New Releases

Guilty Razors

Complete Recordings - 1978

Born Bad

***Guilty Razors, Parisian punk band (1975-1978). To understand something about their somewhat linear but very energetic sound, we might need to talk about the context in which it was born and, more broadly, recall the boredom (a theme that would become capital in punk songs) coupled with the desire to blow everything off, which were the basis for the formation of bands playing a rejuvenated rock music; about the passion for a few records by the Kinks or the early Who, by the Stooges, by the Velvet mostly, which set you apart from the crowd. In 1975-76, French music was, as almost always, in a sorry state; it was still dominated by Johnny Hallyday and Sylvie Vartan. Local rock music was also rather bleak, apart from Bijou and Little Bob who tried to revive this small scene with poorly sound-engineered gigs played to almost no one. In the working class suburbs at the time, it was mainly hard rock music played to 11 that helped people forget about their grueling shifts at the factory. It makes sense that the four+1 members of Guilty Razors, who initially amplified acoustic guitars with crappy tape recorder microphones, would adopt punk music (pronounced paink in French) naturally and instinctively, since it combines liberating noise with speed of execution and—crucially—a very healthy sense of rebellion. Anything that could challenge authority was fair game and of course, strikes for just about any reason would lead to increasingly frequent truancy (with a definitive farewell to education that...

Lay, Shannon

Past The Veil

All The Best

***"Shannon Lay’s seraphic voice and fingerpicking has long been a guiding spirit—a compassionate steward of tender hearts and minds. For the last decade, her music has tendered a retreat from one’s worries, and created a refuge out of delicate and minimalist arrangements. With her new studio album, Past the Veil, she proffers the same care and understanding, and a similar emotional timbre, but from an entirely different sonic vantage point. Rather than weaving a safe cocoon in which listeners may hide out, Past the Veil rips it apart, offering a bold invitation to move through our discomfort and uncertainty. It is the sound of rebirth. It is a chance to stand up, join together, and maybe even dance."—Erin Osmon. Co-Written and Produced by Rob Shelton at Altamira Sound in Alhambra, CA.

Hayes, Liam

Dancing Backwards

Weird Vacation

A brand new album from acclaimed American musical artist Liam Hayes (Plush). Liam Hayes is an acclaimed American musical artist known for his songwriting and uncompromising approach to making records.Hayes’ songs are recognized for their exquisite melodies, poetic lyrics and distinctive vocals. He’s released seven albums, two singles and a soundtrack, and applies his craftsmanship to a variety of genres from orchestrated pop to stripped down rock. Comparisons to Brian Wilson, Laura Nyro, Carole King, Harry Nilsson, Badfinger (and even Prince) are numerous. His music takes the best of radio and stellar classic pop records of the 60’s and 70’s and brings it into the present.Along with making records Hayes has appeared on screen performing his music in High Fidelity (directed by Stephen Frears) and A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III (directed by Roman Coppola) which he also wrote the soundtrack for.His latest album, Dancing Backwards, sees Liam stepping through the shadows in his life and into a new musical day.Reunited with legendary arranger TOM TOM 2084 (Chi-Lites, Phil Collins), and in this, their first production for Hayes are TOM’s son, Terrence Washington and multi-instrumentalist / producer / arranger Vincent Carlo.

Riviera Gaz

Catacroma

Vampire Blues

Multi-national trio Riviera Gaz (Gustavo Riviera of Forgotten Boys, Paulo Kishimoto of Pitty, Forgotten Boys, and Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth) have pieced together a psychedelic collective consciousness where fuzzy riffs, glam rock energy, fearless studio experimentation, and Can-inspired grooves all melt together to form new unstable elements. The group’s second album Catacroma elevates their sound even further, intentionally avoiding sterile digital recording crutches and instead using extensive editing and mixing to shape the songs into sprawling cosmic experiences. The album is a hall of fun house mirrors where killer songs break apart and come back together organically, never taking expected turns and always ending up somewhere even more interesting than where they began.

Xelta

B.D.S.M.

Körperspannung

Bézier’s Body Tension / Körperspannung enters its second year with ‘B.D.S.M.’, the debut recording from XELTA—a new collaboration between vocalist and performer Sharlese Metcalf and producer Bruno Coviello, known for his bliscord project and former work alongside Light Asylum and more recently composer for the film’s soundtrack ‘My Brother’s Killer’—which recently premiered at SXSW.This EP is five tracks of precision-engineered industrial, EBM, and darkwave. The music carries the body-first ferocity of Front 242 and Nitzer Ebb—pulse-driven, commanding, relentless—but filtered through something distinctly femme: a leather-gloved hand on the frequency dial. Think the dancefloor of a Chicago Medusa night, 1987. Think ritual. Think consent as choreography.B.D.S.M. opens the record with a power exchange already in motion. Metcalf's vocals arrive as commands—spoken, precise, syncopated against a delay echo that throws each word back like an afterimage. Coviello's production doesn't accompany her; it responds. Call and response as dominance and submission, built into the architecture of the music itself.EXQUISITE S3RVIC3 is the record's most visceral moment—percussion that punctuates the air like a crack of leather, rhythm used not as framework but as sensation. There is genuine playfulness here beneath the intensity, a knowing wit running through the whipcrack and chain. It hurts in the best way and knows it.MYY KONTROLL offers a brief reprieve—not a release, but a change of register. The pace pulls back, the approach becomes more deliberate, more methodical. The intensity doesn't leave; it migrates into melody and rhythm and texture, held there with a tighter grip than anything that...

Altarage

Cogwheel

Sentient Ruin Laboratories

***Basque experimental death metal behemoths Altarage return to crush the earth under their gargantuan hooves of dissonance. Packing in a staggering one hour and fourteen minutes of tectonic extreme metal upheaval, their seventh full length album "Cogwheel" not only represents the longest, and most imposing work in their career, but also their most defiant and visionary. Since 2015, and across six genre-defining full length releases and the spawning of countless imitators, Altarage have brilliantly and mercilessly ploughed through the barriers of convention and tradition, setting in motion one of the most revolutionary ruptures in recent death metal history, and redefining the very architecture of heaviness and of their long standing dual mandate of destruction through transformation, and transformation through destruction. "Cogwheel" reinvents this dismal trajectory once again, representing yet another rift in Altarage's enigmatic and oppressive conquest for innovation. Tempos slow down, forms sprawl, deconstruct and convulse. Abstraction and morphing compositional frameworks expand. Echoes of Swans, Sunn O))), Scott Walker and Godflesh accrete into structural elements while lyrical themes and concepts mirror this process of rehumanization, shifting from the supernatural and the imaginary, to real, blood-pumping societal struggle that embodies the very notion of suffering and anger inside the cogwheel of transactional industry slavery. And at the center of all of this, always them: the riffs. The eternal centerpiece and engine to Altarage's tyrannical decade-long conquest. Colossal, implacable, inescapable uranium-depleted hammers of creation and destruction, demolishing and flattening everything in their wake. Conventions and their vestiges, wiped off the earth....

I Will Die In This Jean Jacket

Hang From A Cloud

Swami

I Will Die In This Jean Jacket is a testimony of how the lines between commitment and attachments are often blurred. It is the new gloom-punk project from Jim Blaha (The Blind Shake, Green/Blue). Blaha has collaborated with luminaries including Michael Yonkers, John Reis, Shannon Selberg, Dale Flattum and Zak Sally and has released records on Goner, Castle Face, Dirtnap, Hozac, Feel It, Slovenly and Swami. On Hang From A Cloud he concludes over three years of artistic solitude by heading back into the basement to create in an even deeper state of isolation. Formed in Minneapolis this past December, the late-night sessions gradually revealed a concept: capturing the feeling he had from the mixtapes a friend used to make during their teenage skateboarding years—where late ’70s post punk sat comfortably alongside the more exposed underground sounds of the ’80s and ’90s and every song seemed to come from the same hazy, imaginary city somewhere far, far away.Recording onto a 1/4” tape machine and mixing everything down to the all important cassette, Blaha emerged with an indiffussable sound. Hang From A Cloud is a long-lost pirate radio transmission from an alternate 1980s universe. The album is entirely analog by design. Guitars, vocals, drums, drum machines and bass all captured on cobbled together equipment in a cinder block bunker on a frigid midwest, winter night. There is a one dimensional resonance with a sheen of distortion and rust that is betrayed by the direct and simplistic beauty of the songwriting. Hang...

Swami John Reis

Navajo White

Swami

Navajo White is a color. It’s the color of an off white, interior, house paint. Throughout his teens into adulthood, John Reis was as a house painter by trade. The soiled walls of evacuated apartments was his canvas. Here he would cover up the residue of life’s stains with a fresh coat of the beige, human white-out that is Navajo White. Amongst the vacated, drywall chambers littered with the scant detritus of a fleeing existence is where this record began. It started as road noise, a repetitious hum of a fictional dialogue. A languageless, argument of noise that took shape as a disconnect between two people. They are both barricaded by an impenetrable surface tension that harbors the distortion of their prolonged isolation from the world beyond their self imposed exile. For all that can’t be solved or thrown away here’s a thick coat of Navajo White to cover our tracks as if to say “we were never here and this never happened.” This is the fifth Swami John Reis album and features Jason Kourkounis (Hot Snakes, Delta 72, Night Marchers) on drums as well as contributions from Rick Froberg (Hot Snakes, Drive Like Jehu, Obits) on guitar, Gar Wood (Hot Snakes, Tanner, Night Marchers) on bass, Joe Guevara (Jejune, Swami and the Bed Of Nails) on piano and keyboards and Rob Crow (Pinback, PLOSIVS) and Jacob Turnbloom (Mrs. Magician) on backing vocals. Taking musical cues from later period Wipers, the more low key Saints songs, early recordings of The...

Odyssey Cult, The

Vol. 3

Silver Current

“The Odyssey Cult Volume 3 ignites visceral fires of fuzz, pumped-up motorik, shimmering noise and hazy vocals, just in time to send up the last intoxicating smoke of summer. As for those of us still piecing our skulls back together after the ecstatic ’90s-pummel of Ethan Miller’s previous project (the zonked supergroup of Orcutt Shelley Miller), we forgive ourselves for not anticipating this, a meltdown-psych re-fusion of Ethan and Ben Flashman, two of the principals in Comets On Fire, the premier purveyors of early-aughts American guitar mayhem. “Featuring Ethan Miller (Howlin Rain, Heron Oblivion) on guitar, loops, vocals, Ben Flashman (Comets On Fire) on bass, Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth) on drums, Anthony Taibi (Carlton Melton/White Manna) on keys, Zoh Amba on sax and Brigid Dawson (OSEES), Paula Frazer (Tarnation), Inna Showalter (Magic Fig) on vocals. “Miller and company layer psychedelic murk of the highest order into a neon rock monolith, its components spanning coasts and generations of musicians. Depending what angle you look at it, Volume 3 glitters with facets reflecting all corners of sonic psychedelia, fusing the best of all post-hippy/punk eras, complete with earworms that sound equally great by the pool, on headphones, or blasting in the sled cruising down the 5, the 10, or whatever freeway of your dreams. Whether or not you’ve heard Orcutt Shelley Miller, Comets On Fire, Tarnation, or the OSEES, this LP stands out like a life buoy (or, occasionally, a shark fin) in a sea of wax.” —Tom Carter

Cuticles

More Joy

Siltbreeze

With the breakout enthusiasm for the Cuticles debut LP, 'Major Works' back in 2023, Siltbreeze could hardly wait for a followup, & here it is. Entitled 'More Joy' it more than lives up to its name. The ensuing years have seen some changes however; gone is Lisa Preston (Nux Vomica, The Portage) & in her place has come Albert King (keys 'n git ) + vocalist & poly instrumentalist/whip snapper, Folina Vili. So the names have changed, but the attack is still rapid fire, gnarled pop corkers, 21 this time to be exact. Should you be totally unfamiliar, imagine an enlightened Dunedin Sound on Adderall; the chassis might resemble 80's Doublehappys or Goblin Mix, but that hemi'd combustion is firing straight up Cuticles 2026 horsepower. Warts & all, never looking back, 'More Joy' is roaring straight for thine skull & you could do worse than hop on & enjoy the ride. It's a doozy.

Arnocorps

Big Noodle Energy

Alternative Tentacles

Alternative Tentacles Records is proud to present Big Noodle Energy, the new double A-side from ArnoCorps.There are bands that are funny. There are bands that are heavy. There are bands that build genuine community around a shared, joyful mythology. ArnoCorps has spent 25 years being all three at once—and doing it better than anyone.The premise is this: ArnoCorps are Austrian expat action hero musicians. Their ancient alpine folklore, heroic legends of survival, strength, and defiance, has been brazenly exploited by Hollywood and, as this release makes clear, by Japanese megacorporations. The band exists to reclaim those legends and deliver them the way they were meant to be heard: as Action-Adventure Hardcore Rock 'n' Roll. If those legends happen to bear a striking resemblance to the filmography and commercial work of Arnold Schwarzenegger, that is a matter for the press to foolishly debate.Here's what is not up for debate: ArnoCorps is a real band, with a real catalog, a ferocious live show, and a global audience that has been showing up with face paint, camouflage, and smiles for over two decades. They have earned a perfect 10/10 from the BBC. Kerrang! called them enough to leave Manowar sweating in their loincloths. Metal Hammer said they were the most fun live show you could imagine. Alternative Tentacles does not sign gimmicks. We sign bands.Big Noodle Energy features two new tracks. "Alinamin Bui” is the world’s first song sung entirely in Japanese with a ballsy Austrian accent. It is a driving anthem of...

Dupree, Alex

Talking to the Dog

Scissor Tail Editions

“Hank Williams once said that writing a song is just talking to the dog. That little piece of absurdist wisdom has become a title and guiding principle for Alex Dupree’s latest LP.“What does it mean? Hank was likely just promoting his then-hit single “Move It On Over” to a radio interviewer. But Alex’s answers veer quickly into the mystical and visionary. He is a poet of rare composure and grace, and maybe for the first time in his 20+ year career, he’s found the band, the chords, and the arrangements to inject an almost inconceivable richness of color into his musical ideas.“The result is a legitimate mid-career masterpiece that announces Alex as a talent capable of equaling the brilliance of Cass McCombs, Bill Callahan, Neko Case, Ryan Davis, Joanna Newsom, Will Oldham, and other leaders of modern song.“You can throw a rock at Talking to the Dog and anywhere it lands you will find something inspired and kinetic. “Voyager Blues” channels the blurry but assured ecstasy of Jim Sullivan’s U.F.O.. “New Meaning” has a fucked up, hearty wistfulness to it that lives somewhere between the tender, booze-soaked domesticity of Music from Big Pink and the wiry, cosmic range of Gene Clark’s No Other. And “Zodiac” rides the hallucinatory astral plane that David Crosby blissfully floated on throughout If I Could Only Remember My Name.“You might think I’m crazy to compare a relatively unknown forty-something year old songwriter’s output to some of the greatest guitar-led songwriter records in collective memory. I’m...

Darlynn

Dyke Den

Dark Entries

***Dark Entries is proud to host Darlynn’s debut album, Dyke Den. Darlynn is an Oakland-based duo composed of Daria Lourd (aka Bored Lord) and her wife, vocalist Jaelynn Walls. Dyke Den is a lesbian love story about two creative individuals finding each other and themselves through effusive and contemplative sonic avenues. Created in their home over the course of two years, this album speaks to the journey of Daria and Jaelynn’s romantic relationship as well as their evolving combined creative impulses.On Dyke Den, Darlynn display their influences—from Janet Jackson and Sly & the Family Stone, to Frankie Knuckles and Larry Levan—in a sophisticated, fully realized, and overtly queered fashion. Joyous dancefloor moments are abundant. Tracks like “Make Yr Move” and “Like A Summer” celebrate deep house vibes a la Alleviated Records, while sultry R&B moves are flexed on “Girl 2 Girl” and “Alright With Me.” But longing and yearning exist within this joyous arc, and the question arises: “How can I get you to love me?” More than an idealistic narrative of girl meets they/them, Dyke Den paints a portrait of love in all its multifaceted moments: the bids for commitment, the stagnation of years going by, the wormholes of desire. Yet the album maintains its thesis of hope. The sweet, layered harmonies of closing song “Love Letter” display the power of life partnership: “My whole life is a love letter to you.” Dyke Den features artwork by Hailee Va in a sleeve designed by Eloise Shir-Juen Leigh. Darlynn’s final...

Grandma Love

Grandma Love

Constellation Tatsu

***Setting aside the dread-soaked UK atmosphere of his Karkossyn moniker, Tavis Hitchcock introduces Grandma Love. In stark contrast to his previous work, Grandma Love welcomes listeners home for a warm, hearty stew just before the streetlights come on. Drawing from childhood nostalgia, Cornish summers, and family day trips, Hitchcock pulls the plug on a reservoir of mood and atmosphere that sits somewhere between post-club sofa lounging and early morning coffee mug steam.Following his appearance on Northfield Records' Gilbert Road EP with the track "A2," this self-titled debut album dawns the opening chapter in the Grandma Love story. Filled with field recordings, delicate percussion, washed-out pads, and fragments of home-video VHS recordings, the album opens a time capsule of lost memories, coastal daydreams, and a longing for a time washed far away with the tide.

Sachi's Mirror

Talking in a Different Way

Constellation Tatsu

***Talking in a Different Way is the debut full-length release of sachi’s mirror, the creative alias of multi-instrumentalist, producer, and composer Shaina Pan. Melding disparate elements of ambient, electronic, dream-pop, and avant-garde classical, Pan beckons us into sonic worlds equally enigmatic and emotive.Across a collection of self-produced songs and vignettes that began to take form during a month-long residency in Vallejo, CA in the spring of 2025, she explores a theme of constant and quiet evolution, posing the question: What are we if the world we were born into no longer exists? How do we relate to one another and ourselves? Using field recordings and looped textures as sonic blueprints, she patiently constructs dimly lit, spiraling paths that simultaneously churn inward towards memory and outward towards the cosmos.Pan studied violin performance at Indiana University and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, specializing in contemporary classical music. After nearly two decades of performing in classical ensembles, Pan left the path to becoming a symphony violinist, burnt out and frustrated by a culture of rigidity. She settled in Oakland where she eventually began writing and performing in post-punk quartet Juicebumps.Emboldened by her peers in the Bay Area scene, she found herself shifting towards composition and improvisation, using her violin, voice, and laptop to explore electroacoustic composition. From those efforts emerged room to receive, her 2025 debut EP on Cone Shape Top Imprint. Talking in a Different Way arrives one year later on Constellation Tatsu, a woozy 35-minute spell sparkling with the same...

Takahashi, H.

Body Trip (Remixed & Remastered)

Constellation Tatsu

***Originally released in 2016 on Constellation Tatsu, Body Trip introduced Japanese ambient composer H.Takahashi’s quietly immersive approach to minimal electronic composition. Built from delicate synth tones, meditative repetition, and understated melodic movement, the album has become a lasting favorite within contemporary ambient circles.Over the past decade, Takahashi has developed an internationally respected body of work spanning releases such as Raum, Low Power, Escapism, Elegy, and Paleozoic. Beyond his solo output, he has collaborated through projects including UNKNOWN ME, ATORIS, and H TO O, contributed music for installations and exhibitions, and performed throughout Japan’s experimental and ambient music communities.Body Trip (Remixed & Remastered) revisits the original 2016 album with a newly remastered edition alongside reinterpretations from a cross-generational group of contemporary electronic artists. The collection connects H. Takahashi’s meditative ambient language with artists working across contemporary experimental electronics, dub-informed minimalism, ambient techno, and modern new age composition, extending the album’s original aesthetic into a broader contemporary context. Fans and listeners have frequently described Takahashi’s music as calming, minimal, comforting, and deeply transportive, with recent online discussions continuing to highlight Body Trip and Escapism as standout works in modern Japanese ambient music.

V/a

Sweet Peace

Mississippi

***Amazing blues field recordings made by Bengt Olsson in the late 1970's! Stunning songs, 80% of which are completely unreleased until now. Blues like you've never heard them. Rocking, contemplative, deep and wide. Comes in an old school "tip on' cover.

V/a

Wouldn't Be Ready To Go

Mississippi

***Amazing blues field recordings made by Bengt Olsson in the late 1970's! Stunning songs, 80% of which are completely unreleased until now. Blues like you've never heard them. Rocking, contemplative, deep and wide. Comes in an old school "tip on' cover.

Duffy X Uhlmann

Hot Creek

Orindal

***The second collaboration between guitarists Meg Duffy (Hand Habits, Perfume Genius) & Gregory Uhlmann (Extra Stars, SML). Moving deeper into the duo's improvisatory musical language & dream-like effects processing, Hot Creek moves like water across thirteen kinetic yet soothing instrumental tracks.

Rahaty

Bestial Lustmord

Sentient Ruin Laboratories

***Rahaty is the alter ego of Belarusian raw black metal tomb-walker Pa Vesh En, here wielding the unholy hellfires of death metal's most deranged and enigmatic frontier. Convergent evolution through common origin and a shared creative reclusiveness, have ensured the preservation of Pa Vesh En's familiar sonic septic fog, but far more violent intents have ensured the gruesome rise of Rahaty through unceremonious realms of brutality. Here proclaimed is thus an unholy conquest within death metal's most pestilent drift, disgorged from beyond the shreds of sanity. Putrid atmospheres drenched in sickness. Downpours of death-reeking riffs collapsing into mangled, deformed aberrations. A tectonic rhythm section rupturing into seismic deflagrations, and a bestial vocal regurgitation retching obscenities through the disemboweled carcass of oblivion. Where Drawn and Quartered, Profanatica, and Imprecation had already established a violent frontier for death metal's most vile instincts, Rahaty extends that wretched shadow further, tracing the ghastly lineaments of death metal's most violent and deranged deviations.

Orcutt, Bill

Four Louies Live

Fake Estates

“Upon seeing the Instagram post announcing the upcoming LP release of Bill Orcutt’s The Four Louies, an inspired mashup plonking excerpts from Steve Reich’s epochal Minimalist slo-mo phase variant Four Organs onto the Kingsmen’s equally canonical garage/frat/mumblecore chestnut 'Louie Louie,' I immediately commented 'Kingsreich as opposed to Qüeensryche' (not even realizing the Kingsmen and Qüeensryche both hailed from the Pacific Northwest). My bon mot was seemingly rewarded with a mailed copy, and upon receipt I luxuriated in Bill’s latest open-source leveling of rock and classical minimalist tropes, a worthy successor to A Mechanical Joey’s tautological tomfoolery. I was jazzed when a year or so later he inquired if I would be up for taking part in Louies live in New York. I wasn’t sure how familiar Bill was with my checkered history of untutored organ playing (both in Run On and solo contexts, not to mention a short-lived go at the pipe organ with Connie Burg and Haino Keiji), but he also tapped fellow guitarists/non-organists Wendy Eisenberg, Mari Maurice, and Cyrus Pireh, plus a couple of ringers (David Golightly and musical director Eli Knowles). So that’s already six organs instead of four, flanked by a full-fledged rock trio (the nimble Gumby’s Junk), a noise-tablist (Bryan Day), master percussionist William Winant, and frequent Orcutt sparring partner Chris Corsano—a veritable Orcuttstra, whose ranks exceeded the lineups of the Kingsmen and Qüeensryche put together.With the performance scheduled as the fulcrum of a three-day weekend residency of various artists/projects on Bill’s label (which I...

Jay-Z

Magna Carta Holy Grail (Gatefold Edition)

Third Man

***JAY Z's twelfth studio album, Magna Carta… Holy Grail, is now pressed on two 180 gram LP's, heavy as the material carved into them, complete with a printed lyric insert, poetic as the gatefold it's slipped in between.Most exciting about this double LP is certainly the concealed postcard flexi disc hidden within the back cover and only accessible to those willing to take a knife to the iconic packaging. Once freed of its casing, this flexi disc plays a super secret hidden track. You'll just have to hear it for yourself, because we sure don't plan to ruin the mystery of it here.

Steve

Out Of The Closet

Dark Entries

Dark Entries helps Suzanne Ciani come out of the closet as Steve! Legendary composer, sound designer, and Buchla maestra Suzanne Ciani has a staggering list of accolades and accomplishments, from scoring Hollywood films to releasing influential new age records to literally designing the Coca-Cola bottle-opening sound. In the late 70s/early 80s, Ciani, while living in New York, acquired an Eventide H 949 harmonizer, which offered high fidelity pitch-shifting. In her words, “When I adjusted the pitch of my voice to 0.80, my natural voice became re-invented as what was clearly a gay man, who I called Steve. I became Steve; and Steve expressed himself as only he could.” Ciani adopted the male persona and collaborated with Peter Baumann of Tangerine Dream on “Steve Goes to a Party.” The track features Ciani-as-Steve ad-libbing in decadent and delirious fashion alongside Baumann’s robotically funky beats. Steve would emerge again a few years later at George Louvis’s Stardust Studios in New Jersey, to create “Steve Saves the World,” an absurdist and ecstatic proto-house groover complete with a gospel-esque chorus from the Stardust All-Stars. This EP is rounded out by a birthday wish to Ciani’s then-boyfriend Alfred on “Steve Happy Birthday Wishes” featuring Suzanne. Steve’s Out of the Closet perfectly captures the delirious techno-poptimism of the 1980s downtown avant-garde, with parallels in Robert Ashley’s Perfect Lives or Lynn Goldsmith’s project Will Powers, responsible for the track “Adventures in Success.” The Steve sleeve was designed by Eloise Shir-Juen Leigh, and the record also includes a birthday...

Amram, Adam

Tribulations

Nudie Records

***Tribulations, the essential second long-play album on Nudie Records from New York’s radical bard and versifier Adam Amram weaves nylon guitar, fuzz and wah-wah pedal steel, piano, bass, drums, with luscious three-part harmonies and a lonesome lead vocal.From a Broadway loft beside the J train to the side alleys of Manhattan, Amram’s soulful country beat poetry chronicles the endeavor of reaching for love and connection in times of great tribulation. A record shaped by tension, release, and the turn of a cycle where garage rock spirit meets 70s soul, this is essential cosmic folk storytelling creating modern American mythology.About Adam AmramAdam Amram, son of renowned composer David Amram, blends folk, jazz, classical, and world influences in his Americana songwriting. A longtime Bushwick, Brooklyn resident, he helped shape the local music scene. His debut album, To the End , came out in June 2025 on Nudie Records. Amram’s signature cosmic folk sound blends clear-eyed storytelling with a deep knowledge and history of American music and showcases a unique style and heartfelt sensibility.

Pig Rides

Rides Again, Again

Color And Time Tonight

***Five songs. This is PIG RIDES’ vinyl debut and follow up to Demo 2024 and the These People Are Not Your Friends cassette EP. Demented hardcore from this Cleveland/Youngstown, OH band, consiting of past and current members of KILL THE HIPPIES, SOCKEYE, MUZZLE, PILL TIME, TV DRUGS, WILD WINGS, BRODY’s MILITIA, HYPER AS HELL. Pig Rides “...plants their flag firmly in the Poison Idea / Negative Approach camp, with a precision and wall of sound...”—Tony Party

Exclaim

Fusillade

General Speech

***Operating in Akita city, located in the far north of Japan’s big island, playing political hardcore punk influenced by bands like Discharge, Crucifix and Crass through a uniquely Japanese filter. Their sole appearance on record was a single track on Gauze’s Shodoku Gig LP from 1987, but the band had already gone into the studio 3 times from 1985-1986 and tracked close to 20 incredible songs for fans of metallic 80s style Japanese hardcore punk like G.I.S.M., Zouo, and Gastunk, inflected with occasion clean vocal parts, and shredding guitar leads. Fusillade compiles both of their 1986 recording sessions.CD version contains the tracks from the LP and Reality And Future 7”.

Exclaim

Reality And Future

General Speech

***Never released 1985 sessions by this hardcore punk band operating in Akita city, Japan. Reality And Future is being presented as a limited companion to their full length masterpiece Fusillade, also released by General Speech. These tracks show Exclaim at their most urgent and primitive. Unfortunately the master tape saw some serious degradation in the years, and as this tape was never duplicated, or distributed, an attempt at restoring the master was the only option. As such, the audio here has some degradation issues that weren't fully fixable, but the strength of the tracks is enough to warrant pressing a few of these for fans to hear, rather than let the tracks go unheard forever. Pure 80s metallic hardcore punk like only Japan can produce. For fans of G.I.S.M., Zouo, and Gastunk, etc.

Margarets

Hi Tech Dinner

General Speech

***The MARGAReTS from Chiba City went into the 1990s with a mission to play noisy 77 style punk, and helped build a scene in Chiba City of incredible and underrated bands playing in a similar style of raw '70s punk like their close compatriots in Tokyo, The Registrators, but like Kyushu Punk, Chiba City wasn’t about to forget the fuzz of Disorder, and Chaotic Dischord. The MARGAReTS were undoubtedly torchbearers of this scene. Their Hi-Tech Dinner gigs, aesthetic, penchant for 70s fashion, and signature sound acted as a center point that would influence and build the Chiba Punk scene, eventually birthing bands like The C&C, Screaming Noise, Dust Noise, and dozens more. They gigged regularly, gaining a revered cult status, and recorded several times, but never managed to release a record. Hi-Tech Dinner is the career spanning MARGAReTS album featuring 18 of their best works which have been specifically remastered for vinyl to function as the album they were never able to release.CD version was separately mastered for digital - compiling all 4 of their rare recording sessions. 35 tracks and almost 80 minutes of music. Only a few lower fidelity compilation tracks are missing from this release. Pure Fuzzy Chiba City Punk!!

Michael Christmas, Chris Crack & Girl Talk

Don't Come To My House Sharing Your Location

Illegal Art

***On Don't Come To My House Sharing Your Location, Girl Talk links up with underground rap eccentrics Michael Christmas and Chris Crack. The project was largely recorded in Gillis’ hometown of Pittsburgh, where all three artists worked together in person, with additional sessions taking place in Boston and Chicago, the respective cities of Michael Christmas and Chris Crack. The trio have a natural chemistry throughout the EP, balancing humor with earnestness and braggadocio with self-awareness. Girl Talk took the loose and experimental appeal of Michael Christmas and Chris Crack's underground hip-hop and transformed it with colorful, detailed production and a sharp sense of songcraft. It's like a mutated version of a big-budget rap album, complete with ear-catching hooks; its crossover instincts are constantly warped by offbeat sensibilities. The result is a genuinely fun album built on irreverent wordplay, memorable refrains, inspired sample flips, and nonstop shit talking. Vinyl-only instrumentals of all six tracks are on the B side.

Special Forces

s/t

PNV

***Reissue of the 1987 debut full length from Special Forces, Berkeley hardcore's elite banner waving battalion. Originally released on the New Wave label from France in 1987, any stateside punk gourmand would be forgiven for not knowing about this underrated ripper's existence. The mid-80's were a wild period in USHC, with crossover, emo every other mutated subgenre rearing its ugly head; but good luck telling that to Special Forces, who only stripped their sound down more, delivering a front to back lean and mean, meat and potatoes assault on their debut album. Retaining the razorwire guitar sound of their debut EP, this album plays like a fragment from an alternate universe where Big Boys and Dead Kennedys ditched any of the artsy elements of their sound, and just went all in on speed. Fleshed out with a ton of droolworthy flyers and unreleased pics, any fan of "generic thrash" (to borrow a phrase) centered USHC needs this reissue.

Parts & Labor

Set Of All Sets

Ernest Jenning Record Co.

***After a 14-year hiatus, prismatic noise-punk fireworkers Parts & Labor, a beloved institution of Brooklyn's '00s underground, re-emerge with a double-drummer lineup and colossal double album. The 79-minute Set of All Sets is an expansive, blown-out gush of apocalypse-pop that imagines utopias and confronts the overwhelming weight of the infinite. Their first album since 2011, Set of All Sets finds the band re-energized, rebooted and expanding their punk-kosmische, matching their skyscraping melodies and squelching electronics with hypnotic rhythms and frenzied tumbles of percussion. Parts & Labor co-founders Dan Friel and BJ Warshaw are joined by the simultaneous battery of drummers Christopher Weingarten and Joe Wong—asynchronous members during their critically acclaimed four-album run on indie rock titans Jagjaguwar. The power trios that made 2007's breakthrough Mapmaker and 2011's swan song Constant Future have merged into a single four-piece, at once a brand new vision, a clamorous continuation and a recapturing of the deafening sound of their "final" two shows in 2012. With eight weaponized limbs from two veteran drummers, Parts & Labor surges forth with rhythms inspired by Tanzanian singeli, ecstatic free improv and the motorik of vintage krautrock. Friel and Warshaw beam with the most majestic and triumphant melodies of their career, windswept cascades of bubblegum Boredoms and Big-Music-gone-hardcore. Pressed on fluorescent pink vinyl and housed on mirrored gatefold jackets.

Destruct / Absolut

Deafen and Disarm

Acute Noise Manufacture

***Finally, after years of talks over many blue drinks and pints of Guinness, we have the long-awaited split EP between Canadian raw metal punks, ABSOLUT, and Richmond’s DESTRUCT. As the first new Absolut vinyl release in many years, these three songs demonstrate the extreme, over-the-top metal punk à la The Clay or Ghoul that we have all grown to love and expect in their prolific catalog. Similarly, Destruct continues to march forward in the maximum distortion style of their current Noise Room era. Following both the Svaveldioxid split 7” and Life split 12”, this new EP was also shaped in collaboration with the prolific Tokyo recording studio. All sleeve artwork drawn by SUGI. The singular shared message from both bands is simple: Deafen and Disarm. We look forward to a day that marks an end to Western imperialism, interventionism, and hegemony.

Himukalt

Torn Asunder : The Half Girl

Helen Scarsdale Agency

***Power Electronics, for the most part, stays within its lanes of transgressive misanthropy, with a blackened explosiveness of tortured psyches and nightmarish reflections for the darkest facets of the human condition. Since Whitehouse introduced the phrase, concept, and framework to Power Electronics, its authorship has been primarily male. But within the past decade or so, a diverse web of voices - female, feminist, non-binary, queer - has thrust the PE aesthetic beyond that of the tortured male artist. As such, the notion that Power Electronics is synonymous with true crime worship, political ugliness, degraded sexual fantasies, and misogynistic perspectives has been somewhat dispelled (though many still pursue such ignoble agendas). Enter Ester Kärkkäinen. For close to a decade now, she has developed her own voice, tread her own path, and exorcised her own demons in her unique take on Power Electronics, recording as Himukalt. A Power Electronics album based on the collapse of a relationship is probably not as uncommon as one might think. The sexual violence portrayed through Power Electronics may very well have had its origins in the heartbroken, scorned, or otherwise romantically mistreated. Kärkkäinen gives us two very different perspectives on these themes through two rather different sounding records. There is Last Wish from the plague year of 2020, and there is Torn Asunder: The Half Girl, recorded in 2019. Where the 2020 record is a long-form fever dream of the erotic gone horribly wrong and turned morally questionable, Torn Asunder is the more fractured, yet more...

Bishop, Sir Richard

Hillbilly Erotica

Drag City

***Guitar lord Sir Richard Bishop: ‘one guitar, six strings, no overdubs, 7/8ths improvised, 1/8 composed’ are the terms for a faux vol 2 of speculative Hillbilly music, a psychotic mash of inspired modal post-grass recitals, inherited recollections and new national anthems. Revisiting his pa’s ol’ Tennessee home, Rick’s picks are steel-string mayhem on the tracks, American music at its most gorgeous/literal/violent. And you can dance to it! Are y’all ready for some Hillbilly Erotica?

Askew, Ed

The Final Painting

Drag City

***In his last years of life, poet/painter/songwriter Ed Askew worked again with his producer on 2013’s remarkable For the World album, Jerry David DeCicca, to create an evocative new set of songs, which would become The Final Painting. The twilight energy is at once lush and minimal, with contributions from Sharon Van Etten, Eve Searls, Canaan Faulkner, Bill Callahan, William Tyler, Ryan Jewell, Dustin Laurenzi, Fulvio Sigurta & Trevor Nikrant from Ryan Davis's Roadhouse Band. Bracing meditation on romance and the slow shuffle off our mortal coil.

Riedl, Paul

Ocean Of Peace

SFI Recordings

***A colored vinyl edition of the 2023 Ocean Of Peace album from Paul Riedl (Blood Incantation, Spectral Voice, Leech, hanging moss). Another gem of magical ambient soundscapes.

Prison

Big Rigs on the BQE

Drag City

***Prison hits the road album, riding two massive jams across altered routes of consciousness a la the allegorical and literal heavy traffic of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, visible from the windows of the studio in which Big Rigs on the BQE was recorded! The requisite Prison gear, guitars, bass and drums plus synth & FX, coughs out exhaust flavored with Groundhogs / Velvets / Hampton’s / Pink Fairies / Magic Band / Good Rats / Can. An improvised rock and roll tapestry, gas ‘n guitar pedal on down to the metal.

Mondoriviera

La Laguna Dei Bei Sogni

Not Not Fun

The latest by Rimini riddler Lorenzo Camera aka Mondoriviera refracts his burnt vapor mutant sound design into a melted palette of hypnagogic guitar, funhouse keys, wormhole FX, and narcotic crooning: La Laguna Dei Bei Sogni (“The Lagoon of Beautiful Dreams”). Inspired by an episode of a 70’s Italian cartoon about a fugitive ex-army officer delirious with yellow fever on a paradisal South American island surrounded by stolen money and perplexed indigenous villagers, the songs stir an appropriately manic and hallucinatory mood. Layers of guitars and voice sway and surf in a smog of memory and melody, punched up with curveball rompler samples (metallic percussion, monster growls, UFO sirens), then processed through a cheap Zoom FX pedal to tie it all together. The result is a hazy alien odyssey of fever dream pop, flashback glam, and lo-fi teleportation, rippled by sunset breezes across the Adriatic. Mastered by Jared Carrigan. Design by Britt Brown.

Hulder

Verbolgen

20 Buck Spin

Answering the call of the ancestral fires and forest spirits, Hulder returns with its third full length statement Verbolgen. Over the course of those three albums, Hulder has evolved from the vision of a solitary black metal entity into something more expansive and collaborative, though still guided by the strident vision of its creator and namesake. On Verbolgen long-time session member Necreon steps forward to join Hulder as full-fledged co-conspirator, amplifying the duos sweeping solemnity.Across nine tracks, Verbolgen deepens Hulder’s characteristic balance of scathing black metal and windswept melancholy through increasingly layered arrangements and ritualistic atmosphere. Whether with the brutal immediacy of “View from Nemeton” or the ceremonial mid-paced summoning of “In Blood and In Earth,” Hulder’s signature sound is more immense and malevolent than ever. Joined on session drums by both Vapula (the band’s live drummer) and Vrolok of the legendary Aeternus as well as live second guitar player Keld (Majesties, Obsequiae), who here contributes additional leads, keys and hurdy gurdy, the Hulder universe widens its collaborative disposition to a new creative level.As with the previous album Verses In Oath the mix has been handled by Ahti Kortelainen at Tico Tico Studio in Finland, giving the album an earthy resonance befitting its obsessions with blood, landscape and spiritual inheritance. Verbolgen also features cover art created by Morrigan of Aeternus, her first cover work since contributing art for the earliest Aeternus LPs nearly thirty years ago. The result is a towering and immersive work that cements Verbolgen as the most...

Team Work

Somebody's Gotta Do It

Feel It

"We've almost forgotten what it feels like, the internet internetting in old-timey ways. Ways where people from far away places meet over a shared interest, and truly meet. Team Work formed this way. They found each other via the soundcloud accounts of their bands, Lise of Maraudeur texting from Leipzig and Ronni of Marances from Baton Rouge. And while it sounds cliché, somebody's gotta do it really does feel like they have been playing together all their lives.There are muscular bass lines, crunchy, wood block injected drum patterns, softly delivered vocals, often dubbily processed, scroungy guitars and the juiciest tape loops you’ve ever heard. The span of dynamics on this record is huge: i burnt my tongue with f-icience this morning is a dance punk banger, bringing hues of ESG and the extremely likeable concept of not spelling out the forbidden f-iciency word. would we have a would-workshop feels like a 90ies acoustic guitar r’n’b classic, but thrifted, with sampled clock sounds as genius percussion replacement. Drones with beautifully sampled horns, unison vocal lines and a slo-mo motor beat as on the piper has a flashlight and organically complex riffs on three lung group chat, surprisingly empty cart and (bring more this time). And in between, field recordings turned tracks.On horse eating an apple, Team Work sings 'if you think of making it perfect you will only lose your words'. This debut feels like the living proof of tricking your brain into letting the magic happen. Humble and badass at...