TRACK LISTING

1. Much To Lose
2. I Like Dis
3. With Or Without
4. Hyasynth
5. I Feel Like I'm Blue

Stay Proud of Me is the debut album from LA-based Korean-American artist NoSo (real name, Abby Hwong). Their stage name is shorthand for North/South: a nod to their Korean heritage, and the inane origin question ("Which Korea are you from?") that so many Korean Americans inevitably face at some point in their lives. Across 10 tracks, NoSo indirectly grapples with the insecurities and frustrations that can arise from the Asian American experience, with the end result feeling like a balm for the alienated. Stay Proud of Me offers a deeply earnest coming-of-age story, a nuanced introduction to NoSo’s universe and Hwong’s rapidly expanding musical abilities. The marriage of their lyrics and captivating guitar performance feels magical, as if NoSo can open up portals to fantastic new realms, guided by an emotional honesty that breaks you down in one moment and fills you with joy in the next.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Who Loves Ya (Coup D'état)
B1 Twice Shy
B2 Ain't There No One?

Philadelphia-based multi-instrumentalist and producer Body Meat, aka Christopher Taylor, presents his new EP, ‘Year of the Orc’. These songs are a celebration of himself and other outsiders breaking the mould.

“The EP title is about having acceptance in myself,” Taylor explains. “I’m an orc, I’ve never been very popular, I don’t have a specific aesthetic or genre or anything. I’m cool with laying low and creating and I surround myself with people who believe the same thing. It’s me and my orcs taking over!”

Written and recorded in his apartment in Philadelphia, ‘Year of the Orc’ will, for many, be an introduction to an artist who stretches, re-configures and defies genre in a way that plays with atypical rhythmic structure with a breathless fluidity.

Taylor cites everything from “getting back into Boyz II Men” to the dense, glottal production of Jlin as touchstones while writing, and that deft balance of thick percussive undergrowth with hyperpop smarts is immediately apparent.

“Sifting through the wreckage of genre touchstones, Body Meat uses the musical language of right now to point toward possible futures.” - Pitchfork

“No two pummelling blips of Christopher Taylor’s sound alike” - The FADER

TRACK LISTING

Twigs
This Is Something
4700
My Brother Orchestral
ULTIMA
Stand By
Ghost

Idles return with their new album “Crawler” – an album of reflection and healing amid a worldwide pandemic that stretched the planet’s collective mental and physical health to the breaking point.

Frontman Joe Talbot says, “We want people who’ve gone through trauma, heartbreak, and loss to feel like they’re not alone, and also how it is possible to reclaim joy from those experiences.” IDLES albums have always been anchored by these overarching themes, but the ability of the band to juxtapose beauty and rage with humor and drama has never felt more satisfying than on “CRAWLER.”

These stories are vividly brought to life through IDLES’ most soul-stirring music to date, recorded with co-producers Kenny Beats (Vince Staples, Freddie Gibbs) and IDLES guitarist Mark Bowen. There are, of course, numerous moments that will inspire absolute mayhem in a packed concert venue, but there are also fresh textures and experiments that push IDLES into thrilling new territory. “I don't really see us as a ‘rock band’ and working with Kenny [Beats] freed us of the idea of genre,” Talbot enthuses. “On this album, our dissolution of ego was helped by Kenny’s humble nature and willingness to learn. He has boundless passion for making the best song possible. Not the best ‘rock’ song — the best song possible.” He continues, “It was writing selfishly that helped make it possible. Reflecting. Telling my own story. Not trying to tell everyone else's story. Not trying to fix the world — just talking about how I am fixing mine.”

TRACK LISTING

MTT 420 RR
The Wheel
When The Lights Come On
Car Crash
The New Sensation
Stockholm Syndrome
The Beachland Ballroom
Crawl!
Meds
Kelechi
Progress
Wizz
King Snake
The End

Following on from the release of Ultra Mono in 2020, IDLES are back to release a version of Model Village with none other than slowthai. In Joe's words: “We are fortunate to announce our forces have joined with the enigmatic and vibrant soul that is slowthai. Go dig.”

TRACK LISTING

A - Model Village
F - Model Village Feat. Slowthai

West London five-piece Chubby and the Gang are balanced by two energies – a casual “fuck it” on one side, an active “fuck off” on the other. For every moment of punk imperfection, there’s an intricate flurry of detail. For every enraged statement about modern life as war, there’s a lyric like “Hello heartbreak, my old friend” that catches you off guard. Made up of musicians from across the consistently thriving and criminally overlooked UK hardcore scene (ft. The Chisel, Big Cheese and more), Chubby and the Gang marinate its characteristic speed and sick-of-it-all energy in a mixture of 50s pop sounds. The result is a prickly take on the older, more melodic genres that punk derives from, chewing them up and spitting them out into something mangled but revitalised.

Fronted by Charlie Manning Walker (aka Chubby Charles) and backed by Tom ‘Razor’ Hardwick, Meg Brooks Mills, Ethan Stahl and Joe McMahon (aka the Gang), the band tell stories of modern London.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Chubby And The Gang manage to weave together a scathing, 90's pop-punk aesthetic with 50's rock and roll via doo-wop and hardcore. It's a baffling and HIGHLY effective combination, and one that I couldn't imagine anyone else pulling off except these lot. It's superb, a well accomplished and brilliantly listenable treat.

TRACK LISTING

1 The Mutt’s Nuts
2 It’s Me Who’ll Pay
3 Coming Up Tough
4 On The Meter
5 Beat That Drum
6 Pressure
7 Take Me Home To London
8 Life On The Bayou
9 White Rags
10 Overachiever
11 Someone's Gunna Die
12 Getting Beat Again (Eppu Normaali)
13 Life’s Lemons
14 Lightning Don’t Strike Twice
15 I Hate The Radio

Hildegard is the new project from experimental singer-songwriter Helena Deland and multi-instrumentalist and producer Ouri. On Hildegard's self-titled debut, eight tracks fuse together into a sonic sphere balancing acoustic and electronic sensitivities. The meeting place sounds something like dusk or dawn, and finds freedom in sensuality and hysteria, duality and multiplicity. Hildegard is first release from the brand new label section1.

TRACK LISTING

1. Jour 1
2. Jour 2
3. Jour 3
4. Jour 4
5. Jour 5
6. Jour 6
7. Jour 7
8. Jour 8

Made up of musicians from across the consistently thriving and criminally overlooked UK hardcore scene (featuring The Chisel, Big Cheese and more), West London five-piece Chubby and the Gang marinate its characteristic speed and sick-of-it-all energy in a mixture of 50s pop sounds. The result is a prickly take on the older, more melodic genres that punk derives from, chewing them up and spitting them out into something mangled but revitalised.

Through sheer force of strength, their 2020 debut album ‘Speed Kills’ pummelled its way out of the local hardcore scene and across the Atlantic, where it was met with a landslide of critical acclaim from the likes of Pitchfork and Rolling Stone.

Available to independent retailers, this double A-side 7” contains ‘Lightning Don’t Strike Twice’ and ‘Life’s Lemons’ and is released via Partisan Records (IDLES, Fontaines D.C., Fela Kuti). Both tracks will appear on the band’s highly anticipated second LP due out later this year.

TRACK LISTING

Lightning Don’t Strike Twice
Life’s Lemons

At the start of 2020 several US publications began running glowing reviews of ‘Speed Kills’, the breakneck debut album from Chubby & the Gang, a West London punk troupe comprised of members of various bands associated with The New Wave of British Hardcore, among them Violent Reaction, Abolition, Big Cheese and more. At the time, the band - helmed by local electrician Charlie Manning - had developed a cult following in the UK, largely rooted in the cross-pollinating nature of the punk scene, select shows including dates with Sheer Mag and an impending, last minute US run with Royal Hounds.

‘Speed Kills’, produced by Jonah Falco of Fucked Up, would go on to be called “the best punk-pop LP in recent memory” by Paste Magazine, a debut that “comes alive with liberating energy” in an 8.0 review from Pitchfork and full of “massive barroom gang choruses, power chords at breakneck tempos, rock spelled R-A-W-K and visceral gratification” as Stereogum put it. Impressive going for a band at the time with no publicist, no big budget label backing and no industry clout per se, beyond increasingly fervent underground support.

Following the quietly blossoming success of ‘Speed Kills’ earlier this year, Chubby & the Gang now find a new home on Partisan Records (IDLES, Fontaines D.C., Laura Marling, Fela Kuti) who reissue the album in remastered form with the unreleased cut ‘Union Dues’ included to boot and with new music on the horizon.

TRACK LISTING

Chubby And The Gang Rule OK?
Pariah Radio
All Along The Uxbridge Road
Speed Kills
Can’t Tell Me Nothing 
Trouble (You Were Always On My Mind)
The Rise And Fall Of The Gang
Hold Your Breath
Moscow
Bruce Grove Bullies
Blue Ain’t My Colour
Grenfell Forever
Union Dues

Niger-born Tuareg guitar virtuoso Bombino releases his firstever live album as a solo artist. Recorded in November of 2019 while Bombino and his band were touring behind his acclaimed latest studio album ‘Deran’, ‘Live In Amsterdam’ showcases Bombino’s rich musical palette, as he and his internationally renowned band seamlessly blend folk, rock, blues, funk and, most uniquely, the ‘Tuareggae’ subgenre which Bombino and his band pioneered. In addition to his regular band, this performance features special guests and Bombino’s cousins, Nigerian singer/actress Toulou Kiki as well as Anana Harouna of Kel Assouf.

‘Live In Amsterdam’ follows his 2018 release ‘Deran’, which earned Bombino career-best reviews, including a major New York Times profile, features with All Things Considered, NPR Music, Billboard and more. Noisey went as far as to declare him “World’s Best Guitarist™.” The album also received a Grammy nod for Best World Music Album, making Bombino the first-ever artist from Niger to receive a Grammy nomination.

TRACK LISTING

Iyat Na Hay
Azamane Tiliade
Amidinine
Midiwane
Tar Hani
Chatahat
Ahoulaguine Akaline
Takamba
Timtar
Imajghane
Chet Boughassa

Following the release of their highly acclaimed new album ‘Sister’ in March 2020, Ultraísta have announce a remix package featuring the talents of Floating Points, FaltyDL, Zero 7, Crate Classics and Leifur James. Ultraísta are formed by Grammy-winning producer/engineer/musician Nigel Godrich, best known for his two decades helming Radiohead’s groundbreaking studio output; celebrated drummer Joey Waronker, who’s toured and recorded with everyone from R.E.M. and Beck to Roger Waters and Elliott Smith; and singer Laura Bettinson, an acclaimed solo artist whose work combines synthdriven electropop and dreamy vocal looping.

TRACK LISTING

Ordinary Boy (Floating Points Remix)
Ordinary Boy (FaltyDL Remix)
Ordinary Boy (Zero 7 Remix)
Ordinary Boy (Crate Classics Remix)
Ordinary Boy (Leifur James Remix)

Following Brutalism (2017) and Joy as an Act of Resistance (2018), two releases that garnered global critical acclaim, IDLES return with their highly anticipated third album – Ultra Mono. Sonically constructed to capture the feeling of a hip-hop record (including production contribution from Kenny Beats), the album doubles down on the vitriolic sneer and blunt social commentary of their past work. Not far beneath the surface of their self-admitted sloganeering lies a deeply complex and brutally relevant album that chews up clichés and spits them out as high art for the masses. This is momentary acceptance of the self. This is Ultra Mono.

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: Including guest performances from David Yow, Jenny Beth, and Warren Ellis, their third album is an exhilarating punk tour-de-force. Bludgeoning drums, pummelling bass and searing guitars combine with wry social commentary for their most assured album to date.

TRACK LISTING

1. War
2. Grounds
3. Mr. Motivator
4. Anxiety
5. Kill Them With Kindness
6. Model Village
7. Ne Touche Pas Moi
8. Carcinogenic
9. Reigns
10. The Lover
11. A Hymn
12. Danke

From the cliffs of Big Sur to the North Carolina backwoods - Molly Sarlé (one third of Mountain Man) brings open-hearted, unflinching songwriting perfect for late-night karaoke comedowns, plaintive morning walks and conjuring the spirit world. West Coast incantations with a warm, Appalachian glow.

The work on ‘Karaoke Angel’ began in a trailer on a the pacific coast and continued with stints in Los Angeles and Durham, NC. Recorded in a church-turned-recording studio in Woodstock, NY with production by Sam Evian, a minimal but carefully assembled palette of guitar, bass and percussion form the foundation; an orchestra of unrecognizable atmospherics bounce off the high ceilings - but Molly’s delicate, expressive voice is always at the centre.

For fans of Laura Marling, Lucy Dacus, Wye Oak, Big Thief, Angel Olsen, Phoebe Bridgers, Molly Burch, Jessica Pratt, Julia Holter, Joni Mitchell, Weyes Blood, Tiny Ruins, Aldous Harding, Cate Le Bon.

TRACK LISTING

Human
This Close
Karaoke Angel
Almost Free
Twisted
Faith For Doubt
Kimberly
Dreams
Suddenly
Passenger Side

Written in periods of health and optimism, ‘Heaven Is Humming’ has been a long time coming. Three years coming, to be exact: singer / guitarist / songwriter Kenny Becker, singer / guitarist Drew Eccleston, bassist Caleb Wicker and drummer Christian Koons started work on the album in the summer of 2016, right around the time Goon’s debut EP ‘Dusk Of Punk’ came ripping in from the Los Angeles sky, spilling from the brim with monster riffs and deep hooks. After spending some initial time in the studio with Chris Lynch and Adam Rasmussen of Gardens & Villa in their space in the Frogtown neighbourhood of LA, the first Goon LP could have easily been rushed out. Instead the band chose to get it just right.

‘Heaven Is Humming’ is weird in its fearless abandon but it’s also comforting and familiar at the same time, taking the sounds of foundational groups like Pixies and Boards Of Canada and contextualizing them through a modern lens, placing Goon alongside contemporaries like Forth Wanderers, METZ, Young Jesus and Partisan labelmates Dilly Dally. Becker croons like Michael Stipe one minute and snarls like Frank Black the next but you never lose the sense of who these four guys are making a beautiful racket right in the here and now.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: From the heftier distorted guitar and thumping percussion to the more tender post-grunge revery, Goon have crafted a remarkable testament to a variety of genres without sounding like any single one. Brought together with perfect musicianship and an impeccable ear for a tune, 'Heaven Is Humming' is a superb and absorbing listen throughout. Awesome stuff.

TRACK LISTING

F Jam
Black Finch
Northern Saturn
Deny
Snoqualmie
Cammie At Night
Datura
Critter
Mem
Check Engine Light
CCLL

Hailing from across Canada and the UK, Montreal’s Pottery consists of core writers Austin Boylan and Jacob Shepansky, along with Peter Baylis, Paul Jacobs and Tom Gould. Initially bonding over artists such as Orange Juice, Josef K and Devo, the band create a sound that combines eclectic traces of post-punk, pop and dance music, forming an unusual atmosphere that envelopes audiences.

While often shrill and jarring, Pottery’s songs simultaneously engage listeners into a hypnotic state. It’s this dualism that binds them together, uncovering harmony within discord. Hailed as one of the hottest acts at 2019’s SXSW and The Great Escape Festival, Pottery’s debut mini album, titled ‘No. 1’, is available for the first time on vinyl, via Partisan Records

TRACK LISTING

Smooth Operator
Spell
Hank Williams
Lady Solinas
Worked Up
The Craft
Lifeline Costume

Body Type patched themselves together in Sydney in 2016 and found they each contained pieces that perfectly complemented one another’s. They soon set about articulating their ideas through jangling guitars and scuzzy, lo-fi production, and found that audiences at home in and around the country were eager to get sucked in.

Following the debut release of ‘EP1’ in late 2018 and the sophomore ‘EP2’ both Body Type EPs are now available on vinyl.

Their music so far has received critical acclaim from the likes of the FADER, DIY Mag, NME, KEXP, Beats 1’s Matt Wilkinson, Radio 1’s Jack Saunders, triple j's Declan Byrne and more and it has seen them tour with the likes of Alex Cameron, Courtney Barnett, Frankie Cosmos, Big Thief and Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, to name a few.

In 2019, they played two shows at New York’s Union Pool with Fontaines D.C., embarked on their first SXSW run and completed their first ever hotly-anticipated UK / EU headline tour, including a headline show at London’s Moth club.

“Immeasurably cool” - Dork

“The Aussie gang making starry-eyed garage-pop to brighten your day” - NME

“If I die let me come back as a member of an Australian band capable of writing as many catchy bops as Body Type” - The Fader

TRACK LISTING

Ludlow (Do You Believe In Karma?)
Palms
Teeth
Dry Grass
Silver
Arrow
Stingray
Free To Air
UMA
Insomnia
Sad Wax

Craig Finn is best known as the frontman of The Hold Steady but he is also a skilled songwriter in his own right. ‘I Need A New War’ is the third album in a trilogy (following 2015’s ‘Faith In The Future’ and 2017’s ‘We All Want The Same Things’). The album focuses on regular people trying to respond to extraordinary times, attempting to find connection while wondering how to keep pace with a world moving faster than they are. It solidifies Craig as one of today’s most important storytellers, among the ranks of Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits.

TRACK LISTING

Blankets
Magic Marker
A Bathtub In The Kitchen
Indications
Grant At Galena
Something To Hope For
Carmen Isn’t Coming In
Today
Holyoke
Her With The Blues
Anne Marie & Shane

After a handful of singles (all of are included here), one of the most talked about new bands of the last 12 months finally release their debut album. Their visceral pop has drawn comparisons to Idles amongst others, but what really stands out and sets them apart is their roots. Straight from the off, there is no doubt where they’re from; Irish through and through. Their hometown of Dublin is a constant reference point throughout from it’s literary past to modern day life in the city. Considering the band have only actually been a band for three years, this is a remarkably assured debut that’s hard to ignore.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: One of the year's most eagerly awaited albums did not disappoint when it arrived in April. A punk/post punk rock'n'roll band who actually sing about stuff, this record hits with the power of an early Smiths, Arctic Monkeys or even Oasis (more in attitude than anything else). It's like a poem to Dublin, getting out as much as revelling in, and singer Grian Chatten is the most authentic frontman we've heard in a long time.

TRACK LISTING

1 Big
2 Sha Sha Sha
3 Too Real
4 Television Screens
5 Hurricane Laughter
6 Roy's Tune
7 The Lotts
8 Chequeless Reckless
9 Liberty Belle
10 Boys In The Better Land
11 Dublin City Sky

Mayonnaise is a compilation album and companion piece to Vol. 1 & Vol. 2. On Mayonnaise, you will find alternate versions of songs from Vol. 1 & Vol. 2 that we feel have their own merit and we wanted to share them with our fans. To add to this collection, we decided to record some of the cover songs that Vol. 1 & Vol. 2 inspired us to play along the Twice Is Nice Tour. We had such a good time playing these covers live that it felt appropriate to document them here. And, last, if we are going into the studio, why not write a few new songs, record them, give the fans something new and round this whole album out? So, here you go, this is Mayonnaise. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Spirals
2. Limp Right Back (Alternate Version)
3. White City (The Pogues Cover)
4. Old Lady
5. Run Of The Mill (George Harrison Cover)
6. Strange, Awful Feeling
7. End Of The World (Alternate Version)
8. Hey! Yeah!
9. Pale Blue Eyes (Velvet Underground Cover)
10. Memphis Chair
11. Too Sensitive For This World (Ben Vaughn Cover)

Bonus 7"
12. Doomed From The Start (Alternate Version)
13. Cocktail (feat. Spencer Cullum Jr. Of Steelism)

Bristol, UK 5-piece Idles (aka “the UK's best punk band" - The Guardian) release their sophomore LP - ‘Joy as an Act of Resistance.’ 

Produced by Space and mixed by Adam Greenspan & Nick Launay (Arcade Fire, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Kate Bush), ‘Joy as an Act of Resistance.’ takes aim at everything from toxic masculinity, nationalism, immigration, and class inequality - all while maintaining a visceral, infectious positivity. Singer Joe Talbot summarizes: “This album is an attempt to be vulnerable to our audience and to encourage vulnerability; a brave naked smile in this shitty new world. We have stripped back the songs and lyrics to our bare flesh to allow each other to breathe, to celebrate our differences, and act as an ode to communities and the individuals that forge them. Because without our community, we’d be nothing.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Colossus
2. Never Fight A Man With A Perm
3. I’m Scum
4. Danny Nedelko
5. Love Song
6. June
7. Samaritans
8. Television
9. Great
10. Gram Rock
11. Cry To Me
12. Rottweiler

The Amazing stay just out of focus. On their fifth album, In Transit, they once again perform the unlikely trick of making music that is both dreamlike, drifting across the consciousness, as well as perfectly constructed. While In Transit shares the sense of mood of many of singer and founder Christoffer Gunrup’s favourite bands – the Cure, My Bloody Valentine, Flaming Lips – it never drifts away into self-indulgence. At the heart of it all, beneath the washes of guitar, the woozy reveries, are sturdy, intensely melodic songs. You hear that from the very start of the album, when Pull slides into view, slide guitar casting shapes and shadows across the arpeggios beneath, while lightly jazzy drums propel the song forward and Gunrup mournfully whispers his barely audible lyrics, before the song ascends into a refrain that sounds like every emotion combined.

That combination of melody and mood comes from the way the songs are made, and the interaction between Gunrup and his fellow members, Reine Fiske (also of Dungen, guitar), Moussa Fadera (drums), Alexis Benson (bass), and Frederik Swahn (keyboards and guitars). Gunrup writes alone, in what he calls “a very disgusting process. It’s just me in my underwear on my couch.” He emerges with a complete song – “the intros, the outros, the melodies, all the chords” – which he takes to the band, imagining they will play it just as he imagined. Except they never do. “They can feel rather than hear what needs to be done,” Gunrup says. “They do pretty much what they please.”

Yet In Transit does not sound self-indulgent. Gunrup’s songs are the very heart of In Transit, and the musicians’ playing always serves them, rather than overwhelming them. On For No One, you can hear the subtlety of their interaction, which is not what one might expect to say of a song in which whistling feedback provides the core of its climax – it’s only at the end you realise how cleverly it has transformed from what begins as fingerpicked near-folk into something very different.

As one might expect, Fiske’s guitars are at the heart of The Amazing: gorgeous tones and textures, sometimes fed through layers of distortion, sometimes kept clear and clean, to convey melody in the most direct way. “He has a sound and a way of playing that not many guitarists do – he’s all about emotion, which is great,” Gunrup says. Benson se Convirtio Completamente Furiosa, just short of 10 minutes long, Fiske displays the full range of his talents. It’s an extraordinary song, beginning with Gunrup’s voice, a lazy sigh, telling of “being caught up in a deadly boring place”, over a gorgeous, circular guitar pattern for two-and-a-half minutes, before hypnotic, swirling instrumental section built on a melancholy arpeggio takes up another two-and-a-half minutes. Gunrup’s voice returns, a little more urgent. Then the song apparently stops – only to return with Fiske playing a furious, squalling solo, a shriek of rage and despair. For the other side, listen to Rewind, a song so simple and gorgeous it sounds as though it has existed forever, in which the playing is resolutely unshowy, yet devastatingly emotive, with one simple hook – a single high note repeated in each phrase – that proves the power of well-deployed restraint.

It doesn’t come as any surprise to learn that Fiske is obsessional about his equipment. A few years back, The Amazing’s practice space was robbed, and their equipment stolen, all bar Fiske’s Stratocaster. “Afterwards we went for a beer,” Gunrup says. “We sat there in silence and felt blue. But the person who was most upset was Reine. He was so much more upset than us, he said, because what would have happened if they had taken my guitar? He couldn’t even comprehend what would have happened to him.”

But there’s so much more to The Amazing than guitar histrionics. “The drummer comes from a jazz background, so he doesn’t do what is expected, which I love.” A mention of Black Sabbath’s Bill Ward having the same background, and adding the same swing sets Gunrup off excitedly talking about a film of an early Sabbath live show. He identifies the common thread between Ward and Fadera: “Someone else would do something you had heard a thousand times before, but he won’t.”

Maybe that freewheeling element is what causes Gunrup to name “playful” as the adjective he most associates with the music of The Amazing, rather than the more obvious “melancholy”. “That’s something I feel, but maybe it doesn’t come across in the records at all. But playful – and, I don’t know, I guess it could sound a bit blue occasionally, when the vocals are there. That to me is what makes it fun to play.”

On In Transit, Gunrup’s voice is mixed a little higher than before. Snatches of lyrics gain clarity, drifting across the music like clouds. Yet you wouldn’t say he had been placed front and centre, and that suits him. “Lyrics are important to me,” he says. “But I am extremely uninterested in coming across lyrically. That is nobody’s business. If people enjoy the way the vocals interact with the music, that’s good. If not, I don’t care.” Much of his favourite music shares the quality of the vocal being a texture rather than conveying a message, he says. “If you listen to Loveless by My Bloody Valentine, I can make out maybe 11 words in one song, but I love that album more than any album ever made.

“If there are words I don’t hear, I can decide for myself what they’re saying and I like that. With 99.9% of all music made in this world the lyrics are, oh, so fucking dumb and boring and stupid. There’s no point in me adding to that stupidity. They are important to me, but you can decide for yourself.”

Work on In Transit began as soon as The Amazing’s last album, Ambulance, was finished. That’s when Gunrup began writing the 11 songs – stretching over 71 minutes – that make up the new record. He wrote quickly, then took them to the band, who recorded them piecemeal in (Fredrik) Swahn’s studio in Stockholm. “We started pretty soon after the last album was released, and did bits and pieces here and there,” Gunrup says. “It’s been forever.”

While The Amazing aren’t the kind of band who insist every album has to sound radically different from the one before. They change incrementally, adjusting and refining their sound rather than revolutionising it. Changes Gunrup had thought were dramatic – like the greater use of chorus pedals and organ on their third album, Picture You – turned out to be minor. This time, the development from Ambulance is a slightly fuller sound. “The last album was just basic tracks and vocals and that was pretty much it.” He ponders for a moment. “I was convinced the last album was better because the songs were better. But now it’s the other way round. This has got more stuff on it: more vocals, more overdubs.”

For all Gunrup’s self-deprecation, for all his unwillingness to reveal secrets and his desire to talk down his desire to deflect attention from himself, The Amazing is something he needs to do: it’s his purpose. He laughs and says that without music, “I maybe would not have killed myself, but I would have been even more boring than I am” – but he is compelled to make music, incredible music, which is why he never stops writing songs. And then he connects with the other four members to create something extraordinary. It’s about that combination, those people, playing those instruments.

“That is the essence of it, so when we all connect in a song it’s pretty nice to be in that room. That’s therapy. I pretty much see everything we do – being on my couch, the recording process – as this therapeutic thing. I don’t necessarily think we go into the studio to do this, this and this, I just want to be with those four guys and play.”

‘Awake And Pretty Much Sober’ is the debut full-length album from multi-instrumentalist and producer Jeremy Larson - AKA Violents - and vocalist Monica Martin (of PHOX).

Colourful, effervescent, honest and emotive, the record turns the traditional duets album on its head, offering up its own version of electronic-influenced pop music along the way.

Stacked with string arrangements, electronic samples, pop melodies, bursts of piano, layers of vocal harmonies and blasts of brass, their collaboration bridges the gap between two musicians from different ends of the musical spectrum.

TRACK LISTING

Awake And Pretty Much Sober
Line Lie
How It Left
Unraveling
Spark
Second Class
Equal Powers
Fair
Hue
It Won’t Stop

Written and recorded in large part during the recent election cycle, the music on ‘Death Song’ serves as part protest, part emotional catharsis in a climate dominated by division, anxiety and unease. “Currency,” a strong contender for the heaviest song the band has ever put to wax, meditates on the governing role the monetary system plays in our lives, while slow-building psychedelic earworm “Half Believing” questions the nature and confusing realities of devotion.

Recorded between Seattle and Austin, ‘Death Song’ features production from Phil Ek (Father John Misty, Fleet Foxes, The Shins). The 11-track collection offers a sharply honed elaboration on their signature sound - menacing fuzz guitar and cutting wordplay, steeped in a murky hallucinatory dream.

The band will tour extensively behind ‘Death Song’, including a headline set at one of the first-ever shows at new NYC venue Brooklyn Steel on May 2nd. Full itinerary below for “The Death March Tour”, which begins in Nashville. The band will be supported by A Place to Bury Strangers.

Since forming in Austin in 2004, The Black Angels have become standard-bearers for modern psych-rock, and the New York Times has said they “play psychedelic rock as if the 1960s never ended, and they are absolute masters of it”. The band has toured with Queens of the Stone Age, Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Black Keys + more, and played festivals such as Glastonbury, Fuji Rock, Primavera, Coachella and Bonnaroo. Two of the band members co-founded Levitation Festival (formerly Austin Psych Fest) in 2008, which has since grown into one of the best-reviewed and expertly-curated festivals in the country (returning in 2018).

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Twisting psychedelic passages, heavy wig-outs and tripped-out percussion. Brilliantly sedate in parts, only to soar into a mind-bending sunny haze of reverbed vocals and astral delay. Taking influence from all over the psychedelic spectrum, with throbbing single-note guitar lines meeting rolling, pulsing bass distortion and pitch-shifted screaming guitar.

TRACK LISTING

1. Currency
2. I’d Kill For Her
3. Half Believing
4. Comanche Moon
5. Hunt Me Down
6. Grab As Much (As You Can)
7. Estimate
8. I Dreamt
9. Medicine
10. Death March
11. Life Song

Flock Of Dimes is Jenn Wasner. Wasner is one half of Wye Oak as well as Dungeonesse.

Across all of her projects Jenn balances experimentation with craft, unafraid to be vulnerable - from 10+ years co-creating the novel, guitar-driven Wye Oak repertoire to purposefully putting out several two-at-a-time 7”s as Flock Of Dimes or exploring electronic textures as Dungeonesse.

Wasner wrote, performed and self-produced the record, with help from frequent collaborators Mickey Freeland in Baltimore and Aaron Roche in NYC. It was mixed in Dallas by John Congleton (St. Vincent, Angel Olsen).

“‘Semaphore’ is a song for people who make better art than they do small talk. In spite of all of the chaos behind the song, though, its sound feels comforting and triumphant. Through each verse, Wasner gets stronger.” - NPR

‘Ambulance’ sees The Amazing continue their journey to a place where music is free of restrictions. Despite reflecting Chris Gunrup’s often bleak worldview, the music is expansive and beautiful, marked by playing that’s as much free jazz as rock - pure music without any showiness.

The songs unfold slowly, without a traditional verse / chorus structure, spinning gauzy webs of shimmering mystery with their own inimitable dynamic of sinuous, swirling guitars; rich, ambient basslines; crisp percussion and restrained, church-like, keyboard textures. The stately tempos suggest a room full of shadows desperately reaching out for intimacy but never quite making the connection. The songs brim over with tension and more implied release than actual relief.

Gunrup is known for his reluctance to talk about his process and prefers to let the music speak for itself and if 2015’s ‘Picture You’ was brighter, exploding outward to explore the limits of experience, ‘Ambulance’ is much more intimate. The mix denser and darker, the instruments pressing closer, crowding each other, imploding inward to reconnoitre the uncharted distances that exist between us, even in life’s most intimate moments.

Sharing members with Sweden’s psych forefathers Dungen, the album delves into the hidden recesses of the heart, finding inner space to be just as expansive as the midnight sky. It was recorded in just a few days in one tiny room at Stockhom’s Buller & Bäng studio.

The Amazing’s drummer, Moussa, is one of Sweden’s top jazz drummers and has also played with Rodriguez and Jose Gonzalez.

The video for lead track ‘Ambulance’ features Ross Marquand (AMC’s ‘The Walking Dead’).

Previously the band have performed on The Late Show with David Letterman and toured with Tame Impala.

“The Amazing specialize in a beauty that isn’t airbrushed or slick or antiseptic, it’s elemental rock - earthy, molten, aquatic, but using each of their qualities to soothe rather than destroy or intimidate.” - Pitchfork

TRACK LISTING

Ambulance
Divide
Blair Drager
Tracks
Floating
Through City Lights
Moments Like These
Perfect Day For Shrimp

Lontalius is 18-year-old Eddie Johnston from Wellington, New Zealand. Eddie has been releasing music since the age of 13 but started to garner attention in the last year and a half with his self-released Casio covers of Top 40 pop hits which were picked up and praised by Lorde, Corbin FKA Spooky Black, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Ryan Hemsworth and more. He was selected for the Red Bull Academy Class of 2015.

Approaching the end of his teenaged years, Eddie began to create and share his own original compositions. Initially heavy on lo-fi presentation and shoegaze style aesthetics, Eddie’s emotionally resonant songs steeped in youth, confusion and sadness have grown to become cleaner and more richly melodic and lyrically focused while still maintaining his characteristic electronic and R&B fused style.

The album was made in Bristol and produced by Ali Chant (PJ Harvey, Perfume Genius, Youth Lagoon).

Eddie was featured on the Ryan Hemsworth track ‘Walk Me Home’.

TRACK LISTING

A Feeling So Sweet
A Kick In The Head
All I Wanna Say
Light Shines Through Dust
Selfless
My Dreams Are Dark
Glow
It’s Not Love
I Was More Than
Yr Heart Is Beating

Nick Sanborn (half of Sylvan Esso) is an unconventional producer who combines musical elements with deftness and tact, using a palette he has spent years creating. The results are catchy, aching, and deeply satisfying. Bittersweet hooks float through weighted bass while personal textures click, strum, and breathe, giving a tense intimacy to his electronic melodies.

‘Penumbra’ follows the arc of Sanborn’s movement through a period of doubt to one of actualization, as told in the present tense. His new solo project Made Of Oak is not an engineered rehabilitation but rather the emotional instinct to liberate himself from his own confining patterns and forge ahead; a result of discovering that it is impossible to have perspective on yourself if you’re standing still.

“The crisp production that made Sylvan Esso stand out is evident here, but it’s weighted down by more bass and a deeper exploration of squiggly synthmania.” - Stereogum.

“‘Pinebender’ wields bassy Moog like a weapon, which is offset with glitchy cascades and a shuffly percussive groove. It’s pretty ominous, but it’s also the soundtrack to an apocalypse we could get down to.” - Noisey.

TRACK LISTING

Penumbra
Pinebender
Side Rides
Penultra (When I See You)
Blue Zipper

Partisan Records are extremely excited to release ‘Sore’, the debut album by Canadian newcomers Dilly Dally.

Self taught guitarists Katie Monks and ? Liz Ball developed a sister?like bond in high school. Their shared love of influences such as Nirvana and The Pixies served as common ground to start their own band.

‘Sore’ is both heavy and melodic, with pop sensibilities that shine through the noise.

Dilly Dally sweep the listener along into a screaming psyche as Monks’ coarse holler slides in cadence and scale.

The production by Josh Korody (Fucked Up, Greys) and Leon Taheny (Owen Pallett, Austra, Dusted) further strengthens the band’s debut work.

CD and vinyl formats include a fold out poster.

Craig Finn (of The Hold Steady) will release his new solo album 'Faith in the Future' through Partisan Records on 11th September. Josh Kaufman produced the record in the cosy, rustic confines of Woodstock's The Isokon recording studio and helped Finn stretch the boundaries of his songwriting with confidence, invention and ambition to realise what will be a defining moment in his career.

At times stark and spare, at other times vibrant and dynamic, 'Faith in the Future' is Finn's most compelling collection thus far, each song a powerfully alluring and subtly nuanced composition wedded to his distinctive short story narratives.

TRACK LISTING

Maggie I’ve Been Searching For Our Son
Roman Guitars
Newmyer’s Roof
Sarah, Calling From A Hotel
Going To A Show
Sandra From Scranton
Saint Peter Upside Down
Trapper Avenue
Christine
I Was Doing Fine (Then A Few People Died)

Torres knows the darkness. The Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter otherwise known as Mackenzie Scott waits until anything - an idea, an emotion, a memory - gnaws at her, tearing at her fingers and throat until she releases it in song. Her husky voice strains against its human biological constraints like a wild-eyed horse, whispering desperately “Don’t give up on me just yet” on one end and yowling about jealousy with unnerving intensity on the other.

Following her self-titled debut in 2013, TORRES pushes herself to even noisier extremes on ‘Sprinter’, a punishing self-examination of epic spiritual and musical proportions.

“Atmospheric enough to fill a stadium but also stark and intimate” - The Guardian

“A ravaging sea of riffs and piercing electronic screams” - NME

“Most stunning” - Pitchfork

“A blow-your-socks-off introduction” - DIY

“A grunge-rock maelstrom” - Line Of Best Fit

“The most exciting music to emerge so far this year” - Rolling Stone

“[The] flowering of a major talent” - The Guardian

“The body remembers what the mind forgets,” Chris Porterfield reminisces on his acclaimed Field Report sophomore record, ‘Marigolden’. A record strewn with references to the inevitable tolls taken by the passage of time and prolonged periods at a distance from home and loved ones.

Spending two years roaming around the country playing tiny venues and sold-out amphitheaters alike, Porterfield was uncertain whether he was leading the charge toward an artistic epiphany or headed down a misguided path of self-destruction. ‘Marigolden’ reflects this, as he ruminates across homesick tension and an un-grounded anxiety - but rather than wallow in melancholy, Porterfield finds solace and inspiration through his songs, which reveal themselves as uplifting and celebratory. The album is brighter than their 2012 debut but somehow remains just as elegantly ominous.

“Meticulous… gorgeous” - Esquire

“Sometimes more is more” - Uncut

“‘Marigolden’ is yet another triumph” - The 405

“Drop dead elegant” - NPR

It’s a rare thrill nowadays, when listening to the opening few bars of a track, to hear a voice that slices its way through such a riot of colour and effortlessly holds your attention. The smoky jazz vocals from PHOX’s Monica Martin provide a heavy, sultry coating to the glittering pop background that slides into clarinet interludes.

PHOX were born in Baraboo, where six unlikely musicians kindled their creative streaks, almost as a family. It’s with the bare, strippedback harmonies and subtle melancholy of the lyrics that show PHOX have created something totally enchanting and unique, captivating from the first listen and bringing a live audience to a mesmerised standstill.

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2014 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

While Deer Tick have been rightfully hailed for their raucous rave-ups, their last album ‘Negativity’ placed considerable focus on the band’s nuanced and tender side.

At once heart-breaking, fist-pumping, and indeed, life-affirming, ‘Negativity’ stood as a genuine high water mark for Deer Tick – a defining collection from a band driven by an undying faith in rock‘n’roll’s evergreen power of redemption and transcendence.

The band now present this collectible 7” exclusively edited for RSD with previously unreleased B-sides of those recordings.

Comes in 4c sleeve and polybag.

Includes download card.

Limited to 300 copies for the UK and Ireland.

TRACK LISTING

Bus Stop
Denver

Ages And Ages first came together in 2009 thanks to Portland’s ever-fertile music community. An ardent audience surfaced for their US debut, ‘Alright You Restless’, including committed cohort Barack Obama, who added (without permission, mind) the album’s ‘No Nostalgia’ on his 2012 campaign playlist.

Ages And Ages spent much of the subsequent two years in wilful isolation following a barrage of unhappy events that befell some of the band members. As a result, they have composed an emotive and emotional song set that sees a band wrestling with many of the contradictions and confusion that life has to offer.

Fraught with heartfelt drama, celebratory spirit, and sonic ingenuity, ‘Divisionary’ shows a band torn and frayed but optimistic, empowered and transcendent in spite of their turmoil and trials.

Ages And Ages recently played their first ever European dates, including gigs in Berlin, Copenhagen, Paris, Amsterdam, London, Brussels and Haldern, preceding the band’s scheduled shows at this year’s SXSW Festival in Austin, with more festivals expected in summer 2014.

TRACK LISTING

Light Goes Out
I See More
No Pressure
Big Idea
The Weight Below
Over It
Our Demons
Ante Up
Calamity Is Overrated
These Ravines
Divisionary (Do The Right Thing)

Eagulls have become synonymous with a discontented, disillusioned kind of anger, moulded into bullets of post punk that’s rife with urgency and aggression.

Following the success of the first single ‘Nerve Endings’, whose obscure video awarded them a nomination at the NME Awards for Best Video, the excellent sophomore double A side single ‘Tough Luck’ / ‘Opaque’ and more recently the release of ‘Possessed’, which they recently performed on David Letterman, the Leeds punk quintet prepare to release their debut album.

“The punk soundtrack for a generation who know there’s still no future” - NME

“Eagulls are keeping the post-punk dream alive” - Mojo

“A dark, post-punk racket with echoes of The Stranglers” - The Times

When cult-like Wisconsin band DeYarmond Edison announced their split in September 2006, its founder member Justin Vernon changed tact and formed Bon Iver. Three other members formed the psychedelic folk band Megafaun, and its remaining member, Chris Porterfield, disappeared without trace from the close-knit circle of musical friends.

Five years later, Porterfield resurfaces under the moniker of Field Report. Recorded at Vernon’s home studio in Fall Creek, Wisconsin, the selftitled debut is a gorgeously crafted folk record that recalls the work of Porterfield’s heroes Paul Simon and Bruce Springsteen, as well as Wilco and Bill Callahan.

CD album is packaged in a digipack with lyrics booklet.

Between the vast expanses and disparate extremes of space lies ‘The High Frontier’, a term coined by Gerard K O’Neil in his illustrated 1976 book depicting human colonization of space.

On their new album, released on the Partisan label, Oakland’s Lumerians thrust forward with Krautrock inspired exploration, Afrobeat’s ritualistic rhythms, post-punk guitar noise and cracked-glacé synth lines culled from perverse 1970s sci-fi soundtracks.

New York City’s Guards don’t mess around. Debut album ‘In Guards We Trust’ erupts from the speakers, a whirlwind of Phil Spector atmospherics, stomping drums, hazy spiralling guitar lines, and harmonydrenched psychedelic pop vocals.

The songs harness big hooks and choruses with enough fuzz-pedal to keep things suitably lo-fi, but with more melodies in each song than many bands manage over the course of an album.

Guards’ protagonist Richie Follin is also the guitarist in indie-pop band Cults, whose self-titled debut album was released to great critical acclaim in 2011.

TRACK LISTING

Nightmare
Giving Out
Ready To Go
Silver Lining
Heard The News
Not Supposed To
I Know It’s You
Coming True
Your Man
Can’t Repair
Home Free
1&1

Diamond Rugs are a supergroup consisting of John McCauley (Deer Tick), Robbie Crowell (Deer Tick), Ian Saint Pe (The Black Lips), Steve Berlin (Los Lobos), Hardy Morris (Dead Confederate), Bryan Dufresne (Six Finger Satellite).

The band owe plenty to Deer Tick’s ragged-andraw, blue collar country rock.

For fans of Deer Tick, Black Lips, Los Lobos, Dawes, Drive-By Truckers.