Despite a wealth of art and music projects under his wing, the Transylvanian born producer remains something of a mystery online, even to those blogs that have loyally posted his tracks.

The last few years have been spent living in a Milan squat, creating art installations, running an illegal club and his working on his own label Hundebiss Records, turning out exquisitely crafted limited origami-packaged records featuring the music of such talents as James Ferraro, Hype Williams, Hair Police, Sewn Leather, Jaws and more.

But now Dracula Lewis' own music comes into the spotlight. His output is one of deep listening, lo-fi aggressive electronics, field recordings and, way down in its core, an underlying melody and unexpected warmth.

As Fact put it, Dracula Lewis makes “expansive, pseudo-horrorflick music that oscillates between ethereal ambience and grinding, zombie-attack noise freakouts”.

Whatever the words used to describe Dracula Lewis, there's a dark magic and hypnotic allure to the distorted electronics, samples, chants & loops that he refers to as “a tribute to dub music maestros”. And it's this magic that has earned him the accolade of being Souterrain Transmissions' first European signing.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Chrome Riderz (Feat. Stargate)
A2. Permafrost
B1. Marble Eyes
B2. Spacies

The Fresh & Onlys look exactly like a biker gang composed of record store employees who could stomp your ass while shouting Kobaïan (that language ‘70s French prog band Magma made up) at you, if they felt like it. So, it’s cool if you feel a bit unnerved when first meeting these four shaggy San Franciscans, even if that meeting only occurs via their songs.

There’s something very bad-ass about their music; it’s entirely assured and brazenly unique. You are free to think of them as part of a vibrant Bay Area scene (because they are) or try to link them to the nu-garage movement of several years ago (which is a stretch). But whichever contextual lens you use, it hardly matters. The band is so comfortable with mixing and matching seemingly disparate genre elements at this point that as a listener, it’s easy feel like a mouse batted about in a corner by a housecat.

Long Slow Dance is a mature, anthemic and—in subtle ways—pretty weird album. A lot is going on here, but it’s not in your face about it. While not their first time in a “real” studio, it’s instantly clear that their time spent at Phil Manley’s Lucky Cat Studios was the most fun and focused recording environment the group’s been in. The tunes were captured on the same 16-track two-inch reel-to-reel that Warren Zevon recorded “Werewolves of London. They slyly propel the record beyond what you thought it might be about, or was going to be on first listen (perhaps another tasteful and kind of weird rock record which mixes and matches cool stuff from obscure record collections). It is tasteful, of course, and it clearly mixes many things together. But it does this at the service of forceful songs—frequently witty and often lovely songs. That’s the real reason it’s difficult to stop playing this album once you start. And there you have it—the Fresh and Onlys, here to mess with your head and have you say “Thank you.”

"driving garage rock stomp...vocally loaded with nonchalant cool" – The Fly

"May this band continue to crank out inventive little nuggets like this long into the future" – Pitchfork

“…swoonily melodic. I would not complain about a whole album like this.” - “Yes or No” track feature Stereogum

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: Top drawer breezy garage indie-pop from this San Franciscan four-piece.

TRACK LISTING

1. 20 Days And 20 Nights
2. Yes Or No
3. Long Slow Dance
4. Presence Of Mind
5. Dream Girls
6. Fire Alarm
7. Executioner's Song
8. No Regard
9. Euphoria
10. Foolish Person
11. Wanna Do Right By You

Bonus Disc
1. Take Back The Night
2. Heel Toe
3. Do What I Came To Do
4. Long Slow Dance (Alternate Version)

Ganglians’ affection for a sweet melody and wistful lyrical turn was apparent on their acclaimed debut set 'Monster Head Room' and their collectable Captured Tracks 7” of 2009, ‘Blood on the Sand’ – but Still Living, predominantly produced by Robby Moncrieff (Dirty Projectors, Zach Hill), furthers the vision of Grubbs and company. Says the man himself: “It’s a double‐LP for a reason – we wanted to try many different ideas while doing everything in real time, with no metronome and mainly our own instruments. There’s a whole bunch of things tossed in, with various styles going on.”

But, brilliantly, the seams between stylistic shifts aren’t detectable – Ganglians have taken the experimental blueprints of this album’s predecessor and updated (and expanded) their designs. So, moods move from quiet introspection to boisterous merriment, chords stimulating the synapses while the toes can’t keep from twitching. Says Grubbs of the end results: “This is outsider music, but with a pop sensibility that brings everyone in.”

He’s right to highlight the non‐exclusivity of this fare – it might have been made with envelope‐pushing intent, but little on 'Still Living' will leave the listener truly perplexed; unless, of course, they choose to delve deep into the rabbit hole of Grubbs’ inspirations. It’s personal, intimate and romantic, with metaphor preferred over the matter‐of‐fact musing of some other bands riding loosely comparable rhythms. “It’s pretty honest music,” says Grubbs. “Honestly, everyone feels a great range of emotions, like awkwardness and self‐doubt, and not wanting to have to be cool to be cool. And that’s what these songs are like.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Drop The Act
2. That’s What I Want
3. Evil Weave
4. Sleep
5. Jungle
6. Bradley
7. Things To Know
8. Good Times
9. The Toad
10. California Cousins
11. Faster
12. My House

Annabel is from New Zealand but currently based on the east coast of the USA. She cut her teeth in cult bands such as Christchurch?s psychedelic surf outfit Hawaii Five-O, Space Dust and the Hiss Explosion, then went on to complete post-graduate studies in computer-based composition at the Universities of Canterbury and Auckland in New Zealand. After her studies, Annabel returned to what she loved best – making psychedelic pop music – and Bachelorette appeared on the scene in 2005.

Her breathtaking live set developed around a 'band' of 3 old CRT monitors, which were borrowed from acquaintances or picked up from recycling stations and thrift stores in each town. On stage, the CRT 'band' simultaneously displayed waveform patterns and other synchronised visuals corresponding to separate recorded instruments, as Annabel sang and played along with them.

Though Bachelorette's third full-length record was written on Earth – Oxford, UK; Tripoli, Libya; Millwood, VA – it is more at home gliding through surreal galaxies and swimming through a matrix of coolly illuminated neural networks. But these journeys are the same – both echo with an aching solitude, the conditions that Annabel Alpers needs to dream up her minimalist electro psych pop. And even when local sound waves enter her work – as cathedral chimes did in Oxford - they return in swathed in a lunar halo.

The album is epic from the beginning. Hovering over a fluttering blanket of voices, a ghostly vision of the future is distilled with the same seductive inevitability of a Greek oracle. Our destiny set, Bachelorette gestures toward an alien solar system. Here, some planets shimmer, shrouded in an emerald light, another finds a civilization forever in the trance of a gorgeous mechanical heartbreak. Still other planets are pummeled by asteroids of distorted sounds and dissonant, unmusical space trash. Mixed by Nicholas Vernhes at Rare Book Room (Animal Collective, Beach House) in Brooklyn, these twelve tracks are built on minimal synth grooves, strummed guitar, innocent whistles wondering through cold hallways, and occasional accompaniment on drums. But all are guided by Bachelorette's ethereal lead vocal. This album's greatest triumph is that its abundant pop melodies displace any heroic presumption associated with such an ambitious journey. Whether wandering through your labyrinthine, echoing consciousness or embarking on an interstellar marathon, you'll want to sing along.