News

Extended guitar hero Oren Ambarchi returns with Shebang, the latest in the series of intricately detailed long-form rhythmic workouts that includes Quixotism (2014) and Hubris (2016). Like those records, Shebang features an international all-star cast of musical luminaries, their contributions recorded individually in locations from Sweden to Japan yet threaded together so convincingly (by Ambarchi in collaboration with Konrad Sprenger) that it’s hard to believe they weren’t breathing the same studio air! Expanding on the techniques of these past works, intricate themes and variations build... (read more)

First thought, best thought. Until the next thought: a guiding principle for No Age in the 16ish years they’ve been around. Constantly responding to their own streams of consciousness with reductive flexibility, they’ve taken the basic duo of guitar and drums with vocals WAY farther than anyone listening in halcyon Weirdo Rippers days could have guessed. Expounding on those atomic possibilities, they’ve zig-zagged with serpentine precision, ranging outside and back in again—as befits the present thought, whenever it comes. And now, six albums into it... (read more)

Some songs are so good, you just can’t get them out of your head. And you never want to! Storing them deep inside allows you to dig 'em up again, like (re)discovered treasure, so they can reinvigorate your worldview all over again. And so the love grows. For Ty, The Mantles’ 2009 slice of garage-pop perfection, “Don’t Lie” is one of those songs. Having played and toured with The Mantles in the Bay Area back in the day, Ty descends compassionately into the... (read more)

It's the summer of their years, and Kamikaze Palm Tree are out on the beach, fully lotioned, essence to essence. With their impending (next classic) album MINT CHIP locked down for a August 12th release, we're just counting the days until we can share all of it, while dropping tracks here and there, for the thrill of it all. Like this one: "Predicament"! With rough-hewn, multicolored animation, John Andrews' video accentuates KPTs signature thickets of psychoactive jangle-thump and flashing harmonics of vocal chorale. The vid's smeary... (read more)

Purling Hiss are coming! Daredevil Thrills!

Get your weird on and come out to see Philly’s fastest and loudest supercharged noise nicks as they floor it onto stages the length and breadth of Engerland. Tokyo-drifting into the End of the Road Fest (with an additional Polizze solo show bolted on) before a rear-drive, burn out nationwide,  Purling Hiss leave nothing but donuts in the tarmac out front of venues as evidence that "Yes, they were really here!”

From London down to Brighton via Leeds,... (read more)

Due to entirely foreseen circumstances (COVID-19, damn u!), Bill MacKay and Nathan Bowles were forced to cancel their maiden voyage as a duo earlier this month, but fear not, the boys will be back in (your) town before too long! The Spiral Joy band have shifted their road trippin' subtly forward in time, landing in the first week of August to perform at many of the same venues and towns - with the addition of new dates in Durham and Baltimore. How's that for lost... (read more)

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's pages-long contributions to modern, recorded music are all kindling for the spark of hardcore fandom, but his stage presence is the crux of what makes him such a phenomenon. A performer like no other, Bonny incorporates a lightness for those who see a darkness, making a place for all the wolves in these cosmos to safely land and enjoy an evening of wild song and willed togetherness!

This summer presents an excellent opportunity to get up close n' deeply personal... (read more)

Fresh off the release of Ghosted, the exceptional new album by Oren Ambarchi, Johan Berthling and Andreas Werliin, the trio reappear with a music video for the album track, “III”! Rooted in rhythm and the myriad, fascinating ways it can subdivide the beat, “III” slowly unfurls with airy, reverberating clouds of guitar, a brooding, stalking bass-line, and percussive hypnotism. Utilizing these percussive riffs and repetitions and the tension-build they create, maverick filmmaker Cédrick Eymenier’s camera floats dreamily about the darkened, quiet nighttime streets of France to bring "III" to... (read more)

For their sophomore effort/Drag City debut, the enigmatic duo of Kamikaze Palm Tree (Dylan Hadley / Cole Berliner), slide elegantly into it, their tunes a harmony of ambiguity and nostalgia, cross-talking in the high register and rounded with thick bottom - a dancing clash of cognition and dissonance.

In their few years of life, they found themselves over two EPs and a live set (all on Bandcamp), exploring everything they loved, all at once, before landing a direct hit, with their album debut,... (read more)

Anthony Moore’s contribution to the post-punk/pre-wave sound of London in 1979 – abrasive truth to power made into chart fodder, frosted with production sparkle and draped in strings of keyboard theory–is all over Flying Doesn’t Help, a lovely collision of art, pop and punk from the megacenter of all things in the rock and roll era. Originally released on Moore’s own QUANGO imprint, this environment proved ideal for Anthony's process: make records by exploring, or as he put it, tapping the “deep connection between minimalism,... (read more)