"Kitten With a Whip" > 079 ALTER.NATION.MiX weekly favtraX 29-03-2020

ALTER.NATION #79

The Flytraps, Sorry, Waxahatchee, Kandace Springs, The Wants, Facs, Childish Gambino, Pearl Jam, Activity, Cable Ties, Deeper, Windy & Carl

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"Kitten With a Whip"

ALTER.NATION #79 on DEEZER

A raw and raucous female-dominated Orange County combo steeped in punk, garage, and hard rock... the Flytraps make hard-driving music with the sneering attitude and fifth-gear pace of old-school punk, the melodic and lyrical sensibilities of garage rock, and the beefy, overdriven attack of hard rock. Fronted by the gritty howl of singer and bassist Kristen Cooper and the crunchy guitar work of Beth Boyd, the Flytraps first emerged on the West Coast garage rock scene...
The Flytraps - Wild Card / Kitten With a Whip
Listen up, Tuff Gurls of the world: you have a new comrade, and she's a real asset to the team. Her name is Kristen Cooper, and she sings lead and plays bass in the Flytraps, a rockin' combo from Orange County, California whose first proper album, 2020's Wild Card, is a soul-satisfying blast of hard-rockin' attitude, howling guitars, and Cooper's flamethrower vocals... Cooper may be center stage on Wild Card, but her bandmates do more than their share to give her the raw power she needs. Beth Boyd and Chloe Z. Young are a heavyweight tag-team guitar combination, setting up a Wall of Sound that brings together the band's punk, garage, and hard rock influences with high style and enough crunch for a year's supply of corn flakes, while drummer Fabian Ruiz manages to not only keep up with these troublemakers, he gives them the fuel to push this music into orbit. You could say that the Flytraps are mining a sound and style that have been around since the Runaways bought their first guitars, and you wouldn't be wrong, but any story can sound fresh if it's told in the right way, and Wild Card tells the tale like a master... (Mark Deming)

A North London band with a mercurial style, Sorry was started by two best friends and first surfaced with a few mixtape-styled collections of home demos. They brought a wildly experimental sound influenced by everything from trip-hop, '90s alt rock, and early trap to their 2020 debut album 925.
Sorry - 925 / More
London indie shape-shifters Sorry first began getting attention with their self-released home demos that jumped from slinky trip-hop to nervous post-punk to dreamy shoegaze and more with each new song. An experimental pop group led by childhood friends Asha Lorenz and Louis O’Bryen, Sorry's willingness to try anything and everything with their songs was one of their most exciting attributes. In the hands of lesser songwriters, this anything-goes approach could have resulted in messy, disjointed ugliness, but Sorry threaded all their wildly disparate directions together with a vivid personality. Much like their early demos and singles, the wandering ideas on Sorry's debut album, 925, work because of how strong the songwriting is in whatever shape it takes... (Fred Thomas)

Following the breakup of a band and a relationship, songwriter Katie Crutchfield emerged with this confessional solo project.
Waxahatchee - Saint Cloud / Oxbow
Following the defiant alt-rock of her John Agnello-produced fourth album, Out in the Storm, Katie Crutchfield makes another adjustment to the course of her one-time bedroom project Waxahatchee with the warmer, more contemplative Saint Cloud. Shedding distortion in favor of a more easygoing, country-rock sensibility, the album's backing band is perhaps the best indicator of its sound; joining her throughout are Bonny Doon's Bill Lennox and Bobby Colombo, Bonny Light Horseman's Josh Kaufman, and Elvis Perkins in Dearland's Nick Kinsey. Saint Cloud's cover art underscores the approach with a photo of Crutchfield striking a pose on a pickup truck...

Refined singer/songwriter and keyboardist who wowed Prince, performed at Paisley Park, signed to Blue Note, and debuted in 2014.
Kandace Springs feat. David Sanborn- The Women Who Raised Me / I Put a Spell on You
...Honoring the women who raised her has always been one of Springs' facets -- she has also evoked other inspirations less obviously with vocal nuances -- but the singer and pianist does it in concentrated form with her third Blue Note album. Like Soul Eyes, The Women Who Raised Me was produced by Larry Klein, who tracked it live with bassist Scott Colley, drummer Clarence Penn, and guitarist Steve Cardenas providing economical and softly luminous core support... (Andy Kellman)

At once confrontational and melodic, Brooklyn's the Wants make music informed by Anglophilic post-punk, the nonstop rhythms of industrial and techno, and Rust Belt grit. Featuring members of Bodega, the band shares a similar sense of political outrage, but channels it in more experimental and inward-looking ways on releases such as 2020's debut album Container.
The Wants - Container / Clearly a Crisis
The Wants – ‘Container’ review: punk-funkers’ debut is the soundtrack to a lockdown party
Fans of Interpol, Depeche Mode, LCD Soundsystem and Gang of Four – meet your favourite new band 
The album artwork for ‘Container’ displays cans of tinned food – stockpiling chic, if you will – while portentous song titles such as ‘Fear My Society’ and ‘Clearly A Crisis’ could hardly chime more with the doomy current climate if they arrived with vouchers for contraband hand sanitiser. Comprised of two members of New York art-punks Bodega – Madison Velding-VanDam and bassist Heather Elle – and completed by drummer Jason Gates, the confident self-produced debut from The Wants is riven with taut anxiety and a sense of looming dread. Yet it’s also a collection of razor-sharp pop songs that gleam through the gloom. They mine the sinuous basslines and euphoric bleakness of post-punk outfits such as Gang Of Four (with Velding-Van-Dam’s lyrics seemingly similarly preoccupied with stripping away the lies of capitalist and consumerist culture) and the dancefloor nous of bands from their home city (think LCD Soundsystem). So while ‘Clearly A Crisis’ apes Andy Gill’s distinctive, serrated slashes of guitar... (Gary Ryan)

Playing dark, propulsive music that stands at the intersection of post-punk and post-rock, Facs formed from the ashes of the like-minded Chicago outfit Disappears.
Facs - Void Moments  / Void Walker
For Facs, redefining themselves and their music is a way of life. Fortunately, they're consistently great at it. Void Moments is the band's second album with bassist Alianna Kalaba, and it feels like the stability of their lineup allowed them to be even more daring with their music. Even when they pared their sound down to its bones on Negative Houses, Facs have never been a simple proposition. However, on their third full-length they give the melodies, harmonies, and textures they introduced on Lifelike even more depth... on the standout "Void Walker," each member of Facs traces different trajectories that complement each other perfectly... (Heather Phares)

Childish Gambino - 3.15.2020 / Algorhythm
...The end result is a challenging, hooky, mysterious and odd record that feels like it was built out of pieces left over from a collision between Outkast, David Bowie, Sly and the Family Stone, and Prince. Add in bits borrowed from Flaming Lips, Tyler the Creator and Lee Perry, and it's a mad scientist's take on modern pop with Glover at the middle alternately crooning with honey-dipped sweetness, rapping menacingly, crying out in pain, and telling tales. The sounds may be somewhat familiar, but there's always a twist or left turn to keep things shocking. And they never stick to one idea when two or three would make things more interesting. Why not mix a totally hooky chorus with a frightening, growled robo-rap ("Algorithm")...

The prototypical Seattle grunge band, with a driving sound and a long run as one of the most principled and hard-working groups in rock.
Pearl Jam - Gigaton / Quick Escape
...Maybe it's the times, maybe it's the choice to switch producers -- the group swapped their longtime collaborator Brendan O'Brien for Josh Evans, who co-produced the album with the band -- but Gigaton hits with the strength of a full-force gale. Weather is a galvanizing concern on Gigaton, with Pearl Jam structuring their tenth album around the looming climate change crisis. There's little subtlety in this regard: the title refers to the amount of ice lost at the arctic poles, the album's cover depicts a melting glacier, and the lyrics are lousy with apocalyptic imagery, not all of it derived from the climate. Eddie Vedder repeatedly and explicitly wrangles with Donald J. Trump, his righteous anger spilling outside the confines of "Quick Escape"...

Meditative post-punk act comprised of former Grooms, Russian Baths, and Field Mouse members. Building on the legacy of its members' former groups Grooms, Russian Baths, and Field Mouse, Activity combines post-punk and electronics as fluently as they blur the boundaries between ominous and comforting moods on their 2020 debut, Unmask Whoever.
Activity - Unmask Whoever / The Heartbeats
Mixing electronica and dream-pop, Activity is a new four-piece formed of Grooms duo Travis Johnson and Steve Levine, bassist Zoë Browne (Field Mouse) and guitarist Jess Rees (Russian Baths). Unmask Whoever, produced with the help of Psychic TV’s Jeff Berner, speaks to the quartet’s resolve to undermine and subvert the norms of modern indie-rock.

Fiercely D.I.Y. Melbourne-based three-piece delivering a blast of garage-infused punk rock. Led by the abrasive guitars and powerful vocals of Jenny McKenchie, Australian punks Cable Ties blur the lines of punk and rock, with angsty dissonance that has just a hint of AC/DC influence hiding beneath the noise. After forming in 2015, the band played often in Melbourne's D.I.Y. circles and captured their growling sound on albums like 2020's Far Enough.
Cable Ties - Far Enough / Sandcastles
The second album from Melbourne, Australia’s Cable Ties brings a towering wall of ’70s hard rock and proto-punk to songs that explore hope, despair, and anger but offer no easy answers. Cable Ties’ fundamental elements—a driving rhythm section, anxious and emotive guitar playing, defiant, passionate songwriting, and Jenny McKechnie’s earthshaking voice—are complicated on Far Enough by nuance and ambivalence.

A Chicago quartet whose merging of jagged post-punk and spare, sophisticated indie rock earned regional acclaim in the mid-2010s, Deeper is the work of singer/guitarist Nic Gohl, guitarist Mike Clawson, bassist Drew McBride, and drummer Shiraz Bhatti. 
Deeper - Auto-Pain / This Heat
Following two years after their eponymous debut, Auto-Pain marks a tonal shift into darker and sparser territory for Chicago post-punks Deeper. The jagged, anxious, but still organic feel that marked their first effort has given way to a harsher, almost mechanical approach that utilizes open space and repetition as a means to work through rather than stave off suffering. Initially conceived as an interconnected concept album, singer/guitarist Nic Gohl claims that he took inspiration from Aldous Huxley's dystopian classic Brave New World, in which a fictional government-issued drug called soma was used to numb all unwanted emotions...

Beloved Michigan space rock duo whose expansive, ethereal drones have influenced numerous ambient and post-rock artists.
Windy & Carl - Allegiance and Conviction / Crossing Over
Dearborn, Michigan's Windy & Carl have been crafting their singular form of free-flowing ambient space rock since the early 1990s, influencing legions of post-rock and drone musicians throughout the decades.

The duo have mostly remained active, often issuing limited cassettes, LPs, and digital releases through their own Blue Flea imprint or other small labels, but all of their main full-lengths from 1998's Depths onwards have appeared on Chicago's venerable Kranky. Arriving eight years after the dazzling We Will Always Be, 2020's Allegiance and Conviction is one of their most concise albums, with no songs reaching ten minutes, and in some ways it feels like one of their rawest works since the early days... Expressing a wide range of emotions in a short timespan, Allegiance and Conviction is a vivid, engrossing experience, and just as vital as every other entry in Windy & Carl's unbeatable catalog.

The Flytraps, Sorry, Waxahatchee, Kandace Springs, The Wants, Facs, Childish Gambino, Pearl Jam, Activity, Cable Ties, Deeper, Windy & Carl

03-23-2020 JAZZ:MiX # 33 jazz tracks on the the JAZZ_line 1992-1980

Allan Holdsworth

03-23-2020 JAZZ:MiX # 33 jazz tracks on the the JAZZ_line 1992-1980 # Allan Holdsworth, Larry Coryell, Things & Tony Lakatos, Dave Holland, Lyle Mays, Anthony Braxton, Miles Davis, Chet Baker & Paul Bley, Bill Frisell, Pat Metheny, Kip Hanrahan, Willem Breuker Kollektief, Weather Report

J A Z Z   M U S I C

if you want excitement PRESS SHUFFLE!

JAZZ_line  The player always plays the latest playlist tracks. / A lejátszó mindig a legújabb playlist számait játssza.

1992-1980

Fleet-fingered British guitarist with a liquid sound, respected by aficionados as one of the greatest axemen in the electric jazz-rock fusion genre.
Allan Holdsworth
5 to 10 (Allan Holdsworth) 5:36
Wardenclyffe Tower (Allan Holdsworth) 8:44
from Wardenclyffe Tower 1992
This 1992 release features Holdsworth in conversation with usual compatriots Jimmy Johnson, Chad Wackerman, and Gary Husband. Keyboards are provided not only by Steve Hunt, but also by both Wackerman and Husband. Husband in particular demonstrates that his facility on the keyboards is equal to his skill on the drums. Despite the all-star cast of characters, there are certain peculiarities to Wardenclyffe Tower that prevent it from being numbered among Holdsworth's best work...

Pioneering fusion guitarist who explored everything from psychedelic rock to unaccompanied acoustic music to straight-ahead bebop.
Larry Coryell
Flamenco Flare-Up (Larry Coryell) 7:26
Blues for 'Charley the Lobster' (Larry Coryell) 5:16
from Twelve Frets To One Octave 1991
A guitar showcase for Coryell, who has always been among the more accomplished players on either electric or acoustic. He goes through old blues, jazz standards, and everything in between. There's absolutely nothing else to support him, enabling Coryell to display his complete technical arsenal.

Things - Jazz group from Hungary. / Members: Csanyi Zoltán, Horváth Kornél, János Solti, Kálmán Oláh, László Attila, Lattmann Béla
Antal Lakatos - Profile: Hungarian saxophonist and flutist, born 13 November 1958 in Budapest, Hungary 
Things & Tony Lakatos
Turn To East 6:26
Mother Nature Vocal – Torita Quick 3:50
from Mother Nature 1990
Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar, Producer – Attila László
Bass – Béla Lattmann
Drums – János Solti
Keyboards – Kalman Olah
Percussion – Kornél Horváth
Saxophone, Electronic Wind Instrument [Yamaha-WX7], Producer – Tony Lakatos
Vocals – Torita Quick

"Water in My Veins" > 078 ALTER.NATION.mIx weekly favtraX 21-03-2020

ALTER.NATION #78

Ultraista, Lorelle Meets the Obsolete, Thomas Dybdahl, Baxter Dury, James Righton, Joywave, Arbouretum, The Exbats, Moaning,  Dogleg, Ratgrave, Helen Money

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"Water in My Veins"

ALTER.NATION #78 on DEEZER

Ultraista is the experimental electro-pop project of superstar producer Nigel Godrich, multi-instrumentalist Joey Waronker, and vocalist Laura Bettinson. Taking their name from the early 20th century Spanish literary movement ultraísmo, the trio emerged in 2012 with a sound that, according to the band, was conceived from a love of Afrobeat, electronica, art and inspired by tequila.
Ultraista - Sister / Water in My Veins
...In fact, Sister may actually scratch the Radiohead itch even more than some of the actual Radiohead member’s side projects. Sister also stands tall on its own, similar enough to Nigel’s collaborations with Thom Yorke to appeal to Thom’s fanbase but different enough to register as an essential project of its own. Laura Bettison is an even more compelling singer on Sister than she was on Ultraísta’s already-great debut, and she drives these songs as much as Nigel does and helps separate them from Nigel’s other work. It may have taken eight years and some major roadblocks, but Ultraísta made it out alive and they’re even more a force of their own than they were the first time around. (Andrew Sacher)

Classic psychedelic rock and experimental pop sounds by a Baja California duo. With a sound that drew inspiration from almost every strain of psychedelic music of the '60s -- from jangling folk-rock to scuffed-up biker rock -- and taking into account the great noise rock bands of the '90s like Spacemen 3, the Mexican duo Lorelle Meets the Obsolete crafted murky, swirling sounds on albums like 2013's Corruptible Faces that reflected the claustrophobic life they were leading in the big cities of Guadalajara and Mexico City.
Lorelle Meets the Obsolete - Re-Facto / El Olivo
Mexican psych group Lorelle Meets the Obsolete's fifth album, De Facto, was their noisiest, most risk-taking work to date, and also their most rewarding. Following the triumphant 2019 full-length, the band served up companion EP Re-Facto, containing two examples of how their sound has continued to evolve and mutate, and two remixes of De Facto tracks by trusted friends...  The other original, "El Olivo," is a more bummed-out crawler made extra trippy through extensive delay effects on the vocals... (Paul Simpson)

One of Norway's most popular and acclaimed singer/songwriters, Thomas Dybdahl has also gained a growing international following for his elegant and expressive songs of love and loss -- earning him comparisons to Nick Drake and Jeff Buckley. His airy, slightly reedy voice is a sweet falsetto, and he knows how to coax maximum drama from a song, no matter how limpid its surface.
Thomas Dybdahl - Fever / Fever
On Fever, Norway's Thomas Dybdahl returns home to Starvanger from his late-night L.A. studio sojourn with producer Larry Klein on All These Things. Working at his 1micadventure studio with longtime collaborator and hip-hop producer Håvard Rosenberg, the nine tracks here are emphatically D.I.Y.: Dybdahl played virtually all the instruments and tracked almost all vocals. The most jarring thing in the mix is the absence of his trademark acoustic guitar in favor of an electric. The motivating factor was to make a soulful guitar record that didn't sound like one, and that balanced the vintage and the fresh simultaneously. They listened to classic artists ranging from Nina Simone and Aretha Franklin to Sam Cooke and Bill Withers, from Ray Charles and Sly Stone to D'Angelo, Raphael Saadiq, and Michael Kiwanuka in order to kindle the creative spark... (Thom Jurek)

Spinning wry, observant stories of life among the well-heeled yet poorly behaved, Baxter Dury is a songwriter and vocalist with a strong and distinctive style. After a tempestuous early life, he began his musical career by performing at a memorial service for his dad, pub rock/new wave icon Ian Dury.
Baxter Dury - The Night Chancers / The Night Chancers
Over his last few albums, especially on 2018's Prince of Tears, Baxter Dury came up with a winning formula that entailed him drawling out tales of decadence and despair in a dry monotone. His prickly persona and caustic wit is surrounded by angelic female vocals on the choruses, swooning string sections, rubbery bass lines, and a slinky, trip-hop-influenced nocturnal mood. The formula is perfected on 2020's The Night Chancers. Dury and his cast of handy helpers imbue the songs with a kind of gutter-y grandeur and smudged beauty that was hinted at in the past but now comes through loud and clear. This is oddly pretty music with sneaky sweet melodies and singalong choruses peeking through the grime that are oft slashed into ribbons by Dury's nasty monologues, snipey asides, and overall Gainsbourg-ian vinegar... (Tim Sendra)

Ex-Klaxons vocalist/keyboardist delivers '70s pop-inspired songs that evoke Bryan Ferry and Nick Lowe.An English singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, James Righton first gained notice in the late 2000s as the keyboardist and vocalist for the London "new-rave" outfit Klaxons.
James Righton - The Performer / Devil Is Loose
The debut solo effort from the Klaxons co-founder, The Performer sees James Righton distilling the neon dance-rock of his flagship band into a mostly tasty hybrid of velvety Todd Rundgren-meets Bryan Ferry retro-pop and California-kissed '70s soft rock with neo-psych underpinnings. More in line with Righton's 2017's outing under the Shock Machine moniker, The Performer, despite its affectations, feels like a more authentic rendering of Righton as a songwriter... The sensuous late-night half-banger "Devil Is Loose," with its sinister walking bassline and cascading reverb, definitely shows its Klaxons DNA... (James Christopher Monger)

Upstate New York indie band that merges dance-friendly electro grooves and a post-punk rock edge.
Joywave - Possession / Blastoffff
Like a rocket shooting into space, New York electro-rock crew Joywave go intergalactic on their shimmering third full-length, Possession. Lighter and more vibrant than their 2017 effort Content, this round of existential musings finds frontman Daniel Armbruster weighing ideas of possession and control in a contemporary existence under constant cultural bombardment by outside forces and influences... The robust burst "Blastoffff" delivers the album's crunchiest rock moment, a wry vignette about returning to a place you've grown beyond. Finding the secret to it all, Joywave concludes that the goal in this life -- beyond the fear, media burnout, and global dread -- might be simply "to be fat and old and happy." (Neil Z. Yeung)

Alternative band that combined the sludgy jams of stoner rock with melancholy folk. Centered around singer/songwriter Dave Heumann, Arbouretum became an outlet for Heumann's poetic, often mystical folk sounds.
Arbouretum - Let It All In / No Sanctuary Blues
Built around the masterful songwriting and commanding vocals of bandleader Dave Heumann, Arbouretum spent the 2000s and 2010s slowly trickling out excellent albums of slightly cosmic folk-rock. As time went on, the band leaned into a British folk influence, lacing Heumann's narrative songs with haunting traditionally informed melodies. Ninth album Let It All In finds the band at the clearest articulation of their sound ever, blurring the boundary lines between woodsy folk, rural psychedelia, and an experimental take on roots rock. "No Sanctuary Blues" finds Arbouretum at the crossroads of all of their varied impulses. Solid rhythm section playing shifts between bar room rock and sprawling drone while Heumann steps away from delivering spirited vocals only to offer Richard Thompson-grade guitar soloing. The moments of cosmic space-out are highlighted by keyboardist Matthew Pierce's unobtrusive synth textures... (Fred Thomas)

Father-daughter garage punk combo with a love of simple but hooky songs and witty tales of love and pop culture.
The Exbats - Kicks, Hits and Fits / Immediate Girl
When a band bases a large portion of their appeal on seeming charmingly ramshackle, they take a calculated risk when they decide to make their fans aware that they know what they're doing. The Exbats built their initial reputation with a pair of cassette-only releases that were good rollicking fun (the highlights were collected on the 2019 LP E Is for Exbats) but sounded something less than professional. While 2020's Kicks, Hits and Flips isn't a model of high-gloss studiocraft in the 21st century, it does make them sound like a real band and not a bunch of lovable goofballs, and that makes a difference. Matt Rendon, the Exbats' former bassist, was the engineer for the Kicks, Hits and Flips sessions, and he and the group -- lead singer and drummer Inez McLain, guitarist and vocalist Kenny McLain (who is also Inez's dad), and bassist Bobby Carlson, Jr. -- have made this the cleanest and tightest Exbats album to date, complete with spot-on harmonies, commendable instrumental work, occasional keyboard and percussion overdubs, and audio crisp enough that you can notice all of the above... (Mark Deming)

Los-Angeles-based post-punk outfit whose sound shifted from raucous noise-pop to dark new wave.
Moaning - Uneasy Laughter / Running
Moaning's self-titled 2018 debut was an astonishingly focused set of noisy post-punk songs filled with scathingly bitter lyrics that attempted to uncover the problems behind faulty relationships. On the band's second album, they retain the same lyrical concerns, but they completely revamp their sound, replacing the sheets of guitars with synthesizers and electronic loops. Not that guitars have entirely left the picture, as every song contains them in some form or another, but there's a much wider range of tones on display here. Even with the switch from noise-pop to dark new wave, and the increased sonic experimentation, the band still write hook-filled songs with cutting lyrics that attempt to make sense of a constant storm of conflicting feelings...  The insistent "Brave One" begins with spaghetti Western-like chords, then gets flooded out with distorted melodies that sound uncannily like guitars... (Paul Simpson)

Dogleg - Melee / Fox
...In fact, they very rarely reach for the brake pedal on Melee, choosing instead to approach a thrash pace on standout songs like “Fox,” where drummer Parker Grissom and bassist Chase Macinski establish themselves as solid, speedy foundation-layers and a group of 11 people expertly provide backing gang-vocals. “Any moment now, I will disintegrate,” Stoitsiadis barks as the din swirls around him. “You’ll make your move and I will fade out.” Here, Dogleg sounds a lot like another band of Rust Belt scorchers: Cloud Nothings... Melee is a worthy debut for a very promising band. (Ben Salmon)

Abstract fusion-funk duo from Berlin, consisting of Julius Conrad and Max Graef. Berlin-based musicians Julius Conrad and Max Graef make up the duo Ratgrave, producing a distinctive brand of trippy, abstract fusion-funk. On their self-titled 2018 debut and 2020's Rock, the two pit virtuosic guitar chops against fractured synth rhythms and bugged-out electronic effects, resulting in a playful, lo-fi take on space-age jazz-rock.
Ratgrave - Rock / Rock
Julius Conrad and Max Graef seem to use their Ratgrave project as a creative playground, acting on some of their stranger artistic impulses and making a complete mockery of the premise of genre restrictions. Following 2018's Ratgrave, recorded over the course of three years in several different locations and touching on styles ranging from lo-fi funk to rave, the duo concocted Rock, a frankly bonkers set of heavy cosmic fusion. The musicians point to jazz-rock and psychedelic/hard rock monoliths like Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix, and Blue Cheer as inspirations, but that's only part of the story here. The pair mix chunky guitars with big '80s drum machines, twisting them into complex patterns, and bending them further through unruly delay and flange effects... (Paul Simpson)

Cathartic, metal-inspired solo project of Los Angeles-based cellist Alison Chesley, formerly of alternative rock band Verbow.
Helen Money - Atomic / Brave On
Alison Chesley's fifth solo full-length as Helen Money is both more expansive and more direct than her previous releases. Progressing from 2016's Become Zero, her first album to utilize multi-track digital recording, she continues to incorporate electronics and adventurous sound design into her work, this time featuring modular synthesizer textures applied by collaborator Will Thomas. The electronic enhancements give her cello playing a dreamy, unearthly glow, making it sound like an orchestra of ghosts are accompanying her performance... (Paul Simpson)

Ultraista, Lorelle Meets the Obsolete, Thomas Dybdahl, Baxter Dury, James Righton, Joywave, Arbouretum, The Exbats, Moaning,  Dogleg, Ratgrave, Helen Money