Indierock | Alternative 204 Items

Abstract Crimewave (fka Smile) is a duo comprising of Björn Yttling (Peter Bjorn and John) and Joakim Åhlund (Les Big Byrd, Caesars, Teddybears). The Longest Night, which features guest appearances by Chrissie Hynde, Lykke Li and Dungen, is the sound of Åhlund and Yttling paying tribute to the many different styles of music they love. It's an infectiously sunny journey into the wonderfully weird world.

Two years in the making, 25-year-old Angelica Garcia's album Cha Cha Palace is the result of an artist's need to SAY SOMETHING. The second song on the record, "Jícama" might only be a minute and 25 seconds in its entirety, but the message spans generations and is one that resonates deeply for Garcia with her Mexican and Salvadoran roots. Singing/shouting, "I see you, but you don't see me Jímaca, Jímaca, Guava Tree_I've been trying to tell ya, but you just don't see, like you I was born in this country," Garcia tells the reality for millions of Americans unapologetically and with passion.That feeling of being between places is something Garcia knows well having been raised between multigenerational, multicultural, homes with step-parents and half-siblings. Additionally, she made the journey from the West Coast to the East Coast and back again multiple times before finally settling down in Richmond, Virginia.She fondly recalls Mexican ranchera music always playing throughout her childhood. Ranchera was ingrained within the maternal side of her family with her Mother, Grandmother, Uncle & Aunt constantly singing the traditional music throughout the home of her Grandparents.Like Mitski, Lorde, Billie Eilish, and Rosalía, Garcia isn't afraid to tear pages out of her diary and express emotions that might be difficult and oftentimes daunting to share given today's social and political environment. Like her peers, she joins a new chapter of musicians who are connecting with their audiences on a level that lives outside the reaches of technology, trends, and social media, the daily experience of feeling torn between saying something and doing something, for being a voice and speaking with your voice, of being Latina while being American. And it's humanity and honesty that audiences are looking for and will find in spades throughout each note of Cha Cha Palace.

Animal, Surrender! is Peter Kerlin (sunwatchers and Chris Forsyth & Solar Motel Band) and drummer ROB Smith (GREY/Smith, Rhyton, Pigeons, D. Charles Spear). Kerlin leads the duo through a set of bass-driven compositions and interpretations, incorporating spare electronics through a post-rock/weird-folk trance with intricate and sometimes blasted interplay between the rhythm section. The project’s title refers to the ambiguous creatureliness of the human animal: How in trying to kill the animal within we eradicated all wildness on the planet; How in our never-ending evasion of any discomfort we guaranteed the destruction of all that sustains us. It's about other things too, like falling outs among friends and how even if it's the end it's not the end.

Another Michael's next chapter begins with Pick Me Up, Turn Me Upside Down, their new album due out this spring on Run For Cover Records. Following last year's sibling album Wishes to Fulfill, Pick Me Up is a more expansive output, patiently unfolding to reveal an exploratory side that brings new hues into the band's vibrant sound.Helmed by lead singer/songwriter Michael Doherty and producer/bassist Nick Sebastiano-along with signature contributions of multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Alenni Davis, drummer Noah Dardaris, and longtime engineer/co-producer/confidante Scoops Dardaris-Pick Me Up, Turn Me Upside Down came to life over three years of intermittent writing and recording sessions that proved unexpectedly fruitful. The band decamped at Headroom Studios in Philadelphia, PA, as well as the same Ferndale, NY house where they made their debut LP, 2021's New Music and Big Pop.The songs on Pick Me Up, Turn Me Upside Down often take the knack for melody that defined Wishes To Fulfill and apply it to left turns like the hypnotic quasi-krautrock of "I've Come Around To That," the sparse balladry of the title track, or the pulsating synth explorations of "The Diner's Spoon." The album's world is weirder and more improvisational, like in the twisting ends of "Hub of Dreams" or the spontaneous performances of "Like I Won A Car"-but Doherty's warm singing and conversational lyricism always keep things grounded.On Pick Me Up, Turn Me Upside Down, the band didn't set out to capture the all encompassing, existential value of music, but they did contribute to it-offering more songs to the world, and with them, chances to create one of those moments.

Since the inception of Anxious in 2016, the band has always acted with purpose. This may seem like a simple premise, but for five kids still in high school at the time, it's quite an accomplishment. Early songs were packaged in limited run demo tapes with accompanying zines and hand-dyed t-shirts. Weekends were filled with regional runs of shows outside of their Fairfield, Connecticut homebase. With this amount of effort it's no wonder that within a few years of graduation, Anxious has built a solid foundation for their debut album to flourish upon.On Little Green House, Anxious explores what it feels like to enter adulthood in unflinching detail. The Connecticut band unpacks struggles, joys, and hard-earned realizations in a way that makes them feel wise beyond their years. Anthemic songs like lead single "In April" and guaranteed sing-along "Growing Up Song" thread the often difficult melodic-hardcore needle in a way that feels both nostalgic for the emo renaissance of yesteryear and precisely built for the current moment of genre defiant pioneering.

After the traumatic period of pandemy, Bad Juice composed songs more in the rank of pop music, with a melancholic mood. this time the producer chosen by the two brothers is Gemma Ray and flew to Berlin to record this third opus in the famous Candy Bomber Studio. Gemma, fully invested and enthusiastic decides to change the sound and habits of the band. She takes inspiration of the wall of sound of Phil Spector, but maintaining the rock and roll spirit.

1ST LP of Bad Juice recorded Montebelluna (Italy), Ding-A-DONG reflects the musical DNA of the band, a tribute to its bluesy roots rock n roll and even folk music (the sound of her wings). With its frenetic pace and its sense of humour also including two tunes sang in frenc it reflects the urgency to play of the band

with this second LP it gets more serious . Recorded in 7# studio in Strasbourg Stack-O-Lee was produced by Rocio et Matt Verta-Ray coming directly from New York city. A real catalogue of all the different sub styles of Rock n Roll, this album is also the testimony of a period of huge changes in the world. BAD Juice stares at the USA like a mirror image and give a side view with alternatively nervous pub rock, sweet ballad song or sticky bluesy songs and of course back to its roots of genuine rock n roll

Limited Pink w/ Purple & Cream Swirl Vinyl.To celebrate the 10 Year anniversary of their album The Things We Think We're Missing, Balance and Composure teamed up with longtime collaborator Will Yip to track the record live for a one-time livestream event in late 2023. That performance has been pressed to vinyl & is now available in a one-time vinyl pressing.

After five long years, Balance and Composure return with Too Quick To Forgive--newly signed to Grammy-nominated producer Will Yip's label, Memory Music, the alt-rock darlings sound more assured and adventurous than ever across two vulnerable tracks. Too Quick To Forgive is a reflection on personal perseverance in the wake of confrontation, told through two distinctly different scenarios. "Savior Mode" finds frontman Jon Simmons baring his soul in a way that is unparalleled in their discography, while "Last To Know" is an emotionally-resonant highlight that leaves a lasting impact well after its final notes play out.Simmons' vulnerability and emotional delivery across both tracks cut through with unflinching precision courtesy of Andy Slaymaker (guitar), Matt Warner (bass), Erik Petersen (guitar), Dennis Wilson (drums), and who the band considers their 6th member--producer Will Yip. In the fall of 2022, the group got together at his Conshohocken, PA studio, Studio 4, with a few ideas that Yip helped turn into these otherworldly tracks. "It was all magic," Jon says.With a renewed sense of purpose, Balance and Composure will return to the stage for a series of Too Quick To Forgive release shows in some of the biggest rooms they've ever played.

Cloudy Baby Blue Vinyl.with you in spirit, the fourth Balance and Composure LP, is an arresting,atmospheric collection of melodic post-punk and towering rock. Due out October4 on long-time collaborator and Grammy-nominated producer Will Yip'sMemory Music, it's the band's first LP in eight years, and a thrilling full-lengthcomeback after their four-year hiatus. It thunders and stirs, dipping betweenbeautiful, crystalline arrangements and punishing, earth-shaking climaxes;in between all, a gripping, near-physical tension crackles and growls andgrooves, waiting to rip open.It's an intensely self-reflective record for vocalist and guitarist Jon Simmons,an uprooting and examination of the supports on which a life is built.Preemptive grief, wrestling with god and faith, familial responsibility, familialmortality_these are the things Simmons was carrying while writing thismaterial. They're also things he was trying, for better and worse, to avoid_hence the record's title.with you in spirit feels like the work of songwriters reaching new heights, exploringnew depths. Sometimes, the record itself feels like a band grapplingwith its own avoidance, its own mortality, and deciding to face these thingsthe only way they know how. Balance and Composure are with us in spirit,yes, but in the flesh, too, for now.

Cloudy Lavender Vinyl. with you in spirit, the fourth Balance and Composure LP, is an arresting,atmospheric collection of melodic post-punk and towering rock. Due out October4 on long-time collaborator and Grammy-nominated producer Will Yip'sMemory Music, it's the band's first LP in eight years, and a thrilling full-lengthcomeback after their four-year hiatus. It thunders and stirs, dipping betweenbeautiful, crystalline arrangements and punishing, earth-shaking climaxes;in between all, a gripping, near-physical tension crackles and growls andgrooves, waiting to rip open.It's an intensely self-reflective record for vocalist and guitarist Jon Simmons,an uprooting and examination of the supports on which a life is built.Preemptive grief, wrestling with god and faith, familial responsibility, familialmortality_these are the things Simmons was carrying while writing thismaterial. They're also things he was trying, for better and worse, to avoid_hence the record's title.with you in spirit feels like the work of songwriters reaching new heights, exploringnew depths. Sometimes, the record itself feels like a band grapplingwith its own avoidance, its own mortality, and deciding to face these thingsthe only way they know how. Balance and Composure are with us in spirit,yes, but in the flesh, too, for now.

Sometimes, the best things take time to finish. In 2012, two of the founding members of the seminal punk trio Bats & Mice stepped into the studio to start work on their follow-up to 2010's Back In Bat EP. Then, between babies and careers, life happened, and the project went dark for almost a decade. Bats & Mice is a band that has quietly crept through the music world. Three members of Sleepytime Trio originally formed the band: Jonathan Fuller (Engine Down, Denali), Dave NeSmith (Rah Bras, Committees) and Ben Davis (MileMarker, Committees). They began writing songs together in a new style that pursued their hardcore roots coupled with a more dark and winding sense of melody. However, the music still maintained the energy and drive of their previous efforts. This lineup produced Bats & Mice's first work, a self-titled EP released on Lovitt Records in the fall of 2000, to critical acclaim. Friends Daron Hollowel and Ash Bruce from the band 400 Years joined for a stint in which 'Bats' wrote and released the full-length album entitled, Believe It Mammals, on Lovitt in the spring of 2002. That lineup toured to support the LP across the US, playing with Fugazi, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, 90 Day Men, Denali, and Gregor Samsa. In 2004, Luke Herbst joined the band on drums, and the band toured Europe in support of a new EP titled A Person Carrying a Handmade Paper Bag is Considered as a Royal Person. Jonathan Fuller rejoined the group and helped write and record the Back In Bat EP, released in 2010. Soon after, Mark Oates (from Wailin' Storms) took over the drums for Jonathan and helped write new songs as the band headed into the studio to record the basic tracks for an LP in 2012. Bats & Mice then shelved the material as life, marriages, children, and Covid ate away the years. In early 2023, the band reconvened in Chapel Hill's Warrior Sound to rework the original tracking and finish a 10-song full-length record. Named PS: Seriously.

Beaux Gris Gris & The Apocalypse are happy to announce the release of their 3rd studio album, 'Hot Nostalgia Radio', alongside the release of the first single, 'Satisfy Your Queen', to digital platforms worldwide.The California-based Roots-Rock band have been gaining momentum across the UK and Europe for their acclaimed genre-bending music and epic one-of-a-kind live shows. Beaux Gris Gris expand their eclectic nature once again with this14 track album, celebrating and paying homage to classic songwriting and crossing the genre's that inspired their development as artists.Kicking the party off with a bang, BGG&TA presents their scorching rock single, 'Satisfy Your Queen'. A classic Rock n' Roll underpinning, bluesy riffs and an empowering chorus, the song kicks up a heavy fuss out of the gate, and doesn’t let up till the final note.True to form the album might be hard to categorize, but as the title suggests, it never strays away from being easily accessible. Front woman and songwriter, Greta Valenti explains: 'We've had over 4 years to write this album. The last album was recorded in 2019, pre-pandemic and then we had to sit on it for two years. I had over 100 song ideas waiting to go, but I really wanted this album to represent classic simple songwriting that strikes a chord within your soul. Every song should be a banger in some way, and these songs are really an evolution of who I am and who we are as a band. They're not complicated on the surface, but I hope these songs make you feel and are added to the soundtrack of your life - fitting seamlessly with the songs you already know and love.' Greta adds, 'So even though the songs may veer from Rock to Blues to Soul to Americana-Country to Singer-Songwriter, they are still essentially 3 to 4 minute pop songs. Our fans aren't genre-specific and neither are we. They just like good songs and wanna have a good time. And so do we.''I think our approach harkens back to when bands like the Beatles would write a bunch of different style songs, be it country, or psychedelic, or whatever they did they would always sound like the Beatles', guitarist Robin Davey adds. 'We certainly don't sound like the Beatles, but I hope that no matter what we do we are still easily identifiable as Beaux Gris Gris'.A deluxe double coloured vinyl set with LP sized booklet. Plays at 45rpm for higher fidelity! Side 1: 1. Oh Yeah (2:33) / 2. Wild Woman (2:47) / 3. Satisfy Your Queen (4:18) / 4. I Told My Baby (2:05). Side 2: 5. Middle Of The Night (3:21) / 6. Sad When I'm Dancing (3:21) / 7. All I Could Do Was Cry (3:22). Side 3: 8. The Runaway (4:36) / 9. Harder To Breathe (3:43) / 10. Don't Let Go (3:51). Side 4: 11. Penny Paid Rockstar (3:18) / 12. Marie (4:19) / 13. Let's Ride (3:23) / 14. Mama Cray (3:30)

Billy Bultheel's debut solo album is an ambitious distillation of the composer's sprawling litany of influences and his unique approach to site-specific composition. A compilation of pieces created between 2016 and 2023, the album is a forceful testament to Bultheel's expansive performance practice and collaborations with cutting-edge visual artists like Anne Imhof and James Richards.

Blur's performance at Worthy Farm, Pilton, England, on June 27th, 1998, was a significant event in the band's history and for the Glastonbury Festival as a whole. This performance marked Blur's headline slot at the festival, cementing their status as one of the UK's premier rock acts at the time.

A sparsely documented yet iconic era for Ted Milton's psycho-funk afro punk fake no-wave pogo jazz group Blurt has been brought to life with an expansive collection of restored versions of live performances. Captured on early camcorders during the frenzy of counter-cultural activity that characterised Europe around the fall of the Iron Curtain, these recordings of Blurt, recently posted by fans on YouTube, are a visceral reminder of a scene whose influence is writ large on today's alternative music culture.

Ted Milton's trio have produced an impressive string of albums, not to mention his numerous solo recordings. Featuring 15 tracks spanning their extensive discography from their 1980 debut single – also the title of this collection – “My Mother Was A Friend Of An Enemy Of The People” to 1999’s “Eat Up Your House”, this live collection of performances have been digitised by whatever means available. The original sound captured by the inbuilt microphones of these camcorders and the videos concerned are in many cases the only documentation of an iconic era whose zeitgeist was so masterfully epitomised for many by Blurt.

Refurbished / restored/ repurposed using new AI tools there is a spectral roughness to them but surfing on these reconstructed waveforms, the inimitable machinations of Blurt ride out once again, emerging from a pixilated oblivion to put into perspective the peculiar absurdity of our human condition.

Those who have had the opportunity to see Bobby Gonzales Trio live, you will have noticed the power, energy and versatility of his forceful live performance. Bobby Gonzales, leader, vocalist and guitarist of the band, reviews his musical career with bands like Coronados and Trash-Tornadoes bringing sparks to their Gretsch and his Fender amp and delighting everyone those who want to see this six-string virtuoso and one of the banners of rockabilly-psychobilly-swing still active. If it's the first time he visits you, don't you should miss the opportunity to see him live!

After a jump in the past to the golden age of the 1950s, the 4 rockers from Cactus Riders are taking it up a gear and transporting you into their own universe with the release of their new album “Skulls Out”. From macabre to comical, heavy rock to intimate ballads, they take us on a vast journey, always tinged however, with the same thing : good old Rock and Roll !

On "From The Source", Causa Sui's first new studio album in four years, the band has created some of their most ambitious music ever - simultaneously travelling through the sonic landscapes that has come to define the group's sound and pushing towards new horizons.With the four bandmember's ties to jazz, experimental and ambient music, Causa Sui is something of an anomaly in the ever-growing European psychedelic rock scene. Always...

On "From The Source", Causa Sui's first new studio album in four years, the band has created some of their most ambitious music ever - simultaneously travelling through the sonic landscapes that has come to define the group's sound and pushing towards new horizons.With the four bandmember's ties to jazz, experimental and ambient music, Causa Sui is something of an anomaly in the...

“All this I do for glory” is a reasoning and exploration of the machinations of ambition and legacy, an examination of the concepts of afterlife, and the first half of a doomed love story in the model of the greek tragedies. As a narra- tive, it exists temporally somewhere between 2015’s “Never were the way she was” (with Sarah Neufeld) and the 1st volume of the NHW Trilogy.

With this, his first solo outing since 2013’s “To See More Light”, Colin Stetson ventures into territory both familiar and strange. Here still, is the dogmatically stripped down approach to performance and capture (all songs recorded live with no overdubs or loops) but there is an immediacy to the album that belies a more invasive and thorough miking of the various instruments being utilized and a seeming influence drawn from the early nineties electronica of artists like Aphex Twin and Autechre, evident in the more pointed role played by the instruments’ many percus- sive elements.

There are ancestries, motivic and timbral, woven through these six songs that plainly anchor them within the shared universe of his Trilogy, though the overall experience is one of extreme intimacy, the sounds and imagery more tangible and immersive than previous offerings. The brief and brutal “In the clinches” recalls (or presages) echoes of songs like “Judges”, though now feeling like one has fallen down the bell of Stetson’s ancient bass sax- ophone itself. “Spindrift”, crystalline and serene, calls to mind the ambient works of Aphex Twin, while “Between Water and Wind” with it’s “Immigrant Song” swagger, relentlessly carves it’s way into the bedrock here, paving the way with an increasing focus on the minute and the minimal, with a deepened sense of patience shared by most of the album’s six tracks.

Engineered and mixed by Stetson himself, this album represents a decidedly independent approach across the entire creative process and finds him at the top of his game, both as a composer and instrumentalist as well as a producer.

Crack Cloud’s new album Tough Baby is both a clarion call and a life-manual for the listener. Unsurprisingly, it is a record with purpose and resolve. Nothing is wasted. Sometimes the music feels deliberately compressed, the essences extracted and bottled into an overpowering cordial, as on ‘115 At Night’, which sounds like an ‘80s Van Halen track being squeezed into another shape. And it’s difficult to see how a track like ‘Virtuous Industry’ can hold itself together, such are the sonic hoops it jumps through. The sharp angles and hook-laden guitar lines that were once seen as a trademark sound are less in evidence. Last track ‘Crackin Up’ does nod back to earlier releases with a booming beat and guitars that snag, like wool on barbed wire. Tough Baby contains music to think to, music with which to educate, agitate and organise. Zach Choy: “The name Tough Baby is an allusion to our Planet. To our Culture. And to our Selves.” It’s made to remind us that whilst we are all in the gutter to some extent, some of us are looking at the kerb.

Coke Bottle Green vinyl.Who were the first punks? Do The Damned have more of a shout than The Sex Pistols? The Stooges or Ramones? Gregg Deal, the acclaimed visual and performance artist behind his new project Dead Pioneers, is making a claim that Indigenous Americans were the first real punks.Deal suggests that the overarching theme of the album is "an introduction to the band itself". Created with a DIY disposition and the "love of a scene that saves lives", they reel off a roll call of marginalised groups and protected characteristics: "Indigenous rights, Black rights, Brown rights, Asian rights, Gay rights, Trans rights, Workers rights and beyond_". This is central to their identity and focus, saying that "with a North American Indigenous person as the vocalist, being unapologetically upfront on the social, political and cultural side of things doesn't seem necessary, but paramount to the overall tone of the band."This self-titled debut, coming in at a lithe 22 minutes with only one of the twelve tracks exceeding three minutes, is almost over before it begins, but covers a huge amount of ground in that time. Blistering opener 'Tired' sets out their stall; as with the whole album, it is passionate, but never preaching. Capitalised 'Political Music' can be hard to land without coming across as hectoring or earnest, but Deal's literary, humorous lyrics effortlessly cut through complex issues of marginalisation and colonialism.

Angles, intersections, connections. Some projects are 50-year plans, while others flow from friendship, serendipity and ideally, opportunity. Deep Tunnel Project arose out of Chicago, pandemic boredom diverted into creation, inspired by their urban setting and street grids, and the ultimate idea that what is never finished will never be done. Deep Tunnel Project are John Mohr and Mike Greenlees of TAR, Tim Midyett from Silkworm / Bottomless Pit / Mint Mile / Sunn O))) and Jeff Dean of Dead Ending, The Bomb, Heavy Seas, Her Head’s on Fire and more. This is their debut full-length.

Emerging in the late 1990s, Division OF Laura LEE quickly established themselves with a unique blend of post-punk and alternative indie rock. Celebrating their rich musical heritage, Lovitt Records has released the 25th anniversary edition of their seminal 1999 album, At the Royal Club. This special edition is a thoughtfully curated compilation of tracks from the band's first two years, inviting both long-standing fans and new listeners to experience the album’s visceral intensity and the band’s trailblazing spirit. Previously only available on CD, this reissue of At the Royal Club has been expertly remastered for vinyl, bringing a renewed vibrancy to the original recordings. This release not only breathes new life into an iconic collection of tracks but also honors the enduring spirit and influence of Division of Laura Lee

These cats hail from Nashville, TN, and they call themselves Dixie Fried. Their music falls into many categories: hillbilly boogie, western bop, hillbilly bop, drum-less rockabilly, rockin’ hillbilly, hillbilly rock…you get the drift. We really dig ‘em. They’re a pure example of early rock and roll, before it was even called that – the type of upbeat music Elvis was doin’ at Sun Records. Here these fellas show you they have captured that style to perfection, recording it all live in one room, raw, without tricks or gimmicks. They can bop and play pretty music at the same time; this 10-inch LP clearly proves all that and more. We at Sleazy Records welcome Dixie Fried, and sincerely hope you dig ‘em too!

Baltimore’s Doubt are on your head with their new EP, Held In Contempt. With their single “The Hard Way,” the newest Get Better Records (HIRS Collective, Open City) band kicks the door in from the first second with fast, pummeling drums as vocalist Claire Abila contemptuously snarls at objectification. Each portion of the song is optimized for the dancers, as Doubt evenly pairs fist-pumping punk with slamming mid-tempo hardcore. There’s nothing missing from this song, or the entire EP. If you don’t feel the need to move to this, check your pulse.

35th Anniversary edition of the seminal 1989 album ‘Vini Reilly’, Produced by Stephen Street (The Smiths, Blur, The Cranberries, New Order).

Remastered and heavily expanded 5 disc version, featuring over 75 tracks:
1. Disc 1. Vini Reilly album + 3 Bonus tracks [16 tracks] The original album (presented in the famous (and as to now unseen) ‘rejected’ sleeve by 8vo) remastered with bonus tracks.
2. Disc 2. The Sporadic Recordings [28 tracks] , a limited edition CD from 1989 [SPORE 1]
3. Disc 3 :=‘Womad Live’ EP plus bonus live tracks and demos [16 tracks]
4. Disc 4 : An exclusive DVD, Live from Porto 1988
5. Disc 5 : Bonus 1 track 3-inch mini CD - ‘I Know Very Well How I Got My Name’ a replica of the bonus addition from the original CD pressing

Expansive booklet includes new essay by Durutti Column / Factory Records expert James Nice, liner notes by band member Bruce Mitchell, liner notes from Anthony Wilson, interview extracts with Vini Reilly and restored images and outtake images.

The drone-pop consternations of Ekin Fil emerge through vaporous tone and forlorn, distant song, as if plucked from a dream. These exist on their own accord, moving with their own internal logic of an emotion heaviness that belies any the passing observation of this as mere shoegazing ambience. Her songs, her compositions find themselves adjacent the fragmented etherealization of Elisabeth Fraser's voice from a forgotten scene of a particular David Lynch film, as a Asmr trigger for Proustian recollection. Something profound. Something hidden. Something desolately sad.

The Helen Scarsdale Agency has had the pleasure of witnessing Ekin's continued development, maturation, and growth as a composer, having released now seven of her magnificent, under-the-radar gems. Her slow burning, dejected ballads continue to draw from the deep well of sorrow, with varying frequencies and intensities of bitter light poking through. Loves lost. A world broken. All is not hopeless, but there is a considerable amount of shit to wade through.

Sleepwalkers embraces a familiar set of metaphors in her work, that of narcolepsy and the unsettled state of existence between sleep and being awake. But she stretches herself with a set of compositions that run parallel to the work of Tim Hecker as in the gravitation soft-noise of "Stone Cold" or to a slow motion serialism that punctuates the ambient crawl of her ambitious "Gone Gone." Recommended for fans of Grouper, Rafael Anton Irisarri, A.C. Marias, and Carla dal Forno.

Following the release of Eric Chenaux's last album Say Laura (2022), The Guardian wrote"the Canadian songwriter has one of the all-time great singing voices in popular music, anintensely romantic Chet Baker-ish instrument that seems to float with piercing direction,like a paper aeroplane thrown hard through mist." With Uncut describing his songcraft "asdelicate and lovely as a rare orchid" and Record Collector praising the album's "sublimealien balladry" such are the accolades that have accrued throughout Chenaux's uniqueand consummately uncompromising solo music for well over a decade now.Delights Of My Life opens a new chapter for the singer/guitarist and formally introducesthe Eric Chenaux Trio, with Toronto-based musicians Ryan Driver on Wurlitzer organ andPhillipe Melanson on electronic percussion. Driver is a longtime collaborator, appearingon several of Chenaux's solo albums (even embedded into the very title of the 2010masterpiece Warm Weather With Ryan Driver). Melanson has a long list of involvementsthat include Bernice, Joseph Shabason, and U.S Girls, and a recent release with hisImpossible Burger project on Chenaux's own experimental label Rat-drifting, but thismarks the first fulsome involvement between the two as players on a recording.In many ways Delights Of My Life also picks up right where Chenaux's previous albumleft off, in its subversions of a classic, timeless jazz-inflected balladry, while the interplayof the trio formation indeed unfurls many new delights. Recording together at Chenaux'sspartan home studio in rural France, Driver's harmonically warped organ and Melanson'selectroacoustic sampling and percussion hold time in newfound ways. Where previouslyChenaux relied on a freeze/sustain pedal and minimalist rhythmic triggers to generate bothpulse and chordal foundations, Melanson now paints timekeeping with expressive andintricate colourations, through live deployments of fluid sampled percussion (includingorchestral timbres like timpani, k...