New Releases

Early Moods

A Sinner's Past

Riding Easy

Early Moods’ sophomore album A Sinner’s Past is the ultimate dosage of classic early ’70s proto-metal, ’90s grunge riffing and timeless songwriting delivered with an explosive youthful energy. The Los Angeles area quartet burst onto the scene fully formed with a sound that somehow simultaneously merged gritty underground street doom with slick “big box” heavy metal melodies on their self-titled Riding Easy debut album in 2022. And it’s the band’s highly skilled musicianship paired with exquisite aesthetic taste—in addition to their killer live show—that has made them an immediate popular favorite. A Sinner’s Past takes those elements several steps higher with a nod to Soundgarden’s huge sonic depth, the low-mid fuzz drenched tones of Sabotage and classic ’70s melodies and structures of Uli Roth-era Scorpions. The latter in particular inspiring the album’s intricate tonal shifts and shimmering twin leads. The album was recorded near the band’s home base in Pico Rivera, CA by Allen Falcon of Birdcage Studios, who also mixed their debut album. Early Moods was founded in 2015 by guitarist Eddie Andrade and vocalist / keyboardist Alberto Alcaraz after a few years of playing in thrash and death metal projects before the two realized that the classic doom that they’d grown up with was what they really wanted to explore. Going through a few lineup changes while delving deeper into the diverging influences that were calling, Early Moods arrived at the sound and lineup that grew their fanbase locally. The band released their debut EP Spellbound...

Wye Oak

Shriek + Variations

Merge

***A limited edition expanded reissue of the fourth album from Wye Oak—Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack. Originally released in 2014, Shriek was the culmination of their intent to express the emotional and intuitive self by acting out animalistic exclamations through cathartic release. It was their most personal and confident declaration yet. Newly inspired by playing bass, Jenn took up songwriting in a setting where the guitar did not dictate harmonic boundaries or require a call-and-response relationship with her voice, a hallmark of previous Wye Oak records. With her phrasing freed, it was often Andy who interacted with Jenn’s vocals, playing syncopated and meditative keyboard parts, and the duo’s collaborative arrangements provided a backdrop in which both the arcs of melodies and the new rhythmic elements flourished. Features a second disc with five reworked Shriek tracks in collaboration with William Brittell. Limited to 1,100 copies.

Ex, The

Blueprints For A Blackout

Superior Viaduct

Emerging out of Amsterdam’s vibrant squat scene in 1979, The Ex—a name chosen for the ease and speed with which it could be spray-painted onto a wall—have for four decades been an entirely self-sustaining musical entity, charting a course through the global underground with a spirit of freedom and radical exploration. Blueprints For A Blackout, The Ex’s fifth album and first double LP, combines caustic studio experimentations and loose songs from their gripping live-set at the time. The band consisted of singer G.W. Sok, guitarist Terrie Ex, two new recruits on bass, Luc and Yoke, and drummer Sabien Witteman, along with a plethora of guests including Mekons’ Jon Langford and long-serving sound engineer Dolf Planteijdt, among others. Originally released in 1984 on the band’s own Pig Brother Productions, Blueprints veers from jagged punk explosions to sharply focused improvisations featuring field recordings that would become a hallmark of their subsequent forays into free jazz and experimental music. The overall effect is not unlike the menace of a slowly building winter storm. Tracks like “Rabble With A Cause,” “U.S. Hole” and “Scrub That Scum” stand out as exemplars of this phase of The Ex. Comparisons can be made to contemporaries Einstürzende Neubauten, NoMeansNo and Svätsox as well as later Crass label bands. This first-time vinyl reissue comes with 24-page booklet.

Ex, The

Pokkeherrie

Superior Viaduct

Emerging out of Amsterdam’s vibrant squat scene in 1979, The Ex—a name chosen for the ease and speed with which it could be spray-painted onto a wall—have for four decades been an entirely self-sustaining musical entity, charting a course through the global underground with a spirit of freedom and radical exploration. On 1985’s Pokkeherrie (Dutch for “terrible noise”), The Ex return to the more stripped-down instrumentation on their early LPs. A key lineup change would also see the arrival of drummer Kat Bornefeld (whose supple rhythms propel the group to this day). Recorded at the new location of Koeienverhuur Studio in the basement of storied squat/venue Emma, Pokkeherrie is a testament to the angular momentum of a group in full creative flux. Right from the opening track, bassist Luc Klaasen generates a relentless pulse. Terrie Ex’s sparse/acidic guitar and G.W. Sok’s impassioned vocals combine in a vein similar to The Minutemen, Flipper or Rudimentary Peni, except The Ex have the patience and wherewithal to sustain their approach beyond just brief explosions. Perhaps only The Fall from this period can match The Ex’s ability to hold a melody together while utilizing otherwise harsh sonic elements over an extended piece, most effectively on “Soviet Threat,” “1,000,000 Ashtrays” and “White Liberals.” This first-time vinyl reissue comes with 17” x 24” poster and 20-page booklet.

V/a

Love Hides All Faults

Cairo

***​A compilation of DEEP gospel from the 1960's and 1970's. all culled from the vaults of DJ Jumbo. This is the real stuff—all guitar forward ballads that address existential issues. limited edition with silver foil covers and artwork by Lonnie Holley!

Lysol

Down the Street

Feel It

'Down the Street' is the latest EP from Seattle punks LYSOL, following 2021's 'Soup for My Family'. The four piece lineup of Anthony Gaviria, Xtine Lundberg, Chad Ringo Bucklew, and Noah Earl Fowler waste no time on this EP, with all four tracks clocking in at two minutes or less. Perfectly executed hardcore punk with a touch of Pacific Northwest guitar rock in the mix. LYSOL have yet again kicked down a steamroller of a record that matches their power as a live band.

Why Bother?

Serenading Unwanted Ballads

Feel It

Serenading Unwanted Ballads is the fifth album from Iowa's WHY BOTHER? and a testament to the fact that they will never make the same record twice. Full of twists, their unique approach to Midwestern synth punk becomes their own sound of Gothadelic, weirdo madness. Several of these tracks make their first vinyl appearance after surfacing on previous EPs and singles, while a newer mix of "Some Don't Dance" speaks to the unwavering creativity of the group. "Testify", recorded by friend (and contributing song writer) Aaron, while serving his life sentence at Anamosa State Prison, adds a layer of originality and bleakness to these unwanted ballads. WHY BOTHER? have made yet another album by themselves, for themselves, and for anyone else willing to be serenaded by the doom of what awaits in the shadows. Feel It Records is proud to be the ONLY record label that can offer you such things. Edition of 300 copies.

番長 Taste

I dipped my comb in shochu and ran it through the hair of the night

Carbon

***I dipped my comb in shochu and ran it through the hair of the night is the brand new release from the intriguing trio 番長 Taste, consisting of Mark Anderson (Greymouth/Mysteries of Love, New Zealand), Anthony Guerra (Love Chants/Mysteries of Love, Australia) and mysterious rocker ‘Mariyo’ (Japan). The name 番長 is pronounced ‘Bancho’, so the band name is Bancho Aji/Taste. This release consists of 12 tracks, 6 tracks from the Carbon CD release Summer Nights, 2 tracks from the I Dischi Del Barone 7”, and 4 BRAND NEW UNRELEASED tracks! This is raw no-wave, free-noise awesomeness. Like if DNA did a surf record, and so perfectly crude, it makes Smashchords sound like Emerson Lake & Palmer in comparison.

Mattson 2

Bohsheekwo

Salton Sea Sound System

***Southern California jazz duo Mattson 2 is comprised of identical twins Jared & Jonathan Mattson. Channeling the likes of Coltrane, Flying Lotus, and Danger Mouse; the duo deliver a vast catalog of sound steeped in lush textures, warm crackle, and intricate rhythms. 2022’s Bohsheekwo presents 10 tracks of surreal production and expansive performance. Tracks such as “C’est La Vie”, “Monsters”, and “Addiction” lay foundations of unhinged groove that pulse with urgency and tension. Haunting vocal delivery and psyched out atmospheric guitars and keys add immersive counterweight that glue the work together. Interlude tracks “Happy Hill” and “Hayama Rain” contribute peaceful, sonic palette cleansers that brace listeners for what’s to come next. Standout title “Spiritual Things” spends 7 minutes weaving in and out of explorative performance and melody perfectly setting the stage for the properly titled closer; “Beach Trance”. Acoustic guitar strums candidly atop lush tropical guitar and soundscapes leaving listeners with a sense of calm and relief. S4 is pleased to offer this exclusive “Monochrome Swirl” variant of a record that is guaranteed to stand the test of time in any collection. Enjoy.

Hamiltones, The

In Space

Swimming Faith

***Buffalo NY’s THE HAMILTONES are back with a new high concept surf record, In Space It serves as the soundtrack to an epic space opera, borrowing familiar themes and textures from mid-century sci-fi and superimposing them onto thoroughly modern surf rock. While most bands of the style only use guitar, bass, and drums, The Hamiltones dare to utilize layers of vocal ooos and aaas, lush strings, horns, space-age synthesizers, and even theremin on their new opus. The result is a record that has just as much in common with John Williams, Ennio Morricone, and John Carpenter as it does with Dick Dale or The Ventures. In Space is unflinchingly audacious, daring to boldly go where no surf band has gone before. The experience is fully immersive, as the 12” record comes with a companion 7” EP of music by the mysterious Moon People, and a 6-page insert spelling out the plot of the fictitious film to which In Space serves as the soundtrack.

Soft Kill

Dead Kids, R.I.P. City

Cercle Social

***A story odyssey of sorts told in ten parts, ten songs - each track essentially a character—“Dead Kids...”, produced by David Trumfio (Built To Spill, Wilco, OK Go) and mastered by the legendary Howie Weinberg (The Cure, Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana), explores, through a beguiling mix of personal memory, allegory, and narrative structures by turns both poetic and stinging, a long and complicated relationship with a dark version of Portland OR. It’s songs that tell of the fractured and fragile legacies of those lost during the city’s last couple decades as it moves from soggy backwater to unheard of growth and tech-fueled transformation. Two years in the making, desperate, redemptive, its contrast of light and shadow favoring the latter, Dead Kids, R.I.P. City is like no other album in the genre, a kind of doom pop Drugstore Cowboy featuring the brave and abandoned, the tender and the afflicted, all teetering in memory on the edge of the city. For all the sadness and pain of addiction haunting it, however, the record, by its very existence, proves that hope doesn’t necessarily win but that, even if at great cost, it can. It’s what makes Dead Kids, R.I.P. City so powerful beyond just the scope of its dark luminous sound and indelible melodies, and is one of the many reasons you’ll carry it with you. Pressed on purple vinyl.

Soma

Burning is Learning

Centripetal Force

***SOMA (Sacred Order of Mystic Apogees) is a group of musicians from central New Jersey who gather together to create eclectic devotional music. The members are multi-instrumentalists who play a blend of meditative soundscapes woven together with traditional Indian kirtan* music and inspired folk songs. SOMA builds on this traditional framework and incorporates amplified instrumentation and other added components to create an entirely new sonic experience. The result is a psychedelic tapestry of esoteric mantras, dynamic rhythms, and devotional prayers. As you will hear on Burning is Learning, each song, vibration, and drone is treated with the utmost reverence, attention, and respect—all of which acknowledge SOMA’s link in an unbroken chain to the ancient sounds. It’s a heady and heavy experience. It’s celebratory and reflective. The album is a unique approach to sounds that have been resonating for thousands of years. With roots in the DIY hardcore punk and metal scenes of their home state, the combination of traditional instrumentation (harmonium, tanpur, and mridanga, for example) with their modern sense of heaviness is quite profound. SOMA’s live performances are as intense as their recordings, landing them in temples, churches, concert halls, bars, and even cremation grounds. Plans to tour are in the works. Burning is Learning is a reference to the Sanatana Dharma belief that cremation can help the soul achieve moksha, freedom from the eternal cycle of life, death, and rebirth. The album was recorded with Phil Caivano (Monster Magnet) at Studio 13 and Shorefire Recording Studios and mastered...

Have A Nice Life

Deathconsciousness

Flenser

***Available on both black and mint colored vinyl. Have a Nice Life released their debut double-album Deathconsciousness in 2008 to a whimper and critical non-interest; six years later, the band followed it up with 2014’s stunner The Unnatural World. In the meantime, Deathconsciousness has become a cult classic whose seamless blend of shoegaze, post-punk, new wave, industrial and noise influences inspires fanatic obsession. Now, longtime Have a Nice Life collaborator The Flenser reissues Deathconsciousness on colored vinyl with deluxe packaging. The band commented, “Working with Flenser lets us keep things comfortable on our end, while also pressing enough copies to actually meet the need and not creating an artificially inflated collector’s market, as happened with some of our past releases.” Rhythmic, primal and expansive, Deathconsciousness offers a meditation on death, loss and unrequited love, with repeated listens revealing new layers of depth and meaning. The Flenser’s reissue is accompanied by a 75-page booklet detailing the dark and forgotten history of the Antiochean cult—an engrossing narrative that blurs the lines between liner notes, novella and academic text. “Deathconsciousness is probably a perfect record” —Last Train To Cool “A masterpiece of depression” —The Quietus “85-minute powerhouse of a double-album” —The Needle Drop “Have a Nice Life’s Deathconsciousness could quite possibly move the Earth” —Sputnik Music (5/5 rating)

Flores Silvestres

Momentos Subterraneos

Bym

***"Formed in Santiago de Chile in 2016, Flores Silvestres take us towards a state of anesthetized transcendental meditation, songs built with harmonious melodies on heavy bases, dancing rhythms that weave a folk lysergy. The languid soundscapes created forgot production, emotional turmoil or anything overly dramatic. Their music explores the sadness of pleasure, and the pleasure of sadness, and with each song they deepen this inquiry a little more. Momentos Subterráneos is responsible for reclaiming the dark side of psychedelia, exemplified by more relaxed songs, giving life to music with sinuous contours that embraces the most classic psychedelia and folk-pop, although it also encompasses quite well the dissociative design typical of the 80s and 90s heard in bands like Rain Parade, Jesus and Mary Chain or Galaxie 500. The succession of the album's songs seems to take us from the abyss of the nightmare to the luminous awakening, from despair to the maternal whisper." "Second album, dark and mysterious, dreamy blend of shadowy psychedelia and melancholic sweetness. Vocals swathed in echo singing strung-out and captivating all at once, and careful acid guitar soloing make perfect foils. This album might be an ideal soundtrack for daydreaming."

Nordile, Max

Hanging By A Fan Over Wet Cement

Gilgongo

***"Hanging by a Fan Over Wet Cement is the music of listening after listening, when water runs relative to the sound of your own footsteps, and you lean over the resonating chamber of a trashcan like it’s a campfire, then fill it with wheezy laughter. Only, the steel mesh of Hair Clinic / Max Nordile’s field microphone is all mangled and bludgeoned, and the field extends into his home garage. The same contact-foraging quality of attention goes into the beginner’s brain improvisations, whether on saxophone or skipping stones. And the mixing and editing is in large part a visual process, with Nordile monitoring slips of time and intention for the contours of song. It’s a prickly and startling listen, influenced by sound art, alive with noise. Nordile, a member of Debt Rag and Shelter Music, among other groups in Olympia, WA, traces the album’s inspiration back to the duet of birdsong and idling garbage truck, and named it for the language artifact of a dream. The cover shows degraded spiral forms in Scottish petroglyphs. Hanging by a Fan Over Wet Cement is creative, personal music to mirror the distorted balance of consensus reality."—Sam Lefebvre

Grisaille

Entre Deux Averses...

Black Water

***If anything has been brought up and adorned by this team of veteran punks from Brest, it is well crafted moody punk songs. Their debut looks like a single from back in the day, GRISAILLE is no stranger to the heavy dose of melody, angst and desperation that characterize their other projects. But while all of these projects are rooted in the classic French territory, their sound here is also a nod to the Copenhagen/Umeå scene, reminiscent of late Gorilla Angreb era with their twangy guitar chords or the flawless production on the early Masshysteri records. You’ll get the best of both worlds on this single and much more. At last, their name (which means Gloom like in weather’s term) could also sound like a warning: Grisaille is about to settle down on you and you better be ready.

Cherubs

2 Ynfynyty

Brutal Panda

***Austin, TX cult noise rock kings, CHERUBS, return with 2 Ynfynyty, their first new recording in over 20 years. Produced by MIKE MCCARTHY (Spoon, ....And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead) and mastered by HOWIE WEINBERG (Nirvana, Slayer) in the summer of 2014, 2 Ynfynyty finds the trio rejuvenated with a more dangerous sound then ever. Picking up where they left off while trekking down a few unexpected turns, Cherubs effortlessly mix distorted heaviness with sublime songcraft. If Queens of the Stone Age made a pummeling noise rock record, this would be it. The band's previous records (1992's Icing and 1994's Heroin Man) have reached legendary status in the noise rock world and this record will be no exception. 2 Ynfynyty proves that Cherbus' long hiatus was worth the two decade wait.

Cherubs

Heroin Man

Brutal Panda

***"Heroin Man stands as both the chronological center of the Cherubs catalog, and it's defining moment. As one of noise rock's finest moments, Heroin Man is both a delicate, tragic statement and send-off to a friend who had OD'd, and a bellowing, roaring, over-amped screwball masterpiece of Butthole Surfers mayhem and Husker Du pop structures. It's sometimes difficult to distinguish between Kevin Whitley's guitar and Owen McMahon's bass, and that's precisely the point -- this is noise rock; and still at other's, Whitley's guitar is a washing, white-noise counterpoint to the pummeling rhythm section. This is a dense, sprawling, spiraling work showing a band peaking aesthetically, with perhaps an even more ambitious album to follow. Unfortunately, due to the usual host of reasons, that never occurred. This was the Cherubs final studio album until their reformation 20+ years later."

Local H

Here Comes the Zoo 20th Anniversary Edition

Brutal Panda

***The fourth studio album from cult alternative rock duo LOCAL H, available for the first time EVER on limited edition vinyl! 20th-anniversary edition double vinyl is packaged in a gorgeous gatefold jacket with new artwork and contains the never-before-heard Jack Douglas mixes on Side D! For Fans Of: Queens of the Stone Age, Red Fang, Bush, Toadies, Helmet, Failure.

Melancholia

Book Of Ruination

Brutal Panda

***Bellingham, WA duo MELANCHOLIA have announced their debut album Book of Ruination. Formed in 2018, the duo has already released three EPs that have made waves through the underground. Book of Ruination, their most ambitious release to date, is a meditation into the void of sonic darkness and esoteric philosophy… an immense journey through life, death, and what lies beyond. True to its name, Melancholia explores dread and anguish in all of its malformed glory through the lenses of crushing doom/sludge, ferocious black metal/death metal and raw, primitive crust punk. Unified by bleak lyrical themes, suffocating atmosphere, psychedelic dissonance and striking visual art by vocalist/guitarist Gage Lindsay, Melancholia exist to push the boundaries of extreme music.

Transit Method

Othervoid

Brutal Panda

***Othervoid marks the prog-metal quartet's most bludgeoning, infectious and ambitious album to date. Brothers Matt LoCoco (vocals/guitar) and Mike LoCoco (drums) are joined by new members Bryan Rolli (guitars/vocals) and live Panopticon violinist Charlie Anderson (bass) cementing the band's definitive lineup. The result of years of internal turmoil and triumph... Transit Method charged into the eye of the storm and emerged on the other side with a fresh lineup and the strongest album of their career. The path was challenging, unpredictable and exhilarating - just like the album itself. Othervoid's seven tracks show the breadth of the band's songwriting. The punk-metal riffs and dueling guitars of "Psychometry" evoke Mutoid Man and Iron Maiden, while the vocal harmonies and trad-metal gallop of "The Outside" recall Mastodon and Thin Lizzy. The album reaches its astonishing climax on "Frostbite," a shapeshifting, nine-minute epic inspired by the 2021 freeze that left millions of Texans stranded at home without power and claimed hundreds of lives. The album was produced by Charles Godrey at Scary American Studios in Austin, TX (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Third Eye Blind, Whiskey Myers, Holy Wave), mastered by Dan Shike at Tone and Volume Mastering (Meat Puppets, Third Eye Blind, Larkin Poe) and features incredible album art from Marald van Haasteren (Metallica, Kvelertak, Gost). Edition of 200 copies on orange vinyl.

Zozobra

Savage Masters 10th Anniversary Edition

Brutal Panda

***The brainchild of Caleb Scofield (Cave In, Old Man Gloom), ZOZOBRA formed in 2006 and quickly released two crushing full-lengths of atmospheric sludge metal, Harmonic Tremors (2007) and Bird of Prey (2008). Five years later, the band re-emerged with Savage Masters, their most aggressive and straightforward release to date. Bursting out the gate with a bold, determined purpose, Savage Masters is an unrelenting fury of post-hardcore ferocity and sludge-tinged amplifier crunch. This release, featuring long-time Cave In bandmates Adam McGrath (guitars) and J.R. Conners (drums), proves once and for all that ZOZOBRA are a veritable force to be reckoned with. Savage Masters was produced and recorded by Andrew Schneider (Unsane, Pelican) and contains stunning artwork by English alchemist Glyn Smyth (Unearthly Trance, Wolves in the Throne Room, Cough). Edition of 400 copies on clear with black wisp vinyl.

Blue Lake

Sun Arcs

Tonal Union

New Clear Vinyl Pressing coming January 2024. Blue Lake is the musical moniker of American born, Copenhagen based multidisciplinary artist and musician Jason Dungan, who signs to the Tonal Union imprint for the release of his new longform album Sun Arcs. It follows 2022’s release Stikling, earning a nomination for Album of the Year at the Danish Music Awards plus warm praise from The Hum blog and musicians and DJs alike including Jack Rollo (Time is Away/NTS) and Carla dal Forno. A self taught player, Dungan began freely experimenting with self-built multi-string instruments, preferring to build his own hybrid 48-string zither and working in the realms of left-field ambient music, off kilter folk and improvised acoustic minimalism. The starting point of Sun Arcs saw Jason travel for a week alone to Andersabo, a cabin set in the idyllic Swedish woods just outside of Unnaryd, known also as the music project, festival and residency space which has been run by Dungan since 2016, hosting artists like Sofie Birch, Johan Carøe and Ellen Arkbro. Whilst writing 1-2 pieces per day, a conscious decision was made to leave behind everyday distractions and shut out the outside world to instead focus on the natural passage of time as Dungan recalls: “My only sense of time came from these daily walks out in the woods with my dog, and an awareness of the sun’s path as it moved across the sky each day.” Musically it portrays a form of double life led by an American-identifying person...

Sheer Mag

Playing Favorites

Third Man

***Playing Favorites is Sheer Mag’s third full-length and first with Third Man Records, the band capitalize on a decade’s worth of devotion to their own collective spirit—a spirit refined in both the sweaty trenches of punk warehouses and the larger-than-life glamour of concert halls—emerging with a dense work of gripping emotions, massive hooks, and masterfully constructed power-pop anthems. This is the record the Philadelphian rock and roll four-piece has always been destined to make.

Desire

Escape

Italians Do It Better

***Desire shares Escape, their new album written and recorded in Los Angeles and Palm Springs, California. Inspired by the ultra-vivid world of 1970's giallo films, they wrote the soundtrack of their dreams using their favorite musical instruments: Minikorg, Jupiter 8, 909, Mellotron, Simmons Rhythm Modules, String Machine, a D-50 & Fender Rhodes. House music rhythms provide the canvas for girl group narratives and a children's choir to paint the picture. Throbbing synthwave and daytime drama soap operas all play into the color pallet of the album. The lyrics are sung in English, French, and Korean, adding even more drama to the mix. Through it all, there is the optimism of true love's compass navigating us through all the chaos life has to offer.

Tyde, The

Season 5

Spiritual Pajamas

“In Season 5, the long-awaited fifth full-length by beach-pop project The Tyde, frontman Darren Rademaker unveils his vision of an ’80s-inspired Suave Nouveau, with a clutch of sweet, melancholic love songs evoking lush mustaches, mellow macho, the ghost of Jimmy Buffett, white sand beaches, flamingos swooping across a cerulean sky, speedboats cutting through the bay and pastel linen suits billowing in the breeze as the sun dips beneath the horizon. “Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León ‘discovered’ Florida in 1513, naming the peninsula La Florida, the flowering land. In Season 5, Rademaker reflects on his own return to the flowering land, and the artistic diaspora that caused him to quit California in 2020 in search of a New World of his own. ‘I lived in Florida from the ages of ten to twenty-five, but never really got to explore it,’ he says. ‘When I came back, I decided to really embrace the whole Florida aesthetic. I moved into an art deco home in Sarasota with pink seashell lamps. I visited Key West, like seven times. I also quit smoking weed and cigarettes, and stopped saying shit like LOL and amazeballs. It felt different. It felt good.’ “The record features the talents of many good friends, including Dan Horne, Colby Buddelmeyer, Matt Correia (Allah-Las), Clay Finch (Mapache), Albert Hickman, Derek James (The Entrance Band), Alex Knost (Tomorrow’s Tulips) and Adam MacDougall (Circles Around The Sun / Black Crowes), with artist / musician Matt Fishbeck (Holy Shit) designing the deco-inspired album artwork....

Meatbodies

Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom

In The Red

Meatbodies’ latest undertaking and borderline lost album, Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom, is their most varied and realized work to date. It’s a melodic, hook-filled rock epic in which frontman and lead guitarist Chad Ubovich faces the trials of sobriety, redemption, reinvention while literally learning to walk and play again. Resurrection not only accompanies the record, but its production as well, Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom examines themes surrounding love and loss, escapism, defeatism, hedonism, psychedelics and much more. By 2017, Ubovich had reached a crossroads. After years of increasingly insane shows playing to heaving crowds with an ever-evolving and rotating door of personnel, fatigue had taken its toll and he realized another change was on the horizon. Retreating to the seedy Los Angeles underbelly—in search of meaning and a reset—he escaped into that world, ignoring his own well being, trying to forget his successes. It was at this point that Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom began to take shape—a project built by a man searching for new beginnings and his own sense of self. After sobering up, sessions began with longtime collaborator Dylan Fujioka. However, due to discrepancies with the studio, tensions were high and the plug was pulled. And as the world took a back seat, so did the idea of Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom. Not wanting to sit still at home, Ubovich began to comb through his previous demos, and, with that, 333 was born, the now de facto third Meatbodies album. Yet Flora was never far from Ubovich’s...

Moothart, Charles

Black Holes Don't Choke

In The Red

The ever poignant yet exceedingly elusive Chorg Dorgon speaks on the new album by Charles Moothart, entitled Black Holes Don’t Choke: “For the sake of clarity, and its clarity that we seek, Charles has been a pillar of our musical experience since he began playing eons ago in the various projects and countless albums he has contributed to. Charles is a musician who has been constantly on the road for years playing in Ty Segall’s Freedom Band and Fuzz. When there has been a rare time away from those engagements especially in the post-pandemic scramble to catch up world of gigs and tours, he has been spending all of his time in his laboratory figuring out how to synthesize all of the info he has collected and musical ideas he has developed in the past few years since the last CFM record and subsequent shows for this new solo work. Just before the pandemic started, he was out playing solo shows in a project that revolved around an MPC sampler, just to give an example as to the wideness of his explorations. His result is Black Holes Don’t Choke. Love songs for the apocalypse. A prayer toward optimism amid chaos. A plea toward nature. The themes on this album are the themes of today. Charles appeals for us to visualize evolution. And with a signature, the music sounds exactly as you want it to. It sounds like Charles Moothart’s music only more evolved and with greater focus and direction. With...

Diab, C.

Imerro

Tonal Union

Caton Diab creates soundscapes that evoke the spectacular wilderness of his childhood home in northern Vancouver Island. Incorporating experimental textures, folk overtones and tape manipulations, C. Diab uniquely finds the unseen spaces in-between, and fittingly dubs his creations “post-classical grunge”. Imerro explores new sonic realms and is the culmination of a sound world that Diab has built up since the critically acclaimed No Perfect Wave (2016) and subsequent releases Exit Rumination (2018), White Whale (2020) and In Love & Fracture (2021). The Wire calls it "ambient music in the best sense—music for living, which can be both non-invasive and immersive... epic" Imerro was recorded in late July and August of 2021 at Risque Disque Studio in Cedar, BC, during the summer’s unprecedented second “heat dome”, which saw temperatures soaring to over 40 degrees. Recorded with regular collaborator and engineer Jonathan Paul Stewart, the pair journeyed by boat to the studio to a place with minimal distraction with a plan of “simple ecstatic improvisation.” Diab explains: “I wanted to place myself in a space for creation with little thematic pretence, with the belief that music ‘shows its face’ as you move along. I would pick up an instrument, whether I had experience playing it or not, and make a sound. If it wanted to be played, it would play.”

J. McFarlane's Reality Guest

Whoopee

Night School

From out of nowhere—if nowhere is the febrile, warped and twilit imagination of Julia McFarlane —comes Whoopee, the second album by J.McFarlane’s Reality Guest. Whoopee is an esoteric, kaleidoscopic movie in music form directed by Julia McFarlane and co-conspirator Thomas Kernot. Full of life, breakbeats and smokey vignettes on the fragile nature of interpersonal relationships, Whoopee is a stylistic evolution from everything McFarlane has done before. Surreal, beautiful in parts and replete with the aching wisdom McFarlane’s songwriting has always promised, this Reality Guest pulls back the curtain on a whole scene of naked truth. Recorded in Melbourne in bursts since the release of 2019’s Ta Da, Whoopee features a new sound palette and band member in Kernot. The duo dive deep into electronic pop tropes, mining digital synths, samples, breakbeats and deep bass grooves, largely dispensing with live instrumentation. If Ta Da took twists and turns with your expectations, offering a Dada-ist, monochromatic take on pop music, Whoopee is McFarlane’s subterranean love-sick pinks, reds, greens, purples and blues. Becoming something of a tradition, the album starts with an instrumental intro pilfered from a 90s’ spy film or cinema intro music, puffing up the listener for the heart-squeezing bathos of "Full Stops." Over a bleary backdrop of walking bass lines, jazz-inflected keys and smoked-out atmosphere, McFarlane’s poetry narrates the fragile state of a relationship: “You put a full stop where I thought there’d be a comma, I want the story to continue even with all the drama.” Over a palpable...

Zeros, The

Right Now

Bang

***The Zeros is an American punk-rock group formed in 1976 in Chula Vista, California. The band was originally formed with Javier Escovedo (vocals/guitar), Robert Lopez (guitar), Héctor Penalosa (bass) and Baba Chenelle (drums). Often referred to as "the Mexican Ramones," they were just one of many contributors to the city of Los Angeles' punk explosion in the late '70s, although they never received the acclaim like their contemporaries Black Flag, Circle Jerks, or Germs and Wipers. They have more followers and fans outside of the United States, especially Europe and Spain in particular. The label "the Mexican Ramones" did not take into account their other revealing influences: pre-punk and garage-rock bands. The Zeros make it evident on this album, releasing covers of New York Dolls among others. But the originals, for example "They Say (That Everything's Alright)" and "Handgrenade Heart," also exploit the spirit of loud, strident rock. There are also slow and melodic, sloppy and dirty pop songs to satisfy all tastes. The quartet broke up in 1981, reformed sporadically for live shows, and recorded a 1999 album Right Now!. An excellent album. Ideal to have a good time and enjoy good rock.

Infinites, The

Archetypes

Meritorio

***From Austin, Texas, The Infinites started as Dan LeVine playing guitar loops while Jared Leibowich sang songs on top of the loops about imaginary people. They eventually asked Ian Rundell, Miles Kelley, and Sam Jordan to join, and the band released their first album in 2019, with each song being a short story about an imaginary person. Album two continues the theme of short stories for each song, but instead of imaginary people, each song explores a certain kind of archetype. The band's name, The Infinites, is influenced by both the never-ending loops that are the foundation of each song as well as the infinite universe that the band is trying to create, filled with a continuous array of unique characters.

Maureens, The

Everyone Smiles

Meritorio

***The Maureens: the perfect soundtrack for a late summer night, though the band gives you that feeling just as easily on a sunday afternoon in February. The band is a Dutch four piece founded in 2012. Originating from the central Utrecht music scene, the band nowadays operates from the rural east of the Netherlands. It hasn’t changed the sound of The Maureens: the melancholic songs of Hendrik-Jan de Wolff exude love of melody and harmony. The band's fourth album, Everyone Smiles, features 13 sparkling pop songs recorded with legendary Dutch producer Frans Hagenaars in Studio SSE-Noord.

Doc Sleep

Cloud Sight Fade

Dark Entries

Doc Sleep returns to Dark Entries with Cloud Sight Fade, an album of ethereal house and techno. Doc Sleep is the alias of DJ and producer Melissa Maristuen. Following 2023’s Birds, her ambient and IDM-leaning debut album, Cloud Sight Fade shows Doc drawing on her years of queer clubbing to bring us seven diverse tracks sitting between muscular New York house, Berlin twilight techno, and funky West-coast breakbeats. Production began in the Bay Area and was completed in Berlin; Maristuen says that this work became a love letter to the West Coast’s magnificent natural landscape, the light of the Pacific sunrise. While draped in dreamlike textures and melodies, this is also a record about embodiment and the memories that live within our corporeal forms. The powerful grooves on the breakbeat-inflected “Lemon Zest” and the propulsive “Cloud Sight Fade” remind us that dance music is for bodies dancing. Meanwhile, tracks like the sparkling album-closer “Enchanted Static” or the brooding groover “Water Sign” plunge us deeper into hypnotic depths. On Cloud Sight Fade, Doc Sleep guides us through slumber and wakefulness, in and out of our bodies, with the mastery of a seasoned DJ and clubgoer.

Verity Den

Verity Den

Amish

***Verity Den is comprised of Carrboro-via-Bellingham sound engineer and songwriter Casey Proctor (Harusplex Palace, Holy Sons) with Trevor Reece and Mike Wallace. All spent considerable time in their respective and shared DIY-music communities before converging to form the group in early 2023. Casey and Trevor initially met as members of an ad- hoc improv ensemble performing tape loops, strings, and electronics as part of a multi-disciplinary series hosted on a rooftop in Chapel Hill called Attic 506. Soon after, the three shifted from long-running musical projects to focus on exploring new sonic territories together. The band operates in an ever-evolving dynamic of group improvisation and studio experimentation, capturing moments of coarse circuit completion and bringing to fruition long-gestating ideas and songs. The sound is raw and largely unadorned, transmitting both truth and wildness. Working from a dedicated studio space in Carrboro, NC, songs came together quickly for the group’s debut self- titled album. Engineered and mixed at home by Casey, the LP presents a guitar music refracted through clamor and tenderness, static and hiss, drum machine and synth. The lyrics survey themes of existential exhaustion and impressionistic reflections, all bound with persistent hooks and equally acidic edges. A sense of deep and ego-less collaboration runs through their process, as instruments are exchanged, vocal duties are shared and drum machines meld with live drum kits. The live unit is supplemented with an expanding cast of friends and rippers, that presents the music at its gentlest and most cacophonous.

Love Child

Never Meant To Be: 1988-1993

12xu

***"At the very dawn of the 90s, Love Child's debut 7” made a splash on the burgeoning scene of shambolic bands and lo-fi recordings. Back then, they were mentioned in the same breath as Pavement, Sebadoh, or Beat Happening. But Love Child’s two great albums and sparkling singles have become the stuff of record collectors, unavailable vis streaming and out of print, until now. Never Meant to Be: 1988-1993 pulls from these releases and some unreleased radio sessions, unearthing a trove of lost gems by a band that could be the bestof all of the 90s buried treasures. Culled from their smashing debut 7-inch, their two full-length albums, another great single and some unreleased radio sets (including a Peel Session), Never Meant To Be has catchy hooks, gritty noise, sneakily-deft playing, brainy but blunt lyrics, and lots of other awesome stuff. Love Child were part of lo-fi’s beginnings, but also had the NYC pedigree to absorb predecessors like the Velvet Underground, the Voidoids and Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. (Their swirl of brightness, brains, and brawn led Byron Coley to liken them to a fantasy VU made up of Moe Tucker, Doug Yule, and Angus MacLise). Will Baum started Love Child while a student at Vassar College, bringing on classmates Rebecca Odes and Alan Licht. At first, Baum wrote the majority of the songs, bringing a Modern Lovers-like garage-pop attack to the band’s 19-song whirlwind debut album Okay? (Homestead, 1991) But Odes and Licht contributed songs as well, each with...

Choncy

20X MULTIPLIER

Feel It

From the foxhole of the Rust Belt, Choncy fleshes out a frenzied, multifaceted approach to punk with their sophomore album, 20X MULTIPLIER. The Cincinnati four-piece delivers an intoxicating 9-song 12” tinged with personality and dumb luck following Community Chest, their 2023 debut on Feel It Records. 20X MULTIPLIER was recorded to tape at The Bomb Shelter in Nashville by Joe and Jack Tellman, providing a raw and unhinged sound. Choncy hones in on their sonic persona by bridging the gaps between angular post-punk and abrasive hardcore, pushing their sound to its absolute limits. With a chaotic mix of relentless bass, sharp drums, splintering guitars, and off-kilter vocals, Choncy provides a glimpse into the grotesque realities of life. Lead single "Dead Meat" shows the group putting their own spin on contemporary punk, segueing into "Default", an anthem for those who will be forever indebted to the neoliberal institutions. The album is filled with profit margins, budget cuts, and man-made horrors beyond your comprehension. Choncy’s 20X MULTIPLIER displays a maniacal yet ingenious approach to punk that can only be compared to hitting a slot machine jackpot or maybe committing tax fraud and running for the Secretary of Defense. Let this record be a proclamation of what could have been - if only they knew the right numbers to pick.

Follies, The

Permanent Present Tense

Feel It

A new beginning with familiar roots. No matter how you slice it, Permanent Present Tense is a high test trek to the forefront of rock'n'roll's boundless canvas. The Follies have spent a collective lifetime in dark, amplified dives (see: Vanity, Vexx, Ajax, Twisted Thing for more) but their approach here is different, and firmly rooted in the present. Sure, these ten tracks have that compact, New-York-Fuckin'-City drive that's innate to the five boroughs, but let's talk about the sheer quality songwriting and arrangement on display here. Permanent Present Tense has both the roots and the refinement that transcend the usual debut album. Fashion and genre are thrown down the fire escape in favor of memorable hooks and words that have immense replay value. Think Love and Arthur Lee, or even the Kinks' own Arthur. Brit pop & pub rock shouldered up to the shimmering guitar jangle of Haight-Ashbury, but arranged by Punks. Perhaps you'll remember this album differently, but the one sticking point to the Follies is their collective ability to synthesize the past into the present throughout ten utterly bulletproof tracks.

Crack Cloud

Crackin' Up - Live In London

Meat Machine

Half multimedia art studio, half experimental musical group—the Vancouver-based collective better known as Crack Cloud took over Evolutionary Arts Hackney with their massiv genre-bending sound in October 2022. Fresh from the release of their sophomore record Tough Baby, this performance with six-piece choir and strings (the band totaled seventeen on stage), for one night only was recorded and documented on film and presented here as Crack Cloud - Crackin Up Live In London. A legendary band at a legendary venue.

Southworth, John

When you're this, this in love

Tin Angel

When you're this, this in love is the thirteenth studio album from John Southworth following the release of his previous musical film, novel and podcast Rialto and the critically acclaimed Niagara. With When you're this, this in love he put all his signature sounds together so if somebody was going to ask what record of his they should listen to then this would be a good start because it has all his styles of song done pretty good on it. He mostly sings folk songs sometimes dressed up as lounge ballads, rock nocturnes, classical chansons, time traveling, lucid, jazzy feeling pop songs too. It might irk the base of your taste or the taste of your base. But it's not so contrarian as that. His songs are pleas. Laments. Jean Martin – drums and percussion Justin Orok – acoustic guitar, electric guitar, lap steel guitar John Southworth – vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, keyboards Ben Whiteley – bass with: Kevin Breit – electric guitar on "Wondering what went wrong" Rebecca Hennessy – accordion on "Tiny Tim" and "Vow;" trumpet on "Time to unwind;" peck horn on "Vow" Aline Homzy – violin on "Vow" and "Down in the under" Felicity Williams – vocals on "Angel landing" Jesse Zubot – violin on "Vertigo" and "Heroes of Eros"