Upcoming Releases

King Automatic

Playing 6 Garage & Sixties Hits

Slovenly

***King Automatic makes cover like dirt across the grooves of this big-hole 10inch, taking classic tracks from bands as generationally distant as The Seeds and The Gories, transforming “Pushing Too Hard” and “Thunderbird ESQ” into perfectly effortless Jamaican rock steady, fortified with his signature drum machine, and multi-layered loop treatment. And what would a covers record from a French artiste be without paying respect to Mssr. Jacques Dutronc? His 1968 classic "L'augmentation" gets a 21st century rub-down to loosen up the kinks, and emerges revitalized for a daring new scene. The real madness, however, lies at the end of the programme, with an inverted version of “One Step Beyond” knocking the record’s concept on its head, as this 2 TONE classic is stripped of its syncopated nuttiness, summoned back to its roots, and emerges born again as pure rhythm‘n’beat. And this, fellow punk rudes, is how we’re demanding our rock’n’roll be delivered today… COPASETIC AND INTENSIFIED!

Ex Voto

Don't Look Back 1982 - 1990

Phantom Chord

***Loving reissue of unsung death rock heroes Ex Voto's 1990 12" EP Don't Look Back paired with a cavalcade of unreleased 80's material. The 80s SoCal death rock scene was anything but organized, hence a group like Ex Voto, who had been around in some form or another since 1982, making their vinyl debut in 1990. The group's Anglo influences are all fairly apparent—Sisters of Mercy, Alien Sex Fiend, Joy Division and the like—but the group puts the same distinctly Southern Californian spin on the sound as their peers Kommunity FK, Christian Death or VooDoo Church. There are even shades of EBM, anticipating the industrial boom of the dawning 90's. Highly recommended for any 80s gothic gourmands.

Belexum

s/t

Transylvanian Recordings

***A wild and wicked, frenetic and frantic, deadly death metal album. Featuring members of Cloak, Mystic Priestess, Eteraz & All Your Sisters. Recommended for fans of classick Gorguts, Immolation & Sacrilege! Presented on 180 gram vinyl!!

Guilty Strangers

Revenant

Transylvanian Recordings

***Spellbound Gothic Rock from the city of Angels. An infectious and mesmerizing exploration of gloomy melancholic music. Featuring a lineup composed of members 45 Grave & Egrets on Ergot. Recommended for fans of Siouxsie and the Banshees, Cocteau Twins & Lydia Lunch. Presented on 180 Gram vinyl.

Foster, Josephine

Adormidera - Josephine Foster Sings The Songs of Victor Herrero

Eiderdown Records

***Josephine Foster is a Colorado-born singer, composer, and lyric poet. A former opera student turned visionary folk experimentalist, she breathes new life into archaic forms. Her music channels the spectral glow of the cultural archaeology of Harry Smith's old weird America while simultaneously conjuring a scrambled past that exists only in her vision. Across 25 years of singular work, Foster plays at the boundaries of psych-folk hymnody, country blues, lieder and avant-song, lending her characteristic mezzo-soprano and interpretive wit to collaborations with fellow underground musicians around the globe.As homage to her longtime collaborator, Josephine invited Spanish composer Víctor Herrero to curate a selection of his own songs for her voice. Herrero's classical guitar accompanies Josephine's gossamer singing, in compositions that reanimate the lineage of Amancio Prada and Victor Jara.“If stained glass windows could sing they would sound like Josephine Foster, and her interpretations of the songs of Víctor Herrero are as artful and finely detailed as motes of dust falling through shafts of light in the libraries of your childhood, engrossing in their restraint. Josephine's naked voice an echoing truth in repose against the existential question mark of Víctor’s guitar. In a world that can feel bewildering and relentless, this music is shelter. Adormidera is the sound of a hypnotised mind; the shadow-dance of old souls.”—Alex Neilson

Chisel, The

Deconstructive Surgery

La Vida Es Un Mus

***JAPANESE PRESS SLEEVE EDITION! "Explosive new music from The Chisel bringing the edifying and restorative powers of the great British folk tradition back to the table for a staggering next pint. Just when you thought you were fucking full, your mouths been winched open and gallons of shards of broken glass guitar, thick bass, and burning howling bilious guts gets poured down your maw. The speed of UK82, the terror of punk, the solid mass of Oi!. Like a bar stool breaking through a bus stop, there'll always be THE CHISEL." (Jonah Falco)

Sumos

Luck

Meritorio

***Sumos are a scuzz-pop quartet from Manchester, UK. The project began as a bedroom recording outlet for Joel Sloan and Kyle Tarbuck after a hiatus from playing together in a previous band. After laying the groundwork for their first EP, Weird Summer, the group expanded into a four-piece with the addition of Kyle’s sister Siobhán McKnight on bass and Andrew Kilroy on drums. Their debut album, Surfacing, was released in 2023 via Meritorio Records and Safe Suburban Home. Part of the UK DIY scene, Sumos have shared stages with like-minded acts and label-mates such as The Planes, Teenage Tom Petties, Dignan Porch, Perennial, Oort Clod, Special Friend, Stuart Pearce, Park Safely, and Hugs of the Sky. Sumos’ sound is built on a foundation of melodic indie rock and noisy power-pop. Key influences include Husker Du, The Lemonheads, Pixies, P.S. Eliot, The Beths, Mikal Cronin, East River Pipe, and Mike Krol.

Foster, Josephine

Adormidera - Josephine Foster Sings The Songs of Victor Herrero

Nyahh

***Josephine Foster is a Colorado-born singer, composer, and lyric poet. A former opera student turned visionary folk experimentalist, she breathes new life into archaic forms. Her music channels the spectral glow of the cultural archaeology of Harry Smith's old weird America while simultaneously conjuring a scrambled past that exists only in her vision. Across 25 years of singular work, Foster plays at the boundaries of psych-folk hymnody, country blues, lieder and avant-song, lending her characteristic mezzo-soprano and interpretive wit to collaborations with fellow underground musicians around the globe.As homage to her longtime collaborator, Josephine invited Spanish composer Víctor Herrero to curate a selection of his own songs for her voice. Herrero's classical guitar accompanies Josephine's gossamer singing, in compositions that reanimate the lineage of Amancio Prada and Victor Jara.“If stained glass windows could sing they would sound like Josephine Foster, and her interpretations of the songs of Víctor Herrero are as artful and finely detailed as motes of dust falling through shafts of light in the libraries of your childhood, engrossing in their restraint. Josephine's naked voice an echoing truth in repose against the existential question mark of Víctor’s guitar. In a world that can feel bewildering and relentless, this music is shelter. Adormidera is the sound of a hypnotised mind; the shadow-dance of old souls.”—Alex Neilson

Squirrel Bait

Skag Heaven

Drag City

***REISSUED ON VINYL!!! What’s new for the first time in over a decade? Squirrel Bait's self-titled 12” EP and Skag Heaven in the black. In ’85-’87, their screamin’ teenage psycho dilemmas stood way out in the emerging field of metal damaged hardcore punk. “Kid Dynamite” would ring in your head like a #1 single that had just unseated “Sun God” from the vaunted top spot. Every week. Anthems for the freaks!It happened fast. After a couple of records, guitarists David Grubbs and Brian McMahan split for Bastro and Slint (and Gastr del Sol and The For Carnation, respectively) With Grubbs went bassist Clark Johnson, original Bait batterie mate Britt Walford joined McMahan in Slint. Leaving only the stuff of legend: records eternally exploding with youthful feels through all the endless winters and summers of hearts and minds.Repressed, Squirrel Bait can now continue to dialogue with the young in the creation of new useful and unforgettable experiences. For the children of tomor- row as well as your own damn selves, get copies now.

Squirrel Bait

Squirrel Bait EP

Drag City

***REISSUED ON VINYL!!! What’s new for the first time in over a decade? Squirrel Bait's self-titled 12” EP and Skag Heaven in the black. In ’85-’87, their screamin’ teenage psycho dilemmas stood way out in the emerging field of metal damaged hardcore punk. “Kid Dynamite” would ring in your head like a #1 single that had just unseated “Sun God” from the vaunted top spot. Every week. Anthems for the freaks!It happened fast. After a couple of records, guitarists David Grubbs and Brian McMahan split for Bastro and Slint (and Gastr del Sol and The For Carnation, respectively) With Grubbs went bassist Clark Johnson, original Bait batterie mate Britt Walford joined McMahan in Slint. Leaving only the stuff of legend: records eternally exploding with youthful feels through all the endless winters and summers of hearts and minds.Repressed, Squirrel Bait can now continue to dialogue with the young in the creation of new useful and unforgettable experiences. For the children of tomor- row as well as your own damn selves, get copies now.

Men With No I.Q.'s (aka M.N.I.)

Dreamin' / Can't Resist It

Nuthin' Records

***Ltd. to 200 reissue of what was, for 40 years, the only ‘M.N.i.’ *record* [indie micro-release out of Jackson, Miss., 1985] — now the 1st 7” in the Cult 45s series. And it’s already pretty much sold out from the label (nuthin’)Accidental No-Wave or [as seen in MRR back in the day] Speed-Funk on the A-side. Unbridled and UNPAVED Street-Rock on the flip. Both former M.V.P.’s of WFMU’s deceased ‘Beware of the Blog’

Lost Cherrees

Blasphemy

PNV

***Collection of early material from this iconic first wave anarcho punk outfit. The post-Crass school of politically infused British punk can sometimes veer so far into experimental territory that the brash and direct sound foundational to the movement becomes obscured by more indulgent musical tendencies. Thankfully this sickness never infected Lost Cherrees catalogue, which maintained a firm footing in the parallel street punk sound of the era. In other words, the group was as comfortable with the somber political diatribes as they were fist pounding pogo anthems, all unified by the infectious and unique dual femme vocal attack. This collection of early EPs originally released on Conflict's Mortarhate/Fight Back labels showcases a tuneful, politically incendiary punk group at the height of their powers.

Vanilla Muffins

Where Were You in 1995?

PNV

***Previously unreleased 11 track session from 1995 from the Swiss masters of Sugar Oi! Recorded between their first and second albums at the legendary RMS studio in London (known for producing records from Damned, Special Duties, Chaotic Dischord and countless others), several of these tracks were released on compilations at the time, but never before have they been presented as a single album as featured here. For those unfamiliar with the Vanilla Muffins sound, as their "sugar oi!" banner suggests, the group plays infectious punk with a Cocksparrer inspired knack for melody, and an aptitude for pre-punk glitter rock and power pop. This early session delivers a particularly high energy dose of boot stompin anthems.

Violet Thrones

Dance Of Infinity

Violet Thrones

***From the perpetual fog of San Francisco Violet Thrones emerge. Drawing from the deepest wells of gothic tradition and the experimental underground their sound occupies a space between Gothic rock and dark jazz. The five points of this dark star sharpened into, Steve Jaeger (bass), Sammy Valentine (strings), Kaden Owens (drums), Doug Graves (keys), and Violet Basso’s voice fuel the bands eternal flame. Features the tracks "Dance Of Infinity" backed with "Forever In Bloom."

Black Sun Ensemble

Whirlpool Ocean

San Jacinto

***First time on vinyl for these incendiary hard psych rock tracks, which made their only other appearance in Australia in 1999 on CD as part of the “Sky Pilot” compilation released by Camera Obscura Records.With each passing year since his death, the intense and inspiring musical legacy of Jesus Acedo is in danger of slipping into darkness. That’s where we at Lion Productions come in — together with Rich Hopkins and San Jacinto Records — to do our utmost to keep the Lambent Flame burning, so to speak. All of the music on “Whirlpool Ocean” originates from the troubled and bizarre sessions for the album Acedo made under the name Black Sun Legion — and then destroyed, when his struggles with schizophrenia overwhelmed him. Fortunately, Hopkins had the masters, or this LP would not exist today, and some of Acedo’s most brilliant music would be lost. Happily, not the case. We have this album and other recordings of Acedo's through which to remember and admire his genius.

Sleeves, The

The Sleeves

12xu

***The Sleeves are the duo of Jack Cooper and Tara Cunningham, both likely known to you as one half of Modern Nature. Following an all-instrumental Mossy Tapes release last November, Cooper and Cunningham have recorded 10 new songs showcasing their vocal and guitar interplay with only the faintest echoes of prior efforts (individually or collectively), representing a fully realized leap forward from their largely improvised debut.'The Sleeves' is a somewhat counter intuitive take on the guitar/vocal duo formula (provided you think there is such a thing) though it's not nearly as simplistic as "the space between the notes"—it would be the height of exaggeration to say an album this simultaneously expansive and incandescent is unprecedented. But it doesn't happen nearly often enough, either.

You-On

New Side

12xu

***You-On is a collaboration between Masami Tomihisa and Jim White.Three sessions, all improvised consisting of keyboard and drums were recorded at Jim’s in April and May of 2024. Guy Picciotto mixed, edited and sequenced the recordings comprising ‘New Side’, the duo’s first album together.You-On is two Japanese characters put together, asobu which means to play or to have fun andon which means sound.‘New Side’ is a work of precise, at times otherworldly beauty. The interplay between Tomihisa and White is nothing short of uncanny—it seems hard to believe these are the results of their first recordings together.Masami Tomihisa is a pianist, composer and improviser based in New York City. Prior to this, her most recent release was the ‘Invitations’ cassette released by Purplish in 2024.Environmental concerns prevent us from publishing drummer Jim White’s entire associated discography ; his most recent solo album, his second such LP for Drag City, ‘Inner Day’ was released in the Autumn of 2025.

Rural France

SLOTHS

Meritorio

*** Rural France is the project of Tom Brown (Teenage Tom Petties) and Rob Fawkes, who began writing songs together after both moving from London to rural Wiltshire and starting families. What started as a casual way to meet up soon turned into a band built around Tom’s scrappy slacker pop songs and Fawkes’ melodic, jangly guitar lines.After releasing their debut on Half-a-Cow Records, the duo recorded two lo-fi albums in a garage—RF (2021) and Exacamondo! (2024)—both released by Meritorio Records and warmly received by the DIY indie community for their short, melodic songs inspired by the spirit of Guided by Voices, Teenage Fanclub and Pavement.Their fourth album, SLOTHS (out May 8 via Meritorio), sees the band expanding their sound. Mixed by Rob Slater, it’s their clearest and most expansive record yet, adding organ, horns and mellotron while keeping the jangly, scruffy charm that defines Rural France. The songs reflect on getting older, time passing, and the strange realities of adult life—thoughtful, melodic indie rock with heart and humor.

Les Rallizes Denudes

Disque 4 - '76 Studio et Live

Temporal Drift

***Les Rallizes Dénudés returns with Disque 4 -’76 Studio et Live-, the latest in the ongoing series of official archival releases from the celebrated Japanese underground band.In 1991, Les Rallizes Dénudés released what would become the only official albums issued during the band’s lifetime: ’67-’69 STUDIO et LIVE, MIZUTANI / Les Rallizes Dénudés, and ’77 LIVE. What no one knew at the time was that Takashi Mizutani was already deep into preparing another record.Disque 4 reconstructs the track list Mizutani had put together for that fourth album. This includes the single “White Awakening," recorded in 1976 at the studio in Takadanobaba BIG BOX as part of the sessions that would become known among collectors as the “Virgin Demos.” Production and mastering of this archival release were handled once again by Makoto Kubota, assembling the album from the masters left behind by Mizutani, utilizing newly discovered tapes as additional sources.Prepared by Mizutani using a variety of formats, including U-Matic, open reel, and DAT, the tracks were originally labeled with working titles such as “Disque 4” and “Record No. 4,” indicating that Mizutani intended them for inclusion on a possible fourth album. The recordings were taken primarily from studio sessions that all seemed to have taken place around 1976, which aligns with the claim that Mizutani himself once made that “there exists an album of studio recordings made with the same members as ‘77 LIVE.” His notes also suggest an attempt to sequence the tracks as a vinyl LP, splitting them into...

Alvarius B.

Malarial Dream

Abduction

***Alan Bishop's solo persona appears again from his now 15-year-old home of Cairo where it was recorded in and around many other projects over the past few years. And unlike his more recent singer/songwriter material, Malarial Dream drifts closer to latter day Sun City Girls (Mister Lonely / Funeral Mariachi ) amidst a melodic Middle Eastern and beyond psych-warped folk setting. Mostly instrumental and, except for two obscure covers, original compositions that feature a cast of extraordinary players: Adham Zidan, Aya Hemeda, Cherif El Masri, and Morgan Mikkelsen (The Invisible Hands), Maurice Louca and Sam Shalabi (The Dwarfs of East Agouza), Amelie Legrand, Asher Gamedze, Eyvind Kang, Hana Al Bayaty, Huda Asfour, and Sammy Sayed. LP Limited to 500 copies. Produced by Alvarius B. and Adham Zidan.

Go Hirano

The Habit

Black Editions

***For more than three decades, Go Hirano has developed a quietly enthralling sound world on the peripheries of the Japanese underground. Emerging in the 1990s, Hirano released three albums with the revered PSF Records label and established himself as an artist with a unique sense of melody and atmosphere that was both entrancing and intimate. His work, largely recorded at home and in the field, de-emphasized technical perfection in favor of an unvarnished immediacy that imbued the quiet moments of daily life with a dreamlike splendor. On The Habit, Hirano brings together recordings that span decades of his playing the piano and other instruments on a daily basis. The core of the album was recorded in 2020 at Pianola Records in Tokyo, while other pieces draw from recordings dating as far back as the late 1980s. Through this span of years, a coherent vision emerges, marked by patient, subtle engagement with repetition, space, and resonance. Hirano works with a restrained palette—piano, pianica, wind chime, percussion, and synthesizer—to develop simple melodic figures that gradually shift in harmony and texture. Spacious piano chords expand through soft synthesizer tones. Near-imperceptible rhythmic frameworks intertwine with tranquil phrases that drift and merge with the sounds of the world around them. This synthesis of music and the environment in which it is created is critical to Hirano's approach. Rather than isolating the music from its surroundings, he embraces the atmosphere of the moment, the room in which each piece is played, capturing the subtle sounds and...

V/a

Himba Hymn: Ghosts Of Namibia's Skeleton Coast

Sublime Frequencies

***Recorded live on location, this is a style of music unlike anything you have ever heard before and the first album of the Himba people's music ever released from northwest Namibia. From the album's producer and recordist, Ian Brennan: "The Namib desert is the oldest in the world. Therefore, the driest. Italian-Rwandan photographer, Marilena Umuhoza Delli and I had come to record with possibly the most photographed people on earth, the Himba—to listen rather than gaze at them as if on display. To share their voices as a counter to their visual objectification, particularly the inappropriate eroticization of the women who customarily go topless throughout daily life. We had to stress multiple times that we did not want the musicians to don touristic tribal costumes—quite possibly the first music project in history that urged performers to cover-up rather than pleading with artists to expose more flesh. But it was to no avail. When the assigned hour arrived, the men all ditched the baseball caps and soccer jerseys that they routinely wear. And for the women, the reality is that they almost without exception keep their torsos bare, even in winter. We had to acquiesce. Forcing the issue would have only been the flipside of inauthenticity. The featured, traditional instrument is the Cattle Gun. It's rarely found these days and therefore, costly. Made from the lengthy horn of an Oryx and coated in mud, it is blown, resulting in a breathy, rattled tone. Via the use of live looping on three...

Watson, David & Bill Nace

On Bats

Amish

***"Amish Records is pleased to announce the first recorded collaboration between David Watson and Bill Nace, entitled On Bats.Historically, ensembles combining taishōgoto and bagpipes (at least inside the milieu of “jazz”) have been on the tame side. The Winkler Twins, Dagnabbit, CUZ and other such units pandered to the bowtie set so exclusively that many people have all but dismissed the instruments as hopelessly moldy or even (in the words of critic Milo Fine) “tools of fascism and complacency.” That said, it is my pleasure to announce that the duo of William “Bill” Nace and Dave “David” Watson has made a mighty effort hereon to liberate these instruments from the yoke of yokelism.Nace is a Philadelphia-based wizard of avant-string tomfoolery with a recording history stretching back to Vampire Belt (with Chris Corsano) in the early Oughts. Watson is an NYC-based New Zealand ex-pat whose multi-instrumental genius was first evidenced with the Primitive Art Group in the '80s. Now, with On Bats, the pair have set out to right the wrongs of generations of the dull ass taishōgoto/bagpipes artists who preceded them.The taishōgoto is, of course, a Japanese stringed instrument perhaps best described as a cross between a zither and a typewriter. Bagpipes are...well...pipes with a bag attached. Using their respective instruments to create both long-form tones and berserk machine-like squeedles, Nace and Watson create a varied and surreal aural landscape that shifts contours and colors with ease. The way they combine voices here often manifests as a sonic analogy to...

Dead Bob

Nothing Changes Everything

Wrong

***Exactly three years after the debut album, Life Like DEAD BOB continues to mine the archives of old and new demos that JOHN WRIGHT has created over the years, including two of the last songs demoed for NOMEANSNO with brother ROB WRIGHT.Whereas Life Like was primarily a solo project of John, since the formation of the live band the gang, FORD PIER, BYRON SLACK, KRISTY LEE AUDETTE and COLIN MACRAE take a far more active role in this record.Nothing Changes Everything is a 35 min. 8 song release that takes you on Bob's journey and keeps you wondering, “Where the f**k is this going next!” Balls to the walls and head in the clouds, you're in for a treat.With a couple years under their belts and return of SELINA MARTIN to collaborate on another song, Dead Bob takes it to the next level.

Spirit Adrift

Infinite Illumination

20 Buck Spin

The journey of Spirit Adrift has come full circle. With their sixth album in a decade, mastermind Nathan Garrett is ready to unleash the band’s final chapter. Infinite Illumination, the Spirit Adrift swansong, is a return to the wellspring that first inspired it all and testament to a band that in the last ten years has crafted an impeccable signature thoroughly their own, molded from the elemental matter of more than a half century of heavy metal exaltation. Infinite Illumination has a directness to it, a sense of urgency and raw intensity. The songs feel inevitable, like they had to be driven out from deep within during a time of great upheaval. The fatalistic “Born in a Bad Way” summons a vengeful “broken relic from another age” that must “live again and make them pay” via Garrett’s swaggering snarl, while “White Death” impugns “God shined on a chosen few, we must kill the rest of you”. These songs have a palpable sense of malaise both spiritual and terrestrial, personal and universal, inflicted via crushing traditional doom riffs, thunderous mid-tempo marches and Garrett’s impassioned vocal delivery. Long after the band is gone fans will continue to discover the Spirit Adrift catalog and witness the breadth of greatness they delivered in just a decade’s time. Every melodic, epic and emotionally charged thread that defines the band’s legacy honors the animating force behind pure creative ambition. And at its core Infinite Illumination carries both the weight of conclusion and the troubling realization that...

DOA

Take On The Tyrants - The Very Best of Punk Rock's Most Enduring Band

Sudden Death

***DOA Celebrates 48 years of playing punk rock with a new release—Take On The Tyrants. This double LP is a collection of the best material that the Godfathers of Hardcore have released on over 18 studio albums. The songs range from political to funny to dramatic. DOA have proven to be punk rock's most enduring band having played over 4,500 shows in 50 different countries on 5 different continents. As DOA leader and founder Joey Shithead Keithley has often been quoted as saying: "The tried to stop us and they failed miserably! Ha Ha!!!" So enjoy this release, it it a non-stop barrage of punk rock mayhem and crazy fun.

Smug Brothers

Gravity Is Just A Way To Fall

Anyway

Smug Brothers’ music has been cutting through the indie noise for more than two decades, driven by the ever-evolving chemistry of singer/guitarist Kyle Melton and drummer Don Thrasher (Guided by Voices, Swearing at Motorists), and their slew of highly collectible LPs, CDs, and cassettes.And yet, you don't need to own any of those to get an overview of the Columbus, Ohio, band’s insanely addictive, riff-driven catalog. Smug Brothers’ newest release, Gravity Is Just A Way To Fall, does that for you, arriving on the heels of both a new record (2025’s Stuck on Beta) and an increasing number of shows, festival spots, and Melton’s own recording finesse.Like Heartless Bastards, Cloud Nothings, or Times New Viking, Smug Brothers burst out of Ohio in the mid-2000s with a scrappy, lo-fi sound that only hinted at the head-bobbing greatness to come. Briefly a recording project with Darryl Robbins of Motel Beds, and since 2009 a full-fledged band, Melton and Thrasher have belted out Beatlesquese earworms, head-spinning sound collages, serrated stompers, hushed folk, dance-ready horn splashes, and more on their sonic journey.Thank the indie gods, then, that they’ve chosen a tight 13 songs for the LP version of Gravity that showcase their mastery with a rotating cast of Ohioans (most of them sporting their own worthy musical projects, including Kyle Sowash, Brian Baker, and Marc Betts).I’ve been a fan since the very beginning, not just as a proud native of Dayton, Ohio, where they formed, but as a rock lifer and music critic who’s...

Stoltz, Kelley

If You Don't Know Me, Buy Now

Dandy Boy / Agitated

***Kelley Stoltz is an American songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and DIY innovator whose career stretches back to the late 1990s, when he began self-recording lush, psych‑tinged pop and garage rock in his San Francisco home studio. Born in New York City in 1971, and raised in Michigan, Stoltz has released a remarkable catalog of albums on labels including Sub Pop, Third Man, and Castle Face Records often playing all of the instruments himself and drawing comparisons to the melodic craftsmanship of the major 60’s pop auteurs and the quirkiness of lesser known 80’s power-pop & new wave.After issuing his 18th album, La Fleur in 2024 to critical notice, he returns in 2026 with his 19th full‑length release, If You Don’t Know Me, Buy Now, a collection that continues his long exploration of hook‑laden psych‑pop, introspective lyrics, and richly textured arrangements that both honor his influences and push his sound forward, reinforcing his status as one of the most prolific and singular voices in underground rock.Often compared to everyone from Alex Chilton to Brian Wilson, Nick Lowe to Martin Newell- Stoltz is a pop chameleon. His constant reshuffling of the deck finds him in a constant flux of creativity. If You Don’t Know Me… weaves through his brand of sardonic and playful humor and vulnerable, introspective late night musings. The lead off track and first single from the album, "Competitive Bastard” is a groovy reflection of a musician throwing his hands up at the music industry and the notion of working for exposure...

Drags, The

Set Right Fit To Blow Clean Up

Total Punk

***We are wrapping up the DRAGS REISSUE campaign with the band's final album 'Set Right Fit To Blow Clean Up.' Misunderstood by the garage turkey purist at the time of its 1999 release (yours truly among them) for being too "rawk!" Oh the follies of youth because in retrospect it's The Drags crowning achievement !!! It's crazy what confusion some wah-wah and oscillation could cause the adrenaline fueled brain of a teenage turkey back then!After Stop Rock & Roll Keith Herrera left to be replaced by Ron Skrasek (Scared of Chaka) on drums. Scott Derr of Monoshock was brought on as a second guitarist/ noisemonger and in house engineer for 'Set Right Fit.' RECORDED IN A BARN FOR MAXIMUM FIDELITY!!! The band added some heft to their sound, the tight quick shots got stretched out a bit, some sonic muckery was added, and we even got some drunkenly fried country twang on 'Jet Lag.' Sure their hair might be two inches longer but despite my teenage protestations it still sounds like THE DRAGS!!! AND IT FUCKIN RIPS!!!! Put on your FM SHADES because 2026 is the Year of The Drags and they are finally Set Right Fit to Blow Clean Up!!!10% MORE BARN THAN THE ORIGINAL AND 100% TOTAL PUNK!!limited to 350 copies with art by the legendary Art Chantry.

Leimer, K.

Atrophies For Piano

Palace Of Lights

Part of the early independent music movement that started in the late 1970s, K. Leimer and his label Palace Of Lights occupies a special and respected niche among electronic, experimental and ambient genres. His work is included in the Cherry Red Noise Floor compilation series and his early cassette work is featured in the critically acclaimed VOD box set American Cassette Culture. “I’ve always wanted to produce an album centered on the muted depth of sadness the piano offers, and this is almost that.” In nearly all his music, Leimer has relied on the density and layering of multiple timbres and voices to shape his compositions. With very few exceptions all the voicing on Atrophies for Piano originates from piano. Composed and recorded over a two-year period, the atrophies occupy sparse, gap-filled stillness, disassembled melody and patterns, and fluctuating, uncertain drones. Aided occasionally by treated strings, each piece seeks out edges of imminent collapse and harmonic decay. Six dark New Classical settings populate an atrophied sonic landscape possessed by an energetic melancholy. Issued on 180 gram white vinyl and various digital formats, Atrophies for Piano was mastered by Taylor Deupree with cover photography by Tyler Boley.

Boay, Andy

So So So We See & Trenches In The Sun

Does Are

Recorded in 2005 - 2006 and shared in limited fits and starts over the last 20 years, this is the music of a teenage Andy White, one year before he started the group Tonstartssbandht. Originally two separate albums, reissued now as a 2xLP, on vinyl for the first time."A lot of nice fans got pissed at me a couple years ago for taking this off my bandcamp page so I realized that I should probably reissue it.""A 16 year old in Florida with an interest in New Weird America, learning how to use Garageband, doing his best to mix, never even heard of 'mastering'. Listen close for Beach Boys, Faust, Animal Collective, Comus, Blue Gene Tyranny, Sunburned Hand of the Man. For fans of the youthful spark. Stay honest, don’t be ashamed."

Ipek Eginli / Jad Atoui

Clouds Carry Me To The Sky Every Morning / Ghost Sectors

Purplish Records

IPEK EGINLI:The sonic narrative immerses you in the journey of being carried into the sky by the clouds, with all of its emotional elements and physical sensations. You let yourself feel as you're elevated to the unknown, learn to let go along the way—moment by moment—worry less about what’s left behind. You look around to the vast nothing and come to understand that loss and freedom can coexist. You return lighter than ever, just like a cloud.In the piano, prepared strings and unprepared strings create two distinct characters with percussive sounds and left-over pitches that shape into different modes.While live electronics from modular synthesizers get triggered by the piano sounds, through improvisation, the pieces travel between atonality and poly-modality and explore rhythmic structures that desire to burst out of their structured-ness.JAD ATOUI:"Ghost Sectors" is an album made entirely from modified hard drives, with all sounds and tones generated by the drives themselves. Each track is a live take, capturing raw and mechanical sounds. The hard drives were built after I received a commission from Yarn/Wire, transforming the motors and needles into instruments capable of producing tones and rhythms. These custom instruments were crafted with the help of mechanical engineer Sevag Babikian. Ghost sectors are forgotten memories, like those in HDDs, that remain present but are no longer accessible. They exist in the background, hidden, much like people, places, or ideas that time and brutality have left behind.

Pig's Blood

Destroying The Spirit

Dark Descent

Bestial death horde Pig's Blood are going scorched earth with their inaugural release under the Dark Descent Records banner. Destroying The Spirit sees the band reach a new level of relentless, blackened brutality. An unholy barrage of volcanic riffing and abyssal hostility, Destroying The Spirit is violence incarnate.Hailing from Milwaukee, Pig's Blood have spent the last decade-plus unleashing their unrepentant strain of death metal upon the underground. While often grouped under the banner of war metal, their sound stretches far beyond any single label.Drawing from the raw, militant fury of bands like Revenge and Blasphemy, the band fuses that chaotic savagery with a backbone indebted to early ’90s American legends such as Deicide, Order from Chaos, and Incantation.The result is a malformed yet deliberate hybrid—bludgeoning battle hymns delivered with a sharp, serrated edge. Through sheer force and conviction, Pig's Blood continue carving out their own brutal stronghold within the death metal underground.

Rhododendron

Ascent Effort

Flenser

Transformation, growth, and rebirth drive Ascent Effort, the latest release from Portland, Oregon trio Rhododendron. The title points upward, but not toward arrival. The record documents a period of change defined as much by instability as progress, where confusion and renewal unfold at the same pace. Formed in 2019 while the band’s members were still in high school, Rhododendron’s Ezra Chong (guitar, vocals), Gage Walker (bass), and Noah Mortola (drums) set out to push their musical limits without regard for genre boundaries or audience expectation. For Ascent Effort, the band joined the roster of The Flenser, aligning with a label that has long championed artists who work in tension rather than comfort. In the past seven years the trio has developed a sound rooted in technical precision and repetition. Drawing from the angular experimentation of underground rock in the 1980s and 1990s alongside elements of jazz, ambient, and progressive music, their compositions are deliberate with intensity. Riffs fracture and reform, rhythms lock into patterns only to break apart, and extended passages build pressure before shifting direction. Performing regularly in Portland, the band has cultivated an intense and loyal local following. The live setting hardened the material. Songs grew heavier, sharper, more physical through repetition and high volume. The material that became Ascent Effort was tested on tour before entering the studio. Written largely in sequence, the album traces a period of personal change and internal friction. Growth is not always clean; sometimes it grinds forward. Nothing resolves without cost. Confusion...

Mrs. Magician

Spiritual Hangover

Swami

San Diego’s Mrs. Magician has always bent surf music and punk into something delightfully off-kilter — sun-soaked, hook-heavy power pop with a lyrical fixation on life’s darker undercurrents. Their 2012 debut, Strange Heaven, was a nihilistic pop statement that grew into a cult classic. The 2016 follow-up, Bermuda, sharpened the edges with punchy, nervy songwriting. Both records were produced by John Reis (Rocket From The Crypt, Hot Snakes, Drive Like Jehu), cementing the band’s place in Southern California’s underground lineage.Now, in 2026, Mrs. Magician reemerges with their long-awaited third LP, Spiritual Hangover. Recorded at Dave Grohl’s Studio 606 and Singing Serpent Studios with producer Christian Cummings, Spiritual Hangover finds songwriter Jacob Turnbloom trading youthful nihilism for something more reflective. Where earlier records wrestled with existential dread through anthemic defiance, this new collection embraces uncertainty — an admission of ignorance in the face of the human condition, paired with a genuine longing for connection and understanding.The humor remains. The hooks are sharper than ever. But the perspective has shifted. These songs feel less like a declaration of dominance and more like a celebration of fragility — an acknowledgment that life is fleeting, confusing, and still worth enjoying.The album features Andrew Montoya (drums) and Mark Rivera (bass) of The Sess, Ian Fowles (guitar) of The Aquabats, and John Reis (guitar).Spiritual Hangover channels the bright urgency of late-’70s power pop through a distinctly Californian lens — warm, melodic, and irresistibly alive.“Super fun, well crafted, with great melodies. It gives me that late ’70s...

Sultans

Ghost Ship

Swami

Sultans Ghost Ship LP was originally released on Sympathy For The Record Industry in 2000. While RFTC looked for a new drummer, Speedo (armed with an 8 track tape machine and 3 microphones) devised yet another alias as “Slasher” and concocted this primordial ooze of moped scuzz, punk rock and roll. Ghost Ship was met with enthusiasm by those seeking blistering relief from the weak, whiny, wretched and wimpy wannabes du jour. The sound is full on, straight ahead with only starting gates and finish lines between songs. The band played some shows around California and would slightly evolve on their second LP Shipwrecked. Ghost Ship is Sultans at their most thuggish and hairiest. Taking inspiration from Australia’s Chosen Few, Ramones bootlegs, Misfits bootlegs and then challenging themselves to be as thrifty and impatient as possible, the songs are intentionally brief, similar and burly.After this was recorded these tapes lay dormant in a shed for over 20 years. When the tapes were recently unearthed it revealed unreleased songs recorded after Ghost Ship yet before the band’s follow up LP Shipwrecked. Some of these songs would later be absorbed by RFTC and re-recorded. These songs are included here as bonus tracks and offer no relief to the record’s unrelenting pace.

Hydromatics, The

The Earth Is Shaking

Bang

Guttersnipe

Extinction Burst!

Night School

Extinction Burst is the new invocation in album-form by Guttersnipe, Leeds’ premier and pre-eminent XFCER (XFCER: Xenofeminist crisis-energy rock) duo. Slamming at full speed to multi-dimensional oblivion, Extinction Burst is the most full, hi-definition lurid dream-mare yet spewed out by Uroceras Gigas & Tipula Confusa. Engineered and mixed by Ross Halden at Hohm Studio in Bradford and mastered by Rashad Becker, Extinction Burst follows 2018’s My Mother The Vent, which garnered universal critical adoration. Nevertheless, this long-awaited follow up is more extreme: it is wildness beyond reason, splitting new tears in the reality gauze, ultimate hallucination through sound ecstasy. 2026’s Guttersnipe are evolved, mutated by 8 years of touring together and with the labyrinthine network of groups both Guttersnipe members are involved with Tristwch Y Fenywod, Nape Neck, Petronn Sphene, Yexxen to name a few. On Extinction Burst, as with previous material, the duo are heavily augmented with technology. Tipula Confusa's drum kit triggers chasm-causing synth pulses with thumping low end attack.. Strafing from all over the stereo field the constant shatter of the cymbals and toms feel like Sunny Murray or Rashied Ali in full flight during a John Coltrane session in 1967. Uroceras Gigas’s guitar + synth storm is by-now similarly an instantly recognised tool kit in underground music. Switching from screeching guitar atonality to intricate riffs from the black metal/Voivod hinterland to ultra-distorted synth meltdown, it’s an utterly overwhelming, essential and vital pouring-out of the full emotional spectrum. Both artists vocalise, ecstatic and primal, drawn out or...

Wheelchair Sports Camp

Oh Imperfecta!

Alternative Tentacles

Wheelchair Sports Camp is certainly not your average hip-hop act. Hailing from Denver, CO, fronted by Kalyn Rose Heffernan—a wheelchair using, profanely queer and tiny rapper, with a very distinctly high-pitched sense of humor. Backed by her gimp Greggy on drums, the band combines fantastic beats with an absolutely face shredding live show. Playing shows everywhere they could, the band has expanded into performance art, museum takeovers, politics, prison tours, permanent installations, theater, film, and now the release of their newest album, “Oh Imperfecta!” on Alternative Tentacles Records. They bring together contributions from Jello Biafra (twice), Radio Pete (who happened to come up with the name Dead Kennedys when Biafra was a teen in Boulder, CO, and this is their first time ever collaborating musically), Kimya Dawson (Moldy Peaches), Oliva Jean, Junia-T, Amy Goodman, and some honorary WSC members: Qknox, Michelle Rocqet, Wes Watkins, RAREBYRD$, and many more; to create 11 absolute bangers.

Lakis, Lauren

Deadlights

Riding Easy

Lauren Lakis makes songs that are steeped in darkness, but inside of them is a sense of hope. They are propelled by the possibility of emerging on the other side feeling less alone and fully transformed. On her debut album Deadlights, set for release on Riding Easy Records on May 8, 2026, she conjures a shifting reality—one defined by both distortion and clarity. Indebted to shoe gaze and ’90s alt rock, its 10 tracks are filled with ethereal vocals, melodic guitars, and a heavy low end. It’s inspired by groups like Deftones and Hole, powerful bands that explore the emotional bottom but are able to rise from the depths. Lakis was born in Baltimore, where she was raised by her single mother. As she grew up, she lost multiple family members and friends to addiction. She became an actor and a photographer, trying to capture the human experience with each endeavor. Her travels led to stints living in Prague and Tokyo, before she moved to Los Angeles. In 2016 she endured a horrible breakup, and then her mother was in a car accident that left her paralyzed. Though Lakis was already singing in a band at the time, these life-altering events motivated her to focus on writing and recording her own music. “When you're in a place of total surrender, you are able to get out of your own way and finally do the thing you want to do,” she says. After the car accident, Lakis’s mother’s health deteriorated, and...

Biafra, Jello And The Guantanamo School Of Medicine

Audacity Of Hype

Alternative Tentacles

***BACK IN PRINT ON BLACK OR LIMITED SOLID BABY 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...

Burnside, R.L.

Too Bad Jim

Fat Possum

***BACK IN STOCK!!! R.L. Burnside's album Too Bad Jim is a record worth owning. “I didn't mean to kill nobody ... I just meant to shoot the sonofabitch in the head.

Kimbrough, Junior

God Knows I Tried

Fat Possum

***BACK IN STOCK!!! "...we went into the backwoods of the Delta, where there was an illegal Sunday Juke Joint run by Junior Kimbrough, who was a contemporary of Muddy Waters...The whole thing was extraordinary - like an IV introduction to the blues." - Bono (of U2)

Unknown Mortal Orchestra

s/t (Black Vinyl)

Fat Possum

***BACK IN STOCK ON BLACK VINYL!!! UMO was initially conceived by New Zealand native, Ruban, to release some tracks via a Bandcamp page to promote his limited addition vinyl in 2010. He pieced a band together, with a skilled producer, Jake, on bass and a brilliant teenage drummer named Julian to fill out the band. They are based in Portland.

Ultha

Belong

Vendetta

***ULTHA's ninth release in five years and features two extended tracks—"No Fire, Only Smoke" (17:04) and "Constructs of Separation" (21:07). “Ultha have done it again, somehow. Converging Sins is the sort of album that any band would be lucky to release once in their career, but with Belong, Ultha proves that they are among black metal’s most inspired forces. This is atmospheric black metal, with strong elements of doom intertwined now and again, that you do not simply listen to—no; you feel it. Ultha are communing with some unseen force, and through their dense sonic tapestries, they afford us the same opportunity. Recommended!”—Ippocalyptica

Totalitar

Sin Egen Motstandare

Prank

***BACK IN PRINT!!! Sin Egen Motstandare was originally released in 1994 on CD-Only By Finn Records. A reunion album of sorts, the reconstituted band sought to get back their original hardcore roots, while at the same time sparking a direct reaction to the rising right wing political climate of time in Sweden. One of the all-time most rampaging Swedish Punk albums, it affirmed the band's template of D-beat hardcore that they continually challenged and re-imagined for another decade and a half of releases, and inspired a legions of bands worldwide. This 30th Anniversary edition is a 1-time press at RTI with a stoughton tip-on gatefold with spot gloss, new liner notes from the band, unique center labels for the release, a printed inner sleeve, a reprint poster of the flyer for the original CD release show.

Amp

Stenorette

Kranky

***The third album from this UK dream'n'drone duo returns to the drifting sound of their first album with an emphasis on rhythms, lock stepping, and clattering percussion to move the music through. Many of the songs were composed on the piano for a more delicate sound to loop drones, grooves, guitar and vocals around. Twelve dreamable tracks.

Water Damage

Repeater

12xu

***"There is something really special about music based on drones. Whether it's the vocals of Pandit Pran Nath, the ARP 2500 of Eliane Radigue, or the nearly-blown amps of Sunn O))), by changing the listeners's focus on details to one that favors flow, drones are uniquely capable of transporting our brains far far away. The debut LP, 'Repeater', by this loudly droning Austin septet is a goddamn splendid example of how the process works. Using the motto, “Maximal Repetition Minimal Deviation,” Water Damage create glowing fields of post-rock lava that pretty much suck you right in and boil you alive. Water Damage, while technically a septet, actually operate in various configurations, with the proviso there should always be two drummers and two bass players on hand. They prefer if each of their sonic ideas takes up a whole reel of tape, and once they start they don't look back. Everything proceeds towards an imaginary end point that is only achieved when the tape starts flapping. What a way to run a railroad! But the folks in the band are all vets of various projects—Spray Paint, USA/Mexico, Marriage, Black Eyes, Thor & Friends, among others—so let's assume they know what they're doing. And why not? They sound fucking great. Their approach to the form is less front-loaded than most of their peers, and the surface of their sound is sometimes ruffled by aural events of an un-drone-like nature. But the main gush is usually a blend of harmonic tones and textures pointing towards...

Sex Messiah

Metal Del Chivo

Nuclear War Now

***Sex Messiah returns from the Satanic brothels of Japan to satiate our depraved appetites for morally-corrupt black metal with four new tracks and five live tracks. Although their overall sadistic formula remains consistent with prior atrocities, their language of choice has shifted to Spanish, providing a new vehicle to spread their gospel of fornication and degradation.

Carter, Daniel / Evan Strauss / 5-track / Sheridan Riley

The Uproar In Bursts Of Sound And Silence

577 Records

***The Uproar in Bursts of Sound and Silence is a sort of emergent collage that came together over four years of composition, improvisation and production. The foundations for this album were initially recorded in 2018 by producer/engineer Jack Endino (Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Skinyard) at Soundhouse in Seattle, WA with myself (Evan Strauss, electric bass and upright bass), 5-Track (Guitar) and Sheridan Riley (Drums). The initial foundations of this music consisted of my long-form graphically notated conceptual compositions based on the calls of the Veery songbird (Catharus fuscescens), the astrological transits at the precise time of the recording session and some thematic elements from Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel The Dispossessed.   In 2019 the album was given the working title Bird Songs for the Stars and I commissioned the cover art, Night Fisher, from Jeane Cohen. Also around this time, Daniel Carter had emphatically told me, “I’m going to become a rapper by the time I turn 90.” So, a few weeks later Daniel and I were hanging out, recording music and eating stir fry in my Ditmas Park apartment and I convinced him to make some progress on his goals by recording his voice into a microphone. Daniel began by recording an excerpt from Virginia Woolf’s The Waves and continued by recording some of his own poetry.  The recordings of Daniel from that afternoon would eventually make their way onto this album alongside my own experimentations in production inspired by Lee Scratch Perry, J Dilla and Ingram...

White Lightning

Thunderbolts Of Fuzz

Riding Easy

Standout favorites of Riding Easy Records’ Brown Acid compilation series, White Lightning’s stellar discography of rare and under-appreciated heavy psych, proto-metal rock gets a vital revival for new generations to learn how swinging, swaggering and often blazingly fast rock’n’roll is done. White Lightning was formed in Minneapolis, MN in 1968 by guitarist Tom “Zippy” Caplan and bassist Woody Woodrich after leaving garage psych band The Litter (themselves popular standouts from the Nuggets and Pebbles series of garage rock rarities.) Originally a power trio, the band later expanded to a five-piece in 1969 while shortening its name to Lightning. The quintet’s brilliant and rare 1970 self-titled album on Pickwick International’s P.I.P. imprint provides six of the ten tracks on Thunderbolts Of Fuzz. The original White Lightning trio only released the one 45-rpm single “Of Paupers And Poets” during their existence (on local Hexagon label in 1968, later reissued by major label ATCO Records in 1969.) A long out-of-print posthumous album released in 1995 gathered unreleased recordings, three of which are found here. This rounds out this collection of recorded highlights from the band’s rocky history. Taking their name from a particularly potent type of LSD, White Lightning laid out from the start that it was not cute and cuddly ’70s rock. In fact, the band’s aggressive tempos are like punk rock way before punk. However, their dirty blues groove and musical prowess shows the band was more than unrefined ne’er-do-wells, they had true versatility.

Ruth, Rich

I Survived, It's Over

Third Man

***Recorded under a loft bed in the guest bedroom of his Nashville home, MICHAEL RUTH aka RICH RUTH's I Survived, It’s Over starts in a humble space. And while many contemporary music projects are produced in such an environment, I Survived, It’s Over sets itself apart in its transformative properties as well as its transparency. What we have here is honest sound exploration, session musician-level instrumentation, and a true love for nature run through the fingers of a dude who can channel some acute and undeniable magic. Underneath the swell of the strings and the shredding of the guitars, this record has hard working, rustbelt, drum-heavy roots all over it (which makes sense as Ruth hails from outside of Toledo, the album was mixed by JOHN MCENTIRE from Chicago band Tortoise). Many of the flutes, saxophones, pedal steel, and other instruments were recorded remotely because we live in the future, but this only adds to the collage of sampled and sample-able material that Rich Ruth has to offer. The organic relationships between the artist and other musicians on the album is evident even in the compilation style sampling that needs to occur in putting such a project together. I Survived, It’s Over is a record you should buy for your friend, your foe, and yourself. It’ll sit perfectly on your shelf between Alice Coltrane and Hiroshi Yoshimura.

Dead Void

Volatile Forms

Dark Descent

After some silence since their magnificent demo, Dead Void return from the depths to bestow a crushing debut album—Volatile Forms—upon the world. Drawing in on doomy, yet certainly not meek, atmospherics—the sheer monstrous tone of which will pin one to the wall—it is clear this is something unwieldy. Murmuring bass seeps through buzzing guitars in a manner that sounds profoundly unwelcoming, while the daunting vocals and crashing drums give no alleviation from the bludgeoning force. While the hostile and claustrophobic sounds of this record cannot be ignored, equally impactful are the grooves which hit like a hammer of pure malice when carefully spliced with the caverns of eerily contorting death metal. When the pounding drums break through the guitars, they have a real hard tone, while the seeping filth of the strings is not overshadowed. Clearly the three demos and spacing between them have allowed the band to develop into the best version of themselves, as on this debut album one hears a refined but unpolished and inhospitable cut of truly awesome music taking form. Moving forth, the hooks, the grooves, the expanses of doom and desolation, all conjure something inescapable and dread-tinged while the malignant hammering of pure old school violence is not lost or forgotten, as warped riffs and blast-beats meet gutturally-spewed vocals and occasional lead oddities. Contrasting often nuanced moments with an assault of bestial ferocity, there is no predictability or obvious pattern, rather a chaotic and honest approach to all of the songs. These tracks move...

Warmers

s/t

Dischord

***The Warmers' full-length record, released in 1996.

Juliff, Simon

Stars

Dog Meat Records

Much-loved Melbourne rock 'n' roll label Dog Meat Records returns with first solo release from former singer/guitarist/songwriter of The Roys and God / Hoss / Powder Monkeys associate, Simon Juliff The first new Dog Meat release in over a quarter of a century is the new single “Stars”, taken from the forthcoming album of the same name, from reticent Melbourne pop-rock singer/songwriter Simon Juliff. Juliff, who was singer/guitarist/songwriter for Melbourne band The Roys in the ‘00s, was a friend of many of the ‘90s Melbourne bands on Dog Meat and nearly a Dog Meat signing with his first band The Evil Dead. Produced by long-time friend Joel Silbersher (God, Hoss, Tendrils etc) and featuring backing from members of Hoss and Kim Salmon & the Surrealists, “Stars” – both the new single and the forthcoming album - combines brightly dappled glimmers of classic pop-rock melodicism with a darkened, frazzled vibe.

Doomsayer

Awake In Darkness

Nuclear War Now

***In celebration of the 30th anniversary of their sole demo from 1992, Awake in Darkness, NWN is proud to present Doomsayer’s legacy on LP for the very first time! This burning triumph- described as “Pestilential Death Metal” by the band back in the early ’90s when they were establishing themselves in the Italian extreme metal scene- combines all of the power of their varied influences, giving both a perfect snapshot of the heavy metal and occult tinged nascent scene in their country as well as an image of a power, creative band that managed to create a single work that still resonates now decades later. Though Doomsayer fits squarely in the saga of other cult Italian bands, it has plenty of its own voice to offer and fans of early extreme metal will be pleasantly surprised at the strength of this long-hidden obscurity. For fans of Varathron, Sadist, and Necrodeath.

Owners, The

s/t

Dischord / Red Room Records

***THE OWNERS are a band from Washington DC, featuring DANTE and CATHERINE FERRANDO, ALEC BUDD and LAURA HARRIS. Over the years, they have played in bands ranging from IRON CROSS, GRAY MATTER, THE SHIRKS and EX HEX. Their first full-length is a split between Red Room Records and Dischord The vinyl is a limited edition pressing on splatter vinyl.

Raffa, Ryan J

4 e and a

Group Tightener

***4 e and a is about the infinite spaces between. As a classically trained percussionist, RYAN J RAFFA has sat in front of a metronome for the majority of their life. In their mind, they would play with the spaces between those clicks. In especially challenging times, they would attempt to expand and stretch those spaces into forever. Just existing in the between. This record is about these moments (and places) living in those infinite spaces. The title "4 e and a" is a play on words, in reference to counting and subdividing rhythmic patterns. Ryan would need to play these patterns on a drum as a child. “4 e and a” is also a reference to a country or a place with a name. Like Argentina is a place, "4 e and a" (said run all together) sounds like a country. A place we all know about and sometimes go to because it's beautiful and full of spirit, but it also can be a bit unnerving, uneasy, and eerie when we explore new places there. In mathematics, we have Cantor's diagonal argument and the understanding that the infinity between each integer (such as between 1 and 2) is larger than the infinite space that every integer that exists can fill. Like, one infinity is larger than another infinity? Huh?! When you start subdividing time (like 1 e and a, 2 e and a, 3 e and a, 4 e and a), you start creating those ever-expanding spaces, one larger...

Paranoid

Satyagraha

Paranoid Northern Discs

***PARANOID's first album is a manic, noise-drenched d-beat assault. 10 tracks that capture us at our rawest and most aggressive period up to this date. Part of the band's First Ten Years 2012-2022 vinyl reissue series. "Whether you’re the old guy at the bar with the Discharge tattoo, or the 14 year-old who just discovered punk, Paranoid will bring out your inner discontent. D-beat is an interesting genre, either you do it well, or you don’t. Paranoid, dare I say, have completely mastered the genre and everything from their tone to their album artwork embodies what it means to be in a d-beat band. There is no bullshit attached to this record"—CVLT Nation

Amba, Zoh + William Parker, Francisco Mela

O Life, O Light Vol. 2

577 Records

***New York-based Zoh Amba first cultivated her musical passion in the lush forests of the Appalachian mountains, playing to the woods around her home, before she studied at classical conservatories. Her music honors her roots, full of folk melodies, mesmerizing refrains, repeated incantations and powerfully-executed Free Jazz. Her sound is courageous and bold, soaring from muted hums to squeaky trebles, producing a confident sound imbued with an innate spirituality. On this project, Zoh Amba is joined by legendary artists William Parker (Bass, Gralla) and Francisco Mela (Drums), named the 2021 musician of the year by The New York City Jazz Record, who temper her daring saxophone with a lush percussive foundation and a steady bassline.

Fossilization

He Whose Name Was Long Forgotten

Transylvanian Recordings

***Ritualistic, Primeval Death Metal from Brazil. Featuring members of Jupiterian. For fans of Dead Congregation & Portal.

Black Witchery

Holocaustic Death March To Humanity's Doom

Nuclear War Now

***Fifteen years ago, Black Witchery and Conqueror, both still virtually unknown outside of a small cult of maniacal blasphemers, united for the split release entitled “Hellstorm of Evil Vengeance.” Exploring a style that few North American bands dared approach at that time, Black Witchery and Conqueror inherited their extremist tendencies from the likes of Blasphemy and Sarcofago among others. Looking back, the release can now be regarded as something of a statement of intent in that it signified the establishment of a second wave of Bestial Black Metal and set the course for the future of the genre. Although external circumstances would necessitate the termination of Conqueror’s mission immediately following the release of the split, J. Read continued treading the path of the Superion with Revenge and R. Forster was initiated into the ranks of Blasphemy. Black Witchery also persisted through the years, assuming a well-deserved, prominent place among the bestial legions. Since the split release in 2000, Black Witchery and Revenge have shared numerous stages all over the world and maintained a united front within the underground. Similarly, NWN!, which also began its campaign of atrocities in 2000, established its dominion over the chthonic depths of the Bestial Black Metal underground. Having settled into their respective roles as progenitors of a particular faction of extreme metal, it is time to assemble the unholy triumvirate of Black Witchery, Revenge, and Nuclear War Now! once more. For this release, Black Witchery turn in one of the band’s most primitive and punishing...

Darts, The

Snake Oil

Alternative Tentacles

***NOW ON LIMITED GREEN VINYL!!! Note new price.At last! The Darts return from their Bat Cave Covid lair, with Snake Oil—by far their best album to date. The Darts formed in 2016 with the goal of getting some solid female musicians together to make garage punk rock and roll noise, see the world, and basically have a super-fun slumber party every night. They are now hands down one of the best garage bands in the world. This is a much fuller sound than any Darts disc before, courtesy of their longtime collaborator Bob Hoag (FB Rec) and some remote control co-production wizardry from Jello Biafra himself. Featuring the return of Nicole Laurnne on vocals / Farfisa and Hammond organ, Christina Nunez on bass / vocals, and Meliza Jackson on guitars / vocals, Snake Oil is the debut of new drummer Mary Rose Gonzales. The result? It comes out smoking as if the band had been in a pressure cooker throughout the pandemic. Expect the wider sound and sparkle of Laurnne and Nunez’s previous band, The Love Me Nots (which was also recorded by the brilliant Bob Hoag), but with way more raunch—and Laurnne’s voice has never sounded better. Snake Oil is for fans of agile, sultry vocals and beefy, vintage rhythm sections paired with razor-tone guitars. This Snake Oil was concocted to remedy the most unaffected and stiff-legged garage rockers out there!

V/a

Heroes of the Night Vol. 2

Reminder

***The sequel without equal: the second installment in the Heroes Of The Night compilation universe is now here! Picking up exactly where the first volume left off and featuring a cast of twelve of the best and scarcest D.I.Y., powerpop, punk and new wave 45 tracks from the likes of JACKIE, L’HOMME DE TERRE, BRENDA PRESCOTT, AQUILA and more. Something for the girl with everything or the boy who thinks he’s heard everything, Heroes Of The Night Volume 2 continues Reminder Records’ campaign to showcase the talents of post-punk’s female musical innovators and pioneers.

Kimbrough, Junior & Soul Blues Boys

Sad Days Lonely Nights

Fat Possum

A reissue of the infamous late Kimbrough's second album. Raw rocked, and laid bare blues recorded at Junior's juke joint and produced by Robert Palmer.

Militia

Regiments of Death / No Submission

Nuclear War Now

***Though they were a favorite around their hometown of Austin and nearby San Antonio, Militia received scant attention outside of Texas during their short-lived existence from 1984-1986. Formed in 1984 when bassist Robert Wellingham (who, at the time, neither owned nor knew how to play a bass) met drummer Phil Achee, Militia’s origin is inseparable from the story of the heavy metal scene in and around Austin, Texas during the 1980s. With the inclusion of vocalist Mike Soliz, whose powerful, Halford-esque shrills became a defining feature of Militia’s sound, the band established itself as a fixture of the regional metal scene, sharing members and performing live with many notable acts around the area, including Watchtower, Wyzard, and S.A. Slayer, among many others. Militia swiftly progressed, writing original material and perfecting their live performances. During the three years they were together, they recorded two demos—Regiments of Death and No Submission released in 1984 and 1986, respectively—and the highly coveted MLP, The Sybling, privately pressed by the band in an edition of just 100 copies. The two demos, the band’s first and last recordings, depict Militia’s evolution during its brief lifespan. On Regiments of Death, Militia displayed a unique fusion of skill and passion, an amalgamation of the most potent elements of aggressive speed metal and melodic power metal. The second demo, recorded in the wake of several lineup changes, displayed a more “progressive” approach, drawing inspiration from early Queensryche and other similar acts. Now that NWN! has established its permanent base...

Underground River

Life Cycle, Delicate Song

Nudie Records

***Underground River is the solo project of Johnson City, NY based artist, multi-instrumentalist, and recording engineer, Hunter Davidsohn. On his album, Life Cycle, Delicate Song Hunter weaves a sonic tapestry combining elements or baroque pop, chamber psychedelia, and left field recording techniques to take the listener on a surprisingly romantic journey through heartbreak and self reflection. The whole affair is anchored by Hunter’s unmistakable and singular baritone voice that washes over you and sends you adrift. From the Syd Barrett-esque stroll of “Pour Some Tea” to the tormented and clear eyed beauty of “It Continues” the album moves through styles effortlessly without ever feeling like anything less than a cohesive and exquisite portrait by a rare artist. In the words of Hunter, “It’s an album for people who have been saved by music” and we couldn’t agree more.

Abhorrent / Thyabhorrent

Occultus Brujeria

Nuclear War Now

***Abhorrent formed in Sarpsborg, Norway in 1989, during a period in which the now-famous black metal scene was developing in the same area. The most renowned of its founding members was Stian “Occultus” Johansen, who has also been active in Perdition Hearse and co-founded the infamous Helvete record store in Oslo with Øystein “Euronymous” Aarseth (of Mayhem notoriety) and Geir “Thrasher” Bratteli. In fact, Occultus was also briefly an official member of Mayhem following Dead’s untimely demise. Abhorrent recorded one live and one studio demo in 1990 before adopting the moniker of Thyabhorrent for an EP and another demo in 1991. Their music reflected the transitional nature of the moment and location, as the more traditional form of death metal assumed an increasingly evil nature, while black metal was taking hold of the Norwegian underground. “Occultus Brujeria” documents this obscure entity’s existence as a compilation of the band’s “Occultus Brujeria” demo, which also includes the same three recorded tracks from its “Death Rides at Dawn” 7″, and some additional bonus tracks. Given that these recordings have not been officially available for well over two decades, “Occultus Brujeria” is an overdue reissue that is sure to satiate all appetites for early Norwegian extreme metal.

Les Lullies

Mauvaise Foi

Slovenly

****As smokin’ as they are, previous releases from LES LULLIES were rushed through with impossible deadlines and little time to consider the ends. Mauvaise Foi—their new LP with resolutely French title (and their first record almost fully sung in the tongue)—takes a more laid back approach to manifest the desired energy, finding the boys swimming in a sea of change from their usual methodology. The result is streamlined rock’n’roll with a new purpose: a stark contrast from yesterday’s news while remaining truly Lullies. Mauvaise Foi sounds more personal and fleshy, dabbling in influences from Phil Spector to the Real Kids, classic punk from the Normandy scene (Fixed Up, Dogs, Sub Kids), and brimming with subtle, headphone-worthy layers and details. Mauvaise Foi (“Bad Faith”) as a title sums up this full-length with accuracy. Sometimes tackling somber subjects with tongue planted firmly in cheek, has no qualms breaking free to resonate with hilarity and their trademark cockiness like a brakeless derailing bullet train. Contained herein are stories about real-life characters sung by slightly mendacious rock’n’roll adventurers.

50 Miles Of Elbow Room

Issue # 2

50 Miles of Elbow Room

***The second issue of this "lively and thoughtful" magazine is a 112-page book with extensive features on HAMID DRAKE (11,000 word historical and philosophical interview), OTHA TURNER (excellent interview wth the 90+year-old fife player), REVEREND CHARLIE JACKSON (untouchable '70s gospel guitar scorcher), LOUIS MOHOLO (WILLIAM PARKER interviews the great South African expatriate drummer), JUNE TYSON (a hail to SUN RA's righteous and radiant singer, dancer, and violinist, includes PHIL SCHAAP's never-before-published interview from '87), and ROBERT PETE WILLIAMS (retrospective on this blindingly original improvising bluesman). 8" x 8", perfect bound.

Afterhours

Collaborations of Sound And Visuals

Afterhours

***Japan’s Afterhours Magazine celebrates twenty issues with a special book-and-CD issue. Includes collaborations between fifteen international illustrators and fifteen international musicians with beautiful visuals and wonderful sounds. Includes music from MICE PARADE, ISAN, MONTAG, JOSHUA LA RUE, MUM + ADAM PIERCE, ULTRA LIVING, LONESOME ORGANIST, HIM, SPOOMBUG (aka KEV HOPPER), and more. Japanese import.

Svenonius, Ian F.

Supernatural Strategies For Making A Rock’n’Roll Group

Akashic

Badaboom Gramophone

Issue # 5

Ba Da Bing!

***The long-anticipated fifth issue comes out cracking with a wide range of subjects, including Cognitive Abnormalites Relating to Music, RAYMOND SCOTT, the newly discovered "No Exit Act II" by JEAN PAUL SARTRE, Twisted Village Records, MATMOS & FRANKLIN BRUNO, DAVID FOSTER WALLACE, a Consumer's Guide to ROBERT CHRISTGAU's Consumer Guide, and more. Includes a tribute to Raymond Scott CD with unreleased tracks from SOLEX, CEX, AROVANE, GEOMETRIC FARMS, ENSEMBLE, TELSTAR PONIES, BOGDAN RACZYNSKI, and more.

Blank Forms

Blank Forms, Vol. 3: Henning Christiansen: Freedom is Around the Corner

Blank Forms

Brother Jt

Black Journal / Non Compos Mantis

Brother JT Inc.

***The Brodge's second book of "Spirit Transcriptions and Advice For Living" is a spiffy, 5 1/2 X 8 1/2, 148 page, b&w expressway to the Id. Much the same in spirit as the larger, more colorful (and pricey) Orange Journal, Black Journal's main departure is the extensive use of typeface instead of direct scannings from the hand-scrawled journal, so as to make the maddening gibberish a might bit easier to read. Of course there are still some pages left un-transcribed for authenticity's sake, and many original and collages as well. Automatic writings, drawings, collages, and pure BROTHER JT magic. Companion CDR, Non Compos Mantis, which derives many song lyrics from Black Journal, is also included.

Mr. Pottymouth

Pussy Pow Wow

Chronoplastics

***The long-awaited (?) testimonial of the enigmatic MR. POTTYMOUTH, frontman for the rock outfit ARAB ON RADAR. A volatile collection of depraved poetry, lyrics and prose, delivered with candor, emotion, retarded adolescence and twisted morality.