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GOSSIP

Gossip

Real Power

    Beloved, Portland pop/indie-rock trio Gossip returns with Real Power, their first album in 14 years, set for release on March 22, 2024, on Sony Music UK. The album marks a reunion with acclaimed producer Rick Rubin, who helmed the band’s pivotal 2009 album Music For Men. Rubin coaxed the band started recording in 2019 after completing a tour for the ten-year anniversary of Music For Men. Recorded at Rubin’s home studio in Kauai, the process was temporarily halted by the pandemic and resumed when restrictions lifted. The result is an 11-track celebration of the galvanizing might of music, the joy of creative expression, and the power of chosen family in the aftermath of collective and personal trauma. The timing is ripe for a Gossip reunion, and Real Power heralds a new maturity and renewed sense of purpose for the trio. “When we began, so much about Gossip was about running away—that was always in the music,” says Ditto. “We survived. We came from nothing, and we got the fuck out of there. And to be here 20 years later and still making music together is just incredible.”

    Gossip consists of vocalist Beth Ditto, guitarist Nathan "Brace Paine" Howdeshell and drummer Hannah Blilie. ​​The band’s 2016 breakout studio album, Standing In The Way Of Control, reached #1 on UK Indie chart (certified Gold) and solidified the band as a dynamic force in the music scene. “Standing In The Way Of Control,” the album’s battle-cry title track, is a queer anthem written in response to U.S. government’s proposition to define marriage and exclude homosexuals. The band achieved multiplatinum success with their follow up Music For Men, certified 2x platinum in Germany and France, 1x platinum in Australia and Switzerland with sales in excess of 1.5m copies. Gossip is renowned for their high energy live performances and have delivered incredible sets at some of the worlds biggest festivals including Glastonbury, Coachella and Pukkelpop Festival to name a few.

    STAFF COMMENTS

    Barry says: An incendiary, soaring return from The Gossip. Full of all the fire of their early work, and all the more prescient now. Perfect timing.

    TRACK LISTING

    01. Act Of God
    02. Real Power
    03. Don’t Be Afraid
    04. Crazy Again
    05. Edge Of The Sun
    06. Give It Up For Love
    07. Turn The Card Slowly
    08. Tell Me Something
    09. Light It Up
    10. Tough
    11. Peace And Quiet

    After heavy-duty releases on self-administered imprints Low End Activism and Sneaker Social Club, as well as London’s beloved graffiti-laden mutant-bass stronghold Seagrave (RIP), the almighty Low End Activist makes a welcome debut with the ESP Institute. No stranger to mining distant regions the hardcore continuum and the residue of soundsystem culture at large, his relentless traversing and assembling of UK-specific rhythms demonstrates there is no end in sight when it comes to evolving the region’s musical gene pool. The 5-track 'Gossip Is The Devil’s Radio' strings together a smear of dystopian instrumentation - ghostly pads wrapped in melancholy, percussion that marries bleep with low resolution shrapnel, and vocal fragments that resemble a control tower’s two-way radio on the fritz - all imperfectly focused through a damaged lens of dancehall. We’re drawn to a dull moan that pervades throughout the record, reminiscent of the nihilistic moments in Abigail Meade’s score to 'Full Metal Jacket' where the sonics resemble a slow churn of molten steel occasionally punctuated and pierced by crystalline shards. The depth between the bone dry immediate foreground and distant wet background creates an exquisite sense of longing which isn’t inherently dark or menacing, but seductively bleak. As voyeurs, we may certainly appreciate the aesthetic LEA portrays, but we can’t fully comprehend the sense of escapism rooted within this music without having come of age in the damp and restless confines of England on the cusp of Thatcher’s abuse. Its a reminder that the light at the end of a tunnel, while it may be dim and grey, is still a light after-all, and the only way out is through.

    STAFF COMMENTS

    Matt says: Tectonic power that bangs and rumbles in all the right places. Summoning up ghosts of rave's past and present, and shaking warehouses to their very foundations.

    TRACK LISTING

    A1. Gossip Is The Devil's Radio 
    A2. Good Question 
    B1. Strings Of Sorrow 
    B2. Perpetual Conflict 
    B3. G.E.L. 

    International Teachers Of Pop

    Pop Gossip

      Music and dancing is one of the last great unifiers that we have. It doesn’t discriminate, it doesn’t care about race, sexual preferences, religion or what side of the fence you are on politically. Music chooses you and you just have to submit yourself to its peculiar yet tender headlock! ‘Don’t Diss the Disco’ is about that. It references Studio 54, Grace Jones & Bianca Jagger on a White Horse - but it’s mainly about clubs where we and our friends frequent like ‘Homoelectric in Manchester. This is a song for our kind of freaks and miscreants and the incessant snobbery faced by them for liking good pop music, good disco, genre’s that on the surface might not be deemed cool, but actually save souls. Says ITOP founder Adrian Flanagan (The Moonlandingz/ Eccentronic Research Council/ Adult Entertainment).

      Singer Leonore Wheatley adds.
      We wanted to capture that sweaty, hazy, manic, exciting mess in a song, that captures those halcyon days of Clubbing in Sheffield & Manchester, that moment the adrenaline kicks in and everyone in the room is your brother or sister.”

      Talking about the album, Adrian said:
      We recorded it all and produced it all ourselves at Dean’s Bowling green studio in Sheffield, it’s the best thing we’ve done since the last thing we did, which I know sounds unbelievable, but it really is! We also included Katie Mason on this record who sings live with us as a double pronged two headed front person with Leonore - and their voices together work like a harmonious dream. Katie & Leonore have been friends since primary school so you can’t fake that dynamic, it’s unbreakable) .

      Leonore adds:
      We decided to go deeper into the club realm. We wanted the record and live shows to go hand in hand, bringing the spectators more into becoming part of the performance. Dean Honer who mixed the album and who has worked with everyone from Jarvis Cocker to Britney Spears said:
      I like that we have a disco song about fillicide commited by the Queen. (The Tower) I wonder if Meghan and Harry heard our early demo?


      STAFF COMMENTS

      Barry says: ITOP return with their newest LP of thumping basslines, sparkling arpeggios and stone-cold groove. It's a heady combination that really captured our attention on the self-titled debut but goes even further this time. Neon grooves, huge monophonic basslines and all of the heart of the debut. Incredible record.

      TRACK LISTING

      1. Don’t Diss The Disco
      2. Gaslight
      3. I Stole Yer Plimoles (feat. Jason Williamson)
      4. Flood Club
      5. A Change
      6. Prince (The Final Wheelie) (Introducing Katie-Mason)
      7. The Red Dots (Dirty Mind)
      8. Beats Working For A Living (For Martin)
      9. Ein Weiterer Stein In Der Wand (End Of Days Mix)
      10. Femenergy
      11. The Tower

      The Gossip

      The Gossip

        Re-issue of the debut EP. With their junk-punk blues and the guttural wail of vocalist Beth Ditto, the Gossip proved one of the freshest and most fun debuts of 2000 when they launched their first nationwide tour opening for Sleater-Kinney. This EP features four of their earliest, rowdiest romps, from the hip-swingin' "Redd Hott" to the insta-punk classic "Dressed in Black," and though they only use guitar, drums, and voice, the Gossip have some of the most wild-drivin' energy since Bratmobile first rocked and rolled across the riot grrrl scene.


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