***BEATING is the new moody post-punk project borne from the ashes of BEATERS, who released their debut 7” and LP, both entitled Fishage, and a single on Zoo Records. The brainchild of JEREMY ROJAS with assistance by ANDREW MONTOYA, childhood friends who spent years in SoCal garage-punk favorites the SESS and eventually began their own songwriting projects that they worked on with each other, Rojas’s Beaters and Montoya’s ALE MANIA. Beating is their new phoenix, their debut LP comprised of six epic tracks of street-punk tinged post-punk, including a cover of Ministry’s “Same Old Madness.” First pressing limited to 300 copies on white vinyl.
LP $14.75
03/06/2020
***CAT SCAN is a Los Angeles based no wave/ art punk quartet with a portfolio of anxiety-ridden dance tunes. Described by Rolling Stone as “a high-octane set that seems to have combined a few lessons from the Eighties underground playbook: Minutemen without the funk, Feelies without the bubblegum, Sonic Youth without the lurch.”
LP $14.75
03/06/2020
***The debut s/t LP by San Diego noise-punk trio KEEPERS. A twelve-song sonic assault that’s equal parts the Stooges, Iceage, and Institute. “This San Diego trio invite you down into the mire of lurching, sludgy noise punk…If you like things heavy, this is worth seeking out.”—Maximum Rock n Roll
LP $14.75
03/06/2020
***Los Angeles trio SUSAN's sophomore album As I Was explores and expands on themes the group has explored on previous releases such as asserting yourself in relationships and a sense of feeling lost and trying find yourself in the modern world. This time around they have had some experience and learned to lean on their chosen family to face their hurdles. Their songs embrace kinship in the face of old struggles, wrapped in the same harmony laden hooks that they have come to be known for.
LP $14.75
03/06/2020
***The debut from this San Diego hardcore band featuring members of AGE OF COLLAPSE. One-sided LP with etched B-side. “Their debut self-titled LP on Volar Records fills just one side of vinyl, but not a minute is wasted—every 90-second song detonates with maximum impact and efficiency. And much like their influences in classic anarchopunk, they espouse a perspective that elevates people over the powers that be.“—Kerrang “Wild experimental post-punk sonic landscapes fill in behind the surface of hardcore songs… all go, no slow debut with an inferno of powerful scathing vocals. Raw stuff with awesome production effects that make It something quite special.”—Maximum Rock n Roll
LP $14.75
03/06/2020
***Art-pop songstress UNO LADY releases a new album with Volar Records. Osmosis assimilates ideas, sounds, and styles, from '60s pop, folk, jazz, and soul. Vocals are the foundation. Osmosis is a soaring collection of 13 songs. It’s a colorful journey through a sonic dream world, and Uno Lady is your guide. Self-trained musician and activist, CHRISTA EBERT performs as Uno Lady and composes songs with her voice, electronic effect pedals, and unconventional instruments. Her music includes dream-like layers, looping ethereal tones, instruments and beats, knit together into one lush soundscape. Her unique talent has been acknowledged with various awards, including Chateau Orquvaux artist-inresidency, Creative Workforce Fellow, Akron Soul Train fellow, and a Panza Foundation awardee.
LP $14.75
03/06/2020
***The three women who make up LA-based sweet-and-sour power pop group SUSAN have deliver a new three-song EP. Lead-off song "TV Girls" portrays the empty celebrity-dom that dominates their hometown. "Little Notes" documents an unrequited love. The B-side features a cover of Violent Femmes' "I Held Her In My Arms."
7" $6.75
04/27/2018
***Following a cassette on Burger Records and a 7-inch on Volar, Something to Cry About is the debut LP by San Diego kinda-punk/kinda-pretty quartet TEENAGE BURRITOS, a co-release between Burger and Volar (whose Craig Oliver was in CHRISTMAS ISLAND with Burritos guitarist BRIAN CARVER and drummer LUCY WEHRLY). Singer/bassist KRISTEN GUNDREL and guitarist KEVIN GIST round out the band, one that leans in to noisey punk like the lead-off track "Flytrap" and the Black Flag cover "Paralyzed," to more melodic fare like "Inflamed Heart" or their cover of Arthur Alexander's "Anna," to some darker impulses like the post-punk of "Kamikaze" (featuring PALL JENKINS of THREE MILE PILOT and BLACK HEART PROCESSION).
LP $16.35
04/27/2018
***ICE BALLOONS are a New York supergroup that count TV ON THE RADIO's KYP MALONE, SAMIAM's SEAN KENNERLY, FUCKEMOS' SEAN POWELL and MIDNIGHT MASSES' GISELLE REIBER amongst its members. Oh, and they’re fronted by a giant golden fly. “I spent four days high in the mountains of Colorado suffering from altitude sickness, unable to breathe properly or to sleep through the night,” Kennerly explains. “When I got back to Brooklyn, I slept for 18 hours straight and woke up with an intense feeling of weird lucidity, and wrote several songs during that day and came up with concept of the band as a skeletal punk rock band led by a fly (drums, bass and vocals) around which swirled layers of chaos noise (synthesizers) and the name Ice Balloons. For some reason it seems appropriate that most of the songs be about insects.” After releasing an eight-song self-titled EP back in 2013, they’re finally getting around to releasing a debut album, Fiesta. It’s a droning noise-punk assault that feels both primitive and futuristic, and it’s even better if you picture it being sung by a giant golden fly.
LP $16.35
10/06/2017
***SILVER SHADOWS seem so-named because, since forming in 2013, they've illuminated and charged dark places—Oakland squats and warehouses, dim-lit San Francisco basements—with kinetic streaks of melody and beaming vocal harmonies. Cold Plastic, the group’s debut full-length, captures and vivifies the dark luster, fidgety propulsion, and circuitous melodies that distinguish Silver Shadows as a live band. Touchstones include the enveloping choral sensibility of Grass Widow, plus the texture and introspection of Pacific Northwest outfits such as Broken Water. 4AD flag bearers loom in the narcotic murk, though not much more than the homespun pop groups on Flying Nun. Which is to say, comparisons fall short. The choppy post-punk disjunct of “Crowned” and “Own the Night” abuts intermingling expanses of guitar and keyboard on “Fragile Dawn.” “Concrete miles” is frenetic and incisive. “What’s the Reason,” a simmering slow burn. The lyrics, delivered by three lead vocalists within the group, are fittingly allusive, embedding evocative imagery within sci-fi themes (among their influences is the writer Ursula K. LeGuin). The instrumentation is dense and saturated, glinting aurora-like at all times though not at the expense of melodic invention. Cold Plastic, recorded by EVAN HASHI and BRIAN TESTER at New Improved Recordings, follows an eponymous 12” EP released to warm reception in 2014 by Gilgongo Records.
LP $16.35
03/17/2017
***Formed in Spring 2016, the trio that makes up TEACH ME, old friends JEREMY ROJAS, ANDREW MONTOYA, and TOMMY GARCIA came together in a flash, banging out six songs in a week for a friend’s birthday party (Cory Stiers of Mrs. Magician/Cults/Thrill Me Records). When BEN MOORE, producer extraordinaire behind all three Hot Snakes Records and other releases by the likes of Metz, Swami John Reis and the Blink Shake, Rocket from the Crypt, Pinback, and scores of others, happened to catch this first performance, he was immediately struck and invited the boys to come record in his studio soon, with two of those recordings, “Collector” and “Pup Pup,” making up this first release.
7" $6.75
01/20/2017
***Three tracks from Bay Area-by-way-of-Sacramento’s FINE STEPS, the recording project of former MAYYORS drummer JULIAN LORDS, following the Boys Co. LP. Rounded out live by GANGLIAN KYLE HOOVER and MATT ROBERTS of MANTLES.
7" $6.30
02/18/2014
***Fronted by ANDY HUMAN, formerly of CUTS and the TIME FLYS, who released a s/t solo tape on Burger Records last year, and after the band’s releases on Tic Tac Totally and 1-2-3-4 Go!, the self-proclaimed “ice-pop” band deliver their first two tracks properly recorded in a studio. Also featuring RAY SERAPHIN of NOBUNNY and IMPEDIMENTS.
7" $6.30
02/18/2014
***One-man, UK-based, atmospheric and dark synth. Their debut LP. “No Longer Stranger is a collection of moody, atmospheric tracks, driven by vintage machine beats and warbling arpeggios. Combining late 70s synthesizer cinema music (the kind of stuff in horror and Sci-Fi movies in the years just before the music the SynthWave scene adores kicked off) and the metronome sparsety of early Cabaret Voltaire, with a little whispered Soft Cell sleaze, SOFT RIOT deliver something, not to make you move on the dancefloor, but to soundtrack your walk home after the club has shut, through dark city streets. Pulsating analog basses and white noise snares provide the basis for haunting, glowing melodies and Soft Riot’s enigmatic growl, from the Numanoid Your Secret Light Shines At Night to the acid nightmare SynthPop of Your Strange New Career via the dystopian psychedelic of Tragic Magic, No Longer Stranger isn’t always comfortable listening, but ultimately rewarding. Check out A Simulation, the album’s one dance tune, that works a little early Skinny Puppy and a hint of Electro Boogie into the mix.”—Electric Rumors
LP $13.50
07/16/2013
***Two poppish-punk recent greats pair up to tour and put out a great 7" together. Audacity's first release since their Mellow Cruisers on Burger Records last Fall. Upcoming LP on Suicide Squeeze.
7" $6.30
04/23/2013
***The San Diego post-punk band’s third release on Volar following the “Fishage” 7” and LP and the “White Hate” 7” on Zoo Music. The band has been asked out to tour in the past with Soft Pack, Obits, and Disappears. LP on Volar in the works for a Fall release.
7" $6.30
04/23/2013
***The satirical drum-machine, buzzsaw punk band’s second release on Volar.
7" $6.30
04/23/2013
***Noisy, poppy post-punk from these greats who hold down the fort in Los Cruces, New Mexico.
7" $6.30
04/23/2013
***Finally, after years of being talked about as the best band in San Diego, after great 7inch releases on Volar and Zoo Music, after a national tour with the Soft Pack, BEATERS finally releases their debut LP, Fishage. Started after the demise of legendary punk/garage/soul barnstormers THE SESS (and sharing members with ALE MANIA), this pre-apocalyptic, mutant-punk act delivers eight white hot tracks. “Joining the seemingly endless stream of ace new bands from San Diego, along with Crocodiles, Dum Dum Girls (who now play live) and Wavves, Beaters are self-described mutant punks. They're a bit Liars, a bit E.S.G., a bit early New Order and a whole lot better than The Beatings (remember them?).”—Vice
LP $12.25
12/04/2012
***After making the rounds of the likes of Pitchfork, Altered Zones, and 20JazzFunkGreats, among others, this Brighton, UK, post-punk outfit, considered one of the best in the country, follows up the much-acclaimed Jela 12” with this great 7”. Taken from Altered Zones: “Cold Pumas’ reassuringly pounding entry into 2011 is furnished with the same speeding metronomic abandon that made last years’ Jela 12” so beloved among its cultists. Reverb-drenched guitar peaks greet half-recognised post-punk ruffs; vocals, once subservient to the thunderous machine of guitar and drums, glide up through the mix and crown the track with a ghostly Galaxy 500 reverie. Stunning. And this (’Dawn Lobby’) is only the B-side!”
7" $6.30
05/08/2012
***Debut 7” by POPE ANYTHING. Great hazy post-punk out of LA featuring JONATHAN WEINBURGER on drums (drummer for LA SERA, singer/bass player for COLD SHOWERS), with cover art by TIM PRESLEY of White Fence/Strange Boys/Darker My Love.
7" $6.30
05/08/2012
***After seeing releases on Goner, Shattered, and Fat Possum, S. FOREE of DIGITAL LEATHER began working on his next LP, only to see his friend and manager, JAY REATARD, pass away suddenly. His deal with Fat Possum expired, he fired his booking agent and publicist, and retreated to Berlin for some much needed time away. Over time he began working again via a Kickstarter campaign that allowed him to purchase the gear he needed to record in various locales (i.e. various friends' bedrooms), and this mini-LP, Infinite Sun, shows Foree at his sharpest, tongue-somewhat-in-cheekily misanthropic and creating a batch of his best songs yet. "I intended Infinite Sun to sound like music you could travel through space to," he told me, and it makes perfect sense. The highlight of the record, "Sea of Hate," was, according to Foree, co-written by Jay Reatard post-mortem in a dream. It's really a fantastic record, I can't wait for everyone to hear it. Cover art by BRIAN CARVER (Christmas Island/Spirit Photography).
12" $11.25
12/06/2011
***This long-in-development compilation is finally seeing the light of day. Featuring three of Canada’s best post-punk acts coupled with three of San Diego’s, this 12-inch highlights the common ground that acts in both countries share. DEFEKTORS deliver a blast of punk energy with “Not the One”; O VOIDS contribute their lurching “Crawling Machine”; hot off their HoZac and Mammoth Cave Records 7-inch, SHARP ENDS debuts their best track yet, “Whiteout,” a scorching, noisy post-punk anthem. On the US side, San Diego’s ALE MANIA follow up their Volar Records and Hell Yes! Records 7-inches with the great, chaotic “Fawkus”; BEATERS offer up the pulsating “They Don’t Really Care About Us”; and SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHY turn in their first new track since their Sacred Bones 7-inch, “Where is the Light”. 45 RPM, 100 on white vinyl, 400 on black, all handmade covers.
12" $11.25
11/30/2010
***Here we have four songs by the great Monterrey, Mexico punk band, their first release after their Siltbreeze-released LP Mocosos Pateticos—their Killed By Death-meets-Dead Moon punk winning over audiences across the US. Along with their neighbors Los Llamarados, XYX, and Inservibles, RATAS DEL VATICANO play a large part in the recent resurgence of Mexican punk and general musical weirdness that has caught on this side of the border.
7" $5.40
01/19/2010
***Made up of the same three-fifths of THE SESS that make up BEATERS, here we have the drummer for both of those bands, ANDREW MONTOYA, taking the lead with his own fusion of late-’70s funk, ‘60s psych, and ‘80s punk and new wave. Pulling from a similar paranoia-induced vein as Beaters, ALE MANIA trades that band’s angry nature with a sense of dancing away the fear and sadness, with some room for fun creeping in here and there.
7" $5.40
01/12/2010