Much like the duo’s music, the story of Rural France is both mundane and magical. Tom Brown (also of transatlantic janglepunks Teenage Tom Petties) and Rob Fawkes moved to London in their mid-twenties. Despite living under the same roof, they never picked up a guitar – except for one drunken, failed attempt at writing a Spoon song ('Big Chops' …don’t ask).

It was only after both separately relocating to Wiltshire and starting families that they began assembling songs as a way of meeting up. Tom had amassed a pile of sprightly slacker jams that were calling out for Fawkes’ messily melodic guitar lines. Rural France was born.

After a debut album on their hero, ex-Lemonhead Nic Dalton’s Half-a-Cow Records, they retreated to a garage to record their next two albums: 'RF' (2021) and 'Exacamondo!' (2024), both released on much-respected jangle label Meritorio Records.

Despite being lo-fi in the truest GbV sense, both records were warmly received by the DIY indie blogosphere, with their short, scrappy, but supremely melodic songs landing on numerous AOTY lists. 'RF' even won Album of the Year at Janglepop Hub.

Raven Sings The Blues probably summed up the sound best: “With drunken visions of Beach Boys harmonies playing in the back of their heads and hooks that consume Teenage Fanclub cheeriness with the same beautiful brevity that drives Tony Molina, the pair have knocked out eleven rumpled classics.”

Album four, 'SLOTHS', arrives via Meritorio Records and Safe Suburban Home Records, and is a slightly different beast. For one, it’s been mixed by a professional – Rob Slater (Westside Cowboy, Yard Act, Thank) – giving the guitars and drums room to breathe. It’s easily their most high-fidelity record to date.

It’s also their jangliest, most baroque and thoughtful album yet. But alongside added organ, horns and mellotron – and drums from Tom’s Teenage Tom Petties bandmate Jeff Hamm – it still retains the buzzes, hums and little freak-outs that stick to the duo’s original “Pavement playing Teenage Fanclub” mission statement.

“Rob and I both wanted to do something a little slower and a little more melancholy,” says Tom. “We resisted our usual urge to hit the distortion pedal and made something that fitted where we are now and celebrates how we still listen to Meatloaf when we get drunk.”

'SLOTHS' is also the most thematically consistent Rural France record to date. While it wouldn’t be right to call it grown-up, it definitely has homeowners’ insurance. From the Silver Jews-esque Americana of 'Slab' and mid-life rallying cry of 'Thirty Seven Forever', to the horn-embossed loser anthem 'Lonely Heart Pyramid Scheme', the songs celebrate (and rail against) the absurdities of getting older, forming a band in your thirties, and the strange phenomenon of time passing.

Because no matter how slow you move, everything else goes fast. 'SLOTHS'.

TRACK LISTING

1. Slab
2. Thirty-Seven Forever
3. How You Gonna Get Even
4. Someone You Forgot
5. Lonely Heart Pyramid Scheme
6. Soulseeker
7. Jukebox Weepie
8. Casio
9. High Hopes (Ballad Of Rural France)
10. Electrical Tape 

Ben Auld is a power-pop artist out of Norwich, UK. His band is made up of close friends that are active in the local scene. It features Duncan Baker on drums, Conor Etteridge on guitar, and George Witty on bass. A fan of lo-fi, scrappy DIY bands like Guided By Voices, The Replacements and Bill Fox, Auld spent his early twenties learning how to write the perfect 2 minute pop song. He also spent this time figuring out how to record to tape, and produce his own recordings. He moved to Bristol at 25 and befriended jazz musician and potter Nick Dover, who let him moonlight at his recording studio ‘Canyon Sound’. Over a two-year period he wrote and recorded the songs that would become 'Lemongrass' (Earth Libraries, 2022), having performed and produced it entirely solo.

In his late twenties, Auld moved back to his hometown after struggling to replicate the community he had back in Norwich. At this point, he began performing the songs of 'Lemongrass' with friends who encouraged him to play live. “When I finished Lemongrass I sent it to my sister and she shared it with her boyfriend Conor and his housemate Duncan. They were super into it and so supportive.”

He also began playing drums in an alt-country band for the next few years, touring Northern Europe and the length and breadth of the UK, before focusing once again on his solo work. 'Loserdom', Auld’s second album, is a co-release by UK label Safe Suburban Home and US label Repeating Cloud and represents a big departure from his earlier twee-folk sound. 'Loserdom' is a louder and more ambitious shift toward blown-out power-pop, inspired by records like Grand Prix by Teenage Fanclub, Pinkerton by Weezer and Tony Molina’s Dissed and Dismissed.

Auld wrote the record during a period of personal upheaval. Moving cities, leaving relationships and quitting bands resulted in songs filled with resentment, shame and a sardonic, over-the-top admission of failure. These songs are also a celebration of the relief that comes when you accept your losses. Auld first heard the term 'Loserdom' said by Walter Becker in a Steely Dan documentary: “I thought it was such a funny and tragic term and felt some affinity with it”.

Layered vocal harmonies and Bach-inspired guitar solos give the impression of a rock opera, while the arrangement and structure of these songs are concise and always conscious to not feel superfluous. Each song squeezes itself under the 3 minute mark with unhinged feedback, ripping solos and a refreshing degree of unpredictability.

The drums and rhythm guitars were tracked at Sick Room Studios in the Norfolk countryside, and were engineered by Owen Turner who owns and runs the studio. All of the remaining pieces (the solos, bass, keys and vocals) were then recorded over a period of almost a year at Auld’s home. The record was mixed down to ¼” tape with Auld’s bandmate Conor Etteridge assisting with the mixing process. Auld reached out to Dylan Wall to master the record, having appreciated his work on Hotline TNT’s 'Nineteen in Love'.

'Loserdom' is certainly influenced by melodic, harmony-rich American bands such as Weezer, Jellyfish and Big Star, as well as the 90s Glasgow power-pop scene. Auld channels the heartfelt lyricism of Norman Blake’s songs in Teenage Fanclub, as well as the absurd guitar wizardry of Tony Molina. In doing so, 'Loserdom' amps up the emotion, harmonies, and volume for an album that captures a rocky life transition with tongue-in-cheek drama.

TRACK LISTING

1. Opening
2. Chalice,
3. Red Bandana
4. Reckoned
5. From Now On
6. Talking Dog
7. If I Had The Guts
8. High School Hierarchies
9. Hell-bent
10. Song of Betrayal
11. Saint Bartholomew
12. Long Before I Felt the Grace
13. Sacrament / Loserdom

With his fifth album, 'Eyen Forever', London-based singer-songwriter Eli Carvajal completes a two-album chronicle of love, loss and rebirth from a time living in Japan.

It is a deeply introspective work drawing on the classic singer-songwriter poetics of Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell and the wide-eyed intimacy of Adrianne Lenker, Mount Eerie and Bill Callahan. With minimal embellishments, these contemplative songs focus on strummed guitar melodies and Carvajal’s warm blanket of a voice.

Musically, the familiar fare has a strange twist coming from Carvajal's unorthodox playing style. He plays left-handed with an upside-down right-handed guitar, using exclusively open tunings. This creates a spacious sound, with drone notes continuously ringing around Carvajal’s lyrics.

The songs don’t follow verse-chorus-verse song structures, instead unfolding organically along a unifying melody/harmony, unfurling laterally like any good journey. It has a defined destination but the route can throw in surprises. He refers to his writing style as ‘next-door to storytelling’.

The storytelling on this collection begins with fourth album'Eat Shiitake Now', which was created in real-time, chronological order during his first year living in Tokyo, Japan in the wake of the whirlwind marriage that brought him there (only to end nine months into his stay). Over this time, he taught English, singing and songwriting in different schools around the city, recording the album in his bedroom in Higashikitazawa, Tokyo, overlooking Mount Fuji.

Released in 2024, that album captured the realness of every moment in stark detail. 'Eyen Forever' acts as the reflective full-stop to this period of his life, telling stories from his final year in Japan: looking back at what was, dwelling on another short-lived relationship and drawing parallels to his twin’s battles with mental health and Carvajal’s own powerlessness to help.

Back in the UK and closing the page on his twenties, this album is a love letter to his time in Japan, a farewell, filled with gratitude. While making contact with the profound, the music is intimate. As a listener you are invited into close proximity with Carvajal's experiences, like eavesdropping on a personal monologue.

He delves into his own pain, joy and longing with a stark vulnerability and humour as he creates music as frail and strong as the human condition. There are layers of meaning within every line of his poetic lyrics that mean something specific and special to him, but can also be interpreted in comforting ways by listeners. If you care about lyrics coming from an honest and authentic place (brimming with humanity), 'Eyen Forever' is your next favourite album.

While this is Carvajal's personal story, the Tokyo location is as much the main character as he is, seeping into every idea and every note on the record. Hear it in the thunder from a typhoon that broke out during the recording of ‘New Year’ and ‘Cinnabon Odori Day’.

‘Gemini III’ was written on his bike as Carvajal broke into tears whilst riding across Tokyo, en route to teach junior high school kids about Canada (a place he has never visited) before they went on a field trip there. They sang ‘O Canada’ to him as he arrived. This unexplained burst of uncontrollable emotion shows a single person overwhelmed by the beauty and enormity of the world, grounded by the relationships of those around them.

This explains 'Eyen Forever' perfectly.

TRACK LISTING

1. Forever
2. Scar
3. Fear Of Love 
4. Spirit In The Window
5. New Year
6. Stretch Marks
7. Churabee
8. Conkers
9. Gemini III
10. Follow Home
11. Crisis House
12. Cinnabon Odori Day

A mash-note to the transatlantic indie underground scenes of the 1980s-90s, ATVO sees SP traverse the musical coalface; exploring every nook and cranny; every crag and every surface perused; all in service to create a contemporary rock recording assured in purpose and astute in praxis.

Covering sonic territory drawing beyond the now-established post-punk references, ATVO builds on ‘23s Red Sport International by allowing melody the opportunity to play a more prominent role, as well as the introduction of new sonic textures in the form of acoustic and twelve-string guitars, pianos and vocal harmonies, whilst the inclusion of odd-time signatures and darker timbres drawn from Post-Hardcore offers a welcome contrast to ATVO’s lighter moments, as the listener embarks on a vast journey through the kaleidoscopic terrain unfolding via medium of stereophonic sound over the course of 40 or so minutes.

15 songs are featured, drawn from 19 recorded across Erbistock Mill, JT Soar and Klang-Bop Studios, covering subject matter ranging from the usual rants about the prevailing trends, neurotyp. conventions, social media’s role in the decay of society and failed attempts at unionisation in the contemporary workforce, along with more narrative driven works covering successful revolutionary momentum and the würmhole that brought neoliberalism into being.

SP pair unbridled enthusiasm with unlimited ideas; they know their worth and are happy to prove it.

Who knows, maybe one day Our Band Could Be Your Life?

TRACK LISTING

1. Easy Now!
2. Rope
3. The Bosses Are Stealing Yr Days!
4. Rule O' Threes
5. Sisy Fox
6. Ex-IRA Voice-Actor
7. Würmhole
8. Hardcore Parcel
9. The Trouble With Being Born By E.M. Cioran
10. Fuck No; I Jangle!
11. N8 Musik!
12. This Infinite Hotel
13. Go Virus!
14. An Empty Notebook (Full Of Ideas)
15. Dances W/ Starships 

There are two versions of Perennial: the adventurous art-punk modernists, layering British Invasion pop, 60s soul, 90s Dischord post-hardcore, electronic music, and free-jazz, and the live three-piece whose bombastic 20 minute sets have become a “must-see” in the New England music scene. What started in 2015 as an all-encompassing art project has since grown into an honest-to-goodness word-of-mouth phenomenon, with over 300 shows played in the last six years (including shows with Guerilla Toss, Bully, Calvin Johnson, Jon Spencer, Sheer Mag, Teenage Halloween, and Downtown Boys) and multiple pressings of both of their full-length records. Perennial formed the band they always wanted to hear, and when they play, they're the band they always wanted to see.

Perennial’s breakthrough 2022 LP, In The Midnight Hour, was their first time working with producer Chris Teti (The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die), a collaboration that garnered rave reviews from BrooklynVegan, Under The Radar, Post-Trash, Pop Matters, NPR Music and more, and marked a new creative benchmark. Feeling inspired, the band once again worked with Teti on 2023’s 7” EP The Leaves Of Autumn Symmetry, which earned more high praise from Stereogum, Paste, Consequence, Alternative Press, and Bandcamp Daily. Their latest release is the adventurous, experimental mod punk LP Art History, available June 7 via Ernest Jenning Record Co. and Safe Suburban Home.

TRACK LISTING

1. Art History
2. Tambourine On Snare
3. Action Painting
4. Jet Set Mono
5. A Is For Abstract
6. Up-tight
7. How The Ivy Crawls
8. Tiger Technique
9. Mouthful Of Bees
10. B Is For Brutalism
11. The Mystery Tone
12. Perennial Meets The Wolfman