Coming soon in October from Cincinnati-based Happy Families — Sorry Eric is propelled by blue collar midwestern modernity, Eric turns it all to gold. Beautiful NZ influenced indie rock that’s too lame to be cool.
Gotta Groove Records
Record Pressing Specialists – The Best Sounding Records On Planet Earth.
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Cash Rivers & The Sinners — Loose Shoes
While searching through the various bits of detritus left behind from the Horizontal and the Vertical, the crew at Rockathon Records uncovered a fully-formed album of unheard Cash Rivers and the Sinners material. The commercial release of this material is explicitly forbidden by Mr. Rivers and his representatives. However, due to ongoing disputes, Rockathon will be issuing this new album as an unauthorized bootleg in open defiance of Mr. Rivers.
Mungion — Ferris Wheel’s Day Off
Limited edition hand-numbered color vinyl available from Shuga Records.
Drekka — No Tracks In The Snow
No Tracks In The Snow — A collection of early ambient and experimental works from prolific American artist Mkl Anderson (lovesliescrushing, 4K, Bluesanct Records). Album includes 8 tracks recorded between ‘96-’02, for fans of Current 93, Nurse With Wound, Loscil, Halfer Trio, and Flying Saucer Attack…
For over twenty years, Mkl Anderson has curated a vast archive of recorded material for his cinematic ritual ambient industrial project, Drekka. He works with memory not only as a subject but also as a healing process, continually delving into this personal world of sound; examining, revisiting, and repurposing recordings in an attempt to recall a past which sings from the darkness surrounding the tenuous provinces of memory and dreams – the real ghosts of time and sound.
“No Tracks in the Snow” is a collection of tracks from the early days of Drekka’s history; the third offering for Dais Records and an appendix between the second and third parts of the ‘Tarwestraat’ trilogy of LPs for the label.
Recorded between 1996 and 2002, the album showcases Drekka’s early
exploratory development across a variety of styles. And yet it is also
Drekka in the present moment; culled, curated, and assembled with care. Not unlike Borges’ “A Personal Anthology” – or indeed any of Drekka’s own recent work – this recording can be understood as a cohesive narrative more than as a simple compilation.
As Drekka moved from its Bristol UK influenced space folk beginnings,
backwards towards Anderson’s earlier UK industrial tape culture
foundation, his predilection for reworking pieces over time was emerging; recontextualizing narratives to bring out new truths from one’s own history. This process would become a cornerstone of Anderson’s work for the decades to follow.
Headroom — New Heaven
In just a few short years, KRYSSYI BATTALENE, the mastermind behind HEADROOM, has moved mountains and crossed oceans with her epic guitar-playing. In addition to MOUNTAIN MOVERS, her Headroom project enables Kryssi to further explore the outer reaches of her hypnotic state (some folks call it Connecticut). Following Head In The Clouds, last year’s triumphant debut on Trouble In Mind, Headroom’s new 12” EP on Ever/Never Records is just the front-lobe massage you didn’t even know you were craving.
While recalling the towering grace of Bardo Pond, Headroom carve out their own space within the fertile crescent of modern American psychedelic rock. “New Heaven” opens the proceedings, and you’d be forgiven for imagining the title an oblique reference to Headroom’s HQ—New Haven, Conn. As guitars arc towards the sky, Battalene’s voice gets the chopped-and-screwed treatment, as if to remind you that we are always on the precipice of something new, something unpredictable. “City Lights” is an earthbound meditationwith lovely, reverb-soaked vocals and on-the-verge-of-feedback guitars that echo Les Rallizes Denudes, a key influence on Battalene and her cohorts (which include notable artists like Stefan Christensen). But they manage to maintain their cool, extending the ache until it turns into the sublime.
Side Two of New Heaven is devoted to “Skyliner,” a patiently building exercise in sustained psych mode as guitars, synths and voice ride the rhythm section to the outer limits. This is definitely a slow ride, but maybe don’t take it so easy. On New Heaven, Headroom continues to probe the boundaries and report back with their thrilling discoveries.
Bets — Future Color
Chance has been good to Betsy Hershey, who performs her lush, abstracted pop under the name Bets. After all, it wasn’t the plan for the Los Angeles native, fresh out of music school, to play her first ever live shows at South by Southwest nor did she intend a personal project—last year’s lauded project violent femmes, a shoegaze-tinged cover album of the titular band’s 1983 debut—recorded on a whim to garner international attention. It’s just that when Bets puts her ethereal, exhilarating songs out into the world, people can’t seem to help responding.
And while a significant amount of thought and care has gone into her latest album, Future Color, anyone who’s previously fallen for her driving melodies and witty, catchy lyrics, will no doubt find something here to love. It’s a call to the creative side in everyone; the songs express themes of the uphill battle of isolation, frustration, and longing that can occur being an artist. These are not love songs but songs of longing, songs about need, and songs about trying to be something that’s never fully attainable. And while some of the tracks have the emotional resonance of great love songs, Bets says it’s a different kind of emotion that was actually driving her songwriting.