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Visit product page →Collective from the south of France, the Chinese Man trio (composed of High Ku,Matteo & Sly) has been performing independently since their debut under their own label Chinese Man Records.
Formed in 2004, they draw their influences primarily from hip-hop, trip-hop, but also from dub, electro and reggae. With over 600 shows worldwide, the band returns in 2024 for their 3rd album, with an unprecedent and explosive live show!
This new (and third) album was recorded in the label's studios in Marseille, as well as in Paris, at Studio Zarma and at the famous Studio Ferber in Paris, in particular with the orchestra "L'Ensemble Hors Champ". The direction of the orchestra was entrusted to Gilles Alonzo, a musician close to the group, who co-composed and arranged the orchestral parts for 6 of the 13 tracks on this album. Among the album's featured guests are General Elektriks, KT Gorique, Stylo G,Isadora, Youthstar & Miscellaneous, FP & Green T (ASM), Stogie T...
The group has also invited Ferdinand Lemoine (Ferdi) for brass arrangements. Ferdi has previously collaborated with funk producer Dabeull and pianist Sofiane Pamart. Just as they did ten years ago for their first album, the group has decided to enlist Sodi (Studio Zarma) to co-produce and mix this new album, and on Antoine Chabert (Studio Chab) to master the project.
The group returns with the desire to once again confront the show in larger audiences, with several Zeniths scheduled between 2024 and 2025. 2024 will also mark the 20th anniversary of the group and of the label Chinese Man Records.
Tracklisting:
1. Salune
2. We've Been Here Before feat. Stogie T, Isadora & Miscellaneous
3. ¡Que Si!
4. Trouble feat. Stylo G
5. Cycle feat. General Elektriks
6. Too Late feat. Stogie T, KT Gorique & FP (ASM)
7. No One Left feat. Theo Perek
8. The Code feat. ASM, Stogie T, KT Gorique, Youthstar & Miscellaneous
9. Déjà vu
10. Where I Go feat. General Elektriks
11. Fidelio
12. Sacre Bleu feat. Miscellaneous, Stogie T, ASM, Youthstar
13. Lune -
Visit product page →Release Date: 14/06/2024
Theme: collaboration. Or how to remain creative in the modern world.
Nanocluster started as a bespoke one off pop up gig that turned into an album series.
Built around Colin Newman from acclaimed UK post-punk band Wire and his partner in life and sound Malka Spigel from Minimal Compact with various guests, they define collaboration.
Colin met Malka when he produced her band in 1985.The collaboration started there.
They became a couple and created their own projects like the instrumental electronic duo Immersion in 1994 and Githead in 2004 - spaces where they both ‘feel really comfortable.’
Growing out of Immersion, Nanocluster was birthed as a series of one-off gigs at the Rosehill in their new hometown of Brighton in 2017 with an added cast of influential and cutting edge musicians.
These were not ad hoc jams.
The songs had been written and rehearsed prior to each performance. This adventure led to a debut album, Nanocluster Vol 1, released in 2021 with Stereolab singer/guitarist Laetitia Sadier, German post-rock duo Tarwater, electronic musician Ulrich Schnauss and experimental artist Robin Rimbaud (Scanner).
Released again as double 10 inch with each collaboration taking up each disc, the new album Nanocluster Vol 2 has further developed this idea with a stark beauty that sounds like a future pop with sleek lines and unexpected great melodies.
Disc one is built around Thor Harris, the charismatic percussion player from Swans and many other projects, who they met and performed with at South By South West in Austin, Texas in 2023. Thor adds ideas, his tuned percussion instruments, clarinet and trumpet to the sessions.
Disc two is built around Cubzoa (Jack Wolter from the band Penelope Isles) who brings his musical craft, beguiling voice, guitar and much more.
Meanwhile Matt Schulz from Holy Fuck plays drums across both combinations helping the resulting music become a third entity.
What results is a true collaboration that, enhanced via Immersion’s production, merges its elements to develop a new harmony.
Key to the process is Colin and Malka’s radio show for Slack City radio, ‘Swimming In Sound’ with its entertainingly diverse playlist that has widened their horizons. It’s also helped build relationships not only with these collaborators but also musicians like ambient country masters SUSS, with whom they plan an extended Nanocluster tour in the USA with in 2025 and Brighton via Falmouth’s “jangly pop punk” Holiday Ghosts with whom they will perform the next Nanocluster event in their home town, as well as many more in the pipeline.
Malka:
‘Nanocluster is collaboration but in a very specific form. We don't have rules. It’s a series of creative snapshots. We start as the gig with our collaborators with tracks that we rehearse because this is not a jam and where it stops is an album.’
Colin:
‘It’s chemistry & music. Malka & I operate as a team and now we’ve taken it to another level. Malka comes from a band where they would stand in a room together and work out the material. In Wire, I would present the songs, so when Malka and I first started working together, we had to find a third path, and that was the concept behind our collaboration.’
Nanocluster Volume 2 is a 21st century collusion of shared ideas, creating a momentary extended musical family.
It’s about musical and personal relationships and the meeting place in the middle.
A temporary band of house guests.
The place where Immersion happens.Tracklisting:
2 X 10” VWM58LP
Immersion | Thor Harris
A1. As Long As
A2. Just Close Your Eyes
A3. Rotations
B1. The House Of Thor
B2. In Snow
B3. At The Wizard’s House
Immersion | Cubzoa
C1. I’m Barely Here
C2. In The Universe
C3. Other Ways
D1. Not About Me
D2. NeptuneCD WM58CD
Immersion | Cubzoa
1. I’m Barely Here
2. In The Universe
3. Other Ways
4. Not About Me
5. NeptuneImmersion | Thor Harris
6. As Long As
7. Just Close Your Eyes
8. Rotations
9. The House Of Thor 1
0. In Snow
11. At The Wizard’s House -
Visit product page →Release Date: 21/06/2024
Moon Diagrams – the solo project of Deerhunter co-founder and drummer Moses Archuleta – returns with a second album, Cemetery Classics, on June 21.
The 12-track album is a co-release between Sonic Cathedral (in the UK and Europe) and Angus Andrew from Liars’ new label No Gold (in the US and the ROW) and was mixed by James Ford. It features guests including Anastasia Coope, Patrick Flegel (Cindy Lee) and Josh Diamond (Gang Gang Dance).
It’s Moses’ first new music since 2019’s Trappy Bats mini-album and the follow-up to 2017’s acclaimed debut Lifetime of Love and everything seems a bit more extreme – from the Basinski-esque degradation of ‘Neptune’ to the Faustian industrial noise of ‘Listen To Me’ via Art of Noise-style postmodern pop (the first single ‘Very Much My Promise to You’), Daft Punk bangers (‘Fifteen Shows at One Time’), trip-hop, shoegaze, Jan Hammer, Depeche Mode, late Leonard Cohen and more.
“It’s about finding out your arms are too short to box with god,” says Moses of the emotional force that courses through Cemetery Classics. “It’s the inverse of a desert island disc – a graveyard disc. Songs to take into the afterlife.”
Tracklisting:
1. NRG
2. Mousetrap
3. Fifteen Shows at One Time
4. Metallics in Fur
5. Big Ref
6. Rewop
7. Brand New Effie
8. Neptune
9. Very Much My Promise to You
10. Listen to Me
11. Left Hand of God
12. Fragment Rock -
Visit product page →Asha Well is a San Francisco Bay Area based non-binary singer, songwriter, and visual artist. “Water Words” is their debut album, featuring atmospheric textures and haunting melodies set to thought provoking imagery.
Working with co-producer Jason Kick (Mild High Club, Sonny and the Sunsets) at his Tunnel Vision studio in Oakland, CA the pair recorded 1-2 songs a week at the height of the pandemic.
Kick brought his knack for arrangement, synthesis, and drum programming, helping to create a supportive environment for Wells’ atmospheric guitars and haunting melodies.
The resulting album pairs textured sounds with tender harmonies, calling to mind the work of contemporary art forward singer-songwriters like Aldous Harding, Hand Habits, and Cate Le Bon as much as torchbearers like Patti Smith, Cat Power, and Jeff Buckley.
Tracklisting:
1. At Night
2. Mood Indigo
3. California
4. Marianne
5. Bonjour Tristesse
6. Blue Angels
7. Drugstore Perfume
8. The Well
9. Up In A Cloud
10. The Weight
11. Motorbike -
Visit product page →Can I Communicate With the Unknown? is the new album from Go By Ocean, moniker of Northern California based singer/songwriter/producer Ryan McCaffrey. Co-produced alongside Tim Bluhm (The Mother Hips) and David Glasebrook, the album features contributions from a wide cast of characters, ranging from the tight knit community of Phil Lesh’s Terrapin Crossroads to the wider West Coast indie-rock scene, including members of The Mother Hips, Sugar Candy Mountain, ALO, Tea Leaf Green, and more.
Building upon McCaffrey’s catalog of songs, the new album finds inspiration in the down-to-earth music of 1970’s Marin County, when songwriters like Michael Hurley and Jesse Colin Young lived out in Olema and Point Reyes, the kind of places where songs blow in on the breeze from the Pacific Ocean.
Lyrically, the album trace’s a hero’s journey as the narrator struggles with addiction, eventually finding peace and freedom in a tumultuous world, wrestling with metaphysical and spiritual ideas along the way.
Tracklisting:
1. Say Man
2. Goin’ To Die
3. Should Have Known
4. One True Golden Heart
5. Ballad of a Masquerade
6. Roberta
7. Ascending Ghosts
8. Free
9. Autumn Days In Olema
10. Right Moon -
Release Date: 14/06/2024Visit product page →
Mike Paradinas, veteran producer and Planet Mu label owner has written a new album called ‘Grush' and it's full of weird bangers that reclaim the 'dance' part of the woeful term IDM. A back-to-first-principles record, inspired in part by the group of artists IDM was coined for; melodic dance music that didn't come out of urban scenes, but interpreted them from a distance.
The tracks on ‘Grush’ are all road-tested live favorites developed with feedback from Mike's touring partner and visuals guy Mora (Jan Moravec). It's a detailed and energetic journey which replicates the flow of a live gig. A lot of the tracks have been made in hotel rooms in response to shows, ‘Imperial Crescent’ is named after a Japanese Hotel, as is ‘Belvedere’ in Prague, while some tracks such as ‘Hyper Daddy’ were created specifically to play live.
Drums are confidently at the fore here and the album feels like it traces Mike's musical history and interests neatly around his sweetly nostalgic melodies, with atmospheres and structures which twist and turn with a charming softness which contrasts with the tension in the drums. Take ‘Hyper Daddy’s’ spiralling notes and twinkling piano which remind one of early Black Dog or Omni Trio rushing alongside splashy jungle drums, or the aquatic acid footwork of the title track with its drums softly bubbling and kicking.
Elsewhere there's territory which harks back to his Tusken Raiders pseudonym, like the heads down Drexciyan funk of ‘Windsor Safari Park,’ which transforms from moody electro into a sunny hardcore track midway.
The album is interspersed with Reticulum A, B and C at the start middle and end of the album which suggest a theme which carries across the music in an effortless and joyful way. ‘Grush’ is a strong album that works both for listening and DJing and a great snapshot of where Mike Paradinas musical head is at in 2024.
Tracklisting:VinylSide A1. Reticulum A2. Hyper Daddy3. FogouSide B1. Magic Pony Ride (Pt.4)2. Imperial Crescent3. Reticulum B4. GrushSide C1. Belvedere2. Raver3. Windsor Safari Park4. HastingsSide D1. Manscape2. Metaphonk3. Reticulum C
CD1. Reticulum A2. Hyper Daddy3. Fogou4. Magic Pony Ride (Pt.4)5. Imperial Crescent6. Reticulum B7. Grush8. Belvedere9. Raver10. Windsor Safari Park11. Hastings12. Manscape13. Metaphonk14. Reticulum C -
Release Date: 12/07/2024Visit product page →
One mere year after their previous pitch-black sounding album Krypt, LA outfit Male Tears is back with a new full-length and – oh boy – everything is changed.
The used-to-be duo is now a four piece with James Edward as the sole founding member remaining and apparently this new line-up helped the original vocalist to shapeshift again.
Remember their very first debut album from 2021 and those dark synthpop sounds?
With their upcoming fourth album (in only three years), this American electronic-pop act from Southern California doubles the stakes once again and where Krypt was all about being goth and gloomy and disturbingly paroxysmal, Paradisco is somehow quite the opposite.
Eight new tracks of pure italo disco, hi-NRG and freestyle bliss that pick up where the band left off three years ago to pursue much darker realms. Now that the quest for darkness is done, it is time to polish our nails and dress up for the night-out cause there's more in life than feeling sorry for yourself. Yes you will need to cut out the deadwood but there is no change in stillness.
So join Male Tears and their new arsenal of bangers and floor fillers with assertive titles such as Out of my Life, Regret 4 Nothing and Leave it Alone.
Get yourself wrapped up in one warm cover of delicate nostalgia and reborn romanticism, driven by sounds that pay homage equally to Miko Mission and Ken Laszlo, Lisa Lisa and Exposé and, well yeah, even The Smiths because say what you wanna say but you simply cannot not love The Smiths.
Embrace the vintage vibes that organically propagate from this new record's grooves and get in the mood for this new course in full-on 1980's Pop.
Tracklisting:
1. Talk to Me
2. Leave it Alone (feat. Corlyx)
3. Sex on Drugs
4. Out of my Life
5. Where Is It?
6. He Wants Everything
7. Regret 4 Nothing
8. This Party Ends in Tears (feat. Digital Love) -
Release Date: 07/06/2024Visit product page →
The third album of powerfully vivid songwriting from Marina Allen. Beautifully orchestrated, highly melodic and delivered with unrivalled lyrical perspective. Across two acclaimed records, the Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter has ripened a rare harvest, but her third studio album is an arrival home.
Taking fragments and stories from Marina’s past, Eight-Pointed Star deftly weaves together a new future, in what feels for all the world like a glittering, clear-eyed modern classic of alternative folk and Americana. For fans of Aldous Harding, Fiona Apple and Waxahatchee.
Ineffable and timeless, this collection of songs holds a curiosity that’s as open to you as you are to them. Compared to the soaring and swelling compositions of Allen’s second album Centrifics or the innocent tranquillity of Candlepower, the world of Eight Pointed Star is more deeply addressing and open-armed.
It favours a type of soul-searching that doesn’t dwell in complications, and is open to answers. Rolling guitars rise and fall with the canyons and dust is kicked-up from the red scarred earth. Allen’s vocals pure and crystalline whilst the instrumentation is rich and bursting with brightness. You can hear contentment radiating from the music, with Chris Cohen’s production offering a full-band affair.
Allen’s affection runs deepest for singers who in her words can really sing, from The Roches to Karen Dalton, Joanna Newsom to Meredith Monk. But these influences vanish like ghosts in the attic when she starts to sing herself. Allen has a voice that stands up to the canon – inimitable – and it’s never sounded more resolute than it does here.
Tracklisting:
Side A
1. I'm the Same
2. Deep Fake
3. Red Cloud
4. Swinging Doors
5. Bad Eye Opal
Side B
6. Easy
7. Love Comes Back
8. Landlocked
9. Between Seasons -
The Beasts of History is the new album from Michael James Tapscott, featuring contributions from members of Gospelbeach, Howlin' Rain, Sugar Candy Mountain, Papercuts, Elephant Micah, Tarnation, Odawas, Yea-Ming and the Rumours, and more.Visit product page →
Nearly four years in the making, the album pulls from disparate strands of American ephemera to create a uniquely captivating collection of songs that play out like one act plays, full of doomed anti-heroes and beautiful losers; calling to mind the small town dramas of Bobbie Gentry, the golden age pop of The Beach Boys, the lonely jangle of The Beau Brummels, the echoing melodies of Lee Hazlewood, and the experimental ethos of ambient folk. Highly anticipated sophomore album from Michael James Tapscott.
Tracklisting:
1. Reno News (Intro)
2. Cheap Hotel
3. The Hills of Montreal
4. Bobby’s Army Jacket
5. Roll, Little Sparrow
6. The Lonely Evergreen
7. Bobby’s Reprise
8. Los Peñasquitos Falls
9. When Lisa Got Pregnant
10. Her Mysterious Past
11. Leopard Print Coat -
Strange Pilgrim is the self-titled debut album from singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Josh Barnhart. Drawing on themes of dislocation and featuring dreamlike imagery, Strange Pilgrim is an exploration of life in an increasingly unfamiliar world.Visit product page →
Much of the lyrical content focuses on the social and political uncertainty of these times; on connecting with nature and yearning for some form of freedom from the often monotonous grind of modern life.
Equally inspired by the bucolic folk-rock of Fleetwood Mac’s Future Games, the hazy psychedelia of Dungen, and the soundscapes of Brian Eno, their harmony-drenched psych-pop sound is centered on the experience of venturing toward some unknown horizon, come what may. Highly anticipated debut album from Strange Pilgrim.
“Rich in West Coast psych-pop vibes and lush harmonies, while Strange Pilgrim may have its roots in existential angst, a product of unsettled times, ultimately, it seeks to fly on wings of hope.” - Folk Radio UK.
Tracklisting:
1. More Than I Did
2. Staring at the Sky
3. Brighter Horizon
4. Salt and Seagulls
5. Embers
6. Blue Light
7. Survive the Summer
8. Dance With Me
9. The Mirror
10. No Relief -
Originally released in 2016, Champions has become something of a fan favorite and developed an enduring legacy as one of the band’s finest works.Visit product page →
Nearly 7 years later we’re back with a special deluxe edition version of the album, just in time to coincide with the original lineup that recorded the album performing together again and label Royal Oakie celebrating their 10th Anniversary.
The Deluxe Edition features 3 unreleased songs from the original sessions that serve to round out the band’s vision for the album, making an already epic double album into a masterpiece of sprawling ambition and scope. Highly anticipated deluxe edition of Whiskerman’s epic double album.
“Over the last eight years the Oakland band Whiskerman has developed an underground reputation for tackling the sublime with their ambitious songwriting, thunderous stage show, and acute lyricism.” - Glide Magazine.
Tracklisting:
1. Louie
2. Jackie & Delilah
3. Saturday
4. Troublemaker
5. Only One of Us Can See What the Universe Thinks of Beer
6. Buddy
7. It’s Easy Now
8. Law of the Hemisphere
9. Waking up in Providence
10. Everything Is Small
11. Champions
12. The Kingdom
13. Gold (I Don’t Mind It)
14. Wonder
15. The Kid (Bonus Track)
16. My Motor (Bonus Track)
17. Riot of Indolence (Bonus Track) -
Outer Highway Realms is the debut solo instrumental album from Lauren Helene Green, a multi-instrumentalist musician, artist, and woodworker from Texas, now based in Northern New Mexico. Currently half of dream-pop duo Tan Cologne, Green is a shaper of music, wood, and various creative projects inspired by both Earthly and otherworldly landscapes.Visit product page →
In the frosted Winter to early Spring cross-fade of 2022, Green recorded 8 songs over the course of a week in Ranchos de Taos, NM.
The album “Outer Highway Realms" is a collection of observations on New Mexico's slow desert, echoes of time and space, morning reflections, sunset drives, guitar meanderings through hot springs, canyon loop walks, and visions floating between woodworking and gardening. Nature sounds and ambient snippets were woven into songs, creating a blend of all seasons and overlapping time.
“…a kind of 21st century, synthesized version of Bruce Langhorne’s The Hired Hand soundtrack, fragments, vignettes, contemplative moments of desert solitude captured in all their shimmering beauty…” Caught By the River.
“The record continues her exploration of desert living through a rich blend of folk, ambient and drone. A sound capable of evoking the nuanced and often contradictory moods of the environment, managing to be expansive and detailed all at once.” - Various Small Flames.
Tracklisting:
1. Canyon Loop
2. Cactus Bloom
3. Peak Morning Reflections
4. Horses At Fire Water Lodge
5. Slow Spring
6. Wind Full of Spring
7. Walk At Dusk
8. Dim Sunset Drive -
Shadowgraphs is the new self-titled album from the Portland, Oregon based band. Representing a turning point, the album was created in the spirit of true collaboration.Visit product page →
Written and recorded in the shadow of the global pandemic and the social justice movements that sprung up in its wake, the album finds the band grappling with the changing world and their place in it.
Equally inspired by classic psychedelic pop and modern indie rock, the new album finds the band branching out and incorporating shoegaze, post-punk, and dream pop influences into their sound. Highly anticipated third album from Shadowgraphs.
“…sends the group’s holographic psychedelia into a deeper realm of tryptamine alchemy.” - New Commute.
Tracklisting:
1. Dark Wave Magic
2. Dog Dreams
3. Morning Flower
4. So Close
5. Jet Black
6. Stills
7. Outlier Between
8. Loss Prevention
9. Motionless
10. Prescribed Burn
11. Instant Phase
12. I Won’t Settle -
“out of love in the face of a shadow” is the new album from Credit Electric. Exploring the human unconscious through impressionistic pop vignettes, the album represents a significant evolution of the band’s sound that originally stemmed from limitations put in place by the global pandemic, before blossoming into something altogether new and unexpected.Visit product page →
What started to emerge was a body of work that drew upon lo-fi jazz, dub, post-rock, ambient music, 70’s studio experimentation, and 90’s indie rock as much as the rustic folk of their past releases.
The resulting album “out of love in face of a shadow” calls to mind influences as disparate as Hiroshi Yoshimura, American Football, Scientist, and Magnolia Electric Co, all the while inhabiting a world completely of their own design.
“…the band crafts American hymns that peer through fogged glass, tracing the lines of lament in hazy relief…” - Raven Sings the Blues
Albums of the Year - New Commute
Tracklisting:
1. Out Of Love In The Face Of A Shadow
2. Carrot
3. St. Francis’s Child
4. Immunity
5. Heights
6. Selfs
7. Silver Line
8. Summit Sipper
9. Winner
10. Mocking Bird -
Singer-songwriter Daniel Rice and bandmate Hayden Doyel originally formed Brim as a rootsy side project to their main gig in psychedelic hard-rock band Slow Season, now known as Westing.Visit product page →
Written and recorded in their hometown of Visalia, CA, the band's debut album "California Gold" is a paean to the dirt-road-back-streets and down to earth humanity of rural California's small towns and agricultural valleys.
The album recalls the lonesome pedal steel of Bakersfield country, Gram Parson's stories of sin & salvation, and Neil Young's loose and dusty years on the beach. Inspired by the humble humanity of the farm towns in California’s San Joaquin Valley that the band calls home, Daniel returned to his roots and wrote about the overlooked nooks and crannies of California flyover territories as a sort of metaphor for finding beauty in the simple things of everyday life.
Not the postcard views of Malibu sunsets and sandy beaches, but the California landscape of walnut orchards, rolling hills, and tule fog. No surprise they call it California Gold. Highly anticipated debut album from Brim.
4 stars - Shindig!
“California Gold is an infectiously catchy set of songs…it’s a humble but huge hearted debut album best heard as the sun sets” - Duncan Fletcher (Shindig!)
“California Gold, is glorious, – all Byrdsy three-part harmonies, lonesome pedal steel, fuzzy guitar and a chorus that’s bigger than a canyon.” - Sean Hannam (Americana UK)
Tracklisting:
1. California Gold
2. In A Smile
3. Mudpie Kings
4. Oleander
5. Nothing Gold
6. When the Evening Comes
7. There’s More to This World
8. Won’t Do It Again
9. Shadowland -
Out Passed Nowhere is the debut solo album from Oliver Ray. Unfurling like a long stretch of road leading out past the edge of town, the album takes the listener to uncharted destinations beyond the edges of the map. Centered around Ray’s songwriting, the album finds him backed by a kaleidoscopic array of guest performers from the Bay Area, Tucson, and the NYC music communities.Visit product page →
Ray’s transcendent tunes are brought to life in stunning wide screen detail by members of Patti Smith, Howe Gelb, and members of Sugar Candy Mountain, Giant Sand, and The Myrrors. Working in collaboration with producer David Glasebrook, the two created a unique sonic landscape for each song; throwing genre conventions out the window, they focused on capturing distinctive, emotionally resonant sounds.
Each song has a distinctive flavor, but like the pieces to a puzzle they add up to more than the sum of their parts. The guitar explorations of Ol’ Coyote sit side by side with the dusty folk of Setting Sun, the psychedelic swirl of Best Game in Town, the darkly orchestral Tower and the Star, and the ambient tone poem Edge City.
The resulting album is a songwriting tour de force set amidst a swirling sonic landscape that recalls Bob Dylan or Cass McCombs as much as Brian Eno and Mark Hollis. Out Passed Nowhere is a captivating statement from an artist in his prime.
Although it may be his solo debut, Ray has been playing music and writing songs for decades, and this album stands as a testament to all those miles of road traveled; all those hours spent with pen to paper; all those songs sung and yet to be sung.
Tracklisting:
1. Ol’ Coyote
2. Ready
3. Best Game in Town
4. Setting Sun
5. Bye Beautiful
6. Tower and the Star
7. Queen of Never
8. Wise Blood
9. Edge City -
Magic Mind is Sandy’s magnum opus. On their new album, the San Francisco band led by Alexi Glickman crafts a collection of songs combining inventive studio productions with timeless songwriting influenced by the likes of Bach, Brian Wilson, and The Beatles. Giant sized harmonies pair with echoing guitar and colorful synthesizers conjuring the spirit of epic 70’s surf films.Visit product page →
After releasing Chime in 2018, a much loved album recorded in a seaside cabin, Alexi imagined a collection of songs that would invite us to glimpse an alternate world. Looking beyond the lo-fi recording techniques of their back catalog, the band collaborated with studio whiz David Glasebrook (Royal Oakie Records) to achieve a unique fidelity that retains the rough edges of Sandy’s signature sound and places them in a 3D cinematic soundscape.
The album loosely follows an archetypal couple as they move through a mystical realm, encountering both benevolent teachers and violent apparitions attempting to tear them apart. Through it all, they are bound by love and shared dreams. Title track “Magic Mind” celebrates both the brilliance and strife that accompanies the complex minds in the Sandy’s creative family.
Rather than romanticizing their suffering, the song delivers moments of sublime catharsis and transcendence. Meanwhile, lead single “Sami & Sandy” is a lost 80’s cassette pop paen of new love and hope in the face of tragedy, recorded by Jeremy Harris. “Ghost Lake” is a sun faded ballad featuring the shredding of guitar legend Brett Garsed. “Sunken Cathedral”, a sound painting inspired by Debussy, conjures the landscape of Northern California’s Mt. Tamalpais and the surrounding valleys and coastlines the band calls home.
During mixing, Alexi’s father Eddie died suddenly, and new layers of grief and celebration were woven into the fabric of the album to honor his artistic legacy. “Ghost Lake” borrows its title from a 1978 dance choreographed by Eddie for his Santa Monica-based company Rodeo ex Machina, featuring a family of Samurai soaring above a cracked desert basin.
Like the best work of Elliott Smith and Judee Sill, Magic Mind is deeply soulful and possesses an authentic intensity that is undeniable. Ultimately the archetypal couple emerges triumphant from realms of darkness, uncertainty, and adversity—a vibrant metaphor for the human experience; a celebration of what it means to be human and possess a Magic Mind. Highly anticipated third full length from Sandy’s.
Tracklisting:
1. Dimension IV
2. Sami & Sandy
3. Standing on the Water
4. Sunken Cathedral
5. Ghost Lake
6. Moss Landing
7. Collapsing Star
8. Calabi Yau
9. Magic Mind -
Release Date: 24/05/2024Visit product page →
No Guitar (Deluxe Edition) combines the original album with two instrumental bonus tracks from the sessions, “Cavalry” and “C2”, a lush and intricate collection that covers a ton of ground—from the bittersweet jangle of power-pop, to indie-folk, Midwestern emo, and much more.
You can hear shades of shoegaze in “Hi-Elixir”, where a massive wall of fuzzy guitars recalls My Bloody Valentine; “Patience” has a sweet-and-sour bite that recalls acts like Archers of Loaf and Shudder to Think; while “URDoM” swings and sways with a tapestry of guitars reminiscent of American Football and Mineral.
The album marks the latest evolution for cross-continental duo Bernie Gelman and Joseph Brandel, who first met in high school and have been fusing their own unique musical sensibilities ever since, with Gelman operating out of the San Francisco Bay Area while Brandel currently resides in Japan.
“…this is the sound of the days before smartphones and the Internet got in the way of seeking adventure, of not knowing what the band sounded like before going to watch them, of taking a punt on an album that you actually had to buy to hear.” - Monolith Cocktail
“No Guitar squares all the previous works, making the songs much more impressionistic and imposing, at the same time moving away from the lo-fi trace that is common in their last two works, making the story really unpredictable and exciting” - Northern Transmissions
“...a remarkable sonic pastiche of many genres and eras.” - American Pancake
“...drives a sound that is effortless, cloaking the heavy thematic undertones such as isolation, romantic heartbreak, and the loss of a loved one. The lush and intricate songs cover a myriad of stylistic grounds, from power-pop’s punchy bittersweetness and rustling indie folk to the openhearted intricacy of Midwestern emo.” – Ghettoblaster
Tracklisting:
1. Shamble
2. Pastoral
3. Pop Song
4. URDoM
5. Reflector Mage
6. Dysfunction
7. Majesty
8. Hi-Elixir
9. Patience
10. Husk
11. Hotel
12. No Guitar
13. Cavalry (Bonus Track)
14. C2 (Bonus Track)
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