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Magnetic Fields

House of Tomorrow (reissue)

Merge

***Cast your mind back to notable landmarks of 1992. Outside the Twin Cities, Mall of America opened to the public. Frank Gehry’s enormous golden fish sculpture, El Peix, welcomed Barcelona Olympians. And The House of Tomorrow, a four-song 7-inch on a small indie label, ushered in a new era for The Magnetic Fields. When Susan Anway, who sang on early albums Distant Plastic Trees and The Wayward Bus, left the group, Stephin Merritt stepped up to the microphone. He sought to sound simple, subtle, and unobtrusive, à la the Japanese concept of shibusa. Likewise, the arrangements and production of The House of Tomorrow felt less polished overall than on its predecessors, even as the band’s sound was evolving. Newly remastered and available as a 12-inch for the first time.

High Llamas

Hey Panda

Drag City

***High Llamas present Hey Panda—a modern pop music/deep listening experience that could only issue forth from their personal quadrant of the galaxy. Hey Panda projects soulfully through an enervating abstract of today’s popular music; the sound of the Llamas’ stately melodies and expressive ditties laid open—blissfully shattered—with drums and vocals hitting different, burning sounds and contemporary production twists pulling the ear at every turn. For the past few decades, High Llamas have trafficked in contemporary pop sounds directed toward the avant end of the spectrum as much as not. But here the message was clear. Llamas’ composer-in-residence Sean O’Hagan was determined to let go. Hey Panda does just that, with a set of tunes reflecting on multiple levels how definitions change over the course of a lifetime, radiating an optimism derived from the diverse conundrums of today.

Montgomery, Roy

Temple IV

Kranky

This is the first vinyl issue of Temple IV, arguably Roy Montgomery’s finest solo album, originally released in 1996 on CD. The original album has been enhanced with two newer tracks that constitute side four of the album. Montgomery states: “The two new tracks recorded in 2018 were about asking the question “Can you step into the same river twice?” Heraclitus said you cannot. I say you can…” From the original press release: Few recording artists have aligned the quantity and quality of their releases as well as New Zealand singer /guitarist Roy Montgomery has in 1995. Beginning with kranky’s release of the soundtrack for an imaginary film That That Is...Is(Not) by Montgomery’s duo Dissolve early in the year, a series of superb albums and singles have been issued by a variety of labels across the world. Each one of them is a must have. Most recently, the Drunken Fish label released a collection of pastoral drones entitled Scenes From The South Island, singles have appeared on the Roof Bolt and gyttja labels, and further singles are scheduled with Ajax, Siltbreeze and others. Temple IV is the first solo recording by Roy Montgomery on kranky. The album was recorded by Montgomery on a four-track tape deck and then thickened up with monophonic moog. The tracks on the album are thick with interwoven guitar lines and moog drone, inspired by the Guatemalan rain forests and the mysterious ruins of the temple and ruins Montgomery visited there. Roy Montgomery spent the past...

Sheer Mag

Playing Favorites

Third Man

***Playing Favorites is Sheer Mag’s third full-length and first with Third Man Records, the band capitalize on a decade’s worth of devotion to their own collective spirit—a spirit refined in both the sweaty trenches of punk warehouses and the larger-than-life glamour of concert halls—emerging with a dense work of gripping emotions, massive hooks, and masterfully constructed power-pop anthems. This is the record the Philadelphian rock and roll four-piece has always been destined to make.

Dicks

Kill from the Heart

Superior Viaduct

Dicks' debut LP has been acknowledged as a foundational statement in Punk ever since its initial 1983 release. Following their first single, 1980's "Dicks Hate The Police," and a live split with fellow Austinites the Big Boys, Kill From The Heart does not disappoint. Originally released on SST, the album stands apart from the mass of generic thrash-hardcore contemporaries – fueled by the manic, but controlled power of singer Gary Floyd along with the original lineup of guitarist Glen Taylor, bassist Buxf Parrot and drummer Pat Deason. Dicks were operating at an absolute peak at this point, alternating damaged workouts that suggest Flipper or No Trend on one end and highly charged tracks in the vein of Minutemen or Tales of Terror on the other. Straight out of the gate on "Anti Klan," the band trades blues-grounded guitar with squealing feedback and intensely political lyrics. The raw emotional sincerity of Floyd, who was openly gay in Reagan-era Texas, provides unmistakeable urgency to songs such as "No Nazi's Friend," "Rich Daddy" and the title track, which remains one of the stone-cold classic punk anthems. Forty years on, Kill From The Heart continues to smolder – an arresting testament to the possibilities embodied in creative rage. It is no surprise that Dicks have been covered by Mudhoney, Jesus Lizard and more. Superior Viaduct is honored to present this truly essential reissue. Comes with original tracklist, insert and download card.

Biafra, Jello And The Guantanamo School Of Medicine

Audacity Of Hype

Alternative Tentacles

***BACK IN PRINT ON LIMITED BLUE VINYL!!! In the twenty or so years since his brainchild, The Dead Kennedys, officially disbanded, Jello Biafra has made a career of spoken word gigs interspersed with musical collaborations with some of the most compelling figures in underground music. Recording projects and touring with the likes of Melvins, NoMeansNo, DOA, Mojo Nixon, and Lard (with Ministry's Al Jorgensen) among others have kept his "punk as political weapon" message sharp, but the lack of his own band made these collaborations usually short-lived and left Biafra with a ton of songs that never saw the light of day.Inspired by The Stooges gig on Iggy Pop's 60th birthday in San Francisco, Biafra laid plans for his own 50th birthday party and finally decided it was time to start a band of his own. After cramming practices for a month, the four-piece dubbed themselves Jello Biafra and the Axis of Merry Evildoers! and featured Biafra, Ralph Spight (Victims Family, Freak Accident, Hellworms), Jon Weiss (Sharkbait, Horsey), and Billy Gould (Faith No More) The band took the stage in a sold-out two-night stand at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall. Flush from that exhilarating triumph, nine months of rehearsal and writing followed; they added ace guitarist Kimo Ball (Freak Accident, Carneyball Johnson, Mol Triffid, Griddle), and christened themselves Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine. The Audacity of Hype was produced by Biafra and engineered by hip hop producer and longtime co-conspirator Matt Kelley (Hieroglyphics, The...

Sadier, Laetitia

Rooting For Love

Drag City

***Stereolab's Laetitia Sadier issues a call to the traumatized civilizations of Earth: we’re urged to finally evolve past our countless millennia of suffering and alienation. Her songs score the complexities and harmonies within this directive: organ, guitar, bass, synth, trombone, vibraphone, live and programmed drums, and a vocal assembly of men and women billed as The Choir, working intricate chord/tempo/and dynamic changes, as Laetitia’s empathic presence leads the way.

Timony, Mary

Untame the Tiger

Merge

***For more than 30 years, singer-songwriter and guitar hero Mary Timony has cut a distinctive path through the world of independent music, most recently as vocalist and guitarist of acclaimed garage-pop power trio Ex Hex (Merge) but also as a member of seminal post- punk band Autoclave (Dischord), celebrated leader of the deeply influential Helium (Matador), multifaceted solo artist (Matador, Lookout!, Kill Rock Stars), and a co-founder of supergroup Wild Flag (Merge). Described by Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein as “Mary Shelley with a guitar” and dubbed “a trailblazer and an innovator” by Lindsey Jordan aka Snail Mail, Timony has distinguished herself as one of her generation’s most influential. Although she has remained a cult hero and critical favorite since the early ’90s, Timony’s many triumphs have long been counterbalanced by crippling doubt and self-nullification. Her fifth solo album, Untame the Tiger, approaches these emotions head on. Her first solo release in 15 years is a startling document of an artist fully coming into her own power during the fourth decade of her career. It is the product of lessons learned during life-altering struggle. The mystical, acoustic-driven Untame the Tiger emerged after the dissolution of a long-term relationship and was bookended by the deaths of Timony’s father and mother. The album was recorded during a two-year period during which she was the primary caregiver for her ailing parents. The tectonic psychic shift Mary experienced due to this loss informs many of her lyrics.

Toral, Rafael

Spectral Evolution

Moikai

***Rafael Toral returns to the electric guitar after a decade-plus in his “Space Program,” composing only with self-built electronic modules. Here, the unique compositional fronts of guitar and electronics crush together in a powerful new synthesis.

Biafra, Jello With Doa

Last Scream Of The Missing Neighbors

Alternative Tentacles

***ORIGINALLY FROM 1989 AND BACK IN PRINT ON LIMITED COLORED VINYL AFTER NEARLY 20 YEARS!!! The album-length result of Biafra's collaboration with long-time associates D.O.A. for the super soundtrack of Terminal City Ricochet! Both DKs and D.O.A. began playing music in the same week of 1978, so perhaps this project was bound to happen. It sure seems like it... "...a roaring rock record that puts [Biafra's] trademark whiny vocals and songs to D.O.A.'s meat-and-cojones guitar power. Through a half-dozen numbers like 'Wish I Was in El Salvador,' 'Attack of the Peacekeepers' and the epic 'Full Metal Jackoff,' Last Scream proudly re-hoists the DK flag in all but name." – Trouser Press

Sleeveens, The

s/t

Dirtnap

When Irish-born Count Vaseline / The Mighty Stef songwriter Stef Murphy met Stiff Little Fingers guitar tech Jamie Mechan in Nashville, Tennessee, it began a musical partnership of the highest order. After cranking out a few tunes at Mechan’s fledgling studio, 302 Sound, the duo started recruiting other musicians. The band was rounded out by drummer Ryan Sweeney (Cheap Time) and Eli Steele (Sweet Knives.) Dubbing themselves The Sleeveens, an Irish term for a trixter, the band got to work. After recording and releasing their highly-touted “Give My Regards To The Dancing Girls” 45rpm single on Sweeney’s Sweet Time Records, they finished off their eleven track debut album. The quartet were soon approached by longrunning punk label Dirtnap Records for the album’s 2024 release. The resulting album is an homage to the kind of classic punk Chiswick, New Rose and Stiff Records were releasing forty-five years before The Sleeveens existed. With earworm melodies and screaming guitars, the foursome have crafted one of the best albums of the year. Murphy’s penchant for charmingly brilliant, matter-of-fact lyricism has a similar poetic quality as Mark E. Smith or Jonathan Richman. With expert mastering by Jim Diamond (The White Stripes, The Dirtbombs) to put the finishing touches on the sound, The Sleeveens is a record that is simultaneously uncompromisingly raw and thoughtfully crafted. “As far as I’m concerned, all and sundry can pencil in Stef as the Impending Punk Rock Van Morrison.” — Rev. Norb, Razorcake “Fav new band Stef & The Sleeveens...love...

Split System

Vol. 2

Goner

Naarm / Melbourne, Australia has been churning out reliable punk rock since the likes of The Chosen Few and Rowland S. Howard were kicking about in the late ’70s. Split System are a band that carry on this tradition into the 21st century. Cooked up behind the scenes in the COVID lockdowns, they seemingly came out of nowhere but sounded like they’d been slamming beers to Saints and Radio Birdman records together and playing gigs for many years. Their Vol. 2 is unmistakable Aussie high voltage proto-punk. In their short time on the scene they have demonstrated a knack for combining muscular street punk with classic rock hooks. Their debut album Vol. 1 and follow up 7-inch were described as ferocious and powerful records with amphetamine swagger. They’re high energy and don’t believe in muddy guitar tones. The band are in their element during their raw live shows. They have shared bills with the likes of Amyl & The Sniffers, Cosmic Psychos, Civic, Bad//Dreems, Hard-Ons, CLAMM, Cable Ties & C.O.F.F.I.N.

Grazia

In Poor Taste

Feel It

In Poor Taste is the debut EP from London's Grazia—written and recorded by Heather Dunlop and Lindsay Corstorphine. Often referential—In Poor Taste pulls inspiration from the high and low brow, but mostly the low. Grazia pays homage to everything from The Fall to cheap lingerie brands in a campy pastiche of 80’s new wave and pop. In Poor Taste is all about having a lot of fun while delving into your worst, core self.

Ferrari, Brunhild

Exterieur-jour

Streamline

***After her stunning collaborations with Vincent Royer (for Mode Records), Jim O’Rourke and Christoph Heemann (both for Oren Ambarchi’s Black Truffle Records) Brunhild Ferrari returns to the scene with this new solo album. Extérieur-jour is comprised of two previously unreleased compositions, one being the title track the album is named after and the other “Le Piano Englouti (version original).” Extérieur-jour translates to “Outside Day,” and indicates an instruction for a film scene, a piece of cinéma pour l’oreille, a movie for the ears. It was recorded at Luc Ferrari’s Atelier Post Billig in January and February 2014. “Le Piano Englouti” (“The Sunken Piano”), another electroacoustic composition which was realized over a period of fourteen years between 1996 and 2010, also brings forth cinematic elements with sound sources recorded in places as diverse as a Greek island by the noisy Agean Sea, a Pachinko place and a quiet island in Japan. It comes across as a meditation on the loss and reappearance of memory and silence. The graphics for the album sleeve were created by the late Wolfgang Meyer Tormin, artist and composer and also father of Brunhild Ferrari. The album was mastered for vinyl from the original source by Jim O’Rourke.

Sigmarsson, Sigtryggur Berg

Into the Second Half

Streamline

***Sigmarsson is known not only for his work with Stilluppsteypa but also numerous solo albums and collaborations with Swedish composer BJ Nilsen as well as several other artists. On Into the Second Half, his new solo album, recorded in 2022, Sigmarsson takes the listener into a calming yet mysterious world of sound. Starting from almost silence he creates a different state of listening that we could only find elsewhere when concerned with works of Robert Ashley. Carefully composed textures as subtle as the changes of light in the forbidden zone in Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker weave in and out of each other to make for a hypnotic ride. The cover and label photos were taken by Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson. Mastered for vinyl by Jim O’Rourke.

Sovereign

Altered Realities

Dark Descent

A full-length offering of Sovereign’s lethal blend of evil death / thrash is set to be unshackled via Dark Descent Records! Formed in Oslo 2018 AD, the band have three releases under their belts: Iron Cast (single 2018), Sovereign (demo, 2019), and Neurotic (EP, 2020). Three years in the making, the time has finally come to complete the set with debut album Altered Realities. A monstrous masterwork of old school extreme metal ecstasy. “Altered Realities is a product of an ever-evolving journey we have taken as a band, from our start in 2018 and culminating in the album’s recording in early 2022,” reflects lead guitarist Tommy Jacobsen. He is joined in the band by former Nocturnal Breed band-mate Vidar Fineidet (guitar), alongside drummer Cato Syversrud, and bassist / vocalist Gravskjender. “We strive to push ourselves, both in terms of speed and technicality, whilst still keeping a groove and dynamic. Our approach to death / thrash is an interplay between fast-paced aggression and a slower, more groove-oriented feel. The lyrical themes of the album mirror events and unrest that happened during the time of writing and is in itself a journey.”

Dissimulator

Lower Form Resistance

20 Buck Spin

Montreal’s Dissimulator will be a new name to most in 2024, but with the release of razor-sharp debut album Lower Form Resistance the band unleash an overwhelming future shock on the auditory and sensory nerves, permanently imprinting on the cerebral cortex with their pulsating unconventional attack. Comprised of a membership with resumes that include Chthe’ilist, Atramentus, Beyond Creation and more, the band executes its jagged sci-fi death-thrash with vicious intricacy. Over the course of Lower Form Resistance’s forty-two minutes, the jarring angular riffs, complex structures and atmosphere of exuberant incongruity meshes acutely with a straightforward momentum and perpetual accessibility at the crossroads where the thrash and death metal scenes began to coalesce and directional potentiality feel limitless. Add to this a Voivod-ian prescience of robotic sentience and technological doom and Dissimulator’s vision makes for total immersion in their world-building enterprise. The off-kilter and adventurous spirit of Lower Form Resistance that manages to sound fresh today while conjuring a certain spirit of ’88-’93 makes the Dissimulator debut a mesmerizingly bizarre and gratifying dose of aggressive alacrity.

Torres

What an enormous room

Merge

***What an enormous room is not only the title of the new album by Torres, it is an incantation, a phrase Mackenzie Scott has had in her head now for several years, for as long as some of the songs found here. What an enormous room is an entirely new look at Torres. Scott’s undeniable skill as a guitar player is still the engine driving her songs, but in “Collect,” it’s pushed through a polyphonic octave generator, creating a sound that is sexy and alien and peak Torres, a provocative statement of purpose that’s both a call to arms and a call to the dance floor. “Wake to flowers” is a celebration of the unexpected joy of things turning out much better than one could have hoped. It’s on the slinkier side of What an enormous room, exploring new territory for Torres that Scott attributes to recording with her friend Sarah Jaffe, the Texan singer-songwriter whose inclination to break genre boundaries has led her to collaborate with Eminem and producer Symbolyc One. Jaffe provides What an enormous room’s rhythm section, playing bass and drums, and the easiness of her collaboration with Scott made it possible for songs like “Jerk into joy” to emerge—like the incantation central to it, and the album itself—after years in Scott’s head in a way that is simultaneously more direct and more sonically ambitious than any Torres record to date.

Young, La Monte / Marian Zazeela

Dream House 78'17"

Superior Viaduct

Originally released in 1974 on Shandar, Dream House 78'17" is the second full-length album by La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela. This first-time US edition reproduces the original gatefold sleeve with beautiful calligraphy by Zazeela and liner notes by Young and French musicologist Daniel Caux. Side one was recorded at a private concert (on the date and time indicated by the title) and features Young and Zazeela's voices against a sine wave drone with Jon Hassell on trumpet and Garrett List on trombone. This work is a section of the longer composition Map of 49's Dream the Two Systems of Eleven Sets of Galactic Intervals Ornamental Lightyears Tracery (begun in 1966 as a sub-section of the even larger work The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys, which was begun in 1964 with Young's group The Theatre of Eternal Music). The piece evolves with the oscillator changing pitch and dictating an ornate pattern over the course of a staggering 39-minute performance. Side two is an example of one of the sets of frequencies sustained in the Dream House, the composite sound environments conceived by Young and Zazeela. The composer suggests listening while seated – to experience how the sound interacts with the room and other perceptions of its arrangement – as well as while walking. As Young states, "The frequency ratios are monitored continuously as lissajous patterns on the oscilloscopes and, in spite of the great stability of the oscillators, the phase relationships of the sine waves gradually drift which...

Nomeansno

Wrong

Alternative Tentacles

At last, one of the all-time bat legends, Nomeansno has returned to Alternative Tentacles Records. The entire catalog no less, starting with their most beloved album, Wrong. Using the original all-analog master, from the original mother, as engineered by George Horn, John Wright, and Jello Biafra. Nomeansno formed in a vacuum, in Victoria, British Columbia in 1979 and honing their sounds for years before relocating to Vancouver and releasing eleven albums over an almost forty year career, including a collaborative album with Jello Biafra, and numerous EPs and singles. Originally formed as a two-piece by brothers John and Rob Wright, and later joined by monster guitarist, Andy Kerr. Mixing hardcore punk, dark lyrics, and sophisticated arrangements boarding on prog, Nomeansno was massively influential and widely regarded as the first band to be referred to as “math rock”. Originally released on Alternative Tentacles in 1989, Wrong stands on its own and is still considered to be a much-loved classic. Allmusic called the album a masterpiece and a definitive jazz core album. In 2021, the album was voted by the public’s to win the Canadian Polaris Heritage Prize to honor classic Canadian albums released before the creation of the award. In 2015, drummer John Wright described the album as their “most popular album by a country mile” and to the St. Louis Music Press of Wrong’s success to the rise of alternative music and the success of Nirvana: “That’s where all the buzz about us came from. We were touring throughout the...

Nehan

An Evening With Nehan

Drag City

***Nehan is a Japanese free improvisation & avant-garde rock quintet formed in August 2022. Their performances are initiated by a 9hz brain wave emitted from a testee who has been brought into a deep meditative state via either hypnosis or acupuncture—a very relaxed but very alert state. nehan doesn’t begin until the testee has gotten into the state of “nothingness.” It is only then that the improvisation can begin. The role of improvisation has been key to all the musical projects of Masaki Batoh. In 2010, as Batoh was winding down the activity of his long-stand- ing “heavy chamber folk” group, Ghost, he became involved in the design of a machine to generate sonic data based on brain waves. An acupuncturist as well as a musician by trade, his interest was spurred by the rhythms of the body and the brain, and a desire to access the “pulses” of brain waves to initiate improvisations. Following the release of Brain Pulse Music, Batoh toured Japan and the US, making demonstrations of his process using a local volunteer and guest performers, when available. Today, nehan arrive at their performance space prepared with a Brain Pulse testee, bringing a wide array of instruments including gongs, timpani, tabla and other drums and percussion, Crumhorn, bagpipes, mellotron, oscillators and additional sound effects. Their performance is a transformative electro-acoustic display that passes through the prism of music styles, from east to west, from traditional folk and classical to rock, jazz, and avant electronic. For the personnel...

Segall, Ty

Three Bells

Drag City

***Ty Segall follows 2022’s acoustic introspection opus Hello, Hi with a deeper, wilder journey to the center of the self. With Three Bells, he’s created a set of his most ambitious, elastic songs, using his musical vocabulary with ever-increasing sophistication. It’s an obsessive quest for an expression that answers back to the riptide always pulling him subconsciously into the depths. Questions we all ask in our own private mirrors are faced down here—and regardless of what the mysterious “Three Bells” mean in the context of the album’s libretto, you can be assured that Ty’s ringing them for himself, and for the rest of us in turn. It’s a growing up and out of your head parable, but the farther out you get, the farther in you go. The two-headed suggestion of 2012’s Twins has grown ever more complex, as the outside/inside world of perception dissolves into a greater world of the senses — all six or seven of them! Since Ty deals in sounds, Three Bells rings with them most of all: sounds signaling the next phase, ringing to keep you stuck, or to set you free, with guitars like voices, questioning and answering the others in their turn.

Deviants

Disposable

Tiger Bay

***2024 repress. The Deviants, headed and fronted by Mike Farren, was the answer to the American groups like Stooges and MC5. Their chaotic music was the vehicle for a total assault on the culture and the mutation of "Surfing Bird" and "Wipe Out" called "Pappa-Oo-Mao-Mao" was and remain their Manifesto.

Gruppo Di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza

Gli Occhi Verdi della Paura

Tiger Bay

***2024 repress. For this great 1971 soundtrack of Enzo Castellari's Gli Occhi Freddi della Paura, Ennio Morricone called on the services the Gruppo d'Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, the legendary avant-garde and improvisational combo of which he was a founding member. Not only a classy soundtrack but also a classic of the experimental and free jazz genre.

Marine Girls

Lazy Ways

Tiger Bay

***2024 repress. Produced by the Young Marble Giant 's leader Stuart Moxham, Lazy Ways is the second and last album by the seminal post-punk band from Hatfield (UK), the Marine Girls. Despite the short life of the band, Alice Fox, Jane Fox, and Tracey Thorn (Everything But The Girl) have left an indelible mark on the music history. Listed as one of Kurt Cobain 's favorite bands of all the time, the Marine Girls—with their unique DIY and twee style—can be counted among the fans people of the likes of LCD Soundsystem, Kathleen Hanna, and Courtney Love.

Morricone, Ennio

Spasmo

Tiger Bay

***2024 repress. A great score by the maestro, Ennio Morricone for Umberto Lenzi's 1974 cult thriller Spasmo. Here Morricone creates a disorienting and disturbing effect, using an unusual and almost avant-garde like combination of sounds, music and instruments.

Wilde Flowers, The

The Wilde Flowers

Tiger Bay

***2024 repress. Although the band never released an album during the years of their activity, Wilde Flowers is certainly to be counted among the foundation stones of the Canterbury scene of the mid-to-late '60s. After their departure from the band, the members formed other two seminal groups of the Canterbury sound: Soft Machine (Robert Wyatt, Kevin Ayers, and Hugh Hopper) and Caravan (David Sinclair, Richard Sinclair, Pye Hastings, and Richard Coughlan). The name is of course an homage to Oscar Wilde, and this album is a selection of some of their rarest gems that originally came out in 1994.

V/a

Flux Gourmet - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Ba Da Bing!

In Peter Strickland’s Flux Gourmet, a dysfunctional group of performance artists undertake a month-long residency at an institute devoted to culinary disciplines. Food is interrogated for its sonic potential as the group mic-up, amplify, distort and transform what they cook in front of an audience. The noise that the characters in the film itself make is driven by food blenders, overflowing cauldrons of gurgling soup and sizzling frying pans (courtesy of The Sonic Catering Band), yet the music that soundtracks the culinary capers is engorged with aching melodies and wordless, airy vocals. Contributors include Cavern Of Anti-Matter, Jeremy Barnes and Heather Trost of A Hawk And A Hacksaw and Trost’s band, Roj (formerly of Broadcast), and Nurse With Wound. Flux Gourmet is presented in a lush 2xLP package with an ornate, colorful design and Strickland’s detailed liner notes. Image, color, light and sound are integrated and heightened to delirious levels of hyperreality, much like Strickland’s past works, Berberian Sound Studio and In Fabric. Flux Gourmet very much alludes to his past as a member of The Sonic Catering Band, which he founded back in 1996. The band split on several occasions and got back together to create new pieces for the soundtrack, concocting strange sonic morsels and treating recipes as if they were scores. The lines between what is on the screen and what is on the soundtrack are blurred, with the band (mostly) using the exact same equipment (which they loaned to the production) and recipes as in...

O-D-EX

Breaker

Dirtnap

Mark Ryan’s O-D-EX is a new take for the musician best known for Mind Spiders and The Marked Men. Harsh digital synthesizers and broken drum samples replace the analog fetishism of Mind Spiders. The immediacy of these machines are used to directly transmit into reality the noises churning in his brain. On top of this savage and brittle sound, Micah Why adds his special brand of chaos and bit rate break down. O-D-EX lists the main influences for this project as Chrome and Mantronix. About the album, Ryan says “The gist is that this project is that it’s very immediate. Using my old Electribe sampler and weird digital guitar synth pedal, I can usually bash out an idea and almost have it complete as I’m working on it. I don’t have to bring it to the band to flesh it out. I’ve been obsessed by harsh digital noise and letting go of worrying about analog warmth when recording. Also collaborating with Micah has made this project different. I’ll present the idea to him and he’ll add different noise or vocal elements and help me chop it up differently.”

Spiritualized

Amazing Grace

Fat Possum

***REISSUED!!! "Amazing Grace is the fifth album by the British rock band Spiritualized, so named to indicate its considerable gospel influence. Although the title hymn does not appear on the album, the ballad 'Hold On' is based upon the same melody, and the opening track 'This Little Life of Mine' is clearly indebted to the spiritual 'This Little Light of Mine'." "After working with free-jazz collective Spring Heel Jack on one of their albums and tour, frontman Jason Pierce was inspired to make a record with the same principles. His approach meant that the rest of Spiritualized was given the songs on the same day as they were recorded, meaning the record (including orchestral overdubs) was completed in 3 weeks. This is a huge difference compared to its predecessor, Let It Come Down, which took four years to record." Remastered for vinyl in London by engineer Matt Colton, the 180 gram album features lacquer cuts by Metropolis Mastering, presented in a gatefold jacket designed by Mark Farrow. It will be available in both a standard black vinyl pressing and limited edition dove grey vinyl.

Phobocosm

Foreordained

Dark Descent

Montréal’s Phobocosm continue their career-spanning collaboration with Dark Descent Records with third full-length Foreordained. Foreordained is an amalgamation of everything that came before it. A perfectly balanced fusion of the murky death metal depravity of debut Deprived, blended with the devastating doom of Bringer Of Drought. Remarkably, this was the plan all along: “When we wrote Deprived, we decided that our first three albums would be a trilogy, so Foreordained is the last chapter of that trilogy. We made a conscious effort to pace all three albums in a similar manner, since we wanted them to be linked—starting with a slow, crushing doom song and concluding with a long, epic, depressive one. It’s not a coincidence,” reveals guitarist Samuel Dufour. As their genre of choice would suggest, Foreordained’s lyrical concepts are about death, as well as the futility of denying one’s inherent mortality. Hence the name of the album; meaning predestined, inevitable: “Since death is unavoidable, the end of all life and of our planet is also unavoidable, so there are apocalyptic themes also. The closer ‘For an Aeon’ is about a possible way the world as we know it could end.” Wrapped in artwork by the inimitable Lauri Laaksonen of Desolate Shrine, Convocation and Pestilent Hex fame, Foreordained is set to be a 2024 death metal highlight.

MXLX

Kicking Away At The Decrepit Walls Til The Beautiful Sunshine Blisters Thru the Cracks

Ba Da Bing!

Matt Loveridge is a prolific multi-instrumentalist condemned to Bristol, UK. He has over sixty solo records under various monikers, done before and after his time in Beak>, none of which appear on major streaming platforms, nor get much attention. His work as MXLX is a miasmatic fog, and he tosses the listener deep into it. Kicking Away At The Decrepit Walls Til The Beautiful Sunshine Blisters Thru The Cracks is his most celebrated release (if one counts hate mail), and it appears here for the first time both on vinyl and somewhere not on his own site. Songs swerve between ambient, electronic ambient noise, metal, and industrial. Vocal harmonies ride arpeggiated basslines and shimmering synth lines, ascending upwards before plummeting into distorted screams. And yet, Loveridge’s aggression does not overlook introspection. He faces one stripped of all pretense, creaking “I’ve got that dumb skull of yours locked in place,” apologizing, “I’m sorry for all that I’ve done in the name of myself” and laughing in one’s face, “Just kidding, I hope you rot in the ground.” Drawing from an obsession with literature, he’s converted a life stricken with bouts of depression and homelessness into febrile sonic turbulence. He channels the intensity of groups like Pharmakon and The Body, while embracing compositional noise like Colin Stetson. With droning organs, emotionless chanting, and fleeting walls of sound, his results have more to do with cosmic futility than petty score-settling. MXLX produces barren liturgies of raw emotion, like a fallen medieval monk given...

Hunter, Nailah

Lovegaze

Fat Possum

***The LA-based multi-instrumentalist and composer Nailah Hunter has been recording mystical folk and ambient-inspired music since 2019, releasing a series of singles and two EPs: Spells and, most recently, Quietude. Now signed to Fat Possum, Lovegaze is Hunter’s debut full-length, an enthralling album that draws listeners into her enchanting cosmology. As the daughter of a Belizean pastor, Hunter began her musical journey in the church where she played drums, guitar and sang in the choir. She continued on to study music at CalArts, where she studied vocal performance and was given her first harp lesson. Associating the instrument with fantasy, psychedelia, and dream worlds, Hunter became an immediate devotee, locking herself in a room for six hours a day to practice the instrument. To make Lovegaze, Hunter decamped to a small coastal city along the English Channel where she began recording demos with a borrowed celtic harp. After being introduced to London-based producer Cicely Goulder, Hunter returned to England a year later to further develop the songs. The resulting collection, Lovegaze, is a bewitching testament to the resiliency of the natural world.

Gerycz Powers Rolin

Activator

12xu

***"Activator is the third installment from the trio of Jayson Gerycz, Jen Powers and Matthew Rolin, who respectively need no introduction writ-large. For anyone observing the American underground in the last decade, whether live, on tour or across various listening formats, these names are attached to the crucial goings-on propelling the Rust Belt and beyond. Here we find the trio expand their collaborative vernacular across two sides of vinyl starting with the steady strumming of 'Entrance', a paradox of pensive riffing and anxious percussion where Gerycz and Powers meld into a nebulous cluster of shapeshifting staccato and phantom rhythms. Tracks like 'Sun Rays' and 'Ivory' walk a tightrope between structured songcraft with chord patterns and concise riffs held together by steady cadence, ranging from hand bells to the bombastic, full-kit eruptions Gerycz has perfected over many years. As each piece ascends and unfurls, Powers provides a gentle tessellating from her dulcimer, with each strike landing like raindrops upon shallow puddles. The title track 'Activator' displays the full range and might of the trio, highlighting and merging the many facets and abilities each individual brings to the table, forming the singular identity that has made the project so beloved. Starting with slow dulcimer swells, watery bells, and mellow, motorik electric guitar, the track slowly tangles up its own elements and tumbles itself with grace and patient beauty while ascending to an ecstatic explosion of distortion and thunderous drumming before dissolving into an iridescent singing bowl meditation. Activator leaves it all on...

Lupo Citta

Lupo Citta

12xu

***Sarah Black played bass and guitar and wrote music in several Minneapolis bands including Kickball, Period, Plain Jane, the Bleeding Hickeys, the Lie-Ons, the Pointing Geenas and Brandy Thunders. In the Minneapolis performance scene, Sarah was a performance artist, drag and burlesque performer. Sarah is also a scenic painter and welder who worked on commercial sets, films, and music videos including some rock sculptures that can be seen in Prince's video 'The Holy River.' Jenn Gori trained as a vocalist and was a member of impossibly nerdy musical ensembles and performance groups, singing and arranging music for multi-part vocal compositions including madrigal music, a cappella, and improvisational harmonies. After moving to Minneapolis from Boston, Jenn ventured into punk, drag and burlesque performance, songwriting and playing drums in the Bleeding Hickeys, the Lie-Ons, Pointing Geenas and Brandy Thunders. Chris Brokaw was and remains a member of Come, Codeine and the Martha's Vineyard Ferries, sometimes Charnel Ground, sometimes the Lemonheads. He makes solo albums and film scores, and teaches guitar + drums. Chris and Jenn + Sarah made odysseys living in New York and Seattle for several years each, at exactly the same times, without being aware of each other, all ending up (back) in Boston at roughly the same time a few years ago, apparently following the same north star on the same crooked path. Chris met Jenn + Sarah at a yard show at Brad Searles' house as the pandemic was cooling in 2021 and connected further via the Mr./Mrs....

Bog People

s/t

Iron Lung

Back in 2010, Bog People were the band everyone was talking about. Speedy UK82 punk infused with heaps of chorus and fuzz with live shows that were psychotic and colorful fog machined melees. Word spread like wildfire. The demo was out and burning up every fuckin’ boombox in the country. And then a teaser split 7” came out that was just a couple tracks from the same demo session. People were frothing at the mouth for new recordings. And then, they vanished, back into the bog from whence they came. But not before tracking an LP. A doomed session that was deemed too “speedy” and therefore, abandoned. All kinds of rumors circulated: “Did they get abducted and mind erased?”, “Where is ‘the bog’ located and did they fall in?”, “Did they break up?”, “Did they get arrested?”…and we have been waiting ever since. Well, we have located the masters and enough of the supplemental materials to reconstruct the original vision for the album, so we did just that. A necessary reissue rescued straight from the Portland peat. '81 in '23! 350 on black 150gr vinyl housed in a 24pt jacket with a 18x24 poster insert included. Recorded at Red Lantern Studio in 2010 by Maus. Mastered by Will Killingsworth.

Malcria

Fantasías Histéricas

Iron Lung

Hyper-present, immediate hardcore bursting with the disenchantment and paranoia of living in a society that does not care about our survival. Liberty and comfort are lost fantasies, yet we continue in our obscene pursuits for them. This is the crux of modern life that Fantasías Histéricas addresses head on, exposing an era in decline, pointing the microscope at the cracks in the foundation. Maclría is an important tool in our advance toward a more meaningful life. Do not ignore your future, it will kill you. 300 on black 150gr vinyl housed in a 24pt jacket with lyric booklet included. Recorded at Testa Studio by KB. Mastered by Will Killingsworth. Art by Jonatan Avila.

Physique

Overcome By Pain

Iron Lung

Physique is back with a quick followup to their debut album, Again (out earlier this year on Iron Lung Records) with six pounding D-Beat fueled crusty maelstroms that shout protests of a hellish reality, mental fatigue, greed, desperation, the illusion of choice and modern fascism. The steamroller continues… 600 on black 70gr vinyl housed in a 12pt reverse board glue pocket jacket with lyric sheet included. Recorded on unceded Nisqually & Squaxin land by Capt. Tripps at High Command. Mastered by Shige at Noise Room.

Demoncy

Black Star Gnosis

Dark Descent

After more than eleven years since the release of Enthroned Is the Night, the legendary beast of Demoncy rears its ugly head once more—in league with Dark Descent Records—and perhaps at the top of its malevolent powers. Led by illustrious founder Ixithra, upcoming fifth album Black Star Gnosis is a true testament to constancy and vision in the name of evil. With this new offering, Demoncy deliver the record most sonically akin to 1999’s Joined In Darkness since the turn of the century. The primitive reverb-laden production seamlessly complements the songcraft of unfathomable darkness, resulting in an inimitable hellish soundscape unique to Demoncy alone. The crushing compositions are accompanied by a commanding subterranean bass frequency, as well as Ixithra’s uniquely coarse vocal performances—which also bear a striking resemblance to the second album. Having formed in 1989, Demoncy are among the eldest US black metal bands in existence.

Meffs, The

Broken Britain Pt. 1 & 2

Bottles To The Ground

***Since exploding onto the East Anglian scene in 2019, The Meffs—aka Lily (vocals/guitar) and Lewis (drums/backing vocals)—have built up a reputation as purveyors of frantic punk bangers and an absolute must-see live sensation. After a multitude of talked-about performances, 2021 saw The Meffs destroy the Nick Alexander Memorial Trust stage at London's legendary Roundhouse for Frank Turner's four-date Lost Evenings festival. Following their 2019 demo (which they recorded in only one day!) and four singles recorded in the midst of a global pandemic, The Meffs returned to the studio with Frank Turner early 2022 to record, arguably, their best work yet on Broken Britain Pt. 1 & 2. Pulling no punches as ever, Lily calls out societal inequality at every turn over a wall of hard-hitting melodies. In the words of Frank Turner, "working on this record with The Meffs has been a privilege. It's an absolute monster".