Indierock | Alternative 339 Items

Matt Loveridge is a prolific multi-instrumentalist condemned to Bristol, UK. He has over sixty solo records under various monikers, done before and after his time in Beak>, none of which appear on major streaming platforms, nor get much attention. His work as Mxlx is a miasmatic fog, and he tosses the listener deep into it. Kicking Away At The Decrepit Walls Til The Beautiful Sunshine Blisters Thru The Cracks is his most celebrated release (if one counts hate mail), and it appears here for the first time both on vinyl and somewhere not on his own site.

Songs swerve between ambient, electronic ambient noise, metal, and industrial. Vocal harmonies ride arpeggiated basslines and shimmering synth lines, ascending upwards before plummeting into distorted screams. And yet, Loveridge’s aggression does not overlook introspection. He faces one stripped of all pretense, creaking “I’ve got that dumb skull of yours locked in place,” apologizing, “I’m sorry for all that I’ve done in the name of myself” and laughing in one’s face, “Just kidding, I hope you rot in the ground.” Drawing from an obsession with literature, he’s converted a life stricken with bouts of depression and homelessness into febrile sonic turbulence. He channels the intensity of groups like Pharmakon and The Body, while embracing compositional noise like Colin Stetson. With droning organs, emotionless chanting, and fleeting walls of sound, his results have more to do with cosmic futility than petty score-settling.

Mxlx produces barren liturgies of raw emotion, like a fallen medieval monk given a synthesizer. He pulls the listener from comfort, spits in their eye, and abandons them as roadkill. An explosive catharsis not for faint hearts or distracted minds.

What Kind of Human Have I Become is a new vehicle helmed by Matt Plunkett (Cuticles, The Trendees, etc.). Conceived as a solo endeavor, the designation got a bit blurry following an invitation to record his new songs with Stefan Neville (Pumice, etc.) at the studio he shares with Ben Holmes (Oksun Ox, etc.) in Auckland.

Once in the studio, Plunkett’s songs puffed in a wholly new way with Neville at the controls, and backing and bits from both Neville and Holmes perhaps channeling Nag and Bendie. Fans of Matt’s past and current activities will find much to rejoice in here; Avoiding The Diggy Diggy Dogs plucks three songs from the sessions. More to come in due time.

As subjects of a recent career spanning vault-clearing anthology, the likelihood that more old recordings by The Strange Girls might surface was an unlikely one. Thankfully it’s just what happened. Culled from leaky audience video recordings, Truly & Lyric features two Clayton Noone songs that never surfaced elsewhere. These date from around 2002 and feature the core duo of Kaaterama Morehu and Noone. Draped in artwork by Mark Anderson (Greymouth), Truly & Lyric offers another fleeting glimpse at The Strange Girls’ downcast beauty in action. Limited to 200.

High quality 45 in a silk screen sleeve. Surf !!! 2 raw monster tracks from French Canada

A-side “Volcano” plus non-LP b-side “Sun Goes Down” is a piano ballad written and sung by GBV drummer Kevin March, an outlier in the GBV canon.

The latest release by Jonathan Richman, Features Jerry Harrison (Modern Lovers, Talking Heads) and Johnny "Bee" Badanjek (Mitch Ryder). Side A: "A Penchant For The Stagnant." Side B: "Not So Much To Be Loved As To Love." Pressed in translucent orange vinyl and limited to an edition of 500.

Re-release of “Strange Frame of Mind” the third album from Arabs in Aspic! Hailing from Trondheim in Norway, Arabs in Aspic has been mid-Norway’s flagship of 70s inspired progressive rock and proto-hardrock for the past 15 years. They’ve been described as a sweet mixture of loud, heavy guitars and drums, 12 string acoustics, funky bass and percussion, screaming Hammond organs, soft Rhodes, Mellotrons and 70s Synths, topped with plentiful vocal harmonies. After “Far Out in Aradabia”, the band played quite a lot of shows and also recruited Hammond virtuous Stig Arve Jørgensen on keys and backing vocals after seeing him perform “Hocus Pocus” by Focus. Hence, the new material became more technical and more progressive again, and in many ways “Strange Frame of Mind” from 2010 is the link between early Arabs in Aspic and the band we know today. The band overall changed a lot, and they had a hiatus for a couple of years. Erik Paulsen joined in on bass, and the sound changed to a more progressive and classic 70s style. The album was recorded at Studio Studio, run by TNT guitarist Ronnie Le Tekrø, but they were never pleased with the mastering job which was done by a guy who wanted them to sound like a 80s power metal band. Therefore, the album has been re-mastered by Jacob Holm-Lupo. This one has been out of print for a long time, and finally here’s a proper re-release. Enjoy!

It's a New Day Tonight is a modern classic begging to be played loud with the windows rolled down.

HIGHLIGHTSFirst time reissue of the holy grail of Colombian garage music, originally released in 1967.Includes two wonderful covers of the Californian band Count Five: 'Psychotic Reaction' and 'They're Gonna Get You', as well as the stellar original 'Cosmos 901'.DESCRIPTIONIn the mid-sixties, when the temperature of modern youth music was at its highest, Colombian label Codiscos placed its bet on some of the emerging figures of Colombian pop and two exciting wild bands: Los Flippers and Los Streaks.After the fleeting brilliance of the so-called "new wave", the 4-song EPs released by the label -mainly for promotional use- lay forgotten on the shelves of radio stations or stored in the musty trunks of the fans who managed to buy the few copies that were distributed by the record label. Today it's incredibly difficult to find any of these EPs released by Codiscos between 1965 and 1967 in mint condition, with the original sleeve.Los Streaks didn't just come out of nowhere, it was the brainchild of the radio DJ, manager and promoter Édgar Restrepo Caro. Towards the end of 1966, while working as the manager of Los Flippers, Caro became fascinated with the idea of creating a group made up of some of the most talented musicians on the Bogota rock circuit.On January 20, 1967, Los Streaks made their debut at the discotheque El Diábolo as a warm-up act. The following weeks were crazy: they appeared on national television, starred at matinee sessions at two major venues in Bogota, and headlined at the concert organized by the music magazine Juventud a Go 67. During this short period, they established a powerful stage presence, combining exquisite musicianship and a sharp sense of humor. Their repertoire was also bold, encompassing Giuseppe Verdi, The Beatles, Pérez Prado, The Ventures or Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheels.The band's solid sound was perfectly aligned to Codiscos' interests. After some enthusiastic promotion by their manager, Humberto Moreno met them, and they signed a...

2 glass replicated CDs in digipak case

While still in ETRON FOU LELOUBLAN, Ferdinand Richard released this first solo album in 1981 on Celluloid. A unique blend of dadaist jazz, art rock and new wave, inviting FERDINAND in the club of the untypical singers chaired by Frank Zappa and Albert Marcœur.

Trailer Bride's 1996 self-titled record is a long-lost relic of the blooming Chapel Hill, North Carolina music scene of the '90s. Superchunk, Polvo, Archers of Loaf and other indie rock darlings were leading the town's indie rock movement while Southern Culture on the Skids were pushing the alt-country genre forward. Then comes Trailer Bride who combined both of those worlds with a gothic, lo-fi sound that centers around Melissa Swingle's atmospheric vocals and cryptic lyrics. Swingle started Trailer Bride following the demise of her band Pussy Teeth and would later go on to form the indie rock duo The Moaners with Laura King (Bat Fangs, Speed Stick), but the dark, southern sound that defines Trailer Bride's debut record provides a mystifying listening experience a quarter-century later. No Depression said it best in their 1997 review: "They're impossible to describe, but whatever you wanna call it, they sound really good." The album is available for the first time ever on vinyl for Record Store Day Black Friday 2022. This 25th anniversary edition is pressed on cloudy orange vinyl and remastered for vinyl. Limited to 1,500 copies worldwide.