LIBEREZ - 'ALL TENSE NOW LAX'

Formats

• LSSN031 - LP

  5060174958977

• LSSN031CD - CD

  5060174958984

Details

Hermetically sealed and reveling in tumult, All Tense Now Lax is the most significant and developed work yet forged by Liberez. Based in main orchestrator John Hannon’s remote studio No Recordings in Rayleigh, England, Liberez have expanded their palette from previous outings on Alter to produce a perfectly engineered machine that consumes the beholder. A tense, gut-wrenching listen wrought with carefully considered space, the range of techniques and the depth of atmosphere is staggering. All Tense Now Lax never settles on a simple depiction of dread, foreboding or anxiety but layers textures upon rhythms to produce towering minarets of conflicting emotion. _Захвална породица (translated “Grateful Family”) is a case in point: Hannon’s wailing violin is torn across collaborator Nina Bosnic’s lyric, while a loping beat is crushed with distortion. Indeed, a more pronounced focus on rhythm and movement on Liberez’ 3rd album is perhaps what sets it apart from previous work. Centerpiece Grease The Axles showcases Hannon’s technique of detourning from other cultures to dramatically altered effect. A lopsided rhythm and scraped violin are torn to breaking point: what starts off as a Moondog-esque tap at a train station ends with the train in flames. Liberez’ brutality is not as literal as this all the time: on How Much For Your Brother an aggressively over-driven vocal loop is hammered into the stereo field by primitive percussion courtesy of drummer Pete Wilkins, but the overall effect is one of movement and hypnosis. A Rebetika melting into night-terror. The title track, meanwhile, presents a premature eulogy, coming halfway through what is an all-consuming album of frightening power. John Hannon’s breadth of technical mastery on All Tense Now Lax is never fully revealed in an ostentatious way. Instead the album is allowed to breathe and evolve, with field recordings, industrial patterns and alienated instrumentation woven together seamlessly. A tumultuous experience which transports rather than grounds the participant.

Tracks

1. --- Of Milk
2. _Захвална породица
3. 419 Chop Your $
4. All Tense Now Lax
5. Grease The Axles
6. Subotica
7. How Much For Your Brother
8. Stop Your Breathing
9. --- Of Blood

Press

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GRAVE BABIES - 'HOLOGRAPHIC VIOLENCE'

Formats

• HAR087 - LP

  0098787308716

• HAR087CD - CD

  0098787308723

Details

In the five years since Grave Babies’ debut album Deathface was released, founder Danny Wahlfeldt has been handling all songwriting and recording duties for the Seattle-based band, with invaluable help from friends in performing their material live. For their newest album entitled Holographic Violence, Wahlfeldt chose a different path, causing a significant change in the band’s overall sound. Holographic Violence is Grave Babies’ second Hardly Art full-length after Crusher (2013), and further explores the themes of nihilism, the pending doom of mankind, and shaming humanity, which the band has been building their gloomy reputation on since the beginning. By leaving the edgy, lo-fi haze of earlier output in the past, these songs have clarified what the music of Grave Babies has to offer the future. That is, if humanity has a future? The 11 new songs on Holographic Violence present this powerful combination from a science fiction perspective, begging the question: has our imagination outpaced the confines of our reality as we keep going down the same path, believing there's hope? Playing anthemic pop songs with a strange male choir-esque sound to the vocals adds a distinctly cultish feel to the abrasive exercise of figuring out if it is possible to circumvent destructive human predispositions. Grave Babies mission is not to find the answers to these questions, but to challenge the listener and on Holographic Violence, their uncompromising aesthetic makes the suffering a little prettier. LP has MP3 DL card Like Psychocandy-era Jesus and Mary Chain dressed as Throbbing Gristle for Halloween." -- The AV Club "Zen spirit, bubblegum heart." -- The Seattle Times "Sometimes violent, sometimes ugly, and always bursting with the kind of passion that begets violence and ugliness." -- MTV Hive

Tracks

01. Eternal (On & On)
02. Beautiful Lie
03. Try 2 Try
04. Something Awful
05. Punishment (Only A Victim)
06. Metal Me
07. Pain Iz Pleasure
08. Positive Aggression
09. N2 Ether
10. Concrete Cell
11. War

Press

Audio & Video

MONDO DRAG - 'S/T'

Formats

• EZRDR054CD - CD

  603111999425

• EZRDR054LP - LP

  603111999418

Details

The creatures known as Mondo Drag hailed from deep along the banks of the wild Mississippi River where they created ominous, spiritual, savage psychedelic revival sounds. Summoned to the edge of the Earth, they journeyed west, collecting new sounds reminiscent of desert scapes, acid dreams, all-night prog vinyl spinning and a dark galaxy of protometal swirls, exalting the band unto new, wickedly brilliant horizons. Now settled in the deep realms of Oakland, the ensemble continues to create cosmically proportioned, churning jams evocative of a rainbow of obvious inspirations but also numinous new sounds emerging from the organ - heavy riffs. If you love Blue Cheer, Black Sabbath, Can, Atomic Rooster, Hawkwind, Budgie, Uriah Heep, Deep Purple ,Italian prog, Krautrock in general, and heavy space-outs....get into Mondo Drag. They'll knock your socks off, let your hair down and take you on a mind's eye exploration you won't soon forget. Though they exude love for the spiraling tapestry of heavy psychedelia of the past, they are on a rock and roll mission all their own: an unearthed prog band, futuristic in their time capsule, rocketing forward through the depths, gathering the sounds of space itself Bay Area heavy-Krautrock-psych band Mondo Drag are streaming their entire forthcoming self-titled album a week ahead of release starting today via PopMatters. Hear and share the full album HERE. (Direct Soundcloud HERE.) Along with the album stream the band also announces U.S. tour dates in July with RidingEasy Records labelmates Electric Citizen and Slow Season. Please see current dates below. Additional details and admat here. Brooklyn Vegan recently premiered album track "The Dawn" HERE. (Direct Soundcloud HERE.) The creatures known as Mondo Drag originally hailed from deep along the banks of the wild Mississippi River where they created ominous, spiritual, savage psychedelic revival sounds. Under the spiritual guidance of the forefathers of heavy psych, prog, and proto-metal, Mondo Drag has created an amalgamation of sounds the likes of which have not been heard for decades. The band’s unique sound, and rare cohesion probably stems from the fact that core members John Gamino (keyboards, vocals), Nolan Girard, (guitar, synth) and Jake Sheley (guitar) grew up together and have been playing music with each other for 15 years. Now settled in Oakland, CA the ensemble continues to create cosmically proportioned, churning jams evocative of a rainbow of inspirations such as Blue Cheer, Black Sabbath, Can, Atomic Rooster, Hawkwind, Budgie, Uriah Heep, Deep Purple, Italian prog, Krautrock in general, and heavy space-outs. Their debut, New Rituals was released by Alive Records in 2010 and for the next fourteen months the band hit the road hard, headlining a half a dozen tours in the US and appearing at numerous psych fests along the way. The band’s stellar live performances soon became a thing of wonder and saw them share stages with contemporary artists such as Sleepy Sun, Dead Meadow, Witchcraft, Pentagram, Black Mountain, Wooden Shjips, and Naam to name a few. In the Winter of 2011-2012, the band returned to the studio with new rhythm section, Zack Anderson and Cory Berry, also intermittently involved with popular Swedish band Blues Pills. Shortly after the album's completion, the pair left to pursue Blues Pills, which was taking off in Europe. Mondo Drag soon replaced them with current drummer Ventura Garcia and bassist Andrew O'Neil upon relocating to Oakland.

Tracks

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