Pop & Rock News

- SUNDOWNER -LTD. CLEAR PINK VINYL + SIGNED ARTPRINT-

In the winter of 2017 I moved back to my hometown of Kansas City from Los Angeles. The move was sudden and unforeseen, just as I was tying a bow on the writing process for what would become my 2019 album, Oh My God. I bought a Four Track Tascam model 424 off of an old friend to help me get to the finish line, but much to my surprise and excitement, this new piece of equipment in my all-but-bare home didn't help complete one album but rather inspire another: Sundowner. The new collection of songs came quickly and effortlessly as I did my best not to resist or refine the songs, but instead let them take shape all on their own. As the songs kept coming I cleared out the crowded shed that was sitting dormant in my backyard and built a makeshift studio before adding drums, lead guitar and piano to complete the demos. Each day I would teach myself basic recording techniques, watching the channels illuminate and pulse as if the machine were breathing, and then emerge in the evenings as the sun was getting low: - around 5:30 in the winter, when the Kansan sunsets look icy and distant, like a pink ember inside of a display case, and 9 o'clock in the summer, when the sunsets are warm and abstract. Landing back home felt jarring juxtaposed with a life full of chaos and adventure with my band on the road. But at the very least, I was happy to have - for the first time in my adulthood - a place to close the door, with no temptations other than to work on music and reflect on what I had built since I left. It was a new form of isolation, one I had never explored or expected to experience. Not ready to let go of the hand of the California desert, I spent the winter decorating the best I knew how; with mementos from my previous home, cactus and aloe vera and covering the walls in pinewood - immediately earning my house it's nickname, The Little Los Angeles. In January 2019 I contacted my friend and producer Brad Cook to help recreate what I had made in my shed. We chose to work in Texas; we wanted to make sure the record was done far away from any coastline, and in the heart of America. Brad played bass and some keys on the album, but beyond that he encouraged and inspired me to play almost everything else. All lead guitar, proper drums (save the drums on "A Night At The Little Los Angeles"), mellotron and what I believe to be the albums secret weapon - a WWII era collapsible and slightly out-of-tune pump organ - were performed by me. We did, however, bring in James Krivchenia towards the end of the session to fill out the percussion. It was an honor to work with him as he built maracas from pecans and played on the floor of the live room, adding flourish wherever he saw fit. On the last evening of the session, after everything had wrapped, we all climbed on top of an empty water tower on the property, giving us a view in all directions. To the North you could see an endless Texas, with long wisps of cirrus clouds above the desert floor, and to the South there was Mexico, the recent detention camps only a mile beyond, with large cumulus clouds hovering over, bringing us to an ominous pause. To the West, towards the setting sun, the two families of clouds merged, holding the last light of the day in purple and orange. Below, a freight train cut the landscape in half as it whistled in the distance. Almost as soon as the session wrapped, I was off and away on press trips and then proper tours for Oh My God, which came out in April that same year. Sundowner sat inside of a hard drive back at Sonic Ranch and did not see the light of day, until I found myself, as did the rest of the world, stuck inside their home and in quarantine in March 2020. My second year of touring for Oh My God was cancelled. Brad, Jerry and I worked from our respective homes, sending notes back and forth as we worked alone but together to mix the album, and suddenly, just like that, Sundowner was finished. Songs, like sunsets, are fleeting, and it's only due to a willingness and desire to catch them that you ever, if even only for a moment, grab a hold of one. When writing Sundowner, I was lucky to have had the Tascam 424 there to help capture both. Sundowner is my attempt to put the Middle American twilight -- it's beauty profound, though not always immediate -- into sound. It is a depiction of isolation. Of the past. Of an uncertain future. Of provisions. Of an omen. Of a dead deer. Of an icon. Of a Los Angeles themed hotel in rural Kansas. Of billowing campfires, a mermaid and a highway lined in rabbit fur. It is a depiction of the nervous feeling that comes with the sky's proud announcement that another day will be soon coming to a close as the pink light recedes and the street lamps and house lights suddenly click on. -- Kevin Morby, Kansas, 2020.

Freeze, Melt, the sixth album from the Grammy-nominated Australian electronic/synth-pop band Cut Copy. Lead single 'Love Is All We Share' earned praise from Rolling Stone "meditative and immersive", Stereogum "hypnotic", Consequence Of Sound "a fitting mood for the current state of the world", Pitchfork, The Line Of Best Fit, and numerous other outlets. Their 2011 album Zonoscope won two ARIA Awards, earned a Grammy nomination for Best Dance/Electronica Album, and reached #2 on Billboard's Dance/Electronic Albums chart, #3 on Australia's ARIA Albums chart, and #8 on the UK's Independent Albums chart. Their most recent album Haiku From Zero 2017 earned praise from NPR "their finest album in years", Stereogum “a rush of infectious grooves and melodies", Exclaim! ["another strong effort by a band that continue to celebrate the power of dance music"], and DIY. If Haiku From Zero was the party, Freeze, Melt is the Sunday morning comedown. Released independently via their own label imprint, Cutters Records.

‘Love & Peace’ sees Steve mixing up all of his much-loved ingredients to deliver a fresh new record that offers the perfect antidote for the troubled times in which we live. Full of hope for the future, it’s a great mix of boogie, blues, rock, Americana and folk – all delivered in Seasick Steve’s unique style. It’s a sizzler of an album that he can’t wait to release.
“In these crazy times seems to me there just ain’t enough love and peace to go around,” says Steve. “I ain’t exactly sure what this here record got to do with love and peace, but I figured I’d call it that anyways!”
Produced and written by Seasick Steve, this album sees him breaking with tradition. While some of it was recorded in his barn, the majority was recorded in Los Angeles at Studio 606 and at East West Studio 3. The album was mixed by Vance Powell (Jack White, Chris Stapleton) and Steve at East West.

The shopping malls have closed down, the dressing rooms are filled with ghosts, and the carousel is covered in cobwebs. Nobody Lives Here Anymore, the latest and greatest from Max Clarke as Cut Worms, is the haunted reverie of an American landscape in-and-out of Clarke's mind. Recorded between May and November 2019 in Memphis, Tennessee, the album is a snow globe of the mid-twentieth-century's popular music filled with chiming guitars, honkey tonk pianos, and Telstar organs. A constant creator - be it his Cut Worms alter-ego or his day-job illustration work (designing brand logos and beer labels with madhouse technicolor pictures) - writing and making records has always been Max's driving force. So after an extensive eighteen-months of touring in support of 2017's Alien Sunset and 2018's Hollow Ground, he set about sifting through the fragment pieces and sketches of tunes he'd accumulated, along with a jet-stream of new compositions, mining his life-long devotion to the lost American songbook for inspiration. By the time he flew to Memphis to work with producer Matt Ross-Spang at Sam Phillips Studio, he'd stockpiled more than thirty new songs. A loss of innocence lingers through this 80-minute opus as Clarke attempts to harbor love and meaning inside a world that sold itself out. He explores the wistfulness of the past in search of answers for tomorrow. And while his grand anthems overflow with timeless pop charm, his ability to dig deeper than lollipops and holding hands sets his work apart from the days of 45s and Top of the Pops.

Ocre Vinyl

‘From a View’ is the debut album from Melbourne’s Floodlights.

'From a View' explores themes of identity, personal cross-roads and the misuse of power.

The bands first exploration into proper studio recording with a well regarded sound engineer. It was recorded over two days onto a 24 track tape machine at Head Gap studios in Preston in November.

Floodlights are made up of members Louis Parsons, Ashlee Kehoe, Joe Draffen and Archie Shannon. They present a distinctly Australian perspective, with a shambolic, catchy sound that melds 80s Indie-Rock rock with 90s New Zealand jangle-pop.

Following a tour of Australia’s East Coast in October last year the band began working on “From a View”. The songs were arranged and performed as a band, but often began from Louis or Ash presenting ideas to the group and building on them from there. The songs themselves were written over various points in the bands short career, yet come together very fittingly to show their distinct sound.

Lead single Thanks For Understanding is about two lives going in different directions. It describes the complicated process of growing apart from someone, even though you still care for them.

Philadelphian multi-instrumentalist, producer and engineer SWARVY makes his solo debut on Kamaal Williams's imprint Black Focus with a stunning new EP entitled ‘Sunny Days Blue’, his first release as
the primary vocalist.

Smoked-out sound beds and lofi guitars sit gently with SWARVY’s voice, creating a juxtaposition of melancholic, yet sweet, melodies that loop in your mind’s ear long after the record stops spinning.
‘Bones’ opens with a stripped back rhythm section and existential observations referencing the human condition of overthinking, a recurring theme throughout the EP. ‘Cool’, ‘No Compute’ and ‘Smile’
subtly infuse jazz, funk and hip hop elements, while ‘New Moon’ plays out as a low slung hypnotic hymn echoing gracefully into the record’s closer ‘Ginger’ - a meditative ambient spiritual for solo piano.

Since relocating to Los Angeles in 2015, SWARVY produced a variety of records via DJ House Shoes’ Street Corner Music, Leaving Records and Fresh Selects. His writing and engineering credits extend to dozens of tracks by artists such as Maxo, Earl Sweatshirt, Nia Andrews, Mndsgn, Liv.e and the late, legendary Tony Allen.

Green vinyl includes digital download card.

‘LiteAce Frequency’ is a collection of songs influenced by 70s Manila Sound and Pinoy soul, as well as incorporating elements of Japanese funk, Brazilian sounds and hip hop.

‘LiteAce Frequency’ follows Vex Ruffin’s ‘Emilio’ EP, released on Stones Throw in May.

The album will appeal to fans of Bullion, James Pants, Dam-Funk, Teebs, Daedelus, Paul White, Anika, Toro Y Moi, Ariel Pink.

Vex Ruffin’s music has featured on soundtracks for HBO’s hit series ‘Girls’ and Netflix’s ‘Russian Doll’. Vex Ruffin has a monthly radio show on NTS and will be supporting the release of his new album
with DJ sets, live streamed performances and active social media engagement.

Vex Ruffin has previously collaborated with artists including Anika, James Pants and Bruce Haack.

Presented by Mitsuko & Svetlana Records, distributed by WRWTFWW Records.

Archival reissue of highly sought-after 1979 soundtrack from funky maestro Yuji Ohno, the genius jazz player/composer behind the music of Lupin III (?????) and Capitaine Future (?????·??????) and much much more. Big grooves, irresistible basslines, horns for days, funk for-ever. This superb piece of music from the legendary Toho Records catalogue is a MUST HAVE for fans of Japanese gems.

It’s the original soundtrack of Shigeyuki Amane’s excellent TV movie Golden Dog (Ôgon No Inu). With a secret agent dog carrying secret documents. Last appearance by the one and only Reiko Ike!

Highly recommended to everyone who loves good dogs and good music.



Points of interests

- For fans of funk, jazz, Japanese music, rare groove, boogie, 70s soundtracks, rare gems, WRWTFWW Records, Lupin III, library music, and beautiful dogs.

- Rare gem reissued on vinyl for the first time since 1979.

- Fifth release from Mitsuko & Svetlana Records (Bells of Koyto, Masahiko Sato - Kayobi No Onna, Piero Milesi - The Nuclear Observatory of Mr. Nanof, Sora - Re.sort), distributed by friends WRWTFWW Records (Midori Takada’s Through The Looking Glass, Lunar Cruise and MWKAJU en-semble’s projects, Kenji Kawai’s Ghost in the Shell Original Soundtrack, Yasuaki Shimizu’s Kakas-hi, John Carpenter’s Dark Star Soundtrack, Piero Umiliani’s Tra Scienza e Fantascienza and Il Mon-do Dei Romani, Bernard Parmegiani soundtracks, Colored Music’s self-titled album, EP-4’s Lingua Franca-1, Normal Brain’s Lady Maid…), label founded and curated by Olivier Ducret of Mental Groove and Musique Pour La Danse (Miss Kittin, Orbe, Donato Dozzy, Imperial Tiger Orchestra...) and Stephan Armleder of Villa Magica Records (Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Christian Marclay, Ste-phan Eicher & Rainier Lericolais, John Armleder, Sylvie Fleury…)

"By The Fire" ist Thurston Moores siebtes Studioalbum, das auf seinem eigenen Label Daydream Library Series erscheint. Auf dem neuen Album ist der ehemalige Sonic Youth-Gitarrist gemeinsam mit Deb Googe (My Bloody Valentine), Jon Leidecker - aka Wobbly - (Negativland), James Sedwards, Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth) und Hem Doulton zu hören. Vor der Isolation während der COVID-Pandemie arbeitete Thurston Moore bis zur dritten Märzwoche 2020 in Aufnahmestudios im Norden Londons, um das Album zum geplanten Release fertigzustellen, denn obwohl die Musiker nicht sofort auf Tour gehen werden, bestand er darauf, "By The Fire" noch im Jahr 2020 zu veröffentlichen. 2020 ist die Zeit des radikalen Wandels und des kollektiven Bewusstseins. Thurston Moore schrieb passend dazu neun Songs der Erleuchtung. In Anlehnung an Albert Aylers "music is the healing force of the universe" verstehen sich die Aufnahmen als Liebeslieder in einer Zeit, in der Kreativität unsere Würde darstellt und die Demonstration gegen die Kräfte der Unterdrückung ist. "By The Fire" ist eine Friedens-Party - mit Liedern aus der Hitze des Gefechts. Entstanden in Zusammenarbeit mit dem in London lebenden Künstler Radieux Radio, der das Cover entwarf und obendrein einige Texte schrieb.








h B3 THEY BELIEVE IN LOVE WHEN THEY LOOK AT YOU








[h] B3 THEY BELIEVE IN LOVE [WHEN THEY LOOK AT YOU]








[h] B3 THEY BELIEVE IN LOVE [WHEN THEY LOOK AT YOU]

Rotes Vinyl, limitiert auf 500 Stück. "By The Fire" ist Thurston Moores siebtes Studioalbum, das auf seinem eigenen Label Daydream Library Series erscheint. Auf dem neuen Album ist der ehemalige Sonic Youth-Gitarrist gemeinsam mit Deb Googe (My Bloody Valentine), Jon Leidecker - aka Wobbly - (Negativland), James Sedwards, Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth) und Hem Doulton zu hören. Vor der Isolation während der COVID-Pandemie arbeitete Thurston Moore bis zur dritten Märzwoche 2020 in Aufnahmestudios im Norden Londons, um das Album zum geplanten Release fertigzustellen, denn obwohl die Musiker nicht sofort auf Tour gehen werden, bestand er darauf, "By The Fire" noch im Jahr 2020 zu veröffentlichen. 2020 ist die Zeit des radikalen Wandels und des kollektiven Bewusstseins. Thurston Moore schrieb passend dazu neun Songs der Erleuchtung. In Anlehnung an Albert Aylers "music is the healing force of the universe" verstehen sich die Aufnahmen als Liebeslieder in einer Zeit, in der Kreativität unsere Würde darstellt und die Demonstration gegen die Kräfte der Unterdrückung ist. "By The Fire" ist eine Friedens-Party - mit Liedern aus der Hitze des Gefechts. Entstanden in Zusammenarbeit mit dem in London lebenden Künstler Radieux Radio, der das Cover entwarf und obendrein einige Texte schrieb.








h B3 THEY BELIEVE IN LOVE [WHEN THEY LOOK AT YOU]








[h] B3 THEY BELIEVE IN LOVE [WHEN THEY LOOK AT YOU]

Sam Prekop’s boundless imagination is guided by his strong sense of
melody. For more than 25 years, as a solo artist or as part of The Sea and Cake, Prekop creates a singular sound that is both inventive and warm. New album ‘Comma’ takes Pekop’s electronic music experiments in a surprising new direction.

Working extensively with beat programming for the first time, Prekop uses rhythm as a narrative tool, tapping into electronic music’s romantic and emotional qualities. ‘Comma’ embraces the analogue synthesizer’s often unpredictable nature, imbuing the record with a decidedly organic feel even while working within the relative rigidity of beat architectures.

Prekop’s creative process is a combination of preparation and improvisation.Writing sessions for ‘Comma’ began with an open-ended exploration of sounds and textures from which the first fragments of songs would reveal themselves.

The introduction of drum machines and additional synthesizer units to his modular setup shifted things in surprising new directions as he worked to bend them into more traditional pop song structures. Drum tracks and emergent rhythms provided the frameworks and narrative sketches to be fleshed out with lustrous widescreen synth pads and ribboning melodies. In approaching his writing with a completely open mind and letting himself be guided by the music, Prekop maintains a delicate balance between composition and chance, control and spontaneity.

Prekop’s wide-eyed sense of discovery guides his exploration of beat-driven music, pushing him to use rhythm as a narrative tool and to embrace electronic music’s romantic and emotional qualities. With ‘Comma’, Prekop compiles an incredible breadth of ideas into a surprisingly coherent soundworld. It’s a modern minimal pop album that taps into the experimental heritage of the synthesizer. The album places Sam Prekop’s work squarely in the tradition of electronic music pioneers like Brian Eno and Yellow Magic Orchestra, who brought together the unrestrained ambition of the avantgarde with the immediacy and accessibility of pop music.

Young Knives will announce their fifth album, Barbarians, to be released on 4th September 2020. The announcement will be accompanied by a single, ‘Sheep Tick’, and its extraordinary video.

Barbarians was written, recorded and mixed by Young Knives (brothers Henry Dartnall and The House of Lords) in their studio near Oxford, UK. John Gray’s book Straw Dogs inspired the brothers to dial into the ultra-violent, brutal nature of human beings. Our progresses in science and knowledge have not made us any less barbaric: our entertainment is obsessed with it, our world is full of it.

What if cruelty to others is just part of who we are? How do we live with that?

Building on a base of loved hits from their early work last decade (Voices of Animals and Men, Superabundance, Ornaments from the Silver Arcade) and the metamorphosis of 2013’s Sick Octave, Barbarians is a leap into sonic experimentation by a band who love to confuse and entertain in equal measure.

Driving anywhere in Texas can cost you half a day, easy. For example, it'll take you over four hours just to get from R&B singer Leon Bridges' hometown of Fort Worth down to Houston, where the psychedelic wanderers in Khruangbin hail from. The state is vast, crisscrossed with rugged expanses of road flanked by limestone cliffs and granite mountains, forests of pine and mesquite, miles of desert or acres of sprawling grassland, all depending on what part you're in. And it's all baking under the Texas Sun that lends its name to Bridges and Khruangbin's new collaborative EP. "Big sky country, that's what they call Texas," Khruangbin bassist Laura Lee says. "The horizon line goes all the way from one side to another without interruption. There's something really comforting about that." On Texas Sun, these two members of the state's musical vanguard meet up somewhere in the middle of that scene, in the mythical nexus of Texas' past, present, and future-a dreamy badlands where genres blur as seamlessly as the terrain. It calls equally to the cowboys boot-scooting at Billy Bob's in Fort Worth, the chopped-and-screwed hip-hop fans rattling slabs on the southside of Houston, the art-school kids dropping acid in Austin, the cross-cultural progeny who grew up on listening to both mariachi and post-hardcore out on the Mexican borders of El Paso. All of these things, overlapping in a multicolored melange, purple hues as vivid and unpredictable as one of the state's rightfully celebrated sunsets. A journey through homesick reminiscences, backseat romances, and late-night contemplations, the kind of record made for listening with the windows down and the road humming softly beneath you. Like the highways that inspired it, Texas Sun is guaranteed to get you where you're going-especially if you're in no particular hurry to get there.

Over the years Self Defense Family’s revolving lineup and improvisational writing process has led to the band often recording new music while on tour, putting the focus on capturing a specific moment between the current collaborators. The Island singles have been snapshots of the band in studios all over the world, from Jamaica, to Ice-land, to Scotland, and now Australia. The songs on Make Me A Pallet Fire On Your Floor / Local Clerics are marked by a raw, spacious recording, winding guitar lines mixed with swirling organ, and of course Kindlon’s one-of-a-kind vocals and un-flinching lyricism.

repressed!

Yawners is the band of guitarist and songwriter Elena Nieto, a project based in Madrid and currently shaped as a duo with the help of Martín Muñoz on drums. Right after forming Yawners, Nieto started self-releasing her songs and booking her tours with a DIY philosophy.

Just Calm Down, the band’s debut LP, will be released this 2019 by La Castanya. In the album, Nieto explores the pop side of the energetic 90s sound, a vibe that instantly brings you back to classic bands like Weezer, Pavement and The Breeders and connects to contemporary bands like Japandroids, Snail Mail or Waxahatchee.

There are few more romantic musical legends than those of the neglected bands who nd spiritual homes in far away times and places where they live on to in uence new unlikely generations of musicians. Sixto “Sugar Man” Rodriguez in South Africa, Dean Reed in the Soviet Bloc, Talk Talk post pop, and The Van Pelt amongst Uyghurs are some of the tales that get passed around the camp re. Enter Yawners and their resurrecting (whether wittingly or coincidentally) of the epic yet passed over DIY catalogs of early 90s record labels like Simple Machines, Dutch East India, K records, and Merge. The miracle is how they’re able to craft something so fresh yet it makes you feel like you’ve been transported 20 years into the past, just received a mix tape from your crush, popped it on in the car, rolled down the windows to smell the spring bloom, and let the wind design your new hairdo.

Big riffs, big feelings, big tunes, st pumps fueled by hope and love and the occasional pimple. Elena Nieto sings with a con dence that manages to speak to shyness and coyness and the terrifying joy that overwhelms when on the cusp of newness. This album has all the idyllic utters of an anticipated rst date and all of the hope and excitement that you just might pull it off and score a second one.


• Yawners will be playing SXSW 2019, and will present the record touring Europe and the USA.

Anna Meredith today announces her eagerly anticipated second studio album, FIBS, due for release on 25 October via Moshi Moshi. The album is heralded by the release of ‘Paramour’, its first single and spectacular accompanying single-take video, and a song that forbids you from turning away - its sweeps, jerks and wrong turns pinning your ears to the speakers whilst heading for warp speed at a blistering 176 BPM before rounding the journey out with an (utterly unexpected) tuba-led half-time rock-out.

Arriving three and a half years on from the release of her Scottish Album of the Year Award-winning debut studio album Varmints, FIBS is 45 minutes of technicolour maximalism, almost perpetual rhythmic reinvention, and boasts a visceral richness and unparalleled accessibility.

FIBS is no “Varmints Part 2” — the retreading of old ground, or even a smooth progression from one project to another, just isn’t Meredith’s style. Instead, if anything, it’s “Varmints 2.0”, an overhauled and updated version of the composer’s soundworld, involving, in places, a literal retooling that has seen Meredith chuck out her old MIDI patches and combine her unique compositional voice with brand-new instruments, both acoustic and electronic, and a writing process that’s more intense than she’s ever known. Despite Meredith’s background and skills these tracks are no academic exercise, the world of FIBS is at both overwhelming and intimate, a journey of intense energy and joyful irreverence.

FIBS, says Meredith, are “lies — but nice friendly lies, little stories and constructions and daydreams and narratives that you make for yourself or you tell yourself”. Entirely internally generated and perfectly balanced, they can be a source of comfort and excitement, intrigue and endless entertainment. The eleven fibs contained on Anna Meredith’s second record will do all that, and more besides.

Three years after their album "Eine andere Option" Munich based dASbAND is back with a new single, two new songs and newcomer Gringo on bass.

„Oh Ja (Wir sind ein Garten)“, psychedelic post-punk in a casual melange, because "We still believe in the sacred power of guitar riffing, in the right to intoxication and ecstasy, shalala-la!"

„Geh Weg", a serene call to dub and dance elements. If you can't change the circumstances, you should at least make them dance.

“Full speed ahead now, no more looking back.” Dent May confidently croons on his fifth LP, Late Checkout. The un-nostalgic sentiment and sobering clarity of May’s latest body of work signifies the 35-year-old songwriter from Mississippi taking a reflective rest-stop on the winding road of his now decade-long career.

After relocating to Los Angeles in 2015, touring his last record Across the Multiverse around the world, and building his own Honeymoon Suite Recording Studio with friends Pat Jones and Michael Rosen, May suddenly found himself with the chance to take his time making a record. Through the dozen thematically-linked tracks on Late Checkout, May grapples with the swinging emotions of our contemporary reality with a rare optimism and distinguished sound.

Bearing the torch of classic American songwriters that have inspired him like Harry Nilsson, Carole King, and Randy Newman, May has gingerly cultivated his iPhone note scribbles and subconscious melodies into songs that could stand the test of time. Leaving the comfort of home-recording, May set out to elevate the production quality on Late Checkout while maintaining some intimacy through sparse arrangements. After writing and performing parts for a bulk of the instruments on the album, May filled out his orchestrations by inviting string players, a horn section, background vocalists, and a pair of auxiliary drummers to play on the album. Contrary to the instant gratification permitted by modern home-recording, May made a conscious decision to slow down and pay careful attention to his songwriting on this album. He began to savor the minutiae of his daily life spent wandering around LA, not getting invited to hang with friends, and waking up in hotel rooms after DJing weddings. May drew on these moments in his lyrics and began assembling ballads at his new studio, mimicking the bittersweet tone and consistent work ethic of Motown.

“I’ve been collecting stationery from almost every hotel I’ve stayed at for the past ten years.” May reveals about the album’s opener “Hotel Stationary.” “I’ve always been drawn to the nature of hotels. I think it relates to this sense of always feeling out of place and my constant wanderlust.” On Late Checkout’s first single, “I Could Use A Miracle,” May sings about the desperation of feeling down-and-out against a lush and upbeat pop instrumental. The groovy “Easier Said Than Done” is decorated with bright keys and syncopated drums while May sings about coming to the end of his journey to find love. “Sea Salt & Caramel,” spilled out of May as a saccharine love song to his girlfriend, adding pure sweetness to balance the record’s melancholy pallet. From beginning to end, May bares his soul on each track across Late Checkout, offering a reluctant goodbye to his former selves, before wandering home.

Vestals is the avatar of Los Angeles based artist Lisa McGee, who’s debut album Forever Falling Toward the Sky was released by Root Strata in 2012. She has also discreetly operated in U.S. underground music for the last decade as a member of the dream-drone duo Higuma with Evan Caminiti, while making vocal contributions to acclaimed albums by Jefre Cantu Ledesma and Sarah Davachi.

McGee is the sole producer and performer on her sophomore effort, Holy Origin. Since her last offering she has evolved her sound and process, placing a new emphasis on electronic processing, carving out negative space where slow burning rhythms and spectral melodies ebb and flow. Her songcraft is built on the foundations of atmosphere and experimentation that have defined her collaborative outings, but here she has meticulously built up her arrangements into a fully fleshed out vision of luminous dub informed avant-dream-pop.

Sinuous vocals and desolate guitars are rendered in crisp 3D, swallowed by viscera rattling bass and sizzling clouds of synthesizers. Hypnotic melodies and shimmering harmonies nestle within disorienting digital manipulations, conjuring a boundless, smoky twilight. Passages hover and undulate, sustained in trance states before crashing down into lush chorales that comfortably dwell in the space between euphoria and heartache.

Fusing memoir with contemplative inquiry, McGee traces the blurred boundaries between the self, the other and the world, capturing various states of desire-ambivalence and surrender. Each track is a meditation on the tension between opposing forces: the ideal and the real, the essential and the cultivated, the erotic and the ascetic. Through the exploration of these dialectics, Holy Origin unfolds as a darkly sublime reverie.

My Morning Jacket release their new album via ATO Records. ‘The Waterfall II’ was massively inspired by the band’s idyllic surroundings in Stinson Beach, CA - and a sense of charmed isolation that frontman Jim James likened to “living o n o u r o w n lit tle m o o n .” There, the Kentucky-bred five-piece ended up creating over two dozen songs at the mountaintop studio known as Panoramic House. Though they flirted with the idea of putting out what would have been a triple album, the band ultimately decided that less would be more at the time and divided the project into two halves, releasing the first segment as ‘The Waterfall’, a 2015 full-length that earned a Grammy Award nomination for Best Alternative Music Album. My Morning Jacket are now set to share the second half of the project as ‘The Waterfall II’, an unforeseen and timely continuation of a psychic and sonic journey begun long ago.

The second LP by Belarussian trio Molchat Doma, Etazhi, meaning “Floors”, was first released in 2018 on Berlin-based Detriti Records. It became a viral hit, garnering over one million views on YouTube and becoming a legitimate phenomenon on Bandcamp. The band may fly under the radar in their native Belarus, but they’ve reached huge audiences across Europe and beyond. Six separate vinyl pressings of the album have sold out in quick succession, and Sacred Bones Records is now thrilled to bring the record back in print for good. Molchat Doma (translated as “Houses Are Silent”), founded in 2017 in Minsk, Belarus, stands at the intersection of post-punk, new-wave and synth-pop. Dark yet danceable, and with a heavy dose of goth ethos, their music is reminiscent of the masters that predate them, but make no mistake: Molchat Doma creates a sound and meaning that is immediately recognizable as all their own
.
The band is comprised of Egor Shkutko, who sings the Russian lyrics in his deep monotone, Roman Komogortsev on guitar, synths, and drum machine, and Pavel Kozlov on bass and synth

French artist WOODKID returns this year with his long awaited sophomore album.

7 years after his highly acclaimed debut album THE GOLDEN AGE (800K sold worldwide, Platinum certified in both France and Germany, 200 shows around the world, 2 Grammy nominations and one French music academy award to name just a few), WOODKID is back with a brand new track ‘Goliath,’ out now.

Bélver Yin's soul mining odysseys have been unjustly overlooked for three decades. An anomaly in the Spanish alt-pop scene, their forlorn instrumentals and ethereal romanticism would have struck a chord in the British league of Felt, The Chameleons, Cocteau Twins and Dif Juz, leaving their 1991 debut Luz Bel deserving of reappraisal.

While coining their band name from a Jesús Ferrero novel and quoting Laozi philosophy on album sleeves, Bélver Yin create illuminating textures that unlock a wordless language of memory and adolescent emotion. Formed in Salamanca by self-taught musicians Pedro Ortega Sánchez and José María Martín, the guitar-bass duo spent two years crafting their divine interplay with interim drummers before submitting a demo to Noisex Music, their only attempt at label courting. The phone rang mere days later with owner and producer Bernar Marks (The Dust Sessions) offering to cut an album and the band ventured to Valencia with cloud-touching optimism soon after.

Championed by local press, the release fell short of expectation, fueling the mythology of a vanished band known only to the initiated. Varying lineups would, however, continue to work in the shadows under Pedro's direction, recording two spatially arranged follow-ups at their own pace in 1996 and 2005.

A glorious debut that undeniably set a high watermark, Luz Bel is finally available again, faithfully remastered by Mikey Young and featuring bilingual liner notes from John Gómez, the authoritative ear behind Outro Tempo.

Holy Motors is a "twang and reverb" band from Tallinn Estonia, united by shared infatuation with the American West that the members developed waiting out their homeland's long, grim winters with the warm company of American western films and their instruments. The more hopeful `sunrise' to 2018's critically acclaimed Slow Sundown, Horse finds Holy Motors acknowledging the Americana and rockabilly strands of their musical DNA without sacrificing any of the otherworldly mystique that keeps them from neatly conforming to the shoegaze and dreampop labels often applied to their music. From the album's opening moments, songs like "Country Church," with its major key and classic rhythm and blues guitarline, and "Midnight Cowboy," which sounds like a lost Buddy Holly 45 played at 33 rpm, make it clear that Horse _ even if it may not accomplish the impossible task of demystifying this band of ex-Soviet cowboys _ will at least show you that there's more to them than the near-impenetrable darkness of their work to date may suggest. While tracks like "Trouble" and "Endless Night" gravitate towards the ethereal production and existential subject matter of prior releases, repeat listens will reveal the same complex compositions and humanity that are much more a hallmark of Horse's eight songs. As a whole, Horse stands as a warmer, more human counterpoint to 2018's celestial Slow Sundown. As to which of the two entries better approximates Holy Motors' natural set point, only time will tell.

Peace: a word that’s both direct and loaded with meaning. On the surface, it suggests tranquility, evenness, a state of bliss already achieved. But the word that gives the Levellers’ 11th studio album its title is open to a multitude of interpretations, too. It could be a reference to a disappearing value. It could be a sneering statement of irony. It could be a cry for calm in a crazed world. It could mean whatever you want it to mean.

Peace is the most relevant album of 2020. Its 11 electrifying songs are a charged reaction to a world that seems to be teetering on the edge of madness and self-destruction. The environment is buckling under the weight of humanity’s disregard, right-wing demagogues are spreading hatred and fear across supposedly civilised nations, society and culture is trapped in a death spiral that’s

e 5. Relay Explicit

"Don't Touch My Sister" is Romain Azzaro's Rouge Mécanique début Album. Cinematic hazy instrumentals and a heady mix of post-punk, Italo disco, ambient and noise shine through Azzaro's dedication to his signature Telecaster slide-guitar, bringing acoustic life to electronica. Citing the visual realm as a strong influence on his music, Rouge Mécanique's releases are often accompanied by short films and hand picked design. The 'Prelude' video for 'Don't Touch My Sister' was born of a collaboration between Romain Azzaro and the film maker Louis Vignat, as inspired by the cover artwork of Les Beaux Arts de Paris artist Jeanne Briand.

LTD. RED SPLATTER ON MILKY VINYL

In the five years since Will Butler released his debut album, Policy, he's toured the world both solo and as a member of Arcade Fire, released the Friday Night live album, recorded and released Arcade Fire's international #1 album Everything Now, earned his master's degree in public policy from Harvard, hosted a series of touring town halls on local issues (police contracts, prison reform, municipal paid sick leave, voting rights), and spent time raising his three children. He also found the time and inspiration to write and record a new album, Generations. "My first record, Policy, was a book of short stories," Butler says. "Generations is more of a novel_despairing, funny, a little bit epic_ A big chunk of this record is asking: What's my place in American history? What's my place in America's present? Both in general_as a participant, as we all are, in the shit that's going down_but, also extremely particularly: me as Will Butler, rich person, white person, Mormon, Yankee, parent, musician of some sort, I guess. What do I do? What can I do? The record asks that question over and over, even if it's not much for answers." While the songs on Generations contain their fair share of dread and regret, there is ultimately a lightness that shines through Butler's music. That brightness is at its most intense when he and his solo band_Miles Francis, Sara Dobbs, and Julie and Jenny Shore_perform on stage. Their electricity is palpable throughout Generations, with the bulk of the new songs having been worked out live. Wild synth production_gnarly bass synths with live drums_and anthemic backing vocals as on first single "Surrender" are punctuated by intimate, direct moments: Butler's voice cracking on "Fine" as he conjures his ancestors, and "Promised," a meditation on friendship, how lives are built together, and how and why they drift apart. Generations was recorded and produced by Butler in the basement of his home in Brooklyn. Tracking finished in March 2020, as New York closed down for the pandemic. Half the record was mixed in Montreal by longtime Arcade Fire engineer Mark Lawson, the other half by Brooklyn-based producer Shiftee (who is, incidentally, bandmate Julie Shore's husband and Will's brother-in-law). Generations opens a dialogue with the world. It posits answers_and deals with those answers being refuted. Ultimately, it navigates the conversation as a way to find the truth_ or at least a way forward.

LTD. CLEAR BLUE VINYL

Auf ihr gefeiertes zweites Album "Forever Turned Around" folgend, veröffentlichen Whitney ihr zehn Stücke umfassendes Coveralbum "Candid" - eine beeindruckende Kollektion für die die Band ihre Lieblingssongs von KünstlerInnen wie Kelela, SWV (Sisters with Voices), David Byrne & Brian Eno und John Denver interpretiert hat und sich damit durchaus aus ihrer musikalischen Komfortzone herausbewegt. Mit dabei sind die Coverversion der 1979er The Roches-Single "Hammond Song" sowie "Take Me Home, Country Roads" in Zusammenarbeit mit Waxahatchee. Über die Idee zum Coveralbum verrät Drummer und Sänger Julien Ehrlich: "This could've been as simple as saying we really love these songs and we love our bandmates and making a covers record just felt right but it truly became an exploration into how we can evolve as a band going forward."

Bring ‘Em In is the 2002 debut album of Swedish band Mando Diao. “Mr Moon” was the debut single of the band. the 1960s and 1970s music style and sound as well as the singers´ voices (Gustaf Norén and Björn Dixgård) were soon seen as the “typical” Mando Diao sound by their fans. Think: the Beatles, the Clash and the Libertines.

Shiver is the exciting and beautiful second record from LA-based Icelandic musician Jónsi. Recorded in Berlin, Reykjavik, London and Suomenlinna and available exclusively on heavy weight vinyl for the indies.

Not too long ago Jónsi was traveling through London, where he met up with iconoclastic producer A.G. Cook, who he admired for his boundary-breaking work with the PC music collective. He had no expectation for the meeting, but the more they talked, the more he realized they might be perfect collaborators. “I’ve been doing this for 30 years,” Jónsi says. “I get tired of everything really easily. I always want things to be fun and exciting and fresh, and doing another album...I just wanted to have a different approach.”

Jónsi had made a career on sweeping music that plumbed the depths of the human experience and our connection to the natural world. Cook’s production exists at the opposite end of the spectrum: synthetic, sometimes abrasive, and often on the cutting edge of experimentalism. On paper, their collaboration is surprising, but Shiver is a beautiful record that pushes Jónsi’s otherworldly voice into startling new territories.

Alastair Galbraith is considered nothing less than a genius around these parts. A New Zealand underground legend active since the '80s, his solo works have seen release on Siltbreeze, MIE, Emperor Jones and Grapefruit Records while his own labels, Xpressway and Next Best Way have released the likes of The Dead C and Damo Suzuki. His list of collaborators reads like a who's who of freeform musicianship: Peter Jefferies, Bruce Russell, Robert Scott (The Clean; Flying Nun) and Maxine Funke to name but a few. Seconds Mark III is Galbraith's first solo album since Mass (2010) and is a collage of pensive, longing and almost forgotten pieces stitched in his inimitable style. A thrilling addition to A Colourful Storm's ever-expansive catalogue. 21-track LP

Rival Consoles is 21-year old IDM-smith Ryan Lee West from Leicester in the Midlands of England. After having supported his city neighbours and label comrades Kyte on an extensive European tour in November 2008, West locked himself away all winter to finish his first full-length album, set to see the light of day in mid 2009. In the meantime fans of his debut 'The Decadent EP' will be pleased to hear that on February 23, 2009 Erased Tapes Records will release an exclusive 4-track 7" single / download bundle ? Rival Consoles' take on classical music entitled 'Helvetica'. Instead of X-Box versus Playstation, here West plays classical against dance music! Influenced by impressionists like Claude Debussy and modern electronic artists such as Autechre and Daft Punk, Ryan Lee West created a unique signature sound for Rival Consoles. A playful and brutal mix of electronic beats, emotive piano melodies and warm synth string arrangements. Ryan repeatedly performed at the Tate Britain Museum in London where he drew over 2000 visitors into his unpredictable, yet detailed sound drawings. He was the first to represent Erased Tapes Records at the British Music Week 2007 in Cologne, Germany. Limited to 500 copies only: with download code. Album due later in the year, and it will be one of the years hittest tips...

Lamunai Records presents Curiouser and Curiouser, a treasure trove of millennial music era from a duo pop group called Santamonica from Jakarta, Indonesia.

The concept of this album is making music from a trip to the adventures of Alice In Wonderland, an eclectic mix of pop, bossanova, electronics, waltz and shoegaze. From Astrud Gilberto and Antonio Jobim, Pizzicato Five meets My Bloody Valentine or Stereolab's 60s sensitivity to Broadcast. A collection of multi-layered analog audio sets, the noise of Joseph Iyup's noisy guitar combined with Anindita's fairy voice melodious lines of strange lyrics wrapped in curling beats, very dynamic, very rich. Listening to the album, on several tracks, we can hear French Pop's acrobatic 5/4 beats until the roar of the wall of
sound becomes a combination that is difficult to imagine at the time and is still very relevant to listen to now.

Now, for the first time ever, one of the phenomenal albums of the 2000's Indonesia wave is now available in a limited format in 2xLP-Gatefold-Marble colors vinyl with an additional 1 song that has never been released before.

LTD. DARK BLUE VINYL

Too Numb to Know showcases Profligate continuing to shirk the heavy electronics of his early years for razor sharp pop. On 2018's Somewhere Else, Noah Anthony delivered catchy nuggets while adding live instrumentations, reinvigorating his songwriting and sonic palette. This new song-driven approach gained praise from Resident Advisor, Pitchfork and The Wire, exposing Profligate to new listeners. Anthony worked on Too Numb To Know while living on both coasts of the United States, but eventually completed the album in Cleveland, Ohio, where he currently resides. Anthony recorded demos in Philadelphia and in Los Angeles, which was a creatively-challenging, emotionally-depleting city for him - after losing the computer holding original recordings of TNTK to a thief, he took a friend's suggestion and moved to Cleveland where he finished the album, and added contributions from allies like Matchess, Lazy Magnet, Gel Set, Missions, and others. TNTK is about growth, reflection and change. Lead single "Hang Up" urges the artist's younger self to trust his instincts during chaos. Its message pairs with bright keyboards, a pulsing beat, and soft, alluring vocals - on the chorus, he croons "Nothing you create but love penetrates." It's an urgent, driving pop song that fuses electronics with rock instrumentation like the best of Alternative radio. "A Little Rain" and "My Days" feature evocative melodic and textural beauty. The latter's hopeful and assuring chorus is unexpected and welcome. Softer moments like these are interspersed throughout TNTK in between kinetic numbers like "No Clear Way" and "We Can Punish," or "A Stranger" reminiscent of his noisier, beat-oriented years. This varied approach and attention to detail is garnish to an already tight song cycle.

Slow Pulp's remarkable full-length debut Moveys is a testament to hard-fought personal growth. In the process of making their new record, the Chicago-based indie rock band powered through health challenges, personal upheaval, and a pandemic, all while learning how to be better songwriters and friends. Full of blistering energy and emotional catharsis, this compelling 10-track collection highlights the band's resourcefulness and resilience to come together even when they were states away. As the band was in the midst of finishing the album, Massey's parents got in a severe car accident forcing her to pause recording and return home to Madison and take care of them. A week later, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. "I wasn't able to come back to Chicago for a while. How were we going to finish this apart from each other?" thought Massey. With Stoehr leading engineering, mixing, and production duties, the band managed to continue recording in an isolated, post-COVID world. "Thankfully most instrumentals were already written. Alex and Henry and I were all able to do that separately from a studio space that we rent in Chicago," says Mathews. As Massey's father Michael recovered from his injuries, the two worked on completing her vocal takes from his home studio, sending them to Stoehr for mixing. "Finishing this record was such a cool thing to know that we were able to do it," says Stoehr. Their made-up word "moveys" is multi-faceted for Slow Pulp. It is an invitation to dance. It is a wink at the cross-country nature of the album's songwriting process, while the bandmates were literally on the move touring, sheltering in place, and going through major life changes. But, mostly, it's an inside joke. Listening to these warm, dynamic and welcoming songs, it's easy to feel like you're a part of it too.

LTD. PURPLE ROYALTY VINYL

Video Age aus New Orleans, die im Kern aus dem Songwriter-Duo Ross Farbe und Ray Micarelli bestehen, verbinden auf ihrem dritten Album neonfarbige 80er-Jahre-Pop-Melodien mit einer großen Bandbreite an Einflüssen (darunter Janet Jackson, David Bowie und Paul McCartney) und kreieren so einen ganz eigenen motivierenden Pop-Sound. Der Nachfolger ihres gelobten 2016er-Debüts "Living Alone" und 2018 veröffentlichten Zweitwerks "Pop Therapy" (von der Presse als The Beach Boys meets Daft Punk beschrieben) wurde zusammen mit den Bandkollegen Nick Corson und Duncan Troast in Ross' Heimstudio in New Orleans aufgenommen und in Eigenregie produziert. Die Einflüsse variieren von Track zu Track, aber alle haben sie eine rosarote Brille auf. Während die ersten beiden Alben von Video Age von Einsamkeit und Selbstfindung handelten, blickt das Duo auf "Pleasure Line" fröhlich in die Zukunft. Kein Wunder, schließlich werden sich Ross und Ray noch das Ja-Wort geben. Das Songwriter-Duo musiziert seit inzwischen zehn Jahren zusammen, nachdem sie sich im College kennengelernt haben. Ray sagt, er sei zunächst von Ross "old school cadence" und ihrer gemeinsamen Liebe zu Dancefloor-Hits angezogen worden. Zehn Jahre später haben die beiden nun zusammen mit den Bandmitgliedern und Multi-Instrumentalisten Nick Corson und Duncan Troast ihr neues Album in Ross Heimstudio in New Orleans aufgenommen. Love is in the air! Und das hört man dem gelungenen dritten Album "Pleasure Line" auch in jeder Sekunde an.