OSEES - 'METAMORPHOSED'

Formats

• RIP93 - LP

  767870664618

• RIP93Y - LP (COLOURED)

Details

**LTD YELLOW VINYL AND SOLID ORANGE VINYL** It seems that every time you turn around, there’s another Oh Sees slab. Long ago we lost all capacity to be surprised that this sturdy unit keeps putting out records and that they’re really good. You can now add the Metamorphosed 12” to your ever deeper shelf sagging row of John Dwyer & Co.’s seemingly no sleep release schedule. The five tracks were taken from the sessions that formed 2019’s Face Stabber album, a 17 track/80+ minute jammified four-sider. Metamorphosed would have been the perfect third LP to fit in with the other two. The very existence of Metamorphosed asks any number of questions. Speculation is for pundits and amateurs. Let’s go to John Dwyer and see if he’ll kick loose some information. As to the Metamorphosed coming out so long after Face Stabber: This is just how the release landed. We are trying to stagger the releases a bit this year and we have a salvo coming down the pipe, so that’s how the cookie crumbled. Metamorphosed would’ve been out sooner but with the virus restrictions, shipping of LPs has obviously slowed down and so has manufacturing, so here we are. It’s worthwhile to note the Face Stabber sessions also resulted in The 12” Synth, a two track deal released in November of 2019. So, what was happening in the studio that rendered almost three hours of finished music? Just the usual run with ideas. Usually this takes place at the end of the planned recording. We have extra time and tape to lay down some deep cuts and long jams, etc., the fun part, really. It’s a test to keep up with Dwyer and his extraordinarily able bandmates. It seems like there’s always something on the way to the pressing plant. When and how did Metamorphosed come together? Basically, I found myself with a 12"'s worth of material in the new year and things were starting to grind to a halt, so it was the perfect time to sew it all up. People need some tunes right now and I think the artist's community is making a good run of it. So much great shit is seeing light right now. John and Matt Jones run the Castle Face label with full autonomy, so it would make sense that Metamorphosed, like The 12” Synth, would have been a CF release. Yet, it’s on the very cool Rock Is Hell Records label, which has put out some great Dwyer related jams in the past. The OCS Live In San Francisco album was not only great musically but all the vinyl and sleeve variants made the collectors break out in a fan sweat they’re probably still recovering from. Being able to do all this yourself, it’s obviously cool to still work with Jochen and Rock Is Hell. Yes. I’ve worked with Jochen a few times over the past decade or more (so he is grandfathered in. :) It’s pretty rare these days that I work outside my own label but his stuff is so well done and usually its own work of art. Last question. The fan cannot resist! At any time, were you thinking of making Face Stabber a 3LP set? Hell no. But now maybe I am. Metamorphosed isn’t just some barrel scrape for those who can’t get enough. All of the five tracks stand up to anything on Face Stabber. The record’s 23+ minute I Got A Lot is one of the coolest songs the band has ever done. As it is with a full on Rock Is Hell roll out, there’s a lot of details. Metamorphosed is no exception. This is what the release schedule looks like: In October, there will be a silkscreened cover limited to 300 copies with four sleeve variants. A larger press run will follow in January with four or five color variants. Whew! Something to look forward to! - Henry Rollins

Tracks

Press

Audio & Video

JOHN DWYER, NICK MURRAY, BRAD CAULKINS, TOM DOLAS & GREG COATES - 'WITCH EGG'

Formats

• RIP96 - LP

  767870664717

Details

**LTD GREEN VINYL** Transmission incoming… Alien sound waves have been bouncing off the side of our ship. We’ve managed to capture some of them on plastic. They seem to appear suddenly out of the vacuum. Projected by planets Beamed through stars Reflected off debris Hanging in space like dust motes Witch egg is a improvised set of songs by John Dwyer, Nick Murray, Brad Caulkins, Greg Coates & Tom Dolas. Another fired expedition out in the wilds. Recorded and mixed at Stu-Stu-Studio by John Dwyer This one is a burner designed optimally for your eco-pod sound system. When you’ve left the world behind, you will need a soundtrack while you lay in dream stasis This is it JPD

Tracks

Side A
Greener Pools
City Maggot
Your Hatless Friend
Witch Egg
Side B
Baphomet
Sekhu
Arse
On Your Way Now

Press

Audio & Video

LALA LALA - 'I WANT THE DOOR TO OPEN'

Formats

• HAR132 - LP

  098787313215

• HARCD132 - CD

  098787313222

• HARCS132 - MC

  098787313246

Details

**Initial copies clear w/ aluminium high melt**  “I want total freedom, total possibility, total acceptance. I want to fall in love with the rock.” That’s how Lillie West describes the theme of “DIVER,” the song she calls the thesis of Lala Lala’s third record, I Want The Door To Open. The rock in question is a reference to Sisyphus, the mythical figure doomed by the gods to forever push a boulder up from the depths of hell. To West, it is the perfect metaphor for, in her words, “the labor of living, of figuring out who you are, what's wrong with you, what's right with you.” Coming off of 2018’s acclaimed The Lamb, an introspective indie rock album recorded live with a three-piece band, West knew she was ready to make something sonically bigger and thematically more outward-looking than anything she’d done before; a record that would be less a straightforward documentation of her own personal struggles and more like a poem or a puzzle box, with sonic and lyrical clues that would allow the listener to, as the title says, open the door to the greater meaning of those struggles. The result is I Want The Door To Open, a bold exploration of persona and presence from an artist questioning how to be herself fully in a world where the self is in constant negotiation. From the moment West declares “I want to look right into the camera” over a cascade of dreamy vocal loops on opening track “Lava,” I Want The Door To Open distinguishes itself from anything she’s done before in scope and intensity. The ultra-magnified iteration of Lala Lala is fully encapsulated in the monumental “DIVER.” Inspired by a character from a Jennifer Egan novel, it’s a pop song of Kate Bush-esque proportions replete with layered synths and booming, wide open drumming by fellow Chicago musician Nnamdi Ogbonnaya, and West pushing her vocals to the ragged edge. I Want The Door To Open is a musical quest undertaken with the knowledge that the titular door may never open; but it is through falling in love with the quest itself that one may find the closest thing to total freedom, total possibility, and total acceptance available to us on this plane of existence.

Tracks

1. Lava
2. Color of the Pool
3. DIVER
4. Photo Photo
5. Prove It
6. Castle Life
7. Bliss Now!
8. Straight & Narrow
9. Beautiful Directions
10. Plates
11. Utopia Planet

Press

Features contributions from Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie/The Postal Service, and a former tourmate of West), Nnamdi Ogbonnaya, poet Kara Jackson, OHMME, Adam Schatz of Landlady, Sen Morimoto, Christian Lee Hutson, and Kaina Castillo.

Audio & Video

THE HIGH RIP - 'RULE OF FOUR'

Formats

• NXN005CD - CD

• NXN005LP - LP (COLOURED)

Details

Named after the most notorious street gang of Victorian Liverpool, 'The High Rip' formed in 2017. Early gigs and rehearsal rooms were located in that gang's old stomping ground and the synchronicity was unavoidable. United by their shared love of post-punk and new wave artists, their songs combine the high drama of Joy Division and the pop sensibility of XTC. “This is Rock & Roll revitalised. It's easy to see this is no throw away pop crusade. Things that are made into song are cared for, not just sang about. Their music is bigger than the band.” Scene and Heard "This is a record that sits perfectly between The Damned and Echo & The Bunnymen, The Adverts and Gang of Four. This is a record everyone needs to listen to, so please go and check out Rule of Four." The Last Stop Sounds

Tracks

Press

'A storming LP from The High Rip. Some really nice lyrical twists and an abundance of hooks. Well
worth checking out!?'
Ade Blackburn, Clinic

Audio & Video

GONDHAWA - 'KAAMPALA'

Formats

• SBR086 - LP (COLOURED)

• SBR086CD - CD

Details

Stolen Body are super stoked to announce the addition of French Psych/World rockers Gondhawa to our ever evolving roster. Gondhawa is a musical laboratory - a fusion between Fela Kuti’s groove and Hendrix’s electricness. Formed in 2018 in Angers (France) by Idriss (vocals and guitar), Clément (drums) and Paul (bass), the band explores different styles with a boundless energy. Inspired by French sci-fi literature, they invented a language. Outcomes Gondhawii, a fusion of sounds from all over the world and others as yet unidentified. With this new language the whole mind immerses into a delicious trance where we cross odd rhythms, quarter-tone riffs, oriental groove and electric explosions as well as stringed instruments from other countries. (n'goni, sanxian, microtonal guitar) Gondhawa release their first album, “Kâampäla”. Six powerful and eclectic tracks dipped in stoner, afrobeat and progressive rock. Six tracks linking convoluted rhythms and inventive riffs. Through the micro-tonal groove of Raba Dishka, the Afrobeat Stoner power of Käampâla, or the softness of Djoliko, a beautiful ballad lulled by the melancholy of acoustic strings from around the world, Gondhawa delivers the soundtrack of an interstellar road movie. An electric tornado with an abundance of rhythms and textures.

Tracks

Track List:
1. Raba Dishka
2. Konesay
3. K?amp?la
4. Assid Bubu
5. Fortun Q?ki
6. Djoliko

Press

Audio & Video

MOVIOLA - 'BROKEN ARROWS'

Formats

• AW02 - LP

  711447012012

Details

On the fringe of the indie Rust Belt scene since the 1990s, Moviola has quietly forged a low-key career of high-quality recorded output over twenty-five years, issuing ten (!) records and countless 7-inch singles (including splits with Cobra Verde, Hiss Golden Messenger, Handsome Family and many others). In this artistic continuum, the band has evolved from everything from 4-track fuzz to hi-fi country soul. Today, the band steps forward with Broken Rainbows, its strongest collection of songs to date, written, recorded, and mixed inside the group’s HQ in Columbus. Jake Housh started Moviola in 1993 as a student at “The” Ohio State University as a noisy, fuzzed out lo-fi noisemakers. Over the years, the band has morphed into a unique DIY music and art-making collective with five distinct singers and songwriters, recalling the creatively democratic lineage of The Mekons, The Band, Pink Floyd, many others. Moviola is Jake Housh, Ted Hattemer (Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments), Scotty Tabachnick, Greg Bonnell, and Jerry Dannemiller. Broken Rainbows is a milestone release, showcasing a band newly energized and assured in its artistry, and supportive of its members’ songcraft. The eleven-song album hovers over a plot of ground that’s optimistic in its despair. Album topics range from the personal to the political, showcasing each member’s unique songwriting within an overall cohesive band aesthetic. “Moviola was one of those groups I met early on back in the day that showed me how to do it. Broken Rainbows is a highlight— pastoral thumpers, fuzzy indie radness, hooks to spare, pretty much all the good stuff. Feels like a glorious drive from one disparate end of Ohio to another. I love this band.” —Eric Johnson (Fruit Bats)

Tracks

1. Expat
2. Broken Rainbows
3. Go With You
4. Orders Of The Day
5. Nowhere Home
6. Two Evils
7. Which Way Did You Run?
8. Rise
9. Parched
10. Stripes And Stars
11. Lost Today

Press

Long-running indie band from Columbus,
Ohio return with a career highlight
For fans of Cobra Verde, Hiss Golden
Messenger, Handsome Family, Thomas
Jefferson Slave Apartments

Audio & Video