RIVAL CONSOLES - 'OVERFLOW'

Formats

• ERATP147LP - 2xLPs

  3700551783656

• ERATP147CD - CD

  3700551783663

• ERATP147LE - 2xLP (COLOURED)

  3700551784783

Details

*LIMITED EDITION CLEAR VINYL REPRESS NOW SHIPPING* Rival Consoles returns with a resonant and explorative soundscape of original music, composed for renowned choreographer Alexander Whitley’s contemporary dance production Overflow. Exploring themes of the human and emotional consequences of life surrounded by data, the piece echoes the concept of social media, advertising, marketing companies and political factions exploiting our data to gain wealth, political advantage and sow division. Key reading for the project was based around the contemporary philosophical work Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power by Byung-Chul Han. “The piece opens with Monster which has a kind of drunken madness to it, highly repetitive to mirror the repetitive nature of how we as humans engage with technology such as social media. It’s sometimes edging towards chaos but yet always returning back to the same starting point, but eventually giving way to exhaustion. I wanted to create a bold opening piece for Overflow,” states West. I Like features the mapping of data from dancer Tia Hockey’s personal monologue, which allows chords to be heard - but only based on the activity of her voice, drawing attention to things happening behind the curtain, invisible systems, algorithms. The album also features the previously released standalone slice of euphoria, Pulses of Information — described by UK mag Clash as “typically entrancing, Pulses of Information seems to encourage a form of internal dialogue, between our inner and outer selves.” Overflow was premiered by the Alexander Whitley Dance Company in May 2021 at the Sadler’s Wells in London and is scheduled to tour through theatres in Europe in spring 2022. The score will be released by Erased Tapes on limited edition vinyl and CD as well as digital formats on December 3.

Tracks

1. Monster
2. I Like
3. Hands
4. Pulses of Information
5. Noise Call and Response I
6. Overflow
7. The Cloud Oracle
8. Tension in the Cloud
9. Noise Call and Response II
10. Scanning
11. Flow State
12. Touches Everything
13. Making Sense of It All

Press

Audio & Video

WHITMER THOMAS - 'THE OLDER I GET, THE FUNNIER I WAS'

Formats

• HAR152 - LP (COLOURED)

  098787315202

Details

*INITIAL RUN: TRANSPARENT PINK*The Older I Get, the Funnier I Was, which follows Thomas’ brilliant 2020 HBO special The Golden One and his Can't Believe You're Happy Here EP released earlier this year, surveys a range of emotion and offers a broad sonic palette, moving between pop punk, electro, and the obvious influence of the singer-songwriters he grew up listening to in early childhood. It conjures the ennui of Bright Eyes alongside the barefaced storytelling of John Prine, the overstuffed lists of Fred Thomas with the lackadaisical humor of Colleen Green, among many others. Thomas attributes the dexterity of the record to Duterte, who recorded and engineered most of it in addition to serving up plenty of encouragement when Thomas got down on the process. “As a comic, I used to test out new songs during sets to see if the funny bits were hitting, but since I wrote this in isolation I ended up writing lyrics and worrying less about making jokes,” Thomas says. That said, the album’s plenty funny. Stand-out and lead single “Rigamarole” opens with a Thomas-voiced infomercial that recalls his oft-cited lookalike Jim Carrey as the Grinch, before launching into a buoyant pop song about being depressed. Whitmer Thomas will admit that when he traveled home to small town Gulf Shores, Alabama to record his HBO stand-up special, The Golden One, he expected to be greeted as a returning hero, a conquering king, or at minimum, a guy with a moderately successful career as an entertainer in Los Angeles. “I expected a big welcome home, open arms, but when I went back I realized: nobody fucking knows me. Nobody remembers me,” Thomas says. “In the years I’d been performing that show, I’d been romanticizing my childhood in this mythologized place, but the visit made me see that I’m not really from there anymore.” The sense of alienation compounded when Thomas recognized how few people in town remembered his mom, to whom The Golden One is dedicated and largely about. Thomas grew up watching her perform with her twin sister at the legendary Flora-Bama Lounge, where he set the special, and still counts her as one of his musical influences. His new album, The Older I Get, the Funnier I Was, isn’t overtly about his mom, her presence is deeply felt throughout. While in Gulf Shores, Thomas discovered dozens of her old recordings, all of which had been wrecked by Katrina, but upon returning to LA, Thomas paid “a fancy place in Hollywood” to fix the tapes and hired Melina Duterte (Jay Som, Bachelor, Routine) to mix them. The two struck up a collaborative friendship, and Thomas had the sound of his mom’s voice back. “I was listening to songs she recorded when she was about my age, just these heartfelt, sweet Americana songs,” he says. “I decided then that I wanted to lose the Ian Curtis voice I always sing with; I wanted to do what came naturally, because my mom always sounded like herself, even when she was singing some cheesy reggae song about, like, Jamaica.” Thus he went into The Older I Get, the Funnier I Was knowing it was time to retire his darkwave persona, and leaning into his natural, chirpier voice, which he says sounds “like a 12-year-old’s.” It makes sense: much of the album chronicles what Thomas calls “being a kid and feeling like you have no control and overcompensating by being annoying.” “So much of the album is about witnessing drug and alcohol addiction as a kid and seeing what it does to people, but also realizing that there's nothing you can do about it,” Thomas says. It’s familiar territory (see: “Partied to Death”) but the methodology is different this time around; true to its title, The Older I Get, the Funnier I Was isn’t always looking for laughs. Thomas might’ve left his hometown behind, but his kid self is still tagging along, a Peter Pan shadow he can’t untether himself from. The first line he sings on The Older I Get, the Funnier I Was is: “There should be a room at every party where you can just sit and watch a movie.” Find a 12-year-old who wouldn’t say the same.

Tracks

01. Most Likely
02. Rigamarole
03. Everything That Feels Good Is Bad
04. Big Truck
05. Pop Fly
06. Cooler When I?m Sick
07. Pinwheel
08. Stick Around
09. South Florida
10. navel gazey
11. Bushwhacked

Press

? The Older I Get the Funnier I Was, musician/comedian Whitmer Thomas?s follow-up to his 2020 HBO special The Golden One, and his 2022 Can't Believe You're Happy Here EP, moves between pop punk, electro, and the influence of the singer-songwriters he grew up listening to in early childhood. It conjures the ennui of Bright Eyes, the barefaced storytelling of John Prine, the overstuffed lists of Fred Thomas, and the lackadaisical humor of Colleen Green.

Audio & Video

AUSTIN LEONARD JONES - 'DEAD CALM'

Formats

• PD040 - LP

Details

Perpetual Doom proudly presents the new album from Austin Leonard Jones: Dead Calm. On this collection of nine new tracks, the Texas-based troubadour channels his eclectic talent into a melancholy country groove. Full of signature tumbleweed melodies and his deadpan wit, it is an essential addition to Jones’ unique and varied catalog. Like any good country record, Dead Calm starts with a joke and ends in tears. “A werewolf walks into a bar,” Jones sings on opener “Cape Fear,” where vampires pour drinks and no one seems to escape. The town might be full of the undead, but it could be anywhere—after all, as Jones says, “It’s hard on the living in Cape Fear.” The slide guitar and faint bright keys set the tone for an album that mixes domestic sorrow with a touch of kitsch, like Conway Twitty at a seasonal Halloween outlet. “I’m the sole survivor of the all-night show,” he sings on “Back in the Black Lagoon,” “and it cost a thousand tears for every episode.” Somewhere between a funeral and a costume party, Dead Calm bursts with classic songwriting sure to get you on the dance floor and crying. All these ghost towns, desert bars, and haunted capes emerge from the small town outside Austin where Jones wrote and recorded the album. Alongside producer Jesse Woods, he crafted a sound based on the traditional country palette of acoustic and slide guitar, organ and gentle drums. Songs like “Night Parrots” and “Demon Sands” take stock of life’s disappointments as Jones’ maudlin voice and Jesse Siebenberg’s pedal steel twist tighter around each other. “The Australia Song” puts autobiographical storytelling first, while “Exotics” laughs at our tendency to seek satisfaction in far-off places and things. It all comes together on “Its Treachery,” where Jones confronts the intimate betrayals of “a whole life not working out as planned.” Sound familiar? Austin Leonard Jones invites you to join the club.

Tracks

Press

Pedal steel and spanish guitar flutter all over Austin Leonard Jones? new record giving Dead Calm the feeling of equal parts Hawaiian seashores and dusty beer joints of his Texan home base. - Old Rookie

Audio & Video

MOUNTAIN BREWS - 'MOUNTAIN BREWS'

Formats

• PD00 - 2xLPs

Details

Perpetual Doom is proud to present a special double-LP from Mountain Brews. Spearheaded by Jake Longstreth, Los Angeles-based painter and co-host of Apple Music’s Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig, Mountain Brews was founded around a vital American tradition: sippin’ cold ones to the “tasteful palette of seventies rock.” Full of warm melodies and guitars that evoke a Mojave glow, Mountain Brews occupy the sunny spot right between the studio-slick hits of early Eagles and the laidback jams of the Grateful Dead. And now that their four previous EPS are available in a single package, there’s nothing left to do but grab a seat, turn up the music, and crack one open. Mountain Brews are pros at keeping things loose and light. Recorded by the same group of old pals that make up a LA based Grateful Dead cover band, Richard Pictures—including Longstreth, Aaron Olson, Ryan Adlaf, and John Nixon—these seventeen tracks celebrate the early seventies’ spirit of easy-going collaboration. You can hear it when a guitar slide greets the opening strum on the title track, an assuming ode to the pleasures of drinking and hiking: “As we get to the top of the mountain, there’s a view,” Longstreth sings. “Take a load off and crack a few mountain brews.” And while the song boasts virtuoso playing worthy of Desperado, the vibe is less barstool machismo than six-pack camaraderie. It’s a self-aware R&R mindset that pulses through tracks like “You Eagled,” which ponders both a great golf score and the trials of becoming “classic,” and “It’s My Masterpiece,” with its tightly coiled licks and breezy nonchalance with regards to inevitable civilizational demise. Sure, the Brews know there’s a down for every up. “Raised in a Place” and “Big Bummer Hotel” acknowledge that even the chillest California cowboys get the middle-aged blues, resurrecting the heartland synthesizers of late eighties Don Henley and Bruce Hornsby to find a little meaning in the madness. And Ezra Koenig and Danielle Haim contribute vocals to help “The Worst Margarita of My Life” go down just a little easier. These four EPs were recorded between 2019 and 2021 in various bedrooms and studios across California. “Uphill From Here” brings it all back around as guitarist Aaron “Bobby” Olson sings about meeting Jake on the trail once again: “And it’s all uphill from here,” he sings. “We may have to stop and down these beers.” But whether it’s uphill or down, Mountain Brews makes it clear—the journey is better with company. 

Tracks

Press

Mountain Brews was founded around a vital American tradition: sippin? cold ones to the ?tasteful palette of seventies rock.? RIYL: Grateful Dead, Don Henley, Last of the Easy Riders

Audio & Video

VARIOUS - 'MAGGOT BRAIN ISSUE #10'

Formats

• MG011 - BOOK

Details

Cover art by Detroit-based graphic artist Lucy Cahill depicts Wanda Jackson as an alien because why not; with additional recent works by her inside the issue. Glasgow’s justly beloved Belle & Sebastian, hot on the heels of a US tour and their best record in ages, deliver unto us decades’ worth of posters and ephemera, with an interview with Suart Murdoch on the history of the group’s aesthetics. Novelist and longtime friend David Gordon lets us run the full text of his archival talk with celebrated painter and author Duncan Hannah (RIP – and yes he goes into detail about the Lou Reed incident described in Please Kill Me). Kevin Esquire spent hours with Motown’s almost-star from the 1960s and ’70s, Christina Carter, and we have unpublished archival images and many amazing anecdotes. Speaking of Motown, did you know that the son of the great Marxist/ Black liberation activist CLR James was in “mixed race” band Odyssey, who had a record on Motown? We have a great feature on that. Fascinating discussion between guitarist-singer-songriter-innovators Chris Forsyth and Steve Wynn. We have an amazing excerpt from Ben Berton’s new book on Dan Treacy and the TV Personalities, detailing how the first 7” came together and John Peel inadvertently named the band. Nate Carlson goes deep on the Tony Iommi era of Black Sabbath. Why Buffy Saint-Marie matters, now more than ever, by writer and musician Emily Pothast. One of our favorite writers, Sara Jaffe, tells us how her own grandfather wrote the song “I’m My Own Grandpa”! No, really! That alone is worth admission. Plus also too – there’s a terrific and long and excellently illustrated feature on the country and experimental steel guitarist Barry Walker Jr by Tom Humphrey. Our SF Indie Scene Report: 2022 is so well done that it’s going to knock your socks off. Plus Lucy Sante and Mimi Lipson and the tape column and Katie Lass on her soon-to-be classic ‘Hypnopomp’ LP and the great Jay Ruttenberg on Sessa, whew. Plus also of course beautiful images galore, and more besides.

Tracks

Press

Audio & Video