***Australia's BAD VISIONS return with a new full length got recorded at Purple Wayne Studios in Collingwood by DAVID WEST (Rat Columns, Total Control, Rank/Xerox) in one weekend back in January. Thirteen banging tracks that fit somewhere in between Jay Reatard, The Wipers, Mission Of Burma, Angry Angles, The Saints and The Dirtbombs.
LP $14.75
06/03/2016
***TOTEM SKIN's shivering melodies were created in the deep forests in the outskirts of Borlänge, Sweden; conducted by six individuals who poured every drop of passion they could harvest from the bottom of their hearts. The band saw its dawn in the fall/winter of 2012 as a three piece, which produced and recorded two EPs themselves while adding members as recording went along. The full line-up was completed in March 2013, allowing the band to further expand on their musical horizons. Still Waters Run Deep is the band’s first full length and their first real documentation since the completed formation. Recorded at the Ranch Production House in Southampton, UK and engineered by LEWIS JOHNS (Goodtime Boys, ex-The Long Haul), the soundscape of the album ranges from raw aggression to doomy heaviness and unsettling guitar melodies. The vocals create an honest and desperate atmosphere, with the dual vocalists screaming themes of nature and problems in life. Intense grinding shares space with quiet and reverent moments, but the sonic landscape is always filled with emotion.
LP $14.75
06/03/2016
***Comprised of members of CLOCKCLEANER, CEREMONY, PAINT IT BLACK and STRAND OF OAKS, Philadelphia's DARK BLUE play burly, wide-open guitar sound that was found on earlier releases by such UK '80s bands as The Comsat Angels, The Stone Roses, Blitz, and Australia's The Church witch the charismatic voice of JOHN SHARKEY III. Red White collects the band's out of print singles. Recent 7-inch and upcoming full-length on 12XU.
LP $15.50
04/01/2016
***DAVID WEST (RANK/XEROX, TOTAL CONTROL, LACE CURTAIN) delivers five new songs of his shoegaze driven earnest unashamed guitar pop. Five songs of wonderful frosted jangle, sad pop post punk with potential ear wings that let you melt away under the sun on some beach. Just beautiful. The new record goes hand in hand with their current European tour and gets a pressing of 500 records with silkscreened covers.
12" $14.75
08/04/2015
***"California's NAKED LIGHT’s debut vinyl release on Berlin's ADAGIO830. Curating tracks from last years limited Chime Grove cassette release on Sanity Muffin, this vinyl release features several new additions and a warm vinyl geared remastering from TIM GREEN. Combining an array of smartly used synths, damaged guitars, dubby baselines, drum machines & live percussion with sparse vocals. Employing early ‘80s antics integrated with sublime worldly, post punk, minimal and kosmische overtones help mark this release as a powerful jumping off point for Naked Lights. Chime Grove is a strong prequel for the band's current live and studio endeavor's which mend newly added singer AURORA CRISPIN’s poignant and playful vocals with a full encompassing post punk splatter, including a classic no frills live show featuring live drums, percussion, double jarring glass like guitars and bass. With the band's newly completed Santo Studio, a full analog recording studio at their disposal, this release charts an important initial offering in Naked Lights no doubt prolific future. Preceding an amalgamation of newer full band compositions, Chime Grove will hold up as a classic, a musically free and expansive listen.” Limited to 500 copies.
LP $15.75
08/06/2013
***Musically The BLACK HEART REBELLION (members of AMENRA) have evolved into a tribalistic beast. Guitars lower in the mix, drums and additional percussive elements compliment PIETER UYTTENHOVE’s impassioned vocals. Opener ‘Avraham’ demonstrates this beautifully. Chimes, bells, cello and percussion blending until Uyttenhove’s breathless vocals begin. Then the feeling of being chased through the woods by an axe-murderer takes over. Something about TBHR reminds me of the much missed The God Machine, but more in the grandiose delivery rather than a direct musical comparision perhaps. There is also a shared vibe with fellow Belgian titans Amenra, but without their crushing heaviness. Indeed the friendship between them extends to a collaborative sharing of artistic and musical philosophies and mutual appreciation.
LP $15.75
04/23/2013
***The Brattleboro, VT., duo of SARAH SMITH and ZACH PHILLIPS released several alien-sounding pop records as BLANCHE BLANCHE BLANCHE last year, of them the great and bizarre Wink With Both Eyes via Night People. Now they've got a new 7" single, "Scam" b/w "Press Dumps" out via Berlin's Adagio 830. The A-side treads further into the esoteric reaches of their surreal language, recorded to four-track cassette with all instruments triple-tracked. It's completely devoid of the skeletal keyboards that comprised much of Wink's foundation, instead pairing an anxious, drowned drum march from Phillips with Smith's monotone mantras. It's guest-guitarist Graham Brooks, though, whose haunted, blown-out solos make the track most peculiar and cinematic-- no doubt emphasized by his closing bit of spoken word, ‘The best thing about music is all the stuff you can buy.’"—Pitchfork. German import.
7" $9.25
04/02/2013
***Recorded to tape at Emandee Studio in Brooklyn, On the Knife is a deeply personal take on love and loss, and was very much shaped by CHRISTIAN DEROECK’s departure from his previous bands. Like his earlier work with WOODS, the songwriting is earnest, and of course there are a few indulgent headphone tracks as well. Now joined by stand-up drummer PATTY CONWAY, LITTLE GOLD has begun to incorporate more improvisational and psychedelic sounds into their mellow, country-rock oeuvre, and in the process are becoming a notable live act around NYC.
12" $14.50
10/02/2012
***“TERROR BIRD are a Canadian group based on some fascinating contradictions and revolving around the powerful, affecting voice of NIKKI NEVER. Emerging with bedroom-forged cassettes on Night People records, Never added synth players and drummers as she went on via releases on La Station Radar and Night School, finally arriving at this point—a harder-hitting synth-goth masterpiece in Secret Rituals. Gone are the reservations and shyness of the straight-to-4 track songs of old and in their place is a forceful, immediate collection of songs that showcase never's precise and emotive voice. Tracks like 'Thrill Killer' are ‘80s goth pop songs re-imagined for the 21st century underground, insistent and propulsive, ‘Secret Rituals’ is a lush, dark gem and tracks like ‘If We Escape' are heroic, doomed-youth anthems for souls running from an impending doom, overfull but still pumping. the production is clearer than before, the passion intensified. killer LP”.—Rough Trade
LP $15.75
08/07/2012