Pop & Rock News

New label Last Records is a front for various musical cells around the world, awaiting a signal to unleash their own quirky brand of sound. First band of insurgents are the Sukebe Collective from Fukuoka, Japan.

Animal Collective’s live album ‘Ballet Slippers’, set
for release via Domino, is an homage to the 10-
Year Anniversary of their modern classic,
‘Merriweather Post Pavilion’.
 Recorded in the midst of the band’s extensive and
acclaimed nine-month tour in 2009, the album
features ‘Merriweather Post Pavilion’’s greatest hits
alongside favourites from ‘Strawberry Jam’, ‘Sung
Tongs’, ‘Feels’ and ‘Danse Manatee’.
 Mixed by Ajay Saggar and edited by Noah Lennox
(Panda Bear), the release is culled from several
shows from that album’s North American tour and
sequenced to reflect a full concert experience,
complete with song transitions and interludes,
creating a captivating document of the genredefying group.
 Triple LP in M-Pack gatefold with etching on side F
and digital download card.

The debut album from Pottery, ‘Welcome to Bobby’s Motel’, available
on CD, Hot Dog Yellow vinyl (with digital download card) and digital
download album. Produced by Jonathan Schenke.
 Hailing from across Canada and the UK, Montreal’s Pottery consists of
core writers Austin Boylan and Jacob Shepansky, along with Peter
Baylis, Paul Jacobs and Tom Gould. Initially bonding over artists such
as Orange Juice, Josef K and Devo, the band creates a sound that
combines eclectic traces of post-punk, pop and dance music, forming
an unusual atmosphere that envelopes audiences.
 For fans of Preoccupations, Jacuzzi Boys, Oh Sees, Parquet Courts,
Shame, IDLES, Gang of Four, The Fall, Ron Gallo, The Nude Party,
Orange Juice, Devo.
 “Highly addictive... brilliant” - Lauren Laverne, BBC 6 Music
 “Louche, unpredictable indie-rock heroes-in-waiting” - NME
 “Fuck exercise, one listen to this is all the endorphin rush you need.”
- DIY (★★★★1/2)
 “A little zany and plenty colourful” - Stereogum
 “Remarkable” - The 405
 “Irresistible” - Consequence Of Sound
 Pottery completed their 2019 tour having supported Fontaines D.C.
on a full US run, as well as having sold out headline UK shows
through August, including London’s Moth Club and Brixton Windmill,
not to mention epic End Of The Road Festival and Greenman Festival
performances. In 2020, the band embark on a second UK and
European tour, with dates in the UK, Europe and the US (supporting
IDLES), with a headline show at London’s Dome Tufnell Park.

A mixtape for Bedouin Records by Yousuke Yokimatsu disguised ¥ØU$UK€ ¥UK1MAT$U.

Pressed on Vinyl for the first time ‘Hi- Fi Serious’ was the third album from ‘A’ released in 2002. It includes their hit single, "Nothing", which became the band's first and only top ten hit when it reached number 9 in the UK singles chart. "Nothing" was followed by top 20 hit "Starbucks", named after the coffee chain.
The tour following Hi-Fi Serious saw the band headlining the 5,000 capacity Brixton Academy as part of their Inner-City Sumo Tour. At the end of the year they won the Kerrang! award for Best British Band.In 2004, their single "Nothing" appeared on Beyblade's Let It Rip! official soundtrack. In 2007, "Something's Going On" and "The Distance" appeared on the Surf's Up video game soundtrack.

Red Vinyl LTD

Pressed on Vinyl for the first time ‘Hi- Fi Serious’ was the third album from ‘A’ released in 2002. It includes their hit single, "Nothing", which became the band's first and only top ten hit when it reached number 9 in the UK singles chart. "Nothing" was followed by top 20 hit "Starbucks", named after the coffee chain.
The tour following Hi-Fi Serious saw the band headlining the 5,000 capacity Brixton Academy as part of their Inner-City Sumo Tour. At the end of the year they won the Kerrang! award for Best British Band.In 2004, their single "Nothing" appeared on Beyblade's Let It Rip! official soundtrack. In 2007, "Something's Going On" and "The Distance" appeared on the Surf's Up video game soundtrack.

Recorded at Le Bal, Paris 4 May 2018. Mix & mastered by Stephan Mathieu, Schwebung November 2019. Vinyl cut at Schnittstelle, Berlin December 2019. Cover photo by Elodie Lesourd, Charleroi 2017.
Dedicated to Iancu Dumitrescu. Thank you to the audience & staff at Le Bal, Gisèle Vienne, Emilie Lauriola, Stephan Mathieu, Elodie Lesourd, Lia Pradal & Camille Tallent.

Produced within the context of 'The Guidebook of Church Burners' publication release, this performance was recorded at visual arts institution LE BAL in Paris, May 4th 2018. Published by Païen in a limited edition, the book explores and transforms into an abstract narration the multiple facets of black metal iconography and history. Emerging from a dialogue between sound and image, the otherworldly piece created for that evening by Stephen O'Malley is a result of this collaboration. – Emilie Lauriola.

Following 2018's acclaimed collaboration with Simon Fisher Turner, "Care", Swedish sound artist Klara Lewis returns with "Ingrid", her third solo release for Editions Mego.

"Ingrid" is a departure from Lewis's previous solo outings, drifting from the eerie rhythmic variations of "Too" and "Ett" and moving assuredly into long-form experimentation. The piece retains those records' pulsing core and builds on a single cello loop that is steadily enveloped by a surge of distortion. It's almost like a voice or chant, shifting pointedly from a whisper into a scream before singing peacefully into the light.

At times, "Ingrid" reminds of William Basinski's looping melancholy or Steve Reich's controlled and innovative phase experiments, while at others, it recalls the chaotic Scandinavian physicality of black metal. Yet the entire composition is anchored in Klara Lewis's distinct emotional world. By dissolving familiar and beautiful strings in baths of noise, Lewis allows something violent but tender to grow in its place. In a society struck through by cynicism, "Ingrid" is a cathartic listening experience and a beacon of hope.

One off single in advance of some live dates with The Distillers.
LIVE 1/20 - Winnipeg 1/22 - Edmonton 1/23 - Calgary 1/25 - Vancouver 12/26 - Seattle PAST SALES Albums w/ TEA & SEA: 293,883 Albums: 234,244 Streaming On-Demand: 47,164,274.

No better is this virtuosic ability heard than on New History Warfare, Volume 1, Stetson‘s first full-length solo recording from Aagoo Records. On this album, the vast musical experiences that Stetson has accumulated over a short period of time have been crafted into
12 songs that defy genres, establishing a sound that is Colin Stetson in full bloom.

The Atlanta band Criminal Instinct make fast, raw, almost comically aggressive hardcore punk. Their music goes all the way over the top in its sheer mouth-frothing pummel. Gang-chant choruses! Juddering riffs! A singer who sounds like he’s delivering beatdown threats in an unfamiliar Eastern European language even though he’s clearly singing in English! One-minute songs! Quiet parts that suddenly erupt into visceral jackhammer attacks! It’s all here!

Criminal Instinct have been around since at least 2012, and they’ve released a few assorted demo tapes and one proper EP, 2014’s Fever. Now, they’ll unleash Terrible Things, their first full-length. They’ve just shared two songs, and they’re both motherfuckers. “NMFP” is a 91-second moshpit grenade of a song; the title stands for “Not My Fucking Problem.” “Victim,” by contrast, is a 68-second moshpit grenade of a song, and it’s got a fun fakeout opening that sounds like ’50s luau music, at least for the few seconds before the riffs crash in.

DANA GAVANSKI / YESTERDAY IS GONE ‘I’m learning how to say goodbye / to let you go and face the tide / to wrap my feelings in a song,’ sings Dana Gavanski on the title track of her debut LP, Yesterday Is Gone. To wrap her feelings in a song: this is the task Dana has dedicated herself to with this record.

It’s a goal common to many songwriters, but few approach it with such aplomb. By turns break-up album, project of curiosity, and, as Dana puts it, ‘a reckoning with myself’, Yesterday Is Gone is her attempt to ‘learn to say what I feel and feel what I say’: an album of longing and devotion to longing, and of the uncertainty that arises from learning about oneself, of pushing boundaries, falling hard,
and getting back up.


BBC 6 Music A-list from 30th Dec 2019 - 19th Jan 2020 Support tour with Damien Jurado in Feb 20 Headline tour in April 20 The Great Escape Festival confirmed for May 20 End of the Road and Moseley Folk Festivals confirmed for Sept 20.

With 2017’s Savage Sinusoid, Igorrr more than proved to be a truly unique musical force and 2020’s Spirituality And Distortion cements that well-earned reputation. Slamming together disparate musical styles ranging from death and black metal to breakcore, Balkan, baroque and classical music in a manner that is as unconventional and unpredictable as it is thrilling, Igorrr are unlike any other act, and Spirituality And Distortion displays just as broad
a range of emotions as sounds.

With 2017’s Savage Sinusoid, Igorrr more than proved to be a truly unique musical force and 2020’s Spirituality And Distortion cements that well-earned reputation. Slamming together disparate musical styles ranging from death and black metal to breakcore, Balkan, baroque and classical music in a manner that is as unconventional and unpredictable as it is thrilling, Igorrr are unlike any other act, and Spirituality And Distortion displays just as broad
a range of emotions as sounds.

2020 sees the thirtieth anniversary of the album that launched the solo career of sometime Go-Betweens frontman Robert Forster. Upon its release ‘Danger In The Past’ met with universal acclaim from critics, even drawing comparison with Bob Dylan’s ‘Blood On The Tracks’ in some quarters. To mark this milestone, Needle Mythology will be reissuing expanded versions of both Danger In The Past and its 1992 successor ‘Calling From A Country Phone’.

The re-release of these albums comes on the back of an incredible 2019 for Forster, in which he released an acclaimed studio album Inferno and received unanimous five star reviews for G Is For Go-Betweens Vol. 2, the second in a trilogy of box-sets gathering Go-Betweens studio albums and previously unreleased live recordings and outtakes. Forster himself has been fully involved on this expanded reissue contributing new liner notes and newly unearthed photographs.

For Danger In The Past, Robert recorded in Berlin with an illustrious ensemble that included Bad Seeds alumni Mick Harvey (producer, multi-instrumentalist), Hugo Race (guitar) and Thomas Wydler (drums). BBC 6 Music’s Gideon Coe, described the record as "a beautiful, confident solo debut.” Of these new remasters, Needle Mythology co-founder Pete Paphides says, “The remastering (from Sean Magee at Abbey Road Studios) has dramatically revealed a depth and physicality to these recordings that casts new light on Robert’s intentions for these records.

Remastered at Abbey Road by Sean Magee (credits inc. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Sex Pistols) Out of print for over a decade ,
the LP reissue comes on heavyweight vinyl pressed at Vinyl Factory plus bonus 7”, housed in a gatefold sleeve. The bonus 7” features
The Land That Time Forgot and, for the first time on vinyl, Falling Star CD version is in a vinyl replica sleeve and comes with 12 page colour booklet , the bonus tracks appear as ‘hidden’ extras on the CD.

2020 sees the thirtieth anniversary of the album that launched the solo career of sometime Go-Betweens frontman Robert Forster. Upon its release ‘Danger In The Past’ met with universal acclaim from critics, even drawing comparison with Bob Dylan’s ‘Blood On The Tracks’ in some quarters. To mark this milestone, Needle Mythology will be reissuing expanded versions of both Danger In The Past and its 1992 successor ‘Calling From A Country Phone’.

The re-release of these albums comes on the back of an incredible 2019 for Forster, in which he released an acclaimed studio album Inferno and received unanimous five star reviews for G Is For Go-Betweens Vol. 2, the second in a trilogy of box-sets gathering Go-Betweens studio albums and previously unreleased live recordings and outtakes. Forster himself has been fully involved on this expanded reissue contributing new liner notes and newly unearthed photographs. For Danger In The Past, Robert recorded in Berlin with an illustrious ensemble that included Bad Seeds alumni Mick Harvey (producer, multi-instrumentalist), Hugo Race (guitar) and Thomas Wydler (drums).

BBC 6 Music’s Gideon Coe, described the record as "a beautiful, confident solo debut.” Of these new remasters, Needle Mythology
co-founder Pete Paphides says, “The remastering (from Sean Magee at Abbey Road Studios) has dramatically revealed a depth and physicality to these recordings that casts new light on Robert’s intentions for these records. Remastered at Abbey Road by Sean Magee (credits inc. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Sex Pistols) Out of print for over a decade , the LP reissue comes on heavyweight vinyl pressed at Vinyl Factory plus bonus 7”, housed in a gatefold sleeve.

The bonus 7” features The Land That Time Forgot and, for the first time on vinyl, Falling Star CD version is in a vinyl replica sleeve and comes with 12 page colour booklet , the bonus tracks appear as ‘hidden’ extras on the CD.

1 LP 140 gram colored (Orange)

Nap Eyes’ latest full length, ‘Snapshot Of A Beginner’, is proof that sometimes the late bloomers bloom brightest. Eight years and four albums into it, the artistic arc of Nap Eyes finds itself tracing a line alongside frontman Nigel Chapman’s daily tai chi practice. Those first
years and albums are the cold mornings in the park: the measured movements, the joint aches, the self-doubt. With each new release,
an incremental and invigorating step forward. And with the end of
each album and tour, a return to the beginner’s practice. And now,
‘Snapshot Of A Beginner’ - Nap Eyes’ boldest, most concentrated and
most hi-fi album to date - a study of that repeated return and all that
it can teach you.
Almost all the songs of Nap Eyes are whittled into their final form
from Chapman’s unspooling, 20-minute voice-and-guitar free-writing
sessions. Each member - drummer Seamus Dalton, bassist Josh
Salter or guitarist Brad Loughead - then plays a crucial role in song
development, composing around the idiosyncratic structures and
directing the overall sound and feel of the songs. Until now, that final
song construction and recording has been mostly done live in a
room. But for ‘Snapshot Of A Beginner’ the band went to The
National’s neuvo-legendary upstate NY Long Pond Studio, working
with producers Jonathan Low (Big Red Machine, The National) and
James Elkington (Steve Gunn, Joan Shelley), the latter of whom also
did pre-production arrangement work with the band.
It took Nap Eyes a long time and a long practice to reach this artistic
zen but one gets the feeling throughout ‘Snapshot Of A Beginner’
that this balance is going to hold.

"I think most of it takes place in dreams," Caleb Landry Jones says of his debut solo album, The Mother Stone. "I'm talking more about dreams than I am about what's happened in the physical realm. Or I'm talking about both, and you're not sure what's what." Caleb Landry Jones was born in Garland, Texas in 1989 and comes from a long line of fiddle players. Three, maybe four generations back, on his mother's side. His grandfather wrote jingles for commercials, his mother was a singer-songwriter who taught piano lessons in the house, and his father was a contractor who did a lot of work for the Dallas music-equipment retailer Brook Mays and knew a guy if you needed a bass or a banjo. But Jones is not sure if you can hear any of this in his music and he does not play the fiddle. Jones has been writing and recording music since age 16, around the same time he started acting professionally. Played in a band called Robert Jones for a minute, lost his guitar player to higher education, moved into his own place, and broke up with somebody, at which point the songs really started coming hard and fast. "I started playing guitar and playing more keys," he says, "and then started writing record after record after record after record, because I didn't know what to do with myself. It was a good way of healing. And it felt like as soon as I started doing it, it felt like it needed to happen all the time." In the ensuing years he'd spend a lot of time carrying unrecorded songs around in his head like goldfish in a bag, waiting for a chance to record them in marathon sessions in his parents' barn. "You gotta play the songs every day, or every two or three days, to keep `em," he says. "Otherwise I forget them." Sometimes the ideas fuse together, one chapter to the next; this is how songs grow into seven-plus-minute epics like the ones on The Mother Stone. His back catalog is around seven hundred songs deep_ a whole discography of full albums, most of them unheard outside the barn, at least for now.

Marking their 20th year as a band, Maserati returns with their first new album in five years. Produced by the band and mixed by Grammy-winning producer, John Congleton (Explosions In The Sky, Swans, Angel Olsen), Enter The Mirror is Maserati's most compelling mélange of triumphant guitar hooks, abstract synth-pop, and Wax Trax-inspired noise anthems. The gated drums of Phil Collins and chorus-drenched guitars of INXS were prominent influences on Enter The Mirror, paired to magnificent effect with the increasingly dystopian lyrical themes (which, ironically, were also massive influences on popular music in the 1980s, and feel ever more relevant now). In addition to longtime members Coley Dennis, Matt Cherry, Chris McNeal, and Mike Albanese, Maserati are joined by friends and collaborators, Bill Berry (R.E.M.), Owen Lange, and Alfredo Lapuz Jr. Self-reflection and loss of control as both a positive and negative aspect of modern existence is at the heart of Enter The Mirror. It is Maserati's most efficient and cohesive album, and a monumental accomplishment for a band who have weathered many storms throughout their first two decades - and found the will to not just keep moving, but to move with style and chase.

Subconscious Self Sabotage is a collaborative release between 1000 Petal Lotus and Angus Tarnawsky. These two artists met and became friends while both living in Vancouver BC between 2016-17. Originally, 1000 Petal Lotus asked Tarnawsky to remix some of his recordings for a video project. The collaboration eventually morphed into a live performance built around samples made from the composition used in the video. This next evolution—1-10—is not really a track; it represents fragments of a process and exists in the tradition of records as "tools." The spontaneous and unpredictable nature of this whole approach is most apparent on the physical version of this release; a 7" lathe cut record (edition of 25) featuring 10 locked grooves that are slightly different between editions. The digital version captures these same grooves (from one record) but is an inherently fixed entity. The records themselves are living objects; each locked groove will loop differently from one record to the next.

Finlay Shakespeare is a freak. With this, his second album for Editions he confirms this. As a one man band it often strikes the listener as bewildering that he can do all this; the programming sits firmly in the realms of genius, the constant punch of melody upon melody leaves a pleasant sting of surprise and as a lyric writer there's a part of his moniker that seems apt. Solemnities is more gritty than his previous outings as a more raucous industrial edge is grafted on to his epic electronic pop leanings. Occupation launches proceedings as a snarling electro pop monster. Finlay's vocals have never been delivered with such urgency.

From here it's one melodic banger followed by another as Shakespeare truly hones his voice and craft into something utterly of his own devising, despite, or as a result of, the specific world of electronic music he is referencing. Covering a wide range of emotional states, from anger to euphoria this is a wild complex dip into one man's world perfectly crafted into an external release. She Says / Nothing Ends concludes proceedings with an anthem so bold it would be a worldwide hit if the world could be told. Find a comfortable position, turn Solemnities up loud and let Finlay take you on this startling spectacular trip.

Dark Red & Dark Grey Swirl w/White & Tan

With a freshly inked deal with Prosthetic Records done and dusted, Fool’s Ghost are preparing to release their debut full length this winter. Comprising of Nick Thieneman (Young Widows, Breather Resist) and Amber Thieneman (Liberation Prophecy, Sandpaper Dolls), Fool’s Ghost are a band small in number but vast in scope. D ark Woven Light is their new year missive, evoking stark landscapes and barren vistas. The ten track album was recorded in 2018, in their hometown of Louisville, Kentucky with producer Kevin Ratterman (Emma Ruth Rundle, Jaye Jayle, Jim James) at the helm. Cinematic and atmospheric by nature, Dark Woven Light is heavy music distilled through a crystalline lense. Threads of real life loss and personal experience loop throughout the album’s broader feeling of the weight of the world pressing down on every last nerve. The absence of human-to-human contact and attentiveness; the speed in which things move chafing away at wholeness and wholesomeness feed into the permeating melancholy of the album. Melody illuminates the darkest corners with shards of hope and of light. Fool’s Ghost are challenging the very notion of what heaviness is within music - a gentle exploration of the darkest facets of our individual and collective psyches. In Dark Woven Light, Fool’s Ghost have delivered the perfect winter record - a lullaby for ghosts, an elegy for the apocalypse.

Bristol via London based noise-rock crew Modern Rituals are back with their second album, ‘This Is The History’. Armed with a far more dense low-end alongside their unsettlingly angular melodies, this sophomore effort simmers with a restless verve in its tonal marriage of the gentle and the grimey. Tracks such as ‘The Bull Never Wins’ and stunning closer ‘Jutting Chin’ brings to mind Fugazi or The Jesus Lizard at their most disjointed, coupled with the violent fusion of Unsane and Melvins-esque sludge elements; Modern Rituals’ musical palette is one of extremes. The album certainly pulls a lot of its strength from these more unhinged moments, but it should be noted, there’s also a shimmering and hazy quality to their more melodious cuts. ‘Them Days Is Gone’ and ‘You Can’t Tell A Man By The Songs He Sings’ both delicately unravel with a gentle precariousness, bubbling away with a nervous energy that’s as beautiful as it is exhausting. There’s a warm familiarity in ‘This Is The History’s’ more palatable sounds, with names such as Sonic Youth or Pile no doubt likely to be cited as a reference point, but it’s in Modern Rituals’ more explosive moments - when the restlessness boils over - that we can get a picture of a band operating wildly and freely without genre confines.

Everything is alright now. Alex Brown Church — the man behind the dark folk, indie rock band Sea Wolf — wants you to know that from the start. Really. Sea Wolf’s eagerly anticipated fifth LP, Through A Dark Wood, due out March 20 via Dangerbird Records, proves it in 11 textured, sometimes-acoustic, sometimes-electronic, unabashedly honest tracks. But beforehand, everything was decidedly not okay. Church wrote and recorded an entire album after 2014’s streaming-only, stripped down album Song Spells No. 1: Cedarsmoke, but decided to scrap it. He realized those songs lacked a through-line and felt conceptually disjointed, something he attributes to a sense of denial of what had been going behind the scenes — dealing with the disintegration of a long-term relationship, reconciling with the death of an estranged parent, and trying to cope with the magnitude of current events, all while maintaining a passionately beloved, yet slow-burning creative career. So Church mustered his courage to go back to the drawing board. Starting from scratch, he spent months in his northeast Los Angeles studio writing, singing, tracking, and producing the new set of Sea Wolf songs that comprise Through A Dark Wood. The result is a catharsis record, not merely a breakup record — one that highlights power in vulnerability and bravery in the face of fear. “I think a recurring theme of all of my albums has been this sense of hope,” Church says, “coming out of a dark place and into a light place.”

Shy Dog is the solo project of Noah Melis (Borokov Borokov, Bed Rugs, Olden Yolk). After the self-titled debut album (released in 2017) now comes the follow up record 'Be Always In Bloom' which was heavily influenced by being on the road, through a break-up and sixties French & Italian movie scores.

In March 2020 Loose will release The Handsome Family's first two records, Odessa (1995) Milk & Scissors (1996), on vinyl LP. This will be the first time these records have been released in Europe.

In March 2020 Loose will release The Handsome Family's first two records, Odessa (1995) Milk & Scissors (1996), on vinyl LP. This will be the first time these records have been released in Europe.

As one of the most prolific and respected musicians to emerge from the vibrant Dutch scene, saxophonist and composer Tineke Postma has been touring internationally as a leader since 2003. With a catalogue of six albums her international profile has resulted in the Rising Star on soprano award in the Downbeat Critics Poll 2019 and seen her perform alongside greats such as Herbie Hancock on International Jazz Day (Watch Here). Her forthcoming album Freya, due for release in March 2020, marks the beginning of a new era for Tineke. After some years of performing more as a guest soloist than bandleader, and active in her role as a mother, this album represents a fresh start with a new label, refreshed energy and an exciting band with an output collectively inspired by experiences she has gathered throughout her career. Together with trumpeter Ralph Alessi, bassist Matt Brewer, drummer Dan Weiss and featuring pianist Kris Davis, Tineke makes music that is adventurous, empowering and full of risk taking.

Second solo album from the New York MC and former member of Ratking and Secret Circle. Denzel Curry and Wiki's former Secret Circle groupmate Lil Ugly Mane guest on the single "Grim” "excellent...all three rappers vent serious darkness over a heavy, staggering beat that Lil Ugly Mane co-produced with former Spank Rock collaborator XXXChang," Stereogum. The album also features guest contributions from Princess Nokia, Your Old Droog, Lansky Jones, and duendita. The video for the lead single "Pesto" received press from The FADER, HotNewHipHop ["has Wiki dropping bar after bar over a heavy-hitting, Tony Seltzer-produced beat"], Lab.fm, and others. Wiki's debut studio album No Mountains in Manhattan [2017 XL] made end--of-year "best of" lists from XXL, Pitchfork, Brooklyn Vegan, Okayplayer, Time Out, Loud & Quiet.

Deap Lips is Wayne & Steven from THE FLAMING LIPS with Julie & Lindsey from DEAP VALLY. This special collaboration came together after a friendship formed between the bands.- - The seeds of Deap Lips were first planted years ago, when Troy and Edwards each fell in love with the music of the Flaming Lips. The Lips' 1999 classic The Soft Bulletin is one of Edwards' top ten of all time. "You can listen to their entire catalogue and the experience is so intact, full of experiments, philosophy, hooks, and the sublime," says Edwards. "There are very few artists who can offer the same experience on a decades-spanning deep dive."

Flash forward to 2016 as Deap Vally were touring with Wolfmother and Coyne turned up at a show in Raleigh (Edwards was on maternity leave at the time). Wayne, in town scouting the best edible giant gummy props, came for the show and Troy and Coyne were introduced after the set.

After that chance meeting Coyne started following Deap Vally on Instagram and would tag them in random posts of the Lips in the studio, much to their delight and amusement. Deap Vally wondered:
is Wayne hinting at a collaboration? They had this theme on the brain as Edwards and Troy had recently embarked on a series of yet to be released collaborations with the likes of KT Tunstall, Peaches, Jamie Hince (The Kills), Soko, Jenny Lee (Warpaint), Jennie Vee (EODM), Zach Dawes (Queens of the Stone Age, Mini Mansions), and Ayse Hassan (Savages).

Ltd Clear w/Sky Splatter/Clear w/Sand Center Vinyl

With Mandala of Fear, HUNTSMEN have returned to add a dynamic new chapter to the rich and varied tradition of great American storytelling. Massive in scope and spanning two full LPs, the album explores themes of trauma, recovery, and - ultimately - survival, through the lens of a fully formed sci-fi-esque tale set in the near future as unending desert war crumbles into apocalypse. The story is further told through a 32-page graphic novel that accompanies the 2LP set. Having enlisted Aimee Bueno to provide vocals for the final track of previous album, American Scrap, her role has since evolved into being an equal participant in the HUNTSMEN adventure. Whilst storytelling has been - and remains - at the core of all that HUNTSMEN is, they continue to dissolve the boundaries between metal and the more traditional modes of folk and country. Mandala of Fear marries melody and progressive elements to create an undulating foundation to layer its dystopian missive on atop. Recorded at Decade Studios in Chicago with Sanford Parker occupying the producer’s chair, Parker’s own love of true American storytellers such as Waylon Jennings further imbued the spirit of the tradition into every crevice of the album, while his leanings toward icy electronic music provide a chilling and gut-wrenching counterpoint.

Produced by: Stephin Merritt.

‘An incomparable lyricist capable of balancing arch wit with painfully acute observation.’ – Guardian.

Nonesuch Records releases the Magnetic Fields’ Quickies, a set of five vinyl EPs that features twenty-eight new short songs by Stephin Merritt, ranging in length from thirteen seconds to two minutes and thirty-five seconds. Quickies also will be available on CD and digitally.

Merritt explains his thinking behind the Quickies concept: “I’ve been reading a lot of very short fiction, and I enjoyed writing 101 Two-Letter Words, the poetry book about the shortest words you can use in Scrabble. And I’ve been listening to a lot of French baroque harpsichord music. Harpsichord doesn’t lend itself to languor.
So I’ve been thinking about one instrument at a time, playing for about a minute or so and then stopping, and I’ve been thinking of narratives that are only a few lines long. Also, I had been using a lot of small notebooks, so when I reach the bottom of the page, I’ve only gone a short way. Now that I’m working on a different album, I’m enforcing a large notebook rule so that I don’t do Quickies twice in a row.”

Quickies features Merritt and other Magnetic Fields band members Sam Davol, Claudia Gonson, Shirley Simms, and John Woo. They are joined by longtime friends and collaborators Chris Ewen, Daniel Handler, and Pinky Weitzman.

To date, Stephin Merritt has written and recorded twelve Magnetic Fields albums, including the beloved 69 Love Songs and the 2017 critically acclaimed Nonesuch box set, 50 Song Memoir, which chronicled the first fifty years of the songwriter’s life with one song per year. New York magazine called the box set ‘a celebration of Merritt’s sky-high range as a writer and a player, through the exploration of the circumstances that helped cultivate it… a delightful flip through the untold back pages of one of rock’s most singular voices, and, all in all, the best damned Magnetic Fields album in
the last ten years.’

Merritt has also composed original music and lyrics for several music theatre pieces, including an off-Broadway stage musical of Neil Gaiman’s novel Coraline, for which he received an Obie Award. In 2014, Merritt composed songs and background music for the first musical episode of public radio’s This American Life. Stephin Merritt also releases albums under the band names the 6ths, the Gothic Archies, and Future Bible Heroes.

Thirty Tigers artist Sadler Vaden's new solo album Anybody Out There? Two time Grammy award winner as a member of Jason Isbell's band, the 400 Unit. - Sadler has also been a member of Drivin' N Cryin' - Billboard premiere confirmed for first IG, "Next to You". - National press campaign led by Jake Lanier at Lucky Bird Media.

The Districts upcoming 4th album 'You Know I'm Not Going Anywhere' - in stores March 13, 2020 "You Know I’m Not Going Anywhere is an unachievable promise,” says The Districts bandleader Rob Grote. “It’s about a dream for love to last forever and a yearning to postpone death. It is about wanting to escape everyday life while also craving time with one who’s present. It’s a plea to remain the same in the face of constant change, and the certainty of going nowhere fast.” Written after playing nearly 200 shows over two years in support of their 2017 album, Popular Manipulations, The Districts’ fourth full-length You Know I’m Not Going Anywhere almost never arrived. As they began to contemplate a new album, Grote and his longtime bandmates Pat Cassidy (guitar), Connor Jacobus (bass), and Braden Lawrence (drums) faced a transitional period that was painful for both personal and professional reasons, and found themselves fatigued and disoriented as a group. Grote also felt dysphoric from the anxiety-provoking state of the world today, while facing a daily battle with the dire health problems of his beloved dog. The Districts were forced to rethink everything. “This album was written as an escape and as reassurance. I was falling in love with someone new and trying to juggle this desperate desire to escape with the need to show up in my life. It’s pretty damn hard to be present and completely checked out all at once,” Grote explains. “It felt like much of my world had reached such a pitch that all I could do was try to tune it out. I felt really uncertain about the future of the band and super detached from much of what I used to identify with, on a personal level and with our music. I was thinking, ‘Do I want to keep doing music?’ ‘Do I want to keep doing it in this context?’” Grote retreated to his bedroom and started writing with no objective other than to create. Free from expectations, and with an acoustic guitar, synthesizer, and drum machine at hand, he discovered a newfound creative freedom.

Second album from Californian duo The Saxophones, following 2018’s Songs of the Saxophones and 3 7” singles (If You’re on the Water, Aloha & Singing Desperately Suite). Recorded by Cameron Spies. Mixed by Noah Georgeson (Joanna Newsom, Devendra Banhart). ‘It's so easy to stay where we are; it's a miracle anything ever changes.’ Words you might not expect from somebody who has recently welcomed not just a second album but a second child into their world. Then again, change and movement come quite naturally to The Saxophones: this is a band who wrote their first album on board a boat, and who have called their second album Eternity Bay, fusing physical place with a spiritual sense of time. The Saxophones’ band name, however, started out as a half-joke for the song-writing project of Alexi Erenkov, then a disillusioned jazz student who’d recently ditched the instrument. Jazz didn’t offer the room for self-expression that he sought. To song-writing he turned, its straightforward, limber form a liberation from the complex musical arrangements of his university studies. The solo project became a band when Alexi’s wife Alison joined the ranks on percussion. Their debut album, Songs of the Saxophones, pitched up just before the birth of their first son in 2018. Written aboard the boat they lived on together, amid the incessant rain of a northern Californian winter, the record established The Saxophones’ style. Drawing from fifties exotica, west coast jazz, and seventies Italian lyricism, drama seeps into their deceptively simple sound, transforming dreamy surf pop into thoughtfully textured pieces, with a spaciousness at their core. But where Songs of the Saxophones interrogates the nooks of interpersonal relationships, Eternity Bay’s gaze is wider, as hinted by the album’s title. ‘My music has always grappled with mortality and the meaning of existence,’ says Alexi, ‘but the birth of our first son and the imminent arrival of our second has greatly heightened my sensitivity to these themes.’ Eternity Bay began to take shape just after the arrival of their first son, who shook up Alexi’s writing routine far more than choppy boat waters ever did. But Alexi soon noticed that the forced fragmentation of his hours, writing under inky late-night skies and through the liminal glimmer of dawn, brought to the surface new qualities in his songs. He began to dwell on ‘the human appetite for novelty, for throwing out all that came before, whether good or bad. Always starting over. Maybe this time I'll write the song that finishes all songs.’ Perhaps it was working during these hours of transition that drew Alexi to musical influences that carry the listener to other places and times.

'Sun Racket' is the brand new album from legendary Boston trio Throwing Muses, consisting of Kristin Hersh, David Narcizo and Bernard Georges. The follow up to 2013's 'Purgatory/Paradise' is an outpouring of modal guitars, reverbed shapes, echoey drums and driving bass set behind Kristen Hersh's well-thumbed notebook of storylines. A ten-song opus of suitably wrought tales set against a wall of sound that's at once calm and ethereal before building into glorious cacophonous crescendos. When Throwing Muses wrote their last album, they were shattered. Pieces were coming and going, elements repeating and charging the whole. "It sounded beautiful jumping around like that". Two-minute songs reappearing as twisted instrumentals or another song's bridge. They mimicked the effect live which kept them on their toes. Whatever was happening was already over in other words. 'Sun Racket' is the opposite. It refused to do anything but sit still. It says, "sit here and deal". "All it asked of us was to comingle two completely disparate sonic vocabularies: one heavy noise, the other delicate music box. Turns out we didn't have to do much. Sun Racket knew what it was doing and pushed us aside, which is always best. After thirty years of playing together, we trust each other implicitly but we trust the music more" - Kristin Hersh And so, they continue. Business unusual. "A ground-breaking band who changed the face of alternative music rather than follow the rule book." MXDWN "Pioneers of the 80s/early 90s college rock sound" Pitchfork "One of America's finest guitar bands" The Quietus

The Wants’ debut full length “Container” is a meticulously self-produced art pop record, combining elements of post-punk, synth pop, and minimal techno. Opener “Ramp” is as pensive as they come, title track “Container” a deadpan meditation bound by a winding low pulse, while - atop a synth pop rhythm track that wouldn’t feel out of place on a Depeche Mode record - Velding-VanDam’s earnest and deceptively disarming lyrics on recent single “Fear My Society” tell the story of a man who realizes that the standards he lives by are no longer relevant. He feels alienated by the changing world and propagates the fears, principles, and rituals in which he feels he has irreversibly invested his life.