Record number 3 from Unveiled Nuance brings a new confidence in the further developed sound of owner Means&3rd. A continued eye for detail as well as a roughness that breathes dark soul into the production aesthetic that we have yet to hear from the artist.

“Hardship Repackaged As Growth” opens the EP with boomy, rugged low end and grainy driven synth lines with sharp hits of wide sonic impact and a depth of layered atmosphere, placed on a bed of dense percussion until its break point exposes contorted, abrasive stabs just surviving the crunch of their processing, that then take the forefront. “Countenance” replies to the previous track with a more calculated, rounder and organic palette of audio that focuses on a cadenced synth line that breaths with the arrangement, fizzing to break point and engaging the deeper listen. Swung percussion keeps the groove providing a propulsive backing that sits on gnarled bass hits before the focus returns on the charged lead line.

“Character Ethic” carries deep suspense from the off, with filtered menace being teased below the surface, warping atmospheres are stacked and build the apprehension against a militant 16th shaker before an almost vocal like modulated synth reveals itself and is left to dance prominently across the stereo field. Layers of energy providing percussion complete the picture for a mesmerizing trip. “Desperate And Relevant” the most driving of the 4 cuts takes an effectively reduced stand where square wave accents build new levels of intensity. Propulsive low-end and cohesive percussion writhe through the track’s arrangement closing out the EP with a powerful ending, a blistering siren sees the track’s breakpoint provide a release worthy of the pressure built.

Pressed on 140g black vinyl, reverse board full-colour print sleeve with poly-lined inner sleeve.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Another winner from Ben from E-Bloc.. Tapping that golden faucet of UK tech influences - fans of Surgeon, James Rushkin and Ben Sims are gonna find plenty to beat their chest to here. Unparalleled sound design coupled with precision body mechanics make this a beast for the big rigs. TIP!

TRACK LISTING

A1. Hardship Repackaged As Growth
A2. Countenance
B1. Character Ethic
B2. Desperate And Relevant

Names You Can Trust continues its years-long revival work with one of Panama's most gifted and legendary soul artists, Ralph Weeks, returning the singer to the studio for another brand new recording that highlights the now 80-year old's still silky vocals and masterful songwriting. Up for the challenge with their own studio savoir-faire is a most fitting and genuine purveyor of modern day soul themselves, Ben Pirani and The Means of Production, whose output on Palmetto Street Recording and Colemine Records has already achieved high praise and collectible status in just a few years. The mission, record two unreleased home studio demos that were penned and tracked in the early 1980's and recently excavated from Ralph's extensive archive of personal songs. These original compositions were faithfully given the full treatment and arrangement they never received, but always deserved. The A-Side, "Nobody Loves Me (Like You Do)", a quintessential Ralph testimonial of love, now shines alive and energized against the backdrop of a funky Latin soul dancer. The B-Side, "Got To Keep On Trying" is one of Ralph's many unpublished monster ballads, a deep and heartfelt tear jerker reminiscent of his classic hits from yesteryear. Now, forty plus years later, both songs can finally be released into the world, and ultimately serve as another testament to Ralph's prolific yet private musical career and legacy.

TRACK LISTING

1. Nobody Loves Me (Like You Do) [feat. Ben Pirani & The Means Of Production]
2. Got To Keep On Trying (feat. Ben Pirani & The Means Of Production)

'Big Time' brought Angel Olsen to a deeper, truer sense of self than ever before. Borne from the twin stars of grief and love, the album delivered beautiful sense of certainty, the sure-footed sound of an artist fully, finally at home with herself. But within that wisdom comes the realization that there is no finish line, no destination or static end point to life while you’re living it, and Forever Means collects songs from the Big Time sessions that hold this common theme. They are, in Olsen’s words, “in search of something else.”

“I was somewhere traveling,” says Olsen, “stopped for a few days and wandering the city, and I was thinking ‘what does ‘forever’ really mean? What are the things I’m seeking in friendship or love, and how can ‘forever’ be attainable if we’re always changing?’” Sitting with the reality of that entropy, Olsen realized “maybe the secret to ongoing love is to embrace change as part of love itself, that forever must have something to do with playing, looking, constantly searching things out for yourself, never letting yourself think you’re finished learning or exploring.” ‘Forever’”, says Olsen, “remains curious while trying also to be kind and honest.”

All this packs into the four precious songs that comprise Forever Means, songs from Olsen’s roads traveled and the ones ahead. “Nothing’s free / like breaking free” Olsen sings, comfortable with the costs of her clarity, her heart and voice fixed on the present, the future, the not-yet-known and the beautifully unknowable.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A:
1) Nothing’s Free
2) Forever Means

SIDE B:
3) Time Bandits
4) Holding On

New single featuring ‘What It Means’ recorded live at Newport Folk Festival in the Summer of 2017, backed with a brand-new Patterson Hood-penned track called ‘The Perilous Night’.

Hood says, “It may be the darkest song I’ve ever written, but it’s also a Tracklisting dance song. Turn it up.”

Love Means Taking Action' is the new album from the multifaceted Copenhagen-based artist Loke Rahbek under his alias Croatian Amor. It is the first full-length Croatian Amor recording since 2014's 'The Wild Palms,' a release that was made available on cassette for a single month, and only in exchange for a nude self-portrait.

Since the inception of the project, Croatian Amor has dealt with a mixture of fiction and reality, often using real events and places as a platform for a largely fictional play. Where there is playfulness, there is revelation. On 'Love Means Taking Action'—without a doubt the project's strongest work to date—the effect of the perpetual collaging of information is keenly felt. Short, unnerving moments appear with slick familiarity. Voices repeat and quietly glitch through tonal shifts. We are ushered along by the shuddering effect of the samples and field recordings on the pristine synthesis, with motifs and plot lines presented as quickly as they disintegrate. We are enticed to find comfort here but we are not guided through a space as with much ambient music.

The textures and terrains that 'Love Means Taking Action' present form an array of scenarios with what at times feels like a punishing degree of indifference to the listener. We are bluntly shown snippets of impassioned architectures. It is a process that draws the listener in through alienation. There is something in the way that the music and track titles progress which is not unlike the experience of submitting to social media news feeds, where love stories become the neighbours of civil wars and selfies, and reports from refugee camps are presented next to advertisements for lifestyle magazines. 'Love Means Taking Action' lets the fragmented motifs of fictions tenderly tug at reality’s patchwork veil. In the artist's own words, 'Love Means Taking Action' is "twelve tracks of very human electronic music." 

TRACK LISTING

1:An Angel Gets His Wings Clipped
2:Nadim Call Emergence
3:No Sex Club (Man)
4:Any Life You Want
5:Reality Summit
6:Like Man
7:Like Angel
8:Refugee Turns To Safety
9:Octopus Web
10:Nadim Call Emergence II
11:Like Animal
12:Love Means Taking Action 

Swedish / American four-piece FEWS have been making some serious waves ahead of their debut album. Specialising in propulsive, motoric noise-pop, producer Dan Carey (Bat For Lashes, Sexwitch, TOY, Kate Tempest et all) discovered the band via a mysterious Soundcloud link and promptly invited the band to his South London studio where debut single ‘Ill’ quickly followed on Carey’s Speedy Wunderground label.

Having joined the ranks of the Play It Again Sam label their own brand of malevolent post-punk continues to evolve and thrill with follow up singles ‘The Zoo’ and ‘100 Goosebumps’ that has seen the band bear resemblance to DIIV and Faust.

“Sonically charged post-punk that’s equal parts Interpol, DIIV, The Walkmen and A Place To Bury Strangers. Anthems for the disaffected in waiting” - Drowned in Sound

Uncompromising, vehement and bestial metallic hardcore characterised by unrelenting bloody throat screaming, searing guitar breaks and a steamhammer rhythm section. As angry a record as I've heard all year. Not for the faint hearted...

Raw energetic rock in a Fugazi / Husker Du vein from this Scottish trio.