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TTNG were formerly 'This Town Needs Guns'.Visit product page →
CD Digipak. Single LP + download card.
Oxford, England's TTNG return with their third full-length. Though this is their first record since becoming a trio, you'd never guess it from their sound, which has become more refined and realized than ever before.
TTNG have managed to subtly embrace more conventional pop ideals without sacrificing the intensity and musicianship they're admired for. Comprised of Tim Collis on guitar and his brother Chris Collis on drums, TTNG's line-up is completed by vocalist Henry Tremain, who also assumed bass duties after the recording of their last album, 2013's 13.0.0.0.0. In the years since then, the band has toured the US and Europe multiple times, including a North American run with TWIABP & Foxing in late 2015, support for American Football's sold-out UK shows in spring 2015, and, most recently, a sold out UK/EU co-headlining tour with Foxing in April 2016. Turning their attention to the studio in late 2015, TTNG decamped to the American Midwest, ground zero for the kind of articulated alternative rock they themselves have been mastering for a decade.
Recorded live to tape over 10 days at Chicago's legendary Electrical Audio studios by Greg Norman (Mclusky, Russian Circles, Pelican, etc.), and mastered by Shellac's Bob Weston, Disappointment Island proves that the band's success comes from their ability to write songs whose appeal endures well after the sheer awe of their technical prowess subsides. It's easy to understand how people can focus on the band's complex time signatures and elaborate fretwork, but as their fans will tell you, there's much more to TTNG.
'Everyone assumes we write in odd meters to be awkward and weird,' muses Henry Tremain. 'Actually, we're just writing the music we want to write, and it happens to come out like that.' In this case, TTNG have created an album filled with solemn subject matter where, much like the disparity between the name and setting of Disappointment Island (a real and beautifully unspoiled locale in the Pacific Ocean), the lyrical themes stand in stark contrast to the exciting, propellant music the trio creates together.
TTNG have existed in several incarnations and have found success in each, but their current evolution pushes what has always made the band great into new and exciting territories. Disappointment Island is TTNG's most poignant, deliberate accomplishment, successfully arriving at a place that is simultaneously authentic and reverential.
Tracklisting:
1. Coconut Crab
2. A Chase of Sorts
3. Consoling Ghosts
4. In Praise of Idleness
5. Whatever, Whenever
6. Destroy the Tabernacle!
7. Bliss Quest
8. There's no 'I' in Time
9. Sponkulus Nodge
10. Empty Palms -
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The origins of ORKA date back more than a decade, when the band began crafting their own handmade instruments out of agricultural tools on a small farm in the Faroe Islands. But make no mistake, this is not rural music as you might imagine it.
From those humble beginnings, ORKA have created a bold and daring electronic sound that has earned them fans around the world. Following on from 2014's Leipzig album, which took their sound more downbeat, new LP Vað - out on June 10th - ups the pace again.
Written in London and New York by project mainstay Jens L. Thomsen and former Dälek member Oktopus, two tracks so far released from the new record - Dimmalætting and Grind - see the ORKA sound twisted into hardened, cathartic techno.
Still based on those homemade instruments, the sounds are largely broken up into samples. The music remains distinctively ORKA, while ushering in an exciting new twist in their sound. 'I think that after several albums and tours I felt the need to make a record which had fewer elements which I could focus on and explore,' says Thomsen. 'On Grind all sounds are either found sounds or samples from instruments I built myself.
Other tracks like Dimmalætting have synthesisers, but we have used them sparingly on the album.' 'Vað has been all about getting to the core of an idea or tune and stripping it down to its essentials,' he continues. 'A few tracks on this album are made up from three parts only. Also only five people have worked on the material, compared to the seemingly endless credits list on ORKA's last album Leipzig.'
'We wanted to avoid overproducing and rather stay true to the roughness and immediacy of the core ideas. This approach has given it an almost neanderthal sense of texture and pace.' As well as Thomsen and Oktopus, additional production work was provided by UK bass duo LV and the album was mastered by Matt Colton.
Tracklisting:
1. Igulker
2. Grind
3. DÃs
4. Blik
5. Dimmalætting
6. Vrak
7. Vað
8. Skin
9. Djúpini
10. Kav
11. Torva -
Visit product page →Green vinyl with 4 page lyric insert/booklet) ' Limited worldwide to 500 copiesWhen you've co-founded one of the most successful bands in Irish history, written one of the best-loved guitar riffs of all time and had the British Prime Minister claim he listens to your songs when he needs a lift (which, let's face it, must be quite often), it would be easy to put your feet up, sit back and bask in the glory of a successful career in music.
Or you could just keep on working like legendary blues guitarist and Thin Lizzy founder member, Eric Bell, who has just finished recording his first studio album in more than six years.
Exile, the first collection of new material since 2009's Lonely Nights in London, was recorded at Edge Recording Studios, a converted barn in Cheshire. Basic, homely and unpretentious, what the studio lacks in corporate frills, it more than makes up for in pedigree. Owned by renowned sound engineer John Delf, who works with some of the globe's biggest bands, including Five Seconds of Summer Plan B and The Script, and run by Mark Winterburn, one of the UK's top studio engineers, it offered the back-to-basics, artist-led approach that Eric needed to tempt him back into the studio.
Over the years, Eric had become disillusioned with the recording process, and world-weary sound engineers in particular, and had often felt like the finished product bore little relation to what he had originally played.
It was this promise of creative freedom, the freedom to experiment and even to fail, coupled with the open-minded, flexible attitude of the staff, that drew Eric to Edge Studios.
Lyrically, the new album covers a lot of ground; some songs reflect the difficult times in Eric's life, others explore universal themes of love, fatherhood and loss. Some were penned many years ago, lying dormant as if waiting to be brought to life, some were written very recently. There's even a cover of a rock 'n' roll standard.Although Eric didn't start out as a songwriter, working alongside Phil Lynott in Thin Lizzy, Van Morrison in Them and Dave Clark in the Noel Redding Band allowed him to see the songwriting process up close and gave him the confidence to find his own writing style.
Today, Eric remains resolutely analogue in his approach to songwriting. He admits to having carrier bags full of cassettes at home, filled on both sides with 10-second snippets of ideas for songs. Every now and then he goes through them, searching for the one gem that might be the starting point for a new song.
Eric's final days with Thin Lizzy are well-documented, as are his struggles with drink and drugs, particularly during the making of Vagabonds of the Western World, the band's third, and arguably best, record. He does, however, have fond memories of the band's first recording session.
In the intervening years, Eric has built up loyal fanbase right across Europe, who have followed his career closely and are eagerly awaiting his next project. So, what can they expect from the latest Eric Bell offering?
Tracklisting:
1. Deep In Your Heart
2. Don't Love Me No More
3. Gotta Say Bye Bye
4. Vote For Me
5. Exile
6. Little Boy Running
7. Rip It Up
8. Concrete Jungle
9. Thank God
10. Song For Gary -
H.U.M. marks the convergence of a triad of kindred spirits with a common goal of expanding consciousness.Visit product page →
On Trinity Way their debut release for Rocket Recordings, the cosmic/terrestrial musician/magician triumvirate of Héloïse Zamzamrec, Olmo Uiutna and Mark Wagner delve into ritualistic audial travelogues which unite mantric repetition, concrète noise and kosmische explorations, the better to transform and enrich the soul.
All three acolytes of H.U.M. arrive at this destination from a rich history of experimental music and art - Héloïse and Olmo found renown running the cult label Zamzamrec whilst Mark Wagner, meanwhile, has involved himself in a diverse and vibrant litany of projects, most recently touring as a member of GNOD, and Ahrkh Wagner and is an active practitioner of music as a spiritual medium.
These trance-like meditations and illuminating visions draw on a plethora of earthly parallels, from the iconoclastic writing of Rimbaud or Artaud to the occultist sound-world of Coil, from the invigorating DIY ethos of the Not Not Fun label to the anarchic sprawl of The Faust Tapes, and with Wagner's stream-of-consciousness incantations inviting comparisons to Robert Calvert or Genesis P-Orridge.
Using primal rhythm, earthly resonances and devotional oratory as pathways to uncharted dimensions and higher metaphysical realms Trinity Way emanates on another wavelength from most of which is dubbed psychedelic music in the second decade of the 21st Century, Trinity Way is a free-flowing odyssey of vivid, hallucinatory intensity. Yet through a marriage of simple ingredients, these three have created an off-the-map album which nonetheless places its feet on the ground and its gaze on the cosmos.
As Héloïse herself says; 'Trinity Way is a magic door, a sonic portal. Trinity Way is not an escape of the everyday realm but an entrance, a mode, an invitation - ¦'
Tracklisting:
1. L.O.V.E.
2. L'Ame Agit
3. Cat-Man-Do
4. Welcome To The Sea
5. A Maze In Grace
6. Under Neith
7. Eternally Yours -
Previously unreleased studio recordings from 1986. LP Includes digital download code.Visit product page →
The slow-burn sounds of Sonic Youth's 1986 rehearsals to score Ken Friedman's spooky highway film Made In USA are yet another mile marker in the band's long and varied existence, now being issued as Spinhead Sessions (named for the North Hollywood studio used by SST label acts like Black Flag and Painted Willie).
These jams were later built upon for a full-on (and quite different) soundtrack production, but the rough sketches here find the band taking time with truly new and introspective sound worlds. It was basically a brand new way of working for Sonic Youth, albeit a challenging one, under the auspices of major Hollywood film production overlords, routing their way into the world of soundtrack scoring. And it all comes at a key time and place. It's no secret that 1986 was a transformative year for the band in many ways.
The gravitation to the beloved SST stable, in addition to Steve Shelley, now drumming, certainly gave Sonic Youth a renewed vigor and vocabulary. They were already an international touring machine, and gaining considerable steam with critics (even spinning the heads of detractors who had dismissed their arty downtown boho sensibilities prior to '86's EVOL).
Their cultdom with fans had concrete roots by this point, and the influences that were swarming in the band's orbit marked an exciting time, where almost any trajectory seemed possible, and they were going for it. Friedman's film worked on a relatively darker frame for a mainstream Hollywood flick; characters played by stars Chris Penn and Adrian Pasdar made a cross-country journey that started out in Centralia, Pennsylvania, a real-life, anthracite coal producing town that had to relocate all its residents due to a decades-long, inextinguishable underground fire.
The Sonics passed through this haunted-looking locale on their next tour after the sessions, and are pictured on the sleeve standing amidst smoldering embers. For the sounds they made at Spinhead, this image seems a fitting mental picture. Guitar harmonics billow like smoke, heavily reverbed drumming and shimmering cymbals echo from what sounds like the bottom of a deep mine.
This newly born Spinhead Sessions release once again defines Sonic Youth in a raw and engaging state of discovery at a terrific time. Is it a missing link between the complex, crafted cavernosity of EVOL and the frayedelectric powerline sizzle of Sister? Yes and no. It's an entirely unique animal, a meditative album where you can soak in the template of tapping overtones, sedate explorations of new chords, even sounding at times like AMM trying to play the VU's Sweet Sister Ray bootleg or something similar. It's trademark Sonic Youth at the core, and in an unfettered, dreamy state and time, there and gone like smoke. Brian Turner, WFMU Music Director.
Tracklisting:
1. Ambient Guitar & Dreamy Theme
2. Theme With Noise
3. High Mesa
4. Unknown Theme
5. Wolf
6. Scalping
7. Theme 1 Take 4 -
CD Digipak, Single LP + download card.Visit product page →
Landscapes both seen and felt, real and imagined, lie at the heart of In All That Drifts From Summit Down, the vast debut full-length release from nomadic duo A Dead Forest Index.
Comprised of brothers Adam Sherry (vocals/guitar) and Sam Sherry (drums/piano), the group crafts ethereal and intensely intimate compositions that defy trends and labeling, instead shaping an aural experience as organic as it is unpredictable. Forsaking instrumental complexity in favor of richly dense vocals and an otherwise minimal palette, the band evokes heaviness with the atmosphere they create rather than through blunt force. Teaming-up with Sargent House on the heels of a recent European tour supporting labelmate Chelsea Wolfe, A Dead Forest Index are poised to introduce their sound to a global audience in 2016.
A Dead Forest Index was initially the solo project of Adam Sherry, begun in 2008. By 2010, it had evolved into a collaboration, with Sam Sherry supplying percussive depth to his brother's distinctively hymnal approach to vocals, itself characterized by cyclical harmonies and experiments with drone. Untethered by place (or, for that matter, era), they've spent the past few years developing their sound, touring extensively between 2012-2014, and issuing the EPs 'Antique' and 'Cast of Lines' in the process.
The latter was released by Jehnny Beth of Savages'Pop Noire label, a precursor to the collaborative Savages/A Dead Forest Index composition and performance titled 'In What I'm Seeing; the Sun' for the Barbican's Station to Station Festival in 2015.
Their debut album, is a testimony to the sublime divinity of nature and the cold reality of time's passage. Unfolding over 13 tracks, the album imagines natural phenomena as poetic metaphor for the human condition, the lyrics evoking stone, cold air, unyielding emptiness and erosion, while the enveloping warmth of Adam Sherry's layered, choral vocals makes for an intriguing contrast.
Tracklisting:
1. Tide Walk
2. No Paths
3. Summit Down
4. Cast of Lines
5.Ringing Sidereal
6. Swims Out
7. In Greyness the Water
8. Silver Thread of Sun
9. Myth Retraced
10. Myriad
11. Sand Verse
12. Upon Dark Hills
13. Homage Old -
Visit product page →It looms into view through the fog. much like a metaphysical force from the celluloid revelations that dwell in our memories and haunt our subconscious. A twisted morass of circuitry and flesh, binary chill and visceral barbarism. Necro Deathmort have created a monster, and it's both a malevolent and magical thing to behold. It's name is The Capsule.
This two-man aural manifestation came to life towards the end of the last decade, starting originally in the words of co-conspirator Matthew Rozeik 'as an abortive attempt to do a regular'rock band, born from jamming in studio downtime when our drummer was AWOL' Drawing on influences ranging across the spectrum from Ed Rush & Optical to Old Man Gloom and from Autechre to Neurosis, he remembers that the unspoken objective for himself and cohort AJ Cookson was 'to make electronic music that was as heavy as doom metal, with absolutely filthy bass.'
Moreover, the duo have proven frighteningly prolific, releasing a total of ten releases both on Distraction records and on Rozeik's own Extreme Ultimate label, which arrive at a wide variety of tense and transcendental mental landscapes. Yet The Capsule marks the band's first for Rocket Recordings, and it's a step yet further into the terrifying vacuum of space. 'We've stopped caring that each new release might alienate fans of a previous record' notes Rozeik wryly. 'I think it's contributed to the longevity of the band, as we have a large well of inspiration from which to draw.' True to form.
Whilst this album's opener In Waves'maps out rhythmic terrain somewhere amidst krautrock groove and techno relentlessness, it's not long before matters take a turn into the unearthly, with dreamlike extrapolations like Mono/Serum'- redolent of nothing so much as Mica Levi's otherworldly soundtrack to Under The Skin - sharing space with the threatening momentum of the more overtly metallic Moonstar'. Yet at all times The Capsule is a work of fierce cohesion and compelling intensity. Whilst there may be three words for death in this band's initially playful name, Necro Deathmort have proven themselves well versed in infinite varieties of the macabre. What's more, in The Capsule, no-on can hear you scream.
Tracklisting:
1. In Waves
2. First Rays
3. Moonstar
4. Capsule Sickness
5. Crux
6. Mono/Serum
7. Pecklyn
8. Screens -
Wrangler's new remix album features 11 modular synthesizer re-workings of tracks from their 2014 debut album, LA Spark.Visit product page →
Featuring remixes by the likes of Mute founder & The Normal's Daniel Miller, Chris Carter from Chris & Cosey, Alessandro Cortini (Nine Inch Nails) and Scanner, all the artists were sent the same original proposal by Wrangler at the start of the project: Wrangler would like to ask you to submit an experimental piece of music for inclusion on an album entitled Modular Remix. The idea is very simple. We provide some basic stems from a track selected by you from our debut album LA Spark and you add whatever sounds you like - the only rule being that you use just one analog modular synthesiser system of your choice. We've approached you because we admire your passion and commitment to electronic music, and we hope you will be interested in taking part.'
The result is an album which flows across four sides of vinyl, from the locked down electro-dancefloor rhythm of Daniel Miller's Theme From Wrangler', through the darker, brutalist shapes of Chris Carter's eight minute Lava Land'opus and into schizo-synth pop (Dean Honer - I Monster, Eccentronic Research Council), abstract ambient beauty (Alessandro Cortini), dark dub (Solvent) and finally the brooding 14 minute masterpiece of Wrangler's own remix, Theme Meme'.
Wrangler are Stephen Mallinder (ex-Cabaret Voltaire), Benge (best known for his album 20 Systems and John Foxx And The Maths) and Phil Winter (Tunng).
Their debut LP, LA Spark was described by Q Magazine as creepy and brilliant, music you can dance to while looking over your shoulder. The best kind of music.'
According to UNCUT, LA Spark is a compelling listen with former Cabs vocalist sneering on the imperious title track. He's still got it.'
Tracklisting:
1. Abul Mogard - Mus IIC
2. Daniel Miller - Theme From Wrangler
3. Steve Moore - Harder
4. Scanner - LA Spark
5. Chris Carter - Lava Land
6. Dean Honer - Space Ace
7. Alessandro Cortini - Modern World
8. Benge - Peace & Love
9. Solvent - Harder
10. David Burraston - Mus IIC
11. Wrangler - Theme Meme -
Visit product page →Irish singer/songwriter Brigid Mae Power has shared stages with Lee Ranaldo, Alasdair Roberts, Richard Dawson, and Ryley Walker.
Born in London to a big Irish family, she moved to Ireland (Galway) when she was twelve years old. In addition to the guitar, she plays accordion, baritone ukulele, piano and harmonium; creating hauntingly dreamlike soundscapes.
Her self-titled debut album, recorded with Oregon-based musician Peter Broderick, will be released worldwide by Tompkins Square on LP, CD and digital on June 10th, 2016. -
Visit product page →Features Ministry's Al Jurgensen on guitar who also co- wrote the A side Remastered for vinyl in this limited edition pressing of 500 Orange 7' for RSD
Side A:
Fire Engine (single Edit) 3:06 (Iggy Pop / Allen D Jourgensen)Side B:
Warrior Tribe 5.04 (Iggy Pop / Ric Ocasek).
The Single that never happened. Recorded back in 1983 and never released.
Looking for a new record deal after the lack of sales of his last album Zombie Birdhouse Iggy teams up with Ric Ocasek of the Cars in Boston to record 3 tracks 2 of which are presented here. -
Available as a limited edition of 500 copies worldwide on 180gm vinyl and with an Andy Summers art print included - First time on vinyl.Visit product page →
Metal Dog is the stunning new release from guitarist Andy Summers (The Police).
An all instrumental album replete with razor edge guitar that pushes to the outer edges of generic description. Kicking off with the title track which opens with a compulsive metallic figure that insinuates itself immediately, the track bursts into almost an indie rock chorus in its B section to be followed by a quirky fuzzed out guitar solo that rises and rises -until it merges back into the song like choruses that take us out.
Tracks in the middle of the LP Qualia and How Long is Now are loaded with freaky almost Balinese textures. These compositions- exotic as they are - retain a sunny mood, rather than the darkness that is associated with so much loop style music.
This feeling is carried further by Summers in the following track Harmonograph which opens with a guitar solo that pierces the honeyed texture like an arrow- eventually falling into a wild blanket of harmonic distortion for a release that is like bathing in warm waters.
Ishango Bone the fourth track on the LP presents a seemingly simple guitar figure that snakes along in what might seem to be a dark and primitive landscape , but then falls into what might be a radiant valley indicated by the soaring guitar and then- as if night falls - returns to the primal source from which it emerged.
There are many other track on Metal Dog that highlight Summers innate guitar skill but more importantly these tracks illustrate the use of the instrument to achieve a modern guitar music that is fresh and challenging and a style that pushes past the standard ideas of genre. At turns lyrical, dark and cinematic the result is one of intrigue and ultimate reward.
Tracklisting:
Side 1:
1. Metal Dog
2. Animal Chatter
3. Ishango Bone
4. Vortex Street
5. Bitter Honey
Side 2:
6. Qualia
7. How Long Is Now?
8. Harmonograph
9. Oceans Of Enceladus
10. Mare Imbrium -
Cargo Germany
Toilet Boys Feat. Boy George 'The Last Breath Of The World"s Greatest Rock & Roll Love Affair'
£11.99
vCargo Germany
Toilet Boys Feat. Boy George 'The Last Breath Of The World"s Greatest Rock & Roll Love Affair'
£11.99
Limited to 500 copies on clear vinyl.Visit product page →
Brand new from the New York City Rock Legends and their first new recordings since 2008. The explosive title track was written by and features Boy George.
Thunder & Lightning is a brand new track and Born To Be Bad is a version of the classic song by The Runaways.
Tracklisting:
Side 1:
1. The Last Breath Of The World's Greatest Rock & Roll Love Affair
Side 2:
2. Thunder And Lightning
3. Born To Be Bad -
Visit product page →Martha return with their second album Blisters In The Pit Of My Heart in July, via Fortuna POP! (UK/EU) and Dirtnap Records (US). Produced again by MJ from Hookworms, the album explores the difficulties in staying political, staying passionate and staying punk over the course of eleven expertly crafted pop songs.
Hailing from Pity Me near Durham, Martha play energetic, impassioned power pop with intricate vocal interplay and lush four-part harmonies, informed by 90s indie rock and contemporary garage punk. The band is comprised of J. Cairns (guitar), Daniel Ellis (guitar), Naomi Griffin (bass), and Nathan Stephens Griffin (drums). All four members sing and write the songs. Daniel and Nathan also play in Onsind, while Naomi also plays in No Ditching. Their debut album 'Courting Strong' came out in 2014 and was included in NPR's top 50 albums of that year, winning them the epithet 'One of Britain's best rock bands'.
If the band's first album, 'Courting Strong', was about punks growing up, then 'Blisters In The Pit Of My Heart' is about grown-ups staying punk. It's an album about trying to stay creative and passionate and making the most of everything in spite of the many obstacles that get in the way. It documents the way things like work, money, expectations and mental health issues can impact on your ability to do the things you want to do and be the person you want to be. It's about resistance to those things. It's about finding strength and solace in friendships, love, and taking motivation from the people in your life who really inspire you.
As Nathan explains: 'Playing music is something that is really important to all of us, but it's also something that takes a lot of time and energy and emotional strain. This record is for everyone who leads a secret double life, devoting every weekend, every day of annual leave, all of their disposable income, every drop of creative energy to something as ethereal as music and art. It's about persevering and still doing the things you love, even when most normal people can't understand why on earth you do it.'
Taking inspiration from such likely and unlikely sources as The Replacements, Heart, Billy Bragg, Thin Lizzy, Cheap Trick, The Go-Gos and Radiator Hospital, the album bursts into life with 'Christine', 'a love song filtered through the messiness of anxiety and night terror' that takes inspiration from 'Threads', the British TV drama of the 1980s about nuclear war, and is followed by the rousing 'Chekhov's Hangnail', with backing vocals from Ellis Jones of Trust Fund.
The catchy 'Precarious (The Supermarket Song)' finds romance in the washing powder aisle, while 'Goldman's Detective Agency' shows the band's playful side as they re-imagine 19th century anarchist Emma Goldman as a private eye vanquishing corrupt cops and politicians. Nearly every song here is a potential single, from the infectious 'Do Whatever' and '11:45, Legless In Brandon' to outsider anthem 'The Awkward Ones' and the Billy Bragg / Coronation Street-referencing 'Curly and Raquel'. The album concludes with 'St Paul's (Westerberg Comprehensive)', a song about being caught up in the toxic culture of a Catholic comprehensive school. 'It's for the kids who had the guts to be queer at school and for those who didn't figure themselves out until they got out of school. '
Following a Glastonbury appearance last year at the personal invitation of Billy Bragg, the band will be playing UK dates in July and August before taking to the stage at End Of The Road in September. It's going to be a busy old time for the band, what with double lives and everything, but, with passion and love dripping out of every second of 'Blisters In The Pit Of My Heart', you know they'll find a way.
Tracklisting:
1. Christine
2. Chekhov's Hangnail
3. Precarious (The Supermarket Song)
4. Do Whatever
5. Goldman's Detective Agency
6. The Awkward Ones
7. Icecream And Sunscreen
8. 11:45, Legless In Brandon
9. Curly & Raquel
10. Do Nothing
11. St. Paul's (Westerberg Comprehensive) -
Get FREE DOWNLOADS of the songs 'The Fall In Love Club' and 'Pankhurst' when buying the vinyl or ordering the CD.Visit product page →
180g black vinyl 500 copies only, no download card.
Steven Clark (a.k.a Sci-Fi Steven from disco/punk legends bis) returns with his one-man-band project Batteries what seems like seconds after last year's self-titled snappy New-Wave debut. The debut's dystopian potential future themes remain, but this time both the musical and lyrical safety nets have been removed.
With the "Devo plays Queens Of The Stone Age or vice versa" mantra still a loose guide, The Finishing Line opens with the vague reassurance of lost Punk 45 "The Fall-In-Love Club" before the safety is removed for the unhinged journey ahead.
Remnants of Bill Nelson's Red Noise, Cardiacs and early Blur b-sides abound in "Mutual Enemies" and "Hidden Tracks" while there's edgy American metallic synth punk in "Pigs", "Pankhurst" and "Children Be Normal" which recalls Jesus Lizard and Brainiac.
It's a restless itchy record, fleeting pop melodies are crushed by industrial strength guitars, but one that is a cohesive reward and illustrates Steven's unique musical vision.
Tracklisting:
Side A:
1. The Fall-In-Love Club
2. Pankhurst
3. Hidden Tracks
4. Pigs
5. The Rules Are Wrong
6. Mutual Enemies
Side B:
1. Future Studies
2. Children Be Normal
3. Data Intercourse
4. Gather By The Sea
5. Business As A Euphemism
6. The Finishing Line -
Split 7" - Limited Edition 500 Pressing - Coloured Vinyl, no download.Visit product page →
A split between the old and new kids on the new-wave pop block.
"Boredom Could Be Good For You" is brand-new, machines and guitar pop from Glasgow's indie legends bis. A favourite from recent reformation gigs, it encapsulates their famed musical exuberance, wiry riffs, wonky beats and synths, with a wry and reflective sideswipe at the youth of today. It's the bis that the old-school fans know and love, but also showcases their continued ability to craft long-lost indie-disco classics alongside their more Riot Grrrl or electronic inspirations. With gigs lined up and a new album forthcoming, "Boredom Could Be Good For You" is a hook laden reminder that Manda Rin, Sci-Fi Steven and John Disco could be good for you too.
On the flip, young upstarts from Reading, Big Zero interrupt the show with "Tear It Up and Start Again", their guitar and synth driven weirdo-pop vinyl debut. Like Devo getting drunk with Weezer, Adam, Johnnie and Jordan take influence from the best of British and American New-Wave and give it a much needed shot of adrenaline.
Their B-Movie inspired DIY videos have been gaining a cult following, live shows ecstatically received and with bis support dates on the horizon, fans can witness their new favourite band and their old favourite band together. A full EP will follow on Do Yourself In later in the year.
Tracklisting:
Bis - Boredom Could Be Good For You
Big Zero - Tear It Up and Start Again -
Visit product page →Raime's second album, Tooth, arrives June 10, 2016 on 2xLP, CD and digital formats.
The widescreen melancholia of their 2012 debut, Quarter Turns Over A Living Line, gives way to an urgent and focussed futurism, in the shape of eight fiercely uptempo, minimal, meticulously crafted electro-acoustic rhythm tracks. The DNA of dub-techno, garage/grime and post-hardcore rock music spliced into sleek and predatory new forms.
No let-up, no hesitation. Needlepoint guitar, deftly junglist drum programming, brooding synths and lethal sub-bass drive the engine. The production is immaculate, high definition. No hiss, no obscuring drones or extraneous noise: the music of Tooth is wide-open and exposed. The seeds of its supple dancehall biomechanics can be found in the self-titled 2013 EP by Raime side-project Moin, an ahead-of-its-time synthesis of art-rock and soundsystem sensibilities, but Tooth pushes the template further, binding the disparate elements together so tightly that they become indistinguishable from one another.
If Quarter Turns was an album that confronted total loss and self-destruction, even longed for it, then Tooth is the sound of resistance and counter-attack: cunning, quick, resolute; calling upon stealth as much as brute-force. At a time when so many pay lip service to experimentation without ever fully committing themselves or their work to it, Raime return from three years of deep, dedicated studio research with a bold and original new music: staunch, rude, and way out in front.
Tracklisting:
1. Coax
2. Dead Heat
3. Hold Your Line
4. Front Running
5. Dialling In, Falling Out
6. Glassed
7. Cold Cain
8. Stammer -
New music from Goat is always a time for celebration, and we are excited to announce the bands return with a 7' of brand new material.Visit product page →
Last year Goat released the single It's time for fun which saw the band experimenting with drum machines, which brought a different pulse to their tribal psych. And this desire to explore new sounds continues with their new single I Sing in Silence. But instead of plugging in'new instruments the band have unplugged'and created an addictive groove with mostly un-amped, acoustic instruments.
Elastic guitar lines, woodblock percussion, and flutes which drive the song are enveloped by one of the strongest vocal deliveries by the bands enigmatic singers, resulting in a powerful and catchy psych-pop number.
The B side is an instrumental called The Snake of Addis Ababa, is a looping North African mantra played on a teasing fuzzed guitar underpinned by a djembe groove. The repetitive mantra is disrupted by piano that freely solos over the groove, and a pounding drum lifts the song to a seriously head-nodding conclusion.
This single is further proof that, in a world of similar sounding and similar looking psych bands, Goat are standing completely out on their own and we are all the better for it. This summer the band will be busy writing, recording, and blowing people's minds across Europe's greatest stages.
Tracklisting:
Side A:
I Sing in Silence
Side B:
The Snake of Addis Ababa -
Blue vinyl LP in gatefold sleeve, includes bonus download of two track single 'Too Much Women'.Visit product page →
Following the albums Gin and My Ass recorded with The Wave Pictures in un-gentrified East London, Stanley Brinks (aka André Herman Dune) returns with a new collaborative album, this time with the Norwegian folk collective The Kaniks as his backing band. Eschewing a traditional recording studio, André took The Kaniks to a remote island outside the small town of Egersund in south west Norway.
Over the course of week of midnight sun, midnight swims and midnight beers on their isolated rocky island, living and recording in the only building on the island, the (now unmanned) mid 19th century Vibberodden lighthouse, Stanley Brinks and The Kaniks recorded three albums of material; Turtle Dove is the first of those three to be released. Brinks is renowned for his unique antifolk style: both playful and suggestive, insightful and entertaining. His fondness for calypso and the unusual provide the perfect foil to The Kaniks', whose folk instrumentation and country and bluegrass influences take these 12 songs to a joyous place Brinks hasn't been before in his extensive back catalogue. Stanley Brinks was born in Paris, France, in 1973.
He studied a bit of biology and worked as a nurse for a while. Half Swedish, half Moroccan, strongly inclined to travel the world, he soon began spending most of his life on the road and developed a strong relationship with New York. By the late 90s he'd become a full time singer-songwriter - André Herman Düne - as part of three piece indie-rock band, Herman Düne. Several albums and Peel sessions later and after a decade of touring Europe, mostly with American songwriters such as Jeffrey Lewis, Calvin Johnson and early Arcade Fire he settled in Berlin.
The early carnival music of Trinidad became a passion, and in the early 21st century he became the unquestioned master of European calypso, changing his name to Stanley Brinks. Under this moniker he has recorded more than 100 albums, collaborated with the New York Antifolk scene on several occasions, recorded and toured with traditional Norwegian musicians, and played a lot with The Wave Pictures.
Tracklisting:
Side A:
1. Turtle Dove
2. Say Goodbye
3. I Spread My Wings
4. One More Day
5. This World
6. Day In Day Out
Side B:
1. Slow Peace
2. Come Come Springtime
3. Between Me And The Future
4. Stronger Than Wine
5. Zombie Taboo
6. And The Violin
