Tough Love Records

First new material in 2 years. Limited edition 12". 350 black vinyl. 

'A zone of silence and of pure possibilities for a new beginning." Burn the past. Reset the clocks. A symphony in three parts.

'The initial idea for 'Zero Triptych' goes back almost three years, when we first became aware of the Group Zero art movement. Not only did I think it was the best name for a group of artists I'd ever heard, but their ideas, outlook and, most importantly, work struck a chord with me, which I then shared with the band. We've been inspired ever since. Not quite a conventional 'song', nor EP, we knew about a year and a half ago that this piece of music was evolving into something not conventionally defined in the classic rock/pop vernacular. It's essentially three different sections intertwined, hence the 'triptych'., I don't think this is something we'd have ordinarily tried were it not for the confidence we gained from touring a new line-up around Europe, when we learned to be a new band - that was probably our 'zero' moment.

While 'Zero Triptych' is our ode to the masters of light and shade - Mack, Piene and Uecker aka the Group Zero - it also had a very functional role for us: it effectively cleared our path, 'zeroed out' what had come before and reset the dials. And that's why it's the first song from the new line-up we wanted to share with the world.

There's a lot more to come very soon." 

Tracklisting:
Zero Triptych

Limited Cream Vinyl / Black Vinyl / CD.

Northern Ireland's Girls Names return this autumn with their third full-length album, Arms Around a Vision, due for an October 2nd release via long-term home, Tough Love Records.

'We look to Europe for inspiration. For romance. For the idea of a better life,' says the band's frontman, Cathal Cully, when discussing the album. 'For me, living in Belfast just makes you focus on your own art.'

True, Girls Names formed in Belfast, but they've long considered themselves a European band. The distinction is important - their vision of Europe is one of weird, labyrinthian histories, blackest-ever-black coffee, and long drives to dismal places. Romantic notions for those of a certain disposition, but behind the thousand-yard stares they've always been a soft-hearted lot. As the title of Arms Around a Vision would suggest, they're all set to let love in.

The band initially came together as a relatively lean two-piece back in the summer of 2010, but over the course of a handful of EPs and three very different albums, they've grown in number and ambition. Their last album, The New Life, was an unexpected underground hit in early 2013, taking the band around the world and garnering much critical praise, culminating in nominations for both the Northern Irish and Irish Music Prizes. Emboldened by the reception to that record, in March they returned with an 11-minute single that was played in full on Radio 1 and, typically, does not feature on their new album. Girls Names like to do things a little differently.

On Arms Around a Vision, they're more widescreen than ever but also more direct and aggressive. The bass, drums and guitars are still there, but so are saxophones, organs, detuned broken guitars and pianos, and even sheets of metal assaulted with hammers. Conceptually, Arms Around a Vision acts as a love letter to European elegance - Italian futurism, Russian constructivism, Germany's Zero Group and both Neubaten and Bowie's Berlin.

Love and pain, romance and fucking. It's all in there somewhere. Grand claims, perhaps, but in an ever bleak world, why not skygaze? The album opens with Reticence', a song in two parts that's half metallic knockout, half midnight swagger. It sounds unlike anything they've ever done before, and is a perfect primer for an album that treads a course between Eno-era Roxy sleaze, Birthday Party dissonance and M.E.S'three R's: repetition, repetition, repetition.

As confident as it sounds, hardship has equally played a role in shaping Arms Around a Vision. 'I'm not starving or anything, but I've practically been living hand to mouth since I was 22,' confirms Cully. 'Most guitar music now is just a playground for the rich middle classes and it's really boring and elitist. We're elitist in our own way, in that we're on our own and you can't fuck with us when we've nothing to lose'. The near-6 minute A Hunger Artist'tackles that subject full on, addressing that age old adage of suffering for one's art.

While the songs aren't narrative-driven as such - the band still generally favour abstraction and ambiguity - there is a consistent underlying message: 'We've got nothing. We've never had anything. And we don't expect to. The only person I ever wanted to impress was myself. I've never got anywhere close to succeeding in doing that until this album. I'm proud of it. I think I can start saying I'm a musician now.'

Tracklisting:
1. Reticence
2. An Artificial Spring
3. Desire Oscillations
4. (Obsession)
5. Chrome Rose
6. A Hunger Artist
7. Málaga
8. Dysmorphia
9. (Convalescence)
10. Exploit Me
11. Take Out the Hand
12. I Was You

Danish four-piece Communions have announced details of a new EP.

Communions will be released on Tough Love Records on Monday 1st June. The self-titled EP features lead track Out of My World and is accompanied by 4 other tracks, all recorded in their hometown of Copenhagen. The EP is the second release on Tough Love Records, following the release of AA-side single So Long Sun/Love Stands Still at the end of 2014.

The limited 7” sold-out and Pitchfork were quick to praise the A-side and hone in on their musical influences:
“The song oozes effervescent warbles—from vocalist Martin Rehof, and the interplay of shimmering guitars, and lovely crescendos of reverb, reminiscent of early Stone Roses.” (Pitchfork)

Communions, 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.

Tracklisting:
1. Forget it's a Dream
2. Wherever
3. Restless Hours
4. Summer's Oath
5. Out of My World

Danish four-piece, Yung will release their international debut EP, Alter, on March 2nd through Tough Love. The 6 tracks present a brash and persuasive slice of Nordic punk, with a rare sense of rhythm and melody bands that recalls the Replacements, Jay Retard and Ty Segall.

Alter is released on limited edition 12" vinyl and digital formats.. Formed in the summer of 2013 by 20 year old frontman Mikkel Holm Silkjær (guitar, vocals) in  the north of Aarhus - Denmark's second largest city and what locals would say, the current punk rock capital - along with friends Frederik Nybo Veile (drums), Tobias Guldborg Tarp (bass) and Emil Zethsen (guitar), Yung have spent the past year building up a formidable live reputation in their native Denmark.

As their name would suggest, Yung play with a youthful exuberance and feverish energy that leaves little room to catch your breath. Growing out of Mikkel's teenage dreams and the harsh reality of what is the everyday life of young adulthood, Alter serves both as a vehicle for and an escape from the bewildered frustration of having to deal with life's treadmill - trying to find a tolerable and  meaningful place in the world, whilst wasting time at useless jobs in order to enjoy whatever little freedom that's left; to hang out with friends and, first and foremost, devote his time to music.

It's no coincidence that Alter was written and recorded just two months after the band formed - there's an urgency here, and that primacy is self-evident in their music.

Tracklisting:
Side A:
1. Imaginary Calls
2. Don't Cry
3. Shitty Mind

Side B:
1. Nobody Cares
2. The Regulators
3. A Stain

a cosmic, philosophical treatise disguised as an indie rock record. ' Pitchfork

Wanna wake up wanting to listen to records / But those old feelings elude me  / I raise a toast to the rock n' roll ghost, sings Cymbals Eat Guitars frontman Joseph D'Agostino on the hyper-adrenalized XR, which sounds like a Tonight's the Night outtake recorded at triple speed, with its braying harmonica and spitfire vocal delivery. It's the track that perhaps best captures the spirit of the band's third LP, LOSE, one of coping with abject loss and grief by rediscovering what you've always loved, as difficult as it may be'?the redemptive power of music.

For D'Agostino, this entailed coming to terms with his best friend and musical collaborator Benjamin High, who passed away suddenly seven years ago, just as Cymbals Eat Guitars began recording in earnest. LOSE is a very apropos title because it refers not only to losing Ben, but also it's about a sort of nostalgia, a longing for a time when music meant everything to you and your friends, and it seemed like one great rock record could change everyone's life the way it changed yours, says D'Agostino.

It's about being in mourning for your long-held belief that music could literally change the world. That's the contradiction at the heart of LOSE... You're disillusioned, but somehow you can do nothing else but rail against that feeling mightily and try, once again, to make a record that makes you and everyone else 'wake up wanting to listen to records'. And indeed, the band, rounded out by bassist Matthew Whipple, keyboardist Brian Hamilton, and drummer Andrew Dole, alongside producer John Agnello (Sonic Youth, Kurt Vile), do little wallowing. This is a raucous affair, an Irish Wake, ultimately rooted in nothing less than a celebration of just being alive. What's perhaps most impressive about LOSE is the manner in which D'Agostino comes clean with his emotions, tackling seemingly ineffable mourning without equivocation. 

There are no $5 words that you'll have to pull up dictionary.com for... some of the lyrics are directly confessional. Very open, no obfuscation, he explains. I lost my dear friend a while ago and I've sort of been addressing it in song for most of my career, though you probably couldn't really tell until now. It's just a direct expression of grief. I figured if I confronted it head-on on record it'd make for some interesting music. 

Brendan Finn, Joe Galarraga, Amar Lal, and Carlos Salguero Jr. met whilst learning about specifications of Cat 5 cables in New York City. Shortly after, they formed a band.

Big Ups blend punk, post-punk, metal, and indie rock into a salty mash that gets stuck to the roof of your mouth. At their brightest, they have been likened to The Descendents, but at their sludgiest, they call to mind bands like Pissed Jeans and The Jesus Lizard, albeit with an Albini-esque metallic clang.

Their debut album, Eighteen Hours of Static, was recorded by Charles DeChants in the rock 'n' roll labyrinth known as Excello Recording in Brooklyn over three days.

The album is one characterised by aggressive mood swings. The band slows their usual frantic pace on the burner Wool ' a song about dealing with suffering. They toy with dynamics on white-knuckle grip of TMI, Little Kid, and Fresh Meat. But not to worry ' the mania is still there; first single Goes Black and Atheist Self-Help demand attention with their searing guitars and colossal drums.

Lyrically, the album is a meditation on truth, faith, and science (the record's title is a reference to Carl Sagan's Contact), but like all the best bands, Big Ups don't necessarily have all of the answers, but they'll keep asking the right questions¦

Tracklisting:
Side A:
1. Body Parts 
2. Goes Black
3. Justice
4. Grin
5. Wool

Side B:
1. TMI
2. Little Kid
3. Atheist Self-Help
4. Disposer
5. Fresh Meat
6. Fine Line