New Releases

Mamaleek

Vida Blue

Flenser

Time is a slippery fish. Loss has inspired Mamaleek’s latest full-length album, titled Vida Blue. This marks the San Francisco Bay Area metal deconstructionists’ eighth album and their third as a full lineup. Tragedy struck in March of 2023 when the band lost a longtime friend and member, keyboardist Eric Livingston, leaving the group, which began as a duo of two brothers and later expanded to a five-piece, now with only four members. Despite this profound loss, Mamaleek persevered, performing as a quartet at various festivals, including the 2023 edition of Tilburg. The band returned to the studio to create new material that appropriately reflects their journey through loss and honors their fallen comrade. The resulting album draws inspiration from the legacy of Oakland A’s baseball legend Vida Blue, whose former team coincidentally announced its relocation to Las Vegas that same year. The band members themselves describe this poignant chapter in their own words: “Time is a slippery fish. Maybe only someone like Vida could grasp it. Although he’s left time behind, his image and that lefty heat remain in the memories of many. Eventually they’ll be forgotten, and hopefully replaced with even more exultant ones. This musical recording is a reflection on loss and its acceptance. We explore several examples for each song, including the loss of pride, of money, of glory, of country, of sanity, of a favorite sports team, of significant others, and, every day, one’s self. It also explores various associated moods—fear, panic, reverence, stoicism,...

Elkhorn

The Red Valley

Vhf

Debut standalone VHF album by the Elkhorn duo of Drew Gardner and Jesse Sheppard, a tight set of six studio recordings in a variety of moods and featuring a lot of new sound textures. Elkhorn’s prolific stream of releases since 2016 has highlighted their mastery of sprawling long-form, acoustic-driven hypno-jams, with an emphasis on live performance (including on their collaboration with Pelt’s Mike Gangloff on the Shackamaxon Concert album). The Red Valley is a more layered and composed-sounding set, with the duo overdubbing extensively on top of their own dual guitars. Leading off the LP, “Crystal Hummingbird” features one of their signature minor-modal vamps, with layers of fuzz bass, zither, and frame drum providing weight and psychedelic density. “Gray Salt Trail” continues the vibe, with thick fuzz vibraphone supplementing the cinematic palate, leading into the spare side-closer “Black Wind Of Kayenta,” where Sheppard plays electric 12-string and Gardner solos on acoustic guitar. Side two starts with “Road to Chaco Canyon,” a brooding duet that builds momentum with Gardner’s insistent frame drum cadence, dropping down into the quiet string pool of “Inside Spider Rock” (featuring Fern Knight’s Jesse Sparhawk on gloriously swirling lever harp) and the graceful finale “Jackrabbit Hops.”

O'Sullivan, Daniel

The Pastoral Machine

Vhf

Fourth volume of Library Music miniatures by Daniel O’Sullivan (Ulver, Æthenor, This is Not This Heat, etc) for VHF, this time commissioned by the legendary German Music Library, Sonoton. Another sampling of O’Sullivan’s versatility and brilliance as a composer, performer, and sound designer, the focus on The Pastoral Machine is more “electronic” compared to the three previous albums O’Sullivan recorded for KPM (also issued on LP by VHF), with simpler arrangements and a focus on gentle and emotive synthesised soundworlds. Even without as many full ensemble arrangements, there’s still a wealth of diversity—“Empathogen” opens the record with latticed arpeggiating sequences recalling Japanese “environmental music” or Persian Surgery-era Terry Riley, “Fruit Of Stream Entry” burbles with gentle ripples evoking the album’s title, while “The Silversmith Of Space” mines a simple chord sequence evoking Eno’s ’70s classic short instrumentals. “Superstrings” is a series of hypnotic overlapping guitar patterns, like a lost Ash Ra or Achim Reichel track. The brief “Star Lore” is a heavy highlight with deep bass washes and grainy, tape-laminated melodies, followed immediately by Rose Keeler Schaffeler’s vocal feature on “The Oscillating Love” recalling futurist new-age pop in the vein of Enya or Virginia Astley. Housed in a jacket and heavy euro-style inner featuring collages by O’Sullivan, soon to be the subject of an art book published by Timeless Editions in mid-2024.

Flame, The (Robert Mitchell, Neil Charles, Mark Sanders)

Towards The Flame Vol. 2

577 Records

Scarcity

The Promise Of Rain

Flenser

The Promise Of Rain, the sophomore album of the experimental black metal band Scarcity, is an embodiment of the hard-to-believe truth that burdens are easier to bear when distributed, a realization Brendon Randall-Myers (conductor of the Glenn Branca Ensemble) grappled with extensively while writing this record. This is a sweat-drenched album about dispersion, about spreading, about the collective relieving of burdens through shared experience: one doesn’t have to go through everything alone. When Scarcity’s debut album Aveilut was written in early 2020, Randall-Myers and vocalist Doug Moore (Pyrrhon, Weeping Sores, Glorious Depravity, and Seputus) never expected to be able to play their songs live. The cathartic experience of playing something that came from a place of isolation out to people in a live setting is the root of the intensity in The Promise Of Rain. The Promise Of Rain begins where the craziest climaxes of Aveilut end, and is the first Scarcity record to include Tristan Kasten-Krause (Sigur Ros, Steve Reich, LEYA) on bass, Dylan Dilella (Pyrrhon) on guitar and Lev Weinstein (Krallice) on drums. Rather than building density with the quasi-orchestral layering on Aveilut, Scarcity challenged themselves to document what five people in a room could do, recording most of The Promise Of Rain in one or two takes, capturing the physical effort and urgency of a live performance. Scarcity forges a completely fresh sound in The Promise Of Rain with their alarming guitar work and melodic arpeggiating, shedding dead skin and breaking ground with sheer vulnerability....

Mahti

Konsertti I

Vhf

Third album from Finnish group Mahti, a collaboration between three members of stalwart avant-rock legends Circle and Hannu Saha. Saha plays the Kantele, a traditional Finnish acoustic instrument which can have five, ten, fifteen, or thirty-six strings, and which is plucked like a zither or harp, producing a delicate string sound. Following their two very limited studio albums on UK label Riot Season, Konsertti I is an excellent recording of the group in live performance, capturing their understated and beautiful mix of ambient, electronic, and string music. Saha’s Kantele centers the music, sometimes plucking out melodic arpeggios, at others blending in with the burbling-but-subtle electronic and electric guitar backdrop. Doesn’t really sound like anything else, but recommended to fans of AR & Machines, Ash Ra Temple, Richter Band, Durutti Column, etc. “These ancient musicians played their ‘mahti’…and the sound they produced was called ‘musiikki’.”

Tomutonttu Ja Lehtisalo

Tomutonttu Ja Lehtisalo

Vhf

Finland has long had a uniquely progressive underground, with thriving punk, avant, jazz, and rock scenes with oversized output and impact. Jussi Lehtisalo’s (Circle, Pharaoh Overlord, Mahti, etc) label Ektro has been at the center of this activity for the last three decades, with a stream of excellent and conceptually bonkers releases covering music of all types. Here Lehtisalo joins up with Jan Anderzén (of Kemialliset Ystävät among others) for an album of absolutely fun and unusual miniature duets that sound like alien Library music beamed in from the outerlands. Tracks like “Luukku Yksi” and “Puistossa” use a charmingly retro synth-y sound palate and Cluster-like melodic sensibility to make accessible some deceptively “out” music. Some cuts (like “Kylpy”) have a vague hint of early ’80s post-punk / new wave vibes, bouncing along in a friendly way with odd interjections of sample debris and electronics jumping out of the mix to keep it weird. The surging “Hymy yössä” could be music for the credits of the world’s hippest newscast. Beautiful jacket by renown Helsinki-based artist Dylan Ray Arnold, bringing the die-cut techniques of their gallery pieces like “Growth of the Night Plants” to LP form.

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...

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...

Plush

More You Becomes You

Weird Vacation

A long overdue reissue of the classic debut Plush album, More You Becomes You. Originally released in 1998. Described by Uncut magazine as “One of the most charismatic and eccentric pop craftsmen of the past twenty years”, Liam Hayes has been making critically acclaimed records since the '90s. His first single “Three-Quarters Blind Eyes b/w Found a Little Baby” released under the moniker Plush, was cited by the NME as being “..one of those rare records—and incredibly rare debuts—that instantly seems a classic..” Although he emerged from the Chicago indie-rock scene, Hayes is often compared with artists such as Jimmy Webb, Brian Wilson, Laura Nyro and Harry Nilsson. Like some of the best folk-pop or soft soul from the 1960’s and 1970’s there is a timeless quality to his music. This reissue of More You Becomes You was remastered from the original analog tapes by Jason Hillier and recut for vinyl by Bob Weston, who also remastered the CD and Streaming formats. A deluxe 12-page full-size booklet comes with the LP version (which also comes packaged as close to the original as possible, with a printed outer envelope/bag) and a 20-page booklet comes with the CD version put together by Liam and Jason Harvey, with Sleeve Notes by John Mulvey. LP pressed on white vinyl in an edition of 2,000 copies.

Dirty Three

Love Changes Everything

Drag City

***Dirty Three Ahoy! Appropriately disheveled, the Three—Warren Ellis, Mick Turner and Jim White—emerge from the unending waves of time to pick up their guitar drum and viola / violin / piano / synthesizer / loops / percussion for their first album in a decade. Their playing encompasses ALL—from the original fury of their unlikely power trio to an impressionist cinema later on; mercurial, tumultuous to ambient to adagio, mood and emotion drawn up to dazzling heights from the humble human scale.

Callaci, Dennis & Heimito Kunst

First Light

Pass Without Trace

Heimito Kunst has issued two releases of outre releases that utilize synthesizers, church organs, bells, contact mics and found sound to create sheets of incredibly listenable and addictive works of instrumental music. The odd alto vocal here or guitar there are used to punctuate the dramatics for his 2021 CD on Dissipatio and his 2022 Shrimper release, both of which are out of print. Kunst is part of a new collective of music makers in Italy that are forward looking, untethered to laptops to generate sound. Dennis Callaci is in the band Refrigerator and has issued a number of solo recordings as well as collaborative records with Simon Joyner and John Davis among others over the last thirty five years. This record features music written and performed by Kunst with Callaci's lyrics and vocals. These songs might be spotted wafting in the ether of Camberwell Now, Xpressway cassettes, E. Lonnie Methe viola or maybe Romy Scheider's perfume in the 1980 film Death Watch. The vocals, vulnerable and emotive are layered over in-the-red synths, pulsating rhythms and ghostly piano lines. Callaci and Kunst will be doing European dates in the fall in the fall followed by a short west coast tour in the new year.

Ishibashi, Eiko

Evil Does Not Exist

Drag City

***Evil Does Not Exist is an expansive new soundtrack undertaking from Eiko Ishibashi, a stellar further display of her ability to explicate the depths of the unspoken in her music. That it is also the soundtrack to the new Ryusuke Hamaguchi feature is marvelous news for all who loved her score for his Oscar-winning 2021 film, Drive My Car. That her music harmonizes effortlessly with the state of nature as depicted in his film, a nuanced tale of humans’ uneasy efforts to maintain co-existence with the delicate state of the planet, is a further profound achievement. At play here, though, is much more than fantastic new music from a powerful new film—it is evidence of a vital recomposition of the relationship of sound to narrative, and composer to filmmaker.

Chaos OK

Demo Cassette

Sorry State

***Sorry State presents the first release from Chaos OK, a new band featuring Nick Goode (from Logic Problem, Brain Flannel, and Joint D≠) on guitar and vocals, another Sorry State alumnus in Corey Long (drummer of the almighty Bukkake Boys,) and Eric from Atlanta's mysterious and elusive Loverman project. Nick’s expressionistic guitar style, informed equally by Hendrix, Kawakami, and the guy from Tampax, warmly returns to the label throughout these five tracks. The torrent of feedback and treble on the opener, “a rithm,” instantly recalls Joint D≠ at their most explosive; now fused with Corey & Eric's crushing rhythms, we're gifted an acutely weaponized bombast. While the tape starts with a hailstorm of chaotic energy, the latter three tracks brood, swerve, surge, and seethe, the cycles of tension and release as powerful and inevitable as the weather (the leather). Songs about seeing the trees for the forest—the brutally xeroxed repetition of the dissolving future, templated expression, grotesque oversaturation, when what used to excite you does not. Lamentations of the modern dance, the sounds of smuggling punk with you into your late 30s. As in their past projects, these guys continue to machete their way through the thickets, hungrily stumbling onto weird and new directions in raging, articulate hardcore.

Valtatyhjio

Kuristusleikki

Sorry State

***Following up their Lukko cassette from 2021, Sorry State presents the debut vinyl from Joensuu, Finland’s Valtatyhjiö. While Valtatyhjiö takes inspiration from furious 80s Finnish hardcore punk, they don’t allow reverence for the classics to box in their sound, crafting a unique and instantly identifiable blend of hardcore, punk, metal, and rock and roll. The title track leads off Kuristusleikki by going straight for the jugular, but by the second song, “Petoksen Messias,” the scope widens, bringing in black metal touches and double bass drumming, the creative and tasteful deployment of which is a hallmark of Valtatyhjiö’s sound. On the b-side, “Viilto Kerrallaan” has a big riff and a rock-and-roll swing, while “Riite” closes the EP on an ominous note, sounding like a more hateful version of label-mates Zorn. Like Zorn, Valtatyhjiö’s music floats between hardcore, punk, and metal seamlessly and organically. While those genres can feel like they’ve been done to death, Valtatyhjiö finds their voice in the spaces between and across them, their originality granting them direct access to the intensity at this music’s core.

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.

Ruth, Rich

Water Still Flows

Third Man

***Rich Ruth, the recording project of Nashville multi-instrumentalist Michael Ruth, makes wholly immersive instrumental songs that thread the line between gleefully adventurous and calmingly meditative. His music starts in solitude with mesmerizing loops and drones anchoring the arrangements that are eventually colored in by an eclectic cast of collaborators. The resulting exploratory compositions, which combine spiritual jazz, synth-infused post-rock, and cosmic ambient, often beguile but they always soar with a palpable immediacy. His new album Water Still Flows is both his heaviest and his most cathartic. Across seven songs, the LP is both a document of an artist stretching the limits of his process and a testament to how songwriting can be a personally grounding force.

Gayle, Charles / Milford Graves / William Parker

WEBO

Black Editions Archives

***"A legendary concert by one of the great unrecorded bands in free jazz history is here at last. WEBO, the third installment in the Black Editions Archive series of previously unreleased recordings from Milford Graves' private tape library, roars into the station June 21, 2024. For the first time, Charles Gayle, Milford Graves, & William Parker—three lions of the Black American jazz avantgarde—are finally heard together on record, presented here across three audiophile-quality LPs for two brutalizingly joyous hours of real ju-ju & musical mastery. The trio of Charles Gayle, Milford Graves, & William Parker gave only seven public performances between 1985 and 2013, and released no recordings. Their June 1991 two-night stand at the short-lived Lower East Side venue Webo, long referenced as a signal event in New York free jazz's 1990s resurgence, has been a topic of discussion among close followers of the music for decades. In the uncompromising grassroots spirit of the 1970s New York Musicians Organization and loft jazz movements from which they had emerged, the band produced and promoted the WEBO concerts themselves. Photography and audio recording were not allowed at the concerts, and this official recording, commissioned by the artists, was never released—until now. So vivid was the lore surrounding WEBO that it topped the list of recordings sought by Black Editions Archive from Graves' private collection. The tapes maximally substantiate eyewitness accounts describing extra-sensory levels of communication within the band, and the extraordinary clarity and impact of their performance. From William Parker's liner...

Spiritualized

Songs in A&E

Fat Possum

***The latest installment of The Spaceman Reissue Program: Curated by J Spaceman, Songs in A&E—completed in the aftermath of J Spaceman’s near death hospitalization—is a collection of graceful, country-influenced songs that circle on familiar themes of love, death, hope and hopelessness. The reissue has been remastered for vinyl by Matt Colton at Metropolis Studios and features revamped artwork, including a new album cover. Colored version on green vinyl.

Earth Tongue

Great Haunting

In The Red

Earth Tongue, the brainchild of guitarist Gussie Larkin and drummer Ezra Simons, present their second full-length album Great Haunting. The duo, known for their heavy flavor of fuzz-soaked psychedelic rock, are also pleased to unveil their signing to In The Red Records. Earth Tongue’s partnership with In The Red stems from a run of shows supporting the legendary Ty Segall throughout New Zealand. Larkin explains: “Ty’s band Fuzz was a significant influence for our sound early on. Ezra and I saw them play live in London about nine years ago, long before Earth Tongue existed. We absorbed a lot of music at that time, and in fact many of the bands we saw released records via In The Red.” Great Haunting sees the duo draw inspiration from the eerie depths of ’70s and ’80s horror cinema, delivering a sonic concoction of dark and primitive songs with thick layers of fuzz and punchy, compressed drums. The album was engineered by Jonathan Pearce from The Beths at his studio on Karangahape road in Auckland. The ascent of Earth Tongue is testament to their dedication and hard work. They’ve toured relentlessly across Europe and scored support slots for acts like IDLES and Queens Of The Stone Age. They’re consistently selling out headline shows and have featured on festival lineups throughout Aotearoa and Australia. 2024 sees the band embark on a bold new chapter with their first performance in the USA at SXSW, Austin. They also have more than forty dates booked throughout...

Crypt Sermon

The Stygian Rose

Dark Descent

***ON LIMITED REVOLVER EXCLUSIVE TRANSPARENT ORANGE VINYL!!! Dark heavy metallers Crypt Sermon unveil their bewitching new album, The Stygian Rose, under the Dark Descent banner. Featuring guitarist Steve Jansson (Daeva, Unrest), vocalist Brooks Wilson (Unrest), drummer Enrique Sagarnaga (Daeva, The Silver), guitarist Frank Chin (Daeva), bassist Matt Knox (Horrendous, The Silver), and keyboardist Tanner Anderson (Obsequiae, Majesties), the Philadelphia-based sextet parlayed their time away from the spotlight into a grander, more mysterious Crypt Sermon. The interflow of doom and heavy metal underpins The Stygian Rose, but these boundaries are effortlessly transcended. From the blistering solo salvo of “Glimmers In The Underworld” and the commanding rhythm of “Heavy Is The Crown Of Bone” to the evocative Near Eastern vibes of “Thunder (Perfect Mind)” and the intricate, masterful journey of the 11-minute title track, The Stygian Rose epitomizes the band’s burgeoning musical and conceptual prowess. “We wanted The Stygian Rose to scratch a lot of itches that aren’t being scratched,” says guitarist Steve Jansson. “That’s my goal when I make music. I want to make things that I don’t hear other people doing or at least don’t hear others doing all in one package. The music also has to have staying power and replay value. [I wanted] that addictive feeling you had when you listened to records as a teenager.” Crypt Sermon tracked The Stygian Rose with acclaimed producer Arthur Rizk (Blood Incantation, Cirith Ungol) and engineer Aidan Elias (Blood Incantation, Wayfarer) at Redwoods in Philadelphia. Although Rizk handled Out Of...

Marcel Wave

Something Looming

Feel It

Marcel Wave write eulogies for tragic actresses, ancient riverbeds and concrete obscenity. Their inaugural sonic instalment Something Looming is part trades club symphony, part itchy serenade, and part wistful lament. As their heady concoction of ‘Meades meets Pat-E-Smith meets Kirklees Borough Council’ gets prepped to be formally baptised on a dank stage near you, Upset the Rhythm and Feel It Records have dutifully stepped in to deliver its songbook to the masses on both sides of the pond. Formed when Lindsay Corstorphine and Christopher Murphy of Sauna Youth and brethren Oliver and Patrick Fisher of Cold Pumas were summoned by northern ink-slinger Maike Hale-Jones, Marcel Wave’s debut offering is a walk through a smoke-filled pub with yellowing wallpaper and all eyes on you. It’s a chronicle of the death of the docklands, the decline of industry, of the high street, of civic pride, of civilisations, of hopes and dreams. As Hale-Jones delivers the bad news in her low, West Yorkshire brogue, Corstorphine adds the bells and whistles via the frantic pulsations of a wheezing Hohner organ in tandem with Fisher O’s rasping guitar. MW are completed by the throbbing basslines of Murphy and Fisher P’s fervent rhythms. The title itself sets the tone for the listener. There’s a sense of foreboding in Hale-Jones’ lyrics which sit at the quintet’s core—elegiac, sardonic and piquant in equal measure. A mixture of narrative epilogues and inward paeans, her words weave tales across a broad thematic church. Crooked tales of urban renewal and the...

Ekin Fil

Sleepwalkers

Helen Scarsdale Agency

***The drone-pop consternations of Ekin Fil emerge through vaporous tone and forlorn, distant song, as if plucked from a dream. These exist on their own accord, moving with their own internal logic of an emotion heaviness that belies any the passing observation of this as mere shoegazing ambience. Her songs, her compositions find themselves adjacent the fragmented etherealization of Elisabeth Fraser's voice from a forgotten scene of a particular David Lynch film, as a ASMR trigger for Proustian recollection. Something profound. Something hidden. Something desolately sad. The Helen Scarsdale Agency has had the pleasure of witnessing Ekin's continued development, maturation, and growth as a composer, having released now seven of her magnificent, under-the-radar gems. Her slow burning, dejected ballads continue to draw from the deep well of sorrow, with varying frequencies and intensities of bitter light poking through. Loves lost. A world broken. All is not hopeless, but there is a considerable amount of shit to wade through. Sleepwalkers embraces a familiar set of metaphors in her work, that of narcolepsy and the unsettled state of existence between sleep and being awake. But she stretches herself with a set of compositions that run parallel to the work of Tim Hecker as in the gravitation soft-noise of "Stone Cold" or to a slow motion serialism that punctuates the ambient crawl of her ambitious "Gone Gone." Recommended for fans of Grouper, Rafael Anton Irisarri, A.C. Marias, and Carla dal Forno. Mastered by James Plotkin.

Me First And The Gimme Gimmes

Blow It... at Madison's Quinceanera!

Fat Wreck Chords

***Twenty years have passed since Me First and the Gimme Gimmes ruined Johnny's Bar Mitzvah, and punk rock's premier cover band is back to wreak havoc on another important coming-of-age ceremony. This time, as the album title reveals, it was a Quinceañera. Nobody attending had ever heard of Me First and The Gimme Gimmes, and nobody knew what to expect. Recorded on July 15th, 2023, at The Soap Factory in San Diego, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes were completed by Joey Cape on guitar, CJ Ramone on bass, Swami John Reis on guitar, and Andrew "Pinch" Pinching on drums—a veritable punk rock supergroup, as ever, not that anyone at the Quinceañera knew or cared. However, they also had a wind section for the first time, courtesy of Keith Douglas and Jason Crane. Swami John Reis' father, John Reis Sr. even played accordion on the penultimate song, "Before the Next Teardrop Falls.” It all comes together to create a performance that rises (even as it's sinking) to the occasion in ¡BLOW IT...AT MADISON’S QUINCEAÑERA!. The album kicks off with a one-person applause as Slawson introduces Black Sabbath’s hit “Changes.” The crowd loosens up gradually as the set goes on and the band incorporates the birthday girl into their schtick. The set reaches a turning point as the band charges into Olivia Rodrigo’s pop masterpiece “Good 4 U,” garnering the biggest response from the apprehensive crowd. It would have been so easy for the band to play to a crowd who...

Stoltz, Kelley

La Fleur

Dandy Boy / Agitated

***"Between outside musical projects, pushing past 50 years old and becoming a father for the first time, San Francisco psych-pop legend Kelley Stoltz has spent the past two years steadily writing and recording his 18th album, La Fleur. La Fleur finds Stoltz once again playing nearly all of the instruments on the album- though a new friendship with pop guru Jason Falkner has led to Falkner appearing on two songs, 'Hide In A Song' and 'Make Believer' respectively. There’s the requisite 60’s meets 80’s pop rock confections that Stoltz favors with a new focus on out front vocals and perhaps a bit shinier production. Pandemic era blues, politics and fatherhood are lyrical touchstones throughout. The album’s first single 'Reni’s Car' is the jangle rock lead single based on an actual event of Kelley riding around Manchester in the Stone Roses drummer's car. The accompanying music video was shot (partially) on location. 'About Time' marries Twin Peaks synths to Fleetwood Mac and Avalon era Roxy Music in a cautionary tale to Stoltz's young daughter. 'Human Events' puts revolutionary prose to a Moody Blues strum that floats off into Ohsees territory …and do I hear a nod to Gershwin in there? During the 2010s Kelley played live as a sideman with Rodriguez and Echo & the Bunnymen, as the 2020s dawned he was invited to support Pavement on their big reunion tour. He’s also been heard playing drums live with Robyn Hitchcock as well as adding sitar to Hitchcock's last two albums....

Stooges

Keep Me Safe, Keep Me Sane: Rare Tracks 1972

Dear Boss

***The Stooges were a no brakes act who careered inexorably towards annihilation. They finally hit the wall in 1974, after the most horrible blow out imaginable at the Michigan Palace, where Iggy practically begged to be crucified by an angry mob. But remember this kids, Iggy hated himself so much he wanted to live. Black vinyl pressing.

Gridlock

The Synthetic Form

Viasonde

***In the mid-90s, a resurgence in Electro-Industrial was firmly focused on dance-floors. At this pivotal time, two San Francisco metal scene defectors, Mike Wells and Mike Cadoo, connected through a mutual friend. Bonding over their shared appreciation for non-metal influences, Wells, armed with a sampler and a couple of synths, had crafted a few tracks. Cadoo swiftly added vocals to these compositions, and thus, Gridlock was born. With relentless dedication, the duo embarked on sculpting a grittier, more ominous variant of electro-industrial. Steering clear of the upbeat rhythms typical of the genre, they opted for a dystopian, dirge-like pace. Drawing inspiration from iconic acts like Skinny Puppy, Einsturzende Neubauten, and Fields of the Nephilim, they pieced together the Sickness demo. Eager to share their creation, they distributed the demo to anyone who would lend an ear, including many users on the rec.music.industrial newsgroup. Despite numerous rejections from industrial music labels citing its lack of danceability, Pendragon Records saw potential and took a chance. Thus commenced the earnest endeavor of crafting their debut album, The Synthetic Form. Upon its release, it marked a pivotal moment in industrial music, ushering in a fusion of classic, experimental, and dystopian ambient elements. Pendragon Records tantalizingly teased the album as "Unleashing a World of Your Demons," offering a glimpse into its bleak exploration of themes like regret and personal turmoil. Over the years, Gridlock evolved through three subsequent albums, progressively exploring diverse sonic territories beyond the confines of industrial music. However, their journey met an...

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...

Oscillation, The

The Start Of The End

All Time Low

Following a series of meditative explorations in the form of the Singularity Zone series of releases, The Oscillation have returned with a new sense of vigor and purpose. Refreshed and re-energized, the result is The Start Of The End, an album that casts more light and shade than ever before to create a mood of hope and rebirth. At once warm and welcoming, The Start Of The End is an album quite unlike anything that The Oscillation have ever released before. Fueled by optimism and taking stock of what’s good about life and what needs to be jettisoned, the record is a result of spiritual and physical recharging and cleansing. Leaving the claustrophobic environs of the big city for a more bucolic backdrop, the change in location has left a profound mark on Demian Castellanos, the creative force behind The Oscillation. Where the exorcism of dark emotions of previous album Untold Futures left Castellanos wondering if he’d ever make music again, his new surroundings stirred something within him. “When I made my new home, I allowed myself time to do nothing for a while,” says Castellanos, “and I then started some new songs without worrying about them being on an album. I just wrote with the mindset to put out something positive.” He continues: “I did a lot of reflecting on the past and really wanted to change something in myself, but not knowing how and thinking that a lot of people must be feeling the same way.” Recalling the...

Feinberg, Ezra

Soft Power

Tonal Union

Ezra Feinberg’s third album Soft Power sees the composer-guitarist enlist an impressive array of fellow musicians including Mary Lattimore, David Moore (Bing & Ruth), Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, and Robbie Lee. Defined by its abundance of melodies, repeating figures and ecstatic improvisations, Soft Power exudes an enlightened and transformative spirit to empower the listener. Feinberg, a practicing psychoanalyst and former founding member of the San Francisco psychedelic collective Citay (Dead Oceans / Important Records) resides in the artistic enclave of upstate New York’s Hudson River Valley. Initial recordings emerged in the late summer of 2020, before added synthesis with collaborator John Thayer (Arp, Sunwatchers) during early 2021. Soft Power follows previous albums Recumbent Speech (2020) and Pentimento And Others (2018). Feinberg artfully transcends the listener to an enriched place, his compositions distinguished by the deep humanity that lies at their core, plugging the listener into a state of wide eyed being, open and alive. Soft Power then is Feinberg’s own mantra but also one of power giving—a colourful catharsis translated into music. Feinberg’s music always speaks to the listener, but Soft Power, in whispering, speaks loudest.

Noelle & The Deserters

High Desert Daydream

Speakeasy Studios SF

Noelle & The Deserters bring South-Western honky tonk and songs of heartbreak from the high deserts of New Mexico to the golden hills of California. Fronted by singer-songwriter Noelle Fiore, their music draws inspiration from the likes of Emmylou Harris, Loretta Lynn, Marty Robbins, J.J Cale, Gene Clark, Townes Van Zandt, and the great outlaw country players. The Deserters include seasoned players Graham Norwood (Bryan Scary, Graham Norwood) on guitar, Alicia Vanden Heuvel (The Aislers Set) on bass, David Cuetter (Tarnation) on pedal steel, and Jerry Fiore (Sonic Love Affair)on drums, all based in the Bay Area and Sacramento. Fiore was raised in Taos, New Mexico. As a guitar player and vocalist, she was a founding member of Sweet Chariot, singing and playing guitar / banjo. Later, she and Tim Cohen (The Fresh & Onlys) founded the band Magic Trick, recording four full length albums for labels Hardly Art and Captured Tracks. Fiore is also a current member of the Shannon Shaw Band, on guitar and vocals. High Desert Daydream is Noelle & The Deserters debut album, out on Speakeasy Studios SF. The songs on the album, written by Fiore, touch on life in the west, growing up in Taos, living in California, songs of love, memory, marriage, work, good times, and bad times. Like all classic country music, the songs are infused with a sense of real-life struggles and living life in the everyday. Fiore’s incredible voice carries the album, and her songs are at once moving, powerful,...

Adversarial

Solitude With The Eternal

Dark Descent

“Dark Descent Records proudly presents Solitude With The Eternal, the third album from Canada’s blistering, serpentine three-piece Adversarial... “Razor sharp. Slithering. Dual chasms yawn. A Janus-faced entity blinks, looking back and forward through the uncanny gloom. Dual tongues chase each other, slithering past cavities in the broken teeth. Licking against the neck, pulling more offal toward the trough. Each face has a black hole in the iris of each eye. As photons evaporate against the retina on the other side of the event horizon, memory fades. A new knowledge, imbued from the excrements of microorganisms trickles through the throaty slough. Yes we’ve been here before. Yes we’ll be here again. “The entity known as Adversarial has opened the portal to a timeless realm of suffocation and agony once more. As leviathan doubles back on itself, sulfer rises from the point of crossing, a bouquet of putrid yolk. This foul chemical will sustain nigredo, as metal black as midnight is tempered under atom smashing might.” —T. Grieco

Vega, Alan

Insurrection

In The Red

In The Red Records is proud to announce a previously unreleased new album by Brooklyn-born master of minimalism Alan Vega, Insurrection. The eleven songs here showcase the unparalleled vision and uncompromising force from one of the most influential artists of all time. Alan Vega was born in Brooklyn in 1938. He co-founded the legendary New York City punk band Suicide with Martin Rev in 1970. Suicide’s groundbreaking 1977 debut is considered one of the most influential albums of all time. Vega considered his solo records the audio counterpoint to his visual art that reflected the world around him while simultaneously exploring universal themes. It makes his work as relevant today as it was when he created them. It was during his highly experimental period beginning in the late ’80s that he began working with Liz Lamere, who became the most crucial collaborator of his solo career until his death in 2016. Lamere, along with Jared Artaud, resurrected these newly unearthed collection of lost recordings, which they co-produced and mixed. Lamere and Artaud spearhead the Vega Vault project, which aims to bring rare, unreleased and back catalog work spanning Alan Vega and Suicide’s career to the public for the first time. On Insurrection, Lamere says: “Insurrection was created in the time period around 1997/98, after Mutator and prior to Vega’s 1999 release of 2007 and captures the intense energy of NYC in the ’90s rife with crime, killing, hate, fascism, racism, and moral bankruptcy. You can hear the tortured souls...

Oh Boland

Western Leisure

Meritorio

***Irish band Oh Boland is back with Western Leisure. The record marks a progression in Oh Boland’s sound with the familiar garage squall tempered by Wyatt-esque psychedelics, New Wave skronk and Bakersfield country all buoying personal songs of rural inertia and the dark edges of parochial life. Western Leisure, the dynamic third record from Oh Boland, is not just an enthralling document detailing the darkened corners and unseemly characters you often hear tell of in forgotten parochial towns of the past, but it marks the beginning of an exciting chapter in the band’s story. Oh Boland’s sound has been described as having a “rare potency”, one that exists in their live shows and two records, their 2016 debut Spilt Milk which featured in Pitchfork’s “Best Underground Garage Punk Albums” of that year and its equally visceral successor, Cheap Things. Over the course of the Tuam-via-Dublin-based band’s lifespan, Oh Boland has existed in several guises and their forthcoming third record heralds a compelling new phase as the solo project of founding member, Niall Murphy. The self-produced Western Leisure (mixed and mastered by Mikey Young of Eddy Current Suppression Ring and Total Control) signifies a electrifying artistic evolution spurred by Murphy’s unwavering musical curiosity which hears him experiment with wistful Country motifs alongside Oh Boland’s synonymous noise-rock tendencies. Pressed on red vinyl.

Handover, The (Aly Eissa, Jonas Cambien, Ayman Asfour)

The Handover

Sublime Frequencies

***In The Handover, Aly Eissa, Ayman Asfour, and Jonas Cambien explore the common and uncommon senses of Egypt's ritual music. It is clear that Aly Eissa's original composition is deeply rooted in Egyptian and Arabic traditions. At the same time, this band is one of the most progressive coming out of Egypt today. This is in big part thanks to Eissa, who has proven time and again to be not only an extremely skillful composer, but also a real visionary, combining tradition with modern experimentation. A performance by The Handover is typically one stretch without break: a long build-up that lasts for the duration of the concert. Towards the end of the performance, all the tension is released in an exuberant, joyful climax, when wild improvisations are driven forward on top of exciting dance-rhythms from rural Egypt. The Handover elegantly combines the delicacy of classical Arabic music, the raw expressiveness of Egypt's countryside music, and the spontaneity of free improvisation, carefully obliterating the artificial separation between acoustic and electronic instruments. Despite the remarkable absence of any percussion or drums, The Handover is an extremely groovy band, with an ability to slow down and accelerate the tempo in almost telepathic synchronization at exactly the right moments. Alongside the tight ensemble playing there is plenty of room for individual expression as the oud, synthesizer and violin take turns playing solos on top of repetitive riffs. Throughout the album, native Alexandrian Ayman Asfour plays the violin with breathtaking beauty, while not being afraid...

Amery

Continue As Amery

Night School

Continue As Amery is the debut album by Montreal-based artist Amery. Formerly recording under the moniker Alpen Glow, Continue As Amery sees the songwriter step out into a bold, colorful world full of pop hooks, snagging feelings of abandon and the mornings after. Amery Sandford began releasing as Alpen Glow in 2020 after years playing in punk groups in Newfoundland and as half of Montreal pop duo Born At Midnite (Arbutus). Recorded in Montreal by David Carriere (TOPS, Marci), Patrick Holland, and Kristian North, Continue As Amery is a blast of melodic joie de vivre. On her debut Sandford brings her punk and DIY credentials into sharp focus on 8 perfect pop odes to city living, making mistakes and figuring it out as you go along. Suffuse with powerful imagery and an almost uncanny talent at spinning out hooks brimming with humour and spirit, Amery’s soundworld is informed by friendship, experience and by her day job as a renowned illustrator and visual artist. Beginning Alpen Glow in a spirit of fun and now shedding the alias, Amery’s ready to hotwire the nite. Each song is rich with story. Mountain FM, named for the radio station in Sandford’s home town in the mountains of Alberta, launches into a tale of speeding, blasting the radio too loud, the giddy burning of rubber with no care in the world to slow you down. Featuring live band members Sarah Harris, Jack Bielli, and Frank Climenhage, the singer bristles to get out of her stifling...

Mackay, Bill

Locust Land

Drag City

***At last! It's been about five years since Bill's last solo album, Fountain Fire, one might guess that the new material was informed by his constant collaborations since (last year's BCMC release Foriegn Smokes; 2021's duo album with Nathan Bowles, Keys and 2019's duo album with Katinka Kleijn, STIR, and that's invariably so, but mostly, Bill solo is resolutely his own beast; Locust Land continues down the path of eclectically augmented guitar exploration fruitfully evidenced on Fountain Fire and Esker previously.

Hydromatics, The

Parts Unknown

Bang

***The Hydromatics feature a genuine Detroit legend in the form of Scott Morgan, from Sonic's Rendezvous Band (alongside the MC5's Fred "Sonic" Smith). Morgan formed the Hydromatics alongside Nicke Royale (The Hellacopters) and guitarist Tony Slug (Loveslug) in 1998 and released an awesome debut album in '99 called Parts Unknown that revisited the Motor City rock sounds of yesteryear in the form of a modern-day power punk rawk outfit, which is now finally being reissued. The album starts out with a burning remake of "Earthy" from the Sonic´s Rendezvous Band and it continues to smoke all the way thru. No ballads. Morgan sings his ass off and the band provides much sonic firepower to back up his massive vocal gusto, switching gears effortlessly between kick ass hard rock and smoky soul. It's a potent cocktail for sure and one that fans of this genre would be foolish to pass up on. Not for diehard punk or metal fans, this is a treat best enjoyed by cats who like to rock n' roll and dig the swingin' sounds of the '60s—albeit as pounded through walls of Marshals and a thick curtain of horns and noise. Absolutely necessary for fans of Sonic´s Rendezvous Band, MC5, Stooges, The Hellacopters, Bored!, and Tony Slug (Loveslug).

Yea-Ming And The Rumours

I Can't Have It All

Dandy Boy

***I Can’t Have It All is the third studio album by Yea-Ming and The Rumours and marks a new line-up and creative era for the band. Frontwoman Yea-Ming Chen has masterfully curated her self-proclaimed “pop record.” Weaving melancholy narratives with catchy hooks in a sound that is more surfy, more punk and more indie than anything the Rumours have done before. Fuller sounding production heavily influenced by groups like Yo La Tengo, Camera Obscura and other early '90s underground college radio favorites, I Can’t Have It All marks the band’s continued evolution. Alongside the usual beautiful imagery, Yea-Ming’s songwriting remains as introspective as ever, but I Can’t Have It All marks a changing point both creatively and personally in the songstress’ life. Written during a difficult period in which she struggled to identify and painfully shed a “false-self" imposed by the outside world, the album follows the personal and relatable journey of accepting loss and making changes. “I realized one day that I have spent most of my life pretending to be someone that other people wanted me to be, and that was probably the source of my anxiety and depression.” Recalls the songwriter. “So I made changes that were really hard and I experienced a lot of grief in letting go of people and situations that held a lot of power over me emotionally—even if it wasn’t intentional—and I became someone that is closer to who I want to be. In that transition, I discovered that it is completely...

NOFX

Half Album

Fat Wreck Chords

***Over the past few years, NOFX have unleashed their very first double album in the form of 2021’s Single Album; followed by Double Album a year later. What fans didn’t know, is that wasn’t all there was to this masterpiece. That’s right, NOFX’s first and only double album has a 5th side! Half Album is the final chapter to NOFX’s epic double album. The songs that comprise this EP—as well as it’s two predecessors, were all recorded at the same time. Half Album is not simply the leftover songs from this session, but rather an integral part that ties the entire project together. Album opener “Fake-A-Wish Foundation” is a follow-up to Single Album’s “My Bro Cancervive Cancer,” about a guy called Brett who pretended to have brain cancer to hang with bands and get free merch. It’s a gorgeous lilting ballad that might sound sad but contains some truly comedic and biting lyrics. Then there’s “I’m a Rat”—written by FAT MIKE but first recorded by Japanese punk band HI-STANDARD, and later included on last year’s Fat Mike’s string album Gets Strung Out. “The Queen is Dead” comes next, which first appeared (in a very different form) on COKIE THE CLOWN's 2019 full-length You’re Welcome. This reweorked punked-up version—along with the trilogy of “I’m a Rat” showcase how a well written song can be played in any genre. Album closer “The Last Drag,” which is the the counterpart to Single Album opener “The Big Drag,” brings the whole 25-track double album...