Greg Electric are set to release their second record, It’s Been… (as in It’s Been… Greg Electric), serving as both their new album and their purported final release. Due out June 23rd via BLIGHT. Records (Sun Organ, Ruah, Tadzio), we’re sad to see them go but thrilled there’s another album before the sun sets.
Are things that we’ve decided to give importance to actually important? For some of us, it’s best not to think about, but it’s an exploration that Washer takes on headfirst with their third album, Improved Means To Deteriorated Ends, a record that matches thoughts of decomposition with a slow burning rage-infused drive.
Big Clown’s catalog is about to expand with the release of their second album, Beatdown, due out June 30th via Swimming Faith Records (Science Man, Ismatic Guru). The songs are built on fuzzy sludge and propulsive rhythms, finding the less often explored middle ground between bands like Melt-Banana, The Blood Brothers, and Torche.
As Dom Trimboli found himself sitting on a batch of songs that could only be Wireheads, the members found themselves pulled back in, coming together to create their exceptional new record, Potentially Venus. Due out June 23rd via Tenth Court, the band sound unnervingly alive, the time away resulting in a deeper bond.
On the first leg of touring behind her new full-length Manzanita, Shana Cleveland and her band played the Mercury Lounge and Sultan Room on April 21st and 22nd, with support from MAITA. In the live transmuting of its studio sound, Manzanita’s fractal sensations were ingeniously amplified—bursting into exciting new dimensions, cosmic and otherwise.
We’re Still Here, boasts a truly impressive roster of collaborators. With contributions from collaborators such as Melt-Banana, Thou, Marissa Paternoster, Shirley Manson, SOUL GLO, Sunrot, and Gouge Away - just to name “a few” - this record sets out to platform the voices of as many individuals and identities from the scene as possible.
“$5 Cover,” the record’s third single, isn’t the Fugazi tribute you might be hoping for, but rather a loving homage to band’s own musical community forged around the DIY space East Williamsburg Econolodge. The song is pulsing with dirgy bass and punchy vocal melodies, seething in the shadows one moment but vibrant and hooky the next.
Coast 2 Coast, the band’s fourth album and first for Stones Throw, documents the band’s journey from their former home in Florida to their current in LA, building a surrealistic odyssey of video games, ocean front beaches, and fantastical bliss. Pearl & The Oysters use their daydream psych to bring a sense of the majestic to the mundane.
Maximalist and controlled, Pearl & The Oysters have created a fully formed concept and sense of self. Far from Brave New World, this album quite nearly suggests there is no dystopia (or utopia) in the human being-toward-technology. It just is and the party is happening no matter what. You can love this fate and join in the dance.
Crispy Crunchy Nothing is the latest album from PACKS, the nom de guitare of Toronto DIY rocker Madeline Link. The fourteen song, thirty minute LP is clearly indebted to the larger ‘90s alt/indie rock movement, but it celebrates that lineage with a renewed sense of passion, efficiency, and inventiveness.
Härvest, Poison Ruïn’s second album overall (depending how you look at it) and first record together with their new label, retains the band’s flair for the medieval, distilled in the toil and struggle of the era’s poor and working class, a sentiment that hasn’t changed all that much in modern times.
We Know the Sky, the sophomore full length album from Yours Are the Only Ears (aka Susannah Cutler), provides the listener with heartfelt melodies and intensity, manifesting itself through nature and vivid imagery. Cutler's songs are full of spirit and tender ruminations on the travails of love and the ever changing world around us.
Last Friday saw the triumphant return of Leeds based trio Beige Palace, the band joining together with London’ Cassels for a new split 7”. Out via Human Worth and God Unknown Records, “Waterloo Sublet” breaks a four year absence for Beige Palace, their first new music since the gloriously unnerving Leg LP.
