Browse: Vinyl

Hogg, Liz

Goodbye World, Hello Something

Aagoo

***For her sophomore album—Goodbye World Hello Something—alt-rocker and guitar player extraordinaire Liz Hogg devised a rigorous songwriting routine, though you’d never know it listening to the 10 songs that compose the cycle. Utilizing a slew of idiosyncratic rules, Hogg, a Brooklyn-born songwriter and classical guitarist, wrote these 10 lush tracks over 20 days between September and October 2024. The results speak for themselves: the music is breezy and lived-in while the lyrics balance playful and existential in equal measure. Starting from 283 song snippets, which Hogg refers to as “kernels,” the artist methodically categorized these ideas before settling on 10 from a group titled “Acoustic Digital.” From there, Hogg set more rules in order to really focus on craft, one of which was that each song had to be written in two sessions. This way, as Hogg put it, “a purer message was transmitted.”

Heynderickx, Haley & Max Garcia Conover

What of Our Nature

Fat Possum

***Haley Heynderickx and Max García Conover made their second collaborative record, What of Our Nature, in the spirit of Woody Guthrie. From opposite corners of the country, the two songwriters spent a year sharing songs while reading Woody’s words and biographies, slowly exploring a patchwork of Americanism to see where their stories fit. García Conover, half-Puerto Rican, and Heynderickx, half-Filipina, found themselves with this collection of music about the legacy of colonialism, generational identity, commercialism, and the slippery target of addressing social equity in song. Heynderickx’s precise, delicate eloquence met García Conover’s vivid, angular poetics in a barn in Vermont, where this record was recorded directly to tape in five days. With guitars, voices, and some found percussion, they played the record straight through, channeling Woody’s union of spontaneity, sweetness, and defiance.

Glitterer

erer

Purple Circle

***Glitterer, the Washington, D.C., post-hardcore band, has a new record called erer. But after attempting to pronounce that quasi-eponymous title, and upon noticing that the 12” is out on a label called Purple Circle, you’ll probably just start referring to it—in your head, out loud to your friends—as the purple one.The new record, this purple “erer” one, is the most ear-pleasing yet, also the most ambitious. Performed by a revamped lineup —drummer Robin Zeijlon and guitarist Colin Gorman came on board last year, joining Ned Russin (Title Fight) and keyboardist Nicole Dao—and recorded by the prolific producer/engineer Arthur Rizk, who has worked on every Glitterer record since 2019, Glitterererer boasts a thunderous Albini boom, a stereo spectrum that feels 10 miles wide, with floating and darting keyboard lines, impossibly sturdy-yet-subtle drumming, and soaring multi-tracked guitar leads. Pressed on red vinyl.

Dilloway, Aaron

Bhoot Ghar: Sounds of the Kathmandu Horror House

Psychic Sounds

***Psychic Sounds now offers a proper vinyl release of the raw, unfiltered document 'Bhoot Ghar: Sounds of the Kathmandu Horror House', compiled field recordings by Aaron Dilloway. Previous explorations into Nepal have fruited wild & wonderful collections such as 'Sounds of Nepal' featuring field recordings & a regional folk pop songs comp from found cassettes, 'Radio Nepal' transmission snippets dubbed directly from Nepalese radio, and the epic two hour hypnotic alleyway trance 'Sounds of the Indian Snake Charmer' by the Nath Family. This research further fueled subsequent solo works of essential carved noise relics 'Rotting Nepal' & 'Beggar Master'.Bhoot Ghar, or Ghost House in Hindi, apparated into Dilloway’s ongoing narrative revealing crude, rusted animatronics & ghoulish mannequins triggered by sensors releasing bursts of mechanical clanking & electric humming creating chaotic collisions of questionable in-house rigs likened to Survival Research Laboratories. Listeners become the ghost-on-wall witnessing confused, sometimes disturbed, patrons trying to find an exit which all contributes to a disorienting, psychedelic atmosphere. The layered distorted, crackling audio soundtrack sewn from various ancient theme parks, cut-up "ghost host" narration, Indian horror tv show music, heavily effected vocals & eerie samples all get funneled through the "busted sound system" further adding to the surreal, unnerving experience.

C.L.A.W.S.

Splat City II

Dark Entries

C.L.A.W.S. comes to Dark Entries with a new ripping LP, Splat City II. C.L.A.W.S. is the solo project of musical luminary Brian Hock, who has been a key figure in the Bay Area underground for over two decades via his involvement in projects like Bronze and The Vanishing, as well as helming the record labels Squirrels on Film and Immortal Sin. With C.L.A.W.S., Hock takes on the dancefloor, picking up cues from the Hague’s Giallo-dipped electro, the skewed minimalism of Chicago acid, and the mind-rending forays of San Francisco post-punk icons like Chrome and Tuxedomoon. Following 2019’s inaugural Splat City EP, Splat City II continues to map the psychogeography of a metropolis both alien and immediately recognizable, one where life is cheap, but so are the thrills. Previously released on Squirrels on Film in digital-only format, this expanded vinyl edition of Splat City II features two new cuts. Things kick off with “Route 505” and “One Tear,” a duo of rompers that vibe like Tom Ellard and Chip E locked in a room with a vial of liquid. Next up, Bay Area deckmaster Tyrel lends his editing chops to “Vigilant Slimy Monsters,” sculpting a moody space disco beast. Squirrels on Film co-founder Solar teams up with Hock for “Black Magic Carpet Ride III,” a cavernous downtempo banger. The slow-mo pace continues with “Wild Slugs United,” which features the no wave-esque clarinet work of Paul Costuros. Closer “Don’t Flip the Crystal Ship” pays homage to Bayview venue Bay Area 51 with...

Hansen-Knarhoi, Sophia

Undertow

Ba Da Bing!

With her first album Undertow, London-based composer/singer-songwriter Sophia Hansen-Knarhoi reveals stark venerability in a world of sound that is intimate and expansive. Voice and cello entwine to provide a cinematic intensity to songs that tell stories of memory, growth, and the raw, often dark, textures of emotion. with cinematic intensity.. ‘Undertow’ tethers intimacy to the corporeal, spanning violation and deep trust.. It deals with the fallout of the victims of violence against women, voyaging through fear and pain to absolution.Born in Perth, Western Australia, Hansen-Knarhoi grew up surrounded by the natural world. ‘Undertow’ draws on the stark landscapes of Western Australia. At moments, field recordings are woven into the work, while at others, arrangements reflect its beautiful barren environment through memory. “Engulfing myself in nature has always been a way for me to process the world, to bring me back into my body and my senses”. ‘Undertow’ revels in this remote sonic landscapeHer 2023 debut EP, Wildflowers, explores the transition from childhood to adulthood, blending ethereal, delicate vocals with graceful and tender instrumentation to embody memory, trauma, and the moments that shape us. This time, with the skilled Brooklyn producer Randall Dunn as a collaborator, Undertow pushes further into the abstract, a dark and dissociative space. Dunn carves intricate space around the lyrics, etching into the soundscape with tension. Cello and voice interact as dual narrators, layering hypnotic drones, gritty textures and raw emotive vocals.Undertow frames Hansen-Knarhoi in a caught moment, continuing her evolution, and all the sharp objects in...

Midnight Mines

Feel Like I'm Slipping Away

Minimum Table Stacks

***Long-running UK DIY band surface from their regular output of obscure self-released cassettes and backroom performances in their local neighbourhood bars, with this, their third ‘proper’ longplaying record, the culmination of a ‘rock’n’roll trilogy’ that perhaps only exists in their own typewritten manifestos. Augmenting the usual duo of Private Sorrow and Baron Saturday are new additions: State Education on bass, clarinet and pedal steel; and Autodrome on drums. Together they navigate Studio One rhythms, obvious rockabilly riffs repeated metronomically to the point of oblivion, 60s psych covers, chopped up tapes of previous bands, improvised chaos, and even tender ballads. A raw quartet screaming and begging to be let out of the walls of their self-imposed r’n’r prison.“For the third and final LP of the ‘Rock & Roll Trilogy’, Midnight Mines have heralded a Spitfire parade across the skies above their street level hacienda, the shimmering roar reverberating a gleeful din, sending tremors of bewildering euphoria into the enthusiastic gaggle of lugholes below. The winsome cover of Red Krayola’s ‘Victory Garden’ alone sounds like Spacemen 3 trapped inside a Fun House mirror. Midnight Mines deliver their most fantastic blurt yet.”—Tom Lax, Siltbreeze

Retail Simps

(As Educated Fools play) Tantric Decapitation: 69 Minutes of Trichotomy & Liquefaction

Total Punk

***After 3 albums, 2 7"s, a feature length documentary and a smattering of cassettes, the Simps, our perennial protagonists, have entered middle age. An unflattering era in the life of a band where the shiny novelty of youth has disintegrated, pressures to expand or leave this mortal coil have mounted and the darling status once indiscriminately slathered onto their oeuvre relegated to the shadows, a blink in the continuum of the next-big-thing economy. Many believe aging gracefully is a myth, and that may be so, but people like Joe, Chris, Obe, Zak and cohort Cole know no other way than to slog onward and upward. With the departure of keyboard magnate Tom Tom, the unequivocal straight man to the chaotic ensemble, the group was due for a proper unravelling or a long hard look in the mirror. Tantric Decapitation was recorded live at Value Sound Studios in 2 days by Renny Wilson, and after nominal mixing attempts, left bare. It was an exercise in introspection, the gritty product destined to be a looking glass into the rough hewn nature of the band’s sound. Despite the realism and immediacy of this double album, one thing was certain: every record needs a story: a platitude drilled into the heads of banal musicians and record execs alike. Doesn’t matter the fortitude of the yarn however, just the way you use it. As such, the Educated Fools were born. A fictional group from the wilds of Nantucket, primed for the newborn sheen the Simps...

Scrabbled

Plough Through the Rust

Wormwood Grasshopper Records

***The DIY ramshackle energy we know and love from the group is present and familiar, as is the dry wit and authenticity (a word I’m nervous in using, but if the shoe fits), however Plough Through the Rust often sees the group's songwriting taking a more introspective and personal path. Whereas Pig City was sonically expansive (and three songs here are drawn from those sessions), Rust often draws things closer, finding the charm within the scaled back honesty and rawness."Like Velvet Underground if they had been subject to the unrelenting heat, everyday abuse and suburban sprawl of heartland Australia."—Everett True.

Chat Pile / Hayden Pedigo

In The Earth Again

Flenser

The sprawling expanse of the American heartland is many things: picturesque as it is desolate, familiar as it is alien. Very few settings manage to capture such contrasting characteristics in equal measure, so it’s no wonder that the endless roads and forgotten towns of the deep countryside are practically synonymous with the general concept of a “post-apocalypse”. Although there’s a bleak horror to the rural decay of “Flyover Country,” there’s a tragic beauty in its stillness, something which OKC noise rockers Chat Pile and Texas-raised, Oklahoma-based fingerpicking guitarist and composer Hayden Pedigo masterfully capture on the collaborative LP- In the Earth Again.Despite their works occupying what seems like completely opposite ends of the genre and tonal spectrum, Hayden Pedigo and Chat Pile’s Captain Ron, Luther Manhole, Raygun Busch, and Stin radiate a genuine synergy with one another that extends far beyond their music. Rather than alternating between moments where either the quartet’s signature sludgy beatdown of noise rock and Hayden’s Fahey-esque guitar soundscapes individually shine, In the Earth Again sees both Chat Pile and Hayden Pedigo explore latent yet previously untapped aspects of their sounds. For Chat Pile, this meant an opportunity to explore moodier arrangements, indulge in sample and tape manipulation, and pen among the most sincere and personal lyrics in their entire discography. In Hayden’s case, this collaboration enabled the visionary guitarist to translate the masterful craft of his typically tranquil, deep country soundscapes into something more sinister, tinged with a visceral, metallic grit that is no less...

Nobody Jones

Love From A Distant Star

Deathbomb Arc

***Nobody Jones, a five-piece space-country band composed of West Philly style migrants and D.I.Y. scene veterans follow up their debut album Missing Person with Love From a Distant Star, a collection of their most beloved songs from shows, all never released till now. Drawn from a swirling well of half-remembered, half-imagined genre sitting somewhere on the county line between Townes Van Zandt, Vic Chesnutt and the Meat Puppets, Nobody Jones's sound ranges from the cinematic to the raucous to the intimate. Using plain-spoken songwriting, they navigate contemporary alienation and affection, sharing with the listener a few scraps of the deeply personal in hopes of charting a collective map of the soul.

Los Microwaves

Coast To Coast / Radio Heart

Hyperspace Communications

***A special 7” 45rpm single, limited edition in purple vinyl, pressed especially for the band's ecent Northeastern tour. This is a re-release of their 1980 hits not available on the recent remix compilation. Remastered by punk producer legend Geza X, this legacy New Wave band from the 80s is currently performing nation wide.

V/a

Metro Subterranean Vol. 2

Hyperspace Communications

***The second in a series featuring four modern future wave bands, this time all based in Los Angeles and currently touring national venues and festivals. Each is unique but collectively represent the fresh, electrifying sound of bands in the 21st century.Donzii originally from Miami, is a time-bending, post-punk vision: a unity of go-hard industrial bangers, darkly ambient balladry, and new takes on the funk traditions of No Wave.Klypi is the “pop-star” avatar of AC Carter, a multi-disciplinary artist from Birmingham, Alabama. Klypi is part electropop - part performance art with the appeal of synthesizer driven songs in an EDM language.The second side goes further out with ICBM, the collective brain child of Ian Bain from SoCal's inland empire. With music that has been described as the “teenage Frank Zappa”, they bring to the stage and studio a gender bending collision of punk rock, experimental jazz, and shocking art vocals.Finally, Period Bomb is a band started by Camila Alvarez, also from Miami, with the intention of creating a new live experience with every performance. Bursting from the traditions of Riot Grrl punk, bombastic feminist performance art, and hard core improvisation, their recorded tracks can barely contain the energy they bring to the stage.Pressed in deep blue clear vinyl.

V/a

Next World Sound Vol. 5

Hyperspace Communications

***The latest in the Next World Sound series continues the line of experimental compilations featuring one side of an artist exploring their individual take on the ambient genre.KNOX CHANDLER is an American musician, producer, arranger, and visual artist whose career spans over four decades. He has worked with The Psychedelic Furs, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Cyndi Lauper, R.E.M., Depeche Mode, Grace Jones, and Dave Gahan, among others. After a decade in Berlin, where he developed his layered guitar technique called Soundribbons, he returned to the U.S. and settled on the Connecticut shoreline.ANNA HOMLER, is a vocal, visual and performance artist based in Los Angeles. She has performed and exhibited her work in venues around the world. With a sensibility that is both ancient and postmodern, Homler sings in an improvised melodic language. Her work explores alternative means of communication and the poetics of ordinary things.Anna is accompanied by: Jeff Schwartz, a very active Los Angeles-based improvised and experimental double bassist. He leads the Present Quartet, Intangible, and the Soapbox; performs with a variety of ensembles and orchestras; and has written books on music for SUNY Press and Routledge. David Javelosa a composer, producer, recording artist and technologist based in Mar Vista California. Performing on modular, electronic instruments, he has created soundtracks for many of the major game platforms, and most recently has been performing with Microwave Buddha, a retrospective of his synth pop work in the 1980's.Pressed in clear green vinyl.

Kinman, Chip

S/t

In The Red

In 2022, In the Red Records released The Great Confrontation, an album of instrumental electronic music by Chip Kinman. It was Chip’s first solo album; his previous recording, This American Blues, by his band Ford Madox Ford, was issued just prior to the 2018 death of his brother Tony. The Kinmans had been partnered musically since they were teens, in a variety of now-legendary projects: the OG California punk band the Dils, the pathfinding cowpunk unit Rank and File, the ear-shattering electro-rock duo Blackbird, and the Western music twosome Cowboy Nation.In the wake of The Great Confrontation, Chip and In the Red plotted another record. The resultant collection, Chip Kinman, is reflective, soulful, and profoundly affecting, a statement of identity and a look back at life that avoids the pitfalls that could derail an autobiographical work."I had to figure out something to write about, and I thought, it’s time to make that record," Chip says. "A long time ago, Tony and I were talking about singer-songwriters, and he said, ‘If you’re going to sing about your life, you better have had a fucking interesting life.’ And I thought, I have. I’ve gotta deep-dive into that. I figured, if I was going to write about what it was like, how was I gonna approach that? How was I going to say that without being nostalgic or without being maudlin or without being over-celebratory? It it was, well, just say it like it was."The album features several moving, personal new songs: the...

Bluebeaters, The

Mantra

Caribb Roots

***The first of two singles off the upcoming 2026 album from long-running Italian ska group The Bluebeaters. "Mantra" is a new song sung in Italian and features a shift from ska to a more rocksteady sound with a reference point more aligned with the 1980s than the 1960s. B-side features "Mysterious Dub" by EZRA. Limited quantity available. Includes a poster.

Bluebeaters, The

Ora Lo Sai

Caribb Roots

***The second of two singles off the upcoming 2026 album from long-running Italian ska group THE BLUEBEATERS. "Ora Lo Sai" is a new song sung in Italian and continues the band’s shift from ska to a more rocksteady sound with a reference point more aligned with the 1980s than the 1960s. B-side features a cover of Vangelis' "End Titles" from the film Everybody Knows. Limited quantity available.

Bluebeaters, The

Trinity / Version

Caribb Roots

***"Trinity" is a cover of a famous song from Sergio Leone's film of the same name. It is a song produced by Caribb Roots, in the wake of the first 20 years of Italian ska group The Bluebeaters (with the intention of covering previously released songs in the style of Skatalites and the like. but with Patrick Benifei / Pat Cosmo, the band's singer since 2014). Limited quantity available.

Belgrado

Siglo XXI

La Vida Es Un Mus

***Barcelona's Belgrado return with their second album 'Siglo XXI' and first for La Vida Es Un Mus. The 11 track album melds dark and dreamy goth and post punk with a stunning and clear production. The bass leads and drives each track into the batcave whilst the vocals yearn and ache on top. This record has a clear 80's English influence (Killing Joke, Vex, A Touch of Hysteria, Blood and Roses etc) but it also very modern day Barcelona with the reverb as important as an instrument and totally DIY. 2011's excellent self titled LP has been bettered in sound, production and song. The LP comes in a thick black and white sleeve with artwork from drummer Jonathan also including a 30x30 insert, an extra lyric sheet and a 40x55 poster.

Pallbearer

Sorrow And Extinction

20 Buck Spin

***REISSUED ON REVOLVER EXCLUSIVE ELECTRIC BLUE VINYL IN HONOR OF BEING INDUCTED INTO DECIBEL MAGAZINE'S HALL OF FAME!! In 2012, Pallbearer’s debut album Sorrow and Extinction was released to wide critical acclaim both by the heavy metal press and the wider indie music press machine. A crushingly heavy and beautifully melancholy piece of traditional doom metal, Sorrow and Extinction reveals more layers with each listen. Brett Campbell’s incredible vocals, soaring above the twin guitar melodies and megalithic doom riffs, give the LP a uniqueness and confidence rarely found in a band on their debut album.  This double-vinyl issue is the highly anticipated definitive edition of Sorrow and Extinction, one of 2012’s best albums.  “Brett Campbell’s beautifully belting voice cuts through railroad-tie-pounding riffs, slow and steady, reinforced by steel.” —NPR (Top 25 of 2012 So Far)  “Pallbearer have created their own version of a traditional jazz funeral march, or like they went ahead and invented some sort of ‘celebratory doom.’ Whatever you want to call it, the record’s a triumph.” —Pitchfork (8.4 rating)  “... arguably the mark to meet in metal so far this year.” —Spin  “... these songs impress unilaterally, in both construction and tonal expanse.” —The Obelisk  “Pallbearer painted a sonic masterpiece with Sorrow and Extinction. Pick it up now.” —Stereokiller

Paris 1942

S/t

Superior Viaduct

“Difficult as it may be to imagine, there was a time when Sun City Girls did not exist. Prior to the Bishop brothers teaming up with drummer/shaman Charlie Gocher to form SCG’s classic trio lineup, there were various ad-hoc assemblages of local Phoenix-area freaks and weirdos—groups which existed only long enough to play a single gig, open mic or house party before disbanding without a trace. Hatched from this milieu was Paris 1942, a short-lived band formed by guitarist Jesse Srogoncik that included Alan Bishop, Richard Bishop and former Velvet Underground drummer Maureen Tucker.“Paris 1942 would play only four shows in as many months, but between April and August of 1982, the band would gather several times a week in Tucker’s living room, where the group feverishly wrote and rehearsed with a kind of quotidian discipline. While P42 didn’t release anything during their brief tenure, a 7” EP and LP (both self-titled) surreptitiously surfaced on the Majora label in the mid to late ’90s. Until now, those two titles—as well as an appearance on Placebo’s Amuck comp in late ’82—would be the only documented evidence that this improbable, serendipitous and magnificent band ever existed.“While those expecting P42’s music to sound like a tantalizing combination of Sun City Girls’ iconoclastic hoodoo havoc and the Velvets’ primal drug-chug certainly won’t be disappointed, Paris 1942 more often than not transcends even these nearly impossible expectations. Srogoncik’s songs, in particular, are a revelation, displaying as much in common with the exuberant raunch of The...

No Alternative

Dying in the USA '78 to '89

PNV

***Mandatory collection of material, mostly ranging from '78-'80, from this short lived but absolutely crucial SF punk outfit. Similar to their peers Avengers, No Alternative never released a proper LP in their time, but this posthumous collection of single, comp and unreleased tracks stands as a powerful document of a top rate punk outfit in their prime. No Alternative bridged a gap of sorts between the 70's stew of new wave and punk and the more hardcore sound that defined the 80's. The aforementioned Avengers or X operated similarly during this antebellum period, and fans of that melodic, high energy, brand of Californian punk will rejoice hearing this collection of scarce material from one of SF's finest.

Dubrovniks, The

Dubrovnik Blues

Bang

***Attention all lovers of raw, unfiltered rock'n'roll! Bang! Records presents the vinyl reissue of Dubrovnik Blues, the celebrated debut LP from The Dubrovniks—the Australian supergroup born straight from the beating heart of the country's punk underground. Formed in Sydney in 1986 (originally as The Adorable Ones), The Dubrovniks brought together true icons of the Aussie scene: James Baker, legendary drummer for Beasts of Bourbon, founding member of Hoodoo Gurus, and a driving force in The Scientists; Roddy Radalj, co-founder of Hoodoo Gurus and veteran of The Scientists; and Boris Sujdovic, who also played with both The Scientists and Beasts of Bourbon. Far from being "just another debut," Dubrovnik Blues was an instant statement of intent—a wild blend of garage rock grit, glam swagger, punk attitude and classic rock'n'roll hooks. Think The Troggs and T. Rex colliding with the spirit of the New York Dolls. Originally released in August 1989 on Timberyard Records, the album went on to earn a nomination for Best Independent Release at the ARIA Awards in 1990. Now, Bang! Records brings this cult gem back to life on vinyl—a must-have for collectors, vintage-sound purists, and anyone ready to relive (or discover) the raw, electric energy of late-'80s Australian rock at its finest.

Insecure Men

A Man For All Seasons

Fat Possum

***Saul Adamczewski, co-founder of Fat White Family and frontman of Insecure Men, endured a harrowing personal collapse in 2024, spending months in a cupboard in Tulse Hill amid severe psychosis and opioid addiction. After calling his mother and undergoing withdrawal, he began rebuilding his life, reconnecting with family and bandmates. This recovery led to A Man For All Seasons, the second Insecure Men album and a creative rebirth.Recorded in the spring of 2025, at Ray Davis’ Konk Studios in Hornsey, North London with producer Raf Rundell, the album reflects Adamczewski’s shift toward collaboration, with a band lineup including Marley Mackay, Victor Jakeman, Fat White Family’s Alex White and Steely Dan Monte. Thematically, the album confronts heartbreak, mental illness, and addiction, blending melancholic country influences with lush, narcotic lounge-pop textures. Tracks like ‘Time Is A Healer’ channel raw emotion, while songs like ‘Alien’ and ‘Cleaning Bricks’ showcase the album’s more junkshop pop instincts.Rooted in Adamczewski’s country-infused upbringing, the album carries the ghostly, submerged sonic identity familiar from the first Insecure Men release, yet it feels more communal and mature. His songwriting is both confessional and escapist, offering solace and catharsis. Beyond this release, Adamczewski plans a Memphis-recorded country album, a dub project, and continues to explore folk and experimental forms, all in search of truth and healing through music.From near-total collapse to creative revival, Adamczewski’s journey is both cautionary and redemptive—one that reaffirms his role as one of Britain’s most singular and enduring musical voices.

Home Front

Watch It Die

La Vida Es Un Mus

“HOME FRONT from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, have been blasting out of everyone’s stereos for the past 3 years with their unique combination of The Cure, Blitz, Eurythmics and Suicide wrapped up with modern production and tightly wound hooks. Unrelenting 2nd LP Watch It Die soars high and reaches deep with frayed punk edges wrapping around canonic pop luxury. A record about moving through life while acknowledging death, about humanity, rebirth, dreams and community—all powered by vintage drum machines, analog synths and screaming guitars. A punk pop crossover treat like no other”

Ragana & Drowse

Ash Souvenir

Flenser

In May of 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted and everyone in the Pacific Northwest was touched by its ash, its destructiveness, and its story, a shared experience that became an ash souvenir. Ash Souvenir is the collaborative album by Drowse (Kyle Bates) and Ragana (Maria and Noel), conceived in a shared sense of grief and collective memory rooted in the Pacific Northwest. Ash Souvenir was originally commissioned by and premiered at the 2024 edition of Roadburn Festival in Tilburg, Netherlands. Afterwards, the trio recorded the album at the legendary Unknown studio in Anacortes, Washington. Ash Souvenir confronts grief. During the writing process, Maria and Kyle were both in a painful, transitional period, moving back to the Pacific Northwest to be closer to struggling loved ones. This return home and the emotions it stirred echoed in Noel’s own inherited history. Their grandmother escaped occupied Latvia in the 1940s and began a new life in the United States, eventually spending her final 25 years in a hand-built log cabin deep in the woods outside Shelton, Washington. Surrounded by fir and aspen, she lived in quiet self-reliance, her days shaped by isolation and resilience. The album combines Ragana’s heavy, emotionally charged metal with Drowse’s textural approach to sound. Across four long-form pieces, the trio’s voices and instruments move between stark intimacy and overwhelming intensity, culminating in a collective refrain: “there is nothing to lose.” Ash Souvenir is a sublime experience, conjuring both the power of a devastating eruption and the eerie stillness that...

Voidceremony

Abditum

20 Buck Spin

Emerging with a labyrinthine work of creativity constructed with an intensity both unrelenting and precise, VoidCeremony return with their signature sound, an abstract and scathing zone of musical obscurity rife with cynicism toward humanity. Abditum, the third full length album, unfurls with a sense of arcane design where twisting riffs clash and converge in unforeseen sequences.Composed by Wandering Mind (aka Garrett Johnson) the otherworldly riffing spirals into altered shapes, conjuring tones that veer between luminous clarity and abyssal murk. Joined in the darkness by guitarist The Archonoclast (Jayson McGehee), Dylan Marks on drums and bass co-conspirators The Great Righteous Destroyer (Damon Good) and The Absent Deity (Ben Ricci), in tandem they create a cacophony of hellish jazz-inflected discord and unpredictable texture; every composition a descent into shifting caverns, where sudden openings reveal hidden pathways only to close again with finality.Existing within an unawakened mind, contemplate a journey through the landscapes of Abditum, a region replete with the harmonies of the spheres and ever evolving chaos. These elements create a world that is alien yet meticulously considered. VoidCeremony once again resists easy grasp, demands immersion and rewards repeated exploration, materializing new contours perpetually.

Shop Talk

Museum of Sex

One Track Mind

***Shop Talk is a Brooklyn-based punk band whose spirit harkens back to first-wave acts like X and The Adverts. Shop Talk’s sound is “anthemic and addictive, but dark and dreary, like London and pre-hardcore LA mingling somewhere mysterious” (MRR). The band’s new 7-inch was produced by Jeff Berner (Psychic TV, Shilpa Ray), and it’s their first to feature Angie Boylan (Sleater-Kinney, Marissa Paternoster Band) on drums. The title track and cover art take inspiration from an NYC institution, and its pervasive ad campaign.

Orcutt, Bill

Another Perfect Day

Palilalia

"Another Perfect Day is Bill Orcutt's first solo electric guitar record since 2017’s eponymous Bill Orcutt. While that eight-year gap might not seem like a ton of time on the cosmic scale, it nonetheless represents a busy half-decade plus for Orcutt projects: a raft of improv collaborations, an acclaimed run of chopped and looped albums on Fake Estates, and the collision of Orcutt's computer and guitar music on Music For Four Guitars and last year's How to Rescue Things, both on Palilalia. The undeniable alchemy of those latter mashups inspired not only a wider appreciation of Orcutt-as-composer, but also the resurrection of Orcutt-as-bandleader, as the Bill Orcutt Quartet hit the road in support of Four Guitars, Orcutt's first work with a proper score (courtesy of Shane Parrish).All of the above makes 2025 the perfect year to reacquaint ourselves with Orcutt-as-solo-performer, wielding his trademark four-string rather than a mouse, running the neck rather than shuffling waveforms, blasting through Cafe Oto's tattered Fender Twin (the cover model for the aforementioned How to Rescue Things) rather than a pair of ancient NS-10s. Indeed, this 2023 performance at Oto, East London's finest music establishment, boomerangs back into the slashing chords and frenzied double- picking of the Harry Pussy years, tossing the gentler melodic glow of the last few solo records into the dustbin.In other words, this may be Orcutt's most overtly punk-rockist record since Gerty Loves Pussy, his first solo electric LP from a decade ago. It's an affirmation that Orcutt is above all...

Bell Witch & Aerial Ruin

Stygian Bough Volume II

Profound Lore

On Stygian Bough Volume II, the collaboration between Bell Witch (Dylan Desmond, Jesse Shreibman) and Aerial Ruin (Erik Moggridge) enlivens its unbodied presence resembling both collaborating projects as a conduit in its own separate entity. In the course of an hour, four musical pieces set themselves apart from the catalogs of both individual bands and branch into new territory all the while threaded to the original encounter. Over the album a cyclical world unfolds in which different perspectives of how various forms of worship empower, eclipse, destroy and feed on each other is explored. “Waves Became The Sky,” the opening track on Volume II, recalls “Rows (Of Endless Waves)” from Bell Witch’s debut album Longing. It was here that Bell Witch and Aerial Ruin had initial contact, while “King Of The Wood,” quickly lurks into an abyss death-doom fans of Thergothon and My Dying Bride will find familiarity in. Track three, “From Dominion,” opens to the power trio resembling the elements of Aerial Ruin’s dark folk temperaments. With a voice one can imagine emerging from some forgotten dimension in ancient Albion, Moggridge pulls thread as much enchantment as song. “The Told And The Leadened,” the album’s closer and longest track clocking in at just over nineteen minutes, is about the cycles of power and how they eclipse and prop each other up. The result is a commanding four songs steeped in mysticism, legend, and the examination of the connective threads that shape and influence the culture, mythology, and customs of...

Owen, Maisy

My Youth is All For You

Tompkins Square

The debut single from Tompkins Square’s latest signing, 22 yo Nashville born and based Maisy Owen. Maisy plays all the instruments on this song. Produced by Robin Eaton. Includes both stereo and mono versions. Exclusively available for North America.

Moms With Bangs

Do What's Delicious!

Alternative Tentacles

Alternative Tentacles Records is proud to present the debut 7” release from Moms With Bangs; “Do What’s Delicious” out everywhere on November 14th! Born out of the Northern California DIY scene, Moms With Bangs started as a ragtag group of high schoolers looking to build a musical community filled with loud, chaotic, unfiltered energy. Quickly becoming known for their loud experimental sound and unhinged live shows. Moms With Bangs become legendary for being high-volume, high-energy, and having zero barrier between them and their audience. It was these qualities that caught the attention of Jello Biafra himself, who was so impressed he signed them to his label Alternative Tentacles Records, making Moms With Bangs the youngest signing in the history of the label. Recorded at Tiny Telephone in Oakland, CA over the course of two days in January of 2024, Leo Hirsch, Michael Cook, Austin Kennedy, Axel Sanchez, and Oliver John live-tracked these songs in one large recording room, recording at the same time facing each other, to make sure the recording captured the unfiltered energy of the live show as much as possible. As for the name of the 7”? “Do What’s Delicious” came from a suggestion from Jello Biafra himself, while the band was in the studio, as a name he once considered for a Dead Kennedys release. The two tracks on “Do What’s Delicious” capture the throttling high energy rhythms of bands like Thee Oh Sees. Showcasing an affinity for the off-kilter groove of bands like Deerhoof or...

Sonny And His Cosmoromic Sunsets

The Diving Kind

Rocks In Your Head

"in 2024 myself, and a musician friend of mine from Geneva wanted to go make some new music, explode our heads and be new. we have a mutual friend from Switzerland who married a Senegales painter. his name is Mbaye Diop. He said he would go with us to Senegal and introduce us to Senegalese musicians. so, we got a little grant from the Swiss government to help with most of the expenses and we began organziing .We flew to Dakar after a tour I had in Spain, and took a five hour taxi to San Louis in the north and we met a Studio owner by the name of Boubacar Tall. And he introduced us to musicians in San Louis. and it didn’t take long, we began making music the first day.They spoke Wolof and a Senegalese version of French, I spoke English, my friend spoke a Swiss French. There is some singing by myself, and some words by Mbaye Diop in Wolof. meanwhile I met a singer by the name of Theresa N’gambi from Zambia, when I was touring with WITCH, the zamrock band. and so she sang alot of b/ups and often in Nyanga, her language. I blended her with my favorite American singer Kelly McFarling and it’s really kind of rich. sometimes it sounds a little like 90’s R & B and sometimes it sounds like some thing very new and not common."—SonnyMusicians -M’baye Diop - narrationSouleymane Samb - keyboardsKhadim Niang - percussionYorro Niang- percussionTheresa N’Gambi...

Puppet Wipes

Live Inside

Siltbreeze

Has it really been 4 years since the Puppet Wipes debut LP? Well now, in that time, Arielle & Kayla enlisted Jay Wong (Glitter, Janitor Scum, Yankee Cowboy) on drums, then hit the road. They did a tour of Canada with The Retail Simps & even popped down to the Lower 48 for a couple of dates. Needless to say, the fans wanted more. And while there aren't any US shows planned, the good news is their followup to The Stones Are Watching And They Can Be A Handful has finally arrived. Entitled, Live Inside, it's every bit the corker we'd hoped for. The Lewis Carroll-meets-David Croneberg ambience is still in play, but relegated to the corners. Much like The Raincoats Odyshape, or The Shadow Ring's Put The Music In Its Coffin, Live Inside exudes a higher level of mettle to match their singularity. Hell, they even take a cover by Septimus & make it work in Puppet Wipes time. Some bands find the sophomore effort to be a cursed hurdle, but for Puppet Wipes, Live Inside sees them polish off that tired trope like Diamond Jim Brady shooting back oysters at a seafood buffet. A shoe-in for Best Of 2025, no doubt about it.

Bezier

Decompose

Dark Entries

Bézier ripples their way back to Dark Entries with Decompose, an LP of doomed spa music. Multi-instrumentalist Robert Yang has made numerous appearances on Dark Entries for more than a decade, with releases spanning the stylistic gamut from hi-NRG disco floor-fillers to lush ambient epics. Decompose, Bézier’s second LP, is perhaps his most introspective work yet. It is an album almost ten years in the making, a deep investigation of life, loss, and the struggle of knowing oneself. If one were to pull a tarot deck for this album it would be the Nine of Swords. The album honors the lives of the fallen victims of Pulse Nightclub. It honors lives lost or suffering through the ongoing genocide in Gaza. The title track takes the form of a Buddhist chant, a brooding synth-driven meditation that scales steadily until breaking into John Carpenter-esque arpeggios halfway through. Tracks like “Egg,” “Marionette,” and “A Fading Citadel Atop Black Sand Bluffs” build on this soundworld, one in which intricate melodies and cavernous reverb induce in the listener feelings of both claustrophobia and free-fall. The album’s dancefloor-leaning moments, like “Codebreaking” and “Split a Path Towards the Thicket” are spartan, tunnel-vision techno tracks speeding towards ego-death. Decompose chronicles Yang’s journey to find peace with himself, as a gay Asian American. During this process, they learned to “repot” long-lost parts of their identity so they could grow forth in wholesome fashion. The sleeve for Decompose was designed by Eloise Shir-Juen Leigh, and features a photograph by Frankie...

Maraudeur

Flaschenträger

Feel It

***"With its twirling surrealist melodies, bricolage song structure, and adroit rhythmic changes, Leipzig’s Maraudeur have made an album suffused with the spontaneity of an art school party that somehow by the end of the night evolved into making a record. The trilling laughs and clinking glasses are transformed into bright synth lines and guitar riffs that are at times wiry and then, sometimes with little warning, hard and angular. Underneath this is the roiling chatter of Devo-funk infused bass and skittish bap-bap-boom drums. Shouty, echo-y vocals, covering a range of topics—some deadly serious, others less so—cap the 4am anything-can-happen-so-what-will-happen-next feel to the entire record.The comparisons to Kleenex/LiLiLPUT are perhaps inevitable, but the band wears this influence lightly as they have on their past releases, picking up with ease where their predecessors left off and always exploring where to go next. This is music that is energetic, that embraces discovery, that is disquieting in the best ways—this is music to stave off the boredom endemic in our post-everything society."—Ben Michaelis

Den

Post Pink

Digital Regress

For starters, we have a solid foundation for the stomach: cheese puffs made with aged Comté. Den have mastered this opening bite, an amusing and gentle snack. Yes, you’ve heard: Den moved out of the darkness and the chilly cold and have moved inside The Restaurant. They’ve commandeered the kitchen and present a greater depth of flavour and culinary nuance. You might remember them first as a food track in a Marrickville back alley where they served a damaged blend of salty post punk and psychedelic hardcore, salt in the hair and salt on the skin, and then a delivery service of ultra minute, dense bites on their Deep Cell LP. Years of experimenting and balancing flavours have encouraged them to embrace a restraint and subtlety with Post Pink, a truly new sound and direction for the band that honours their culinary legacy. Post Pink infers a certain kind of comfort that you might not anticipate in the wake of their previous output. By this I mean, the ears do not bleed! There is a similar density to the new album, but in place of the sharpened rapier poking deep in your head and puncturing your eardrum, Post Pink has an ethereal quality much like you’d love about Wire’s 154. The weight and solemnity of Deep Cell has lifted, the weightless lyrics will hit you with a brilliant mash of imagery in a way that you love about Brian Eno’s lyricism, some silly moments with words like “happenstance”, copulating jellyfish,...

Laundry Bats

Hangin On A String

Hozac

***It’s not every day that a true Memphis super group crawls out of the shadows, and one packed with these heavy hitters is even more difficult to explain. Formed out of the prolific triangle of Greg Cartwright and Jack Yarber (Reigning Sound / Oblivians / Compulsive Gamblers) with the wild card of Abe White (Manateees / True Sons of Thunder) at the helm, Hangin on a String is a ruthless Memphis punk serving delivered hot & raw around the edges. Making their debut at Gonerfest 2023, they tore a hole in an otherwise enjoyable afternoon like no other, and that same ruthless spirit comes across with the same ferocity here on their debut release. Full of messy hooks and bad ideas taken to the brink, LAUNDRY BATS fill the void of barrel-head rock’n roll left far too open for far too long. As ruthless as that sounds, the Stonesy swagger gives way to full-on BRASS, confirming their solid punk parameters are as confrontational as they are contagious.

London Clay

Private View

La Vida Es Un Mus

***There’s undeniably a certain kind of environment conjured up by the music of London Clay: drab municipal housing schemes; concrete walkways; a parade of shops in a post-war suburb; an underpass running underneath a dual carriageway; decaying social housing stock; the shadows of new build blocks for young professionals falling across the ever changing landscape. When they sing “tarmac shimmers, no future plans” you can feel this sense of place pressing in on the songs, shaping the melodies like they’re harmonising with the wind blowing through scaffolding sheets, the rhythms reflecting the sound of jackhammers and wrecking balls.This description perhaps makes their music sound somewhat uninviting, and whilst it is suffused with a certain amount of urban claustrophobia and late night paranoia, there’s also a lightness of touch that illuminates the dark corners - the gentle tone of a human voice and memorable repeating keyboard motifs offsetting the industrial chug. And whilst you can locate this music on a broad spectrum of post-punk (that most malleable and co-opted of genre terms), particularly the sounds of early 1980s Sheffield, there’s a more varied sonic palette at play than that might suggest. At various points as you listen to this record you can hear: the looped sound of a dot matrix printer as percussive texture; a delay-blasted guitar weaving in and out of arpeggiated synth bursts; a descending piano line that sounds like it’s haunting the corridors of a deserted school hall; a cluster of distorted loops building to a crescendo that...

Shakti

s/t

La Vida Es Un Mus

***"Out of Barcelona, but with the relentless weight of India’s history, Shakti’s debut is a declaration and a provocation. This is punk refracted through childhood memories of Bollywood soundtracks on corner-store TVs, mafia dons scheming on-screen, the rich exploiting the poor - a nostalgia for the times when class consciousness still pulsed through India’s popular culture. There are echoes of Hindustani classical, 80’s Indian disco and garage, but ultimately this is a punk record that molds itself and takes space between expansive post punk and the rowdy tongue-in-cheek hardcore of bands like the Electric Deads or Tozibabe.Shakti’s wall of noise is full of contradictions. There’s gorgeous, deeply danceable bass lines and earworm guitars dueling against Crass-records-like snares and harsh vocals delivered in Marathi - sometimes as whispered curses, sometimes screams and manic laughter, lurching from song to song with a touch of mischievous glee. There’s a playfulness at the core of this record, a sarcasm built into lyrics about idiots coopting slogans like Inquilab Zindabad ('Long live the revolution'), or requests for the British to bring back the Koh-i-noor not to India as a whole but to 'me', personally, because sometimes punks are just broke like that.There’s film transitions that set time and place, holding within themselves inside jokes understood by 1.3 billion people, and a grooviness that builds towards dance before suddenly collapsing on itself to bite back. And yet Shakti is most powerful at its most furious, when carrying the specific weight of immigrant rage shaped by that...