MUSIC

Hakushi Hasegawa is a musician/singer-songwriter based in Tokyo, Japan, and the first Japanese artist signed to the Brainfeeder label. Brainfeeder announced the signing back in July 2023 and shared a single – “Mouth Flash (Kuchinohanabi)” – featuring bass by the super-talented Sam Wilkes (Leaving Records). A few days later Hakushi blew fans away, making their debut at the iconic music festival Fuji Rock in Japan. In September Hakushi created the soundtrack for the noir kei ninomiya Spring/Summer 2024 runway show for Comme des Garçons at Paris Fashion Week. Now Hakushi is the focus of a cover-to-cover takeover at Yuriika [Eureka] for November’s issue of the historical Japanese literary magazine specializing in poetry and criticism.

Consistent with Brainfeeder’s ethos of seeking out artists operating outside the confines of genre since the label started in 2008, Hakushi’s music is tricky to categorize as it straddles a few genres: alternative, electronic, jazz, pop/J-pop. Sometimes it’s pretty, at times it’s very intense and fast-paced. Releasing since 2018, they’ve already made a name for themselves domestically in Japan with a string of wonderfully wild releases and started to build a cult following internationally. Collabs to date have included Kid Fresino, yuigot, TOKYO SKA PARADISE ORCHESTRA, Yukichikasaku/men and Eye from Boredoms.

“Somoku Hodo” was Hakushi’s debut release in 2018 as a teenager, featuring fan favourites ‘Somoku’ and ‘Doku’ – a hyperspeed junglist jazz workout that makes early Squarepusher material sound positively pedestrian. Their debut album “Air Ni Ni” followed a year later in 2019, cementing their reputation as one of Japan’s most exciting, adventurous artists. Hakushi performed at the online festival “Secret Sky” in May 2020 hosted by Porter Robinson (4M viewers) and they graced the cover of influential music publication “MUSIC MAGAZINE” in September 2020. 

Hakushi Hasegawa is a musician/singer-songwriter based in Tokyo, Japan, and the first Japanese artist signed to the Brainfeeder label. Brainfeeder announced the signing back in July 2023 and shared a single – “Mouth Flash (Kuchinohanabi)” – featuring bass by the super-talented Sam Wilkes (Leaving Records). A few days later Hakushi blew fans away, making their debut at the iconic music festival Fuji Rock in Japan. In September Hakushi created the soundtrack for the noir kei ninomiya Spring/Summer 2024 runway show for Comme des Garçons at Paris Fashion Week. Now Hakushi is the focus of a cover-to-cover takeover at Yuriika [Eureka] for November’s issue of the historical Japanese literary magazine specializing in poetry and criticism.

Consistent with Brainfeeder’s ethos of seeking out artists operating outside the confines of genre since the label started in 2008, Hakushi’s music is tricky to categorize as it straddles a few genres: alternative, electronic, jazz, pop/J-pop. Sometimes it’s pretty, at times it’s very intense and fast-paced. Releasing since 2018, they’ve already made a name for themselves domestically in Japan with a string of wonderfully wild releases and started to build a cult following internationally. Collabs to date have included Kid Fresino, yuigot, TOKYO SKA PARADISE ORCHESTRA, Yukichikasaku/men and Eye from Boredoms.

“Somoku Hodo” was Hakushi’s debut release in 2018 as a teenager, featuring fan favourites ‘Somoku’ and ‘Doku’ – a hyperspeed junglist jazz workout that makes early Squarepusher material sound positively pedestrian. Their debut album “Air Ni Ni” followed a year later in 2019, cementing their reputation as one of Japan’s most exciting, adventurous artists. Hakushi performed at the online festival “Secret Sky” in May 2020 hosted by Porter Robinson (4M viewers) and they graced the cover of influential music publication “MUSIC MAGAZINE” in September 2020. 

Twin readings from Joy Division's post-punk gospels, on 7" for the first time. Codeine's 1994 take on "Atmosphere" were the New York slowcore band's final recorded moments, a glum, if not melodic, take on the Salford quartet's requiem to solitude. On the flip, Dallas' Bedhead tackle the opener for Unknown Pleasures, reimagining "Disorder" as jangly indie rock. Housed in an elegant black and silver sleeve, with embossed braille lettering for the visually impaired.

Crashing at the unlikely intersection of post-hardcore, slowcore, and jazz-rock, Karate spent a dozen years producing peerless recordings in their adopted hometown of Boston. Collected here are their six albums—S/T, In Place of Real Insight, The Bed Is In The Ocean, Unsolved, Some Boots, Pockets, plus the Cancel/Sing and In The Fish Tank EPs, singles, and split 7"s, a whopping 69 tracks spread across eight glorious compact discs. Leor Galil’s career-spanning essay is illustrated with dozens of period-appropriate photos in the accompanying 80-page book.

(Limited quantities available / Includes DL code / Orange vinyl / Japanese obi / Includes instruction booklet)

Mount Kimbie, who have established themselves firmly in the UK indie electronic scene and whose songs with member Dom Maker were nominated for a Grammy Award, have released their fourth studio album, "The Sunset Violent," on <Warp>.
The Sunset Violent" continues the direction of his last studio album, 2017's "Love What Survives," seamlessly blending contemporary indie sounds, shoegaze, and electronica to create an album that is now a hallmark of the London scene. It is a perfect reflection of both the idiosyncrasies and forward-thinking nature of Mount Kimbie, who has now become a major presence on the London scene.
The work was produced in the rural western town of Yucca Valley, California, prior to the finishing touches in London. The auburn tones and desolate Americana landscape of the desert surrounds the entire album, perfectly matching the abstract storytelling and modern songwriting of each song, and here we have a new masterpiece from Mount Kimbie.
With Dom Maker and Kai Campos at the helm, and longtime collaborators Andrea Valency Beirne and Mark Pell, Mount Kimbie is a four-person group that, along with James Blake, created the post-dubstep trend and has been influential in the scene for nearly 15 Since their 2010 debut Crooks & Lovers (which topped the "Best Albums of the Decade" lists in over 30 media outlets including Pitchfork, Mixmag, and Resident Advisor), Mount Kimbie has been a fixture on the UK Since then, the band has continued the tradition of electronic music while also serving as a pioneering force for contemporary indie bands. Their last album, "Love What Survives," reaffirmed their reputation, featuring King Krull, Micachu, James Blake, and others, and in 2022 they released "Die Cuts | City Planning," an ambitious work that showcases the talents of both Kai and Dom. While Kai has enjoyed a successful career as a DJ, Dom has worked as a producer on tracks by Travis Scott, Siza, Metro Boomin, and James Blake, and his production of James Blake's "Loading" was nominated for a Grammy Award. James Blake's "Loading," which he produced, was nominated for a Grammy Award.

#BurningDesire super thank you to my big brother naavin, none of this would be possible without you. thank you for sticking with me through it even when it’s not as sunny. blood couldn’t make us more family than we already are! biggest love to aint wet, to mikey for always being the most helpful in the technical sides of things and abe for being the genius that he is. i’m so grateful for how your mind works and always incorporates everyones input. you are a once in a lifetime! thank you :)) biggest thanks to my real life twin cynthia, i appreciate the love and motivation you show towards my art and me as a friend! 🫀🫀 your light illuminates all of us!!! biggest thanks to klein, a creative pillar, always informing me and pushing me in ways to expand my creative world even more. big shout out to my big brother thebe, you lead without even knowing! grateful to be a writer alongside u & many greats! biggest love to the paris/manchester/amsterdam/lisboa/bk excursion gang. that trip saved my happiness and is a big factor to why this project was even able to be done. big shout out to laron for swinging the beat for snake charm. literally one of my favorite producers ever! glad 6/7 years down the line, niggas still in this shit! worldwide! biggest thanks to liv.e & venna for the amazing job they did on u think maybe? it brings tears to my eyes every time, liv.e angelic voice and venna whooping ass on saxophone. thank you to the full band, y’all came so clutch in such a quick time. (immanuel simelane & rashaan brown) biggest love to gabe for always mixing the shit out these songs and creating a very relaxed n calm space when doin so!!! ur very much appreciated!! biggest thanks to gawd for sending the beat for asff, ur a goat n the world gon see it if they not already!!1 thank you to shanice for heart turning poem on real love, u r the goat and i appreciate the love you show to me and my work. it means the most twin!!!!! thank you to my brother taka for always being an inspiration and honest voice. thank you for coming along the way w me this whole time. your work & presence is appreciated brodi!!!! thank you to my big brudda brayan for always being a creative inspiration as well and just a general moral compass in this confusing world! i love you broski! you teach me so much! biggest thanks to my brother cousteau, you’re golden and such a talented scribe!!! biggest thanks to my brother niontay, grateful to have met you and i am grateful your loyalty and friendship in this thang! y’all two are some of the craziest writers i have come across, thank you for seeing me worthy! biggest love to lila for blessing should be!, brooklyn legend, it’s an honor to have you on the album!!! biggest love to larry june for being so open to work and losing his mind on that mf verse!! greatest appreciation to mark williams lewis as well for creating such an atmospheric place on the outro. your music amazes me, thank you! biggest thanks to nick who drove for us on tour, he don’t know but that me being in my chief keef era statement boosted mines all the way. thank you to squills, marc, jasper, nicky w, cruzin, ian, m, sideshow, anysia for that amazing time on the road. i am so grateful to be surrounded by such profound artist and light spirits. you guys brought joy to my life! Thank you to my little & big sisters, yaw all inspire me so much and I couldn’t be a prouder brother !! thank you to my father and my beautiful queen for watching over me and praying for me always, I love y’all bigger than I can explain! there’s so many more ppl i could talk about, but i love y’all so much. my life has light, i appreciate y’all

To celebrate the 21st anniversary of Juana Molina’s breakthrough album Segundo (2000), here’s a very special reissue, remastered from the original tapes, and augmented by a rich booklet recounting the eventful start of Juana’s musical career, and containing numerous notes, anecdotes, original drawings and previously unreleased pictures.
Segundo is the album which started Juana Molina’s international trajectory as a musician, and its making was a wild story: after dropping her highly-successful career as a TV comedian, and signing with a major company who got her to record her debut album, Juana set out to find her own direction in music and started working on a new record (aptly titled Segundo). This journey took four years, and included sessions in Argentina and in several houses where she lived on the US West Coast, the involvement of several possible producers and of four successive record labels, who each had their own idea of what Juana should be doing... Juana remained untamed, forged ahead and, during the course of this sometimes complicated process, developed her own method and her own characteristic sound. She writes:
From the moment “Segundo” took shape, I began to walk a path that I have not yet abandoned. That is why it’s so important to me. I feel that this was the seed of everything I have done ever since. I discovered the flair of composing in real time, the charm of discarding the very idea of demos, the grace of documenting these moments of searching and finding. Everything else became dispensable.

In 2000, Juana finally self-released Segundo in Argentina. The album semi-accidentally made its way to Japan where it very spectacularly took off, and was eventually picked up by the Domino label in 2003. The reception of Segundo set Juana Molina on course for starting to perform around the globe, garnering a large, devoted fan base, and going on to record five more extraordinary studio albums (including the widely-acclaimed Halo in 2017) and a live record (ANRMAL, 2020).
All this and much more is narrated in the lovely booklet, which includes notes by several people who were involved in these events (including Bruce Springsteen producer Ron Aniello) and by early adopters such as KCRW DJ Chris Douridas, Domino Recording’s Laurence Bell (who discovered Segundo by chance, in Will Oldham’s car), and David Byrne who, as soon as he heard the album for the first time, invited Juana to open for him on his 2003 US tour. 
 

Shades of Yesterday is the new covers album by DJ Harrison – 11 tracks that pay homage to his musical heroes, representing some of his most treasured childhood memories, out February 9th on Stones Throw. It was created over several years at his home studio Jellowstone, where he also created his previous two Stones Throw albums, 2021’s Tales from the Old Dominion and 2017’s HazyMoods. The announcement comes with a new song, too. “L’Anthropofemme” is a cover of French group Syntaxe.“L’Anthropofemme” was first introduced to DJ by Tyler, the Creator during an L.A. studio session where the two artists shared some of their most loved songs. Last year, Harrison shared “Lil Birdie”, a cover from Vince Guaraldi’s iconic A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special, and a cover of Donald Fagen’s “IGY”, which he decided to record after opening for the Steely Dan legend in his hometown of Richmond, Virginia. While DJ Harrison has spent his career as a sought-after collaborator, playing in the funk-jazz fusion outfit Butcher Brown and collaborating with Pink Siifuu, Joyce Wrice, and winning two Grammy nominations for his work with Kurt Elling, Shades of Yesterday was created solo, with Harrison playing almost every instrument himself.

- Limited edition black 7" vinyl in paper inner sleeve in 3mm spine sleeve
- 500 copies worldwide
- Released 26th January 2024

trip9love…??? is the third album from Tirzah, produced by long-time musical collaborator Mica Levi.

It was written and recorded at both their homes and various corners of South East London and Kent. 

After several recording sessions over roughly a year, eventually the music suddenly came into a sound that they wanted to follow. The tracks were built using piano loops on top of one beat, distortion added, then romantic vocal toplines. Poems centre on themes of love, both real and imagined. The world the record finds space in is a lazy club fantasy zone.

Coming February 10: the most live-sounding Yo La Tengo album in years, This Stupid World. Times have changed for Yo La Tengo as much as they have for everyone else. In the past, the band has often worked with outside producers and mixers. In their latest effort, the first full-length in five years, This Stupid World was created all by themselves. And their time-tested judgment is both sturdy enough to keep things to the band’s high standards, and nimble enough to make things new. At the base of nearly every track is the trio playing all at once, giving everything a right-now feel. There’s an immediacy to the music, as if the distance between the first pass and the final product has become more direct. Available on standard black vinyl, CD and on limited blue vinyl.

Written and recorded in 1980-83 by (Aksak Maboul & Crammed Discs founder) Marc Hollander and (Honeymoon Killers/Aksak Maboul vocalist) Véronique Vincent, this trailblazing avant-pop album album predated certain hybrid musical trends which may have emerged later on (think pop meets proto-techno, with African, Middle-Eastern, dub, jazz & cinematic French flavours…)

The album remained unfinished and unreleased for 30 years, and finally came out for the first time in Oct 2014.

Un Día is a hypnotic record, restless, alive with melodies that surface imperceptibly before burrowing into your brain, never to leave. It’s a record informed by an ever shifting and polymorphous sense of groove, rhythms writhing over and inside each other, played out on wood and cymbal and bombo legüero, and woven from electronic glitches. “I noticed rhythm on my previous records was tacit, there but concealed,” explains Molina. “For this record, I aimed to make what was obvious to me obvious to others, to bring it to the front, like a hidden layer in Photoshop.”

This approach informs more than just Un Día’s rhythms. These songs are bright and playful; for all their seeming complexity, the melodies and harmonies of tracks like ‘¿Quien? (Suite)’ lock into place instantly, the gentle and trancelike conversation between coos and sighs and handclaps and murmurs building to nagging, chiming hooks and refrains. And while she has experimented with Ambient and Electronic music – and while those experiments still indelibly colour her approach – Un Dia is a warmly human record, Molina’s voice played to the foreground, gliding dreamily through the tangle tentative rhythm on the blissful eddy of ‘No Llama’, sighing urgently along with the spectral guitars and keyboards of ‘Los Hongos De Marosa’.

The compilation that started the renaissance. In 2002 Audika Records entered into an exclusive licensing agreement with the estate of Arthur Russell to compile and issue previously unreleased and out of print material from Arthur’s vast archive. This first album Calling Out Of Context, features 12 previously unreleased tracks of Buddhist Bubblegum Alt Disco Pop recorded during Arthur’s prime years 1985-90.

Jamila Woods has a voice and lyrical sensibility that transcends generations, and so it makes sense to have this lush and layered album that bounces seamlessly from one sonic aesthetic to another. This was the case on 2016's HEAVN, which found Woods hopeful and exploratory, looking along the edges resilience and exhaustion for some measures of joy. Her new album, Legacy! Legacy! is the logical conclusion to that looking. From the airy boom-bap of "Giovanni" to the psychedelic flourishes of "Sonia," the instrument which ties the musical threads together is the ability of Woods to find her pockets in the waves of instrumentation, stretching syllables and vowels over the harmony of noise until each puzzle piece has a home. The whimsical and malleable nature of sonic delights also grants a path for collaborators to flourish: the sparkling flows of Nitty Scott on "Sonia" and Saba on "Basquiat," or the bloom of Nico Segal's horns on "Baldwin." More than just giving the song titles the names of historical black and brown icons of literature, art, and music, Jamila Woods builds a sonic and lyrical monument to the various modes of how these icons tried to push beyond the margins a country had assigned to them. On "Sun Ra," Woods sings "I just gotta get away from this earth, man / this marble was doomed from the start" and that type of dreaming and vision honors not only the legacy of Sun Ra, but the idea that there is a better future, and in it, there will still be black people.  Soul music did not just appear in America, and soul does not just mean music. Rather, soul is what gold can be dug from the depths of ruin, and refashioned by those who have true vision. True soul lives in the pages of a worn novel that no one talks about anymore, or a painting that sits in a gallery for a while but then in an attic forever. Soul is all the things a country tries to force itself into forgetting. Soul is all of those things come back to claim what is theirs. Jamila Woods is a singular soul singer who, in voice, holds the rhetorical demand. The knowing that there is no compromise for someone with vision this endless. That the revolution must take many forms, and it sometimes starts with songs like these. Songs that feel like the sun on your face and the wind pushing flowers against your back while you kick your head to the heavens and laugh at how foolish the world seems.

At the time, being the first of the many semi-official bootlegs and live releases that Swans put out over the years, Feel documents the 1987 European tour for Children of God, recorded quite well on a professional walkman by the band's sound engineer. The track list exclusively focuses on Children material, so the album has much of the same general variety as its parent release, though all of the edges are a little rougher. "Blood and Honey," for example, maintains the synth-string arrangements from the album as well as Jarboe's low, haunting vocals, but the louder instrumental breaks have a stronger power here. In the meantime, already overpowering songs like "New Mind" and "Beautiful Child" rage all that much harder in a live arena, with Gira holding little back, if at all. At the same time, a tune like "Trust Me" maintains the newer Gira's commanding-yet-controlled croon amidst the more textured, elegant arrangement, though he definitely starts to let himself go more towards the end. Naming every highlight would take nearly forever, but special mention has to be made of "Children of God," featuring a fantastic call-and-response vocal tradeoff between Jarboe and Gira while the band brilliantly backs them up, and versions of "Sex God Sex" and especially "Blind Love," which make the album versions seem like gentle walks in the park by comparison. Another definite bonus on Feel is the demonstration of Swans' hitherto hard-to-find sense of humor: "Willy in Ravensburg" is a recording of a PA tape of Willie Nelson with drunken audience response, while a number of tracks near the end document a variety of performance goofs and improvisations, including some muffled but amusing audience banter at points. ~ Ned Raggett

Sleaford Mods are pleased to announce the release of their cover of the Pet Shop Boys’ iconic single “West End Girls”, with all profits from the track going to the homeless charity Shelter.

The Nottingham duo created a version of the 1986 classic between tours for their latest album UK GRIM, and then sought the blessing of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe to put out the track.

Not only did Sleaford Mods’ “West End Girls” meet with the pair’s approval, but the Pet Shops Boys were inspired to remix the cover which will feature as one of the tracks on the limited edition single.

Hifi Sean has also contributed an Acid House meets Hi-NRG remix for the release, while Sleaford Mods’ own Andrew Fearn has added a heady vocoder led mix under his solo guise of Extnddntwrk.

Clearly apparent from their own minimal approach to music, the Pet Shop Boys have always been an important influence for Sleaford Mods, with Chris and Neil’s ability to merge sophisticated electronics and rich character often serving as a lodestar for the partnership between producer Andrew Fearn and front man Jason Williamson.

This esteem for the Pet Shop Boys can be clearly heard on their take on “West End Girls”, although Jason and Andrew have not flinched from creating a version of the song which is truly Sleaford Mods.

If the original is a sophisticated exposé of the heartlessness of 80s Thatcherite Britain while also paying tribute to people’s ability to shine despite living in brutal times, then Sleaford Mods’ have skillfully distressed the shimmering classic with sharp synths and scuffed-up vocals, offering a sense of the resilience now required to survive in our disconnected and dysfunctional days.

“’West End Girls’ is a song that’s very close to my heart, my coming-of-age track in so many ways.” says Andrew Fearn of the original.
Jason Williamson continues, “I’ve been listening to the Pet Shop Boys albums ‘Please’ and ‘Actually’ a lot, the music still fits this landscape so well. When Andrew suggested we cover “West End Girls”, it was important to honour the track’s brilliance. So when Neil and Chris gave the track their blessing, our tiny minds were blown, and when we received their remix… it was almost too much, it was brilliant!”

Neil/Chris added… “Sleaford Mods have brought East End boys back to the West End streets for a great cause and we love their new version.”
Sleaford Mods “West End Girls” cover will be available on a limited edition 12-inch with remixes from the Pet Shop Boys, HiFi Sean and Extnnddntwrk, which can be pre-ordered now ahead of release on 15th December. All tracks will be available to stream from 21st November.

Profits generated by the single are being donated by Sleaford Mods to the charity Shelter, details of their work can be found at www.shelter.org.uk

In the spring of 1977, two young Belgian musicians who call themselves Aksak Maboul (aka Marc Hollander & Vincent Kenis) set out to record an album, "Onze danses pour combattre la migraine", in which they playfully fused and deconstructed all kinds of genres to create their own musical world. Three years later, Hollander founded the Crammed label. Many ingredients came in and out of the Aksak blender : fake jazz, electronics, imaginary African & Balkan music, minimalism... there were even pre-techno aspects such in as Saure Gurke and its characteristic keyboard stab pattern which will mysteriously find its way into many classic Detroit techno tracks some ten years later. Onze Danses became a cult album, and seems retrospectively to have mapped out the way for the various directions which have been explored by Crammed during the next two decades.

To celebrate the 21st anniversary of Juana Molina’s breakthrough album Segundo (2000), here’s a very special reissue, remastered from the original tapes, and augmented by a rich booklet recounting the eventful start of Juana’s musical career, and containing numerous notes, anecdotes, original drawings and previously unreleased pictures.
Segundo is the album which started Juana Molina’s international trajectory as a musician, and its making was a wild story: after dropping her highly-successful career as a TV comedian, and signing with a major company who got her to record her debut album, Juana set out to find her own direction in music and started working on a new record (aptly titled Segundo). This journey took four years, and included sessions in Argentina and in several houses where she lived on the US West Coast, the involvement of several possible producers and of four successive record labels, who each had their own idea of what Juana should be doing... Juana remained untamed, forged ahead and, during the course of this sometimes complicated process, developed her own method and her own characteristic sound. She writes:
From the moment “Segundo” took shape, I began to walk a path that I have not yet abandoned. That is why it’s so important to me. I feel that this was the seed of everything I have done ever since. I discovered the flair of composing in real time, the charm of discarding the very idea of demos, the grace of documenting these moments of searching and finding. Everything else became dispensable.

In 2000, Juana finally self-released Segundo in Argentina. The album semi-accidentally made its way to Japan where it very spectacularly took off, and was eventually picked up by the Domino label in 2003. The reception of Segundo set Juana Molina on course for starting to perform around the globe, garnering a large, devoted fan base, and going on to record five more extraordinary studio albums (including the widely-acclaimed Halo in 2017) and a live record (ANRMAL, 2020).
All this and much more is narrated in the lovely booklet, which includes notes by several people who were involved in these events (including Bruce Springsteen producer Ron Aniello) and by early adopters such as KCRW DJ Chris Douridas, Domino Recording’s Laurence Bell (who discovered Segundo by chance, in Will Oldham’s car), and David Byrne who, as soon as he heard the album for the first time, invited Juana to open for him on his 2003 US tour. 
 

The fifth album from shoegaze giants Slowdive contains the duality of a familiar internal language mixed with the exaltation of new beginnings. everything is alive is transportive, searching and aglow, the work of a classic band continuing to pitch its unmistakable voice to the future. Six years after the group’s monumental self-titled album, everything is alive finds Slowdive—vocalists and guitarists Rachel Goswell and Neil Halstead, guitarist Christian Savill, bassist Nick Chaplin, and drummer Simon Scott—locating evermore contours of its immersive, elemental sound. The new record began with Halstead in the role of writer and producer, working on demos at home. Experimenting with modular synths, Halstead originally conceived of everything is alive as a “more minimal electronic record.” Slowdive’s collective decision-making ultimately drew the group back towards their signature reverb-drenched guitars, but that first concept seeped into the compositions. “As a band, when we’re all happy with it, that tends to be the stronger material,” Halstead says. “We’ve always come from slightly different directions, and the best bits are where we all meet in the middle.” The convergence of five unique characters has made the sound. “Slowdive is very much the sum of its parts,” Goswell adds. “Something unquantifiable happens when the five of us come together in a room.” The group’s projected studio sessions for everything is alive, in April 2020, were naturally scrapped, and when the group finally did meet up, six months later, at Courtyard Studio, where they’ve historically recorded, the mood was jubilant. (Finally, they had a proper reason to leave the house.) That was the beginning of a multi-year recording process, which moved from Oxfordshire and into the Wolds of Lincolnshire and back to Neil’s own Cornish studio before extending into February 2022, when the band brought in mixer Shawn Everett (The War On Drugs, SZA, Alvvays) to mix six of the record’s eight tracks. Owing to their deep history, there’s a palpable familial energy to Slowdive in 2023. everything is alive is dedicated to Goswell’s mother and Scott’s father, who both died in 2020. “There were some profound shifts for some of us personally,” Goswell says. Those crossroads are reflected in the many-layered emotional tenor of Slowdive’s music; everything is alive is heavy with experience, but each note is poised, wise, and necessarily pitched to hope. Its unique alchemy subtly embodies both sadness and gratitude, groundedness and uplift. Reflecting on “kisses,” which may be Slowdive’s surest pop moment yet, Halstead said, “It wouldn’t feel right to make a really dark record right now. The album is quite eclectic emotionally, but it does feel hopeful.” everything is alive, is exactly what the title suggests: an exploration into the shimmering nature of life and the universal touch points within it. Spanning psychedelic soundscapes, pulsating 80’s electronic elements and John Cale inspired journeys, the album lands immediately as something made for the future; which figures, as their fanbase has grown younger and younger as time has gone on, and their influence on forward thinking musical artists continues to prevail. For a genre that is often thought of as divisive, and often warrants introspection, here Slowdive show their craft as the masters of it by pushing it outwards, beyond the singular; the end result being a record which feels as emotional and cathartic as it is optimistic.

Black Market Brass is proud to present Hox, due out on Colemine Records on September 8, 2023. Their third LP is a new take on afrobeat that combines traditional grooves with heavy, hypnotic, sci-fi sounds that reflect the band’s myriad of influences as record collectors across genres. “We didn’t leave the traditional afro-beat sound behind, but we did allow ourselves to pull from different places with less hesitation.” Shared saxophonist Cole Pulice. Like their previous albums, the 9-piece band recorded Hox live to tape. “The sound and aesthetic of the analog recording process is important for this kind of music,” Pulice explained. “We’re looking to capture lightning in a bottle.” With that, the album features several sections of heavily processed synthesizers, harsh glitches, fuzzed out guitars, and a burning percussion section that pays homage to the traditional drumming cultures of Nigeria and Ghana. The performances are dynamic and confident. The grooves are infectious and hypnotic. BMB has pushed further into musical experimentalism, but at the end of the day, they’re still making dance music. Krautrock, free-jazz, doom metal – the inspirations for Hox stem from all kinds of musical backgrounds, but the sound is far from scattered. It’s a polished, innovative record that’s sure to exceed expectations and keep the listener engaged from start to finish.

An exploration of misplaced desire and all-consuming romantic obsession, told through a series of beautifully constructed leftfield pop songs. La Porte, the second studio album by Charlotte Kouklia aka Charlène Darling, finds the artist and her group building a self-contained musical world via French and English language vocals, and a minimalist backing of guitar, organ, bass and drums.

At times recalling the feminist post-punk of The Raincoats, the avant songcraft of Brigitte Fontaine, or the psychedelic vignettes of Cate Le Bon, in truth Charlène Darling sounds like herself. The arrangements are playfully experimental, dubbed out percussion bubbling over the stripped back instrumentation, or rough tape edits disrupting lush harmonies, but never losing sight of the earworm hooks that make these songs so addictively listenable. Step through the door and walk right in.

Charlotte is one quarter of the band Rose Mercie. After a beguiling series of DIY tape and CD-R releases, her first widely distributed solo album, Saint-Guidon, was released in 2019.

boygenius is Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus
All songs written and performed by boygenius except "Ketchum, ID" by boygenius and Christian Lee Hutson
Bass on this recording by Anna Butterss
Drums on this recording by Elizabeth Goodfellow
Recorded at Sound City, Van Nuys, CA
Engineered by Joseph Lorge
Mixed by Collin Pastore except "Me & My Dog" mixed by Joseph Lorge
Mastered by Heba Kadry at Timeless Mastering
Photo by Lera Pentelute

Numero Group boxset providing chapter and verse on American slowcore pioneers Duster. Although short-lived, the trio dealt in uniquely spaced-out post-rock soundscapes over the course of two albums, one EP and a handful of singles and compilation contributions around the turn of the millennium.