Basin Rock, based in the Lancashire / Yorkshire border town of Todmorden) on the road throughout 2017.

Long festering on the West Coast, Frankie and the Witch Fingers have carved out a niche that’s equal parts molten tar pit teardown and end-stage anxious careen. As they wind out of the stoned-ape psychedelics of their 2020 opus Monsters Eating People Eating Monsters… their sound, over a series of singles, has begun to thicken and throb. It’s coalesced into a darker strain that ingests the explosive impulses of R&B, the rhythmic insistence of 70’s German Progressives, and the elasticity of funk fusionists alike. They weld their arsenal of influences to a chassis of nail-bitten bombast. On the upcoming Data Doom the band hurtles the listener head first into the wood-chipper of technological dystopia, systemic rot, creeping fascism, the military-industrial profit mill, and a near-constant erosion of humanity that peels away the soul bit by bit. With a fuse lit by these modern-day monstrosities the band seeks to find salvation through a thousand watt wake-up of rock n’ roll exfoliation.

The latest EP from Drab Majesty marks the start of a stirring new chapter in the band's majestic legacy. Written during a 2021 retreat to the remote coastal Oregon town of Yachats, Deb Demure leaned into the neo- psychedelic resonance of a uniquely bowl - shaped 12 -string Ovation acoustic/electric guitar. After early morning hikes in the rain, Deb would record ambient guitar experiments the rest of the day, tapping into "flow states," letting the sound lead the way. These sessions were then refined or recreated, and later elevated further with key collaborations by Rachel Goswell (Slowdive), Justin Meldal Johnson (Beck, M83, Air), and Ben Greenberg (Uniform, Circular Ruin Studio). An Object In Motion is true to its title, capturing the chrysalis moment of an artist evolving, reborn and untet hered, silhouetted against an open horizon. "Cape Perpetua" kicks off the collection's divergent palette: sparkling acoustic fingerpicking refracted through delay, equal parts raga and reverie. Melodies and moods congeal and dissipate, at the threshold of rustic American primitivism, brooding neo-folk, and pastoral melancholia. "The Skin And The Glove" deploys jangle to different effect baggy, soaring, grey skied kaleidoscopic pop in the spirit of Stone Roses, Primal Scream, and The Glove. Rachel Goswell lends her iconic freefall voice to The Cure - esque ballad, "Vanity," infusing poetic gravity to the doomed refrain: "If the valve breaks / then the earth quakes / and history finds a way / to put you in your place." "Yield To Force", the closing track of the EP, may be the most anomalous offering of the set. A 15 minute instrumental odyssey of cyclical strings, ominous slide guitar, and simmering synthesizer, the piece sways and spirals like a long zoom into distant storm clouds. Demure finesses the guitar with a restless but regal grandeur, unfolding a panorama of peaks, shadows, and plateaus. It's music both intuitive and prophetic, tracing the slow swing of pendulums across an endless plain. Taken as a whole, An Object In Motion presents a showcase of potential futures from Drab's evolving domain, their sound poised to bloom at the precipice of transformation.

As Wreckless Eric he needs little introduction - he wrote and recorded the classic Whole Wide World and had a hit with it back in 1977. Since then it"s been a hit for countless other artists including The Monkees, Cage The Elephant and Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day. Eric"s version featured in the 2022 Expedia / Superbowl / Ewan MacGregor travel ad, and the Cage The Elephant version is the new theme tune for the podcast Smartless. This new album, Leisureland, marks a return to his more ramshackle world of recording - guitars and temperamentally unpredictable analogue keyboards, beat-boxes and loops in conjunction with a real drummer, Sam Shepherd, who he met in a local coffee shop in Catskill, New York. He was delighted to find that Sam lived around the corner and could easily drop by to put drums on newly recorded tracks. The recording methodology may have been Contemporary American but the subject matter is almost entirely British. It also contains more instrumentals than any of his previous albums.

As Wreckless Eric he needs little introduction - he wrote and recorded the classic Whole Wide World and had a hit with it back in 1977. Since then it"s been a hit for countless other artists including The Monkees, Cage The Elephant and Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day. Eric"s version featured in the 2022 Expedia / Superbowl / Ewan MacGregor travel ad, and the Cage The Elephant version is the new theme tune for the podcast Smartless. This new album, Leisureland, marks a return to his more ramshackle world of recording - guitars and temperamentally unpredictable analogue keyboards, beat-boxes and loops in conjunction with a real drummer, Sam Shepherd, who he met in a local coffee shop in Catskill, New York. He was delighted to find that Sam lived around the corner and could easily drop by to put drums on newly recorded tracks. The recording methodology may have been Contemporary American but the subject matter is almost entirely British. It also contains more instrumentals than any of his previous albums.

‘Life On Other Planets’ is Supergrass’ fourth studio album, which peaked at #9 in the UK charts. (Norway#13, Australia #22, France #44).

Released as 1LP black heavyweight vinyl, 2LP white 12”, green and black 10” vinyl and 3CD with demos and live versions.

This 2023 re-issue has been fully remastered from original sources and includes the hit singles ‘Grace’ (UK #13), ‘Seen the Light’ (UK#22), ‘Never Done Nothing Like That Before’, ‘Rush Hour Soul’.

Gatefold 1LP is a faithful reissue of the original album

Clear Vinyl. They say there's always something special about the first time and this record is that first time for the Folk Implosion. The band left the acoustic guitars and fragmentary sketch modus operandi of their earlier cassette behind to focus on an eccentric version of home studio craft, held together by a few cheap microphones (including a Radio Shack PZM) and a Tascam cassette 4-track recorder sequestered under the eaves of a 3rd floor, Cambridge Massachusetts double-decker house apartment. Wood floors and Christmas lights were as much a part of the vibe as an Ampeg VT 40 guitar amp and a small chord organ. The duo would wait until the downstairs neighbor went to work in the morning and then would play until the tunes snapped like a high-pitched snare drum. The setup would close down just before the neighbor came home from work, keeping the peace long enough to see the project through to completion.Once tracked, the band snuck into Fort Apache studios with Tim O'Heir (producer of Sebadoh's `Bakesale' LP) early one morning, freeloading off the Sebadoh sessions that were set to get going that afternoon. Tim mixed the songs through a very hi-fi Neve board in a matter of hours with the Tascam sitting right on the giant board like a tugboat keeping time with an oil tanker. The duo hoped that the spirits of ancestors like The Troggs, Devo, Al Green, and The Bee Gees would be pleased with the scent of tribute that arose from the ashes of the pyre. Today, they are pleased to see the Slaps and the Sputniks on view again nearly 30 years later.

With the rock'n'roll panache of a dive bar matador and the emotional
force of a knife in the guts, Hemi Hemingway makes music that thrills,
spills and breaks hearts
The effortlessly slick New Zealand star has a connoisseur's ear for the finest
parts of musical history, sweeping 60s rock, 50s sheen and 80s romanticism into
the present day, refurbishing them and refashioning them into something new
and fresh.
Debut LP "Strangers Again" is the sound of a starry-eyed dreamer, taking in the
shock of meeting destiny head-on, and figuring out their place in the rough and
tumble of life. It brings together candle- slow burning ballads, soaring, epic
highway rock and thunderous torch songs to soundtrack the sky falling in. But it's
much more than that, a thoughtful and heartfelt exploration of modern themes, of
relating to a world that sometimes lifts you up, sometimes lets you down, and
everything in-between.

With the rock'n'roll panache of a dive bar matador and the emotional
force of a knife in the guts, Hemi Hemingway makes music that thrills,
spills and breaks hearts
The effortlessly slick New Zealand star has a connoisseur's ear for the finest
parts of musical history, sweeping 60s rock, 50s sheen and 80s romanticism into
the present day, refurbishing them and refashioning them into something new
and fresh.
Debut LP "Strangers Again" is the sound of a starry-eyed dreamer, taking in the
shock of meeting destiny head-on, and figuring out their place in the rough and
tumble of life. It brings together candle- slow burning ballads, soaring, epic
highway rock and thunderous torch songs to soundtrack the sky falling in. But it's
much more than that, a thoughtful and heartfelt exploration of modern themes, of
relating to a world that sometimes lifts you up, sometimes lets you down, and
everything in-between.

Formed as The Age in the late 1960s in the gritty north London neighbourhoods of Wood Green and Tottenham, teen Glam band Hello signed to Bell Records after being auditioned at home by Argent’s lead singer Russ Ballard, the concept being that the band would be supplied with original material by former Zombies manager, David Blaylock, a sure-fire formula that gave them strong overseas followings. This essential compilation gathers the best of the singles they cut for Bell, as well as more obscure rarities, the resulting picture capturing the group in all their Glam Rock glory, from prime beginnings to bittersweet end.

A complex and sometimes belligerent character in real life, on record,
John Martyn was the epitome of the folk-dreamer, embodying the spirit
of the bourgeoning London acoustic scene of the late 60s
Well- known and respected for his 70s albums Solid Air and One World, this is
where it began.The second and final John and Beverley album, The Road To Ruin
came out in late 1970; it is a mature, fully realised work, and a glimpse of what
would have happened had Island not encouraged John to go back to being a solo
artist. Opener Primrose Hill was later sampled by Fat Boy Slim, and the John-led
Parcels offers a template for what would become his signature style as the
decade progressed. It is one of those rare albums that creates its own
atmosphere, late night intensity, middle age soul.
This re-issue faithfully replicates the original 1970 Island Records UK release and
is pressed onto high quality 180g vinyl.

These days, singer-songwriter and actor David Blue tends to be remembered only in relation to Bob Dylan. A member of the supporting cast in mid-60s Greenwich Village and The Rolling Thunder Revue. Yet to categorise Blue in this way is reductionist, and does him an injustice. He was something of an archetype of the 60s generation of Greenwich Village singer-songwriters. Yet, esteemed by his peers, he was overlooked. He released seven albums in a decade, and his acting career was shaping up when he died suddenly at the age of just 41. His passing was barely noted in the rock press, and in the subsequent years Blue was all but forgotten. Of late, though, that’s changed. His albums started to reappear on CD on small labels and, in 2020, both Rolling Stone and Mojo magazines published major reappraisals. Blue – at last – was getting the attention denied him in life.



It wasn’t until 1965 that Blue, as Dave Cohen, released his first recordings – three songs on Elektra’s Singer Songwriter Project. All betrayed a debt to pre-electric Dylan. But then again, so did much else coming out of Greenwich Village at the time. Elektra contracted Blue to do his own album, and in 1966 David Blue was released – his first recording to appear under that name. Electric folk rock with a garage band attitude, somewhat in debt to Highway 61, it didn’t sell well. Shortly after the album’s release Blue formed and toured with The American Patrol, a four-piece rock band, recording an album for Elektra that was never released.



Now, for the first time, Hanky Panky and Mapache release those historical abandoned American Patrol recordings, along with the three tracks included on Elektra’s 1965 LP Singer Songwriter Project, as David Blue And The American Patrol The Lost 1967 Elektra Recordings & More and David Blue, his self-titled 1966 debut album, on two exclusive vinyl editions limited to 500 copies

Rare Detroit Jazz-Funk Fusion Album from 1988.

Wendell delivers a unique and different sound compared to his earlier body of work.

First ever vinyl reissue. Mastered on 45 RPM for an optimal audiophile experience.

Featuring an all-star line-up including Tribe alumni Marcus Belgrave & Duke Billingslea.

180g BLACK vinyl limited to 500 copies (w/obi strip). Non-Returnable.

Wendell Harrison was born in Detroit in 1942 where he began formal jazz studies for piano, clarinet and tenor saxophone. At 14, while still in high school, Harrison started performing & recording professionally with artists such as Marvin Gaye, Grant Green, Sun Ra, Hank Crawford … and many others.

In 1971, Harrison began teaching music at Metro Arts (a multi-arts complex for youth) where he also connected with Marcus Belgrave, Harold McKinney and Phil Ranelin…soon after they formed the (now legendary) Afro-centric TRIBErecord label and artist collective. TRIBE used the Metro Arts complex as a vehicle to convey a growing black political consciousness. Wendell Harrison also published the very popular TRIBE magazine, a publication dedicated to local and national social and political issues, as well as featuring artistic contributions such as poetry and visual pieces.

In 1978 Harrison and McKinney co-founded REBIRTH, a non-profit jazz performance and education organization, in which many notable jazz artists have participated. Around the same time Wendell Harrison also created the WENHArecord label and publishing company, which released many of his (now classic) recordings as well as those of other artists, such as Phil Ranelin, Doug Hammond and Reggie Fields (The Real ShooBeeDoo).

In the early 1990s, Wendell Harrison was awarded the title of “Jazz Master” by Arts Midwest. This distinction led Harrison to collaborate with fellow honorees and gave him the chance to tour throughout the United States, Middle East and Africa. Even to this day Wendell Harrison’s recordings for the TRIBE, WENHA and REBIRTH labels have a large worldwide fanbase.

It is on REBIRTH that Harrison released the opus: THE CARNIVOROUS LADY (1988), which we are proudly presenting you today.

‘The Carnivorous Lady’ is a monster of an album featuring an all-star line-up that includes Marcus Belgrave (Ray Charles, Houston Person, Charlie Mingus) on guitar, Duke Billingslea (Martha Reeves) & Pamela Wise (Tribe) on keyboards, Larry Fratangelo (Fred Wesley, Dennis Coffey) on percussion and Shirley Hayden (Parliament/Funkadelic) on vocals.

On this fantastic sounding album (produced by the maestro himself) the listener is invited to experience a synthesis of what has been and what is now. The record shows Wendell’s trademark proficiency on saxophone, flute and clarinet. Although you can hear the 80ies creeping in with a smoother fusion sound, infectious boogie synths, R&B vocals and a lot of mind-blowing Jazz-Funk percussions…this album remains a very spiritual (and soulful) hard bop jazz record. From the first to the last note you get an irresistible blend of so

Imagine if Eric Carle had been signed to Ghost Box, or if the Look Around You team had ended up taking over the Radiophonic Workshop. If you can picture that kind of sound, we’re ready to welcome you to the Cosmic Neighbourhood.

Cosmic Neighbourhood’s Gatherings is an album made for wild imaginations and deep daydreams. Its fourteen tracks provide the kind of trip you can take if you close your eyes tight enough and let your mind wander. It’s the music of small things, groovy sounds from way underground that’s inspired as much by Martin Rev and Moondog as it is by walking trees, pine cones catching the bus, nocturnal farmyard symphonies and the movements of butterflies reimagined through restless drum machines. Sounds good? Come join the gathering. There’s room for everyone.

Cosmic Neighbourhood is the musical alias of York-based illustrator and musician Adam Higton. Adam’s work encompasses comic strips, collage and sound art and documents the daily goings-on of the forest folk within the realm of the Cosmic Neighbourhood. His two albums on Kit (|Collages I and II) see each song acting as a response to a series of paper-and-scissors compositions. Sonically, these records straddle new and old, taking modular electronics, flutes, bells and softly pattering drum machines, before colouring them all with the amber glow of some forgotten, psychedelic kids' TV programme. Higton's benign toots and echoing jingles bring to mind Daphne Oram's early delay experiments or the meandering playfulness of Tom Cameron. Radiophonic and time-worn, it still somehow sounds like the future.

Gatherings follows previous Cosmic Neighbourhood albums Library Vol 1 and Collages I and II. Previous Rivertones releases include spoken word and found sound collages by Robert Macfarlane & Chris Watson, poetry and elemental music by Will Burns & Hannah Peel and the soundtrack to Wolfgang Buttress’ Hive structure at Kew Gardens by Be.

The follow up to the band’s celebrated 2020 release Fish Pond Fish and Darlingside’s fourth LP marks a subtle but remarkable departure for the Boston-based quartet NPR once described as “exquisitely arranged, literary minded, baroque folk- pop.” While the album retains much of the lushness and sophistication of Extralife (2018) and Fish Pond Fish, the band’s latest work highlights the individuality of the four songwriters in a way that adds a fitting element of reinvention to an album that captures brilliantly the quality of the moment in which it was made. Grappling with change both personal and universal, with quandaries domestic and existential, Everything Is Alive is an album about loss and the struggle for a semblance of redemption; themes of grief, distance and hope permeate an album filled with vivid imagery and lyrical creativity. Comprised of Don Mitchell, Auyon Mukharji, Harris Paseltiner and David Senft, four likeminded multi-instrumentalists who first met at Williams College in 2009, Darlingside’s career has been defined by the elegance of their compositions and the remarkable unity of their four voices. Their talent for harmony and melodic world-building is part of what garnered praise from outlets like NPR, Rolling Stone and The New Yorker, and what has created demand worldwide for their extraordinary live performances. Becoming beautifully unindividualized has, in other words, worked very well for Darlingside in the past. With a vigor and discipline more common to graduate-level writing workshops than to indie rock, Darlingside have, over the years, experimented with all manners of idiosyncratic methods for elevating and upholding a truly democratic process of songwriting—processes that include multiple rounds of group writing and recording exercises—all with the aim of escaping the trap that bands with multiple songwriters often fall into: the ruse of ego-driven infighting and artistic incoherence. Everything Is Alive is Darlingside taking a risk. Nudged by the limitations created by pandemic isolation, as well as through other more voluntary catalysts, the album, which was produced and recorded by the band and mixed by Tucker Martine (My Morning Jacket, Sufjan Stevens, Iron and Wine), foregrounds in a sustained and heretofore untried way the individual voices of each member.