RUMP STATE - 'PSYCHIC SIDEKICK'

Formats

• 12XU173-1 - LP

  5061041822186

Details

Mark Morgan (formerly of Sightings and Silk Purse) and Gaute Granli first met in Brooklyn at The Glove in 2017 while Granli was on tour from his home country of Norway. The following year, Morgan embarked on a solo European tour and he and Granli did three shows together in Norway. Ultimately finding each other reasonably tolerable and able to agree to disagree on punk versus prog, they soon thereafter toured together in the fall of 2019 in Europe for 50 days with each playing solo. As the tour progressed, both found themselves influencing and being influenced by the other and by the end, they decided they should do a band together (easier to book one act rather than a package deal). Plans were made to reconvene in 2020 to record and possibly tour but then Covid threw a wrench into the works. A couple of years later, Rump State finally started playing and recording together in 2021 at Entropy Studio in Redford, Michigan (notably the childhood home of Ted Nugent who purportedly refers to it as "Tedford"). Outside of agreeing that there should be a strong focus on duo vocals and that Morgan would play guitar and Granli electronics, not much else was discussed in advance of first playing together. From these sessions, their first LP "Retaliation Aesthetics" was cobbled together and eventually released on the Parisian No Lagos label in March 2023. Since then, Rump State has toured the USA once and Europe multiple times. 'Psychic Sidekick', Rump State's second album, is a jarring, dizzying (even!) collision ; prior notions of song disassembly and aural properties being repossessed-then-sold-for-scrap were already due for reassessment. Morgan and Granli have rendered such arguments moot, and if you prefer "discussion" to argument, CONGRATS ON BEING SO (fucking) civilized. That's not gonna diminish this album's impact one iota. Is this the most challenging album of 2026? How in blazes should I know, it's only February.

Tracks

1. Evil Vista 2. Blemisher 3. Castle Brat 4. The Medusa Price 5. I Know Your Name 6. Cloaked 7. Brindling 8. Petty Deities

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THE SLEEVES - 'THE SLEEVES'

Formats

• 12XU176-1 - LP

  5061041822193

Details

The Sleeves are the duo of Jack Cooper and Tara Cunningham, both likely known to you as one half of Modern Nature. Following an all-instrumental Mossy Tapes release last November, Cooper and Cunningham have recorded 10 new songs showcasing their vocal and guitar interplay with only the faintest echoes of prior efforts (individually or collectively), representing a fully realized leap forward from their largely improvised debut. 'The Sleeves' is a somewhat counter intuitive take on the guitar/vocal duo formula (provided you think there is such a thing) though it's not nearly as simplistic as "the space between the notes" -- it would be the height of exaggeration to say an album this simultaneously expansive and incandescent is unprecedented. But it doesn't happen nearly often enough, either. The Sleeves have London and NYC dates planned for this July and September respectively, with further touring to be announced in the coming weeks. “What I initially found so familiar and exciting about playing guitar with Jack - and continually do - is that our approach to music is pretty much exactly the same. And that is - to celebrate the space that frames ideas, embraces silence, to play simply, simultaneously championing our respective unembellished guitar sounds, whilst looking for sounds that aren’t like a guitar at all - bells, birds, switching between radio stations etc. It’s rare to find someone who - whatever this means to you - ‘gets it’ - and I think when we started playing guitar together, we both knew the other had something of whatever our ‘it’ was.” “‘The Sleeves’ is the sum of our shared musical journey thus far, an exciting mix of familiarity and uncharted territory in its approach to structure and how we use our guitars and voices. It feels to me like we are both citing shared references and traditions, whilst floating in our own, single-cell world that is completely genre-less. That grey area is where we seem to thrive. As Jack says, it feels like music that really couldn’t be made by anyone else.” - Tara Cunningham “Tara and I started playing guitar together at the start of 2024. It was an improvised music night in a railway arch in South London. The set was great but there was a couple of minutes in particular where Tara and I really sort of locked in. We made a record a few weeks later. There was something in the way we played together that felt very intuitive from the start. We recognised a shared approach right away and an affinity to the way each other played.” “During the summer we got stuck in a traffic jam coming home from a show in Glasgow. We spent a few hours singing along to the Mamas & The Papas and Simon & Garfunkel and over the course of the day, like magic we became The Sleeves." “We're excited about it because it feels like music that really couldn’t be made by anyone else. We don’t bring different elements to it. We both bring exactly the same things. It’s the result of our similarities.” - Jack Cooper 

Tracks

1. Come On Man 2. Empty Thoughts 3. You, Now, Again 4. A Door Swings 5. Tin Foil 6. Procedure 7. Rip It Up 8. Headfirst Into Four 9. Wailed Garden 10. Streetcar

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RURAL FRANCE - 'SLOTHS'

Formats

• SSH061P - LP (COLOURED)

  820200154678

Details

**INDIES ONLY PURPLE VINYL**Much like the duo’s music, the story of Rural France is both mundane and magical. Tom Brown (also of transatlantic janglepunks Teenage Tom Petties) and Rob Fawkes moved to London in their mid-twenties. Despite living under the same roof, they never picked up a guitar – except for one drunken, failed attempt at writing a Spoon song (“Big Chops” …don’t ask). It was only after both separately relocating to Wiltshire and starting families that they began assembling songs as a way of meeting up. Tom had amassed a pile of sprightly slacker jams that were calling out for Fawkes’ messily melodic guitar lines. Rural France was born. After a debut album on their hero, ex-Lemonhead Nic Dalton’s Half-a-Cow Records, they retreated to a garage to record their next two albums: RF (2021) and Exacamondo! (2024), both released on much-respected jangle label Meritorio Records. Despite being lo-fi in the truest GbV sense, both records were warmly received by the DIY indie blogosphere, with their short, scrappy, but supremely melodic songs landing on numerous AOTY lists. RF even won Album of the Year at Janglepop Hub. Raven Sings The Blues probably summed up the sound best: “With drunken visions of Beach Boys harmonies playing in the back of their heads and hooks that consume Teenage Fanclub cheeriness with the same beautiful brevity that drives Tony Molina, the pair have knocked out eleven rumpled classics.” Album four, SLOTHS, arrives via Meritorio Records and Safe Suburban Home Records on 08/05, and is a slightly different beast. For one, it’s been mixed by a professional – Rob Slater (Westside Cowboy, Yard Act, Thank) – giving the guitars and drums room to breathe. It’s easily their most high-fidelity record to date. It’s also their jangliest, most baroque and thoughtful album yet. But alongside added organ, horns and mellotron – and drums from Tom’s Teenage Tom Petties bandmate Jeff Hamm – it still retains the buzzes, hums and little freak-outs that stick to the duo’s original “Pavement playing Teenage Fanclub” mission statement. “Rob and I both wanted to do something a little slower and a little more melancholy,” says Tom. “We resisted our usual urge to hit the distortion pedal and made something that fitted where we are now and celebrates how we still listen to Meatloaf when we get drunk.” SLOTHS is also the most thematically consistent Rural France record to date. While it wouldn’t be right to call it grown-up, it definitely has homeowners’ insurance. From the Silver Jews-esque Americana of “Slab” and mid-life rallying cry of “Thirty Seven Forever”, to the horn-embossed loser anthem “Lonely Heart Pyramid Scheme,” the songs celebrate (and rail against) the absurdities of getting older, forming a band in your thirties, and the strange phenomenon of time passing. Because no matter how slow you move, everything else goes fast. SLOTHS.

Tracks

1. Slab 2. Thirty-Seven Forever 3. How You Gonna Get Even 4. Someone You Forgot 5. Lonely Heart Pyramid Scheme 6. Soulseeker 7. Jukebox Weepie 8. Casio 9. High Hopes (Ballad of Rural France) 10. Electrical Tape

Press

RIYL: Teenage Fanclub, Pavement, Silver Jews, GBV...

Audio & Video

TOMO KATSURADA - 'DREAM OF THE EGG'

Formats

• FDR02 - 10"

  N/A

Details

"Dream of the Egg" is the debut solo album by Tomo Katsurada, known for his work with the Japanese psychedelic band Kikagaku Moyo. This project is a unique fusion of music and visual art, inspired by the Japanese 1920s children's book “Yume No Tamago (Dream of the Egg)”. It reveals a deeply personal journey, reflecting Tomo's dreams and the numerous rebirths experienced in 2024—a year marked by profound new beginnings in every facet of his life. This mini album was driven by a passion for raw and immediate expression. Every song was crafted and recorded with only the materials available to him at the time, embracing an organic and handmade atmosphere. By eschewing rhythm clicks and standard instrumental tunings, a spontaneous sound emerged, capturing the essence of both uncertainty and immediacy. Adding to this distinctive sonic landscape, guest musician Jonny Nash (UK) contributed ethereal guitar sounds on the first and final tracks, enriching the record's dream-like quality.

Tracks

1. Moshimo 2. Zen Bungalow 3. Interlude 4. Inner Garden 5. Dream Of The Egg

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GUTTERSNIPE - 'EXTINCTION BURST!'

Formats

• LSSN103 - LP

  5061041822032

Details

Extinction Burst! is the new invocation in album-form by Guttersnipe, Leeds’ premier and pre-eminent XFCER (XFCER: Xenofeminist crisis-energy rock)* duo. Slamming at full speed to multi-dimensional oblivion, Extinction Burst is the most full, hi-definition lurid dream-mare yet spewed out by Uroceras Gigas & Tipula Confusa. Engineered and mixed by Ross Halden at Hohm Studio in Bradford and mastered by Rashad Becker, Extinction Burst follows 2018’s My Mother The Vent, which garnered universal critical adoration. Nevertheless, this long-awaited follow up is more extreme: it is wildness beyond reason, splitting new tears in the reality gauze, ultimate hallucination through sound ecstasy. 2026’s Guttersnipe are evolved, mutated by 8 years of touring together and with the labyrinthine network of groups both Guttersnipe members are involved with - Tristwch Y Fenywod, Nape Neck, Petronn Sphene, Yexxen to name a few. On Extinction Burst, as with previous material, the duo are heavily augmented with technology. Tipula Confusa's drum kit triggers chasm-causing synth pulses with thumping low end attack.. Strafing from all over the stereo field the constant shatter of the cymbals and toms feel like Sunny Murray or Rashied Ali in full flight during a John Coltrane session in 1967. Uroceras Gigas’s guitar + synth storm is by-now similarly an instantly recognised tool kit in underground music. Switching from screeching guitar atonality to intricate riffs from the black metal/Voivod hinterland to ultra-distorted synth meltdown, it’s an utterly overwhelming, essential and vital pouring-out of the full emotional spectrum. Both artists vocalise, ecstatic and primal, drawn out or yelped in pain or pleasure or panic. Alive On Tuesday begins with some of the only space on Extinction Burst!. Digital crackles and tight-delays blow out into a full-throttled death-dive into sweet opaqueness, offset by the duo’s vocals. There’s a popular believe that Guttersnipe is chaos, but over 9 mins here the group are clinical in their control of the simulated entropy. Mincing while the Maelstrom Churns’s guitar is modulated into jagged atonal atonement, duetting with the virtuoso drum patterns before it thuds into gear at quadruple the speed. Threads Of Radical Unaliveness veers close to the extreme Metal influences with blast beats and guttural vocalisations until the track exhausts itself into unaliveness. Keep Honking summons a demonic digital panic, with the duo re-incarnating in real time as haunted versions of themselves, almost translating the lurid, ultra vivid, simultaneous hell+heaven of being alive in this dimension. Primordial Invagination harnesses No Wave’s dissension of normality before the structured collapse of Skräckblandad Förtjusning, in which Tipula Confusa’s accelerating drums simulate a bouncing barrel of brimstone descending into a primordial gunky ooze, a respite in the middle before the record splutters to a stuttering finale, both members’ vocals out there in the neon realness, alive with crisis energy. There is nothing on this cursed earth like Guttersnipe. For over 10 years they have whirled in a wiggliness both woebegone and wonderstruck on a mission of radical mutant exaltation using rock music weaponry loaded with a queer hysterical ammunition to rupture the fabric of the known Rock universe and unleash a tendril-soft hallucinatory violence; thrumming with the bracing vividness of insect bodies, crazed with alien synaesthetic emotions, harnessing jagged excoriating illogic as a face meltingly snazzy affront to redundant macho mediocrity with the hope to break minds, squeeze hearts, explode pelvises and maybe even reset the parameters of reality.

Tracks

1. Alive On Tuesday 2. Mincing while the Maelstrom Churns 3. Threads Of Radical Unaliveness 4. Keep Honking! We're Stuck In A Memetic Bottleneck 5. Primordial Invagination 6. Skr?ckblandad F?rtjusning

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VARIOUS - 'BROWN ACID: THE TWENTY-SECOND TRIP'

Formats

• EZRDR217LPX - LP (COLOURED)

  N/A

• EZRDR217LP - LP

  679065076857

• EZRDR217CD - CD

  679065076864

Details

**ON RANDOM COLOUR VINYL** Just as you were getting your head straight coming off the 21st Trip … Brown Acid dose # 22 drops, continuing to fry your mind in a revolving trap-door Twilight Zone alternate world of early hard rock… populated by real life characters so far out they can look like a cheesy wedding band but sound like Blue Cheer! Uncanny! This music comes at you from many angles. Teens in a garage colliding with booze, drugs and girls for the first time, lounge lizard hustlers with snazzy stage clothes and fuzz boxes… gnarly backwoods troublemakers meet blow dried glam rock wannabes here, seamlessly clobbering your head with sound rather than each other! An electric post-psychedelic bar brawl for your mind awaits, unfasten your seat belt, crank it up and fly! Sounds Synonymous "Babylon" out of Flint, Michigan 1969 rip the devastating Blue Cheer classic a new one, immediately swarming you with organ swells and distortion before collapsing into a tuff funk groove, a psychedelic James Brown vibe shot through with dirty howling fuzz guitar, vocals nailing the messed up but confident relaxed sneering attitude of the original Cheer eruption. The Bumps "Shining" from Seattle 1969 resides right at the transition of ‘60s psych into early prog, well constructed, no diluting things artsy fartsy style, a compelling heavy riff, spacious vocal harmony hook floating above a turbulent take on getting your shit together and shining like a star. Fat chance, but you can dream, the band did and their dreams kick ass across time to right now or you wouldn’t be here. Coulda been a hit back then, definitely a hit now. Riverside "Farmer" explodes out of Austin, Texas 1974, economical but brilliantly structured riffs and power chords, intense dynamic tension/release, fantastic screaming leads over shifting angles of attack during the middle break… it’s all here with a detached confidence in the vocal that swaggers back in time to the late ‘60s in its proto-heavy psych adjacent assault. Cincinnati Joe & Mad Lydia "Get It Together" for real in Cincinnati, Ohio 1970. The song says everything you need to know: “You may think that you’re the very best, miles and miles ahead of the rest, but be sure when you’re put to the test you get it together!” These words are deployed in a manner similar to Peter Green’s “Oh Well”, intermittently stated between killer gnarly guitar and gushy organ attacks. Bar band heaven and hell rolled up into one big ball, the vocals get all the way out there! Straight Up "Fire" takes the monster 1968 Crazy World Of Arthur Brown hit into faithfully executed but surreally minimalist territory, Minneapolis, Minnesota 1974. Genius version of a key song that presciently cuts to the chase regarding Brown Acid’s incinerations of psychedelic idealism, you’re gonna burn, burn, burn… as that moment climaxes you can gawk at their preposterous flashy lounge band stage outfits and realize side one must end because everything is totally scorched into eternity. Scrap Iron "Poopsie" is a primitive two chord stomper with spiraling fuzz and organ riffs, singer marking his territory caveman style. “Poopsie, you’re my woman” he commands, but gets weirdly insecure she’ll blow him off at the altar by the end of each verse. Snarly wah-wah ices this toxic cake out of Carteret, New Jersey 1973. Focused delivery so single-mindedly crude it creates an inescapable instant brain-worm. Lady "Live Show Tigers" is amongst the most potently life affirming trash rockers you’ll ever hear, one outrageously triumphant but fiercely sloppy anthem about living it up like a star, strutting the stage glammed up New York Dolls drag style but with a Dictators sense of humor. Tasty slightly off kilter guitar leads all through, going serendipitously berserk on the fade. Picture disc single out of L.A. 1980. Fantastic fun rock star rock at a very raw local street level where any time is party time. Killer Frog "Hard Times" on Masochist Records from Chicago, Illinois 1972 takes less than two minutes, an action packed James Gang style bar band rocker with a bit of punky sneer in the face of misfortune. These guys never even heard of flower power. They are killer frogs. Good Humore "Killer" does kill in stripped down hard rock trio style, Warren, Michigan 1976. No frills guitar, bass and drums groove tight, snaky primordial riff, snarly licks. “She’s a killer of a woman, knows just what she’s doing…” The singer knows she’s a femme-fatale roadhouse predator but she’s so hot the inevitable wreckage seems a bargain. Ride it out like the extended jam on the fade knowing she’ll be back for more! Sarawest "Space Rider" winds up the 22nd Trip lost in a twisted two chord space adventure from the point of view of an alien visiting our planet seeking knowledge but finding out we are stupidly destroying ourselves, so he gotta split sneering back at us like we wasted his time “I got no time for loving… I wanna be a space rider, space rider”. Toronto, Canada 1974, a vibe lurking in some strange but funny void between late ‘60s outsider garage psychedelic rock complete with reverb-y acid guitar leads and late ‘70s retro-futuristic D.I.Y wisecracking from inner space… taking the piss out of outer space!

Tracks

Tracklist:

Side A:
Sounds Synonymous ? Babylon
Flint, Michigan ? 1969
The Bumps ? Shining
Seattle, Washington ? 1969
Riverside ? Farmer
Austin, Texas ? 1974
Cincinnati Joe and Mad Lydia ? Get It Together
Cincinnati, Ohio ? 1970
Straight Up ? Fire
Minneapolis, Minnesota ? 1974

Side B:
Scrap Iron ? Poopsie
Carteret, New Jersey ? 1973
Lady ? Live Show Tigers
Los Angeles, California ? 1980
Killer Frog ? Hard Times
Chicago, Illinois ? 1972
Good Humore ? Killer
Warren, Michigan ? 1976
Sarawest ? Space Rider
Toronto, Ontario ? 1974

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LUPO CITTA - 'INVERNO'

Formats

• 12XU168-1 - LP

  5061041822346

Details

The title track for Lupo Città’s second LP, INVERNO (‘winter’ in Italian), was born in January 2023. Written in waking sleep at 4 am. Looking out the window at the winter world below when it's too quiet, no one is around, but anything and everything feels possible. Lupo Città wrote the songs for INVERNO by instinct: each song, in viscera, a life and personality of its own. Chris, Jenn, and Sarah each brought in songs at different stages, in different forms and moods. Some came together fast, others took long. Some songs had to be stripped, slowed down or sped up, while others were completely gutted and rebuilt. A hard coming out of post-COVID lockdown, trying to relearn to live outside of isolation. Moving from the dark of winter into light, a jarring shift, the world was changing so fast in such stark contrast between the quiet isolation we settled into with close friends and family. We couldn’t look away anymore, in the light of day, escalating political and social chaos happening outside, now rapidly closing in. While Lupo Città’s debut was melodic, energetic, world-weary, sometimes chaotic, INVERNO is out on a limb, taking a risk, and not caring at all how it turns out. INVERNO is a snapshot of the bad and good of trying to stay awake and present, fighting off the sleep of winter, the lure of time standing still, so we can create the world we want instead of trying to survive the world we're in. Writing, playing, listening to music is essential, now, more than ever, for our survival amidst uncertainty, doubt, dystopia, grief, loss, blindness, vision, and love. This is INVERNO. Lupo Città is Sarah Black (guitar, bass), Chris Brokaw (guitar + vocals) and Jenn Gori (drums + vocals).

Tracks

1. Wandering Eye 2. Something Else 3. Can't See 4. Southern Forests 5. Satisfy 6. To the Last Look 7. Red & Yellow 8. Profile 9. Inverno 10. Nap At Dawn

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