Fortuna POP! - New Releases
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Visit product page →Led by the remarkable Ian Svenonius, prime mover behind two of the most essential bands of our time, Nation Of Ulysses and The Make-Up, and author of two books, The Psychic Soviet and Supernatural Strategies for Making a Rock 'n' Roll Group, not to mention online talk show host and auteur filmmaker, Chain And the Gang deal in a new genre called CRIME ROCK that updates rock n roll, blues, and gospel music or vocal quartets from the late 50s /early 60s for the discerning few.
A gang with a fluid and floating active core, Minimum Rock N Roll was recorded in Portland Oregon with Ian and Katie Alice on vocals, Brett playing the electric guitar, Chris on electric bass guitar, and Fiona driving the drum kit and then mixed down in DC by Brendan Canty. More minimal and more ferocious, more lean and more mean, Minimum Rock N Roll is Chain & the Gang looking for food, hungry and intent on devouring the known world, once they find its tender underbelly.
Minimum Rock N Roll is a protest against a world where everything is available¦ the internet's engorgement of the senses has bred a world that's stupefied, self-satisfied and sedate. It's time for a diet. This record is a kind of aural austerity! Barely any words! Hardly any beats! Fewer notes! Its just EXACTLY ENOUGH.
Tracklisting:1. Devitalize2. Never Been Properly Loved3. I'm A Choice (Not A Child)4. Stuck In A Box5. Got To Have It Everyday6. Fairy Dust7. Mum's The Word8. Crime Don't Pay9. What Are You In Here For?10. Minimum Rock N Roll11. Curtain Pull12. Everything Worth Getting (Is Gone) -
Visit product page →The self-titled third album from London's Let's Wrestle sees the band enter a new phase of maturity and sophistication giving frontman Wesley Patrick Gonzalez a forum to showcase his songwriting talents and love of classic pop.
Tracklisting:
1. Rain Ruins Revolution
2. I Am Fond Of You
3. Codeine And Marshmallows
4. Always A Friend
5. Care For You
6. Tied Up
7. Don't Want To Know Your Name
8. David You Know
9. Opium Den
10. Wrexham Aluminium
11. Pull Through For You
12. Irish Sea
13. Watching Over You -
Visit product page →The LP will be on 180g black vinyl with a download code. Cursing The Sea, the debut album from Ireland's September Girls, is a dark kaleidoscope of echoey drums, buzzsaw bass, angular guitars and reverb-drenched vocals that blends garage rock and post-punk to extraordinary effect.
Named after a Big Star song via The Bangles, September Girls are comprised of Paula (Bass/Vocals), Caoimhe (Guitar/Vocals), Lauren (Keys/Vocals), Jessie (Guitar/Vocals) and Sarah (Drums). Drawing inspiration from the likes of Phil Spector, The Velvet Underground, The Cure, My Bloody Valentine and The Jesus And Mary Chain, the five-piece play reverb-soaked noise-pop of the finest order, with distant layered harmonies, swirling organ and distorted guitars once described as "sounds from a transistor radio abandoned in a rural cinema."
Formed in Dublin in 2011, the band quickly recorded some demos and began booking gigs in Ireland and the UK, before releasing a handful of well-received limited edition singles on various cassette and 7 labels around the world, most recently on the Haus of PINS cassette label run by their kindred spirits PINS, with whom the band have also toured.
This release, for the song Ships, gave the band their biggest press to date, with a glowing review on Pitchfork. With four different songwriters and singers, each song begins with a secret life of its own, only to be unified by the distortion-drenched harmonies and hazy pop stylings of the band, songs that often seem to be of a sunny disposition taking on a darker, more sinister edge.
First single proper Heartbeats is a tale of unrequited love and betrayal, awash with fuzzy guitars, ethereal female vocals and entrancing melodies and underpinned by a hurt that catches the back of your throat, while the remarkable pop song that is Green Eyed has the protagonist trapped in a relationship with someone untrustworthy. Elsewhere Sister deals with the thorny subject of rape and victim-blaming in society over an insistent, urgent backing.
Title track Cursing the Sea is an ode to long distance heartache and an apt title for the album, with many of the songs dealing with distance, insecurity and inner turmoil, and alluding to an overall sense of being adrift. In keeping with this, the band chose the setting of a beach at night for the artwork, hoping to capture that same unsettled feeling.
Whirling around in a tornado of fuzz, dazzling harmonies, disarming lyrics and dizzying excitement, Cursing the Sea is awash with enough attitude and great songs to see September Girls safely to shore.
"Ships" takes their fuzzy garage pop and colors it several shades darker, resulting in an ominous amphetamine-fueled dirge full of screeching guitars, metronomic basslines, and cooly detached vocals. The Girls' pare down their sound to its steely core on "Ships", using angular guitar work to sharpen their sunniest melodies to a bleeding point, making this the most thrilling music they've released in their short existence. (Pitchfork) .
Tracklisting:
1. Cursing The Sea
2. Another Love Song
3. Left Behind
4. Heartbeats
5. Green Eyed
6. Ships
7. Talking
8. Daylight
9. Money
10. Someone New
11. Secret Lovers
12. Sister -
Sold outVisit product page →"Horseshoe" is the magnificent first single proper from the long awaited second album New Gods by WITHERED HAND (aka Edinburgh based folk-rock troubadour Dan Willson).
Love and the fear of loss is the theme here, and its plaintive entreaty Please don't put a shadow on her lung is coupled with an epic, widescreen, soul-stirring pop tune that leaves no room for doubt.
As Dan himself says, "It's about love. Not romantic love or sexual love. The other stuff."
Tracklisting:
1. Horseshoe
2. Not Another Sunny Day -
Visit product page →The long awaited second album New Gods by WITHERED HAND (aka Edinburgh based folk-rock troubadour Dan Willson) will be released in March via Fortuna POP! (UK/Europe) and Slumberland (US/Canada).
The eleven meditations on love, fidelity and transience therein see Willson's songwriting hit dizzying heights: by turns confessional and melancholy, raucous and life-affirming; his trademark dark humour turned down a wee notch; life, in all its many facets, turned up to full.Active in the world of visual art and dabbling in music for many years, Dan Willson came late to singing and songwriting at age 30, in a period of reflection between the death of a close friend and the birth of his first child. The resultant material, much of which went on to become the album Good News, was praised for its depth and startling honesty, and won him accolades from the likes of Rolling Stone and Mojo, as well as fans from Jarvis Cocker to Marc Riley.
The ensuing years saw him embraced by the now defunct Fife-based musical powerhouse the Fence Collective and his songs picked up by MTV and cult series Skins.A prolific live performer, recent Withered Hand shows have included Pam Berry of seminal 90s US noisepop band Black Tambourine (who also contributes vocals to the new album) amid a rotating cast of musical friends embellishing Dan's exuberant and original songwriting, alongside his fragile and uplifting solo performances.Aided by a grant from arts council body Creative Scotland, New Gods saw Withered Hand entering a proper studio for the first time to work with legendary Scottish producer Tony Doogan (Belle & Sebastian, Mogwai, Mountain Goats, Teenage Fanclub), and features guest appearances from a veritable who's who of Scottish music including King Creosote, Eugene Kelly of The Vaselines, and members of Belle & Sebastian (Stevie Jackson, Chris Geddes) and Frightened Rabbit (Scott Hutchison).Across the eleven songs on New Gods, Willson deals with the big stuff: love, death, friendship, infidelity, road trips, stargazing and cough mixture abuse. First single proper, the magnificent 'Horseshoe', kicks off proceedings with its plaintive entreaty Please don't put a shadow on her lung. Love and the fear of loss is the theme here. Nobody you love will ever die, sings Dan.
It's followed by the album taster track 'Black Tambourine', the purest pop song on the album, an anti-hipster anthem that jangles in all the right places. 'King Of Hollywood' details a night in LA with Willson's friend and mentor King Creosote, Willson's keen eye for detail as hilarious as ever, while title track 'New Gods' sees him transported to Switzerland, cutting across the fields at night and staring up at the Milky Way, like a huge ribbon across the sky, infinitely beautiful and humbling.
This is widescreen pop music par excellence.The five years since Good News was recorded has seen Willson honing his craft, building his audience and gaining critical momentum. The new album is a beautifully executed collection of songs from one of Scotland's most gifted songwriters.
1. Horseshoe
2. Black Tambourine
3. Love Over Desire
4. King Of Hollywood
5. California
6. Fall Apart
7. Between True Love And Ruin
8. Life Of Doubt
9. New Gods
10. Heart Heart
11. Not Alone
