“Are we having fun yet? Living in the grey zone”? The Toads ask the question and already know the answer. There’s many a wry smile, often packed with gallows humour, shared on the Melbourne groups’ debut album “In the Wilderness” (out June 9th on Anti Fade and Upset The Rhythm). Navigating the dross of modern life, whilst keeping one foot in a dream is the key to their nervy post-punk scuffle. Featuring members of The Shifters, The Living Eyes and Parsnip you’d be forgiven for guessing what The Toads sound like, but their mordant step and minor-key enchantment makes for an intriguing parry.

The Toads hatched after a short period of domestic readjustment mid-2021. Billy Gardner (guitar) found himself in need of a roof after his home was consumed by fire, and was kindly hosted by friend Stella Rennex (bass). Elsie Retter (drums) was a regular visitor to the house and after seeing Miles Jansen (vocals) tear it up with his other band at the local bowls club, they invited him along to sprinkle his deadpan musings across their fledgling sound. Pretty quickly they hit on their direction; a savvy, snappy lo-fi pop as openhearted as it is brooding.

After playing some formative shows, including a debut at Jerkfest in 2022, The Toads set about recording five songs mid-year for a tentative EP. Realising the songs were too long to fit on a 7”, they booked in another recording session the following September to extend the EP to 12”. Two tracks’ chords structures were fleshed out with new melodies and arrangements, and by this point The Toads were surprised to find they had an album’s worth of material. ‘In The Wilderness’ is a beguiling record, full of twists and turns. It’s arch, resilient, thoughtful and straight-at-your-head catchy to boot.

It’s fitting that the title track “In The Wilderness” draws this record to a close, being the peak of their invention so far. Drums pound and tumbling bass-lines sprint among the crisply stabbing guitar phrases and soaring horns outro. It’s a survivalist epic of hard-worn wisdom, ambling and restless. “I open up the door trying to get all of us through” sings Miles, becoming progressively more dizzy and despondent. There is a sense of toughing it out that never falters though and this is the essence of what The Toads do best. They push onwards into the darkness and keep their appetite, pulling us all into the light.

TRACK LISTING

01. Nationalsville
02. Two Dozen Functions
03. Sacred Books And The Damage Done
04. Ex-KGB
05. Gimme Little More
06. The Wandering Soul
07. Tale Of A Town Split In Two
08. Sir Francis Drake
09. The Next Door
10. In The Wilderness

Before I’m gone I’d like to see us turn the corner and give up being spoilers of the land . . . In 1975 Wallace ‘Wally’ Smith Broecker published a paper that popularised the term ‘global warming’ and against a backdrop of change and environmental uncertainty, a musical concept album was commissioned. ‘Wilderness America / A Celebration of the Land’ – is a musical exploration of our place within the cycle of living things. All compositions were specially commissioned for the album and blended with natural sounds recorded in the wild – lending the entire project a conceptual air that still feels fresh today.

The journey begins with the sun rising in the atmospheric haze of ‘Dawn’ – a track composed by new-age innovator Iasos. Gospel singer Walter Hawkins soon drops in with the soulful but ever so funky ‘Metropolis’ backed by a heavy array of session musicians with Patrick Gleeson, Ed Bogas and Tom Salisbury all adding their own misty magic to the album. David Riordan is the sorcerer conjuring up many of the compositions and also takes vocal duties on the evocative ‘Mountain’ and the climatic ‘Before I’m Gone’.

‘Wilderness America / A Celebration of the Land’ was born when environmentalist Emily DeSpain Polk assembled a group of California residents to participate in a groundbreaking conservationist project. Christening the group SWAP (Small Wilderness Area Preservation) Emily needed funds and began a project to produce a promotional nature based music album. To acquire the financial backing Emily would need to source a musician of some calibre. Contacting Cliff Branch from ‘Warehouse Sound Co.’ she was told the man she was looking for was David Riordan. David Riordan had been around the music business for several years, first with The Yankee Dollar, then Sugarloaf and then Sweet Pain, he saw huge success with the single ‘Green Eyed Lady’. David had worked on Cliff Branch’s ‘Warehouse Sound Co. & Friends’ albums and then released his solo album, ‘Medicine Wheel’.

But bored of touring he made the move to more concept-driven albums. First with ‘Christmas in San Francisco’ and then, in quick succession, ‘Wilderness America, A Celebration Of The Land’. Riordan, along with Peter Scott, a music producer friend in San Francisco, began piecing together an idea for the album. They brought in Ed Bogas to do string arrangements and Tom Salisbury to conduct. David had also asked his friend Patrick Gleeson if he knew of any R&B/Gospel singers in the Bay Area, and they soon added gospel singer Walter Hawkins into the mix. Other than the track ‘Metropolis’, which was recorded in LA, the rest of ‘Wilderness America, A Celebration Of The Land’ was recorded and mixed by Richard Beggs at the San Francisco studio of Francis Ford Coppola.

Coppola was filming ‘Apocalypse Now’ at the same time – so in between studio sessions, the musicians were able to view the seemingly never-ending film rushes arriving from the Philippines. Eventually, the record produced by David Riordan and Peter Scott drifted onto the radar of vinyl obsessives and selectors as several of its key tracks began popping up on mixtapes and sales lists. It wasn’t long before this privately pressed, art-funded masterpiece became something of a holy grail for collectors. At long last, a re-issue of this masterpiece is now available on EBALUNGA!!! Records.

Paul Hillery – May 2022.

Paul is a heathen, conceivably, but not, I hope, an unenlightened one, who’s handpicked compilation albums have been released on the labels BBE and RE:WARM – he is also the curator at Folk Funk & Trippy Troubadours.

The Last Great Wilderness is the soundtrack to the debut movie by David Mackenzie. It was produced with John McEntire and features a guest appearance from Jarvis Cocker.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. Wilderness Theme
2. Winter Driving
3. Vincente's Theme
4. Flora's Theme
5. Charlie's Theme

SIDE B
1. Everybody Is A Star
2. Flora Again
3. Dark Vincente
4. Wilderness End Theme
5. I Picked A Flower

The best music reflects a wide-screen view of the world back at us, helping distill the universal into something far more personal. Since forming in Austin in 2004, The Black Angels have become standard-bearers for modern psych-rock that does exactly that, which is one of many reasons why the group’s new album, Wilderness of Mirrors, feels so aptly named. In the five years since the band’s prior album, Death Song, and the two-plus years spent working on Wilderness of Mirrors, pandemics, political tumult and the ongoing devastation of the environment have provided ample fodder for the Black Angels’ signature sonic approach.

Wilderness of Mirrors expertly refines the Black Angels’ psychedelic rock attack alongside a host of intriguing sounds and textures. There are classic blasts of fuzzed-out guitars meant to simultaneously perk up the ears and jumpstart the mind, alongside melancholy, acoustic guitar-driven newfound experiments. Mellotron, strings, and other keyboards also play a more prominent role on Wilderness of Mirrors than ever before.

Even amidst these new experimentations, The Black Angels remain masterfully true to psych-rock forebears such as Syd Barrett, Roky Erickson, Arthur Lee and the members of the Velvet Underground, all of whom are namechecked on album highlight “The River.” “The Velvet Underground song ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror’ – that’s what every Black Angels album has been about,” says vocalist/bassist Alex Maas. “You can’t work out your struggles unless you bring them to the forefront and think about them. If we can all think about them, maybe we can help save ourselves.”

TRACK LISTING

1 Without A Trace
2 History Of The Future
3 Empires Falling
4 El Jardín
5 La Pared (Govt. Wall Blues)
6 Firefly
7 Make It Known
8 The River
9 Wilderness Of Mirrors
10 Here & Now
11 100 Flowers Of Paracusia
12 A Walk On The Outside
13 Vermillion Eyes
14 Icon
15 Suffocation

Will Stratton’s rich catalogue is proof that the Hudson Valley folk musician thrives on exploration and reflection. Chart his trajectory over his previous six albums and you’ll find a songwriter not content to stay comfortable or do the same thing twice. From his 2007 debut What the Night Said, which he released aged 20, to 2014’s Gray Lodge Wisdom, a resilient and gorgeous LP which documented his bout with cancer, as well as 2017’s Rosewood Almanac, a de facto love-letter to song-writing, his guitar, and his favourite records, the subtle but sizable tweaks to his process, arranging, and writing have been revelations. “I’ve always tried to make the process of making music as much of a source of pleasure and exploration as possible,” says Stratton. So it’s no surprise that The Changing Wilderness, his resonant and clear-eyed seventh album, pushes him to expansive new heights again.

The 10 tracks on the LP came about from an intense four-year period of soul-searching and change for Stratton, where he knew he needed to change the way he wrote songs. “I was just really sick of introspection,” he says. “I had to write music that felt like it was engaging with the outside world, rather than focusing on what was going on in my own life like on my earlier records.” With the 2016 election, Donald Trump’s Presidency, and rising right-wing extremism on his mind, Stratton set out to interrogate his country’s present crises. Like the best protest music, these songs aren’t didactic or preachy. Instead, they ask more questions than claim to have answers with Stratton’s lyrics taking a scalpel-like approach to the very worst of human nature. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Tokens
2. Black Hole
3. Infertile Air
4. The Rain
5. Finally Free
6. Fate's Ghost
7. When I've Been Born (I'll Love You)
8. River Of Silver
9. Venus
10. Stillness

Riding on a cloud of smoke, psychedelic travelers Shadow Band make sounds that move like foggy dreams from fantastical lands. Their patient but powerful songs set in motion a series of refracting echoes that call forth images of medieval battles, spirits unseen by human eyes, and the gentle, constant pulsing of the universe. The band formed organically around the songwriting of Mike Bruno, a quiet figure whose vibrant mental landscape is the center of the group’s orbit. Growing up in New Jersey, Bruno immersed himself in a self-made world of gloomy sonic alchemy, honing his songcraft as a solo act in New Brunswick's small-but-dedicated freak scene. The early years saw Bruno attracting a rotating cast of area heads around his growing arsenal of songs and dubbing it Black Magic Family Band. The sprawling web of artists varied with every gig and recording session, but the roots of Shadow Band started here. Sonically, the homespun production mirrors the communal environment in which they were made. Layers of murky instrumentation congeal into a singular sound, with strange stringed instruments, theremin vibrations and buried percussion all washing by as a solid alien texture. Songs melt into one another to the sound of distant birds and pagan pan flutes only to rise up in swells of unholy synth.

TRACK LISTING

1. Green Riverside
2. Endless Night
3. Shadowland
4. Eagle Unseen
5. In The Shade
6. Indian Summer
7. Morning Star
8. Mad John
9. Illuminate
10. Darksiders' Blues
11. Daylight

The Wilderness is the band’s sixth album, and first non-soundtrack effort since 2011’s ‘Take Care, Take Care, Take Care’. Arguably the most progressive instrumental rock album since EITS’ 2003 breakthrough ‘The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place’, The Wilderness is a bold, experimental work combining the singular song craft that has sold hundreds of thousands of albums and tickets with the cinematic sensibility that has elevated the band to the level of regard and demand its members enjoy as film composers (Lone Survivor, Manglehorn, Prince Avalanche, Friday Night Lights).

The first Explosions In The Sky album not produced entirely by the band, The Wilderness features long time collaborator (and Grammy-winning producer) John Congleton in a co-producer role for the first time. The band's most ambitious songs to date branch into unexpected new dimensions accordingly - Exhibit A being “Disintegration Anxiety,” currently streaming on all platforms and available as an instant grat download with all pre-orders. With its cacophonous opening washes that ultimately resolve into a locked groove, “Disintegration Anxiety” marks the rock solid midpoint of an aggressively modern and forward-thinking work. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Expanding upon their trademark sound, much like fellow Texans This Will Destroy You ; Explosions In The Sky have encompassed, to great effect, elements of drone and electronica into their (still unmistakeable) post-rock sound. Distorted beats, crunchy snares, and dusty arpeggios atop soaring guitars and crackly synths. A vast departure for the band, but without endangering what makes them tick, The Wilderness is bold, brave, and brilliant.

TRACK LISTING

1. Wilderness
2. The Ecstatics
3. Tangle Formations
4. Logic Of A Dream
5. Disintegration Anxiety
6. Losing The Light
7. Infinite Orbit
8. Colors In Space
9. Landing Cliffs

Following the acclaim of "The Current," listed by THE WIRE among the best avant-rock albums of 2013, MIDDAY VEIL return with "This Wilderness," a 7-track opus filled with mysteries of cosmic proportions. Songwriter Emily Pothast gives voice to these mysteries with an uncanny, poetic presence, while the outsized synth wizardry of co-founder David Golightly dazzles under the influence of everything from Stockhausen to Donna Summer's "Love to Love You Baby." The intricate percussion of Garrett Moore, driving bass of Jayson Kochan & explosive, reptilian guitar lines of multi-instrumentalist Timm Mason provide a distinctive foundation for these animated, infectious songs. Features guest spots from BERNIE WORRELL (PARLIAMENT, FUNKADELIC), EYVIND KANG & SKERIK. Produced by Randall Dunn.

THE PICCADILLY RECORDS ALBUM OF THE YEAR 2015.

'Have You In My Wilderness' is the fourth full length album by Los Angeles artist Julia Holter and her most intimate album yet. Recorded in her hometown over the last year and once again crafted with Grammy-winning producer and engineer Cole Greif-Neill, the album follows 2013's 'Loud City Song' and two much-lauded previous titles - 'Ekstasis' (2012) and 'Tragedy' (2011).

'Have You in My Wilderness' was written from the heart - warm, dark and raw - and explores love, trust, and power in human relationships. While love songs are familiar in pop music, Holter manages to stay fascinatingly oblique and enigmatic, with some of the most sublime and transcendent music she has ever written. Like Holter's previous albums, 'Have You in My Wilderness' is multi-layered and texturally rich, featuring an array of electronic and acoustic instruments played by an ensemble of gifted Los Angeles musicians.

'Have You in My Wilderness' is also Holter's most sonically intimate album, with her vocals front and centre in the mix, lifted out of the layers of smeared, hazy effects. The result is striking: clear and vivid, but disarmingly personal.

STAFF COMMENTS

David says: 'Have You In My Wilderness’ is Julia Holter’s fourth and most accessible album to date, but given that previous records have looked to Greek Philosophers and French novelists for their inspiration, this perhaps isn’t the boldest of statements.
Holter, a music and composition graduate, approaches her craft in a cerebral, conceptual way that is still very much apparent on the album’s arrangements and time signatures. However, on ‘Have You In My Wilderness’, her more exotic tendencies have been tamed by producer M Cole Grief-Neill. He’s convinced Holter to shake off the shackles of reverb in which her otherworldly voice has always been chained and let it take centre stage on the record. It’s a master stroke that’s culminated in a sonically direct, shimmering, leftfield pop classic that everyone at Piccadilly Records has been willing her to make since first hearing 2013’s ‘Loud City Song’.
Dark and lovely, exploring pop’s universalities of love and relationships, ‘Have You In My Wilderness’ is the perfect soundtrack to winter’s long nights. Where previously Holter could be accused of being cold and aloof, she now revels in a new found warmth and intimacy. It’s like the girl on the bus that’s been ignoring you for months suddenly walking over and saying “hi, fancy going for a drink later?” - Completely unexpected and all the more wonderful for it.
But wait, don’t go! I know what you’re thinking. ‘Love and relationships? Surely ballads are the end credit to a thousand, desperate Saturday nights; certainly nothing new in pop music?’ BUT, and it’s a big but, Holter’s take on this, the most clichéd of pop clichés, is brilliantly oblique. Flitting from orchestral chamber music to Laurel Canyon introspection, it’s a schizophrenic record, whose many competing voices have combined to make ‘Have You In My Wilderness’ Piccadilly’s favourite album of 2015.

Andy says: Finally Julia Holter does what she's been threatening to do for ages: combines all her arty, classical, jazzy, ehtereal, avanty otherness into one near-pop masterpiece! Definitely one of the best records this year.

TRACK LISTING

1. Feel You
2. Silhouette
3. How Long?
4. Lucette Stranded On The Island
5. Sea Calls Me Home
6. Night Song
7. Everytime Boots
8. Betsy On The Roof
9. Vasquez
10. Have You In My Wilderness

Vancouver-based Gold & Youth write songs tinged with nostalgic desire. Their music evokes memories of neo-noir Los Angeles, cinematic haze and midnight solitudes.

Building off the acclaim for their ‘Time To Kill’ / ‘City Of Quartz’ 7” single, heralded by The Guardian and NME, and a cross-Canada tour supporting Diamond Rings, Gold & Youth will release their debut album ‘Beyond Wilderness’ through Arts & Crafts.

‘Beyond Wilderness’ draws on aesthetics and instrumentation reminiscent of the 1980s. Dark and expansive synthetic textures are punctuated by programmed drums and interwoven with melancholy vocals, detuned synth melodies and understated guitars. The album varies from the cold, industrial sounds of Depeche Mode to the tenderness of ‘Avalon’-era Roxy Music.

The band is comprised of Matthew Lyall, Murray Mckenzie, Jeff Mitchelmore and, most recently, Louise Burns, already well known for her own work as a solo artist, lending her voice to four of the album’s tracks, including the first single ‘Jewel’.

The record was produced by Colin Stewart (Black Mountain, New Pornographers, Dan Mangan) and mixed by Gareth Jones (Depeche Mode, Interpol, Grizzly Bear).

TRACK LISTING

City Of Quartz
Little Wild Love
Quarters
Tan Lines
Cut Lip
Jewel
Come To Admire
Daylight Colours
Young Blood
Palm Villa
Time To Kill

Nine new and wildly impressive JV songs captured live over three days in a unique collaboration with the Magik*Magik Orchestra, a collective of classically trained musicians in the Bay Area led by artistic director Minna Choi.

The Magik*Magik Orchestra have a comprehensive mastery of classic performance and repertoire, but also have a full appreciation of the aesthetics of indie and underground music.

Choi arranged and conducted "White Wilderness" with 19 members of the Magik*Magik playing strings and horns, vibraphone, pedal steel and piano, an assortment of reed instruments, and much to JV's benefit, the voice of Minna Choi singing backup at key moments throughout the album.

Recorded in San Francisco, "White Wilderness" was produced by John Congleton, whose resume includes albums by St Vincent, The Walkmen, Explosions in the Sky, Bill Callahan and many more.

"Wilderness Heart", the new album by Black Mountain, is packed with succinct rock songs that pulse and pound with startling precision: it pummels you and you ask for more. This is arguably the band's tightest, most concentrated venture, but there's still plenty of raw rock energy at work. 'It's our most metal and most folk oriented record so far', McBean says. 'I'm not gonna say it's our best record or the album that we always dreamt of making 'cause that's what everyone says. It's all about where we were at the time the machines were rolling. You can't control the electricity or how your limbs were moving that day. You have to erase the visions and just go along for the ride'.

A little over a year after releasing "In The Future", their critically and commercially celebrated sophomore effort, Black Mountain started building "Wilderness Heart" on the west coast of America. With Randall Dunn at the helm (Sunn O))), Boris), London Bridge Studios in Seattle saw a portion of the construction with songs "Old Fangs," "Let Spirits Ride," and title track "Wilderness Heart" among others. The preponderance of recording was held with D. Sardy in Los Angeles at Sunset Sound, which has captured tracks from The Doors, Ringo Starr, the Rolling Stones, and more. L.A. – with its tacos and sunsets, starlets and hills and post-Deco kitsch – was a considerable inspiration. 'Just being under the influence of one's surroundings, as we were while recording in L.A., had a tremendous impact on the process and the way we play. Consequently, the LA sessions have a free and summery vibe. The Seattle sessions, made in the grey, rainy environs that we're used to up there, have a chillier, more claustrophobic feeling', Wells explains.

'It's a Black Mountain pop record, which is to say it's nothing like pop at all', Wells says. 'This was the fastest record we've ever made. We're used to spending a lot of time deliberating over the songs and spacing out recording sessions over years. Start to finish, this album was made in four months, which is something like a miracle for us. We've never worked with producers before and that was a challenge; for us to let go and let two outsiders into the process, D. Sardy and Randall Dunn – it took some growing for us to be truly open, but this album is all the better for it'.

The band cites a slew of disparate influences – New Order, King Crimson, Studio 54, Alex Chilton, sunshine, Janis Joplin, Please Kill Me, Shirley Collins, Mickey Newbury, jalapeño salsa, Night of The Hunter, Cactus Taqueria, Funky16Corners podcasts, Dennis Wilson, the house blowing up in the desert at the end of Zabriskie Point – but, as Schmidt points out, 'Who knows how these things connect with the holistic mix of often dissonant forces that become Black Mountain?'

Third album from Wilderness, inspired by the collaboration with visual artist Charles Long. "(K)no(W)here" has been conceived as one musical piece with eight identifiable parts. Wilderness hold true to the idealistic notion that sometimes music and art can stand for itself – whilst the world doesn't need the music of Wilderness (or any other artist), it deserves no less than a Wilderness without ornamentation or hyperbole. The album features gorgeous packaging designed by band member James Johnson, who designed the covers of previous Wilderness albums.

This quartet's self-titled debut conjures images of "Metal Box"-era John Lydon fronting Savage Republic or Explosions in the Sky. Cascading guitars build into the most beautiful pop epiphanies, as though the Edge were leading a modern day Popol Vuh up the mountain before us. Wilderness's debut is the culmination of three years steady work by four dear friends. Their songs touch on numerous themes like living through the end of capitalism, the beauty inherent in beauty, staring at the sky, listening to the woods, feeling the landfills topple and swell, vibrations in the market place, collective brain harvesting and the absolute falling all around the opinionated as the opinionated fall all around the absolute.