Pop & Rock News

Parallel to his career as the best singer ever fronting the best band ever, Joey Ramone spiced his creative life every now and then with collaborations with like-minded musician friends and other side projects. Presented here are a bunch of those and what a feast this is! From the awesome 7" he recorded with his brother as Sibling Rivalry to multiple collaborations with artists like Debbie Harry, Helen Love, Holly & The Italians, 22 Jacks or Furious George here's a great collection for all Ramones fans.

PRUTSER = Pseudo-romantic, half-baked nostalgic, the generalizing idiosyncrasion,

preferably on prescription drugs with Latin names, flirting with fellenwort on a spread of dumb.

Netels = that warm round sensation when life finally seems to make sense.

Derealiteit = the madness that arises when the sensation disappears seconds later.

Shame follow up their wildly acclaimed debut with a James Ford-produced peek into the riddled mind of the band's frontman, Charlie Steen. There are moments on Drunk Tank Pink where you almost have to reach for the sleeve to check this is the same band who made 2018's Songs Of Praise. Such is the jump Shame have made from the riotous post-punk of their debut to the sprawling adventurism and twitching anxieties laid out here. The South Londoner's blood and guts spirit, that wink and grin of devious charm, is still present, it's just that it's grown into something bigger, something deeper, more ambitious and unflinchingly honest. The genius of Drunk Tank Pink is how these lyrical themes dovetail with the music. Opener Alphabet dissects the premise of performance over a siren call of nervous, jerking guitars, its chorus thrown out like a beer bottle across a mosh pit. Songs spin off and lurch into unexpected directions throughout here, be it March Day's escalating aural panic attack or the shapeshifting darkness of Snow Day. There's a Berlin era Bowie beauty to the lovelorn Human For A Minute while closer Station Wagon weaves from a downbeat mooch into a souring, soullifting climax in which Steen elevates himself beyond the clouds and into the heavens. Or at least that's what it sounds like. From the womb to the clouds (sort of), Shame are currently very much in the pink.

Emerging out of Amsterdam's vibrant squat scene in 1979, The Ex – a name chosen for the ease and speed with which it could be spray-painted onto a wall – have for four decades been an entirely self-sustaining musical entity, charting a course through the global underground with a spirit of freedom and radical exploration.

Originally released in 1982, History Is What's Happening features one of the most harrowing title/cover art combinations in recent memory. What at first glance looks like a firing squad is, upon closer inspection, a concentration camp orchestra.

On their second album, The Ex advance into a distinctly more post-punk style: textural guitar shards and tumbling motorik drumming with Bas Masbeck's thunderous bass shouldering much of the melodic load. Railing against political duplicity and the illusory nature of "freedom" in an age of manufactured consent, G.W. Sok offers some of punk's most bracing and memorable agitprop lyrics. These twenty songs are a quick-moving and caustic trip, a DIY studio rendition of the band's explosive live set from this era.

History Is What's Happening remains an important signpost in the history of both Ex-evolution and the cataclysmic '80s. With their sophomore LP, the group would put Holland on the underground music map. Indeed, many now-lifelong fans around the world were just beginning to take notice and get down with the mighty Ex.

This first-time vinyl reissue comes with 23" x 16" poster and 24-page booklet.

Before fronting classic post-punk group The Sound, Adrian Borland was a Wimbledon teenager enamored of Iggy Pop and the Velvet Underground. With friends, he formed The Outsiders. In 1976, they home-recorded Calling On Youth, a searching full-length that straddles nihilo-punk argot (“Terminal Case” and “I’m Screwed Up”) as well as smudged glam balladry (“Start Over” and “Weird”). Its release in 1977, on the group’s own Raw Edge label, with Borland’s cityscape abstraction on the cover, marked the first independent punk full-length in the United Kingdom.

The Outsiders, featuring bassist Bob Lawrence and drummer Adrian “Jan” James, were punk in the moment before punk cut ties with solos and five minute songs. (Close Up, released in 1978, is more streamlined.) Like the Saints or Crime, they still trafficked in rock ’n’ roll. Calling On Youth, though, announces Borland as more than a precious teenage bandleader. The nervous introspection, wiry leads and negative space that he would refine solo and in The Sound, Second Layer and Witch Trials glistens throughout Calling On Youth, beckoning rediscovery.

Being as LSD was first developed in a laboratory in Basel, it is perhaps no coincidence that one of the most far out albums of all time was made by this Swiss band (no small feat, given the competition!). Braintickets 1971 debut, Cottonwoodhill, begins normally enough with two fine psychedelic/Krautrock-influenced tracks, but the remainder of the album plays like an acid trip with a soundtrack, dominated by Joel Vandroogenbroecks endless droning organ, a variety of musique concrète-type sound effects and vocalist Dawn Muirs trippy vocals. The album, banned in several countries, even came with this self-imposed warning: After Listening to this Record, your friends may not know you anymore. / Only listen to this once a day, your brain might be destroyed!. Gatefold sleeve. Fully remastered from the original master tapes!

Emerging out of Amsterdam's vibrant squat scene in 1979, The Ex – a name chosen for the ease and speed with which it could be spray-painted onto a wall – have for four decades been an entirely self-sustaining musical entity, charting a course through the global underground with a spirit of freedom and radical exploration.

Disturbing Domestic Peace, The Ex's debut album, appeared mere months after their first single, 1980's All Corpses Smell The Same. Originally released on the band's own Verrecords (they made up different label names with each record), the LP falls squarely within a punk idiom and, at the same time, shows this influential Dutch group's restless energy. Terrie Ex's guitar serves up vectors of percussive pulse, fraying the edges of the music's squared-off rhythms. Vocalist G.W. Sok – an anarchist Dziga Vertov with a mic – observes, declaims and condemns across a set of interrelated political concerns that would return in Ex-music for years to come.

While The Ex channel the poise and principled attack of Crass or Flux Of Pink Indians, they create a unique declamatory sound all their own – trailing brilliant flashes of color in the wake of punk's monochrome palette. Offering ten songs in only twenty-two minutes, Disturbing Domestic Peace lays bare a vivid snapshot of a truly singular band who (at the time) were just finding their feet.

This first-time vinyl reissue comes with bonus 7-inch, inserts and 20-page booklet.

The Gordons crashed upon the do-it-yourself scene of early 1980s Christchurch with torrential force, self-releasing two foundational planks of the vibrant New Zealand underground. Future Shock, a three-song 7-inch released in 1980, is a wild-eyed rampage, as staggering as any feedback-addled punk then being recorded at Southern Studios. The Gordons LP, which followed in 1981, matches the abandon with motorik churn and livewire dissonance, evoking New Zealand antecedents as divergent as This Kind Of Punishment and the Dead C. Brought together on this release, they’re a noise-rock landmark anticipating fans such as Sonic Youth.

Flying Nun Records, the storied Christchurch label and symbol of the island nation’s rich independent music scene, re-released The Gordons and Future Shock together in 1988 following the formation of Gordons outgrowth Bailter Space, which frontman Alister Parker founded with Clean drummer Hamish Kilgour. Bailter Space, which would also come to include founding Gordons members Brent McLachlan and John Halvorsen, settled on a droning shoegaze sound, drawing comparisons to Dinosaur Jr. and the Pixies. The Gordons and Future Shock, however, represent the trio’s unreformed id, as startling today as upon release.

Two dope Island Boogie tracks by Experience, an Afro Reggae group hailing from Germany. - Very nice steeldrumming in these tunes..

Experience’s “Share It With You” and “Happiness” can both be found on the private LP release “Oh! What A Feeling” from 1982. The group consisted of Anthony Flaverney from Trinidad, Curvin Murchant from Jamaica, Daniel Kofi Jefferson from Ghana and John Innies from Trinidad and was founded in Hamburg.

Anythony Flaverney, the lead singer on both songs, was active as songwriter and musician in Germany since the mid-1970s, most notably appearing on the Peter Herbolzheimer arranged “Caribbean Rock“ album by Malcolm's Locks (be sure to check their funk version of Bob Marley’s “Get Up Stand Up”!). Curvin Merchant, a highly respected drummer from Jamaica, settled in Germany around the same time. Before forming Experience, he was a member in several groups, including highly successful pop acts like Boney M. Later he became known as "Germany’s Grandfather of Roots Rock Reggae", among other things buildung up the "Reggae Center" in Hamburg. Flaverney and Merchant are joined by Daniel Jefferson on bass and John Innies on steel pan. The band existed for about 2 years, touring in Germany and Europe, unfortunately recording only one album which features a unique mix of Reggae and Funk.

The first track “Share It With You”, should give any serious music lover goose bumps. It was written by Flaverney and features a deep groove, steel drum solos and fantastic soulful vocals. It’s that type of tune you will play in a DJ set and people will come up to you and ask what it is. The single version is slightly edited.
Side B continues with Happiness, an equally great track with positive vibe and attitude, written by Flaverney and Jefferson. Again, the steel pan sounds give it that special compelling “Island” vibe from Trinidad.

The single is limited to 300 copies and comes in a beautiful picture sleeve showing part of the original artwork from the “Oh! What A Feeling” album.

Reissue of Mort Garson’s long-out-of-print soundtrack for the 1970 experimental film Didn’t You Hear?
•One of the first-ever all-electronic film scores
•Remastered from the original master tapes

Six years before the release of his landmark Mother Earth’s Plantasia LP, composer and arranger Mort Garson met experimental film director Skip Sherwood, who was interested in an electronic score for his new movie, Didn’t You Hear? While not much is known now about the exact nature of their collaboration, we have Garson’s magnificent score as a record of those heady, early days after his lifechanging discovery of the Moog synthesizer. Notable for being one of the earliest screen appearances by a young Gary Busey, Didn’t You Hear? also boasts one of the first-ever all-electronic movie scores. Though the score was first released in 1970, it sounds as adventurous and futuristic today as it must have then. Originally available only in the lobby of the theater at screenings of the movie in Seattle, the soundtrack LP went out of print shortly after the film’s release. It has been a sought-after record for collectors of Mort Garson and early electronic music ever since. Sacred Bones is honored to reissue Didn’t You Hear? as it was meant to be heard, taken from the original master tapes and given a pristine remaster by engineer Josh Bonati.

ABOUT MORT GARSON: Morton S. “Mort” Garson was a Canadian-born composer, arranger, songwriter, and pioneer of electronic music. He is best known for his albums in the 1960s and 1970s that were among the first to feature Moog synthesizers. His best known album is Mother Earth’s Plantasia, a 1976 Moog album designed to be played “for plants and the people who love them.” Sacred Bones Records has undertaken the project of giving official, licensed reissues to key releases from Mort Garson’s catalog, with the intention of bringing these bold masterpieces to a 21st century audience.

Four albums in, the convenient and generalized catchphrase for Here Lies Man’s erudite sound — if Black Sabbath played Afrobeat — might seem a little played out. But Ritual Divination is perhaps the best rendering of the idea so far. Particularly on the Sabbath side of the equation: The guitars are heavier and more blues based than before, but the ancient rhythmic formula of the clave remains a constant.
“Musically it’s an opening up more to traditional rock elements,” says vocalist/guitarist/ cofounder Marcos Garcia, who also plays guitar in Antibalas. “It’s always been our intention to explore. And, as we travelled deeper into this musical landscape, new features revealed themselves.”

The L.A. based band comprised of Antibalas members have toured relentlessly following their breakout 2017 self-titled debut. Their second album, You Will Know Nothing and an EP, Animal Noises, both followed in 2018. Third album No Ground To Walk Upon emerged in August 2019. All of them were crafted by Garcia and cofounder/drummer Geoff Mann (former Antibalas drummer and son of jazz musician Herbie Mann) in their L.A. studio between tours. Ritual Divination is their first album recorded as the full 4-piece band, including bassist JP Maramba and keyboardist Doug Organ.
Ritual Divination continues with an ongoing concept of HLM playing the soundtrack to an imaginary movie, with each song being a scene. “It’s an inward psychedelic journey, the album is the trip,” Garcia says. “The intention and purpose of the music is to create a sonic ritual to lift the veil of inner space and divine the true nature of reality.”

Likewise, musically and sonically, the album is self-reflexive. “On this album the feel changes within a song,” Garcia says. “Whereas before each song was meant to induce a trancelike state, now more of the songs have their own arc built in.” Similarly, the guitar sounds themselves herein eschew the fuzz pedals of previous recordings, going for the directness of pure amp overdrive and distortion using an interconnected rig of 4 amplifiers. And, here, the well-versed live band is able to record as a unit, giving it much more of a live and dynamic feel.

Rough Trade named the band’s self-titled debut in their prestigious Top 10 Albums of 2017. BBC 6 & Classic Rock Magazine deemed it among the year’s best, as well as countless other press outlets singing its praises. Each subsequent album furthered the band’s reputation for genre-smashing rhythmic experimentation, topping many year-end lists as well as earning features from countless metal and indie rock outlets, plus cover stories in weekly papers.
“We’re very conscious of how the rhythms service the riffs,” Garcia explains. “Tony Iommi’s (Black Sabbath) innovation was to make the riff the organizing principle of a song. We are taking that same approach but employing a different organizing principle: For Iommi it was the blues, for us it comes directly from Africa.”
Ritual Divination will be available on LP, CD and download on January 22nd, 2021 via RidingEasy Records.

After a year off, Fruits & Flowers is back with something new and a little different. Bons is weirder than the unpopular pop music we usually cover but just as infectious and amazing. Hailing from the UK the members of Bons have been active in various noisy but gentle freeform acts over the years. Here they’ve given us their most “pop” release yet, and there’s nothing quite like it. Some of these wild sounds could slip into the Catsup Plate, Fonal or Geographic catalogs of the ’00s. There’s also a thread through this music via UK art rock, Eno’s pop moments, Woo, even the calmer bits of Camberwell Now. It’s refreshingly mysterious and transports you to the outer buds of dewy branches where a Praying Mantis is lounging with a pair of bright green Beats headphones.

*U.S. WAREHOUSE FIND* Reissue of 100 Flowers’ 1984 12” EP that’s been expanded to include all the band’s early single sides and compilation tracks. 12 songs in all. Limited edition of 500 on clear vinyl housed in numbered gatefold chipboard card sleeve printed by Independent Project Press

"Following two singles, two albums, and a bunch of compilation tracks, we are proud to present Miaux’s third LP.
Mia Prce, originally from Sarajevo and a Belgian resident since 1989, was reared on a psychedelic diet of Krautrock and similarly serpentine music by her artist parents who were part of the Antwerp-based (and over fifty years old) Ercola collective. Beautiful songs that break hearts without using a sharp object! More tears for the creatures of the night." Winner!

Dog Person is the deserved culmination of a whirlwind few years for Kean Kavanagh. His debut project, the ten-track collection prominently features his aforementioned semi-fictional, cigarette-bumming, binge-drinking, lovestruck alter-ego; a persona with just an echo of his real personality reverberating throughout the record.

Kicking off this year with the delectable “Roll Over!”, Kean returned earlier this month with his new single “EMMA”.
A developed sound, the single delved deeper into Kean’s incredible versatility as an artist - drawing a grittier sound
and formulating a high-octane single that wouldn’t sound out of place in a festival headline set. This all served to
prove that Kean Kavanagh had firmly stepped into the limelight; garnering support from the likes of i-D, DIY
Magazine, Clash, Notion and more.
Cofounder, producer and A&R of Irish Label Soft Boy Records, Kean had previously pulled the strings behind the
scenes; but is now becoming one of the most exciting names on the emerging music scene. A story-teller, word-smith
and dexterous musician with a strong imagination, Kean’s career is set to project far beyond his Irish roots. .

Founded in 2015, Soft Boy Records morphed into a cultural behemoth that gripped the Irish music scene and has
refused to let go - alongside his co-founder Kojaque, Kean found himself sharing stages with big names such as
Slow Thai and Lana Del Ray, as well as his consequential solo-slots opening for Maverick Sabre and Vampire
Weekend.
Earlier this year, Kean appeared on the Everything is Recorded project ‘FRIDAY FOREVER’, (curated by Richard
Russell of XL Recordings) alongside Aitch, Flohio, Maria Somerville, Ghostface Killah and others, and aligning
himself with a tastemaker and hot tipped selection of musical peers.
A sensational debut offering showing dexterous musicianship and lyrical magic, Dog Person places Kean as one of
the most exciting emerging talents coming through.

Trouble, the aptly named new album on Goner Records, is a confident and joy-filled statement delivering the good-news gospel message unapologetically through music influenced by Ray Charles, Junior Kimbrough, Bill Withers and of course, his father.

Recorded at legendary Royal Studios in Memphis by Lawrence “Boo” Mitchell (Al Green, Solomon Burke, John Mayer, Buddy Guy, Mark Ronson & Bruno Mars, North Mississippi Allstars), Trouble is the culmination of everything in Rev. Wilkins’s remarkable life, his regional history, his family music history. And in a world once again riven with discord and division, like the Memphis of Wilkins’ youth in the 1960’s, Trouble delivers passionate and confident musical performances with a message of hope that meets our present moment equal to the best music from that earlier era.

To call the Reverend John Wilkins a national treasure would not be an overstatement. He is the son of pre-war blues/folk-revival legend Reverend Robert Wilkins and he leads one of the most exciting and uplifting musical acts on the blues and gospel circuit today. His multiracial, multi-generational band blends soul, southern gospel and hill country rhythm, into a sound that has the infectious drive of hill country blues with the emotional heights of a summer tent revival.

Following in the footsteps of his famous father Rev. Robert Wilkins, a blues-singer turned preacher who went from the juke joint to the pulpit, the life of Rev. John Wilkins took a similar path, echoing the story of the elder Wilkins’ most famous song, “Prodigal Son.”

But in 2020 John Wilkins’ life has been closer to a different iconic bible character, Lazarus, as he has miraculously risen after surviving a month-long stay in intensive care battling Covid19 in a Memphis hospital. As Rev. Wilkins sings on the closing track of his forthcoming album, “I’ve come through the storm and rain, I’ve come through the storm and rain, and I made it!”

Younghusband have surfaced with new album, Swimmers, due 7th June on Opposite Number. Their first new music since 2015’s Dissolver, Swimmers is awash with glowing guitar melodies, breezy pop moments and restrained yet potent songcraft. It looks to themes of open space and reflection, partly inspired by band's move to their own studio in Greenwich, built by singer and songwriter Euan Hinshelwood in an old barn.

With members of Younghusband having also played in Wes Gonzalez and Meilyr Jones' recent live bands and inspired by both artists' off the cuff approach, recording sessions for Swimmers were driven by instinct and impulse, as Euan would introduce the new songs to bandmates on the day of recording.

Today, they unveil contemplative new single, "Translation". Euan says of it, "It's open to interpretation, but looking back on that period of time I guess it's a song about change and retreat. And about a short moment of that time. A stubborn moment when you want to push everything away for a second and work out what element is tripping you up."

Stevie Nicks’ solo catalog has sold over 103,000 albums in 2019, including 90,000 in physical alone.

The power of her classic legendary hits endures to this day—nearly 2.7 MILLION on demand streams per week, over 150 MILLION total in 2019, and continued radio presence— over 1,700 plays per week / over 8 MILLION audience per week and a staggering nearly 450 MILLION in audience for 2019!

Filmed and recorded in Indianapolis and Pittsburgh in 2017 during the 67 city sold out tour, 24K Gold Live in Concert features her solo hits “Stop Dragging My Heart Around, “Stand Back”, & “Edge Of Seventeen”, as well as Fleetwood Mac’s “Rhiannon” & “Gypsy”.

It also includes the first ever live recording of “Crying In The Night”, and other live rarities.

Limited first pressing on pine green vinyl in gatefold sleeve. Including the album on CD format.Nooit eerder klonken Wannes Cappelle en de zijnen zo zeker van hun stuk: zonder grote gebaren en toch raak, opgewekt en bedachtzaam, persoonlijk en maatschappijkritisch.

“Instead of landscape sketches I wanted to go into more personal areas of my reality,” says Jim Ghedi of his third album In The Furrows Of Common Place. “To hold up certain aspects of society that were laying bare in front of me.”

Whilst Ghedi’s previous idiosyncratic take on folk has often been instrumental, exploring the natural world and his relationship to it through his music as seen on 2018's A Hymn For Ancient Land. His new album In The Furrow Of Common Place is a deeper plunge inside himself to offer up more of his voice to accompany his profoundly unique and moving compositions. “There were things I was seeing around me and being affected by in my daily life,” he says. “Socially and politically I saw defiance but also hopelessness. I wanted to be honest with the frustration and turmoil I was experiencing.”

The decision to include more of Ghedi’s vocals was a conscious one and driven by a need to say something. However, this isn’t a brash raging political polemic. As is now customary with Ghedi’s work, it is rich in nuance, history, poetry and allegory. Musically, the album is equally locked into this ongoing sense of evolution. Ghedi’s intricate yet deft guitar playing still twists and flows its way through the core, weaving in and out of gliding double bass, sweeping violin, gentle percussion and vocals that shift from tender solos to overlapping harmonies.

As with much of Ghedi’s work, there’s a rich connection between the past and the current. Musically, he continues to sit in a singular position of sounding distinctly contemporary yet also with a touch of traditional flair. This expands itself into the lyrical terrain here too. “I've been exploring contemporary issues and in that process discovering sources that correlate with similar issues in the past,” he says. “Which proves that these issues throughout history - environmental destruction, working class poverty etc - are ongoing.”

For all the socio-political and historical backdrop to the record it is not one that feels overwhelmed by it. Much like Ghedi’s work when it was largely instrumental - and some of it still is here - it flows and unfurls thoughtfully, with space still being utilised masterfully, creating room to pause and reflect. It’s another inimitable record from an artist that truly sounds like nobody else right now.

Originally released by Columbia Records on November 11th 1980. It went multi platinum and featured the songs that made the band an icon of the 1970's/1980's rock era. A 12 song album pressed on standard black vinyl with download code insert. Marketing activity.

floral prince is the latest release from Field Medic, the preeminent Bay Area freak folk artist also known as Kevin Patrick Sullivan. Longtime followers of Field know the history of the anticipated project. It’s a frequent subject of late night twitter rants, secret youtube leaks and instagram live sets. But what is floral prince

Album composed, recorded and mixed by Elko Blijweert. Mastered & cut by Frédéric Altstadt. Original cover artwork painted by Joe Brockerhoff. Album pressed on 180g vinyl, in an edition of 500 copies.

Here we add a new classic chapter to tradition. A tradition known as the many exotic sounds of Maestro Elko B. The multi instrumentalist member of bands like ‘The Horse Head Bed’, ‘The Groovecats Deluxe’, ‘Dino And The Chicks’ and many more has once again composed a new solo album for Ekster. This fine and tasty selection of musical pieces vibrate colourful echoes ranging from blossoming fountains over casino-esque gambling. Space-cowboys play hide and seek with childlike innocence in an adult world. Many of the songs on “Realm of Rides & Romance”
have found its origin in Blijweert’s work as a composer of soundtracks for theatre, dance performance and artistic installations. Cinematic reflections providing EXO “Paradise Moods” by this multitrack one man band.

Recorded from 2017 to 2020, Elko has expressed finding inspiration in chance, the Sphinx, the casino, the Decap organ, colonialism, bats and frogs.

"Murmurs from Stockport (1982-1988). Throughout history there are many examples of artists who did not receive the credit their work is due during the years they were active. K.S. Eden is an artist who should be discussed in these terms."

What happens when Ambarchi is backed up by the world's greatest monster riff legends from his beloved homeland Find out in the 2nd volume of this infamous series where endless riffing and ecstatic shredding is the order of the day. Bonus intro track features some band from New York.
Yah Boobay!

Deluxe sleeve with photography by Crys Cole and Theresia Pfaender
Design via Stephen O'Malley
Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, Berlin

Gel Stations Past brings together tracks from three shadowy self-released cassettes by Russian Tsarlag: Decrepit Gas Station, Living in the Past, and Dipped in Gel. Dubbed in minimal quantities and cloistered for private worship, much of Russian Tsarlag's recent output remains hard to find. Each of these albums dispersed instantly among friends and fanatics and receded into legend.

This record consolidates the great pieces of crooner dejection that typify Tsarlag's recent music. These are his saddest and slowest-burning songs, drawn in dour guitar, sweeping keyboard, and sedated vocals that teeter well below mid-tempo. Many share a somber two-chord schema that slips in perfect doses of dissonance and distortion. The results are at once refined and totally ragged, seductive, woozy, and smeared in Tsarlag's shapely four-track atmospherics.

It is often the case with popular music that those recordings which have the most profound impact and long-term appeal are often the ones which are produced in a moment without much deliberation or agenda. And that has certainly been the case with Slow Club’s EP of Christmas songs.

The first single from the E.P, Christmas TV, was actually written in soundcheck at Birmingham Barfly and released as a free download for Christmas 2008. The rest of the EP was written and recorded in a short burst in late summer 2009 at Axis Studios in Sheffield and in their friend’s bedroom. It came at a moment of intense creativity for the band when the songs were coming thick and fast and the duo were really hitting their stride. The differing musical styles of the pair was already becoming apparent across the three original compositions and three covers, and there is a real sense of a band pushing their limits in a way which would coalesce in the recording of their breakthrough second album the following year.

From the British invasion bands of the 60's to the punk and new wave of the 70's, The Retrospectives were raised on the music of their parents. Inspired by the likes of Elvis Costello, The Rolling Stones and Tom Petty, this energetic three-piece have spent the last two years touring relentlessly, driven by a belief that guitars still have a vital place in popular music. Sheffield has long been home to one of the country's most vibrant music scenes and named by Q Magazine as one of the city's top 5 bands to watch, The Retrospectives are now at the forefront. Following the addition of Paul Jackson on drums, 2013 was their biggest year to date. The release of their new EP 'Turn Me Up' saw them take to the stage supporting The Boomtown Rats, Night Engine and Paper Aeroplanes, as well as opening for Bruce Foxton's 'From The Jam' at a sold out show at the famous Cavern Club In Liverpool. Described by Stereoboard as 'Songwriters with an ability to combine lyrics and melody with rare precision' and having landed themselves a place in BBC Introducing Sheffield's top ten tracks of the year, it's clear their hook-laden, off-kilter, power-pop is starting to turn heads in the right places. After kicking off the new year with another 'From The Jam' support slot (this time at ABC in Glasgow), The Retrospectives are gearing up to make a massive impact in 2014 and with a single release, headline tour and a support slot with The Buzzcocks already in place, it's set to be an exciting year. Tour Dates : 21/03 Basement//York 22/03 Fishpond//Matlock 23/03 The op//Wakefield 24/03 The Cluny 2 // Newcastle 25/03 Cookie Jar//Leicester 26/03 Hare and Hounds//Birmingham 27/03 Graystones//Sheffield 28/03 Vintage Rockbar // Doncaster 29/03 Running Horse//Nottingham 30/03 Cockpit 3//Leeds 31/03 Sound Control//Manchester 03/04 The Diamond//Sutton in Ashfield 06/04 The Enterprise//London 12/04 Picturedrome//Holmfirth (Supporting Buzzcocks)

With This Dazzling, Genuine "Difference"

Now

Where Shall It Go, Black Truffle presents the 8th full-length release from the trio of Keiji Haino, Jim O'Rourke and Oren Ambarchi. Over the course of four LP sides, the October 2014 concert documented here ranges from rock power trio dynamics to maelstroms of analogue electronics. Once again, the three demonstrate their commitment to pushing into new areas of instrumental exploration and group interaction. Where previous releases from the trio have often featured extended vocal workouts from Haino, at times suggesting abstracted folk song, Haino's vocalizations here are restricted to the occasional impassioned cry, putting the focus squarely on instrumental interplay. More than ever before, this feels like the work of three equals, with O'Rourke or Ambarchi taking the lead role as often as Haino does.
The four pieces presented here each focus on extended development. The first side is propelled by Ambarchi's busy, Jack DeJohnette-esque cymbal and tom work, which provides a skittering yet insistent pulse over which Haino and O'Rourke's FX-saturated strings rise and fall, momentarily converging for passages of near stasis before again pulling apart to continue wandering through areas of gently sour discord; O'Rourke's use of a six-string bass here boosts the harmonic density of the music and often makes his contribution difficult to distinguish from Haino's guitar. On the second side, O'Rourke uses his pedals to make his bass near unrecognizable, generating a squelching, harmonically unstable riff that Ambarchi accompanies with a semi-martial snare pattern, the two driving home the idea for the duration of the side while Haino moves between frenetic octave-doubled fuzz riffing and streams of feedback.
The third side presents some of the most abstract music heard from the trio since their first release (Tima Formosa, BT04). Continuing Haino's explorations of new instruments, the side opens with a long passage of toy piano, an instrument that in his hands is at once childlike and imbued with a mysterious gravity. Alongside occasional vocal interjections from Haino (singing in English), Ambarchi creates delicate textures on cymbals and metallic percussion while O'Rourke, for the first time in this group, performs on the EMS Synthi. In a long passage in the middle of the side, he provides ample evidence of his mastery of the instrument, crafting a complex texture from pointillist stabs and rapid sweeps that possesses the same unpredictable yet controlled feeling of classic live-electronics documents like Pierre Henry's 'Corticalart' series. With Haino joining in with his own electronics, the side eventually builds to a chaotic climax.
Beginning with a sequence of 'fourth world' drums and flute, the final side unfolds an epic build-up over a hypnotic foundation of pounding toms. Moving from flute to vocals to electronics, Haino eventually picks up the guitar in the second half of the piece, igniting a spectral blur over driving rhythms from bass and drums that eventually builds to a frenzied climax.
Stunning deluxe gatefold sleeve with cover image by Traianos Pakioufakis and live action pics by Mike Kubeck.
LP design via Stephen O'Malley
Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, Berlin May 2017

Configuração do Lamento is a sound riot, a trance-inducing cacophony, a body-shaking mix of percussive rhythms and bending guitars. The seventh album by São Paulo, Brazil's DEAFKIDS, could, as the band cautions, be harmful for the weak-minded.

An experimental mile marker on the band's journey, this is an album intended to be as treacherous on the ears as it is hypnotic to the mind. Expanding the band's D-beat origins, the eight tracks of Configuração do Lamento vacillate between demonic fever dreams, orgies of acidic guitars and percussive taunting. And, sometimes, songs are not songs anymore, but sonic assaults where the band clatters and hums like rough metallic windchimes in gale force winds.

The latest addition to the Neurot Recordings lineup, DEAFKIDS was formed in 2010 in the industrial city of Volta Redonda/Rio de Janeiro. The band's first iteration was a solo idea by Douglas, delivering a fuzz-soaked blend of crust/d-beat, before Marcelo was added on bass and Robinho on drums, who was replaced by Mariano.

Seven years, seven releases, two European tours, gigs across Brazil and more than 100 shows later, DEAFKIDS remains steadfast onto a path that leads to sonic mind control. Each of the band's releases have explored a different take on the hypnotic rhythms that comprise D-beat: the full-throttle noise assault of 2012's Six Heretic Anthems for the Deaf EP; the cavernous, off-the-rails hardcore and apocalyptic monoliths that comprised 2014's The Upper Hand LP.

As the band moved to live together in São Paulo, composing and creating as a full unit, Deaf Kids began to blend each member's musical and aesthetic taste with a common interest in mesmerizing grooves and psychedelic rhythms from around the globe. This turned the band even further on it's sonic edge. The resulting process was the mind-abusing, lingering repetition of 2015's split with USA's Timekiller, the cathartic energy discharge of the trio's live performances and the wild, psychedelic absurdity that is Configuração do Lamento.

Nowadays Deaf Kids produce overwhelming, sensory-driven dirges that carry a Brazilian (and Latin American) imprint. Deaf Kids is the legitimate bastard child of the colonial chaos — trapped here and there — between both complementary and opposing worldviews, trying to balance the intensity and conflicted nature of the human condition.