Nightshift Vinyl, CD & Tape 4 Items

It 's been three years since Glasgow musical collective NIGHTSHIFT's last album ("Zöe", 2021) & aside form an odds & sods tape compilation "Made Of The Earth", the group has remained relatively quiet on the recorded front. Newly regrouped into a quartet, the band has readied their proper follow up to "Zöe" & their third album "Homosapien", again for Chicago's Trouble In Mind Records. Recorded & mixed in the band's rehearsal space by members Chris White & Rob Alexander, "Homosapien" started to take shape in Summer 2023. Writing had begun prior, but due to a crucial lineup change, the band had to start again. Thankfully, once they regrouped, the assembly and recording of the new set of songs was fun and relatively quick. Notably, the band has lost some members, gained a new member & shuffled some roles; former drummer Chris White (Spinning Coin) is now on guitar. His distinctive playing delivers a countrified energy that is central to the album, leading the song structures into more succinct and colorful places, matching the upbeat and playful nature the band has always drawn strength from, only more so now under his stylish approach. Primar y vocalist & keyboardist Eothen Stern (also of 2 Ply)'s lyrical gifts illuminate the group's output with an optimistic urgency that is unmatched. On 'Homosapien' she wears her heart on her sleeve, but even in the song's darkest moments, the words create a sense of hope and potential. She doesn't shy away from politics or contemporary love languages and finds humor, earnestness, and critique at ever y turn. Andrew Robert Doig continues to play bass (Dancer/Robert Sotelo) and provides occasional lead vocals on tunes like "Together We Roll" & "Mellow Baby ". Newest member & drummer Rob Alexander (Tarantula/Radio Banter) allows for a second new development in the band dynamic. Replacing Chris (his longtime friend from childhood) is no mean feat. Thankfully his drumming is an avalanche of skillful technique with a glorious abandon that swerves it away from the academic and absolutely into a wild and tactile performance that lifts the sound of the album (he also plays accordion and tin whistle). Friend & colleague Ray Aggs (Shopping, Raggs) also contributes fiddle to "Sure Look" & "Phone". NIGHTSHIFT's newest songs were born out of some genuinely existential times (birth, death and love all played a very real part in the gestation of the new record). Songs like first single "Crystal Ball", "Cut" & "Side Effects" all touch upon struggle created by an ever encroaching fascist government (exacerbated by Brexit) & the effects austerity has upon their people. Other songs like "Sure Look", "Phone" & "Crush" deal with matters of the heart while "Your Good Self " & "Together We Roll" take on self-preservation & community. It 's a great irony that the band are sculpting their most succinct and tuneful music yet from this potential chaos, but it 's this unexpected quality that drives them onwards into a dizzying universe.

NIGHTSHIFT : a multi-directional audio ensemble from Glasgow formed in Summer 2019. Currently featuring artist Eothen Stearn, also of 2 Ply & Difficult, Chris White of Spinning Coin, Andrew Doig aka Robert Sotelo and of Order of the Toad and Georgia Harris of Slippy & Pelvis. They have been described as hypnotic punk and certainly employ repetition in their sound at times, as well as embracing a variety of other musical stylings be they hyper rhythmic, noise based, pop inclined or emotive. There is no preconceived idea to the band's identity. The band favours democracy and balance. Primarily dealing in humanist themes there is an optimistic, utopian slant to Nightshift's group persona. Never afraid to broach the absurdist strains of life that surrounds them, they revel in everyday confusion and find respite in the small wonders of the natural universe and beyond.Their recent 2021 album "Zoë" was released on Trouble in Mind from Chicago, the follow-up to a self-released cassette in 2019. "Made Of The Earth" represents the last document of the band's initial incarnation, with odds & sods as well as unreleased tracks combining to form a surprisingly cohesive whole. Surely a testament to the band's vision & execution.

The band that became Nightshift formed in 2019 in the ecosystem of Glasgow's current indie scene. The city's fertile & creative group of musicians have been committed to pushing the boundaries of and blurring the lines between DIY, punk, experimentalism and indie pop for decades now; a home to bands like Shopping, Vital Idles, Current Affairs, Still House Plants, and Happy Meals as well as forebears like Orange Juice, Teenage Fanclub and Yummy Fur. Nightshift slot right in with all mentioned, featuring members from current indie stalwarts Spinning Coin, 2 Ply and Robert Sotelo. Initially formed by guitarist David Campbell and bassist Andrew Doig as a "No Wave/No New York/ early Sonic Youth/This Heat-esque" group, the addition of Eothen Stern (keyboards/vocals) and Chris White (drums) instantaneously transformed their approach (guitarist/vocalist/clarinetist Georgia Harris joined as the band was writing "Zöe"). The band self-released a full-length tape on Cusp Recordings in early 2020, laying the foundation of their sound; hypnotic, melodic, understated indie post-punk with hooks that stick around long after you've heard them. "Zöe" is the band's newest effort, and first for Trouble In Mind. Unlike the band's previous album, the songs on "Zöe" weren't conceived live in the band's practice space, but rather pieced together and recorded remotely during quarantine lockdown, with each member composing or improvising their parts in homes/home studios, layering ideas over loops someone made and passing it on. The isolation actually allowed for an openness and creativity to flow and many of the songs took on radically different forms from when they were originally envisioned. Vocalist & primary lyricist Eothen Stern says "The process of writing these songs separately during lockdown was a kind of exquisite corpse - I liked this gesticulation of reaching out to one another and responding. Building up the next layer and passing it on." Stern says "poetic restraints" to writing & Eno's Oblique Strategies concepts were on their mind when composing the words to the songs on "Zöe" and lists the influence of author Rosi Bradiotti's book "The Posthuman". "Zöe" means "live drive", derived from the word conatus. Bradiotti defines conatus as "an effort or striving, endeavour, impulse, inclination, tendency, undertaking, serving is an innate inclination of a thing to continue to exist and enhance itself." and Stern views it as "...a kind of feminist re-claiming of communal public, anti- privatisation, looking to strive for social and environmental justice. Zöe kind of became a character of striving for me when writing.". "Zöe" kicks off with "Piece Together", a hypnotic song anchored by the band's chanted vocals and serpentine guitar licks. "Spraypaint the Bridge" showcases Harris' clarinet in an unexpected & delightful melodic shift during the song's anti-chorus. Elsewhere tunes like the swooning "Infinity Winner" and "Outta Space"s minimalist, slinky rhythm swirl in a late-night vibe, while "Make Kin" ruminates on "Looking to kinship as a way of engaging with entangled environmental and reproductive issues... how a band is a bond" and lurches forward with kinetic guitar strangling and staccato rhythmic percussion from White and Doig. "Power Cut" is the album's centerpiece, kicking off side two and lures the listener into its world over it's 7-minute runtime. Lulling them into involuntary movement with its waves of melodic harmonies, synth drones and metronomic pulse, until they all come crashing down in the song's dissonant midsection. The band acknowledges the whiffs of nostalgia prevalent in "Zöe"s songs (the title track in particular), and the nature of writing and recording the album is soaked in the self-work, reflection and reevaluations involved not only personally but creatively in each member's lives. Consequently, the album becomes a collection of sketches of hope, growth, awareness of the power of the world and the power of self, kith, kinship, friendship, resistance, and possibility.

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