The renowned Japanese Cosmic freak-out heavyweights return with a brand new studio album and tour, marking ten years since their mothership first descended on the UK ....

Now a steady four piece led by Kawabata Makoto (guitar) and including Tsuyama Atsushi (bass/vocals), Higashi Hiroshi (synthesizer/guitar) and Shimura Koji (drums). The collective recorded the album in the aftermath of the Japan disaster at their mountaintop retreat where the collective still reside.

With the exception of the album's opener 'Chinese Flying Saucer' and it's unashamedly obvious musical references to Led Zeppelin II (hello 1969!) the rest of the album locks into a much more laid-back groove than on recent AMT releases. This dynamic shift is best displayed on the 22 minute jam, 'Shine On You Crazy Dynamite' and also the album's closer 'Electric Death Mantra'. The band opt for less frantic explosions of electric guitar overload and fuzz, replacing those elements with a more epic, blissed-out and at times brooding Japanese psychedelia, with more emphasis on acoustic guitars, sitar, organ, synthesiser and at times, really trippy vocals (most prevalent on 'Back Door Man Of Ghost Rails Inn'), recalling the twisted psychedelics of early Pink Floyd. Yet still, their sound remains so expansive that it is easy to become totally immersed in this album.

Epic in proportions, cloaked in a cosmic haze and shimmering in a synth utopia. The Ripper At Heaven's Gates Of Dark maintains AMT's status as masters of out-of-this-world music and reveals their darker side of the moon.

FORMAT INFORMATION

2xColoured LP Info: Limited transparent red with black swirls double vinyl housed in a newly redesigned full colour gatefold sleeve / jacket.

Taras Bulba featuring ex Earthling Society head Fred Laird return with their second album ‘Soul Weaver’. Soul-Weaver was recorded between February and April of 2020. The album is a sharp contrast to the Taras Bulba debut. Whereas ‘One’ was a laid back psilocybic novelty travelogue; Soul-weaver is more guitar driven dream like psychedelia, mixing 60’s garage rock, shoegaze, bucolic west coast acid folk and ambient feedback.

The album builds on song structures instead of drifting instrumentals prevalent on our debut and is an indication of the path I want to go musically. Constructing the album in such a short time and under lockdown restrictions changed the way the album took shape. There were no drum sessions between myself and Jon due to the social distance rule and therefore percussion had to be constructed from drum machines or ‘found’ from previous sessions and cannibalised.

So, in some ways this is more a solo record (Jon has never heard the songs). It is a guitar album whereas ‘One’ was a rhythm/percussion focused recording. Lyrically it draws on (quite accidentally) the writings of Dion Fortune, particularly her novel ‘The Sea Priestess’ which I read 12 months before. It never even came into mind until I started draughting the lyrics and things started popping up that had very strong comparisons to that novel. That’s the subconscious mind I suppose and also living next to the Irish sea which is literally at the top of my street. I can see it and smell the salt on the air everyday. I’m lucky really for that.

I took it all for granted up until the last year or two. The recording has a bit of a watery, dreamy feel too and it’s also haunted. It’s haunted by a good soul though; with electric blue eyes. Early March I recorded the track ‘Sun and Steel’ and I could hear a female vocal on it. I needed to record a vocal and my sister in law always fancied herself as a bit of a singer. I thought she could weave some magic on it. I text her at 9:26am, it was a Thursday morning. She never replied.

This is for you Susie (1971–2020) eternally in our hearts.

Shit And Shine return to the mighty Riot Season - the label that was brave enough to put them on the map in the first place.

This LP, like last years ‘DOING DRUGS, SELLING DRUGS’ returns to the SLUDGE. Sludge the way SLUDGE is meant to be ... fucking SLUDGY and EVIL. This shit is ridiculously HEAVY, in fact i’d say it’s one of the heaviest sludgiest records ever made. Yeah, for real. Sleep? Melvins? you call that sludge!? PAH!! No, not quite. Sure it’s heavy and riffy but NOTHING close to this SLOW MOTION EXPLODING MOUNTAIN OF FILTH LAVA. Yeah I like that - that sums it up nice.

GOAT YELLING LIKE A MAN what a great name for a fucked up record. No bullshit the LP includes actual goats yelling like men as vocals. Hail the mighty black goat of your nightmares! Hail Shit And fucking Shine!. When sludge needs to be done PROPER, Shit And Shine DO NOT FUCK AROUND

FORMAT INFORMATION

LP Info: LIMITED 500 ONLY WHITE VINYL LP WITH DOWNLOAD CODE

"I don't remember now"

It's hard to say how Mummise Guns actually came to be a thing. What is certain is that Tracy Bellaries and Matt Ridout had shared a flat for a while and were often speaking about forming a group to have an outlet for some music that Tracy had written, but above and beyond that initial idea the rest is slightly hazy, or perhaps murky is the better word.

Also very much a fact rather than a fiction is that the name was cooked up at Supernormal Festival in 2016 when Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs bassist Johnny Hedley uttered the phrase 'Look at these guns, Mummise Guns' when everyone was hanging around a tree swing (this sounds like we're making it up now, but honest it happened, we think). Tracy and Matt immediately adopted it despite protestations that it was a completely daft thing to do. Thus, the band Mummise Guns was born.

Where, why and how the rest of the group got involved is not 100% clear, but the initial lineup of Tracy, Matt, Adam, Cleaver and Al prepped three of Tracy's songs and three of Matt's into something solid enough to record by early 2017 and the band dropped into Wayne Adam's (Petbrick, Big Lad) Bear Bites Horse Studios in East London to track their debut self-titled LP Mummise Guns (Riot Season REPOSE094LP), with Al and Adam adding further recordings at Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs guitarist Sam Grant's Blank Studios in Newcastle.

After that, it's safe to say things got busy. Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs took over the airwaves with a series of incredible LP's on Rocket Recordings, Luminous Bodies wrote and recorded an absolute belter of a second album for Box Records, Casual Nun dropped a couple of full-length smashers and a split with Bruxa Maria on Box Records and Hominid Sounds, Ghold released a killer LP on Crypt of the Wizard, and Black Shape and Michael both dropped some classics on Hominid Sounds and Cracked Ankles respectively.

Yet, throughout all of this intense activity, the Mummise Guns LP lurked in the shadows like a malevolent beast just waiting for the right moment. That moment was early 2019 when everyone regrouped at Bear Bites Horse, including new addition Gordon Watson, for some final overdubs and mixing. And here it is, 2020, and the proof of all this hard graft is finally available to you.

So here are six tracks of noise-fuelled amphetamine that is perfect to drive all the right people from your house and attract all the wrong ones in.

Play LOUD.

FORMAT INFORMATION

Ltd LP Info: Limited black vinyl LP housed in a gloss finished outer sleeve. Strictly limited to 300 copies.

The career of Acid Mothers Temple has been an interesting and varied one. With well over 200 releases to their name since 1996, the band have certainly put in the hard yards. Recent times have seen a resurgence in their underground cult popularity.

Between Autumn 2014 and December 2015, core AMT members Tsuyama Atsushi (bassist / vocalist) and Shimura Koji (drums) left the band. Original members Makoto Kawabata & Hiroshi Higashi took this as their chance to create a new line-up and that this was a good chance to refresh the band with new members.

The last Acid Mothers Temple album released by Riot Season was 'Reverse Of Rebirth in Universe' in 2018 which was incredibly well received, and is now into it's fourth vinyl pressing. For that album the newly settled line up featuring new boys Wolf (bass), Satoshima Nani (drums) and Jyonson Tsu (vocals) re-recorded old AMT classics and a few new jams. The album and subsequent world tour were incredibly well received, not only by long time AMT diehards but also a whole new crowd who were discovering the band for the first time, either via the album of the show, which included the bands first appearance at Glastonbury Festival in summer 2019.

Now we finally get to 'Chosen Star Child's Confession', the latest studio album from the band which should be considered the genuine 'first album' of this new line-up with the added presence of Geoff Leigh (ex Henry Cow)

In the bands own words ...

"We had recording session with Geoff Leigh (ex. Henry Cow) at the beautiful Sam and Rachel's recording studio in London in July 2018 (with work completed back in Japan in 2019). It was the first year of the new vocalist Jyonson. We recorded some our standards and classics also new jam session. We found many musical direction, daydream psychedelic, dubby jazz groove, Si-Fi trance, experimental exotic chaos, etc... it's the truly beginning of Acid Mothers Temple's new era!"

FORMAT INFORMATION

Coloured LP Info: Limited edition 500 only on sun orange vinyl.

Back in 2007, the Tokyo-based duo known as Suishou no Fune visited San Francisco, and during their stay participated in a recording session with old friends Mason Jones and Mike Shoun, who were operating under the name Numinous Eye. That session was released in a very small edition several years later by the Essence Music label from Brazil as "Black Flowers Of The Forest In The Cosmos". When Suishou no Fune were planning their latest trip to San Francisco in May of 2018, as part of filming for a documentary, plans were made for a follow-up recording. The quartet crammed themselves into a small rehearsal space, along with two guests who filmed the proceedings, and spent the afternoon creating dark, heavy psychedelic atmospheres.

Pirako and Kageo, on high-end and low-end guitar respectively, have an uncanny way of melding inner-space psychedelic drone with free-form guitar lines and spiritual sonic flow. Suishou no Fune has been a key part of Japan's scene for two decades now, playing as a duo as well as in extended format with drums and bass. San Francisco's Numinous Eye, started by guitarist Mason Jones after parting ways with his previous band SubArachnoid Space, has released a string of albums bridging noise-drone with psychedelic rock. Prime collaborator Mike Shoun, on drums and synthesizers, has also played with Thee Oh Sees, Peacers, and many others.

Noise Birds, as a trio of guitars driven by drums, demonstrates a cohesive vision and melding of minds as the layers of sound shift around each other. Improvised together on the spot, these songs ebb and flow as the players communicate without words, focused on working together with the goal of taking the music as far in, and out, as possible. This is music as speech, as collaboration, as friends coming together across an ocean to express themselves as one, presented here for everyone else to hear and enjoy.

FORMAT INFORMATION

LP Info: Limited to 300 copies.

LP includes MP3 Download Code.

Fifteen years and forty releases into their career, Shit And Shine return to Riot Season with some trademark aural filth. As if you’d expect anything different. Right?. ‘Doing Drugs, Selling Drugs’ is the sound of a man going back to the harsh sound of the early Shit And Shine works, and mixing it up with his recent dirge rock outings with USA/Mexico. It’s nasty. Mastered by James Plotkin.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: One of my most consistently favourable artists returns with a new album and it is a DOOZY freaks. Distorted and guttural, repetitive and incessant, it's the sound of an inward existential crises on meth amphetamine, ramped up well into the red and set alight with pyrotechnics. Mega.

FORMAT INFORMATION

Coloured LP Info: Very limited green vinyl.

Coloured LP includes MP3 Download Code.

Taras Bulba was formed in the winter of 2019 by Fred Laird and Jon Blacow. Taking a new direction from their last musical outfit EARTHLING SOCIETY, the duo embarked on an inner space mission for new age ideas, rhythmic mantras, ambient landscapes and creative micro dosing.

Taras Bulba ‘One’ is a pot-pouri of Eastern/ Asian sounds, Krautrock Rhythms, ambient landscapes, psychedelic blues and Orb inspired dub. Taking influences from Midori Takada, Tony Scott, CAN, Neu!, 6 organs of Admittance, The Orb and the soundtracks of David Lynch and Angelo Badalemnti.

Recorded between September 2018 to May 2019 on home recording equipment in different houses and any empty space large enough for a drum kit. A laptop dying with over worked CPU and amps so broken that the only alternative was to record straight into the desk. Working to a true DIY ethic like some paranoid Philip K.Dick character with a tin foil antenna; piecing together tracks created out of the ether like satellite messages from some imaginary planet.

FORMAT INFORMATION

Ltd LP Info: Limited 300 only black vinyl LP housed in a gloss finished outer sleeve with download code.

RRR was Hey Colossus’s seventh album, originally released back in 2011 by Riot Season on CD and ridiculously limited LP. This reissue has the original LP plus it comes with a bonus LP containing different takes and versions and a cut that didn't make the first press. It is housed in a single 350gsm fat spined printed sleeve with insert and download code.

THE STORY: The band had a weekend booked in at The Dropout Studio, Camberwell, the winter of 2010. They were going to do 'some recording'. The Friday of the weekend the six piece played a show at The Windmill in Brixton, home to the roof dog. The show was a typical (of the time) debauched affair, in the post show glow the band asked Jon (Notorious Hi-Fi Killers) and Leon (Shit+Shine) to come down to the session the following day: BRING GUITARS, WHAT CAN GO WRONG?. By noon they hadn't shown up so they got called: WHERE ARE YOU? Neither believed the offer to be true, by 1pm they showed up with guitar + synth in tow. An hour later RRR was being recorded by the now 8 piece band, lights down, volume up. Over 48 hours it was done. Not a single idea was brought to the table but somehow it all fell into place, assuming you think 'falling into place' sums up RRR (it totally does).

Legendary reviewing man, Peter Kemp (RIP), had this to say: "The record starts off with slow guitars and screaming ghostly voices like from a horror film, this first track ends with some talking and then goes into the next song which sounds like they are swinging the guitars around their heads and banging them on the floor....there are dark voices screaming ARRRRRRRRGGGHHHHH ARRRRRRRRRGGGGHHH ....The next song does sound a bit more Spanish as it starts with a guitar which sounds like a Spanish church bell and a deep voice which sounds like somebody praying and another voice which sounds like somebody dying....The closing song is faster and has talking in it and what sounds like a priest in the background and then lots of loud guitars come in - it is a good way to finish the record. Overall I think this was very good record by a brilliant band and I would give it ten out of ten."

The original vinyl sleeves were all handvpainted in Somerset by an artist called Chav, they took three months to do with each one being totally unique. The gatefold sleeves, all the inners were incredible works of art. The front and back were stencilled. The paint was blagged from a car spray paint firm, they sent three pallets to get the job done. A begging letter was sent to them and it fell onto some welcoming ears. Christ knows how it all came together. These copies are almost impossible to come by, rarely appearing anywhere. They sold out instantly.

This Riot Season re-releasing is limited to 500 copies. It won't get repressed again so for those who bought the original keep it safe and buy this one for the bonus record. For those new to the band following the record triple LP drop over the last couple of years on Rocket Recordings tuck in, but be prepared.

FORMAT INFORMATION

2xLtd LP includes MP3 Download Code.

Scotland's favourite space-psych-rock-gods return with a new album 'Psych Is Dead' before heading out on a lengthy UK/European tour including appearances at all the key genre festivals such as Safe As Milk, Wrong Fest, DesertFest, Raw Power Festival and Karma Fest.

Formed in 2010, The Cosmic Dead are a quartet from Glasgow, Scotland who share their music through good vibes and better vibrations. Known for their improv, chaos strewn, Buckfast smashed against the wall take on space music, they have roamed from Roadburn to Las Vegas, Dundee to Bangalore with each album offering a meditative window into a certain time and space.

'Psych Is Dead' is the sixth full length album from the band, the glowing embers of a a few days spent recording in a sweaty Sardinian kitchen overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Soon to be available on LP and CD via Riot Season Records, 'Psych Is Dead' is an aural exploration of their tumultuous universe.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Cosmic Dead have once again opened our minds with an expansive and hazy vision of reality. Chugging guitars and swirling synths mix with thunderous drums and all-round heavy vibes. It's a wonder their hearing is still ok with riffs like this going down.

Early Mammal are a 3-piece based in the home of South London Sludge, Dropout Studios. Formed in 2012

Early Mammal are: Rob Herian - guitar, drone box & vocals, Ben Davis - drums & Ben Tat - bass & baritone guitars

The band released two albums in 2013 and received strong reviews. Debut album 'Horror at Pleasure' was released in April of that year on Devouter. Denis Belindir provided cosmos expanding synth on this brooding dark invitation through the woods of the mind. The album, as with all to date was recorded live at Drop out over the course of 3 days. The LP streams continuously combining raw power and claustrophobic psyche blues, coaxing and sometimes dragging the listener through its journey. Influences of Captain Beefheart, Aphrodite's Child, White Hills, Hawkwind and Uncle Acid and The Deadbeats can be heard:

Less than half a year later the band released 'My Fire' on Convoy records. This album found Dan Davies (Wolf people) joining to record a more experimental late night driving experience through psych-rock, Denis Belindir's distinctive Turkish tinged synth really taking the trip to different levels.

‘I have been blown away by this promo twice today! Think Pink Floyd soundtrack work circa 1970 and Irmin Schmidt's incredible 3 album run of 'filmmusik' + 'Toy Planet' 1980-81. Yes THAT good! Eurorock pulses; a bit of SanFranjam; driving around mainland Europe in the early 70's in a lorry left over from the war, worried about the last generation's involvement...easily the best recording I've yet heard from them but, once again, nothing like their tremendous live show, Valve amps wall of cabs- everyone dies overdrive...but the grooves are still tight’ TOBY MEARING RADIO SHOW

Two well received albums on Devouter and Convoy lead to the band supporting Bong, and Baba Yaga’s Hut gigs around London, including the Raw Power Festival 2014

Third album, 'Take a Lover' is proudly released September 2015 through Riot Season records. After the sudden departure of Denis Belindir on synth, the band regrouped with a reinvigorated sound. Taking the experimentation of My Fire, the narcotic muscularity of Horror at Pleasure, this album represents a new chapter out of the woods and showing greater depth. With the arrival of Ben Tat on bass and baritone guitars, the band shares two common ancestors now: Elks and 85bears. The upcoming release reflects the sound of a lineup finding order through the entropy of extended jams and developing their sound. Recorded at Dropout studios by the band. Take a Lover is live and captures a stream of single takes from two days of winter, December 2014. It has become the catalyst to yet again prolific recording and sets the tone for where Early Mammal are going next.

FORMAT INFORMATION

LP includes MP3 Download Code.

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2015 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

LIMITED EDITION RECORD STORE DAY EXCLUSIVE 400 ONLY VINYL LP, PRESSED ON NEON BLUE VINYL WITH DOWNLOAD CODE. FEATURING MEMBER OF HEY COLOSSUS & REIGNS

HENRY BLACKER have been up and down the country and into Europe relentlessly for the past 18 months, three times playing twice in a day, slamming heads in doors, raging left and right. Touring their debut, 'Hungry Dogs Will Eat Dirty Puddings' (Riot Season, 2014 Cat# REPOSELP039), and road testing the new tunes that have made up LP TWO: 'Summer Tombs'. Recorded in one brutal day, one voice-box shredding day. Westminster Brown (Part Chimp) at the desk, South London, back in September 2014.

Tunes are more complex, more speed, more frustrated, with the same vocal mangle and rhythmic splat. Seven tracks, 29 minutes, SET TO CRUISE CONTROL AND RIDE. In May they head out on tour with Torche in the UK, and other dates around it. ONWARDS.