Vega Rally is an incendiary self-taught, bedroom producer hailing from Manchester into big beats, baggy guitar riffs & Fred Perry. Since signing to independent Manchester record label; Spirit Of Spike Island in 2022, Vega Rally has released 3 earworm singles, hitting over 100k streams online, receiving airplay across BBC 6 music & Radio X in the process. He has also remixed tunes for underground indie starlets; Pastel & exciting upcoming folk artist; Ava Carlyle. Interest on the underground scene culminated in tour supports With Afflecks Palace, Pastel, Andrew Cushin and invites to perform at Isle Of Wight Festival, Humber Street Fest, Truck Festival & Why Not? Festival.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Infinity '93
A2. Come Out N Play
B1. This Moment
B2. Back At It Again

In the early 1990s, a team of linguists, engineers, anthropologists, and archaeologists were tasked with constructing a type of communication that could transcend time. How might we converse with future civilizations when language may evolve or dissolve entirely? The result yielded the design of spike fields; a strange construction of granite thorns bursting from the earth to alert its viewers to the deadly uninhabitability of nuclear waste disposal sites. For Maria BC (they/them), this state of temporal focus molds the wanderings on their second full length album Spike Field. How do we connect with the weathered shadow of our experience, while envisioning the self a few steps ahead of us? While their debut album Hyaline (2022, Father/Daughter) explored grief and anxiety through a series of character-led accounts, Spike Field recognizes that the past will continue to lurk below the surface until we decide to break through the soil.

Spike Field was recorded in the home of a family friend. The home featured an out-of-tune baby Steinway piano, complete with squeaky hammers and strange, sporadic sounds. The piano is sprinkled throughout the album, and features extensively on opener “Amber,” showcasing Maria BC’s looser, more extensive arrangements. The song flickers with electronic wonder, like a wave seeking out its station, before crashing into the angelic choral introduction of “Watcher”. Strings, plucked guitar and buzzing swells accompany their classically-trained mezzo- soprano voice on “Return to Sender,” a song that focuses on the frustrations and turmoil of being unable to reach a loved one––both physically and emotion-ally.

Spike Field reminds us that despite our best efforts to bury certain aspects of ourselves, they will always lurk beneath the surface. Instead of ignoring the seeds striving to break through, we can point to these places with a curious grace, concocting a language that transcends words to converse with our previous selves. Maria BC pieces together juxtaposing sonic landscapes and oscillating vocals to represent the thread of miscommunication, or the failure of words, that weaves throughout the album, transforming it into a distinct and ever-evolving sonic tongue. If we listen, we might find something new within ourselves

RiYL: Grouper, Big Thief, Marissa Nadler, Cat Power, Juliana Barwick, Mount Eerie, Espers, Diane Cluck, Six Organs, Steven R Smith, Linda Perhacs

TRACK LISTING

1 Amber (3:54)
2 Watcher (3:04)
3 [ A Backlit Door ] (0:52)
4 Haruspex (5:19)
5 Return To Sender (3:21)
6 Tire Iron (3:49)
7 Daydrinker (3:58)
8 Tied (ft. Issei Herr) (4:16)
9 Still (5:13)
10 Lacuna (4:16)
11 Mercury (4:08)
12 Spike Field (6:27) 

Manchester band Afflecks Palace return with their sophomore LP.

Produced by J. Fender, Afflecks Palace vocalist and Spirit Of Spike Island label boss said “This album is an ode to escapism from the modern day obsession with superficial status, wealth and success - propelled by social media F.O.M.O (fear of missing out)”.

If you're not from round here, the band are named after the legendary shopping emporium which is just down the road from us. Afflecks Palace was, and still is, a mecca for all things "alternative"( a word from back in the day!) and rose to fame during the heady days of Madchester. It was also  home to the Identity clothing shop which became famous for it's legendary "On  The Sixth Day God  Created Manchester" t-shirts.

Afflecks Palace are real music magpies, in the best possible sense. They've taken the energy and attitude of '89 and created super melodic guitar gems that tip their (bucket) hat to The Stone Roses, Inspirals and the like, as well as plundering classic pop from the 60s via Britpop and right  through to the present day. In doing so they've managed to create their own euphoric, hook filled sound. 

The new soundtrack to dancing til the sun comes up and weekends mooching around the Northern Quarter, thers's just a vibe and spirit around this band that's gonna be difficult to resist.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Like a greatest hits of Manchester music, all rolled up into one jangling, baggy, indie-pop nugget, this band are gonna go far.

TRACK LISTING

1. Dancing Is Not A Crime
2. Holidays
3. Wide Eyes On The Night Bus
4. WAKE UP!
5. Patchwork Quilted Veins
6. Big Fish, Small Pond
7. Ghosts On The Underground
8. I'm So Glad You're On Ecstasy
9. Hey Stranger
10. Find Your Place

Death Drives A Cadillac was Spike In Vain’s second album, never officially released and unheard in its final form until now. Like many hardcore bands circa ’84 and ’85, the group was ready to further expand its palette and ease off the thrash tempos. Recorded roughly a year after Disease Is Relative with a bigger budget, the album is even more wide-ranging, and the songs are more fleshed out. “Despair grew inside her, I grew inside her. She named me Spirit Death, and this is my song” sings Chris Marec, the vocalist on half of this LP.

Though less “young” than their debut, that album’s darkness lingers, but here has a more removed, observational quality, with many songs sung in character or in the third person, along with a tendency for anthropomorphic allegory. It has a bit less to do with screaming for death to come than with a growing resignation to being the other, a recognition of inescapable alienation and its relation to childhood trauma. —all with a heaping side of absurdity and a sense of wonder at the gradually unfolding endtimes.

That said, many of the tracks wouldn’t be out of place on the debut, and some feature exotic tunings. Bits of roots music come into play as well—gospel, blues, and country figure to some extent in a third of the songs, sometimes in convoluted, Beefheart-esque ways, and at other times toying with genre archetypes as a cat does a mouse.

TRACK LISTING

1. Too Cool
2. Abysmal Child
3. Spirit Death
4. Dogsleds In Heaven
5. Rattlesnake's Wedding
6. Escape From The Zoo
7. Lady Luck Is Dead
8. Valentine's Day
9. Big Black Locomotive
10. Party In The Ground
11. Totem Fields
12. Gospel Motel
13. Count Basie's Ghost

In addition to showcasing Spike Priggen's performing and songwriting gifts, "There's No Sound In Flutes" also draws upon the talents of many of the stellar players with whom Priggen has crossed paths over the years. The album was engineered by longtime collaborator Adam Lasus, whose recent recording credits include work with the Rogers Sisters and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Cheap Trick drummer Bun E. Carlos, a long-time Priggen pal, is featured on two songs, while other tracks feature such stalwart New York players as guitarists Mark Spencer (Laura Cantrell/Jay Farrar) and Jon Graboff (Ryan Adams/Amy Rigby), bassists Danny Weinkauf (They Might Be Giants/Fountains of Wayne) and Scott Yoder (Kevin Salem/Amy Rigby), keyboardists Rob Arthur (Joan Osborne/Peter Frampton), drummer Brian Doherty (They Might Be Giants/XTC) and keyboardist/arranger CP Roth (Blessid Union of Souls/Ozzy Osbourne), who masterminded the album's inventive faux-orchestral arrangements. The record is a mix of alt country and Big Star / Early R.E.M.