Tough Love Records
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Sold out"Guitar-flecked electro at its most hypnotic and sublime" Sunday TimesVisit product page →
'Unfettered adrenalin rush' MOJO (4/5)
'Fun with a capital F', but there are moments of gravitas too. Not easy to do that' NME (8/10)
Light in Your Mind is the first new material from CYMBALS in 2 years, and their first album since 2014. If the wait seems long for the listener, for those involved in its creation the time in between pulls in a lifetime of unexpected experiences. That Light In Your Mind even exists is a testament to not giving in.
Since their inception, CYMBALS line up has been subject to a great deal of change. Amidst that change there has always existed the songwriting duo of Jack Cleverly and Dan Simons, who formed the band in 2011 with the sole intention of 'having fun'.
A noble aspiration, but one that became increasingly hard to realize when the realities of a 9-5 existence started to corrosively rub against the expectations of being in a band that wanted to tour the world. At various points over the last 6 years and across 3 albums, a rotating cast of at least 10 other people have formed some version of CYMBALS.
More still have contributed to Light In Your Mind - Justin Goings and Josh Hefferman both provide drums, while Alabaster DePlume plays saxophone on Fully Automated Luxury'. Producer Kristian Robinson (Capitol K) is a major presence across the album and played a key role in guiding the transition from the band's sound on their previous record to this one.
The music itself possesses a sedimentary quality, a residue of each contributing member compressed into what it is that band have become. Consistent throughout has been the relationship between Cleverly and Simons. Failing relationships, betrayal, addiction, illness: the emotional challenges were huge.
Thankfully, they were not insurmountable. Second track Car Crash'addresses that period head-on, a typically effervescent synth line from Simons disguising lyrical content that traverses that fine line between blind arrogance and tortured self-loathing. Like all the best CYMBALS songs, it deals in unexpected contrasts.
Much the same can be said of the structure of the album as a whole, eclectically comprised of melodically memorable pop songs ('Car Crash', 'Talk To Me'), bucolic instrumentals ('My Body', 'Numbers') and longer, pensive songs that explore the space in between ('ASMR', 'I Thought I Knew You'). As final track Lifetime Achievement Award'concludes, a synth loop first heard on the opening track is subtly re-introduced, completing a circle of sorts.
Tracklisting:
1. Decay
2. Car Crash
3. Talk To Me
4. I Thought I Knew You
5. My Body (Winter Mix)
6. Where Nothing Can Be Defined
7. Splitting
8. Euphoric Recall
9. ASMR
10. Fully Automated Luxury
11. Lifetime Achievement Award -
Sold outLP limited to 300 only white vinylVisit product page →
The four original members of Lød formed after graduating school in Copenhagen, inspired by the post-punk that was prominent in the fervent, close-knit music community of the city. The first version of Lød was very much birthed in this same shadow: loud and heavy. With time their sound began to rely less on distortion, foregoing aggression for a greater focus on melody and rhythm.
Bands like LCD Soundsystem, Suicide and Kraftwerk provided further inspiration and it became an ambition for Lød to create music that - while never taking the easy route - could make people dance.
With their debut EP, released via London-based label Tough Love, they have very much achieved this. They're a dance band, in the same way one might consider NEU a dance band. The recording of Folder began in October 2016 with engineer Julius Pedersen, who helped the band shape tracks that had taken more than six months to write.
The result is a 24-minute, four song debut EP sung in Danish. You might consider it uncompromising were the songs not so accessible. And despite their length, these are 'songs', with defined melodies and structure. Looping and monolithic, early commentators in their home country have noted a 'trance-punk' aspect to their sound. Such nomenclature can be tedious, but it's not a million miles from the truth.
Bringing to mind the likes of Preoccupations in their similarly propulsive take on post-punk, Lød add a further glacial edge indebted to both early industrial and no wave.
Tracklisting:
1. Sa° Bla°
2. Træder ind, bukker, bukker
3. Fælled
4. Folder -
LP (transparent yellow vinyl).Visit product page →
Following the release of Foxhole in January of this year, Tough Love will issue on vinyl for the first time The Proper Ornaments debut long-player, Waiting for the Summer: a compilation of their first 10 songs, originally released on CD in 2013.
What they said in 2013 - ¦ Is perfect pop still possible? It's hard to imagine, but the answer is Yes, and The Proper Ornaments are here to prove it. A timeless beauty that reminds us of The Velvet Underground and The Jesus & Mary Chain and yet sounds classic and effortlessly original. Produced by Charlie March of NZCA Lines and featuring ten golden nuggets of pure pleasure. James Hoare and Max Claps formed The Proper Ornaments in 2010.
The first line up included bassist Michael Lovett and Lets Wrestle front man Wesley Patrick Gonzalez. Micheal went on to form NZCA LINES, but Wes remained part of the tag team thanks to a nifty half nelson and the offer of a night in the corner of London's darkest stages and the theft of his organ - ¦.
Tracklisting:
1. Waiting for the Summer
2. Are You Going Blind?
3. Who Thought?
4. Drop Off
5. Recalling B
6. You Still
7. Shining Bright
8. Riverboat
9. Nervous Breakdown
10. Take a Break -
Sold outLP vinyl (opaque white) 1000 copies.Visit product page →
Priests'Early Recordings combines the band's first two cassette-only tape releases, originally recorded in 2011 and 2013. The small run cassette releases were originally intended to be for purchase only at the band's live shows. 'We didn't want everybody to hear it,' said drummer Daniele Daniele. 'We were still learning our instruments, so these tapes were not intended to impress the world, just document where we were for our own sake.' Daniele met vocalist Katie Alice Greer the same week she arrived in Washington, DC to complete a fellowship at Georgetown University, and the two decided to start a band. Guitarist GL Jaguar joined soon after, and bassist Taylor Mulitz completed the lineup the following year.
Tape 1 was recorded by Jaguar in his parent's basement in Maryland. The band had existed for one week, and the trio had written four songs. 'I was very eager to have evidence of the band exist for myself, because I didn't know how long it would last, and I wanted to make music more than anything, said Greer. 'Diet Coke', the band's first song, is a hundred second blast of pummeling energy and what would become Jaguar's signature riffage. A winking nod to advertising that sneaks into culture, the tune is followed by the more contemplative 'Talking', a song on which both Greer and Jaguar play guitar. Greer's lyrics speak to US public school systems 'rewarding complicity' and children being 'being socialized by reality TV'. 'The World', perhaps foreshadowing the band's krautrock-inspired penchant for repetition, is a jubilant intermission before 'Cobra', a playfully minimal stop-start closer inspired by cult favorite rock group She (also known as 'The Hairem').
On Tape Two the band was eager to showcase their fuller sound as a newly expanded quartet. The tape's seven songs were recorded by Kevin Erickson and Hugh McElroy, who had already recorded the band's first single 'Radiation/Personal Planes' a year earlier and would go on to produced half of Priests'Bodies and Control and Money and Power EP and all of Nothing Feels Natural. 'Leave Me Alone' nods to the Priests's affinity for inverting the cool funk of a song like Bush Tetras''Too Many Creeps' ('I see you when I'm out on the street/ I think you look like a creep') while exploring more melodic territory on tracks like 'Twelve', hinting to material that would later surface on Nothing Feels Natural. Lyrically, Priests continued to explore themes that center women's lives ('Lillian Hellman'), critique social perception of female celebrity ('Lana'), interrogate assumptions of US history ('Incantations'), and invert the male gaze on the Daniele Daniele-penned closer 'Watch You'.
Priests was already interested in expanding their musical palette, as evidenced by metallic clangs and a purring drum machine on 'Watch You' and creeping mellotron weaving in and out of a few different tracks throughout.
Early Recordings lays the groundwork for Priests longer releases in the following three years and provides context for the band's evolving sound.
Tracklisting:
Side A:
1. Diet Coke
2. Talking
3. The World
4. Cobra
5. Leave Me Alone
6. Say No
Side B:
7. Lana
8. USA (Incantations)
9. Lillian Hellman
10. Twelve
11. Watch You (Alternate Mix) -
Ulrika Spacek return on June 2nd with the release of their second album, Modern English Decoration. Much like their debut album released in early 2016, the band chose to record, produce and mix the entirety of the record in their shared house - a former art gallery called KEN', so named because of a cryptic inscription found above the front door.Visit product page →
The relatively short amount of time between their first and second albums is testament to the band's self-contained creative environment and the productivity it encourages. There's a tendency to label this degree of self-reliant creativity DIY'- and the band do certainly feel emboldened by that ethos - yet to consider Modern English Decoration solely in these terms is a disservice.
Their craft is considered and purposeful, the means of its production reflecting the band's overall vision rather than the value system of an often haphazard and accidental DIY culture. 'We enjoy listening to music through the album format and want our records to reflect that', says Rhys Edwards (guitars, vocals, synthesiser).
Ulrika Spacek formed in Berlin in one night, when 14-year-long friends Rhys Edwards and Rhys Williams conceptualised Ulrika Spacek'and came up with The Album Paranoia as their debut album title. Moving back to London with the intention to record it, they were joined by Joseph Stone (guitars, organ, synths, violin), Ben White (bass) and Callum Brown (drums, percussion), ossifying into the five-piece they are now. The album was released soon after with little forewarning and was accompanied by a year long, near-monthly club night called Oysterland.
Given the lyrics often favour abstraction and the vocals can be more impressionistic than declarative, the album title itself offers perhaps the most telling entry point to the record. In part, it's a self-effacing play on an interior design cliché that references the meticulous creative processes the band adheres to. There's also a nod towards the environment in which it was created - a Victorian house turned art gallery turned home studio
Unsurprisingly given the context of its creation, Modern English Decoration might be considered a companion piece of sorts to The Album Paranoia.But there are crucial differences. Most notably, this isn't the work of the Ulrika Spacek conceptualised by Edwards and Williams in Berlin - Modern English Decoration is the band as five rather than two people, and it shows.
Those who have witnessed the intensity of their live show will instantly recognise the merits in this. The bass and drums provide a versatile anchor, at once soft, then aggressive, while the vocals drift woozily in and out, like druggy hindsight or skewed premonition. With three guitarists in the band guitars were always going to be central to the music, but what is less expected is the dynamic interplay between the trio that suggests a three-headed version of the Verlaine-Lloyd axis at the heart of Television.
What's more, the absence of reverb is integral, in part attributable to the ambience of the studio, but also a conscious decision in order to add focus. And focus is the abiding term: this is an album designed to be just so - a 45 minute commitment, a surrender. - ¨
Tracklisting:
1. Mimi Pretend
2. Silvertonic
3. Dead Museum
4. Ziggy
5. Everything, all the time
6. Modern English Decoration
7. Full of Men
8. Saw A Habit Forming
9. Victorian Acid
10. Protestant Work Slump -
Proper Ornaments is the project of James Hoare (Ultimate Painting, Veronica Falls) and Max Oscarnold (Toy, Pink Flames). Debut LP Wooden Head'(FortunaPop 2014) perfected the unique slant of their previous work. James and Max started out writing the follow-up in January 2015.Visit product page →
On Foxhole'they've sliced away a whole stratum of their sound, removing some distortion and lowering the frequency of plectrum strokes to allow more nuanced, piano-led ideas to emerge. The title isn't a reference to Television's jaunty proto-punk record but seems to be more of a dark, protective interior, a head space sketched out on Jeremy's Song'. While their particularly recognisable production style (a bright, frozen counterpoint to the airless mixes one encounters more often) remains, three things stand out as likely reasons for the shift in mood.
By the time they got around to recording again in James'bedroom in Finsbury Park that Summer, the instability around the recording of Wooden Head'(and the five years before) had slid into a deep and seething acrimony. Second, they both bought pianos. Third, when the band, with Daniel Nellis and Bobby Syme joining on bass and drums went to record at Tin Room in Hackney in June, the pinch wheel on the 8 track machine was broken and somehow no one noticed.
All but one recording, The Frozen Stare,'was hopelessly warped, so they went and did it all again from scratch back at James'. 'We ended up doing the whole thing there as the atmosphere suited the direction of the foxhole and we were more comfortable working on it in our own time,' says James. That's why the record has a laid back, conversational, not imposing or anxious feel in my opinion. If Always There'was the most melodically fluid but dimly lit point of the first record, there are another half album of songs here at least that are as strikingly gorgeous and unsettling.
Memories,'Just a Dream,'The Frozen Stare'and When We Were Young'are in this mould, as is the icy, slightly devastated goodbye that closes the record The Devils,'filled out with piano reminiscent of Big Star's Third'or Lou Reed's Berlin'and cracked double bass. What was in evidence in two of their earliest songs - You Still'and Are You Going Blind?' - an understated, poetic play of moral sensitivity against a callous distance, of warmth and hostility, has reached its most sustained expression yet and gives their pop moments of a haunted love song quality along the lines of Del Shannon, Lesley Gore or Roy Orbison.
Bridge by a Tunnel'and 'I Know You Know', on the other hand, share in the breezily abstracted character of 2014 single Magazine,'the later laying a sardonic (non)apology - I know you know, things could've been different/but they're not'over careful daubs of slide guitar. Cremated'is also guitar-lead, and reaches an early apogee of morbid oblivion baiting, while 1969'is a really perfectly recorded grand sweep of sound that recalls Serge Gainsbourg and Harvest'-era Neil Young.
Proper Ornaments hold the attraction of seeming to not try very hard at all and achieve something outstanding nonetheless.
RIYL: The Velvet Underground, Elliott Smith, Veronica Falls, The Bats, Ultimate Painting, Toy.
Tracklisting:
1. Back Pages 2
2. Cremated (Blown Away)
3. Memories
4. Just a Dream
5. 1969
6. The Frozen Stare
7. Jeremy's Song
8. When We Were Young
9. Bridge By a Tunnel
10. I Know You Know
11. The Devils -
Sold outVisit product page →First new material since the release of the London five pieces debut album, The Album Paranoia.
Like that debut album, it was self-produced and displays a band keen on creating and controlling their own sonic universe. Features a cover of The Velvet Underground on the B side.
The band's music has drawn various interpretations, a cross pollination of hypnotic fuzz, Verlain-Malkmus guitar idiosyncrasies and intertwining feelings of both angst and melancholia
Tracklisting:
Side A:
Everything, All The Time
Side B:
Lady Godiva's OperationRIYL: Mercury Rev, Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, Radiohead, Deerhunter, Atlas Sound.
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LP is ltd , colour is called 'blue suede shoes'.Visit product page →
RIYL: Felt, Television Personalities, The Wake, Orange Juice, The Pastels, Young Marble Giants, Veronica Falls.
'angels of light have your souls in a vice / we want to be free / we want to be loved / we want to be kissed from heaven above' David West, Dream on Dreamer
When Tough Love first began putting out records, one of the guiding motivations was to release music that sounds like the music David West makes. We didn't know it at the time, because we hadn't yet heard of him. It's funny how the very thing you're looking for falls into your lap.
If you don't already know of David, and the various guises he performs under, then I'm a little envious, for you have a lot to discover for the first time. Peace or Love, is the second album to be issued under his own name. That can be either your starting point, or your continuation down a road.
The facts: Peace or Love is the follow-up to USA/Australia-based musical artist David West's 2015 cassette release, Drop Out Of Collage. Peace or Love is a collection of songs stemming from wild and free bedroom four-track cassette recordings and personal hard drive sample raiding, with contributions from various musical friends in Perth, Western Australia and SF/LA, California.
West draws inspiration from free-thinking artists of the past and present on this polyphonic platter, from soft indie strumming and free soundscapes, to disco and soul-pop. West currently plays in the guitar pop band Rat Columns, synth-pop project Liberation and post-punk trio Rank/Xerox, and has been in varied acts such as Lace Curtain, Burning Sensation, Total Control and Whalehammer.
If you were feeling particularly grand, you could say that David West has created his own ecology, or you could just say he's a very busy man. I told David over email that Peace or Love feels like an album that was made specifically for me. His reply? 'It is for YOU. And YOU. And YOU. And YOU - ¦Peace or love is the same thing - you want to be free and you want to be loved....but you gotta choose one' This is music from the margins that deserves a place in the middle of anyone's heart. // 'it's peace or love baby / you said it before / that you want it all / it's peace or love, baby' - David West, Peace or Love.
Tracklisting:
1. Untitled
2. Peace or Love
3. Do You Miss Me Around
4. Dream on Dreamer
5. Darkness in My Heart
6. At Pease
7. Darkness in My Heart 2
8. Happiest Man In The Room
9. Au Contraire
10. In Love
11. Darkness in My Heart 3 -
Sold outVisit product page →Weird Dreams is the nom-de-plume of Doran Edwards, a London-based artist returning nearly four years after the release of his band's debut album, Choreography.
This new record, Luxury Alone, is a collection of ten songs made over a 3 year period of uncertain times in different rooms in various homes, and was written, produced, performed and mixed by Edwards.
Luxury Alone documents a very difficult period of emotional turmoil and various health issues for Edwards, and the result is an extremely moving and beautiful personal journey.
'All this music is how I felt in the world. I eventually choose to learn to mix the record myself, design my own fantasy image and then have that world disappear. ' Luxury Alone is hundreds of songs down to just ten.
RIYL: Grizzly Bear, Dirty Beaches, Deerhunter, Women, Viet Cong, Beach House, Wild Nothing, Youth Lagoon.
Tracklisting :
1. Binary
2. Heaven's Hounds
3. The Ladder
4. Neon Erotic
5. Mirror
6. Fantasy Building
7. Digital Water
8. Chalk Scrawls
9. Calm
10. Days -
Sold outCommunions, made up of brothers Martin and Mads Rehof, Jacob van Deurs Formann and Frederik Lind Köppen, are fast-gaining attention for their transcendent melodies, delicate guitar lines and emotive pop songs about naivety and youth.Visit product page →
"oozes effervescent warbles'from vocalist Martin Rehof, and the interplay of shimmering guitars, and lovely crescendos of reverb, reminiscent of early Stone Roses.' (Pitchfork)
Following two sold out pressings of Communions' So Long Sun 7" and the self-titled 5 track EP, Tough Love have collected the two releases together on one CD for the first time.
The 7 tracks document the Danish four-pieces impressive evolution from teenage proteges of the Copenhagen Mayhem scene (IceAge, Lust for Youth, Lower) to perhaps the most accomplished young songwriters in the country.
Tracklisting:
1. Forget it's a Dream
2. Wherever
3. Restless Hours
4. Summer's Oath
5. Out of My World
6. So Long Sun
7. Love Stands Still -
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Big Ups' second LP, Before A Million Universes, is at once a fist in the face of complacency and a sonic affirmation to, in Walt Whitman's words, "let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes."
Pretty heady subject matter... Joe Galarraga (vocals), Amar Lal (guitar), Carlos Salguero Jr. (bass), and Brendan Finn (drums), met studying music technology at NYU. Five years later, the city's notorious crucible of garbage, money, and humanity has had a profound and delightful impact on their art.
"Tell me what you're worth / Salary, two weeks off work?" Galarraga screams on "Capitalized," as the bassline frantically roams our conscience like a wet-nosed dog. Galarraga's vocals burn with the heat of a thousand day jobs.
Yet all this righteousness is worth as much as a Che t-shirt if it lacks humility, and more than any of the band's previous work, Before A Million Universes plumbs the depths of self-deception in wickedly clever ways. Who doesn't own a coat made of "The Feathers Of Yes"?
"Count the ideas in my head so I can love every one," our protagonist coos before Lal's guitar tosses lightning bolts through his cloud. "And it feels so warm / wrapped in self-righteous truths."
"Yawp" unspools the exercise in futility that is the overexamined life to the tune of a lumbering giant stomping across a field of insecurities. "How many times can you be poured through the still to the point of perfection? / I've dropped myself through the coils so many times but always come out with something missing / And the proof's so high it makes me dizzy."
The album's emotional and musical core lies in "National Parks," a song Galarraga wrote as a tribute to the sacrifices his mother made to raise him.
We're led through the anger and bewilderment'at his mom's solitary walks through their neighborhood and the selfishness inherent to childhood'and into a coda where you can almost see the sun streaming through the trees of Galarraga's park, drums steady and swelling, a transition in tone and mood that this band has nearly perfected. "I think I saw her say to herself / This is everything I've missed."
Before A Million Universes is Big Ups at their most sincere, urgent, and vital' a salty kiss from the wet lips of Brooklyn's bard.
Tracklisting:
1. Contain Myself
2. Capitalized
3. Posture
4. Feathers of Yes
5. Meet Where We Are
6. Negative (intro)
7. Negative
8. Hope For Someone
9. Knight
10. National Parks
11. So Much You
12. Proximity Effect
13. Yawp -
Visit product page →Ulrika Spacek is a British experimental rock band formed in Berlin by Rhys Edwards and Rhys Williams, relocated to Homerton, London.
Work on debut album The Album Paranoia'began in the summer of 2014 in the band's shared house KEN, and was finished there last month.
In conjunction to the making of The Album Paranoia', the band has curated a number of nights under the name Oysterland'combining their first live performances with a series of exhibitions.
The band's music has drawn various interpretations, a cross pollination of hypnotic fuzz, Verlain-Malkmus guitar idiosyncrasies and intertwining feelings of both angst and melancholia.
Tracklisting:
1. I Don't Know
2. Porcelain
3. Circa 1954
4. Strawberry Glue
5. Beta Male
6. NK
7. Ultra Vivid
8. She's A Cult
9. There's A Little Passing Cloud in You
10. Airportism -
Sold outThere's a concept in Scandinavian society called the Law of Jante, which says individuals should downplay their achievements, blend in and support the group. The music of Danish band Yung serves as an urgent, screaming retort to that idea, the sound of young iconoclasts fighting against apathy.Visit product page →
Led by 21-year-old frontman and songwriter Mikkel Holm Silkjær, the group hails from Aarhus, Denmark's second city, a huge port, university town and ideal place to find like minds amid the industrial grit. On the forthcoming EP 'These Thoughts Are Like Mandatory Chores,' out 18th September on Tough Love, they show themselves to be ambassadors of their country's increasingly vital underground music scene.
Anthemic guitars, coarse feedback and driving rhythm, insistent to the point of impatience, show angst acting as a powerful fuel for self-expression, gasoline poured on a fire already fed by youthful energy. More than buzz, Silkjær, along with bandmates Frederik Nybo Veilie (drums), Tobias Guldborg Tarp (bass) and Emil Zethsen (guitar), has built a cottage industry.
He writes songs, handles the artwork for every release and even does much of the production himself.
The resulting self-made music on 'These Thoughts Are Like Mandatory Chores,' raw, snarling corkscrews of feedback, find the Danish rockers branching off from the same family tree that birthed The Replacements and Cloud Nothings.
It's the band's DIY call to arms, singular and authentic songs that won't remain unknown very long. They begin with "Blue Uniforms," premiered on The FADER.
Tracklisting:
1. God
2. It Happened Again
3. Blue Uniforms
4. Not A Shelter
5. Offshore
6. Too Good For You -
Sold outBlack Vinyl - 200 copies.Visit product page →
CRUISING are a four piece from Dublin and Belfast made up of Benni Johnston (Vocals), Claire Miskimmin (Guitar/Bass) Neil Brogan (Guitar/Bass) and Sarah Grimes (drums).
With previous/ongoing experience in bands such Girls Names, September Girls, Sea Pinks and Logikparty, CRUISING began in 2013 as a side project for all four.
Named for William Friedkin's gay exploitation shocker from 1980, the debut single You Made Me Do That (taken from the killer's line in the film) dropped in early 2014 on Soft Power records and was recorded live as it was written.
Practicing sporadically and playing a string of incendiary/chaotic live shows when schedules allow, CRUISING have now miraculously recorded their debut EP proper for Tough Love.
Recorded in two days in a freezing railway arch studio (Dublin's Guerilla Studios) in January 2015, and mixed at Belfast's Start Together, the self titled EP shows the band in various guises, morphing between popper'd up Agit-Punk (the re-recorded You Made Me Do That, Woman), psyched out post-punk (Lifting), and riff driven bangers (Safe Corridor, Cutlass, The Spectacle).
Tracklisting:
1. The Spectacle
2. You Made Me Do That
3. Safe Corridor
4. Lifting
5. Woman
6. Cutlass -
Danish four-piece Yung prepare for their UK festival debut this Friday, with new single ‘Blanket’ - the perfect follow up to their March Alter EP and another glimpse at the band’s ability to mix brash, persuasive Nordic punk with a rare sense of rhythm and melody.Visit product page →
Announcing their arrival with ‘Nobody Cares’ at the start of 2015, Yung released their international debut through Tough Love Records in March, which, in addition to selling out its limited run of vinyl ahead of release, drew comparisons to acts like the Replacements, Ty Segall and Jay Reatard, and saw them pick up acclaim from the likes of The Guardian, 6Music, Radio 1, DIY, Stereogum and NME, amongst many others.
This followed with the band making their debut UK live shows, the first of which became instantly infamous after a power-cut 20 minutes before they were due to go on stage at the Old Blue Last forced the band to up sticks and, in true DIY style, move the show to the Shacklewell Arms for a sold-out put-together show; Yung took to the stage just after midnight, with Toronto noise rockers METZ in attendance lending a spare hand in changing strings as the show reached a chaotic conclusion.
Formed in the summer of 2013 as a vehicle to escape the bewildering frustration of everyday life and young adulthood, the Aarhus-based group's new single, ’Blanket’, which retains the angst and feverish energy of their EP, but marks an impressive progression in production, with 20-year-old frontman Mikkel Holm Silkjær making a remarkable leap forward with his songwriting too.
‘Blanket’ b/w ‘Burning Bodies’ is limited to 500 vinyl copies only. -
With past releases having seen the pairing together of Male Bonding and Eat Skull, Fair Ohs and Spectrals, and Let's Wrestle and Young Governor, they now feature psych pop four piece Weird Dreams and Belfast's Girls Names on the same record.Visit product page →
Having released their debut album last year, Girls Names make a welcome return with the track, ‘A Troubled See’, and it provides the first proper indication of where the band will be heading with their next full length, out later this year. Hinting at a shift away from their often mis-perceived surf and indie-pop roots, Girls Names more towards something more akin to Krautrock and Psychedelia.
Indeed, the band has expanded to a four-piece and has spent the last six months in virtual seclusion honing and developing a more progressive and expansive sound, feeding on the darker sides of Echo and The Bunnymen, Spacemen 3, The Birthday Party and David Bowie’s Low. Weird Dreams contribution to the split is their first new material since April's debut album, Choreography.
Their longest track to date - an almost perverse endeavour given the format it features on - 'House of Secrets' is a slow-burning, sinister lullaby, buoyed by an insistent and spidery guitar line and replete with the rich, languorous vocals characteristic of the band.
Limited to just 500 copies and on coloured vinyl, it features a side of artwork from each band. -
Sold outVisit product page →Belfast four-piece Girls Names released their critically acclaimed second album, The New Life, in February and it marked a new direction for the band altogether. That directional shift is emphasized even further by a new limited edition 12" EP , entitled The Next Life.
With the artwork making a playful nod to Bowie's latest record, it's not surprising that the EP should see the band experiment with the sonic make up of their last album. On the A side is a cover version of Brian Eno's 'Third Uncle'. Recorded in August of this year, it is the first recorded Girls Names track to feature new drummer Gib Cassidy and offers a telling glimpse at what creative steps the band may next take. On the flip are two incredible remixes of tracks taken from the sister record.
The first is by producer/composer/dance don legend David Holmes, who lends a somewhat European elan to the titular track. The second sees Gabe Gurnsey from Factory Floor add his band's characteristic dance floor focus to Girls Names' motorik groove, turning in something that jitters and pulses in a manner befitting of any track attributed the Factory Floor moniker.
Tracklisting:
Side A:
1. Third Uncle
Side B:
1. The New Life (David Holmes remix)
2. Projektions (Gabe Gurnsey Factory Floor remix) -
Limited edition transparent vinyl, with a free download code which includes 9 bonus tracks.Visit product page →
YVETTE are Noah Kardos-Fein and Dale Eisinger. The duo is based in Brooklyn, and make deeply spiritual, wildly aggressive noise music in the tradition of early post-punk and industrial artists like Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, and This Heat. A barrage of rolling toms and sub-bass triggers, processed guitar noise, and monk-like incantations means the music is always physical, but the joy of YVETTE is how well they structure the chaos.
"Theirs is a noise molded into the contours'if not the sound'of pop music, offering an accessible entry point into a world of ugly brutalism," wrote Pitchfork's Stuart Berman, who gave the band's debut record, Process, an 8.1. YVETTE have performed alongside the The Rapture, Hisham Bharoocha, White Suns, Metz, Talk Normal, and are part of the Godmode Music family.
Tracklisting:
1. Pure Pleasure
2. Cuts Me In Half
3. Mirrored Walls
4. Carbon Copy
5. Tempered Glass
6. Everything in Reverse
7. Attrition
8. Holding Nothing
9. Cold Comfort
10. Absolutes
11. Radiation
Download:
12. Release (b-side from Cuts Me In Half cassette)
13. Four Ways (b-side from Process)
14. Scrape It Off (b-side from Radiation 7")
15. Erosion (a-side from Erosion 7")
16. Cold Sweat (b-side from Erosion 7")
17. Vibrations (from YVETTE EP)
18. Plussed (from YVETTE EP)
19. With Fangs (from YVETTE EP)
20. Less (from YVETTE EP)
