***In a diffuse time of online life and ever-rising rents, the old-school band-as-gang is a rarer thing than it once was. But that’s Vessel’s lifeblood: four friends, breathing the same air, living and working around each other. A casual way to kill time during the pandemic became an ongoing affair, the quartet steadily crafting songs together for two years and beginning to play live when shows returned. Their debut gig was at a friend’s house party in Knoxville; they were still playing under an acronym created with their initials before picking the name Vessel out of a hat of suggestions each had submitted. Soon, they signed to Double Phantom Records and began preparing their debut album, Wrapped In Cellophane. The result is an album that zips along through one infectious idea after another, landing on the more effervescent side of the art-rock spectrum. If Vessel is an organism made of these four players, Alex Tuisku provides the heartbeat: Her drums are the crisp propulsion underneath everything, and her vocals peel out alongside Keron Robinson’s guitar and Isaac Bishop’s sax. Sometimes, the relentless, coiled rhythms the quartet favor can mimic the feeling of those emotions constricting in your chest, but most often Vessel strike playful contrasts. Throughout, you can hear how Vessel patiently chiseled spontaneity into precision. Free-form jams have become punchy pop missiles in their hands—sometimes hypnotic, sometimes kraut-y, sometimes breakneck, sometimes danceable, sometimes pining, sometimes sly. Across Wrapped In Cellophane, Vessel make a sound that could only be the...
LP $22.00
03/29/2024
***Certain Times is a synthpop project based in Brooklyn, NY. The husband-wife duo come from a long musical history in the Atlanta music scene–most notably members of 2010s garage rock band Carnivores and more recently producing records for Sub Pop band Omni. The project is an attempt to exercise collective anxiety through the power of movement shaded by familiar melodies and driving synthesized sounds. Themes of the group’s debut allude to our collective tension between the modern day malaise and the release required to let go and move on. Live, the group combines elements of classic synthpop records with a Criterion-meets-junk culture video collage as the backdrop with the intention of inspiring dance and connection. While applying characteristic synths of classic '80s jams, Certain Times will bring something new and fresh to listeners, craving danceable tunes backed by common and genuine sentiments of now.
LP $21.95
06/09/2023
***Abby Gogo was an Atlanta psych rock/shoegaze band that was active between 2005 and 2015 formed by twin brothers Bon and Jon Allinson. The band had many members throughout the years including Chandler Rentz (Snowden) during 2009-2010 and longtime drummer Puma Navarro. The band released its first 7-inch split with fellow Atlanta rockers Carnivores via Atlanta-based label Double Phantom Records in 2008, which was followed by a self-titled full length in 2010. Abby Gogo sonically explored the shoegaze sound drawing influence from bands such as The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Telescopes, and Spacemen 3.
LP $18.50
05/27/2022
***A 10th anniversary reissue of THE BALKANS' first album. The Balkans debut LP is not a punk record, nor is it a pop record. This is the outcome of over 3 years of the young band writing many, many songs. The final product is their ten best most straight-forward, energetic, and frantic pop songs. This is a no-nonsense LP, with each song being able to stand alone as its own single. Beatlesque guitar hooks on fast-punk-grind that waivers between bouts of sincerity and catharsis, yet it is also heartfelt at times. Each song seems to be rooted in the bad experiences of young adult romance, evoking memories of teenage lust and heartbreak, the kind of heartbreak that makes you want to punch your mirror and play the guitar with extreme force. Led by Frankie Broyles of Omni, Deerhunter fame. Reissue includes three bonus b-side tracks—"Bill's Spills," "Oh Dear" and "Cave," plus a demo verison of "Sarasota." “It’s a summer anthem, all bratty and indignant and BORED and about not planning for the future, a quick soundtrack for being pissed.”—Fader.
LP $21.95
04/08/2022
***"Following a string of boisterous post-punk and dance EPs, Stranded (aka Atlanta-based artist and producer David Mansfield) is back with his first full-length, Midnight Sun. The album also marks the relaunch of Double Phantom Records, Mansfield’s underground label, which has released music from Atlanta bands like Algiers, Balkans and Carnivores. Celine’s Dilemma, his first EP as Stranded, arrived in 2018, which was followed by a pair of EPs in 2020, Long Dusk and Post Meridian. The trio of EPs traverse house, disco and post-punk, emitting both joy and agitation as their dissonant instrumental layers snake in and out of one another. Midnight Sun is a bit of a departure from these dense electronic collages, opting instead for a guitar-based sound, which results in Stranded’s most straightforward release yet. But Stranded hasn’t abandoned his left-field quirks or broad influences—his rhythm-driven post-punk still folds in dance-inflected beats, bubbling synth tones and cold vocals. Perhaps the biggest change is that Mansfield occasionally swaps a brightly colored sonic palette for a darker, more grim one. Midnight Sun is slightly ominous, particularly the bluesy gothic-rock number 'The Last Word,' the electro-meets-Bauhaus opener 'A Testimony' and the harsh skronking of 'Crossed Lines.' However, the interlocking guitar mazes of 'Hesitation' add some ribbons of color, as do the affecting chorus of 'Wayward Haunted' and the cascading twinkles of 'Fallen.' With Mansfield at the helm of all the vocals and instrumentals, Midnight Sun is another thought-provoking, danceable addition to Stranded’s diverse back catalog."—Paste Magazine
MC $9.75
02/04/2022
***Atlanta’s CARNIVORES are geographically in the right place for smelting pop into lo-fi garage post-punk, though the indelible fingerprints of Georgia’s favorite sons only stretch so far. From the skittering drums, the resonant and insistent organ and the lazy surf-bum guitar figures, everything feels like it’s being dragged lovingly into an alternate era. Having spent time on stage with the likes of Best Coast, Black Lips, No Age and Abe Vigoda, their smeary, oblique twitches into echo canyon seem fairly natural. Certainly the New York Times, The Fadar and Pitchfork have allowed them to settle comfortably in various degrees of praise, as well as fans everywhere, from Surfer Blood to Jarvis Cocker. Their latest single “Prom Night” b/w “Second Impulse” merely confirms that all of these admirers are right to do so; sonically adventurous while never reneging on the promise of their personable and stinging melodic haze, Carnivores are the natural successors to the elemental garage-rock sound predators of the past decade.
7" $6.30
09/13/2011