Manchester’s Gnod and New York’s White Hills stand as titans of Psychedelic & Space Rock. Together they bend the very notions of what rock can do, seemingly suspending our sense of time. Their alchemical chemistry and a fateful session at the Dropout Studio in Camberwell gave rise to the legendary, ongoing series of records under the moniker 'Drop Out'. The records became an influential and sprawling series of extended pieces that remain touchstones of contemporary psychedelia. Having been called “absolutely essential,” “best I have heard – ever,” “A masterpiece,” the Drop Out series finally gets its definitive edition.

'Drop Out III' is a wholly new iteration of Gnod & White Hills’ collaboration, the “director’s cut,” if you will. 'Drop Out III' is replete with sounds recorded in the “Drop Out era” that have never been heard before. The double LP features a cornucopia of expanded versions of essential songs complete with new arrangements, mixes, and instrumentation. Classics like 'Run-A-Round' and the eponymous 'Drop Out' maintain their motorik drive and fizzing melodies with a new shine. The set also features a full LP of pieces never before included on vinyl, including the beautifully serene 'Air Streams' in its original droning arc. The album comes with a download of a full album’s worth of bonus material, all crafted around the 'Drop Out' era. White Hills’ “Decorating Time” showcases the depth of the band’s subtlety, rich with minute turns and a twist of psychedelic ambience. “Nothing NEU! Under the Sky” captures the invigorating pulse and dynamics of Gnod’s live performances. Together, this expansive body of work epitomizes the sense of possibility each band exudes, and the potency of their expertly crafted brand of Transatlantic psychedelia.

15 years after the series began, 'Drop Out III' is an essential album for lovers of contemporary psychedelic rock, a testament to the power of this collaboration.

TRACK LISTING

1. Drop Out
2. Run-A-Round
3. Wellhang
4. Spaced Man
5. Elka
6. Undressing Time
7. Air Streams
8. Unify

The Body have been a leading force of innovation in heavy music for over two decades. The prolific duo of guitarist/vocalist Chip King and Lee Buford (on percussion/electronics) have consistently expanded the scope of what heavy music can be. The Body has produced a wealth of groundbreaking collaborations and benchmark albums that over the past 2 decades have changed the perceptions and directions of heavy music. Known for the monolithic force of their music, and their inventive production techniques, their albums are benchmarks in the expansion and evolution of heavy music. Tightly packed with deceptively nuanced arrangements, exhilarating and challenging distortion, their albums are possessed of an unmistakably singular sound. 'The Crying Out Of Things' is no exception, a culmination of all that The Body have done before, highlighting their mastery of dynamic, monumental music that pushes toward the unmistakable sound of oblivion.

From the band’s origins, incorporating unorthodox methods to achieve an oppressive atmosphere has been essential to their alchemy. Full choirs, unexpected sound samples, 70s-inspired horn lines, dub drum beats and diverse guest performances have speckled their varied and eclectic repertoire, the common thread being a complex webs of distortion and noise. 'The Crying Out Of Things' harnesses elements from their ground breaking catalog: the expansive ecstatic distortion and live energy of 'I’ve Seen All I Need To See', the ambitious layering and arrangements on 'I Have Fought Against It, But I Can’t Any Longer', and the corroded pop edge of 'No One Deserves Happiness' into one compact work. Guest performances include vocalist Ben Eberle, horn player Dan Blacksburg, and recent collaborator Felicia Chen add essential textural range. 'The Crying Out Of Things' makes clear The Body’s distinct power to convey a dark range of emotions, thought inventive arrangements, dynamics, and sound selections.

The album’s embrace of noise is a comprehensive display of the multitude of expressions possible with abrasive sound, a skill that The Body have pioneered and refined. “I think for us the key to the way we use noise is, it’s not the only element,” says Buford. “You’ve gotta really listen if you’re into noise. But it also has to have dynamics. Where, say, BIG|BRAVE (who have a similar ethos) expresses it in this more intellectual, minimalist way, The Body comes from an instinctual, maximalist way. We’re trying to cover it ALL.” There’s a delicate equilibrium to the compositions and momentum to each song on 'The Crying Out Of Things'. 808 kick drums and dissonant horns add clarity and punch to the chaos on 'Last Things', a reimagined version of a song from their 'A Home on Earth' EP. 'Removal' does slow-motion twirls of dubby drums and echoing samples before being subsumed in a droning throng. 'A Premonition' and 'The Building' act as bracing odes to the duo’s love of hip hop and R&B with undeniable grooves where 'Less Meaning' stands as one of the band’s most aesthetically punk songs, an uptempo wreckingball emboldened by glitches and tambourine. The focus of distortion shifts across instruments and sections with subtle precision, embellishing hulking drums one moment and the shriek of King’s voice the next. By weaving subtleties into the fabric of each piece, The Body creates starker contrasts and more extreme swings of emotional weight from one instant to the next.

The Body stand alone in their ability to connect disparate influences and collaborators into a wholly original, potent and singular work. Alongside producer/engineer Seth Manchester, the duo’s voracious and omnivorous musical appetites have pushed the studio as an instrument into new avenues to conjure profound feelings from the music. 'The Crying Out Of Things' cements The Body’s place as a leader of heavy new music, their boundless creativity, their defining ability to convey anguish, created with a visceral clarity to devastating impact. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Last Things
2. Removal
3. Careless And Worn
4. A Premonition
5. Less Meaning
6. The Citadel Unconquered
7. End Of Line 04:13
8. The Building
9. All Worries

Black Pus is the guttural, raw, freeform project of singular drummer, vocalist, & artist Brian Chippendale. A heavy drum foundation and distorted electronics anchor Black Pus’ sound, and remain directly connected to the intensity of Chippendale’s legendary duo with Brian Gibson, Lightning Bolt. Recorded at
Machines with Magnets by engineer Seth Manchester, Terrestrial Seethings is pure energy, pure Black Pus, capturing the precision, frenzy, and ecstatic performance in all its glory. After more than a decade playing and improvising, Chippendale’s imagination and curiosity continue to push his world of twisted joy in expressive new directions.

While known primarily for his iconic style of drumming with Lightning Bolt, Chippendale has also worked alongside artists such as Björk, The Flaming Lips, Boredoms, Andrew W.K., and Lee “Scratch” Perry. Outside of music related endeavors, Chippendale has made a name for himself as a renowned painter and painterly silk screen artist. Known for his frenetic color work,
for 'Terrestrial Seethings' Brian created striking black drawings that, like its title, pervert assumptions. Chippendale’s approach to crafting music as Black Pus mirrors his restless and indomitable spirit as a creator. His daily practice of making music and art on his own is both as meditative and cathartic, as it is inquisitive and spontaneous.

“This art is a river of energy that I jump into and ride along with,” says Chippendale. “It’s not really music made to tell written stories. It’s energy music first and foremost.” The pieces that shape Terrestrial Seethings brim with his preternatural ability to unearth new ideas and explore them with abandon while maintaining a sense of cohesion and a kind of alien musicality.

TRACK LISTING

1. Ping Pong
2. Hungry Animal
3. So Deep
4. Mark My Word
5. Celestial Seethings
6. Gothic Socks
7. Wide Asleep
8. Terrestrial Heathens

‘Black Bile’ compiles some of Umberto’s most resplendent, sanguine music to date. The solo work of LA composer Matt Hill draws heavily from the world of cinema, spinning immersive narratives and rich atmospheres using sound alone.

Hill, an active composer for film and television, recently scored the 2022 Jerry Pyle film ‘Loveseat’ (soundtrack was released in 2023). Other recent scores include the 2020 thriller ‘Archenemy’, from the producers of cult classic ‘Mandy’.

Inspired by the ancient Greek theory of the ‘four humors’, an early medical theory linking the inner workings of the human body to the elements, ‘Black Bile’ specifically links the feelings of melancholy with autumn. Hill’s celestial compositions are an autumnal soundtrack conveying beauty, yearning, reflection and comfort.

Many of the album’s phrases are constructed from just two notes or sounds, arranged by Hill into complex patterns that undulate with an organic pulse. The spare melodic structure holds myriad small and beautiful details. The songs began with Hill improvising on the piano, to find the notes and patterns that created the musical and emotional structure from which he could expand with textural detail. Hill then would often remove the initial structure leaving a sparer, more skeletal one which he could again expand upon to create a full piece. The careful attention to each detail gives his minimal compositions emotional heft.

The album masterfully stakes Umberto’s claim among other avant-ambient boundary pushers such as Lawrence English or Laurel Halo.

“There is real compositional variety and intrigue in his songs… elaborate and unpredictable... it’s hard not to be impressed with Umberto’s evolution of late, as lacerating experience as it may be at times.” - The Quietus

“Songs that are subtle yet unsettling, like a horror film that rattles your psyche without relying on tired shock tactics.” - Self-Titled

“Masterfully polished and skilfully arranged... dazzling” - Brainwashed

TRACK LISTING

Grasp
Spoonwood
Empty Shell
October
Monkshood
Vestige
Dying Honey & Linden

The world of Endon is one of constant evolution and revolution. The Tokyo-based ensemble of Taichi Nagura, Koki Miyabe and Taro Aiko have made a name for themselves with their relentless exploration of sonic extremes in the vein of artists such as the Boredoms and Merzbow. The resulting music is a powerful emotional release for both artist and listener.

The band’s commitment to evolution and dystopian noise as a playground for exploration and pure expression carried them through the recent departure of their drummer, Shin Yokota, and the tragic death of brother and band member Etsuo Nagura in 2020. Where some might have tried to replace members, Endon ’s core pressed forward with an autobiographical work exploring these changes and the shifts in their lives.

Honest and raw emotions delivered with uncompromising sonic intensity, ‘Fall of Spring’ is a thrilling tidal wave of sound and raw emotions born of the psyche of three individuals musically congregating into one tumultuous voice.

‘Fall of Spring’ captures the electricity and unpredictability of Endon ’s live performances in vivid detail. The album harnesses the power of their storied performances through unpredictable movements, deft arrangements and an exhilarating textural palette. By imbuing their sound with raw feeling at every edge of obliteration, the trio are able to create what they call ‘organic music with inorganic material’.

For Endon, these moments of suspense and surprise are the core of their music. As with their shows, ‘Fall of Spring’ is a vessel for band and audience to share moments, to suspend time and move through grief and pain, and to bask in catharsis and resilience. Endon continues to be a mercurial force in the world of extreme music.

“Endon are, without a doubt, one of the most punishing bands in contemporary extreme metal.” - Decibel

“One of the leaders of Japan’s next wave of experimental acts... ENDON thrive on the unexpected.” - Heavy Consequence / Consequence of Sound

“Primal yet progressive...shattered and shattering” - Metal Hammer

“This is music that’s creepy as fuck, but that keeps a toehold in melody, in proto-punk energy and psychedelic raunch” - The Wire

TRACK LISTING

Prelude For The Hollow
Hit Me
Time Does Not Heal
Escalation

‘Thrasher’ is the soundtrack to a virtual reality video game about a creature that has a life cycle that traverses different psychedelic realities.

‘Thrasher’ was composed and performed by Brian Gibson, bassist of Lightning Bolt. It is the follow up to the acclaimed best-selling game and soundtrack, ‘Thumper’.

The central character in ‘Thrasher’ is a giant centipede-like creature, so Gibson employed a lot of melodic sequences that resonated well with its segments moving through space.

Says Gibson: “I grew up playing some of the earliest video games, ‘Pac-Man’, ‘Space Invaders’ on an Atari 2600. Due to the limitations of those graphics they were extremely abstract games compared to today’s games which are just trying to simulate reality in the highest possible detail. I prefer games that make their own reality. I’d like to be transported as far from this one as possible… like ‘Pac-Man’, when you play it, it’s obvious what you are supposed to do, it makes its own sense.”

The soundtrack has the drive you might expect knowing Gibson’s work in Lightning Bolt, combined with complex melodic structures that are absolutely irresistible. In addition to bucking the hyperreality trend in gameplay, Gibson’s DIY ethos and warehouse culture roots permeate the entire soundtrack. He says it best: “‘Thumper’ has that combination of psychedelic and iconic that takes me back to the Fort Thunder days. ‘Thrasher’ is a further exploration into some of those motifs.”

“Did you really expect a game made by a member of notorious power duo Lightning Bolt to be anything less than a punishing hell ride?” - FACT

“A masterpiece.” - Brooklyn Vegan

“... sinister and rhythmic work ties in perfectly to the game’s visuals and relentless action.” - The Sixth Axis

“One of the best music games ever made.” - PC Gamer

TRACK LISTING

Metal Maze
Magenta Machine
Monolith
Mist
Mica
Timekeepers
Metal Maze II
Maelstrom
Melting Menace
Magma Skull
Mica II
Mad Moon

Aseethe, the trio of guitarist Brian Barr, drummer Eric Diercks and bassist Noah Koester, carve their own path in the world of heavy music. A singular blend of seismic weight, mesmeric drone, and gripping tension is the Midwestern band’s musical signature. Driven by an exploratory ethos, Aseethe warp sounds into emotionally potent songs that are as detailed as they are immense.

‘The Cost’ is an album shadowed by devastating losses, a visceral study in aftermaths, centred around how life moves forward after personal and universal traumas.

Recorded by acclaimed producer / engineer Sanford Parker (Pelican, Eyehategod, Yob, Voivod) at Electrical Audio in Chicago, ‘The Cost’ is more focused and elaborate than anything the band have crafted before, expanding Aseethe’s dynamic palette with more nuance and transforming their battering sound into cathartic arcs.

A deft balance of abrasive textures surrounding a meditative core is a hallmark of Aseethe’s sound, and on ‘The Cost’ these qualities are amplified to the extreme. Says Barr, “It’s still down-tuned and heavy, but we were deliberately trying to make a record that uses our own musical language to make something that was representative of the musicians we are.”

On ‘The Cost’, Aseethe’s detailed textural movements and punishing guitar passages each carry considerable emotional resonance. The album is abounding in both the skilful arrangements and the poignance the songs deliver. It is a moving, singular and adventurous record by an iconic midwestern band who has always chosen the road less travelled.

“Four big chunks of seriously hewn drone.” - The Wire

“The sound is simultaneously wide open and suffocating” - Invisible Oranges

“The three-piece focus on maximising their most punishing traits” - Metal Hammer

“Aseethe bathe their slow-churning riffs in a glorious sludge of buzzsawing droning and plodding repetition. It’s as nightmarish as it is hypnotic.” - New York Observer

TRACK LISTING

The Cost
The Air Is Caving In
Last Time I Do Anything For A Fucking Friend Ever
Irrelevance

On ‘The Healer’, the new full length from the Northwest-based trio of guitarist and vocalist Aaron Turner (ISIS, Old Man Gloom) bassist Brian Cook (Russian Circles, Botch) and drummer Nick Yacyshyn (Baptists), the group deepens their multi-faceted exploration into the parallel experiences of creation and destruction. Over the course of four tracks in 76 minutes, SUMAC present a sequence of shifting movements which undergo a constant process of expansion, contraction, corruption and regrowth.

This musical methodology reflects the thematic nature of the record - narratives of experiential wounding as gateways to empowerment and evolution, both individual and collective. The group’s interpolation of melody, drone, improvisation, and complex riffing becomes a transmogrifying act, embodying the depth of human experience. In its highest aspiration it mirrors our ability to endure mortal and spiritual challenges, through which we may emerge with an increased capacity for understanding, empathy, love of self and others. Dismal though the subterranean pits of ‘The Healer’ may at first appear, from them can be felt the unwavering determination to embrace life, acknowledge interdependence, and honour the gift of existence.

“SUMAC are pushing metal in a direction so uncomfortable it may cease to be metal, into an openness that isn’t about saying “F*CK YOU!” the loudest. The result is some of [Aaron Turner’s] most exciting work since Isis disbanded.” - Pitchfork

“[SUMAC] has used a post-metal and sludge metal palette to paint a richly immersive musical journey into soundscapes of simmering tension with a shimmering and sincere self-reflection at the core.” - New Noise

TRACK LISTING

World Of Light
Yellow Dawn
New Rites
The Stone’s Turn

The collaboration between renowned drummer Jim White and acclaimed guitarist Marisa Anderson is a natural union of two of the most intuitive players and listeners working in music.

Jim White is known for his groundbreaking trio, Dirty Three, as well as duo Xylouris White. His list of collaborations is vast and includes artists such as Nick Cave, Bill Callahan, Cat Power, Marnie Stern and Warren Ellis. Jim just released his debut solo album, ‘All Hits: Memories’.

Marisa Anderson, known primarily for her solo work, in demand collaborator who has worked with Tashi Dorji, Sharon Van Etten, Yasmine Williams and Michael Hurley. She has released records with William Tyler and Tara Jane O’Neal.

White and Anderson are each highly sought after collaborators in no small part because of their mastery, versatility and highly expressive playing. Their sophomore album, ‘Swallowtail’, finds the duo completely attuned to each other, fluidly moving as wind and water. They avoid preconceived movements, instead focusing on their musical conversation. As Anderson puts it: “The ideas aren’t the music, they are the pathway into the musical possibilities.”

Their skilful interplay creates an effervescence throughout the album. The ebb and flow to the duo’s motions bring a sense of serenity and ease to spontaneous transitions, each swell and retraction sounding as free as it does inevitable. White and Anderson’s preternatural alchemy as a duo allows each fleeting gesture to feel featherlight and stirring while maintaining an inquisitive spirit. Their music is an enchanting and illuminating.

TRACK LISTING

1. Aerie
2. Bitterroot Valley Suite I: Water
3. Bitterroot Valley Suite II: Tree
4. Bitterroot Valley Suite III: Wind
5. Peregrine
6. Aurora

Mary Lattimore and Walt McClements are two of contemporary music’s most renowned innovators. Each has managed to expand the perception of their instrument’s capabilities.

Lattimore’s inventive harp processing and looping has brought the instrument to a new audience. Her prolific run of celestial solo albums and evocative film scores have redefined the instrument in the modern consciousness. Her genre-agnostic collaborations include work with Kurt Vile, Steve Gunn, Jeff Zeigler, Meg Baird, and Thurston Moore. McClements, who tours as a member of Weyes Blood, is an acclaimed composer in his own right, sculpting glacial atmospherics from the accordion.

The Los Angeles based duo became quick friends on overlapping tours, sharing both a drive to push the sonic possibilities of their instruments and roots in North Carolina.

Mary Lattimore and Walt McClements’ debut collaboration, ‘Rain on the Road’, blossomed out of that time spent on the road together, capturing the liminal existence of touring life in deeply cinematic compositions.

Recorded in the cozy setting of McClements’ apartment during a rainy December in LA, ‘Rain on the Road’ unfurls as a series of sonic vignettes, rolling landscapes hewn from longform improvisations for harp and accordion. Embellished with additional instrumentation such as the shimmering constellations of hand bells on ‘Stolen Bells’ that glisten like lights on wet pavement, or the stately piano figures on ‘The Top of Thomas Street’; their pastoral pieces manage to paint vivid images.

TRACK LISTING

1. Stolen Bells
2. The Poppies, The Wild
3. Mustard, The Blue-Eyed Grass
4. We Waited For The Bears To Leave
5. Nest Of Earrings
6. The Top Of Thomas Street

‘Mayday’ is the third LP by Montreal-based artist, Myriam Gendron. It follows her earlier, critically acclaimed albums, ‘Not So Deep As A Well’ (2014) and ‘Ma délire - Songs of love, lost & found’ (2021). Myriam began exploring the complex folk traditions of Quebec (and beyond), with ‘Ma délire - Songs of love, lost & found’, which combines traditional and original songs with arrangements that make space for avant-garde musical interludes by such folks as guitarist Bill Nace (Body/Head) and renowned jazz percussionist Chris Corsano.

‘Mayday’ presents an even more syncretic fusion of the elements Myriam uses to create her sound. Most of the songs are original, sung in both English and French, and they blend traditional and avant elements with abandon. She is often accompanied on this album by the guitarist Marisa Anderson and drummer Jim White (Dirty Three, Xylouris White), whose work provides a quietly aggressive sort of free-rock base. Additional players include Montreal bassist Cédric Dind-Lavoie, Bill Nace and saxophonist Zoh Amba.

‘Mayday’ is a thoroughly thrilling effort that manages to create new vistas of sound while maintaining a feel that is both intimate and familiar. The music here certainly possesses a richly serious tone, but Myriam Gendron (like Leonard Cohen) is able to infuse her darkness with a subtle, powerful light that reminds us that even the most pitchblack night is but a transitional state.

TRACK LISTING

1. There Is No East Or West
2. Long Way Home
3. Terres Brûlées
4. Dorothy’s Blues
5. La Luz
6. La Belle Françoise (pour Sylvie)
7. Lully Lullay
8. Look Down That Lonesome Road
9. Quand J’étais Jeune Et Belle
10. Berceuse

A Chaos Of Flowers is the follow on to BIG|BRAVE's 2023 album nature morte. "BIG|BRAVE’s music has been described as massive minimalism. Their fusillades of textural distortion and feedback emphasize their music’s frayed edges as much as its all-encompassing weight. The potency of the trio’s work is their singular artistry combining elements of traditional folk techniques and a modern deconstruction of guitar music. Gain, feedback, and amplitude are essential.

For A Chaos Of Flowers guitarist/vocalist Robin Wattie drew heavily on the poems of artists whom Wattie found kinship in, their words resonant with experiences of those often sidelined by cultural norms. Guitarist Mathieu Ball and drummer Tasy Hudson help Wattie shape poetry into pieces as dense and impenetrable as they are vulnerable.

BIG|BRAVE achieve their colossal sound through minimalist approaches, a deft understanding of dynamics and an inventive employment of percussion and distortion. The trio reconceptualize what it is to be heavy or minimal, challenging perceptions with their illumination of painfully overlooked perspectives. Guest guitarist Marisa Anderson lends earthen, blues-inflected atmospheres to the album, where guitarist Tashi Dorji and saxophonist Patrick Shiroishi amplify the squall. Working closely with frequent collaborator and producer/engineer Seth Manchester, the internal tumult of Wattie’s voice rings out in warbles, haunting echoes, and unearthly harmonies across bold immense walls of distortion."

TRACK LISTING

1. I Felt A Funeral
2. Not Speaking Of The Ways
3. Chanson Pour Mon Ombre
4. Canon : In Canon
5. A Song For Marie Part Iii
6. Theft
7. Quotidian : Solemnity
8. Moonset

claire rousay is a singular artist, known for challenging conventions in experimental and ambient music forms. rousay masterfully incorporates textural found sounds, sumptuous drones and candid field recordings into music that celebrates the beauty in life’s banalities. Her music is curatorial and granular in detail, deftly shaped into emotionally affecting pieces. sentiment is a meditation of the poignant emotional terrains of loneliness, nostalgia, sentimentality, guilt, and sex. The album’s narrative arc is guided by delicate musical gestures and artistic vulnerability, audaciously synthesizing disparate and unexpected influences. rousay crafted the songs in various homes, bedrooms, hotels, and other private places, the feeling of time and energy spent alone radiating from each passage. The album is a collection of heart-rending, incisive pop songs that explore universal feelings with subtlety and remarkable vision.

rousay’s vocals and guitar take center stage on sentiment. Her intimate, diaristic lyrics contrast with her mechanical-inflected vocal effects, emphasizing a powerful desire for connection, a deep yearning and a lingering sense of separation. The spare guitar playing and laconic tempo both drive the songs and exude a sense of resignation. Her delicate mastery of nuance draws on her explorative musical past that she, with sincerity and admiration, seamlessly interweaves into her adventurous textures and distinctive compositions. “I want to belong to the worlds and communities I look up to. Same as someone using a Fender guitar or dressing like Kurt Cobain. Emulate your heroes,” says rousay.

From a sprawling math-rock duo, to an array of emo-inflected rock outfits to a hired hand in evangelical worship bands, rousay worked as a percussionist for over a decade before shifting her focus to the solo collage work she’s known for. sentiment folds those experiences into her compositions. rousay explains, “As the drummer in an evangelical rock band, it’s your job, with the singers, to manipulate the crowd. You start building on the drums and you know it’s one bigger chorus and then we’re out and you can see the tears, people just start crying. I still feel a version of that when playing my own shows now.”

The album balances the poetic soul of her influences with a documentarian heart, rousay capturing moments of her life while living alone in houses across the country, learning to play guitar, and reconnecting with pop music. “I have been on a quest to communicate my feelings and ideas as clearly as possible lately. Pop seemed like the way to do that this time,” says rousay. The confessional nature of sampled fragments of conversation give her pieces a specificity and sense of intimacy that is both immediate and curious. rousay’s innate ability to conjure pure feeling from sound derives from her delightful embrace of pop forms, the vulnerability found in field recordings, minimalistic arrangements and innovative sound choices. The resulting songs of sentiment are as anthemic as they are breathtakingly personal. sentiment is blissfully, achingly melancholic, and an undeniably sensual listening experience. 

TRACK LISTING

1. 4pm
2. Head
3. It Could Be Anything
4. Asking For It
5. Iii
6. Lover's Spit Plays In The Background
7. Sycamore Skylight
8. Please 5 More Minutes (feat Lala Lala)
9. W Sunset Blvd
10. Ily2 (feat Hand Habits)

Saicobab channels the vital energy of living music traditions through ecstatic performance. ‘NRTYA’, Sanskrit for ‘dance’, explores the shared roots of Japanese and Indian spiritual practices in a tangible, intoxicating form.

YoshimiO’s experiments in this field are well documented and legendary, from her work in OOIOO to her work in the Boredoms.

Multi-instrumentalist Yoshida Daikiti reveals the human hand that shapes living traditions, as much through his fluid playing as his own collection of handmade instruments, while percussionist and multi-instrumentalist Motoyuki ‘Hama’ Hamamoto embodies the metaphysical power of rhythm.

YoshimiO’s wild vocal acrobatics and inimitable range shift from hypnotic chants to ethereal atmospherics and darting melodies, ducking and weaving around Daikiti’s serpentine sitar figures and basslines.

Hama’s solid rhythmic architectures and deft polyrhythms are here enhanced by additional drums from Taketawa Yo2ro, slipping from subtle pulses to thundering grooves that drive the music.

Saicobab’s music exudes a true reverence for living musical traditions while remaining unbound by orthodoxy.

The electrifying energy of the quartet’s performance is palpable in every track, eliminating established hierarchies with performer and listener alike entwined in the same cosmic dance.

“Compelling, fun and really very strange.” - Uncut Magazine

“In Japanese experimental psych pop, more often than not, YoshimiO has been a beacon.” - FADER (cover feature)

TRACK LISTING

Nrtyaman
Social This Dance
Nachin Machine
Amayoru Moon Dance
Nachle Naatu Honey
Death Nap The Dance
Dancing Fish In The Rain

Much like the North Carolina wilds it reflects, ‘Needlefall’ waxes and wanes from mysterious and unsettling to ecstatic and awe-inspiring, capturing the sacred dimensions of the natural world. Magic Tuber Stringband draw on a host of fellow travellers to realize Needlefall’s intricate arrangements, exemplifying the diversity of contemporary folk movements, placing their work in the tradition of modern innovators like Moondog, Harry Partch, Pauline Oliveros, and labelmate Sally Anne Morgan.

Magic Tuber Stringband are Courtney Werner and Evan Morgan, accompanied by their regular bassist Mike DeVito. Morgan is an organizer within the local music community, and Werner is a dedicated naturalist involved in local land stewardship. ‘Needlefall’ answers the question “What does a modern string band sound like?” with powerful new arrangements of traditional songs and transcendent originals. The album is teeming with life, translating abundant ecosystems into arcing melodies and shimmering, mystic drones. The band explain: “If you spend enough time out in the woods you inevitably see or hear things that are hard to explain. I’ve been in caves where it’s total darkness and you’re enveloped by the disorienting sound of dripping water. The natural sights and sounds in these places are often repetitive, percussive, expressive, sometimes unsettling - the way that water carves patterns into rock or tree trunks appear in endless rows.”

“Magic tuber stringband makes old-time music for postmodern people” - Indy Week

“This Durham, North Carolina stringband intersperse shruti box drones with fervid Appalachian banjo and fiddle freakouts. Like fellow travellers Pelt, a band alive to the experimental possibilities of American roots music, both in its traditional forms and in where it can be stretched.” - Mojo

“The duo’s music also engages in mythologies of people and their relationship with the natural world in an intoxicating fashion.” - Aquarium Drunkard

For fans of Sally Anne Morgan, Daniel Bachman, Natural Information Society.

TRACK LISTING

A Dance On A Sunday Night
Days Of Longing
The Hermit’s Passage
Water Dripped Upwards
The Long-Suffering
Needlefall
Twelfth House
Piney Woods Burn

The Body & Dis Fig are a natural pair. Each has pioneered instantly recognizable worlds of sound all their own that defy any traditional categorizations or boundaries. The Body, Lee Buford and Chip King, continually challenge any conventional conception of metal, collaborating with myriad artists and from the folk-leanings of their work with BIG|BRAVE to their groundbreaking work with the Assembly of Light Choir to the intensity of their collaborations with OAA or Thou. Dis Fig, aka Felicia Chen, pushes electronic music into dark extremes, from warped DJ sets to avant production, from being a member of Tianzhuo Chen’s performance-art series TRANCE to being the vocalist with The Bug. The Body and Dis Fig find kinship in reimagining what it means to make “heavy music”. Their debut Orchards of a Futile Heaven is the perfect synthesis of two forces, twisting melodicism and intoxicating rhythms, layering a dense miasma of distortion with intense beats and a soaring voice clawing its way towards absolution.

Orchards of a Futile Heaven’s walls of sputtering texture and tectonic booms are soaked in the reverence and melancholy of sacred spaces brought to life by palpable intensity by Chen’s voice. Crafted during a time of personal fragility, the album’s devastating force lies beyond any of the expected noise and abrasive textures typically associated with both The Body & Dis Fig. Suffused with a raw vulnerability and a longing for catharsis, Chen’s voice searches for escape in the midst of oppressive atmospheres as if determined to find relief from guilt. “Eternal Hours” patiently unfurls waves of surprising sounds, whispered undulations that are punctuated by sudden crashes, all beneath Chen’s haunting harmonies. “Dissent, Shame” evokes grief and shame with a minimalist drone dirge that gradually builds to an enchanting choral passage. King’s guitar on “Holy Lance” matches the uncanny drone of Chen’s accordion in an all-consuming blast, Chen’s voice transforming the moment from anguish to defiance and empowerment. The album’s arc finishes with “Coils of Kaa” acting as a kind of propulsive exorcism, breaking through a suffocating air before the funeral procession of “Back to the Water” lays the album to rest.

While sampling has long been essential to each, The Body & Dis Fig deftly meld their differing approaches to sampling and creating extreme sounds until the boundaries are entirely blurred. The two found kinship in their desire to find new avenues to make heavy music that looked beyond tropes of metal and electronic music by merging the two. “I always wanted the heavier stuff but I also didn’t really like heavier guitar music,” says Buford. “None of it really felt quite heavy enough to me. A human can’t be as heavy as a machine.” Chen counters, “I love the balance. You could never connect to just a machine as well as you could a human. Which is why the combination is so potent for me. I don’t want to hide. I think nothing connects you more empathetically than another human's voice.”

Orchards of a Futile Heaven affirms The Body & Dis Fig as skilled sound sculptors who have an exceptional ability to make deeply affecting music, bracing as it is touching, harrowing as it is awe-inspiring. Together, the two have harnessed their expansive artistry to make music that is profoundly emotional, and staggering in its beauty.

TRACK LISTING

1. Eternal Hours
2. To Walk A Higher Path
3. Dissent, Shame
4. Orchards Of A Futile Heaven
5. Holy Lance
6. Coils Of Kaa
7. Back To The Water

The English duo Persher - Arthur Cayzer (Pariah) and Jamie Roberts (Blawan) - take the same subversive, boundaryless approach to extreme music that underpins their electronic explorations. Their individual outputs are highly anticipated in the dance world, in part because of their affinity for expression beyond a trend.

The debut album, ‘Sleep Well’, is ferocious and innovative. Cayzer and Roberts take a decidedly unconventional approach to writing, using the full potential of the studio in their exploration of extreme music. What sounds like a live band performance is, more often than not, an amalgam of many different sessions, the duo applying techniques from electronic music to heavier sonics.

Recording in Roberts’ studio at Funkhaus, the home of the former East German state-owned radio station, Cayzer would improvise long takes on guitar and bass, contorted and mutated by Robert using his extensive modular setup to add weight and texture. This primordial ooze of raw sonics was then chopped up and reassembled into bristling hooks and corrosive atmospheres.

The duo’s playful, exuberant approach to music is evident in their absurdist themes and lyrics. Much of the album is inspired by “really disgusting food.” ‘Medieval Soup From The Milkbar’ references the epically bad meal of grey, gruel-like soup, and seeps into the track’s noxious slurry and stomachchurning riffs. ‘Portable Aquarium’ was born of a cup of herbal tea overflowing with foliage. Their playful and often self-deprecating sense of humour allows them to find inspiration in the smallest of life’s events.

Persher’s ‘Sleep Well’ provides a daring, revelatory expansion on heavy music’s myriad mutations. The duo use their production skills and their humour to embrace the powerful release they find in extreme. Persher’s debut album exudes the sheer joy of making music unconstrained by genre boundaries, as gleefully weird as it is visceral and primal.

“The duo of Jamie Roberts (Blawan) and Arthur Cayzer (Pariah) leave behind the acid froth for some maggoty post-genre techsludge” - The Quietus

“They’re embracing a lifelong fandom of more extreme sounds, blending death metal’s hellish riff worship with the freaky ferocity of crust punk and raw immediacy of hardcore.” - Crack Magazine

TRACK LISTING

Crumpled Man
Elemental Stoppage
Medieval Soup From The Milkbar
Sycamore
Desiccated Forgettable
Hymn To The Tupperbird
Portable Aquarium
The Squiggles
Sleep Well Night Time Forest Rain
Celtic Froth
Read Me Some Sci-Fi

Maya Shenfeld’s expansive, kaleidoscopic music is as illuminating as it is exquisite. Classically trained, Shenfeld has fast grown into one of contemporary music’s most exciting, vital voices. Every aspect of her dazzling, multifaceted output interrogates the way we experience the world around us - be it solo microtonal explorations, sitespecific installations, or commissions for leading New Music ensembles. Shenfeld balances orchestral ambition and compositional rigor with the joy of noise, and granular detail.

‘Under The Sun’ provides a daring expansion of that musical vision, a series of pieces exploring change and repetition, deep time and the ephemeral moment, equilibrium, and imminent threat. Composed and produced between a studio in Berlin and on-site at one of the world’s deepest marble quarries in Portugal, the album’s powerful sounds are a meditation on the natural world, wrestling with the looming threat of catastrophe and crisis, and the power of community and collaboration to enact change.

Our environment is more than just an abstract theme, it is interwoven into ‘Under The Sun’’s very sonic DNA. Field recordings taken deep within the still-active quarry in Portugal were recorded, quite literally, under the scorching sun on one of the hottest days on record in the country. Shenfeld extracted sounds from this scarred, deeply mined landscape, and threaded these samples into rich arrangements of synthesizers and acoustic instruments. The atmospheres of Under the Sun evoke that push and pull through an eclectic and rich sonic palette, from the sacred sounds of the organ at St Matthew’s Church to the ethereal voices of the Ritter Youthchoir conducted by Ann-Kristin Mayr.

Reflections of her punk and electronic forays bubble up in a collaborative composition with Emptyset’s James Ginzburg, summoning raw, primal energy. ‘Under The Sun’ encourages us to explore how we relate to our environment. Shenfeld’s slowly evolving, hypnotic pieces make canny use of repetition, space, and silence to play with our very sense of time and our relationship to our surroundings. A deep listening that enables us to better attune our ears to the world around us, championing collective listening and collaboration as a force for change.

TRACK LISTING

A Guide For The Perplexed
Tehom
Geist
Interstellar
Light, Refracted
On Its Rounds The Wind
Returns
Sedek
Analemma

Eye Flys are a quintessential Philadelphian band whose aggressive brand of noise rock is leading a wave of bands that harken back to classic era AmRep noise rock. Their rage is palpable and their wit is biting. Eye Flys are unsparingly heavy, driven by the colossal rhythm section of bassist Kevin Bernsten and drummer Patrick Forrest. Vocalist / guitarist Jake Smith delivers sharp humour with a healthy dose of venom and bile with each bestial growl while his dirty riffs roar at you.

Recorded by Bernsten at his own Developing Nations studio (Full of Hell, Integrity, Jarhead Fertilizer) and J Robbins’ The Magpie Cage, the band’s self-titled album features artwork drawn by artist and drummer John Herndon (Tortoise), known for his singular drawings and his band’s iconic ‘TNT’ cover. Eye Flys wades deeper into the muck and mire of modern living to take an unflinching look at the horrors of late-stage capitalism and offer a caustic remedy for its ravages.

Expanding on their bludgeoning debut ‘Tub of Lard’, ‘Eye Flys’ is lean and aggressive, fast and unforgiving. ‘Trepanation Summer’’s ferocious riffs bore directly into the skull, mimicking the crude pressure release of the ancient surgical process of the same name, Smith crying to “release the pressure” from within a wall of feedback. ‘Sleep Forever’ throws down a thrashing, infernal groove, demolishing all in its path as Smith’s craggy guitar figures rise like toxic smoke from the devastation. ‘Draining Pus’ revels in septic sludge, while ‘Bananarchy Zoo’ manages to strip things down to an even more lean and incisive realization of the trio’s punishing sonic palette, in an exploration of Smith’s love / hate relationship with his Florida roots.

Eye Flys offers a reassuring reminder that you haven’t gone mad and you’re not alone - that weird ‘n’ heavy music is still here as a respite from the madness of modern living and an outlet for righteous rage.

TRACK LISTING

Trepanation Summer
Sleep Forever
Tuck & Roll
Draining Pus
Feeding Regression
What’s That Behind Your Ear?
Tear Away Face Plaster
Bananarchy Zoo

Over the course of 20 years, German artist Black To Comm (Marc Richter) has pushed the limits of / and merged the aesthetics of art, conceptual installations, and music, coming in a wave of innovation alongside his peers Pita, Fennesz, and later Sarah Davachi to name a few.

Through it all, Richter as Black to Comm has challenged assumptions, explored identity, and confronted the concept of authorship itself. ‘At Zeenath Parallel Heavens’ finds Black To Comm contemplating the hybridity within each and every one of us, be it sexual, racial, cultural, or linguistic.

Richter mirrors personal dualities musically with a combination of sounds he created and manipulated samples, blurring their boundaries. “I always try to blur the line between sampling and my own recordings, also between ‘real’ instruments, MIDI, electronics, editing, between authenticity and theatrics/artificiality,” says Richter. When recording he became aware of how AI text programs processing resembles his own methods. “I had the realization recently that the way I compose is not too dissimilar to what AI software is doing nowadays - especially when the AI is hallucinating (this is the term used when the AI is overloaded / overcharged / inundated and comes up with made-up results).” Human behaviour reflected in a computer facsimile of human intelligence appealed to the ethos of Black To Comm, whose titles and concepts are often oblique and tongue-in-cheek.

TRACK LISTING

1. Then Began The Harp To Fashion
2. Steep Thy Plumage In His Sweetness
3. Never Heed The Tongues Of Wooers
4. Time Will Fly On Equal Pinions
5. La Société Des Rêves
6. Musik Im Schatten
7. Schleim Des Nichtwissens
8. On The Grass Her Shoes Of Deer-Skin

Colleen’s mastery of the art of sound sculpting is fully displayed on Le jour et la nuit du réel, a beautiful 21 song double album that manages to explore the intersections of the material and the imagined, a sonic odyssey unearthing soul from synthesis. The album is organized into several movements. Each movement employs different synthesis settings, but with distinctive chords and motifs that provide a through line, guiding the listener through gorgeous sonic landscapes. Schott elaborates: “To me, the capacity of synthesis to alter - subtly or radically - the physical embodiment in sound of the same series of notes is akin to how, when given new information about a person or a situation, we can reevaluate our initial perception of what we thought was the “reality” of that person or situation, sometimes drastically so”.

TRACK LISTING

1-3. Subterranean - Movement I,II,III
4-5. The Long Wait - Movement I,II
6-7. To Hold And To Be Held - Movement I,II
8-10. Mon Coeur - Movement I,II,III
11-13. Be Without Being Seen - Movement I,II,III
14-17. Les Parenthèses Enchantées - Movement I,II,III,IV
18. Les Parenthèses Enchantées - Epilogue
19-21. Night Looping - Movement I,II,III

Vienna has a storied history as a ground zero for new music. Radian, who call Vienna home, embody the city’s spirit of innovation. Martin Brandlmayr (drums, electronics), Martin Siewert (guitar, electronics) and John Norman (bass) are stalwarts of the European contemporary music community.

‘Distorted Rooms’ presents a dazzling new elevation of Radian’s employment and manipulation of microtones with a new emphasis on abstracted guitar motifs, often employing a more loop-based or electronic approach to the guitar’s sonics. Radian’s visionary approach to composition speaks to a lifetime of working in forward-thinking music. The trio expertly hone in on sounds often removed from the sheen of the recording process and mine them for unique, rich textural sound palettes which they then meticulously arrange.

‘Distorted Rooms’’ creative process began with multi-stage recording of often the smallest sounds, from pick-scrapes to an amplifier’s latent hiss. These slivers of sound are then restructured and processed through a variety of techniques that transform them drastically. Radian have always been interested in sounds that might be considered byproducts and maximizing their creative and aural potential. More minor gestures like switching a pedal on and off or toggling the guitar’s pickup are miked and spun into textures that crackle and froth to fascinating effect.

Radian’s angular, expansive music delights in tension and contradiction, sound and silence, improvisation and composition. The trio employ a singular and wholly unique sense of microtonality. While their creation process is complex, the resulting music is emotionally affecting, creating an aura of suspense and at times unease. Brandlmayr, Siewert and Norman share an unconventional, wildly imaginative approach to sound.

“Radian [have] perfected a painterly approach to sound construction.” - Pitchfork

“With music like this, repeat listens always prove hugely rewarding, enabling stirring new passages and sounds to all of a sudden emerge, as if they’d been written in disappearing ink.” - The Quietus

“The visceral thrill of the trio’s sound increases in their live performances, where the tactile crispness of their music is heightened.” - Chicago Reader

TRACK LISTING

Cold Suns
C At The Gates
Cicada
Skyskryp12
Stak
S At The Gates

Multi-instrumentalist Sally Anne Morgan, known for her work as part of The Black Twig Pickers, and half of House and Land (with Sarah Louise), cultivates seeds sown by folk musics and psychedelia.

‘Carrying’ tills the rich soil of Appalachian traditions and her rural North Carolina surroundings into warm, reflective songs about the weight people carry with them, as well as Morgan’s own pregnancy and the birth of her first child.

Bridging the more freeform, expansive leanings of 2021’s ‘Cups’ and the lucid beauty of her acclaimed 2020 debut, ‘Thread’, ‘Carrying’ finds Morgan imbuing her masterfully crafted songs with more subtle and intricate arrangements.

The album’s exploratory nature is anchored by a full band, comprised of some of the most thoughtful players in the psychedelic folk and ‘cosmic country’ spheres, including a guest appearance by Ripley Johnson (Rose City Band, Wooden Shjips, Moon Duo), and the foundational rhythm section of fellow The Black Twig Pickers collaborators: drummer Nathan Bowles (Steve Gunn Band, Pelt), guitarist Andrew Zinn, and bassist / engineer Joe Dejarnette.

Morgan finds unity in the burdens and joys, tensions, and releases of modern living as a common thread that people bear in their day-today lives. “So much of what we accumulate and carry around with us burdens us, but we also can’t or don’t know how to let go,” says Morgan. The profoundness and mundanity of that weight ran parallel for Morgan as she literally carried her child to term: the utter commonality of enduring what billions of parents before her had, and the awesome power of the human body and spirit, the complicated and unpredictable wash of emotions that come with nurturing and nourishing another life.

“Breathtaking, string-laden psychedelic folk” - Brooklyn Vegan

“Meditations on folk music, rather than the thing itself, stern and cerebral at times, but intermittently lush and beautiful...” - Dusted Magazine

TRACK LISTING

Beekeeper
The Center
Dawn Circle
Summerwater
Awake
Streets Of Derry
Diamond Joe
Song For Arthur

1998: Tortoise’s third studio album, ‘TNT’, is released. In and out of print over the past decade, Thrill Jockey are happy to finally give everyone what they have been asking for - ‘TNT’ on vinyl again!

Pressed on high quality virgin vinyl, the double LP is packaged in a deluxe old-style tip-on gatefold jacket, fully replicating the original artwork, and includes a digital download coupon for the first time.

Tortoise’s third full-length release, ‘TNT’ was written and recorded during a 10-month interval in 1997. This longer-than-usual writing / production schedule was purposefully undertaken by the group in the hopes of crafting an expansive, diverse, yet thematically coherent offering. ‘TNT’ builds upon the spare, instrumental framework of the group’s first, self-titled album, and the extended edits, melodic adventures, and klangfarben of the subsequent full-length release, ‘Millions Now Living Will Never Die’.

Further to this, Tortoise’s interest in the possibilities offered by the remixing of tracks was realized within the actual production of ‘TNT’; individual elements, sections, or sometimes whole compositions mutate within the album’s shifting framework. These techniques were suitably realized thanks in part to the use of non-linear digital recording and editing methods, the first example of such work for the group.

TRACK LISTING

TNT
Swung From The Gutters
Ten-Day Interval
I Set My Fave To The Hillside
The Equator
A Simple Way To Go Faster Than Light That Does Now Work
The Suspension Bridge At Igazu Falls
Four-Day Interval
In Sarah, Mencken, Christ And Beethoven There Were Women And Men
Almost Always Is Nearly Enough
Jetty
Everglade

On ‘Jupiter’, Brooklyn trio Upper Wilds voyage deeper into the cosmos, mapping out the overwhelming enormity of the universe in soaring hooks and blistering noise. The third instalment in the trio’s exploration of our solar system looks to its largest planet for a daring exploration of scale and perspective.

New York underground mainstay Dan Friel’s melodic gifts and wry lyricism are magnified and propelled ever outwards by the thundering rhythm section of bassist Jason Binnick and drummer Jeff Ottenbacher, all immersed in rippling fuzz. Just like its namesake, ‘Jupiter’ stands as Upper Wilds’ most colossal offering in their catalogue. The raw power of their music is amplified to titanic proportions, sky-clawing riffs invoking the sheer awe that the heavens inspire. More than any Upper Wilds album before it, Jupiter makes humanity’s endeavours in space exploration an inseparable part of its sonic DNA.

Recorded with Travis Harrison at his studio Serious Business in Brooklyn (Guided By Voices, Dope Body, The Men), the trio’s live recordings are inspired by the Voyager Golden Record - a double LP launched with the 1977 Voyager probe and spanning field recordings to compositions by JS Bach and Laurie Spiegel.

While the Voyager Golden Record’s intended audience may have originally been the extra-terrestrial beings that might encounter the probe, Upper Wilds bring cosmos-seeking sounds back to earth with a record made for and about humanity. Jupiter finds comfort in space’s unending expanse. Far from feeling defeated by the smallness of our existence in the face of an uncaring universe and ever-expanding infinite, Upper Wilds capture the power of creativity to extend our lifespans far beyond our limited time on earth.

“A continuous barrage of bass and drums, knocking [guitarist Dan Friel’s] inimitable fuzz-crusted hooks sideways and to pieces and rampaging on regardless.” - Dusted Magazine

TRACK LISTING

Greetings
Permanent Storm
Drifters
Short Centuries
10’9”
Jupiter
Voyager
Infinity Drama
Books About UFOs
Radio To Forever
Cerberrat

‘Black Duck’ captures a band already deeply in tune with one another. The threepiece supergroup consists of Douglas McCombs, Charles Rumback and Bill MacKay. Each has a distinct musical voice that is instantly recognizable yet blends seamlessly with one another - their time performing together, playing to the moment and reading each other and the spaces they’re in formed a fluency between the trio which allows them to follow each other down winding paths and short tangents alike.

Black Duck’s debut is a testament to that fluency, an expedition led by three veterans into alluring worlds bathed in myriad splendours. ‘Black Duck’ is a gallery of sonic tapestries, unbound by any genre constraints. Black Duck redefine what two guitarists and a drummer can do; pieces move from breezy shuffles to stormy blues rumbles to gorgeous textural drones.

Playing entirely improvised live sets for years helped develop the trio’s acute senses for one another, knowing precisely how to listen to the others and bolster whatever direction they move in. In the short time the trio have played together, they have performed at Big Ears Festival and alongside acts like Yo La Tengo. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Of The Lit Backyards
2. Foothill Daze
3. Delivery
4. Second Guess
5. The Trees Are Dancing
6. Thunder Fade That Earth
7. Smells
8. Lemon Treasure
9. Light’s New Measure

Pitchfork awarded ‘Sons Of’ an 8.3 and a spot in their Best New Music category in their review written by Philip Sherburne.

The first full length collaboration from two artists who have expanded the field of rock through their work over the last three decades, both as individuals and in their time together in The Sea and Cake.

John McEntire is known for his work as a musician playing with Tortoise, Jim O’Rourke, Stereolab and others. Owner and operator of Soma Electronic Music Studios, he is also known for his pioneering work as a producer and engineer, working with Stereolab, Archer Prewitt, Yo La Tengo, Bright Eyes, The Fiery Furnaces and Chicago Underground, among many others.

‘Sons Of’ finds two master craftsmen working at the nexus of pristine production and skilful improvisation, forging compelling narrative arcs into glistening metropolises of infinite pulse. The resulting sound is one of transformative fluidity; each passing beat marking a sense of familiarity while the surrounding atmospheres are in constant flux. Ever-shifting tonalities and magnetic grooves propel the music with persistent momentum without feeling hurried buoyed by the steady pace, creating the framework that allows space for new sounds to breathe and evolve.

TRACK LISTING

1. A Ghost At Noon
2. Crossing At The Shallow
3. A Yellow Robe (Part 1)
4. A Yellow Robe (Part 2)
5. A Drink At The Banquet
6. Ascending By Night

Alison Chesley is an unparalleled cellist and composer who has been making boundaryless music for nearly three decades under the moniker Helen Money. From her work in Verbow to her solo releases, extending to her work as a highly sought after collaborator with Jarboe, Bob Mould, Steve Albini, Neurosis and many more, Chesley has remained a singular voice and a pioneer in expanding the scope and perception of the cello. Will Thomas is an active composer for commercials, TV, and film (GvsE, CSI, The Haunted Swordsman). He has also contributed to several of Helen Money’s solo albums and an ongoing collaboration with Roger Eno. Trace marks Thomas’s and Chesley’s first fully collaborative album, synthesizing their myriad skills as songwriters, performers, and sound artists into vivid, profoundly moving music.

Helen Money and Will Thomas are masters of invoking emotional atmospheres. Their music paints in vibrant hues with outlines blurred, often using dense layers of processed instruments and textural ambience as a backdrop for harmonic tension and melodies. Trace is thrillingly cinematic. Each piece tells a compelling story through ratcheting suspense, twisting shifts, unfurling arcs, and blissful repose. “I don’t compose with a storyline in mind,” says Chesley. “I search for a feeling – a sound. It’s often not until the very end of the process that I realize what I was trying to express.” Chesley’s cello and Thomas’s synthesized textures converse with one another with a sense of curiosity. They each use their highly developed means of conveying emotion through sound and their collaborative natures to accentuate the emotional arc of the compositions. After years supplementing each other’s music and the long isolation of lockdowns, their collaboration’s conversational approach is rich with the electricity of old friends reconnecting. Chesley notes, “I was feeling grateful to be able to do this with someone I had worked with for so long – to be in the studio together again.”

Trace is a masterclass in sound design. Chesley’s formidable skill as a cellist and composer ground the compositions with rich organic sounds of cello and bow. Thomas’s equally deft hand manipulated electronics, keyboards create potent frameworks that bolster the sense of mystery and searching across the album. “Thieves” applies a jittering rhythmic pulse and sampled cello harmonics that tug forward anxiously before distorted cello thrusts transform the piece into something more resolute. The duo of “Half Asleep” and “Half Awake” act as companion pieces, using lush arrangements of cello and piano, each intoning atop steady chordal figures that sound distant and familiar, like meeting a friend in a dream. Chesley and Thomas pursue harmony and discord in equal measure. A thrum of foreboding blurs the lines between their instruments on “Boulevard in Silence,” which embodies wisps of shadow and the cowl of nightfall. Industrial crashes and obliterated bass textures subsume “Tilt” and the gorgeous timbres of “Glass Shattered” swim in waves of dissonance without resolution. “Trace” moves from gentle nudges to a hypnotic thump as the piece grows more rhythmically and sonically dense; each deviation rewarding with unexpected textures and sounds.

Chesley and Thomas’s unique voices as composers remain discernable and present throughout the album, but Trace is a celebration of connection of collaboration with an acute sense of details and the power they convey. On Trace, the duo utilize timbre, tone and dynamics as essential tools in crafting stunning emotive narratives. Together, the duo wield sound with inquisitive aplomb, burrowing into each other’s sonic aesthetics and unearthing irrefutable beauty. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Someone Out There
2. Thieves
3. Half Asleep
4. Boulevard In Silence
5. Abandon
6. Trace
7. She Never Suspected
8. Half Awake
9. Tilt
10. Glass Shattered
11. The Wheel

Markus Popp is endlessly curious, and his music as Oval is delightfully inventive. Since pioneering albums in the 90s ‘systemisch’ and ‘94diskont.’, Oval has continually excavated new spaces in electronic music, leaving an indelible mark on the landscape.

New album, ‘Romantiq’, finds Popp delivering his most light and delicate tones to date. Like the plucking of harp strings, Popp’s organic and playful approach to sound is warm and bright. Oval continually, confounds with his ability to conjure such lithe, evocative sonics from software. 

‘Romantiq’ evolved from an audio visual collaboration with digital artist Robert Seidel for the grand opening of the German Romantic Museum, where a huge outdoor projection covered the museum building. Popp sought a more expansive definition of the romantic, conjuring flickering images that glitch, evolve and collapse in on one another - opulent neo-chamber music lit by the paradoxically heart-warming screen glow of social media flirtations.

Popp crafted dozens of short vignettes that each sought to evoke a specific mood or emotion. Processed period instruments trace luxuriant spaces that shift from low-lit chambers to glistening palatial grandeur, glitching through past, present and future. Swelling atmospheres emerge like perfume, rich scents flooding the senses before evaporating on the breeze. ‘Romantiq’’s musical oxytocin is made from ancient instruments processed and edited by a modern electronic master with the utmost deftness and delicacy.

TRACK LISTING

1. Zauberwort
2. Rytmy
3. Cresta
4. Amethyst
5. Wildwasser
6. Glockenton
7. Elektrin
8. Okno
9. Touha
10. Lyriq

On Garden Party, Rose City Band’s country psychedelic rock evokes the wide-open spaces of the American west and free spirits who call it home. Lead by acclaimed guitarist and vocalist Ripley Johnson, Rose City Band are some of the best players in contemporary rock: pedal steel guitarist Barry Walker, keyboardist Paul Hasenberg, bassist Dewey Mahood (aka Plankton Wat), drummer Dustin Dybvig, and features Sanae Yamada of Moon Duo on Synthesizer. At its inception Rose City Band focused on what songwriter Johnson calls “porch music”. Recorded largely at Center for Sound, Light, and Color Therapy in Portland and mixed by John McEntire, Garden Party features guest appearances by Moon Duo bandmates John Jeffrey on drums and Sanae Yamada on synths, as well as Rose City Band live performers Hasenberg on keyboards and Walker on pedal steel. With the musicians in his life in mind, Ripley’s porch has opened up for each player to step into. Despite being tracked primarily as a solo endeavor the recordings capture the twists and bends of a fully realized ensemble, and in a nod to bands such as the Grateful Dead it doesn’t stop there. “The songs won’t really be finished until we play them on the road,” says Johnson. Like all great music, Garden Party taps into the listener’s emotional center and takes them to their happy place – their sunny spot. The album is an invitation to recalibrate, a joyous ride where the band’s sounds surround and embrace you. Ripley says it best: “I always like when an album starts in one place, and ends in another” What a beautiful journey it is.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Another languid slice of new country from the brilliant Rose city Band. Evoking a sense of hazy road trips and bristling summer sunshine, these pieces flow and bloom from dusty lounge jazz into full groove-led psychedelic territory. Another smash hit from Johnson & co.

TRACK LISTING

1. Chasing Rainbows
2. Slow Burn
3. Garden Song
4. Porch Boogie
5. Saturday’s Gone
6. Mariposa
7. Moonlight Highway
8. El Rio

Power trio Dommengang deliver heavy psych rock on new album ‘Wished Eye’. The album delivers super tasty, dirty guitars, serpentine psychedelic grooves, and propulsive drumming with gleeful abandon. Guitarist Dan ‘Sig’ Wilson switches from explosive to expansive on a knife’s edge, laying down wailing hooks before evaporating into bristling fuzz. Bassist Brian Markham and drummer Adam Bulgasem (Black Mountain)’s foundations play with time, galloping forward or stretching out into the cosmos. ‘Wished Eye’ is an expression of the sheer joy of making music together.

For fans of Blues Creation, Earthless, High Rise, and Acid Mothers Temple.

TRACK LISTING

Runaway
Society Blues
Last Card
Myth Time
Little Beirut
Blue & Peaceful
Petrichor
Wished Eye
Flower

Mats Gustafsson is a key character in the modern jazz scene as a world-renowned saxophone player, and has collaborated with countless artists including Sonic Youth, Neneh Cherry, Peter Brötzmann and Merzbow.

Joachim Nordwall has been creating psychedelic electronic music since the late 1980s, and has been in groups such as The Skull Defekts and Alvars Orkester, with work credited alongside Aaron Dilloway, Mika Vainio, Kevin Drumm, Christine Abdelnour and John Duncan.

Nordwall founded and runs the lauded record label iDEAL Recordings, operating at the cutting edge of experimental and electronic music, and hosting festivals, exhibitions, concerts, and club nights.

The duo create a sense of vast, three dimensional auditory expanses. “This is where acoustics and analogue synths meet. It is unique music. Unheard Vibes. Perfect for special venues and good PAs” - Gustafsson and Nordwall.

TRACK LISTING

1.  THERE ARE SOME WORLDS WHERE ALL DREAMS DIE (en Glad Stund)
2.  THE DAY OF DAYS WAS THERE (vardag)
3.  LOVE SHOWS IN HER SMILE: IT IS CONFIDENT (panik)
4. THEIR NEW LIFE WAS THEIR FINAL LIFE (vilse)
5.  BIRDBRAIN (olle ångest)
6.  HIS FINGERS, MOVING IN THE AIR, PRODUCED A SOFT ORGAN-LIKE MUSIC (långtråkigt)
7.  OH, SAID THE STRANGE MIND, YOU WANT ME TO THINK FOR YOU (det Blir Aldrig Bättre)
8.  HER EYES…WERE LIKE COLD FIRES (slut)

Liturgy transcends the traditional parameters of what constitutes a rock band. Founded by Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix, Liturgy is a part of a shared discipline of composition, art, and philosophy that thrives on exploring the spaces between.

Liturgy’s signature use of rhythmic complexity and repetition are exponentially amplified to maximalist proportions on ‘93696’ ‘93696’ was recorded by Steve Albini at Electrical Audio and mixed by Seth Manchester at Machines With Magnets. Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix has remained at the vanguard of New York’s art world, composing music for art installations, as well as developing her own, and taking part in, guest lectures and producing her own philosophical lecture series, as well as a film in November 2020 tied to Liturgy’s fifth studio album.

Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix and Liturgy have been featured as the artist in-residence at New York City’s Issue Project Room several times, recently debuting ‘93696’’s title track and presenting her opera Origin of the Alimonies. “The band knows its virtues and works them hard: density, repetition,development, perversity, integration, catharsis.” - New York Times

“Liturgy is a unique heavy metal band that takes a cerebral approach to the form without stinting on any of the force that makes it so potent.” - The Wall Street Journal.

TRACK LISTING

1.  Daily Bread
2.  Djennaration
3.  Caela
4.  Angel Of Sovereignty
5.  Haelegen II
6.  Before I Knew The Truth
7.  Angel Of Hierarchy
8.  Red Crown II
9.  Angel Of Emancipation
10.  Ananon
11.  93696
12.  Haelegen II (Reprise)
13.  Angel Of Individuation
14.  Antigone II
15.  Immortal Life II

Sightless Pit is Lee Buford (The Body) and Dylan Walker (Full of Hell), two unparalleled artists at the forefront of redefining heavy music.

‘Lockstep Bloodwar’ is Sightless Pit’s sophomore album, following the band’s acclaimed debut ‘Grave of a Dog’, which featured Lingua Ignota, as well as The Body and Full of Hell’s collaborative album, ‘Ascending a Mountain of Heavy Light’.

The album includes eclectic and celebrated guest artists, including Gangsta Boo (Three 6 Mafia), YoshimiO (Boredoms), Frukwan (Gravediggaz), claire rousay, Midwife, Lane Shii Otayonii (Elizabeth Colour Wheel), Foie Gras, and more.

TRACK LISTING

On A Knife (feat Midwife)
Calcified Glass (feat YoshimiO & Gangsta Boo)
Flower To Tomb (feat Lane Shi Otayonii)
Lockstep Bloodwar
Low Orbit (feat Frukwan & Industrial Hazard)
False Epiphany (feat Claire rousay)
Shiv (feat Crownovhornz)
Morning Of A Thousand Lights
Futilities (feat Foie Gras)

Oozing Wound are comprised of members Zack Weil (guitar, vocals), Kevin Cribbin (bass) and Kyle Reynolds (drums).

The members of Oozing Wound are veterans of Chicago’s underground scene, having played in Cacaw, Unmanned Ship, ZATH and Bad Drugs

TRACK LISTING

Bank Account Anxiety
Total Existence Failure
The Good Times (I Don’t Miss ‘Em)
Hypnic Jerk
Crypto Fash
Between Cults
Chudly
Midlife Crisis Actor
Old Sludge
Face Without Eyes

Lightning Bolt’s ‘Earthly Delights’ receives a much desired reissue and is now available for the first time since 2009 as a double LP.

Packaged in a full colour gatefold-style jacket, ‘Earthly Delights’ features vibrant artwork and custom etching on Side D, designed by Brian Chippendale. Includes a digital download card.

Available to independent retailers on Sea Glass coloured vinyl.

‘Earthly Delights’ is the metal album to Lightning Bolt’s genrestraddling discography, using the signature speed and volume reminiscent of past releases while centring around growling chords and monolithic rhythms commonly found in the foundations of metal.

Throughout their career, Lightning Bolt have toured the world, performing at numerous festivals, including Coachella, ATP, Pitchfork Music Festival, Austin Psych Fest and FYF Fest, to name a few.

Brian Chippendale has collaborated with artists including Björk, Boredoms, Andrew W.K. and Lee “Scratch” Perry.

In 2017, Brian Gibson developed the video game, ‘Thumper’, with his own company, Drool, which would go on to be awarded Apple’s Design Award in 2019, and be included in IDN’s Best of 2016.

“... beneath all the noise and fury, there are bona fide songs here, driven by giddy singalong melodies that settle into maddeningly tight runs and rhythmic loops then spin off into chasms of freeform noise...everything is focused on the extraordinary physicality of their sound: spasmodic, psychedelic, heavy, loud and lifeaffirming.” - The Guardian

“The whole point of their music is hypnotic repetition, magical moments sprouting from endless reiterations. They could stretch out further, but they’d likely lose access to those mini-epiphanies... Lightning Bolt are happy to grind out an eternal present, and few can dig deep into a moment quite like them.” - Pitchfork

TRACK LISTING

Sound Guardians
Nation Of Boar
Colossus
The Sublime Freak
Flooded Chamber
Funny Farm
Rain On Lake I’m Swimming In
S.O.S.
Transmissionary

Hot on the heels of the sold-out limited EP, ‘Was It Ever Real?’, The Soft Pink Truth release super catchy, sexy contemporary disco banger, ‘Is It Going To Get Any Deeper Than This?’. Throughout the ten songs of the album, the provocation to go deeper prompts promiscuous moves across the genres of disco, minimalism, ambient, and jazz, sliding onto and off of the dancefloor, sweeping higher and lower on the scale of frequencies, engaging both philosophical texts re-set as pop lyrics and wordless glossolalia.

Daniel’s romantic and musical partner MC Schmidt and friend Koye Berry play piano, Mark Lightcap (Acetone, Dick Slessig Combo) plays acoustic and electric guitar, Jason Willett (Half Japanese) plays bass, Nate Wooley plays trumpet, Brooks Kossover (Drugdealer) plays flute, John Berndt and Andrew Bernstein (Horse Lords) play saxophone, and shakers, shekere, tumba, triangle and cajon parts are played by Cuban percussionist Ayoze de Alejandro Lopez. There are chamber instruments as well: harpsichord by Tom Boram, harp by Obadias Guerra, Irish harp by Una Monaghan and, on many tracks, lush string arrangements by Turkish arranger Ulas Kurugullu for violin, viola, and cello that recall the Love Unlimited Orchestra found on classic Barry White albums.

Sidestepping retro kitsch but paying homage to highly personal interpretations of disco such as Arthur Russell, Don Ray, Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band, and Mandré, or the jazz funk of Creed Taylor and CTI Records. Its emphasis on slowly morphing deep house grooves will also appeal to fans of DJ Sprinkles, Moodymann, and Theo Parrish.

Gorgeous artwork designed by Robert Beatty, known for his work with artists such as Tame Impala, The Flaming Lips, The Dream Syndicate, Thee Oh Sees, Neon Indian, and Oneohtrix.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: An alluring mix of moody and avant disco with rich, head-turning instrumentals which almost trip into live deep house jams. Somewhere between Manchester's See Thru Hands, The Rotating Assembly and 40 Thieves. Mega!

TRACK LISTING

Deeper
La Joie Devant La Mort
Wanna Know
Trocadero
Moodswing
Sunwash
Joybreath
Deeper Than This?
Toot Sweet
Now That It’s All Over

'VMAK' is the first ever solo album by acclaimed bassist Douglas Andrew McCombs.

McCombs is one of the most highly regarded bassists / guitarists working today, known for his pioneering band Tortoise, his bass playing in Chicago’s Eleventh Dream Day, and his innovative instrumental group Brokeback. He has released albums with guitarist David Daniell and collaborated with the likes of Tom Zé to Yo La Tengo, Stereolab to Daniel Lanois. In addition to being the touring bassist for The Sea and Cake, McCombs has somehow found time to form a new trio Black Duck with guitarist Bill MacKay, and percussionist Charles Rumback.

Douglas McCombs’ ‘VMAK’ is a window into one of the most distinguished and distinct voices in guitar music for the last three decades, effortlessly stretching the boundaries of the guitar while staying firmly grounded by blissful, uncanny melody.

McCombs’ debut solo album is a mix of improvisation, textural explorations and recurring melodic themes. The album title was lifted by the well-travelled McCombs from one of the visas packed into his current passport, the stamp a reminder of how far his music has taken him - literally all over the world. Not since McCombs’ solo outlet Brokeback blossomed into a full-fledged rock unit has his singular approach to solo guitar playing been exhibited in such striking detail. Taking after Brokeback’s classic ‘Morse Code in the Modern Age: Across the Americas’, ‘Two To Coolness’ is a piece that McCombs refined through a series of improvised performances and features Calexico drummer John Convertino, as well as singer / guitarist / synth player Sam Prekop (also of The Sea and Cake). ‘Green Crown’s Step’ was largely improvised working through melodies and patterns. The stately ‘To Whose Falls Shallows’ reshapes three key themes that Tortoise and Brokeback fans will find to be signature McCombs, buoyed by fellow Brokeback member James Elkington (Tweedy), who also engineered and mixed the album.

On the album, McCombs plays with spare instrumentation and primarily plays electric and acoustic guitars as well as the Bass VI, drawing out textures that stretch the scope of his instruments. McCombs’ work is pastoral and expansive, his playing is refined and nuanced, and his melodies often bely his admiration for Ennio Morricone as his guitar imbues endlessly sprawling fields of the Midwest with the same sense of magic. It is a true pleasure to hear him perform in such an intimate way. This is an absolute essential for followers of McCombs and newcomers alike, as the album lays bare his influence on each of his groups as well as firmly stakes McCombs as a force all his own.

TRACK LISTING

Two To Coolness
Green Crown’s Step
To Whose Falls Shallows

‘Still, Here’ emphatically makes the case for Marisa Anderson’s profound artistry, each piece intimately revealing a new aspect of Anderson as a player and as a human being navigating the path laid before her.

Marisa Anderson’s ‘Still, Here’ is for the listener an alchemical salve, the work of a gifted player with an exceptional ability to convey the complexities of the human experience through composition.

Marisa Anderson is one of the most eminent guitarists working today. Her lucid, eloquent approach to guitar music and composition has established her as an unparalleled artist and an insightful, coveted collaborator. Anderson’s work draws on a mosaic of folk musics and lives in conversation with myriad musical traditions.

“[Anderson] the solo guitarist creates truly borderless music, fusing the diverse global traditions she favors without drawing too much attention to the act of juxtaposition.” - Pitchfork

TRACK LISTING

In Dark Water
The Fire This Time
The Low Country
Night Air
Waking
The Crack Where The Light
Gets In
La Llorona
Beat The Drum Slowly

Following their collaboration on the acclaimed ‘For Organ and Brass’, released on Subtext, new album ‘I get along without you very well’ expands on the duo’s intoxicating exploration of meditative, spiritual sonics in unexpected ways.

It is a beautiful meeting of two friends and inventive musical minds, resulting in the most affecting and surprising of pop albums. From its opening notes, ‘I get along without you very well’ delights in subtle tensions and contradictions.

Ellen Arkbro and Johan Graden embody the limitless curiosity and fearless innovation of the Swedish and Berlin new music scenes they inhabit. Arkbro is a composer and musician whose work has been presented around the globe at prestigious institutions such as the Barbican in London, GRM in Paris and the Kölner Philharmonie in Köln.

Graden is one of Sweden’s most sought-after pianists, moving freely between classical music and the European contemporary jazz scene. Currently living in Amman Jordan, he is an active member of the Jordanian experimental pop scene.

‘I get along without you very well’ is a daring statement from two of the most progressive voices in contemporary music. In allowing themselves to be at their most vulnerable - with each other, their collaborators and with listeners - they have created some of their most powerful work to date.

TRACK LISTING

Close
Out Of Luck
All In Bloom
Never Near
Temple
Other Side
Love You, Bye
Waqt

Lightning Bolt redefine here what it means to be DIY. An utterly singular band in every way, unbridled creativity and energy propel them well past most categorical boundaries, least of which is the boundary between band and audience. Theirs is an immersive experience - a sound so huge it can swallow us all.

“... it is hard to believe that all the glorious chaos of Lightning Bolt - a stalwart of the big noise-punk scene - is being made by only two people, the bassist Brian Gibson and the drummer and vocalist Brian Chippendale. Mr. Gibson and Mr. Chippendale toss back and forth gigantic metal riffs and giggly high notes, creating rainbows of dissonance.” - New York Times

TRACK LISTING

King Kandy
Baron Wasteland
Oblivion Balloon
Fly Fucker Fly
The Soft Spoken Spectre
Salamander
World Wobbly Wide

Available on vinyl for the first time in 10 years, with new cover design by the band’s Tim Rutilli. “Uniting where you come from - your roots - with what you strive to be or what you reinvent yourself to become - crowns,” explains Tim Rutili. “At the bottom of these songs are the memories and images you sift through in the process.”

TRACK LISTING

Pink And Sour
Spider’s House
Sunday Noises
The Eye You Lost In The
Crusades
A Chinese Actor
Alice Crawley
The Orchids (Psychic TV)
Burned By The Christians
Black Metal Valentine
Rose-Petal-Ear
3 Legged Animals

Mouse on Mars are recognised as one of Germany’s most defining and versatile electronic music projects. With their anarchic mixture of sound that oscillates between uncontrollable chaos and meticulously arranged structures, Jan St. Werner and Andi Toma have forged a unique musical language which is readily decomposed by the unpredictability of its myriad mutations. Free from schools of thought, genre conventions andfrom the constraints of the music establishment, they have worked under the Mouse On Mars alias for 24 years, mapping their own idiosyncratic trajectory through a no man’s land between pop, art, club music and the avant-garde.

TRACK LISTING

Mine Is In Yours
Wipe That Sound
Spaceship
Send Me Shivers
Blood Comes
The End
Detected Beats
All The Old Powers
Evoke An Object

Glenn Jones is a unique player in the world of solo guitar music. Steeped in both American Primitive guitar music as well as rock and experimental music, Glenn Jones creates rich sonic tapestries with a distinct and stirring voice.

Endlessly curious, Jones has spent the better part of four decades exploring the boundaries of expression and storytelling with the guitar and banjo.

On ‘Vade Mecum’, Jones draws on his personal history to tell stories with elaborate musical detail and emotional weight.

Exploring the complexity of personal experience, emotions and our shared histories, ‘Vade Mecum’ finds Jones painting his music in boundaryless colours, captivatingly vivid.

TRACK LISTING

Vade Mecum
Forsythia
Base Harbor Head
Black & White And Gray
Each Crystal Pane Of Glass
A Handful Of Snow
Kathy Maltese
Ruthie’s Farewell
John Jackson Of Fairfax, Virginia
Away

Multi-instrumentalist Sally Anne Morgan tills the soil of old timey music, folk practices old and new, and psychedelia to sow music that reaches out beyond its roots.

‘Cups’ dives headfirst into the waters of the Morgan’s unconscious mind and plumbs those depths for swells of fertile brilliance and awe.

In stark contrast to the traditional and pop-informed structures of her previous album, ‘Thread’, ‘Cups’ adopts a free-flowing approach intuitive and receptive, brimming and shifting and changing across a fragile equilibrium of pieces both improvised and composed.

The fluid pieces twirl from pensive, looped fiddle to tiptoed banjo to patient, sunny parlour guitar arpeggios to droning dulcimer and a litany of percussive ripples with gentle ease.

By distilling her most immediate inspirations into layers of sparkling timbre and buoyant rambles, Sally Anne Morgan’s ‘Cups’ builds a sense of community from within, like a back porch jam with her own subconscious.

“Meditations on folk music, rather than the thing itself, stern and cerebral at times, but intermittently lush and beautiful... [‘Cups’] captures essential bits of folk music, frames them in stark, repeating ways, and makes us look at them differently.” - Dusted Magazine

“[‘Cups’ is] a totally charming album that bares the unspoiled essence of its creator, a thoroughly engaging artist forging her own singular path upon the resilient precepts of the past.” - No Depression

“Morgan has created a record that’s a meditative idyll... If you need a bit of spiritual realignment, then ‘Cups’ is a necessity, a moment of peace in a punishing world.” - Raven Sings The Blues

“breathtaking, string-laden psychedelic folk” - Brooklyn Vegan

TRACK LISTING

Night Window
Prune
Hori Hori
Pythagoras
Sandbox
Through The Threshold
Home Soup
Angeline
In Come A Bee
Word For World

Available on vinyl for the first time since its original CD-only release in 2007.

The closest of relationships gives its members space to expand, change, develop and play. Tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson and drummer Hamid Drake have just that kind of partnership, one that has seen them periodically move apart and work extensively on other fronts - Anderson tending to the recent relocation of his major jazz venue the Velvet Lounge; Drake in a dizzying array of globetrotting ensembles - but always returning to the fold, digging in together and checking out what’s been learned in the interim.

Over the course of some three decades, the master saxophonist and the prodigy percussionist have continued to reconfirm their commitment to their joint project.

TRACK LISTING

Planet E
Strut Time
For Brother Thompson
Sakti/Shiva
From The River To The Ocean

The music of Dewey Mahood is steadfast in its pursuit of transcendence.

For the past two decades as Plankton Wat, Mahood has contoured his melodic guitar playing into wholly transfiguring pieces.

His fluid compositions apply ethereal, elastic textures to grounded rhythmic grooves that recall the cosmic and the earthly in equal measure.

‘Hidden Path’ is an album built on reflection and discovery, turning the thrill of exploring obscured passages into inward revelations.

Originally presented as a limited cassette in 2017, and now presented on vinyl for the first time, remastered by Amy Dragon, ‘Hidden Path’ is a distillation of Mahood’s musical practice as a way of life, a patient celebration of the unexpected, unhurried and exhilarating.

TRACK LISTING

The Inward Reflection
Dream Cascade
A Window In The Mirror
Hidden Path
The Everflowing Stream
Solitude Amongst The Trees
Awaken
Fields Of Remembrance

The Body and BIG|BRAVE are both bands possessed with an unequalled ability to convey overwhelming weight with simplicity, repetition and detailed sonic atmospheres; artists who continue to alter the definition of what it means to be a heavy band.

The Body are consistently prolific while increasingly ambitious as untethered producers and collaborators. BIG|BRAVE shape sound with dense waves of guitar and feedback, minimalist and hypnotic crashes and emotionally exacting vocal melodies. In collaboration, The Body and BIG|BRAVE shift the gravity of their compositions to woven layers of percussion and unspooling guitars that sprawl through stark frameworks of earthy folk.

Their debut collaborative album, ‘Leaving None But Small Birds’ distils the two ensembles’ pioneering approach to heavy music into psalms for the forgotten, threnodies of lost love and odes to vengeance.

Recorded, mixed and produced by Seth Manchester at Machines With Magnets (Liturgy, Battles, Mdou Moctar) and mastered by Heba Kadry (Björk, David Bowie).

“Emotionally coherent but tricky to categorize. BIG|BRAVE are the sound of the raw unconscious, turned up loud.” - Pitchfork

“The Body have become one of the most interesting and difficult to pin down groups in extreme music.” - Rolling Stone

TRACK LISTING

Blackest Crow
Oh Sinner
Hard Times
Once I Had A Sweetheart
Black Is The Colour
Polly Gosford
Babes In The Woods

Guitarists Marisa Anderson and William Tyler distil deeply rooted and varied traditions into distinctive voices all their own. Anderson and Tyler are each unyielding in their desire to extend through those traditions and the confines of ‘guitar music’ to craft music at once intimate and expansive, conversational and transcendent.

The duo’s debut collaborative album tethers together their singular voices into unified narratives that glisten, drive and sway. On ‘Lost Futures’, Anderson and Tyler’s guitars dance through lush arrangements and pastoral duets serpentine and reverent. 

‘Lost Futures’ takes its name from writer Mark Fisher’s cultural theory of the loss of potential futures, the hopes and ideals which once felt inevitable but have since been interrupted. Anderson and Tyler’s use of textural drones, rhythmic repetition and harmonic shifts embody the building tensions of uncertainty created by profound loss: loss of life, experience, companionship, compassion. Across ‘Lost Futures’, Anderson and Tyler mold their instruments into breathtaking panoramas of blight and bliss. Each movement contains a dense biome of transportive sound. 

The duo’s music together reckons with mounting pressures as well as the joy of newfound friendship and gratitude for being able to play together. In tandem, Marisa Anderson and William Tyler have composed a work of remarkable breadth, brimming with resplendent odes of solace.

Marisa Anderson and William Tyler are both prolific solo artists. Tyler has also toured with groups including Lambchop and Silver Jews and Marisa has contributed to recordings by Beth Ditto, Sharon Van Etten and Circuit Des Yeux among others. 

‘Lost Futures’ features guests Gisela Rodriguez Fernandez on violin and Patricia Vázquez Gómez playing quijada.

Package features artwork by Sam Smith. LPs include artworked inner-sleeve featuring photography by Marisa Anderson.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Both Marisa Anderson and William Tyler have impeccable form for crafting gorgeous acoustic guitar anthems, ranging from the beautiful simplicity of Anderson's plucked acoustic to Tyler's country-tinged Americana anthems, so I really couldn't imagine a better combination than the two of them. It works perfectly here with each artist's own voice coming through wonderfully while accentuating each-other perfectly.

TRACK LISTING

1. News About Heaven
2. Lost Futures
3. Pray For Rain
4. Something Will Come
5. At The Edge Of The World
6. Hurricane Light
7. Life And Casualty
8. Haunted By Water

Jan St. Werner is one-half of legendary electronic duo Mouse On Mars. Werner records music as well under the name Lithops and has released records with Oval’s Markus Popp as Microstoria. Jan has collaborated with a wide range of artists from Mark E Smith and Stereolab to The National.

Kid Millions, aka John Colpitts, is a prolific drummer, known for his work in Oneida and frequently performs with Laurie Anderson and Marnie Stern. Colpitt’s past collaborations include Philip Glass, Royal Trux, Boredoms, White Hills and Spiritualized. Under the moniker Man Forever, Colpitts collaborated with acclaimed groups So Percussion, Greg Fox, Tigue, Yo La Tengo and more.

Together, the works on ‘Imperium Droop’ are a joyful listen and an exhilarating foray into the unknown; Kid Millions’ (John Colpitts) tireless rhythms and subtle gestures mirror Jan St. Werner’s boundless textural palette and together drive each piece towards transcendence. Exploring a liminal space between improvisation and composition, the duo expand their musical dialogue beyond the physical limitations of space and time.

LP is available on opaque purple with white coloured vinyl with art by Frieda Luczak, whose designs have been featured on many classic Mouse on Mars albums.

“Kid Millions has become a ubiquitous force in a constantly changing scene.” - New York Times

“Mouse on Mars have never let their concepts eclipse the music; part of the pleasure of the duo’s output is its very inscrutability... the sounds beckon in their mystery.” - Pitchfork

“Mutant, microtonal... [Jan St. Werner] explores one area of sound with great intensity and nuance” - Uncut

“Experimental percussion genius” - Village Voice on Kid Millions

TRACK LISTING

Color Bagpipes
Apotropaic
Laffen’ Death
Hexaco Inversion
Dark Tetrad
Astral Stare
Nuclei Melodies
Sorrows And
Compensations

Rose City Band is celebrated guitarist Ripley Johnson. A prolific songwriter, Johnson started Rose City Band to have an outlet to explore songwriting styles apart from Wooden Shjips and Moon Duo, where he is often not the lead songwriter. Rose City Band allowed him to follow his musical muses as they greet him and not be bound by the schedule of bandmates and demands of a touring group. Stepping out from behind the psychedelic haze that envelops his other output, Rose City Band’s lean yet richly textured arrangements lay bare the beauty of his songcraft. On Earth Trip, Johnson reveals more of himself than ever before, coloring the project’s country-rock twang with a melancholic, wistful undertone. It charts a journey of personal growth and introspection with surprising honesty, from pining for summers spent with friends to meditations on space, stillness and the splendor of the natural world. It continues Rose City Band’s celebration of summer warmth and the great outdoors, seen from a new vantage point, and with newfound appreciation for the freedom and joy that nature provides.

Earth Trip was written during a period of sudden shocks and drastic lifestyle changes for Johnson. Forced to cancel extensive touring plans for 2020, the guitarist found himself home for an extended period for the first time in years. No longer in constant motion, he was able to experience and enjoy the simple pleasures of home life, of being in one place: hikes in nature, bathing outside, and waking with the dawn. Forming new connections to his surroundings, from tending to a garden to sleeping out under the stars, Johnson found hope and healing in a more mindful relationship with the natural world.

Themes of recalibration and finding personal space are equally mirrored in Earth Trip’s lean production. Recorded at his home studio in Portland and mixed by Cooper Crain (Bitchin’ Bajas, Cave), Johnson makes deft use of space while experimenting with new sonics. Shimmering pedal steel, woozy harmonica melodies, and stately piano enhance the album’s introspective tone without ever clouding arrangements. Psychedelic elements that nod to Johnson’s other projects and influences still appear throughout, but hover at the edge of perception, a subtle halo adding colour and texture to Johnson’s songwriting rather than taking centrer-stage. He elaborates: “I told Cooper I was trying to capture that feeling when you take psychedelics and they just start coming on - maybe objects start buzzing in the edges of your vision, you start seeing slight trails, maybe the characteristics of sound change subtly. But you’re not fully tripping yet. He got the idea right away and his mix really captures that feeling.” Johnson’s lithe guitar playing throughout treads a fine line between country and cosmic, taut melodies spiralling out into long reverb trails or free-form solos buoyed by a breeze, radiating summer warmth.

Through its daring honesty and masteful arrangements, Earth Trip cements Johnson’s place as a singular songwriter of inimitable skill. It’s message of mindfulness and our interconnectedness to the environment expands on a long country and blues music tradition that draws a symbiotic relationship between storyteller and the land, capturing the beauty of the natural world while also emphasising our responsibility in preserving it for future generations.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Rose city band go full country! Slide guitars, lap steel and tasteful reverb coalesce into a brilliantly evocative and wonderfully produced distillation of that Rose City sound into a country shell. It's a testament to Ripley Johnson's skill that his sound can be so successfully transplanted into a different shell while retaining everything that made him so great in the first place. Lovely stuff.

TRACK LISTING

1. Silver Roses
2. In The Rain
3. World Is Turning
4. Feel Of Love
5. Lonely Places
6. Ramblin’ With The Day
7. Rabbit
8. Dawn Patrol

Colleen is an aboundingly inventive composer and artist. For two decades Cécile Schott, as Colleen, has crafted welcoming, enchanting, and bewildering music. The multiinstrumentalist and vocalist’s timeless compositions make use of carefully selected tools to mold memories into transcendent splendor. The Tunnel and the Clearing finds Schott at her most vulnerable and confident, invoking contemplative and swirling organ processed through analog electronics, steady drum machine syncopations and her distinctive voice. On an album centered on processing the complicated washes of emotion through tribulations and revelations Colleen presents a vision of breathless clarity.

The Tunnel and the Clearing was developed over a period of transformative change. Colleen began work on the album in 2018 but was all but halted by extreme fatigue from a previously undiagnosed illness. Years of treatment and adjustment eventually led to relocating to Barcelona, soon followed by lockdowns and then the dissolution of her longtime partnership. Reflecting on these cumulative experiences she reimagined her compositional practices, spending months in near complete silence. Says Schott, “Never before had I felt so profoundly the power that music has, through harmony, melody, rhythm and sound itself, to express the whole range of human emotions.” The resulting seven pieces investigate the complex, at times contradictory relationship between excitement and fear, anger and understanding, struggle and triumph, all focused on a reconstruction of the self.

Colleen’s albums are unified by distinct and personal instrumentation, built around music boxes, viola da gamba, or electronics, they somehow all remarkably share a dreamlike modern quality. For The Tunnel and the Clearing Schott restricted herself to using analog electronic instruments including the Elka Drummer One, the Roland RE-201 Space Echo and Moog Grandmother synth, coupled with Yamaha organ keyboard. Stunningly, Colleen achieves the rich emotional intricacy and the lush density of textures on The Tunnel and the Clearing through almost entirely live performance and processing. These detailed and affecting compositions mirror Colleen’s grappling with her own psyche. Schott elaborates “I found direct correspondences between my internal discourse, its obsessive, frantic attempts at making sense of what I could not understand, and the music I was making, with motifs functioning as questions and answers, doubts and assertions.” Clicks, hums, warbles and throbs emulating our evolving internal worlds, an “emotional noise.” A musical journey through the tunnel toward the clearing at its end. The Tunnel and the Clearing is a work of lucid reverence, a constellation of marvels suspended in air.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A beautifully produced juxtaposition of Space Lady-esque echoing vocal shards and slowly pulled organ swells, flickering drum machines and psychedelic reverb, 'The Tunnel..' is both brilliantly propulsive and warmingly lysergic, ending up somewhere between an arm-waving midday festival slot and loose, chillout room ambience. Really lovely stuff.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Crossing
2. Revelation
3. Implosion-Explosion
4. The Tunnel And The Clearing
5. Gazing At Taurus - Santa Eulalia
6. Gazing At Taurus - Night Sky Rumba
7. Hidden In The Current

Mouse on Mars, the Berlin-based duo of Jan St. Werner and Andi Toma, approach electronic music with an inexhaustible curiosity and unparalleled ingenuity. ‘AAI’ (Anarchic Artificial Intelligence) takes their fascination with technology and undogmatic exploration a quantum leap further.

Emerging from a primordial ooze of rolling bass and skittering electronics, hypnotic polyrhythms and pulsing synthesizers propel the listener across the record’s expanse. Hidden in the duo’s hyper-detailed productions is a kind of meta-narrative.

Working with AI tech collective Birds on Mars and former Soundcloud programmers Ranny Keddo and Derrek Kindle, the duo collaborated on the creation of bespoke software capable of modelling speech; text and voice from writer and scholar of African Studies Louis Chude-Sokei and DJ/producer Yağmur Uçkunkaya were fed into the software as a model, allowing Toma and Werner to control parameters like speed or mood, thereby creating a kind of speech instrument they could control and play as they would a synthesizer.

The album’s narrative is quite literally mirrored in the music - the sound of an artificial intelligence growing, learning and speaking. This exploration of artificial intelligence as both a narrative framework and compositional tool, allowing the duo to summon their most explicitly science-fiction work to date.

Original artwork by Casey Reas, inventor of the computer graphics language Processing.

Recently, Mouse on Mars received the 2020 Holger Czukay Prize for Pop Music.

Mouse on Mars have been regularly streaming performances throughout 2020, partnering with organizations like Goethe-Institut, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Conditions of a Necessity and others and will continue these in 2021.

TRACK LISTING

Engineering Systems
The Latent Space
Speech And Ambulation
Thousand To One
Walking And Talking
Youmachine
Doublekeyrock
Machine Rights
Go Tick
The Fear Of Machines
Artificial Authentic
Machine Perspective
Cut That Fishernet
Tools Use Tools
Loose Tools
Seven Months
Paymig
Borrow Signs
New Definitions
New Life Always Announces Itself Through Sound

Over the course of two decades The Body - Lee Buford and Chip King - have consistently challenged assumptions and defied categorization, redefining what it means to be a heavy band.

On ‘I’ve Seen All I Need To See’, they test the boundaries of the studio to explore the extremes and microtonality of distortion to find its maximal impact.

Their most incisively bleak album to date, a towering monolith of noise, Buford’s booming, resolute drums paired with King’s obliterated guitar and howl.

Course, bristling distortion contorts every instrument, with samples of spoken word, cymbals, toms and King’s already noxious tone emerging from layers of feedback.

Features guests Ben Eberle (Sandworm) and Chrissy Wolpert (Assembly of Light Choir).  Recorded with long time engineer Seth Manchester at Machines with Magnets (Lightning Bolt, Battles, Daughters) and mastered by Matt Colton (Sumac, Brian Eno, Uniform, Sunn O)))).

The Body have collaborated with many, including Full Of Hell, Thou, Uniform and Bummer.

“The distortion has this ability to envelope you, and not push you away. It has this strange kind of beautiful timbre... once you give into the sheer power of it, and let it take you on a ride then it becomes this whole other kind of sonic experience.” - Matt Colton

TRACK LISTING

A Lament
Tied Up And Locked In
Eschatological Imperative
A Pain Of Knowing
The City Is Shelled
They Are Coming
The Handle/The Blade
Path Of Failure

The music of Emil Amos is at once intimate and expansive. Under the name Holy Sons, as well as with bands Om, Grails and Lilacs and Champagne, Amos harnesses boundless sonic textures to embellish delicately crafted songs, he plays the bulk of the instruments and sings the majority of the vocals throughout the album and is joined on a few pieces by drummer Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth).

His music balances cues from classic and indie rock traditions with tenderness and sense of foreboding through unparalleled artistry. Holy Sons’ ‘Raw and Disfigured’ showcases Amos’ mastery of songcraft through a seemingly impossible combination of subtle yet potent gestures, bold arrangements and resolute vulnerability.

Recorded at Sonic Youth’s studio Echo Canyon West, ‘Raw and Disfigured’ stands as Amos’ most ambitious and comprehensive album yet, a panoramic gallery of songs as beautiful as they are crushing.

TRACK LISTING

The Loser That Always Wins
Lady Of The Hour
Cast Bound King
Hand That Feeds
Permanent Things
Four Walls
Held The Hand
Lost In The Fire
Transformation
Slow To Run
Reach Out And Touch Something
Cóiste Bodhar
Nights Like This
Up On That Hill
Backslider’s Wine
Bloody Strings

Sam Prekop’s boundless imagination is guided by his strong sense of melody. For more than 25 years, as a solo artist or as part of The Sea and Cake, Prekop creates a singular sound that is both inventive and warm. New album ‘Comma’ takes Pekop’s electronic music experiments in a surprising new direction. Working extensively with beat programming for the first time, Prekop uses rhythm as a narrative tool, tapping into electronic music’s romantic and emotional qualities. ‘Comma’ embraces the analogue synthesizer’s often unpredictable nature, imbuing the record with a decidedly organic feel even while working within the relative rigidity of beat architectures.

Prekop’s creative process is a combination of preparation and improvisation.Writing sessions for ‘Comma’ began with an open-ended exploration of sounds and textures from which the first fragments of songs would reveal themselves. The introduction of drum machines and additional synthesizer units to his modular setup shifted things in surprising new directions as he worked to bend them into more traditional pop song structures. Drum tracks and emergent rhythms provided the frameworks and narrative sketches to be fleshed out with lustrous widescreen synth pads and ribboning melodies. In approaching his writing with a completely open mind and letting himself be guided by the music, Prekop maintains a delicate balance between composition and chance, control and spontaneity.

Prekop’s wide-eyed sense of discovery guides his exploration of beat-driven music, pushing him to use rhythm as a narrative tool and to embrace electronic music’s romantic and emotional qualities. With ‘Comma’, Prekop compiles an incredible breadth of ideas into a surprisingly coherent soundworld. It’s a modern minimal pop album that taps into the experimental heritage of the synthesizer. The album places Sam Prekop’s work squarely in the tradition of electronic music pioneers like Brian Eno and Yellow Magic Orchestra, who brought together the unrestrained ambition of the avantgarde with the immediacy and accessibility of pop music.

TRACK LISTING

1. Park Line
2. Summer Places
3. Comma
4. September Remember
5. The New Last
6. Approaching
7. Circle Line
8. Never Met
9. Wax Wing
10. Above Our Heads

The Quickening is an improvised work guided by emotional intuition and an ability to spin collective experience into music of potent and boundless beauty.

Jim White and Marisa Anderson instrumental voices’ are unmistakable and spellbindingly lyrical. Anderson unravels global guitar traditions into atmospheres all their own through improvisations and transforming melodic lines. While White implements an array of sticks, brushes, and techniques that imbue each rhythmic percussion passage with its own distinct personality. Together their melodic flourishes cascade and twist upon one another, at times trading conversational exchanges, and at others drifting in unison as if lost in the same train of thought.

White and Anderson share an abounding appetite for musical exploration. White, as a member of Venom P Stinger, Dirty Three, and Xylouris White, is well known for his creative and idiosyncratic drumming. His singular abilities have also led to collaborations with Cat Power, PJ Harvey, and Bill Callahan among others.

Anderson’s prolific output as a solo performer, her mastery of traditional folk and blues forms and her abilities to make them entirely her own has established her as one of the most exciting and forward-thinking guitarists of the last decade.

White and Anderson’s considerable technical skills are used in the most inventive and unconventional manner on their debut duo recording, The Quickening. The duo’ friendship and shared explorative nature inform these warm and daring improvisations. Their remarkable performances take the listener on a journey of exuberant discovery.

The idea of a collaboration developed while on the road together in 2015, Anderson playing solo and White playing with Xylouris white. The Quickening began at the Portland studio Type Foundry in late 2018, where the duo initially agreed to meet and improvise and record. Happy with the recordings, the duo headed to Mexico City and into Estudios Noviembres, a time capsule of a studio from the 70’s that had been largely closed before some young engineers took it over. The “slight disorientation” of working in less familiar environments mirrored their willingness to plunge headfirst into exploring new sonic territory together. Anderson purchased a new nylon string Ramos-Castillo guitar from a Mexican luthier just ahead of recording which leant to the spontaneity of “The Lucky” and “The Quickening”. The duo did not rehearse or perform together prior to the recording sessions; as White puts it, “it’s good to suspend disbelief at this stage of playing.”

TRACK LISTING

Gathering
Unwritten
The Lucky
The Other Christmas
Song
Last Days
Diver
The Quickening
Pallet
18 To 1
November

It is impossible to talk about modern psychedelic music without mentioning Ripley Johnson. As bandleader of Wooden Shjips and half of Moon Duo, Johnson has continually charted new cosmic paths that expand on the language of the genre. With Rose City Band, Johnson’s songwriting and beautiful guitar lines take center stage. While his vocal treatment would be recognizable to any Wooden Shjips fan, the sparseness of the instrumentation lays bare the beauty of his writing. Shimmering guitar lines are free to shine, buoyed by driving rhythms. New to the mix are arrangements and instruments drawn directly from classic country, resulting in songs with more than a hint of twang. Buoyant and joyous, Summerlong is a captivating listen that leaves the listener yearning for more. The record is an ode to freedom, born of a musician stepping out of all routines and whose own liberation is communicated so completely in his music. Summerlong is a record that, taken in its entirety, is an emphatic statement on the songwriting power of Ripley Johnson. Johnson’s joy in every aspect of this album is delightfully infectious.

Rose City Band started purely as a recording project, with Johnson’s role mostly obscured for the self-titled debut album. Released with no promotion, in the style of private press records, it was a liberating, a focus on music without any expectations. With a chuckle, Johnson elaborates, “I always would threaten to my friends that I’m gonna start a country rock band so I can retire and just play down at the pub every Thursday night during happy hour. I love being able to tour and travel, but I also like the idea of having a local band … more of a social music experience.” Freedom from expectation and obligation gave Johnson the space to experiment. The introduction of lap steel, mandolin, and jaw harp enhance Johnson’s lean guitar work with radiant overtones, placing Summerlong more overtly within the country tradition than its predecessor. Work on the album began at Johnson’s home studio in Portland during the summer, but, interrupted by touring, was not be finished until winter. The dark isolation of winter and the pining for summer’s easier days can be felt in the album’s few quieter moments. Summerlong was mixed by John McEntire (Stereolab, Broken Social Scene, Tortoise) at his newly minted Portland Soma Studios and mastered by Amy Dragon at Telegraph Mastering, also based in Portland.

The aptly named Summerlong, born of Johnson’s own fondness for the season, delivers an emotional lift—an expression akin to the joy of getting out there on a warm day, be it gathering for a BBQ, hopping onto a bike, leaping into a swimming hole, or simply reading in a park.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Ripley Johnson once again brings the good stuff for his second album under this moniker. Swooning guitars and hazy atmospheric ambience underpin the solid backdrop of Ripley's sweet vocal delivery and syrupy, languid melodies. It's an enchanting and evocative collection, and one that continues the (very high) reputation set by last years' eponymous debut.

TRACK LISTING

1. Only Lonely
2. Empty Bottles
3. Real Long Gone
4. Floating Out
5. Morning Light
6. Reno Shuffle
7. Wee Hours >
8. Wildflowers

In just over a year since their initial inception, Eye Flys have established themselves as a force beyond reckoning. Their debut full-length ‘Tub of Lard’ is stunningly potency full of piss and vinegar, scientific in its ability to pulverize everything in its path. Due in part to the considerable pedigree of the band’s line- up (including members of Full of Hell, Backslider, Triac), the East Coast-based quartet chew through steel-barbed riffs and off-kilter rhythms with exponential force. Their 2019 debut EP ‘Context’ set an early precedent for just how lean and ruthless they can be. On ‘Tub of Lard’, Eye Flys launch that potential into 10 songs of maximum impact that find both raw power and subtlety in their simplicity.

For fans of Unsane, Cherubs, The Melvins.

TRACK LISTING

Tubba Lard
Guillotine
Predator And Prey
Not Ready For Tomorrow
Reality Tunnel
Nice Guy
Chapel Perilous
Extraterrestrial Memoradum
BLS
Perception Is Gamble

Arbouretum’s mystic folk-rock uses English folk, country blues, Americana and 70s psychedelia as touchpoints in their singular and distinctive sound and they’ve perfected the craft of storytelling, using a delicate interplay of melodies and prosaic lyrics.‘Let It All’ In is their most accomplished and evocative album yet. Guitarist and vocalist Dave Heumann’s melodies and solos remain a central focus, bolstered by the hypnotic rhythms of bassist Corey Allender and drummer Brian Carey, enhanced by Matthew Pierce’s substantial yet understated keyboard figures. Each song a vivid scene or tale; Heumann’s deep sense of spirituality and command of storytelling through myth and metaphor transports the listener to another world and time. Features guest performances from Mike Kuhl, Hans Chew and Dave

TRACK LISTING

1. How Deep It Goes
2. A Prism In Reverse
3. No Sanctuary Blues
4. Night Theme
5. Headwaters II
6. Buffeted By Wind
7. Let It All In
8. High Water Song

Sightless Pit may be a new name in heavy music but its members are some of the most groundbreaking artist of the genre. Lee Buford (The Body), Kristin Hayter (Lingua Ignota) and Dylan Walker (Full Of Hell) recorded their debut ‘Grave Of A Dog’ at Machines With Magnets with Seth Manchester (The Body, Lightning Bolt). Fans will recognize immediately Buford’s singular percussion and production, Walker’s venomous howl and Hayter’s virtuosic voice. The three share a bleak vision of existence and a willingness to follow each other into the musical abyss. Sightless Pit are a group of expansive ideas, extensive experience working together and shared vision. Over the course of the eight tracks the trio reflect the extremes and emotional weight of their world view through elegiac dirges, driving beats and explosive crescendos. Together, three strong voices unite to create a work of remarkable clarity of expression of enormous sorrow, futility and, most of all, beauty.

TRACK LISTING

Kingscorpse
Immersion Dispersal
The Ocean Of Mercy
Violent Rain
Drunk On Marrow
Miles Of Chain
Whom The Devil Long
Sought To Strangle
Love Is Dead, All Love Is
Dead

OOIOO is a name that should be familiar to anyone who’s waded into the world of rock - and so should their leader YoshimiO’s. Percussionist and founding member for the Boredoms and Saicobab and a longtime collaborator of Kim Gordon (of Sonic Youth), Susie Ibarra and Robert Lowe, among others.

It’s no surprise that each OOIOO record has been as energizing and enthralling as the last, which might be the most consistent thing about their eight records - each focus on and offer listeners something new.

‘Nijimusi’ was mainly recorded using a conventional rock ensemble of two guitars, bass and drums but often feels more than that, the phrasing and rhythms becoming something new slowly and then all at once. It’s rock but hard to pin down exactly; psychedelic, shimmering distortion, shouts and tight instrumentation giving way to a controlled burn of instrumental breakdowns.

Founded in 1995, OOIOO continue to wow. After six years without releasing new music internationally they’ve created a new album that goes back to the roots of being a four-piece band.

OOIOO’s members came together as musicians who move freely between the audible and inaudible, rhythm and non-rhythm, noise and silence. ‘Nijimusi’ can be considered music but it is also a work of art that stimulates the sense of touch and smell, while being atmospheric and ethereal at the same time.

“A monument to the endless possibilities afforded by an improvisational spirit, but more importantly it highlights Yoshimi and her band’s tireless and ever-evolving voice.” - Pitchfork

“In the seemingly impenetrable, fantastic murkiness of Japanese experimental psych pop, more often than not, Yoshimi has been a beacon.” - FADER (cover story) 

TRACK LISTING

Nijimusi
Nijimu
Jibun
Tisou
Asozan5
Bulun
Walk For “345” Minutes, while Saying “Ah Yeah!” with A “Mountain Book” in One Hand, Until A shower Of Light Pours down
Kawasemi Ah

For their seventh full length, ‘Sonic Citadel’, Brians Gibson and Chippendale have done the daring, stripping away some of the distortion mask to reveal the naked pop forms as never before.

Throughout their 25-year history Lightning Bolt have toured the world, performing at Coachella, ATP, Festivals, Pitchfork Music Festival, Austin Psych Fest and FYF Fest, to name a few.

Brian Chippendale has collaborated with Björk, Boredoms, Andrew W.K. and Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry. Brian’s comics are published with Drawn & Quarterly and Picturebox. Brian is also in Black Pus.

Brian Gibson’s game Thumper, produced by his own company Drool, was awarded the 2019 Apple Design Award, was on Gamespot, Hardcore Gamer and IDN’s Best Of 2016 lists and won countless other awards.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: With the grinding guitars and machinated percussive blasts, Lightning Bolt have always proved an intimating presence. 'Sonic Citadel' sees them embracing more of the rapid-fire punk aesthetic than their more dirgy stoner sludge, and is all the better for the glimmers of melody and old-school thrash-punk fire within.

TRACK LISTING

Blow To The Head
USA Is A Psycho
Air Conditioning
Hüsker Dön’t
Big Banger
Halloween 3
Don Henley In The Park
Tom Thump
Bouncy House
All Insane
Van Halen 2049

Eye Flys brings together the minds of four musicians known for their work in some of the most extreme, blistering bands today. The quartet was initially started by Full Of Hell guitarist Spencer Hazard and former Backslider drummer Patrick Forrest as an outlet to play aggressive music with equal intensity that would contrast the breakneck speeds of their other projects. After asking Backslider bassist Jake Smith to join on guitar and vocals and Triac’s Kevin Bernsten on bass, Eye Flys’ potential for crafting impossibly heavy songs was solidified.

Eye Flys’ debut ‘Context’ was written and recorded just a few short months from the band’s inception, drawing on each members’ considerable experience and driven by the excitement of playing in uncharted territory. This is an album of commanding, lean noise rock absolutely brimming with vitriol.

The direct, raw energy of Eye Flys’ music is simultaneously menacing and intoxicating. Drawing immediate comparisons to bands like Unsane, Cherubs and The Melvins (where they take their name), the quartet’s bludgeoning sound is underpinned by a razor sharp edge. Smith’s vicious lyrics are paralleled by his unrelenting barks with passages like the opening of ‘Weaponize’ literally spat through grinding teeth. Their taut, muscular riffing and pummelling drums lay atop a foundation of deceptively intricate arrangements.

Eye Flys’ ‘Context’ stands as a testament to its members’ abilities to produce music that is as ferocious as it is addictive. In just six songs Eye Flys not only prove their place among their peers but stand out as a force of sheer, immovable power.

TRACK LISTING

Stems
Dosed
Crushing Of The Human
Spirit
Weaponize
The Triumph Of Hagbard Celine
Fuckface

Umberto is an artist whose work is distinctly cinematic. Composer Matt Hill’s performances and delicate compositions taken together have the cumulative ability to surprise. Hill, whose Umberto moniker is an homage to director Umberto Lenzi, is an experienced and active film composer, most recently scoring the film ‘All That We Destroy’. In addition to film and commercial work, Umberto has released a number of lauded solo recordings.

On Umberto’s Thrill Jockey debut ‘Helpless Spectator’, his haunting music is otherworldly and affecting alike, leaving the listener with an unsettling and profound air of mystery. Umberto’s early recordings harken back to classic synth- driven sci-fi and horror soundtracks. ‘Helpless Spectator’ uses synthesizers in an entirely different manner. Cold, looming monolith tones are now warm, softer pads that envelope the listener while guitar, cello, banjo and pedal steel add movement and light. Still, Hill unsettles with his arrangements and melodic phrasing. Unexpected shifts and turns in even the most tender movements of ‘Helpless Spectator’ are inflected with a contemplative melancholy and fragility.

Umberto makes masterful use of varied textures throughout the album, blending supernatural effects and grounded instruments to create distinct atmospheres. ‘Helpless Spectator’ is inquisitive and moving in equal measure, an album of sombre elegance and delicate arrangements whose cumulative effect of unease is entirely unexpected.

TRACK LISTING

Hidden Thoughts
Leafless Tree
Spontaneous Possession
Reflection
The Higher Room
Sadness, Happiness,
Disgust, And Surprise
Absent Images
Arroyo

The incomparable duo, Matmos, have done it again! Their new album, Plastic Anniversary, was created using only plastic. Highlighting the crises of convenience, the Duo make music from our refuse. True to form, the band have assembled a promiscuous array of examples of this sturdy-yet-ersatz family of materials: Dominos, Styrofoam coolers, police riot shields, polyethylene waste containers, PVC panpipes, pinpricks of bubble wrap, pills, silicone gel breast implants and most horrifically synthetic human fat. Where did this idea come from? Drew Daniels and M.C, Schmidts own “plastic” anniversary as a couple.

Matmos glide from the tongue-in-cheek fun of “Breaking Bread” (literally smashing Bread LPs) to Cronenbergian body-horror of “Interior with Billiard Balls & Synthetic Fat.” The album is playful and poppy while conveying a very serious message and on the darker implications of ignoring the havoc we are imposing on the earth all for the sake of convienience

A super special limited edition set will come with a sculptural album, embedded with plastic bottles, that while is the actual album, is rendered viruatlly unplayable by the pastic floating within. This edition also includes the album on a exclusive multi color mashup vinyl, a t-shirt, and a bonus track, all exclusive to the box. All proceeds from this special edition will benefit The Ocean Cleanup.

TRACK LISTING

1. Breaking Bread
2. The Crying Pill
3. Interior With Billiard Balls & Synthetic Fat
4. Extending The Plastisphere To GJ237b
5. Silicone Gel Implant
6. Plastic Anniversary
7. Thermoplastic Riot Shield
8. Fanfare For Polyethylene Waste Containers
9. The Singing Tube
10. Collapse Of The Fourth Kingdom
11. Plastisphere

Chicago’s Oozing Wound are a mass of contradictions: weed lovers whose music hits you with its breakneck head banging force. The band deal with nihilism, yet remain addictively fun. Their music is equal parts sludge and thrash, noise and riff-loaded rock. High Anxiety is an unabashed mocking of the madness of modern living, its chemical induced adventures and establishment absurdity, deriding the industrial complex behind established institutions such as NASA while savaging those who deny science. Oozing Wound on High Anxiety are nihilistic pied pipers making us laugh our way to the apocalypse. The album finds guitarist and vocalist Zack Weil drummer Kyle Reynolds and bassist Kevin Cribbin blending their ferocious energy, sonic experiments and blunt lyricism for a pummeling enjoyable head-banger with an irresistible sneer.

On High Anxiety, Oozing Wound’s songs have become more complex, their attacks more ferocious, and bass and guitar lines more captivating. The album was recorded in four days at Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio studio. The trio ripped through live-tracking and overdubs, leaving space to experiment with new sounds and effects. The band, having an affinity for the complexities of prog music, managed to bring prog elements to High Anxiety without sacrificing any of their songs punch. Subtle layers of saxophone, flutes and synths were blended into guitar tones, adding depth and texture without cluttering arrangements. Fist-pumping blasts of whitehot riffing become a Trojan horse for sonic weirdness. The resulting recordings are at once some of their most sonically rich, immediate, and impactful.

High Anxiety drips with a caustic vitriol that is both riotous and intoxicating

TRACK LISTING

1. Surrounded By Fucking Idiots
2. Filth Chisel
3. Tween Shitbag
4. Die On Mars
5. Birth Of A Flat Earther
6. Riding The Universe
7. Vein Ripper

Endon is a band as mercurial as they are ferocious. Comprised of the quintet of vocalist Taichi Nagura, guitarist Koki Miyabe, drummer Shin Yokota and electronics/noisemakers Taro Aiko and Etsuo Nagura, Endon’s music is contained chaos, bending and colliding genres into one another atop a bed of thunderous distortion, feedback, and unearthly squeals. Vocalist Taichi’s voice embodies an unreal number of personalities with wordless howls seething one moment and agonized cries the next, before desperate gasps for air. It comes as no surprise that they have been credited as the most extreme band in Tokyo.

‘Boy Meets Girl’ was envisioned as a soundtrack to an imagined horror film about love. The core of the ensemble’s song structures are often built around Koki’s fuzz-laden guitar and Shin’s drum bombast which propel torrents of hisses and squelches from Taro and Etsuo. Taichi’s largely lyricless screams, moans and whimpers are potent messengers of the songs’ emotional heft. There lies an ecstatic, excited energy amidst the anarchic defiance Endon's music exudes. Born of the same Japanese scenes that gave rise to the likes of Merzbow and Boredoms, their sound is equally diverse and abrasive. ‘Boy Meets Girl’ demonstrates Endon’s singular faculty to produce music that is at once tortured and transcendent.

TRACK LISTING

Boy Meets Girl
Heart Shaped Brain
Born Again
Doubts As A Source
Love Amnesia
Final Acting Out
Red Shoes
Not For You

Through his output both as a sound artist and through his eclectic Dekorder record label, Black To Comm (Marc Richter) has established himself as a singular voice of new music. His Thrill Jockey debut, "Seven Horses For Seven Kings", is Richter’s most direct and visceral to date.

A relentless sonic explorer, he approaches the studio as his instrument, using sampling, analogue production and digital manipulation to sculpt audio fragments into surprising new shapes. Samples from Richter’s contemporaries like German composer Nils Frahm are bent and compounded with elements of early recorded music and medieval song, creating pieces that transcend time and genre. Richter blurs the lines between organic instrumentation and digital production to the extent that the two become inseparable.

"Seven Horses For Seven Kings" was completed during a particularly prolific period for Richter. Working on a broad range of commissions since his last album - from writing for film and theatre works to composing for art installations, apps and sleep music - generated a flurry of new ideas and influences. Extensive touring would equally come to inform a key shift in Richter’s music, simulating the raw, unpredictable energy of live performances on record. While rhythm has been largely absent from previous Black To Comm releases, here the music seems totally bound to it. The album’s breathtaking pace drives Richter’s music to new levels of intensity.

'Black To Comm is... like an abandoned museum of late-Twentieth Century instruments whose exhibits are still running at half power.' - New Yorker

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Pulsing doom-laiden ambience, rickety industrial echoes and foreboding strings form the backbone to Black To Comm's most evocative and absorbing work to date. Stunning stuff.

TRACK LISTING

Asphodel Mansions
A Miracle No-Mother Child At Your Breast
Lethe
Ten Tons Of Rain In A Plastic Cup
Licking The Fig Tree Threshold
Fly On You
Double Happiness In Temporal Decoy
If Not, Not
The Deseret Alphabet
Semirechye
Rameses II
Angel Investor
The Courtesan Jigokudayu Sees Herself as A Skeleton In The Mirror Of Hell

‘Luck In The Valley’ is the 10th and final album by Jack Rose and is the yardstick by which many contemporary acoustic guitar albums are measured. This 2018 re-issue makes this contemporary classic available again for the first time since 2010.

Jack Rose first rose to prominence with the drone/noise/folk unit Pelt. Pelt can be counted among the early influential new music underground bands such as UN, No Neck Blues Band, Charalambides, Tower Recordings and Six Organs Of Admittance. Along with the influences of John Fahey and Robbie Basho, Rose also incorporated North Indian classical, early American blues, bluegrass and minimalism into his singular style.

‘Luck In The Valley’ came right as Rose’s influence was just beginning to take flight but was sadly his last album before his unexpected death in December of 2009. Still, his music and influence, much like his person, bold, hearty and rooted in traditional American music continues to be a source of reference for guitarists and musicians carrying traditional American music into modern times.

“Jack Rose, Versatile Master of the Guitar” - New York Times

“The energy behind ‘Luck In The Valley’ all emanates from Rose himself: you can almost see his fingers flying across his guitar strings... energy resonates from within his melodies and his songs, giving ‘Luck In The Valley’ a radiance.” - Washington Post

“It’s a big, bold work, just the way Rose was a big, bold guy - confident, honest, and forthright.” - Pitchfork

“Jack Rose is acoustic music... Without ever singing a word. Jack Rose could communicate in a way few musicians can.” - PopMatters

TRACK LISTING

Blues For Percy Danforth
Lick Mountain Ramble
Woodpiles On The Side Of The Road
When Tailgate Drops, The Bullshit Stops
Moon In The Gutter
Luck In The Valley
Saint Louis Blues
Tree In The Valley
Everybody Ought To Pray Sometime
West Coast Blues

The music of Brendon Anderegg is a hall of mirrors, multi-layered and self-obscuring. Largely filtered through Mountains - his pioneering electronic project with Koen Holtkamp - Anderegg emerged as a solo artist in the late 90s. He returns now with ‘June’, a vinyl-exclusive release on Thrill Jockey.

The music on ‘June’ is a complex network of layers, paradoxically a calm and soothing listen. Collapsing history into its own contemporary sonic movements, Andregg’s methodically created work falls in the lineage of electronic pioneers like Bernard Parmegiani and early ambient projects like Tangerine Dream, Popul Vuh and Cluster and puts his solo work in the realm of New Age figures like Michael Stearns and JD Emmanuel. ‘June’ is a singularly beautiful and challenging work that marks the long overdue re-emergence of Brendon Anderegg as a solo voice.

Brendon Anderegg is a Brooklyn-based, Emmynominated composer with clients ranging from Pitchfork to ESPN.

Available only on vinyl, ‘June’ is pressed on virgin vinyl and includes a free digital download coupon.

OOIOO’s seminal album ‘Gold & Green’ is finally widely released on vinyl for the first time. Presented as a deluxe double LP in a gatefold jacket with spot metallic ink and full colour inner sleeves featuring glorious artwork. Pressed on virgin vinyl with free digital download coupon.

OOIOO have always created a musical language all their own. Under the leadership of Yoshimi, a founding member of Boredoms, the group have recorded six albums that have subverted expectations and warped perceptions of what constitutes pop and experimental music.

‘Gold & Green’ features guest appearances from Sean Lennon, Seiichi Yamamoto (Boredoms) and Yuka Honda (Cibo Matto).

OOIOO’s Yoshimi is to release an exhilarating new album this Autumn with her group SAICOBAB, featuring sitarist Yoshida Daikiti, bassist Akita Goldman and percussionist Hama.

“‘Challenging’ music doesn’t get more fun than this.” - NPR Music

“OOIOO traffic in a crafty kind of post-punk primitivism… the synths, power chords, polyrhythmic drumming and wordless chants building into an irresistible, throbbing whole” - The Wire

“An extraordinary band.” - New York Times

“OOIOO is tight, lithe and anything but robotic.” - Washington Post

TRACK LISTING

Moss Trumpeter
Á

Oozing Wound are a thrash trio featuring veterans of Chicago’s underground scene who have played with High On Fire, The Body, Ash Borer, Wolf Eyes, Nazoranai and Black Pus, among many others.

A horrifying concoction of apathy and malaise wrapped in a delectable sheet of hatred drowned in a bath of contempt.

“Oozing Wound are the Chicago trio ripping up the rule book of thrash.” - The Guardian

“Chicago trio Oozing Wound play loud, brash and snotty crossover thrash with a penchant for the kind of big, obnoxious riffs that can’t fail to plaster a huge grin across your face.” - Terrorizer

“Their songs barrel along like Iron Lung bitch-slapping the first Megadeth album or meaty Testament-like guitar gallops infused with an air of frenetic power violence irreverence.” - Metal Hammer

“A whole sweaty, stinking ruck of basement smashing fun” - The Quietus

“So refreshingly anti-bullshit are Oozing Wound that they could conceivably turn out to be the Nirvana of thrash.” - Noisey

TRACK LISTING

Rambo 5 (Pre-Emptive Strike)
Diver
Deep Space
Mercury In Retrograde Virus
Weather Tamer
Everything Sucks, And My Life Is A Lie
Eruptor
Tachycardia
You Owe Me, Iommi
Sky Creep

Grumbling Fur are the UK based duo of Alexander Tucker and Daniel O’Sullivan.

Alexander Tucker’s solo releases on Thrill Jockey include ‘Third Mouth’ and ‘Dorwytch’. A prolific artist, his latest graphic novel, the acclaimed ‘World In The Force Field’, is out now via Breakdown Press.

Daniel O’Sullivan has been at the core of the wildly successful This Heat reconstitution and with Massimo Pupillo of Zu recently realised Laniakea. As part of Norwegian experimental collective Ulver he released the ‘ATGCLVLSSCAP’ album and later this year there’ll be a new album from Æthenor, his ongoing project with Steve Noble and Stephen O’Malley of Sunn O))).

‘Furfour’ is the band’s second release on Thrill Jockey, with previous releases on Aurora Borealis and Latitudes alongside their last highly successful output on The Quietus Phonographic Corporation.

On ‘Furfour’, Grumbling Fur are joined by This Heat’s Charles Bullen and Isobel Sollenberger from Bardo Pond. The band have also recently collaborated with Charlemagne Palestine.

‘Furfour’ gradually emerged over three years of writing and recording at 147 Tower Gardens, the mystical, ivy-shrouded house that Tucker and O’Sullivan once called home.

The band’s music is shaped all this are their long-standing shared musical affections, encompassing orchestrated poptones, collage, dub and beatmaking as well as experimental and drone elements - touchtones might include Faust, Arthur Russell, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Moondog, Michael Nyman, Gate, Syd Barrett, Stereolab, Vibracathedral Orchestra, Ashtray Navigations, CC Hennix and Madlib.

TRACK LISTING

Strange The Friends
Acid Ali Khan
Heavy Days
Molten Familiar
Milky Light
Pyewacket’s Palace
Perfect Reader
Silent Plans / Black Egg
Golden Simon
Sapien Sapiens
Come Down And Watch Them
Suneaters

Jan St. Werner, the well-respected artist and musician known for his solo compositions, his work with Mouse On Mars and art pieces, has created a beautifully rhythmic, instantly gripping work with his new album ‘Felder’.

Werner has created sounds that are listenable and inviting, complex but approachable and, mostly, completely unidentifiable. ‘Felder’ means ‘fields’ in German and here the word refers to conceptual frameworks and subjects and sound fields. Werner mixes organic sounds from French horns and cellos seamlessly with synthesized notes created with one-of-a-kind programs. He builds layers of sound with differing cadences upon one another, creating intricate patterns that connect with each other structurally, rhythmically, semantically and historically. Suggestions of jazz, industrial music, drone and even folk float in and out of the electronic compositions in a seemingly effortless manner; paradoxically, ‘Felder’ was meticulously constructed over the course of four years.

“Music that makes you hyper-aware of your place in relation to it and something that removes you from thinking about yourself altogether” - Pitchfork

Werner has collaborated with Markus Popp (Oval), Mark E Smith (The Fall), Damo Suzuki (Can), the scientist / writer Oswald Wiener and the theorist Siegfried Zielinksi on pieces that were premiered at the Chicago Symphony, Phiharmonie Cologne, Barbican London, Radialsystem Berlin, HAU Berlin, Akademie der Kunste Berlin and the German public radio stations WDR, SWR, BR, and DLF. Werner has also shown works at Kunstverein Munich, Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin, Museum Abteiberg Monchengladbach, Cubitt Gallery London, Kunsthalle Dusseldorf and Cornerhouse Manchester.

In addition Werner has worked with the visual artist Rosa Barba on pieces premiered at London’s Tate Modern, the MIT List Visual Arts Center and the Reina Sofia in Madrid.

TRACK LISTING

Beardman
Kroque AF
Osho
Foggy Esor Pt. 1
The Somewhere That Is Moving
Slipped Through Heaven
The Abstract Pit
Foggy Esor Pt. 2
Singoth
Rain Deer

Revered Chicago-based instrumental group Tortoise, comprised of Dan Bitney, John Herndon, Doug McCombs, John McEntire and Jeff Parker, have spent 25 years making music that defies description. While the quintet have nodded to dub, rock, jazz, electronica and minimalism throughout their acclaimed and influential six-album discography, the resulting sounds have always been distinctly their own.

It’s a fact that remains true on the hotly anticipated forthcoming new album ‘The Catastrophist’ (Thrill Jockey) and Tortoise’s first studio album in nearly seven years.

Recorded at McEntire’s famed Soma Studios, it’s an album where moody, synth-swept jams like the opening title track cosy up next to hypnotic, bassand- beat missives like ‘Shake Hands With Danger’ and a fantastic cover of David Essex’s 1973 hit song ‘Rock On’ sung by U.S. Maple’s Todd Rittmann. Throughout, the songs on ‘The Catastrophist’ transcend expectations as often as they delight the listen’s eardrums.

‘Rock On’ isn’t the only vocal moment on the album. Yo La Tengo’s Georgia Hubley distinctive tones are on the bittersweet classic soul/R&B vibe ballad ‘Yonder Blue’. this also marks the first time a Tortoise album will feature a guest vocalist singing original lyrics.

‘Gesceap’, the first track premiered from ‘The Catastrophist’, is a stunning seven-minute long, minimalist rhythmic piece, morphing from two gently intersecting synth lines into a pounding, frenzied full-band finish.

There’s a deeply intuitive interplay between the group that comes only from two decades of experimentation, revision and improvisation. At a time when our minds are constantly bombarded by myriad distractions, ‘The Catastrophist’ reminds us that there’s something much greater out there. All we have to do is listen.

TRACK LISTING

The Catastrophist
Ox Duke
Rock On
Gopher Island
Shake Hands With Danger
The Clearing Fills
Gesceap
Hot Coffee
Yonder Blue
Tesseract
At Odds With Logic

"Beacons Of Ancestorship" is Tortoise's sixth full-length album, and their first release of new material in five years, since 2004's "It's All Around You". A characteristic Tortoise album is one that traverses an encyclopaedia of styles and reference points, a document of where musical intersections and dialogue are occurring at a given moment in time. "Beacons Of Ancestorship" is no different, with nods to techno, punk, electro, lo-fi noise, cut-up beats, heavily processed synths, and mournful, elegiac dirges. We see these ideas working out in compositions like "High Class Slim Came Floatin' In", an eight-minute track which playfully references the world of ecstatic rave and dance culture with a curiously ambivalent, multi-part suite overlaid with robotic, machine-sounding melodies that stop and start in several different time signatures before the song's ultimate resolution; and again in "Yinxianghechengqi", which begins as a straightforward uptempo math-rocker before steadily accelerating into a wall of fuzzy atonal sqwonk.

Tracklisting
1. High Class Slim Came Floatin' In
2. Prepare Your Coffin
3. Northern Something
4. Gigantes
5. Penumbra
6. Yinxianghechengqi
7. Fall of Seven Diamonds Plus One
8. Minors
9. Monument Six One Thousand
10. De Chelly
11. Charteroak Foundation

Dommengang are a Brooklyn-via-Seattle rock trio fronted by Pacific Northwest psych mainstay Sig Wilson (Holy Sons, Castanets, Scout Niblett) and Brooklyn musicians Brian Markham and Adam Bulgasem (currently members of Holy Sons’ live band).

While the trio’s affection for electric blues and proto-punk bombast is clear, their music abandons traditional song structures and replaces their recognizable tropes with progressive frameworks. The band’s debut, ‘Everybody’s Boogie’, pivots between gloriously inventive riffs and fuzzed-out experimentation, a combination so potent that the listener hardly notices that they rarely sing.

‘Everybody’s Boogie’ was recorded live in the studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn with minimal overdubs.

Recommended for fans of Pontiak, Endless Boogie, Earthless and Goat

TRACK LISTING

Everybody’s Boogie
Hats Off To Magic
Slow Hat
Her Blues
Wild In The Street Blues
Extra Slim Boogie
Burning Off The Years
Have Luck Will Travel
CC
Lost My Way

'Glitter Glamour Atrocity' is a snapshot of the band in the midst of an incredible burst of creativity, and was recorded during the same sessions that produced 'Heads On Fire' and 'Abstractions & Mutations'. Sonically, it is radically different from anything else coming out of the New York underground at the time, and it set the template for the singular concoction of heavy psychedelic music, krautrock, and a worship of pure sound they have explored in different variations ever since.

Throughout the album the band explores themes of greed, misinformation, war, hypocrisy and their outcomes within the world’s political and economic systems, presenting these weighty topics with the same air of mystic understanding that underpins their music. Glitter Glamour Atrocity includes the song “Under Skin Or By Name,” the longest running staple in the band’s live set, which the band performed in the acclaimed film Only Lovers Left Alive at the request of director Jim Jarmusch. It is one of only two performances in the movie, which is enamored with the music making process and record collector culture.

Following the mood-setting intro track and the meditative bombast of “Under Skin or By Name,” WHITE HILLS settle into the sparse groove of “Spirit of Exile,” an expression of a desire to live apart from a culture that one does not fit into. These songs glow with the burning vitality and passion of free thinkers trapped in the waning years of the Bush administration. Those sentiments are perhaps most compellingly expressed on “Love Serve Remember,” a warped, surreal vision of life after 9/11 seen through the eyes of someone who witnessed the event first-hand, interspersed with a brilliantly edited speech by Bush himself in which he admits “I was a threat to the United States.”

Glitter Glamour Atrocity was recorded with the first iteration of the trio line-up with Dave W on vocals, guitar, synthesizers, and sound collage, Ego Sensation on bass and vocals, and Bob Bellomo on drums. It was recorded at Bellomo’s studio in Passaic, NJ, and produced by Dave W.

TRACK LISTING

01. Air Waves
02. Under Skin Or By Name
03. Spirit Of Exile
04. Distance
05. Somewhere Along The Way
06. Long Serve Remember
07. Passage
08. Glitter Glamour Atrocity

The Soft Pink Truth is the solo alter ego of Drew Daniel, one half of celebrated Baltimore-based electronic duo Matmos.

After a decade of silence in which Daniel concentrated on Matmos and becoming a Shakespeare professor, The Soft Pink Truth is set to release ‘Why Do The Heathen Rage?’, whose subtitle ‘Electronic Profanations Of Black Metal Classics’ reveals its bizarre agenda as an unrequited love letter to a justly divisive genre.

A gleeful queer travesty of black metal’s undying obsession with kvlt authenticity, ‘Why Do The Heathen Rage?’ is also a formally precise homage executed with a scholar’s obsession. With the guitar chord transcription assistance of Owen Gardner (Teeth Mountain, Horse Lords) and a coven of guest vocalists including Antony Hegarty (Antony And The Johnsons), Terence Hannum (Locrian), Jenn Wasner (Wye Oak) and M.C. Schmidt (Matmos), Daniel meticulously transposes the riffs, structures and patterns of black metal chestnuts and deep cuts by Darkthrone, Venom, Mayhem, Sarcofago, Beherit and more into oddly hybrid new forms. Cruising camp absurdity by forcing a sticky tryst between the two mutually incongruous early 90s subcultures of rave and black metal, the results are bracingly strange on first listen but curiously addictive as the album sinks in.

TRACK LISTING

Invocation For Strength
Black Metal
Sadomatic Rites
Ready To Fuck
Satanic Black Devotion
Beholding The Throne Of Might
Let There Be Ebola Frost
Buried By Time And Dust
Maniac
Grim And Frostbitten Gay Bar

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

Brand new 16 minute 12“ EP from Glenn Jones pressed on virgin vinyl and packaged in a full colour LP jacket with free download coupon.

Limited to only 1,000 worldwide.

All exclusive, never before released material.

Limited to 120 copies for the UK and Ireland.

TRACK LISTING

Medley : Island III / Against My Ruin
From A Forgotten Session
The Orca Grande Cement Factory At Victorville (with Cian Nugent)

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

Classic albums from the early days of Thrill Jockey.

Originally released in 1996/1998 - these have been out of print on vinyl for nearly a decade.

Both albums are being re-issued and will be sold as a 4xLP set.

‘Flemish Altruism’ will feature new/updated artwork.

Both will include download coupons for the first time.

A Minor Forest recently reunited and played a very well received show in San Francisco (with a Bay Guardian cover story)

The band will tour the US in April & May of this year.

Limited to 60 copies for the UK and Ireland.

TRACK LISTING

Flemish Altruism
...But The Pants Stay On
Bill's Mom Likes To Fuck
Ed Is 50
So Jesus Was At The Last Supper...
Jacking Off George Lucas
Speed For Gavin
Perform The Critical
Straw Transfer
Dainty Jack And His Amazing Technicolor Cloth Jacket
Beef Rigger
The Loneliest Enuretic

Inindependence
The Dutch Fist
Erik's Budding Romance
Look At That Car, It's Full Of Balloons
... It's Salmon!
The Smell Of Hot
Michael Anthony
Discoier

D. Charles Speer, aka Dave Shuford, is a founding member of both Rhyton and No Neck Blues Band, and also known for his work with Enos Slaughter, The Suntanama, Egypt Is The Magick #, and Coach Fingers.

On ‘Doubled Exposure’ The Helix take their loose and free country rock boogie and enhance it with the blistering psych Speer explores in Rhyton, and the traditional Greek melodies delved into on the Speer solo album, ‘Arghiledes’ (also on Thrill Jockey).

‘Doubled Exposure’ was recorded by Jason Meagher at the increasingly legendary Black Dirt Studios in upstate New York, where Blues Control, Expo 70, Jack Rose and Psychic Ills have also recorded.

The Helix band member Hans Chew (keyboards) has released solo music on Three Lobed, while Marc Orleans (pedal steel) has performed with Catherine Irwin, Steve Gunn, Meg Baird and Chris Forsyth.

‘Drifter’s Temple’ is Plankton Wat (aka Dewey Mahood)’s second album for Thrill Jockey, following last year’s ‘Spirits’.

Mahood utilized 6 and 12 string guitars, lap steel, bass, organ, and synth to realize these richly detailed songs. ‘Drifter’s Temple’ harkens back to Mahood’s childhood in Northern California, both sonically and conceptually. A loose narrative is woven through these ten instrumental tracks, touching on the Gold Country and Mt. Shasta that populate his native countryside.

The album unfolds with the grace and contour of the landscape that inspired it, with fingerpicked melodies slowly growing to gigantic peaks of lysergic bliss. His guitar style is as far reaching as ever on ‘Drifter’s Temple’, which shows him seamlessly integrating his love of the Appalacian folk music of Dock Boggs and Roscoe Holcomb into the subtle Grateful Dead-isms, nods to 70s cosmic music, and overt Crazy Horse moves he has explored on recent releases.

‘Drifter’s Temple’ features contributions from Dustin Dybvig (Horse Feathers and Edibles), Matt McDowell (Sagas) and John Rau (Royal Baths and Edibles).

Dewey Mahood was a founding member of Eternal Tapestry and has performed in Gärden Söund (with Barn Owl), Edibles, Bloodbiker, and Jackie-O Motherfucker.

TRACK LISTING

Toward The Golden City
Changing Winds
Klamath At Dusk
Nightfall
Empire Mines
Hash Smuggler’s Blues
Dance Of Lumeria
Western Lament
Bread Of Dreams
Siskiyou Caverns

Limited deluxe LP edition (150 copies for the UK, exclusively available to independent retailers) includes a bonus 7” with two unreleased non-album tracks (‘Night Train To Tuscan’ / ‘Believers II’). The 7” is packaged in its own jacket and included with the LP.

Peals is a new band led by William Cashion (Future Islands) and Bruce Willen (Double Dagger), members of two of Baltimore’s most dynamic live bands.

The instrumental music on ‘Walking Field’ was created with acoustic and electric guitars, keyboards, tambourines, toy pianos, and other sonic tools to create a stripped-down, warm living room atmosphere.

The music that sprang from these sessions, simultaneously exultant and cerebral, took the duo into unexpected territory. While the emotional intensity of their other projects is on full display here, a more gentle, melancholic and often abstract expression recalls Robin Guthrie and minimalist recordings from the sonic pioneers of the 1970s German scene - all direct inspirations for Peals as the songs that would become ‘Walking Field’ took shape.

‘Walking Field’ was recorded with no bass guitars or drums - all percussion sounds were generated by contact with guitars and microphones - the emphasis here is placed on texture and feeling.

TRACK LISTING

Floating Leaf
Blue Elvis
Belle Air
Pendelles
Tiptoes In The Parlor
Lonestar
Believers
Koan 1

Peals is a new band led by William Cashion (Future Islands) and Bruce Willen (Double Dagger), members of two of Baltimore’s most dynamic live bands.

The instrumental music on ‘Walking Field’ was created with acoustic and electric guitars, keyboards, tambourines, toy pianos, and other sonic tools to create a stripped-down, warm living room atmosphere.

The music that sprang from these sessions, simultaneously exultant and cerebral, took the duo into unexpected territory. While the emotional intensity of their other projects is on full display here, a more gentle, melancholic and often abstract expression recalls Robin Guthrie and minimalist recordings from the sonic pioneers of the 1970s German scene - all direct inspirations for Peals as the songs that would become ‘Walking Field’ took shape.

‘Walking Field’ was recorded with no bass guitars or drums - all percussion sounds were generated by contact with guitars and microphones - the emphasis here is placed on texture and feeling.

TRACK LISTING

Floating Leaf
Blue Elvis
Belle Air
Pendelles
Tiptoes In The Parlor
Lonestar
Believers
Koan 1

Survival are a New York trio featuring Hunter Hunt-Hendrix (Liturgy), Greg Smith, and Jeff Bobula.

This self-titled debut was recorded by Colin Marston (Krallice, Dysrhythmia) at The Thousand Caves and mastered by Heba Kadry at Timeless Mastering.

‘Survival’ is an album of dark and meditative heavy rock. Syncopated riffs, intricate rhythms and atypical time signatures create dramatic and complex melodic lines that provide a bed for chant-like lyrics. The group operate as a collective, writing lyrics, riffs and singing with one voice. The album is a unique document that harkens back to post-hardcore, Black Sabbath, Magma, Aphrodite’s Child, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Aaron Copeland, The Smashing Pumpkins, and the first wave of math rock.

Survival were formed out of the ashes of Birthday Boyz, whose 2007 tour of China was documented by Vice TV for an instalment of the Music World show ‘Rock Under The Red Flag’.

TRACK LISTING

Tragedy Of The Mind
Original Pain
Freedom 1
Second Freedom
Since Sun
Our Way
Freedom 3
Tragedy Reprise
Triumph Of The Good

Stygian Stride is the solo guise of the New York based musician Jimy SeiTang, who was a member of Psychic Ills and is currently a member of New York experimental / improve / psych trio Rhyton with Dave Shuford (D. Charles Speer & The Helix, No Neck Blues Band) and Spencer Herbst (Messages, Matta Llama). Rhyton released albums on both Thrill Jockey and Three Lobed in 2012.

Stygian Stride is an album of gauzy electronic music reminiscent of Gas and the classic era of Mille Plateaux and Chain Reaction, with nods to Manuel Göttsching, Tangerine Dream and Popul Vuh.

The album artwork was created by Arik Roper (Sleep, Sunn O))), Howlin Rain, Earth, High On Fire, Weedeater).

The album was recorded entirely on analogue equipment, without MIDI synching, at Black Dirt Studios by Jason Meagher (D. Charles Speer, Jack Rose, Expo 70, Blues Control).

TRACK LISTING

Celestial Stems
Hindsight
Drift
Taiga
Athanor Ascension
Fade Into Bolivian

Matmos deliver their first material for Thrill Jockey in the form of ‘The Ganzfeld EP’, which is nearly 30 minutes in length. A new full length album, ‘The Marriage Of True Minds’, is to follow in 2013.

The EP and the album have the same conceptual basis: Telepathy. ‘The Ganzfeld EP’ features two new Matmos tracks that are explicitly based upon psychic session material, and a throbbing minimal techno remix by RRose of the Matmos song ‘You’. Careening from widescreen electronic pop to eerie choral music, the results are eclectic, fun, and disorienting in equal measure. Matmos are one of the most prominent experimental electronic artists of the last decade. Their seven albums have been some of the most significant and acclaimed in the genre, and their high profile collaborations and shows with artists like Bjork and Kronos Quartet have given them definite exposure that extends far beyond the world of heady electronic music.

“Matmos are an innovative electronica duo... playing their tactile and thunderously crunchy work” - The New York Times

“Matmos have always heard symphonies in life’s smallest details, sampling things like thawing streams and liposuction vacuums and building busy pop tapestries out of them” – Pitchfork

TRACK LISTING

Very Large Green Triangles (Edit)
You (Rrose Mix)
Just Waves

White Hills newest and most energized recording to date is bursting with raw energy packed into their most concise songs to date. Fear not long time White Hills fans, there is still loads of killer guitar work and fuzzed out psychedelia on 'Frying on this Rock. The album opens with an under five minute scorcher and closes with a 15 minute track that reminds us why space rock gatekeepers like Julian Cope were very early supporters. The end result, Frying on this Rock, is an invigorating deep space rock album. An album that is at once able to channel the energy born of a collective anger into a swirling psychedelic, brutalizing musical statement that mainlines the thrill of defiance straight to the listener’s heart.

“...White Hills have established themselves as some of America’s foremost proponents of fuzz-driven space rock... Its latest effort H-p1 expands upon the the legacies of Hawkwind, Can, and early Tangerine Dream with synapse-frying deepspace epics” - SF Weekly; “A darkly hypnotic mix of churning guitar, distant vocals and swirling synth drones, this record conjures a riff-heavy psychedelic vibe that picks up where the Velvet Underground and Spacemen 3 left off. Far out.” - Los Angeles Times.

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: More epic fuzz-psyche onslaughts from the current leaders of the pack, the White Hills. Molten guitars and a pummelling rhythm section, create a swirling wave of noise taking space rock to new dimensions.

TRACK LISTING

1. Pads Of Light
2. Robot Stomp
3. You Dream You See
4. Song Of Everything
5. I Write A Thousand Letters (Pulp On Bone)