Peerless man-machine outfit goat(jp) return with a brittle contemporary dance soundtrack that locks into the pointillist rhythmic micro-precision of the now classic 'Joy In Fear'. Directing an IRL physical performance, the band totter between rhythmelodic, ritualistic minimalism and intricate, pneumatic beat music - if you need a link between Daniel Schmidt, Autechre, 'On The Corner'-era Miles and Midori Takada, this is it. The six parts to ‘Without References’ perfectly highlight the synchronicity between Goat’s remarkably precise acoustic practice and the physical movements coordinated by Cindy Van Acker, a choreographer renowned for her meticulous stage direction and work with Mika Vainio. In their shifts from tendon-tweak tension to lissom melodic fluidity, Goat prove the ideal foil and spurs for Van Acker’s rigorously demanding performances, laying down super crisp commands and rhythmi geometries that manifest a ludi ideal of “dancing to architecture”.

The extended performance technique and recording nous of Koshiro Hino (guitar, percussion), coupled with Atsumi Tagami (bass, percussion), Takafumi Okada (drums, percussion) and rendered by the deft spatialisation of Bunsho Nishikawa’s mixdown - all faithfully suspended in Rashad Becker’s mastering - come to mirror the way computerised grids and lines on paper manifest in physical space with a rare clarity and concision that makes for an utterly enveloping listen.

Following from 2023’s celebrated missive ‘Joy In Fear’, they apply the same sort of daring ingenuity to lip-bitingly tight rounds of tendon-strum no wave/post-rock in ‘Quest’ and the machine line emulation of ‘Factory’, craftily contrasting with the more genteel, resonant descriptions of bodies, or minds, floating in space within the tuned percussive cadence of ‘G-H-S’, before braiding those ideas on hypnotic linearity and harmony in the 10 minutes of chiming, pendulous piquancy to ‘Orin’, and radiant release of splashing cymbals and muted low end explored across ‘CR’. Few other bands possess the focussed, visionary insight and remarkable technicality of Goat in the modern world, and even fewer manage to make minimal music so compelling, as found on this peerless work that so deftly converges styles and patterns.

TRACK LISTING

1. Quest
2. Throne hh
3. Factory
4. G-H-S
5. Orin
6. CR

Parisian label Latency presents 'Without References / Cindy van Acker (Variations)', a new release by goat (jp) and Ricardo Villalobos. For this project, Ricardo Villalobos reinterprets two tracks – 'Orin' and 'Factory' – originally composed by goat (jp) fo choreographer and performance artist Cindy van Acker’s dance piece 'Without References'. The release follows Latency’s recent publication of Villalobos’ variation on percussionist Mohammad Reza Mortazavi’s 'Swamp' (Latency, 2025), continuing the label’s exploration of reinterpretation and rhythmic dialogue. goat (jp), led by Osaka-based composer Koshiro Hino (YPY, Kakuhan, Boredoms, Mark Fell), is widely regarded as a leading force in contemporary minimalist composition. In 'Without References/Cindy Van Acker', goat (jp) transforms non-tonal rhythmic patterns into intricate, hypnotic structures with remarkable depth. In this new version, the group’s simultaneously tribal and futuristic sound is reshaped by Villalobos’ distinctive production style, which draws from both minimalist techno and Latin American rhythmic traditions. Ricardo Villalobos is a pioneering figure in minimal techno, known for his hypnotic and deeply rhythmic approach to electronic music.

Born in Chile and raised in Germany after his family fled Pinochet’s regime, Villalobos developed an early fascination with percussion, beginning to play congas and bongos at the age of eleven. This tactile engagement with rhythm continues to inform his production work today. Influenced by both Latin American folk traditions and the emerging house and techno scenes of late-1980s Europe, he began DJing and producing in the early 1990s and quickly gained cult status within global club culture. Cindy van Acker’s dance piece 'Without References' features scenography by visionary choreographer Romeo Castellucci. The stage environment evokes a space that shifts between a waiting room, a train station hall, and a mid-century installation. Eleven dancers interpret Van Acker’s precise yet fluid movements, interacting with goat (jp)’s percussive, stripped-down compositions to create a visceral and immersive performance. The artwork features photographs by Magali Dougados from a staging of 'Without References' at the Maison de la Culture de Seine-Saint-Denis.

TRACK LISTING

1. Orin (Ricardo Villalobos Variation)
2. Factory (Ricardo Villalobos Variation)

'Another Country' is the fifth full-length album by Cindy, the San Francisco-based group built around the songwriting of Karina Gill. Recorded, like all of its predecessors, in their hometown and with a consistent line-up held over from their previous record, it is replete with the poetry of private vistas, eavesdropped dramas and confusing winds. These are classic Cindy concerns, and yet, as always, contain new mystery and charm to somehow feel like quiet revelations each time. 'Another Country' is both opaque in its intentions and specific in its presentation, and as such presents the kind of truth that keeps the listener on the search for answers just out of reach.

"The title of this record, 'Another Country', refers to the James Baldwin novel of that name. The book has a kind of drama that makes sense to me. When I look around, the obvious explanations are not enough. The miasma of feelings and ideas that is supposed to account for it all, doesn't. Baldwin washes past that to longings that begin to explain. Cindy songs come out of the x-rays my particular brain makes out of what I see and experience. What you hear on this record is the result of collaboration with the members of Cindy that transforms that shadowy thing into full color, fully fleshed. Each of them, in music, is sure-footed and unblinking, and making this record together felt like, yes, yes, you see what I mean."

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There's something about Cindy that screams Jefferson Airplane for me, is it the Tambourine? San Francisco? Gravelly female vocals and loose, jam-adjacent structure? Long Hair? I'm not sure, but It's a beautifully evocative journey, taking in hazy indie, rock and alt-pop with aplomb.

TRACK LISTING

1. Another Country 
2. Daytime 
3. Soft Inheritance
4. Killer Kid In The Camaro 
5. Procession
6. The Violins
7. The Thousand First
8. Talking To Mary 
9. Another Country II

'Model Express' a collection of B-sides and lost hits, first appeared as a self-released edition of 100 gold cassettes. The arch, filmic drama of Cindy Lee's songwriting – realized with keyboards, guitars, aching voice and collaged, lo-fi production – traverses a wide range of emotional and sonic terrain. The red velvet psych-pop of 'What Can I Do' gives way to the fluid 'Diamond Ring' like radio bursts from space. 'Model Express' finds Flegel at both their most experimental and immediately melodic, and this first-time vinyl release recognizes the collected tracks as a pillar in the Cindy Lee catalogue.

TRACK LISTING

1. Kromax (Theme From Kromax AKA Real State)
2. A Cold Fog Is Still Descending (KCP Sound Collage)
3. Model Express
4. Who You Want I'll Be
5. What Can I Do
6. What I Need (Alternate Version)
7. Dry Dive
8. Burning Candle
9. Left Hand Path
10. Are You Lonesome Tonight?
11. Don't Let Me Down
12. Diamond Ring
13. Be My Shining Star (Instrumental)

Cindy Lee is the diva alter-ego of singer / guitarist Patrick Flegel, the one-time captain of heralded Canadian experimental guitar pop act, Women. In Flegel’s working on / as Cindy Lee exclusively over recent years, their songwriting makes a move toward high atmospherics, often achieving a mysterious sweetness rooted equally in beauty and ache.

As Cindy Lee’s third long-form statement, 'Act Of Tenderness' makes use of antipodal themes to create a living sound: static with grace, distortion and sugar, all masterfully arranged with crooked nods toward pop classicism. The layered vocal on 'Power And Possession' creates a palpable haunt, bringing historical girl-group lament to choir-esque heights. The feedback shriek and industrial grind of 'Bonsai Garden' provides near-operatic damage, yet never stumbles into the irrevocably grave. These snowy pieces give the album a decidedly cinematic feel, albeit one bent more towards Eraserhead. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Act Of Tenderness
2. Power And Possession
3. What I Need
4. New Romance
5. The Last Train's Come And Gone
6. Operation
7. Quit Doing Me Wrong
8. Fallen Angel
9. Bonsai Garden
10. Miracle Of The Rose
11. Wandering And Solitude
12. A New Love Is Believing

Originally released as an edition of 50 lathe-cut LPs housed in silk-screened jackets in 2020 (fast on the heels of 'What's Tonight To Eternity'), 'Cat O' Nine Tails' has long intrigued die-hard Cindy Lee fans with its combination of the classic songwriting that would dominate 'Diamond Jubilee' a few years later and an actual suite of classical songs under the title itself.

Opening with the gothic soap opera theme of 'Our Lady Of Sorrows' into the manic exploration of 'Cat O' Nine Tails', onto the dusty western walk through Patrick Flegel's lovely guitar work on 'Faith Restored', the album seems to soundtrack the coolest movie the late '60s ever produced. All of this builds to the lush and sweeping ballad of bruised hearts that introduces that beautiful voice via 'Love Remains'.

Side Two sees 2024 live show closer 'Cat O' Nine Tails III' complete the suite to epic effect, before introducing the absolute showstopper that is 'I Don't Want To Fall In Love Again'. It is tender and fragile in that way that only Flegel can make both familiar and unique. Closing with the ethereal soul shuffle stomp of 'Bondage Of The Mind', the album showcases nine songs from an essential time in the Cindy Lee evolution.

TRACK LISTING

1. Our Lady Of Sorrows
2. Cat O' Nine Tails
3. Faith Restored
4. Love Remains
5. Cat O' Nine Tails II
6. As I'm Stepping Through The Gates
7. Cat O' Nine Tails III
8. I Don't Want To Fall In Love Again
9. Bondage Of The Mind

Cindy Lee is the brainchild of singer/guitarist Patrick Flegel. While some may know Flegel from his time spent in Canadian experimental indie band Women, Cindy Lee has spent the past four years crafting songs that push and pull in opposing directions – from tales of tragedy laced with haywire distortion to moments of breathtaking beauty.

On 'Malenkost', Flegel combines everything that makes Cindy Lee so essential: heart-wrenching romantic pleas, rough shards of noise and twilit ballads. Featuring the lo-fi pop single 'A Message From The Aching Sky', Malenkost sounds like Deerhunter playing The Supremes or vice versa.

TRACK LISTING

1. No Worth No Cost
2. Always Lovers
3. Hopeless In A Trance
4. Cash Money
5. I've Seen His Face Before
6. Gallows Smile
7. A Message From The Aching Sky
8. Coroner Of The State
9. Claim Of Vanity
10. Prayer Of Baphomet
11. Death Sentence
12. Hash Angel

Cindytalk is the mercurial, expressionist outlet of Scottish artist Cinder, inspired by the crossroads of exploratory UK post-punk and early European industrial. Her work thrives on chance and transformation, collaging elements of noise, balladry, soundtrack, catharsis, and improvisation.

"We were trying to find our own space," says Cinder of the formative period 'Camouflage Heart' emerged from, amidst a move from Edinburgh to London and Cinder's evolving exploration of gender identity, well before culture at large was equipped to understand. With contemporary discourse we see that the project manifested her transgender ideas as visceral music. The guttural, feral sound marked a notably darker turn from The Freeze's six- year run on the fringes of punk. Changing the project's name became vital, not just because they kept hearing the former was already taken, but the desire to embody the spiritual and sonic shift, "to uncover new pathways...to feminize it," she says. Cinder, with bandmates David Clancy and John Byrne, arrived at Cindytalk, a winking nod to Sindy, the British fashion doll rival to Barbie known then for its pull-string talking mechanism. "The goal was to have a more interesting narrative, more interesting dialogue. Music was ultimately my only way of talking to people. That was my conversation with the world, an abstracted conversation...an attempt to make some kind of tiny, tiny mark, if possible, you hope somebody will notice." Over the years, Cinder has heard from fans who did pick up on the signals and find refuge in 'Camouflage Heart'.

'Camouflage Heart' plays with tension and pace, from creeping to feverish to claustrophobic. The percussion moves between restless marches and barely-there pulses; for some parts, they scratched and hit a tin bath, among other objects. Guitar lines vibrate and stab as Cinder contorts her voice freely. She pulls poetry from a cerebral abyss, like "make the snake in your eye, pierce the camouflage heart" on the slow-droning centerpiece 'The Spirit Behind the Circus Dream'. In that register is raw power, both vulnerable and menacing, an ability to locate something deep and emotionally charged within. "I still remember that person who was way too intense for their own good," Cinder reflects. "I couldn't make a record like that now, certainly not vocally, while that anger hasn't dissipated; there's still a kind of warrior."

For all the destruction and disintegration of 'Camouflage Heart', Cinder maintains the objective was never full-on fatalistic; these songs seek not to destroy but to poke and provoke, to transform and heal, to find cracks of light in a crumbling world. She points to the last lines of the opening track, 'It's Luxury': "Don't look down," the lyric pines through static and rhythm. Cinder extrapolates, "I'm essentially saying, just keep fucking going. As time went on, for me, that falling became flying. 'Camouflage Heart' is the beginning of believing in flight."

TRACK LISTING

1. It's Luxury
2. Instinct (Backtosense)
3. Under Glass
4. Memories Of Skin And Snow
5. The Spirit Behind The Circus Dream
6. The Ghost Never Smiles
7. A Second Breath
8. Everybody Is Christ
9. Disintegrate ...

Klasse Wrecks kick off a new year with a new artist, Glasgow based DJ and producer Stevie Cox. Stevie's second release is one of deep cerebral breaks and evolving technicoloured techno. Four tracks that surprisingly weave an already defined and recognisable sound from the young artist. Dont expect over-thought and over-cooked musings though, Cox keeps it fresh, to the point and relevant with most tracks clocking in around 5 minutes. There is enough playfulness to keep the gurners smiling and enough well-thought out drumwork to keep the feet moving, this tight selection will most likely find its way into a variety of record bags during its lifespan.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Klasse Wrecks continue with the hedonism after slaying us with that DJ Absolutely Shit joint from a month back. Stevie Cox comes thru with vacuum sealed breaks, wubbing b-lines and lashings of acid to send us flying head first into dancefloor euphoria.

TRACK LISTING

A1 My Lover Cindy
A2 Noot Noot
B1 Contraction
B2 Squeeze

Superior Viaduct and our new artist label, W.25TH, are proud to continue to be the home for Cindy Lee with the physical release of the celebrated album Diamond Jubilee. Universally praised, shortlisted for the 2024 Polaris Music Prize, and already hailed by Pitchfork as the 3rd best album of the 2020s, anticipation and conversation around the record has been high.

Cindy Lee is the performance and songwriting vehicle of Patrick Flegel (who previously fronted influential indie group Women). Over several albums, Flegel has combined delicate melodies and sheer beauty with moments of experimentation. With Diamond Jubilee, Flegel’s undeniable songcraft comes to the foreground, embracing a more instant connection and accessibility. Timeless tales of love and longing, surrounded by sticky hooks, take the listener on an unforgettable journey.

Diamond Jubilee was written and recorded over several years by Patrick Flegel in Toronto, Durham, Calgary and Montreal at Realis- tik Studios. The album was mixed by Steven Lind, who also contributes to several tracks and co-wrote “Baby Blue,” and was mastered by Joshua Stevenson.

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: Diamond Jubilee was digitally self released last year and garnered rave reviews from fans and media alike. It now finally gets a physical release through Superior Viaduct's new artist label, W.25TH. It's an absolutely sublime collection of vintage sounding pop songs, drawing on sounds and styles from the 1950's onwards: there's hint's of do-wop and soul, 60's girl groups, Velvetsy art-rock, folk and country. The pop waters are muddied with psychedelic waves at times, but for the most part it's laid back dream-pop, delivered in a sort of shimmering, otherworldy haze. You can imagine it perfectly soundtracking a David Lynch film.

It's pricey, but at 32 track and over two hours long, it's worth it. An absolute gem of a record!

Andy says: I first heard this Cindy Lee album with zero context playing on the office computer whilst I opened boxes of records. After about half an hour I began to wonder; what is this classic music and why haven’t I heard it before? Is it a compilation of great bands that for some reason didn’t make it?

It sounds like a beautifully curated hazy mixtape moving through doo-wop, sixties pop, girl groups, psych rock, indie pop, synth pop and even dislocated disco! I started to imagine it was the haunted soundtrack to some long lost David Lynch film, playing on a lonely old medium wave radio in a deserted house on a quiet and still street. This wistful sound felt warped, fractured, brokenly lo-fi yet sophisticatedly arranged, sweet yet macabre and with a deep sense of longing laced throughout. It was the best thing I’d heard in a long time!

Welcome to the mysterious world of Cindy Lee; the alter ego of Canadian maestro Patrick Flegel. Six years in the making and featuring 32 tracks spanning two hours of music, this could be your most exciting (and exotic!) musical discovery of 2025. It certainly was mine!

TRACK LISTING

1. Diamond Jubilee
2. Glitz
3. Baby Blue
4. Dreams Of You
5. All I Want Is You
6. Dallas
7. Olive Drab
8. Always Dreaming
9. Wild One
10. Flesh And Blood
11. Le Machiniste Fantome
12. Kingdom Come
13. Demon Bitch 3
14. I Have My Doubts
15. Til Polarity’s End
16. Realistik Heaven
17. Stone Faces
18. GAYBLEVISION
19. Dracula
20. Lockstepp
21. Government Cheque
22. Deepest Blue
23. To Heal The Wounded Heart
24. Golden Microphone
25. If You Hear Me Crying
26. Darling Of The Diskoteque
27. Don’t Tell Me I’m Wrong
28. What’s It Going To Take
29. Wild Rose
30. Durham City Limit
31. Crime Of Passion
32. 24/7 Heaven

Originally released on vinyl in 1993 via Hut Recordings (UK), Acetone's debut album is now available in an expanded 2LP format and packaged in a gatefold - The is the first pressing in over 30 years.

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: Originally released in the UK in 1993 on the long defunct Hut Recordings, everyone at the shop instantly fell in love with this album. Velvets infused slacker rock interspersed with shimmering, Americana tinged melancholy. Amazing!

TRACK LISTING

Come On 
Pinch 
Sundown 
Chills 
Endless Summer
Louise
Don't Cry
No Need Swim 
Barefoot On Sunday

RIYL: Sarah Records, Galaxie 500, Algebra Suicide, Mazzy Star, early Low.

“Everyone’s hoping that nobody sees/all our little efforts at dignity”

This last line of the title track from Cindy’s fourth LP Why Not Now? works as a slogan for Karina Gill's evolving musical vision. Her music is simple out of necessity and introverted in delivery, but the songs contain vivid worlds and are quietly ambitious. With this latest batch, Gill pulled the process of making Cindy music even more inward. “Some of these songs were first recorded as demos alone in my basement. I think that process set the tone for the record…Maybe it set up a kind of starkness,” she says.

Moving on from the fixed quartet that performed the first three albums, Gill worked alongside original keyboardist Aaron Diko to develop the songs and they enlisted players from the ever-blossoming SF pop scene to realise her minimalist vision -- members of Flowertown, Telephone Numbers, April Magazine, Famous Mammals, and Sad Eyed Beatniks to name a few. The collective sounds fill out the record perfectly with John Cale-esque viola on ‘August’, lo-fi fairground organs, and a tasteful full-band sound that crops up throughout. ‘A Trumpet on a Hillside’ is the most triumphant Cindy has ever sounded, all ascending chords and a wedding march melody tumbling out of an old synth. Still, some of the best moments are Gill alone, as on ‘Playboy’, just naked guitar and voice, and when the forlorn whistling solo kicks in, it feels like the loneliest star is imploding in a distant galaxy.

While the dream-pop tag is probably still relevant, this isn’t algorithm-fed genre ambience. Gill’s vocal/lyrical presence can be as gently momentous as Leonard Cohen or as intellectually potent as any ’79-’80 Rough Trade post-punk. “In writing a song”, Gill says, ”all the disparate parts of being me momentarily correspond, like car alarms and party music momentarily matching beats.” Cindy’s Why Not Now? is that muffled street symphony inside a passing daydream.

STAFF COMMENTS

Martin says: In possibly their most stark, minimalistic statement to date, Cindy present 'Why Not Now?'. Swimming with slow psychedelic guitar and haunting echoic vocals, it's both heartfelt and deep while not eschewing the keen sense of melody they've become known for.

TRACK LISTING

1. Why Not Now (02:33)
2. Standard Candle #3 (03:02)
3. Earthly Belonging (01:27)
4. August (02:48)
5. Wednesday (02:13)
6. A Trumpet On The Hillside (04:19)
7. The Price Is Right (02:54)
8. Playboy (03:26)
9. Et Surtout (01:55)
10. Standard Candle #4 (01:49)

Cindy Lee is more than just a recording music project. It is the culmination of a lifelong exploration of art, the electric guitar, queer identity and gender expression. “Singers like Patsy Cline and The Supremes carried me through the hardest times of my life,” explains Flegel, “and also provided the soundtrack to the best times.”

Following the dissolution of Canadian experimental indie band Women, Flegel would delve deeper into songwriting that bends further toward high atmospherics and bracing melodies—a unique space where splendor naturally collides with experimentation. Delivering moments of sheer beauty through somber reflections on longing and loneliness, Cindy Lee is something to hold onto in a world of disorder. What’s Tonight To Eternity, Cindy Lee’s fifth long-form offering, showcases the project’s most entrancing strengths: ethereal snowdrift pop and sly nods toward classic girl-group motifs.

Recorded at Flegel’s Realistik Studios in Toronto and featuring younger brother Andrew Flegel on drums, the album travels hand in hand with a spectral guide. Flegel found inspiration for Cindy Lee in the form of Karen Carpenter, drawing on the singer / drummer’s early recordings as well as her look and style. “I found a deep interest and comfort in Karen’s story, which is a cautionary tale about the monstrosity of show business, stardom at a young age and being a misfit looking for connection.

The darkness and victimizing tabloid sensationalism she suffered is easily tempered and overwhelmed by her earnest output, her artistry, her tireless work ethic. Something utterly unique and magical takes shape in the negative space, out of exclusion. What I relate to in her has to do with what is hidden, what is unknown.” What’s Tonight To Eternity remains a mix of pop culture indoctrination, pain and suffering, hopes and dreams, fierce confrontations and wide-open confessional blurs.

Closing with the song “Heavy Metal” (dedicated to the memory of former Women bandmate Chris Reimer) and adorned by Andrea Lukic’s Journal of Smack artwork, the album continues the bold and rewarding path on which Cindy Lee has embarked.

TRACK LISTING

Plastic Raincoat
I Want You To Suffer
The Limit
What?s Tonight To Eternity
One Second To Toe The Line
Lucifer Stand
Speaking From Above
Just For Loving You I Pay The Price
Heavy Metal

Tough Love have partnered with West Coast imprint Mt St Mtn for the release of Free Advice, the instant slowcore/dreampop classic by San Fran four piece, Cindy. The full album is available to stream/download now, while a highly limited transparent vinyl pressing will be released on 20th November. Limited to just 250 copies, this pressing follows the long sold-out edition of 100 released earlier in the year and which was previously only available in the US.

Free Advice offers a somber-yet-uplifting take on sobered dream pop. Imagine if Galaxie 500’s On Fire didn’t have a guitar solo or if The Trinity Session was stripped of its folk & blues roots; it’s just pure mood. Like sitting in a half-empty movie theater that’s playing Alphaville or Wild Strawberries and watching patron’s heads briefly illuminated from the screen; Free Advice (and all of the Cindy output) transfers you to these momentary worlds.

Cindy is Karina Gill on guitar/vocals, Aaron Diko on synth/keys, Simon Phillips on Drums/Percussion, and Jesse Jackson on Bass/Keys + Simon and Jesse on backing vocals. The songs on Free Advice are these moments in mood: Phillips & Jackson’s rhythms create the foundation, while Diko’s keys rise and fall. Gill’s guitar rattles, vocals brood, and lyrics create these narratives that depict observers, not necessarily wronged rather, cautious and investigative of the world around them. 

TRACK LISTING

1 Discount Lawyer
2. Falcon Heavy
3. Seeing Double
4. Wrong Answer
5. Song 23
6. Fixed Idea
7. A Song In French
8. CSI: Creeptown
9. April Magazine
10. Free Advice
11. Lost On Me

Cindy & The Playmates, led by Cindy Redd (later of The Voices) and backed by Wanda Cunningham and Manesbia Pierce, deliver an upbeat funky floor filler. Copies go for between £300-400 pounds for this storming and evocative fist-clenching gem which builds dramatically with strings and an emotive lead vocal. Cut with Paul Kelly’s ‘The Upset’, which was the B side of his second single for Lloyd Records, the vehicle for Willie Clark’s Florida-based productions. A monster sound with a grinding funky backdrop providing the perfect foil for Kelly’s aching vocal; the chorus break is a guaranteed spine-tingling moment. Copies currently go for around £250 if you can find one. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Catchy and bright, funky floor fillers from yesterday, earnestly repressed by your good friends at Deptford Northern Soul Club who should be awarded a medal for their services to soul.

TRACK LISTING

Cindy & The Playmates - Don't Stop This Train
Paul Kelly - The Upset

Cindy is a band built around the singing and guitar playing of Karina Gill. She became a musician only recently, having sat on the sidelines while ex-partners and friends made their stabs at it. Gill describes a chance encounter with an abandoned Squire Strat left in the basement by a previous tenant, “mummified in electrical tape with the remnants of a burrito on the head stock”, that led her to begin carefully strumming her way through simple chords and making her own songs. After one interesting self-released LP, still finding their footing, the band made the masterful and buzzed-about Free Advice, which went from a limited cassette on local SF label Paisley Shirt to vinyl pressings on Tough Love (UK) and Mt St Mtn (USA).

Cindy’s third LP arrives in quick succession, the quietly devastating 1:2. Jesse Jackson on bass, Simon Phillips on drums and Aaron Diko on keyboards weave the perfectly thin web behind Gill’s slow Velvety strums and murmured melodies. The rhythm section brings the crude flow, while the keys add subtle and surreal counterpoint to the withering world Gill depicts in her lyrics.

“Just as a mood is made by everything taking part in a pattern of association, so the songs tie together seemingly disparate things by the logic of mood,” Gill tries to explain. This isn’t dream-pop sunshine bliss; half-closed black drapes hang on the window where the narrator stares into the middle distance. “Sometimes you say you’re feeling small/You plan all day for your own funeral”, she intones in Party Store.

Gill has a way of halting her phrasing that makes it feel like her thoughts are gently tumbling into the abyss. It’s this unsettling quality mixed with the hazy atmosphere that makes Cindy’s new LP 100% addicting and the perfect antidote to comfort listening.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The tenderly hushed vocals and lo-fi bedroom pop on offer here has echoes of a more melodic Moldy Peaches, but swims with a clever off-kilter writing style, lending less of a punky lo-fi haze and more of a whimsical, airy breeze to the pieces. It's really quite simple, and swimming in beauty.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Common Era (2:04)
2. My Friend (3:09)
3. Party Store (2:15)
4. Song 36 (2:51)
5. Lost Dog (3:55)
6. To Be True (3:55)
7. They Say What I Mean (3:43)
8. 1:2 (3:01)
9. Sincere Sound (3:12)
10. Deer In Japan (4:37)

After more than twenty years, and following two recent EPs and an extensive touring plot, the hugely influential and iconic Pixies mark their return with ‘Indie Cindy’, their first full-length album since 1991’s ‘Trompe le Monde’.

Recorded at Rockfield Studios, Wales with long-time producer Gil Norton (‘Doolittle’, ‘Bossa Nova’ and ‘Trompe le Monde’), ‘Indie Cindy’ is available on gatefold heavyweight double vinyl (including CD) and CD.

All artwork conceived by celebrated graphic designer Vaughan Oliver, who designed all previous Pixies album artwork (in addition to Cocteau Twins, Throwing Muses, The Breeders).

Featuring the classic Pixies recipe of soft / loud dynamics, darkly comical lyrics and insanely catchy riffs, these 12 tracks are sure to win over die hard fans and newcomers alike.

TRACK LISTING

What Goes Boom
Greens And Blues
Indie Cindy
Bagboy
Magdalena 318
Silver Snail
Blue Eyed Hexe
Ring The Bell
Another Toe In The
Ocean
Andro Queen
Snakes
Jaime Bravo