Indierock | Alternative 232 Items

The hardest working band in punk rock, The Fleshtones, return with "Festa di Frankenstein" and "The Dedication Song," two anthemic tunes done in the band's inimitable "Super Rock" style that they've been championing since 1976. The former is a haunted hip-shaker about a party at the Frankenstein residence (sung entirely in Italian!) and the latter is frontman Peter Zaremba saluting all of the bands across the USA who influenced them and continue to play the gin joints and dive bars to this day. "The Dedication Song" was originally a hit by the great Freddy Cannon back in 1966, whereas the Fleshtones' brand new rendition serves as a sequel to their smash hit "American Beat" that put them on the map over four decades ago. "Festa di Frankenstein" is a reworking of the under-appreciated Halloween track "Frankenstein's Party" by the Swinging Phillies from 1967. While the original recording is a soulful horn-filled tune, the Fleshtones' version is a far grittier recording that will be a staple of all garage rock Halloween hootenannies to come. Both songs are pressed on a 45 single that is limited to 500 copies worldwide. This is a one-time only pressing!

The music of Will Griffith's The Great Dying is a mix he likes to call dark country. He grew up in Cleveland, Mississippi, where D.I.Y. punk house shows hooked him, and his early bands played The Farmhouse and legendary delta juke joint Po' Monkey's. Songs from The Great Dying's new album, A Constant Goodbye, were born from playing hundreds of shows supporting Bloody Noses & Roses (Dial Back Sound 2018), and it continues where the debut left off. The ballads are still sweet and menaced, the rockers are still hair-raisers, but the new record pushes in new directions, infusing sounds of classic country with faint traces of The Replacements and what was once called "alternative rock." The tracks are layered and varied: wall-of-sound arrangements grind against flange-bass and fiddle, with Griffith's barebones acoustic guitar and vocals at the root, and heartbreak all over. Coming from another artist, this blend of influences would tank, but somehow it suits The Great Dying just fine. Pick any number on the new album-it's a winner.

Formed in Liverpool in 1985, the Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus is a unique experimental ensemble whose work goes beyond music. For over thirty-five years the band’s cult following has grown. Their mesmerising recorded material is influenced by diverse cultural perspectives and stimulates a deeply personal and subjective awakening. Ethereal vocals, ambient compositions, chants, acoustic instrumentation and field recordings generate beautiful and emotionally intense soundscapes.

‘The Dream We Carry’ is the band’s fifth album and perhaps their most coherent body of work to date. It captures echoes and fragile remnants of the lived experience. The emotional traces that affect us. The joys and sorrows we hold. The dreams that we carry.

Formed in Liverpool in 1985, the Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus is a unique experimental ensemble whose work goes beyond music. For over thirty-five years the band’s cult following has grown. Their mesmerising recorded material is influenced by diverse cultural perspectives and stimulates a deeply personal and subjective awakening. Ethereal vocals, ambient compositions, chants, acoustic instrumentation and field recordings generate beautiful and emotionally intense soundscapes.

‘The Dream We Carry’ is the band’s fifth album and perhaps their most coherent body of work to date. It captures echoes and fragile remnants of the lived experience. The emotional traces that affect us. The joys and sorrows we hold. The dreams that we carry.

Miraculous reissue of the album by the phantom band THE Rich Beggars, released in 1971 in a limited edition of 100 copies! Rock and roll has always sounded dangerous. This sound is like opening a pile of dusty porno magazines in the back of your garage. I hope you will stop for a moment and enjoy this piece.

Miraculous reissue of the album by the phantom band THE Rich Beggars, released in 1971 in a limited edition of 100 copies! Rock and roll has always sounded dangerous. This sound is like opening a pile of dusty porno magazines in the back of your garage. I hope you will stop for a moment and enjoy this piece.

On their second album, Winter Pageant, The Softies move forward with focused delight. It's the combination of Jen Sbragia (All Girl Summer Fun Band) and Rose Melberg (Tiger Trap, Gaze, Go Sailor) that molds The Softies' panoply: feathers and thorns, fawn and fearless, fable and friction.Originally released in 1997, Winter Pageant is the drama of utter melancholia documenting the broken promises, missed phone calls, conversations stalled, love lost. Colossal tasks recorded two guitars deep, forming a new Iliad, chapters on brave deeds and the power of love on the move. You can live for love, or you could live for the splendid cascade of guitar on guitar, voice over voice: The Softies.Winter Pageant was recorded by Stuart Hallerman (Soundgarden, KARP) at his Avast! recording studio in Seattle, Washington.

Staring 10th Anniversary Deluxe Sky Blue Vinyl.A cornerstone of the Arbutus catalogue, this deluxe LPfeatures a multi-page photo zine, huge party poster, and skyblue Color Vinyl.TOPS were formed in Montreal in 2011 when song-writingduo David Carriere and Jane Penny decided to join forceswith drummer Riley Fleck. Delivering a raw punk take onAM studio pop, Picture You Staring is a lush array oftimelessly crafted songs.Singer Jane Penny gives a new voice to the silent girl at theedge of the circle, disillusioned but honest andunpretentious, a tone complemented by David Carriere'sseamless guitar playing and the measured drumming ofRiley Fleck. TOPS' subtle arrangements are delivered with acool restraint that blend with the individuality andself-assured desire of their female lead.Picture You Staring gathers strength through intimacy.Self-written, recorded and produced at Arbutus Records'studio in Montreal over the course of a year, this albumcontains 12 impeccable examples of pop craftsmanship thatwill reward repeat listeners.

Upchuck are experiencing a moment. The Atlanta punk collective just came off multiple tour runs with their good friend Faye Webster. Their Ty Segall-produced second album Bite The Hand That Feeds, with all its buzzsaw guitars and high-speed rippers and headbanging sludge, arrived in October. Later this year, they’ll make appearances at multiple festivals including Coachella. In the midst of relentlessly barreling ahead, the band and their label Famous Class are taking a beat to revisit how they got here. After working with Segall on Bite the Hand That Feeds, the band floated the notion that they wished they could hear what their collaborator could do with the songs on their 2022 debut album Sense Yourself. Holed up in his studio over Christmas with Covid and nothing else to do, Ty Segall began toying with Sense Yourself, sifting through folders of unlabeled stems to find the best guitar parts, emboldening the drum sound, and bringing greater clarity to KT’s vocals, all while bolstering the urgency of the band’s overall attack. With Segall’s new mix, Upchuck’s intense and righteous debut now impossibly overflows with even more fuzz and fury. In Segall, they found a kindred spirit whose studio approach made sense for just how hard they wanted this music to hit. “When we first went to record with Ty for Bite the Hand That Feeds, Mikey and I walked into the guitar room and Ty said, ‘Don’t touch the EQs.’ We looked at the amp and everything was on 10 except the master volume,” Hoff said. Previously, the band had been encouraged to capture the unvarnished sound of the studio. They’d toured with Segall’s band Fuzz, so everybody had the same goal while recording together: Capture the electricity of their intense live set.

On her sophomore album "Germ in a Population of Buildings", upsammy moves through her surroundings with thecuriosity of a place-bending landscape architect. The album is rooted in her interest for ambiguous environments inconstant shift, and the feeling of discovering strange patterns in different ecosystems. Often, the Amsterdam-basedartist finds herself zooming in and out beyond a place's most recognizable surface features to inhabit the microscopicand gigantic. Gathering field recordings and evocative environmental sounds, she shapes this source material intovibrating electro-acoustic rhythms and unstable, psychedelic textures.upsammy's debut album, 2020's critically-acclaimed "Zoom", was praised for its careful reimagining of IDM, evolvingvignettes that nodded towards the dancefloor without being shackled to its rigid set of rules. On "Germ in a Populationof Buildings" her process has evolved considerably; the skeletal trace of IDM is still present but it's been trapped inamber, allowing her unique sonic landscape to develop organically. 'Being is a Stone' is a proof of concept in manyways, layering upsammy's contorted voice in rickety patterns beneath a lattice of fragile rhythms and faintly melancholysynths. It's never immediately obvious where the sounds are coming from - a hiccuping beat might be glass crackingunderfoot, and larger pulses could be wet concrete, rusted iron or bent plastic. As the sounds develop they morph intoeach other, demolishing what came before and building on top of the ornamental wreckage.On the dynamic 'Constructing', upsammy's sound design fluxes through hyperactive bass music structures, abstractingexpectations at every turn. Often her sounds are whisper quiet, rattling and vibrating until heavier masonry drops anddisrupts the structure. And when discernible rhythms subside into the background, like on the album's eerie title track,they become almost illusory, morphing between the real world and the electronic. upsammy's processed voice works...

Expo 70, held in Osaka, was a pivotal event for the Japanese people and their relationship with the rest of the world, demonstrating both the nation’s ongoing economic recovery from World War Two and the creative spirit of Japanese society and its artists. A series of performances, billed as “Night Events” were held at the Expo; the most radical of these was "Beam Penetration and Mad Computer, plus the Minimal Sound of Motorcycles”, but its anti-establishment feel and general madness took the Expo organizers by surprise and it was cancelled after only one night, despite being scheduled for a longer run. An air of myth developed around the event, but a recording of the event has been discovered and this release is the result. This release comprises a CD, a 10-inch record with fold-out sleeve and large obi, plus fascinating notes in Japanese and English by Kenichi Yasuda, an expert on Japanese rock music, and Koji Kawasaki, a renowned researcher of Japanese electronic music, as well as rare photos.

The seductive sounds of Portugal swing to Dark Entries on Rock Rendez Vous: Música Moderna Portuguesa 1985-1986, a compilation of vintage Iberian synth, wave, and postpunk gems. The legendary club Rock Rendez Vous (rrv) opened its doors in Lisbon in 1980, heralding a new era in the Portuguese underground. Although touring acts like Killing Joke, Danse Society, or Echo & the Bunnymen graced its stage, RRV more vitally served as ground zero for a new generation of Portuguese bands, one simultaneously in touch with broader international musical movements while being invested in establishing a national sonic identity. Rock Rendez Vous culls 9 tracks of prime Portuguese indie tunes from the Música Moderna Portuguesa compilations released in 1985 and 1986, documenting the heyday of this movement. Jangly and brooding postpunk gems like “Levante” from Jovem Guarda, Projecto AZUL’s “New Sides,” and Essa ENTENTE’s “Festa Final” are well-represented here. Meanwhile, quirky Balearic-laced synthpop gems like D. W. ART’s “Mate” or Zona PROIBIDA’s “Musak” add a subtly regional flare. Rock Rendez Vous: Música Moderna Portuguesa comes housed in a sleeve designed by Eloise Leigh featuring a photo of the club RRV, and also includes a double-sided insert with lyrics, photos, and liner notes.

Sacrament is the classic third album from Norwegian prog legends White Willow, originally released in 2000. For this album, the band spent a long, long time working on the songs and arrangements, coming up with inventive, dynamic and beautiful arrangements for each song. After lengthy rehearsals at the Norwegian Institute for Scene and Studio, the band entered a new studio, called Lydkjøkkenet. The studio wasrun by the friendly and very talented engineer Øystein Vesaas, whose patience and mild manners were a perfect fit for the band, allowing time to experiment and try out different solutions. Sacrament was recorded over an extended period. Holm-Lupo was working a full-time day job at the time, so sessions would often be running from the evening into the night. But everyone was energized and had great faith in the music being made, and remember the recording as an enjoyable experience. The album was madeduring a period where certain elements of prog were beginning to drip into the mainstream, which also provided some moral motivation. And when the album was released, it was to unanimously glowing reviews and healthy sales – and even some mainstream recognition. This re-release was meticulously remastered by the band’s own Jacob Holm-Lupo and is presented with the classic original cover art, for the first time on vinyl. This is the third in a series of six White Willow re-releases on Karisma Records. 01.Anamnesis02.Paper Moon03.The Crucible04.The Last Rose of Summer 05.Gnostalgia06.The Reach

We're all familiar with this story: the pandemic struck, and people found themselves confined to their homes, left alone with their thoughts. Amidst various musical projects, Shelby Cinca reached out to his former bandmates with the idea of creating and instrumental album in the style of FRODUS—a desire that had never materialized during the band's active years. Despite the challenges of life and logistics, the project began to take shape as Nate and Shelby brainstormed and organized their ideas. They recalled an offer from their fellow DC friend and prolific musician, Aaron DC Edge, to provide raw drum tracks. Shelby accepted Aaron's offer to kickstart a rhythmic foundation, and soon the project came to life. Some tracks remained faithful to the original demos, while others underwent substantial editing. Eventually, songs began to take form in an organic manner, despite the geographical distance between the collaborators. Conceptually, the group aimed to craft a soundtrack for a post-human world, inspired by a cryptic phrase hidden in the artwork of Frodus's last album: "when man dies, we become wolves again." These songs conjure images of overgrown and ruined cities, the return of wildlife, and the interplay of light and darkness, peace and savagery, coexisting in the after- math of humanity's downfall. Without the prominent narrative of anguished vocals, the vistas emerge in the mind's eye without barriers, allowing for a more subtle and profound exploration of the themes.